See, the thing is – and here comes my inner nerd spilling all over the place – I’m a bit starstruck over these guys. Their tunes are so powerful and mesmerizing, their performances so electric, I became an instant fan upon seeing them two years ago, at the SoCo Music Experience, downtown San Diego. I have seen them several times since and I just keep liking them better and better. The Burning of Rome is my NFB (New Favorite Band) and to be permitted to sit in their rehearsal studio for a semi-private jam session was, well, if I were a total, unabashed gushing rock-nerd, would say it was, “A dream come true.”

Instead I will maintain my journalistic composure and report that the  performance was a visually and aurally pleasing experience: aurally speaking, it was unlike most concerts, where the band faces the crowd and blasts their music at you. Instead, the performers were all around us, saturating us with music rather than bludgeoning.

And visually, well, to be so close – to be able to watch every nuance of every performer; to observe the muscles on their necks loosen and tighten, the beads of sweat form and drop, the complex relationship between finger and keyboard, finger and fret, and mostly, to watch the smiles that span their faces as they do the thing they love to do best, then watch those smiles turn to tight-lipped grimaces when the music became dark, and foreboding, as TBoR’s music often does – there is no substitute for this type of musical experience.

If the rehearsal room were a clock, then the small crowd of about 8 people in the room are sitting at the 6:00 mark, with the band in a 300 degree circle around us.

Starting with drummer Lee Williams, whose kit was at 12:00. A flash-banger to be certain, Williams hits hard when he’s supposed to hit hard and soft when the song needs soft. He’s a big time smiler, but when the tunes get intense he hunches down and leans forward as if to fix something on the other side of the drum he’s been hitting. When he dismounts from the lean, it usually means he’s back in the pocket, at which point the smile returns.

To the right of Williams, at about 2:00, is Adam Traub. Traub is the pianist, guitarist, songwriter and founder of TBoR. He is also an enigma. At times melodic and soft, at other times screeching like a demon with his hair on fire, Traub is a phenomenon to observe as he effortlessly slips between musical sanity and insanity.

At 3:00 was stationed guitarist, Joe Aguilar. He plays on the only non-carpeted part of the room which looks like a small, Pergo square cut out and duct-taped over the carpet to accommodate, I’m guessing, Aguilar’s peculiar brand of stage posturing.

Traub/Aguilar

Actually, I couldn’t have chosen a more wrong word than “posturing.”

Posturing implies insincerity, which it isn’t. Posture also implies that the posturer is holding a pose, which also does not apply.  The man cannot stand still. When he’s playing a normal show, he makes full use of the stage, running, jumping, crawling, writhing and even leaping off the stage and into the crowd where he continues to freak out – all while barefoot. Here at the Speakeasy studio, he makes full use of his small Pergo square, running and jumping and crawling - in place - as he bangs his brain so wildly that his long, thick black hair eventually consumes his head and all you see is a wad of black hair on top of a crazy man’s neck. The music is obviously electric to him and his writhing and freaking is his uncontrollable response to that.

Aguilar

Behind me and to the left, at 7:00, synth and xylophonist Aimee Jacobs is standing at her rig. I was surprised to learn that Aimee is a mere 20 years old, however, she is easily the oldest soul in the group. At least, from a visual perspective, as she stoically lords over her black and whites and plays her parts with minimal expression or animation, as though she already knows whence comes Armageddon, and it’s not that far away.

Aimee Jacobs

Also holding a stoic, foreboding posture is bass player Colin Kohl, except when it came time to sing a background harmony, at which point he becomes a beast. I’d say, of TBoR background vocalists, Kohl is the most notable of them. Largely because his voice, harmony-wise, is the most different of the harmony voices  – kind of a mix between circus hawker, authoritative parent, and barking demon.

Colin Kohl

They play about six or seven songs, most of which are from their most recent album, Death Pop, plus at least one new song, the name of which I don’t remember. Then the guys from Judgement Day started picking up instruments, and the performance gives way to an open jam. Williams steps off his kit and Nate Ball, the drummer  from A Scribe Amidst Lions sits in. Another friend of the band picks up a toy accordion, the barefooted Aguilar starts running around the room grabbing and playing various woodwinds, chimes, shakers – whatever he can find – Traub  picks up Aguilar’s guitar and off they go down FreeJam Highway.

I hang in there for about 20 more minutes but it is getting late. And I know, from past experiences, that once a jam opens up, and  the beer tap closes down, that things would start falling apart pretty soon. So I bid farewell, got out to my car, and drive home to OB still buzzing from, what turned out to be (for me) the best concert of the year.

Thank you O-Side Police, thank you very much.

Ed Decker
07.26.09

(More Speakeasy photos below)

The Art Show

MORE BAND SHOTS

What sets Henry Rollins apart from the other oddballs, in the oddball world of the spoken word, is that he does not prepare his shows, not in the traditional sense anyway. He does not script his stories, he does not memorize gags, he doesn’t use a set list — he barely has a plan. He simply mounts the stage and starts talking.

“It’s like stir fry,” he said over the phone from his office in L.A. “I’m making it in front of you. My CD reflects that. It’s not slick.”

The CD is called, A Rollins in the Wry. It was culled from two (of about eight) shows he did in the spring of 1999 at Cafe Luna in Los Angeles. It is part diary, part sociopolitical satire, part expose, part flatulence, and part caterwaul.

Certainly, the thought of donning a stage and just “winging it” is horrifying to most folks, fascinating to the rest. But just spend a few minutes chatting with Henry Rollins and you quickly realize — his problem isn’t stretching the material to fill an entire performance. His problem is what to leave out.

Here’s why:

1) His research is thorough:
“If there is a topic I’m interested in,” he explained, “I pursue it. It’s why I don’t spend my weekends at parties, passed out on a couch. I aim myself at my art. If I want to talk constructively about George W. Bush, I better know what I’m talking about.”

2) He has stories:
Consider his manifold experiences with tragedy and success: He survived the nightmare of an abusive father, witnessed — at close range — the gruesome murder of his best friend, Joe Cole, toured the world with Black Flag, appeared in several major motion pictures (The Chase, Johnny Mnemonic), VJ’ed slots on MTV, penned a column for Spin, and owns a publishing company and a record label.

3) He has opinions: “They’re giving opinions away like kittens,” said Rollins. “I get to have mine too: Should Bono be mowing my front lawn and living in a cave so he’ll never make music again? Oh Yeees. But if some government agency tried to limit his access to a guitar, I’d be standing right next to him going Fuck you, no you won’t!”

4) He has energy: Watch how Rollins — singing or speaking — dominates the microphone. Notice his neck tighten when he sticks out his sledgehammer chin, or how he dips his head backward to release a primordial howl. He doesn’t just summon energy. He is energy. And he delivers it directly into your face.

“I’m like a New York mugger,” he shouted on Wry. “I telegraph everything I’m gonna do. If you get mugged by me, I should have your watch.”

While A Rollins in the Wry is primarily a humor/satire performance, it is not stand- up comedy.
“With stand-up comics,” he complains, “it’s all about the joke. It’s like a porno film: The dialogue just gets you to the punch line. I’d rather riff on topics where there’s no bada bing, bada boom.”

Also, unlike most comedians, Rollins’ spoken word can be quite sobering and is generally darker than what the new CD represents. Outtakes from the Cafe Luna shows is evidence of that.

“I do that, “Pull-your-head-out-of-your-ass-and-look-at-it” kind of stuff,” he explained. “Like I talk about how J.F.K. Jr. was an arrogant asshole for trashing himself and two innocent people. I say that the Kennedy males have been killing women and crashing vehicles into water for generations. I say that Joe Kennedy (J.F.K.’s dad) was a racketeering asshole, that J.F.K. was an adulterer who hung out with Mafiosos, and that J.F.K. Jr. was just a guy who failed the bar exam twice, had a famous dad, and carried out the generic Kennedy imperative — to murder and crash. And that’s not very funny.”

One thing that always struck me about Henry Rollins is how his solid stance against drugs and alcohol contrast the highly intoxicated world of hard rock.

“I did my drunk thing between the ages of seventeen and seventeen,” he said and laughed. “It made me feel miserable. I tried a few [drugs] but never stuck with them.”

“When you were with Black Flag,” I asked, “was there an enormous influx of drugs and were you constantly being put in the position to not-so-politely refuse them?”
“Black Flag was four starving vegetarians. We would’ve eaten meat if we had the money to afford it, but we didn’t. We didn’t even have the money for pot until the end. We never had the rock star life where a bunch of people were trying to give us cocaine. It wasn’t that kind of music. It was a bunch of speed freaks and stoners and they weren’t exactly running up to band members to part with their stash. Besides, offering us a line of coke wasn’t going to get you any where. We were playing in dumps with 400 people. Was speed somehow going to get you to the front of the dump? Besides, no one is going to get into a conversation with me by offering me a line of coke.”

Henry Rollins is the easiest interview I’ve ever conducted. Just give him a topic and he’ll rave until he jars your earwax loose. So I asked Rollins to riff on the topics of the day:

Napster V. Metallica: “If you’re Metallica,” he said after taking a moment and a breath, “you already have about seventeen percent of the world’s money in your bank account. . . . Why Lars [Ulrich] would be concerned about some college kid scrapping monetary crumbs from his whiskers, I don’t quite divine. At the end of the day,” he sighed, “I’d rather you hear what I do than not hear it, whether or not you’re gonna pay. I mean, I pay rent too, and making money is cool if you’re into regular meals and everything. . . . But I also think, that people in the music industry have always found a way to fuck the artist. . . . Just like the record deal itself: You get a loan from a record company. And for the privilege of that loan — which you must pay back –they own your record. You lose everything. So Napster boy is just one of the many masters that I have to answer to as a musician. And I just accept it. Because there is always someone to ream the artist. My asshole is so rounded out now, I no longer feel the new dick in it.”

XfL: “I guess it’s gonna be a bunch of steroided-out athletes — that couldn’t make the NFL — doing incredibly grievous bodily harm to each other, he laughed. “It’ll probably be huge because people like it when football players make brains spill out of each other’s helmets. And we’ll get to see some tits fall out of sweaters and G-string crotch shots that show great labial glimpses of vaj.”

Music writers/interviewers/critics:
“Many of the music writers of the day are musically illiterate. You read some of the appalling writing in a magazine like Spin. These people just don’t know what they are talking about.

“Let’s put it this way,” he added, “I’ve answered your questions honestly. You’ve been cool to me, so I’ll be cool to you. But will I read this thing you are going to write about me? No. Will I care what you wrote about me? Absolutely not. Will I take any word you say in print and weigh it with anything more than a feather’s weight? Absolutely not. I live in the comfort of knowing, 99 percent of grain-fed boys and girls could not handle me if I came across the table and got a hold of them. . . . I’ll only be happy if I’m going home with one of your ears.”

EJD
Circa 2000

“The ideas for Pure came after I toured America in ’98,” reminisces Numan. “I met up with Trent and Marilyn and was taken out every night to different industrial clubs. I came back from that tour and knew exactly what I should be doing musically. The problem arose when I tried to make the record. I wanted to show some real aggression but just sounded like a schoolgirl having a tantrum. . . . It stretched my production skills quite a bit.”
Pure is heavier, darker, and more menacing than anything Numan has done before. Yet it does have the dynamics of something revisited – like artistic integrity.
“When I first started to write songs, it was all for the love of music. I was what I call, ‘pure of heart.’ I wrote for no commercial reasons. But when my career went downhill in the 80′s, I wrote songs that I thought would get me back on the radio. I didn’t even realize it until this bizarre experience I had. I woke up in the middle of the desert not knowing how I got there or where I was going. From that moment on I began searching for the road I wandered from.”
Now Numan is on that road, currently touring the U.S. in support of Pure.
“When I was on the radio,” explains Numan, “I used to do massive, massive shows with five truckloads of gear that took a week to assemble. I never had to worry about my physical performance – you know, what to do with my body while I was on stage – because I had all this other technical stuff going on.
“But the money isn’t there to do those big, exotic light shows anymore. So our physical performance must compensate for that. I can’t get away with just standing there, trying to look strange and interesting for an hour.”
Speaking of strange and interesting, the crisis involving China and the detention of U.S. was similar to something that happened to Numan in 1981.
“A pilot friend and I were flying around the world in a little airplane. We were filming a documentary with a 16mm camera. While we were over the ocean, the plane began flying very badly. We were quite lucky to touch down in this little village on the east coast of India.
“The airport officials saw the camera and [detained] us for four days on suspicion of spying. It was just this little dirt village. So I asked, ‘What on Earth are we supposed to be spying on?’
“They said, ‘The Russian submarine base is three miles north of here.’ I couldn’t fucking believe it. They just told us where it was! This was the thing that we were supposed to be spying on. I thought, ‘Now they’re gonna have to shoot me!’”
“Were you tempted to say, ‘Hello, I’m Gary Numan – I’m internationally famous’? I asked.
“I said exactly that. He wanted to see my press clippings — as if you always carry them in a big folder under your arm. I became very English and said something like, ‘Good Lord man, if you mess about with me, the weight of the British Empire will come crashing down on your head.”
It didn’t play out exactly that way though.
“When we rang the British Embassy in Delhi,” added Numan, “they said I was too far away and hung up the phone. Finally my dad rang a local [British] newspaper who called the foreign office. They put on the pressure and the Indians let us go.”
Such is the strange and interesting world of Gary Numan.

(Originally published in the San Diego Union-Tribune)
EJD
05/03/01

Certainly the success of Beta Band’s 2001 Release, Hot Shots II, and their subsequent American tour — was due, in part, to that serendipitous plug.
Scotland’s The Beta Band are Steve Mason (guitar, vocals), Robin Jones (drum, piano, tape loops), Richard Greentree (bass), and John Maclean (decks, samples, pianos).
“What can the crowd expect on this tour,” I asked Maclean in a phone interview from his home in Edinburgh, Scotland?
“Our songs take a step up in the live arena. It’s the videos, the costumes, the set, the lights and the music. Oh, and there isn’t going to be an opening band. One of us will DJ before the show.
“We go through a different phase for each tour. In the past we’ve done a plant phase, an organic phase, and a space phase (where we dressed up in space costumes). I think for this tour we’ll have a white phase. Everything is going to be white.”
The Beta Band is busy: They design their own stages and costumes, produce and direct short films (shown before and during the Beta shows), design album covers, and publish a magazine called The Flower Press.
“It annoys the fuck out of us when we get called slackers,” said Maclean. “We work hard.”
Of course, naming themselves “The Beta Band” is probably partly responsible for the slacker perception. In schools in Britain, beta band is a term for the underachievers. The alpha band are over-achievers.
“People who are in the beta band develop better outside of school — through their art and music,” said Maclean. “So we can be beta band people and still not be slackers.”
The Beta Band will play 4th and B on Friday, December 26. They abruptly dropped working on their upcoming CD to tour the U.S. and capitalize on the momentum gained from that huge plug in High Fidelity.
“It was almost even bigger,” said Maclean. “For awhile, there was talk that we might even score the whole movie. That didn’t work out though.”
“When the four of you saw the UK premier of Fidelity,” I asked, “What was it like to see John Cusack spinning your disc in his finger, then putting it in the deck and exposing America to your music?”
“It was surreal,” he answered. “We had been drinking at the pub before going to see the movie. By the time our scene came on, we all had to go to the bathroom really badly. When it did, we broke out into a fit of giggles and then ran back to the pub to pee and drink more pints. We didn’t even stay to see the rest of the movie. It was all too much.”

Originally published in the San Diego Union-Tribune
EJD
4/26/02

“We ride with kings on mighty steeds Across the Devil’s plain.”
Tenacious D

Ladies and Gentlemen, in this corner weighing 637 pounds, wearing black trunks, is Tenacious D. — the self-appointed, “Greatest Band on Earth.” Only the greatest band on Earth would have the nutsacks to write the greatest song in the world. Sadly, they forgot how to play the greatest song in the world, so they had to write “Tribute” – the only song great enough to be a tribute to the greatest song in the world – which itself was great:

This is not The Greatest Song in the World. No. This is just a tribute.
Couldn’t remember the Greatest Song in the World, no, no.
This is a tribute, oh, to The Greatest Song in the World . . .
All right! It was the best muthafuckin’ song.

One might ask how it is possible that a couple of overweight slobs (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) with a couple of acoustic guitars, and a couple of teenage fuck-jokes, could be the greatest rock band on Earth?

They sold their souls to Satan of course.

How else could they have parlayed a circuit in LA’s moldy comedy dives, into the HBO series which ignited their career into the raging hellfire that it is? How else could two burrito-bellied buffoons score acting roles in such major Hollywood productions as Bio-Dome, That Darn Punk, Bongwater, Barefoot Executive, Brain Dead, Saving Silverman, Shallow Hal, Orange County and Hi Fidelity?

How else, but with the help of Old Skratch, could The D squeeze their fatty fingers into the tiny spaces between guitar strings to create such rockingest sounds?

How else, but for the songwriting expertise of Lucifer, could they have written the power ballad to end all power ballads, “Fuck Her Gently”?:

How else could an acoustic metal duo have signed a major record deal with Epic and procure such heavy hitters as the Dust Brothers, David Grohl (Foo Fighters), and Page McConnell (Phish), to work on the CD?

Yes, it appears Tenacious D. has joined the army of the damned. But fear not fellow Jesuits, because — in the corner to my left, wearing white trunks, is the greatest rock journalist on Earth. And he’s going to pit himself against the Dark Lords of Rock and Roll. Welcome to the interro-dome:

Round 1:
“So it’s clear that you sold your souls to the Devil. How’d that deal go down?”

“He kind of crept up on me,” says Jack. “‘Cause [initially] I was really into Jesus and stuff, even though I’m a Jew. When you’re a Jew, it’s all about Moses and Abraham. And Moses was cool, because he had ‘Make-the-Red-Sea-go-away’ power. But Jesus was way cooler because he had ‘Walk-on-water’ power, and ‘Party-with-a-lot-of-wine’ power, and also ‘Bring-back-people-from-the-dead’ power. So naturally I was surprised when Satan approached me.”

“When you arrive at Hell, as per your contract with Satan,” I ask, “what will he choose as your eternal punishment?”

“I’d be in a room,” answers Kyle, “where I have to watch all of my acting work.”

End Round One
Results – Advantage Decker).

Round Two: D gets pissed:

In preparation for the greatest interview ever conducted, I sent an email to my cohorts in the music industry asking what they would ask The Greatest Band on Earth if given the chance.

The next day, I received the following email from Adam Gimbel, who plays in the San Diego Weezer parody band, Geezer:

I hate the full-band stuff on the album.
It’s just not as funny with it actually rocking. . .
When you scream ‘ROCK!’ and it’s two fat guys with acoustics, it’s funny.
When you scream ‘ROCK’
and a Dust Brothers-produced guitar crunch kicks in,
it isn’t.

I read the letter to The D.

“Who wrote that?” asks Jack, after reading them the letter.

“A guy named Adam,” I answer. “He’s a San Diego musician.”

“Hey Adam,” shouts Jack into the speaker-phone, “fuck you. Stop listening. Oh, and send us your shitty album, so we can throw it away.”

End Round Two
Results: Draw

Round Three: The D strikes below the belt, referee looks the other way:

“So what’s next for The D? Can you pull another album anywhere near as funny as your debut?”
“I think we can come up with an even better record,” says Jack. “The next album is going to be our, our . . . what’s that Beatles record?” he asks.

“Sgt. Peppers?”

“Yeah, the next album is going to be our Sgt. Peppers; a sort of Sgt. Peppers/Tommy concept platter.”

The Tenacious D debut album is a Spinal Tappian parody of rock and roll. But unlike Spinal Tap, The D CD is also homage. It’s clear they adore rock and roll and probably grew up dreaming what it might be like to don the big stage one day, side by side with the rockingest rockers of the times.

“Is it everything you hoped it would be?” I ask.

“There is a same-ness to most of the activities that I wasn’t expecting,” answers Kyle. “It’s like the movie Ground Hog Day, where Bill Murray wakes up every morning doomed to repeat the same day.

“. . . You wake up around 10am. . . . take a car to the venue, get settled in the dressing room, do a sound check, eat mediocre catering, watch Jimmy Eat World, and play a set that is nearly identical to the night before.

“Is it the same with rock interviews — do they all ask the same questions? Is it just a grind?”

“Well this one is unique,” says Jack, with Kyle snickering in the background. “Oh yeah, this one is very special. [Many evil chortles].”

End Round Three
Results: Advantage D – Satan yawns.

Round Four: Decker blunders, D capitalizes:

The interview is going nowhere. I want to throw in the towel. One last hope.

“Let’s freestyle,” I say, hoping to spark things up. “When I write this story I am going to say that, ‘Tenacious D. rocks as hard as Wendy O’ Williams’ ass-banging Korn.’ Can you sing me a song about that?”

“Who’s Wendy O’ Williams?” asks Kyle. I don’t know if he’s serious or playing me.

“She is the late, psycho-vandalism punk singer-chick from the Plasmatics.”

“I don’t know that band,” says Kyle snottily, “I’m not going to sing that song.”

Jack jumps in on the fresh kill, “I think you are adding too much creative input, dude. Why are you trying to write our songs? Then you would take all the credit.”

“Sure, sure,” I fire back. “And when I do get famous, I won’t have to interview novelty bands for a living!”

“You should pursue that dude,” says Jack. “You should write that song and we’ll give you a little blurb on your little album cover.”

Decker taps out. Evil wins the match.

The Tenacious D interview originally ran as the cover story for SLAMM circa November 2002.
Click here To read the story behind this story
EJD

From “We Don’t Stop” by Michael Franti and Spearhead

So go the lyrics on the second track of Spearhead’s most recent release, Everyone Deserves Music. It was, as it turned out, to be more a premonition than lyric because this past June – about a year after Everyone Deserves Music was released – singer songwriter Michael Franti did go to Iraq and apparently he rocked it quite well.
“I didn’t go there with the U.S.O,” Franti told me over the phone. “I didn’t go there with any non-governmental organizations. I went as a tourist and a musician and played my guitar. I played in hospitals for kids who had their limbs blown off. I played at people’s homes who invited me in off the street. I played for off-duty soldiers in their bar. I played for on-duty soldiers on the street who just wanted to hear a song for a moment . . . Sometimes I’d just strum down the road and [an Iraqi] would say, ‘Come into our house.’ Then they would show me where they hid during the bombings and I would play my music for them.”
“Everyone deserves music, sweet music/Even your worst enemies, Lord, they deserve music.”
“That song is about compassion,” said Franti. “It’s about the fact that music is a healing power in the world. . . And in Iraq, I found that to be really true; that when you pick up your guitar and start singing, it doesn’t matter who is in front of you. They’re willing to put down their rifle for five minutes and listen.”
“So I’ll pray for them and I’ll play for them because everyone deserves music, sweet music.”

“A lot of the songs I sing are inspirational songs about tenacity and endurance and love. But I play a lot of political tunes also. Many are openly against the war. But I never censored myself when playing for the troops. Before I started, I would say, ‘You might not agree with everything I sing, but I want you to know – I’m here because I just want to be with you guys.’ Then I’d sing “Bomb the World” and that was frightening because I didn’t know how they would react.”
“We can chase down all our enemies/Bring them to their knees/We can bomb the world to pieces/But we can’t bomb them into peace.”
“After I sang that song to [the soldiers]” explained Franti, “I spoke to them about the lyrics. There were some who straight up disagreed with the words. But they also told me they were glad that I was there to spend time with them and sing songs.”
Franti told me he that while he was in Iraq, he talked up front and personal with about 40 U.S. soldiers. He asked them what they thought about the war.
“There were about two or three who said, ‘I support the effort here and have supported it all along,’” Said Franti. “About half said, ‘I was in support of the war when we first came over but now that I see what’s going on, I wish we would have used more diplomacy.’ And the rest were saying, ‘Fuck this war! We never should have come over to this fucking place.’”
I asked what was his most frightening moment in Iraq and he said it was their arrival into the Baghdad Airport. They had flown in from Jordan over the red sand of the North Arab Desert in a twin engine plane. At one point, a sandstorm kicked up some 20,000 feet below and they actually began to breathe sand and dust inside the plane. But that wasn’t the scary part. The scary part was landing in Baghdad.
“It’s not like coming into a regular airport where you take a slow, easy descent,” he explained. “You can’t do that because it makes you vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles and small arms attacks. We flew directly over the airport at 23,000 feet then corkscrewed into a fast dive. They use the corkscrew method because heat-seeking missiles can’t turn as fast as a plane can corkscrew.
“After the plane landed,” he continued, “we drove out of the airport and passed two cars that had just hit a landmine and were burning on the road. Eight people, including two U.S. soldiers, were killed in that attack. It was a big wake up call.”
“Why did you go to such a dangerous place at such a dangerous time?” I asked.
“Every time I hear about what’s happening in the Middle East,” he responded, “it’s always through the eyes and voices of generals and politicians. I haven’t heard about it from people on the street or the soldiers.”
“What did you learn?”
“I learned that this war is not about oil,” he answered. “It’s about water. People are happy that Saddam is gone. However, no one has fresh drinking water or electricity. There is 90 percent unemployment. There are 4.5 million people and everyone has a gun. . . . People go into their homes at 4 p.m. because they fear being robbed or shot. We created such a horrible nest over there and it’s just ripe for corruption, robbery, rape. Every crime imaginable is happening in Iraq right now because there’s no police force and everyone is in a desperate mindset.”
“Do you remember,” I asked, “just before the war started, when Sean Penn visited Iraq and was called a traitor for doing so? What would be your response to anyone who would criticize or question your motivation to visit Iraq?”
“I welcome it all,” he replied. “I think we need a dialogue about this war and if my going over there starts one, then I’m all for it. I’m a musician. I went there to play songs, and to listen. I think it’s important that we have as many people go over there and listen as much as possible because, we can’t just leave it to the corporations and military leaders to tell us the whole story.”
EJD
05/05/03

But its how these two albums work together that puts them on the next level. They are both fun, hard, filthy, childish and nauseating. Both are not for mainstream consumption. Both make you want to snort amphetamines and bang your head against a brick amplifier. Both have Jello Biafra splattered all over them. And both were written, produced and conceived by a raging industrial punk and sex-core fucker known as Alien Jourgenson.
“I’m pretty stoked about these albums,” said Jourgensen on the phone from “Hell Paso,” Texas (his words) where they were rehearsing for the tour. “The Cocks record was a lot of fun to make. But the Ministry was spot on. As I like to say, ‘Ministry is my rifle and Cocks are for fun.’
“The entire ministry album was written in 3 and a half weeks, which, for me, is a land based speed record. It was just me, Paul Raven [Prongs] and Tommy Victor [Killing Joke]. We turned our amps up to 11 in the garage and let it fly. The Rev/Co record took longer but we had a lot of interesting new Cocks thrown into the mix.”
The new Cocks Jourgensen speaks of are interesting at the least. Along with Biafra is Gibby Haynes from Butthole Surfers, and longtime Ministry associate Mark Baker. But there are also some kooky cats you wouldn’t expect on the punk-techno-brainblast that is the Revolting Cocks — like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick. Also on the record is the silhouette of Iggy Pop as it contains a song ["Fire Engine"] that Jourgensen wrote with the most infamous Stooge.
“We offered him to come down and sing it for us but his best friend and long time manager died that week and we had to keep on schedule to get both these releases out so we had to go for it ourselves. Iggy and I actually wrote that song 20 years ago. . . I came across it as I was perusing through my tape library trying to get organized and thought, ‘Wow, this is good stuff, why didn’t we ever release this?’”
Jello Biafra, incidentally, is not only an accredited Revolting Cocks member on the Cocked and Loaded disc, he also appears as a guest vocalist on the Ministry album.
“Jello’s the Alpha dog in the larger sense, but whenever we work on Revolting Cocks or Ministry, he acquiesces and let’s me run the show. It’s a great working relationship . . . We spend our Christmases together. We always stay in touch.”
“How do you decide who you want to be on a Rev/Co record?” I asked.
“It’s really just friends that have crossed paths over the years,” he answered. “And, you know, everyone wants to be a Cock some day [laughs]. Billy Gibbons and I have known each other for fifteen years. We’ve been talking about doing this forever and it finally, actually worked out. With Rick [Nielsen] he just came up on stage with us to do a song during our last Ministry tour. [Afterward] we started talking about working together. The planets just seemed to line up this year. All the people I’ve wanted to work with for a long time all of sudden had actual schedule breaks.”
As of this writing, Jourgenson has taken both bands on the road together. Writing, producing, recording, mixing and touring two albums nearly simultaneously is a Herculean task that takes a guy with Satan’s bleater on his chin to pull off.
“There’s just no way you can prepare for something like that,” Jourgenson said. “There’s only a certain amount of hours in the day. But so far, we seem to be right on schedule with everything as far as rehearsals, and sounding good, and getting schedules together – but yeah, it’s a lot of work, and it’s a lot of fun. There will be guest appearances regionally by all the people that have played on the album.”
“Who might you expect to join you on stage for the San Diego show?”
“Probably Jello Biafra. Actually, I think Jello is doing the entire west coast with us and Gibby is doing the entire east coast. It’s like a Biggie/Tupac feud.”
EJD
11/03/06

“These are remixes we’ve been doing over the past few years and they just sort of collected in the corner,” says Rob Garza during our conversation over the phone. Garza is one half of that which we know to be Thievery Corporation. He and his partner, Eric Hilton have been working together for over a decade from their studio in Washington D.C. In a sentence, Thievery is an electronica outfit that infuses all the electronica-related elements (such as trance, ambient, dub-groove, techno, trip-hop and flaccid jazz) into their remixes.
“Explain how it works in the world of remix albums,” I asked Garza. “Are you getting permission to use these tunes? How do you decide what songs you are going to tackle?
“Usually, they contact us,” said Garza. “For instance somebody like Sarah McLachlan will commission us to do a remix. She’ll send us multiple tracks. Then we’ll listen through and pick out the parts that appeal to us. Then we’re strip down elements, create our own beats, and start adding layers of different sounds to try and give it a feeling the original version didn’t have.”
“Why do these artists even want remixes?”
“A lot of times it can be for artistic reasons. For some record labels it’s about marketing and reaching a new audience. Take the Herb Alpert song for instance. “Lemon Tree” was originally recorded in the late 60′s and had a certain sound to it. Herb Alpert wanted a remix because he wants to incorporate his sounds with something a bit more modern. . . . ”
“Do you have to pay to use the songs on the CD?”
“Yeah, because in the end, they own the song. . . . However with some of the artists we worked out a trade agreement. For instance, when they asked us to remix the song originally we told them that we would do it for a lot less than what we normally charge and in return, they would let us use it on a compilation remix album such as Versions.”
“So it’s definitely not stealing. Why then did you name yourself Thievery Corporation?”
“The name Thievery Corporation could be so many things. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with sampling. When we started we used to be more sample-heavy. But there were too many issues of having to deal with copyrights … so we began recording with live instruments, and picking up instruments ourselves, and putting them into the computer and making it more about a live, warm, organic sound – within the electronic sound as well. I think the name is just something that makes people wonder about it a little bit.”
“So what’s your take on the whole “sampling is theft” debate?”
“I think it’s hard to make a clear line as to what is art and what is stealing. The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, in a way, stole from American black blues artists. It’s a fuzzy line and with the artists of today, you don’t know where art ends and stealing begins and that’s what makes it exciting.”
Ed Decker
Circa Feb 2006

“I became suspicious right after we met him,” says Howard Coven, guitarist for the Electric Waste Band. “He was on one of those television shows like Entertainment Tonight. It didn’t look like the same guy that we met at the Brick. That guy was really old. But I just figured the picture was a younger shot and forgot about it. But a couple of months ago, I saw him in concert in N.Y. They showed him on the big screen and I got a good look at his face. I really don’t think it was the same guy.”
Coven met Roger Waters after a friend told him that Waters was hanging at the Brick.
“Tom came in Tuesday morning, and said, ‘Guess who I hung out with last night? Roger Waters!’ I said, ‘No way!’ The next day at work, I saw Tom again and he said, ‘Guess who I was hanging out with again last night?’ I said, ‘No Way!’ again. Tom said if he shows up again, it’ll be a hat trick. I guess he was hanging out with a bartender he met there.
“So Wednesday, after work, I went down there to meet him. People were crowding around and asking him questions. We asked where Syd Barret was and he said, ‘Syd is in the funny house.’”
Every person with whom I spoke said that Waters (or whoever) knew everything about Pink Floyd. But the same people also said that the man at the Brick Tavern didn’t look anything like Roger Waters, that the man in the bar looked much older.
Tom Coin agrees that Waters’s (or whoever) story seemed straight, but thought it strange that somebody of his caliber would have worn the same clothes three days in a row or that he would crash at a bartender’s house who he just met. Still, they all had a great time hanging out.
“This one guy came up to [Waters] and said, ‘The first time I took acid, I listened to Dark Side of the Moon. I was fourteen years old.’
“Roger Waters replied, ‘You bloody bastard!’
“He told me he spent 15 million dollars trying to stop the remaining members of Pink Floyd from using the name. It cleaned him out pretty good.”
The bartender on duty – who wishes to remain anonymous – called her friend Bob Hamel (drummer for the San Diego-based band Soulcracker) to tip off that Roger Waters was in the bar. Hamel rallied his friends, Andy Allen and Jeff Card, and raced down to the Brick to meet him.
“The first thing I noticed was – this guy is old,” says Hamel. “This is not what Roger Waters should look like. . . . But when we were sitting with him in the Brick, the place was going crazy; people recognized him. They were saying, ‘Wow, you’re Roger Waters.’”
According to Hamel, Roger Waters had a bad tooth in the Pink Floyd music video, Live at Pompeii. The man at the Brick Tavern was missing that same tooth.
Waters (or whoever) autographed two bass guitars for the Brick Tavern that they now have hanging on the wall. Hamel tried to get him to sign his guitar too but Waters (or whoever) said, “Hell no. If I sign that guitar it’ll be worth 20 thousand dollars.”
I phoned the Brick Tavern and asked what Roger Waters had written on the two bass guitars. The man who answered said he would look and put me on hold. I waited for over five minutes until the phone clicked and disconnected. Thinking it was an accident, I redialed and this time a woman answered the phone.
“The owner doesn’t want to give that information out,” she explained.
“But they’re on the wall for everyone to see,” I argued. “What’s the problem?”
“Sorry,” she replied, and hung up.
Embittered, I drove down there. Neither autograph revealed anything controversial. They were both addressed to Billy the proprietor. One said, “Best regards and sincere wishes for a bright future,” and the other had a small drawing of a wall on it. He made no cheap puns between “Another Brick in the Wall” and the “Brick” Tavern.
The two things Jeff Card remembers about meeting Waters (or whoever), are that he didn’t pay for a drink all night, and this little gag Waters (or whoever) conducted with a couple of dollar bills.
“He took one of the bills and ripped it in half,” explains Card. “He wrote ‘Roger’ on one half and ‘Waters’ on the other. Then he ripped the second dollar bill in half and wrote, ‘The Wall,’ on the first half and on the other half he wrote, ’1998′. Then he gave each of us a half and said, ‘I know you’re always going to be a bunch of broke surfers. One day you guys are going to run into each other again, then you can match up the bills and buy yourselves a meal.’
Card believes it was Roger Waters but admits he hasn’t seen a picture of him in years.
Andy Allen says the stranger had the same Cockney accent as Waters, smokes Dunhills, and is an excellent magician.
“He pulled out a deck of cards, and handed it to me,” says Allen. “I shuffled it eleven times and dealt a Blackjack hand. He guessed the exact cards that I had dealt him. He did a whole bunch of other crazy card tricks. He was just plain cool, shooting pool and hanging out with us. Some asshole kept playing The Wall on the jukebox – Waters didn’t respond to it at all.”
Waters (or whoever) had missed a flight and was supposed to stay only one day, but ended up courting the bartender, and stayed three more days.
The bartender denies any romantic involvement, but admits he spent a night at her house. At first, she didn’t return my phone calls because she resented the intrusion, but I got her on the phone eventually.
“What pisses me off is that it’s getting blown way out of proportion,” she says angrily. “I had nothing to do with it. Everybody is going around and opening their mouths for me, so why should I open my mouth. Plus, I don’t think it’s the greatest thing to brag about. I believe it was Roger Waters and that’s all I need to believe. And even if it wasn’t him – which I know it is – It was a good fucking time.”
The bartender checked his background, read a rock history book, went on the internet, and watched the Live at Pompeii Video to reassure herself.
“Why would he lie? He didn’t get anything off me. I mean, yeah he slept at my house one night, but he had wads of money. The guy didn’t take anything from anybody. Why would he go around saying he’s Roger Waters if he wasn’t?”
Most everyone with whom I spoke said he was broke and unable to buy any rounds, which could be one motive. Another could be that he craved attention.
Still, most of the evidence suggests it was him. However one irksome detail remains unresolved: Fran Deseo, the publicist for Roger Waters, says that – according to his manager, Roger Waters was not in San Diego during late August 1998. In fact he wasn’t even in the country, he was in London. But when I tried to ask more questions she ended the conversation and hung up.
There’s something very weird about all this.
STORY UPDATE (Jan. 2000)
Right after I submitted the above story to the San Diego Reader, something interesting happened: I was bartending at the Blind Melon’s on a Blues Jam Tuesday. It was about 1:30 a.m. and the bar was empty except for three jammers who were breaking down the stage. It was then, when Nick Mason – the drummer for Pink Floyd – entered the bar.
Not that I knew it was Nick Mason at the time. From where I stood, he was just another kooky drunk looking for a place to close the night.
The musicians stood near the bar lamenting that they needed a 9-volt battery to test a piece of equipment. The man stumbled over, pulled a 9-volt battery out of his pocket, and offered it to the pleased gentlemen.
“Why do you carry a battery around?” they asked.
“I’m a musician too.” he answered
“Who do you play with?”
“I’m the drummer for Pink Floyd,” he responded
I cocked my head: Pink Floyd? My heart started racing; something odd was going on.
I started asking questions to see if it was truly him. He was convincing. Especially when he learned I was a music journalist because he became irate, calling me “the paparazzi” and saying we are all sleazy liars, as though he has been bitten by the press before.
“Fuck off,” I barked, “You don’t know me or what I’ve written.”
When I told him about the Roger Water’s impostor story he became incensed.
“Why do you think he was an impostor?” he jabbed.
“I’m not certain he is, but a lot of people that met him weren’t convinced and his publicist told me he wasn’t even in the country during the time of the sighting.”
“Of course a publicist is going to lie!” he responded. “That’s what they’re supposed to do. Rock stars are a secret society; we don’t tell anybody anything because you all twist it around. Roger and Billy [owner of the Brick] are friends. I saw Roger’s signature on the wall and that’s his signature – I know Roger’s signature. That week was all about sex and drugs and rock and roll. Of course they were going to keep it quiet.”
“Why are you telling me then?” I snarled, “I’m a member of the paparazzi. That’s a helluva secret society you got there.”
That night, when I got home, I scoured the web for Pink Floyd sites to look at photos. It was hard to tell because most of the photos were of Mason behind massive drum kits. I thought, wow, I probably just told Nick Mason – drummer for one of the most influential bands in the world, and one of my all time favorite bands – to fuck off.
I smiled then.
ANOTHER UPDATE (Sept. 2000)
I saw an interview with Nick Mason on a VH1 special. There is now no doubt in my mind that it was absolutely not him. He did not remotely look like the guy I met, and more importantly, his voice was all wrong. I will never forget the voice of the man in Blind Melon’s. He had a deep and resonating and raspy voice. A cross between Johnny Cash and Tom Waits.
Which begs the question, is there some sort of Pink Floyd Impostor ring running around San Diego?
[Author's notes: since the publication of this article, the Brick has since closed down, Syd Barret died, and the bar where I work is no longer called Blind Melon's].
Ed Decker
08/01/1999

Country Dick Montana, didn’t pass on, nor did he retire, expire, succumb, pass away or perish. There was nothing passive about the way he died, as there was nothing passive about the way he lived. Country Dick Montana, or Dan to his friends, BIT IT.

How incredibly poetic it was when he stood up in the middle of a song, fell backwards, and died right there on stage. Christ, I hope he found a way to enjoy that moment.

The last year wasn’t a good one. He was fighting the cancer in his throat that threatened to take his voice, his livelihood, his life.

I went to see him when he got out of the hospital. He looked awful. The staples that fastened the scar which ran on his neck from ear to ear, reflected the dining room light, beneath which we set up a game of chess. I brought him a small care package including a roast beef sandwich and a copy Of Brautigan’s ass kicking novel, “Willard and his Bowling Trophies,” ( subtitled “A Perverse Mystery.”

Dan said it was, “disturbed.”

We set up the Chess set. He threatened to beat on me again, like he did the last time, when I lost a bet with him. As the loser of the bet I had to get on stage during one of his shows and recite a speech we composed before the game. He had a recording of my recitation and played it for me. He was proud of that tape as much as it embarrassed me.

“Turn that shit off!” I demanded. (I secretly enjoyed the tape though).

The chess game was easy. I drew first blood when I rolled over him fluidly and took his rook with ease. I could tell the cancer drugs were handicapping his game. His moves were sluggish, his attacks one-sided and blatant. His attempts to fork my King and Queen with the Knight might as well have had sirens announcing it’s arrival.

The sad part was he knew it too.

After the first game, I stepped outside for a smoke. I sat on the curb and inhaled deeply. I did not like seeing him like this. Once a thick and majestic tower of a man, he was no thin and frail. I hit on the cigarette again. I wondered if the cancer would take me too. I looked at it. It was odious. I ground it with my foot and went inside. We listened to selections from Dick’s vinyl collection: crazy songs like William Shatner singing “Mr. Tambourine Man,” or Sammy Davis Jr. on “Shaft.”

He lost the second game.

I met Dick at The Bacchanal — where I bartended for 5 years — in 1985. The Beat Farmers were kicking everybody’s ass. They played there regularly.

The first time we ever spoke — not counting when he was simply ordering booze from me — was at an Ian Hunter show. Dick had come to the bar and I said, “How you doing Dick?”

“Great,” he answered, “now that the ‘shrooms kicked in.”

I told him I had never done mushrooms. He said nothing and walked away. A few minutes later he came back and handed me a baggy. It was, of course, filled with about four or five caps, and a couple of stems, and a lot of crumbs. I didn’t see him for the rest of the night and tripped — for the first time ever — all by myself, behind the bar.

You know, a week ago I heard Manifold, The Beat Farmer’s new CD. There’s a song on it called, “Texas Heat.” It’s a Duet with Joey Harris. I remember thinking how funereal it was, like a dark elegant cloud. Dick’s voice sounds as if he’s ready to cry. “I’m sending out my last farewell/sending my last goodbye/I hope this message finds you well/Texas Heat is high.”

He sings about being at death’s door: “Now I hear ‘em at the door telling me its time/To mingle with the twilight stars/and pay for all my crimes/I’ll sit down in their butchers chair and hold you one last time/I hope this message finds you well/Texas heat is high.”

Now that he’s dead I find myself playing it over and over again. It’s disabling how eerie it is.

So last night, two days after he died, I was at my bartending job, Winston’s In Ocean Beach. Goldfish was playing. Goldfish is a 70′s Disco-funk, cover band. I had brought in all my Beat farmer tapes and played them during the set breaks. The disco crowd was unimpressed. A lot of people asked me to take it off. I told them to go fuck themselves.

The Beat Farmers were often called dinosaurs. If, by “dinosaurs,” they meant that the Beat Farmers have been around a long time, clomping their rock and roll onto the heads of anyone in earshot like giant dinosaur footsetps, then yeah, they are dinosaurs. They played shitholes and they played arenas and they played everything in between and somewhere along the line one of them, probably Dick, sucked on your mama’s breasts.

Funny that these disco pigshits rage over a sound that fell extinct in the seventies and have the nerve to call the Farmers, “dinosaurs.” Ahh, I don’t hate them. I feel sad for them. Feel sad that they have never seen this band play live, feel sad that they will never see Dick pick some poor sot out of the crowd to carry him to the bar like a horse. Like that Halloween night, at The Bacchanal, 1988, during a Beat Farmer staple: The song is called, “California Kid,” and it’s about a hardcore badass who fucks some women and kills some people (“I’m the California Kid I hope ya, are prepared to die”). Dick was already trashed when he leaped onto some guy’s back and rode him like a horse, whipping him with the microphone like it was a switch.

The guy carried Dick to the bar, which was in the back of the room, as far as you could get from the stage. Dick climbed onto the bartop and steadied himself.

“Gimme a tequila dirt-ball,” he said to me and the into the mike. He swiped his arm across the bar to make room for his shenanigans, knocking the drinks onto the floor and/or the customers who they belonged to. They just smiled and laughed.

He was clearly soused, but it was Halloween and we were all feeling good. He bottomed up the tequila and immediately fell to the inside of the bar. Broken glass was everywhere, drinks and beers doused him. He lay on the floor groaning into the microphone.

It was Halloween and everybody was dressed up, so I had a camera behind the bar. I picked it up and shot some photos.

He lay on the floor amidst the debris and seemed unconscious. At the very least I figured the show was over. He looked like a train wreck. It seemed inconceivable that he could stand again, much less get back on stage and perform for another hour.

But — as if someone had simply replaced his batteries –Country Dick Montana stood up, flaked off the glass, grabbed somebody’s beer and rode his “horse” back to the stage.

That was the thing about Dick. He pushed his body further than anyone I’ve ever known. He would fall on his head, or his back and bound up like a puppet. He would stand on tables and sing, dance, and barely balance himself, and often in danger of decapitation from ceiling fans.

Dick and I shared three passions: Ray Davies. Charles Bukowski. Booze. We sat up for hours talking about Kinks’ songs. I read aloud poems from Bukowski’s, Play the Piano Drunk, like a Percussion Instrument Until Your fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit. We played chess and we drank.

As for the night of the Chess Bet, it was after he played Winston’s with The Incredible Hayseeds one night. I was bartending. After closing we went back to my place. Dick was in a sad phase. Sooty left him. We listened to Roger Miller and Tom Waits while playing Chess and it was funny how, even though he was sad, it was he was doing all the entertaining.

As for the Chess Bet itself, it was decided that whomever lost the game had to recite — on stage — a speech the two of us composed. It was terribly, overstated, with phrases like, “I bow to thee O conquistador of chess” and other such nonsense. We wanted to be sure that it was as embarrassing as possible since we were both so sure we were going to win.

As for the Chess game, Dick played black. It was hardly a ferocious battle. The fact of the matter was I was kicking his ass. Really. I had a Bishop and a Pawn advantage, and his Rook was in my sights. What I didn’t understand was that the Rook was bait and that he had drawn me in. By taking his Rook, I cleared the way for that fugger’s other Rook to attack my back file and checkmate was won as he stymied my King behind three so-called protective pawns.

At the next gig (The Incredible Hayseeds), before the second set, with the band on stage, and the crowd whipped into a Dick frenzy, there I was, clammy from sweat, in front of a shit-ton of confused fans, preparing to deliver the speech. I began reading, “Country Dick is my conquistador. I bow to him in all things. He is The King of my Chess Kingdom…” and so on.

I could hear his thick, unrestricted guffaw behind me, towering like the black rook he used as bait. I could hear the band cackling, and I asked myself, “How did I get here? I was winning that game. I had it in the bag.”

Fucking Dick though. He was eating it up. He kept sticking this micro-cassette recorder into my face (he had brought it for just this occasion) and laughing that big, thick, smoky laugh of his. God I miss him so much.

Dick and Ed, Sooty's house, Xmas circa 1992

POST SCRIPT
It was grim tonight, at Dick’s memorial service out in Winston’s East in San Tee. Faces, I remember from the old days at the Bacchanal, were red from crying, or just blank. The room was full of Dick-like desperadoes in a black or white cowboy hats. And each time one stepped by I waited for that booming voice.

“Are you drinking with me Jesus
I can’t see you very clear
If you’re drinking with me Jesus
won’t you buy a friend a beer.”

The Off Brothers - featuring Dick, Joey, and Farage Bros.