Sarre-Chasm
May Flowers Killed My Dog
by Jon Sarre
illustration by Timothy Walker
It’s springtime, but y’wouldn’t know it from where I’m sitting. I just walked through a hailstorm so I could spend my last few dollars on black beans and black coffee. Last night, after breaking up with my girlfriend, I celebrated the fact with a six-pack that still didn’t quell the headache I got cos I had to mutter something about needing space cos I can’t write when I can feel someone else breathing on my neck, especially when that neck and everything else appears to have been put in a neat little box marked “boyfriend.”
So, gentle readers, welcome to the first day of… uh… next week? Well, if anything, the end of winter usually leads to a slew of new releases and tours from all of your and my favorite artists (yours, anyway), cos it’s apparently pointless to put out a new record and then not tour cos your beat-up Ford Econoline’s bald tires’ll send you off to rock’n’roll heaven faster than you can say “d. boon.” So yeah, good weather will at least mean some kinda action and with my particularly harsh appraisal of the lack of said action in last month’s love letter to the reading public, I’d say it’s right in time (unless, of course, I’ve been fired already).
In the meantime, I can’t escape the feeling that things are confused at this juncture. The hoopla surrounding the new U2 album seems to be symptomatic of that, I reckon. There’s also the sense that the “rock” radio stations out this way have tightened up their rotations and purged the post-pube-punk that brightened up the dreary superstar worshipping playlists that their middle-aged CD jocks are so comfortable playing. Now, it seems to be back to loads of Van Halen (pre-Sammy Hagar, like he never existed), but I sorta hoped that the Nirvana/Green Day breakout of the past coupla years would, at the least, lead to some exposure for more significant (better) bands. Sure, like that’s gonna happen in a country where the Heartbreakers‘ classic L.A.M.F. has never been released. Still, I can’t seem to accept that it’s nearing the end of the damn millennium and people wanna hear Aerosmith.
All this leads to, on my part, naturally, is more complaining. I am constantly boo-hooing that good music gets ignored and shit, to quote Joe Carducci, “charts like a motherfucker.” The wrong people die, the wrong people live and I can’t find the first Dead Boys record on vinyl and if I did, I probably couldn’t afford to buy it. I’ll also add that the melting snow and/or torrential downpours take all the figurative meaning out of the phrase “the world is a cesspool.” Outside is just one big, muddy swamp right now. How appropriate!
Well, things have been a little tough lately; the hell if I really know why. I could spend hours naming off people and events that have simply rubbed me the wrong way, but instead, I think I’ll throw out the spots of joy that rubbed me the right way. Here’s some stuff that kept me from putting that gun in my mouth (incidentally, my friend Mike Martinez pointed out that one should never place a gun to one’s temple since, “You could miss the vital parts of your brain and end up retarded instead”- information you can use). I can’t work under these conditions anyway.
The Workdogs Old (Sympathy For the Record Industry) – I’ve played this quite a bit since it came out a couple years ago. To quote the Dogs themselves, it’s “Infotainment Blues”- wrong-headed, but righthearted updates on the delta masters where the damned are doomed to paint the Devil’s office for all eternity and “back in the days” refers to “The Night of May 27, 1977.” Jon Spencer and Marce Hall are among the myriad guests who appear on the record as side/straightmen.
Creedence Clearwater Revival Bayou Country (Fantasy) – Yeah, they were hippies (or hippies just liked ’em), but you find something spookier than John Fogerty’s sparse blues chords and gravel throat on “Graveyard Train.” There’s also the classic rock staples, “Born on the Bayou,” “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Proud Mary.” Plus the blurry cover art makes me nauseous after I’ve had a few.
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain (Grove Press) – It could be a little bit less NYCentric, but it’s chock fulla catty gossip, slander, rumors, lies, scandals and horror stories involving the smelly assholes of all the relevant players.
Elvis Presley etc. The Million Dollar Quartet (RCA) – Bought this on a whim a while ago cos it sounded so intriguing, but I usually end up putting it on when I need something to sleep to. Back in the mid-’50s, Elvis, Jerry Lee Levis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash (who doesn’t actually appear on the record, just the cover) fucked around at Sun, running through renditions of stuff they all knew (goosed-up country and gospel, mostly). Elvis (who was a star already) and Jerry Lee (who wasn’t) wage a see-saw battle for control of the microphone. The Killer usually wears the King down by the second verse, but Elvis outsmarts him by “suggesting” to the mostly silent Perkins that they try a different number. Also of interest: Elvis imitating Jackie Wilson imitating Elvis. How ’bout that for entertainment?
The Heartbreakers L.A.M.F. : The Lost ’77 Mixes (Jungle U.K. Import) – Quite possibly the coolest punk rock record of all time. I don’t know quite how lucid Thunders and Nolan were at the time, but they sure fake it well and isn’t that what rock’n’roll’s all about?
Viva Las Vegas The girl, not the Elvis flick.
Liquor numbs the brain and fills the belly. To quote Peter Laughner (who pulled off the neat trick of drinking himself to death at 27), “Life stinks, I need a drink.”
