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First of all, go back if you have somehow missed: Okay? Saturday, November 8, 1999......Well, Your Boy has taken a considerable amount of ribbing about the fact that he had intended to spend Friday afternoon "raking leaves." I don't know WHY this was so amusing to so many people, but apparently it was. And, as you know, the leaves have not been raked. Plainly. Suddenly I had Other Things To Do, you see. So the plans for Saturday involve:
Well, I got as far as the "E-mail and call friends" part.......and that's about it. My energy stores were depleted. I had the worst Smoke Hangover of my life. I am reminded AGAIN why I am not a professional musician. Worse, Wendy is now essentially a festering heap of nicotine sludge (her aversion to cigarettes is actually worse than mine) and her personal biological makeup currently consists of about 40% tar and nicotine, 20% phlegm, and 40% migraine. So she basically spends the entire day in bed while I tiptoe around the house in a daze, and make phone calls. The leaves remain as they are. Lots of 'em. Well, I wanted my own house. Obviously, the previous day's events are sparking and hissing in my poor little brain, and refuse to collect themselves into any sort of concrete format. I am staggered by the incredible sequence of impossible circumstances that had to happen in just the right order to land my little pink ass on stage with the World's Most Important Band. Difficult, to say the least, to think about anything else. By mid-afternoon it becomes obvious that Wendy is not gonna make it tonight. This is the bummer of bummers.......I HATE going to concerts alone, and I really wanted her to see the Chocolate Watchband and Mike Stax's Loons. She has especially been enjoying the Loons' CD with me all autumn. And she loves the Watchband too--and why not? No Monks tonight, of course, and Gary will probably be okay for Sunday night's show, we all hope--so my 15 minutes are over, and it's back to being Audience Member Mike. But, Jeez--you couldn't ask for a better show to be an Audience Member at. I briefly flirt with the concept of going to the WFMU Record Fair, where the Monks will be this afternoon--along with other show participants and most of the other people I have just met. But I elect to just get to the Westbeth a little early and get a good parking space (it is, after all, Saturday night) and HAUL MY ASS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THAT STAGE, JIM--no more Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free, no more Wretched Refuse Of Your Teeming Shore for ME, mister. Had enough of that. So I make one more attempt to convince Wendy to bring her damned headache WITH her. Fail. Get inna car and hurtle toward the Bright Lights. I'm an audience member, you're an audience member, we're ALL audience members. I don't know if I'm naive or stupid or just trying way too hard to be humble and self-effacing, but here's what happens when I pull open the door to the Westbeth's lobby at 7:30: Several of the vendor-types are setting up their little Merch Booths. As the door opens, they all, of course, turn around to see who it is. And the entire lot of them breaks into spontaneous applause. Holy s**t. HOLY S**T. It does manage to run through my head that, come Tuesday morning, I'm back to being the little piece of crap standing behind the counter with the "Please Abuse Me" sign hanging around his neck. This keeps me grounded. But I'm having quite a bucket o'fun NOW. I hang around for a few minutes, go back out to the car to drop my jacket inside (I have stupidly brought it in with me, forgetting that tonight I will not have backstage access and nowhere to dump it) and now Alex is there, behind the Monk table, which has been moved to the left-hand wall (next to the Pizza guys.) So we talk for a while. Then a girl walks over carrying a stack of photos. She says hi, we exchange greetings, and it turns out she's the Official Photographer From Sundazed for this event. I'm looking at her real hard--because, honestly, I'm trying to decide (in my dazed delirium) whether or not she's the same one who was so snotty to Will at the Monks' table the night before. No, I finally decide. She's way too nice, and looks better than I remember, and besides she has what sounds like the remnants of a lilting Irish brogue. Her name is Melissa, and she has a bunch of pictures of ME, from the night before, that she wants me to see. She also says that [Sundazed Supremo] Bob Irwin has heard about my little adventure and wants to meet me. Now it's kind of unusual, especially for an iconoclastic bastard such as myself, to idolize a Record Company President. It's certainly not happened BEFORE. But Bob Irwin is the undisputed King of the Sensible Re-Issue. As a freelancer working for Sony (formerly CBS) Records, he unearthed-and-convinced-someone-to-release countless amazing artifacts from that company's past.......really nice compilations (with long-buried tracks NO ONE had ever heard, and not just the Usual Studio Leftover Crap but GREAT stuff) on Moby Grape, BS&T, The Cryan' Shames ( !! ), Buckinghams, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Byrds--you know, all the GOOD STUFF and certainly not all of it Worthy Of Re-Release "potential-sales-wise." Then, he starts his own company, Sundazed, to put out all the OTHER stuff--stuff Sony doesn't own. And also the stuff Sony owns but doesn't want. Stuff even I don't have. Stuff I can't even PRETEND I've ever heard before. Wonderful wonderful CDs with long-buried music by bands like Things To Come, We The People, the Mojo Men, Vejtables............if you don't already have all this stuff for God's sake go visit SUNDAZED and have a look around. 'K? Because if you haven't found much new stuff to enjoy lately, you're just not looking under the right rocks. Bob has gotten his knees all muddy looking under them FOR you. I first heard his name back sometime in the early 90s, when Steve Katz copied me a fax he sent to Bob (whom he didn't know at the time) in response to Bob's plans to assemble a Blood Sweat and Tears compilation. I forget the details, but Steve thought Bob was talking to all the wrong people or something. They have since made nice. And who cares? I'm just babbling. Anyways, I of course have my own camera around my own neck, and Melissa and I exchange Cavestomp Camera Strategies and other pleasantries. She has left her husband back in Ireland just to come here and shoot this one event for Sundazed, as part of some bizarre long-standing annual tradition that needs be understood only by Bob and herself. Turns out her unusual mid-atlantic accent is 180 degrees backwards from what I had supposed; she's an American. Anyway. I run into a whole pile of people that were at last night's show and they're all pumping me with kudos and demanding to hear the whole story. My fifteen minutes, apparently, are NOT over as I had supposed. Feels good. I'll take it. I don't see Will anywhere. He had been rather sanguine about seeing the Chocolate Watch Band. I assume he will make a late entrance, blazing in through the door with two New York hookers, a bottle of JD, a licensed firearm and a well-worn Bukowski paperback. This doesn't happen. Kelley's here though. His entrance is much less dramatic. He, like I, is still dazed from the night before. We agree that seeing the Watchband will be rather special, to say the least. By now it's shortly after 8PM and I stride purposefully inside to prop myself against the stage and stake out my territory. I am imagining, in a pragmatic fashion, that my surprise mini-celebrity will make it a little bit easier to fend off the crowd. This turns out to be correct. I don't know if that comes out of my fifteen minutes or not but, again, I'll TAKE it. I have my back to the stage and I'm looking out into the room. Lots of people are coming up to me and congratulating me. This is really quite okay! Peter Zaremba walks across the half-full room towards the sound man's corner, sees me, and gives me a big wave--from about 40 feet away. This is really quite okay! SHOWTIME!The first band to play tonight is THE MOONEY SUZUKI. I have not heard them, but I have been dying to. From what I've read, they are four Extremely Young People (by MY standards) who play garage-influenced music as if they had invented it themselves. We had just recently missed an excellent opportunity to see them--they had opened for the Pretty Things at Maxwell's in Hoboken. How on Earth were we not there? As I recall, that was the weekend in which we saw David Bromberg AND the Good Rats the same night, and Bevis Frond the NEXT night (also at Maxwell's)--and we're gettin' too OLD for............WAIT A MINUTE!!!! NO WE'RE NOT!!!!!! YOU DIDN'T READ THAT!!!!!! But, seriously, Pretty Things were playing the THIRD night, and we reluctantly decided we'd sit this one out and catch 'em NEXT time, since they show no obvious signs of packing it in anytime soon. So we missed seeing Mooney Suzuki as well. Bill Reynolds went. He didn't like them. He thought they had too much Unearned Attitude. Well, I thought, I will see for myself.
Unless you're in your 40s you probably won't understand this feeling. This is music of the sort that we championed as kids--KIDS, now, I mean 13, 14, 15 years old--and, when the whole world went Prog Rock and then Disco, this music was shunned. Shooed into the basement. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There was no Huge Underground Network of Standells Lovers. How Lenny Kaye ever got Nuggets released by a major record company is totally beyond me. This music had NO RESPECT among the masses. There was no Core Elite either. It was literally just a few people scattered around the world. There was no MTV, there was no World Wide Web. If you were a Yardbirds fan and you wanted to hear their seminal first record, Boom Boom, it was gonna cost you TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. No compilations. No reissues. No bootlegs. No pirate copies. No tape traders. There was ONE SINGLE, it was from the Netherlands, and if you wanted to hear it you were going to PAY some dirtbag in Geneva or some other ungodly place--through the nose. Got the picture? It wasn't until literally the mid-80s--a DECADE later--that people started waking up. Things started getting re-issued. Talked about. Written about. And posers worldwide got a chance to claim that they were There The Whole Time. But you WEREN'T there, pisspot. You were listening to Lucifer's Friend and Grobschnitt and thinking you were hip. The first version of Rosalynn you heard was by David Bowie. (And a killer cover it was, to be fair, but that's beside the point.) Those of us who WERE there the whole time--we took our LUMPS for it. We were lepers. Pariahs. Hell, forget garage music--I took untold lumps for listening to MONKEES records in 1974. And great records they are. And now EVERYBODY thinks so. Hey, Jack--we were THERE. Now--remember those mid-80's?? Remember the first time you heard The Three O'Clock? What a blast of fresh air this childlike psychedelia was? And yet......there was something about it that seemed contrived. Wayne said they sounded like a bunch of 16-year-olds doing a Music History project for school. And they did.
And it's happening, all right. I am grinning like an idiot and trying to take as many pictures as I can in the brief moments when the lead guitarist's gonads are not bouncing around three inches from my eyes. ('Cause, really--what's a picture of a pair of brown pants prove? Honestly?)
And, right now, in this room, he IS. I cannot say enough about these guys. I love them. I bless their grandparents. They were a highlight in a three-day weekend with more highlights than I can count. I'm silently glad I don't have backstage access tonight. 'Cause I could not run into these guys afterward without telling 'em what I think of them--and I know for sure I'd come off like The Old Guy Who Thinks The Kids Will Be Very Happy To Get His Very Important Blessing. And they'd probably say "Oh, thanks!" while silently thinking, "F*** off, you used-up old dork." And that's exactly what they SHOULD think. THAT'S "unearned attitude." And without it you never make it to EARNED attitude. Go see these guys. I'm not accepting excuses. It's YOUR torch they're carrying. The torch that many of YOU have been peeing on when you thought nobody was looking. POSERS!
Well, okay. Enough. I am totally beaming as the stage is being re-set for the next act--one I have been breathlessly waiting for. THE LOONS. Recap: expatriate Englishman Mike Stax (I really really really wanna believe that's his actual name, but I'm dubious) starts ragtag little fanzine devoted mainly to The Pretty Things but also to many other worthwhile musics. Magazine, over the years, gains more and more respect among Those Who Know. Me, I'm totally ignorant of it until 1997--when the Monks' CD comes out and the liner notes are taken largely from interviews conducted by this same Mr. Stax, and Ugly Things is name-checked prominently. Now, again, remember--I'm a music lover in his mid-40s. I have always HATED fanzines. The writers who run them seem to share a common disease--they're loaded with passion for their favorite art and artists, but in order to sup at their table you also have to endure an equivalent or even GREATER amount of their heaping disdain for whatever it is they DON'T like, and sometimes you wonder what's the point. People who write for more "overground" publications have maybe lost some of the Belly Fire that these Fanzine Guys have, but they've (hopefully, not always) gained enough Wisdom And Maturity to just tell their damn story and get back on the bus, you know? Every fanzine I had ever read--and WHENEVER--seems to be unable to tell me WHY something they love is so good without simultaneously taking some sort of gratuitous swipe at something they HATE--and usually the thing they're swiping at is something I like. So why should I LISTEN TO YOU, creep? If only I had a nickel for every time I've seen something like "....the Smegma Dogs, a Croatian psychedelic band who made their mark in 1966 but never recorded anything, were the best rock and roll band in the history of the world--and by the way why hasn't anyone killed Jeff Beck yet?" Leave Jeff alone, nitwit. Just tell me why the Smegma Dogs were so damned good. That's all I want from you, okay? Shut UP. There is a woman--I cannot recall her name--who writes for L.A.'s New Times. She does most of their music features. And I don't believe she's been able to write ANYTHING about ANYONE without taking some sort of totally off-the-wall swipe at Ray Manzarek. "Arthur Lee's in jail, what a shame, blah blah Ray Manzarek sucks." Hello? So I pick up my first copy of Ugly Things and damn. THIS GUY IS DIFFERENT. So is his New York compatriot, the much-earlier-aforementioned Johan Kugelberg. They write insightfully and passionately. They tell me just what was so special and exciting about a couple of Dutch bands I've never heard, and make me want to hear them. Why can't anybody ELSE get this right? My eye was caught, particularly, by Stax's review of the Charlatans CD. For decades, the San-Francisco-Music-Cognoscienti have been sharply, bloodily divided over these songs, now compiled in one place for the first time. Either it's the best-and-most-important-music-to-ever-come-out-of-the-Bay-area blah blah blah, or it's an unmitigated piece of crap. Know what, Sherlock? It's neither. But it has elements of both. Check, please. And this review SAID SO. Not in those words, but that's what he said. And I was an instant convert. I can TRUST WHAT THIS GUY SAYS. Now, I find out he's in a BAND. The "Loons." Oh oh. Here's where maybe it falls apart. Because here's another truism about people who write about music: they're generally no f***ing good at MAKING music, which is fine, except they all THINK THEY ARE. So I'm almost afraid to HEAR the Loons, because this is maybe where the bubble bursts, y'know? Own up. You love to READ Lester Bangs, but did you listen to Vom more than once? Liar.
So it was with much "yay" that I noted they'd be playing Cavestomp. Now, here comes the NEXT Potential Pitfall: I note, in trolling around the Ugly Things website, that there has been a personnel change in the Loons since the CD was recorded. So, The Loons prowl out onto the stage. Suddenly Melissa is standing three inches to my left, with her camera. How did SHE get here amid this unspeakable crush of bodies? She says hi, I say hi. Bob wants pictures of this band, she says. Suddenly, to my immediate right, appears Alex. "Wow," she says, as though slipping into that spot was NOT an Olympic-level feat, "You really found the right spot here." Mike's mic cord is trapped under something. I pull it free for him. Anja is right in front of me, bass slung and at-the-ready.
My Bulls**t Detector shuts down and slinks off into a corner, humbled. Anja delivers the goods. Along with a considerable quantity of flesh. Which does not seem to upset anyone in the audience. But I will let you judge that aspect for yourself. Her playing, you'll have to take my word for. She was fabulous. The whole band was great. I'm bopping back and forth, grinning like an idiot, singing along at the top of my lungs. And it's at that moment that I look way over to my left and see, on the off-limits side of the stage, Gary Burger. He's there to watch his buddy (and fan) Mike Stax. Now Gary and I lock eyes for just a second and he smiles knowingly. Me too. He was to tell me later that it was great to see me standing out in the crowd singing along and Being A Fan like that--the implication being that I was a Real Music Fan and not some Hey-Pal-I-Sang-With-The-Monks prima donna. But that's Gary for ya. His personal charity cup overfloweth.
Back on stage, The Loons play three or four more tunes and then launch into the last track on the CD, Another Mile Away--a slow, swampy juggernaut of a song that's a little bit out of place with the rest of the set. Doesn't matter, it's a great song and the crowd loves it. Especially me. At the end of the song, Stax sees fit to thank the audience for listening to that last "choon", and apologizes for the non-garagey quality of it. Ah!! THAT'S the guy I met last night! The audience, most of whom I'm sure have never heard the Loons, absolutely love 'em. For my part, I am completely elated--I've just seen two utterly amazing bands in a row and Things Bode Well for the next one too. This is another set I've really been looking forward to. It's Jon Weiss' old band, reunited--the VIPERS. They were as instrumental as anyone in the revival of the Garage Aesthetic (yes, there IS one) in the mid-80s--every bit as important and influential as the Fleshtones or Chesterfield Kings, but almost completely unsung heroes outside of New York. Back in the day, they hosted a weekly oasis where musicians who liked this kind of thing could get together, combine and recombine. Out of this benign and humble little concept, Cavestomp was eventually born. But not before The Vipers put out a couple of singles and a full-length album. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have the album sitting in my racks (right between Violent Femmes and Virgin Prunes) and HAD FORGOTTEN I OWNED IT. I pulled it out and then I remembered. It's a neat little record, good songs, good playing, everything in its place. So the Vipers prowl out onto the stage. That's the word you want. PROWL. Jon, you must understand, does Not Quite Fit Into Most Vertical Spaces. He's always slightly hunched over, and you get the feeling that if he ever stands up straight he'll disrupt air traffic patterns. He's not really all THAT tall but that's the effect you get. I imagine that when he steps out of a car he does not so much disembark as he does UNFOLD. As they're setting the stage, in the half-darkness, I get yet another surprise: Jon sees me applauding, with everybody else, and he pounces down and yells in my ear, "We're just having some fun up here, man--what YOU did last night was f***ing HEROIC." Boinnnng. The pent-up, caged energy onstage is almost unbearable, and this is before they've played a note. This is NOT gonna be like the record.
They finish up and roar off the stage like conquering heroes, which is exactly what they are. Melissa melts away through the crowd into the lobby. Again I am amazed by the way these two women manage so effortlessly to osmote their way through a crowd as dense as your average garden-variety Black Hole. Melissa is about a half-inch taller than I, I think, and Alex is somewhere down around nostril level. And both of them, in the course of the evening, manage to disappear and reappear right next to me like a pair of randomly matched hallucinations. What's their secret??? The bill so far tonight has been one happy explosion after another. The next band on the schedule is one I have never heard of. Alex is a big fan. She informs me that the tone is "gonna come down a little" now. That there will be no frenzy onstage. Okay--so whatcha got for me? DEAD MOON. There's three of 'em. Two men and a woman. Let me unfold this for you just the way I saw it, complete with all the ignorant mistakes and incorrect assumptions I made, and I'll fix 'em for you later, okay? Because I want you to get a sense of what I experienced here. Their equipment comes out, including their own rather abbreviated drum kit. It's all covered with lovingly designed logos and such. The bass drum is beat to death and covered in candle wax. On top is an inverted Jack Daniel's bottle (I think) with a candle stuck to it. This bass drum is set up literally just over two feet from my face. This is not gonna be good, I think. The three of them are setting up their stuff. They look to all be in their mid-thirties (wrong!) and they look extremely hard-bitten--you see them and imagine that they all live together in a shack in the woods that can't be reached by normal vehicular means. They look like they've never smiled in their lives. As I am thinking this, the woman--of-course--smiles. She looks scarier smiling than she does grimacing. What is this going to be like???
(I know, I know. Be patient with me, okay? 'Cause, see I don't KNOW anything yet. I know you're yelling at your monitor right now, but just HANG ON.) The singer/guitarist is right in front of Alex, to my right. He doesn't sing, he growls. And occasionally screams. The screams are harrowing--they consist mainly of notes which do not even exist. His playing is somewhere between the Ramones and pure voodoo. He is so intense that I cannot imagine him existing at all offstage. Like maybe they roll him off the stage and put him in a box till next time. With some raw meat.
Meanwhile, two other things are going on. First, I am wondering just what in hell Alex was talking about--this is NOTHING like what she described. Second--remember the tall skinny kid and his girlfriend who were so nice to me earlier? Well, Mr. Hyde has come out to play. Apparently he has come here specifically to see Dead Moon. He is losing his mind. He is attempting to climb up Alex's back, and also my right shoulder. Apparently his hero is the guitar player/singer, who is right in front of Alex. About the guitar player/singer: we never saw his face once. He has a huge curtain of impossibly long hair that totally covers his face. Now, the tall skinny kid wants to get closer to his hero. To pay homage in some way. And he decides that the best way to do this is to climb up Alex's back, as noted, and attempt to stick both his hands into the singer's face if he can, and keep them there. He's really causing quite a problem. I endure about five minutes of this and finally I scream at the little dork, "Look! First of all, get OFF of me! And, second of all--(pointing at guitar guy) do you really think he LIKES that????" This attempt at reason is, of course, doomed. The kid looks at me blankly and then goes right back into his little rain dance. Now, I'm in the position I hate so much.....being the guy who's Too Old To Be Here. I'm at a concert listening to music and suddenly I'm forced to become Fred F***ing MacMurray in a tweed jacket and pipe. "Say, excuse me son, that kind of behavior wouldn't make your parents very proud of you, now would it?" I hate it. So I choose instead to communicate in a language that Puppy Boy might actually comprehend: "ALRIGHT! THAT'S ENOUGH! GET OFF ME! GET OFF HER! NOW!!!!" His reply? "Aw, c'mon, Mike, don't be a downer...." I have to repeat my entreaty a couple more times before it works. Alex is pretending, and probably wishing, to be elsewhere. Meanwhile--just like Wendy the night before--I am making good note of the location of the EXIT signs in case I start a riot and have to go Over The Wall to West Berlin in a big hurry. This music has taken a happy-if-somewhat-oppressive crowd and is slowly turning them angry and bloodthirsty. But, luckily, the kid just slinks away to the right and that's the last problem we have with him. That's as close as I wanna get to that kind of trouble ever again. I'm reminded of a similar crowd-control problem I was in the middle of, in 1976--music-related, of course--back in those Pre-Ticketmaster days when you actually had to STAND IN LINE at the box office (nowhere else) to get tickets for virtually anything--that's right kids, it happened just that way. Cash only, too. Back before the EE-lectric light. Anyway, Paul McCartney and Wings at Madison Square Garden. My College Girlfriend and I are standing on a line of literally thousands of people, six or so abreast, which the police have routed from the box office down through Penn Station and out onto a service road under the complex, and thence out to 34th street, down 7th Avenue and all the way around the block. After a few hours of this, the crowd got--shall we say--a little testy. Much grumbling and pushing. I'm a little worried as we get near the front. A large phalanx of cops is letting about twenty people inside at a time. Now we're on the little service road, on a sidewalk, six abreast. The street is to our right. And to our left: ten-foot by eight-foot glass display windows. Oh-oh. Anyway, somehow College Girlfriend has ended up pressed against the glass, and I'm behind her slightly to the right. We're about five rows back in the crowd as the cops cut off the line after the requisite twenty-or-so folks. We face a wait, now, of no more than three or four more minutes before we get inside. The cops--five of 'em--are facing us. But this short-wait prospect is not good enough for one "gentleman" who is right up front with his girlfriend. He wants to go in NOW. He starts getting stupid with the cops. Folks--DON'T get stupid with the cops. Haven't we learned this yet?? Whether you're right or you're wrong--and this guy was way wrong--YOU LOSE. You might just get humiliated if you're lucky. Or you might also get killed. That would not be as lucky. So, he keeps giving the cops more and more grief, and finally pushes one of them. To that cop's eternal credit, he does not hit back. He just levels his nightstick diagonally in front of the guy's face and warns him to calm down. The guy's girlfriend is trying to shut him up--and he, of course, takes this to mean that she is Really Really Proud Of Him And Wants Him To Punch A Policeman. And this he now does. Five nightsticks go up, down, up, down. Four or five strokes. Like a ballet. They beat the living crap out of this idiot--who plainly deserved it--but meanwhile the crowd begins to surge and my girlfriend is pressed up against a Very Large Piece Of Glass. How this did not end in tragedy I will never understand. But there was no tragedy. The cops threw the now-bloody retard into the back of an NYPD car. The screaming girlfriend tried to crawl in next to him and was tossed back out onto the street. "Where are you taking him? Where are you taking him????" The cop who's holding her back says, "IF you shut up, they're taking him to the hospital." Pretty cool answer, I later thought. But at that moment, I was picturing what my girlfriend would look like if cut into multiple vertical ribbons. And I didn't like the idea. I don't know how we ever got out of that mess in one piece. Anyway, where were we, kids? Oh, yes--Dead Moon. A few songs later, the drummer--between songs--slowly pours an entire beer onto his floor tom. It fills the rim. Now, mama didn't raise no fool. I cover my camera and urge the somewhat dazed-looking Melissa to do the same. She looks slightly bewildered, so I point to the drum. She covers her camera just as the geyser occurs. Rock and roll. Now, of course, the members of the crowd push forward again, heaving their beers toward the drummer in some sort of tribute effort. I dunno. (Note: the photo you see here is of a LATER, smaller mini-geyser. The first one was a tsunami.)  Finally, the set ends and the drummer shoves a REALLY ANGRY middle finger into the video camera. They stomp angrily off the stage. And all I can remember, from the entire set, is the following snatch: "54-40, 54-40 or fight!" The next day, I find out from Alex that a) their records sound NOTHING LIKE THIS and b) they were angry because they were told to shorten their set or something like that. Now comes the part where I find out all the stuff I should have known in the first place--which I do by, of course, looking on the web. First of all, these are not kids. The guitarist and bass player are older than I am. By six years! And the singer/guitarist is--ouch, spank me, I'm an idiot--Fred Cole, from the Lollipop Shoppe and several other bands--whose You Must Be A Witch is on the Nuggets box. Well, I guess I can't know EVERYTHING. I could pretend, writing this now, that I DID know--but I have all this INTEGRITY you see. Anyway, I'm gonna have to get one of their records and give 'em another chance. Under better conditions. And now.......a long wait. Real long. THEY are coming......the Chocolate Watch Band......omigod. Never thought I'd live to see this. Apparently the reunited band consists of Aguilar, Flores, and Andrijasevich....so neither of the original guitarists, but this will be quite good enough, I think. I KNOW. I am passing the time talking, or shouting, to Melissa and wondering where in the crowd Kelly might be......he was practically beside himself at the prospect of seeing this--so was Will, who apparently has not showed up. Haven't seen him since before the Monks' set last night. Is he in Rikers? Bellevue? Now, there's Gary over on the left again. Also Roger. I think I might also see Eddie there. Not sure. They see me, and they laugh and wave. Okay. Keep 'em laughin'. Now suddenly there are guys piling onto the stage. I quickly recognize Andrijasevich; he looks exactly the same except his hair is white. One of the guitarists looks like a blond Bill Spooner. And now here comes a guy in a SUIT--no tie--who stomps out and drops down on his haunches right in front of me and Melissa. "Hi!!" he shouts, smiling. "How'd ya get right down here in front like this?" Holy s**t. It's him, isn't it? It's Dave Aguilar. The Psycho Frankenstein of a million boyhood mirror-star wannabe dreams. But this guy in front of us....he looks so NORMAL. So healthy. It was a shock. I'd read, of course, that he had spent the last couple of decades as a professor of astronomy at a university in Colorado......but I still harbor visions of him standing in front of his class, lecturing quietly......and then a bored student with some archival knowledge tosses a tambourine at the teacher. Without warning, he tears his jacket off, does a high kick, and yells "THAT'S MY CHICK! DANCIN' WITH SOME GUY! WHAT ABOUT ME?? YES!!!!!!!!!!" Well, maybe not. But I'm so happy to see him that I can barely answer. I give some lame-o riposte about getting here early in prep for This Very Moment. He grins, leaps up, and walks over to set up the keyboard on the right, then whips off his jacket. Yep. It's them. It's really them. THE CHOCOLATE WATCH BAND!! I had heard that there was a new album already in the can. Wonder if they'll play any of it?
The two guitarists are both quite good. I only wish that one or both of 'em had tried to get a little bit closer to the SOUND of the playing on the records. The guitar solo in No Way Out was the best Non-Jorma Jorma that I had ever heard. But these guys have their own sound and they're sticking to it. Don't get me wrong, it was great. They played kind of a short set but all the essential songs were there. They left out nothing. Then they beat it off stage. Now comes the absolute oddest thing I have ever seen. They come back for an encore, and proceed to play about a half-hour-or-more's worth of songs from their new album, which no one in the room has ever heard. And no more old material. Just the new stuff--which is less garagey and more Modern Rock. ??? How weird. They should have interspersed these songs in the set instead--especially since they sound NOTHING like the well-worn chestnuts we have just listened to. They were all good songs, but it was a tactical error. The audience got progressively less enthused. (The reviewer in the Village Voice would later cut the band several new holes over this.) It was a textbook anticlimax. Personally, I wasn't disappointed--if they'd left the stage for good and not come back for the encore, that would've been good enough. The new stuff was just gravy for me. But how weird.......? Show's over, people. Outta here. We all spill out into the lobby. Once again, lots of people start coming up to me and telling me I was great last night. I suddenly realize: NOBODY bought a one-night ticket. These are all the same people, and they're going to be all the same people tomorrow too. Okay! I go hang out by the Monks' table. I don't see Larry but everyone else is here, signing things. Kelley is there. He is, of course, dazed. Again. I'm afraid they might have to give the poor bastard electro-shock therapy when he gets back home to SF. Alex, Jerod, and Joanne are also here. Gary pulls me aside and drops ANOTHER surprise on me: although his voice is much better and he's going to sing as many songs as he can tomorrow night, he wants me there too, to take the tough ones. WHICH tough ones will be determined on the fly. But he says I'm definitely going to sing some. I'm shocked, but I'm ready. A guy I recognize, but can't place, smiles and tells me I was great last night. I smile back and thank him, and he's out the door. DAMN--I suddenly realize it was Keith Streng of the Fleshtones. Dave Aguilar walks by, trailed by a camera crew, and gives me another big grin. I wonder if he had seen the Monks' set the night before, and then I decide he couldn't have. I woulda felt it! Now the TRULY weird stuff happens. People are bringing over the CD covers, books, and posters they have just bought and had signed by three or four Monks--and ASKING ME TO SIGN THEM TOO. I'm dumbfounded. Good Lord--if nothing else, you just KILLED your resale value, didn't you buddy? Girlie? Seriously! But at least a dozen people want MY autograph on their Monkabilia. I'm practically swooning. I don't think my name was legible on anything I signed. I was extremely happy to be alive. A lovely blonde lady asks me to sign her copy of Eddie's book. I open the leaf and it's already been signed by three Actual Monks. Suddenly I can't stand it anymore, and I HAVE TO SAY IT........."You do realize I'm not actually IN the band, right?" Yes, she replies, but I was part of this thing and she wants a record of it. As I sign her book she is STARING AT MY WEDDING RING. A guy standing behind me, whom I met earlier but can't remember the name of, says--and I quote: "You coulda HAD that one." Yeah, and where was she two decades ago when she might have been of some utility? Wait, I know. She was riding a F***ING TRICYCLE. "You coulda HAD that one." I'm going home before anything ELSE happens. First, I make the rounds and say goodbye to everyone I can.......I want to try and run down Mike Stax but he's nowhere to be seen, but I do manage to flag down Jon Weiss. I babble something about how great he was. He seems truly confused. Me? Great? Ah, g'wan, Jon. You were fabulous. On my way to the door, I see Melissa sitting at the bar, and I walk over to say goodnight--and she goes, "Oh! I'm glad you came over! This is Bob!" And she introduces me to her boss, Bob Irwin. Now who knew what Bob Irwin looks like?? So we exchange hellos, and I tell him, "Thanks for Moby Grape, thanks for the Cryan' Shames, thanks for Things To Come, thanks for Yellow Balloon, thanks for The Buckinghams......" then I turn to Melissa, smile, and say "This may TAKE A WHILE......." and we all laugh. I am having another out-of-body experience. Bob and I chat for a moment about the band Things To Come, and then he hands me his card and I beat it out into the November chill. Early night tonight. It's only 3:30 AM. Not 4:30 like last night. Guess I must be gettin' used to this here Sportin' Life. END OF PART FOURWell, what are you waiting for??? CLICK HERE!! |
So these four kids--sorry, they are in fact KIDS--hustle onto the stage as though they own it, Peter Z introduces them, and BANG! Damned if they DON'T own it. They are fabulous. Transcendent. Astounding. They are bashing their way around the stage like lunatics. The mop-headed lead guitarist repeatedly sticks his crotch directly in my face and I actually do not MIND. They're that good. The singer/guitarist has a well-appointed Fringe Cut and the most RIDICULOUS dime-store sunglasses I have ever seen. He is wonderful. The bass player and drummer look like they're still in high school. The music washes over me in an unrelenting blast of pure fun.
Mooney Suzuki are just.......not like that. They make you BELIEVE in them--and at the same time you know that they're totally full of crap. But--and this is the interesting thing--you DON'T CARE. It's a big joke and we're all IN ON IT. You watch these guys playing this music like they own it--I hate to re-use a metaphor that soon but frankly, words fail me here--and you suddenly flash on the timeless and everlasting power of rock and roll. Sound hokey? It isn't. Not in this context and not while I'm standing here having my ears pinned back by this band. This is US we're looking at. Before we gave up and got jobs. Houses. BMWs. Rottweilers. Gold cards. And, mind, it's not a BAD feeling. You're not jealous. You're not condescending. You are HAPPY. Happy that this is taking place at all and that you lived long enough to see it happen.
And, 
Anyway.......after reading some really glowing reviews, I gulped hard and picked up the Loons' CD, Love's Dead Leaves. This was back in September. What a happy surprise. Right from the opening solo guitar hook, it's a corker. I think I may have said this already--I'm too lazy to proofread--but this record keeps bouncing around between Pretty Things, Arthur Lee, and Small Faces-type sounds.....and Stax has a great, distinctive bray of a voice that really delivers the stuff. And he's not Too Cool For The Room, either. The album does not contain any of the requisite covers of Too-Erudite, I'm-The-Only-One-Who-Owns-This-45 tunes. AND--one of the songs even sounds like vintage REM. If you needed any proof that nobody here is trying to show you how CLEVER they are, there it is.
They start playing and BOOM. Wow. I'm totally overwhelmed. Mike is a madman. A dervish. He slithers, twirls, and glides around the stage like a man possessed. Is this really the polite, soft-spoken, self-effacing English Gentleman I met last night? Yes--no mistaking that nose. It's him.
And it isn't. This band is a 24-hour party. They hit the ground running and it never lets up. I'm snapping pictures, again, as fast as I can. So is Alex, who has also been looking forward to this set. The Vipers are amazing. Tight as the casing on a Nathan's hot dog. Why why why did they ever break this band up????? I'm at a loss for superlatives--I've used 'em all up on the Loons and Mooney Suzuki. I just stand there, blissed-out, entranced, uncomprehending. Melissa is crunched up against me on the left, Alex is crunched up against me on the right. I am the Spoiled Meat in a sandwich made with two very different kinds of really interesting bread. (Also three cameras and one nose ring.) And I WISH TO GOD WENDY WAS HERE--she is missing the show of a lifetime. So get THAT thought right out of your head.
About five songs into the set, Jon picks up one maraca--ONE--rares back theatrically and SMASHES the bastard against the mic stand, breaking the poor NAFTA-bred little chunk of wood into a thousand pieces, of which virtually EVERY ONE manages to hit me in the chest. Inexplicably, this actually makes me even HAPPIER. I am grinning so hard my face hurts. This is entirely too good. Something HAS to go wrong tonight. My car will get stolen. SOMETHING.
They start playing and it is relentless. They sound exactly like they look. It's a huge, skronking ramalamalam without a trace of grace, finesse, or humor. It's real powerful but it seems incredibly out of place in this setting, after three bands in a row that were such FUN. Why are these folks here? What connection do they have with this kind of event??
The woman is playing bass, way over on our left. They can't really move around the stage at all, because of the placement of the drums. But it looks like she would move quite a bit if she could. I am finally able to read what it says on her sleeveless T-shirt: "I'm A Little Stinker." She keeps leaning down to her left, towards the drummer, and yanks hard on her strings. And for most of their set, she has a bared-teeth look on her face like an angry, hungry wolf. Real compelling, but again it is SO different from the rest of tonight's music--WHY ARE THEY HERE?
The drummer looks like the kid in your high school who was Doomed To Trouble. He's a great player and a strong one. But, just like the other two of them, he looks like he's really not enjoying this, nor has he ever enjoyed anything in his life. The whole thing was pretty horrifying.
BANG, and the music starts. Aguilar is much more COOL than I had expected, but still totally commanding. The rhythm section is like a rock. They had never been sloppy, even at their most horrifically stoned, but tonight you could not slip a wayward molecule between the beats. It's practically military.