Solitude and Good Company

We've moved

2011-11-04T14:13:00.000-04:00

Hello faithful readers,

Solitude and Good Company has moved to Wordpress. Come on over, please click follow, and let me know how the new layout grabs you.

Click HERE.

Thanks.
RBW

Me, Thirsty Vampire, Woodstock Halloween Parade, 2011

2011-11-01T09:29:00.000-04:00

I think I look like Magnus from Interview With The Vampire.
pic by Jen Dragon.

My Book Reviews on Goodreads

2011-10-31T23:33:00.004-04:00

I love me some books and occasionally I decide to share this love with the world via Goodreads.
I'm pasting links below, should you be inclined to check out these short takes.

Clearcut by Nina Shengold

While it has some blazing, appetite-whetting erotic passages featuring fornication, landscape and even snails (really) this isn't a "book about sex." It's a love story daring to present ardor in the compelling guise of the mysterious, unreasonable, many-headed hydra that pulls from the unlikeliest of people (that's you, dear reader) the courage to cross boundaries, consequences be damned. All for love, presented as a pricey one-two punch of both carnal and soul fulfillment. (Makes you remember that Cupid is armed with A WEAPON.) For more click HERE

World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler

Of the three post-Apocalyptic tales I've read - The Stand, The Road and this one - this is my favorite, and not just because it's set in a region near where I happen to live (Upstate NY). It's not as dire as the other two (not necessarily a good thing) but I found it more thought-provoking. What if we had no more oil, LA and DC were nuked, and subsequent plagues knocked out a significant portion of the population? The short answer is no one knows. The pessimist says "We're all five meals away from murder" (bring on the cannibals in The Road) while the optimist sees us reverting to farming, fishing, carpentry, masonry and serfdom. Those who don't go insane carry on in various ways. The industrious survive - sometimes thrive - through community, agriculture, acoustic music, a little corn liquor and half-hearted religion. Some thrive through despotism, but luckily they live down the road apiece and they scavenge and sell useful junk. For more click HERE

The Second Coming by Walker Percy

Prior to this book, I'd known Percy mainly as the Southern Literary Lion, author of The Moviegoer (which I've not yet read) and discoverer of John Kennedy Toole after Toole's bereaved mother insisted he read a barely-legible carbon of A Confederacy of Dunces which I adore. For that alone Percy was pre-loved in my heart.

I picked this book up in the doctor's office, while waiting to be seen about some excruciating pain that turned out not to be caused by something serious and which subsequently went away. The experience of physical pain calibrates the brain in such a way that things are apprehended differently, I think. Perhaps that's why the prose went so deep, deeper than it might have otherwise. I don't know. I went straight to my library (with a Vicodin prescription) and got the book. For more click HERE

The Unexpected Salami by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

Perhaps you DO want to see how the salami is made. Like that proverbial meat product, into which many ingredients – spicy, savory and sweet – are compressed, then sheathed into a tight, tasty morsel, this rock and roll novel is a satisfying – and at times guilty-pleasure – feast. Shapiro takes up the gauntlet of several pop fantasies at once: How far will a desperate, aging band go to get noticed? What if a forgotten punk rocker was a Zen oracle? Would my parents still love me if I brought a junkie home for dinner (and residency)? What if I sat on the trial of the decade? And finally, just what will it take to bring me out of the strobe-lit racket of hip cultural reference points and have a moment of clarity, in which I finally see myself and my place in the firmament? For more click HERE

The World Made Straight by Ron Rash

When we were teens in Atlanta, my brother was a wayward hellraiser with a head full of ideas. Even though we were modern kids, the shadows of the Civil War still touched us in various enigmatic ways. He and I agree that very few artists have captured that essence, but he said Ron Rash nailed some of it in The World Made Straight. He also said Rash created a character that reminded him of his teen self. So I was eager to check it out. My brother sent it to me.

It's a lovely, unusual book, told in a concise, elegant double narrative that evokes the blacktop, hollers, streams and towns of North Carolina (where my brother now lives) and the distinctive ghost-riddled atmosphere of the haunted hills where America's bloodiest conflict took place. The timelessness of the wild and the hum of the new create a peculiar rhythm and Rash catches it. For more click HERE

Donorboy by Brendan Halpin

The set-up is tantalizing: 14 year old Rosalind's lesbian moms die in a freak accident. The moms have left no will so trainwreck Ros is taken in by her birth father/sperm donor/total stranger Sean. Sean's life is in a rut and he admits (eventually) that he has bitten off more than he can chew. But he can't bring himself to give Ros over to her moms' overwrought best friend Karen, who is not happy AT ALL.

How to tackle the swirling, unpredictable mess that is the grief of a teenage orphan AND the anxiety of a single thirty-something lawyer thrust into parenting? How to wrassle the rage, remorse, mistakes, missteps, revelations of personal weakness and the scary side of opening one's self up to love and loss? For more click HERE

Fathermucker

2011-10-21T21:33:00.002-04:00

Friends, Roamers, Countryfans,

The current issue of regional arts monthly Chronogram contains my review of the excellent Fathermucker, a novel penned by New Paltz resident Greg Olear. It was an interesting assignment, as the main character in Fathermucker is a stay-at-home dad, which was my gig for my son's formative years. Greg nailed so much of the experience it felt like he'd been reading my mail. Here's an excerpt:

“Almost everyone knows a stay-at-home dad—or SAHD, as Josh says. What most of you don’t know, and what Olear provides, is the passionate, devilish inner monologue often at odds with a SAHD’s (mostly) responsible exterior. Their friends view Josh and Stacy as a “great couple,” but inside, Josh is a piece of work; even before he tortures himself with screenplay versions of his wife’s infidelity—schadenfreude at its best—he’s just this side of a car crash. His frequently hilarious, insecurity-and-id-fueled conscience is stoked and soothed by hyperconnectivity to pop culture; tormented by tabloid titillation, calmed by Tom Petty, rankled by Facebook, saved by Noggin. Most men who care for kids don’t want you to know this stuff, but Josh’s frankness strikes a refreshing, power chord of truth. His little rebellions against the crunchy hipster class of New Paltz are deeply satisfying to anyone ever frowned upon for a substandard car seat.”

Read the whole thing HERE

...and if you'd like to check out other reviews and previews I've done for Chronogram, be my guest by clicking HERE.

Carry on!
RBW

Paul McCartney, Fantasy Dad

2011-10-20T19:47:00.008-04:00

Hello Dear Readers,

A few months back, Paste published my essay. Paul McCartney, Fantasy Dad. (It was re-blogged with the superior title Paul Is Dad... wish I'd thought of that.)

For those of you who did not get a chance to read it, now you can by clicking HERE.
(Scroll down a wee bit and you'll see an icon of Paul's face.)

Daniel Cavicchi, over at The Ardent Audience, wrote a really thoughtful blog entry about my essay. You can read it HERE.

Thanks for your readership.

Ever yours,
RBW

RBW Coverdale

2011-10-05T10:24:00.000-04:00

My ReverbNation all covers page. A few of my favorite songwriters.

R.E.M., Todd & Me

2011-10-02T10:27:00.020-04:00

I’ve been wondering if R.E.M purposefully scheduled their break-up announcement for autumn. I would not put it past them. Their deft use of symbolism always was one of their strong suits. So, although they’d been discussing it for some time, they made it official as the natural world was dying gracefully around us. Leaves curl, darken and spiral down, the balmy air and long days of warm sunshine dissipate, shadows lengthen ever earlier, and R.E.M., a band most fans would place in the summer of their lives, is dead, going out as they came in thirty-one years ago: at one with the gods.

The news hit me hard, and the ache continues to play out with the unpredictability of a middle-aged man’s malady; it’s gone, then it’s back with a vengeance, radiating, referring itself to other places. Then it’s gone again. (I’m sure the guys in R.E.M. could relate.)

Not only was R.E.M. the first band I remember claiming as “one of my own,” they were the first band I discovered and shared with someone – my dearest friend Todd. I always think about Todd this time of year because of his Scorpio birthday and the fact that he killed himself in September, 2004, just shy of his fortieth birthday. We’d been friends since 1972 – my oldest and deepest friendship. I’m sure I am conflating my sadness at his loss, barely numbed after seven years, with the loss of “our” band. Whatever the case, I find myself playing the shimmery VHS tapes in my mind, my recollections of Todd, R.E.M. and me.

Todd and I were gawky, spotty teen misfits, and we’d shared a love of music since we’d met as seven-year-olds. Beatles, Wings, Elton John, Queen, Kiss, Led Zeppelin – these were our totems. But with puberty came punk and Todd, a fat kid with bright red hair, glommed on to all things edgy, even cutting the word FEAR into his forearm to freak out his tormentors at school (it worked). He lost a lot of weight and literally rebranded himself a punk, sporting a Mohawk, painting the words Killing Joke across the back of his leather biker jacket. I listened to The Cure, U2 and Flying Lizards LPs with him, but I wouldn’t find true, shared sacred ground with my friend until R.E.M.

Even though Todd had cast his lot with the punks and the Rocky Horror kids, he and I both were lost. He was more troubled than ever, actually. (Hormones giveth and hormones taketh away.) Prior to discovering R.E.M., neither of us had enjoyed that particularly enveloping warmth that comes in the light of recognition of a band as one of your own. There’s an intoxicating, tribal intensity, particular to youth, in that specific epiphany. We knew it existed, but we mostly made fun of it.

I didn’t know what I was missing. I loved my bands, sure; I listened to them relentlessly, learned to play my bass along to their records as Todd strummed a Univox guitar and frequently corrected me. That was devotion, right? Yes, but we felt no real kinship with Robert Plant or Freddie Mercury. We had bought into the paradigm of fandom as being akin to “Lord and Subject.” We figured the Beatlemaniacs, Deadheads, and all those who felt a sense of family fandom were just, well, loopy.

Queen, My Best Friend, 1975

On December 13th, 1981, Todd and I went to see a band to which we’d sworn fealty: Bow Wow Wow. Todd liked their punkiness and the fact that Malcolm McLaren, former Sex Pistols svengali, managed them. I was still a little snobby about chops and liked that they knew their way around their instruments, a rarity in those days. And we both lusted after sixteen-year-old singer and former London laundromat worker Annabella Lwin. We’d pored over their singles, cassette EP, and one album. These were our Talmudic texts.

Bow Wow Wow, Top Of The Pops, 1982

Due to Annabella’s age, the gig could not take place in a bar, so it was an all-ages affair in the basement of the Biltmore Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. Opening act: R.E.M. (This has been erroneously reported as an R.E.M. headline date.) I was sixteen, Todd, seventeen.

We loved R.E.M. The fact that we didn’t plan to see them – in fact, knew nothing about them – lent a touch of the fateful to our discovery and subsequent adoration. Most of the crowd consisted of frat guys and their dates mixed with arty kids, both groups from the University of Georgia in Athens. Despite historic disharmony between these two cliques, something about being in the basement of the Biltmore, digging the pop-punky R.E.M., equalized them all. (I maintain this rare synthesizing factor – borne perhaps from Peter Buck's status as former frat boy and Michael Stipe's erstwhile art major cred – as being the cornerstone to the band’s eventual worldwide success.) Although R.E.M. had been together a little over a year, they’d risen fast. The audience screamed requests between songs and danced until the floor was slick with sweat. I saw the band live at least ten times after this – even saw them inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 – and they often kicked ass, but R.E.M. was never better than in that hotel basement in 1981.

REM, The Pier, Raleigh, NC, 1982

As I mentioned, prior to that night, we’d lusted after Annabella. But the chiming, leaping, bass rumbling, Cousin It-style Stipe-swirling and Rickenbacker strut of those four still-pimply garage rock stars gave rise to Todd’s and my first man crushes, our first rock and roll bromances. We would each buy R.E.M.’s much-ballyhooed debut single “Radio Free Europe b/w Sitting Still” – for a buck, I think, at the Biltmore – and go home with ringing ears, touched soul-deep by the evening’s events.

Bow Wow Wow, incidentally, was great, very exotic, with piratey conceits, a couple Mohawks, and impressive instrumental facility; plus Annabella, swirling to the Burundi beat, was just as teenage gorgeous and come-hither charismatic as we’d hoped. But the four skinny dudes tearing shit up like nothing we’d ever seen had already stolen our hearts and provided us with that first blast of these are my rock and roll people.

Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe seemed like family; they easily could have been our big brothers or neighbors. (Eventually, they would be the latter for me.) As with older siblings, we were fascinated by their clothes; the wrinkly, Rimbaud-esque, Patti Smith Group-inspired threads, Buck’s Beatle boots, Townshend leaps and flopping French cuffs, Stipe’s layers of threadbare sweaters and thick tangle of bangs shrouding his pock marked cheeks, willowy Mills’ gray coveralls and high tops. They looked cool yet seemed not to have invested much time in doing so. “Oh this ole thang? I just got it at AmVets for, like, fifty cents.”

About their fashion: Make no mistake, while R.E.M. made early claims (finally abandoned sometime in the nineties) that it was all about the music and only the music, these guys had contrived (and I don’t say that pejoratively) a look, a style, and they worked it. And, picking up our cues from them, we noticed, but claimed not to notice. All wide legged trousers and knit shirts went into the garbage with the running shoes. The thrift store shabby chic, with the Future Farmers of America jackets, occasional bolo tie and cavalierly unpressed dress shirts, made the fashion bell clang loudly for the first time in our teen brains: time to get schooled in this new look, which, by design, required not money but knowledge of the right shops (Potter’s House in Athens was deservedly legendary) and much imagination if you wanted to make an impression without looking like you were trying to make an impression. Todd was better at it than me. Almost every post-R.E.M. Athens band – and many elsewhere – subscribed to this look until everyone’s houses smelled like thrift stores.

And yes, like everyone else, we had no idea what mushmouthed Stipe was singing, not a fucking word, but like legions of fans, that genius stroke – not wholly original (see “Louie, Louie” and almost all the great Rolling Stones songs) – seduced us, eventually prompting repeated listens, conversations, bemused irritation and hilarious imitations. The hilarious part was not always intentional.

Todd got really good at aping Michael Stipe’s look, with hair in the face, dervish dancing and baggy, second hand clothes, which he had a knack for digging out of piles of fabric in dusty, dried out thrift store backrooms. He even had Stipe’s body language down – an effete, hip swaying mix of hauteur and coiled shyness. (Stipe himself would later coin the term “loud shy” to describe this.) In the early 80s, drinking age was 18 in Atlanta, so Todd made it into the clubs – mostly 688, Atlanta’s premiere “new wave club” – for a few months until I got my fake ID sorted. Todd’s future wife Clare Parker – a former flame of Stipe’s – later confessed to Todd that she and her crew made fun of him mercilessly, calling him “The Michael Imitator.” He charmed them anyway.

In the early days R.E.M. was still accessible and Todd came home from seeing R.E.M. play The Strand in Marietta, Georgia with news that he’d struck up a conversation with Stipe, who was sitting alone on the curb being arty cool, probably smoking unfiltered Camels. Todd labored to maintain his composure as he related Stipe telling him, “Nothing’s really changed except we can pay our rent now.” Yeah. Right.

Stipe also told Todd about the impending release of their EP Chronic Town, the booster rocket that would carry them to a height where the blast of their debut LP Murmur would send them into the ether. Todd and I began playing our own instruments with more inspiration, heading down the trail of “what would R.E.M. do?” Within months, our own Converse-clad feet were treading the same beer-soaked boards on which Our Heroes had rocked, and we enjoyed a sustained feeling of fraternity as we watched our surrogate older brothers ascend to bigger and bigger stages like the Agora Ballroom, The Fox Theater, and, amazingly, Late Night with David Letterman, where, to our astonishment, they acted bratty. (Stipe virtually ignores Letterman.) Their passionate stance on videos – they railed against them, made them under obvious, snotty protest – also struck us as singularly, perversely contrary. Didn’t they want to be stars? It took us awhile to catch on, me longer than Todd. (Eventually, they would make some groundbreaking videos, largely Stipe’s vision, accomplishing this turnabout with integrity intact.)

REM. Letterman, 1983

Above all else, though, R.E.M.seemed like a gang, a confraternity greater than the sum of its parts, an amalgam of nerds, hipsters, rock scholars and artists whose combined power could sell out the venue and rob you of your girlfriend. (They’ve acknowledged this.) And this tight-knit quality was part of their template: “We’re friends, first and foremost. This is the source of our power. Letterman can kiss our cracker asses.” The balls! Todd and I were inspired by this and tried to adhere to it, but the fact is, being in a band together strained our friendship. Our band lasted only one year, but luckily our friendship survived. Friendships are work under any circumstances, but alliances that remain within longterm groups are rare indeed. Who else? U2? The Stones? One is hard pressed. It almost seems Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe – all songs credited to the group, regardless of who wrote what – stumbled onto a formula as unlikely and as potent as the recipe for Coca Cola, also an accident, also from Georgia.

I moved from Atlanta to Athens in 1984, ostensibly to go to school, but mostly to partake of the scene. I crossed paths with The Guys several times. They were all gracious, especially Bill. Mike Mills was a little prickly. I was playing in Athens band Go Van Go, helmed by the “granddaddy” of the Athens scene Vic Varney, whose first band The Method Actors (cited by Buck as a “huge influence on R.E.M.”) had been part of the First Wave of Athens bands which included the B-52s and Pylon. Vic goes down in history as offering R.E.M. their first out-of-town gig, and his cachet opened a lot of doors for me; I have memories of falling asleep on couches as everyone puffed on unfiltered Camels and partook of Art Discussions way beyond my ken, erudite Tennessee Williams-esque southern voices echoing in the tin ceilinged rooms of antebellum houses.

In interviews around this time, Mills was quoted as saying R.E.M.’s ambitions extended thus: “We’ll be happy if we’re considered as good or popular as The Method Actors, The English Beat and The Fleshtones.” Yeah. Right.

When I settled into a room in Vic’s house, a stone’s throw from a couple R.E.M. houses, the band were still intent on staying in the cheap little town that birthed them, despite being able to afford to live anywhere, even then. Bill allowed himself a cool vintage car and they all bought houses, but mostly R.E.M. was absent the year I was there; the boys were in an Econoline, on the road, flogging sophomore LP Reckoning to their metastasizing fanbase. Go Van Go happened to be in New York, playing at Danceteria around the same time R.E.M. was playing the Beacon Theater, and they put us on the guest list with Kate Pierson of the B-52’s, who had a place in NYC. Kate looked around at the sold out crowd and laughed, “Sea o’ white boys!”

The rare occasions R.E.M. was around during my twelve months in Athens, they endured the palpable adulation choking the air when they entered a party or bar, and the increasing sniping of jealous fellow Athens bands who clucked about their drug use, salivated over their money, murmured about their sex lives, and variously called them Raving Ego Maniacs and Rear End Men. Sometime in the 80s I read felt tip pen graffiti on a bathroom stall that proclaimed: “I gave R.E.M. herpes.”

Some Athens friends of mine were a kind of “inner circle,” who shared a “secret history” of the band. Lots of “You didn’t hear this from me.” (In the newfound lack of privacy that is the Internet age, this all seems oddly quaint.) For instance: Michael’s tenure as lead singer in Athens New Wave cover band Gangster, in which he wore a skinny leather tie, was not to be discussed, nor the fact that, as a teen, he’d scraped the names of bands like Boston, Kansas and Lynyrd Skynyrd onto some candles in his bedroom, one wall of which sported a poster of a shirtless, lion-maned Roger Daltrey. When I was shown a photo of a pre-R.E.M. band featuring teenaged Mills and Berry sporting bellbottoms and stoner hair, I was sworn never to reveal that photo’s existence, an oath I have only just now broken.

After I moved to Manhattan in ’85 and joined the Fleshtones soon thereafter, Todd became a respected musician in Atlanta. Our separate paths would continue to intersect with R.E.M.; to our delight, we both would work with members. Although, in my case, “working” meant sharing the stage of the Uptown club with Buck as The Fleshtones tore through several three chord songs on a tour stop in Athens. Onstage, Pete was brazenly sloppy, cocky and magnetic, his face a manic mess, his body blundering into mine by accident and by design as he screamed into my microphone. I mostly retain images of repairing to Pete’s impressive, refurbished old house and drinking more beer than I ever had before and later paying the price on the tiles of a pretty young woman’s bathroom.

Fleshtones (me on bass) France, 1986

While R.E.M. was reaching its early 90s apex, Todd was helping eccentric Atlanta scenester Benjamin form The Opal Foxx Quartet. This band often consisted of at least twelve members and mostly played covers in a distinctively shambolic-yet-mesmerizing style; Benjamin dressed in drag, performing as Opal, barking and braying like Nick Cave and/or Tom Waits. On a good night, the band would bring the house down. (Benjamin Smoke, a documentary on Benjamin, who died from Hepatitis C in 1999, is available and worth watching, and there are some entertaining Opal Foxx videos on YouTube.) Benjamin knew everybody, including Michael Stipe, and Stipe, an Opal Foxx fan, asked to produce the band.

Everyone was understandably excited, and the sessions went fine, but despite Stipe’s imprimatur, no record company would touch The Opal Foxx Quartet. (The recordings are available online as The Love That Won’t Shut Up, also well worth your time.) The Stipe connection did offer them a bit of juice and got them to Manhattan for a gig or two, a trip the sweaty horde made packed into an illegally converted U-Haul, which I will never forget seeing and smelling on a summer day in the West Village. During this time, Todd stayed with my wife, Holly, and I. Holly loved Todd, and he and I always effortlessly picked up the thread of the ongoing conversation that was our friendship. Regarding working with the guy who, a decade earlier, had been so inspirational to us, Todd was surprisingly circumspect, even nonplussed by Stipe’s stardom. (That would have been harder for me.) He had nothing bad to report about Michael, no real diva gossip, although he did say Michael once pulled rank on the raggedy band, half-jokingly saying his opinion on a certain vocal track should be appreciated because he was “one of the pre-eminent rock stylists of the twentieth century.”

Opal Foxx Quartet (Todd on lap steel) Avondale Town Cinema, Atlanta, early 90s

It was not long after this that R.E.M. lost me. 1996’s New Adventures In Hi Fi was the last album I listened to all the way through, and when Bill Berry quit in ‘98, they just weren’t the same band anymore. A really good band, but just not as good, for my money. Bill was the secret heart, an accomplished songwriter. (“Everybody Hurts,” “Perfect Circle,” and “Driver 8,” I’m told, are his and “Fall On Me” is mostly his.) He also was a great backing singer, an invaluable multi-instrumentalist and, I know from a good source, a sublime whistler. (Still is.) Lots of folks thought the band lost its mojo when he quit, but R.E.M., true to form, gave the impression they could not have cared less what people sniped about. They made some wonderful singles, Michael became a successful film producer, Pete played on and produced lots of CDs, and the band took on the stadiums of Europe with bona fide rock star gusto, laughing, as ever, in the face of age, health problems, divorces and rumors of Michael having AIDS. Who cares? We're playing Rock In Rio!

REM, Rock In Rio, 2001

I always was happy for The Guys and glad to have crossed paths with them on their way to that hallowed ground of “dream come true.” Todd and I – and many of our peers – had striven for what R.E.M. accomplished. Simply put, we failed. Yet for me, the connection Todd and I made to the band in those early years has remained strong, visceral, emotional, the soundtrack to the teenage chapter of our friendship. Many R.E.M. tunes from the 80s and early 90s have attached a memory of my friend, in times not always happy, but always charged with life. As often happens with a band one discovers during the crucial crucible of teen-dom, the music retains a singular power to reconnect to a priceless time of discovery, a promise of long days and summer pleasures that seem, for the duration of the music, not so far away, still visible in the rearview as we hurtle ever faster on a one-way road into the future, into the autumn of our lives.

By the late 90s, my moment with R.E.M. had passed and I was in the thick of a new phase – forsaking the rock and roll road for a stab at stability, I'd found joy as a stay-at-home dad. Sometimes, in that rare eye-of-a-hurricane stillness when a small child is asleep, I noticed the ever-fading ringing in my ears left over from the old days. My son grew and childhood memories rose in me, refreshing memories of Todd and me, enjoying music, taking on life together, as friends. Much like our heroes in R.E.M. had done. My son moves into the world now, finding his traveling companions, connecting to bands that will be the soundtrack to his own adventures.

Todd became a dad too. But the new millennium brought a resurgence of psychic demons that had first entered his life in our teens, and, with the complicating factors of physical illness, financial woes, poorly maintained medication and other mitigating circumstances, Todd killed himself in September of 2004, leaving behind a wife and two-year-old daughter.

I’ve read that one of the difficulties of divorce is that one loses the repository of information provided by a spouse, which includes shared memories made more real in the sharing. Anyone who has endured any kind of loss, be it broken marriage, crumbled friendship, death or relocation, knows all about this. Sometimes it’s a good thing, of course; some relationships share mostly painful memories and are better left severed. Either way, the connections to the past grow more threadbare, details crumble like the edges of a leaf and, for better or worse, the unknowable future looms ever larger.

I’m glad the guys in R.E.M. stayed close. I know they lost friends along the way, through death, distance and acrimony, but apparently, their four-way friendship survived, against incredible odds. The landscape of memories they share is incomprehensibly vast to me.

REM, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction, 2007

And I’m glad they told us all about their breakup in autumn. Perhaps it is easier to accept loss as Nature is reclaiming the warmth, the green, and the light, all the while offering up bounties of that which grew in the summer sun.

For me, that bounty includes standing next to Todd in the basement of the Biltmore Hotel as four scruffy guys opened up our hearts and minds to a whole new way of playing in a band; sitting on Todd’s bed in his teenager room, marveling at the lush sounds of Murmur, hearing our fluttering, inchoate desires and attitudes given melody and form, if not distinct words, our friendship galvanized by the music; sitting on a porch at a beach house in 2004, reminiscing deep into the night as our families slept, just weeks before he took himself out. We talked about art, music and women, the expansive past we shared and the possibilities of the future, all while the waves rolled in, and out.

Todd & me, Kure Beach, NC, 2004

Legos, Gladiators, and Epic Fails

2011-09-18T15:13:00.017-04:00

The tenth anniversary of 9-11 sparked some deep reminiscing. On reflection, it turns out this last decade was a doozy for me, perhaps the richest yet. It feels like it began officially with my family’s move from NYC's East Village to the Catskill Mountains on January 1^st, 2002. One of my son Jack’s earliest memories is all of us crying in the idling car, waving goodbye to 113 St. Mark’s Place and heading north, leaving behind more than just an apartment. For me it was seventeen years of life, and in rare moments of post-anniversary repose, that chapter spools out like a whooshing, distorted mix tape interspersed with brief sections of crystal clarity. My time at Gladiators Gym is one of those sections.

Why Gladiators Gym? Perhaps because that relationship ended with me storming out as my buddies enjoyed a snuff film. And even before the anniversary, I sometimes conjured Gladiators, renewing that episode's freshness while railing against the increasing prevalence of modern-day snuff films, AKA “epic fail” videos on YouTube, Huffington Post, AOL, Tosh.O, etc.

“Epic fail” videos piss me off. To anyone who will listen I postulate a connection between the extreme popularity of the “epic fail” brand and what I see as a rise in depraved indifference among otherwise “normal” people, an increase in “humiliation as entertainment.” It’s Candid Camera and America’s Funniest Home Videos taken to the ultimate extreme. (I wonder how one tops a video in which someone perishes. I feel certain it can be done.)

In “epic fail” videos, real folks are at the very least humiliated, but usually hurt, frequently maimed, often killed. Sometimes these clips are staged, but they’re also accidental, bootlegged from news agencies, or of mysterious provenance. In any case, the “epic fails” are hugely successful entertainment, garnering millions upon millions of views. Whereas snuff films once were watched furtively, now they’re a mouse click away. Even as I write this, the headline on Huffington Post/AOL reads:

Absolute Carnage as Plane Hits Crowd. A plane nosedives into stands at a crowded air show, killing several and leaving a horrific aftermath strewn with body parts.

Extremely graphic video shows crash.

It was a very different world a little over ten years ago when a bodybuilder brought Banned From Television to Gladiators and I got so freaked out I never went back. I'd only just started an email account (with a free disc from AOL) and the Pandora's Box of the Internet hadn't fully opened to where it is today, upping the shock ante on a daily basis. In a way, though, I am glad it played out as it did; the intensity of the experience gives me a sharp memory of a lost era.

For most of the nineties, I went to Gladiators Gym on East 6^th Street between Avenues A and B, a stone’s throw from my home. I’d awoken on my twenty-fifth birthday with a gut, a palpable announcement from my body that I no longer could depend on my ectomorph status to keep me looking fit. In order to maintain my appearance (and eventually, my health) I needed to get to the gym.

I didn’t immediately go to Gladiators. A friend invited me to his gym near SOHO, an expansive affair in a cast iron building, the entire floor of a former warehouse. It hummed with top-flight machines, the air warmed by spandexed specimens rippling with lean muscle, glowing in available light, wiping down Nautilus machines before use and weighing themselves every few minutes. In my raggedy cut-off sweatpants, lame sneakers and 40 Watt Club T-shirt, I felt out of place. This is not my scene.

I moaned about it to my wife, Holly. I considered running. I incorrectly executed sit ups in our tenement apartment, hurting my lower back. As my jeans grew tighter in the wrong places, my mind went to Gladiators, a two-block walk from our home.

113 St. Mark's Place, between Avenues 1st and A, NYC, where I lived for almost 17 years

I’d been in the East Village several years at that point, passing the humble Gladiators storefront many times as I went to and fro to band rehearsals, bartending gigs, and friends’ apartments. I was fascinated but intimidated by the beefy Latinos and pasty, tattooed off-duty bouncers often gathered on the stoop, laughing, playing cards, smoking, drinking coffee and Gatorade, clad in polyester sweats, grubby jeans, Flashdancey T-shirts; big guys wrapped in hard brawn, some with the bodybuilder’s V-shaped torso, but most with protruding bellies, with which they seemed at peace. The clang of metal on metal echoed onto the street, punctuated by guttural shouts. On one of the plate glass windows, a larger-than-life Muscle Man presided over all.

Gladiators Gym, 503 East 6th Street, NYC

I half-jokingly told Holly I should join Gladiators and, perhaps eager to be quit of my grousing, she went in and purchased a membership for her husband. Time to suck it up, literally and figuratively, cross that threshold and actually meet and interact with the Gladiators guys, who I feared would make fun of my spindly bowlegs, gone-ass and flaccid midsection.

I needn’t have worried; within a couple visits, they took a liking to me and started calling me “Papi,” taking on names and personalities: Esteban, Ray, Garcia, Gus. Esteban shepherded me around the machines, all rundown, greasy and rickety, handles worn from palm sweat, seats duct taped. The old iron free weights and barbells frequently slammed to the floor with a BOOM as a bodybuilder shouted in tendon-ripping agony. The briny potpourri of sweat, oil, cologne, fried rice, and supplement-induced flatulence hung heavy in the air, whipped about by huge oscillating fans.

I loved it. And, under the patient guidance of Ray and Esteban, I got fit. I visited about three times a week, did a little cardio on the one stationary bike, navigated the weights and a couple machines as Kiss FM blasted from blown speakers. Unless I executed poor form, prompting Esteban to stride over, belly first, and correct me with meaty paws, I was left alone, taking occasional refreshment from a rank water fountain. The gut receded, I got better acquainted with the endorphin buzz, and enough muscle mass grew to alleviate my fear of shirtless-ness. I was like Lester Burnham, Kevin Spacey’s character in American Beauty; when he starts a fitness regimen, the hunky gay neighbor asks, “Do you want to just lose weight, or do you want to have strength and flexibility as well?”After a pause Lester says, “I want to look good naked.”

A few years into my thrice-weekly routine, I became a father. A distinct rawness textured those first few months of parenthood. I was a bit of a live wire. Lots of tears, lots of joy, a heaping dose of fear, all at intensity levels I’d never experienced, even as a clueless kid. (Thirteen years on, it has not abated... I recommend it.)

The last time I went to Gladiators, I left my infant son Jack home with Holly, who was on maternity leave. I was well into it when a frisson cut through the steam of my workout, a tremor akin to a public altercation. A fireplug-shaped bodybuilder stood beneath the one TV. He held Banned From Television, a video I’d seen advertised on late night cable. Almost all the men in the room left their work and clustered around him, panting with boyish eagerness as they passed around the tape.

Esteban slipped the tape into the VCR and a grainy, amateur film shimmered on the screen. The bodybuilders craned their heads to watch, some standing on tiptoe. Overcome by curiosity, I joined them in time to see a shaky camera capture a pier, a sun-drenched beach, swimmers, kids running around, and then someone splashing in the waves amid mounting chaos. The voiceover supplied the only audio, explaining in stentorian tones how the victim of a shark attack “screamed again and again for help.” The Gladiators watched rapt, cooing and gasping.

Another clip began. A hot air balloon at a fair, filled with people, catches fire and crashes in a field as spectators screech and yell, one woman frozen with her hand over her mouth. Somehow, the cameraperson stays focused, tracking the descent and sickening thud as the basket slams into the ground, the balloon collapsing in flames. The Gladiators cried out like a circus audience. Voiceover: “There were no survivors.”

A black-and-white clip flickered. A mustachioed man stands on a parched plain, a small child in his arms. Taking my focus from the screen to the Gladiators, I noticed a couple bodybuilders' eyes darting from the TV, then back again, shoulders tensing, jaws grinding. But they stayed. A kind of ecstasy had taken hold of their fellows, who were in complete thrall, bug-eyed as their bodies expanded to take it all in, wordless exclamations bursting from their throats. Whatever happened to the man and/or child elicited a particularly lusty shout, but I didn’t see it. I was on my way out the door.

My pulse pounded as I made my way back to our apartment, desperate to be with my family. No English word encapsulates the riot of emotions I felt; anger, horror, shame, confusion, a sharp kind of sadness and dread.

Also disappointment. I was really fond of my gym buddies. They’d been so happy for me when I came in and informed them I’d become a “Papi” for real. Yet here they were, taking deep pleasure in a snuff film. To each his own and all that, do not judge lest ye be judged, etc., but Banned From Television and my pals’ reactions produced an actual physiological revulsion. How could I let this go? What a drag. I got all righteous and swore never to set foot back in Gladiators. I let my membership lapse and, when Holly went back to working about sixty hours a week, I became happily encumbered with the care of our son, holding on to just one bartending shift and, while he napped, writing songs for my first solo CD. I let myself go, taking full advantage of the stellar East Village take-out – Mexican, Italian, Japanese, Burmese, Indian, all a phone call away – drank a pot of coffee with sugar and half-and-half every day, gained about fifteen pounds and, for a few years, resigned myself to my increasing pear shape.

Fast forward. Little did I know when I saw Banned From Television at Gladiators Gym in 1998 that three years later Manhattan – and the world – would witness, and re-witness to this day on YouTube, real time mass murder at the World Trade Center. We have never fully uncoiled ourselves from that blow, and the relatively new ritual of repeatedly watching the attacks – and other horrors – provides us not with release, but with a kind of morphing of real life horror into controllable entertainment. Although I am not as righteous as I was when I quit my gym, it does still rankle me..

Compassion can be exhausting, it is true. Especially when one is expected to feel it every time the same horrific event plays out. Could it be that willful intake of video data in which occurs injury and/or death is akin to building up callouses, inuring us to future horror, leeching the reality and meaning from a nightmare through repetition? Part of me hopes it's that and not just blood lust, morbid curiosity, and/or depraved indifference. Perhaps it can be all of the above.

On September 11^th, 2001, Holly and I took turns watching the cataclysm from our rooftop while Jack, then three, played on our tenement floor. Neighbors came and went. A five-year-old from upstairs accompanied his stricken parents to our apartment. As we all shook our heads, cried, made plans and wondered what the future held, the five-year-old sat down with Jack and made two towers of Legos, which he knocked over, to Jack’s delight. He was a smarter-than-average kid, this five-year-old, and he caught me looking at him with disapproval. But I said nothing. What he did was actually normal for a kid his age. At five, he was on the cusp of compassion, an emotional experience virtually unknown to toddlers, one that only begins to develop around preschool. He perceived my upset and didn’t make another Lego tower, but at the same time I could tell he wasn’t exactly sure why his actions bothered me.

When we moved not long thereafter, we fell out of touch with those neighbors. But like my son, that kid will have little or no memory of a world before 9-11, when all of us were reduced to children. Since that day we have been grasping every tool or toy at our disposal, be it videocassette, YouTube, epic fail or Lego, trying desperately to find some way to deal with increased access to the shadows.

On Seeing "The Help" in the Deep South

2011-08-21T17:51:00.002-04:00

I saw "The Help" at a multiplex in Rome, Georgia, where my mother lives, not far from the Alabama border. She treated my wife, our thirteen-year-old son and me. Several of her friends also attended – women in their sixties and seventies. A couple, like my mother, came of age in the Jim Crow South. Also like my mother, they'd grown up in a house with a maid who was expected to use different silverware and crockery. In my mother's case, the maid even had her own primitive toilet. They look back on these facts with considerable discomfort, not least because when they were very young, it seemed "normal" and the maids did, in fact, seem "part of the family."

The theater was pretty full with mostly white women of or near their age, with a few African American women in the mix. As a post-Boomer, post-Civil Rights Act white guy, I was in a distinct minority.

When the movie was over, we stood outside as the crowd dispersed into the sultry night. We chatted about race, history, whether or not the movie got it right. My mom readily admitted that while she liked it, some of it made her uncomfortable; she struggled to reconcile how her pre-liberated self did not see and protest the institutional racism. It is hard for me to imagine her being complacent, as my life began and flowered in the wake of her mid-sixties liberation.

I'd gone in not knowing what to expect, as my friends who’d read the book and/or saw the movie hit me with widely divergent reviews. One had thrown the book across the room because it put a Dylan song in a scene set a couple years before the song came out. (Similiarly, Johnny Cash and June Carter's version of "Jackson" is incorporated in an early scene that takes place seven years before their version of that song was released. They almost lost me there.) Another friend consumed most of "The Help" on our couch and said it was the best book she'd read all year. My wife had interviewed Mary J. Blige, whose aunt was a maid and who wrote and sings the hell out of the theme song (a bit saccharine for my taste) and she loves the film. Looking at the media frenzy since the movie opened, that love-it-or-hate-it response is not letting up.

Speaking for myself, I'm glad I saw it and there was lots to enjoy – especially Viola Davis's truly astounding portrayal of Aibilene (hello, Oscar). But it also got on my nerves and disappointed me (and not just because of the anachronistic songs). For one thing, except for Davis's work, it is a movie mostly of broad strokes, even occasional Apatow-esque slapstick. In my experience of being raised among – and sometimes even by – racists, the lingering conflict in my heart comes not only from how evil and small-minded these people were, but from how loving and kind they also could be. I realize, in retrospect, that these types of racists were – and remain – the most dangerous, largely because of their insidiousness. In "The Help," the baddies (a mesmerizingly villainous Bryce Dallas Howard as Hilly, Sorority Sister from Hell) are almost devoid of humanity, which, I think, ultimately reinforces the polarization that racism seeks.

I can see why some feel dismay at the "white man's (woman's) burden" aspect; there is validity to the criticism that the movie is yet another about black folks who don't progress until a white person steps up and takes a risk. (“The Blind Side,” "Mississippi Burning," “To Kill A Mockingbird.”) I get that. The maids also help Skeeter (a very engaging Emma Stone, all eyebrows and difficult hair) in that their stories, which she writes down and sends to Manhattan editor Elain Stein (Mary Steenburgen) kickstart Skeeter's writing career. So there's some quid pro quo, but it still feels like a tired trope. And the maids' risks are considerably greater than Skeeter's. Still, I went from being sucked in to feeling anxious and manipulated to being sucked back in, usually by the stellar performances. I mean, some are crazy good.

I was lucky to see “The Help” with women who had been there. Talk to a Liberated Southern Woman who went from cluelessness to awakening to rage to action (or some who wish they'd been more active) and you will understand why this movie is THE buzz flick of the summer instead of, say, Captain America. For them, a large part of the appeal, of course, is in Skeeter; when faced with injustice, Skeeter behaves as they wish they had, and more importantly, when they wish they had. My mom, for instance, turned her back on her decidedly racist upbringing, campaigning for (black Atlanta Congressman and eventual mayor) Andrew Young, whose sign was defaced on our lawn in 1970. She was in the thick of it. I am proud of her. Still, she wishes she'd done more and done it earlier and the movie does exploit that. She also wishes that, a la Skeeter, she could go back and redeem her own mother from racism. (That was overkill for me, a real "ABC Afterschool Special" feeling and not in a good way.) So while the criticism that it's a "white person's fable" has some tread, that doesn’t mean, as some heated critics claim, that a white person fantasizing that he/she is Skeeter is a deluded, ineffectual Part of The Problem.

The reaction to "The Help" illustrates that, even though we have a black man in the White House, we've not come as far as we think, but thanks to social media, we can have extended conversations about how to approach and/or rectify this. Clearly, there is a hunger for the story of the black American experience to be told in a new way, preferably by black people. Frankly, I'm glad it's all being bandied about; it is safe to say it has generated more lively talk on the subject than any movie since "Do The Right Thing." Many teaching moments with my son, who will see a different kind of storytelling when we watch that flick and “Malcolm X”. As for the particular experience of black women as told by black women, it's safe to say that, sadly, Hollywood hasn't made that particular leap. Yet. Perhaps "The Green Berets" had to come before, say, "Saving Private Ryan."

Today, while driving out of the Deep South, my wife and son and I scanned the Internet via my iPhone, reading a couple pans (always fun) and discussing “The Help” and the various reactions. It was the longest discussion on race and on criticism we've ever had. We did not always agree. My favorite review was from Salon, posted on Facebook by my cousin. And finally, Ebert's own review is pretty succinct. He opined thus: [“The Help” is] “a good film... a story that deals with pain but doesn’t care to be that painful.”

There are quite a few who say that’s not good enough. But for me, it’s a start. And the cynical-sounding irony is this: Once “The Help” sweeps the Oscars, that excruciating, no-punches-pulled, hardcore feminist, beautifully agonizing, complex version of the great shame of American racism will, indeed, find its way to the public. I hope I get to see that one in the Deep South, too.

They Just Love The Songs

2010-04-25T17:13:00.024-04:00

The kids just love the songs.

There are plenty of negative aspects to parenting a kid in the ever-more-connected Wild West that is the Digital Age. Don't get me started. In fact, because of the ubiquity of the Internet and the bad rap attributed to gaming, you don't need to get me started; you already know. I will spare you the hand wringing.

Speaking of hand wringing, the album is headed the way of the dodo, is it not? Albums: not just tracks of music, but mini manifestos, guide books, style manuals, iconic pieces of art with accompanying text to be held and studied. In its sunset years as a medium, that art form. And the kids don't care, they don't get it. Blah blah blah.

But here's the thing: the kids still love songs. In fact, I daresay The Song is in fine shape, even better than when I was coming up. Why? Because via MP3s, iTunes, Pandora and Guitar Hero/Rock Band, songs old and new have been significantly liberated from the tyranny of cool and the bondage of images. There’s a lot of good in that. The song intended to be enjoyed as part of a whole, an element of a cycle, may be on the wane, but the song itself is not.

Whereas punk rock songs once evoked the late 70s, disco the mid 70s, British Invasion the early-mid 60s, synth pop the 80s, and grunge and/or "alternative" the mid 90s, now these genres are ubiquitous, untethered and, as far as I can tell, even more relevant and enjoyable because of it.

Last year, the senior band at my son's rural elementary school performed "Eye of the Tiger." It was great. The music teacher even incorporated the Rock Band version of the tune, which kids "played" while the band - with my son on drums - actually played and sang the song with irony-free gusto. All the cliques - the jocks, the freaks, the nerds - gave it their all. How were they introduced to the song? Not radio, TV, album, movie or commercial. It was Rock Band and/or word of mouth and an MP3. Thus, it exists mainly as a song and a song only. Not an 80s song, or a Rocky song, but a song they love, a song that makes them jump, sing and dance.

Sadly, when I hear that song it's inextricably linked to the cheesy video of the uncomfortable-looking band Survivor lip-syncing as they (were directed to) prowl the streets of a dimly lit, foggy set. Images of Sly Stallone and Burgess Meredith wax and wane across my mind. That's a lot of baggage. For my son and his friends, though, it's just a cool song brought to them via the Internet and/or Guitar Hero, less wedded to context and visual trappings. (Guitar Hero/Rock Band does have a visual element, but it doesn't seem to have as much power, perhaps because it isn't static.) I showed my son the "Eye Of the Tiger" video (circa 1986) on YouTube. We did not get through it.

When these pre-teens walk around bellowing "Don't Stop Believin''" at the tops of their lungs, are they visited by an image of Steve Perry in supertight jeans leopard-print tee and Nikes? They are not. It's just a song. And they love it. How did they hear it first? The promo campaign for the Broadway show Rock of Ages ? A recent episode of Glee? Lots of them don't even know how it descended from the cultural ether and into their heads. And it should be noted: as of today, this unkillable power ballad, released in 1981, has been downloaded more than 3 million times. Lastly, it amazes me that the chorus of the song doesn't happen until the 3:23 mark. Say what you will, it is a rule breaker.

Unfortunately, when I hear "Livin' on a Prayer" I can almost smell Jon Bon Jovi's perm, and I struggle to get his shit-eating Jersey Boy grin out of my fevered brain. The images of Bon Jovi flying in spandex are wedded to the tune, 'till death do they part. Not so with the Kids Today. They just love the song. While every parent wants their kid to have something they didn't have, I am so glad my son does not have something I've got in spades: memories of ludicrously ill-advised eye-candy and the resulting rot. When Death Cab For Cutie, Lady GaGa or Black Eyed Peas release a new song, I praise God my son and his friends will not crowd around MTV to experience it via a video. It will get to them via the Internet, MP3, word-of-mouth or as the soundtrack to a movie. Maybe a commercial. Or all of the above. But it will exist primarily as a song.

On a less dire note, "I Wanna Be Sedated" is a song by four guys in ripped jeans, T-shirts and leather biker jackets: the Ramones, a consciously visual band. Anyone who says punk was mainly about music and attitude is wrong. The British version of punk even started in a clothes store and it was as much about fashion as metal or disco. Punk burst onto the streets with a pretty strict dress code, and even though I'm happy to carry that visual baggage 'till my dying day, I'm glad it is being lifted from the tunes it once shrouded. I.e., to my son and his peers, "I Wanna Be Sedated" is just a song. The fact that it's a punk rock song is even secondary. I'm glad "Sedated" can peacefully co-exist on a mix CD with, say, Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T" and "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" by Poison. What a party! The well-paid marketing guys who pigeonholed these songs back in the day no longer have the same uber-power, and even though I have loved ones who cringe at the thought of it, I say it is a good thing Ozzy and George Jones need not wait to meet in rehab, when the snug confines of an iPod playlist beckons them.

There are friends of mine, people near and dear to me whose personas were formed in the crucible that is defining one's self as different from another group via a song genre, and to them, taking a song or band from its cultural context is anathema. I've been there. But I'm very pleased not to be there any more. Leave it to a bunch of kids who neither know nor care what the cognoscenti rule as "cool" to show a different way of looking at things.

"I Wanna Be Sedated" and thousands of other tunes of varying stripes are enjoying a rich second life via the digital and gaming revolution, and to many kids, classic rock and punk tunes are just as new as something by, say, Adam Lambert. THAT WORKS. Whatever it takes to get the music to the ears is fine by me, and if the walls come down in the process, great. When kids get exposed to a song via these new avenues, it is not unlike the days of singles-driven AM radio, when faceless acts - albeit most of them genuinely "new" - were the norm. The fact that the tune is likely coming through earbuds or a computer makes the comparison even more tight, as AM was and is notoriously lo fi. Then as now, the song mainly is just a catchy tune they're hearing. I know, I know, it sounds like shit through these new mediums, but so did “Love Train” when I first heard it. Probably. But I don’t remember. All I remember is the song. WXQI AM, Atlanta Georgia, early 70s.

MTV went on the air the year I turned 16. I came of age at the apex of music-as-visual. Not coincidentally, I spent much time and energy in various costumes and attitudes surrounding music. Many calories were burned in an effort to feel on top of it, feel cooler than "they." In high school in the 80s, I capitulated to the “new wave” ethos, keeping secret my affinity for disco, southern rock and heavy metal, identifying to the world as a fan of newbies like the Jam, XTC, the Go-Go’s, Prince, the Police, and U2. Thankfully, I was not compelled to toss out the Ted Nugent, Lynyrd Skynryd, Led Zeppelin, Bee Gees, Deep Purple, Rush and Grand Funk Railroad albums. But I did hide them, lest I be outcast from my clique. Lotta sweat involved in that game.

As a twenty-something I started the process of freeing myself from the worry of what people thought of me,“coming out” as, among other things, something of a music slut. This peeling-of-the-onion process continues to this day, and while it's all good, I don't wish this labor on those I love; as I mentioned, the effort put into worrying about what may or may not be cool music today is vigor best spent elsewhere. It’s great to see kids expending a lot less energy on that, at least vis a vis their music. There are plenty of other things to fret about, and fret they do. Perhaps that’s one reason the focus isn’t so much on whether it’s “cool” for something that came out forty years ago to fade into a MGMT single.

Another benefit of these revolutions is the broadening of musical tastes. When I was a teen, it was unheard of for us to be into stuff that came out when our parents were kids, yet I find it quite normal that a kid’s iTunes library will contain everything from old school hip hop to Green Day to the Mama & the Papas.

Without MTV delivering mostly “new and up-to-the-minute” music with focus on the visual, and without being reminded of the visuals associated with a song every time the album is taken from the egg crate, songs both old and new are once again just songs. While image-related components remain somewhat important in the distribution of music and promoting of music makers, the advent of downloading and gaming has significantly diminished this, deflating the frequent complaint from past bands and singer-songwriters that they need to be “actors” and/or more conventionally attractive or visually inventive (or able to hire someone who is) to get noticed. The importance of having a sonically arresting song has risen. (Hello AutoTune!) And with the implosion of the record companies, artists are getting out and gigging more to make money. Just like the old days. The new technology has brought us backwards. From where I sit, in this instance, it’s OK.

(Speaking of OK, none of this applies to OK Go.)

In Rocky III, Rocky is advised to recapture the “Eye of the Tiger.” His trainer exhorts him to get back to basics, get hungry again, lose the fat, get away from all the surface glitter and image nonsense and return to the purity of intent that is the cardinal trait of his soul. Ultimately, he accomplishes this, of course. The song that helps to convey that message went through a similar journey; penned by hopeful musicians, then affixed to a massively successful movie, then lip-synced by a rock band pretending to be streetwise badasses, then lampooned by Weird Al and exiled to narrowly-formatted radio, then resurrected and lampooned yet again in a widely successful Starbucks ad.

Finally, stripped of everything except the digital files that carry its essence, it fills the cafetorium of a neighborhood elementary school and kids are just exuberantly singing it to each other with no reference points whatsoever. They just love the song. If that isn’t recapturing the “Eye of the Tiger” I don’t know what is.

A Glass of Water From Alex Chilton

2010-03-19T14:48:00.003-04:00

Recently, I picked up my 12-year-old son Jack from his drum lesson. As usual, he and his teacher Eric showed me what they'd been working on. Eric had taught him the Bo Diddley-esque beat to "Hey Pocky A-Way" - a standard by New Orleans funk pioneers and national treasures the Meters. Eric is one of the few who still listens to vinyl and when I asked him to put "The Very Best of the Meters" on the turntable while Jack got his coat, he gladly obliged.

The richly burnished, slightly fuzzy warmth and deep-dish African delight transported me, washed over me like a cool drink on a hot day, like an overwhelming, bittersweet kiss from a loved-one on a train platform. I stood there completely in the moment, eyes closed, pulse suddenly racing, realizing that for the first time, my son was being introduced to soul-saving music in much the same way I had been - via a much-played LP with slight water damage to the sleeve (from sweat? a flood? beer?) and not through the internet, CDs and MP3s. (It's all good, I'm just sayin...)

With the passing of Alex Chilton - another one of my soul-savers - I am reminded that I was introduced to him in a similar fashion. Although unlike most of my other extended musical family-of-choice, eventually I met Alex face-to-face several times, usually on the low side of the road. As the days of post-Alex spool out like a roll of analog tape, I fondly remember those times.

As with my son and the Meters, I first met Alex Chilton via LPs. I vividly recall these records - stuffed into milk crates in my then-girlfriend (now wife of 20 years) Holly's apartment on St. Mark's Place in NYC. I had heard of Alex and of course knew the 2-minute gem that is "The Letter", but prior to Holly, hadn't experienced his post-Box Tops music. Forever embedded in my memory is the sensual experience of sliding Big Star's # 1 Record from the sleeve, like undressing someone, then gingerly touching the black vinyl only in the proper places, inserting the record on the nub, sending it spinning, then finally placing the needle on the edge and... BOOM - aural and astral transportation.

Holly had the Box Tops LPs and singles and the much-ballyhooed Big Star stuff, but she also possessed all of Alex's underrated solo work. (Some of which I did not care for - Like Flies on Sherbet, no thanks... but High Priest... yes please.) Not only was she a fan, she was friends with Alex. My wife is an intrepid traveler in both space and experience, and she was particularly voracious in the late 70s/ early 80s. She and Alex met as he was emerging from self-imposed dishwasher exile, not long after he'd produced and played with the Cramps. Their friendship - a difficult one, but she has stamina for musicians (I should know) - resulted in him producing her all-girl punk band Clambake, a collaboration that is evidenced only by memory and a poorly-stored low bias cassette in the attic.

Due to these connections, a meeting between Alex and me was imminent. It would be the first time I would break bread with someone whose music and lifestyle choices ("what would Alex do...?") had influenced me pretty profoundly; from his painstaking attention to sonic and/or spiritual detail - or, if it was called for, a lack of attention to detail - to the refreshing "show me the money" attitude toward Box Tops and Big Star reunions, he loomed large. I do not recall being nervous, though, even though I had been one of the many fledgling musicians who studied, aped and desperately wanted to be inside the elegantly ragged and sometimes gloriously weird Big Star canon. Just as importantly, I wanted to give the impression to the world that, like Alex, rock star riches and fame meant nothing to me, inevitable disappointment would not deter me.

And so it came to pass that Alex and I would meet in person a few times in the 90s and, most potently for me, we would have a long, convivial and bizarre telephone conversation.

As to the former, when attending an early 90s New Orleans Jazz Fest, Holly called Alex to check in. He invited us and our mutual friend Melinda over to his dimly lit, ramshackle house in a residential neighborhood. After showing up at the agreed-upon mid-afternoon time and knocking for a few minutes to no avail, we were about to leave when a sleepy-eyed Alex opened the door and let us in. He and his girlfriend - who never would join us - had been napping. Although annoyed and grouchy, he insisted we stay and brought us water. I mostly listened, not wanting to fall into a Chris Farley-esque "'Member when you recorded 'Radio City'... and you played that out-of-phase Strat...'member that...? ... That was awesome." As with every time I would see him, Alex smoked an endless stream of cigarettes, from which he seemed to derive deep pleasure. Indulging us when we cited the madness of the tourists (as if we were not tourists) he mostly extolled the virtues of some of the festival bands playing on the smaller stages. He did not talk about his music or himself. Due to the frequent rain and the fact that the festival is held on a muddy racetrack, Melinda had black mud on her flip-flop-wearing feet and toes. Alex laughed at that.

Years later, Holly and I would visit Alex with our newborn son. We were on a road-trip from NYC to Austin, stopping off in New Orleans to visit friends. Alex had a new pad - a shotgun-style house in the historic Treme neighborhood that was tilted and sinking into the ground. He was alone and had been working on the place. If memory serves, he had no electricity. But as with every other time I hung out with him, he did not seem to care about such things. I knew he had a reputation for being prickly about Big Star so again, I never brought up his band that was every bit as influential to me as the Beatles. But we did talk music. He could wax on for long stretches - his knowledge was encyclopedic and his passion palpable. I gleaned that he was a student of architecture, so I told him about my great Uncle destroying the integrity of the ancestral home in San Antonio Texas by hacking off the top floor so he wouldn't have to heat it. Alex looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes and jokingly drawled, "There outta be a law." Because of the humidity, we retreated to the crumbling stoop, where Holly and baby Jack and I sat with Alex and shot the breeze with his neighbors - working class New Orleans folk of varying colors and ages. Their fondness for Alex - and his for them - was obvious. I got the impression they were not Big Star fans.

Finally, the phone conversation. Sometime in the early 90s, Alex called the apartment looking for Holly. She'd written a couple of profiles of him for various magazines and I think this was a follow-up call, or maybe just a friendly howdy. In any event, she wasn't home, so Alex and I had a talk.

At this time Alex had been enjoying some success as an eclectic recording and touring artist and had been introduced to a new generation via the Paul Westerberg/Replacements song "Alex Chilton," But he had no phone. Restoring a house in a remote part of Tennessee, he was calling from the parking lot of the grocery store. His disembodied Memphis drawl was particularly soft and languid and, perhaps because he wasn't sitting before me in a haze of cigarette smoke, I finally told him how much I loved Big Star, especially the twisted, scary Third/Sister Lovers. He was fine about it, thanking me as if I had complimented him on the chicory coffee he'd just brewed in a percolator. "Thanks, man... glad you enjoyed it." I asked him to share any new bands he was into and he suddenly exploded into enthusiasm. In fact, it was the most enthusiastic I'd heard him be about anything, and that includes having seen him play live several times.

"The Country Rockers! The Country Rockers!" he said.

"What are they like?" I asked, deeply pleased to be sharing this unexpected exuberant moment with one of the most laconic people I'd ever met.

"I can't describe them," he said simply. "They are just one of the best bands I've ever seen. In my life. Ever."

"Where are they from?"

"Memphis, but they're on tour and they're playin' CB's soon. Check 'em out. They are better than anything you've ever heard from me."

Our conversation ended soon after that. Aside from yelling out a request for him to play the song "Let's Get Lost" from Guys and Dolls at a solo acoustic show at the Kitchen in NYC, I would have no further real-time contact with Alex. (He obliged my request.)

Sure enough, the Country Rockers came to CB's and Holly and I hustled over to the Bowery to see what all the fuss was about. We had no idea what to expect. To our surprise, the trio consisted of two old men - the septugenarian black-toupee'd singer-guitarist Sam Baird, the octogenarian drummer Gaius "Ringo" Farnham and Alex's longtime bassist Ron Easley, who had apparently met Baird in a roadhouse and who, at forty-something, was the baby of the band. They hammered through some ragged-but-right covers and a few originals and their between-song banter was boozy and awkward. But they were loud and raw, and perhaps due to the fact that they looked like grandpas who'd stumbled on their grandkids' instruments, drunk corn liquor and let fly, we couldn't take our eyes of them. Ringo looked like a homunculus behind the drums, and it seemed he might fall off the riser at any second. The indisputable high point of the set was his one turn as lead vocalist - a creepy, screaming, riveting version of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." In the beer-soaked shadows of that historic dive, Holly and I laughed our asses off. And we rocked. Because this was rock and roll. Alex had pulled the wool over my eyes, true, but he did not steer me wrong. (Melinda would later go on tour with the Country Rockers and she complained that Ringo could not keep his sweaty little hands off her.)

I found out about Alex's death by heart attack via a teary cell-phone call from Holly, who is in Austin at South-By-Southwest as I write this and was planning on attending a panel devoted to Big Star and later seeing Alex play with the re-constituted band on the final night of the conference. She is bereaved and I'm worried for her, wishing I was there, but comforted somewhat in the knowledge that she's among friends, activity and music - all very good for bringing one into the moment. But the grief that pours forth as folks meet and reminisce and play Alex's music - the concert and panel now will be tributes - will be painful and sloppy and necessary. Like some of the best music.

From our home in the Catskills, I am quite far away from that swirl of activity, but I am grieving in my own way and it's fine. Listening to tributes on the radio, looking up sound files on the internet, seeking out videos on YouTube, I am struck by how much the connectivity of the media is touching a very deep place inside me, where memories of my youth and of sublime music spin like an LP on a turntable. The deepest cut comes when the music begins, though, delivered as originally intended, with no image, no voice-over interrupting to proclaim the loss of the "iconoclastic outsider," no inter-cutting of Alex being interviewed. The music alone illuminates places that Alex the musician showed me, and those places still feel real and true and beyond the mechanics of the day and the passage of time; I get as much pleasure from that journey as I always did, at least as much pleasure as Alex always seemed to get from those damn cigarettes.

Thanks Alex. For showing me those places where time is out-witted for approximately 3 minutes, for bringing me a glass of water, and for making sure I was one of the people who packed the place when the Country Rockers played CB's back in the day.

50 Bands

2009-08-12T16:01:00.007-04:00

This is my version of the "50 Bands I've Seen" meme that has been circulating on Facebook. The double-edged sword that is my memory got slightly carried away, but it was a fun little trip.

1. My dad playing guitar at my seventh birthday, 1972. On the setlist was "Puff the Magic Dragon," "Country Roads," "Home Grown Tomatoes," "If I Had a Hammer." It was raining outside, the screen door banged in the wind.

2. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, probably 1973, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" tour. Went with my mom, Grandfather (entertainment editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) and my brother. I was so overwhelmed, I cried. People kept asking what was wrong and I didn't know what to say, so finally I just lied and said "It's too loud."

3. Linda Ronstadt at Atlanta Civic Center, "Hasten Down the Wind" tour, 1976. Great LA band. Went with Todd Butler. We were smitten with La Ronstadt. I thought "That'll Be the Day" was her song. Sadly, she did not wear the Cub Scout uniform.

4. Kiss at the Omni, in Atlanta, "Love Gun" tour, 1977. Went with Todd. Without realizing it was illegal, we taped the show on a Panasonic cassette player, which I carried under my down jacket. Kiss always said they gave the fans something "different," which of course they did, but it was all very predictable. The songs, however, were - and still are - great. Inhaled lots of second-hand pot smoke, then got picked up by Todd's mom. I remember my ears ringing.

5. Rush at The Omni, Atlanta, "Hemispheres" tour 1978. Also with Todd, also ears ringing. The idea of forming a band had taken root and soon would sprout. Rush played Taurus pedals with THEIR FEET while flawlessly playing guitars and keyboards - and in Geddy Lee's case, singing - in odd time signatures. Like watching acrobats. Somewhat Spinal Tap. But as long as there are awkward teenage boys, Rush will rule. I recently heard they are among the Top 5 album sellers of all time. For whatever that's worth.

6. Champagne Jam '79, Grant Field, Atlanta. I went alone, dropped off by my mom in the early morning. Hung out with two charming 20-something hooting and rebel-yelling redneck girls, who took turns riding on my shoulders. I had recently grown to six feet and the sensation of blue-jeaned thighs on my neck was a new one. I did not get lucky with them. On the bill: local bands Whiteface and the criminally underrated Mother's Finest, the Dixie Dregs, and headliners the Atlanta Rhythm Section. Also on the bill: the Cars and Aerosmith, both of whom sucked. The Cars were gawky and stiff - and everyone thought they were from England. Aerosmith was wasted. Especially Steven Tyler, who could not hit the high notes and gave the audience the finger. I still have a T-shirt from this show. I had just started playing bass, and would spend hours learning the bass solo from the ARS song "Champagne Jam." It was a sure-fire way to impress the ladies. My mom picked me up around 11 PM.

7. Kansas, "Monolith" tour rehearsal, 1980. I wrote for the local teen paper the Purple Cow, and got the gig to write a preview of Kansas' upcoming tour, gaining access to their airplane hanger-sized rehearsal space in Atlanta. I kid you not, the stage had a huge backdrop of an Easter Island-looking monolith. My hot girlfriend Paula drove us, and the drummer, who I clumsily interviewed, ogled her as she took photos for the piece. We watched a rehearsal, which included state-of-the-art lights and flashpots. My article was titled "Inside A Kaleidoscope with Kansas." My first few cover bands would follow - Voyage and Ickee Phudj.

8. Van Halen at the Omni, Atlanta, "Women & Children First" tour, 1980. Took aforementioned hot girlfriend Paula, who rode on my shoulders. We had floor seats and my most prominent memories of the music are of David Lee Roth saying "People ask if those high pitched sounds I make are from machines and I say NO, THEY'RE FROM DRUUUUUGS!" (Wild applause.) Mostly I recall the following: I was nervous because an army of rednecks was giving my girlfriend the hairy eyeball, and, excruciatingly, I remember her on my shoulders grooving to "Dance the Night Away," then me losing my balance and tumbling over backwards into the row behind us. The only thing seriously injured was my pride. But I recovered, in part because she was sweet and very forgiving.

9. Aerosmith, the Omni, Atlanta, 1980. Went with Todd. Hoping one of my faves would redeem themselves, but no they still sucked. Gotta love them drugs. Notable in that this was a rare tour without Joe Perry, who had quit. Replacement Jimmy Crespo didn't do much to counter the suck factor.

10. Ruckus, St. Pius X High School, Atlanta, 1980. Premier cover band came and played in the cafetorium. I wish I could say if they really were great. At the time, they were. They played covers by Styx, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and even funky stuff like Hot Chocolate, Wild Cherry, and the Ohio Players. I will say this with conviction: get a bunch of Catholic school adolescents who've been taught that the flesh is forbidden in a dark room with loud, live rock and roll playing and very interesting things will happen, with or without alcohol. Just don't tell the principal Sister Rita you heard that from me. Very influential in spurring me on to form my own band.

11. Bow Wow Wow, with opening act REM, Biltmore Hotel, Atlanta, 1981. Went with Todd. This one was amazing, in part because I had no idea who REM was. Todd Butler and I were big fans of Bow Wow Wow - we loved the raggedy Pirate fashion, the surf-funk-Burundi drums music, the attitude, and not least of all, Annabella Lwin, who was 15 and who was naked on their album cover. Good times. REM's much-ballyhooed debut single was freshly out, and they came onstage and tore it up. They had their Television/Patti Smith Group thrift store fashion sense down, and they had that elusive, money-in-the-bank greater-than-the-sum-of-it

s-parts four-headed-monster band quality possessed by every great group. And some instantly memorable tunes, which insured their subsequent stratospheric success. Frat guys, new wavers and art students had come from Athens and they all hollered out the names of songs and went nuts. It was what I imagine it was like seeing the Beatles at the Cavern in 1962. One of the only seminal "I was there" gigs on my list. I soon would form my first original band, the Latest.

12. Method Actors with opening act the Latest at the Strand in Marietta, Ga, 1982. My punky pop band the Latest - featuring drummer extraordinaire Harry Joiner and guitarist/vocalist Teddy Murray - did great before an audience of complete strangers. At least that's how I recall it. I also recall friends in a local "progressive rock" band checking us out and muttering jealously. Very satisfying, that. The Method Actors had a loyal arty following from Athens, who came and danced to their band's quirky, loud, attitude-heavy music. The Method Actors were a trio of drums, sax and guitar/sometimes bass. Leader/frontman and Athens luminary, Vic Varney was an impressive perfomer who, a couple years later, would invite me to Athens to play in a new band. Saxophonist Stan Satin was fantastic and really nice. I would later be in his NYC band Sayso in 1985.

13. The Press with opening act the Latest at the Bistro, Atlanta, 1982. The Press was the hot local new wave band always on the edge of breakout success, getting airplay with their tuneful, non-offensive pop. The Bistro was a pretty tiny club - maybe 300 folks could get in there - owned and run by another "Local Band on the Verge" Baby and the Pacifiers. If memory serves, I totaled my mom's Volkswagen Beetle en route to this gig. She forgave me.

14. The Now Explosion at the Strand, 1982. I went with Todd, who was literally in love with the Now Explosion and eventually would marry one of its members, Clare Parker. They were a trashy, hilarious, and seriously funky five-piece unfairly compared to the B-52's. I'd never seen people having so much fun onstage, making up for what they lacked in instrumental prowess with charisma and some solid tunes. When I quit the Latest, they would have a significant effect on Todd and me as we formed a band with then-fledgling superstar-in -exile RuPaul Charles.

15. Split Enz at the Agora Ballroom, Atlanta, 1983. I was a big fan, particularly of younger Finn Brother Neil - later of Crowded House - who was a teenager. I went to this show alone. When they played "I Got You," everyone, including me, went crazy. I would soon go in search of the Perfect Pop Song.

16. The Clash at the Fox Theater, Atlanta, 1982. First show after Joe Strummer's unexpected walkabout in France, on which he ate lots of cheese and got fat. He was tormented by his band's success, apparently, and had abandoned the "Combat Rock" tour. Returning with a Mohawk, he temporarily resigned himself to success just in time for the Atlanta show. Secret weapon/underrated drummer and, sadly, junkie Topper Headon had quit and headed home to London, so original drummer Terry Chimes/Tory Crimes filled in. It was almost like watching a rehearsal. A disappointment. There was a pathetic attempt by Atlanta punks to incite a riot after the show, but it was quickly tamped down by the cops.

17. REM and Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, Agora Ballroom, Atlanta, 1982. Jason & the Nashville Scorchers gave the Rear End Men/Raving Ego Maniacs (what jealous Atlanta bands called REM) a run for their money on this one. I came in during Jason's set and almost had my face peeled off. They were intense, funny, and unapologetically country-punk showfolk. I'd never seen anything like it. Jason was a shirtless, sweaty, glorious mess, the band spun and engaged in all kinds of stage moves with total conviction, and the crowd was just this side of out-of-control. When REM hit the stage - with sideman Peter Holsapple - they had their work cut out for them. But they delivered. "Chronic Town" had been released and I played it every day. They had more dynamics than Jason et al, and, of course, they were prettier. And they had those songs. No small thing.

18. Stanley Clarke and George Duke, Chastain Park, Atlanta, 1984. I was a big fan of Stanley Clarke, and I studied his bass playing intensely. I wanted to play fast and funky and he was the king. He'd released some music with keyboardist George Duke that was not my cup of tea - slow-jam, sexless R & B - but I wanted to see him. The show turned into a fiasco - none of Duke's synthesizer keyboards worked, and nothing looks goofier than a well-respected jazzbo playing a handheld keyboard that does not work (or even one that does). Duke had a tantrum, threw the keyboard down violently and stalked offstage, leaving Stanley Clarke to riff for about 30 minutes. At the end, Clarke lifted up his hands and said "I HAVE LOST MY POWER." I didn't think rapid-fire bass playing would ever bore me, but it did.

19. Psychedelic Furs, outside at UGA, Athens, 1984. The P Furs had released "Mirror Moves" - one of the albums that would "put drummers out of work" because of the "amazingly real sounding" Linn Drum. They were great, and Richard Butler had an odd, catlike grace that I'd never seen before. There was some kind of fracas with some "Athens punks" who were being obnoxious. Butler spilled water on them intentionally and the cops escorted them away. Very exciting.

20. The Alarm, outside at UGA, Athens, 1984. Awful. Just dreadful. The singer sort of sang like Bono and they played acoustic guitars that were amplified and sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. They billed themselves as a cross between U2 and the Clash and they sang about fighting for their rights, etc. Totally obnoxious. And worst of all - no tunes.

21. Waitresses, 688 Club, Atlanta, probably 1982. The only original members were singer Patty O'Donahue and, I think, sax player Mars Williams. They were great and at the climactic moment in "I Know What Boys Like," Patty, who was a great frontwoman, leaned down to my sweaty face and said "SUCKER!" But she winked and I felt honored. And turned on. A few years later I would chat with her across a NYC bar at which I was working. She was very sweet.

22. The Neighborhoods, 688 Club, Atlanta, 1982. Word on the street was that this Boston band was hot shit on a stick, and they were. They tore the roof off that sweaty little bunker of a club. Amazing, meaty, danceable new wave funk.

23. Red Hot Chili Peppers, 40 Watt Club, Athens, opening band - my band - Go Van Go.1984 I was a huge fan of their first album, which was produced by Gang of Four's Andy Gill, and I was thrilled when my band got the opening slot. Go Van Go was an arty Athens dance band helmed by Vic Varney in which I played a lot of funk bass. With foxy Tanya Tucker lookalike Dana Downs sharing vocals with Vic, we approximated a X-meets-Gang of Four inensity that, I regret to say, was never adequately captured on tape. I was a disciple of Flea's bass playing so I went to see the RCP sound check. They'd just driven into sleepy, hot little Athens and they were hungover and pissed off that the club was so dinky and there were no posters up. Later that night, they really burned it up onstage. Flea was Flea and I was stunned at his punky slap bass, Anthony was wearing a black leather jacket with his favorite coffee cup attached to the epaulet, and the late great Hillel Slovak - who had a piece of foam rubber attached to his head - played Hendrix-meets-punk-meets-funk guitar like nothing I had ever seen or heard before. I went home and picked up my bass and practiced until there was blood on the pick guard.

24. Police/Go-Gos, Synchronicity tour, the Omni, Atlanta, 1983. I actually enjoyed the Go-Go's more than the Police. The Go-Go's had a lot of garage band attitude and presence and really rocked the joint, making the arena feel like a steamy little club. I wrote about this show for the Purple Cow and was burned in effigy at a keg party by my former band mates in my heavy metal cover band Ickee Phudj for "going new wave." The Police were tight and professional and had back-up singers and yadda yadda yadda. But I wasn't all that impressed.

25. Test Dept, the Ritz, NYC, 1985. I have no idea how I ended up at this show, alone. Test Dept were a very mannered English band whose gimmick was that they traveled with no instruments. Rather, they would pick up metal trash in every city and bang polyrhythms on it while a guy played a cornet and another guy projected black and white films of socialists working in factories, etc. The loudest racket I have ever heard.

26. GBH, some underground club, London, 1986. I was traveling alone through Europe, staying at a hostel in London. An Italian kid invited me to "come see a punk rock band!" Probably one of the only actual real punk rock shows I've ever attended. The crowd seemed as much a part of the performance as the band, who were excruciatingly loud (DUH) aggressive and dangerous looking.

27. Fleshtones, Lone Star, NYC, 1986. I went with some friends to see this "you gotta see 'em live" quintet at the great old Lone Star club, and I was really taken with them, especially Peter Zaremba, who worked the crowd and the band like a white, heavy-Queens-accented James Brown. They stopped and started on a dime, working the crowd and getting everyone dancing. Within a few months, I would be in the band. But that's another story.

28. Motorhead, the I-Beam, San Francisco, 1987. On a night off during a tour with the Fleshtones I went to the I-Beam to check out Lemmy & Co., and I was not at all disappointed. They kept blowing out the PA, which was an added entertainment value, as the band would be playing hard, fast and loud, then BAM the circuits would go, and for a few moments, they'd still be rocking out in complete silence except for the drums. Very, very funny. Then Lemmy would scream that the next time they'd bring their own PA. I got the impression he said that a lot.

29. James Brown, a very large hall that I don't recall, Paris, 1987, with opener the Fleshtones. My first gig in a foreign country. We opened for James at a 5000-seater, and the crowd did not care for us. Someone threw a straight razor onto the stage while we played. Then James came out and, even though he seemed to be phoning it in, he was still great. He had a crack band, of course, including a tall skinny guy who covered for James on some of the difficult vocal parts. The real star was actually sax man Maceo Parker, who came out worked the crowd for 15 minutes as the MC said "The Tower of Power, the Sex Machine, the Hardest Working Man in Showbiz, etc, etc." over and over like a mantra. We wanted to meet James but it was forbidden due to James having "trouble with his teeth."

30. Chuck Berry, outdoor concert in Barcelona, 1988, with opener the Fleshtones. Chuck Berry did exactly what I'd always heard he did: He drove up in a rental car, got his out-of-tune-guitar out of the trunk, got paid in cash, went onstage, met the band, and proceeded to suck. We'd opened for him to a massive crowd who received us pretty well. I did not get to meet him. He played all his hits, but never tuned his guitar and never even looked at the hapless band. The band was actually American 70s hit-makes the Climax Blues Band, who were touring Spain and, I guess, needed some extra cash. After Chuck split in a cloud of dust, they played their soft rock hits. VERY ODD.

31. Das Furlines, the Jag, East Hampton, Long Island, 1987. I got to know my future wife at this gig. Das Furlines were a punk polka band inspired by obscure garage rockers the Monks, who were American GI's living in Germany in the 60s. Way ahead of their time, the Monks.

Like the Monks, the Furlines played proto-punk with a polka beat. The Furlines' between-song patter was very bawdy, very Benny Hill. An all-female quintet, they dressed like beer hall girls, with bustiers and crinolines and wild hair-do's and hats. They covered Monks songs and spoke in fake German accents. My wife Holly - aka Holly Hemlock - played a 1958 Fender Jazzmaster and her hair was tinted "tail-light red." I was smitten. Within two years, we'd be married. Just celebrated 20th anniversary.

32. Waterboys, the Beacon Theater, 1989, Fisherman's Blues Tour. Went with Holly, as we were - and are - huge Waterboys fans. A revelation, this show. I'd been a fan of their early, dense, chiming, anthemic stuff, and then Mike Scott broke it all down and built it back with a tweedy, rootsy, folky palette and it all worked. His band – multi-instrumentalist Anthony Thiselthwaite in particular - really rose to it. They did the early "Big Music" material as well as the newer, acoustic-y raggedy numbers and everything felt a part of a greater whole. I was disappointed but not surprised Scott couldn't sustain the intensity of this version of the Waterboys. He hasn't made a great record since.

33. Leonard Cohen, the Felt Forum, 1992, The Future Tour. Went with Holly. I once read a description of Jakob Dylan that included the phrase "sluggish rabbinical charisma." Having seen the Wallflowers, I cannot concur on this point - it was a snooze of a show. "Sluggish rabbinical charisma" does, however, apply to Leonard Cohen, who puts on a performance that is unlike any other. There is an intensity that feels like a devotional ceremony, yet there's humor and sex and hypnotic tunes and, above all else, the power of language to transform a sizeable crowd of people. I've never been to show where the words held the collective attention of a crowd so completely. At times it seemed Cohen would implode into the depth of his songs, crumpling into himself, croaking out one compelling phrase after another while his sleek, sexy back-up singers cooed like angels and his yeoman band - a multi-culti lot of Eastern and Western - kept everything on firm ground. Like the Springsteen show I attended sometime later (see # 50) I left feeling like I'd been to a holy site and been filled with spirit. No joke.

34. Midnight Oil, the Felt Forum, 1990, Blue Sky Mining Town Tour. I was a fan of Diesel and Dust and was told that these Aussies were great live, a must-see. Indeed, they were. Not only are they all great musicians - especially the drummer - they all sang with gusto. Sonically, they incorporated acoustic guitars quite a lot, and I'd never heard such a true, pe rcussive amplified acoustic sound. They were riding a wave of radio and MTV/VH1 acceptance in those days, and they had very solid, passionate tunes.

35. U2, Giants Stadium, Popmart Tour, 1997. This was a disappointment. I’m a fan and I’d never seen U2, and the only time I got it together to go was for their only misstep album/tour. Bloated, unfocused. The big lemon that they emerged from - all very ironic and consciously Spinal Tap. I remember thinking crew-cut Bono looked like Jimmy Cagney. Jeff Buckley had just died and they did an impromptu salute to him. Of course a lot of the songs still had magic, but the guys seemed tired and uncommitted. This was no Joshua Tree or Zoo TV.

36. Steve Earle solo, Irving Plaza, 1996. Shortly after getting out jail, cleaning up and releasing the classic "I Feel Alright" Earle played what I recall as the longest solo acoustic show I'd ever seen - probably 2 and a half hours. Although a technically limited player and singer, he put on a riveting show. It was all about the songs and his rapport with the crowd. A true troubadour, perhaps the best I've seen.

37. Steve Earle & the Dukes Tramps, NYC, 1995. All of the above but with a great band, less talk and considerably more volume.

38. Townes Van Zant & Guy Clark, The Bottom Line, NYC, probably 1997. Townes was a wreck and, due to the DT's, could barely play. It was excruciating. The songs were undeniable, though. Guy Clark, whose son played great bass, opened the show with understated professionalism that got on the nerves of some of Townes' fans. But I was impressed. Again - amazing songs.

39. Levon Helm and Ollabelle, Levon's Midnight Ramble, Woodstock, NY, 2004. I was a teacher, so, as per Levon's policy, I got in free (firemen and teachers got into Rambles free in those days). Went with Holly and we were both under the impression that, due to his throat cancer, Levon's voice was gone. We only expected him to sit in on drums. WRONG. Although he seemed frail and skeletal when he came out, once behind his kit, he came to life, and when he sang, the room filled with energy and he seemed to glow from within. It was a spiritual experience. He duetted a lot with his daughter Amy and the joy was palpable. An amazing night.

40. Hedwig & the Angry Inch, Jane St. Theater, 1999. Technically, this was a rock musical - far and away the best rock musical I've ever seen, the most seamless example of marrying rock and roll with theater. Writer-performer John Cameron Mitchell was leaving, so Holly and I rushed to see him and we were blown away by the songs, the humor, the soul, the story, everything. I would return to see Michael Cerveris as Hedwig, and amazingly, he was every bit as good. The movie does not compare to the live show, which moved me and rocked me with equal force.

41. Prince, the Bercy, Paris "Sign O' the Times" tour. 1987. I am now, and have been for most of my life, an ardent Prince fan, and this was the only time I've seen him. He did not disappoint. The French LOVE them some Prince, and the Bercy is, if memory serves, comparable to Madison Square Garden, so there really wasn't a bad seat in the house. Sheila E. played drums and she almost stole the show, coming out from behind the kit to rap at one point (on Alphabet Street) while the Purple One kept the beat. The only downside was that many of his best songs were compressed into medleys. But that's mere quibbling. A master showman/musician/singer/evangelist with an amazing band. Opening act Madhouse played funk instrumentals shrouded in burka-like robes that obscured their faces. They got the crowd sufficiently riled for His Royal Badness. Rumour was that Prince was the drummer.

42. Dolly Parton, Joe's Pub, NYC, 2001. Due to Holly's press cred, we got in to this intimate performance, which featured mandolin phenom Chris Thile from Nickel Creek. Dolly had released her bluegrass CD "Little Sparrow" and I had never been that close to someone who'd had that much plastic surgery. She looked like an alien. And she seemed nervous in the live context. She had a TelePrompTer to help her remember lyrics. But the songs - both new and old- were the real stars. And Thile. I got the impression folks who saw Hendrix at Cafe Wha? in the mid 60s probably felt the same way. I talked to the band afterwards - they were smoking on the street,totally ignored - and asked why Dolly didn't do more shows. "She's too busy with her production company," the guitarist said. "You know that show 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'? That's hers."

43. Johnny Cash, Hunter Mtn. NY, 1996. Johnny had June, the Carter Sisters, John Carter Cash and the Tennessee Three at this gig, and it was great. Like going to Mt. Rushmore. Johnny and June's stage patter was identical when I saw them later at the Ritz in NYC.

44. NRBQ, some underground club in Durham, near Duke University, 1988. The Fleshtones had opened for Jonathan Richman at Duke earlier in the day, and we ended up at this club where this band I’d heard about as another “must see live” experience was playing. They were stunning, easily one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. It was the classic lineup of Big Al, Terry, Joey and Tom, and they played more styles than any one I’d ever seen, and they made it all sound of a piece. One of the most joyous concert experiences of my life. The Fleshtones would later share a bill with them in Martinique, of all places, where no one knew who they – or, indeed, who we – were.

45. Tom Jones , the Buckingham Palace Theater at the Friar Tuck Inn, Catskills, NY, early 90s. This was right when Tom started to become hip again. He’d just covered EMF’s “Unbelievable and Prince’s “Kiss.” He was amazing. He opened with the Richard Thompson song “Break Somebody’s Heart” then did lots more cool covers. In the middle of the set he did all his hits back to back, then went back to the unexpected stuff, like Johnny Winter’s “Still Alive & Well.” His voice was a revelation, very rich and dramatic. And even though his band all had mullets, he rocked the joint, which reeked of Mafia and was filled with middle-aged women.

46. Emmylou Harris and Spyboy, Joe’s Pub, 1999. Another intimate press-only event. I’d been a fan of a lot of her stuff, which Holly had introduced me to, and this gig featured an amazing band with Brady Blade and producer/guitarist Buddy Miller,. We’d seen Emmy at the Beacon with Daniel Lanois and were knocked out, but with Buddy Miller in tow, she really took everyone to another plane. She even made a menopause joke sexy.

47. Van Morrison, the Beacon, 1989. “Avalon Sunset” tour. I got up early in the morning and waited outside the Beacon for tickets. This was an added show which culminated a six-night stint at the Beacon, and it was to be filmed for a concert video. I hadn’t camped out for tickets since I was a teenager. It was worth it. Van’s voice was shot, but it didn’t matter. He had Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames as a band and guests Mose Allison and John Lee Hooker. Holly and I both are huge fans of Van and we were not disappointed. He was not at all prickly – quite engaging and “on.”

48. Richard Thompson, Bearsville Theater, “Rumour & Sigh” solo acoustic tour, early 90s. The best solo acoustic show I’ve ever seen. Also the first time I ever heard “52 Vincent Black Lightning,” my favorite song of his. A real triple threat – guitarist, writer and singer/performer – with great stage presence and patter and jaw-dropping chops.

49. Gogol Bordello, Austin City Limits Festival, 2008. These odd, raggedy, rock and roll gypsies really owned the festival. A big band, with bearded, crazed men singing and flailing away while girls in bicycle shorts pound on big bass drums and do choreography as an intensely tight band executes an Eastern European version of the Pogues-meets-Iggy Pop. They had the crowd enthralled and no one knew what they were singing about. I heard later that they stayed up all night on the festival grounds, singing, dancing, drinking and roasting a pig in the ground.

50. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Madison Square Garden, 1999. This was the tour on which he played "American Skin," - his song about unarmed Amadou Diallo being shot 41 times by the NYPD. Not only was that song intense and chilling, the whole show was like a rock and roll tent revival meeting. One of the best rock shows I've ever seen, if not the best. The songs, the performance, the connection to the crowd, the energy... a spiritual experience. A rare opportunity to see and hear a band that has been together for decades and thus posses a simpatico vibe that can never be rehearsed, only accomplished after untold bus rides, plane trips, hotels, road food, and, of course, simply playing together for most of their lives.

My Buddy

2009-05-14T21:44:00.008-04:00

By Robert Burke Warren
originally published in Texas Music

“This is the music boppers wanna hear!”

It’s 1994 and I’m yelling at an Englishman portraying legendary Nashville producer Owen Bradley. In a sold-out theater in London, we’re re-enacting an apocryphal moment: pre-fame Buddy Holly trying to convince Bradley that making him sing country is a mistake. “Come on boys,” I say with conviction, strapping on a Stratocaster and marshalling the Crickets, “let’s rock and roll it!”

I execute the instantly recognizable blues riff that launches “That’ll Be the Day,” and the theater crowd goes wild, dancing in the aisles. Over the course of the next three hours, I will sing and play seventeen Buddy Holly songs and, with a couple dozen actor-musicians, tell the story of a driven young Texan’s rise to stardom and tragic, untimely death. I am midway through a yearlong stint as the lead in the hit jukebox musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.

Prior to being cast as the tall shy Texan, I had little exposure to Buddy. The first time I heard “That’ll Be the Day” and “It’s So Easy,” they were Linda Ronstadt hits on WQXI AM in Atlanta, Georgia, where I was raised. I recall when the biopic The Buddy Holly Story played at the local cinema in 1978, but I wouldn’t see it until fifteen years later when, as preparation for my audition for the musical theater version of Buddy’s story, I was given a VHS copy.

By then I was a twenty-something actor-musician in Manhattan, and Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story had moved from Broadway into a regional Connecticut dinner theater. Upon seeing the casting notice, I immersed myself in all things Buddy. I felt I was born for it; although I’ve yet to go to Lubbock, I have kin in San Antonio; I’d worn tortoise-shell glasses for most of my childhood; I’m tall and skinny; I can nail Buddy’s Stratocaster riffs and hiccupy singing style.

But I didn’t get the gig. I was cast as Buddy’s understudy. Over the three-month run, I would go on as Buddy once, to the roar of the crowd and the smell of fried chicken.

Members of the cast encouraged me to get in touch with the producers of the London/UK version of the show. “They always need a new Buddy,” I was told. While the musical was moving down the theater food chain in the U.S., it continued to draw sellout crowds in London’s West End – where it had originated in 1989 – and on tour in the UK. (It also did well in South Africa, Germany, Australia, Japan, Canada and Scandinavia.)

Ironically, the musical’s book had been written by an Englishman, and the whole enterprise was launched by Londoners who used as source material Paul McCartney’s documentary The Real Buddy Holly Story. McCartney – who insists that “without the Crickets, no Beatles” – made his film as a reaction to what he and many fans felt was a less than truthful portrayal of Buddy in the Gary Busey flick. Owning the rights to Buddy’s songs, the "cute Beatle" had given the musical his blessing.

I sent the producers my 8 x 10, and within a couple months, I was on a plane to Heathrow, bound for the tour and eventually the Victoria Palace Theatre in London’s West End. I left behind a couple of bartending gigs, a tenement apartment and my wife of seven years. The dramatic shift in my life would serve me well when I needed to convey Buddy’s ambivalence and exhaustion as his relationships were strained by his rise to fame and sudden wealth. My own life would incur comparable difficulties, but my luck held out. (Thirteen years after Buddy, I’m still married.)

Being directed by an Englishman to portray his vision of Buddy Holly was surreal. Most Texans I know talk fast, but the director insisted I talk slow “like Texans do.” And the lines were an odd combo of Brit-speak and Huckleberry Hound-isms. But for the most part, it was a positive experience, and it made me a Buddy Holly aficionado. My enthusiasm for every grainy YouTube video and scratchy demo is undimmed, and my sadness over his tragic death remains.

I lost track of exactly how many times I tread the boards as Buddy, but suffice to say the intense physicality of nightly rocking out made me a more disciplined performer. I’d hoped to meet McCartney or the surviving Crickets – they were known to drop in occasionally – but the only eminence with whom I crossed paths was David Copperfield.

Inspired by the brilliance of “Everyday,” “True Love Ways,” and a dozen other timeless tunes, I returned to Manhattan with a renewed interest in songwriting. In the year I was gone, I’d spent most of my time talking to musicians and the tech crew, and I soon realized I’d left an actor-musician but returned a musician-actor. Buddy Holly delivered me to my people – his people – and for that I am most grateful.

Confessions of a Children's Birthday Party Entertainer

2009-05-12T23:37:00.002-04:00

by Robert Burke Warren
AKA Uncle Rock
originally published in Big Apple Parent
pic by Hillary Harvey

"Go away! Go away! Go awaaaay!!!"

Thus began my first gig as a children's birthday party entertainer; I was being shrieked at by the soon-to-be three-year-old guest of honor. I had arrived early. Stepping up to the screen door of a weekend house in the Catskill Mountains of New York, I had come upon Chet – an only child contentedly amusing himself in the living room. Once I’d startled him, I did not need to knock.

His mother, a trim and energetic owner of a Manhattan PR firm, came bounding in. For all she knew, a drooling coyote was snarling on the steps. Upon seeing me, however, she smiled. "Chet's just this way with new people!" she said with a good-natured laugh. She unlatched the lock and let me in amid the continued wailing.

"Look, Chet, look! It's UNCLE ROCK!" she enthused. The screen door slammed behind me. It sounded really loud.

"No no no no no no no!" replied her son.

It was not an auspicious beginning. But that was two years ago, and I've started to get the hang of the children's party circuit. I am becoming known as the cowboy-shirt-wearing guy who walks in with an acoustic guitar to sing rock and roll and invite partygoers of all ages to join in – an alternative to a clown or a magician.

A longtime musician, songwriter and actor, I had started making music for families under the name Uncle Rock, and eventually parents and kids began inviting me to play at private events – mostly parties. Although I worried that I'd be walking into farcical, Christopher Guest mock-umentary-type situations, I told myself it could be interesting. I was right on both counts; it’s been quite interesting and it’s been like a cross between Pop Go The Wiggles and This Is Spinal Tap.

My fellow family music troubadour Dan Zanes has said that when he started playing music for the juicebox set his friends secretly felt sorry for him. Not so with my cronies. No, they openly pitied me. And I've stopped trying to convince them that this has been a rich, valuable chapter of my performing life.

There still are awkward moments – like scaring the bejeezus out of Chet – but I've become drawn to them in a guerrilla theater/punk rock type of way. An awkward moment is possessed of a particularly potent energy, and like an adrenaline junkie, I love tapping into that. And truth be told, some of the kids' parties I've played have been great gigs from start to finish. But those don’t make the best stories.

Like the time a domestic dispute during the festivities made the party feel like a cross between Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf? and Stand By Me. And the obnoxious dad who kept trying to impress me by quizzing his five-year-old son on Beatles trivia in front of everyone.

Meltdowns by the Birthday Boy/Girl have been quite common, which has reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote: "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

I've performed in a sprawling Manhattan apartment overlooking the Hudson River (similar to being in a Brooks Brothers catalog), in front of a crackling woodstove in a rural farmhouse ("Stand over there Uncle Rock, so the kids won't get burned!"), and in the back rooms of a panoply of restaurants. Because of this unexpected depth of experience, I get questioned by parents who want to throw the "best party ever" for their child and need my advice. But when I say things like, "Don't open the presents during the party," "Don't invite the whole school," and "Don't be a control freak," they're usually not listening.

More often than not, I have seen moms who are stressed simply because they aren’t sure what’s best for their kid. Being a parent myself, my heart goes out to them. "Teach me to care and not to care," wrote T. S. Eliot, and if he had met a harried parent trying to do right by his or her child, he'd have known exactly what to say. A child's birthday party sometimes seems like a microcosm of parenting itself: "When do I jump in and attempt to control this chaos? When is it OK to lay back and just let nature take its course?" But in reality, it's not a microcosm. It's just a kid's party.

Overall, I've had a great time walking in with an acoustic guitar and taking up the challenge of entertaining kids – and parents – who have been weaned on jump-cut-edited cartoons and handheld computer games. My faith in the power of song is intact: There remains an innate desire in people of all ages to let go and be "inside the song." It's only when a performer is there to open the door that this is possible on a deep level, and that is what I come to do.

I performed "grown-up" rock and roll for years, and kids are not all that different from a potentially explosive, inebriated club audience. While playing a particularly rowdy sixth birthday party, I looked around at the exuberant dancing, singing, and group action, and I had an epiphany: This is what adults are trying to re-capture when they go see a band and head for the bar – a loosening of inhibitions and anxiety, a contagious joy.

And speaking of loosening up, Chet's party turned out fine. By the end of it, after we’d rocked out a couple times on "Back In The U.S.S.R.," he didn't want me to leave. But I quit while I was ahead. Before the sun set, I got paid and headed home, turning the page on a new chapter in my performing life. I can't recall if the screen door slammed behind me or not.

My Last Mix Tape

2009-05-12T23:23:00.001-04:00

By Robert Burke Warren
originally published in Chronogram

It’s looking at me with two hollow eyes and markings that suggest a down-turned mouth. My attention goes to the window where I see two spools of thin black tape guts. That delicate and decaying strand of innards contains the contents of My Last Mix Tape, circa 2002.

Back in the day I christened my mix tapes with titles like “Disco Dis Way.” “K-tel Kollection,” and “Dumb 70s” but My Last Mix Tape is nameless. Like the final episodes of Seinfeld and The Sopranos, it has its moments, but it doesn’t close an era with a bang. It’s no late 80s mix.

The fidelity on those tapes is, in comparison to mix CDs, muddy and laden with hiss. And yes, analog tape degrades with each playing. But that’s why it’s cool. Because like a person, the mix tape ages and eventually it dies. Perhaps slowly in a damp cardboard box in a basement, or with tragic swiftness on a dashboard in the August sun. But its fragility is part of what makes it precious; its uncontrollable decreasing sound quality is a lesson in the acceptance of loss.

My wife, Holly, wooed me with my first mix tape. Around Valentine’s Day 1987, I was in a van with the Fleshtones, Manhattan-bound after a weekend of gigs. A few days before, Holly had given me a cassette with no table of contents list – titled “Lovey Dovey V Tape” - and I was eager to hear it.

I put it on and out pumped The Long Ryders’ version of NRBQ’s “Want You Bad.” Presto, the shadowy and malodorous interior of the Econoline was uplifted while I connected to my faraway crush.

To everyone’s surprise, Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” culled from a 45 in an old balsawood crate, followed. It caught us off-guard, to say the least. When Prince sang, “I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long, make you shout!” the band looked at me with wolfish grins.

“Lovey Dovey V Tape” was an eclectic masterwork that made its own rules. As it played, we were treated to Sylvia’s “Pillow Talk”, The Replacements’ “Valentine,” Neil Young’s “Like A Hurricane” and more. I proposed not long thereafter.

I also threw myself into making mix tapes and using them to connect to the world.

My relationship with my brother Britt, a bachelor living many states away, was deepened by mix tapes. The first one I tailored for him - “Britt’s Rock Collection” – came from scratchy LPs of bands from our childhood: Queen, Bad Company, Cheap Trick, AC/DC. Visiting him in the late 90s, I saw a box overflowing with worn-out cassettes festooned with my handwriting. He seemed chagrined that I saw his stash, but I couldn’t have been happier about it.

To my surprise, my brother said he knew what was happening in my life by what I put on the tapes, which were like letters bringing us closer.

Eventually he turned into a family man driving a minivan with no cassette deck. But he still needed the audio missives, so in 2002 he bought me a CD duplicator and I converted to digital, eventually foregoing much – but not all – of the analog world.

I’m happy to say “Lovey Dovey V Tape” and many other compilations have survived. Holly and I talk about hooking our tape deck back up to listen to them, but we haven’t gotten around to it. In truth, it’s overwhelming to think about crossing that line, committing to the richness of that treasure trove. But the tapes are there, if stored somewhat thoughtlessly. My Last Mix Tape is a reminder that it’s nice to imagine getting back into listening to the music degrade before our very ears. And it’s good to know that those vanishing paths to and from cherished times and folks are still lovingly encased in flawed technology, to be trod again someday. But not today.

Me & RuPaul

2009-05-12T23:14:00.003-04:00

RuPaul and me, ca. 1983

By Robert Burke Warren

Before I met RuPaul Andre Charles, I saw him do a stand-up routine on amateur night at an Atlanta comedy club in 1982. I was seventeen. A twenty-two-year-old RuPaul came out in pasted-on tassels and glitter. In front of an unsuspecting congregation of white frat guys and their feather-haired dates, he gestured to his get-up and squealed, “You like my outfit? Well… this is the front…” then, executing a dainty spin, he added, “and this is the back!” It didn’t go over well, and I recall feeling pity and fear that he’d soon be gay-bashed in the parking lot.

Almost two decades later I would see him do this same bit on his own national TV show, and it would kill.

A year or so after that night, I was forming a band with my best friend guitarist Todd Butler. Todd had come into his own at the local art house theater portraying Riff Raff in the live floorshow of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I’d been playing bass in a punky pop band.

Through Rocky Horror, Todd had gained access to the new wave queer underworld of Atlanta, and had fallen in love with trash-funk band the Now Explosion and their back-up singers/go-go dancers RuPaul and the U-hauls. One day Ru took the bus to Todd's house, but unlike the cringe-worthy “comic” I’d seen, this RuPaul was charming and magnetic. The three of us fired up an ancient drum machine from the 60s and christened ourselves Wee Wee Pole – “like something a little kid would say.” In short order we appeared on public access and booked our first gig – opening for the Now Explosion at a seedy downtown club. We tore the roof off the place.

Within months we added percussionist David Klimchak – the only “functioning adult” in the band – made a three-song demo, and began gigging regularly. One memorable night we played at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, and RuPaul screamed from the stage, “Where’s MICHAEL STIPE? He’s so CUTE! I just love him!” Sadly, or perhaps not, Stipe was on the road.

Inevitably, we fell out with Todd’s mother, Betty, and lost our practice space. Mrs. Butler had been a gracious hostess; despite – or perhaps because of – her devout Christian beliefs, she tolerated RuPaul’s screamingly obvious gayness, never even addressing the non-issue. One day, however, she overheard the lyrics to a song called “Get Sexy” (“Perfume on yo’ cleavage, perfume on yo’ toes/Perfume on yo’ privacy, where everybody wants to go!”) and Mrs. Butler evicted us. We had officially tried the patience of a saint.

Regardless of minor setbacks, RuPaul went into promo overdrive. He Xeroxed fanzines about himself and wheat-pasted Wee Wee Pole gig posters all over Atlanta. One featuring a photo of him clad only in a loincloth was stuck on my grandmother Gammie’s street in a conservative Atlanta neighborhood. She was not pleased. (It would be years before I would convince her I was not being “recruited by the gays.”) It all paid off; soon our local hit “Tarzan" was getting airplay on Georgia State’s WRAS, we were opening for national acts, and headlining clubs.

RuPaul didn’t do much full drag in the early 80s. It’s expensive, for one thing, and he was dirt poor. He was an impressively inventive thrift store cross-dresser. I recall a feather boa wired into his short Mohawk, an oversize diaper, football shoulder pads affixed to his shirtless torso, and a pair of size 13 fisherman’s waders worn with hot pants.

On the downside, RuPaul could get pretty drunk and cavort sloppily onstage with drag queens while Todd, David and I vamped interminably on “Love Hangover.” I had no patience for that and I made sure everyone knew it. How I wish I had tapes of our band meetings from that time, just to hear things like: “Ru, you cannot invite Ty-D-Bowl on the stage with you, he ruins everything.”

The tech department at my alma mater Northside School of the Performing Arts had brand new video equipment and they were eager to do a live shoot with an audience of students. I volunteered Wee Wee Pole, worried yet thrilled at the risk. Ru did not hold back one iota – parading amongst the teens and dumbstruck teachers in one of his trash-glam ensembles, cutting loose with some over-the-top moves and cries of faux ecstasy, exhorting the spellbound kids with “EVERYBODY SAY LOVE!” I always have hoped his performance gave courage to some secret misfit kids.

I sent our demo tape to New York City, and from my grandmother’s kitchen I booked a Thursday night at the Pyramid Club and a Friday at Danceteria opening for Gene Loves Jezebel. Our fellow Atlanta scenesters took it upon themselves to warn us about “New York audiences,” clucking that the folks up there wouldn’t clap and perhaps might even boo, and not to take it personally.

We made the trip from Atlanta to New York City in one twenty-hour shot of continuous driving, done mostly by Ru, who once had earned a living as a drive-away car guy and loved the open road. It was late fall of ’83, I was eighteen, and the gigs we would play would be my last with the band. Athens, Georgia was calling like a siren.

Since R.E.M. had started their precipitous climb, the stock of the sleepy little college town had risen, and I was enthralled from 65 miles away in Atlanta, where I’d spent my whole life. Invited by well-established musician Vic Varney to start a new Athens band, I was drawn to the presumed depth and artiness of the scene.

In spite of Wee Wee Pole’s success, I’d grown frustrated; I told myself we were destined only to do songs about sex, partying and fun, as if that was a terrible fate. I decided this was a bash I wanted to leave early, and a New York tour was a perfect swan song.

Wee Wee Pole arrived in Manhattan on a cold autumn evening. We crashed on the Chelsea apartment floor of Dan, an old buddy of my girlfriend’s mother. A former male-model-turned-professional-waiter, Dan was prone to walking around his apartment completely naked, which seemed fine at the time and caused no incident. In fact, his shower was in his kitchen, so there was no way around it. None of us took showers.

The next night we played the Pyramid Club on Avenue A in the East Village. Within moments of our first song, it was clear that the sizable Thursday night crowd loved us. With thunderous applause still ringing in our ears, we stumbled into the post-midnight chill deliriously happy, relieved, and nowhere near tired. Ru had begun some celebratory drinking and although Todd, David and I didn’t drink, take drugs or smoke pot, we all got caught up in his elation. We asked around about something to do and someone suggested the Staten Island Ferry as a cheap, touristy adventure. The early morning hours found us heading towards the water in our van.

We parked on the ferry and found seats upstairs. The fluorescent lights and sad, dingy colors of the boat could not suppress RuPaul’s drunken gaiety. He ran full-tilt from bow to stern, getting right in the faces of the taciturn late-night commuters, crowing “JESUS LOVES YOU! YOU ARE SO GORGEOUS! WHO WANTS GUM? I DO, I DO!” Todd, David and I were still buzzing from the gig, so we took no notice of some sneering Mean Streets-looking toughs who growled, “You gotta wake up to reality, man… wake up to reality!” It wasn’t until we landed on Staten Island and went to retrieve the van that we noticed our tires had been slashed. We drove our crippled vehicle onto the Island, temporarily marooned. Ru moped and dozed in the front seat, and as the sun came up and our adrenaline dipped, we sat in silence, awaiting delivery of a new rental.

We slept at Dan’s most of the day and awoke in time to go play our Danceteria gig. We kicked ass, and once again RuPaul had the crowd in the palm of his hand. It was another triumphant night and I daresay we blew Gene Loves Jezebel off the stage. The next day we would retrieve our hapless new van – which had been towed – from a carbon-monoxide drenched garage and hit the road for home, satisfied and eager to relay news of our conquest.

Within weeks I quit. No one was surprised – my dissatisfaction with the band was no secret and there had been friction, complete with morning-after recriminations and apologies for missed cues and drunken lewdness. But if RuPaul ever bore me any ill will, I certainly never felt it.

Ru and I would cross paths several times over the next couple of decades. After spending most of 1984 playing in Athens band Go Van Go, wanderlust overtook me. I pulled up stakes and moved to Manhattan at the age of nineteen. In the 17 years I lived there, Ru would be a sometime-New Yorker and I was called in to play guitar and bass on his LP RuPaul Is Starbooty. We had a ball.

After getting sober and hooking up with ace management in the early 90s, Ru’s star really began to rise. At that time, I ran into him on lower Broadway and he had a whole agenda laid out – hit single, TV show, book, movies. Within a few years, it all happened. And when my elderly Gammie called to tell me she’d seen his career-ma king spot on Arsenio – “I saw that RuPaul on the TV!” – it seemed a part of the natural order of things.

The last time I saw RuPaul in the flesh was during my late-90s years as a Manhattanite stay-at-home dad. I was carrying my toddler son Jack through the East Village in a backpack and there was Ru, dressed in a sharp suit, passing unrecognized through my neighborhood. He had all the time in the world for us. He’d had his hit single “Supermodel,” his talk show, and various roles in Hollywood movies, and at that time he was a popular morning DJ on WKTU FM New York, splitting his time between Manhattan and L.A. His freckled face beamed goodwill and happiness for me, and he expressed empathic joy for my new life as a parent, and even hope that one day he might be able to take on that particular challenge.

It would not surprise me in the least if he did.

ANTHEM

2009-05-12T23:03:00.001-04:00

By Robert Burke Warren
listener essay for WAMC (local NPR station)
hear me read it by clicking HERE

Since Barack Obama won the presidency, my son has been singing “The Star Spangled Banner” quite a lot. He keeps trying valiantly to master the octave-and-a-half melody. It’s a tall order, but he soldiers on, loving the work. And I’m pretty sure I know where he got hooked on the national anthem: YouTube.

When we saw the cell phone movies of spontaneously assembled crowds in urban areas all over the country sharing their joy and singing “The Star Spangled Banner” I finally lost it. Perhaps because of our rural locale, the immensity of the election results had not yet hit me full force until I witnessed those grainy, distorted little missives from cyberspace. My son was riveted. Like me, he’d never seen anything like it.

“The Star Spangled Banner.” Not “God Bless America”, “My Country ‘tis of Thee”, or “America the Beautiful - ” “The Star Spangled Banner.” In Times Square, on St. Mark’s Place, in front of the White House in Washington D.C., they threw their heads back and roared “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Why that song? It’s really hard to sing - probably the most difficult melody of any American patriotic song. By modern standards, the words are obtuse. “The Star Spangled Banner” is not about love of the physical attributes of our country, and it’s not specifically about freedom or democracy. Rather, it’s an ode to a flag that has stood through a battle.

A little history on which my son helped me: During the War Of 1812, Francis Scott Key, District Attorney of Washington D.C., spent a long rainy night witnessing the fiery Battle of Baltimore as a captive on the H.M.S. Tonnant. At dawn, Key looked to the shore and saw a flag with fifteen stripes and fifteen stars waving in a smoky haze: Against the mighty onslaught of the Royal Navy, his fellow Americans had held their ground. Key, an amateur poet as well as a politician, took out a pencil and paper and made history.

It started as a poem, but Key’s brother-in-law got the idea to put the words to the existing melody of a popular drinking song. Thus was born “The Star Spangled Banner.” Within a century, Woodrow Wilson decreed that it would be played at national events, and eventually Herbert Hoover made it our official anthem.

So this odd, compelling mix of a jubilant poem borne in captivity married to a drinking song has persisted in our collective soul, and it welled up into mass consciousness on election night 2008. At first glance “The Star Spangled Banner” may seem an unlikely choice; in addition to the operatic tune, most folks do not know what the lyrics are describing, and interestingly, the song begins and ends with an unanswered question, making it feel more open-ended than most anthems.

But perhaps these inelegant qualities – the hard-to-parse text, the difficulty in navigating the melody, the lingering questions - are part of the attraction; at their best, Americans are curious, drawn to challenges. To those who can grasp it, the inherent awkwardness of our political system is a point of pride. And like most drinking song melodies, “The Star Spangled Banner” sounds tailor-made for an exuberant crowd.

When people sang “The Star Spangled Banner” in the post-election euphoria, there may have been no flags to salute, but the overwhelming mood must have been similar to what Francis Scott Key felt that morning on Chesapeake Bay: against great odds and much fierce opposition, a battle was won, hope had survived, and even amid unanswered questions, work could begin anew on a different version of this organic experiment that is America. So whether or not they knew it consciously, those election night revelers picked the perfect song. And so has my son.

Welcome to Solitude and Good Company!

2009-05-12T22:56:00.001-04:00

"Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude and good company." Lord Byron

I reckon it's time I got on the blog train. Solitude and Good Company will be a place for me to post my various articles, essays, letters, poems and fiction, plus a venue for musings that will likely run the gamut from stuff you could not care less about to stuff that you might find interesting. In any event, welcome.