This whole island is You remember? We were shipwrecked together. Welcome to this bonus episode of Sound Opinions. I'm Greg Cott. My co-host is Jim DeRogatis. And if you want to be the first to hear our bonus podcasts, become a Sound Opinions member on Patreon. Like Joe Shanahan. Hey, we know Joe. Joe! Metro! Our Chicago guy. The owner of Metro in Chicago and the great music clubs in the world.
Thanks, Joe, for being a supporter of the show. You know, there's so much music we want to get to. The regular show is just not enough. I love this feature here, this bonus podcast, because it allows us to plug a quarter in the Desert Island jukebox and added yet another. song that we are excited about that has shaped us to the Desert Island Juke Park. Give us a hint of what you're going to do, Jim. I'll give you two hints, Greg. I'm doing a bit of a sequel.
to a show we just ran, and I am going to wax philosophical. I can't wait. That's in a minute on Sound Opinions. Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island Beer Company. Since 1988, Goose Island's been brewing beers in and inspired by Chicago. They got 312 Weed Ale, Hazy Beer Hug, and many more one-off beers at the Fulton Street Taproom or their new Salt Shed Pub.
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You can't see it, but trust me, it looks delicious. with Christmas trips. Welcome back to Sound Opinions. Jim, you're donning your philosopher's cap for this episode of the Desert Island Jukebox. I am, Craig. We recently paid show-length tribute to the late, great David Thomas of Perubo. who we lost at the age of 71. Immersing ourselves in that music, starting with Rocket from the Tomb, only existed for less than a year.
74 to 75 on the flats of cleveland of course we had to talk about his partner co-wrote many of those great songs with Thomas that some people say clinton halen for one legs mcneil people who have documented the history of punk rock among the very first punk rock songs period and the best you know sonic reducer 30 seconds over tokyo Um, now we have played Peter Loeffner. Twice as desert island jukebox that actually ran on the public radio show
You played Down at the Bar, and I played Sylvia Plath. But if there's a problem in the world, it's not that there's too much celebration of Peter Loeffner's music. The other reason Loeffner was on my mind was Lester Bang's is dead 43 years on April 30th. And it just seems to me like two weeks ago, 17-year-old Jim was sitting talking with Lester two weeks before he died. Yeah, and they became friends, Peter Lofner and Lester.
Loeffner is kicked out of Per Ubu, the earliest incarnation, or leaves because he is deep in the throes of drug and alcohol addiction. He is literally dying in front of the people who loved him. I've talked to many of them who knew him. Lester was close to him, but I think Lester's wake-up call... Was this guy's committed to killing himself now if you if you look at
the late 70s, early 80s, the punk era. It's a dark time in America, despite President Reagan telling us the light is on in America again, right? You know, New York City is bankrupt. There's racial violence. There's poverty and depression. And I think some people saw punk as a nihilistic response to that.
Loughner had written Ain't It Fun, which is one of the most depressing songs. I mean, it's about ain't it fun, basically, when you're trying to kill yourself. No, it's not fun. And I think Lester began... Seeing what was happening to his friend, they made music together. Somewhere deep in my archives is an hour-long cassette of the two jamming in Lester's apartment, right?
Peter was trying to to pick himself up and imagine a solo career after having been one of the key members of one of the first punk rock bands, Rocket from the Tombs, many other groups he'd been part of, Cinderella Backstreet. Chief among them. Never made an album in his time. We have only these demos and stray recordings, live performances. A fantastic collection of his work.
that came from the Smogvale five-disc box set in 2019, right? That label dedicated to shining light on the greats of Cleveland music. David Thomas, Tim Wright, others. But Lester saw this guy trying to kill himself, and he wrote a tribute upon Loeffner's death for the New York Rocker. Peter's death was the end of an era for me, an era of the most intense worship of nihilism and death-tripping in all marketable form.
Me, Lester decided, I just want to devote myself to life. And he tried, and he fell off the wagon and he died, much as Loeffner had of a drug overdose. I think that urge in much extreme music... Some of the toughest gangster rap. Obviously, punk rock. death metal. that urge. Life is bleak. I'm going to live fast, die young. Neil Young famously wrote the line that Kurt Cobain leaves as a suicide note, right? Better to burn out than to fade away. No, it's not. It's not. It's better to
struggle and find the joys where you can. The joys include Lofner's music. As I said, we've played him before. We never played this song. It's called Baudelaire. Now, Baudelaire is him. in that mode of worshipping the darkest philosophers of art, you know, who was Baudelaire. You know, he inherited a tradition from the Romantic poets. It would be picked up and forwarded by people like Paul Verlaine. and Rambo, People Worship by Patti Smith, and all of those early punk rock people.
But, you know, it's one thing to romanticize killing yourself, and it's another to do it. The author of The Flowers of Evil, right? You know? I think in dark times, rather than embrace the darkness, embrace the light. But either way, this is a beautiful, beautiful song. I crawled to her this lost love. to be drowned and driven, feeling such a lot like Baudelaire. It's a beautiful song. Just don't live this way, kids. Peter Lofman. Peter Loeffner.
Baudelaire, like a ghost dancer up the marble stair. I mean, the guy was a brilliant, brilliant lyricist. Yeah, incredible. I mean, 24 years old, right? When he left a small but an amazing body of work. Thanks for the song, Jim. Definitely worth playing. That is it for this bonus episode. For more full episodes, visit soundopinions.org To sponsor the show, email sponsor at soundopinions.org
Sound Opinions is produced by Andrew Gill, Alex Claiborne, and Max Hadlam. Our Columbia College intern is Joe Pennington. Our social media consultant is Katie Cott.