Our occasional coverage of his most lordly Big Deal Soft-Rock Star should not—EVER—be perceived as an endorsement of the man’s maudlin meandering heartswamping sludge. Our justification, since we know is required: if we deign (and we do) to elevate local musicians of the most limited and lo-fi means to the high status of Being Written About Herein, then we must open up the other end of the spectrum as well, and note the doings of the “Made It, But Didn’t Deserve To” as well. An EQ balance, like on your stereo.
Lord BDSRS, having sacrificed his once estimable metal chops (if believe his old junior high school buds) in order to become the wimp-pop-pimp he is today, has been giving interviews to major magazines again. These personal unloadings, he doubtless hopes, will render his forgettable new album memorable. It has a blues song or two on it, you see, and we must understand the suffering that went into them.
Lordy! He was was leaving a bad marriage, which affected his newfound love relationship as well. He was doing a lot of drugs, drinking too besides. He hadn’t yet found his spiritual self (the specific denomination is lacking from the interviews—did no one ask?). His previous record—a love ballad, the thing he was supposed to be best at—hadn’t charted very high. Can we stop now? Is your heart broken enough?
How should we respond to this outpouring of erstwhile anguish? By looking around the Finch, a club Lord BS felt he was too important to play at even back when he was “starving” with a full-time delivery job and regular gigs at Dollair’s, whose owners were old friends of the family. Many of our acquaintances at the Finch will never know the troubles he’s seen, surely—they can barely afford to drink too much, let alone do heavy drugs. They have never had to worry about their derivative dashed-off insincere love songs not rocketing to the Top Ten. (To which of the wives was our Lord writing that bartchuster, anyhow? Did he care?) When the Finch bunch write love songs, they are not tradeable commodities. The names of the people they are about are usually right there in the lyrics.
The IDWs draw on the bathroom walls of the Bullfinch Thursday, with Choice Choice, Something to Remember, Bluest Angel, Gambler’s Luck, The Snob Sisters, Switchcraft, Commercial Caper, The Bully Girls (haven’t heard of them? They bare an uncanny resemblance to the aforementioned Snob Sisters), The Midas Mess, Feed Deed, Wing It and Drive to Distraction. It’s the first Annual “Sing For Your Crapper” marathon, where bands get booked for full sets as long as they help clean the legendary Bullfinch bathrooms. The bands in turn are using the opportunity to unleash fringe passions, risky side projects or just mess around. We’ll assess the damage—uh, the renovations—and keep you posted….