Rock Wives

July 13, 2018 ~ CH3

I missed the Steve Soto memorials this past weekend, instead riding my motorcycle across the fire-warmed trails of the Mendocino Forest.
Incredibly, the winds shifted in the morning, and there was no sign of smoke.
Just clear blue skies as we leaned deep into the corners of Highway 20, into the Alpine setting surrounding Clear Lake.
Standing on those hills, I thought Steve would approve of being on the road and far from home, his territory after all.

Kimm filled me in on the services and memorial, a proper tribute to Steve.
Once more filling the room with loved ones, friends and fans, packing the club over the guarantee and into backend bonus, just another sold out show for the man who finally missed the downbeat.

I heard Tony mentioned Rock Wives, that common trait of bands to have those two connected characters, usually on board since the start.
Together on stage always, graying through the years yet recognizable immediately within context to the other half.
Inseparable as California Condors, mated for life and destined to fly in formation til one falls tragically to the ground.

I dunno, maybe it’s because it gets so goddamned hard to keep a band rolling after the decades pass. Oh sure, when we were 19 it took only a suggestion of a gig in Nebraska for us to jump in the Blue and White and take off on a 3 week tour.
But you try to book just a simple Saturday gig at Alex’s these days, and you are suddenly in competition with the kids’ morning soccer tournament and the wife’s plan to spend the weekend at Cabazon to comb the outlet mall.

People naturally pass in and out of bands, but you have those two old fucks up front as the constants: grumpy landlords that see new tenants move in all smiles and unassembled IKEA furniture, only to evict them 3 months later for smoking meth in the courtyard.
Next!

Some Rock couples seem to truly dislike their mates, Joey suffering under Johnny’s commandeering of the van and guarding the radio dial to only Yankee games and right-wing call in shows.
Yet the awesome power of the music, of the house lights going down then DeeDee’s bark of 1-2-3-4! keeping them united for another night.
Perhaps in those precious moments on stage all the day’s miseries are forgiven, a glimpse into their hopeful teenage hearts just visible through the leather and pain.

I guess the Steve&Joes, your Mick&Keiths, they have the RocknRoll luxury of traveling on different buses, trading Twitter insults with each other from their private islands in Barbados between tours.

They know another tour is coming up, another 65 dates of putting up with that guy, financially connected in a strained ballet of spite and respect. We’re not gonna even touch those incestual couples, (think Ray&Dave, Liam&Noel), whose genetic bond authorizes physical war.

But maybe punkers value their mates more than those jaded millionaires, the bond built in the spit and blood that much stronger for the visceral glue that holds tight.

Tony&Steve, our beloved Jims of The Crowd. Tim&Lars, Stan&Leonard…what of the actual RockWives of Exene&John? How’s that working out for ya?

We used to joke with Tony and Steve that one night we should have a swinging key party, everyone swapping mates to see what kind of ungodly combinations we’d discover.

Tony: Better watch it, what happens when it’s us 2 singers that end up together for the night?
Me: Not a worry. You ever hear of WHAM, mate?

What a rare treat to actually like this person you are connected to then.
You knew Tony and Steve were more than band mates, just as Kimm and I are as likely to be having dinner together with the wives as we are playing to an empty basement in Frankfurt.

We didn’t know it, not at the start, but this thing has always been about the friendships.
I walk into the room and the first thing people ask (well, after, ya know who you look like?) is, where’s Kimm? And he gets the same when he loads in solo.

Sometimes I get annoyed. Hey, what are we, married?
But yeh, we signed up for something long ago, welded in something stronger than paper and law.

Far from home and in a new place, but standing on that black wood that is as familiar as a hometown Main Street.
Another night with that comforting silhouette to stage left.
Both of you perhaps a bit grayer, the right hands moving a little slower across the strings, but known, known.

Soto

June 29, 2018June 27, 2020 ~ CH3

The night that Joe Strummer died and I was hanging around backstage at House of Blues Anaheim.

This is when Social Distortion would do a run of 10-12 shows right around the holidays, a sort of OC punk advent calendar that everyone seemed to bitch about, yet it sold out every night.

I had cleaned out The Crowd’s dressing room of any remaining beer while they were on stage, the classic dickhead backstage move that I justified with the need to drink in Joe’s honor.

I walked down the hall swinging 2 warm Coronas like piss filled juggling pins, chuckling at the thought of Decker getting off stage to discover only Vitamin Waters left in their green room.
I caught sight of Mike Ness through an opened door.
He raised an eyebrow and nodded to me, though seemed to rightfully be prepared to run if I came any nearer, lest my drunkenness infect his hard-earned sobriety through sheer osmosis.

Then I saw Steve sitting in another open room, and he waved me over to chat.
And that’s how it always was when you saw him, the smile of mouth and eyes, a joke in greeting.
All of us, the characters that made up this zenith of So Ca punk, we all recognized the man at the very center.
The big guy we all circled, deserving of the very gravitational pull that brought you into his orbit.
A welcome.

I plopped down next to him and shook my head.
“Ah Soto, what a day.”
I was wallowing in my own pity for my hero’s passing, putting on the self-absorbed dramatics any proper drunk knows how to manipulate into just another excuse to have another shot.

“So tell me a story Steve,” I said. “Tell me a Joe story.”

And then he looked to the ceiling and smiled, rolling through that data bank of experiences. A lifetime of this music in every conceivable capacity.

He smiled then and turned to me. “Strummer or Ramone?”

For he did indeed have stories about either Joe.
With a Zelig-like ability to be there at all times, he had a story to tell of every gig and musician you knew, and loads more about the ones you did not.

You knew him, or course as Tony’s right hand man on that stage, the mighty foundation of The Adolescents.
Laying down the bottom end, yet sailing far above with the sweet high harmonies.

And then there was the stable of acts he held, always on hand to fill a rare open weekend night with a gig: Manic, Karaoke, Riders—etc.

And: tour managing, booking, studio cat.

Steve had excelled, it seemed, in every aspect of the music business:
make that the Music Life.

105608556_2809384209189045_7842946611370984195_o — *Martin Wong Photo*

I’m in the studio, struggling with the punch ins: failing yet again to hit a common third.
The other guys have gone out for tacos, leaving poor Monroe alone in the booth to roll back time and again as I butcher the background vocals.

Take twelve and I throw up my hands.
Jim hits the talkback, but doesn’t say anything.
We look at each other, held in the silence, then nod as we both come upon the solution:
Call Soto.

And a day later we are in the control room, Steve out alone at the mic.
He tells a long story about Gabby, then puts on the cans and spins a finger in the air: roll it.

And then, one pass, boom.
He nails the track, then goes back again and lays another harmony on top of that.

We roll through again, and he effortlessly weaves in and out of the track.
It’s done, and he takes off the headphones.
So one time, me and Stan– this was way out like off the coast of Italy….

A couple years ago we met up in Köln Germany.
A cracker for a Monday night gig, The Adolescents and TSOL, MDC and us.

We are all decades removed from those bratty awesome early days, now more concerned with the WiFi password and a tea kettle than pirating beers from each other.

I find a nice cool seat outside as everyone is packing up and Steve comes over to sit with me.
We chat between people coming up to talk to Steve, asking him for a selfie or just to shake that hand. My thumbprint is left on a dozen Iphones as I am asked to take their photo together, these people so happy just to be near him.
And he is happy too, out here on the road, his home.
We talk about the rest of their European tour, though he was out with CJ before this leg, hasn’t been home since Punk Rock Bowling.

“Dude. I don’t know how you do it,” I say. “That travel schedule–sheesh!”

“Yeah, but you guys with the wives and kids– see, I don’t have a dream killer, do I?”
And he laughs at the joke, because ever the romantic, he is in love with a girl back home.

He continues to travel, as he always has.
To be far away from us yet somehow still close.
He saw this life as just that: a dream.

Biscuit II

June 15, 2018 ~ CH3

New Years Eve 1982, and we’re standing together in the upstairs loge of Irving Plaza.
We got to play and then the plug was pulled; the promoter has bailed out.
Those lumberjacks of DOA are wandering the venue, trying to find someone to beat for this shit.
As with so many stacked shows in those days, no one knows anything, no one’s getting paid, and the sound company starts dismantling the rig 3/4 way through our set.

It’s our first time in New York City, and we are still trying to wrap our heads around this freezing cold, the mountains of buildings…the people.
Kimm is chased out of a Kosher Deli for requesting a slice of cheese on his brisket, Jack is still trying to find parking for our rental station wagon on the streets around Union Square.
Larry buys a quarter gram and four Quaaludes off a friendly cab driver, yet is rewarded only baby powder and AlkaSeltzers for his 50 bucks.

We are just kids in the city, having a fuckin blast.

*Kickin it in the alley with Doug Holland*

Biscuit’s counting heads, trying to calculate how much money someone has skipped out with.
He stops counting and shrugs, resigned to just another cancelled gig, though this one is 2000 miles from home in the dead of winter.
“So how y’all?” he asks, and that honey smooth Texas accent adds some familiar warmth to this strange moonscape. We haven’t seen The Boys since we passed through in July, though it seems like a lot has happened for both our bands.

A snotty kid comes up to us then and stops in front of Biscuit.
Yo, you’re the guy from Big Boys, right?
Biscuit nods and sticks out his hand in greeting.
Hahaha!, the kid spits, faggot! and then he runs off.

I am frozen, sick with shame, as much from this brutality as my own cowardice for not chasing the kid down and poking his eyes out.

But Biscuit just turns back to me and continues our chat.
“So y’all got some good shows going on out LA huh? We gotta get back soon.”

I think of that now, and imagine all of the ignorant abuse this man endured, being one of the first openly gay guys in the hardcore scene.
It doesn’t seem any big deal now, but amidst that macho bullshit of the early 80’s, this supposedly independent music community was often soured by a prison yard mentality.

And when I heard a couple of years later of The Bad Brains passing through Austin and cursing Biscuits’ lifestyle as an affront to their pseudo Rastafarian religion, I could only imagine Randy taking yet another insult in stride, if not with graceful anger.

When we pulled up at The Ritz it was already a boiling Texas day, the damp blanket of humidity another new experience for us.
But we’re cheered immediately by the hand painted sign welcoming us to town, and what a fucking lineup!
The Big Boys had humbly put their name down at the bottom of that banner, though they explained to us it would be a lot better if they played last.

The crowd was great for our set, though we were shaky and nervous as hell.
The Huskers were a little shaken by the charming Austin tradition of tossing empty LoneStar cans up at the stage, and warned us to keep an eye peeled.
We simply requested only full cans only be tossed in our direction and spent the set running around with our mouths open like drunken sparrows at dinnertime.
It got the crowd on our side and by the end of our set we were sticky with beer and drunk off our asses.

And then The Big Boys got up there to close out the night and we understood:
This was their town.

Tim Kerr stage left playing loose and fast, all syncopation and jangle.
Chris Gates to the right, a block of power and mass: a car battery.
And Biscuit front and center, using up that stage. I think they had some horns along, though you couldn’t really hear them for the crowd shouting their lyrics right back to them.

This felt like community compared to LA, our metropolis flattened and spread wide like a squashed and molded fruit.
We had already had punk on punk violence and splintered tribes formed by area code, but here it was still us against them, and everyone in that hall was united by the music, the life, the city.
What else to say? They were a great band.

A few years went by.
Looking back, it was a shockingly short time that bracketed that first episode of punk for us. I mean, our EP came out in 1982, and by ’86 we were already dressing like Eastern Bloc whores and playing the goddamn harmonica onstage for fuck sake.

But in that sweet season we got to connect then reconnect with these people again at different waypoints.
Compare notes on what we saw out there in the wilds of America. The crisscrossed network of promoters and clubs grew bolder with every month, and bands would return with new reconnaissance to share.

The Big Boys would come back through town, a show with us at The Vex, or we’d go to see them at another club.
One night we picked them up at whatever pad they were camped and took them down to the Cathay for a weekday gig. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were the openers that night, and though I know it’s hard for you youngsters to believe, they did not always suck.
The Peppers charged the basement room, Flea slapping the shit out of that MusicMan, AnthonyK rolling the floor as he spit the sixteens.

The ride home was quiet. They talked about what they saw: something ferocious and new, obviously inspired by them.
I think they sensed that someone had discovered and refined the art they had created.
Made it sleeker and sexier, ready to be repackaged to the very Frat Boys that were the Big Boys’ earliest nemeses.

After that Ritz gig, Duane, Jackie and I went back to Biscuit’s place while Larry and Kimm went to stay with Tim and Beth.
We pulled up sweaty, drunk and exhausted.
Biscuit opened the door wide for us, cleaned up and smiling.

The wild force we’d witnessed onstage just a couple of hours ago was now the proper Texas host once again. He bowed to bid us in and then pointed us to our beds for the night.

“Well, I just had myself a cool bath and made a peanut butter jelly sandwich, and I invite y’all to do the same,” he said.
We were grateful as abandoned dogs, and fell upon the white bread and Skippy in kind.

“That was a real good one, wasn’t it,” he said then.
“Good night.”

Bourdained

June 8, 2018 ~ CH3

We’re in the Pho joint right next to Til Two Club in San Diego a few months back.
Pho King….. get it?

It’s a good place, noodles with just enough surface tension, a bone broth deep in flavor with just that faint waft of urine that lets you know the place is legit.

I look up from my slurping and notice a little Vietnamese boy watching me intently.
I look away, but when I look back he’s still staring. I shrug to his Mom.

“He thinks that’s you,” she says.
She points with her chopsticks at the TV montior hanging above our heads.
I look up and there he is, Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown or maybe a rerun of No Reservations.

The kid looks up at the TV where Bourdain is also hovering over an Asian noodle dish, then down at me, and back to the TV again. He laughs.

Got Bourdained, we’ve grown to calling it.
Without fail, on our travels here and there, I inevitably get the double take and then it’s Hey, anyone ever tell you, you look just like….

I come back to the United lounge and sit down with the fellas.
“Got Bourdained again,” I tell Kimm. “That’s three for the day.”

I don’t see it.
I mean, am I really that grey of head?
I’ve always seen myself as more of the Wayne Newton doppelganger, or maybe an Osmond brother with gigantism.

But man, they keep coming up to me to point out the resemblance.
One chap actually cornered me at the back of the plane while we floated a mile above Duluth.
“Hey man, don’t want to bother you, but just wanted to say I love all your stuff!”

I am immediately inflated, thinking, ah, you meet CH3 fans in the strangest places! Now where is a pen for me to sign an autograph and make this mortal’s day special?

But then he takes a closer look and his face falls in disappointment.
“Ah, sorry about that, you’re not him are you? Anyone ever tell you ya look just like….”

What I’ve come to understand is people really love-loved- Anthony Bourdain.
It’s made me appreciate at least I don’t look like Mike Pence for fuck sake.

And for some reason they feel the need to tell me how much they enjoy the shows, can only dream of his lifestyle.
Man, if I could only live like that! I wish!

Now we learn of his farewell, and it hits you like a sock to the gut.
It makes you wonder at the blackest of holes that can lurk deep inside us all.
What deep despair pulls at a soul, no matter if they are lounging on a tropical beach with a Michelin rated chef or sucking cock for rock in the alley?

But besides this tragedy, and the show we will miss– that food, the smarmy commentary! —I think this hurts so hard because we all felt Bourdain was one of our own:
A punk.

My fave episodes of his shows are when he hung out with musicians.
I think he understood just how connected bands are to food and travel, the twin comforts and demons to any touring band.

There he is, in the city with David Johansen, cruising the backstreets of Helsinki with Sami Yaffa.
And when he sat down with Iggy, you could just feel the adoration Anthony had for the man and the music.

But my very favorite show was when he went to Montana and sat with fuckin Jim Harrison for a meal and a chat.
The grizzled lion of letters, croaking out his poetry in a cloud of American Spirits.
Anthony Bourdain sat, rapt and respectful, and I could only hope I could hold my own half as well in the presence of a hero.

And, damn.
Both gone?

In Kitchen Confidential he was open and honest about the drug use and fuckups, as well as his love of truly good music.
It made him that more relatable to our tribe.

The line cooks with their own demons, listening to the Dolls while blanching the Brussels Sprouts.
Smoking in the back alley before dinner crush, comparing their Cocksparrer tattoos blemished by yet another 2nd degree burn by a molten saute pan handle.

Punk rockers connecting the dots with food, rejecting corporate fast food to search the back alleys for a memorable meal after soundcheck.
Trying to capture the essence of a city by its food, where in the past it may have been a more lethal gluttony.
Now: Ingestion, not injection.

And when we saw him sitting down to noodles with Barack Obama, the graceful world leader meeting junkie punk, we could only feel it as somehow a triumph for all of us in the tribe.

On Damian Abraham’s excellent Turned Out a Punk podcast he shows a respectful and deep history with the New York scene. No celebrity poseur with the 10 grand Crass leather jacket here.
The guy knew the food , the music, the places.

But now another one gone.
This tragic news we consume with resignation, seems like nearly every week.

I never met the guy, no connection at all.
I’m just a fan, just like the people that feel the need to come up to me and point out the resemblance.
They take a moment out of their day to tell me about their connection to Anthony Bourdain, and I can see their love for him even though they are disappointed they did not get to meet the man.

Sometimes, I tell them, “Hell, tell your friends you did, though, right?”

And they think about that for a moment and then nod their heads in agreement.
And they walk away, happy.

My Dinner With Biscuit

May 24, 2018 ~ CH3

A European fest recently, I searched for an exit with the thought to wander around the old East Berlin neighborhood a bit before our set time.
I caught sight of Wattie standing outside a tour bus, his crimson Mohawk standing straight up as if it were a compass reading of his aura. The last time I’d seen him his stripe of hair hung limp in sickly dreads like hydrangeas wilted during an unseasonable heat wave.

We did the bro hug.
He Looked trim and hale, and I told him so.

“Ya gotta mate, ya gotta,” he said. Even that usually impenetrable Scottish brogue seemed clearer than usual. “Two ‘eart attacks mate, two” he said, pounding at his chest. “Dropped a wee bit o the fat, feeling fit, yeah?”

I’d heard, of course of his scare onstage.
Have we reached the season where our indestructible punk heroes, hell, ourselves, need to face the oncoming mortality?

As I strolled along the Spree, spearing currywurst with a tiny trident fork, I wondered at this thing that has given me the opportunity to be here at this time, in this place.

What world is this, that these heroes give a hug and we chat as the old acquaintances we have become?

And as so often with gentlemen of the twilight, how the talk reflects on the decades we have all shared in these trenches.
Has punk become the new blues, where no one bats an eyelash that a 60 year old is up there owning the stage?

Perhaps because we were supposed to be ugly in nature, boots on the ground and ear to the dirt, there has been no deterioration as the hair metal bands of the same time have suffered.

The senior class of punk looks pretty good up there, finally under proper lights and through modern sound gear, playing in front of 3000 well behaved fans that have aged along with us.

In turn, your metal band playing the same hall sees this as just another step down the ladder, a bitter disappointment from playing the arena that shadows the horizon of this same city.

Those spandex pants and scratchy hair extensions now a cruel reminder of better days.

It is a shame that not all of the old friends, heroes as well, are not here to enjoy those lights.
It’s the fact of our age, and that sparkling wild life we all enjoyed, that make you cringe just a bit when the phone rings, a name and number you haven’t seen in years.

And then the inevitable question that serves as a greeting: Hey, did you hear about….?

It’s a week before our first Southwest tour.
We’re talking 1982 here people, long before a nationwide jaunt could be booked with a few lazy swipes at the smartphone, raping Facebook for local promoters.

Kimm had been doing his homework for months, conferring with the master Chuck Dukowski for contacts in the different cities. It was a patchy affair, a mysterious Underground Railroad type network of people connected by the love of punk and borrowed phone calling card numbers.

There was a person, a club, a band in every town, and of course when it came to Austin TX, man, that crew was The Big Boys.

We went out to the Whisky on a Thursday night when they were in town, an opening slot for X, maybe it was their first time in LA?
We’d heard a few tracks, and were digging the chugging groove they were laying down, adding a new syncopation and funk to the skate thrash meter.
But also a bit mystified by the big lug of a singer, Randy-Biscuit-doing the set in a big ol white jumpsuit.

Then came the closer, a raucous version of Hollywood Swinging, when Biscuit shed the one piece, revealing a pink motherfucking TuTu underneath!

He smeared cheap lipstick across his face and threw himself into the song, into the crowd, terrifying and exhilarating.

Just. Great.

On the way home, cruising down the deserted 101, burping up the ghost of an OkiDog (with kraut yo), we meditated on what we just witnessed.
We were excited, maybe a little intimidated, about the next weekend’s gig in Austin with the Boys themselves and another rookie band called Husker Du.

The next day we returned to Hollywood and met the band at Exene’s bungalow.
Would Biscuit greet us in drag? Shout in our faces as the madman we witnessed shouting out his demons onstage last night?

But when we got to the bungalow, we found him rinsing out the tutu in the kitchen sink, the white jumpsuit already hanging out to dry in the courtyard. He was doing the laundry, but turned to greet us with that expansive grin.

Hey, how y’all doing?

To be continued

Safe European Home

April 27, 2018 ~ CH3

We gather ourselves after yet another security check going into Terminal 3 Heathrow.
Perhaps it’s the quality of in-flight entertainment, maybe just the degenerative loss of any nerve endings in our kneecaps, but these trans Atlantic flights don’t even faze us any longer.
We arrive resigned, stumble through yet another TSA checkpoint shoeless, holding trousers up with one hand: Our humiliation complete.

Like cattle herded into the final chute of the slaughterhouse, our only avenue of protest is to shit: we hit the United Lounge and take a crap.

Helsinki dawns bright and warm, 25C air temperature mocking the NorthFace jackets and Polar thermals in our carry on luggage.

We wander supermarkets and Town Square, take a ferry out to the stony Fortress guarding the harbor.
There, we run our hands along the rough-hewn walls, wondering at the gallons of steaming blood spilled here in the name of Sovereignty.
Would we have the courage to stand among the ice and rock, grip a scabbard slick with viscera, to defend our land against the invading horde?

We take another photo and post it to Instagram instead.
We are not men.

*A backstage conversation with Posh Boy*

Robbie Fields has made adjustments to his never-ending World Tour and appears, incredibly, in the check-in que of the Presidentti.
We chat easily there in the Lobby, interrupted only by the waitress bringing a tray of overpriced drinks and the shy tourists looking for Anthony Bourdain’s autograph.

We begin with the small talk of the weary old men we have become, but are soon transported back to the garage in Cerritos, youth and excitement barely contained before Mom comes in and tells us to shut off the amps and come eat some dinner.

Berlin lies waiting, less a mother with open arms than a patient spider in the dark corner of her web.
Everyone passes through this city.
Some stay, recognizing the limitless possibilities of this place: Old and New, East and West.

Some stay because they never close the goddamn bars in Kreuzberg and they miss the tour bus.
Doomed to a future of wee bottles of Jagermeister and a daily diet of Donner Kebap, it is a fine purgatory indeed.

We pay our respects at the Ramones Museum and then eat currywurst in the shadows of Brandenburg Gate.
Then it’s on to Dresden to witness the legacy of horror there.

There, we gaze upon the cathedrals blackened by fire bombs.

A sudden revulsion now, and we are forced to pay up the 30€ to use the WC at a Starbucks.
We blame our knotted intestines to curry powder and room temperature Mayo, though we know our nausea bubbles up from a deeper source.

I am unable to find the ß upon my keyboard when referencing Roßwein.
A minor inconvenience, surely cured by some cryptic combination of ALT/CTRL/F6 etc.

But I like that I cannot spell this character, its stubborn refusal to bend to the Anglo invaders.
Everyone here, everyone everywhere speaks English.

They do so with charming accents, and without fail apologize for their tentative grasp on the language.

We are shamed: forcing our utilitarian phonetics upon these graceful generations.
In the name of goodwill, Anthony learns curse words and vulgar phrases at every stop.

He is able to ask someone to please go fuck themselves behind the knee in a fine Bavarian accent, for example.
A sincere if humble consolation to our hosts.

We visit with Jay in Hannover, our ex-patriot brother sensibly accustomed to the Euro lifestyle.
It occurs to me that Jay has always been a European at heart, his timing and gait far more in tune with the civility of this continent.
To bicycle to the market, to eat fine cured meats upon grainy breads.
Restaurant meals are eaten and then, amazingly, digested at the same table:
A third Kaffe ordered before a thought to request the tab.

He has found what was perhaps missing in Arcadia.

We sit impotently on the runway 40 minutes after landing, the GE turbines idly spinning in anticipation of an open gate.

We gaze out oval windows at the purple sunset over Los Angeles, the palm trees wilting in the shimmering haze of burnt jet fuel.
Home again after just a long weekend gone, really.

But the distance traveled and hours gone have little to do with the journey.
Though we have been awake for 23 hours we will wake up tomorrow on Greenwich Mean Time still.

We’ll stumble down to the curb in gray dawn light and search the horizon for a spire blackened yet defiant, survived against the will of the West.

Blue Diamonds II

April 21, 2018 ~ CH3

Drunk Bob comes up to the bandstand just after we bring Solomon Burke’s Cry to Me down soft.

There’s maybe 12 people In the bar, light even for a Thursday.
But at the Honest Lawyer they booked you for 3 straight, Thurs through Sat, four sets a night.

Bob has spent most of the set dancing by himself. This after every female in the room has turned down his invitation for a twirl.

No matter, he is the king out on the parquet, all by himself, and now he comes right up to me and claps, applause as much for his own gyrations as the song.

His solitary clapping echoes in the now silent room, a wayward shutter on a haunted house.

We’ve been at it a couple years now, and our watermarked schedule notebook is packed.
After 2 weeks at The Lawyer we have a Saturday afternoon wedding reception, then there’s the Grand Opening of the new Wells Fargo branch on Firestone Blvd.
At the end of the month we are back at the Elks Lodge in Newport, where they have you play Auld Lang Syne at midnight as they circle the dance floor in mysterious configuration.

We got this.
Henree DeBaun on the drums now, he sings the classic blues numbers in a silky tenor, while laying down a swinging backbeat.
Eldred does the wild rockabilly stuff, sings the Buddy Holly and is reliably up on the bar for a guitar solo at the drop of a ten in the tip jar.
I get the Elvis stuff, though we’ve been known to throw The Cramps’ Human Fly in at the end of Heartbreak Hotel.

And then we have our secret weapon, Ron Davis, who holds down stage left Entwistlian solid.
We bring him up to the mic mid set, just after midnight, for a scorching When a Man Loves a Woman.
Slays them every time, slays.

We got matching tuxes for the formal affairs, white and black jackets. The set list is, oh, 150 songs by now?
You get your special requests though, so we each take turns going down to Licorice Pizza to buy maybe a Harold Melvin cd and getting down the chords to If You Don’t Know Me By Now. We leave the tabs on each other’s answering machines, have it down for that party Sat, will ya, ’cause it’s the birthday girl’s favorite.

Of course, the fellas come from a place where musicianship is the foundation, their pasts in hard rock and blues bands only help to spotlight my rudimentary guitar and vocals.
No matter though, we have a blast out there.
Third set of the night features a 15 minute version of Twist and Shout/La Bamba, the dance floor as beer-slippery and elbows flying as any slam pit at Cathay De Grande.

It’s a priceless education I’m getting here, learning to play so quiet the first set to slowly edge the day drinkers into the night.
We’ve learned to handle the drunks and hecklers, swerve at the last moment to avoid a sloppy kiss from a horny old lady who just sang along to the Patsy Cline set.

And when we later regrouped as CH3 a few years later, for the great Old School Reunion of 2000, I took those lessons with me. The power of live music, its pheromonic pull to the lonely and searching soul. Doesn’t matter if you’re playing Wetspots or yet another creaky version of Proud Mary, you are making a circuit complete on a Saturday night.

Bob waves me down close to his face. The air is sudden;y infused by Crown Royal and Kool Menthols.
Great stuff my boys, great. So do me a favor will ya, will ya play Danny Boy for ol Bobby?

We look at each other and shrug, anyone know how to play Danny Boy?
I start to tell him nah when Bob pulls out a wrinkled fifty and drops it into the tip jar.
Me and Mike look at each other-key of C?

Sure we know Danny Boy, we do now.

Blue Diamonds

April 13, 2018 ~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

So this flyer pops up on the ol newsfeed now and again.
Understandably, people are amazed.

Whoa, dude! You guys actually played with The Ramones?
And then: so how old are you??

Yes, that gig happened, and before you ax, no we didn’t get to hang out with them as they were pretty much hustled in and out of the shed for their set.
I did, however, get a quick glimpse into their green room where – swear to God -I saw Johnny eating a slice of pizza.

I was thrilled to see an actual Ramone eating pizza, perhaps a gastronomic satisfaction on par with actually witnessing a lioness take down and feast on a gazelle.
Johnny looked up at me, then over to a roadie, then the door was slammed shut.

You would think this would be the absolute pinnacle of our career, the full-circle fantasy of playing alongside the very band that got us into, and finally out of, the garage.
But when I see this poster I am really reminded of the sad condition we were in as a band, and how the final days were telegraphed, if not tattooed in all of our inner eyelids.

That show was on a Monday, and just the day before we came home from an awful, decadent Midwestern tour.
We were alcohol bloated, burnt out, squeezed into mildewed leather pants: all aviator sunglasses & cowboy boots, trailing a cloud of AquaNet Pink responsible for a acre-sized hole in the Ozone layer.

It was the final lineup of CH3 before the reboot: I’m up there being a lead singer, for fuck sake. Kimm and Jay Lansford doing the guitars, hillbilly madman Ron Wood on drums.
The new kid Mike Dimkich has been shanghaied into bass duty on this leaky vessel, wide-eyed and not yet drinking age. That didn’t stop us from forcing him to get drunk nightly and pimping out the cute new kid to the local sluts.
As we swung through Chicago, Detroit, Lansing, Flint–all places that held a soft spot for us in earlier years, we were met with disdain, disgust-and worst of all-no recognition at all.

I imagine that’s how it is for a band like, oh say, SmashMouth these days.
They come back to town, but instead of playing in the decent halls they held court in the 90’s, they find themselves on the grassy outskirt sidestage of Temecula’s Wild Wine Week festival.
How can they not feel a bitter ache as they roll their own amps on stage, following the opener: ShrekMouth (a tribute to SmashMouth)

So when we finally regrouped after that tour and the Ramones gig, the calendar lay plenty empty before us, missing Kimm’s frantic scribblings that usually kept us busy on bandstuff.

And as it so often happens, that stage of CH3 came to a close not in some fiery ball of Gallagher-esque onstage fistfights, but a lazy disintegration as everyone goes off to explore other projects.

Jay regrouped with Steve Jones in The Unforgiven, the rousing Western-themed band that set off a Major label bidding war in the mid 80’s. Another CH3 survivor Larry Lee Lerma later joined them in a pared down version of the group, just teasing us with a full-blown Stepmothers reunion.

Jay was soon out on those big stages that we never quite got the hang of inhabiting, pulling off the outsized rockstar moves with ease.

Kimm and Mike paired off in Bulldog, a tasteful pop rock group that included future Wool and Concrete Blondie Al Bloch on bass and vocals. They were soon grinding it out on the Hollywood circuit, yer classic Coconut Teaser type of act that got all the foxy Westside legal assistants out and dancing at Madame Wong’s on a Friday night.

I had the treat of being left with beloved knucklehead and future Facebook grammatician Ron Wood. We started a little act called Stagger Lee with my old Artesia rock heroes Mike Eldred and Ron Davis, formerly from the band Metro Hotel.

I dunno, we were going for a sort of AC/DC rocky thingy, but somehow our hearts were not really in this new act.
You know when things feel right, and this wasn’t it.

Ronnie soon drifted off to God knows where, and we found ourselves practicing in rented rooms, hustling for gigs, picking up stacks of fucking tickets for a Wednesday night slot at the Troubadour. ick.

One night after a sweaty practice session, we found ourselves at The Embassy Lounge in Artesia, the bar right next to our beloved Gold Brique. The Brique was just beer and wine, so it was next door to the Embassy if you really wanted to get into the hard booze and fuck up your morning.

We sat over buckets of Jack Rocks, drowning those typical sorrows of a band relegated back to opening slot on pay to play shows.
I guess every band has that existential crisis. What the fuck are we doing here–I mean, for what?
How far removed have we become from that kid who first plugged in a guitar and hit a shimmering open E chord that shook the house, if not the world?

What happened to that? That Joy.

The bartender came over and mercifully topped off the highballs, then stopped and squinted at us.
Let me guess, y’all are a band right?
We grunted into our glasses, almost ashamed to admit to being part of this sordid racket.

Well, hell, why don’t you guys get up and do some songs?

She gestured to a darkened corner, and there was a little bandstand I never even noticed before.

“Well, we’re not that sort of…act,” we started.
Every musician is used to this shameful spiel when trying to explain your oeuvre to a civilian who just wants to hear a nice number that they know.

But before we could go on, she chimed in.
Free booze rest of the night?

Nine minutes later we had a combo amp and snare drum on stage, Ron plugging his bass into the house organ’s Leslie speaker.
We knew we couldn’t blast them with our hoary rock shit, so everyone came up with an old standard we could stretch out for 15 minutes and capitalize on the open tab:
Roadhouse Blues? Kansas City? Hey, The Temps–My Girl!

We started with a shuffling blues number, amazed to be playing at a volume so low you could still hear Vin Scully’s melodious tenor calling out the 10th inning against the Giants.

An old soggy couple stopped their ongoing argument and looked at us playing.
They tapped their fingers to the beat for a bit then got up from their booth and actually started dancing.
Tentative at first, then the muscle memory kicking in as they picked up the swing. She threw back her head and hooted as her husband twirled her around, now doing their very own version of the Lindy Hop, a forgotten language of the far better days of their youth.

And they were dancing to music that we were playing.

We looked at each other and grinned at the absurdity of it all.
These people had never heard of The Roxy or soundchecks or opening slots.
They didn’t give a fuck who got a Palladium gig, or burned with jealousy when one of their friends landed a major label deal.

They were in a bar, a band was playing and they were dancing.

We brought the number home and he dipped her down low for a finish, and then placed a rare kiss on her cheek. The rest of the room clapped.

Then he came up to us, put a five in an empty pint glass and we were a bar band.

to be continued

Take Me To Your Leader

March 23, 2018 ~ CH3

…what becomes of the power we give away?

The box arrived from Cascade on one of those scorching late July afternoons that make your mind wander back to luxurious days of youthful Summer boredom.
I’d been looking up and down the block on the hour, awaiting that brown block of UPS benevolence, like a fat kid straining his ear for the creepy ice cream truck jingle.

As I tore into the box, it seemed a lifetime removed from those rainy Winter days we first started this project.
And then I actually held it, shrinkwrapped and tight, the final product.

We had been through those tortuous post production days of artwork and finalization, listening to different mixes and masters til we were sick of the new songs already.
Liner notes edited and thrown out entirely, the usual bitching about fonts and band photos (I like this one, even if you do look fat!).

But that same familiar thrill returns when holding the record in hand.

It took us back to those Posh Boy days of the early 80’s when we would go down to Zed’s or Best Records to actually hold the vinyl, even smell it—the actual, physical manifestation of creativity and sweat, those dreams and curses sheathed within 12 x 12 cardboard.

TKO Records had graciously agreed to release the record under their relaunched flag, though we were pretty much on our own as far as the nasty business of promoting the goddamn thing to the masses.

Not a worry though, as we had our old mate Hector taking over as the launch manager, and Promo Pro Mike Cubillos signing on to help with the mysterious art of press promotions.

We have learned that a new project is only new for a shockingly brief amount of time, so we shamelessly shilled the platter to any site and rag that would have us.
We considered the launch a success when we finally got a mention in HardTimes!

And so the album came out with some nice fanfare, got our name on the radar for a shining, if not necessarily long, blip of existence.
Proof of life means everything to a band going on 4 decades:
Hey, we’re still here-yo.

But like a spent holiday season, the anticipation and celebration are quickly forgotten, and you’re left to wander barefoot through a den littered with torn wrapping paper and broken toys.
It’s back to the daily grind.

They say you always think your latest song is your best.
And as with children, you are not supposed to pick your favorite, but yeah-the baby.
Perhaps it’s because as you lay there in the afterglow of maternity and hold this shining nugget of promise in your hands for the first time, anything is possible.

Inevitably, this little shit will grow up to crash your car and steal all the beer out of the garage fridge, but for now, this kid can do no wrong.

The record splashed out and took its place in our uneven catalog.
We are able to cull two, maybe three songs off of it to slip in among the 1982 songs that everyone tonight only wants to hear.

Hey look, we get it.

The best we can hope for is a few hundred people giving our new stuff a chance, maybe listening through a track before going off to the next level of Candy Crush.

More likely, we’ll get the wan blue thumbs up! on Facebook, the digital stamp of approval that passes for acknowledgement these days. And that’s OK.

We look at it as a snapshot of these times, our hostage note to our future selves that we lived and hopefully survived these truly disturbing times.

And if nothing else, we end up with something to hold, the validation that matters mainly to ourselves.

Hey look -we can still do it.

All The Night

March 9, 2018 ~ CH3

..there was a girl and boy, then there’s just a boy
Sometimes he wears her dresses and breaks his sister’s toys

Yeah, another one. Goddamnit.

I hear ya, when are we gonna get over these fuckin studio posts and get back to what the people really want: boozy stories of 1983 tour life, huh?
Hey, I’m getting tired of this too, and I have to write this stuff.
So settle down.
Almost done.

The tracks are full now, and the last couple meetings in the studio are like walkthroughs of a newly constructed house: we wander the walls, running our hands over flawed drywall textures, add another note to the punchlist for final clean up.

Nick is in there now with a Dr. Seussian box of shakers and percussion toys, coaxing out the sproinks and klik klaks that will subliminally flavor the tracks.
I clean up a few lines, mumbled verses and cheesy lyrics replaced.

I go back into the vocal booth and make some harmony passes on few tracks, but it turns out just awful.
Jim gives me the note, I sing it fine a few times, but when the track is rolling I just end up doubling the lead track.
It’s as if I cannot separate my self from that other guy, can’t channel my inner Keef to yowl a plaintive 3rd above the original line.

We consider just using the ‘ol group chorus on every fuckin song, that old standby that reduces every nuanced melody to a drunken football chant.
Fuck that though, we need help.

Put in the call, and get Steve Soto in here!

Lucky we are, Steve is not out on the road with one of his dozen acts this evening.
Hard working bastard that he is, the guy is on in constant motion worldwide to ply his trade, guitar or bass in hand, sweet voice soaring above us all.

We meet at the studio and it turns into an three hour chat fest.
We tell inside jokes, repeat road stories we all know by heart, gossip like catty teenagers about scandalous band rumors.
We talk of the very real aches and pains of our age, the wonder that we are still allowed to play this stuff and get paid.

We talk about Gabby, recently gone, and wonder what, if anything, can replace the hole he punched through the local music scene.

Then Steve goes into the vocal booth alone, gives Jim the ok to roll through one time.
I watch as he marks the lyric sheet here and there, nodding to himself as he hears the voice missing.

And then we roll through again, red light on, and he nails it.
Effortless as lying to a cop.

He puts the missing note to each of the tracks then, sometimes going back a second and third pass to layer them yet even higher.
We got a wall of Soto going here.

We do the listen through again, rough mixed and everything up.
The record is done.