A Question Of No Consequence Answered Way Too Seriously

     The question was posed on Twitter last week, by Post Gazette music writer Scott Mervis, whether it was okay for Richie Ramone to be going around playing Ramones songs in a new band.

     As much as I would consider myself a purist, and as much as I bow down at the altar of the Ramones on an almost daily basis, the idea of Richie playing those songs out doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

     After all, Richie was actually in the band.  He played on Too Tough To Die, Animal Boy and Halfway To Sanity and somehow managed to make the Ramones' live set two minutes faster.  Richie was unceremoniously booted out of the band because of a dispute over T-shirt money.

     People need to understand that there is no punk rock pension plan or retirement package.  A lot of the musicians that were in punk bands from the 70s and 80s have nothing but the songs they wrote.  If they want to put together some sort of configuration of the band they were in to take advantage of nostalgia dollars, they should be able to do that.  As long as the bands are tight and the songs are treated with respect, more power to them for going back out on the road.  Now that being said, I was unable to make it to the show last week when Richie came through town so I can't say whether this band's proof is in its pudding.

     The songs that the Ramones put together belong in a live setting.  With the original four members no longer with us, at least Richie is out there keeping the songs alive, not unlike an orchestra playing classical music.  And what's an orchestra other than a snooty cover band in tuxedos.

     The Dead Kennedys tour every so often, minus Jello Biafra.  Jello took offense to the point where he sued the other band members to try to prevent them from playing the old songs out.  It seems like Jello forgot that he wasn't in the van or studio by his lonesome.  He might own the publishing but he would not have been able to do it without the rest of the band.

     There were dueling Black Flag reunions a few years ago that also ended up in litigation.  Suits and countersuits were filed mostly on the grounds that Greg Ginn might be a great guitar player but also an insufferable prick that doesn't know how to disburse royalty payments from his label, SST.  As much as I hate Stage AE, it was worth the price of admission to see Keith Morris rip through the song My War.  That show was also where I was exposed to, local punk band, Killer Of Sheep's live set for the first time.  Which was a fair trade for the cancer screening of a pat down I was given by venue security.

     Pittsburgh is saturated with cover bands to the point where original bands are marginalized. A strong, well nurtured local scene cannot develop when every stage in town is occupied by a cover band.  Instead of forging their own legacy, most musicians in town are saying to hell with it and starting a cover band to make beer money off of someone else's legacy.  At least Richie Ramone was a part of the legacy that some people are sure to say he's taking advantage of.

What A Week

     It's been yet another odd and trying week as humanity takes its final gasps before the virus that we are is flushed away by the planet's immune system.

     The last male Northern White Rhino died.  The animal has been hunted and poached down to a few remaining females.  Way to go humans.  The only hope for the species is a jar of frozen rhino jizz and there shouldn't be much hope for that since science is a dirty word all of a sudden.  Hopefully the freezer is plugged into a sturdy enough plug strip and not one of those 99 cent ones that crap out after a few days.

     The first two days of Spring greeted Pittsburgh with ten inches of snow which ripped my shoulders to shreds by trying to get it out of my driveway.  And in other weather related news, some genius posted something on line about how the “Jews” control the weather.  As if they weren't busy enough controlling Hollywood and the international banking system, now they can make it rain on Nazi parades.

     The terrorist that was setting off bombs all over Austin, TX blew himself up just before being apprehended.  The really strange thing is how the media and the authorities have somehow avoided calling him a terrorist.  Oh wait, that's not strange at all.  It's because he's white which means he was troubled and needed help.  The word “terrorist” is reserved for brown people who pray to Allah even though an entire city was terrorized for a few weeks and his targets seem to have been racially motivated to some extent.  I guess if you start calling a white person a terrorist it might start to chip away at the narrative of white supremacy that runs to the foundation of this country.

     And while I'm on the topic of white supremacy, 45 is now involved in multiple lawsuits over nondisclosure agreements with two porn stars after having affairs with them.  Could you imagine the uproar that this would have caused with our previous president?  Those Tea Party dipshits would have been so enraged they might have actually used a dictionary before making their signs before all twelve of them would show up for a fake rally.  The most disturbing part of the story is that he told both women that they were so beautiful they reminded him of his daughter.  This is more evidence that the highest elected official in this country wants to have sex with his daughter.  Excuse me while I gag on my coffee.  At this point in my life, I think the only way I would ever sign an NDA is if it involved being able to see Avengers: Infinity War immediately.

     While 45 was busy putting the silver spoon back in his mouth so he could be shockingly silent over these lawsuits, he found time to call his boss to congratulate him on winning a rigged election. It's kind of hard to field an opposition candidate when Putin is the only one with the authority to determine who gets on the ballot and that's when he's not busy having journalists and vocal opponents murdered.  The footage of balloons being placed in front of the security camera to conceal the stuffing of a ballot box was only topped by the footage of the woman who didn't care if anyone saw her jam a stack ballots into the box.

     And if giving Putin an “ataboy” wasn't enough, 45 felt that John Bolton needed to be brought back into our lives.  An architect of the Iraq war is now going to be National Security Advisor instead of being in prison.  Bolton has spent the past few years screaming and yelling about how we need to go to war with Iran.  We've been fucking up the Middle East since the end of World War II so what's one more war?  The Iraq war never ended and we're already helping the proxy war along in Yemen so let's go into Iran.  Do these pigfuckers not understand that the average citizen will do the fighting and dying?  They do but they don't care.  45 wants to start a war because he thinks it will help with his popularity.  He also thinks that a war will get the media off his back because the corporate media won't criticize a wartime president.

     I thought it was safe to go to sleep on Friday night but then I checked the news Saturday morning and 45 started pushing his ban on transgender personnel in the military.  This coward's fear of the “other” knows no bounds.

     And in school shooting news, there was another one in Maryland this week.  Early reports said that the shooting was over a girl.  As much as I hate the Smiths and the Cure, if someone would have put them in his ears instead of a gun in his hands, there may have been a different ending to this story. He may have stayed in bed for month or become a frequent Hot Topic shopper but at least everyone would still be alive.

     The March For Our Lives was earlier today.  George Orwell wrote in 1984 that there was hope in the proles but I am starting to see that the last reserves of hope in our species can be found in the youth.  Forward progress has always been brought about by youth movements.  My faith in humanity has always been on the level of scrapings at the bottom of a barrel but being in the streets of Pittsburgh today and watching replays of the march in DC, my angry pessimism might be a little closer to angry optimism.  Hope is for fools.  It's toil and legwork that gets things done.  Today we march, tomorrow we vote.

     This week was another ride on a broken rollercoaster but at least it will end with the Southwest themed Onion Maiden pop up tomorrow.

Maybe I'm What's Wrong With That Record

     Over my many years of listening to music, there have been times when a record or an artist didn't line up with me or I just didn't get what they were up to.

     For years, I had an averse reaction to the Velvet Underground and Suicide.  As these were both bands that launched a thousand or so other bands, I knew there had to be something there that I was missing.  I also had a similar issue with David Bowie because I was only familiar with his mid-80s singles that were on the radio and was completely ignorant to his first four albums.

     Instead of dismissing this music and pitching the records into my local used bin, I put them back on the shelf and would go back to them every so often.  A few years ago, I put on Loaded by the Velvet Underground and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I suddenly locked in and went backwards through their catalogue.  Then I went from their first album back to Loaded.  I had a new fascination that I could not shake.  Luckily, this was right around the time where all of their albums were getting the deluxe anniversary reissue treatment.  Each one was bound in a coffee table book with photos and essays.  There were new stereo and mono mixes along with outtakes, live recordings and a two-bowl corner sink.  I didn't fall down a rabbit hole so much as a bottomless pit.

     It took until this past year for me to wrap my brain around Suicide.  Alan Vega and Martin Rev put together a dense pile of sound that is not easy to listen to and are certainly not for the faint of heart. Their first album is the one you put on at the end of night to tell your guests the party's over.  My way into their music was through Alan Vega's final solo record IT which was released shortly after his passing.  I suddenly understood what Trent Reznor is always reaching for but always falling just short of.  They are an all out aural assault that can cause brain damage and alienate your loved ones.  Their music is art that challenges you to keep up with what they are doing.  It took me ages to get to them and I have been greatly rewarded for my efforts.

     With Bowie, I think my issues were my own maturity and a lack of access to his first four albums. In my younger days, even if I had access to them, I don't think I would have had an appreciation for his older albums due to symptoms of being an angry young man.  Now that I am an angry old man that tires easily, I can slow down and find great joy in listening to The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.  After repeated listenings, I am thoroughly convinced that it is one of the greatest albums ever committed to tape.  Sadly, the new boxsets that are coming out every fall are sonically lacking and do a great injustice to the man's work.

      A lot of people have problems with an artist's newer music.  Saying that their new record doesn't hold up to their older records.  If I encounter this in myself, I usually put the record back on the shelf for a few weeks and then go back to it.  Maybe I wasn't ready for it or my expectations were built up in a way no record could meet.  Or maybe I was just in a shitty mood and should have reached for the Slayer instead.  These people create music for a living.  Maybe they have a better idea of what they're trying for than I do so I'll give it multiple listens before writing it off.  And that rarely happens.  It may take a few spins for me to catch up but more often than not I can eventually see their forrest through the trees.  Besides, if a band put out the same record every other year, wouldn't that get boring?  They're growing and changing just like the rest of us so it's logical that their art would grow too.

A Man Without A Tribe

     One of the advantages of not being part of a clique in the local punk scene is that I am able to stand back on the periphery and just be a fan of the music.  When I go to a show, I normally stand by the soundboard or in a corner by the nearest exit.  This is an attempt to be left alone to enjoy the music which is the sole reason I left the house and put up with traffic to drive across town in the first place.

     I'm a generation behind the one that included Submachine and Aus-Rotten, and two behind the one that included Half Life and Real Enemy, so I don't have a personal connection to any of the members of those bands.  My only connection is through the records which were readily available at my local store.  I came into the scene from the metal end of the spectrum because I worked at a sandwich shop with the singer of the band I lugged gear for.  My introduction to the punkier end of the pool came from friends of my sister.

     I didn't have to put up with the politics of the scene or any he said/he said conflicts that always cropped up when people got competitive.  I didn't have to conform to any punk rock fashion uniform. As much as these people didn't care about how they looked, they sure did care way too much about how everyone else looked.  I would dress for the weather instead of wearing a denim jacket, bedazzled with spikes and the sleeves cut off in the middle of winter.  Chuck Taylor's don't really work too well when there's a few inches of snow on the ground and the temperature might get close to 20.

     One of the more rigid, implied rules of the scene was to toil away in obscurity for a few years and then break up or risk any and all punk rock credibility.  If your band started gaining traction and you were able to tour outside of the tri-state area, in places that weren't basements, you were cast out and ridiculed.  I was always under the impression that being in a band and staying in a band was the goal. That's the difference between a weekend warrior-hobbyist that still has a day job and an actual musician.

     If a band was able to manage being on the road for eleven months out of the year, that was somehow considered “selling out.”  I think it was jealousy on the part of everyone that was still stranded in Pittsburgh.  Or, maybe, it was their lack of ambition that kept them tied down to playing the same bar every other weekend while the same fifteen to twenty people drank at them.  What's more punk rock/anarchist than making a living outside of the usual economic means by living off of your art?

     Even when I worked shows on the regular, I would head home as soon as the van was loaded unless there was a stop for post-show food.  I had more of a connection to the music than the people involved with playing it so when the music was over there was no point in hanging around so I'd split.  My usual standoff-ish relationship with humanity prevented me from wanting to hang out while folks participated in post-show extracurricular chemistry.  As I look back on it, I think I was looking for something a little more high minded and artsy than the bunch of schlubs looking to get laid because they were in a band that I ended up with.

     There are no pictures of me hanging out outside of a venue before or after a show with a group of friends but I still have all of the records and I still listen to them on a regular basis.  I couldn't tell you if they were any good because I'm too close to them to listen objectively and I think that's okay.  The records are my yearbook or shoebox of dogeared pictures and I'm alright with that.

The Path Too Well Travelled Has Gotten Me Here

     Here's a follow up to the unmitigated hell-scape that my day job has become since I wrote Winnie The Pooh And The Pants Shitter, Too.

     Due to Winnie The Pooh's complaints about feeling lonely and isolated because she had her own private office on the first floor of a building with no elevator, the entire work group has been relocated to an office space across town that has an elevator.

     Almost everyone in the office lives on the western or southern part of town so the company decided to relocate us to the eastern part of town.  This added forty-five minutes to everyone's commute.  This can only be seen as a dick move by the company since they have office space all over the area.

     The office is set up with cubicles that have walls so high they block out any and all natural sunlight.  They are also arranged in such a way that it feels like I'm walking through a maze designed by M. C. Escher to get to the piece of cheese that is my paycheck.  The office also seems to have a constant smell of sauerkraut.  I don't know what that's all about but sauerkraut?  What the fuck have I done with my life?

     To go along with the delightful smell of sauerkraut, in what I can only see as an act of protest, someone has taken to microwaving fish on a daily basis.  So not only does it reek of sauerkraut, around noon every day, the office takes on the smell of fish with a side of sauerkraut.  I reiterate, what the fuck have I done with my life?

     The office space hasn't been occupied since 2003.  That means it hasn't been cleaned since well before 2003.  There is a thick layer of dust over every surface and the company decided that it didn't want to pay to have the place cleaned.  There are still post-9/11, flag store patriot, themed signs hanging all over the place.  “Let Freedom Ring,” “Stand United,” “These Colors Don't Run.”  Go fuck yourself.  I didn't fall for the mindless follower bullshit then and I sure as hell won't buy into it during the reign of Cadet Bone Spurs.  I'd take the signs down but I'd probably be turned into Homeland Security by one of the dunder heads in the office.  For God and country and puppies or whatever.

     Since there is no place for me to hide in the building so I can read or just have some silence on my breaks and lunches, I am forced to utilize the break room.  The television in the break room is always on at an ear splitting volume and The Price Is Right is being watched like it was a blood sport.  The half wits that I work with scream and yell at the television like they were the half wits in the studio audience.  I was never very fond of Drew Carey but I fucking hate him now.  And if it's not The Price Is Right, it's some sort of soap opera that is viewed with an intensity and focus that I have never witnessed being given to a television.  Evil eyes and shooshes will be readily handed out if any noise is made in the break room while they're watching their stories.

     Two weeks after Christmas, an unwrapped fruitcake, with a slice taken out of it, materialized out of thin air in the break room.  After three days, I was going to throw it out but my X-Files like curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see how long the fruitcake would stay in its current condition.  It sat on the table untouched for an additional two weeks before it vanished just as mysteriously as it arrived.  I don't know how brain damaged someone has to be to want to share a Christmas related snack food, that no one likes to begin with, two weeks after Christmas and then leave it on a table for another two weeks.  There's a metaphor about something in there somewhere but I'm too irritated to figure out what it is.

     As if it didn't have one before, the office has taken on even more of an air of an adult daycare center.  Everyone aimlessly shuffles around in a catatonic state until it's medication time or time to watch their stories.  This is how grown ups act in a place of business.

     Management no longer talks to me because it knows I would only emit a wraith like wail in response to any social query.  I need to quit my job and move to a shack in Montana to get away from these idiots.  I consider my greatest failure in life to have been the day I decided to take this job.  I should have taken the less secure path instead of the route that is falsely secure.  I might not know what I'd be having for dinner tonight but at least I'd have some shred of sanity and dignity left.