me so FUNNNNNY

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Phillip Glass.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Phillip Glass.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Phillip Glass.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Phillip Glass.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Phillip Glass.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Phillip Glass.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Phillip Glass.

O.K. That's it.

Passing legislation to start drilling in that troublesome arctic wildlife reserve and giving quadrillions in tax breaks to power companies= dumping your boyfriend.

Passing legislation to start drilling in that troublesome arctic wildlife reserve and giving quadrillions in tax breaks to power companies ON EARTH DAY= dumping your boyfriend with someone else's dick in your mouth and asking him to lend you his car.

O.K.

That's it. I am hereby announcing the Bobby Lightfoot Terminal Disease Assassination Group.

I'll spell this out briefly and go into further detail later. 'cause I have to drive up to Burlington and rock the house.

Basically, people with inoperable brain tumors etc. sign up to assassinate dangerous criminals that are endangering all of us. I first conceived of this as a way of maybe getting Osama, but nowadays there are people afoot WHO ARE MUCH TOO DANGEROUS TO OUR CONTINUED HEALTH.

There is a pool that is paid in to to take care of dependents left behind.

For example, if I got a bad chest x-ray back, I could go to D.C. and PLUG SOME FUCKING CHRISTER NUTJOB POD PEOPLE, and Sal The Feist will be kept in Scooby Snacks by the fund.

Anyway--- gotta run. I'll start signing people up as soon as I play these here gigs. Viva La Lucha.

Brutal Rock 'n' Roll Ironies Number 5 Of A Series

Jane's Addiction was actually named after Jane Seymour's habit of enertaining several Middle Eastern gentlemen at one go.

That's not really an irony.

Oh- Perry Farrell, Jane's Addiction singer, shares this habit. There's your irony.

Wait, that isn't really irony either.

Boy, the gypsy lady was right when she said it would be impossible to make Jane Seymour ironic in any way.

Brutal Rock 'n' Roll Ironies Number 4 Of A Series

John had actually been planning on shooting Yoko in front of the Dakota.


GAHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now he's gonna have that lameass jazz pussy Jaco play bass for him in rock 'n' roll heaven instead of me. Shit.

He'll be all, "you weren't nice to Yoko, so fuck you." and I'll be in the band that's like the guy from Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, the little kid from the Partridge family, Kurt Cobain on keyboards and Dylan on lead guitar. and Karen Carpenter on drums.

that will sound really bad. Especially fucking Dylan. It's like having T.S. Elliot play lead guitar.

Dylan is cool on bass. Have you ever heard Dylan on bass?

Have you ever heard Dylan on 'base?

Actually I never did but there's that 65-era picture of him in the studio and he's wearing an early 60-s sunburst P-bass and it looks like it grew on him.

Dylan rocks. Maybe we could kill the Partridge kid, Kurt, and the Union Gap guy and Karen and he and I will just throw some rhymes back 'n' forth a spell. Y'know? Casual-like.

Oh, wait- never mind. It's heaven so they're already dead.

Oh well, maybe it'll happen in this life. Probably. It would probably happen if it was 1979.

Brutal Rock 'n' Roll Ironies Number 3 of a Series

The plane that Lynyrd Skynyrd went down in was a Cessna B-1296 Freebird.

Brutal Rock 'n' Roll Ironies Number 2 Of A Series

When Sid Vicious died he was working on a new song called "Stabbing My Girlfriend" that went:


Gonna stab, stab, stab
At the Chelsea Hotel
Hey dealer man dont you
ring my bell
Nancy's going down on her way to hell
Me I'm gonna croak in a fuckin' jail cell

Stab, stab, stab
Stabbing my girlfriend
Stab, stab, stab
Stab that little girl

How creepy is THAT?

Brutal Rock 'n' Roll Ironies- Number One Of A Series

Frank Zappa's "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?"

It's funny huh how I'll always act like something's a series and then never do number 2. I think things have a different resonance when they seem like one in a series.

This would be a good one for the folks to chime in on, A-aight?

Ach Du Lieber

an actual photo of the ghost of the Headless Brownshirt that haunts the Ratskeller in Munich.

In German, ghosts go "accccccccchhhhhhhhhh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaach....."

HA HA HA HA HA HA

I did this awesome blog entry about my crazy friends and how much fun we all have, me and all my friends, all leanin' on each other in hard times. Then I revealed this to be a fantasy because I don't actually have any friends. It was really funny and sad and pitch-black but there was just something a little too bleak about it so I removed it.

It was funny though.

But kind of crazy. Pretty rough, actually.

Actually, it sounded like the choked ravings of a lunatic at an insane asylum. Actually, now that I think about it, it sounded like if someone I knew wrote it I might come stay with them and keep an eye on them for a couple days and hide sharp stuff. It was awesome.

Fuck, now I wish I'd kept it up. I'm all fired up about it now. See, I never get self-conscious about trying to be amusing in any kind of way, but the other day some one left a comment where they seemed really concerned about my bleakness.

I've felt a little self conscious since then. Really, anybody who knows me will tell ya I'm a happy-go-lucky kind of dude. I mean, I know how to have a good time. You don't hit the town with Bobby L. unless you shove bail money in your sock on your way out, know what I mean?

I really don't see how hating 99.99999 percent of everything on the planet should mean you can't be an upbeat fella.

I think it just means...you're...selective.

Don't you?

Fuck, man. That post rocked. I'm an idiot. Now I am going to fucking kill myself.

A Mantra For Continued Existence

Johann Sebastian Bach
Edith Piaf
Summer thunderstorms
Sgt. Pepper
The Kinks
Phillip Glass
a nude woman
licorice
Patrone tequila
skis
Playing bass like a mother fucking riot
Stage lights
TASCAM
L'oreal hair bleach
dogs (or even better, Dogs)
the Rhine river
Gewurtztreminer
Pernod
Sangria
82 MPH
Uuzo
cuba libres
teenage crushes
ridiculing absolute faith in any form
mascara
sweat
dew
The Brincess Pride
Live Rust
foam soundproofing
Swinging London
chorus and flange
Compression and her severe but kind cousing, Limiting
writing cousing instead of cousin
fans
LP's
barbiturates and whiskey (ha ha)
barbiturates and whiskey
alternators
02 sensors
the nodules on my vocal chords that I got from shrieking in every rock club from Portland to Portland for 20 years that make my voice sound like it's been steeping in port wine for 15 years.
King Radio
The Ware River Club
bobby lightfoot and the orchestra of sweet regret registered trademark
Brian Wilson
Robert Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Wilson
Titleist (when I was a kid I thought that was pronounced "tit-lyste". Now I know it's "tit-least".)
WILSON PICKETT
Arthur Alexander
Larry Williams
william h macy
macy grey
"grey lagoons"
"goon squad"
"mad at you"
"india"
"teenage lobotomy"
"dancing barefoot"
"no language in our lungs"
"life and how to live it"
"the company of light"
"lilac wine"
"for one another"
"i want you (she's so heavy")
Ampeg
the malarians "finished in this town" LP
"the warmth of the sun"
"matte kudasai"
my dad gordon
rolled tacos from Roberto's in pacific beach
pacific beach
san juan capistrano
santa monica
brattleboro
northampton
Keene
Jamaica Plain
"virginia plain"
caffiene
welbutrin
bowling green ky.
jackson, tn.
appalachicola, fl.
douglas, ga.
madison, wi.
1979
2006
1964
1962
1960
1998
1999
1934
madrid
marruecos
cadiz
sevilla
madrid
madrid
madrid
madrid
madrid
madrid
madrid
the song i'm goint to write

now
i'm goint goint goint madrid

Possibly The Most Useless Thing In The World Right Now

Um, the deal with the white and black smoke when they were trying to force one of those poor bastard catholic cardinals to be Pope? Boy was that stupid. I'm surrounded by idiots who think Medieval smoke rites are sexy. Jesus Christ. No wonder these woundfuckers continue their evil, craven cabal unabated day after DAY AFTER DAY.

hey, Pope? Cardinals? Vatican?

melt down ALL your fucking jewelry and diamond encrusted dildo thingies that you carry around. Pull your golden assplugs out. Get your gold-encrusted hands out of your alter boy's vestments for long enough to melt it all down, you god damned pigs. You hypocrites. Jesus Christ, you're all like a spit-smeared Goya painting from The Inbred Period. You're like the money changers at the temple but you're all leering and pukestained with boners sticking out. Sticking out everywhere. I see you all around a big table, and you're pigs with napkins tucked in and a knife and fork in each hand and your tongue out licking your upper lip like on the front of a chocolate milk bottle from the 50's. Melt down all your ill-gotten loot and send it to Africa NOW. NOW. That is how to be holy. You fucking little chickens. You little sour radishes. You bad apples. You soupskins. That's how to be holy. You want to be holy? Stop, stop, stop making my head ache. How can you possibly be holy when you make me hurt thus? Did Jesus go around giving people headaches? Did the sunnaman cruise around Galilee making people's intestines itch with frustration? You make my teeth ache like an out-of-tune piano. Like a bad music lesson. Like a talentless violinist. Like a bad, bad lover with sharp teeth. Like a car with the coil wires on wrong. Like an out-of-tune piano. Like VH1. Like a bad breath kiss that never ends. Like It's A Small World. Like drugs. Like no drugs. Like walking in the woods at night with a reanimated corpse that WON'T STOP TALKING BASEBALL. Like teenagers. OHhhhhhh, it hurts. Ooooohhhhhhh.....you think I'm joking....ouch, ouch, ouch. I can't take anymore I'm going to throw myself into the Elba. I'm going to take a drive in a convertible with a long, flowing scarf and PRAY it gets fouled in the wheels. I'm going to hurl myself on the train tracks. I'm going to beg Raskolnikov to axe me along with the old lady. I'm going to cut myself up and hide myself under the floorboards. I'm going to brick myself up in the catacombs. I'm going to beg them to lower the pendulum. I'm going to die by the thousands in the trenches of Europe. I'm going to be Carmen and Isolde and all them. I'm going to do the Shag naked in the park until they take me away. I'm going to blow my nose and pray my heart comes out. I'm going to smoke eight packs a day until I wheeze out my lungs. Desafinado.....desafinado.........desafinado........the pain, the pain, the pain if i keep writing keep concentrating on typing just keep typing shit out and I won't have to face the paiiiiiiiii-innnnnnnnn ..........GUUUHHHHHHHH.........OW OW OW OW OW. It BURNS. I CAN'T TYPE FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I HAVE TO STOP FOR PACK NUMBER EIGHT AT SOME POINT.

You know how they talk about how John Paul was an actor as a young man so he knew how to work the media and all that?

Think about that for a second. Think on that. No one thinks about what this shit means. We chuckle and change the station, tuning, tuning, tuning to the next abomination.

I think in the Exorcist when the demon pukes green puke on the priest he was THE ONLY SANE BEING ON THIS PLANET. HE was the unscary one. You fucking freaks are the demons. You Walk Among Us.

All you god damned rulers and cardinals and presidents and prime ministers and Pashas and Sharifs. Every time you open your mouths the effrontery ruins another day for me. And you do it EVERY FUCKING DAY. Let's have official Leaders Keep Their Fucking Mouths Shut For One Day day. ZIPPED. Imagine how the MORTALITY RATE WOULD DROP for that one sweet day.

Maybe then I could take a breath and get a new lease and not invoke pity from my dear, dear readers for being so PISSED ALLL THE TIIMMMMMMMMEEEE. GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH.

Someone responded to one of my posts asking if there wasn't any small thing that made me feel alive and content. There it is, right there. 24 hours rest from the hypocrisy. Christ, please. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Dearie, you HAVE to understand that some of us CAN'T SHUT IT OFF. IT'S HOT AND COLD RUNNING HYPOCRISY AND EVIL, EVIL, GREED AND EVIL. Picture a dripping toilet in the night. Picture a running faucet in the night. now picture 40 YEARS OF IT.
DEATH AND DECEIT FOR COLD HARD CASH. When someone mentions millions dying it's not a STATISTIC. Think about dying. Right now. Think about dying REAL BAD. REAL BAD. Now think about that A MILLION TIMES. THAT'S A LITTLE APPETIZER. HERE COMES THE MAIN DISH.

People make me feel like the kid in the bunch of kids and you all promised you'd jump into the water at the same time and I'm the only one who jumped. The only one.

world leaders. Oh, my fuck oh my dear. What ARE we going to do with them? Especially religious leaders? Humanitarians, all. Sitting fat and happy, smoking huge bongloads in the Cyst-ine Chapel and telling people "it's white smoke....no...no...it's black smoke...." And they're all smokin' up and watching the alter boy stripper show and listening to Houses Of The Holy on 8-track and laughing at the poor clicking, starving Ethiopians. Leering, leering and droooooooooling. Drooling. That's what priests and cardinals and popes do. They leer and drool. Leer and Drool. The Old L 'n' D. And drink the blood of innocents by the GALLON. And make saints of people who had themselves torn limb from limb for Baby Crispus Atticus. SAINTS. And trying to run the world on DOCTRINE. That's like dancing about architecture right there.
Telling people in the third world that birth control is wrong. I don't even care about the other shit. The women priest thing? The gay priest thing? Lady, if you wanna be a Catholic priest you deserve everything you get. It's just a tad bit like WANTING TO BE THE RABBI OF DACHAU.

Religion-------------- The Most Useless Thing In The World Right Now.

It's Weird How........

..........when you're on inhalants you act all normal because you don't want people to know and when you're straight you can act like a retarded idiot if you want and you don't care what the hell those stupid people think. They're probably on god damned inhalants or something.

Bobby Lightfoot's Blog Entries I'd Write If My Mom Didn't Read This Number One

AAAAAAAAAHHH HA HA HA HA! That's the funniest thing I've thought of all month.

Sorry, Mom, you have to admit this is funny. And no, that's not a picture of my Mom. My Mom doesn't have "Stock Photo" tattooed on her face. Although she has intimated darkly about getting "Cradle Of Filth" on her upper arm. And she'd never wear a purple pillbox hat. Or any pillbox hat.

So, Anyway- Bobby Lightfoot's Blog Entries I'd Write If My Mom Didn't Read This Number One:

1. The Lightfoot Illicit Substance Guide

2. My Year In The Sex Trade Was Tough

3. I Think I Hit A Drifter With My Van In Montana One Night But I Kept Driving

4. At Least Hitler Made The Trains Run On Time

5. That Time I Lived On Grits For Two Weeks Rocked

6. I Was Fired From My First Job Because Of Wine

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That one was funny- "Because Of Wine". This is even better than I thought it would be. I just cracked myself up for the first time in a week. Blork. Hee hee hee.

7. There's Money In Smuggling!

Wow, that one was l-a-m-e lame.

8. My Hot Cousins

HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That one's funny.

9. I Never Thought Identity Theft Would Be So Easy

and and and and errrrrrrrrrrrrr..........................

10. Coming To Terms With My "Bi" Years

GGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!! that one was so funny i hit myself with a coffee cup over the head hard. I put my foot through the wall. My socks rolled up and down. The Aqua Velva curdled and steamed on my face. You must never speak with the demon or answer the demon's riddles. It only serves to make him stronger.
Wait- that should be simpler though. It should just be:

10. My Bi Years


ggggggggggggggggggggggggggGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOORTttttttTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSHHHHHHHHLLLLLLLLFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!

Hi, Ma! Just hit the little envelope icon to give me my comeuppance.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOoooooooooooooooooooooooomMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmm

oh, that looks cool. Look how it seems to undulate--- zzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooommmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmm



Here's how cool this interweb thing is- If I want to have an immense black space under here I can just do that-



Never mind it didn't fucking work.

POSSIBLY THE MOST USELESS THING IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW:

Gulp. I think it's me.

The Ware River Club Hardly Knows I Exist

I know we only had a one-night stand together, but now I can't stop thinking about the Ware River Club. I know they don't feel the same way. It was just a fling for them. Maybe I'll find another band sort of like them and when we play I'll close my eyes and pretend it's them.

I know I pleased them, but you know how fickle bands are. They'll just go with the cute bass player, the bad-boy bass player. Not the one that really cares about them. Not the one who really loves them. Not the one that understands them.

And then when he dumps them I'll be here and like an idiot I'll take them back.

I'm in love with The Ware River Club. I'll act all cool around them, but inside my heart will be breaking. Some night when I'm playing some Legion hall for a c-note with some faceless R&B band I'll probably have a Smirnoff Ice too many and then I'll call them late at night and leave a ridiculous message on their answering machine. You know how it is when you're smitten like this and you can't keep yourself from doing idiotic things and you just get in deeper and deeper and the band just thinks you're a bigger and bigger fool.

Why are bands so mean? No other bass player will care about them like I do. Just look what foolish love has done to me.

1980-1981: Years Of Growth And Ferment Six: The Clash's "Sandinista".

Well, if 1980's "London Calling" was The Clash's "Sgt. Pepper", then certainly this triple-fucking-LP from the end of '81 is their "White Album".

Does anyone realize just how important drummer Topper Headon was to this band, especially in terms of writing? Crazy. He was a consummate instrumentalist and always messing around and tracking stuff on off-hours in the studio. That's pretty much what this record is. They just rolled tape on the guy. And "Combat Rock" even more so. "Rock The Casbah"- Topper played all the piano and drums and shit and those leeches just wrote words to it. You would shit yourself if you knew how much of the music credited to Strummer or Jones was written by this guy. If Topper had been able to figure out how to do this without about a half liter of heroin in his veins at all times for years he woulda been a force to be reckoned with.

The Clash are truly one of the best examples of how bands used to push themselves. Every album reveals a quantum leap except the last one which pretty much treads water and is, of course, their hugest. I'm not even going to dignify the various comebacks which uniformly sucked and reeked of lucre. They put out this record called "Cut The Crap" in the '80s. That is lame right there.

These guys revealed themselves as incredibly lowercase catholic when the punk dust settled. Music Hall, rap, R&B, musical, murder ballads, country and western, stone-cold funk, reggae; it's all in there. It's always all in there. And on "Sandinista" it all starts to wind together into something unique (although they never quite made it).

"Sandinista"- The Clash's 1980 "White Album". But about 45 minutes longer.

One sour note- I ran sound for Mikey Dread once, the Jamaican guy who toasts all over this album and he was a major league asshole. We're talking Asshole Hall Of Fame. This guy won an Assie six years running. Guy sets up his own front-of-house mix, tells me not to touch it, then heaps abuse on me all night over the mic. 500 people. If I still gave a fuck it would have been mortifying or something. I seem to remember sleeping just fine on that and subsequent nights.


 

Sunday Confession Time

Um, I don't regret much this week. I was a good musician and crappy at everything else, so it was a pretty normal week. My brilliance on the fretboard and keyboard was matched only by my incompetence at working, breathing etc. I am at peace. Or what passes for peace in the cesspool of regret and self-loathing that passes for my psyche.

I didn't assassinate Rupert Murdoch or anyone in the Administration so I feel a little guilty about that, but hey, you can't do everything, you know?

Also, I ran another tollbooth but my wise and erudite superiors Mark and Fred are more likely to be mildly amused by my idiocy than anything else. Did I mention what handsome, graceful men they are? They seem almost to come from some sort of Super race.

It's nice to serve a purpose in this life, and I guess mine happens to be making other people feel smart. What's really stupid is that I wouldn't even have owed anything, just like last time. But that toll booth starts looming right when I'm in the midst of my Opening For Roxy Music fantasy and it just sort of happens. The crowd roars, I hit that first low E and suddenly I'm in the Fastlane.

So hey, Baby Jeebiz, I guess I'm not really on your list this week; these are minor peccadilloes in the Grand Scheme, huh? Sorry if I've bored your rock-rollin' ass this week.

I love you, Creepus. Sleep well up there. You've got the Pope to read you to sleep now.

Amen, Bobby Lightfoot.

POSSIBLY THE MOST USELESS THING IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW: A NEW SERIES BY BOBBY LIGHTFOOT.

This week:

The Ring Tone.

If you don't realize how useless the ring tone is, brother have I got some news for you.

If you're down with ring tones I suspect you eat your own boogers. If you're older I suspect you fantasize about sex with young boys.

The Ring Tone: this weeks' most useless fucking thing in the world. But of course you knew that. You wouldn't let The Man permit you to spend 5 seconds preoccupied about something so utterly, unbelievably, immeasurably stupid and useless while our leaders eviscerate Third World children by the busload and make them into soup. 'Course not. You know where it's at. Where it ISNT AT?

That's right- the fucking ring tone. The only logical way to preoccupy yourself with the Ring Tone is like this. By actively hating it.

Boooo, ring tones.

Cathedral, Indeed- My Night With The Ware River Club

The Ware River Club from my pleasant little hometown of Northampton MA are a fantastic band. "Cathedral" is their third album, a national release on Spirithouse, an ADA-distributed indie. "Cathedral" is so beautiful that if you're not careful when you listen to it, well, cowboy, I can't be responsible for your ass falling off. Boom. Both cheeks. Right on the floor.

Spirithouse is also the home of another band I love deeply and play with, King Radio. Also on Spirithouse are Northampton's brilliant and venerable Ray Mason and The Lonesome Brothers. This label has done a public service beyond measurable ken recording and putting this shit out. Spirithouse? Tits up. They're done. Broke. Somebody shoulda let 'em in on the minor flaw in their business plan: MUSIC THAT ISN'T ABSOLUTE, EXECRABLE SHITE. Oops, we forgot to release FUCKING CRAP.

Ware River Club? History. Destroyed by debt, from the look of things. The gig I played bass for them last night was probably their last. I hork up chunks of lung when I think about it. This singer and front guy Matt Hebert is a writer of frightening scope and although their first two albums are superhip and really very good, "Cathedral" is in a class of its own because it is so flat-out beautiful. These guys let themselves do stuff that they hadn't before, vis-a-vis love songs and vulnerability and major sevenths. The song "Cathedral" itself is so sad and true and pretty that you could just cry. Oh, fuck oh dear is this some good and important shit. These are some really sick musicians. Matt Cullen the stage left guitarist has been playing for about 100 years and has been fired for being good by more major labels than there are anymore. Bob Hennessy, the stage right guitarist was the consummate stylist. His tone is extremely unique; he's doing this thing with swells and electronics that make his guitar sound like a pedal steel and it's really working. Probably helps that he's an asskicking pedal steel guitarist. Drummer Don McAuley was amazing; tasteful and propulsive and somehow not too loud. The room was fairly small and he played to it with great empathy. I locked with him from the first bar and was feeling it all night.

Did I have some big shoes to step into? Let me put it this way- T-Bone Wolk played bass on a couple of these tracks. I smoked HIS rank amateur ass.

'Course, it's 2005 so nobody wants to hear. These guys are in their 30's and don't look like faggot male models and god forbid a couple are maybe in their (hush hush) 40's so what could they possibly have to say? what wisdom could they possibly have to impart that a fucking 19-year old bottle blond hooker with fake tits couldn't impart better, yeah? The folks just want more processed, derivative, useless, redundant, unimportant, unimaginative garbage that they can swallow and shit out without thinking. These guys'll end up like me, playing fucking shit at fucking weddings. Fuck that. A-holes.



Go and buy this fucking records right now and maybe Baby Creepus will forgive you.

Actually, I take it back- these fellas are hot, hot, hot.

"buy this fucking records". ha ha.

RIGHT NOW. It's good for you. The Killers are not good for you. Green Day is no longer nutritious. Kanye West? I'm not even going to say anything.

Oh, you fucking kids today. You're supposed to listen to th' edgy shit, don't you know that? Yer spending yer parent's hard earned dollars to LINE THE MAN'S POCKETS. You're BLOWING IT!!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. Or maybe that's how you kids rebel now; you piss your hip parents off by being little Robot Consumers. Hey, whatever it takes, you little miniconservatives. All that DARE propaganda has gotten to you. Smoke a fucking joint, for fucks sake. Steal Mom's cigarettes. Oh, wait, nobody smokes anymore. And with good reason- you don't wanna come down with Black Lung with THIS fucking health care system.

You'd be FUCKED.

Folks, it's time for violent overthrow. But can we not kill civilians? Please? What is it with you fucking pussy terrorists? Kill somebody who fucking matters. Jesus Christ. You fucking pussies. go after politicians for fucks sake. You think the man on the street is the cause of your problems? Jesus, don't they teach you ANYTHING in those fucking Madrasas except how to be pussy fucking ASSHOLES? You want the sympathy of the American Working Stiff? You want the hearts and minds of the proletariat? Kill a fucking senator for fuck's sake, you faggots. Whack an "elected" representative or 50 for shit's sake.

Jesus WEPT, for fucks sake.

I love that- Jesus WEPT. That's up there with using "words of christ in RED!" as an oath. That's awesome.

KREEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heh heh.

Played up in Vermont on Friday night at some place in Newfane. Got paid; didn't get ass kicked. That Is A Good Gig. Those are the 2 Magic Hallmarks of the Good Gig.

I have to go- I think homeland security is at the door.

Blogging and Wanking.

O.K., let me get a couple of things straight right off the bat before I dive into this compare/constrast exercise.

1. This here blog of mine? It is what it is and it ain't what it ain't. Whatever it wants to be is what it will be. There's no gestalt, there's no boundaries, there's no nothin'. There's a couple of things that consistently pop up that seem to give it form and that's O.K., but that's just because there are things that preoccupy me. One of these things is music because music is more important than you realize, to ALL of us. The other thing is the me-hating-the-world thing. Yo, I didn't make the fucking place and I refuse to feel like I belong in therapy because I hate the world. There's plenty of other things that I belong in therapy for.

I don't hate the world for petty things. I've got lots of really good reasons for hating the world and I'm willing on any given day to stop hating the world but see, the world of people is a hateful thing. I don't hang on my world-hating. It's not a crutch. I'd be willing to relinquish it the second the world stops being hateful. O.K.?
Here's the deal (and I'm going to be forthright about my abilities and my talent because if I'm going to explain just why I hate the world I can't exclude that). I write O.K., right? There's an abandon and a cynicism or something, that makes an appealing read. Maybe it's the refusal to let anything be sacred or what. I don't know.
'Kay, take that reasonable ability and multiply it by 100.

That's how good a musician I am. And writer, and singer, and arranger, and engineer. I'm sick with music. I breath music. I played a show with a band last night, a fantastic band who I will talk about later. I stood in for their regular bass player. These guys have three albums out from whence they draw their material. With a week and a half's notice, I got up on stage with these guys last night and fucking slew. I really can't think of a single mistake I made. We're talking three sets. We're talking 40 songs. It was almost supernatural. These songs are not "Louie Louie".

That's how good I am. Somebody has to say it, you know?

Now, the reason I'm comfortable stroking myself like this is a)because it's fact, b)because I've had my ass kicked to Scranton and back 65 times by the music industry, and c) because, like many people who hate the world I have, shall we say, I slight distaste for myself. I dunno, you know? Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. Who cares. So, if I get to feel my oats as a musician it is liberating for me so if I seem full of myself trust me I ain't.

Best case scenario for me in life?

Scraping by playing "From This Moment" at weddings.

Yes, I've spent the last 22 years suffering to succeed. I've watched my contemporaries get good jobs and buy homes and all that lot. I've played more and driven more and written more and hurt more than any fucking musician or singer or whatever. I don't care who it is. I'm That Guy. But unlike That Guy I don't get to make it into a funny story on VH1 Fucking Storytellers. So, it's not that funny.

Any time I've had the slightest, tinyest chink of a break I've barrelled into it blazing, given it everything, milked it absolutely dry. Sacrificed anything. And any time anyone in a position to do anything for me has done anything for me I have proven my mettle in any manner. Commercially, commitment-wise, anything. I've never choked. Well, once at the Coachhouse in San Diego but that was from paranoia. I learned my lesson.

Actually, in my last couple of years in the Industry I did tell a lot of people to go fuck themselves and I stayed in bed a lot, but that's because there was no reason not to and certain folk were badly in need of going and fucking themselves, dig? You know who you are, cocksuckers. I take that back. I don't used cocksucker that way anymore. You know that.

Weddings, babe. Cover songs at weddings. Yeah, boy.

So now you know why I hate the world.


2. My charm? I really Don't Give A Fuck. I don't care what anybody thinks about my shit. I really don't. I've spent far too much time caring about what jackoffs think of my output. Read it or don't read it, Jiminy Fuck I don't care. Got nothing to do with what I think of anyone, and in the rare instance that someone comments I'm invariably amused and heartened. See, I get to do something that does something for ME. Good deal. I've got probably less than 30 years left on this planet. I've smoked a lot of cigarettes. I have to figure out how Pleasing Oneself works before it's too late.

3. I have no problem with wanking in the original sense, speaking of pleasing oneself. I think it's a perfectly acceptable activity and gets some of us through the day. Glass houses, you know?

O.K. so I guess we're clear, huh?

So I run into this guy at the club last night. He's kind of a tosser, this guy. He's a converted NeoCon with lots of facts and figures to explain why we should let poor people die in the street and all like that, right? How Entitlements don't make sense and how great the Current Administration is, yeah? Now, we know how great the C.A. is. It ain't too great. Unless you're fond of the taste of shit and like drinking turpentine. You like that stuff? You're probably down with the C.A. Or you're one of those rich shitstains that should be put to the guillotine like they used to in civilized times. Middle class and lower class people that are down with this stuff? Holy shit! Wow, is that ever stupid.

So, I axed this guy what he'd been up to. "Oh, I've been doing a lot of blogging," he tells me.

Wow. Is it just me or is that totally wankerific? I think that's wanktastic. "Doing a lot of blogging". He's been trading jabs with "some of the big boys". What an idiot. "Doing a lot of blogging". Is that something you admit to proudly? Is it something you admit to at all? If somebody asked me what I'd been up to I wouldn't say that. I have been doing a lot of blogging, I guess, though, huh? Can that be our little secret? If I wanted somebody cool at a club who had just slain 3 hours of unfamiliar music with a week's notice to think that I was cool I'd be far more likely to say, "Gee, tell ya one thing- I ain't been doing much of that freakin' Blogging, that's for sure." I'd say, "well, I been up ta this and I been up ta that, but I ain't been up ta a whole lot of Bloggin, chrissakes." I'd be like "I've been practicing my guitar". Then I'd buy them a shot of Patrone tequila because it always takes the edge off. I notice a significant improvement in mood after one of those. Two, I feel great. Three? Three and I'm a contender for Biggest-Smile-In-The-World. Buy me a lovely shot of Patrone and you're cool in my book. If I pop one of those right at the top of the set I'm like, unstoppable. It stops being a chore and starts being a priviledge.

"I've been doing a lot of blogging. Sparring with the big guys." Boy is THAT some lame shit.

Get good at something. Clean some shit up. Make someone smile. Do what this guy does.
Bring the people something good for their brain. That's a public service right there, man. You're gonna learn some shit right there, man. Unlike in our fucking schools or any of that.

Can we keep the wanking down, though? I don't mean the good kind. Everyone should do more of that. I've read it actually thickens the ozone layer back up. I dunno. I mean the "sparring with the big guys" shit. Didn't anybody tell you?

The Big Guys are ASSHOLES.

ASSHOLES.

With their FAST CARS and CRAZY SUNGLASSES and their LOOSE WOMEN. And their LAISSEZ-FAIRE attitude and their FAST MORALS. And their record collections with COREY HART and SAINT ELMO'S FIRE and th' MOTELS. And their FAST CARS.

1980-1981: Years of Growth and Ferment 5: The Joe Jackson Band's dark New Wave masterpiece "Beat Crazy"

Jesus Criminy Fuck is this a good record for your ass. Profoundly dark, profoundly innovative and about as tight a sonic definition of New Wave as was ever recorded. This was the last album by the original Joe Jackson Band, and Joe's second-to-last great record. Brilliant and underrated drummer Dave Houghton rules the day here, his super-tight, super-exciting drumming augmented with all sorts of great arrangements and great dub-mixing. Boy, did New Wave turn out some great drummers. Like Copeland, history has been unkind to these guys, focusing too heavily on songwriting. New Wave was a sonic event; most of the songs were 60's tunes with disaffected lyrics. It was the instrumental attack, the joyful and unselfconscious incorporation of West Indian rhythms and the economy of arrangement that made New Wave New Wave.


Here we have all these things in spades as well as a guitar that never once wanders from the roll of a rhythm instrument, bass playing so well-arranged and well-thought-out as to defy description and the needle-sharp deployment of melodica and morse-code electric piano. And as with many records of this era, the echo unit is the fifth member of the band; no instrument escapes delay treatments carried out in tight, time-synched dub form.

The themes are classic New Wave disaffection; voodoo, anger, the prostitute that lives upstairs, kids today, the battle of the sexes, the battle of the races. Great stuff. The mood of darkness never lifts except to reveal moments of wry humor and resignation. What a great record this is; the cover is brilliant, the band is so tight it pisses mist, and the songs and arrangements and production work in seamless synchronization. And bassist Graham Maby is THE FUCKING MAN.

Hooray for 1980. Hooray for Joe Jackson. Hooray for groups that grew and developed as much as these guys did between 1979 and 1980.

Three cheers for "Beat Crazy", a singular snapshot of a really cool time.

1980-1981: Years of Growth and Ferment 4: The Ineffable "Flesh+Blood" by the Inscrutable Roxy Music

Here, ladies and gentlemen, for your daydreaming pleasure, is very possibly pop music's finest example of heartbreaking evocative romanticism. That is, until Roxy's 1982 monster Avalon. It could just be that the time was right for me, being 15 and living on the banks of the Rhine outside of Bonn, Germany, but there exists in my collection no other record so poignant, so heartwrenching. I think if I were pressed I might call this my favorite record of all time.

Strong words.

One must realize the Ferry and Roxy Music had been building to this moment since their 1972 inception, and though fans of the first iteration of the band found Flesh+Blood too overtly commercial, too produced and too "tasty", it remains an incredibly unique and compelling work. Like XTC did in 1983, Roxy had boiled down to a triumvirate assisted by sidemen. The brilliant and Byronesque Ferry, the extremely creative and tasteful Phil Manzanera and the consummate stylist Andy Mackay assembled the finest musicians of the day and deployed them in sparse, pointillist workouts of sweeping scope and drama. Flesh + Blood is home to the indisputably superb "Oh Yeah", the blueprint for 80's new romanticism "Same Old Scene", the compellingly, shamelessly romantic "My Only Love" and the fever-dreamish "No Strange Delight". Also of note is "Running Wild", a fantastically evocative guitar ballad and the retro-but-not-really "Over You".

When people pan this record, I'm reminded what an embarrasment of riches the last 40 years of pop music have been. To actually be able to afford to write this record off is nuts; I know a lot of people who would give their eyeteeth to be able to hear just one new album as rich and as sonically delicious as this.

1980 was a time rife with creative promise for enterprising bands; the scorched-earth policy of punk rock had left an environment where cool new hybrids could get attention. It was a time of constant hybridization, much like the mid-60's. The Roxy gestalt by this time was a tight little formula; one third Old Europe/crumbling castle, one third sweaty, histrionic American R&B and one third space-age rock 'n' roll dissolution. I loved the Roxy Music of the last three records; they were for me the first and only Roxy Music. I would work my way back through their catalog in the early to mid-eighties and find myself in awe of their way with a mood, but it was always this final lineup that influenced me the most. It's funny; it's like people who discovered XTC with Oranges and Lemons. Those Johnny-Come-Latelys crack me up.

Roxy Music's Flesh And Blood: Bobby Lightfoot's favorite album. This week.


Um, can someone respond and tell me what "Ineffable" means? I don't know- i just liked the way it looked up there, all cool and shit.