The first time I ever saw 24 Hour Party People, I had no idea what to expect. Some kids at school just told me it was about ecstasy and raves, so I figured it would make for a good rent during one dull summer vacation. The movie proved to be more than that. Aside from its post-modernist and impressionistic filmmaking style, what shocked me more was that it had old Sex Pistols footage, told me the true story of Joy Division, taught me the history of rave music, and introduced me to the Happy Mondays. 24 Hour Party People documents the high times of Tony Wilson – played to perfection by the always wonderful Steve Coogan – a British television reporter who was so blown away by punk rock, he formed his own record label, club, and scene, only to become the biggest (mis)manager in all of Manchester. Wilson truly was a pretty punk rock guy, because he didn’t give a fuck about trends, press, drawing a crowd, or meeting anybody’s demands but his own. The events depicted in this movie are what Tony Wilson himself would describe as “history.”

Of course, a movie about the Madchester music movement would have to be told with a fantastic soundtrack. There’s no question about it. Director Michael Winterbottom knew he would have to do the music selection justice if to make a film about this crowd of wild and drugged up Brits, not to mention to cast the film impeccably. What is uncanny about this movie though is how much the actors look like the people they are playing. The dude playing Sean Ryder looks pretty damn close to the real Sean Ryder, and this makes the movie bizarrely authentic.

The film starts off with the Happy Mondays classic of the same title as the film. While the song plays, one of the most-difficult-to-read and trippiest title sequences I have ever seen races across the screen. This would be any graphic designer’s day in Hell, but the song and fucked up imagery allow you to brace yourself for what is about to come from this beautiful mess of a film.

One of the best scenes here is when the Sex Pistols arrive in Manchester to play. While the band tears through Iggy Pop’s “No Fun”, Tony Wilson describes the event as history to his boss, who replies, “How can it be history if only 42 people were there?” He makes a good point, but the 42 people there all went on to do great things. Wilson explains in the scene (while a mock-Pistols play in the background, which is crosscut with footage from the actual show) that members of the Buzzcocks, Joy Division/New Order, and various other Manchester musicians are present. Also present is Martin Hannett, the genius who recorded a majority of the bands. All of these people see the Pistols and their lives are changed. Immediately, Pink Floyd and David Bowie become obsolete in the eyes of everyone in the room.

A film about Joy Division could not be complete without multiple performances by Joy Division. Staged performances of songs like “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, “Digital”, and “Transmission” play, while “Transmission” is intercut with remade broadcasts from Wilson’s show on Granada TV. The “Transmission” bit is quite powerful, as one bares witness to how fast things in the UK were changing in the late ’70s. The best scene with Joy Division, however, is not a performance, but a glimpse of them cutting “She’s Lost Control” in the studio. Hannett says some of the best lines of the whole film in this scene. You might question his genius, and his sanity, but you can’t help but marvel at his decision to move Stephen Morris’ drum set to the roof (“We got a rattle in the kid”).

It’s a truly sad scene when Ian Curtis hangs himself. Especially since the scene happens only moments after the band finds out they are going to tour America. Following his death though, begins what Tony Wilson claims to be “the second half.” The second half of the story, film, and Factory saga deals with New Order and the Happy Mondays. The characters of Paul and Sean Ryder are introduced, but the glory is when New Order shows up for the first time with that name, and you get to hear a mellow, bare bones rendition of “Blue Monday”, which will never make you listen to the original the same way again.

The second half though is primarily dominated by the Happy Mondays. We meet Bez, the band’s unofficial mascot who is introduced as a chemist with a love for ecstasy. Throughout this portion of the film, the band is constantly portrayed as a group of fuck-ups, who are somehow geniuses. What else would one expect from a band who Wilson signed, simply because they came in last at the Hacienda’s Battle of the Bands? Well, he was convinced Ryder was the best poet since Yeats. However, to everyone’s dismay, the Mondays were all about partying… and it shows. The tour montage is set to “Kinky Afro” and “Wrote for Luck” (both songs are not on the actual soundtrack, however), which depicts how fucked up things really became, between the girls, the cocaine, and the parties – all while the music got lost. Tony even warns them that, “cocaine is a destroyer of talent.”

The film ends when everybody goes broke. The club doesn’t make any money due to an ecstasy ring, and the Happy Mondays don’t make any money because they cut a record while getting hooked on smoking crack. You are brought closure though with one of the most nostalgic and fantastic montages ever. On the final night of the Hacienda, Wilson throws the biggest party of the year. The Happy Mondays’ “Hallelujah (Club Mix)” blasts over the speakers as Wilson and his cohorts congratulate one another on a good and successful run. It’s then that Wilson gives an emotional monologue revolving around his excessive civic pride.

When the party ends, Wilson retreats to the roof for a spliff of “top gear” where he sees God. God tells him that he did the right thing with music (“It’s a pity you didn’t sign the Smiths”), all while appearing to look just like Wilson himself. He returns to his friends on the roof and tells them he sees God, and they sort of laugh it off with a remark about the quality of their weed. The film ends, Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” plays, and everything ends exactly like it should with a group like Factory… in shambles.

24 Hour Party People is by far one of the most bizarre impressionistic works within modern film. It’s a sort of hyper-reality, pseudo-documentary that’s retrospective, while breaking the fourth wall constantly. It’s raw, it’s gritty, and it’s Factory to a tee. People from the actual story even act within the film to get across how down-to-Earth Factory really was, and how accurate the movie is. The music these people made, at the time they made it, helped spawn a movement that changed music forever. And even though only a few people were involved during the time it was all going on, that movement is still mimicked and played in stereos today. The soundtrack proves that by putting on loads of Madchester classics, some punk classics from the Clash and Sex Pistols, as well as some of the earliest techno bliss. That’s what makes this movie so historically fantastic; you get a first and up-close glimpse of a movement that was about as exclusive as the parties at the Hacienda, complete with the music that made it all possible.

We love our country, and we love our music. Naturally, music about our great nation goes down quite smoothly. If it’s not Tom Waits’ throaty narrative, it’s Randy Newman’s sunny, cynical cadence. On the whole, it seems that every artist has something to say about the United States of America. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, especially if you’re trying to find some perspective in the chaos. But lucky you, we’ve gathered our favorite tunes on the subject and provided a rough mixtape, if you will. If you’re coming from the East coast next week, you’ll have plenty of time to listen.

So climb aboard, for this trip will take you through the historic northeastern cities down to the Deep South, after which you’ll visit the quiet prairie states, make a brief stop in the southwest, and then end the tour in the nation’s biggest state, California.

Just where anyone would want to be come next week.

1. Sonic Youth – “Providence”

Founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, Providence is Rhode Island’s biggest city and a frequent stop by bands touring the east coast. In this track, from Sonic Youth’s aptly titled Daydream Nation, former Minuteman (the band, not the militia group) Mike Watt leaves Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore a phone message about something that might have been left behind in a previous city. Deeper metaphor maybe?

2. The Sex Pistols – “New York”

The Sex Pistols’ tribute to the “capital of the world” (and once capital of the U.S.A.) is surprisingly opaque. It makes the obligatory city-landmark references in the form of a brief nod to now non-existent club Max’s Kansas City, but overall the track has a hard time keeping its eye on the ball, instead exploding in generalized (dare I say generic) punk aggression. And the lyric “I think it’s swell playing in Japan/When everybody knows Japan is a dishpan”—huh?

3. Bruce Springsteen – “Atlantic City”

Uncertainty in all aspects of life, except for the certainty of death, is the prevailing theme in Bruce Springsteen’s musical homage to the southern New Jersey city that inspired the board game Monopoly. In the tune he discusses the impact the introduction of gambling had on the city, and extends it as a metaphor for the implications of socioeconomic class disparity: “I been lookin’ for a job but it’s hard to find/down here it’s just winners and losers/don’t get caught on the wrong side of the line.”

4. Randy Newman – “Baltimore”

Historically Baltimore, the largest city in my home state of Maryland, has had absurd crime rates, which have in turn taken an immeasurable but no doubt huge emotional toll on its residents (an interesting side note is that now former Mayor Sheila Dixon, who, along with the Baltimore Police Department, was able to reduce the homicide rate 17% in 2007-2008, was recently convicted of a misdemeanor stemming from taking gift cards intended for the city’s poor, although she escaped the felony charge). Newman does a fine job summoning this desperation in the lyrics of his song, which was famously covered by Nina Simone.

5. Chuck Berry – “Memphis”

The lyrics of Chuck Berry’s classic, oft-covered tune “Memphis” are as sad as those of Newman’s “Baltimore”, but in a much more personal sense: it begins with the narrator trying to return an important call placed to him from Memphis, and as the song unfolds it is revealed that trying to reach him is a young girl named Marie, his daughter. The narrator and Marie once lived in a “happy home,” but that has changed since they “were pulled apart because her mother did not agree.” Whether or not the track is based on a personal experience of Berry’s is an interesting question.

6. Attica Blues – “Atlanta”

This track, from DJ Shadow’s Mo’Wax label mate Attica Blues, finds the duo doing an intriguing job combining the metaphysical and the sociopolitical in their lyrics. It starts with a bit of pondering (“an idyllic island/calm and serene/untouched by civilizations uncivilized”) and then throws in imagery of urban plight (“homeboys closest to the foundations when lying in a box”). All this seems to suggest a back-to-back comparison of the lost island of Atlantis and the current city of Atlanta that doesn’t find the latter in good standing: “Morals rusting and decaying/Where is, where is Atlanta?”

You’ll have to scour the net for this one, folks.

7. Randy Newman – “Birmingham”

Finally, a cheerful account of life in an American city! Then again, knowing Newman it’s probably all mired in sarcasm (and its last line, when his narrator instructs a pet dog—the “meanest dog in Alabam’”—to “get ‘em” we have to wonder if he’s making a reference the city’s deplorable racial history). Let’s assume it isn’t, however: life in Birmingham is happy and simple for the song’s narrator. He’s got a wife, a family, a house with a pepper tree in the yard, and a factory job; just good old salt of the earth Americana.

8. Johnny Cash – “Jackson”

Besting even the Pogues’ lump-of-coal-in-the-stocking “Fairytale of New York” for the funniest, most vitriolic male-female duet is the classic Johnny Cash tune, “Jackson,” apparently written by popular songwriter Jerry Lieber after a viewing of Edward Albee’s domestic strife tale “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” In the song, the couple “married in a fever,” but now that the flame has dwindled are trying their luck (and taking out their anger for one another) in the capital city of Mississippi, also its most populous. The husband tells the wife he’s going to mess around, she counters with “go comb your hair…see if I care,” he says “all them women gonna make me teach ‘em what they don’t know how,” she responds that he’ll surely end up embarrassing himself and come crying home. Brilliant.

9. Sex Mob – “New Orleans”

Sex Mob, one of the very best groups in the New York downtown jazz scene, lends their unique touch to this Hoagy Carmichael tune, a cut off their debut album Din of Inequity. New Orleans, the largest city in Louisiana, inspires the raw grooves, which do a good job of summoning the lyrics of the tune (among them is the wonderful line “it will remind you of old fashioned lace/a glass of wine will greet your smiling face). On a related note, Werner Herzog’s new film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is awesome and totally worth seeing.

10. Okkervil River – “Kansas City”

Kansas City, which is actually the largest city in Missouri and lies across the border from the state of Kansas, is the setting for this tune that appeared on Okkervil River’s debut full-length. The song might be the bluesiest Okkervil River’s ever been, with their typically dark, romantic, emotional lyrics like this one: “With a day full of promises dead on her lips, Mark 15:34 tucked next to her hip, she wants to move to Kansas City”.

11. Tom Waits – “Johnsburg, Illinois”

This tune, which Waits named for a small Illinois town near the border of Wisconsin (population of only 5,391 at the 2000 census) and wrote for his wife and songwriting partner Kathleen Brennan, is a love song, pure and simple. In it a boy pines for a girl, one whose picture can be found in his wallet and whose name is scrawled on his arm. Not much else to it.

12. Bon Iver – “Brackett, WI”

A Google search of “Brackett Wisconsin” yields little information about the town, which is an unincorporated community in Wisconsin’s Eau Claire County, so we’re going to have to rely on the song Bon Iver wrote for this year’s Dark Was the Night compilation to shed a little light on the exploits of this small village in the western part of the state. My guess: Brackett is a cold, gray place where the change of the seasons has a tremendous effect on the emotional wellbeing of the inhabitants—take the lyric “…every autumn singes with the business of sadness,” for example.

13. The Golden Palominos – “Omaha”

Birthplace of such luminaries as Warren Buffett, Malcolm X, Gerald Ford and Marlon Brando, Omaha, Nebraska’s biggest city, is a place known for rain and comparatively low crime rates. What does this have to do with the tune by The Golden Palominos? It’s not entirely clear, but that may be because it’s difficult to tell what “Omaha” has to do with Omaha. The band, which at various times featured Feelies drummer Anton Fier, no wave genius Arto Lindsay, and MacArthur Fellow John Zorn (a personal hero), chants about friends over a synth-y groove. So I have no idea, but at least it’s fun.

14. Neil Young – “Albuquerque”

In Dave Marsh’s 1975 review of the album on which “Albuquerque” appears, Tonight’s the Night, he makes an interesting remark that certainly applies to the track in question: “The stargazer of ‘Helpless’ finds no solace here. The music has a feeling of offhand, first-take crudity matched recently only by Blood on the Tracks, almost as though Young wanted us to miss its ultimate majesty in order to emphasize its ragged edge of desolation.” Look at the lyrics of the song and it’s clear that Young views Albuquerque, New Mexico’s largest city, as an isolated solace from a tense existence; it’s “shelter from the storm,” if you will. Sings Young in that powerful voice of his, “I’ve been starving to be alone, and independent from the scene that I’ve known,” later delighting in the town’s anonymous simplicity: “I’ll find somewhere where they don’t care who I am/Oh, Albuquerque, Albuquerque.”

15. Tim Buckley – “Monterey”

My dad isn’t one for hyperbole, which makes his declaration that the best meal he ever had was at a restaurant in Monterey carry tremendous weight. Apparently that was the highest point in a trip full of them (one taken more than 20 years ago); he still raves about the northern California city and its food. That’s not Tim Buckley’s Monterey, however. Buckley’s Monterey is a city where a “dead airport lay…under a loop of stars in the vulgar cold” and he “run[s] with the damned…they have taught me to laugh.” Well, geez, Tim.

16. X – “Los Angeles”

We’ve reached the end of our long journey, and in hindsight it’s clear: a pleasurable connection to a city rarely inspires a songwriter. It’s conflict, it’s pain, it’s a bitter taste on the tongue that drives one to express themselves through an artistic medium. This makes X’s classic tribute to the City of Angels, “Los Angeles”, the title track on their 1980 debut, a perfect send off. In the song, a girl decides to leave Los Angeles after being dismayed by the people living there—the “Mexican[s] that gave her lotta shit” and the “idle rich.” It’s the last bit of the lyrics that throws everything off, however, as it suggests that the city itself is hardly an enemy: “She found it hard to say goodbye to her own best friend/She bought a clock on Hollywood Boulevard the day she left/It felt sad/She had to get out.”

The raw and messy quality of this live footage of the song, shot in Sweden in 1977, is tailor made for the band’s mystique. The hand-held camera, the close-ups, and the overall fuzzy tone of the performance is live music at its most surreal. Hell, even with a big Hollywood budget, David Lynch couldn’t have done it any better. No fancy camera work or theatrics – just loud music, disillusioned youth, and a raucous audience. Of course, the two most recognizable faces of the band, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, steal the show. Rotten does his best impersonation of a man that’s just been released from a straight jacket, but Sid Vicious is much more laid back and extremely cool in his demeanor. Actually, if you watch closely, he even takes a break from his trademark sneer. Yes…. in 1939, Garbo laughed; in 1955, Brando sang; and in 1977, Vicious smiled. He oozes stage presence, and although he couldn’t really play bass, he had that rare larger than life aura, almost unheard of amongst the anti pretty boy rock star personalities of punk.

I remember seeing a press conference of the newly reformed Sex Pistols back in the mid- nineties. The much older and wealthier band members seemed to be trying too hard to live up to the hype of their youth and came across as being a little too phony. If you want the Sex Pistols at their best, check out this YouTube clip from their out-of-tune prime. There was nothing phony about four kids in 1977 that really believed that there was no future, and although it may sound a little cliché to tell you to play it loud…well, with this quality, you pretty much have to.