So it's off to Austin, Texas for me this Saturday. Going all-out this year for a 10 day stint, covering interactive, film & music at SxSW. If you've been before, you get that this is a fairly brave undertaking. Which is why I've got tons of Emergen-C, Tylenol, and eye-cream ready to go with. And I purchased an iPhone over the weekend to make it easier to navigate all those texts, etc., I feel so 21st century! God damn [...]

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.

How To Enhance Your Listening Experience By Stealing The Music You Love

Ever since I can remember, I've loved music. I don't mean loved so much as I mean I NEEDED music. Being an only child, music and books were my best friends.

My parents quickly realized that I could be placated with a weekly trip to Standard Drug Store, which sold a wide variety of 45 rpm records and even a few of the top-selling LPs of the day. The first thing they bought me was Deep Purple's version of the Neil Diamond tune "Kentucky Woman." My folks likely thought it was a "safe" record to buy their young son because it was a Neil Diamond-penned song, but my incessant listening to Purple's brutally loud and cool take on the song nearly drove my dad crazy.

After that, it was a steady diet of Creedence Clearwater Revival 45s. CCR seemed to have a new #1 single every month in those days, and it was a form of rock n' roll that my folks deemed non-threatening, at least compared to the mind-warping acid-rock of Deep Purple.

Soon, I inherited a box of 45s from a family friend who was being shipped off to fight in Vietnam and wanted me to have his collection. The gift was a goldmine: The Who, Sly & The Family Stone, The Turtles...not to mention other assorted one-hit wonders like The Bubble Puppy and the 1910 Fruitgum Company!

As my fierce desire for new music grew, my parents decided that it was time I graduated from the Mickey Mouse turntable - where Mickey's little arm served as the tone arm of the turntable - to an actual stereo system. The door was opened for the LP, and so began my endless journey from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin and beyond.

By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, my appetite for new music had outstripped my allowance, and I was forced to get creative. A paper route seemed like a sensible method of earning some money as I wasn't yet old enough to be a bag boy at the local Safeway. I lived in a compact neighborhood consisting mostly of little old ladies who paid up on time and sometimes gave the polite, young paperboy an extra tip. At the end of every week, I pooled my hard-earned cash from the paper route for my weekly bike ride to Gary's Stereo and Record shop in Willow Lawn.

Gary's was an amazing place, a stereotypical ‘70s multi-purpose cultural establishment. Upon entering the store, the customer was greeted on the right by a lengthy glass display counter filled with a rainbow assortment of what was then called "paraphernalia." Behind this counter lurked a couple of not-so-helpful sales clerks in the classic "too-stoned-to-help-you-yet-too-snobby-to-care-about-your-decidedly-unhip-needs" mode.

Every square inch of the walls at Gary's were lined with vinyl and posters proclaiming the newest major label releases. It was something beautiful to behold. To the left were the newest the Top 40 45s displayed in racks, six feet high. On the other side were the shelves where the LPs resided. Beyond the records, the store opened up into a much larger showroom that housed the stereo department.

Gary's was a wonderland to me: a place where I could go and just dig through the 12 x 12 inch pieces of art to my heart's content. I would go back and forth from one end to the other like a typewriter working my way from bottom row to top, repeating the process on the other side of the shelves until I'd zeroed in on just the right album to buy. I always stopped before I got to the Classical music section...that was for the old folks.

I was a huge Pink Floyd fan, having been turned onto them a few years earlier by my camp counselor, Klaus, who had come to Camp Greenbriar from Germany with tapes he recorded off of Berlin radio stations that were filled with "The Pink Floyd Sound" and other strange kraut rock.

The gap between Floyd releases was interminable to their fans, usually two or three years. It was during the period between Wish You Were Here and the release of Animals that I discovered and became enchanted by the cover of a Floyd LP that I had never seen before: Ummagumma.

Ummagumma was a much-sought-after double LP containing both a studio album and live show recorded in the U.K. in June 1969. My paper route earnings, when combined with my allowance, only amounted to enough cash to purchase a single LP for $5.99. Ummagumma was a bargain priced at $10.99, but it was still too pricey for my wallet. But I needed that music NOW. There was no way I could wait for two weeks and actually save up the money needed to purchase it, so I devised a plan to STEAL the record.

I always had a few extra copies of the evening paper in my shoulder satchel and would often take them into Gary's after my route to give to the guys who worked in the store. Over time, they warmed up to me as I became a regular and faithful customer. My loyalties wouldn't allow me to go to Peaches Records; besides, Peaches was way out on Broad Street, far beyond my bike-riding range.

Testing out the size of my paper satchel with a record or two at home, I discovered that if I slipped the record between the extra copies of the paper, no one would be the wiser. I planned to wait until a day when the papers were thick and heavy with advertisements - usually Wednesdays or Fridays - in order to smuggle the double record out of the store.

The days crept by until that next Wednesday afternoon when I nervously began the bike ride from the end of my paper route to the Willow Lawn shopping center with a few extra copies of the Richmond News Leader in my bag. I excitedly entered Gary's, said my hellos, slipped the extra copy of the paper to the guys at the register, and began my usual routine of perusing the record shelves.

Having spent so much time there, I knew the layout of the store fairly well and had found a few blind spots where I could stand and pretend to look at records while performing the "lift." No store employees would be able to see me, especially if I waited until the guy in the stereo department was busy with a potential customer. He loved to tell his customers stories about his days as a roadie in the 60s, as if this would somehow soften even the toughest buyer into purchasing a new hi-fi system.

I picked up a copy of the double live Status Quo record and carried it to where the Pink Floyd records were located. Pretending to be fascinated with the liner notes, I placed it on top of a copy of the coveted Ummagumma LP, which I had put in the front row for easier access earlier that week.

As the moment of truth approached, the FEAR began to grab hold of me. I hadn't even smoked pot yet in my life, but suddenly for the first time, I understood paranoia. The bottoms of my feet went numb, and I was engulfed in a cold sweat. My ears felt hot and I could feel my face, red and glistening. Surely the clerks at the front counter knew what I was up to and were calling the cops!

Peering cautiously at them over my shoulder, I could see that one clerk was reading the comics section of the paper while the other was demonstrating to a pair of older teenage girls the proper use of a waterpipe that had several hoses extended from its barrel and what appeared to be a detonator type plunger attached to its top. They giggled at the clerk's suggestion that they should go to his van so he could show them how to use the thing for real.

I slowly turned my head back to the stereo department, where my eyes met those of the ex-roadie salesman. Was I caught? How could I be? I hadn't done anything wrong...yet. I took a deep breath and made eye contact with him once again as if to disarm any possible suspicion. He was glassy-eyed and staring right through me, bored (and likely stoned) out of his mind with not a customer in sight. I decided quickly that I was going to have to make the five-finger discount over by the dreaded Classical music section. It was the only place where I was completely covered from view from both ends of the store. It was probably designed that way....after all, who shoplifts classical albums anyway?

I made my way over to the classical rack with both the Status Quo and Pink Floyd records stacked together and feigned interest in the London Symphony's rendition of "Swan Lake." Holding my breath, I quickly slid the Floyd LP into my satchel while keeping the Status Quo record visible to anyone who might be looking. While this was truly a remarkable performance of sleight of hand, my paranoia screamed that the satchel was bulging with my stolen booty, but my common sense counseled that it looked exactly the way it always did.

As quickly as I could without attracting any undue attention, I returned the Status Quo vinyl to its proper place and, turning, steeled myself for the real moment of truth: the walk past the guys at the cash register. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I felt as if I was going to faint at any moment. There was a loud buzzing in my ears as the clerk who'd been reading the comics said, "Not buying anything today?" It was all I could do to simply mutter something about having to meet my mom for dinner before I lurched clumsily through the doors and out into the freedom of the fresh air.

Mounting my trusty Schwinn 10-speed, I turned back to the store to make sure no one was coming after me before peddling like the wind for home, nearly being mowed over by a speeding car on Monument Avenue that was in even more of a hurry than I was. I did the usual teenaged zombie walk past my mom and went straight upstairs to my lair, pulling the brilliantly smuggled treasure from my satchel and into the light where I could admire it.

Carefully, I slit the album's shrink-wrap and looked wide-eyed upon the iconic image of the members of Pink Floyd that adorned the cover. It was so beautiful. I slid the black vinyl platter from its protective white sleeve and placed it on my turntable. As the needle caught the groove and the first pulsing beats of "Astronomy Domine" began, I dimmed the lights and prepared myself for what was surely to be the greatest moment in my music-listening career.

But something was wrong. As the music flowed freely from the speakers with absolute clarity and Waters and Gilmour sang the line, "floating down the sound resounds around the icy waters underground," I realized what it was: my conscience was catching up to me. Guilt was picking apart my new favorite Pink Floyd song before I even realized how great it was!

I was a teenage shoplifter.

I couldn't make it through the entire song. I wanted to confess, to turn myself in to the Gary's police, but I knew what the store manager did to shoplifters....THEY TOLD THEIR PARENTS!! And as far as I was concerned, any jail was better than having to face that look of disappointment in my mother's eyes.

In these days of downloading gigabytes of music in the blink of an eye, "stealing" doesn't really seem like that harsh of a word. Hell, even I've downloaded music without paying for it. Granted, it was an obscure live track of Radiohead performing "The Spy Who Loved Me" downloaded via a freshly installed version of LIMEWIRE, but Karma justly rewarded my offense with a fantastic array of malware and spyware that permanently crippled my PC and forced my timely leap of faith into Mac Nation. Still, I loved the fact that I had this glorious cover version of a song from my childhood performed by one of my favorite modern bands.

The moral dilemma was far more clearly delineated when I returned to the scene of the crime all those years ago, pedaling back to Gary's after a few days cooling off period spent hiding my guilty expression from my mom.

There was no yellow police tape cordoning off the Pink Floyd section. No one seemed overly suspicious. The front display guys were doing their usual shuck and jive with the paraphernalia, and the glassy-eyed stereo salesman was regaling a customer with the story of how he'd once been the guitar tech for Iron Butterfly guitarist Erik Braunn and how Braunn wore black gloves that he only took off to perform. Since my life had deviated into the criminal dark side, I bought a copy of Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality and hastened home.

A few months later, I was caught by my mom after having smoked weed for the first time while listening to "Sweet Leaf" with the kid down the street. His name was Skippy, and he shot squirrels off the power lines with his pellet gun. He also had a really hot older sister. It wasn't too long before I could enjoy all four sides of Ummagumma (although you have to be REALLY stoned to fully enjoy Roger Waters' "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave and Grooving with a Pict"), but in listening to the album over and over again, I can tell you that the weeks of craven guilt and shame I felt for having stolen it only served to enhance the alienating and dark music that lay etched into its vinyl grooves. Ummagumma became the soundtrack to that period of my life as I tested the limits of the law and my mother's patience, nothing too out of the ordinary for a teenager in the late 70's.

Despite my criminal history, I'd like to think that I've cleared my karmic debt with Pink Floyd by purchasing every conceivable repackaging of Dark Side of The Moon they've issued over the years. Hopefully, I'm free and clear with Gary's, too - having bought the vast majority of my vinyl collection, stereo equipment and first Tokemaster bong there.

Sure, times have changed and stealing music has become the norm. Can you imagine what it might have been like had today's tolerance of music theft been present in the 70s? Thousands of music lovers would have been literally carting away the entire recorded histories of their favorite artists! And guilt free at that. I think I'm jealous!

I truly believe today's music lovers have no clue about the theft of music. In their minds, it's not stealing at all. It's as if the digital frontier is akin to the land grabs of the Old West, ready for the taking by those savvy enough to navigate the uncharted territory. But besides breaking the law, are today's digital music lovers robbing themselves of a vital experience in music enjoyment? Maybe the music thieves of today are missing a crucial ingredient from their collections: guilt.

Guilt is so wrapped up in my feelings towards Ummagumma that I don't know if it would sound the same without it. It's part and parcel of the burden of enjoyment I have to bear while listening to this great recording. I'm not sure if listeners in the digital downloading era understand the full appreciation that develops as a result of bearing that burden. And let us not forget the actual physical burden of having to carry all that vinyl around!

The guilt of stealing music shouldn't be as easy a burden to carry around as the weight of an iPod. I often ponder the remarkable reality that my entire 44-year history of collecting and devouring music - encompassing more than 30,000 songs - can now fit into a portable device no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. It seems kind of sad, especially if you consider the hoops that a child of the vinyl era had to jump through in order to achieve a decent record collection. It's just too easy to slip my iPod into my pocket and go.

But when I do, "The Spy Who Loved Me" just never sounds as heavy as "Astronomy Domine."

Widespread Panic's Dave Schools regularly gathers together with all sorts of furry musicians - sometimes in caves, even - and grooves with more than just a pict in the process....

(Photo Credit: Chris Wilson (www.christopherwilsonphoto.com) 

It was the invasion of the sleazoids in deadly dull black and white, and I have the flyer somewhere. If it ever shows up, I will scan the damn thing, and post it on this blog. I’ve looked all over the web, but can find neither hide nor hair evidence of this grand event that occurred in downtown Wilmington somewhere in 1975.

The filthiest bunch of skum ever descended upon the incredibly dead city of the Chemical Capital of the World to romp and barf in mindless abandonment under the banner of the First Annual World Sleaze Convention. (Not really the first, fact hounds: Tokyo had several before this one, usually with Ultraman look-alike contests and various Mothra color slide shows, and once, Johnny Sokko of Albany, NY, showed sleazee snapshots of his mom’s undies for 50 cents a peep, AND, if you want to stretch a point, every flea market worth its weight in garbage is a first-class sleaze con minus the pretensions of cult fondling), but like all conventions, whether it’s for babyfat Trekkies or Beatle mop tops, its spells CON, and the fix is for the hustlers. In Wilmington, the dada was squelched as the wares were foisted on every burned-out creep who flopped near each “bizarro bazaar.” Actual moolah was exchanged for stuff best left near Rover’s daily dump.

Apocalyptic Productions were the hoodlums responsible for this three-day gathering of sleaze. The gyp was so well-conceived that you could even purchase a two-dollar Convention Kit for not attending (although the kit did not include anything swell like an old tampon, chewed pizza, snot, or mangled Bazooka Joe).

The agenda was centered on what seemed like a 24-hour loop of and anything associated with this subversive crass moment in cinematic history. Of course, nothing as arty as the appearance of John Waters was ever promised, but Pink FlamingosEdith Massey did arrive to sit on her flabby butt. (Divine never made it to gobble her own poopoo as was rumored by certain bored spectators.)

Other phooey films were unmentionables such as House of Horrors, Not of This Earth, Little Shop of Horrors, The Dianne Linkletter Story, Zsa Zsa GaGa Bore as a Venusian Queen of Outer Space, and the forgivable Plan 9 from Outer Space. Lotsa good flicks were shown, yessirree!!

In fact, a tremendous list compiled from those 2-am horror/sci-fi jokes which were once beamed into the homes of insomniacs and offbeat scuzz puds everywhere just after the late-great Tom Snyder’s Doo Dah Theater snooze. Better to watch that slop in the privacy of your own bedroom, though, just you and the tube (before you and the You Tube), without all the crud who call themselves “human beings” picking their noses and bums, smelling like rotten tins of Sea Hunt.

Yes, those were the days….long before the freak show of reality TV.  Of course you can do your own Virtual Sleaze Convention anytime with social networking to boot.  But nothing beats face-to-face witnessing of the cultural debris, and I am proud to say I was there at the onslaught.  It’s kinda like saying you first heard Bruce as a garage band on the Jersey Shore. 

Get Rhythm... and Get the Fuck Out: A long black night of the soul.

By COCO HAMES

I got a scholarship to the University of Florida, a big state university where I felt like a total freak and was so overwhelmed I'd get panic attacks, so I took solace as resident sad sack country singer at a small dive bar near campus. There were never very many people in there, and if there were, they were just the kind of run-of-the-mill creeps you'd find at any north Floridian shithole.

One night, after my set, a guy came up to me and asked if he could buy me a drink. I was 18 and took every opportunity not to have to show my weak fake ID, so I accepted. The guy was small, tiny even, and was on crutches. He had a scraggly beard and a cowboy hat. I figured his age to be somewhere in the early 30s.

 
We sat down, got to drinking, and talked about country music. He said he had an amazing vinyl collection, stuff no one else had, and asked if I'd like to come over and listen to some records. After a few pitchers of beer, that sounded like a great idea. He said I could ride with him, but I'd brought my car and would need to move it anyway, so I said I'd follow behind him.

 
We drove for about 15 minutes, way past the interstate and into what we old Floridians call "a place where nothing good happens." It was beyond rural. I was evenly weirded out by now, just about to turn around and bail, when he signaled and turned into a patch of burnt land with a tiny trailer on it.

For some reason, I turned in behind him.

 
He got out of his rusty truck and assembled his crutches, then led the way into the trailer. I was nearly laughing by this point because I was thinking, this is such a very, very bad idea. But I was kind of stuck now.

To say that the place was a mess would be an idiotic understatement. Save for a sunken-in, cushionless couch, there was no furniture in the main room. The window was broken. There was no kitchen. The floor was littered with beer bottles and newspaper, and a shower curtain hung over a doorframe that evidently led to the bedroom. That just so happened to be where he-and by default, I-was headed.

Sleeveless LPs were strewn about the floor. He produced a small record player and set it among them. I didn't know what to do so I kind of perched on the broken sofa arm. That's when I noticed the hypodermic needles all over the floor and, propped against a rickety shelf opposite the door, a small black handgun.

Before I could react to these discoveries, Johnny Cash's baritone filled the room. I looked over at the guy. He was balancing on one crutch, pointing the other at the spinning, wobbling LP.

 
"Name it."

 
"What?"

 
"Name it-name this song."

 
"Uh... ‘Long Black Veil,' I said.

 
"RIGHT!"

He knocked the arm off the record and picked up another one, setting it on the player. Another Johnny Cash song swelled up, and I was asked to name it, too. This went on for a couple of songs, all Johnny Cash, all songs I knew. I started to notice, every time he'd ask me to name a song, he'd glance at the gun. If I guess wrong, I thought, is he gonna shoot me?

At some point, he ducked into the bedroom to look for more records. I got the fuck out of there.

*****

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes, whose latest album Look At Life Again Soon (Take Root) is still a hot item-but look out for a new EP, "Danager Is," and a Dan Auerbach-produced limited-edition single in March 2009. And catch ‘em at SXSW, too.

Incidentally, we had to ask Coco what the hell was up with the photo, above. She advised us that it's of her having just won "the coveted "best performance" award at the punk rock night at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis, one of our favorite sweat boxes!  So proud!" We're proud of ya too, Coco.

Guest post this week from co-lead singer Philip Price of Winterpills, who I shamelessly adore, as you know. dear hole in my head through which the foul winds of winter blow [...]

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.

Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column's theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetically through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren't household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. This is the 12^th installment (first two appeared at Idolator.)

***

THE MT. ST. HELENS "North By Northwest"/"Unlucky"/"Dialtone" (MOC, 1998)

Midwestern foursome repeats surfish riff, um, repeatedly; hoarse singer gets excited; rhythms turn staccato. Lots of stops and starts, twists and turns. Structure feels precise but ultimately cold - Fugazi probably deserves some blame for inspiring such stuff, but it's also very Chicago (where the band's from), which is to say it keeps its top button buttoned like such ‘80s bands as the Effigies and Naked Raygun used to, though less efficiently. Somewhere, there's a line about "the western surburbs."  Sleeve has pictures of a city and a mountain (why not a volcano?) that look as blurry as the music sounds. (http://www.myspace.com/mtsthelens)

THE MUSIC TAPES "Why Is The President Crying?"/ DAD "Untitled" (Cosmic Debris Ltd., 2000.)

Split single, apparently released with an issue of Stop Smiling magazine, whatever that was. Hand-numbered release from the Cosmic Singles Club, which I never joined, yet I somehow got # 980 out of 1000 anyway.  Picture disc - bottom half of a simple robot made out of wood on one side, black and white photo of a bespectacled man and unbespectacled boy on the other. Song titles nowhere to be found, but at least the A-side's is discoverable on line; B-side goes nameless even there. Guy from Music Tapes (New Yorkers with some sort of Elephant Six connection) sings in a little-boy voice, precious to the point of extreme annoyance, kinda like that man-boy Stuart on Mad TV. Sound ridiculously piddly and twee: Maybe the president is crying because somebody forced him to sit through this awful crap, who knows. I know nothing about Dad; if you google "myspace Dad," the great Copenhagen hair-metal band D-A-D wind up in the top spot, and this is definitely not them. Music is some sort of generic guitar instrumental, flamenco or Segovia or whatever. Hard to imagine 1000 people would want this thing. (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69564406)

NECROPOLIS "Stalking Mark E. Smith Around NYC"/"I Love Cinnamon" (Columbia Discount, 2005) 

You read its title and want the A-side to sound like a northern Ohio version of the Fall, and actually, the hard clattering jangle of a groove underneath almost pulls it off; marching-band drums at the start don't hurt, either. But the singing is a cutesy little-girl voice, with occasional "hey! woo!" interjections from a dude; and yeah, sadly, these are probably the kind of kids who would stalk Mark E. Smith, when you think about it. B-side crosses the cutesy line - she likes cinnamon on her head, see -- and so do the little puppies and kitties and dollies strung up on the clothes line on the sleeve, and so definitely does the computer robot-reading voice ending each song. But the B-side's rhythm clatters below too, and Mark E. and cinnamon are two of my favorite things, and this song introduced some sort of aesthetic that fellow Columbus kids Times New Viking would take the bank (or at least take to Pitchfork) a few years later. So I'll cut it slack. (http://www.myspace.com/necropolisrocks)

THE NECROS "Tangled Up"/"The Nile Song" (Gasatanka, 1986)

Northern Ohio (Maumee to be exact) version of early ("Free For All"-era) Ted Nugent, and one of the best (and most rock) indie rock singles of the past quarter century. (Maybe the best.)  Definitely the only time (tempo-wise, rhythm-wise, riff-wise, song-wise, singing-wise, catchiness-wise) that an indie band has ever pulled off the Nuge thing - Even the very good Necros themselves never again came anywhere near this close, and I should know if anybody should seeing as how I was at least a passing acquaintance with dammit-doll-like frontguy Barry Hennsler at the time (even saw a couple shows with him - White Zombie and Guns N Roses before they achieved stardom for instance, if I remember right. Letting his red hair grow ‘70s long, he'd shout "get a Mohawk!" out the window at Ann Arbor punk rockers back in those days -- unless I just dreamed that up in my head since, but pretty sure I didn't. Later, he wound up on Sub Pop, in the band Big Chief.) Anyhow, absolutely world-class song: "There's a noose around my life that strangles every day/Tangled up in a web of lies, mistakes I never made." One of the best hard rock/punk/metal singles of the ‘80s, on any label level. B-side's a quality cover of a 1969 Pink Floyd song also covered seven years later by the great Quebec cyber-thrash band Voivod. Record label Gasatanka is a parody of Casablanca, maybe because Redd Kross had covered Kiss's "Deuce" on Teen Babes From Monsanto two years before. After this music, punks could never again honestly pretend ‘70s rock wasn't cooler than they were. Which means it was partly responsible for grunge. But some sins are worth forgiving. (http://www.necroscentral.com/)

THE NEIN "Auto-Destructive Dance Routine"/CANTWELL GOMEZ & JORDAN "To Love The Unlovely" (Sit-N-Spin, 2005)

Another split single. The Nein from North Carolina put extravagant whining (about "Palestine" at one point I think) over post-punk-revival stiffened funk beats and alleged (I read on the web somewhere) "found sounds"; toward the finish line, the guitars thicken and vocals overlap and whips and spanks substitute for basslines. Somehow, especially given the icky era that this was released in, it all basically adds up to "electroclash" -- which might be justified if the Nein sounded as German as their name, but they don't. The also-North Carolinian Cantwell and Co. do more hands-in-pockets pogo-funk, fronted by a gal yelping like she wishes she was old enough to have been in the Delta 5 or Essential Logic. But she wasn't, which makes this a lot less interesting than if she was. She turns dirgey toward the end, and I still slightly prefer her to the Nein guy, I guess. Both sides of the pic sleeve present quaint and kitschy depictions of a man and a woman - dancing and necking with heads and limbs falling off and teeth falling out, framed by footprints on the dancing side and lipstick smears on the necking side. If that's somehow supposed to be amusing or transgressive, I don't get it. (http://www.myspace.com/thenein; http://www.myspace.com/cantwellgomezandjordan)

Chuck Eddy is the former music editor of the Village Voice and the author of several books, including the greatest book on heavy metal ever written, Stairway To Hell. He won't admit it, but he knows more about rock ‘n' roll than the entire accumulated BLURT brain trust.

Ooooo! New record! No word on official release date. But you can hear tracks here. At first listen, I Will/With You, Everything’s Gone, Losin’ You, likey. She’s sultry, she’s wicked. Dangerously lovely combination. If you haven’t heard any of her older stuff before, buy all of it. Seriously [...]

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.

As always, the idea is that what unites us is more than music, an axiology that extends from the music to our music-lover lifestyles: how we vote, what we drive, what we eat, what we wear, etc. The point is, we're a tribe connected by vibe... hence, this month's compendium: [...]

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.

So I'm going through all my books because times are hard, and I need the cash & maybe the local dumpster of a used bookstore will take whatever I don't want & give me a buck or two like the record stores used to do, when there actually were record stores & rock critics like yrz truly used to get record service from all the labels.  

And then I come across this book called (I'm not kidding), "Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film," the idea of which is that the female victim who gets all maimed & cut up in a slasher movie is not just being viewed by male viewers sadistically but is actually an example of something called "a climactic moment of female power."  The author, Ms. Carol Clover, states in her best academic voice that the modern horror movie possesses this positive subversive space where gender ambiguity can be explored and where the traditional boundaries of male & female identity are dissolved.  In other words, when the dame gets stabbed to death, the women like it too!

Well, you can imagine, even though it was published by Princeton University Press & therefore worth more than a buck at the university textbook store nearby, I almost threw this high&mighty gibberish in the trash.  I mean, I've seen "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" quite a few times, and not once did any girlfriend of mine cheer when the saw ripped through female flesh or when the hammer slowly beat the captured girl's skull during the dinner scene. In fact, most of the women I knew left the room & then never returned my calls!!

So I decided to see what the stupid book is worth on EBay.  I figure, despite the book's premise, slasher collector sickos might pay me $25 for the thing.  But before I get to EBay, as usual I check out my Facebook page (I'm hooked on FB, what can I say?), and lo & behold, there's some attractive blonde from the West Coast confirming friendship.  Well, to be truthful, ANY attractive female from the West Coast can be my friend, but this one struck a real memory bubble.  
Cherie Currie?  Cherie....currie?  I couldn't place the name, but I knew I knew it from way back when & had maybe met her at a party or....I just couldn't place the name, you know how it is.


Then I realized I gotta figure this out because right there in her info file was this amazing fact. (You know, life works like this sometimes & then it just seems like, well, there ain't a problem worth sniveling over....).....

CHERIE WORKED WITH CHAINSAWS!  I mean, that's what she did for a living!  Cherie carves stuff out of wood & does a damn good job at it, and even poses with the chainsaws so the guys will go buy her product.  She's like this total marketing genius!! Here it is, guys:   http://www.chainsawchick.com/  ---an unbelievable example of how great life can be if you just let it happen sometimes.  
And what was even stranger, I realized that this was some kind of sign...not only was that academic chick absolutely correct in her chainsaw/horror theory (I know, I know...it's not really proof because Cherie actually uses the chainsaw to create things pg beauty while in the slasher movies the guys use the chainsaw to destroy flesh...but that's the way my mind works, okay?), but now I had to read the f***g book just to solve the mystery of why women & chainsaws seem so culturally connected.

And then, as I read through Cherie's info even further, I almost lose it. .....Holy shit, where have I been?  Of course!  She's the pretty blonde from that punk band, the Runaways, & I actually liked that first album when it came out, even reviewed the damn thing, and played it over & over.  But I guess I lost track...never really heard Joan Jett or anymore Runaway albums...but then had to admit that the only reason I played that album in the first place when it came in the mail via aforementioned record service in the ‘70s was because I had an immediate crush on CHERIE CURRIE.  (Hey, come on, gimme a break...you can see why.)

Those of you more up on rock history than me know that Cherie was the lead singer of the Runaways, and on the band's debut album on Mercury in 1976, the first track on the album was called "Cherry Bomb," which was indeed referring to our beloved Cherie. The track was actually created off the cuff because Cherie was told to prepare a song that sounded like Suzi Quatro, but she picked one the band didn't like.  And so, the other charming band members made the "Cherry Bomb" song up to make fun of Cherie.

Feeling a bit moved & nostalgic by all this synchronicity (and, believe me, I hate the Police, so I don't like when this kind of stuff happens), I pulled out the Runaways first album, and started playing it.  I actually even got the courage up to re-read words I had written in some old tattered issue of a long-forgotten magazine named after jizm:  "The Runaways' album can easily be earmarked right alongside the first Stooges record in its expression of teenage passions, its slurring of lyrics into pouting mono-syllables, and its final call to dance to that punk-rock vision." And lots more great stuff in the review, too...on & on about what a great band these young ladies were and how they'd change the world blah blah blah....

I felt kind of lost & alone in this weird experience, so I wrote a short but respectful email to Cherie via Facebook (she is, after all, supposedly a friend) asking her why she made the move to chainsaws after being a punker for so long.  But I ain't heard from her yet.  

On the surface, it makes sense to me that she's into chainsaws, but I wanted to hear her side of things.  Maybe it all has something to do with gender studies or something, but I don't think so.

REFERENCES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-BZk_i203Q
http://www.cheriecurrie.com/
http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/palms/6923/truth.html
http://www.therunaways.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShB4azq9WEk

Hawaii Punk
it was once a common assumption that there could be no real punk come out of SoCal.  now Raoul Vehill has moved the frontier of ignorance to hawaii.  his new book, Hawaii Punk, recounts his fictionalized lowlife improvisations in and around honolulu.  i knew Raoul as a productive no-budget filmmaker in chicago in the late 80s/early 90s (provisional released his "Horrorgirl" on vhs), but didn't know he'd experienced the late 70s/early 80s punk era from the middle of the pacific.  there were no shops nor records from there that i knew of while at systematic, then the clearing house for the american underground, but i think i remember joe pope talking about a hawaiian account soon after i left for sst in 81.  Raoul's book is a great lowlife chronicle... set in paradise!  Nicely printed too, in Wales apparently.  Raoul moved to denver to document his criminal uncle and wound up yet again a lowlife.  that book, Vato Maldito, is also coming, but no book tour for the parolee:
http://comrademotopu.com/hawaiirelatedtop.htm

***

its only february but the album of the year is no doubt out:
Scott Weinrich's new album, "Punctuated Equilibrium":
http://www.myspace.com/winoschopper

***

Chuck filled me in on the Stains-now vs the Stains-then of the sst lp, as well as of the pre-lp lineup that first got Chuck, Greg, Dez, Spot and all, excited about them.  a month before recording SST 010 (the last session at media art studio in hermosa beach) singer Jerry was fired for joyriding and destroying guitarist Robert's brother's truck.  Rudy replaced him and sang on the record.  original bassist Jesse and the first drummer also left the band to be replaced for the recording by longtime rhythm section Caesar and Gilbert (Jerry and Jesse, recently deceased).  in LA now you can see Robert-guitar/Caesar-bass/Rudy-vocals/Gilbert-drums; not many bands of that era are as intact.  the Stains were never included in the press canvassings of East LA's latino punk scene back then, probably because they were on their own non-ethnic tangent and could be intimidating to those merely looking for some mexicali new wave color.

The Stains / Carnage Asada.  
Liquid Kitty punk rock BBQ West L.A. Sun 2/22
Highland Park American Legion Hall - Friday 3/27
Doll Hut - Anaheim - Saturday 5/22
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=449502115
http://www.myspace.com/familiacarnageasada

***

sst free for all for now:
http://www.jambangmusic.com/#/music/4530828941
http://gonemusic.t83.net/#/music/4530844391
http://txcorrugators.t83.net/#/goofoffexperts/4530846823
http://www.txcorrugators.com/#/bentedge/4530846821
http://mojackmusic.t83.net/#/themetalyears/4530780019
http://mojackmusic.t83.net/#/underthewillowtree/4530780011

***

Lux Interior (1946-2008)
when we got systematic record distribution off the ground up in portland in 1978 (as renaissance records), we missed out on picking up most of the earliest independent record releases, but we were lucky to get in some of the last of the Cramps two vengeance records singles.  i forget who dealt with us but i didn't see the Cramps until we moved systematic to berkeley and they played the keystone in may 1980.  great of course but it was the most negative vibe i've ever felt coming off a band.  when i learned later that bryan gregory drove off with the bands' van and equipment and was never seen by them again i knew that vibe had been a real thing.  they seemed to pop up regularly over the years, never getting their due but never going away.  i was in chicago in july of 1981 and listening to larry lujack on wls and he took the initiative to break station policy and play "goo-goo muck," the Cramps new single.  it sounded perfect because of course they always belonged on top 40. they made early punk's tacit alliance with the fifties against the sixties overt to say the least:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/play/news/lux-interior-of-the-cramps-pas/
http://clubs.pathfinder.gr/ROCK_N_ROLL_MOTHERFUCKERS/391010 (#4)

***

Precious Blood is Amy Annelle & Ralph White.
Progress Coffee 500 San Marcos, Austin
saturday 2/7 with Shawn David McMillen
saturday 2/21 with Aaron Blount

***

Buddy Holly weren't it; the Crickets was it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123363016857342371.html

***

Scarcity of Tanks, ONO
Feb. 27, Enemy 1550 N. Milwaukee, 3fl, Chicago
http://www.enemysound.com/

ONO creepy crawl the Soul Train reunion:
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/hoekstra/1407388,CST-NWS-soultrain01.article

***

Dumb Records, sf, 1976-1983:
http://www.lastdaysofmanonearth.com/blog/?p=342

***

on Sylvia Juncosa, To Damascus, the Martyrs, and more:
http://disasteramnesiac.blogspot.com/2008/12/david-winogrond-interview.html

***

new issue with Television, an Andy Schwartz club history, Lester Bangs, etc:
http://www.perfectsoundforever.com

***

Arthur Magazine news:
"In the magazine publishing world, lots of who-needs-'em corporate magazines have already bit the big one, and the corrupt, wasteful, straight-up rotten newsstand periodical distribution system (which Arthur doesn't use -- we have our own, homegrown distro system) appears to be collapsing. Good riddance to bad rubbish. That said, Arthur Magazine is strategically dormant for the moment. Editor/publisher/owner Jay Babcock (now livin-and-lovin in Philly, for those keeping score) is in discussions with various potential partners to return to print immediately in a new format that, makes total sense,given the magazine's mission and the times we are living in. Parties with publishing experience and/or means are encouraged to get in touch with Mr. Babcock, who wants to get it happening, as Mugger and Dukowski were known to say in the Black Flag days. Well alrighty then. Arthur subscribers, we will not forsake you: your subscription will be fulfilled when we return to print. Which shouldn't be too long."
http://www.arthurmag.com

***

Guru Guru (1971); for days when one guru just isn't enough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2u5T-iOYpI&feature=related

***


Michael Hurwitz & the Aimless Drifters
Tue Feb 17 at the Pickin Parlor in Arvada
Fri Feb 20 in Lyons
Sat Feb 21 in Saratoga at the new Platte Valley Center,
Sun Feb 22 in Centennial at the Beartree.
http://www.mikehurwitz.com

***

I wanted to make a doc called, 1974-The Year Prog Croaked; i guess i don't have to now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8T904BrY_k&feature=PlayList&p=1EDC9C2EF8FE7A5F&index=0&playnext=1

Joe Carducci is a hell of a writer, record producer, and former A&R executive, formerly most closely associated with the influential LA-based record label SST Records. His most recent book Enter Naomi: SST, L.A. and All That, chronicles his time at the infamous label and the life and death of famed SST photographer Naomi Peterson--a supreme talent who I had the priveledge of working with on many occasions--and whose laugh I still miss. -Scott Crawford