rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

 Back In Black With The Red State Blues:
RPM’s Mindbomb Got A Bulletproof Sheen

    On her new EP  ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Being An American’ (7490 Records) RPM returns with six guns a blazing, once again hell bent on waking up a dozing populace that, as usual, has no idea the trouble it’s seein’.  This young force of nature from Kentucky who debuted last year with the phenomenal ‘Irrational Anthem’ (if you don’t have it yet, but it NOW. I’ll wait), is the real deal: a thinking, feeling HUMAN being who’s both pissed off and articulate. A winning combination in any book. And, yes, she rocks.
    What RPM has done on ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Being An American’ is a rare thing, a fair and balanced (now THERE’S a catch phrase) take on, among other things, the mess our leader has made in Iraq. Rather than blather in the ‘anyone but Bush’ mode that arguably cost John Kerry the election, this record speaks with the soul of a warrior who knows what’s worth fighting for. The dedication says a lot :

“This EP is dedicate to my father. A soldier. My hero. Duty. Honor. Country. May no future president abuse the power and service of our troops”.

    As a child of a Marine myself, I recognize the difference between being  a patriot and a pundit. So many trapdoors have been built into Bush’s rationale for this ongoing slaughter that anyone questioning it, or him AT ALL, lends themselves to being painted with the brush of traitor. Just ask Ward Churchill. No, I’m not comparing RPM’s art to the overwrought screed of Churchill (really - ‘little Eichmann’s??!!’  Couldn’t you see that that was all anyone was gonna see? ), just that there’s an element of ‘kill the messenger’ brought to bear whenever anyone presents the powers that be with any uncomfortable truths.  To stand idly by and engage in the massive self-hypnosis and denial that defines much of American life and culture these days is in it’s own way a war crime. Not that we’re all ‘little Eichmanns’, but many of us are certainly more than a little lazy.
    Not RPM, no sir. This record takes up the artistic challenge of facing the harsh realities of being an American in the 21st Century. Moreover this record takes upon itself the responsibility, so often shirked by mere pop stars, to inform and maybe instruct as it rocks yr little pink house to it’s very foundation. And, once again, RPM has avoided the self-ghetto-ization of the poorly recorded punk rock rant-a-rama by dressing her poisoned ideas (always the best kind, mind you) in tight, fully formed arrangements with interesting twists, turns and instrumentation. Much credit goes to the band (Jerod Vance guitar, Matt McJunkins bass and Glen Sobel drums) for bringing the noise with both grace and fury to these words of fire and warning. Again co-produced by RPM and Frank Gryner (A Perfect Circle) ‘A Young Person’s Guide…” benefits from the bulletproof sheen of the Major Rock Release while suffering none of the mind numbing torpor of same. The cliché about iron fists and velvet gloves gets used a lot when discussing this woman’s work but it has never been used more aptly.
    This is no small thing, a record that eloquently asks hard questions and confidently posits hard answers with the unflinching intensity of one who knows deep in her heart that she’s right about what’s wrong. Here’s a quote from “Imperfect”:

Year gone by
Trashed our constitution
Hope you find
It was worth your retribution
While you try
For one more execution
I hope you are next

    Any questions? Such direct honesty is enough to make an old Clash fan cry. In days such as these, when the power mad play dice with our children’s lives and religions search frantically for alleged resignation letters in the face of death and child abuse, where pop stars extol the virtues of  vice for it’s own sake and urge us all to dancedancedance while the world is burning, a brave, smart woman with the heart and soul of Victory itself is laying down a mind bomb and a gauntlet to us all. In the words of Paul Westerberg it’s “..time for decisions to  be made” and, to paraphrase a famous, dangerous idiot “Yr either for her or against her.” I pray we all make the right decision. Buying the records is only the first, smallest step, but buy them. Buy them today because, unlike most rockers out there, RPM gives you something to think about for yr money, and such actions deserve to be rewarded. At last an artist worth supporting, so get out there and support her, Goddamnit!

Posted by: timbyrnes at 23:21 | link | comments

The Dulliad: Getting Over The Afghan Whigs

    The time has come, I write, to speak of many things. Like Greg Dulli, Rick McCollum and the legend of the Afghan Whigs. I’ve been typing my brains out trying to hip the world to a band that doesn’t exist anymore. Sorta like everybody and their critical brother does with the Velvet Underground.  The only trouble is I’ve done so at the expense of the fine, fine music created by both Dulli and former Whigs guitarist Rick McCollum in the years since the Whigs’ breakup.
    My bad, but let me, weakly, explain. The Afghan Whigs (1987-1998) were more than just my favorite band during their existence.  Their whole deal: music, lyrics, subject matter, performance, stance etc spoke directly to me while I was starting on my then-latest journey of self-discovery. The Afghan Whigs played the soundtrack to my crawling out of the bottle and confronting what I saw in those vibrating mirrors on the 1st stretch of road to getting sober.
    I’d just left NY in 1993 after 20 odd years of heavy, heavy drinking, the last 5 yrs in a classic co-dependant relationship with a lovely manic-depressive girl. We’d spent those years keeping each other sick between bouts of phenomenal sex and as much real emotion as we could muster. Knowing, finally, that I was on a dead-end trail, I got on a plane in 1993 and moved to Colorado, got a job and eventually moved in with my now ex-wife. One day in Greeley, CO I read a review of ‘Gentlemen’ by the Afghan Whigs where the reviewer said, in best rockcrit shorthand that ‘… it sounds like Big Star doing Berlin.’ Which was enough for me to buy it. The record FLOORED me, still does to this day. I never had to write a record about that dissolute relationship of mine ‘cause Dulli and Co did it better than I ever could.
    I had, of course, heard about the band before the release of ‘Gentlemen”, not that they ever got the kind of press they deserved, or the kind of press given Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden etc, but it wasn’t until “Gentlemen” that I got on board. I’ve since procured their catalog and urge you to do the same. The problem was what attracted me to this music was the way it brought into a cold light what might be considered the worst of human nature. Never judgmental or sensational, records like “Gentlemen” and “Black Love” spoke in harsh funky cadences of the evil that men do and maybe, at heart, are. I found this to be strangely liberating.
     Being the repressed Catholic I am, there was an element of ‘forbidden fruit’ in the way Dulli reveled in his worldliness, he asked “Do you think I’m beautiful? Do you think I’m evil?” and I had to admit the answer to both questions was, for me, a resounding ‘yes’. Which led me to the struggle of the appreciation of the beauty of Evil. Yes, I know, I think about this stuff way too much but I am what I am and consider the addition of stimuli towards self-examination to the general booty shake rockinroll experience to be a benefit. Unfortunately, my attraction to Dulli’s persona (and only his persona. I’m not gay. NOT THERE’S THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!!) made my ex-wife a little crazy. Part of me wished that I could be the type of man Dulli represented on these records, which was/is silly, ‘cause I don’t think it was much more than just that: Dulli representing. The ‘man’ of these records was a caricature, or at most simply a slice of the whole man who made them. I was suckered again by the allure of image, but damn if I don’t still walk with a touch of swagger when I play these records. Which I still do on a regular basis.
     Suffice it to say, this darkness MOVED me and continues to do so. But, upon hearing  of the Whigs’ breakup I cut myself off purposely from Dulli’s next project, The Twilight Singers. My loss, as I’ve since bought their 1st 2 Cds (“Twilight” and “Blackberry Belle”) and while having heard mp3s from “She Loves You”, their new ‘covers’ CD which I intend to buy this week, and I have to say I love them all. Differently than the Whigs’ canon, but equally. It was hard for me to move on after “1965”, the Whigs’ last CD, a funky but less harrowing excursion (If they’d gone out with “Black Love” I’d have been happier, but who cares what makes me happy?) ‘cause I felt like I’d lost the closest thing I had to a drinking buddy in my newfound sobriety. The Twilight Singers are more fleshed out, more orchestral than the Whigs, although their power is now clear to me, I had a hard time getting into them at first. It was like seeing an old girlfriend who you knew was no good for you (and vice-versa) finally happy in the arms of another man. Maybe I’ve grown up a little, maybe I’ve got more ‘perspective’ or something but I’m finally open to the wonders of the man’s new joints.
    The other engine of the Afghan Whigs and the reason God invented the wah wah pedal is guitarist Rick McCollum, the nearest thing to a guitar hero the ‘90’s ever produced and then ignored. Upon the Whigs’ demise he fell off my radar (not that I looked real hard, I was crushed by the Whigs’ demise. Hadn’t felt so bad about losing a band since my beloved Mott the Hoople cashed in back in the ‘70’s. Mott the Hoople -sigh- now THERE  was a band!!). Recently, though I emailed Dulli at  his myspace.com page and asked what Rick was up to. I was pleased to find out that he has a new band, Moon Maan, who have been performing for over a year and will be releasing a CD in April of this year. Full length samples of new material can be found at http://www.moonmaan.com and I urge you to check them out. Moon Maan sounds a LOT more like Afghan Whigs than do the Twilight Singers. Not to say it’s a rehash of old glory days, no, just that Moon Maan has the grit and out and out Rolling Stones on crack abandon that endeared me to the Whigs in the 1st place.
    I’ve spent a lot of time on this site and in my life bemoaning my perception that there’s no more great music to be found. It’s my own fault ‘cause I stopped looking.  Some of the best, most interesting music I’ve encountered lately comes yet again from the minds, pens and guitars of Greg Dulli and Rick McCollum. There are links to all the above at http://www.thetwilightsingers.com . Click, please and enjoy some of the best music this 21st Century has to offer.
 

Posted by: timbyrnes at 21:36 | link | comments (3)

Gorbachev Has A Cold: Standing On The Sidelines, Shaken

     We interrupt this episode of punk rock blues in order to get swept up in current events. Our regularly scheduled program: “‘We Need A Bigger Piano, Phil’: How Sonny Bono Invented Feedback” will just have to wait. Cause that’s the way it is with current events.  You can get swept up in them. Like a current. That’s why they call them ‘current’ events.
    The Pope has the flu again and all hell’s breaking loose. Reports upon reports upon Op-Eds and blogs like this one. The thrust of all this typing, beyond back story/histories about the Roman Catholic Church and it’s leader Karol Wojtyla,  is towards debate. Should the Pope resign? Is he fit to serve? What does this mean to the Church in the 21st Century? What’s getting lost in all this science fiction is that an old man, a good man - possibly a great man - is gravely ill. With position personality gets lost in the rush to image. The Office supercedes the man, especially in this case where the man and the Office assume the mantle and infallibility of God.
    Well God may not be dead, but to millions he is sick.
    As a lapsed Catholic who spent his formative years being educated by nuns in an upstate NY Parochial School my psyche still resonates with near Pavlovian response to the Pope. Drilled into my head was the surety that only my people knew the one true God and that the Holy Father in Rome, for all intents and purposes, was God on Earth. From all I’ve read about Mr. Wojtyla, he seems to be a true believer with a deeply politicized heart; a man who worked for the good of the people with his hands and mind as well as his faith and soul.  A man who forgave the man who shot him and once starred in his own Marvel comic. An actor in an experimental theatre group in his native Poland. An artist/activist who stood for all that is good about God and was truly an imitation of Christ.
    But could even Christ himself stand up against Mother Church?
    Pope John Paul II, for all his promise, was running the store throughout the entire run of abuse scandals. It was on his watch that cover ups were covered up and those that hurt children were protected. I can’t imagine Karol Wojtyla standing idly by while this occurred. But Pope John II is apparently a whole ‘nother brother. The man became the Office, the World Power who was, perhaps, too busy defeating Communism to even notice the pain of his people. Maybe when one is operating on that vast a stage there is a higher purpose. But I can’t imagine what it might be. Maybe when one is operating on that vast a stage one is swept up in current events and, no matter how obviously wrong some things are, one can only  watch in wonder. Standing on the sidelines, shaken.
    Now I know that I’m a crazed conspiracy theorist, though I really don’t believe any of them in my heart. I really don’t believe anything in my heart, which is sometimes disturbing and another story entirely, but can you imagine the scampering and scavenging that must be going on right now in the corridors of Vatican power? The Vatican (aka the Catholic Church) is one of the oldest and most secretive World Power we got throwing dice in the big casino of modern life and right now Gorbachev has a cold. I’m thinking Cardinals are pushing their boys to the front, jockeying for position, doing backroom deals like little Boss Tweeds in long black dresses. Keeping the Line in line. Remember Pope John Paul I? He died suddenly, didn’t he? Wonder what HE was about to give awa… I mean, do? I have no idea how this is going to end up but I’m not hopeful. I expect no sweeping regime change that will result in a Catholic Church that takes full responsibility for the misdeeds of it’s priests, to accede itself to the rule of law or divests itself of at least some it’s obscene wealth to feed the poor in Christ’s name. Sell a couple of paintings. And open that fucking library with the books that only the Pope can read.
    A good man is ill, perhaps near death. I will mourn for Karol Wojtyla when he passes, for the world will have lost a  servant of the light and we need all of those we can get. And as for Pope John Paul II, world leader and empty suit, well maybe you should have listened to yr spider sense when it was tingling.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:17 | link | comments

Take it to the Bridge of Sighs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  (An Open Letter to the Ghost of Robert Quine)

    So I leave my wife (still love you, Lynn), I leave my small town (still love you, Fowler) and I leave my 3-piece bar band Flashback (still love you, Kenny, Dan). I hop in the car of a friend I hadn’t seen in about 30 years and I take my fearlessly backsliding ass to Denver, Colorado with the intent of finally putting all my musical aspirations on the line. Put up or shut up time, as a good friend back in NY told me. I had sold all my meager equipment (Danelectro Guitarlin, Magnatone 112) but my good friend and landlord was kind enough to hook me up with a pretty cool rig: an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. - black on black, none more black with a hum bucker and a seriously happening Behringer Modeling amp with 2x30 watts stereo power,  a pair of 10” Jensens and all the effects you could want built in. No, it’s not exactly a ‘62 Strat and a Blackface Deluxe, but the guitar stays in tune and the amp’s loud enough. Tools.
    Armed thusly I placed ‘guitarist available’ ads online at various local  sites. as well as  answered a few interesting one’s I found. Within the day I started getting responses from musicians as varied as the ‘shoe gazer’ couple from Birmingham who send funny, smart emails and should be moving to Denver soon, to the acoustic entrepreneur/genius who I’ve yet to meet - been busy getting settled in - but have had some really great phone calls with (If yr reading this Eric, I PROMISE I’ll call tomorrow) to the Nu metal band who’s 1st question was ‘Do you have, like, long hair? For the record the answer is ‘Like, not anymore, dude”. But the one call that came with an invitation to jam THAT day was from the deep voiced character from a previous post who asked “Can you play Funk?
    Now, you know as well as I do, Bob, I suffer from something of a funk deficiency. While not the whitest man what walks (not as long as Kenny G draws breath, at least) and, true, I’ve been known to hang and bang on the 9th chord like Jimmy Nolen with ADD on some of Flashback’s  15 minute versions of ‘Born On The Bayou’, I’m more prone and known for the noise of punk than the joys of funk. And to make matters worse, these guys are like serious jazz cats. They read music and EVERYTHING! EVEN THE DRUMMER!! The bass player has the best ‘ear’ I’ve ever encountered.  Put the song on the CD player and he’s got it down before the 2nd chorus. And I’m not talking about Ramones tunes. We got yr Chaka Khan, yr Ramsey Lewis we’re even doing ‘Billie Jean”
    And you know what?
    I love it!
     But I feel like I’m a ticking time-bomb and that I’m passing.    
    At first blush I felt like I was in waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay  over my head. But, with the bassist and piano player’s help, I’ve been able to come up with parts that don’t stick out like sore thumbs. I have to admit, Bob, I miss cranking it up and playing all sideways - and I’m sure I’ll ultimately find people I can do THAT  with as well -  I miss the bloody intelligence of the type of free jazz/noise rock playing learned from yr recordings, but I’m surprised to find I like making the people dance. I’m pretty positive I’m gonna eventually screw it up, probably on a gig at a really nice, upscale type club by stepping on the fuzz box and just ‘Quine-ing out’ on something like, oh I don’t know, maybe ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ by the Average White Band or ‘I Wish’ by Stevie Wonder.
    And you know what?
    They’ll love it!
    And I don’t think that’s be a bad thing anymore.
    Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from yr playing it’s to be yourself above all else. Yr playing has a fearlessness to it that I hope to someday approach with mine. And I don’t mean the ‘anti-for-the-sake-of-anti’ bullshit I’ve been guilty of for more years than I care to admit, I mean I want my playing to be ME coming through those speakers; all the rough angles, all the quavering hopes, all the prayers spat out like curses, all the curses offered as prayer, all the nights of doubt and anger, all the nights of the thousand smiles, all the joy and broken mirrors, all the pain and belly laughs, all the pride and sneezing fits, all the fear and solace, all the lies and justice, all the minutes of all the days that make a life worthy of praise or faint damnation. Riffs like falling down the psychic stairs, textures straight from brain pan alley.

    I see no reason why this can’t be accomplished in a Funk band.
    Do you?
Love,
 tim

Posted by: timbyrnes at 07:23 | link | comments (2)

Interview with the Barbed Wire: The Search For Lester Bangs (Again)

      A little history for new readers of punk rock blues: Every so often I try, through means both mechanical and mystical, to attain a beyond-the-grave interview with the late, great Lester Bangs - that word wizard/drug punk who walked among men from 1949 to 1982. Arguably the best American writer of the late 20th Century disguised as a rock critic and basically the reason I type these feeble thoughts again and again into the ether of cyberspace (that and the fact that, as the song goes, ‘I want to be loved by you, by you and nobody else but you’, dear reader).
    Now I know that the pickings on this page have been pretty slim as of late. Regular readers will know that I recently moved from a very small town in Colorado to Denver after a bout with near-suicidal depression. So the last 3 ½ weeks have been spent getting settled in. I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve found both a band (Funk Schway - a 6 piece funk band where I’m surrounded by jazz cats who still don’t know I’m a rock guy who’s passing) and a job (at a local Blockbuster Video store, hey one has to start somewhere!). This last weekend, though, I had an opportunity to yet again indulge in my spiritual quest vis-à-vis Lester Bangs when I accidentally knocked myself out with a sticky bathroom door.
     I was running to take a shower and the door stuck, so idiot me tugged real hard and it popped open, hitting me squarely in the face and dropping me like 8th grade French. As I lie semi-conscious on the floor I got the tell tale color swirls and harp ostanati  that accompany that greatest of literary contrivance: the dream sequence. When the special effects faded I found myself in the classic all-white, windowless room of cinematic heaven facing a hunched figure in a wheelchair, wrapped in a tatty afghan with his back to me. Before I could speak, the man in the chair wheeled to face me and said what they always say to me on these trips.
     “Lester doesn’t want to speak with you.”
     “No kidding,” I answered, having been through this before, “So who are you and what pearls of wisdom do you have for me? Hurry up, I’ve got a blog post to write.”
     “You don’t recognize me, do you.?” he said. I looked harder into his red rimmed eyes, all 3-D green with yellow rings around the pupils. I thought for a moment it was my Grandfather again (he’d come through on a previous Lester search). I knew that nose, hawkish and thin. The man’s hair was snow white, thin and flyaway, cropped like a serial killer artist’s sketch. He sneered at me and it was then that I knew I was face to face with myself and I must have been 100 years old.
     “103,” he/I stated, “Only the good die young. Judging by yr clothes and the fact that yr eyes are still wide and yr still looking for Bangs I’m guessing first month in Denver, makes you almost, what, 50?”
      “Yeah,” I said with more calm than I felt, “Staring down the barrel. 103, huh? Wow. Not dead yet?”
     “No not exactly.“
     “Then what’s with the white room, ain’t this heaven”
     My 103 yr old self laughed so hard his false uppers came flying out his mouth. He caught them and returned them with a fluid motion into the grin of a rabid jack o’ lantern.
     “Heaven, no. Heaven’s no!” he chortled like he’d been saving that line for years. “I don’t know what’s up with the white room. Only shows the limits of yr imagination, I guess. I’m figuring I’m still at the nursing home, in the coma. Going along all dreamily and fine until I hear this crappy harp music -  and actually, I don’t think ‘ostanati’ is a word. It triggered yr spell check, didn’t it? I know. “Poetic License“. Yrs should have been revoked years ago. This is yr dream sequence, junior, you tell me about white rooms and heaven.”
     “Christ, yr more depressing than Cobain (see “Interview with a Flawed Desire” elsewhere on this page) was when he stood in for Lester. What happened to you? Me, us? I mean …… coma? Did you, I mean did I….. Uh,…. Us ? Well, I‘m dancing around this but did we try to, like commit anything?””
     “No”, he laughed less nasty now, “We gave up on suicide as a way of life after the spring of ‘04. I think our brain just said enough, but in the words of Richard Pryor ‘Our legs was in great shape, why should they fall down?’ The last thing I remember -and I think yr gonna like this - was sitting in a hover  lounge, April 2055 watching a hologram replay of the Ramones and Patti at cbgb. We have that kinda stuff in yr future, my past. Guess we’ve always lived in the past, especially when it came to rock and roll.”
     “Hologram replays of Ramones? Patti? Cbgb?! So, I’m guessing nothing new came along that we liked after ‘97? Is that about when we got old?”
     “Kinda,” he said not unkindly, “The post-Coldplay years were a little dry. There was a 4 piece from Austin hit around 2012 called the Dykebusters we dug a lot. Post-feminist, post no wave. Kinda like Mercury Rev with firmament and a radical feminist agenda. Produced by Courtney Love, if ya hadn’t guessed. Then there was Elvis Costello’s kid. Called himself Jesus O’Leary, played electric cello and rapped over tape loops of wild animal sounds played backwards. Had a big hit in 2015 with, what was it now? Oh yeah “There’s a Dustbowl in my Corn Flakes…..”
     “Now you’re just making that up!” I said, but I was smiling.
     “Yeah, I am,” he snorted, “but wouldn’t that be something?”
     “Hey, what ever happened with…..”
     “No can do, Byrnes, my boy, no can do. Can’t tell ya about yr future, that’s a dark ride you gotta take alone.”
     He got out of the wheelchair and stood, looking stable, if not strong. He took some kind of remote control device from an unseen pocket and aimed it at the chair, which disappeared. He walked towards me, slow but steady and gave me a surprisingly warm (and substantial) hug.
     “Keep doing what you been doing,” his voice a little lower now, his face forming that ‘serious’ look I’ve used on girlfriends and prospective employers for years, “It’ll get weird now and again but I can tell you that you’ve made it through the worst part already. Yr gonna have loss, yr gonna hurt. But yr gonna find people and places and things greater than you’ve ever imagined, too. Yr gonna play music and get paid. Not a lot but more than enough. Yr gonna fall in love again and you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you with who and how, so just ……. Just keep doing what you been doing.”
     I saw that he was getting teary. Good to know I didn’t lose that. He started walking away and I heard the wash of helicopter sounds that signals the end of these things. I felt a profound warmth in my soul. He looked happy. That was something. I was just starting to de-materialize when I heard his voice again, draped in Cocteau Twins echo and shouting to me….
     “AND DON’T EVER STOP LOOKING FOR LESTER BANGS…….”

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:25 | link | comments (1)

Museum Fleece: Moneychangers in the Temple. Again

    OK, it figures. I go all out to defend, nay, justify the existence of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the basically sound premise that  boils down to “well, how else are kids gonna learn about Bo Diddley?"  and now I find out said Hall of Fame has sued a non-profit online enterprise (that isn’t even up and running yet) for a reported $100,000.
    The name of this online enterprise? The Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
    Alright, while I still maintain that the RRHOF is conceptually valid, maybe even necessary , I will go down on record as saying that whoever’s behind the wheel there has more than a few screws loose.  The reasoning behind the suit is that people might confuse the two Halls of Fame and since the RRHOF has sold skadillions of dollars of god knows what,  the JRRHOF (a non-profit organization, remember) is somehow gonna cut in on all dem rock and roll ducats.
    Somewhere, Colonel Parker is smiling, and Joey Ramone is spinning in his grave. Why not a Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? What gives the Cleveland Crew the right to lay claim to our music? Why not a Black Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Asian RRHOF, if only to enshrine Loudness? Remember Loudness, the Asian hair band from the ‘80’s? Let’s give them a RRHOF! Hey let’s make the Jewish Black RRHOF! Give Sammy Davis Jr his own freaking building! Italian RRHOF! Dion, the Rascals, PFM! Remember PFM? Great Italian prog-rock band from the ‘70’s. Give ‘em a RRHOF. Let’s have a Lower East Side RRHOF! Give James Chance a chance! We can hold the opening in the ladies room at the Knitting Factory. 
    We gotta show these self appointed custodians of our culture that, while we appreciate the convenience of having so much cool junk (and that’s what rock and roll basically is, kiddies, cool junk) in one place, they don’t own the music or the words ‘rock’ or ‘roll’.
    Hubris, that’s what it is, pure and simple hubris! Here’s what we oughta do. Each and every one of you reading this declare yourself a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Choose your own specialized entitlement - I’m gonna declare my house the Cheap Guitar RRHOF- but y’all can call it whatever you like. Hell it’s YOUR rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Email those boobs in Cleveland and threaten to sue them for their heinous attempt in co-opting the object of your enshrinement! Of course we won’t mean it, we’re non-profit online endeavors (email existing mainly online, right?) and can’t afford lawyers, but maybe, just maybe if enough of us do this small thing, the big bad RRHOF in Cleveland will see just how ridiculous they’re being.
    Probably not, I know. The RRHOF is a business above and beyond anything else, especially the dreams dreamt by a wannabe rock critic about rock and roll as a societal model and a joyful, loud and swinging pathway to enlightenment, but god, I want to fuck with these people.
    Won’t you join me?

Posted by: timbyrnes at 08:20 | link | comments (6)

 Ageing Gratefully in Rock and Roll

     As mentioned in my previous post, your humble reporter is rapidly approaching the half century mark and while I’ve thus far thankfully been spared the hair loss and potbelly weight gain usually associated with this milestone, I find (or at least finally admit) I’ve fallen prey to perhaps the most wicked malady that befalls one of such advanced years: sounding like one’s parents.
     Not to mention writing rambling, run on sentences.
     The thing is I try to keep up with the newest trends in rock and roll, the hot new underground bands. I scour the web looking for the cheeziest, most amateurish pages available, ‘cause that’s where the really good stuff is usually lurking. While I’ve been introduced to some fairly interesting stuff  in what passes as an underground in this, the age of wide-open communication (Anti-Flag, Constantly Changing, the ageless and ever-wonderful Leatherface)  as well as some heartening music being made by major type bands (Sigur Ros, The Polyphonic Spree, well before them I have to go as far back as my sainted Afghan Whigs).  I find myself doing what many my age do; replace beloved vinyl with CD reissues, deluxe repackaging , live bootlegs and greatest hits from ‘back in the day’.
     It occurs to me that the beast called rock and roll has become, much like hip-hop, music that is simply not for me anymore. The baton of the rock and roll rebel has apparently been passed to waves and waves of kids dressed in my old clothes. I’ve been holding off on admitting this pretty much since the 1991 release of ‘Nevermind’. It’s been 14 years now, about time I just got over myself and just admitted it to all and sundry…..

                                ALL THESE NEW BANDS SOUND EXACTLY ALIKE!!!!!!

      Whew! That felt good and of course it’s not true, but I now can understand and unfortunately relate to what my father must have felt when I came home with those first Beatles and Stones records. Harmless confusion at first , but the chasm deepened, I‘m sure, once I started blasted more dangerous, mind-poisoning music like ‘Highway 61 Revisited' and ‘White Light/White Heat’. I can only imagine the effect on his heart rate that ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and especially the 1st New York Dolls record caused. Hell, the cover alone on the Dolls debut was responsible for at least 3 square inches of the old man’s eventual baldness. Now there hasn’t been anything come down the pike lately to shock me at all, let alone to the levels of the aforementioned records and that’s what really galls me. Nothing I’ve heard in years has challenged me or even been a half assed throw down to my sensibilities. Manson? Love him (see post below). And honestly, I think Manson is the closest thing this new generation of rockers have produced to an honest shock and, as admittedly gifted an artist as our boy Brian is, he’s very little more than a master of pastiche, combining the best of what had come before him.
     The most exciting news I’ve heard in months concerns the rumors of a new Kate Bush album (that’s how out of it I am, I STILL call them ‘albums’!). But you know what? I’m betting that this new Kate Bush ‘album’ will be the breath of fresh air I’ve been waiting for. Other than a full tilt  My Bloody Valentine reunion (another rumor yet  to bear fruit, alas) I can’t see much hope of seeing anything that’ll make me set the alarm clock early so I can get down to Tower Records when it opens. My loss, I guess, but I just don’t get the new bands.
      So I prefer to be thankful for those old bands that are still producing work of grace, dignity and power. Patti Smith, Richard Thompson, David Bowie, Sonic Youth, Jeff Beck, Lou Reed (I’m real iffy on the new live album, but I’ve learned from experience to not ever write the old death dwarf off completely), Dylan, David Byrne and others I can’t recall right now ‘cause my memory ain’t what it used to be. My memory ain’t what it used to be. My memory ain’t what it used to be……….
     And would SOMEBODY please give Television a new record contract or at least send me a bootleg of the 2004 Irving Plaza show.
     In any event, I’m not one to give up the ghost. I still play a pretty mean guitar (to hear my friends tell it) and, with my recent move from the wilds of Colorado to the heart of the city (well, Denver) I’ve taken advantage of the larger music scene and placed ads online to find musicians to work with. After a few phone conversations with 20-somethings who (and this is only a very educated guess) will likely spend the next few years smoking pot in basements and talking about “how great it’ll be when we play the Gothic Theater” I was blessed by a phone call where a deep voiced stranger asked me: “Well, can you play funk?”
     I answered yes and it turns out I was right. I’m currently working with a group of musicians closer to my age. I’m still the oldest but at least we’re not a bunch of divorced dentists cranking out yet another dismal take on ‘Tequila Sunrise’ (nothing intrinsically wrong with bands like that, just not where I want to be). No, I’ve fallen in with a group of jazz cats who play funk ‘cause it’s danceable and people will pay to dance to it. So after we work up, say, ‘I Wish’ by Stevie Wonder, we take 20-30 minutes to blow over a Im7- V change. We groove and blast equal parts sugar and broken glass. No it ain’t the Sex Pistols, but it makes this old man very happy. Rock on, all ye guttersnipes - grand papa’s got a brand new bag.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 01:51 | link | comments (2)

 Museum Peace: Coming to Terms With the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

    Having been born in roughly the same year as rock and roll, 1955, I can tell you from personal experience that 50 is old. Having been reborn, at least spiritually, by certain rock and roll throughout the course of my life, I can also tell you from personal experience that the spirit of rock and roll (hello, Lester - yes I know, you don’t want to speak with me) is simultaneously both for the ages and ageless.  There’s been much back and forth about the good vs. harm done by the establishment of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, OH, much of the brouhaha arising from the word (and concept) “establishment”. Isn’t rock & roll the sound of rebellion? The anti-establishment organ of a rabid youth culture, flouting all convention (usually on it’s parents’ nickel - but that’s another story), getting’ it’s motor runnin’ and headin’ out on the highway ‘cause, like a true Nature’s Child we were born, born to be wild?
    Well yes and maybe no.
    While it‘s all well and good to harbor feelings of rebellious solidarity and outcast identity engendered, coddled and manifested through power chords and screaming, let’s face it - our music’s been around long enough to represent more than teenage wastelands and heartbreak flashing in a pan. What we have here and now is nothing less than a legacy. A history both rich and ridiculous, but a history  nonetheless and one worth getting right.
    This sentiment was felt by Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun who 1983 came up with the idea of a permanent home for a rock and roll hall of fame. Together with attorney Suzan Evans and industry (and rock and roll is an Industry and pretty much has been since the 1st caveman got laid for howling) heavyweights  like Jann Wenner and Seymour Stein, Ertegun  enlisted record executives far and wide in raising funds for what was to be an immense undertaking. A non-profit organization that would enshrine the history of this music for the ages.
    Quibble if you will about the ‘propriety’ of such an act, but the music has a history now and history needs to be documented. We can all argue about this inductee’s presence or absence, but the fact remains; for the story of this music to be told for posterity, and told correctly, we could do a lot worse than the I.M Pei designed building on the shore of Lake Erie. Not only does the museum contain artifacts as varied as Ringo’s drum kit and a piece of Otis Redding’s crashed plane, but it sponsors a series of Teacher’s Aids; programs that illustrate how this music is woven into the fabric of life. Programs such as the poetry of Jim Morrison and overviews of the Beat writers, Understanding Vietnam and explaining irony through pop lyrics. Yes much of rock and roll’s attraction is of the mindless, escapist, ‘shut up and dance’ variety, but to ignore rock’s power as a social and spiritual force for good is to sell it, and ourselves short.
    Not only are major performers inducted like Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee, Elvis and (MY King of r&r) Little Richard - all inaugural members, Class of ‘86 a full 9 years before the actual building opened - but early influences like Robert Johnson (‘86), Hank Williams (‘87) and Louis Armstrong (‘90) get their props for contributions. Starting in 2000, the ‘unsung heroes’, the sideman started getting their due. King Curtis, Scotty Moore, James Jamerson, Johnnie Johnson, James Burton, Earl Palmer are all folks without whom this music, our passion would be impossible and it’s about time that somebody showed them their due respect.
    Candidates are chosen by a Nominating Board of Rock Historians and voted on by an international body of ‘Rock Experts’ (and I’m not sure how one qualifies as one of those either, but you know you’re an establishment when you have both historians and ‘experts’) and real consensus is apparently met. There will always be carping about inductees - for my part I’m less concerned that a Hall of Fame exists than I am that neither Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music or Patti Smith is in the damn thing. Oh well, I guess that’s what makes a horse race a horse race. In any event, one criteria for induction is that the artist’s initial recording has to be at least 25 years old so you know what that means……..    
    Next year SONIC YOUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(for a complete history, list of inductees and just a whole slew of interesting stuff about Rock & Roll and the Hall of Fame just click on the link   http://www.rockhall.com/ )

Posted by: timbyrnes at 02:53 | link | comments (4)