Category: Rock in Real Life

Special Surprize Throwback Post: The Reverend Wayne Coomers Gives Guilty Pleasure Advice to His Readers in The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll’s “Confessional”

Yep, from 1999 (I think) to 2005 (I think), I was the webmaster as well as the pseudonymal host of The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll, which faded from consistent view in the early 2010s but still can (usually partially) be seen via The Wayback Machine or (as I just discovered) at its old address. It all started when I bought my first real computer, noticed it has web page software on it, thought I would try to learn it, and had the basic site up in a day. The persona—a minister of rock and roll with quasi-Presbyterian madness—spontaneously jumped out of my imagination, and I stole the pseudonym from a band I am proud to have been a member of circa 1984(?)-1986 (see team photo below). No one in the band was named Wayne Coomers, so I felt I wasn’t stepping on anybody’s toes by borrowing it and also tipping my hand a bit regarding my identity.

Today, I stumbled upon one of the many wacky features of the site today: I invited readers to beg forgiveness for their listening sins, then anointed them with tongue-in-cheek forgiveness (we don’t need to be forgiven, and there are no guilty pleasures!). Here’s a sample! It was fun while it lasted, and I don’t know how I found the time to put it together—I was teaching and coaching two middle school sports, practicing teacher leadership, and being an attentive husband and concertgoer at the time….

“The Confessional”     

We are all weak. We all make mistakes. We have all caught ourselves singing “What A Girl Wants” softly to ourselves on the drive home. The thing is, don’t keep the secret locked inside, festering and perhaps spreading (to the point where you’re yelling “Backstreet’s Back” in the shower).

E-mail your confession to the good rockin’ Reverend Coomers at wcoomers@yahoo.com and he’ll help you share the taint with his rockin’ congregation. And just to show that it ain’t so hard, the Reverend himself will jump in headfirst!

Reverend Coomers (see above in favorite rock tee preaching at The Academy of Rock): I was weaned on…Cher. Double best-of set of ’60s stuff Mom got through the ol’ record club. She did ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ I thought it was hers, and learned all the lyrics. Also, she redid the girl group hits (still stuck on ’em, ‘specially ‘Baby, Don’t Go,’ the original of which I still don’t know and which Dwight Yoakam and Sheryl Crow did on his covers album). Combined wth the impact of her belly-button beckoning me on The Sonny and Cher Show, I moved on to such classics as Foxy Lady, Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves, and whatever one had ‘Dark Lady’ and ‘Half Breed’ on it. There was even a Tin Pan Alley one that softened me up for Gershwin and Berlin and Porter 20 years down the line. My first mirror lip-synchs were to her songs, not Alice’s or even Elton’s. I had that sultry, spookily Elvis-like timbre down cold. What lasting effects did she have on me? Not sure I wanna go there…but I did like ‘I Believe in Love.’ And she sure beat Rush.


Ken Shimamoto, scribe ‘n’ guitslinger (see above during Fort Worth drop-in by The Rev): Bless me Father for I have sinned. I have lusted in my heart after the Mysterious Miss Havisham. Even worse, in the last month, I have blown off shows by the Punk Rock Dinosaurs AND Sylvain Sylvain one night (different venues) and the Immortal Lee County Killers and Sons of Hercules another, to watch re-runs of “E.R.” Getting too old for this shit? YOU decide! I’m not even going to SXSW this year (think I wore out my welcome last year when I called my bro. at midnight and asked him if he had a hundred bucks in cash that I could borrow to buy my car out of impoundment). Most shameful, I recently remembered that the very first elpee I owned way back in 6th grade was Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends, which I might actually buy again since my 17-year-old dtr (my good conscience) AND Jack Rabid from THE BIG TAKEOVER told me it was okay. How can I redeem myself?

The Rev sez: Ohmigod! You need to put yourself in peril–give yourself a little taste of danger–or they’ll be no turning back. ER? S&G? Taking advice from a 17-year-old? Sell whatever’s worthless to you until you can afford a trip to Oz, where in certain locales you know well they don’t stand for folkie bullshit, find Miss H (here you’re picturing your head on Dustin Hoffman’s body in the last part of The Graduate) and make your pitch. Win or lose, it’s more rock and roll than staying in, lighting candles, and singing along to “Punky’s Dilemma”!


Samantha Harrison, insomniac: I can’t think of anything worse than Britney Spears becoming “real.” Ever since that new song came out about how she is a “slave for music,” (I don’t recall it saying anything about music in the song, sounds more sexual to me…) I have seriously questioned her intentions. If you think about it, how can bubble gum pop stars rapidly turn into powerful women that know about life and, what’s this? Another genre of music? Please. But…. I have to admit that I’ve caught myself singing it several times, help me god, even in public. I got a few strange looks and a couple of people to move far away from me, but guilty pleasure or not, I am trying to contain myself. 

The Rev sez: This is a tough one, ’cause I knew it was just a matter of time before Miss Spears turned up here, and ’cause I know you’re really too young to have to confess anything yet–hell, Sam, I was listening to that assbag Ted Nugent when I was your age (and–shhhh!–I still have two of his records). But this is serious–the harlot’s giving trash a bad name, and that’s just not tol’able in the rockaroll world. So here’s your penance: go out for cheerleading this year (just don’t make the cut, OK?).

The Mysterious Miss Havisham: You’re a cranky old shit, ain’t ya?! Dunno yet if I like yer preachin or if you irritate the shit out of me. Least yer well informed. Wanted to ‘fess up to the reverand. Bless me father for I have sinned, it’s been 25 years since my last confession. I LOVE “More Than a Feeling” by BOSTON and “Living on a Prayer” by BON JOVI. And I even thought he was cute with that poodle cut. What’s my penance? 

The Rev sez: Can’t help you with Bon-Bon Jovi, but I gotta give you credit, ’cause the song idea has a helluva lot of relevance right about now. It’d sure hold my attention. But Boston…hmmmmmmmmmm…wrote my first-ever review about Don’t Look Back (a positive one). How ’bout this? You have to plant a marijuana seed and watch it grow in real time! (Ever hear the urban rock myth that “Foreplay” includes the speeded-up sounds of pot sprouting?)


Mike Rakehell (see above bringing The Rev to his knees with his six-string slashes…may he rest in the rawk!–guitarist of the Jimbobs, Possum Fat, Three Bags Full, The Balls, and the Gilloolys): They don’t get much worse than this, Reverend. Scenario: I’m 16, cradled in the sheltering arms of Camdenton, Missouri. News flash: Kiss’ Love Gun has just been released. I hop on the bike, pedal furiously into town, and snap it up. Kiss Army sweat beads poppin’ from my forehead as I skid back into the home driveway, I zip into my room, whip the vinyl onto the turntable, and…bear witness to the most heinous excuse for rock I had yet heard. This was not KISS–this was some imposter! The Sin: I stomp out into the garage, grab an awl outta Pop’s toolbox, lay a long, deep scratch across the A side, put it back in the sleeve, pedal back to the store, tell the cashier the scratch was there when I removed it from the shrink-wrap, he buys the scam…time for an exchange. I select…Peter Frampton’s I’m in You.

The Rev sez: You got some major cahones to admit that, son (and, to think, in my pre-frocked days you dissed me for diggin’ Technotronic).  If you really wanna make it right and not end up frying with Frampton himself, you are to proceed to the nearest high school, carrying your best Johnny Thunders record under your arm, walk in, find the nearest rawkdude holding up the wall in the senior lounge, and trade it to him for the worst pieceashit scuffed CD that’s lying outta case among the taco shell fragments on the floorboard of his pickup (probably the Goo Goo Dolls or Matchbox 20 or even Dave Matthews). That oughtta learn ya!

Eric Johnson: Reverend, there are things that weigh on a man’s mind.  I’ve been lucky, though.  Some of the guilty, cheezy pleasures of my youth have been namechecked by eminently rawkin’ artists like the Minutemen.  So, this is not about Blue Oyster Cult.  The big stuff first.  The first two songs I ever liked in this world (besides “Puff the Magic Dragon”), in fact, the first two songs I ever called a radio station about and requested were…”You Light Up My Life,” by Ms. Debbie Boon, (actually covered by Patti Smith on a 1977 bootleg called “Teenage Perversity and Ships in the Night”) and “Convoy,” by C.W. McCall.  In my defense, I must plead that they both bring bile to my throat today.  Unfortunately, there are others that I….still like, in some terrible secret way, including “Downtown,” by…(guilt has clouded my memory, I guess) [Ed. note: Petula Clark??!!?].  I also really liked “Too Shy,” by Kajagoogoo, when it came out, tho’ I never told anyone til now.  Thanks for listening, Reverend.  I’m certain there’s more, ‘cuz I’m a guilty, guilty man.

The Rev sez: Even half a life curing in that bracing Fayetteville subculture can’t direct some sinners to the Path, huh? Debbie Boon(e…and you spelled her last name like D’s…ouch!) is as low as you can go, then you compund that offense by claiming C.W. McCall as a guilty pleasure (Gawd’s got it on heavy rotation on his playroom juke). Ok–you were a kid. But Kajagoogoo? I don’t care if Uncle Jam called them “the best white funk (???) band in the world” in Uncut Funk back in ’91.You’re gonna have to actually pay me…with a tape of that Patti Smith boot. And I better have it by 2002 or you’re going to Hell.

Dimitri Monroe (of the Naked Flames) (click the link to hear his masterpiece “Nostalgia Kills”; I was honored to write for his fanzines “Anorexic Teenage Sex Gods”—see pic above—and “Ready to Snap” in the ‘90s: I like an awful lot of records I’m not supposed to, but I don’t even view, say, old Van Halen as a guilty pleasure,”cool” or not. It rocked like a motherfucker, period. But two records I would feel unburdened by confessing my love for are….
DON HENLEY’S “Building The Perfect Beast” I know, I know–I’m sorry! But I am absolutely HAUNTED by the “Boys of Summer” and shamefully, really identify with all those sentiments, as well as with “Not Enough Love In The World”, which in my weakest hour I’d even considered COVERING (fer Stiv’s sake), but Mariah or Cher or maybe both beat me to the punch. (Sorry,MOJO!!!) Allegedly, this record also featured an appearance by…. 
CHARLIE SEXTON “Pictures for Pleasure” In junior high, I attended a series of excrutiatingly Reaganesque,mean-spirited suburban schools, including Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio. Shawnee had one token artschool-punk-doll/Madonna Wannabe named Michelle Briggs, a pretty blonde who dressed in black, had pin-ups from SMASH HITS magazine all over her locker, wore a zillion bracelets, and knew about bands like Doctor & the Medics and Sigue Sigue Sputnik and We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It. This was back when we called cheezy new wave “post-modern,” and I wanted desperately to befriend her, but she was a few grades older, and the one time I mustered up the courage to approach her in her Charlie Sexton t-shirt, she said something along the lines of “Dimitri,Like,you are SOOO queer!” Later, she ended up pursuing my once & future sideman, BRIAN MURDER, romantically! Anyways, this record was expected to be an impressive guitar-storm. Everyone was hyping the young Texas badass who co-wrote tunes with the Stones for The Wild Life soundtrack and had garnered praise from Stevie Ray Vaughan, but, instead, it was awash with Keith Forsee’s Billy Idol/Simple Minds generic mid-’80’s synth-saturated production,and junior-league Steve Stevens wankery. The Michelle Briggs’ of the world were all just lookin’ for a guy with perfect cheekbones in black who wore skull t-shirts with big hair, cuz they were all almost ready to graduate from their obligatory John Taylor infatuations; but his BOWIE/PRESLEY croon is still undeniable, and I still to this day love the “So Lonely” chorus of his lone hit, “Beat’s So Lonely”. I bet he rocks nowadays! If someone wants to put him in touch, he can audition to play alongside me and MURDER in the NAKED FLAMES! 

The Rev sez: Get yerself a crewcut! I mean what I say!

Jennifer Lazo: I must confess my secret love for a 70s song called “Run, Joey, Run.” My big brother, Don Lazo, ALWAYS listened to it. Since I was just the little kid sister who looked up to her big bro, I became addicted and occasionally burst into it’s lyrics, “daddy please don’t, it wasn’t his fault, he means so much to me…Daddy please don’t we’re gonna get mar…ried.” I also listened to the Cheryl Ladd album and found myself singing one of the songs the other day when I was with a group of people! I won’t blame that one on Don, though. Please forgive me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I’d love to withhold my name, but I must expose my brother’s wrongdoings and therefore, must expose myself.)

The Rev sez: Sister, it takes some doin’ to throw such a monkey wrench in The Confessional Machine–no picture of offending artist (perhaps a measure of the total offense)! Figures the insaniacs at Rhino would provide a refuge for such a teen-angst mudslide. However, since your brother is going to Rawk Hell (where, like a true ChiSox fan, he’s gonna be blowing up vinyl at Satan’s right hand) for concealing this heinous crime, you get a pass for that one. Cheryl “I Don’t Sing Quite as Well as Cindy Crawford” Ladd is another matter: you’re gonna have to go to the upcoming Charlie’s Angels movie, which I’m sure is as close to hell as you can likely get–and you have to pay to get in.

“Art Howe”: I heard the song “Soundchaser” off [a Yes album]…when I was on mushrooms once in college and loved it. The guy playing it got real deep about it and was telling me how Patrick Moraz was the keyboardist on this album, having replaced Rick Wakeman, and how that made the group tighter and more integrated (as opposed to saying…grating). I rushed out and bought the tape a couple of days later and listened to it sober and decided it was the biggest piece of crap I’d ever heard in my life…I guess anyone who enjoys Yes must be under the influence….

The Rev sez: You don’t sound contrite enough, sonny boy. Looks like you might just bite down on the hook on the upcoming Asia reunion tour. If you wanna save your own soul, you need to sit down stone-cold sober with some tracing paper and reproduce–in fanatical detail–the cover of Tales of Topographical Oceans. Then, affix it to your bathroom wall so it’s at eye-level when you’re “sitting.” Keep it there for exactly one month–and don’t take it down when company’s over–or as long as it takes for the association to take.

Manthon (of THE RAWK) (see above, middle of the front row with The Good Reverend directly behind him, being bashful during Wayne Coomers—I was NOT Wayne, I just stole it for this website—and the Original Sins team picture): …forgive me rev.c for i have sinned….as a 15-year-old boy i committed an unthinkable act. i’m ashamed but i feel i must share so no kids out there have to deal with such a thing when they reach adulthood and (hopefully) will keep control of their senses.
it was the summer of ’76 and i was living with my grandmother in downey,ca. she was not a wealthy woman but did ok enough and on occasion we would play poker (she taught me!). well, one friday night, gammy (that’s what we called her) was 2/3 of the way through a gallon of wine and the game was getting old (playing for pennies will do just that). i had been on a roll and had a huge pile of copper in front of me when gammy brought up the idea of an all or nothing last hand. except for me the nothing was losing my cents…for her it was $50!! well, three jacks later i was a rich-ass 15-year-old! hmmmm….what to do with my new found wealth? i know….i’m going to knott’s berry farm! in case you don’t know, knott’s is (or at least was…it’s been a long long time) a kick ass amusement park with the best rollercoaster around…the corkscrew! (again…was). so…8am saturday morning, i hopped on a bus for the 45-minute ride…by myself i should add…a sad sight but i was fresh into ca from southern arkansas. so…i rode everything (some a couple of times) until it was time. time for the show! the show was in the small theatre they had there. usually it was used for “flintstones on ice” or some such thing but today it was for rock and roll…my very first rock show! to make a longer than necessary story shorter…the band that burst my live rawk cherry was none other that hamilton, joe frank, and reynolds, a good 5 years past their “don’t pull your love out on me baby” prime. honestly…i dug it! i’m sorry for my indescretion rev. o…it won’t happen again. please be fair in naming my penance.

The Rev sez: One hour in the dark listening to the Hellacopters on headphones with the stereo cranked to 10, son! But at least it wasn’t Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Dennison.

“Lil’ Nik”: Please cleanse me of my musical sins, Reverend. My sorted musical past began and (thankfully) ended my senior year of high school. Of course, I’m blaming it all on a friend. Two of my girlfriends and I used to cruise the boulevard on Friday nights. Since I didn’t have a car, I was at the mercy of my friend’s music selection. Needless to say, she had horrible taste. It started with Bon Jovi, which isn’t too terrible a confession since most people in the mid to late 80’s listened to them. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. Starting with Bon Jovi, the music selection progressed (down hill) to Ratt and Slaughter. I still have the Slaughter tape I bought (although it is never played) as a reminder to not let friends control my musical selections.


The Rev sez: Even though love is “slippery when wet,” you must do some penance, sister. Advance directly to the nearest record shop (such as quaint term now), purchase the Minutemen or Replacements LP of your choice ((although, regarding the latter, you better skip Don’t Tell a Soul (but This Album Sucks) and All Shook Down)). That’s where you should have been spending your money, time, and hearing in the mid- to late-’80s. Then send that Slaughter tape to me–I’m presiding over a little melting ceremony later this week.

Sammy D: Oh, my, I was weened of my parents music, most of which was good. Then, one night, I found some old tape of Sting’s work with Branford, and I loved it. I went out and bought his greatest hits, and I loved it, too. (Ouch!!!) Not only did I make my friends listen to it constantly, I listened to it constantly. Then, I heard of the Rembrandts, the little band who did the theme song for Friends (OOOF!), and I loved it, too, so I bought the album. I listen to it now, and wonder, where did I go wrong?? Please forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”

The Rev sez: You have truly been to heck and back already. And dragged innocent youth along with you. (Hope you didn’t eat any Tantric Rainforest Yoga Crunch along the way.) Stink and the Fiends soundtrack? You sure know how to make it hard on a man of the cloth, buddy! If those comrades of yours are still speaking to you, you are hereby ordered to preach the gospel of Sonic Youth (pre-Washing Machine, and I know that’s gonna hurt you) to them upon contact (before hellos and howyadoins) for the next year.

Don Lazo: Forgive me, Reverend, for I have sinned, and the guilt and shame have weighed down upon my soul for too long now. I’ve prayed for years that there would be no statute of limitations on my musical sins, but I now know better. The scene: three friends enjoying a road trip from Chicago to San Antonio. The locale: somewhere deep inside that hellish dustbowl known as Oklahoma. The sin: the three of us burst into singing….”Your Love Has Lifted Me Higher” by Rita Coolidge. I blacked out soon afterwards, and details are sketchy, but I remain haunted, both by the fact we engaged in this little sing-a-long as well as the frightening amount of lyrics we all knew. The three of us had quickly vowed never to tell anyone about this “incident” but I cannot join my friends in hell. Help me, Reverend…..

The Rev sez: Sheesh. “Blacked out” my ass. You and Leon Russell (wrote one helluva song about her: “Delta Lady,” best done by Joe Cocker on Joe Cocker!). And Kris Kristofferson (not only married the broad by sang duets with her with the tape rolling…if you’d have confessed to listening to those albums, I’d have nothin’ in my bag o’ tricks to help you). So, brother Lazo, at least you ain’t alone. This is gonna be tricky: at all costs, locate Jackie Wilson’s original version of “Higher and Higher,” a righteous up if there ever was one, and make a 90-minute tape of it–and only it, just for driving to work. Then, if you’re gonna confess to having listened to lethargic bad female pop singers, you need a dose of exalted good-bad female semi-pop singers. Polystyrene (best sampled on X-Ray Spex’ s Germfree Adolescents), Patti Smith (get Horses if you haven’t already), yam-queen Karen Finley (The Truth is Hard to Swallow), gutter-queen Lydia Lunch (Queen of Siam), or even that target of all Beatlemaniac hatred, Yoko Ono (her cuts on Double Fantasy or her great widow’s concept album Season of Glass). You go to those lengths, Donny Boy, not only are you forgiven but you better come save me.

“Skip”Call me ‘Skip.’: I have a confession to make, but am saddened by some of the confessions on your page. It seems that many of your followers want to put their dark sectets off to narcotics, friends, family or other influences. My confession comes from me and I don’t have anybody else to blame. 
I am not Catholic and don’t understand the whole confession thing, but it seems that most of the confessions on your page are moments of weakness that the confessors have already put in the past. My confession still haunts me whenever I hear it.When in high school, a horrible song by someone named Bonnie Tyler came out called “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” I instantly fell for the song, even though my friends hated it and reminded me how horrible the song was every time it came on. However, I persisted and remained adamant that the song was great. The worst part is that I still like it when I hear it today. When it comes on the oldies station as my radio is scanning, I must listen to the rest of the song. Even some of the lyrics haunt me: “I don’t know what to do/I’m always in the dark. Livin’ in this powder keg/And givin’ off sparks.” As stupid as those verses are, they stay with me and I find myself humming them at work or when getting ready for bed. 
This feels more like a meeting with The Big Man at the Pearly Gates rather than a confession, because I have tried to lose this song from my mind, but when I hear it two years from now, I will still like it. 
Please help me!

The Rev sez: Well, first of all, you have some serious spiritual guts to toss off all influences, because what are “influences” but slaps in the face to our most precious gift, free will. I humbly bow to you; you don’t need me. Secondly, well–you don’t need any absolution, either, my friend: the fiery (woops: wrong image) terms with which you describe your listening–then emotional–experience makes clear that the song is inside The First Church, not without. We’d claim it if, through your compulsive attraction to it, it hadn’t already claimed us. So…keep listening like you listen.

“GIVE Me Just a Little More TIME!”: Mike Rayhill, 1962-2021

A man for all occasions.

Mike Rayhill and I were both born in conservative Missouri towns in 1962, lived under the watchful eyes of fathers who expected the best, played high school sports seriously (he wrestled, I hooped), attended and graduated with the Class of 1980 from what was then Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, loved rock and roll and Budweiser, and often got tripped up in self-doubt. We had significantly different views on Prince, golf, and pro wrestling, and Mike was an artist while I could only love the arts, but we only really fought once (a damn poker game!) and resonated as brothers always. He roundly approved of my chosen soul mate and proved a great friend to her, too.

Mike was on the far end of a successful career in printing, had found Angel, the love of his life, after a long search, proudly watched his son London bloom (under his close and wise gaze) into an outstanding scholar, athlete and human, graduate from high school, and excel as a college freshman, and through constant diligence and skillful frugality owned free and clear his own house, no easy task these days. The fruit of his meticulous labors had ripened for his enjoyment when pancreatic cancer snatched it away last week. His wife, son, and friends will carry his spirit forward, but never forget, folks, that life isn’t fucking fair.

I can tell you a million stories about Mike, but this is a moment that captures a side of the man I will deeply miss.

Mike and I became fast friends at first meeting (discovering our mutual appreciation for the Minutemen at a Washington Street party in Springfield), and later became roommates for a few years in the late 1980s. One day as I returned home, Mike met me with great urgency.

“DJ Philly Phil, you’ve got to tell me who does this song!”

Then, doing a little light-footed twist and accenting the rhythm with his hands–almost like he was conducting an orchestra (friends will recall this charming nuance of his)–he burst out in song:

“GIVE me just a little more TIME!”

Unfortunately, I had not then nor have I since heard every song ever recorded, and these were not the days of YouTube, streaming, OR the simple Internet, so I replied, “Well, that was wonderfully performed, but nope…I have no clue.”

Mike was not to be denied. He wanted to own the record. “Yes, you have heard it. It’s on oldies radio all the time! OK, now listen!”

He repeated his previous rendition with spot-on accuracy. “Now, did you hear how I sang the word ‘time’? The singer turns that word into a little cry at the end of the line! It’s great! He really needs a little more time! Now, listen!”

Again, he repeated his passionate orchestration, underlining the syllable in question with an upward wave of his hand.

“Mike, I got nuthin’.”

“I’m deeply disappointed in you, Philly Phil.”

He loved that song; talk about the passion, he might have said, because he was quietly about that (and he had R.E.M. on the brain). That dude could needle your ass painfully, but he had a tender heart.

I could have done some research, but those were busy days. Also, I don’t listen to the radio much, but soon after this episode, I finally heard the song. It was just as Mike sang, performed, and explained it: a plea, and like Mike’s feet had done in his demonstration, the music bounced. But the jock didn’t identify the damn song, so I was still holding air.

Fast-forward a couple years. I’m living in Columbia, Nicole and I are blasting some New Orleans rhythm and blues as is still our wont, and we’ve got one of Rhino Records’ three great NOLA volumes on the turntable. We have it turned up loud, and the needle hits The Showmen’s smilingly defiant rock and roll anthem, “It Will Stand.” Suddenly, listening to General Johnson sing “Don’t ya nickname it! / Fact, ya might as well claim it,” I flashed on the facts: that’s the guy! Then, I hit the books–General Johnson went on to lead The Chairmen of the Board, and–sure enough!–deliver “Give Me Just a Little More Time” with that plaintive panache.

I immediately called Mike. “I got it! I got it! Chairmen of the Board and General Johnson do ‘Give Me Just a Little More Time’! They have a greatest hits CD–“

“Sorry, DJ, I found the 45,” he interrupted. “You really let me down. I think you’re a little overrated, man! You’re no Casey Kasem, ya punk!” I laughed, but it did make me sad that I’d delayed his robust gratification and been ignorant of an obvious classic.

Last August, Mike was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. No, life is not fair, but in Mike’s case it really, really wasn’t. In January, as he was preparing for the inevitable, he asked me to help him find a home for his records, inviting me to keep anything I wanted. I brought his crates home, Hitt Records here in Columbia agreed to help us, and I began sorting them. Among his 45s, along with lots of Elvis and some demos of the first recordings of his band The JimBobs, was “Give Me Just a Little More Time.”

I kept that one.

That title is stabbing me as I write. It’s always going to remind me of Mike’s joy for music, his witty and contagious animation in acting out his enthusiasm for everything from pro wrestling to “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and his love for his friends family and life in general. That love, in his unique fashion, quietly caught the bordering-on-desperate urgency of Johnson’s vocals. As we all should catch it if we fully understand how fragile and ephemeral life is. Mike passed away yesterday morning in the arms of his wife Angel, who caught that wonderful urgency and knew exactly what it was worth.

“Life’s too short to make a mistake.
Let’s think of each other and hesitate!
Young and impatient we may be,
There’s no need to act foolishly.
If we part, our hearts won’t forget it–
Years from now we’ll surely regret it….”

Goodbye, my brother. We won’t forget you.

My Imaginary Top 100 Ballot Submitted to Rolling Stone for its “500 Greatest Albums of the Rock and Roll Era” (NEAR-FINAL DRAFT–I still haven’t even gotten off the couch to scan the stacks for insane omissions.)

  • We Are KING

This is a work in progress. Finally at least, I am following my own questionable rules. What I’m striving for is a balance between the canon, which deserves critical attack but is not always in error, and my own lifelong habits–I know this music like the back of my hand, and if I return to something over and over, that’s no minor thing. Eventually, I will post a more stable list. Stable–that’s hilarious.

Rules:

*I must have returned to the album on a very regular basis–thus, it is a favorite.

*The album satisfies my gestaltist persnicketyness: as a whole, it is very effective.

*Compilations (*) are allowed ONLY if the artist represented made no consensus-approved CLASSIC album-as-album.

*10 single-artist compilations maximum are allowed.

*5 single-artist box sets (#) are allowed BUT they count toward the compilation maximum, and I must have returned to them repeatedly.

*Unlimited various artist compilations ($) are allowed.

*Unlimited various artist box sets (@) are allowed, but I must have returned to them repeatedly.

*5 “twofer” (%) CDs maximum are allowed ONLY if they were legitimately released in that form.

*1 album maximum may be included for each artist (if they appear otherwise in a group formation, that’s cool).

*Style: the album must have a pinkie-toe dipped in the pond of rock and roll.

*Span: 1954-2019.

The List:

  1. The 5 Royales – Dedicated to You
  2. King Sunny Ade – Juju Music
  3. Beatles – “Yesterday” and Today
  4. Big Star – Radio City
  5. Black Uhuru – Red
  6. James Brown – Live at the Apollo
  7. Chuck Berry – The Chess Box *#
  8. Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band – Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
  9. Joe “King” Carrasco and the Crowns – s/t
  10. James Carter – The Real Quiet Storm
  11. Ray Charles – The Birth of Soul *#
  12. Chic – Real People
  13. The Clash – London Calling
  14. The Coasters – 50 Coastin’ Classics*
  15. Ray Condo & The Ricochets – Swing Brother Swing
  16. Elvis Costello – King of America
  17. The Cramps – Bad Music for Bad People
  18. Culture – Two Sevens Clash
  19. Miles Davis – Jack Johnson
  20. Dead Moon – Echoes of the Past*
  21. Bo Diddley – s/t
  22. The Dirtbombs – Ultraglide in Black
  23. The Drifters – The Drifters’ Golden Hits*
  24. The Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South
  25. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
  26. Joe Ely – Honky Tonk Masquerade
  27. Eric B. & Rakim – Follow the Leader
  28. Roky Erickson – I Have Always Been Here Before*
  29. Tav Falco & Panther Burns – Midnight in Memphis
  30. The Fall – I Am Kurious Oranj
  31. Flipper – Generic
  32. Flying Burrito Brothers – The Gilded Palace of Sin
  33. Aretha Franklin – Spirit in the Dark
  34. The Go-Betweens – Tallulah
  35. The Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead
  36. Al Green – Call Me / Livin’ for You %
  37. Merle Haggard – A Working Man Can’t Get Nowhere Today
  38. Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced? (UK version)
  39. Howlin’ Wolf – Howlin’ Wolf / Moanin’ at Midnight %
  40. Linton Kwesi Johnson – Making History
  41. George Jones – Burn the Honky Tonk Down *
  42. King – We Are King
  43. The Kinks – Something Else by The Kinks
  44. Bettye LaVette – I Got My Own Hell to Raise
  45. Jerry Lee Lewis – Live at the Star Club
  46. Love – Forever Changes
  47. Bob Marley and The Wailers – Live!
  48. Mekons – Rock n Roll
  49. M. I. A. – Kala
  50. The Minutemen – Double Nickels on the Dime
  51. Joni Mitchell – Blue
  52. Van Morrison – Moondance
  53. Motörhead – Orgasmatron
  54. Muddy Waters – Hard Again
  55. Willie Nelson – Spirit
  56. New York Dolls – s/t
  57. Nirvana – MTV Unplugged
  58. The Nomads – Outburst
  59. Lee Scratch Perry – Roast Fish, Collie Weed, and Cornbread
  60. PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love
  61. The Pogues – Rum, Sodomy & The Lash
  62. Prince – Dirty Mind
  63. Professor Longhair – Crawfish Fiesta
  64. Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
  65. Purple Mountains – s/t
  66. Ramones – It’s Alive!
  67. Otis Redding – Dictionary of Soul
  68. Lou Reed – New York
  69. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Greatest Hits, Volume 2*
  70. The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
  71. Sonny Rollins – Sunny Days, Starry Nights
  72. Rosalía – Malamente
  73. Jimmy Rushing – With the Big Brass / Rushing Lullabies %
  74. Sonny Sharrock – Ask the Ages
  75. Billy Joe Shaver – Live at Smith’s Olde Bar
  76. The Sir Douglas Quintet – The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet*
  77. Sly & The Family Stone: …there’s a riot goin’ on
  78. Huey Piano Smith – Having a Party with Huey Piano Smith and the Clowns
  79. Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
  80. The Staple Singers – The Best of the Vee-Jay Years *
  81. Gary Stewart – Out of Hand
  82. Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells a Story
  83. Swamp Dogg – Total Destruction to Your Mind
  84. James Talley – Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home
  85. Howard Tate – Get It While You Can
  86. Tracey Thorn – Record
  87. Various Artists – The Doo Wop Box @
  88. Various Artists – Girl Group Sounds: One Kiss Leads to Another
  89. Various Artists – It Came from Memphis, Volume 1 $
  90. Various Artists – Nuggets: Original Artyfacts (box version) @
  91. Various Artists – Sweet Soul Music $
  92. Various Artists – Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound $
  93. Velvet Underground – 1969 Velvet Underground Live
  94. Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones
  95. Keith Whitley – I Wonder Do You Think of Me
  96. Lucinda Williams – S/T
  97. Wussy – Attica
  98. X – Wild Gift
  99. X-Ray Spex – Germfree Adolescents
  100. Neil Young – Rust Never Sleeps

Kicking My Legs (Dylan Style)

The other day, I found myself in a disconsolate mood.

This is not usual. I am temperamentally optimistic, which I used to think was my Midwestern heritage but now realize is primarily a function of my white male privilege (why shouldn’t I be expecting the day to go well for me when I wake up every morning?) and secondarily the by-product of my obsession with art and learning (I can be reasonably assured that every conscious day I live will bring me at least one moment of aesthetic or gnostic thrill, and I can live on one for hours).

But on this day I was down. For one–though I can usually keep the relentless ugliness of these times at bay by reminding myself that they are nothing new, it’s just that the mask is all the way down (so why should I start moping now?)–the sordid litany of the Cohen hearings had so penetrated my defenses I had come to feel like Washizu Taketoki at the end of Throne of Blood. For another, I had just had a miserable experience with my Stephens class, and having a miserable experiences when I am teaching–it is an action I love, no matter how difficult it may be–is foreign to me. I happen to be teaching a second-semester composition class that is mostly made up of freshmen who failed composition first semester–several of them who failed my class. This in itself is no problem; with three decades of high school experience with struggling learners, I am probably the best person on campus for this job. Things is, with this particular group, simple attendance and work completion is a struggle (remember: we’re talking college here), and it’s an 8 a.m. class, so enthusiasm for the education process is occasionally wispy in nature. In this case, I had prepared a lesson that I felt was very high-interest, exceptionally stimulating, and inarguably relevant to my class’ concern–and, out of 16 students registered at that point, five showed up. Five. I know what you teachers out there are thinking: Perfect! Small group–a more intimate, direct, and collaborative experience!  Yeah, well, cool and all, but I prepared the lesson for sixteen, and there’s the matter of the role it was not going to play in the success of 69% of my students’ upcoming papers. Not to mention that I like larger classes; I thrive off the gathered energy, and the possibilities of accidental inspiration and enlightenment are far greater. Thus, I scrapped the lesson and held writing conferences for the hardy humans who showed up. Useful, yes, but nothing fresh, fun, challenging, and interactive. (I know you’re wanting the deets, but they are too painful to recall; suffice it to say that it involved Dusty Springfield.)

I’d dismissed the class and was pouting at the computer (recording attendance, as it happened). I was literally shaking my head and contemplating harikari, and decided, of course, to take one last look at Facebook (when the bombs start falling on the first day of World War III, we will all be recording our statuses). I’d almost forgotten that, as one of the two songs I share every morning and have shared every morning for close to a decade for no discernible reason, with the hearings immediately swirling in my head upon having awakened, I’d posted the above video clip from the Bob Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back. “Even the President of the Yew-Nited States / One day must have to stand naked!”: really? That’s too easy, Phil.  Be that as it may, I absently clicked on the link, dimly aware that I still had the data projector on, its volume turned about halfway up.

As Uncle Bob’s screed rolled out–it’s damn near long as the Gettysburg Address!–I twisted out a grimace at the phrase “There is no sense in trying!” and reminded myself of my old-time idol’s cynicism. I am not really a cynic, but that line actually sounded pretty good to me and made me feel even worse. However, the song (I hope you do not need me to tell you this) is not only an astoundingly detailed catalogue of American failings imaginatively and skillfully written (though “propaganda all is phony” is a wince-inducing glitch), it’s not even completely cynical. “…[H]e not busy being born / is busy dying!”? “…[I]t is not he or she or them or it / That you belong to!”? “Although the masters make the rules / For the wise men and the fools / I got nothing, Ma, to live up to!”? And does he stick the landing!

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only!

Yep, those lines are anything but cynical. They’re motivating, liberating, life-affirming, and definitively sans bullshit. As I listened to them for the umpteenth time, my short hairs rose to attention, my heart leapt, my blood warmed, my grimace warped into a defiant smile. I was still shaking my head, but in amazement. And it was cool to hear it in the open air of the classroom…

Another teacher was holding court in my room after my class, and, in my hypnotic state, I hadn’t noticed that some of her students had rolled in, seated themselves, and were apparently remaining silent out of respect for my meditation. The vibration of those final words–“it’s life and life only”–deteriorated into our space, followed by about 15 seconds of silence, and one of the students said, “Did you like that?”

I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant; these days, you can’t be. But I blurted out instantly in response, “Oh yes. For me, that is the rock. If I’m barely treading water, that’s what I’m reaching for, and what I’m gonna stand on. It’s worked for me for years, since I was 17–still does 40 years later. So…did you like it?”

I inhaled sharply, awaiting potential injury.

She answered, “Yeah. That was amazing.”

“Truth,” I smiled–and bolted out of there, knowing that, if I lingered, the resulting conversation would overlap into my department head’s allotted time. But I’d crashed the cuffs off, and skipped out of the building full ready to be shown more.

I Can’t Help It (Little Richard Attack)

I just listened to this seven times in a row riding in my truck. I am (perhaps oddly) one of the last people who’d argue that music lyrics are poetry, but these verses—these triplets—are close:

“If she walks by, the menfolk get in rows [it also sounds like “engrossed”!]
If she winks her eye, the bread slice turns to toast
She got a lot of what they call ‘The Most’…!

“She mesmerizes every mother’s son
If she smiles, beefsteak becomes well-done
She make Grampa feeeeel like 21!”

The ivory-tower-occupiers, Rex, might call that “demotic poetry.” Whatever.

I also love the shift from “The girl can’t help it” to “I can’t help it.” The mad vocals, Earl Palmer’s razor-sharp and rock-hard drumming, and Lee Allen’s one-man sax section are perfectly fitted to the feeling behind those words.

Man alive.

No wonder Frank Tashlin and John Waters were inspired to create scenes in their films just to use it (I bet):

(Adapted from a Facebook post made by the blogger on 1/10/19.)

From the archives of The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll: A Testament to Two Road Trips

THE LAST SURVIVING VERSION of The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll can be accessed here.
Yellow Brick Road Trips 
     Supposedly, it’s the journey, not the destination, that truly matters in life’s grand design. For the most part, I’ve found that to be true. I’ve seen many comrades contract the Elvis Virus, where you shake and hustle and holler and shift into fifth just to catch up to that Gatsbian green light, then shit twice and die when you see, feel, and taste what you thought you wanted. But, while in pursuit of my degree in rock and roll road scholarship in and after college, I never failed to find the sweetest nectar at the end of the road, not while the wheels were turning. The actual trips were plenty memorable, and I’m sure any visitor to this site will recognize the details: endless cheap beers and butts, drugs (hell, we’d crush up Vivarin and snort it), rock and roll blasting from the speakers, jokes, tall tales, and arguments. However, these treasures could never compare to what happened when we got where we were going, or, on occasion, when we got back. Here’s a short, fond history of two rockin’ road trips I have known.
Part 1:  Pine Bluff, Arkansas, ’81–“The Law Won, but So What?”
     The first road trip I ever took was a warm-up for a lip-synch contest two of the writers for this page and I had entered. We figured that a five-hour drunken dash through the night to a shit-kicking interface with Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Paycheck in one of the worst hell-holes in the Arkansas landscape was perfect Method-acting preparation for a sure triumph at noon the next day (we were doing the Clash doing “I Fought the Law”).
     The trip started inauspiciously, with Manthon emitting some of the foulest shrimp gas ever smelt by human nostrils before we even got out of Fayetteville, a blast that lingered for hours in Kenny’s Monte Carlo. However, spilt beer and clouds of smoke soon overwhelmed that stench, and before we knew it, we were shoulder to shoulder with other hellraisers we were too stupid to realize would have loved to kick our asses. We were also too stupid to realize Johnny Paycheck was worth our attention–don’t remember shit and wish I did–and stagehands had to help “The Killer” to and from the pianner. Dressed in a white leisure suit, he underwhelmed; we didn’t know he’d just gotten out of a hospital where one doctor pronounced him a certain corpse and another warned him to stay off the road for two years at least.
     On the way back, I was an asshole and not only refused to drive–me had a headache–but couldn’t find decent music to keep the other two awake (the Heads’ Remain in Light??). Finally, Johnny Rotten scandalizing “Johnny B. Goode” powered us home, and at 3 in the morning, even a typical collegiate fool would have hit the sack. Not us. With some Schaefer’s still in the lil’ frig, we set about composing as many songs as we could think of combining the Bo Diddley “shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits” riff with oral sexcapades. None of us could play at the time, but Manthon bloodied his knuckles playing a tennis racket with a nickel, and Kenny and I just yelled! Sounds like dicking around, I know, but it felt like we were a room away from the Grail.
     By the time we’d exhausted the rhyming possibilities for the line “sucking on a ding-dong” (yes, we’d listened to White Light/White Heat way too much), it was 11 o’clock, and the victory for which the Pine Bluff trip and its coda had prepared us was imminent. We crushed up a few more Vivarins, shotgunned a couple of Schaefer’s apiece, boarded the recently deflowered Monte Carlo, and gunned it for White Dog Records, where the showdown was to take place.
     Drunk, sweaty, smelly, and glowering in that moon-walking sleepless zone, we scraped ourselves out of the car, knifed through the “crowd” with j.d. attitude, and got ready to rock. We were the Clash (what we thought they were, anyway), and the competition were the Beach Boys (???), AC/Delco (an AC/DC “tribute”????), and the Go-Gos (we dug the chicks, liked the music, but they had to pay). How could we lose?
     We did, despite delivering as intense a performance as a lip synch can be while blasting an actual Applause-O-Meter off the scale. To the fucking Beach Boys. But, from that road-trip-born point onwards, we were brother rebels and born-to-losing winners, and–guess what?–here we fucking are in cyberspace almost twenty years later, still faking it with passion ’cause we can’t really “do it” for real, still getting our asses recreased by the likes of Addicted to Noise and Perfect Sound Forever on the internet “hit” parade, but still living it more fully than those pencil-necks can imagine. I know a couple of those claims sound contradictory, but they wouldn’t be rock and roll if they didn’t, and besides, it’s all about being able to re-invent yourself, even in your late thirties. And that can keep you from becoming a ‘borg.
Part 2: Shreveport, Louisiana–The Louisiana Joy Ride
     If the Pine Bluff road-trip applied the cement that held us together as rock-lifers, Shreveport ’87 tested the strength of the bond, and, most importantly, left us with the confidence of faith. On that occasion, Manthon and I loaded down my rod with a case of beer and two boxes of tapes, and cut a swath from southern Missouri down through the Boston Mountains of northern and mid-Arkansas to Ruston, Louisiana, home to then-retail king Kenny. We found him glad to see us, but suffering from a pernicious case of the K-Mart blues.
     Several hours, four boxes of Popeye’s Chicken, a couple of six packs, one bottle of whiskey, two fine ladies of KMart persuasion (fraternizing with fellow employees–for shame!), a shitload of loud rock and roll, a strange homoerotic Mekons video, a bizarre Harry Shearer impression of Laurie Anderson hawking tampons, and a bag of Zapps Cajun Craw Tators later, the blues were running for shelter, and I was wailing Sonny Boy Williamson riffs on Kenny’s harmonica though I’d never played before (and would never “play” again). I myself wondered later whether it was just inebriation playing tricks on my ears, but to this day, Manthon and Kenny swear I made Mick’s harp on “Stop Breaking Down” sound like John’s on “Love Me Do.” We didn’t actually ever hit the hay; we just passed out in action: Kenny awakened clutching the empty chip bag, orange Craw Tator dust encrusting his lips and the corners of his mouth; Mark in a chair with the guitar and the empty whiskey bottle in his lap; I on my stomach on the floor, head resting on a beer-soaked throw pillow, with the Hoehner still in my fist. The Girls of Retail had apparently fled, undoubtedly spooked by the rampaging spirit of road-ready rock and roll camaraderie, their soft charms no match for our version Dee Dee’s “1,2,3,4…,” David Jo’s “C’mon, boys,” and Rob Tyner’s “Kick out the jams, muthafuckahs!” all spit-sealed together. And this was only the wake-up for the second leg of our trip.
     After a big fucking Coke, a cigarette, and a couple of aspirin apiece, we were heading to the home of The Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, where we were hoping to see something little break wide open and big. Instead of the Elvis, Hank, or George Jones of yore, the musicians in question were the then-unknown (damn near now, too) Flat Duo Jets, BBQ Killers, and Killkenny Kats, on a postpunk package tour straight outta Athens, Georgia. They were playing a punk club downtown, and we were sure we were gonna see the future of rock and roll unfold before our bloodshot eyes.
     We should have known some Rock and Roll Ghost had us hanging from its callused fingertips from the minute we walked into a Shreveport pizza joint to get some fuel: Yoko Ono’s “Kiss Kiss Kiss” was blasting from the jukebox. Since this was a fucking Godfather’s, we were severely rattled, but figured somebody had accidentally played the b-side to “Just Like Starting Over,” and we settled down to order some pitchers and pizza … but the hits from that hectoring Hecate kept right on coming. None of us were card-carrying Yokophobes–the gifts she had bestowed upon the B-52s and XRay Spex (not to mention John) exalted her in our hearts and minds, actually. However, it quickly became apparent that we were the only diners in the restaurant and the employees on hand appeared intensely loyal to the Flock of 100 Haircuts, and, combined with the dislocation caused by lingering hangovers, liberal doses of hair of the dog, and being in a strange city, these realizations began to jangle our nerves: whose dimes set this wailing in motion? Or were we receiving warning transmissions from the Devils soul?
     Show time. Smoky downtown club. Kenny and Mark still hoisting beer. I feel like a rhinoceros on Wild Kingdom, shot in the ass by Stan and one of his damned darts as Marlin Perkins cheers him on from the copter: Slow, slower, then face pressed against the bar top. The only things that keep me awake are the need to, as the South Park kids say, “drop some kids off at the pool,” and my two comrades’ derisive laughter. I rise. Trudge to the head. A line of 5 people. My turn comes. Confronting a sight that would have made G. G. Allin puke, I turn away in disgust, walk through the bar, past my comrades, past Killkenny Kats playing shit I could tell even in my pickled state I didn’t want to hear anyway, out the door, down the street … looking for any dark place to do my business.
     Fully on auto-pilot, I shuffle into a multi-level parking garage. No nook or cranny looks dark enough for my foul deed. I am approaching Def Con 2. I come upon the open-air final level, walk to the edge, see the darkened building next door, a story below and about a yard-and-a-half across. It calls my name, gentle as Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia.
     I jump.
     Standing on the next-door roof, the jump having sobered me miraculously, I realize to my dismay there will be no jumping back up. Getting my priorities straight, I divest myself of excess waste and walk to a ladder leading to the next story of the split-level building. Reaching the lower roof and walking to the back of the building, I can see that a jump of over 25 feet to the alley below is my only way back to the bar.
     Not being Jackie Chan, I wheel in growing panic, and notice a door in the back of the top level, just to the right of the ladder I’d just descended. I race to it and turn the knob, without an ounce of real hope. A click, and the door opens. I step into a hallway. A whooping sound from within welcomes me. I am now fully sober. I dart outside. A whooping sound from without welcomes me back. I consider the options: 1) wait for the cops to come and get me down and explain to them that I’d just gotten on to the roof to take a shit, or 2) jump.
     Back on the edge–which I should mention lacks anything serious from which to hang and drop–I hear Yoko’s voice again: “Jump, Magnum, jump!” (Maybe I wasn’t completely sober after all). I hurtle off into nothingness, and actually hit the alley in a roll. On my feet without any apparent injuries, I thank Elvis that I hadn’t insulted Yoko back at Godfather’s, and head out of the alley.
     I hear the police sirens as I exit the alley. I see three cherry-tops screech around the corner… as I casually slip back into the bar.
     Feeling like D. B. Fucking Cooper, I combed the bar looking for Mark and Kenny, the BBQ Killers blasting some skronky noise behind me. I found them in roughly the same condition I was in when I’d left them. Fuck! I had a story to end all stories to pour in their ears and they were comatose! I spent the next hour or so pogoing my adrenaline away to the Killers and Flat Duo Jets, drinking beer like it was ambrosia, and sweating it right back out. It wasn’t the rock and roll future, but it was more than good enough for the present.
     Out in the cool air after the show, rejoined by my grog-sodden brothers, we sparred with the Killers’ punky bitch of a lead singer (really, the only talent of the evening that registered with me…don’t think she ever went anywhere, though) over the Replacements, who, she muttered, were “fucking sell-outs”(sacrilege in our church), and the aforementioned and since-departed G. G. Allin, who, according to her, was “better than Iggy” (very serious sacrilege–like matricide) because he shat on her on stage once. She was the sell-out in this case, I pointed out, because she was securely tucked away inside of plastic bag–that ghost-muse Yoko fucking Ono again!–at point of impact, and I informed her I did my shitting off bank rooftops, which stopped conversation for a second. It’s in moments like these when anybodies like us realize we can be somebodies in the rockaroll world. It’s wide open to any dim-witted smart-ass with something interesting to spew.
     We covered the first half of our drive back to Ruston in satisfied, stunned silence, absorbing even more skronk from the stereo.  That hunger can’t be stilled, can it? Suddenly, Kenny blurted, “Hey, Phil–where the fuck did you disappear to?”
     “You’re not gonna believe this, but….”
     Since the lessons learned from the Ruston/Shreveport journey, the three of us have always believed that anytime we (or any two of us) get together, some magic rock and roll strangeness is promised us, and that that belief–and especially the music, from whatever source (a car stereo, an incomprehensible harmonica, a tennis racket and a nickel, a haunted jukebox)–is all the power needed to coax deliverance. And we hope we can deliver some promises of our own here at The First Church.

Now I Got a Reason–How I Got Hooked on Rock and Roll (October 15th, 2018, Columbia, Missouri)

I am not sure when music put a hook in my lip, but I was quite young at the time, and it could have been any one of the following moments:

  1. When I received the Banana Splits theme song 45 (I feel like it came out of a cereal box, but I don’t remember–did you know Al Kooper, Barry White, and Gene Pitney contributed music to the show’s soundtrack?).
  2. When I first heard Ringo Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy”–my childhood best friend’s dad owned a jukebox stocking and repair shop, and when we’d visit, he’d always let me have a beat-to-hell record, and this was probably the first. I didn’t care about the forest-fire surface noise, and it was probably the first song I memorized. I don’t think I ever flipped it over….
  3. When my parents gave me my first album: Sgt. Pepper’s, of course (that would have been ’70 or ’71). I could not get enough of that one, then I subjected it to a long, long, long period of avoidance, which ended late last year when, after reading a couple Beatle books, I once again found myself infused with affection for it.
  4. When I first heard Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman”–I think my mom had a crush on Glen, thus we had the albums (I tended to stare at Bobbie Gentry on the cover of one of those), thus we watched his show, and…man, I caught the vibe of this song. I think it was the first time I ever heard loneliness. 40 years later, when I read the story of its recording, I ended up playing it every day for about a month.
  5. When I first heard either The Spinners’ “Mighty Love” or Warren Zevon’s “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” on the Carthage Municipal Pool jukebox: the former sounded like pure, unadulterated joy on wax and probably caused my junior and senior high romantic life to be torture, because that was what I expected having a girlfriend to feel and be like (whatta sap!); the latter seemed like I would need decades of research to fully understand, and with a title like that, I just had to play the “B” side instead of the “A.” (What a 45 that was!)

I mean, I can sort out the chronology, but I’m not sure which moment was the one that really struck me with the fever. Most definitely, one of those was the cause.

I bring all of this up because this morning I found myself recalling the moment that ensured the hook of music remained sunk, as it still is and will likely remain, unless I lose my mind, which these days is very much a possibility.

Most of my high school friends probably remember me as a music nut. I wrote reviews for the Carthage High School student newspaper; the first couple enthused about Boston’s Don’t Look Back and Elvis Costello’s My Aim is True. I skipped lunch frequently to spend my money at Ken’s Records, which was just a few blocks from the school and right next door to our favorite lunch joint, so friends often saw me “eating” there. My friend Todd Freeman and I regularly arrived to school early just to man the senior lounge stereo, its speakers wired out into the lobby, and philosophize, girl-watch, and heckle underclassmen–we had an East Coast thing going for some reason, so Springsteen and Billy Joel were our eight-tracks du jour. Even then a drooling Dylanophile, I successfully lobbied to make “Forever Young” the theme of a homecoming dance–o former classmates, please forgive that, for I was young and foolish and my dreck-detector was ill-calibrated! I sat patiently next to my home stereo, cassette tape on “REC” and “PAUSE,” waiting for KSYN in Joplin to play my favorite songs that hadn’t made “Casey Kasem’s American Top 40” yet; back then, kiddies, you had to have the bucks and hope the local shop (if your town even featured one) carried the 45 or album if you wanted a chance to hear it over and over and over again. Speaking of Dylan, I heard “Hurricane” on the radio exactly once on KSYN during my entire high school career, and I didn’t have a blank cassette ready. Once. Why didn’t I just go buy Desire at Ken’s?

A) I wasn’t made of money.

B) I wasn’t yet reading reviews every week, and thus I might not have known it was on Desire.

C) Ken’s might not have carried it, or might have been sold out–I didn’t hear “Hurricane” until way after Desire was released, anyway.

Back then, simple listening on demand did not come easy. We did, though, have KSYN’s late-night show that played new albums in their entirety (thank you, programmers, for Live Rust and for 2112, two seemingly vastly different albums that, come to think of it, have much in common).

Well, that was the good stuff. The frustrating stuff was, I was (and still am) a restless seeker after new sounds and knowledge, and I didn’t then know anyone, really, who was also down for the search. I’m pretty independent–I don’t tend to need much validation for my interests–but you have to admit few moments are more fun than discovering new sources of exaltation, amazement, and enlightenment in good company. Try as I might, I had zero luck enlisting anybody for deep dives into Armed Forces, Darkness on the Edge of Town, London Calling, 1969 Velvet Underground Live, The Essential Jimi Hendrix, Night Moves, Never Mind the Bollocks, or The Basement Tapes. I mentioned Live Rust earlier; elsewhere on this blog, I documented the pain and suffering inflicted upon me when I dared to foist its revelatory content on high school friends (and potential more-than-friends). One can see I wasn’t getting a ton of positive reinforcement, and since my seeking also extended to non-musical paths, the possibility that I might have jumped off the musical hook at some point in the near-future was…distinct.

At the time, music and sports ran neck-and-neck for my attention, with sports leading by a nose. I played basketball, football, soccer, and baseball (very, very poorly and mercifully briefly in the last case); I also ran track, and swam competitively. I wrote almost all of the sports copy for the school paper, as well as covered junior varsity (and some varsity) sports for the local paper, and, most tellingly, when it came to a career, I just wanted to watch, record statistics for, and write about the NBA for a living. I headed off to college at the University of Arkansas with that intention, as well as the promise of a gig as the school’s baseball statistician. With me, I hauled about 19 records (why do I remember that number?) and a faux-leather case of 12 eight-tracks (Queen, Head East, Alice Cooper); if that tableau doesn’t indicate the potential for my musical passions becoming fleeting–or at the least stunted–I’m not sure what would (though I had bought a rubber stamp with my name on it and stamped all my records–that’s a tad strange and obsessive).

So, my parents had dropped me off at Reid Hall–I was clearly an early arrival–I’d gotten comfortable in my dorm room on the fourth floor, a nice breeze was blowing through my open window and door out into the hall…and I decided to just blast something annoying to test the waters and find out as soon as possible if I were indeed going to continue to seek new sounds alone (if, alas, at all). I remember feeling pessimistic about that process continuing. The obvious album for the task was The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks. Though I didn’t have a fucking clue about most of what Mr. Rotten was raving about, though I had not yet listened to it with anyone, though it had essentially gotten me kicked out of Sunday school forever a couple years before (that’s another blog post), I thought Bollocks would be the perfect album to blast, mark my territory with, and measure the degree of alienation from my peers I was bound to suffer/cause. I didn’t know Whitman yet, but also, underneath all that bullshit, it was, probably, “Noiseless Patient Spider” time for me. I snapped the eight-track into its slot, turned the knob to seven, and sprawled out on my bed to await the results.

No sooner had those four opening seconds of marching boots led into Steve Jones’ first chord than a dude walked right into my room, pointed at my stereo, cocked his head slightly to one side, and asked (note the implied question!), “Ummm…The Sex Pistols?”

I sat up and said, “Yeah?”

The dude enthusiastically proclaimed, “Hello!” This was not a greeting–that five-letter word, as he used it, would have many meanings, depending on the context, over the course of our still-ongoing friendship. In this case, it was an affirmation.

The dude was from Little Rock. Turned out he was ensconced with his cousin Bruce in the dorm room next to mine. He was distinctly not angry with my selection or the stereo volume.

“I’m Kenny. You heard of The Ramones?” he asked.

“Well, some kids I never met spray-painted that name on the baseball stadium wall in my hometown, but no.” (Ken’s did not carry Ramones records as far as I knew, but I also hadn’t yet read about them.)

“We can fix that. Are these your records? Hello, eight-tracks!”

“Yep.”

“Ooooooooooh. Elvis Costello!”

Soon, we were over in his room. Kenny introduced me to Bruce, slapped on a record, and I quickly realized The Ramones were a subject for serious further research.

His vaguely dangerous-seeming cousin was into Sabbath, whom I knew well, but also Funkadelic and Jerry Clower (HAW!) and Monty Python, whom I didn’t. And that wasn’t all. Without checking with us, Bruce took Leave Home off the turntable and replaced it with a yellow-covered album he’d snatched so quickly out of a nearby crate I couldn’t make out the other artistic details. Waggling his eyebrows and darting his eyes about manically, he lowered the needle into the record’s groove. Sounds from a deeply weird space slithered out of Kenny’s speakers, and Bruce launched into an almost threatening solo dance, at which point I took a step backwards:

 

If you haven’t already deduced it, this was the moment I hearkened back to this morning. I honestly think it not only re-set the musical hook in my lip, but also insured that music wouldn’t just be a hobby for me–that I’d ride that line like the shark in Jaws. Before long, I got bored with baseball stats and found myself rifling through the university bookstore’s handy cut-out bin for Kinks and Howlin’ Wolf records. I didn’t end up sitting at an NBA scorer’s table, but I did end up playing in three bands (absolutely unaccountably–I’d never imagined the possibility). My writing was diverted from a sports focus to a near-exclusive attention to records, whether I was knocking out an essay for a course (I became very adept at manipulating my professors’ assignments to allow for that subject), scribbling lyrics on the back of a Taco Bell sack before a gig, writing reviews for college newspapers and Xeroxed fanzines–or designing assignments for the English classes I ended up teaching for 35 years (and counting).

I’ve always been deeply impressed by the power and significance of chance, and one thing that stereo-cranking on the fourth floor of Reid Hall taught me is that you can best take advantage of chance’s bounty by putting yourself (or, rather, your self) out there. Kenny, Bruce: thanks for helping to save me from a fate worse than death–crunching sports numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

Take Me With U (Minneapolis, July 22-23, 2018)

Of course we nerded out and blasted Prince as we entered the Minneapolis highway tangle! I do love me some Replacement, some Dü, and even some Suburbs (!), but in our vehicle there was never any question. We’d also damn near finished the Erdrich book, which unsurprisingly takes place mostly in Minneapolis, where she resides and runs a bookstore. We were too tapped out to visit it, plus we’d already bought at least 10 books while on the road.

We stayed at the Hewing Hotel. If we can afford them, we like to try interesting lodging, and the Hewing is that. Too much on the posh side of interesting, I’d say: severe valet charge, extra charge just to access the rooftop bar, hot tub, and spa (which guarantees the people up there won’t be that interesting), pet-friendly around the bar and dining area (we have five, but come on). When I scoffed as the concierge informed us of the rooftop charge, she folded and gave us free access (Camus: “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”), so we scoped it out. Here we are shortly after I’d had an absurd argument with a bartender about a sliding glass door:

Next morning, though, we zipped out to Paisley Park. I’d read plenty that might dissuade one from paying the $55 “general level” admission–wait, is it here or in England where one always knows one’s place?–but turns out it was a pretty enjoyable and emotional experience. Pics are not allowed–

—

and I don’t want to spoil your potential future trip, but you might not know it’s His burial site, it’s got a goodly amount of famous items you’d want to see, he lived there for at least the last couple of years (by the way, it’s as cool as Graceland in its way), and (though I’ve heard it didn’t start this way) the tour guides know their stuff–though don’t assume Prince would have wanted it this way. Exit through the gift shop you will: I picked up some Prince guitar picks for one of my favorite former students, Nicole purchased a loverly scarf, and, being a teacher, I had to have a Purple Rain coffee mug.

Then, it was off to Lake Minnetonka, where we were denied much-needed purification (16 days on the road) by a teenage lifeguard and a more public body of water than I’d imagined.

Finally, we tracked down the Purple Rain house, which Prince bought shortly before he passed. It needs a little work, but it, too, brought an emotional ripple as we recalled the partly-autobiographical scenes that were shot there:

After a nap, we wended our way to Salsa Ala Salsa, where we met some serious rock and roll friends (Billy, Darren, and Julie) for excellent margaritas, sangria, and tamales. I kid you not–we have rock and roll friends in every city!

Alas, we awakened the next morning realizing our final eight hours of driving were ahead of us. A few things about that last stretch:

Erdrich’s The Future Home of the Living God is pretty worthy. If you can imagine her already formidable talents under the sway of Atwood and confronting the darkness of Drumpf, that’s pretty much what it is. She has a bit of trouble shaking loose in the middle section, but I have to say it’s one of the best literary accounts of a pregnancy I’ve read (the book’s written in epistolary form to the narrator’s future kid). 4.3/5.

When in Des Moines, jump off the highway to Alohana Hawaiian Grill for some loco moco or spam musumi! Delicious!

I can’t say enough about the indefatigable research that the participants in Season Two of the In the Dark podcast put into the case of Curtis Flowers. Please check out the 11-episode story, especially if you think the justice system works….

If you’re driving from Minneapolis to Columbia, Missouri, you can trust your GPS, but the fastest route will not seem that way!

Finally, thanks for reading and I encourage you to road trip with your loved ones to see your loved ones. Load up the mp3 player to save on data, download some podcasts and audiobooks, gas up the tank, and head for the hills–I have to say that after 5,000-plus miles and sixteen days, I got a little choked up when I turned to meet my driver’s eyes. In particular, consider the Northwest–the beauty of the landscape seems to roll out infinitely.

Dimension Seven (July 17-22, 2018 / Victoria, Seattle, Bozeman,Wall, Minneapolis)

Been too busy to blog–good thing on vacation, eh?–and when in the car (35 hours of driving last three days) we’ve been audiobooking, podcasting, and rocking out! When I have had time? I’m telling you, the Internet ain’t made it to the upper left quadrant, people. So–a quick recap. This is s’posed to be a music blog, so it’ll have, um, hints of that.

Victoria, British Columbia

I had never planted my feet on foreign soil, so I was just thrilled to be in the most British Canadian city. Music played very little part. I visited the Fan Tan Alley shop Turntable, where the proprietor seemed stuck in the Sixties but I did find the above record. Didn’t buy it–$50, and the sleeve was about cashed–but it’s a good ‘un. I also trekked up Fort Street to Ditch’s and snagged a previously rare Sam Rivers ECM and a neat Dick Hyman Fats Waller tribute which he played into a Bosendorfer machine (for what that’s worth). The night before we left, I was forced to witness the current version of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing live (on TV only, thankfully) at a pub where the Old Fashioneds were too good for me to get up and leave (Bartholomew’s).

Other highlights:

Butchart Gardens, a beautiful botanical display. (See previous entry.)

My first real dish of Ramen.

Russell’s, a used bookstore so overwhelming I couldn’t buy anything.

A primer on an interesting facet of the Canadian health system.

We hiked all over its spread–I’d estimate 12-15 miles–notably about five clicks out to its east breakers:

We walked through the Empress Hotel a couple times, but they didn’t have low tea.

We weaved through Fisherman’s Wharf.

I really got used to seagulls outside my bedroom window.

…and before jumping back on the Clipper back to Seattle, we had time to pop into the Odean Theater for a screening of Sorry To Bother You, which, as much as I love Boots Riley, graded out to about a B/B+–it needed a little more juice, I thought.

 

 

Return to Seattle

Again, music didn’t figure much into our brief return visit to Seattle (I played country music classics during our time in the highly-recommended Mediterranean Inn), but being with our Seattle friends is rock and roll! They operate spontaneously and delightfully. Our dear long-time friend Frank–he and I used to write collaborative punk 45 assessments for The Banks and Bibles Revue–led us on a marvelous foot tour of downtown Seattle.

The Echo Statue:

A skywalk:

Seagull feeding (I tell ya, I love them birds):

The Gumwall:

Smith Tower, bottom…

…to top:

And finally a Lyft out to Ha! in Fremont to reunite with the whole gang, toast everything good, and go listen to garage 45s at some old vintage lounge. It was hard to leave.

 

 

Bozeman, Montana

We blasted Hendrix again all the way out of Washington, and after being diverted from I-90 by a brush fire, we found ourselves at Wild Horses National Monument with a wonderful vista.

Bozeman was not scintillating, but we arrived in time to find decent food–locally-raised bison, anyone?–and great cocktails at Ted’s Lounge, which also is the only restaurant I’ve ever visited that has played The Gilded Palace of Sin on their sound system. I must say, though, that the mountainous beauty of this part of the country makes an 11-hour drive pretty damned pleasant. New audiobook: Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God.

On our next leg, through Wyoming and into South Dakota, we visited Little Big Horn, where apparently we’re still trying to see Custer as a hero, or at the very least worth memorializing, but far more riveting was Devil’s Tower. We’d been blasting Nirvana (I find their music’s aged very well and is indisputably great–just like Jimi’s), and we’ve been shooting a 20-second highway video every 100 miles, so I had a corny inspiration:

 

 

Wall, South Dakota, and The Beauteous Badlands

We’d been to The Badlands before, and they are a must. If you go, stay at Frontier Cabins and request a meadow view. It was too dark upon our arrival and too foggy upon our departure for me to snap a good pic, but here’s an interior.

We got up early to drive through the park on our way to Minneapolis. We blasted punk rock (Minutemen, Roky, Minor Threat), were stunned again by the views, and dropped some cash for a stack of books to express our love for the National Parks Service (Black Elk Speaks, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglalas). Here’s a selfie with my beautiful one.

On the way to our next stop, I had an Indian Taco (made with fry bread) at Al’s Oasis. I thought you should know. We continued listening to the infuriating podcast In the Dark (infuriating due to the miscarriage of justice it explores–Mississippi, goddam!!!), Erdrich’s fascinating if flawed new novel, and, of course, blasted Prince all the way into Minneapolis, where we’ve never been.

 

 

Minneapolis (just dropped in)

Today: Paisley Park, Louise Erdrich’s bookstore, and dinner and drinks with friends.

A Great Big Clipper Ship (June 13-16, 2018, Mt. Rainier/Seattle/Victoria BC)

13th: Reluctantly left Portland for Mt. Rainier State Park. Thrilling, and for the traveler we do recommend an annual parks pass!

Ain’t no quick way from that park to Seattle, so we jammed Local Boy Jimi all the way in, and it was a balm. I included this neat item in the playlist–you have to lean forward a bit:

Seattle: so many great things to do, but for us the greatest thing is boon companions. Jill (who offered us a bed): smart, hilarious, endlessly boisterous, and a heart as big as an ocean; Rex, our fellow Missourian who was also visiting: ace poem picker, situation-parser, spokesman for the public; Beth, my best friend since we were 18 at the University of Arkansas: a perfectly dangerous big-sister type with a subversive sense of humor and a heart as big as the ocean Jill’s heart is as big as; and Angela and Frank, whose amazing kiddo Cecilia is our kinda-godkid: joined in unholy matrimony, in amazing parenting, and staying young as their relationship grows older (no sin, no easy road). We all know each other well, to some extent accidentally, and when we converge the laughter peals, the suggestions alarm, the drink overtops the sandbars, pizza is the only necessary fuel, and the music ain’t no didgeridoo solo! Here’s a pic from shortly after our arrival:

Deep into the night, we plotted and planned, punched free selections into Jill’s ’70s-dominated jukebox (in her living room!), and tried to solve the world’s problems.

Yeah, that was just the 13th.

14th: Road trip! A 12-hour one! It’s easy when Jill’s got her van rocking out to classic garage rock!

Out to Deception Pass (it’s historic, but that name doesn’t bode well) for hiking, low-tide discoveries, arguments about didgeridoos (Nicole: “Didgeridon’t–unless you’re an aboriginal musician!”), facing up to fear of heights on the bridge over Dire Straits (yeah–it’s real), and miscommunicating over our splintered wanderings.

On the way back to Seattle, we waited hours at The Shrimp Shack for Dungenness Crab Burgers that were worth it, visited Ebey’s Beach and resurrected the didgeridoo theme thanks to Rex’s discovery (see video below), and got harassed by The Vanloads of Christian Athletes while waiting for the ferry. Arriving back at Jill’s, we honky-tonked into the night though I was out on my feet.

15th: You’d think we’d have to recover, but we were down at Pike’s Place Market with Frank and Angela, eating the best macaroons ever created at Le Panier, hoofing it over to meet the rest of the bunch at the Museum of Pop Culture–

–brunch Bloodies and great Hendrix and Nirvana exhibits–plus a fun “scream recording” in the horror exhibit that Nicole, Beth, and I tried), railing it to Chinatown for Dragonfest, King Noodle, and orgasmic origami, hopping in Jill’s van again for a foray to Hendrix’s grave–

–and to one of the best dive bars I’ve ever bellied up to, Darrell’s:

Along the way, Rex, Nicole, Beth, Jill and I envisioned a Seattle “underground history tourism” service that would have made Larry Flynt blanch. Dry eyes were not to be found. Much thanks to Darrell’s jukebox for this:

We continued some beer-drankin’ at Jill’s after, but the dawn would beckon Nicole and me at 5 the next morning…

16th: We took the Victoria Clipper over to Victoria BC–my first-ever trip outside the U.S.

We immediately took a bus out to Butchart Gardens and beheld much flowery glory–sorry, not too rock and roll, but it was indeed glorious.

I’m sipping a Molson’s in our room at the Victoria Regent, knowing what it sounds like when gulls cry. Tomorrow: a music injection from Turntable or Ditch’s? Or a lit re-up from Munro’s Books? We shall see. Off to Ferris’ Upstairs Seafood and Oysters…