Art! – Page 9

Moar inside-baseball music-biz schtuff!

Posted on October 5, 2023October 6, 2023 by Mike

Yet another repurposed comment I thought enough of you CF Lifers would find interesting, informative, and/or arcane enough to be promoted up to main-page status. First, the conversation-starter, courtesy of hhluce.

I think most “classic rock” stations are simply the digital version of a 24 hour tape loop without any human intervention, utterly soulless and boring, you can tell what time it is by what song is playing, day after day.

That triggered my response, which quickly outgrew its comment-section knickers and right on into a pair of Big Boy pants, before I ever even thought of hitting the “Post comment” button.

Oh, that is definitely the case, HH, has been for years and years. Mr Bill—a dear friend of mine who plied his On-Air Personality trade in unforgettable fashion for many years at WRFX in Charlotte (99.7 FM), after which extended star-turn he made his escape to the Florida beaches—used to gripe to me about the new radio-station production process all the time; he positively HATES it, as do all the other DJs I know. There’s a very good reason for their disgruntlement, one I can readily understand and sympathize with completely.

These guys (and several gals, too), without exception, grew up listening obsessively to radio, moved so much by the spell cast over them by the sound of those disembodied voices—cracking wise, spinning records, unleashing ad lib and in-the-moment a rock-steady flow of frenzied, improvisational platter chatter without a single stutter, stumble, or moment’s uncertain pause to give the more reflective and organized side of his DJ brain a chance to catch up—that a sweet, sweet dream took form deep in their hearts.

For all those kids who, like Mr Bill, got swept away in radio’s powerful thrall, the more they heard of this fresh new necromancy, the more adamant and implacable their resolution to somehow, someday, some way become a part of it themselves, no matter how lowly, thankless, and unheralded their first paid position in the business might be.

Nothing under Heaven would prevent or dissuade them from working their way up the radio ladder to the one place they so desperately wanted to be: all alone at the console in a dimly lit late-night broadcast booth, headphones on, waiting for the red “ON AIR” sign to light up, cueing him to start his spiel. In those anticipatory moments, the fearful pressure of being The Man On The Spot suddenly felt less intimidating and more exciting to The Man In The Booth.

These DJs were passionate about broadcast radio, deeply proud of the essential role they played in its continuation and development. This bewitchment was a heady, intoxicating blend which, over time, gave birth to something we might think of as a beast with three heads: the Music Historian, the Raconteur, and the Keeper of the Rock and Roll Flame. In the form’s glorious heyday, the DJ was the life of the radio party.

In certain well-known cases—Alan Freed, Bill Randle, Murray the K, Mad Daddy Giggle, Jack Spector, to name but a few—the DJ’s impact on rock and roll history was as profound and meaningful as that of the artists themselves. The contributions of these gifted radio icons can’t be overstated, and ought never to be forgotten.

So naturally, when their once-exalted, multifaceted role was reduced by the empty suits at Corporate to the ignominious one of mere talking robots blessed with an unusually mellifluous speaking voice, it hurt. It hurt a LOT. After being admired for their unique and irreplaceable talent, the poor saps were suddenly no more than hired hands. The Suits hadn’t just taken a job, a piffling (if well-compensated) livelihood, from them; they had taken the love of their lives. No wonder they’re pissed off about it; far as I’m concerned, they damned well oughta be. Hell, who wouldn’t?

And from what Bill tells me, a talking robot is exactly what a DJ is nowadays. He goes into the studio— no longer a broadcast studio, but a recording studio—no more than one day each week to spend a few hours laying down his between-songs chatter, which the tech-heads will then splice into place alongside the ads, announcements, and other such. When that labor of (something well-removed from) love is done, the station will have an entire week’s worth of dreary, inanimate pap securely in the can, as the tech-heads like to say—”the product” (as the tech-heads also like to say) carefully primped, manicured, and emasculated, to then be pumped out to touch-screen automobile receivers. This manufacturing process concludes with “the product” droning at modest volume from factory-installed Blaupunkt speakers, to the benumbed disregard of zombified commuters stuck in freeway traffic everywhere.

Annnnd SUCCESS! WE DID IT! High fives all around! Don’t leave me hangin’, bra!!

Sadly, even tragically, rock and roll radio is no longer a creative enterprise or artistic endeavor. It’s a fucking soul-blighting assembly line. This is decidedly NOT an improvement. Y’know, in case you were wondering about that.

No spontaneity; no creativity; no nothin’, really. Provocatively clever witticisms, raucous innuendo, or off-the-cuff flights of rhetorical fancy will NOT be permitted. No wandering off-script; all lines are to be rigorously toed, all rules strictly obeyed. Anyone caught thinking for themselves or attempting honest, uncensored communication with the listening audience will be caned.

Having glommed total control over broad regional swaths of broadcast facilities, the besuited Grey Entities of Big Radio Consolidated Inc™ have surgically excised any sign of life, warmth, or humanity from the jivin’ and thrivin’ medium they so brutally murdered. Those passionate DJs who once soared untrammeled to gleeful heights of rock and roll glory are now permanently ground-bound—their once-mighty wings clipped, their voices effectively neutered, their freewheeling creativity leashed and chained.

They loved radio, but radio didn’t love them back. Which isn’t just their personal loss, it’s everybody’s.

And there you have it, folks. I just called my homeboy Bill, a solid CF fan of long standing, to let him know about this post, and will text him a link to it when he gets back to me (Bill keeps busy enough that the first call is usually just the opening gambit of the process; after a day or so’s wait, he’ll call back). Let’s see if he shows up here to enlighten us further on this whole mess, and perhaps correct any errors or clear up any misconceptions on my part, both of which are always a possibility. I do hope he will. Bill, your thoughts will be most welcome, buddy.

Update! Remarkably enough, there are exceptions to the above depressing rule still extant here and there. One such is Greenville’s The Planet, WTPT 93.3 on your FM dial. Their morning drive-time program, The Rise Guys show (“The Saviors Of Morning Radio” or, as the hosts sometimes refer to it in jocular self-deprecation, The Rise Guys Tragedy), is a stellar example of the sort of thing rock radio was once known for, and in a better, more just world would be still.

The Rise Guys show prominently features not one, not two, but four (4) hosts: three funny, smart-alecky redneck dudes, along with newsreader chick Page And Her Great Big Hoo-Ha’s, who occupies her own solo time-slot right after the other Rise Guys cease hostilities and go home for a nice, refreshing nap. The team members—yes, even Page and her justly-celebrated fun bags—all proudly flaunt deep Southern accents, in unapologetic traducement of the industry’s ubiquitous insistence on a flat, nondescript, lukewarm universality of on-air speech patterns—a carefully-considered calculation intended to soothe, never to agitate; to lull, never to arouse; to Seem, never to Be.

The Rise Guys team incautiously skates right up to the very edge of the censorship line, reveling in a riotous rejection of every dogmatic requirement of the PC/Wokester catechism. Their schtick—which is likely not schtick at all, but their own natural personalities, not something anybody could just put on and take off like a cloak, not easily anyway—revolves around defiant, brash individualism, free will, and an innate unwillingness to bend the knee to anybody, any time, for any reason. Southerners were once renowned for their doggedly inflexible pride in possessing these very qualities, habits of mind which have gradually been subsumed in most of us. But not all of us, by God.

The Rise Guys show-topic list (partial):

Broad sexual suggestiveness, all strictly hetero-oriented? Yep
Devil-may-care celebrations of drunkenness and nonspecific, good-natured, non-destructive civic misbehavior? Gotcha covered
Fast cars, fast women, fast times? You bet your sweet bippy
Outrageous flirting with random female callers whose physical attractiveness is unknown, but who come off as pretty cool people on the phone? Hey, why not?
Stinging jokes insulting “transgenders,” Pride Week/Month/Summer/Year/Decade/Epoch, BLM, Green Weenie-ism, Crypt Keeper Pelosi, Stumblin’ Jaux “Pedo Pete” Biden? Check, check, check, check, check, and emphatically check
Sincere-sounding compliments, snickers, and shameless pleas imploring Page to just pleasepleasepleasePLEASE bare them Great Big Hoo-Ha’s of hers and let ‘em breathe, an act of selfless generosity sure to gratify and delight her fellow Morning Tragedy reprobates? Damn’ skippy
Recounting of the previous weekend’s leisure-time activities, with especial emphasis on a slightly (if at all) exaggerated estimation of alcohol consumption, the resultant crippling hangover and morning-after remorse, and sundry other acts of stupefying debauchery, depravity, and self-defilement? Well, I mean, y’know, DUH
Explicit, defamatory exhortations for invading Yankee carpetbaggers to turn their sorry asses right around and skedaddle on the fuck back to wherever they came from, rather than ruining things here? But of course

From the above sampling, one can readily discern that nothing whatsoever does this rowdy, blunt bunch consider off-limits or out of bounds: no controversy too red-hot; no subject too delicate or nuanced; no bridge too far; no cow too sacred; no personage too august to elude a well-deserved whacking with the bloody snow-seal club the Rise Guys wield with merry aplomb. Bless their blasphemous hearts, they’re willing, able, and eager to turn the Morning Tragedy blowtorch on all of ‘em.

The Rise Guys bunch don’t play a whole lot of music betwixt the raging torrent of ribaldry, lowbrow wit, and Dixie-fried brigandry, a nonstop cannonade that doesn’t leave time for much more than a bare minimum of tune-damage. Contra my usual aggravation with the cavalier approach of most modern DJs—particularly their egomaniacal penchant for mindlessly yapping over the instrumental intro of even the most hallowed classic-rock megahit, only shutting down the drivel-factory as the singer draws breath to sing the first syllable of the first verse—GOD, how that shit makes my fucking blood boil!—can this self-absorbed subgenius be so delusional that he seriously imagines that his disrespectful jackassery, his inane prattle, is what anybody not locked away in a lunatic asylum tuned in hoping to hear?—with the Rise Guys, you really don’t miss the music.

Even if you did, the rest of the day’s programming more than makes up for it, packing a knockout musical punch which intermingles several disparate R&R sub-genres: classic rock, early-2000 vintage grunge and hard rock, even a 1st-generation punk song from the Ramones now and then. At first glance, one might well be forgiven for thinking that those styles would go together about like oil and water do. For my money, though, the stylistic mix is downright ambrosial, balm to soothe the savage breast. I love it all to pieces, and am glad indeed that my ex-gf Wendy inadvertently* turned me on to The Planet a few years ago.

The Planet is Preset Numero Uno on my car-radio tuning buttons, my go-to radio choice whenever I’m forced to leave my shabby abode and get out and about, and with very good reason. Should you ever find yourself within range of WTPT 93.3’s broadcast signal and have a hankering for a solid dose of some harder-edged, guitar-driven rock—never have I heard any Beta-male, unreconstructed-hippie folksters; weepy, Men Without Chests© balladeers; headache-inducing dance-trance abominations; or testosterone-deficient MOR sneaked onto the playlist there, not one time—I simply can’t recommend The Planet highly enough.

*I was dropping her ride off at a shop I know for a few minor repairs and tweaks which required a computer-diagnostic machine I ain’t got, see, and her radio was tuned to WTPT; I listened enraptured all the way to the garage, checked the station ID numbers, and straightaway plugged ‘em into my own car radio once I got back to my pad. Been listening to ‘em ever since. And yes, I did thank Wendy, profusely, for that serendipitous main-vein strike later

On Buddy Preston and Billy Miles

Posted on October 4, 2023October 4, 2023 by Mike

In a comment to this post, AWM helpfully reminded me of something I already knew:

That’s Billy Preston, not Buddy Miles. I know, they all look alike…..

To which I responded with this:

Heh. Yeah, I was just kidding around with that one, hence the big buildup before the vid. I’d just been listening to some Buddy Miles earlier, and the strong physical resemblance between the two–especially the classic 60s/70s Nee-grow coifs and cool threads, duuuuude–kinda struck me as funny. No racial slurs or anything intended (this time–AHEM), they’re both fine musicians and I love their stuff, which in the end is all that matters to me.

My thanks to AWM, whose good intentions provided me with an unassailable excuse to repost this:

Man, ain’t never the wrong time to rock out on that fat, butt-rocking-good groove, if you ask me. One of the very best rock ‘n’ soul/jazz/R&B crossover hits the era ever gave us, in my opinion.

Them Changes is an album by American artist Buddy Miles, released in June 1970. It reached number 8 on the 1970 Jazz Albums chart, number 35 on the Billboard 200 and number 14 on the 1971 R&B albums charts.

Reception
Writing for Allmusic, music critic Steve Kurutz called the album “quite simply, one of the great lost treasures of soul inspired rock music…definitely worth the extra effort to try to locate.” Conversely, Robert Christgau wrote “His singing is too thin to carry two consecutive cuts, his drumming has to be exploited by subtler musicians, and the title cut is the only decent song he ever wrote.”

Yeah, well, y’know, Robert fucking Christgau. He always was a consummate bitch-ass little prick, according to all I’ve heard from people in a position to know firsthand. Now the NYT’s longtime lead music crit, Jon Pareles, on the other hand…

Pareles BPs

A-HENH! That blurb was just one of the first of quite a few favorable reviews Parales went on to bestow on us, from which you can easily discern that here was a man who knew what the fuck he was talking about.

Anyway, to press ”ESC” on the self-congratulory digression and get back on-topic: It just kills me how, given the way classic-rock stations keep spinning the same well-worn old tunes over and over and over—many of which I do love, mind, but I mean really now, COME ON!—somehow you never, ever hear this one. It’s as if programmers, DJs, and/or station managers are completely unaware that these great artists actually recorded and released a helluva lot more material than just the five or six all-too-familiar songs they’ve boiled entire careers’ worth of output down to and are even now running into the fucking ground. I just don’t get it, I really don’t.

Update! What the hey, one golden musical memory from my childhood deserves another, right?

Buddy Miles, as I’m sure y’all know, filled the pounding-skins slot for Jimi Hendrix (among other notables) for a goodish while there. Preston, for his part, worked the 88s for pretty much everybody who was anybody in the classic-rock days. Wrote or co-wrote a fair few hit songs recorded by other artists, too; pretty much anyplace you looked on the Billboard Hot 100 in the late 60s/early 70s, there ol’ Billy Preston would be. God bless ‘em both, sayeth I.

HILLARY!™ gets hers

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Mike

At long, long LAST.

After making the old bat wait 10 years, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s portrait was finally unveiled Tuesday at the State Department, accompanied by glowing remarks from the present Secretary of State, Biden’s little weasel Antony Blinken.

Diogenes has the photo, and it’s a real beaut for sure. The photographer really captured Her Herness©’s true essence, I think.

BIRDS AREN’T REAL!

Posted on September 28, 2023September 28, 2023 by Mike

Ironically enough, I found this website via a cat.

WHO ARE WE?
The Birds Aren’t Real movement has been active since 1976. Once a preventative cause, our initial goal was to stop the genocide of real birds. Unfortunately this was unsuccessful, and the government has since replaced every living bird with robotic replicas. Now our movement’s prerogative is to make everyone aware of this fact.

Stop laughing, dammit, this is some serious shit here. From the FAQ section:

1. WHAT IS THIS MOVEMENT’S PURPOSE?
The Birds Aren’t Real movement exists to spread awareness that the U.S. Government genocided over 12 Billion birds from 1959-2001, and replaced these birds with surveillance drone replicas, which still watch us every day. Once a preventative cause, our initial goal was to stop the forced extinction of real birds. Unfortunately this was unsuccessful, and the government has since replaced every living bird with robotic replicas. Now our movement’s prerogative is to make everyone aware of this fact.

2. WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘BIRDS AREN’T REAL’?
The term “Birds Aren’t Real” refers to biological “Birds” no longer existing on United States soil. After the government forcibly made the entire species extinct in the 20th century, all of these real birds were replaced with surveillance drones designed to look just like Birds. To simplify- Birds no longer exist in the U.S. as a biological lifeform, thus, Birds Aren’t Real!

7. WHERE DID ALL THE DEAD BIRDS GO? WOULDN’T PEOPLE HAVE SEEN THEM?
Within the BAR Movement, it is common knowledge that the government killed 12 billion birds before 2001 by releasing a virus that only affected the Bird species. After the bioweapon was sprayed down from B52 bombers, the virus spread throughout all birds like wildfire, and made them all sick. The virus was designed to slowly disintegrate the birds, a form of advanced leprosy. This is why there weren’t 12 billion birds littering the ground of the nation as their robot counterparts were released into the public- they were disintegrated into dust- blown away with the wind. For every bird disintegrated by the virus, a robotic replica was put in its place.

Okay, okay, sounds crazy, I know. But at this late date, can we safely assume that there’s anything this evil, deceitful government wouldn’t do, or at least try to do? Anything at all? From the aforementioned cat via which etc:

the author(s) were for a long time so assiduous about never breaking character that i had no idea if they really believed this or it was just an awesome, epic troll that had become a nice business selling hilarious merch. the dude literally drove around in a van with a radio dish on top and “wake up: birds aren’t real. they charge on power lines” written on the side.

how do you not love this guy?

How indeed. Read the rest of it—especially the part in which El Gato Malo investigates the sordid link between “Justin” Trudeau, his roundheels Starfucker mom, and Papa Fidel—and just be glad that both Bad Cats and their Fake Bird, umm, friends are with us, in every sense of the words.

Oh, and that BAR merch is indeed hilarious, just like the Cat says.

Update! Birds Aren’t Real and Bad Cattitude duly bookmarked and blogrolled. Actually, I subscribed to the Cat’s Substack page a while back, and wholeheartedly recommend it.

Boogs on parade

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Mike

Steyn plays a round of Name That Dindu.

Spirits of the Age
Last month, The Las Vegas Review-Journal carried a sad little story about a man who’d died while out on a bicycle ride:

His daughter, Taylor Probst, got an alert from her dad’s Apple Watch indicating that the 64-year-old man had fallen. The 27-year-old and her mother, Crystal Probst, drove to the scene of the crash, only 3 miles from their home.

“I come from law enforcement as well in my younger days,” Crystal Probst said in an interview Friday. “I was able to ascertain, there’s his bike, his helmet is way over there, his phone is way over there. I’m like, this is not good…”

Officers and firefighters told the women that Probst had been taken to University Medical Center.

They waited four hours there, asking everyone where their loved one was.

Finally, a representative from the Clark County coroner’s office told them Probst had passed.

“When they know somebody’s dead, and a family is sitting out in that lobby waiting, somebody needs to come out,” Crystal Probst said, angry at the delayed response.

So that’s how it was initially reported. As the characteristically somnolent monodaily’s original headline put it:

Retired police chief killed in bike crash remembered for laugh, love of coffee

Must have been a pretty bad “crash”, huh? But just one of those things, compounded at the hospital by the usual bureaucratic heartlessness of modern life.

And then a video emerged, which included a little witty repartee.

So two joyriders steal a car, hit another vehicle, and then decide to kill a bicyclist for kicks. “Ready?” says the driver. “Hit his ass,” responds the passenger. And they do – and whaddayaknow, killing a guy makes for a really cool video when you post it on “social” media!

Then a CBS report dropped relating the arrest of a “teen” of scrupulously-undisclosed ethnic origin, for “a series” of “hit-and-run crashes” in El Lay. Mark throws yet another eerily similar incident from Toronto into the gruesome mix before hurling the payoff pitch:

Notice how in all three jurisdictions the media report what happened as a “hit-and-run”. I think not. Hit-and-run laws are among the earliest of traffic regulations (1927, even on the rustic byways of British Bengal) because, in the days of dusty unpaved roads, no license plates and begoggled drivers, good luck figuring out who that chap is fleeing the scene of an accident. But that’s what the term is meant to cover: an accident. You carelessly hit another vehicle and, in a moment of panic, hightail it out of there.

The above incidents are hit-and-run only in the sense that, say, the 2016 Bastille Day truck carnage or the Berlin Christmas market slaughter were.

Of course, those guys were ploughing you into the asphalt in order to advance the triumph of Islam over the infidel. The good news is that the killers in Nevada and California and Ontario just do it for a laugh.

Annnnd dingdingdingdingdingdingding WE HAVE A WINNAH, FOLKS! Meanwhile, the LVR-J folks would like all you RAYCISS!!!© peons to know they’re upset with you for being upset with their stringently sotto voce reportage on this hate-crime:

Compare and contrast all the above with the hometown paper’s anodyne headline. Having remained silent through Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the Review-Journal finally returned to the “bike crash” today to defend its feeble, anaesthetizing coverage:

As the online firestorm evolved on Saturday, editors at the Review-Journal changed the headline of the article, removing the phrase “bike crash” and replacing it with “hit-and-run,” hoping the change would calm the online vitriol.

But that isn’t true either: it’s an act of murder – a vehicular homicide for which that guy in Charlottesville, Virginia is presently serving half-a-millennium.

Indeed so. Funny, that—but not in a jolly, hah-hah sort of way.

And yes, my post title IS an intentional play on the name of my favorite RATM song.

My second-favorite? The obvious one, of course.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

A gripping Gripen story

Posted on September 20, 2023September 20, 2023 by Mike

Told in a context I still don’t give three whoops in Hell about.

Everything You Need to Know About the Gripen, Sweden’s Dark Horse Jet That Could Help Ukraine
Ukraine’s antiquated air force might soon receive fighter jets from an unlikely source: Sweden.

Sweden, NATO’s newest member, is looking into transferring some of its home-built Gripen fighters as part of an effort to expand the capabilities of Ukraine’s military. The lesser-known jet is one of the few built in Europe and outside NATO, and is designed to defend the country single-handedly from enemy attack.

Like I said: don’t care. UkraineUkraineUKRAAAIIIIINNNNE!!! bushwa aside, let’s talk about the Saab Gripen itself, shall we?

Named after the mythological griffin, the Gripen is the latest in a long line of Swedish designed and built fighters. As a neutral country, Sweden has traditionally avoided buying many major weapons systems from the United States, NATO, and the old Soviet bloc. This has necessitated building its own fighters, which also means opportunities to export those fighters abroad.

Gripen is a single-seat, single-engine fighter jet optimized expressly for Sweden. It has a slender profile, delta-shaped wings, and large canards just below the cockpit. The older Gripen C, which is the model most likely to go to Ukraine, uses the Volvo RM12 afterburning turbofan engine, reducing dependence on foreign suppliers.

Overall the Gripen is very similar to an American F-16C Fighting Falcon fighter. Both are 49 feet long, have the same 500-mile combat radius, same Mach 2 top speed, and same 50,000-foot service ceiling. In terms of performance, the Gripen is like an F-16 with a slightly lighter weapons load.

One major advantage for the Gripen is that it is cheap to fly. A Gripen C jet costs an average of $9,922 an hour to fly (adjusted for inflation), which is far cheaper than other western jets. The F-16C, by comparison, costs $26,927 an hour, while the F-35 costs $41,986 an hour.

While this might seem like an inconsequential number compared to a plane’s unit cost, it adds up, and over decades the cost per flight-hour can far exceed the cost of the plane itself. Over 8,000 hours of flight—the estimated life cycle of both planes—a Gripen will cost an additional $79.2 million, while the F-35 will cost a staggering $335 million. This is a major consideration for countries with smaller budgets like Ukraine.

Yep, the relatively-small (only 17 feet longer than the venerable P51 Mustang) Gripen is definitely a badass jet, with the added advantage of being a real looker as well:

SAAB GRIPEN

See what I mean? Makes the Turducken look like the sickly, overpriced boondoggle it is, far as I’m concerned.

The Being Oliver Anthony conundrum

Posted on September 19, 2023September 20, 2023 by Mike

DM has a post up on the latest doin’s Oliver-wise.

Is economically illiterate. He cancelled his show because he won’t do it unless he is paid $120,000, with the venue only charging $25 a ticket.

Don’t buy Cotton Eyed Joe tickets for $99 apiece. Sure as hell don’t buy tickets for VIP passes for whatever bulls–t prices they’re on. Don’t pay $100 for a ticket. If we’ve got to cancel the venue and play somewhere else, we will

Unfortunately this kind of economic self sabotage is common:

Complains about poverty

Doesn’t understand money

Demands $120,000 for a 60 min performance

Cancels the performance he agreed to do because he thinks ticket price is too high

The venue only holds 1,500 people. Oliver’s take costs the venue $80 for each ticket, assuming that the show is sold out. He moved the concert to a larger venue (Knoxville Convention Center) which holds 10,000 people. Now his take costs $12 per ticket. The rest of the costs of the venue, as well as profit for the venue, have to come from the other $13.

Do you think he learned about economy of scale? Or does he still not understand how money works?

There’s even more to it than just that, as I pointed out in a comment over there:

Mike Hendrix · September 19, 2023 at 4:03 pm

While I very much doubt Oliver is unaware of what his asking price might be, his booking agent/manager/whatever will be the one setting that, on a whatever-the-market-will-bear basis. 120k per gig is a pretty sweet payday for a mid-level-venue artist, no matter how you slice it.

Back in Dec 92, my band played a three-night stand, two shows a night, at Tramps in NYC opening for Little Richard, billed as a “60th birthday celebration.” I became good friends with Richard over those three nights, who was absolutely thrilled with us–even going so far as to give my manager and myself his home phone number so’s a European tour as support act for Richard could be arranged.

I know for a fact Richard made 60k per night for those three nights. And that was Little Freakin’ Richard, the Architect of Rock and Roll (as he called himself), who by then had been one of the biggest stars in the rock and roll firmament for more than forty years. No Johnny Come Lately, one-hit-wonder flash in the pan, he. The shows were all sold out, SRO crowds each show, each night.

I also know a thing or two about venue expenses that people not in the biz may not. One of the bigger outlays for any venue is for security; the number of security personnel required for any given show is set not by the venue owner but by their insurer. Other staff–bartenders, waitresses, doormen, stage management, sound engineers, lighting techs, etc all add up pretty quickly, and that’s before you even get to things like building rent/mortgage, property taxes, various licenses, electricity bill, liquor and beer, cups and glasses, etc etc.

If the venue had agreed to anything less than 100 bucks a ticket, they’d’ve almost certainly lost their ass on the booking. Do that on the regular and you’ll be well on the way to going under, becoming a FORMER venue. Y’know, like Tramps is today.

And even that doesn’t begin to cover every expense involved here: the venue cleanup-crew; toilet paper for the ladies’ room; bar tools like shaker cups, strainers, speed-pour bottle tops, swizzle sticks, and such; brooms, mops, mop buckets, and bar towels; trash bins; ice machines; audience seating; and so on and on and on.

Many mid-level venues (ie, 1500 to 3000 seaters; think House Of Blues or the Agora chain, say), in addition to the house sound system, provide what’s called a backline—guitar amps, bass amp, and/or drum kit—for their shows, free of charge to the artist. If a certain band has a keyboard player, just imagine what it costs to rent a grand piano or Hammond B3 organ and have a crew load, deliver, unload, and rassle that heavy-ass monster into position onstage!

Trust me, it ain’t cheap. NONE of it is; taken altogether it all adds up to a pretty daunting list, most of those costs incurred before you’ve even opened the doors for your first show.

The sad fact is that live-music venues are on extremely shaky financial ground from Day One of their usually-truncated existence. Just think for a moment of all the venues you used to know and love that are long gone now, wherever you may be. Here in CLT alone, I can think of quite a few: PB Scott’s; Kidnappers; Tremont Music Hall; the Pterodactyl; Park Elevator (where I once rode my old Shovelhead FLH—apehangers, suicide shift, drag pipes and all—through a tiny loading-dock door onto the stage to kick off our set); the 1313 Club; the Alley Cat…the list goes on and on.

Although I do get his Quixotic horror at ticket prices, Oliver should have taken the money without complaint, and stiff-armed the living hell out of anybody who dared to even ask him about what he was making. Accuse him of being a sell-out if you will, but as some performer in the early days of the punk era (can’t remember who, sorry) once famously put it: “I don’t understand all this talk about selling out. You’re an artist, you’re TRYING to sell!” The definitive line on that subject comes from Metallica ex-bassist Jason Newstead, during a 1998 interview on eMpTV’s Behind The Music: “Yes, we sell out—we sell out every seat in the house, every time we play.”

Heh. ‘Nuff said. It occurs to me that sometime I really oughta do a post recounting the wild tale of those Little Richard shows at Tramps, maybe. Believe me, it’s one hellaciously good story, which led to all sorts of unlooked-for offshoots and bizarre developments, both for the BPs and myself personally. Then again, could be that it’s just too much inside-baseball type stuff for most non-showbiz types to have any real interest in. We’ll see about that, I suppose.

Update! Much as it annoys me sometimes, ya still can’t help but love WP. No sooner had I typed in and posted that last ‘graph above than it hit me that it might be fun to do a poll, so as to bring y’all readers into the mix here. I knew there were poll plugins available for WP, so I found one and installed it right quick, then set up our first-ever CF reader-opinion poll. Exciting, no?

[ays_poll id=1]

Vote early, vote often. For those of you who don’t give a shit one way or another about any Little Richard guff, the poll plugin is supposed to provide secure and anonymous voting, so you can vote “Hell no, fuck that noise, you bastige” without fear of catching any blog-retribution flak from Your Humble Host. If I’m not mistaken, your choices aren’t limited to the prefab three responses you see in the poll box; custom answers are enabled, just speak your piece in the “Other—please specify” field at the bottom. Hopefully, it will all work and not break the damned layout or anything.

Oh frabjous day update! Callooh callay—that first “HELLS YEAH!” response was me testing the plugin, seems to work as advertised. Have fun, folks.

Well I’ll be danged update! Just came across a good pic of Little Richard onstage from the Tramps show, as well as a NYT day-of-show interview with Da Man himself. Good stuff if you ask me, which admittedly you didn’t.

Informational update! To the fellow who has kindly asked for an email address in the poll above so’s he can make arrangements for a snail-mail contribution to Ye Aulde Fundraiser, the addy is over in the right sidebar near the top: mike-at-this-url dot com. Thanks, buddy!

Unleash the Kracken memes!

Posted on September 17, 2023September 17, 2023 by Mike

I’ve always maintained that the highly-esteemed (and usually estoned and esdrunked, to quote my old friend Pfout’s immortal line) John Wilder’s stuff is extremely tough to excerpt, since to excise anything is to fail to properly do the post justice. This would be an exception to that rule.

In July, the New York Times® ran a story titled, Is the Cure to Male Loneliness Out on the Pickleball Court? It wasn’t particularly political, and I think I can summarize it in just a few words: “If you’re a dude, have a few friends. The best friends are those that share some sort of common interest with you. Friends make you happy.” Writer Michelle Cottle strung those three sentences out into several hundred words of mainly forgettable fluff that would be obvious to anyone with an I.Q. higher than a Phoenix, Arizona winter temperature. In centigrade.

The real joy of this particular story, however, was the unleashing of memes. The picture that accompanied the article, however was, shall we say, regrettable. It’s above, showing a man (I think, it’s 2023, so who can even define a man in 2023) with massive, fat tears containing enough water to keep California going through a megadrought. I think he might be crying because he hates pickleball, or maybe because he can’t afford a shirt with sleeves.

And with that, we’re off and running. John’s captions are as funny as the memes themselves are, really. Sample:

*I, for one am always happy when I’m at Chili’s. It is the booze.*

That’s John’s caption at the very bottom, of course, and it’s a real sockdolager. Nice work, my friend.

An idea whose time, apparently, has come

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by Mike

Via KT, this little slice of sarcastic slapback is too funny.

Some kids know they want a tattoo as young as 2-3 years old. Early signs include using markers to draw on their arms, repeatedly reaching for a pen placed in front of them, and making the sounds “t-ah,” and/or “t-ouh.”

Be an inclusive adult. Tell them about people with tattoos.… pic.twitter.com/ccMJ6QSNLQ

— Chanel Pfahl 🇨🇦 (@ChanLPfa)

September 6, 2023

Heh. But hey, as a Person of Color myself (ALL the colors, not just the shitlib-sanctified blacque or brown), I support this. Why not? After all, it won’t be much longer before FederalGovCo will be requiring every child be tattooed at birth anyway. Y’know, with the Mark.

Second coming?

Posted on August 26, 2023August 26, 2023 by Mike

Of the incomparable SRV, I mean.

That, of course, is Kenny Wayne Shepherd, courtesy of the likewise incomparable Diogenes Sarcastica, who I gratefully thank for the steer to this one. A bit of bio on Shepherd and his interesting road to blues fame—a long, strange trip fueled, of all things, by the delight of grandmas across America: S&H Green Stamps.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd (born Kenny Wayne Brobst; June 12, 1977) is an American guitarist. He has released several studio albums and experienced significant commercial success as a blues rock artist.

Shepherd was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He graduated from Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport. He is “completely self-taught”, and does not read music. Growing up, Shepherd’s father (Ken Shepherd) was a local radio personality and some-time concert promoter, and had a vast collection of music. Shepherd received his first “guitar” at the age of three or four, when his grandmother purchased a series of several plastic guitars for him with S&H Green Stamps, which Shepherd has said he would “go through like candy”.

Shepherd stated in a 2011 interview that he began playing guitar in earnest at age seven, about six months after meeting and being “pretty mesmerized” by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Labor Day weekend in 1984, at one of his father’s promoted concerts. His self-taught method employed a process of learning one note at a time, playing and rewinding cassette tapes, using “a cheap Yamaha wanna-be Stratocaster…made out of plywood, basically”, and learning to play by following along with material from his father’s record collection.

Blues musician Bryan Lee invited the then-13-year-old Shepherd to play guitar onstage. He subsequently made demo tapes, and a video was shot at Shepherd’s first performance at the Red River Revel Arts Festival in Shreveport. It was this video performance that impressed Giant Records chief Irving Azoff enough to sign Shepherd to a multiple album record deal.

From 1995 on, Shepherd took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts with Trouble Is…. In 1996, Shepherd began a longtime collaboration with vocalist Noah Hunt, who provided the vocals for Shepherd’s signature song, “Blue on Black”. Shepherd has been nominated for five Grammy Awards, and has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Blues Music Awards, and two Orville H. Gibson Awards.

I thought I recognized drummer Chris Layton in the above vid, an alumnus of Stevie Ray’s Double Trouble band, and turns out I was right about that; he’s been back there pounding the skins for Shepherd since 2006, as it happens. No surprise that, really; although it could be argued that Shepherd doesn’t quite have the same casual, flawless fluidity as Vaughan, there’s no denying the lad has some damned fine chops of his own, and definitely knows a thing or two about that elusive will o’ the wisp: TONE. It’s the bluesman’s meat and potatoes, a make-or-break quality that the very best players spend entire careers obssessively chasing down, never entirely convinced that they’ve quite caught it. YET.

And Kenny Wayne has it, in spades. His breakout classic-rock-radio hit “Blue On Black” I’m sure you’re all familiar with already, so let’s try another one on for size and see how it fits.

Fits pretty nicely on a hot summer Saturday night, I’d say. One last vid to pull it all together.

Somewhere out there, Stevie Ray Vaughan—and Jimi Hendrix too, probably—are smiling down in approval at their rightful heir.

The infamous mug shot

Posted on August 25, 2023 by Mike

Everybody seems to be talking about how grim and stone-faced Trump looks in his official Fulton County mugshot, but I don’t see what the problem is. He looks pleasant enough to me, even happy:

TrumpMugAlt

Core image, which I may have Gimp’d around with just a wee touch, swiped from Divemedic.

Smackdown: DEALT

Posted on August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 by Mike

The effete True Conservatives™ currently dragging Bill Buckley’s once-indispensable magazine through the shitlib sewer-pipe had the unmitigated gall to sniff, in the manner of Thurston Howell III, at Oliver Anthony’s smash song, and John Nolte is all over ‘em like white on rice.

This establishment elite is so above it all he dissects “Rich Men North of Richmond” lyric by lyric. Honestly, the best way to read these excerpts is in the voice of Thurston Howell III:

“Yes — it is a damn shame what the world’s gotten to. But we can fix it. We don’t have to just dream about it. Indeed, if we want to, we can fix it on our own even if Washington is standing in our way or looking down its nose at us,” lovey.

He also suggests Anthony remind everybody in a song of “what makes America a great land — a land of opportunity, not of guaranteed success,” lovey.

It gets worse:

My brother in Christ, you live in the United States of America in 2023 — if you’re a fit, able-bodied man, and you’re working “overtime hours for bullshit pay,” you need to find a new job.

There’s plenty of them out there — jobs that don’t require a college degree, that offer good pay (especially in this tight labor market) and great benefits, especially if you’re willing to get your hands dirty by doing things like joining the Navy, turning wrenches, fixing pumps, laying pipe, or a hundred other jobs through which American men can still make a great living. If you’re the type of guy who’s willing to show up on time, every time, work hard while you’re on the clock, and learn hard skills — there’s a good-paying job out there for you. Go find it.

What did the pedantic do before the Internet?

How out of touch do you have to be to rip apart a song that speaks to a disaffected group of people and says I get you, I hear you, I’m with you, you’re not alone, we’re in this together…? That’s what art does. The best art grabs hold of something inside of us and helps us to make sense of it. Art is firing on all cylinders when it examines and explains the human condition. All Oliver Anthony is doing is commiserating and reaching out to a group of people who feel they are under assault by America’s dominant culture because they are under assault by America’s dominant culture. He’s commiserating with us in the same way Sinatra commiserates with the lonely, Patsy Cline embraces the brokenhearted, Woody Guthrie speaks for the scorned, and the blues offer everyone a shoulder to cry on.

Hey, National Review. Why are you whining about a song? This is America, you crybabies, a land where you can write your own songs. You don’t need to sit around and wait for Oliver Anthony to write a song about how great America is–not in America. Why aren’t you pulling those bootstraps, showing some initiative, and writing the song yourself, my brother in Christ?

Finally, what’s interesting is how National Review failed to comment on this specific lyric in Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond”:

I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere

But that might be because National Review was publishing gushing articles about Jeffrey Epstein years and years after his conviction for procuring underage prostitutes.

What whores won’t do for a dollar.