The Tribune has the story.

I knew Jay a bit (John was my boyfriend at the time) during his Wilco years, my favorite Wilco years; the Jay years.

Straight-ahead guitar-rock Wilco will always be my Wilco: Monday, I Got You (At the End of the Century), Outtasite (Outta Mind), I even loved Summerteeth, which almost no one did. And while Spiders (Kidsmoke) is definitely on my top 100 of all time [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Apparently, all shameless self-promotion all the time... which means no list for you this week folks. In part because what actually has been playing at Outlandos HQ, nonstop, is our little labor of love, The Daily Dose. Click the big ole fat white arrow below to hear today's two songs, in sequence. You'll see. It's kind of like bite-sized, old-school radio. Heads up that while listening, you can also purchase the songs via Amazon or iTunes (when available) by clicking their respective icons. For more info about each song/artist/album [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Dear Lameass Tweeps (self included),

You narcissistic bores. 140 characters or less (you'd think the limit would force creativity) and still the mundane prevails:

@lefsetz: Passing through Mohave

@oprah: Headed to Maya's for dinner

@outlandosmusic: Star Trek here we come!

#YAWN.

But still, we keep at it... a challenge, a game of sorts: can one be consistently compelling in so few words?

Just in case any of us presumed self-indulgent thought pollution was limited to the young & hip... Nielsen's recent poll has 49% of Twits 35+ equally bedazzled by the truncated screen and it's willy-nilly, up-to-the-minute broadcast ennui. Fascinating. Wisdom still doesn't necessarily come with age nor, apparently, with short, concise language (a.k.a. less vs. more).

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Does musical genius = nuttier than a free pecan nut log with every gas fill-up at Stuckeys?

Well, maybe you're a wee bit too young to remember Stuckeys, so I'll just give you a brief description of the place: Stuckeys was a really crappy souvenir shop that posed as a roadside eating joint.  Oh, yeah: they also had a gas station outside for folks to get one of their pecan nut logs when you filled up your tank.  They also disappeared after the '70s (along with the mood ring)--so don't feel bad that you missed all that because I can tell you as a fact: The '70s sucked!  Anyhoo, back to the musical-genius thing ...

Enter Phil Spector.  The infamous studio genius cranked out some killer songs between cranking back the trigger on the gun he held on various musicians, like the Ramones, and perhaps his lovely singing wife, Ronnie Spector.  Phil was all crazy and power-tripping in the studio but never actually shot anyone--that is, until recently, when he got drunk, took a B-movie actress/waitress back to his fancy home, put a gun to her head, and killed the poor unsuspecting woman.  Whether it was by accident in one of his manic episodes or not, he's finally getting locked up.  Found guilty of murder, the guy's serving time for his crime.  A very sad story, indeed.

How does that saying go:  Insanity is one step away from genius?  And Phil sure had some insane wigs on during his courtroom time.  Brian Wilson seemed crazy as a loon when after far too many acid trips, he took his fat ass to bed to live in, eating popsicles while he composed the brilliant "Pet Sounds" for the Beach Boys.  And that is the best album that band ever did.  Genius.  I'm glad Brian Wilson never killed anyone ... just a few hundred brain cells.

Then there are everybody's favorite nutlogs, I mean "Musical Genius" pair: Syd Barrett and Roky Erickson.

Syd fronted and composed for The Pink Floyd way before leaving the group to go solo and the other members became four geezers, a lasershow and a pig balloon - ha!  That band was just a boring (though far more popular) rock group by the name of "Pink Floyd."  But The Pink Floyd created a brilliant psychedelic classic album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn."  That record is a gemstone amongst the asscrap of the '70s.  In it, Barrett had clever, spacey lyrics about gnomes and a strange fellow named Arnold Layne.

Of course, young, trippy Syd was known to crush up handfuls of Mandrax and Brylcream to melt into his hair and stand completely silent in front of his audience as the drugs seeped into his skin.  That's some crazy shit, huh?!  Well, that and dropping acid like it was candy, too.

When all the Floyd fans were dying to hear the band's pop hit "See Emily Play," Syd did not appease them.  Intead, the loopy singer stood there like a statue pissing them off.  That's a hell of a punk act to pull off.

Syd left The Pink Floyd to do his own thing, which was seriously hit-or-miss territory.  But, no matter how scattered Barrett's ideas came off on his solo recordings, they're sure more interesting than anything off that "Dark Side of the Moon," which is more than influenced by Barrett's genius.  ("The lunatic is on the grass-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s" ... what a load!).  Sadly, Syd stopped making recordings--about everything from an "Effervescing Elephant" to a "Vegetable Man"--after a few sessions, shaved his head, and lived in seclusion with his mother until recently passing away.

Last up: a young kid named Roky Erickson from Texas, who didn't dress up all fancy and mod like them English boys making weird music.  Roky looked like a gas-pump jockey and so did his band, The 13th Floor Elevators.

With an intensely garage-y rock vocal and crazy harmonica playing, his debut album, "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators," was one animalistic slab of wax.  Like Syd, Roky dropped more than his fair share of hallucinogens and was said to have mental illness.  Erickson was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, forcibly spent a bit of time in a loony bin and got involuntary shock treatments.  Roky's still kickin' out there, but his performances are not all together, musically or mentally.  After he left the Elevators and went solo, his songs of romantic abandonment (a theme he'd earlier visited in such tunes as "You're Gonna Miss Me") took a comic-book turn ("I Walked with a Zombie").  This new, horror-fantasy tone, on the surface "safe" pop-rock, actually reflected Roky's state of mind at the time: in 1982, he asked a Notary Public to sign off on an affadavit officially declaring that a Martian had taken up residence in his body.

All these cats influenced many artists, so they must be doing something right!  Let's hear it for those wild & crazy guys, the musical geniuses.  Would you like a free alien implanted into your head with that tank fill-up, sir?

John Stabb was the frontman for the legendary harDCore punk outfit Government Issue. When not blogging for BLURT, he currently serves as frontman for Sleeper Agent. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/sleeperagentdc     

Musta been the late 80's or early 90's....my partner Mark and I took a trip up to Oklahoma City to look for records. Most of the day we hit various Flea Markets with pretty good success. Multiple sealed copies of Guiness and Tomorrow label LP's, about 20 sealed copies of the Markley LP, and alot more, most of them at $1.00 each.

Our last stop of the day was a place called The Memory Market, which is still there today. It's a large metal building that housed about 10-15 various antique dealers who specialized in "junk". The back 1/3^rd of the building was run by two elderly women who dealt in nothing but records. Tens of thousands of records, LP's and 45's. We started digging in and it was apparent that we were the first ones to go through this stuff who were looking for what we were looking for. The first hour yielded titles like Badge & Co. a very beat up copy of The Marble Phrogg, Darius, Trizo-50 and many more.

The market was going to close at 6:00 and it was about 5:45 when I came across an amazing looking record titled "The Psycho-Delic Sounds Of Jr. & The Soulettes". The cover was a "10" with Jr.  playing a Gibson Firebird behind his head while doing a split on the stage. I called Mark over, we pulled out the little Big Bird record player we carried with us and put the LP on to give it a spin. It was beyond warped, totally destroyed with only about 20% of the surface area being playable.....enough though for us to know we had found a MONSTER, yet bizarre LP. Mark pointed out that it had an Oklahoma City address on the back.

We paid for all the LP's and headed straight for the pay phone in front of the place. We looked in the phone book and sure enough, we found a Harold Moore Jr. & Sr. at the same address. I called the number and was greeted by something that could only be described as sub-human animal sounds.....Uhhhhhoooerrruggyhg....I could not make out a single english word this guy might be uttering. Then a second party picked up another line and told "Jr." to hang up. It was Harold Moore Sr. and he was one very friendly guy.

It was late winter and by 6:00 it was starting to get dark, yet Hariold Sr. invited Mark and I over to his house with the promise that "I have a whole suitcase filled with those old rekkids, you fellas come on over". We got directions and began to drive to the house......it wasn't long before we realized we were going to the worst part of OKC.

In the South it's pretty well known that if you live near the railroad tracks or by the river, you're probably in the bad part of town. The Moore house was built on stilts, with the river on one side and the railroad tracks on the other. We parked, went to the front door and rang the bell.....no answer. Then we knocked on the door pretty hard.....again, no answer. mark walked around to the side of the house and followed some very loud "Disco" music to a room in the back of the house. He looked inside and saw Harold Sr.  sitting in front of a column of amps and receivers that were producing this very bass heavy music. he banged on the window, got Mr. Moore's attention and he waved for us to go back to the front door.

Harold Sr. opened the front door and acted as if we were long lost friends...he quickly invited us in while yelling up the stairs at "Jr." while apologizing to us for his "effed up son". He brought us back into the "music" room and it was pretty bizarre. In the middle of the room stood a camera on a tri-pod. In each corner of the room that the camera was facing were little triangular stages built into the floor with a full length piece of plexiglas from floor to ceiling in front of each "stage". The stage was about large enough for one person to stand on.

Mark was an electronics engineer and in an attempt to start a conversation he asked Mr. Moore if he had the "schematics" for this contraption he had built out of about 20 amps and receivers. His response was "Schematics!! I just found this stuff in the garbage and makes it". Our goal was to get some LP's and get back to Dallas but Harold had alot to talk about and wanted us to stay.

After being there about 15 minutes Harold says..."You boys wanna see my puppet"!! How do you answer that question to a grown man??  Of course we said "Sure!!"....He opened his drawer and pulled out a puppet made out of a sock. You know, one of those winter socks that they make "Sock Monkey's" out of. "This here is my snake" and I'll be damned the thing had a hat that could not be described as anything but a "Pimp" hat and a big fat set of lips.

He then went on to explain that everything in the room was set up for the puppet....the music, the camera, the stages. He also explained that all his grandkids loved the puppet but he couldn't tell them about the puppet's "night life". He then pulled out a video, put it into a VCR and began to show us just what the puppet was all about. Before I attempt to explain what we saw I have to say that this moment was surely the most surreal in my life and I'd have given anything to have had a camera as I knew I would have to repeat what I saw and that no one would believe it.

The video starts off with that same bass heavy, thumping, Disco music and the pimp puppet "dancing" to the beat. Then a black woman, a naked black woman comes into the frame and begins to dance with the puppet. This goes on for about 5 minutes with the puppet doing various obscene things to what appears to be this super-imposed naked woman. The video stops, a new song starts to play and now the puppet starts dancing with a different, nude, black woman. Friggin' Amazing!!!

After about 10 minutes we've seen enough and tell Mr. Moore that we have to be going. Harold then explains at Mark's request just how he makes these movies. On a Friday or Saturday night Harold usually goes out and picks up a hooker. Not for sex, but to dance with the puppet. The naked hooker stands behind the plexiglas in one corner of the room while Mr. Moore operates the puppet behind the second piece of plexiglas in the opposite corner. The way the camera is set up on the tripod, it is able to not only record the puppet, but uses the plexiglas to make a reflection of the woman in the opposite corner so he gets the effect that they are actually dancing together!!! GENIUS!!!!

Getting down to business we asked for the LP's promising to pay him some big bucks. He goes into a closet and drags out a very old and beat up suitcase. He opens the suitcase which is FILLED with sleeveless 45's. Not an LP to be seen. "Oh you boys are looking for those BIG rekkids" he said....."I don't have any of those, they were all ruined". Needless to say we were disappointed but we bought a few of the 4 different 45's from him, two of them being non-LP cuts.  Harold apologized for not having any of the LP's and told this story.....

He had 4 children, Jr. and his three sisters who had been abandoned by their alcoholic Mom. Harold Sr. worked for a very rich Jewish woman who took a liking to the kids and bought them musical instruments and paid for lessons(This explains the Gibson Firebird).  She made the kids a deal that if they learned how to play at least 3 songs she would get them a slot on some local TV Telethon. The kids took to music very quickly and within a year were appearing on local TV. The response was so good that the woman paid for them to record an LP but suggested they write "original" songs.

This is where Harold Sr. comes in, writing all the songs that appear on the LP, with most of them being attacks on the drunken and supposedly abusive ex-Mrs. Moore......"Mama drinks Tequila, She stays drunk all the time"......once the LP was recorded and pressed the next step was to get them in the local record stores. At least one store told Mr. Moore that they could not stock them unless they were shrink wrapped. Harold went to a butcher shop where his brother worked and used their shrinkwrap machine to seal the LP's....unfortunately this was a high heat machine and he melted every single LP in the process. This wasn't discovered until someone bought one and brought it home....all the LP's were pulled from the stores and rather than re-press it, the woman decided to release some 45's.

The 45's themselves are a work of art....with photos of each of the kids heads on the label....very home made and cheesy looking. As Mark and I were leaving the Moore's home he asked for two favors.  One was to write to the Guinness World Book Of Records and request that his kids be put in as "The youngest group to make an LP and play their own instruments" which we did to no avail. The second was to never tell his grandkids what we saw the puppet doing...which has not been a problem to uphold.

No matter how well I told that story there is no way you can begin to understand just how weird it was. If I ever win the lottery this will be just one chapter in a film I'd like to make about some of the folks I've met in this wacky world of music....hope you enjoyed.

P.S. The day after we got home I made a cassette of the LP and a xerox of the cover and sent it to legendary Psych dealer Paul Major. Paul truly thoughtthat I had made this whole thing up and that there was NO WAY an LP like that existed......he eventually believed me.

I have two big music regrets in my life.

The first: in 1994, I blew off a buddy who wanted to go check out this new punk band from California playing a tiny show in Pittsburgh. Despite the fact that it was a couple of guys from Operation Ivy and he ended up drinking with them all night, I turned down the chance to see an early version of Rancid to cover a show for my college paper. The band I opted for? Hootie and the f-ing Blowfish. Awesome!

The second: I had a crush on a girl that lasted all of about three weeks and opted to go see The B-52s ("Love Shack" era) and Ziggy Marley with her and some friends, rather than watch The Replacements and Tom Petty play. The Replacements turned out a couple more albums than decided to call it a day, ensuring I would likely never see them perform live. The B-52's however, play just about every outdoor festival imaginable. I wouldn't be surprised if they were playing at the park down the street when I take my daughter over there later tonight.

Which brings me to reunions. It's the summer music festival season. The time when concert promoters throw truck loads of money at fractured bands in the hopes they can get them to put aside years of bitter feelings and online feuds long enough to run through a few classics on stage, before heading over to the bank.

Despite constant rumors that The Smiths would be getting back together for a set at Coachella this year, they didn't.  Apparently Morrissey remembered that he once said something about rather eating his own testicles than reforming the group. Those who have reunited recently - though no word on whether eating testicles was part of the deal - inc

lude Faith No More, The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus Lizard and Blur.

Christ, even bands like Creed, No Doubt and Blink-182-who have each been broken up, what a few years? - are getting back together. At least give us a chance to decide whether or not we want to miss you before you come barging back into our lives.

Even the New York Dolls managed to bury the hatchet in 2004, after a 27-year break, and ha ve kept it together beyond traditional reunion tour cash grab and have turned out a couple of new albums, including the just released  "'Cause I Sez So." That still leaves a slew of punk bands who have yet to reform.

* Top of the list is The Replacements. Guitarist Bob Stinson died in 1995 and longtime/original drummer Chris Mars left before the band officially called it quits and has sworn on several occasions that he would not be part of a reunion. Paul Westerberg and bassists Tommy Stinson however have each hinted at the idea of at least one more show.

* The Clash. Sadly not an option since Joe Strummer died in 2002 of a congenital heart defect. If surviving members Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon did ever decide to resurrect the band with some half-assed Joe Strummer sound-alike (kinda like the 20^th Century Doors) expect rioting in the streets that would make the '99 WTO protests seem like a middle school dance in comparison.

* Black Flag. A reunion of Black Flag is actually not that unrealistic. The band got together for a few benefit shows in 2003 and Henry Rollins has been in some unbelievably crappy movies since leaving the band, proving he'd be up for anything (Anyone see "Jack Frost" or "Wrong Turn 2: Dead End"?) But does anyone really want to see a bunch of 50-somethings playing classic Black Flag songs? Yeah, I probably do too.

* Operation Ivy. With only one full length to their name, Op Ivy managed to influence a whole generation of punks. Though Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman went on to form Rancid, the fact that both have managed to find time for solo records and side projects, and the lack of any real acrimony between band members makes an Operation Ivy reunion a possibility. Though front man Jesse Michaels dismissed reunion rumors two years ago, citing logistics and a vague reference to lawyers.

* The Sex Pistols. Reunion? They won't go away! The band had one proper album (fantastic as it was,) and imploded. But Johnny Rotten - when not appearing on celebrity realty shows or in butter commercials - still manages to round up the lot for the occasional bank heist... I mean reunion tours (1996, 2002-2003, 2007 and any day now).

Music worth listening to this week:

Electric Owls - Ain't Too Bright

Chris Wollard and the Ship Thieves - self titled

http://www.driveinmovie.com/OK.htm

The music and the sounds of my upbringing will be with me as they always have been.

They have remained inside me since I first saw the wild buffalo roaming on the plains of Oklahoma. I once could see what the Indians could see: the flat belly of fields spewing oil, wet from blood, not naked but derelict, huddled in the debris that the white man salvaged for them.

In Oklahoma, when my heart first heard music-or rather, first listened to what music would become-I saw what replaced the Indian dreams.

In the distance, the pull of the giant screens emerging from the flat earth like the stones of Easter Island-another mystery I have no time for-lured me daily. I could not drive past them with my preacher father and teacher mother without hoping that, the next night, under the dark sky covered with yellow stars, I could catch a glimpse of giant red lips or the bare leg of a monstrous goddess.

The drive-ins calmed the plains while the buffalo roamed behind the screens staring in to the bright lights of the automobile. My family's pink Mercury station wagon rolled over the bumps, blinding these ancient creatures, parking weekly at night in front of the images reaching toward God.

What god, the Indians would ask?

Before I heard music, the gods were Walt Disney, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jerry Lewis. The images of their films projected out into the universe of Oklahoma, over the beat-up convertibles and flat-tops and crewcut haircuts, through the dark peace that only the Indian knew-and that I had heard once. What an unearthly peacefulness it was then: challenged only by the drive-ins and oil and fading cowboys.

I have not known such peace since then.

Guest Post this week from Bree Sharp (remember Bree?) whose new project with Outlandos darling Don DiLego, Beautiful Small Machines, came as a surprise to even them. It's fun. It's pop. It's dance. Apparently, it's even humpy. And they even got Simon Le Bon to hop in on it. No kidding. Take it away Bree...

Dear Closet Door Frame Humpers,

Although you may be humping the door frame of your closet, I am, however, referring to the clandestine nature of your habit, and not the location of it. You may be humping your closet door frame, your kitchen door frame, bathroom door frame, the door frame of your neighbor's attic, or favorite local restaurant vestibule door frame; either way, you're out there and you know what you're doing. And i'll tell you something...

I'm into it.

Big time.

So much so that I'm currently making a comprehensive documentary on the subject and using some of the footage for my next video.

Because I know that late at night, when Master Shake, Xander Crews, and Jan and Wayne Skylar have gone to bed... Or early in the morning when the first of five daily showings of "A Few Good Men" is starting to air on TBS... Or midday when you can hear Spanish radio drifting into your room from cars driving by four stories down as the first of spring's breezes blows in... I know you're thinking about it. Splinters be damned!

But you know, I'm not here to judge. I'm going gray and i still use Proactiv. So what can I say? It's an imperfect world. However, I can share with you this:

So far my research shows that while little is known about you, DFH (Door Frame Humper) and your growing phenomenon, it is thought that the humping is not necessarily sexual in nature and is mostly executed while the humper is, in fact, clothed It is also thought that age does not play a role in determining who will be a DFH and that participants are reported to be as young as pre-adolescents and as old as nonagenarians. Duration of the hump seems to be indiscriminate as well and can last anywhere from a few seconds to several hours (although the latter is supposedly much more rare and thought only to be present among DFH's who are single or unemployed).

My thought for today: research what the cow's milk (that is meant to turn a 50 pound calf into a 400 pound cow in 60 days) is doing to your body. And then maybe ask yourself how much space you think one chicken needs from another chicken before they start pecking each other out of madness. And when the answers blow your mind, go hump a door frame. But you know, it's just a thought...

For the DFH neophyte i've compiled the following small list of "Music- To-Hump-Door-Frames-To" suggestions: [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Presbyterian guilt and random ruminating...

By Coco Hames

I can outdrink everyone in the Casbah like Marian in Indiana Jones.  But what does that mean?  What higher level have I reached?  Is this an accomplishment?  Should I be proud?  Sometimes I am proud.  But the resulting hangovers can keep me in bed all day.  All day.  Today, for instance.  All I was able to do was slowly read a pamphlet on cooking classes.  And that's it.  All day.  Because yesterday I got up really early to go to church, a feat I accomplish once every year, usually at a different church in a different city, which invariably results in a night of heavy drinking.

I was raised Presbyterian in the south, and that's pretty good, because I can roll with it.  My best friend was Catholic, and I was fascinated by the differences in our churches and prayers and ceremonies, but I never wanted to go with her to her church, because I thought it was totally creepy.  I hate ceremony.  I hate dressing up and performing creepy rituals, especially with other people.  I've even been married, and made sure that went down with little more than a handshake in front of our parents.  I just really can't be bothered. 

So yesterday, I went to a church in Nashville that was supposedly "cool people church", a term I throw around to represent everything from liberal theological studies in Los Angeles to various Unitarian services around the south.  And I ended up with this really nice group of people at a chapel, shined up with a cold biscuit, prepared for some cool people churchery.  And it started fine, I wasn't too fidgety, even though nowhere in the program did it mention "Christ the Lord is Risen Today", the best Easter hymn ever.  My mom even said yesterday, "I was humming it while I was brushing my teeth this morning!"  But then I noticed that that wasn't the only difference from what I was used to. 

I looked over the program some more.  There were words.  Catholic-y words.  Ceremony-y words.  "Eucharist".  "Communion"... It was about to get real ceremonial, real quick.  So I shuffled out of my pew as quietly as I could (which was not at all quietly, because nothing is quieter than church, and no one is more clumsy and accidentally noisy than me) and totally bailed.  Bailed!  On Easter!  The one day of the year I try to behave and do anything moral and normal! 

But then I went to the zoo, which is way more my kind of church, especially the petting zoo, where I chatted up the keeper on Nubian goats.  They'd be good goats for me.  And then, this sheepie pulled a trick on me.  I was petting this sheep, and he started breathing really heavily and quickly, like he was overheated.  He was of course covered in wool, and it was sunny out.  So I thought, oh no, is he sick?  Should I go find somebody?  And I put my head up to his body and listened.  I heard gurgling.  Loud gurgling.  And of course I knew it right before he did it.  Sheep are ruminants and he was just ruminating, and he burped in my face, it was fuuuuucking gross.

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes - Hames on guitar, Jem Cohen on bass and Poni Silver on drums - whose latest album Look At Life Again Soon (Take Root) is still a hot item, and they also have a new EP, Danger Is, released by Take Root on April 7 and also available digitally, www.myspace.com/theettes), and a Dan Auerbach-produced limited-edition single. They are currently ruminating upon their next full-length, but meanwhile, they  head overseas later this month for a European tour.

[Ettes photo by Heidi Ross]

Ten-year Old Kids with Mohawks

You know what's cool about a 10-year-old kid sporting a Mohawk?

Not a damn thing.

At the risk of coming off like a 30-something Andy Rooney, I'm going to start off this blog with a rant and a final plea to save punk rock. The argument I'm putting forward is certainly not new, but worth being made at least one last time.

I was at an outdoor festival in Atlanta this weekend and lost count of how many pre-teens I saw walking around with Mohawks and Ramones shirts. When did punk become just another accessory for the Sponge Bob set? Mohawks and anarchy symbols used to scare the crap out of parents, now they're just another cute look for little Dylan and Kara, by couples desperate to be thought of as the cool parents (and don't think I haven't been there. I have two little girls and my wife was the only voice of reason that kept me from buying Sex Pistols onsies off of Ebay). And putting a Clash sticker on the back of your minivan doesn't make it any more cool to be seen in (again, I speak from experience).

 Trust me; it's safe for old punks to age gracefully. Not all of us can tour the world in shitty vans and make great music. Leave that to your heroes. Keep rocking the boat in your chinos and changing the system from the inside, but don't try and turn your kids into a punk rock mannequin to prove how cool you still are. 

Which brings me to my second rant... as a freelancer punk writer, I am about to throw my hands up in defeat. Born in the early 70's and coming of age in quite possibly the worst time in the history for music (hair metal anyone?), I withstood the auditory assault of bands like Danger Danger and Pretty Boy Floyd for years before finding salvation in the music of Bad Religion, The Buzzcocks and The Clash. For the past two decades or so I've kept up with the evolving music scene, watching punk move from basement shows and VFW halls to arenas (not necessarily a bad thing). What once was a mail order business is now neatly packaged and priced inside your local Hot Topics (again, not the end of the world. Punk rockers deserve to make money too). You used to discover new punk bands thanks to poorly dubbed tapes passed on from a friend; Now you can hear "punk rock" on The Hills (ok, nothing good can come of that).  The most jarring change, however, is what is currently being peddled as punk rock. I am certainly open to all genres of music (I, for one, am lobbying for Willie Nelson be added to Mount Rushmore), but I have a problem with the bait and switch tactics being perpetrated by publicists and record labels lately.

If you make pop music, be proud of it and call yourself a pop band. Punk rock was a reaction to crappy, bloated corporate rock of the 70's (Styx, Journey, etc.). It railed against oppressive authority figures, racism, sexism and homophobia. It was not 12 mediocre songs about high school crushes on your self-titled debut, with liberal use of Auto-tune , currently being peddled under the guise of "pop-punk". It was about rebelling against the status quo, wearing homemade clothes with hand-painted messages of defiance, not wearing those tacky neon-logoed t-shirts and hoodies you picked up at the mall and pair with matching Ray Bans.

That's not to say there is not legitimate punk rock being made right now. Anti-Flag is still fighting the good fight (with a new record out soon) and the Teenage Bottlerockets might actually be The Ramones reincarnated.

Here's the deal, if you play punk music, play it loud and play it proud. If you play pop music, call it what it is, make a ton of money and be happy.

I've admittedly strayed a bit from my general thesis, but here's a recap: Aging hipsters, you're getting older, so deal with it. Don't try and turn your kid into Lil' Johnny Rotten just because you're getting fatter and losing your hair. Blare NOFX as loud as you want in the minivan, just keep the windows rolled up at the stop lights. And kids, don't try and pass yourself off as the next Joe Strummer when your punk rock influences go back no further than Blink 182's third CD.  You're in a pop band, no matter what the guy in the fancy suit tries to tell you. Rock on pop star!   

Music worth listening to this week:

Left Alone‘s self-titled record (http://www.myspace.com/leftalonepunx) and Ninja Gun's "Restless Rubes" (http://www.myspace.com/ninjagun).