Rock Gods #185: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

We clocked Ugly D saying the f-word at least 400 times within a 20-minute set.
How is this possible? We checked, and he is not a longshoreman.
Also, the f-word in this case is “For.” Ugly D’s songs does more tributes to his “numbas” (aka homies) than he has homies. He shouts out for his enemies, for people in the news, for people he’s prayering for. And when he can’t think of anyone, he’ll just go “For, for, for, for…”
Better than “Six six six,” we guess. (Unless you’re a demonic metal band. And Ugly D isn’t that either. We checked.)

This is for Jimmy Metro, for Little Mac Dougal
This is Workshop Stats
This is for Threw Apples
For my numbas

Guy talks funny. Funny adds up. We like ‘im.

The Asphodels and 136 Syllables at the Bullfinch… CIA Dope Calypso at Hamilton’s (They were just Dope Calypso, but Hamilton’s ban on drug references in band names applied so they went looking for a noun to which “dope” could be a qualifier. Nice way to get into Hamilton’s—and get a government file started on you). First Party opens; with a name like First Party, do you think they’ll ever get to close a show?… Cosmopolitan Greetings and Father Death Blues, the dreary Eastern Ballad tour stops at D’ollaire’s…

Listening to…

Jason Reeves, The Lovesick.
A little too in love with its own production, this is still a more whimsical and laid-back exercise than you might expect from a guy who wrote several hit singles for Colbie Caillat (who guests on the slow-building “No Lies”). “Simple Song” isn’t simple at all—it’s gushing with frills—but “Alone” sounds appropriately calm and distant. The album ends with the string-laden “Truth,” one of those theatrical pop numbers that crescendos with confessions and cellos. Easy to understand how this album came to be made this way, but would love to hear how Jason Reeves sounds with an acoustic guitar in a living room.

A Couple of Things That Still Bug Me About That Steven Tyler Autobiography

“I’d heard that Pete Townshend’s stutter in “My Generation” came from leapers, some weirdass British speed.”
(Clumsy description. Townshend did indeed write the stutter into the song, but Roger Daltrey gave it voice.)

“Joey [Kramer] was one of the reasons why I wrote the song “Big Ten Inch Record.” I guess it was always wishful thinking.”
(Wishful thinking might explain why Tyler thinks he wrote a song written and released by Bull Moose Jackson in 1952.)

Rock Gods #184: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

Overheard at the Bullfinch:
“People looking past me. That’s what I like best. You know, when you go to a waterfront town, there’s always people on the docks just staring off in the distance? But you know they’re thinking about something? That’s what I like to see at my shows. Someone looking PAST me. Grooving. Feeling the breeze, you know?”

Smart pop from the incestuous The Thurbers, The Ferbers and The Peril Men at the Bullfinch. You’ll find them all hanging around together before the show, learning each other’s songs and singing each other’s praises… Howie’s House Band and Hard-Boiled Egg Fad at Hamilton’s. What the H?.. Wickaboxet at D’ollaires. We’ll say that again, very slowly. Wick. A. Box. Et…

Listening to…

Victorian Halls, Charlatan.
I’m sure there’s a whole genre of this out there—synthesizer-type beats and rhythms juxtaposed with deliriously out of tune vocals and askew guitars. But it’s escaped my ears until now, and I find it quite fetching, the way I first fell for Bow Wow Wow. “Lucky 16” has a music-hall opening, then wild screeching declarations, then a sing-along, then… it’s over, and followed cleverly by “Dear, This Is Desperate,” a more complex tune build around similar melodies and energies. When this stuff clicks, it whacks you right upside the head.

Andrews Amuse

Yet another batch of clever rhymes, alliterations and just plain catchy phrases from the titles of stories and gags in Archie Comics.
From Archie… Archie Andrews, Where Are You Comics Digest Magazine #44 (June 1986):
Wet Fret
There’s This Girl, See?
The Jargon of Jealousy
Scheme Scream
The Star
Blowup
Sea Spree
The Measure of a Man
Weight for Me!
Gift Rift
Red Letter Day
We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby! (an Archie I story, when the gang live in promised times alongside dinosaurs)
Strange Change
A Real Snappy View
Let Your Fingers Do the Walking
Guile Wile
Chip Quip
Tennis Racket
Flip Quips
Once Upon a Time
Hot Stuff
Calamity Jones (note: Jughead’ s surname is Jones)
Wear & Tear
Sell, Sell, Oh, Well
Gift of Gab

Sound effects in the “Tennis Racket” tale: Wap!, Womp!, Rap!, Bop!, Boink!, Boink! and Boink!– plus Big Moose says “Duh!” seven times.

Rock Gods #183: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

There’s nothing like seeing an arrogant fathead fall on his ass onstage. The only thing better is seeing him do it twice.
We’d never seen Angelo and the Temp Kings before now, but the asshole’s rep precedes him: How he gained control of the band through subterfuge, how he dumped two girlfriends after getting them pregnant, how he wears T-shirts with gay slurs on them, how he makes lewd gestures at women during Temp Kings sets.
Angelo spent his shaky time onstage at Hamilton’s last week bitching about the sound system, the lighting, the too-good-for-his-ego opening band…
Then he slipped. On ice, we suspect, which he’d spilled from his own drink. Tried to turn it into a joke, but a minute later he tripped. Actually fell down the stageside step. Lay there, seething and waiting for assistance, as if we should care if he was all right.

Bro/sis duo Claudio & Isabella are at the Bullfinch with Disguised Monk. They’ve just been freed from one of those mock-jail fundraisers… The Pompeys at Hamilton’s… D’ollaire’s is dark; they’d been holding the night for a major act which is hitting clubs with a comeback attempt, but it didn’t happen…