Now I Wanna Be Your Dog

I caught the first episode on Sling TV the other night. Pretty … pretty … pretty … pretty good.

Four-part docuseries ‘PUNK’ from John Varvatos and Iggy Pop takes you inside the music, fashion, art and the DIY attitude of the punk rock movement. [Premiered] March 11 on EPIX.

Knights In Satan’s Service

A friend texted me late Saturday morning with two extra tickets to the KISS show at the FedEx Forum. Uh … yes, please!

Way back in 1977, 8-year-old me wanted to see them at the Midsouth Coliseum (on December 9, to be exact), but my mom waited too late to get tickets. The only seats left were behind the stage. *sad trombone*

My next shot was at The Pyramid on April 25, 2000, with Ace and Peter returning from exile for the band’s first farewell tour. A friend told me not to worry, he knew somebody who could get us free tickets. Predictably, no tickets – free or otherwise – were forthcoming, and the show sold out. *sad trombone*

Anyway, this show was a lot of fun! Here’s the set list.

Detroit Rock City
Shout It Out Loud
Deuce
Say Yeah
Heaven’s on Fire
War Machine
Lick It Up (with “Won’t Get Fooled Again” snippet)
Calling Dr. Love
100,000 Years (with drum solo)
God of Thunder (with bass solo)
Cold Gin (with guitar solo)
Psycho Circus
I Love It Loud
Let Me Go, Rock ‘N’ Roll
Love Gun (Paul on stage over crowd)
I Was Made for Lovin’ You (Paul on stage over crowd)
Black Diamond

Encore:
Beth (Eric Singer on piano)
Do You Love Me
Rock and Roll All Nite (Tommy and Gene over crowd)

They Don’t Bother Me

Everybody has those inexplicable how-the-hell-did-I-miss-this pop culture gaps. Graham Parker is one of mine. Based on everything else I’m into, his music should have been an undeniable can’t miss. I mean, he sounds like Costello, Nick Lowe, or even early Joe Jackson to my ear. What’s not to love? But besides this one song, which I’ve heard less than 10 times in 50 years, I can’t name anything else by him.

Weird.

But this one song is pretty great.

Shit

Peter Halsten Thorkelson (Tork), February 13, 1942 – February 21, 2019

I always said the Monkees were a better band than they should’ve been. Rolling Stone has a brief obit here.

Shit

George “The Geeker In Your Speaker” Klein – disc jockey, radio host, and li’l buddy to E, aged 83 years.

Fuck Me, Don’t Tell A Soul Is 30

Released February 1, 1989. This makes me feel older than turning 50. To put it in perspective, this post is the equivalent of the 20-year-old me in 1989 talking about an album that came out in 1959.

Wiki-wiki-wikipedia says …

Don’t Tell a Soul marked the debut of Bob “Slim” Dunlap, who replaced founding guitarist Bob Stinson. The album was recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles and produced by Matt Wallace and the band. It was mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, who decided to give the record “a three-dimensional, radio-ready sound”. However, singer and guitarist Paul Westerberg was not satisfied with the new direction, commenting: “I thought the little things I’d cut in my basement were closer to what I wanted.”

To celebrate, let’s all take a moment and watch one of my favorite rock ‘n’ roll moments.

As explained by a lesser blog

Before the show, they were told they needed to change the line, “We’re feeling good from the pills we took.” Well, fittingly, Westerberg did no such thing, and the censors were obviously ready for it, as the tape goes silent during that section of the song. What the censors at ABC didn’t anticipate was this: Near the conclusion of “Talent Show” the lyrics address the time when the band hits the stage and there’s no retreating: “It’s too late to turn back, here we go” is repeated twice on the album version, but here Westerberg has changed the line to “It’s too late to take pills, here we go”—ha! The censors missed it and they’ve pissed everyone off again! To add insult, the line is sung three times.

Let It Be

This should be inneresting:

Peter Jackson has signed on to direct a second archive project: a film edited from the full 55 hours of footage of the Beatles’ Let It Be recording sessions.

Jackson will somehow produce a 65 hr documentary. Apparently the original version is getting a scrub and re-release to coincide.

The British Masters

Simonon seems like a good egg.

After Mark E Smith, Goldie, Liam Gallagher and John Lydon, Paul Simonon of The Clash joins host John Doran to be inducted as a British Master.

Originally known as the bass player in The Clash, a lifelong artist and style obsessive, Paul was one of the key architects of the aesthetics of punk. His obsession with dub and reggae helped broaden the sound of The Clash gloriously. We spoke to him in Damon Albarn’s West London Studio, where they were rehearsing for their upcoming tour as one half of The Good, The Bad & The Queen.

This Is A Classic

How long can you take it?

All 70 tracks! It’s the full compilation of absolutely terrible, yet hilarious stage banter from Paul Stanley of KISS, who by the way, is absolutely, positively not a repressed gay man.

EDIT: I made it 11 minutes and 17 seconds.