Kill City Nights

My faith in radio was renewed last week when, whilst driving down a road that used to be the edge of town back when the town had edges and flipping stations between classic hard rock and classic album rock, I heard Alice Cooper's I'm Eighteen for the first time. Not since high school have I discovered a new favorite song via Marconi; I had forgotten such things were possible. As to how this essential track managed to evade me until now, well, these things happen. I admit to neglecting Alice Cooper, having only a peripheral awareness that Wayne and Garth were not worthy. Now I know why the Aurorans fell to their knees.
...
Most people probably think of Metropolis and Gotham City as alternate New York Cities: the Big Apple by day/night or, as their respective creators have put it, Manhattan above/below 14th Street. Well that's horseshit. A proper understanding of Americana places Metropolis nearer to the capital, somewhere on the Chesapeake Bay, while Gotham City adorns the rust belt between Chicago and Detroit. Frank Miller's Sin City belongs someplace out West.

Each of these serves its purpose in our national mythology, but I think there is room and need for another. A less conspicuous figure of the gothic Midwest as crossroads of labor and freight, situated upon the leviathan Mississippi and circumscribed by the brooding menace of the prairie. A watering hole for cowboys, truckers and sailors where the grain elevators stand sentinel and no one much looks at your face. At all times can be heard the rumble of a railyard. You can get there by heading west out of Indianapolis on I-74; else just follow the Lincoln Highway to the roller dam where the Rock River slips it to the Miss. Let's take our cue from Iggy, baby, and call it Kill City.

Heard in the roadhouses and subterranean downtown dives is the sound of rock and roll engine brakes and crane wreckage. A touch of the blues has wormed its way upriver. From out of every culvert echoes someone's last ruddy spittle and song. Have a listen: I call this sampler Kill City Nights.

[All songs made available for illicit download here — Get 'em while they're hott.]

1. What You Need — The Hookers
2. Gimme Danger — The Stooges
3. I'm Eighteen — Alice Cooper
4. Get It On — Turbonegro
5. Slicker Drips — The White Stripes
6. I Want You Right Now — MC5
7. Swing Low — The Gossip
8. Dear Hearts — Murder City Devils
9. Black Diamond — The Replacements
10. So Alone — Johnny Thunders
11. Kill City — Iggy Pop & James Williamson
12. Night Theme — Iggy Pop & James Williamson
13. Forming — Germs
14. Not Anymore — Dead Boys
15. Wall of a Song — The Whore Moans
16. T.V. Eye — The Stooges
17. Hospital — The Modern Lovers
18. So Cold — Rocket from the Tombs
19. Murder City Nights — Radio Birdman
20. Are You Ready (For Some Darkness) — Turbonegro
21. Broken Glass (live) — Murder City Devils

And I like it, love it, like it, love it