King Dork Approximately

by Frank Portman

  Seven of these nine songs appear on the U.S. release fraudulently titled High Voltage (SD 36-142), along with only two from their first album (the actual High Voltage, APLP-009.) But the two that are missing, the “Tutti-Frutti”–like “Rocker” and an extended cover of Chuck Berry’s “School Days,” are crucial tracks, clearly an intentional bridge between 1955 and 1975, a way of summing up and paying tribute to the past while chewing it up and superseding it. Without them, the point is missed. I mean, get the real version, not the fake stupid American one. U.S. out of my uterus and all that.

  ASF 2512 (British Steel, Judas Priest, 1980): With a new Ruddist drummer and an unrepentant ambition to take over the world, Judas Priest proved it was possible for a metal band to produce an album of pop songs without sacrificing one iota of heaviness, completing the transition to comparative minimalism begun with 1978’s S CBS 83135. While perhaps not as cohesive as a whole as FC 38160 (their finest hour), as a succession of succinct, aggressive, self-aggrandizing anthems of rebellion it has few equals. “You Don’t Have to Be Old to Be Wise”—yeah, they did that, with a straight face, and it worked, which is borderline amazing. Makes you want to go out and break something, maybe even a face.

  Recorded at Ringo Starr’s house. That’s really true.

  BS 2607 (Machine Head, Deep Purple, 1972): “Smoke on the Water” tells the true story of a fire at a Frank Zappa show at the Swiss casino where Deep Purple had been planning to record the very song about this selfsame incident that prevented them from doing so. Highly illogical, I know, but basically in the third verse they move to a hotel and manage to finish it all up there, with the aid of the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording rig, referred to in the song as “the Rolling truck Stones thing.” Making it up as you go along never had such chart-busting results. So “the water” is Lake Geneva, which is one great big, kind of random lake. And this is one great big, kind of random album, three main songs padded with a remarkably high grade of filler and some tritones. “Highway Star” explains, I think, what happens to Eddie Cochran after he gets the car and the girl and does a whole lot of drugs. Ain’t nobody gonna take his car, his girl, or his head.

  COC 39105 (Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones, 1971): So, obviously COC 69100 is more important, but this has quite a lot to recommend it nonetheless: one of the best snare sounds ever recorded, the best country-rock tune ever written and performed by foreigners, some crazily “mean”-sounding guitar, and “Bitch,” which gets my vote for best Stones song of them all, not to mention a supposedly risqué cover featuring a Warhol-designed crotch image with a working zipper. (That zipper is the reason the back cover of so many copies of NPS-2 is all messed up; after 1981, it’s COC 16052 that gets the COC 39105 zipper treatment, obviously not as much of a loss.) “Sister Morphine” is Sam Hellerman’s unofficial theme song.

  FC 38160 (Screaming for Vengeance, Judas Priest, 1982): There’s high drama and a great big ball of righteous anger in this prickliest, bitterest, biggest, and most triumphal and genre-transcending metal album ever, arguably the first Judas Priest album to use Rob Halford’s astonishing vocal range to full advantage, possibly the finest, most emotive screaming ever scratched into vinyl. The guitars scream too. The whole thing screams. Listening from beginning to end can be a harrowing experience, sonically and emotionally. It presents a dark vision, a paranoiac’s manifesto, someone once called it. Oh yeah, that was me who called it that, even though I’m not totally sure what a manifesto is.

  KC 32425 (Mott the Hoople, Mott the Hoople, 1973): There are probably a thousand eccentric, scarf-wearing Englishmen with floppy hats who did their own small part to save rock and roll as it drifted this way and that, post-Altamont/pre-CBGB. And Mott the Hoople were four or five of them. “Honaloochie Boogie” is quite possibly the catchiest song ever written, so skip that track whatever you do. The band is named after an impossible-to-find novel, which I’d read in a second if I were allowed, but for some reason the powers that be want to make it as difficult as possible to learn what a “hoople” is. Must be something pretty shocking, right?

  KSBS 2021 (Flamingo, The Flamin’ Groovies, 1971): They arguably outdid the Stones on KSBS 2031 and brought the Beatles into the New Wave on SRK 6021, and while I doubt anyone would sincerely prefer KSBS 2021 to either of those, it has the rough, in-your-face charm that bare bones prematurely unearthed sometimes have. If I didn’t know they were San Francisco hippie boogie-woogie freaks, I’d have sworn I was listening to an unsung UK pub rock classic, a forgotten Ducks Deluxe or Count Bishops or something like that. “Second Cousin” genuinely rules, though.

  NAR-012 (Milo Goes to College, Descendents, 1982): Not necessarily the greatest album ever, maybe, but almost certainly one of the last truly great ones ever recorded. I mean, it’s been pretty much downhill after that, album-wise. Frantic, catchy, punchy, funny, and surprisingly moving at moments. “Jean Is Dead” will make you cry. Careful about singing “I’m Not a Loser” to yourself in public, though. That won’t end well.

  PCS 7009 (Revolver, The Beatles, 1966): yet another perfectly fine album vandalized by its own U.S. release. I mean, three of the John Lennon songs were simply left off the American version, making it all Paul and George-y. Why? Just to mess with people, is the only thing I can come up with. Nice going, government. You ruined the Beatles. Now get to work on Santa Claus and that Christmas cancellation, why don’t you? (Best bass sound of any rock recording, though, and the drums are pretty terrific, too.)

  PD 5537 (Kings of Oblivion, Pink Fairies, 1973): The third and final album from this oddball Deviants splinter and product of Britain’s anarcho-psychedelic underground freak scene was five years ahead of its time and as solid a guitar album as its own era ever disgorged, if “disgorged” means what I think it does. They were tour buddies with Hawkwind and their singer-guitarist went on to join the first edition of Motörhead, whose debut album owes a substantial, perhaps surprising debt to the the Pink Fairies’ blueprint. Motörhead’s rough cover of “City Kids” possibly helped it to become this album’s best-known song, but it is the deeply mysterious and haunting ten-minute epic “I Wish I Was a Girl” that truly sticks in a person’s head while refusing to reveal its secrets. It was apparently real, true anarchy in Ladbroke Grove ’72, and if so this is pretty much all that’s left of it. Way too good and fine and special for normal people to know about, so stay away.

  SA-7528 (Leave Home, The Ramones, 1977): Specifying your favorite of the first four Ramones albums is kind of like indicating your favorite Beatle or Monkee or U.S. president. It tells the world something about you that you might not necessarily be all that comfortable having them know. This is mine, which I think is equivalent to George, Mickey, or Rutherford B. Hayes.

  S CBS 82000 (The Clash, The Clash, 1977): Again, the U.S. Department of Destroying the Integrity of Rock and Roll Recordings allowed release of a record of the same title and cover as the debut Clash album with largely different music on it. Basically the U.S. release (PE 36060) is a singles compilation with a truncated version of the original debut LP crammed in around the edges. These singles are great, and the result is by no means a waste of time. But it isn’t anything like the real album. It’s historically inaccurate, like something Stalin might have perpetrated, if “perpetrated” means what I think it does. And it leaves off “Protex Blue,” which is a love song about alienation and buying condoms from a vending machine. Wouldn’t you like to hear that? Too bad. The universe says no. It ought to be ashamed of itself.

  SD 36-142 (High Voltage, AC/DC, 1976): The fraudulent U.S. issue of seven ninths of AC/DC’s second album under the title of its first. See APLPA-016.

  SEEZ 1 (Damned, Damned, Damned, The Damned, 1977): This Nick Lowe–produced album has the distinction of being the first full-length LP to be released by an official UK punk rock band. It also has the distinction of not sounding like anything besides what it is, unlike most everything else did after everyone started reading from the same playbook, if you know
what I mean by “playbook.” The doubled crooning vocals always kill me. Miles better than anything else in your pathetic little world, I can almost guarantee.

  SMAS-2653 (Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles, 1968): what it sounds like when you Anglicize Buddy Holly and replace his amphetamines with acid. Nothing could be as great in reality as this record is in reputation, but it is nonetheless about as good as drugged-up pop-art rock gets, an impressive feat considering it was recorded on secondhand equipment in a public restroom in Ireland. I prefer “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” but then I would, wouldn’t I?

  SRK 6081 (The Undertones, The Undertones, 1979): As a punk pop document of good-humored teen angst, this is an album with no equal. Feeling strange and awkward, wanting the girl, rarely to never getting the girl, being compelled to jump around aimlessly physically as well as mentally—well, it turns out it takes about two and half minutes to tell the world about this situation, and what’s more, it’s something you can do over and over again. And if the choruses are catchy and the songs well-written enough, people won’t even mind all that much. For some reason the Undertones are always likened to the Ramones, but to me they seem much closer to the Modern Lovers’ sensibility. Now, maybe all that means is it’s just a different sort of cartoon, but it’s probably a picture of your life nonetheless. (n.b., if “n.b.” means what I think it does: they’re from Northern Ireland, and their warbly-voiced singer Feargal Sharkey—that’s the guy’s actual name, kidding you not—was a former scout leader. But it’s still a picture of your life, trust me.)

  ST 11395 (Desolation Boulevard, The Sweet, 1974): Ever notice how bands that begin as the Something (or the Somethings) often remove the “the” as they get older, lamer, and more full of themselves? The Pink Floyd became Pink Floyd, the Led Zeppelin became Led Zeppelin. Even the Dead Kennedys became Dead Kennedys, and there are people who will correct you if ever say “the Buzzcocks”: “It’s Buzzcocks, man, just Buzzcocks, what are you, some kind of monster?” (And the Beach Boys, in a kind of inversion of this process, had a brief, pretentious stint as the Beach.) Well, that happened with the Sweet, too, and by the time they bridged bubblegum and glam and became famous they were generally known as just Sweet. But they’ll always be the Sweet to me. Oh, and Desolation Boulevard is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, rock and roll records ever recorded, despite the missing “the.” Some people are beyond good and evil and can break rules with impunity, if “impunity” means what I think it does. (And it does. I looked it up. Are you ready, Steve? Andy? Mick? It means you can’t be punished for any reason. You’re golden.)

  UAG 30159 (Another Music in a Different Kitchen, Buzzcocks, 1978): They taught the world how to bypass the music industry by releasing their own records (with 1977’s Spiral Scratch 7”) and followed it up by somehow tricking the music industry into releasing this remarkable blend of tube fuzz, pop melody, deadpan art-school pretensions, and lovelorn moping. It’s the melodic moping that scores, perhaps, but the sonic experimentation and minimalist, angular soundscapes are nearly as important to the effect, if not quite as “deep” as they seem to have been intended to be. This is what the cutting edge of pop modernity appears to have sounded like in 1978, and it’s a real shame it doesn’t sound like that anymore.

  WIK 2 (Motörhead, Motörhead, 1977): I heard a story that the debut Motörhead album was recorded quickly as a last-minute attempt to document the band before a planned bitter “goodbye, cruel world” breakup. That might explain the notable spontaneity of the recording, surely one of the most vigorous, no-nonsense, honest guitar albums ever recorded by a band that went on to achieve superstardom. Their other stuff is more celebrated, obviously, but this album, released on the tiny UK punk rock label that was their only chance to avoid obscurity, really has a spark, and sparks like that are hard to come by.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Frank Portman (aka Dr. Frank) is the singer/songwriter/guitarist of the influential East Bay punk band the Mr. T. Experience (MTX). MTX has released a dozen albums since forming in the mid-1980s. Look for Frank’s other books, Andromeda Klein, and the companion to King Dork Approximately, King Dork, both available from Delacorte Press. Frank lives in Oakland, California. Visit him online at frankportman.com and follow @frankportman on Twitter.

  Did you miss the first part of Tom Henderson’s sophomore year?

  Turn the page to start reading now!

  Excerpt copyright © 2006 by Frank Portman. Published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  It started with a book. If I hadn’t discovered it when and how I did, everything would have turned out differently. But because of it the first semester of sophomore year at Hillmont High School ended up way more interesting and eventful and weird than it was ever supposed to be.

  It’s actually kind of a complicated story, involving at least half a dozen mysteries, plus dead people, naked people, fake people, teen sex, weird sex, drugs, ESP, Satanism, books, blood, Bubblegum, guitars, monks, faith, love, witchcraft, the Bible, girls, a war, a secret code, a head injury, the Crusades, some crimes, mispronunciation skills, a mystery woman, a devil-head, a blow job, and rock and roll. It pretty much destroyed the world as I had known it up to that point. And I’m not even exaggerating all that much. I swear to God.

  I found the book by accident, in a sense. It was in one of the many boxes of books in the basement, in storage in case we ever got more shelves, or perhaps to be sold or given away at some point. The reason I say by accident “in a sense” is because the book I found was exactly the book I had been looking for. But I had been looking for just any old copy of it, rather than the specific copy I ended up finding, which I hadn’t even known existed. And which was something else, and which ended up opening the craziest can of worms …

  KING DORK

  They call me King Dork.

  Well, let me put it another way: no one ever actually calls me King Dork. It’s how I refer to myself in my head, a silent protest and an acknowledgment of reality at the same time. I don’t command a nerd army, or preside over a realm of the socially ill-equipped. I’m small for my age, young for my grade, uncomfortable in most situations, nearsighted, skinny, awkward, and nervous. And no good at sports. So Dork is accurate. The King part is pure sarcasm, though: there’s nothing special or ultimate about me. I’m generic. It’s more like I’m one of the kings in a pack of crazy, backward playing cards, designed for a game where anyone who gets me automatically loses the hand. I mean, everything beats me, even twos and threes.

  I suppose I fit the traditional mold of the brainy, freaky, oddball kid who reads too much, so bright that his genius is sometimes mistaken for just being retarded. I know a lot of trivia, and I often use words that sound made-up but that actually turn out to be in the dictionary, to everyone’s surprise—but I can never quite manage to keep my shoes tied or figure out anything to say if someone addresses me directly. I play it up. It’s all I’ve got going for me, and if a guy can manage to leave the impression that his awkwardness arises from some kind of deep or complicated soul, why not go for it? But, I admit, most of the time, I walk around here feeling like a total idiot.

  Most people in the world outside my head know me as Moe, even though my real name is Tom. Moe isn’t a normal nickname. It’s more like an abbreviation, short for Chi-Mo. And even that’s an abbreviation for something else.

  Often, when people hear “Chi-Mo” they’ll smile and say, “Hippie parents?” I never know what to say to that because yes, my folks are more hippie than not, but no, that’s not where the name comes from.

  Chi-Mo is derogatory, though you wouldn’t necessarily know that unless you heard the story behind it. Yet even those who don’t know the specific story can sense its dark origins, which is why it has held on for so long. They get a kick out of it without really knowing why. Maybe they notice me wincing when I hear them say it, but I don’
t know: there are all sorts of reasons I could be wincing. Life is a wince-a-thon.

  There’s a list of around thirty or forty supposedly insulting things that people have called me that I know about, past and present, and a lot of them are way worse than Moe. Some are classic and logical, like Hender-pig, Hender-fag, or Hender-fuck. Some are based on jokes or convoluted theories of offensiveness that are so retarded no one could ever hope to understand them. Like Sheepie. Figure that one out and you win a prize. As for Chi-Mo, it goes all the way back to the seventh grade, and it wouldn’t even be worth mentioning except for the fact that this particular nickname ended up playing an unexpectedly prominent role in the weird stuff that happened toward the end of this school term. So, you know, I thought I’d mention it.

  Mr. Teone, the associate principal for the ninth and tenth grades, always refers to Sam Hellerman as Peggy. I guess he’s trying to imply that Sam Hellerman looks like a girl. Well, okay, so maybe Sam Hellerman does look a little like a girl in a certain way, but that’s not the point.

  In fact, Mr. Teone happens to have a huge rear end and pretty prominent man boobs, and looks way more like a lady than Sam Hellerman ever could unless he were to gain around two hundred pounds and start a course of hormone therapy. Clearly, he’s trying to draw attention away from his own nontraditionally gendered form factor by focusing on the alleged femininity of another. Though why he decided to pick on Sam Hellerman as part of his personal battle against his own body image remains a mystery.