Nemesis Boy

The blog I most need to add to the sidebar: Nemesis Boy. Great stuff to be found there about the Nashville music scene.

Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs

Bob Dylan said this about ....the music industry's complaints that illegal downloading means people are getting their music for free,...."Well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway."

Original Sexy Back

What's Justin Timberlake doing trying to steal my mojo? I thought I brought "sexy back" last year when I started rocking Bruce Lee t-shirts while shopping for Tiffany lamps. My espadrilles made me look like a straight up gangster too. How dare that couldn't make the cast of a Liberty Land singing troupe try to steal my Thor-normous thunder.

And while I'm temporarily insane and lolling around in the pop music watering trough, where one is lucky if they only contract a spiritual dysentery, doesn't Fergie realize that the bridge in her video for "London Bridge" is actually the Tower Bridge? Yet another victim of a British scam that once took in an entire Arizona city. Natural grifters those Brits.

In the mailchute this morning - a missive from Trent Harmon who used to drum for Luck London back in the mid-80's. He stumbled into this hot bowl of Soulfish Stew after reading Tracy Moore's Never In Nashville article. He got in touch with me because he was hoping I'd know where he could get his hands on video footage of any of the Blind Farmers From Hell's summer parties held at the Blind Farm in Lascassas. I couldn't help the brother out, but maybe some of my twenty or so loyal readers can since Trent is more than just a drummer to me. He was my manager during my brief sojourn as a delivery driver at Ace's Pizza where I spent more time playing paper football in the front window than delivering pies.

It's been awhile since we had a Toby Holmes shout out. So here we go once again in our quest to find out what ever happened to this Goombah chicken eating dude. If you have seen this dude let Soulfish know. We're sure we owe him a good kick in the ass for something.


Have you seen this man?

Last rumoured to be hanging around near Lynchburg, Tennessee.

Soon To Be Mine

I've got a 58cm Trek 1000 ordered from MOAB in Murfreesboro and I'm just giddy in anticipation of riding it. I've been riding a cheapo Wal-Mart mountain bike on the road since April (averaging about 80 miles on it a week) and I've just about thrashed it out. The Trek 1000 may just be an entry level road bike, but I'm sure it will do fine for me.

Throwdown

It's on! Keith Gordon versus the Nashville Scene and Wally's right in the middle of it! My evil plan is working nicely! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

I stick to what I said in the article: I do think The Metro was better when Kath and Tom wrote for the mag and the debut issue with Bon Jovi on the cover was lame. Now to what everybody maybe wants to know: what do I think about Keith Gordon? The surprising answer: I think he's okay. When I was a young neo-fanboy just starting to dig into the import bins at Cats and Port O'Call record stores I ran across some small articles written by Keith that appeared in Creem, most notably one on the Meat Puppets. Soon I was digging pieces by him in Tasty World. He was no Ort or Lester Bangs, but I knew if I saw his name in the byline that I would probably like what he was writing about. I've always felt that he went downhill during his tenure at The Metro. Now this could have been because of many things: my own tastes changing along with my own growing confidence as a music consumer, the dictates of Keith having to keep a listing ship afloat long after it should have sank (check his Tears For Fears mention in his post), or maybe discovering he was a girthsome biker looking dude and not some scrawny geek that still lived with his mom which is how I'd always pictured him, or when he added Reverend to his name (I know now that somebody else dubbed him that) which at that time seemed like he was copying Collin Wade Monk.

See, it's very complicated - this world of rock and roll fandom. Good luck to Keith and his book project on Nashville rock and roll. I'm sure that when it comes out there will be people besieging him for leaving their favorite band out. You know my theory is that every band that ever played a gig is somebody's favorite band. For instance I don't see The Dislocated, Michael Landon's Ghost/Pipebomb, or Dragula on Keith's band lists at his site (they are all bands I was in). Never mind that I've been too lazy to send their info in to him.

Beat Up The Next Hippie You See

Into The Groove - Big Choice Bowl

Back into the blogging groove sort of kind of...splot back into the "big choice bowl" even if the web isn't what the Minutemen were talking about there. The Nashville Scene has printed Tracy Moore's look back at the halcyon days of Nashville rock and country punk so check it out if just to see my pithy quote about that old Nashville rag The Metro. There is also a bunch of comments about Collin Wade Monk's podcast here. Who woulda thunk we'd be seeing F Particles videos in 2006? I am humbled to have once been their doorman. It was a helluva lotta fun to have been 19 while carding folks to see if they were 21 or not. I drank lots of beer that night at the Exit/In too.

As for other things; I got the We Jam Econo DVD last week and I'm on a major Mike Watt, D. Boon, and George Hurley kick these days. If only I had enough hair for a wave unit! In some weird anachronistic throwback to my younger days I've also been ear dining on slabs of molten metal from back in the heavy metal freshman in high school days. I'll never get bored with Diary Of A Madman; never. I've even begun contemplating playing at the local coffeehouse perhaps. I'm also gearing up for another burst of song recording like I did last year - the famed 21 songs in 30 days or something like that where I recorded a tune on my four track, digitized it, and then emailed it out to everybody that asked me to assail their spirits with my kind of punk rock power pop trash. If you want in on this latest installment called Fortified For Stronger Bones (20 songs in 30 days) let me know. I'm thinking that November would be a good month; samhain of our souls and all that.

Here's my final announcement on my New Year's resolution on losing weight: I have not quite reached my goal of dropping 47 lbs, but I have dropped 37 and I don't appear to be in any danger of packing them back on. I ride a bicycle 60 - 80 miles a week and eat sort of sensibly. Things I've seen on my rides: snapping turtles crossing the road, hawks, cranes, stupid rednecks yelling at me, angry dogs (bit once so far...thank goodness for leather shoes), and a fox. Not to mention all of the wildflowers, roadkill, and puffy white clouds in the sky. I truly love riding a bicycle.

I'm a little worried that if I begin to post regularly again that my ecosystem rating will go down, but that's the chance I'll have to take. Give me another week or two to recharge my brain cells and I might just start cooking up at least a weekly serving of Soulfish Stew for you.

dumb commercial

Continuing the dumb theme:

 

I just saw a television ad for a pill that’s supposed to help guys that have bladder control issues. The tagline was – now you can spend more time fishing and less time in the bathroom. I’m sure that the product is a godsend to those with that particular problem, but the ad agency doesn’t know a thing about fishing. When men go fishing and have to use the bathroom – they go right there. I thought everybody knew that.

 

Random

Various glances through the crosshairs of my life:

 

D-U-M-B everyone's accusing me - Ramones

 

Like Glen Campbell sang on the sublime Brian Wilson produced "Guess I'm Dumb" I feel dumb these days. Perhaps its

merely a heat driven languish, but with 72 degree air conditioned nirvanas in every building now this is likely not the

case. I don't know if I can even track down the root cause, but I do know the reason I feel dumb. It's because I've lost the ability

to read a book. Since reading Homer's Odyssey I've been unable to finish a chapter in anything else. I've tried fiction. I've tried

non-fiction. Heck I can't even read a magazine all the way through these days. Lulls have happened before, but this one has a terminal feel to it. My concentration is completely off. I know my eyes are fine. My brain seems okay. The printed word just seems to be too much while somehow not seeming like enough.

 

Rock & Roll Historian:

 

I put up 4 posts about Nashville rock and roll circa the late 70's through the 80's here and its received some attention here and there.

It's in the February 2005 archives if you want to read the four parts. It was originally something I cooked up with old pal DD Blank

to post on the White Animals messageboard. A big thrill for me has been that some of the people DD and I mentioned have

commented on the posts. Rick Champion, himself, got in touch with me (if you don't know who Rick was, then find the posts). Now

I've been asked by a writer to do an interview about those days. Which will be really weird since I experienced half of those years

while living in Murfreesboro too young to attend the rock and roll shows I would read about in the Nashville Intelligence Report.

It's not like I'm an expert who was there from the start. But I don't guess historians worry too much about such things.

 

Thistles:

 

When I was a little kid I found this beautiful purplish flower on the side of the road. I picked it and brought it to my mother thinking

she would be pleased. She wasn't. "What are you doing bringing a thistle into the house? It's a nasty weed." How was I supposed

to know it was a weed? And even if it was a weed, it made a pretty flower. This memory grew into my mind yesterday afternoon

as I cycled around the countryside for thistles, Tennessee's unofficial state weed, are starting to burst into flower along the roadsides. I also thought about their connection to Scotland where some of my ancestors undoubtedly came from. And then I ended up thinking about sin. Yep, good old fashioned Biblical sin; on how so many sins are like thistles - you think you're getting

a pretty flower when underneath there is only ugliness and pain and maybe that's why my mother hated to see me bring one through our door. Then I went down a really steep hill (there's lots of those around Smithville) and thought that all metaphors are perhaps corrupt and that, while I don't like stepping on a thistle barefoot, I still like their purpley pink flowers.

 

Yearbook Staff

My mother, who just turned 70, is getting married again. That's weird and cool at the same time, but even weirder was getting my old yearbooks from her house

over the weekend. She's moving so the less she has to take the better. I hadn't looked at the yearbooks in years and I've only given them a cursory look so far,

but their nostalgic voodoo is strong. Feathered back hair, concert shirts, braces, freaks, geeks, jocks, preppies, old teachers, and the living and the dead peer back

in black and white along with a few pages of faded Kodak color scenes whose meanings have changed, faded, or intensified. The banalities left by most of the "signers"

of my yearbooks will make great fodder for a future post, but for now its only randomness that percolates through the years' filters.

 

There's L.G. who not only conspired against my pursuit of her friend Paige, but then weaseled her way into the heavy metal triumvirate of myself, J.B., and the Gonz when

she went to a Ted Nugent concert with us and Toby. I had tried to soften my stance toward since she had become J.B.'s girlfriend, but after the Nuge show I resumed full

on hate. She fell asleep during the concert! How can anybody fall asleep during a Nuge set? The girl was obviously demon spawn. I usually would hang out with J.B. and

Gonz every morning since if L.G. was around Paige would often be too, but my days of caring about being cool trying to impress her were winding down. Forgetting about Paige helped me to break away from those heavy metal parking lot days.

 

"Back In Black" was the catalyst. Kiss ruled my thoughts from 5th grade on, but I didn't know they were metal. AC/DC came along when I was in junior high as my musical

knowledge expanded from hanging out on the peripheral of the freaks. My 8th grade annual is full of photos of glaring long haired freak kids with their baseball jersey

rock logo shirts. I attended Thurman Francis in Smyrna that year and it's still the best public school experience I ever had. There was a jukebox in the cafeteria and in that

spring of 1981 AC/DC dominated each lunch break. It didn't play softly. That jukebox was cranked up so loud you could barely hear the milk cartons burst when we'd pop them after chugging down their contents. T.F.J.H. was the place where I saw the freaks and jocks crack each other's skulls. It was a place where the 9th grade hallway was dubbed "Murder Hall" due to its narrow width. The joke then was that going down it was like trying to get into a Who concert in Cincinnati.

 

T.F.J.H. was where I had my best science teacher. When I was a very small kid I always said I wanted to grow up to be a scientist. White lab coats and bubbling chemistry tubes were what I thought about then. I soon learned that science was not very easy and that often math would be involved. So I gravitated away toward social studies and English. Ms. Dawson not only taught science; she also lived right down my street. So when it came time to do a 6 week long project for a grade we were allowed to provide up front for a target she wasn't having it when I said I'd shoot for a B. "You've made A's all year so I'm putting you down for an A or I'll have to come see your parents about this B nonsense." There was no doubt she knew where I lived so I went for the A which I ended up getting. It was a great lesson in always shooting for excellence; one which I remember much better than any of the actual classwork.

 

Getting the yearbooks back also reminds me of the year I didn't get one. I despised my freshman year at Oakland in Murfreesboro. I was out of touch with the planet it

seems. I had a strange mix of classes: gym class where I made the mistake of bragging about how good I was at basketball (I was decent in Smyrna, but in Murfreesboro

I was terrible), industrial arts (wood shop, electronics, graphic arts, metal shop, agriculture, and building trades for 6 weeks at a time), 2nd level English (I should have

been in college prep), science, algebra, and study hall. Gym class had a huge amount of kids and the jocks ran it. Industrial arts was okay sometimes; other times I was

slicing a finger on a band saw. English was a complete joke. Kids set other kids' hair on fire in study hall. Algebra was full of preppies who didn't know what to think of me. I'd wear concert t-shirts over long sleeve flannel which for some reason led the other kids to think I was on drugs (I wasn't). Then there was science which seemed to be

90% freaks popping speed and 'ludes during class. One dude even ate worms during biology. If ever a year didn't need documenting, that was the one.

 

On The Power Of A Nickname

The first nickname I ever got came from my younger cousin Tony. It was "screwdriver" due to my name being Philip.

Lucky for me, like a stripped out screw, it didn't stick. So I went many years without a nickname. Philip is not all that

common a name so it wasn't until my sophomore year of high school that I ran into another one.

 

I was never part of any one clique during my school years. I briefly flirted with the "popular" crowd during 8th

grade. I went through a string of girlfriends that were to become varsity cheerleaders, but by the time 10th

grade arrived I was no longer much noticed by any crowd. Riverdale High was now the 4th different school in 4

years. A few people like Gonz remembered me from elementary school days, but I could now count even

acquaintances on one hand. Then it turns out that the other Philip at RHS happened to be a popular guy. Never having

to deal with another Philip before it became frustrating to hear my name being called yet it not really being

my name. Ironically I was about to get another nickname from a dude named Tony.

 

Another aspect of high school that I found distasteful and annoying was how we were always being asked to sell

crap. What the heck were our parents' taxes for  anyway? Magazines and candy were the usual suspects and it just

so happened that the agriculture class was selling lollipops. Tony was in my homeroom and he was an "ag-boy" with

an FFA jacket and a baseball cap with a bill bent to look like a duckbill advertising Purina or the Co-Op. He talked with

a good Middle Tennessee drawl which would rise in amplitude as he sold his lollipops for agriculture class.

 

Tony was also a bit of a poet so he would make up rhymes while hawking his wares. Philip is not high on the list of

rhyming words. Thus was born the nickname Wally. Tony arrived at this by noting I had curly hair. Tony Dow (another Tony enters the story)

who played Wally Cleaver on Leave It To Beaver had curly hair. Even though I looked nothing like Tony Dow the name Wally

was quickly foisted upon me since "Wally, wanna buy a lolly" made for a good marketing pitch for Tony. Naturally, I hated it.

 

Hate is actually a mild term. The name Wally drove me bonkers. This compelled the few friends I had to begin using it

incessantly. Like Nick Lowe sang, "You gotta be cruel to be kind." It soon became apparent that I was going to be stuck

with the nickname Wally unless I decided to start punching everyone that called me that. Never one to like bruises I grudgingly

began to accept the name. Soon I wondered why I ever hated it.

 

A marvelous thing happened after I became Wally. I no longer looked around when the name Philip was shouted from across

a crowded hall. I knew they didn't want to talk to me. The friends I had knew me as Wally and as I met more people they came to

know me only as Wally. My individualism was restored to me and I became less invisible than I had become. The same thing might

have happened without the nickname, but perhaps not. Years later when I worked for Wal-Mart the cycle repeated itself.

 

I got a part-time job there working in sporting goods. It was a lonely gig at first and its not as if I'm a joiner. But slowly, I was

brought into the circle of the young single crowd working there. A guy who worked in the paint department, C.W., came up with

my Wal-Mart nickname. Boyz II Men were very popular then and it seems they had a hit song called "Motown Philly" out. I hadn't heard

it since I never listened to pop radio, but C.W. liked it so he soon dubbed me Motown Philly later shortening it just to Motown. Instead

of fighting this nickname I took it to heart (at least at Wal-Mart). It was cool to come in to work with everybody yelling, "Hey Motown" as

I walked by. It would never take the place of Wally, but it wasn't bad at all at cementing my place in the hierarchy of work.

 

As one gets older people don't tend to bequeath nicknames upon you as readily. Get some gray at your temples and you get some

respect. The Soulfish wife sometimes calls me Walter and I like that one too, but the perhaps the best name I get called these days isn't

considered a nickname - that one is Daddy. Naturally the wife and I are handing out nicknames just like they're candy. Tony; if its not too

late I'll take one of those lollys.

 

 

 

do it clean

"Ive got a barrel of this...what do I do with it?" - Echo & The Bunnymen

 

Why, do it clean of course. My relentless pursuit of improved physical health is taking its toll. I have now lost 27 pounds

since January 3rd and my energy is beginning to lag. I was embarrased to have to walk my bike up a hill on Saturday - not that

the following are excuses - but I didn't start the climb at the bottom and the hill was really a minor moutain run. The failure

wasn't physical, but mental. I should have been able to control the physical impulses, but instead I let myself down. I did get up the

hill (half walking and half riding it truly) and went on to finish the ride easily, but the feeling that I'd completely bonked was a recipe

for doom for my whole regimen.

 

The pressing need now is to edify the lethargic and uncontrolled mindset that is afflicting me. I can degenerate into Holden

Caulfeld self pity worshipping at its post modern currency of thought or I can truly rebel by investigating the classics. I read Homer's

Odyssey recently and it was a bit of a revelation. I was as familiar with the story as most college graduates that consider themselves to

have a small percentage of erudition, but actually reading it was a pursuit delayed. I liked the obvious parts; fooling the Cyclops, the

Sirens calling, the battle against the suitors in the end, but it was the more mundane events that were really interesting. The

ceremonial and ritual behavior with visitors was particularly intriguing. Heroic and domestic life coincide and compliment.

 

So I need to read Shakespeare to shake up the corpuscles in my head. Dante can take me on harrowing journey through

the depths of hell (I'm not talking about viewing the movie Gremlins again although it does have similarites to The Divine Comedy).

Paradise Lost can show me the devil's side of things. I think all teachers should be required to teach that Milton is responsible for the

idea of the anti-hero. Since I've read some portions of all of those I know they should be good for my mind.

 

The biggest problem I'm having right now is a general flailing about when it comes to reading something. I want to read

something, but I'll spend a half an hour just perusing the shelves in my home and when I find something I can only give it

a desultory read through a chapter or two and then forget about it. Eventually something like Homer will arrive and I'll see a book

through, but until then I'll be out of sorts; in an intellectual freefall where the tired body defeats the mind every time.

 

 

dark side

 

 

Yeah, yeah; I said I would soon be putting some entries up again, but you know how it goes: time tends to get away from you. Forces collide and thoughts get banished. I’ve been told that I’ve been lured over to the dark side: bicycling. The Soulfish wife claims that I’ll soon be buying lycra bike shorts and shaving my legs. I wouldn’t go that far, but it is true that I have taken to bicycling much as I did to skateboarding in the past. I ride 4 to 5 times a week now. Half hour 6 mile runs are turning into 9 mile 40 minute runs and today I hope to put in a solid hour doing 15 miles or so. It’s the perfect way to unwind after work. My mind is cleared of all of its accumulated crap and I begin to travel back in time when the aroma of afternoon barbecues waft my way as the shadows lengthen toward night. I’m a goofy kid to some extent just pedaling around the neighborhood hoping that D.C. will step outside her door and requite my crush. At least that’s one permutation of my mind because the reality is I am doing the work I’ve set out to accomplish before each ride. Keep the tempo up, the cadence true (hope to attain the 20 mile per hour mark before summer’s gone), watch out for packs of dogs and motorists that often act like dogs, climb the steep countryside hills, and enjoy the wind on my face (even when it’s a 20 mile headwind). If it ends with me embracing another culture, then that’s where the roads will ultimately lead me. Some may think it’s just a fad for me, but right now the passion is high just like with skateboarding. And like with skateboarding, I’ll probably do it until my body gives out. I still skate around even now, but it is hell on the knees.