I Used To Be Into Music And Then Everybody Else Started Listening To It

When I first pounded the keys at age 3, I wasn’t trying to emulate the life of Beethoven or Andy Partridge but was intuitionally inspired by and subconsciously begin to follow those tonal psychonauts before me….bits of godflesh who have already forged trails to truths that passeth my understanding, a piggyback ride on the shoulders of giants so I can see stuff too high and bright to comprehend.
Something that’s done with great effort and wide open honesty can touch on the holy secret of the source of everything. 
Except for “Sussudio.”

I originally didn’t make music to get babes, or make money,  or to make friends.  I made my subsequent choice to remain poor all my life because it felt good: it offered warmth, comfort, promise, and the paradoxically hard nipples of contentment.
I explored new worlds by subjecting myself with sound vibrations echoing the kabalistic Tree of Life, the fruit of which god 86′d to punish us for stuffing ourselves with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
At this point we seem to have an almost overabundance of life.
I think we could more baskets of that smart fruit..
From the stirrings of hungry amoebas to human psyches to our galaxies and the cosmos, our seen/smelt/felt/heard universe is a spiraling reverberating self-referentially self-medicatingly sufficient reincarnative cycle of circular meta-feeding.
In other words:

Life is eating itself and a lot of it’s junkfood.
Music is just a fork.
Eat well.

My Special Purpose

These  days, there are a lot more dead people than those alive.  And the numbers are increasing. Things were different back when ancient Egyptians were called mummies and wrote in hydraulics.

Kids today are experiencing serious hearing loss usually associated only with the dead. It’s all because of those damn iPods—one has to turn them up even more than usual because the earphones don’t block outside noise like the cup-type headphones.  And you know when you get all excited and pull the plugs from your ears with an audible bloop! and hold them eagerly out to me:  “Dude! Check this out!” Um…don’t.

Don’t get me wrong: I never categorize music—I only organize different kinds into separate groups of similar types. Music is vibration and vibration is just motion that can’t make up its mind. So I take over.

But I straddle duality. I have a special purpose. For I am a musician.

Every morning I lie down on my back, bind a dictionary to my head with duct tape, and perform 2300 sit-ups.  Six-pack? I have a whole case.
I let my fingers move softly over the hard ripples as I scrunch them up and down.

To my right is a box of Lucky Charms next to a mini-fridge. I pour milk and cereal into the crevices and valleys of my well-defined abs and eat hurriedly from my stomach.

I examine myself in the mirror, my smooth golden skin stretched taut over muscles and tendons in high relief like a suspension bridge of flesh or the US Pavilion erected exclusively for the 1974 World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington about 320 miles west of Seattle near the Idaho border.

I flick my left nipple softly with a thumb to make it erect and thus symmetrical with the right. And of course it feels good.

 I also have the most perfect butt in the world. Barely hinted at, ricocheting around in my fashionably big pants, it beckons you closer. I tuck a corner of my knee length black turtleneck in just so you can be nearer my taut, perfectly toned Golden Globes that I just use mostly to sit on.

Little kids and animals don’t run away from me. Of course, most extremely attractive and intelligent people intimidate others, but I tend to have a very open and friendly demeanor. Even street people trust me, confiding to me their hopes and dreams, and even allowing me to invest some start-up capital if I wanted to, preferably cash.

I can see why everyone wants me. Hell, I want myself. But not now. I have things to do.

I slap myself to get psyched up. Suddenly, out of protective instinct, my other hand shoots out like a cobra and grabs my wrist, wrenching it down toward the floor and forcing me to my knees. Okay, okay, I promise. I won’t slap myself anymore.

I take a deep breath. I lean toward the sun like a houseplant:

“O, Wondrous Thing! Thrust your free-range organic spirit into the spokes of the wheel of our open hearts, impregnating us with the idea of ourselves so that later, when we report back to you, we’ll be able to give a better description!”

Then I grab my thermal camera, pheromone bait chips and DNA trap.
Just stuff I might need.

And I am prepared to dislocate my entire body and squirt through a keyhole, provided the keyhole is large enough to accommodate my squirting body.

Okay. I’m ready. Time for band practice.

Poseurs and Beer Thieves

We were all waiting for the band to play. The park was filled with lots of guys who should have kept their shirts on for another reason than it being October.

The barefoot blond dreadheaded lead singer perpetually hopped from foot to foot whilst stroking and tapping a Pringles can like a Tibetan singing bowl.

A skinny-as-a-beef stick kid displayed a constant plumber’s butt.
Don’t you have to be fat for that?

Food Not Bombs was all set up but not many partook. Feeding people is always better than blowing them up but no one seemed impressed.
They would rather wait in line for a ten-dollar bowl of macaroni and cheese at Noodle Express. It seems the general public will accept food from free-range organic nose-ringed lime-haired leftist hippie punks only if it’s inside a shiny co-op with sneeze guards.

A group of guys nearby were chatting entirely in Greek (at least that’s what it was to me) until they suddenly all started inexplicably singing (in English) Mad TV’s “Lowered Expecta-ations…” as they stopped to watch a plump woman bound in a tube top like a tight rubber band wound around a water balloon. They then began making plans in with her to go rent “that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence movie, you know, the sequel to Bad Boys, whatever it’s called”

“You mean Bad Boys II?” the girl said helpfully. “I saw it. It’s not really good, but it is, you know?”

“No, I do not.”

“You know, it’s bad but it’s still good.”

“…..no.”

She tried again. “It wasn’t a good movie but it was still entertaining.”

“So… it was good?”

“Yes, but no.”

“What?” I stopped listening.

There’s always a small group of youngsters, probably from a nearby unincorporated village, led by one guy all punked out with a mohawk, un-used leather cockrings around his wrist, and fresh razor slashes in his brand new jeans, swaggering around while the other incredibly normal keeping-the-status-quo kids follow behind at a respectful distance.

I don’t really have a problem with poseurs. At least they’re trying.
Appearing as ubiquitously always: the Cro-Magnon monkey lady in the dirty red Capri’s and grey head scarf whose only activity seems to be purchasing cigarettes.

The same skinny black guy rode by three times: ON A DIFFERENT BIKE.

I looked around the smoke-free patio at all the people who probably won’t have sex me and drank a warm half glass of beer that somebody had left. The guy sitting at the table next to me still hadn’t turned around or taken a break from his rapt attention on the single Pringle drum circle so I drank his beer, too.

The band came ready to play the same song played different ways. It was okay. The drummer had some really good musician sex faces. Nobody in the small crowd seemed all that worked up, except the one guy who started looking around for his beer.

I made my way to the restroom and bought a whole bunch of novelty condoms. Just in case.

The dreaded hippie had just started the next version of the last song when I dove back into the sparkling hot city and dogpaddled away.

Art by Joe Vaux

 

 

 

 

I Hate Amateur Critics

Is there really anything new under the sun?

Hasn’t everything worth saying already been said?

Haven’t all musical notes already been played?

Radiohead: “Creep” IS REALLY

“Air That I Breathe” (The Hollies)

Green Day: “Brain Stew” IS REALLY

“25 or 6 to 4” (Chicago)

Violent Femmes: “Gone Daddy Gone” IS REALLY

“Blind Man Sitting By The Side Of The Road” (traditional gospel song)

Isley Brothers: “Twist and Shout” IS REALLY

“La Bamba” (Mexican folk song)

Sublime: “Love Is What I Got” IS REALLY

“Lady Madonna” (Beatles)

The Smiths: “How Soon Is Now”: IS REALLY

“Drunken Quint boat scene from Jaws” (John Williams)

Cattleprod: “Donkey Ears” IS REALLY

“Heart and Soul” (every amateur musician that gets near a piano)

I had just gotten off stage and was pouring brewed hops into my temporary grain storage facility when a small shadow sat down beside me.

“I think your last song sucked,” it said.

“Thanks. Do you write music?” I asked, after deciding not to kill him with my legally concealed weapon.

He laughed. “Shit, no!” 

“Then I’ll wait until you compose yourself,” I said, smirking at my own wit.

Then I shot him. Partly because I hate amateur critics but mostly just to watch him die.

But right then the bartender asked if I wanted another drink and distracted me, so I missed it and had to shoot another guy who fell behind the pool table and was already dead by the time I got there, so I eventually had to shoot about seven.

Stuff like this always happen to me:

 I pick stuff in stores that won’t scan

• One time, I knew the phone was going to ring, and then it did
• I have seen UFO’s (never been probed, but probe curious)
• I once went to the fridge and forgot what for
•  Homeless guys always ask me for spare change (there is no such thing as spare change)

Life is exhausting. It has me bent over, ramming its lessons into me without a lubricant and gleefully slapping my ass with insight.

So what is today’s lesson?

Just this: don’t talk to me, just buy me beer.

I still haven’t begun to write this. I’m having a lot of trouble with the first sentence. Endings are pretty easy; I can end stuff all day. Nope, it’s the beginning that’s tough.

I’m also easily distracted by all the noise outside. My neighborhood seems to be the hotspot for crime-fighter parties, which tend to be a bit over the top. Frisbees get tossed completely around the Earth, arm wrestling is very popular, and someone always has a bit too much to drink and starts digging for China, often successfully. And now they’re flying around my yard and keep bumping into my kitchen window. I think they’re attacking their own reflections.

So, still no first sentence. I blame the goddamn little kids, including pets. Sperm manifestations with firm buttocks are all over the place. Embryos are tending bar so they need a legal guardian to pour my beer.  And my hilarious cross-references are greeted with blank stares. That “Space Food Sticks” bit was funny.

Goddamn little kids. I hope my age doesn’t stick out and poke you in the eye. In the immortally animated words of Comic Book Guy, “I do not know if I should laugh or cry at your ignorance. I think I shall laugh: ha ha.” At least, having been in several bands before you were born and being quite good at dialing a rotary phone, I can offer you the succulent fruits of my epic experience.

TIPS FOR NEW PEOPLE:

• Laundry is silent. That’s how just one sock gets lost. Try walking home from the Laundromat backwards.
• Singers: you need to open your vocal pores.
• Guitar players: try laying out this measure. Don’t play just for a minute. Seriously. SHUT UP!!!
• Bass players: the amount of drugs you bring to band practice has got to stop. You need to bring enough for everyone.
• Drug users: moderation is very important. I tried cocaine once. For about ten years. And I didn’t really do any. I just like smelling it. 
• If you are going to get wasted and fall off a balcony, skip the falling part.
• Never light a beer bong.
• Like boots, sidewalks are made for walking. Do not stop and circle like chuck wagons to form an outdoor chat room. There is a name for a place to get together with your friends and talk about nothing. It’s called a chat room. If you are on the sidewalk, lose the “chat” and make some “room.”
• It’s okay to go see bands you’ve never heard of.

Okay, that’s it for now. So what do I do until next time? After five years of accidentally free cable, I have been discovered and shut off. Even my dreams now are old and in black-and-white. So now I guess I have to listen to music. Little slice of Of Montreal, big helpings of The Faint, maybe a pinch of Yello and a nice tall sifter of KMFDM.

My neighbor seems to hate music more than I do. But what kind of person pounds on the wall at Nilsson’s “Moonbeam Song?” Probably someone who likes first sentences.

Oh, one final ANNOUNCEMENT:

Whoever has the blue Karmen Ghia with license plate ADD 420…..that’s mine. I’d like it back, please.

I know it’s hard to navigate through all the crack raves and pedicure parties. I, too, was a lot younger as a kid. I haven’t always been this smart, talented  and attractive. I didn’t always sweat pale syrup and pee pure sunshine. So I can’t really blame the kids. They just got here. Most fell out of their moms only a few years ago. Everything was already all over the place when they arrived. That’s why goddamn little kids don’t understand that Flock of Seagulls wasn’t cool.

Kids steal.  Kids cheat. Kids lie and hit and sometimes poop their pants. And they’re easy to push down. Kids drink and student drive, shoot up pot, and perform the saddlebacking. Kids are the future but the future isn’t what it used to be so you see the problem.
Youth is a good argument for pre-habilitation— just in case. If every kid was preventatively jailed until sixteen, he’d have a lot more respect for  the cubes we work in to buy him crap to shove into his eyes ears nose and mouth.

Entropy, along with all these new people and no instructions, has made a big mess.  There’s no room for anything any more. Silence has almost been squeezed out.

It’s partly my fault. Like Katrina and bus wraps. (Someone else is responsible for Gary Unmarried. He better watch his back…) I realize I’ve been creating way too much music. Silence has been spread awfully thin. 

How did we get here? Letting the days go by? Or water flowing underground? When exactly did we stop being who we were and start being who we are? And if we’re not careful, our culture will disappear. No child left behind. Like it has several times in the past.
Our perpetual music archeology–the  rearranging, remixing, and sampling—along with the technology rendering everything microscopic and intangible, reducing  existence to its information code, its essence, its digital soul rowing down the bit stream, merrily merrily merrily, life is but a binary dream. Rocks will last forever. Rock won’t.

Something happened around 50,000 years ago that seems to have involved more than just explosions and monkeys. We suddenly transformed from slack-jawed, ape-freaks into tool-making, particle-colliding, song-stealers in a matter of evolutionary “seconds.” So how come I can’t get fried before 10:30 am?

So:.
I have stopped making music.  It’s okay. I’ve already played every note there is. I’ve stopped playing music so there’s more left for the kids. It’ll leave a lot more space to stuff full. I’ve gotten pretty good at it: spending most of  my life not playing guitar. Steve Vai,  Yngwie Malmstein,  Charo,  Art Paul Schlosser. Charo’s Spanish classical guitar is quite difficult and complex to not learn, but Art Paul’s stuff is fun and easy to never play. 

So please take this opportunity while there is less music to use all the funds and inspiration gleaned from the MAMAs and  create some noise. This is your chance to let us know if you kissed a girl and liked it, or wear pink pants, or if Jeremy has spoken. 
Spoken.

And that’s where you goddam little kids come in. No matter how far we advance until we are just brains in jars, REMEMBER: Someone has to make the fries. 

So. ’tis summer, create some music in the huge sonic space I’m leaving and do what moms have been begging for since the dawn of time: “Please, play something nice.”

The worlds’ scholars will no doubt attack me with their petty barbs of jealousy and ignorance, for I reveal them as hucksters pulling the wool over the eyes of an unsuspecting public. Woe unto the dogmatic pundits and paid apologists of today’s imperial realm of misinformation! For their lies are exposed, as now truth is told. I, and alone, with the exception of a bunch of others, know this powerful secret:

The Madison music scene is being destroyed. We are under attack!

THINK ABOUT IT:

Calendars show the wrong dates for shows, CD shipments are being lost, vans are being broken into, our instruments are being stolen, our clubs are being burnt down, bands are advertising in the Isthmus for new members, and our kiosks are being downsized!

The round kiosks could hold TWELVE 8½ x11 posters around it horizontally and SIX vertically. The new flat daddies, the shape and nearly the size of tabletop Plexiglas martini menus, hold only four around and five up. Too much space is taken up by KAPLAN study seminars. Come on! How many students actually make it up State Street more than three blocks? Such a waste.

And the fancy new kiosks aren’t very sturdy— Shakira could knock one over with one butt cheek. A group of frat boys could easily shatter them all with a drunken “WOOO!”

4 SIGNS WE ARE LIVING IN SUCKINGHAM PALACE:

1)      Shows start too late on weekdays.

2)      Certain bands hog all the kiosk space with way too many posters.

3)      The only way to make it in Madison is to get some chick from a foreign country to join your band.

4)      Nobody drinks enough water.

There is something very rotten in the state of Denmark, and I don’t mean Denmark!

The only bands that have done anything positive to help the scene are the bands that broken up. Thanks go out to New Recruits, The Profits, and Emerald Choir.

Shame on you Electric Automatic and Little Blue Crunchy Things!  (Yes, Headpump is still playing shows but only ones we’re sure no one will show up at.)

Until we catch whoever is trying to wreck our local scene, I am playing less music and concentrating more on selling these exciting new products:

PENIS ENHANCEMENT HYPNOSIS:

“Imagine your penis….it’s growing larger…larger…”

WEIGHT-LOSS RINGTONES

Have your friends keep calling until you can fit into your high school pants!

NIPPLE IMPLANTS ON UNSIGHTLY FAT

“Fat is only ugly until you put a nipple on it.”

I’m also looking into eyeball jewelry, left-handed cell phones, and DVD rewinders.

REMEMBER: The price you see is half the price you pay!

Pay nothing until first payment.