Subbaculture On The Kids

My friend Will and I could hear a sound check in progress as we approached the night club. A voice from my past was singing some familiar lyrics...some painful emoting about "sunless gardens" and "cold eternity", it sounded like something I would have written when I was twenty years old.

The song finished as we walked into the nearly empty club. A few staffers were stocking the beer coolers and the sound man was working on a monitor mix, but there wasn't anyone else there yet except us and the band.
Suddenly, the sound check was interrupted when Mary, the bass player, saw me, put down her instrument and bounded off-stage to give me a great big Southern hug- we hadn't seen each other for at least 15 years! She looked great -and I loved it when she rubbed her gleeful hands on my bald head! The stuff of memories.

"Omigod", she said, " What are you doing here? I was just playing 'Sunless Garden'! Did you hear it and walk in?"

Holy shit! No wonder it sounded familiar!

'Sunless Garden' was a song I wrote when I was twenty years old and Mary and I were in a band together. My lyrics are um, er, ah, not-so-good, but it's a fun bass line to play...21 years later, she's playing it just as I walk into the room- it was as if she were casting a summoning spell and I materialized! I was on Cloud Nine.

I explained that Will and I were from the radio station and we were the ones doing their interview - an already great reunion was suddenly even better! We went upstairs to the dressing room but it wasn't heated and felt like a walk-in freezer, so we wound up conducting the interview amidst the broken glass and general wreckage in the billiards room...it's that sort of nightclub.

It was a happy interview though, happy and funny as hell; Mary and guitarist/singer Rick have some of the best rock stories ever. Will is going to edit it for his show and I will have a copy eventually, I'm actually in some of the stories...jeez, Mary and I used to get wasted back when getting wasted was still fun for me, she really was my best friend for the short years she lived in Fallentown.

I was broken-hearted when she moved away , but today it's truly wonderful to see her actually living the dream that she left to follow.

Her band, Southern Culture On The Skids , has been successful for decades. They are one of the hardest-working bands that I know, playing hundreds of shows every year. Author Stephen King considers them one of his favorite groups.

Rick can play the hell out of his guitar and he's a great entertainer, he really loves his work and the audience can tell. I could have watched him play for hours...I did, actually.



Mary is a Rawk Goddess in her vintage 7-11 smock and white go-go boots. I'm still a little sweet on her, I think.

How could I not be?

*********************************************
What a week! Thursday night I recorded a percussion orchestra, Friday night I was a VIP at the SCOTS show and today I had my weekly radio program...and this was also my first full week at my new job. Thanksgiving is early this year.

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, SAT. NOV. 22, 2008


Snakefinger- Eva's Warning
Once upon a time, I got very, very stoned with Snakefinger in a smelly Fallentown dressing room. A few weeks later he was dead from a heart attack suffered while on tour in Europe. Never take anything for granted.

Captain Beefheart- Run Paint, Run Run
Once upon a time, I got very , very stoned with Eric Drew Feldman, who was in Snakefinger's touring band, The Vestal Virgins...EDF was also an integral member of Capt.Beefheart's Magic Band. Small world, eh?

XTC- Ballad For A Rainy Day/1,000 Umbrellas
XTC- Wrapped in Grey
A trio of painty-headed pop songs dedicated to painters everywhere and one in particular.

Fairport Convention- Now Be Thankful
I'm being thankful today because I fear that Thanksgiving is not going to be a good day for me. This will be the first holiday since my Granny and my cousin died. It won't be the same.

Damien Dempsey- Seize The Day
Damien Dempsey- Catch The Light

Pretty Things- All Light Up
A set of songs about facing and defeating one's fears. Well, the third song is actually about dope and smoking in public, but it's a good one anyway.

Kinks- Top Of The Pops
Live!

Southern Culture On The Skids- Muswell Hillbillies
I just got this CD at the show last night- this is a cover of the classic Kinks tune...it's a great version! The CD is 'Countrypolitan' and it's highly recommended.

Pixies- Subbaculture
I heard my pal DJ Paul say: "The Pixies were one of the first bands that seemed to enjoy attacking their fan base." I laughed, but Paul was right.

Kinks- Here Comes Yet Another Day
And thank Godzilla for that!

Jimi Hendrix- Little Miss Strange
Jimi's drummer, Mitch Mitchell recently passed away. Mitch's drumming on this Hendrix anomaly is franta-tastic. Rock in Peace, Mitch.

Soft Boys- Let Me Put It Next To You
Pretty please? With sticky sugar on it?

Golden Palominos- Pure
Sexy!

Genesis- I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Um. Yeah.

Funkadelic- Sexy Ways
Got it?

Blond Redhead- Hated Because Of Great Qualities
This is why I have no friends. I'm too awesome.

Gong- Can't Kill Me
I am frustratingly difficult to kill...I have survived more assassination attempts than Fidel Castro. "One for the pleasure, one for the pain" indeed.

Red Noise- A Better Home In The Phantom Zone
One day I will live in a house and it will have a sofa; maybe I'll even have a gong in the living room.

801- T.N.K.
I wish I could turn the whole world on with a song.

Green Man- Mr. Soul
Great moody cover of the Buffalo Springfield classic.

Garbage- Medication
Hanging out with Mary almost made me forget about my infatuation with Shirley Manson. Almost.

Grace Slick & Paul Kantner- Silver Spoon
This is the best fiddle-based psychedelic rock song about cannibalism that I have ever heard. I dedicated it to Sarah Palin...if she eats turkey, she's a cannibal.

Neurons- Luminosity
Here are your bells. Happy now?

Actually, I am happy. I hope you are too.

Fun Buckets

Everybody should have one of these:

It's hard to be depressed when you have a bucket of bells to play with.

Ooooo...shiny and jingly!

But it's not all fun and games. The room pictured below is full of mallets and hammers and somebody could get hurt if they aren't careful- this is me beating some caution into Terry, my studio intern:




This is the view from where I was set up. I didn't know it at the time of this pic, but I was getting ready to experience a state of utterly bucket-less panic...the inputs on the University recorder weren't compatible with the outputs of this mixer! No compute.

On discovering this problem, I had two thoughts:

1) This really sucks. We can't do this.

2) I'm doing a radio interview tomorrow night and I picked up the audio recorder tonight. It has the adapter I need and it's in my jacket pocket. Problem solved.

Okay, I had a third thought:

3) Whew. That was close.

Oh, dammit. I had lots and lots of thoughts.

4) I would love to have a gong in my living room.

So anyway, we recorded the musical sounds made by these objects and the people who bang on them. I've had worse evenings:



BTW,telecommuting rocks! I'm so far ahead on my day job that I can stay up late blogging tonight and sleep late tomorrow...my job is mainly collecting data from a steady stream of emails and pasting it into Excel, fixing the format errors, and then sending it to HQ at day's end. It's harder than it sounds and twice as exciting, but I get to do it from home and the boss has already asked me if I am interested in being her assistant, which would be a huuuge pay raise. It's a hard job, but I've done it before, so I know I can do it again. I said yes.

5) Bells ...I can hear bells.

Dance, Baby, Dance!

I got home late last night after doing a radio show and had a pair of happy surprises awaiting me- first, I found a package of CDs that Whim had made especially for me- which made me giddy in itself- next, I checked my answering machine, which has been silent since the election ended, and found two messages from the Gubbermint, asking me to call them...being the loyal citizen that I am, I returned the call this morning.

It was a phone interview for a job- my old job that I lost in 2000- naturally I aced the interview, having done the job before- I start training next week and was told that I would probably be employed through September of 2010. This changes a lot of things, and it all looks like upside to me:

- I'll be starting near the bottom of the office hierarchy, just as I did in 1999. By the time we got canned at the end of 2000, I was the office's night supervisor, so I'm hoping for a similar fast-track promotion. My new boss told me that she was very excited to have someone with my experience on her team and I couldn't help but share that feeling.

-Even at the bottom, I'll be making $7,000 more per year than I am now. I cannot overstate how much this means - I can live like a human being again! One of the first things I will buy will be a bed and a futon or sofa; feline illness and general attrition have left me with almost no furniture- the few visitors I do have usually ask me if I'm moving because it doesn't look like anyone lives in my apartment. Sheesh. I need to fix that.

-My new job will mean something. We'll be opening the local [Censored] office in two weeks, and I'll be there from Day One, helping to establish workflow and procedure for the office...I'll be busy and I'll be needed. As a temp, I've been totally expendable...when I told my current boss of my news, he congratulated me and told me my timing was good, because the Company has been looking to eliminate my job. Most days, I do nothing here all day except blog and listen to music and that might sound like a good job, but trust me, it's not. The days get very long, I get very lonely and I rarely get to be useful. Plus, the pay here sucks.

- In 2000, the operations reports that I filed were collected, added to those from offices in the other 49 states (and territories) and delivered to the desk of President Clinton, who sent all of the [Censored] managers a very nice , albeit form, letter of appreciation- the 2000 [Censored] was the most accurate and efficient one ever and I was proud of my service. This year, I am honored to be working for President Obama and I truly hope that I earn a letter from him.

When I called TempCo to let them know I was leaving, they were not quite as excited as I was...Madame TempCo reminded me of the time, money and energy that TempCo expends in finding placement for their staffers- while I was getting lectured on loyalty,I had a dreadfully vivid flashback of my harrowing experience working at NASCAR and of the months that went by without any work at all- Madame T's words rolled off my guilt-free back. Still, there's no reason to burn any bridges, so I did agree to work Monday and Tuesday next week, but that's it.

(Update: When I got home, there was a pleasant and sincere-sounding "thank you" from Madame T on my voice mail. Now I feel rotten about the bitter tone of the preceding paragraph.)

Wednesday will be a day of rest and self-indulgent celebration. On Thursday I begin training, on Saturday there will be music and dancing, dancing to a new and different beat.

An upbeat.

Say That Again

I thought I was going to be busy at work this week, but I am not. In fact, I haven't had any assignments at all for two days running...Tuesday usually brings some menial tasks, but not this week. The company is being sold- Friday is the sale date- and things seem to be in a state of flux at the moment.

Yesterday we had a cake-laden "awards ceremony" which I think was designed to help settle employee nerves as the transition looms- I was happy to see that the big $500 prize went to the girl in the Mail Room but I wasn't so thrilled about the announcement that a significant number of temps have been hired on to full, benefited positions and that I was not one of them-I really could use some health insurance. I am beginning to think that the next doctor I see will be a coroner.

Today brought another "reward"- at 11 o'clock an Ice Cream Truck pulled up outside and we were all given tickets that we could exchange for frozen treats. I believe this was meant as a morale booster, but it had the opposite effect on the employees who are struggling with obesity (approximately 2/3rds of the office): "OMG, I had cake yesterday, there is no way I can eat ice cream today, I'm getting sooo fat..."

On the positive side, having ice cream at 11:15 AM should decrease one's lunchtime appetite- unless one is me, that is. My Nutty Buddy just made me hungrier, which sucks because I was too busy to pack lunch last night and I have no money until payday.

I did find a part-time job yesterday- I'll be doing sound at the coffeehouse that shares the building with the radio station, which should put a few shekels into my escape fund. Experience has taught me to be cautious when placing eggs or other breakable goods (i.e., hearts) into musical baskets...the club could be pretty cool if the new owners are willing to invest a little money in equipment and soundproofing, but as it stands they don't have enough gear to properly facilitate a live musical act of any kind...Saturday I am going to set up decent, albeit jerry-rigged, sound system and, if all goes well, offer to sell/lease my gear to the club. I store some of my surplus equipment at the radio station, which is very convenient, but the only time I use it is when I do live music on-air , so if I can liquidate it, so much the better...it will put me that much closer to realizing my dream of owning furniture.

We had a really fun band in the studio last night, it was a family string-band (Mom,Dad and two daughters), they were joined by one of the daughter's students...all the women were barefoot and wearing short summer skirts, which added a nice visual element to what is usually a strictly audio experience...I watched with prurient interest as one girl's toes curled whenever she played her fiddle solos- most men would pay good money to spend two hours in a roomfull of toe-curling nubile fiddlers but I got to do it for free, so maybe things aren't so bad after all...