Last night, I watched a couple of good friends kids play punk rock in a bowling alley bar. It’s hard to put name to the cocktail of reactions. Pride, for the kids in question. For the fact the thirteen, fourteen year old kids care enough, work hard enough, to actually sound like a band, not […]
Last night, I watched a couple of good friends kids play punk rock in a bowling alley bar.
It’s hard to put name to the cocktail of reactions. Pride, for the kids in question. For the fact the thirteen, fourteen year old kids care enough, work hard enough, to actually sound like a band, not just like kids fuckin’ around.
But also, oddly happy that punk rock is alive and well in kids this age. This is the music we used to thrash and slam to, more years ago than I can count. I looked at these boys, all focused intensity, adolescent rage, and absolute fucking glee, and It just made me happy.
I watched kids on the dance floor, kids who couldn’t have been more than fifteen at the oldest, bouncing off each other like giggling rubber balls. Some of them where just roughhousing, in a setting where it wasn’t just allowed, but welcomed. Others, clearly, were exploring dance-floor as mating ground, showing off for each other.
It looked like a basket full of puppies in Hot Topic threads.
On the sides were parents; not like my parents would have been to see my friends in such a scene, but parents of my generation. Pride, amusement, nostalgia. And all around the room, the un-spoken thought – we are very old.
It warmed me to see one of the kids – an intense, shy, socially awkward boy, pale, doughy-soft – transformed into the very image of deranged punk rock frontman. His back to the crowd, he’d scream barely-intelligable lyrics into the mike, posing like Rollinns, and often diving into the pit when his friends started to slam. Half the songs he wound up on his back on the floor, never breaking his shrieked, howled vocals. In between songs, he’d mumble bits of patter; “this is one of our longer songs, it’s maybe three minutes”, or “this is one of the faster ones.” THis is a boy who’s found his voice, no matter his issues when he’s off stage.
The songs pretty much all sounded the same – but it didn’t matter at all, because they sounded good. It shows exactly how hard they’ve been working, when for all the look of un-controlled chaos, everything stops together, starts together, the drums and guitar locked together. These kids care. They love what they’re doing.
Punk rock is alive and well – and that just makes me happy.
For some reason, all these years I’ve never seen Richard Thompson. Finally – thanks to ticket-pusher Chris (also know as Papa Christo), I saw him last night. I told Chris he’s GOT to keep buying tickets; I never go out to live shows anymore unless someone else plans it. Some of my friends have seen […]
For some reason, all these years I’ve never seen Richard Thompson.
Finally – thanks to ticket-pusher Chris (also know as Papa Christo), I saw him last night. I told Chris he’s GOT to keep buying tickets; I never go out to live shows anymore unless someone else plans it.
Some of my friends have seen him dozens of times. I figured, there must be a reason. But you know, some of the same people saw The Dead literally hundreds of times; so who the hell knows.
Turns out – which is not a really big surprise – that they were right about Thompson. He’s fuckin’ brilliant. It’s hard to say for sure, but he may be the best guitarist I’ve ever seen actually playing live (I’d have to go way, way back in my memory to be sure, but he’s close anyway); but more importantly, he’s the kind of performer who makes you feel like you’re seeing something brand new every night. I just bought my tickets to see him play again in december, and I have the feeling it won’t be the last time.
Here then is what just might be the greatest motorcycle song ever, and certainly the only love song I can thing of about a boy and a girl and a motorcycle – 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.
This is pretty much exactly how it sounded last night, outside in the open air at the Mountain Winery.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxKTzwaEa2o]
Lyrics after the break, below.
Crowded House, last night, Mountain Winer above Saratoga, CA. The air was smokey from the massive grass file in the Cupertino hills, but it didn’t stop the band from playing a fantastic set. I wish I had tickets to a second night – and when we realized how good our seats were, we really, rally […]
Crowded House, last night, Mountain Winer above Saratoga, CA.
The air was smokey from the massive grass file in the Cupertino hills, but it didn’t stop the band from playing a fantastic set. I wish I had tickets to a second night – and when we realized how good our seats were, we really, rally wished we’d brought more than phone cams. This is how close to me, I didn’t enlarge or crop this pic.
These guys a great live. They made a fan out of me.
Once I had my heroes Once I had my dreams But all of that is changed now They’ve turned things inside out The truth is not so comfortable, no And mother taught us patience The virtues of restraint And father taught us boundaries Beyond which we must go To find the secrets promised us, yeah […]
Once I had my heroes
Once I had my dreams
But all of that is changed now
They’ve turned things inside out
The truth is not so comfortable, no
And mother taught us patience
The virtues of restraint
And father taught us boundaries
Beyond which we must go
To find the secrets promised us, yeah
That’s when I reach for my revolver
That’s when it all gets blown away
That’s when I reach for my revolver
The spirit fights to find its way
A friend of mine once told me
His one and only aim
To build a giant castle
And live inside his name
Cry and whispers sing in muted pain
That’s when I reach for my revolver
That’s when it all gets blown away
That’s when I reach for my revolver
The spirit fights to find its way
Tonight the sky is empty
But that is nothing new
Its dead eyes look upon us
And they tell us we’re nothing but slaves
That’s when I reach for my revolver
— My Revolver, Mission of Burma – play it.
Because when you’re at the end of your rope you should always play Spiritualized at maximum volume: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-BeDy1FtJs] I’m not kidding now, maximum volume, until your brain bleeds. The odd thing about this video is that J spaceman is standing up and facing the audience. Normally he’s nowhere near this interactive.
Because when you’re at the end of your rope you should always play Spiritualized at maximum volume:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-BeDy1FtJs]
I’m not kidding now, maximum volume, until your brain bleeds.
The odd thing about this video is that J spaceman is standing up and facing the audience. Normally he’s nowhere near this interactive.
I bought the DVD of Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (The Director’s Cut) a year or so ago, but it managed to get filed away in a stack of kids DVDs and I’d forgotten I had it. I was looking through my DVDs last night, trying to find something better to watch than re-runs of […]
I bought the DVD of Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (The Director’s Cut) a year or so ago, but it managed to get filed away in a stack of kids DVDs and I’d forgotten I had it.
I was looking through my DVDs last night, trying to find something better to watch than re-runs of house that I’d already seen, and I found said DVD. Given that I was hopped up on goofballs for the throbbing pain behind my cheekbone (I admit it, it was an excuse. My tolerance for meds is so high that they don’t make it not hurt, they just make me not mind the hurt), I decided it was a perfect film to watch.
A little background. I saw this movie when I was about fourteen, at a midnight movie (remember midnight movies?) in Los Gatos, California. These were the days when midnight movies and rock concerts were a dope-smoker’s free for all, so no one cared if we lit up. People used to bring five foot tall bongs to these things. So it was a very stoned, very tripped out crowd. We’d either find an older brother who could drive, or we’d call the parents (mine, usually) who didn’t mind us being stoned.
I was listening to this today, played at huge volume in my truck with the windows all open, as I sucked down a cà phê sữa đá. It’s one of those songs that just makes me happy. Flavor of the Month, by the Posies. Play It. But don’t even bother if you can’t crank it […]
I was listening to this today, played at huge volume in my truck with the windows all open, as I sucked down a cà phê sữa đá.
It’s one of those songs that just makes me happy.
Flavor of the Month, by the Posies.
Play It. But don’t even bother if you can’t crank it way the hell up.
I woke up from a weird, red-wine inspired dream about people I think I used to know. It was strange, and disturbing, and I think vaguely sexual, though it faded away all too quickly before I could digest who or what I was dreaming about. I woke feeling spacey, though, and not only because of […]
I woke up from a weird, red-wine inspired dream about people I think I used to know. It was strange, and disturbing, and I think vaguely sexual, though it faded away all too quickly before I could digest who or what I was dreaming about.
I woke feeling spacey, though, and not only because of the cold from which I’m recoovering, and last night’s bottle of saddleback merlot.
I woke, though, with with Gillian Welch’s Time (The Revelator) stuck in my head; not Welch’s own version, but my friend Ken’s brilliant cover (about which I’ve written before, though alas, he’s never recorded it, so I can’t link to it), a song of soaring beauty and intensity, at least the way Ken does it, and a song which winds up seeming to mean so much more when sung than the lyrics seem to say when read. Funny how music can do that to words.
I wanted to go back to bed and seek the dream, figure out who or what or where was in my head, but coffee called me and the need to get to work made a return to bed impossible.
Now, nine hours later, I’ve still got Revalator going thought my head, and I still want to go back to bed and chase that dream.
My friend Kenny – after sharing with me the evil that is the sake bomb, and then engaging in karaoke until the sushi bar kicked us out – played me his latest recordings. I attempted to post something about Kenny last year, when he left to chase true love in the outback. I found the […]
My friend Kenny – after sharing with me the evil that is the sake bomb, and then engaging in karaoke until the sushi bar kicked us out – played me his latest recordings.
I attempted to post something about Kenny last year, when he left to chase true love in the outback. I found the topic daunting, for Kenny’s that sort of friend. But Kenny’s now back from theland down under and has been recording sweet, sad, beautiful songs.
Here, without his permission (because I never ask), is one of his latest demos (I typo’d that as ‘demons’ which seems to fit eerily well); Kiss. Listen: 
You can hear Ken’s older stuff at basement3.com, though what he does now is vastly different that the older cds; you can hear a couple more tracks like kiss at sonicbids.com.