Mindfucker is a thought-provoking piece of mind-fuckery

95/100

This is I Talk To Planets' first album review since declaring we're changing up our format and going full time stoner rock and psychedelic, so I figured we'd better make this a good one.  To that effect we're leading off with a review of the latest release from my favorite active band - Monster Magnet.  I say "active" because my favorite band is Motorhead, which is inactive since the death of founder and leading man Lemmy Kilmister in 2015, promoting Dave Wyndorf and Monster Magnet to the top of my favorites list.  I have loved both bands for years and avidly collected vinyl for each since I rekindled my vinyl passion in 2014.  By the time Lemmy passed just after Christmas a little more than two years ago I had nearly completed my Motorhead and Monster Magnet vinyl collections, needing only a few rare pieces to flesh out each set.  I completed my collection of Mototrhead studio albums during the summer of 2017.  My Monster Magnet collection, however, is my pride and joy.  It contains several rare pieces, while I still search for several other rare items to flesh it out.  I was thrilled to add a red vinyl copy of the latest Monster Magnet release Mindfucker to my vinyl collection recently, and a CD digipack to my growing Magnet CD stack.   But none of that really matters to you guys I'm sure, so I'll shut up about my shit and get to the review already.

Dave Wyndorf promised a throwback to the days when Detroit was music central for the likes of the Stooges, the MC5, Alice Cooper even, and said he wanted to drive his car 100 miles an hour and howl at, well, whatever...  The first single "Mindfucker" dropped and I thought to myself, well, he's on the right track.  The song is a ruse, and a clever one at that.  The Mindfucker Wyndorf is singing about is not some chick that has spurned him, cock-teased him, or jilted him in some way, not a psycho bitch at all.  It's this crazy, fucked-up upside down cuckoo-land world we're living in these days with a reality show president, every one screaming "fake news" and "libtards" at what we traditionally think of as the good guys, cops gunning down innocents and unarmed people in the streets, BREXIT is a reality, and global warming is actually deemed debatable even though the science is rock solid.  Am I on a soap box right now?  Maybe, but I'm just trying to get you into the frame of mind to comprehend Mindfucker the album, "Mindfucker" the song and Mindfucker the concept right now, this is where Dave is coming from and he's pissed off about it, which makes for great music.  The last time Dave was this pissed off we got Powertrip.

The video was a bit of a let down.  I half expected footage of protests from around the world, police clashing with protesters, newscasters in front of tear-gassed scenes, some tanks, our president speaking, but instead we got a green screen band video.  Oh well.

The second single was the old Robert Calvert tune "Ejection" originally performed by Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters in 1974.  I had not heard the original until I sat down to pen this review.  I looked it up and listened to it on YouTube.  I quite enjoyed it.  I think Monster Magnet really did a faithful rendering of the subject matter.  I like both versions.  The original is unique because it has vocal parts where a pilot breaks in over his mic before ejection.  Monster Magnet didn't copy that and I believe that was a smart choice.  Don't make your remake exactly like the original.  The Monster Magnet version has a harder edge, and that I like.  Again, I was disappointed with the video.  We have a poor-man's "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" video.  Shot in front of a green screen, we have the band hurtling through outer space on a disc, whoopee!  A swing and a miss on the video, at least it sounds good.

Then a few days later on Marsh 23rd the album dropped.   Let's take it one track at a time, shall we?

"Rocket Freak."  We jump right in with a standard straight-up rocker, and it's very much what Dave was shooting for in the vain of the Stooges, MC5, etc. but with a touch of Hawkwind in subject matter.  A smoking track, and among my favorites on the record.  "Soul" is up next, riff packed and energetic, but not a stand-out in my mind.  We slide into the sweet title track next, which I've already gone over to some degree.  I'm a huge fan of "Mindfucker," the song, it's well crafted, on target message-wise and a lot of fun.  Bringing Side A to a close is the enigmatic tune that has Dave making a bold declaration - "I'm God"... The song is pared down to the bones, but it still has a classic 70s guitar rock fusion going on and when Dave Wyndorf sings "I'm God," dammit I believe him.  This may be my favorite tune on the record.

Let's flip this sucker over and check out the B side.  First up is the mellowed out "Drowning."  I relate to this song in ways I really don't want to admit.  Many of my Monster Magnet loving friends have messaged me that this is their favorite track and I think it's because they relate to it too.  The guitars swirl in this mellow melodrama, making for another Monster Magnet instant classic.  The Robert Calvert cover fills the next groove on the record and we'll briefly touch on it again.  Love "Ejection."  It's a great rocker, with an amazing solo at the end.  "Want Some."  Not one of Dave's more moving titles, but the song's not bad.  It's not a standout track either.  "Brainwashed," on the other hand, will stick with you, either good or bad.  The first couple times I heard it I couldn't stand it.  But about the third time I heard it, it clicked.  I got the joke.  I was admitted to the club, so to speak.  Dave is having a laugh with this rockabilly jam session with a sense of humor, just listen to the way he delivers the chorus, "I'VE BEEN BRAINWASHED!!!"  It's over the top intentionally.  It's bad acting from the school of William Shatner and it's hilarious.  And, is that Tim Cronin I hear screaming in the background?

On to Side C.  "All Day Midnight."  I LOVE the bass at the onset.  The song settles into a nice groove right from the get-go.  This tune is a breath of fresh air.  Not that the album is filled with gloom and doom, or anything, but this song is kind of refreshing in some way, it's hard to describe, but it's almost an uplifting punk rocker.  The CD (and download) ends with the next track, the six-minute epic "When the Hammer Comes Down."  It's a great closing track, passing judgment on the entire world, and we're all FUCKED!  Stellar!!!  Supernovas! The end of the world, death, gloom and doom, and there's guitars.

BUT WAIT, if you have the vinyl, there's more.

The first bonus track on the vinyl is the quirky "You Can't Be Trusted."  It's a trippy, upbeat little number with a jangly guitar and a killer solo at the finish amongst Dave's howling.  Finally we come to "Utopia."  And isn't that what we're all looking for?  This is far and away the song with the most in common to what Monster Magnet had done on its previous three releases dating back to Last Patrol.  It is the lone psychedelic number on the album and it's refreshing to end the album with a revisit to what Monster Magnet has been doing the past few years with this track, considering how much the rest of the record was in touch with Dave's punk roots.  Initially I thought this song was out of place, but the more I listen to the album as a complete animal I think it serves as the perfect overall closer, even though "When the Hammer Comes Down" was intended to be the closer, I think this bonus track is better suited for the job.

It's not a perfect album, it has a couple of blemishes here and there, but damn it's a hell of a lot of fun and the vinyl has a lovely, thought provoking closer.  95/100

12 Records that Changed My Life

1. The Doors
This is the first album I ever received when I asked for a cassette player for my birthday.  I had expressed an interest in Jim Morrison and the song Light My Fire.  I fell in love with that album, Soul Kitchen, Alabama Song, Take It As It Comes, I Looked At You, and of course the stand out tracks, The Crystal Ship, Break On Through (To the Other Side) and The End.  I became a life-long Doors fan, even wrote my senior paper in high school on Jim Morrison, the poet in Mr. Watkins' English class.  Got an A+, and dropped the F-bomb multiple times.

2. Queen Greatest Hits
I was introduced to Queen via the single Another Bites the Dust off The Game album, and also when I saw the incredible Flash Gordon movie.  HBO and MTV often played Queen videos.  When my mom noticed my brother and I singing along to all the Queen songs she got us each a copy of Queen's Greatest Hits on cassette.  Ironically, this lead me to my next artist, David Bowie.

3. David Bowie Low
I came to David Bowie through Queen via the Greatest Hits cassette that in our region contained the duet Under Pressure.  I sought out further music by Mr. Bowie.  The first album I happened upon was this bright orange deal, with the simple title Low.  When the tape got to side two I was mesmerized.  These ambient sounds were all new to me.  I didn't know what to make of this.  I was fascinated.  Of course, at the time I didn't know the word "ambient."  In later life I would attempt to collect all of Bowie's studio albums on vinyl.

4. Stevie Nicks Bella Donna
I arrived at Stevie Nicks via an HBO recording of her Bella Donna tour.  I just happened to catch that one afternoon and was spellbound.  This witchy woman had her hooks in me BAD!  Her spell had been cast and I was hers for life.  I grabbed up the HBO guide for the month and made note of each subsequent airing of the concert during the summer and made it a point not to miss a single viewing.  I asked mom for the album, and received it, and learned of her band Fleetwood Mac and albums Rumors and the self-titled album.  Yes indeed, Stevie had a fan for life.

5. Iron Maiden Piece of Mind
I was in a hotel room in Washington, D.C. when my friend Robbie Lyrle first blasted the opening wail of The Trooper over his boom box one Saturday morning while everyone was getting ready to go down and eat breakfast.  'What the hell is that?" I exclaimed, excited, thrilled, blown away, all at once.  "That's Iron Maiden!" he coolly replied.  He rewound the song and started it again.  Wow!  This was what I needed in my life!  Heavy Metal!

6.  Van Halen 1984
The second Heavy Metal band I was exposed to in earnest was Van Halen.  The first time I heard the song I'll Wait, and it was I'll Wait, not Jump or Panama or Hot For Teacher, that I first heard over the radio, I was amazed by the combination of heavy metal guitar and synthesizer.  I had never heard that before.  Surely this was some new discovery I had made and nobody else was privy to this band yet.  Nope!  Been around since 1978.  Still, even though I was late to the party, I was hole-hog on board the heavy metal train now.  Until...

7. Prince Purple Rain
Everybody, even some of the die-hard heavy metal crowd, had to give Prince props.  I mean that guitar in Let's Go Crazy was smoking hot.  Purple Rain was the summer hit of 1984, both musically and theatrically, and I ate it up.  Of course, when my step-mother caught wind of the lyrics to Darling Nikki I was so grounded.  And my tape collection met with a cleansing when I was in North Carolina with my dad and her.  Mom was more lax, thank god.

8. Cinderella Long Cold Winter
I had already bit down on the band Cinderella with the release of Night Songs, but when Long Cold Winter dropped and the band showed off its blues and southern rock roots, all bets were off.  I had to see this band live in concert immediately, no matter who I had to kill.  I saw the band live on that tour three times, once as an opener for AC/DC and twice as headliners with Winger and the Bulletboys.  Still one of my all-time favorite live acts.

9. Extreme Pornograffitti
This album is aptly named.  The four ballads on this record ensured that I got laid in 1990.  That's really all I can say about this record. That, and if you don't like what you see here, get the funk out!

10.  Motorhead 1916
I had first been exposed to Motorhead in the 80s when the song Killed By Death was released.  I was a fan.  But I had never actually spent money on the band.  I heard Going to Brazil and purchased 1916.  Then I heard the title track and wept like a baby.  How moving?  That has to be the most stirring song about WWI I've ever heard and it came from Lemmy.  Motorhead would go on to become my favorite band until Lemmy's death in 2015.

11. Pantera Cowboys From Hell
I was driving home from work one afternoon when the DJ announced, "Here's the latest from Pantera, Cemetery Gates."  And he played the long version, the album version of the song.  Oh my god!  I had to have that album post haste.  I drove to my girlfriend's house, picked her up and we went immediately to the record store another hour's drive away just so I could purchase that album that night.  I played the HELL out of that album, as well as the next one from Pantera.  I wept like a little child with a burst balloon when Darrell was murdered.

12. Monster Magnet Dopes to Infinity
The final entry came purely by accident.  I was in a tape store in Morristown browsing and bumbled across a cool looking album cover with an interesting sounding band name and title.  Well, I judged a book by its cover and plunked down my $10 and went out to my car and popped in a stoner rock masterpiece.  With Lemmy passed and Motorhead no more, Monster Magnet has assumed the mantle as my favorite band.  I'm working diligently to collect every piece of vinyl they have ever released.

How deep are the philosophical waters when it comes to Motörhead's "Metropolis?"

Is there much to be made philosophically from the Motörhead tune “Metropolis?”  Well perhaps not if you take the song writer’s word for it.

“I went to the movies one night and saw Metropolis, the old Fritz Lang movie, and went home and wrote that complete nonsense lyric,” explained Lemmy.  “‘Metroplolis is something new / Ain’t nobody got their eye on you / I don’t care.’ What the fuck does that mean?  But it’s a great song.” Lemmy told Freddy Villano in his final interview for Bass Player.

“This track is a complete mystery,” Lemmy wrote for the linear notes to No Remorse.  “I wrote (the lyric) in approximately two minutes after seeing the film of the same name in Portobello Electric Cinema.  Eddie wrote the riff 9/10.”  That’s the story of “Metropolis,” the song, but there’s more to it than meets the eye, surely.

Let’s look at the Fritz Lang film, then return to Lemmy’s complete lyric and see what we can’t find.  

The film Metropolis was shot in 1926, so in just 10 years we’ll be able to see just how closely the future measures up to Fritz Lang’s dystopian images.  In the movie society has been divided into two rigid groups, one of city planners (thinkers) and the other of underground workers, bringing to mind a situation much like the one in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine with the Eloi and the Morlocks, but I digress.

The city leader is Johnann “Jon” Fredersen, played by Aldred Abel.  Maria, played by the evangelic appearing Brigette Helm, champions the cause of the workers.  Though the workers are desperate for action to gain relief from their all-work no play situation, Maria advises them to wait until the appearance of a mediator, someone who will act as liason between the workers and the city dwellers and unite the two halves of the society.

New on the scene is the son of Jon Fredersen, Freder played by Gustav Frohlich.  There are a couple of things happening with his charachter.  First off, he quickly becomes infatuated with Maria and follows her down into the city’s underworld, where he becomes furious upon seeing the living conditions and the working conditions to which the under-dwellers are subjected.  He is witness to an explosion at the “M-Machine.”  New workers are brought in to attend the machine, even before the dead and injured are cleared.  Freder is infuriated.  Of course, he joins Maria’s cause.  Maria has prophesied the coming of one who can unite the workers and the those living in the city above and he believes he can be that man.

Meanwhile, the city father, who happens to be Freder’s father as well, pays a secret visit to the scientist Rotwag (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), both an old companion AND rival.  It turns out there were secret plans and speeches that Maria had given among papers found on the bodies of the workers killed and injured by the blast at the “M-Machine.”  This sets an evil plan in motion.  They wish to discredit Maria.

Rotwag has constructed a gynoid robot.  They will give the robot Maria's likeness and they then kidnap Maria and replace her with the gynoid, who sets to ruin her reputation, driving men to dissent and even murder among the workers.  Freder, meanwhile, has fallen into a delerium, and there are intercut scenes of hallucinations.  He recovers and returns to discover the false Maria directing the workers to rise up and destroy the machines.  He accuses her of being false.  The workers ignore his plea, leave thier children behind, and go forth and destroy the Heart Machine, flooding the underworld in the process.

In the meantime, Maria has been able to escape, and with the aide of Freder, has rescued the children from the flood.  The foreman Grot unleashes fury upon the workers for what they have done.  Believing their children dead, they seize the false Maria and burn her at the stake.

A horrified Freder looks on, not comprehending until the flames finally reveal the robot.  Rotwag chases the real Maria to a rooftop, pursued by Freder, where the scientist eventually falls to his death.  Freder, joins the hands of his father and foreman Grot, fulfilling his role as mediator.  The End.

Now, Lemmy's lyrics.

Metropolis, the worlds collide,
Ain't nobody could be on your side,
I don't care, I don't care,

Metropolis is something new,
Aint nobody got thier eye on you,
I don't care, I don't care,

Metropolis, the worlds collide,
Ain't nobody on the other side,
I don't care, I'm not there.

The song is a mystery, but a quick study is easy.  Indeed we have two world's colliding, one of leisure and one of toil.  "Ain't nobody could be on your side" isn't too difficult to puzzle out.  I think Lemmy took an every man for himself, or every worker for him or herself mentality to this film.  Much is known about Lemmy's philosophy in life and what a lot of it boiled down to was kind of a lassie faire attitide towards everyone else, live and let live.  So no, nobody could be on your side.  And no, Lemmy probably didn't care one iota.

Metropolis was something new.  When Fritz Lang first saw the skyscrapers of New York he knew he had to create a cinematic work featuring towering spryres such as these, saying "The buildings seemed to be a vertical veil, very light and scintillating, a luxirious backdrop suspended from the gray sky to dazzle, distract and hypnotize.  At night the city gave only the impression of living; it lived as illusions do.  I knew I must make a film of all these impressions."

The next line I think means neither side knows what is going on in the class struggle in the film.  The lower class is oblivious to the plot to discredit Maria and certainly the upper class, while they may know that Maria intends to attempt to unite the workers with those living in the city, they are not sure just what violence the workers are truly capable of executing.  And still, Lemmy doesn't care.

Verse three the worlds do collide and by the film's conclusion there is no longer a need for "sides," and still Lemmy doesn't care, and he isn't there.  I get the impression Lemmy wasn't overtly moved by this film.  Perhaps going in he knew it was this important piece of German cinema and we all know he had thought the Germans had an eye for a lot of things stylitically, but maybe he wasn't as moved as much as he had hoped he would be, but still felt that it deserved a tune.

Hell, that's my excuse anyway.  The film Metropolis is an important piece of cinema and the song "Metropolis" kicks ass.  I at least want the song to have some thought put into it, even if its only on the listeners' back end.  My two cents.