Glossalalic or obscure/indecipherable lyrics shouted, chanted and sung atop music that implies volume – this is hopefully what rock and roll music sounded like the first time you heard it. Not to get all nostalgic-rock-crit on your ass, but I remember being transfixed as a nine-year old by the then Top 40 (‘77) song “Black Betty” by Ram Jam (a song with a curious history, as Lomax-y types might know, it was repurposed wholesale from an old African-American prison chant and then upon its release boycotted by the NAACP for allegedly racist content).

Something about the speed of the thing sounded alien and familiar at the same time. There are songs that will scar you for life because they just sounded so big and heavy and impenetrable, you know? Then you go back to them and thanks to YouTube you see that these guys were scary looking burnouts. I don’t know; I still love this song.

Please do not hold this against me.

—DJ Yeti