rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Bringing It All Back Home: The New York Dolls Put Their Arms Around My Memories

    I’ve been surfing around aol music and found basically the whole NY Dolls reunion set from the Reading Festival last year on video. At first I was (how do I put this) kind of appalled at the sight of these old men (David Johannsen, and Syl Sylvain the only remaining members) w/session guys calling themselves the New York Dolls, but by the time I finished viewing the footage I was smiling and crying at the same time. Smiling because of the memories that hearing these songs brought back. Crying because of the poignat rendition of the late Johnny Thunders’ ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory’, sung by Sylvain that segued into a bittersweet and haunting version of ‘Lonely Planet Boy’ from their seminal 1st album.
     There’s been a release of an earlier concert, the last show with late bassist Arthur Kane, released under the title ‘Morrissey Presents the  New York Dolls’ that I haven’t seen yet so I can’t compare the two. Part of me resents the old Mozzer putting his name 1st in the title, but apparently he did get the show back on the road and, hey, before he was Morrissey, the Nabob of Nihilism, the Maharajah of Mope, he was the president of the New York Dolls Fan Club, Manchester Division and without whom etc. etc.
    That show (and resulting CD and DVD) was a certified and justified media event and I hope every one in the world buys a copy, I know I will. But the aol footage feels like an old bootleg from dear friends and the fact that it’s available free over the net smacks favorably of the punk rock ethic. And the Dolls are nothing if not punk rock. Back in 1972, before ‘punk rock’ was a gleam in Malcolm McLaren’s beady little eyes the Dolls were the grit in the effete stew of glam rock. The publicity photo above, along with the notorious cover of their 1st album shows the Dolls in way more makeup and tinsel than they wore onstage at that point. The shock value approach backfired though and middle America ignored the Dolls in droves. Their loss, as The New York Dolls will always be, to my mind, the closest we ever got to an American Rolling Stones and yes, I’m including Aerosmith in that equation.
    While Bad Company sang of roaming the land with a six gun in their hand, the Dolls sang of junkies wandering aimlessly with Vietnamese babies on their minds. While Edgar Winter humped a moog synthesizer and called it Frankenstein, the Dolls sang a song that asked the musical question ‘Do you think that you could make it with Frankenstein?’ While Led Zeppelin bought a Lear jet and strangled rock and roll with their excess, the Dolls sang of being boys on a lonely planet.
    Now these 30 some years later, the remaining Dolls bring it to the stage with the same amount of heart and commercial potential  as they did ‘back in the day’.  Five men dressed kinda like girls, rocking in the free world and shooting from the hip w/their hearts on their sleeves. It don’t get more punk rock than that.
    See you on aol, everybody.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 03:31 | link | comments (2)

 Remembering the Future: Brave New Worlds To Go

      Things have settled down a bit here at punk rock blues. I’m moving back to my small town in 2 weeks and have pretty much arranged a transfer from my job here to one there. I have a few more options than I thought regarding a place to stay so I’m feeling a lot less stressed than I was just 2 short days ago.
      Tonight in Denver Bob Dylans’s playing with Merle Haggard opening and as much as I’d like to go I can’t afford it. I remember seeing Dylan at the Colorado State Fair in (let me check the ticket stub, it’s still in my wallet…) August of 2001. Having not seen him in over 30 years (Concert for Bangladesh NYC, 1970) I didn’t know what to expect. I remember telling my then wife Lynn, “I just hope he doesn’t suck”. Well, he didn’t suck, ladies and gentlemen, far from it. The show was, and remains, one of the best rock and roll shows I’ve ever seen, definitely  Top 3 (PiL at Roseland, Patti Smith at Denver Paramount….). What struck me about it was the complete lack of ceremony.
      The stage lights went down, a voice came over the p.a saying “Ladies and Gentlemen, Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan”. With that the stage lights came up and out strode the voice of his generation who came up to the mic and started singing the  old classic ‘Hummingbird’. His band was tight and professional and they all turned out great song after great song, most graced by the surprisingly agile blues guitar leads of Dylan himself. A slow starting harmonica solo on “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” rose with each passing chorus to the soaring heights of Dizzy and Bird, except it was one man with a $15 instrument, little more than a toy. Which, to me, serves to illustrate Dylan’s ultimate triumph of craft and artistry over image, hype and the poisonous tendency for those in rock and roll to believe their own publicity (see Vicious, Sid).
      I thought that I needed a ‘larger stage’ to make my music on a ‘meaningful’ level, hence my move to Denver. I foolishly thought that a geographic cure would change everything and, while I did meet and play with some really good musician’s up here (Hi, Maceo,  Larry, Dave, Doug and Dennis) I never felt the same rush I did when I played with Dan and Kenny in Flashback. I deleted what little I’d written about Flashback from this page during my Great Meltdown of 2004, so here’s the Reader’s Digest version. Flashback (Dan Guerra on drums, Kenny Morgan on bass and me on guitar and vocals) were something of a classic rock, blues and punk car crash. We played the old standards, including ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ like every other bar band, but not at all like every other bar band. See, we brought our hearts to the table, not to mention our record collections. We took all the funk, punk, blues, jazz, underground, overground 70’s AM dance pop and noise fests we’d played over the last however many years and broiled and boiled them into a stew that resulted in some of the most hair raising 15 minute versions of Credence’s ‘Born on the Bayou’ this side of the Grateful Dead AND Television.
      I’ve called Dan (Kenny doesn’t have a phone, he’s too independent for that) and it looks like Flashback is going to ride again very shortly. I’ve also called Lynn who has a CD burner in her new computer so maybe I’ll be able to post some sound samples here and at my lulu page. Buster the dog knows something’s up and even he seems more relaxed.
      Bob Dylan’s on the road again and so am I and all feels right with the world. Ain’t it cool?

Posted by: timbyrnes at 01:53 | link | comments

Experiencing Difficulties: Please Stand By

Looks like punk rock blues is gonna have to go to radio silence for at least a little while. My life is, once again, in upheaval. Turns out I have to move from the place I’m staying ASAP, as my landlord’s wife needs to sell the house by May 1st and needs the space in the basement I’ve been occupying for storage until that time. I’ve posted an ad at roommates.com but thinking about this practically, I really can’t afford to move into a place here in Denver. Everything I’ve found so far (I’ve been at it for 3 hours now since hearing the news) is like $500 which I just don’t have. I’m only working part time at the video store, hoping for full time and think I’m gonna have to try to transfer to the video store back in the small town I left 2 ½ months ago after my divorce etc.
     So looks like me and Buster the Dog are gonna be busy for a little while and, while I hope to keep up writing here, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post. This is a weird situation as I had been told not to worry about moving by my landlord, who promptly left to live w/my sister back in said small town about 2 weeks after inviting me to live up here, in his house with his (soon to be ex) wife and kids while I ‘Got on my feet’. Due to this advice I haven’t put a lot of money together, not that I’m making that much to begin with, so I’m feeling a little like Wile E. Coyote moments after stepping off the ledge, hovering above the abyss holding a small wooden sign reading ‘yikes!’.
     But don’t cry for me, Argentina or dear reader, I’m sure I’ll work something out. I always do. I’ll try to post as often as I can, but with all that’s going on I’ll probably just prattle on about my latest personal calamities as right now I could care less about punk, rock or blues.
     Although the Killers are killer, Costello rules and R.I.P. Son Seals.
     But Buster and I will always love you and will see you all as soon as we can If you pray please pray for us, if yr more the ‘burning stalks of garlic under the full moon’ type, well, we’d appreciate ya burning a stalk for us. We need all the good wishes we can get.
thanks,
tim byrnes/punk rock blues

Posted by: timbyrnes at 21:03 | link | comments (6)

 

Awkward Christian Soldiers: Marilyn Manson’s Adventures in Outer Faith

(This is a rerun from last March, but in the wake of the recent high school shootings in Red Lake, Minnesota and the numerous news reports that mention that the shooter was a fan of Marilyn Manson, I thought it'd be a timely reminder that records don't kill people, people kill people. tb)

My buddy Rob and I were sitting on his couch one night in 1996 watching MTV with Rob’s then 7-year-old son Zack when Marilyn Manson’s "Sweet Dreams" video came on. We had been, that night, more or less good-naturedly dogging all the video artists, trying to get a rise out of the boy, much like our parents had dogged the Beatles on Ed Sullivan trying to get rises out of us. The tradition continues because, as we all know, each generation thinks it invented everything and each successive generation’s culture is crap. Watching the scene where Manson, wrapped in a thin, clear plastic sheet and little else, lurches spastically down what looks like an alley in a very bad neighborhood, twitching and grinning, all red eye/white eye crazy menace, spitting the words to the Eurythmics’ (suddenly) oldie-but-goodie, Rob leans over to me and whispers, conspiratorially, "This guy kinda really creeps me out." "Oh, come on," I replied, "It’s just Alice Cooper with money. It’s nothing to worry about." Which seemed to be the end of that, but I was impressed that Manson had the power to ‘creep out’ a fellow old dog like Rob.

Having remained blissfully childless myself, I have never taken into account any sort of parental response when it came to rock and roll, but isn’t that a big part of it? Isn’t p***ing one’s parents off a hallmark of rock and roll? And ain’t it a kick in the head when we become the p***ed on. Time’s a b***h, man. Like I used to say when introducing our band to the cowboys at our local saloons "We used to be your parent’s worst nightmare. Now we’re just your parents." But, Manson had clearly struck a nerve. I started seeing local kids walking around with Manson tapes and CDs as well as the usual concert t-shirt. Walking around the little town of Fowler, Colorado, going in and out of the 66 and the video store with CDs at the ready, wanting to be asked about them, wanting to talk about them, to declare themselves allied with Marilyn Manson. In this era of musical hegemony, where faceless and interchangeable talent promise to jump through all the necessary hoops in order to serve the master MTV, this level of identification is no small thing. This is not your father’s Alice Cooper.

The slings and arrows started flying predictably at Manson’s death’s head as more and more kids showed up with t-shirts and CDs and white-out contacts with hair dyed black and, most dangerously, new thoughts. Thoughts perhaps more black, and no less dyed, than the hair. Thoughts that might lead to the revelation that we’ve been lied to from birth about pretty near everything. Thoughts that might lead to other thoughts that could eventually shake off our convenient fictions and ultimately result in it’s young eating America and not the other way around.

Something had to be done!

Manson courted controversy, to be sure. Shredding the Bible and miming sexual acts on stage, being ordained a minister in Anton LeVay’s Church of Satan, flaunting quasi-Nazi imagery, homo-eroticism and graphically violent images in a deliberately confrontational manner really is asking for it, but asking for what? On the surface Manson appears to be anti-EVERYTHING and as such an easy target for the morally outraged. But upon further inspection it becomes apparent that Manson is more than just another non-talent who makes up for deficiencies by using shock for shock’s sake, no, much thought has gone into Manson’s presentation. There are reasons for every last drop of blood, every crucified go-go girl, every abortion vid-clip, every bondage outfit, every shard of broken glass, every ravished Bible, every poisoned youth; ‘poisoned’, like Adam and Eve, having eaten from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, fruit brought to man by the devil himself. Manson, much like the film ‘Natural Born Killers’ tells us more about ourselves than we are comfortable considering.

If I met an alien from Outer Space, who knew nothing of our ways and this alien asked me to explain America, I would take him/her/it to see Marilyn Manson "cause it’s all there, Zardog! All the filthy spectacle of the home of the brave and the land of the freebase, where the white gods live in palaces of commerce and cathedrals of mass hypnosis while the faithful worker ants below kick and scrape to survive long enough to collect on their reward in heaven. Manson artfully (and the man has few, if any, purely artistic peers. His technique matches his vision and each are equally potent and disturbing) combines the iconography and tools of past power structures (the Church, the Nazis, Sex, Violence etc.) with stylistic touches that speak to the isolation and alienation felt by those among us who feel that something is drastically wrong.

From the screech and bang of heavy metal to the pomp and wasted grandeur of glam rock to the shadowy decadence of the German cabaret, Manson gleans bits and pieces of each and through considerable synthesis creates a whole that’s much more than the sum of it’s parts. Marilyn Manson, the band, is a sleek, chrome-hearted machine that blasts out concepts and alternative viewpoints with every power chord and sequence. By giving his audience the benefit of the doubt and refusing to talk down to them, by refusing to insult our intelligence and not challenge our perceptions of everything that counts like god, country and family, Manson proves himself, again and again, to be an artist actively engaged in his art, cognizant of the responsibility to say something of meaning when one has this many people’s attention.

But there is always of course the ‘kill the messenger’ contingent. Manson has been hounded and vilified on the Net and elsewhere by Christian groups at every turn. State legislation has been enacted to ensure that Marilyn Manson receives the rights guaranteed him, as an American citizen, in the Constitution. Ridiculous lies about his stage performance and personal proclivities have been posted all over the Net. The anti-Mansonites had a field day when, after shooting 13 people at their high school, it was revealed that the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were among other things, fan’s of Manson’s music. Rather than take a good, honest look at what caused this tragedy, which to my would have to rooted in the day to day dealings between the shooters and the shot, the community of Littleton, Colorado were awfully quick to lay the blame at the feet of, you guessed it, Marilyn Manson.

It dishonors the memory of all the dead, including Eric and Dylan, to willfully ignore the societal pressures that set the killing spree in motion and confer responsibility to a musician. It’s easier, sure, but still dishonorable. If one has to bring Manson into this equation then maybe all would be better served if the questioning went a little further, like maybe why were these kids listening to Manson? What were they getting from the music that they might not have been getting elsewhere? Approval? Identity? Strength? Respect? We’ll never know now how Dylan or Eric may have answered, but it’s still not to late to ask the question of ourselves. And, permit me a tasteless moment here, I swear, if I ever snap and feel compelled to shoot something up before offing myself I will be wearing a Walkman with a ‘Best of Wayne Newton’ tape playing in it just to cause that old geezer some grief. Now, see how ridiculous that sounds? To state a belief that merely listening to the music of a particular artist can drive a person to mass murder is the statement of an idiot.

Marilyn Manson is well aware of the idiocy out there, he takes it on every day with every move he makes, fighting the good fight for intellectual freedom and elevating rock and roll to the level of International Debate and, in my opinion, continually p***ing off the right people. Can we ask more from a ‘rock star’? We probably should and, rest assured, if and when we do, Marilyn Manson will be up to the challenge. This man and his work are the real deal, ladies and gentlemen, and one of few such combinations of heart and mind to grace our current rock and roll landscape today. A keeper and a Keeper of the Flame.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:05 | link | comments (3)

 Personal Jesi and Prefab Sprouts: The Personality of Cult

    There are too many fish swimming in the mainstream lately, so I, as a self appointed discerning consumer/wannabe rock critic have always looked to the undercurrents to find musical stimuli to help me feel hipper than though and just, well, cool. Not that I’m immune to the lure of the well crafted pop tune or even the occasional guilty pleasure. I mean I loved ‘Hey Ya’, I’m not made out of wood. I even have to admit to a morbid fascination with Britney Spears’ ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time (although I was appalled that I seemed to be the only person in my admittedly small circle that was disturbed by the image of a 17 year old girl, dressed like a hooker singing HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME! I mean masochistic kiddie porn-pop is OK but we have to crucify Marilyn Manson????) Anyway, I digress, which is what I do cause my synapses are just synappin’ all over the joint this morning. What’s percolating and moving it’s way toward the front of my cerebral cortex is the concept of the fan, as in short for FANatic, and how obsessive and possessive one can become of folks they don’t know, have probably never met (and probably never will) and how these proprietary feelings can approach the level of (you guessed it) religion.
    My ex wife (Hi, Lynn!) commented more than once that rock and roll was/is my religion or at least the closest thing. I have to admit she had/has a point. I remember feelings of personal investment in the success of both Paul Westerberg and Lou Reed’s early attempts toward sobriety. These attempts were essentially concurrent with my own attempt at sobriety (and, for the record, all 3 of us are still sober, thanks for asking) so THAT identification made at least a little sense. A spiritual bonding of sorts. Still ridiculous when you look past the surface though. Reed and Westerberg’s sobriety has no effect on mine and vice versa. Just a co-incidence, right?
    There is, of course, always the danger of over identification with any self appointed hero. There’s always the danger of putting too much stock in someone else, hooking yr own hopes and dreams and happiness onto someone else’s work. It gives you an out, in the short term, to reflect in someone else’s glory, be it Jesus or Prefab Sprout. Never heard of Prefab Sprout? You are one of many. Prefab Sprout have been making records of varying degrees of sublime beauty since 1982 for a small, but fervent cult of listeners. Their debut record ‘Swoon’ was described in a review as sounding like ‘Elvis Costello meets Steely Dan’, cheap critical shorthand but an appealing and intriguing enough comparison to make me seek the record out. I don’t remember who wrote that particular gem but he/she was right on the money. Intelligent, cryptic lyrics, labyrinthine melodies over smooth, jazzy (but not smooth jazz sterility) arrangements. Lithe, fluid instrumentation coupled with a stance of ‘reaching for greatness while not breaking a sweat’. There is no other band in the world, people, that will give you what you get from a Prefab Sprout record. In a time of cookie cutter sound alike bands on every corner this is a stunning accomplishment and the ability of these people (The incomparable Paddy Macaloon, Wendy Smith and Neil Conti) to continue to put out records of blinding originality over the span of 23 years -although sometimes you gotta go 6 years between records, not as long a stretch as Boston perhaps and talk about cookie cutter!- is nothing short of amazing. That they continue to do this in relative obscurity speaks to the dedication of both the band and their fans.
    I can’t imagine Prefab Sprout selling skidillions  of records out of the mouth of the mighty Wal-Mart, their essence being rarer than most, but it is heartening that they sell enough records to continue making them and having them pressed and distributed to a world wide audience. Back in the day when there was more than 3 record labels, such artists were kept on the roster as ‘prestige artists’. Meaning that while they weren’t expected to move the mega-units, the label felt that having said artist on their books was something of a feather in their cap. This doesn’t happen today and the music world is probably the poorer for it. If an artist’s 1st record doesn’t sell, there’s little chance for a 2nd record. This is a gripe that’s been covered ad nauseum on many a hate-metal and punk rock site that celebrates poor sales as a badge of honor (never stopping to think that maybe, just maybe, the music is bad) so I’m not gonna pour any more gasoline on THAT  fire. I prefer to see the continuing ‘success’ of a band like Prefab Sprout to be a good sign and some small proof of the power of positive support for a band well outside the mainstream.
     Do yrself (and Paddy Macaloon and company) a favor and go to amazon, check out a few sound samples and enjoy the sound of one of my personal Jesi (plural of Jesus- I love making up words almost as much as I do making up minds). Maybe if you got a spare $12 to $15 laying around buy one of their many beautiful records and score one for the little guy. It’ll make you feel GOOD.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:10 | link | comments (1)

 A Glimmer of Hope: Roxy Music Remakes/Remodels

     As promised this installment will have nothing (well, little) to do with my state of mind/being and once again focus on the music we all hold dear: rock and roll. Upon returning from work this evening I went to my favorite hate-metal website, antimusic.com to check my e-mail and while perusing their ‘Day In Rock’ ‘news’ report I read words that filled my black heart with something approaching joy, at least as close to joy as that night with the Polyphonic Spree. Anyway, the news that brightened my night is this: the original members of Roxy Music, INCLUDING BRIAN ENO, are going to be recording an album of NEW material and will be performing at the Isle of Wight Festival later this summer!
    For the unitiated, Roxy Music (Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson and Brian Eno) were perhaps the most interesting, forward thinking and downright stylish band of the halcyon days of ‘Glam Rock’ back in the early 1970’s. Along with David Bowie they were the frontrunners of the type of British art-rock that laid the groundwork for punk rock. Equal parts sci-fi futurism and retro elegance Roxy Music cut a swath of originality across a barren rock scene littered with the mindless, macho detritus of led zeppelins hanging out in bad company.
    Their self-titled debut record, released in 1972 was/is an avante garde masterpiece to which you can do the dog. Still light years ahead of it’s time, I’ve maintained for years that were it released today it would still go over the heads of many. Well, now we get a second chance. Later period, read: after Eno left in 1975 following their 2nd album “For Your Pleasure’, Roxy Music became a different, more sedate animal.Still exceptional, just different, like the Velvet Underground before and after John Cale's departure. Actually that's a very good comparison considering the wild, edgy sonics both Cale and Eno brought to their respective bands. Both bands were wellsprings for the rest of rock and roll. With Bryan Ferry, he of the white tuxedos and Draculaic (meaning he sounds like Dracula) singing voice firmly at the helm, their later records, while maintaining the elan and ennui of deathless romance, lacked the manic, scattershot experimentation that Eno, with his banks of primitive synthesizers, non-musician approach and real time sampling and manipulation of Manzanera’s guitar and Mackays woodwinds, brought to the party.
    And it was a party. I first heard Roxy Music live, having never even heard of them, when they opened for Jethro Tull at Madison Square Garden in 1973. I was so blown away by this stunning combination of Germanic Impressionistic cabaret blare and achingly beautiful doo-wop melodicism that I left the Garden after there set, foregoing the suddenly mundane minstrelry of Jethro Tull for a walk to the King Karol record store on 8th Ave where I purchased the first 2 Roxy Music albums. Records I’ve replaced many times over the last 32 years(!). Vinyl gave way to cassette gave way to CD gave way to DVD (the 2001 reunion show, sans Eno, at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, where the set set list ran heavily towards these  2 revelatory records) and I still play these records more than almost anything this side of My Bloody Valentine.
    To say that I’m excited at the prospect of this amazing group of men coming back with original (in every sense of the word) material is the understatement of the year. FINALLY a record worth setting my alarm for to get to Tower Records the day it comes out! Catch the new sensation............. again.
    Our crops are SAVED!!!!

Posted by: timbyrnes at 07:56 | link | comments (1)

 All You Need Is Hate: Love Rears Up It’s Ugly Head

    What a difference a week makes. This time last week I was waxing rhapsodically about the Holy Grandeur of the Polyphonic Spree and convincing myself that I had, indeed,  found God at last amidst the wall of joyful noise produced by their rapturous flutes and theremins. Now, their music is truly a huge and wonderful thing and may yet be a hiding place for God, at least for some people but not so yr faithful reporter. Y’see I went public with my assumed conversion on that Christian Message Board I mentioned (and in an aside to Queen Woggy: I apologize for referring to Daniel Amos as a CCM band, as a lay person, hell as a heathen, I’m not hip to the finer distinctions of genre. Kinda like death core vs. grind core. What’s the bloody difference? I don’t know but I’m sure there’s 1,000’s of potheads named Trent or Jason only too ready to tell me.) and upon closer inspection of my thoughts and feelings regarding certain Christian dogma (OK, Gay Rights) I realized that I had jumped the gun in the interest of connection and that I had no more right to call myself a Christian than I did to change my name to Alice and start having babies.
    So I go to the board, essentially to resign my self appointed commission and am met with well meaning souls who lovingly informed me that I had indeed been touched by God and couldn’t take it back and that all my protestations (no pun intended) were either the work of the Devil, who was pissed that I had let God enter my life in the 1st place, or simply my all-too human brain attempting to disavow the Word of God in some humanistic junta doomed for failure because God knows better than I do. This is, of course, a one-sided (mine) oversimplification of the response I met, but I’m an overly simple person.
    My rationalization was this: If I’m unwilling to buy EVERY precept of something as definitive as faith; ie: that homosexuality is “..an abomination before the Lord“ (an archaic and I still believe anti-human and unloving response to a natural state of being FAR REMOVED FROM PEDOPHELIA OR MURDER!) than I could not be a Christian. Something of a Fundamentalist rejection of Fundamentalism, I guess, but I figure in for a penny in for a pound and, upon post-revelation, clear  headed inspection of my thoughts and feelings (which I was informed, in no uncertain terms, that God does not  CARE about!) that I wasn’t even in for the penny. No, I don’t know who created us, I don’t know what’s gonna happen when we die, but I’ll be damned (no pun or irony intended) if I’m gonna put my hard earned faith in a magical genie that’s gonna explain everything and make this dismal, dark and dying world OK.
    Here’s my take on Jesus (Part 2,936): Jesus was an enlightened human being, probably 1 or 2 evolutionary jumps ahead of everybody else, who sought to encourage an oppressed populace through a policy of non-violence. But telling whipped souls to ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘blessed be the meek’ etc., all that ‘things’ll be better AFTER YOU DIE’ stuff only goes so far when yr children are being killed. Jesus was turned into the state by Judas Iscariot who felt betrayed by Jesus who, as a social revolutionary failed to live up to his (Judas’) ideals. Due to the fact that Jesus refused to use his high profile and influence to lead the Jews in a violent uprising against the Roman oppressor, Judas turned his ass in. So 2,000 years ago a good man was crucified by the State for spreading poised ideas amongst the rabble, much like a Martin Luther King or, arguably, a John F. Kennedy. Rome cut Jesus off at the pass before he or Judas could organize his followers to violence, which as we all know, is the only thing that ever REALLY solves anything.
    Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m as depressed by that revelation as anyone, but facts are facts. You can march and march and wave signs and sign petitions yr ass off, but regime change only comes after dropping bombs. It’s made humanity (and America) what we are today: vile, venal and the top of the food chain.
    What does this have to do with rock and roll? Not much, I grant you. Although when I visit different rock and roll message boards all I find are little wars. So my beloved noise remains a sign of the times, if nothing else. “My punk rock can beat up yr punk rock”. “So and so isn’t TRUE metal so why don’t you die or move back to the middle east you dumb fucker?’ etc. etc. I have very little faith in us as a species anymore, when even rock and roll, what I once thought our last, best hope for community, if not peace, turns into just another battlefield. Morrissey’s forgiven Jesus, but he’s done it from the cold, high tower of isolation he’s built on the adoration of teenage outcasts and nostalgic old folks like me who remember the lie that liking the same 3 chords constituted a brotherhood.  Bull, I say, and shit! Religion, Nationalism, rock and roll and any ‘extended family’ we might care to invent or invest with what we laughingly call a higher purpose is defined by that which we are not. That which we hate.
    To the true Christian  I and my ilk are lost souls in need of Jesus and salvation. What they really mean is I’m not (yet) a member of their club and, as such, doomed to eternal death and it’s all my fault BECAUSE I WON’T DO WHAT THEY’VE DONE and accepted Christ as my personal savior. The metalhead hates the emokid hates the country singer hates the punk rocker hates the jazz guy hates the blues shouter hates the hip hopper hates the opera singer and everybody hates the French.
    Praise God, my Aunt Fanny. I’m all for Nuclear War ‘cause, goddamnit, we got it coming!
(OK, rant over, for now, I promise the next bit will be about rock and roll without all the psycho-socialist bushwah.)

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:24 | link | comments

 AUTHOR’S NOTE: The regularly scheduled episode of punk rock blues Girls Are Icky and So Are Boys, Kinda, Too: It Ain’t Easy Being Morrissey will not appear today because, well, I haven’t written it. Instead I’m presenting the following installment of my ongoing spiritual crisis because I’m basically a narcissistic old coot who thinks y’all give two hoots about my ongoing spiritual crisis. I’ll come up with a snappy and pretentious title for it later. Oh yeah, it’s gonna be a Lester type ‘dream sequence. Thanks. tb)

Snappy and Pretentious Title: Something Something With Good and Evil

    So I’m about 15 and higher than a nine-eyed bandicoot after wasting yet another summer Friday drinking Boone’s Farm and sniffing glue with Jeff the Drummer and Nazi O’Brien under the bridge just east of Shopper’s Paradise, walking the last 12 feet towards my dead father’s house in  upstate NY when I see there’s a light on in the kitchen. Steeling myself for another guilt fest  from my father, replete w/ statements along the lines of  “I’m glad yr mother’s not alive to see this”, I snap into my best Lou Reed and enter the house to see, sitting at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and passing a bottle of something called Old Frankenstein, both Batman and Jesus Christ.
    Taken aback, but only for a second ‘cause I’m cool like that, I pull up a chair like I’ve done this a hundred  times, pour myself a glass of Old Frank and say “What’s up?”, my voice sounding only a little like Henry Aldrich.
    Jesus looks me dead in the eye, blowing holy smoke through his nostrils and says “I was gonna come up with something snappy but my writers are weak, so I’m just gonna get to the point. What’s yr problem, kid? Why do you mess yourself up with drugs and alcohol?”
    “Hey,” I slurred, “You’re drinking the Old Frank and changed water into wine….”
    “This ain’t about me or Jeez, kid, it’s about you.” Batman snapped. He was big. Real big. And he needed a shave. And to be honest, he looked a little unhinged so I decided not to fuck with him.
    “I…. Uh…Ummm…I don’t know, I’m just partying….” I answered.
    “Partying!” Batman snorted, sounding suspiciously like my dead father, “For somebody who’s all blood and guts on the Christian Message Boards, all ‘I know better than God” and stuff, you ain’t got a hair on yr ass to speak up one on one with One or the One’s son or……” and at this Batman started giggling.
    “Yea, verily,” Jesus laughed, “And thou throwest like a girl……” At which point both of them collapsed into hysterics. Real shooting-milk-out-your-noise laughter.  Which pissed me off.
    “Hey!,” I shouted, “What is it with you guys in these dream sequences? Coming into MY fantasies and treating me like shit? YOU!,” I said, pointing an accusing  finger at Batman, “ You’re supposed to be a hero! The fictional embodiment of dark revenge for all of life’s injustice and you show up here, all fat and slobby, smelling like fish and putting me down. And you,” I said, turning on Jesus, “all high and might son of the God who killed my mother have the audacity to give ME shit about drinking when yr all buzzed out like a hoot owl and ……..”
    Batman slammed a leather gloved hand on the table and was about to hand me my lunch when Jesus held up his hand in that weird Boy Scout salute thing he does and said “Easy Bruce, the kid has a point. Every time he tries to figure stuff out with these dream sequence pieces his heroes come down and basically piss in his Wheaties. Now, as characters in this piece you know and I know that he’s the one putting the words in our mouths but apparently he doesn’t know that, or if he does know on some level, which he kinda HAS to, being that he’s not stupid and Dad don’t make no junk and all, he’s struggling with the reason why. I feel that it’s incumbent upon us, as vehicles of his self-discovery to allow him the latitude to figure out why he needs to project his self-loathing onto his spiritual archetypes like you and me.”
    “I think you ought to just let me kick his ass.”
    “To what end, Bruce?”
    “Teach the little shit some respect, for one thing.”
    “And for another….?”
    “OK,” Bats  said sheepishly, “It’d be fun. You never let me have any fun. Back in the 80’s you let me be psychotic. Now THAT  was fun.”
    “This ain’t about you, Bruce,” Jesus said, “Not right now. We’re here to help Tim in his time of spiritual crisis. And besides, I can’t remember who I had say it but ‘A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still’. That was a good one.”
    “Yeah,” Batman said, lighting another of the old man’s Parliaments, “But my favorite’s still ‘I will smite my enemies and smash his children against the rocks……’”
    “Bruce,” Jesus whispered, “Bruce, Bruce. Always with the violence and drama.”
    “Well, the cape and cowl kinda lends itself to …..”
    “WAIT A MINUTE, YOU TWO!” I yelled, “What about my self-discovery? Why am I stuck in my father’s kitchen listening to you guys babble drunkenly? And I think the ‘against his will’ quote is from Thomas Jefferson.”
    “Oh yeah, one of my better models.”
    “Stop changing the subject….” I was getting real riled now.
    “And what exactly IS the subject?” Batman said with a sudden British accent.
    “Uh,” I said authoritatively, “My spiritual crisis, I guess. I want to believe in God…”
    “What do you mean you WANT to believe in God?” Jesus said, “You either do or you don’t. It’s time to fish or cut bait, don’t you think? All this wishy-washy back and forth on the God question sounds like an attention getting scam to me. As long as you don’t commit one way or another you’ll have yr Christian friends trying to save you and yr heathen friends pulling you back in like that guy in the Godfather.”
    “Just when I think I can get away,” Batman began.
    “THEY KEEP PULLING ME BACK IN.” They said in chorus, clinking glasses of Old Frankenstein.
    “Now cut that out!” I said, exasperated with the both of them. “This is serious business. I’m trying to reconcile the teachings of my youth, that of a just and loving God who gave his only begotten son to die for my sins, thus ensuring me eternal life and salvation for my eternal soul with the harsh realities of a world filled with crime and death and moral ambiguities and Bible thumping hypocrites behind every burning bush and my own insecurities and doubts about the value of life itself and the fact that rock and roll’s been going to hell since Buddy Holly died and I‘m almost 50 years old and alone and working a high schooler’s job in a strange city AND I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE!”
    Batman and Jesus sat frozen in mid gesture, seemingly stunned by this outburst. My breath was coming in rasping gasps. The silence was broken by the sound of a toilet flushing. From out of the back bathroom, the one off the pantry towards the rear of the kitchen, the small one my Father always used came Lester Bangs, holding a folded copy of the New York Daily News and smoking a large cigar.
    “And you wonder why I never want to speak with you.” He said as he walked through the kitchen, down the front hall and out the door into the dark night of my soul.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:03 | link | comments (4)

 Gods and Monsters:  Saint Paul Takes the Damascus Off Ramp

    I know this is supposed to be a music blog so I want to first go down on record as saying I think the Flaming Lips are groovy. Having said that I’m now gonna go off tangentially amok about what’s been coursing through my increasingly non-fevered mind lately. God, mostly. A little background: I was raised Roman Catholic, 7 ½ years in Catholic Grammar School back in the 1960’s, just after corporal punishment was banned. The nuns couldn’t hit you anymore but you could tell they really WANTED to and that type of psychology works on a kid’s psyche longer and harder and more insidiously than any smack on the seat of the pants could ever hope to. 6 yrs old, 1st day of school and I can still, 44 years later, hear  Sister Mary Aloysius telling us how we had “broken God’s heart”.  Again, a pretty heavy trip to put on a child who’s in no position to argue, or even CONSIDER, an alternative viewpoint.
    A large part of those fundamental years, where a child’s personality gets formed was spent being indoctrinated into the Catholic religion. Who made the world? God made the world! How are we born? We are born in a state of sin! Who died for our sins? Jesus died for our sins! Where do bad people go when they die? Hell! Etc. etc. etc. I remember in 6th grade I got a 100 on our Religion final. I caught all sorts of hell in the schoolyard for ‘blowing the curve’. Even then I was astounded that anyone could get LESS than 100 on a religion final. Hadn’t we basically been doing a book report on the same book for SIX FEAKIN’ YEARS???!! In any event, religion at that point was both a point of memorization and conditioned response. I had been conditioned to believe everything I had been taught those 6 years. Then the real trouble hit.
    I woke up one morning in April, 1967 later than usual. Voices downstairs told me that my father was home - this was unthinkable for a weekday as my father had a work ethic that would make the sternest Calvinist say “Ease up, old sport, yr gonna kill yrself working like that” (which he ultimately did). I also heard the voices of my Aunt and a few neighbors. My mother had been hospitalized w/a stroke for almost a year at that point, but I still hadn’t put 2 and 2 together. My father came into my room hurting in a way I still cannot imagine and, sitting on my bed said the words that changed my life on oh, so many levels.

    “God took yr mommy last night.”

    And, just like that, my mother was dead and so was my belief in God. No, that’s not exactly true; I still believed in Him but now I hated Him and everything He stood for and it’s just a testimony to the strength and depth of their damned indoctrination that I still capitalize His, Him and He. Just writing about this is getting me angry and, no, I’m not sure what that says about me, you, rock and roll or the lamp post although I’m sure that there are multitudes of the saved who’d be only more than glad to tell me. Which leads me to my next tangent. I’ve been posting on a Christian Message Board at a CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) Band’s website, recommended to me by an old friend. Maybe it’s the isolation I’ve been feeling here being new in town and maybe it was the fever, but little by little I opened myself up to the possibility of a reconciliation of spirit, a possibility of my getting right with God.
    The grandeur of the Polyphonic Spree TV concert, along with it’s timing, and the e-conversations I’d been having both privately w/my friend and publicly on the board, led me to think that MAYBE, just maybe I was ready for the whole ‘born again’ trip. I met really good people on the Board, people who seem firmly grounded in their faith and genuinely interested in sharing it with me. I felt the 1st flush of revelation, I felt ‘saved’ (whatever that means). I felt loved and alive with the light of something I chose to call the Lord. For about a week.
    E-mailing back and forth with my friend  came across the 1st big sticking point when I asked what his church’s stance was regarding homosexuality. Now I’m not gay (NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!) but I feel that gay rights are human rights and if I have to denounce homosexuality than, well, I’m NOT a Christian. So I go to the Board and respectfully bow out and I start getting all these well meaning responses saying things that basically boil down to ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ (and that’s an oversimplification, I know, it’s just for the sake of brevity and hey, this is MY blog and I’m just riffing anyway so calm down) which I find to be as lame a position as ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. So now we’re going back and forth with our respective takes on what God meant and how one defines ‘being a Christian’ and I’m starting to feel like that 11 year old kid who’s mom just died and the only target I got left worth shooting at is this empty suit, this icon of self loathing man invented ‘cause he’s an animal who knows he’s going to die (concept courtesy of Randy Newman’s “Faust”- see I remembered that this is supposed to be a music blog, after all).
    I admire the devout. I envy the surety of the commited Christian, or the devout of any faith, really. I wish that I could be so sure of what’s gonna happen to me when I die, but I’m not. Deep in my heart I feel it to be the Ultimate Heresy to even imagine that one can know the nature of God, His intention, His will. For all we know on the 8th day, God left town. For all we know God is an alien and the Universe is something He coughed up after a rough night on the town. What town?  I don’t know and the point I’m trying to make is neither do you, or you, or you, or you and you, too. Like the written words once spoken by Carrol O’Connor in the guise of Archie Bunker, I believe that “Faith is when you believe things nobody in their right mind would believe.”
    But, man, you gotta love dem Flaming Lips.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:16 | link | comments (2)

^{_{Stuck Inside, Immobile, with the Dentist Blues Again}}

      The last 3 (or maybe 4 ) days have been a blur. See. I got this tooth that’s just about to come out, loose as the dickens y’know? Well, I think something got up above the gum line, like a food particle or some such that’s gone renegade on me and is all infected. Either that or I have the mother of all flu bugs. Whichever, I have been shuttling back and forth between near-hallucinogenic fever and I-want-my mommy type chills and really haven’t eaten, maybe a salad and a sandwich spread over 3 (or maybe 4) days. Thank God for Buster the Dog. I have left many people behind these last few months, but Buster the Dog has stayed with me through thick and thin and stupid. Buster the Dog is a little Benjy looking terrier who I would lay my life down for (and there’s not many people I’d do that for, certainly not Lou Reed!), because Buster the Dog, right now, might be my only reason for living.
       Check it out:
       I’m in a new town and know absolutely nobody. The family I’m staying with is crumbling through divorce and drunken arguments. My sister back in the small town I left, my one time champion is no longer speaking to me because I told her soon to be ex-husband something he already knew. I’m working a part-time job at a local video store and while grateful to have it sometimes sink into depressing thoughts about ‘pushing 50 w/a high schooler’s job, way to go Byrnes” But then I think about people who haven’t screwed up their lives like I have and through know fault of their own, maybe downsizing or something, find themselves in the same boat. I wouldn’t think any less of them, would I? Why not cut myself the same break? OK, anyway, any honest work is good work and at least I’m not selling drugs. Although maybe renting video’s qualifies as ‘drug dealing’ in a warped manner of speaking.
     Where was I? (Fever’s coming in from like Georgia, might start making even less sense soon) Oh yeah, Buster the Dog! That’s my buddy! That’s him in the picture up there, licking my face as is his wont (as in he won’t stop even if I beg him to) No matter how messed up I feel he’s always there with that unconditional love they always talked about in AA before they started laying out the conditions. When I left Lynn he was waiting in the passenger seat of the car as I brought out the first suitcase, seemingly saying “Don’t forget the dog!” He struck with me through the worst times of my life, all for the price of some dog food and pets. When I was at the Heartbreak Hotel, sleeping in a recliner (and glad to have it! I’m really not bitching. Well, maybe a little, but the fever just hit Oklahoma….)  I’d wake up at 3am and there’d be Buster the Dog curled up with me, making sure I was safe.
      Now, as sick as I’ve been feeling these last 3 (or maybe 4) days. I still have to let Buster the Dog out so he can attend to things in the backyard. He used to have a friend here, Lucas the Other Dog, but my landlord took Lucas to live w/him and my sister in the small town me and Buster left behind 2 months ago. So once again it’s me and Buster the Dog, my faithful friend and companion. If it weren’t for Buster I would be truly be alone. Yeah I have friends all over cyberspace and I love and am loved by God, but can any of them lick yr face when yr this depressed?
     So here’s to Buster the Dog, the best friend a man ever had! I gotta go, the fever’s knocking on the door.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 03:44 | link | comments (1)

Pepperland Is Saved!: The Big Music of The Polyphonic Spree

    Good morning, campers! This is yr usually darkly depressed reporter here to tell you that I have seen the light. No, no, no, not that THAT light, not yet at least, so don’t start knitting me crucifixes or collecting yr pool winnings or any some such. The light I’m talking about is the one ignited in my heart upon hearing the music of The Polyphonic Spree, that 20 plus piece explosion of glorious hope and majesty and the rightful heirs to the Beatles of Sgt. Pepper. Love, love, love, and all that.
    Oh piffle, you might say (and you might). C’mon, Tim, don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that hippie crap, the Aquarian Dream that all men are brothers and that love is all we need and music can save yr mortal soul? No I haven’t fallen FOR it, I’ve fallen INTO it. See, without going into too much detail, ‘cause not all of recent details belong to me, I’ve lately been on the dark end of the street amidst my current reinvention in Denver and in life. I’ve been working a new job, meeting new people and attempting to shed myself of old, ingrained and often crippling attitudes re: good vs. evil and, yes, God.
        There, I said it. Are you happy now?
    Not yet, no, but I’m working on it and the Universe (or whatever-semantics are, after all, just words - what was it Bowie sang in ‘Cygnet Committee’ all those years ago? “…..glory, untold days where all is God and God is just a word”?) has, as the Universe will, been putting people in my life. Old friends and new appearing just when  need them through the ether of the Internet and  the television. Now before you go accusing me of not living in the real world remember, I’m in a new town, the few people I do know are kinda part of the problems I’m currently dealing with, except for the people I work with and I refuse to bring my problems to work. I have however made an effort to seek out old friends and talk my way through what’s going on. (I really wish I could lay it all out here, but other people’s lives and feelings are involved. Suffice it to say, it involves familial dissent, bitterness, forgiveness and my own search for a personal faith that has, thus far eluded me due to my own best efforts) and while emailing and networking and message boarding the other night, lo and behold a local PBS station is running a concert by the Polyphonic Spree. As I typed away, slipping into my own personal darkness, the real poetic and overwrought crap you know I’m capable of, I half hear a rising wave of HUGE music, all symphonic and manic and these words reach my ears (at EXACTLY the right moment, I might add).

                                               “…Take some time, get away
                                                     Suicide is a shame
                                                     Soon you’ll find yr way
                                                     Hope has come, you are safe
                                                     And it makes me cry ‘cause I’m on my way…”

    I look up from one screen to the other  and there I see 20 some odd people in flowing orange robes  playing everything from the trombone to the French horn to the theremin (!) to the flute, one guy in a tri-corner hat ringing hand bells, what appears to be an 8 piece choir, the requisite bass, drums, keys and guitars, all fronted by a beaming long haired madman, arms raised to the sky, seemingly bathing in this… this…… oh, alright heavenly music. At this point I’m dumbfounded, the computer screen, indeed the rest of the world, forgotten as I watch this remarkable band perform. Never have I heard music so grand, so majestic, just so fucking happy before.
    Usually I hate happy music, because it usually is a lie. A sham perpetrated by folks as cynical, if not more so than yr humble reporter. I don’t get that w/the Polyphonic Spree - and I like to think I have a finely tuned Bullshit detector - I think these people, led by Tim DeLaughter, late of Tripping Daisy, really are in ecstasy when they play this big music. How could they not be? In their flowing robes and beatific smiles, all jumping up and down letting the music out like electrical currents of  lovelovelove, waves of joy flowing over all assembled, band and audience, in the type of communication and artist/audience synthesis always crowed about in punk rock but rarely accomplished ( on their site .www.polyphonicspreecom  the last person mentioned under ‘band members‘ is ‘ YOU!)….. I really can’t describe the feeling because, like all feelings, it has to be felt, right? Writing about music and dancing about architecture and all that.
    Listen. Really listen ‘cause this  big ol’ band is singing some big ol’ truth about goodness and strength and joy and the majestic potential within all of us if we just stay true to ourselves and that these dark days are only dark if you refuse to see the light.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 18:49 | link | comments (2)