96 Songs

Oh, Santa Filomena de los Motos y las Drogas. I put in a man-size day today. 4 sets of driving rock 'n' roll on stage in Western Mass, a hop and a skip up to my beloved Brattleboro VT for another 4 driving sets. It's 2:40 in the AM now and I don't think I'll be doing much waking up tomorrow. Good scratch though, man. It's good to make a crust in E major.

I played 96 songs today. Pulled in about $4.20 a song. It's revenge, really. Every penny I make thumpin' and squawkin' is a FIST in the face of the Industry. I got all sharp and stagecrafty along the concrete canyons of the Hollywood 101 and hither and yon in lots of states but what I didn't get was a paycheck. You get a per diem but you can't enjoy it because that's just 25 clams that's not going to paying off your recording debt and you'll never pull in a dime until you get that shit paid off and it's not going to happen and it's going to spiral, babe. It's like trying to service the interest on The Deficit.

Almost sold my publishing for 10 K. Probably should have. They were going to kick down 10 for me and 10 for my publishing with the Idiot Genius TJ. Boy was that guitarist an idiot. And a genius. Every succesful artist starts off with a murderous publishing deal. Then you sue people when you're platinum. Just ask that tosser Billy Joel. Or that old Sting dude. Those fossils would've signed anything. 'Course idiot me just acts like fucking Exene and flips the bird.

15 large free and clear (well, not free and clear- there's the taxes. And the 15 percent to our manager. That leaves about 9 G's). I could live off that for, hell, 6 months. Just about enough time and dough to enroll in a Novell certification deal and get up to speed on I.T. '05 and get back in that race for 40 large a YEAR.

Oh, yeah. That's what I'll do. Mm-hm. Thereupon driving into a wall with a hose going from my exhaust into my ASS.

Dad would be pissed. He'd be all, "I didn't raise you to be a tool of The Man, Bobby Boy." He'd put on "I'd Do It Again" and he'd be all, "listen to THIS part. Listen to THIS part."

Dad always makes you listen to his shit and he always does that musician thing of making you listen to THIS part and THAT part. He is really self-involved. Fuckin' guy is a total tool. Don't tell him I said that.

These bands I play with now always want to do my songs and I don't get it. Nobody wants to hear that tripe. I personally get more nowadays out of burning off finely honed, impassioned readings from the great R&B and rock 'n' roll songbook. I'll take "Clarabella" and "Take Me To The River" and "New Orleans" over my pale bids. I love those songs. I love "What'd I Say" and "Rock and Roll Music" and those songs. They make me look good. And they're all going away, which is one of a million mysteries for me because people love them.

96 songs. My bad knee is killing me. My hands feel like I walked to Boston on them. I've got a groove in my shoulder from my strap. I'm an inch shorter. I neve want to do a White Man's Overbite again. My throat feels like...actually, never mind. My throat feels great. My throat is coated in Teflon. I fucking love that thing. I start low and brooding and the old engine warms up and I'm ready to hit those high "A"'s all night long.

There's probably a way to do that 5 days a week. I could sock somethin' away on that. That'd be 480 songs a week at 4.50 a crack. That's a living wage.

I'll keep trying. You'd have to drive and drive but that's okay. Where there's a will there's a way. And where there's people over 30 there's an itch to be scratched. The kids? The kids like that gun music played by DJ's. Got no time for the kids. Only gun music I know is "Shotgun".
"Shotgun...shoot him 'for he runs, now/Do the Jerk baby/Do the Jerk now..." Junior Walker. He belongs to the ages.

I think "Shotgun" was about number 78. Right between "Slow Down" and "In The Midnight Hour".

96 songs. G'night.

BTW that there's a late 70's Musicman Stingray. I don't play one of those 'cept in my dreams. In my dreams I have 5-string fretted and 4-string fretless matching cherry-red Stingrays.

And it's 1979 and I'm opening for The Police and my band XTC are doing pretty good.