When Everything Got Smaller and Then Disappeared

Sad news from 2 cities in which I used to live, San Francisco and New York...as I just pulled this off of the wire..

The slumping music industry claimed another two victims yesterday as Virgin Megastore revealed plans to close their stores in New York’s Union Square and San Francisco’s Market Street. The Union Square location will shutter at the end of May, while the Market St. store will close by April 30th, Billboard.biz reports. As announced earlier, the Virgin Megastore in New York’s Times Square will close this April as well.

I can't tell you how many endless hours I spent in both of these stores...especially New York's Union Square Virgin Megastore. Miles of aisles and the long line of listening stations where I dissed and praised many a new band or repackaged,re-mastered back catalog. Those hours really filled my weekends as an aimless neo New Yorker. This is sad news for me. I had a funny feeling even when CDs first came out in the 80s that everything was going to get smaller and eventually disappear. We would have our music piped into our cranial circuitry via a quarter inch jack just below our ear as we reclined and sat in a virtual massage chair and were pumped full of beer or ice cream intravenously.

If any of you have seen the brilliant movie Wall-E, the cartoon-ish earthlings have essentially become that vision I had, strapped to jet powered chairs, obese with every wish and command at their finger tips in a console at their lap. Triple chinned Jane and Johnny Neumonics.

And albums became cassettes became cds became files pumped through little white ear buds....for the ease, for the compactness, for the mobility. The ipod...the trophy we all lift over our heads while dancing with a purple or green screen as background.

We all have them...even the basement stack archeologists and the DJs....soon they won't even know what a milk crate is. And soon our children's children will have to refer to history books...err scratch that, WEBSITES to see what a record store was. But they'll be doing that while sending a subliminal machine- free text to their tween friends via brainwaves while watching a 20 minute movie on the screen implanted on the backside of their retinas....music will be thought of and purchased through mere consumer computers attached to our gray matter. There will be banner ads scrolling through our subconscious while we sleep... We won't leave the house...we will just float on our chairs while consuming and the waste will be sucked out of our orifices and converted to energy to run the chair.

I am to blame as well. I have an ipod. I want a bigger Ipod that DOES MORE STUFF, that CRAMS IN APPS that I'll never use. I keep downloading songs, albums, podcasts, videos to see if I can fill that thing up....so I can say that I did, so I can have an excuse to buy a NEW one...and on and on.

The sad thing is..I can't even get through large percentages of the albums I've found,purchased, downloaded and hoarded. I don't have the time/patience/want/need anymore.....but I'm addicted to getting them and having them. Listening to them is a bother, a distraction... And as more record stores die off...I'll eventually graft myself to the couch and ferment in the empty pleasure of the ease of watching everything get smaller and eventually disappear.

Random Rock Poetry from 9/19/99

I have a new header thanks to my good friend Tim. I hope you like it. Actually, it doesn't matter if you do or not....I'm keepin' it! Thanks Tim!

Today after another round of playing Job Search and rummaging through a folder for something. I found this photocopied poem I wrote from 1999 called "Man I'm Your Man."

Upon reflection.as its a decade old..not much has changed in my quest for rock excellence and fondness for the days of rock yore. Here it is in its entirety.

Man, I'm Your Man

Come Get Me
Come fucking get me
All you slacking
addicted and charted black hearted
blues angry chain stoking morally bankrupt illusions.
Heartachen blood taken transfusion conclusions.
All you bitchy conditioned
old rockers with wisdom
better sand all your claws off
to come in my kitchen.
better stick in my knife
or plug in my tongue.
Your songs laying there dying
because I haven't sung.
Come get me
regret me
bloodcurdle, bloodlet me.
belittle the system that confounds and confines you
but it ain't nothing without a voice I'll remind you.

Come get me
come fucking get me
your mudslinging roots
your punktified boots have not yet kicked my ass.
and I've taken your class. lived your past.
not your path. not your pity. not the dues you have paid.
do your heroes resent all the women they've laid
do you covet their wisdom or die drunk in their shade.
come get me
you rusted old goat of a band
stop choking on verses and grains of white sand
stop bitching in basements. obey my command
come and get me you fuckers
I'm the gun in your hand.
I'm your winning hand.
Come and see me dreamer.
Cause man, I'm your man.

I've rocked underground
with the burn in my bone.
burnt to a crisp every last microphone
hated related
bedded and dated
every one of your songs I have not yet created.
but I'm slated
to cause a disruption,distinction.
exited to be part of your old band's extinction
ecstatic, erratic and totally clean.
with a big dirty thought for every last scene.
psychotic no maybe
just angry not lazy.
I'll tongue every mother, kiss every baby.
Call her just once
but call her a lady.
And mow over every kid rock and slim shady.
Rock real with passive aggressive mad style
make love under pressure
run wild in the aisle
hit cues and trust news
of the great pop demise
come on and get me
I'm just blessing, no disguise.



well there it is..it's dated, it's fresh....unedited and random. Thats the way I used to write in a flurry...on amphetamines with a composition book at my desk in the middle of the day. Now its a laptop and bad posture where I struggle for keys and struggle for content. But I sure enjoy it.

Wikipedia Names Your Band

I hear this is what the bearded kids are talking about around the local hipster water coolers as we speak. Found online is this here meme(catchphrase or content that spreads rapidly person to person via the internet)that allows you to create a random imaginary band and an album cover to go with it. Just follow the directions below and see what you get. Send them to me and I might send a prize your way for a winning entry because I like you. I really like you. Runners up will get just about nothing but a shout out. I'm all out of Turtle Wax.

*
Wikipedia Names Your Band

Music Buzz New meme: here's a totally random way to make your new random band's new random album cover. Post one! Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band. Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Here's Mine



Dan Spring-But The Bread Itself

For the direct link to the article I found, click here http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/wikipedia-names-your-band

Get In The Van

I'm Back. My head is no longer tilted left and pasted to a bus window, my winter hat is no longer pulled over my face to repel the suns rays and I am here processing the events that went down this past weekend. Rock is good to those who wait apparently. I was offered the position after an intense but fun audition in a smoke and poster filled practice space in Boston. I was maybe 70 percent, not warmed up at all, but the voice came through and so did the desire. I had to dig deep after a long haul on two buses while entrenched in semi sickness but there was obviously a nugget or two of rocksinger lodged in my duodenum somewhere. I was able to purge it into my psyche, clench my rock fists while channeling Fred Mercury meets Joe Elliott and sing the songs of Bang Camaro. I will be one of six excellent vocalists.

I cannot say enough about the boys in the band, and there are many of them. They were hospitable, helpful and full of hell fire. They are a bunch of pros and it was a thrill to hang with them and shoot rock shit.

The details aren't anywhere near worked out yet, but a tour starts in mid march in NYC. I'll let you know.



The Oscars were a thrill, I guess. A very light in the loafers grab your Playbill and sashay sort of thrill. Apparently the musical is back, because gay men in the UK bought a shitload of tickets to Mamma Mia and because the tweens and the inbetweens (NY and LA)love them some High School Musical and Dancing With the Stars. The rest of us had to force ourselves through swishy dance numbers by Hugh Jack a Man and Beyounce....another awards show with Beyounce trotted out like the equine vocal gymnast that she is. Yet another awards show with Beyounce..we will never be spared, will we? And lets face it, it was hard seeing Wolverine doing a Tommy Tune soft shoe. I was hoping a claw would pop out and deflate one of Ms. Bootylicious' hamhocks.

I was happy to see Sean Penn win. Sean Penn pulling off a gay icon is like watching the red sea part and finding him surfing on its swell. I picked him in a slight edge over Mickey Rourke because his face doesn't look like a piece of ruddy plastic and he happens to be the best actor of our time. And I bet you'd never see him bawling over a rat dog in public. But welcome back to Mickey. I see lots of action movies in his future, simply because despite his immense talent, it's like looking at medusa with a face lift. He'll simply be a leading man with a mask or helmet on. They'll make it work. Kudos as well to Kate Winslet who won for the Reader, but really won for the mistakes the academy made by overlooking her in the past. Hell, she should have won for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but Nazis get more press so she took it home this year. Hottest nazi I've ever seen by the way. Heil hotness!

Slumdog Millionaire was the best movie of the year in a feel good garbage- in- the streets- rags- to -riches lovey dovey sort of way and Danny Boyle was the best director and it was no surprise to see them both win their Oscars. There were ultimately no upsets at the Oscars this year unless you were upset with the inclusion of Queen Latifah any time, any where, Penelope Cruz's barely there English, or Sophia Loren looking like a 70 year old drag queen with a spray tan. Ben Stiller needs to take a break from movies as well...a good year long break where we wont be subject to his ironic frustrated guy dull comedy.

Thats my opinion. I'm sticking to it.

Cool Images from the Internets

I've been doing vocal scales like a banshee in heat, imagining myself cramped in a van for several months and have been too busy preparing for the audition to take care of my loyal readers. I'll be away for a few days so here's some cool images from the internets to hold you over while my feet are on the ground and I'm reaching for the stars.



I love that store. Wherever it is, I wanna go. Even if its for a handful of picks or a capo. I will go in and test out one of those Mexican made strats with a little Smoke On The Water and clear the place out.




I'm sure this Wangcaster won't be hanging on the wall in that store anywhere. But I bet it sounds great when you're playing Big Balls(AC/DC) or Balls to the Wall by Accept...or even the Lemon Song.




Speaking of Balls...This guy has bigger ones than you.





And to finish up today...Have you ever seen a cooler bass? I've seen my share of bassists who sound completely backwards, but this young man has taken it to extremes.
He should have loaned it out to Adam Clayton or the late Sid Vicious...it would have fit like an unfunky glove.

Have fun,kids! Watch the Academy Awards on Sunday...and look here for a recap. Be a follower on my blog, tell a friend who just might give a shit about good rock talk. See you soon, Seano