GodDAMN, I feel sorry for the youth of today! I just finished listening to Jaimie Vernon‘s Nightmare at 20,000 Watts yet again (What is that— 500 or so?) and I’m thinking radio, radio, radio and while The Vermin’s version might be the latest, it brings back an entire world pretty much lost these days.
The Corona School of Writing, Weinhard’s Private Reserve, record labels (major and independent) and just about everyone I have ever really known. So I sit here quaffing the ice cold Weinhard, waiting for that writing buzz and wondering where I will go with this because I have no real idea where I am going, only where I have been. I have been lucky, lucky like I cannot believe, but not lucky of my own making. I have been surrounded by good people— no, people more than good— and it is time I pay tribute to those and those things which have made me who I am.
I am less than a month away from seeing, barring act of God or congress (small ‘c’ intentional), No Small Children rock Portland (or Seattle) and, old as I am, it is getting hard to contain myself. They will supposedly be playing Slabtown April 5th, though I do not see it listed on that venue’s site schedule, so I am keeping my options open for a long drive. Would I miss it? Only by the act mentioned beforehand.
After ending this last year cranking out two long columns about musicians we lost, I feel the need to counterbalance. While I know that death is a part of life (indeed, life = death according to the laws of nature), it was not all that much fun to dig through the past year searching for musicians recently passed. It was, in fact, a bit of a downer. Reliving the news that I knew was not half as bad as discovering the news I had missed. All too many musicians I admire tripped off this mortal coil without so much as a thank you, Frank, it’s been fun, and I was more than a little unsettled with each discovery. But the past is the past, whether we like it or not, and it was not all bad.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 