A timely, August-related guest post this week from legendary CBGB's engineer (among other endeavors) and friend, Robin Danar. FYI, Robin's recent record, Altered States is pretty freakin' unbelievable, a collaboration featuring up-and-coming indie artists you likely know (Rachel Yamagata, Pete Yorn, etc.). You should own it. More about Robin here.

Take it away, Robin:

Dear Hilly--

Well, it's been over 2 years since I've seen you and I think about you a lot so I figured I'd check in. I'm writing from Cali.....won't be in NY 'til around Xmas.

I'm actually still in touch with many of our old friends and associates via email and networks. It's fun to see that the deep impact you and CBGB's had on us in the 70's and 80's still exists today. I just saw the virtual tour that BG helped put together just before the club closed (http://www.bravadousa.com/cbgb/pano/pano.html) which was a pretty wild flashback. Every so often I’ll put on Patti’s closing show that was on satellite radio and yeah I listen loud!

Anyway, I owe a lot to you for helping this producer/artist find a direction. Since August 28 will always be a date I remember, I thought I’d send a copy of this NY Times blog I wrote a year ago. I look at it as a fun story with happy memories.(August 28, 2008 makes one year since Hilly passed away):

I was the sound guy at CB’s for years in the 70s and 80s. It was an amazing time and every so often I get sidetracked from what I’m supposed to be doing and end up spending hours looking at books, listening to music or just scanning the web and remembering. There are great books, amazing photos, YouTube videos and some classic stories, many of which are quite true and some that are, uh…… "lost in translation??"

I was lucky to be in NY for several months in 2007 and spent a bunch of time with Hilly before he went back into the hospital. He was tired. The chemo was quite a workout but I caught him on some "good" days and he was a bit slower but still moving along. He was never a speed demon anyway [...]

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.

Every year, Jesus People USA (yup, that's the group's real name) puts on the annual Cornerstone Music Festival outside of Chicago. The event boasts six days(!) of Christian Punk, Christian Metal, Christian Rap and Christian Hardcore... and I can only assume Christina Ska and Christian Rockabilly. 

Call it the born again's answer to Lollapalooza.

In honor of this year's festival line up, what follows is a run down two of my two favorite 90's bands that Jesus took away from me.

THE SMOKING POPES

Though they are now back together, the reason the Smoking Popes broke up in ‘99 was because singer Josh Caterer decided to embrace Christianity. Not just show up at church every now and then, but the "I'm-going-to-quit-rock-and-everything-it-stands-for, turning- my-back-on-everything-I've-created-fuck-the-fans" kind of embrace. A great band cut down way too early. A couple years ago, the band decided to get back together to play a handful of shows and record a live album. In an interview around those shows I asked Josh about the whole God thing and he said he simply wasn't happy with all the drugs and drinking that surrounded the band. He became born again and quit rock music all together for awhile, focusing solely on uplifting religious tunes. Crater slowly got back into rock through a new band Duvall, then finally realized God probably doesn't necessarily hate good music and got the band back together. I caught one of their comeback shows at The Masquerade in Atlanta and they were amazing (though Josh did take the opportunity to preach a few times from the mic, making the others in the band visibly squirm). The Smoking Popes had a decent comeback record last year, but still not quite as stellar as their earlier efforts.

SUPERDRAG

OK, this one took me by surprise. The Knoxville power pop band turned out a slew of brilliant records in the 90's and early 2000's. (Though "Sucked Out" is still the only song people remember.) I found out, like the Smoking Popes, were doing a series of reunion tours last year (which, by the way makes me feel old as shit when bands I dig are now qualify for reunion shows). In doing research for an interview, I discovered front man John Davis had another one of those spiritual awakenings that seem to be going around, again thanks to booze. Copying off of Josh's paper, he also started working exclusively on Christian songs. I finally spoke with Davis in 2008 and he was super cool, but I chickened out and didn't ask him about God (so no big answers for you. Sorry). Like the Smoking Popes, they also had a decent, but not great comeback record out this year.

AND HERE'S A FEW YOU HE CAN KEEP...

Former Korn guitarist Brian Welch

In his case, I think he's just using his sudden conversion to Christianity (I think it's Christianity) and cult-like new life as an easy excuse to walk away from a truly crappy band.

Alice Cooper

The same guy who used to guillotine himself on stage in the 70's is now a golfer, PTA dad and (gulp) Republican. He's also found Jesus. Again, in this case, I think he woke up one day and realized that he was a washed up irrelevant former rocker whose biggest accomplishment was playing "School's Out" on an episode of the Muppet show.

So after given this a little thought, I'm left with two separate conclusions to the question of why rockers turn to Jesus:

1.     Years of hard partying and meaningless groupie sex makes you search for a deeper meaning.

2.   God is actually a roadie, converting the masses, one musician at a time.

My Dinner With Tad (or, Adventures with Option Magazine, Pt.1)

By Johnny Mnemonic

"You finished with that?"

Tad Doyle, lumberjack frontman for his eponymous Seattle band Tad, comes into focus as my head slowly swivels to the left. Flecks of pasta and spaghetti sauce decorate his thick black beard like the glittery remains of a visit to the dance club. This ain't no disco, however, and he ain't foolin' around, either: Doyle is poking a Cuban cigar-sized finger at my half-eaten plate of lasagna, and the look on his face is the same kind of look a Looney Tunes wolf gets when it's gazing at some potential prey and doesn't see a duck or a bunny at all but a steaming, home-cooked meal smothered in tasty sauces.

"Um, yeah, uh, I, uh, guess so," I stammer, and with a bright, "Cool!" Doyle reaches across, picks up my plate, and summarily dumps the remains upon his plate, which has already been so scrupulously cleaned of every last crumb that to the casual onlooker it would appear Doyle hadn't even received his initial order yet. My hand reflexively shoots out to grab my soft drink before it, too, can pass into the public domain.

In our dining party: the entire Tad band, plus their roadie/driver and a photographer friend of mine. The 2 a.m. wares of this 24-hour Italian-Greek diner located a half-mile away from L.A.'s Sunset Strip appear to agree with everyone, not the least of them being Doyle, who I swear is now eyeing his bandmates' plates, too. Bassist Kurt Danielson chuckles at my discombobulation, winking knowingly at guitarist Gary Thorstensen as if this is just another on-the-road mealtime ritual. It might not be a coincidence that Danielson, Thorstensen and drummer Steve Wied are rock-star thin, in striking contrast to Doyle, who to my untrained eye clocks in at around 300 pounds.

The occasion of this late-night pasta picnic is an assignment from Option magazine. It's the spring of 1991 and Tad's second full-length, the Butch Vig-produced 8-Way Santa, was released a few months ago by Sub Pop, and everyone from the label to the music press to the musicians themselves is counting on this to be their breakout record. Option, while having positioned itself over the course of its half-decade tenure as a kind of indie music bible, somehow managed to discount the subterranean rumblings emanating from the Northwest over the past few years, and as a result early Sub Pop acts like Green River, Mudhoney, Afghan Whigs and even Nirvana all got short shrift from the magazine. Now, though, with even mainstream publications starting to turn their gaze towards Seattle, Option can't afford to remain behind the curve so the Tad piece is essentially the magazine scrambling to play catch-up.

(Truth be told, Option, in its drive to become a musical tastemaker and a so-called alternative to the alterna-likes of the ‘mersh-tilting Spin, has gradually adopted a somewhat provincial attitude towards the more hirsute, blue-collar, hard-rock leaning elements of the Amerindie underground. This development is both a source of mirth and frustration among the magazine's pool of mostly unpaid writers. There's a lot of really, really great heavy-ass music cropping up all over the country and not just in Seattle, but much of what we're sent by the magazine to review is of the twee/K Records and home-brewed "cassette culture" variety. The upside is that a number of the writers have started up their own fanzines and writing about what they're really into. But that's another story, for another day.)

At any rate, earlier in the evening I witnessed Tad positively slay a normally jaded Hollywood crowd, testimony that the so-called "grunge explosion" isn't just hype. Little does anyone in our dining party realize that before 1991 is out, "hype" is going to be an operative term as regards Seattle - next year, a documentary will anoint 1991 as "the year punk broke," and filmmaker Cameron Crowe will release his romanticized take on the Seattle scene, Singles - thanks to Tad's scruffy labelmate, Nirvana. The Nevermind album will blow across the music universe like a typhoon, randomly raising and capsizing many of Nirvana's contemporaries; in the latter category will be Tad, who despite landing a major record deal during the ensuing bidding wars won't be able to live up to the aforementioned hype, sales-wise, and after a series of label and lineup shuffles, will split up in 1998.

The Tad Option piece never happens, which in hindsight is a lot less annoying than it was at the time since I now view the situation as emblematic of Tad's career - a doomed trajectory also foreshadowed by the band's unplanned legal woes (a lawsuit filed by Pepsi over Tad's unauthorized use of the cola giant's logo for the "Jack Pepsi" 45; another suit on the part of the guy depicted on the sleeve of 8 Way Santa grabbing his girlfriend's boob, the gentleman having subsequently become a born-again Christian and not exactly digging the fact that a long-forgotten photograph from his former life had resurfaced).

My Tad story was actually an extremely solid one, full of colorful, telling details about the band and the region that spawned it, not to mention some pretty funny quotes collected at the meal. And I filed my copy on time, too; as this was still the pre-Internet era, I personally delivered it to the Option office along with a bundle of photos and negatives the photographer had taken of Tad (my favorite was of Doyle in the middle of a dumpster, glowering, while his bandmates chucked in bags of trash).

But by the time the issue containing the story would have appeared on newsstands, Nirvana was blowing up nationally. The editors, not wanting to make the magazine's bandwagon-hopping appear too obvious with back-to-back Seattle-themed pieces, canned the Tad feature and hastily located a writer to do something on Nirvana.

Of course, this story isn't really about Tad, or about Nirvana, or even about the grunge era - since the name of the blog you're reading is "Music Journalism 101," this story is about Option.

To be continued...

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter and editor. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

ROAD-DOGS, HEAT, AND VINTAGE GEAR: Wiyos on the Dylan/Nelson/Mellencamp Tour

By Carl Hanni

July 27, outside Duck, Outer Banks, NC: Leaving New York City four days ago in a driving rain, the signs of rock ‘n' roll start immediately, with billboards for Creed and AC/DC. If this is a signifier of some sort, it's a bit obtuse: we're off for 2 1/2 weeks of touring, and there will be some rock ‘n' roll, but little of the hard-rock varietal.

I'm here on a 17 day run with The Wiyos, NY-based vaudevillian string band extraordinaire. They are booked to play 28 out of 33 dates as the opening act on the Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp summer tour, which started in Sauget, IL, July 2, and finishes in Stateline, NV, August 16. With a couple of exceptions, the tour is playing minor league ball parks/stadiums all across the country. I jumped on the tour five days ago, in Lakewood, NJ, and will ride it through the show in Dallas (really Grand Prairie) TX August 7, as Wiyos tour manager, publicist, merch wrangler and all-around boy-Friday. I'm delighted to be here in such fine company and out of my scorching home base of Tucson. Not that it's much cooler out here, as I soon realize...

The Wiyos played to a remarkably enthusiastic bunch of die-hards the other evening at First Energy Park in Lakewood, bunched up in front of the stage trying for some respite from the downpour, faces framed by a rainbow coalition of colored ponchos and soggy cowboy hats. The Wiyos have 1/2 hour every tour stop, from 5:30 till 6 pm, to play, make new fans, greet friends from the stage and put in a plug for their new CD. Then there's a quick 10 minute turnaround before Willie Nelson takes the stage for an hour, followed by John Mellencamp, followed by Bob Dylan. The exact same routine every show, different venue, for 6 weeks. The whole production is as smooth and tight as a long-running Broadway show or a military parade. This is a professional operation in every possible detail.

After three shows (Lakewood, NJ; Aberdeen, MD, outside of Baltimore; and Norfolk, VA), truisms and patters quickly manifest. For one thing, the catering is incredible. Cast and crew are fed lunch and dinner every day, and it's had to overstate how great the spread is. Copious, endless amounts of tasty, healthy and inventive food, drinks and deserts appear twice daily, including fruit, cheeses, coffee and teas, soup, salads, cold drinks, multiple deserts, vegetarian fare, vitamin supplements and more. I mean, really.

So far, the crowds have really been digging The Wiyos. They generally play to 600-800 concert-goers in front of the stage, with thousands more filing in and spread around the bleachers. Most in the crowd may not know who they are coming in, but they sure do going out, and CD and t-shirt sales have been steady. The Wiyos, versed in everything from busking on street corners to playing to sit-down crowds in theaters, know how to work a crowd, and needless to say they are making the most of a fortunate situation that most other acts would love to find themselves in. They do what they need to do and what they have been hired to do: connect with the crowd and warm them up, give them a taste of what they are all about (think a 1930's vaudeville act crossed over with a modern take on old-timey music), then bust everything off the stage lightening fast and make way for Willie. Come back the next day and do it again.

For the most part everyone on the tour (to one degree or another) is friendly, helpful and supportive. Production and promotion staff, stage crews, sound and security are all working like clockwork. As the next act up after The Wiyos, we see lots of Willie's people, especially his stage crew and harmonica player Mickey Raphael, a prince of a guy. Members of Mellencamp's and Dylan's band have been stopping by to chat and talk shop. The Wiyos definitely have a curiosity factor going for them: who are these young lads with the vintage clothes, washboard, standup bass, steel and resonator guitars?

Willie's show is as loose, casual and intimate as a camp-fire sing-along for 10,000 people. He plays the hits ("Crazy," "Nightlife," "Whiskey River") and the crowd sings along and revels in his Willienesss. Willie Nelson occupies a completely unique space in the popular culture, and it is this: EVERYONE digs Willie Nelson. How does he do this, the great leveling of all the country into his corner?

Well, he's WILLIE NELSON, and no one else is. As has been pointed out over the years, he could probably run for president and win in a landslide.

John Mellencamp's show is rocking. The volume goes up - way up - when he takes the stage, and all of a sudden we're at a rock concert. Girls in halter-tops and skin tight jeans suddenly appear, butts suddenly begin to boogie. This guy has enormous populist appeal, a bunch of hit songs that are also cultural signifiers, and an ace band. When he's not on stage he hangs out in his Airstream trailer (the one with the motorcycle in front) in the holding area in back.

I've only seen one entire Dylan show so far, in Norfolk. We watch the show with The Maybelles, friends of The Wiyos that appeared just in time for the beginning of his set. Bob looks incredibly natty in his tailored country gentlemen attire and white, flat-brimmed hat. His band, a casually road-worn bunch of veterans, is almost as sharp in matching white jackets and black hats. Dylan's voice is somewhere between well seasoned, ragged and deliciously ravaged in a sexy, older guy kind of way. In Norfolk he kicked in with "Rainy Day Women # 12 and 35" from Blonde on Blonde; in Aberdeen it was "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" from that same joyful record from 1966, a good sign for sure. Tonight's songs run from older numbers like "Highway 61 Revisted," "It Ain't Me Babe" and "Like a Rolling Stone" to more recent ones like "The Levee's Gonna Break" and "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum" plus "Jolene" (from his new Together Through Life CD).

The title seems telling; if there's anyone we've been together through life with in America, it's Bob Dylan. He switches from guitar to keyboard; he cues his band with glances; he does not, of course, address the audience. Dylan's "stage presence" in front of an audience is much like it is off stage, an impenetrable wall that only lets out or takes in exactly what Dylan chooses. He's earned the right to be and do exactly as he chooses to be and do. The quality of his song-writing both over the years and in the last several years pretty much puts him beyond reproach.  What you take away from one of these shows is in a large part determined by what you bring to it; he's certainly not going to tell you what to feel or think.

We're here on the coast relaxing with a couple of days off before picking up the tour again tomorrow in Durham. Will report more down the road.

***

Carl Hanni is a music writer, music publicist, disc jockey and vinyl archivist living in Tucson, AZ. He  hosts the vinyl-only Scratchy Record Show every Tuesday night at the Red Room in downtown Tucson, and spins records wherever and whenever he can. He believes that in a better (all analog) world all records would be released on vinyl, but takes good music from wherever he finds it--even on CD. His feature piece on legendary bass player/record producer Harvey Brooks was recently published in Goldmine.

Good peeps, it's not very often that I ask something of you. But today, I am.

Perhaps some of you are still wondering what the hell The Daily Dose is all about (because we STILL can't figure out how to get our app to show up on our Facebook Fan Page. Argh. It is NOT easy).

The deal is this: wine, cheese and music. New music. Old music. Stuff I can't live without. And together, it's kind of like George Costanzas' TV/sex/food thing... a perfect trifecta.

The hope is to get other people to dig it as much as me and hopefully, you. Every bit counts. So, to all of you who've e-mailed the link around your friends, asked them to join us on Facebook, embedded the widget on blogs, retweeted our tweets [...]


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.

Punk rock and a rainbow flag: a conversation with Pansy Division founder Jon Ginoli

Since the late 70's there have been endless debates about what is and what is not Punk Rock.

You could certainly argue that Punk Rock IS being openly gay in an all gay band in the early 90's and playing clubs through the South and Midwest, singing songs about hooking up with dudes. In comparison, putting on a dog collar and playing songs of rebellion inside NY's CBGBs doesn't seem all that dangerous.

For nearly 20 years, Jon Ginoli, founder of the world's first gay pop punk band Pansy Division, has been waving the punk rock flag high. The band has just finished a documentary ("Life in a Gay Rock Band") and released their sixth album "That's So Gay," both on Alternative Tentacles. Ginoli also just wrapped up a book tour supporting his memoir Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division, a frank and often laugh-out-loud look at the band's early days.

Ginoli took some time recently to answer a few questions, talking about everything from bad decisions to never fully being embraced by the gay community.

So what made you decide to finally write a book about your experience?
The realization that a lot of what seemed to be visible in the 90s was now becoming invisible and forgotten.
 
You touched on this a bit in the book, but looking back, what are your biggest regrets about the band and decisions you guys made?
When we stopped touring, we weren't making enough money to continue. I wished we had made the effort to get a new booking agent and tried to play more colleges, which paid better. It might have made it easier, but on the other hand it might have made us breakup. Who knows?
 
In the book, you mentioned the rainbow flag sticker you keep on you van, saying "even though we're not big fans of what the flag has become." Can you explain that a little?
There was a time, before the mid 90s, when companies and corporations were afraid of being associated with gay events. Since then, they'll slap the rainbow flag to promote anything. So it's an acknowledgment that progress is a double-edged sword.
 
You also talked about not feeling fully embraced by the gay community because you didn't listen to bad disco and Whitney Houston. Do you think the gay community has finally started to listen to better music?
Hell no!

If you were just now starting Pansy Division, how do you think the band would be received by the fans and the music business?
If we were starting just now it would be at a time when there were already lots of out queer musicians, so it would be completely different.
 
You talked a lot about the generosity of bands like Green Day. Do you still keep in touch with them?
 No, not directly, but I know how to get a message to them if I need to.
 
I know you just got back home, but what's next for the band?
We just did a tour of the East Coast and Midwest, and are doing the West Coast in September. At some point we'll start looking at songs for the next album. Since all four members live in four different cities on both coasts, it's a process.
 
       
So you just finished the tour and the book, what's next for you specifically?
Good question! I quit my job to do months of my book tour and band tours, so I have to figure that out soon. What we do isn't a living; it's just a bit of money now and then.
 
So what have you been listening to lately?
 Jarvis Cocker, Bratmobile, Bruce Springsteen, The Shoes, Nick Cave, some old country, The dB's, ‘60s soul compilations, ‘60s-era Bee Gees (pre-disco!), The Wave Pictures, Bunker Hill, Vampire Weekend, The Wipers. Among other things.



 

I'm a Baby Boomer.....not particularly proud of that fact but it's the truth. I don't own a cell phone, hell, I didn't even know what a "blog" was until I started writing here. At one time I was young and idealistic....now I'm old and realistic, the guy who embarrasses his kids in front of their friends with "Dad Jokes", random references to Roky Erickson and stories of drugs and hitchhiking. (That's right kids, I had to hitchhike to school in the snow...stoned....uphill....BOTH WAYS!!!).

So I thought I was going to impress the youngsters when I told them I was writing a blog for Blurt. I figured it would buy me a some credibility.....some skreet cred with the young'uns....after all this was Blurt, not some lame ass rag like Rolling Stone.. Instead I got "No one wants to read your old man stories"...and was dismissed as if I had just suggested we light sparklers for the 4th of July instead of setting off some M-80's. I'll show them, I thought....people will enjoy my old man stories....well, at least maybe some of the older folks will.  

I was wrong!

After 3 months of posting I have received two comments.....TWO.....to put it into perspective during that same time I have received 5 solicitation phone calls about buying funeral arrangements, 7 notifications that I have possibly won money from the now deceased Ed McMahon and 3 traffic tickets!! TWO FRIGGIN COMMENTS!! And my kids are laughing their asses off. at me....."What you gonna write about this month Dad?"....."The time you saw Peter Townsend pass out while sucking his thumb?". It's become a standard joke in my home and I have to fight back!

So I asked my kids for some advice....what should I write about? "Do what Rolling Stone does, just write a scathing article about GWB or the Republican Party" they told me "People never get tired of bashing Conservatives". Hmmm...how hard could it be to write about Sarah Palin having an IQ lower than an iceberg or why Donald Rumsfeld wears camouflage adult diapers. But then it hit me, this is a MUSIC blog, on a Music website, not KOS. So to tie it all together I decided to spout some embarrassing Dad jokes with that hip Rolling Stone political perspective.


THE TOP TEN HITS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

10) "I Fought Al Gore, And Al Gore Won" The Chad Fuller Four

 9) "Cheney's Got A Gun" Aerosmith & Wesson

 8) "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" Al Queda & His Tali Band

 7) "Wipe Out" N. Ron Hubbard

 6) "Born On The Bayou" Katrina Backwater Survival

 5) "Getting Hot In Here" The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Control

 4) "Papa Was A Skull & Bones" The Bohemian Temptations

 3) "All My Lexus Are In Texas" The UAW Singers

 2) "Screwing Up The War" The Dick Armey

1)    "Mow The Lawn" The Bush Girls

You know the drill... taking our cue from Seth Godin with the idea that what unites us is more than music -- basically, if we share the same taste in music, we likely share the same taste in other stuff, as seemingly useless as it occasionally may be. Hence, this month's compendium:

5 Freakin' Fascinating Ways to Waste Time at Work This Week

Oh, the painstaking research that's gone into this. But really, every last one of these is worth the on-the-clock-dilly-dally.

1. Auto-Tune the News

Prepare for your pretty little heads to be blown away. Seriously. Who has the time?



2. The Mystical Power of the Wolf-T

Lo and behold. It's more than just a T-shirt. Who knew? They could be onto something.

"I admit it, I'm a ladies' man. And when you put this shirt on a ladies' man, it's like giving an AK-47 to a ninja...." You know you want to read more. And you should. Be sure to scroll down to Customer Reviews [...]

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.

Hungover and shoppin' in  Disneyland with Thoroughly Modern Minnie.

By Coco Hames

I don't know how I could get so drunk sipping wine with civilized adults at Jem's dad's 60th birthday party in California.  Everything is fine, I am behaving and engaging in fine, normal conversation with the elderly, and then, bam.  Black-out drunk.  I woke up on the couch.  Not where I belong.  I am hungry, but all I can do is scowl at the refrigerator, and think vaguely of fish tacos.  I had some Sprite and am now fadoodling around the Internet, Googling Macau, and pretend shopping.

Pretendshopping is going on fancy websites and selecting everything I think should be in my wardrobe.  If I had a wardrobe, that is, and not a battered rolling suitcase which acts ascloset, medicine cabinet, library and general store (Oxford commas... I don't use them, I don't think).  One time I so thoroughly pretend shopped that the total was $22,000.  It was a lot of stuff, but stuff I'd use.  Really good boots, high quality sweaters, etc.  And then, you know, a puce Alexander McQueen ball gown fashioned entirely out of feathers.  

I do not enjoy shopping, as in regular-style shopping, as in going to the mall or trying on clothes.  I get VERY tired, very quickly.  I am far too sensitive for shopping.  All the marketing ads, the colors, the shapes, the chaos.  Pass.  I do my shopping safely from my computer.  And then, bonus, stuff arrives in the mail for me!  Christmas! 

There is a song that always pops into my head when I must consider replacing worn out sailor shirts and ripped up jeans.  I'm pretty sure the song is called "Shoppin'" but I'll have to look it up.  It's from 1987's Totally Minnie, a piece I remember being a television special?  Not a movie, not a series, just a one-off Disney thing?  I guess it's pretty obscure, but I think I remember owning a VHS copy of it?  Or one that we'd taped from TV?  Here's what I remember: the main character is the lead nerd guy from Revenge of the Nerds, Susanne Somers is involved, and Elton John does "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" with an animated Minnie Mouse.

Here is how Totally Minnie writer Joie Albrecht describes it on imdb.com:

"This live action film features a Nerd who, in desperation, goes to the "Minnie Mouse Center for the totally un-hip". There he learns how to dress, dance, and most importantly - be himself. The film features an original music video with Minnie Mouse, in new animation, integrated into live action footage with Elton John singing "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart."

Anyway, the number that goes down in "Shoppin'" (which I'm watching on YouTube right now) is exactly how I feel if I ever have to go shopping.  Insane.  Stuff and stuff and crazy girls going crazy everywhere.  And the song, by the way, makes no sense to me.  It didn't in 1987, and it doesn't now.  Not lyrically, not musically, not structurally, no way, no how.  "Shoppin'" helped me learn how to shop like "Donald in Mathmagicland" helped me learn math.  In that, it didn't.  At all.

Interesting piece of trivia: It was during the recording session of this special that Wayne Allwine (Mickey's official voice since 1983) met his wife, Russi Taylor (Minnie's official voice since 1985).  That's cute and you know it.  Aw, Wayne Allwine passed away just recently, in May.  R.I.P. and sincere condolences to Russi.  Oh my God, Russi and I have the same birthday!  And Wayne's is the same as my mom's!

Now I'm just clicking on everyone who was in Totally Minnie.  People are so weird.  People, not me.  This is a perfectly acceptable way to fight a hangover, a completely reasonable expenditure of my time.

***

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes - Hames on guitar, Jem Cohen on bass and Poni Silver on drums - whose album Look At Life Again Soon and EP, Danger Is, were released by Take Root. Their new Greg Cartwright-produced album Do You Want Power hits stores Sept. 29, and you bet we're gonna have a big feature on the band in our next issue!

Running amuck (adrift, actually...) in the magical Land of Oz with a big-boobed, coke-sniffin' bimbo and assorted loonies.

By Johnny Mnemonic

I am a man adrift.

Prior to my current existential state of affairs, however, I was a staff writer for what I presume most people considered to be highly-regarded national music magazine. I hasten to emphasize my phrasing being in the past tense, as the publication recently folded, the victim of all those things you've been reading lately, with alarming frequency, about music magazines (and the print world in general). I won't bore you with all the mundane details of my dismissal and its demise - yet - other than to say the basic law of the jungle was in effect: if a business ceases to continue making money, and this goes on for month after month despite (or owing to) the regular influx of meddling new investors, hapless new editors and inane new marketing strategies, etc., soon enough, something's gotta give.

Ergo, I am a man adrift, with no immediate, regular source of income. I will certainly be offering up my freelance skills to other highly-regarded national music magazines, perhaps even the one whose website you are reading this very moment, but the terms "freelance writer" and "regular income" remain mutually exclusive. So while I drift, in between resume-mailing, LinkedIn networking and Velvet Rope-lurking, in order to keep my mind from atrophying from a steady diet of satellite TV and internet porn I've accepted an invitation from the editors of Blurt to author this blog.

"Music Journalism 101" is to be part-memoir, part-exposé and part cautionary tale. On that first count, I'll draw upon my experiences as a music writer and introduce you to assorted denizens of the musician community ranging from the sweet to the sour, from the supremely gifted to the astonishingly clueless, and from the types who help make the world a better place with their artistry to the walking/talking chunks of human feces who in a sane, just world would be lined up next to a mass burial site in some godforsaken corner of what used to be Yugoslavia and summarily shot and tossed into the pit. As far as the exposé part is concerned, don't necessarily take that term literally (don't want to get your hopes up), although I will be tugging the curtain back to give you glimpses of what goes on in the lives of music writers, their editors and publishers, their peers and significant others, their hookups and drug dealers, etc. Just to give you a teaser: for a week in 1989 I joined the touring entourage of a former college rock band-turned-MTV-darling - for the purposes of this blog, I'll refer to them as "Dream Response" - in order to do an on-the-road profile. This gave me access to the after-show activities, although there was an unspoken understanding that I'd use discretion in reporting any behavior that might prove upsetting to the quartet's fairly vanilla fanbase, or for that matter, to the members' wives. From the band's point of view, that unspoken understanding probably served them well when it came time for me to file my report. I quite diligently did not recount the scene in which I wandered into one of their hotel suites' bathrooms only to find the lead singer - let's call him "Frothy Bryson," after his unnerving habit for literally foaming at the mouth in the middle of one of his onstage "poetic" rants - ankle-deep in the chunky, dark-haired, big-boobed local radio personality who'd turned up at the show to record station I.D.s and was invited to stick around for the party. After a few healthy toots of Peruvian weasel dust and three or four stiff vodka-and-7-Ups, she'd apparently been ready to take more than just airchecks from the group. I can still hear her horsey-like, pack-a-day wheeze of a laugh (how do these obnoxious gals get their radio gigs? oh, right...) as she was grabbing for the straw... and if I squint my mind's eye just right, I can still see - no, please God, not again - Frothy's hairy, boil-studded ass.

But don't think that life in the music journalism business is a merry old yellow brick road stroll into the Emerald City, where vials of coke dangle from trees like sugarplums and nubile munchkin lasses beckon seductively from shop windows like Amsterdam hookers. This is where the cautionary tale aspect comes in. "The biz" has a boundless supply of headaches, frustrations, diva- and asshole-like personalities, and just out-and-out lunacy, not to mention a deadeningly mundane side to it (you know, hours upon hours trapped in a cubicle pounding away at a keyboard while your head pounds from all that free booze you swilled the night before at the Metallica album listening party at Arlene's Grocery). It's not all that different from used car sales, actually. So my hope is that after reading this blog, at least one aspiring music journalist out there, having gotten a sense of how the sausages are made, so to speak, will plot a beeline straight to his or her college counselor and switch majors to, say, Astronomy, or perhaps Botany - any discipline where one's native talents can be nurtured and turned into a bankable commodity in the employment marketplace. Because if you believe being a rock critic is a viable career path, I have some stock shares in Madoff, Inc. I want to sell you. At this juncture in life, it's probably too late for me, but it's not too late to prevent one of you from making a huge mistake. Don't wake up one morning to learn that the business you've chosen to work for is sinking faster than a GM truck with cinderblocks chained to each axle, and that you have no tenure, no seniority, no job security, no marketable skills, no nothing, really, plus the additional stress of a pending loss of health insurance benefits when your COBRA coverage expires. Now's the time to consider that offer from your father about taking up the family business, in other words.

Above I mentioned that the editors of Blurt invited me to become one of their bloggers. Technically, I approached them with the idea. (I could swear I detected a shrug on the other end of the telephone, but as the answer was "sure," that's good enough for me.) Still, my ego can only take so much battering in a compressed period of time - losing that highly-regarded national music magazine gig and all - so it does me good to create this fantasy in my mind that my arch prose remains in demand by my peers and, hopefully, will be admired by Blurt readers. I may be a man adrift, but that doesn't mean I can't still spout off with the best of ‘em.

My friends tell me I'm actually quite good at spouting off, especially after a couple of whiskey sours. (I know, I know, a girlie-girl drink, but - and here's the first of what will be many fascinating insider tips from the world of music journalism - you can casually sip whiskey sours all night without getting too plastered, which greatly enhances your chances of getting some juicy backstage or behind the scenes stories, since the bands themselves tend to really bring it on, post-gig; I think we already covered that part three paragraphs earlier.) I promise to write most of these entries in a relatively sober state of mind, of course. Well, that is unless I feel, in the interests of accurately recounting some of those juicy stories culled from my fabulous career in music journalism, I simply must recreate the semi-sober state of mind I was experiencing at the time of the original incident.

Did I mention that my friends also tell me I have a pretty fucking spot-on memory? I may be a man adrift. But I know where the bodies are buried.

Guarantee: many of the names, places and entities outlined in this blog will be changed to protect the innocent along with the not-so-innocent. And also to ensure I don't burn so many bridges I can't get hired again by some highly-regarded national music magazine. Not that there are any left.

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter and editor. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.