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The subject matter for the opening journal entry of my revamped website is tinged with sadness. Coming a month after the loss of the Stooges’ Ron Ashe
ton, the death of the Cramps’ Lux Interior at the beginning of February was another reminder that our time on this earth is finite. But it is people like them, whose contributions keep rock’n'roll pulsing and morphing. For this reason, their spirits continue to touch generations, even those still unborn. Surely that is the best legacy that anyone who first tries to hold down a chord or beat the living crap out of a drum skin or yells incoherently into a mic can hope to achieve. I recently watched the Buddy Holly Story. Like most biopics, it’s grip on reality can be somewhat strained. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”, claims my dear pal Johnny Green. Fiction can often reveal more than so-called fact, itself a meeting of recollections of what happened distorted by time, moods and desires. The film, though, told an underlying tale of the determination of an artist to do what needs to be done in the face of, what can be, the hostility of friends, family and society at large. It is more often than not a struggle which makes no financial sense. Belief, commitment and passion are what it’s all about. As a grizzled Neil Young, looking increasingly like the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ he is dubbed, said in an intriguing documentary I was catching up with on iplayer – UK only I’m afraid! – “It’s all about the music”. It is. But rock’n'roll is also about attitude and style. Lux had them in abundance and that seems like a perfect epitaph.
Scratchy – 27/02/09
I arrived at myspace by taking the A1 to Hull, a ferry across to Holland, then flying to Bangkok, biking overland to Kiev… and I was only trying to deliver pizza! A private joke that might be, but in not so round about a fashion, one not at all that far from the truth. For years, friends have encouraged me to get on the myspace train. But it just wasn’t my way. I’d look at other people’s profiles and listen to their music. Discovered some terrific sounds out there. It was a mite frustrating not to be able to make direct contact. But generally I was content to keep on steering along an independent path. Until today, that is. To be honest, it’s taken a few weeks to figure out how to edit and design the look of the page. So, in this world of Facebook and Twitter, why now? Just finally made sense. Last year, Paul-Ronney of The Urban Voodoo Machine, in one rash drunken dare, threatened the closure of the Gypsy Hotel if I didn’t sign-up within the week. I didn’t and the club continued. Huh, some pal he is! Oren of Gogol Bordello offered to help me set one up when I was on the road with them. My old sparring partner in Khmer Rouge, Phil Shoenfelt, has been banging on at me for years about it. It’s not that I’m computer illiterate. Quite the opposite. I spend way too many hours tapping on the keyboard and squinting at the monitor. Pretty much my entire world is at my fingertips. I was the same with mobile phones though. It’s trying to find the balance between the ‘I-want-it-on-my-desk-by-yesterday’ approach to life and not being accesible 24-7. For ages I refused to get a mobile and then, one day, I amazed my friend Claudia, contacting her on my ‘new’ portable handset. Smelling salts were in order. I’d found the ‘brick’ a year before in a park. It took me that long to buy a replacement battery for it. I’ve changed the phone once in the half-dozen years or so since I went mobile. Nothing fancy, the one I currently own is still regarded by many as a museum piece. No camera on it. No mp3 player. A phone’s for making phone calls and I’ve also embraced the text message. But I listen to music and take pictures on equipment designed specifically for that purpose, not some all singin’, squeakin’ and snappin’ implement. For all these Luddite tendencies, I’m not hostile to the advances in technology. It’s a tall order to hope to ever be totally free of ‘the man’ and the ability to co-operate with relatively like-minded spirits is a skill not to be dismissed. But, in amongst the indulgent shit, so much more creative control is possible these days courtesy of the internet and personal computer. I’ve come to myspace when I felt good and ready. Hope to see you out there.
Scratchy – 9/07/09
