Archive 10/14/03 to 8/30/03
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10/14/03
I buy records to sell on Ebay regardless of genre; I rarely keep what I find that I'm pretty sure I can sell. Sometimes I sit down with a stack of random albums and play a few tracks from each to check the sound quality condition and to amuse me at the same time. Tonight I played some Duane Eddy songs I KNEW I'd like...GREAT. I played some classical recordings by Rossinni (sp?) I've grown to like over the years...GREAT. I played some comedy by a Rudy Ray Moore like guy from the mid 70's named Ray Scott...GREAT.
And then just for the hell of it I slapped on a 1976 Scorpions LP "virgin killer"...NOT SO GREAT!! In fact BLAAGGGHHH!!! BBRRAAPPPPPP!!!!
I KNEW better than to play it..I've never liked the Scorpions. I know so many people who are nostalgic about 'em that I guess I allowed myself to be sucked into playing them one more time. For some reason I thought about QUEEN who I'm not a big fan of..but who rocked up a fucking storm on many songs here and there ("stone cold crazy" for instance). Queen never tried to pose as a "tough guy" band like the Scorp's do on this album cover...but Freddy goddamned Mercury sings his ass off compared to the Scorpions wimpy crooner. Brian May plays circles around their guys too. I guess it's all image that counts for the nostalgic Scorpions fans.
One of the ultimate tests of good song writing is whether or not a song matches the lyrics and singing..and the Scorpions seem clueless by that measure on this album. They sound like a raw bar band that doesn't have much experience at writing songs. They're not quite as bad or pretentious as STYX..but I can laugh at Styx at least.
Motorhead of course kicks all their asses by a wide margin.
I like GOLDEN EARRING and STATUS QUO far and away more than the Scorpions..even though they're a bunch of foreignors too.
HHmmm. I believe I pointed out after last years supershow that over the following weeks it's hard to stomach records by the rest of the world after a couple nights of true ass kicking bands oozing with clever, well written and powerful songs. What the hell...I'll just have to go slap on a few C.O.S. band CD's. I have some CD's to review for CARBON14 in the next few days..maybe I'd better bear that in mind or I'm gonna rip into everything I hear.
To paraphrase Waylon..are you sure Lester (Bangs) done it this way??
10/12/03
We had to let a band member go after the supershow...a guitar player, Don. I let him down as gently as I could...more gently than probably 95% percent of people who've been axed from any band I've played in. I cited some reasons..which were precisely the SAME complaints I made to him after last years supershow. He acknowledged all those complaints a year ago..yet hours after being fired he was at the Antiseen discussion board insinuating he was let go for mysterious reasons..making me out to be some sort of creep who fired him from the band without reason. Then, he called his other ex-band members fishing around for "reasons" as if I hadn't spent 15 minutes explaining them in addition to the time we went over them a year ago.
What did he not understand about the reasons I gave him for the band no longer needing his services?? Did he have beans in his ears preventing him from hearing?? Maybe I should have just let the other band members rudely kick his ass out...but NNOOOO. I have to be the nice guy. I'll give him credit though...he's the first band member we've had to boot that DIDN'T say "I was going to quit anyway".
BEANS in his ears. Wasn't that an old kids story book??? Or maybe a bible passage. HHmm.
I'm not completely done with my supershow reflections from an earlier entry here. I consciously chose not to get too goddamned fucked up the night we were scheduled to play (Saturday). I actually had to sadly turn down three lovely and large shots of Jim Beam brought to me by generous people. SHIT!!!! Well...what am I supposed to do??? I had already drank several beers and a couple complimentary shots. If I had drank them all I would have been as smashed as I have been as several supershows in the past..and I wanted to remember things a little better this time.
My intentions were good I suppose..but it all backfired on me. I made several technical errors early in our set...whereas ordinarily I might screw up a bit once or twice. Go figure??!!!?! Maybe it's just best that I play annihilated in the future and be done with all the introspective, ambitious thoughts. On the other hand I remember almost every second of our set..including my boo boo's. And I doubt many people even heard my mistakes. A couple supershow sets are just blurs memory wise. Damn. I better pour a big double shot and think this over.
I want to publicly thank Justin from Cocknoose for his hard work setting up this years damn show. I had a great damn time. Las Vegas is definetly one of my favorite cities in the US now after 2 visits in 5 months that have worked out so damn well.
10/07/03
Just back from the C.O.S. supershow a few hours ago. Marla and I drove all 1,400 miles back and forth along with our Rancid Vat singer the Texas Stud (who lived up to his name..I can't reveal any more details here. Let's just say he lit up the scoreboard repeatedly) and our ol' pal Mark from Illinois who moved to Texas mere days before we left.
We left in the middle of the goddamned night in a rented Buick. As the sun rose Wednesday we were racing across West Texas towards El Paso. We made good time as I envisioned the ice cold beer that awaited us at the end of the trail in our pre-reserved room in Lordsburg New Mexico. Thats how I motivate myself on the road. I explained to Mark and the Stud that' it's all part of the "Whiskey Rebel lifestyle" as applies to the handy union of motel rooms and functioning alcoholism.
We stopped at a tourist trap near Los Cruces. I wanted to tackle the beer in our ice chest really badly..but I drank Sarsparilla instead...for REAL. When you sucumb to boredom and start drinking beer on a band related trip like this you have to either stop for someone to piss every 15 minutes or pass around a slop jar..and Marla wasn't having any of THAT. Frankly I wasn't either. I wanted to check in and blast off in our room. I had missed my nightly drinking the "night" before". I was overdue.
We pulled into our Best Western motel in the early afternoon and began knocking back shots and guzzling beers. Some people ate..some napped. Some gaped at the room service maids. All were glad to be out of that damned car. Day two was another long hard trek this time across Arizona. We got off to a good start and were glad we'd be in time to get to Vegas and to the pre-show get together with non C.O.S. bands.
After staying fairly even tempered for most of our trip I blew my top in the parking lot of Terribles casino which is where folks from most of the bands were staying. A few frosties adjusted my attitude. I walked the halls of the hotel trolling for friends and familiar faces. After visiting several people in a half dozen rooms I realized that even though I had loved our room at first (especially it's view of the pool area) everybody elses rooms were better boasting REAL padded or wood chairs and about 6 feet extra width. Marla and I visited Vegas in June and suggested Terrible's to Widowmaker..and our reward for eventually inspiring many thousands of dollars of business for them was the crappiest room. Oh well. It was still a great room.
What really made this supershow different than the rest was the fact it was held in a place with perfect weather, 24 hour entertainment, cheap food at immediate 24 hour access and an atmosphere that inspired the people in town for the show to gamble or sit under palm tree's around the pool as opposed to trashing rooms and pissing off locals. TERRIBLE'S is a smaller casino hotel off the strip..but it still had a casino a drunk could get lost in. For once I think the people from the bands and the C.O.S. fans staying at the hotel blended in around the hotel as opposed to several years in which we simply took over some poor motel and scared the shit out of