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DPD: 034 - L.C.D


Track Listing:

1

Degenerated - Reagan Youth

2

Consumers - 45 Grave

3

Mate Spawn & Die - LARD

4

Just Another Victim - Helmet & House Of Pain

5

Paranoid Android - Radiohead

6

Mrs. Jones - Circle Jerks

7

The People of Straight Land - Snog

8

22 Going on 23 - Butthole Surfers

9

Sausage People Rule (Chorizo Mix) - Tit Wrench

10

RV - Faith No More

11

People - Boyd Rice and Friends

12

Nation of Sheep - Christ on a Crutch

13

Chickenshit Conformist - Dead Kennedys

14

Sheep - The Housemartins

15

Bite Back - Negativland

Date: June 2nd, 2003  


Prokop The Lowest Common Denominator. I guess this is an all encompassing theme for me. LCDers are obviously the masses and sheep of society or crowds. It’s also about the dumbing down of ideas in order to get more people to like something. Making music, art or movies so simple and stupid just so Mr and Mrs Middle America understand it. It’s also the failure to strive for excellence and the complacency of people on the bottom to maintain the status quo. It’s also the people that refuse to remove the wool over their eyes and see how corporations, social organizations and governments manipulate people in order to preserve power. I dedicate this entire theme to Bill Hicks, RIP.

Diamond Who makes up the Lowest Common Denominator? How does one qualify to become part of that not-so-exclusive club? Who determines which people are going to get slapped with that tag? In a nutshell, I do. I decide which people are the LCD, just as Prokop and Darpino make their own lists and so do you. It could be anybody, the lady who takes more than her share of time paying for groceries, or the guy who talks incessantly during a film. The folks who go to church on Sunday's, never questioning what they're following, or the guy sitting in jail (again) because he can't control his temper around his girlfriend.
It's you against the world and this is your soundtrack.

Darpino The Lowest Common Denominator is a pretty frightening idea to me. It represents all of the lowly, sad, bad and pathetic things that all human beings potentially have in common. Life itself is a struggle not to give in to them. Everyday we see people in society who have. Hell, I'd say more people have than haven't. What is the LCD? I don't know if there is just ONE. And since they are so common, it's a safe bet none of us are above them all.


1: Degenerated

    Reagan Youth - A Collection of Pop Classics


Selection by: darpino

Ever hung out in the WALMART parking lot on a Saturday night right after closing?


2: Consumers

    45 Grave - Autopsy


Selection by: diamond

I once saw a TV interview with Dinah Cancer on some video show, she was nothing short of amazing. The interviewer asked her what she liked to do in her spare time, to which she replied, "Oh, I love shopping," while saying this she stiffened her arms in front of her in an impression of a robot and said, "I'm a little robot, beep beep beep." That was how they introduced the video to this song.


3: Mate Spawn & Die

    LARD - The Last Temptation of Reid


Selection by: prokop

Love, the poor mans soma.


4: Just Another Victim

    Helmet & House Of Pain - Judgment Night : Music from the Motion Picture


Selection by: darpino

Yo man, I been tryin to get a damn J-O-B but the mutha fuckers don't want me. I guess it's cause a that bad leg I got after I fell off my bike and maybe cause I'm going blind from the glacoma. Thank god for weed man. Shit gets me through the day, ya know? Sheeit. Times are tough on a brotha. Got no job, a bad leg, foggy eyes, eight kids by six diffrent bitches. Shit, my old lady's welfare barely gets the rent. You know they best extend that unemployment next month. You know it or a brotha's fucked. But that's how it's all set up right? The Man'll do anything to keep a nigga down and out.

So you wanna watch Friday on the Big Screen or check out Madden 04?

Blam! Blam! Blam!

A fatal shooting in Prince George's County this afternoon...


5: Paranoid Android

    Radiohead - OK Computer


Selection by: diamond

Pretty much the entire OK Computer album fits this theme. At least for me it does. Here are some notes to the song by the band members:
"The 'kicking squealing Gucci little piggy' was based on an incident that Thom witnessed in a very posh LA bar where a woman with a white Gucci dress had red wine accidentally spilled down it. 'Her look was pure evil'."
"Paranoid Android is full of images of people that I saw in a pub the night before we went to the studio. Most lyrics on OK Computer are actually polaroids inside my head."


6: Mrs. Jones

    Circle Jerks - "Gig"


Selection by: prokop

Welcome to Middle America, 1986. This was just about every family I knew when I was growing up.


7: The People of Straight Land

    Snog - Buy me...I'll Change Your Life


Selection by: darpino

Wake up...eat...work out...commute...work...happy hour...commute...eat...watch tv...pay some bills...sleep...repeat 5 times...weekend...yardwork...Home Depot...watch the latest Movie...social obligation...sleeping pill Sunday night...reset...wake up...eat...work out...commute...work...happy hour...commute...eat...watch tv...pay some bills...sleep...repeat for 40-50 years...die..."He/She lead a full and productive life"...burden children with funeral bills...and death tax...and inherited debts...and unresolved emotional issues...wake up in Hell...eat shit...commute for eternity...


8: 22 Going on 23

    Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician


Selection by: diamond

The human says, "Moooooo."
A perfect illustration of the theme. Generally speaking, talk shows are a haven for the lowest common denominator, especially those shows where someone is willing to lend an open ear and a bit of stale advice. Ending the song with a field recording of cattle is a perfect exclamation point for this one.
I'm so glad I didn't use this one for our numbers disc.


9: Sausage People Rule (Chorizo Mix)

    Tit Wrench - OK you homos, out of the car


Selection by: prokop

I guess living in the nations capital I see too many ugly americans plodding along like cattle, dumping trash and hiding their fat little childrens eyes from anything questionable.

Sausage people rule from the food court floors and souvenir stores of the mighty land they document in VHS this christmas is gonna be the best plump weiners are twirling on the grill sausage people rule from the airport gift shops and highway rest stops of this festered and broke nation this car gets better mileage got a dashboard tray for garbage got some sleepy little stomachs to fill sausage people rule from behind a quarter billion steering wheels each one stalled and stacked end to end fuming red and forced to read the next guy’s bumper sticker IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY DRIVING DIAL 1-800-EAT-SHIT now isn’t that a hoot.


10: RV

     Faith No More - Angel Dust


Selection by: darpino

For some reason this song always makes me think of Eldridge Cleaver's quote, "You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem."


11: People

     Boyd Rice and Friends - Music, Martinis and Misanthropy


Selection by: diamond

This has to be one of the most bitter rants against the masses ever recorded. What makes this song great, besides the bullseye lyrics, is it's cloaked in pleasant acoustic guitars and icy smooth vocals, which offset the misanthropic content perfectly. Play this for your mom one day and if she doesn't notice the lyrical content, she'll be humming it through the aisles of the supermarket while picking up the Sunday ham.


12: Nation of Sheep

     Christ on a Crutch - Crime Pays When Pigs Die


Selection by: prokop

After slaving away working for the man, people jump quicker at becoming the next man, rather than banding together to make some real change. It’s my god freakin right to scrape by on minimum wage, and get laid off 6 months before my pension comes due. In fact, I would rather fight, kill, and maim to defend my right to be a slave to the corporate world rather then exert just a fraction of the effort to try to make things just a bit better for everyone.


13: Chickenshit Conformist

     Dead Kennedys - Bedtime for Democracy


Selection by: darpino

Prokop mentioned this is one of the ultimate Songs about the Scene and he's right, it is. But for me it fits for this theme more than any other song. It's about the scene degenerating into a mindless army of carbon copy punks with cookie cutter songs, but I think the whole thing is an LCD metaphor too. It's about how the Punk scene, for awhile one of the most original free-thinking scenes ever, can descend into mediocrity after being subjected to all the LCD canidates you can think of. More than that, it's about how all music scenes go through a similar cycle which really proves that these faults are Lowest Commmon Denominators and not just DPT (drunk punk tomfoolery). Finally, if these problems continue to happen over and over then these aren't just the problems of one music scene, or even all of the music scenes. These are problems for all of us. Biafra is singing about the Punk Scene but he could just as easily be singing about the Corporate Ladder or the Life Cycle and the same LCD's would be taking hold. Fucking great.


14: Sheep

     The Housemartins - London 0 Hull 4


Selection by: diamond

How could this happy sounding pop song be a rant against the people who crowd our sidewalks and roadways? That's what makes this one really excellent. It's the type of song that sounds nice enough to infiltrate the airwaves, but the message it's carrying is pure disdain for the blind, human sheep that surround us all. Now that's what I call quite good.

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSEMARTINS:
"For too long the ruling class have enjoyed an extended New Years Eve party, whilst we can only watch, faces pressed up against the glass."

THE HOUSEMARTINS SAY:
"Don't try gate crashing a party full of bankers. Burn the house down!"


15: Bite Back

     Negativland - Dispepsi


Selection by: prokop

It’s real simple. The more people continue to consume large quantities of crap from the big corporations, the more powerful the fourth and most powerful branch of government will become. Unfortunately marketing now defines the standard of life to too many people, and people don’t question or concern themselves with the fact we the people give them permission to run our lives. Just keep following the blinking lights.....