ATAXIA'S GREATEST HITS VOL. III

 We have a 3 legged cat. She broke her leg when she was a kitten and they couldn't do anything to fix it so they had to amputate it. It cost my roommate $3,000. I realized that was more that my parents had ever spent on me. The other thing is we had an awesome roommate (Dan Elliott) who named her Rick Allen, this is the one-armed drummer from Def Leppard. 

At one point I had no computer and no internet for a month. I could fucking hear my roommates blink, talk about annoying. This was back when I could still read so I re-read Crime and Punishment. That book is actually hilarious, actually a comedy, I didn't know this. Every time my roommates came home they would say hello to the cat and I would get angry. I didn't know why but every time they said hello to the cat I got mad in my room. I realized I was jealous of the sympathy they were giving the cat. This is insane but kinda par for the course when humans are involved. I was thinking, "You call yourself disabled? I will HOUSE you with disability. Fucking 3 legs is nothing." 

1 JOINT = 3 HOUR PANIC ATTACK

I was at Armstrong State Park with my friends. It was beautiful. When we got to the end of the trail we decided to smoke a joint because I wanted to do anything my friends did I smoked it also. I had smoked every day through my 20s but like15 years ago it started making me too paranoid. So I was thinking I'm in a state park surrounded by nature, I'll be fine. The first thing that scared me was after the joint we had a cigarette and people came in our area I thought they'd get mad at us for smoking. Then when we left my friends were pushing my wheelchair and I got scared that we would hit a pothole and I would go flying. Then I got scared that because we had no maps we would get lost in the woods. Then I got scared that the sun was going down and we would be lost and hungry and die of hyperthermia. After an hour or less of this terror I finally saw the car and we were heading towards it. I I then got scared that we would somehow lose the car even though we were looking right at it. That's when I realized I was being totally irrational. We got in the car and my friends played Live Neil Young and I got freaked out. I remember thinking, 'How can I hear live Neil and get freaked out, how is that even possible?' Then I got nervous that my friend had forgotten to put on his headlights. Then I thought about being totally irrational and realized I was just gonna have to accept being in a state of panic til it passed. After awhile, like literally hours we went to an awesome diner that had a bar in it in Guerneville. This was awesome and my paranoid marijuana freakout ended. We went to fucking Uli Roth that night, he's an ancient guitar player from The Scorpions. He opened with Sails Of Charon.

DOGS

 There is a Porky Pig cartoon with a dog who shouts a poem about the city called, "Da City" here's the part from that cartoon:   Da City

In second or third grade they were teaching us about poetry and they assigned us to write our own. I could not do this at all. On a piece of orange construction paper I transcribed Charlie the Dog yelling "Da City"- -the whole thing. The next day my teacher thought I had written it, I didn't say anything. She fucking hung on the wall in the hall to show everyone, with my name on it. People must have thought I was like E.E. Cummings. 

I was at my second cousins house way after this but I was still a kid. My cousins were in their 20s and it was the 70s. They literally had Charades parties and served fondue they wore fucking velour. Talk about cool pretty sure they were smoking jazz cigarettes. There was a guy visiting once and his girlfriend had tried to kill herself. She was in the hospital. We were all in the living room hearing about this. While she was in the hospital she tried to kill herself again. Barry, her boyfriend, said "She ate a Poinsetia" 

I said "Oh the poor dog." I totally thought Poinsetia was like an Irish Setter. 

THIS IS TOTALLY A TEST

This is a record geek test with a concentration on classic rock. I would get a 90. You need to at least pass it but anything B or above is total record geekitude. Sorry. 

1. What do you call a dog with wings?

A.  Linda McCartney

B.  A Wingnut

C.  Joni Mitchell

D.  Bob Barker 

2. Where are The Stooges from?

A.  Los Angeles

B.  Denmark

C.  Michigan

D.  New York 

3. What is the name of the keyboard player from Pink Floyd?

A.  Robin Wright

B.  Richard Dyson

C.  Richard Wright

D. Travis Bickle

4.  What does 2112 refer to?

        A. Coordinates

        B.  A year

        C.  The score of a game

        D.  An amount of space credits

5.  Who did Neil Young move to the U.S. with? 

A. The members of April Wine

B. The members of Rush

C. Randy Bachman

D. Rick James

6.  What is Alice Cooper's real name?

A. Billy Dee Williams

B. Vincent Furneier 

C. Farrah Fawcet

D. Rick James 

7. Besides the awesome band, what is Steely Dan?  

A. A baseball play

B. A surfing term

C. A dildo in a Burroughs book

D.  Something kids in California say

8.  What does L.A.M.F. stand for?

 A. Like A Mother Fucker

           B. Lame Ass Monster Face 

 C. Local Airport Montana Fair

           D. Look At My Father 

9. What label was all the New Zealand punk on?

 A. Epic

B. Elektra

C. Flying Nun

D. Guided Missle 

10.  How did Michael Jackson die?

A. He choked on a 10 year old weiner

B. He choked on a 10 year old weiner

C. He choked on a 10 year old weiner

D. He choked on a 10 year old weiner

Bonus Question: What is the abbreviation of Judas Priest/Iron Maiden style Heavy Metal?  

A. NWBHAM

B. NWBHUM

C. NWOBHM

D. NWBHIM 

 

COOL ROCK/INTERVIEW SHIT

When I interviewed Al Cisneros (Sleep and OM), at one point I asked him, "What is your favorite Black Sabbath riff?" because they sound so much like Sabbath and OM hadn't put out a record yet. I was interviewing him for Holy Mountain Records which was owned by my friend, John Whitson. Al Cisneros and Sleep had disappeared forever at that point so them putting out a record was huge. When I asked Al that Sabbath question he said, "Tony Iomi's riffology is irrefutable." I'd never heard the word riffology, I have used that approximately 1,000 times since then. Later in the interview Al finally said his favorite riff was "Cornucopia" which is on Sabbath Vol 4. 

When I wrote for Rhapsody at one point we had an editor who had worked at fucking Creem when it first started. She was actually mentioned in an article written by Lester Bangs about going to see Black Sabbath in like 1974 or something. We're talking rock royalty here. At one point they had me writing promo's for the website, we were supposed to write and type things as ads. I came up with one that said, "Q: Who is a better guitar player than Billy Gibbins? A: None. There is not better guitar player than Billy Gibbins." and the editor from Creem (Jaan) told me, "I emailed the promo to Billy Gibbons and he loved it." This is incredible that it happened. I could have retired at that point. 

The other great thing I have about Billy Gibbins is that recently in an interview he was asked if there was a guitar player today that he liked and he said, "The best guitar player today is Graham from Lecherous Gaze." Cool, I totally agree. That guy Graham is a fucking bad ass guitar player.

They had me interview a lot of people at Rhapsody. My first interview was with this awful boy band from England called BBMak and my last thing I did as a full time employee (before I went overseas) was to interview Tommy Lee. In the middle they had me interview Bryan Adams, that was cool. He was actually super nice and all we talked about was hockey. Even though he is from Montreal he is a Bruins fan. That blew my mind. I asked Tommy Lee if he had ever smoked crack and he said, "Kid, I've done everything." 

I was not at this show. It was in the 1970s and my friend/boss was at it. It was in a shit Boston town called Waymeth. My friend/boss, Pete was there to see Tom Petty or someone. It was outside in a playground type area. The New York Dolls were opening. Some irish/american Boston "yah-dudes" were freaked out by the New York Dolls all being in drag. At one point a fucking tennis ball bounced off of singer David Johanson's forehead, thrown by a "yah-dude" obviously. My boss/friend saw this happen and told me about it one night when I was cranking "Frankenstein" at work. 

ANOTHER BAD WORD BUT FUNNY SHIT

 This story cannot be told without an offensive word, sorry it happens for when it comes up. 

When I was 14 I was at the Elk's with my father. He announced to the bar, "My son is now a man so you can talk to him like a man now." This meant they could swear in front of me. I was sitting next to a guy I worshipped, his name was Joe Oulette. He had been in the Pacific War and totally had tattoos of hula girls on his shoulder and forearm. He was talking to me he'd probably had a couple drinks, beer was only a fucking dollar, I would have had a hundred. Joe Oulette was telling me a story about being in the Navy, at one point he proudly announced, "I was the only guy on my ship that fucked a midget!" 

Another great thing I have about the Elk's is when I was 18 I had a job in the city that I took a train to and from. Every night I had a choice of sitting and waiting for my father to get done drinking and I would drive us home or I could walk 2 miles from the train station to my house. As awful as sitting around while my father got wasted was, I still did it a lot because 2 miles is a long fucking walk. I was there so much in fact that at one point the other people there said, "That kid has to become a member." So I joined. I am an Elk. There was a candlelit ceremony and everything. I remember taking an oath, it was nuts. I never paid the dues once so my membership eventually expired.

Me and my cousin were under 21 but old enough to drive. We were going to a party, it was a Friday night. We needed to borrow my father's car to go so we were at the Elk's to pick it up. We were sitting at the bar while my father drank beers. He turned to my cousin Peter and said, "You wanna leave now or later?" I tried to say with my eyes to Peter, 'Whatever you do, you have to say 'Whenever you wanna go.'" Peter like a normal person said, "Let's go now." It was Friday night and we had been there probably a fucking hour and not said a word. My father said "Fuuuuuuck yooouuuuu" to Peter and one of the guys at the bar said to him, "You just bought yourself another 20 minutes." I'll never forget the look of confusion on Peter's face. 

FUNNY THAILAND SHIT

In Thailand there was a stretch of the street I lived off that was basically a mall for tourists on the sidewalk. Entire tables of Jade elephants and brass knuckles, shit like that. I realized everyone working the tables was deaf-mute. Pretty sure they were wicked cheap labor, the Mob that ran everything probably didn't even pay them. The tourists were constantly haggling like a dollar off shit that was already two dollars and so the workers all had calculators and when a customer asked the price they would show them the calculator. The customer would take it and put in the price they wanted and would hand it back. Then the worker would put in another price and give it to the tourist, blah blah blah this went on. You get the idea. I started going to the deaf workers and asking for the price of something, they would show me the calculator and it would say 600 on it, for Baht. I would take the calculator and type in 599 and hand it back. They loved this they all thought it was funny, so did I. Thai people don't understand sarcasm but they totally got that joke about farang. The word for "mango" was "farang" also, so whenever they saw a tourist eating a mango they laughed really, really, really hard. They also loved any time a big, fat person had a little suitcase. They loved this shit and would yell, "Big man, little bag!" 

I was out one night with a girl. I was really into learning Thai. It was well after midnight and like at least 90*. There were people selling all kinds of shit. I particularly loved this watermelon they sold. It was wicked cool on your throat and there was sugar in the bag so when you picked out the watermelon chunks with the pointy stick they gave you, it had fucking sugar on it. It was so good. One night we're getting some and this girl totally spoke English so I asked her "What is the word for watermelon?" She said in a heavy Thai accent, "water-melon." I was expecting some exotic word.

Bar Girls have a guy they would call when they weren't working, this was called her "Gik". I had an Australian friend who called me Mike McGik. One night there was a girl coming over, I was not her customer, I wasn't her Gik yet, but it was coming. That day, because my apartment smelled like cigarettes, I bought incense. I was at the store and I chose one that smelled good. When the girl came over and entered my apartment she said, "It smells like a funeral in here". You know incense totally means shit to them. 

THIS IS HEAVY BUT GODDAMN FUNNY

This is heavy but goddamn funny. I'm gonna get the heavy shit outta the way. This story is about a guy I worked with who died when we were both teenagers. He was older than me and bigger and from a weird Massachusetts town called Berlin. The town had a fucking milk man. But my friend was a tough guy, his name was Tom Brown. He was a cutter at the doughnut shop we worked at. I was the fryer and he cut them. He loved Led Zeppelin. This was all he listened to. One of the other doughnut cutters had a ZOSO tattoo. This is back when tattooing was illegal in Massachusetts. So you get the idea. These people didn't have much of a future. So the older cutter Tom played Led Zeppelin all the time. One of the other fryers was into weird music like me. We played the Violent Femmes every Friday night. One time Tom yelled "I don't wanna listen to them. All their songs are like- he started mewling and mincing-  "I wanna get laid, I wanna get laid." The thing is, Violent Femmes always sang about wanting to get laid but Led Zepplin was singing about actually getting laid.

THE BLIZZARD OF '78

In 1978 there was a week-long blizzard in New England. It came at the tail end of Christmas vacation so we literally had a month off of school. I basically jumped off roofs of houses into 9 foot snow drifts for a month, it was awesome. Every kid I knew had a fucking runny nose for a looong time. When they called us back to school the bus came and got me. We were halfway to the school and somebody started the Queen "We Will Rock You" foot stomp -- "Boom Boom Ch, Boom Boom Ch" -- everybody joined in. They started chanting, "Hell no, we won't go". I was 8 years old so I was afraid to join in, this was some 5th grader shit. When we got to the school none of them got off the bus, I sat in my seat and didn't move. I learned from my drunk a-hole father that moving when anything was going on made you a target. Back then any question was answered with 'None of your business." We were all on the bus and the principal (Mr Daniels) came on with a dustpan and brush.  Anyone that went to Willard School knows exactly what he looked like, he looked like a cross between Alec Trebek and Larry Bird. The people on this list include Jessie Bilodeaux, Colin Nissan, Jimmy McSweeney, Kirsten Rarich, Karen Dronzek, Robbie McCormick, Bonnie Hills, and a fucking thousand more. Anyway Mr. Daniels got everyone's attention by banging the dust pan and brush together. Then he threatened to call our parents if people didn't get off the bus. The kids did that. We all got in a line and went to school.

STEVERINO! \ FUCK PICHAS? \ CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

I had my friend Steve LaChance over for the first time. We were like sixteen. When my father came home at 1 am I introduced them. We were in the living room watching TV. I said to my father "This is Steve." When he went to bed I told Steve "in the morning my father will call you 'Steverino.'" He was like "No way." In the morning he got up to pee my father was at the dining room table. I heard my father yell "Steverino! Good morning."

My friends Gabe and Chris were over. We were eighteen and into movies. We were totally watching black and white 60's French shit like Francois Truffaut's "400 Blows." My father comes out of his room and walks into the living room where we're watching TV. He's wearing nothing but tightie whities. He sees the black and white movie and says "What are you guys watchin' fuck pichas?" Then he lit a Camel straight and sat down on the couch. He sat there smoking and when he was done he went back to bed.

My brother told me this story. It's fucking funny. "Creature from the Black Lagoon" was on later that night. everyone had gone to bed and my brother got up to watch it in the living room. Because everyone was asleep he turned the volume way, way down. It was basically silent and he watched it like that. He was afraid our father would see the light from the TV so he turned the tint down. He turned it way, way down. We were fucking scared of our father. He literally turned it all the way down and realized after a while he was watching a black screen with no sound.

DINOSAUR/MORE BUTTHOLE SURFERS

 In 1988 me and my friends saw Dinosaur live. They were still called Dinosaur, it was before the Jr thing. You know they were sent a cease-and-desist order from a band in LA called Dinosaur. That's why they changed it to Dinosaur Jr. I had a roommate in a band called Wild Eyes. They got a cease-and-desist order from another band in LA called Wild Eyes. We were talking about a new name for the band and I suggested Wild Guys. I realized it became gay immediately. They never changed the name. It all just went away though. Funny shit. Back when I saw Dinosaur, Lou Barlow was in the band. We saw them in North Hampton, I think, we were all going to U Mass. The show was at 1pm and it was all ages. I think the club was called The Iron Horse. They had put a rope down the middle of the room, one side for people old enough to drink and the other side for everyone else. I was not old enough to drink yet. When the opening band came out they were a hardcore band and everyone sat down at some tables that were set up. When Dinosaur came out everyone got up and moved up close to the stage. Lou Barlow had an angry look on his face and he said into a microphone, "We think it's lame when people sit down for the opening band and stand up for the headliner." Then they played all hardcore songs and only for 15 minutes, they were pissed. Lou Barlow totally moved around herky jerkily. The thing is I didn't know that J Mascis was autistic then (I think for sure he is autistic. I really think we all are kind of autistic. For awhile now I have thought my own encyclopedic knowledge of useless rock facts is on the autism spectrum. Basically anybody good at anything is autistic in some way. I think autism is just another way to be intelligent, but we don't get it literally AT ALL). I had dinner with J Mascis sometime when he had grey hair so not early, he had a helper, we went and ate Thai food. There was a group of us, it's not like I was having dinner with J Mascis I was just at his dinner. He didn't say a word, he drank orange juice the whole time. He had chopsticks for the food and he totally moved them around like he was doing a guitar solo with the chopsticks, does that even make sense? Irregardless it was pretty fucking cool. When I had seen Dinosaur a thousand years ago I didn't know any of this. Back then, for the last song they covered Guns N Roses "Sweet Child of Mine." J was not snarling or moving angrily, he actually looked happy as hell playing the solo in this last song. It was on the radio. Playing metal was anathema. You know the song is all octaves.

I realized I need to write down everything I know about the Butthole Surfers.

I remember when I saw them live, I saw the guitar player Paul Leary and thought, "that guy is Satan.'" I could swear he had cloven hooves in his cowboy boots. You know those MFers are from Texas, they had cowboy boots on. He was totally playing on his tip toes. Also I thought the singer Gibby Haynes had Down Syndrome, he had that look. He had no shirt on but he was playing one of those fucking 8 foot tall delay units -- they are like towers with a speaker on top and dials in the middle. That's how the vocals all sound like you're doing whip its. I still don't know the name of those things but have always thought when I see them, "you know the band is gonna be good."

 Also when they were on David Letterman for the song "Pepper." It was a huge deal, David Letterman wasn't allowed to say 'butthole' so they were called the BH Surfers. You know when M.I.A. played "Paper Airplanes" they made her take out the gun shot sounds so the song didn't actually make any sense. You know she was giving the finger to the camera when she performed at the Super Bowl, that's pretty fucking cool. The last thing is I have a friend. He lives in New York City and he was at a park with his kids. There was another guy there with a kid, they were both sitting on a bench talking. My friend realized the guy he was talking to was Gibby Haynes.

HOCKEY/FIRST SCHOOL SKIPPING

 I don't know how old I was. I was definitely under 10. I joined the hockey team but I only went to one practice. First of all, I realized I could not skate backwards which you totally have to do a lot in hockey. Secondly, in the locker room the other dudes playing were awful, I remember thinking, "These people are animals." At the end of practice the coach had us all stand in a line on the rink, he went down the line and yelled in each of our faces, when he got to me I remember he was yelling in my face and I could smell beer on his breath. I thought, "I can get this at home" and quit on the spot.

When I was in the 1st grade my school started having us show up at noon, the bus picked us up at like 11am. My parents were both at work by like 9am so I had to get out there on my own. I was waiting for the bus and I had to pee so I went behind a tree. At that moment the bus came, the driver didn't even slow down she just kept going and I realized I didn't have to go to school. I was fucking psyched. 

I went inside and watched Gilligan's Island and ate fucking cherries it was like a party. I filled my dog's water bowl with root beer, I knew my mother would be home soon so I had to make it look good. I cleaned the house. I remember I didn't know how to work the washing machine so I put clothes in it and left it like that. I put a cloth on the table and poured my mother a glass of wine, she had Chianti all over the house. I remember when she got home her and this woman she worked with named Mary Caggiano pulled up in a car, my mother came in, saw the tablecloth and glass of wine and went back out to the car, had Mary come in and showed her. That's all I remember. The next day I did the same thing, except I didn't watch Gilligan's Island, instead I went in the backyard and played, a neighbor saw me and called my father at work.  He said "Michael is not at school and he should be." My father came home. Years later, he told me he hated having to punish me over this. He thought it was funny. What the hell I was in the first grade and already skipping school. He reminded me about this like last year, he's fucking 85 now. My mother never told him I had been skipping school, we were kind of a team.

CHELMSFORD MALL

This sorry has an awful word I hate but totally used a ton until my 30s, still there's no way to tell this story without the word so sorry in advance.

In 1984 I was 14 and wicked into Ghostbusters. The theme song was a hit on the radio. I loved it. I also had the red and black shirt with the Ghostbusters logo on it. Me and my cousin were walking through the Chelmsford Mall. We were going to the big department store at the end, either Kmart or Bradlee's I'm not sure which. It was definitely not Caldor's or Zayer's. As we were walking through the mall this kid who was clearly younger than us yells at me, "Nice Ghostbustah's shirt yuh faggit." Me and my cousin mouth "fuck you" at him. In the department store at the end we go to the music section and start looking through the cassette tapes, there was no vinyl. At one point I feel a cigarette ash on my shoulder. I turn around and there is a kid clearly older than me and my cousin with a fucking cigarette and the beginings of facial hair, This was back when you could smoke EVERYWHERE. People fucking smoked on the bus and in elevators. It was nuts. The smoking dude was probably the kid's older brother. He puts his cigarette out on my shoulder and says 'What's up?' He and the five guys with him all have terrifying Led Zepplin shirts on (you know the bones font, that shit scared me when I was a kid). His friends were circling and laughing like the hyenas in that Lion King movie, one of them high-pitchedly chirps "We're gonna have a blood bath."  Me and my cousin start walking out of the mall with the gang of ruffians following us, cackling. As soon as we get to the parking lot we run across the street to another department store, called Rich's where my mother is probably stealing shit.

THIS AIN'T FUNNY BUT IT'S WICKED COOL/HIGH SCHOOL

When I was a teenager in the 80's, I saw the Butthole Surfers live. I have been trying to figure out what album they were on tour for. It was definitely after Locust Abortion Technician and before piouhgd, like 1988 or something. They were setting up and tuning their instruments and getting ready to play. There were 2 movies being shown on screens above the band: one was a kung fu movie and the other was the footage of a vasectomy procedure. They were tuning up as the character in the kung fu movie was talking to a guy. I could not look at the vasectomy, it was fucking gross. When the guy in the kung fu movie kicked the other guy, the band kicked in in perfect time with the movie. It was fucking cool. For the finale, Gibby Haynes lit the whole fucking stage on fire. He poured rubbing alcohol everywhere, not just on the drums or around him, but everywhere. He lit a match and it all went up the show was over when the fire went out.

I should write this down: when I was in high school, we were in history class and our teacher Mr. Reidy could not pronounce his R's and L's. We called him Wabbit Weidy. I'm not kidding, this really happened: he asked the kid behind me--Will McNary-- "Wiw, whewe did the Wenaissance begin?" and Will said, "...Itawy?"  The entire class made that snorting noise you make when you're holding in a laugh. Mr Reidy threw Will out of class immediately.

GUITAR TEACHER: RON TYLER

When I was 13 my friend  Milan came over with an awful metal guitar his father had bought him. It was either a BC Rich Bitch or a BC Rich Black Widow. I forget which. I just know it was ugly as hell. It totally would have fit in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGf5NxLQoEo

Milan played Jimmi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" wicked loud, and my father did not yell at us. For whatever reason he didn't. I remember thinking "Holy shit, we're making so much noise and nobody is yelling at us." Also, I saw a video for Eric Clapton's "She's Waiting" and thought "I want to look as cool as that guy." Thinking back on it now, it's some awful 80's shit, but back then I loved it. So I told my mother I wanted to play guitar. She literally took me to get one that day. We signed up for guitar classes because I didn't know anything. I took lessons for 2 years. my teacher was this guy named Ron Tyler. 

Because I was a weird religious kid I refused to learn any Led Zeppelin. I thought they were satanic. He taught me every single one of their riffs but told me it was The Beatles, which I knew but played along because those riffs were fucking fun. I'm not kidding, "Livin Lovin Maid," "Heartbreaker," "Whole Lotta Love," "The Ocean." But "Black Dog" was too hard. 

At one point he asked me to bring in a tape of a song so he could figure it out. For the next two years I brought tapes of songs I liked and learned how to play them. I never learned how to read music I just learned riffs. I had fucking weird taste. I remember him getting mad because I brought in a Brian Eno song to learn and the solo only had one note, over and over. He was offended. 

I took lessons for 2 years. At my last session, Ron my teacher said "You've been here for two years. When you came in you SUCKED. And now you STILL suck. But at least you stuck with it."

FUCKING AWESOME DREAM/ANOTHER BULLSHIT NIGHT IN SUCK CITY

At one point I figured out how to lucid dream, it's not like I could do it all the time and say, I will now fuck Jennifer Lawerence but I could figure out I was dreaming. One time I was entering a house, it was a Brownstone like New York City, and I realized I was dreaming. There were people walking on the sidewalks, I realized I was dreaming, so I said to them, What are you doing? Who are you? The next thing I was standing at the top of the Brownstone stairs and all the people walking on the sidewalks before were now at the bottom of the stairwell, looking at me and smiling, I said again, What's up? One of them said We're really glad you see us, we have been here forever. Then the dream ends, kinda awesome dream.

Some Boston stuff:

A thousand years ago, I was visiting the Boston area, I was walking on Brookline Ave and there were three teenage girls walking towards me, I got nervous as they passed me, one of them says, "Nice eyebrows, buddy." I remember thinking, I have had self conscious weird feelings about everything on my body, but I was never insecure about my eyebrows before. I remember thinking, "Fucking Boston"

I was in a Stoah 2 fouah in the North End, I was wearing a Newport shirt. Awesome shirt. I said to the lady that works there, "Can I have a pack of Marlboro Reds?" She says, "If you're wearing a Newport shirt, why are you buying Marlboros?" I was thinking "Who are you, my father?"

MORE FUNNY SHIT I NEED TO WRITE DOWN

A thousand years ago, I had a roommate named Tiffany, she lived off of going through people's trash and selling expensive upholstery she found in it. We had tons of giant scissors, no pens or pencils, only crayons so whenever I had to write a note I had to use fucking crayons, it was kinda nuts but Tiffany was awesome and fucking funny. One morning I was late for work and I went to the foyer and there was a brand new banana seat bike, the chrome on it was so bright it hurt my eyes, there were rainbow colored tassels on the handle bars. Because I was late for work I decided to ride it there. I was going up a hill. There was a basketball court on my left and there were kids playing basketball in it. I had these black horn rimmed glasses on. One of the kids had a heavy Boston accent and said 'Hey Elvis, you stole my sistah's bike.'

When I was turning 34, I needed to break up with my girlfriend; I freaked out and got on the BART and went to Hayward and got a hotel room. I had been sober for 5 years and had no intention of drinking but I needed a strip joint and because I'd never been to Hayward I figured they'd have one in the center of town. So I left my hotel room to find the center of town. The hotel was on a freeway, I pointed left and right and said which is the correct direction in my head, I chose to go to the right. It was still light out. An hour later it was dark and I was still walking on the freeway. I remember thinking, holy shit this is taking forever but the center of town has to come up at some point. On my left I saw a purple neon sign way deep in a parking lot it said Curves and I thought, hell yeah, you knew there'd be a strip joint somewhere. The sign said Curves in purple neon, it's gotta be a strip joint. I went to the parking lot, the shit was a fucking mile away it took forever to get close. Then I was finally there and I realized it was not a strip joint at all, it was a fucking weight loss clinic it was totally closed.

FUNNY SHIT I NEED TO WRITE DOWN

Gentle Reader,
Because no one can understand me anymore, I'm writing down particularly funny stories, hopefully you'll get some laughs. When I was in highschool there was a hurricane (Gloria). My friend Rick worked at Burger King getting the hurricane nobody came in so they were all sitting around looking out the widow. That Burger King had one of those signs with letters that you can arrange a message, it said 'Closers Wanted.' The wind blew off the letter 'C' and it said 'Losers Wanted' my friend Rick goes, 'Who are we kidding?'

The first time I saw Pavement, it was at the Middle East. There was a homeless guy asking us for money while we were waiting for the show. We were outside. Then we went in, and Pavement started playing. The homeless guy was asking for a beer. The singer Steve Malkmus comes off the stage, taps the homeless guy on the shoulder, and says "We need you now." Then the homeless guy gets behind the drums and was now the drummer. It was unbelievable - he was an annoying homeless guy, and then he was the drummer. I  had never heard the song Summer Babe, they played it. I bought the 7"of it from the singer. They had never toured the East Coast ever before that.

There'll be more of these as I remember shit I want to write down.

ATAXIA'S GREATEST HITS PT DEUX

Because my speech is slurred, and I have a ridiculous Boston accent, no one can understand me now. This isn't the first thing, but it's fucking annoying, every word I say now has two syllables, that is crazy. Put me in a bar with music playing and alcohol a-flowin, and good luck understanding a word I say. A few months ago, I saw a friend's show at El Rio, a guy that fucking bugs the shit out of me cornered me on the patio and was talking at me about some dumb shit. He couldn't understand a word I said, eventually I said "Hey, last night when I was fucking your mom, I got bored so I started fucking your sister, isn't that cool?" and he was like, 'Yeah right on.." He had no idea what I was saying but I knew he wouldn't understand any of it, but would say he did, that's the annoying part. Don't lie to me, if people can't understand me, I don't mind spelling it out or anything, we did that with my fucking mother. You should have seen her spelling out Al Pacino, we were all laughing our asses off.

AND NOW ... PUDDING MAKER

This was recorded in, like, '93. I am playing drums. Can you believe I could play drums? Talk about not being cripple. I also played the guitar solo. It was on a slide guitar I bought off a homeless guy that day. I literally paid $3 for a slide. Isn't that awesome? One other thing, when we finished the vocals we realized it needed something so we redid the vocals through a phaser pedal. Kinda changed everything. Hope you like this

The singer and writer of the song is Jeff Hebb (before we were in MUNKY)

HERE'S SOME MUNKY SHIT FOR YOU EARHOLE

This is a song me and my friends Jeff Hebb and Tom Adams recorded sometime in, like, 1995. It was nominated for "Best New Song" in the Boston music awards and we were invited to the awards show. We did not win.

I am proud of this, I wrote this song as a ripoff of Aerosmith's "Mama Kin" and Modern Lovers' "Government Center"

SOME STUFF ABOUT THE STONES

The other day while hearing a terrible song off of Love You Live (a truly awful version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash"-- Mick sounds unintelligible, it's actually hilarious) I realized again that the suckier the Stones are, the more I love them. They have a particular suckiness that doesn't make them worse to me. Wee-id. This album Love You Live is from the 80's, Mick Jagger is wearing fucking football pants and Keith Richards looks like a Star Wars figure. The cover is a horrible line drawing, everything is fucking shitty shitty shitty. They cover 'Mannish Boy'-- puke. But I don't know why, I am still gladly cranking this album.

The other thing I need to write down is that everyone who ever plays a Chuck Berry song sounds like a wedding band, it's fucking awful. But when The Stones cover Chuck Berry, it's slow and heavy and cool. I guess because it's fucking sleazy as hell this is good. The other band that can cover Chuck Berry is The Flamin' Groovies, weirdly enough they actually sound rockin when they do Chuck Berry. I'm not kidding, check the cover of  'Carol' that they do. Even fucking Judas Priest sounds like a wedding band when they do 'Johnny Be Good'. I had to say this, thanks for reading.

BLACK OAK ARKANSAS

There's a couple things about this band that I have to write down. I have created a playlist that I made on YouTube, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL322QTSobfxhxX3oDeEh5eDFLd952N_YF

The first track is the original version of a song they are known for covering. their version is on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack. 

Okay, here goes 

First of all, I have heard that the singer Jim Mangrum is legendarily endowed, his penis has been referred to as a 'baby arm'. The other thing about them is that they used to be a hippy collective in, of course, Black Oak, Arkansas. They fed themselves by stealing tvs from public schools and selling them. The cops were coming to bust them for this and they moved to LA. They got a record contract and recorded the song "Swimming In Quicksand' and now we have Black Oak Arkansas. 

FAVORITE ALBUM COVERS

These are my favorite album covers

I had this idea after seeing the CCR Headcleaner album cover and realized I had to do this. I have written reviews of many of these records for my job back in the day. If I wrote a review it's under the record cover.

Produced by Martin Birch (who produced Heaven and Hell for Black Sabbath), Cultosaurus Erectus was a return to both form and critical acclaim for Blue Oyster Cult. Kicked off by "Black Blade," simply one of the group's very best songs, the record boasted a muscular sound, re-invigorated songwriting and probably the finest heavy metal album cover of all time. "Monsters" (totally weird) and "The Marshall Plan" (totally, um, rock!) are highlights. Buck Dharma goes to town in "Lips in the Hills."

Before Neil Peart, ponytails and all the synthesizers, Rush were a damn good rock band and this, their first album, is a must for anyone who blames the Canadian trio for inventing math rock. "Finding My Way" has some of the most air-guitar-worthy breaks ever, and "Working Man" has the best Sabbath riff Tony Iommi never wrote.

Descending from Valhalla with "793 (Slaget om Lindisfarne)," a 16-minute super-epic about a battle that happened before the year 800, Eld finds Norwegian band Enslaved continuing on the path toward Viking metal, despite the presence of prominent black metal elements: shimmering walls of guitar, high-speed tempos and exhaustive double-bass drumming. The schizoid shifts in style are hallmarks of a genre Enslaved essentially created themselves. The band's insistence on tossing in decidedly sideways keyboard parts where you least expect it just never gets old.

My friend tells me that these two girls were camping in the same place Brian Ferry was camping and he had this idea and took this photo, I think that's kinda funny, I always thought they were models.

Good Christ this is hot

This is not an album cover but it should be. This is my friend Matt St Germain and I can't believe it happened. This was in a hotel room in Detroit, photo taken by Virgil Porter, it was like 11am I don't know why Matt brought his ricer. 

The first collaboration by the doomed lovers is, not surprisingly, rife with the bleak imagery, wrist-slashing lyrics and celebration of life's endless misery that, as baleful as it is, make the Thompsons' music a treasure of sorts. Richard is one of the key figures in folk rock, and Linda's voice alone makes her every bit his equal. This album is their best work: The title cut is on the short list of greatest breakup songs ever; "When I Get to the Border" is nothing less than mythic; and you can hear Will Oldham being born as "The Calvary Cross" trudges its way to the gallows.

The extended punk-metal jams that formed side two of this when it came out in '84 either alienated what was left of Black Flag's original fan base or changed the way kids thought about music. Judging from the emergence of bands like Born Against, Saint Vitus, Eyehategod and countless others representing the breadth of extreme music, it's the folks that dug it that mattered. The title track is brilliant Henry paranoia/Ginn axemasnship but it's "Scream," the "War Pigs" homage "Three Nights" and especially "Nothing Left Inside" that make My War one of Black Flag's most important albums. 

The most influential stoner-metal album to emerge from said movement of the '90s, Holy Mountain translates the crush-thud of Sabbath doomology into the post-Saint Vitus era, permanently setting a bar for heavy music. While it's hard to write about this album and not turn into a blubbering zealot, it's even more difficult to listen to "Dragonaut," the title cut, "Aquarian" and "From Beyond" -- all of it -- without wetting your pants if you're even a casual fan of the sanctified moves of Tony, Geezer, Bill Ward and Ozzy.

Originally titled (and vetoed by Caroline) Let Them All Eat Sh*t Slowly, Dial "M" finds Pussy Galore at their most experimental, throwing samples, backwards tape loops and even funkiness into the grating cacophony. Folks either love or hate this band, but if you never get sick of trash rock riffs gone right (The Sonics' "Cinderella," "Louie Louie") you will find moments on here that make it at least seem like they knew what they were doing. "Dick Johnson," "Understand Me" and "SM 57" are good places to start.

QOTSA deliver one hell of a debut with their 1998 self-titled record. Taking tips from St. Kurt as they fire up not just the big bong but the little bong too, these former members of Kyuss finally hand over the goods they promised on Blues For the Red Sun. Big fat riffs, c'mon and sing along melodies, and sky-splitting psychedelia. Heavy.

The title cut is the closest Aerosmith ever got to sounding as safe and smart as Cheap Trick, but they're still the types of dudes you don't want smoking pot with your little sister. "No More No More" rules and there's nothing in rock music like the first couple minutes of "Sweet Emotion." That and "Walk This Way" show the band becoming increasingly interested in funk.

This is Moby Grape's first record. It came out on Epic in like 1969. If you look closely at the guy with the washboard. That is Skip Spence and he is giving the finger. They didn't realize this when they put it out so when you buy it you can get either version of the cover. I think this is wicked funny. I will eventually tell Skip Spence's whole story. It's a good one. 

This album cover scared the shit out of me when I was a teenager. Between this and the first record which also scared me, I didn't hear Sabbath at all until one day when I was 21 I woke up and wanted "War Pigs." They played this and "Iron Man" at Roller Kingdom where we roller skated to AC/DC, Van Halen, and Black Sabbath. It was in a shit town in Massachusetts called Hudson. Hearing this music and roller skating was some major 80s behavior. I went and bought "We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll." Everyone had that one, right? 

Combining hard biker boogie with country rock spaceouts, Rides Again is an overlooked gem of early '70s hard rock. Although Joe Walsh would go on to greener pastures as both a solo artist and as a member of the Eagles, he would never again reach the heights he attains here. "Funk #49" rocks and "The Bomber" rules.

Southern Discomfort collects singles and alternate takes of various songs that appeared on Dopesick and Take as Needed for Pain. With a definitive version of their timeless love ballad "Ruptured Heart Theory" and a "Blank/Shoplift" medley that shows what masters Jimmy Bower and Brian Patton were at constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing their own music, Southern Discomfort is not a bad place for newcomers to start and is also very good for anyone interested in what the blaring siren pain of multiple toothaches would sound like set to music.

These are not my favorites at all, these are easily the ugliest album covers ever. Apparently when Heart recorded Strange Animals money was no object. 

Permanent Waves marked a shift in Rush's tack when it appeared in 1980. With more accessible tunes ("The Spirit of Radio," "Free Will"), a heavier reliance on synthesizers and less lyrics about magical creatures and wizardly warlocks, the album was embraced by the public and became the first of several U.S. mega-sellers for the highly advanced hard rock progressives. The archetypal Rush riff opening and reggae section of "The Spirit of Radio," all of "Jacob's Ladder" and arguably their second-best album cover (after Rush) remain some of the band's best moments.

My friend Justin Farrar says he looks like sunglasses were made for him, he's totally right. 

I can't believe this was allowed.

Notice Neil Haggerdy has a fucking Flying V. In the booklet that came with this CD the only word in English was the word "pigfucker." Anytime they referred to the band they used "pigfucker."

 

This album had a fucking commercial. Rock music used to have commercials sometimes. The hit of "I can't wit for a night with you" was huge and I was of course terrified of this album cover. 

At the end of this album you'll hear a security guard saying that, "Whoever is recording then live, press the eject and give me the tape." Pretty cool title for a live album. The thing is, when I got this in the 80s I thought it sounded way better than a bootleg. Maybe that's why they put it out. That said, this is an awesome live album.