The Legendary Locals of

BAY CITY

Michigan

 

 

Arcadia Publishing has developed a series of history books that gives voice to long ago ancestors who created the conditions for change as well as more recent individuals who have served and shaped their local communities in distinct ways. These individuals are who have created an impact on their community that ripples like a pebble thrown into still water, it is felt for generations. It is a backwards Ponzi scheme that pays it forward and resonates for future generations.

Ron Bloomfield has authored a diverse and honest account of the shakers and movers that have inhabited the very fabric of community life in what we now call Bay City. Boomfield originally compiled a massive list of around five hundred names that was narrowed down to a more manageable cross section of the architects of Bay City’s continued ascendance as a musical, commercial and cultural mecca in mid-Michigan.

The Introduction is a good read and sets the tone for the rest of the book. Bloomfield’s research is incredibly deep for such a modest volume of 125 pages. He begins with a modern description – “where the thumb meets the mitt of Michigan.” He characterizes Bay City as a small but vibrant city of 34,000 residents, in the middle of the top 100 cities in the state. He then steps back in time  to paint a picture in sepia tones describing Lower Saginaw (as Bay City was known in the 1830’s) as “swampy , mosquito infested  and prone to harsh winters and hungry wolves.” He writes about settlers like William R. McCormick who recorded much of the early history and folklore of the local Chippewa tribe. Bloomfield cited the rise of the lumber barns and the wealth of Henry Sage and John McGraw who reportedly owned the largest lumber mill in the world. Also during this time of explosive growth James Davison started the first wave of world-class shipbuilding.  He goes on to explain that during  the lumbering heyday there were five distinct villages that eventually  became the Bay City we know of today. The author segmented these brief historical sketches into seven chapters that included photos and narrative.

The first chapter provides an incredible body of old photographs, including a photo of a memorial dedication to honor the burial place of Chief Ogemaw, who was the Chief Speaker of the Chipewas at the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw. Chief David Shoppenagons was an equally intriguing figure in Bay City’s early history. He was a direct descendant Ojibwe (Chippewa)chiefs. He was so respected that a Masonic basedf organization was named in his honor. William McCormick was an early historian who chronicled the Native Americans oral traditions and created early written records and historical sketches of local pioneers. The visionary role of the Trombley family was given three full pages with period photographs. Other notables included Albert Miller who was a probate judge, justice of the peace, postmaster, and state legislator; James Shearer, a notable architect; Bay City Mayor George H. Shearer.

 

Chapter Two: Community Leaders

The author begins the chapter with a quote by William R. McCormick dating back to 1874 that speaks to the “unselfish spirit” of the pioneers who settled in the area. Early leaders included the Hon.Sydney Campbell (settler, business man, probate justice) , Oscar Baker (law), John Weadock (lawyer). Horace Tupper(MD). George Butterfield represented three generations of his family that became notable educators. Bob Traxler, James Barcia and Tom Hickner were noted for their contributions from the political arena

Chapter Three: Soldiers, Sailors, and Survivors

A quote sums up the tone of this chapter…

Hundreds sleep in our cities of the dead, whose achievements in war and peace equal and perhaps surpass these isolated service records, but these will suffice to preserve for the perusal of their surviving comrades, and as an indication to posterity of the character and service of the veterans we delight to honor

-Augustus Gansser, 1905

The author chronicles the heroism of our young men and women who served our country. It starts with a photo a Civil War Monument at Pine Ridge Cemetery and segues to series of old photographs  of several of our early heroes including;  Capt.  Augustus Ganseer who served in the Spanish-American War at San Juan Hill 1898,the 128^th Ambulance Company at Waco Texas in 1917, and Thelma Johnson, a tireless Red Cross volunteer from the Vietnam era in 1966.

Chapter Four: Business and Industry

In Chapter Four the author traces the decline and fall of the lumbering industry. The speculation about its decline began in the 1890’s and the post lumbering era of business and wealth went on unabated without a flinch or a blink of an eye. Defoe Shipbuilding ascended to the top of the throne along with Aladdin Homes Company, Sugar Production (Henry Vallez) and Carl Gladen’s toy and plastics company to name a few. Business was booming and many of the business leaders gave back to the community through their leadership and  good deeds, much like it is today with business both small and large. Peg and Paul Rowley had special mention as integral to the clarion call of the arts. They supported Studio 23, the Bay Arts Council, the Riverwalk pier, the Bay Music Foundation and the glorious State Theatre. The Rowleys led an exemplary life of giving and commitment. Their sixty year marriage defines love and commitment that transcends the ordinary.

 

Chapter Five: Musicians, Entertainers and Artists

My favorite chapter.  It begins with a tribute to the maestro Leo Najar and local musician Jerry Marcet. I met Leo Najar during the Remember the Child Project that involved local rock & roll legend Dick Wagner in collaboration with Najar’s Saginaw Symphony Orchestra. My friend Scott Seeburger organized this massive event that raised tens of thousands of dollars to organizations that fight child abuse and neglect. From that time on I chanced upon Leo on several occasions. He was open and honest, the real deal and a musical bohemian who would experiment freely with musical forms. A genius! Another notable performer is comedian/musician Harry Jarkey. I had seen him a few times during a few brief moment in the seventies when I was a Shriner. He was alright indeed. Of special note is the Burdons one of the greatest rock & roll bands from the Great Lake Bay region of Michigan. They formed back in 1981 and tore the town apart. They rocked hard and would combine elements of punk with pop songs.  They  had a sixth sense about music and they cultivated “sound.”  They could take a  cover song and make it their own whether it was Last Train to Clarksville by the  Monkees or What I Like About You from the Romantics catalog. There debut album, The Burdons, was a garage rock masterpiece. Hail to the Burdons!

Chapter Six: Sports Notables

The list includes Olympian athletes such as Doug Sharp (bobsled, 2002), and speed skaters Terry McDermott (1964) and Izzy Izykowski (2006). George “Kid” Lavigne was a world class lightweight champion. He earned the title in 1896. Not bad for a southpaw. Football was one of my favorite sports and Hi Becker from Bay City Handy and Elmer Engel from Bay City Handy were two of my favorite coaches along with Paul Nestor who took the helm for only one year at Arthur Hill (1967/68) and to this day comes back to Saginaw to meet with his team. These are men who set a level of excellence that few could ever duplicate. Art Dore is one of the great shaker and movers in mid-Michigan. I’ve met him several times and like his direct no nonsense approach to business and to his own life. He is a remarkable force of nature.

Chapter Seven: Community Figures

The final chapter pays tribute to community figures such as sisters Mary and Helen Macgregor who together gave 109 years to service to Bay City schools. Leo and Bette Jylha were radio pioneers. Leo was a radio engineer while Bette was an on air host doing programs like “The Stork Reporter” and engineered broadcasts of all-women big bands (which were popular during WWII). Leo became the general manager of WBCM from 1956 until his retirement in1973. Their son Eric also devoted his career to broadcasting. He filmed the Delta Pops Festival in 1969 which featured Michigan Rock Legends such as the Mc5, Bob Seger, The Stooges, Amboy Dukes and the Rationals. He worked as a disk Jockey and a news reporter for WSGW, WGER, WXOX and others before landing a gig as reporter and weekend anchor for WNEM TV-5. Eric is a one-of-a-kind talent with a quiet dignity and a homespun charm. He’s one of the best

This fine book is dedicated to the memory of Leo Najar and Jerry Marcet; can’t think of two people more deserving of such a loving tribute.

 

The Legendary Locals of Bay City is available at Barnes & Noble Bookstore

3311 Tittabawassee

Saginaw 48604

989-790-9214

 

Book Review - Gregg Allman. My Cross To Bear

Book Review

Greg Allman

My Cross to Bear

Greg Allman is a tried and true southern-bred hell-raising redneck hippie who scaled the heights of stardom only to fall precipitously from his ill-fitting pedestal. Allman is a throwback to the old rhythm and blues masters he emulated from Patti Labelle and Jackie Wilson to Otis Redding as well as blues legend Muddy Waters. Allman wasn’t built for superstardom. He often seemed more at home doing the Chitlin Circuit or letting others lead. Initially his brother was the leader and he wore the mantle without vanity or threat. He lead by example – and his instincts were always on the mark. After Duane’s death in 1972, Greg became the de-facto front man. It was an uneasy truce as the surviving Allman Brothers agreed to soldier on without naming the next leader. Greg’s incredibly soulful voice and down home compositions seemed to position him for a leadership role in the Allman Brothers  yet time and again Greg deferred to others – either management types  such as Phil Walden from Capricorn Records or musical partner Dickie Betts. Despite considerable obstacles such as death, drugs use, alcoholism, and infighting and even though the Allman Brothers disbanded (twice), their legacy continued. The brotherhood that was forged at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon Georgia in 1969 continues to this day, 43 years later.

September 2011 Greg Allman was code blue, bleeding inside, drowning in his own blood. He went to sleep and he dreamed an incredible dream. He heard beautiful music as he stood near a bridge. It was twilight and someone was on the other side of the bridge. He wasn’t motioning, he was just looking at Greg. The message was clear don’t come across the bridge. All Greg could see was a silhouette; it appeared to be his brother Duane. He was telling Greg not to cross the bridge.

It wasn’t his time yet.

Prologue; January 1995. The Allman Brothers are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Allman writes “It should have been the greatest week of my life but instead I hit an all-time low.” Allman admits that he was drunk during the entire Hall Of Fame week. He decided to enter a treatment center when the week concluded. On the way to the facility Allman loaded up with bottles of vodka, valium, and mini-bottles from the mini-bar in his hotel room. He entered rehab stoned out his gourd.

Allman owns up  to his lifetime addictions to almost any substance that could get him high – heroin, barbiturates, sedative/hypnotics, psychedelics such as  psilocybin, LSD, and peyote and perhaps the worst addiction of all – alcoholism. It was the bottle that rendered him almost recognizable on Lettermen during the week-long Rock & Roll Hall of Fame celebration.

So strap-in and get ready for one helluva ride. The story of Gregg Allman

Allman’s father Willie Turner Allman was murdered in 1949 when Greg was only two years old. His mother never remarried. Despite this early primal loss, Greg was scaffolded by a loving no nonsense mother and an extended family of grandparents, and uncles. Life in Nashville was fine but mother moved the family to Daytona Beach in 1959. Worth noting is the role of maternal grandfather. Alf was a bit of a lout – a drunk, a saloon rat.  Grandma divorced him and whenever she heard his name she would mutter shi…never quite saying shit. His grandfather made whiskey all his life, even sold it to the state police. He was a man of homespun wisdom. One time he took Greg aside and said, “there’s two things that get you in trouble and one of ‘ems your mouth.” Another time Alf let another one fly, “let me tell you about love. If I squeeze tighter and tighter on this ball, it might pop out of my hand. But if I keep a nice, easy grip, it’ll stay with me forever.” Greg was 5 years old.

The early part of the story is fascinating when Greg and older brother (by one year) Duane begin their career in music. They met Hank Moore, a cat with the hottest band in town. Hank Ballard and the Midnighters were his backup singers! The young Allman upstarts pooled their money and Moore came over to their house to teach them some “good music”. Moore told them of the importance of the bottom end as nobody wanted to play bass guitar in the Allman’s garage band. He took the young band through “Done Somebody Wrong.” It was life a life-altering epiphany. Greg could now see the structure of music. He got the baptism.

Allman’s first successful band was the Allman Joys. They were gaining ground despite the dismal recordings they were forced to make. They hadn’t found their sound yet. It was 1966 and they were only a few years from mega-stardom. But for now the country was embroiled in the Vietnam debacle and young men across the country were being drafted by the military. When Greg was called up, he decided to have a “foot-shooting party.” All of his friends were there. Everyone was drinking and Greg was ready to do it …except they didn’t have a gun… oops. They headed over to the other side of town, bought a Saturday night special and Greg completed the dirty deed. He was deferred.

The only other notable band in Daytona was the Nightcrawlers. There was some fierce competition between the two bands. For a brief moment the Nightcrawlers ascended to the top of the heap on the strength of their big national hit The Little Black Egg, a bubblegum masterpiece. The Allman Joys were finding their voice, playing old ethnic songs and the blues. One of the songs Trouble No More would eventually be recorded by the Allman Brothers band. The influences were coalescing. It was at this time that Greg wrote the rough outline for one of his most cherished songs, Melissa. It was during this formative period when Greg met John Loudermilk who wrote Tobacco Road, Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye and hundreds of other songs. Loudermilk taught Greg the process of songwriting. Greg talks about writing love songs that are more nuanced and poetic. He cites an article he read about Lauren Bacall and what it was like for her when Humphrey Bogart died, she said, “Well, one day I noticed I didn’t go up the stairs so fast.” It was vague, poetic – perfect.

The story picks up speed when Greg gifts Duane with the first Taj Mahal album with Jesse Ed Davis playing slide guitar.  Duane was hooked and became proficient almost immediately.  In March of 1969, Greg was in Los Angeles fulfilling contractual obligations (from the Hour Glass sessions) to Liberty Records. Duane called from Jacksonville instructing Greg to return to Florida. Now it gets hot. Duane hand-picked each of the members and he had a complete vision of their roles within the band – two drummers, two guitarists. It was an unusual formation envisioned by this 23 year old musical genius. At the time nobody realized just how gifted he was – a modern day Tchaikowsky

The classic lineup of the Allman Brothers is now in place, Greg is writing the first album and the band chips in to purchase him a brand spanking new 1969 B3 Hammond organ.  It cost $1,883 and another $1,295 for the 122RV Leslie.  According the Greg, the Hammond helped him finish Black Hearted Woman and Every Hungry Woman, Mountain Jam, Hoochie Coochie Man and others.  There is an unwritten law amongst musicians, “Don’t ride my Harley, don’t mess with my wife, and no, you can’t play with my Hammond.” Greg reveals that he learned to play a Vox organ from a laminated plastic card that read A, B, C, D, E, F, G and major, minor, augmented, third, ninth, fifth and there was a little picture in each block with red dot showing where your fingers go.

Naming the band was a big sticking point. Beelzebub (Greg’ idea) and something from Lord of the Rings was offered up but the four other musicians Dickie Betts, Butch Trucks, Jaimoe,  and Berry Oakley were had another idea. It was unanimous - the Allman Brothers.

Phil Walden was an experienced music broker that had been around the block more than a few times. He knew how to make a buck for his clients as well as for himself.  He managed both Percy Sledge and Otis Redding and they did quite well. The Allman Brothers were sitting ducks. He wooed them and won their trust. Right away he took 100% of the publishing - to cover expenses. Greg signed away his lucrative publishing rights to get his foot in the door. He didn’t like it but capitulated at the advice of his brother. The first album was released at the end of 1969 and reached #188 in the charts - an inauspicious debut to be sure. But the band soldiered on and gained momentum from their incredible performance at the Fillmore East in December that year. From that point on Bill Graham became a champion of the band and allowed them to play original compositions not just the Top 40 hits that most club owners required. In this context Greg learned to relax in the beauty of Idlewild South, a cabin in the woods (that also became the title of their second album) and create Midnight Rider, his own personal masterpiece.

Chapter Nine. Duane Allman died on October 29^th, 1971.He was only 24 year old. By all account Berry Oakley had a total collapse following Duane’s death. Greg said, Berry Oakley’s life ended when my brother’s life did. He died a bout year after Duane on November 11^th, 1972. It I said that Oakley crashed his bike straight head first into a bus, on purpose. He was drunk when it happened but he would not get into the ambulance. Instead he went back to the Big House, the communal house of the Allman Brothers Band and later died of a brain hemorrhage.

Allman talks frankly of his problems with women. He was married six times and has fathered six children, one with each of his wives. Cher was the most famous spouse and they stuck it out for three years. He credits his last wife, Stacey Fountain, for saving his life by helping him gain long lasting sobriety and helping him through his battle with Hepatitis C.

Allman recalls the several reunion tours, all of which were successful and all of which failed to keep the Allman Brothers from imploding. Alcohol and drugs were always at the bottom of the misdeeds of the band members. This is what led to Dickie Betts to leave the Allman Brothers acrimoniously and permanently.

Allman describes a successful solo career based on his great catalog of music especially the terrific I’m No Angel – a great song and the title of his solid gold LP.

In 2006, Allman’s health deteriorated and Dr. Ira Jacobson, a hepatologist determined that a pot on his liver was cancerous. In 2010, Allman underwent a successful transplant. A few months after the transplant, an LP Allman had been recording was finally released under the title Low Country and it ended up at No. 5 on the charts with a bullet. And to top it off the Grammy organization gave the Allman Brothers a Lifetime Achievement Award.

To this day Allman continues to record and perform solo shows a well as performances with the Allman Brothers. It is his destiny.

Beach Boys 50th Anniversary Tour

The Beach Boys 50^th Anniversary Tour

Join Together With the Band

The Beach Boys 2012 are…

·         Brian Wilson lead vocals, harmony vocals, keyboards

·         Mike Love lead & backing vocals

·         Al Jardine lead and backing vocals, guitar

·         Bruce Johnston lead and backing vocals, keyboards

·         David Marx  vocals, guitars

The era of the Beach Boys seemed end with the deaths of Dennis & Carl Wilson and the ongoing conflict between the surviving members especially singer Mike Love and guiding genius Brian Wilson. The new millennium found Brian creating new music and touring with a hot shot band; Al Jardine toured with Beach Boys family & Friends (with Brian’s daughters Wendy and Carnie Wilson) while Mike Love took control of the Beach Boys name and toured the country with long time singer/keyboardist Bruce Johnston and a crew of anonymous sidemen. This proved to be the creative nadir for the Beach Boys. By the first decade of the new millennium Brian would return to the studio to piece back together the broken template of his lost masterpiece Smile. By the end of 2011 there were whispers about a reunion between Brian and his former mates. Mike and Brian were talking again. The Beach Boys agreed to bring all the original surviving members back into the fold and create beautiful sounds once again.

Al Jardine agreed to an interview with Review Magazine. It was great fun. Here it is…

Al, I really appreciate your doing this interview. In the mid-70s many Beach Band Boys fans felt you had the best voice in the band. I thought so. Oh yeah, the strong tenor that you’ve got. You never lose pitch. Did you see yourself as a great singer in comparison to the other guys in the band like Carl?

Oh, well thank you. I didn’t have the best voice, it was always Brian. He taught us all how to sing and would lead us through vocal exercises. Just the other day at the concert we did at Tampa Bay, a few days ago was it? Brian looked down at me and he said, “Your voice has gotten a lot stronger.” I looked over and said, “Yours has too” - which is nice that we recognized the strengths in each other.

 I remember when, I saw you a lot in the ‘70s at Pine Knob and you sang a lot of leads that you didn’t sing on record, like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”

Yeah, in fact we’re doing that tonight.

 That’s a beautiful song, and you were just perfect with it. It seemed to me that in the ‘70s right around the Holland release that the band sounded just spectacular on stage, and your singing was wonderful, “California Saga.” was magnificent. What’s your opinion of that era for the Beach Boys, the ‘70s?

That was the ripe era of creation. Brian had slacked off a little, you know, on his composing duties, producing anyway. So we all filled, you know, the vacuum a little bit with our compositions. It was a great time to experiment, and when we were in Holland during the Holland album we had an opportunity to stretch out a little, and Brian shared the spotlight with us, so it was kind of nice.

When I heard you live I heard you sing lead on Heroes and Villains, Help Me Rhonda and Break Away?

Yeah, yeah I did sing those songs live and also I gave the lead to California Saga to Mike on the Holland album, but I have my own album out now, so I’ve reprised it and I’m singing the lead with Neil Young.

 I have your new album – Postcard From California. I might as well go to that question then. I really loved the title track Ode to California – it was quiet and cool and I heard Brian’s bootleg versions of California Feeling. You really reimagined California Saga. It’s stunning to me, and “Help Me Rhonda” is just great of course.

Yeah.

I don’t know. It was a wonderful piece of music, this CD, and it’s suggested that there was a real vibe between you and the guest singers. Do you agree to that, that it really was a close-knit family on this?

I was so lucky to have those guys. Amazing to have the likes of David Frost, Neil Young, Peter Sills, Alec Baldwin on there even. The Beach Boys sang “Down By The Sea,” and it’s just such an honor to have them on this project. Brian’s great in “California Feelin” which I always loved that tune that he wrote. There are a lot of great singers and players like… Steven Stills, Glen Campbell, Steve Miller and Brian Wilson - holy cow! I’m honored to have them on there, and thanks for asking.

Yeah. How’s the response been so far? I think it’s just a great album. You’ve been getting some notice, has it been reported in the press and stuff?

Oh yeah, we’re getting great reviews. Great reviews, and with the Beach Boy album coming out, Ernie’s going to help. I think they’ll help each other, you know. They’ll kind of give each other a kick in the pants. This new Beach Boy album is pretty damn good too. I’m looking forward to that one. There are some great moments on there, and Brian is reaching into his creative pocket and he pulled out some real beauties. Gives me that soft feeling, you know?

Oh yeah. Are you singing some leads on that one, on the new one?

I am actually, yeah, thanks for asking. There’s one called “There and Back Again,” and I don’t know where it is on the album. Yeah, I’ll be honest with you. I have not heard the album. I’ve only been in for my vocals and I totally gave my time and energy to just doing the vocal parts that were needed, but I ended up singing the lead on this one, and I’m very proud of it. It’s a beautiful, beautiful piece of music. Sometimes you’re the last to know.

Your most precious instrument is your voice. How do you keep it limber so you retain your pitch? You must exercise it.

Actually I don’t. Carl and Steve Miller became good friends, and Steve Miller gave Carl a warm-up tape, and then Carl used it religiously until the day he stopped singing, you know, with us. I couldn’t ever quite justify warming up like that because I thought it might wear my voice out, psychologically. Although Carl thrived on it, and Steve does to this very day. He still warms up with that damn tape. I just try to talk during the day and warm my voice up and hopefully my singing voice appears in the evening. That’s about all I do.

So there’s no trick that you use?

Well, I avoid salt. That is a trick. I found that salt is a killer to the voice.

No kidding.

Yeah. It just absolutely totally wrecks your voice, and coffee dehydrates you, and those two things are very important to avoid if possible.

Do you use things like honey and tea to soothe your vocal cords or…

Nah, it doesn’t help, but psychologically it does because it’s something warm in your throat, especially during a concert I like to have my lemon and honey and tea right there, but the truth is it really doesn’t make much…just a psychological edge. Yeah, I like having lemon and honey on my amp. George, our musical director, has a big bag of Ricola that we eat like candy. But this is sugar-free Ricola. Yeah, and it’s lemon-flavored. Incredible. And it’s really a nice way to not coat the throat.

I was going to ask you, I don’t know if you’d like this question, but you know when I heard you guys in the ‘70s and music kind of changed, and you had so many great singers with several octave ranges and Mike Love seemed to be less, except for the hits at the end of some of the shows, and I wondered if that caused some conflict at the time.

Mike’s got the best of all gigs. He’s a lead singer with a great baritone. When he’s not singing lead, he can shift down to that great air pump. He can just riff, he can riff, and actually complement any song we do with that baritone. So, he’s always doing something. He probably has the best baritone in the whole business. He does the little surfing riffs, you know the bop, bop…But he can do a lot of other vocal things, he’s very musical.  He has a very musical voice.

I wanted to ask your thoughts about the 10-disk box set of the Legendary Smile LP. Do you have any particular thoughts you’d like to share about that LP and your role in the project?

Well that was an experiment and that would have been considered a chemistry experiment I used to call it, you know, living in that time period because Brian and Van Dyke were always doing acid, you know. So they were in a world of their own, and we were simply basically the instrument of that era. You know, we’d go in and experiment with not only the drugs but with our voices. It was pretty tough for me to be straight during that time. I was the straight-laced one, Bruce and myself, and Mike for that matter. It was kind of tough being sober.

Did you have many lead vocals in “Smile?”  

Oh yeah, they were all over the sessions. Well, there weren’t very many complete songs. I did the lead vocal on Heroes and Villains on the single, the single version. Oh wait, wait, wait. Brian did the verses, I did the chorus. That’s the way it was on the single. In the “Smile” sessions Brian did it all, but I like the “Smile” version a lot better than the Smiley Smile release. The production cost a lot more to complete, you know. I prefer that…I don’t really enjoy the “Smile sessions.” They were hard to do. There was a lot of work and a lot of burning the midnight oil, you might say. But all in all, it’s a pretty remarkable thing, particularly the complete songs, you know “Cabin Essence”…I loved that one, “Heroes and Villains,” “Still Water.”  I don’t know…and “My Only Sunshine” is my absolute favorite. I would love to do that on stage. I keep forgetting to ask Brian, but I’m going to ask if he’ll do it this time around

 You dug pretty deep during the seventies you were doing Feel Flows from the Surfs Up album

Yeah, Carl did that. “Feel Flows” is fantastic. “Traitor” and “Feel Flows.” Those two are my favorites along with…I can’t remember the title. I don’t know why I’m blanking out on the title. I can’t remember the title, isn’t that funny? (Jardine sings lyrics)

Well, at least I’m getting you to sing. That’s cool. I wanted to ask you about those great albums, “Beach Boys,”  “Today,” “Sunflower,” “Pet Sounds,” “Surf’s Up,” but I thought “Holland” was just exquisite and an exceptional piece of music. Long Promised Road was on “Surf’s Up?”

“Surf’s Up,” yep. Yeah, that’s the one I was trying to remember.  “Holland” was a piece of work. We had to go overseas to do that. It was very hard on us.

It was a great album.

A great album, but the big hit on it was “Sail On, Sailor,” and we made that in Los Angeles. We came home and added that to the album. Brian sings that on stage now, by the way.

Oh, he does? I never heard him do it. I always thought “California Saga” was just a masterpiece.

Oh really? Thank you.

Yeah, the music is layered, an assortment of instruments. It appears like there’s a pedal steel in there somewhere giving it some phrasing.

“California Saga Suite” -  it’s often referred to as “California Suite,” had nice moments on it. The form, a lot of people don’t like the form. I don’t blame them because it’s too long-winded. I was in my Big Sur modality at the time, so…they should have edited the form down, but I felt like it wouldn’t have been appropriate, but I should’ve.

How did it all come to you? What was your inspiration for “California Saga?”

I was homesick, just really home sick  - I wanted to come home, so you start thinking about stuff like that. You get very creative when you have nothing else to do. Actually I read Robinson Jeffers, the poet, I read some of his work. That one seemed to fit. Then “Saga,” I wrote that in Big Sur, and then Mike Love wrote the Big Sur part of the song which ironically - he didn’t even live there, but we must have had some kind of connection, something deep going on.

Well, I bought a couple of copies of the 1973 In Concert, LP, and I saw you many times during that era. Did you feel that that album captured it for the band?

That was a pretty good one. That was an excellent, I thought that was an excellent characterization of that band. The ‘70s band was probably the best one. The ‘70s band was a really great band. Yeah, and I’m going to have to hang up now. I’ve got another interview to do.

Al, it was so good talking to you. I wish you the best. I’m going to be doing press at Bonnaroo. I hope I see you there.

Oh good, if you have a press pass you can come back and say hi.

Bruce Johnston called in and agreed to add a little color to the conversation. Smile…

 I’d like to go back in time to your early work with Terry Melcher, Gary Usher when you created such incredible music  such as “Summer Means Fun  - my favorite summer song of all time and the  “My World Fell Down. “ I love these songs. How do you remember these songs? Do you see them as forgotten masterpieces?

No, I don’t think you can say they are masterpieces…sometimes when you’re around so long you think, you know, if you slam the door loud enough it’s a masterpiece. I think it’s just good work. It’s non-Beach Boys and the Beach Boys music totally trumps those two records that are from my younger days.

I loved your LP too, “Going Public,” and all those great songs, and I wonder if you saw it as a satisfying project?

I’d say the only music that’s really satisfied me, is satisfying for me is in the Beach Boy World in terms of albums. As a writer, I do other stuff, but you know… I tried solo. I was disappointed, mostly in me. But not when I get to sing with all the Beach Boys. With this new single out called “That’s Why God Made the Radio.” We can’t wait to play it.

Oh yeah, I heard it. Very Nice!

We, all of us love it. We think it’s really cool. I don’t know if it’s a hit, but it sure sounds good to me.

You performed Disney Girls in concert in the ’70s

We’re doing it again now, too. With Brian singing “Please Let Me Wonder,” which is killing me every night, it’s so good even though it was on the flip side in the single “Do You Wanna Dance?” It’s just a killer song that Mike and I wrote. It’s great. It’s really a cool song.

What’s your most satisfying role in the Beach Boys? You have a contribution that…what makes them come back for more?

My role in the band was, I think I’m a comforting guy, I make people laugh, I  help pace the show and I sing on key.

What’s the Beach Boys most notable legacy in your eyes?

Well you know, it’s funny… it’s like a vocal Disney World which has all the brilliance of Brian Wilson’s mind and you can still see it and hear it live, besides being able to download all those great Beach Boy’s  albums and all that other stuff. So it’s pretty good, satisfying. Since you’re a Michigan guy, I went to Interlochen.  You know about the music camp?

I sure do.

It’s a year-around school, oh my God. Jesse Rubin went there. A lot of people went there. I was in the class of ’55 and was recently given an alumni honoree award. We played in Michigan, coming out to what used to be Pine Knob, and they changed the name 80 times, so here we are coming to Michigan again!

 What got you to decide to get past all the obstacles to do this, to engage in the 50^th anniversary tour?

The new songs, to get to do music together as the Beach Boys, the friendship, trust, anything you read in the paper that’s negative. So here we are. 

You know, Jeff Tamarkin is a noted reviewer, you probably know him anyway, but he says that Love and the rest of the band are singing their asses off on tour. How does it feel to be in the pocket?

It’s nice to know you’re still doing cool things after all these years. I have some great fans that are going to take pictures. That was very nice. Thanks for asking. It means a lot to me.

You’ve had some great reviews so far. What do you think?

I think the reviews were honest reviews because everybody did the best they know how, and everybody’s such a pro, it worked.

How do you keep your voice up? Do you have any tricks or what?

I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I never took drugs, and I get plenty of sleep. I’m like my dog. I don’t realize I’m 108 years old.

What do you think, what is the highlight of your career so far when you think back on the life with the Beach Boys?

Getting to work with the guys I’ve grown up with – it’s a great environment. Being with Brian Wilson is like hanging out with Sergei Rachmaninoff. He has a ton of skill and on all levels he’s a quadruple threat but he is not threatened. Well you know what I mean?

The Meat Puppets Rugged Legacy

Curt Kirkwood Speaks Out

 

Curt Kirkwood came of age during the insidious lull of 1980. It proved to be a prophetic year. Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. John Lennon was assassinated, Mount St. Helens erupted and the Meat Puppets were born. Curt is the singer and focal point of the band and remains its center of gravity.  Brother-other Cris Kirkwood gives the band its soul. He is a songwriter and an extraordinary musician. They give sibling rivalry a darker hue almost as wickedly contrary as Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis. The Meat Puppets started out as a punk band but quickly shed that label by choosing an eclectic and unique blend of rock & roll, country punk and psychedelia. They gained a lifetime’s notoriety by sitting in as guest musicians on Nirvana’s triumphant performance on MTV Unplugged in 1993. Their 1994 masterpiece Too High To Die, produced by the Butthole Surfers, gave them even greater respect with the rock cognoscenti. The Meat Puppets had their share of success as well as soul numbing hardship including struggles with addiction, violence and imprisonment. They have broken up twice and reunited for good in 2006. The Meat Puppets thirteenth album Lollipop was released on April 12^th, 2011 and they went on a spring tour of Europe. It is the Meat Puppet’s stubborn individuality that makes them unpredictable – a cause of frustration to fans and critics alike.  In the glow of a long career and the wisdom of time, Curt Kirkwood is focused on those things that matter most to him love and family…and music

You’ve had a long storied 30 career and you’ve had a lot of success along with the downside of the business. What keeps you going?

I just love doing it, its fun. Probably sometimes out of the clear blue, you know, but it’s lasted. It has its own strange life, apparently.

I remember reading about the early days in this cow-punk term that seems to be used a lot lately, but it sounded like it was derived from your early stuff. Is it?

Yeah, I guess there’s all kinds of stuff that we’ve done, and people turn on to certain things about it, just to be fair to the band overall. It’s pretty hard to pigeon-hole it outside and say it’s just a rock band, you know, more or less. I don’t know, sometimes more than others there’ve been elements of country but there’s nothing that’s ever been a particular focus. In terms of early influences, there are all those musical forms that I grew up with, listening to live music and the radio.

 You’re really an inventive guitarist who’s not afraid to take risks. You can do so many things from Don Rich-like country to hard rockin’ metal. I just wondered how you developed your unique and eclectic guitar style. Who inspired you? Did you take lessons?

Thanks for the compliment. That’s good question – I loved the Buckaroos and you know, Scotty Moore was also inspiring. I took some lessons for sure. I took lessons early on from a guy that taught classical guitar and a kind of flamenco style and I met some guys that taught me several chords - Jimmy Reed style and guys like Wes Montgomery and Bobby Kessel. Well, that was pretty early on. I was never very motivated in school and the teachers used to give me a lot of crap, you know. So I just started hanging out with people and we started playing the music - that was later in high school and I was kind of rusty but I could like play guitar when everybody else was just starting to learn how to play guitar. I spent a number of years learning the craft, and it was pretty easy to pick it up. But it took me a good number of years before I was comfortable with it.

Who has influenced you musically influence you musically

Nirvana influenced us – their take on our song Lake of Fire was just phenomenal. Nirvana influenced everybody, for sure. The Butthole Surfers are a big influence. I mean I just always loved them. I don’t know how much I’ve gotten, although for sure. It’s hard to tell because those guy s were so long, and it’s just like you know, when you’re close to people that way, it’s hard to tell how much you’re getting off of them.  The people I’ve known longest were in that type of band.

What was it like when you felt the first flush of fame in the 90s? Did that turn your head?

Not really ‘because you can see what it is. When the topic is brought up, it doesn’t make that much difference. You’re still being in music one way or the other. It’s kind of funny to see the fame from the outside. From the inside, you’re still just playin’ music and dealin’ with yourself and the same life. It’s just your life as you’ve been living it. You can only eat so much good food and that kind of stuff. That’s how it becomes. Here is the whole idea of money and the inconvenience of fame, but it’s also fun.

What’s your relationship been like with the record labels? You’ve recorded on a few different labels and now the Mega Force label. Were they forthcoming with royalties and support, artistic freedom?

 I don’t have any complaints in all the places where it counted... I never have. It’s all been real easy, you know. Everybody has different stories, for sure, and you know, we had a real logical progression from indie labels to a major label. The big studios never told us what to record. They just made sure that we stuck to doing it in a cool way that they could get behind which was just getting us used to spending more money than we were used to. The might say, “Go ahead, you can do that, take your time,” and blah-blah. Our producers were all wonderful - it was all great fun. I’ve had a good time with them. Mega Force is great. 

 You released a bunch of studio albums, like 13 or so. Do you have any favorites in particular?

Oh, you know that stuff changes all the time. It just depends on what I’m listening to at the time. I listen to some of those old LPs and I just hear the words and I remember the recording process. I just hear them in different ways. It’s always been hard for me to say that this one is my favorite or that one really stands out. I just put a lot into each one. What I see in them is kind of what I put into them.

Did “Too High To Die” take a particular warm spot in your heart because it started you down that road of wider recognition?

It’s believed I was responsible for the success of that LP but it was really Paul Leery (the producer).  It was a project that we really had a lot of confidence in and we had little support from the label at the time as they weren’t sure how we should proceed. Once we started recording with Paul, it became a career and it was the first time when we’d been just handed a major label budget where everything we needed was all included. So here we all are with a good budget. Its like, “Oh, okay. Cool.” We made the album the way that we kind of felt it should be made, you know, but we also paid attention to this other stuff ‘cause we got money. Yeah, it was rough. It’s hard. I spent a long time in Memphis doing this recording and it was just a tremendous experience.

Do you have a particular producer or engineer that you really liked, that you worked with and you found them to be especially gifted?

I have just been lucky. I haven’t jumped around a whole lot, stayed in one spot. We started with the SSG label and then Steven Stalia and Paul Straight. Paul’s brother, Stuart was our engineer on “Too Young To Die” - and that was awesome. We got to work with Peter Dell at Capitol. He was amazing. He really got us to where we wanted to be. So we’ve been a bit lucky. I haven’t spent a lot of time in studios unless I’m making a record. That’s the thing. I got to focus on what I got goin’ on there and incorporate whatever aspects there were. It all becomes part of the overall theme.

I really like the country feel of Lollipop with those tight, close harmonies. You even include a cool rock-a-billy song in on it (Baby Don’t).  Do you think it’s a musical departure?

Well, you know the first song on that I wrote in probably ’83, and there’s stuff from all over the place on there. The music is related to certain things, you know. Some of it sounds a little bit like a solo record, something with Pete Anderson. I think it gets a little bit more of an acoustic vibe off of that. It probably started out as an acoustic thing, and we tried to make sure that we didn’t overwhelm the sound when we cut the original tracks with the acoustic guitar.

I think you’re an excellent song writer and you had some far-out lyrics from time to time. Do you write from a personal perspective? Does that resonate with you or make the songs more precious to you?

You know, I just like the songs. It’s cool when they come up and remember them and you know, I’ve been lucky that I can write songs because it kind of makes me feel like I have, you know, whatever my personal perspective is, that life experience. I’m generally happy with that. I kind of make sure it gets in there somehow, but mostly I’m just having fun with it. You know, I try to come up with a little bit of a different angle just for myself so it didn’t sound like somebody else very time I wrote something. I tried to come up with just whatever, you know, made it personal. We just didn’t lay a thing in it. You know? Then I just have kind of had fun with it, the stuff that seems to fit with the music and you know, it’s cool to get outside yourself that way. I’ve written plenty of stuff like “this is how I feel,” but a lot of times I end up editing it where you can’t really tell what’s going on. I’ve always looked at it like okay, you’ve got theses thoughts and all this different stuff, and it’s also fun to put it in a way that it’s like, you now, where it’s not so direct. That way it sometimes leads to even further interpretations, and people can make what they want out of it. It’s making sense, but it’s not nonsense necessarily, but it’s coming from the basis that we really use just art, and it’s the real thing, whatever emotion. Art tends to be more than that, more than emotions.

.

How did you happen to name the new LP Lollipop?

The way the album cover started to come out, we started to think that it would be a good album cover and then we thought that we needed to call it “Lollipop” because those were two things that needed to get done, and they just kind of got them simultaneously. It’s like the song goes with the title and then we just proceed like that. So it’ really doesn’t have any meaning beyond that. We just saw that painting, and it was like, “Oh, Lollipop.”

As you’re out touring, are your fans listening to the new stuff or are they clamoring for the older stuff, like “Backwater Like a Dream?”  

They always like the old stuff, for sure. You know, you just slip new stuff in over the years. It just depends on what we want to do. It’s definitely something where we have enough throughout the years to where we can play a few songs and do stuff that they don’t know, and people are patient. The crowds have always been nice that way.

Do you have any surprises in the set list for Saginaw?

I think there are always surprises. I mean they are really only surprises if they’re surprises to me. I’m sure there will be. I’ll allow for just about any. We really don’t have a set list, so you never know what you’re going to get. Something will pop into somebody’s mind at one point and we all concede to it. It happens real fast. It happens between friends.

You know, somebody is thinking, “Well, I want to play a slower song or something like that. They wont’ say much, just something like “Somethin’ slower.”

What do you believe to be your greatest accomplishment?

You know, I would have to say I’m old fashioned. I really love my kids. That’s where I’ve been at for years and years, and my greatest thing has been Scott. You know I love my band. It goes without saying that it’s a great accomplishment to have a cool band like this. And my private life for sure. My private life has been very rewarding. I have a couple of great kids. That’s been the thing that kept me focused in a lot of ways.

You know I was going to ask a question. This is just for me, I guess, because I was such a big fan of Doug Sam, and “She’s about a Mover” and “Mendocino.” I had all his early vinyl albums and Texas Tornado and stuff. Here you got his son in the band. You know, I think that’s really cool. Do Shandon Sam and that lineage have an influence on the band?

Without a question. You know, that’s pretty direct right there. You could talk to Shandon, and he’d fill up a good amount of your time. He knows as much as anybody does about Doug. It was just coincidental that Shandon was Doug’s kid. He knows how to do that stuff, you know. He plays Doug’s songs. Doug was a good friend and an inspiration to us all.

 Do you have any last comments?

I am really looking forward to coming to Saginaw. I know a good number of people in the area, and I think they’re really into it. It’s a strange homecoming to a place that I’ve never been. It should be pretty cool.

Book Review - Life by Keith Richards

Life
Keith Richards

It seems unnecessary for an unknown peripatetic hack to review a book released in May of 2010, especially a blockbuster universally acclaimed by all of the big name publishers like the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone Magazine, Time, the New Yorker and all the rags from Washington to San Francisco. I do not for a minute believe I can add anything relevant to the discussion of Keith Richards spectacular autobiographical sketches about his life and times as a rock & roll superstar. I just need to do this. Like a voyeur peeking through a window I’m driven by a need to learn the naked truth about the rock & roll I’ve clung to for most of my life. Perhaps the adventures and foibles of Keith Richards would reveal a truth about myself and answer a question about why on earth would such a simple art form resonate so deeply with me for most of my adult life.
The first chapter forgoes the typical biographical beginnings. Instead of getting a glimpse of Keith when he was only a gleam in father’s eyes, Richards takes us back to 1975 to Fordyce Arkansas and an infamous cocaine bust by the local authorities. This was the age of hopefulness led by President Jimmy Carter. The Nixon/Hoover axis of paranoia was gradually declining in America. The conditions were right for Keith to get off without much of a penalty in this almost surreal keystone cop comedy of errors that included a drunken judge, an enraged police chief, a bag filled with $5000 cash, and worldwide TV coverage. In the end the Judge ordered that Keith and Ronnie wood hold a press conference with their arms around the judge, Case closed; a classic outcome.
The book shifts back to Richards’ early life growing up in the Dartford marshes in England with his quirky yet loveable parents Bert and Doris. Richards readily admits that his childhood experiences were a bit different. He was an only child and his parent broke up quietly as mom took on a live-in lover. Bert eventually left and Keith transformed himself from a choirboy to a school rebel. He was expelled from Dartford High School for smoking, ditching the graduation assembly and simply not doing his work. In an unlikely turn of events Richards befriended an art instructor to help him enroll in Sidcup Art College. The seeds were set for Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones.
The book starts picking up steam in Chapter 3 when Keith meets Mick, Brian Jones, and Dick Taylor (the Pretty Things) and they share their love for American blues and rock & roll. These young upstarts had a purist attitude and approach to music that served them well in terms of the immense learning curve that awaited them.
In 1962, the blues scene was in full swing. One of the biggest groups at the time was led by Alexis Korner. They were booked to do a BBC broadcast on July 12th, 1962 and asked Keith if he could fill in for him at the Marquee Club. This was an historic first performance of the Rolling stones with core members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones with Dick Taylor on bass and Mick Avory (The Kinks) on drums. They did several blues classics including Dust my broom, got My Mojo Working, and Confessin’ the Blues. Richards’ characterized the experience as “flying without a license.”
Richards had the foresight to keep detailed journals throughout his career with the Stones. He also asked family and friends to contribute the correspondence between them to help flesh out the story of his life , to recapture the memory of successes and near misses as well as his unrepentant ironic writing style. His humor and whimsy are supple, dark and laugh out loud funny. It gives the reader the sense that you’re sitting in the kitchen with Keith just lazy talking the truth. We also find out that Richards famous nickname Keef appeared at this time (1963).
The pace accelerates in 1964 when the Stones hook up with Andrew Loog Oldham. Initially and oddly enough, Oldham wanted to remake the stones in the Beatles image – no long haired dirty, rude rock & roll ruffians. This lasted exactly one time, an appearance on Thank Your Lucky Stars, after that the stones embraced the dharma of the unclean rock & roller. In 1964 they released a series of popish ballads Not fade Away, Tell Me, Play With Fire. An American tour was set up and Keith Richards met one of the loves of his life - Ronnie Spector. It was a soul-deep relationship that endured years apart and distance between. They even recorded a song together on 9/11 entitled Love Affair. Richards describes the explosion of creativity within the Stones camp from 1964-66, culminating in the incredible LP Aftermath. He gives Jack Nitzsche credit for his talent, ideas and “enormous importance” at this stage in the Stones career. Then came “Satisfaction” – it elevated the Rolling Stones to Beatlesque superstardom. Mick wrote the lyrics and Richards created the famous riff using a Gibson fuzz tone pedal. Keith revealed that for years he had difficulty playing Satisfaction onstage. He felt that he could never get the sound quite right, it sounded “weedy.”
In 1965, Oldham left and Allen Klein began to manage the Stones career. It worked quite nicely at first with Klein exploiting the Stones “hoodlum” image as a sharp contrast to the clean “mummy’s favorites’ Beatles. Both images were manufactured and both were false. Richards compares the relationship between Klein and the Stones to the micro-management of Elvis by Colonel Tom Parker.
Richards spends some time giving Brian Jones his due – his musicality i.e., the marimbas on Under My Thumb ,the sitar on Paint it Black and so on. But he also minimized Brian’s role in the formation of the band. Other sources close to the band have consistently reported that Jones was the leader of the Rolling Stones in their formative years. He also confirmed his opinion that Mick Jagger is a world class lyricist. I agree.
One of the most interesting segments in the book are the ones that focus on the Stones music and creative process, Richards provides a fascinating discussion about the open tuning method whereby a guitar is simply pre-tuned to a ready-made major chord. He learned this technique from Don Everly (The Everly Brothers) , an adept rhythm guitarist, who used open tuning on Wake Up Little Susie and Bye Bye Love. Ry Cooder showed Richards the open G tuning (though it was used almost exclusively for slide guitar). Richards fiddled with it for a while until he felt constricted by the bottom string, it seemed to just “get in the way.” So he took it off and used the fifth string (the A string) as the bottom note. He states “The beauty, the majesty of the five-string open G tuning for an electric guitar is that you’ve only got three notes – the other two are repetitions of each other an octave apart.” Keith’s discovery is responsible for the sound he created in Honky Tonk Women, Start Me Up, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking and other great Stones songs. In fact, those fans who grouse that the Stones haven’t created an original riff in years are right, at least partially. It’s all due to Richards’ open tuning style.
Richards wrote in length about the Stones’ infamous 1972 Exile on Main Street Tour. It was an incredible success musically despite the excessive use of drugs and alcohol. I had tickets to the Detroit show and was eagerly anticipating it. I had never seen them live and from Beggars Banquet onward I was a quietly devoted fan. But it was Let it Bleed and Exile on Main Street that took me over the edge of rabid fandom. I became a true believer. Unfortunately, I contracted a serious case of mononucleosis. I was in bed for several weeks and lost 25lbs. When my friends came back from the concert, I asked them if they liked the show. They responded, “Best show we’ve ever seen.”
Bastards
Richards recalled a life that had unparalleled ups and downs - dreamy love excursions to Paris, Barcelona, Tangiers, Morocco as well as times spent addicted and shivering in a drug shack and resorting to the use of dirty street drugs. He talks about his intense and passionate relationship with Anita Pallenberg and a nightmarish ending that they both survived, somehow. For Rolling Stones aficionados these love stories may seem like turning down a side street and getting momentarily lost. It is a bit less interesting than the real love story in this tome – the Jagger/Richards relationship. Richard’s criticisms of Jagger are venomous, viscous as if a core wound cut a deep chasm between unfaithful lovers. It is a story about a deep unresolved love. Richards ambivalence toward Jagger runs throughout the book. He seems confused by his own tangle of complex feelings of love and betrayal. But then, Richards also defends Jagger, vowing he would never allow anyone hurt his dear friend, he’s rather do it himself (nudge, nudge). He also hints at a rapprochement, a resolution of the conflict between them.
One the eve of the Rolling Stones 50th year together, the Stones camp is talking about the possibility of an extended tour. I’ll be there
In the meantime, buy this book. It’s one of the most honest and detailed rock & roll biographies I’ve ever read. It is a page turner of the first degree.

Peace
Bo White

The Tosspints - An Irish Red Ruckus

The Tosspints

An Irish Red Ruckus
&
The Fear Of An Empty Glass

It isn’t everyday that one band emerges out of the pack to lead a cultural change that is as astonishing as it is necessary. The Tosspints have been an integral part of the water clock bringing ancient sounds and stories back to the future in perfect calibration with our innate need to hear music and feel rhythm. The Tosspints create music of beauty and discord; love and pain. It is real like a punch in the face or a deep shudder in your solar plexus after chugging a pint of Guinness. It hurts but you like it. Their current disc Cenosillicaphobia is being released on CD and vinyl! Retro is now and vinyl LPs are making a comeback. Thank god we came back to our senses and returned to the sound of music - analog rules! We found out that CD’s don’t have the rich warm sound of vinyl nor do they hold up very well. This time around the Tosspints do not hold back anything,. The medium is the message and punk has a way of cutting to the chase whether is love and infidelity or death and despair. The anti-war sentiments fashioned by Don Zuzula are brutally honest. Zuzula served in the military and he knows only too well the costs of conflict. He was stationed in Iraq and he saw it all. War is hell and war is horrifying and it seems that his sense of humor kept him balanced between stillness and action. It was a form of Zuzula’s alternate rebellion when he painted “No Fat Girls” on his truck when the rest of the caravan painted slogans like “Death to Saddam” or “Kill Al Quaeda.” It was genius threefold. It was a way to survive, to find meaning in suffering.

The first track Drunken Ramblings of a Jealous Man grabs you right at the start with a galloping beat and a cracked whiskey voice. It’s almost as if Zuzula is talking with you at the kitchen table - only the pain is too big and the words are unspoken. He sings about life on the road - drinking himself to sleep and performing to crowds that don’t always get it. He gets by with “bloodstains on my fingers; teardrops from my eyes. This is a song of infidelity and an impulse to murder. The despair is indelibly stamped and there is no satisfying conclusion to the betrayal. Zuzula ends the song with a powerful accapella reading

Whiskey Be My Savior is outrageous high energy rock that owes as much to the Sex Pistols as it does to the Dropkick Murphys. The influences converge to create a perfect storm of combustible booze-filled Punk. It is a Dionysian dream of excess and consumption. In this bleary vision Zuzula is suckling from a toxic breast. He sings, “the only time I feel death is when my bottle’s empty.” It is sung as a mantra for numbness. It is a dissociative response to a life dissolved by pain and self-destruction. Many of us have been there. Zuzula is standing outside the pain and observing his own mastery over it

The third track, Don’t Cry at My Funeral, has an honest unflinching fatalism. It’s an existential horror to discover that your life did not matter. This is a punked up working man’s blues that evokes visions of filthy back breaking and mind numbing work for paltry wages. It can kill your soul. You work for the man and die quietly without fanfare. There is nothing to mourn. The speeded up breakneck tempo mirrors the workaday bustle that robs you of all the sparkle life can offer. The insurance man talks you into a policy and in the heaviness of an unrelenting ennui you realize your passion and taste for life are gone. Suddenly a thought intrudes -I’m worth more dead than alive.

Underclass Zero is a breakup song. Joseph Heller once said, “I only got married to find out what divorce is like.” It isn’t that simple or that cavalier. Heller was out of his mind. In any failing love relationship, a once enduring bond becomes a nightmare of hopelessness and regret. And you may dwell on what you could have done differently. If only…
Zuzula sings,
I think of myself as a working class hero
You think of me as an underclass zero
You threw me away
Zuzula almost chokes on the words as he spits them out with a mix of pain and anger;
You tell me I gotta go
I got to leave my home

Brothers Lament is an incendiary rocker with a million dollar riff. The Tosspints perform it at frantic breakneck speed. This is a “Johnny Piss-off” song about a roller coaster ride that is coming off the tracks – it’s a song about addiction and the despair of the people who love and care about the addict. The Fugs couldn’t do it any better than this. The lyrics are straightforward and righteously angry:
I don’t know what I’m doing here
You look me in the eyes
And mine deflect and look right into the floor
I can’t take it no more


Save Us is classic punk – speeded up, loud and straight to the point. The lyrics are filled up with tales of drunkenness and despair but the underlying message is all about feisty resilience and a big FU to anyone who can’t see that the ship is sinking. The singer sings about an empty life and an empty bottle of gin but he’s just being actively passive and more than a little rhetorical. When he sings, “Who the fuck is gonna save us from our goddam self, he already knows the answer. He must save himself.

Johnny Johnson opens One Last Shot with a dynamic syncopated drum pattern. Johnson is one of the most solid powerhouse drummers on the scene today and he snaps off a beat like he’s part of the drum kit. He is the beat. Zuzula adds in a few minimalist melodic guitar tones that speak volumes. The song shifts from quiet to loud and it takes off like a rocket. Prime Cobain. This is a song about war in a foreign land. It evokes an existential dilemma about right and wrong and explores our worst fears about our soldier boy – a fear that he will never go back home. It is what we might imagine to be a Soldier’s song – cacophonous and quiet; brave and afraid.

Johnson is once again front and center on You Shouldn’t Do This Alone. He changes up the rhythm with a variation of the Bo Diddley beat with an oddly compelling Dick Dale surf guitar. This is solemn goodbye with a hint of longing and regret. It contains the ancient wisdom of our forefathers that acknowledges melancholia as the natural state for a thoughtful person. The lyrics speak of unconscionable loss and forgiveness. It is the voice of a spirit.
I promise I’m not that mad
You are the best friend I’ve ever had
We’ll meet again someday

It is another master stroke creation from the heart and minds of Don, Zak and Johnny.
A perfect closer.

Epilogue: In the past few months, The Tosspints have participated in George Killian’s Irish Red Ruckus Sweepstakes, a promotional contest created by the company to highlight its support of cutting edge music. Killian's has been scouring clubs and concert halls around the country to invite bands for a chance to perform at the Irish Red Ruckus. Bands have been enlisting their fans, friends and family to vote for them to get to the Ruckus. Four finalists were determined by getting the most votes received in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. The winner will open for the Dropkick Murpheys on November 17th, 2011. And the winner is…The Tosspints! Congratulations Guys!

Peace
Bo White