There is a famous story concerning the cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope. Invited into a rich man’s home, Diogenes was asked by his host to please not spit on the floor. Whereupon Diogenes spit in the man’s face, saying, “In a rich man’s house, there is no place to spit but his face.”
I think about that story when I listen to Anal Cunt, the defunct grindcore band that became infamous for its heinous name and truly vile sense of humor (“I Became a Counselor So I Could Tell Rape Victims They Asked For It,” anyone?). Because I think—and I know this may sound outrageous—that Anal Cunt front man Seth Putnam, the so-called “GG Allin of Grindcore,” had a lot in common with the great Greek philosopher. It is my contention that Putnam was, like Diogenes, convinced there were no honest men, and so spent his career spitting in our faces. I believe he had a lot of hate in his heart, but it was a hatred of hypocrisy, and not the women, minorities, gays, and other folks he mocked in his songs. He coolly dredged up the crudest, sickest jokes he could, believing in his heart of hearts that he was just saying what we were all thinking.
And boy, did it work. It’s not so difficult to offend somebody; but to deliberately set out to offend everybody, well, that takes pluck, chutzpah, and a willingness to wave bye-bye to the respect of all ostensibly decent human beings. “Better in the gutter than a pedestal,” wrote E.M. Cioran, and Putnam gleefully relegated himself to the gutter by stomping on every taboo and shibboleth in sight with his vulgar, crude, and often very funny lyrics. If I thought for a moment that Putnam actually believed what he was saying I would despise him. But I think his sense of humor was based on a belief that morality was a façade and a sham, human beings were vile, and what they really needed was to have all of their worst impulses thrown back in their faces.
Which is why I’m not offended by such titles as “Hitler Was a Sensitive Man” (not to be confused with “I’m Hitler,” “I Went Back in Time and Voted for Hitler,” or “I Thought Hitler Was Cool Until I Found Out He Didn’t Drink”), “Your Kid Committed Suicide Because You Suck” (original title: “Connor Clapton Committed Suicide Because His Father Sucks”), “I Sold Your Dog to a Chinese Restaurant” (a companion piece of sorts to “I Intentionally Ran Over Your Dog”), and “I Sent a Thank You Card to the Guy Who Raped You.” To pick a few of his frankly less reprehensible titles at random from the dozens upon dozens more just like them.
Formed in 1988 in Newton, Massachusetts, Anal Cunt began its career playing explosive bursts of tinnitus-inducing grindcore made up on the spot, and played their first gig before an audience consisting of Putnam’s mom, grandmother, little brothers, and some family friends. The family friends fled in their SUVs, mom and little brothers were aghast, and as for grandma, she broke her femur stage diving.
Gradually Anal Cunt began to write real songs with real titles, and after releasing “Phyllis Is an Old Annoying Cunt” even Grandma gave up on them. Despite undergoing innumerablepersonnel changes and several temporary break-ups, Anal Cunt still managed to release 8 full lengths and 10 EPs before Putnam’s death in 2011 from a suspected heart attack put an untimely end to his extended experiment in deliberate outrage. As Putnam himself—who gave us “Caring About Anything Is Gay,” “Recycling Is Gay,” “Pottery’s Gay,” “You Went to See Dishwalla and Everclear (You’re Gay),” and “I Noticed That You’re Gay,” amongst many others—would no doubt have put it, dying of a heart attack at 43 is gay.
During its long and heinous career Anal Cunt released two LPs that stand out by virtue of their relative accessibility. The first is 1998’s Picnic of Love, an acoustic LP filled with songs so sickeningly sweet that it actually constitutes a greater act of torture than the band’s nasty, brutish and short blasts of obscenity-laden grindcore. It was a clever move; like always, Putnam had tongue in cheek; he simply moved it to the other side of his mouth.
The second is 2010’s Fuckin’ A, Anal Cunt’s so-called “cock rock album.” I suspect that by “cock rock” Putnam meant that just about every song on it was centered around getting his dick sucked, because Fuckin’ A in no way, shape, or form sounds like a traditional cock rock LP. That said, Fuckin’ A makes real concessions to listenability: gone are the 30-second blasts of visceral noise, replaced by—God help us—real songs, with verses and choruses and everything. Putnam still sounds more like something out of a horror movie than Brett Michaels, but at least his vocals are semi-intelligible, and as a result Fuckin’ A is by far the most bearable-to-normal-human-ears—
Opening track “Fuck Yeah” is a truly great slice of rawk, complete with the monster chords of guitarist Josh Martin, the cymbal-heavy smash and bash of drummer Tim Morse, and Putnam’s patented Bon-Scott-on-glue vocals. But what really makes the song are the backing vocals of Martin, Morse, and a host of others, including Ken Cmar, the Raunchous Brothers’ The Whipping Bastard, and Vaginal Jesus’ Jim Crow and The Honorable Reverend Fuckface Chainsaw, who may or may not be related to my second cousin, Bryan Fuckface Chainsaw. “Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah!” shouts this impromptu men’s chorus after each and every one of Putnam’s forays into vulgarity, as in, “You said you’re 18 but you’re only 12/(“Fuck Yeah! Fuck Yeah!”)/You said you’re racist and you’ve got big tits/(“Fuck Yeah! Fuck Yeah!).” Throw in a feral solo by Martin, and what you’re left with is one of the best sing-alongs since Black Flag’s “TV Party.”
“Crankin’ My Band’s Demo on a Box at the Beach” opens with a squall of feedback and a long, guttural scream by Putnam, then erupts into a fast-paced and sorta Cows-like paean to, you guessed it, getting laid. The general thrust of the tune is that AC’s demo is so fabulous that “There’s a line of 50 sluts who want to fuck me/In the back of my van.” Meanwhile Martin throws down a great pulsating riff on the guitar, Putnam sounds even more deranged than usual (especially when he talk-sings, “I see you there/In your tight bikini/Gonna drag you to the back of my van/And make you suck on my weenie!”), and Martin—a superb guitarist if ever there was one—lays down one very long and ferocious solo that culminates in another screech by Putnam, who ends the song by shrieking the song’s title over and over, growing more agitated as he goes along.
“Loudest Stereo” is a work of sheer genius, a high-velocity and catchy-as-herpes herpes rocker with yet another great sing-along chorus. “Loudest Stereo” features some ferocious drum pummel by Morse and yet more great borderline intelligible vocals by Putnam, whose stereo is “the loudest ever made/I crank it up to ten all night/I’m much sicker than you/I’m crankin’ Anal Cunt, Buckcherry, and Mötley Crüe.” Then comes the great and bona fide cock rock chorus, during which Putnam sings “Are you ready, are you ready, are you ready to rock?/I’ve got the loudest stereo on the block!” which is followed by the whole band, Cmar, and Crow shouting, “Loudest stereo on the block!/Loudest stereo on the block!” If there were any justice in this world, and Putnam hadn’t seen fit to add the line, “My game of Black Jack’s a nine and twelve year old putting out,” every barfly in the free world would be singing along to this baby on the jukebox, contributing to good taproom relations and perhaps even world peace.
“Kicking Your Ass and Fucking Your Bitch” is my personal album low point, not only because it’s a bit too static for my tastes, but as amazing as it sounds to say this about Anal Cunt, the melody simply isn’t very fetching, at least compared to the other tunes on Fuckin’ A.Morse plays a staggered drum beat as the song sorta crabs along sideways, while Martin contributes a series of ascending riffs that are cool but don’t exactly give the song any forward propulsion. As for Putnam he’s content to repeat the song’s title over and over, and while it’s his vocals that give the song what little thrust it has, the general effect would be more pleasing if the title itself weren’t so, er, let’s just say outré.
“Hot Girls on the Road” is a frenzied slice of cantankerous caterwaul, complete with the band and Cmar singing “Hot girls!” followed by Putnam’s “On the road!” Meanwhile Martin plays metal machine gun riffs and a brief, snarling solo, Morse beats his drums like a red-headed stepchild, and Putnam sprays spit, sounding like Satan pissed off because he has laryngitis. “Hot Girls on the Road” may not be my favorite tune off the LP, but it’s the one I would recommend if you’re looking to have a nervous breakdown.
“Whiskey, Coke, and Sluts” reminds me of a Motörhead song, trucking along as it does like a motörhome careening brakeless down a steep road towards a cliff. It opens with a squall of feedback, then immediately goes into överdrive, with Morse Bonhaming away to the accompaniment of Putnam’s caterwaul and the strafing of [Martin’s] raw-as-a-scrape-wound guitar. “Whiskey!” shouts a horde of back-up singers, followed by Putnam screeching, “Coke and sluts!” It’s a great chorus, but even better are Morse’s two short but absolutely deranged solos, which are guaranteed to spark your synapses like bug zappers.
“All I Give a Fuck About Is Sex” follows a similar formula, minus the back-up vocals, with [Martin] playing his axe like Conan the Barbarian while Putnam delivers such immortally dumb lines as “On my tour bus or when I’m backstage/There’s a never-ending line of cunts that want to get laid/Every bitch is blonde, dumb, and underage/Gonna give each one herpes, hep, and hopefully AIDs.” Cuz all Putnam cares about is sex, as he sings about 100 times, and if you believe him, you’re even dumber than the groupie-addled cock rockers he’s making fun of.
If I have any problem with Fuckin’ A it’s that “Whiskey, Coke, and Sluts,” “All I Give a Fuck About Is Sex,” and “I’m Gonna Give You AIDS” sound a bit too much alike for their own good. They’ve got the same frenetic tempo, similar melodies, and I would say misogynistic tendencies, if that weren’t what Fuckin’ A was all about. Yet another threnody to what I suspect were Anal Cunt’s totally imaginary horde of groupies, “I’m Gonna Give You AIDs” features more ferocious Martin guitar, Putnam’s larynx-mangling vocals, and a chorus that features Putnam screaming, “I’m gonna” followed by a group of back-ups singing “Give you AIDs.”
I would cite some lyrics from “I’m Gonna Give You AIDS,” but they’re basically like all the other lyrics on Fuckin’ A, which in the end is my chief problem with the LP—namely, it’s exclusive focus on how girls are dying to suck Putnam’s cock, and how how he has nothing but contempt for every single one of them. I know that’s the LP’s “concept”—namely, to mock the cunt-struck likes of such infamous groupie-gropers as Def Leppard—but after awhile the conceit grows a bit tiresome, and one would welcome something, hell, anything different—say the wonderfully titled “Breastfeeding Jim J Bullock’s Toenail Collection,” the hilarious Steve Miller-mangling“It’s Allright—Sabbra Cadabra—Blow on a Jug,” or AC’s fantastic (better than the Butthole Surfers even!) cover of “American Woman.”
Fortunately, “Yay! It’s Pink!” shakes things up a bit, musically at least. Putnam’s mastodon-heavy guitar wankage gives the song some serious ballast, slowing it down to heavy metal velocity. As for the title it refers to the color of Putnam’s member, and it’s sung at regular intervals in a voice like an enthusiastic cheerleader by Julie Jett Putnam, the drummer for Upsidedown Cross and Putnam’s widow. I love how Morse and Martin slow the song down towards the end—they sound like the world’s biggest tractor-trailer putting on the brakes—and the way somebody (Putnam I assume) comes out of nowhere to say in a shockingly normal voice, “And she was born in the fucking 90s.”
Album closer “I Wish My Dealer Was Open” may just be the album’s highlight. A very different cup of bile from the album’s other songs, not only is it slow and heavy as Lesley West, it’s also—dare I say it?—lovely, that is if you subtract Putnam’s shrieking. What’s more, it doesn’t make a single reference to sex. No, Putnam’s only concern is he wants coke and his dealer isn’t answering the phone. Putnam speaks the first verse in a sigh-filled croak while Martin and Morse play nice, at which point the song goes off like an M-80, with Putnam brutally screaming while Martin pounds out big, bad earache-my-eye riffs on the guitar. Martin then plays what has become one of my favorite guitar solos of all time—I swear, this guy is J. Mascis good—Putnam makes a brief return, and Martin plays yet another solo, albeit a less frenetic model than the first one, chiefly because he’s on his way to the great fade-out.
Anal Cunt is gone, and I’m not certain anyone misses them. Seth Putnam’s sick sense of humor was simply beyond the pale to too many people. But Anal Cunt bequeathed us some very great music, and I for one think the world would be a poorer place without “Hitler Was a Sensitive Man” in it. The same goes for the band’s “Oi” version of The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” “Loudest Stereo,” “Killing Yourself to Live,” and all nine seconds of “Bonus Track” from 1996’s 40 More Reasons to Hate Us.
I will argue to the end of my days that Putnam was not a racist, homophobe, misogynist, or Nazi. As I said before, I suspect that so-called decent people simply revolted him, just as they revolted Diogenes, who spent his days looking in vain for an honest man. Perhaps I’m full of shit, but I will always believe that Putnam was a jaded idealist who loathed mankind for its adamantine hypocrisy, and made it his life’s mission to hurl its worst impulses, filtered through his scrabrous sense of humor, back at it. E.M. Cioran, who despised mankind every bit as much as Putnam, once said, “If disgust for the world conferred sanctity of itself, I fail to see how I could avoid canonization.”
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to St. Seth Putnam.
