Saturday, May 12, 2007
is that the question
if so, if so
who answers, who answers
Yes my dear reader, I too am still quite alive.
Recently I received in my electronic correspondence a rather curious letter. Out of respect for the bounds of friendship I shall share no further detail about the author. It just wouldn't be prudent, not at this juncture.
I shall however, share with you the gist of it. It posed a single question. A simple one, really. Basically, it asks only this:
No really. What can I say?
Well for starters I must come right out and proclaim that I am not the song's sole author. A work so great as that could surely not be the product of a single mind. It is far too, too devilishly clever, as some might say. For that particular gem, I collaborated with my dear friend Count Spew.
And worry not my dear reader, for I remember it like I remember yesterday. . .
Spew and I were nearing the end of our collegiate career and in the middle of our first "tour", sometime during the reign of Bush I. About six weeks prior he got on the phone and got us booked into four club gigs in a single week. Normally you think that'd be great, right? Well yeah, it kinda was, I guess.
Somehow Spew had convinced a handful of small midwestern college town bar managers to give us a break and let us play for tips, unseen and unheard. Again, you think that'd be great, right? Here's the kicker:
It was March. It was Spring Break. Again potentially freaking awesome and cool. . .
It was Kansas. We actually walked around asking each other, repeatedly just because we thought it was funny, "Why are there so many fucking people from Kansas?"
It was fucking cold and there was snow on the ground. It was the morning after our third night show. The previous night we had both amused and I think actually frightened a handful of the college kids from the small liberal arts school who had naught the resources nor inclination to head to warmer climes and bask amidst the nubile coeds on an endless sea of beer. All 14 of them, counting the 4 people who worked there. That was a large crowd.
After our show, a couple of the local midwestern farmer's daughters invited us to their table. We passed cans of ice cold Old Style and talked about The Replacements until the neon lights were dimmed. When it was all said and done, the hot one liked Spew. The hot ones always liked Spew. No matter, I was not known for my selectivity in those days. And some days you do wha'cha gotta do to avoid spending a second night sleeping in a bus station, waiting for the 7:15 to that speck of town on the map somewhere outside Topeka.
I still think that maybe our sound was just a little too far ahead of its time.
When morning came we realized we were bleeding money and barely making bus fare. We snuck out of a small apartment near the edge of a small private Liberal Arts college and fled like weasels.
Ah, it's only rock and roll, but I like it.
We were forced to take the bus when we had the sad realization that neither one of our cars would survive a lengthy roadtrip. Spew had already booked the gigs, and well the show absolutely must go on.
Fortunately we were only a few blocks from the bus station. But then again, this was the type of town where you could only be a few blocks from the bus station because you could only it was only a few blocks from anything until you were in the middle of nowhere.
Spew and I missed the early morning bus. There was a mid-day bus that left at 12:30.
We sat outside the station waiting. I think it was shortly after 9:30. Our few meager possessions were scattered around us, a couple of backpacks with a change of underwear and maybe a clean pair of socks, notebooks, and toiletry items. Its pockets were bulging with bits and of gear, broken knobs and every type of audio adapter cable and connector you could get at Radio Shack in those days. We had two guitar cases, and the two small jamboxes we played along with to recreate our "studio" sound live. They played at slightly different speeds, which always made for what we thought to be a very entertaining show. Only one guitar case had a guitar, my old Fender acoustic. The other held an odd combination of luggage and other oddities we had picked up on our travels.
We were sitting out in the chill of the morning, in a far-off slightly secluded corner of the parking lot, taking shelter from the bitter wind beside an out of service bus. The people at the bus station wouldn't let us drink our breakfast of convenience store malt liquor tallboys inside. The bastards.
Spew was sitting on the overturned laundry basket he used as a drumkit, tapping on it nervously with the battered sticks he got from that hairband drummer back home in Austin.
I was sitting on the luggage guitar case.
I had just lit up a decent sized roach I nicked from the ashtray on the girls' kitchen table. I held it gingerly between my thumb and forefinger as I kissed it gently and inhaled. Ain't nuttin' like the air of the dog.
From the corner of my eye I saw Spew tighten and grow tense. I too froze, and shifted my vision to my other periphery. "Jeepers," I mumbled in a whisper, "it's The Screws."
|
who answers, who answers
Yes my dear reader, I too am still quite alive.
Recently I received in my electronic correspondence a rather curious letter. Out of respect for the bounds of friendship I shall share no further detail about the author. It just wouldn't be prudent, not at this juncture.
I shall however, share with you the gist of it. It posed a single question. A simple one, really. Basically, it asks only this:
So when and why did you write the song "Girls Suck"?I apologize in advance, my dear reader, if this takes me several days of rambling before I get to the final point. But really now, what can I say.
No really. What can I say?
So when and why did you write that song "Girl's Suck"[Here we, here we, here we go (wow reality what a concept). . .]
Well for starters I must come right out and proclaim that I am not the song's sole author. A work so great as that could surely not be the product of a single mind. It is far too, too devilishly clever, as some might say. For that particular gem, I collaborated with my dear friend Count Spew.
And worry not my dear reader, for I remember it like I remember yesterday. . .
Spew and I were nearing the end of our collegiate career and in the middle of our first "tour", sometime during the reign of Bush I. About six weeks prior he got on the phone and got us booked into four club gigs in a single week. Normally you think that'd be great, right? Well yeah, it kinda was, I guess.
Somehow Spew had convinced a handful of small midwestern college town bar managers to give us a break and let us play for tips, unseen and unheard. Again, you think that'd be great, right? Here's the kicker:
It was March. It was Spring Break. Again potentially freaking awesome and cool. . .
It was Kansas. We actually walked around asking each other, repeatedly just because we thought it was funny, "Why are there so many fucking people from Kansas?"
It was fucking cold and there was snow on the ground. It was the morning after our third night show. The previous night we had both amused and I think actually frightened a handful of the college kids from the small liberal arts school who had naught the resources nor inclination to head to warmer climes and bask amidst the nubile coeds on an endless sea of beer. All 14 of them, counting the 4 people who worked there. That was a large crowd.
After our show, a couple of the local midwestern farmer's daughters invited us to their table. We passed cans of ice cold Old Style and talked about The Replacements until the neon lights were dimmed. When it was all said and done, the hot one liked Spew. The hot ones always liked Spew. No matter, I was not known for my selectivity in those days. And some days you do wha'cha gotta do to avoid spending a second night sleeping in a bus station, waiting for the 7:15 to that speck of town on the map somewhere outside Topeka.
I still think that maybe our sound was just a little too far ahead of its time.
When morning came we realized we were bleeding money and barely making bus fare. We snuck out of a small apartment near the edge of a small private Liberal Arts college and fled like weasels.
Ah, it's only rock and roll, but I like it.
We were forced to take the bus when we had the sad realization that neither one of our cars would survive a lengthy roadtrip. Spew had already booked the gigs, and well the show absolutely must go on.
Fortunately we were only a few blocks from the bus station. But then again, this was the type of town where you could only be a few blocks from the bus station because you could only it was only a few blocks from anything until you were in the middle of nowhere.
Spew and I missed the early morning bus. There was a mid-day bus that left at 12:30.
We sat outside the station waiting. I think it was shortly after 9:30. Our few meager possessions were scattered around us, a couple of backpacks with a change of underwear and maybe a clean pair of socks, notebooks, and toiletry items. Its pockets were bulging with bits and of gear, broken knobs and every type of audio adapter cable and connector you could get at Radio Shack in those days. We had two guitar cases, and the two small jamboxes we played along with to recreate our "studio" sound live. They played at slightly different speeds, which always made for what we thought to be a very entertaining show. Only one guitar case had a guitar, my old Fender acoustic. The other held an odd combination of luggage and other oddities we had picked up on our travels.
We were sitting out in the chill of the morning, in a far-off slightly secluded corner of the parking lot, taking shelter from the bitter wind beside an out of service bus. The people at the bus station wouldn't let us drink our breakfast of convenience store malt liquor tallboys inside. The bastards.
Spew was sitting on the overturned laundry basket he used as a drumkit, tapping on it nervously with the battered sticks he got from that hairband drummer back home in Austin.
I was sitting on the luggage guitar case.
I had just lit up a decent sized roach I nicked from the ashtray on the girls' kitchen table. I held it gingerly between my thumb and forefinger as I kissed it gently and inhaled. Ain't nuttin' like the air of the dog.
From the corner of my eye I saw Spew tighten and grow tense. I too froze, and shifted my vision to my other periphery. "Jeepers," I mumbled in a whisper, "it's The Screws."
|
Comments:
Post a Comment
