Recent readers, contributors, artists, hooligans and roustabouts, The Queen City Roller is going on a short holiday. A week. Grin and bear it. They'll be stories and action to report. Bears. Things of that sort. Tiny museums will be explored and rocks overturned. Cars may be set on fire.Kitties washed.
In the meantime, listen to The Psychedelic Solution on Compound Radio. Compound Radio is actually in a damn compound. It's true. Neck tattoos, broken bottles, a kitchen. Things that one normally finds in a compound. Sometimes, there is a radio. Jim Jones had one at his compound. And shows? Hell, there are so many shows on there that it will blow your damn mind. Or your friend's mind!
The Psychedelic Solution airs Monday nights at 8pm Pacific. That's 10pm for all you Okies and Bleeding Kansans. When the QCR gets back from holiday, well, you just watch out mister!
I don’t sleep. I doze occasionally but morning, noon, night, evening, dead of night, early morning, the wee hours have no relevance to me. I’m always tired but seldom sleep.
So I got up from a thirty-minute nap to go to CVS, the store formerly known as Osco, Skaggs, Katz and Cranks. I had to find a blank VHS tape that, in the age of TiVo, is tantamount to trying to find a buggy whip or slide rule. There’s a news show coming on HBO’s “In Focus” called “Vampires in America.” I told my friend Lisa I would tape it for her. She works at a “shelter” facility in NYC counseling homeless teens, drug addled kids, hopeless cases. Some of her “kids” claim to be vampires. She wants to see the HBO report and I want to make her happy.
Lisa is a brilliant writer. She worked for “The New Yorker” and wrote a great novel, “Because of You.” Then she was a junkie for several years and I thought she had died. I am glad she didn’t. Lisa is a middle class white girl. But she knows, loves and understands the blues. Some white kids can. Dig up the first two Electric Flag albums. Or “Better Days” by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Or any John Mayall record. Or the original Fleetwood Mac. So... I’m out to find the archaic VHS tape and am tuned to NPR rather than the usual stuff I listen to, right wing radio. It was the godfather who said, “keep your friends close...and your enemies closer...” I hear the strains of an obviously ancient blues recording. Guitar and voice. The announcer is saying, “This is David “Honeyboy” Edwards, recorded in 1942 by legendary folk/blues archivist Alan Lomax.” The music crossfades into a higher fidelity version of the song and the announcer continues, “...and this is Honeyboy Edwards today, in our studio.” Honeyboy Edwards is still playing the blues. He still loves the girls, the booze and the music. At 93, Honeyboy is the LAST living link to the man who brought the Delta Blues to prominence, Robert Johnson.
Johnson, by all accounts, sold his soul to the Devil to learn to play the guitar. He is the father of American blues music. He was the Jimi Hendrix of his time. He remains the absolute mojo man. He is the end all of any discussion of the blues. Charley Patton, some will point out, was more proficient. But Patton didn’t SELL HIS SOUL TO THE DEVIL for his music. That kind of action requires a commitment. Ask Batman, the Joker or Dick Cheney. Selling one’s soul can’t be taken lightly, even if you’re an atheist.
In the interview, Honeyboy says, “Robert loved two things: Whisky and women.” I understand that. I would sell my own soul for either and indeed may have done so. I still can’t play the guitar but I have been devil drunk and I know and love the kindest women on the planet who give me nothing “bluesy” to sing about because they have never done me no wrong. No wrong at all. Damn it! I could have had a blues career if I didn’t know all of these NICE women... Somebody, PLEASE, break my heart, do me wrong, treat me like a fool, step out, high faloot.
Johnson was killed at a house party one night in 1938. A husband -whose wife Johnson had been diddling- gave him some bootleg whisky laced with strychnine. Honeyboy was there. He saw Robert Johnson die. For lovers and students of the blues the implications of “I saw Robert Johnson die” are beyond the realm of sanity. Thinking about it will only put a hellhound on your trail. Not to mention stones in your pathway. Honeyboy went on to play with Big Joe Williams, Rice "Sonny Boy Williamson" Miller, Howlin' Wolf, Peetie Wheatstraw, Sunnyland Slim, Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Walter, Little Walter, Magic Sam and Muddy Waters. Honeyboy Edwards is the real thing and I heard him sing and play today. At 93 he kicks every young poseur’s ass. Honeyboy is 93. But in the interview he sounds younger. He is still vibrant and vital. He can still play the blues. And sing the blues. He is not feeble in any manner. The blues he plays and sings are THE blues. He was there when the idiom was being formed. He’s not some suburban white kid who can flash on the guitar and thinks his life is hell because his parents were selfish yuppies. Yeah, life’s a bitch. And yeah, I fucking hate “modern” blues. The last blues guy who had the shit was Johnny Winter. He is an albino. A “Bizarro World” nigger. He’s an outcast because of the color of his skin. It’s a world gone mad. They hate dark skin and they reel from NO pigment. Everyone must be Caucasian, I guess. You know, “normal.” Johnny was a junkie. A womanizer. A man who was born into the blues. And he plays and sings the real thang. Listen to his “Progressive Blues Experiment” He’s not Stevie Ray Vain or the people of the ilk who come through Springfield on a regular basis and make believe they “have the blues.” They have the blues if they don’t get dinner as specified in their contract rider. Baby ass white suburban blues. Pitiful? Yep. Certifiable? No fucking way. Honeyboy told a story about his early adult life. If a black man happened to be found in the daytime hours not working, he would be arrested for “vagrancy.” Honeyboy realized he could make more money playing on the weekends than working the fields all day and he bucked/fucked the system. When asked what he did to avoid being found out, he says he just “stayed inside all day.” When asked what he DID all day he says, “Sleep. Eat. Ha Ha.” Honeyboy stuck it to the man. God bless him.
At 93 Honeyboy still has the thing that has made men play music from time immemorial: The love of women. I would say “the chance for getting pussy” but that might be considered rude. Honeyboy says, "I can do anything I ever done. It just take more time." The woman interviewing him laughs and is somewhat taken aback at a man of Honeyboy’s age talking about sex. But he’s a consummate bluesman and I’m sure he’ll be fucking until the day he dies. And maybe there will be 72 hookers waiting for him in heaven. I never understood the appeal of 72 virgins. I want some womens who already KNOW what ta do.
93 and still singing, playing and running with the girls. God bless Honeyboy. If there is a god he surely DOES bless Mr Edwards.
From time to time I have the privilege to sing with The Bluesberries, Steve Smith and the Sneakers, The Maxwells and some other local bands. I always do a Howlin’ Wolf song or two. I take the time to proselytize and tell the folks, “Go to Amazon.com or your local record store and BUY EVERY HOWLIN’ WOLF CD YOU CAN FIND.” I mean that. The Wolf is my spiritual blues guru. And Honeyboy is in the same realm. Honeyboy Edwards is still alive. He knew Robert Johnson and Charley Patton. He’s the end of the line, a real treasure. He deserves his respect. Hearing him on the radio gave me hope that maybe things were OK. But when I got home, Still President GW Gump was on TV and the hope faded. So now I’m spinning up Wolf’s “Killin’ Floor” and am being taken away. The “blues” is cathartic. And so is rock and roll. Next in line on my queue is “Search and Destroy” by The Stooges. Which is just a hype, skip and jump from Honeyboy Edwards. Acid fueled, Nixon era speed blues. Ah the lineage will never be put asunder. Johnson, Honeyboy, Wolf, Waters, Stones, Jimi, Iggy, The MC5, Cobain. Tear out my heart but give me hope there’s something that’s gonna fill the hole. The mens don’t know but the little girls understand. I’ve worn this .44 so long, it’s made my shoulder sore. There’s evil goin’ on. Another mule’s been kickin’ in my stall. And if I had listened to my first mind, I wouldn’t be here, down on this killin’ floor. I am the world’s forgotten boy, the one who searches to destroy.
There ain’t no heaven. But if there were, the first thing I’d like to hear if I got in would be Howlin’ Wolf admonishing me the way he did Eric Clapton on “The London Sessions” record. While explaining “Little Red Rooster” to the band (Clapton, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, et al) Wolf is incredulous when Clapton says, “Maybe you should play it with us.” Wolf says, “Oh man, come on! All you got to do is to count it off.” He then plays the most sublime acoustic slide and counts, “One...two...three... four...and then the E drops in and he say BOOM! Always stop at the top, don’t stop down here...”
It’s one of the best musical moments ever documented. When the E drops in he does indeed say boom. In an era where Britney Spears gets a month of coverage for showing her kooch while drunk driving, it’s sad to think that when Honeyboy Edwards passes there will be little notice. God bless you Honeyboy. And The Wolf and Muddy and Lightnin’ and Lead Belly and Willie Dixon and Little Walter and BOTH of the Sonny Boys and BB and The Stones for turning us dumb kids onto an indigenous American art form. Everyone needs to remember, “All you got to do is to count it off.
I've thumbed through dozens of girlie magazines in the last 30 years. They're all over the place. Circus of Books, Paradise, Barnes and Noble, the Stop n' Shop. They're in my bedroll. Inside my copy of The Grand Illusion, no one would ever look there. Cheesecake rags were under the passenger seat of a 1978 black Monte Carlo that my friend Jeff and I used to ride around in trying to scare up Glendale girls on summer break. Switching between Badfinger's No Dice and a Devo back n' forth jerk. The latter sounds sexy, sure it does, admit it, and I can't speak for Jeff but I'm sure that one of those nights was filled with The Menstruals. The only band that would let a girl put a panty liner on her thigh for the hell of it.
The Menstruals, for the uninitiated, were an all hotshit girl new wave band from The Queen City in the earliest of 1980s. They were so fine that they turned Robert Palmer into a buttery dishrag. You think he got that sexy man guy crap on his own? No, no. The Menstruals taught that act to him. That and how to behave.
The Menstruals recorded the first "A" side only single in pop history, "My Boyfriend Jerks Off." That's hotshit and that's what got Jeff and I to go to as many Menstruals shows as we could. It spoke heavy volumes that you could only wipe away with a gym sock. You could tie that sock around your head, ball an end up, shove it in your mouth, and you still wouldn't be able to contain yourself. The Menstruals were that good. How many times did we get thrown out of Klinkers before we got it right?
Eventually you could pick us out of the crowd. Black suitcoats, black peg legged pants, a Menstruals club only t-shirt which featured a sexy "M" with panties pulled down around the opposing legs of the letter. We each had a number of colorful Canal Jeans t-shirts. Remember that scene in American Gigolo when Julian is laying all his clothes out on the bed? Ties, jackets, sox, manpanties, and cummerbunds (always the favorite article) spread out so he could decide just how much he'd pull in a single night. That was Jeff. He had more Menstruals buttons than I did. I had more Costello buttons. Especially the tiny little Elvis head model. I knew that one of The Menstruals was really into Elvis and I knew that if I wore that button just right then maybe I could after party. A guy could really dream in 1982. So much more than now.
The Menstruals only needed an "A" side. A motherfucking "A side." That was it. The other side, the so called "B" side was just black vinyl. Limited numbers, something like ten, had the M with the panties thing etched into them. The cover was simple. A photo of the gorgeous chicks, Kelly with the panty liner in her tights. A deft touch and an ode to Wunderle. Mary smoking. It was when Mary smoked during their sets that The Menstruals took off. It was if her smoke, her smoke rings, the essence and smells of the smoke, would turn the girls on and make them play even better than ever. That's what happened that night in Kansas City, at the Uptown, when Kathleen got busted for soliciting. She couldn't keep the show inside. Had to take it to the streets.
"My Boyfriend Jerks Off" wasn't the only club hit. It's just the one that stuck. The regional sound that The Menstruals had rivaled their partners in Fools Face. The Menstruals told it like it was. I mean, you really can imagine the guy in Fools Face's "To Be Someone" actually having a masturbation issue. "Now I get to hang out with the number one gang." Please. That's 1962 guy code for jerking off. It's from a Dion song. Look it up.
I recently was sent this photo that was supposedly taken during the shooting of the lost Menstruals film. For the last 25 years the rumors surrounding this film were as thick as Nixa kudzu. "Cocksucker Blues" is brought up so many times when referencing the scratchy, wood paneled porno chic of the thing but Larry Clark and Helmut Newton didn't shoot that goddamn movie so that doesn't explain the amazing amazingness of this small yet perfectly breasted outtake that features The Menstruals having a party. Look at the blatant merchandising not only for the single but for another band. A Fools Face t-shirt, long brunette hair, and girl underwear all in front of an open window. This is an after party we weren't invited to but after following Kelly's car after another show at Klinkers we hung out outside some guy's house. I can attest to the authenticity of this picture being from the movie. They played Twister too. In front of the window. It was fucking awesome. I could've taken a whole magazine of those photos.
"On your knees boys, The Menstruals are in town!" Damn right, sugar.
Me mate was visiting from college in 1996. It was the beginning of fall, as I sat copying all the Velvets' songs I had never heard before from his "Peel Slowly and See" box set to two used cassette tapes. I immediately fell in love with the early demos. "Sheltered Life" and "It's all right the way that you live", showed me a VU that I had never dreamt of before. I also got my first taste of Doug Yule's Velvets. It would be another 8 years before I would run across "Squeeze" in my brother's crates during a mini-vacation at his apartment in Springfield, MO.
I still listen to the Velvet Underground. Although now it is an occasional selection from the "Loaded" extras, like "Ocean" and "Ride into the Sun". And of course, "Squeeze". "Squeeze" means as much to me as the very discovery and re-discovery of music itself. That is because "Squeeze", though minted in 1972, seems to me, to embody that "lost" age: perhaps Doug as a ten year old boy, listening to old radio programs before his folks could ever afford a television. That "lost" age is in all of us. However, it is lost out of society as a whole, never pressed elsewhere for fear of some base corruption by the coarse minds and ears of unworthy n'er-do-well's. I was fourteen or fifteen when I bought "The Velvet Underground and Nico". Walking into Starship Records and Tapes in 1991, the scrawny pre-adolescent kid who couldn't yet make a distinction between Metallica and Public Image Limited, approached the old longhaired dude at the counter."I want to buy an album by the Velvet Underground," I told him. Of course, his first question was: "Do you want album 'The Velvet Underground?'""No." I said. "I want the Velvet Underground and Nico." It would be another five years when Dan returned from school, before I would ever hear Doug Yule's immortal voice on 'Candy Says'. But I liked the tape I ended up buying that day, especially "Sunday Morning", which I feel to reflect that quality of "lost" time, found again and again as we move from album to album. Now I am not sure if "The Velvet Underground" and "Loaded" are better than the first two albums because of: A: The fact that they had lost all their sound effect equipment and were forced to actually come up with some groovy tracks without using effects to make them sound good. Or B: The fact that they were one of those bands that makes greater and greater albums successively. Or C: God forbid, the fact that they no longer had John Cale was a positive thing. Or D: The addition of Doug Yule's particular style was the prime factor. When I found "Squeeze" hidden among my brother's records back in 2003, I knew I was on to something good. I had never heard of it. But when I saw 10 tracks I was not familiar with on the back cover, I quickly produced a cassette and taped it. For a period of time, not being familiar with the album, I assumed Lou Reed was singing. I didn't know he had nothing to do with the album. I also had thought that he sang Candy says and all the tracks on "Loaded". This was probably because the liner notes on "Squeeze" are sparse. Furthermore, although "Squeeze" was made sans Reed, Tucker, and Morrison, it is without a doubt worthy of the status of being labeled an album by the Velvet Underground.
Remember the lost time of post-December 2002. How the winter in Tulsa was coming on—when I brought the cassette with me back from Springfield, and couldn't keep it out of my little recorder-walkman. There was heavy ice on the ground that winter. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, gasping for air, and frying tempura chicken at the restaurant I worked in by day. My cassette was originally intended to be a compilation. It had Neil Young, Radiohead, King Crimson, and the Replacements. But when I was looking for the next song to put on, I had found gold. It was "Squeeze". I thought "that's real nice." I also filled side "B" with "The Stooges", although I cut "Anne" in half, regretting it later.
That time in my life was very sad, and that album made me feel warm. It was cold outside and my heater was a piece of shit. I suppose at that moment Cale was trying to be too avant-garde, so Reed kicked him out. After all, he had Yule who had then come on the scene with a more subtle sound. I imagine Reed felt then like he could finally have free reign and do what he wanted using Yule to support his agenda. "The Velvet Underground" was obviously Lou's baby. All the tracks show his influence, (the "closet" mixes). I think Yule was afraid to come out too much with his ideas, like he really had no pull in the band, having just joined a band that had already been around for 5 years.
Even though Candy Says has a slight affectation of Yule simply because it's him singing, I think on "Loaded" he finally felt comfortable and/or was allowed more opinions of where the album was going. We hear Yule's contributions not just in the "Loaded" tracks he sings, but on "Train round the bend" for instance. Lou is singing, and that driving bass may be Morrison, but the bass sound is essentially Yule.
Yule's sound at that time was essentially whimsical. It shows most of all, on his baby, "Squeeze". Cale and Nico era VU was very avant-garde, as opposed to when Yule had his sway, with his signal touch of the whimsical sigh. We all know that Yule pretty much had free reign with Squeeze, mostly because Polydor wanted to cash in on a final VU album. It may be true that essentially it was Yule's solo album with a VU moniker, but it's just not a bad trade when you think about it. He must have had second thoughts about releasing it as a VU album. I feel like he was then pressed by Polydor to call it a VU album, giving in, in the end because he knew he could have pretty much free reign to make it sound like he wanted it to sound. Polydor was happy as long as they had a product, but it backfired when it was not initially received.
It was decided not to release the album in America. It may be said that they knew that VU fans wanted to hear a VU album, and not Yule's solo stuff, and that it's not a VU album. To me, Squeeze was a totally free chance for Yule to record his special sound, musical freedom given by releasing the album as a VU album. For starters, Squeeze typifies the early seventies bass-driven roots rock, comparable only to some of McCartney's solo work for it's whimsy and heavy bass. And it has an unparalleled nostalgia permeating it, which despite it's roots rock formulas, seems it could have been found in a record store fifty years hence, because of the piano aspect. This made it essentially a mixture of ballad Americana and seventies roots rock and a touch of nostalgia thrown in.
* * * Thirty-three and a half. The Age of Christ at the time of his passion: also, the length in minutes of Doug Yule's masterwork, "Squeeze". This is a lovely juxtaposition. I ascribe three major qualities to "Squeeze". The songs are either primarily one or the other, always a hint, though in every song. It is primarily Americana. It has a touch of whimsical nostalgia. At the heart, however, of the work, is pure seventies roots rock. When it isn't whimsical nostalgia, it is the bass that drives the music on Squeeze.
I don't like "Squeeze" because it's by the Velvet Underground. I like it because it's a great damn album. Of course, if "Squeeze" was by Rod Stewart, I'm not sure I would have picked it out of my brother's crate of vinyl. I think it's funny that after being a big VU fan for over 10 years, I had never heard of Squeeze. And most people I know have never heard of it either.
A great band can take time away from us. They can make us forget our sorrows when they are rife, and make us remember them when we are happy. Time has no beginning and no end, if you can replay it over and over and over again. This is shown in the Akashic records. If one is to breathe deep enough and long enough, he can remember those childhood days when we could not differentiate between kinds and qualities, only sounds.
I remember the eras well. There is the time surrounding my purchase of "The Velvet Underground and Nico". I would hang out at the Metro Diner and smoke pot behind the buildings across the street. I had a wooden pipe with a glassy stone above the bowl I bought at the Starship headshop, which, along with the record store, wasn't but a block or two away. Often I would go in there before I hitched a ride home or had mother come and pick me up. One particular night I remember buying these matches that smelled like incense, if you let them burn down all the way. Of all my Velvet Underground eras, however, I appreciate the most that winter I came back to Tulsa with "Squeeze". I went to Springfield with a copy of "Watership Down", which I never finished because it was boring, and I came back with "The Mucker" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which I never finished because it got ruined by water.
Then, of course, there is the summer of 2001 right after returning to Tulsa and the Immortal Cherry Street. "The Velvet Underground" was on my walkman at the time, and I found myself constantly humming "Candy Says" and "Pale Blue Eyes" as I was contemplating oblivion at my astute job at Jason's Deli which I absolutely hated. I also had a job at the Saint Louis Bread down the street. I mention also that wonderful age of 25, when I roamed the streets of downtown Tulsa alone at three oclock in the morning, listening to "Transformer".
However, when it comes to the pedantic, the most salient of my VU epochs was the winter of early 2003, when songs like "Caroline", and "Mean Old Man" were resounding in my satiated ears. I cannot place much in the manner of the album, probably because I did not grow up in the late fifties. But if I had, I most certainly would understand the novelty of "Squeeze", for I am sure, having seen movies, that there is a quiet age of reflection for Yule in those days, as if not only he was ten, but time itself, spent quietly composing the piano parts in some little apartment in New York.Expecially the three tracks ("She'll Make You Cry", "Wordless", and "Friends" also the end of "Louise"), are unarguably the most significant aspect of the timeless feeling of Squeeze. The wistful, almost somber expectancy of these tracks contributes a plethora of memories of some remote age, doubtless the less-known musics of the late fifties, the time of his middle childhood.Of course, all the other tracks on "Squeeze" have some nostalgic hint at the music of the late fifties, but the one I posit the most erstwhile timlessness is "Friends".
"Friends" is my favorite song on "Squeeze". As I listen to it now, as I hear the needle touch the vinyl, I am utterly swept into what love felt like when I was ten. However, it also has a hint of what love feels like to me now, and there you have it. Sitting in an attic somewhere with a girl my age, listening to an old recording perhaps dug out of some musty box, I can look into her eyes and know: sighing: total resignation.But the soft novelty of "Friends" is not the only appreciable aspect of "Squeeze". It is quickly followed by "Send No Letter", which, being my least favorite track on "Squeeze" simply because the husht confidence of "Friends" is abruptly broken by it. Nevertheless, it is still a jiving, bootlegging romp replete with the signature Yule bass-piano combination. I do like the song, but, coming after "Friends", any song could easily become my least favorite song.
Two facts remain ambiguous. One is: how could Reed, who was rumored to have been upset about "Squeeze" being labeled a VU album when they resurrected in 1990, place Yule 'out' of the lineup? After all, did not Reed recruit him to play on "Sally Can't Dance" and even touring with him in the 1970's? And why does no one know the identity of the females whose backing vocals add that faint touch of eternal sighing that is so prominent on this album? Has no one asked Doug this question? And if so, why is he so loath to produce the truth? Could it be that these women are in actuality victims of a possible Yule blackout due to excessive drinking and drug use? This is a probable explanation and my personal opinion of the mystery of the matter. And it ends. The driving bass and piano again repeat a simple formula perhaps heard in a saloon in 1870's Kansas. A straight romp called "Louise" that employs a progression of repetitions starting with the bass and piano, with that existent chorus "But everybody knows you used to dance the hoochy-coo". Then a subtle use of organ, ending in the quiet repetition of a single hum, over and over and over again, marking that distinctive quality of forlorn childhood love that is so prominent somehow in each and every track on "Squeeze".
If you listen to it for even a moment, it is hard to understand why it was "thumbed-down" by Velvets fans, who termed it "The Velveteen Underground". I like it. I also like cheese. wcl - 2008
From high atop the Springfield Plain, in the Queen City of the Ozarks, comes the dynamo that has just enough wheels to be The Queen City Roller.
A high toned and somewhat light complected source for stuff.
Bloggland is a curious place bees and britches but we at The Queen City Roller will do our best to navigate the bogs and marshes. What will you find at The QCR? Music mostly, rants some, links to things we find stellar, politics, food, crap around the house, brushes with greatness and tales of places far away that only some of us can dream of, and more music. Marvel at reviews of records old and new. Sounds undiscovered or ignored. Recommendations to the real things and advice on how to avoid the shit that passes for the real. We'll be making Lime Rickies. We'll be thinking of the fly on the wall. The QCR will analyze record covers, singles, shows, genres. You will find essays on major fuck-ups and little minor happenings that shaped the lives of The Queen City Roller staff.
And that's what you're going get. Cake or Death. You decide.
Thank you for being a friend, The Queen City Roller.
The obsession. Followed, sought. Anticipated. Agonized over. Written in Sharpie® over bathroom walls, notebooks, mix-tape covers, endless amounts of paper, and knuckles, as is all too often the case with "OZZY."
Molly Ringwald wrote The Rave-Ups all over her Sixteen Candles notebooks. Oklahoma punk rockers wrote bullshit all over their jeans. Some made really stupid jackets. There was a girl in the documentary The Complete Beatles who almost cried displaying her groovy painting of McCartney as a tree. People used to wait in line for days for concert tickets. Allen Doss once pulled Elvis Costello's King of America out of his bag and waved it at me in the street shouting, "It just came out today!" He looked like his teeth were going to bite him.
The crush is a love either unspoken or something that you're so fucking into that you tell everyone about it. You scream it. You measure everything against it. Nothing stands in its way. And a central element of the crush is anticipation.
I was talking to a girl about life, the sound, and anticipation. Today, people have to really struggle to avoid spoilers. If a record's going to come out in August, there are dozens of ways to hear it and decide if it's going to be shit or shinola. I did that with Wilco'sSky Blue Sky and even though I love the record, it took me over a year to buy the thing. In today's cool economic climate it only makes sense that people either download an album off a blog or rip it from a friend whose already done just that. It's rare that I hear of anyone spending months waiting for an album. I don't even know if there are many bands today that warrant that kind of fervent dedication. What was once months of waiting turns into years. Years between projects until no one cares (Elastica, Stone Roses, Guns n' Roses) or years that really can make a difference (Mission of Burma, Portishead). But what about the crush that continues year after year and pays off each time? Well, for five years at least.
The summers between 1984 and 1989 were heady times for me. Every spring or summer meant a new R.E.M. album which meant every fall had a tour. I picked up Murmur in 1983, the same day I bought The Pretenders' Learning to Crawl. I had never heard Chronic Town but I read a blurb about Murmur in Trouser Press and immediately went out and bought it. Murmur stunned me with its subtlety, harmony, and openness. Radio Free Europe was a brand new sound to me. Resonant, spooky, and with so much Rickenbacker salt that I picked the needle up five times to repeat it before I just let the record play out.Talk About the Passion, Shaking Through, and Perfect Circle became staples. I really wanted to see the band.
Next spring, Reckoning was released.
Seven Chinese Brothers and Little America. A Summer's worth of listening, videos seen, tour dates announced and then a drive with friends to an old church turned nightclub in OKC to see Romeo Void, The DB's and R.E.M. Deborah Iyall churned Romeo Void. The DB's were spot fucking on and the headliners were the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I sat just above the band. Entranced. Deer eyed. Michael Stipe had been bitten by a jellyfish in California. He sang with his foot on a stool. All long hair and shy. He had a drawing of a bear on the back of a long jacket with an arrow pointing towards Peter Buck that said "Bear." Peter Buck doesn't look like a fucking bear but he may when he's 70.
Then came the year of FFA jackets, growing my hair like Mike Mills, buying a Rickenbacker 620/6 with a hot check and sitting with my friend Sondra learning songs. We waited for Fables of the Reconstruction to come out, bought it, jumped around, hung out, listened and pined for the tour. Driver 8, Life and How to Live It, Green Grow the Rushes. Damn. I hit OKC and Dallas. Saw them at an outdoor stage under the full moon and the Cotton Bowl. Life would repeat the same circle with Life's Rich Pageant. I sucked the album dry. It was everything I imagined it would be. Begin the Begin, Cuyahoga, Just a Touch on the heavy loop.At the time, I couldn't imagine playing anything else but Life's Rich Pageant. Yesterday, it's all I listened too.
Another year another album. Document. Absorbed and released. More shows seen. Lightin' Hopkins played over and over. Sam Lines took the Stipe photo attached to this story at Memorial Hall. A great show with lots of sleep lost. Then what? For the next eight years I would move in and out of Green, Out of Time, and Automatic for the People. I dug Monster, some, enjoyed the show with Sonic Youth. But the first five records, plus Chronic Town, and Dead Letter Office (that wonderful album of outtakes and live material that served as toast and biscuits between album releases) got taped, archived, given to girls, and raved about. New Adventures in Hi-Fi, released in the fall of 1996, is still a work of art to me, and their best album of the 90s. Binky the Doormat, Be Mine, New Test Leper. Bill Berry's swan song. An album conceived and recorded on the road. Soundchecks, studios, dressing rooms, and with Patti Smith to add sauce and touch. The press keeps hounding me to get the new album, Accelerate. Perhaps it's time to get obsessed.
A Missouri based blogozine covering music, politics, Clown Mouse, and other things. Featuring essays, reviews, recommendations, rants, things you would've learned had you not been listening to ________, and you may now lick the spoon.
Recent readers, contributors, artists, hooligans and roustabouts, The Queen City Roller is going on a short holiday. A week. Grin and bear it. They'll be stories and action to report. Bears. Things of that sort. Tiny museums will be explored and rocks overturned. Cars may be set on fire. Kitties washed.
