Still Crazy After All These Years?

Okay, part of the fun of my day is setting vendor meets for technicians... it's usually a five minute call that takes you off the firing line for a second, AND you hear some Inn-Ter-Rest-Ing things on Muzak while waiting.

Just a minute ago I heard "We Are the World." ['Tis the season, so they say...] Now the only reason I mention this is because it used to be a family tradition [Galupi/Zottola/Leone/Horn, bunch of misplaced Yankees from Pittsburgh in Texas] to make these videos at holiday time... Like one year, we decided to do a Letterman show and I mean complete with guests and "Brush with Greatness" and my friend Marty as Paul Schaeffer...I got to be Dave and write a monologue and all that... I remember at the time that John Gotti had just had someone whacked outside Spark's Steak House and that was one of the jokes... My aunt Donna as Gloria Vanderbilt and my dad and Uncle Rich as "G and Z" who made "music for toads." One year we did Dallas, my dad as J.R. It's a great way to keep yourself entertained when there's NOTHING on TV and the stores are all closed...

Anyway, of course one year we had to do "We Are the World..." now the kids are all in high school by this time and I think my cousin Sherri had some friends over and the great thing is that my aunt Donna [Z] has a personality that just brings EVERYONE into the fun with us... and they all talk about it later and the parties keep getting bigger and bigger, which is great at, oh, graduation and weddings... So we're doing "We Are the World" and the big debate is who gets to be BRUUUUCE and who gets to be Ray Charles and all that... funny, I don't remember anyone asking to be Michael Jackson, though...

Anyway, I just mention that in passing... it's great to have fun folks like the Zotts and Leones and Hornes, great people who will grow old but never "grow up."

Roger Wilco?

Been kind of blue with the holidays, but I am in a major Wilco groove this week, contemplating the genius of Jeff Tweedy... Somehow I can connect with those songs... not just great titles [Should've Been In Love, I'm the Man Who Loves You, Nothingsevergonnastandinmyway [Again], How to Fight Lonliness] but lines like "There's rows and rows of houses/with the windows painted blue/ with the light from the TV..." from Sunken Treasure [the same song with my mantra: "I was named by rock and roll / I was tamed by rock and roll / I was maimed by rock and roll"] ... plus he writes great pop songs, though I was contemplating on the drive in today JUST how important Jay Bennett was to the last three records and how different they will sound without his input. Whose idea is all the mellotron and that plaintive harmonica on She's A Jar? If nothing else, the next one may sound different because Bennett engineered a lot of Yankee Hotel and Summerteeth.

Anyway, I have just found them to be so perfect for my mood. Even the lines that are nonsense: "Take off your band aid ' cause I don't believe in touchdowns" but then you temper that was "You were so right when you said that I'd been drinking / What was I thinking when I said good night?" And of course there's even a line for LB: "It's become so obvious / you are so oblivious to yourself." Then, of course there's this one:

"You’ve been dealing with all these feelings
They’ve got you believing that they got no meaning
But they do

Life’s been stinking, you’re heart’s been sinking
And you’re too busy thinking
You stop, you blink and you’re blue

Should’ve been in love

Mind’s been racing, your heart’s been chasing,
And you might as well face it,
Time’s wasted it’s true

You’re life’s been stinking, your heart’s been shrinking
And you’re too busy thinking
You stop, you blink and you’re blue"

Great Christmas

No, not this one... I just don't feel it this year. Something's missing. I have the folks ad the kids and all that, but it just feels blah this year...

However, I can remember one Christmas in Arlington, I want to say 78 or 79, that I got the Steve Martin Wild & Crazy Guy album... well of course you put on, and at 6 o'clock in the morning Steve busts out a few shits and fucks and I am sure my parents are horrified to hear this and realize they've just given it to their 12 year old son... remember, this is before all those silly warning stickers and all that... but they never panicked, they just suggested I listen to it in my room, away from my 'little sister.' Still it was a far cry from the Bill Cosby I had been listening to before that... never had any Richard Pryor, though and only a couple of George Carlin to this day... Mark, of course, has Cheech and Chong's Big Bamboo that came with the 12"x12" rolling paper... of course we heard that stuff and Gallagher [censored of course] on the Dr Demento and the hour long comedy show that used to run after that when Demento got switched from the Zoo to the Eagle... I'll never forget seeing Gallagher the first time out at Richard and Donna's in Andrews, which is out between nowhere and Midland-Odessa; I don't remember which one it was, but I liked that humor right away. Might have been the first time I saw HBO, too...

Other great Christmas presents: gee, records were always a safe bet... one year I got the Red and Blue sets of the Beatles [1962-1966 and 1967-1970] since I was always borrowing the neighbor's. I was disappointed that mine weren't on red and blue vinyl like his were... gee, really nothing that makes an impression... getting a bike was always cool, think I got two in my time, one was a replacement for one that got stolen by some 'friends' of mine...

But now it's about the kids, and I still like to see them opening gifts, though I know they'll become jaded eventually, same way we all do...

Its A Wonderful Life: a quick hit

Okay, I know it’s cheesy to call a holiday column that, but hear me out, especially with all we went through this year.

First of all, I’d still like to thank everyone for love and support through a Trying Season this summer. I hope I was able to give back as much as I got. So I am sitting watching most of It’s A Wonderful Life tonight, and I thought of all of us milling around out there at Restland and how surprised Becky and Roger and Andee were at the outpouring of love and respect from the people who were there and people who were unable to be there. I wasn’t. Those two lived by the ‘do unto others’ and ‘treat people as you expect to be treated.’ I think it reinforced the message of Frank Capra’s classic movie: “We each touch so many lives and we never know it.”

I worry sometimes that we, as in my circle of friends, have fallen immediately back into old habits and gotten caught in old ruts, even after going through this thing and saying “we need to get together more often.” And I am as guilty as anybody, because the phone and the email go both ways. It is easy to go back to our old ways. I don’t know how many times I have said in the last two weeks ‘I need to call so and so.’ Roger and Andee’s email is off and I know they’ve been trying to get moved and I wonder how they are coping with the holidays. I know people get busy with work parties and family and all that stuff, too. Just remember to be careful out there. Remeber, Jim Dunnigan used to not drink on New Year's Eve; called it "Amatuer Night."

A few nights later, sitting here listening to the new Unearthed box by Johnny Cash. I have started with My Mother’s HymnBook to try and get myself some ‘Pure Religion’ [That’s a Rev. Gary Davis/Hot Tuna reference]. Having some hummus [you can get hummus at Albertson’s? Cool, but not as good a Gyro House… need some falafel for Xmas!] and typing here. Never did find pita bread, but tastes good on a tortilla! Just lonesome John and his guitar here, how powerful, even for a 60-70 year old man.

Been having a discussion with LB [for Lizard Breath] about finding your soul mate. I find it hard to believe that one could have [or need] a list with 14 points on it! Of course, she’s been through the wringer a couple times, so she’s entitled. But I think that takes the magic out of the whole thing. And even if she finds someone who meets all those criteria, there are no guarantees. Me? *sigh* I just want to feel the electric kiss that sends a tingle down my spine and makes my big toe shoot up in my boot. It’s been a long time. I want to feel the sickness of being separated from someone that squashes your heart down like a six ton steamroller… the swell of being near or having them smile at you… the electric of a touch between people that says all that needs to be said… laying next to someone who makes you feel complete and listening to them breathe in the night... SICK ISN’T IT? That's what I get for running across Serendipity on TV last night... How jealous I am of all of you who have found that person that makes magic possible in your life!

I think I have been close a couple of times, though I am refusing to name names. I look back and I know who it was NOT very easily with a little distance. Who knows why? Some I was painfully attracted to, but once I got close, where I wanted to be, it just didn't work out.

Jesus! Johnny and Joe Strummer! Fucking FANTASTIC! Doing Bob Marley's Redemption Song... wow. Two great talents. Two great singers lost in less than a year.

Ah, love lost, such a cost, give me things that don't get lost, like a coin that won't get tossed... Why sometimes CAN'T we see what we had until it's gone? One mistake in judgement and a good thing rolls right away... so caught up in appearances and what other people might think... burned and afraid, pretending aloofness...

Hmm, starnge thoughts this night, maybe making a close of the circle of another year gone and wondering what was accomplished. That's all things like New Years and birthdays are for really. Measue your time and see if you've accomplished what you said you would at this time last year. This year I've had two funerals in one, a wedding, lots of questions answered [too late, but good to know things], pondered the meaning of life, been reminded to take care of myself and that I matter, no matter what I might think, and not had that electric kiss.

Robbie Robertson once wrote [and Rick Danko sang] "There's no love as true as the love/ that dies untold." Is that crazy? But is it true? What about knowing that 'falling in love ' with someone will just break your heart? Do we do things like this just to keep up hopes and ideals? I can think of three people, one recently and two from a few years ago that I just wound myself up for and knew nothing would or could come of it... none the less, I kept looking for that look that would gie me a hope or a word... why do we do this to ourselves?

Wow, finished the second disc all ready... how powerful... great take of Wichita Lineman, too...

Part 1: Eight Tracks, 45s and AM Radio

Some people are just born to music, I suppose.

I don’t know where this love of music comes from, anymore than I know where my greatness at trivial banal facts comes from. I really would rather go blind than deaf, though I know I will still hear music in my head when I am deaf. Unfortunately it’s always someone else’s music and not my own, which is why I am a great critic and not a great songwriter.

I thought at one time my Dad was the source for this music madness, but it turns out my mother liked all the cool things that were brought into the house. She has a small but very select collection of scratchy 45s of early 60’s soul that was popular where she [and my dad] grew up, the Steel Belt and former pollution capital of the USA, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Lots of the early Motown [Mary Wells, the Four Tops especially] with a touch of James Brown and some doo-wop groups on small labels.

I know my grandfather was a guitar player. During the war, [“The big one, WWII” as Archie Bunker used to say] he and some guys from his company would go around to other units in the area and play country music. [Remember, this was when there was “both kinds, country and Western.”] They were loosely known as the Ozark Mountaineers, Ozark being the name of their company. I just asked for the clarification, as I thought he played in a band in the States, but he said, “No, other than some guys that used to come around once in a while.” [I called him a “Hootenany-ing Hippie” for this]. He used to play for me, up to about 1995 or so before his hands shook so much. Last time my cousin’s fiancée was up, he learned a couple of the songs and he said it “nearly brought the old man to tears, not being able to play anymore.” I know he always liked music and was always humming or whistling something. Unfortunately, he was also a big Hee Haw fan, and there was no better way to clear a room of a bunch of little kids in 1974 than to turn on Hee Haw. Now I kind of wish I had paid more attention to the Hee Haw, but oh well.

[If I’d get ‘home’ more than once every couple of years, I might know more about my family history. Apparently it used to be a Saturday night thing to go up to Grandma and Grandpap’s (I assume this is up the hill to the Vodderbrogen house) and have square dances and card games. Apparently Pap was a fiddler and could call dances.]

One of my first memories, I couldn’t be more than three or four, is of my mother ironing and listening to the Temptaions Get Ready album. I remember the album cover more than the song, though I definitely hear the Temp’s trademark vocals. The album cover is a bright blue with the Temps in a dressing room [“Getting ready” for the show, ya dig?].

There is a family story of Grandma Galupi [or Mrs. Webb at the time] sitting with a very sick young Charles who refused to move his ear from a record player playing Marvin Gaye’s great I Heard It Through the Grapevine [Mom’s scratchy 45] playing over and over again.

My Mom and Dad, from what I have been able to gather, were at least into rock and roll, which is more than I can say for a few of my friends. I remember being home ‘sick’ about 1974 [well, maybe I was and maybe I discovered the ‘I-go-to-school-sick-so-I-need-a-stomach-ache-day’] and sitting playing DJ with my folks 8-tracks: Crosby Stills Nash & Young 4 Way Street, Led Zeppelin II, Elton John Madman Across the Water, Traffic John Barleycorn Must Die… I know there were a couple 60s compilations [16 Great Hits from Motown and shit like that], Aretha Franklin 30 Greatest Hits, the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival Pendulum [after their big hits period, but has Have You Ever Seen the Rain and Hey Tonight and it is still a favorite of mine… call it nostalgia for sitting in the back seat on a road trip to see grandma…], Alice Cooper Killer [which scared the shit out of me]… a collection soon to be augmented by classics [courtesy of the Columbia House Record Club] like Steve Miller Fly Like an Eagle, Aerosmith Toys in the Attic, Earth Wind and Fire Gratitude and Spirit, the Ohio Players GREAT Honey [which recently re-acquired on vinyl and still kicks your ass as a great soul record! Imagine me sitting on the porch with the windows open on a mild fall night and these 70s soul licks and layered vocal of L-O-V-E coming out of my bacelor pad windows, not too loud because it was late, you understand...] My Mom always liked a little soul; we had a band called Brass Construction on 8 track which I do not really remember, but we also had the Brothers Johnson’s first Lookin’ Out for #1, before they did Strawberry Letter #23… glad to see y’all caught up to my mom a couple years later! Of course I found out later my Mom also brought the Stones Black and Blue and the Eagles Hotel California into the house! Sigh I remember a new girl at school just before we moved to Texas and hearing New Kid in Town and thinking about her… I was an advanced romantic for my age. Of course, I also remember driving all over Charleston West Virginia and hearing those great Linda Rondstat singles like When Will I Be Loved, early Hall and Oates; singing ‘It’s a BITCH girl’ on Rich Girl and knowing I was getting away with SWEARING! Roller skating to great 70s singles… going to Pennsylvania and hanging out with my cousins who were playing the Sweet and stuff like that. Talk about bubblegum pop shit, there was one song I remember from one summer with Grandma Galupi, who kept a radio on a lot of the time, maybe just for us kids, a song called Playground in My Mind that was just awful and would become one of the famous Sound Warehouse [on Collins, 1986-87] ‘closing-time-is-coming-drive-them-out-with moldy-oldies’ songs, things along the lines of Paperlace The Night Chicago Died, Blue Suede Hooked on a Feeling and Mac Davis Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me. Though I was almost truly offended when David Eckstrom cued up Louden Wainright’s Dead Skunk for Moldy Oldie because I still like the song! Of course we also had LOST CLASSICS like The Jimmy Castor Bunch Troglodyte, the Rockin’ Rebels Wild Weekend and Donovan Atlantis.

I know I heard things when I was very young that still bring up images of Grandma Galupi’s place in Ambridge: Deep Purple Smoke on the Water, Hocus Pocus by Focus, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey by Paulie and Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road by some band called the Beatles… I know they had one of the radio contests at the time for a Pittsburgh station called 13Q [call letters unknown, sorry!] that you had to answer the phone with some phrase like “I only listen to the new 13Q” or something and you’d win a jackpot of 50 bucks or something and I would answer the phone with that as a four or five year old kid. Like they were going to call into the next county to Ambridge, but what did I know? Shows you where my priorities were.

I guess I always had an ear for music and certain songs recall certain periods still. David Bowie’s Fame recalls driving through Canton Ohio past the Football Hall of Fame in a canary yellow Capri. Band on the Run recalls driving to the pool way back in the hills at Kanawha County State Park… driving through the hills and back roads in West Virginia, where there is NO SHOULDER, just cliff!

We ended up in Charleston, West Virginia because my Dad worked for a man named Sam McBride who ran a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and bought the franchise right to Charleston and took my Dad as the manager. That’s right: there was NO McDonald’s in Charleston West Virginia until 1974-1975! I remember the first store in downtown [truly downtown with a cheesy old style parking lot, where the guys got your keys and moved cars to get your car out; none of this park it yourself and put the money in the slot crap behind the restaurant, and rows and shops downtown. The McDonald’s was a Capitol and Quarrier [damn if I know which was which, the only two streets I remember are Virginia Street, which had an exit off I64 and a bridge that crossed the Elk River a couple blocks up from where it ran into the Kanawha, and Patrick Street, which had its own bridge across the Kanawah at the bottom of which was a building that was or had a mural for WXIT radio and a Borden’s hamburgers and a McDonald’s next to the Kmart [third of four in the area I believe, the last when we were still there being out by the St Albans Mall.] I was just looking at a map and restaurant guide for the city and if you ever find yourself STUCK in Charleston, go to Grazziano’s Pizza at 243 Capitol, it’s still the best pizza I can really remember, though I had an affinity for Punky’s Pizza in Indiana PA. Always have loved a great, greasy slice of pizza!

Anyway, I made my first purchases of music and received my first albums while stationed at the ‘way station’ that is Charleston. I mean ‘way station’ meaning it’s a place people spend a couple of years on their way up the chain. A lot of kids I went to school with had Dads who worked at Union Carbide or Dupont plants in the area and would be gone in two or three years. Lots of chemical and coal related work in the area I guess. Anyway, my first 45 paid for by me was Rick Dees Disco Duck, followed by the Spinners great Rubberband Man and Gordon Lightfoot Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald, ALL of which I still have, thank you. I received my first album, Bad Company’s Bad Co. when one of the radio stations had a promo gig at the Cap and Quarrier Mickey D’s. My second was a copy of the Doobie Brothers What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits [featuring Black Water] from a Creeker babysitter girl we had during the summer named Becky.

Now I will advise you right now that in West Virginia, there are TWO breeds of rednecks from the hollows: Hillers and Creekers, Hillers live on the hills and Creekers live down on the creeks [DUH!] and they don’t like each other. Well when I was smaller, my Mom had these two Creeker girls who would baby-sit us in the summer while Mom worked. I remember going out to their house a couple times and you had to cross a shot one lane wooden plank bridge across the creek to get to their house! Weird, eh? Anyway, one summer it was Becky, the next it was her sister Vicky, nice girls just watching rugrats for some summer cash. Probably spent it on pot and concert tickets… When I was six or seven, the local babysitter of reference Lisa Crow would come by and watch for an hour or two; she taught me to run my sock feet across the carpet to build up a static charge and walk up behind someone and ZAP them!

from my life story, a work in progress...

Part 2 : FM Radio and LPs

My golden age of rock and roll began in 1978 when I received a new record player [with eight-track player] for my 11th birthday. That year I also received ELO’s great A New World Record and I could listen to mom and dad’s eight tracks in my room. I gave The Best of BTO and Frampton Comes Alive a lot of plays. That was also the year I discovered Sly and the Family Stone’s Greatest Hits in their LPs.

This is when I discovered FM radio. In 1977 we moved from Charleston West Virginia to Arlington Texas. In West Virginia, as far as I know, we only listened to AM radio, lots of top 40 AM radio at that. I still have good memories of winding around the West Virginia hills lsitening to Grand Funk’s We’re An American Band, all those early Wings hits like Band on the Run, Silly Love Songs, Let ‘Em In and Listen What the Man Said, and Jefferson Starship’s Miracles. Of course the problem winding around those hills was losing the signal. On the other hand, on clear nights you could get the great WLS out of Chicago, which became an after dark favorite winding from Charleston through Ohio into Pennsylvania to visit the family. “Boogie Check, Boogie Check, ooh ahh.”

Anyway, we arrived in Texas and suddenly we were on the FM dial, mostly the top 40 leaning Z97, [which became Eagle 97 and finaly just the Eagle] with ocasional trips next door to the late great KZEW [“The Zoo”]. I remember hearing longer, stranger songs on the Zoo, things like Zebra’s Who’s Behind the Door and hearing Foghat and Led Zeppelin. When we moved across town in late 78, there was Cheap Trick At Budokahn all over the radio, with the first few Journey hits with Steve Perry, the Blues Brothers and the Knack’s My Sharona.

One of my sixth grade teachers, Mary Miles, told us about the Dr. Demento show, which was then airing at like 900 on Sunday nights on the Zoo and how they payed this obnoxious song every week called Fish Heads. Well of course, me and my pal Mark “Margarita Ledbottom” Lederman had to hear this and we became fans. Mark also turned me on to Kiss. I’ll never forget it, I borrowed his Kiss Alive! and Alive II to tape them, my first crude tapes placing a cassette player between the two speakers of my stereo. I had been curious because record 2 of Alive II; the first two songs on either side couldn’t be played because the record was broken, big jag out of one corner. Well, I was getting on the bus and I picked up the albums and I watched this slow motion horror as one of the records slipped out of the sleeve and a big corner got torn off. It was record 1 of Alive II, so now he had a matched set of broken records. I felt really bad because it took two of the best songs, Calling Dr Love and Christine Sixteen out of play.

Mark and I had gone to school across town the year before but his parents moved over a few blocks from us and we became good friends. Mark had been born in New York and he was WAY cooler than me. He had Led Zeppelin and we discovered Queen. We also had our first drinks [scotch at his bar mitzvah... I remeber us being at the bar and someone told him "you're a man now, have a man's drink." I only tasted it and the smokey flavor and whiskey burn... blech!] and found his dad’s Playboys and Hustlers and I smoked my first joint with Mark.

After we moved out to Burleson I gradually lost touch with Mark. We saw Queen and Billy Squier in 1982, my first concert without my parents. We would also see Aerosmith, once when they did their first reunion tour with my sister from the lower balcony, once two days after Mark twisted his ankle running around his folks pool. We parked over by Union Station and I made his hobble about a mile down the railroad tracks on crutches [where he lost one of those rubber tips on the crutches], which was kind of funny, and THEN we had to get him up into the nosebleed seats[!] and once from the front row on the Permanent Vacation tour. I guess I was forgiven for the crutches when I got those front row seats [the secret was, I learned, to get the operator on line a couple of minutes before the tickets went on sale and keep them on line; you can't do that now, it's all computerized!], but that was also the next to last time I saw Mark. The LAST time I saw him, I ran into him at a friend’s college graduation at TCU and I tried hooking up with him a couple times after, but never did.

I place this part up here because I mentioned Mark in an earlier piece and never got back to the subject. Like I said, he was around for much of the 'maturing' process we went through as teenagers... the pain of discovering girls and being shot down and all that... Mark at least had confidence. He was originally from New York, and he was proud of it, though he did not have the accent. I spent a few months of my 4th grade and my 5th grade year [though he was in the next class, we shared a common area] in central Arlington before we moved over by the lake... about a month into the school year, Mark moved about a quarter mile from me and we were buddies until I moved out to Burleson in the middle of my 8th grade year. For you girls, that's when boys FINALLY notice girls. Though I had been noticing girls for a long time before. There is a legend of me in the 1st grade [I am not making this up] of me lifting up my my 'girlfirend' Jessica [last name not given to protect the young, but I know what it is] mask at Halloween and kissing her in front of the class...find someone who was in the Oakbrook Elementary class with me and they may confirm... unfortunately Jessica and I were separated when she was[I am not making this up] held back in the 1st grade. See, I have ALWAYS been a lover! Unfortunately I peaked in the 1st grade... 7th grade was a torture of Stephanie Sheehan, 8th grade was Robin Hatfield and Franny D'Augustino. [8th grade was also when girls began really developing... ah the sweet ememories of 14 and staring at girls boobs in class!] Skating at Big Wheel in Arlington [before the fire and they went totally roller disco] to the Eagles, Steve Miller and Ted Nugent! But I digress...

Anyway, we went through talking about girls and rock and roll and reading Playboy. My parents were pretty liberal, but Mark's let him put up the Bo Derek /wet t shirt poster with the nipples prominently showing and the 'Start of the Nude Bicycle Race' poster from Queen's Jazz album. Mark joined Columbia House and he picked up a handful of records that would havge a big influence: Led Zeppelin IV, the Scorpions Blackout, Judas Priest British Steel, AC/DC Back in Black and For Those About to Rock... aside from the Queen, some of the albums that set me up for the 80s!

Mark had confidence that I certainly never had. I know he nailed someone I would truly have loved to have nailed one night when we were going to a party. I also remeber him drooling over one of my sister's friends one weekend he was out in Burleyville.

I say all this only because the first page of my book if/when it is published will be: Dedicated to Mark Harry Lederman who taught me all about sex, drugs and rock and roll... yep it's all HIS fault. I raise my whiskey glass to you wherever you are Mark! Salud!

It's official: I AM AN OLD FART

In an UNOFFICIAL meeting of the Rock and Roll Discussion Group [myslef, J Michal Leone, 'Uncle Rich' Zottola and guest panelists Lonnie King, Bill Horn and Bob Costanza [i think] in Bill Horn's garage over Hienekins Friday evening, we have deiceded that rock and roll is DEAD. The consensis we reached was that R&R died when the Sex Pistols came out... PUNK KILLED the rock and roll. Specifically, they took all of the ROLL out of rock and roll. So I guess we are stuick with rock, as long as we no longer call it rock and roll.

Actually, we decided there is an occasional rock and roll artitst [i say the Black Crowes, Michael nominated Lenny Kravitz]... Of course, Michael does ot believe that London Calling is one of the top 10 albums of all time, so we will have to discount his opinions from now on.

I was stuck in a room of 50-somethings trying to defend the 80s and losing... what could I use, Duran Duran? Of course. none of us understood much of anything today, so that makes me an OFFICIAL Old Fart, just like them. The question eventaully became "Is it a youth, it was better then thing because that's when it made its impact on me" thing. I think we tabled that one for now. Just like the "What was the first rock and roll record?"

Michael will be back in town and wants to meet the local contingent of the Rock and Roll round table. I will try to notify you with as much lead time as I can so we can hook up for dinner and friendly debate... hopefully on Michael's Visa card....

Turkey Day

So it’s Thanksgiving Day, the turkey has been devoured, the football is over and I am looking for something to do because one more night of staring at my own four walls is going to drive me nuts. So I am driving through town, just up and down some side street to see what’s there and I come across a little non-descript shack with an old gold Caddy and busted neon sign that reads J--rn-list L-unge. Hmmm, I am up for someplace named ‘The Journalist Lounge,’ I thought.

I walked into a dank, dark bar, couple pool tables, couple old four chair dining room tables with wooden chairs that had seen better days before ending up in here and an old black squat jukebox that still plays 45s over on one wall. It’s just me and the bartender in there, a tall blonde guy with glasses behind the bar watching some sitcom on a TV in the corner. I took off my jacket and sat down at the corner stool next to the TV.

“What’s it going to be tonight?’ he asked.

“Bourbon and Coke,” I told him. He reached for a glass and started pouring. “Slow night?”

“Always is,” he said. “’Specting some traveling folks will be through tonight though.”

He handed me my drink and leaned against the cooler again and resumed watching his show, leaving me to stare at the ice in my drink. Out of boredom I wandered over to the jukebox. Man it was a beauty, circa 1979 like they used to have at the little grill down by the lake when we lived in Arlington. I used to ride my bike down there in the summer and get a soda and listen to Rick James’ Superfreak, Blondie doing One Way or Another or Nick Gilder’s Hot Child in the City. Or maybe it was James’ Mary Jane… Anyway, so I am checking the titles, not bad, little Luchenbach, Texas, little That’ll Be the Day, the Buddy Holly version, Chuck Berry, Creedence, London Calling!

“Get away from that fucking jukebox!” someone yelled at me, making me jump and almost spill my drink. “That’s a travesty of a jukebox! Not one fucking Sex Pistols song on it!”

“And there ain’t gonna be, neither!” shouted the bartender. “We put one on for you and you broke four tables spinnin’ ‘round drunk and bouncin’ off the walls, you fuckin’ walrus!”

“Aw what do you know about rock and roll?” the stranger shouted back. “The most progressive thing in your record collection is Frank Zappa.”

I turned to that taunt to see a wide bodied man in a black T shirt, black leather jacket, jeans and black boots glaring at the bartender. His shining shaved dome reminded me of Brando in Apocalypse Now. The bartender clicked his tongue and shook his head, not daring to meet the stranger’s glare.

“Whatta you want tonight Lester? I ain’t talking music with you no more you evil motherfucker.”

Lester slammed his hand on the bar at that.

“That’s right you fucking yokel, you know I’m right, that’s why you won’t argue with me! Gimme bourbon, straight up!”

“Bangs, you’re still a fucking pig, despite the haircut,” the bartender growled and he poured. “And you don’t know SHIT about music and you never did.”

“I knew how to make a living writing about it,” he said.

“You knew how to write enough to get paid,” the bartender said. “I wouldn’t call it living.”

“Fuck you Clem,” Lester shot back. “I did the Morrison and ‘died’ and now look at me! I’m worth more now than I ever was alive! My name is everywhere! EVERYONE’S comparing themselves to me, a fucking loser form El Cajon California who just typed for something to do while he was speeding away! I’m a fucking genius now that I’m dead!”

“You sure are a LOUD son of a bitch for someone who’s dead,” Clem growled back.

“SHEE-IT Clem, you should see it! They’re out there knocking themselves out trying to figure this shit out. ‘What would Lester say if he was alive today? What would he think about today’s music? What would he think about the state of rock journalism?’ I’ll tell you what I think of the state of rock journalism. Those fuckers like Marcus and Marsh and that hack Kurt Loder can eat my fucking smelly BVDs. Jann Wenner is a starstruck faggy asshole who wouldn’t know a musician if they bit him on the ass. He’s an Art Garfunkel loving, Mick Jagger’s dick sucking wanna be. He wanted to be the star. Fuck him! Fuck his slick, star fucking loving fashion plate magazine! Man, back in the day…”

Suddenly, mid-rant, Lester turned and started glaring at me.

“Who the fuck are you and why are you here?”

“Man, I just stopped in for a drink,” I said, sitting back down at the bar.

“You can’t just stop in here for a drink,” Lester howled. “You’ve gotta be a licensed journalist! You just letting anybody wander in here, Clem?”

“I got a BLOG I write on.”

“Oh fuck,” Lester rolled his eyes. He downed the shot and motioned for a refill. “A BLOG? Well excuse the fuck out of me! You fuckers, you all think you’re Lester bangs, don’t cha? You ain’t him pal. There’s only one and he’s dead.”

I stared at Lester for a second. “Didn’t you just say you were him?”

Lester laughed.

“Yeah, you got me. Well, I used to be him.” He sipped a bit of the whiskey. “Yeah, I used to be. Had someone sell all my shit and send it to me in Mexico where I can write in peace. Great move dying. Suddenly, everyone re-thinks their stand on you, man. They forgive you for whatever fucked up shit you did to them. Talk nice about you. I miss some of those dudes. Loved that little shit Cameron Crowe. Thought about calling his ass after Almost Famous, ha ha. ‘This is the voice from the grave you little fucker, send me some money! Quit writing dipshit movies and tell us what it’s like to bang Nancy Wilson all night!’”

He stopped and sipped on the whiskey again.

“Ha ha,” he chuckled. “That would have been hilarious. See how they got Phillip Seymour Hoffman to soften me up for the movie? I’m an angel now, a ‘prophet for the fall of rock and roll and rock journalism.’ Ha ha. Man, I was just rambling. I just did what I did, I just let it fly.”

He took a crumpled pack of smokes out of a pocket of his jacket and fished one out.

“I wanted to be a musician,” he sighed, taking a drag. “Never learned to play though. Never… shit I don’t know. I tell that drunken buffoon Morrison I wrote better lyrics than the fucking Crystal Ship or anything on that third Doors album, but he just calls me a hack and keeps going down the beach. I keep telling him to get a haircut, too, but he’s still a fucking hippie.”

“Jim Morrison?” I asked.

“Yeah, he split for a walking tour of Europe in’71 and never looked back, he says. Seems like a nice enough guy now that he gave up coke and shit. Met him in Mexico in ’85, now we’re neighbors in a little town in Guatemala. He’s a jogging freak, too. Always walking or running somewhere. The Doors guys are hip, send him some cash when a CD is re-issued or shit. Man you should have seen the fat check Marcus cut when they issued that second book of MY shit. I saw all those zeros and I thought I missed a decimal point somewhere!”

He stubbed out the cigarette and downed the whiskey.

“So you’ve got your little BLOG and you write about what you like and you do it for kicks and hope someone reads it. You do it to clear your head. It’s a great thing, no deadlines, no column inches to fill, just write what you want when you want. That’s it man, that’s the way to be. Paper will always be around, but the Internet is where it’s at man.”

Lester stood up and put the crumpled pack of smokes in his pocket again.

“Hey Clem, set him up on my tab,” Lester said. He offered a hand and I shook it. “Nice to chat with you, I gotta run. Catching a plane to Hunter Thompson’s for a weekend of football and drunken debauchery.”

“But Lester,” I asked, “What about the future of music journalism?”

“Fuck it man. Like the man once said: NO FUTURE. All you can do now is get a job writing ass kissing pieces for Rolling Stone or people or churning out shit books on Springsteeen like Marsh, or ghostwriting Levon Helm’s memoirs. No man, rock journalism is fucking dead as a doorknob. Dead as Michael Jackson’s career. Man I write reviews on Amazon.com for grins. There ain’t no money in it, but it’s as valid a medium as any of the rock and roll magazines today, since there’s no such thing as a bed review anymore. Still afraid to piss off advertisers.” He chuckled to himself again and put a friendly hand on my shoulder. “No, you keep doing it the way you are, plugging away for a dozen or so friends on your little web page. Because there is no real journalism anymore.”

And he stood up again and shook my hand again. “Gotta run. See you next time through, Clem! Get some real music for that jukebox!”

And with that, he was gone. I sat stunned for a few minutes. Clem sat another bourbon and coke down next to my half empty one.

“Intense, isn’t he?” he said wiping down the bar and putting the shot glasses in the sink. “I don’t know if he really is or not. He just shows up once in a while and has a few and we don’t see him for three or four months. Been doing it for years now. He’s awful fun to hang around with anyway.”

I sat there and drank my drinks in silence for a while, thinking about what the man had said and thinking ‘That’s what I get for looking for an adventure after the turkey has been devoured and the football is over.’

Let It Blurt

There’s a lot of talk on various blogs right now about rock criticism. Is it dead? Is ‘rock journalism’ dead? Is there any future for rock criticism? Are we all just pretending we’re Lester Bangs out here? Wasn’t it better ‘way back when?’

The reason I mention it [other than finally posting something new… okay here’s something new to read Lizardbreath!] is because I was just contemplating the same thing before my trip to Pennsylvania to see relations, because I was reading about the arguments of Bangs and Co. circa 1978. [Is 'rock journalism' in decline? What's the next avenue?] Yeah, well, that book is good mind wasting reading; hey I just finished East of Eden and I am halfway through Grapes of Wrath, so eat chain. The short argument is that the rise of garbage like People cut the meat out of real rock and roll journalism, making reviews shorter and articles more about ‘celebrity’ and talent [or relative lack there of]. I think this is important, because it’s something that is never really addressed and it’s something the 10 second TV blurb or the fawning VH1 Behind the Music: Brittany has only made worse. This crap is beginning to get on my nerve. I all ready blocked MTV in this house because I don’t CARE about ‘Cribs’ or ‘The Real World’ or ‘Road Rules’ or whatever. I wanted MUSIC on Music Television, but I have to get digital or satellite to get a real music channel like M2. And if VH1 isn’t running some ‘Worst Hair Decisions’ or ‘Top Bodies in Rock’ or ‘I Miss My Rubik’s Cube and Pac Man and Whatever Happened to My Cheryl Ladd Poster’ show, they’re hip-hopping me to damn death. Listen to me: I don’t care about ‘bling-bling,’ how many cases of Kristal champagne can fit in your party room fridge and I am tired of videos with people in various states of undress shaking big butts in my face. Show me four guys with instruments again, who step up to a mike for a chorus and make guitar player faces during short, noisy solos! Show me the speaker like “Bastards of Young” or the Ramones hitting the black and white TV trying to tune it in on “Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio.”

Oh, but I am forgetting that this is the S.A.S generation. What’s that? Short Attention Span! I blame the original MTV for this, too. Fast cut editing and off the wall angles; yeah they had to get our attention somehow, even if they were the only game in town, eh? But in the SAS Generation, the FIRST thing they learned was get it while you’re on top, cause if you slip for two weeks, people are on to the next thing, pronto, Billy. And the corporations learned it faster. “Man you are it! You’re hot, number six with a bullet, here’s the new video budget, take half a mil!, whoops, new record didn’t sell, blame Napster and the economy, you owe us for that last video, we’ll take it from your one hit album for the rest of your life, you may start seeing some nickels when you’re fifty, see you in the 3.99 bin at the used CD store, NEXT!”

Let’s take Brittany for an example. What the fuck is she? She’s a face and a body. Can she sing? Debatable, but we’ll say for the sake of argument she can sing. Does she have anything to say other than “I am not a role model” and “I wanted my record to address adult issues like sex.” Well hell, this is Madonna all over again! But like the Mo girl, she’s getting press, amazing amounts of press ‘cause she’s a tits and ass show and it brings in viewers. That’s right I said it! Was that ‘kiss’ anything more that Madonna rolling around showing her garters under the wedding dress at the MTV awards whatever year that was? Give it to the girl, she learned from [and apparently has the blessing of] the best: ‘Ain’t no such thing as bad press!’ My prediction, dated, right here, right now: Brittany will utter the F Word on her next record. And it will get a LOT of press and she will sigh and again utter ‘I am not a role model, I want to be seen as an adult. I am not a virgin you know.’ You read it here first.

What has me so cranky? Michael is in town. I love Michael, but he admits he is stuck in a time warp: 1964-1974. I want to do an hour on tape and post our discussion. Ask what was so great about then? What about the 80s? What about REM and Replacements? Do you let your 12 year old daughter listen to the shit that’s out there now?

Man, sitting here with whiskey and coke and remastered Television [reissued by, you guessed it, Rhino again!]; maybe I am channeling the spirit of Lester [big HAW HAW]! Why is Marquee Moon so GREAT and Adventure [2nd] so mediocre? So maybe I am in my own time warp I know I like a lot on Michael’s era…not the Monkees or the Turtles or Dave Clark Five, maybe a couple singles but not ALL encompassing! I don’t need ALL the Monkees, maybe not even a full greatest hits album. On the other hand, Michael is an anal complete archivist. He all ready owns all the Beatles, but he wants the two double CD sets 1962-1966 and 1967-1970! I keep asking why he needs those, can’t he burn them himself or burn BETTER compilations, but he just shrugs and says “I want them, that’s why.” Like owning the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks collection. He doesn’t understand why I am put off by this [IMHO] egregious purchase; part of it is “you all ready own half of this, why pay for it again? You’re playing right to the record company pricks Zappa warned you about! How many Doors Greatest Hits CDs have been released in the last 15 years?”… the other part is it make me grin to know I am grating a nerve.

Now I owe Michael a lot. He turns me onto many things I never would have heard otherwise. Like the other day we were watching football and listening to the first Journey [the Neal Schon-Greg Rollie-Anysley Dunbar, fresh from Santana Journey, not the ‘label says you should get a real singer, how about Steve Perry?’ Journey] and [Leslie] West, [Jack] Bruce and [Corky] Lainge and discussing Robin Trower [Bruce, Bill Lordan and Trower’s BLT, great under rated record!]. He played a Turtles record called Battle of the Bands, [remember battle of the bands? I remebered one night seeing Trying Season lose to a cover band someplace in Arlington… the cover band had a talk box and did ‘Do You Feel Like We Do’ and ‘Those Shoes’ while I am screaming “play something ORIGINAL!”] with the Turtles doing ten different musical styles that was really cool. Discussing the original Alice Cooper band [Alice Cooper was the name of the band and they quit in 1975 because, well, Alice became Alice.] and Alice replacing them with Lou Reed’s Rock and Roll Animal band for Welcome to My Nightmare. I am worried he is becoming that ‘baby boomer, we were the greatest generation’ person. Of course, he is a Rush Limbaugh fan, so I don’t know.

ADD: I think I have just figured it out... I am afraind Michael is going to be some sort of Elitist Completist, which is the ULTIMATE musical snobbery, and we all know I HAVE to be the biggest music snob on the BLOG. I mean I have been trying recently to determine whetjher I am a music collector [i.e. Am I collecting songs and not worried about formats, so what's wrong with burning down CDs I have and selling the 'corporate packaging'] or if I am a record collector [i.e. Am I collecting the music ALONG WITH the sleeve and photos and liner notes and stuff I find so interesting]. So far it's a pretty even split, the sitcking point being Aerosmith Toys in the Attic and Rocks. Do I want people to come in and SEE that little plastic box printed in a factory somewhere and go "Cool album" or do I just need to have it for myself and let people ask when they DON'T see it in my collection? Or do I burn a two on one CD and go buy some used vynil for "showing off?"

Anyway, I am working Thanksgiving and the day after. I’ll take the money, but I know getting off at 800 Thursday night and being in at 700 Friday morning is going to suck. Y’All enjoy your turkey America, I will be thinking of my next rant…

More Guilty Pleasures…

Well, I don’t consider this a guilty pleasure because I unabashedly love this band, but last night I got an urge to hear Queen II. I know some people go “Eww, that’s everything that was WRONG with rock and roll in the 70’s.” Some people had a problem with Freddie Mercury’s “flamboyance.” [Like Elton John was a withering flower] Well you can all kiss my big fat happy white ass.

On the first few records, notably Queen and Queen II, they were a fairly progressive band along the likes of King Crimson and Yes, but instead of being virtuoso instrumentalists and trying to throw every flat-7th-suspended 9th chord they knew into the mix, they concentrated more on songs. Of course they always had those layers of vocals and guitars, though the layers would build and build over the next few years, peaking with A Night at the Opera’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘The Prophet Song.’ [The vocals would remain important, but would never get into those numbers of layers again.] I learned a lot trying to sing along with those harmonies, and I suspect that one Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange did, too.It was also important that they had three guys in the band who could take a lead vocal, though Freddie took most of the vocal chores [Yes only had that annoying Jon Anderson]. They were also lucky in that all four members wrote [silent bassist John Deacon wrote the hits ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’ drummer Roger Taylor wrote a lot of up-tempo rockers and Brain May wrote some of the nicer, more introspective pieces.

Though the layers were less dense and the focus sharper, their third Sheer Heart Attack [the song with the same title would appear on 1977’s News of the World, penned by drummer Roger Taylor and featuring a punkish wall of guitars and white noise ‘solo’ ] introduced Freddie’s piano playing into the fore, especially on their hit ‘Killer Queen.’ But they also hit you over the head with the speed drive of ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ and the camp, roaring twenties flavored ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown.’ I have on tape a show from just after Freddie’s death where he talks about Queen’s independent stance on their music; “ A lot of bands will do one thing on their first record, and if that doesn’t work, will say ‘Well, let’s try this…’; No no no no! This is the wrong way to go about it.” Apparently Queen had their own over the top sound they wanted and just waited for the rest of the world to come around to it.

Of course, A Night at the Opera was their major breakthrough. Whoever would have thought that a six and a half minute song with an operatic break in the middle would become a world wide smash? Unfortunately, the follow up, A Day at the Races, is one that I just cannot stand, though I don’t know why… there’s only a couple songs that I like on it, ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘White Man’ and the classic ‘Tie Your Mother Down.’ They came back with the harder edged News of the World. Yeah, it’s got ‘We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions’ but it’s still a good record, powered by the previously mentioned ‘Sheer Heart Attack,’ Taylor’s other composition on the record, ‘Fight from the Inside,’ ‘Spread Your Wings’ and Freddie’s excellent ‘Get Down Make Love.’ I think that has a lot to do with them not working with Roy Thomas Baker [who would do the first few Cars albums, also] and recording in Munich with the producer known only as Mack. [Mack also did Billy Squier’s first couple hit records, before he was prancing around in pink on MTV and a couple of ELO records around this period, too.]

Jazz was the first full length Queen I heard. My friend Mark got it and put up the ‘Start of the Bicycle Race’ poster with all the girls [Mark was a catalyst for a lot of growing up at the time, which is another article unto itself]. Mark’s dad owned a jewelry store at the time on Cooper and Pioneer/303 in Arlington, when that was still a fairly happening part of town in the late 70’s early 80’s, and we would go out there with his mom sometimes when she’d take us to the movies and go to the record store that was a few doors down and just kill time looking through the racks and dreaming of the music we would buy… I remember plainly the guy was going out of business and we were dying to have Live Killers, but the guy wouldn’t budge on the 12.99. As a matter of fact, Mark and I saw Queen [with Billy Squier] in 1982 at Reunion [decent seats on the floor, about 1/3 of the way back on the left], what turned out to be their last US tour, and my second concert [first was ELO in 1981 at Tarrant County with my Dad, the kings of Ohio, the Michael Stanly Band opening]. Mark told me if someone handed me a joint and I saw a cop to flick it into the aisle… he was all ready so much more worldly wise being from New York City [Queens, as a matter of fact] and spending a couple of weeks in the summer back there with a half brother…. but more about me and Mark later.

We moved out to Burleson in January 1980, after ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ had been the surprise hit of the summer of 79 [I remember being in the Pizza Hut in front of the Edison’s at Park Springs and 303 playing a little table top pinball machine when I first heard it, and it knocked my socks off.] When The Game came out, I liked it, but I got sick of ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ pretty quick. The better track was the track that followed it on the album, ‘Dragon Attack.’ And Brian May’s ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ and Roger Taylor’s ‘Rock It [Prime Jive]’ and ‘Coming Soon.’ The Game also marked the first appearance of a synthesizer on a Queen record, something they would embrace heavily on albums to come. Then came the great Queen/Bowie record ‘Under Pressure.’ Then Queen fell off the radar in the US. Now I know Hot Space was a fairly mediocre record [knew it the first time I played it], too much Freddie, too much disco, but the follow up, The Works was a lot better. Now I know some people only heard ‘Radio Ga-Ga’ and went “blah blah” but the second side had a great song ‘Hammer to Fall,’ which I saw the video for ONCE on some second rate video show that used to run after Saturday Night Live back then, and ‘Machines.’ I found A Kind of Magic [remember ‘One Vision’] by sheer dumb luck, wandering into the old Sound Warehouse on Camp Bowie and seeing it on an endcap. [Remember endcaps and wall displays Nate and Ed? Well the SW on CB had a pyramid at the front of the store for new releases. When I was at Forever Young, we’d take down Phillip’s displays and make our own ‘guess the theme’ endcaps, like bands named after animals or bands with people named Jerry in them…] I think I bought that and This is Big Audio Dynamite the same day.

I had just been ‘released’ from Sound Warehouse when The Miracle came out [all songs credited to Queen, not individuals]. It has its moments, but it was pretty clearly dinosaur rock. Innuendo came out a couple of years later with the tough ending track ‘The Show Must Go On,’ and the playful ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad.’ Freddie was still in good voice [Brain said later, “he would come in and be good for an hour or two, then prop himself up at the mixing desk. It was just amazing some of the things he forced out of his body.”] but it was clear from the photograph inside he was not well.

It’s been just over ten years since Freddie died. Some people only see the stigma of him dying of AIDS and being gay. I still love the man’s music. I don’t let what he did behind closed doors color the body of work, the same way I don’t let it color my judgment of Rob Halford [and some of those Priest records just ROCK! But I do occasionally find myself wondering about some of the lyrics; they take on a very tongue in cheek double-entendre knowing that he is what he is. “Better by you, better than me,” indeed.] Freddie maintained a sense of humor about himself. He said of the drastic change in appearance from 1975 to 1980 “If I was running around in long hair and nail polish now, I’d look ridiculous. I mean I looked ridiculous then, too, but it worked!”

Sadly, like the Clash, radio only plays a handful of the work: ‘Bohemian,’
‘Killer Queen,’ ‘Fat Bottomed Girls,’ ‘Champions,’ ‘Rock You’ and occasionally ‘Dust,’ or ‘Crazy Little Thing.’ That’s a hand full of singles from almost 20 years of work [the posthumous Made in Heaven, plus Live at Wembly ’86 and Live at the BBC [circa 1973-74] not withstanding]. That’s more than the Clash can lay claim to. But I wonder if, in the grand scheme, they’re really going to be any more than a one hit wonder.

Rock and Roll?

From the first five seconds, it’s clear that Ryan Adams new record is an ELECTRIC record. Ryan made this one with just drummer Johnny T. and three or four guest bass players and a couple guest vocalists [including current flame I guess, Parker Posey, who is also given a co-writing credit on one song]. On a lot of the early cuts, it’s just Ryan screaming vocals over layered power guitars ala Foo Fighters or Smashing Pumpkins. As a matter of fact, I think on this record Ryan is really trying to BE Billy Corrigan [without shaving his head].

‘This Is It’ opens with a slice of pure power pop [amazingly not the first single]. ‘1974’ [note similarity to Smashing Pumpkins title ‘1979’] has a good Fun House era Stooges groove, very similar to ‘TV Eye.’ ‘Wish You Were Here’ is musically interesting, but is dragged down by awful lyrics [CHORUS: “It’s all a bunch of shit/And there’s nothing to do around here/ It’s totally fucked/ I’m totally fucked/ Wish you were here”]. ‘So Alive’ is a great eighties groove [‘Strength’ by the Alarm meets U2’s ‘I Will Follow’] with some Morrisey meets Bono vocal styling. ‘Burning Photographs’ has a really cool reverbed and tremoloed [change in volume vs. vibrato :change in pitch] guitars. Who is this about? [“Pretty pictures in a magazine/ Everybody is so make believe it’s true/ I used to be sad/ Now I’m bored with you/ You’re doomed to repeat the past/ Cause nothing is going to last/ I burned all your photographs”] ‘Note to Self: Don’t Die’ is Ryan’s ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings.’ Of course the title track, ‘Rock and Roll’ features just Ryan on piano, but he admits his problem out load: “Send all of my best to the band/ I don’t think I’ll make it to the show/ There’s this girl I can’t get out of my head.” ‘Anybody Want to Take Me Home’ is a nice song with it’s chiming 12 strings and sad boy alone in NYC lyrics, but it would be better for Adam Duritz / Counting Crows. ‘The Drugs Are not Working’ has more cool guitars with viobrato arm / wang bar dives over another Stooges groove winding up to the last two minutes of some wah-wah guitars and cheesy synthetic strings finally ending with about ten seconds of piano.

It’s not a bad record. I can even see myself enjoying it as mindless pop entertainment in a sort of U2 October meets Smashing Pumpkins kind of way. But as any sort of artistic statement, forget about it. There’s no real EMOTION to this record at all, and that’s one of the things that made Ryan’s other solo and Whiskeytown enjoyable; there was a joy in just playing or an underlying sadness or anger that is totally NOT present on this record.

Love Is Hell [Part 1, Part 2 is due out the first week on December] on the other hand is the return of brooding Ryan and definitely [or ‘defiantly’ rumor is that the label rejected this project as Ryan’s new full length disc] more acoustic and sad. One could hardly wonder why if you’re pop star whiz kid turned in this brooding, unpretty [read: no hit single or radio potential, no VH1 videos] album. However, all of you that have been griping about Ryan’s ‘new pop sound’ should be happier.

Leading off with ‘Political Scientist’ a tale of people living out on the edge of someplace and sinking in a life in which “There’s no guarantees.” ‘Afraid Not Dying’ seems to be Ryan’s take on the end of the movie Titanic, or someone drowning in their life. It’s a way better song than my quick summation may suggest, with lines like “She started freezing/ Lungs all collapsing/ The momentum is passing/ But the moment is eating us whole.” ‘Love Is Hell’ has nice chiming guitars and sounds like it could be a Stranger’s Almanac out take. Adams also covers Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall,’ a great acoustic take with one plaintive keyboard note droning underneath and a great subdued string arrangement towards the end. ‘World War 24’ is another tale of people sinking in their own lives for something “tasting sugar sweet, she love it when it hits her teeth.” The album/EP ends with ‘Avalanche’ one more song about someone who’s lost someone else: “I found your photograph/ In a box in a magazine/ I can’t remember you/ Remember us or anything…” “I watch the window and listen for the cars/ I can’t remember the last time it was yours…” and features the guitar lick that will turn up on Rock and Roll in 'Burning Photographs.'

Overall, I’d say this is a deeper, much more artistic work than Rock and Roll, but knowing the state of the music business, it’s not hard to see why it was rejected. It’s deep enough to compare to Lou Reed’s brilliant but depressing Berlin or Sprinsteen’s spare look at America, Nebraska. I’m not sure of the emotional content or commitment, but this sure feels better than Rock and Roll.


RANDOM NOTES: Saw Cheap Trick at Next Stage Saturday and they rocked the house and shame on you if you missed it, though the house was about 95% full. We were FAR FAR left and I think the sound could have been better on our side, but NS is definately designed for concerts. Whoever decided to charge $ 12 for parking needs a kick in the pants, and getting out of there is a disaster, far worse then Reunion or the AAC. But the band was tight, even if Robin Zander never took off his hat [not cap, hat, the same one he was sporting on Letterman and Conan]. Tom Peterson looked like he just rolled out of bed, but they played great, opening with a three song acoustic set, and played 'I Want You to Want Me' early in the set and whipped out 'Big Eyes' and 'Down on the Street' [aka the 'That 70's Show' theme]. Frankly I had forgotten some of their hits, like 'If You Want My Love' and 'I Can't Take It,' but they didn't whip out any 'Southern Girls' 'ELO Kiddies' or 'California Man' and I personally think that 'Voices' would have been great for the acoustic set. But they rocked the house.

At the same time, the CBE [Can't Beat the East] Dallas Stars were losing to Boston... ha ha 1-6 vs the East. If 'Iron Mike' Keenan' get fired for underachieving with a bunch of kids in Florida, has the clock began ticking for Dave Tippet in Big D? From what I have seen, Sergei Zubov is playing just AWFUL this year [it seems to be going through the D one player at a time, two years ago it was Hatcher, last year Rich Matvichuk...]. Mike Modano is underachieving and Bill Geuirin can't score on the road... well, NO ONE can score on the road. Unfortunately, they play 41 game on the raod again this year [nice how that works out, eh?]. But hey, they didn't give up a 9-0 whitewash to the red hot Tampa Bay Lighning [yet] like the Pens did the same night. How hard is that on a young team, especially a 21 year old goaltender who gave up 8 of the 9?

Hmmm, Jaromir Jagr doesn't like the coach and he's underachieving and not playing to his potential. Remember when I said Mario traded him because he was a whiny selfish brat and locker room poison, that it WASN'T all about money [though that was a factor, for sure]? No? Well, trust me I did. And I heard Bary Melrose say that Jagr hasn't had anyone who could tell him to act like a grown up since Ron Francis left Pittsburgh. So I feel vindicated.

Detroit falling apart all ready? Cujo [the over-rated] sucking and Dominic has a groin strain, depth tested all ready and they're not making the cut... could Dallas and Detroit BOTH have fallen to the lower half of the playoff tree so early? Neither looks like they could make it out of the first round right now. Look out for St Louis and Chicago and the surprising LA Kings.

Speaking of LA, rumor is that Jason Allison [the oft-injured] has worn out his welcome in La La Land. Detroit could use the depth, but what do they have left to give? Could one of the grind liners [Kirk Maltby or Darren McCarty] be sent West to shake up the Wings? Would LA take Cujo on a dare, because Chechmanek continues to show flashes of lunk-headedness that got him shipped out of Philadelphia...

I forgot about the Mike Comrie saga in Edmonton... hometown boy makes a million then says 'I can't take playing at home.' A good young center, if small, he could be a fine addition to any team, but look for someone with a deep system to make a pitch, because Edmonton still can't take on salary... could the Wild, Nashville or Atlanta make a run for him? See if underachieving Patrick Stefan in Atlanta get a ticket to Edmonton for Christmas...

How do the Devils keep winning when they can only score two goals a night? With a healy Johnny Vermont [LeClair] and Tony Amonte, the Flyers look like a dangerous team again, if they can get Simon Gagne or Jason Williams scoring again. Can the underachieving NY Hockey Rangers EVER get on the same page together? Will Slats hire Mike Keenan again to take himself out of the frying pan? How is it the underachieving Toronto Maple Leafs are ahead of a run and gun team like the Ottawa Senators?

I am beginning to wonder if Paul Westerberg laughing at us, the faithful. With Come Feel Me Tremble and Dead Man Shake he has sold us 2 CDs of lo-fi goods. Oh, granted they’re some of the most soulful and heart-wrenching goods you’re likely to encounter anywhere else, certainly not on the radio or VH1. I will even go so far as to say there is more soul in one of Westerberg’s fucked up solos [purposeful or not] on ‘Dirty Diesel’ than the whole catalog of Brittany / N’Synch / The Strokes AND insert popular flavor of the month band here. But this set doesn’t break much, if any new ground. It’s less polished than last year’s Stereo /Mono set. Stereo was mixed much prettier. There were definitive highs and the vocals were pushed out front, though they were left intentionally raw and rough. Here, the songs seem to be mixed [or NOT mixed] to be very raw. ‘Dirty Diesel’ for example has a hard separation of guitar hard left, bass, handclaps, lyric and drums hard right, and the lyrics are buried in the rumble of Paul’s none too pretty bass playing.

Also I have to mention right away that the track listing is whack. Track 3, ‘Hillbilly Junk’ is really track 9, so you have to play along with the scorecard. Whether this is another of Paul’s jokes, I do not know, but I wondered about making twelve different versions with no numbers on the label, so you’d have to number them yourself. Or making collector’s items trying to gather all twelve mixes. Hey, if people will buy a CD of every stinkin’ Pearl Jam [or Grateful Dead or Phish] show on a tour, they could buy twelve Westerbergs! Or sell the set as 14 separate single song discs you can download to your computer and burn one final CD in your own favorite running order.

Now before you get too down, let’s run through some first impressions. ‘What A Day [For A Night]’ is a nice easy track, proving Westerberg’s not ALWAYS as serious as ‘Boring Enormous’ or ‘Let the Bad Times Roll.’ ‘Wild and Lethal’ is five minutes is almost joyful [a word rarely associated with Westerberg] and includes a fun harmonica solo! The ‘Alternate Take’ [quiet] of ‘Crackle and Drag’ seems to be the more fitting, given the dark subject matter [think ‘Blackeyed Susan’ from 14 Songs], but the electric version is pretty damn catchy and infectious, like an awful lot of Mono was. ‘Pine Box’ is a full out rocker, the closest thing to the Mats he’s pulled off since the first solo record. It’s nice to know PW can still pull off things like this, but then again I think it’d been a whole lot more effective with a full band ala 14 Songs, where Paul could lay back and let someone else carry a few bars or go against him with a descending bass line or something. ‘Meet Me Down the Alley’ is back to typical PW of Suicane or Stereo, not as blue as ‘Bad Times Roll,’ but still searching for something, still “not too young to die.”

Westerberg’s cover of Jackson Browne’s ‘These Days’ has been getting some ink because we all know PW can turn out some good songs on his own [now Joe Cocker is a great interpreter of songs!], but I think it’s a good track. It’s probably not as pretty as Jackson’s version… Jackson has a silky voice and usually hires top talent like David Lindley, Russ Kunkle and Waddy Wachtel [admit it, Westerberg’s voice can be shaky and nasal, though that’s part of his charm], but Paul lays down some pretty good slide guitar and puts a lot of feeling into Browne’s song about growing older [and even growing up a little]. If there was any justice and/or real radio, this would be a great late night/ pre-dawn morning track.

Dead Man Shake by Westerberg’s alter ego [or split personality] Grandpaboy on blues label Fat Possum is more blues tinged than Westerberg’s fucked up Faces “pop” [I hear a lot of Ronnie Wood in his playing]. Very lo-fideleity again. There’s not a lot of high frequencies on this until late in the record, making it feel claustrophobic at times. ‘MPLS’ and ‘Take Out Some Insurance’ are pretty good ronk and honk blues reminiscent of Jimmy Reed. ‘Vampires and Failures’ is a good track, if a simple throwaway, but it’s followed by the 5 ½ minute drag of ‘No Matter What You Say,’ which is just bar band blues [pre- Stevie Ray Vaughn; no guitar pyrotechnic, feedback and whammy bar shit here!] bum notes and all. Think the Doors ‘Cars Hiss by My Window’ meets the Allman Brothers ‘Stormy Monday’ as played by your cousins in their basement. ‘Get A Move On’ is another of the original tracks that could have been something if it had been polished a little. Here it sounds like Neil Young and Crazy Horse warming up circa Ragged Glory, before they turned the Marshalls on. The cover of John Prine’s ‘Souvenirs’ is a pretty nice country-ish track, but Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ sounds like it was run through a bullhorn. ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’ which closes is a nice touch. Another great song Grandpaboy can make the lyrics really hit home on, ala ‘Good Day’ from PW’s Eventually.

But sadly, on the two CDs it’s a lot of hit or miss. We were shown on Stereo that PW can still churn out heartbreakingly great stuff, even if it’s a little rough. Here it feels like he’s just spinning his wheels, or even worse, popping the clutch and stalling out. Maybe it’s my fault for expecting so much from the artist.


On the other hand, there are still those who remember and can play ‘Real Rock and Roll’ the way your Mom and Dad or you may remember it, with crunchy guitars and hooks that would make Rick Neilson proud. This I can attest to have attended the recent CD release party for Nope, who shared the bill with Nate Fowler’s Elixir, at the Double Wide in Dallas.

First, let me say that me and my friend Casey from work dug the motif of the Double Wide. Bad velvet art, bad 70s lamps and lampshades, pretty good jukebox from what we heard [X, Kiss, Ramones, Devo] and reasonably priced drinks. Both said we wished it was closer to home because it’s just a nice ‘hanging out’ bar. Probably the martinis are not as good as Cosmo’s but as a neighborhood BAR, like the old Elm Street Bar or the Lakewood Landing, I think it has promise.

And while I am at it, I will declare off the top that Nate has been a friend of mine for a long time. I have seen him grow from a Van Halen / Steve Vai hairspray and technique freak to a damn fine rock and roll guitarist. He still regularly abuses an old old stomp box analog delay that I traded to him at one time for a pink [and I mean PINK] Ibanez guitar [since painted lime green by my Dad].Though I wish he’d trade in one of those Les Pauls and use a Tele once in a while [the 71-reissue that Nope had on stage would be great!], that’s our old argument. So I have some affiliation here. But Nate’s been in the woodshed a long time, like since February, so it’s a new experience seeing him again. Nate [and his lovely wife… hi Sandy!] and I also trade a lot of “Have you heard this album?” And one album he got a hold of and played me way before this release was Nope. And I liked what I heard right away: real guitars [and bass and drums], real songs, good vocals and lyrics. No synthesized drums and I didn’t hear the words “baby” “oops” or voulez-vous” at all. And it’s not a really danceable album, although now that I’ve seen the boys, they strike me as really choreographically challenged anyway.

Nope, Chris Purdy and Herman Suede, cousins I believe, kicked off the night with longtime Dallas mainstays Kinley Wolfe [who would do double duty backing up Fowler, too] on bass and Earl Darling on drums. Seeing Suede [sometimes hatted, sometimes showing off a mowhawk] on Angus Young’s mainstay cherry red Gibson SG enlightens a rock and roll heart like mine, because only rock and rollers pull out the SG. Purdy’s Tele was a little low in the mix [from the right side of the stage where I was, anyway], but they just stood there and rocked for 45 minutes or so. No frills, no keyboards, no bullshit.

Unfortunately, I did not grab a set list, so I don’t know the order of the songs they played, but I got the CD. You’re going to ask me why I like this CD, and I'll be damned if I can tell you. I can hear snatches of influence from other bands I like. I can tell you what it ISN’T. It’s not the Marshall amp and power chord ‘power pop’ like Jimmy Eat World or Green Day or even Clumsy. It’s not progressive [Television / Talking Heads]. It’s not country or even country flavored Americana [Ryan Adams / Wilco]. I don’t hear a stick of any Stones/Georgia Satellites/ bar band E-A-D bash and thrash. It’s got to be kind of like hearing that first R.E.M. record [Chronic Town or ‘Radio Free Europe’ I mean, still not a fan of Murmur, and my first R.E.M. was Life’s Rich Pagent] or the first Pretenders and thinking “Boy, that doesn’t sound like anything else!”

‘Great Little Loser’ is a great two chord self depreciating stomp. “Can’t Put My Finger on It’ is classic power pop like the Goo Goo Dolls used to do, minus the Marshall stacks. [Nope also know when to NOT hold a power chord for ten bars over a verse… sometimes it’s what you don’t do that makes you different!] ‘It’s Up to You’ reminds of R.E.M. with all those arpegiated chords, but Purdy’s vocals really make it closer to the Church. ‘Nite Cap’ is another ode to hanging at the bar, but with the twist of having the “night cap during the day.” Anyone who’s ever played hooky and gone day drinking can appreciate how funny it can feel to start drinking while it’s still full daylight outside. ‘All Over Town’ is a great acoustic ‘everything’s going wrong’ song Ryan Adams would have been proud to write. ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ is more power pop more in a Replacements / Bash and Pop vein. ‘Clifford’ has a great Westerberg feel [ala ‘Here Comes A Regular’]. The “bonus” track is a fan-fucking-tastic rock and roll take of Mary J. Blige’s ‘Real Love.’ I’d hate to sell this album on a cover tune, but someone needs to get that song on the radio. Buy this album because there isn’t much original rock and roll like this out there anymore!

So after a really good set by Nope, Fowler and Wolfe and drummer Mike Wood took the stage and let loose a killer set of rock and roll. AlterNATEly sounding like the New York Dolls / Johnny Thunders meets Ronnie Wood and Izzy Stradlin, Fowler grabbed that heavy Gibson by the neck and didn’t let up for 45 minutes. He’s said ever since completing the Elixir record he wants a second guitarist, but the way he played, he may have found a way to make a trio work [I suspect liberal use of the delay to get that ‘twin guitar’ signature sound ala ‘Bleeding Years’ and ‘Shiver in the Sunshine’]. He also laid down some tasty slide work on the last two songs of the set. And most pleasantly, Fowler’s vocals continue to improve. Again, I don’t have a set list, and EVERYTHING Fowler played was new, but I hope it’s not another nine months before he plays again. Dallas can use more bands like Nope and the Elixir [and Marc Soloman’s Clumsy… I saw him at the show, but I don’t know him well enough to just walk up and ask the guy what he’s doing.].

As a matter of fact, why not start our own rock and roll revival right here in Dallas? Dallas hasn’t had a scene or identity since the New Bohemians era and that was [believe it or not] almost 15 years ago. Why not make Dallas the Detroit of the early 1970s, [Stooges, Bob Seger before he sold out, Kiss and J Geils breakthrough markets] where good rocking bands come and break or get broken? Somehow get someone like Irv at Idol to snag these guys up and make him the new Vangaurd or Epitath or Sub Pop… hey a guy can dream can’t he?


Also ran into Ron Geida, the Mick Taylor to Ed Voyles Kieth Richards, of Jasper Stone at the show, who advises that they are waiting for the return of their new CD from mastering in the next couple weeks. Spoke to Ed and he advises, for the record, that this record “rocks like fuck.” They will be releasing sometime early in the New Year, check here and the Jasper Stone site for info.

NOPE: www.nope.us

Jasper Stone: www.jasper-stone.com

Last year, like quite a few people watching the NHL, I made the mistake of saying San Jose should go far. Well, Nabokov's hold out sank a lot of hopes and the Sharks were dead before they even left the gate. More on them later. So, with the season about to start and also with the caveat that I have seen zero of these teams this year, except one Dallas - Colorado preseason game, I boldly issue the following predictions:

COLORADO will win the West. They're fast, they're super skilled and they can outscore anybody like nobody's business. Not since the 84-85 Edmonton Oilers [WITH Paul Coffey] has the NHL seen such an offensive powerhouse. No, this is not Patrick Roy's Colorado Avalanche anymore. They will win games 5-4 and 6-5.

On an interesting aside, and a question I have never seen addressed: Would the Quebec Nordiques have taken the East in 1995, let alone win the Stanley Cup? With Colorado/Quebec in the East, they run into Detroit in the finals... now I remember the Western conference final that was a dog fight...

All right, the other Pretenders and Contenders in the West:

ANAHIEM : curious to see what Sergei Fedorov brings to the table. Good playmaker, real fast, who is he passing to? Need Steve Rucchin to stay healthy again all year. Giguere need to stay strong and not flop like Jose Theodore last year...

DALLAS: curious to see how well Marty Turco plays for the first three weeks. If he is bad, this team can sink. Curious to see how who emerges as a the great team leader now that Hatch is gone. Curious to see how the D plays, period. Power play could be a killer, Finnish line looked good with Meittenen [?]. If Barnes can keep fire lit under Turgeon and Young all year, Dallas can be dangerous.

DETROIT: Can this "Over the Hill Gang" suck it up for one more run at the Cup? Considering Chris Chelios was done LAST YEAR, I'd say... maybe. Brett Hull, Brendan Shannahan still dangerous, Zetterberg and Datsuk seem to be real deal, Hasek will be good, but Detroit will go as far as Steve Yzerman carries them. If the captain goes down, [or anyone, really] they do NOT have the depth to recover.

ST LOUIS: Another team that on paper has a good enough team, but they've had questions in goal and injury to Doug Weight and Chris Pronger. Chris Osgood would love to stick it to the Detroit management who sent him to Long Island... With Pronger returning this team could be deep if they can commit to defense.

VANCOUVER: Mostly stayed pat. Let Trent Klatt go to LA and brought in goaltender Johan Hedberg to spell Dan Cloutier and return Alex Auld to the minors for more seasoning. With Todd Bertuzzi and Marcus Nasland, this teeam continues to be dangerous. If one of the Sedin twins can step up and produce some points, they could go far.

PRETENDERS: CHICAGO [home of the BLACKHAWKS; remmeber they were an original 6 team?] is a major market, so why does their management continue to operate like a small market team. SAN JOSE committed to rebuilding, but could sneak in at a 7 or 8 seed. LA conitinues to seek direction. MINNESOTA wants to start the year without its two leading scorers, Marian Gaborik and Pacal Dupois? HA HA. If NASHVILLE can stay healthy, they also could sneak in at a 7 or 8.

Alll right, here's a surprise: NEW JERSEY will win the East again. They now have the best goaltender in the game and they still have a defensive system in place and three lines that can score. They have a couple guys who can be high scorers [Elias, Friesen and Langenbrunner, who I am predicting will emerge to take Joe Nieuwendyk's place, and John Madden, who remains a dangerous two way player] but do not have a dominant line since the Jason Arnott - Peter Sykora - Patrick Elais line was broken up. But scoring by committee works for them. I think Marty Brodeur remains the X factor who gets the job done over Ottawa.

OTTAWA remains the # 2 pick in the East. They have great scoring and great goaltending, I just think Martin Brodeur continues to dominate the game and make runs at all of Patrick Roy's records. The full time addition of Jason Spezza will add to a ferocious offensive attack and many are predicting that this is year Wade Redden come into his own of the blue line. Havlat, Alfredsson, Hossa still the best right side in hockey. Still, I will take the Devils. They just KNOW how to shut people down!

BOSTON continues to be a threat because of Joe Thornton, Glenn Murray, Sergei Samsonaov [after missing much of last year after wrist sugury] and Mike Knuble, but their D has questions, is Felix Potvin an upgrade, and will they have a second line? But the B's can make teams miserable with a big, if inexperianced defensive group. Boston is also a major market team with poor management [ala Chicago] problems. Hard Line Harry Sinden is one of the top "How does he keep his job?" GMs in the league... I HOPE if the B's falter down the stretch he becomes Homeless Harry.

The NEW YORK Hockey RANGERS will finally earn their slalries and make the playoffs this year. And it will be a rejuvenated commitment to defense by Brian Leetch,Tom Poti and Greg de Vries that will make it happen. They WILL decide to sacrifice points for defensive coverage and the whole team will follow suit, led by Bobby Holik and Mark Messier. They will have a top 20 scorer in Alexi Kovalev. Questions remain of the left side though and Mike Dunham will be worn out by the time the playoffs roll around. Bet on them to lose in the first round.

PHILADELPHIA, led by "How does he keep his job?" GM Bobby Clarke is in trouble. They hadve a decent mix of older and younger talent led by a good coach who will get his team to play defense [Ken Hitchcock], but still they are one or two injuries from falling out of contention. John LeClaire and Tony Amonte MUST return to the 25-30 goal plateau and this team must play defense in front of Jeff Hacket, who replaces noted nut Roman Chechmanek who was shipped to LA for poor playoff performance. Chechmanek IS right that the team did not supprt him with goals in the playoffs. He was made the scapegoat by a GM who is complacent.

TAMPA BAY, not WASHINGTON will win the South-Least in a runaway. John Grahame will allow Nick Khabibulin to sit once in a while, like when the Montreal comes to town, and Vincent Lecavilier and Brad Richards will continue to spark plug a good offense.

PRETENDERS: Washington, like Philly, will continue to search for production from overpaid aging stars liek Jagr and Bondra. They will miss the playoff entirely when Carolina sinks them with two weeks left in the season, The NY ISLANDERS tried staying pat and are hoping a full season with Michael Peca will improve the team. If they don't find a way to light a fire under Alexi Yashin's ass and get him some scoring wingers, look for 'Mad Mike' Milburry to be out as GM. Success for the PITTSBURGH PENGUINS will be leading the league in power play percentage with Mario Lemieux, and 20 wins. Other than that there is litle hope for my Pens. TORONTO, good offense, no defense, Eddie the Eagle back to 2001-02 numbers and going crazy by year's end. Niewendyk back with Gary Roberts, though, give offsensive depth. Still, blue line a joke.

FINALS: COLORADO over NEW JERSEY in 6.


Anybody else watching "The Blues" on Channel 13 this week [in Dallas]? I watched the Piano Player tonight [no comments from the peanut gallery on my 'lack of life' please] with Clint Eastwood and I was AMAZED by the late Professor Longhair... it seems his style is not only based on the blues but those rolls he makes makes the piano almost seem like a percussion instrument, espacially on his trademark "Tipitina". Check that one out when it is re-aired! DEFINATELY worth two hours of your time!

Does anyone else have a lost love that haunts their dreams? I had a dream about one last night and I am still just.... and like a fool I fall right in with her again...

Word to the wise: DO NOT drink and type without a good spell checker, and even it cannot spell Nabokoz and Nieuwendyk.

“Where have all the good times gone?” A letter to a long lost friend

Indeed, the question is “Where has all the fun gone” period, but for our discussion, the greater question is ‘What the heck happened to rock and roll?”

Yes, it’s been a long time since we sat and chewed the fat on the subject. To the best on my recollection, before the flannel clad, unshaven Generation X brats embraced Nirvana and Pearl Jam and deemed that Cobain kid as the “Next Spokesman for His Generation” and watched as the thorny crown they placed on his head shattered in a shotgun blast. Is that too harsh? Maybe. But the kid didn’t have it in him to be an emotional recluse like Dylan or larger than life like Springsteen or even hide behind an “alcoholic boob” façade like my beloved Paul Westerberg. I mean I feel for the guy in that he was the “lonely kid who suffered so much for what he did” as Robbie Robertson once wrote [Stage Fright], but his band wasn’t what everyone claimed; they weren’t punk, they weren’t the ‘saviors of rock and roll’ [though selling six million and kicking the door open for a bunch of other flannel clad navel gazer bands probably kept the ‘Music Industry’ from drying up for five years there]… I’m not sure what they were. I’m not sure at 25 that I was supposed to ‘get it.’ Black Sabbath sounding bands, I could get; not Nirvana.

Oh, rock and roll was dying [again] was going before them. We were tired of the party all the time hairspray bands and it was pretty clear critical college radio darlings were not going to sell the tons of records needed to keep the music industry giants alive unless they polished their apples and played fairly mainstream, like REM chose to do. Matter of fact I recall ‘The Music Industry’ holding its breath for another Guns ‘N Roses record that turned out to be the sprawling unfocused Use Your Illusion records. The rise of the Seattle sound, heavy swirling Black Sabbath influenced bands like Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, the criminally unheard Gruntruck and Soundgrarden along with Pearl Jam’s raging against the machine effectively and mercifully killed the ‘hairspray bands’ [except Bon Jovi and Def Leppard], but they also sucked all the fun out of rock and roll. What’s the last song you can think of with ‘party’ or even ‘rock’ in the title? One just popped into my mind: You’ve Got Me Rocking by the Rolling Stones [1996], but they’re a hold over band [see Cheap Trick, below].

Don’t get me wrong, songs like I Wanna Rock [Twisted Sister] , Nothin’ But A Good Time’[Poison], Rock and Roll All Night [Kiss] and Rock and Roll Party in the Streets [Axe?] were mindless and stupid, but they were harmless. Even when Rush, Genesis, Yes, ELP, et al were trying to bore us [although I think with enough drugs some of that could sound interesting, but that would take about ½ the tea in China] to death with 12 minute songs like ‘Opus to the Grandeur of the Electric Triangle,’ there was still fun, mindless and harmless rock and roll being made like Cheap Trick. The fact that Cheap Trick is STILL making mostly harmless [but only half good] records is not the point here; they are holdovers from another era. Same as the Kinks and the Rolling Stones. Aerosmith, however, has seen fit to join the other side. They’re making unapologetically commercial records. They’re being seen at the Super Bowl with Brittany and Justin and Nelly. They won’t quit playing Walk This Way. For some reason I was encouraged by the single Jaded. It sounded fresh and it looked like the band could do something more than they did. That’s the frustrating part: You know what they can do, what they’re capable of, but they’re slaves to the Corporate Master now. And it’s killed a once great band. But I also think Joe Perry could be a man and stand up to Steven Tyler and tell him to shut up once in a while, to really BE the Keith Richards to Tyler’s Jagger.

I’ve been dabbling in country music recently. There’s something happening there now that they’ve decided that electric guitars are here to stay. But they’re getting stuck in the same ‘pretty boy’ rut that’s gumming up pop music. The Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith are pretty good and there’s a bunch of Texans keeping things interesting, folks like Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green and Cross Canadian Ragweed [well, they’re Okies, but they’re okay]. Plus I am finding the old school outlaw country guys like Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Hank Jr. and Billy Joe Shaver. But my problem now is that I am more interested in good songs, which I am finding on Wilco and Paul Westerberg and re-issues of the Uncle Tupelo and Elvis Costello catalogs. [What a TREASURE I have found in Elvis! I wonder now why I didn’t have all these records before, but I wonder if I could appreciate them then as I can now.]

So what is the current state of rock and roll? Is it dead and buried or is it out of town and the kids are having a big old party? What I can stand to hear of today’s music is all bass… all the guitars are tuned down, the bass drum is all electronic THOOM DOOM that the rappers all like [don’t even get me started on M&M and all that crap, although if the idea is ‘this is gonna drive your parents nuts and define a generation gap,’ well it succeeds in SPADES]. This used to be the kick drum, but who uses real drums anymore besides the third wave of garage bands like the Strokes [who have one or two really good songs that they somehow turned into a whole album, but they need to learn another chord REAL FAST], Hives, White Stripes… none of whom have impressed me. Or it’s pretty boys and girls in tight clothes or various states of undress. Hmm, now that I think about it, that is vapid, mindless, stupid and harmless… I may have just shot my own argument in the foot.

On the other hand, rock and roll seems to be cyclical thing, every so often it turns and devours itself. Usually about the time one generation quits buying music CDs so they can pay the mortgage, ‘The Industry’ comes up with the next big thing or scene to capture the interest of the 16 year old. The interesting thing about this period is the emergence of the Internet as a viable tool for exposing people to new music, allowing an incredibly diverse universe of artists [not all musicians are artists and vice-versa] to be consumed. But ‘The Music Industry’ doesn’t want the masses to have this tool because it goes completely against the way the industry is set up. TMI will no longer be able to set the trends and control the spin to garner large dollars for their greedy stockholders. Don’t believe for a SECOND that the RIAA suing people over ‘copyright violations’ has ANYTHING to do with protecting ‘The Artist’ or ‘The Artist’s Work.’ It is all about protecting the music industry recouping the dollars they put into ‘Artist Development’ which they don’t do anymore because they buy artists from the indie labels. It is about keeping a dinosaur system that has all ready devoured its own from becoming an extinct dinosaur. The small independents are probably right where they need to be for Internet sales and allowing samples and all that and being in the right place for the future. But the Big 5 [3, depending on how you count] aren’t in position for Internet sales, in spite of Apple’s iTunes selling 10 million downloads at a buck a pop. [This is now being held back from PC owners as the Beatles Apple Corps suing Apple Computers over the name Apple, stating iTunes is violating a 1991 agreement that allowed Apple Computers to use the name Apple as long as Apple did not get into the ‘music business.’] And anyway, the Big 5/3 are only interested in selling yesterday’s hits re-remastered so you can own it a fourth time and they make easy money on something all ready long paid for.

Anyway, getting back to the original question: “What happened to rock and roll?” This was a puzzling question until I had a talk with Holey Mikey the Amazing Pierced Boy. Creep popped out with “It’s been destroyed by the commercialization and idolization perpetrated by the music industry. Kids today want shock rock, they want rap-rock, they want pseudo-punk; they don’t LIKE [what used to be known as] rock.” He also blamed the record companies for forcing bands down on people and “as soon as the flavor of the week band starts losing popularity, they have someone ready to take their place. That’s what’s on the radio and MTV, it must be good.”

Mikey went on to explain that part of this comes from the kids being taught from day one not to be emotional. Their parents are both off working and that emotional people are weak. But they have these emotions and they don’t have an outlet. And he played me some tunes. I asked what the answer was. It’s one thing to say “I feel like you do” but another to offer an answer or an idea. “We need some garage bands with guitars and drums,” he told me. Well, that’s going on, sort of. But what I find missing from this whole thing is that lightning rod, shake up the world band, the great unifying IT like the Beatles.

And maybe that’s it. We discussed where this splintering began and I think we have narrowed the period down to 1986/87, with the rise of Run DMC, Anthrax’s crossing the rap-metal barrier and the rise of the Beastie Boys. Now everything is so pigeon holed there is no real ‘Rock’ anymore. You’ve got the Emo bands like Good Charlotte and Jimmy Eats World, but they lack the introspection of the Replacements. Westerberg learned to put his heart out on his sleeve around the time of Let It Be. Is there anyone out there who could throw out “look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re satisfied’ [Unsatisfied]? ANGER, yes. Remember Fionna Apple and Alanis Morisette and how pissed off they were? John Lydon once quipped ‘Anger is an energy,’ but he’s notorious for not offering any answers either. Anger we have, but not introspection or answers. Have the kids today gotten to the point of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, afraid to be “caught red handed showing feelings”?

Mike mentioned Woodstock 99 and those people destroying everything. I tried to tell him that people went to Woodstock looking for something they were missing, to make a connection with some MAGIC THING or Ghost of Protests Past that would make their lives have meaning or point them at an answer. And when all they got was $ 5 water and $ 10 hamburgers, they realized they had been duped. Which does not excuse people for burning and looting. But it does show that there are some people looking for answers instead of sinking into a dope induced, Play Station fed stupor.

I asked, “Who cares anymore Mike? The kids don’t want to know ‘the ones we love the best/ are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least/ are the one’s we’ll die to please/ if it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them’. [‘Bastards of Young’ – Replacements]” Mike, being a fairly intelligent individual in spite of appearances, said, “Someone should keep reminding people that it’s there. Someone has to keep telling the kids about real music.”

I don’t know anymore. I still have some hope because there are bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Foo Fighters, Dallas band Nope and my friend Nate who still play it like the Stones, Faces and the ‘Mats did. I know there’s an untapped underground of people who still listen to Cheap Trick, the Smithereens, the Black Crowes and AC/DC and wonder why there are no bands like that anymore. Then again, there is the crowd that listens to ‘The Bone’ and sing along with Sammy Hagar, Van Halen, Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Boston, Billy Squier, etc and think they are still rockin’. The same dudes who wear their Van Halen 1984 or Hagar Kicks Ass ’85 tour jerseys changing the oil in their driveway on Saturday morning in Burleson. Which raises an interesting connundrum. I saw X last winter at Trees, a small club about the size of a high school gym [all four originals touring for the first time since 1985] and they played great, but they played so loud my ears literally rang for three days. It was way TOO loud. And if it was too loud, does that make me ‘too old?’

I took Mikey to CD Warehouse so I could pick up my latest Elvis re-issue, Trust, and he was asking the counter guy about ordering something called Day Glo Abortions and ragging me for buying Train. But then we were discussing punk with the counter guy, as I was considering a Damned double CD [decided against, really Damned Damned Damned is their best and I own that] and Mikey was able to discuss the Ramones, the Clash and Fear, so maybe I am having a positive impact [even though he rarely plays anything that good when I am in the car with him and he thinks Suicidal Tendencies are punk].

So I guess with Lester Bangs dead twenty years, but finally getting some respect and Joe Strummer recently deceased, that leaves ME to carry the torch for ‘Old School Rock and Roll’ and ‘Real Punk Rock.’