Kurt
Hernon:
December,
2003

2003: I've Got Five Records…Five Records That I Want You to Hear…Right Now!

"I'm living on shattered faith / the kind that likes to restrict your breath / there's never been a better time than this / to suffocate on eternal bliss!" - Brody Dalle (nee Armstrong) "Drain the Blood", The Distillers

Now this is what I'm talkin' bout folks! This is what I've been waiting for! It's been a long time coming and let me tell ya, it feels good! 2003 on the Christian calendar and finally rockroll sounds are at long fucking last being done up all right and proper with some semblance of consistency once again! Every turn I've been taking (and I've been taking an awful lot of turns) lately has been a king-hell fucking white-knuckle ride through the glorious and all to rarified rock and roll whitewaters. It seems like I've been waiting for this season since, well…somehweres around 1983 I suppose. Twenty-freaking-years! Two decades. One full-on Abe Lincoln score ('ol honest Abe had four of 'em in his rant…I only offer you one. Take it or leave it). A freshly peach-ified Andy Jackson greenback worth of years - twenty, count 'em 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, (come on kids, stick with me, our public education isn'w/wasn't as bad as these schlock pols want everyone to believe), um, oh yeah, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 (TWENTY!) - since I could get this sort of raging and menacing whale of a HARD ON for good old simple rock and roll. Twenty years - barely under half of the years I've been living (I'm closing in on forty…again, basic math that I know you know), which is far too long for a desperate rock cat like myself. Half-a-fucking-lifetime waiting for top notch rock and roll kicks to roll off the assembly line one afta another ain't exactly a winners pace when it comes to rock and roll glory - but you gotta just sit back and take what they're dishing out folks because we're probably gonna be bitching for another twenty, which will put most of us up around 60 or 70 years old, hardly enough time to pine away for another twenty after that. So before they slap me in the urn, I just gotta sit back and soak up the incandescent grandeur of the many and mighty rockroll gifts that this holiest of holy years hath delivered!!

So unto you I present this gift…this list of the good things this year hath brought forth and lays at our collective alter. For me, it is a list of things to be thankful for…for you, perhaps a starting place, a map for a journey incomplete.

Fuck that, just bring the rock already will ya???

My Brody Dalle Problem

Brody, Brody, Brody!!! Brody-freaking-Dalle! Now, there you have her - the ultimate punk rocker turned middling aged old guy's wet dream fantasy. Vrrroom! Vrroom! Bold, embattled, brusque, throttle-voiced, and curvy as a West Virginy dirt mountain road, she's a multi-pierced, mostly pissed slab of 100% punk womanhood who has finally, on her band the Distillers terrific new record Coral Fang, grown old enough to understand the absolute beauty of nuance in noise; of pleasure…or redemption…in pain; of strength from weakness.

Sure, she sounds like Courtney Love (who sounded like Joanie Jett); and true she was the Mrs. To Mr. Punk rock hisownbadself Rancid-man Tim Armstrong; yes, she's dating Queens of the Stone Age bore Josh Homme; and she sure as shit put this piece of rock and roll pie together with Pixies prod-man Gil Norton and Nirvana mixologist Andy Wallace; but does all of that make her an opportunist?

Well, hell yes it does…but it doesn't mean she ain't damn good at what she's doing - which she is…in spades. Coral Fang is the finest anti-grrl-rock rock record since they started calling themselves "grrls". It's a fully realized Hole record that Hole has nothing to do with it! It treats rock and roll as everything boys initially made it (sex, angst, sex, anger, sex, frustration, sex, and maybe love…) only reinvented as a girl's own sex (that Dalle scream at the one minute forty second point of "Dismantle Me" is an absolute orgasm) and reverence grab. It draws its energy from the flesh (a thigh, the curve of a lower back, the slope of a waist to the hip) and the mind and the heart - but it understands that it is the flesh in life compels the mind and the heart. And that is a notion that is missing from so many other "grrl" recordings. While Sleater-Kinney, god bless their agitating and caustic hearts, is making a point, Brody Dalle is making you hard. There's a difference there…and that's not to say that Dalle's songs are come-ons, they are not. They are extraordinarily strong, passionate, and utterly sensual songs that approach rockroll with a robust and purely feminine attitude. They just aren't anti-boy-anti-cock-anti-sex songs. Brody happens to like rock and roll boys (hell, she doesn't dissuade the rockroll gals either, believe me!). She howls for them. She sweats for them. She rips her vocal chords to shreds for them. She rapes her own soul for them so that they maybe…just maybe…they might understand one hurt, confused, and desperate girl in their lifetime. And, in turn, the rock and roll boys and girls) should love Brody back. It's the way things are supposed to work when rockroll reaches the right emotional places.

Getting Born Again with Jet

Hey kids, come on over and hop up on grandpappy's lap! Listen closely now. You know how your grampa is always ranting and a raving about rock and roll this and rock and roll that, right? You know how good old gramps is fond of regaling you little rug munchkins with wild-eyed tales of guitars so loud your ears start bleeding? How I often slip back in my fading memory for little stories about real drums, throbbing basslines, and howling longhaired dirtbag singers? I can tell by the smiles on your faces that you're half amused and half confused when I tell you these things. And it doesn't get any easier when I start tossing old records on the phonograph - you know, those big round black things that have music on them? You don't know Cheap Trick from Thin Lizzy, and I understand that. It's not your fault. But let me share a little something with you that your grandpappy just discovered! This is a NEW record kids…one from your generation believe it or not. Here little Billy, run this over to the CD player and put this on for you tired old gramps, will ya?

Do ya hear that? Do ya? That's what I'm talking about! Those guitars! They are so aggravated aren't they?

(singing) "Last chance honey, this is your last chance honey"

Now you might wanna get off grampa's lap sonny boy, this music does things to an old codger like myself that would not be so appropriate for a young'n like you to discover.

(stands….dances like he just figured out his shirt is on fires)

This…(panting)…this is it kids! (pants more) Come on kids…dance with your pappy! (hand claps with the boys from Jet as they run through "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" like a blowtorch. Sure it's the modified bass line from Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" - but they fucking own it on this tune)

Whew! (leaning, hands on knees as the song fades), ain't that somethin' kids? (the youngest child, 6, cries). Aww, is grampa scaring you little… (begins a spastic, convulsing dance with the opening Aerosmith riff of "Rollover D.J."…eyes roll back into the head until the closing "Takin' Care of Business" riff induces a foolish leap from the coffee table)

Ohh, that smarts. ("ohh look what you've done / you've made a fool of everyone" the band sings like a Beatles ballad and it sound as though they've been watching. The 8 year old breaks down into tears and flees the room)

Oh geez, I'm sorry (speaking to the 9, 11, 11, and 13 year old), I just can't help myself. THIS is what I've been telling you about…THIS is rock and roll. This is a perfect record. Did you notice how they build ya up with the wild songs and then ease ya down with a wonderful slow one like this ("ohhh, look what you've done / you've made a fool of everyone")

I'll just sit down for this next one, grampa doesn't wanna scare all of his grandkids. ("Get What You Need" pedal kicks into agit-pure-70's rock pose…the feet move, the will starts to break) I can control it, I swear I can. I just have to move my legs like this until the next song, okay kids? (nods all around…the Stonesy "Wild Horses" meets the Floyd-ian "Wish You Were Here"-esque ballad "Move On" is next, and he knows that will be his reprieve. The 9 year old looks nervous, but remains stoic…as does the old man…until…until…)

Oh my god, I can't help it!! Fuck it! (leaps up and does a somersault …sings "I'm gonna get me outta here! Shaking his hips like a geriatric Elvis on ecstacy) "Drink all night and talking shit all day!" Woohoo!! This IS IT KIDS! (air guitar…air piano…airborne a la Townshend…the 9 year old cracks and flees with a blood curdling yelp) "I'm gonna get me / OUTTA HERE!" (voice cracking…"Cold Hard Bitch", with its relentless proto-early metal stomp and grind fires up…the rest of the kids scatter…kicking furniture over)

Where ya'll going? This is the BEST track. (yelling over the music that he's turned allt he way up) What's wrong kids? Scared of the rock? That's the problem with your generation…you can't handle the rockroll truth! (does a flying leg kick) You don't even KNOW the fucking rockroll truth…and you can't handle it when your old pappy brings it to your doorstep! (stands, panting heavily, head banging, a tear streaks down the cheek)

I know it ain't all original, but do I really care that they cop a feel from every classic hard rock band in music history? Hell no! (wipes the tear from the corner of his lip and smiles)

Kings of nothing at all…except psychedelic swampland boogie maybe.

Operator: Information, how may I help you?
Me: Kirkwood pleas…Chris or Kirk…K-I-R-K-W-O-O-D
Op: One moment please.
Me: (in patient silence)
Op: I have a Chris Kirkwood on ***** Lane
Me: That'll do.
Op: Ok, stand by for the number
Me: Ok
OP: The number is - area code ***-***-****
Me: (scribbles number down. Hang up. Pick back up and dials the number. Phone rings on other end of the line)
Voice: (a tad sleepy) Yeah, hello?
Me: Chris Kirkwood?
Voice: Yeah, who is this?
Me: I'm a fan…from Ohio. This is the Chris Kirkwood? Of the Meat Puppets?
Voice: Oh Jesus man, yeah, that's me. What do you want?
Me: I wanted to talk to you about a record.
CK (now confirmed): I was sleeping man.
Me: I am sorry about that, but I wanted to know if you know about, have heard, or (as I suspect) have something to do with this Kings of Leon record…Youth & Young Manhood?
CK: Damn, I am soo sick of hearing that question. Yes, I have heard it and NO, it isn't a freaking Meat Puppets record done under pseudonymous conditions.
Me: But…but it sounds an awful lot like what most of us Meat Puppets fans assumed the band would sound like if it were going to continue on. It's sounds not only like a mature Puppets record; it sounds like the true heir to Meat Pups II
CK: Look, I've heard it too. And yes, it does sound good, and yes it does sound like it could have been us. But it ain't! So why don't you and all of your writing pals leave me the fuck alone!
Me: Look. I'm sorry. I loved the fucking Meat Puppets, ok? LOVED. And when I heard this I got so excited! It's an amazing record. So full of weirdness, psychedelia, and boogie grooves that I just knew it had to be…
CK: Well, you were wrong buddy.
Me: Okay, I guess it figures that it took this many years and a bunch of kids to make the next great Puppets record.
CK: That's the way it usually works in rock and recycle roll pal…you should know that.
Me: I guess that deep down, I do.
CK: Well next time think of that before you call someone and wake them the fuck up, okay?
Me: Okay…thanks (a click and then the mind-numbing Ehh-Ehh-Ehhh-Ehh of a line, and a memory, gone dead)

The Velvet Garbage Man

There is this recurring dream I've been having for nearly a year now. It's an odd vision in which I am sitting in my kitchen enjoying a cup of coffee and a warm summer's breeze through the screened in windows when I hear an unholy racket outside the house. It's faint at first, but I recognize it, in part at least, as that of a garbage truck doing its dirty duty along my street. But it isn't the grinding growl of the truck compressing the city trash it collects, nor is it the diesel huff and puff and sigh of it's heavy duty engine that makes the sound in my dream so curious, rather it is the fact that the truck is blaring music - LOUD music - that catches my ear in the dream. I've had this dream a good dozen times or so now, and every time it is the exact same scenario - right on down to the very intricate details. Because I have encountered this dream so often, I remember these detail vividly. The sunny warm day; the coffee cup I drink from; the shorts and t-shirt I wear; the Pontiac Grand Am that drives by at the same point in time with the same driver wearing the same suit; the girl walking a shabby looking German Shepard; and that big blue garbage truck stop/starting its way down my street. The only thing that ever changes in this queer visage of my subconscious is the music coming from the truck. That has never been the same.

The first time I dreamt this dream it was Black Sabbath coming from the truck - "Lord of this World" I believe - growing louder and louder as the truck approaches. But there's a quirk in my dream, I never do see the garbage men. Not that they're invisible or anything odd like that, it's just that I never get a clear look at who these guys are. The closest I come to being able to identify any of them is in recalling that the driver, as he leaps from the truck, heaves my trash into the vehicle, tosses my can back to the tree lawn, and then mounts his behemoth once again, is tall-ish, lanky-ish, and with scraggy semi-longish dark hair. Again, this repeats itself every time I have the dream.

The second time I dreamt it, it was Cheap Trick's "He's A Whore" blaring from the blue machine. The third, Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy". The fourth, Bowie's "Five Years". The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth don't come to me so quickly. So I started to write them down, hoping to find some meaning to this very strange hallucination.

#9 - oddly enough, not even a song, but rather Rudy Ray Moore doing his infamous "Signifying Monkey" spiel
#10 - "Fool in the Rain", Led Zep's odd but fantastic preemptive strike on new wave
#11 - "Cyprus Avenue", Van Morrison's moody melancholy
#12 - "She's All Right", New Haven, CT's Saucers, the legendary Rocket From the Tombs bassist Crag Bell's equally terrific but lesser known off shoot band (which featured Dumptruck's Seth Tiven on guitar and Miracle Legion/solo artist Mark Mulcahy on drums)
All of which seemed to only make sense in that these were songs I knew and loved. Yet still, the dream remained the same. And still, the central figures - those garbage men - remained anonymous. That is, until the thirteenth time…

The thirteenth time I dreamt the dream of which we speak was entirely the same as the first which begat the second which begat the third…and so on…it was an exact replica of its predecessor's except for two very distinct differences:

1. The song was far more contemporary, as in fresh and new to my mind - enough so that it took some thinking as to where it came from and what exactly it was
2. I saw the dark-haired lanky garbage guy's face, and recognized him!

On this thirteenth visit to the backwaters of my psyche everything remained the same. The sunny warm day; the coffee cup I drink from; the shorts and t-shirt I wear; the Pontiac Grand Am that drives by at the same point in time with the same driver wearing the same suit; the girl walking a shabby looking German Shepard; and that big blue garbage truck stop/starting its way down my street…all still there, in the exact same places. Only this time, as the big blue truck rumbled down my street, the music was familiar yet hard to pin down. "Riot in the streets!" was what I thought I heard. Where had I heard it before?

Guitars growled.

Drums clanged.

Garbage got pulverized to the beat.

The whole mishmash of racket grew as it approached.

"Take what you want / anything you need," implored the songs voice. "Riot in the streets!"

What is that song?

And then I saw him, that straggly haired guy in the blue jump suit, as he leapt from the driver seat to my trash cans on the tree lawn - it was none other than Cobra Verde frontman John Petkovic! My own Velvet Garbage Man! And the song I was hearing was not saying "riot in the streets" but rather it was Petkovic's coy opening track from his bands finest work to date, Easy Listening, titled "Riot Industry". I am sure he knows how it plays out on record, he hears the "riot industry" morph into "riot in the streets" as well as any first time listener does, and he is smart that way - because it's exactly what he wants you to hear!

In my thirteenth (and by the way, final) dream, Petkovic winks at me and the truck drives off - nothing more; nothing less. But I awoke to find myself reaching for Cobra Verde's Easy Listening over and over and over. It is simply a spectacular record, one that reaches back into the heyday of 70's hard rock for inspiration and energy (Jesus, just spin "Modified Frankenstein" and the fractured heart art rock "Throw it Away" and tell me this isn't rock and roll the way you remember thinking it should be!) and then draws it slowly across two and a half dead decades into a 21st century that seems to have forgotten how smart rock and roll can be.

Petkovic hasn't forgotten, and Easy Listening brings it all back home. Utterly essential! Entirely brilliant! No revelations, just an eternal revolution! Rock and Roll (caps required!) And all of it basking in the afterglow of my thirteenth Velvet Dream!

Oh, and don't forget, it's easy listening folks!

Ya'll are gonna hate me for this; or, Give him enough rope, and Scott Weiland will find some way to get high as a fleebing kite with it

"Ya'll are gonna hate me for this," I said as I slipped the compact disc from its jewel case and into the car stereo. "But this is the only disc I brought boys."

The factory installed car speakers cracked and wheezed as I pushed the volume all the way up. A low rumble breaks the hiss and then crescendos.
"Awww fuck man, not Stone Temple Pilots," called a voice from the back seat.

I smiled. "Not just Stone Temple Pilots, but "Vaseline"! "Interstate Love Song"! Their greatest freaking hits! The only thing that came from mainstream 90's rock that still holds up as listenable my friends! Not Stone Temple Pilots….the Stone Temple Pilots."

"Vaseline" and "Interstate Love Song" each played once through and then I finally broke down and wept.

"Hey man," a voice from the backseat asked nervously, "are you ok?"
"God the 90's sucked," I whimpered. "I mean, they were the worst I can remember."

"Dude, it's okay man. We can listen to your STP greatest hits disc…nobody will say a thing ok?"

I reached down and ejected the disc and bellowed. Quickly, I pulled another disc from under my seat and slipped it in. The scaling, burping guitar line took everyone by surprise. The music grew terser, stopping short of menacing as it settled in on uneasy. It felt sloppy, but sounded tight.
"Who the fuck is this?" someone asked approvingly.

"The fucking Libertines man," I replied with giddy pride. "The goddamn Libertines!"

I rolled the window down and thought about sending Scott Weiland careening down the stretch of concrete he'd just crooned about, but refrained. I believed everything I'd said about the 90's and this 'best of' titled Thank You was the only palatable reminder of the era I owned. I eased the window back up, slipped the disc into a slot in the dash and let the Libertine's Up the Bracket take me away on its wild-assed perfect slop-rock ride.

"You know," I said under the aggravated slice and dice of "Radio America" knowing that no one in the car could hear me, "I callously dismissed this disc when it came out. I called it a cheap imitation of cheap imitators. What an asshole, eh? It may very well be the best rock and roll record of the new century thus far." The record's title tune kicks in. "Yeah," I said with a smile and a swig of a beer, "I'm pretty damn sure it is."

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