Bat Guano doesn’t seem to notice that SwaG! can be an uncomfortable mix of the artsy, the stupid, and the dark and evil.
Last week’s SwaG! broadcast, in the gooey center of Green Slime, had a heart of noir based around a track from the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and one from Gallon Drunk, a band that tried hard to be a more-rockin’ Bad Seeds. Then some guy wanted to hear Terminal Cheesecake., the British Butthole Surfers. Mr Guano had no TC, so he included BS in the mix, then went for dark ‘80s weirdness of Sonic Youth and Bongwater. And then the primitive Old Time Relijun. Captain Beefheart. Cheap Trick. Dictators. Ramones. Dogbowl. And jazz.
Oh, it got scary when The Devil called in the middle of all that. Apparently The Devil couldn’t recognize that the Butthole Surfers’ “Human Cannonball” was straight up from the album. “Is this the album version or something you just grabbed from the Internet,” The Devil crankily asked.
Mr. Guano described the CD. “It’s from this shiny plastic disk that I found in WIDR’s library--”
“JUST FUCKIN’ TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT THE SONG!” The Devil yelled from his underground sulfurous cavern.
He then said to someone else in the cavern, “I can’t talk to him. He’s being all Guanoed-up.”
“Oh, yeah?!? Well, well, well -- you’re being all Deviled,” Mr. Guano said. “You’re like a deviled egg. Don’t eat too many, you’ll get all gassy, stink up your underground bunker.” And the conversation with the listener ended as they usually do, with the radio host rudely hanging up on him.
SwaG! often plays on the anxieties of our age, in ways that sonically resemble this panel from a “Family Circus” newspaper comic (from a former Meat Puppet).
You think you’re all safe within the context of a silly radio show, and then you hear some dreadful noise that implies a society off the rails on a crazy train, to paraphrase Osbourne.
But the first hour was cool. The last hour was sweet, and redeemed by a song about Jesus. Just stay away from the darkness of Green Slime.
Go to your SwaG! Homeland.