One of the greatest singles of all time. Made it onto nearly every rave-up party compilation tape I made during the 80’s. It’s the punk song that has it all. Everything one needs to get all revved up. Wonderful in-your-face trashy production, great instrument sounds, fabulously adenoidal nonchalant vocals courtesy of mastermind lead singer/leader Tito Larriva and the most brilliant and hilarious lyrics in the known universe. I’m totally serious. Plugz were probably the first Chicano punk band, part of the LA punk scene in the late 70’s and early 80’s, frequently opening for many of the punk heavies there. They’re mostly known for the flip of this self-released DIY single, a punk workout of “La Bamba”. A cool cover in its own right, but which has nothing on “Achin’”. They made two singles and two albums, the second featuring the cool title cut “Better Luck” (and for some reason an inferior alternate version of “Achin’”). Apparently they even backed up Dylan for four songs on Letterman in ’84, which is kind of wild to contemplate. Larriva went onto form the better known Cruzados after the Plugz demise. Over the years, I’ve lobbied hard and occasionally persuaded some of the bands I’ve been in to honor the song with a rousing rendition of it. Pull up a bottlecap, you juke box maniac.

-Andrew Chalfen

Scottish poet and humorist Ivor Cutler died on March 3, 2006, at the age of 83. The name probably doesn't mean anything to you, so you'll just have to trust me when I say that the world is an infinitely less odd place without him, and that's too bad.

Cutler was born in Glasgow, Scotland on January 15, 1923; he mined his destitute, Depression-era childhood for surreal comedy in his masterpiece, a series of dreamlike autobiographical sketches collectively called Life In A Scotch Sitting Room, Volume 2 (a 1978 album of these monologues has been reissued by Rev-Ola). He became a music teacher, a job he held even after he became first a popular radio comedian and then a recording artist and noted children's book author. He had a few flirtations with the pop mainstream, most notably in 1967 when he played Buster Bloodvessel in the Beatles' artsy flop Magical Mystery Tour, but from the mid-'70s onwards, his primary artistic outlets were in small-press poetry (he wrote several dozen books) and in the post-punk indie label scene, facilitated by the late British DJ John Peel, an enormous fan who broadcast over 20 live radio sessions of Cutler's poems and songs.

These performances ranged from gnomic poetry (the entirety of one of his most famous poems: "If your breasts are too big, you will fall over/Unless you wear a rucksack"), to rambling, bizarre stories accompanied by his own wheezing harmonium and cheerfully deranged songs set to boogie-woogie piano riffs with lyrics like "I'm happy, I'm happy/And I'll punch the man who says I'm not," all delivered in a completely deadpan voice with one of the thickest Scottish burrs on record. Listening to Ivor Cutler reveals a world where people with woolen eyes get annoyed if you try to replace them with real ones, restaurant menus feature Bicarbonate of Chicken and family stories include the time dad had intercourse with a polar bear on a Canadian vacation. And yet, he wasn't merely a charming goofball, because a persistent dark streak runs through his work: there are moments of genuine anguish in poems like "An Old Man," some of the autobiographical material makes Angela's Ashes read like P.G. Wodehouse, and even the goofy, child-like "I Believe In Bugs" ends with Cutler looking forward to being dead and buried, providing nourishment for various creepy-crawlers.

Try as I might, I can't feel bad that Cutler is gone: he'd been in ill health for years, was reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's, and said in one of his last published interviews a few years ago that since he had outlived all of his friends and family, he was basically just waiting to die. Sometimes it's best to let go. Still, he will be missed.

-Stewart Mason

Brooding big UK guitars from 1981, part three. By the time they had a US release, they were but a shadow of their former gloomy greatness, their name changed to C. S. Angels to avoid getting sued by a satellite communications company. So most folks who stumbled across them at that point never knew about the Comsat Angels earlier achievements. Guitarist/vocalist Stephen Fellows had one of those hauty bitter tenor voices that seemed to accompany so much of this kind of drama king music. He was great at moping with gritted teeth about psychic breakdown, failed relationships, and general English bleakness – the perfect vocal counterpoint to some often interesting and quite melodic songs and arrangements. The Comsats were especially good with very ingenious liquid bass lines; straight-forward, well-thought out effects-heavy guitar riffs, unusual drum parts, tasteful synths with incredibly low-cheese quotient, and knew how to use negative space to make the whole sound gel. Their first two albums were mostly too bleak and not hook-filled enough for my taste, excepting their excellent track “Independence Day” off the first album and “Eye Dance” off the second. They also had some catchy singles between the two, “Eye of the Lens” and “Do the Empty House”. , But they really hit their peak with the third album, “Fiction”. The gloom somehow lifted a little bit to reveal an excellent collection of colorful gem stones glinting in the dark ethers. It’s an amazingly pretty sounding and well-crafted example of the genre. I’m pretty sure the single “It’s History” (which does not appear on the album) was released right before the album. I’ll embarrass myself and say that this song gives me chills. Let’s all marvel at the economy and cleverness of its construction. The lyrics, of course, are total high school angst, and I can understand how some folks can’t get beyond all the vocal histrionics (somewhat related to the oft-cited conundrum of liking Johnny Marr and Smith’s music but wincing when Morrissey sings), but you need to grow and move beyond that, people!

- Andrew Chalfen