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The question, "What are you listening to these days?" pops up with depressing
regularity both on this site and after shows. My usual rather belligerent
response to this query is that I rarely listen to music and prefer books
and TV, which, I'm afraid, is an honest answer.
However, I've just been on the road with 4 great singer/songwriters and
naturally, this experience demanded that I at least listen to their stuff
and also opened a few other doors that, due to laziness, fear, a huge superiority/inferiority
complex, and just plain jadedness, I would usually prefer to keep closed.
So I found myself thoroughly digging Radney Foster, Jeff Black and Tom Freund
whose new works are well worth checking out. Radney's new album is not out
until next year but both Jeff's "Birmingham Road" and Tom's "North American
Long Weekend" are available now.
The tour was one of the most enjoyable and stimulating I've ever done, which
says a lot about the collective temperament of all involved, especially
considering that we did 13 gigs in 13 days, had one day off, did one more
gig, then went home. A nutty schedule to be sure.
The other doors that were opened were, of course, that I had to spend a
lot of time on a tour bus with satellite TV reception and occasionally someone
would lower the tone of the proceedings and lock onto a rock video channel,
which we would, naturally, sneer at with gusto. Now, gentle reader, is where
it gets interesting (okay, not that interesting, but for someone who really doesn't give much of a damn about
other peoples' music anymore, fairly interesting). On comes the Monster Magnets or whatever they call themselves
with some brilliant nonsense about a Space Muthafucker or something. Now that I can get behind. But the real jolt was seeing Marilyn Manson's "The Dope
Show" clip. The next day, a record store fella who was sponsoring the show
in the town we happened to be performing in asked if we wanted a few gratis
CD's. I blagged a copy of "Mechanical Animals" from the slightly disgusted
and incredulous chap and have since realized that the future of rock is
in fact here and it looks like an alien sex-fiend cyberslut and sounds like
a wicked amalgamation of Alice Cooper, David Bowie (natch) and all the rest
of the best trash/pop you can think of. Marilyn Manson is the Rolling Stones,
the Sex Pistols, the Nirvana of now, meaning the one popular music icon
that really grabs the essence of everything worthwhile and exhilarating
about this third-rate, gone-to-seed sham of a medium and elevates it to
transcendent status, a feat unacomplished since - well, Nirvana, I suppose.
Every track is a piece of sonic architecture unparalleled since Tony Visconti
did the 3-mic gated technique on Bowie's "Heroes." Listen to "Mechanical
Animals" really loud with a stereo that has a serious bass end and dig the
chaos.
Onward:
Feeling not at all in my usual surreal mood, I guess I'll stick with stuff
that actually might interest you.
When I was in the UK this summer, I located a bag of cassettes in my asbestos-infected
attic, each one jammed full of songs I had once demoed but not professionally
recorded.
There's some wild shit on there!
Thinking I'd never locate the 1/4 inch masters, I listened through this
material and was surprised at the excellent sound quality. But how much
better it would be, I thought, if I could dig up the mixes. Suddenly it
struck me that I should give my ex-management a call. They immediately located
a 1/4 inch tape in the office which contained 4 songs, then advised me to
check with the man who runs my storage facility in London where I have equipment
stashed (by now I was back in the States with my bag of cassettes) to see
if any more masters were there. Bingo! Pretty much everything I had on cassette
was in air-conditioned storage in London and is now sitting not 6 feet away
from my swivel-chair in boxes wrapped in lead foil and slathered with "Film/Tape:
Do Not X-Ray" stickers.
Previous to this find, I dumped 5 professionally recorded masters onto DAT
ready for future mastering. I'm not talking demos here, but stuff with a
band, songs that were never released, 3 of which feature a guitarist who's
surname begins with an "S."
So, what we have here is a 20-plus-strong collection of Spare Tracks and
Lost Demos, something many GP followers have been crying out for.
I am negotiating with a credit card-ready website and am planning to make
this record available exclusively via the internet. Why bother with radio,
why bother with stores, why release it on a record label and get 14% of
nothing?
This oddball collection is for you, and by my calculations (evaluated by
the hit counter at the top of this site), taking in the probable fact (that's gotta be an oxymoron) that about 250 of you are hitting this site over and over,
and perhaps 128 of those people even have credit cards, and out of that
128 I'd say about 74 would be mad enough and persistent enough to plow through
the garbled nonsense one has to negotiate in order to actually successfully
purchase something off the Net, I reckon I'll lose my fucking shirt!
Whatever, once I clear the road-scum out of my head, I'll try and get some
time in a studio and dump this stuff straight onto DAT; hopefully, the tapes
of the demos will be in the same shape as the band songs, which were in
excellent condition and sounded as good as the year they were recorded,
around 1985.
No questions about this project please; just wait, Okay?
I'm already, in my schoolboyish excitement (lost demos are such fun!), giving
away too much before the fact, and lots has to be done yet before there
is an actual album. I might even expire of some asbestos-related disease
before I get around to doing anything about it. But the signs are encouraging
that a nifty little package is in the offing here.
Fingers crossed.
Stay tuned.
Later.................GP
PS. Thanks to the 2 people who supplied info on Piggie Muldoon. Fascinating
stuff.
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