April Playlist!

Holy Crap! Do you know how many albums come out in a week? It's 

maddening! Forget catching up with everything I didn't bother to listen to that came out last year! I'll never get caught up with what came out in the first week of March. 

The April Playlist is all over the place! We start with two days remembering the genius of Mr. Marvin Gaye and then it's everything from Cypress Hill To Peter, Paul And Mary for the "Classic" album selections. New albums are mostly March and April releases from this year. Enjoy!

April 1

Marvin Gaye What’s Going On (Marvin was shot and killed on 4.1.1984)

Modest Mouse Strangers To Ourselves

April 2

Marvin Gaye Midnight Love (Marvin was born on 4.2.1939)

Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly

April 3

Nirvana Incesticide (Kurt Cobain most likely killed himself on 4.5.1994)

Scott Weiland Blaster

April 6

Social Distortion Social Distortion (Released on 3.27.1990)

Courtney Barnett Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit

April 7

Daryl Hall And John Oates Abandoned Luncheonette 

(Oates born on 4.7.1949)

Tobias Jesso Jr. Goon

April 8

The Eagles The Long Run

Death Cab For Cutie Kintsugi

April 9

The Muffs Blonder And Blonder

The Muffs Whoop Dee Doo

April 10

Television Marquee Moon

Jesse Malin New York Before The War

April 13

Red Hot Chili Peppers The Uplift Mofo Party Plan 

(Hillel Slovak was born on 4.13.1962)

Jeff The Brotherhood Wasted On The Dream

April 14

Jefferson Airplane Surrealistic Pillow

Steve Wilson Hand. Cannot. Erase.

April 15

The Mighty Lemon Drops Laughter (Plus “Inside Out”)

The Cribs For All My Sisters

April 16

Public Image Ltd. Public Image: First Issue

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Freedom Tower – No Wave Dance Party 2015

April 17

Van Halen Diver Down

Swervedriver I Wasn’t Born To Lose You

April 20

Cypress Hill Black Sunday (In honor of 4.20)

Cheech & Chong Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit (In honor of 4.20)

April 21

Roger Daltrey Daltrey (Released on 4.20.1973)

Alabama Shakes Sound & Color

April 22

Peter, Paul And Mary Peter, Paul And Mary

Inside Llewyn Davis Original Soundtrack

April 23

Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited

Sufijan Stevens Carrie & Lowell

April 24

Electric Light Orchestra Out Of The Blue

Built To Spill Untethered Moon

April 27

Joe Jackson Look Sharp

The Go! Team The Scene Between

April 28

New Order Power, Corruption & Lies

Blur The Magic Whip

April 29

Willie Nelson Stardust (Willie was born on 4.29.1933)

Ringo Starr Postcards From Paradise

April 30

Freddie Mercury Mr. Bad Guy (Released on 4.29.1985)

Passion Pit Kindred

03.10.15

On March 10th I listened to Buzzcocks Another Music In A Different Kitchen and Björk Vulnicura.

Did you know Buzzcocks’ seminal single “Orgasm Addict” never really appeared on a proper album? Yeah, it’s true. So, when you listen to a reissue of Another Music In A Different Kitchen, it’s thrown on there.

Buzzcocks are one of those pioneering UK punk bands that sound so fucking English if you didn't know what they looked like you might imagine an order of fish n’ chips wrapped in a newspaper and a bottle of malt vinegar performing the songs. It being lent and all, that sounds really good right now… I digress, they sound very English.

I’m pretty familiar with Operator’s Manual: Buzzcocks Best, but I don’t think I can say I've ever hit play on one of their albums. If you’re going to shoot a movie set in the early 80s and you have to do a scene in an indie record shop where the clerks are total twats, then Another Music In A Different Kitchen should be playing. I thought the name of the album was derived from the revolutionary sound of the band at the time of its release in 1978, but apparently it’s a play on a name of a picture some visual artist did back in the day. “Visual artist?” Reminds me of this scene from The Big Lebowski.

I like Buzzcocks. They’re a lot of fun to me, and I have a funny story how I came to be a casual fan. (More on that in a minute.)

I knew most of Another Music In A Different Kitchen going into this listen, even though I've never heard the album. Only five of the album’s eleven tracks aren't included on Operator’s Manual. So, I was hoping to find a gem of an album track or two. The uncharacteristically long “Moving Away From The Pulsebeat” was pretty much the only standout in that capacity and it mainly stood out mostly cause of its length.

“I Don’t Mind” is the superstar here and sticks out like an onion ring in your chips right in the middle of this debut album. It’s really the first time on this endeavor that the band sounds like more than the sum of their parts. The problem with a band like Buzzcocks is ultimately their “sound.” However interesting it might be, it’s just the same shit over and over again. The first five minutes is heaven, and each additional five minutes gets a little less exciting. Thirty minutes is about all you’ll need of Buzzcocks and then you can go listen to something else.

It was easy to just get acquainted with their greatest hits offering because of that fact. Throw a single Buzzcocks song onto any mixtape, pardon me… playlist, and it peppers it with flash of brilliance, throw a whole Buzzcocks album on and pretty soon it all starts to sound like the pieces to one long song. Too much of a good thing, I guess. Having said that, there are other bands guilty of that that I love, so it’s not like I don’t have the patience for a great outfit with a repetitive nature. (Repetitive nature is just a polite way of saying one-trick pony.)

I saw Buzzcocks play a 45-minute set at a big outdoor Festival in 1996 and it was absolutely perfect. Tight and quick! The band sounded great. The hits didn't stop coming and then it was all over. Done and done.

I suspect that if I listen to the band’s next two albums, they’ll be met with the same reaction from me. The songs that didn’t make their greatest hits collection, didn’t make it for a reason.

So, here’s a funny story that revolves around Buzzcocks.

In Buffalo, New York in 1992 we didn’t have a summer. July and August came on the calendar but the season of sun never bothered to show up. It rained and/or was chilly almost every day. By the end of July, people weren't happy and bored college students on summer vacation got restless.

That's the almanac from July 1992! Look at all those rain clouds.

I spent most of that summer crashing at my friend Joe Bagodonuts’ three bedroom apartment on Elmwood Avenue; it was the whole second floor of an old house. He had just rented the place with Frankenstein and The Hippy; both of whom were spending the summer at their mommies’ houses on Wrong Island and in Rochester, respectively. Because Bagodonuts was the primary resident that inaugural summer, the place was nicknamed The Donut Shop. I became the resident freeloader and slept in the Hippy’s room. Mostly because Frankenstein’s room was empty and there was a bed with a burlap sack for a blanket in the Hippy’s. (That September, while lying on that bed, wrapped in that burlap sack and tripping on acid I will see sound for the second time in my life. You can read about the first time I saw sound here.)

In January of 1990 I started working at 91.3 WBNY/Buffalo, the radio station at Buffalo State College. A one hundred and ten watt FM mono powerhouse! As “Buffalo’s Only Alternative,” WBNY didn't really have any competition. There wasn't anything like it in town. Classic Rock, Dirtbag Rock, Top 40 and Country were the big formats and everybody listened to those radio stations. If we were lucky down at 91.3 a couple hundred people listened to us. The average hot chick on Instagram or Twitter today has more followers than WBNY had listeners. My whole college life pretty much revolved around working at that radio station. It was my fraternity and I dedicated a lot of time to it.

Then one day, a couple of pirate radio clowns showed up and fucked up our apple cart.

Captain Coldsore and Toothpick took the Buffalo underground by storm. Amassing tens of listeners in just a few weeks with an unpredictable broadcast schedule and ever changing frequency. Their underground buzz was astounding, if you didn't factor in that nobody actually ever heard them. A lot of people just kinda heard of them.

Staffers at WBNY were not amused by their antics, mainly because they usually always broadcast close to or on our frequency of 91.3 megahertz. (I don’t even know if megahertz is the right word. It just sounded good.) Basically, sometimes when they signed on their signal bled all over us.

I simply didn't like them because they sucked! They’d set up a mic on a coffee table and would play quarters* for half an hour and then have lengthy discussions about how “important” the music they barely played was and blah blah blah… puke! They sounded exactly like 99% of every podcast that nobody listened to ever!

I like to think I was a world-class drunk in College. But, compared to my friend Joe Fisher (sic) I was barely semi-pro. He was/is your typical Irish drunk. He’d have a drink with Hitler himself, if it was after closing time and Adolph knew an afterhours spot. He really dedicated himself to drinking alcohol and it was that quality that led him to some out of the way places, drinking with a wide array of people… like Hitler. So, it wasn’t shocking that one night Fisher walked into the Essex Street Pub, at last call, with Captain Coldsore.

Our story takes place at this palatial shithole. 

Details of this evening are spotty at best, but after we got booted from the Pub, we headed to The Donut Shop in the wee hours of that damp summer's night. The guest list consisted of: me, Bagodonuts, Fisher, Coldsore and the downstairs neighbor, who may or may not have been named Kate. Luckily, the other downstairs neighbor was Maurice, a very elderly and deaf gentlemen.

The five of us clomped up the stairs, opened beers and plopped down in the living room. I threw on the new Ministry album Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed And The Way To Suck Eggs and mostly everyone was happy with the selection.

“I’m not a fan of Industrial music,” Coldsore said to nobody in particular. “It’s just cheap Metal.” His comment bounced around the room for a second before anybody else spoke… I soaked it in without acknowledging it.

After the initial merriment of the new venue and the new Ministry album wore off we all settled around the coffee table in the living room and began discussing whatever the bullshit topic of the day might have been. Maybe we talked about the 1992 Summer Olympics being held in Barcelona and the inclusion of NBA players on the “Dream Team,” which went on to win the gold. I dunno, maybe?

What I do remember very distinctly was as the late night powwow burned on, every time Joe or I got up to switch CDs, Captain Coldsore looked visibly moved to speak, but said nothing. Imagine Woody Allen lifting up his hand and opening his mouth about to say “excuse me,” but not a peep came out. It didn't matter anyway because Fisher was actively making requests that were being ignored. If I got on a tear, it was my way or the highway. I kept a strictly Industrial theme going: KMFDM, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Front 242, et al. It was while I was throwing on “Supernaut” by 1000 Homo DJs that I finally looked over to Captain Coldsore. “What, dude? You wanna hear something?”

SNL's Kyle Mooney stole Captain Coldsore's whole shtick.

Coldsore was what I’d call a petite fellow. Dressed smartly in a white t-shirt, thrift store pullover sweater vest, tight black jeans and doofus brown shoes. He had dark curly hair, dark eyes and looked like he got punched a lot for flinching. His voice was as annoying as he looked.

“Do you have any Buzzcocks?” he asked as he noticeably perked up in his seat at the end of the couch. For most of the bullshitting that had happened in the last hour or so, he wasn't what I’d call a very vocal participant.

Nothing annoys people more than when you quickly and decisively dismiss something they’re passionate about.

“No. Buzzcocks suck” I nonchalantly said as I hit play on 1000 Homo DJs. Joe and Kate got up to go to the kitchen or bathroom and I stole the ratty armchair Kate had been sitting in. “Grab me a beer,” Fisher and I said in unison. Coldsore added a paltry “me too.”  

Completely unsolicited the good Captain began to talk about the history of the Buzzcocks and how some of their earlier works were highly influential recordings. He was lit up with a new passion that I hadn't seen all night. He was downright animated! It also explained that it's not The Buzzcocks. It is just simply Buzzcocks. 

I started feigning interest and asked a few dumb questions. “Where are they from? Do they sound anything like Frankie Goes To Hollywood? Was that Bob Geldof's first band? Is Buzzcocks English slang for dildo?"

Coldsore was busy explaining how Johnny Marr had changed his name to avoid confusion with the Buzzcocks’ drummer when Joe, entering the room with an armful of beers, followed up with “didn't Johnny Marr play harmonica on their last album?”

When Joe and I fucked with somebody, a lot of the time they just thought we were a couple of idiots. A known accomplice of ours, Fisher was fully aware of what we were up to.

“I’d love to hear these guys!”

“It’s too bad that we don’t have one of their records here!”

As luck would have it, the Captain had a copy of Singles Going Steady in his bag, which he was very happy to produce.

Kate let out a moan of dismay. She had been asking for Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is A Highway,” for a long time and under normal circumstances would never have heard it, but she ran downstairs for her copy and we let her have her moment. Joe, Kate, and I danced and sang along, quite loudly, to Mr. Cochrane… twice. Immediately afterwards, Joe remembered Johnny Marr wasn't on a Buzzcocks record!

“He played on The The Mindbomb! Oh, we should listen to that!” And we did!

That led to a mini-marathon of The Smiths with multiple CD changes. Every time we pulled out the disc and loaded up another one, Coldsore would shift in his seat and look down at his lonely Buzzcocks disc sitting on the coffee table. He eventually picked it up and cradled it in his loving arms. There wasn't much this kid could do that wouldn't annoy me. 

Fisher intervened, grabbing the disc from Captain Coldsore and suggesting we “throw on some Buzzcocks! I wanna hear “What Do I Get?” He started singing the song and thrust the CD out for me or Joe to grab.

We reluctantly agreed to play it. As Joe was loading it up in the player, Coldsore started preaching again. “Singles Going Steady, like its name implies isn't really a proper album, but a compilation of singles released by the band.”

“Like a greatest hits album?” I asked. Joe shouted “greatest hits albums are for housewives and little girls!” We then spend the next twenty minutes searching a six hour VHS tape (Recorded on the EP setting.) full of episodes of The Kids In The Hall looking for a sketch entitled “Into The Doors.”

Immediately after the sketch, we ask Coldsore who plays bass for The Buzzcocks and he named like four or five guys. Then in the spirit of the sketch admit that “we don’t feel right listening to a greatest hits album” and maybe should wait to get one of their earlier albums first.

Coldsore then explained that Another Music In A Different Kitchen was currently out of print. The evening hit its tipping point with that tidbit of information. 

“Out of print?! You know what that means?!” I surmised. “I was right. They do suck. They suck so bad literally nobody ever wants to hear them.”

“No, Brad! That’s not true. It just means they sold out. They’re sold out? Right, Coldsore?” Joe offered sarcastically, yet with a hint of diplomacy.

“How can that be? To sell out don’t they need to be commercial successful first?”

“No,” Joe offered to explain. “They sold out.”

“Oh, so everybody that wanted one of their shitty records got one and then they were all out of them?”

“Yes!”

“You know what should be out of print? Girl, You Know It’s True by Milli Vanilli.”

“You can’t buy that album anymore,” Joe scuffed.

“Nah, I just saw it in the 99 cent bin at the grocery store,” I said. “That’s fucked up, Coldsore. I can buy a Milli Vanilli CD for a dollar and you can’t get your hands on The Buzzcocks first album cause it's out of print! What a world!”

I repeated “what a world” several times as I got up and walked to the bathroom.

The early morning light of a solidly overcast gray day was now illuminating the apartment as I walked to the bathroom. No sooner than I started pissing I heard a bit of a kerfuffle coming from the living room; some raised voices and rapid feet shuffling. I had a very heavy beer stream going, so I couldn't discern anything specific over my whiz. I knew I had started a shitstorm and couldn't wait to finish pissing to see the damage.

When I was zipping up, I heard somebody calling somebody else “a fucking asshole” and that was followed up with the hollow thud of what I figured to be somebody getting pushed up against a wall. When I finally got back out there, the party had moved into what would be considered the dining room and Joe had indeed pushed Coldsore up against the wall. He was holding him in place with his left hand and trying to open a nearby window with his right. Fisher and Kate were just standing there. Kate attempted to defuse the whole situation with a very stern “c’mon guys!”

“You’re little dick, you know that?” Joe muttered in a forced manner that would suggest he was having a bit of a struggle.

“You know what we do with little dicks around here? That’s right… out the fucking window.”

I stood there for a few seconds, soaking up the scene and watching Joe labor to get that window open. He had the window up, but was now struggling with the screen. He finally just pushed it out and it sailed down to the walkway below.

Fisher was no help. He had upped the ante on Kate’s “c’mon guys” to “knock it off, guys!” It didn't matter, he was way more curious to see somebody get thrown out of a second floor window and I have to admit I was right there with him. This story would definitely have a better ending.

Captain Coldsore bounced off the wooden fence separating the restaurant parking lot from the side walkway of the house and crashed onto the asphalt in a bloody heap of broken bones and bruised flesh. Joe Bagodonuts was charged with felonious assault and is currently serving six to ten at Chino. The End.

It quickly became apparent that Coldsore was way too squirrelly for Joe to actually get out of the window and they were both losing steam fast. Kate used the opportunity to say, “I guess I’ll see you guys later,” and left. The whole episode went from white-knuckle anticipation to fairly hilarious slapstick to a pathetic heavy breathing pushing match in about a minute.

It was time to call it a night. I grabbed the Singles Going Steady CD and went over to where Joe and Coldsore were playing grab-ass by the window.

“Hey! Asshole! Here you go!” I said as I threw the CD case out the window like a Frisbee. It landed flatly in the parking lot next door and slid under a car. “GET THE FUCK OUT!”

Coldsore wrestled himself away from Joe and grabbed his purse.

“I’m totally knocking ‘BNY off the air tonight. You’ll see!” the good Captain screamed as he marched out the door and slammed it as hard as his one hundred and fifty pound frame could muster.

Joe and I just stood there staring at Fisher.

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” he said before pounding the last of his beer. “He’s my ride.”

He was just out the door as a loud “fuck you” echoed through the window from the parking lot below.

“Well, I’m going to bed. Nighty night,” Joe said and vanished into his bedroom. It was somewhere around seven a.m.

When I got up the next afternoon. Joe was sitting on the front porch, drinking a coffee and listening to music. I emerged outside and asked him what he was listening to. He pointed the CD player remote into the window and started the disc from the beginning. “Orgasm Addict” began to pour out of the speakers.

“Buzzcocks?”

“Yeah! They’re really fucking good!”

The CD was in the player and I never checked the case before I threw it out the window.

*Quarters is a drinking game where you bounced a quarter into a shot glass so as not to drink more alcohol.

If you’re looking for something dark and boring to listen to while you read a shitty book about vampires or BDSM this is your album!

What happened to this wild woman?

Tomorrow I listen to Radiohead Amnesiac and Thom Yorke Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. 

03.05.15

On March 5th I listened to Red Hot Chili Peppers Mother’s Milk and Coldplay Ghost Stories. It was Red Hot’s current-former guitarist and mastermind John Frusciante’s birthday.

Released in the summer of 1989, the year I graduated high school, Mother’s Milk was the funkiest, most illest, fuck-shit-up record of the year! That is saying a lot because it came out just a few weeks after Paul’s Boutique!

The weird thing about my Alternative music leanings that were formed in the mid-80s by discovering the Repo Man soundtrack is that they quickly drifted across the pond. I moved from a fertile American underground scene to a mostly English fascination. Public Image Ltd., Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure and my beloved The Smiths. I spent the latter half of the 80’s hitting play on all my English gloom and doomers. There was definitely a bigger mix of shit, but that time was the height of my Anglophile phase.

I rarely admit this but I spent the last half of the 80s listening to too many Smiths albums and ignoring some great music made right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Pixies, Replacements, Jane’s Addiction, Fishbone and oddly enough The Clash weren’t my priority back in those days. Although, a new day was dawning and my musical palate was about to explode. I was starting college.

It was tough to be into everything eons before the internet. It took time, dedication and some cash. You really had to live a lifestyle. I went to shows, I bought some cassettes, and I read some of the right shit, but my crew was mainly mainstream guys – content with Classic Rock. Even as a kid with nothing but time, there were only so many hours in the day to discover music and a lot of times you physically had to leave the house to go out and discover it! Or you had to sit through too much crap on the college radio station, or you stayed up late on Sunday nights and watched 120 Minutes. I watched 120 Minutes religiously!

I have no idea why we're holding CDs. Winter 1990?

You can imagine my surprise when Mark Bickerstaff (not pictured) pulled out Mother’s Milk. We were driving to the gym and it was completely out of left field… from him. I was friends with Mark for a couple years at this point and if you asked me what his favorite band was, I would have said, “I dunno… M.C. Hammer?” Mark liked playing hockey and being the funniest guy in the room, music wasn’t his thing.

“Ever hear of the Red Hot Chili Peppers?” he asked so proudly. I barely had heard of them. I vaguely remembered seeing a video, but they weren’t on my radar at all. I don’t know how or why Mark had the album, but on the drive to the gym it changed my life. He was all like, “they’re these guys from California who love Jimi Hendrix and the L.A. Lakers.” He then played “Higher Ground.” I guess I just assumed that it was a Jimi Hendrix song. “Who’s Stevie?” I asked. “He must be one of the guys in the band.” Right. I was a well-rounded 18-year-old, but I certainly didn’t know everything.

Regardless, I feel like we stopped on the way home from the gym and I bought the album on CD and I listened to Mother’s Milk once a day for the next two years… until they dropped their masterpiece.

This record is a fucking stunner and sadly mostly only remembered for “Higher Ground.” From the opening “Good Time Boys” through the freak-flag-flying “Nobody Weird Like Me,” to the tender “Knock Me Down,” and what should have been the Chili Peppers’ first bona fide hit “Taste The Pain,” Mother’s Milk is rarely at a loss. “Stone Cold Bush” is even a party buried in your pubes or it’s a song about a junkie prostitute or a statue prostitute in a fountain in San Francisco… I dunno, maybe?

I really hate to pee anywhere on this album, but “Magic Johnson” sucks. It’s not even fun as a novelty song. And at the time I was still really into basketball and LOVED Magic and the Lakers! I even bought multiple pairs of the Lakers’ colors Converse Weapons sneakers! I always skipped by this track.

SIDEBAR

This is just a weird thing I noticed. People who listened to Alt Rock early and then watched everyone in the world become an expert on the genre will appreciate this. Mother’s Milk came out in 1989 and there were songs from this record that were considered singles. Most of the radio stations across the country didn’t play those singles. College stations played the Red Hots and the handful of commercial Alternative Rock stations that existed played them too. (I was very lucky because in 1988 or 1989 I discovered a radio station out of Toronto called CFNY 102.1. A truly Modern Rock radio station that helped shape my musical tastes. Rush wrote a song about them.)

In 1991 there were less than ten commercial Alternative radio stations in the U.S.A and CFNY (A Canuck station) was considered one of them. In 1993 there were 179. I think that’s right, but I might be wrong by a year or two or a station or two. In other words, Modern Rock or Alternative Rock had broken through and were now getting their due. It was very generational and urgent.

So, let’s say a new Alt Rock station signs on in 1992 in Your Town, U.S.A. They came out of the gate with all the NEW stuff from all the heavy hitters of the time... RHCP, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, STP, Radiohead, Tool and whatever else. But, they needed a library. They needed to play songs that were “hits” in the genre…

UGH! I just realized this is a total radio geek thing... I'm almost done.

So, if a new Alt Rock Station signed on in your town in the middle of the 90’s they would play songs like “How Soon Is Now,” “Blue Monday,” “Jane Says,” and “Higher Ground” as if to say, “well, if this Alternative Rock radio station was around when these songs came out we would have played them.” All of a sudden all my stuff that got voted down on car trips with friends, was now getting played on the radio!

It’s tough to explain how important Radio once was to somebody that doesn’t remember its power. If the radio played a song it became validated, if radio didn’t play a great song… it became very special.  

Does that make sense? It’s like when somebody you know starts watching Breaking Bad on Netflix, while you sweated it out for years waiting impatiently for every new episode. And now this doofus is just getting it handed to him.

The absolute worst was when one of your buddies, who was listening to Queensryche while you were discovering Jane’s Addiction, would now be spouting off factoids like, “Did you know Perry Ferrell started Lollapalooza?”

John Frusciante

I mentioned that March 2nd is John Frusciante’s birthday and Mother’s Milk was his first recorded effort with the band. Shit happens for a reason and Frusciante was close to getting a gig with Frank “Mother Fucking” Zappa but wanted to be in the Red Hots. I know everybody knows who Frank is, but, in 1988, turning down a gig with Frank “Mother Fucking” Zappa for RHCP was like saying no to piloting the space shuttle and taking a gig as a bus driver. The Peppers could have easily become just a footnote in the Rock history books. Frusciante was a classically trained musician who loved pussy and chasing a buzz. Zappa wanted the musician, but none of the baggage. The Red Hots needed a guy who looked good with a sock on his cock. Thank God for pussy!

Throw metalhead Chad Smith behind the drum kit and in a short time the Red Hot Chili Peppers became the band that lit the fuse on the Alternative explosion of the early 90’s! Oh yeah, and those Anthony Kiedis and Flea guys helped too!

Coincidentally, Blood Sugar Sex Magic and Nirvana’s Nevermind were released on the same day – September 24, 1991. It was the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ popularity that helped launch the careers of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and The Smashing Pumpkins. They had the goods to back it up, but RHCP gave them all a hand up.

Taking a look at the Red Hot’s discography, Mother’s Milk is the album that I went all in for with this band. (I dug up their older stuff afterwards but this was my entry point into them.) Subsequently, it was 2002’s By The Way that made me pull up from their table.

I tried to some this all up in a tweet, “Happy Birthday John Frusciante! I'm old enough to remember when liking the Red Hots meant something. Now it's like listening to Aerosmith.”

That’s kind of unfair to say especially when I'm listening to their older stuff and being reminded of how important they were to me... way back when.

This is a classic example of a band phoning it in. Listen to Parachutes or A Rush Of Blood To The Head and then listen to Ghost Stories. This record definitely sounds like Coldplay. They didn’t switch up the sound, they just forgot their inspiration. By far their weakest effort.

I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow could site this album as one of the reasons for her conscious uncoupling from Chris Marin. And this picture.... WTF?

Look, ma! I'm phoning it in!

Tomorrow I listen to The Who and The Decemberists. 

03.01.15

On March 1st I listened to Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon as a bit of an homage to my father. It’s one of his all-time favorite albums.

Released in 1973, The Dark Side Of The Moon is the 2nd highest selling album since recorded history, with a global total of 45 million units shipped. Only Michael Jackson’s Thriller has sold more copies. The London band’s eighth album landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 upon its release and then stayed on the chart for 741 weeks until 1988! I watched all my asshole friends buy the album or cassette, then buy it again on CD, and then steal it off the internet.

I’m sure this won’t come as a shock, but I don’t like Pink Floyd. I did my time listening to Dark Side and I find the band's whole schtick to be boring. They don’t speak to me and the imagery associated with their music is creepy. When I say I did my time; there was a five or six year period when an 8-track copy of Dark Side was perpetually stuck inside the player of my dad’s stupid van, and I heard a chunk of it every time he drove anywhere.

The thing that drove me nuts about this album is that it is half pudding and half meat. Huh? There’re too many long grooves to get lost in and not enough hooks and choruses. I knew that served a purpose, but c’mon! Are you only supposed to listen to this album while you’re high? I’m pretty sure I never got high with the sole intent of listening to Pink Floyd afterwards. Wait. I take that back. I'm pretty sure I smoked a bowl once before going to see Lazer Floyd at the planetarium. However, I did fall asleep.

Because Dark Side was always stuck inside the 8-track player and I barely understood how 8-tracks worked, you never knew where it was. I still barely know how an 8-track works. You had 8-tracks on once piece of tape, two tracks per song, and it moved in a continuous loop. It’s like if you never had to turn over a cassette and side A and side B didn't run in opposite directions. Ugh, I’m confusing myself. I remember if you didn't like the song playing, you hit the “Program Button” and popped over to another track and a different song. I was a bit of a destroyer-of-things and the “Program Button” in the old man’s van didn't work, so The Dark Side Of The Moon went around and around. Is it ironic a child is complaining that a parent is listening to the same thing too much?

I’d pray that the lady in “The Great Gig In The Sky” would die already so we could get to “Money.” At least that was a song to me and it had the world “bullshit!” I long for a time when the word “bullshit” could make me giggle. By the time “On The Run” would fade out and “Time” would fade in, I’d forgot we were listening to anything and then those stupid alarm clocks would always get me… I’d get startled and think that a tire fell off or that we were driving by the alarm clock store. At some point during “Us And Them,” I’d daydream about jumping out of the moving van and some nice passersby would take me in and raise me as their own in a Pink Floyd-free environment.

To me “Us And Them” is the epitome of the 70’s – hippie influenced bologna. It's a song that sounds like a modern day dog that’s been kept alive for a few extra years. The poor pooch is propped up on its hind legs and suffering endlessly all for the sake of Classic Rock fans... alive despite itself. It exists in a bubble of timelessness. “Us And Them” sounds like it could have been recorded in the 60’s, the 70’s, the 80’s, or even the 90’s. But, instead of sticking out like a polyester pant suit, a pair of bell bottom jeans, or a mullet and a mustache, this song blends into any era because “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.”

I do appreciate the tapestry of this album, even if I don’t enjoy it. Every note on The Dark Side Of The Moon is conveniently tucked into the next, as each "song" expounds on the timeless question; what is the meaning of life? This L.P. is truly an accomplishment… and I don’t care for it.

When you boil this record down, you’re left with five songs! It’s basically an E.P.! The cornerstone of the Rock universe is resting on five songs and what feels like hours and hours of top-of-the-line musicians noodling about. 

This album is five Classic Rock songs that got beaten to death over the last forty years, and we just keep on flogging them. Imagine a 90-year-old dominatrix with tits down to her knees whipping a pile of dust on a continuous loop for all eternity… coincidentally that is how Pink Floyd opened shows on their last tour. I would never fault anybody for liking this record, but I will ask you this – Haven’t you heard it enough?

Not only have I heard this album too much, but it reminds me of the time I realized that my father was kind of an asshole.

I started this blog in 2010 because I would get bit by the writing bug from time to time and didn't have a place to stick my “pieces.” In April of 2009, I was inspired by an episode of Eastbound & Down to write something about my mother. Because I had no place to post it, I emailed it to a few people that I thought might find the humor in it. Nobody gave a shit… or so I thought. A few weeks after I wrote I Love Kenny Rogers I was in L.A. to see Depeche Mode and a friend of mine encouraged me to write more stuff like that.

Inspired by the positive feedback and hearing a Pink Floyd song on the radio, I jotted down some notes and then one night whilst drunk I wrote My Dad And Pink Floyd. I had every intention of sending it to the same lucky group who got the first one, but decided to sober up in order to clean it up and send it the next day. It’s a good thing I waited, because after I read it sober I decided never to share it with anybody… until now.

This email has been just sitting in my “drafts” folder for years. It’s addressed and ready to go! So, I touched it up and drew a red line through the really angry shit.

Would you like a microwaved Hot Dog?

My Dad And Pink Floyd!

Sometimes when I'm drunk I write things. Sometimes when I'm sober I edit those things and send them to you. I apologize for that. And as always...

PLEASE DO NOT READ:

About a month ago I found myself in a dive bar off of Sunset Boulevard trying to get drunk with the Fisher (SIC) brothers, Dan and the other one. It was my kind of place; not too many assholes around, a great jukebox and a gruff but fair older lady behind the bar. She had a great sense of humor and was microwaving hot dogs for anybody that tipped well and actually wanted a microwaved hot dog – I had two.

After a few beers Dan mentioned how much he enjoyed my email about my mother’s two loves - Kenny Rogers and giving people bad news. He also mentioned he’d love to read more about my fucked up childhood. I really hadn't planned on writing anything else on the topic, but I was inspired by hearing Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage/Eclipse” on the radio the next day. It’s one of those 70’s beat-to-death Classic Rock songs I normally hate, but it sounded good cruising around Venice Beach… and it reminded me of this sad little story that I’ll embellish and make somewhat amusing.

I haven’t seen or heard from my father in about ten years, nor have I tried to reach out to him. A couple times a year my mother will give me an update and it’s usually bad, which is right up her alley, and who am I to stop a horse from running. The updates usually involve him being in the hospital, him finding God and/or Jesus again, him getting another DUI (I’m pretty sure he’s up to six.), or something about his [EDITOR’S NOTE – I TOOK THIS LINE OUT]. In short, he’s a drunk douche.

My father also had a few loves that I distinctly remember from my childhood and here they are in the order in which he loved them…

1. Schmidt’s beer. I watched him drink thousands of them. That was his No. 1 beer of choice. I dare you to go drink one! It’s like chilled beer flavored vinegar.

2. An old brown bathrobe. If he was home for an extended period, he’d wear this shitty brown robe and nothing else! I've seen his balls so many times that I can’t look at my own and not think of him. One time I was scratching my balls, somebody said the word “dad,” and I started to cry. Hand to God... not the one I scratched with.

3. [EDITOR’S NOTE – THIS ONE WAS TONED DOWN.] Women. All shapes and sizes. The old man was a poon hound.

4. Breaking promises. I suppose if I was drunk all the time and my ten-year-old kid wanted something, I’d just say “sure thing son, let’s do that next Saturday.” Next Saturday never came. I believe because there was never any regret on his part, he enjoyed breaking those promises.

5. Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon. He owned it on 8-track and listened to it in his van incessantly.

 And finally, I’m not sure if this was something he loved or just something he did a shit load of times.

6. Telling me to shut up. But he would mostly do it in Polish. He’d yell, "Cisza!” It means silence and should be pronounced “che-shaw,” but the old man said it like “Chee-Haw!” He was a big fan of the TV show Hee Haw, so maybe that’s why he said it like a hillbilly.

Now that I've set the table, our story takes place in 1975 or 1976… I’m somewhere around five or six.

I woke up early on a chilly Saturday morning and hit the living room with a shitload of toys. I flipped on the TV and went to work! On this morning I was particularly enthralled with my Fisher-Price car garage.

Storm Shadow! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

That baby had everything! Elevator! Ramp! Spinning car park! All the bells and whistles… literally. As you cranked the elevator up and down a tiny little bell rang out gloriously! “DING DING!” It wasn't made for Matchbox cars, but they worked just fine in there. “DING DING!” Up the elevator, down the ramp! “DING DING!”

I have the vaguest notion I knew what I was doing that morning. I wasn't an oblivious little kid just mindlessly playing with my toy. I remember sitting there on our shitty pond green rug and thinking, “this will wake them up!” I wasn't being mischievous and looking to ruin my parent’s morning, I was being a kid and hoping they’d wake up and come play with me!

“DING DING!” So, I’m cranking that elevator up and down, the bell is ringing into the morning air and then...

I remember my parent's bed having this very distinct creaking noise. I heard it when I jumped on it, when my parents screwed, and when my father was getting up in a hurry. If the old man was leaping out of bed in a hurry, shit was about to go down.

What happened next incorporated four of my father’s six loves. My bell was too much for the old man’s Schmidt’s (Love #1) induced hangover. I looked up from my garage in time to see a flash of cock and balls as he turned the corner, trying to get his robe (Love #2) closed. He was humming something that he started to sing as he got closer. “I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon (Love #5),” he sang as he swooped down and scooped up my garage. A cascade of Matchbox cars and Fisher-Price people rained down all over the pond green rug and my head.

I really let him have it with a spirited, “hey,” but he already vanished into the kitchen.

The garage crashed down onto the kitchen counter and was followed by the sound of rummaging through the kitchen’s junk drawer. In my tiny little mind I knew where this was going and didn't bother getting up. “And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear,” he continued under his breath as he found what he was looking for in the drawer. “You shout and no one seems to hear,” as the sound of metal on metal emanated from the kitchen. “And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes,” he muttered while simultaneously letting out a little victory guffaw. He then sang the next line in a singular movement of throwing a screwdriver back in the junk drawer, slamming it shut, picking up my garage, and dancing back into the living room…“I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.”

The old man floated from the kitchen on a cloud of dickhead nonchalance and parental indifference as he gracefully whisked by, his robe flowing in the breeze. He simply discarded the garage. He didn't set it down, he didn't throw it down, he just kind of let it go as he passed. It landed with a thud in front of me. “Cisza,” (Love #6) he said as he disappeared around the corner. The creaking of my parent’s bed as he nestled back in was the last sound to break the new found Saturday morning silence.

A sad hollow knocking noise now replaced the glorious “DING DING,” and that’s how it remained until I grew out of that toy. The garage’s bell sat in that junk drawer until my mother moved out of the house a few years ago. A fitting tomb for a child’s toy that annoyed a drunk dickhead.

[EDITOR’S NOTE – I’LL END IT HERE. I WENT ON TO WRITE AN OPEN LETTER TO MY DAD THAT WENT A BIT TOO FAR.]

I didn't put that out into the world, mainly because it’s very angry and I toned it down in a lot more places than I noted. I also kept My Dad And Pink Floyd to myself, because I come off like a victim. I’m the lonely child reaching out for my father’s attention only to get a bucket of water poured on my head. I didn't have as much fun reading it, as I did writing it.

My father died on Sunday June 8, 2014. I found out two days later on Tuesday. My mom was trying to get a hold of me and I didn’t feel like picking up. When she called me the fourth time, I figured something was up. As I alluded to early, giving people bad news is my mom’s thang, so I sensed just a hint of joy in her voice as she told me that my dad was dead.

I asked her what had happened and she wasn't really sure. She only knew that he had been in the hospital for a day or two and passed away on Sunday. I was alone when I found out and other than it being a bummer, the news had no effect on my day. That kind of fucked with me.

I rather quickly decided not to attend the funeral and in the next few days realized that if not for my mother, nobody else would have told me. I also spent the next few days bracing for some huge emotional breakdown. I guessed that my lethargic initial reaction could have been years of anger and regret masking themselves as a flimsy armor of bravado and I was on the verge of a great sadness. God forbid somebody said “dad” while I was scratching my balls, otherwise I feared I would melt into a salty puddle. That never happened. Then realizing that I wasn't going to weep for the death of my father fucked with me further. I wondered, what was wrong with me?

Whose responsibility is it to try and save an estranged relationship between a parent and an adult child?

My dad was an alcoholic. The never-around type and not the abusive kind. The old man caused plenty of strife in my life because he was a drunk, but my mom and I weren't staying at the shelter or anything like that. [EDITOR’S NOTE – I’M BEING VERY GENEROUS THERE.] If given the choice between seeing his family or the world from a bar-stool, he was setting a course for adventure from that bar-stool. Sometimes to kill two birds with one stone, he’d drag me along. At first, I didn't mind hanging out at a bar while he drank. There was always a steady stream of quarters to play a video game, but eventually every trip to the bar with dad would turn into one long boring game of “We’ll Leave Right After I Finish This One.”

I can’t really explain a 15-year-long estrangement in just a few sentences. My relationship with my father was long and complicated. It started off good enough, but my childhood became a string of disappointments followed by the realization that my dad was not a good father. There is one incident that I can say acted as a turning point in our relationship but we never had that one big blowout or major disagreement that cut the ties between us. We didn't grow to hate each other, our relationship simply burned out. We both let apathy beat love. That’s on both of us.

My Dad was a Purple Heart decorated Vietnam veteran, he had a pretty cool scar on his inner calf where he was shot. He worked as a pressman at a place that printed books – I always had a lot to read when I was a kid. He married my mom and had me and then he got his girlfriend pregnant and things changed drastically.

I inherited quite a few things from my dad. I have some of his self-destructive tendencies, which I ignorantly like to think I have under control. I love vegetables because of my dad. He was a meat loving carnivore, but God damn did that guy love fresh vegetables. Whenever possible he got his produce from the local farmer’s market. I’m the same way. I got my sense of humor from him. I also got my big fat head from him. In fact, I look almost exactly like him. It’s kind of freaky how much we look alike.

According to this map, we can make it to the Schmidt's brewery in 2 hours!

Sometimes when I lose my temper I see too much of my father in me. An uncomfortable amount of somebody else’s exact mannerism pouring out of me. It’s unsettling and something I try to avoid as much as possible. That temper is something I hate about both of us.

I didn't want to not have a relationship with my father. That’s a funny way for me to say that. I didn't want to not have a relationship with my father. Why not say “I wanted to have a relationship with my father?” I was often jealous of my adult friends who had great dads. I would have liked a dad to go to for advice or money. I would have liked a dad who was my friend. Somebody to golf with or fish with or split a hooker with… a couple times a year. But, I always knew that was never going to be me and my dad. The seeds for that realization where planted on that cold morning in 1975 or 1976. The dad I would have liked slowly faded out of existence and I just watched it happen… I didn't want to not have.

I didn't send out My Dad And Pink Floyd because it sounded like I was saying, “love me, daddy.” Even with all the vitriol I couldn't wash the daddy issues stink off of it… to me anyway and that’s not a line I ever wanted to dance anywhere near. I understand wanting the approval of your father, but it’s not something I have known or strove for since I was a boy. I never understood why some people sought out that validation from a completely flawed father. I chose not to chase a man that decided to run.

For a long time, I knew I was most likely never going to speak to my dad again and someday I would receive a phone call. I often wondered how I would react when posed with the news that a man I had known very well and once loved with all my heart had passed. I didn't cry the day I learned my father died, because there wasn't enough between us left to mourn.

Tomorrow I listen to Led Zeppelin and Sleater-Kinney.