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The Annotated Boris: Deconstructing the Lyrical Majesty of Boris the Sprinkler And Other Tales As the Need Arises
Hailing from the frozen tundra of Green Bay, Wisconsin, BORIS THE SPRINKLER were among the goofiest - and best - of the effusion of pop-punk bands that bounced havoc across the globe in the 90's. THE ANNOTATED BORIS is frontman Rev. Norb's lunatic memoir of his days with Boris, masquerading as a self-dissection of his madcap lyrical output, chronicling the rise and demise of these offbeat cult icons.
- GenresMusic
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 24, 2015
I will resist the urge to review the reviews of others who have reviewed this book on this site. For the record, however, I think certain of their high-handed opinions miss the point entirely. (Initials P.S. - P is for Patrick S is for Sprunger!) Politics and "social responsibility" are concerns germane to certain genres of punk rock music; it is silly to hold genres on the opposite side of a healthy punk rock coin to the same standard. In that regard, as in their music, Boris The Sprinkler were a perfectly logical extrapolation of the Ramones.
As for the book itself . . . well, I'm a little biased. The Concert Cafe in Green Bay was the elementary school of my rock n' roll education and Rev. Norb was the kooky science teacher. You loved him because he was always devising dangerous experiments; at the same time you were terrified by his emotionless, space alien-like demeanor. Having spent 20 years playing in hapless punk bands myself, I was riveted by the history of the band. As far as the exhaustive minutia underscoring Norb's lyrics . . . well, who can really digest all of that?!
The fact is, Norb is a brilliant writer with an utterly singular style. His MRR columns should be compiled and published. (Do I wax clairvoyant here? Reverend?) His book offers rare insight into a weird and beautiful anomaly - a truly unique time and place in punk rock history. Everybody knows the story of Green Bay as unlikely football mecca. Few know that for a few years in the '90s, all the best bands in the world made their pilgrimage here. And invariably the good rev. was there to officiate the ceremony - with his wacky vestments and strange incantations.
As for the book itself . . . well, I'm a little biased. The Concert Cafe in Green Bay was the elementary school of my rock n' roll education and Rev. Norb was the kooky science teacher. You loved him because he was always devising dangerous experiments; at the same time you were terrified by his emotionless, space alien-like demeanor. Having spent 20 years playing in hapless punk bands myself, I was riveted by the history of the band. As far as the exhaustive minutia underscoring Norb's lyrics . . . well, who can really digest all of that?!
The fact is, Norb is a brilliant writer with an utterly singular style. His MRR columns should be compiled and published. (Do I wax clairvoyant here? Reverend?) His book offers rare insight into a weird and beautiful anomaly - a truly unique time and place in punk rock history. Everybody knows the story of Green Bay as unlikely football mecca. Few know that for a few years in the '90s, all the best bands in the world made their pilgrimage here. And invariably the good rev. was there to officiate the ceremony - with his wacky vestments and strange incantations.
June 22, 2018
Took me a while to make it through this one, what with all the footnotes and ridiculousness. But what a great read. Candid, informative, and full of Reverend Nørb’s signature humor. If you grew up in the Midwest, this book is well worth your time. Anthems for weird people, indeed!
April 15, 2014
Norb has the perfect response to the assumption that all the pop punk bands were novelty acts or performing the musical equivalent of jokes. He said (and I'm paraphrasing): "We weren't musical comedy acts. We were making anthems for weird people."
"Anthem" lacks some modesty, but nevertheless many bands who happened to be whimsical, irreverent, even funny - bands like They Might Be Giants, Zappa, Ween, Dead Milkmen, and the more topical Groovie Ghoulies and Boris The Sprinkler - bands whose biggest thing in common (despite huge stylistic differences) is a defiant uncoolness - are all widely misunderstood to be "joke" bands. Anyone who's profoundly influenced by these bands has felt the unique frustration of feeling like they need to defend an aesthetic they intrinsically connect with against a world who measures culture by its stylistic orthodoxy.
BTS (and its Ramones core peers) were not quite as juvenile as they seemed. Anyone who owned MTX's Revenge Is Sweet or The Parasites's Pair knows as much. The Riverdales and Queers (and the thousand other bands from the same period) varied in quality, but they were driven by a sincere combination of motives that only slightly involved comedic impulse. They were united by a mutual, transcendental response to The Ramones, the concurrent biker jacket and ripped jean chic, other related rock acts (Rezillos, Nuggets garage comps, and bubblegum pop), and (yes) sex. Norb also explains the apparent shameless fixation with pop-consumer culture as "fast food as counter-cultural freedom" (the same way Johnny Ramone's USMC and The Misfits's children's sized Mickey Mouse t-shirts were counter-cultural) - in a mirror trend to some women's (probably misguided) embrace of pornography as "post feminism." There IS a joke - but it's on the world, not a way to make the audience laugh. As such, it's a totally stealth joke and it's no wonder the aesthetic was misunderstood.
BTS was about as state-of-the-art as any of the pop punk bands of that generation. They were the superiors of The Queers and Screeching Weasel (and certainly NOFX and Rancid) because of how well they reassembled Ramones songs in a way that was completely consistent with The Ramones. The Ramones would never have sang such salacious songs about sex as The Nobodies or The Queers. They wouldn't have had a song on every album about farting. Dee Dee's occasional songs about drinking beer in the park were tame by Queers standards. But The Ramones would have had songs about comic books and Star Trek. And had the band been more dictatorial (and not wasted time trying to please divergent personnel types like Dee Dee and Marky), The Ramones could have produced late albums comparable in craft to BTS's Mega Anal or Suck.
But there was a palpable problem with albums like Suck and Mega Anal and the "Drugs And Masturbation" single: They were goofy looking and the sexual insinuation was hard to square with the sort of liberalism that was also pervasive at the time. In The Annotated Boris, Norb gives context to some of the tongue-in-cheekness behind songs like "Got2Fuc2Day" - but not enough to change what they are. While BTS's dirty little songs were smarter and less socially objectionable than their counterpart Queers songs, they're still socially objectionable. No amount of explaining can change that.
I remember being fascinated by Norb's column in MRR (and I remember being offended too). Fifteen years later, Norb hasn't changed much. A long form discussion of this type helps show that Norb is not quite a misogynist - his multiple partners were likely post-feminist rock and rollers who were consenting subjects for objectification. But his audience may not have been as enlightened as the characters in the saga. BTS, despite motives intended to be harmless, were socially irresponsible. They would have been a much better band if they converted every "UFO" into a "(My Baby Put Me In The) Penalty Box" (which is to say, just as playful and full of libido but not as offensive). It would have been a welcome improvement to songs like "Icky Shazam" if references to ejaculate were removed.
In the end, that whole 90s pop punk boys' club was only marginally better than the glam rock misogynists in Mötley Crüe or Poison. No amount of revision can undo that sad fact. I say "sad" fact because this music and the speed and lyrical play is SOOOO good. People of my generation will inevitably tell subsequent generations' teenagers and pop punk whippersnappers about the "good old days" of BTS, but I wish this book provided the answer to all the nagging doubt we have about its social responsibility.
"Anthem" lacks some modesty, but nevertheless many bands who happened to be whimsical, irreverent, even funny - bands like They Might Be Giants, Zappa, Ween, Dead Milkmen, and the more topical Groovie Ghoulies and Boris The Sprinkler - bands whose biggest thing in common (despite huge stylistic differences) is a defiant uncoolness - are all widely misunderstood to be "joke" bands. Anyone who's profoundly influenced by these bands has felt the unique frustration of feeling like they need to defend an aesthetic they intrinsically connect with against a world who measures culture by its stylistic orthodoxy.
BTS (and its Ramones core peers) were not quite as juvenile as they seemed. Anyone who owned MTX's Revenge Is Sweet or The Parasites's Pair knows as much. The Riverdales and Queers (and the thousand other bands from the same period) varied in quality, but they were driven by a sincere combination of motives that only slightly involved comedic impulse. They were united by a mutual, transcendental response to The Ramones, the concurrent biker jacket and ripped jean chic, other related rock acts (Rezillos, Nuggets garage comps, and bubblegum pop), and (yes) sex. Norb also explains the apparent shameless fixation with pop-consumer culture as "fast food as counter-cultural freedom" (the same way Johnny Ramone's USMC and The Misfits's children's sized Mickey Mouse t-shirts were counter-cultural) - in a mirror trend to some women's (probably misguided) embrace of pornography as "post feminism." There IS a joke - but it's on the world, not a way to make the audience laugh. As such, it's a totally stealth joke and it's no wonder the aesthetic was misunderstood.
BTS was about as state-of-the-art as any of the pop punk bands of that generation. They were the superiors of The Queers and Screeching Weasel (and certainly NOFX and Rancid) because of how well they reassembled Ramones songs in a way that was completely consistent with The Ramones. The Ramones would never have sang such salacious songs about sex as The Nobodies or The Queers. They wouldn't have had a song on every album about farting. Dee Dee's occasional songs about drinking beer in the park were tame by Queers standards. But The Ramones would have had songs about comic books and Star Trek. And had the band been more dictatorial (and not wasted time trying to please divergent personnel types like Dee Dee and Marky), The Ramones could have produced late albums comparable in craft to BTS's Mega Anal or Suck.
But there was a palpable problem with albums like Suck and Mega Anal and the "Drugs And Masturbation" single: They were goofy looking and the sexual insinuation was hard to square with the sort of liberalism that was also pervasive at the time. In The Annotated Boris, Norb gives context to some of the tongue-in-cheekness behind songs like "Got2Fuc2Day" - but not enough to change what they are. While BTS's dirty little songs were smarter and less socially objectionable than their counterpart Queers songs, they're still socially objectionable. No amount of explaining can change that.
I remember being fascinated by Norb's column in MRR (and I remember being offended too). Fifteen years later, Norb hasn't changed much. A long form discussion of this type helps show that Norb is not quite a misogynist - his multiple partners were likely post-feminist rock and rollers who were consenting subjects for objectification. But his audience may not have been as enlightened as the characters in the saga. BTS, despite motives intended to be harmless, were socially irresponsible. They would have been a much better band if they converted every "UFO" into a "(My Baby Put Me In The) Penalty Box" (which is to say, just as playful and full of libido but not as offensive). It would have been a welcome improvement to songs like "Icky Shazam" if references to ejaculate were removed.
In the end, that whole 90s pop punk boys' club was only marginally better than the glam rock misogynists in Mötley Crüe or Poison. No amount of revision can undo that sad fact. I say "sad" fact because this music and the speed and lyrical play is SOOOO good. People of my generation will inevitably tell subsequent generations' teenagers and pop punk whippersnappers about the "good old days" of BTS, but I wish this book provided the answer to all the nagging doubt we have about its social responsibility.
April 8, 2013
Far Superior To Regular, Boring Musician Biographies
I've been reading a lot of musician biographies recently. Most of them are boring. This is more like a biography of the music itself. There are tangents into the author's life in terms of where he pulls the lyrics from, and tidbits of history related to the awesome Green Bay Concert Cafe scene of the '90s/early '00s. Overall, this book has added a new layer of enjoyment to music that I've been listening to for nearly two decades now. I wish every music book I read could do that.
I've been reading a lot of musician biographies recently. Most of them are boring. This is more like a biography of the music itself. There are tangents into the author's life in terms of where he pulls the lyrics from, and tidbits of history related to the awesome Green Bay Concert Cafe scene of the '90s/early '00s. Overall, this book has added a new layer of enjoyment to music that I've been listening to for nearly two decades now. I wish every music book I read could do that.
March 15, 2013
I only threw up once while reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews