My Dinner with Danzig

September 14, 2017 ~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

Every parent faces this day.
The daughter comes home on a blustery December day, gray but for the gaudy Christmas decorations that graffito the suburban landscape.
She’s maybe 6 or 7, and asks the question you just knew was coming.

Hey Dad-Dad, is there really a Santa Claus?

This is Baby’s first existential crisis, the first questioning of the only reality she has known, a view of an alternate world – colder and darker – brought forth of recess gossip.
She is about to enter the cynical world, and it will not be long before she sees her first Kardashian or some fucking little bastard offers to show her a penis.

Dammit.

News item:
The original Misfits will be appearing at Forum in Inglewood CA for their upcoming December 30th concert.
And the shit hits the fan.

*We are 138….thousand smackeroos richer that is!*

The punks online have become divided, incensed that the band has reunited for another one-off and sold out spectacularly. Others, not so lucky to have seen them in the grimy clubs way back when, have bought out the room in a day–I mean, c’mon–The Misfits!

I suppose there was a time when you would smile at such news, be it a bemused smirk or facial tell of joy, and then go about the day. But then along came a little thing I like to call The Internet-catchy, yes?

Have we become so cynical as to put down every small victory for the tribe? Has social media made it so easy to post up any slight immediate judgement before introspection and digestion? Be it an indictment on a band’s movements or a misguided defense of right-wing nationalists? Ahem

Yeah yeah, I know it’s hard to ignore the missteps the Misfits have taken, the public squabbles and Kiss-like merchandising.
And it’s just too damn easy to take the piss out of acts that are supposed to be serious or, god forbid, scary.

Is it a defense mechanism against the darkness?
I dunno, but why do you think Elvira has those glorious tits?

Those songs though.
How can you discount the long nights in the van, headlights carving out a tunnel though the moonless night, and everyone singing along whoa-ohs! to the gems we were gifted.
50’s melodies and crashing guitars, the perfect mix to transport yet another boring summer night driving through the tracts into a memory of youth.

And with Danzig, hell–there’s no need to spend precious time trying to decipher these lyrics.
For surely when Westerberg talks about rabbits In the yard, those aren’t rabbits, and there is no yard.

The Misfits want your skull.
Period.

Made it to the fuckin’ Fabulous Forum, people!
Home of Showtime, the temple where we once saw Keith Moon come out at a Zeppelin encore and smash Bonham’s kettle drums.

When Cheap Trick finally made it to headliner at the Forum there was a bit of a sting.
The band we first saw at the Whisky was now lost to the masses-but that is a different sort of discontent, isn’t it?
We had to admit an almost parental pride in our boys making it to Inglewood on their own merit, the rest of the world catching up to our great taste.

Who are we to begrudge anyone such an honor?

The long 1983 tour, we sweated through the Southern continent through July and finally made it up to Yankee territory just as the year surrendered to August.
We’d been in the van a month by now, and needed a night of gold star stature to remind us just what the hell we were trying to do here.
And so Kimm had somehow made some calls from Jack Rabid’s place and made arrangements to make a stop before the gig.

We pull up at a regular old NJ suburban pad, and after a polite knock that rattles the screen door, who answers but goddamn Glenn Danzig!

Oh sure, we’d met a few times before, on their West coast jaunts and at the disastrous NY eve show Irving plaza 1981, but now here we are standing in his basement as he rinsed out glasses to serve us tap water!
I dunno why this seemed strange, as we’d accepted the hospitality of a half-dozen punk rock heroes by now. Hell, I could still savor the soothing deliciousness of a pbj Biscuit had made me after a late night gig in Austin.
But I just somehow thought Glenn would live in a haunted castle or at least a trailer on the edge of a graveyard.

We had our waters and chatted a bit, he dug out some EvilLive t-shirts fresh off his screen and we traded merch. Then he yelled goodbye to his Dad upstairs (in a throaty roar, natch) before jumping in the Blue and White with us.

He pointed out local landmarks, (Here’s where Jimmy got clobbered, that there’s where Tammy flipped her Camaro)
And not to get too Springsteen on your asses, but it was pretty great driving through that golden Jersey landscape with Glenn in the van, he guiding us to some cool place to pregame before the show.

We thought he was taking us to some underground dungeon or at least a dive bar with Thriller on the jukebox and AB negative on tap.
But when we pulled into a strip mall parking lot, we got out and discovered ourselves at, of all things, a goddamned video arcade.
And no beer in sight?

Glenn jumped out, looked into the flashing parlor, then back to us to follow.
He was just a kid like us after all.

And yes, that is how we spent the day, late afternoon rolling into darkness, in a bleeping booping video arcade, a stack of patina-ed quarters in hand.
And ya know what? We had a goddamned blast!

I rediscovered my love hate relationship with Centipede as Doug challenged all comers to Ms Pac Man. I think Jackie and Jay took on the local Jr High kids in a fierce air hockey tourney that is still talked about in certain circles as Glenn and Kimm went to the old school pinball gallery.

We were a band that relied-heavily-on drinking in the local flavor before a gig. And by local flavor I mean copious amounts of booze, sometimes to disastrously hilarious result.
Yet here we were reconnected to the inner child that welcomed a night off the bottle.

And when we finally encountered the all new Dragon’s Lair game in the corner, really a ground breaker back then that incorporated movie graphics in a rather clunky choose-your-path sort of game, we gathered around it and watched: amazed.
I saw Glenn staring at the game, and could imagine his thoughts, the world of fantasy where he roamed, merged with a new technology. Bringing the experience ever closer to the cinema that he loved.

And at the gig that night, he jumped on stage during the closer of Wetspots, and was promptly dog piled on by the local knuckleheads, keeping him in check, all in good cheer.
We had found the night that we needed.

Now, who told you there was no Santa? I’m asking, the old stall tactic that every parent knows.

The kid only shrugs while looking away, a look betraying the shame and burden of understanding.
Heartbreaking.

I could only pick her up and swing her onto my shoulder, and then we stand before the big mirror in the living room. It’s the spot where I’ve held her since she was just an infant, to show her the reflected world: non-existent yet identical.

And then, together, we look and look back at once.
Dad and kid, one generation literally sitting atop the other, a man she will some day have to bury.

And then I ask her.

Well, what do you think is better? To live in a world there is no Santa?
Or to live in a world where Santa Claus will always come on Christmas?

She thinks for a moment, then she smiles.

Save Music in Chinatown

September 7, 2017 ~ CH3

We’re in there, Kimm and I– afterschool , after hours- at Faye Ross Junior High.

It’s the usual group of geeks gathered in the classroom, the kids who would actually stay after 6th period bell rang instead of bolting like all the sensible kids. They were probably already in the garage sniffing paint fumes or shoplifting Penthouse from Village Liquors, but we were in here with big acoustic guitars smothering our corduroyed laps.

Mr. Misajon is walking around the room, checking on each student as they struggle with the concept of tuning to the A he kept blowing through a pitch pipe.

He’s the cool teacher, all stonewashed flares and Puka Shells, and he takes this curse of teaching beginning guitar with ease.

“It’s like this, here and here,” he says, guiding our nubby stubs onto the impossible cables arched high above the warped necks. We give the strings a tenuous strum, but the strings yield only a skreech and awful clunk, like the distant thud of a drunken clown finally hurling himself out of a fifth story window.

Perhaps the very best thing we do in this punky community is come together for a good cause.

Oh sure, we’re all split into our different factions within any given scene, the straight edge and the boozers, the goths and the gutters, but it seems as though we all do indeed stand united against the normal world out there. And when one of our own needs some help, hell, where do we sign up?

I came to the first Save Music in Chinatown show 5 years ago, with no real expectations or explanations.

It just seemed like a nice way to pass a Sunday afternoon in a part of town I hadn’t visited since Madame Wong’s closed their doors for the final time in the mid eighties.

The space at Human Resources was all white, and somehow that made it an even more fitting blank canvas, to be colored and themed by the people and music brought together that day. That first show we all sat like children in a school cafeteria, hushed, mindful of our neighbors’ space, and listened as Bob Forrest struggled to make Sammy Hagar Weekend palatable to the 5 year olds that listened, rapt.

It is a Sunday afternoon, we are eating cookies and drinking coffee, and seeing the people we usually only encounter in noisy nightclubs: shouted hellos into each other’s ear canals the only sense of community.
Like strange creatures brought up from the depths of the sea into the light of day, we all stood there blinking in the afternoon light, and had the chance to say, Friend! how have you been? and hear the actual response.

The next time it was our turn in the white room, and we found ourselves facing that toughest of all audiences: sober people and their children. Kids have the most open and honest reaction to music, and when a crew of earplug-wearing toddlers started their own little mini pit at our knees, it was probably the moment of validation that we had been chasing all these years.

It is such a rare treat to see these bands in such a setting: The Gears bouncing around the room, as if playing to a more innocent time long gone. There’s Jimmy Decker of the Crowd getting loose and wild and sharing some curse words these kids had probably already heard, but perhaps not by a dancing man in a suit, and said with such glee.

The gals of BadCop BadCop rocking hard, inspiring a new generation of little girls to pick up guitars. And The Adolescents playing for a crowd that is able to sit and watch, actually watch the magic of Kids of the Black Hole being coaxed out of wooden guitars and drum shells.

The show moved across to Grand Star, with Bruce Lee standing guard out front. A newer generation of bands, always eclectic, mirroring Martin’s wide range of musical appetites, are always represented on the bill. I imagine these are discoveries made on his impressive journeys into the LA night scene, often accompanied by flyer artist Eloise, a kid that has more stories to tell on any given Monday morning than most of the staff at Castelar.

These shows have become such an institution on the Los Angeles music calendar, and an honor to be invited to play. You almost have to remind yourself that they are put on foremost with a purpose: a sincere effort to save music education in a public school. In these days when the Arts are in very real danger of being cut in the name of efficiency, we are faced with the threat of what is truly lost in the absence of art.

Sure, those first songs we learned in the after school program were corny– Baby I Love Your Way and Country Roads!– but it is because of that program that we are up there playing our own corny songs today.

We were given the possibility to sit under industrial fluorescent tubes and have a patient man, used to teaching kids already, show us the magic and thrill of bringing something out of the string and wood. It’s a trick that never fails to astound.

And if that is something that can be accomplished in a few lessons, you consider what else a child capable of, with maybe just a little bit of help.

I hit the strings again, bearing down, but could still only coax a muted question mark. I turned and watched Kimm as he clamped down onto the strings so hard his tiny cuticles turned white.

We chewed our tongues and eased off a bit, and followed Mr. Misajon’s gentle advice.

“Yeah man, don’t try to strangle it. Relax, that’s it, just push when you need to.”

We took deep breaths and shook the cramps out of our wee paws, and assembled fingers on the staircase again.

We strummed down, and heard for the first time that chime and sparkle of steel string against neck, the strings kissing the wood between frets with just enough contact to make the chord sing.
We looked at each other, astonished, and hit the strings once again, calling the religious alarm that would follow us home and into our lives to this day.

It’s Hot, I’m Dead Fest

August 29, 2017August 26, 2020 ~ CH3

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We go right into Manzanar now, and as I grab for the F# I can tell the strings have dropped a half step at least in this heat. I look out at the sun baked field, where a few hardy punkers have the sand to start a fledgling mid day pit, but the reasonable ones stay back in whatever shade can be found.
A beer can comes sailing toward the stage, and I savor the baptism of a few precious drops of cooling liquid as it just misses my head.

We’ve drawn one of the very first slots of the day, but console ourselves with the fact that the sun is at least at the far reach of it’s radius directly overhead, and the next poor bands will be playing straight into its blazing stare.

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But what the hell, it’s a rare invite to play a big fest, so who are we to bitch about set times?

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Ah, 1982, is that you I hear scratching at the backdoor of my battered hippocampus?

The Eastern Front up yonder Berkeley was indeed our first big daytime fest, but I don’t recall any water bottle filling stations or safe spaces back then, brother!

That day was hot and grimy, and quickly dissolved into a drunken mess, sort of an Altamount for the punkers who would’ve welcomed a stab to the gut over a trip into those bubbling porta potties in the north forty.

A few hazy images, of us drinking from our warm Old English jugs at 10 am and trying to lure a squad of new wave chicks into the Blue and White, while Grant & Bob from Husker Du could only shake their head at our antics as they walked past.

Stevo got into a mortal battle with a gopher who had the bad idea to poke its head above ground, the Vandals singer ultimately removing the rodent’s trachea with a pocketknife.

Then our boy Duane decides it’s reasonable to tip one of those fetid Port a Potties onto its side, while a poor punker is still inside intent on the business at hand. It was only Big John Macias from Circle One stepping into the mob, muscled arms raised, that stopped the subsequent lynching.

The day is mercifully finished at some shitbag motel, where Larry calmly pours a beer down the back of the television set, causing the poor Quasar to spark in protest for just a moment before surrendering its fuzzy image of Fred Mertz to darkness–a proper end to a day spent on the edge of reason, kids in the wild, animals of the Savannah literally on the kill without a thought of nutrition, hydration or safety. Punk.

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It’s a new day when we roll into the Glen Helen Ampitheatre grounds for set up.
9:30 am, and we unload drinking sensible grande Americanos, not a 40 of Olde English in sight.

It’s already a balmy 101 degrees as we set up the merch, but everyone is cheerful and relaxed.

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I mean, c’mon! How can you not grin when you are doing a soundcheck at 11 am and look right across at a Hello Kitty jumpy next to a circus tent.

Jumpies, people-jumpies!

Its our first clue that the It’s Not Dead Festival is a going to be a bit different from that dusty day 35 years ago. We are taken by golf cart back to the catering area, careful not to make too much noise as the idling tour buses contain the snoring headliners.

We are shown to our air conditioned trailer, and get this–we get the goddamn thing for the whole day! Usually we are kicked out of festival dressing rooms as soon as we are done playing, and stand like traumatized first time mothers kicked out of the maternity ward, holding backpacks bulging with energy drinks and waters swiped off the catering table.

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It’s all fine hellos and catching up, as these big bills tend to be. Call it high school reunion for the graying punkers, or perhaps more of a support group for the survivors. All I know is that it’s grand to say hello to a lot of people we’ve known a damn long time!

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Keeping the lucky streak intact, we once again draw the opening slot, so we ring out the first chords of the day on Stage 2 just as the first hardy souls come streaming into the Festival grounds.

The day holds, I don’t know, a million bands? So the set times are just that: set.

We are given a serious lecture about not going over 30 minutes, so it’s all business at hand: 40 year old songs with a few of the new ones sprinkled in to keep the crew on its feet. There is no time for the usual Rat Pack banter today baby!

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We’re over and done while the majority of the crowd is still emptying their backpacks on the security tables, but we played our first set back from the long layoff, and it went pretty good.
We were able to pull off some of the new songs without messing up too many parts, kept our bone marrow from boiling over and suffered only minor heat stroke.
Work’s done, and it’s our turn to go be festival fans now!

Lyman and crew put their years of Warped experience to good use with this one, as there were cool-off misters and water bottle filling stations, not to mention a steady bank of ATM machines humming happily next to the merch booths!

Still, I worry about these kids, drinking so much alcohol in this unrelenting heat.
Let’s hydrate! And sunscreen! Have you goddamn people ever heard of it?

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It is a major chat fest and band geek out for us, a rare treat to see bands like GBH and Buzzcocks betraying the road map of wrinkles upon face and putting out blistering sets of great sounding classics.

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We eat lunch, do some interviews, huddle in the trailer when the white spots start dancing across our fields of vision.

The heat and the hellos, running from one stage to the next in classic festival juggling act fashion, the day stretches on into weeks it seems. Murphy’s Law is on at the same time as Buzzcocks, Kevin Second’s acoustic set bleeds into GBH downbeat.

The temperature has settled begrudgingly at 106 degrees, as if it’s too hot for heat itself to make any more effort.

The day continues and we’ve become a tribe now, communed in a battle against the merciless Sun. All eyes on the hills above Glen Helen, that will soon be tucking this bastard fireball away for the night.
A resigned cheer goes up as the first shadows fall across the dusty field, and the unlit side stages go dark to the last horn blats of Voodoo Glow Skulls.
The crowd makes its way over to the main stage now, grateful for the relief of darkness, but burnt.

Sinead starts wailing mournfully above the Chieftans for the usual Dropkicks intro of Foggy Dew as the exodus continues toward the sound: A ghostly landscape of tired legs shuffling in the dust, as if through a smoky battlefield.

But there is plenty of laughter and smiles among all these tired faces.

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We start our checkout of the merch and begin loading out the boxes as Rancid kicks into Roots Radicals, Lars singing his guts out on the last night of their tour.

I walk back to do a final sweep of the trailer, and pass the Grim crew at their motorhome, a big screen TV showing the McGregor/Mayweather debacle.

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Tim Armstrong is now singing about hanging with Lars on 52nd and Broadway. For a fleeting moment I sense the confluence as they sing about nothing more than friendship, while the bored looking champ fends off the feisty leprechaun, who is at least putting himself out there and leading with his heart. I struggle to make the connection, but my brain is fried.

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I step into the empty Star Wagon for the last time today, the little space that has been a godsend on this boiling day. We had the rare luxury of coming back here to literally chill out, while the masses of true fans stayed in the dust and heat, rolling as one to their favorites.

I take every banana and water bottle left and feed my bursting backpack, as habits die hard, and take one last look around the trailer.
It’s quiet and cold in here now.
I feel that stab of punk rock guilt, to be standing here in comfort while a few thousand kids stand out there in the dirt and heat, singing along to their heroes.

For a fleeting moment, I consider taking one of the last beers out of the mini fridge and pouring it down the back of the plasma TV mounted amidships.
But what would that be? An uneasy assurance to myself that I am still that carefree and careless punk of 3 decades back, that a true spirit lives on?

Instead I tidy up the trailer and put all the recyclables and garbage into the proper trash cans.

And when I leave I turn off the light.

Channel 3.1

August 24, 2017 ~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

O hi.

A bit of catch up, shall we?

When last we left the lads, staggering about the wilds of Tijuana after a gig in search of the mythical Monkey Bars of Avenida Revolución— this back in goddamned April 2015 !–the rascally Yemini Civil War was still in its adorable toddler stage.

Green Day had finally been elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and we left Don Draper sitting in the lotus position on the brink of the frothy Pacific: the genius idea to sell brown fizzy water to the masses in the guise of brotherhood the only insight gained from a 2 week stint at Esalen.

We thought it was a good time to take our well earned sabbatical.
After all, you kids were doing OK, and it was time for you to start your own C level punk rock bands and suffer your very own brand of decades-long indignities.

And we left you in the hands of an eloquent, thoughtful World Leader, a stable economy and the promise of a nationalized Health Care system finally on the horizon.

So yeah,
Been a while, am I right? Anything new happen while we’ve been away?

Sheesh!
I leave you goddamned kids alone for a couple years and what happens?
It’s as if no one ever learned from those classic cautionary tales of the 80’s!

*C’mon now! You didn’t see this one coming?*

What is this, some sort of grand experiment?
Were we so bored with progression as to to wander into this alternate reality where Biff gets to keep the Sports Almanac and 70 year old men take to Twitter at 3am like junior high girls flushed on their first Zima?

I say again:
Sheesh.

Alright, enough of that, we won’t be wasting any of your precious toilet reading time on Dear Leader any more.

Lots of things to catch up on, so let’s get started.

Yeah, the band went a bit underground for a couple years.

A few lineup changes, the usual minor plastic surgery, new pets and all the weird behaviors they inflict upon the household.
Some heartbreaking farewells to people who were so dear to us.

And yeah, as you might’ve heard, we got a new record!

Duh!

Why do you think we’re here people?

Listen, I know it’s a new world out there.
A place where words such as alt right, fake news and Impeachment are abruptly copied and pasted into the daily lexicon.
We’ve lost that very last delicate morsel of innocence that we were saving for the Dodger’s pennant run, spent our National Goodwill on the moon pushing the goddamned Sun out of the way for a few precious moments of childlike awe.

We look around, at this world we all hold some sort of blame in creating, and can only struggle to make it through another day. Shudder at what the next morning will bring.

But your old pals are back now, and if things are not going to be better for a while, at least you will have pictures of food and guitars to soothe your battered soul.

*Tuxedo Rickenbacker and Tot Poutine. Boom.*

Oh, I’m sure in the next few months we’ll get back to the regular blog subjects: those fine greasy meals consumed at 3 a.m., the Golden age of Television we currently enjoy, poorly attended shows in cities that didn’t want us to visit in the first place–ya know: the usual.

But we return in full on whore mode, ready to sell off the last of our dignity to get this new stuff out to you.

We’ve got some tour dates lined up, a spiffy new web layout and even our very own in house store to shill our wares to you suckers.

I want you to savor the quiet time you were gifted, as you will soon be very sick of us as we continue this shameless promotion.

So feel free to kick around the new digs, scroll through a few meaningless Instagram posts, trust us with your credit card number or Paypal account and we’ll send you a T shirt. And if you do not also see an Alibaba charge for 25 kilos of alpaca food show up on the monthly statement, hey- bonus!

Alright then, let’s be careful out there kids, talk soon.

Oh, and one more thing:

Sheesh!

Photoblog: Tijuana

April 17, 2015 ~ CH3 ~ 3 Comments

Oh, we’d heard the stories alright.

Vague directions whispered in the night.
Crude maps hastily drawn upon cocktail napkins, set aflame after committing route to memory.

Groups of drunken Marines staggering down Avenida Revolución, one Lance Corporal holding a bloodied elbow against his torso.
His screams still echo in mind: That fuckin’ chimp took a bite out my arm!

Yes, we are here in search of the mythical Cantina de Chango: The Monkey Bars of Tijuana!

It’s a fine sunny Saturday as we meet at the Pierview in Oceanside, one last headcount before the border crossing.
It’s a first for us, playing south of the border, and we are traveling with our pals in Walk Proud and Skaal as backup.

And, yes, we are always eager to spread the ol CH3 gospel to new lands and all that.
But also the chance to drink alongside a shrieking Gibbon or perhaps a rotund Orangutan? Well!

We number fifteen or sixteen, and vow to not leave a man behind.
Well, maybe Paulie or Arvin, we could probably spare those guys–but that’s it!

From the swanky Rodeway Inn it’s a quick walk to the pedestrian border crossing and we’re in country!
We chatter, giddy as school children, each holding hands with our designated buddies: sweaty palms sealing this pact.

We imagine the doors opening to a darkened bar, and the denizens turn as one to inspect the new comers.
Azure spots dance before our eyes as we adjust to the darkness.
We finally make out wee forms smoking and drinking at the bar.
Dwarves? Wizened old wisemen?

No, these are certainly Hominoid creatures, yet somehow…furry.

We are corralled aboard a creaky yellow trolley and barrel deeper into the city.
The blue haze of wood smoke hangs in the air, the nightclubs along Revolución coming awake now as sun sets toward Wild Sábado night.

We peer out the windows for any sign of le Pub Monk, but nothing.

Ah well, we are here to do a job, and soon load into the TJ Arte and Rock club off Avenida Miguel Negrete.

It is a proper club, big old PA, lights……fog machine!
I don’t know what we were expecting, perhaps a cartel-run chop shop, or an outdoor stage of pallets with amps powered by generator?

But we find this Tijuana a very cool place.
To a person, everyone we run into is courteous and happy.

And the clubs are even nicer due to the lack of Guerro Bros from SDSU!
Past trips to TJ, the only dangers were obnoxious fratboys treating the town like a disposable playground, acting like drunken……well, monkeys!

After load in we head out for Tacos and beverage:

Our SD local bub Dennis guides us over to tiny Ruebens, and though we are initially disappointed that no one is swinging off the fixtures or flinging feces about the room, it turns out a jolly little haven!

The night is alive now.
We make our way back toward the club, passing packed restaurants and clubs full of life.
We peek hopefully into dim alleys and darkened doorways for any sign of prehensile tails, listen for the tell tale shriek of haplorhine primate boozing.

No?
Alright then, Showtime!

Systematic Abuse is ripping it up when we get back to the club, and then our buddies in Walk Proud take to the stage:

It isn’t long before Steve lights up a smoke onstage and Karl shocks the crowd by stripping down to a tiny thong.
But that’s the beauty of this place–freedom!!!

And then we’re pushed onstage and do the thing once again–ándale!!

There is tequila, oh yes there is.
We end the night skanking to 45 Revoluciones and hugging it up with a dozen new pals.

All too soon, we’re corralled back into the shuttle for the border, but not before walking the tourist gauntlet for mandatory supplies:

Bacon wrapped Hot Dog? Check!
Liter de Patron? You got it mate.
Switchblade and Homer Simpson Cookie Jar? Handled.

Some wise guy brings the ubiquitous surfing monkey onboard, but this only reminds us of our failure to drink à la Jane Goodall.

Eh. nevermind.

We make it back across to the boring old USA and are soon snoring away, a syncopated symphony of restless sleep.
We dream of a world where the apes serve a jaunty Moscow Mule, then light your fag with a snap of the Zippo.

But until that day, we have indeed met the monkey, and we are them.

Awesome photos by David Chi

You Make Me Feel Cheap…. Trick!

April 2, 2015 ~ CH3 ~ 1 Comment

*News Item, Chicago Herald. Dateline April 1, 2007:

April 1st is widely known as April Fool’s Day, but it is no joke that in Illinois, it is also ‘National Cheap Trick Day.’
In October of 2007, the Illinois Senate passed a resolution designating April 1st as Cheap Trick Day in the state. *

Hells yeah!

We’ll for the moment ignore the fact that those crackheads in the Illinois Senate also designated April 11 as Official Crohn’s/Irritable Bowel Syndrome Day and Oprah gets the whole first week of February.

And let’s not get shitty about them giving our boys jokey April 1 as their special date.
I guess that comes with the territory when you still dress like a Bowery Boy at 67 goddamn years old!

Fuck you. I own three hundred guitars. — Fuck you.
I own three hundred guitars.

For this has become, ironically, an underdog band. And they deserve all the recognition they belatedly receive.
And fuck the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they dare to put Green Day in there before our heroes?

Listen, Green Day better get to the back of the line, and no cutting in front of the Toy Dolls either bubs!

1977.

We were kids with brand new driver’s licenses, a concert bong and warm tallboys of Olde English 800.
The burgundy ElCamino wore a camper shell, we wore Puka shells.
Life, it was good.

There we are, lazing about the Santa Monica Civic parking lot for a Runaways concert.
After drinking up every hideous malt liquor and smoking mersh weed until we achieved righteous headaches, we actually made it into the venue in time to catch an opening act we’d never heard of before—yeah, you got it brother!

Then CT came out on stage and went into Hello There-a blistering 90-second song, this in the day of the bloated 12 minute rock-a-ganza.

Robin Zander and Tom Petersson up there, the very image of 70’s cool, Rickenbacker guitar and 12 string bass, white suits and clogs–clogs!

But then, what the fuck? The guitar player is a goof jumping around in wrestling shoes, the drummer looking like an accountant behind a desk of drums, chain smoking like it’s the height of tax season.

At one point Bun E. pulls out ridiculously huge prop sticks and wails.
We are instant fans.

Here was a band unafraid to look silly, great taste in guitars, and able to play riff after amazing riff without making the crapping-your-pants grimace that the other schmucks of the day would make, just to let us kids know how hard it was to play a guitar.

Nah man, these guys were cool–had to be European!

We learned better of course, rushing down to Best Records the very next day to get that glorious debut platter.
These guys were from the Midwest?

That fuckin’ record, what can you say?
It was weird, taken in context of the day.

We listened to it and listened again, the glorious pop in Oh Candy, glam and dark touches popping up in other songs.
Mysterious is what I always think of that record, dreamy Beatles harmonies mixed with Townshedian guitar abandon and restraint.

I mean, come on! Mandocello?
A sixteen year old boy thinks-what am I hearing?

And when they came back around in a couple months later for shows at the Whisky, we were right there.

We stayed for both sets, caught hell from our Moms when we got home at 3am, and were in the garage the next day with guitars plugged into the home stereo.

Years passed, new albums released, and they would come around again.
And of course the secret was out.

The band rose to the fame we all knew it rightfully deserved, coming around opening for Kiss at the Forum, and by 1979 headlining the New Year’s Eve show there themselves.

When it’s not your band anymore, but the whole goddamn high schools’ favorite….. damn.
You begrudgingly smile at your band’s success but still shake your head at these fakes who only just bought Dream Police.

We were exposing the Poseur, this long before playing the I was there game with the other kids in the Cathay alley:

Where’d you first see Black Flag?
At the Starwood, Fleetwood or Church?!

Maybe it was around this time we cut off our luxurious locks and got the leather jackets, and covered every band name scrawled on our PeeChee folders with angry Anarchy A’s.
For if we weren’t against them we were for them, and all those Zep and Rush records ended up in the used bin at Best Records.

But somehow we just couldn’t let go of that black and white debut, and there was always a Cheap Trick mix tape along for the boring rides across the blasted landscape those first tours.

And it wasn’t even 1983 when even the fucking kids of Fast Times at Ridgemont High were dissing our heroes as kid stuff!

But they just kept playing, and we would still go see Cheap Trick when they’d come back around.

Fender’s Ballroom, the Golden Bear, Houses of Blue: Casinos and fairgrounds, these guys seemed to be on the same circuit as the Ramones, riding their current popularity up and down each year.
Hell, they were playing the same clubs even we were starting to play!

But they still came around, inevitable as Seasons announced by torn calendar page, the size of the room ever-changing but the set as vital as ever.

And then, full disclosure, full circle, we get to actually play with Cheap Trick in 2004!

See, fuckers?
Something good came out of those big hair records and those slow songs!

We could pull this off, playing a quick set in front of the Mom Jeans crowd, even if they did bring in cocktail tables to cover the usual swarming pit of the Vault!

Of course on the day we got word of this show, I fell off a mountain bike and broke my rascal scapula clean in two.
My right wing in a sling for 6 weeks, we brought Mike Dimkitch back into the fold to play second guitar, and I was back as a lead singer, God help us all!

But no matter, we were sharing the stage with goddamn Cheap Trick, people!

We spent our soundcheck goofing around on Rick’s pedestal, stealing guitar picks off his mic stand and playing with the pedal that would make his “guitar cabinets” light up like humvees scouring the Mexican border.

Eventually their tech crew shooed us away and we wandered the caverns below the club, but the band stayed on the bus.
Didn’t blame them, really.

Here was a band that saw the heights of 70’s stardom, back when being a Rockstar meant something.
I could imagine them backstage after the Forum gig, maybe doing coke in front of Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s locker while getting blown by Adrienne Barbeau.

And now here they were, on a bus in downtown Long Beach, another faceless gig among thousands, waiting for some aging punk rockers to clear off the stage and go play Surrender for the millionth time.

Just how many picks have been tossed into the nighttime sky?

We played, and I don’t remember anything much about the show other than the puzzled looks from the audience, heads cocked as if encountering a new species of monkey.
That and our bar tab afterward which was exactly 200 dollars more than we were paid.

But I do remember coming offstage and down to the dressing room, and there stood Rick Nielsen himself.
He was just looking around, seemed fascinated by the old vault door that still stood in the basement.

And after all the years shared, years and affection oblivious to him, we finally got to shake his hand.
I blurted out that we’d seen them, that first So Ca show back in 1977 and had seen them ever since.
And you imagine a guy like that, he hears this kind of shit all day long.

How many dressing rooms has he stood in, how many fawning hacks has he had to endure before going to work?

But Rick was gracious and kind, made eye contact and fooled around with us for some silly photos.

A moment in passing for him, a pause on the way to work.
A moment forever cherished to these former teenagers.

You just know that when the Runaways get back together it’ll be on a Coachella main stage.
And if dear Joey Ramone was still with us he’d be a judge on American Idol.

But a band that survives and just keeps plugging away, how do we honor them?
By going to see them at an Indian Casino, but only if it’s on a weekend night?

But they’ll come back around, they always do.
And if it’s at a House of Blues with shitty sight lines or maybe under the full moon at the county fair, we’ll still go see them.

Hell, maybe that’s why they don’t seem to mind those fair stages a bit.
Maybe there’s no better place to see Cheap Trick.

To be surrounded by carnival lights and the scent of frying foods, mixed with the sweet smell of nitro burning speedway bikes.
The sights and smells of our youth, all that’s missing is the soundtrack.

NYC: A Grand Victory Indeed

March 20, 2015 ~ CH3 ~ 3 Comments

It’s like a fucking shot of adrenaline to the heart, crossing the bridge and those buildings come close into view.

We’re out here on a turn and burn weekend, five hour red-eye flights, eight hours of driving and three-make that two!—quick shows.
Back to work by Tuesday morning.

When we left the tarmac in Long beach it was a scary 90 degrees–this at 9:30 pm people!!
I mean, yeah, we like the warm weather out here, but don’t ya think we should start getting concerned when our local ground temperature feels like a microwaved burrito at dusk in mid March?

The winter coats we hold in the crook of our arms at check-in feel like jokes, and we all eye the dumpster to possibly unload these bulky things.

But as we land on the east coast we learn Winter still has a home.
We walk along the frozen terminal sidewalk with the red-eye Zombie gaze, for somehow we lost 3 hours of our lives in the middle of the night.

Not bad though , as it gives us a chance to wear those stylish scarves that Anthony is always raving about!

Even with the canceled Boston gig the day is not a total loss, not with the bars and pubs in Cambridge all quivering on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day.
Soon the storied cobblestones will be awash with green vomit, so why not get a jump start on things?
Gotta love this town!

We’re up and out early-ish on Saturday, and the lucky sunshine we enjoyed on Friday has given up to a cold gray sleet.

Ah well, we know at the end of the journey we’ll be enjoying the warmth and fine humor of family and friends, so we push on and make it to the state capitol safe and dry.

We pick up ex-Californian Johnny at the Amtrak and make it out to Voorheesville and the Guinness-stocked fridge of Barb and Larry!

We regretfully say our goodbyes after foamy Stouts and corned beef sandwiches, the cold winds just a vapid threat outside of this warm family kitchen.
We squeeze back into scarves and overcoats like grouchy children bundling up for the cold walk to school, each of us eyeing the couch with a silent farewell to the fading chance of nappytime.

On the ride through the countryside we peer out foggy windows at alien sights: Snowdrifts and startled does, the yellow-lit farmhouses breaking long stretches of such beautiful, rare, darkness.

It’s into the Lowbeat club in the heart of Albany for another Saturday night gig in America now.
The place is all warmth and beery comfort to these old Californian bones, and we are soon amidst familiar friendly faces from past visits…..

A rare treat tonight, it happens that Capitle, who we actually played with in Albany our first time out–1982?!-is on the bill with us once again!

We do the thing once again, and then more yucks with the crew!

Sunday is the cold twin of Saturday, but we’ve come to enjoy this weather.
We are hearing of record temps back home and dire predictions of Cali running out of water by year’s end.

These things mean nothing to us as we are just too excited at the unique prospect of wearing gloves—Gloves, people–gloves!

A quick drive back crisscrossing the slutty Hudson, and it’s not long until those iconic buildings of Manhattan come into view.

Chrysler building

Ah Jesus, it’s grand to be back in this place.

We find an honest to God parking spot on 7th, and spill into the streets like the tourists we are!
We stop to pet every rat, pester the panhandlers for selfies until they run away screaming.
We’ve made good time, so it’s Lower East Side and the usual haunts for us!

With each photo of a sweating round of beers, after every tavern check in on Facebook, we get the usual responses:
Ah Jeez, here we go again…!
Keep it together Boys!
Can I get a refund for my presale please?

Hah–but no worries, we pull together for a classy burger at Alder and then there’s plenty of time to freshen up for the night to come.

The Grand Victory, it’s quiet from the outside on this night as we pull up.
The streets are empty on a goddamned cold Sunday night and we wonder, just for a moment, hand upon frozen door handle–if no one has showed.

The door opens and we may as well be back at CBGB’s, that first Winter of 1982!
Faces from back then, some hair lost, some hard earned wrinkles gained, but the same damned smiles we’ve known for decades!

We play well, catch up on a million years.
We tell stories we all know but can’t wait to hear again.

Jimmy Gestapo hugs it up and we talk of the Mad Marquis, that fateful rental car we used to power-push parked cars down the snowy streets in front of Jack Rabid’s place.
This three decades ago, he just a kid of 16.

Davey Gunner there too, we drink a toast to Doug Holland and he recalls floating in my Mom’s sparkling pool in Cerritos, the Summer Kraut was on tour in California while we boiled in Astoria.

Huge, serious looking men come over with 3 shots of Bourbon per fist, reminding us of gigs we played when they were skinny street punks at A7.

Women, former girls, catch our eye and shake their heads slowly, just a wisp of a smile.

We shout hellos and goodbyes over the punk rock DJ who keeps the crowd dancing long after the bands have loaded out.

It’s fucking great.

Tomorrow there’ll be an all too early check out time, an hour drive to JFK in rush hour, the squinty scrutiny of van rental return.
The date rape antics of the TSA, the overpriced drinks at the airport bar, and, finally, a seat.

On that jet traveling West, racing now with the Sun and gaining another 3 hours of precious youth, we’ll have a moment motionless.
And that’s when you can let the weekend catch up to you, and you smile the whole way home.

Our Travels with the In-Crowd

March 5, 2015 ~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

It feels like a lifetime ago we were last on the 5 freeway heading North.

The day starts gloomy and cold.
A gray blank slate of the sky melts seamlessly onto the concrete walls and buildings of the downtown skyline–let’s get the fuck outta here!

It is a thankfully easy drive beyond the gravitational pull of Friday Los Angeles traffic, and we are soon sailing along the green hills.
We count the cow pastures until we find just the right one to pull over and eat one of those delicious Bovines–you got it brother!: Harris Ranch steakhouse!

We use fried smelt to scoop counrty gravy off of the chicken fried steak, take bold stabs at each others’ plates with flashing forks, only to find new drummer Woody staring at us with disgust.
Heh-right.

There’s a new man aboard, and he hasn’t spent a lifetime eating and drinking with us.
We dab at our chins, finally, strangers on a first date.

It is a fine and rare occasion to have local chums and legends The Crowd with us for a weekend jaunt.

We’d been trying to coordinate this weekend with Jim Kaa for seriously five years.
Oh, you just try finding a weekend open to travel for 2 bands, 9 guys, each with family and jobs and schedules of their own.
It’s like…well, it’s like some simile involving juggling or doing something difficulty or something—write your own goddamn floral prose ya lazy bums!

So we are all thrilled the weekend is finally here:
I mean really, people–the fucking Crowd!
These are the guys the Go-Go’s used to open for, the band that invented punk dancing beyond the retarded art-school notion of pogoing!

We load into Johnny V’s as the sky turns dark, and are soon met with some familiar faces from home.
We sit and try to add up the combined age of all the men assembled here backstage, but those Iphone calculators only go up so far……
all right, we get it–we’re old!

And to make a very cool night even cooler, we are joined not only by The Defenders and Sad Boy Sinister but also SF mainstays , The Vktms!

Jeesus–what do you people want?
A ten dollar cover charge for 5 bands that have busted their asses for years?!

Maybe we should tack on a goddamn six buck service fee and 2.50 printing charge huh?
I didn’t hear any bitching about that the last time you bought Monster Truck tickets through Ticketmaster–now did I?!

We foolishly let The Crowd go first on this night and they get up there and lay down the law!
The bar becomes a turbulent ocean, bodies bobbing up and down in undulating waves as the salty spray of cheap domestic pilsner rains down.

You can forget just how many great songs these guys have, and you catch yourself shouting along to verse and chorus that you never knew you knew…
Whooo!

And then we have to follow these guys!
Woody does well on his first official show, though he is somewhat shocked when one bold chap sits down on the stage and actually starts eating Fritos…… during the breakdown to I Got a Gun!

Eh.
As with all things for a 30 year old band, it’s happened before!

Just a quick snack midsong, gotta keep the blood sugar up!

Saturday breaks clear and bright, and somehow we are missing miserable weather back home on this No Ca jaunt.
There are soon breathless accounts of thunder and lightning, actual hail coating the sands of Huntington Beach!

Great. Another racist white dude from the 909.... — Great.
Another racist white dude from the 909 in town….

We somehow have a hard time sympathizing as it is a gem of a day in San Francisco!
The sky is clear, and it is as warm a day as I’ve ever felt in the shadows of those beastly skyscrapers.

Something tells us a toast is in order, so we follow our inner compass to our old go-to, Vesuvio’s!

Of all things, I turn to the door and who walks in but Mr. Decker himself!
It is either pure destiny or we have become awfully predictable drunks, but we all settle into an upstairs booth and watch the glorious day roll by…

Capn’ Jimmy looks down upon the neighborhood, eyebrow elevated, as he hasn’t been up here since the Mabuhay days!
We point up Broadway to the sleazy locale and reminisce over days of smooth skin and fresh internal organs.

There are a few drinks and then it is decided on some snacks at The Boardroom in North Beach.

And now it's nap time! — And now it’s nap time!

Thee Parkside has become thee club to play in this town, mainly so we don’t have to hear the locals bitch about the parking!

Modern Kicks are kicking off the night, and not only do these kids sound great, but they have the best hair since Angel!

And then Sharp Objects get up there and roar through their set of poppy punky goodness:

Thankfully we get to play first tonight, so it’s up there and play a quick set for a roomful of pals.
We resist the urge to just play covers of the whole Beach Blvd album and claim we were on there too!

The Crowd gets up on stage to bring their songs back North once again, and the joy in this club is palpable.

It’s been far too long!

As usual, the night dissolves into the usual greetings and farewells:
Familiar faces glimpsed in passing, a few nods to those across the room.

Hugs, sincere.

We load out on a rare warm night, for this place, at this time of year.
It’s as if we’ve brought the sun baked atmosphere of Southern California along for the weekend.

Back home there is a flash flood watch along Mulholland, there are icicles forming on the gaudy facade on Grauman’s Chinese.
Have we made some devilish pact, as Home freezes over while we bask in the warmth of friends and music?

We’ll take it!

Many thanks Mark Hanford for additional SJ photos and Mike Schmitt for the blurry SF ones!

The PunkRock Warlord

December 22, 2014 ~ CH3 ~ 1 Comment

John Graham Mellor 21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002

We went down to San Diego to catch the Clash on the Combat Rock tour, what was that, 1982?
Real excitement to see a show, the kind of thrill that has been worn down from years of countless gigs and shameless guestlist action.

But then we were bubbling over and pregaming in a shabby motel room, taking turns at writing our fantasy setlists on the blank back pages of a Gideon’s bible.

Will they open with Complete Control? Safe Euro Home?
We downed another Coors banquet and joined the other kids walking to the show, a tribe united.

The band was at the top of their game, though sadly without Topper Headon onboard.
They had mastered the form, slaying the crowd with guitar and shout, had the room going crazy as one.

But it was when they did Straight to Hell, Joe bathed in blue spotlight, alone, that’s when they really showed the power of the quiet moment.

He told his story of Eurasian throwaways in almost a whisper, and it made the song all the more tragic and beautiful.

Oh, there were lots of other Clash shows after, watching them graduate to actual stadiums as The Who brought them along for one of their many farewells.
We left the Coliseum before Townshend did his first windmill of the night, satisfied that our boys took the baton from the aging gray rockers with style.

Then we suffered through Cut the Crap with everyone else, wanting so hard to go along on this new lineup but never being able to forgive Joe for cutting off Mick Jones.

They went out with a whimper, it turns out.
The only band that matters faded out finally.

Then with the Mescaleros, it seemed as though Joe had a renewed sense of creativity, and there were even whispers of a reunion.
Was it too mush to hope for, a comeback that would be not just a quick cash in tour, but a reconciliation of men still in creative prime?

I got the news that Joe passed on Dec 22. And now Christmas will always be linked to that death, just as Easter always reminds me of the other king Joe, Ramone, who passed on that very holiday of rebirth: irony intact.

And if we thrust sainthood upon them, our Joes who art in heaven, it is more for our own comfort, nothing to do with them.

After all, he was no angel, by all accounts a bit of a hothead stoner and control freak–this was the man who kicked goddamned Mick Jones out of a band for fucks’ sake!

But what do ya want?
We have to validate our love and our life somehow, don’t we?

And so we wear the T-shirts and paint the murals, making our heroes live on.

A night after the news had spread, I went to the local House of Blues for one of the myriad Social Distortion shows that used to take over that shed for all of December.

I ran into a lot of people, some would burst into actual tears, though most just used the tragic news as an excuse to get drunker than usual.

Ness came out, and instead of the usual opener he and a keyboard player did a slow quiet version of When Angels Sing.

I was reminded of that night decades ago, and a quiet moment that changed me.

Joe onstage, alone in a spotlight.

Hawaii II: Aloha, and Aloha

November 22, 2014 ~ CH3 ~ 1 Comment

When we last left our heroes they were standing on the sand, arm in arm before a glorious sunset.
This will be the last out of towner for the year, a year that’s been filled with strange and wondrous jaunts.

Later in the evening, yes, at wacky tacky Benihanas, we make toast upon toast to these travels:

The long weekends spent in the Arizona ghettos or amidst the siren call of the Clark street bars, Chicago
Huddled around the Hard Rock blackjack table with the Shattered Faith crew post-gig, willing each other to blow their nightly pay on sketchy double down bets.

Was it really just days ago we stood on a rainy Portland street corner eating pork belly, the new coin of the realm, upon toasted pupusa?

Another round of blue drinks is crowded upon the Teppan cooktop , jostling for room against towers of giant Sapporo and steaming flasks of sake.

When a man might live forever….

Note to editor: Drummer was crawling around on carpet looking for dropped shrimp.

Saturday

Like X-Men, we have developed unique superpowers at this stage of our lives.
Unfortunately, that gift is the ability to rouse from deep slumber and pee twice a night.

I roll off the squeaky twin and stumble for the bathroom, locked of course.
Alf is already up, shaving god knows what part of his body.

It’s a clenched elevator ride down to the lobby bathroom and if the front desk are shocked by my houndstooth pj bottoms and Cheap Trick Tshirt, they don’t respond beyond a smile and offer of a bottled water.

Back at the room the fellas are rousing, each of us sitting up in our wee beds set in a row.

It looks like nothing so much as a set up for a Three Stooges routine, and the last dim memory of the night before was the roaring syncopated symphony of snore burp and
fart.

But it’s just a few steps down the hall to the crysatlline pool, and we dunk our throbbing heads beneath waterfall and feel grand in no time!

Text are sent back and forth, chirping cell phones are hushed with a swipe of thumb and we are all set.
The kind promoter checks in to see if we are settled, can send a van over early if we wish to soundcheck.
Soundcheck? What is this strange thing you speak of?

We briefly weigh the sparkling ocean just a block away against spending a precious hour listening to Alf hitting a snare drum in an empty club.

Let’s hit the beach, shall we?

Lunch and then a quick tour of the indoor bars suggested by the locals.
We are pleased to see advertisements for the gig scattered here and there, and if we are embarrassed by the term Legends printed there in our reference, we only have to remind ourselves that Bigfoot remains a legend as well.

And like him, we are hairy mythical beasts that survive on stolen laundry and spam musubi.
Carry on!

Heh. Now will you people believe us when we tell you we're legends? huh? — Heh. Now will you people believe us when we tell you we’re legends? huh?

After a refreshing nap back in our orphanage, we hit the nighttime streets of Honolulu and make our way to Anna O’Briens.

It turns out to be a proper night club, with a stage and electric lights and everything!

I don’t know what we expecting, maybe a palm thatched stage lit by torch.
Where do we get these goddamned ideas?

Another treat added to a weekend filled with them, we have a grip of old friends here to meet us.
Some have moved here, some just happen to be visiting at the time, and it is a blast to catch up so far away from our grubby roots.

And then we get up there and do the thing we came to do.
I mean, besides eating drinking and wallowing about the sand, silly!

The Make me Feel Cheap gals, Hawaii! — The *Make me Feel Cheap* gals, Hawaii!

And then like every other gig, it is over all too soon.

We don’t want it to end, not any of it.
Not the night, or the weekend or this fucking year.

We have time to chat up a few more friends before the houselights are flashed on, and though the rude jolt of reality is always illuminated by those harsh last-call floods, we simply remind ourselves:
we just played a set in goddamn Hawaii!

And we smile.

A late ride back to hotel, and maybe time for one more MocoLoco and one last view from the balcony:
A glowing moon, its yellow paint bled onto calm seas.

It’s not 8 hours later we are back through the Security checkpoint, a hundred dropped at airport bar and sealed back in the aluminum tube that hurtles toward home.

The plane clears the island below and banks East, wings dipping low enough for us to get a last glimpse of that blue Pacific.

An ocean shared, yet, home, translated to a far less melodic language.