Cursive is Code’s new record The 1200 Bar Blues started as a dare between CiC songwriter JpK (The Grimm Generation) and longtime friend guitarist Dave Hogan (The Rafter Bats, Graylight Campfire). The challenge was to come together to do one straight out Rock record based on a mutual love of Mott The Hoople.
Unfortunately, soon after Dave Hogan passed away and this became an important record to make. The 1200 Bar Blues is based on the shared experiences of being in a local band looking to go big. Lyrically this deals with frustration, drugs and drinking, victory, playing first on the bill, band feuds, faith, fame or fortune and making it back to your day job on time.
Cursive is Code started when JpK (vocals, guitar) and Julie Kay (keyboards, drum programming) met in The Grimm Generation. The first Cursive is Code release The State Enforced Renaissance was their experiment with harder beats and glammier guitars. When they started putting together The 1200 Bar Blues they brought in a couple of ringers: Ian Malli on bass (The Midnight Anthem) and Cary Pollick on electric guitars (Big Fat Combo, The Zambonis). The resulting sound is big and brash and unadulterated Rock and Roll. The lyrics focus on true experiences such as trying to find a drummer (Summer of Drummers) or the worst gig ever played (Hopi Fest) and an apocalyptic take on proper band placement (Who Plays First).
‘All of this reverberates throughout this new album – which at its heart is a good old fashioned rock and roll album with the usual themes of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.’ – E2TG – Nashville
At this time, we were also getting played on the radio pretty regularly. Local Homegrown type shows that we always submitted to, quite a few radio interviews as well. The most exciting thing was that Grimm was getting played on the big broadcast FM station in my growing up area 99.1 WPLR was playing us on their Local Band Show. Not during Prime Time, sure, but I grew up on this station and it felt pretty great. All my old friends were impressed.
We were not making money quickly enough so we begged and borrowed cash where we could to start the sessions with Tyler. We had a series of practices split between the House of Grimm and Kerry Carriage House practice space. We worked on details, tightening. Lys started playing a mean electric guitar as much of this material was rocking.
We started recording on a Saturday and as expected, Kerry was first up with drum tracks. We actually had the whole band wired up down there to the best effect. The basic tracks were Kerry and my acoustic guitar and Carmen’s voice. It was such a different vibe from recording in Storrs with the Scamp. It was very professional. It was not nearly as fun.
I think that same description could be said of GG around that time. We were achieving something trackable, something noteworthy. But even then, I could see the cracks start to develop. This was our dream, Carmen and Me. This was not their dream. We were asking a lot of everybody with a constant gig schedule and little pay.
What we were doing was exciting, to all of us I believe. We were striking out with a unique type of Pop Music that was quite difficult to fit into any genre. We would stick with the ‘Indie Rock’ tag because that was the closest. By this point, our New World of Facebook was getting crowded in addition to the constant urging of Facebook to pay, pay, pay. The ground was shifting beneath our feet and I am not even sure if we were aware of it. By this point CC and I had been operating GG for about 5 years. And despite our constant cheerleading and trumpeting the ‘Cause,’ even we were wearing a bit thin with each other.
We had been having a single conversation for years and the frequency was insane. We had days where hundreds of notes flew between us. Texts likely even more.
Recording what would become ‘The Big Fame’ continued with band members scheduling their time with Tyler, showing up and leaving tracks. Tyler would send rough tracks that we would all obsess over though mainly Lys, CC and Me.
We added a song from the GG3 days into the mix as well because ‘Real Bad Voodoo’ had a perfect presence among these tracks. We invited Dave Hogan in as he played on that track more than everybody and he was cool enough to do a couple of other tracks as well.
Retrospect. That is really where the gold gets separated from the stones. We should have had him play on the record more.
The main difference in sound between the first record ‘The Last Record Party’ and our next full length ‘The Big Fame’ came from the band we were working with who had been playing these songs out in the World with us for over a year. Where, for ‘The Last Record Party’ we asked people to participate and make it awesome, this band knew exactly what they were doing far before we booked the date with Tyler. The other difference was in the songs we were producing which came from a slightly different place than previous, by this point Carmen and I had been writing regularly for a few years and the increasing confidence and inspiration coming from sounds that were around us which was no longer Classic Rock.
Carmen was the first person I knew who discovered new music online. It seems silly now, but fact was, before Spotify, it was YouTube. And Carmen was always on the hunt. She introduced us both to some higher quality sounds, some different sounds. And the new sounds were creeping into our work. We just wanted to be a Rock Band. Now we wanted to be something more. No…that is not true. We did not want to be more than a Rock Band. It was something that was happening beyond our control.
‘The Big Fame’ starts with my song. ‘Earthquake, Hurricane, Flood and You,’ which was a true story. The year around the recording was simply madness with the major weather events that were happening. This was a love song in my style before I became better at love songs. I love this song like an errant mischievous child. It starts with that chug which always fires me up. We worked with the right Drummer on the record as Kerry provided that fast, unrelenting beat that everyone laid into. This featured Lys and Dave on monster guitars. I loved the way they played off of each other which was even better when they did it live. Lys had a Mustang that roared and perfectly abetted Dave’s cool Les Paul sound. Julie cello on this was perfect and nearly unbelievable. Who would even put Cello on a song like this? We would. Also, one of my livelier harmonies. I did not sing a single song on this record. This was the Grimm show and that put Carmen in front of the mike.
Up next, ‘The Next Indie Boy,’ which we envisioned as the single. Who was ‘the next indie boy”? It was not me. This was written from the point of view of a girl who I had recently broken up with and effectively says ‘There is always another musician hanging around…’. Jerk. But fuck, what a song!!! The dual vocal chorus, two differing melodies fighting for space made me excited every time I heard it. The dual guitars of Lys and Dave really kick this one down. Bass master Eric, who it must be said played his head off on every track, his high bass harmonies on the third verse resolve added to the overall stew of kick ass, fuck you songery. This was the song we had a lot of faith in and hand made a video for it to get it out there. The classic Replacements rip of just pointing a camera at a cassette deck and letting it play.
Then another CC concoction that was just too fun to play ‘Dizzy in My Hips Swinging.’ This was a straight-out Rock and Roll song that featured CC, Me and Lys all singing different parts in the chorus as well as some sweet harmonies in the verse between CC and Lys. Kerry kept a quick galloping beat on this held down by Eric’s wild bass lines. I think my favorite part of this song was the cello swoops that Julie dropped in the chorus which added to the real ‘whoosh’ feeling of the track.
Based on our history as a band, we had a pretty clear theme for ‘The Big Fame’ record which was the trial and triumphs of a local band trying to reach higher. Although that year had a different agenda than ours. Carmen’ father passed away in that period which as a loss for everyone. She started exploring this in her lyrics, to a chilling effect. Conversely, I was starting a still happy relationship so my songs were decidedly bedroom tunes. The song ‘House Drinks’ was what I consider the best song we ever wrote and performed. This was a rather intense song, multi-layered and with multiple parts. The words were some of Carmen’s best work which was a conversation about her father’s passing. If not for this line up having played this song for a year already, it may have been difficult to record. We had little issue with this under Tyler’s steady production hand. This was one I am still quite proud of.
The next track was our heavy track and named tribute to the dude behind the kit, Killer Kerry Miller. Granted, it’s not about him, but about the power of his name. ‘Miller, Don’t You Even Care?’ is a tale of a fictional Miller and CC trying to breach his heart. This was all guitars on deck, aggressive and triumphed by a genuinely wild guitar solo by Dave Hogan. I still remember the first time CC and I heard the guitar solo after Dave left the studio and we were wide eyed and open mouthed. And then fits of mad giggling because it was a monster.
Up next was our Cello standout track ‘Until Then.’ Beautiful, bordering on baroque, with some of Carmen’s most heartbreaking and truly present lyrics. Julie’s cello work on this was outstanding. I think my personal favorite part of this was when my harmony vocal came in on the chorus. Carmen and I had finetuned how to sing with each other by then so we did what we thought was right and let the recording catch it. The final arrangement of acoustic, cello, glockenspiel was truly lush.
‘Quiet (St Francis)’ was next and was the most direct reflection of her recent loss with a story about visiting in the St Francis hospital. The words were stark and almost shocking with the raw emotion she was working through. It’s not painful because CC was not dramatic. She is plain spoken and hurting out loud. Despite the heavy lyric, I paired this with one of my favorite American Pop Music tropes, the ‘And Then He Kissed Me’ riff. That ‘dumdeedumdum’ bit. I have always had an almost unreasonable attraction to that riff, likely started when I first heard it on a KISS record. Eric would lock in with me on the bass and Lys would kick in some key harmonies for key verse lines and the chorus. All of this gave the song a sort of Kinks vibe that was almost rollicking.
Up next we brought Dave Hogan back for his 12-string prowess on ‘Road To Joy.’ It is a very un-Grimm like song as it is overwhelmingly positive. OK, that’s an over statement but it wasn’t doom laden. Lys on her Mandola, Dave on the 12 string, this was a nice song. Honestly CC and Me never cared for it after we wrote it but it did record well.
‘Real Bad Voodoo’ was up next for some good and dark guitar wankery. Both Lys and Dave on electric. This song was originally on the ‘The Book Of Love’ EP and was one of those songs that The GG3 used to play a lot. It has a delightful sleaziness to it, with some great vocals and harmonies. This was the type of song that GG was born on, so it was great to actually put it on this record. The GG3 used to rock this song hard with Dave overjoyed to wrap in some lovely Raymond Chandler guitar lines. The effect of the whole band on it was different, better, though maybe a bit less energetic than the live or EP version.
My Pirate song ‘The Wreck Of My Bed‘ was up next and man, this was a hoot to play live. Even before we started working with drummers, the collected musicians had fantastic timing so my stompy foot would come across as a primal invitation. This song was based on a long weekend and the condition of my bed after said weekend. Lys played banjo, Dave played 12 string, Eric pulled off some lovely high tone bass work toward the third bit. The heroes for this song were definitely Kerry on drums and Julie on cello. What impressed me about Julie was we made no effort to make songs that should include cello and she balked at none of it, using her instrument like a third guitar. Her tone carries this song through to its thrilling conclusion.
Another stunner, maybe slightly behind ‘House Drinks’ in my all-time favorites of The Grimm Generation songs was Carmen’s ‘The Eye Of Tranquility.’ When she presented this to me as a long form poem, I looked at it as an epic and wrote it accordingly. A very simple acoustic and vocal start as the other fall in behind and propel the song toward the second verse. The chorus was amazing and featured one of the highest vocals I ever put on record. This song meant a lot to us and we were mighty proud of it. It is the words on this one and CC’s delivery that sell this.
Up next was one of my older songs, one written in the time of the Folk Award days, ‘Bigger Than.’ I am pretty confident I wrote this about CC despite it being pre-Grimm. We often wrote about each other in subtle or obvious ways. This song was best served as an acoustic number, the less musicians the bigger the impact. This version sounds like pure Country and I hate it. Hate. It. It was likely my fault. This was initially going to be an acoustic track, no drums. When Kerry was doing drums, I suggested he try a drum track for this one too, which I don’t think he expected. As often happens when creating songs, when I hear the drums, I was excited because drums hold everything together. When we started laying the tracks on top of it, the whole thing went Country and though I should have cut it from the record, I did not. Love the song deeply, hate the recording.
And in conclusion, the song that would grow things out of its own soil, the swooping lap steel and locked in thud of the rhythm of ‘The Big Fame.’ This was the song that would bring about the Radio Show. I really like this one. It was one of those songs that I would listen to and not believe I wrote it as it was so odd, so perfect. Everyone played this song perfectly and we were pretty pleased with it. Had to be careful with this live: if it’s too fast, that was OK. If it was too slow, it would take a lunar year to get through.
Pop and CC were responsible for the cover which featured CC in 50s gear vacuuming in front of an abandoned movie theater that was still in Windsor. The image along with the title were perfect. It was about show biz, you know?
We did something unique when this came out and actually bought radio station ads in a big station in Hartford. They only aired very late at night as we did not have the finance, but it was pretty special tuning into a 50000-watt radio station and hearing those opening strains of The Big Fame.
Once we had Dave Hogan on a few tracks, we asked him to come sit in at a show. And when I saw Lys and He play together, that was when it was clear we missed something by not insisting he play more on the record.
With the addition of Dave this became what I think was our best line up, which was The Grimm Generation Show Band. Dave on 12 string acoustic and Les Paul, Lys on Fender Mustang, banjo, mandola, glockenspiel, vocals, Eric on bass and Kerry on drums, Julie on Cello, Carmen singing and Me playing acoustic and stomping right along.
This band was put together to play The Big Fame Radio Show. And the sound was mountainous.
We continued to push for press for the Radio Show at the Radio Museum and we did attract quite a bit of attention. It was just a different idea and people were fascinated. CC and I did interviews, radio shows, pimped the concept online …. We were doing what we did the best, which was Promoting. Ideas for this just seemed to come up from the ground and it was our job to catch every single one.
And in time, on the precipice of our greatest triumphs, CC and Me in the House of Grimm were deteriorating.
In retrospect, I know what happened. It was all very practical. In the same way the band was showing up to carry us, CC was carrying me. I had lost my job and was drawing unemployment. Meanwhile I had a new girlfriend who was around the house of Grimm too much. And I was barely paying rent.
And money was bad all around. There were fears she would lose the House of Grimm and that was something we took very seriously. To me, 53 Park Ave was not a house. It was my home. What I created down in my basement lair was the best work of my life. What CC and I created at that Kitchen Table should was simple magic. Should allow us to live comfortably.
But we kept it together. For just a little while longer.
We released ‘The Big Fame’ record and perhaps with this poverty frame of mind did not make it available to stream on Spotify. At the time where musicians were just not sure how to work with streaming services.
We wanted to sell records, at last. Exchange our songs for cash. It was that simple. We had paid our dues as did the folks who played with us. We accepted that the GG Leer Jet was a few years away but we wanted validation to not feel insane for pushing this for years. This weighed on CC more than me cause though we did not make a lot of money, I made more money in GG than anything else I did.
Looking at it from Carmen’s POV, it just hurt. She did not come up in bands and wasn’t sold this limo dream as a kid. She was frustrated that something that took so much from us, something we paid real money for occasion by occasion, could not produce any on its own.
At what point is the Rock and Roll Fantasy a fantasy? At every point, obviously.
If your dream is to play bars and get laid, the stage is waiting. If your dream is to reach people with your songs, far worse things await.
We received some great reviews from friend around the Country including Our Man In Nashville, Joe. We met him through a musician friend and he started to talk about us in his Nashville home. Joe was a good guy and more, loved the Hell out of Grimm. He gave us a stellar review that we pimped like it would cure cancer.
Meanwhile our bread and butter, The Internet, was getting harder to navigate. All previously free websites started charging. Facebook was a collective din where no sound came through and none got out. We were there at that perfect point where anyone could pull off a new band when people were still engaged. Before all of these same people as well as ourselves, struck out for better sites and content.
Despite all of this, despite the disappointment of our record not getting listened to enough, we had a Radio Show to do.
The Windsor Vintage Radio Museum was a box warehouse type building but what they had inside was mind-blowing. It was radios throughout the eras, the first ever televisions and collection of outdated and delightful electronics. We showed up dressed to kill and set up for the show.
Genuine Hero (look it up) and CC Boyfriend Matt provided the catering from his super popular Burger joint. The members of the Museum board did their job and though we were set up in the Museums itself, surrounded by all of these amazing nostalgia inducing electronics, it was standing room only. I am quite sure the Members of the Board did not know what they were in for.
And it began. Ginger acting as narrator stepped to the microphone and said ‘I am here to tell you a story… about Asher…..’ while the band crept in behind her with the repetitive noir riff of the title track from ‘The Big Fame’ … soft sensual…maybe a bit scary….before we kicked into raging ”Earthquake, Hurricane, Flood and You’ and we were hitting it with every step. The narration parts had Julie playing beautiful movements on her cello based on the theme melodies while Ginger continued the tale.
The parts where the song was quiet such as ‘Until Then,’ the crowd sat hushed, not a sound, not a rustle. The loud songs got raucous. It was perfect.
And after the show we had a Grimm Listening Party with the whole band over. It got wild and was an unforgettable night.
And that last with that particular line up. Kerry had decided to seek saner waters by moving out to Indiana and Ginger went with him. We were again without a drummer.
Good fortune swung our way this time with Julie suggesting an old friend of hers, Jack to try out. He’s a slightly unusual drummer in that he mainly played percussion with congas and djembes. We were always up for rhythmic experimentation, though currently we were in a riskier position as we had an established set in The Radio Show which would be our regular set for all the gigs upcoming. Even with the extended spoken word, it clocked in at 55 minutes.
Jack showed up with some percussion as well as a snare. He did not play with a bass drum which due to the size of the band at the time was OK. There were plenty of instruments bringing the bass kick.
I met Jack first at his house in Essex and we went up to the practice room. I had my sheets, my chords, my guitar and my recorder so I was set to go. Once we hit the spot, we did not pick up an instrument even once. We just chatted. We found we fought in some of the same ‘wars,’ specifically a gig about 20 years previous that we both played.
The Hopi Fest gig was a well-meaning musical disaster which featured about 1200 bands. My band The Great Upsetters (featuring Dave Hogan) was supposed to play at 5. And then 7. Then 9.
Around 10 we dropped the acid.
Then 11.
It was about midnight when we took the stage. No one wanted us to play. The gig was long over and wasn’t particularly successful at any point. We demanded to take the stage, demanded to play our show, despite the only people remaining were crew folk who did not like us even a bit.
We played, loud. It wasn’t good, everyone was way too far gone within the group and absolutely hateful outside the group.
I told the tale to Jack that first non-practice and he said ‘I was there. I was in the band right before you. I will always remember watching you guys take the stage and thinking ‘What the fuck is going on with these guys?’ I related this story to Dave Hogan who was equally amused.
Jack had spent his time on the CT Shoreline with his own series of bands. He was a Legend in that area, not only known for his singing and time keeping, but also, he was funny. Like real funny.
I liked him immediately and hoped he could drum.
We gathered the whole 7-member Show Band together at The Grimm House with Jack and his weird set up. After Ginger split, Carmen took over the reins of becoming the Narrator of the story, trying on a collection of Southern accents because that was what she heard it as. And she was right.
The set began, again with a soundscape based on the title tracks and the opening of the story. And then we were off, the entire set straight through, no breaks. Jack did phenomenal. His odd kit was, in review, perfect for a band of this size. He would keep the time firm and it was never splashy. Just straight down the line, even throwing in some kicky dance beats that were never in the songs before. It worked brilliantly.
And we went back on the road playing The Big Fame Radio Show every following gig. The more we worked it, the tighter, the more dramatic it became. Now having both Lys and Dave playing guitar brought a real driving sense to the set. Jack picked up on cues and focused on certain moments, versus beats. Everyone was playing like this was a live musical drama, which it was.
We played a lot of gigs in this line up, but two remain in perfect focus for completely different reasons.
A friend and Grimm booster from Facebook were involved in an arts festival held in Bridgeport at the historical McLevy Hall. It was an interesting event. Multiple floors on the building and each room had a different type of creation happening. Drum circles, costuming, every conceivable type of visual and video art (Including on the outside face of the building).
This was also a sort of homecoming for me because though we had played down Bridgeport some, not as much as we played everywhere else. I did see some old friends and walking around with the Big Band made me feel like a boss.
We were playing in one of the upper rooms and while we were setting up there was a tither in the crowd. Apparently, Chris and Tina, rhythm section for the Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club were in attendance. We were starstruck. And they were sitting in our audience waiting on a show.
Which we gave them in spades. Maybe the best performance of the Grimm Generation Show Band ever.
Afterwards Chris and Tina were effusive with praise for the Radio Show set. Tina in particular mentioned she was transfixed. The band was all wide smiles and jittery happiness.
I recall this night through a gauzy inner filter that indicated ‘remember this.’
The other gig was equally dramatic but all off stage. This was the final Cabaret show in New London for the Grimm Generation. At which point the wheels came off the cart.
It started badly. Way before we even got near New London. It was snowing like mad as Carmen, Pop and I made our way down south. I was driving and I am not a good snow driver. And that trip was a white-knuckle ride all down Rt 2 which on its best day is an underdeveloped highway. I remember keeping the car on the road between the two white lines till they disappeared completely. I remember the stone silence in the car because both CC and Pop were well aware of my distaste for winter driving. By the time we hit the gig I was a single raw nerve and was not being particularly pleasant to anyone.
We had 2, 20-minute sets after a 2-hour slippery nightmare to get there. That of course is not unusual. We rearranged our set, dropping the slower, quieter numbers and amping up all the fast songs. Everybody was supposed to play a 20-minute set, but other bands were being loose with their time, under the impression we were all here for a good time. Not an unreasonable expectation.
It was driving us crazy. We played our first set in the overcrowded underground venue and we did play well. We were supposed to come up an hour later which was delayed and delayed again.
I approached the lovely lady organizing this event, a lady who was responsible for booking us again and again in a number of super cool shows, including all three Cabaret performances. I was not pleasant. She did not deserve it either.
Another band would step up and play a 40-minute set. Magic acts came up and played a 40-minute set. Improv comics, a ventriloquist, Burlesque girls all came up for their 40 minutes while I turned red in my seat. Carmen and I were shooting looks at each other like a murder was a ‘coming.
What happened when we took the stage is one of my favorite Grimm Generation memories. We were very professional and if someone wanted a 20-minute set, that’s what they got. We were Teutonic in our timing.
We step to the stage, all rage and madness. Carmen grabbed the mike and said ‘THIS is what a 20-minute set sounds like….’ And BOOM! We played with all of the rage, all of the disappointment, years of regrets, a questionable future could summon. We were tight and hot and incredible.
I was never prouder. It was the most punk thing I had ever seen, ever been a part of. We roared and it was not posing. For all the artifice that GG played with, all of the humor, all of the pulp, we meant what we did, what we played, what we sang. These songs were pulled from us and we refracted them into Pop music so a deeper amount of people would hear what we feel.
This was the goal, always. It was not to ‘get chicks.’ It was not for the miniature amounts of cash. We had something to say and we would sing it if you will take it better.
That Monday we got the note from Lys. Thank you for the experiences but I’m going to have to leave GG and dedicate more time to my own bad. This quickly followed with Eric saying he needs to quit GG so he can start a band with Lys.
I think the last Cabaret showed them sides of us they did not want to see again. I could not and did not blame them. They stuck with us for a few years and my gratitude at that, despite no real money, despite consistent long car rides for practice, they kept coming.
I had the conversation again with CC: These are not friends. These are musicians. They will come around right up until they have a better offer.
Soon afterward we received an offer that I had wanted since we wrote the Radio Show. A full hour performance on WPKN which was the Bridgeport college station that I, we, listened to for years. It was finally the opportunity to put the Radio show on the radio. And everyone, Lys and Eric specifically, came back for one more performance.
We gathered at WPKN on a sunny Sunday morning, not dressed for a crowd. Performing in regular clothes felt strange. We all took our seats and Dave the DJ introduced us and the piece. I remember the sun shining through the high windows looking at everyone surrounding me focused on the work. I felt bliss. Grateful. Proud.
We played beautifully. And of course, the recording never came. Technical difficulties. The Gods who held us in favor clearly turned away.
The House of Grimm was in turmoil completely aside from the music. The girl who never left my room eventually moved and invited me along. Since I was barely paying rent and relations between CC and me were getting icy, I went. Three months later that relationship went to Hell and having nowhere to go, I asked CC if I could have my space back.
And she rescued me. She let me talk for hours as the breakup did finally fuck me up. She was my rock, in addition to her mate and future husband Matt. They would come down every night and we established a type of club, smoking friendly. We laughed for hours for a year or two. I was home again.
And things end as they began.
With all of our hard work over the year, we actually placed for the Best Indie Band in Hartford and were invited to the red-carpet ceremony. It was unexpected as we did not even submit ourselves for review. Everybody dressed Oscars appropriate and we gathered at the Bushnell in Hartford with the rest of the CT Arts and Music scene. We saw some old friends and saw some old bands we played with. Everybody dressed to accept rewards. It was surreal and pretty sweet.
Due to the being nominated (we did not win as a band of teens had all of their friends stuff the Ballot boxes. I was OK with that because if I had friends, I would have done the same exact thing) we received a gig, which would be the Last performance of The Grimm Generation and our Radio Show. We had the full show band back with one exception: Eric on bass had moved on to other pastures so we brought in a ringer for the bass, a real cool and skilled gentleman named Dave.
The gig was at Arch Street which was one of the livelier venues in Hartford that still featured original music. On this night, it was a morgue. This all brought back clearly what started this: me pacing wildly outside a gig on New Year’s Day when I won the Harford Folk Artist. Sadness and disappointment.
It had to end that way. It was too good of an ending not to.
Epilogue.
I had always said, to anyone who would listen, that the best conceived story ever written would be about a band that tried to make it and failed. These stories have everything: love, drama, craft, disappointment, moments of triumph, concepts of belief, betrayals, heroes and villains, addictions, usually a touch of true crime, death and life. There is something about viewing the world as a member of a band that makes you feel you have soldiers standing beside you, angels looking over you and a steep decline ahead. Which is true in any team activity.
Carmen and I remain close but we do not communicate that often now. During the course of about 4 years we talked enough for a dozen years. Now that we had no child to shepherd (GG was the errant troubled child), life started away from each other.
CC and Matt married and I sang GG at their wedding. She no longer sings but has started writing again in earnest.
After GG I decided to do a solo album ‘The Zen Of Losing’ based on that leveling break up I experienced and asked Julie to help me out with her Cello. We produced a record together with assist by old friends Adam (who recorded and played just about everything) and of course, Dave Hogan.
Working so close with Julie we became very close and then fell in love hard. We started a band with Jack and played that record. Coming to know Julie, as she truly was, it made me wonder how many other things I missed during that period. I was obsessed with GG thinking that was the only way to get it done.
Lys put out her solo record (with Dave Hogan contributing) and started the Lys Guillorn Band with Eric.
We came together one last time without instruments at Dave Hogan’s Funeral. Everyone was very sweet to me during that period as she knew what Dave meant to me.
Now any right-thinking band would put out their first official record (we had 3 EP’s under our belt at that point, all home recorded). It generally works well if you go with the songs that you know best, that have received the biggest applause. GG was never right thinking so consequently we wrote a whole new set of songs. Then started sending them to musicians who came into our orbit.
And when it came to where we would record, I had only one thought: The Scamp.
Chris was a drummer, but seemed to be able to play any instrument he laid his hands on. He kept time with the art rock extravaganza that was The Bud Collins Trio (at last count, 6 or 7 members). I had read their name when I lived down in Fairfield constantly in the New Haven Advocate, so they were sort of Stars to me.
Flash forward 10 years or so and there is me, freshly laid off by the Insurance company du jour and had 401 K money burning a hole in my pocket. I had a retirement plan already: Be a rock star and die young. So that money was slated to record my first solo album, The Jason Drug Reaction ‘Down On The Pharmacy.’
Yes, I was Jason Drug for some years. Yes, my Mom HATED it.
After playing with bands I decided to follow my muse and see where it would lead. I was effectively playing with the Houses’ money. I went studio shopping.
I came across a spot not that far from my near Hartford address and took a ride out to see what it was about. I met Chris and his engineer Finch and liked them immediately.
I booked a week to do the tracks, practiced up with the recently pilfered band mates, brought along some friends to add flair. We had a good time. It was excessive and exactly as I dreamed it would be, cocaine and late Sunday night strip club included (note: if you go to a strip club late on a Sunday, no one will be happy to see you).
It was a good record. I had a pretty hard Ziggy Stardust era obsession at that time (which still stays with me) and it was pretty obvious. My partner at the time was the irrepressible and mysterious ‘Fetcho’ who played guitar, was brilliant at creating melody and was cooler than everyone you know piled up on top of each other.
With my solo record out, I marketed myself. Pre Internet. So, this was a hard copy promotion (printed on paper! For real!), stickers, a Bio and the printed CD. I sent them everywhere I could for reviews, for press, for acknowledgement.
When that did not work, I created a fake charity tour named CARMA with myself and friends from Gigglejuice. The idea behind the tour was to ‘raise awareness about homelessness’ which was as empty of a sentiment that I could come up with. I did not want something trackable…because it was a scam.
It was not a good scam because it was not very successful. I don’t believe we made a dime and likely lost a bit of money. But we did receive a ship load of press.
Recording ‘Down on The Pharmacy’ was fun and I always appreciated The Scamp. We kept in touch, even did some sessions afterwards, on the house. By now, social media was starting to grip the World so we fell back in touch. So, when CC and I were looking for a studio, he was my first and last call.
He was available, built a new studio at his house in the woods of Storrs and was less expensive as we were friends.
The recording of the first GG record ‘The Last Record Party’ was madcap. Because The Scamp got weird in delightful ways, he also knew how to record interesting off the cuff stuff that made the record fall into place, which was convenient as we came loaded for bear.
We brought Dave Hogan on guitar, 2 drummers, 2 bass players, 1 trumpet player and courtesy of some Bud Collins Trio members hanging around, keyboards and guitar. The Bud Collins keyboardist played on just about every track and I believe I was in the same room with him absolutely. We asked him to add color and he was cool and said ‘Sure.’
Each session ended with Chris The Scamp saying ‘OK, that was good. Let’s hope my computer doesn’t crash and everything disappears…’. Every. Single. Session.
It was a beautiful out in the woods spot to make a record. Meanwhile The Grimm Generation brought about 18 songs, but were switching them up constantly as a new 7 songs had been written since we started.
The record we made was The Grimm Generation’s ‘The Last Record Party’ which came with one of my favorite record jackets of all time: Black white and red photo realism image of a plane about to crash right on top of the House Of Grimm. Pop did not fuck around and took this vague idea of mine and created something lasting.
The record kicked off with electric guitar and trumpets in ‘Sometimes I’m Subtle (Sometimes I’m Drunk)’ which was Carmen’s creation. I still remember when she presented the words to me and I saw it almost all at once. The crashing bits and fanfare and a killer hook that stuck in your brain. Mike was the trumpet player who we hooked up with from Craigslist. He was an ebullient guy, a lot of fun and was the singer and trumpet in his own cover band that did really well around here. Sitting to play with him that first session, just CC me and Mike at the Table was surreal. I had never played with a trumpet player before and he was excellent. Not simply skill, but trying things to fit around and into the sound which he did brilliantly.
Next up was more muted trumpet magic on CC’s ‘The Definition Of Love.’ These were the songs we had been playing with The GG3 so Dave Hogan had time to build the perfect guitar parts for these songs. This was a lovely sort of noir take on our favorite subject. This was a popular song for us. People dug it pretty hard.
My first pass at the big singers’ microphone was ‘Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick’ and it was a beast. Lyrically, one of my personal favorites but I do wish it had more distortion on the record. This was a quick study of a relationship approaching the precipice of a high cliff. I wrote a lot of songs on this subject at the time (versus the sad boy breakup songs) because this was the life I was living at the time.
A beautiful GG3 version of ‘Hovering’ and ‘Keep It’ were next. What The GG3 lacked in membership was made up with ingenuity. Since we started as a stompy 2-piece, melody was not something we were paying much service to. It was the song. The song shared a particular point of view that we hoped would crawl through primal arrangements. Once Dave was in the fold, he laid beautifully poignant lines on top of that made it feel closer to conversation between lovers than crying in your beer. ‘Keep It’ was a song that came to me whole in another romantic misadventure and I remember those words just whole. I recorded the very first demo on a pre smartphone voicemail and think that version captured it better than any of the other 4 or so times I recorded.
‘I Fall For Everyone’ was next and we already thought this would be the first GG video so we were focused on getting this one just right. A killer lyric by CC that was funny and terrifying and just plain honest.
Followed by ‘The End of The World’ from the first EP, this time given a more royal treatment and baritone guitar. One of the things I loved most about GG was our harmonies that came from raw experimentation. My natural singing voice was a bit higher than Carmen’s so I would often swoop between the low and high harmony in a single song. Our harmonies on the chorus of this gave me goosebumps. I had worked vocal harmonies with bands before. I would not say I was particularly good at it, but faced with this arrangement, I had to be. We were two people and a guitar, so any flourish would need to come out via vocal work.
Next up was one of my best performances and maybe best songs, ‘Slow Language.’ And it hurt me. Because I meant it. This was one of Dave’s favorite songs of ours and when we played this as a trio, his guitar soared and spouted actual tears.
For a bit there I was writing songs that made hay with Biblical imagery and from that came ‘The Book Of Day Job.’ It was one of the funnest live songs we ever played because it was speed metal fast with Carmen and I croaking out a note for note harmony throughout the whole song. On top of that Dave Hogan used one of his sharpest tools: the slide guitar. He whooped and wheeled all over this and the result is just pure mania.
Followed by Carmen’s most direct song about sex ‘Pull The Trigger.’ Men in particular went crazy for this song and it was not difficult to see why. Raw, bordering on dirty but always on the angels’ side.
And then came ‘Forward Ho.’ Lyrically the song meant quite a bit to me as I wrote it after a grand disappointment in the Grimm camp. The point was ‘Fuck it…. let’s move on.’ I should have recorded that and saved the record from including this song. The best memory I have if this song is recording this session with Kerry and trying to keep up with him. He could play fast. And we wanted fast. But Christ. I remember feeling like that classic Maxell Tape ad where the guy was sitting in his chair and everything was blown away behind him. It was a personal victory that my guitar track was spot on, but this was not a great song.
As opposed to this one, which was a great song. CC’s ‘Toy Girl.’ Always a lyrical favorite of mine and just too fun to sing the chorus in that weird harmony. I always remember this track because we had a lot of hand percussion on it and I clearly remember The Scamp, Dennis the drummer, Dave and myself playing all kinds of weird hand instruments and just laughing like loonies. It’s likely the best and has the most trumpet than any other song on the record.
An early version of this was our first video. In the burgeoning Facebook Universe, there were a lot of people shopping their creative wares. We found one such cat named Dan who showed up and drove around Windsor with us, filming us posing around Windsor. The video came out quite good but it was before we had this version of ‘Toy Girl.’
One more thing about ‘Toy Girl.’ This style of writing that Carmen was pulling off was genuinely impressive because she had attitudes I never could. She discussed being a woman in ways I never heard anyone else address. She was all bluster but a real sense of naïveté in her style. She had a way of saying things that opened me up to what it was being a woman in this modern world. She was cool and distant. But she was real and talked about that distance. Songs like ‘The Definition Of Love,’ ‘The End Of The World,’ and ‘Hovering’ were stark and scene setting. She wrote in cinema.
Next up was my creation ‘Blue Eyed and Black Hearted’ which became our theme song. We also filmed a video for this which was strange. An older gentleman from the region reached out to us when we were looking for anyone with a pulse and a camera. We showed up at his place which had a garage. It was an August afternoon in Connecticut so the average temperature was about 1200 degrees. We performed in front of a green screen with CC wearing her usual array of fashion flair, me wearing a smart vintage (but thread worn) suit. It was diabolical. The video came out alright.
My song ‘Nothing Astral’ was next, which was previously featured on our ‘The Book Of Love’ EP. Simple arrangement of The GG3 with Dave bringing some sweet melody and Carmen really owning the song vocally. This was my paean to Tunxis Hill Park, a place where we used to congregate as teens. I imagined it as a dirty bit of suburban sex that I am not convinced I ever had in that Park. Followed by CC’s ‘Why Wouldn’t You?’ We loved this song when we wrote it with its vaguely psychedelic lyric and a reggaeish groove. It was really groundbreaking in our songwriting. Unfortunately, by the time we recorded this, we did not love it so much. We were already writing better songs at this point.
Next up was ‘Hipster + 10’ and we utilized members of the Scamps’ musical combo The Bud Collins Trio. We used their keyboard player Ziggy all over this record and you can hear how it helps. A thing I learned about from Grimm was to ask people if they want to participate and make something amazing. Of course, ‘amazing’ is in the eye of the beholder, but it was a type of marketing.
CC and Me were musing on how cool a keyboard would sound on ‘The Book of Day Job’ and Chris said he would call Ziggy and see if he is game. We met absolutely once and he played on near every song. We gave him practically no directions. Just play something cool. And he did. About 18 times.
We also had BC3 guitar maven Chris play on this as well as Les Scamps on the drums. This was rife with irony, by the way. The song itself was written after playing a gig with The Bud Collins Trio and was a song about themselves. I never told them that part.
‘Fire and Gasoline’ was written about 6 days before we recorded it. Lyrically, I love it. The final version was not great though Kerry’s crazy beat almost makes up for the overall lack of flourish on it. This song was best served as an acoustic duo oddly. CC and I did a show on WPKN and played this fast pile up as a ballad. It was one of the best recordings we ever did, the one time acoustic vocal version. Lyrically, the thing I like about it is it said exactly what I wanted it to say: Fuccccck You.
And finished up that record with the title track ‘The Last Record Party.’ Here is what I remember. I was pissed at Carmen. Why? No idea. Nevertheless, pissed. This is about Us. And she knew it. She knew I was pissed and knew it was about her. And she sang it with me which had 2 effects:
1) Impressed the Hell out of me.
2) Made me not pissed anymore.
This was the simple cause and effect of my song writing. If something gets me good and riled, a song generally comes from that. Not happy. Not go lucky. Just raging pissed. I spit out the words on a pad, less than interested about what type of tune would go to it. As I said before, this was therapy. Once I finished the song and calmed down a bit, I would look at what I wrote and think ‘Man. Thank God I’m not that guy.’
We had ourselves a real live Rock and Roll Grimm Record which was our plan from the start. And as social media grew more substantial, we needed a video.
GG was always lucky in meeting the right people at the right time. Enter The Director, Zach.
CC and I came up with the concept, which was a send up about looking for musicians for a new band and how similar it was to dating sites. This video, like all of the Grimm videos was filmed at the House of Grimm. When we met Zach, it felt strange…he was very young, or seemed so to us, who were no longer very young. He had good ideas and a steady cam. Notes flew back and forth between us.
When we finally came together some Saturday with camera in place, we had a ball. You did not have to convince Carmen or me to pose. It was really all we did. We did as the director wanted, helped him follow his vision as he was helping us achieve ours. It was a good partnership and we ended up working with him again a few times.
The video turned out excellent. It looked amazing based on Zack’s skill, and it was just plain funny. It did exactly what we wanted it to do, ending with a knock at the front door and when we opened it, a real live bass player awaiting us (Brian who also played on the record).
Another video we made with Zack was a full production for the song ‘Nothing Astral.’ This involved actors which was of course new to us.
We reached out to Killer Kerry to play the creepy guy peeping through a telescope at a young couple making out. Zack had some friends with an acting background to play the previously mentioned horny teens. It was genuinely surreal watching the kids making out in the car while Zack craned his camera around. It seemed dirty and it genuinely was. When I saw the footage from the car scene…it was pretty hot and maybe would not be allowed on network television. We also asked a friend Ginger to play a psychotic angry woman placing signs on street signs.
The central spot of the video was Dave and us playing in the Grimm garage while these stories wound all around us. Carmen and Pop did up the garage into something absolutely dreamy with a lot of sparkling tinges. The way Zack caught that garage footage, based on his taste, spun it into pure Garage Rock fantasy.
It was the three of us playing with a lot of close ups and beauty shots. Dave impressed me. He was not the poser that CC and I were. He brought out a genuine world weariness just in the way he looked, something with true gravity. CC looked killer in her Elvis Costello shirt and I did what I always did: wore blue, because of my eyes.
The value of this video has grown within me. In a Dave Hogan less Universe, it is a fitting tribute.
We were proud and excited of what we did and started sharing it everywhere in the cyber verse. And we did make some mistakes.
We stuck with Facebook, mainly because the site was so friendly. And at the time we were there anyway. The benefit of Facebook at the time was it was a free market. You can post gigs and videos of gigs, start conversations and network through Messenger. We did not at that point know the narrow reach we were really dealing with. We started a Twitter account, but we could not be limited in terms of how many characters we could post. Aside from YouTube there were not many other options at the time. Instagram would not come out for a few years yet.
We had a record, something we were proud of so we did follow up with the accepted logic of the time: get on tour and sell some records. We enlisted Dave Hogan and the GG3 hit the road.
Now…when I say on tour, we were not traveling the country. We all had jobs we had to get to the next morning. Despite our ego, we were not so confident that we could succeed, cash wise.
So, we set out for any venue that would have us, regionally. That was bars, clubs, coffee houses, multiband bills, yards and festivals. At one particularly prestigious Film Fest in Mystic we met Bill Clinton. OK a professional Bill Clinton imitator.
We hawked CD’s from every stage trying to recoup some of the money spent in making ‘The Last Record Party.’ We played some super fun gigs but mostly to empty rooms. It did not even matter at the time. We were having a ball. Every gig ended with a long ride home and a too late night up with CC and me listening to the recording of the gig. These were the Grimm Parties. This tradition continued till the end and brings me great joy to reflect on how hard we were laughing at our poor audience attendance but excellent performance.
We played a club in Belchertown, MA that was straight from a horror movie except usually in horror movies there is some kind of cast. This gig contained one elderly couple who danced to every song we played.
We played a Coffee House in New London to an absolutely empty room. A Saturday night too. And they charged me for the coffee.
We played a female centric arts festival that hated us but kept booking.
Despite our best efforts or directly because of those efforts, GG carried drama around like a PA.
I think that both CC and I forged into one massive ego who we took slights pretty easily. A band that we promoted but did not promote us. A venue that was not promoting and unprepared to hold a gig.
This particular brand of band drama was flourishing in the Social Media world where you could never lose the thread of what some like minded band was doing, with better or worse than us. It was immature of us but we convinced each other it was not.
We wanted a certain antagonism to be present in what we did. We never intended to be everyone’s cup of tea. We were definitely the black coffee with 2 espresso route, and usually that was my beverage of choice. Which may explain a lot. We did not want to upset people but were certainly not going to bore them.
Love and Hate are similar emotions. We were OK with a little of both. As long as you were paying attention. This did keep us out of some rooms, off of some collaborations. We resented that as well and the circle wound around.
This factored into our personal lives as well, though mainly mine. Understand that I had never had a real single life. I was married to my high school girlfriend at 22. Then married again at 27. At 40, I was single for the first time, which brought me to Match.Com, which brought me to The Grimm Generation.
There were a lot of gigs where I was watching the door with a real trepidation for fear that someone might walk through it at an inopportune time. Like when I had someone there. This happened a lot. There were many tears shed in the passenger seats of cars right outside the Grimm gigs.
I had ascended to be something that I could never be before: the mythical JpK. This was a name given to me by CC and when that name was used, I was more than human but less than pleasant. I was irresponsible and rationalized any number of questionable acts as ‘doing it for a song.’ I played fast and loose with hearts. As ‘JpK’ I was in complete control of all things, confident in every action.
It felt good to be a god. I was a false idol at best but it felt pretty fine.
Another more significant gig we did was during the great Snowmageddon storm here in CT where we had about 4 feet of snow on the ground and most of the state was completely out of power. On Halloween.
Someone who played that night would become a big player in The Grimm Generation. The Lil Cowgirl Lys Guillorn. She wrote lovely dark folk songs, played guitar and a plethora of other stringed things and was an accomplished visual artist as well.
I am not sure if Lys remembered when she and I first met. I came across her in one of the alternative weeklies and heard her songs and really liked what she was doing. I read that she was going to show up at a Rock and Roll Flea Market and decided to drop by. When I saw her and asked if she was Lys, she looked at me like I was going to lay a summons on her. I think I scared her. I was acting my least monster-y. Which is still a little monster-y.
I think both CC and Me had a sort of crush on Lys. She was so cool, so talented, so much the artist we were aping to be. We wanted her in Grimm. Though doing what we never even considered.
So, picture this: we are driving to this gig Halloween night, not a single electric light the entire trip. Gas lines fed back on the highway exits as only 6 approximate gas stations in the whole of Connecticut were operating. CC and me and her SUV tagged The Slounge after one particular misadventure. It was spooky, truly.
Nobody in the World would have blinked an eye if we cancelled considering the circumstances. We had a record to push and this was an avenue, so we found our way to Waterbury, CT. Of course, no one came out to see it considering the healthy dose of apocalypse all around but the bands came and we supported each other quite vigorously.
And we met Lys in person who was part of this multi band bill with her mate Ken. She was shy and smart and just plain ole’ cool. We all got on quite well. After we played, we suggested that maybe she should come up to Windsor some time and jam. She was game.
We did not have a clear role for her yet, but we also did not know how many instruments she played.
After sending her a few tracks …. Nothing off of the record just released, we were already writing a new set based on the sound CC and I were mining. She came with a mandola and a lap steel. We dug the lap steel big. It had an almost timeless howl to it and that appealed to us. She was also a hotshit guitar player but we would not discover that for a little while longer.
Hooking up with Lys came at a perfect creative time for GG songwriting. Carmen was coming in to her own lyrically and was really nailing the mood, the tone of our songs, which was slowly changing from the basic foot stomp raw Rawk sound into something that was a bit more open, more honest. I was using the basic chords I knew and throwing on a capo for these I did not know, and our sound expanded.
With Lys engaged with GG and playing a couple of different instruments, we decided to invite Dave over to play with the three of us. Both Dave and Lys were noted songwriters and performers in Connecticut so we were just pinching ourselves that they would travel to play with us. We called these the LAND Sessions, for Lys and Dave. We were always attempting flagrant wittiness.
It was a Sunday I would remember. Both Lys and Dave, who lived in the same are but had not met each other. And they watched each other with a wary eye. The thing was both Lys and Dave had personalities that would not be called ‘effervescent.’ They were both a bit shy, a bit quiet and we thought they would get on like a house on fire … and in time they did, forming a true and real friendship aided by a deep personal admiration of Gram Parsons.
That Sunday, though, they were not there yet. Being seasoned performers and genuine folk, no one was nasty, no one spoke out of line…but a general vibe around the room was sullen.
Despite that, the practice tapes were strong. There was something here with Dave playing with his warm Les Paul and Lys with her lap steel. Both Dave and Lys sang, and there was something about the vocals going between CC and Lys that was engaging. Carmen still had that lower sultry register and Lys knew exactly where to place her voice in that mix. Dave and I had practiced our harmony singing from the bands we played in together, dating back to our teens.
After they both left, Carmen and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.
The LAND GG set up played a couple of gigs with the 4 of us including a beautiful day at the Meriden Daffodil Fest. This was a big local festival and THE place to be seen. Plus, they paid well. The Grimm Generation was not used to being paid at all, so paying well was a step up.
This was the place to meet all of the CT musicians you ever wanted too. The whole event was organized by Robbie (who also hosted our first gig and ran the Homegrown Radio show for CT Music) and we took the stage on a glorious Saturday afternoon and tore it up.
Another gig the LAND set up made was one of the stranger ones (though paid even better…. we were socking away money for the next record) was at a Science Museum in Hartford. We were everywhere online at the time. New record, new video and we updated information every day or just made something up. Gigs were coming to us too quickly to count.
A Science Museum downtown during a Thursday Cocktail Party for the donors and we came dressed to the nines. Carmen in particular was done up as a version of the killer robot chick from Mars Attacks. Her hair was higher than the stars and she looked amazing. To counter, I painted myself green and wore attached antenna.
The room was a sonic nightmare. High ceilings, a lot of chatter (to be expected) and despite the costuming, not many people came near. Or maybe because of the costuming. This was the first time I heard Lys and Dave do their Gram Parsons set. It was beautiful, if not inaudible.
The alien gear and high hair had the intended effect and The Grimm Generation received press, which was the point.
Not long after that, Dave sent me a private note and said that due to his obligations with his own popular band, he would have to step back from GG. I understood. And suspected we would meet again.
With Lys in place and our writing expanding to include more stringy, less stompy sounds we kept gigging just the three of us. The hot rock sound of the GG3 started to take a back step into something more open, and we barely played any of the songs off the records we made. We were writing a new record and one we expected would be Our Statement record. I believed in all of that stuff, like CC did as well.
And it began. Carmen and I were close and she had to put up with my frustration of my lot of life: believing I am talented and having to prove this to the World. She was in attendance of that ill-fated New Year’s Gig. She took up two seats with her beau du jour. She had already listened to me whine and wail about the great unfairness of it all where I had to work a job like a chimp while being a legitimate delicate genius.
I was not sure if she could ever take this seriously. I certainly poisoned the waters effectively.
I was already a living example of how being the grandiose starving artists can wind you up in a basement. She already knew this dream was near impossible because I would mention it again and again. To her.
We met at the Table. I capitalize this as it was not just any table. This became the HQ for every folly that GG would follow. A kitchen, cabinets, stove, a sliding door onto the porch. Clocks on the stove and the microwave. One door that opened into a dining room, another door that led to the living room, one door that led down to my room. The home of many videos, many recordings, many brilliant ideas. Some meals.
For the book marketing, this is the way this would generally go: coffee gets made, we each have a pad, and we talk about big ideas. This was a bit different. Still coffee (as I was most entertaining when buzzed out of my brain), still the two pads. This time I brought some songs and asked her to sing them. It was songs that I had either been working on or songs from previous projects.
My songs generally had a theme which was relationships gone bad. I always found interpersonal relationships more interesting than cars or fast woman or doing something All Night Long. These played perfectly into the Grimm sound where so many of our stories written and put in the book were on similar subjects.
I used my personal failings as my Muse. And she was good to me.
That first session, acoustic and pad and my words printed out on the equipment from whatever Insurance job I had at the time. For it was Connecticut so that’s what people did. They still do.
Carmen was nervous but she was brave. Bold. She sang the songs as I asked her to sing them and in time, stronger. And stranger. Her low rumble brought out highlights in the lyrics that I missed while writing them. She was bringing something unknown, unexpected and simply glorious. We both felt it.
The following day, Carmen at her incredibly intense job of being one of Windsor’s 911 operator, Me at my stint at CignaTravelrersAetnaEtc., we started talking about the session. We were both excited. These notes worked to expand our World, to make the Grimm Brand go Worldwide.
This was how we operated, always. We were never into this to have fun.
This was our super-secret device used to take over the World, like any common mad doctor. This was not casual music to us. We were trying to teach philosophy.
The session happened again and again. What would become the Grimm Twins was forged at that Table.
Carmen started writing songs. And they were good. Really good. I knew she could write, but this was a revelation.
Here is how this would usually go: Carmen would kick up a sheet of words. A poem initially before she eventually started working into the verse chorus style. I would slip down to my room with words and put a couple of chords together. I would decide ‘this is the Chorus’ and ‘this is the Verse’. And then hook up with Carmen again and try an arrangement. And it worked.
The more we did it, the better it got. The more we did it, the more we believed in it. The book was put on the shelf while we worked on our new tactic to steal the hearts of the public while making bank.
And we had a tool: Social Media. This was still generally new. This was when Facebook was fun and not an undiagnosed sickness the country shared.
We knew we had marks against us. People generally do not start bands beyond an age of 40. In previous years it would be impossible to get signed with an older band as the market was always, in style and audience, youth.
We bragged about it utilizing Facebook as our weapon of choice. At that time, Facebook was still a reasonable place to market music. It was a dream platform where you can add a picture to a song and have text space to convince people to listen to it. We were all in. We were both charming and quick, but did not like to show this off in public as much so it gave us the perfect disguise to draw people in and start a conversation. And it worked quite efficiently for a few years. And those years were what we needed.
Despite being a musician in this geography, I had very few music contacts.
This is before I understood the raw power of the Red Head Chick Singer.
Carmen was hot. Red hair, a good sneer…. She was what a Female Singer in a rock and roll band should look like. And we used this to our advantage. She and I, the Grimm Twins took a lot of photos of ourselves in appropriately Rock and Roll ways. It started with us taking pictures of each other, but then we fell in with quality photographers who were looking to do something new. And we were new.
A selection of leading photos, a concept of a primal Rock and Roll sound based on a bashed up acoustic and a sneering Chick Singer, interesting song titles and a touch of salacious humor. With Facebook offering us up as a menu item. We cleaned up.
By cleaned up, I mean we were taken seriously. Despite the cracks in the logic of starting a new band at 40, despite the lack of gigs and poorly recorded shared demos, people were curious.
It was a moment in time. We used our lack of status and plain spoke mission as a distraction. We took ourselves seriously despite the low-level sex jokes and high-level self-involvement. And Facebook was where it played out and Facebook was good to us.
We started attracting visitors, views. We started getting noticed by musicians, local and National. We celebrated every small victory and defeat at that Table that started it all.
We started small but thought big. Since people were looking at us as a band now, we needed some kind of product to let them hear. I had a small 4 track recording rig that was already past its time but we did not need grandiose equipment I could not operate. We kept it simple: brown paper cover, simple woodblock style image art, 6 songs. This was our first release ‘The End of The World.’
We recorded this as a couple of acoustic guitars and a couple of voices. No rhythm section, no leads.
Though it had a piano on it. This happened when we met a piano player and invited him in. He was a nice guy soon to disappear into oblivion but did play with us a couple of times. We took a track from one of these sessions and put it right on the record, uncredited on ‘Hovering.’
It was our first blush, it was an EP and sounded decidedly folky, but the songs were there. The title came from something Carmen wrote which was a brilliant bit of stoned 70s memories from when she was a kid. Once I started working on it, the hook, the tune for Skeeter Davis’s ‘The End of The World’ kept buzzing in my brain. And we married CC’s song with that hooky chorus ‘Don’t they knowwwww it’s the end of the World….’
The aforementioned ‘Hovering’ was on it as well which was another CC song that was heartbreakingly beautiful, lyrically. I came up with a pretty simple structure that carried the tone of the vocal. We also included an earlier song of mine ‘Keep It’ and a song that would become our first video ‘I Fall For Everyone’.
CC was the same way as I was about Press; we wanted it. So as soon as the EP was finished, we started sending it out for reviews. And amazingly, we were covered in the Hartford Courant which was akin to slipping onto the stage of Madison Square Garden. The review was sweet; it was not overwhelming with praise, but it could have been far worse. That first taste, our names in the paper, made the stakes higher.
With the press came musicians. We were making a big noise online and at this point, and everyone was on Social Media. When someone in your field seems to be doing something different, you start to pay attention. We were getting our names in the papers, we were over posting our outrageous amazingness, so when we hit Craigslist this time looking for players, a few of them were already aware of us.
One who intrigued us made their way to the House of Grimm. That would be Bass Mike.
This would be the spot where I describe Bass Mike but this is an impossibility. He was the definition of inscrutable. I believe he was married. Or divorcing. He had children…or did not. He was a good dude, fun to play with, a great conversationalist, but I cannot recall a single personal thing about him.
Except he was the perfect Grimm bass player. He instinctively understood what we were doing and was all in.
He also likely had a slight crush on Carmen, which was expected and kind of her job.
Let me not be misunderstood: Carmen was never someone I would describe as salacious. She knew how to flirt and when flirting was the best advantage to take. I always considered CC as a canvas that other people painted their desires upon.
Though the only one who would paint on that canvas was Carmen herself.
At each turn as we were creating narratives and generally just shucking records, we would create campaigns. For example, our Lucky Panty New Year’s Show (with live free panties!). Or the Grimm Ghost Halloween Show with a live presentation of ghost photography and the creepy GG sound.
CC always became inspired by these shows and changed her look based on what was happening…and she was amazing at this. Whether rocking a Ziggy Stardust look or dressed in a vintage 80s business suit for our Holiday themed ‘DieHard’ movie party or what she put together for the GG videos that were still upcoming, her look was integral to what we did. She was in complete control of her look.
It was an element I could not have imagined on my own not having a key eye for fashion. Carmen owned it. And started dressing me as well.
We also had some talented friends. Pop was an artist who we came to know quite well and truly designed the Grimm Generation visual style. She was shy, quiet and wildly creative. She helped us along from vaguely scribbled concept to real cool Pop art stylings.
She was the Original G, meaning we were working with her just as we started and she was invaluable. We had such a vision for what the GG Brand would encompass and she was the one who could get it onto paper and make it sign. Also, the Official Grimm Generation Photographer which was where all the acclaimed click bait came from. Carmen and Pop would go back and forth on aesthetics, the tiny little moving machines of image that made us seem larger than life.
We dangled pictures of CC as a way to trap people online. And it could be said that the same was done of me. And it was successful. We started getting heard and receiving messages. Many were sleazy, or were an introduction to upcoming sleazy behavior, cause…you know…Dudes.
And what came from these off line conversations were a lot of bands looking for interesting openers.
So then came the gigs.
Our first ever gig was the Coffee shop in Wesleyan, invited by Local Music Man and general bon vivant Robbie. He featured us quite a bit on Wesleyan’s WESU which was exciting. OK, so he got the name wrong a lot. And sometimes never played us at all after promoting it. We took it in stride.
The next gig weaved together a few people who would fill out the greater GG Universe as we were invited to warm up The Peacock Flounders at one of my favorite gig spots, The Never Ending Bookstore. In New Haven, CT. The drummer/singer for the PF was one Killer Kerry Miller who would eventually join up for a time.
In addition, the guys who ran the Bookstore, Rev Dave and Brad were true believers in the realm of local Rock. They created a space that was small, but mighty. They booked us quite a bit in time and we were always appreciative of their efforts on our behalf, as well as toward The Scene in general.
When we showed up, there was a movie camera there. We were shocked. Not a video, not a digital camera on a tripod, a real live movie camera. This was our first real gig and we were wondering if the press had caught up with us. Nope.
It just so happened that the lead singer of the Peacock Flounders, Ron, was getting a movie made about him based on some historical CT rock reference. The man with the cameraman was a former CT Newscaster, which was absolutely surreal. It was a good gig. The crowds at the teeny tiny Bookstore were always incredibly supportive. It was a small room and that added to the energy. It was a fine place.
And from that gig, another band asked us to play with them. But we were facing a problem. For all our bluster, we were a guy with an acoustic and a girl singing. There are many brilliant bands based on this sound but it is hard in the clubs, bars, venues we were getting offered. We were popular with Rock bands, not folk bands, so our sound was thin for the rooms.
We had fascinating and fun ways to vent this irritation. When we would play and if the people kept talking, we would whip out a song that CC wrote called ‘I Like To Watch.’ We built into this song a long duo harmony that, when provoked by a crowd not paying enough attention, would ramp up between the two of us until the effect was something like a smoky siren blaring through the room.
Gigs were coming, new songs were being written at a rapid clip. This was when CC and I really hit our stride in producing work.
Where previously the glue that bound us was The Book, this was changing to The Song.
We had a fairly simple formula based on the tools we were given: an OK acoustic guitar player, a first time band for the singer and pop length songs that were exclusively based on the lyric. We wanted to cut out the middleman of solos and musical bridges and get to what mattered to us: being heard and perhaps understood lyrically. We set up a Tuesday practice night which in time became every night.
We produced song titles that were noticeable. This was part of the marketing, being able to assign significance using the canon of pop culture references to hem the listener into a time and a place that was all Grimm. Song titles were marketing. Understand, we had no listener at this point, no crowd to play to, no radio to play upon. Keeping ourselves amused was important when you are playing for an audience of two.
One thing about the dynamic of those days was that even before the band, the book kept us intertwined with each other’s lives. I came to know or know of CC’s boyfriends who, to a person, I did not like. Reflecting on CC’s love life brought us songs like ‘Waterford Speedway,’ which was a true story based on a real boyfriend with a real affair going on across the country due to the Internet.
These types of interactions, our own and others, was becoming a real theme in what we did. Not simply because we were drama hounds, but it was all new and public. This was before people really got the scope of Facebook’s public interaction. People would share things they would never say out loud to 30 million of their best friends. ‘Waterford Speedway’ was an appropriately dirty story about a woman traveling from a great distance for an even greater disappointment.
On a similar subject, related to the same beau was my song ‘Twisting Our Lives Away,’ which was based on my hearing their interaction above my basement lair. It was strange because there was never any romantic desire from me toward CC. but when I reflected that in the song, I came off as jealous. I do not believe I was but man…these songs. They paint a picture about me that makes me uncomfortable.
It was never a question as to whether these songs would come out because embarrassing personal discoveries in songs was my bread and butter.
When Carmen started kicking in songs, that was when the balanced voice of GG came through. A song called ‘Murder Wins,’ which she wrote, caused me to write one of my prettier, less obtrusive arrangements for it. Lyrically, her song shined like the late autumn sun. It was subtle, and meaningful.
‘Aloha Japan’ was another story song based on a different time. It always reminded me of a faded postcard featuring some sweetly smiling bikini girl from some gauzy 50’s timeline, with color faded to a sepia tone.
As we continued, she started bringing in songs like ‘Save The Girl,’ which was a more empathy driven version of ‘The Next Indie Boy.’ These were all true stories we were living in stereo.’Save the Girl’ was a plea to a woman we knew to not get caught up in the whims of a man to stop this madness and save herself. As opposed to ‘The Next Indie Boy’ which spoke to the same girl and said ‘Screw this guy. There is always another singer somewhere’.
‘Come to Me’ which would eventually be recorded on our EP ‘Coming Home’ was simply gorgeous. It was a torch song and very slow and sexy.
The song unveils itself, starting with snapshots of the very human feeling that accompanies missing someone and builds to a plaintive and deceptively simple “Come to me…..Be with me….Love me as I am….” which always took my breath away in its simplicity. With my habit of overwriting, trying to replace feeling for rhyme schemes, I could not have come up with something so simple and beautiful.
The recorded version lacks the initial passion of the duo version as I suggested Adam ‘do something like Radiohead.’ He did, I was wrong.
One of the songs I brought forth was during a period that I was working a lot of bible imagery into everything. That was ‘Pleasures of the Flesh’ which was another of my Dylan style ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ rips. It was fast and when properly played came off as high gospel based on the raw energy. Lyrically it bordered on blasphemy.
Something that CC brought forth, which I believe was one of my favorite never recorded GG song was ‘Proximity Bomb’. It was a too fun tune about how getting closer to the wrong person will bring harm upon you. In case the message was not received, the chorus is a countdown to ‘Boom’.
Now let us discuss the song ‘Alse Young’. For it bears discussion. When history books are written, any chance we have of showing up on them is based on this song.
Alse Young was a real person and is noted to be one of the few witches killed from Connecticut. She was from Windsor which was where the Alse Young lived before being taken in chains to the Hartford State House and hung for, and I quote the official records ‘keeping company with the dark’. We caught wind of this tale and I started the song. As traditional a folk song that we would ever write, it reflected the whole horrible story in 4 verses
This was our perennial Halloween release and we discussed the subject as much as possible. A few years later, we received a note from author Beth Caruso who was writing a book about Alse Young and actually came across our song in an Internet search. She was incredibly excited to find another reference to Alse and utilized the song in some marketing of her book ‘One of Windsor: The Untold Story of Americans First Witch Hanging’. I became incredibly excited when she guested on a paranormal podcast that I followed and they played the song on that podcast on Halloween. I actually spoke to a few of Alse Young’s relatives who were very appreciative of our work.
Based on Beth’s book and some dedicated friends, they actually started a movement to exonerate all of the Witches persecuted in that period. They were seeking the witches to be declared innocent. And they were successful. Alse Young was exonerated.
We did not create this, though helped where we could. This was all Beth and what it gave us is a unique entry into genuine American History.
After getting some notice with the ‘The End of The World’ EP we went back in the basement and started work on the next one. This only made sense as we were producing so many different songs in a wide variety of styles, it was difficult to keep track and to be sure we were working on a consistent sound. We were still a 2 piece (the mysterious Bass Mike split the scene) so that reads as folk. Despite some definitely folk songs, that was not what we were writing at large. We needed to get more product out to either confuse or attract the general public.
The next Grimm Generation EP that came out was the ‘I Like To Watch’ EP, this time only 4 songs.
All of the EPs (4 in total) cover art was all Pop’s creation, using a brown paper and a black and red theme matched with sort of wood cut images that spoke specific to the music. We were definitely upping our game with the sound despite the fact that we still did not use any other musicians. Playing together every night as we had been doing for months, maybe a year, had tightened up the control of what we wanted to sound like and what the songs presented.
‘I Like To Watch’ started off with ‘Hipster + 10’ which would be recorded for the ‘The Last Record Party’ full length. This was a song that took on a different vibe when we played it live. When it was just CC and Me, we roared out this song. I wrote it and liked the lyrics quite a bit. This was effectively a bitter song talking about bands whose name traveled farther than ours had. It made me angry and that is why I started writing songs, to assuage my worst impulses.
When Dave came on board for The GG3, he loved this song as it was decidedly darker. I remember a gig we played where we warmed up Scott from Neurosis so we had a pretty metal crowd in attendance. The three of us took the stage and killed this and I saw some heads banging in the back. It felt amazing because Dave and I came up through metal.
Next on the EP was one of my older songs ‘Sex Changes Everything’. It was a song that I had written several of the type which was a ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ type list lyric, always super-fast. I believe we went ahead with this one as it seemed to attract attention based specifically on the title. I had played this song with a few different bands in my years and it was a good song, though not terrifically Grimm.
Then the song that I said for a long time was the high-water mark for Grimm Generation songs, the high point of our collected career. At that point. That song was ‘I Like to Watch’. Carmen produced the lyrics for this one and it was an amazing slice of backwards voyeurism. This song had a real build to it from the start of the quiet vocal to the raw roaring we did in harmony to end it. This song was directional, showing where we were going.
The final song on ‘I Like To Watch’ was ‘A Year Of Living Dangerously. A Carmen Champagne penned lyric, a lovely quiet tone that spilled out desperation. It was another song that when CC presented it to me, I knew she was no joke.
The next EP was our Valentine Day release ‘The Book Of Love’. In my opinion, our best EP. We had started to really focus on the sound and these were songs that were played out by The GG3 quite a bit as the songs were written about that time. It was a small little Rock record still recorded on acoustics, but the sound quality was better as I was getting better at recording Grimm.
This started off with a GG favorite and a song that would eventually be re-recorded in a real studio for ‘The Big Fame’. The song was ‘Real Bad Voodoo’ and this was such a cool rock song that Carmen wrote and I came up with a slinky sounding arrangement. It had an infectious quality to it.
I should mention that all of this was new to me coming from a background of either writing my own songs or writing words for other people’s arrangements. I did not believe I could write music. My musicianship has always been unique but I would not say practiced. It was until this moment in time that I had a formless bunch of CC’s words that it just came to me. It wasn’t something I knew I could do. This started with her singing my songs, my simple arrangements. As she wrote more, I was put into the position to write good songs to go with her clearly good words. Since CC’s tone was lower than mine, I started using the capo in ways I have never done before, and started playing with the sound of the keyed chords. Some of these were perfect for Carmen’s vocal; some were perfect for my own.
Like so much about this period, there was something happening that seemed like magic. I cannot say that enough. I know how it sounds. I know. I’m a skeptic by nature and truly a pessimist. I also have no other explanation where I, we, acquired these skills that we did daily during the Grimm days.
Up next on ‘The Book Of Love’ was my ‘Pull Down The Covers … Slowly’ which was either very sexy or very scary. It was deep and slow; the quiet arrangement sounding plaintive in a way and near psychotic in another. This was a strange one and we did love it so.
Carmen and I often called the Grimm songs ‘our errant little children’ because even if one was ugly, or clunky, overly salacious or not, sometimes just dumb, they were ours and we birthed them. And honestly, I think we always liked our weird little songs a bit better. This song was another example of Grimm’s growing power with our two voices.
Song # 4 was another one I am proud of mainly because it was kind of funny and that was ‘Someday I’m Going To Leave You’. Carmen actually told me that when I brought this song around, she thought it was a veiled threat / message. Despite that not being true, it still felt good to hear. This song has an excellent stompy vibe and again features the patented GG harmony on that chorus line. This and ‘Real Bad Voodoo’ both came to life when Dave sat in with the electric guitar.
‘The Boy King’ was my song that I had previously played with The Citizen Spy. The song was based on one of CC’s beaus of the time that complicated their relationship in every conceivable way. This is a really good song, good words, good hook. This song was also a genuine fear that I had that this was autobiographical. Everything I accuse this character of could be reflected back on me and it made me uncomfortable. But it had a good hook so it survived my queasiness. I did re-record this for my ‘The Zen Of Losing’ solo record, which followed GG.
Finally, was our first pass at ‘Nothing Astral’ which was re-recorded for the debut ‘The Last Record Party’.
We were in a quandary. Though musicians were becoming available to us, we were attached to our style of communication and creation. Two people can operate far quicker than a band strictly based on scheduling. CC and I moved together and spent just about every night of this period either practicing or marketing. It was an addiction. ‘What can we do to advance our agenda? 3-2-1-Go!’ and we would be in constant communication, always World Building. This same mania could not work with a bigger group.
We knew we needed something else. Something to change our trajectory from Indie Folk to Rawk.
And I knew a guy. Enter The Man.
Dave Hogan (or Dave Hogan to his friends) was a hot shit guitar player who I happened to know from starting our first band together when we were about 15. Burning Ambition specialized in covering obscure metal and was completely out of step with everything happening at the time. We wanted to anoint the masses who had the poor fortune of not discovering bands like Raven, Loudness and of course, Iron Maiden. And they (We) were a bunch of classic Kerrang level loonies just like you read about in said magazine.
Except Dave, who had the same worship of these generally obscure bands but was much quieter about it. Mike, bass player, was a degenerate freak. The drummer was an immensely talented rhythm beast who drank to excess. I was near 250 pounds and wore a white karate Gi as front man gear.
Dave was quieter, though no less a drinker. There was something about him that you could tell, even from that age, he was studying his craft.
Burning Ambition became Wild East (cribbed from the Ian Hunter song, a massive influence on all of us) with just Dave and I remaining in the line up. We again were trying to convince people there was better music out there than they were listening too (there was no lack of snottiness in this) , this time creating a set that effectively replicated UFO’s ‘Strangers In The Night’ double live album. When people asked if they were our songs, we said ‘Yes, Sir’. Why not?
I was the singer and the only one producing lyrics. It was almost a parlor trick where I could hear a tune and create a narrative out of thin air (Note: the songs were not good). This amazed people…and honestly made me a bit difficult to deal with.
To point, I was always looking long at Dave. Thinking he just did not fit with where we were going or more so where my genius would lead us. I had my first conversation with Dave about why he should find another band. It was not the last time I had this exact conversation with him.
And, inevitably, all for naught. We did find a quite inventive guitar player but the trajectory of the band was heading to where the majority of teen dream bands went: playing shitty covers in shitty clubs for shitty people. And the same plan next weekend. I was singing covers (to this day, hearing Aerosmith ‘Dream On’ makes me queasy.).
Meanwhile …. Dave had a good band. A damned good band. I was jealous as fuck and Dave became my nemesis. I joined that band a few years later. They were good! And when I quit, I took most of the band with me to make my first solo record. And had that conversation again.
So, what did Dave do? He started ANOTHER band that was even better! Fucker.
He started The Rafter Bats which was playing a mix of rock and real bluegrass before anyone even considered such a thing (Flying Burrito Brothers aside). And getting very popular around these parts. Way too popular.
I was seething.
I still remember driving around on a Saturday and hearing that the Rafter Bats were sitting in playing a set on WPKN (The Best Radio Station. No qualifiers). I actually called them live on the air and the chilly silence at when my name was mentioned was a true and wonderful moment of my life. I did not want these dudes to hate me, many of them were good friends
But fuck …. It makes you feel like a supervillain to suck the joy out of a studio like that.
Dave was my nemesis but I am not sure I was ever his. Years after this, I believe with the invention of Facebook, he invited me down to sit in with him at Café Nine (New Haven) Cocktail Set, and I did. And we talked over old times and we became closer than maybe we ever were. Many of our mutual friends had already died via drugs, liquor, poor decision making. We were rounding out to be the last of our breed. I missed him. I hope I apologized but he knew me for what I am: a megalomaniac.
When Grimm started producing songs, I was keeping him in the loop by sending tracks for his review. It was not initially his bag but as we got more real Rock and Roll, he became more interested. We had him up to Windsor to add some guitar to what we were doing and it clicked. The GG3 was born.
It was me on Acoustic, CC singing, and Dave and his Mega Boogie and Les Paul. We still did not have a rhythm section but we were getting loud even without the extra members. The songs took the form of what would be our bread and butter: smart Rock and Roll songs with a dirty minded bend.
It was a unique arrangement but it had a sound that was full tilt. We were all assuming our roles within the GG Organization. Carmen was singing and dressing like a rock star already. I would thrash around with my acoustic, my steady stomp was the drum. Dave would sit opposite me and pull these lovely lines out of that fat Les Paul. It felt like we were a 70’s band.
Dave liked to play guitar. He always had some other projects going because he just wanted to play guitar and not worry about the bookings, the travel, the Plan. Despite his excellent voice which brought up a dusty church in some long-gone town, despite his ability to write his own Rock and Roll come Country songs, he always wanted to just be the music director for someone and just play guitar.
And in the GG3 that is exactly what he did. CC and I were the masterminds and he were happy as Hell not to care…just to show up when we need him, rock out and then catch a ride home.
We were gaining traction. Once Dave, a Dude who was already well respected in the area, started showing up at gigs, more musicians started paying attention.
Some things you can only see in the rearview mirror. And as is often the case, the objects do seem larger than they appeared.
When we co-opted the name Grimm from said Brothers, it was not a mistake. There was always an element of fairytale about what we attempted to do. And quite like the actual stories from the Brothers Grimm, much of it was terrifying.
I had a dream. And I had someone to dream with, which is this story.The dream was always the same: World Domination. Or at least validation. Being recognized for what you did versus who you were. Fueled by a teenhood full up on rock magazines (Creem, Hit Parader), classic FM radio and that Monday after the big concert when everyone in class wore the same t-shirt.
Currently, that seems quaint. And it is. The Music Business was always a business. If the greatest musician you ever heard never left their bedroom, they would not be the greatest musician you ever heard. They would be your cousins’ friend, your coworker, your Ex.
We started The Grimm Generation with a simple concept: Children of the 70’s at 40. And what I do not believe I have ever considered was how Rock music culture of that era affected us. Infected us.
Before the Internet, records were passed around between friends, hand to hand, and the receiver would offer something back.
And the World grew larger.
We dealt in myth. And we were our best customers. When you try to do impossible things, you need to think in impossible ways. I could not do it alone. And I did not have too.
The tale of The Grimm Generation is the story about a house. A domicile that gave us the space and time to create, the raw desire to reach out further. Every element of what we would become was co scripted with a collection of walls and windows.
This is a story about a band that did not make it. A story with real magic, real tears, love and intrigue, creation and re-creation of ourselves. There is not a moral to the story. Morals are for fairy tales and despite our personal preferences, this takes place in the very real time of the late 2000’s.
The Internet was born and we were reborn with it.
It starts with ‘The Story’. ‘The Story’ that started a whole unknown Universe of Grimm…a story that was shared by CC and Me on every form of radio, tv, print press interview available.
And it goes a little something like this….(hit it!)
‘Carmen and JpK met on Match.Com. They went on a date that went well but it was not a love match. Both retreated to their separate worlds until a note went from Carmen to JpK asking ‘Do you like Sparklehorse?’
That simple question bloomed into more notes, more sharing, more details of the damages done to us by a life of suburban excess. Marriages, divorces, kids, cars. And New Wave, Glam Rock, the effect of Led Zeppelin on our growing years.
It never stopped. For years. They realized that despite the romantic missing, they had some type of undefinable chemistry. Notes lead to cups of coffee. Stories transformed into larger lessons the more they wrung them out. Carmen would send poetry and JpK would send demos.
These reflections became the basis of a book ‘Dispatches from The Grimm Generation’ a collection of vignettes birthed by choosing a single subject and the two writer’s impressions of it. What was discovered was this errant chemistry was a true partnership as lovers came and went. And usually left a tale or two in their wake.
The Grimm Generation was coined based on the ideas of kids of the 70’s turning 40 and how our generation was sold fairytales as a future. We were given the American Dream but the anxiety kept us awake.
This constant communication, text, emails, (never a call) led to JpK moving right into Carmen’s refinished basement, henceforth known as The House of Grimm. And the pair set out to learn about how to promote a book.
JpK was songwriter mainly, good in a short sprint, ran out of breath on a marathon, with a genuine love of good Pop songs. He had some success, but much more debt. While beating his head against the cinder block cellar one Sunday, he heard Carmen and her kids playing ‘Rock Band’.
When he heard Carmen sing an AC/DC song, he thought ‘I could work with this’. And invited her down to sing a few of his songs…’
This is ‘The Story’. And this became what we did for the next 5 years. And what The Grimm Generation defined became our banner. We were already too old to start a Rock Band, but we were cagey promoters and had the benefit of a young Internet culture that suited us. We were both born posers and would take a position at the first click of a camera. This was when Facebook was still based on living people versus dying industry.
We were ready for our close up.
I have known Carmen for over a decade now, with a level of sharing that brought us closer to kin than friends.
That does not mean I know her, truly.
Carmen keeps it close to the vest, always. She is not what you would call effusive. Unless she is drinking. Then she was a red headed charm bracelet that sang out loud.
She was born in Hartford, CT and was the first American baby from a family with deep French-Canadian roots. When her extended family came round to visit, it was all Crown Royal and crazy Canadian food stuffs. And a deep, bracing whiff of redneck.
We grew up similarly as she had a few brothers and sisters, went to school, flirted with college, married young and had a few kids.
Then as was in vogue in the Nineties, divorced. As we all did that decade.
I was from Fairfield, CT about one hour south. I had a good childhood as I recall, though in telling some stories of my misguided youth, I have noticed eyebrows climbing ever higher.
As a kid, I had a deep love of language and what can be done with it. Being very fat kept me inside with my books, comic books, pads and pens. I wrote my first song at age 9 proclaiming my love for Kara. She never heard the song.
Many Kara’s followed. I was a World Champ’een Unrequited Lover. And it fueled my writing.
In time I discovered Pot and my worlds turned stranger and my sense of being a responsible person slipped away. I started writing more songs.
I started with bands when I was a kid. We did what bands did back in the Actual 80’s: we started at Teen Center shows, graduated to shitty club gigs with covers, write and record original music and break up. Over and over again. Some victories, a lot of laughing, some crying.
Repeat.
I held a job, married, had a child …. divorced…. married again, gained a step child…. divorced…
Repeat.
I tried to push back the creative need and limousine dreams to try my hand at being a decent Husband and worthwhile Father. I did not want to tell anyone I ever even wrote music as I tried to settle.
It was fruitless. It was what I was good at. I acted like a bon vivant living on lottery winnings. Immaturity was my brand. I operated with a dangerous combination of ego and absolute anonymity.
This dogged me as I came up, moved away from home (by only an hour, but in Connecticut that matters), needed new pot connections and consequently made new friends. Of course, they were musicians.
I have always had an odd and maybe strained relationship with musicians. I think because I was The Songwriter my end goals were always different than the dudes I played with. Everyone wants to have a good time, jam, pack the clubs, make a little cash and do it again next weekend. That was never my goal.
I had my musical heroes but they were also my competition. And my artistic vision went beyond what I could explain to even the most open minded and dedicated players. I was scattered, I was over blown, and absolutely pretentious. I would talk about crescendo where the musician would talk about where the solo was.
I was fated to be a solo artist as very few could deal with me for that long.
This created a situation where I was ever earnest about my work, my Art, always attempting to write a legitimate hit, mainly alone in my bedroom. I took to the recording bedroom style as the equipment became affordable.
I had a simple enough schematic for what I wanted to produce: a good chorus, short, words that were a bit darker and more detailed than will fit in a Pop song. Aiming for hooks, melodies. The fruit of what captures the ear and makes you turn to face the radio.
Songs were a means to an end. Originally it was therapy for me. If I never sang a note these songs would still exist moldering in some low drawer. I used my frustration to create. This also led me to involving myself in personally dangerous circumstances and rationalizing I was doing it for my art.
I read the 70’s / 80’s Rock magazine like they were Greek myths. At that time, they practically were. Consider the images of the wild flowing hair, lit from behind like a perfect capture in oils. Coliseums shake as the masses gather and call their name. In unison. Loud. And lighters fill the night. In tribute to these Gods who walk with men.
Who wouldn’t want that?
In those days it was the alternative papers that featured the local music sections. Anytime I was involved in something, I would send constant Press Releases to keep a generally uninterested World on where my mighty muse may lead me.
In 2009 I had an all-acoustic group named The Citizen Spy in the era just before Indie Folk had a genre. We were chosen as the Best Folk Group in Hartford by the Hartford Advocate. It was work to get it, to network, to suggest, cajole, beg for people to vote for me for, a band that very few had heard.
I collected the members though the tried-and-true musicians want ads.
The Musician Want Ads were always sketchy at best. First those same alternative weeklies had their ‘Musicians Seeking …’ section and then CraigsList. These were like dating sites where no one got lucky, even by accident.
You could find someone and review their work and express interest. And never hear from them again. Maybe they died. Maybe they were arrested for ‘rocking too hard’. Maybe they were still a little drunk from last night’s gig.
You become immune to this quickly (much like Internet dating) when you recognize it’s a numbers game. Reach out to more and you will get more. The ‘more’ you get is often unworkable, unstable stuff but it makes you feel like you’re actually participating in a type of Music Business.
On the Musician Want Ads, a Bass Player or Drummer would be considered the ‘pretty girls at the dance’ as everyone wanted them. They string you along (‘play original music for little cash? Sign Me Up!’) until their ship comes in (‘play covers and make a lot more cash? Sign Me Up!’) and then disappear.
The term that offended me when relating this to other musicians was that the people you find on the Musician Want Ads are ‘hobbyists. That made me angry. Despite being absolutely true.
I dedicated myself to finding players who could help me build something larger, grander in scope. I believed that if a group of people, even absolute strangers, can come together with a common cause, a sound that matters to those involved, they can produce something lasting, something beautiful. Something that can transcend social relations and slip into a higher airstream for all to see, all to experience. A labor of true love.
Which brings us back to the Best Folk Group in Hartford. I worked hard to get that award. I figured it would be a stepping stone to get my name a bit more public. I campaigned for it.
And won. It was a shock.
When it came time to play the gig, The Citizen Spy had already broken up. Because they were hobbyists. I had conceived and achieved and succeeded, and found myself alone again, not a step further ahead than I was
I was heartbroken. Until that Sunday night about a week later when I heard CC playing Guitar Hero.
2007…. or so
I was renting a room from a bandmate at this time and decided I needed to go. Carmen and I had already been in a constant conversation on every conceivable method of communication. It was a natural step.
It was the emails that bonded us. Texts are quicker, Instagram can show fine details, but sending emails was a perfect form of communication for us. It was like writing letters and throwing them into a virtual Sea. There was a weight and breadth to them, despite being composed of circuits and electric ink.
We started with Sparklehorse and coalesced into something deep, then deeper still. It was all about feelings that neither of us shared with other friends or family. We allowed ourselves to let go and share with someone who would not judge, even as we clicked through a series of actions we were less proud of.
This is where the talk of the Grimm Generation really started, as a code for ‘Children of the 70s at 40.’ We felt that what we were taught growing up was a very soft glow version of what life would really be like.
We missed the Drug Era but of course, drugs were appropriate for every Era. We missed the movements of a real Culture that we were too young for. These lessons never set in with us as a generation, and we fail spectacularly. We marry because it is what we believe we are supposed to do. We have kids because we are married, whether we wanted kids or not. We bought houses that we lost when the market crashed.
In retrospect, was this a series of excuses for not having our shit properly together? You’re damned right it was.
The true political intent was just a false flag. We had someone to talk too after being on Match.com too long where every communication was either someone selling you something you do not really need or you selling yourself.
The unceasing communication we struck was about the book that we were co-authoring. Neither of us had any type of experience in marketing a book, my scant experience in marketing a record was good but ultimately not useful.
With my living situation deteriorating, when Carmen mentioned that she was refinishing her basement, I jumped on it. I have always had a lovely relationship with basements and the House Of Grimm basement was perfect. And would allow us to really focus our attention toward the book.
All of this was happening in the background of my personal Waterloo, the Hartford Advocate Poll debacle.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Even by this point, less and less people read print media. These proud giants of alternative thinking were rotting in their boxes.
Where once the Grand Band Slam was a multiple night affair, everyone was involved and partying, playing a variety of clubs, outdoor gigs. Just a real general hullabaloo. it was shrinking in significance almost daily. The print media. The Scene itself.
I was offered an outdoor gig that was cancelled. I set up my own celebration gig on the day after New Year’s. Even the band did not show. No one came except for Carmen and her beau du jour. I was crushed.
And wallowed in it. Constant angry pacing in my 15-foot square underground sanctuary. Carmen was upstairs with the kids (approximate ages: Boy – 10, Girl – 6) playing Rock Band. And then Carmen took the mike and sang an AC/DC song. And I heard something there. Something undefinable. Something I needed.
Carmen had no background in music aside from a grammar school chorus and years of listening. There was something in her voice that was dusky and true. Not a traditional sound, but something that called out from late nights, broken hearts, too much liquor, on a loop.
It was a sound my more traditional voice could not convey. It wasn’t ability, it was atmosphere. And as I listened, I considered what if I took my decidedly pop songs and put them through that voice. I had no idea what would happen, but it kept me from thinking about the great expanse of what was not happening for me.
Since we lived together and had working projects, there were a lot of shared cigarettes on the screened in porch overlooking Park Ave in Windsor. This time was always about what happened next for the book marketing.
The book was The Thing. The book was our shared vision, our lopsided child. We went back and forth, story for story, until we selected the best subject and best writings that we produced. One of us would pick a subject (‘Lust’, ‘Butterflies’, etc) and we both would write our take on it. Some of the stories were long. Some were 3-line poems. It was an individual choice as to how to best capture the subject.
We felt like we were doing something so far unknown to the Market. The ‘Story’ and the stories we shared would leap out from the page and engage people our age. That was our market, clearly, as we wrote this about turning 40 in the high 2000s. We presumed that people would hear about it and reach out with their own tales of Grimm Generation excess and a community would be built.
Nope.
We sent out the book to a hand-picked focus group who read it and provided insight, accolades and grammar hints.
Just like real authors do.
We then adjusted the tales through the insight provided group and built the book as suggested by the several thousand websites that offered encouragement and advice.
Just like real authors do.
We started shopping the book. When we received the first rejection (like real authors do), we laughed at the lack of imagination of the Big Book Business. By the third and fourth rejection letter, we were laughing a bit less. Seven and Eight hurt like Hell.
This process, unsuccessful as it was, really forged the Grimm dynamic that would become our trademark. We were hucksters, shameless. Specifically, together. We brought out the carnival barker in each other.
Individually we were still both a bit shy, closer to unknowable. United, we were glamorous grifters. We were good at it. Marketing that was funny, a bit salacious, but never uncomely. It entertained us greatly.
I expected to go into the book using this same level of grating glory, but I could not have anticipated the addition of Carmen. We fed off of each other, each idea discussed among smokes and bigger cups of coffee till we tore down every idea and rebuilt it to hold up to the GG standard.
We were in a single clear conversation for about 8 full years. The circumstances changed, the band members came and went and we were always looking at what is next to advance the Grimm agenda.
I have worked with people before, but it was nothing compared to what CC and I had.
We believed we could sell ice in the Antarctic. And because we believed it, we could do it. I always thought that if we tried hard enough, the two of us could will the house leave the ground and lift off into Space. Simply because it never dawned on us that we couldn’t.
We were not invincible. The rejection letters cut us in the places still exposed: lack of confidence, a genuine shared and fought against pessimism, old childhood ghosts of limits to what we can expect and what we could accomplish.
This January Sunday night, when a text was received and I slipped upstairs for a smoke, a new conversation began.
‘So…by now you do recognize I am quite mad. Right?’ I started with.
CC looked wary…trying to assume what angle this conversation was going. ‘I am aware.’
‘I heard you singing on Rock Band. And I have to say…. I could do something with that voice.’
‘Something … like what?’
‘A band!’ I exclaimed while she looked at me with an almost sympathetic nod noting I was indeed quite mad.
‘What am I going to do in this band? Sing??’
‘Yep. You’re the Singer, I’m the genius behind the scenes that plays guitar and broods.’
‘Genius?’
‘W.E. I think we can do something…. something bigger than the book, using the same philosophy. Children of the 70’s at 40. We may not know what people are reading, but we know what they are listening to. Their Facebooks are lousy with the stuff.’
‘True.’
‘So, I have the songs and you have the voice. It is something I am far more familiar with than book marketing. Why not?’
‘Because I can’t sing.’
‘You can. And really…who cares? Need I produce the list of non-traditional singers who have populated the pop charts? Dylan anyone?’
‘C’mon! You are high.’ (Note: I was.)
‘Yes…. but that doesn’t mean I am wrong. Let’s do this. For the next book meeting, I am bringing my guitar and you bring extra wine. If I am wrong, it will not take a lot for time to discover that.’
Join your Author as he unveils his new band Cursive is Code publicly for the first time at Cafe Nine for the Sunday Buzz series Sunday August 1st with super special guests Lys Guillorn and Her Electric Band getting back together for the occasion.
So one more time: Cafe Nine (250 State St, New Haven, CT 06510) Sunday August 1st. Show starts at 4;00 PM and is free. Cursive is Code live debut. It will rock and that is not hype.
In my estimation, the Greatest Story Ever Told (with apologies to the Bible) involves a team of heroes…or better stillvillains….who come together with a single minded intention.
This can be World Domination or World Saving or planning a particularly surprising Surprise party…. When you get a group of disparate individuals pulling together like a team, great things can happen.
Usually after a series of bad things. Cause that is Creation.And Creation ain’t always pretty. I refer you to birth, at large.
People come together, disagree, come together, make a little more progress…disagree…..repeat. People get tested and either rise to the challenge or stop returning phone calls. The goal in mind grows larger with the sweat equity of work. And Luck plays a hand. Because as much as we want to believe that hard work can get you what you need, Luck can do it faster, better, harder.
And the only thing that improves this concept is if everyone is holding instruments.
A band is a living thing. If it is healthy. The people around you can hold you together. If it is unhealthy, the same, but it is like a trust fall. There will come a time that they will not be there and you will fall hard.
This is a fable based on fact. This is The 1200 Bar Blues.
The Grand Libido: Magic is a deal. Magic is the willful suspension of disbelief. And so is sex. It can send you outside of the atmosphere (if done properly) or ground you to the life line you need to survive.
It can also upset your apple cart, destroy your home, your sense of self respect, the concept of trust in general. Sometimes if done properly. The rightness of the moment is magic, the reality of the next day is stage work. A genuine suspension of real belief required.
In summary, Sex is Magic. And here’s a song about a magician.
Hopi Fest: This is a song about charity. Or to the point charity gigs. I must state for the record that I am not against charity or charity gigs. The reason I must state that to this imaginary record is because of this song. It’s a true story and some of you may have been there, early on the bill on shitty Sunday at Sneakers. The gig that caused Hogan to hate reggae. The gig where we went on last to the deep disappointment of everyone who wanted to just go home. When we dropped acid about half way though.
It Could Be The Drugs (It Could Be The Dancing): Have you ever received a note in you band email offering a gig in the big city? They state they have found your song and LOVE it (capitalized). And they have an opportunity for you to play where the action is: (insert big city near where you claim here)? This is your chance! Of course the gig is on a Wednesday morning which is usually where the music scouts are out looking for new talent. Plus you will have the benefit of playing with other bands. Its not a competition. Its not. But make sure you bring everyone you know and everyone they know. Though its not a competition. Really.
Kinky Devil: Regarding the next song, Kinky Devil: No Comment.
Summer of Drummers: This is not a new quest. This may be a life long quest. Maybe my ultimate quest. I have no luck with the makers of beat. Drummers are like the hot chicks in the bar: everybody wants them, needs them, but they play to many other dudes. BTW…if you know a drummer, give them my name
Houston, We Got A Problem: This song exists for one reason. Lucky Money Oil. If you were conscious in the 80s you may remember seeing these in a variety of 7 11s and Wawa’s in your travels. A small bottle of oil that if you use will bring you great fortune. The downside is that it smelled like Patchouli and Grim Death. This song is about spilling that oil in your car and rolling up the windows IN THE Summer Sin to see which of your friends could last the longest before ejecting.
Show Your Work: Half of this band are teachers in the public school system. And a lot of our friends are teachers too. I have learned a lot from them even now, mainly that I wish I paid attention to the teachers I had. But I have heard the term ‘Show Your Work’ a few times and it struck me. This … this whole day…. is me showing my work.
I’m The Singa’: It requires gumption (or balls) to say Im The Singer. To step out on the stage with nothing but your voice and words you don’t remember and sell it…. As noted: balls and gumption. This one goes out to CC of GG.
The Death Of Indie: I blame Society. And Spin Magazine. Big radio and Pitchfork. I blame myself and some of you. What is Indie Music? Isn’t everything Indie Music? Are we Indie? Are you? This is a crime scene investigation with a wicked beat.
Our Future Is California: The best description I have heard of this song is from my mate Julie who stated ‘The prettiest F.U song ever.’. This is Our Future is California
Who Plays First: this is a tale based on the apocalypse and proper band placement. This is my ego to a 4 x 4 beat
The Deleted History Of Us; This is my take on a modern age Grimm Generation song. CC and I were always fascinated by the interpersonal interactions via the Internet, and how this formed our culture on a global level, but as deeply, personal relations. This song is about the last gasp of Internet love.
Hello Beautiful. I will start with the most obvious question: Is this post a cheap ploy to bring home the fact that Cursive is Code (my band) is being played on the Mighty WPLR 99.1 Sunday night at 10 PM on the Local Bands Show (https://www.wplr.com/2020/12/10/the-local-bands-show-12-13-20/)?
Maybe to bring up the fact that it will be stream able the following day on the replay through Cygnus Radio at Noon (https://cygnusradio.com/)?
Of course not, Silly. But do listen.
No.
This post is about growing up in the shadow of this particular 50,000 Watts station and why being featured on Sunday nights makes me feel like I have magic shoes that allow me dance on ceilings.
When I was growing from boy to older boy, before all of my comic books were traded for a single Alice Cooper ticket (it is a great Rock and Roll story and a poor plan), this station is why.
It was the King Biscuit Flour Hour and the show was ‘Black and Blue: Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult).
I was about 12 at the time and comics were my life. I was into the X Men (as any right thinking outcast kid in the suburbs should be). Everything was comics. They covered my walls, my few friends were collectors and we would trade all day long.
So, a quick study of this is I was a kid who was into fantasy. Not the wizards and sword and sandals stuff. The deepest I could go into that vibe was the Frazetta posters that also adorned my tiny teen bedroom. And I’m not convinced I hung those there for any reason than I was 12 and the girls started to interest me.
This was my life. My parents even brought me to my first Comic Convention which was NOT a Comic Con. It definitely had more the vibe of the Waterbury Record Shows (on Sunday Mornings!) held at Ramada (or w.e.). Meaning it was generally middle aged dudes who smelled foul.
It was not until the Waterbury Record Shows that I realized poor hygiene was a tactic. Smelling bad was an excellent way to make sure nobody stands to close to you as you are digging for gold among the crates of vinyl.
So I was a nerd, but so were you, don’t lie.
I had always had older brothers and sisters and cousins who brought around music. Despite my young age, I was raised on Yes records and first albums James and I received for Christmas which were ‘Queen: Live Killers’ and ‘Aerosmith Live Bootleg’. Also an 8 track of ‘David: Live’.
Which if you boiled down the elements, you get my musical career.
So I was aware of rock music, considered myself a fan but it was comics. Until that Sunday Night ….
I was getting ready for school and had 99.1 Rock on because I believed that was what I was supposed to do. I barely owned any records of my own aside from a few single 45’s my Dad would get for James and I whenever he hit it in the Lottery. Understand I am not talking about ‘Lottery Winners’. That term itself is an oxymoron. If he made a few bucks on the horses or daily numbers, we would know when we received a 45. I remember my first one was Thin Lizzy ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ and James opted for David Bowie ‘Golden Years’
(Which if you boil down the elements….etc.)
So it was 99.1 Rock Radio on all the time. Dr Demento was likely what brought me there. The real prize was ‘The King Biscuit Flour Hour’. In a pre-YouTube universe this was where you heard performers live. It was the only way, at the time.
So, getting ready for School Monday on a Sunday night and the show starts. The opening sponsored announcements. I barely paid attention.
Then the bell.
The fucking bell changed everything.
On the Heaven and Hell Tour. Opening number ‘Black Sabbath’. I knew none of this at the time (my sister listened to Volume 4 which when I hear again I knew every word without knowing I did).
All I knew was the sound of wind and rain, howling and the Bell. My ears perked up like a dog who heard a can being opened. I sat right down and stopped everything. The World itself stopped spinning and all focus was on me and my speakers.
This is a month of personal Celebration. Anyone who knows me knows that I wait all year for this jewel: through the sour Winter, the shitty Spring, the unbearable Summer just to be delivered to these shores of Autumn goodness, starting with colors in the trees and ending with the crunch, crunch, crunch of leaves. I live for this.
And of course…Horror. The fictional kind. Not the ‘walking around in a plague ridden wasteland while zombies are flying US flags’ type of horror. (Note: VOTE!)
Though sometimes a movie walks the line so expertly that you can not …not believe in the story.
Its not new news that many horror films are socially conscious. Zombies = Consumers. Slashers = degrading morals of the new generation. Godzilla = Amazon. But when you base a fantastical movie with cue and current social issues…and film it in the Found Footage style….something bigger can come from it.
A note on Found Footage: I have a problem. It is not that I don’t like Found Footage…it is that I LOVE Found Footage and will watch every terrible Found Footage movie that gets released. And many of these are bad.
I always feel a kinship for these unknown horror directors who somehow cobble together the money to make what is the cheapest type of horror film. You just need a few friends, a few actors and an imagination when it comes to effects. It is really a problem for me.
I will die of this sickness in time and expect my grave to be plundered by drunk teens with Go Pros…but I will be waiting for them….
Not why we are here.
This is about Savageland. You can find this movie steaming for free in many places and I suggest you take 1 hour and 20 minutes out of your life.
But understand….you can not escape from the monsters in this one. Cause we are them.
The story takes place in Arizona. I never had a concept of Arizona in my brain. I knew it was hot which was enough to cross it off my global checklist. I did not know it bordered Mexico. I did not know until 2016 that there was a pretty healthy redneck population.
A person who I trust once told me it was the worst place on the planet. I believe her now.
The story is put together as a TV Style documentary with old news footage and current talking heads, police and mourning families It tells the tale of a massacre that occurred in Sangre de Cristo (don’t look it up … the town if fictional too) where one man went mad and killed 57 men, woman and children in the most awful ways imaginable. Which was deemed as impossible as that much mayhem would need a team of killers in running shoes … but you see…he was Mexican.
The movie is rife with people speaking to how our Country was being over run by said Mexicans and many people say terrible things during the interviews. This was pre Trump by one year BTW….and that speaks volumes. Wonder how we got here? There are parts of the Country that were ALWAYS there and waiting.
So one impossible act, with one day laborer slaying an entire town. Except…. He took pictures. And what is on these pictures does not work with what he was ultimately electrocuted for.
You need to watch this. I’m not going deeper into it cause … you need to see this. It’s a great Horror movie.
The terrifying part is that thought the horror is faux, the attitudes, the xenophobia is not. And that is more chilling than the scariest thing crawling form the deepest darkest swamp.
It is 2020. You don’t need a costume this Halloween. Just wear your normal street clothes. We are the monsters our parents warned us about.
So you decided to purchase Cursive is Code’s debut record ‘The State Enforced Renaissance.’
Good for you! I like a person who buys records. Especially mine. I’m cheap that way.
Just as a primer I have decided to put a guide together to allow you get the most out of the Cursive is Code experience.
Parental Warning
Despite the cute cat videos and general goofy mayhem, this is not a record for kids. As noted, the themes of this record are Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. In what order depends on the song. The sounds will make your kids dance about in arrhythmic patterns…maybe a bounce or two…but do not let them look at the liner notes (does anyone remember laughter…ummm…liner notes? That is a Classic Rock Joke squared). There are a few swears that will be bore out when we get to playing out live at which point, I will swear like a Redd Foxx record. Naughty stuff, bad stuff, likely about your mom.
Fact is, the powers that be (meaning the companies I paid to post this) already put that ‘E’ on the record based on the song ‘It Could Be The Drugs,’ which was why I changed that song’s title in the first place.
Legal: Cursive is Code does not accept responsibility for your kids turning into Rock Stars.
What do I feed it?
Nothing. It is a record.
Where is the best place to listen?
This record was designed to create high energy, rollicking, and shimmying back and forth. Dance to it. Drive to it. Cook spaghetti to it. Fall into La Dance De La Fornicato with it, hopefully with a partner. This is NOT Sunday Morning Music, except maybe ‘Our Future Is California.’
Is there a narrative?
Excellent question. No.
What is it about?
The meat of the Cursive is Code sandwich is the history of being a local light on the scene far past one’s due date. But that is not exactly what ‘The State Enforced Renaissance’ is about.
The idea is to combine this and the next record into one big extravaganza. But then I read on Hypebot that extravaganzas are not in this year. I almost did it anyway as I am an artist. No one can tell me what to do with my art, including producing a record so dense that an average listener would fall right down with the weight of my pretension.
I did not do that. Look forward to my posthumous collection where I will unleash this particular Kraken.
No. For a change of pace for me this record is about…relationships. Yeah, I know. I have one note and I know how to whistle it.
But unlike the lovely and depressing Zen record, this one is about the good and the bad parts of lovin’.
It contains a rare actual love song to my band mate (and Mate) Julie in ‘Reward Animals.’ ‘We Kick Sparks’ is also a love song, but a bit more about adult lovin’.
‘The Wrong Playlist’ is the anthem to being in way over your head love wise and the results.
‘Our Future is California’ is the attempt to say the worst things possible in the sweetest voice I have.
‘The Deleted History Of Us’ is a modern love song…wait…. Did I put this and ‘Wrong Playlist’ on the same record? They are both about the same thing. Fine.
‘The Grand Libido’ speaks for itself, obviously.
OK, You have convinced me. Where can I find this record?
I will unleash the list in a moment. But send us emails at CursiveisCode@gmail.com and you can have such claptrappery as this popping up in your mailbox as the mood hits.
To everyone who already made a little space for this record….we deeply appreciate you. To those that haven’t: Click…buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
A gracious and salutary ….ummm.. salutation to you, Cursive Cabal.
I hope this note finds you fat with money, free with love and a good meal awaiting you. With the Gods. Or your Dogs.
So today, as we slide from post apocalypse plagues to a newer (and yet far older) apocalypse, we are here to discuss voids.
Let’s call it March. 3 Months and change and everything went upside down. A world most of us never expected…and the ones who did expect are SUCH a drag to hang out with.
90 days. 2100 Hours.
Boom.
So what did you do with your void? Empty space fills the bowl that one held hilarity, kicks, communion … and we are on our own.
Did you gain weight? Knowledge? Has familiarity bred contempt? Catch any new shows?
I was getting busy when the quarantine hit. I lost Hogan and knew that if I did not get my head together quick…well, I had no idea what that result would be. After the ceremonies, Julie and I got down to it, building the beats, laying down tracks upon tracks, gittin’ all fancy. Guitars added, guitars subtracted, Julie building big brassy counterpoints and high infections of melody.
Because we can dream and we can build, it gives us control. We can spit frustration into a vocal, over-distort the guitar and then do it again, learn bass.
And when you’re done…. there is still the void.
My concept of how to make money making music was probably outdated before I picked up a guitar. The main thrust of it was ‘get out there!’ But that was never my …. desire. It all came back to the lifelong argument Dave and I would have.
He said that if you play everywhere, and are good, people will know you and you can build a following.
I said that you will burn out in the bars before you ever get heard and there has to be a better way. A better mousetrap.
The debate rages still, now more piquant as the venues are gone. As is D.H.
And everyone is experimenting with building better mousetraps game now.
Look beyond this day, this year, and know someday this will be regarded as a truly creative period for art.
A State Enforced Renaissance.
We reach out how we can. Social networking is just too convenient and too easy, which is why it is absolutely over-saturated with everyone everywhere.
It is also a true gut check for the times that you pour your heart into something and it gets overshadowed by a particularly cool cat pic
But Fuck. Life is hard all over. Especially these days. Let us not carry things without weight.
.
And if the Gods are kind and the cats are ugly, maybe you can be heard.
A bit.
So…what have Cursive is Code done with their Void?:
Songs: Follow the link to check out the available Cursive is Code songs on Soundcloud. This is 4 songs…and I think a few more will be added and this will be available for purchase. Like the songs if you like, love us if you like love (?):
Dance: Cursive is Code is getting into the video biz. Wanna see a dancing cat marionette? Wanna see a number of innocuous girls revealing more than the author expected? See them here:
youtube.com/channel/UCy0lHa-Y95c88tHU7UO3jPQ
Seltzer In Pants: Wanna read about it? Go here:
jasonpkrug.com
Wanna send us dirty pictures of you celebrating the new Cursive is Code sexy sounds?:
I hear the weather is funny in Minsk these days? Reply?
&^#*(&%@(*^!$%^&*(^*)*()
Excellent. Welcome to The Cursive Cabal. Your passage is booked. Enjoy the refreshments.
So as April passes into May, we find the reawakening of this World. Though to be fair, we are quite busy and may miss this. Or this eternal gray may kick rocks into another year of fear and trembling.
Whatever.
I have a record to push. So do you, likely. Or child to raise, charges to face, people to kiss (from a safe distance). We all have our projects.
So today is a peek behind the curtain, beneath the sheet, under the cupboard, over the …. whatever.
Today’s subject is songs. I had a point to make before I was reduced to a blubbering mess in my last post. This is that point: Songs are special.
That’s it! Good Night Folks!
Ok…… not. When I consider what art allows us, one thing that I don’t recognize within the forms is how something someone else created becomes ours. Personal property. A line can bring you to that Big Breakup. A melody to the wedding before.
Maybe it’s the long versus short from. It could be poetry is a reasonable comparison but no one is reading poetry out loud when your cruising around on some Friday night, of your youth, of your post youth, your pre passing.
Songs are frames for the things we want to remember or need to forget. A wild rave up attached to your misspent youth, distorted electric guitars carry us into adult hood, sweet acoustics mean Sunday Morning, shitty acoustics means Friday night.
Songs operate as placeholder for emotion. They meld with the circumstances in ways we require.
I need songs…. but these songs need words as well. Every song is not Leonard Cohen, but if they were, what would we do with Rockabilly? There is genius in the dumbness of Rock and Roll words. And the beat!
Songs mean a lot to us here at Cursive is Code. Not just the act of creating music, but attempting to share our moments and maybe hit upon yours. Or maybe just create an earworm that will haunt your day. Or a lyric that seems raw and simple but holds galaxies within.
We released our first song on Soundcloud about one month ago, with new songs following every two weeks. There are three there now and a new one next week. Where?
So I figured I would take a moment and discuss what’s up there now. We will add a new one next week…and then wait till these get heard. We are very proud. And why give the milk away when the cows a slut.
Is that how that goes?
The Grand Libido: And thank you all for weighing in on that first cut. It’s our first ‘hit’.
The know the actual genesis of this song was it was a Grimm Generation song, played out live absolutely once. I also believe the title was inspired by The Danbury Lie’s The Great Jester. I was always a fan of The Lie. Always reminded me of weird metal on acoustics. The guitar harmonies make me nostalgic.
What is it about? Dirty stuff.
Julie remembered this song from Grimm and was maybe part of the movement to go electric. She wanted to see this done. And she was right. It is a barnburner.
It Could Be The Dancing: Otherwise known as ‘It Could Be The Drugs’ till I was rebuked by The Manor.
This one …. theeeees song….yeah. It is a statement. And maybe a cruel one. Maybe self-abuse. But hey. That’s Showbiz.
This song, part of the eventual collection about being a unfamous musician has a lot of clues for those who have treaded the boards, spent countless USD on mailing actuall press kits with real cassettes. This is about the grift of the music business. It takes on the City gigs in Manhattan (Bring Your Friends! Serious-fucking-ly!), the effect the tambourine has on drunks, the uninjestable sadness that we can all be replaced by a dude with a DJ Deck and my favorite bit of reality in the form of the line:
‘It is Independence Day
For the 1200 Bands who will start up tomorrow
or the 1200 bands that broke up today’
It hurts. But it is good for you. Look around.
And to boot I snuck a good verifiable Grimm Generation reference in.
Hi CC!
The Deleted History Of Us: So far the best recorded one. It is hard to believe this is mine. It is very different. This is not about someone in particular but it is about everyone, conversely. This is about the simplicity of ending the online relationship (even with real flesh and blood non catfishy type people) with that gesture, that simple click. Click. Do it. CLICK. Do it!!!!! DOOOOO ITTTT!!!!
Yes My Cursive People. Now we move along to the next challenge: how do you sell a record when the word record doesn’t mean record anymore? How do you get gigs in a pandemic? How do you cut through the din of Social Mania?
Write a Blog? Nooooooo….
Till next time my friends. Look for Cursive for Code to pop up in the weirdest places.
And he was not wrong. DH and I had this conversation over years, decades, lifetimes.
The simplest breakdown of the conversation was what are we trying to provide for this World, beyond our sunny personalities, beyond our genius swearing. What is it that we have that to share?
4 chords and a truth. With something catchy to chase the bitter with the sweet. Simple sentiments or complex linguistics. Just make sure the hook irresistible and the length short.
I am a songwriter. I am not a poet, despite my best poses. I don’t write novels as I consider how many songs I can write in that same amount of creative burst. I deal in volume (was that pun intended? I leave that to the reader to consider) and for every bad song I make, I do write a few fine ones.
Of course, that brings into question what you consider a song.
I don’t preach on this subject as I believe Pop Music is a commuter train that we all use…for a time…and then it passes us by and gets delivered to those who need it: Kids. If I don’t like the genre you work in (and I do not), I don’t believe my genre is ‘cooler’ or more ‘rad’. It is just mine.
What I create is words with (hopeful) meaning, chords that soften those often stream o’ consciousness thoughts and something to listen to for 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
I have often wondered what it is like to excel at a particular instrument. It has never been something I have ever been overburdened by. I admire musicians…I love musicians…. but I cannot say I understand them.
And vice versa.
I miss Dave. That all this mess of words is saying. I would have wrote him directly if I had the ability to do so.
Hey You! Yes YOU! You in the glasses! (that was just for me)
Yes I have a great opportunity, big payouts, we finally take down ‘The Man’. Just you and Me and a couple hundred thousand friends. We’re gonna cabal the night away.
That’s why you don’t see this blog anywhere else. This is just for Us. Shhhhhh….. You may note from my usual method of screaming ‘PAY ATTENTION TO ME!’, this ain’t that. Sure, I will post on walls (even a bathroom walls but the number always gets wiped away…) feeds, pages… if I wasn’t so lazy I would post bills and hang flyers….but going out side is so 2019.
Nope, its just us now. So chilllll…relax…let me drop some knowledge. This is the birth of the Cursive Cabal.
So…if your reading this….you’re interested in what I have to say. And if you read any of my previous blogs, you will note I’m not exactly a deep thinker. This will continue that grand tradition. But…more honest. Cause I am among friends here.
So….Cursive is Code. This is the new band, this is my new Magnetic North, this could be the last band. Who knows, right? Cause not all the members of this band will make the record. If you read this before, you know exactly what I mean.
Here is the tale: So when Grimm kicked the bucket, I decided to follow my expected route of Singer Songwriter sensitive heartbreak route. And I brought in Grimm Cello player Julie Kay to help me. I never discussed this before, but she helped me beyond any expectation I had. It wasn’t simply the beautiful playing or the Astral Weeks style bass thing she brought (which ticked off one of my musical fantasies). She was playing hurt. She was scheduled for a surgery…and she came down to the basement and sat uncomfortably, in genuine pain…and would grin and bare it.
If I had…if I was better at being human….would I suggest she not come, not put herself through excess pain? I can say we don’t know…I can also say it made no difference at all cause she was going to come anyway. She believed in what we were doing. She believed in Me. She would work her way down the stairs to sit in my bachelor pad (which looked a lot like a 13 year old’s basement except more cheesy keyboards…I think that was captured in a video somewhere….) or take a trip out to Collinsville to work on some songs with old music mate Adam Hagymasi, who did about half of everything on that record. If it wasn’t an E Bow (That’s Hogan) or fumbly acoustic (Moi), everything else was Adam. But Julie would take these trips with us while we worked out the basic tracks.
The record turned out good. I still have some free downloads if you want one.
This was….or wasn’t…I cant be sure…when I fell in love with Julie Kay. We did not connect till about a year later. And…Wow. We grew much closer. And live happily.
Anyway….yes, this is more honest…more deep .. than I expected to go…
So, a Misery Monkey like myself, now all flush on new love… time for my next record. I mean…I live with my band! (Julie) It was a test of my theory that writers write best when mostly miserable. And I was right! Unfortunately…
I was blocked. New happiness made no songs. And I somehow wised up to the fact that forced unhappiness is just dumb, dumb, dumb. Look around now. You just never know.
So I lived happily…and even the anguish of not creating abated a bit. We formed a band based on the acoustic sound, played some shows, had some fun. I was writing new songs but I just could not get motivated to do something with them.
Meanwhile….a bit of history. Dave Hogan and I started together in our first band….and played together from project to project the entre time I knew him. Our musical tastes were different…and always had been since age 20….but we came together on a mutual love of vintage guitar rock and British Glam. So Humble Pie….Mott The Hoople…Black Sabbath….BOC…..despite the time and tides of projects and bands, the friendship was based on these fundamentals. I don’t mean that to sound tribute or light…sure we came together on a few bands and differed in so many ways…but the way we loved these bands was zealous. Religious.
And we had an often discussed plan, a goal. One more BIG rock band with me and him. He always wanted to just be a musical director in some project…and I wanted to re-use the voice I cam up singing with, less croon, more rock.
So I took this to heart and started writing again. It was not easy. It was Karma. I was always fortunate that I could write on a dime. It was my Super Power. Sure not every song was ‘It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding’ but I could attach a half formed thought with a half formed melody and shake some shit up. Not this time.
I had my concept. I wanted to write a series of songs reflecting Dave’s and my coming up through the local music ranks. Targeting specific gigs, specific experiences. The significance of this to me was that all these tales turn quaint when balanced against the entire industries apple cart getting upset by the Internet. All the old plans, the old expected results, the long time argument tween Dave and I if excessive gigging helps or hurts…. I had my concept. And dug into it.
It was rough. I will say that I had to return to rhyming dictionaries. I had to try every trick suggested on every writing site. In time…it came. It did not break out like a dam; it trickled like a stream but still filled the record.
It was not just the band concept I was working with…I also had the excitement of being happy and in love…so those songs were written right along.
So I bought an electric guitar and Julie played keyboards. Did I know Julie could play Keyboards? Not at all. Can she play? Like a MotherFucker.
Then a year in the desert looking for musicians. I had not done this…actually my only experience doing this was Grimm…. And CC and I muse that we still don’t know how we got so many people involved, taking trips out to Windsor and making something beautiful. This time was less successful, more anguish and wholly disappointing. EXCEPT….We found Dan. Dan plays bass, as well as banjo, classical guitar….and most important, was good fun to play with.
But the record was not getting made. No drummer. I worked on it with my vintage Korg Dr Rhythm Drum Machine (favored on RUN DMC’S biggest hits) and made a few tracks’, but others were beyond my rhythmic imagination.
Enter Julie, with yet another unknown talent on display: beat maker. After we upgraded the keyboard, out of frustration more than a plan, she started coming up with beats and we started recording properly. And it worked.
With unexpected results. The songs were danceable. I never created anything danceable unless you count bouncing uncontrollably as dance. Also….after working exclusively with acoustic for years…I was really digging the Electro Sound. It sounded vintage to a scene I never listened too. This was Julie influence. She opened me up to sound and brought those sounds right home to Deep River.
So now….Hogan. Weapon X (he would appreciate the comparison). And I sent him the tracks with a note on the envelope that exclaimed ‘Our Mott The Hoople Dreams contained within’.
And I was too late. And I will never forgive myself.
But Hogan was more than a friend and a stunt guitar player. He was a Saint. I never would have conceived of that when we were kids. But going to his funeral…the pure Love of all of his friends, the real heartbreak of losing a cat before his time. This record became important. Cause these songs were written with him in mind, his style, his background vocals. Based on experiences he and I both lived through…and lived with.
We often had discussion of we were just both legitimately crazy still chasing this same dream when every conceivable outlet turned against us. We always reached the same conclusion: We were.
I miss him every day.
Anyway….so back to Julie and Me and the record. We dug in….I played more guitar, more than I ever thought I was capable of….Julie brought out the strings and horns from the Juno….and we started crafting what would be and currently is Cursive is Code. The name came from a late night conversation tween Julie and Me of how generation of kids no longer recognize, much less can write, Cursive. That made it feel like a secret language, something shared among those who know.
If you want to get ion on the secret action, follow this blog.
If you want to join the Cabal Mailing list, send me your email at jpkrug@gmail.com
We will be sharing a new song every few weeks. When such a thing is conceivable, we will be taking this show on the road and playing your town. Or the next town over.
Be One With The Cursive Cabal. And together we can…… (add impossible dream here)
Hello Beautiful. Yes, you. Hi ya doing, Sweetness? Since everyone is either pairing up or bachelor’ng up till the storm passes, I assume we can be a bit more…intimate. Right? Yes? Ja?
Ja.
But maybe a bit of foreplay? Aww shucks, for you Kitten, anything. I know you can’t get enough of my blathering on like my opinion matters to anyone, so…this is for you, Hot Stuff:
I am a man before my time. I am version 5 of the model (of Man). I see the future and is the future.
I am The Omega Man. And guess what? So are you.
I was Social Distancing before it was all the rage.
Do you think I did NOT want to come to your gig / wedding / rescue? No, Sugar, I was training. For this.
Do you think it is easy walking around this brain with all of there genius thoughts and not near enough people to inflict them on? I had to wait.
It was a dream I had (that’s a lie; I don’t dream) that there would come a time when the whole world would see the appeal of the Curmudgeon. And now they line up at my door. Which I will never, ever open.
The very concept I hear tell of is how people need social interaction and are willing to risk their health to get it. The idea that restaurants and bars and casinos will close due to virus.
Yes, we are in the first 20 minutes of every zombie movie ever.
So since I’m all skilled and such and doing the Solitary thing, I offer some advice to those over grown with Social Engagements:
The Internet. The Internet gives madness and takes away sanity. Plus cat pix. But consider this: if you hear a guy in the park screaming about the coming Apocalypse, I don’t think you would take that as a viable news source. Now consider if you don’t see the park, don’t see the stool he stands on. Is he more viable? Now give him a Twitter. My point is people spread disinformation. Its not our fault, it’s fun! Do it! Do it now! The Earth is flat, Bigfoot exists, Wheeee!
Activities. What we rarely get is a place where the World stops and we have the chance to try something we never have. Like meditation or meth. What we have hear is a global pause button engaged. So what have you always wanted to do? You have a few weeks, maybe months, so turn off the TV and Make It Motherfucking So.
Go outside. Listen…I know. Outside is scary. But they have cool stuff out there. Sun (occasionally). Trees (a lot of those bastards). Grass (not yet). Consider this a time slip. You have gone back in time 200 years…or forward 1200…either way, no one is around. Skinny dip? Yes. Skinny BBQ? Yes. Skinny ride home? Sure.
Think Big. As noted, the World doesn’t stop for us very often. But here we are. So what new windmill will you be taking on? This is a freaky time. Aim high. But stay low.
Lets make the most of this Apocalypse. Yes, we will one day look back at this and think ‘What a time…’
…. or we won’t, whatever. Regardless…the Future Goes This Way ————>
Hello. We lost a Good Man, My Friends. I was crafting this personal history of Dave and I to present to him when he was feeling better. Something so he was fully sure of the impact he had on my life and the life of the countless others he called ‘Brother’. It’s personal, full up on references earned over a 35 year friendship.
Hello Cap’n.
These days have had me reflecting on the past, the meat of what mattered and how I got here. And as I gaze back at what would be my most full moments, you were there, stage right, holding it down, joyous, celebratory, a quick grin between us when the harmonies hit just right and the song sails. This brings me back to the very beginning. Verillis garage.
This is where we met. And I remember it all, the state of the clutter, the too small space the blue aria pro, Vic smashing shit like a Muppet, the irrepressible Verilli acting every inch of his eventual occupation (not the drug store, the LA Hair Metaler) , you focused and concise…and so fucking young. I was too but I don’t see me here. I see you. Fuck you looked 15 but played like 50. I still remember the swells of Remember Tomorrow, the barnstorming of Tyrant. I remember the feel of really doing it, really singing into that mike, barking, and all my dogs barking with me. And Mrs Verilli. A true cartoon dragon of there ever was one, we, hard teens, metal heads, drinkers, druggers fuckers all hiding silently and wide eyed when she got home.
We were the classic 80’s movie that we did not know would be classic…cause it was the 80’s. We fought the popular kids with their poofy hair and van halen set. All the girls went dewy at the very site of Drew and the boys. And we brought pure fire. Pure anger. Purity. These are not our songs but you motherfuckers are going to hear them anyway. Loud. Fuck you all.
And I flash forward a year, a year of beginnings, a year of you blowing my mind in Scots basement with every new song you learned the night before. Yes songs. BOC songs. It was really intimidating.
You have always been like that, or appeared that way. Focused. Cocksure. Correct. I’m sure you had doubts. I’m sure you had fears. But they never crossed your face or spun up your voice, in song or in jest.
One year later, one year of basement playing, one year of focus to do what we always wanted to do: not simply ROCK but rock with songs these people should know. The UFO set. Rock Bottom, the room would fall away and its you and that solo… Let It Roll. Only You Could Rock Me (Rock Me). We won that night.
Afterward I remember Wizards Lament….my first official song and how everyone came together and started adding their parts. And I remember it all falling apart. You hooked up with Scot, we became a cover band, I started the Basement Apes with Fetcho.
And this was the part where you became my nemesis. It’s a place of honor. While we wiled away our mornings and late evenings writing, recording, The Rafter Bats ascended. I think it would be a little late in the game to say I was coooool with that. I was jealous, plain and simple. You created something that had not been created yet, much less mass produced and genrefied. You were the first Bluegrass Rock and Roll band and it drove me mad.
I will always remember the moment I heard you on WPKN, the whole band playing some live tunes on a Saturday morning. And it sounded amazing…groundbreaking. And I called you at the station. I was out on the air with you. And captured the most uncomfortable 5 minutes of radio in existence. I’m counting the Hinderberg, by the way. I said ‘Hey!; and heard grumbles and very guarded responses from you and Dennis. It was hilarious. Soon after I caught your act in Greenfield Hill in Fairfield, that farmers market and we were in communication again.
Thing is….I drew such inspiration…such pride,..that you liked what I did. It wasn’t simply anyone liked it…it was you. And I knew you were no bullshit so your not going to bother aligning with me if you did not believe in what I was doing., And that made me press farther, push harder. And when I shared the tapes of what I had been doing, The Great Upsetters came to life.
It’s a mystery to me why that band did not go farther, and this time it was not from lack of trying. But fuck man…the times we had. The Post Office bar in Bridgeport with the undertaker bartender (Tins sister, if I remember) and the hookers and the crack addict. And this was one of those moments that meant the world to me. That empty bar, half the band tripping on acid, the other half hopelessly drunk, and when we kicked into Like A Rolling Stone…a song I don’t believe we ever played before and barely knew the words between the 5 of us….and when we started that, that 5 person draw sang like a crowd of 1000’s. Everyone screamed every word.
I don’t know if we got paid that night. I don’t know anything about that night except for that moment and the raw feelin of being fucking alive and sharing something with folks who wanted it.
And somehow we feel into the Ticketmaster National Showcase. Christ, remember that set? I bet you could still play it without much encouragement. We had it down to a super tight 38 minutes. What was it…10 songs? With the intro and outro of The Great Upsetters, the funky darkness of Something Missing, the sweet harmony of Whose Really Where. I was always proud at how we worked. We jammed hard but were never a jam band. We were focused to serve the song, that was the endgoal, and that was what we did.
The one moment you missed from that night was me changing for our set at the Holiday Inn and coming down the elevator, Phil Mogg walked in. I was in my fucking stage gear. I had to say something. And I did. En quote ‘ omg, Your Phil Mogg, your my hero and my band of UFO worshipers is just about to play a set for a national contest across the street and your band is the reason’….I said it likely faster than that with my eyes likely spinning around like a googly doll. He was polite, amused, and thanked me and wished us well.
Then onto the show. Another of these moments that I look back on and you were there right next to me. We killed it. A perfect set. Girls screaming like the fucking Beatles. Magic. Just the wrong decade. 5 years later our 70’;s worship would have been hip again. Right outfit, wrong year.
Hopi Fest. This was not something amazing musically…it just showed what an original bunch of crazy crackers we were. We stormed that stage long past anyone wanting to hear it. But we did not care. This was The Upsetters…and by definition anything the Upsetters wanted to do they did.
And the end of the Upsetters. I broke up bands for the same reason I am writing from a day job today versus my yacht…fear of success. I know it was me. I would start to think all artisty and start thing of something that would fulfill me.
I did not know then these memories would hold and hold me to answer for. I did not expect to live this long.
And I made my solo record with the invaluable help of more Hogan stock, Bill Becker. I got to know Bill pretty well during the GU year in his role of…well everything. And he was a killer bass player and partner for me. I miss him right now, even as I write this. He was a good man without any of that icky goodness that corrupts good men and makes them dull.
While Graylight Campfire ascended. Prick.
I remember a gig DayDrug did with Graylight (which I don’t think I dreamed…but who knows?) and introducing you as my friend was a point of pride. By that point, we were not simply friends. My family has not been as much family as you have. I know that sounds strange. I do not make a lot of friends. Its not a plan, a design, just a circumstance of being self obsessed.
But you are my friend. You are beyond that. We became brothers on this trip.
You have a lot of brothers, Dave, A lot of people who believe in you. Enough people who admire you. You are a beloved commodity. You inspire such…reverence when your name comes up. You think Im being fancy, but I assure you are not. It’s a shame we never really know our standing till standing is no longer an option.
This month….. I looked at what I have accomplished in my life as an artist…and I had some successes…and you were there beside me, holding it down, holding us up, bringing that unmistakable but astral tone in your sound, in your very soul.
A lot of people love you, Dave. Admire and love. You need to know that. I don’t think we ever get this explained to us when we need it, so consider me Professor X: Nothing is the same after you. You are legendary and that will grow with everyone who ever knew you.
Then Grimm. I stand by the fact that my favorite period of GG was the trio. You and Me and CC…meeting imitation Bill Clintons, playing the always drama packed Swan gigs, the video for Nothing Astral…your PART on Nothing Astral still one of my faves off the cuff Hoganisms…… recording up in Storrs with Dennis along, Fuck….. Graylight / GG set at Ideat Village which…Wow…….
I mean…we created a form of rock and roll, something that was compact but fully loaded, 3 people, 2 with instruments. And a set of songs honed down and fine tuned.
Then Lys. Seeing you two sing those Gram songs was….incredible. You too added something into them that the countless covers missed…maybe it was a true love, maybe it was revelry….. but I felt like I had a hand in something good by putting you two in the same room. I know she thinks the same thing. I always picture us in that horrible sounding space museum…. And the Daffodil Fest, with you and Lys on the remarkable non rainy Daffy day. The 2 Boots shows.
On that point….the picture. The picture taken at Café Nine of just you and me on stage. Of when you were doing an early acoustic set and I cam down. A Friday I believe. How when I saw you…and you saw me….every wrinkle of the past had faded, every sharp left turn evens out….. and it was meeting an old friend and it took that moment for me to really recognize the trip you and I had been on. We were older men then…older still now…but we just grined at each other with a look like ‘well that was a time, eh”…and played the Upsetters songs, near perfect.
Cause our harmonies……was something beyond talent or skill…there is an understanding on how our instruments bend and warp around each other. That’s history in action. Its beauty in repose.
Anyway…the GG machine rolled on, now with you in place for the Big Fame record and shows. Yes, I regret not having you on Dizzy. Yes, I regret not having you on every track. But the shws…the radio play, culminating in the big time times 2: playing for the Tom Tom Club and WPKN Sunday Brunch.
I still laugh when I think about you at McLevy hall, being wholly UNIMPRESSED by the literal Rock stars watching. It impressed me and CC and I were always good for a star fucking. And GG was gone. Poof.
Onto me beginning of this phase of my life (while Graylight ascended…did I say prick? I did? Cool) which started with Zen. Not in a literal sense…I was insane at the time. But you were there too. You were there with the necessary rock and roll Dave/J back up on Last Days Of Rome….the real picture of how talented experimental you were on the ebow shit which really made those tracks.
But what I recall best is the radio show. Me coming on to introduce Zen on your WPKN show. Still on my soundcloud as I listen to it from time to time. Not to hear me, monitor my performance. To hear Us.
It is a conversation shared publicly of you and me just talking shit, not sharing secrets that we both know. There is a love in this conversation and this interview sits upon things I am proud of. Cause we were brothers, separated by bold, by circumstance, miles, poverty. Our dreams glimmered gold while our wallets got lost. 2 men coming from the same war, and an easy acceptance of what we have been dealt.
Now…not so easy. Cause this is not fair. This is not right anymore. I could listen to that conversation forever. It is friends. Veterans of the same psychic wars. One still more practical than the other. My madness tethered by your cool. An amazing team. A perfect match.
Except my art made me want to try everything on the plate while your steady hand held the rutter and kept you focused on the horizon where everything glimmered like a future coming.
I am an eccentric and you are a working man.
But it is not fair, make no mistake.
I did it. I wrote that record. The Mott one. The one where you get to be in the sainted seat of music director…some singing….real rock and roll shit. Its about everything I out down here. The trials and tribulations of limonene dreams.
I wrote it with the clear image of some future stage where your standing stage right and leading the band through the songs…you have a smile on your face…it looks like peace.
So when it gets to be nighttime, post evenin’ activities (of course), while others count endless amounts of barnyard animals, you will find me staring, open mouthed, maybe drooling just a bit (like Rock Stars do) watching and endless supply of UFO documentaries. The specifics are irrelevant. It is always this guy saw that and that Government said its that. And no body believes anyone. And for reasons unknown, this endless babble equate to the sound of pan flutes and gentle rain on my consciousness and I drift away into a dreamless sleep.
I think it has something to do with my wiring. I think listening to other people work out impossible problems while tucked away under a blanket is my version of Meditation. It comes with certain rhythms, certain symmetry of repeating phrases (Conspiracy, Hopkinsville, Area 51, Wright….. Conspiracy, Hopkinsville, Area 52, Wright…. I can barely type this without falling into a bliss rut)
Let me say this clearly: I believe in UFO’s (and not mainly cause I am a stoner…but…) and if you do not, you need to make the math work. If you can convince me that everything from Ancient Aliens to Best UFO’s Ever Caught On Tape (yes, that was the 80’s one.) is just one big grift, I welcome this.
Life is a mess of expected outcomes. You are born and (in the best case) you grow old. What mystifies you as a child now hangs from your rear view mirror. Bright and shiny things to catch your eye and let the World outside ran around uncaught. We are lacking mysteries these days. We are too smart and far to dumb to do anything other than plunder every dark corner with information, obligation to set everything in a the proper light.
I like the sound of rain. I love the sound of our chimes ringing on the porch. I enjoy the ageless whistle of the train. But to put me into that real rest driven mood, I need endless white people spouting pseudo science. Not UFO specific….any ole’ clap trap will do.
I love theorists. Not theory so much as the people who put the time in to make these ideas bubble above the surface of their minds. Like the Ancient Aliens trick of saying ‘Ancient Alien theorists believe….’…which lends type of gravity to whatever they are saying…but a theorist is someone with an idea. You are a theorists. I am too. I have theories on UFO’s. And lunch. Cats. How to achieve that dead eyed look while living the Life of Reilly.
We are all defectives….wait……detectives…..and this World is our gritty city to bring into focus. Its our city to learn, to believe, to disbelieve the residents. We are allowed to create mystery where the World wrings them out, one by one.
It takes a special type of human gall to reason out the lack of Bigfeet running around is based on the idea that they are inter dimensional creatures.
Its takes a village to deny a village ever existed on the floor of the sea.
It takes a networks worth of pseudo science to put this boy to sleep.
Happy New Year, ya filthy bustards (it’s a type of bird and now I have taught you something).
I am a simple machine. I am the definition of sanity in so much as I do the same things over and over and make them fly.
Did I get that right? No, I did not.
So here we are at the precipice of what started this blog in the first place. If you are not aware what that means, start at the first Blog and wit till you get here.
I’ll wait. Dooo Do Doo Doo Duh Dooooo Duh Doo. Dooo Do Doo Doo Duh Dooooo Duh Doo.
(Sing along at home! the words are Dooo Do Doo Doo Duh Dooooo Duh Doo…..)
Done? Sweet.
So here I am home recording a record. A theme record. Even a concept record though the concept is loose and filled with holes. So theme.
As you can recall from just rereading every Blog I produced (you did, right? Right?? RIGHT????) that this Blog came about to take my mind off of making a record. It was a heavy record for me, emotionally, not sonically.
And when I did what people of my ilk do (record a heartbreak record and hide for three years), it was satisfying. A good record too. I’m proud of it. I had one goal for that record: I wanted someone to hear it and understand the wild weeds of how I really felt, I wanted to help someone, to let someone know that they were not alone. And I did get that.
And I should have made the goal mansions and brand new cars. Live and learn.
And then I sunk into the luxury of living a good life. I’m dumb but quite happy. She makes my planet spin and also plays a mean piano.
I always felt my own misery was my muse. I feel like I found myself in situations which would make me miserable and then all the good words flow out. It works too.
At what point though do you need to drive that particular muse to a bus stop and let them go? (See.. that is JpK fun cause a lot of that record was written on busses. I’m so fun. Look it at me. I’m fun.)
Fun.
Anyway…. Right, New Years Misery. Got it.
And by reading this you recognize that this whole process starts again. I did not create this blog as a marketing tool. Though should have. Its medicine.
And here we go again. New record that I have been sitting on has started recording, and again in a similar format to the last: obsession and excess headphone equalizing.
And when I follow myself up that path up my own bum, I will come here and complain, cajole, or worship.
Such a strange morning. Another day heavy with grey clouds,
the full breasted blush of Autumn now stick figures stretching into the void . Sipping hot coffee to still the shudders. I
feel off planet, an alien hologram of myself. I cannot shake it.
I have no recall of
writing that sentence last night.
Wrapped in an assembly of weather warm fabrics, the chill was
bearable. I busied myself with a running list of the things I would buy when
the money comes. I must have passed out during the travel section as I remember
the image of blue water and black sand. Then nothingness.
I heard music. A
melody. Repeating and beating louder between my ears. I assumed in my sleep I
hit something on my phone. My phone was
off and still resting on the seat. I knew it wasn’t the radio as the keys sat
next to the phone. And a assembly of melodies converged in my head, growing
impatient.
I tried to focus but it was all surreal. There was something
familiar within it. Eventually I recognized was that all the melodies,
converging, crossing, swelling, were all sung in my voice. Falsetto and low
gravel, every instrument was my instrument. My voice doing things I could never
imagine.
Is a caterpillar aware of what it is becoming, the wings it
will grow, the colors it will bring? Is
a bug aware of what it will become right before it hits the windshield?
For better or far worse, change comes to every creature on
the planet.
Which is as reasonable a way to describe the last two days.
The melody. It slithers in the back of my head until I
sleep, and then it struts. Incessant. With a strong hook. A good beat you can dance too.
When I awoke with the melody beaming in my brain, I was
compelled to grab my guitar and make something out of it. It was intimidating.
Like being given a live check for millions but having a fake ID.
I found my way to a friend’s house who was sweet enough to
let me shower and get myself together. Being flush with real indoors and
genuine heat, I put myself on the couch, broke out my pad, my pen and my
digital recorder. And started to play.
It was the strangest feeling. My fingers worked their way
around the tune and added swerves and curves. It wasn’t conscious. The less I thought about it, the
more I noticed that I was playing guitar in a way I have never been able to
play.
I hack at my guitar, beat it into submission while screaming
out my precious words. This was different. A near genius level of altering and
repeating the notes , repetition, repetition, repetition. Hypnotic notes flowed from my guitar while I
barely considered where this skill came from.
It was said that Robert Johnson disappeared that day on the
Crossroads only to appear a few years later with an ability to play that
shocked folks who knew him. Some said it was the work of The Devil. Some said
it was the work of hard and focused learning.
I had not practiced in weeks.
I was not thinking this at the time. I was not thinking at
all.
I felt myself breathing, lungs inhale and exhale. I felt the
weight of the guitar on my knee, the scent of candles burned down days ago.
Everything within my physical body became acute. Detailed. I felt the sun shine
on my back, the deafening drip of a faucet somewhere.
My fingers worked and my voice worked with it. The more I
played, the more distant I became from playing. It was instinct. It was
flexing knowledge I never learned.
It was a gift.
ROBERT JOHNSON (1911-1938).
American blues musician. Dime store photo from the 1930s.
Dusk comes to the crossroads. A decided chill in the air as we press through November, and not having the finance to run the heater, I am layered in most of the clothes I brought.
Such a strange place. I feel invisible here. I expected that some local cop would eventually pull up and check my purpose. I thought that the folks who travel this route would be gawking at me, wondering what exactly I was up too. I have not seen a single person even look in my direction. It is solitude. And it should not be.
Things like this make me wonder. Is it this place, so often driven that it becomes automatic reflex to focus on the road? Is it my purpose here that allows a spectral anonymity?
It is a strange feeling to be in a wilderness while being about a 8 minute ride from a WalMart.
Beyond the half way point of November and no signs of progress. No nightly visitors, no pens of flame or blood. Just waiting causing me to question whether this is my residency in Hell. If that is the case I could do worse.
It is sunny today. Most of the leaves have left. The lovely burnished red of the foliage replaced daily with naked branch and blue sky blooming. The grass going from summer green to earthen tones.
I know the rhythms of the seasons. I have lived here all my life. This land of Devils.
That is not said as an opinion. New England born and raised.And always driving distance to some place with ‘Devil’ or ‘Hell’ in the title. As far as I recall, this was Puritan lands back in the beginning, and anything that was considered unusual was named unnatural. And a place where mysteries let loose. Devils were always about according to the Puritans. And names such as Devils Den, Devils Hopyard, Satans Kingdom, Hell Hole were given to the places that pricked at the cosmological conscience were warned away from.
The country, the USA, started on this side (meaning East)and so the oldest and more arcane history comes from here. It gets in your blood here, the dirty ground of real history. It redeems your daylight and electric candles as weapons against the cold Yankee nights.
There is blood in the ground here. Older blood sunk deeper into the soil. We have attached to our homeland witch hunts and Native American massacres, famous murder and forgetful grounds. As a kid, I ate this up. The book I would always own was the collection of Yankee Magazine Myths and Legends. There are vampires in Jewett City, mysterious ‘BOOMS’ out of Moodus, bodies buried beneath New Haven Green, the Melon heads stalk Dracula Drive in Yourtown, USA. Every part of the country reflects its age in its fears, whether it is roving gangs of homicidal hippies in the California hills or dead shot long dead gunslingers in the west.
Here, our history is longer and fears more traditional,
rooted in mystical depths. And that brings us to Hell.
We use the tools we have available to review any threat. In these modern days, mysteries are knocked down with regularity. Science tracks the phenomena, action and reaction and creates a hypothesis. The concept gets debated, back and forth, sometimes for centuries.
Without the science, we are left with faith. What someone wants to believe, someone will believe. If you believe your suffering will allow you a better view in Heaven,you cannot be dissuaded. If someone avoids the simple carnal pleasures for fear of dropping down into Hell, you will not be convinced. Even using plain science, where facts are not negotiable, people will see what they want to in the results and base their opinions on this flawed logic. And will not be unconvinced.
The Northeaster woods crawl with witches and boil with entrances to the abyss. The shore speaks of ghosts of pirates and haunted lighthouses. The cities whisper with murders and long held grudges coming to boil. We are cold people, in a cold place. As cold as the stones that sit in our multitude of cemeteries. As cold as the bodies that lay beneath.
And we will not be
unconvinced.
—————————————————————————————————-
Cloudy night with a glow of the Moon distant. Deeper shadows round the crossroads tonight.
What will it be like when I am rich and famous? What will it be like knowing what waits when I eventually flame out completely. Is having nothing an audition for losing everything?
The benefit of being wholly alone has it’s upsides. The ridiculous things you do are shared privately and there is no Greek Chorus warming up in the pit.
Someone who was aware of what I was doing out here, what I wanted and what I was prepared to pay, was perhaps a loss. I live so much in my own head that I doubt if someone offered advice, I would even be able to make sense of the sentence. My inner dialog has gone native
The positive is that when you do something embarrassing, you can get up the next day no worse for wear. That last night, recalled here, was embarrassing. A bad dream mixed with random nature had me running like a kid though a graveyard. The first sign of something scary had me sleeping in the swampy green light of a Target. Bad form.
I had long thoughts about what I would do next that morning, after the morning sun shook the night off. I had no place else to go. Death or Glory, right?
What if Death was not Death at all, but a quick blip before you wake up elsewhere? I did not believe in Heaven even a bit. I did not believe our good deeds were calculated and fed through a formula that decide the resting place of your soul. I absolutely believed in Hell.
It is a contradiction. I l know that. I have never been able to apply a working logic to it. I believe life is fundamentally bad. And as workers of these dirt driven fields, we turn bad right along with it. There is joy in moments and these times need keep us steely against another bad spin of fortune.
Life is not fair, but it was never advertised as such.
I drank coffee until I started to feel whole again. I knew I would go back to the crossroads that night. And every night following. Because I had nothing else.
When I returned in the bright 3 o’clock sunlight, I felt foolish all over again. This was practically the fucking suburbs. This was not Mississippi and the only thing haunting these fields was me. I settled in, slid my seat back and waited.
As noted, waiting is my sport. I was made for this, though I kept on having thoughts creeping into my head about whether waiting was enough.
Sacrifice was the word that kept coming in unannounced. Tap,
tap, tapping.
What if there was missing text in the accumulated legends?What if every single person who successfully made this pact brought something to show how serious they were? What if a bird was simply an offering? I pondered this as the sun slid away and night came to the crossroads.
As I got older, my writing changed. It was almost a return to my 9 year old form. It was confessional where before it was clever. This wasn’t a decision. I came to recognize that the writing was therapy. It was my nurse and it was my weapon. And I needed both in those days.
I cannot chart the exact age that my ego eclipsed my sweeter nature. I think it was a byproduct of living so deeply in my own head, I made a kingdom in there. And to the king go the spoils.
It came with a small measure of success, getting recognized,getting heard, my songs at last touch the radio airwaves. I took it too far, as was my nature.
I started to become cooler, not only in attitude but in empathy. And since my esteem couldn’t balance the small size of the aforementioned success, I started crafting a new persona. Less geeky chat(which is me) and more cool long looks. It was cheap but it was effective. I attracted attention. And the attention I craved wasn’t press or prestige. It was women.
And I became callous. To the king go the spoils. Even the most spoiled ones.
The songs became my rationalization for every deed and misdeed done. If I wanted a heartbreak song, I went out and got my heart broke.If I needed a redemption song, I found someone silly enough to redeem me and out it to paper. I did not write love songs . Too revealing.
I stepped out using the patter of a stranger, a sick ego and clever tongue. It goes a long way in the world.
I felt a darkness. Within. And I liked it. My songs became the E Ticket reason for everything I did to myself. And to others. Every unhealthy habit was a grand tradition in the life of an artist. I drank deeply.
No friends ever mentioned the change in me. No one longed for the better version of me. I was more successful with this character I decided to become than all the love lorn years leading up to it. And so I pressed on.
I hurt people. For the songs. I pushed the edges of decent behavior. For the songs. I dine out on fabricated stories of my life as a rogue. And songs came from that too.
I felt myself draining away from the world leaving my imposter to take my place. And he flourished.
It was not like the 80’s style comeback story movies I grew up on. The record was played, and played again all over the country. I received sweet words and sales were not great. The time spent working to the lower middle took its toll on everyone involved. And it was gone.
No one was asking what I would do next. No one missed what I brought to the banquet.
People went the way of the World and spun away. I did not take it personally. I was barely a person at that point.
That was not long ago now. It lead me right to this dirty cross of blacktop.
Saturday Night and I just got paid. Not accurate, but still a heady line. I will not see folding money again till this is over. I have been thrifty banking on the gas I use each day to get here versus 30 days. If it takes that long. And if it doesn’t, I simply don’t know.
My landscape is changing around me ushering in the cold, dead season ahead. The leaves that reached over my parking spot, which glowed dying fire as the chlorophyll blanched out are now skeletal limbs that shimmer and crack. The dead leaves carpet the roots of the tree where my black bird friend watched after me. The grass is slowing down and going brown.
I have not had any further astral visitors. I am no longer sure if I expect any. I am zealous. 20 days to go.
The sun is coming up over the Target parking lot. Another gray day in a series. And I am still shivering badly.
I knew I was going to spend the night at the crossroads. I gathered whatever winter wear I had remaining. November gets cold at night and I could not afford to use my heat.
I sat in layers and listened. Wind teased the highest branches and flicked rain on my windshield. It was peaceful. This was my home, my native land. There was not a whip snap of a branch or cry of an animal new to me. I lived round hear all my life.
I had a dream, which itself was peculiar. I do not dream. I have not dreamed in years.
I was in a hotel room, but not the type I have stayed in much. As opposed to the modern version of lodging with its single serve coffee maker and fire exit maps on the door, this was clearly an older style hotel, something akin to city life. The windows were open and I heard sounds of life being lived many down below. Car brakes and horns, industrial sounds of steam and distant voices.
I was fully dressed, the lights on, the windows open. Big band music churned out of a radio on the bedside table, adding to the time out of time feeling. And beneath , the sound of running water. I looked around the room and saw a door with light leaking from below. Small shadows of movement buzz in the refracted light.
I stared at the door. Nervous. I had no reason to be nervous. It was palpable within.
I heard a sigh, decidedly feminine behind the door. Then the lights went out beneath the door. And the sound, all those city sounds, went dead in a blink. The only sound was of the Big Band music slowly devolving into static and scratch.
I sat frozen in place as the lights in the room shut off. And the bathroom door opens.
What was strange, even within the dream, was that the windows that were letting the sound in, seemingly open and brimming with life, were pure black spaces now.There was no light at all.
‘tap…..tap….tap’
My breath caught in my throat. I was terrified. ‘tap….tap….tap’. It was distinct and it was getting closer. ‘tap….tap…tap’. I could not move a muscle.It was blackness and increasing tension. True mortal fear. I felt as alone as I ever had in life.
‘tap…tap…tap.’
I could not see it. I did not want t see it. I crushed my palms to my eyes.
My eyes opened and I was at the crossroads, in the driver’s seat. The dream spun away from me. It felt like it was evaporating all around me. I started to calm down,relief like a physical rush.
‘tap…tap…tap’.
On the passenger side window, on the back windshield. ‘tap…tap…tap’
Light scratching sounds on the roof. ‘tap…tap…tap’ Though I could not see anything, I knew what it was.
My brain was a block of ice. Pure Instinct started the car and floored it, fishtailing wildly away from the crossroads.
I felt a prickling on my skin like electrical charges right as it happened. It was a flicker but a flicker that seemed to last far past flickering. And looked upon the biggest black bird I had ever seen perch 15 feet away.
I felt uneasy. It was not the proximity. It was the focus. The bird perched and turned to me and froze. Black eyes focused. Not on the car, but on me. I could not forget that static charge that hit me in the moment. It felt…significant.
Was this it? Did ‘it’ even exist? Am I slowly losing my shit, as has been mentioned?
It sat still. Still as ancient things. It reminded me of a woodcut found in one of those dusty library books I favored about omens and monsters of yore. And it stared. Not that the car, not into the field looking for dinner. Stock still staring directly at me. Into me.
It made me uncomfortable. I had to consider if I was letting my nerves get the best of me. Then was struck with the single thought ‘What did you expect?’.
Was this an overture? Was there a step I needed to learn in this dance? The bird sat mute and frozen; no guidance would come from that direction. Should I approach? Was this the invitation?
My car and pulled away slowly. It’s eyes followed me as far as I can see.
I took comfort that night in a dear friends flesh and a lot of liquor. It was gone the next morning when I returned.
I am used to waiting. I have a long habit of always arriving early, so waiting became a skill. I note the same ruts on the road, the same jeep tracks, heading off road that I have gazed at for days, which kicks my mind into questioning ‘where were they going? Did they get there? The same road trash that comes and go with the wind. The same shade from the same trees, now less shady with the leaves coming down. I sit and I collect my thoughts and I print them here, for reasons still unknown.
I wait and I wonder. What happens if I am successful? Would I suddenly have the secret song in my pocket that will allow my ascension? Will the chords come together naturally, or perhaps unnatural? Would I receive a letter that says ‘Congrats Kid. Your gonna be a Starrrrr.?
Or would I simply disappear, not being legal or bright enough to know the full extent of the contract?
And so my life as a performer began. Not in klieg lights and limousines, but in late night gigs at dingy bars playing the white trash American Songbook. It would not last long. As a writer, I wanted to make hits, not play the hits. So I started to learn the guitar and picked up a 4 Track Cassette Recorder.
If I can chart the specifics of when I became a day trader in this life, when I began a lifelong preoccupation with profane ways to call ordinary actions, or the necessary extra syllable that would make that chorus bulletproof, this was that day.
I knew the accepted way to become a figure in that early 90’s music business economy: start local, work local, build a following,make a record, get radio, perhaps a video, get press, get fans….repeat until you’re driving sold gold Cadillac’s. There is a simplicity to that metric,makes creative thought and the sharing of it into a Wikipedia page of how to farm.
I could not go that route, always thinking of myself as the creative engineer of better mousetraps.
How correct I was can likely be summarized in where I write this from. A beat up car on a beat up road, seeking higher guidance from lower associations. Desperation was a concept until I got desperate.
I started to let go of the world. I started to forget what was required of me to be a well thought, likable adult. I started to obsess on the ways I would flaunt my wealth and success among those many who did not believe in me. Belief is a drug and that and no one was selling it. I daydreamed conversations with the magazine clippings I kept as friends. The advice they would offer, and what I would offer back.
The ‘Myself’that brought me to the party seemed to leave with someone else, and what I had left was the Myth. I was pleased.
While others planned a future, I plotted a course for International stardom on my own terms.I remember the sloganeering that became my reasoning: This is all I can do. I cannot fix cars, cannot do math, can barely spell, much less punctuate. It is Death or Glory.
That was years ago now. Death keeps coming into the foreground. Day by day. Glory is still ethereal.
I worked at jobs, always considered ‘Joe Jobs’ to me, cause my work was what I did after hours. Honestly, I have no clue how I was hired at all. I did not have the resume, but I think my inner workings of global domination gave the outer appearance of confident. My ‘Devil May Care’ attitude and decent diction hid the lack of care I truly owned. Every job I had was a static place held together by what my next move was artistically.
I hid it well. At some jobs.
I allowed myself any number of behaviors I would never have suggested to anyone else. My particular version of ‘Death or Glory’ did not invite passengers. I was a wide ranging experiment on the power of self involvement and ego. I was the subject and I did the research. I excused this self lechery and leering by reminding myself that what I was doing was aiming higher than most.
I was willing to bet it all. I did bet it all. I never even got the see the wheel spin.
Are these thoughts insane? I ask you as I have no one left to ask. Whoever you may be and however you will come across this confession / transcript. Does everyone consider themselves a God of their own world? Is that a bad thing? I was told something in passing that I keep as armor: There is no such thing as a false sense of well being. If you feel well,you are well.
My logic was flawed. And I would do it all again the same way.
And while other kids were picking up the guitar and drums, I picked up the pen.
My songwriting habits solidified as I opened up to new sounds. My heroes were always the singers, as I was naïve enough to believe that s they sang the words, they wrote the words.
I grew my internal world by moving beyond the sad boy songs into something more gothic and suggestive. I wrote horror movie scripts with kickin’ choruses. I wrote in cheap rock and roll clichés, practically the traditional folk of white suburban boys.
So when a gang of friends started to take it more seriously , they needed a singer, I said ‘I’m a singer.’
To me, singing was always an act of courage more than a skill. Considering the quality of voice that littered modern music, not everyone who sings should sing. The goal was to get them into writing original compositions as I had pads of material ready to go.
Off to the practice room, like our fathers and forefathers before us.
My first live gig was a personal revelation. I was fat, morbidly so. As wide as anyone was tall. Decked out in denim vest with patches and spikes, we played a Battle of The Bands against kids far more popular than we were. That suited us. We were filled with rage. We played covers from obscure bands no one ever heard of. Every other band had at least one Van Halen cover.
Impossible to say whether we were good or bad but we were assuredly loud and ugly. So we lost. Of course. This isn’t a movie.
Right after the cool kids were crowned, I stood back a grimy sweaty massive mess. A girl approached me. Maybe the first.
And time slowed as she intentionally walked toward me. She was a vision. Thin, blonde, smiling at me…looking at me. Everything dropped to a slow motion crawl as I noted the stage lights glinting off her silver choker…
I slept in
my car last night. That wasn’t the plan. I am not sure if there is a plan. Is
there a process to offering up your eternal self for worldly gain? Is there a
registry I should have signed onto? In blood? Is that what Linked In actually
is?
I park and I
wait. In lieu of soundtrack and chatter, it is just the tapping of this phone.
The phone doesn’t ring, the message indicator doesn’t blink. When I say I do not know what I am doing
here, that question needs be answered in tiers.
Is this a
fanciful suicide note? What am I trying
to say by walking back through these drug mangled memories? Is my story a
‘teachable moment’?
It is
habitual this creating to keep a order. I am parked and watching the world spin
at the apex of these two roads. Chosen not by providence but by convenience. If
the will is willing and the flesh is leaning into it, does that trip the Devils
red line?
Worse
still…I am an atheist. Though clearly not zealous on the subject. I do not
believe there is anything beyond this earthen tomb. We born, we pass, we food
for worms. Until the going gets rough. Then I am praying to God for luck and
banging on the Devils door for validation.
Cause that
is what this is about. Validation. I won’t let my life go unacknowledged. That
has grown from a notion into a threat.
Going to
Hell for eternity is awesome…as long as you do not believe in Hell. What if I
misjudged?
The negative
would be that I wasted sometime, changed my life, cut down the safety nets and
need to figure out what is next. And keep figuring that out until I reach a
natural ending.
The positive
is I would rise. Rise above this body, my peers, tempt the clouds with my sheer
freedom and conquer this world as it’s equal. Admiration and throngs of well
wishers. Poverty properly banished forever more.
My worlds
met and married on a Sunday evening when I was about 13 courtesy of the King
Biscuit Flour hour and the FM radio band.
Consider
where I came from: comic books and horror. Literature, of a type. At least
literate. This was what occupied my head until that night. I was a fan of music, as I had brothers and
sisters and cool cousins who would treat it like a religion.
My sisters
brought me Deep Purple and Black Sabbath when I would crawl around the carpet
and just stare at the covers. My cool cousin brought me to Yes. My extended
family brought about Lynyrd Skynyrd. I have forgiven them. Jackson 5 was on the
radio and then a heavy dose of AM radio classics as my parents were a bit older
than everyone else’s.
A record
that had a big impact is a record I despise, to this very minute. Terry Jacks
‘Seasons in The Sun’ was proof of evil in a blissful world. I would weep like a
smaller child every single time it came on. Just that opening vocal melody
would make my face scrunch up like I was slamming lemon juice.
Though
painful to listen to, and deliberating to me little kid ego who could not keep
it together at all, that record showed me that songs can hurt.
The first
record I ever wanted was the 45 of ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’. My brother
wanted ‘Golden Years’ by Bowie. Our Dad bought us both in the same day. Those
two record were seeds to a burgeoning personal revolution. The grit of Thin
Lizzy matched with the suave alien Pop sound of Bowie had an effect I would not
recognize for years.
I stumbled from
books on Parapsychology into comic books. Obsessive on the things I loved, this
is all I did. It was natural, trading mysteries on outdated and rained upon
books for full color magic pages. And superheroes were the extension of what I
wanted to be. Having super powers looks pretty prime when you’re a kid where
you are generally powerless.
All these
influences, all these mixed media muses lay dormant in me as I continued the
business of growing up. Until that
night.
Sunday night
, 8 PM, and school the next day. I
settled in my room and turned on the radio. It was a rite as my brothers and sisters
before me had. I think it was the talk more than the music for me as I was
raised on AM talk and police scanner chatter. The sound of distant voices and
noises was always soothing to me. I have
lived within listening distance to 95 most of my childhood.
When people
want peace, they aim for silence. For me, the opposite is true.
A big voice
came on the radio heralding the ‘King Biscuit Flour Hour with BLACK AND
BLUE!!!’ (the exclamation points came through the speaker like an aural
typeface). I faced the speaker like the DJ was going to bounce through it.
What came
next was screaming. A horror flick soundtrack played over massive cabinets .
Massive bell ringing. Then the guitar. It was ‘War Pigs’. And it changed me.
I spent the
remainder of that 13th year in my room, eschewing the outside as I bought and
played out every Black Sabbath record. I had friends who thought I evaporated.
My room went from full color Marvel art to black and red. I started sporting
Satanic gear everywhere I could.
It felt right.I felt like I belonged to something. Heavy Metal was my religion. I sold my entire comic collection for an Alice Cooper ticket in the city.
To say I came here without expectations would be false. I have big expectations.
To say I came here without thinking it through…. that I am not so sure about.
I do not believe in an afterlife. And yet I come to this road and I wait. I come every day. Every day.
I have left my job. It kept me away from this place. Where I need to be. I need to shake some shit up, in an astral sense. Poverty does not scare me. We are old friends.
I am afraid. Terrified. Afraid of what will happen when he comes. Afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t.
11/3/18_______________________________________________________________________
It started with books, long days at the local library gaining knowledge on a number of subjects pretty to my dark mind: ghosts, New England lore, multitudes of ‘Phone Calls From The Dead’ and other 60’s paperback parapsychology propaganda, horror movies and Colonial history. The information I needed was learned though legend and cheap literature. And that knowledge did little except give me a reputation for being the fat, weird kid. Or so I thought.
________________________________________________________________________
Sitting here, alone in this deteriorating auto, acoustic in the back, crushed cigarette kicking up, I wonder if this was why it was important. Was this date fated?
Even asking that sets me in place as myth. I am not myth. Yet.
_________________________________________________________________________
Words worked within me. Not the paperbacks I studied or books of legends I stole. It was words sung out loud. The meaning behind the act of saying anything to anyone a all.
After Kara came Shannon. After Shannon, Michelle. After Michelle, Krystal. Into infinity. And each had a song written for them, a pledge contained in every line and my heart woven throughout the lyric. They were not songs proper as I was not handy with an instrument. They were verse / chorus love letters no one would never hear or see.
It was the creating of worlds with unknown outcomes. It was creating characters, even in simple sketches of syllables. It was my license to become a Gentleman. It was all the brave words I never spoke, all the proclamations I kept private. I went from drawing Spiderman on my notebook cover to capturing phrases overheard or misunderstood.
An act of Zen recording these simple rhyme patterns on a lined sheet of paper, my printing block, my pen unsmudged. I recognize this for what it is now. Control. Sanity. But I was 10, so Sanity was an over reaching abstract.
The concept of chorus, where you distill the lyric and kick in something punchy, something melodic or a slogan, was burned in my brain from living in a culture that valued such acts of market driven trickery. Not that I minded. I felt writing a good chorus was comparable to winning a sports competition, except after your done running, hopping, playing, scrimmaging, all you have is a memory.
I have 4 lines that can define you. Call the unnamed conspirator on their pride, labor, spit. Raise or dash them. And they will live on forever. This is my power, what I was given. I made myths.
I still believe that too. And this is where it led. This shadowy clash of flat top roads and the suitable scent of sulfur.
In my dreams, I am a shiny constellation. Bright and too far away. A distant collection of sparks that can be admired, used, worshiped. Untouchable but present 24/7. I was here before cars. before radio, before fish and fowl. I will be here when all these things cease to be.
In my walking life, I am the same. Except proximity lays me low. Overburdened by oxygen, the inner dialog will never end. I am not admired; I’m am obscured by brighter planets. At times, I feel colder the space that holds the shiny stuff in place.
And I go supernova. I fall apart spectacularly. I clog the cosmos with confused moans.
And then get to work. Not the true work. Not the work that needs be done. I get to the building that contain this corporal self 5 days out of 7.
And proximity lays me low again. I am not a collection of flickers sailors will sing too. I am not a twinkly necklace hung on the throat of an astronomer.
I leave the tapping of fingers on tiny keyboards. I leave the beat of sex and cliché of history.
I am a tiny god. Lowercase.
I have a consciousness that will outlive all of the above. And a plan.
How weighty is the offer of a soul? How does it feel to burn eternally. versus the burning internally of my every day?
And what are the mechanics of such an offer?
I do not know. I am a traditionalist. So it starts with a cross roads.
________________________________________________________________________
This did not start today, this started thousands of years ago. This did not start today, this started when I was 9. This started with a girl, of course.
It was Kara. Proper pronoun would be ‘She was Kara’ but that would dwarf the significance of what she was. ‘She’ would be easier to paint in a picture, capture her stray handwriting on a sheet of lined paper. ‘She’ would prop into place a certain reality attached to the ground.
I never lived on the ground. I was either deep under or soaring high above. And Kara was my Sun. A destination that gave me bearing and ultimately burned me to cinder.
I liked Kara, you see. It was 3rd grade. I was too fat, too smart, too romantic, even then.
She was the first of many girls I fell for, ached for her voice, all while be expert in making sure she never knew I existed. Billy Bragg captured it in one line ‘In the end it took me a dictionary to find out the meaning of unrequited…’. It was something I excelled at.
I could never say what it was that turned my attention so turned to specific girls. There was no logic or type. Small, large, sweet, angry. Pretty or plain. The only thing they had in common was they wholly owned my heart. For a while.
More mystifying, looking back without the benefit of being 9 is what I expected, in a perfect moment, when one of these deities said ‘Yes’.
I wanted to be someone’s boyfriend. I wanted to be recognized as lovable. I had no concept of what that meant.
It would simple to say I was growing from a boy to a man, but that’s not accurate. I had no concept of what the end goal was. Despite the terrifying men’s magazines I had access to (thanks to older boy relatives), I had no clue how slot A lines up with tab B. Or tab B works with Tab A. Or Tab A into Slot C (much favored in the men’s magazines). Or what the point of any of it.
I knew I wanted to bring flowers and sweep ladies off their feet. I wanted to be the hero in every sweet fable, always knowing the right thing to offer and no the right time for restraint. It was the books I was reading, even then,. the movies I grew up on. It was the comics I was addicted too. And a deep personal need to be The Gentleman.
I wanted to swash buckles and swing in on ropes. I couldn’t even climb the ropes at gym at my weight but I was lithe in my head. I was lighter than air. I was Fred Astaire in flight.
I was tortured. Kara spun my world and I could only hang on. Her hair was true gold (OK, dirty blonde). Her skin was cloud cream. Her eyes sparkled blue, just like mine. She was my reason for being and she sat right next to me in home room.
She never knew any of this.
It was a walk home after school, brilliant sun under changing leaves, all alone that I had inspiration take. The First Muse speaks.
‘This girl I know
I really really love her so
And I just don’t know the way I can let her know
How much I love her
This girl I know.’
The simple melody that left me without cover. Scribbles on torn notebook paper that I could no longer dodge.
Followed by (in the full band arrangement of my mind) the main riff to ‘Live And Let Die’, oddly. A Gentleman’s tune is one ever existed. So British it conquered half the World only to be regurgitated by cartoon rock boys.
That was when I came to recognize the power of the pencil. Eventually pen, then typewriter, keyboard to Smartphone. It was not that I recognized that I was a genius. I knew no one would ever hear that song. It was how it made me feel.
Profane ideas and anarchy
The atmosphere slips from static to rabid
Spotlights spin and kill the battery
Bodies in the basement, heads in the attic
Seduce with cruelty, destroy with flattery
Amping up the electrical addict
Cigarette City, Celebrity nudity
with every cheap exchange shot cinematic
Bad weather, good natured
Green means stop, red means floor it
Watching the watchmen and tablature
Fight it, Fuck it, Ignore It
Social scavenger, local massacre
Ramming speed, four on the floor it
Breaking down the unnatural ambassador
If you can’t join it, deplore it
No regrets but no one forgets
Your ass is a star but your still on the dole
No regrets but no one forgets
You sold your soul without a loop hole
No regrets but no one forgets
You bought in for a bigger role
No regrets but no one forgets
No regrets but no one forgets
Sex and state and God and fury
Fear and truth the line is blurry
Peace and love and fascist fashions
Click Bait For A Grateful Nation
Of all the grandiose mysteries this experience called Life offers us, the current one stuck in my craw, the one I stutter on the hard consonants of, is the legacy of The Who.
For those who are too young to understand (or to think this is a half baked, fully stoned Sci Fi reference…or even a pronoun), The Who was a Rock Band. Not a Blues band turned up. Not a R&B band (yeah, that’s right, come at me Who fans…).
The Who were big. Bombastic. Smart…maybe overly so. The Who were required listening if you lived in a Classic Rock Town. The Who made amazing music, killer singles, created a sound that would in time be bled of purpose and become ‘Radio Rock’.
As the big bands of the time continue to be worshipped, deified in these days of ‘All the best music is ollllld…..’… not The Meaty, The Beaty, The Big nor even The Bouncy. I have dear friends whose taste I trust implicitly who can’t even listen to the stuff. And look upon the World at Large….there is still Zeppelin Radio Hours and Pink Floyd Nights and endless Beatle-y bits. But The Who is fading.
Why? I am not even the biggest Who fan…but I know why they are great. Some truly great songs, a real Rock and Roll attitude not hampered by fear of offending, concepts that are occasionally dumb but…ambitious. A literate lyric style unique to the author and the sound. This is where Punk came from, in attitude, in ambition.
So…sure. Rock Stars deservedly. But…..what happened? I am going to take some fairly unthunk up guesses…cause I don’t know. Do you?:
1) The Never Ending Ending: Sure the reunions were cash grabs. Sure, it was ridiculous that they continued to even exist after Keith Moon died. Is that it? They may have been the first, right? Certainly not the last. I will say though…the cash grab does come off a bit worse for wear from a band that seemingly had an ideology once upon a time.
2) Pete: Yeah….Pete. It is an uncomfortable subject. It is a hazy subject. Let me tell you how uncomfortable: I have no interest in looking it up. Pete has always been a polarizing figure. What was flippantly revolutionary…what was thrilling, the calling out of the culture for what it was…sold out / selling out…. with age and an excess amount of press facts and statements came out that were…creepy. You have the Internet too. If curious, go digging.
3) Sell Out: Is it because The Who were so quick and successful at selling out? Is it the mystical but commercial codex that translates the electronic binky intro to ‘Wont Get Fooled Again’ into the phrase ‘Buy Me’. Is it the irony of The Who selling so completely that I hear more of them in car commercials than on the radio?
4) The Concept Records (and shows)? The creepy English dance hall vibe? The just below the meanness in everything they say and do? The movie ‘Tommy’ (to me, a true dividing point that jackbooted my sicker inclinations towards baked beans and laundry soap).
A few words about tonight’s Singles Club release. And those words are ‘Practice Tapes’.
My life can be cataloged through Practice Tapes: boom box recordings (on cassettes!), jamming around someone’s big recording deck or in the current Zoom style tech. And frankly, I would not have it any other way. It is not simply the material that I created, the songs. Much of it is about the errant noises that pop up within. The voices (in harmony) of friends long lost, either to my world or the World in general. The pure adrenaline of folks with a central purpose: bring the song to its fullest and best arrangement, which is experimentation. Even the sound of my own voice (which I think anyone who knows me recognizes I love dearly). My youth, my growly screaming youth into my smooth Rock Croon I wear these later days.
Pictures exist but beauty (and memory) fade. Records exist but considering I have put out about 6 records and have written hundreds of songs, some songs get forgotten. And then remembered due to these infancy tracks of a melodies first steps. I have never kept a diary but can track my emotional growth…then backslide into stoned bellowing…then a bit more emotional growth…. then a deep slide into shallow Rock and Roll (the best kind) followed by….now.
If you are a songwriter, you know exactly what I mean.
I recognize that the aural quality is rarely releasable. I just don’t care. Life is short.
Which brings us to tonight’s track ‘Gods In The Garden’. A Practice Tape featuring me, Julie Kay on cello and Jack Adanti on shaky & beaty things.
A song I wrote and did not think much about. Maybe because it was a love song and I was being dark this past few years. Maybe cause I could not identify where it came from within me and it felt like an interloper. JikiJikiJa probably has not played this song since this recording.
Till I found this recording…and whatever damage I had related to this song faded. Perhaps cause I am not as dark as I used to be. Maybe cause I can truly relate with it now on a far deeper level.
Give it a listen. Let me know what you think. I would apologize about the bass frequencies but…. Life is short.
Gods In The Garden
It Blooms in November
Its a challenge to the senses
It opens in the rain, all spice and incense
And I fall too, I fall into you
I press every petal
Drop to my knees, let the day begin
And the days have collected bled of meaning
Except a taste I never lose that haunts my evenings
I carry ghosts hid in deep embraces
The Rabbit runs, The Wolf chases
And in the Garden lay Eden. And in the carpet we play
Between cloud and field
We are revealed
By the will of The Gods Of The Garden
And it beams bright in the grey, it sneers at the season
I feel it ever day Its beyond reason
Its beyond treason
I cant pretend it dint matter
That mirror that saw us true…it never shattered
And in the Garden lay Eden. And in the carpet we play
Between cloud and field
We are revealed
By the will of The Gods Of The Garden
I have a record to record. And a spaceship to acquire. A set to write (for next week’s Wandering Uterus show at Mac 650 on Main Street Middletown, CT! Ahem).
Busy, busy boy. So why can’t I do any of it while I trip away the day reading about Fyre Fest?
At first I thought I was having a mental block. After further thought, I believe it is your fault. Yup. Allllll you. It’s a social issue clearly as I am the tippy top of mental health. Right? Right (answer the voices back).
Distraction. Where is was often a much used word, it is now a craze. It is muttered at screens and speakers, responsible for late arrivals. Conversations about the distractions we deal with personally and communally become conversations that distract us from what we should be doing. Which is…living, I guess. Playing in the flowers and fishing and shit.
You see it clearly at play in the White House, and I wonder if we will ever not fall for it.
We LOVE to outraged. The GALL of whatever impossible stupidity that gets spoken aloud. And we can not help but take the bait. We whisper ‘distraction’ beneath our breath and then weigh into the ridiculous debate that really never deserved to be debated.
As we speak and get all self righteous, a much more malignant and meaningful monster slips in the door. Or a much more important bit of evidence gets lost in the fray about if the president knows much about history. (He doesn’t but this is not new information).
So it is Trumps fault? My personal distraction? I wish. (Remember. It is your fault)
No. It is deeper. And maybe even more ugly.
Why was Fyre Fest such a media event. It is the same reason Trump was elected. We want people taken down a few pegs. That is Leaf and Right.
People who voted for Trump wanted to ‘drain the swamp’. Too many people of power pulling power moves. So they voted a new cast of snivelers in their seats. They found the optimism that the country operated with unrealistic. And cut their won throats doing it. Bummer, since healthcare…..Etc.
Now the Resistance rises up and burns down everything Trump says or attempts to say. Like he is not a stooge, a patsy. They talk about how outrageous and sad it is (which…it is.) and miss the mark about what to do about it. I won’t pick a side. I clearly have already picked a side.
But then… Fyre Fest. It is a haters dream team. First it involves Ja Rule, who really does suck. And privileged rich white kids playing God with no concept of how that usually ends up (I am speaking of the organizers) and pictures from the scene of sad rich kids looking a bit nervous (I am now speaking of the attendants). A $100 Million dollar lawsuit. A lot of indie types weighing in on the ‘We knew it would be like this’ side. Horror and heartbreak (OK, not really) and recriminations from the Bahama Tourism Board.
How can you not dig into that? Whatever your lifespan, and whoever you choose to follow that span with, that’s good mental eatin’! Cause we allllll hate rich people, right? Yeah!
It’s a different disaster from our daily disasters and variety is the spice of life. Wisconsin loves Fyre Fest. As does Texas and Massachusetts. We all like big failures we are not responsible for.
I am rich with poverty and poor in everything else, but i do have my treasures, my precious things, I have a cabal of weirdos and free thinkers flanking me who I call friends.
And I don’t pretend that plural is toooo plural: they number few and are rare finds like a flea market Rolex.I trade quantity for anxiety. Gladly.
Despite this haberdashin’ prose, I am a cartoon curmudgeon. I am that slightly cool slightly angry character writ into a million sitcoms:
I’m good with quick funny line, but don’t hug me cause I have issues. I am poorly written in the flesh.
In order to realllly ‘get me’ (and as proven by Facebook, few are interested in that investment) you need put me in the proper setting. Caffeine’d up. Not terribly straight. Steered into subjects I can speak too (music, relationships, the sad state of horror) and given the freedom of enough rope to hang, I will pontificate and perform naturally. I will be funny and something close to charming. I speak and rant till the words just spin around me and I feel myself lift from the ground (note: not terribly straight at all).
And my friends are similarly wired. Each has a windmill to tilt at. Each has a strong opinion on things and will, state it with grace and humor.
Certain friends will spin along with you, on their own separate trail of destruction (or construction if your feeling generous) and the effect is two separate conversations lost in the sound of spinning…but every advice gets through, every question gets answered, in an almost natural cadence of osmosis.
Its a hard trick. But if you work these mechanics long enough, its the only way to fly. It’s a new language. Its real flesh and mind interconnections, quicker than digital, more stable than Plymouth Rock.
Ultimately this is about freedom. We don’t choose where we were born from but we choose where we really live.
And today….I wish these things to you all. We can all be millionaires even after the money is nothing but colored paper.
Listen, I will not let scientific fact stand in my way. (Topical, eh?)
And I won’t weight in on the relative value of owning a cat versus a dog. Yes, I have called cats ‘domestic terrorists’. I meant it too.
(FACT CHECK: As recorded in ‘Lust, Love & Longing: Dispatches from The Grimm Generation’ OOP)
But this is the Internet, which means it’s cat country. So I will withhold my (VALID) personal perspectives.
That said…. I am warming to the idea that we evolved from cats and dogs. Yup.
Let us talk about Monkeys. Who I also do not enjoy. Scampering and spitting furry diva’s. I can see a vague resemblance. But when it comes to attitudes, real identifiable human traits, they seem vaguely…French. That is not an insult to Monkeys. It is simply they seem a bit … rape-y.
(FACT CHECK: This opinion is based on actual events witnessed while serving a sentence for Community Service at The Beardsley Zoo. That aside, I know nothing about Monkeys. And see to have an issue with consistent capitalizing of the very word)
They just don’t fill the grey area between animal and human behavior as well as the domestic pets do. I figure it like this:
A race of super intelligent cats and dogs came to Earth in prehistory, figured it would make a nice spot to procreate in, but had a problem: they could not reach the counters. Counters are a necessary part of species proliferation. And despite being super ass alien, that did not make them taller. So they planted seeds.
Human seeds. And we grew like weeds. And they play dumb.
So when I say ‘cat person’, I don’t mean a person who loves cats. I mean someone with actual identifiable habits as the feline. For instance:
1) an air of self entitlement
2) a desire to play with yarn
3) the ability to appear as if your are just a moving piece of furniture
4) never properly learning their name
5) spends nights out on the town that you have no awareness of
Sound familiar?
And dog people:
1) an excitement at cars and things that go fast
2) Lust.
3) The ability to eat anything with a straight face
4) mopes around when they know they have been bad
5) the only thing that allows you to own them is a closed door
I won’t make the obvious connection here (that the sexes align with these choices…though seriously?). I will simply say that to succeed in life, love like a dog and live like a cat.
(FACT CHECK: The Author has had no training in animal habits, pre-history, writing, thinking things through or acting like an authority figure.)
Good Evening. Don’t you look lovely this solemn and serious 420?
Step right in to the JikiJikiJa Singles Club. On the menu tonight…
‘The Last Thing.’ Drink all the way to the bottom, that’s where the poison is.
JikiJikiJa on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/jason-p-krug/the-last-thing-jikijikija-the-singles-club-1
The JikiJikiJa Singles Club meets every third Thursday, forever. JikiJikiJa will be out around and in your town soon, so we need a secret handshake. Middletown in May, DR in July and Venus…TBD.
Interested in beating feet off this blue rock? We got you. Sign up for the JikiJikiJa Flight Crew by sending an email to jikijikija@gmail.com.
See you in cyberspace!
JikiJikiJa is … J to the P.K. on acoustic, singin’ and stomping foot. The shimmery celestial of the First Chair in the Zen Ground Force, Julie Kay. And The Mayor of Everywhere, the Beat Box of the Medulla Oblongata, The Untouchable Swiss Timer that is Mr. Jack Adanti.
This trio can’t be strung together under a human name. We needed to go old school into the secret history section of Rock lore and find the only word that can fit such wooden witchcraft. The Unspoken word. The Truth of All Truths (though still fleeting…these days) and bring it forth, wear it out, like a tattoo of a scar (if that becomes a trend, you heard it here first…).
Ah Life. It is a marbled colored pickle, in’it? Well….IN’IT????
Sorry. It’s the coffee. Oh … and the general surliness.
On a day where Mind Expansion is celebrated and appreciated, on a day when the first hippies see’s his shadow (or was it HIS shadow? Hmmmm), the fine folks at JikiJikiJa are bringing something Kind for the party. The Good Stuff. Tunes. Almost legal tunes.
But you gotta wait till nightfall. I am all about the Evenin’s.
So this is what’s up: Tonight JikiJikiJa will post our first single (our first release, period) on all your social media faces. We will be kicking ash and taking emails.
Cause it’s a secret. If the authorities find out what were planning, there will be Hell to pay.
Let’s just put it this way: Listen (Yay!) + Follow (OK) = Zoom! (Space)
You game, Red Ranger? Cause the countdown started days ago. Get on board by joining the flight crew at jikijikija@gmail.com. There will be prizes. Fun ones. Like the thoughts I wouldnt speak public. About him. You know him. Dick. And her. Can you believe her????
Tonight, and for every Third Thursday till Lift Off. The JikiJikiJa Singles Club.
So space craft aren’t built in a day. Are they? I need look that up.
I’m not a great planner, so I keep smart friends around me. I am a genius ponder’er.
Today I ponder leaving home. I have left homes before. But usually when I got there, there were still birds and grass and trees.
And gravity.
And now…well….what is there to do in Outer Space? Aside from breathe huge sighs of relief that we are beyond carbon coding and dictators du jour. We are good with our taxes and the quality of our cars vanishes in a massive, fiery plume. As, of course, we may too. Rocket travel is safer than auto travel (I hear), but a fender bender may involve more than exchanging information.
I am rushed with thoughts metaphysical. And some physical. I’m considering where the good space coffee is. I wonder if we can sing in space. Like sure, I heard that astronaut do ‘Space Oddity’ too, but did you download it? No. It sounded like it was an old Leadbelly recording with scratches still intact.
And worse yet, a cover song.
I think of the short term (tomorrow night, the first official JikiJikiJa release hits this spot, and others. The Third Thursday Singles Dance begins), I think of the medium term (getting the deposit on a spacecraft….which with my credit….yikes) and the longest term. A new hope. Home. I meant home.
I will miss these lil’ feathery bits of color buzzing around me. I will miss the particular green that comes in late April, The waters running high and strong like healthy veins.
I will miss my hawks the most of all. My Silver Familiars who are always there to act as a sign or an omen, but always good. The vultures serve the equal and opposite purpose.
What will you miss? Are you really ready?
Home is a concept. Space is not. Space is unforgiving. A small error and we become…well…..Christ…..something small I reckon.
I am readying myself. For anything. Cause anything is on the menu.
So tomorrow, we start building a community. I want to keep it private initially so you will eventfully receive a request to send us your email. I feel like if we keep it public…aside from the writings of a clear madman…we will deal with people beating on the launch pad to get in.
The idea is simple…and yes, near impossible. We build a community and blow town. In a larger sense. Possibly blow ourselves sky high in the process.
But fuck it. Nothing ventured…is…ummm…not good.
Drop by tomorrow night for the first Third Thursday Singles Club introducing JikiJikiJa. Every Third Thursday a new song. Plus others thrown in based on our whims and our wilds.
I am going to sing my heart out till we hit the atmosphere. Then I will luxuriate in the knowledge that we have a new home to settle.
So par-tay. Take your clothes off type of par-tay. We must repopulate like bunnies.
‘OK….I just read your blog from yesterday. After you went on and on about your feelings….’
‘Yup, that sounds like me….’
‘… and then you started talking about going to Space…and we can come too….’
‘This is true.’
‘Well….that’s impossible.’
‘The possible and Im’ are unrealistic markers…’
‘!!!!!’
‘This is more about how you want to spend your remaining time here. Consider the musician. What was possible 10 years ago nears Im’….but at that same time, what was possible now is an ever opening flower….’
‘Um…what?’
‘Meaning…the Olde ways of thinking are all used up. I could make a record and try and get it on the radio. Or a video. Or a movie or TV show. But I’d rather direct my energy to something more…. possible.’
‘Wow. OK….I will bite. You want to make music that pays for an eventual Planet Caravan.’
‘True.’
‘How much do you need to Brave a New World?’
‘Ohhh….about $196 Billion. But I haven’t even checked Craig’s List yet.’
‘You expect us to buy you a rocket?’
‘No. I expect you to enjoy the swinging sounds I’ll be laying down in the next 48 hours. The JikiJikiJa Singles Night come Thursday. And if you really like it, just stick 2 billion in our hat and were cool. Unless you wanna come….’
‘Ummmm…I repeat, Wow.’
‘I can see you think I am quite mad.’
‘Perish the thought.’
‘They said that about Lincoln too’
‘No, they didn’t’
‘W.E. History is for losers now. We learn nothing from history, even on a loop’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Eccentric. But getting better. At least that’s what the voices say.’
Hello Young Lovers. I have self exiled the fuck out of this year and now I’m R.T.G. (Ready To Go) into Spring swinging my usual loves of lore and Pop music and where the twain meet. Twain? Yes, Twain. I am back and ready to mingle and sing and talk about everything that either upsets…or resets…my personal Apple Cart. Lets catch up….
I put out a record that did pretty well for me. It was a record that I had to make, not for any career reason but more so self preservation. My Great American Novel, as it were. Taking my lyrical voice and really saying something.
I am proud of ‘The Zen Of Losing’. I am proud of the 4 headed cabal that made it: Me, Julie Kay, Adam Hagymasi, Dave Hogan.
So then….what? Oh, the Election.
I am not Political. OK, i wasn’t political. I never picked a side. Though common sense picked one for me.
This is a blog. It is self serving as a blog. I try and keep it funny so people enjoy it. But this could just as well be a summons. Cause if you are reading this now, maybe found it on Facebook or Twitter….you were likely here (online) back in September. October. November.
You remember when it seemed the World turned upside down. When your expected daily consumptions of music food and bullshit were hi jacked by the ugly gnashing politics of the day. Do you understand what I am saying? I am calling you a witness. As I witnessed too. We all witnessed, red and blue states together.
It was surreal, wasn’t it? Almost dreamlike in how everything that was broke down so quickly, so completely. All the thin veneers between us cracked and we saw what was on the other side. And it was not Us. It was Them.
I am not defending badly run campaigns and the American Id refracted into some kinda reality show monster movie. Brighter people have and will continue too.
What I am discussing is how an invasion feels. How it feels to walk into your yard and see all the new neighbors are…wrong in some fashion. Strange language and hours. Emphatic ridiculous ideas passed as proven facts, and repeated and repeated. It is not in my physical neighborhood….but I did not hang in my neighborhood as much as I hung online. Did you?
We watched, and we picked sides. Friends…dear friends who I had real and non Facebook affection for were hidden from my feed and consequently blinded me to what happened next. Things we cannot take back now.
Do you remember? What it felt like to feel the atmosphere changing, even in colonial Blue Connecticut, to something decidedly more alien. Something more suited to spores and single celled organisms.
It broke my heart. Not the Election as much as being so incorrect about where I lived. What I was proud of.
I have always been a Patriot. I know that term is…maligned in the new way of thinking…or at least over used by people who truly don’t remember where we came from. Being a true Yankee (perhaps in all the bad ways as well as good), living in the Intellectual Birthplace of American thought…I thought I knew a little something.
I was wrong. Worse, I was stupid.
And now…what? Why am I dredging all this up again?
Cause I got a band and a Master Plan. We are beating feet off this rock, and you are all invited.
Some people want money and fame. Some people want chicks by the bucketful. I have desired these things but now I have a new goal, a new reason to siong and write and put myself back in the world.
I want a rocket ship. And to sail away with JikiJikiJa.
We all like things (like art, commerce and Pop Tarts) but why we like them specifically is not so simple a fit. You may like Pop Tarts because they are toasts slutty cousin. You may like art cause it allows you to view nudity and stare at it like its gonna spit money… but still come off as cultured. I don’t know why you like commerce. That is soooo you.
So….Music. I like music and likely a lot of the music you like. But we may like it for different reasons.
Some people hear music and sway their hips to the ‘to’ and back to the ‘fro’. They call it dancing, I guess. Crazy kids.
Some people like swishy, swirly sounds and endless jams to make their drug taking seem reasonable.
Some people like it loud. Some like it quiet. Some like it by Billy Joel. I don’t understand people.
And some prefer good diction (or great slurring) so they can get to the heart of what the hub bub is about for 3 minutes and 33 seconds. That’s me.
That is what this blog is / was / will be someday, Johnny….about: Words on Lyrics. Sometimes I even do it. Sometimes….well…. I got kids to feed (by kids I mean addictions and ego). This blog is almost a year old now. I started it to keep from losing my mind while I made a record. My mind never recovered, but the record sold.
So I decided I wanted to get back to the garden (as it were) and talk about some songwriters who really move me. I will avoid well trodden ground (Costello, Cohen, Dylan…the subject of the very first blog) and pick out some smaller stars that are the suns of my personal planet. These are my Lyrical Miracles. These are the artists whose work keeps me ever into the fray of trying harder to reach deeper through words.
I don’t know where I first heard his name but I know where I first heard him. As is my habit, flea marketing and pure grace of good luck. I found his first record, the impossible named ‘Wrong Eyed Jesus! (The Mysterious Tale Of How I Shouted)’. The record LOOKED weird. And it was. Brilliantly so.
Contemporary Southern Gothic, using all the ghost and strings of the American Folk Tradition, but in the hands of a mad King. A visionary, though I doubt he would cop to it. A swirl of styles from crazy funk to ghost whispering.
What really got me was the writing. The words he chose. Many writers set themselves a high p[lace at the table, high enough that you can see the trials and tribulations of your fellow guests and can pontificate, even if for the greater good. Jim’s words were eternally from a different place: defeat. He gets killed every other song. He mourns his killers.
Not to portray this record as a downer. It is absolutely life affirming. I don’t say that simply. It was for me.
Jim Whites work went well beyond this record, so far just this far from mainstream. His next records as solo artist were equally effective (‘No Such Place’ & ‘Drill A Hole In The Substrate And Tell Me What You See’ as well as his work with Johnny Dowd in Hellwood and with Mama Lucky on the ‘Mama Lucky’ record.
This is a story about a cursed man, dressed in Appalachian folk attire but clearly from today and perhaps tomorrow. Certain lines within this song slay me. The first verse ghost story, where the NY Girl sees the shadow watch him as he sleeps and disappears. But the shadow stays. It’s a very small, very brilliant bit of Poe, this whole track.
The second verse where he ‘tangles with some sailors’…. and brings about the end of every soul on board. This is a story that just drips with dread. It is the protagonist…who feels in every way like a doppelganger of the one singing it….
This song…to me…is weighted with regret. It is not simply horror. You can see deeper past the folk tale trappings to see feel that this curse was earned, and in this world, not some lofty creative one. It is also completely sold by Jim weathered vocal on the song….almost sleepwalking through these scenes as it becomes obvious that he owns this fate.
The last two verses bring us back home to the South and a door opens and one closes. And we have learned nothing.
Well I was shacked up down in Mobile
With a girl from New York City.
She woke me up one night to tell me
That we weren’t alone.
She said she saw the ghost
Of a woman staring at me.
I told her not to worry,
But in the morning when I woke up, she was gone.
So I headed on to Florida where
I tangled with some sailors.
And as I lay bloody on the wharf,
I cursed the ship they sailed on.
Wouldn’t you know, twenty four hours later
That ship sank into the ocean
Disappearing like an unwanted memory
Beneath the waves.
I guess it’s ’cause, still waters run,
Run deep in me
‘Cause I got this crazy way
Crazy way I’m swimming in still waters.
And I was woke up just before dawn
By an old man crying in the rain.
He was drunk and he was lonely
And as he passed by he sang a hymn.
And as I lay there listening,
Well I almost joined him in that song
But instead I just held my peace,
And waited ’till that old man moved along.
Then later on that day about
A quarter mile out of town,
I found his body hanging in
A grove of pines, swaying in the wind.
And as he swang that rope sang another hymn
To Jesus,
And this time though I don’t know why,
I somehow felt inclined to sing along.
I guess it’s cause, still waters run,
Run deep in me
‘Cause I got this crazy way
crazy way I’m swimming in still waters.
Yes and there are projects for the dead
And there are projects for the living
Thought I must confess sometimes
I get confused by that distinction
And I just throw myself into the arms
Of that which would betray me.
I guess to see how far Providence
Will stoop down just to save me.
And it’s all because, still waters run,
Run deep in me
‘Cause I’ve got this crazy way
Crazy way I’m swimming in still waters.
I have lived a reasonable life. I have had success, failure, real Ethiopian food, traveled through an actual rainbow, owned pets, lost those pets, replaced those pets and lost them too.
I brought life into this world (with help), I have laid down in the middle of Route 95, I have stayed awake all night and saw the sun come, I have slept through New Years Eve.
I have operated my life and values (without fear of afterlife reprisal) with a simple formula: If your blissful moments outweigh your misery, You Win.
I have had a weird decade.
And now….I have lives left to live. But I have the accumulated clutter of this first bit clogging up the machinery. Not even in some sly, psychological slant. Simply too much info, reclining storage space.
How does one sweep away one’s accumulating history, without losing the lessons?
I have said this next phrase over and over again these past few weeks: I am in Safe Mode. I need my system scrubbed. And Re Start.
Now….clearly I am crossing conspiracies, personal and international. Clearly I am seeing myself as a sparking hard drive versus the real effort it takes to be human. In a world full up on humans.
How does one collect themselves….but never to the point of having ‘Emotional Hoarders’ show up at your shack? How does one keep righted, green for starboard, red for port, when vision (and author) are blunted?
My history has been recorded (OK, my version of my history, I can’t speak for the muses) in 3 minute bits of chord and song over these past 2o years. My songs are my errant children. They follow me and thrill me and disappoint me too. They are a proper heir. Slabs of honesty mixed with rhyme. Sometimes a near rhyme.
This, as opposed to a photo album or diary, captures not simply the freshness of the emotion, but also the cadre of friends and acquaintances I have acquired singing, sneezing, soloing in the background. My Practice Tapes of attempted Humanity.
Consider the man, the band. Taking part in a culture that was slowly and deliciously sliding into excess. Consider the country at the time: a criminal (not conceptual, actual) President in office, a world deluged in wars we did not understand. Meanwhile 60’s Free Love started to make some cash and between the beauty, freedom and ghetto’s, we started to re arrange our priorities. We expected more. Believed we deserved more. And we still do.
Meanwhile Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll started to seep into the water supply and created a great Summer Cocktail to kick The 70’s into Space and eventually, absolute nothingness. It was a luge ride toward….well, right now. Personal freedoms were gained, only to be re lost in 4 year increments. We obsessed on sex and starlight and sparkles (before the Internet obsessed us).
‘Hello. Hooray. Let the show begin. I have been ready.’
And artists challenged us, used their own skin as canvas, used their own hometown as the content. The conceptual painters, the aural electronic pioneers, the re invention of invention. Some took us by the hand and showed us what was possible.
Some smeared on lipstick and mascara and made love to post mortem dolls on stage.
However you find your enlightenment is by definition ‘cool’.
Was Alice Cooper considered a serious social commentator? Of course not. He was a goon, a goof. A showman in a world of deep thinkers.
Did Alice Cooper prepare us for these current 2016 days of confusion? Damn Right He Did (spoke in my best Robert Evans).
‘Hello. Hooray. Let the lights grow dim. I have been ready’.
And he (and Dennis and Neal and Michael and Glen) did so by creating a love letter to a failing democracy called ‘Billion Dollar Babies’. And as we know of history, it tends to r-r-r-epeat.
I start with two songs: ‘No More Mister Nice Guy’ and ‘Elected’. I think it is safe to say that these two songs have predicted Trumpism and the social unrest used as fashion and the ears of anyone in power listening a great distance away. ‘No More Mister Nice Guy’ is a cartoon. I always imagined it akin to the ‘Beep Beep My Ass’ t-shirts showing a pretty beaten bird and Wile E.
It is a satire that circles around the idea that ‘everyone hates me so I’m gonna hate’em right back’. Which seemed funny. Till now.
‘Elected’ opens the door for deeper shades of Furnier Nostrodam’ning. Cause it’s silly. A rock star running for President. An UNREPENTANT Rock Star births a movement that is evidenced through a recording studio chock full of imponderable improbable deplorables with guitars and fur collars. Silly. A goof.
Now….I hear this song and compare it to the election season we just barely got through. And due to the damage (self inflicted) on my brain pan, this sounds like a legitimate campaign ad.
But the REAL Social satire…and by real I mean ‘actual, in this time present’ is ‘Generation Landslide’. Because I thought it was a cool song. Its actually a call to arms.
‘Generation Landslide’: discusses the real issue about what divides this country. And it is not race, or what color state you live in. It’s not age.
It is Money. And it always has been.
Consider the ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ that have spun us around this year.
The Politicians, and the cost of their suits, the price of their ads.
The cable news networks that took us into their confidence (like any decent grifter) though they never had any deeper information than we had.
Consider the costs of Government (foreign and domestic) that unsubtly changed the landscape, even while the mower was working it.
And he laughs…to himself. He knew it. Saw it coming.
We have made a bad habit of overlooking the goofs, the goons. It has held us hostage at the highest courts in the land. We have a lot of bad habits. They may kill us.
I have wanted to address this, something so clear that anyone with a computer can see it. It’s a national movement. To get the fuck away from Facebook. I will address this then Tweet it, or copy onto sheets of copy paper and rain hell upon the yard. Whatever.
Cause on Facebook, nobody will read this. Cause everyone is getting the fuck away from Facebook.
We never know the nice things that will develop in our lifetime. This country is only 238 years old, and we had horse and carts and now trucks with heavy horsepower. We developed a Postal system to share from great distances, which gave us texting. We had radio which gave us DVR’s so we need not miss a bit of anything ever.
They gave us a place to gather, to share, to learn about each other. And we turned it into Rwanda.
It’s not my fault. It’s not your fault. It is all of our faults. Let’s stop with the partisan bullshit. We lost, life sucks, get a helmet.
Meanwhile….. things are happening here that we barely acknowledged. Real things that have nothing to do with how you voted.
I have seen amazing and truly vicious arguments here. Friends stuck in endless commented conversations from people they clearly don’t know. That’s because there not local. At all.
I saw this on Samantha Bee and it shocked me (it was a warm-up for more shocking things coming, but I wasn’t aware then). The Russian Government (bet ya never thought you’d see that in one of my blogs, eh? Well you won’t see it twice) keeps a cabal of young adults lodged up for the single purpose of going on Facebook and starting shit.
If that sounds conspiracy minded, it is not. It is happening now, today. It will still be there tomorrow.
The goal is to upset the American apple cart…and hot damn if they didn’t do a bang up job with it. We helped, of course.
Come Saturday, we set sail for The New World. Cause we ruined this one quite nicely.
Come Saturday, we set sail for JikiJikiJa.
We will do as our ancestors, use our wits and our earned skills and survive. We will trade with natives, always keeping a careful eye on history, of what can be said of us 200 years later.
We will remain vigilant, we will retain our home in our veins, but we got to beat feet quick.
This is an allusion to an illusion. The trip we take will never leave land. JikiJikiJa is as much a place as ‘Heaven’ or ‘Shangri-La’. It’s is a state of being.
So let’s get to being , eh?
I am so excited. You can tell cause my cherry new t shirt says it. I am so excited. And I just can’t hide it.
Come Saturday… JikiJikiJa (Jason, Julie and Jack) plays our first gig in New Haven, at Never Ending Books (810 State Street, New Haven) at 8:00 PM with special guest Leila Crockett. You should go. I don’t say that lightly. I recognize the volume of entertainment choices you have at your disposal.
Regardless….heed my advice. Nothing you can’t just DVR.
Part of this excitement is a familiarity of circumstance. The Rev and Brad booked Grimm Generation early, our second gig. Carmen and I were so excited, so nervous. What Grimm always exceeded at was feeling unwanted, and the idea that a joint in New Haven liked us was just….glee. That first gig we played with The Peacock Flounders (who were having a documentary made about them at the gig which was mind blowing and too cool) and met Kerry Miller (Grimm Generation drummer), Sal Paradise (the driving force of Rope, who we played with more than a few times). That first gig was a shot in the arm for two glum cat’s who din’t think they were acceptable in any way.
So of course, hit reset, the ball spins again and our first New Haven stop is Never Ending
First off, Leila. I have been a fan of Leila Crockett since ‘Birthday Gun’ off the ‘Not Before Our Time’ compilation (also a Never Ending Books concoction), and have had the good fortune to share a stage once with before (in New London, where she played in a hospital johnny. You know. Cabaret’s…).
If there is a word I can attach to seeing Leila, the word is ageless. Her voice. It brings up in the consciousness old scratchy vinyl sides of Bessie Smith and Ida Cox. A guitar in her hands and that voice transports you, transforms you. Close your eyes and let history inform you.
Then, off to JikiJikiJa.
I am not making this easy. I can explain what we are, but I can’t play you what we do. I am going to ask something of you that is running thin these days, but it’s the only way to get the Earth back on axis.
You need to trust me.
I know.
This is a passion play. It is not marketable. This is what we trade with The New World oncoming.
JikiJikiJa Is … Jason P. Krug (singer, strummer, stomper), Julie Kay (cello) and Jack Adanti (hand percussion, cajon, conga) . Having served time together in the acclaimed The Grimm Generation, when Jason started his solo album, he asked Julie to come along. The result was 2016’s breakthrough album ‘The Zen Of Losing’ by Jason P. Krug.
Jason and Julie continued fine tuning the material from ‘The Zen Of Losing’ and the dynamics and themes of the record bloomed. Whisper quiet things (better left unsaid). Loud cacophony of accusations. Regrets and renewals. Space inside the songs to explore.
But you still couldn’t dance to it. Enter former Grimm Generation beat maker Jack Adanti, playing a wild mixture of shaky and stomping beats. And the sound grew into something beyond.
No longer simply a live unit to promote a simple record, JikiJikiJa (and amalgam of their J-centric names and an old Tyrannosaurus Rex lyric) became something unique, equal parts pastoral relief and mass fury. The Power Of Three. Unplugged.
Join us this Saturday night , 11/19 at Never Ending Books. I promise you it will be a night you remember.
Plus…win stuff!!!!!!
Win a free copy of Jason P Krug ‘s ‘The Zen Of Losing’ by providing the following answer Saturday night at Never Ending Books. Ready…..Set….and don’t post answer!!!!….GO!
‘I am brown on the outside and green within, overly honest but not the sharpest tool in the shed, if you get my drift. Who / What / Where am I?’
Come Saturday night, I got 2 tickets, a date and destination to go to church. OK, not church in the traditional sense. Or….is it?
I find that I don’t see shows as often as I used to. And when I do, the need to see them has changed since I was a wee lil’ Rock and Roller. When I see a show now, it is generally an artist I am obsessed with and I am seeking the same things one does with church: Acceptance and confirmation.
My higher power comes in brilliant bits of lyric told true and a believable preacher selling/yelling them.
My benediction comes in repeated chorus hooks with words worth sloganeering.
And this Saturday night, I’m going to see Elvis Costello and The Impostors tribute ‘Imperial Bedroom’, one of my faves (of 7 alternate # 1’s) of his catalog. Preach.
‘Imperial Bedroom’ became huge to me…in time. Not initially. I did my due diligence of obsessed fandom and read everything I could about this record before I bought it, living in that ‘New Fan but The Artist Is Later In His Career’ twilight. The Artist is established, but he wasn’t always. You climb up the ladder of his/her career and review the reviews.
Because reviews are funny things, especially when such things still existed. A critic can take exception with praise lauded on a ‘Masterpiece’ and take the opposite tact because it’s:
1) Fun.
2) Necessary.
‘Imperial Bedroom’, with a pretentious Beatle-y vibe (and actual previous Beatle engineer producing Geoff Emerich) , I could see why people lost their mind about this record, pro and con.
Coming after the aggressive and smart ‘Trust’ and the simple and kinda strange Nashville record ‘Almost Blue’, written while producing another on my top shelf of records all time ‘East Side Story’, there was a maturing happening, a start to the type of music he would do later I his career.
I was not ready for it. And keep in mind, I didn’t grab when it came out. It was after a year or two of (pre internet) research that led me to the record. And in that time, I played ‘Get Happy’ every hour of every day, which was full of aggression and sexual failure and cocaine. Just like I like ’em.
This record…confused me. It was the first Elvis Costello record that I did not fall in love with at first listen (the future would bring more of those, but hey…). It was all pomp and No Action. It was all steak but no sizzle. I was kinda heartbroken.
And clearly still dumb. And determined to be less so. I listened to the record every day like I loved it. It was a discipline. It was healthy, in my own cute obsessive way (Do I use the word ‘obsessive’ too much? Is that something to obsess over?).
It all starts with that album opener ‘Beyond Belief’, which is simply one of his best. I find myself in times of high stress repeating the lyrics, prayer style. History repeats the old defeats….
‘Shabby Doll’ rocks in a very see sawish, calliope way, but is RULED by Bruce Thomas (the only non Attraction in The Impostors based on a book he wrote…a real shame) and lyric that just rips to shreds the idea of love time spent is tile WELL spent. Being what you might call a whore…it always worked for me before…’
And the title track of the previous record….and another of his greatest concoctions, ‘Almost Blue’. Painful and rewarding. And it’s clearly jazz, so I’m not just making gravy here with the discourse
The standout to me personally is ‘Pidgen English’ which is a brilliant reading on the art and craft of romantic relationships, with lines so keen they cut to the quick. I can’t even describe with enough worship what this song did to my brain, so I’m just gonna leave a link here and suggest you go listen.
I am precious, clearly. I am a cornucopia of embittered odds and endings and too delicate to even finish this sentenc….. But I would not say Twee.
Twee, as adjective, reads as small and thin and weak. Precious…but not the ultimate masculine preciousness I identify myself with….a very macho precious….believe me….. but more sort of a Smiths fan with a cold. Small and dark and head overly weighted with the winks and ways of this gobstopper rock. Or a Cure fan on prom night.
Not me, nope. I am a red blooded American male. Grade A, baby. I came alive in the wild and wooly 70’s and am a product of our history since then. And maybe that’s the problem.
When I was a young rock and roller, it was Classic Rock (then known as ‘Rock’), and that was Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ted Nugent and Bad Company. Endless Who and Hendrix. Dangerous music was the teen rebellion soundtrack for a growing gang. The most obscure and brutal Metal, NWA, anything with a pentagram (right up till Crue destroyed that with stripper dust and sadness).
And music that did not speak to us, did not speak to Harder, Faster and Dumber notions of Sex, Drugs….more drugs…OK, one more hit…and Rock and Roll….was called ‘gay’. Anything on the radio was gay. Every video that wasn’t ‘Number Of The Beast’ was gay. We liked our Metal violent, our Rock hard and identified the rest as unseemly for a heterosexual male to listen too.
I will gloss over how unintentionally hilarious this is with 4 syllables: Judas Priest.
What I remember was that music was another test of strength among you and your mates. I remember my brother buying the first B 52’s cassette and it upset me so much….made me feel so…weird…I whipped it out the window. Which he did not appreciate. I think Fred Schneider’s voice was an offense to my penis or some such thing. It made me uncomfortable.
I remember watching Joni Mitchell do ‘Coyote’ in ‘The Last Waltz’ with my stoner friends and we never got through the song. We would laugh at the lyric, leer at her chest and do terrible imitations of doggerel lyric and jazzy jam.
I don’t think we had a clue about Joni Mitchell, who I have to come to love deeply as an inventive lyricist…no, inventive everything related to the form. It was male bonding and gave us the opportunity to talk about how cool Deep Purples’ Burn’ record was (note: it really was).
And then I developed a secret. Secret sounds I would listen to when I was alone, and carried about on my Walkman like a Fellow Traveler kept his satchel.
No one could know. I didn’t tell my girlfriend for about a full year. It was ‘My Aim Is True’ and ‘Armed Forces’ that started it, leading into ‘East Side Story’ and ‘Singles and 45’s’. My secret lovers who really understood me.
We grow. I have learned to not use the word ‘gay’ in describing something I dint care for. I listen to things now I can never have imagined.
But….Twee? Sigh.
I love Belle and Sebastian. Love. I am not causal about it. I don’t believe I have ever said it so publicly nor ever been so nervous saying it. But I do. Marry me, Stuart.
The sound of Belle and Sebastian is…Twee. It is not the word I would have chosen but it really hits upon many of the elements of the sound: folk pop within a baroque arrangement, whisper near androgynous male singer, pomp and the circumstances of being pomp within the lyrics.
When I first heard them, that song was ‘Stars Of Track And Field’ and I was just simply unprepared for it.
What I was prepared for was the inner battle of teen ignorance versus wisdom: does this make me gay for loving Belle and Sebastian? Well…I am still mighty fond of woman but…does it????
It’s the subtlety that is at play in this music. The sounds are sometimes a Master Class in subtlety, but lyrically, they are not subtle. They are dark and strange and sex obsessed….just far better dressed with that cute Scottish accent.
Certain songs, and the better ones, are akin to a chamber quartet version of ‘Wang Dang Sweet Poontang’.
Stuart Murdoch is Every-man….if Every-man is overly shy, overly romantic, funny, a little sick and obsessed with chicks. So…Stuart Murdoch is the Every-man of JpKLand.
Even within the explosion of our modern love and gospel’y worship of the Old Weird America, The Handsome Family are all angles and elbows about fitting in that big ratty tent.
There is a simple reason for this. They are cursed with a true and authentic individualism that I would imagine better knows artists would not want carry. Consequently, they are smarter and darker and braver and better than the countless ‘Eagles with banjo’s’ that walk (barefoot) these same genres.
First, a personal fact: When CC and I started The Grimm Generation, I had to famous couples in mind as a rough draft of the territory I wanted to cover. The first was Lux and Poison of The Cramps, based on the absolute danger they kicked up when kickin’. And the second was Brett and Rennie of The Handsome Family for the very clear message they brought: Do What You Believe In. I think we got kinda close to these ideals.
For those uninitiated (aside from the True Detective Season 1 theme ‘Far From Any Road’ which earned them some exposure), The Handsome Family are a married couple. A married couple who seem to be able to pull off any artifice. They are immensely talented freaks who create songs containing stories that are a strange alternate Universe of the Anthology of American Music, but updated to contain the current crops of beaten down autos and beaten up riders that cross the darkened roads.
It is almost American Nostalgic Science Fiction, an absolute unique lyrical voice, and the pen of Rennie Sparks. A steady and strange hand on the rudder that leads us into murder and alcohol and the mating habits of ant’s or a view of Tesla’s Hotel Room.
Rennie is a hero of mine. She is a freak among freaks based on her Long Island intellectual upbringing (I don’t know her, I just scratch color the spaces I can’t know) and her sweet and bizarre sense of humor (I listen to a lot of Handsome Family bootlegs, so this is taken from that context). She plays bass and auto harp and sings too. She is the brain, the soul and headpiece, the mouth piece of The Family.
And Brett is the very Earth. He sings and roars with a bellow Odin would envy. He is large in size, but larger than life when playing and singing these twisted Rennie tales. His voice is ageless, and his style can cop a true Rudy Vallee honeycomb tone, and a barbaric, honest reading of ‘Knoxville Girl’. I appreciate his guitar playing deeply, and is the one artist whose style I would steal outright if not for the-not -that- talented thing. His guitar, with subtle and unsettled reverb, sounds like American Jukebox All Time Champ for eliciting honest and trans-formative sepia toned tones that sound alternate Carter Family and Link Wray.
This is a duo, and seeing them in that form is akin to being invited to their living room….right after a big fight between them. There is a tension that is ever present and it adds to the carnival of bad decision making the songs often portray as salt adds to sugar.
And you may never know any of this. Cause I don’t believe The Handsome Family will ever play well with The Market. Sometimes it takes certain devotee’s to hep the masses.
Consider this your hepping. Listen To The Handsome Family.
Tis the time, Tis the season where the veil between our world and The Other gets the thinnest and we play in planes of impossible and improbable. Like our Pagan fore mothers and their Mom’s too. And we dance and shake and we bring about the old ways of Harvest and gratitude and we all go home with someone else’s eye shadow on.
And November 1st is our Spiritual Monday and we await lesser holidays and shiver and struggle to another renewal.
Nothing tops being 8 years old on Halloween, no? You get to dress up like a freak and be rewarded with sugar. That’s pretty sweet (I don’t pun and am offended at the implication). What changes us between those pre-mordial lil’ ravers and our present day selves? As excited as you are about Halloween, your kid is spinning in place at the idea.
The older we get, the less we believe in magic. It’s a genuine shame. And I believe any number of people reading this do SQUARELY believe in magic. Or Magick. I do not question nor deny you your right to believe. I wish I still could.
OK…..That’s not entirely true. Here goes:
I was a ghost hunter before Ghost Hunters, before a ‘pusuit’ became a ‘hobby’. It became a ‘hobby’ when every kid on your block got a EMF meter and a terrible idea for a ghost group name.
I was a creep kid who always gravitated toward horror and the grand mysteries of life. The Weekly Reader was my 1st grade dealer in all things Time/Life and paranormal. It was a fascination to me from as early as I can remember.
Though I have an unfortunate handicap for a ghost hunter: I am as psychically deanse and dead as…..well, Im not sure what that metaphor is when what were discussing is life after death. Bail? Bail.
I was fed on tag sale puchased paperbacks from the 60’s (the least of which was ‘Chariots Of The Gods’, which spawned the legalization of marijuana. Aliens? Yes!) and Hans Holzer, ‘Phone Calls From The Dead’, ‘Michelle Rememebers’, ‘Yankee Magazine Myths and Legends Of New England’, ‘Candle Magic’. I watched ‘In Search Of’ like it was a weekly SuperBowl. Scoured libraries for anything on the subject. Found my way to the Beatles through the back door of Billy Shears.
There was never a question of whether I believed. I just wanted confirmation, proof. I came here believing in these things.
And then….big time. I met The Warrens on the strength of my mate being an expert spirit photographer. They sent us on a case. We went to a condo in what a run down part of Bristol. We sat and watched the Warren investigators question the young married couple with a 4 year old daughter. It was….fascinating. And truly a bummer too. These folks were plagued by knocks and bad dreams and current employment hardships and a likely excess of alcohol. I came and recognized what I could never see in the books: the true human cost of hex’s and haints. This young couple was’nt putting on a show for us. Theyt were scared. He was one of these tragic youth metamorphises in tragic future dudes. His stories, which were round about the phenomena pointed out that ….. I just wasn’t sure if I believed him. We took pictures and nothing came from them.
The Warrens lost our number quick. We persevered. And eventually found ourselves in a situation I can not explain, still don’t understand and left marks on all of us. And we quit ghost hunting. I wasn’t proud of it.
It all ended years later with me Carnival Barker style offering photographic proof of Life After Death within the trunk of my car.
I did not stop believing. Then. You don’t turn these things off like a faucet.
Now….that was years ago. And…I expected proof by now. Something incontrovertable. Something that can’t be mistaken for balloons or scam art. And mine ole enemy has taken root in my house, and that enemy is logic. I fight logic with both hands. I always lose. As does the field of Parapsychology.
So lets take a look at The Grand Mysteries and see how they hold up:
Bigfoot – Nope. The desire to believe in this myth is so strng, people are re writing it to make it stand. So Bigfoot is a multi dimensional being. So thats why we can never find bones. It lives, grunts, humps and dies and the bones float away to the ether. Now…come the fuck on. It reeks of desperation to change the myth midstream.
The Loch Ness Monster – Nope. There is not enough food to sustain a dinosaur. Sorry. Next!
Ghosts – This is hard. I have felt things…but did I really? I have heard things…but were they unnatural? When I really consider ghosts, it takes the track of how little we know about the brain. Do I believe we can imagine things into existence? I do. Do we? Well, sure. This present election is proof of that. I have never seen proof that I believe couldnt have been created. Have you?
UFO’s – I believe. I do. Though there is no more proof about this than there is about ghosts. It’s the logic. Space if infinite. We are the only beings to ever create life? The logic doesnt hold.
Demonic Posession / Alien Abduction – Same thing. Down to the speaking in tongues. Its brain based, not astral. It’s not simple enough to say someone is ‘crazy’. But each of our brains processes information differently. And the symptoms of each are too similar to ignore.
I don’t come here to convince you. I doubt I could. Belief is powerful. I have been told that the difference between an athiest and agnostic is an athiest just won’t shut up on the subject. I am not here to ruin your holiday.
I am just sharing. Hoping that by saying this out loud, maybe some kinda proof will find it’s way to me.
When you hear the names Gilbert and Sullivan, where does your mind go? ‘Topsy Turvy’ perhaps? Does it make you wax twee about how they ‘just don’t make them like that anymore’? Are you whisked away to a very fairy land of impossible conclusions, truly wretched love lines, enough whimsy to choke a fucking mule?
And does it make you angry? Like…righteous indignation type anger?
These are the questions that floated around my head in the dark of the theater. Impossible anger. That I only experienced once before in my life: at a performance of ‘Paint Your Wagon’.
So I’m not so into Operettas. I think that much is clear. And people are allowed to like or dislike whatever they want. Right? So…end of blog.
Nope. Cause…. I found a grand conspiracy among these grandiose players. Something truly nefarious. And I am naming names.
I put forth that both Gilbert (wordsmith) and Sullivan (composer) were very talented gentlemen. So why are their collected works such a stain on the very concept of entertainment and enjoying…anything?
By design, of course.
I put forth that these gentlemen were ahead of their time. Not in what they produced: they were more a victim of their time in fashion. No.
These were dangerous dudes. Anarchists. They toyed with the very reality around them. They knit together Parliament and Faeries and Pirates and made it all terrible. Like….truly…terrible.
I put forth that Gilbert And Sullivan were against Entertainment as a form, and worked within their network of black hats and authentic ghouls to produce impossible, incomprehensible, so fucking irritating ‘works’ for an attention starved public.
As I was growing angrier sitting in that dark theater seat, I tried to distract myself. Unfortunately I chose to read the words that they were singing. That…was an error.
It made me wish speech was never invented, writing was just a passing fad. I enjoy word play…but these words were not playing. They were conscientious objectors in the war against time passing. They were nonsensical….and yet deeply offensive.
This is not a mistake. Gilbert and Sullivan were trying to bring the industry down, burn it to the ground. I picture them as figures of derring-do, genial gentlemen of leisure from all accounts, but backstage… they were terrorists against fun and frolic. They made even the most innocent form of frolic into something that tastes war crime’y.
And considering this…considering these men as secretly supporting the system that would pull down all form of fun and leave us with grey tinged POV’s and the outlaw actions of laughter…like real laughter…. I admired them some. It made me smile.
Music discovery to me is like Indiana Jones type shit. I rarely listen to playlists (except for the continual round robin of my entire Amazon library of song shuffle…which means regardless of what pop’s up, I put it there. Intentionally or not.)
I find I don’t read as much music press as I used too, which is a little sad as record reviews were my favorite form of the written word, next to well used profanity. I was led to many singers and sounds based on what Rolling Stone or Paste said. They were not always right (I’ve tried you Will Oldham. You need to go now), but sometimes they are on the mark.
Not now. Magazines are gone. And the idea of seeking out reviews on line when I can just go right to YouTube seems a needless expense of my precious time.
So music discovery to me is much more dusty, far more speckled with sweat. I go out into the world and I explore tag sales…flea markets…second hand shops…looking for my booty of cheap gold: 99 cent CD’s. And then I buy too many.
The wide variety of what you will find…will go home with…is different on Sunday mornings than maybe at any other part of the week. A likely combination of Saturday night excess and Sunday morning exhaustion can make someone do crazy things. Like buy an Enya disc. On purpose.
That is my point. A good Sunday and a wild Saturday feeds into music discovery (for me), causes me to take chances with my taste and try things I ordinarily wouldn’t. Like…for example…instrumental music.
So among my pirates booty of raided discs, I sail the seas in my lil’ orange car. I learn, I love, I dislike and whip the CD out the window with a soul disgust. Which is immensely satisfying and if errant CD’s are what finally brings down the ozone…that’s on me. Sorry. My bad.
I have casket sized cases, bags, boxes filled with covered and naked discs. Scratched, surely. But generally true. They accumulate and I reach into the bag and today’s selection starts to play and my day is either improved or disproved by it.
So, whistle blows and I’m out of work, striding to my car. Sun is setting, night is coming. And I reach in and this evenings selection was ‘The Ventures: Japan Live 1965’. Key in the ignition and the disc drops into place.
I knew I appreciated The Ventures. You know the songs, so I won’t bother naming them….as you may not know the name. I did not know how often I had heard The Ventures in my life, but it seems it started young and kept coming. Not from the radio, as much. From every movie or commercial or cartoon or rap tune or TV show ever looking for incidental music. There music occupies a very unique part of the Americana repertoire. And there covers of ‘The Modern Sound’ make mincemeat of the originals. Simply because they were skilled beyond belief, individually and together.
I drove. I let the music wash over me. Understand, this was live, in 1965. So I wasn’t catching ‘Walk Don’t Run’ like from the radio version. They were blistering, live and loud, with a thrilling amount of wailing feedback just below the surface. It is cutting and it is live and it has a wildness to it that is …. influential.
Though not simply musically. I listened and the music slunk into me. I drive and I drove faster. I felt bad, dangerous. The guitar tones were twiddling with my Id. I wanted to do something really bad. Not to anyone in particular…unsure if it was visceral or criminal…. I felt the opening credits roll by as I leaned my arm out my window and let the wind float my hand. I felt blood flow around my body, corpuscle to vein to brain to below. I smiled to myself and let The Ventures play out my worst influences for me in inner Technicolor. I felt bad. And it felt good.
Why? Is it the countless Tarantino-esque movies I’ve seen that equate period music with violence? Is it the lack of words, but clear melody lines, allow us to sing our unconscious? Is it the tone of Stratocasters that have long been the missing link between The Louvin Brothers and Embalmed?
I don’t know. Try it. And keep repeating to yourself: it’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.
These are your options for this Sunday (October 9th, 2016) Night Entertainment…Choose wisely…
Every channel…every screen….this one too…. gets taken over by the spectacle of the end of ‘White Heat’ on a National scale. He versus She. Them versus Us. Imagine the end of ‘The Stand’ if it dint suck out loud. He’s on the ropes, but has a bag of lies deeper than existentialism. She has momentum, but half the country are imbecile (I’ll accept the broken English quality of this sentence as it fits perfectly in my geometric vocabulary). Will he? Did she?
Or…fuck that. Live radio out of Middletown, three musicians, one DJ and something to say. The first public viewing of JikiJikiJa, JpK, Julie Kay, J, Adanti sharing what they did with there summer vacation. Some chat on ‘The Zen Of Losing’, some song, some dance, some seltzer in your pants.
Choose well, Indiana. One of these will be played ad nauseum tomorrow. One is a rare jewel of opportunity like a swallow swirl.
‘JikiJikiJa live is stomping boot and patented Grimm aggressive acoustic, and cello wails and finessed beats utilizing shaky things and cajon. And it sounds like…Rock and Roll. Of course. The songs from the record get jacked up, the new songs less self-conscious and more in the G.F.Y. vein.’ – JpK
Before The Danbury Lie (AKA Whispers To Oblivion AKA The Great Jester AKA Rob Loncto) was banished from the Colonies (the actual charge was ‘Keeping Company With The Dark’ or some such thing), I knew him, Horatio.
Now, he’s gone West Coast, multi media, Worldwide. He writes books and blogs. He makes movies. He makes records still too.
Today’s Something Something Quarterly takes on modern music making and marketing. A bi coastal conversation tween two cats who are throwing it all against the wall and seeing what sticks.
Stay tuned for tomorrows interview with yours truly in Whispers To Oblivion. Ready? Set……………..
JpK: How’s the West Coast Lie Life?
Rob: West Coast Lie Life is alright. Finishing up the movie for the Without Mirrors album. I premiered it at a sports bar a few weeks ago. Also finally starting to work on some new tunes. Watching a ton of NFL. But mostly trying to live well in general.
JpK: How did the premiere go? Sports bar?
Rob: It was an art show at a sports bar. They had the movie playing on about 9 different TVs and the Seahawks game on the other 5. Some people were into the visuals, brah.
JpK: The idea of the super psychedelic Without Mirrors playing with the Seahwaks game on is even more surreal. The visuals are intense. And man do they walk hand in hand with the Lie sound. Additionally intense. I’ve mentioned this before. I admire your ability to brand yourself so convincingly. The movie feels like a direct result of the very first Danbury Lie release. Minimalist and strange, but hypnotic. Do you have an image of what the perfect setting for the watching Without Mirrors would be? I’m imagining you in a theater in front of a big screen and guitar. Is that the design?
(I have to admit. While writing this, I’m watching the YouTube video of Without Mirrorshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohVBD3KYLlk. It’s deliriously distracting and compelling)
Rob: Without Mirrors is best experienced in a home theater with the music blasting and your eyelids held open Clockwork Orange style. But if that doesn’t work … The movie is also cool to watch on the bus through your smartphone or in a cubicle during lunch break. On drugs.
JpK: lol!!!!!! Yes. I picked up on the lysergic add on’s that would benefit viewing. Even straight…once I stared watching, I couldn’t stop. Tell me about the new material. Have you been expanding the Lie sound? What you listening to these days?
Rob: I haven’t fully figured out a direction for the new stuff. I tried recording some experimental guitar loop stuff, some aggressive punk metal, I even played around with some EDM samples. Now I’m working on a song that’s probably a bit closer to The Danbury Lie that 2,000 Facebook fans know and love. Eventually the next direction will come together organically … or it won’t. We shall see…
JpK: OK, So let’s tilt at some windmills.
How important is playing gigs to being an original musician?
Rob: Gigging is a whole lot of bullshit and a whole ton of fun. I would love to do more gigs, I have only done 1 full-band gig as The Danbury Lie and it would be great to do more. But when you write weird, technically complicated psychedelic folk music, it’s not the easiest thing ever to find bandmates. Go figure.
JpK: Do you believe the idea of a Local Music Scene actually exists, or is local now ‘Earth’?
Rob: I definitely think local music scenes still exist, and it’s great to have a small community here or there that becomes friends and support each other’s music. In the end music is a form of communication and I think in many cases it can become great when the local scene develops its own dialect. I’m starting to realize that things maybe aren’t as different from the past as we think. At least for independent artists.
JpK: The internet? Played out for music promo or just getting started? I mean you and the world.
Rob: The internet is a mirror of reality. In real life, people like dogs and food more than my record. And I get that. The Danbury Lie is a pretty cool band but dogs and food are probably cooler.
JpK: What is your favorite song you’ve ever written/co-written and why. Also what makes you love one song more than another?
Rob: I really like the song “Gates We Pry” (https://thedanburylie.bandcamp.com/track/gates-we-pry). The solo kind of reminds me of David Gilmour and I like the buildup at the end. It’s also probably the best vocal take I’ve ever done. Plus I have fond memories of recording it, so it’s a combination of factors.
What is it about the American culture that we receive great gifts from our citizenry (for these purposes, let’s focus on the Creative American) and celebrate them, hail them throughout the land…for about 12 minutes. Not even the 15 that Warhol promised us. Hippie.
And then we pack their bag and send them to Europe to import some circa 00’s American awesomeness. And watch these well attended Euro shows via YouTube.
It ain’t right. I don’t blame the musicians. I don’t blame myself. I hold you a little responsible, but you know…we have that thing, you and me.
Today’s example is one of my fave bands, Grandaddy. Cause seriously, you couldn’t find a more American band. They came to me through a phrase I have never forgotten. Grandaddy was described as ‘Stoned Landscapers with an ELO obsession.’ I mean…come on. That’s JpK bait right there. They were much more than this, of course. That description sounds almost like a suburban punk band, versus the best excuse for progressive rock since ‘Close To The Edge’.
So let’s start there. Grandaddy is an American Rock Band. You cannot find their roots in the places you find American Roots Music. There is no blues, no country. It is Rock Music. Forged from Rock Music and raised up on Rock Music.
What nails the nationality of this group of weirdoes’ is their values. Good American Values. Based on self loathing, slacking and technology addictions. Songs about Sad Datsuns and androids achieving A.I. and celebrating with a drink…which fries their circuits in a visible flash or about riding their bike to their step sister’s wedding (which sounds as depressing as it reads).
They are singing our song about our peccadilloes as Americans and they are forced to play them for Swedes or some such horror. That’s not America. (I mean Sweden. It’s not. Look it up.)
So, to do my part, my due diligence as it weren’t, I implore you to find these next 5 songs on YouTube and taste American greatness as its most pure. Stoned Landscapers with an ELO obsession.
‘The Group Who Couldn’t Say’ – ‘Sumday’: First off,you can’t go wrong with a good hook’y ‘Doo Do Doo Do Dooo’ repeated refrain. The first time I heard this song, it owned me. That was even before I understood the lyric. Which is about a band who gets some industry heat and the big record company machine takes over. And all the band wants is to return to Nature. Which means it is about Grandaddy. Lines like ‘ They had won some kinda prize, For selling way more stuff than the other guys, They were the shrewdest unit-movers, So their bosses got ’em tours of the countryside’ and the common Record Company schlub who needs deal with ‘ And at the desktop there’s crying sounds For all the projects due, And no one else is around And the sprinklers that come on at 3am, Sound like crowds of people asking “Are you happy what you’re doing?”
‘Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)’ – The Sophmore Slump’: Starts with one of my favorite lines about getting drunk with a robot ‘ You said I’d wake up Dead drunk, alone in the park I called you a liar But how right you were…’ This is the continuing saga of the beloved Jed The Android and how success first infects his creators and ultimately, his self. There is a true and odd sadness in this song, desperation. It comes through the set up, through the lyrics and sits on your chest like bad thoughts do. Despite what they sing about, what he is saying is far more human evolution, versus technological innovation.
‘Everything Beautiful Is Far Away’ – Under The Western Freeway – The idea….the words are simple. Though cynical. Beauty is distance. Is the idea that nothing viewed up close is beautiful? Or beauty is an idea we will never approach the shore of? Nope. In this case, it is about a space explorer abandoned with Earth in view. His family, his life, his very oxygen is an impossible distance. And he looks across ‘the great white expanse’ and sees swans (equally impossible) and he is ready to go. ‘He knew he was as good as gone, But gone was somewhere he really didn’t mind going to…’. It is science fiction. It is being human too.
‘F**k The Valley Fudge’ – Excerpts From The Diary of Todd Zilla: We have all come from somewhere. Unless you are reading this in the ether, then you need to stop reading and get born already. Damn! The rest of us, we came from someplace. Does that place look like it did? It it maybe a bit more mini-mally than you recall? Un-drivable on a weekend? Have all your child hood spots turned into parking lots? Have your parking lots turned into Subways? We all come from somewhere and the geography erodes. We remember things far past the point of memory. So fuck remembering anything. Let’s go and start some shit.:
‘We’ll start with that new future superstore and steal all their decorative rocks, and fight all their rent-a-cops And for the freeway maintainers who assist our escape, We’ve got sandwiches, chips, and cold Gatorade We’ll expose all the bicyclists who really are DUI students who can’t drive their cars. And we’ll take stucco dust and wet drywall sludge, combine it just right to make Fuck the Valley Fudge.’
‘The Warming Sun’ – Sumday: One of my favorites and really as decent an update (including present day contemporary hang ups) on a Beach Boys song that has been attempted. It’s big and beautiful and heartbreaking and swells with strings and voice. It is the story of a man who lost a girl, and he knows how and he knows why. It is a song I wish I had written based on the simple science of it. I miss you. I fucked up. You’re better off. I’ll never forget you.
In a dream
You were sitting there waiting by the door for me
And I got the opportunity
To experience the experience once again
How it could have maybe been
But in real life
You’re in another world
You’re with another guy
Who doesn’t have to cheat
And never has to lie
And all that stuff I didn’t get
Comes so easy to him
He doesn’t even have to try
But do you ever ask yourself
How it could have maybe been
I haven’t been that bad
But I haven’t been that good
Overmisunderstood
Oh I wish I really could
Enjoy the warming sun
Enjoy a warm someone
And end the need to hide
Away alone inside
No I haven’t been that bad
But I haven’t been that good
Overmisunderstood
Oh I wish I really could
Enjoy the warming sun
Enjoy a warm someone
And end the need to hide
Away alone inside
In a dream
You were sitting there waiting by the door for me
I get it now. I’m going to write this but no clue if Ill post it. This is between you and me, brain.
I have learned too much this year. We all have. I have seen just below the shiny surface right into the primordial ooze. So have you.
It would be grand to look at this divided country as Us Vs Them, Right (Us, again) Vs Wrong. Or closer to the truth, the excrement smearing monkeys from the wiser, less excrement smearing monkeys.
And not understanding has hurt my head.
I’m a patriot. More so, a Yankee. Birthplace of American Intellectualism. Where American history began. I am proud of all of these things. I am proud to have this as my heritage.
I am not well traveled. So the rumors of how lovely and uplifting the occupants of the other 49 states are just conjecture to me. I do believe these things about my countrymen. Even if I have a certain disdain for people who don’t have a certain disdain.
So….I never saw Trump coming.
I knew how people loathed George W Bush, and frankly, he gave them some good reasons. I could never jump on that bandwagon as my ego doesn’t fit on bandwagons. Nor waterslides.
George W was a poor villain. Cheney was an awesome villain. My fave was Rumsfeld. He looked like the inner machine never stopped, never slowed.
Make no mistake. I’m not defending these dudes. I am too dumb to remember what they did. I’m not a political animal…except interpersonal politics, in which I am a fucking Kennedy.
No. As Trump ascended, as more and more bondo’ed broken down trucks masking taped ‘Trump For President’ on their crushed quarter panels, I simply did not understand.
It took time. And you learn a lot during a car wreck.
I don’t believe people believe in Trump. I still hold out at least that much hope for my fallowed Americans.
I think they’re desperate. I think we’re all desperate. The difference is we are too well mannered to make a fuss. We accept our candidates as they come. We don’t believe them. We don’t trust them.
It’s what our parents did. And their parents too.
So perhaps….I was wrong. The Rise of Trump is not indicative of formaldehyde in the Gene pool. Maybe this is how we get a Dumb Revolution. Throw The Bum In, as it were.
No one can take the President seriously again if he wins. So is that the idea? Tear down the House to keep the dog out? Burn the crops to deny the locusts?
Is this really the point? To simply…start again?
People are frustrated. We are frustrated with them. They are frustrated with us. But the machine ever continues.
I registered to vote this year. For sanity. Maybe simply my own.
You have managed to survive another summer clinging to this pretty rock, bearing humid reaches and back to school’s. And you will be rewarded. High Five (clap!).
Here. Take it. It’s your E Ticket to Bliss. Autumn in New England is yours.
It is art in motion, an ever changing mural of the best hotel art you ever seen. See the ever rocking boats in dusk’s harbor. Taste the apples in the air, the brown sugar memories of Hallloween past.
This is what you get for living here. This is your per diem of pleasure before the bill of Winter comes due.
I was in conversation with a dear friend and the subject turned to holidays. How excited I get at the potential of holiday cheer and 4th of July fireworks. And how I just can not get to excited. Am I damaged? Too sharp for my own good? Am I making a grand statement about the futility of celebration when even Jesus and Elvis will in time be forgotten?
Upon reflection (or refraction…it was a later in the evening conversation), I realized that I do celebrate the holidays, just in a non traditional sense.
October is my Christmas and New Years. October is me (spiritual) birthday. October is my Independance Day, where the fireworks don’t flash before you and die, they die slowly, in the fashion that all life weaves in and out focus. October is my jam.
To me, October is an amalgam of every holiday, all laid out in a lovely 31 day package, And ending with Halloween, which is officially Christmas For Freaks. Like me.
Recognize your good fortune. People pay for such surroundings (and yeah…as do we). You have tripped backwards into bliss, baby.
Stomp around and make crunchy sounds. Get excited about pumpkins.
In two weeks time, the next era of Zen-volution shows its naughty delicates to the world in a celebration of all things Boob.
BoobStock is like Woodstock with only half the dirty hippies, but 3 times the boobs. (note: I’m not sure if that’s true. The truth is fleeting these days).
And when we unsnap our burdens and hang loose, it will be three of us standing there. As expected, The J to the P.K. on acoustic, singin’ and stomping foot. The shimmery celestial of the First Chair in the Zen Ground Force, Julie Kay. And The Mayor of Everywhere, the Beat Box of the Medulla Oblongata, The Untouchable Swiss Timer that is Mr. Jack Adanti.
This trio can’t be strung together under a human name. We needed to go old school into the secret history section of Rock lore and find the only word that can fit such wooden witchcraft. The Unspoken word. The Truth of All Truths (though still fleeting…these days) and bring it forth, wear it out, like a tattoo of a scar (if that becomes a trend, you heard it here first…).
We are JikiJikiJa. And you are not.
Now first…the kizmet of it all. Jk +Jk + Ja = JikiJikiJa, slept within our names all along. The grander meaning is acknowledged: We had this date from the beginning.
And after the name was established and a new sound was born. I drove some aimless Midgardian highway listening to Tyrannosaurus Rex. And within those mystical acoustic / bongo jams and sub Tolkein reference, a voice spoke to me. It was Marc. Which was off putting as he’s really dead by now. He spoke to me directly within the 2nd and 3rd minute of ‘By The Light Of The Magical Moon’. He said ‘jikijikija’. And again. ‘JikiJikiJa’. He repeated it over and over until the light went dark and I awoke under a tree, furiously beating a stump with my wallet.
We all handle enlightenment differently. Don’t judge.
It was like one of those ‘National Treasure’ movies where the clues come together of grander conspiracies and questionable dialogue. And we all become Nicholas Cage. In an existential sense.
I started on the DarkNet feeding the Black Google clues like ‘rock history’ and ‘Paganism for Dummies’, ‘Abstractions as concepts’ and ‘Celebrity Nudity’. (It’s a natural and automatic thang’). And as I pored over the details, the full history of ‘JikiJikiJa’ came to light. For example:
Rush – ‘The Spirit Of Radio’: ‘And the words of the profit are written on the subway walls…’ You know that lyric, right? ‘The followed…inexplicably…but ‘CONCERT HALLS!’. Did you ever notice that it makes no sense? That’s because the proper closing line was ‘JikiJikiJa is Balls. JikiJikiJa is Balls’. That was until the CBC weighed in and smacked Geddy Lee right in his Canuck Hangers and forever altered the commercial radio and opened the world to castrato singing style. You can’t say that on the air. Even in Canada.
Terry Jacks – ‘Seasons In The Sun’: Terry Jacks was a manly mandible, like the Paul Bunyan or rumors of Tom Cruise. He would gargle glass and piss valvoline just for the sparks. And, as legend says, he stood on the stage in Ottawa and called up the gods and those left wanting and spoke the word. ‘JikiJikiJa. JikiJikiJa, you hosers.’ It was that simple. Within a year, the was de-balled, deveined, bleary eyed and had his name attached to ‘Seasons In The Sun’, which is akin to a war crime in some circles.
Billy Shears – Once considered a cast on character in some British groups stable of mythic dudes and dudettes, but if you look just slightly below the butchers wrapping, a clearer picture evolves. And it goes a lil something like this (hit it!): Paul is dead. Paul spoke the words and paid the price. ‘JikiJikiJa is bigger than the Beatles’. He said it. And Lennon killed him and ate his soul and hired a look alike. The One And Only. Unfortunately Paul’s habits die hard, even for Faux Paul’s. Billy started walking a long dark hallway that ended in a most JikiJikiJa manner. And then some dude started Wings and became the new Paul.
That dudes name was JikiJikiJa. Junior.
Do you understand what I’m laying down, Scoot? There’s doorways in the language. There’s thruways within the byways within the words. Some of them are magic. Some are bullshit.
So trust me as I tell you this. We are JikiJikiJa. We’re slinging magic. Wanna see?
There’s a story here. It’s not an important story. It’s interesting to me, based on language and the desires that language guards. In a period of personal heartache, this song was a turning point. It was the part where I accepted my fate, weighed my heart and offered to wait, for how long, as long.
Just to be clean. Just to feel like I’m walking upright. See The Martyr, Be The Martyr. And let the first letter be a slamming door on a windy day…open and close with great clattering. This song is ‘Ring It Out’. It could have easily been ‘Wring It Out’. Ya see? Getting clean, being clean.
And that’s what this is supposed to be. But it’s not.
This is not the time to pass the time. This is not the time to sell a fucking record.
This is where I admit I am breaking down. That the weight of this ugly fucking rock wears down the most disinterested of us. This is Now.
Bad information blows in on impossible winds and birds make their nests. They console there twig walls with lies and half truths, trying to convince some other bird that this is the appropriate way.
Our global game of ‘Telephone’ has disrupted progress. We’ve had the blinders torn off this time and we see it too clear: 60% of this great Democratic experiment are morons and bitter as fuck about it.
At what point do you hit the turn signal when your whole fucking country is getting Westboro’d?
I’m fucking disgusted. I’m heartbroken. And care fuck’all about your opinion on it.
Jermaine Towns, left, and Brandon Shuford wait down the street from a multiple shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. Towns said his brother was in the club at the time. A gunman opened fire at a nightclub in central Florida, and multiple people have been wounded, police said Sunday. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Something was once related to me that was hilarious. And wrong. Truly rip roaring, knee slappin’. But almost racist.
And it was this: there are more dirt bags per capita at a Johnny Winter show than in any other place in the world. This was told to me on the floor of a Johnny Winter show. So to be fair, we we’re factored in that quick formula.
This came to mind when thinking on yesterdays They Might Be Giants blog, which is the collected face of joy and communion. Smiles and whoops and people high fiving strangers (I guess. Strangers are weird). Versus the Johnny Winter show which is the face of drunken sadness and imminent violence. Not jumping as much as steering into oncoming traffic, socially.
There is joy, of course. It’s not The Walking Dead. Though clearly you can find every character of the perceived apocalypse within this crowd. It’s an odd vibe. Bikers and late night bakers and trippers and purists and dealers all came to commune.
For joy is watching someone born to do what they are doing. Johnny Winter is The Blues. Whether your taste is the classic Chess sides or BB King, you can not watch him and not feel ghosts and hear trains. Not songs about trains; the steel tumbles down the rails on some endless night and it works into the spinning of the Earth and the crashing sea. Monumental. Absolute purity.
And this sound brought people from all around. Another type of communion, but not of the group variety. We were there to watch the Man.
If God exists, the only proof I could cobble together is the deity strength Irony that had to be cosmic intervention. Cause he wasn’t simply a white dude. He’s was the whitest dude alive. And he played the blues with a weight that played against the idea that any music belonged to any culture. Then destroyed by too many middling white rappers, but fuck it,
The Johnny Winter classic’s (Still Alive and Well, Johnny Winter And, Second Winter) were barn burning Rock and Roll records. Inventive writing, twisting of traditions and baked in the very bakeable 70’s scene. Johnny and his talented brother Edgar (whose White Trash is the only ‘funk’ I could deal with) twin albinos in flashy clothes and capes. They were very much comic books heroes except they’re music was not kid stuff.
When I finally got to see Johnny live, it was….something. He was slight and pale. Like even for an albino. It was almost like his big ass dragon tattoo got a smaller tattoo of a white guitar player. It was disheartening, actually,
Then he played. And his playing was a wild animal, snarling, beyond training. His voice came like an ancient blues side, with every creak and crack authentic. It was like seeing a ghost of a great blues man, and with every sip, the veil thinned.
A Johnny Winter show was like a transcendent experience. With shivs.
First, a lil astronomy. I use the words ‘Rock Star’ as an identifier, which is not based on whether you know who they are or not. This is sorta the point of this bit o’ writing. As has been (over) stated on the subject of Porn, not every porn ACTOR is a STAR.
Despite the lack of a true Q rating on some of these names, it matters nothing. Because when I met them, I wept and screamed and rolled around on the floor till Security dragged me to the Beatin’ Room (which I hear exists).
Fame and Influence are not the same thing. Right? On with the show….
As desperately as I despite to be considered ‘suave’, the closest I get in when I appear slightly bemused and stand very still and say nothing. Cause…it aint in the cards I’m holding. I want to be cool and collected, and leave that impression. And I do, if the conversation is short enough.
Fact is, I’m a spazz. I get excited and jump around to the point nits embarrassing to everyone. I’m fascinated by minutia so minute and will bore to TO YOUR FACE, YO. I have habits which foretell habits, and can be identified by stringing 100 cultural cliches about geekery into something like macrame, And who doesn’t like macrame?
I have met musical heroes. People of influence to me, and more important than ‘Stars’. I’m not bragging. A lot of people met more and more often. I do hope they handled it better…
Ian Hunter: He was the first singer / songwriter hero (for completists, Black Sabbath was my first band of heroes and Spiderman was my first hero hero). This was based on one of my first LP purchases ‘Mott Live’ based on the scary marionettes and silver ‘H’ guitar on the cover. The image was pure comic book, which is the route I came. Mott The Hoople was my gateway drug tween ‘Amazing Stories’ and ‘Creem Magazine’.
What I appreciated about Ian was his habit of self reference. He wrote an ongoing myth roll utilizing his band, his fans, the Music Business, teenage heartbreak and political fury. And this spoke to me, since I was always trying to recognize myself in greater and greater contexts. Ian saw me in the metaphoric crowd and called me by name.
To really put a fine point on it, it was ‘Irene Wilde’. That song….which at it’s core was an absolute cliche….was the story of a kid in love with a girl far beyond his hipness to talk too. So he imagines a future (which he actually created) of success and regret and in the end gives her the credit. Though you do get the sense she is dead or at least less hot.
This song was for me and every other ugly teen monster with real poetic and romantic ambitions. It said plainly that ‘Fuck today. Bank on tomorrow. You’ll show them. You’ll show them ALL!!!!’ (insert malicious creaky laugh here).
So I bought every record I could get my hands on, some through special Import order (that seems quaint now, eh?) and slowly worked my way through his style, his influences (Dylan and Little Richard) and his history. It became my obsession.
And the n came that day that Ian Hunter came to the New Haven Agora (or Twilight Zone or Metro etc.) and I was in a deep relationship with ‘Ian Hunter Live’ and kismet!
Well…no. I was 14. Though looked near 25 (for what they say about healthy living, unhealthy living usually makes you the dude who wont get carded), the enterin’ age was 18. My older brother (by 4 years) and I got in the general admission line none the less, and began the near 6 hour wait for entrance.
Afternoon turns to night and the line finally starts to move. Rowdy yips and excited yammering as we march into the venue. Step by step. I c an hear the soundcheck from out front, a half started version of ‘Gun Control’ and a bunch of tom tom tapping. Step by step. Anticipation.
My brother gets their first. I’m watching to see what they are going to ask me, what I can anticipate.
And it went something like this: my brother passes security, but waits. I approach, looking as 24 as I can. The Security Guard asks for me ID. I panic. My brother shrugs and walks into the venue. I’m alone on the streets of New Haven.
Defeated. Bitter. A bit shocked due to the unfairness of it all (‘THESE PEOPLE AREN’T FANS!!!! I’M A FAN!!!’). And then watching from the street as happy bastards take my seat. And when the final few walked in, the doors closed with emphasis.
And I’m alone. So I take to the side alley of the venue and listen to the growing sound of a gig. People file in and find a place. Drinks get gotten and drunk. Anticipation. Less exciting through a concrete wall. Just me leaning on a railing in the New Haven night. Just fucking bereft.
And a sound, beyond me. Something big. I turn in time to have the high beams catch me in my turn and it all goes vaguely psychedelic while my metered mind identified: a bus. A big ass bus. Turning into my alley. And fast.
I deftly throw myself against the wall and the bus occupies the place where I just was. And I peer up to shoot the driver a dirty look but see the big bus card above the windshield first. ‘Ian Hunter’.
The bus screeched to a halt and out of nowhere, people appear from all sides yelling for Ian. I din’t know Rock Stars came via bus. I clearly dint know anything yet. My alley filling up with punters and some vaguely scary authority figure steps from the buss and clears a way.
A minute…two….and then The Man steps from the bus. Big smile, looking weary but high spirited. He’s shaking hands on his way to the stage door and I’m queuing up. To meet my hero.
I want to ask him arcane questions about Mott The Hoople. stuff so delicate only myself and Buffin know the answers. I want to tell him that I’ve started writing and hes a big influence to me and tell him what he means to me. I wanna know if he ever actually banged Irene Wilde. I want information.
And he approaches and shakes my hand. A strong grip. A heroes grip. And I tell him:
Ugh. So. Not. Cool. I prematurely geeked all over myself.
And he…a little taken aback by the 24 year old dude practically wetting himself through self induced HunterMania.
And he gave me tickets, front row. And then asked me to join him on tour. Yeah.
OK…No. He got the fuck away from me as soon as possible and disappeared into The New Haven Agora. And I was left with the knowledge I will never be truly cool.
And the crowd files in and the show starts. And I spend my first Ian Hunter show dancing alone in the alley to ‘Angeline’. And God Damn if I dint have an amazing time.
The two P’s of the personal Apocalypse. Potential and promise. And inversely the seed of any good idea that became action.
But I’m talking personal, and applying with a broad brush and crafted detail to the first blush of a romantic love. One with (see first line…).
Being my personal apocalypse (And I deserve the best), I start where the notes and flirtations have been established, slipping into that heady teen heartbeat thing. Sharing intimacies (not carnality) ,wondering what and where someone is at anytime becomes a constant stream of increasing texts. In jokes get made… which are building blocks to private languages, shared moments, and new histories.
And at a certain point, between the hugging and puffing and blowing down o’ houses, intentions must get set.
While we live in that lovers twilight of beginnings, while we risk saying things and acting the fool, anything seems possible. It’s play. It’s not make believe….or may not be, that’s a far longer play date… but we risk trying things when the chemistry is right, and the night is nigh. We play at casualness, we play at possessiveness, we ask for exactly what we need.
Because…simply…Fuck it. When pressed with real promise and potential, we push in our chips…no,..I do. I don’t know what you do. I bet black for optimism and spin the wheel,
Push Play. Let The Gears engage,
We ask for exactly what we need. And we speak plainly on what were willing to do to get it.
Underneath this fun, this building, this sweet text and leading posts, there is a single goal. I will know you. Not your names or your hometown tales, not your fave beach to walk on or worst night. I will become owner and operator of your futures. And here…take mine.
This mad desire of absolute ownership only works on myth, so it will fall away. No one wants to own another. Its play, but brings out darker colors and truer needs. I will know you. And you will know me too.
And once you share such statements within a very small circle, they gain weight and breadth. They become true, if not temporary. They push you into further action. Come what may.
Track 1 – PUSH PLAY
LETS PUSHPLAY, LET THE GEARS ENGAGE
ITS A TAPE SLIP CAPTURE THE SECONDS
BEFORE THE GROOVE GETS HIT
THEY RECORDED THOSE SONGS FOR SOMEONE
WHY NOT YOU?
WHY NOT YOU? WHATS SO SPECIAL ABOUT YOU?
THERES A STAR ON MY SHOULDER THAT KEEPS ME RIGHT AND TRUE
AND THERES A DAY IN THE FUTURE
THAT I WILL KNOW YOU
I WILL KNOW YOU
LETS TALK SHOP ABOUT WHAT YOU REALLY WANT
LETS SPEAK PLAIN AND TOO EXCESS
I DON’T SHOCK
ITS SO LATE YOU MISSED YOUR TRAIN
OH BABY THAT’S A SHAME
I GOT A WARM SPOT AND SOME TAPES I COULD PLAY
THERE’S A STAR ON MY SHOULDER THAT KEEPS ME RIGHT AND TRUE
The thought came to mind while watching the apple music commercial. Clarity. I am being marketed too as a creative artist with something to say, even in this glut of like minded folks.
Like you. And you.
And why shouldn’t I be marketed too? I spend money (or consider at least ) on books and websites to connect me to the largest audience possible to hear my songs.
And I realize that my decision making on where to put myself virtually is knitted together texts of faith and angle, something that gives a small advantage. Cause it’s the wild west out there. No one has a clue and the maze reconfigures monthly.
And it brings me to the spiritualist movement of the late 1800s all of knocking tables and ectoplasm. People went crazy for trying to reach across the veil and commune with the dead. And for every request, new technologies of bad science and melodrama were devised to refine ones access to the beyond.
I won’t be so cynical as to use the idea 9f snake oil salesmen. I do believe every new online music platform or least starts with real belief. It’s simply were cynical creatures. When some one sees a need, someone else needs profit from it.
Consider how we got here. The desire to share music among friends via Napster. In it’s design, it wasn’t created to upset the apple cart. It just did.
So pick your poison: seance or EPK? Spirit photos or the dream of going viral on YouTube? Tarot cards or download cards? Ancient texts or Twitter?
Whatever your choices, pack an extra thing in your ole’ kit bag: Belief.
I’ve made much hulla and some baloo about my love and appreciation of Klekolo World Coffee (https://jasonpkrug.com/2015/03/26/when-klekolo-was-the-center-of-the-universe-2/), the home of my spiritual rebirth and purveyors of fine bean. So it seems only right that one of our rare gigs (Julie Kay and Myself, of course) is at this very place. And yes , on this very day.
And we’re bringing something special tonight. A taste of a harvest meal upcoming.
Since The Grimm Generation went on super secret hiatus, I started crafting songs about loss. Conceptual. Very real. And a record was born. Still cooking with our top scientists working on it (Hi Adam!). So what we have here is a preview of whats to come. Played live in one set. Acoustic voice and stompy foot. Cello sensuality in pluck and box. Lyric driven, image laden. We’re coming from and for the heart.
So as a delectable aperitif, the set, as it will be played tonight at 7:00 PM at Klekolo World Coffee, Court St in the grand old dame of Middletown.
For your consideration…
‘Push Play’ – ‘…whats so special about you?’
‘Twin Twisters’ – ‘…As good an epitath as any for us…’
‘Hidden Lake Smells Like Gunpowder’ – ‘There’s not enough medicine to make me feel. And EVERYTHING is medicine…’
‘Determined To Fail’ – ‘…past the cracked cross of the Evangelical warehouse’
‘Last Leaves To Fall’ – ‘… These nights, they expire. All hope. All desire…’
‘Your Body Betrays You’ – ‘… have I got your attention?’
‘Lush’ – ‘… As we wind together like vines, we bear fruit in this unbearable heat…’
‘Last Days Of Rome’ – ‘… And we squandered what we were given. It wasn’t healthy, but it was Home…’
‘Ring It Out’ – ‘I’m a bad liar. I won’t hide it. You fill me up and I get drunk with it…’
‘Believe In Me’ – ‘astral are just pricks in the dark’
‘Nu Constellations’ – ‘… aren’t we done with all the gravity of old reputations?’
‘Cut Down The Moon’ – ‘…a war was fought. No one knew….’
‘Outloud’ – ‘If you want to love me, you can love me.’
‘The Boy King’ – ‘the allure of the utter wreck, The Boy King takes another sip…’
‘Saving Grace’ – ‘…It’s intimate. But a different kind…’
‘I’ve Never Been Here Before’ – ‘I kicked some friends when they were down. I kicked up dust till I cracked the ground’
‘The End Of Mystery’ – ‘… Regards unopened, ghosts in the wire. The songs stay unwritten, nasty looks from the choir…’
And plus, paying respects to where we came from…
‘Bigger Than’ (The Grimm Generation) – ‘All my sad songs are about you now.’
‘St Joan (Of Rt 495)’ – ‘Cops are scary’
Please join us for a live viewing of the upcoming album ‘The Zen Of Losing’ as performed by Jason P. Krug (vocals, guitar) and Julie Kay (cello) at Klekolo World Coffee, Court St in Middletown, 7:00 pm sharp.
After a brief period of death and resurrection (I should note that I neither died nor was resurrected. I do tend to be dramatic ) I have come out the other side of this mortality wormhole with knowledge. Well….not knowledge. ….let’s call them paranoia based lessons to live by. Or die by. Whatevs.
1) when we get sick, we go into Safe Mode. All higher functions miss the Start menu and you lose all ability to color your world or place your self in the frame. It’s hard to consider the Great American Novel when your your thoughts go into rogue survival mode. It’s ok.
2) freedom of choice drives everybody crazy…..to paraphrase X. And without the ability to appropriately focus on my entertainment choices, I let go and listened to satellite radio. That’s my version of giving up. And though I understand the appeal of new music discovery, I found the content was too light, too repetitive. It was good for my distracted state, but what does that say? Is the fear that if we get overly engaged we will drive into the ocean over and over?
3) life is precious. But precious things are by their nature dull. Live agressive.
4) if you survive, show off. Go public. Maybe plan a date to show off how alive you are with a dear cello playing friend. (Klekolo, August 18th @ 7:00 pm)
…And of course that makes sense, now. Here in the future (where you and I will spend the rest of our lives…). Cause look at them. Your parents, I mean.
Older and out of touch. With a ton of stories you will never hear from their lips. Good ones. Maybe a bit too much eye liner to combat the clock. Maybe Dad releases a country themed single to capture the market that he never knew existed till some Desmond Child’ish creation said ‘Hey Dad! Cornpone is the new black!’.
You listen to this decades Aerosmith and consider your folks and think ‘sure. I can see that. My parents are lame. Of course they would copulate to soundtrack music’.
And sometimes it takes a dude on a coffee buzz to adopt the Lester Bangs style of ‘wise’nd old coot’ to tell you the truth. And it may make you a bit uncomfortable hearing it. But that’s my job ….. no, jobs pay something….my calling. Yeah.
Here’s the truth: Aerosmith was once the coolest band on the planet. And your mom ran around like a tramp. And your dad followed her like a dog. God Bless America.
It’s is easy to forget….no…it is IMPOSSIBLE to remember how great 70’s Azimuth was. Not simply as ‘The USA’s Rolling Stones’ but the real skill, the real composition of a great Rock and Roll band, in every form. Live, studio, drug fueled exploits, models, childish inter-band turmoil (cause to be a Rock Star is to adopt teen hood as a lifestyle. And teens is dumb).
(Except you. Your special).
They wrote big hits, even then. ‘Dream On’ right out of the gate. ‘Mama Kin’ on that same debut record. But they really got interesting with their sophomore ‘Get Your Wings’. I suggest you go to the library (just kidding, kid)….I mean hit YouTube and find it and listen all the way down from tip to tail.
What you will note is that in the space of 2 records, they went from the blues based Boston band done good to something that started a whole new page in the Book Of Rock and Roll. ‘Lord Of The Thighs’ is page 1. I always wondered if this was Steven’s lil’ jab at the darker more Sabbath’y band of the era with that title, substituting ‘Your Thighs’ for ‘Of This World’. Alas, we will never know since Steven has clearly gone mad with syphilis and the drugs to treat syphilis (I’d like to direct the court attention to exhibit A, American Idol’…).
Aerosmith was firing on all cylinders at this point and continued with ‘Toys In The Attic’ and ‘Rocks’ and, in my opinion, deserve every blood red penny they make and throw at their butlers now based on this work.
The key to Aerosmith to me personally was always Steven Tyler and his incredible, indecipherable, single entendre lyrics and delivery of them. Tongue twisting, brilliant use of phrasing and rhyme. Really, the very first white rapper.
And his focus, which was always sex, girls, sex with girls, drugged sex with girls, sex with druggy girls. He elevated what could be considered a marginal (though fun sounding) life into real degenerate poetry. And had the voice, the linguist genius to wrap these images into unconscious on the beat jags that you find yourself singing at the most inappropriate times.
And why? Because they were young and did it like they wanted.
Like your parents. Who did it standing up. Listening to ‘Seasons Of Whither’.
As a clear sign that I have been driven mad, I have permanently effected the affects of this particular medulla oblogata with my recording within Dante’s digital pit, I have come to the realization that digital effects are not just for music.
Furthermore, I need to make a miracle machine (which is tricky as the dog ate my engineering degree) that puts digital effects where they belong: conversations. This may require we all walk around with permanent earphones on to get the effect (big and fat), but what are words worth? They are worthless unless you can EQ them to a listenable form and then blast them through BIG reverbs.
Effects will be the new punctuation. They will say. When I create the machine. I will be hailed as yet another distraction (like iphones and Instagram and insulin) that is keeping us from becoming the species we should be, in our most perfect and docile form.
Dull. Dullllllll. Im So Bored with your plain, simply heard speeches. Do me a favor…ask me that in Flanger. Phase me, baby.
Consider how it can really emphasize the conversations you are already having?
Don’t you feel cheated when you are angry and yell at someone and it simply dissipates? Try that with a big hall reverb. Now THATS angry and impossible to ignore.
What about ordinary dull conversations with people in the grocery line? Slip in some Digital Delay…and slowly build it, so your words leave your mouth and are suddenly bouncing, bouncing everywhere, every direction, every corner and crevice of the subconcious till theres no option for anyone but to turn away and look at the Star or People Magazine.
Late night and early morning? Need to talk to people but your too wasted to form words? Compression. Everything you say will have more impact, even if that statement is ‘I’m sorry I dropped the ball on the Perkins account.’. Your manager can only admire your honesty, forthrightness and deep sonorous tones. And this is how you get a promotion.
Tryin to explain away a prior bad act? Speak clearly through a Heavy Metal distortion. Raise the gain. Speak slowly and stare directly into their eyes and watch as they get confused, a little sad and go away.
Need a lil pickup in the bedroom? Ladies love a good Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, brother. Get all Issac Hayes and shit and lay it down.
My point being that we short change ourselves in terms of appropriate dramatics. Sometimes it takes a bit o’ science.
Are you an idiot? Am I? How about that dude? Is he?
It starts as an entertainment and creases its way into the general culture. It corrupts the culture and bleeds into mechanics of the machine, money and politics. And someone brings a camera and exposes it….and markets this discovery to the culture who allowed it, and we eat it up with a spoon.
All the while, we think we’re being ironic. But I think we just may be idiots. Cause we created Donald Trump…or allowed him to be created. That’s on our dime.
Let’s start here: News. We have a bunch of 24/7 news services, each with their own agenda, their own voices that multiply to true rabble. And despite the fact that it’s a big ole’ World, and their can be enough news to fill these spaces, that’s not what we get. We get one hour of news reported 24 times. And to fill that time, analysis by the endless parade of authors who just released unreadable (read? Like the color?) books on point of these superfluous non stories.
I have a news ticker at my job. Weather, ads, news ticker. A few weeks ago, this was featured:
‘Gwyneth Paltrow missed the recent Award Show to spend time with her daughter Apple’.
wtf. This is barely a factoid, and of no interest to anyone but her publicist and child. And I think the child is to young to read it, the publicist to far from CT to see it. So,….if this for me? Should I call her and thank her? Maybe send fruit?
As a brainwashing technique, a previous job always played CNBC, which if financial news. And what I noticed was that they turned the Stock Market news, traditionally rather dry…and deadly, if its bad news…and turned in into ESPN. Colorful loud hosts, big graphics, lots of colors and feigned excitement. Which says a few things:
1) Financial news is sports for people to shallow and bright for sports.
2) Not a lot of woman are watching.
Despite the fact that what they report genuinely effects us, even if in a years time (a single year are is new decade, haven’t ya heard?), they spoon feed us like Saturday Morning sugar cereal commercials feed Saturday Morning kids.
And let us all remember Brian Williams, who has been tore down based on lying on his resume. How can lying on your resume be a sin when you gig is lying?
Let our true Statesman finish this for me. Ladies and Gentleman, Billy Bragg.
And remember, your not an idiot. That dude may be.
It says here that the Unions will never learn
It says here that the economy is on the upturn
And it says here we should be proud
That we are free
And our free press reflects our democracy
Those braying voices on the right of the House
Are echoed down the Street of Shame
Where politics mix with bingo and tits
In a strictly money and numbers game
Where they offer you a feature
On stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders
It says here that this year’s prince is born
It says here do you ever wish
That you were better informed
And it says here that we can only stop the rot
With a large dose of Law and Order
And a touch of the short sharp shock
If this does not reflect your view you should understand
That those who own the papers also own this land
And they’d rather you believe
In Coronation Street capers
In the war of circulation, it sells newspapers
Could it be an infringement
Of the freedom of the press
To print pictures of women in states of undress
When you wake up to the fact
That your paper is Tory
Just remember, there are two sides to every story
I have the image clear: about 7 years old in my older sister bedroom, her and her friends laughing and I’m twisting the long coil of the soup can style fat headphones (the fatter, the better. …I still stand by this, ear buds can’t hang …) and laying on the floor leafing through the LP covers as the vinyl discs get listened to and piled on top of the speaker, long dried wax and incense dust in a permanent drip on the space age black plastic stereo cover.
And though I know there was more, the art, the impossible comic book of album covers, of 4 records sticks in my head:
Black Sabbath ‘Volume 4’, Elton John ‘Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy ‘, Chicago….the chocolate bar covered one and Deep Purple ‘Made In Japan’.
Being 7 or so, the ‘Made In Japan’ cover fascinated me…..and in retrospect, maybe cause it’s the only of these records to show the band in photo. So you can imagine Highway Stars and Space Truckers and examine the front cover action shot and think ‘Yup. That’s what someone who drives a truck on space looks like.
What I did not know at the time was the Deep Purple I was listening too was as close to a true team of comic heroes Rock music would ever produce. And what they did would inform and inspire what I did for the rest of my life.
Because Deep Purple was unique and always would be. They were that Avengers style super team where each member was a fifth of the power, and without these 5 you have….oh I dunno. …Vanilla Fudge. Every member was necessary …. not the instrument they played…..them playing it.
And of course these 5 dudes created a song that went far beyond their generation, far beyond their own life span as a band….and surely as corporal beings. You know the tune. ‘Duh Dunh Dunhhhhh, Duh Dunh Dunh Dunhhhhhh….’ etc.
THE riff of Rock written by bass player Roger Glover, who wrote others. He was perhaps the most restrained, most common in appearance. …and there lied his mutant ability to produce timeless riffs.
Ian Paige was always a cult figure, a deeper Neal Pearl style worship amongst those who know. This was beat (in perfect paradiddle) into my head by my old friend Vic who was so stupidly talented, he learned these Paice driven monsters beat for beat. And to simply watch him play with (big and fat) headphones on was a revelation to me if what drums REALLY did if you watched someone who knew how to play them proper. Ian’s ability was to make it look easy and simultaneously impossible.
Jon Lord. He was the heart if this sound. This was not simple worship of Hammond B3. It was using it as a tool, and pushing the good taste and warm whirly tones into an over driven groans and wails and the low rumble of (big and fat) American automobiles. He was the strong one, the honorable one, the mad scientist who ain’t that mad.
And the difficult one, the dangerous unpredictable one. The one who played with black magic and risked his soul within the complexity of each incredible solo. And the one who started me on my vague obsession with megalomania. Mr Ritchie Blackmore. He was Dr Strange with a stratocaster.
And on vocals and bongo, Jesus Christ.
Ok. Ian Gillan was not actually Jesus Christ. But he did play him on the stage. And through this, at a later age than church would prefer, I came to know The Passion Of The Christ.
It’s hero worship. When your a fan. …a real fan….you track down where your hero’s come from. And in this fashion, me and my friends came to know Jesus Christ Superstar. And despite being Sabbath obsessed darklings, we came to know every word. Every plea, every plot of the Christ story. And to this day, this is where my true understanding of Christ came from.
But one doesn’t get defined by being Jesus. ….Jesus aside. Ian Gillan was one of the best singers in and out of Rock. And looked damned good doing it.
There is no band that ever sounded like Deep Purple. And there will never be again.
Jon Lord left this plane for farther shores. And I think he is still out there, awaiting the call to save us.
Love Is…a many splendored thing.
Love is a cat with sharp claws.
Love is patient and kind.
Love has the same feeling, the same chemical make up as insanity.
Love is worldwide and deeply intimate.
Love is a movement, an excuse, a reason, THE reason.
Love is Hell.
Love is worth the climb.
Love lies.
Love flies under it’s own power.
Love is a word used too much by some and not enough by others ‘I LOVE this yogurt. I care about you as a human’).
And when you boils it down, all the lovely stems and seeds and soil, when you drag it into the practical light of day, Love Is Furniture.
Cause despite what you feel, what you know of you, when your lovers furniture has been removed from your life, your not in Love anymore.
I applied the title of the ‘height of masculine reasoning’ to this, believing its a dude who just pulls up stakes and sends a text from his secret girlfriends house saying ‘keys under the mat’. Is that true? Still not sure.
Follow the Soundcloud link above for a little ditty that boils down all these heady concepts into a 3 minute uke ditty, with the ever needed assist of conspirator Carmen Champagne.
Listen and learn. And if you note your partners stuff is slowly leaving your mutual Love nest, its just a nest now.
For the sake of clarity, Ill put a definition on it: approximately 45 minutes of a single artist or group of artists (or ‘band’ as the kids call them today)whose intent is to capture your attention, imagination and share some personal POV’s….or big comic book epic’s about Norse Mythology, whatever.
The expectation was that if you can create a ‘single’, a pop length taste with hooks and ‘legs’ (thats Hollywood talk I’m just misappropriating) then that would serve as bait for you to buy a Long Player. And take a trip inside the mind of the artist.
There’s a certain level of bait and switch in 85% of these releases. We have all bought a record based on a single and came away disappointed. I don’t believe there’s any guile attached to this. It’s only natural to lead with your strongest move, and if you could dance to it, all’s the better.
It’s craft. It’s musicians giving you what you want….but adding in their own acts of personal exploration and musework. And all it costs is 45 minutes of your time. A worthy investment…if the album doesn’t suck.
What is a playlist?
A playlist is a bait buffet. All killer, no filler. No single artist, songs based on moods or holidays or just for kicks. Some playlists capture a time they were created and always bring you to that point. The songs act as photographs reminding you that you of forlorn summer or that you once loved Terrence Trent Darby.
In a sense, you become the artist. You create the moods, call the causes and use your own sense of what works using others work. You mix era’s and genre’s, speeds and volumes based on whatever you feel like. Why make ‘Blood On The Tracks’ when you can create ‘Divorce Playlist Volume 1′?
When we discuss whats destroying the Music Business, let’s call it for what it is: Freedom. The freedom of the listener to cull through the history or recorded music and pick the particular tastes they savor. It is creation. It’s imaginary radio where you are the DJ, the sponsor and audience.
As a recording artist, it is a frustration. As someone angling for that 45 minutes of your time, it’s another obstacle. Another distraction in an increasingly distractable world.
What happened is music making moved beyond the music makers and became the trade of anyone inclined. This is progress. This is new.
And the one thing Playlists offer is discovery. You can find sounds you never heard before but love as much as your ole’ Ian Hunter records. Carefully cultivated and collected in a thematic list.
Spotify is not the problem. Nor Apple Music. YouTube. It’s freedom of choice that buggers us. So we must stop freedom of choice at all costs. Individuals deciding for themselves has made this world sick and shallow.
Do I believe that? Sometimes, yes. Is it true? Yup. The war between being a fan and an artist too is harrrrrd.
I’ve come to you today to discuss the meaning of true Independence. In its most effective form. I am here to praise the American Weirdo.
For I have known them. I have sang their songs, eyes closed, every lyric accurate.
I have clapped and stomped for returning weirdo heroes. I have waved flags and pledged allegiance with simple slogans like ‘Everybody dies frustrated and sad and THAT is beautiful’ or ‘I’ve built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working-class’.
I have seen great mobs of people from every conceivable age, race, religion come together and jump at once to the sound of accordion and large, miked stomping stick.
The uniform they wore was a huge giddy smile. Everyone of them.
For I have been to a They Might Be Giants show.
If you create something that is completely original, wholly unique, a true extension of your weirdo nature, a couple of actions are expected.
1) you alienate everyone
2) the few you don’t freak out are your audience. Cater to them. Water them, watch them grow.
And as you challenge the existing system we call The Music Business, you don’t settle for acceptance. You aspire to more. You create free phone songs and truly groundbreaking videos that quietly kickstart ‘alternative music’ a decade before the term was coined.
And you keep your eyes on the prize. Be good to your audience, give to them fully, freely. Let your enthusiasm, your absolute freak-muse, infect the people.
And keep working. Let the land rise to meet you. These connections will gain there own space and invite you in. And these shoulders will carry you into the wider culture.
But the culture is fleeting. To attempt to capture the culture is to bore the culture. The culture only desires the things that no longer need it.
So be not distracted. And start touring with a horn section cause the opportunity allows.
And you succeed. You become that invaluable element in so many lives. You do it well, and your odd peeps will teach their children using your words, your sounds, your bizarre character.
It’s a truly American story in it’s purity and hope. And how hard work and weird ideas can be a commodity. And it is as true now as ever.
This 4th of July, celebrate appropriately. Put on a big fake prosthetic fore head to cover up your real head. And grab a guitar and sing a verse of ‘Alienation Is For The Rich’ and see who sings along.
The winds raises the dandelion seeds, a perfect marriage of force and natural aerodynamics. And brings you a yard full of weeds. The rain brings you mud and deepening soil and you check the radio which brings you the weather. And you bring your boots out today.
And cool older cousins bring you YesSongs and let your adolescent self play among the covers, the Roger Dean Universe, let you wonder at the 8 foot by 6 foot poster that could only fit on the ceiling of a suburban cool cousin bedroom. They let you borrow this record while they go about with their cool friends, tasting all the fruit the decade of the 70’s had to offer. Things I came to recognize as that decade was reconstituted and re-imagnined into ‘Dazed and Confused’ and ‘That 70’s Show’. And Stoner Rock.
Cool Cousins who took the time to treat you nicely, like family, and share with you. Whose natural excitement and nature would have them talk to you like an adult though you were far from one? And you appreciated it.
Cool cousins who drop the needle on side one and introduce you to your first real taste of classical music ‘Firebird Suite’ as it evolves / dissolves into ‘Siberian Khatru,’ a multilayered bit of beauty that leads into what first really nailed me about Yes. It wasn’t the musicians expertise and resume. It wasn’t the lyrics which (and I know every one) but are at best vague.
It was…and is…that incredible ability to create melodies via counter point vocals. The harmonies, the arrangements, still confound me. And thrill me, drive me.And make me try harder.
This moment:
Even Siberia goes through the motions
Hold out and hold up
Hold down the window
(Outbound, river)
Hold out the mornin’ that comes into view
(Blue tail, tail fly)
River runnin’ right on over my head
Vocals completely counter to each other start a conversation, a word art piece. Though the words themselves becomes sounds, notes. Playing between counter points and true strong harmony, sometimes within a single line. As I have grown old, I recognize others used these games methods, first that comes to mind is Simon and Garfunkel. I don’t believe anyone arranged their vocal harmonies as carefully as Yes did, and it’s something that I think went over looked in the list of reasons why Yes was genuinely an important band.
And this style, these vocals ….. This whole Universe…… started with Chris. Find some old bit of YesStory or YesShows on YouTube and watch that motherfucker work.
And the carefree friends of Cool Cousins come to bad ends. And Cool Cousins did too.
And Yes takes on a greater personal significance. It’s no longer a band on a label, during a time you were barely alive for. It becomes the stuff of personal folklore. There’s lessons within each side, memories trapped within each song,
So I mourn this day. I don’t mourn Chris Squire, though he was a true hero of mine.
It is a too rare treat to discover something unknown that completely confounds and compels you. Not something that you understand, not something that is reminiscent of some greater Universal work that you have loved all your known life. Not a genre or movement or draw on your hipster gland (‘this was made for US. THEY don’t get it’).
Something that steps into your head, pops the top and rearranges the contents until it fits. And starts subtly changing the definitions, the limits, of an art form. Personally, if not globally.
Something beamed in from some alternate dimension that was watered and fed on the culture your part of. But the zipper shows up the rubber monsters back. That’s not a regular monster. Not the monsters we’ve come to expect.
And where others get these particular kicks in deeper, darker LSD infused fugues, I opt for a more simplistic mind blowing. Make mine a Jonathan.
I never saw ‘There’s Something About Mary’. I never invested time in discovering The Modern Lovers. So I was completely unprepared.
With my first listen to Jonathan Richman, via a single dollar find at a flea, I was….uncomfortable. It’s hard to describe why. It’s almost felt like I shouldn’t be listening to this as a heterosexual male. It was effeminate. It was light and spare and the singing sounded like a joke. And the songs were simple and dumb.
Problem is I couldn’t stop listening. Morning, noon and night, that record became my constant companion. I wasn’t aware how much I was enjoying it; it was more akin to liturgical study. There’ was a great mystery within these songs. A personal X File.
I understood why I liked it. He is a walking history of Pop music as art form. Whether accurately describing, influence and actual sound of the ‘Fender Stratocaster’, or liberally borrowing everything in the American Rock and Roll canon for ‘Parties in The USA’, I recognized him as someone whose simplicity belied a truth, maybe a nostalgic truth, but still a truth.
And the arrangements he chose to work in were pure JpK bait. Spare, fat electric or thin electric, snare drum, maybe a bass. Some grand doo wop harmonies. I like my listening music to have lots of space for interpretation; let me make the melodies in my head, whether lyrical or musical. That way it’s a shared sport.
It is a universal truth and not one I’m the first to mention: the awesomeness of a rock and roll song is directly related to the number of instruments on it. Too many instruments, you are left to ride along. Too few instruments is like a Chinese fire drill. Everyone drives. Interactive and anonymous kicks. Good for everyone.
But….it took me a while to get here. Cause at first listen to Jonathan Richman, I could only think of Fred Schneider. In time, I came to love and admire the B-52’s, but that was not my first reaction. No. My first reaction to hearing the B-52’s was to take the tape out of the player (not my tape, nor my car) and whip it out the speeding cars’ window. But I was a kid. One expects to have such knee jerk reactions to alternative lifestyles at that age. Kids are dumb.
Which made my reaction to Jonathan Richman more….concerning. Cause I have evolved far beyond teens (I tell myself) and an adult isn’t allowed to have such juvenile reactions to things different. Not if they are NOT an asshole.
If you still believe all the things you did at 14 in the decade of 40’s, you may be an asshole. Ask someone you know. They will likely be honest, asshole.
And as usually happens, my immediate, visceral reaction revealed far more about me than the work of Jonathan Richman. Cause Jonathan is a man who loves woman. I would say he is right there with Paul Rodgers in terms of He Man chick slaying. Except in place of the scads of ex Zep groupies Paul dropped his bell bottoms for, I imagine that Jonathan had one woman he wrapped his twisting libido around.
Lets take Bad Company’s ‘Feel Like Making Love’. Demanding. In the vocal, you don’t get the sense that Paul doesn’t mean ‘making love’. I picture poses and literal fireworks. He sounds demanding. The girl may want to fake it and not upset the Tarzan of Love.
Now compare that too ‘Closer’ by Richman. A song about sharing a marital bed. With Jonathan proclaiming ‘closer…closer…’. He’s not discussing a close feeling or close deep talk. He wants in. He describes the dynamic with much grinding. Perhaps some frustration on his wife’s part cause the dude never stops needing to be ‘closer’. It’s erotic and truly identifiable for any guy whose ever been married.
Compare ‘Can’t Get Enough’ from Bad Co to ‘Every Day Clothes’. Now despite Paul’s insistent ‘I take what I want. And baby, I want you.’ I’m not convinced there’s much in it for said groupie aside from a night of telling Paul ‘It’s OK. it happens to lots of Cock Rock Stars.’ It’s not that it’s unbelievable. Its just a really authentic cartoon from a hack writer.
Jonathan digs his girl in her sweats and those unimaginable over sized sweatshirts. He’s likes that jussst fine. Jonathan is a realist. He loves his woman. He doesn’t need sheer fabric to remember whats beneath those figure flattening threads. It’s on his mind con-stant-ly. Closer. Below the clothes. Closer. Between the sheets, the clothes removed. Closer.
Take ‘Rock and Roll Fantasy’ and match to ‘Monologue About Bermuda’ for a real taste of fame and life on the road. Maybe it’s cause the concepts, the ideas that Bad Company existed in became so outdated so quickly that they couldn’t see….or just didn’t care….how cute they would be some day. Limousines and record companies covering the bar bills is so quaint it might as well have an ‘Olde’ before it. And sell Maple candy.
Where in the talk piece that is ‘Monologue About Bermuda’, you get the real sense of life in a traveling band: shifting sands, new influences, frustration, boredom, anxiety. A sense you are constantly repeating yourself. Plus it’s much funnier.
But…. boys love Bad Company. Everybody loves Bad Company. They are the waffle of Rock. Who doesn’t like waffles?
Richman is more of a crepe. Even I don’t like crepes.
Chords. Built on notes. I don’t understand how to play the chords yet so I work my notes. It becomes muscle memory. I hear the notes meet and feel them blend, foundations.
And yet my fingers play dumb, stoned, surfer, Picillo-ied. It falls apart. The swear that follows blows ash off the keyboard and echos with plate reverb.
So it’s notes and repetition. It’s cramped, non ergonomic positions and focus. And constant Rewind – Record. Repeat.
A mountain starts with a step. A war starts with a shot. A song starts with a note, and notes get piled on: harmonic, dissonant, octave. And chords come and you have flight.
Take time from the all consuming ALL of life and get here, in front of the keys. Learn. Take effort from the act of living well or surviving adequately and work on your timing. A half beat can be your doom or breakthrough. You can’t know until you know.
It’s sunny and 75 degrees. But I cover the window to keep the constant Park Ave traffic sounds manageable. It could be midnight or 3 in the afternoon.
Learn. 1.2.3.4. Notes make chords. Chords are progress. Joy.
There is a difference though. Tween life and learning piano. You can take lessons and training for one. The other. … not.
So I work the notes. Chords, broken Baroque by accident. Maybe. Maybe fate.
It is NOT a dog eat dog world. If it was, there would be many more half eaten dogs laying about. It IS a dog eat dog food world. But as axioms go, it’s a bit thin.
No, the world itself is a dog. Domesticated, generally, but still a wild creature. Unpredictable. It will greet you with slippers almost everyday. But will occasionally bite you. Hard.
No, if you want a lesson within the dog dynamic, let’s call it for what it is: you can’t find a better teacher than the tick.
This doggy world has two types of travelers: the fleas and the ticks. The fleas are not particular in their needs. They have abilities to leap into different worlds (like perhaps your needs would be best served by taking up residence on an Irish Setter?). They have no commitment to this dog in particular. They are shallow and light as air. Bright light would shine right through them.
You know fleas. They generally come up in cautionary tales. Someone who had such potential but they lacked patience. So they bounce. And they will forever bounce until their short life span ticks down. And in those last seconds they wish desperately to come back in some next life as a butterfly or a Datsun.
They lack the courage of their convictions. They bite and run. They irritate and….well, flee. And ultimately the endless fleas become a memorial roll who you barely bothered attaching names too.
Be the tick. Focused. Visceral. Get your hooks in and feed. Become part of your doggy world; let its blood flow into you, become one with it. Own it, at last. Own it. Have no fears of the cigarette end nor tweezer. When they come for you, dig in. And if you can’t stay, can’t outlast, persevere, leave something deep down to remind them of you.
Infect this world. Ride it out. Don’t let yourself be thrown away.
Even when considering the wide world of Singer-Songwriters….and for the sake of clarity let’s focus on the ones that come with a possibly authentic ‘folksy’ charm (Will Oldham is not Will Rogers), John Prine is unusual.
It’s not that he can’t out ‘folksy’ most of these folksters, but this, in like everything he does, is seemingly effortless.
This came to me with a listening to ‘Live and On Stage’ where me charmingly mumbled his way through a story about Billy Bob Thornton in the introduction to the brilliant tribute to modern, real and ugly love ‘In Spite Of Ourselves’.
Thornton suggested to John he should write a song to close out the credits, something in line with the characters and John’s typecast ‘brother in law with low self esteem’ acting gigs. And in this song, with its references to panty sniffing and the erotic appeal of prison movies, he weaves a real and perfect argument that love is not a cosmic notion, that we don’t all feel and share love the same way.
And that is why John Prine is different. He understands the idea that there is no universal sense of happiness. We must hardscrabble and work too long days at pointless jobs. And pan for gold for our joy. He doesn’t sell a bill of goods that your bliss is anything but fleeting. But fleeting bliss beats no bliss.
The genre Americana was invented to describe John Prine. Not simply due to his knowledge of trad folk and blues forms, and a lyrical sense that can get timeless when focused on the social or political. Or when combining the two. As much as I love ‘Sam Stone’ from the first record, a perfect protest to post war malaise, its ‘Donald and Lydia’ that sticks with me.
A love story…maybe….but a love story for monsters. I don’t mean the fun mutated type, I mean people you wouldn’t elect to spend even a single second considering if not for the masterful pen and POV of Prine. And clearly he’s got some psychic in him, cause this is the Internet’s first real love song, though the Internet was decades away. It’s about longing and loneliness and desire to be desired by something, someone, somewhere.
Watching John’s career trajectory through his 70’s work is a lesson in Record Company History. Within his small simple songs, the infection of excess wormed in and horn sections and too many strings, too much studio. But his direction never wavered. He took this ‘being in the right place at the wrong time’ vibe and folded it right into the songs and kept writing them. In a sense, raising a mirror to the industry that they wouldn’t even recognize in 20 years time.
And now, an elder statesman, but not one with the mass appeal of a Willie Nelson, who everyone loves and generally gets. John operates in the shadow of the Music Industry buildings, with a faithful and true connection to his many fans that will have him only grow into deeper colors as he goes on and keeps writing.
In a perfect world, Prine would be Springsteen. But in a perfect world, we would have no need for the surgeon steady perception’s of John Prine.
OK, Here I am. But I’m not really here. I hear a mystery ‘click clack’ of keyboards, so I know I exist somewhere. But I’m not here.
This is my state lately. I’m a ghost in this world. I keep my obligations. I show up for appointed work schedules. This week I’ve even performed before a lovely crowd of New Haven eccentrics and held my eccentric own. All of those folks saw me live in technicolor.
But I wasn’t really there. I’m always elsewhere these days. Even as I type this, my real desire is to go find a cheap, build able sound baffle.
I’m making a record. It will be out come spring…
OK, not spring…a hot summer release….
OK, maybe not.
Fall. Definitely fall.
Writing songs, capturing moments of angst or joy, in a slow hymnal or quick yip jump fashion is my calling. And good fortune gave me a voice to sell them with and a rudimentary understanding of guitar that allows the songs to get writ.
What I wasn’t provided with was the technical way of thinking that engineers use to wring out the full potential of simple songs into hushed or clattery moments of beauty. A sense of appropriate miking techniques. A subsonic sense of hearing squeaks and bumps as they happen so they don’t haunt come the mastering. I’ve decided at this point to not only learn all this stuff, but create what I believe will be a proper representation of myself in sound, lyric and style. And one I will die defending.
If its listenable. At all.
So as you see me, shake my hand, write me and get written back, know that beneath every word is a distraction. As I provide valuable customer service at my job, I’m really trying to remember the myths associated with ‘Pet Sounds’ and doing the math to see if there is anything in them I can use.
As I drive to said job, I now travel with a coffin sized bag of Cd’s basically encompassing the history of 20th century recorded music trying to note the subtleties / similarities tween Howling Wolf and The Hold Steady.
If you see me shopping and stop me, I will appear completely corporal and present, but I’m really trying to figure out what the fuck lo-fi really means? Is it a reduction of instruments used…or using the standard set up and recording it poorly? Cause one is called ‘folk’ and the other is called ‘garbage’.
Which raises the important question: what is a quality recording?
I grew up listening to the classic 70’s records, as I was force fed classic rock via the radio. This was, in my opinion, the beginning of the Big Record Fetish. Huge monster drums and rumbly bass, cutting guitar and multitudes, many, choirs of virtual angels mixed in with church bells and congas and Moogs by the mouthful.
And this casts my memory back to the days when something called ‘Behind The Music’ was on (kids, ask yer parents) and how castles and haunted mansions, scores of weirdo hanger on’s grabbed a shaker and contributed, and how the record company paid for it all.
Till the bottom fell out mainly based on some crazy culture’s feeling that music should be free. And they freed it.
Not my point….my point is what is a good recording? The BIG records….the Zeppelin’s and Electric Ladyland’s…..the wispy drug fueled progressive records…. are not what I listen too now. And I haven’t for a long while.
What I listen to is best described as stark and minimalist. My Holy Grail, The Mountain Goats. My conscience, Vic Chesnutt. Old Leonard Cohen records. Muddy Waters on Chess. Sparklehorse
What matters to me is purity, subtlety, and this is where I’m drawn. I have no issues with the quality of the recording, the click clank of tape recorders, the shouted out ‘1,2,3,4’, the misplayed chord on a single tracked guitar. It thrills me, to fall in so deep to music, and it doesn’t matter if anyone else understands it.
So then….why do I feel the need to make a BIG record which is clearly beyond my ability and interest?
Whose approval am I subconsciously seeking? Griel Marcus? Yours?
Music is practically free. But now, so is the musician. We need not fit the suit that will make us a Superstar (Johnny Bravo style). Odds were always long and have now gone astronomical. We are free to be what we wanna be, Marlo.
I sound convincing, don’t I? Yeah.
Meanwhile …. there is beauty in creating. Even alone, confused at what to do with my Send’s and BUS’s. Hopelessly lost in my effects. I add a guide vocal for cello recording Sunday (shout out to Julie Kay! Hi Julie, see you tomorrow!) and get lost in a moment, the guitar in my headphones, I sing a sad song and connect with the lyrics I barely remember writing. It all came back to me in a flash and I remembered every injury, every wound that made this record important to me.
Make the record you want to make. Don’t over complicate it. Keep it pure and simple.
And send half your tracks to a legitimate scientist to record.
And if you see me this summer (which you likely won’t. I’m making a record), forgive my distraction, my 1000 yard stare. Pretend I’m there.
It was me and you (then)
And The Vineyard
Week before Valentine’s Day
I waited for this since late November…though honestly, much longer than that. You were worth waiting for (then).
On the ferry from Falmouth, I held you against the icy winds
You kept me from the rocking waves.
When we were close to each other there was always heat, though seldom warmth.
When we hit the Island, we drove to all four points, giddy, giggling
We hit Tisbury, stopped by the beach….you wrapped your scarf around my eyes
When it was revealed, the blue, blue water crashed into my soul.
I loved you at that moment…though honestly, much longer than that.
And back to the room.
Come dark, we went out for supplies
And I drove to the water….moon illuminated the rolling waves, rocks, the horizon that showed the sensual curve of the earth
And I asked you to dance with me in the sand. You laughed.
But I meant it.
And we did, radio up loud, headlights shining on us, we spun and laughed and kissed….
We said things we could never live up to (well, one of us did)
We were in love (then)
2.
My screen saver watches over me.
While I rest. While I play.
My screensaver watches over me.
A slideshow, filled with the digital pictures from this trailing year, all post Collinsville.
Pictures I receive, of anything, ultimately pop up in random order and strange juxtapositions align: a picture of four drunk girls in Mexican hats doing the can-can next to a smoky picture of myself, haggard looking, lighting a cigarette with the Meriden sky behind….hot red writers and the cool blue water of the New England Coast….assorted nude pix of a hot blonde mixed with measured, precise pictures of a dilapidated tower in East Hampton…pix of Mary Lou Lord melt into my dog, Wyatt, who met a young couple and moved to the country (the dog American Dream)…
But even random things have themes, at least in my definition of random.
It’s ivory and deep blue (waters and skies), green soft cotton lingerie, sand and muted reds. It’s all her; It’s always her. Damn it. Damn it.
Knowing her for a bit, I was shocked when she told me she had a tattoo. Actually, she didn’t tell me, it was one of those online surveys that asked a million small questions to divine the larger answers…and the question was: ‘Do You Have A Tattoo?’
‘Can I see it?!?’
‘Eventually….’ And the way she said it, I believed her.
And when I did, when I slid her jeans down for the first time, her hip wore a flower, faded, of many colors, each petal a mood in her, each petal a soft place to fall or jagged rock to throw myself on. I followed her jeans down to the floor and kissed it, stared at it, tasted it, ran my fingers across…
That was the first time I saw it, but not the last. I saw it in many ways, many angles, I rested my head there some nights.
And once, in the bed with an ivory cover and steel frame, with the soft noon light falling in the skylight, I took a picture….
Blue petals, red petals (all faded)…impossible to tell what it is, without the knowledge of it.
Impossible to forget.
My Screensaver Is My God. But it’s a cruel God sometimes.
3.
I look outside today, this 28th of May, the lush greens, the blues, the air sensual to the taste, and remember 9 years ago to the day.
Nine Years.
I bought you the perfect present (at a time I could scarcely afford food, but priorities…); I plucked it from my soul: Van Morrison ‘Astral Weeks’. I sent a note flirting with the idea of whether this was a romantic gift (this was not a romance, you reminded me, you always reminded me….but the way you smiled as you said it, it was a lovely contradiction. And one that came close to breaking me).
But it was a romantic gift, even without the oversized valentine style heart attached…it was the distillation of my heart and soul in that record….it was more personal than anything else I could give.
And I gave it to you willingly, happily…because I wanted you to know me. I wanted you to know when my heart beat and skipped, when my body creaked and moaned. Where my soul took its summer residency. I wrapped it with paper and a bow (something I never do).
And met you at the picnic tables, a brief 10 minutes before the show began. It was a beautiful Yankee spring day, before the humidity started to dot our clothes, before the sun turned much green to brown. The tables were in the shade, and I got there first, looked at the scene, and posed my self appropriately.
I didn’t think you would come, which says more about me than you.
But you did, work clothes on, and beaming. You always were a dark little character. When I made you smile, I felt like I was moving mountains, drinking oceans.
And you opened it, confused, but smiled just the same. And looked me deep into my eyes…and we kissed for the first time: sweet and yielding, hot…I felt every emotion in me flame up at your touch. I felt the day collaborating with my heart, painting perfection in only the way love and good New England weather could do.
I wrapped my arms around you; I felt your body advance into mine, hungry…
That was before that terrible summer. That was before we brought in November together. That was before the weekend in Tisbury.
And now, nine years later….a note sent: ‘Happy Birthday ______, I hope it turned out like you wanted’
I don’t expect a reply. Which says more about you than me.
Why not just write it and bury it in the ground? (Cause the geocache’ers will find it and sign there own name and let the coordinates slip).
Is it at least in some way relevant to this Holiday based on memorializing our fallen heroes? (No. Not even a little. I’ll save that for people who just MIGHT get read on Memorial Day)
Why aren’t you outside? (causes your Mama’s not. So there.)
Since I am clearly writing for an audience of one, I’m gonna throw a shout out. Hey JpK! (Hey! High Five! )
No. This ones for me. And it’s about what to me equates to the best band Rock and Roll ever produced. And I’m clearly not seeking a consensus on this.
Take a truly masterful and epic tick tock madmeister of timing, who creates big weird rhythmic Universes within simple and short A-B-AA-B-AA-B song styling, drummer to the Sultans, Pete Thomas)…
Add the quirky twin to this soulful cyborg, a bass player capable of holding down, driving on, creating weird hooky high lines (his work on ‘This Years Girl’ still operates as ‘perfect bass’ to me), a perfect touch for a kiss or a stomp, the 4 string king of suburban soul, Bruce Thomas….
Factor in musical prodigy quality music theory and farfisa based dramatics, part Leonard Bernstein, part the Che Guevara of melody, a real Mad Doctor feel and just killer imagination for turning ordinary basic songs into deeply felt cinema scene and themes, the best name in Rock and Roll, Steve Nieve…
And lead by the scurrilous, scabrous bespectacled bard of longing and liking, skilled with abilities to weave syllables into fabric that can coat poor misunderstood boys and girls, to bright for their own goods. The slash and absolute-itude of rhythm guitars, the contorting emotional cannibal originally known as Declan but upgraded, evolved, promoted into royalty, Elvis Costello.
Ladies and Gentlemen (meaning Jason), I introduce to you your favorite music if your not a dickweed, Elvis Costello and The Attractions.
I don’t expect nor care if you agree. Based on all the bootlegs a boy can buy, this was an incredible and unmatched set of lads live. On fire isn’t enough. We need discuss the atomic to get even in the ball field.
Live they combined punk fury fueled by the good ole’ days of cocaine, the beauty of listening to the appropriate amount of music from all over the planet, so the country is country, the soul is soul, the snozzleberries taste like snozzleberries. Wicked twists and turns of tight practiced over toured enthusiastic burning out and upwards.
Let’s talk Long Player records. From ‘No Action’ to ‘I Want to Vanish’ that is decades of brilliant adult themed pop music. And each record has a different feel, a different sound, but is corralled by Elvis’s spit phrasing and Steve’s kooky carnival or sub classical leanings. When you consider that only 2 records separate ‘This Years Model’ with it’s pissed off youth fused punk rock pop to ‘Imperial Bedroom’, which is a different animal, big British, tribute laden by whatever drove the Little Hitler. But clearly the same species.
And consider ‘Brutal Youth’ and ‘When I Was Cruel’ and recognize they not only held there own against the clock, but improved, fleshed out colour with visible brush strokes. While most bands that late into career would be hailed for still being relevant, The Attractions bent the bar into twisted shapes just to make it more interesting to hop over.
And I include ‘Goodbye Cruel World’, considered one of their worst records. But still better than most other bands best. I speak of ‘Inch By Inch’ which is as perfect a tribute to online stalking as any, though written far before the Internet. ‘Worthless Thing’ with it’s accurate view of Rock and Roll myth making. ‘The Comedians’ just for that chorus (and yes, a better version was done by Roy Orbison).
And the songs. Man, the songs.
‘I Want You’…epic and terrifying and beautiful.
‘Less Than Zero’… empty apathy deeply felt, perfectly rendered. OK, his perception of America was a little bit comic book, just like Bowie. But …why not? Elvis Costello was a provocateur. A major mensch.
‘Lipstick Vogue’….Wow.
‘Beyond Belief’… Jumps into the track from the first beat and spins the lyrics, the sheer volumes of syllables and imagery attached and a vibe that is unmistakeably Elvis.
‘It’s Time’….a genius F.U. song…devastating, if the type of relationship ending at all falls in line…
‘Uncomplicated’….plodding, Goon Squad (oh yeah, and ‘Goon Squad’!!!) stomps in the room and lays you to waste, belittles your belief’s, your culture, your very DNA. In short, don’t break up with genius songwriters.
‘Night Rally’…specifically the existing footage from some long gone British pop show….my original VHS copy had weird distorted lines that ran down the left side…and based on the energy, the darkness, the fire that spilled out of every speaker and flickering tube, I miss that distorted stripe. It made this vision of a true warning of impending cataclysm and Nationalism seem like it was viewed in a loop in Anne Franks attic.
Anyway. As you go about your BBQ’s and Parades, as you soak in that sun and soak down them suds (I guess), Remember Elvis And The Attractions. Or don’t.
Good Day! My name is Jenn or Heather or Mickey or Ray. I am young or old or authentic or have secret bad intentions. Odds are good things will end badly for me, and certainly for my friends.
My single skill relevant for recording in writing is my ability to hold a camera steady while Im being horrifically murdered. Or lightly tortured. Or chased. I am the found footage camera man.
And I run this joint now.
Though my hand is shaky and my footage ultimately to dark, I am the ultimate in embedded. I know what you want. So when this film ends and I meet my grisly fate, Ill spit a lil blood into the lens so you really feel it.
I came this way. I started in horror (OK, factually I started in PBS Holocaust Films and Vietnam on my TV) at the right time. We’re a culture almost beyond scaring. We have access to 50 terrifying things before breakfast everyday. So old standards such as Poe just got a bit creaky, right? Whats a genre to do?
Go POV. Like porn, but less disturbing.
And ever since, I have been running from witches and zombie, aliens and serial killers, evil dolls, rabid dogs and one memorable time a shark. Which wasn’t pleasant but the sun felt good.
And when ultimately asked how I can keep feeling while all my friends are:
1) Infected
2) chainsawed
3) possessed
4) generally murdered
… my reasons are simple:
1) It makes this horrific reality seem like a movie so I need not feel it.
2) I must capture this FOR SCIENCE!
It’s is a heavy yoke I carry. When it all goes bad in a supernatural and general unpleasant sense, push the red button. Catch it all. Let it rest in the Everytown USA Police Department filing cabinet till the Resurrection. My final resting place.
But never the monster, who is a cash cow. Like we’ve learned from every True Hollywood Story, fame has teeth. Its a dog-eat-monster-eat cameraman world out there.
I started in horror. But I wont stay there. My found footage creations have crossed platforms, crossed over, infected all film genres now. Except westerns cause…well, duh.
Know me. I am you. OK, not you, your not fictional. I am the visual every man. I am dying for you.
There is something particularly intimate in songs b an artist and their industry. People who create music are generally passionate about it, and the evidence of this passion is bearing constant small and large rejections, taking mega doses of Optimism X and smiling as everybody dances around you to terrible music.
I would say its almost romantic the relation tween musician and Industry, but it’s closer to God like worship and Devil fueled fears. It’s like being in love with the most popular, coldest, cruelest bastard that ever sprouted legs and walked. You are always left wanting, every day you are Last Years Model.
And we’re all dating the same chick. And one day you are in her favor. And the next day she denies your name.
So to find people kicking against the pricks in song is tradition, even if ‘song’ is the particular prick.
And of course, I love this type of song deeply. Even if you believe a singer comes off as less authentic while singing about love, when singing a bitter tribute to a record label who screwed them.
This is a big subject, worthy of a book…..but I got work in a few, so a random well loved sampling:
Pavement ‘Cut Your Hair’ – a timely guide to getting played on 120 Minutes in the early 90’s. But as relevant today as ever. And if this entire blog can be summed up in to two syllables, it is Malkmus’s sneering of the word ‘career’. He makes it sound like a joke. Which…it is, innit?
Van Morrison ‘Showbusiness’ – As far as I know, not released on anything except ‘The Philosophers Stone’ compilation, but a long, nasty, genius meditation of The Music Business cut with the perfect tone of Irish cynicism.
The Kinks ‘Rock and Roll Fantasy’ – From the Grand Statesman Hisself. This song gives me pause every time I hear it. Not simply cause its beautiful. And full of hope. But the core belief (so core its the actual title) that to dream this dream is to predict this will end poorly. Even if your the fucking Kinks.
Mott The Hoople ‘The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople’ – Mott The Hoople was on the skids when Bowie offered them ‘All The Young Dudes’. And that changed their fate considerably. After touring incessant, then a big Pop hit and endless touring, dressed like 20 year olds, being 40 year olds, feeling 100 years old. In this, lyrically the pulling apart (and simultaneously recreating) The Mott legend member by member, the real point is Ian’s voice, which sounds as weary as weary gets. It doesn’t make having a big hit record sound like that much fun.
The Replacements ‘Left Of The Dial’ – A fine slice of 1985 birth of Alternative history, but slung with enough real rock and roll and subtle lyrical imagery (Paul speaks like a Dead End Kid and it comes off like a modern James Joyce) and unhinged enthusiasm that clearly proclaims ‘We Mean It. Maaaaaaaaaaan.’
Bob Dylan ‘Positively Fourth Street’ – Which gets special notice due to the opportunity that Dylan uses the Music Industry to attack his fans. On the AM radio, even. After Dylan went electric and created an entire new form of this Rock and Roll, his folky fans turned on him. And being Dylan, it wouldn’t do to let that stand. Its viscous and totally on point.
I missed many here. I count on you, dear reader, to write my wrongs and share good F.U. songs to The Music Business.
For today, let us not speak of corporate funded creativity, media monopolies or manipulation of times, of numbers, of mass perceptions that television trades in. Let’s not consider the true Devil’s bargain that televised singing competitions bind there winner’s with (for reference, google Phillip Phillips).
Let us celebrate. The Last American Idol is from Connecticut. Whether you cheer the ‘Last’ fact or the ‘Connecticut’ fact, this morning offers something for all of us.
For every musician I’ve heard slag American Idol, this must be pointed out: Television is not the music industry, though from the wide coverage on commercial radio and spreads in the now sad and pointless ‘Rolling Stone’ could confuse. Theses spaces have been capitalized with a capital ‘F.U.’, marginalized into amorphous blobs of meaninglessness.
Let them go. It’s time.
American Idol made great television. It was compelling. More so when Simon was still on, but whatever. Certain television shows have gained success by taking dumb ideas and doing them exceedingly well. Why should the muse starve? Why does good art necessarily equate to bad credit?
You need recognize the difference in form. Television is a nod and a joke and a hand in your wallet. Especially if your watching with your kids, who are not canny enough to know they’re being played. Television has created great works of art, but more often than not, its a long vamp to the commercial breaks. And it’s supposed to be. Television is unbearable politics and seriously unfunny humor and the Super Bowl.
But imagine awaking by the CT Shore today and being a kid. Its like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. There’s no difference. It’s ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ writ into an internet infused, phone voting tribute. Nick Fradiani is Elvis. Today. And thats grand. Even Elvis wasn’t Elvis everyday.
Aside from Nick’s, life goes on unchanged. We don’t get the day off, which is the real horror. Mainly cause it’s so nice out today.
And lets keep our outrage focused where it could do well or at least remain topical. Connecticut. I watched a report on local news featuring bar owners whining that they live in fear of ASCAP fines that could accumulate from the over covered cover band songs. Seriously, whining, near tears.
Awwwwww….. (no wait…that wasn’t convincing….) AAAAAAAWWWWWWW….. (yeah).
And wish Nick well. He is a songwriter. He’s played the bars. He is one of our own. Its not impossible to work your way out of a corporate Rubicks cube on your own terms. Simply review the career of the True Rebel Queen of Idol, Kelly Clarkson.
So…for this allusion, lets start here: Stupidity is an apple. And its the most delicious, tart and tasty apple in the barrel.
You know who loves tasty treats? Kids. So they eat a lot of them. But at what age is a tasty treat NOT a tasty treat?
Never. It’s in the words. It is the treat that is tasty.
The older we get, the wiser we be, and yet we are as capable of being dumb at 40 as we are at being 4. Cause who doesn’t love an apple?
This is not the type of Stupidity that will effect your SAT scores. Its the delicious cinnamon and sugar blend of bad decision making.
We expect bad decisions to come from those who lack experience. It’s part of the path of wisdom. It began with ‘STOVE…HOT!’ and continues into ‘who needs a physician when I have WebMD?’ (the answer: You. Dim ole’ you.)’
But as youth is wasted on the young, so are mistakes. I learned more about the Universe since I turned 40 than I knew in all the years cumulative. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying to figure out life, I just dint have the proper protection at that point. But somewhere in that period I crossed into some odd unknowable ‘nothing matters but what I want’. And then began my campaign to take on life as a Wise Man.
Though the wisdom was conceptual cause the things I did was dumb. Though great fun. But dumb. Stove. Hot.
The dumb things I do may ensure a shorter life, but make life worth waking up for. If your shallow, brag about it. If your deep, brag about that too. Forget that your too old to wear that skirt and Go! Though maybe reconsider the biker shorts.
40 is the new 16. Dint you hear? Some idiot told me that.
Parked in the backyard, the unkempt landscape claimed the Delta 88 as its own thing, throwing tendrils of yellow and white flowers over the mammoth windshield, obscuring the view inside and out.
That was the summer where the wheels seemed to be coming off the cart in my group of friends: it was all serious girlfriends or pre-college prep or alcoholism…it was the summer I chose to step away from that ole’ gang o’mine.
An awful and humid summer, a lot of rain that year, endless steamy nights; I spent many of them alone in that derelict car. I was in that period that is such the symptom of being 19: Grand questions without answers. Was the world as small as it seemed? Were dreams worth staking your life on? (FYI, jury still out on that one…). I pondered this much those nights, and the Delta kept me hidden and safe from harm.
I was lost. Listening to Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ a lot, staring out the only visible bit of window. I watched the drivers’ side mirror like gazing out of a submarine: the street light hit the steaming road, a burnt orange color.
‘And I’m conquered in a car seat…Not a thing that I can do’
Van Morrison sending me personal messages through time, through technology. The weariness in his voice, the weight of his heavy, heavy heart, the uncomplicated, unglamorous pain he was relaying…I felt it too. I stopped, and rewound, and listened again.
A tragic tale of an adult male in love with a 14 year old girl. Beautifully rendered, hypnotic repeating lines, a pure and uncut dose of love and loss. No redemption in sight and none expected. And it wasn’t the words: Its the voice. The music hangs back and lets Van relate this sorrow, with an almost embarrassing intensity. Like being part of a conversation you never, ever want to have.
And I kept rewinding it, and listening again and again. It was as close to prayer as I ever had.
If there is a Heaven for a heathen such as me, it is comprised of long dusty gravel pathways lined with tables of junk. And bargains. But mainly junk.
So some Sunday morning when others are reaching across the veil to commune with the spirits and their kin, you will find me crouched over a box of CD’s seeking a type of absolution via smart shopping and a canny memory for sounds Ive heard before, but a prices I wouldn’t pay. I will be among the toy pianos and old cult movie magazines, choosing only 5 from the 8 remaining. And a plan to be back for the errant three. You will find me half dressed, half awake shambling with a cup in my hand that ain’t helping.
And I will see many of you there. because whatever you need is at the flea market. The path to righteousness starts at the snack bar.
I am not unrealistic; I don’t need this junk. The music I find can be sent digital, the cult movies have innumerable sites dedicated and toy pianos are so 2010. It is not the stuff I acquire, its the zen state of a central purpose, the simple hand work of panning for gold though endless sand.
And maybe like all things best served on Sunday mornings, it starts with a lack of sleep, an excessive Saturday and $20 bucks in your pocket. These are the tools, whether you are dropping cash into a gaudy silver plate amongst hymn or talking down a man who looks like every decision starts with ‘gimme a double’ from 2 for $5 to 5 for $10.
It’s bargaining. And an argument can be made your eternal soul isn’t worth an Eagles box set. And that’s not worth a lot.
But I will leave it to you to keep counsel re: your higher self… Im too busy trying to figure out why I should get a new, battered Casio keyboard (cause it’s $8 bucks and COULD work) or shouldn’t (cause the other 4 I bought did not).
And flea markets are erotic affairs. If viewed though enough distraction and dust. Where else do you go and common with people who clearly put on the first thing they pulled from their bedroom floor? It’s a public intimacy, it’s TMI for those seeking MI, in general.
It’s a perfect ‘Morning after’ activity. Don’t think. Too early to feel. Just…react. Just laugh. Together.
We are bargain shoppers, as a species. Affected by the axiom that ‘one mans trash is another man’s treasure’. A universal truth.
And it’s not simply ‘he who has the most toys wins’. It’s’ he who has paid penny on the pound for his toys wins bigger’.
Is paranoia a useful and effective tool for judging one’s self worth? Because who would bother creating deep cover conspiracies for just some nobody, some schlub?
You need be important to be spied upon. No?
Who’s spying on your coworkers? No one, that’s who. Who’s spying on your neighbors? Well, if you’re not, no one else is, cause they’re nobodies.
Do you know someone who is not paranoid? You know why? Cause they are a loser. Lo-Ser. They clearly operate with a peace of mind that grand governmental, legal, ethical or supernatural don’t even believe is worth the effort of spooking.
You need to have something going on to be conspired against.
The more access we have to each other, the more difficult it gets to reach people. I’m in a position where I need to ask for email addresses to complete certain types of business. And I have noticed that asking certain people (not all….not dull, dishwater, regular happy people) get a strange look when asked this question, like as opposed to a request for an address, I asked in a version of Swahili for their hand in marriage and breeding. They get flustered and look uncomfortable, while I stand there cool in demeanor, trying to not act like I’m going to take their email and send it directly to the Taliban or worse yet, Google. (just kidding Google, I love you.)
Which, of course, I will do cause I’m part of it. I’m a cog in the Grand Conspiracy. And all I got was this stupid tee shirt. And $25.000 in Deutsche marks. You’re a patsy and I am Jack Ruby. I got Castro on speed dial, which is impressive when considering the phone quality in Cuba.
No, just kidding. Right?
Oh, and be sure to sign up for Facebook Messenger. That’s how we see into your bedroom. Oh, plus the pictures you posted of your bedroom. Everywhere.
But how can such arcane plots and the slow theft of freedoms operate in a glass room, in this web filled world with every sin caught on digital video and every document pdf’d, printed and posted? How do the conspirators even communicate in such a leaky unsafe world?
Cat pictures. Every one is tagged and tracked. Wired into the pixels, patterns emerge. If you’re in the know.
There is a thousand crab legged combatants circling, circling in the sand in the battle for your attention.
A Thousand (times a thousand, times a thousand)
Bands and boys and shows
Heroes and villains and bystanders with a story to sell
A Thousand creeping horrors, or hot pix, or ways to Salvation from the Hell of
A Thousand diets and relationships and birds tap, tap, tapping at you pane / pain
(Are you listening?)
New movies and gently worn classics, A Thousand matters that mattered before you were born
A Thousand holidays in the name of God and Country, both of which may be myth
A Thousand drunks a drinking and staring glassy eyed across the room, or country or time itself
A Thousand new technologies to keep us aware of all of the above and the below
(Are you listening?)
A Thousand (times a thousand, times a thousand) bells to answer and streams to shut down
And everyday, the battleground shrinks a little bit more as A Thousand (times a thousand, times a thousand) new sensations/ relations begin
I have overdosed on nostalgia (my own, others) and it has deposited me here, with this empty page and an odd aftertaste, like copper and chocolate. The copper could be blood. The chocolate is likely chocolate.
I have pored through and re dug the trenches of my hourglass memory, allowed the sand to flow back in and obliterate details, leaving me to restore. I have considered the erotic, the emotional, the historical…reconsidered the erotic (I like the erotic) and tried to walk around within these memories as I am now, keening my hearing to catch the songs playing that allowed the acts to happen, listening to the words of the songs that gave me reason or gave me pause before I made yet again another big, dumb decision.
I’m not sure that these remasterings of the memory make for a better end product or just act as historical lip-synching. I can discuss my first kiss. But what would my first kisser’s story be? I could talk about the effects of a national tragedy. But am I really sure I wont lapse into someone else’s story of heartbreak, survival, triumph? I can discuss great personal horrors with a laugh and a joke and I can create great (self indulgent) emotionally wracked tales about Van Morrison records. Which I probably stole from Lester Bangs.
The erotic is clear, though. I made it my business to remember every second of minute as they happened. I like the erotic.
I have used my past as a venue that my present plays out of. I’m not even sure it matters that these tales are true, or maybe an amalgam of my smoky memory and 80’s sports movies, where we all triumph in the shoes of the loser in the opening scene. Which, of course, could also be me.
I have looked for great meaning in small interactions and looked past tons of bullshit. I haven’t considered the worst of these moments…or maybe what I ACTUALLY am is a ‘constant state of considering the worst of these moments’.
The things from the past…the important things…I have kept.
Friends and lovers and a thousand practice tapes.
Old books with fresh inscriptions.
Art from first, then second, then third grade (and so on) from Miss C-Rae.
And this still doggedly determined heart that wont allow the past to be my best days. And this mad internal clock that runs backwards and makes me faster and thinner as the world grows fat.
The Devil is in the details. This ancient axiom (as old as the papyrus it was likely never even scrawled down on. Cause we know this. We all know this. Don’t bother writing it down, Flaubert. We came in with this innate knowledge. Jerk.)
It’s also a fine place to start today’s discussion on genres, and specifically in the family tree of Rock Music. Cause a lot of Rocks rocks, but some will never Roll.
Describing what Rock and Roll (the type, specific too, but not limited to, the greater Rock family) means to me specifically is like trying to describe movement with words. Like trying to describe desire beyond moans. It is amorphous.
In the playing of Rock and Roll, there are core places to start: guitars, bass, drum, a piano is always nice, and a rock and roll singer. Of course, these same tools make up most of the Rock family.
Add pedal steel? Americana. Add distortion? Metal or Stoner Rock. Make it suck completely? Jazz Rock.
So what make a Rock band Roll? Action. Action, Action, Action.
It needs to feel like it’s barely keeping itself attached to the rails. It needs to wail out a frustration that is relatable. This is why it started with teen culture. Teen culture, of any generation, develops shortcuts around the language. These short cuts take the largest matters of the heart and transforms them into spitting visceral slogans. Which bears repeating. And is repeated. Repeated.
Rock and Roll is eternally optimistic. When the greatest fear in your life is that Peggy Sue will go to the prom with some football player, honestly, your life is going OK. It’s about cars going faster and girls wearing less and dancing slower and dudes too cool to be caught. It doesn’t consider growing old and dying. It doesn’t consider what forever really means. There’s no divorce in Rock and Roll.
Rock and Roll is mischievous. Its single minded double entendre (though less sex laden than blues lyrically, but more suited for the rhythms of the act (especially when a teen) and small folk tales of sticking it to the man, your principal, the cops, the bartender, your own blessed parents.
Rock and Roll is the pure uncut stuff, not to be confused with Rockabilly (which I also love) due to the fact Rockabilly bands might as well be traditional folk bands….they are paying dudes to higher Gods, they worship at the no longer in existence Soda Shoppe.
Proving My Work:
The Alice Cooper Band was Rock and Roll. Alice Cooper solo was not.
The Blasters are Rockabilly and deliciously predictable. X is a Rock and Roll Band.
Eric Clapton never rocked or rolled.
The Rolling Stones were THE Rock and Roll Band. The Beatles are not.
Despite how weird this says to say, Led Zeppelin was Rock and Roll.
The Hold Steady are Rock and Roll. The Replacements? Hmmmm…. Yeah, The Replacements too.
Now….one mans opinion. Though I stand by the Jazz Rock comment.
To me, Rock and Roll is the ocean and every Rock genre is just a stream.
I considered whether if I should write this blog. Which is not the du jour track I usually take. I open a page with fury and tap tap tap tap. I start with a notion and when I’m good, I support it. Usually with a mix of humorous the self depreciation to keep it jake: I’m not self obsessed but I play it online.
The subject of this blog is alienation.
And it started last week with the passing of a man I did not know, but nevertheless was good to me personally. He played my records on the #1 radio station in the county I grew up in. This beyond any other bit of music promotion caused old friends to touch base and make my Mom happy. And made me feel accomplished.
With his passing I saw a number of beautiful natural tributes and personal recollections posted. These days are what Facebook is for. It was truly moving.
And I felt a loss. Because I knew his name and he may have known mine, both being players in The CT Music Scene. We had mutual friends, got played on the same radio shows etc.
The image that came to mind was Noah’s ark. We didn’t elect to be CT Musicians. It’s just where we are from and what we do. We get pushed two by two into this circumstance and bon voy – fucking- age.
You have a geographic advantage, surrounded by big college towns. A culture that appreciates the arts. The whole state is two hours across. Score.
But matched with strict Yankee tenants in the personalities. The scenes around the cities are fractured and there’s no support from the crowd. The social media replaces the tradtional press and the reach gets smaller.
What sounds personify the Connecticut Sound? What defines it? I ask this as an open question begging dialog from you, the reader. What typifies the New Haven scene, New London. Does Hartford have a sound?
I have lived here my whole life. I love this state and the people in it. I love the post puritan edge of coming from the birth place of American intellect. I make music with these aesthetics. And maybe like Hendrix hitting in London, maybe it takes an alien place to appreciate our ordinary.
A dream of a possible Santa Fe, where a burgeoning swell of JpKmania awaits a new sound born of bad winters and noir-y self imaging.
I want to connect here. Home. Is it ego to consider people listening to the songs driving down the very roads the stories played out on?
The Connecticut music scene is smart and motivated. Edgy. Surely hard working. But divided by friends lists on Facebook. And the effect of this is like changing from butterfly to pupa.
We can’t control media monopoly taking down the press opps. We can’t control the many entertainment options that compete with getting to a gig. The music that is programmed to be heard from on high.
When meeting my fellow CT Musicians, at gigs, events, Stop and Shop, I don’t know how to get across the appropriate greetings that express:
‘Hey. Why don’t you get all your friends and I’ll get all my my friends and we will work to start a movement, an original plan that starts here in the roots of the Fifth state and creates a legacy future Connecticut bands will aspire to and transform in their own image.’
But Im an alien. I speak in sub text. I keep it light and filled with confidence. ‘Hey, good gig.’ is what can be expected. But I mean the long version. I wasn’t suited to start revolutions, only paint my tiny pictures in the ash.
PS: Record Store Day and it’s a beauty of one. A absolute perfect Spring day made for cruising to The Ventures with a close companion. And in entering the store, I see Ceschi Ramos CD ‘Broken Bone Ballads’ there amongst the National acts, a name I’ve heard, but I do not know personally. And I picked it up. I like it. And more so, it gave me a small thrill, a small light down an incomprehensible tunnel. Local boy done good.
Fast or slow…infected or reanimated, everybody loves a zombie. Zombie culture is loose and gathering numbers and heading to your own poorly protected farmhouse. ‘Zombie walks’ and tested zombie escape plans, parodies and long serious tomes abut the ‘Zombie War’, Zombies are ‘sexy’. And there’s even sexy Zombies, though more ‘camp’ than ‘chomp’.
What’s delightful (and scary, genuinely, and maybe a touch sad) is how completely the group driven, viscera eatin’, shambling Greek chorus has over taken the real Lugosi driven, erotic tinged vampires as Americas ‘Creature Du Jour’. To me, it clearly says that as a culture, we just don’t value sex enough.
The metaphor can be extended. It’s the fantasy ‘Dream Lover’: ancient, wise and having a few tricks up their sleeve. Compared to the ‘more is more’ mentality of the real life swingers set, where the quality drops where the numbers climb (as is the way of numbers…I guess. I’m bad at math). We are uncomfortable with the ratio’s of success sensuality affords, the less than 100% chance we will be turned into something hungry ourselves. We want a lot of variety and clothes falling (rotting) off. We want to be overwhelmed and have a ready excuse for why we let ourselves get bitten. There’s no guilt the world of zombies, it’s kill or be killed.
How can fidelity exist in a world of monsters?
The tradition for vampires is you need to invite them in. In some small or obvious drunken sloppy way, you have to open that door. That’s a matter of choice. Zombies don’t ask, they smash down your door and crawl all over you. In great numbers. Like you always dreamed. Except…with the numbers up, the quality drops. Its natural selection (I guess…I’m bad at science too).
5) Pontypool
This unusual, intellectual, confusing flick is the most interesting treatment of zombies since the hyper kinetic ’28 Days Later’. It’s a movie I have watched a few times now and see some new strain in the story, in the ballsy logic, every single viewing. It’s a zombie film without gore, with real black humor, and a concept of what an ‘infection’ can be that is wholly unique.
‘Pontypool’ takes place at a radio station in the wilds of Ontario. American ‘Shock Jock’ Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) having burned his bridges in his home country, takes a radio gig up North. His cold ride into the station, the ugly night and the spitting snow create a claustrophobia, matched with a palpable dread of bad decision making that lead Mazzy to this clear dead end.
The idea of what is a true ‘dead end’ changes when he and his two woman crew get the first report, a riot in the peaceful desolate town of Pontypool, chanting mobs and extreme violence. And as reports flood into the radio station, very much on the edge of the media wilderness, a list of murders is compiled: families destroy families, neighbors burn down each others houses, all chanting nonsense sounds and sentences and phrases. And the infection keeps changing and spreading…..and the ‘how’ is the thing. Not through blood or bone. Not through black magic or errant space station radiations.
There’s no gore and no guns, which are the staples of the genre. And yet….the most original take on zombies on this list. See it.
4) Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things
From its title….from its cast…this shouldn’t be a good movie. From its poster, which looks clearly like the ‘Meatballs’ poster, this is a hippie disaster of a film. It sounds like ‘The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies’ (and for those looking for a review of that one, see Lester Bangs). It should be horrible, as most of the early 70’s zombie movies were.
But what C.S.P.W.D.T. has is pure and uncut creepiness, and a real building terror. Zombie movies are usually over the top, the most subtle being the original ‘Night Of The Living Dead’, which ain’t so subtle.
C.S.P.W.D.T is about a crew of dislikable hippies, the darker and sleazier post ’69 variety that Altamont hearkened too (and when you have a movie where lot of people likely wont survive the night, that’s a benefit).
They make they’re way out to an abandoned island to make a vampire film, and make 2 major mistakes:
1) They use the bodies from the abandoned graveyard as props.
2) They THEN use a black magic ritual to raise the dead as part of the film.
Can you guess what happens? You can.
This was the first zombie movie I ever saw, on some ‘Creature Feature’ on some Saturday night, when I was still way too young to see such movies. There’s images in this movie I have never forgot (like the use of slow motion in death scenes, the ritual scene, the immensely skin crawly ‘Orville’, the prop turned executioner). Soon afterwards, I begged my Mom to let me stay up and watch ‘Night Of The Living Dead’.
For every original creative thought, a 1000 rip offs pop up like weeds. Cleary, C.S.P.W.D.T. is a rip off of ‘Night Of The Living Dead’. And yet…..’Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things’ is on my list, and ‘Night’ is not.
Call it nostalgia. Or maybe some weeds are tasty good.
3)REC (or Quarantine – US Version)
REC was first, remade for English speaking as Quarantine. And it causes me to kick up a confession in my horror tastes: I am an absolute sucker for the ‘Blair Witch’ first person, shaky cam style of horror. The faux documentary style feeds into my voyeuristic nature. What always, at the basement levels of my thought processes, fascinates me about horror movies isn’t the monsters so much, it’s the decision making. It’s in introducing a scenario where you are completely and utterly screwed, zombies to the left, more zombies to the right, the general give and take of the practical world a memory.
Did you get gas this morning? The weight of that question changes significantly when zombies are introduced into the equation. Upset at your boyfriend? Is he trying to eat you, along with 4 score of his undead pals? No? Then chill. Real life money problems are forgotten, the question of whether you will ever achieve your dreams a luxury you can not afford. Cuz…zombies!!!! It does sound a bit peaceful, aside from the eventual ‘becoming food’ bit.
REC, shot from the POV of a news crew doing a fluff piece on their local Fire Department, takes the shaky cam style indoors, into the run down urban surrounding of a city tenement. It feels like a real haunted house story, with the camera skimming the long dark hallways and gray walls, the jittery feel of running that goes right to your feet, even when sitting. It’s positively gothic. And stays so throughout, getting ever more dreadful as the places to run too run out.
And claustrophobia runs to paranoia. The most effective scene in both versions is when they recognize that they are locked in, with the Army and snipers on the other side of those doors. There comes a moment when the army drops a quarantine tent over the exits and that image of that plastic tent with Army stencils falling with such finality is genuinely disturbing.
It speaks toward what real terrors are. What zombie films do. It’s the ordinary details that heighten the effect. The Universal Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, etc) thrill, but don’t chill in these post-millennial days. Too long ago, too far away from where we live, and live everyday.
That scene, with shaking camera and recognizable elements of our culture is what makes the shaky cam style work: it confuses our intellect, it speaks to a different part of us and leaves us open to the possibilities of what if?
I should say that after ‘REC’, Zombie kingpin George Romero released his own statement on the first person zombie story with ‘Diary Of The Dead’. Which failed. Appallingly.
2) Day Of The Dead
Romero is my hero. Pot smoking, laid back, socially relevant, genius of carnage. Romero was ‘indie’ decades before we had a name for it. Borrowed money from Pittsburgh blue collar communities and used friends and investors as cast. What George had was an idea, a vision, and that little concept became ‘Night Of The Living Dead’…which started the zombie culture.
Romero wasn’t a simple man with a simple message. Each movie in the ‘Living Dead’ series, released in a different decade, had an underlying social message. Romero’s attempt to answer what had become of us as a society in these past 10 or so years. The. zombies were a metaphor, the zombies were random circumstance and WE we’re always the real monsters of the piece. Romero is a pessimist with a huge… and now global… palette to paint on.
Not all the movies were great. ‘Land Of The Dead’, ‘Survivial Of The Dead’…not good. But he is a genuine ‘maverick’, and the fact his movies may be misunderstood doesn’t trouble him. My guess is by the time the reviews come out, he’s already scaring up financing for his next opus. And that one may just be great.
In my estimation, the best of the series is 1985’s ‘Day Of The Dead’. It again plays off of claustrophobia, and plays with it, as its opening shots are on a helicopter overlooking an abandoned Miami, only blue sky and alligators and living dead left in town.
Soon we are taken to the real setting of the movie: an underground military compound and a collection of brilliantly rendered scientists and soldiers, all unraveling at the edges. The pace of the movie, the monotony of their assignments, the clearly cruel soldiers, the Mad Doctor all scratch at you like nothing else in the ‘Living Dead’ series.
The scientists want to find a cure. The soldiers want to get out. And the wails of the undead, above ground and below are clearly getting to them. One of things I appreciate about ‘Day Of The Dead’ is you get dropped into the middle of this world. You can feel tensions, you could see who dislikes likes who within this small (and getting smaller) group, but have missed all the conflagrations that brought them to this state. You go underground with the helicopter and feel that you are now with them…of them. And it’s a boiling pot.
The acting (specifically ‘Rhodes’) is first rate. ‘Day Of The Dead’ is the most gory of all of the series, with disgusting effects that are hard to forget. Honestly, its not a fun film to watch. Its too dark, to grim, too much blood and grisly bits. Its too intense.
But consider the theme. How could it not be?
1) ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ (remake – 2004)
Blasphemy? Sure. Love the original ‘Dawn of The Dead’, loved it since my brother saw it and shared all the gory details, loved it when we finally caught the midnight showing together (pre video…can you imagine?) and love it despite all its obvious flaws: the blue zombie make up only done to the sleeves, the fake hand to hand combat, the plastic guns. I know it line for line, scene by scene.
That said…have you seen the first 15 minutes of the remake? Have you? Its terrifying.
The dead rise and a group of survivors finds their way to a mall. Which is everyone’s dream, right? Like without the zombies? Am I that shallow? It has been mentioned….
It’s a big budget zombie movie, and while I would like to make a point that Romero’s grass roots appeal and anti Hollywood stance informs his art, the ‘Dawn’ remake get’s it right on every level. The acting. The effects. The humor. The action. The characters. Owning the DVD, even the supplemental footage works better and feels more complete than other full horror films (the DVD piece on ‘Andy’, the gun store owner, particularly effective).
Also, the best opening credit sequence of the genre. It combines footage of real revolutions, zombie invasions, every possibility of media violence, all played out under the message of The Man, Johnny Cash singing about ‘’When The Man Comes Around’. Chillingly effective. A message about the apocalypse, sung old biblical style while the modern day devolves into Sodom.
Scary as hell. Just like the box says.
Note: I know I missed a lot here. Apologies to fans of ‘Return of The Living Dead’ series, the ’28 Days Later’ series and Fulci’s ‘Zombi’.
What is it that keeps you from getting where you want too?
Is it time? Finance or romance? A small addiction? A big fear?
And if you slayed these private monsters…what then? Freedom. Right? Right?
Or do we look at…almost rely on…the daily millions of things that get in the way? Are you so afraid of reaching that potential? Why?
Perhaps to discover you never had a clue as to where your real place in the world was?
You have work to do and time to do it. This life limits us to the certain possibilities and creates words like ‘impossible’ to wrap around ourselves like a quilt when we stop trying.
And as much as you believe you’ll never stop trying, in time, you will. That’s not laziness. It’s mortality.
Tick Tick, MoFo.
Do you need these little glitches in your perfect machine? Are they valuable to create a needed alibi for the day you look back and said ‘it never could have worked…’.
Are you so confident of an afterlife that you can waste this One Night Stand we actually get? This is your headlining shot. Now. Today. And tomorrow if your lucky.
Your diagnosisable problems are public record. Your deep dark secrets are your crop to harvest or kill.
When will enlightenment come to you, anoint your lined forehead and set you free to reach your full potential?
There’s no answers here today. Just questions to consider. I am.
Is it still ‘too soon’ to talk about it? It’s something I believe that counts as a global reasoning, something we can almost see at times but slips away like sand in a colander. It explain the Unexplainable things about fame and celebrity and hell fire and getting hits on the radio.
Is it because the majority of people who actually do discuss this are kooks and crackpots and Ministry hucksters? Wasn’t John The Baptist considered a kook? (I actually have no idea. I was young then.)
Is it the whole ‘moral panic’ thing? Or the idea that by answering these simple questions, the following questions get much more difficult and directly related to the state of your eternal soul?
Are you such a Zeppelin fan that you cant see the mystical forest for the burning trees?
Well I’m going to talk about it. People have sold their souls to some Unnameable figure (likely in black, cause all knowing entities are so big on flash) and have benefited from it. And we all know their names.
You know the scene, and perhaps some intimately. A lone figure with a clothesline strap acoustic sits on the crossroads and waits. And in time, he is approached. A bargain is struck. Fame and fortune commences quickly followed by bad luck and an early death. And an idea of what comes next for that man with the guitar, but not a scene that can be painted without offending most of your major religions. But lets just say it gets sulfur-y.
Myth? Sure, can be. A bad ass myth that brings together pop culture and cosmology and the gut level fear that we need earn what we get, there’s no free lunch. It’s a beaut.
Now…come with me along this particular path. Let’s chat.
Do you ever get the sense that you just don’t understand how something can be beloved or famous? Do you ever find yourself watching a band that everyone swears by and you just feel like it’s a grand prank played on you by all your friends? (That’s my Guns and Roses experience. And really….consider THAT in this context.)
You feel like you just don’t get it. In your most paranoid moments, you feel there’s an affliction of love that you are the sole uninfected. It’s puts you in a place similar to looking at abstract art: there’s something there that clearly isn’t interested enough in you to teach you.
It’s not simply to say the celebs who are famous for being famous…though some have clearly bought low. It’s people in your record collection.
Waiting out the death of vinyl so the backwards will never be unmasked.
I’ve finally come up with my thesis for my imaginary college degree. Being considered a self genius does not go far enough. I needed to be heralded as a genius by non existent institutions and hit the lecture circuit, filled with tasty bon mot’s and something that sounds smart…but upon investigation is just literate.
And it all starts here…with the break though….right here…..it’s coming…..:
All Kids Under The Age Of 12 Are On Drugs.
Now, I hear gasps from within the also imaginary lecture hall. Harrumphing at a distasteful level. I whip off my lab coat to reveal my accurate to the stitch Dr. Frankfurter costume. And I strut. The room turns hostile. Someone lights a torch…
I don’t say this simply to shock. That’s only about 80% of the reason. I’ve done study. I’ve been a child under 10. And I’ve been on drugs. Things looked very similar.
Consider the dress. You ever see kids playing together in a mud pit? Now have you ever been to the Gathering Of The Vibes?
Consider the distracted nature of kids / drug doers. Want some attention? Shake some keys. Get a laser pointer. Watchem go! (note: which will be covered in the next semester ‘Cats and Kids Under Age 12 Are On Drugs’.)
Consider the moodiness. Having a party? Invite some children / drug doers. They will make you laugh and dance and deal with the small snatches of exhaustion that comes with dealing with people with problems (as to be considered in the end of my thesis trilogy ‘All Kids Are People With Problems’). But in the end, clown or not, someone is gonna lose their shit. And tears will flow.
Consider the diet. There is a number of foods that exist solely for children and stoners. I might suggest the whole of the sugary cereal industry rests on these brave and twitchy shoulders. And every year food gets more ridulous (and also awesome) with munchies being cross pollinated and mutated into new forms of ‘food’. And thats cause there is a market for it. And who makes up that market?
Consider commercials. Have you noticed that the role of the male in modern commercials is akin to the role of the tween in years past? ‘Jeff just won’t leave his new toy alone’ can equate to Lego’s and cellphones simultaneous. Why you ask? Drugs. (OK, I made that up. But it does irritate me.)
(Quirky Fact: This blog started out being about the band Yes)
Not to critique the official Record Store Day, which I believe in and think is a fine DIY (though clearly some corporate blood money has been laundered through it, but that’s show biz!) movement. I became a man (OK, a elitist snot) in independent record stores. Starting in my gauzy youth at Earport in Fairfield where I purchased my first LP with my own money (‘The Grand Illusion’ by Styx. I was young.) I would go through the endless used LP’s looking at the covers, the titles, the artists, all while heady music played above me and cheap incense filled my virgin senses with images of rolling vans of rockers heading toward the sea shore: abandoned beaches white with frost.
I would judge records by there covers, as is the way of youth. It brought me to my first real Band love, Mott The Hoople via ‘Mott Live’ with its immensely creepy marionettes clapping and big ass H guitar that Ian worked in those glammy days. I saw the cover and it connected synapse in me from horror movies to ghost stories to comic books to the just sprouting seeds of raw lust. It was e;electric and almost instantaneous. I understood not the future, but the steps into a possible future.
Then it was Secret Sounds, Platters Plus, Brass City Records. Pilgrimages each. And multitudes of them. My tastes subtly change and I find myself shopping in sections I had never considered before. I started in Hard Rock but then Metal. Then folk. Blues. Hardcore. Punk. New Wave. And into the genre non specific place I come from now. Little treasure await those who go looking. That’s not only the larger idea of life, but the smaller concept of why records matter.
Records aren’t just history. The right records record YOUR history. Your first. Your worst purchase. Your best friends record that will always bring you back to them, whether they exist on this plane any longer or not. The first record you dedicated to a lover. The last record you ever need hear again.
Record are photos we were to distracted to take, to joyous to require, to sad to bother.
So I put forth this: Every Day Is Record Store Day.
You don’t need a logo to know where to go. The opportunities are all around you. Everybody is selling units. Your friends and their friends. Your town and city. Your state and the neighboring states. Amazon. Bandcamp.
Everyday you reach out beyond your collection to find some new shade to add is Record Store Day. Every time you hear something stream and write it down…or buy it immediately…is Record Store Day. Every Spotify playlist is a path to a larger purchase. Not financially, of course: Spotify is the devil. But you invest your time in something someone else took their time to make.
You need music. If you don’t, this is the wrong blog. Cause your author needs music.
We need not live out our best years nostalgic for the cheap vinyl bins of history. Everything you want (with the exception of Van Morrison) awaits you. And if your on a fence about a record, go on YouTube.
This blog is a celebration of a feeling. Its Tuesday and today the new Mountain Goats record is released. It’s awaiting me in my download folder, seductive, cruel, but deeply desired.
Today is my Record Store Day. And it’s yours too. If you want it.
I had a grand weekend. A victorious weekend, even. Creatively satisfying, with the raucous debut of my rebranding resurrection. Practical victories a’ coming. A moon as big as a balance ball shows me the way. A temperature that flirts with 50 this week.
This past 72 hours I have soared with eagles and swam with dolphins (metaphorically. I don’t trust dolphins).
So why do I feel like a Halloween bag that has had it’s candy removed and replaced with rancid turkey bones?
Why do I feel like the bottom of a crusty soup tureen that ignored good advice and moved to a city to fast for soup and ending up being served to the homeless?
Why do I feel like a ham sandwich served without condiments, wrapped only in a slowly sopping roll?
You know why. As do I. Welcome to Monday.
It’s a cliché, of course. It’s the punchline to a billion 3 panel comics. It’s the least exciting beginning to anything.
Despite what happens in our two days away, Monday always waits. Its the reset button that brings everything back down to earth with the subtlety of Skylab crashing.
But why? The logic doesn’t work. Any day of the year can be viewed as simply a day. Your birthday is just a day. Your mom’s birthday too.
I wake up on Monday and feel all the paranoia, all the pessimism, all the grisly bits that life brings with it. I can’t fight it and my best defense is to keep repeating ‘It’s only a Monday…It’s only a Monday….’
Alas, no luck in logic, no hope in hope. Just ride it out and await Tuesday.
Advice for the day: Keep your head low. Expectations are reined in. Keep repeating the words.
Best case scenario: when the aliens come, they come on a Friday, enslave us on Saturday and blot out our memories on a Sunday. And Monday at that point becomes day one.
When I consider this music, this band, it always brings me back to a specific moment: 16 years old, steering down blizzard conditions on foot, and marching forward. The wind made tangles of my too long, too unkempt hair, the crunching sounds of boot to ice muffled by parka and hat and headphones. Being removed from the aural added a nice effect to the movie of a life I felt I was directing / living. (I was 16, remember. Self importance and staging was my bread and peanut butter).
The image brings forth ideas of Shackleton or Hillary, but personally it felt like I was living in a Rush CD cover. White on white whipping winds with visibility so low it turned inward. I felt like a viking, left abandoned by his brothers for being toooooo bad ass. Or maybe a rebel taking my one man army to the kingdom. Blood beat in my ears, sweat flowed beneath multiple layers. The perfect ending was a bloodbath where I killed the King and claimed the Queen. And the people chanted my name.
Alas, the reality of it was a kid with a cassette Walkman (but no car) heading towards his shift at Finest Supermarket for Bulk Food duties.
This is the power of music, yes, but specifically the power of heavy music, heavy metal to out a name to it. This was a Mind Over Matter matter. I’m convinced this walk would not have been possible if not for what particularly I had in the Walkman. The music made me march, made me put myself into these terrible conditions cause I knew I could take it. I knew I was more than the sum of those parts. And any other music would have faltered and had me running back home.
‘Fifteen thousand feet, danger all around us
Mother nature fights, will she ever rest
What is there to prove, climbing up a mountain
Why do we do it, Why do we suffer?
Just because it’s there…’
Raven’s ‘Wiped Out’ (and their near perfect debut ‘Rock Till You Drop’) was a product of the NWOBHM era scene, in the year of our Lord 1982. For those who appreciate Metal, it was truly the last Golden Age (till the next).Saxon’s ‘The Eagle Has Landed’, Accept’s ‘Restless and Wild’, Motorhead’s ‘IronFist’, Scorpions ‘Blackout”, Venom ‘Black Metal’, Loudness ‘Devil Soldier’. Iron Maiden. ‘The Number Of The Beast.’
Look at Heavy Metal from that year. I could go on for hours.
Meanwhile…in Newcastle…a dirty and classic low budget label (that’s ‘Indie’ to you kids) named NEAT was recording something that would never be bested in terms of the amorphous but specif category of ‘Balls.’
Find a picture of Raven (the brothers Gallagher and Whacko) anD that paints the picture. These were not your usual British Heavy Metal stars. No denim, no leather. They looked like Soccer Hooligans. They looked absolutely insane. Not even including the football helmet Whacko wore to keep from continually hitting himself in the head.
This was a power trio that didn’t come with that vaguely souring Cream influence of endless soloing and the bottom falling out with every bass solo. They were jet fueled, nuclear. tight. Absolute Madmen, perfect for tying any PYT to a train track.
‘Wiped Out’ is a perfect Metal record. I should note ‘IMO’ or some similar disclaimer.
But No. This is definitive fact. Doubt me? Find it.
This record is a collection of some of my favorite things about NWOBHM:
Best opening cut of the era? Yes. It starts like a strange sci fi engine with special effects audio (surely discovered drunkenly) and the creep and still absolutely baffling ‘Listen here, Mission Control…Einstein Was Wrong….’ and then rips the time space continuum with ‘Faster Than The Speed Of Light’.
Now…lets dial back…..what sorta hogwash was that opening line about? It has puzzled me more than actual astrophysics (which I have no hope of understanding, so why try?)
Best Song To Play Out Your Droogy Fantasies? ‘Bring The Hammer Down’ The beat is a natural rhythm for dancing around the burning homes of the rich and privileged.
Best Riff In Metal: I gotta go with ‘Star War’. That’s a hard one….Ive listened to a lot of Maiden…..but I’m sticking with it.
Most accurate psychopath vocals: John Gallagher, the whole record. He sings like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family looks.
With the date approaching (one week….April 3rd for The Expanding Uterus Opening, MAC 650 Gallery, Middletown Connecticut) of the next stage in my solo ‘career’, I find I have had my memory dragged up and down Main Street these weeks, to review (whether review is required or not) and consider the town, the city that has played so central to an unusual amount of my past couple of decades.
I gigged in near every venue, open mikes at the ones I haven’t. Played live on WESU on a few occasions.
I have worked all over the city, including a longer stint Labor Pimping. To be a Labor Pimp is to send dangerous addicts into dangerous work for little money. It’s morally reprehensible, as am I, but no benefits. I was on a first name basis with every convict and addict on Green Street (RIP) till I split and had to stay out of Middletown for a few years.
I’ve spent a lot of time pondering existence by the boat launch, watching the Arrigoni Bridge rust and be re built. Or at least re paved.
I saw bodies loaded into the State Morgue, knew a few who tossed themselves off the aforementioned Arrigoni.
I’ve seen wild fires, and walked the streets drunk at every hour of the day. I have took part in things that would bring a blush to the internet if I spoke them here.
I never heard of Middletown before my company worked here. It sounded exotic, oddly. I think cause coming from Fairfield County, I wasn’t sure of anything north of New Haven was still considered Connecticut. I was pretty dumb for someone pretty past kid age.
I worked in the Cake Building. 7th floor. I was surrounded by co workers who knew equally jack about that town. We heard tales of murder and parades and maniacs. Our view showed us the sun on the river ever morning, like an ever moving impressionist mural.
I fell in love in Middletown, in that same building, on that same floor. A love forged walking the Wesleyan Campus.
Being the more social, high energy, low fear of strangers creature she was, she was the first to now only note the new addition to Court Street, Klekolo World Coffee. And the first to boldly walk in and extend a hand to the owner, one Hollie Rose. Hollie had her own energy and drive and was funny and charming and clearly powerful in ways that weren’t easily defined.
Paired with her equal and opposite BFF, Yvette, they made a powerful, heady combo. Yvette was equally powerful in these unknowable ways, but was quieter, let her silence speak the volumes that both Hollie and myself traded in. She had a sweet openness equal to a thinly veiled menace which either was palpable or utterly imagined by me. Either way, I dug them both quite a bit.
I was new in town. I had made no connections since alienating everyone from home. And I found myself dropping by Klekolo more and more. Hollie and I had…and have….a strange telepathy, vaguely manic, sorta self depreciating and egotistical. We grew tight.
And Klekolo just grew. I was there at the right time. They started hosting music and I played solo for the first time, in Middletown. The reputation of a free thinking, real speed grassroots business was a cache in Middletown, a college town with one (or 8) Dunkin’ Donuts’ (sue me, fuckers). They hosted art and summer fests and I was there, trying out my bedroom based songs in the actual sun.
I caught one of the best local bands I ever saw there, in that small store with SRO, people lined up outside the window to catch a glimpse. It filled me with the joy of Rock and Roll and a uncontrollable envy and resentment. But no ability to not acknowledge what I witnessed. That band was called Bug, then the Silver Bugs and then The Butterflies Of Love which got huge in Sweden, I hear.
Meanwhile Hollie and I started an all encompassing, ever continuing conversation about the state of our souls. And when I see her next, that conversation continues. We also exchanged music, which became a massive influence on what i would do and have done since.
She introduced me to Pavement and Soul Coughing. I introduced her to Morphine. I clearly won.
It was a time I recall with a certain glimmer, like a cinematic reveal of a golden moment. It is a me that looks younger in the few existing photos than I did in photos of younger ages.
I remember hearing ‘Range Life’ for my first time.
I remember my first Pony Express.
That place on Court Street became the center of my Universe. I was ready for it. It was ready for me.
And I pull back….a long crane single shot that starts at Klekolo and pulls back to the Solar System entire. Cause that’s how it actually was.
With the date approaching (one week….April 3rd for The Expanding Uterus Opening, MAC 650 Gallery, Middletown Connecticut) of the next stage in my solo ‘career’, I find I have had my memory dragged up and down Main Street these weeks, to review (whether review is required or not) and consider the town, the city that has played so central to an unusual amount of my past couple of decades.
I gigged in near every venue, open mikes at the ones I haven’t. Played live on WESU on a few occasions.
I have worked all over the city, including a longer stint Labor Pimping. To be a Labor Pimp is to send dangerous addicts into dangerous work for little money. It’s morally reprehensible, as am I, but no benefits. I was on a first name basis with every convict and addict on Green Street (RIP) till I split and had to stay out of Middletown for a few years.
I’ve spent a lot of time pondering existence by the boat launch, watching the Arrigoni Bridge rust and be re built. Or at least re paved.
I saw bodies loaded into the State Morgue, knew a few who tossed themselves off the aforementioned Arrigoni.
I’ve seen wild fires, and walked the streets drunk at every hour of the day. I have took part in things that would bring a blush to the internet if I spoke them here.
I never heard of Middletown before my company worked here. It sounded exotic, oddly. I think cause coming from Fairfield County, I wasn’t sure of anything north of New Haven was still considered Connecticut. I was pretty dumb for someone pretty past kid age.
I worked in the Cake Building. 7th floor. I was surrounded by co workers who knew equally jack about that town. We heard tales of murder and parades and maniacs. Our view showed us the sun on the river ever morning, like an ever moving impressionist mural.
I fell in love in Middletown, in that same building, on that same floor. A love forged walking the Wesleyan Campus.
Being the more social, high energy, low fear of strangers creature she was, she was the first to now only note the new addition to Court Street, Klekolo World Coffee. And the first to boldly walk in and extend a hand to the owner, one Hollie Rose. Hollie had her own energy and drive and was funny and charming and clearly powerful in ways that weren’t easily defined.
Paired with her equal and opposite BFF, Yvette, they made a powerful, heady combo. Yvette was equally powerful in these unknowable ways, but was quieter, let her silence speak the volumes that both Hollie and myself traded in. She had a sweet openness equal to a thinly veiled menace which either was palpable or utterly imagined by me. Either way, I dug them both quite a bit.
I was new in town. I had made no connections since alienating everyone from home. And I found myself dropping by Klekolo more and more. Hollie and I had…and have….a strange telepathy, vaguely manic, sorta self depreciating and egotistical. We grew tight.
And Klekolo just grew. I was there at the right time. They started hosting music and I played solo for the first time, in Middletown. The reputation of a free thinking, real speed grassroots business was a cache in Middletown, a college town with one (or 8) Dunkin’ Donuts’ (sue me, fuckers). They hosted art and summer fests and I was there, trying out my bedroom based songs in the actual sun.
I caught one of the best local bands I ever saw there, in that small store with SRO, people lined up outside the window to catch a glimpse. It filled me with the joy of Rock and Roll and a uncontrollable envy and resentment. But no ability to not acknowledge what I witnessed. That band was called Bug, then the Silver Bugs and then The Butterflies Of Love which got huge in Sweden, I hear.
Meanwhile Hollie and I started an all encompassing, ever continuing conversation about the state of our souls. And when I see her next, that conversation continues. We also exchanged music, which became a massive influence on what i would do and have done since.
She introduced me to Pavement and Soul Coughing. I introduced her to Morphine. I clearly won.
It was a time I recall with a certain glimmer, like a cinematic reveal of a golden moment. It is a me that looks younger in the few existing photos than I did in photos of younger ages.
I remember hearing ‘Range Life’ for my first time.
I remember my first Pony Express.
That place on Court Street became the center of my Universe. I was ready for it. It was ready for me.
And I pull back….a long crane single shot that starts at Klekolo and pulls back to the Solar System entire. Cause that’s how it actually was.
Where do you get your learnin’ from? I don’t mean the dumb stuff like mathematics or proper sentence structure and grammar (crickets…..). I mean the important stuff, the visceral stuff, the flesh and the bone stuff?
Interested in the New York amphetamine scene? See Professor Reed.
Maybe a bit of well-spoken 90’s surreal alienation? There’s room in the Malkmus class.
Class warfare? The Clash class is popular but I’d suggest a course in study of early Elvis and The Attractions.
Appropriate behavior after a one night stand?
Well now…..
Sex is one of several obsessions that continually occupy the songs of Leonard Cohen. He’s shockingly eloquent, and places the responsibility of the lil’ twists and turns of the skin squarely on his own shoulders. He’s never a victim of love, always an accomplice. Never free of the guilt that hangs around the neck of his generation, free loved and Cold War’d out.
And through that guilt. ….and through his vaguely megalomaniac need for control by pleading guilty to every charge… we get a real view into the bedrooms of the world.
The language is high but the meaning is universal: you can be a slave to sex. You will never out grow it. Within you, the ability to lie and cheat and steal lays dormant.
You are always one long form rationalization from oblivion.
But not so single faceted as I paint. He also describes the sensations, the heat, the sweat with photo detail and a familiar pack of emotions in real motion.
He can leer and ask forgiveness for common behaviors. He can deal deceitful and come away with a lesson he never needed to learn and re learn. He can paint a woman too beautiful to imagine, and clocks which stop time completely.
I have spent the past three months watching a cheap fabric Stars and Stripes whither on its cheaper stick. And as opposed to the queasy feeling of seeing the Grand Ole’ flap, then shred, I saw something bigger in it.
Perseverance. Resolve. A type of faith.
I’m not political. I leave that to people both brighter and far dumber than myself. But I am a patriot.
And for any proper thinking iconoclast, where else would you want to live?
I love the scrappy Superman style origin story. Freedom at all costs. Battles of yore dot the Yankee landscape.
I love the current bloated Elvis Era of our present days: a self obsession based on the fact that as a country, we’re still teenaged. This is a country of backseat Romeo’s and gum snapping Juliet’s all awaiting our turn to live fast, die painless, leave a good looking lawn.
I am an American. There’s no mistaking the symptoms. Bravado. Xenophobia. Pride before, during and after the fall.
And every week I have watched this flag bear horrific winds and storms, cold that causes it to just glimmer with implied ice. The stripes have started separating from the stars. The top third has freed itself from the stick and reaches for earth, while in some less visible way, the earth reaches up with flowers to cold to bloom.
And I see that now….in this baby Spring 2015, that flag is us.
We’re coming apart at the seams.
The population, the many shades and creeds that make up this melting pot has become an indistinguishable mass of winter wear, cotton and wool and more scientific fabrics.
Our tempers are short. We read desperate.
Resolve Motherfucker. Resolve.
In days upcoming, this long winter will go forgotten. We will line the beaches and play too much Beach Boys. We will drink and laugh and make love on the dirt like a proper Springsteen song.
That worn out flag will be taken down and replaced with a fresh, new Walmart purchase. And I will salute that one too.
A symbol is perfect. It’s beyond the weather. We are not.
Its is the First Day Of Spring (expect snow…..) and we find our selves 2 weeks away from the first public performance of the Jason P Krug and Julie Kay performance at Wandering Uterus Opening Night Gala (lalalala) at Mac650 Gallery, 650 Main Street in good ole’ Middletown, CT.
(b)
Though this news is playing quiet on the National News cycle, it is the Hindenburg of my Heart. Or something less terrifying.
(b)
Hmmm…Im a rather dark MoFo. I’ll circle back to that.
(b)
Having spent Sunday locked away in an underground bunker with Cello J, I think it’s safe to say we’re bigger than the Beatles. Oh, and Jesus.
(b)
Cocky as that sounds, its absolutely true. I have incontestable proof in my pocket. Reach in and grab it.
(b)
What were doing…is unique…and yet a sound I have heard in the hinterlands of my consciousness. Deep, sensual, setting its own pace to one tapping (or stomping). Lyric driven, plain spoken.
(b)
Im proud of what were doing. And if you live in the continental United Sates, you have little reason not to get to Middletown CT April 3rd.
(b)
But this brings me back to my original point: Re-branding. (Note: skeptics will believe I had no point at all and just stumbled upon it in my meandering prose. To that I reply a succinct ‘w.e.’)
(b)
Coming from The Grimm Generation experience (which I’m not prepared to discuss yet without aid of doctors and anatomically correct puppets…) how does one go from a charming rogue standing next to a redhead to being the redhead?
(b)
Well, you start a blog for one….
(b)
(b)
You come correct, with honesty. You dance like nobody is watching…you fine tune your craft to fit what you are now, what you’ve learned to get here and what you don’t need anymore. You re imagine the franchise, you get all alternate Universe on that bastard and you come with a story to tell.
(b)
Check!
(b)
In this self exploration, Its been mentioned that I rarely expound about my more actually human characteristics. Or the less detestable ones.
(b)
(such as egotistical, self involved, and lack empathy)
(b)
I considered this.
(b)
So some fact about your author he would never reveal if not for the purposes of warming the cockles of yer heart.
(b)
1) I like dogs. As an appetizer.
2) I regularly help the elderly. For money. It’s called ‘my job’.
3) I believe in Love. Truly. I believe it is the highest calling.
4) I also believe in divorce.
5) I am exceedingly polite.
6) I am cutely self conscious. Unless I’m right about something, then I am terror defined.
Looking for direction? Advice? Validation? Fresh out.
Want to take on this day with the appropriate gravitas that would accompany a bad ass Clint Eastwood style space God? I gotcha.
1) wake up.
2) remember where you are. Look around for clues. Is that your alarm clock? OK, you’re at home.
3) morning ablutions
4) headphone up.
5) find a mirror. stare onto your own muddy eyes.
6) press play on Monster Magnet ‘s song ‘Bummer’.
(Note: have song cued to play before you get to the mirror. We are creating a small scene, a lil’ delusion. Drama is your friend.)
(Also buy ‘Powertrip’ record.)
7) keep staring while the otherworldly whoops and hollers sink deep into your cortex. See the scary. Be the scary.
8) when the drums kick in, spin with military precision. Don’t be afraid of flourish. Again….drama.
9) let your head bob. In time. Let your steps fall in mechanical time.
10) consider that opening line. ‘Your looking for the one who fucked your Mom…’. Consider it again.
11) step outside.
12) look around at all these familiar sights. Now squint. You can now see the thin plastic seams that run up the back of everything: home and hearth and horizon. And it all becomes clear. Some great force you can not understand has imprisoned you. They created a Carbon copy To keep you transfixed. Immobile.
13) ride into work. …but look around. There’s seams on every building, stop light, blade of grass. Let righteous indignation steer the way. This can’t stand.
14) when you get to work, quit. Walk out forever.
15) make the bastards pay. All of them.
I found my way to the Windsor depot today and what a treat to receive your letter and parcel of girl scout cookies. The cookies were delicious and to answer your questions:
1) yes I think using your dwindling inheritance to open a poorly planned restaurant is an excellent idea.
2) no, my schedule does not allow I listen to the new or any Pink Floyd album.
3) ‘candor’ and a ‘can do attitude’ rarely sync.
4) no, I have not heard from Bass Mike
I carry on here on the hinterland, steeling myself for the ticking down disasters that weigh on my pride and ever growing crop.
I have grown real wings. Then moved to an Undersea Kingdom.
The skills I gained back on the farm (song structure, salt-on-the-table lyrical imagery, good hook making and melody) go starving in this town of dance remixes and (shudder) jazz.
I came to share and communicate and be one with the people. But I am cursed cause I don’t know how to get the ladies on the floor. Cause I can’t vamp a chicken dance if you spotted me a beak and feathers. Cause I don’t know the traditionals like ‘Mustang Sally’ and ‘Whose Makin’ To Your Old Lady (While You Were Out Making Love)’.
I came to provide that soundtrack to a thousand personal victories and horrors, freeze dried in time, awaiting an audience that relates to them. Maybe even needs them, requires them. But I fill my choruses with too many words, I fear, I ignore natural rhythms for 6 more syllables.
While the world goes about its business and gets on the dance floor for the repetitive verses of ‘In The Midnight Hour’. Which gets played morning, noon and night, 365, 24/7.
Repetition is Hell, someone brighter once spoke. It certainly wasn’t Wilson Pickett.
And I soldier on, my optimism dinged up but functioning. I have one thing I was brought here to do. Too late to go back to school.
Emma….think on me, when time allows. See me here with my hands in the dirt trying to dig….something. Panning for gold in dead river beds.
Yours Truly
JpK
PS: No, I don’t use Twitter. It sounds like an endless bazaar of bullshit.
This article was created out of frustration and rage and…OK, there was coffee, perhaps a lot…about our hunt for a drummer for an original band in these United States. It is about art and commerce and dudes and dickheads. And genuine curses. And in that vein…if you’re a drummer…and wanna be in a kick ass rock and roll band…inquire within…
Craigslist is a microcosm of the World at large: Most people lie and the ones who don’t should.
Does that sound cynical? Is this a rant? Sure. I’m rant-y.
I didn’t start out this fragile shell of a dudeman. Craigslist made me my own monster…which is me. Ya dig? The closest thing I can equate it with is a cross between La Costra Nostra and Match.com: as soon as you think you’re out of it – done with it, watching it fade in the rearview– the next exit is where you began. It’s a Möbius strip.
Craigslist is Capitalism at its finest and most petty. There are jobs there that will cost you money. There are dates that…well, will cost you more money. It’s like a dream where you find the outlet store for all you desire but can’t find your wallet. And you see your picture hanging above the cashier station.
Focus…focus…(exhale)…OK. I will not speak to the various parts of Craigslist I’ve never clicked on; did you know they have discussion forums? I KNOW! I am speaking from the point-of-view of someone eternally seeking a drummer. I tread those boards, spread out my geographic search, rationalize how it’s okay to work with someone a six-hour drive away, get disgusted at myself for cheap rationalizin’ and start again to new cheap come-ons and people who don’t call back. And again, I consider what a lovely solitary pursuit painting is. And dream away…
So…this list is not a ‘To Do’ list. ’Cause I’m not sure what ‘to do.’ I consider this a cautionary tale for musicians. At the next practice, hug your drummer and bass player (guitar players hug themselves, so save it). Tell them how special they are and how much you love them. It’s OK if they steal a little, can’t work the bridge right, if their girlfriend is the most annoying creature who was ever spat onto the planet. Love them.
Or suffer….
5) Should Musicians be Paid?: Hmmmm….let me consider this….oh! Yes, you DICKS! Yes, artists should be paid for their work. Does every artist get paid every time? No. Look…even though ice cream is awesome, is it a breakfast food? No. There are fundamentals in this World, great thresholds that can’t be crossed. I think I’m fascinating…will Salma Hayek? Likely not. If I buy new sneakers, can I run faster? Of course, yes, I can. Not everyone on this free site is a world-class musician…and a case could be made that world-class musicians have no concept about what Craigslist is. (What Would Johnny Cash Post?) There are hobbyists about. Is that a problem for you? Are they cutting into those big cover band gigs? Not likely. Perhaps you can calm the f**k down? (Note: if you want to respond to a club seeking free music on Craigslist, go to town. You can even use the tried and true ‘Can I come and eat at your place for free?’ line.)
4) Re: Re: If you see this on a Craigslist musician ad, follow it. It’s good stuff. More than likely you have two wags barking at each other about something that happened on the scene 15 years ago (when there was a scene, harrumph!). And I’m sorry…but it is entertaining. My golden age of Rock Journalism was the Bangs/Reed wars in Creem. Those were also petty and posturing exchanges doing neither any favors…but there is something oddly compelling about watching music geeks fight. You will never understand the intricacies of the exchange, but that’s not why we slow down at car wrecks. It’s not in order to check the brake linings or consider the cause. We slow down ’cause were bored and life is fleeting.
3) Originals vs. Covers: I am in an original band. I don’t condescend to cover bands (though admittedly I don’t see many). And this is an argument that we need not have anymore. It’s over, Johnny. People want to go out and dance, drink, laugh. This is made easier by small comforts, like friends you can stand and a song you like. This isn’t a sin. It IS a drag for those of us who want to create new standards – new works that live beyond us – but really, nobody ever said artistic success is easy. People need familiar things. When you see a band having a good time, cover or original, you are having a good time. And if you can sing along to the chorus, have at it! Ultimately this is about entertaining. I find it interesting that bluegrass or blues bands don’t get dragged into this fray, ’cause ultimately, many are cover bands. But the songs they are covering are bigger than the band and the listeners. It’s a communal experience, a song everyone knows in a style everyone wants. So who’s to say that a few decades from now we won’t honor a band that does faithful recreations of “Who’s Making Love” in the 2000s style? Wanna know when you’ve made it? When cover bands play your originals.
2) CAPS: Okay, how long have we all been at this Internet stuff, huh? Can we all get together as a culture and say, ‘CAPS LOCK.’ Shouting (metaphorically) that you need a bass because you rock doesn’t convince. I’m all for clever language and good promo writing. I’m a fan of the language and do feel there is a place for capitalization. Like at the beginning of sentences. And names. Acronyms. But when I see anyone present anything in all caps, I always have the same reaction: ‘OMG, that is so cute! I remember my first beer too…’
1) Brian Methany: ‘The voice was just a hum in the head with talk and talk and talk over nothing and shallow lows at breakneck speed toward giant trees and very near to everything is the rambling in the head these days of nothing…A work of art withdrawing into the tenuous relationship between the lyrical phrase and its musical counterpart. Confronted with a disquieting self-familiarity, the songs portray modern dilemmas with hints of foreboding and finality; yet, a reassurance of life as being not such a disengaged and distinct experience.’
This reads to me like the journal of a 13-year-old, lovelorn Lex Luthor…but…I know Brian Methany’s name and he don’t know mine. Rock On, Brian Methany. Oh, and by the way, if you’re a drummer, get in touch. (sigh…)
How do I describe how I got here? How do I stress the excitement I’m in a near constant state of? (if you picked drugs….you’re wrong. But get credit for paying attention).
And of all the bergs in this berg laden state…Middletown.
There’s a logic to all this. My first solo career started in Middletown at the super important Klekolo World Coffee. They were my friends. They let me play whenever I wanted. Hollie and Yvette are quality souls.
The Riches And Poverty Of Love Tangled.
Jason P. Krug (your author) and the amazing Julie Kay (cello) will be taking our private obsessions to the MAC 650 Artspace Gallery for the first live playing of my Post GG work. The words you see in bold are suggested words to convey the sound, sweetly provided by the JpK Army Of Woman (If you think I’m exaggerating, we clearly have never met.)
Reflective. Focused. Clean straight to the gut.
It’s personal music. It’s not a genre. It’s human. It’s revealing and perhaps overly so.
Complex. Eclectic. Soulful.
Join us two weeks from tonight at MAC 650, 650 Main Street, Middletown. It’s gonna be a scene.
I am open to criticism (though not personally so ffffffffffffffffff.u.) and more so, believe a critics role in the culture is important. Its not simply about trashing any new ‘Transformers’ movie that comes out, but also to shine a light, to share a passion, to explain, convince. It is a cultures role to say ‘Man…things aren’t as cool as they used to be’. It is a critics job to say ‘This is something that couldn’t have been created at any other time. This is something infused with the weight of these days and the color of these nights. This is ours. Drink deeply’.
Which is not to say critics are foolproof. Which explains why I own a Death Cab For Cutie record. Which explains ‘Clockwork Orange’ is a classic. Which explains why it’s easy to condescend to the band Boston, despite the fact they are all driving solid gold hovercrafts and laughing at us. Critics have a heart, and that leads them to create beauty, a cultural touchstone within the context of a review (Lester Bangs’s review of ‘Astral Weeks’). And critics have a head, which could lead into trouble via ego driven rants against anything trending popular. …but at least it’s interesting trouble. I would rather argue about art than talk calmly about anything else.
I have drawn from critics, let their picks be my picks: I would say more often than not, I agree. I have been turned onto great works via a well turned phrase. I have loved some movies or records DEEPER after seeing how over all reviled they were by the ‘Critical Press’.
Everybody’s a critic. Except in the case of the internet, where the phrase should be updated to ‘Everybody’s A Dick.’
Case in point, being a part of this world, I have Netflix streaming. Which is awesome (though I do feel sad for all those ‘Red Box’s, already turning up on Craigslist used sections) and mainly critic proof. Tooling around one afternoon, I came across a movie called ‘S&Man’ (pronounced ‘Sandman’). It had an odd description, tantalizing in it’s way:
‘Exploring the parallels between film making and voyeurism, director J.T. Petty aims his camera at the world of underground horror films, interviewing scream queens and scholars and finding one auteur whose snuff series seems all too convincing. This thought-provoking documentary constantly compels viewers to question whether the grisly images they’re watching are the real deal or elaborate fakes — and whether Petty himself has ulterior motives.’
And I was in. Voyeruism? Documentary? Screen Queens and Scholars? Yeah, that’s Jason bait. So I watched it.
I loved it. I was amazed I never heard of it. I wont go into to details (though wont use the word ‘spoilers’ cause Im an adult) but if you like underground horror, drunk directors, edgy concepts, the myth of snuff (hopefully a myth, cause fuck…) see this. And I was excited. I went online believing I just found something of this time (ok, 2006) , something that only could have been created now, today. I found something….relevant. So I hit IMDB.
” Petty’s film devolves into a transparent and uninformative gimmick”. “Poorly done on all fronts, with little nudity to make it more interesting.” “Watch out for those clever inserts of stock footage to cover up a lot of jump cuts which are indicated by the dubious audio pasting.” (authors note: WTF?).
In conclusion, if you have the stomach (as its a bit rough), see this movie. And more so, don’t believe everything you read (except this).
The language, every language I think (though only know the one…this one,…the one I’m speaking) is a living thing. It gains things that will ultimately be lost, replaced by easier takes on the same subject (thus ‘conversate’). It loses words that The Future has no need for any longer (like ‘blind date’ which due to the access we all have into each other, would require real blind people). We gain weight and shed hair. We get more informed and less involved. We come across words in books we need to define online.
‘Cassettes’ is one of those lost words, and in 15 years won’t even show up on Spell check. The unforgettable plastic on plastic sound that came from shuffling through tape suitcases, the lost art of magnetic tape repair (glue or tape or tape then glue) and mix tapes made from vinyl records, all gone.
Cassettes will never have the cache of the Vinyl LP, nor ease of the CD or MP3. And fact is cassettes sound thin, replaceable. Not permanent. The reason the Bass Boost has become one of those lost words too. It is not a loss to the ages.
But you learn the form from the function, and when I consider The Spin Doctors ‘Two Princes’, this is how I hear it, in tape cassette fidelity. Not that it wasn’t played a lot that year. It was. A lot. Video too. A lot. But when I think on it, I hear it playing a bit warble-y (another lost word, though maybe not a word) out of a ‘boom box’ (look it up, kids) in the empty corridors of a post workday corporate building, bouncing off the brown glass lobby doors and polished brass accents. Dodging the cleaning crew.
I was in love with a girl (I’m always in love with something or someone, usually me) and we we’re both married and she was a genuine beauty and I was her weird friend. When I say genuine beauty, I don’t mean that in any deep sense, I mean the girl looked like the girls painted on the sides of B52 bombers, dressed in flags and implied nipples. Blond hair and perfect make up. She drove me crazy every day for years in the same Corporate office. I didn’t have a chance. Ever.
But she needed help. She wanted to do some video (video cassette) for an upcoming Valentine Day Gift for her perfect man awaiting her at home. And this video would require an elevator (dancing to ‘Love In An Elevator’) and pool (with authentic Mermaid costume that we ultimately found out shouldn’t be submerged in pool), boom box and slight nudity. She had me at nudity.
And among the songs this perfect pin up o’ mine danced to (and she could dance), ‘Two Princes’ was there, the imploring, demanding ‘Well, Go Ahead Now!’ in the closed elevator built for two. It played as we drove from one location to the next. ‘Go Ahead Now!’. It played, it compelled, it repeated like only a pop songs will “Go Ahead Now! Go Ahead Now'”. All with her moving to it, the upbeat beat bouncing and causing her to bounce along.
And I considered. Was there a message here? Was this an invitation? Was this the moment I awaited years for?
It started as a notion and grew into a flurry of pride versus sense, lust versus the visible wedding ring. I did as she asked (and would have done anything that night for her) and videotaped and ran from security and hid from cleaning crews and snorted lines in her Hyundai. And my considering got faster.
‘Go Ahead Now!!! GO AHEAD NOW!!!’
Which I didn’t. The night ended with a hug and her appreciation. And mention I may see the video some day. Which left open I also may not. She left our job soon after.
And when I hear this…or when I think of her…I always wind my way around to the simplicity of it. The song was ‘Two Princes’ and I wasn’t the one she chose.
I feel like I just got back on Earth with that curious bit of neurosis that I left something important in the Otherworld. I have my keys but can’t find my soul.
Blame Johnny Dowd.
(b)
To lose one self in art is the highest pursuit, the best benefit of the post Monkey brain pan we are all blessed / cursed with. (note: this applies to humans. If your a dog, stop reading this. It will freak your owner out and you’ll get no snausages. And isn’t all we beasts want out of life is more snausages?)
(b)
To lose one self is a powerful indictment when spoken about any record. Because our main responsibility is to NOT lose ourselves. It’s written into the biological imperative: Stay alive or lie down someplace that needs fertilizer. We must remain static to remain. Or static-y.
(b)
I have been subconsciously clicking the days that passed awaiting this new Johnny Dowd record ‘That’s Your Wife On The Back Of My Horse’. I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.
(b)
It’s a cosmic synergy that allows the perfect record to fall on the imperfect fan right when they need it. I have been a Johnny fan for a few years now, introduced by the Jim White film ‘Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus’ (required viewing if your going to read this with any regularity…I will refer back to it a lot and likely quiz.) And I first heard The Man warbling through a sub-field recording, but with current and dark, strange lyrics. It lead me to more records and deeper delightful weirdness.
(b)
(b)
And time passes and seasons change (poetic etc. etc.) and my ear wandered. I would always refer back to these records when I needed to be transported to someplace else entirely, someplace I don’t understand but got fleshy kicks from (my same definition of Love).
(b)
His records are unpredictable. Funny. Cocky. And oddly self conscious. Like the best things in life.
(b)
Some 4 months back I came across the fact a new album was coming. It was summer and I noted it with curious satisfaction and forgot it. I thought. But really….everything since then has led till this morning.
(b)
Strange. Beautiful. Bold. Darkly comic. Original. Lyrically challenging. Musically…..just fucking weird. But without question, funky. I’m no fan of the ‘Funk’. It’s not on my particular hit parade. Translated as Johnny does, it goes from music about dancing to music about getting drunk and falling in between the seats of someone’s car with some girl whose name your unsure of. Erotic, exotic stuff. And something I will stick my thumb out for, stranger danger or not.
(b)
‘That’s Your Wife On The Back Of My Horse’ is thematic in so much as it’s the stuff that fascinates Johnny. So that’s relationships, blaxploitation, sex, death and song. It’s a collection of weird electronics rhythms, Anna Coogan’s sly and perfect counter part to Johnny’s curmudgeon-with-a-heart-of-glass vocal style, and styles cribbed from a lifetime of living in NY State. It’s cold and bleak. But the bleakness is bountiful. It’s hot and cool.
And when listened to in the proper context (headphones, half stoned), it takes on the feeling of a soundtrack, and your the protagonist. The street pass by as Johnny describes whats going on behind the curling curtains of the classes. And whats usually going on is sex and money problems.
Step outside of your life and ride with Johnny’s ‘That’s Your Wife On The Back Of My Horse’. It will get you to where your going.
Riding among the dirty frozen prehistoric ice and slush turned to dirt and Neil Young solo acoustic playing. And the corner gets turned and the sun crashes in and he’s singing ‘Helpless’.
And I understood Canada all at once.
Joni and Leonard and Neil. …for all the value of a summer listen are February singers. Each comes with heat or light or gentle confusion and it’s music that works beyond aural. It’s simmering in intensity that comes from seclusion and study. It’s sensual and quiet and absolutely moving, given a decent context, and a desire for real April.
And this is bliss. A slice. And a promise.
And I send this to you, international, to your own personal Ontario.
To be specific, post 40’s popular music, usually genre’d with the word ‘Rock’ …
…these days is not as it was. Most types of beauty gain value as time passes, becoming collectible. These are objects de art, tangible things you still can not touch, due to glass or red velvet ropes or dudes. They put them in collections in huge well appointed palace-y looking places that name has escaped me.
Music is shareable, wholesale. To hear it is to have the experience, whether at a show or in your headphones. There’s no more to be gained besides aurally. Though physical too as the bass comes through. Sensory. You need not visit a foreign city to visit say … ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’. I have never owned a copy of it, I know every word, it’s a pretty grand installation in the pop mart. It’s art.
And I could buy it for $1.29. And I own art. I have a museum in my download file.
Museum. That’s the name.
Record collecting was sifting for gold through dusty crates at record stores, record shows, flea markets, consignment shops, pawns and tag sales etc. Finding albums by bands you liked or read about, scooping them up like a man with a secret, where only he knew the value of what he found….to him solely, of course…. as everyone has a list in their head of what they’re looking for.
By simple math, it doesn’t jake that everyone around you has your list in their head.
But…what…if.
It’s a delicious near erotic feeling tween a man and a record jacket.
It is a cheap thrill, but a damned fine one, thinking you got one over on the known universe by finding the music you need by digging for it. Primal.
Now i can have a demo piano or proven cover, proven cover acoustic, remastered or premastered, mono or stereo version at a digital inch.
Connnnnnn-flicted.
Epilogue: I bought Neil Young acoustic solo ‘Live At Massey Hall’ for $5.99 and called a a night.
I have a story to tell and a need to tell it. It’s large and significant. Its not a blog.
Its a concept record. It’s an examination of how I have lived my life and how life has had its funny way with me. Its personal, deeply. And its coming to a store near you. Assuming winter ever ends.
The effect of having an admission and having to wait countless weeks to even cobble together the most basic frames of it was a complete freeze. Its easy to lay back in Winter and sink into the browned out frozen precip that is in every direction you look in. I liked it to living in the film ‘Fargo’ but its much closer to being hunted in ’30 Days Of Night’. Barrow time knows no real time.
I love concept records. I think I was fed a steady diet of them growing up (I remember when ‘The Wall’ came out as well as all those Yes records…) which bloomed into a real voyeurs desire to have an idea whats behind the songs, the words, the feelings on display.
My Faves include…but not limited too:
Richard and Linda Thompson ‘Shoot Out The Lights’: Maybe the real predecessor of what will come from me, where a divorce becomes the third member of this particular record. Songs like ‘Its Just The Motion’ and ‘Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed’ were thumbnail sketches of a machine coming apart.
Vic Chesnutt ‘In The Cut’: The most effecting record Ive bought in some time. Its a suicide note. From start to finish. With ‘Flirted With You All My Life’ with referees to the traditional ‘Oh Death’ just the most obvious tell. This story…Vic’s story….in particular moves beyond the coolness of concept into a real pain. Cause anyone out there who believes they have something to offer the World…and the World is less than interested….we are Legion. We are one.
The Mountain Goats ‘Tallahassee’: My favorite record in sound, concept and musical dynamic. A story that was long coming, from when John Darnielle first started penning / sending tales of the mystical Alpha couple. They’re fate was writ in rough, crazy demos and in the tale telling of between song banter. Its depressing. There are no survivors. (note: ‘The Sunset Tree’ album is right close…)
Bob Dylan ‘Blood On The Tracks’: The Dylan divorce record. Specifically what cuts in this collection is the anger, the resignation, the highs and low of love and hope. One of the great F.U. songs sleeps in these selections, being ‘Idiot Wind’. If your not effected by the voice, the passion, the anger of the ‘blood on his saddle line’, you need stop listening to music and take up more television. This World is lost on you.
David Bowie ‘Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars’: I learned (stole) more from this record than all the others combined. In sound and creation and story. Ronson Forever.
Lou Reed & John Cale ‘Songs For Drella’: This factored in early on my alternate band set up obsession. Being not the MOST huge Velvet fan, I wouldn’t think this would appeal to me. But I find myself still singing it all the time. Plus a view of Andy Warhol from dudes who actually knew Andy Warhol. Its a strange record, a lot of space within the tracks….but something beautiful within these oddities.
A night of tumbling cylinders spring the psychic locks of head and heart. Certain rooms are finally opened, others walled away using the most delicate craftsmanship. Questions asked and answered. Knowledge where there was only a skid mark of sense.
And the tumblers keep tumbling, the doors swing open and the windows shatter and allow years of ghosts to finally be free, be well, sayo-fucking-nara.
And it allows us to finally orbit the real issue, the not available option, grayed out on the screen.
Do The Fix/Destroy. 2-3-4.
Do The Fix/Destroy…and kick.
Its a new dance craze. A new cuisine fusion-ed from inedible elements.
Its a new form of literature that can’t be read or a beautiful new sun discovered that is bearing down on us, will surely kill us, growing daily.
2-3-4.
Now….and option is a choice. And we don’t have any. That’s the magic of this new viral sensation The Fix/Destroy. It has a set standard within the linguistics of the phrasery:
You cant fix one thing without dismantling another.
We can’t fix us without destroying them.
And kick.
There is no choice’s within these choices
2-3-4.
So take my hand, my friend, and twirl with me. They’re calling this one just for us.
As a public service (and occasional space filler) I will be recommending (or de-reccommending) useful ways to waste the weekend safe in the arms of our new streaming Master, Netflix. These opinions are strictly those of the author. Despite that, they are correct and if you disagree, you embarrass yourself, go take a shower.
If you come across this list on one of the few remaining viable social media platforms, add a few of your own. We’re trying to create a culture here, Bucky.
1) Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
As is the way of Netflix, we peruse, we add, we often forget why we added, we delete. Life is fast, time is short. I take a wide view and narrow into what fits my particular tastes. Usually documentaries. Arts based where I can find them. Hopefully worthy of staying awake through.
I was completely unprepared for this movie and the longer lasting effects of it, the questions it kicked up in me: what is performance? does art need to be witnessed to be art? Where was I the first couple of decades of my life in that this artist…this art is brand new to me. And intimidating as fuck.
Marina Abramovic is a performance artist and the real deal. Her career is chronicled and often disturbing to watch. Being a performance artist is an interesting gig: you don’t create, in a traditional sense. You make provocative and unforgettable moments for others to witness. Each person watching creates what they will from these acts. The meaning is a strictly personal thing.
And this is really the crux of the movie, since it is about her upcoming art installation which involves a career retrospective (played by a younger set of provocateurs) and the artist herself sitting at a table in a room. And each patron sits across from her for 15 minutes of mute staring.
And somehow…somehow….it is absolutely beautiful. I can’t speak too where…or why this movie touched me so deeply, but it still has me asking the same questions on a loop in my brain. What is performance? Does art need to be witnessed to be art?
Watch this movie.
2) History of the Eagles
I am not an Eagles fan. Things that are ‘laid back’ irritate me. I am New English, I am to clever, to emotionally trickster-ish. Take a dislike of The Eagles….now make it over 2 hours long. What are the chances I would enjoy this?
100%. And for the same reasons mentioned. I don’t like The Eagles. And The Eagles don’t like The Eagles, clearly. Cause they let this movie make its way out of the camera and be viewed. I think they have much money.
A pretty honest take on the career of the laid back Kings of Self Absorbed Almost Rock Music, with more warts than all. Don Henley and Glenn Frey are dicks. Spoiled, over see, once-pretty boys who clearly can give a fuck about whose playing bass or who wrote what song. But I admire them now…I am FORCED too…because they’re take in the doc is such a admission of such greed, you just need to respect it.
The history is there, as noted, up to and past the first consumer raping ‘Hell Freezes Over’ tour. The first of it’s kind but not the last.
The absolute gall to be such a bloated rock star prima donna…and then have it explained in an over two . 5 hour movie? That you need to hear The Eagles music throughout?
God Damn Them. Damn there overly tanned asses. Watch The Movie.
3)Lars and the Real Girl
Just the worst kinda indie sludge. Stupid, fantastical, irritating. Pointless. Dull.
Delete This Movie.
(this started out as a by request blog about the new Belle and Sebastian record from Dame Champagne…and devolves into a bitter and angry/envious rant about dancing…. Ill wait till Stuart Murdoch writes about my new record.)
I can’t dance. But when I did dance, it was to Belle and Sebastian. But not their new record. Which I like a lot, btw.
No. I was being beguiled and beaten down by a graceful friend in a fairly enclosed space. She moved with liquidity, perfect poses in 4/4 time. And I sat there. Watching. And if you can’t dance (and we know some of you can’t. Sorry. Consider this the cold splash of reason).
And if a graceful friend dances before you, you have two choices: get out a roll of singles or try and dance. This was not that kind of graceful friend, so I (appropriately knackered) gave it a go.
I stood and moved close. I looked fairly beguiling myself. Right up until it was time to start moving.
Damn these feet. The stupid German clodhopper feet. Heavy as Chaney’s Frankenstein, immovable as the Sphinx. From the knees up, I am a Mighty Fucking Baryshnikov. Admire these champions calves (I have the calves of a greek God…OK, calf. Just the right one. No clue why.). I can keep time with a walloping stomp (for reference, I will note the entire Grimm Generation catalog). I can shake a maraca and tambourine in perfect time.
My feet are my Achilles heel. In my personal geography as well as popular usage.
I know this. I slow dance with a lot of eye contact. Just to distract from my feet dragging zombie-ish to and fro. I go to shows and shake a leg, stomp a foot, never let the wild rhythms carry me so far as to move my hips. What would the Guv’ner say? I calculate my moves so as to appear like actual movement versus the slow draw across the songs finish line.
But in such an enclosed space, with a single other party goer, it was harder to hide. But the lechery of watching her move and sitting and smiling just got creepy.
So I stood…and she started to sway…and I started to sway. My hips were in check. Shoulders slunk appropriately. Still lots of eye contact like I was trying to hypnotize her into a nice cuppa tea. And my feet never moved, like they were providing personal protest to the whole series of actions. My feet are dicks. Opinionated dicks.
The music was ‘something dancey’ which personally cuts a wide swath from Donna Summer to Kid A. (‘dancey’ music basically means ‘music I don’t understand.’). But on shuffle. I worked though the song, my graceful friend was sweet not to laugh out loud (though her bemused looks were almost bursting through her skin) and I just looked and laugh chock full of embarrassment.
Suddenly curious where my roll of singles was. You gotta dance with the one that brung ya.
Then…then….shuffle Gods rejoice. I believe it was ‘Sleep The Clock Around’. It coulda been ‘Judy and Her Dream Of Horses’. Belle and Sebastian gallops in. And though I’m not convinced this is dance music…I am dancing. Maybe the sleepy rhythms awoke my sleepy feet. Maybe it was just because I love this music so deeply, I forgot I couldn’t dance. But suddenly Im doing The Pony and Im doing The Hop, a full body dance.
My graceful friend was stumped. Apparently Belle and Sebastian is NOT dance music. I think this broke her spirit just a bit.
But I just put the full ‘If Your Feeling Sinister’ and ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’ records and moved. I may have lifted my arms at one point. I may have whooped. And that was my last dance lesson.
My point: Belle and Sebastian puts out a new records informed by Joy Division keyboards and disco beats and they are hailed as ‘brave’ and ‘pre post modern’ (i think I made that up. Patent Pending!).
But the real hero is me, dancing to Belle and Sebastian was a psychic trick proving I am a seer of great power and a master of predicting the culture. Your welcome, creepy Scottish kids.
Note: If you see me at a wedding, look away. Just walk on by….
Consider….(dramatic pause…..still…..) that every bit of magic, every grand mythology, every Alien generated space, every ghost, every Yeti, every religion (all of them) every bit of every Extra Sensory Perception, ever coincidence, every deja vu, every haunted hotel and ghost heavy ghost town, every wonder, every secret society, every spook story ever told everywhere were all just tricks of the mind. Rumors that have been retold millions upon million till the science develops around the myth of it.
Does this seem so impossible? Then you don’t have enough respect for your mind.
Consider Love. Where against all logic and odds, against the science and stats of the idea of everlasting being proven ‘unlikely’ you set yourself up hand and hand and ride into the sunset. But the sun never sets after the credits, the film never stops and the real adventure begins. Its unwatchable.
Consider Hate. Not the hate of an enemy, someone you know who done don’ you wrong. I’m speaking on the racism, imperialism, nationalism tip (yo’). Do you believe your team is any better, smarter, more genetically reliable than their team? Really? C’Mon, really? No. We are all the same, planet wide: good dudes and assholes. That’s not related to the duskiness of ones skin or beard-i-ness of ones God.
And speaking of God…c’mon. Seriously? Are you going to Heaven? White wings and old dogs? Really? Or perhaps Hell. Eternal fire.
We make the magic, people. We are the magic. These brains combine and make great things.
Take credit for it. Give yourselves a round of applause. God Bless The Mind. (see what I did there? I’m awesome)
I make a patchwork of my present days. Reflective threads (for the dark bits) and ties that bind get stronger. I find myself thankful within this unforgiving frost. Not exactly blessed but leagues from cursed.
I take on the coming Spring with a voracious appetite and plan a feast for Kings and Commoners alike. I will not break as the ice collects around me. I will not bring down the power lines with my weight. I sweep and I evaporate into spirit and then regain composure and drink deep of the flesh, of the benefits skin and matter offer.
I’ve been hibernating / surviving. Ive been cursing the ice while simultaneously becoming the very stuff. Ive been asleep while my body has kept my appointments. Very German of my body.
But now. The everlasting now. The incomprehensible now. I’m cracking. I can move first in tremors and then in thought and then walk, sprint, run. I feel the ground start to soften into an unknown April. I’m ahead of the game. My florid brothers and sisters still sleep below but I have been below to long.
Now. I gather my armies around me. Now. I take the high ground, in geography if not always in thought.
Only available on Soundcloud, a collection of loops and live musicians, sex and drug stories, rock and roll mythology, tributes to those deserving such, spoken word and electro beats, New England fetishizing, cautionary tales i learned nothing from, bedroom recording and late night gossip, true confessions and some lies mixed in, cigarettes and ashtrays, poverty and the wealth of nothing to lose, personal reconstructions of standards (no rights reserved), songs about me and likely you, handmade and poorly captured. In short, a peek behind the curtain of Jason P Krug.
I dont take no truck wit’ no trad psychology, but there’s something in the selfish nature of people that blows bigger winds than the workings of Freud. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. Take a class.
But we know some basics: we are going to Heaven or Hell. And neither of these places actually exist.
Heaven is where you get when you don’t do unto others as hard as they did you, when you don’t follow your instincts and hold to a standard…a reasonable and fine standard…. that allows you to feel better about the time we spend here. And in the end….the BIG end….halo’s and wings and never need shoes again.
Hell? That’s where were all going.
There’s no such thing as a false sense of well being.
Dylan is a genius. Right? Yes…..well….right. Right?
The answer is ‘right’. He is. He has written lyrics now part of our nations canon. He invented not only the singer songwriter style, but most of indie too. He wrote ‘Just Like A Rolling Stone’. Right.
There are perceptions about our American truculent troubadour. He was caught being a protest singer in the 60’s and dodged the rap immediately claiming he was no generation’s spokesman. And he really wasn’t. He wasnt political, just played rallies and wrote some beautiful protest music (Hattie Carroll) but he wasnt Woody Guthrie or Phil Ochs. He was no Billy Bragg.
I dont say these things to damn St Zimmerman. I say them to praise him.
Cause what Dylan did do was create a language, a style, painted pictures in fractured images and odd lyrical left turns. He challenged the people to follow him, while creating impossible word trails.
He created small little dramas within a song. Each verse, syllable by syllable, strum by strum, lines catch you and knit into the next…
Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it Lights flicker from the opposite loft In this room the heat pipes just cough The country music station plays soft But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off…
Right? Just a perfect slice of perfect scene and color, to me bathed in dim amber noir. You get the sweet recall and the certain dread. I find myself getting lost in these words and rethink them while the record plays. Its a use of language that needs to be considered deeper. An opening of consciousness within the song. The track continues and you are elsewhere.
And it reminds me of something. Of being high. Which has happened.
And I focus on how fun it must have been being Bob Fucking Dylan and to play with the language, knowing that whatever he put out would be considered genius, by the fact that a genius is doing it. I have no idea if Dylan smoked pot but when you look deeper at the continuing ‘Visions Of Johanna’, I consider at what point he was just having a laugh. If youve ever heard Dylan bootlegs where the room busts up laughing, he has a boisterous laugh. He was probably fun to get high with. Assuming.
See the primitive wallflower freeze When the jelly-faced women all sneeze Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze I can’t find my knees”
And Madonna, she still has not showed We see this empty cage now corrode Where her cape of the stage once had flowed The fiddler, he now steps to the road He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed On the back of the fish truck that loads While my conscience explodes
Lines that are consciously off meter chock full of weird words that confound. Religion-a-cana. . Fish truck?
I put forth this: Bob Dylan was a genius.
Who may have smoked pot.
But defintely invented an entire new alphabet for people who smoke pot to write with.
ABOUT
‘THE ZEN OF LOSING’ BY JASON P. KRUG
‘Krug released his debut solo effort in 2016 and The Zen of Losing may just be the perfect soundtrack and the perfect antidote for the year that many of us were glad to see end. Loss is part of life, but sometimes the magnitude and the volume of loss can be overwhelming. Jason P. Krug faced his personal losses and found his artistic voice in the most amazing way. ‘
‘If you are into storytelling within a song, then Jason P. Krug is the singer/songwriter for you. There’s always a story in his music, you’ll meet a character and visit a new world each time within his songs.’
How To Diagram A Human Heart 