tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3782311389059535632024-03-05T15:00:29.379-08:00A Heartful Of NapalmMore opinionated crud on life and rock 'n' roll from Tim "Napalm" StegallUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger124125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-13062948717563428072021-06-28T09:25:00.000-07:002021-06-28T09:25:41.526-07:00Ed Ward 1948-2021<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPAiJzFaMm-Tdr7rXtF86iSF5LYFt6faTylL2O1NcEFnhygyxVJzWc7bVdD9t-zoTiFFIMeNruVOchwqNCrvXK4RGPa20d6kJSMlxG3jWcwkxZ1aCB_IkzEZjHMZ1lFHyH6FkgEIdXVYa/s2048/205948226_345952537125321_1720196639371467509_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPAiJzFaMm-Tdr7rXtF86iSF5LYFt6faTylL2O1NcEFnhygyxVJzWc7bVdD9t-zoTiFFIMeNruVOchwqNCrvXK4RGPa20d6kJSMlxG3jWcwkxZ1aCB_IkzEZjHMZ1lFHyH6FkgEIdXVYa/s320/205948226_345952537125321_1720196639371467509_n.jpg" /></a></div><i>Greetings. Yes, it's been years. It's become apparent, though I am busier than ever as a professional writer these days, there is a need to revive this blog. It's a necessity to tackle subjects to which I may not be able in the outlets I have at hand, or to post material that has to be excised from my pieces. Today, I post the eulogy I delivered at the memorial service for one of the pioneers of rock journalism, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/09/business/media/ed-ward-dead.html" target="_blank">Ed Ward</a>, found dead of unknown causes this past May 3rd. The service was held this past Saturday, June 26th, at Sam's Town Point, a funky dive on the edge of town </i><i>that reminds many of the much-missed "old Austin." I was joined on the dais by Wild Seeds leader and </i>Texas Monthly <i>staff writer Mike Hall. He regaled us with personal tales of the impact Ed had on the local music scenes, most specifically the criticism Ed had for one Wild Seeds track in particular. Mike then performed an acoustic rendition of the song in question. I went long, covering as much of Ed's life and career as possible, then performed "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" for him, as I have at many a memorial service the last few years. I did incorporate or rewrite portions of the Ed obituary I wrote for </i>The Austin Chronicle<i>, which you can read by <a href="https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2021-05-05/the-table-ed-ward-built/">clicking this blue shit right here</a>. Meanwhile, here's what I read Saturday to the gathered. I began by displaying the ancient iron-on t-shirt transfer displayed in Jim Ellinger's pic above, part of a "Dump Ward" campaign you will read about below.</i><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I never heard about this until I started reading the obituaries. I didn’t live in Austin then. But my understanding is that these started appearing around town </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">one month</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> after he began working for the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">American-Statesman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. I got confirmation yesterday Doug Sahm was responsible. Seems Ed gave him a bad review.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">One month. That’s impressive. Truth of the matter is, Austin’s music community was not used to a music critic who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">actually critiqued</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. Ed Ward was not going to be your cheerleader, just telling you how great it was you got a new album out. If you couldn’t deliver the goods, or he felt you couldn’t, he was gonna tell you. He was the nicest, most encouraging of friends. But when he wore his critic hat? You were gonna get criticized. Fairly, and honestly. But you would get criticized.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Ed went to college with Ray Benson from Asleep At The Wheel. He could have warned you!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">For that matter, Doug could have warned you. He knew already. Ed reviewed the Sir Douglas Quintet’s comeback album, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Mendocino,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> in the May 17, 1969 edition of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, a little less than a year before he became its record reviews editor. He wrote of the title track’s lyrics, printed on the back cover: “Please don’t look at them. They’re not very good.” Then he added, “But if you hear the song twice, you’ll be humming it and it’ll make you feel good.” In the next paragraph, he noted, “That’s the thing about this album. Despite its many faults, it makes you listen to it. It’s poorly recorded, sloppily produced (dig the fade on ‘If You Really Want Me To I’ll Go’), and could hardly be called innovative, but it’s the kind of album you keep coming back to. It has something very few albums I’ve heard recently have got - atmosphere.” *pause* So, is it a good record or bad, Ed? He apparently elevated the backhanded compliment into high art. Perhaps this was why, when Jaan Wenner sent his new record reviews editor to interview Doug several months later, Sir Douglas got Ed so stoned that the interview was useless. I suspect this was actually Doug’s revenge on Ed for that review, not the “Dump Ward” stickers. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Ed was simply gonna tell it like it was, whether you were his friend or not. His opinion of the first Stooges album was, “Their music is loud, boring, tasteless, unimaginative and childish. I kind of like it.” As I said - master of the backhanded compliment. Later in the ‘70s, long after he’d quit the record review editor’s desk and went on to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Creem</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, he still contributed record reviews to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. He wrote of Jefferson Starship’s</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> Red Octopus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> that it was “sadly undistinguished at best and embarrassing at worst.” He felt that Kraftwerk’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Radio-Activity</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> was “loaded with dead spots.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">But when he loved something, he’d write beautifully, eloquently. Among the chapters he penned for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Rolling Stone Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> was a gem about what Ed dubbed “Italo-American Rock” - basically, the East Coast Italian version of doo wop, evolving into the late Sixties and the Young Rascals. Having grown up in Eastchester, NY, Ed knew a thing or two about the area and the era. He got downright autobiographical in the course of that essay. Dig what he wrote of Dion and the Belmonts: “Dion DiMucci was a fine tenor, and the support from Angelo D’Aleo, Freddie Milano, and Carlo Mastrangelo couldn’t have been finer. The group had a real flair for arrangements - what attracted me to them instantly was their first biggie, 1958’s ‘I Wonder Why,’ with the voices chiming in one at a time. I almost ruined my vocal cords trying to sing all three parts at once, and trying to imitate Dion’s teenage nasality (but not his New York accent). With ‘A Teenager In Love’ in 1959 and ‘Where or When’ in 1960, the group just got better, and I think every kid in my school idolized Dion and the Belmonts when the group was hot. It was around this time that I did a little singing with some of the kids at school. I was the only one who knew Carlo’s bass part from ‘I Wonder Why,’ so when we sang that, it was the only time I said ‘wop’ in front of that many Italians without having to run like hell afterward.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Okay, maybe he couldn’t help but deliver zingers, even when he adored something. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Edmund Osborne Ward was born on Nov. 2, 1948, in Port Chester, N.Y., in Westchester County, and grew up in Irvington and Eastchester. He attended Antioch College in Ohio, and began writing about music in 1965, in the pages of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Broadside</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, the mimeographed folk magazine. He told me when I interviewed him last that he was 16. At that moment, rock ‘n’ roll was treated with all the importance of the newsprint lining a birdcage. You could pick up </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">16 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Tiger Beat</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> and get “fab pix and fax” of the Beatles or that dreamy Peter Noone. But that was it. When he left Broadside because co-founder Gordon Friesen fumed that “Dylan wasn’t writing about Vietnam,” he lit upon another mimeographed mag, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Crawdaddy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Published by 18-year-old Paul Williams, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Crawdaddy </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">was likely the first periodical lending this pimply electric jive any gravitas. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Crawdaddy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> treated its subject matter with previously unknown earnestness. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">No one took rock ‘n’ roll seriously.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> Now appeared writers applying critical theory to the genre the same way Pauline Kael applied scholarship to film. As such, musicians like John Lennon and Mick Jagger paid attention to what writers like Ed Ward wrote. Even industry pillars like Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler developed friendships with this new breed of writer, picking their brains about this culture. That platform still exists, thrives even, albeit less in print and more in bytes, but cultural shifters continue to bear weight.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Basically, Ed built the desk I and many of us gathered here still sit at to this day. Rock journalism simply </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">did not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> exist until Ed and Paul Williams invented it. So, when over the years </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">/</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Creem</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">/</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Austin-American Statesman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">/</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Austin Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">/NPR hired Ed Ward, they hired one of the true pioneers of our craft. One who would nurture some of the greatest pioneering talents of the form. He told me that when he assumed the record reviews editorship of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> in 1970, he was warned by Jaan Wenner about this shoe salesman in El Cajon, California who would send up to 15 record reviews daily! This was Lester Bangs. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Ed told me Wenner told him, “‘You can’t keep up with it. You can only accept what seems to be the best, and don’t encourage him.’ I did encourage him by accepting a few of his things. So I was inundated!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">“When I was fired, one of the things I left behind was two or three reel-to-reel tapes of Lester interviewing Charles Mingus. I had no idea who Mingus was. I just thought, ‘Oh, this is more shit from Lester!’ So I just left it there. Now I’m curious what that interview was like.” *give flabbergasted look* He also gave Dave Marsh work at a time </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Creem</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> was on hiatus as it redesigned. Wenner yelled at Ed for giving assignments to the editor of a competitor. It’s no wonder Ed didn’t last long at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. Nor that he moved on to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Creem</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> afterwards. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Late in the ‘70s, Austin came calling. Joe Nick Patoski alerted Ed, still residing in San Francisco, of a job opening: The </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">American-Statesman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> needed a music editor. Ed told me the night he arrived here, he saw The Skunks opening for The Police at the Armadillo. He was immediately tapping into our musical zeitgeist. He covered everything: As Fresh Air host Terry Gross noted, “blues, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, pop, folk, protest and psychedelic music, soul, funk, Tex-Mex, punk….” I’d add progressive country. That was, after all, the town’s musical currency at that point, despite the incursion of the local blues and punk scenes. Chet Flippo and Joe Nick aside, I can think of no one who wrote better about Waylon, Willie and the boys. Even if he made them mad once in a while.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Mostly, Ed seemed to make employers mad. He had a special talent for that. When a group of youngsters he’d met at Raul’s or Club Foot decided they wanted to start a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Village Voice</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">-style alternative paper for locals, Ed jumped aboard, pseudonymously. The </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Statesman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> wasn’t happy when they figured out who Petaluma Pete was. No matter - he’d gotten book deals to write a biography of rock’s first guitar hero, Mike Bloomfield; and to write all the Fifties stuff for a new </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> rock history, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rock Of Ages</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. He could drop pseudonyms with the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> now, should he choose. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">“See, I thought my job was to be a critic, so I criticized — helpful, constructive criticism, I thought,” Ed wrote as he exited the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Statesman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> in 1984. “I saw my function as being a pipeline to the national and international music business, giving insight to locals as I learned about goings-on and making sure the national and international folks knew that there was something going on here in Austin. Of course, there are people who are fanatics, whose relationship to criticism isn’t rational.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Roughly at this time, he also got the NPR gig as Fresh Air’s resident rock historian. He held that gig for 30 years. His stories for the show were filled with wonderful warmth and affection for his subjects, and a real eye for detail, both humanizing and humorous. When he reported on Paramount Records for the show in 2015, he described Charlie Patton as "... a towering figure who was looked up to by most of the other Mississippi bluesmen ... Once his records began to sell, Patton would load up a car with his friends, his girlfriends, his ex-girlfriends and some whiskey and head to Grafton, Wis., to record. One of those friends was Son House." He never lost that knack. In the second volume of brilliant </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">History Of Rock & Roll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> from 2019, he noted the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Liverpool Echo</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> embedded a local journalist in the Beatles camp as they came to conquer America in February 1964. His name: George Harrison. No, not the Beatles’ lead guitarist. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The same year, Ed was involved in SXSW’s launch. He was a key staffer for many years, barrelling around the conference in a colonel’s uniform. That could be intimidating if you were a young punk rock critic from Alice, TX. attending SX for the first time, and only knew Ed via his writing! I showed up in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Austin Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> offices shortly after moving here a few months later, a bit full of myself after writing for various national and international publications for five years. He made certain to deflate my ego as often as possible, the upperclassman razzing the cocky incoming freshman. I knew I was alright with him six months later, when I told him at that year’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> Xmas party that I’d recently picked up a Ricky Nelson anthology from 1973 he’d annotated. “Oh, yeah! That series was the brainchild of so-and-so at United Artists. He was this notorious chicken hawk whose office overlooked the entrance of Hollywood High. He’d be scoping out all the 15-year-old boys from his desk when classes let out at 3:30.” Ed had every scandalous tale in the musical universe filed away in his brain.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">But even after he moved to Europe in the early ‘90s, he was still full of encouragement when I’d see him at SXSW thereafter. It wasn’t until I wrote his obituary for the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> last month that I realized Ed very subtly mentored me all that time. He gently, quietly guided me. He’d pledged over the last two years to help me get a book deal for the Austin punk history I am still working on, and probably will be for awhile. He invited me into his home twice to interview him for the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> when he was promoting the reissue of his Mike Bloomfield biography, and his </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">History Of Rock & Roll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. That was an amazing work - he didn’t write about individual artists. He wrote the events of every year in chronological order, going back to the birth of popular music. He hated what he called the “Great Man Theory” of rock history. He wanted to make it more democratic. This mindset, and the sheer scope of his coverage, was mind-blowing. He unfortunately did not finish that work. Two poor-selling volumes later, he lost his deal for that book. There would be no third volume, telling the tales of glam, punk, heavy metal, disco, and beyond.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">It breaks my heart. Just as it breaks my heart to have to be talking about Ed in the past tense. He was important. He built the desk at which I sit, at which many of you gathered here today sit. And he essentially welcomed me to it. Quite literally, in one instance. I had been away from the game for many years, and from Austin almost as long. I was burned out, thinking I needed to reinvent myself. It wasn’t possible. I returned to Austin in 2012, and was asked back to the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> two months later. I covered my first SXSW back on the beat a few months later. I rounded the corner at the Convention Center that first day, and saw a literal roundtable occupied with many of my elders: Jim Fourratt, Bill Bentley, Joe Nick...and Ed Ward. They all grinned at me, happily surprised at seeing me, curious about my return. I told them I was back in town, back at the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Chronicle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, a writer once again. Ed Ward pulled out the chair next to him, the biggest smile on his face. “Welcome back,” he said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I finally got to sit at the big kids’ table. Ed Ward was the one who invited me. Thank you, Ed. I will always owe you.</span></p><p><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">-30-</span></p><p><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p><br /><br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-74846669976192569182017-03-16T09:39:00.000-07:002017-03-16T09:41:45.530-07:00"Never Play Any Club That Does Not Stock Your Brand Of Booze!" 17 minutes on the phone with Tommy Stinson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDhuA_4uQjFu6TCyG_L_uIAv9KELqnuwUEZoKeqZqIpsvTiOoQhfDV7dbC7H_foObC5x7Gs7RsppDxuM_sB_EPV4GNv1nt6WT0Nmo_ZXx8BWal3hupeV8-0YJ_cGQepZyC6e90zDDN08wI/s1600/20170315_195413.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDhuA_4uQjFu6TCyG_L_uIAv9KELqnuwUEZoKeqZqIpsvTiOoQhfDV7dbC7H_foObC5x7Gs7RsppDxuM_sB_EPV4GNv1nt6WT0Nmo_ZXx8BWal3hupeV8-0YJ_cGQepZyC6e90zDDN08wI/s320/20170315_195413.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Freddie Kruger came to SXSW, and was kind enough to pose for pics: Me and my twin from another mother Tommy Stinson, 3-15-17</i></div>
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<b><i>Note: This was to have run in </i>The Austin Chronicle<i> online, an expansion of a brief piece whipped-up for SXSW coverage. Space and time limitations conspired to have it, instead, be posted here. The paper's loss, our gain, eh? *grins* To read my review of last night's Bash & Pop showcase, <a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/sxsw/2017-03-16/sxsw-music-live-bash-and-pop/" target="_blank">click all this gray shit.</a></i></b><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Q-and-A: Tommy Stinson of Bash &
Pop</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
By Tim Stegall</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Click onto Wikipedia, it'll tell you
“Thomas Eugene (Tommy) Stinson (born October 6, 1966) is an
American rock musician.” Which doesn't even <i>begin</i> to capture
how important this Minneapolis-bred
singer/songwriter/bassist/sometimes guitarist is to modern rock &
roll. How many of you can claim membership in both The Replacements,
the kings of sloppy/literate/heart-on-sleeve punk 'n' roll, <i>and</i>
Guns N' Roses? Between those two bands, he formed Bash & Pop,
whose 1993 debut LP <i>Friday Night Is Killing Me</i> embodied all
the lessons Stinson'd clearly learned at the elbow of Paul
Westerberg, The Replacements' bruised romantic songwriting engine.
Hence it's intriguing that after The Mats' two-year
reanimation-cum-victory-lap, Stinson'd kickstart Bash & Pop again
in a completely new lineup, issuing a rowdy-n-right new LP titled
<i>Anything Could Happen</i> via garage blues indie Fat Possum. One
viewing of new video “On The Rocks” (framed hilariously inside a
cracked-screen Smartphone) proves none of Stinson's gifts are lost,
including his wink-and-grin way through life. Hence, after informing
us seconds into this call from his Philadelphia hotel room the fire
trucks his neighbors reported in front of his Hudson, NY home were a
false alarm (“Not a call you want first day of the tour....”), we
had to ask if he was planning on breaking up Bash & Pop again
after two years, reforming his post-B&P band Perfect, and then
rejoining Guns N' Roses....</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Tommy Stinson: </b>[laughs]<b> </b>
Oh, you're funny! No, it wasn't really that thought-out, to be honest
with you. The only reason I called this Bash & Pop was because
this new album was more of a band record. My last two solo records
(<i>Village Gorilla Head</i> in 2004, 2011's <i>One Man Mutiny</i>),
I just kinda piecemealed together. I played way too many instruments
and wore way too many hats, and overthought quite a bit of it,
honestly. I wanted to make more of a band record, the exact thing I
was going for when The Replacements fell apart the first time. This
record became more of a band record because I now have a band (Steve
Selvidge, lead guitar; Justin Perkins, bass; Joe Sirois, drums) that
can actually play, that can add something, that looks good enough,
that sorta thing. It just made sense, and the people I played it for
said it sounded like a Bash & Pop record. So, I just kinda went
with it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Tim: It is exactly what you have
always done best: Straight-up rock & roll with highly literate,
heartfelt songwriting, exactly as you have done since you were a
teenage kid playing bass in The Replacements. It sits exactly at the
crossroads between the Faces and Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There you have it. I'll take all of
that crap. [laughs]</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>It has to be asked: What happened?
It seemed like The Replacements were going very well a few years ago.
Is this something you can talk about?</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Well, yeah – we <i>were </i>going
well then. Then we got to a point where, “Well, that's not going
very well anymore!” [laughs] So we put the kibosh on it. For the
most part, I think we had a really good run. We probably played a
little longer than we shoulda. But all things considered, it worked
out fine. We had fun with it, then when it wasn't fun, we stopped.
That's just how we do things.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I got to see the two ACL shows. You
blew my mind, that first show! It was like seeing The Clash when I
was 14! The second show was more like the gig I saw in your heyday,
where you showed up completely tanked and played 162 covers you'd
never played in your life...</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
[laughs] Exactly! More shenanigans were
thrown in that time....</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>It would've been nice to have gotten
a new Replacements record, other than the benefit record for Slim
(Dunlap, fallen 2<sup>nd</sup> Replacements guitarist).</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We set out to do a record when we did
that reunion tour and stuff. We tried three times in three different
studios, and none of the situations were right for it. We kinda gave
up quick on it. To be honest with you, I don't think Paul was that
jazzed on making a new record to begin with. I think he has a lot
harder time than the rest of us competing with his past, his legacy.
I think it stuck in his chassis, the longer he thought about it.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Do you think you guys will work
together again in the future?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Yeah! We've always done shit together,
even between Replacements stuff. We've played on each others' solo
records and shit. We're just drawn to each other, for whatever
reason. We'll see. We've gotta walk away from this mess we made. “Eh,
let's do this gig and go home!” [laughs] “Later! Talk to ya down
the road apiece....” That's about as much thought as it got.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Well, that was the spirit of the
band, to begin with. I always said that The Replacements didn't give
a shit better than anyone!</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
[laughs] Yeah, I'll definitely buy
that....</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>We should talk more about </i>Anything
Could Happen<i>. How long have you had these songs waiting to be
recorded?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A good handful of them have been around
awhile. The oldest song on the record is probably 25 years old. I've
attempted it a couple of times. It just took forever to finally rear
its head. Half of the record's been around awhile, the other half we
wrote on the spot. Some of them got recorded when we recorded all The
Replacements stuff when we were heading out on those tours, and they
just didn't work out. So I took 'em back and recorded 'em in my house
with my friends and called it Bash & Pop.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>You're primarily known as a bass
player, but you play guitar in Bash & Pop. Do you prefer one over
the other?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
No, not really. I have a short
attention span for anything, so I switch around all the time, just
for shits and giggles. I haven't played drums in a band in a buncha
years. But I kinda get off on playing all that shit. This time
around, I didn't want to wear a buncha different hats. I wanted a
more spontaneous record, have more of a band vibe, rather than sit
around and wear myself out noodling around on a guitar for fuckin'
months on end. It was all done in my basement, all playing in the
room. A couple of times, I couldn't conjure a bass player, so I
played bass myself. But it was all done as live as possible, drums
and all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Do you think you'll continue as Bash
& Pop?</i>I think so. It's a more enjoyable way to make
music. So as long as these guys want to continue to play, we'll keep
it going. Everyone seems to understand each others' playing, so it
works out pretty good.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Can you talk a bit about having been
in Guns N' Roses? That must've been a hell of an experience.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was a good gig. It served me well,
until I couldn't play anymore. I had personal issues at home that
prevented me from touring with them - a little kid and a
soon-to-be-ex-wife and all that kinda nonsense. So, I had to walk
away from that, but it was on good terms. And it was the right time.
Now they're doing their reunion tour, havin' a ball doing it. So I
served them well, as well.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-86520752978119541072016-06-29T14:30:00.000-07:002016-06-29T14:30:51.752-07:00Scotty Moore, 1931-2016: Last Stop On The Mystery Train<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQDLp3oTPVYdXcZbeKys-BAzqaGoIjppWE0H01OK9TXTIBUgUXi0WvPyZG7a1EzaJVk2RoVxcAMqCkBV_eL1h3VHV2Ev2vsaYdy1h_wqhLZdvRtxk6f9qToVSZ-HW-kL7PrlGS5uTq_k5/s1600/vlcsnap-2016-06-29-13h51m16s006.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQDLp3oTPVYdXcZbeKys-BAzqaGoIjppWE0H01OK9TXTIBUgUXi0WvPyZG7a1EzaJVk2RoVxcAMqCkBV_eL1h3VHV2Ev2vsaYdy1h_wqhLZdvRtxk6f9qToVSZ-HW-kL7PrlGS5uTq_k5/s640/vlcsnap-2016-06-29-13h51m16s006.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Look at this snapshot above. <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">It's impossible to imagine what it must have been like to have been in this photograph: At the eye of a hurricane called "rock 'n' roll," called "Elvis Presley," whipping across the world, obliterating The Old Ways. And you're standing there, stoic, creating the idea of "rock 'n' roll guitar." as your boss is creating the idea of a "rock star." You're just hanging on for dear life, pulling notes out your ass, trying to be heard over thousands of screaming teenagers. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">I keep finding myself saying <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotty_Moore" target="_blank">Scotty Moore</a> invented my job. It's because, as a musician in <a href="https://www.reverbnation.com/timnapalm" target="_blank">The Hormones</a>, I always see myself as a lead guitarist. I keep forgetting I write most of the songs, plus I sing lead and front the band - so, Scotty created <i>half</i> my job. His boss created the sexier half of my job. But as Keith Richards has pointed out, "That should have been a <i>band</i>. They should have been the Beatles." Well, no, Keith - someone had to create The Beatles jobs'. And yours' too, for that matter....</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">And Scotty Moore did. To have heard him tell it, he was winging it the whole time, grabbing bits from Chet Atkins, Les Paul, and various blues guys he never really named. But he's flying by the seat of his pants, pretty much inventing these solos on the spot. Scotty was </span><i style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">inventing</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"> </span><i style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">rock 'n' roll guitar</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">. Yes, he had some help there: Chuck Berry, Cliff Gallup in Gene Vincent's Blue Caps, Eddie Cochran, Carl Perkins. But Scotty is rock 'n roll's first guitar hero, drawing the blueprint because he had none, most of the time unaware of what he laid down on tape and scrambling to remember on the road with Elvis, frequently having to come up with something new. Notoriously, he never could figure out what he'd done on "Too Much," and self-effacingly described this genius break as "primitive psychedelia":</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></span></span>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GPc8XNtlDk4/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GPc8XNtlDk4?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br />Every approach we take to this day, Scotty was there first. Think of the classic, overdriven rock 'n' roll guitar tone, and listen to Scotty on all those Elvis records: He knew you had to take a Gibson guitar and a tube amp, and crank that amp <i>all the way</i>, until the tubes and speakers are screaming. Mind you, that was likely a result of trying to be heard above auditoriums rammed to the gills with shrieking teenage girls, but.... And just listen to "Hound Dog" - this track is the definite birth of the powerchord! It also sounds like the Ramones, 20 years early.</span></span><br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lzQ8GDBA8Is/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lzQ8GDBA8Is?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">Scotty Moore created history.Everything we do now as rock 'n' roll guitar players, he was literally there first. He forgot more than most of us had to learn, and he never played anything short of what was perfect for the song. Now he's gone, reunited in the afterlife with his old boss, and Bill Black back on doghouse bass. Lucky afterlife. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">R.I.P.,<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/scotty-moore-elvis-presley-guitarist-dead-at-84-20160628" target="_blank"> Scotty Moore</a>.</span></span><br />
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<i>See also </i><a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2015-12-25/folk-music-fireball/" target="_blank">Folk Music Fireball</a>, <i>my detailing of Elvis Presley's 1955-56 gigs in Austin for </i>The Austin Chronicle.</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-78766801855497379422015-09-11T08:25:00.001-07:002015-09-11T08:25:33.208-07:00REPOST: Something I rarely talk about....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp_9DXhUcgKaoo4mpjNfvCjiaW_dI65i9FiVP1dvRpP8vxE_149FyezDUwg0kQGQ36wiqRTv5O9lAnS6m_MQj-VHwVrKBPTUNrd_vB_YViiOgufGs3Y2I2AM8jeBy2xttmdfHUklGwfs63/s400/Johnny+Heff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp_9DXhUcgKaoo4mpjNfvCjiaW_dI65i9FiVP1dvRpP8vxE_149FyezDUwg0kQGQ36wiqRTv5O9lAnS6m_MQj-VHwVrKBPTUNrd_vB_YViiOgufGs3Y2I2AM8jeBy2xttmdfHUklGwfs63/s400/Johnny+Heff.jpg" height="320" width="223" /></a></div>
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Today's True Hero: Johnny Heff</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #262626; font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><b>TIM SEZ: Hi. I realize it's been ages since I've posted in this blog - something I intend to repair in the coming days. This repost is from my old MySpace blog from 2008. Ike fizzled before he got to Austin, obviously. In the time since I posted this, my friend's death score was settled, with Bin Laden's capture and execution. (And no, I don't buy any conspiracy theories on this subject. Nor do I buy conspiracy theories, period. Please save it all for your next Alex Jones fan club meeting, thank you.) Troops have been thinned in Iraq and Afghanistan, but.... And there's a chance we may find ourselves in another conflict soon. On a personal level, I reflect that this day began a ten year spiral of personal tragedy and self-destruction I've only come out of in the last few years - miracles <i>do</i> happen. Today, I also reflect that America became a mean-spirited, selfish nation in the wake of this day, and we have never recovered from it nor corrected it - it just gets worse. We never fucking learn....</b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;" /><br />
<article class="post-body" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 570px;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Times; font-size: x-small; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>I repost this every year, so we don't forget, so some semblance of truth remains out there...and for my late friend Johnny you will read about here. <i>He</i> is a real hero. I miss him every day.</b><br /><br />Something I rarely talk about<br />Current mood: contemplative<br />Category: Life<br />It looks pretty certain the day after my birthday, I'm riding out a hurricane. Odd, for the Austin area. Where I grew up, it was more common: I'd been through three by the time I was a teenager, the last one having been Allen back in 1980 (I think it was). Not a big deal, really. By the time Ike hits here, he's gonna be a lotta wind and rain, really.<br /><br />But, come on, Ike: Could your timing be any worse?<br /><br />It's kinda par for the course, right now. Something about this decade and my birthday has meant disaster for me. There was the girlfriend who decided to break up with me the week of my birthday, just because that would sting the most, I'm sure. Then, there was the birthday on which Johnny Cash had the misfortune of dying. That really sucked.<br /><br />But I think the coldest was the group of middle eastern gentlemen who thought it would be really cool to fly a couple of airplanes into the World Trade Center the day before my birthday in 2001.<br /><br />I slept through it. I was homeless at the time and staying with a friend on 7th and Ave. B, probably three or four miles from the Twin Towers. She was out of town, and I was house-sitting, soon to move in with my friend Sami Yaffa and his girl Karmen. I was working at the time as a professional dog walker, and I got up at 11 AM. It was supposed to be just another day: I was thinking about coffee, looking over the schedule, wondering who the first dog of the day would be, etc., etc. I turned on Howard Stern's show, as was my wont back then (until he said something completely insulting about John Lee Hooker on the day Hook died, and I swore I'd never listen to the tasteless bastard again). And judging by the hysteria I was hearing, it was the end of the world.<br /><br />I called my boss to find out what was going on. That was when I found out the towers had been hit.<br /><br />From there, people were calling in left and right, canceling walks; most of our customer base worked in the financial district, so they were now gonna be home. I was getting all kinds of bits and pieces from there: The doorman at the building on Irving Place where a few of my dogs lived reported looking up and seeing the first jet flying so close to the ground, he could see its' markings. My friend Mark who lived two blocks away called me up and told me he was on the phone, talking to his mother, looking out his panoramic view of the southern end of Manhattan...and saw that same jet fly right past his building, shaking him and the whole building. Mark got a front row seat at watching it crash straight into Tower Number One.<br /><br />These calls were going on for three hours. I couldn't sit down to eat. Finally, about 2 PM, I was able to leave the apartment and walk down to Ave. A, in search of breakfast. Every joint in the neighborhood was crammed to the rafters, it seemed. There were hand-written signs in the windows, advising that the Red Cross needed blood, go to this hospital or that one, go to Bellvue, go someplace, we need blood. The air smelled awful, like burning tires or hair, but worse. It would be that way for months. And can you imagine what it does to a mind, knowing that what you're breathing might be friends of yours'?<br /><br />I finally squeezed into Sidewalk Cafe, ran into friends I knew from the local rock circuit. The waitresses and bartenders looked like they were gonna have coronaries. My waitress confided in me that they were severely understaffed, especially with the crush they were experiencing, and people due to work that day who lived out in Brooklyn or wherever were calling in because the subways were now shut down and they couldn't make it in. She looked like she was about to cry. Seconds later, some jerk at the table next to me started cursing her out about how long it was taking for him to get his eggs. I slammed my fist on his table and shocked him: "DUDE, DO YOU GET IT? CAN YOU LOOK AROUND YOU? DO YOU SEE HOW OVERWORKED THESE PEOPLE ARE RIGHT NOW? CAN YOU TURN AROUND AND SEE THE COLUMN OF SMOKE WHERE THE WORLD TRADE CENTER USED TO BE? CAN YOU FOR ONCE IN YOUR GAWDFERSAKEN EXISTENCE STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF AND TRY TO PUT YOURSELF IN THE SHOES OF THE PEOPLE WORKING HERE AND THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU?"<br /><br />"What are you getting mad at me for?" he whined. "It's not my fault they don't have enough people working. I'm hungry." I just stared at him.<br /><br />I decided to wander a bit after eating and having coffee. People were then walking up from around the disaster site, walking because the subways were shut down, and no cabs can be found. They were covered in soot, looking like some ancient Jack Kirby panel out of a '60s Marvel comic. I ran into Jesse Malin, on his way to buy a protein bar and a newspaper. We started talking about The Strokes' debut album, which had just been released a few days before. (Or maybe that was only in the UK? Well, copies were obviously getting around on import.) And I remember at the time thinking, "Why are we talking about The Strokes in the middle of this?!"<br /><br />My cellphone rang. It was my mother. She'd been trying to reach me for hours. The satellite dishes for the cellphone companies were based at the Twin Towers. Finally, a provisional satellite path was opened, and she could know I was alive. The family were scared shitless: They had no idea of the geography of Manhattan, and for all they knew, I could be dead.<br /><br />I went back to the apartment and finally turned on the news. For hours, my eyes were raped with endless repeats of the footage of those planes crashing into those towers. It was relentless. I finally had to turn it off and order pay-per-view porn. After all, what's amoral here: Being bombarded with footage of the WTC being penetrated hard and fast by terrorist-commandeered planes? Or being bombarded with footage of Jenna Jameson getting penetrated hard and fast from various angles?<br /><br />The days and weeks after were like nothing I'd ever experienced. I remember having to wear a filter mask as I did the dogwalks for a long time, and suffering massive headaches from the air quality. For awhile, you would be forced to present ID at two different checkpoints to MPs if you lived in the East Village, just to get to and from your apartment. Armed personnel carriers would be going up and down Houston St. The middle eastern guys who ran the deli downstairs looked at me with pleading, fearful eyes that told me they were already getting harassed for the color of their skins and their accents. Probably by the same louts I heard that Friday up and down Avenue B, drunkenly chanting, "U! S! A! U! S! A!" I feared those clowns more than I did potential terrorists.<br /><br />I can remember my mother and I talking, and she kept telling me, "We all understand. We all are with you. We're all going through this together." And I had to tell her that no, there was no way she could understand unless she was here. She got to watch this from the safety of her living room. This wasn't TV for me or anyone else in NYC. This was our lives. And it wasn't fun, and I hoped that she (and everyone else who didn't live here) never had to find out what I was going through.<br /><br />The worst was finding out how one of my dearest friends was affected by this: Johnny Heffernan was one of my local brothers in rock. His band The Bullys was one of Napalm Stars' brother bands. Johnny was frequently there when I needed him, whether I needed to borrow an amp, or whether I was having to fend off an obnoxious and violent stage invader. I considered him one of my best friends. He was to have left on my birthday to go on tour with The Toilet Boys, doing their lighting.<br /><br />Johnny was also a NYC fire fighter.<br /><br />He was not supposed to be on duty on Sept. 11, 2001. It was supposed to be his day off. He was working instead, trying to get in overtime before he left on the road, to support his wife and young stepdaughter. His company was among the first to respond when Tower Number One was hit. From what I remember, most (if not all) of his company was buried when the tower collapsed. Johnny's bandmates, family, friends, we all held hope that he was still alive. They pulled Johnny's crushed body out one month later.<br /><br />We all know who killed my friend, as well as the many others who died that day. America invaded Afghanistan shortly after, gunning for Osama Bin Laden. Over time, our leaders began telling us Iraq had some connection with the WTC attacks, that they had weapons of mass destruction, that Saddaam Hussein had something to do with this. This, of course, turned out not to be the case. We are still at war in Iraq. Osama Bin Laden, the man who commanded the men who killed my friend and all those others, remains free.<br /><br />Happy birthday.</span></article>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-46434143488378412412014-11-27T13:12:00.000-08:002014-11-27T13:58:07.091-08:00A Thanksgiving Rumination<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnOCpPQwco_gBvWyzItV-Uk0A8Id8Rh7s9BWAhUZ0y4MOxd06a_1aGl3APZzIansExDJ3OtJglsTPb8chc_665Ier9PhyphenhyphenE-gEMcBSXZC7e4nYE3N3pQcDKmGgOT4SoHvQfE34F5pBzK3oR/s1600/c107d1ccffe457f57ad05c161c4cdb52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnOCpPQwco_gBvWyzItV-Uk0A8Id8Rh7s9BWAhUZ0y4MOxd06a_1aGl3APZzIansExDJ3OtJglsTPb8chc_665Ier9PhyphenhyphenE-gEMcBSXZC7e4nYE3N3pQcDKmGgOT4SoHvQfE34F5pBzK3oR/s1600/c107d1ccffe457f57ad05c161c4cdb52.jpg" height="316" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Well, for one thing, I'm grateful this jackass is no longer President!</i></td></tr>
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<u>Posted on Facebook an hour ago</u>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Off to have Thanksgiving dinner at Threadgill's, because my family no longer celebrates Thanksgiving and I got invited to no orphan's Thanksgiving dinners. Do not think I'm complaining, though - I'm not. I am grateful I now have the means to be able to do this. This was not the case when I returned to Austin, my tail between my legs, two years back. And certainly hasn't been the case for most of my life. This is among the many things I am thankful for today. Be good to each other out there. I post this with love and gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><br /></span>
<u>Posted on Facebook almost 11 minutes later</u>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Well, I wasn't looking for sympathy. I really was grateful to be able to get a Threadgill's turkey dinner for myself. But my editor saw the post, clearly, and texted me an invite to an orphan's Thanksgiving tonight. So I let my bus drive past. Now I'm eating leftover pizza and waiting to be picked up for tonight's dinner. Interesting, how things work out! Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!</span><br />
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It's true - that was no sympathy grab. I <i>am</i> grateful and humbled for having a life now completely different from what I've known for years. It's the main reason you don't see me blogging like I once did. I'm too busy.<br />
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I'm not a religious man. I'm not even spiritual. I no longer have much of a family since my mother died, aside from an uncle or two and a pair of cousins. The origins of this holiday are pretty despicable: "Gee, thanks, people who were here first and are darker-skinned than we are, for saving our butts upon our illegally immigrating here. Let's enjoy some grub, then we'll start working on taking you for all you're worth and then driving you to extinction." But I like the idea of a day to reflect and and be thankful for your blessings. It's a good exercise, a humbling one.<br />
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I look to my left, I see a pile of five guitars and a 50 watt Peavey amp, a fully-stocked wardrobe, and shelves overflowing with books and records. I see a box of shoes sent by a friend, waiting for the second shoe rack I ordered. Last year, I'd have seen one guitar a 15 watt amp, and maybe 1/4 of these items. Two years ago, shortly after I moved back to Austin, I'd have seen that one guitar and 1/4 of that 1/4 of that stuff.<br />
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Yeah, I have a lot to be grateful for, an abundance. And as stated above, even a year ago, I wouldn't have had the resources to buy that Threadgill's turkey dinner I nearly went to get.<br />
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I was lost for many years, after I walked away from Austin and from rock journalism. I drifted around, trying to find a different way to live, a different way to make a living, to support me and my music. I never found it.<br />
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I returned to Austin, because I had nowhere else to go. It was literally the final option. By accident, I fell back into life as I knew it in my 20s and 30s, back in the '90s. And that worked out. I needed a sponsor for "RADIO NAPALM," which ended up being Shannon Pollard and his fine Plowboy Records label, without me asking. And I needed my editor at <i>The Austin Chronicle</i>, Raoul Hernandez, to ask me back to my calling: Writing about music. And I needed Austin to bring me back and take care of me until these factors fell into place.<br />
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Two years later, I'm looking back and thinking I owe these people a lot. I am certainly not in the state I was in upon my return to this town I love. Yes, it was due to my own hard work and discipline and talent. But it was because all these people gave me the opportunity to do that.<br />
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I made some good friends along the way, and they helped keep me going until I could get to this point. The road to independence requires a lot of support, and I literally could not have done this on my own.<br />
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And now, I'm back to making music with a new version of The Hormones. Without the three guys manning the other stations in the band - Clint Shay, Kriss Ward, Pip Plyler, and those who were there along the way (Rob Laundy, Tom Trusnovic, Ryan Anderson, and Jason Crowe) - there would be no band. Nor would there be a Hormones without the wonderful booking skills of Julia Cohen.<br />
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Here I am: Able to write these words, and able to thank you all. I could not do <i>anything</i> without you. Thank you for giving me back my life. I owe you all. Happy Thanksgiving.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-44120440457217736382014-09-11T11:37:00.001-07:002014-09-11T11:37:24.242-07:00REPOST: Something I rarely talk about....<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp_9DXhUcgKaoo4mpjNfvCjiaW_dI65i9FiVP1dvRpP8vxE_149FyezDUwg0kQGQ36wiqRTv5O9lAnS6m_MQj-VHwVrKBPTUNrd_vB_YViiOgufGs3Y2I2AM8jeBy2xttmdfHUklGwfs63/s1600/Johnny+Heff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp_9DXhUcgKaoo4mpjNfvCjiaW_dI65i9FiVP1dvRpP8vxE_149FyezDUwg0kQGQ36wiqRTv5O9lAnS6m_MQj-VHwVrKBPTUNrd_vB_YViiOgufGs3Y2I2AM8jeBy2xttmdfHUklGwfs63/s400/Johnny+Heff.jpg" height="400" width="278" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Today's True Hero: Johnny Heff</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #262626; font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><b><br /></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #262626; font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><b><br /></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #262626; font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><b><br /></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #262626; font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><b>TIM SEZ: Repost from my old MySpace blog from 2008. Ike fizzled before he got to Austin, obviously. In the time since I posted this, my friend's death score was settled, with Bin Laden's capture and execution. (And no, I don't buy any conspiracy theories on this subject. Nor do I buy conspiracy theories, period. Please save it all for your next Alex Jones fan club meeting, thank you.) Troops have been thinned in Iraq and Afghanistan, but.... And there's a chance we may find ourselves in another conflict soon. On a personal level, I reflect that this day began a ten year spiral of personal tragedy and self-destruction I've only come out of in the last two years - miracles <i>do</i> happen. Today, I also reflect that America became a mean-spirited, selfish nation in the wake of this day, and we have never recovered from it nor corrected it - it just gets worse. We never fucking learn....</b></span><br />
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<article class="post-body" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Times; font-size: small; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><br />I repost this every year, so we don't forget, so some semblance of truth remains out there...and for my late friend Johnny you will read about here. <i>He</i> is a real hero. I miss him every day.</b><br /><br />Something I rarely talk about<br />Current mood: contemplative<br />Category: Life<br />It looks pretty certain the day after my birthday, I'm riding out a hurricane. Odd, for the Austin area. Where I grew up, it was more common: I'd been through three by the time I was a teenager, the last one having been Allen back in 1980 (I think it was). Not a big deal, really. By the time Ike hits here, he's gonna be a lotta wind and rain, really.<br /><br />But, come on, Ike: Could your timing be any worse?<br /><br />It's kinda par for the course, right now. Something about this decade and my birthday has meant disaster for me. There was the girlfriend who decided to break up with me the week of my birthday, just because that would sting the most, I'm sure. Then, there was the birthday on which Johnny Cash had the misfortune of dying. That really sucked.<br /><br />But I think the coldest was the group of middle eastern gentlemen who thought it would be really cool to fly a couple of airplanes into the World Trade Center the day before my birthday in 2001.<br /><br />I slept through it. I was homeless at the time and staying with a friend on 7th and Ave. B, probably three or four miles from the Twin Towers. She was out of town, and I was house-sitting, soon to move in with my friend Sami Yaffa and his girl Karmen. I was working at the time as a professional dog walker, and I got up at 11 AM. It was supposed to be just another day: I was thinking about coffee, looking over the schedule, wondering who the first dog of the day would be, etc., etc. I turned on Howard Stern's show, as was my wont back then (until he said something completely insulting about John Lee Hooker on the day Hook died, and I swore I'd never listen to the tasteless bastard again). And judging by the hysteria I was hearing, it was the end of the world.<br /><br />I called my boss to find out what was going on. That was when I found out the towers had been hit.<br /><br />From there, people were calling in left and right, canceling walks; most of our customer base worked in the financial district, so they were now gonna be home. I was getting all kinds of bits and pieces from there: The doorman at the building on Irving Place where a few of my dogs lived reported looking up and seeing the first jet flying so close to the ground, he could see its' markings. My friend Mark who lived two blocks away called me up and told me he was on the phone, talking to his mother, looking out his panoramic view of the southern end of Manhattan...and saw that same jet fly right past his building, shaking him and the whole building. Mark got a front row seat at watching it crash straight into Tower Number One.<br /><br />These calls were going on for three hours. I couldn't sit down to eat. Finally, about 2 PM, I was able to leave the apartment and walk down to Ave. A, in search of breakfast. Every joint in the neighborhood was crammed to the rafters, it seemed. There were hand-written signs in the windows, advising that the Red Cross needed blood, go to this hospital or that one, go to Bellvue, go someplace, we need blood. The air smelled awful, like burning tires or hair, but worse. It would be that way for months. And can you imagine what it does to a mind, knowing that what you're breathing might be friends of yours'?<br /><br />I finally squeezed into Sidewalk Cafe, ran into friends I knew from the local rock circuit. The waitresses and bartenders looked like they were gonna have coronaries. My waitress confided in me that they were severely understaffed, especially with the crush they were experiencing, and people due to work that day who lived out in Brooklyn or wherever were calling in because the subways were now shut down and they couldn't make it in. She looked like she was about to cry. Seconds later, some jerk at the table next to me started cursing her out about how long it was taking for him to get his eggs. I slammed my fist on his table and shocked him: "DUDE, DO YOU GET IT? CAN YOU LOOK AROUND YOU? DO YOU SEE HOW OVERWORKED THESE PEOPLE ARE RIGHT NOW? CAN YOU TURN AROUND AND SEE THE COLUMN OF SMOKE WHERE THE WORLD TRADE CENTER USED TO BE? CAN YOU FOR ONCE IN YOUR GAWDFERSAKEN EXISTENCE STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF AND TRY TO PUT YOURSELF IN THE SHOES OF THE PEOPLE WORKING HERE AND THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU?"<br /><br />"What are you getting mad at me for?" he whined. "It's not my fault they don't have enough people working. I'm hungry." I just stared at him.<br /><br />I decided to wander a bit after eating and having coffee. People were then walking up from around the disaster site, walking because the subways were shut down, and no cabs can be found. They were covered in soot, looking like some ancient Jack Kirby panel out of a '60s Marvel comic. I ran into Jesse Malin, on his way to buy a protein bar and a newspaper. We started talking about The Strokes' debut album, which had just been released a few days before. (Or maybe that was only in the UK? Well, copies were obviously getting around on import.) And I remember at the time thinking, "Why are we talking about The Strokes in the middle of this?!"<br /><br />My cellphone rang. It was my mother. She'd been trying to reach me for hours. The satellite dishes for the cellphone companies were based at the Twin Towers. Finally, a provisional satellite path was opened, and she could know I was alive. The family were scared shitless: They had no idea of the geography of Manhattan, and for all they knew, I could be dead.<br /><br />I went back to the apartment and finally turned on the news. For hours, my eyes were raped with endless repeats of the footage of those planes crashing into those towers. It was relentless. I finally had to turn it off and order pay-per-view porn. After all, what's amoral here: Being bombarded with footage of the WTC being penetrated hard and fast by terrorist-commandeered planes? Or being bombarded with footage of Jenna Jameson getting penetrated hard and fast from various angles?<br /><br />The days and weeks after were like nothing I'd ever experienced. I remember having to wear a filter mask as I did the dogwalks for a long time, and suffering massive headaches from the air quality. For awhile, you would be forced to present ID at two different checkpoints to MPs if you lived in the East Village, just to get to and from your apartment. Armed personnel carriers would be going up and down Houston St. The middle eastern guys who ran the deli downstairs looked at me with pleading, fearful eyes that told me they were already getting harassed for the color of their skins and their accents. Probably by the same louts I heard that Friday up and down Avenue B, drunkenly chanting, "U! S! A! U! S! A!" I feared those clowns more than I did potential terrorists.<br /><br />I can remember my mother and I talking, and she kept telling me, "We all understand. We all are with you. We're all going through this together." And I had to tell her that no, there was no way she could understand unless she was here. She got to watch this from the safety of her living room. This wasn't TV for me or anyone else in NYC. This was our lives. And it wasn't fun, and I hoped that she (and everyone else who didn't live here) never had to find out what I was going through.<br /><br />The worst was finding out how one of my dearest friends was affected by this: Johnny Heffernan was one of my local brothers in rock. His band The Bullys was one of Napalm Stars' brother bands. Johnny was frequently there when I needed him, whether I needed to borrow an amp, or whether I was having to fend off an obnoxious and violent stage invader. I considered him one of my best friends. He was to have left on my birthday to go on tour with The Toilet Boys, doing their lighting.<br /><br />Johnny was also a NYC fire fighter.<br /><br />He was not supposed to be on duty on Sept. 11, 2001. It was supposed to be his day off. He was working instead, trying to get in overtime before he left on the road, to support his wife and young stepdaughter. His company was among the first to respond when Tower Number One was hit. From what I remember, most (if not all) of his company was buried when the tower collapsed. Johnny's bandmates, family, friends, we all held hope that he was still alive. They pulled Johnny's crushed body out one month later.<br /><br />We all know who killed my friend, as well as the many others who died that day. America invaded Afghanistan shortly after, gunning for Osama Bin Laden. Over time, our leaders began telling us Iraq had some connection with the WTC attacks, that they had weapons of mass destruction, that Saddaam Hussein had something to do with this. This, of course, turned out not to be the case. We are still at war in Iraq. Osama Bin Laden, the man who commanded the men who killed my friend and all those others, remains free.<br /><br />Happy birthday.</span></article>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-12310889157166509522014-04-22T08:03:00.000-07:002014-04-22T08:16:04.153-07:00There Goes The Neighborhood....I've been saying it for years, now: Despite all my jokes about my insane neighbors (see pretty much any given blog, Facebook post or Twitter tweet from over the years), you really don't want <i>me</i> moving into your neighborhood.<br />
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My growing up years aside, as well as a five year stretch in a fairly nice South Austin neighborhood in the '90s, and the three years I was in Austin in the mid-to-late-'00s, I've found myself living all my life in ghetto or <i>barrio </i>neighborhoods. It's what I can afford. And the food is better. But if you see me moving in next door, it's a bad sign.<br />
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Trust me: I've seen it happen time and again. Six months after I move in, you soon start seeing packs of young white people walking around. They're either carrying guitar cases, or you'll see paintbrushes sticking out the back pockets of their skinny jeans.<br />
<br />
Three months after that, the convenience store (or <i>bodega</i>, depending on your location) either on the corner or downstairs in your building closes down. Six months after that, it reopens as a combination espresso bar/art gallery.<br />
<br />
Inevitably, three years later, rents will triple. Which is when I'll have to move out and find some other ghetto to ruin as a harbinger of the ol' dreaded gentrification.<br />
<br />
You hear complaints about that all over Austin these days: Gentrification, over-development, too many people moving here and all that. Certainly, I can remember SoCo when it was just South Congress. No $500 skinny jeans shops and long-line gourmet burger joints then. No, the Continental Club had a gun shop (Just Guns! I shit you not!) and a liquor store for neighbors. What's now an advertising agency down the street was a porn theater, a run-down weekly bedbug motel across the street. If you were walking home at 2 AM from the Continental after seeing Ronnie Dawson, a charming, 6-ft.-tall black transvestite with a sprayed silver high-rise fade would offer to suck your dick for a quarter.<br />
<br />
I moved into this neighborhood back in November, after me and my then-roommates all got word that the house off Riverside we'd been in for years (well, <i>year,</i> in my case) would have to be vacated in December. I'd heard there were no plans, other than maybe to turn it into a vacant lot. As skyscrapers went up a few blocks away, in what used to be another crack neighborhood. And so it goes....<br />
<br />
The day I moved into this duplex I currently share with three others, the welcome wagon came in the form of first responders dragging a body out of the house across the street, respirator mask firmly clamped to the face. My immediate neighbors in the duplex next door finally cleaned up the mound of garbage in their front yard that has been there since likely before I moved in. But their pitbull still comes onto my property and barks at me like I'm trespassing on <i>hers'</i>. And they still like to yell and blast hip hop at all hours - 4 AM, doesn't matter. I mean, who needs an alarm clock, when you can count on hearing 500 dBs of Tupac or whoever, accompanied by live motherfucking of everything in sight? At 8 AM.<br />
<br />
That's okay. They're gonna get theirs'. The 2nd day I lived there, I saw a pair of white 20-somethings in skinny jeans and bushy beards (including the one on the young lady) bicycling past. Couldn't see paint brushes in their back pockets, however. And our landlady power-washed our house a few weeks ago, mowed our yard last week.<br />
<br />
So, yeah. Go ahead and steal our city garbage cans, motherfucker. Your rent is about to get <i>really unaffordable</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-71145070417781272052014-02-26T09:53:00.000-08:002014-02-26T09:53:13.374-08:00 "RADIO NAPALM" Podcast # 28: 2/25/14 (For Joyce Coffey)<iframe frameborder="0" height="180" src="//www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2Ftimnapalm%2Fradio-napalm-podcast-28-22514%2F&embed_type=widget_standard&embed_uuid=83d72c88-010b-4fc4-88d1-c4fdf8c64814&hide_tracklist=1&replace=0&hide_cover=1" width="660"></iframe><br />
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/radio-napalm-podcast-28-22514/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=resource_link" style="color: grey; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"RADIO NAPALM" Podcast # 28: 2/25/14</a> by <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=profile_link" style="color: grey; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"Radio Napalm" W/Tim Napalm</a> on <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=homepage_link" style="color: grey; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> Mixcloud</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Poor Joyce Coffey of Epping, NH. She was recently arrested four times in 26 hours! Why? She played AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" quote-unquote "too loud!" Ed The Engineer, I, and even dumb-as-shit-in-a-box Scooter know that AC/DC can NEVER be too loud! Even if New Hampshire cops can't figure out that "Rock 'n' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution!" So, this week's episode of "RADIO NAPALM" is dedicated to Ms. Coffey. No, we don't play any AC/DC this week. But we sure do play loads of ALL-NEW punk and garage goodies from DOA, THE STRYPES, THE JIM JONES REVUE, THE OBN IIIs, BITERS, SUPERSUCKERS, CHEETAH CHROME, and more. The Garage is BRIMMING with loudness, this week!</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-1454068387244894422014-02-16T08:11:00.001-08:002014-02-16T08:11:31.557-08:00"RADIO NAPALM" Podcast # 27: Feb. 16, 2014<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="180" src="//www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2Ftimnapalm%2Fradio-napalm-podcast-25-21614%2F&embed_type=widget_standard&embed_uuid=417b6c80-3223-477a-b09d-2a6910990846&hide_tracklist=1&hide_cover=1" width="660"></iframe></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/radio-napalm-podcast-25-21614/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=resource_link" style="color: grey; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"RADIO NAPALM" Podcast # 25: 2/16/14</a> by <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=profile_link" style="color: grey; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"Radio Napalm" W/Tim Napalm</a> on <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=homepage_link" style="color: grey; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> Mixcloud</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Enough specials, already! It's time for AN ACTUAL BRAND NEW EPISODE of the most swingin' sound around, "RADIO NAPALM!" It's ALL-NEW this week, INCLUDING THE MUSIC! Every song played on today's show was recorded the last two years, to guarantee maximum freshness. So, WHO SAYS THERE'S NO GOOD NEW MUSIC?! Not Tim Napalm, Ed The Engineer, nor Scooter! So, dig the new noise from THE ENEMY, THE WHITE WIRES, REV NORB AND THE ONIONS, THE HANGMEN, FLESH LIGHTS, THE ALARM, UK SUBS, and so many more! Plus all the comedy, echo, screaming, old commercials, and Ed The Engineer and Scooter you can eat! And more exclamation points!!! AND CAPITAL LETTERS!!! CAN YOUR HEART STAND IT?!!!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-47672742671966993182014-02-14T17:42:00.002-08:002014-02-14T18:57:00.417-08:00The "I Can't Make This Shit Up" Desk Just BLEW UP!I have just encountered the G.G. Allin of sidewalk evangelism, whilst waiting for the Number One bus by the UT mall.<br />
<br />
Some frumpy woman walked into the middle of the mall area, bearing a sign reading, " You DESERVE Hell." She shouted at the UT student population all manner of terms of endearment. Like<br />
"whores," "whore mongers," "baby murderers," etc.<br />
<br />
I tried to tune out the strident cow by playing "Anarchy In The UK" as loud as my phone could bear, when G.G. reincarnated before my eyes as a Christian performance artist.<br />
<br />
A skinny young man appeared next to the lady, peeled off his shirt, and revealed a torso full of hideous home-made tattoos. Then he pulled a full-on Lucha Libre wrestling mask over his head and produced a whip. And began beating himself.<br />
<br />
Yep, full-on self-flagellation, great ribbons of blood pouring from his wounds. When he felt his back was punished enough, he started turning his chest into hamburger with his whip.<br />
<br />
Then G.G. began brandishing the Dr. Seuss book, <i>The Lorax</i>, at us. Who knows what sinful intent the good Dr. had in these nutcases' eyes.<br />
<br />
When G.G. tired of <i>The Lorax</i>, he began dusting himself in talcum powder.<br />
<br />
I've no idea how many shows per day these lunatics perform, but hopefully, they'll be here for the next week. Don't forget to tip these kids - they have a helluva act.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-3118136526509601782014-01-22T07:48:00.001-08:002014-01-22T07:48:47.975-08:00The "RADIO NAPALM" Special: A History Of The Hormones<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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'Tis true, brethren. As of January 25th, 2014, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/selloutyoung" target="_blank">The Hormones</a> live again! The new 2014 lineup of <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/timnapalm" target="_blank">The Hormones</a> take the stage at Beerland here in Austin, playing our first gig in three years! Joining Tim "Napalm" Stegall on lead guitar and lead vocals are new lead guitarist/backing vocalist Clint Shay, drummer Rob Laundy, and bassist Tom Trusnovic. Opening will be Clint's band The Stand Alones and ex-Hormone Ron Williams' The Inflatable Baptists. Doors are 9 PM, admission is $5! We will also have $11 t-shirts, $2 1-inch punk rock pins, and $3 stickers! (Out of towners can get all the above for $20, including postage! Contact me at timnapalm@yahoo.com.)</div>
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Meantime, "RADIO NAPALM" presents a special program: "A History Of The Hormones." Besides everything we released during our 1994-1998 recording lifetime - all three singles ("Sell Out Young," the ultra-rare "Cartographer Of Love," "Castaway") and every comp appearance - the show also presents SEVEN UNRELEASED VINTAGE RECORDINGS! All taken from lost sessions for The Hormones' debut LP and a live radio session for KUT in Austin cut in 1996, as well as live songs from a local TV broadcast. There's also vintage interview material with Tim and Ron from that KUT live session, and an excerpt of a recent interview with me, and my own off-the-cuff reminiscences.</div>
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Click the link below, open your speakers wide, and PLAY FUCKING LOUD! See you at Beerland!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-18677502548225957212014-01-17T09:30:00.001-08:002014-01-17T09:30:07.388-08:00"RADIO NAPALM's" Everly Brothers Special: Songs Don And Phil Taught Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The world's a far less melodic and harmonious place without the high-pitched, diatonic thirds of Phil Everly blending with his older brother Don. Phil passed away Jan. 3rd, already tarring a fresh new year. "RADIO NAPALM," of course, must honor the man and his genius by honoring the collective genius of The Everly Brothers. Therefore, regularly scheduled programming from The Garage this week to play Don and Phil's best, both big-selling and not, alongside homages from The Ventures, The Ramonas, Billie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones, and even Eddie Arnold! "RADIO NAPALM" presents as much The Everly Brothers' songs and stories as we can cram into an hour. Click the link and pass the chicken and listen (as one of their album titles put it):</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-74779864360548352492014-01-08T09:11:00.001-08:002014-01-08T09:11:59.274-08:00"Boss Radio Napalm 2" Special Encore Presentation Is Up At Mixcloud!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Alright, Irregulars! It's a New Year, so "RADIO NAPALM" begins with an old show! Part 2 of the "Boss Radio Napalm" encore, to be precise. This show was done in the old Woody Radio days, and recreates the sound and format of KHJ, Los Angeles' Boss Radio pioneer. The playlist? The Boss 30 for the week of my birth in 1965: Bob Dylan, Charlie Rich, The Fortunes, The Miracles, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Evie Sands, and more! There's a link below, complete with playlist. See? Listen here, and you won't have to sign up for Mixcloud! Open your speakers wide and say, "IT'S JUST GOTTA BE BOSS!"</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-1217700966913832872014-01-07T12:11:00.001-08:002014-01-07T13:12:14.135-08:00How's your day, so far?I've been up since 10 AM. I usually try to be up two hours earlier, but I guess I needed the sleep.<br />
<br />
I've had breakfast, read some of<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Morrissey/dp/0399171541/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389124924&sr=1-1&keywords=morrissey+autobiography" target="_blank"> Morrissey's <i>Autobiography</i></a>, finished lyrics on a new song I've been writing on since 1995 (now that I'm a born-again Hormone), and listened to the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-Texas-Radio-Birdman/dp/B0046MVVS8/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1389124983&sr=1-1&keywords=radio+birdman+live+in+texas" target="_blank">Radio Birdman CD <i>Live In Texas</i></a>, which Deniz Tek himself kindly sent for Xmas, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/L-M-F-Definitive-Heartbreakers/dp/B009TT3HNU/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1389125023&sr=1-3&keywords=johnny+thunders+and+the+heartbreakers" target="_blank">The Heartbreakers' <i> L.A.MF</i></a> (Track Records cassette version). I've showered, dressed, taken out the garbage, washed my dishes, and tidied Napalm HQ a bit. Right now, I'm typing this, and listening to the<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Rocks-1964-1971-Rolling-Stones/dp/B00B6EJ28U/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1389125078&sr=1-3&keywords=rolling+stones+hot+rocks+1964-1971" target="_blank"> Rolling Stones' <i>Hot Rocks</i></a> on original vinyl. (I've been making a practice, this past year, of buying back all my original teenage record collection <i>on records</i>, bit by bit. I lost it all when I went homeless in NYC ten years ago.)<br />
<br />
I only got on the internets about 15 minutes ago.<br />
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This is important. The last two weeks, I was house-sitting for friends, and I took a vacation. I didn't write, except for working on songs and writing in my journal, two things I have not done in a long time. I watched lots of movies, ate good food, and took hour-long walks every day, in a pathetic attempt to insert some physical activity in my life and get back into the fighting shape I've lost across the year I've returned to writing and DJ-ing as my vocation. I played lots of loud guitar, trying to get used to the brand new<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Deluxe-40-Watt-1x12-Inch-Amplifier/dp/B003YU2MJU/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1389125136&sr=1-1&keywords=fender+hot+rod+deluxe+iii" target="_blank"> Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III </a>that I got myself for Xmas. And each morning, <i>I would not get on the internet until I'd finished breakfast and reading some pages from whatever book I was reading</i>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two of my favorite things.</td></tr>
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It was about ten years ago I finally got on the internets for myself, and was introduced to the wonderful world of blogging and social networking, first through Friendster (Wow! Remember <i>that</i>?) and then the brand new MySpace, which would rapidly overtake Friendster the way Facebook and Twitter did MySpace not that long ago. I love it, and still do. But I also now hate it.<br />
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The internets are a wonderful tool and past-time, a marvelous source of information, entertainment, a great communication tool. They are also a pain in the ass, a giant time-suck, and a control system. And I am breaking that control.<br />
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I am sick to death of looking up from the keyboard and monitor and seeing that it's six hours later, and I haven't gotten a goddamned thing done except post a buncha shit on Facebook that I've just read. I am also sick of every single utterance I make online becoming fodder for someone to argue the piss out of. I like discussion, <i>not</i> debate. There is a subtle difference. And I don't troll other people's posts to start shit with them. Therefore, I expect the same courtesy.<br />
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I am happier and more productive under this new regimen than I have been in a long time. Yeah, I still go digital. But I am severely limiting my digital time and living more in the analog world. Because let's face it: Real life is actually better than The Matrix. Right? *smiles*<br />
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Happy New Year. You will be seeing far more posts here now. And by the way, as hinted at above, The Hormones live again, in a new lineup. Check out<a href="https://www.facebook.com/selloutyoung" target="_blank"> our Facebook page</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/590470157690906/" target="_blank">please make note of the event</a> below. See ya.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-58700172899052506822013-12-22T08:07:00.000-08:002013-12-22T08:07:07.864-08:00"RADIO NAPALM" Podcast # 21 up at Mixcloud Radio<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yeah, I haven't been posting updates to the blog lately, and especially haven't been posting the radio show here. Life has just been a little hectic, working on a ZZ Top story that will run after Xmas in <i>The Austin Chronicle.</i> But here I am today, freshly awakened by my neighbors, who seem to find loud hip hop and "motherfuckers" appropriate at 9 AM on a Sunday. (Well, they do that <i>any</i> day. But....)</div>
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Thankfully, we begin this week's "RADIO NAPALM" with METAL URBAIN and "Hysterie Connective" to blast those heathens into submission. And the punk rock comes thick and fast after: BILLY CHILDISH AND CTMF, THE OBLIVIANS, KING TUFF, REV. NORB AND THE ONIONS, THE CLASH, THE MUMMIES, and so much more. And plenty of echo and vintage ads to warm your cockles.</div>
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We got Red Hot Ball and Big Saucy Bangers galore this week in The Garage! So, press play and join us!</div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/radio-napalm-podcast-21-12-21-13/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=resource_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"RADIO NAPALM" podcast # 21: 12-21-13</a> by <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=profile_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"Radio Napalm" W/Tim Napalm</a> on <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=homepage_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> Mixcloud</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-72641861708985942632013-12-15T14:30:00.001-08:002013-12-22T07:55:35.869-08:00R.I.P., Ray Price (From The Austin Chronicle Archives)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: And, of course, Ray actually ended up passing on for real on Monday. Here's the memorial I wrote for <i>The Austin Chronicle</i>: <a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2013-12-17/ray-price-1926-2013/" target="_blank">Click here.</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>UPDATE: A second Gannett newspaper, USA TODAY, just added the following to their obituary.</b> <b>"UPDATE: Reports that Country Music Hall of Famer Ray Price has died appear to be in error. Price's son Cliff Price wrote of his death on F</b></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>acebook, but was not at Price's bedside in Mount Pleasant, Texas, when he posted. Price's wife, Janie Price, is with her husband and says he is alive. 'Our lovable Ray Price is still with us,' reads a post on her Facebook page. 'When it is the time, there will be an official statement.'" Sounds like Ray's son needs to check in at home more often....</b></span></div>
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<i>A lot of people are going to be remembering today, in future years, as the day Peter O'Toole died. For this dutiful son of Texas, however, it will be <a href="http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2013/12/15/ray-price-country-music-hall-of-famer-dies-at-age-87/" target="_blank">the day Ray Price died</a>.</i></div>
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<i>I </i>could <i>write a full-bore obituary for Ray, certainly. Those hard-shufflin' '50s hits of his created a fresh </i><i>honky tonk sound, one that resonated greatly with me, and many others. I mean, give a listen to his signature tune, "Crazy Arms," and tell me you aren't affected:</i></div>
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<i>Instead, I will dip into my own back catalog. In August 1996, I interviewed Ray Price aboard his tour bus, prior to playing Austin's AquaFest. </i>The Austin Chronicle<i> would publish is August 23, 1996, as</i> Fiddles Not Violins: The Secret To Ray Price And San Antonio Rose.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #303030; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">"You got that thing on? I hope you don't print it like I'm sayin' it!" Seventy-year-old Ray Price ("going on 71 with a bullet") of Perryville, Texas, son of Walter and Clara Bradley Price, has just looked up from the glass of sippin' whiskey and accompanying glass of orange soda in his hands, having seen that the recorder was switched on when he least expected it. All the better to get some honest answers, see?</span><br />
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"You <i>will</i> clean it up, won't you?" he presses. Price turns to the entourage of sidemen and tour crew and notes slyly, "Boy, I know that when a reporter tells you that, it's <i>juuusst</i> right!"</div>
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What Price has to fear, outside the printing of some off-guard raw language or an occasional bawdy aside, is mysterious. Certainly he doesn't seem too worried about the publication of tart observations like, "Well, Nashville is Israeli-occupied territory," but maybe Price is feeling fearless now that he knows he'll finally be entering the Country Music Hall of Fame this year, alongside Patsy Montana and Buck Owens.</div>
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"I was beginning to wonder if they was gonna wait until I died!" says Price before muttering about problems with at least one member of the nominating committee. Price's nomination is timely, though, coming as it does in a year which has seen Koch International reissuing two of his Sixties landmark albums; the Bob Wills tribute, <i>San Antonio Rose</i>, and the similar vintage <i>Nightlife</i> album. Anal-retentive-to-the-extreme German reissue house Bear Family has also compiled one of their notorious billion-CD box sets on Price containing every hiccup the artist committed to tape during his heyday.</div>
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Then again, even without such retrospective interest, Price should've been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame years ago. His contribution is undisputed. One listen to his landmark 1956 recording of "Crazy Arms" tells the entire tale: There had been honky tonk music before, but not like this. Claiming the sound was a fluke of instant studio inspiration, Price's secret was the use of massed, double-stop fiddles (<i>not</i> violins -- <i>fiddles</i>!) and a toughened rhythm section. Because of this, "Crazy Arms" created a groove that kicked as hard as the nascent rock & roll sound which was then kicking traditional country music, and remained on the charts 45 weeks.</div>
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Yes, Price had hits prior to that, chiefly the now-standard "Release Me," but he had no identifiable sound. Instead, he was mostly notable as Hank Williams' protege. Price had met Williams while attending what would later become the University of Texas at Arlington where he studied veterinary medicine, and recorded a few singles for the tiny Bullet label. When Price joined Dallas' Big D Jamboree, he was introduced to Williams, who took a shine to the young country neophyte and convinced him to move to Nashville.</div>
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"Hank got me on the Grand Ole Opry," Price recalls, "and then I lived with him about a year before he died. I lived upstairs, he lived downstairs. Hank only had one problem: It was only with drinkin'. It wasn't with drugs.</div>
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"We was big buddies. But he was working an awful lot, and I was really looking after him more than anything else, 'cuz he was a bad alcoholic. But not like most people think. He never would work when he went to drinkin'. He'd stay in the hotel room. Then the promoter would have so many people there and would lose so much money, they would go and drag him down there drunk. And that's when he would make drunk appearances. In other words, he was a human, like anybody else."</div>
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Price's first records under his Columbia contract featured the backing of Williams' Drifting Cowboys, and despite their quality, they cut a little too close to Hank's groove for notability. Price also "made one tour with Hank in '52. We played some dates in Virginia and South Carolina, New Year's Eve and everything. He didn't make the first two dates," Price laughs.</div>
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"Hank Williams," he continues, "was the hottest damned thing in the world, as far as country music, and they put me out there to fill in for him -- in front of about 10,000 people in Norfolk. So, I didn't know what I was gonna do. I was scared to death. I started doing this song -- I had to use his band -- and I didn't know what key I did <i>anything</i> in. Went out there cold, and I told 'em the key on the song, and hell! It must've been two keys too high! The name of the song was `I Made a Mistake, and I'm Sorry.' And I got up to the `I Made a Mistake' part, then I sang, `...and I'm too damn <i>High</i>!'" he laughs.</div>
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"I stopped, and the people went ape. I could've done anything after that. <i>Anything</i>! It didn't make no difference. They was with me, God love 'em."</div>
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Quickly sobering up, Price adds, "But yeah, I guess I was Hank's best friend. Everywhere he'd play, he'd tell everybody about me and to look out for me, that I was gonna be Number One someday. I didn't even know he was doing it until after he died."</div>
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It took awhile. It took Price's hiring the Western Cherokees, a hard-driving Texas honky tonk/Western swing outfit, away from Lefty Frizzell in 1954 and renaming them the Cherokee Cowboys. It also took "Crazy Arms," with its hardened bass-and-drum pulse wed to a walking bass line. With further hits like "Heartaches by the Number" and "My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You," the Ray Price Sound caught on quickly. In fact, the sound became so inescapable, it even crept its way into the pop mainstream via a Nashville-cut: Elvis Presley's early Sixties hit, "She's Not You."</div>
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"Elvis and I was buddies!" Ray yelps. "I used to play... I believe it was the Lakeside Ballroom in Memphis every Friday night, years ago. And at intermission, Elvis would play, just him and his guitar. He was a nice kid, a really nice kid. But what he went through," Price adds, suddenly grim, "for what he got, I wouldn't have done it. Shit, he was locked up all his life. I don't believe in that."</div>
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Sam Phillips once said that if Presley had been allowed to walk the streets of his own hometown without being bothered, he'd still be alive today.</div>
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"That's right. But that's the way it was. He had a big fight with Tom Parker. He wanted to go to town and get him some ice cream, then go to a movie. Tom Parker said, `You do, and when you get back, our deal's up. I'm gone. You agreed that you would stay hid all the time out of public as long as we're in the business.' Now, that actually come about. And [Presley] believed him. 'Course Tom Parker was nobody without Presley, know what I mean? He was a smart man in the business, because he'd handled Eddy Arnold, and I think Hank Snow. But I'm talking about the big money way. Tom Parker was <i>nothing</i> 'til Presley."</div>
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Price pauses, then allows himself a slight bit of swaggering: "But we knocked `Heartbreak Hotel' off the Number One spot (on the country charts) with `Crazy Arms.'"</div>
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The hits kept coming and Price gained a reputation for having an ear for budding songwriters. Among those he gave breaks to: Harlan Howard ("Heartaches by the Number"), Mel Tillis ("One More Time" and "Heart Over Mind"), and Bill Anderson ("City Lights"). With "Invitation to the Blues," Price put royalties in the pocket of his drummer, an upstart songsmith by the name of Roger Miller. The Cherokee Cowboys, in fact, became as much a breeding ground for future country stars as Ernest Tubb's Texas Troubadours, whipping into shape a number of young bucks, such as steel legend (and now occasional Don Walser sideman) Jimmy Day. When Donnie Young abandoned the bass guitar slot in the Cherokee Cowboys to become Johnny Paycheck, his replacement was a recent arrival in Nashville named Willie Hugh Nelson. It's Nelson's rhythm guitar which graces <i>San Antonio Rose</i>.</div>
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By Price's guess, the 1961 <i>San Antonio Rose</i> was one of the first tribute albums ever released. It certainly predates Merle Haggard's own Wills salute, <i>A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World</i>, by nearly 10 years. Unlike Haggard's record, though, which sought to faithfully recreate the Texas Playboys sound (and in the process helped spearhead the Western Swing revival), Price's record saw him taking Wills' classics like "Roly Poly" and "A Maiden's Prayer" and making Ray Price songs out of them -- treating them all like "Crazy Arms." Price shrugs it off, muttering "That's how we try to do all of them." But this is Price's genius, and the mark of a true artist: Never ape someone else. Create something of your own. Reach inside, find something uniquely yours, rub that all over the material, and leave it standing as 100 proof Price.</div>
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After a time, it was hard to find 100 proof Ray Price records anymore. Records like "For the Good Times" found Price going the Eddy Arnold route, testing the MOR market with string-laden ballads that smacked more of a Vegas showroom than a honky tonk. Those weren't fiddles you heard on Ray Price records, anymore. Those were violins.</div>
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"I've always done my hit country songs," Price protests. "And we've always done them with the old sound, even when I worked with the symphony. I just leaned a little more toward the old sound later on, when it started getting hard to hear anymore."</div>
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It probably began with the duet album Price cut with Willie Nelson in 1980, also titled <i>San Antonio Rose</i>. The following year, a PBS broadcast featuring seminal Fifties honky tonkers showcased a Ray Price who looked as if he was out for blood. There was a lean, hungry look in his eye, and he leaned into Vintage Price standards like "Crazy Arms" and "Heartaches by the Number" and nothing else for 15 minutes, singing with strength, clarity, and the joy of a man freed from a dungeon after 25 years. Price mopped the floor with his contemporaries. The man was <i>back</i>.</div>
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Unfortunately, that was 15 years ago, and today times are tough for Price and his ilk -- at least in the eyes of Nashville. Although he still does over 100 dates a year, drawing "as good crowds as we ever have," Price has been without a record deal for some time now. This, however, hasn't stopped him: He's just cut a Spanish language disc in San Antonio with his musical-director of the last 30 years, Blondie Calderon. That it's heavy with ballads of the "<i>Por Los Tiempos Buenos</i>" variety, is neither here nor there.</div>
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Price has also begun work on a country album that will most likely be released on an indie label he and Calderon are setting up, though at this point they still need to raise funds for both ventures. Strangely enough, one avenue of fundraising may come in the guise of hot sauce, taken from an old Calderon family recipe and marketed as "Ray Price's Burning Memories." Meanwhile, what spare time isn't eaten by fishing excursions on his land near Mt. Pleasant might find Price writing his memoirs, which the singer jokes he'll title <i>For the Good Times, My Ass</i>!</div>
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"Actually, I'll probably title it <i>The Way It Really Was, </i>Price adds, levelly, "because I was there when it happened. I know what went down, and I know what people did. And it ain't gonna be one of them kiss-and-tell jobs."</div>
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Depending on the writing skills of either Price or (should he choose that route) his ghost writer, those non-hot-sauce burning memories of his should make fascinating reading. After all, Price has seen a lot of history, and created enough of his own to finally land in the Country Music Hall of Fame. And you can sense in his restlessness, which is odd in a man of 70, that Ray Price is itching to create even more history. So long as he fights the urge to hire violin players rather than fiddle players, that should be no problem.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-47059670579479810272013-11-03T07:23:00.002-08:002013-11-03T07:23:15.463-08:00"RADIO NAPALM" podcast # 16: The Garage Has Moved! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUDWx9YTBNFmqs8fTz6KLTKibYdoZMwivg4-EBI1Aj9m-EmSqUKbaiZFx1XcRKLaVGjHX7xEyJZd1MEYjA_I6UhCHn3vC8pHw6FQl7eWiuG07VYO7u1iy38hc5ed-JrzLK7w-sA8fOQYfa/s1600/RN+%23+16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUDWx9YTBNFmqs8fTz6KLTKibYdoZMwivg4-EBI1Aj9m-EmSqUKbaiZFx1XcRKLaVGjHX7xEyJZd1MEYjA_I6UhCHn3vC8pHw6FQl7eWiuG07VYO7u1iy38hc5ed-JrzLK7w-sA8fOQYfa/s400/RN+%23+16.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Man, I <i>love</i> the new Mixcloud widgets for all of us Cloudcasters! I mean, look at the thing below! It even shows the playlist, so I don't have to go retyping it here when I post the shows here to help promote 'em! Man, Mixcloud thinks of EVERYTHING!</div>
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But this week's show is up, and it's a humdinger. FAR better than the half-assed Lou Reed Memorial Special I produced and threw up on Mixcloud the day of his death. For one thing, I actually had time to produce this week's show, even though we were moving to new Napalm HQ and a new location for The Garage...and Ed and Scooter didn't lift ONE GODDAMNED FINGER! *ahem!* Lazy bastards....</div>
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Anyway. this show sounds pretty tits, to me. It helps when you have so much good music to play: THE YARDBIRDS, MOTORHEAD, THE LAZY COWGIRLS, MUDHONEY, CHEETAH CHROME, THE RONETTES. We even have a German punk band called RAZOR SMILEZ, covering THE HORMONES' "SELL OUT YOUNG!" How can I NOT love a cover of my band and my song? (I also played the original, of course....)</div>
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Anyway, before I digress anywhere further than my current new location, just press play below. Enjoy....</div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2Ftimnapalm%2Fradio-napalm-podcast-16the-garage-has-moved%2F&mini=&stylecolor=&hide_artwork=&embed_type=widget_standard&embed_uuid=0e1c0419-d847-47e3-890a-f264441827f1&hide_tracklist=&hide_cover=1&autoplay=" width="600"></iframe><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-12058529110301568072013-10-31T07:21:00.000-07:002013-10-31T07:44:20.683-07:00Happy Halloween With Creepy Uncle Bill And Aunt Alice (Cooper, That Is....)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Happy Halloween from Austin, TX, which has apparently decided to be Seattle for Trick Or Treating, this year. We are getting <i>lashed</i> with rain, since last night. To the point where, as a photo posted by my pal Metal Dave illustrates, the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue's had to learn to swim....</div>
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<i>Texas Flood</i>, indeed....</div>
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But how are they celebrating All Hallow's Eve in Lawrence, KS? Well, as William S. Burroughs illustrates below, they like to indulge in a little pumpkin carving....</div>
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Me? I've got boxes to pack, as there's a new apartment across town awaiting my moving in. So, we'll stop off in Detroit ca. 1971, and let the original Alice Cooper band carry us out with one of rock 'n' roll's most truly terrifying tunes, "The Ballad Of Dwight Fry," done completely live. You even get to see them setting up in this clip! Happy Halloween, y'all!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-12732739191064946552013-10-30T07:29:00.001-07:002013-10-30T07:29:36.161-07:00My New Hit Record: "This Magic Moment"Last night, in a fit of solo recording frenzy, I whipped up a minimalist, lo-fi take on an old standard, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman's "This Magic Moment." I was excited enough by the results, I hastily threw up a Soundcloud page so you can hear it. Hope you enjoy it....<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/117724401" width="100%"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-81946076233349954092013-10-29T09:44:00.002-07:002013-10-29T10:17:05.090-07:00"RADIO NAPALM" Special Lou Reed Memorial Show...And A Few Words About Lou<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In some ways, the point of this post is moot, the point being to promote a "RADIO NAPALM" podcast that's already well on its way to being the most listened to in the new series. It's already a success, despite the damned thing being hastily assembled in the event of Lou Reed's death Sunday, October 27th, 2013 from complications due to liver disease. That haste means I'm not entirely sure the show's worthy of the audience. Certainly, it marks an occasion where the show for once is not a raving celebration of the punk rock spirit and vintage rock 'n' roll radio it usually is. And how could it be? Lou Reed is fucking dead.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Writing those words don't set well with me. Lou was a prickly bastard, for sure, one who communicated best through his songs, even as he oft times seemed to use his solo career to alienate anyone whose life was saved by the rock 'n' roll he created in The Velvet Underground, and used his own public persona to keep everyone away. I'm personally one who felt he made more lousy albums than good. <i>Transformer</i> is the most obvious example of solo Lou at his best. <i>Berlin</i>. <i>Metal Machine Music</i> is a perverse pleasure. But he mostly seemed to take a perverse delight in holding a middle finger up to the world. Lou also was the sort of artist who really needed a good editor. He had that in John Cale, and in David Bowie and Mick Ronson on <i>Transformer</i>. Left to his own devices, he could not tell his own shit from his diamonds. I mean, really: Did Lou Reed really think collaborating with Metallica was a good idea?</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yet, why is it I feel like Elvis just died? </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I don't think it's so much to do with that now-clicheed Brian Eno quote always trotted out in any discussion of the Velvet Underground, about the influence they had being so insanely out of proportion with their pisspoor record sales. I think what really says a lot about Lou's - and the Velvets' - impact is that in the 48 hours since his death, he has inspired so many great writers to write even more brilliantly. These eulogies are instant classics, sure to take pride of place in future anthologies.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is because, ultimately, Lou Reed was a great writer himself.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yes, he inspired everyone who heard his records to become a junkie faggot from New York City in a black leather jacket, solid black clothing, and ever-present sunglasses. Yes, he played some of the sickest rock 'n' roll lead guitar ever. Yes, he was a great singer who could not sing, had a limited range, and sounded flat to the rest of the world while sounding like Edith Piaf to all us faux NYC junkie faggots who heard him. But the key to Lou Reed was he was ultimately Raymond Chandler with a rock 'n' roll heart.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Like Buddy Holly, Lou Reed preferred simplicity. He wrote symphonies out of three chords at most. Even as he blew crazed free jazz skronk guitar all over his records, he relied on the simplistic grooves of Moe Tucker's drums and John Cale's three-note bass. And he didn't write lyrics - he wrote stories. Highly literary, poetic stories full of urban gutter journalism, subject matter that was acceptable in novels and movies but is still frowned on in rock 'n' roll or pop music. He wrote of kicks and bad drugs and transvestites and squalor and kinky sex and general bad craziness, in simple, hard-boiled language that was direct and honest. It wasn't celebrating these things. It was simply telling it like it is.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He also had a vulnerability, a gentle side that he was not afraid to flash, at least in song. Ferchissakes, one of the best Velvet Underground songs, a B-side called "Jesus," was an honest-to-God hymn. I now wish I'd included it in this show. But there's a lot I left out. This show could have gone on for hours. There was that much great stuff in Lou's canon, despite that pisspoor overall batting average on good releases versus howling dogs.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Personally, I didn't get it at first. As a 14-year-old Sex Pistols/punk rock besotted youth, I came to Lou at first via <i>Rock 'n' Roll Animal</i>. I kept reading about Lou and the Velvet Underground in every magazine I picked up. <i>Rock 'n' Roll Animal</i> was availble in the five buck bin in the local Krogers record department, and I took a chance. I hated it on first listen, and still do. What's with this heavy metal record with the dirty lyrics? It took hearing Ronnie Bonds spin the Velvets' original of "Rock And Roll" on his old <i>Funhouse</i> show on KPFT in Houston to understand: Lou Reed songs make great rock 'n' roll, not great heavy metal. These are different musics, no matter what you may think. This is why that Metallica team-up still is a head-scratcher....</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But looking over my own songs I've written? I've said for years I learned all I know about writing songs from Phil Spector. I still stand behind it, but I can see there's as much Lou Reed there as Phil. There are times I've forgotten some of those lessons, but that's par for the course with growing artistically. But having a good groove, a solid-but-simple riff, some vicious guitar, a lyric that tells a tough truth in simple-but-beautiful language? That's all Lou Reed, through-and-through.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And now Lou Reed's dead, after a lifetime making me hate him more than love him, but loving what I love to the point of obsession. And all I can offer is this half-assed RADIO SHOW?! This just proves I can never hope to repay my debt to the man....</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yet, you guys are loving this, anyway. Despite there being no comedy, no screaming, no echo, no Ed The Engineer or Scooter, and me sounding as morose, stammering, and amaturish as I've ever sounded, you guys are loving this show. Because it's all about Lou Reed: Some early songs, a lot of Velvet Underground, some solo work, and a few musical tributes from those who got it. I have to thank you for that.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>R.I.P., Lou. Rest In Peace.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">Playlist:</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - What Goes On</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE BEACHNUTS - Cycle Annie</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE PRIMITIVES - The Ostrich</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE JADES - So Blue (first record, 1957)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE ALL-NIGHT WORKERS - Why Don't You Smile Now</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">DIDJITS - Lou Reed (Full Nelson Reilly, 1991)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Sunday Morning (mono 45)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Run Run Run (acetate, different mix)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - I'm Waiting For My Man (mono LP mix)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Femme Fatale (mono 45)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">ADAM AND THE ANTS - Lou (Peel Session, 1978)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - White Light, White Heat</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Sister Ray</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Guess I'm Falling In Love (Workout At The Gymnasium bootleg)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Beginning To See The Light </span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Pale Blue Eyes</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Temptation Inside Your Heart</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - I Can't Stand It</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">DAVID BOWIE - White Light, White Heat</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Sweet Jane</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Rock And Roll</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - Oh! Sweet Nuthin'</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">LOU REED - Vicious</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">LOU REED - Walk On The Wild</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">THE DREAM SYNDICATE - Tell Me When It's Over</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;">JONATHAN RICHMAN - Velvet Underground</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/radio-napalm-special-lou-reed-memorial-show/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=resource_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"RADIO NAPALM'" Special Lou Reed Memorial Show</a> by <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=profile_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"Radio Napalm" W/Tim Napalm</a> on <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=homepage_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> Mixcloud</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-23447800464038377322013-10-01T08:58:00.001-07:002013-10-01T08:58:38.022-07:00"RADIO NAPALM" podcast # 13: PAT FEAR ROCKS!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvUFUxHlVxQkzIHoKzWPVyJ9yozkE3ILkClnsLTiNg8Aa34-0emKWiFjY9uKAW389Rh03Zp-EYNy6lJrJbYbtgk4apj0E0xCCBW5Uim_0-n5MsfSTwWWYN7H6OTtRrhtfk_OUF_gQZ22j0/s1600/RN+PF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvUFUxHlVxQkzIHoKzWPVyJ9yozkE3ILkClnsLTiNg8Aa34-0emKWiFjY9uKAW389Rh03Zp-EYNy6lJrJbYbtgk4apj0E0xCCBW5Uim_0-n5MsfSTwWWYN7H6OTtRrhtfk_OUF_gQZ22j0/s400/RN+PF.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"PAT FEAR ROCKS!!" That's what it said on the side of his Flying V. And White Flag mastermind and daredevil punk rock prankster Bill "Pat Fear" Bartell is no longer with us - died in his sleep last Monday, following years of health problems. I knew Bill, but not well - we were both ex-fLiPSiDers, for one. So, of course, I had to at least play four White Flag hits and read a poem Tony of The Adolescents composed, memorializing the friend he knew well.<br />
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Among other highlights:<br />
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<li>Scooter gets a bigger vocabulary!</li>
<li>We play more of your requests!</li>
<li>Classics from THE LOOTERS (aka that Sex Pistols/Clash band from <i>Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains</i>), THE CRAMPS, BLACK FLAG, and WIRE!</li>
<li>New noise from OFF!, THE STRYPES, BULLET PROOF HEARTS, and more!</li>
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It's all NAPALMTASTIC! Now click and play!<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2Ftimnapalm%2Fradio-napalm-13-9-29-13-pat-fear-rocks-rip%2F&show_tracklist=&stylecolor=&hide_artwork=&mini=&embed_type=widget_standard&embed_uuid=21f3ba1d-b4a5-4063-bb45-871b48ca4cf2&hide_cover=" width="480"></iframe><br />
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Now, here's the playlist:<br />
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THE LOOTERS - Conned Again (1980, unreleased Pistols/Clash hybrid, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS)<br />
ZAKARY THAKS - Face To Face (1967 Corpus Christi garage punk)<br />
THE CRAMPS - Domino (1979)<br />
PINK FAIRIES - City Kids (UK, 1973)<br />
WIRE - I Am The Fly (requested by Rob Cooley, Georgetown, TX, and Jennifer Kerr, Chewelah, Washington)<br />
BLACK FLAG - I've Had It (requested by Sam Rogers, NYC)<br />
THE SCIENTISTS - Last Night (Goose [the Great Dismal Swamis, ex- Phantom Creeps], Friedricksburg, VA)<br />
RUBBER CITY REBELS - "Rubber City Rebels" from the split with the Bizarros (Brian Schickling , Long Beach )<br />
OFF! - What's Next? (Grand Theft Auto V, 2013)<br />
THE STRYPES - Blue Collar Jane (recent single)<br />
10 CENT FUCK FLICKS - Womanaire (Queens sleaze punk on Drug Front Records)<br />
BULLET PROOF HEARTS - American Custom (Omaha punk rock 2013)<br />
PLOWBOY SPOTLIGHT: BOBBY BARE JR. - Make The World Go Away (You Don't Know Me: Rediscovering Eddy Arnold)<br />
WHITE FLAG - Shattered Badge (1984, Mystic Records COPULATION LP)<br />
WHITE FLAG - Suicide King (Wild Kingdom, 1987)<br />
WHITE FLAG - Instant Breakfast (Wild Kingdom, 1987)<br />
WHITE FLAG - I'm Down (Jail Jello split w/Necros, 1986)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-84106933313371220592013-09-25T08:03:00.000-07:002013-09-25T09:24:58.000-07:00How The Cruz Stole ChristmasI do not like Ted Cruz.<br />
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I do not like Ted Cruz on trains. I do not like Ted Cruz on planes.<br />
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I do not like Ted Cruz when he blatantly, egotistically ignores his own party's pleas to go forward with his grandstanding plan to filibuster Obamacare out of funding, and selfishly shut down the government in the process.<br />
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I do not like Ted Cruz when he hijacks one of my favorite children's stories in the process:<br />
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I do not like Ted Cruz when he claims on his Twitter page that he is "representing the State Of Texas in the United States Senate," when he doesn't represent me or anyone I know, and is in fact wasting tax dollars reading Dr. Seuss aloud. Which would seem to be counter to his being one of those "not with mah money" Tea Baggers.</div>
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I do not like Ted Cruz when he is actually a Canadian citizen beloved of the same hydrocephaloids still clinging to the disproven notion that our President is Kenyan.</div>
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I do not like Ted Cruz when he is loudly attempting to derail Obamacare at the moment a friend - White Flag guitarist Bill "Pat Fear" Bartell - was dying from complications that likely could have been helped had he had affordable health care. Knowing Bill, even as little as I did, I'm pretty sure that, had he been aware, he'd have put off his demise to scream at Ted Cruz himself, good progressive that Bill was. R.I.P., Bill.</div>
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In fact, I'd rather listen to White Flag right now than to the hot air machine I've spent this post complaining about, so far. Unlike Ted Cruz, Bill Bartell was brilliant and upbeat and positive. He was a prankster of the first order and a genius of joyful chaos. My experiences around him were few, but always fantastic. Bill Bartell's impact on this universe is far more worthy than Ted Cruz' will ever be. You just have to hear how this rocks to understand:</div>
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By the way, in looking at the stats for my blog, I see one person came to it from doing a Google search on the term "joe strummer was an idiot." No, Joe was fine. It's <i>you</i> who is idiotic. Please don't ever read my blog again. You're as big an asshole as Ted Cruz. Fuck you.</div>
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And thanks to the 274 of you who read <a href="http://timnapalmblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/that-37500-punk-jacket.html" target="_blank">yesterday's post</a> the last 24 hours. Y'all should be alerted to the existence of <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/122860377/la-roxx-punk-rock-faux-leather-studded?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product_listing_promoted&utm_campaign=clothing_high&gclid=CL7167Ph5bkCFcFj7AodS3wAWQ" target="_blank">another $375 "punk" jacket</a> out there. Only it's nowhere near as authentic as Urban Outfitters', as crappy as that is....<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ISNNFgBvSt19cvKWZcPBbeY-Mdxwosbsm9APdbWWTDZreKjSuhyhwICHtJfCSfmR2WLB_N_7vzyFtC_uBW98yMvRHyhXJjkc3quXicR6xoQXYfrTM-LqV0vCfA1dbQYAaNHXFa4WSFaV/s1600/that+other+$375+punk+jacket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ISNNFgBvSt19cvKWZcPBbeY-Mdxwosbsm9APdbWWTDZreKjSuhyhwICHtJfCSfmR2WLB_N_7vzyFtC_uBW98yMvRHyhXJjkc3quXicR6xoQXYfrTM-LqV0vCfA1dbQYAaNHXFa4WSFaV/s400/that+other+$375+punk+jacket.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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ADDENDUM, 11:21 AM: <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cspan-reminds-viewers-that-cruz-s-overnight-speech-is-not-a-filibuster-photo" target="_blank">The Talking Points Memo</a> just reminded us all what my emotions prevented me even from seeing in the clip I posted above - Cruz' grandstanding is not a filibuster at all, just him masturbating publicly on the tax payers' dime. Frankly, I'd rather see Daphne Rosen doing that - Ted Cruz just <i>is not</i> sexy....<br /><br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinAk6bAQx1A8hy8-iyaCNd_hAEwe4vE5ySqIQ-RdhvVJ5cafG8JUs94R48VY73IM3FOUrR4VUETIDZSy89xfpzHVsc2-_C1x7kGvE7tkoutOBFScCs-3JmSSR08HJUpin40SuIeTeXWTMx/s1600/Ted+Cruz+is+a+jackass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinAk6bAQx1A8hy8-iyaCNd_hAEwe4vE5ySqIQ-RdhvVJ5cafG8JUs94R48VY73IM3FOUrR4VUETIDZSy89xfpzHVsc2-_C1x7kGvE7tkoutOBFScCs-3JmSSR08HJUpin40SuIeTeXWTMx/s400/Ted+Cruz+is+a+jackass.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-36242457020522015362013-09-24T08:12:00.000-07:002013-09-24T08:12:50.658-07:00That $375.00 "Punk" Jacket<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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First of all, let me just say...THIS IS <i>AWESOME</i>!</div>
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This is HILARIOUS!</div>
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And a whole bunch of people ARE NOT GETTING IT!</div>
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Yesterday - certainly with help from me - this particular item went viral on Facebook: A shabbily-rendered old "punk" leather jacket, <a href="http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=30096358" target="_blank">selling for $375 at Urban Outfitters</a> in the vintage area. It went viral for good reason: It is so hilariously wrong on so many levels.</div>
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As usual, a lot of people got upset. As usual, it was wrong-headed. For one thing, I get the feeling some of those people thought this was some mass-produced high-fashion item, sold in large quantities at a premium price as "authentic" when it's off the production line and off the rack.</div>
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No, guys, you missed it: It says "vintage." It's in Urban Outfitter's vintage department. Which means one of their buyers found this piece of crap in a Goodwill, probably for $4.00, and is selling it like it was the latest Yves St. Laurent gown. Because it's so "authentic."</div>
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I remember a <i>lot</i> of woefully executed garments like this back when. This was part and parcel of D.I.Y. punk rock culture: The results could be <i>especially</i> ugly, in a culture that embraced a sort of institutionalized ugliness. This wasn't merely graphically rough-edged, though: It's <i>wrong. </i>On every level.</div>
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First, it's not a proper motorcycle jacket, ala The Ramones or Sid. This appears to be some '80s Members Only jacket. And not even a <i>real</i> one - probably a Sears or JC Penneys knockoff.</div>
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Then comes the decoration. Dude must have used 50 bottles of Liquid Paper on the back of this already shabby jacket. Then he clearly drew the logos in ballpoint pen (or biro, for my British readers), or at most a Sharpie. He had not heard about spray paint and cardboard stencils.</div>
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I'm pretty sure next time the jacket's original owner showed up in the pit at his local slam-a-torium, that jacket got him laughed right out of that pit. Every girl he approached surely shut him down too: "*pffft!* I wouldn't fuck ANYONE dressed in THAT! Are you serious?!"</div>
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Surely, this sad garment likely lasted one or two gigs before its owner tired of being the laughing stock of the scene. Back in the closet it went, likely not even replaced with something more proper. Eventually, the owner studied to be an accountant in college, bought Pearl Jam's <i>Ten</i> when it came out, graduated, got married, and voted for George W. Bush. Both times.</div>
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The wife decided to clean out the closet recently, and came upon The Jacket.</div>
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"Oh, my GAWD!" she screamed, before laughing uncontrollably. "Honey, what in the HECK is THIS?!"</div>
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She shows it to The Dude, probably cleaning the gutters in their safe suburban tract home.</div>
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He glances, blushes in embarrassment. "Oh, <i>that</i>?! Heh heh! Yeah, that was back when I was young and crazy...."</div>
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So, it was boxed up, along with the old tennis rackets and aluminum cookware and some Polos that no longer fit him, and it was off to the Goodwill donation center.</div>
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At some point, an Urban Outfitters buyer is scouring the stacks at this particular Goodwill...and <i>there it is</i>.</div>
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"Oh, GOODNESS! What a FIND! A remarkable piece of AUTHENTIC PUNK ROCK! We MUST have this! We could make SO MUCH MONEY off this!"</div>
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And here it is. Some asshole fashionista will soon purchase it, because $375 plus postage and handling is just burning a hole in his credit card. And he will be the center of attention at the club that night, all the other hipsters wondering where <i>they</i> can get a piece of shit like that.</div>
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While the rest of us laugh.</div>
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And for the person who remarked on one of the threads that this was "bastardizing the punk and metal scenes?" Guess you didn't see <a href="http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=30096127&parentid=M_VINTAGE_OOAK" target="_blank">this</a>. It's <i>also</i> $375....</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-70418885119686221942013-09-22T10:48:00.001-07:002013-09-22T10:48:44.307-07:00The annual birthday stock-takingNo, it's not my birthday. That was the 12th. This is just the first chance I got.<br />
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Normally, I take my birthday to take stock of the past year, and to count my blessings. It's kinda my New Year's ritual - I just do it when <i>my</i> New Year begins....<br />
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Is this why I keep hearing I'm narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, and a pompous, egotistical prick?<br />
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I've gotten that a lot over the years, and been getting it a lot lately. Mostly from people pissed off at me, because I had to put them in their place. Thing is: Yes, I have an ego. Yes, I am narcissistic. I'm a performer and a public figure, even if my public is small. Still, this is how you play to the back row. As I told an ex-, "If you don't want to deal with narcissists, stop dating musicians!" (Or writers, or whatever artistic or creative types.)<br />
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I have to tune out this noise, which is perpetual. It's someone else trying to chip their way into my head and make me insecure and self-conscious, and I've got too much going on for that.<br />
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Which is the difference between a year ago and now: I've got too much going on.<br />
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At this point last year, I had just quit a band I didn't feel was working for me, was kicked out of a house I was living in after a month, was living in a motel room I could ill afford, and was scraping by working day labor - the only work I could find in Denver.<br />
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Not long after that, I was ready to put a bullet in my head. Literally. The situation felt hopeless.<br />
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It had been 15 years since I'd burned out on and walked away from my chosen profession, rock journalism. And try as I could, I could not find a new way to live and support myself. Nor could I find a town I could settle and fit into.<br />
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I was desperate. And none of this is an exaggeration.<br />
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Come mid-October, I reached out to my uncle and asked if he could help me get to Austin. 30 hours before I left Denver, I announced on Facebook I was homeless and at the end of my rope in Denver and needed to come home. In short order, the old community stepped in.<br />
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I came to Austin with a temporary place to stay and folks willingly loaning me living expenses for a few weeks. Come November, I moved into a situation similar to what I had in 1991, with the same landlord, and paying rent I could afford. Soon, I had a temporary job.<br />
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Then <i>The Austin Chronicle</i> reached out to me and asked me to come back.<br />
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And now? I am exactly as I was when I was young and thriving: I make my living writing for the <i>Chron</i> and a few other magazines and websites as a freelancer, and also earn a small salary to produce "RADIO NAPALM" as a weekly show now. I'm not rich, but I'm supporting myself and my art, as I did in the '90s. And I bought an amp on layaway and have assembled a new lineup of The Hormones. We are rehearsing, and will become public in December.<br />
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I may be abrasive when called upon or pushed, and I may have an ego. But no, I'm humbled and I'm grateful. Austin, you love to bag on yourself for the way you're changing. But you gave me my life back. And that's a gift I cherish. Thank you.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378231138905953563.post-75874062875855669152013-09-22T10:17:00.000-07:002013-09-22T10:17:23.904-07:00"RADIO NAPALM" Podcast # 12: In Celebration of Vernette Bader<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Study that face. Remember it. Imprint it in your deepest recesses. This is the face of what police in North Charleston, South Carolina, consider a dangerous criminal. But to us Irregulars, she is a heroine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She is Vernett Bader, and she is the woman taken into custody for the attempted stabbing of her roommate...because the asshole <i><a href="http://gawker.com/woman-stabs-roommate-for-refusing-to-stop-listening-to-1335462841" target="_blank">wouldn't stop playing THE EAGLES!</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Here at "RADIO NAPALM," we think this is wrong! The roommate should be arrested for cruelly inflicting his shitty taste on the world! Vernett Bader deserves a medal, a book contract, and a tour of daytime talk shows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Instead, we give her a radio show.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"RADIO NAPALM" was due to feature your requests this week, for the first time. And we still play them. But Vernett's story so moved Ed, Scooter, and I, we knew what we had to do: We had to dedicate this week's show to Vernett.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So yes, the show is pretty much as it always is. But it's all done in Vernett's honor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, here's the link - click and play:</span></div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2Ftimnapalm%2Frn-podcast-12-9-21-13-in-celebration-of-vernett-bader%2F&show_tracklist=&stylecolor=&hide_artwork=&mini=&embed_type=widget_standard&embed_uuid=9a9670e9-a47b-4ab5-8c5a-e6fc26f9413e&hide_cover=" width="480"></iframe><br />
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/rn-podcast-12-9-21-13-in-celebration-of-vernett-bader/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=resource_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">RN Podcast # 12 9-21-13: In Celebration Of Vernett Bader</a> by <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/timnapalm/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=profile_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"Radio Napalm" W/Tim Napalm</a> on <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=homepage_link" style="color: #02a0c7; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> Mixcloud</a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: small;">And here's the playlist:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MAGAZINE - Shot By Both Sides</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">DAN SARTAIN - Now Now Now (with Jane Wiedlin) (Too Tough To Live, 2012) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THE EQUALS - Police On My Back (1968, Requested by Lonesome Dave Fisher, Austin, TX)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">BORN LOOSE - Step Up To The Plate (Be A Runaway) (Larry May, ex-Candy Snatchers, NYC 2012)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THE CLASH - Guns Of Brixton (Sound System remaster 2013, Requested by Jason Martin, Austin, TX)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">999 - Emergency (original 45 rip, 1978)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THE COPPER GAMINS - All Hid (Mexico, 2013, Los Ninos De Cobre, Saustex Media)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THE HUMPERS - Steel-Toed Sneakers (Punk-O-Rama, Vol. 3, requested by Alan Villareal, Round Rock)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THE LOVESORES - Flamethrower Chic (2013, Portland, Scott "Deluxe" Drake)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JD MCPHERSON - North Side Gal (Signs & Signifiers, 2012)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JIM JONES REVUE - Collision Boogie (new single out Oct. 14, requested by Walter Daniels, Austin, TX)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">PUSSY GALORE - Pig Sweat (Right Now!, 1987)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION - Boot Cut (Meat & Bone, 2012)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">PLOWBOY SPOTLIGHT: BEBE BUELL - I'll Hold You In My Heart (2013, You Don't Know Me: Rediscovering Eddy Arnold)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EDDIE COCHRAN - Nervous Breakdown (1958)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TOP TUNE OF THE DAY: THE DEVIL DOGS - Radio Beat (requested by Kari Krome)</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0