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crocodile rock.

Crocodile Cafe abruptly closes its doors

The Croc was home and refuge and hangout and stomping ground. You could be there every night and sometimes it felt like I was. The bar, the booths, the dining room, the show room, the plate glass windows onto Blanchard, the long walkway from the front to the bar. When I broke up with a boyfriend, I didn't care so much about custody of the friends, I cared about custody of the Croc, dammit. I went there alone and I went with large groups, I went on good dates and on bad dates. I had nice guys ask for my phone number and idiots try. I stood there stone cold sober and stumbled out drunk and happy and screaming.

I'm not trying to make it into more than it was, which was a great club in the right place at the right time with the right booker and the righteous soundperson. Eventually the magic fades. Eventually the rundown, forgotten neighborhood is reclaimed, the reclamation of said neighborhood being a movement the club was probably a big part of.

Kevn McKinney's Thanksgiving shows; Bumrush (Mike McCready in drag); the first Wellwater Conspiracy show; Mudhoney; the Young Fresh Fellows, Scott McCaughey standing at the corner of 3rd and Blanchard; Sunday brunch; watching the band vans park in The Croc Parking Lot (3rd between Blanchard and Bell) when I lived at 4th and Blanchard: moving to 4th and Blanchard and being able to run out of the house sans coat, catch the headliner, and run home; three nights of Cheap Trick at the Croc; front row the night Pearl Jam opened for Cheap Trick at the Croc; eating dinner at the club night of show to "beat the line" and watching the eBay vultures stalk the likes of Mudhoney; Robyn Hitchcock debuting "Viva Seatac" at the Croc ("Viva viva viva/Viva Seatac/you've got the best coffee, computers and smack"); watching the Knitters while Steve Nieve walks by with Peter Buck, and six of us yelling, "Hey, Pete, going to throw some crockery?"; the Electric Six; watching Handsome Dick Manitoba mock the Mariners the first time the Dictators ever came to Seattle; 'KURT BLOCH IS NOT A NICE MAN' graffiti in the ladies' room; the neon sheep in the bar; Tuatara; Supersuckers; Gas Huffer; Young Fresh Fellows; John Doe playing a half empty club the night after X at the Sky Church; seeing Mike Watt right after 9/11, seeing Mike Watt right after Elliott Smith died, seeing Mike Watt just about any time; R.E.M. at the Croc, "secret" anti-Bumbershoot shows (aka, "we can't play anywhere in Seattle two weeks before or after Bumbershoot so we'll play under another name"). The Fastbacks. The D4. Dead Moon. Bands long since forgotten that at the time seemed like the most important thing in the entire world.

And, of course, THE POLE. I usually stood down front so it didn't bug me, but trying to find a spot BEHIND it that was acceptable is of course another thing entirely. If you have never been there, you likely do not know what I am talking about, but if you have ever frequented a rock club, I guarantee there is some similar fixture that causes you the same kind of agita.

God, what am I forgetting? I know I am forgetting so very much.

Funnily enough my last show at the Croc was Marah, long after I left town, which is more than fitting. At least I got to sit at that bar one more time and order drinks for my friends and tell them how much I loved the place.

Thank you and good night.

the man on the radio says

She drew out all her money from the Southern Trust
And put her little boy on a Greyhound Bus
Leaving Memphis with a guitar in his hand
On a one-way ticket to the promised land
Hey little girl with the red dress on
There's party tonight down in Memphis down
I'll be going down there if you need a ride
The man on the radio says Elvis Presley's died

We drove down into Memphis, the sky was hard and black
Up over the ridge came a white Cadillac
They'd drawn out all his money and they laid him in the back
A woman cried from the roadside "Ah he's gone, he's gone"
They found him slumped up against the drain
With a whole lot of trouble running through his veins
Bye-bye Johnny
Johnny bye-bye
You didn't have to die
You didn't have to die

Played every time Bruce had a show on 8/16, except when he played PNC Park on 8/16/03. (Thanks to the boyfriend for that trivia).

vonnegut

ah, crap.

Slaughterhouse Five fucked me up BIG TIME in high school. Like turned my world upside-down big time. That's such a good thing.

"can i count it off?"

We arrived at the Apollo Theater for the James Brown memorial just after 5:30 pm, and by the time we got to the end of the line, the police were already barricading it off and refusing to let anyone else join it. Aside from being disappointing, this seemed puzzling - the line was only three blocks long - until we walked around to the front of the theater and realized that there was an identical line running the other way around the block. With the theater closing from 6-6:30pm for a private ceremony, it was unlikely that everyone in the lines would make it into the theater as it was.

125th St. in front of the theater was still blocked off from the procession earlier in the day, which I was sorry I'd missed. We walked around so I could take photos and we could soak up the scene and stand there for a little while in tribute. There were food vendors and enterprenurial folks selling 5x7 photos in a cardboard frame, and, to our slight amazement, bootleg t-shirt vendors. The boyfriend briefly considered purchasing one.
"Just how much of a white boy in Harlem do you want to be?" I asked from behind the camera.
"Fair point."
The gentleman behind us smiled.

It was, overwhelmingly, an African-American crowd, and a scene that we could absolutely appreciate but perhaps not completely understand. We weren't the only white faces there, but there didn't seem to be enough of us for my liking. Maybe the cold, maybe the crowd, maybe the holiday week, but it saddened me. (Of course, this was before I came home and started reading the local and local music blogs, where it's patently clear that the man's significance and importance are completely -- not even lost, more like nonexistent. That made me sadder.)

So we stood there a few minutes more, watching the women singing "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" for themselves as much as the tv cameras, and the other part of the crowd doing the audience call-and-response to "Night Train" spilling out of a clothing store's PA system, said our farewells and walked back to the A train.

R.I.P.

"In light of the untimely passing of music legend James Brown, the Palace Theater will be issuing full refunds on all ticket sales for Wednesday night's performance. Customers who purchased tickets online will be contacted by Tickets.com via email and receive a full refund within the next 48 hours. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Brown family during this difficult time."

"ahmet ertegun, thank you kindly"

Can you name one other music industry executive that became the name of a bootleg? No, you can't.

Regrettably, I do not have any Ahmet Ertegun stories. I have stories about ALMOST being somewhere where I could have met him, and have some stories about attempting to explain to people about to meet him who he was, so they didn't completely embarass themselves and the company they worked for, but that's about it.

However, these pieces (from Dave Marsh and Fred Wilhelms) are worth reading. (No quarter given on Atlantic's inability to pay royalties to the musicians who made that label what it was, either.)

fire in the western world

Dead Moon have broken up.

Dead Moon were my sounding board, my barometer, the band I went to to resynch when I got tired of bad attitude or tired of artistic phases or tired of anything that was outside of rock and roll, loud and onstage. They were the first local band I saw play live in Seattle, based on a post to some indier-than-thou music mailing list I used to be on back in 1995 (and whose name I no longer remember), where someone with taste waxed rhapsodic about this decidedly mono, non-bullshit band, and I loved the name and I loved that they were too old to rock and did it anyway.

I took friends to see them at Bumbershoot in 1995. I remember the gig primarily as the one the parents brought their 7 year olds who wanted to mosh to. And when i say 'mosh' I don't mean that bullshit crowdsurfing crap that the grunge bands stereotyped, I mean old-school Black-Flag-at-the-CB's-hardcore-matinee moshing, kids in a circle, heads down, arms flying, when someone fell down you picked them up.

That was a Dead Moon show. Always.

I saw them when they played big shows and small shows and all-ages shows, when there were five people there or five hundred people there. It didn't matter. The gigs were always about that dynamic between Fred and Toody and Andrew, each points on a triangle, set up on the edge of the stage, candle on top of the upside-down Jack Daniel's bottle, always burning. That candle never went out during a gig.

My favorite Dead Moon gig was in Olympia a few years ago. H. And I went down there to get the fuck out of Seattle for a night, to get away from rock shows filled with people who were there to be seen or there to see someone, and we wanted a room full of people we didn't know. The bar was out of a timewarp (as is, well, most of Oly) and the band set up on the floor and played, while the audience huddled around. There was no magic circle at the front of the stage that people avoided because they didn't want to be too close. You were IN the show. It felt like an off-the-network house show. It was vital and visceral and the lack of division between audience and band wasn't bullshit, to me it epitomized what Dead Moon were about. There was nothing to hide behind, not even the artificial elevation of a three-foot-high-stage. Toody was fierce and beautiful and I ached because I will never ever be that cool.

[Afterwards, we went to King Solomon's Reef and I remember this because everything we ordered, they didn't have - until the waitress finally felt it relevant to mention that the grill was broken.]

Dead Moon played Europe more than they played the East Coast (and I understand why, now that I know musicians like them, who don't fit into the format or the formula). They played Maxwell's two years ago when I had a conflict with the Vote for Change tour, so I missed them, and they hadn't been back here since. I had vowed to take the boyfriend, I had vowed to take some musician-friends who would have been energized and humbled by them, and, like usual, I wanted Dead Moon to reset my compass and remind me why I am here and why this matters and how the simple act of owning your art can be one of the most powerful things in the world.

And now they are gone, and the hole is bigger than most people will ever realize.

bob stinson, 10 years on

One of the first things I looked for on the internet back in 1994 was a Replacements mailing list. What I found was The Skyway, which wasn't so much a discussion list as a newsletter. Matthew Tomich would compile things people would email him into a monthly digest. I liked the old-fashioned almost-zine-like quality of the publication. Nowadays, it's far more infrequent, but I still stay on it for old times' sake.

Today, he emailed everyone on the 10th anniversary of Bob Stinson's funeral. He died on February 18, 1995. The post (which includes the eulogy from the service) follows below, and after the jump. I found it extraordinary, and heart-wrenching, and it helped dig up a million little 'Mats memories. If you've got 'em, I hope it does the same for you; if you weren't there, maybe this will help explain what those days were like.

Ten whole years have elapsed since the world has been poorer with the loss
of Bob Stinson.

Words fail me, as they have failed most of us over the past few days.
Yesterday, Carleen asked me if I had known Bob very well. I couldn't
rightfully say that I did in the traditional sense of the term. For that
reason, I was a little reticent when Anita asked me to deliver this
eulogy. But like everyone here, and another multitude who aren't, I know
Bob's spirit very well.

And it is a spirit, as I have discovered, that is next to impossible to
hold in a room, pin down on a piece of paper, or capture with a couple of
stories. At first, I didn't have my own words, so I stole someone else's.
This is from "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac:

Most of all, thank you for allowing us to glimpse, ever so briefly, your
irrepressible, childlike spirit. Thank you for allowing us, forcing us,
to acknowledge the very natural connection between hopelessness and
happiness. Thank you for this glorious gift. Thank you, you fabulous
yellow roman candle, for lighting our fuse. May it never burn out.

don't forget the motor city

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with the boyfriend about various rock and roll landmarks, and I was struck that, although we had just been in Detroit (2004, Vote For Change tour), we didn't go past Hitsville USA. (To be fair, we arrived at 3 a.m., spent the next day sitting in a General Admission line inside Cobo Arena, and then breezed out of town as soon as the show ended.)

But the truth is that there was no end of Detroit rock and roll landmarks I would have liked to have seen. I was fascinated by the little I saw of Detroit, inbetween the hotel and the arena. How much faded glory and magnificence the city held. How much rock and roll history was there. What we as a society value and want to preserve and how we never seem to fucking learn--both the Cavern Club and Stax had to be torn down and made into parking lots before they would rise later as tourist attractions, preserving a legacy and bringing jobs and tourist dollars.

So it broke my heart just a little to read this story on dETROITfUNK about the abandoned Motown Office Building. (There's also a story on NPR about the building and its demolition, as it is torn down just in time to create -- you guessed it -- a parking lot for the Super Bowl.

A Super Bowl at which the Rolling Stones will appear.

*pause to consider irony of situation*

Check out the DetroitFunk blog for more history on the Motor City, including scans of paperwork -- like a bank book for a young Stevie Wonder -- recovered from the rubble.

Wilson Pickett

I could write something about this, but there is no way I would do it as well as Funky16Corners did.

He was on The List and I never got around to seeing him. We were just talking in December about how he was on the list.

I am looking forward to seeing any band that matters throw a Pickett cover into their set over the next few months.

johnnie b. goode

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Johnson Dies

The legend goes that Ian Stewart always used to remind Keith Richards: "Remember, Johnnie Johnson is still alive and still playing in Kansas City."

down at max's

When I first discovered rock and roll - or rather, when I moved beyond just listening to the radio coming in across the lake from WLS, and wanting to know more -- everything -- about the music I was listening to, I immediately felt like I had missed it ALL.

I don't remember at what point I learned that the 60's were not just about Woodstock, hippies and flower power, but I do remember feeling relieved, as I didn't really like long hair and fringe and have always, always hated the Grateful Dead. But suddenly, the longing for the past was painful as I discovered the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol and, as the past caught up with the present, Max's Kansas City.

This condition was only exacerbated when, on a trip into the city with my parents, I spied a magazine at a newsstand that had the Ramones on the cover. Buying a magazine was something that didn't require permission, I could afford it with babysitting money, and saying to my parents, "Oh, it's a music magazine" was all the explanation that was required.

Of course, this was the infamous Rock Scene, the brainchild of Lisa Robinson and Richard Robinson. I devoured it from cover to cover, and every time my father went into New York, I would beg him to please stop at a newsstand on the way home and see if they had any issues. Sometimes I got lucky, sometimes I didn't; but when I did, I felt like it was my passport to another world. The Ramones help Danny Fields move; Cyrinda and David Jo go shopping; and of course, the endless scene photos of CB's and Max's. I would sit on the floor of my very purple room in Connecticut, and pray for the day I was old enough to go be part of all of this.

The first time I went to Max's was completely accidental. It was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, and I had spent the summer going to the Dr. Pepper concerts up at Wollman Rink. I don't know how I managed to convince my parents that I could go to these shows all by myself (and sometimes I went to more than one in a week), but somehow I did. I know I had a friend help me buy the tickets (or at least told me about the concerts and took me up to Alexander's on 59th Street to buy them).

It was either the night of the Talking Heads or the B52's (or some other show that week) and like I always did, I made friends with the people sitting around me. During intermission, one of the girls (they were from Brooklyn, if I remember correctly) asked me, "Oh, we're going to Max's after the show, do you want to come with us?"

Simultaneously, I said "Yes" while my heart flew up into my mouth. Of course, I tried to act as though I had done so a million times already, and then snuck off to a pay phone to inform my parents that the concert was running late that night so I might be on a later train. I had no idea whatsoever how I was going to get into the club, or how I would get back to the train station afterwards, but I wasn't going to let such minor details get in the way of my ticket to fabulousness - even though I knew, very very well, that it was 1980 and those days were long passed. Still - it was MAX'S!

Getting out of the cab in front of the awning on Park Avenue South for the first time felt like a dream. Clearly, the people I was with had actually been there before, as they knew whoever was at the door, and this was probably the only reason I got in without them asking for my ID, because I know I did not look old enough for one second (as much as I liked to pretend the opposite was true. I also did not yet have a fake ID). I knew I wasn't going to run into Nico and Lou Reed and Iggy and Bowie and Sable Starr or anyone else, it was, after all, 1980; but the fact that they had been there and that this was Max's, and the Dolls and JT and even, heck, Bruce Springsteen had been on that stage, was more than enough for me. It felt like I was visiting a shrine, I was in the place that I had daydreamed about for all those years.

Someone I was with bought me a drink; I favored Seven and Seven at that time of my life, so that is what I ordered, and stood there, trying to look as bored and cool as it was possible to do when ones heart is pounding a million beats a minute. I was at MAX'S! I was drinking at MAX'S KANSAS CITY! In my head, I tried to imagine the Dolls onstage, I tried to imagine Iggy and Lou sitting in a booth, I tried to imagine the drugs and the debauchery, and Patti and John Cale and the VELVETS, and Jim Carroll, here as a teenaged Velvet Underground fan and giving drink orders you could hear on the "Live At Max's" album (which I didn't own yet, but knew about from a Jim interview in Creem).

And then I looked at my watch, and realized I had to get to the train station in 15 minutes or I would, literally, turn into a pumpkin (and a pumpkin the day after Halloween at that, by the time my father got done reading me the riot act for missing the last train home), and went downstairs, jumped into a cab, and ran into the last train to Stamford just as the conductor was standing at the platform, waiting for the Friday night stragglers to come running through the doors from the terminal.

The whole way home, I sat there, thinking: I was at Max's Kansas City!

Once I moved into the city to go to college, I went to Max's a handful of times before the glow diminished, and the novelty of going to Max's just because I could wore down. The truth was that there were very few good bands that played there any more, and never anything great. Most of the time, the place was half-empty, or filled with Japanese or German tourists. And then, although it seemed impossible and at the time we were up in arms over it, the club closed its doors for good. And then, one night, taking a cab uptown, I suddenly realized that the sign and the awning were gone.

So, in case you were wondering what sparked this whole reverie, last week I got a freelance editing job, and the client was at 215 Park Avenue South. I didn't think anything of it, until I went downstairs to get some air and sun and food and call the boyfriend. It was sunny but cold, so I ducked into the entrance of the building just next door, and I'm talking to him and all of a sudden I look through the glass door, and exclaim: "Oh, my god!"
"What's wrong?"
"This is 213 Park Avenue South."
I stop, and realize he will not have instant recognition of that address (okay, who would, really, besides crazy, obsessed maniacs).
"This is where Max's Kansas City used to be."

Now, I knew that, of course, but not ever really spending a lot of time in Union Square, I had not consciously stood there and thought: that short building inbetween the W and that office building, that is where Max's used to be. Or at least not for the last 10 years.

Below is what caused the yelp (click on the image to see it larger). I guessed they were Bob Gruen and research has validated this guess:

And this made me happy, that it had not been completely forgotten, that there was still some tangible presence of Max's in this building, even if the ground floor is now a deli, even if there is no more magic in the building. Because there was, once, and there always will be for everyone who remembers it.

fear and loathing

Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself

That is a scan of my copy of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, it's the first mass-market paperback edition, and the date inside is 1982, which is about right - I would have been 18, middle of my freshman year at college, and I could buy any book I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. I would bet that I bought this at either the original Coliseum Books location on Columbus Circle, or the old Scribner's bookstore on Fifth Avenue (which I loved because it was such an old-fashioned looking bookstore, walking in there felt like entering another world). The book is worn and frayed and dog-eared and obviously considered to be part of my core library, and as such has travelled over 17,000 miles (I am not exaggerating).

I am trying desperately to remember how I stumbled onto Hunter Thompson, what was the six degrees of separation that led me there. I would love to know what exactly sparked my 18-year-old interest to get this book -- it certainly wasn't part of freshman curriculum, after all-- or if it was just my general ravenous hunger to learn everything about the 60's and early 70's, from Kerouac to Kesey, Beatles to Black Sabbath.

I know I read this book at least a dozen times, trying to understand it. I know I did not understand it whatsoever the first handful of times, but I kept trying. But even when I didn't understand a thing, or only partly grasped what was going on, I know it influenced me greatly. Struggling through classes like "Ethics In Journalism," the whole "gonzo journalism" principle was greatly appealing to me. I don't pretend to come anywhere close or approach his stature, but Fear and Loathing had a decided impact on me.

I know it is not very modern or PC to admire excess in the fashion he pioneered, and I am heartily tired of drugs claiming the best and the brightest, but there is a tiny part of me that is envious to have missed that decade.

He was a legend, he was one-of-a-kind, he was influential on several generations and will likely continue to be. It is so very sad that he could not tame his internal demons and that they won the battle, and it is sad he is no longer on the planet.

so long, cbgb

The Manhattan club scene - in fact, the club scene of any city, really - is highly volatile. Clubs come and go, depending on real estate, the political climate, and a long list of other random factors. It's not an easy business to be in, and in most cases, it's a pretty thankless one.

But what's hitting everyone hard today is the confirmation of the rumor that CBGB's (which, believe it or not, is actually a club, and not a t-shirt brand, you mall punk morons) may be priced out of its current location within the year.

From this week's Village Voice:

It used to be a lot simpler. When Hilly Krystal started CBGB almost 32 years ago, its monthly rent was $600. But CB's gradually made the Bowery chic, and new ground-floor space on the legendary punk club's street now rents for around $55 per square foot. Krystal's third lease ends this August; a new lease would cost him somewhere between $38,000 and $40,000 a month, in addition to the almost $80,000 a year he pays for liability insurance.

"I pay approximately $20,000 a month now—I can't pay $40,000," Krystal says. "I can't run the club at a deficit. We'd have to charge a lot more for drinks, we'd have to charge a lot more for admission, and I don't know if it's worth it to people. If it's gone, I don't see that anybody's going to replace it. We're not a big moneymaking machine." He's thinking about trying to continue, but also thinking about going elsewhere: "I know some people want me to put CBGB in New Jersey, and some people in L.A. want me to move out there."

Considering the strength of Jesse Malin's rant against NYU and their Palladium Residence Hall (which of course replaced the late, great Palladium Theater, formerly the Academy of Music - the stage of which held just about anyone who mattered for so many years), I hope I don't have to hear him tirade against the loss of CBGB. Yes, these days they make more money selling merch than anything else. Yes, it's very rare, and usually a special occasion, when there's a show there I want to see. But it is still CBGB's.

Last winter, before I'd moved back home (and before I knew that I would in less than a year), I was home for Christmas, and went down to Joey Ramone Place with some friends to take photos. As we were posing, a mother and son (couldn't have been more than 15 or 16) arrived to do the same thing. While waiting for us, the mother wandered south on Bowery a little bit, and then rushed back, excitedly telling her son: "CBGB's is right over here!" His face lit up and he went running down there with her. Our thought was: "There is still hope for this generation."

It is a landmark that helped launch a revolution; CBGB are call letters that are recognizable everywhere on this planet. When I was growing up in Connecticut and dreaming of the day I could go see shows in New York, it was at CB's (and Max's, of course, but that scared me; I knew I could get into CB's) that I dreamed about. I don't know that it can or should be landmarked or protected, but I do know that the day it no longer exists will cause a permanent hole in my heart. Hilly can relocate to wherever he likes, but it will never, ever be the same. The end of CBGB's will be the end of an era.

But on the other hand, Max's Kansas City is now a Korean deli. Folk City is just some random bar. The Bottom Line lost its lease. I was glad that I missed the decline of Maxwell's. Coney Island High, Club 82, Hurrah's, Danceteria, Limelight - the list could take up another paragraph, and if I added in the clubs lost in LA, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, or any other city with a vital music scene, it could take up a page. The disappearance of these clubs, while unfortunate, has not stopped new bands from finding a place to play and make their mark, and has not stopped the creation of new music. We lose a bit of history and a lot of nostalgia when landmark, legendary venues go under, but as long as there are boys and girls who wanna be rockstars, we will never lose the music.

john peel

CBS News | BBC DJ John Peel Dead At 65 | October 26, 2004 13:45:10

also, the NME: John Peel: 1939-2004
and: BBC Tribute page

One of the few people involved and influential in the business who actually loved music, and didn't pretend he was too cool to be passionate and engaged, even at age 65.

greg shaw dies

ContraCostaTimes.com | 10/24/2004 | Garage rock pioneer and writer Shaw dies at 55

I'm a little late with this one (well, late in posting at least). But, when I was a teenager, Greg Shaw and BOMP! were one of the few things I found cool about California. It's time to go dig those old issues out of storage....

end of the century for real

Johnny Ramone died yesterday.

Arturo Vega of course has some very nice tributes up at Official Ramones.com. More later from me, after family time today. Right now, my stomach just hurts bad.

arthur "killer" kane

Who knew? Did anyone know he was sick? [See the Billboard obit.]

I'm just glad he got to play with them one more time. And I'm sad as fucking hell that I wasn't there to see it.

My rule is always, always: go see the show. You're rarely upset that you went, but you'll almost always be upset that you didn't go (and if you say you weren't, you're probably lying). But I couldn't do this one. For once, it wasn't work or lameness, either.

I don't know what they'll do now. I imagine it will still go on, but we are almost out of New York Dolls, just like we are almost out of Ramones, and I don't much like the idea of what this planet will be like when this entire generation is gone and we are left with the likes of, say, Guster and Ben Folds and Rufus Wainright (sorry, shirts on the train home tonight, they were at Summerstage I think) and Dave fucking Matthews and Trey Anastasio, all of which are probably fine musicians, but are not interesting or dangerous or exciting or loud or obnoxious or joyous or rebellious, all of which rock and roll is *supposed* to be.

Goddammit.

gabba gabba hey

just a note - and i can't believe it was patti lee who had to remind me - that we lost joey on this day back in 2001.

[on a related note, patti's on letterman friday night, which i'll miss because i'm seeing Mayor of the Sunset Strip.]

ten years ago



For some reason, the plethora of self-indulgent, "where were you when" ramblings that are bubbling up from the media are annoying me. They're annoying me because I find them hollow and lightweight and insincere. I know people who were *profoundly* affected by Kurt's death 10 years ago, kids whose hold on the planet was tenuous enough already, the girls and boys that Nirvana gave a voice to, the people who suddenly became less weird, because they dressed like Kurt did before he ended up on MTV for the first time. Friends who admitted to staying in their dorm room for days, lying in the dark, listening to "Negative Creep" or "About A Girl" and wondering what the FUCK they were going to do NOW, who was going to get up onstage for them and make them feel less alone in this world?

Where are those stories?

I mean, hell, yeah, it's beyond righteous that Thurston Moore gets an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, defending the underground and making the point about Kurt that 99.9% of the rest of the mainstream media forgets. Sure, go up to Viretta Park and take photos of the kids sitting on the grass with their hair half-dyed red at the bottom (except that Kurt used cherry Kool-Aid, and I wonder if they a) know this and b) did that themselves? But why bother to be authentic, you can go into Hot Topic in the mall now and get that stuff). Write it off as - he lived, he was miserable, he was famous, he killed himself.

The real story isn't Kurt so much as it is the fans, the ones whom he sang for, the people whose lives changed in a very real and very drastic fashion when he died, some for better, others for worse.

For the record: I wasn't a huge Nirvana fan, although I was working for Geffen back in the day, and got to be a direct part of the entire Nevermind phenomenon. I remember getting the advance cassette (god, I wish I still had that now!) and thinking, "This is great, but it's not going to sell more than 150,000 in the U.S., but it's an important record to release."

Kurt's death touched me because the death of a musician will always affect me. And his in particular, there was part of the angst and the wailing and the joy that was there if you looked for it - that I did recognize and did identify with.

Mostly, I was angry. And mostly, I still am angry. At loss of life, loss of talent, loss of - one of us.

So, now I get to work in my one Nirvana story, albeit tangential: In 1996, I got to go to a party at the former Cobain mansion. A friend worked for a start-up whose owners had bought the house from Courtney. They realized that everyone and their mother was going to want to come visit, so they held a huge housewarming party before they moved in. The house was big and cavernous and echoey, and anything BUT warm. I couldn't see Kurt being happy in that place, no matter how hard I tried to imagine it.

The owners thought it would be funny to blast Nirvana's Unplugged all night, while random quasi-yuppie geek types clambered around the house as though it was their own private playground. Sure, we were curiosity-seekers too, we fully admitted it. But funnily enough, in a situation Kurt was probably grimacing at - the misfit bunch of current and former punks that my pal Delores had managed to wangle onto the guest list ended up feeling out of place and overruled by the yuppie faction. This was our fucking band, assholes, NOT YOURS, we all thought (okay, some of us said out loud).

So we retreated outside, away from the house, under a weeping willow tree. It took us a few minutes before someone pointed out that this was likely the tree Courtney was coming back to get, because she'd scattered part of Kurt's ashes underneath.

We sat there in silence for a while, digesting that thought, wondering what to do - should we leave? Should we stay?

While we were sitting there, pondering, I had a flash of brilliance. Raising my glass into the air, I toasted in the direction of the sky, and then poured some gin and tonic onto the ground. With communal understanding and relief, everyone else followed suit. Then we settled in for the night, making fun of the drunk yuppie fucks running around the house and falling out the windows.

Now, *there's* a tribute to Kurt I could live with.

viva zapata.

Finally:

11 years later, justice for slain singer Zapata

When I heard the verdict on the news last night, a wave of unexpected emotion came over me. I mean, I knew I would feel something, but not quite that much.

Steve Moriarty from the Gits had asked friends and fans to be spectators during the trial, and I'd meant to make it down there, somehow, but work and life got in the way (lame, I know). And, to be honest, I also knew that being there and watching it would be hard to take. Which seems selfish in the extreme, because her friends and family and bandmates were sure there every single day.

Mia Zapata had already been murdered long before I moved to Seattle in 1995, so I can't claim that I knew her, or had ever seen the Gits play. But for some reason I always felt this odd - alliance is the best word - with her. Strong, independent woman making her way through the world, doing things her way, making it happen.

I guess the most obvious reason for this is that it could have been me. I walk the city streets at night, I come from a city where civilized people take cabs everywhere (originally, the police suspected a cab driver, since Mia didn't have a car and she took cabs everywhere). She wasn't stupid, she was razor-smart.

It could have been me.

I moved to Seattle in the aftermath of Mia's death, which had a profound impact on the music community (understatement of the decade, I realize). Home Alive had just became a presence, the whole concept of making sure the woman standing next to you at the rock show or the bar got home safely was suddenly something everyone thought about. And even as late as 1995, downtown Seattle at night was a truly scary place, even for a girl who honed her street smarts on Avenue A.

There is so much more that could be said - about the original attitude of the police towards Mia and the case after her body was found; about the tenacity of her bandmates and her family, refusing to let her be forgotten; and finally, the SPD making good, and the cold case squad running down that son of a bitch murderer through DNA.

If there was ever a moment that I believed in a god, this was one of them.

joe strummer: streetcore

I never got a chance to write about Joe's passing. The news reached me literally as I walked into the door of my childhood home for Christmas, text messages chirping out of my cell phone every few minutes as word of Joe's death spread across the world. I had no time to write, and no one to commiserate with.

All of this is by way of saying, this is probably more eulogy than album review. It's impossible to even feign any objectivity while listening to Streetcore, because, well, this is it.

As an epitaph, it's a mighty one. But beyond that, it's just a fucking good, sometimes GREAT record. I listened to it non-stop after I bought it, and that took me by surprise. I bought it out of grief and loyalty and admiration, but I did not think it would end up that firmly ensconced in heavy rotation, that I would be putting individual songs on repeat on the iPod.

"Arms Aloft" is inspiring, anthemic, full of hope and exhortation: "May I remind you of that scene?/We were arms aloft in Aberdeen," the chorus for all the world reminding me of a bouncing mosh pit circa 1980, and the story sounding like it was inspired by his days on the road with the Clash. "Long Shadow" is a wonderful, wry, Strummer-countrified, rollicking ballad that he'd written for Johnny Cash. The last line being, "Somewhere in my soul/there's always rock and roll..." Someone needs to pick this up as a standard cover. I am dead serious about this and am going to make this some kind of personal crusade. I can hear musicians from Springsteen to the Supersuckers to Ryan Adams to John Doe, covering this song and keeping Joe's memory alive.

Joe's cover of "Redemption Song" reminded me how the Clash were singlehandedly responsible for any genuine appreciation and understanding of reggae that I possess. This version... no other rock singer should ever be allowed to cover this song again. I listen to it, and think of "Police and Thieves" and "Pressure Drop" and their cover of "The Harder They Fall". I remember the Clash bringing Gregory Isaacs to open for them in 1981 at the pier (Grandmaster Flash was there one night, too). Nowadays, the crossing of genres in that fashion is taken for granted. But mixing reggae with punk was about as disturbing back then as putting a CCM artist in front of a Good Charlotte crowd today.

The album ends with his cover of "Before I Get Old," retitled by Joe as "Silver and Gold". It's bare, just Joe's voice, accompanied by fiddle, acoustic guitar, touches of harp, some keys in there. "I'm going to go out dancing every night/I'm going to see all your city lights/I'm gonna do everything, silver and gold/and i got to hurry up before i grow too old..." he sings, and you have to wonder if maybe, somehow, he knew? After the song finishes, it becomes clear that tape is still rolling, and then you hear Joe's voice, with that trademark Strummer self-assurance, stating, "Okay, that's a take!"

Yeah, Joe. That's a take, all right.

elliott smith

I couldn't sleep last night, so I got up, wandered around, decided to hop online and see if there were any other insomniacs in my usual virtual watering holes.

What I didn't expect to find was a usenet post reading, "elliot smith, rip". Posted by someone in the UK. A quick hop to a few other places and the horrible news was confirmed.

No, was my first reaction. No, no, no, no, no, no.

We were all rooting for him, so very very hard. Praying for him in our own ways. My friends in LA would regularly go to his shows, whenever they could. The reports were rough, sometimes, but there were enough moments of brilliance that we really, really hoped that his music would pull him out of whatever he'd fallen into.

He was one of ours. Favored son of Portland. On legendary Olympia record label Kill Rock Stars. And he was one of ours because his records captured a quality of emotion so many of us felt but were unable to express or articulate in any tangible way.

Who could forget that night at the Oscars when he came onstage with freaking CELINE DION? It was one of the ultimate moments of triumph of the underdog. Take that, establishment. It was bizarre but we celebrated as though we knew him, as though we played some part in him being up there.

But back to this past year. A new single came out in August. It was supposed to be portent for a new album, hopefully to come soon. So we had hope, still. So much hope. Even when reports from shows would relate how bad he looked. Hope.

Right now, I just don't understand so many things. Here he was, doing what he loved, making a living at it. His work meant so much to so many people. But, clearly, it wasn't enough.

So if that isn't enough, then, what is? He was so fucking talented.

My friend Joey said, "You must really be done living when you can plunge a knife into your own heart." Heather said, "His heart just couldn't take the world on any more. I don't know how else to understand it but that."

Maybe I don't get it because the pain has never ever been that bad. Maybe I have better coping mechanisms, maybe I have a strength I don't give myself enough credit for.

All I know is that I don't understand. And maybe I should be counting my blessings that I don't.

"god is not making any more"

in tribute to johnny cash and warren zevon

I'd put off writing anything about Warren because nothing I wrote seemed sufficient. And then, I wake up this morning to learn of JC's passing, and once again I feel completely inarticulate. There are people with a greater understanding and appreciation of both of those gentleman's careers, so leave it to them to write the tributes. But I loved them both. I still have a photograph of a restaurant called "Lee Ho Fook" in Chinatown in London, and I remember seeing Johnny Cash for the first time on some PBS music show. (I pretty much used to watch anything music-related on PBS when I was a kid - in the pre-MTV era, it used to be a treasure trove.)

The headline of this article is a quote a friend sent me, her favorite tribute to Johnny Cash, and it was uttered by Nick Lowe. But it could apply to so many people, couldn't it? And I am struck by how, when I was digging up old writing to upload to this site, that I had enough tributes written to create a category called "obits".

We are going to have to get used to this. This is going to keep happening. But I just don't know that I will ever get used to this. Can you imagine this planet without, say, Bob Dylan (may he live until 120)? Superstition aside, thinking about losing Bob or Keith or Pete or Bowie, or Lou or Patti or Iggy... what will this place be like without them?

On the note of Zevon, Springsteen opened his Toronto show last night with a cover of "My Ride's Here". Guess we know what's gonna open the DC area show tomorrow.

"on top of the sky is a place where you go..."

John Entwistle, also known as Thunderfingers, The Ox, The Quiet One, and Johnny Twinkle (hey, ask Daltrey about that one, I sure don't know), was found dead today of a heart attack at age 57. On the eve of a Who tour that was to begin tomorrow.

I am an unabashed, unapologetic Who fan. They are my band more than any other, ever, since the age of 14. One night in 1978, I went to see The Kids Are Alright and walked out forever changed. I own every record, including all the solo albums of all of the members. I know every damn song by heart, I still have posters on my walls and a sticker on my car. I wrote my senior thesis in high school on Tommy. One of my prized possessions, still, is the original "My Generation" single on the Brunswick label. My father, whose idea of a good radio station is 710 WINS talk radio, can tell you the first and last names of every member of the Who. My mother still cuts out articles about them for me. The Beatles taught me how to love music, but the Who taught me how to be a music fan. Their music inspired me and challenged me and consoled me and gave me strength and comfort. They were my band.

I have loved them and been furious with them, adored them and been mindblowingly frustrated with them. This dichotomy of emotion is, however, an inextricable part of being a Who fan. Townshend did not like or want mindless sheep in his audience. He relished the contentious relationship he had with us. And he never got soft, broke down, or went easy on the fans. He was impossible, mercurial, outspoken, direct, sarcastic, witty and charming, usually all in the same moment. His rants at the audience, both onstage and in interview, are legendary. And we wouldn't have had it any other way.

During the 1982 Who tour, some friends and I brazenly checked ourselves into the Who's hotel in New York. In a further display of shamelessness, we invited John Entwistle to a birthday party. My friends had made a cake with black frosting (okay, it ended up more like a dirty grey) and a plastic spiderweb on it. John invited us to his suite, where we sat up all night, drinking and talking. Now, this wasn't about what you may think this was about... None of us were the least bit interested in sleeping with him. It was the time to ask about the light up neck on the bass, and playing with Cheap Trick in Germany, and stories about Keith Moon.

Around 3am, after having enough gin and tonics in me that I managed to spill an entire glass into my purse (it was a running joke for years), I turned to John and said, "I'm sorry, but I have to do this, I'll never have a chance again," and asked him if I could see his trademark spider necklace up close. Without even blinking an eye, he beckoned me closer and held the necklace up so I could hold it in my hands and look at it. "I'd take it off, but it's a pain in the arse to get back on.." he said. He explained that there was a smaller spider that went with it, but that his girlfriend wears it now. (She was hanging out with us, but gave up after a few hours. I'm sure she was used to it...)

It was one of those stupid moments of teenage fandom that you hold in your heart with equal parts embarassment and sly satisfaction.

I gave up seeing them after they broke up for the first time in 1982. I had no interest in seeing retreads or greatest hits or nostalgia. And I didn't want to sit next to the two annoying drunk guys in baseball hats who yell "Magic Bus!" the entire show. While those guys were always there, once the Who stopped making new music, it seemed like the entire audience was full of people only there to relive their lost youth.

In 1994, Roger Daltrey had two shows at Carnegie Hall for his 50th birthday. This time, I was there. And although I was dubious, the first night, hearing the orchestra play the "Overture" from Tommy (Yeah, the one that Pete sold to a prescription drug company. Oops. Wait, I'll get to that) gave me goosebumps and the tears started running down my cheeks. There are just some things that never leave you, and I learned that night that the Who is one of those things for me.

In 1996, out of a clear blue sky, they decided to revive Quadrophenia in its entirety and take it on the road. They didn't get to successfully tour Quad when it came out in 1974. But this time, it was the whole album, beginning to end, from the ecstatic ocean wave whispers that open the record, to the heart-wrenching passion of “Love, Reign O'er Me' at the end. For the most part, they played it straight, with a few other singers (Billy Idol as the Bellboy, for example) to give Roger a chance to rest (and that was Keith Moon's song anyway).

It was, quite simply, brilliant. Forget the fact that I never thought I'd hear these songs live in my lifetime. Forget that i never dreamed I'd see the entire concept performed from start to finish, ever. Quadrophenia 96 was energetic and dynamic and full of fire. The songs were still incredible songs.

From that point, I was back on the bus. Not that I ever really left.

1999 and 2000 were great years to be a Who fan. They dropped what we referred to as “The Who On ice” concept, going out with just the three of them, plus Zak Starkey (yes, Ringo's kid) on drums, and John 'Rabbit' Bundrick, their old keyboard player. No horns. No percussionists. No guest singers. No movies, no sound effects, nothing to distract you from the music. It was that legendary wall of Who sound, and it made you remember why they were the greatest rock and roll band in the world.

Don't believe me?

Exhibit A, the Who at the House of Blues in Chicago, 1999. 1500 people. I'm one person from the stage. Have you ever seen The Kids Are Alright? You know that moment at the end, during "Won't Get Fooled Again," where they come out of the drum solo and the lasers, and then Roger hits the power scream and the supertroopers come on and there's Pete mid air, landing on his knees and sliding to the other side of the stage? Probably the greatest rock and roll moment ever captured on film? Well, the entire House of Blues show was like being in that moment. It was one of the best nights of my life.

When I got to work this morning, I did my usual check of the Ticketmaster site to see what was available for their Seattle show on July 6. Believe it or not, I did not yet have a ticket for this tour, and my plan had been to not see them this time. This decision was agonizing, but when it came time to 'put the money down,' I couldn't do it. I could not hand Pete Townshend $192.50 [before Ticketmaster taxes]. I just could not do it. It just felt wrong. I would have felt better handing that cash to a struggling band to buy equipment than giving it to Pete et. al. this time.

I'd already dealt with my anger seeing "Bargain," the most spiritual song Townshend has ever written, being used to sell cars. I'd gotten over my fury over Pete giving the best anthem of counterculture rebellion, "Won't Get Fooled Again" [which was just as valid in the last few years as it was when he wrote it over 30 years ago] to Nissan. But giving the "Overture" from Tommy, a piece of music so ethereal and evocative and almost holy that it still gives me goosebumps, to a prescription drug company... That made me lose it. Movies, okay, sure. TV shows... borderline, but not a complete and total perversion. Yes, it's his art to do with what he wishes, but it seemed to go against everything the Who ever meant for these songs to be exploited like that. Pete's explanation was that it was the only way for him to expose his music to a new audience. (Pete. Anyone who buys a record based on what they hear in a commercial is not going to resonate with the rest of the Who's catalog. These are people who treat music as a trivial commodity at best.)

But $192.50 for the Seattle show made me see red. $250 for side stage, first level seats at Madison Square Garden made me apoplectic. There was no way i could justify this to myself. There was just no way. So I didn't buy a ticket. Each and every day I had a conversation about this with someone. "You're breaking up with Pete??!" said one friend, horribly concerned. Even with today's news, I still feel like I made the right decision. I was keeping my relationship with this band honest.

And now John is dead. While I'm sure Pete and Roger will go on somehow, as far as I am concerned, there is no more Who. Tonight I sat in a funky bar in downtown Seattle with a friend, and we toasted John with tall glasses of Guinness and smoked cigarettes, while the bartender played “My Generation” and all of Who Are You, in order. Our cheer that went up when the thrashing chords of "My Generation" started earned us quiet knowing looks of respect, while the scenesters around us chatted animatedly, seemingly oblivious. As I sat there, head in hands, dejected and as close to catatonic as I'll ever get, I almost envied them their detachment.

Almost, but not quite. Because I would not trade my love, hate, fury, adoration - my sheer utter passion for the Who - for anything in the world.

for george

We were all waiting for it but to hear it announced so suddenly and unexpectedly literally knocked the breath out of me. Oh, no. No.

I think sometimes we become inured to rock and roll death. Or think we are.

So between dragging all the albums out and realizing that I own nothing on CD beyond the Red and Blue albums… I have been doing a lot of thinking about the Beatles. Aside from my immediate family, not many people would probably associate me with them. Then again, aside from my immediate family, I don't know anyone who knew me when I was 10. Or 13, when I bought my first rock and roll book, Nicholas Shaffner's The Beatles Forever. Or even 15, when I had the yellow submarine on my birthday cake. Or saw the inside of my purple and pink bedroom, the walls of which were lined with as many Beatles photos as I could find. (This is the kind of thing I'd write an article telling people to not do now… don't buy a book and take all the photos out and cut them up and put them on your walls. Buy an extra. But, hey. I was, like, 12.)

When it comes right down to it, the Beatles were nothing short of salvation and refuge and solace and enlightenment and illumination. They were the instrument of my deliverance from the hell known as high school, the hell known as the suburbs, the hell known as normalcy and mundanity. I'm not going to get dramatic and assert that they saved my life; I would still be here but I would likely be flat and grey and doing what someone else thought I should be doing with my life.

I remember my first trip to England, 1984. I lied to my parents to get access to my savings account to buy that plane ticket. I remember getting to Liverpool and standing there and realizing: without the Beatles, I would not be here now. I would not be who I was, I would not have fallen in love with rock and roll. My world would have been much, much smaller.

The Beatles opened a door to a world I could not have imagined existed. They gave a form and a name and a feeling to all those nameless yearnings I had late at night, sitting up in bed, hugging my knees to my chest, listening to the radio coming in across the lake from Chicago and having my mother yell at me to turn it off and go to sleep. The reason I went to the store every week and got the list of the top 100 records and had to know them all, the reason that all my birthday and Christmas money went on those little black slices of 7" vinyl when other girls my age were buying Barbie dolls, why I would ride my bicycle four miles each way to the library during the summer so I could take out record albums. The reason I would bribe our babysitters with promises of making sure the other kids didn't cause any trouble, just as long as they would let me stay up past my bedtime so I could watch Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. I didn't know why I cared so much or why I did these things or why that music coming out of the radio or the records I would buy or take out of the library made me feel the way they did, until I discovered the Beatles.

Standing in front of the Liverpool train station, listening to conversation swirling around me and thinking "oh, my god, this entire city is going to sound like A Hard Day's Night, realizing that I was in England, I had been in London, I was in Liverpool - it gave me this undefinable sense of completion and full circle and achievement and sheer fucking triumph, none of which I had expected or anticipated. I thought of a conversation I'd had with my girlfriends who were living in London one night when we were in the Ship down on Wardour Street, a pub that Keith Moon used to get drunk in, just down the street from the Marquee Club. All of which was pretty fucking amazing all by itself.

One of the girls had run into a college friend of hers just by chance, crossing the street in front of Victoria Station. He recognized her and laughed, and said, "Why does not surprise me in the least to run into you here." And he reminded her of how she'd driven everyone she knew crazy, talking endlessly how she was going to go to London after graduation. We all looked at each other and laughed, because we had done the same thing. All through high school. I would take out books on England and stare at maps in study hall. People honestly thought I was crazy and I never understood why until that moment in the Ship, or really, until that moment arriving in Liverpool, or later, when I stood facing the roundabout in Penny Lane, taking pictures. I am taking pictures of something that is in a Beatles song. Oh my god. The Beatles wrote a song about this. They lived here. And I am here now. Because I said I would be here someday.

And everyone thought I was nuts. They thought I was certifiable. In high school, when I turned this pink spiral notebook into my personal Beatles history calendar. With big purple marker I made each page into a calendar month and then I'd write in what happened that day in Beatles history. Which would have been fine, except that I'd arrive for lunch every day, sit down, open the notebook, and share this information with everyone at the table. And of course, no one cared except me.

Everyone seems to have had a favorite Beatle, except me. I loved them all in different ways and at different times and for different reasons. My favorite moment with George was A Hard Days' Night, the scene where he stumbles into the advertising office. It was sarcastic and hysterical and just plain brilliant. I loved it because he finally got the spotlight. I watched that movie so much I could recite it by heart. But that scene, I loved the most.

John's death was horrific because it was terrible and brutal and unexpected, and happened just when he was about to come back to us. It made me angry and intolerable and changed me on so many levels, internally and externally. George being gone is equally terrible, but at least we have the small blessing in that he was not ripped out of our lives by a random act of mindless violence. John's death changed my life so suddenly and profoundly that it's hard to remember what it was like before then. I cut my hair. I dyed it as red as I could without incurring parental wrath. I started wearing Ramones and Clash tshirts and black jeans to school every day. In 1980, this kind of thing meant you were taking your life into your own hands. But once John died, everyone seemed to kind of grant me a respectful distance. The day after John was shot was the first day I ever wore all black in real life. My mother glanced at me and was about to say something until she looked at my face. She must have seen something in my eyes because she didn't say a word.

And now George is dead, half of them are gone, and we fight for some kind of comfort and reason and consolation and solace at a time when everything is already fucked up enough without having a corner of our house pulled out from under us. When John died, we stood vigil in front of the Dakota. When George died, I went to a bad loud punk bar with a friend and listened to a bunch of local bands and drank Guinness. It felt right. I think George would have told us to get on with it. (And I think John would have too… but those were different circumstances and different times.)

Everyone, no matter how old they are, seems to grow up with the Beatles. So when something happens to one of them, it goes back to the roots of our childhood, of youth, of innocence, of the early days of our love for music. A little piece of that part of us dies when our heroes leave this planet. I think that happens so we don't ever forget what they meant to us.

Small words for
the youngest
dark and quiet
with hands that roared.

joey ramone, rip

I own no Ramones albums on cd.

When I heard the news about Joey, my first thought was to dive for the albums. I was lazy and didn't want to clean off the turntable... R... What? No Ramones? Not even the compilation? Obviously not. There seems to be a certain justice in that.

I remember first hearing about the Ramones and not believing it at first. This can't be real, right? It's got to be a joke. It didn't seem like something that the record industry would let us get away with. I do remember seeing that first album in the R bin at Sounds down on St. Marks’ Place and my eyes opening really really wide, ohmygod this was real, they dressed just like we did (or the way we would if our parents would have let us get away with it), ripped jeans and tshirts, and suddenly your Converse all-stars were a helluva lot more glamorous, weren't they?

The Ramones were rock and roll. In a time where everyone you knew was listening to pretentious crap like Jon-Luc Ponty play an acrylic violin and Yes were putting out 5 LP sets and Emerson Lake and Palmer were releasing this dreadful bombastic shit and it seemed like owning a copy of Hotel California, Rumours and that Kansas album with "Carry On My Wayward son" on it was mandatory, oh my god! The Ramones. Guitars, lots of guitars, songs you could come pretty close to playing yourself on the piece of crap acoustic guitar your parents bought you for Christmas one year, tired of hearing you whine about wanting a guitar.

The Ramones were for all of us, and they united all of us, kids from Connecticut and New Jersey and Long Island and Brooklyn and Queens, they were our band, they sang about places we knew about, not stupid places with palm trees and margaritas and pickup trucks and aughhhhhhh! They sang about New York, they were as New York as Bruce Springsteen was New Jersey. They were bridge & tunnel, as uncool as we were, taking mom's car and lying about where you were going so you could take your fake ID and sneak into the city on a Saturday night.

There was something oddly comforting about a 1:50 pop song with three chords and a dozen lyrics. We didn't care that you'd see 10 songs in 20 minutes or that the songs sounded "the same". We wanted them to sound the same - that was the whole fucking point!!!

The Ramones were Everypunk. They were legends the first time they walked out on a stage. They should have gotten their own cartoon show. No matter how old Iam, I will always be 15 years old when I listen to the Ramones, and in that teenager's mind, no one ever dies. Every other band we loved from that time broke up, and the Ramones were still there, still going, and still just as great. They weren't supposed to break up, and they sure as hell weren't supposed to die!

A little bit of my world has ended today.