1-I am sitting in my room as always a few days late on this whole column writing business, listening to St Vitus having just eaten a bunch of rice and peas. It’s an exciting life I lead in this super city of excitement and superness. Things I have been freaking out about recently: Getting attacked by crazy junkie dude who I stopped from stealing a bunch of Chrome messenger bags from my work... and how every customer since has merged into said crazy junkie dude. Lady with zillion dollar handbag asking me where the books about Bhutan are? She is totally gonna attack me once she has ransacked the store of Bhutan related goodies for her junkie lair. It is clear that the time has come for me to quit working retail before I become a crazy conspiracy theorist who hates humans and living. I also am sick of customers asking me if it’s great to work at a travcl bookstore since I must get to travel a lot. I am not sure where they draw this masterful theory from, I guess most of the people who shop at our store are oblivious yuppies with savings plans and weekend warrior plans too, but dude I work retail! I can just about pay my rent and bills, I am not going backpacking in the Himalayas anytime soon. I hate feeling like I should be doing something meaningful with my life in termns of how I make my living. I am happy and broke, but I guess just bored.
2-Also why is St Vitus so good and yet all the bands that sound like this now, in the current beard hesh revival are just not as interesting? Also: I went to see Kyuss when I was about 15 with members of Fabric (Who also introduced me to Into Another and Septic Death) and it was the scariest show I went to since my mum took me to see Miles Davis electric when I was 10ish. That was also terrifying; he wore a bright patchwork leather coat, refused to face the audience and made an unholy noise I could not file away neatly. Kyuss was scary because it was completely full of huge gnarly biker dudes, I had to perch on a speaker to aviod destruction. If that show happened now it would be full of ironic huge non gnarly non biker dudes. Whatevers though. I remember the music being so loud I could feel it kind of before I heard it. Same thing when I saw Melvins a year or so, maybe two before, Joe Preston era,. I like that feeling, when the music seems kind of like a second skin it’s so fucking loud. I went to a free bluegrass fest they have every year here, and watched Los Lobos (not bluegrass at all!) do an old Merle Haggard song with John Doe on Vox, it was pretty dreamy, and there was a baby in front of me with trying to get these huge blue noise blocking headphones off it’s head to no avail. It made me think about going to shows since age 11 with no ear plugs ever except when it actually hurts to be without.
3-Per my last column Sex Vid are not doing a 12” after all, they decided to do a 7” or so instead. So all my worries about the corruption of hardcore via the LP were totally unfounded.
4-Another thing that I have been thinking about recently in regards to the Freemo scene also mentioned in my last column is the overwelming posi-ness of it all. It’s suffocatingly positive, like a reading of I’m OK You’re OK! at a yoga retreat in a Saturday Night Live skit on 70s Marin new age living. I consider myself to be relatively positive, cynical yes, but not negative or hateful, but sometimes hanging out with people involved in post art noise scenes makes me feel like I have negi-tourettes. Everyone seems like extras in that cult from Strangers with Candy. Maybe I should move to Cleveland. I am a dismissive bored human right now.
5-Because you know I am not actually that psyched on anything much right now, except for the fact that I am going to see the new Dead Moon band next week, Pierced Arrows. I am so ready for this event to be lifechanging I am actually going to buy tickets in case in sells out. Last time I saw Dead Moon there was a power failure and they didn’t play til 3am, but it made the show so much more weighted and important feeling, the epicness of the wait combined with the power that is Fred and Toody. Someone needs to send me Toody’s solo LP. The first time I saw them play was in Olympia and everyone knew all the words, and they sold out the Capital theatre, so I assumed all their shows were like that. Not quite! I made my friends in England go see them, we all had the Lollpop Shoppe LP and I guess I wasn;’t able to explain adequetely how different Dead Moon were from that. They were NOT INTO IT and thought it was bad bar rock, which is total bullshit obviously. Dead Moon was the way and the truth. Dead Moon were genuine times, and hopefully Pierced Arrows will blow minds and break hearts in a similar way.
6-I do not like or understand the appeal of the Cro Mags but do like Agnostic Front
7-Right now I am not into much of anything as mentioned but I am into the Hippies is Propaganda comp LP and the Os Estudantes 12”..
8- Also: Gerry and the Hollograms, Impatient Youth, Toxin III and Ikkashinju’s Slow Down. Oh and the Modern Lover’s song Some I Care About. Also in non punk related news I have been listening to Hank Snow.
9-whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com is where I am putting all thee oldies of these columns I am churning out if you wanna read the unedited version with all the grammatical errors and spelling improvisations.