Tom Waits - Live 7" (Glitter and Doom Tour)

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all, my friends who are the most important Mustard Relics of all, a tall glass of water and a wide cup of coffee to you.  I think my New Year's resolutions are going to be, coming to work on time every day and not taking a nap during lunch.

One of my wife's old party friends had a son who died of alcohol poisoning a week or so ago, he was 20.  This is of course a real tragedy, him being a young man with so much to live for, as it is when any young person dies.  It got me to thinking about things like fate, luck, divine intervention, etc.  I'm sure if you grew up partying like I did you know someone who died from alcohol poisoning.  For me, in high school it was some kid on a skiing trip (or did he die from hypothermia from passing out in the snow...can't remember which).  What makes that one person, every so often, die from having just that little bit too much?  Suicide really, even though you have every intention of waking up the next morning (albeit with a massive hangover)), so maybe it's just playing with fire.  Maybe guys are just young and are doing things like beer bonging hard liquor, I don't know the exact circumstances.  Sometimes even pro drinkers like the late Amy Winehouse, manage to drink themselves to death.  Starting to babble a bit here, but I certainly can't understand how I managed to live through all the shit I did and that kid didn't.

I am not a good singer but I've always admired a good voice. I can't play any instruments, but I can respect the artistry of playing one. I've never been able to dance, but I'm in awe of someone who is light on their feet. A band that was all those things, live in 1979... The B-52's - Dance This Mess Around Not sure why I'm not dedicating a whole post to this 7" as it's not bad, but it just didn't hit me hard enough to have a whole post dedicated to it.  The band on the flipside, Spithead, you would think I would really dig with that ska vibe, but somehow they were just average.  Jackbeast on the other hand blew me away, with that kinda touch and go sophisticated feel.  You can get all their stuff from the DIY Irish Hardcore Punk Archive, but do yourself a favor and give at least one of their two tunes a listen. Jackbeast-01-Scrape #8 Jackbeast-02-Illicit Philtre Spithead-03-Personal Spithead-04-Hard Dog Club I first got into Tom Waits in college circa 1987, at the hand of my friend Katie who was a one of the boys kind of girls. Dude has been around since the early 70's doing his thing and I suppose when I first got into him it was kind of trendy among college students to listen to him.  His voice is a make it or break it kind of thing and I guess for me it makes it and the music is a bluesy, folky, cabaret deal.  But I don't need to blab too much about that.  "Lucinda" and "Bottom of the World" were written by Waits, but with what he does with Ledbetter's "Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" my jaw literally dropped (especially at the chorus).  Start the New Year off right and give that one a listen.

 

Lucinda-Ain't Goin' Down To The Well Bottom Of The World

Butthole Surfers - Cherub (Fenders, Long Beach, Kali 1986)

Man it is a real ghost town around here, it's a good thing my survival isn't based on the success of this place.  I'll blame it on the holidays and not on the content.  A tall glass of water, a deep glass of juice and a wide cup of coffee to everyone, here's to hoping you have something to celebrate.

Back in the mid 80's when I was in high school in the LA/CA area, there was a cable access station, can't remember if it had a name, that would play Flipside videos (I may have mentioned it before) of live punk/hardcore shows.  Watched that show religiously and would tape every half hour show and watch them all the time.  So I had these tapes with like 12 bands per tape, with bands like the Subhumans, Conflict, Marginal Man, Decry, Reagan Youth, etc.  One of my favorites was the Butthole Surfers one from 1986, in Long Beach.  I kicked myself for not having gone to most of the shows.  I had a car in '86 and Long Beach was only about an hour's drive away.  A few years later I would take these tapes with me to college and share them with friends.  The Butthole Surfers one was perfect tripping material.  Somewhere though I lost that tape and I've been looking for that Butthole Surfers show ever since.  In-fucking-sane. So...sorta long story short here is my favorite tune from that set... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgv3fwRITkU]

Worst Case Scenario - s/t 7"

"Friday" is probably on my top ten all time of comedy movies (did not enjoy my experiences with PCP though).  Worked with a guy up in Humboldt, right after graduation, digging ditches and shoveling rock, who had every line in that movie memorized.  Haven't seen it since I stopped smoking weed, so maybe it's not so funny now.

An internet buddy of mine called me neurotic once and as bummed as I was that he said that, I'm starting to believe it. Communication via the internet really plays into that, and reading between the lines I can't control the fact that I get noided when someone doesn't respond to my messages.  Sort of a vicious circle too that feeds off of itself, because when you get noided you start to do noided things...humph.

My buddy Chris Squire, aka Billy Druid posted up a tune on Facebook that really blew me away, so though I'd share.  Check out a bunch of them and give him support at his Myspace. For now here's the one I was talking about... Billy Druid-D.D.C.F.C.-1415 - Terribly Empty Inside Tripped on the first ZZ Top album (1971) the other day. A lot of BB King (saw him in concert) type stuff, which is okay I guess if you're into that, but what stood out was a couple of tunes with a sort of a Sabbath-esque vibe. There's only two or three with that vibe, but this was one... ZZ Top - Neighbor, Neighbor First off this is a badass band (but I say that almost all the time).  This time, believe you me, I am correct.  This was one of those records that I bought with a bunch of other records, listened to some of the records, ran out of time, got distracted, or something and totally forgot about this. Most of the time I am a glutton and eat that shit right up, but it's kind of cool that this little nugget got put on the backburner, only to surprise and delight me at a later date. Second, posting this is sort of a moot point because the band released a discography thing-a-ma-bob a year after this 2nd 7" was released (1997), called...you guessed it "The Complete Works of Worst Case Scenario". This is just my taste of the band, so if you're a serious listener/reader go to Illogical Contraption and get that along with a much better write up.  Outta Olympia, Washington, their first 7" was released in Lookout (a label we've seen a bunch of around here), still looking for that one.  If I had to pick out one, check out "Checkin Out".

 

Checkin Out Twenty Degrees Cooler Blood Of Christ

A Manson biography Mr. E turned me onto...

http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.1.swf