"This room becomes a shrine thinking of you..." - Jesus & Mary Chain
People with money really do start thinking they can take it with 'em, don't they? Ya see the value they put on Shit, mere stuff, and also on just their own most basic climate control, the channel changer, controlling the room, and even the ideas allowed to ever enter their big ceilinged, oversized, white, spartan, multiple empty spaces. I got a song lyric that says, "now all I do is write obituaries", cause all my ole rocknroll friends keep dropping dead, and man. 'Gets weird.
One of my teenage brothers offed himself a couple years ago, and his family wrote some real blunt obit for the smalltown newspaper to publish, I'll paraphrase, but basically, it was like, "He was drunk and depressed all his life and committed suicide". Yeah, so that was grim. I knew they never liked the kid to start with, but according to his side of the story, they were hiding and covering up abuse.
You always hear people saying how life is short, but until you start seeing everybody you ever loved start disappearing in rapid succession, it's hard to really appreciate that, easy to get sucked in by the career or the commercials. Your friends die and you think about contacting their kids, but at this point I got so many dead friends, with so many kids, I can't really take 'em all under my wing. Which ones would I even start with? It's harsh ya know cause I aint got much in this world and I don't even hear too much from my own kids, nowadays. Ugh. Other lifelong beloved old friends, their families will not say anything about why they died so young. Suicide, accidental overdose, side effects from medications? I'll just never know, I just know they're suddenly gone, "died unexpectedly" is the most common cause of death now, so I can not call 'em up and talk about how strange the world is, or how you can't see the mountain across the street, because of all the billowing, pillowy white, wildfire smoke. Heard a rumor about one friend that took some medication, said he was feeling tired afterwards, never woke up again, just gone, and we're not supposed to ask any questions about anything, anymore.
Truth is, most people I used to know avoid all intimate or sincere communications, they're all too immersed in The Thing. I hear from 'em, sometimes, when somebody dies, but even then, most times, not. I found out one old buddy of mine was dead from looking at some ex friends' Facebook pages. Nobody even bothered to tell me. You sometimes social media glimpse the peeps they DO still actively align themselves with, and it's always just their "class mates", as in class, money havers, possession collectors, and property acquirers, ya can't help but wonder if those people even love each other, and confide in one another, or if it's all just ratracing unreality show strategic alliances, and compulsive complaining about the tenants or employees and ya know, like, "do you have any GREY POUPON"? "It's SO HARD to get good help, these days!" "NOBODY WANTS TO WORK! They seem to accept one another mainly because they both own some fancy shite or whatever, a big collection or some kinda business, like old people show n tell: "I own a nightclub", "well my father's a millionaire", etc., etc. Me, I got a bandanna with palm trees on it and a bunch of old Adam Ant and J. Geils Band cassettes I fret about being ruined out there in 110 degree overheated, vinyl melting garage, where I read and write and keep my old souvenirs. All the old pictures and letters, in little junk store dollar frames.
My ole lady warns me she won't be able to drag all my dodgy old shit around like some kinda pathetic museum if something happens to me. I got about five manuscripts on this computer I used to think an old comrade would publish in the event of my death, but nowadays, I am under less and less illusions. My former bandmate died and nobody has any of his demos or lyric journals. It's all so ephemeral and brief, here and gone. Whoa!
SO MISUNDERSTOOD
"back in your old neighborhood, the cigarette tastes so good..."
I remember being a frustrated 22-year-old, bottle swingin' glam singer in love with the Cult and Dogs D'Amour, like it was yesterday. Working at Tower Records with this cool kid named Brian Klinger- he tried to get me into this band called Uncle Tupelo cause he knew I wrote a lot of sad, slow songs about drinkin' in small towns but while I loved Brian, I never fully connected to much of the so called Ya'allternative, No Depression, insurgent country, Americana. Always seemed like a bunch of self important, my shit don't stink, condescending, overfunded, banjo owning, college grads ripping off old Tom Petty and Paul Westerberg songs. And I should know. I did love at least two Gin Blossoms songs that just bled truth and seemed so intimately familiar-two of my ole pals actually knew Doug Hopkins, and I guess one wrote a screenplay about 'im. Jeff Tweedy, I tried and tried to like that guy, and I recognize he's real popular in Spin magazine/college radio circles, but I just never fully vibed much with his shit besides the one that goes, "the ashtray says you were up all night", the one that quotes Peter Laughner, and of course, the one about, "I Miss The Innocence I've Known...!"
"Heroic dissidents are demonized, marginalized, physically and psychologically destroyed, or assassinated by the American ruling class. Before the persecution of Julian Assange, before the FBI assassination of Fred Hampton and Malcolm X, before the murder of Martin Luther King, there was the relentless campaign to silence the activist, actor, and singer Paul Robeson. Robeson, the most internationally known and revered Black American of his day, was a socialist and a militant who stood with the crucified of the earth.
Historian Gerald Horne is author of the biography “Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary,” and is the Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, he joins Chris Hedges to discuss the life of “the most blacklisted performer in America,” linking the persecution of Paul Robeson directly to the persecution of Julian Assange, held today in a high security prison in London where his mental and physical health—like Robeson’s at the end of his life—is in serious decline.
Chris Hedges interviews writers, intellectuals, and dissidents, many banished from the mainstream, in his half-hour show, The Chris Hedges Report. He gives voice to those, from Cornel West and Noam Chomsky to the leaders of groups such as Extinction Rebellion, who are on the front lines of the struggle against militarism, corporate capitalism, white supremacy, the looming ecocide, as well as the battle to wrest back our democracy from the clutches of the ruling global oligarchy."
YOU AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT AN AUTOGRAPH
It's Sunday in the desert and the crazy neighbor lit off on his bicycle to investigate whatever's goin' on in the smoky distance. Two cops are investigating some kinda black van out there on the dirt road with blackedout windows. Lotta shady stuff goes on in these deadend desert ghost towns. I'm doing mundane chores, trying to keep some kinda order and routine and continuity in these insane times. Thinkin' 'bout Paul K. and Kevin Junior, some other dear souls who died young, kinda always melancholy in my elderly goth years. I wish I had someone to call, I spoke to my stepfather for over an hour yesterday-I think deep down, even the tv watchers know some shit is fucked up in this bullshit permanent world war crazy, corporate police state.
My teenager watches Youtube clips all day and appallingly quotes crime and violence glamorizing shit from "Breaking Bad". At least he's discovered Badfinger. Cold called an old writer-genius-former bassplayer compadre with a very Serious Dayjob at his office last week, he was laughing nervously, but I still felt like he was glad to hear from me. I don't understand what happened to Everybody, people really do seem batshit whackadoo "Twilight Zone" brainwashed with their college FeelingsTM scripts and shitlib gentrification apologia, but I'm still here, pushing back, sayin' my thing, against all the ruling classers preferences. What a fucking crazy life. Where are all the real rocknroll guitar players? My pro nouns are hell yeah and all right, motherfuckers. Wrong parts of speech, huh? Whadya want? Eighth grade dropout.
YOUNG AND THE USELESS
One of the only promising, fantastic, and potentially great bands from the 90's, in my opinion, was the remarkably awesome revolution rock band, HELLO DISASTER. I did not expect much from 'em when I first saw 'em back in the day, cause so so many bands were coming along doing the first album Clash loud/fast rules formula, but the overwhelming majority of 'em just had no brains whatsoever. All haircuts, no songs. All boots, no thoughts. I did enjoy a one off song called, "I Don't Belong Here" by Belvy K's Libertine. HELLO DISASTER though, had a sound like all your favorite seventies POWER POP bands, you heard flickers of the Pretenders and Stiv, the Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers, I mean they were just wonderful songwriters, the singer had an exceptional set of pipes, the guitar player created sensational, Derwood or Honeyman-Scott like textures and melodic hooks, galore-exactly the kinda sideman I spent my whole life searching for, the lyrics were super cool, I used to write about 'em all the time back when I still lived in a city with a Kinkos and self published trashy little black and white stapled fanzines about Miniskirt Mob and Motorcycle Boy and Birdland and Gunfire Dance. I still play HELLO DISASTER songs all the time cause it was just so full of heart! My favorite line I still quote all the time is, "in style or not".
SEXUAL INTELLECTUAL
You might think USA! USA! ain't really generated any good rocknroll for a long time and you might be right, I earnestly tried to listen to the rich people bands all the hot rod dork record collector people make believe they like, but man, there is just nothing there beneath the going through the motions sonic surface, no meaning, no message, no tune, no point really except to be in the front of the classroom with the bullhorn hearing themselves wanking some more, just zilch, nada, a couple cute "song" titles, at best-most usually it's always just the same 10 bloated, rich faces throwing their fucking parents money around, again and again, on their half hearted impressions of established bands, perpetually. Here comes another model they're gonna call a genius cause they gave her a stupid name and a retro style makeover and told her to say some bad words alot. It seems like the only good rawk groups left around, are the ones that JIMMY JAMES plays in. THE COMATONES were the best of the best, and it really says it all, that the scumbag record labels failed to get behind those guys who rocked like the Joneses and Horseheads meets the Dolls and the Doors. I mean they just had it all. A Stooges-like recklessness and lust for life. Two of 'em are dead now, but when you know you know, ya know? This is my kinda rocknroll. I remember one time a guy asked me what guitar players I'd recruit for my own band if I could get anybody I wanted and I rambled off about five names, three of 'em were Jimmy James, Billy Burks and Joey Pinter. (RIP Gio, Grant, and mgr. Tom).
CAN'T MAKE ME GO...NO WAY, DADDY-O!
I dunno if you've arrived at the same conclusion, but man, those me first, middle class landlordly, Airbandb owning, fucking greedhead squares, they are nearly identical to like, kindergarteners. Especially if they have any show bizzy impulses. Once somebody starts projecting a gargantuan hologram of their big fat face hoovering above a big gold throne, with all the boxes of unsold vanity merch in the back and jampacked rooms of unused acquisitions and selfies with the stars, they are probably best avoided. You got the kids who are always raising their hand, sucking up to the teacher-the eraser banger-outers and apple polishers, aspiring to join the safety patrol snitch squad. The athletic supporters. The jocks who'll knock you down to be first in line for that cafeteria gruel, the middle of the road types who are forever willing to stand in line for their hall pass from the ruling class, or poke in the eye, or "I Voted Today" sticker. Then, there are the ones who don't eat the cafeteria swill, or dress for gym. You meet them smoking underneath the bleachers.
When I was a kid, they declared me incorrigible, meaning I refused to obey the old script, so it ain't too likely I'm gonna grovel for permission to stand in line to learn the new script. Capitalist overlord, occultist Klaus Schwab tech-surveillance worshippers will tell you, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, you are obliged to bow and call it a sacred cow. I was watching a beautiful and poignant documentary about Kesey's Pranksters called "Magic Bus" last night and smiling sadly about their bummer trip to Tim Leary's booj Milbrook compound, where the sensitive professors of mansion dwelling privilege flatout rejected the Merry Pranksters' beat ruffian madcap explorer smokebomb hijinks, and badly played musical instruments crazy ways, and I was thinking about all the people I've known. The old travelling companions and acid voyagers, the crazyass cross country roadtrips and artist in residency stints at dangerous oldman dive bars with the jugglers and errant kaleidoscope makers and badly tattooed, king of the road, camel riding world travelers.
I don't really see too many free thinkers or libertines on the highways and byways no more, even when I came out West where I belong. Most people are either, the eager beaver get rich quick, tiny empire, brand builders who just wanna monopoly on headlining the bruncher bar and see their name on the t shirt, or too many hurt and damaged people still totally traumatized by all the fear they've been pummeled with since at least 9/11, they are afraid to make one false move, ya know, they are waiting for more instructions from the tv man, on high. They believe anything they're told, s'long as it comes from the rich TV millionaire. I'm kinda like, the opposite of that, I'm more like George Carlin. I still think for myself and presume I don't know the half of it, how bad the secret cults at the top are fucking us over, and preparing, in secret, to fuck us over some more. I never think they are doing anything for my benefit. They are doing shit for their big owl statue in the woods, ya know? They are fuckin' creeps. I'm losing my teeth, it's horrifying, and no millionaire ex-friends, or distant relatives, or sexy shitlib pinup politicians are coming to my rescue with any real fight for free healthcare or bullshit higher miseducation. They are too busy sucking up the champagne with the creepy "Eyes Wide Shut" swells, and waging needless wars, and torturing dissident journalists, and slandering anti war college professors. That's some fucked up shit. "Hey man, I don't feel like goin' to school NOOO MORE!"
BIG 3 AND JOYA MAGICA
"I wanna be wild and free again..."
I never understood why 60 FT DOLLS never made it big in the states-they toured alot and were on Geffen, opened for the Pistols at a big reunion show in the park. They had some intensely devoted fans who wrote for English tabloids, they dated a chick from Elastica, helped Dido and Duffy get famous, but the records never sold, so that was that. The Stereophonics and Manic Street Preachers and Super Furry Animals and Catatonia all seemed to catch fire with at least some big city hipsters, even in the states, but these three marvelously talented Welsh rocknrollas made some real catchy, upbeat, energizing rock music that was equal parts mod and reckless drunken pop-rockin' pub crawlin, bar brawlin', debaucherous late night carousers. I had a job at a smalltown record store that year and personally sold 100 copies, some to kids who went on to form popular Sonics/Yardbirds influenced garage bands. Richard J. Parfitt, Michael Cole, and Carl Bevan made two absolutely glorious records, "The Big 3" and "Joya Magica", and I just always saw them as kindred spirits, was always rooting for a reunion, maybe there was acrimony, I dunno, it's said that they drank alot. "Happy Shopper", "Stay", "Alison's Room", "Pig Valentine", "Back To The Summer! I really loved all their songs. Hit after hit. "Big 3" was a perfect rocknroll record. I love you, Big 3! Get in touch, let's do an interview, alrite?! The rest of you give 'em a spin next time you're enjoying some adult beverages and let me know what you think. Underrated pop motherfuckery, par excellence. Stars, in my eyes!
SUBVERT THEIR MONOPOLY, BE THE MEDIA
For me, this magical song is the very essence of highly perfected pop/rock teenage antheming. The Church, the Alarm, Flesh For Lulu, Lords, Godfathers. Those were the bands. I tried and tried my little heart out to convene a stable lineup of defiant pop rebels over here in the USA! USA!, but ya know man, everybody was chasing money like their parents and schools had trained them to, so by say, age 27, all the ex punks had graduated and bought vehicles and were concentrating on paying off that student debt and makin' payments on a sofa and a girl. I continued mopping floors and washing dishes, sometimes I'd find some idle musicians and co write a big stack of songs with 'em but forever lacking a proper label, hometown support network, or financial backing, they'd endup splitting with the tunes, making it hard for me to wanna let down my guard, again. You might know the Beasts Of Bourbon song, "Not Gonna Try No More". That's how I felt, for about 23 years, now. The imitation songs and zombies of death and trust funded gluttons with all the fancy gear but nothing to say, just waste people's time, but ya know, they all been hoodwinked by their conditioning and pig-media juggernaut of lies and fear programming. When the Church sang about rifles for minds and eyes like cameras, I used to think they just meant like, cruel middle school gossip girls and go along to get along follower rubes, and richkid bullies and hissing critics, but man, now it's like entire populations are programmed to be like that-just obediently robotic soldier slave, Amazon shopping, slogan repeaters.
I can still remember all the macho swaggering dumbfuck high school football players all cocked around with their stupid haircuts and golf shirts, pretending to be Mavericks and Icemen, ya know and here comes, Tom "Show Me The Money" Cruise with more "Top Gun" pro war programming, man, that kinda sucks. I saw that "VAL" documentary, being as how "Tombstone" is one of my fave movies, and it was a real gut wrenching story-def. worth seeing if you are a tv person. Hell, I ended up sending Kilmer a supportive e-mail, thanking him for his compassion, solidarity, bravery and artistic integrity-something so rare in these years of anti-music industry evil, and secret society control of the media monopoly mockingbird monolith. Fuck that Kenny Loggins "Danger Zone" bullshittery. When hokey-pokey tequila mooks Van Hagar put airforce planes in their "Dreams" video, man that made me revile them even more. Yeah, I know Roth's a hawk. Airforce planes in your video, though. Man, what the fuck?! Most people in modern society never even contemplate how they get that paycheck, no one cares if someone is a did nothing fortune inheritor, or killer, or a drug dealer, or a propaganda whore, so long as they have money, they are "in". Ya know, you have to laugh at these DNC controlled media mouthpieces who call anyone like Aaron Mate or Glenn Greenwald, who questions police state globalist war narratives, the "propagandists", while simultaneously cashing gigantic checks to ACTUALLY serve as literal propagandists for a living.
Mercifully, if I wake up early enough to get some quiet time to myself, somedays, I can escape into these old songs by the Church, and recall what it felt like to be really present and alert and on my way somewhere. I can just bask in their old pop and new wave songs for hours. What real riches are like! The Church were like a Fort Knox of golden melodies and hot pink poetic lyrics. It is too hot and smoky from wildfires to be outside today so I'm reading the last third of a book my good friend gave me about the Manic Street Preachers and thinking about the ghosts of absent friends who I can not reunite with. I always held forth for decades that someday my old group and I would reconvene at our hometown record store and play all the hits for our surviving constituents, return to the studio, lay down new protest songs, but the loyalists are dead or impossibly marginalized, and summa the others joined the empire. It's like 1000 arrows in the back, a non stop spear to the side. I never got over any of it. As Chrissie Hynde sang: "Some things you never outgrow..."
SOPHIE B. GOOD
Damn, yo, I love this song, "...Wish I Was Your Lover..." like a motherfucker. Prince was the greatest and Dirty Mind/Controversy/1999 changed my life forever, but by the time he was making money from "Batdance" and shit, much of his work became rather assembly line, I was listening to summa the stuff he gave to Martika and Jill Jones and Carmen Elektra and Ingrid Chavez and noting how even he was capable of half hearted product generating. It is heartbreaking how dubious the story of his death was, and that his ashes were overnight installed at Paisley Palace and the estate started serving booze on the property against his wishes, and hassling Morris, and releasing stuff like "Moon Levels", against his wishes. Dick Gregory said they killed him for the billions.
When I was a kid, I was always into stuff like Zapp and the System, by the early '90s, though, the evil empire had even commodified the funk, there were all those hack rappers pouring champagne offa boats, I did not dig the capitalist rap shit, at all. I need the songwriters to dig deep and show me something genuine. That's why I was so stunned by all the emotion that Sophie B. Hawkins broad invested into her Prince like cat call. No one in any of my ill-fated glam bands was anywhere near this funky and soulful, not even me, but ya know, maybe not even Teena Marie. I thought that this was some heartfelt, next level, real songwriting, like Prince or Phoebe Legere. Of course, I had some long lost love I was still fixated on when this jam was on the mandatory Tower Records in-store playlist, but even here in my old age of 52 ½, I can basically still play this song like ten times in a row and feel it everytime. To me, this is what real songwriting is. Yeah it's mainstream as fuck, but mainstream with soulful feeling and truth, ala early Brandi Carlysle. "I'll free your mind and you won't be ashamed..."
SCARRED FOR LIFE
People in this modern society make some kneejerk, bullshit, short sighted, wrong headed moves, but have all learned they never need to be sorry, particularly if they are fucking over someone poorer than themself. Capitalist property owners never admit wrong. I used to be online friends with this seemingly radical and righteous broad and we liked all the same music and had almost all the same political beliefs and venerated role models, that was, until she told me to shutup and not have an opinion one day, abruptly, outta nowhere, because I am not female. Man, that was some harsh and unexpected, go to the back of the bus, safespace classroom, rank pulling, holier than thou bullshit, with the silencing and one dimensionalising and body/hue stereotyping, but it was a sadly typical side effect of the rightwing think tanks like Rand corporation who have so thoroughly infiltrated academia, hijacking the once righteous lingo of genuine civil rights and solidarity movements, and corralling all the safespace college people into all that divisive phony-baloney, tiny wedge of pie chart, college identity-politricks.
It was sad she chose to end our rapport so crassly and unexpectedly, cause I had previously totally respected her. She was the one who first gave me the bad news that one of my ex-idols, Angry Anderson, had become a rightwinger, but I'll tell you this: some of his songs still totally speak to and for me and my experiences, and I've often told friends that "Scarred For Life" and "Rock 'n' roll Outlaw" are what they should play when my credits roll, at the end of the film. "The rebel had lost his teenage queen..." Those songs mean every thing to somebody like me. Maybe they are wrong about some other shit, but when I hear those songs, there is no lie in them!
"I was in love for keeps, that time...but rocknroll was still on my mind..." makes me think of the four and a halfish years I spent with my middle children's mother, before she ditched me on the side of the road. Man, oh man, I lived that shit. More than twice. This whole journey has been just like that. I'll tell ya one of the worst things that happen, when you are a signed on for life, rocknroll motherfucker's when your former cohorts get all dazzle drunk on delusions of smalltime smallpond, middle school lunchroom popularity, with the posers and yesmen entrouge and instant faux fame and jump the shark, defecting to some lameass gentrification tribute bands, just cause they got some money. Around the time of American Heartbreak and Black Halos' ascent, I'd regrettably reconnected with some past associates and gotten back to creating some real cool sounds, that were right there, in that sweet spot, in between those two band's sounds, perfect for the moment, but my dudes suddenly mutinied again, so all that momentum and investment was wasted while they chased the latest thang. Their yesmen entrouges all told 'em it was the right thing to do. For popularity, and that is the only religion, the highest principle, of the middle class. You know that song "Nobody's Scared" by Subway Sect? That's what I felt, at the time. Just crushed, cause I'd really believed in the strength of the unfinished collaboration. We would have been poised for good things after that. I wrote a song about it no one's ever heard called "The Other Half". Still kills me. But ya know, I know my song ain't as good as Subway Sect or Rose Tattoo.
People who are willing to use you or mislead you, or lose you or take credit for your stuff, drop the ball, let the team down, forget to keep you in the loop, whatever, do not care if you are down on the street, or losing custody of your kids, or teeth, they just shrug and smile and say to themselves you "shoulda been" born richer, inherited a house, gone to college, learned to fight dirtier, married up, or whatever. You shoulda done this or that. It's a cut throat culture in the states, nobody cares about art or soul, AT ALL, they just wanna get famous and Own Stuff.
If you ever see somebody clocking your creative processes, while cataloging your flaws and failures, they are probably planning on fucking you over and compiling some justifications about why that's supposedly okey dokey. If your mutuals inform you they keep repeating some narrative about your alleged shortcomings, past fuckups, high phonebills you compensated them for 100 years ago, or rumored character defects, particularly, if it's to your employer or collaborators, their next move will be adding your exes to their social media. Garden variety Judas goats and jealous dogs. Dime a dozen. Move on and don't go back.
It's probably not their fault-this society always rewards treachery and backstabbing. It's how they were raised. Maybe they just don't know better. Mya Angelou said people do better, once they know better. I dunno, anymore. Cats like Ken Kesey and Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin, Joe Strummer and Bill Hicks believed you could raise people's consciousness through song or example. Man, one dude I believed in and repeatedly housed when he had no place to go, he took a portion of his inheritance and paid for an asskiss associate of ours to record a cover of my song at the overpriced ultra-fat fratboy recording studio. Man, what the fuck, what the hell? He had another kid, a drug dealing grunge boy, singing covers of my songs to ice cream blondes in suburban sports bars. I never understood. Gave up on people. Weak minded followers are always gonna say it's okey doke for more powerful people to ripoff or betray less powerful people, if ya know, it's in the sacred name of popularity, of becoming ever more pay to play "popular" in some mediocre gentrification karaoke zipcode. A dude started copyrighting my shit, ex'ing me out of the picture. 'Had some dames split for monied celebrity classers, even though they knew those dudes were not cool, kind, genuine, or honorable in any way. It's a mad world. I lost faith in human beings. I don't get involved with 'em too often anymore.
Everyone is a prostitute
Singing a song in prison
Moral standards, the wallpaper
The wall is a bad religion
Media teach me what to speak
Take my decisions
It's how to find your inner self
Time on the television
No one knows what they're for
No one even cares
We shout publicity hand-outs
Nobody's scared
The language we use
Is it what we want?
Does it not project the false?
Subject to objects journeys
Mean that a word loses course
We're talking in clichés
Betray yourself for money
Having is more than being now
"Nobody's Sorry" - Subway Sect
You're gonna meet some people on your journey who are incapable of loving you back, they just look at you and assess what they can take from you, how to liquidate your friendship and turn it into some kinda object or leverage. Capitalists gonna capitalize. I've taken a stand for an outlaw's life.
"Today's the kinda day when I'd call Paul K., but all the heroes came to pass, we were up against the wall motherfuckers, I'm the last of the last of the last of the last..." - J.D.
I'M JUST HANGIN' ON BY THE LENGTH OF MY NOSE
Nobody knows about Rowland S. Howard in the states, lotsa pretentious pricks will talk about Ole Nick, but almost nobody talks about Rowland. I discovered him in a big, drafty rent controlled apartment in Cambridge, Ma in the early nineties via a very kind and generous folky girl who loved the Jacobites and Bob Dylan. Rowland was so good, he changed my entire standard of what acceptable songwriting was, kinda like how the L.A. poet, Rich Ferguson later reminded me what real poetry was like. Rowland S. Howard was so smart and soulful and gifted and hauntingly, dauntingly gorgeous. Maybe as tortured as my self. Somebody wrote a book about him, but I have no money. I fuckin love that guy so much. Thank God for Rowland S. Howard. I personally identify with all his songs. This one might be my favorite, though. I think he's approximately as good as Leonard Cohen times Chris Isaak and the Gun Club.
