Golden rule of rock criticism is don't try to be Lester Bangs. Imagine the spirit of Bangs wafting via paint fumes blurted from the dented sax of a skate punk in a Detroit basement and you might have John Olson’s Life is a Rip Off. Polymath aesthete Olson challenged himself to review a record a day. They are all compiled here courtsey of Nashville's own Third Man Books. Rip Off is a tornado through jazz, dub, blues, prog, punk, metal and noise with an emphasis on the obscure, the obscene, the local (Detroit), the hyper-local (Lansing), the rare, forgotten and bizarre: thrift store bins, demo cassettes, lost master[mind] tapes. His style is double barrel even when writing about a gospel seven-inch. His take on The Jackson Southernairs' "Too Late":
Further evidence that if you like your gospel to be slow burning, damaged, and fried alive at 2am, then Houston's your spot. Amazing post-Peacock label jammage with a more raw rugged despaired approach, this two part "Too Late" sequence just burns and sizzles inside an achy deranged skeleton. My favorite closeout finale song to DJ to a late night wasted crowd: a sort of Sick Fix, Positive Noise styled straight edge dank anthem, here to think about your drugged drunken ways before you can't turn back.
Though often presenting himself as a wastoid as washed out as his jeans, he’s a successful musician, visual artist, record label owner, husband, and dad. Life is a Rip Off is a de facto manual about how to keep it all together without getting totally fried / bummed. He’s also very funny and knows more about music than you. Hidden in plainsight: Freegal covers a ton of tiny record labels. A parlor game you can play is check Freegal and see if we have whatever dark side of the moon album he’s riffing about. Did I mention his emphasis on local acts? Start doing the leg work that makes Olson such a treasure by dipping into BoomBox - a collection of local acts in all genres hosted by the library. I recommend KROVI, which is way more chill than most of the records featured in Life is a Rip Off but we all can’t roll as hard as Olson 24/7. And speaking of Lester Bangs - read his original work in our new database of music criticism, Rock’s Back Pages. Without Mr. Bangs, there’s probably no John Olson.
