Jilted John: 'Ere We Go! 2 - 3 - 4

Music Review: Jilted John - True Love Stories

Listening to and writing about the reissued version of Nick Lowe's great album Jesus Of Cool earlier this week put me in one of those weird moods where I pulled out all of my old late seventies punk and new wave albums and spent hours listening to them.

I had honestly forgot how great some of that music was, and still is. The Dead Boys Young Loud And Snotty, The Stranglers Black And White, Dwight Twilley, The Saints -- it's just great stuff.

Missing however, was one of my favorite records from this period, Jilted John's True Love Stories. It's not often that an album makes you feel both happy and sad at the same time. But True Love Stories does exactly that, with its often hilariously told, but straight-up tear jerking tales of the hapless John being dumped by a long line of girls with names like Sharon, Karen, Shirley, and Julie. All of this is set to frenetically played punk-pop, and some of the most simple, yet funniest lyrics I've ever heard.

Fortunately -- and much to my amazement and delight -- a quick search on Amazon revealed that the album was actually still available on import CD. Which sent me scurrying for my credit card...

I was actually first introduced to Jilted John by Nick Lowe himself.

Meeting Lowe backstage at a Rockpile concert, I noticed all the buttons he was wearing. There was one for Abba, another for Wreckless Eric (I'm A Mess), and yet another that simply said "2-3-4 'Ere We Go." When I asked Lowe about this odd button, he explained to me that it was a lyric at the heart of a record called "Jilted John" by an artist also called Jilted John, that was racing up the British pop charts at the time.

I knew immediately I had to check this Jilted John character out.

So, about that whole "happy and sad" thing?

Well, the happy part about Jilted John comes from the fact that the lyrics on this record are so damned hilarious. On the self-titled track that became such a smash in England, John is dumped for a guy he caustically refers to as "Gordon The Moron."

"Who's this bloke I asked her?/ Gordon she replied/ Not that puff, I said dismayed/ Yes, but he's no puff she cried/ He's more of a man than you'll ever be," John sings in this simple, yet raucously played song. As the song later fades out, John says "I oughtta kick his bloody head in, but he's bigger than me innit he?" In the video below, Jilted John plays the song on the British Top Of The Pops show (warning: the video starts quite loud).



Basically, John comes off a clueless loser. But still you can't help but root for the poor guy. Looking for love at "Baz's Party," John goes off with "a girl named Belinda Clough" who warns him "Listen, you better not go too far/ and stop trying to undo my bra/ keep your hands off you Romeo/ Maria...it's time to go." Meanwhile the host of the party is "puking up in the lavatory/ his name's Baz, it's his party." Priceless.

Later, on his job in the "Paperboy Song," John meets a girl named Wendy Moore who he watches "get undressed in her window on the 2nd floor." John then makes his move by putting "a letter in her Jacky," which prompts Wendy to "tell her brother to attack me." Seems our Jilted hero just can't catch a break.

When Jilted John meets his "True Love" in the song of the same name, he decides to "ask her what she's doing tonight/ she said that depends on what you have in mind/ I thought I might down to the local disco/ do you wanna' go?/ and she said alright...ahhh!...and I was in heaven." The sadness on this record comes later when Karen dumps him using -- what else? -- a Dear John letter.

Corny as it sounds, you can't help but feel a little sadness for this poor sap.

Jilted John never achieved the same success here in America as in his native England. We yanks tend to take our rock and roll far too seriously for this sort of nonsense. I'm not even sure he even made another record after this one.

But as novelty records go, True Love Stories has a great little punk rock kick to it. The lyrics, though often hilarious, actually tug at your heart strings a bit too.
Best of all, the pop hooks are the sort that you can't get out of your head once you hear them. This is great stuff.

2-3-4, 'Ere We Go!

A Blast From The Past: KCMU Rap Attack on TV's Bombshelter Videos



WOW! When my old school hip hop radio partner Nasty Nes sent me the above video, of Nes and myself hosting the TV version of our old KCMU radio show, Rap Attack, the memories really came flashing back. Did I really look (and sound!) that young once? Did Nasty Nes really roll like a Poi Boy back then?

Many thanks to the Nastiest Mofo' in hip hop for sending this (unlike yours truly, Nes is still keepin' it real too. I've long since traded in my kangol and my adidas for a "real job").

At least there is now actual video proof that I was actually "cool" once.

You can check out a ton of other videos and such from the old school of Northwest hip hop (people like Sir Mix A Lot, Kid Sensation, and of course the "originators" themselves -- that would be Nes and myself), by going to Nasty Nes' YouTube page.

Thanx for the memories, homey!

The Rockologist: Punk Rock, New Wave, and the Jesus Of Cool

The late seventies were a very strange time for rock music.

For a variety of reasons, rock and roll had become extremely polarized at the time. On the one hand, you had the disco thing reaching the incendiary pitch of Saturday Night Fever, with the whole John Travolta/Bee Gees deal. A trend which mulleted, diehard rockers found troublesome enough to take to stadiums and burn records by anyone from Chic and Kool & The Gang, to bands like Earth Wind & Fire (who actually came more from the rock/funk/jazz fusion school of people like Hendrix and Sly Stone).

Whatever...

On the flip side, the record companies and radio stations of the day had long since come to see that the guitar based hard rock of bands like Led Zeppelin meant big bucks. This in turn led to the formulaic, radio friendly "arena rock" of bands like Journey and Boston. Of course, for those of us who took their rock and roll more seriously, there was the "progressive rock" option offered by groups like Yes, Genesis, and Emerson Lake & Palmer.

What this created was a handful of equally devoted, but seperate tribes of fans within the rock and roll fan community. You would rarely for example, see a Journey fan at an Earth Wind & Fire show -- or vice versa. The disco kids just wanted to boogie, while the prog-rockers were more prone to long nights smoking a lot of pot, and dissecting the meaning of the lyrics to something like Close To The Edge.

As for the arena rock guys?

They'd just as soon as show up in their "Disco Sucks" T-shirts ready to beat anyone up who disagreed. What about "Crossover" you ask? Forget about it, as the eighties were still a couple of years away.

Sitting off to the side of all this musically divisive foolishness, were the illegitimate bastard twins of punk-rock and new wave. These were the two genres of that time who somehow managed to co-exist peacefully alongside each other, while thumbing their own collective noses at virtually everyone else.

Actually, there wasn't a lot of difference between the two genres -- at least not musically. Which probably accounts for the unity there. Both shared a desire for a back to basics approach, and a distaste for the pretentiousness of big arena rock in particular. The Ramones (in leather and jeans) and the Sex Pistols (in spiked hair and safety pins), were the punk-rockers who played it loud and fast.

And before the days of Duran Duran and Culture Club, the "new wavers" pretty much did the same -- minus the cosmetic props (well okay, maybe there was a skinny tie or two).

"New Wave" at the time basically meant everyone who played stripped down rock and roll, or otherwise didn't sound like Journey or Boston. It was a group who at the time counted among themselves everyone from Blondie and the Talking Heads, to Graham Parker, and even Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen (they both wore leather jackets on their album covers, after all).

Hard to fathom now, isn't it?

As unlikely as people like Petty and Springsteen would seem as "punkers" or "new wavers" today, Nick Lowe was probably even a less likely candidate to be embraced by this crowd of malcontents. Yet, embraced -- adored, even -- he was.

Earlier this week, indie label Yep Roc reissued Nick Lowe's power pop classic Jesus Of Cool in one of those spiffy, enhanced deluxe editions that have become so popular these past few years. Unlike the young, loud, and snotty (to quote Stiv Bators and the Dead Boys) punk rockers of the seventies, Lowe actually cut his musical teeth with Brinsley Schwartz in the British pub-rock scene, which eventually would also spawn people like Graham Parker and Elvis Costello.

What got Nick Lowe first noticed in America however, was his talents as a producer who had a unique ear for a pop hook -- particularly with his production work on the first three Elvis Costello albums (which many Costello fans still regard as his best). At the same time, Lowe was also being recognized as an equally fine pop songwriter. As good as Costello's own songs were, Nick Lowe's "(Whats So Funny Bout') Peace Love And Understanding" remains one of the most memorable songs from EC's Armed Forces album.

Aside from his credentials as a producer, Nick Lowe's association with Stiff Records -- the seventies indie label best known for punk and new wave acts like Ian "Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll" Dury and Wreckless Eric -- all but cemented his seventies punk rock cred. The only thing left for Nick Lowe was to do his own record.

But as was the do-it-yourself punk rock mantra of the day, the blueprint of first doing 7" singles was also called for. This is where Lowe's trademark sense of humor, combined with his keen ear for a great pop hook was first displayed for the world to see.

Lowe's singles ranged from the dead-on Bay City Rollers tribute "Rollers Show" ("Calling out across the land/calling every single Rollers fan"), to the EP Bowi (a play on David Bowie's Low album). Lowe would also pay tribute to Bowie with the song "(I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass" (after the similarly titled song from Low).



When Lowe's Jesus Of Cool was first released in England, it was immediately hailed as a power-pop masterpiece, for such hook-laden songs as "Little Hitler" and "Marie Provost." When Columbia Records released an altered version of the album in America as Pure Pop For Now People (the suits there weren't comfortable with the whole "Jesus" thing), Lowe was not only fine with it -- he even floated rumors of a third album title to the music press (Wireless World).

Even while all of this was going on, Nick Lowe co-fronted the great rock band Rockpile with ex-Love Sculpture guitarist Dave Edmunds, who was releasing his own albums on Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label (if only the dinosaur rock hating punks knew!). Rockpile toured the States several times, alternately promoting solo albums by both Lowe and Edmunds. Eventually their only official album as a group, Seconds Of Pleasure was released in America on Columbia Records.

So that brings us to Yep Roc's reissue of Lowe's Jesus Of Cool this week.

And they've done a great job.

Until now, all of the tracks from both the British release of Jesus Of Cool, and it's American counterpart in Pure Pop For Now People have never been brought together in a single American release. Here, at 21 tracks strong, we finally get the whole freaking enchilada. From "They Called It Rock" to "I Love My Label" to "Little Hitler" to "Nutted By Reality" to the original demo version of "Cruel To Be Kind" (the lyric of which was lifted from a Ray Davies' song for the Kinks' Schoolboys In Disgrace -- "The Hard Way" -- in true Nick Lowe fashion).

It's all here.

Listening to this (largely forgotten today) masterpiece for the past several days, not only reminds me of just how great (and crafty!) a songwriter Nick Lowe actually was and is. It also takes me straight back to my college days listening to stuff like this right alongside punk bands like the Stranglers, the Saints, and Radio Birdman.

Along with say, Cheap Trick, Nick Lowe was a guy I listened to without feeling the least bit conflicted, in spite of the musically polarized times records like these were being made.

If there is any justice, Nick Lowe will one day take his rightful place in the rock and roll hall of fame.

The Rockologist On The Art Of The Interview

Sooner or later in the pursuit of a career writing about music comes the moment of truth when you are put to the ultimate test -- interviewing actual rock stars. Sounds like fun doesn't it? And to tell the truth, it actually is. At least when said rock stars choose to make the process easy.

Of course, with rock stars often being the overly rich and pampered egomaniacs they can be -- such qualifications seem to be requirements for the job title -- this is not always the case.

I've been interviewing rock stars since I was in high school, and by my own estimate I've racked up a semi-impressive resume of at least several dozen successes. My first rock star interview -- later published by my high school newspaper The West Seattle Chinook -- was actually obtained the old fashioned way. I staked out the hotel that the band was staying at before their gig that night at Seattle's Paramount Theatre.

While the groupies crowded the hotel lobby hoping to catch a glimpse (or better) of touring rock royalty, I noticed no one was paying attention to the road guys who handle such mediocre tasks as booking the rooms. So I struck up a conversation with one such roadie at the front desk. I gained his confidence by offering him one of my cigarettes. The roadie must have taken a shine to me, because he actually invited me back to the band's room after the show.

Before you could say Cameron Crowe in Almost Famous, I had scored an interview with T. Rex's Marc Bolan. Man, were those groupies pissed.

Of course, I had obviously got lucky here. This was also the seventies, and I was a fairly harmless kid who didn't really have that much of an agenda. Well at least, not compared to the garishly made up, and largely undressed ladies who otherwise prowled the lobby and the elevators in the hotel. Even so, I definitely wouldn't recommend using this method today.

More often, the way it works is you usually go through the record company, the publicity firm, management, or whoever else happens to be the rock star's "handler." This method will yield results most often when a band is either on its way up the ladder of success, or conversely on the slide back down the other side. This is especially true for the ever-rare, face-to-face "in-person" discussion.

More often, particularly if we are talking about rock artists who have actually earned the "star" moniker, what you end up with (if you are lucky) is a phone interview -- or a "phoner" for short.

I've actually had some pretty decent phoners over the years too. Some of which I was later able to turn into even better articles. Back in the eighties, I had several of these with some of the hotter rap artists of the day like Public Enemy, Ice T, and Run-DMC, which were published in magazines like Seattle's Rocket and Tower Records Pulse!. In each of these cases, the rappers had an upcoming show in Seattle to promote, so the record companies and concert promoters were all to eager to grant me access -- even if only by phone -- in the interest of selling more tickets.

One of the nice things about "phoners" is that they are generally such controlled and predictable affairs. As such, they are pretty hard to screw up. Fifteen or so minutes usually means time for only the most basic of questions, which means you are not likely to get beyond the concert or album you've already signed on to promote in the first place. You are also probably somewhere in the middle of an ankle-deep line of journalists the artist is talking to in assembly line fashion from a phone in a hotel somewhere.

So, while there is little chance for disaster with a phoner, you also probably won't be breaking any big stories here.

By contrast, the face to face "in-person" interview can be quite unpredictable. First of all, since these tend to take place (at least in my own experience) either before or after "the big show" you are dealing with a variety of intangible factors.

For one thing, they are nearly always very rushed, especially if taking place in the chaotic backstage environment. Here, it's just you, the artist, and your tape recorder -- usually seated somewhere in the corner of a room where dozens of assorted roadies, security guys, caterers and the like are shouting over each other as they scurry frantically about.

The artists "temperament" -- meaning any number of things from his mood to his degree of intoxication -- also comes into play here. Which is why it is always best to conduct these types of interviews before, rather than after a show.

I can relate any number of horror stories stemming from the backstage interviews I've conducted over the years -- any one of which would make a pretty good read on its own.

There was the time I was brought into a hotel conference room to interview Tom Petty after a show in the seventies, only to find Petty face down on a table clutching a near empty whiskey bottle. Or the time I had to chase Yngwie Malmsteen all over Seattle to attempt an interview I was promised would go smoothly despite Malmsteen's "difficult" reputation.

When I asked Earth Wind & Fire's Maurice White to describe his band's new album, I got a lengthy response about the spiritual order of the universe, or some other such New Age goobledy-gook. When I asked Dennis DeYoung from Styx the same question about his band's The Grand Illusion, he replied "real good" with a cold stare. Real charmer, that guy from Styx.

But I'll save my favorite two stories for a couple of interviews that went so badly, they never even became articles at all. Here once again, the artists will be broken into those two categories of most likely to grant interviews. The first was a band just begining to climb the ladder of success, while the second was an artist who had long since made the slide all the way back down.

About six months before Licensed To Ill was released in 1987, The Beastie Boys opened a show at Seattle's Paramount for Madonna, who was on her first tour and riding the success of Like A Virgin at the time. Nobody was quite yet ready for the Beasties and their brand of white frat-boy rap, and especially not the club crowd who had come to see Madonna. So when the Beasties took the stage announcing that they were "the kings of the Paramount," they were greeted with a resounding thunder of boos.

My interview with the Beastie Boys took place about fifteen minutes after they had been booed out of the building, and apparently they decided to take out their aggressions on me. I sat down between Ad-Rock and MCA with my tape recorder on a stool in front of us. Mike D and Rick Rubin (or "DJ Double R" as he was known at the time) stood across the room.

As I nervously read off my questions from the notebook in my hand, the two Beasties decided it would be funny if they slammed their fists down right next to the tape recorder as they answered. When I politely let them know that the recorder wouldn't pick up their answers if they continued doing this, they apparently found this hilarious and simply banged their fists even harder, and closer to the machine.

Rubin, to his credit, tried to stay professional throughout this disaster (in addition to being the Beasties' DJ, he seemed to be doubling as their road manager), but it was to no avail. He apologized profusely afterwards, and I told him as sheepishly as I could that I doubted I'd be able to write the story that was my part of the deal. He nodded and said he understood.

It was the first time I met Rubin. A few years later he would hire me to work at his label American Recordings.

Some years after that, I received an offer to write some stories for Experience Hendrix, a tribute magazine that was being financed by members of the Hendrix family in Seattle. My first article was to be an interview with Buddy Miles, the former Electric Flag drummer who had briefly played with Jimi in the Band of Gypsys. The interview was supposed to take place at a Jimi Hendrix guitar competition, where a group of young, aspiring guitarists would be judged by a celebrity panel which included Miles.

I arrived early to watch the competition, and soon sat down at a table with Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and Seattle Mariners pitcher Randy Johnson, who were also on the panel of celebrity judges. My editor at the magazine soon found me, and seemed pleased to see that I had also decided to watch the competition. He also informed me that Buddy Miles was looking forward to speaking with me. Cool, I thought to myself.

Although this editor would check back with me several times over the course of the evening, his initial reassuring welcome later proved to ring anything but true. The first thing I noticed as the night wore on was how this editor kept checking to see if I was still there, and then assuring me the interview was "still on." With each return visit, he also appeared to be acting more and more nervous.

By this time, with my own journalist's sort of "spidey sense" tingling, I decided to head backstage to check on things myself. I had seen Buddy taken back there about an hour prior, and by this time the editor guy who had become my contact had all but vanished.

The first sign of trouble came when Buddy Miles' people seemed to have no idea who I was, or that any interview was scheduled to take place at all. My editor -- who by this time had suddenly reappeared -- did some quick talking, and I then was informed I would be granted ten minutes with Buddy Miles.

It was well past 2 AM and the show was long over.

I was then escorted backstage to meet the great Buddy Miles. Sitting before me, and staring me the sort of hole that would frighten the devil himself, Miles was an enormous blob of humanity. He was always a big guy, but on this night he more resembled the pro-wrestler Abdullah The Butcher than the great drummer I remembered for his last real hit "Them Changes," from back in the sixties.

After asking me matter of factly, "who are you and what do you want?" I knew this was not going to end well. When he turned to another person in the room and asked if I "was really from Rolling Stone," I did the only reasonable thing I could.

I got up and I left. The editor from Experience Hendrix never got that interview, or any other article of mine.

Sometimes you've just gotta know when it's time to walk away.

Sing A Song, Play Guitar, Make it Snappy...

Book Review: Song Man: A Melodic Adventure, Or, My Single-Minded Approach To Songwriting by Will Hodgkinson

Being something of a frustrated musician myself, Will Hodgkinson's Song Man: A Melodic Adventure, Or, My Single-Minded Approach to Songwriting is, for me, the sort of book that comes with an undeniable built-in appeal. For an armchair rock star, you can almost picture yourself here as the pages of Hodgkinson's experiences in learning first to write, and then record his very own song unfold.

Song Man is the sequel to Hodgkinson's earlier book Guitar Man, which is the author's personal account of learning to play the guitar. Having recently decided -- at a similarly late stage in life -- to pick up the instrument myself (I'm still trying to master the dreaded F chord), I found numerous parallels to my own experience in Hodgkinson's funny, if occasionally bittersweet account.

Song Man finds the author himself mastering the instrument by now (well, more or less anyway). So here, Hodgkinson sets out to take things to their next logical step by actually writing his own song. To do so, he soon sets out on a quest to enlist the help of the experts themselves, as he seeks out the assistance of several songwriters to mentor him.

He finds the first of these -- a burnt-out and failed but talented songwriter named Lawrence -- in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. It seems Lawrence was once a member of two promising but failed bands -- Felt and Denim -- who, according to the author, influenced latter day bands like Blur. Hodgkinson finds Lawrence living alone, both penniless and friendless, fighting his various demons and addictions - but still clinging to the songwriter's dream of writing that million dollar hit.

Hodgkinson's account of the meeting is both funny and sad at the same time. You can't help but feel a little bit for Lawrence as he ponders the idea of writing a hit for the American Christian music market, even though he doesn't believe in God. The funny part comes as Hodgkinson plays his own songs for Lawrence.

At this point, Hodgkinson's idea is to record his song "Mystery Fox," written using his own songwriting device of finding words that rhyme with the names of animals. Although the author himself can't sing a lick, his master plan is to record the song with his wife -- whom he quite humorously sees as Nico to his own Lou Reed -- on vocals.

Lawrence reacts with uncontrollable laughter, asking Hodgkinson "would you play that?" for everyone from Ray Davies to Elton John. So far at least, our hero just can't seem to catch a break.

In another meeting, Hodgkinson seeks out the advice of Bob Stanley of electro-popsters Saint Etienne, figuring that he might benefit from the "non-musician's" approach to songwriting. He instead ends up going through three bottles of wine with Stanley, awakening the next day wrapped in a towel and the cleaning lady recovering the wine bottles from the previous night.

Hodgkinson's journey eventually leads to encounters with a series of successful musicians and songwriters ranging from Chan "Cat Power" Marshall to personal heroes like Davies, Keith Richards, and Love's Arthur Lee.

At 290 pages, Song Man is an easy, breezy read that is as often as humorous as it is bittersweet. Hodgkinson writes in a funny, self-deprecating style that nonetheless reveals the author's true love for the art of music, and the craft involved in creating it. The book is also notable for its numerous cultural references to various musical icons, with Hodgkinson's reflections on the loss of his heroes such as Lee and Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett being particularly moving.

For frustrated musicians, songwriters, armchair rock stars -- indeed, for anyone who has ever played air guitar in their underwear in front of the mirror -- this book is for you.

Barack And Roll In Seattle And At The Washington State Caucuses

We aren't used to this here in Washington State.

Oh sure, we've got Microsoft, Starbucks, and Boeing -- and we gave the world the rock and roll phenomenon known as grunge. But for all of Seattle's rock star luster and geek chic, it gets a little lonely up in our corner of America sometimes when it comes to politics. That all changed this weekend.

With the Democratic race for delegates in particular about as close as it gets, the state party caucuses this weekend got the attention of all three of the remaining major candidates for president. Hillary Clinton arrived in town on Thursday for rallys in Seattle and Tacoma and a town hall meeting in Spokane. John McCain spoke before a crowd of supporters at Seattle's downtown Westin Hotel on Friday night.

But not a one of them received the rock star sort of reception that Barack Obama did here. So I guess it's now official. Obamamania has claimed the Pacific Northwest. In Seattle, Clinton's appearance drew a crowd of about 5,000 supporters, while McCain drew about 500 at the Westin.

Obama by contrast, packed 18,000 screaming fans -- and that is literally the most accurate description I can muster -- into Seattle's Key Arena on Friday. Another 3,000 had to be turned away, although Obama also addressed that group outside with a megaphone on his way into the building.




For about four hours on a windy Seattle afternoon (Obama's speech was delivered two hours late), it was sheer bedlam in Seattle's downtown Queen Anne neighborhood. The event stopped traffic for hours, and drew the sort of crowd normally reserved for touring rock bands like U2, and that the hometown NBA team the Supersonics hasn't seen in years.

Inside the Key, the audience not only behaved like the sort of frenzied crowd you'd see at a rock concert -- it also looked a lot like one. Although the crowd makeup was a fairly broad mix of ethnicities, there was no mistaking the age factor here. The Obama supporters who jammed the Key were overwhelmingly young. They were also really loud, roaring their approval when Washington State governor Christine Gregoire first announced her endorsement for Obama, and then introduced the man himself. The reception was pure rock star all the way.




At Saturday's Democratic precinct caucuses -- at least the one I attended -- the Obama presence was no less overwhelming. Obama signs, buttons, and banners were everywhere in the packed high school auditorium. In my precinct, the numbers also reflected this. Of the 66 of us there, 45 were Obama supporters to Hillary Clinton's 15, while 5 were uncommitted on the first ballot. By the time of the second ballot, both Hillary and Obama picked up 2 each of the uncommitteds.

This seems to reflect the statewide trend in Washington, where as I write this Obama is winning the state by a two to one margin over Clinton. In our precinct, we are sending four Obama delegates (including myself) and two Clinton delegates to the District caucus in April.

The whole caucus system can itself be a little chaotic. With the huge turnout on Saturday, our own meeting was a fairly crazy affair with most of us flying by the skin of our teeth. Our group often found itself competing for volume with the various other precincts crowded into the high school auditorium. For at least the first several minutes, there was also the little problem that none of us really knew what we were doing.

The fact that support was divided between just two candidates however made the speeches, debates and such go much easier.

Four years ago when I attended my last precinct caucus, support was divided between two camps -- the John Kerry folks and everybody else. Convincing the anti-Kerry contingent -- supporting everyone from Edwards to Al Sharpton -- to band together in an uncommitted block just to guarantee some of us would get to the District caucus was challenging to say the least. The two Kucinich folks were a particularly tough sell. This time around, the five uncommitteds simply asked supporters of Obama and Hillary to make their case. They did so, splitting that vote right down in the middle.

Ain't Democracy grand?

I made my own decision for Obama just this past week, with his "we are the ones we have been waiting for" speech after Super-Tuesday more or less sealing the deal. Truth be told however, I had been leaning towards Obama ever since Edwards threw in the towel.

The whole "Yes We Can" energy, and the way Obama seems to inspire such hope that things actually can be changed by the right guy in Washington has a lot to do with it. The Clinton campaign's attacks on Obama -- whether directly or through surrogates -- has also been a bit of a turn-off for me. But more than that, I truly believe Obama is the best equipped to defeat the Republicans this fall. Hillary remains far too polarizing a figure in the eyes of too many voters, and is the Republicans best guarantee of uniting to defeat a common enemy.

But there is also an electricity about this whole "Obamamania" movement sweeping the land that is hard not to get caught up in. At least if you believe as passionately as I do that the country is hungry for real change.

I haven't seen a candidate or a movement like this since the days of Robert F. Kennedy back in the sixties -- and I was far too young to be a participant back then.

As the Buffalo Springfield sang back in those days, "there's something happening here..."

I'm just happy that this time around, I'm old enough to be a part of it.

Kurt Cobain Bio Film "About A Son" Reveals A Reluctant Rock Star

DVD Review: Kurt Cobain: About A Son

When I was first hired by American Recordings in 1992 -- right as Seattle's "grunge" explosion was just starting to hit on a worldwide scale -- my old boss Mark DiDia used to tell a funny story during our marketing meetings at the label:

"You know, ever we since we hired you Boyd," DiDia used to say in that tone of feigned indignance I got to know so well during my two years in the "big-time" in Los Angeles at American, "All of our artists' sales have gone straight into the toilet. While all your friends back up there in Seattle got shit hot pretty much the day after you left to come here."

It was all a joke of course.

Sir Mix-A-Lot had his biggest record ever with American that year in "Baby Got Back." He never really had another record like that of course. But I still sleep quite well at night knowing that I played a big part in that success, thank you very much.

But DiDia actually had sort of a point in at least one respect.

While the whole grunge thing was going on right underneath my nose in my hometown of Seattle, I was actually somewhat oblivious to it.

Working in the music community in Seattle at the time, I of course knew what was happening. I had friends in that scene, and I even made it out to see bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden back when they were playing shitholes like the OK Hotel and the old Rckcndy. I also had good enough ears to know that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a once in a lifetime sort of record.

Still, I was way too involved with Sir Mix-A-Lot and the other rap artists at Seattle's "other" independent label at the time -- Nastymix was actually selling more records than Subpop was back then -- to fully grasp what was going on. It was happening right under my nose, but I just didn't fully "get it" back then.

By the time I moved back to Seattle just two years later in 1994, it was just in time to get the news of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain killing himself. And for a moment there at least, I had to flash back to DiDia's prophecy about the so-called "Boyd Curse."

I also got that eerie sort of feeling. What is it that say about the world being your oyster? For Kurt Cobain it seemed that particular shell had slammed itself shut.

Knowing as I do now, that not only was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" a once in a lifetime record, but that Kurt Cobain was also a once in a lifetime artist, is what makes viewing AJ Schanack's About A Son, a semi-sort of documentary about Cobain, that much more of a moving, poignant, and even painful experience.

Kurt Cobain was by no means a perfect human being, or even a perfect artist. But he did capture the spirit of a generation in a way no other artist has since the days of guys like John Lennon. This is a film which in many ways leaves you walking away from it with even more questions than it answers.

About A Son matches interviews that Cobain originally did for Michael Azzerad's book about Nirvana Come As You Are, with stirring, and even surreal images (at least when put in their modern-day context). You see Cobain's hometown of Aberdeen, Washington as well as Seattle, the big city about 60 miles to the north up Interstate 5 that later made him a internationally known rock star. The soundtrack to these images consists of the bands Cobain grew up loving and idolizing -- from Bowie, Cheap Trick, and Queen to the Melvins and Scratch Acid.




What this movie does more than anything else is provide insight into the mind and soul of a somewhat tortured artist. Did Cobain have those rock star aspirations -- and ego -- at one point? Of course he did. There is no way guys that talented cannot. It's part of the DNA.

But did that same sort of stardom come way too suddenly and way too soon for a guy whose inner-psyche -- nevermind his ego -- was as fragile as Cobain's was?

Almost, certainly.

No sooner had Cobain found what he probably saw as his one way sure way out from the various physical and mental demons that had plagued him since childhood, then an entirely new set of devils had just as quickly reared their ugly heads. The odd, unpopular kid from a small, depressed logging town just never quite came to terms with becoming everything that he once hated growing up as a social outcast.

The contrasts are mind-boggling to say the least, as this incredible film reveals.

It is ironic that for Kurt Cobain, the very escape from mediocrity and conformity he sought in punk-rock, became the very prison he once so dreaded. What I'm not sure he ever realized was that there were so many other kids out there just like him. And how he could have used this platform which he earned by virtue of his own talent to uplift them, without ever compromising his own integrity.

Like John Lennon did.

But that's the thing. Watching About A Son, what becomes most apparent is that Cobain felt that in the act of becoming the rock star he once so dreamed of being, he also felt that compromise had already been made.

Misguided as it was, you have to admire that sort of integrity. It's just too bad Kurt Cobain never understood the platform he had could be such a positive.

This is a great film.

Battle Of The Cable UFO Hunters

TV Review: - UFO Hunters (From The History Channel)

The History Channel's new Wednesday night UFO documentary series UFO Hunters (which premiered on February 6), is the latest in a long line of television's efforts to satisfy the appetite of a public which continues to be fascinated by the subject of unidentified flying objects -- or UFOs. Anybody else remember the old FOX TV series Sightings, back in the nineties?

Interestingly, this time around the show has some competition.

It seems the producers of the Sci-Fi channel's highly successful (and entertaining) Ghost Hunters franchise about -- what else? -- hunting down ghosts, have launched their own weekly UFO hunting show. Sci-Fi's version of UFO Hunters not only airs at right about the same time on Wednesday nights, it even has the same identical name.

In the Sci-Fi channel's version, a New York based amateur UFO hunting group called NY-PSI (which stands for New York Strange Phenomena Investigators) investigate UFO sightings, and even some alien abduction cases. The stories are told, the witnesses are interviewed, and the team investigates. There's not a lot of hard science involved, but it does make for some very entertaining, and occasionally even thought provoking television.

The History Channel's UFO Hunters on the other hand, choose to take a somewhat more scientific approach. This is after all, the History Channel right?

Here, a team of UFO researchers headed up by UFO Magazine publisher William J. "Bill" Birnes joins forces with scientists like MIT engineer DR. Ted Acworth to investigate -- and whenever possible recreate in a science lab -- some of history's most famous UFO encounters. It's occasionally a bit drier than the Sci-Fi channel's version -- particularly when the methodology of science is applied to these cases. But while the results are at best inconclusive -- at least in the two episodes we were able to view -- they also tend to raise your eyebrows a bit.

In the debut episode, we follow Birnes and his team to Washington State where they attempt to solve a case which occured in 1947 a full two weeks before the more famous purported UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.

The case began with the sighting of six donut shaped UFO's by witnesses aboard a boat near Maury Island. When one of the UFO formation appeared to encounter mechanical problems, it rained down some sort of flaming debris which reportedly injured a passenger and even killed a dog onboard the boat.

Shortly thereafter, an Air Force team retrieved said debris, and attempted to fly it out of Washington to Northern California's Hamilton Air Force Base. But the plane never made it -- crashing instead near Kelso, Washington and killing two of the crewmen aboard. Our team of UFO Hunters goes to Washington State to search for answers. They gather debris from both the Maury Island and Kelso sites, and take them back to the lab for scientific analysis.

In the second episode, the team goes to Catalina Island, just off the coast of Los Angeles to investigate reports of USOs (or Unidentified Submerged Objects) -- the kind which fly in and out of the water. Here, the UFO Hunters focus in on a report of an airplane crash into the water, which the pilot claims was brought down by one such "USO." Again, the team attempts to locate the crashed plane. When they fail to do so, they instead retreat back to the lab to try and recreate the conditions of the crash itself.

Future episodes of the History Channel's UFO Hunters series promise to look into such famous UFO incidents as the mass "Hudson Valley" sightings in upstate New York, and the first -- and still most famous -- alien abduction case, the 1961 incident involving bi-racial couple Betty and Barney Hill in rural New Hampshire.




As these type of TV series go, I actually found the History Channel's UFO Hunters to be quite refreshing, and yes entertaining too.

The "science" used here tends to be somewhat of a stretch at times, relying as it does on hypotheses based on the rather extraordinary claims of the eyewitnesses involved. Still, the fact that this team of hunters goes after the so-called "truth" by attempting to employ scientific methods at all, is a somewhat welcome change for this field. It definitely beats both the blind faith of the believers, and the "swamp gas" stories of the debunkers most often found here.

I'm not sure how the other UFO Hunters show on Sci-Fi is doing. Last time, I checked they were already in re-runs before even getting to a second episode. But I do know that the History Channel has a pretty good track record for these types of shows.

So far at least, I like the chances for this particular team of UFO Hunters.

UFO Hunters airs on the History Channel Wednesday nights at 10 pm Eastern.

When The Rockologist Used To Be The Shockmaster

I got into rap music completely by accident. But the weirdest thing about it is, the experience ended up being pretty good to me.

You see, back in the eighties, in one of those weird turns of fate, I ended up managing a record store in Tacoma, Washington called Penny Lane Records. Penny Lane actually proved to be a bit of a goldmine too -- located as it was right next to two military bases (McChord AFB and Ft. Lewis). The thing about this was that every other Friday when the G.I.'s got paid, Penny Lane was a sea of green (as in uniforms and money).

Man, did these guys like to spend their money on the jams.

As for me, as a twenty something long haired white guy reared on my own version of the "jams" (mostly by seventies rock bands like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep), I found myself having to adapt rather quickly to the then new world of funkateers like Cameo and Parliament-Funkadelic. Suddenly, I found myself catering to the needs of a lot of young black guys transplanted to Tacoma from towns like New York, Philly, and D.C.

Okay, fine. So be it.

Being the young, hungry guy dying to make it in the music biz guy I was at the time, I was all too ready to meet the challenge too. In yet another one of those odd twists of fate, it just so happens that right at about the same time the whole rap thing was just beginning to explode. And at the time -- as hard as this may be to believe now -- there was virtually nowhere in the Northwest to buy 12" singles by the likes of Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, and Trouble Funk.

So, being the enterprising and hungry sort of guy I was back then, I did a quick scan of the ads in Billboard Magazine, and discovered sources to import these records. Before long, Penny Lane Records became a destination point for rap music in the Northwest. But this was only the beginning...

Recognizing what was happening, Seattle's music magazine The Rocket soon approached me to cover the phenomenon for the magazine. At about the same time, Tommy Boy Records artist Whiz Kid ended up in Tacoma as his military wife Betty got transferred to McChord. Whiz Kid's 12" single "Play That Beat Mr. DJ" is still recognized today as one of the earliest, pioneering examples of scratching.

The now deceased hip-hop pioneer and I also became fast friends.

Meanwhile, up in Seattle's largely black Rainier Valley district, the owner of the neighborhood record store there -- Music Menu -- had taken notice of my success at Penny Lane, and made me an offer I couldn't refuse to take over his business. Which is where I first met the artist that the world would come to know as Sir Mix-A-Lot.

At the time, Mix-A-Lot was just one of any number of aspiring rappers in the neighborhood looking for a break from the by now known to be connected guy at the local record store. I have one particularly fond memory of Mix giving me a tape -- which I later listened to in my car on the drive home from work -- where he called me out by name. So I eventually wrote about him in The Rocket.

At about the same time, a local DJ named Nasty Nes began playing Mix-A-Lot on his radio show, K-FOX's Fresh Tracks. Eventually, Nes and a local promoter named Ed Locke would form the indie label Nastymix Records and release Sir Mix-A-Lot's records.

When the local college station KCMU (now KEXP) asked me to host my own rap radio show, Nes and I -- despite being good friends at this time -- soon found ourselves as competitors. This is where I became the "Shockmaster" Glen Boyd. And although there is far more to this story than I have the time or space to go into here, we would soon find ourselves teaming up to host KCMU's pioneering hip hop show Rap Attack.



And that is how your Rockologist became the "Shockmaster" for a brief time in the eighties.

This ended up changing my life in more ways than I can begin to recount. I also ended up going to work full time for Nastymix, promoting records by Mix-A-Lot and other rap artists like Rodney O and Joe Cooley. I was name-checked on records by everyone from Public Enemy to 3rd Bass, and I even ended up in one of Mix-A-Lot's videos. That's me in the video below for Mix's song "Beepers," playing the part of the Joker:

"Walk into a party, looking like Joker.."




It was one hell of a time.

When Mix-A-Lot left Nastymix to join Rick Rubin's American Recordings, I also went along for that ride. I even accompanied Mix to the American Music Awards, where he won Best Rap Song that year for "Baby Got Back."

Last summer, Nes and I got back together for a reunion on KEXP's rap show, which is now hosted by DJ B-Mello.



It was a great, if somewhat bittersweet reunion.

Anyway, another time that seems like a lifetime ago. Obviously, your friendly neighborhood Rockologist is a long ways from his days as the "Shockmaster" of hip-hop radio and journalism In Seattle. And I'd still like a word with the WCW pro-wrestler who stole my handle, and tarnished my good name as a jobber.

But I've still got my memories.

A New DVD That Captures Genesis When They Were Still Cool

Music DVD Review: Genesis - Remember Knebworth 1978: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Although at just 24 minutes in length this concert video is a bit short -- it features only two full songs, just one of which, "The Lady Lies," is from the actual performance advertised -- for the hardcore Genesis fan you could actually rate Remember Knebworth 1978 as a fairly essential live document of a band caught in transition.

No, this isn't the "holy grail" of something like the complete The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway performed live, back when Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett were part of the band.

For that, the best you'll probably be able to do are grainy snippets of footage on either bootlegs, or one of those "critical analysis" DVDs like Inside Genesis. Though many fans still believe that a pristine video document of that particular 1975 tour does exist. Somewhere, anyway...

As common as live DVD concert footage from the latter "Phil Collins era" -- when Genesis transitioned into a more commercial pop act driven by MTV videos -- is, live stuff from those earlier days as a more progressive rock band is far harder to find. The best of the officially released live material from this period can be found on the bonus DVDs included in the recently expanded versions of albums like Trick Of The Tail and And Then There Were Three.

So what makes this one even just a little bit special?

Well, for one thing it has a certain charm about it. This 24 minute "concert" film documents the entire lead-up to Genesis' headlining gig at the 1978 Knebworth festival in England. Genesis were already huge in Europe at the time, and about an album away from headlining arenas in the States.

The package itself has a reproduction of the original Knebworth festival programme, that includes everything from the ads, to things like prices for the concessions (a delectable concert-goers menu of things like "sausage rolls" which went for 15p). It also features unintentionally humorous descriptions of such support acts as Jefferson Starship, Devo, and a then up and coming Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers (did you know Petty hates disco music?).

The short film itself also has a sort of Monty Python quality about it -- with it's images of hippies arriving at the festival amid worries about it being rained out. Meanwhile, a Python-esque British narrator blathers on about the 180,000 cans of Coke, and 25,000 sandwiches being trucked in for the big event. It is all very funny, and very, very British.

As for the actual performances?

As I said, there is only one, of the song "The Lady Lies," which shows Genesis at a very unique point in their career. Touring behind the album And Then There Were Three, the live footage here shows Genesis caught in a musical twilight zone. They had just lost guitarist Steve Hackett -- their last real link to their progressive rock past -- and were one album away from becoming eighties MTV pop stars. It really is the last gasp of Genesis as the torch-bearers of prog-rock, and for that reason alone has historical value to the diehard fan.

The performance is also really great stuff. Collins in particular is a whirling dervish, dashing from his role as frontman at the mike to the drum kit during the extended instrumental breaks. A sound check of the song Many Too Many is also shown here, although the audio is taken from the studio version.

The Knebworth concert footage seen here, as well as a good deal of the behind the scenes stuff, can in fact also be found at greater length on the expanded version of And Then There Were Three. But the extras here make this somewhat of a keeper -- especially that reproduced Knebworth concert programme.

As for that "holy grail," well, never say never.