IT'S BEEN A WHILE, SO...

The Road Goes On Forever:

So I am sitting around the homestead Sunday night making the 2004 tape [acquisitions & rediscoveries, CD and vinyl] partially to kind of put a date stamp on some things, partially because I need a new fucking tape... yes there are days I look at the pile of tapes [150?] and NOTHING seems interesting, like I've heard it all before, which I guess I have, but still, you'd think something would jump out.

Of course I even have a wealth of mix tapes, mostly mine. Sometimes they're for reasons, like International Chaz 2000 made for a road trip into Canada; sometimes challenges to myself like the First Cut Is the Deepest, [all 1st songs avoiding the obvious like Rocks Off, London Calling, Rock and Roll], The Last [and you'd be surprised how many great songs end records like the Cars' Up and Down, Iggy Pop's Squarehead and Winners and Losers, Soundgarden's Like Suicide] and The Sidewinders [first side all songs that end a side, second side all begin a side other than side one]... Some things to bring times and places back into focus...

Anyway, so I am making the new tape and I slide on an album I got a couple of months ago that I haven't tracked through yet, though I have listened to World Party's Private Revolution [bought the same day] a few times.... Danny Wilde's Any Man's Hunger. Boy is it a good record in an 80s kind of 'character band' way best described in an article on Robbie Robertson in another late 80s Musician magazine article when talking about the Bodeans adding background vocals: "They sound like a bunch of guys who step up to the microphone to sing a chorus, not a bunch of professionals!" There was something about that period in the late 80s, probably much attributed to my youth, where I found a bunch of glorified bar bands like the Replacements, Long Ryders, Rainmakers, Del Fuegos, Bodeans, et al that were bands with CHARACTER, that seemed to stand for something! Even though looking back it was a bunch of leftist/populist propaganda, the MUSIC was so great. My first adventures with things not found on radio. Was there a changing of the guard at this time? Where did this movement come from? A lot of these bands sounded like they were having fun with the music again They weren't doom and gloom like the 'save the world' singer songwriter/60s holdovers and not caught up in all of the macho 'cucumber in your trousers' posturing of the heavy metal movement. But I can't put my finger on what would have sparked such a movement [other than a backlash] except REM and John Mellencamp. And it seems to be a very American thing [well, NORTH America, as in Canada, though I would put the Waterboys in with this]. I remember Rolling Stone doing long articles on 'College Radio' and they were playing fresh stuff like this. I wish I had started buying their College chart then, but I seem to have acquired a lot of that stuff in the meantime [though not the Cure or the Smiths].

Of course this was a different time. Labels [which were just then being scooped up by 'Corporations'] allowed a band 2-3 albums to find their niche or they bought the better ones off the indies [X from Slash, REM from IRS, Replacements from Twin Tone]. But I don't want to get into 'Corporate Greedheads Killing the Music Industry right now...

I saw the Church doing Metropolis on VH1 Classic the other night... the Church had their 'big moment' during the period I am speaking of, though they were a little moody and darker than most of these other bands. Starfish and Gold Afternoon Fix were/are very good records, but the ones after tended to be 'disappointing' to critics. Is this a problem of repeating themselves or the quickly changing public tastes?

Anyway, back to the subject: The other thing this reminds me of is the reat lost art of The Road Tape. It reminds me of The Road Tape because I first heard of Danny Wilde on one of my friend Jim's road tapes for me. For a few years, before every major road trip, I would give Jim a tape and say I need this by... and he would throw it together. And I've found tons of things through these tapes: Televison, Pere Ubu, Ian Hunter, Stiff Little Fingers, Superchunk [from one song on one tape to the freak I am for this band!], the Damned, Dream Syndicate and Buzzcocks to name a few. Some things I asked for like the Damned's New Rose and Chainsaw Kittens' Angel on the Range, but you find things like Bad Religion's American Jesus, Magnapop's The Garden, Babes In Toyland's Blue Bell, Big Black's Jordan Minn and the Gits Another Shot of Whiskey were just put on because it fit the mood or it was a left turn from the song before. Jim had a very diverse collection of records from working the stores from 1980 - 1987 and he continually sought out things like Superchunk and things like that that he'd heard of or someone said they think he would like. So I got to cruise lots of thing during many many days drinking at his place. We had a friendly argument going because I can't stand Mike Ness [and his famous pick slide in EVERY SONG] and Social Distortion and he never liked the Cars, CCR or early Who [for someone who loved short catchy pop that clocked in under four minutes these should be no brainers!]. To explain the group we had, once four of us piled into a car to drive to New Orleans, about 11 hours each way, and the only song we heard twice [other than me playing Mott the Hoople's Mott album twice] was OF ALL THINGS: Neat Neat Neat by the Damned.

Does the Road Tape survive into our brave new world with MP3 players and car CD players? Does anyone but me make compilations for just puttering around or to take on the road knowing your collection is not portable and you will be in rental cars with CD players? I know you can fit all those songs on MP3 CDs, but you can't really program them; you're at the mercy of the 'random' selection button.

More ranting and raving about WILCO:

I saw Wilco on Austin City Limits the other night [and I am BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED they did not get the full hour. What were the ACL people thinking?!? BUT I see they will be showing Elvis Costello March 12th! MARK THOSE CALENDARS!!! And the Wilco will be re-run March 29th]. Is anybody else writing anything that seems so simple but has so many layers? If there is, I'd really love for someone to send me that CD.

They kicked off with At Least That's What You Said from A Ghost I Born and they kicked as much ass as it does on the record. Yeah, it seems like you could play that, but even with the crappy TV sound you can hear the way the bass and piano and drums bubble up, in and out of your conscious thought. Tweedy steals from the best. On listening I hear touches of Pink Floyd and Bob Ezrin's production on the Alice Cooper albums, especially on Muzzle of Bees. And I love the use of the piano; just listen how it interacts with the other instruments on Hell Is Chrome. I find it adds flavor, the same way the mellotron was used on Summerteeth. Then they did Ashes of American Flags from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But then they fall into the hyper fun I'm A Wheel from Ghost. Now a song like I'm A Wheel doesn't mean anything, but Tweedy knows it's fun to play and hear after the longer slower songs they've just played. It says, to me anyway, yeah I like playing my moody, deep stuff, but sometimes you just have to rock out a little.

I say again, Tweedy steals from the best, while appointing falling into rock's haphazard cliches and/or falling into dated, fashionable sounds [60's sitars, 70s abstract noodling, 80s guitar pyrotechnics]. And he adds the right touch for the songs, like the plaintive harmonica on She's A Jar from Summerteeth. It's simple and it's hummable and it gives the song just one more hook. That's why Wilco records seem to have a timeless quality that allows the listener to think of the first time one heard the record without sounding locked into one specific time period. A few records that hold this quality are Pink Floyd's Dark Side and Wish You Were Here, Who's Next by the Who and U2's Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree. Those records still sound fresh and vital, not locked in by 'this year's sound.'

PS: Everyone is Somebody's Brother

We found out my father and his lovely bride Barbara are due mid March and they will be having a GIRL. Disappointed in the girl thing, but girls can be taught to like hockey and Black Sabbath, too.

What Is It All For?

Friends, I have been looking at my pile over there, the rack full of plastic and vinyl and contemplating again. I have approximately 1050 titles over there, averaging 45 minutes a piece... that's 47250 minutes [787.5 hrs, give or take] of music. To hear every one of my albums end to end I would need JUST UNDER 33 days. If I did it like a job and just dedicated myself to it 8 hours a day, I would need just over 98 days [19.69 weeks considering a 5 day work week]. I'd like to know how much it weighs, but that would be too much math for one day...

Anyway, what is it all for? Am I just hoarding these pieces of plastic the way other people keep matchbooks and momentos? How much of this can I do without? What am I holding on to to keep for the one day I make a tape [and those days may be coming to an end; I am contemplating a DVD player for the truck as my faceplate just lost the spring for the EJECT button... but it's been a tough old player ever since they tried to yank it out two July's ago...] and need Ted Nugen't Wango Tango or Ric Ocasek's Pink Flag Joe or drivin 'n' cryin's Scared But Smarter? The stuff I love is all ready burnt into the synapses of my brain... I can truly 'hear' Television's Marquee Moon and Superchunk's The Animal Has Left It's Shell and the 'Mats' Bastards of Young in my head.

What is it for? Why am I holding onto all this? I think about Michael who's hauled racks and racks of records all over the country, probably now more and more piles of CDs, but he keeps the old vinyl there... is it just a nostalgia of the fun of bringing home a recortd and popping it on for the first time? Discovering things like Public Animal #9 on Alice Cooper's Schools Out [sorry if that reference touches a nerve Michael, I know it still hurts...] or Bring It On Home on Led Zeppelin II or a Johnny Winter or Rory Gallagher record, Ron Wood's I've Got My Own Album to Do, things you'd NEVER hear on the radio?

I know when I'd find something new I'd try to buy or tape everything I could get my hands on so I could know the artist's work, which has lead to some disappointments like Rory Gallagher's catalog after Against the Grain or The Who By Numbers or Hot Tuna's Hoppkorv. Still, considering the amount of hours logged trying to find the next song to blow my socks off, the amount of just total SHIT I have found is surprisingly low.

Am I just at the point again where I am ready to trade it in again? Am I ready to see what I can really live without? Have I reached a saturation point with my heroes where I don't need ALL the Stones albums, all the Pat Metheny, all the ... well I don't know. You fill in the blanks. Can I drop 200 albums and 50 Cds and not feel anything? Well, I can drop them and feel the pain some later day when I go looking for Ron Wood 1234 for a song or Brian Setzer's The Knife Feels Like Justice...

Am I just going crazy?

I jump on my beloved Michael for being the 'elitist completist' for buying every album by every band he likes and getting every collection for he has like the Stones' Satisfaction on five different CDs, not counting all the live ones. I am trying to avoid that trap. I bought a great Heart collection, do I still need Dog and Butterfly just for Cook With Fire or Mistral Wind? Do I need both Golden Smogs when I only listen to one? Do I need the Goo Goo Dolls last one? [Well, it wasn't BAD...] Am I just hitting a wall?

From My Friend Amy:

I know I'm picking an argument here, Chaz, but Christ... I gotta say it:

I don't necessarily agree with his taste in music, but I agree with the point he's making 100%.

The Rap Against RockismBy KELEFA SANNEH
New York TimesOctober 31, 2004

BAD news travels fast, and an embarrassing video travels even faster. By last Sunday morning, one of the Internet's most popular downloads was the hours-old 60-second .wmv file of Ashlee Simpson on "Saturday Night Live." As she and her band stood onstage, her own prerecorded vocals - from the wrong song - came blaring through the speakers, and it was too late to start mouthing the words. So she performed a now-infamous little jig, then skulked offstage, while the band (were a few members smirking?) played on. One of 2004's most popular new stars had been exposed as. ...

As what, exactly? The online verdict came fast and harsh, the way online verdicts usually do. A typical post on her Web site bore the headline, "Ashlee you are a no talent fraud!" After that night, everyone knew that Jessica Simpson's telegenic sister was no rock 'n' roll hero - she wasn't even a rock 'n' roll also-ran. She was merely a lip-synching pop star.

Music critics have a word for this kind of verdict, this knee-jerk backlash against producer-powered idols who didn't spend years touring dive bars. Not a very elegant word, but a useful one. The word is rockism, and among the small but extraordinarily pesky group of people who obsess over this stuff, rockism is a word meant to start fights. The rockism debate began in earnest in the early 1980's, but over the past few years it has heated up, and today, in certain impassioned circles, there is simply nothing worse than a rockist.

A rockist isn't just someone who loves rock 'n' roll, who goes on and on about Bruce Springsteen, who champions ragged-voiced singer-songwriters no one has ever heard of. A rockist is someone who reduces rock 'n' roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon. Rockism means idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the music video; extolling the growling performer while hating the lip-syncher.

Over the past decades, these tendencies have congealed into an ugly sort of common sense. Rock bands record classic albums, while pop stars create "guilty pleasure" singles. It's supposed to be self-evident: U2's entire oeuvre deserves respectful consideration, while a spookily seductive song by an R&B singer named Tweet can only be, in the smug words of a recent VH1 special, "awesomely bad."

Like rock 'n' roll itself, rockism is full of contradictions: it could mean loving the Strokes (a scruffy guitar band!) or hating them (image-conscious poseurs!) or ignoring them entirely (since everyone knows that music isn't as good as it used to be). But it almost certainly means disdaining not just Ms. Simpson but also Christina Aguilera and Usher and most of the rest of them, grousing about a pop landscape dominated by big-budget spectacles and high-concept photo shoots, reminiscing about a time when the charts were packed with people who had something to say, and meant it, even if that time never actually existed. If this sounds like you, then take a long look in the mirror: you might be a rockist.

Countless critics assail pop stars for not being rock 'n' roll enough, without stopping to wonder why that should be everybody's goal. Or they reward them disproportionately for making rock 'n' roll gestures. Writing in The Chicago Sun-Times this summer, Jim DeRogatis grudgingly praised Ms. Lavigne as "a teen-pop phenom that discerning adult rock fans can actually admire without feeling (too) guilty," partly because Ms. Lavigne "plays a passable rhythm guitar" and "has a hand in writing" her songs.

Rockism isn't unrelated to older, more familiar prejudices - that's part of why it's so powerful, and so worth arguing about. The pop star, the disco diva, the lip-syncher, the "awesomely bad" hit maker: could it really be a coincidence that rockist complaints often pit straight white men against the rest of the world? Like the anti-disco backlash of 25 years ago, the current rockist consensus seems to reflect not just an idea of how music should be made but also an idea about who should be making it.

If you're interested in - O.K., mildly obsessed with - rockism, you can find traces of it just about everywhere. Notice how those tributes to "Women Who Rock" sneakily transform "rock" from a genre to a verb to a catch-all term of praise. Ever wonder why OutKast and the Roots and Mos Def and the Beastie Boys get taken so much more seriously than other rappers? Maybe because rockist critics love it when hip-hop acts impersonate rock 'n' roll bands. (A recent Rolling Stone review praised the Beastie Boys for scruffily resisting "the gold-plated phooey currently passing for gangsta.")

From punk-rock rags to handsomely illustrated journals, rockism permeates the way we think about music. This summer, the literary zine The Believer published a music issue devoted to almost nothing but indie-rock. Two weeks ago, in The New York Times Book Review, Sarah Vowell approvingly recalled Nirvana's rise: "a group with loud guitars and louder drums knocking the whimpering Mariah Carey off the top of the charts." Why did the changing of the guard sound so much like a sexual assault? And when did we all agree that Nirvana's neo-punk was more respectable than Ms. Carey's neo-disco?

Rockism is imperial: it claims the entire musical world as its own. Rock 'n' roll is the unmarked section in the record store, a vague pop-music category that swallows all the others. If you write about music, you're presumed to be a rock critic. There's a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for doo-wop groups and folk singers and disco queens and even rappers - just so long as they, y'know, rock.

Rockism just won't go away. The rockism debate began when British bands questioned whether the search for raw, guitar-driven authenticity wasn't part of rock 'n' roll's problem, instead of its solution; some new-wave bands emphasized synthesizers and drum machines and makeup and hairspray, instead. "Rockist" became for them a term of abuse, and the anti-rockists embraced the inclusive possibilities of a once-derided term: pop. Americans found other terms, but "rockist" seems the best way to describe the ugly anti-disco backlash of the late 1970's, which culminated in a full-blown anti-disco rally and the burning of thousands of disco records at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1979: the Boston Tea Party of rockism.

That was a quarter of a century and many genres ago. By the 1990's, the American musical landscape was no longer a battleground between Nirvana and Mariah (if indeed it ever was); it was a fractured, hyper-vivid fantasy of teen-pop stars and R&B pillow-talkers and arena-filling country singers and, above all, rappers. Rock 'n' roll was just one more genre alongside the rest.
Yet many critics failed to notice. Rock 'n' roll doesn't rule the world anymore, but lots of writers still act as if it does. The rules, even today, are: concentrate on making albums, not singles; portray yourself as a rebellious individualist, not an industry pro; give listeners the uncomfortable truth, instead of pandering to their tastes. Overnight celebrities, one-hit-wonders and lip-synchers, step aside.

And just as the anti-disco partisans of a quarter-century ago railed against a bewildering new pop order (partly because disco was so closely associated with black culture and gay culture), current critics rail against a world hopelessly corrupted by hip-hop excess. Since before Sean Combs became Puff Daddy, we've been hearing that mainstream hip-hop was too flashy, too crass, too violent, too ridiculous, unlike those hard-working rock 'n' roll stars we used to have. (This, of course, is one of the most pernicious things about rockism: it finds a way to make rock 'n' roll seem boring.)

Much of the most energetic resistance to rockism can be found online, in blogs and on critic-infested sites like ilovemusic.com, where debates about rockism have become so common that the term itself is something of a running joke. When the editors of a blog called Rockcritics Daily noted that rockism was "all the rage again," they posted dozens of contradictory citations, proving that no one really agrees on what the term means. (By the time you read this article, a slew of indignant refutations and addenda will probably be available online.)

But as more than one online ranter has discovered, it's easier to complain about rockism than it is to get rid of it. You literally can't fight rockism, because the language of righteous struggle is the language of rockism itself. You can argue that the shape-shifting feminist hip-pop of Ms. Aguilera is every bit as radical as the punk rock of the 1970's (and it is), but then you haven't challenged any of the old rockist questions (starting with: Who's more radical?), you've just scribbled in some new answers.

The challenge isn't merely to replace the old list of Great Rock Albums with a new list of Great Pop Songs - although that would, at the very least, be a nice change of pace. It's to find a way to think about a fluid musical world where it's impossible to separate classics from guilty pleasures. The challenge is to acknowledge that music videos and reality shows and glamorous layouts can be as interesting - and as influential - as an old-fashioned album.

In the end, the problem with rockism isn't that it's wrong: all critics are wrong sometimes, and some critics (now doesn't seem like the right time to name names) are wrong almost all the time. The problem with rockism is that it seems increasingly far removed from the way most people actually listen to music.

Are you really pondering the phony distinction between "great art" and a "guilty pleasure" when you're humming along to the radio? In an era when listeners routinely - and fearlessly - pick music by putting a 40-gig iPod on shuffle, surely we have more interesting things to worry about than that someone might be lip-synching on "Saturday Night Live" or that some rappers gild their phooey. Good critics are good listeners, and the problem with rockism is that it gets in the way of listening. If you're waiting for some song that conjures up soul or honesty or grit or rebellion, you might miss out on Ciara's ecstatic electro-pop, or Alan Jackson's sly country ballads, or Lloyd Banks's felonious purr.

Rockism makes it hard to hear the glorious, incoherent, corporate-financed, audience-tested mess that passes for popular music these days. To glorify only performers who write their own songs and play their own guitars is to ignore the marketplace that helps create the music we hear in the first place, with its checkbook-chasing superproducers, its audience-obsessed executives and its cred-hungry performers. To obsess over old-fashioned stand-alone geniuses is to forget that lots of the most memorable music is created despite multimillion-dollar deals and spur-of-the-moment collaborations and murky commercial forces. In fact, a lot of great music is created because of those things. And let's stop pretending that serious rock songs will last forever, as if anything could, and that shiny pop songs are inherently disposable, as if that were necessarily a bad thing. Van Morrison's "Into the Music" was released the same year as the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight"; which do you hear more often?

That doesn't mean we should stop arguing about Ms. Simpson, or even that we should stop sharing the 60-second clip that may just be this year's best music video. But it does mean we should stop taking it for granted that music isn't as good as it used to be, and it means we should stop being shocked that the rock rules of the 1970's are no longer the law of the land. No doubt our current obsessions and comparisons will come to seem hopelessly blinkered as popular music mutates some more - listeners and critics alike can't do much more than struggle to keep up. But let's stop trying to hammer young stars into old categories. We have lots of new music to choose from - we deserve some new prejudices, too.

MY REPLY:

Let me first say this: Ashley Simpson IS a no talent fraud. But no one in this day and age cares that she can't reproduce live what you can punch in [i.e. edit] kline by line in the studio. She is eye candy with marginal talent and it doesn't matter as long as she looks good and reproduces the dance of her video. Same as Britney, Jessica Simpson, Christina, et al. It's all about The Show.

Having said that, POP stars [be it Michael Jackson, the Archies, Bay City Rollers, 1910 Fruitgum Company...] do not REQUIRE any credability. All you need is a nicew smile, a catchy hook and a half alaive producer to keep you yarbling on key. Think David Cassidy. Or Sean Cassidy. Or Leif Garret.

Don't kid yourself. You and I both have guilty pleasures. I like some of the Bee Gees pre-Saturday Night Fever singles, especially Jive Talkin' and Lights of Broadway and How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?... I LOVE HAll and Oates hits album... I still like Faster Pussycat's first two albums... Were the Cars Pop or Serious Music?... How about all those great Steve Miller Band singles [including the overplayed Joker, smoker, midnight toker... it's a good song just overplayed!] or Paul McCartney and Wings of the 70s? Part of that comes from growing up with AM Top 40 wher you'd get Jive Talkin' followed by Why Can't We Be Friends followed by Listen What the Man Said followed by Earth Wind and Fire's Serpantine Fire and the Commodore's Brick House then Hall/Oates' Rich Girl then ... you get the idea. How about David Bowie's Fame?

There has always been a division between Pop and 'serious music,' although in rock and roll that line becase blurred about the time of the Beatles' Rubber Soul. Come on, early albums by Charles Mingus or Miles Davis or Charlie Parker or How Much Is That Doggie in the Window? But I blame the split in rock and roll on the rise of the previously unknown 'Rock Critic,' the guy who tells you that Jefferson Airplane or the Doors or the Fugs or MC5 are 'cool' and the Stooges and Velvet Underground and Count Five and Frank Zappa are 'shit.'

I am sure critics of today remain the same 'couldn't get a date in high school' uncool losers 'we' were back in the 60s and 70s, frustrated with our inability to write the great novel depicting the search for the heart of the American dream or play guitar. 'We' champion sweaty unshaven hard drinking/living souls doing what 'we' wish that 'we' could do.

Of course there are those who take 'the High Road' looking at rock and roll as art and championing Sgt Pepper's over the much more interesting Revolver and trashing [in the words of Jeff Bebee of Stillwater ala Almost Famous] 'breaking up Cream, trashing every album Led Zeppelin ever did,' and calling Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan fantastic even at their worst. [Don't believe it? Check out the Rolling Stone review of Bob Dylan's Self Portrait or Jann Wenner's rebuttal to a bad review of one of Bob's late 70s albums, Slow Train Coming I think. But Jann also loved Art Garfunkel, too.]

I understand everyone doesn't want to 'Rock.' It's old hat, cliche, tired and dead and no fun anymore. Plus if you rap, you can wear lots of gold, call women bitches and you don't have to be able to hold a note or play guitar. Avril Levigne isn't rock, but really neither is Sheryl Crow.Though Sheryl is closer than Avril. Is Kid Rock pop? By definition, it's popular...

The Rockists are the purists of today. Remeber that jazz/blues purists in England hated the Rolling Stones for mixing in Chuck Berry with the blues. People said that Sinatra and the crooners were 'a passing fad.' We miss turning on the radio and hearing real songs played by real people with real instruments. I don't dig Jimmy Eat World, but I'd rather hear that than ANYTHING with some sub-woofer destroying boom-doom fake ass beat. Welll... maybe. Rock 'n' Roll or 'Rock' doesn't rule the world anymore. Just as there's a cable channel for every taste, there's a pigeon hole for every offshoot of music that could intrest someone. Baby boomers hold onto their Motown, Beatles, etc the way their parents held on to Mitch Miller, Sinatra and Perry Como and moaned about the 'junk kids are listening to today.' I include myself as one of those people with my 70s dominated music collective.

As for the current 'backing track' questions, all I can say is this: When the Beatles felt THEY couldn't reproduce their records for a live audience, they quit touring. The Stones take keyboard players and horns and backup singers on the road. Manic perfectioninst Lindsey Buckingham and the once mighty Fleetwood Mac too AT LEAST two other guitar players, a keyboard player, a second drummer and a couple of backup singers to fill out their sound. I realize this is an expensive option for a 'band' or a singer on a first or second tour. But instead of trying to reproduce the record in person, make a statement and do what you can live. Speed up, slow down, do acpaellas and make your show interesting, not just recreating the look from your video. When bands like U2 started using sequencers and drum tracks [ala Bad from Wide Awake in America] and the Cars using 8 programmed keyboads on the Heartbeat City tour, it was all over. You lose room to improvise or make mistakes and removed the 'human element' from the show. I've seen some good shows: Springsteen, Queen, Aerosmith that were about energy, the band feeding off an audience's energy and pulling out the unexpected, like Aerosmith doing One Way Street or Rats in the Cellar.

I guess then we also have to blame the audiences of today. These kids grew up with MTV speed cut videos and Playstation and they have the attention span of a gnat so you have to keep moving and grooving and flashing lights and shit to keep their minds from wandering. It's not about MUSIC to them, it's about ENTERTAINMENT.

I sound like a 'Band-Aid,' but I fell in love with all these silly little songs that bring back memories for me. I hear Queen's We WIll Rock You or Ted Nugent's Dog Eat Dog or Steve Miller's Jungle Love and I think of Saturday afternoons spent at Big Wheel Skateland with my friend Mark. I hear Fame or Borwnsville Station doing Smokin' in the Boys Room and I think of driving north from West Virginia to see my grandparents in Pennsylvania. Stupid shit like that. I never went to see some blonde dancing around in her underwear trying to recreate a video... well, not a concert anyway.

Anyway, all I can say about lip synching is remember Milli Vanilli. One day your recording will get stuck or speed up to sound like Mickey Mouse and you'll be roasted on the internet as a no talent fraud. If Ashley had made a joke or something and started over, this would be nothing. What was her band playing during this time? Didn't they have guitars and drums, too? Were they actually playing or was this an American Bandstand/Hard Day's Night performance with no cords plugged into the guitars for them, too? My point would be, backing/sweetening track, maybe; total fraud on an audience, fuck you.

I'm a rockist and I stand proud of it. But for the record, Springsteen, Mellencamp, James Taylor, you're washed up, go home. And U2's output since Achtung Baby [except Lemon and Stay (Faraway, So Close) from Zooropa] is shit. Oh, their new album was stolen and posted on the internet... does anybody REALLY give a fuck or is it a publicity stunt?

Man I see it now, Poison and Motley Crueand the Fixx and Berlin and U2 [who never really quit but should have] and all these 80s bands reuniting and hitting the nostalgia circuit... please, my fellow 80s high school graduates, don't be like your parents and buy into this shit. You have the CDs, going to a club of small areana and standing up for three hours is just going to make your feet hurt.

That's all I got....

More Thoughts About ARTISTIC INTEGRITY

so I am driving to work Saturday morning and one of the local radio stations, in one of there 'We're Going to Play Songs NOT in Our Usual 250 Song Rotation Weekend' and they throw on Graham Nash's Chicago. You know, Graham talking about the big gathering of 1968: "Won't you please come to Chicago/ Or else join the other side/ We can change the world/ Rearrange the world/ It's dying/ If you believe in justice / And if you believe in freedom/ Let a mna live his own life/ Rules and regulations, who needs them?/ Throw them out the door..."

My first though was How Anarchistic for 1968! Then my second thought was Thank God they'll never use that in a commercial.

How can Jefferson Airplane/Paul Kantner & Marty Balin allow Volunteers to be used for a fucking wireless phone commercial? "Gotta revolution" was not written about some new PRODUCT! It was expressing a [radical] political belief! Do the songwriters need a shot of cash THAT BAD? I realize the re-re mastered [yes, the THIRD issue of these albums in 10 years, this time with bonus tracks, all of which appeared on the box set all ready] Jefferson Airplane albums aren't flying off the shelves, and half of the Jefferson Starship catalog remains unavailable on CD.. probably with good reason. Earth, Spitfire, Wind of Change and all of the Starshit/"We Built This City"; all mediocre AT BEST. [Who was worse in the late 80s, Starshit or Heart? Had to be Starshit, Heart still has credibilty and dignity...]

How can write a song like Volunteers or We Can Be Together or Chicago or Revolution about your deep misguided feeling of frustration and anarchy [Hey, Jim Morrison was right, sort of; "They got the guns but we got the numbers" (Five to One).. of course, he thought that equalled victory, but how many people without guns are going to stand up to napalm and M16s?] and thirty years later let it be used for a fucking cell phone or a shoe commercial?

I am glad John Lennon isn't here to see this shit. Can you Imagine [couldn't resist] the words he's have for his fellow artists? "You fuckin losers, you sell outs, you just let your souls be bought and sold, you fucking cowards. Are you trying to sell some records or just fattening your wallet on a fucking nostalgia trip?"

Note to Everyone

Friends, when you look at yourselves, don't be shallow; see yourselves for the uniqueness that is YOU. See what you have and what you are, not what you don't have and are not.

Chasing A Thought or an Idea...

I have been putting a couple of tapes together for someone special and in writing notes [YES, In write liner notes for my own compilations... you got a problem with that, Squarehead?] I have come face to face with myself.

The song in question is Mother Love Bone's Man of Golden Words; to quote "Words and Music - my only tools."

I have always have the love of both words and music. I have found when I am short of words I can use someone else's put to music, ala making tapes and CDs; and when words fail I can still enjoy the music. I find the joy in an instrumental like Eric Johnson's East Wes or Victory and Van Morisson's Spanish Steps [and Poetic Champions Compose album] and Santana's beautiful Incident at Neshabur as I can in something as nice as Hendix's Little Wing or thge Stones' Wild Horses or Zeppelin's Ten Years Gone or Televsion's Marqueee Moon or Guiding Light... depending on the mood you're in of course. If you feel like driving over every motherfucker blocking your way on the freeway, there's nothing better than Metallica's Master of Puppets album. If you want to drink youself into into a depression, Lou Reed's Berlin. Sitting on the balcony watching the traffic flow in the rain, Hendrix's Electric Ladyland or a Jerry Jeff Walker compilation set to random play... maybe the Eagles new 2 CD best of, disc 1, also set to random. Sad snot slinging drunk, some Replacements or George Strait.

But anyway, the point is, I have always linked words and music. I have never really been able to write music except for one or two things and a rip of of My Best Friend's Girl by the Cars. But I have these words. Am I like Lester Bangs, a frustrated lyricist in search of a band? [Of course Lester was a punk purist, where as I'd be more open in the musical end, despite my limitations on guitar and bass. I'd love to be Rick Danko putting great bass lines and great vocals out there. Of course I am not as NASAL as Rick. Maybe Phillip Lynott of the late great Thin Lizzy.] Anyway, I have always been able to use the words of others when my own have failed me. Those who have received compilations like this know what I mean. I can tell my own tale or tell people what is truly in my heart without having to come up with something to say myself. And I do occasionally run out of my own words.

Why do certain people have this aptitude? Why have I been blessed with the gift that allows me to hear the music so clearly in my head? Maybe that's the point; I hear the songs and string them together to help you all understand what goes on inside Chazzy World.

Go put on some album you have not heard for a long time, like BAD II's The Globe or Faster Pussycat's Wake Me When It's Over or ELO's opus Out of the Blue or Johnny Winter's Second Winter [now available expanded and remastered by Sony/ Columbia's excellent re-issues division Legacy Recordings, who I hope will be getting to the Dylan/Band Basement Tapes VERY SOON!!!] fall into the music and think of me sitting here struggling with the words...

My $ 1.25 Opinion on the NHL Lockout!!!
[or: Who's to Blame? The Rant You've Been Waiting For!]

Jumping into the Wayback Machine, I wasn't really affected by the NHL lockout of 94/95... I didn't have cable to catch many games and we'd only just begun watching playoff hockey the summer before with Jim off from school. There was playoff hockey and that was cool, even though I thought the 94/95 Red Wings would wipe the Devils off the face of the Earth... Fuck the TRAP !!!

But that was then, this is now. Having a team in Dallas, as mediocre even as the Stars were in 94/95 to about 1997, the beginning of the Ken Hitchcock years [Fucking Puck Possession TRAP!!!] provided spark, going to Fort Worth Fire, Dallas Freeze and Fort Worth Brahamas games provided cheap entertainment, kicking Tracey's ASS at Blades of Steel on Sega provided understanding and passion...

Now though, I understand the BUSINESS of hockey and IT SUCKS! It sucks to be a fan of a sport the only National Sports Network [ESPN] considers seventh or eighth [football, baseball, basketball, college fball, college bball, GOLF...] and 95% of America only knows from Slap Shot [yes, a classic, but... think about it, does America think of college as Animal House? Austin, maybe...]

Lok at this: in just the ten years I have been a hockey fan, the NHL has gone from an average salary of .73 mil to 1.81m [147%]. Current estimates indicate that player salary is taking up to 75% of 2 billion dollars revenue generated. National TV revenue [Canada] distributed among the teams to about 4m each. Local TV/radio and gate is not shared. Compare to other sports:

NFL Avg salary: .63m to 1.26m [100% increase; 53 man roster, players get 64% of 5 billion revenue; National TV: 18b/8 yrs, approx 75m/team; 40% gate pooled and split amongst all teams]

NBA: 1.8m to 4.92m [173% increase, 12 man roster, players getting 58% of 3.2 billion revenue; National TV:4.6/6yrs, approx 25.5m/team; gate not shared]

MLB: current avg salary 2.5m [no #s on last ten years], 25 man roster, estimate player salary taking 63% of 4.1 billion revenue; National TV: not given, 34% of gate pooled and distributed, approx 9.3m/ team

**source - The Hockey News 9/21/04

I know, that's a lot of numbers and they promised NO MATH, except that this is IMPORTANT, so stay with me! The NHL has all ready priced the everyday fan out of the arena and with almost NO US TV money coming [NBC will be airing the Stanley Cup playoffs [excuse me, almost typed layoffs there...] but the money is laughable and might as well be in Canadian dollars. I know owners [like baseball, where the Yankees created artificially high market... well, we'll get to that in a second] forked out for players and are now crying poverty, and teams like Detroit, Dallas and Colorado bank on many rounds of playoff games to BREAK EVEN, but we'll get to that in a minute.

Am I saying the NHL needs 'cost certainty/salary cap?' Boy, I am thinking so. SOMETHING must be done to halt the upward spiral. I can't believe a good, free market conservative [liberal in Friedman's terms, see Capitalism and Freedom or Free To Choose] like me just said such a thing... Lybbert would smacketh me down!

Players at this point have the pipe dream that offering a salary reduction [5% across the board; that's a $ 550,000 rebate on Jaromir Jagr; 500k on Nick Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Chris Pronger, Alexei Yashin and my whipping boy for 'cost certainty' Bobby Holik; 450k on Mike Modano, who sucked last year and Bill Guerin...] and a luxury tax to force overpaying teams to share revenue ala baseball, some changes on the entry level structure [that's right, let the next generation take the hit] in order to drag salaries. All, of course, to avoid a cap. I think there are staring points in there, but I think we're looing for major overhaul here. Dallas billionaire and NBA owner Mark Cuban [rumoured at one time to be interested in the Stars] was quoted in THN 9/21 "...hockey economics...make the NBAs -and they aren't great, look like a dream."

NHLPA [union] President Trevor Linden stated in his article for THN that a salary cap would impose "severe and artificial limits on the market value of a player (and) salary caps also handcuff team management. To stay under cap limits clubs are forced to get rid of popular players or take a pass on signing players who can help improve the club."

This makes me think that the NHLPA leadership is sleeping under some sort of rock because this is all ready happening for many small market teams who cannot afford to keep up with the St Louis, Toronto, Detroit, NY Rangers, Colorado, Dallas et al. Look at the players who have exited or been forced out of places due to 'market value' in Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Buffalo, Washington, Chicago, Boston [two mediocre ownerships in those last two, but at least they are saying no to this salary spiral madness] and, until recently, Phoenix. We're still looking at a league in which we've had three teams in bankruptcy this decade [Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Ottawa] and the NY Islanders in a shaky ownership situation until Charles Wang stepped in.

My question becomes this: Would the NHLPA rather have 30 viable teams under some sort of salary rein or have 26 [losing 92 NHL level jobs] with no cap?

I understand [now] that the owners had the upper hand for so many years, like the 1920s to about 1970 and hockey didn't have a player making a million dollars until Wayne Gretzky. Wayne SHOULD have been paid that much, he brought a spotlight on the game and put asses in seats. I understand that the NHL has the most control over its players, basically controlling them from draft at age 18 until free agency at age 31. The players though have salary arbitration rights after age 25 [which I will get to, I promise] AND NHL salary qualifications MUST be made at a raise of 10% over the previous years salary.

These are areas that must be improved. The pendulum has swung to far the other. This game cannot afford to pay players the way other leagues can. Any business where salary takes up 75% of your income is not going to be viable very long. I have seen the arguments that 'hockey owners have other interests that they make money on.' Mike Illitch in Detroit has Little Ceasars, the NY Rangers MSG group has cable TV and the Knicks, the Waltons in St Louis have the Wal Mart fortune, etc etc. Which just goes to prove that you have to have some other source of income because you cannot make money as an NHL owner.

Granted, no on is holding owners feet to the fire to sign players to these contracts like the 45m/5yrs Bobby Holik signed for or paying 42 year old Mark Messier 6m or 39 yr old Ed Belfour 10m [though to be fair, the Leafs really have no farm system except other NHL teams and they will have to go buy another goalie when Eddie the Eagle's back finally gives out] or 11m for Jaromir Jagr who hasn't been within a sniff of a scoring title since being traded out of Pittsburgh; guess it was all about the guys setting him up, eh, Mario and Ron Francis? [I still say he's selfish and locker room poison.]

No, the biggest part of what's driving player salaries these days is ARBITRATION! [See, I told you we'd get there.] In the history of NHL salary arbitration, only ONCE has a player been forced to play at the rate of the previous year, and never has a salary been lowered. I have no problem using this as a tool, but players are getting an unfair boost. Rewarding players for growth is one thing, but raising salaries at the rate they are is ridiculous. Alex Tanguay [Colorado] has a raise from 1.5m to 4.25m [283%] and Milan Hejduk [also Colorado] raised from 3.2m to 5.7m [83%] this summer. Tanguay is showing steady growth from 47 to 67 to 79 pts the last three seasons while Hejduk leaped from 44 to 98 to only 75 points last season. These are two of the up ands coming guys in this league, but why should one get a 283% raise? Hejduk put up a couple less points last year, but gets 5.7m? Shouldn't he be back down around the 4.25 Tanguay is getting [or around 4.0m]? Is Hejduk being rewarded late for the 98 pts he put up two years ago? The NJ Devils [Fuck the TRAP!] forward John Madden had has salary bumped from 2m to 4m [100%] despite posting HALF the points [23/41/35] of Hejduk and Tanguay!

Two other high profile arbitration cases this summer were NJ Devils [Fuck the TRAP!] defenseman Scott Neidermeyer and Ottawa Senators giant defenseman Zdeno Chara. Neidermeyer was rewarded with a jump 4m to 7m [75%] raise for a good year, jumping from 33 to 39 to 54 points last year, though his +/- hovers near +15, which means he was on the ice for 15 more goals for his team than were scored against them. Chara was rewarded for steady growth in the offensive categories [23 to 39 to 41 pts] but his +/- has been around +30... which suggests he is twice as good a defenseman as Neidermeyer. Chara was given a raise from 2.4m to 4.6m [92%].

Wondering what's wrong with this picture yet? Arbitration is creating SEVERE AND ARTIFICIALLY HIGH MARKET VALUES ON PLAYERS, NHLPA/ TREVOR LINDEN!!!

Also the fact that players must be qualified with a raise of 10% no matter what... how manyb teams would consider qualifying and securing the services of a player they know if they could offer them 85% of what he made the year before. This would be GRAND for players in their twilight years, in a city they like making 2.5m who could sign on for one more year at the same or slightly lower money to allow the team to let them bow out gracefully. Or players knowing they had a crummy year or didn't play the year before or only played and handful of games[CHRIS PRONGER] to allow the team to recoup a little bit. And allowing the team to take underachievers to arbitration [ALEXEI KOVALEV, JAROMIR JAGR, BOBBY HOLIK, MIKE MODANO] and have someone say 'You stank last year, play this year for a reduced rate and prove yourself again.'

What's the answer them Answer Man? Well, a few years ago in his book, Bob Costas laid forth a plan for baseball that might work here. It includes revenue sharing and a salary cap, but also includes a floor cap, a minimum spending cap to keep owners from pocketing their shared revenue and putting crap teams out there... you know what I am talking about Milwaukee Brewers fans! So say there is a top cap [or even a luxury tax] of 40m; what would also be in place is a floor which would force ownership to pay out 25m in player salary. Philadelphia Flyers center [and never shy] Jeremy Roenick has proposed an individaul salary cap of 6-7m [but no limit on the number of capped players a team can carry, so the Rangers can continue to have their quota of 8 7 Million Dollar Men] and a cap on bottom level players.[THN 9/14/04] JR stated "We need to be creative here. We bring the minumim salary up for guiys at the other end, plus put caps on what rookies can make, depending on where they're drafted. The one thing we need is for each team to gaurantee it will spend a certain amount of money to make it fair across the board."

Two people surprisingly silent right now are two guys who should be able to clearly see both side of the issues: Phonix Coyotes owner Wayne Gertzky and Pittsburgh Penguins owner/cener Mario Lemieux. [Mario is busy trying to get a new arena or secure licensing for a slot machine palace in dahn-tahn to fund a new arena.]

On thing I had not considered was the possibility that an impass is declaired and ownership invites players to training camp. On ESPNs NHL page 10/6:


From lockout to strike? E.J. Hradek, ESPN The Magazine: If the NHL refuses move off its salary cap proposals, the two sides will remain hopelessly deadlocked. At some point in the process, the league will seek to have the dispute legally declared a labor impasse. Once that is accomplished, the NHL can unilaterally impose a salary cap system and invite the players back to their respective teams. The players likely will refuse that invitation, effectively turning the lockout into a strike. At that point, the league will have to determine whether or not it would like to go forward with replacement players. In this scenario, the work stoppage could last anywhere from 12 to 24 months. If, however, the league opts to negotiate a compromise luxury tax system, the two sides could solve their differences in a matter of days. That seems like a better route to take.

Ross McKeon, San Francisco Chronicle: I estimate a labor relations board will step in at some point, declare an impasse which will touch off the players' calling a strike. The season will be completely lost, then a compromise will be struck in time for next season with a new CBA featuring both a hard cap for top-salaries ($7 million), a minimum teams MUST spend ($30 million) and a luxury-tax mechanism for teams that don't eclipse top salaries for individuals, but who exceed a pre-set cap for team spending (i.e. $45 million).

Personally, I think if this lockout becomes a strike, the players lose in most people's eyes. They become greedy millionaires who refuse to compromise, no matter what the NHLPA puts out saying 'We've offered..."

My prediction is that serious negotiating will begin after Thanksgiving [US] to try and salvage a half a season ala 1994/95 with conference only games. The players will give on arbitration and owners will lower free agent ages and agree to a luxury tax. But in coming years, more players will see huge offers dwindling or see fewer free agents picked up as owners try to keep salaries in check. They'll scream collusion, but it will be their own doing. Also teams are realizing, as in baseball, that you can't buy championships anymore, you have to have homegrown talent ready to step up. The NY Rangers have FINALLY seen this and sold a bunch of players last year, as did the Washington Capitals. Detroit, NJ and Colorado have enough emerging talent to make retooling short term projects, but teams that started a few years ago [Pittsburgh, Calgary, Tampa Bay, Nasville, Atlanta] are al ready begining to show improvement and a changing of the 90s staus quo is now begining. If we ever see these guys in the NHL again.

Would NHL fans go see replacement players? I think there are enough minor leagues to stock teams again if they go that route, but I think there are enough minor, juinior, college, etc to allow true HOCKEY fans to get their fixes. No, it won't be the grandness of the best in the world, but it will be some good stuff. And I think owners would be hurt by bringing in replacements and saying "These are the Colardo Avalance" or whatever. It owuld make them look seedy and greedy when I really think they hold the high ground today.

OTHERS PREDICTIONS [ESPN/NHL 10/6]

The lap of luxury (taxes) Larry Brooks, New York Post: If the league holds to its percentage-of-the gross link, the season will be cancelled. If by the middle of November the league commits to negotiating a luxury-tax based system, a deal probably can be reached by Christmas.

Al Morganti, ESPN: This lock out is going to last through the Canadian Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and into the first weeks of the new year. The maddening part is that the end result is something we can predict right now: there will be a luxury tax on payrolls over about $42 million, the arbitration process will be dramatically different, the age for free agency will drop to about 27 years old, and the Rangers will still stink. Figure that pressure from the owners on Bettman will start getting greater around November, the number of anonymous quotes in the media dramatically increase around the first of December, and a settlement sometime around Christmas will lead people to think the luxury tax was the NHL's idea in the first place. The season will resume with a conference-only schedule of 45 games, a fast-paced playoffs, and the Tampa Bay Lighting retaining the Stanley Cup.

What's on Your Mind???

Disturbing Trends in CD Land

Has anyone else noticed these new one name 'critic pick' bands [i.e. The Strokes, The Hives] are issuing 30 minute CDs? 12-13 songs but only 30-35 minutes of music? Is this a good 'Less Is More' trend? Rancid's great Life Won't Wait has 22 songs clocking in at just over 64 minutes... that's 2.9 minutes a song. The Hives' Tyrannosaurus Hives 12 songs clock in at 31 minutes for about 2.5 minutes a song. They're not writing Soundgarden/Black Sabbath long spiraling dirges, not even writing Beatle-esque pop masterpieces, just three or four chord shouters... they couldn't come up with two or three more songs or added an extra chorus or verse for a short guitar solo or anything and gave the 'Consumer' a better value for his money? I could understand the Ramones financing their own low budget first few records {$ 6000 for that first album!} but in this day and age, on a major minor label [Interscope, dist by Universal]? I admit I bought mine used for $ 8, but did the label lower the 'Suggested Retail Price' for such a short CD? If they did, then okay, but if they suggested a full $ 16.99 for this, then I understand and lean a little more for the 'Music Sharer.'

Are You Serious?

I feel like Jack Black in High Fidelity saying this; You know the scene where he's playing the Kinky Wizards tape in the store "What is this?" "It's those skater fucks... and it's really good." The new Silverchair.. apparently the lead singer dude almost croaked last year and he's been writing good songs since then.

Other buying habits recently, I have been buying a lot of older country since I can't find much current 'Rock' that I want to listen to beyond about three listens and current country sounds like 80s pop. Fabulous collections by Merle Haggard, Steve Earle, Hank Jr's Greatest and some Dwight.. the Hives, Heather Nova from the 90s [reminds me of ex Breeder/Belly girl Tanya Donelly], best ofs by ELO and Heart... FINALLY got the new Westerberg tonight. I guess it's good that my CD shop kept selling it out, at least it means SOMEONE is buying it besides me.

Can someone explain a Fritz Ferdinand to me?

Living In the Past

Put my earrings in this past weekend to go hang out with young 'Holy Mikey' [who came over fresh from getting new tattoo-age]... I felt like a punk again, or at least someone younger. I felt like the nights we'd go into Deep Ellum to drink it dry and catch some bands, knowing we weren't going to get laid or anything, and basically howl at the moon and be rockers. Friday and Saturday nights for forgetting that the five other nights you were a lonely music snob and seeing unapproachable girls in mini skirts and cleavage to think about later... basically living those drunken, lonely Replacements songs. Friday night is killing me, indeed.

But the question arises: Am I pretending to be someone I used to be or allowing the 'true me' to surface again? I have locked myself into Mr Cool Calm Collected Music Snob for so long, have I forgotten my 'true self?' Am I what I am now or am I what I was then with a few years of polish to smooth out the rough edges? Or are they the same? Did I let my inner teenager/Chaz of youth out to play again for a while?

The earring are out now [like a fool I bought piercing studs and they stretch my holes and stab me in the back of the ear when I sleep on them... should have been paying attention!], the jack is back in his box, and I am part of the briefcase carrying 'Do Nothing' brigade again. They even have me wearing slacks and real business shirts at this new job! They're trying to make me respectable!!! But like cool fall and spring [and even summer] nights that push you into feeling alive again... maybe that's it. Maybe I just felt REALLY alive again for a few hours.

Stuck Inside of Euless With Hall of Fame in Mind [OR Reading the Back of My T Shirt]

The Lovin' Spoonful is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame worthy band????!!!!???? For what, electric harpsichord? I got nothing against John Sebastian and the boys personally, they made some great singles, but they 'changed the face of rock and roll?' NO. UH-UH. NO WAY.

Thoughts? Answers? Shut ups? chazg66@yahoo.com
SALEH!!!