V04-T12 Pinheads On The Move

.....For anybody who remembers Bill Griffith's "The Punks and the Monks"...

Volume 4: "THE LITTLE BROWN ONES ARE THORAZINE, GEORGE", track 12

• 02:51 "PINHEADS ON THE MOVE" (Blaine Reininger, Steven Brown)
• performed by Tuxedo Moon
• original source: B-side 7" Tidal Wave Records TWR101 (US) 1978
• and my source: CD PINHEADS ON THE MOVE Cramboy CBOY 5050CD (Austria) 1987

.....Tuxedo Moon would be more accurately categorized as avant garde jazz rather than punk if not for the fact that they played punk venues like The Deaf Club and released records on small independent labels to retain creative control. I could only find one other release on Tidal Wave Records, another 7" from one of several bands called SST, except that this one had the guitarist for Flipper (Ted Falconi). The Tuxedo Moon single was reissued the following year as Time Release Records TR 101 (US) 1979. I have to assume that the same recordings of each song were used and not newly recorded. I have learned that at some point the master tapes were destroyed in a fire. I've also found out that there are at least two other labels called Tidal Wave that were started since 1990, but that's more of a symptom of the problems of modern data retrieval than anything illuminating. An internet term search is such that its greatest strength (it doesn't presume to know your intentions) is its greatest weakness (it just gives you everything). Your best bet is to be happy with whatever the creators can tell you. For instance, here's an interview with Steven Brown from the blog Totally Wired:

http://totallywiredbysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2009/03/totally-wired-runner-up-transcripts-1-q.html

.....Granted, he also doesn't mention if the two pressings were identical because it's more of a general interview about the period, but it's nice to have someone confirm that the 'pinhead' term is self-referential. That's not the sort of thing you want to assume.

.....My original liner notes began with a lengthy and ugly diatribe about Los Angeles pseudo-punk bands which, while I still believe it was an accurate description of the time, is a little indulgent even for a blog. It only really served to set the tone for this:

"San Francisco bands, by contrast, tend to have a lot more focus and direction and are usually in a band not to obtain money, but to obtain what money can't. They are often political (Dils, Dead Kennedys) and, as with Tuxedo Moon, their music is not derivative even if it is reminiscent of an earlier band or evocative. Tuxedo Moon specifically were a band that evolved...very quickly. Actually, 'evolved' is probably exactly the wrong word to use, since the changes were not due to environment or outside forces. 'Metamorphosed' is more accurate, as in a cocoon. They seemed more attuned to the internal coherences of film music than the dreck coming over the radio in the late seventies. They obviously weren't concerned with audience feedback."

.....And it goes on:"Although a track like this is no doubt scandalous to the condescending and sanctimonious self-appointed advocates of 'the handicapped', the fact is that such people have themselves never produced a positive popular image of microcephalics (pinheads) and would blanche at the suggestion that a group of pins be 'allowed' to do anything as independent and self-directed as pile into a car and drive to L.A. ("Are you really Clark Gable?...") This, much more than any 'energetic rhythms' you may read about in some Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Top Lists of Things We Can Be Bothered To Half-ass Recall Encyclopedia of Rock 'N' Roll is why punk held on as long as it did, even with small numbers that would spell doom had it only been a fad. The idea of pinheads on the move comes much more naturally to a culture where everyone is a hero if that's what they want and nobody gets hidden away in the shadows, as opposed to our larger popular culture where certain persons are determined to need 'our help', which usually translates to restricting them to a structured environment so that we don't have to look at them. The Tod Browning film "Freaks" is strongly recommended viewing."

.....At the time I wrote that last paragraph, things had already been improving for people with non-standard bodies and abilities. It was really intended to describe the environment at the time the original single was released in 1978. Understanding was a long time in coming for many people and many didn't live long enough to see it. Today things are that much better, largely due to the efforts of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who, if faced with the prospect of a group of microcephalics piling into a car for a road trip, probably would have packed them a lunch. Hell, she probably would have piled in with them. The most revolutionary thing about Eunice is that she understood that what she was doing wasn't revolutionary at all. It was basic Emily Post. Whenever you can't remember the finer points of etiquette or are in an unfamiliar situation, default to the primary rule of treating other people as you wish to be treated. Now all that remains is to remember that those who are not us are people.