Every Thought I Have Ever Had About the Melvins' "Lysol" Album

Writing late at night feels like the first time in forever, but with the Discogs livestream DJ set tomorrow, I need to be fully focused on that task at hand so knocking this one out with a doozy.

For nearly twenty-five years, the Melvins have consistently been one of the bands I have most enjoyed. Amongst a catalog that is just too vast to completely comprehend (let alone listen to or own) Lysol is without a doubt the record of theirs I have listened to more than any of their records.

The music, for starters, is sublimely perfect. Every note, every extended bout of feedback, every snare hit...there is nothing in the entire running time that is superfluous. Each action is essential in serving the larger statement.

Weirdly, when I first bought this record (roundabout July 1996 based on the Car City Records pricing sticker) I always listened to the sides in reverse order. So forever in my mind, the album starts with “Sacrifice.”

Seldom does a cover song surpass its original version. Never does it elevate to the level that the Melvins ascend to with their complete recontextualization of Flipper’s work.  Now don’t get me wrong, Flipper’s version of “Sacrifice” is really, really solid. One of their finer moments. But the Melvins….shiiiiiiiiiiiiit. At various moments of my life this song has fully encapsulated my reason for existing. It is, to this day, my go-to record whenever I’m setting up any new or reconfigured stereo equipment. I just know every last quiver the needle is supposed to make as it glides over this slab of wax, encoded into the dust that vibrates into strings that helix into the building blocks of my form. I may overuse this term (and for that I apologize) but I will absolutely fight to the death when I wholeheartedly exclaim that the Melvins’ version of “Sacrifice” is PERFECT.

The rounded bass tone, the dissonant squeal of the guitar feedback curdling into the song at the 36-second mark, the snare (triggered to a single snare hit sampled from Zeppelin’s “D’yer Maker”) coupled with cannon-strength bass drum, room for those two stutter syncopated with all kinds of personal inflection and style, the whole thing really just being six notes repeated over and over and over for over six minutes, literally getting better and better the louder you play it, the lyrics blatantly anti-war and military industrial complex...I could live inside this song for days.

Follow that with a brief segue into “Second Coming” straight into cover of “The Ballad of Dwight Fry” (both originally by Alice Cooper) and the dusty, Western vibes feel almost anathema as to what I would’ve expected from the Melvins at 14 years old.  But man, it somehow flips the script and just works, bordering on Dust Bowl murder ballad vibes. I am only learning right now, at 1:36am, that Dwight Frye was an actor born at the turn of the century best known for playing maniacal characters in Universal horror films like Dracula and Frankenstein. Still, twenty years later, I am having trouble removing everything here from the Melvins, in my mind it all comes exclusively as their creation. 

Good moment for an aside...most copies of this record come with NO information other than the band name and band member first names. When I first sat with a copy freshman year of high school, I had NO way of determining anything about this music, what side to play first, who wrote the songs, just nothing. It was mysterious and alluring and gave me just enough entree to not be that concerned about the lack of context. Not until buying a CD copy of Lysol in 2008 did I realize that the album DIDN’T begin with “Sacrifice”, let alone that there was a song on it called “Roman Dog Bird.” Furthermore, the songs are mastered in a way that they all run right into each other, no telling where one ends or begins, so much so that on the CD it is just one 31-minute-long “megacomposition.” That shit is confusing! But oh so worth it.

The album ends on “With Teeth”, a song centered around a chord progression that I have trouble describing in any way other than optimistic, triumphant or positive. As a vibe that is NOT common from the band by any means, it showcases here well, with little effort it could be some weird half-tone or down-tuned demonic, but if anything, this album is full of odd pseudo contradictions.

Occasional Melvins drummer Coady Willis once said to me “I just can’t believe I get to play ‘With Teeth’ every night. That song is so important to me, meant so much to me when I was younger” and just little things like that, the insight into someone else’s perspective, gave me a wholly new perspective on a song like this. 

Circle round to the start of the album, “Hung Bunny” is an anti-song for nearly seven minutes, all wrung out power chords left to dissipate into the ether, drum accents barely punctuating anything, buried vocals that sound like disassembled chanting, avoiding annunciating any words, rather just honed in on differentiating vowel sounds. And THEN, around the 7:50 mark it kicks into an insistent, drum-propelled middle portion limbo, before settling on quintessential instrumental doom-inspiring Melvins 101. 

Quickly, without warning, it crash lands into “Roman Dog Bird” And not until now, 2am, twenty four years of listening to the album, do I know that the first damn lyric on the album is “Lysol to get me high”

I didn’t think I could love this album any more. But somehow, with revelations like this, I do.

Another good moment for an aside: the title Lysol caused this album to get tied up in all kinds of legal trouble. The term “Lysol” itself is trademarked, and the then-owners (Sterling Drug) actually sent an undercover operative to the Boner Records (greatest label name ever) warehouse, posing as a journalist. Right before the release, records ready to roll out the door,  Sterling drops the hammer, thousands of copies of the LP and CD need to have the offending words covered with black tape, crossed out with black marker, just completely asinine shit. Ben Swank recalls unwisely removing the tape from his copy as a youth. One of my prized Melvins-related possessions is an original copy without any signs of tape or marker, the title there in all it’s infringing glory. When Boner re-issued the album in 2015, they changed the title to Lice-All which is the perfect kind of clever. 

Additionally, I’m just finding out now, at 2:15am, that Lysol was marketed as a feminine hygiene product in the late 1920s and was even utilized to induce abortions for women who could not obtain them legally….giving me a whole new perspective on this album title, which previously I had just thought was a clever, snide response to Nirvana naming their debut album Bleach.

Whether you consider it the end of side 1 or side 2, all is transcendentally immortal. The cover is based on the sculpture Appeal to the Great Spirit, itself already depicted as the logo for the Beach Boys vanity label Brother Records and a Keef Hartley Band album cover...the image signals importance, something greater than us, a resignation of oneself to the higher power, all ideas I sincerely feel are embodied in this recording, while the center labels and printed inner sleeve match in a dizzying red/black/white flower pattern, hypnotic upon closer inspection and the feedback buzzing.

I can honestly say here, without any hyperbole or stretching of the truth, this album is one of the greatest rock and roll records ever made. Top five material. There is no overselling this one. Lysol is absolutely essential to any self-respecting record collection. No excuses. Everything about it is just exemplary. 

I just keep thinking back on what it must’ve felt like to have to tape and mark all those original copies of the record...how tedious, how demoralizing, what a set-up to give-up. But if anything, this record is only that much better because of the lore behind it. Getting busted does not stop greatness. Even if it’s 2:55am.

In-Depth on The Spike Drivers "Often I Wonder"

The Spike Drivers

"Often I Wonder" b/w "High Time"

So working remotely this past week has been...challenging. No matter how much you tell a three year old that dada is "working from home" the fact that they just wet their pants and are staring at their father like HE created the problem, well, you just suck it up and you clean up the piss.

I usually write these ramblings from the friendly confines of my office. But having only stopped in there twice, briefly, over the past week, means I'm a little out of my element for contemplation, selection and concentration. At least three times since I've started this essay I've had to threaten "going to the office" in order to get the six-year-old to stop braiding my hair, the three-year-old from climbing on top of my shoulders, or the 18-month-old (as of today) from staring me down like a Wild West duel.

Additionally, the bulk of my new arrival vinyl sits in my office. It's where I have my packages sent, where I can listen in peace, where I have a door I can close to prevent people from entering without permission.

But at home, shit, anything goes. My records here are a little more haphazard, a lot more older, and shockingly more difficult to trawl through. I must've spent 25 minutes just trying to find something I thought was worthy to write about. Granted during that time I discovered a copy of a gospel record I had recently put on my Discogs wantlist, asking price for only available copy $300 plus, so I actually saved money in the process.

While digging through 45's, Violet the 6 and 11/12ths-year-old calmly sat nearby on an overturned crate and asked me, "Dada, why do you like records so much?"

I paused. I thought. I blanched at the fact that I had no immediate answer at hand. It's almost embarrassing to say it even. But oftentimes it's the simplest questions, asked from the most unexpected perspectives, that give you the most reason for deep, introspective thought.

So now, with the tiniest bit of hindsight, I'm saying to Violet...

When we want to be sad, records can help us be sad. When we want to be happy, records can make us happy. Records tell us stories. Records help us understand who we are and where we've come from, while giving us hope for who we can become and where we are headed.

When I ask Violet why she likes records, she says "I like records because it's the best."

Amidst the clutter I was initially scared that I could not find this 45 in my stack of all the other Spikes releases, including exotic South American, Japanese and Australian releases, though I quickly remembered I'd spun it at my last DJ gig and happily found it safely amongst my "going out" case.

I am hard-pressed to invoke a more perfect song than "Often I Wonder." The minor key, Eastern-influenced string pairings present the bass guitar formulating one-of-a-kind figures while the lead guitar threads breezily in-and-out, all of it light years beyond anything else that was happening in Detroit in 1966, shit, probably better than just about anything else in the WORLD at that time. Push comes to shove, I would put this on par with the first Velvets album...but otherwise...unparalleled.

And when the 90 second long fuzz guitar solo drops in...just pure delight, chordal overtones ringing out in ways that I could never fully explain or understand, other than that they FEEL special, like they were woven with the microscopic filament of a thousand electric eagle feathers.

Spending the past twenty minutes trying to transcribe the lyrics here has me taking stock, so moved by the beauty, precision, choice and deployment of these words. Hitting me harder and harder with each replay.

In full, from my ears (and if someone can definitively decipher my question mark, I am offering up a prime Jack White or White Stripes or whatever test pressing I can make happen for the effort and for reading closely) the lyrics are...

Often I wonder

And try to remember

The splendor that I once had known

Days free from scheming

Were days full of dreaming

When seemingly all could I own

I flew to the moon on a thousand delights

Was washed in the sun's warm and mellowing (maddening? meadowing?) sights

That caressed me and blessed me through ten thousand nights

Filled with longing and raging for love

But circling round me

A feeling has found me

That can comprehend where I'm in

Stripped of illusion

I flee the delusion

That man is a creature of sin

Wow. Stunned. Don't think until right NOW have I fully absorbed these lyrics. Now they feel sewn into my soul.

Furthermore, the flip side "High Time" is, while more stereotypically 1960s pop-psychedelia, as precise a double-entendre as you could wish for from '66, with a solo and biting tone just as fierce as "Often" and as a sublime pairing as you could hope for.

(necessary asides...there are no a-side or b-side distinctions on this single, the record is self-released by the band, the label name Om is as much a sign as I need to know that they weren't dabblers in the esoteric, "Often" clocks in at a phenomenal 5 minutes 45 seconds at 45rpm and whomever the genius is that cut this single deserves a medal)

I speak in pure honesty when I say that this single should cost $500 and it would be worth every penny. I seem to recall back ten years ago or so that Ted Lucas' family was selling copies on eBay for $50 a pop. I think that is where this copy came from. I feel blessed.

In some ways I feel like as a counterculture we're STILL just trying to catch up to what both Lucas and the Spike Drivers accomplished over fifty years ago. Divining inspiration from unexpected places while imparting our own coloring on it all, pushing the envelope and trying to advance our worlds and open ourselves up to varied experiences.

While trying to press on and make all this happen, an unexpected Uber Eats delivery of White Castle burgers arrived on our doorstep, I told them no one here ordered them, they left then returned minutes later saying they were from my mom. I instantly sent her a text saying "You son of a bitch."

Not long thereafter, deep in my writing, girls running around helter skelter, Navy stinking up the place with a diaper that needs changing (yeah, we gave her the White Castle), a balloon delivery shows up on our doorstep, individual balloons for each of the three girls, with a note that said "Navy, Happy 1 1/2 birthday. Love, Gigi."

I texted mom immediately "You son of a bitch again."

I can't imagine however many more weeks we have to live like this. Take care out there.

First Ever (?) Press From The Grande Ballroom, The Detroit News December 13th, 1966

So I was only told this was the "first" press or write-up about the Grande anecdotally, but even if it's not, the early, outsider's view of the scene is something worth your five minutes to read if you have even the slightest appreciation for Detroit rock and roll. Enjoy.

Rubye Shelton and Her Enduring Influence on Kanye West

Rubye Shelton

God’s Going to Destroy This Nation +3

scum stats: 500 -1000 pressed I'd guess, good luck finding a copy

The record that got me on the front page of Pitchfork.

I assume by now that most of you have heard the story of the catalog number of this record being referenced in the artwork for Kanye’s new Jesus Is King album. If not, here’s the jist: 

https://pitchfork.com/news/kanye-jesus-is-king-album-cover-mystery-solved-by-third-man-records/

In short…I’ve been stockpiling my own database of Archer Record Pressing numbers for the past 11 years. And once I saw Kanye’s art, a week after the album was released, it SCREAMED at me as clear as day “That’s an Archer number.”

But not until NOW did I actually have a copy of the record. I paid a respectable $96 for this wrecked copy on eBay and with my SugarCube system this disc plays like a dream.

(the SugarCube basically removes scratches, pops, ticks, surface noise in real time. CRAZY technology and apparently the one I have is already been surpassed by an updated one. we can talk about this all at a later time.)

Holy shit is this record the real deal. Nothing but voice and tambourine and enough chills to cool the most fiery pits of hell. Released circa 1969/1970, you would not crazy to think it’d been recorded FIFTY years earlier. Raw, emotional…this is EVERYTHING that music is meant to be.

I have no insight as to why Kanye would reference this on his album cover…but anyone with the tiniest bit of discerning taste can hear that this record is worth it’s weight in gold…as evidenced by folks who paid upwards of $800 for this BEFORE it was ever Kanye-touched.

I just wonder if Ye sits around and sings about Rubye "I made that bitch famous."
I’d argue she’s done the hard work here…these songs get MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION and it’s been reissued but even that version seems impossible to find. Yeesh.

Part of me wants to frame this sucker, as it holds for me a moment where the absolute nerdiest thing I do in my life showed some sort of value outside of my own brain, but honestly, these songs are too damn good. I need to keep on playing it.

Stooges Live Review, Rock and Roll Revival, May 30th 1969

Taken from the July 1969 issue of “Underground Flick” magazine, I thought this was particularly funny and was one I’d not seen previously. 

My Christmas List...

I don’t care who you have to kill, just please someone give me this belt buckle for Christmas.

Jonathan Fire*Eater "Tremble Under Boom Lights"

Despite it being the damn namesake of the blog, I still have not exhausted talking about this album. I doubt I ever will.

“Tremble Under Boom Lights” is one of my favorite releases of all time and the fact that Third Man is able to reissue it still gives me pause.

No matter how much I say or write about this album, I still don’t feel like I’m done. I still feel like “there’s more work to do.”

More people need to know about this album, more need to appreciate it, more need to be influenced by it.

The opening song “The Search For Cherry Red” is burned into the enzymes of my soul. I can recite the lyrics at will. Any time I was bold enough to grab the mic in the Dirtbombs, there was a 50% chance I would sing this song.

“Give Me Daughters”, coupled with the gender and genetic make-up of the Shaggs, was the soothing salve I needed as I progressed into fatherhood of three daughters.

“The Public Hanging of a Movie Star” was included on a mixtape making the rounds in the Dirtrbombs tour van circa 2001, and EVERY time it played, I had to ask what it was as I was unaware. So primitive, so beguiling…those howls still unlike anything else I’ve heard anywhere else.

And the swan song, “In the Head” the last song the band would ever record together, just a head swirl of emotions for me. I have no idea what the lyrics “the ice cream truck goes cluck” mean, but goddamn if I don’t think about it weekly. When the instruments kick in all together like the force of a thousand volcanoes erupting at once, all joining in the breath of air, a hiccup almost, at the 2:41 mark, still, observant, vertiginous, as if the entirety of your life is presented before you and it does not feel overwhelming, just optimistically perfect.

It cannot be over-communicated…I still don’t really believe that Third Man was able to release this record. Cut primarily from the original master tapes. With the full support of the band members and estates and original label. I’ve had moments on the project where I’ve just had to stop and take stock of it all. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably continue saying it…I’m really just a fan here.

Final Thoughts on the White Stripes' Final Show

“I can’t even tell you how much it means for me to be here tonight…so I’m not even gonna bother”
-Jack White, July 31st, 2007

Not long after I walked offstage as the hired-gun drummer for opening act Dan Sartain, an assortment of crew and musicians and friends gathered together and took part in a celebratory, raise-the-glass toast, all led by Jack White to mark the end of the run of nine shows in the previous ten days.

As the crowd thinned, Meg White and I were the last ones left standing there. Apropos of nothing, cups in hand, not even in a conversation at that point, Meg said to me, “I think this is the last White Stripes show.” Confused, I responded “Well, yeah, last show of this leg of the tour.” She replied “No…I think this is the last White Stripes show ever” and slowly walked away.

I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what she was talking about. I had no idea what she meant. I had no idea what to do. I looked around to see if anyone else heard what Meg had said, but I was all alone.
Within minutes, the band was onstage.

What would YOU do if half of your favorite band told you (and ONLY you) it would be their last show immediately prior to taking the stage?

Shocked and having no better ideas, I went and grabbed two pieces of paper. One of them a perfunctory, public-facing schedule posted backstage. The other, more-detailed, sharing much of the same info and privately posted inside the band’s tour bus.

Just typing that makes me self-consciously feel like an ass...more preoccupied with the artifact and ephemera than focusing on the actual feeling of (and living in) the moment. Also, I should’ve at least made the effort to grab a damn camera.

I decamped to my usual side-stage perch and dutifully hand-wrote the scattershot songs that spilled out of Jack and Meg that evening. The White Stripes had never played Mississippi prior to this performance and it's clear the deep musical heritage of the state loomed large in Jack’s mind as he attacked the performance setlist-free.

“Stop Breaking Down” was an unexpected opening song. Despite being released in 1999, it had only opened a set once before, just three weeks earlier. The inspiration behind that first opening performance was the band headlining the Ottawa Bluesfest, being met with newspaper headlines that asked “Are the White Stripes bluesy enough to headline Bluesfest?” Seems as Jack’s intention of starting both these shows with the Robert Johnson classic was to leave no doubt to a skeptical homegrown audience of armchair connoisseurs or a lazy Canadian newspaper editor that the band was well-within their powers conveying the blues to the masses. All that was only further buoyed by Jack later throwing in an unexpected tease of another Robert Johnson song “Phonograph Blues” to assuredly placate the ghosts of the Mississippi Delta.

Inspired, one-of-a-kind takes on both “As Ugly As I Seem” and “Astro” now jump out to me as beautiful…each song's last hurrah from the band that birthed them. Exploratory adventures the both of them, proving that no piece was ever finished or finalized or etched into stone. Rather, they were all living, creative works, changing and adapting over the years and begging to be recorded and shared and analyzed by all of you reading this right now.

Jack began the encore by himself, pouring every last drop of feeling and emotive vocal quiver into a solo offering of “300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues” that was achingly bare. The raw force behind it feels beyond naked...as if Jack had pulled back his own skin to reveal his truest, innermost thoughts, particularly when he changed the lyrics on the fly and sang...

"See there’s three women in my mind that know they have the answer, but they’re not letting go…
What else is new? I’m the only one that seems to care where I should go”

After re-listening to this show for the first time in ages, I feel like only now have I fully absorbed the enormity of that line. Frankly, it just hit me like a freight train to the chest. I was caught entirely off-guard. I couldn’t help but be moved to tears.

Moments like that make me feel this show is the audio manifestation of opposing, equally-powered forces clawing for control of my brain in an id-versus-ego battle of monumental proportions. On one end I’m mourning, absolutely fucking hurt that this huge presence in my life, my occasional reason for being, my family both by blood and by choice…just ceased to be. And yet at the other end, I am so goddamned lucky that the White Stripes ever existed at all...that people even paid attention, that the band was able to make a lucrative career out of their passion, out of art and that I had a side-stage seat to the entirety of their existence.

These are feelings that have never reconciled themselves. I doubt they ever will.

After the completion of a bombastic, career-defining version of “Death Letter”, Jack poignantly says “Son House, thank you for finally letting me come home.” House was a passive participant in this matter, having died in the band’s hometown of Detroit in 1988. But Jack’s comment has seemingly little to do with any physical structure...what he is saying is that Son House (and to a larger extent, blues music in general) provided both he and Meg with an avenue to pursue their artistic vision. In this sense, home is not spoken in the predominant, noun usage of the word to describe where one lives, but rather in a more colloquial, adverbial sense meaning ‘deep, to the heart.’

In short, the blues is home. The blues provides comfort, the blues provides center, the blues provides foundation. It provides a manner to express one’s feelings, both a connection to the past and a path through the future.

Ending the set with Leadbelly’s “Boll Weevil” and the singalong chorus repeating “he’s looking for a home” only further drives this point, well...home. The White Stripes were only able to become THE WHITE STRIPES because of the blues. Able to find their voices, to spread the word in a way that was seeming antithetical to two white kids born in Detroit in the 1970’s. Blues was the language, not chosen, but seemingly divined, to best communicate themselves, to express, to converse, to paint this masterpiece.

In that same way...we are all always looking for a home. For where we belong. Where we can be ourselves. Where we are free to do what we need to do. For a way to be. For a conduit to something bigger.

Upon the completion of the set, with a backdrop of Who-like synth arpeggiations singing out into the night, Jack sincerely says the following...

“I can’t believe how long it has taken us to get here. Thanks for waiting. Thanks for coming. Thanks for buying our records. Thanks for buying a ticket. We love you very much. Thank you. God bless you Son House. God bless you Robert Johnson. Thank you so much.”

I can think of no better epilogue for Jack to punctuate the White Stripes last-ever live performance. Each thought a simple sentence that, upon closer inspection, opens up to a wider meaning...not just spoken to these folks in suburban Memphis on a Tuesday night. Rather, they speak to all their fans across the world. About the journey. About patience. About action. About appreciation. About presence. About gratitude. And ultimately, about the blues. Which is, arguably, all it was ever about.

In the intervening twelve years I’ve had countless conversations with Meg White. And I have never once, not for a moment, even considered asking her what was going through her head that night in Mississippi. To me, she has found her home and that is all that matters.

What Does My Daughter Violet Say After a Balloon Pops?

See?

Tantus Studios...Is It a Hot Master You’re After?

An underrated and unheralded Detroit recording studio if there ever was one. Word is they had a custom-made synthesizer in-house that was part of the magic sauce. Oh to just have been a fly on the wall.

List of Tantus Recordings

How Newly Tweaked eBay Searches Are Blowing It...

     So I've noticed a kink in the results that eBay spits out for its searches and it is pissing me off. 

     For example, I search the term "detroit" under the category "records" probably every other day for the past ten years. I know that titles spit out as if they are ingrained into my soul. This specific search is, by all means, my shit.

     Within the past week or so, searches started being populated with TONS of releases on the Motown label (founded and run from Detroit for most of its existence) all previously unseen by me and none of which have the word Detroit in their title or description.

     Additionally, I use the "vintage Detroit t-shirt" search regularly. Again, I have come to know what to expect with this query. I rock vintage Detroit shirts regularly. 

     But in this same week or so, that search is absolutely littered with Detroit sports jerseys of all stripes and vintage, NONE of which are actually t-shirts or even have the term t-shirt in their title or description.  

     Had acquaintances relay stories of searching for blues records and their searches being filled with blue colored vinyl pressings, now, or searching for a rare 78 of Lewis Black "Corn Liquor Blues" and instead turning up tons of albums by the comedian of the same name. 

     I feel like this is bullshit and it is only further pushing me towards Discogs and Etsy to get my vinyl and vintage shirt fix. I hope the relevant sellers follow suit.

My Favorite Part of Danny Goldberg's Book About Kurt Cobain...

If you'd have told twelve-year-old me literally WALKING to buy my copy of the bootleg "Roma" CD from the neighborhood head shop (wonderfully named The Groove Shoppe) that someday my fandom of Nirvana would lead to a significant mention in a book written about Kurt Cobain by the band's manager...well, I probably would've shit myself.

Remembering Gordy Newton...

I only ever met Gordy once. As I remember it, I popped-in unannounced at Brian Muldoon's upholstery shop one afternoon probably 2003 or so. This was not uncommon as he and I were playing in a band together at that time (invariably known as the Science Farm, Night Latch, or the Thread Counts based, depending on when you asked us) and as I was attending classes at Wayne State just down the street, I was often in the neighborhood.

We made small talk and he made an explicit point to introduce me to Gordy (despite all the scholarly professional mentions of him as "Gordon" I never heard anyone actually call him by that name). Shy, embarrassed, bothered...almost as if he was struggling to just be polite is how I remember him. We shook hands, he kept his head down, I thought nothing much of it.

Gordy left while I was still there and Brian said "If I would not have introduced you, he would've ignored you and not said a word." Which would've been awkward...as we were the only three people standing there in Brian's backyard.

Later that year Brian and his wife gifted me a copy of Gordy's book and my appreciation has only ever grown from there. Gordy did the cover art for the second Tin Knocker single that I released...something like 7 or 8 layers of polyurethane coated on a single sheet of paper and the edges all disintegrated and demolished and unlike any single artwork I have ever seen (I selfishly kept the gnarliest, most destroyed looking copies for myself...some of them literally had holes in them).

Gordy also did the cover art for the second single by the Upholsterers. An art project if there ever was one, "Your Furniture Was Always Dead, We Were Just Afraid to Tell You" was limited to 100 copies, all secretly hidden in furniture that Brian Muldoon had reupholstered and believed by many to be a hoax until we actually shared the cover art a few years back. At last count I had word that three copies had been found, but none of those people wanted to share any more details than that.

When I was recording my solo album in 2009, I put together a song that was nothing but guitar feedback and an original Bleep Labs Thingamagoop. In hindsight, I would probably go back and remove the Thingamagoop, but that's besides the point. Once I'd recorded the track, the only appropriate title I could think of was "Gordon Newton, 1970." The feeling I got from listening to the feedback was the same feeling when I looked at images of Gordy's early 1970's works of black lithographic crayon on white paper. I also thought, of all the people in Detroit in 1970, Gordy was the one I would most have liked to hang out with at that time.

An example of such works, described as "conveying the sense of motion of the artist's arm and body as he worked...free-floating notations of the speed with which he made them" is the embedded graphic in the Soundcloud player below. Also, that description above is probably my favorite written description of visual art I've ever encountered.

Gordy passed away a few weeks ago and it hurts. I have one of his "Heads" hanging proudly in my living room and since I heard of his passing, I can't stop looking at it. I feel downright lucky to have barely even crossed paths with him. A quote from Marsha Miro, longtime Detroit Free Press art critic and a founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) called Gordy the "best artist Detroit has ever produced" and in his passing, Miro reaffirmed that by saying "To this day he's still one of the most important artists who lived and worked in Detroit."

After a brief contemplation on Tyree Guyton, I had to agree. I can't think of a solid counterargument to Miro's statement. The entirety of his oeuvre, as vast and wide-ranging as it is (though best known for painting and sculpture) just seems so intertwined with how my brain understands the city of Detroit. Something about the way he OVER applied color, to the point of it turning to dust, and the specific manner he cross-hatched lines, every time I see it...just speaks to me.

It all may sound a bit trite, but that's how I feel. And deep down inside, art that makes you feel is life-affirming.

Nashville After Ten Years...

People ask me all the damn time about the difference between Detroit and Nashville and I feel like I've got my rote, patter down on this one that now is as good a time as ever to carve it into this digital cave wall.

Detroit was a GREAT place to live in my twenties. No real responsibilities. On the hustle. Didn't matter if I was touring with the Dirtbombs, running Cass Records, working for the White Stripes, pretending at Car City Records, freelancing for the Metro Times, busting my hump as a production assistant for the auto show...that haphazard amalgam of low-impact responsibilities kept me busy and just barely compensated enough where I didn't feel too much stress.

The past ten years in Nashville has been a PERFECT place to live in my thirties. To work professionally, at a job with a salary and benefits, to get married, to buy a house, to buy a car (how did I never do that in Detroit?), to have three mediocre daughters and just barely maintain a blog at the same time.

Yeah, that house could use a coat of paint, and missing alot of people in Detroit oftentimes makes feel like I NEED to be involved in the re-imagination of that city...but complaints or FOMO exist wherever you are and also wherever you are not.

I LOVE telling people that I never had allergies until I moved to Nashville. It's vaguely appealing enough for an anecdote while talking at a child's birthday party and is on-brand for the apocryphal tale I've heard repeated ad infinitum that the local Native American population in the area originally called the general Nashville area "The Valley of Sickness" and supposedly would not live here themselves because of it.

But the truth is...I suffered all kinds of allergic nonsense during my last spring in Detroit back in '08. Maybe that's when I grew up. Maybe that's when my body gave up. All I know is that my roommate gave me some Claritin and it was a godsend.

Cut to now, my yearly tradition is whenever that day in hits March where I sneeze three consecutive times, I pop a Zyrtec the next morning and continue to do so every morning for the next six weeks or so and I'm golden. No symptoms at all. Like a well Zyrtec'd machine.

But the past two days, Zyrtec ain't doing shit. Shit is so bad I'm rubbing my eyes like a kid in a "we'll convince you Santa is real" movie.  For a couple of hours today, with symptoms at their most annoying, I just decided to not touch my eyes. At all. Trying to approach this ailment with the zen-like focus of a monk. After an hour or so it was out of my head. And a few hours later, looking into my eyes in the mirror, seeing they legitimately needed to be de-gunked, with purpose and focus, I cleaned those sumbitches out and it was spine-tinglingly amazing.

So, just another curve in life to lean into. Like tricking this six-month-old to down five ounces of milk right in the middle of me trying to sneak this thing out before the clock strikes next month. I pause, I give her my undivided attention, we bond, and an hour later, she's back to sleep and I'm back to work here.

An Overview of Recent eBay Losses...

1) Monthly Detroit Magazine - never had seen this before, thought it was crazy even bidding up to $67, am terribly curious as to who would pay $135 for this thing.

2) Honestly thought that $55 would get me the Mexican version of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" single and thus complete my collection of singles for that specific song. No-go friendo. Ugh. I will probably eventually pay the going rate for this one.

3) Don't even know why I bid on the 12 O'Clock Noon record. Looks funky I guess?

4) I adore the Coconut Groove label and am pretty sure at one point or another I've owned every other record on the imprint EXCEPT this Cherry Slush single. Featuring Dick Wagner, I think.

5) Don't cry for me the three people reading here, I was eventually able to track down a copy of the Marcus Belgrave bootleg LP I lost out on for the absurd price of $78. Not usually one to go nuts for unauthorized jazz LPs, this was literally recorded a half-mile from my house when I was 7 years old at the decomissioned Alger Theater movie house. It ain't a bad record, but it certainly ain't $78 good. The copy I eventually grabbed had different artwork. So it goes.

6) Mid-level Michigan quasi-psych-folk that will probably always be somewhat available, I do not fret missing out on this Peter Stark LP. He was always the least likely to sit on the Iron Throne.

Exciting Things to Come in 2019

Too Much Info About MC5 “Kick Out The Jams” 45rpm Pressing Variations

MC5

Kick Out the Jams" b/w "Motor City's Burning"

scum stats: I'd bet Elektra pressed 100k of these back in the day, but this specific variation, man, maybe 5000? possibly even less

Rare records that are not expensive...this is one of my favorite and most frustrating exploits.

A few years ago, I noticed a copy of this single for sale on eBay. Upon first glance, it was just like the hundreds of other copies of this single that I had seen over the years. Big whoop.

But upon closer inspection, I noticed the slightest differences. The stylized band name/logo was a little thicker than usual, the song titles are in a thin script versus the usual bold. And BMI is in parentheses on this one. Some other line-breaks are different, more bold/thin changes, but ultimately, this is entirely inconsequential shit that absolutely no one should care about.

So of course, that's why I care.

The copy I had seen on eBay was up there for MONTHS at a Buy-it-Now price around $40. And I just never pulled the trigger. The moment it sold, I thought, "Shit, why did I wait?"

That was two years ago and I've been obsessively checking the listings for this single since then in hopes of finding another. I emailed the MC5 super fan in Switzerland trying to find a copy. He referred me to the PREVIEW pressing of this single (exclusively given out to attendees of the MC5 performance at the Fillmore East in New York and ultimately thrown at the band by the revolutionaries in attendance when the band arrived in a LIMOUSINE) but I already had two copies of that.

To me, this single is some sort of weird added confusion to the story of the MC5 being dropped from Elektra because they'd placed an ad that said "Fuck Hudsons" in the local underground paper and included the Elektra logo. Hudsons was the local Detroit department store and in response to the ad, they threatened to pull ALL Elektra product from its shelves.

I've heard alternate theories that the album was not as successful as the label had hoped and the Hudson's controversy was just a convenient out for them. But the fact that there's a SECOND, LATER pressing of this single seems to fly in the face of all that. I mean, I guess you can drop a band and still keep the single in print and change the layout, but it still seems really odd. And ultimately, that later pressing seems somewhat unnecessary in hindsight, as it just never really turns up.

The style of this label layout is more in line with singles that Elektra had released in the summer of 1969, months after the band had been let go. The later version I have was pressed at Monarch Records in Los Angeles while the earlier version was pressed at Specialty in Pennsylvania. There's even a red/white/black color variation that was pressed at Columbia in Terre Haute, Indiana. And that "preview pressing" explicitly "for the brothers and sisters of the MC5" was also pressed at Specialty, you know, so you can update your scorecards at home.

Anyway, in the post third baby haze, a copy sold on eBay that I missed and I was PISSED. Started combing the listings more regularly, even contemplated messaging the seller of ALL copies of the single listed on Discogs (approximately 19 at the time) and asking them if "BMI" was in parentheses or not on the label of the copy they were selling. Desperate times, desperate measures. I'm convinced no one else really cares, but in some strange way, that makes me care EVEN MORE.

Sure enough, a few weeks back, I found a copy. $7.99, Buy-it-Now. That purchase felt so fulfilling. The hunt, you know, was worth it. This specific version doesn't even have a dedicated Discogs listing, so the moment I stop going down this rabbit hole, hopefully I can make the update myself.

Side note: the "preview pressing" is actually an alternate take of "Kick Out the Jams" but honestly, even thought most folks identify with this as the call-to-arms, best-known work of the band, I've always preferred "Looking at You." I would've loved to hear a studio album from the MC5 at that high point of their career (ie, late 1968), but it wasn't meant to be. And the SINGLE mix is slightly different and slightly edited from the album version...most noticeably the substitution of "brothers and sisters" for "mother fuckers" after the titular intro, and said expletive the entire genesis of the entire Hudson's kerfuffle.

But I like it enough to have pressings and variations from half a dozen different countries. My pipe dream is that some day, some one will say "thank you for caring" and that all the differences and variations will avail themselves to some greater good and higher importance. Until then, I still need the Mexican pressing.

Spaced "Flying Thru the Sky" b/w "Ain't That The Way It Is, Babe"

Spaced

“Flying Thru the Sky” b/w “Ain’t That the Way It Is, Babe”

scum stats: shit. i can reasonably account for four copies of this record amongst collectors. wouldn’t doubt that any more than 100 were pressed originally

It’s not often your number one want shows up. So when it does…you make sure it’s the Record of the Week.

First became aware of this gem in 2008. Copy showed up on eBay with the info that it had been found in a pile of local records in Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, Michigan.

The audio clip with the auction showcased otherworldly, wild, unhinged, almost unbelievable rock and roll. Not quite psych, a little bit beyond garage. Just perfect in every way. Theremin? Nice touch.

It sold for $588 and I was the second-highest bidder.

I’ve felt burnt about it for the past ten years.

There’s nothing to be gleaned from the label, the pseudonyms for the songwriting credits (at least I THINK they’re pseudonyms) of “Gypsy, Ape, Skin, Chuckles” float around through my head ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Shit, I’ve been tempted to start a band called Gypsy Ape Skin Chuckles because of how amazingly it rolls off the tongue.

Who in the hell were these guys? Where were they from? What were they on?

With almost zero info to start with…how would YOU try and track down the parties responsible for this record and answer these questions?

I’ve often dreamed about a mythical message board that everyone in the world was automatically subscribed to, where you could ask questions of this sort.

“Hey, who was in the band Spaced that put out this batshit crazy single?”

Even with the reach of the internet, how would you even try to START to reach a wide-ass group of folks?

I know you see shit like this on the Today Show, when someone takes a picture of a marriage proposal but then doesn’t actually know who the people are in the photo. I think Facebook usually solves it. Maybe Reddit on occasion. 

Seems like in the past you could try using ads in the newspaper. Hell, that’s how I scored a bunch of copies of the Afterbirth “Who’s in There?” record back in 2009. But shit, who even reads the classified section anymore?

To be fair, my fascination with this disc is largely predicated on the thought that it is a Michigan record. Yet there’s nothing explicitly proving that…just some words from an eBay seller a decade ago.

The copy in my hands showed up on eBay a few weeks back, this time complete with a sticker on the label that says “Jupiter” because, why not?

While I wasn’t exactly happy about the hammer price when I bought it, I wasn’t too disappointed at the $20/year inflation. This was a present for me.

This copy came from a seller in Florida. It’s totally possible this is NOT a Michigan record and I’ve just been excited about a myth for almost a third of my life.

But if you can’t fully commit your attention and desire and passion to weird rare records, then what can you commit to?

And now…I don’t even know what my #1 want is anymore. I’ve got some time to think about it, which is nice.

Apologies there’s nothing to listen to here, but you can see, this record is just so damn rare, no one even has it to share. There’s a bootleg repressing of it available on yellow or black vinyl that should suffice if this has piqued your interest enough.

400 Pounds of Punk: The Lost "He Once Ate a Small Child" Cassette

400 Pounds of Punk

He Once Ate a Small Child

scum stats: if there are more than twenty of these out there, I'd be shocked. I'd bet less than half that

As a primer for this post, it helps to have already read this piece...

https://blog.discogs.com/en/cassettes-are-the-new-45s/

Ok, ok, ok...Cassette Store Day has come and gone and to help celebrate the meaningless event, I'll talk about an actual real live cassette here that is virtually unknown.

I went to school with Scott Riker, the guitar player in 400 Pounds of Punk. I'd heard in the halls there was someone else who liked Nirvana to an unhealthy degree. We chatted a bit, probably traded some bootlegs (back then I had the Into the Black 6 x CD boxset which made me particularly cool to a specific subset of dorks...I actually still have it, so you know, if you're a dork).

Scott played guitar and told me he had a band called 400 Pounds of Punk. At that same time, my buddy Nick and I had a band we were calling the Rags. Sophomore year. 1997-1998.

In a totally unrelated world, my uncle Jack was starting his band the White Stripes. One of their first shows was opening for the band Rocket 455. Jeff Meier, one of the guitarists in Rocket, struck up a friendship with Jack. I remember, clearly, being at Jack's house in Southwest Detroit while Jeff was there hanging out. Jack said, "Hey Jeff, what's the name of your nephew's band we're recording tomorrow?" to which Jeff replied "400 Pounds of Punk."

I was gobsmacked. Of all the suburban teenage bands out there, how in the HELL were these guys, to which I had mentally self-invented a rivalry, recording with MY uncle?

It took me all of five seconds to simmer down. I probably used the perceived slight to practice more. Whatever.

Jeff's nephew, Mike Audia, was the drummer in 400 Pounds of Punk. Jamie Cherry was the singer, but I'm not sure if he was anyone's nephew.

The session seemed to go smooth from what I gathered. Jack and Jeff probably worked together with the engineering duties. While only five songs were on the released cassette, the full session contained a few more, including covers of Nirvana's "Drain You" and "Endless, Nameless."

Me and Nick, as the Rags, would go to Jack's house a few months later and record our two Nirvana covers, "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" and, duh, "Drain You."
(seriously, if you don't like "Drain You", you're not a REAL Nirvana fan)

The master reel for 400 Pounds of Punk is dated 1-3-98, and even though I would've thought the session took place as much as a month or two earlier, I do need to resign myself to the fact that there can very easily be gaps in my memory.

My biggest take away from all of this is...thank god for cool uncles guiding aimless punk nephews. Should I ever have a nephew, I will happily repay my debt to society. Second takeaway...man, I was as pretty shitty drummer. Probably still am. Mike is SOOOO good on the tape, blast beats and fills for days. Literally did not feel like a teenager should be able to play so good. Third takeaway...why didn't I ask Jack to sing with us??!?!?! Duh. Big regret over here.

Jeff plays the sick guitar solo/lead on the cover of "One Way Or Another" and I'm pretty sure this is the only recording ever with both Jack and Jeff performing together. A nice capture of a brief moment in time that was seemingly forgotten/ignored for far too long.

400 Pounds of Punk later changed their name to the Surgeon Generals and actually released a CD on a label either called Jeff Row or Jeth Row or some weird play on that phrase. Like this cassette, there is NO info to be found about that CD anywhere, but I know there's a copy of it in my basement somewhere. Nick and I played the same bill as them, the only time Nick and I ever took the stage together, for Notre Dame High School battle of the bands. Spring of '99. We lost, so did Surgeon Generals, this pretty boy named Ian had a band that did all Creed covers and cleaned up.

Nick and I were joined by Larry on bass and we did covers like Nirvana "Sliver" and "Dive" and then other things like "Louie Louie." I remember not feeling great about the performance. I wanted us to look sharp, so I brought a bunch of suit coats and ties for us to try class up the joint. In one of the most beautiful memories of my life, Larry's back is facing me, fiddling with a tie, turns around and says "How's this look?"

He was wearing a navy blue corduroy jacket, a tie, and no shirt. It was beautiful. This is what passed for rebellion in an all-boys Catholic high school. Never mind that Nick, our vocalist, started the show with a call to the crowd to come closer to the stage, "Come one, come all...gay and straight alike." I thought we were gonna get pulled off-stage before even playing note one. I think my bass drum kept sliding away, songs didn't go off as planned, I was frustrated. I had them introduce us as The Mindbenders for some reason. Ugh. Sixteen is a bitch.

I'm sure there's more to be told, but the girls are swinging from the rafters. It's amazing I was able to write this at all.