Twangin’ and Bangin’

GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

The song that wouldn’t die

Posted on July 11, 2024July 11, 2024 by Mike

That would be “The Farewell Song,” author unknown, better known as…well here, see for yourself.

Thanks much to Lakeside Joe for reminding me of this one, in the course of making sport of hapless shitlib George Effing Clooney’s despairing agony over (not so) recent revelations regarding the collapse into senile dementia of his love-object Xombie Jaux “Walks Among Us” Bribem. Sayeth Joe:

According to news sources including the New York Slimes, Clooney made the call for a new candidate in an op-ed published in The New York Times, less than a month after he co-hosted a Biden fundraiser that raised some $30 million.

I guess the song rings true after all…

Heh. It does at that, for all sorts of excellent reasons. Now, it must be acknowledged that Clooney’s lip-sync performance of the great old bluegrass tune in O Brother Where Art Thou? is nothing short of masterful. While we’re on the subject, the song’s backstory is fascinating, if a bit murky in places. For starters, although I put it in the “author unknown” category earlier, it would be more accurate to say that it’s a matter of some dispute.

Behind The Song: The Soggy Bottom Boys, “I Am a Man Of Constant Sorrow”
You’d think after one hundred years, “Man Of Constant Sorrow” would eventually get old. But the American folk standard, which has been covered by everyone from a young Bob Dylan to Norwegian girl-group Katzenjammer, and helped launch the modern Americana movement with its canny placement in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, has been on music lovers’ collective minds since at least 1913. Through many different melodies, rewrites, and iterations (“girl,” “soul,” etc.) “Man Of Constant Sorrow” has refused to die.

It’s the old-timey gift that keeps on giving; feeling bad never felt so good.

Anybody familiar with the Oscar-nominated O Brother and its multi-platinum-selling soundtrack can sing a verse or two. T Bone Burnett, who produces every third commercially released record these days, curated the music for the Coen Brothers’ celebrated sepia-toned satire, and made the song The Soggy Bottom Boy’s big, show-stealing number. Portrayed by George Clooney, George Nelson and John Turtorro, who may or may not be able to carry a tune, the real-life vocals for The Soggy Bottom Boys were provided by Nashville songwriter Harley Allen, bluegrass musician Pat Enright, and Dan Tyminksi, a guitar and mandolin player on loan from Alison Krauss and Union Station. Tyminski’s big, beautiful bear of a voice, echoed by Enright and Allen’s brown-sugared harmonies, brimmed with enough soul, grit and fire to make a distracted nation stand up and take notice. In a movie that featured strong vocal turns from Ralph Stanley, Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss, Tyminski more than held his own. He also sang the song as if he’d lived it, and with such conviction that it eventually made it to No. 35 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in 2002. O Brother helped make Tyminski, Krauss, Welch and Burnett the highly respected (and marketable) artists they are today, and spawned a fantastic music tour and the live concert film Down From The Mountain. There was a trickle-down effect as well, which can be seen in the thriving careers of today’s heavily hyped, acoustic-leaning acts like The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons.

Neither movies, album sales, or inexplicably popular British folk acts were likely on the mind of the song’s creator, current name and whereabouts unknown. It’s speculated that it spilled from the pen of Dick Burnett (a distant relative of T Bone?), a mostly blind fiddler from Kentucky, but that’s not confirmable. Burnett, who published the tune under the name “Farewell Song” in a 1913 songbook, had a senior moment when he was asked if he had actually written it, stating “I think I got the ballad from somebody…I dunno. It may be my song.” Ralph Stanley didn’t think so. The bluegrass legend told NPR that the song was probably one or two hundred years older than Burnett himself. “The first time I heard it I was a small boy,” recalled Stanley, who named his autobiography after it. “My daddy had some of the words to it, and I heard him sing it, and my brother and me, we put a few more words to it, and brought it back in existence. I guess if it hadn’t been for that, it’d have been gone forever.”

Far be it from me to ever gainsay the legendary Ralph Stanley; if he says he wrote it, whether in part or in full, then by God it MUST be so, period. Anyways.

As The Stanley Brothers, Ralph and his brother Carter gave the song its big coming out party in 1951, when they cut it for Columbia Records. Once it was absorbed into the folk music canon, Bob Dylan took a shine to it, recording it on his 1961 debut covers album, Bob Dylan. Dylan’s version is far more sorrowful than the O Brother version, with a melody that’s quite different from Tyminski’s. And like the rest of the record, it shows off his unique ability to impersonate a weathered, phlegmatic old man (long before he would actually become one.) But Joan Baez, his future duet partner, got there first, spicing it up pronoun-wise (as she was wont to do) by turning it into “Girl Of Constant Sorrow” (perhaps taking her cue from widower Sarah Ogan Gunning’s lyrical rewrite in 1936). Judy Collins followed suit in ‘61; her debut album was dubbed A Maid Of Constant Sorrow, and it sure was melancholy.

If everyone could agree on the effectiveness of the song’s central conceit, no one seems to be able to come up with a consensus on the words. The O Brother version has this choice nugget: You can bury me in some deep valley / For many years where I may lay / Then you may learn to love another/ While I am sleeping in my grave.” Dylan’s version has no such verse, but plays up the young, rebellious boyfriend aspect: “You’re mother says I’m a stranger, my face you’ll never see no more,” he tells his soon to be ex-lover, before promising to sneak around with her in heaven. Dylan’s protagonist wanders “through ice and snow, sleet and rain,” while Stanley’s spends “six long years in trouble,” with no friends to help him now.

Whether the singer is saying goodbye to old Kentucky (Tyminski), Colorado (Dylan), or California (Collins), somebody is getting the big kiss off. “Man Of Constant Sorrow” is essentially one of America’s oldest breakup songs. “If I knew how bad you’d treat me, honey I never would have come.” It’s that sunny outlook that has helped “Man Of Constant Sorrow” remain an essential part of popular music’s long, constantly evolving story.

As any good Southern boy could tell you, it points up the strange paradox inherent in the bluegrass genre: instrumentally, it’s the ultimate feel-good music; no way can you be downhearted whilst listening to that good ol’ mountain music. The sound is bouncy, uplifting, joyous, making the spirit soar and the heart fairly leap up into your mouth with gladness. Seriously, now: banjos, mandolins, fiddles, guitars, Dobros, all played up-tempo with a lilting, infectious beat? I defy ANYBODY to keep from smiling, do-si-do-ing, and hand-clapping along! Pass me that jug of good old mountain dew, willya?

Lyrically, however, we’ve a whole ‘nother kettle o’ fish. Bluegrass lyrics are some of the verymost depressing you’ll ever hear, in any musical style, revolving around death and murder and suicide and loss and loneliness and heartbreak and regret. Even as unrelievedly morose a specimen of opera seria as Mozart’s troubling Don Giovanni isn’t in the same league with bluegrass. “Man Of Constant Sorrow” is a pluperfect manifestation of bluegrass’s bizarre built-in dichotomy. To wit:

[Verse 3]
It’s fare thee well, my old true lover
I never expect to see you again
For I’m bound to ride that Northern Railroad
Perhaps I’ll die upon this train
(Perhaps he’ll die upon this train)

[Verse 4]
You can bury me in some deep valley
And you may learn to love another
While I am sleeping in my grave
(While he is sleeping in his grave)

[Verse 5]
Maybe your friends think I’m just a stranger
My face you never will see no more
But there is one promise that is given
I’ll meet you on God’s golden shore
(He’ll meet you on God’s golden shore)

That last verse is the closest bluegrass lyrics ever get to sweetness, light, and cheery optimism. You can take my word for it on that, gang; I’ve loved the genre nearly as long as I’ve been alive, therefore know whereof I speak. Grim? Granted. Bleak? Beyond debate. Depressing? Well, I mean, duh. But somehow bluegrass just rocks me right down to my socks nevertheless, always has done. Could be it’s just a Southern thang, I dunno.

In fact, in my first decade or so of digging on the bluegrass I listened to the instrumental stuff exclusively; I didn’t really start paying attention to the with-vocals variety until I gave the vocal stylings of icons like Mac Wiseman, the Stanleys, Red Allen, and Bill Monroe in my late 20s a few reluctant listens rather than fast-forwarding to the next instrumental, the fruits of a remainder-bin compilation cassette I bought at some truck stop or other featuring those and several other fabled vocalists I’d studiously avoided up til then.

In addition to George Clooney’s excellent lip-syncing (and, of course, nonpareil jig-reeling), a big, bodacious tip of the CF chapeau is due to Dan Tyminski, the fellow responsible for the actual singing Clooney rose to the occasion of so adroitly. Note ye well, please, the flawless phrasing and emotive depth and breadth Tyminski brings to the party. Lots of musical-minded folks have insisted for decades that Sinatra’s phrasing has never been equalled, nor even approached, with which I won’t quarrel here. That said, Tyminski doesn’t suffer any from the comparison with Ol’ Blue Eyes, in my expert, well-trained opinion.

All in all, it’s no wonder “Man Of Constant Sorrow” has enjoyed over a century’s worth of staying power. Being one of those small musical miracles that can raise goosebumps on the forearms of even the most jaded, world-weary aficionado, it’s probably good for another century or two at the very least. And how many other pop/folk confections, of any sub-genre, can say that?

Seeing as how I’ve yet to bring up bluegrass around Ye Aulde Hogwallowe, for some unknowable reason, we’ll instate a new category just for that sort of thing.

Another excuse for a good old tune

Posted on July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 by Mike

As if any were needed.

Turning a water tub into a splash-tastic playground 🐘♥️ pic.twitter.com/WN1LwTcwET

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE)

June 21, 2024

Cue up the musical accompaniment, please.

Ahhh, here’s to the incredible Henry Mancini. Who’s like him? Damn few, and they’re a’ deid. Got no idea whether the vids are capable of simultaneous playback, but if not they sure oughta be, if only just this once.

Recharging the batteries

Posted on June 30, 2024June 30, 2024 by Mike

High time, I think, for some good old feel-good music to give us all a relaxing, restorative break from the dumpster fire of a shitshow of a train-wreck we’ve been immured in these last few days. Don’t be bashful, feel free to crank it up as much as you like; I assure you, I’m gonna.

AHHH, that’s the stuff! Go ahead, you just try and tell me you don’t feel a whole lot better now. Liar.

Back to your regularly-scheduled angst, ennui, and inchoate rage in just a bit, folks.

Drivin’ Wheel

Posted on June 24, 2024June 24, 2024 by Mike

Looking around earlier for something else entirely, I stumbled across a great old tune I’d very nearly forgotten about.

That’s the late Robert Gordon performing T-Bone Burnette’s original composition, with Chris Spedding on guitar; the bassist and drummer are unknown to me, I’m afraid. On the Gordon LP this selection is from, the guitarist is the incomparable Danny Gatton, and of course the above vid is interspersed with scenes capably culled from Robert Mitchum’s classic tale of bootlegger derring-do, Thunder Road. Whoever put this video together did one heck of a fine job, if you ask me.

Classic REAL rock and roll

Posted on June 9, 2024June 9, 2024 by Mike

Appropros my response to Ase’s comment here, please allow me to present Macy “Skip” Skipper’s RaB classic, “Bop Pills.”

Excellent tune, fun lyrics, solid arrangement, the song would go on to become grist for the classic-cover mill for the Cramps, my old friend Tim Polecat*, and a smattering of other artists of discriminating tastes.

* My relationship with Tim got off to a somewhat rocky start when, after the BP’s set on a RaB-weekender bill on which Tim’s band the Polecats were that night’s headliners, me and my bud Too Tall Paul (both of us obnoxious rowdies just drunk as boiled owls, as per usual) stood off to the side of the stage and heckled Tim mercilessly in exaggerated, poofter English accents. This fusillade of aggressive catcalling had poor old Tim glaring angry daggers at us all thru his entire set, and understandably so. The offense which got us started in on him in the first place was the Polecats’ recent recording of a particularly wimpy David Bowie semi-hit, “John, I’m Only Dancing”—a limp dishrag of a song that bore no relationship to the kind of punchy, hard-edged Neo-rockabilly my band and Paul’s Frantic Flattops were known for. Reintroduced to Tim many years later by a mutual female friend; I spoke at length to him over the phone one night at her place, and as it turned out we got along famously. Imagine my surprise to learn during that unexpected conversation that Tim was in truth an entirely likeable, warm, unpretentious cat after all. Tim avowed repeatedly that he remembered the Playboys fondly and admired us as a thoroughly kick-ass outfit; the heckling incident in New Jersey never came up, to my profound relief. Iconic Polecats guitarist Boz Boorer eventually became a good friend as well, but that’s a whole ‘nother story

I fall to pieces

Posted on June 1, 2024June 2, 2024 by Mike

Had a phone convo with the ex-wife earlier, wherein I inquired whether she might have any thoughts or feelings on this fantastic song.

Like her former hubby and our amazing daughter (15 in August—FIFTEEN!—Heaven help me, has it really been that long?), Suzie is also a hugely talented multi-instrumentalist, hence my curiosity regarding her opinion of the tune, if any. Never having been much of a CSN fan herself (she’s a lot younger than me, I mean a LOT, so it was well before her time), she couldn’t really remember it, so I sung a few lines over the phone for her, thereby unveiling the powerful emotional effect it’s had on me since the very first time I heard it, back when it was originally released in the late 70s/early 80s.

Y’know, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. In days of old, when knights were bold, and condoms not invented.

See, whenever I hear “Southern Cross” on the car-raygia, I crank the volume way the hell up and sing along with the low-tenor part of the arrangement, as sung by…who, Steven Stills, maybe? Or Graham Nash? DEFINITELY not scraggly old David Crosby, I know that much. Which works out just fine and is a lot of fun, right up until they/we get to the “I have my ship/And all the flags are a-flying/She is all that I have left/And Music is her name” stanzas.

And that’s when I always just lose it completely: my throat closes, my eyes sting and burn, I feel my heart shatter inside my chest, and I have to struggle mightily not to burst into tears and sob like a itty-bitty baby—sometimes successfully, usually not—every single last time, even after all these years. Don’t ask me why, I’ve never understood it myself. Admittedly, there are a few others that hit me deep inside hard, make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and raise goose-bumps on my forearms, and can even choke me up like that sometimes, particularly certain Classical and Romantic-era pieces. But for whatever reason, “Southern Cross” is by far the worst of the lot, and has done it to me Every. Single. Time.

Such was the case day before yesterday, when I heard it played again for the first time in I don’t know when. I halfway thought that, being older, presumably wiser, and out of the music-biz game altogether for nigh on a decade now (which beggars belief for me, I must say), I might have developed an at least partial immunity to falling completely apart at those lines by now. WRONG-O, boy-o! I tootled along with nary a hitch when, all of a sudden-like, at “She is all that I have left,” the same old feeling of overwhelming sadness and inexpressible grief flew all over me again.

It being a glorious day out—warm but not hot, cloudless sky, low humidity, gentle breeze—I had my windows cranked all the way down, as did the girl sitting next to me at the stoplight. So naturally, the poor dear gawped in affrighted wonderment and concern at the bizarre spectacle of this broken-down, crippled old relic at the wheel of the bashed, smashed, ’n’ trashed Burick Grampamobile© flivver alongside her in the right lane, going all kerblooey for no apparent reason as he attempted a sing-along with some stupid Oldie-but-Mouldy she’d never heard the likes of before in a cracking, wavering, old-man warble—what, something-something about a ship, and flags, and an ocean, and some islands or some other such ancient tripe-o-la. Mighta been a long-gone lover in there with the rest of it too, who knows. Or cares.

I mean, this girl clearly didn’t know whether to shit, go blind, throw rocks and head for the hills, or call for a fucking hearse to come sweep up the remains and cart ‘em off to the morgue where they belong. I laid off singing, smiled and waved cheerily at the startled young ‘un, then took off like a scared rabbit when the light finally went green again. When I was safely back home, I pulled up the vid on YewToob and started putting this post together.

Some things never change, I guess.

Rockin’ da blues

Posted on May 26, 2024May 27, 2024 by Mike

Today was a guitar-lesson day here at stately Hendrix manor, wherein I started young Zachary out on a Jimmy Reed tune—“Honest I Do,” by name —plus a little theory to back it all up. Now I’m down a blues rabbit hole, inducing me to share witchy’all a righteous cop from everyone’s favorite tall but brilliant, fabulously talented and visually stunning example of a placental mammal.

Yes, yes, it’s Kenny Wayne. Hey, I figger everybody’s already heard the Jimmy Reed stuff by now, right?

Update! For Bear Claw Chris.

Nopeworthy

Posted on May 13, 2024May 13, 2024 by Mike

The local classical radio station which I listen to pretty much all day every day is, as you would expect, a dyed-in-the-wool, Mark-1 Mod-0 Left/“liberal” outlet, as steeped in the brain-devouring catechism of Wokester/PC as it’s possible to be. So naturally, they have this godawful program they run several times a day called Noteworthy (or, as I refer to it with a snarl, Notworthy©, for the sake of accuracy and truth in advertising), dedicated to seeing to it that “marginalized” Black Lesbian non-binary Lesbian Neegrow Composers Of Color (also ©) get the greater exposure the PC knotheads running the station feel they “deserve.”

Problem being, they don’t, they really don’t. From the Notworthy webpage:

NoteWorthy is a series of audio stories created to broaden our view of classical music by shining a light on the lives and music of artists of color, women, and others from historically underrepresented groups. Each episode provides an introduction to an artist, performing ensemble, musicians, or composer from all eras and genres of classical music. In a couple of minutes, you can learn about the contributions these artists have made and are making to the art form while discovering some great music along the way.

“Underrepresented,” is it? So now we’re required to adjust our musical tastes according not to talent or creativity but to make up the numbers based strictly on a composer’s skin color, ethnicity, gender (if any), and/or preferred sex-kink? Good to know, I guess. Pleasing to the ear, inspiring, imaginative, truly innovative? None for me, thanks, I’m a “liberal.”

With the barest handful of exceptions—practically all of them alive and working no later than about 1945-50—Noteworthy’s lousy, talent-bereft stable of contemporary (mostly) hacks aren’t fit to carry Ludwig Van’s jockstrap. Exhibit A: Etharnopian “composer” Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou’s rousing piece for solo piano entitled “In Memory Of Catherine Brady.”

It carries on like that for a long, miserable while, but the first minute and a half to two minutes of it will give you the general flavor. I can’t in good faith recommend you bother with any more of it than that lest you wind up hurling something hard and heavy through your monitor screen in a fit of philistine pique at the kind of twaddle some PC über alles pinheads are willing to laud as “genius” nowadays.

Now, having played a heck of a lot of classical and ragtime piano myself since I was seven (7) years of age up until the curse of DuPuytren’s Contracture ruined all that for me several years ago, I feel myself eminently qualified to point out that what this hot mess sounds like to my trained and experienced ear is the sort of thing a concert pianist might run backstage to limber up the hands, wrists, and fingers as a pre-show warmup. Compare, contrast the above “marginalized” Noteworthy composer’s random, tuneless noodling around brilliant work with, oh, f’rinstinct, the moving, hauntingly beautiful Larghetto movement from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 26 in Dmaj.

Comparison? Ain’t none, sorry. Mozart’s music has stood the test of time, still beloved and enjoyed 233 years after he prematurely departed this mortal coil in 1791 at the too-tender age of thirty-five. Likewise Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Haydn, and so many truly noteworthy (a-HENH!) others. The music of the masters from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods will live forever. With good and valid reason, too.

Contemporary trash-haulers such as Msxz Guebrou and her fellow dumpster-diving luminaries being pimped all to hell and gone by the Progressivist lackwits behind the Notworthy© program, on the other hand? If their “art” is remembered more than three (3) minutes after the latest NW episode has concluded, the stench dissipated, the resultant pounding headache set in, that’ll be about two and a half minutes longer than it merits.

The underlying conceit here is that these self-indulgent muttonheads are being unjustly denied their due and proper because Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, all the standard hobgoblins of the small “liberal” mind—prolly Republicans, Whypeepuh, ((((Dem JoojoojooJOOOOOZ!!!))), Election Deniers, Fox News, and of course Trump, too. T’ain’t so, McGee. With vanishingly few exceptions, the reason WDAV’s precious Notworthy© noodlers, doodlers, and purveyors of musical meat-beatery are “marginalized” and “underrepresented” is plain as the nose on Jimmy Durante’s face: because they deserve to be. Because they, y’know, suck dead green donkey dicks. Full stop, end of fucking story.

As composers of classical/orchestral/symphonic music they do, at any rate. They might be really nice people, excellent mechanics, great cooks, I couldn’t say. But composers? Yeah, no.

As featured in my upcoming autobiography

Posted on May 10, 2024May 10, 2024 by Mike

On any list of the all-time top o’ the heap purveyors of Brit-style power-pop, rockabilly, and R&B would have to be Rockpile, featuring Welshman Dave Edmunds on vocals and lead guitar and his PiMC© Nick Lowe on bass/vocals. My verymost favorite Rockpile tune will give y’all a li’l taste of what I’m talkin’ ‘bout here.

“Didn’t see a thing until it came…” WHOA, that’s good squishy!

Edmunds, as well as co-conspirator Lowe, has several other non-Rockpile feathers in his not-inconsiderable cap, among them this YUUUGE one:

The band first appeared in the New York Area in the middle of 1979 performing under a number of names including the Tomcats, the Teds, and Bryan and the Tom Cats. According to Brian Setzer (singer/songwriter and guitarist), they changed names to fool club owners (who would not hire the same band for consecutive nights), but kept the “Cats” moniker in their various names so the audience would know they were the same band.

Setzer joined up with Slim Jim Phantom (drums) and they soon added Phantom’s schoolmate and friend Lee Rocker (stand-up bass); all three of them came from the same neighborhood and were interested in punk and rockabilly music.Since 1983, they have used only “Stray Cats” as their name. The band name “Stray Cats” had appeared in the 1973 rock ‘n’ roll film That’ll Be the Day and its 1974 sequel Stardust. They also went to many concerts and enjoyed the punk scene. They met the Clash and they used to see Siouxsie and the Banshees, Charlie Harper and the UK Subs.

The group, whose style was based upon the sounds of Sun Records artists and other artists from the 1950s, was heavily influenced by Eddie Cochran, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, and Bill Haley & His Comets. The Stray Cats quickly developed a large following in the New York music scene playing at CBGB and Max’s Kansas City as well as venues on Long Island. When the Cats heard a rumor that there was a revival of the 1950s Teddy Boy youth subculture in England, the band moved to the UK. They spearheaded the nascent rockabilly revival, blending the 1950s Sun Studio sound with modern punk musical elements. In terms of visual style, the Stray Cats also blended elements of 1950 rockabilly clothes, such as wearing drape jackets, brothel creepers, and western shirts, with punk clothes, such as tight black zipper trousers and modern versions of 1950s hair styles.

In the middle of 1980, the band found themselves being courted by record labels including Virgin Records, Stiff Records, and Arista Records. Word quickly spread and soon members of The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Led Zeppelin were at their shows.

After a gig in London, Stray Cats met musician and producer Dave Edmunds, well known as a roots rock enthusiast for his work with Rockpile and as a solo artist. Edmunds offered to work with the group, and they entered the studio to record their self-titled debut album, Stray Cats, released in Britain in 1981 on Arista Records. In addition to having three hits that year with “Runaway Boys”, “Rock This Town”, and “Stray Cat Strut”, they also performed on the eighth day of the Montreux Jazz Festival. The UK follow-up to Stray Cats, Gonna Ball, was not as well-received, providing no hits. Yet the combined sales of their first two albums were enough to convince EMI America to compile the best tracks from the two UK albums and issue an album (Built for Speed) in the U.S. in 1982. The record went on to sell a million copies (Platinum) in the US and Canada and was the no. 2 record on the Billboard album charts for 15 weeks.

Bold mine, and ‘nuff said about that.

As fate would have it, I’ve been good friends with Setzer for decades, first meeting him and his gracious spouse at the invite-only afterparty I played with my NYC side-band cohorts Tom Hopkins and Jeff Dilena celebrating (drowning in an ocean of open-bar liquor, more like) Brian’s little brother Kenny and his stunning wife Ariel’s nuptials down in Miami. I also worked a side gig during my NYC tenure with senior Setzer sibling Gary, a somewhat lackluster RaB trio that also boasted Hopkins slapping that doghouse bass.

An extremely talented drummer, Jeff went on to lay down the beat for the late Robert Gordon’s backing band, a fairly plum gig despite Robert’s well-earned rep as an insufferable prick. After many years as a semi-high mucky-muck in the midtown Manhattan offices of Columbia Records, the Gordon gig paid handsomely enough to permit Jeff to quit his cushy sinecure at Columbia to drum full-time for Gordon. Me, I went on to have numerous run-ins with the douchebag Gordon before Jeff took the job with him, sordid tales which will also be revealed in my aforementioned tell-all autobiography.

Never did get to meet Dave Edmunds, alas, although I certainly wish I had.

Ahhh, the good ole days…

Update! Okay, okay, kwitcherbitchin’ folks, here’s a couple of archival snaps, below the fold so as not to annoy anybody.

Continue reading “As featured in my upcoming autobiography” →

Kid, you don’t even KNOW from violence

Posted on May 5, 2024May 5, 2024 by Mike

And that’s too bad as far as I’m concerned, because she could really, really use a crash course in it.

I’m a student who was arrested at a Columbia protest. I am not a hero, nor am I a villain.
New York Mayor Eric Adams has said that there were no incidents of violence. That’s not true.

Yeah, whyn’tcha eat a whole bag of dicks there, Bimbelina. To my way of thinking, the violence hasn’t started until the nightsticks have come out.

Tuesday night, two dozen Columbia University students linked arms in front of the student-occupied Hamilton Hall at dusk. I was one of them.

We sang with broken yet mighty voices, “Your people are my people, your people are mine; your people are my people, our struggles align.” We were a group of activists of differing faiths and none, friends and strangers united, linking arms with one another and, in spirit, with the generations of courageous students who came before us. Electricity crackled through the air from the growing protests echoing just beyond the university gates – gates I had just moments ago slipped through and sprinted from like a bat out of hell.

We knew we were likely to be arrested for being on campus despite the university-mandated shelter-in-place order, but chose we to run into the fire anyway.

As a human chain, draped in keffiyehs and shaking like leaves in the autumn wind, we sang with hushed tones and breathed deeply as hundreds of New York police officers armed with flash grenades and pepper spray marched toward us like a military parade.

As they approached from multiple directions, we sang with frail and cracking voices, “This love that I have, the world didn’t give it to me; the world didn’t give it, the world can’t take it away,” as officers threatened student journalists with arrest, presumably to ensure minimal coverage of the aggression they were about to exert.

Students in dorms craned their necks and shakily stretched their iPhones out windows to observe the impending attack.

We clung tighter to one another as they approached us, and seized us like rag dolls and slammed us into the hallowed ground of brick and concrete. But unlike rag dolls, we bleed, we crack, we bruise, we feel.

Police at Columbia were anything but professional

Once dispersed, I held my hands up to show I was neither resisting nor armed. In response, I was handled brutally by police alongside other students being shoved down concrete steps saying with shameless condescension, “Watch your step.” We were arrested, bound and shuttled down to 1 Police Plaza, where the New York Police Department had a pizza party prepared for arresting officers.

They threw us in cells like animals – cells where the only toilets women could use lacked any privacy and where our naked bodies were in plain sight to throngs of male officers.

Aw, poor widdle dawlin’. Ain’t much fun being in the slam, huh? And bad as jail is, even that isn’t a patch on actual, y’know, prison. Later in the article, this deluded, pig-ign’ant young ‘un manages to come off as at least somewhat reasonable, if still ignorant, blind, and historically illiterate.

On Saturday, I hosted a Passover Seder at my cramped Manhattan apartment for many of my closest friends. Representing many faiths and none, we broke bread together and celebrated the Jewish liberation from slavery and a broken, unjust system of oppression.

On Tuesday I was shackled and arrested as part of the campus movement that many in the news media are calling “antisemitic.” It isn’t.

Critically, our fellow Jewish students are not the villains in this story. They are our friends, our family, our blood, our fellow foot soldiers. Like us, they bleed, they crack, they bruise, they feel. At no point have the student organizers called for or promoted violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are calling to end the violence and genocide against our Palestinian brothers and sisters.

“Genocide,” yet. “Genocide,” yet AGAIN. Know who really IS calling for genocide—truly, literally, and without embarrassment or hesitation—means every word they say when they do, and has tried over and over again to get the genocide ball a-rolling? Three guesses, first two don’t count.

I realize you’re severely handicapped in your quest for knowledge by not having any non-Lefty-idjit teachers to ask about it; being surrounded by ideologically-rigid, obstinate clods wearing the mask of “educators” at your overrated Leftybaby factory makes it a tough row for any sincere, open-minded knowledge-seeker to hoe. But I beg, don’t let that stop you. Cast off the shackles of arrogance-in-ignorance native to callow youth; stop the sob-sister whining when your criminal actions bring consequences you are in no way prepared to shoulder; and, as Minor Threat suggests in the song “12XU,” flex your head.

Trust me, girl, you’ll be a much better person for it. No easy, obvious path is ever worth following, likewise an angry, destructive mob.

Nashville Pussy

Posted on May 1, 2024May 2, 2024 by Mike

Would like to remind you all that “pussy” is not a dirty word.

That’s a full-length video of NP’s set, 34 minutes long, but the part I most wanted to highlight is near the beginning and should be obvious to anyone who knows me well. One of the YT commenters makes a very astute observation:

It might look anarchic but that is an extremely polished rock n roll performance. A total lesson in how rock n roll is done. One of the best live rock n roll bands of all time.

Indeed so, right down the line. As for the band’s sordid history, here’s the background.

Nashville Pussy is an American rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. The band’s lyrical themes mostly revolve around sex, drugs, drinking, fighting, and rock ‘n’ roll. Initially called Hell’s Half-Acre, the band’s name comes from Ted Nugent’s introduction to “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” on the Double Live Gonzo album.

Following the initial 1997 breakup of Kentucky cowpunk band Nine Pound Hammer, guitarist Blaine Cartwright formed Nashville Pussy where he would take up vocal duties in addition to guitar. The core lineup of Nashville Pussy consists of husband-and-wife duo Blaine Cartwright and Ruyter Suys (pronounced “Rider Sighs”), and drummer Jeremy Thompson, formerly of Texas band Phantom Creeps. Original drummer Adam Neal (Nine Pound Hammer) left to form the Hookers. Original bassist Corey Parks (sister of former basketball player Cherokee Parks) quit one month after the release of the album High as Hell, and later joined Die Hunns. Tracy Almazan a.k.a. Tracy Kickass formerly of New York City’s The Wives, and Helldorado was enlisted to replace Parks mid-tour.

Nashville Pussy recorded Say Something Nasty with Almazan on bass only to be replaced by Katielyn Campbell (of the band Famous Monsters). Katie Lynn’s image is on the album Say Something Nasty. Campbell was subsequently replaced by Karen Cuda for the album Get Some. Karen Cuda also appeared as bassist on the album “From Hell to Texas”, and in the live DVD Live in Hollywood.

Nashville Pussy have released seven full-length studio albums, one EP and two live DVDs.

The band has remained largely underground, but has been gaining a large cult following in the rock club scene, and in Europe, Australia, Japan, France, and the rest of the world. Grassroots promotion of the band has been aided by their taper-friendly show recording policy. Ruyter Suys was recently voted One of the Greatest Female Electric Guitarists in ELLE magazine. Nine Pound Hammer has since reunited and plays the introduction song for the Adult Swim cartoon 12 Oz. Mouse. Cartwright also had a cameo in the Mr. Show spinoff movie Run Ronnie Run as Duke’s Bar Owner. The band also played themselves in the Dutch Film ‘Wilde Mossels’ (Wild Mussels).

Nashville Pussy received a Best Metal Performance Grammy nomination for their song “Fried Chicken and Coffee” from their debut release, Let Them Eat Pussy (1998, The Enclave) 1999 Grammy. Between April 2 to May 7, 1999, the band toured as the opening act for the North American leg of Marilyn Manson’s Rock Is Dead Tour. Ruyter Suys was featured on National Enquirer TV along with Jennifer Lopez on the Grammy Red Carpet for her ‘revealing’ Evel Knievel meets Wonder Woman leather bustier in a feature titled ‘Too Much Too Little’ and their songs “Come On, Come On” and “Hate & Whisky” were featured in the video game Jackass: The Game. Additionally, “Snake Eyes” was for the end credits in the video game Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012 and both “Shoot First and Run Like Hell” and “Wrong Side of a Gun” were in the movie Super Troopers. The song ‘DRIVE’ with its Gary Glitter style drum beat was featured in the episode ‘Watching Too Much Television’ of the HBO series The Sopranos. HBO’S Entourage also featured Nashville Pussy’s ‘Hell Ain’t What It Used to Be’ in the episode ‘A Day in the Valley’. In 2012 Ruyter Suys has also played guitar and toured for Atlanta comedy metal band Dick Delicious and the Tasty Testicles.

Pretty strong credentials, I’d say. Below the fold for the rest, so’s the punk-rock non-fans in my reading audience won’t be annoyed.

Continue reading “Nashville Pussy” →

Rockin’ in the free world state

Posted on May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 by Mike

Not to restart the whole “DeSantis is a Deep State boll weevil” discussion, mind; certainly, he’s amply demonstrated himself to be an extremely ambitious ProPol at best, which is in no way a compliment. That said, though, he does just keep on doing good and worthwhile things as FLA Guv, if only in spite of himself, perhaps.

Ron DeSantis wants to teach young people about communism. He should use rock ‘n’ roll
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has written a bill that requires teaching on the history of communism in Florida public schools, beginning in the 2026-2027 school year. DeSantis wants students inoculated against the evils of Marxism.

It’s a great idea. One suggestion — use rock ‘n’ roll in the lesson plan.

Rock ‘n’ roll is an exciting, popular art form geared toward young people. It also has a proud (and largely ignored) history of anti-communism.

In their book, The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, who both work for the libertarian outfit Reason, reveal the often hidden history of popular music as a weapon against totalitarianism. In the chapter “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World,” they detail how the music helped defeat communism.

As Welch and Gillespie note, Vaclav Havel and the leaders of the 1960s revolt against communism in Czechoslovakia were deeply influenced by American rock and roll, particularly the band the Velvet Underground. A group of young Czech hippies formed the group the Plastic People of the Universe, named after a Frank Zappa lyric, and were soon banned by the government. A fan of the Rolling Stones, Havel saw and heard in rock and roll “a temperament, a nonconformist state of the spirit, an anti-establishment orientation, an aversion to philistines, and an interest in the wretch and humiliated.”

It’s an exciting piece of history. DeSantis should add it to Florida’s new pro-freedom curriculum.

A sound idea all around, to my way of thinking.

UNEXPECTED!

Posted on April 27, 2024April 27, 2024 by Mike

Okay, so I’ve never been much of a Rod Stewart fan, I do admit it. Even his supposedly legendary stuff with the Faces was kind of, ummm, meh for me. As for the Disco Rod era…well, the less said about that, the better. “Maggie May,” “Hot Legs,” “You Wear It Well” I like, maybe a couple others. The rest of it, not so much, frankly.

But after tonight, Rod Stewart is a-okay with me.

See, there’s a local FM radio station, 95.7 (The Ride), which on Saturday nights plays recent “Live In Concert” recordings by two, sometimes three artists. It’s almost always a good listen, even when I don’t really care for the band or artist in question. So it was with this evening’s broadcast, featuring Rod Stewart as the “headline” performer. Not so much for the music itself, as for the between-songs patter.

First, Stewart brought his old Faces PiMC (Partner in Musical Crime), grizzled guitarist Ron Wood—now sharing guitarslinging duties with Keith Richards as a Rolling Stone—to the center-stage mic to be introduced to the howling throng. This tour was by way of being Old Home Week for the pair, reuniting them after many years of not playing together.

So Wood makes a crack about his and Stewart’s famously-oversized schnozzes, to which Stewart shot back brilliantly: “Yeah, you’ll notice tonight that we always stay on opposite sides of the stage from each other. That’s because when we stand back to back, we look like a pickaxe.”

Love Stewart or hate him, that’s pretty dang funny right there. But wait, it gets better still.

A few tunes later on, Rod’s stage patter went as follows:

“I’d like to dedicate this next song to our wonderful military personnel all over the world. Iraq, Afghanistan, anywhere else: whether you think they should be there or not, they’re out there fighting for all of us, risking everything for us and for our freedom. God bless them all!”

I was gobsmacked. Also highly, highly impressed. IMNSHO, Rod Stewart expressed it about as perfectly as anyone possibly could have, without the sentiment either coming across as mindlessly jingoistic, condescending, or in any way just an obsequious pander to Mark-1 Mod-0 shitlib pseudo-peacenick pacifism, with which his concert audience just about had to be packed to the rafters.

A welcome change from the obnoxious Leftist sermonizing we’ve come to expect from entertainers these days, rock stars especially. Perhaps I’m full of shit, perhaps not, but the feeling I got from his words was sincere and heartfelt gratitude, and I gained a new respect for Rod Stewart as a result. So hats off to the man, I say. I still ain’t crazy about most of his musical output, but from here on out Rod’s all right as far as I’m concerned.

No Tune Damage embed, though; I got big plans for that later on, or mebbe tomorrow, we’ll see.

Old dog learns new trick

Posted on April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 by Mike

That old dog would be moi, seeing as how a six-string lap/pedal steel guitar—SIMULATED pedal steel, more like, since I ain’t seeing any foot or knee involvement, as is required with your conventional pedal steel—is something I never saw before.

Super cool country guitar pic.twitter.com/mWlqoDMURG

— Darrell Craig Harris Pro Bassist (@DarrellCBassist)

April 16, 2024

Man, that ain’t nothing but a sweet, sweet one minute-seventeen seconds of pure country-music Heaven right there. From here, looks like he’s using a Gretsch Filtertron-style pickup on that home-style beastie, perhaps a TV Jones Magnatron, even. Veddy interesting, too, how he has that stainless-steel plate bolted overtop the bridge p/u to keep the heel of his right hand up off of it, thus avoiding any inadvertent dampening of strings he doesn’t want dampened. Altogether ingenius, the whole setup.

MOAR NEW TRICKS update! Dug through the comments to see if I could maybe pick up more info on this remarkable instrument, and damned if I didn’t. Ladies and germs, I present to you…the Duesenberg Fairytale!

THE FAIRYTALE LAPSTEEL IS ONE OF THE MOST DESIRED INSTRUMENTS FOR LAPSTEEL ARTISTS AROUND THE WORLD.

Its innovation on countless aspects from the integrated capo nut down to the versatile Multibender bridge system leaves this lapsteel without competition.

“The minute I picked up the Duesenberg Lapsteel I was hooked.

This is a lapsteel that is a complete joy to play,

even if you’ve never picked up a slide before.”

– John Mayer

I don’t doubt it. Clearly, this beaut is made for the serious player who knows exactly what he not only wants but needs from his axe.

The Multibender is an integrated string bending device that can be configured to do a number of different things.

It is used for bending specific strings up or down a semi- or full tone, all done with the heel of your hand while playing. This comes in handy for changing chords from minor to major or all kinds of other intervals. The Multibender takes up to five levers (additional levers available seperately) which can all be set up to do different things.

I said it once, I’ll say it again: remarkable. Also, ingenious. What a wonderful world this can be, no?

The greatest band you never heard of

Posted on April 14, 2024April 14, 2024 by Mike

A look behind the scenes at the Cramps. First, a cpl-three of my personal favorites.

Yes, I’m aware that the Cramps’ bare-bones, raw, stripped-to-the-primer sound; the shock/schlock vintage horror-movie sensibilities which are shot through both their recordings and their onstage presentation; and Lux Interior’s more-shouted-than-sung vocal style isn’t going to appeal to all of y’all CF Lifers—let alone the bizarre way he prowls and flings himself around onstage, the outré antics, the in-your-face freaky-deakiness. I can see how that might be off-putting to those who didn’t come of age during the mid-70s punk rock explosion like I did, and that’s cool. In consideration of more-restrained and/or genteel tastes, I’ll do y’all a favor and just tuck the rest of this post away beneath the fold.

Continue reading “The greatest band you never heard of” →

Category: Twangin’ and Bangin’

The song that wouldn’t die

Another excuse for a good old tune

Recharging the batteries

Drivin’ Wheel

Classic REAL rock and roll

I fall to pieces

Rockin’ da blues

Nopeworthy

As featured in my upcoming autobiography

Kid, you don’t even KNOW from violence

Nashville Pussy

Rockin’ in the free world state

UNEXPECTED!

Old dog learns new trick

The greatest band you never heard of

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