DISPATCHES FROM ROCK n' ROLL HELL

SONGS: #7 - Midnight Crisis - "Make It Alright"

2017-12-10T19:00:00.000-05:00

"It's dark every night..."

It's not exactly profound is it? I mean - no shit, Sherlock! But, I never heard anyone else say it, much less sing it, so....I pretty much wrote a song around it.

I'm going to try to keep this brief.

This is basically a dramatic love song about, as I sing, "Tempting fate with a good time," & then shit gets out of hand with the person you're having the good time with.

Shit happens.

You got into an argument - Lord knows (or, at this point, cares) why. You wake up the next day hung over, alone, and feeling like the horse's ass you rode in on. And, of course, you're looking for the very person you were in a bitch match with some hours before to make you feel safe and secure, because she (or he) is, "the only thing that makes it alright."

That's rich, isn't it?

I intertwined some lyrics about my semi-religious upbringing in there ("Orphan bastard child of God, Born of a rumor and a fraud"). I think I did that to sort of deepen the song with references to being indoctrinated with some idea of "God" & morality, & coming to the realization that these things don't necessarily make anyone righteous. In fact, they can have the opposite effect, really. I think that's why I tied up that first verse with my favorite line in the song: "The one who doesn't judge deserves all the love." Tell THAT to a religious nut!

What does that have to do with the song? Well, it beats the hell out of me, but...maybe, since it's a love song, I sort-of threw the love of family into the mix, which sort of intertwines with the religious themes, just like the love of that special one who "makes it alright" gets intertwined with too much booze! My life-long morbid fear of & fascination with death probably makes a cameo appearance as well. (I'm not gonna talk about that - but those of you who know me know all too well what I mean).

We all come from somewhere, and that leads us to where we are....

Anyway, enough of that shit.

I have a couple of random notes about the second verse that are kind-of funny. First, I sing "Gone, but not forgiven", because I saw that on a list of strange gravestone epitaphs in an almanac when I was a little kid, and it popped into my head when Lase and I were writing the song. Which leads me to the second line, "Alternative to living", which I think I once saw in a magazine ad for time shares or some shit - "THE PERFECT ALTERNATIVE TO LIVING!" I thought that was hilarious. (It's too bad that I can't find it).

As for writing the song, like most of them, it came quickly. I had that little lyric idea, and the beat with the sort-of "half-note-triplet" feel, & Lase & I took it from there. Lase really brought it to another level, yet again, when he pulled that bridge part out of his ass. I love that part.

Recording the vocals for this song (much like "Sister Vicodin") was kind of a BITCH. It's such a personal song, and one that requires a plaintive vocal, which can't be forced, or it's going to sound hokey as fuck. So, I did my best (which, admittedly, was a long shot at best) to evoke some of my favorite singers, like Mark Lanegan, & Lou Reed, & Nick Cave, to get the job done. while still keeping it my own enough to not sound like some cheap imitator. I think it came out the way I envisioned it. Lase's guitar textures are fantastic (which is the reason why I wanted to record it in the first place), and Mike Maenza, once again, really stepped up with fantastic drumming on here - taking a little idea of mine, and making it explosive. I applaud them.

That's enough.

One more song to go, next week.

Thanks for reading; thanks for listening.

Marty E.

"We're all messed up but nowhere to go..."

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #6 - Midnight Crisis - "Lost & Found"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #5 - Midnight Crisis - "Sister Vicodin"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #4 - Midnight Crisis - "(Get Home) Dangerous"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #3 - Midnight Crisis - "Kiss My Apocalipps"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "Make It Alright" on BandCamp

Download "Make It Alright" on CDBaby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Make It Alright" on Apple iTunes

Download "Make It Alright" on Amazon

"Make It Alright" on Spotify

SONGS: #6 - Midnight Crisis - "Lost & Found"

2017-12-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

This is another song (like "(Get Home) Dangerous") in which the lion's share of the lyrics in the first two verses were written a long time ago - in this case, probably 15 years back! The strange but cool thing about that is that they're still extremely relevant to me, after that long - in spite of (and maybe because of) the fact that the meaning of them has changed, or at least the implications of them have become more substantial. Time can do that kind of thing.

I wrote a lot of the first two verses not too long after 9/11, when we were dealing with the aftermath & getting our "sea legs" back in the city. That's where the the term "New York Post [or post] apocalypse" comes from. For one thing, it really DID feel like the end of the world (and surely life hasn't been the same since)...and also, it was the dawn of the celebutard-focused reality tv "tabloid culture" that infiltrated the popular consciousness around that time & that we're still quite in the midst of today. So, there's a double entendre there, if you like.

Anyway, those initial lyrics floated around in my head for a long time, until I eventually started writing my own shit in order to see what might happen. Again, I figured, if something is STILL on my mind that I wrote in 2001, or whenever, then, maybe I have something at least marginally worthwhile, here.

With that said, what do they MEAN, now? Well...a lot of the New York City that I fell in love with is gone now. I'm not going to turn this into a soapbox sermon about hyper-gentrification, but, let's face it, it's affected a lot of us. It's turned Downtown, NYC, which was once a place full of beautiful, creative, & poor people, into a stomping ground for ugly, rich half-wits. With that said, I still love it here, and when I take a look around, despite what has been lost, I still see a lot of cool people and cool shit happening here. It's all just fewer and further between.

So, I guess when I consider everything, I'd say that the song is about keeping your head straight, your spirit up, and your resilience intact in a world that seems to be perpetually crumbling into a pile of shit, and believing in yourself despite overwhelming evidence that doing so might define insanity.

You know...all of that shit!

So, with all of that in mind, I rewrote the lyric to inform the song of all the time between the initial lyric idea, and the time when I made something of it, as it were....

...and then I heard this riff, that must have been inspired by the likes of Girls Against Boys, the Wildhearts, and New Model Army (whose socially conscious, rebellious themes might have also provided counsel)...and pretty much wrote the skeleton of the song based on that. I had that "get on down-down-down-down-down" sort of hook on my mind for awhile, and found that it fit over that riff quite nicely.

Besides pulling the chorus part out of my ass, that's about it.

I made a little demo out of it, and was really on the fence about how I felt about it. I knew that it was coming from a sincere place with me, but...sincerity doesn't always translate. Did it sound hokey? Did it sound like the real deal? Did it ROCK, for Christ's sake?

Fast-forward to when Lase recorded the song for real, and added his explosive guitar magic on top of it, and....the answer, at least for my ears, was a resounding yes. One thing that particularly took me aback was how much Mike Maenza's drum-pummeling really whipped the song into submission. Not bad for something I came up with on the fly from an old-ass idea on a hung-over afternoon in my room, on an acoustic bass!

That's the if, and, & butt-end of it. Thanks for reading, thanks for listening....there are two songs left on the album. Stay tuned for entries on each.

Marty E.

"Flesh and blood, concrete & steel
To dust we all shall fall..."

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #5 - Midnight Crisis - "Sister Vicodin"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #4 - Midnight Crisis - "(Get Home) Dangerous"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #3 - Midnight Crisis - "Kiss My Apocalipps"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "Lost & Found" on BandCamp

Download "Lost & Found" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Lost & Found" on Apple iTunes

Download "Lost & Found" on Amazon

"Lost & Found" on Spotify

SONGS: #5 - Midnight Crisis - "Sister Vicodin"

2017-11-19T23:04:00.000-05:00

To begin with, in the interest of full disclosure, yeah, I got the idea for this song from the Stones' "Sister Morphine"...and also, for that matter, from the Pillbox song, "Sister Caroline" (what does THAT rhyme with, again?). I simply thought that it might be a cool idea to write something that was making a similar statement, but put in a modern context.

With that said, this concept of juxtaposing (and personifying) the intoxication & escapism that comes from the likes of chemicals & love, in a song, is hardly new or uncommon. Hell, everyone from Roxy Music to Vain to...(I don't know).....the fucking Lemonheads...have all done that successfully.

So, I figured it was worth a try.

But, it wasn't REALLY that well thought out, at first, to be honest. The title "SISTER VICODIN" popped into my head one day when I was washing my hair or some shit. I liked it, but, what was I gonna do with it?

It didn't take long for me to formulate the chorus, in my head....."SIS-TER!! VIC-O-DIN!!!" In my imagination, I heard these chords behind it (which still sound a little bit to me like the KISS song, "Tears Are Falling", turned on its head). I kept turning it over & over in my head, and I've learned that if that happens, there's a distinct possibility that you might have something good.

[I became so distracted by it that, one day, when we were walking around Flushing in search of Soup Dumplings, my girlfriend basically asked me what the hell my problem was. So, I sang her the chorus idea right there on the street! That cleared it up...]

A couple of weeks later, I went to Lase's house to do some writing, armed with this, and another idea or two (we also wrote "(Get Home) Dangerous" that night). It took us a good hour of me singing this guitar idea for the chorus to Lase before we got on the same page with it, but it finally clicked. Lase then started playing this...for lack of better terms, "druggy", "airy" guitar part, that became the basis for the verses. In my typically subtle way, I said something like, "THAT's FUCKING GREAT!" Lase didn't think it worked, for some reason I don't remember. "HOGWASH!!" It was fucking PERFECT, as far as I was concerned! I grabbed a pen & paper & scrawled down the lyrics for the verses right there. "Magic in disguise," indeed!

We had the lion's share of it finished, or so we thought, when Lase plugged in his guitar, hit these fucking ARENA-sized chords, and started sort-humming this cool melody....and it made me say something like, "HOLY FUCK!" That became that bridge part, which is my favorite part of the song, and might be my favorite few seconds of the album, for some reason I can't explain. (I kind of ripped off Deep Purple a little bit when I came up with the "Another wasted sunset..." lyric, but...I didn't think that they would mind).

Speaking of lyrics, they're pretty self-explanatory in this song, but my favorite ones are in the second verse, where I'm describing withdrawal symptoms, etc: "Boiling fevers, ice-cold sweats, My sheets are soaking wet, Daydream nightmares, for Christ's sake, DYIN' AWAY THE NIGHT AWAKE!"

I digress...

I've learned a lot from this song. For one thing, it was a really profound example of turning some stupid idea that exists nowhere but between ones ears into something tangible. That alone blows my mind sometimes.

Another thing I learned the HARD way from this song is that, just because you write a song in a lower register, one that fits your range extremely well, and all of that shit....that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be easy to sing. This song (along with "Make It Alright" - more on that one in a couple of weeks) has the most subtleties & vulnerabilities that need to come out in the vocal...which, along with the actual singing itself, has to be exactly right, or it's not worth bothering with. As such, I think I sang this song at least 15 times at Lase's studio before we had enough for him to piece together a good vocal. I wouldn't have known it when we wrote the song originally, but this song was a BITCH for me to record vocals on....but we finally got it, and...well, at least for me, it was worth all of that hard work and frustration. That's the kind of shit that's going to make you that much better during your next go-around...or at least, I hope so!

Enough.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for listening. It means a lot to me.

Three more songs to go...

Marty E.

"My world is spinnin', I don't look back
Earthquakes....heart attacks"

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #4 - Midnight Crisis - "(Get Home) Dangerous"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #3 - Midnight Crisis - "Kiss My Apocalipps"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "Sister Vicodin on BandCamp

Download "Sister Vicodin" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Sister Vicodin" on Apple iTunes

Download "Sister Vicodin" on Amazon

"Sister Vicodin" on Spotify

SONGS: #4 - Midnight Crisis - "(Get Home) Dangerous"

2017-11-12T23:48:00.000-05:00

"Sunshine couldn't be so clever, the sidewalk sparkles in the midnight heat..."

I wrote the first two verses of this song about 15-fucking-years ago, when I was living in a bedbug-infested building made of Tinkertoys near the southern border of Hell's Kitchen. I'd been in New York City for a short time, and by all accounts, was struggling in virtually every way possible.

[I mean, when I went out, I'd often bring a little bottle of Jim Beam in my pocket to "modify & fortify" my Friday nights, out in the East Village/Lower East Side, or when I lacked that kind of fore-site, I'd stop by a deli between bar stops & grab a can of Bud to slam on the rockin' stroll onward.]

But, I didn't care! I was becoming what I always wanted to be, or so I thought. I had a band, & I was going out a lot, getting to know cool & beautiful people, playing shows at Don Hill's, The Continental, & CBGB's, and making my way, becoming part of the city I fell head-over-heels in love with. By day, I'd put my hair back into a pony-tail, caffeinate my hangovers away, and work as an "office temp" - which, essentially, allowed me to subsist & get reasonably "refreshed" while, in my mind, looking for my Street of Dreams and, ya know...all of that shit.

Also, I met a lot of "tragic types" along the way, who had their own stories to tell, and liked having someone to tell them to, even amidst the borderline squalor I was living in. That's what verse 2 is all about.

It really was a different world, then....anyway....

Anyway, all these years since I wrote the gist of the first two verses of this song, they always sort-of haunted me in my head, and I knew that I wanted to use them for something, but wasn't sure what, until Lase & I started writing. One night, it dawned on me (no pun intended) when, at bar time, someone typically said to me, "Get home safe!"

"Fuck THAT," I thought, "Get home DANGEROUS!"

I guess the point is, nothing cool or inspiring or interesting ever happened as a result of playing it safe, as far as I know. The frustration & struggling & adversity is worth it, because you do your own thing in your own time, whatever that means to you. I think and hope that I convey that effectively in the third verse and in the choruses.

I don't know what the fuck I have to show for this line of thinking, but...I have this song, in any case.

Lase and I wrote this song on a very productive night (we wrote "Sister Vicodin" that night too - more on that next week). I came in with most of the lyrics & a rhythmic idea that became part of the main riff (dadada....duh-daaaaaaaaah)....we had a drink & worked on it for about an hour, and....shit, we came up with those cool "question and answer" vocal lines in the choruses. We made a demo recording of it right away, a little bit of which remains on the final recording.

When we were recording the vocals, I took a couple of opportunities to do some Monster Magnet-style screams on here. That was a lot of fun.

Lase is particularly stoked on this track, and I believe it's his favorite track on the album. As for me, it's too difficult for me to pick & I don't feel like I've got to choose!

Until next week......Thanks for reading/listening!

- Marty E.

"You haven't done it all
But you've done your part...."

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #3 - Midnight Crisis - "Kiss My Apocalipps"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "(Get Home) Dangerous" on BandCamp

Download "(Get Home) Dangerous" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "(Get Home) Dangerous" on Apple iTunes

Download "(Get Home) Dangerous" on Amazon

"(Get Home) Dangerous" on Spotify

SONGS: #3 - Midnight Crisis - "Kiss My Apocalipps"

2017-11-05T20:28:00.001-05:00

At our album release party, last month, I introduced this song by saying, "I had a dream I was David Johansen as an anchor man, reading the evening news...and that includes the sports and weather, motherfuckers!!!"

It's total bullshit, but it explains the song pretty well, if you ask me.

This is an example of a song, that, lyric-wise, was a complete stream-of-consciousness explosion, aided by sleep-deprivation, and media over-exposure. That's a mouthful, isn't it?

It was late Summer, 2016. Dim Donnie Trump had just clinched the Republican nomination for....(gulp)...the....presidency. I mean, it was unTHINKable! One couldn't take it seriously, almost. It just felt like a big fucking joke - one that stood out, significantly, in a world that's FULL of bad jokes.

It was one of those nights in which I stayed up all night at my girl's house, watching crappy shows on Netflix, and dicking around, playing Words With Friends, etc, until 6:30 in the morning, when one (usually) has no choice but to pass out.

That was when it hit me: "Armageddon won't be televised, Pull the silver screens over your eyes...." Again, this ultimate fruition of what they called "Trumpism"....it COULDN'T be real. It HAD to be a fucking JOKE. It will PASS, and SOON, right? He can't possibly, WIN, right? RIGHT?!!! Something in the back of my mind probably was probably a little nervous, even if I wouldn't admit it to myself or take it seriously. So I got back up, and wrote the ENTIRE lyric of this song, pretty much verbatim with how we recorded it. I then immediately texted it to Lase, who asked me why the fuck I was still up!

What's weird about it is, that third verse: "The nightmare, Baby, has come true, The shallow end is deeper than you..." Again, I was pretty-much kidding. I mean, I thought it was..."apocalyptic" enough, if you will, that this fucking moron got the NOMINATION. I'm not pretentious or full-of-shit enough to say that I was being prophetic or some shit - I had NO fucking idea what was going to happen. What I did think was that maybe this was, in some sick way, a way to a path forward - one that would possibly scare us into some good sense (and, hell, maybe it still is, but I have my doubts). That's what I think I meant by, "You can fucking keep yesterday..." The last I heard, looking back never got anyone anywhere. I have always felt that nostalgia, more often than not, holds us back from becoming what we should be...you know, that kind of shit. Before long, you start telling kids to get off your lawn! What I guess I'm getting at is, if we can survive and get through this dark fucking mess, maybe we can can come out of it better than we were somehow. That's probably a big "IF" I don't know what choice we have but to try.

[There's also an excellent chance that this is all a big CON JOB, but....that's another discussion.]

This shit sure took on new meaning for me after the election results came in, almost a year ago. But, if you're reading this, you already know all about that, so...we'll leave that there.

The point of this? Well...some people are calling it the end of the world. I am not - at least not yet. But if it is, there's really not a lot that any of us can do about it except educate ourselves and be the best that we can be, in spite of it. "If tomorrow never come, When the lights go out, we'll have our day in the sun." (That's probably a nod to PRINCE, too).

As far as the actually writing of the song itself, I just sang the lyrics over Lase's riffs that he came up with on the fly. What we came up with really plays to my (admittedly limited) strengths as a singer. I'm sort of imitating an imaginary hybrid of David Johansen (again) & Lux Interior having the misfortune of selling used cars, or some shit. For that reason, it's probably my favorite song in the set to sing.

What do YOU think?

Thanks for reading & listening. Song #4 one week from now.

Marty E.

"Don't be afraid, Baby, to take that dive, 'cause it's the only way you'll ever know you're alive...."

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: Songs: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: Songs #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "Kiss My Apocalipps" on BandCamp

Download "Kiss My Apocalipps" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Kiss My Apocalipps" on Apple iTunes

Download "Kiss My Apocalipps" on Amazon

"Kiss My Apocalipps" on Spotify

SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"

2017-10-29T23:18:00.000-04:00

First of all, this song is definitely the most optimistic one on the entire album, and probably the closest thing to "radio friendly" - whatever THAT means, these days.

Not to sound cliche', but, I swear that this wasn't intentional.

All I know is that the night we wrote it, I knew on the train ride over to LASE's house that I wanted to write a song called "Midnight Somewhere", but I had no lyrics, no riffs, and no particular ideas in mind at all. I just thought that it was a cool title, not just in relation to the band's name, but also...regardless of that, it seemed to me like a title that implies a what my idea of what the spirit of Rock n' Roll is all about, which is, essentially, that anything might be possible if you make it happen...and that life presents awesome opportunities, both large and small, at every turn, if your mind and your heart are in the right place and your eyes are willing to see them. PLUS, every night's true beginning, in MY mind, has always been at MIDNIGHT, but....it's always midnight SOMEWHERE, isn't it?

Anyway, we had a little drink of this and maybe some of that, and then Lase picked up a guitar and hit what became that opening riff, & I, in my Rock n' Roll Seinfeldian way, said something like, "That's fucking good! Keep playing THAT!" Then he started singing that little "Ah-uh-ah" hook that we do in the intro sections. This was beginning to sound like something resembling a SONG, already.

I started scrawling lyrics down about whatever came to mind. I was remembering what was typical & magical in its way, not too long ago....wandering down Ludlow Street, maybe a little after 10pm in the late September chill (at least at the time) with no particular destination in mind (ok, full disclosure: Motor City would have likely been the first stop), and not knowing what the night might bring, but knowing full well that the plan was to have as much fun as humanly possible (and maybe write a song about it later - no shit). There's something about that feeling of not knowing what's going to be happening four hours from now, but knowing that you surely as all hell want to find out. If you're reading this, you are likely to know the feeling that I'm talking about, but whether you do or not: "So hot, so bright, Out in the cool breeze tonight, You don't know where you'll go but you're damn sure where you might..." It's not a feeling or a state of mind that's easy to recreate, & trying too hard might ruin it, like a night like that, itself. But...we were in the zone, and I think we might have gotten it as close to in that first verse as we possibly could. Every time I sing it, it still takes me down that street, heading South.

The second verse seems like it might be a little bit of a downer - you woke up after partying & celebrating your very existence. Lord knows where you are & with whom, & you're discombobulated, and not just a little bit hung over. But, at the same time, "You're lucky you woke up today..." It's not all bad. It used to always be my assertion that a bad hangover is a reminder of the good times you had the night before. That's not my point of view nearly as often these days, but....I can certainly still write about it. "The Sun is passing through the hourglass, It's your shining moment make it last.....HEY!!!" The optimism continues, huh? I guess...

That was a way of life for a long time....

That's about it, really....oh, except the bridge....

That just came from this idea I had about...sort of turning chicken shit into chicken salad, as they say. "Obliterate. Deviate. Alleviate. Elevate. CREATE." Again, it comes from the same line of thinking that, to be honest, has probably killed a lot of those of the "creative ilk" - the old stand-by about taking life to the limits in order to fuel your creativity. There's a certain amount of truth to that, but I think that creativity depends a lot more on having experiences, the ability to channel them into whatever your talents dictate, and above all, having something passionate to say about them, and perhaps something to communicate regarding learning from them.

Jesus H. Christ....I digress....

I had delusions of bringing signs onstage with the words from the bridge hand-written on them like Bob Dylan and INXS, but.....that idea got shot down, HAHAHAHAHAHA....

It's kind-of funny - one of the first times we played this song live, I sort-of paraphrased Social Distortion (after a fashion) when introducing this song, by saying, "If you like 'happy songs', enjoy this one, because this is the only one in the set!" (This, if course, isn't entirely true, but...whatever). After the show, my homeboy Chris Santos came up to me and said, "Yo, that 'happy song' was my favorite song in the set!" Hahahahahaha. That's cooler than hell. The way I see it, is...if you like ANY of these songs enough to pick a favorite, then we are definitely getting somewhere. And...hell, maybe THAT's what the song is about.

I don't fucking know. To paraphrase Keith fucking Richards, we just happen to be there when the songs arrive.

Anyway, thanks for reading, thanks for listening, and there will be another entry next week, and ever week until we have one for each song on the album.

Cheers.

Marty E.

"Outshine the brightest star!"

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Bandcamp

Download "Midnight Somewhere" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Apple iTunes

Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Amazon

"Midnight Somewhere" on Spotify

SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

2017-10-22T20:59:00.000-04:00

"Take Control" is the first song on Heart Beatings, my first album with Midnight Crisis, which is my first album as a lead singer & songwriter, (along with LASE, of course)....and furthermore, it's the first complete-incomplete song idea I've every put together on my own (which LASE added to later).

So, there are a lot of firsts, there.

Oddly enough, that song came spontaneously, out of cluttered air, about four years ago. It was one of those rare nights (at the time) when I stayed in & chilled after at least a week of going out every night. I was sitting with my acoustic bass guitar, which I'd had for the better part of ten years, but had done nothing short of jack shit with...and I thought: let's try something this rhythmic riff idea that I got from the Sisters of Mercy's song "Ribbons" - really simple, but quite deliberate, and easy to put a melody and an attitude over. So I fucked around with it, rolled it, poled it, and marked it with an E...but then I had to go to the other part of this idea...which was to take the main riff to Janes Addiction's "Ain't No Right", and put THAT through the same battering process to change it JUST enough to sound like it might resemble something of its own. (I also wanted all of this this contextualized by some sort of Guns n' Roses "Rocket Queen" or Motley Crue "Too Young To Fall In Love" sort of feel and swagger, if you will). Then, somehow, I came up with the bridge part, too, just via trial and error.

It's not as if I was or am ANY kind of bass player, or guitar player, but I am able to teach myself how to play what I have on my head and show it to someone else...who can then take the main idea and add the punctuation - dot the Ts and cross the Is - make this bold, and italicize this, and add lots of colors & shades & cool shit to it, and make it a fucking SONG, ya know?

I digress...

Another really funny thing I did when I did the original demo of the song (which, like all of my song ideas, I made using GarageBand on my phone, and doing a LOT of swearing in the process) was....I banged out a sort of "machine-shop" percussion track on this metal stool of mine, kind-of like I'd imagine Cop Shoot Cop probably did once upon a time, and it gave it this really cool, unique special percussion effect. It's for the reason that I banged out a similar pattern on an iron skillet when we recorded the song for real, at LASE's house, and if you listen really closely, you can start hearing it, I think, after the chorus kicks in.

Lyrics? Hell, I don't know. I came up with the entire thing on the fly, lyric-wise, and kept 95% of it the way I wrote it that night. It was just something that took shape, in that spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness kind of way that songs (sometimes the best ones) often do. I after I'd gotten the musical skeleton down, I just listened to it, and, without thinking about it, started with, "Sometimes I think about you when I'm lost into the night...." (a little PJ Harvey and a little Only Ones - right in the first line, huh?). I mean, ANYONE from your girlfriend to your grandma wants to hear that, you know what I mean? But you have to say these things within the rhythmic context of the song, and hopefully wrap enough of a melody around it to make it palatable for anyone besides yourself, HAHAHAHAHA!!! It can be a bitch....but when it works, it works.

My favorite lyric? The last line in verse 1: "...every tear you cry paints a picture of my heartbreak."

The chorus? "Take control"...of what, exactly? Hell....I think I was just really singing about what the fuck I was doing, now that I think about it. I'd had a lot of song ideas in my head for years, some being better than others, and was frustrated that none of them were coming into fruition. So, without giving it a lot of thought, I finally grabbed myself by the breaches and got to work....and now, we finally have an album of it.

I digress....

Anyway, the lyrics took about 5 minutes to write, and I finished the demo around 6am or so, or in my world, bed time!

It's the coolest thing in the world for me to have made this a real, recorded song, with LASE's killer guitar madness, not to mention his top-fucking-notch production/engineering work, + Mike's brutal warrior drums whipping it mercilessly into shape.

Anyway, download a copy....or at LEAST stream it.

And thank you for listening.

Next song, next week.

Marty E.

"Nothin' matters but tonight and you and me..."

Stream/download "Take Control" on BandCamp

Download "Take Control" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Take Control" on Apple iTunes

Download "Take Control" on Amazon

"Take Control" on Spotify

....and to think that they had to cut down trees to make the toilet paper that we threw up into the trees.....

2014-01-11T21:11:00.001-05:00

This one takes us WAY back....

I was NOT the popular kid back in high school. I got a multitude of shit for being different, and it was mostly unpleasant to say the least....but in retrospect, it almost makes me feel honored at this point....but that's another story.

There were a LOT of trees in my family's front and back yards....and for some reason, during my sophomore year, it seemed like a weekend wouldn't go by without some jerkoffs toilet-papering the trees. After this happened a few times, I grew tired of it....and it just so happened that I heard through the grapevine who was behind these toilet papering shenanigans. I aimed to retaliate!

So...I got a couple of my friends together, and we went to the grocery store and bought....well, a SHITLOAD of toilet paper. The funniest part was, when we went to pay for it, my friend Dan said to the lady behind the cash register, "Um.....yeah.....we all REALLY have to GO!" Ahahahahahaha!!!!!!

This douchelord who was the target of my wrath lived on the outskirts of town, in a fairly heavily-wooded area. PERFECT! And nobody was home. EVEN BETTER!!!

We papered the entire area around this crankjob's house with meticulous artistry!!!! And none of us could hold back our laughs as we did so. It was fucking hilarious!!! I can see, now, why those shaft sanders had so much fun in MY yard! HAhahahaha.

The best part, though, was running back to my friend's car, and driving by, to examine our handiwork. It was gorgeous! All of that toilet paper, waving in the trees like ghosts in the breeze! It still warms my heart to think about it!

Anyway....please don't squeeze the Charmin!

A Winter's Tale or Just Another Metaphor For Life

2014-01-09T20:11:00.001-05:00

This one goes back a little bit....

....to right after I graduated from college, and moved to smack-dab in the middle of an Arctic Tundra known as Minneapolis, MN....right on I-94, equidistant from Uptown and Downtown, if you're familiar with the area. I had a view of the modest skyline of Downtown, and found the sound of the traffic from the highway to be comforting for some reason.

I digress.....

I was looking for what the Replacements would call, a "Goddamn Job", when I came across an ad stating that a local dinner theatre company was looking for musicians for a Patsy Cline revue....I think it was called Closer Walk with Patsy Cline. They wanted a drummer who could also sing vocal harmony parts. "What the hell", I thought, "I could do THAT....and, I might LEARN something....and....who's going to have a COOLER first post-college job than THAT?! NO fucker, THAT's who!!!" I called the number in the ad immediately, talked myself up a bit (no shit), and set up the audition for that Saturday.

I remember it being colder than witch's lingerie closet that day. No matter, I got in the pick-up truck & drove to the suburbs for my audition. This would be a good time to mention that I was a TOTAL CHEAPSKATE when it came to keeping the tank filled with gas....so much so that I found myself tempting fate very often (much like our good friend Kramer). Well, this was NOT a good day to do that, as I admitted to myself when, right on the goddamn highway, with the gas gauge on "E" (usually my favorite letter, but perhaps not in this case), the engine just....petered out. I got out of the truck and tried a little trick that I used to use when this would happen, which was to take the gas cap off & keep it open. For some reason, this would often allow me to start the damn truck up again, and coast to the nearest gas station. Yeah....it didn't work this time, and I was getting late for my audition.

I grabbed the gas can (which, now that I think about it, I should have kept FILLED) from underneath the topper, and flagged down someone who was nice enough to drive me to a gas station (which was less than a mile away, of course) to get some gas. When I got back, I poured the gas into the tank, and then I reached for my keys......which....weren't.....there.

Yup, there they were....in the ignition, where I left them. And of COURSE I locked the goddamn door...and the other one. FUCK!!! WHAT the HELL was I going to do?! I was now more than fashionably late for my audition, and I didn't have any time for this crap!

So....I did what any other enterprising, red-blooded, young American Rock n' Roller would have done. I crawled underneath the topper.....got on my side....brought my leg back with an angle so my boot heel was aimed just so.....and, with all of my might, I KICKED IN the middle panel of the back window!!! Then I reached in, grabbed my drum sticks, and with them, flipped the lever on the side of the door and unlocked it. Then I grabbed the blanket that I had back there, and covered the seat with it (as there was no sense in getting cut by broken glass).

I finally pulled into the theatre company's offices, apologized profusely for being (at least) a half hour late, and explained how much of a DUMBASS I was!! Thankfully, they were totally cool about it.

I did my drumming/percussion audition, my singing audition, and my doing-both-at-the-same-time audition (despite being as winded as Holy Hell).....

And.....to make a long story not QUITE as long......

....I GOT THE GIG!!!!! BOOM!!!!!

Are you happy, now?!!! How about....now?!!! Or.....NOW?!!!! or Some Fast Food For Thought

2014-01-08T21:11:00.002-05:00

"Every time I think of happy I think of h-a-p-p-y. It's a funny word. I think of slaphappy. What's happy? There are feelings of well-being and comfort and peace, love, of feeling assured. I guess I was happy the day I got my Tome Mix cowboy spurs when I was six years old -- but on that same day my great-grandmother died, so..." - Al Pacino, Playboy Interview, December, 1996

I remember reading this when I was working at the Greyhound Bus Station, back in WisCONsin, a few years before I split to New York City. It really opened my eyes up, because I could relate to what he said 100%!

I remember being at my dad's funeral when I was 7-years-old, right? It just so happened that my new best friend was having his birthday party on the same day. After the service at the church, everyone gathered for refreshments or whatever in the church basement. And my Mom asked my sister-in-law if she would drive me to the birthday party. Her line of thinking was, "The funeral is over-with, so why does he have to hang around? He might as well go and have some fun with his new friends...." So, of course, I went to the party in my little suit & tie, and ate cake & ice cream, and I think I even talked about my dad a little bit with my friend's mom. You, know, it was alright. I think that, in hindsight, it was extremely cool of my Mom to have me go to that party.

Was I happy? Probably not, but...I probably laughed a lot. And....THERE's the rub!

But, essentially, what Pacino is saying, and I'm sort-of echoing, is that....for many of us, happiness seems to happen according to whatever the last thing is that happened. I stubbed my toe....so I'm pissed....but, then a friend said something hilarious....so now, I'm happy! That's usually how every day goes for me. I have some wild mood swings every now and then, but I've never really found any sort of sustainable happiness, I don't think. But, with that said, I've found EVEN LESS sustainable UNhappiness. And I think that's probably the whole point, at the end of the day. If you find yourself feeling more good than bad, when it all boils down, you're probably coming out ahead. I guess, it's all relative and subjective...and up to each of us as individuals, according our own experiences in life and our consequential perspectives, to suss out the difference.

It's funny, though. I know rich people who are miserable, and poor people who seem happy, and vice versa. I know married people who are happy, and some definitely not so much, and ditto for single people. I know happy drunks, and I know sober people who make me want to jump off a bridge. I know successful people who are thrilled as all HELL with their accomplishments, and those who don't appreciate anything...even themselves and their own hard work. I know people who have had some awful, traumatic shit happen in their past, who seem to have gained some kind of peace with it, and people who at least claim to have had smooth-sailing all the way who are totally lost. I've certainly seen content people who have struggled all their lives and and I've seen people with diamond-encrusted golden spoons for miles who are incorrigible at best. So, in summation, there's absolutely no blueprint!

(Now, granted, nobody REALLY knows what has happened in someone's past, no matter WHO they are or WHERE they came from...not to mention that nobody has a right to judge).

So, money doesn't buy happiness (but I'll take it). Marriage & relationships certainly don't, necessarily (but the right ones will certainly help, if you can find them). So what is it? Drugs and alcohol? Nope. Big parties, every night? Hell no. (Not that there's anything inherently wrong with any of those things, either).

Is it about having great people close to you? Now we might be onto something with that, for sure, at least in my case. No matter how many friends you have, what really matters is that the people close to you are real, and there for the right reasons...and for you be the same way to them. I've been extremely lucky in that regard, and hope my friends feel that they have been with me. Not everyone might agree that having people close to them contributes to their happiness, but...I just can't relate to that, and I'm someone who needs my alone time as much as the next guy. Love and understanding rank highly with me.

I also think that it's just as important to feel inspired, engaged, and moving forward with your hopes, dreams and aspirations, and to feel like you have some kind of place carved out in the world, and that you are moving forward....or at least that's important to me, for sure! And these things can evolve and change over time. Hell, part of growing is about finding new interests, new ambitions, and new talents....and new ways to apply your knowledge and experiences that you rack up all the time. I don't know if it's this way for everyone, but, again...for me, it's unquestionable.

When you sift through all of the bullshit, I think it's about self-awareness and how that coincides with the reality of this fucked-up world around us. And I think that the more time goes on, and the more rapidly the world changes, the more often it is demanded of us to adapt....and sometimes, that's a large pain in the ass. But, what are the options? Few, at best?

There's another conundrum that occurred to me the other day. I hope that we aren't faced with just two choices; to either wind up being jaded, cold, and callous.....or in a perpetual state of arrested adolescence?! Shit, if given that choice, clearly, I'd choose the latter, but I hope that perhaps we can come up with something better than that!

I don't have any answers.....just more and more questions. If anything, I'm just thinking aloud, trying to make sense of everything that brought me to where I'm sitting right this very moment.

But....you know, it's not bad....not bad at all.

Bundle up, everyone.....

Welcome To the Concrete Jungle....or.....My First Night Out On the Town in NYC!

2013-11-12T22:20:00.000-05:00

All of you who know me know that I know my way around the big city, & that I've had my share of late, late nights...but that I generally am able to keep my shit together. (I'm knocking on wood as I write that, hahahaha).

This was not always the case, and I'm going to tell you a funny story to illustrate that.

It was approximately a year before I moved into town. I had never, ever been to New York City in my life, and knew nothing about it, aside from what I read about 10 times in PLEASE KILL ME. I had flown here with my good friend Dan (my oldest friend from back home, for lack of a better term). We crashed at his sister, Julie's apartment on the Upper West Side. (Julie would later become my sort-of "Rock n' Roll big sister" when I was a new kid in town, for which I am eternally grateful). We had a big dinner and a few beers the first night we were here....but we couldn't wait to get our asses out to the East Village/Lower East Side to....immerse ourselves in the perceived coolness that was there.

Yeah, right.

So, we got on the Subway Train and went downtown, not really knowing what the hell we were doing or where the hell we were going, but knowing that we wanted to hit Coney Island High and the Continental, etc. I'm sure that we looked just as clueless as we were at the time. I think we went to the Continental first, and had a couple of Heinekens and shots of Jagermeister (my combo of choice at the time. Yuck!), and probably very obviously ogled at the girls there, etc, whom I'm certain took no notice of us. I hope not, anyway, hahahahaha!!!

Anyway, we headed around the corner to Coney Island High, and the dude at the door (who was that?) said that there were psychedelic bands playing upstairs, or some shit. That was good enough for us, so we headed on up, ordered ourselves another round, and checked out the band, whoever it was.

Soon, we started getting a little bit drunk, when some attractive black-haired girl started talking to me. I should have known from the start that it was too good to be true, and that I was being played, but I was much younger and more naive, let alone a stranger in a strange land. It probably didn't help that I mentioned that I didn't live in NYC....I think I recall her response being something along the lines of, "No shit!"

Pretty soon, this chick started dancing with her arms around me, and, of course, I thought that I had hit the jackpot! I was probably thinking, "Party time in NEW YORK!! I think I LIKE this place!!!"

She was dancing behind me, while, I suppose I was waving my hands in the air like I just don't care, or something to that effect. And I didn't....until I felt her hands around my waist...unbuckling my BELT!!! To make matters worse, this chick started pulling my PANTS down!

Luckily enough, even in my advanced state of refreshment, my reflexes were sharp enough that I was able to fight her off without being disrobed and/or overexposed, the operative term being, "Listen, you crazy bitch, leave me the fuck ALONE!"

And of course she looked at me with her faced crumpled with disdain, and yelled, "FINE, BE THAT WAY!" before she and her friend walked out the door. It was then that I noticed Dan laughing his ass off. I re-buckled by belt, and probably suggested that he shut the fuck up, and come with me to the bar to get another beer!

Before long, we walked over to Bleecker Street Bar for some reason, and continued with the merriment, and basically had a good time...albeit less eventful.

But the story doesn't end there!

We decided it was about time to head back to Julie's place....at GOD know's what time, but I suspect it was close to NYC's bar time of 4am. We grabbed the Subway to head back to the Upper West Side. I guess somewhere along the way, the booze and energy of the Big City got the best of me....because the next thing I knew, I was being nudged awake by this little Hispanic Good Samaritan Dude who was sitting next to me (thank you, Sir, whomever and wherever you may be). I looked around, and Dan wasn't THERE! Dude said that he had left!

In other words, I had passed out during the train ride, and Dan walked off the train, apparently assuming that I was walking behind him. He didn't notice that I was sitting there catching up on some much-need rest until he was off the train and the doors had closed!

I was scared shitless, because I I was drunk, alone, and didn't know my way around to save my life. So, I did the only thing I could think of TO do, and I got off the train, grabbed a payphone, and called Julie (whose #, luckily, was in my pocket. I had no cellphone yet).

"I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM OR WHAT THE FUCK TO DO!!!" I exclaimed, as I heard Dan laughing his ass off (AGAIN) in the background.

She told me, between guffaws, to just jump in a cab and have it drop me off on the corner by her building.

"Oh....well.....ok, then!" Simple enough, right?

When I walked through her door, we decided that, in light of the hilarity that we had experienced that night, just one more round of Heinekens was in order, despite my exhausted state.

CHEERS!!!!

It seems so long ago.....yet it doesn't....you know what I mean?

Sometimes, a bar isn't just a bar....or nothing lasts forever

2012-10-23T17:52:00.001-04:00

So, the "Clubhouse".....known to most as St. Jerome or St. Jerome's...has closed its doors for good.

Now, some people would say, "Jeez, Man....what's the big deal? There are thousands of bars in New York City....go hang out somewhere else! It's just a bar! GROW UP, already!"

Well, it's not that way, exactly.

This is a place where, for over five years, I've made friends, forged alliances, worked, played, relaxed, laughed, screamed, wept, sang, pondered, dreamed, danced, and had a lot of great times, whether I liked or remembered them or not. I also had many, many, many, MANY beers with a lot of great people....some who went on to fame & fortune, and others whom I'll never see again....but I love them all. If you're reading this, you're very likely one of them, and you know damn well that I mean it.

It started, for me, one deep, dark night a little over five years ago. I'd just gotten out of an "unhealthy (to say the least) relationship", and had just started The Dirty Pearls with my homeboy, Tommy London. I needed a new home base, a new watering hole....a new CLUBHOUSE! My good friend Luc Carl (the man who started the whole goddamn nightmare) was bartending, and after a couple of "Happy Meals", I asked him if he needed any djs there. He told me that if I wanted to do Sundays, that they were mine. "Fuck it," I thought, "I'll do fucking Sundays, then!" It was a good start.

My first Sunday there, I walked into the bar, and this tall, thin gentleman was behind the bar. "Hey, Man," I said, extending my hand, "I'm the new dj."

He shook my hand, and very smarmily, answered, "Are you gonna play....anything GOOD?!"

I walked to the booth to set up, wondering who this wise ass thought he was. I started playing the shit that I play, and got to talking with him. After two rounds of Budweisers & "Warm-up" shots, I discovered that who he thought he was, was Mr Brian Newman, and we became fast friends after discovering a mutual love for Thin Lizzy and Lynyrd Skynyrd (and it was Newman who brought in the neon Thin Lizzy sign that remains there to this day (?)). We've been friends ever since, and have both grown a lot since those days.

Those Sundays weren't always the most popular or packed night at the bar, but there was always plenty of Rock N' Roll, drinks, and good company to have a great time with. You could always expect some cool fuckers, or others, to stop by, and when I would arrive at 10:00 pm on Sunday night, I always wondered who it might be.

Sometimes, who it would be was a dude who wound up being, essentially, the "House DJ", and one of the best drinking buddies & all-around stand-up guys you could ever meet, Mr Ian Eldorado. I don't know how we got to be such great friends, but I know that it involved Budweiser and Jameson, and vintage Rock n' Roll t-shirts....and it still does!

Luc, Tommy, Newman, Ian, and I wound up becoming the "Rivington Rebels", a sort-of mobile drinking & hanging out club who often hang out at St. Jerome, and on the Lower East Side in general. We are, maybe, reminiscent of Alice Cooper's Hollywood Vampires in the 70's, that would hang out in the secret loft upstairs at the Rainbow in L.A.

So...that's the early jist of it.

The Clubhouse has changed in this way and that way since the early days, as life always does. That said, there has been a spirit that has remains constant, and that comes from those of us who convene there. Some people have called it, "a scene", which is fine....I know that many scenes have been made there, whatever that means! Tommy went deeper and called it, "a community", which it most-certainly is. To me, though, I feel that it's in my blood at this point....so...to me, it's closer to a family. It certainly means enough to us for the Dirty Pearls to have a song about the place that we play almost every time we take the stage. I, for one, can't get through the 4-count intro on my h-hat without feeling like I'm in the corner stool with a smile on my face.

That isn't something that you can get at just any bar that opens down the street.

That's why it's the end of an era.

All of that being said.....is it the end of the world? No. All of us who have been a part of it will likely be bonded by the common experience that we had & shared in the place. And, surely, we will find other places to listen to Rock N' Roll and watch the night fold and unfold 12 or 13 times. We will all continue to....do amazing and cool shit in the early part of the evening, and then celebrate later 'til the wee hours....then call each other the next day, and ask what the hell happened. Keep your phone on.

The Clubhouse is closed! LONG LIVE THE CLUBHOUSE! Or, as I wrote on the bathroom wall, "OUR GHOSTS WILL DRINK HERE FOREVER."

Thanks for all of the good nights, great friends, and many, many drinks!

Marty E.

PS-I write this with all due deference to, besides everyone I've mentioned before, to Jonas, Kelle, Stinks, Carlos, Bryan, Starlight, Dustan, Gigi, David, Ashley, Kelly, Conrad, Niko, Yoshi, Breedlove, Seth, Danae, Josh, Wolf, Necktie, Seth, Christian, Adam, Jess, & everyone else I hung out & had drinks/laughs with.

GOING OUT!!!

2012-08-09T20:21:00.001-04:00

I go out all the time. More often than not, I'm out at least 5 nights a week. There are two reasons for it.

One reason is simple: I'm addicted to FUN. Call it a state of perpetual adolescence if you'd like, but that's a lot of what life in the big city is about for a lot of us.

The other reason is slightly less simple: to promote the band and support what other people have going on. I call it "productive drinking." (There's a great enabling term for you). The truth of the matter is that it works. In any kind of entertainment business, being out there and socializing is a key to getting to where you want to be. A lot of people don't understand that....but then again, perhaps they don't want to be where I want to be. God Bless.

The ironic truth about it is, when I'm promoting and socializing....I'd much rather be playing & performing. But the promoting and socializing part is essential, I feel, to get to a position where you're playing every night. Such is the duality of the core of the Big Apple.

What's really funny is that after I've PLAYED a show & sweated my way to the inch of my life...I want
to fucking CELEBRATE with my friends who are experiencing this crazy shit with me, and live it up to a job well done....and that includes ALL of the promoting, socializing, playing, and performing. For me, that's all part of the job! But....you already knew that.

To extend upon my point before about "productive drinking", etc....if there isn't either something to promote or celebrate....going out is meaningless. Sure, it's great to hang out with your friends, but....having purpose in your life makes you a better friend in the first place.

This town is made of random acts of kindness....the kind that nobody tells you about. You know, because you've been the one who did the "acting", or someone else did for you. Those "acts" come from people who, generally speaking, are happy and enjoy life, which, again, is why most of us are here in the first place. For me, the hard work, as well as the celebration thereof, are keys to happiness. It's really fucking important, and it is this fact that keeps me from getting too jaded. Remind me that I said that the next time you see me acting like an asshole out there, hahahahaha.

The bottom line is that I still think that it's a great gig if you can get it. You just need to maintain some sense of balance. But that's another story.

Let's have a drink, shall we?

What the hell is that noise?!!! or The Sounds of Summer in the City

2012-08-09T00:25:00.001-04:00

(All song clips in this entry are songs that I was listening to at the time I'm ranting about. Coincidentally, most of it came out at that time too. Thank GOD, whoever he/she is. Music marks history, but is above & beyond it at the same time. More importantly, it's a great soundtrack).

"How can you STAND the NOISE?!!!"

"I just couldn't HANDLE it.....NO!"

"WHAT the HELL is GOING ON here?!!"

I hear it all of the time, and, frankly, I suppose I do understand the sentiment....even though sometimes those quotes are about ME.

(Sorry about that).

But, as I've probably told you....I flew into town with five suitcases that literally bruised my shoulders...only to wake up on my friend's floor (where I was very happy to be -- see previous blog for THAT story....it's a good one). I remember waking up, thinking to myself, "Holy shit! I'm here, and I'm alive....and I don't even know what that means!" I was about to grow, because I had no fucking choice!

I showered & scanned the Village Voice for job, apartment, and audition ads, like so many others undoubtedly did that day (there was no Craig's List yet, and certainly nothing resembling Social Networks).

The last thing I heard before I walked out the door ...made me think....."What the FUCK is THIS annoying HORSESHIT playing OVER and OVER again?!!! Sheee-IT, Man!!! Could you SWITCH it UP at least?!!! Play something ELSE that SUCKS, perhaps, but is DIFFERENT!!!"

Yes, it was the Mr. Softee Ice Cream Truck....and yes, I was a newbee.....but holy shit, that spooked me out!

Anyway....

I walked to the train, and heard some bird call me, "Billy Ray Cyrus", because of my leather cowboy hat that I was wearing at the time. "Welcome to New York", I was thinking. I was also wondering why the bird who said that didn't recognize a ROCKER when she saw one...or maybe she did, liked what she saw, & was trying to get me to give her a second look. I had a much thinner skin then. Looking back, that was a good one!

Soon, I found my way around town, in that relative sense. If you want to know what they mean by, "Do or die," then chuck everything for the big city, like my homeboys and I did....then come talk to me, because I want to hear your take on it! Everyone's experiences and perspectives are different, and totally valid.

But the sounds on the streets, in my speakers, and in my head....never have been lost on me. They represent a time & place...from the sound of the dude cursing & payphone & slamming the receiver down so hard that he broke the damn phone (if you see a broken payphone, you know what I mean) to the sound of the 8am subway train on my way to my first job in town (This AT THE DRIVE-IN song still sounds like the A train arriving on 44th & 8th) to....the sounds of hookers cat-calling at me on my way home from striking out at Doc Holiday's after drinking a shitloads of Pabst Blue Ribbon & Jim Beam.

I'm in a completely different place now, but these songs, when I hear them, bring me back in different ways. They can make me feel uncertain, or tired, or wistful, or irrationally determined, or melancholy, or scared, or desperate, or clueless, or whathaveyou. It makes me think of the state I was in back then, when I really didn't know what to expect from one minute to the next. It was an extremely exciting time, in a lot of ways. I think that it took a lot of courage to jump head-first into the belly of the beast, as they say. But I did it in such a state of suspended animation, as if I was watching a someone else go through all of this crazy shit.....shit that I don't think is so crazy now, really.

I mean, think about your life.....and all of the experiences you've had that you can remember. Wouldn't your life be different if you took away ONE of them? (I'm not referring to the irreparably shitty ones, of course. We can all do without those). You wouldn't exactly be YOU if you didn't have them all filed upstairs.

What's funny is that, NOW, when I hear the Mr Softee truck & all of it's inane noise, or when I see some half-drunk dude playing air-bongos on the sidewalk along with Salsa Music blaring from his car at 6pm on a Friday, when he presumably just got finished with work, or I hear the sirens going Nowhere North of Nowhere every day.....I don't mind so much. It reminds me of where I am, and that I'm well on my way with succeeding at what I came here to do. It's many years and miles away from the deafening silence of the Midwest, which I was scared to leave, and even more terrifed NOT to.

So....BRING THE NOISE!!!!

A Crash Course in what you will find in NYC in one afternoon.

2012-05-14T19:40:00.001-04:00

When I first moved to NYC, 12 years ago, I used to go an internet cafe on Bleecker Street (it's still there....right across from John's Pizzeria, which is my favorite) to apply for jobs and look for apartments, and find a band....which are very daunting tasks when you're new in the city, to say the least.

On one particular day, I was doing my thing like any other day. I'd put my backpack underneath the table I was sitting at. In this backpack were my resumes, a walkman & a few mix cassette tapes (again, they were very lean times, and it was in 2000), notebooks with lyrics, and a folder with all of my resume copies as well as job/band/apartment leads -- basically, a bunch of shit that I NEEDED, but wouldn't be worth jack shit to anyone else.

As I got up to leave, I reached underneath the table....no backpack. I looked....and it was gone. POOF! Clearly, someone had pulled a fast one, literally, right under my nose, and stolen my backpack. Great. I was SO pissed off, but mostly, I was pissed at myself for allowing that to happen.

I went back to the apartment in Hell's Kitchen that I was renting a room in, and watched tv, still very pissed off. The phone rang. It was some dude who worked at a diner down the street from the internet cafe that I'd been at. He said that he'd found my bag in the bathroom, and asked if I'd like to come down and get it.

I went to the diner, grabbed my bag....and there was NOTHING missing. I ordered up a cheeseburger, and asked the dude at the counter how they'd found my bag. He said that some dude who appeared to be quite shady (probably a junkie) had come into the diner....gone into the bathroom for several minutes....then left. He apparently realized how worthless the items in my bag were (to him) and left it there.

On one hand, some asshole had stolen from me....on the other, someone else was kind enough to return it to me. I had fallen prey to the anonymous thief by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and been blessed with the kindness of a complete stranger, both in less than two hours.

Welcome to New York!

If I Had Known What I Was Getting Into....or....My First Day In New York

2012-02-20T22:37:00.002-05:00

I rolled into town feeling like a cold caller trying to sell beige slacks on June 1, 2000, with about 3 grand (in checks & money orders) rolled up in my sock, over a hundred pounds of luggage on my bruised shoulders, and little the fuck else.

I flew in from Minneapolis after spending one last night with my ex-girlfriend, then leaving her and my group of best friends & life as I knew it...and there was no turning back. (I that believe you CAN "look back" every once in awhile - to reflect, which is what I'm doing here).

On my flight, I remember the pilot saying through the loudspeaker, "Ladies & Gentlemen.....uuuuuuuuummmmmm.....if you look to the left of the aircraft.....uuuuuummmmm.....that's Lake Erie...."

It was then that it occurred to me that I didn't know where the fuck I was going to be in a day, much less a week, a month, or a year! Sure, it sounds exciting and romantic, and all of that crap....but when it's right in front of your face like a burning jungle, it's more than a little bit daunting and pretty fucking scary!

Well, I arrived at LaGuardia, and grabbed my luggage (consisting of a hockey bag that resembled an overstuffed burrito, a backpack, a case with my snare drum, sticks, and kick drum pedal....and I think I might have had my cymbal bag with me as well), and grabbed a cab to Manhattan. I was to go to the acting school where my good friend Alfredo worked and attended classes, grab the keys to his apartment in Bay Ridge (in South Brooklyn) and head to his house. So I rolled into this old brick building on Jane Street, with all of my crap....which I left in the stairwell (I figured, if anyone wants to carry this shit, BE MY GUEST). Looking like the dark shadow of death's understudy, I then walked up to the front desk.

"Hi....my friend Al should have left some keys in the desk for me.....??????"

The hag behind the desk squinted, took a look at me, pulled the desk drawer out, gave it a way-too-quick once-over, and dismissed me with, "I'm sorry....there's nothing here!"

Stunned, I asked, "Are you SURE? Can you please look AGAIN?"

"I JUST DID....there's nothing HERE!"

I began to panic. I tried to call Al, but he wasn't picking up. Perfect.

I didn't know what the fuck to do....I was beyond exhausted, and I didn't have anywhere to go, really. I was in a strange, ENORMOUS, cold, new place that I didn't know my way around yet, and I was weighed down with everything I owned in the world.

It then occurred to me that another buddy of mine, Lenny, was making the same move that I was, and he had emailed me his new # a week beforehand.

With nothing else to do, I called Lenny....thank CHRIST he was home.

"Hey Man....how are you? I'm completely SCREWED!"

"Well....that sucks, Man," he said, "....well....do you wanna come hang out for awhile? I'm in Astoria, but...."

I grabbed another cab, this time to Astoria, in the North-Western part of Queens....with a feeling of suspended animation, and also fucking RELIEF, that I at least could be under a friendly roof with all of my crap for at least the rest of the afternoon.

I rolled up to his apartment (which was either on 30th Ave, 30th Street, or 30th Road) and he was unpacking boxes....so I dropped my extra baggage in front if his front door, and fell into a chair.

Lenny, very nonchalantly asked, "Do you want a beer, Dude?"

It's your friends that pull you through.

I eventually got a hold of Alfredo late that night, and he apologized profusely, and said that I should head to his place. He also told me that his keys were, indeed, at that acting school of his where he said they would be, and that the wench at the acting school felt badly about missing them. Right - I'm sure that she's losing sleep over that to this day.

Anyway, I packed my luggage on my aching back and walked to the Subway for the ride to Al's house. What's funny about that, is that Lenny lived near Ditmars Ave in Queens, which is where the N Train starts....so, I got on board and rode into Manhattan, then I transferred to the R at Times Square (which was the only way I trusted myself to make such a transfer at that moment) to get to Al's place in Bay Ridge Ave, in Brooklyn, near where the R train ends. Case in point, I took the yellow line for about 3 hours, from one end to another, through 3 Burroughs, to finally rest my beyond-weary head.

Let's recap....I'd taken a cab from LaGuardia to Greenwich Village.....then got in another cab from there to Astoria, then took the train all the way from there to Bay Ridge Ave. My route that day basically was in the shape of a gigantic number 4!

It was after 4am when I finally got to Al's house. Before I crashed out in my sleeping bag on his floor, I called my Mom.

"I thought I'd hear from you a long time before now....where have you BEEN?"

"I'm too exhausted to tell you, but let's just say my shoulders are, literally, black & blue."

"OH MY GOD," she exclaimed, with a worried, almost-disgusted tone that even I had never quite heard at that point.

I told her I would call her the next day, and I proceeded to pass out on the most comfortable floor I've ever laid my head upon.

This was only the beginning....and it still causes explosions in my mind to think about now. But, if I'd known then what was waiting for me after that, I'd have told you it was all worth it. And I'm here to tell you that it was!

I Sold My Soul For a Song....or at least I should have....

2012-01-14T16:56:00.000-05:00

Slim Dunlap, the former guitarist from the Replacements, had (has) a song on his first solo album, The Old New Me, that just might be the best song you've never heard. It's called "Taken On the Chin". It carries a lot of meaning for me....and I'll tell you why!

At the end of my college days, I used to see Slim play in a local coffee shop all the time. He showed up with his acoustic guitar, and served his songs straight up with no bullshit, but with a very affable vibe. He had a great rapport with his audience, because he presented himself with a wisdom and good humor that made him come off like Ronnie Wood meets Bob Dylan (for lack of a better way of describing it). I imagine that Izzy Stradlin' might have pulled up a chair and joined him, had he only been there. He was so cool in a very sincere sort of way.

Anyway, introduced this song, "Taken On the Chin" by relating a story about how he had once gotten clocked in the face and knocked down right on the street on Hennepin Ave in Minneapolis, by some random dude. Across the street was a police car, and Slim said that he walked to the car, and told the cop sitting in it that he had been assaulted and demanded that the perpetrator be arrested. The cop looked him up and down, then looked at the other guy as he was walking away, and said to Slim, "....taken on the chin...."

Then he played this song, and it kind-of floored me because the lyrics described how I felt and where I was at the time. "You call this a hell hole, 'Cause you can't call this a life, The only forgiveness you'll find here's at the edge of a knife.....and it's taken on the chin..."

And he meant it too, which made it mean even more to me, and I started thinking about my life and what I wanted out of it a little bit more deeply because of it. I was in that limbo faze where I didn't know what the fuck to do, but I knew that I was going to have to do SOMETHING, and was scared shitless. Scared of staying where I was, and also scared of leaving.

A couple of months later, he played with his band at a Rock N' Roll bar I regularly guzzled beer at with my homeboys. It was on some holiday weekend and it was raining, and the place was severely lacking in its usual numbers. I recall that I was in some pissy, whoa-is-me kind of mood that day, and was drowning my sorrows about some most-likely insignificant horseshit of the day. Then I heard Slim say into the mic, "This song is called 'Taken On the Chin'', so....I grabbed another beer and got my ass in front of the stage.

Again, there was hardly anyone there, but he still gave everything in his heart and soul to his performance and his songs, especially this one, and it really impressed me. And I learned a very valuable lesson. Whatever bullshit I was getting down and out about didn't fucking matter, because....THIS guy was playing his heart out, no matter how many people were there, and no matter who the fuck they were, because he was doing it for HIMSELF. I realized that I was going to have to do the same damn thing, in my own way and context.

And you know what? I believe that I always have, and can often recognize when others have too. I appreciate that sort of thing.

Anyway, here's the song.

Does it sound to you the same way it sounds to me?

Marty E.

8 damn good albums that I bought in 2011

2011-12-21T19:31:00.002-05:00

Let's face it...when it comes to fresh, new Rock N' Roll music, there's getting to be less and less to choose from in this sometimes dismal world. That's why I'm so ecstatic when I hear something that actually moves me, in one way or another. Most of these albums listed are from artists that I was already into....so, it seems that finding new artists with music to rock out, raise hell, and do "the deed" to is getting awfully rare. It's too bad.

With that said, I picked up some great albums this year. All hope is not lost!

[BTW-I BOUGHT all of these albums! Support Real Music, my friends!! Our lives depend on it!]

In no particular order:

1. The Twilight Singers-Dynamite Steps

Jesus, this album should have been called, Greg Dulli Does It Again. "Whenever you're here, you're alive," he sings in the first lines of the album opener, "Last Night In Town." Evidently, he believes in what he sings, because he delivered an album this year with more passion, angst, attitude, guts & heart-crushing melodies than I've heard from Dulli since 1993's (Afghan Whigs) Gentleman album....and that is certainly saying something. Check out "Get Lucky", "On The Corner", and "The Blackbird & The Fox" (w/ Ani Difranco).

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LKXAC0/ref=dm_sp_alb

2. Kasabian-Velociraptor!

I don't understand why these UK geniuses haven't caught on more in the US. They one of the most vital bands in the world today. For my ears, that's because they are so extremely creative & daring with meshing genres (Rock, Brit Pop, Trip Hop, etc) while still managing to be catchier than gum on your boots...with some damn brilliant lyrics to illustrate it all! If you haven't given this album a listen, you are seriously missing out. Check out "Days Are Forgotten", "Goodbye Kiss", & "I Hear Voices."

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Velociraptor/dp/B005LZSJ66/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324507693&sr=301-1

3. Tom Waits-Bad As Me

I don't know how many fucking great albums this cat has made, but my mind is blown once again. What's great about this album is that Waits demonstrates all of the many reasons why you love Tom Waits in the first place - making it among his career-defining albums. What ties it all together is that all of the songs are coming from a dark, candle-lit cavern of his imagination, and they move you right in! Pretty much every song on here makes you say to yourself, "Holy FUCK this is FUCKING GREAT!" The first ones that struck me were the titled track, "Face To The Highway", "Chicago", and "Kiss Me"....but you can't go wrong at all here.

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005SMTD58/ref=sr_1_album_2_rd?ie=UTF8&child=B005SMTERU&qid=1324509478&sr=1-2

4. Vain-Enough Rope

For my money, Vain were THE best band in the Late 80's/Early 90's Hair Metal genre. Yes, you read that right; I like them better than Skid Row, LA Guns, Poison, or what-have-you. That's just me; the hooks, sexually-charged-but-not-cheesy lyrics, screaming guitars, and devastatingly huge rhythm section speak to me. Unfortunately, they got screwed by a variety circumstances, and never achieved the fame of those bands. Despite that, they have continued to release albums periodically, and occasionally tour overseas. This album is just as powerful as their debut (No Respect). Check out "Cindy", "Worship You", and "Stray Kitten Burns."

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005QICRFC/ref=sr_1_album_1_rd?ie=UTF8&child=B005QICS56&qid=1324510405&sr=1-1

5. Kopek-White Collar Lies

I was playing in Orlando, FL last spring with The Dirty Pearls, on my way to get lunch, when Kopek's "Cocaine Chest Pains" played on Sirius Satellite Radio. "Who the fuck IS THIS?!!!!," I said, very loudly! It turns out that they are from Ireland, and are an extremely talented trio. They're one of the only new bands that I've discovered in the past year that I really dig. I think that these guys have a real shot at making it. Check out "Cocaine Chest Pains", "The Easy Way (DB Cooper)", & "Love Is Dead."

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/White-Collar-Lies/dp/B003SUOZ0A/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324510482&sr=301-1

6. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

One good thing about the demise of Oasis (one of my favorite bands) is that we get to listen to two spin-off projects from it, one obviously being from their leader & main songsmith, Noel Gallagher. It's a no-brainer that this album is going to be damn good; he gives us what he always does - a set of kick-ass songs. What the fuck else do you want? Check out "Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks", "AKA What a Life", & "The Death of You and Me".

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006023AMM/ref=sr_1_album_1_rd?ie=UTF8&child=B006023BEY&qid=1324511997&sr=1-1

7. Beady Eye-Different Gear, Still Speeding

The other Oasis spin-off, of course, is Beady Eye, with Liam Gallagher and long time Oasis sidemen Gem Archer & Andy Bell. It's not quite as consistent as Noel's album, but there are some gems on here, and is about what you'd expect if you heard the last couple of Oasis albums (which were quite good). Check out "The Roller", "Beatles and Stones", and "The Beat Goes On."

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004PLSLGA/ref=sr_1_album_1_rd?ie=UTF8&child=B004PLQGFI&qid=1324512839&sr=1-1

8. PJ Harvey-Let England Shake

This is an extremely ambitious album, even for PJ Harvey. In fact, it's so ambitious, that I still don't fully "get" all of it. It's not like some of her previous albums, like Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea or To Bring You My Love, which grabbed me & pulled me in right away....and probably isn't supposed to be. This is an album that has to grow on you, I think. That said, the title track, "On Battleship Hill", & "In The Darkest Places" are my favorite songs on here, and are worth the price of admission alone.

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004M8KLYQ/ref=sr_1_album_1_rd?ie=UTF8&child=B004M8TKHK&qid=1324513689&sr=1-1

My first day of school, EVER, or how I learned to take the hard knocks & make sure the show goes on

2011-07-26T22:37:00.001-04:00

I'll preface this entry by saying, what happened here is the epitome of my life, for better or worse!

The first day of school is scary for anyone, especially the first day of Kindergarten. I mean, that's where it ALL starts, you're not quite 6-years-old, and you have NO IDEA what to expect! I mean, all you know, in your little kid's mind, is that it's FUCKING SCARY!

Anyway, I went to school that early-September day, very timidly (especially for me), and I rolled with it. I did what the teacher said, made a couple of friends, took some bullshit from wise-asses, and basically minded my own business and had a good time. (I also wondered what the hell was up with the Principal, who was a nun who looked like Ernest Borgnine with a habit, but I digress).

At the very end of the day, around 2:00 or so, we had Gym Class in the field in the back of the school. We played some game called "Cowboys and Indians", which involved those who were designated as Cowboys to capture the Indians and make them one of their own....or the other way around. Anyway, it involved a lot of running around and catching people and that sort of thing.

I don't know how it happened, but I remember some girl running toward me, and I did the best I could to get the hell away from her, but....however it happened, we ran smack-dab into each other, and we knocked heads, and fell to the ground, and started crying like any kid would. At least that's how the story goes. I was helped up & my tears were wiped when the teacher and his assistant noticed that I had a bruise underneath my eye and on my cheek. The girl who plowed into me had a similar problem, although, if I remember correctly, not quite as COLORFUL as mine (of course). He said something like, "Oh....Great!" I'm sure that the prospect of sending not one, but TWO kids home from their first day of fucking KINDERGARTEN wasn't exactly how he wished to end his day, hahahaha.

So, anyway, I went home with what was turning into quite the deep black and blue shiner to contrast with my baby-blue right eye. My Mom, ever the good sport, didn't raise too much of a fuss (she'd had seven boys before me, you know), was sympathetic enough, but, clearly, I was ok. I sat down in front of the tv to watch Woody fucking Woodpecker and eat some Jello or some shit, when my Mom, with a very concerned look, poked her head in from the kitchen, saying something like, "You have to be the RING BEARER in your brother, DAVE's WEDDING with that shiner of yours!" The only thing I could muster up to say was, "UH OH!!!!"

But....what the hell were we to do? Postpone the wedding because the groom's peckerheaded baby brother, who's supposed to carry the damn wedding rings in a pillow down the aisle, got a black eye on his first day of school?!! Was some other kid going to be the ring bearer in the wedding? Hell no! My brother, Dave, and his bride-to-be, Heidi, had honored me by asking me to be in their wedding, and there was no way I wasn't going to do it!

So, the wedding day came. I was suited up in a little tuxedo that was a little bit big for me, and the bridesmaids were CRAZY about me, in my little tux with the darkest shiner in Minnesota History. I was, believe it or not, really quite shy, as I didn't become girl-crazy until the 2nd or 3rd Grade, hahahahaha. There was a flower girl in the wedding too, who was about my age, but I don't remember getting along with her as well. I do remember walking down the aisle with her, carrying a little pillow with the wedding rings, while she took flower petals out of a basket and tossed them on the ground. I remember thinking, "WHY is she DOING that?! She's making a MESS! Someone's gonna yell at her to PICK THAT UP!" No one did, hahahaha.

I learned a lot from that experience at that tender young age. From then on, it was always about getting up, dusting off, turning chicken shit into chicken salad, and making it happen. And we did! I think that it gave me my "SHOW MUST GO ON" attitude that I've always had about everything I do. I think it taught me not to be a wuss about things, to take shit as it comes and deal with the hard knocks, come what may. Why let something relatively minor tarnish the big picture? Screw that. Nothing is impossible, really. There are just different kinds of things that are POSSIBLE that will blow your mind! Furthermore, taking a hard knock or 12 along the way makes for a great story later on.

Post Script: About six months later, during Gym Class again, I got yet another black eye. This time, it was because the jerkoff next to me kept raising the plastic fucking hockey stick too high while we were playing floor hockey, and hit me in the eye. I kept telling him to stop raising his stick so high, but he wouldn't listen. He didn't even get into trouble! So, here we go again!

For some reason, I'd be willing to bet my life is a lot more fun than his is.......

The Old New Me Taken on the Chin by Slim Dunlap @ ARTISTdirect.com

The air I breathe and the wine in my glass, or 5 albums I couldn't imagine my life without (Part 1)

2011-07-25T23:18:00.007-04:00

There are things that you see every day that could effect who you are, perhaps forever. A smile from a stranger, a new pair of boots, a new place to eat pasta....and a song! Everything in life, really, is interconnected, if you think about it, and that's what it's all about.

As usual, I'm obsessed with music, so....I'm starting an ongoing series on my blog about music that shaped who I am to the point where it goes without saying (but, if I didn't say it, nobody would know). I think that five at a time is enough to be substantive, but not so much as to bore people. Life's too short, from what I understand, so.....

1. Mother Love Bone (self-titled set, includes their Shine EP and only full-length album, Apple)

I discovered this band when I was still a pretty little kid, with designs on playing music, but still at the beginning of my formative stages, and very, VERY impressionable. I happened to find their Shine EP in the local music store, after school on a Friday night. I took a look at it, and there was definitely something different about it; the name, the image, the song titles ("Half Ass Monkey Boy", "Mindshaker Meltdown", "Chloe Dancer", etc.)....and, I only had 7 bucks anyway, so it was the only album I could afford at the time, so I picked it up. I've been hooked ever since.

What I liked about them from the get-go was the fact that they ROCKED, vaguely in the same way that Guns N' Roses did, with a tight, simple rhythm section, dynamic guitars (if not nearly as much so as Slash and Izzy's guitars), and a frontman with a HUGE, very unique personality. What was it that made Andrew Wood so unique? He had an explosive concoction of the cocksure egotist, the hilarious Rock N' Roll stand-up comedian, and the sensitive, nothing-too-sacred, bleeding-out balladeer. Who could ask for more? This is the guy who, on that first EP, sang, "I'm a Hollywood dreamboy, a pin-up in their eyes, I represent, Mama, All you despise" on one song, and, "This is my kinda' love, It's the kind that moves on, It's the kind that leaves me alone," on another. The dichotomy wasn't lost on me at all, and....despite the fact that I couldn't directly relate with his lyrics (being a little peckerhead at the time), I knew myself well enough to know that one day I certainly would. Another thing I've always loved about Wood was, simply, the charisma with which he would sing the simplest word, like, "Baby" (or "BAY-BAAAAY!!!!!") and sing it loaded with sex and longing and desperation and power and confidence. Yeah, for my ears, he was spot-on.

After I bought the Shine EP I waited for the much-anticipated debut, full-length album, Apple, to come out....and I waited, and waited, and waited....almost a year. This was before you could get your Rock N' Roll news at the click of a mouse. All I had was MTV and the Rock N' Roll ragazines, as I called them, which weren't forthcoming with any news, and I was getting really pissed off. Then, toward the end of that Summer, there was a review of Apple in Rip Magazine, saying that Andrew Wood had died that past March of a heroin overdose....the night before they were supposed to do a co-interview for the magazine with Kiss, or some kind of shit. The review also said that the album was fucking brilliant, essentially. My little heart was crushed that my Rock N' Roll hero was gone, but never more-so than when I finally picked up the album, and blasted it on my Mom's stereo in the living room without asking.

The album as a whole, probably didn't quite measure up to Gn'R's Appetite for Destruction (which is the "gold standard", probably, to this day) in terms of consistency (some of the harder-edged material could have been better), but....the gems on Apple (including all of the ballads, no less than FIVE) were nothing short of magical, and shimmered like candles in some underground cave. The songs, for the most part, were fucking real, and made me feel what I thought Wood must have felt like singing them. Whether he was singing of the love of the stage ("This is Shangrila" and "Stardog Champion") or the love of his girl ("Stargazer" & "Bone China"), I believed every word of what he sang, and the music only accentuated that.

I spent a lot of time singing along, and yes, drumming along, and this album has had a huge effect on me. If you give it a listen, perhaps it will effect you similarly. I will say this: despite the enormous success Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament had with Pearl Jam after Love Bone's demise....for my ears, this music stands the test of time in a much more poignant way.

2. Hanoi Rocks-Two Steps From the Move

Again, growing up, after listening to lots of Prince, Ozzy, Motley Crue, Ratt, Iron Maiden, etc, Guns N' Roses really rocked my little world. And it was Guns N' Roses who made me interested in a Finnish Glam Rock (not to be confused with "Hair Metal) band called Hanoi Rocks, who had broken up a couple of years before (we all know the story....if not, look it up).

Guns actually released all 5 of the Hanoi albums that hadn't been officially been released in the US, on their own Uzi Suicide label, via Geffen. So, of course, I went to check out all these albums. Unfortunately, I could afford only one, and the one that they HAD released over here was the one that caught my eye for some reason, so I grabbed that one, which happened to be Two Steps From the Move.

There are some great sleazy, Rock N' Roll songs on this album. "Underwater World" is a dark, down and dirty song that seems to be about the New York City subways....the New York Dolls or Alice Cooper would have been proud to have made such a song. "High School" is a glam-punk rave-up, with VERY, very well worked out, dueling guitar parts, despite its rather hokey lyrics, much like "Futurama" (although I think the lyrics are far better on that one). "Don't You Ever Leave Me" is a pure glam ballad, and actually, an updated version of a song from the band's first album, complete with vocal harmonies in the chorus that still remind me of the fucking Beach Boys! "I Can't Get It" is a frustrated, whoa-is-me song, that any of us can relate to sometimes ("I sit and count them, shot-by-shot-the little things that I never got!"). And of course, the singles, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and their cover of CCR's "Up Around the Bend" make me smile like that cat that at the canary at any party, and they often do! A lot of these songs were co-written by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople, presumably to give them an Arena-Rock facelift for America, and I think it worked!

Even at the time, I could understand why Gn'R had spoken so highly of Hanoi, and why they did them the service of getting their older albums. Listening via headphones, I could hear a similar Stones-on-steroids, two-guitar interplay between Andy McCoy and Nasty Suicide that Slash and Izzy had, with each guitar panned to a speaker, which I still love. Also, it wasn't lost on my that the term, "Welcome to the Jungle", is in the chorus of "Underwater World" (and I later heard the term "Rocket Queen" in the 3rd verse of the Hanoi song "Don't Follow Me", from their Oriental Beat album)....which has to be more than a mere coincidence. Their look, too, at least in the early days, certainly was reminiscent of Hanoi, w/ Axl Rose and Izzy Stadlin' in particular. But, of course, everybody lifts ideas from somewhere, whether consciously or not....at least Gn'R returned the favor, so to speak.

In any case, I sort-of consider this album to be at least somewhat of a prototype of what was to come via Gn'R's debut album, but these are two different bands, though and through. This album has more of a naivete and a sense of humor, to contrast with the all-out dark intensity that Gn'R gave us a few years later. It fits right in, though, on the same shelf as Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, the New York Dolls, and Guns N' Roses. If you're a fan of any of that music and haven't heard this, you'd be doing yourself a service by picking this up, as well as the rest of their catalog.

Sisters of Mercy-Vision Thing

This album, from the 3rd (or 4th, depending upon your perspective) incarnation of English "Goth Gods" the Sisters of Mercy, came out right on the advent of "Industrial Music", when bands like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails were seriously gaining world notoriety. And it fit right into the middle of that. The guitar riffs were very multi-layered, but extremely simple, and the music was as dark as you'd expect from the Sisters, but not as melodically sophisticated as anything they did before. The music is at the Sisters' most basic and primal, yet most intensely danceable (due in no small part to their ever-present drum machine-Doktor Avalanche) and, for lack of a better term, COOL!

That being said, this was by-far Andrew Eldritch's most ambitious, focused, and intelligently-written album, lyrically. The themes touching on greed/corruption (the title track, "More", and "Dr. Jeep") to the inevitably sadomasochistic and who's-screwing-whom nature of relationships ("Ribbons", "I Was Wrong" & "When You Don't See Me") to life's admitted uncertainties ("Something Fast") to putting the pedal to the floor in an El Dorado ("Detonation Blvd"). And, through it all, Eldritch sounds as arrogant as ever (which I like), but also, confident, and as if he might actually be having FUN (which I like even better). Eldritch is singing, whispering, and screaming on the entire album like Leonard Cohen on Amphetamines and appears to be enjoying every minute of it.

When I was a little kid, I got WAY into this album, because, while it fit in with what was becoming popular at the time (and I was listening to all of that before anyone else was anyway), THIS stuff was, perhaps, a little bit too far out-there for most of America to really understand, so....that probably got me into it THAT much more....and you might still catch me on the subway train singing along with my Ipod, "It's a small world and it smells funny, I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money, take back what I paid, FOR ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKER IN A MOTORCADE!!!"

4. The Jesus Lizard-Liar

The Jesus Lizard was probably my favorite band in the 90's. The music itself is difficult to describe; it isn't metal, but it's very intense and fucking heavy (but not particularly distorted). It's not Punk, but it's very-much against-the-grain. It's not Rock, but it's very primal, and, for my money, VERY Rock N' Roll.

There aren't a lot of vocal melodies, because the vocals aren't sung (by fellow Budweiser enthusiast David Yow) as much as they're...um....expressed....exclaimed....via screams, moans, grunts, and chants, I guess. That isn't to say they aren't (eventually) catchy, and actually, quite intelligent and informed....even though, most of the time, I never knew (or cared. particularly) what the fuck they were about. The guitar playing, courtesy of Duane Denison, is a mixture of Surf Rock, Spaghetti Western, and early Punk Rock, but delivered very cleanly, and with a precision that....well, wouldn't make a lot of sense to you the way I'm describing it (or does it?). The rhythm section is among my favorite of all time, via David Wm. Sims (bass) and Mac McNeilly (drums & one of my favorites, see one of my previous blogs), delivering and extremely intense, pile-driving foundation, that I can only compare to the sound of dropping concrete blocks on your head while building a house over it. And Steve Albini's production of this album ties it altogether and makes perfect sense out of it, for my ears anyway.

I guess it made sense to other people too. Nirvana (who did a split 7" single with them when this came out) used Steve Albini to produce their In Utero album, as Bush later did with their Razorblade Suitcase album. Both of them had very similar sounds to this very Jesus Lizard album, but obviously, the music was way different. But in many ways, these guys exemplified what was so cool about the 90's, and that was, that you could play music like this and still get a major record deal (which they did a few years later, starting with their Shot album). How fucking cool is that?

5. Afghan Whigs-Gentleman

This album could have been called "Relationship Hell"....but, never did perpetual heartbreak & emotional blackmail sound so goddamn good.

"What should I tell her? She's going to ask...." The opening lyrics of this album say it all, really. There's inner and outer conflict, deception vs. truth, betrayal vs. loyalty, and above all, uncertainty....what a hell of an introduction!

The entire album rolls that way, as a sort of concept album based on the anatomy of a bad break-up, with a whole lot of arrogance and self-loathing thrown in, smothered with drugs and alcohol, as well as a whole lot of sex (let's hope that the sex is good, but I think that's implied).

The title track states it all explicitly....consider for yourself, the second verse: "We dragged it out so long, this time, Started to make each other sick, But now I've got time for you....and me too!" How about the third verse?: "Let me in, I'm cold, all messed up but nowhere to go....Unlock the cabinet, I'll take whatever you got!" It's misery that's pathetic but not so much as to think it's the end of the world, and....give me a drink! I understand that!

"Be Sweet" has one of the most titillating lyrics I've ever heard: "I got a dick for a brain, And my brain is gonna sell my ass to you, Now I'm ok, but in time I find I'm stuck, 'Cause she wants love, And I still want to fuck..." Yup, it's anguished and it's terrible, and profoundly full of itself, all wrapped in a killer rhythmic cadence, dripping from a tearful guitar line (and Rick McCollum's guitar lead after the first verse is fucking irresistible).

The album is chock-full of gems along the same lines, from the first single, "Debonair" ("I'm not the man my actions would suggest....tonight I go to Hell for what I've done to you") to "What Jail is Like" ("If what you're shoveling is company, Then I'd rather be alone, Resentment always goes much further than it was supposed to go") to "My Curse"-sung by Marcy Mays from Scrawl ("Hurt me, Baby, I flinch so when you do, your kisses scourge me..."). This is all saturated with swirling, anguished guitars, and punctuated with impeccably slamming rhythms (drummer Steven Earle plays incredibly on the album, and I was disappointed when he left after the tour for this album).

Hell, if Ronnie Van Zandt christened himself a "Simple Man", Greg Dulli could have written an answer called, "Complicated Man", but instead, he gave us this entire album, which, since its release, I've basically lived, front-to-back, at least three times!

That little itch in the deep dark night...or....You're never alone....no, really....never!

2011-02-10T20:25:00.004-05:00

This is my first blog entry in months and months....so I'm going to make it a good and titillating one, that you won't soon forget.

About six months after I moved to NYC, I started living in what was perhaps the shittiest apartment building in Manhattan, near the southern border of the neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen....in the West 30's. The place was shady to say the least, but my room was relatively cheap, I paid in cash, and the landlord usually left me alone, which is usually just fine with me. But this landlord was the kind of guy who, on one hand, would lock someone out of his apartment if he didn't pay his rent on time....and on the other, would have letters from lawyers (and even The People's Court, once) piling up by the mail boxes because of unreturned security deposits (and, I'm sure that it's no coincidence that I never got mine back). His name was Kamal, but he asked to be called "John." File that in the back of your mind if you're looking at apartments/rooms in that neighborhood.

So, to begin with, these were anything but deluxe accommodations. There was no living room (I used to point at the tall buildings and streets outside when friends came over, and exclaim, "NEW YORK CITY is my fucking LIVING room, ok?!!" Hahahahaha), and nothing but the most basic of amenities (the kitchen and bathroom were at least sufficient). The walls between the bedrooms (and between each apartment) were paper thin at best, and shoddily put together. Hell, I believe there was even open space at the top of my bedroom wall...which I think I covered up with something. We all need a LITTLE bit of privacy, by God!

Well, it turns out that I didn't have as much of that as I had hoped.

One night I decided to stay in and get some decent rest and a little peace of mind. I was lying in my bed listening to the Verve, and just starting to go to sleep. Do you know the feeling when you're trying to sleep, and for some reason, you get taunted by these pesky, unexplainable, spontaneous itches? Well, that's what I thought was happening. But then...something....fucking HURT all of the sudden. I shot out of my bed, and there, on my leg, was this little reddish-black bug, feasting on me. I pulled the blankets back and there were a couple more of them. I grabbed a tissue and....well, crushed them. They became red splotches against the white tissue. BLOOD! I pulled my mattress back, and there was a mini-New York City of BEDBUGS going on...in MY BED!!!! The HORROR!!!!

I don't recall having felt so terrified or helpless at any point in my life, before or since. But I had to do something....these were the days when I had work in the morning. So, I think I found some bleach or some similar cleaning product and a bunch of rags, and basically caused a mini-chemical tsunami on the city beneath my mattress and temporarily remedied the situation enough to get a somewhat decent night's sleep.

I felt trapped because I didn't have the wherewithal at the time to just pick up and split; Craig's list wasn't really happening yet, so it was WAY harder to find a roof then. Complaints to my landlord fell on deaf ears, and from what I heard, the entire building was infested. FUCK!.

The best solution I could come up with was to clean everything up as best I could, get a new mattress....then my roommate and I would get Raid "bug bombs", which were essentially, bug sprays that you'd open up, then leave the apartment for a few hours while they emptied out and did their work. It didn't really harm the bugs, but at least it scared them into neighboring apartments, and kept them out of ours, for the most part....until we finally just couldn't take it anymore, and split.

Whenever I walk by there, I usually utter some kind of expletive. The memories are deeply ingrained I guess.

There was one funny thing that happened because of our bedbug problem. I very briefly dated a girl who lived a very privileged life in her dad's HUGE apartment in a Park Avenue high rise....but he was never home. Anyway, once, she decided so "slum it" and spend a night at my place. A couple of days later, she called me up, said something about having some kind of bug bites, and asked if this might have come from my apartment.

In my best Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld voice, I quickly blurted, "I-dunno-anything-about-it!" and hung up the phone. I haven't heard from her since. Sorry about that.

Anyway....needless to say, I don't miss those days one bit!

Thanks for reading! I know it wasn't easy. Hell, I'm itching all over now just from writing it....ahahaha....I think!

Marty E.

The trials and tribulations of a musician with standards or shitty auditions I have known

2010-09-10T19:37:00.004-04:00

For the umpteen-millionth time, I've been in New York City for ten years. I moved here with wide eyes, hopes and dreams the size of Madison Square Garden, and little more than the remotest clue on how to really make shit happen for myself.

You know, a lot of kids move here from other parts of the country thinking that it's some hotbed of talent and ambition.....they think that the people who inhabit places like (sadly, the now-closed) CBGB's (for example) are all cooler than hell & going somewhere.

What you quickly realize, once you get here, and the cold reality nips at your earlobes, is that there's just MORE of EVERYTHING. Sure, there are a lot more talented, creative, cool people who know where they're going. But, by the same token, there are also many, MANY more dipshits and dildorods who can't play (or sing or act or write or whathaveyou) their way out of a cardboard box....and most of them think that they're just fucking GREAT!

That all being said, one has to start somewhere, so I immediately began getting my ass out there and jamming with anyone who seemed like they might be cool, fun, & interesting, and/or had something promising happening for them. I would take the Subway train all over the place, full of hope that THIS was going to be the one that was going to result in something I'd always dreamed of. What I found, more often than not, wasn't even in the same solar system.

I had my first "audition" (remember, when these so-called "auditions" happen, you're often "auditioning" them as much as they are you) about a week after I arrived here. Hell, I hadn't even found a place to live yet (I was still crashing on a floor in Bay Ridge...thanks yet again, Alfredo!). It was in some sweat box on Dekalb Ave in Brooklyn. These guys (I won't mention what the band's name was, as I don't want to slander anyone....but the name sucked) described themselves as an old-school, melodic Rock N' Roll band, ala-Cheap Trick (one of my favorite bands), so....I went for it.

They were the kind of band that....well, they'd rehearse often, but it was always for ONE show at Arlene's Grocery, maybe ONCE a year. Great. And....they kept talking about how they knew some chick who worked at Atlantic Records who will "probably" show up. Riiiiight.

Their music was ok....not great, but good enough for at the time. I had a good vibe with the guitar player, which showed some promise. In any case, they never called me back after that.

Years later, I became pretty good friends with that guitar player. He told me they never called me back because the singer didn't think I was a good enough drummer. Granted, my chops were rusty, and my playing was probably a bit loose. You see, I'd just MOVED to NEW YORK CITY from the MIDWEST, which....takes some TIME and ENERGY, ahahahahahaha!!!! But this same guitar player came to see a band I used to play in at the Pussycat Lounge (is that place still open?) WAY downtown. After he saw that show, he called the said singer who dismissed my drumming skills, and left him a voicemail with three words: "YOU FUCKED UP!!!!" Hahahahahaha!!! (Thanks Kelly!).

This wouldn't have been the band for me anyway, really. They were the kind of guys who, instead of going OUT there and playing gigs, and building a following and socializing and being cool & making it happen....they would constantly prepare for ONE fucking show that was always three months away, a 9PM slot at Arlene's on a Friday with a bunch of other bands they didn't know.....and yeah, this chick from Atlantic might go. I always came from the school of thought that one learns the ropes of DOING something by DOING it! You aren't going to learn how to satisfy a woman by doing the "five-knuckle shuffle" to porn every night....you know what I mean? Relatively speaking, in terms of playing Rock N' Roll, that's what this band was doing, and they never got anywhere close to where I was to go.....and I'm not all the way there YET, either! Hahahahahaha. But the truth is, I think maybe a couple of these guys were scared. Enough said.

Another time, I set up an audition for some "chick band" (which I didn't mind....I'm not sexist, for God's sake! If PJ Harvey had called me up, I'd have died of a heart attack....by the way....Polly Jean....call me! Hahahahaha). They seemed to be smart enough, and....well, I think they had a residency at some place called the Orange Bear. This didn't inspire confidence, exactly, but I figured, what the hell? It would be free rehearsal for two hours for me (every time you play, it makes you better the NEXT time, you know?), and maybe I'd make some friends.

So....I walked to the rehearsal studio, and was about to open the door....but I heard them playing music already. They were playing Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide".....I felt my heart race....I mean, I like Fleetwood Mac, don't get me wrong but....I'm not fucking PLAYING it, or anything LIKE it. So, I made what may have amounted to a chickenshit move: I BOLTED. To my credit, I went straight to Ultra Sound & gave them 10 bucks to let me drum in one of their open rooms for an hour (I did this a LOT and it saved my ASS when I didn't have anything going on. A drummer needs to drum, not only to keep his chops in shape, but in order to FEEL good).

A similar occurrence happened more recently....maybe five years ago, after I left one of my old bands, and was looking to start fresh. I found some band who described themselves as being Motley Crue meets Bowie or some shit....oh, and they were being looked at by Universal (I've heard THAT more times than I care to divulge). But, I figured, what the fuck, it's right down the street....let's fucking JAM!

Well, I showed up....opened up the door....and this one guy, the guitar player, looked pretty cool. Had the long hair, black jeans, and Black Crowes-esque shirt. Cool. But this....SINGER guy...was quite a portly mammal....and he had an afro that looked like STEEL WOOL on the top of his head....and he was wearing ZUBAZ!!!! Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!!! I'm getting onstage with THIS guy? And Uni are interested? The pungent smell of BULLSHIT filled the room.

I said something like, "Oh SHIT Man....I forgot, I gotta take a piss....I'll be RIGHT back....ok?!!" I stifled a laugh, and wondered if they wondered why I would need to take my drumsticks with me to the bathroom. And I did what any self-respecting, red-blooded American Rock N' Roller would do....I HAULED ASS! Once downstairs, I called my girlfriend (at the time), and said, "Hey Baby.....the bad news is, there's no way in HELL I'm going to play with these dudes, so I split....the good news is, I'm coming home, and am wondering if you're hungry!" Hahahahahahahaaha....

I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking that, maybe the music would have been great, and that I shouldn't have judged a book by its cover, right? Wrong. The way you look, just as the way you carry yourself, has a BIG effect on how you're perceived. Call it superficial, and call it whatever else you'd like, but that's just the way it is. Someone who is likely to do his or her best to look their best is very likely to play their best....or maybe they just needed a drummer who wore ZUBAZ!

There were many, many auditions I went on, and played (ie, I didn't split before touching the damn drums). I tried out for Chubby Checker's band, and even got called back (I declined. With all due respect, I didn't move here to do THAT). Hell, I played with LOTS of people, some of which I'm still friends with to this day. But, really, it took me at least six months before I found people to play with who were on the same page as me in the least. But, I considered that to be a part of my initiation process, and I knew that with time, commitment, and perseverance, I'd finally get on track to where I needed to go. And I did!

As Bon Scott once sang, "It's a long way to the top if you wanna Rock N' Roll!"

Thanks for reading!

Your good friend,

Marty E.

The Best Little Kiss-Off in Texas...Or Was That a Blow-Off?

2010-08-22T17:00:00.001-04:00

This past March, my band The Dirty Pearls played at South By Southwest in Austin, TX. It was a week full of adventures, fun, and Rock N' Roll. I had a great time playing Rock N' Roll and partying with my homeboys. That's what we do!

But the funniest thing I remember about it happened the night we got there.

I was walking down the massively crowded street on my own after checking out some band somewhere...I was wearing my new (at the time) Chinese Police Hat, and was feeling pretty damn good about it. While I was carefully considering just where the source of my next beer might be, a gaggle of DIPFUCKS walked by me. One of them had the panache to yell to me, "HEY, nice HAT ya fucking FAGGOT!!!"

I was stunned, not only that this cock mongrel had the insolence to imply that I was a homosexual, but by the fact that he was clearly an ignoramus for not recognizing a fucking cool hat when he saw one! And, let me tell you, Gentle Reader, there was going to be RETRIBUTION!!!!

I turned around, and I BELLOWED after the whole lot of them, these immortal words that will make them think twice before ever again disparaging another Rock N' Roller (at a MUSIC FESTIVAL, no less).

I screamed, "HEY!!! If I'm such a FAGGOT, why don't you come on OVER here, and SUCK MY FUCKIN' DICK?!!!!!"

The blowhard in question then turned around, and said, "WHAT?! WHAT WAS THAT?!!!"

I then pointed to my pelvic region with both hands, and answered, "I SAID, 'SUCK MY DICK!!!!' AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!"

Of course, the boys in shorts didn't attempt to intervene any further, and I walked away, very satisfied with myself! And, I hit the drums even harder than I normally would at the gigs we played over the next couple of days. Here is some footage:

Thanks for reading!

Marty E.

....it all started...and ended...with an ethnic condiment....

2010-08-06T22:31:00.001-04:00

A few years back, when I was still living with....an ex of mine (don't ask)...we had woken up on a Saturday afternoon, very hungover and hungry. For some asinine reason, it was decided that I should go around the corner to McDonald's, and procure for us a couple of combo meals (which I don't do anymore...ever....fuck that shit).

I ordered a Quarter-Pounder w/ Cheese (minus onions) meal for myself, and a Veggie Burger meal for what'shername.

So, I was waiting up front for my "food", like a civilized person does, when this substantially LARGE dude who's also waiting, next to his equally corpulent wife, turned to me, and said, "HEY!"

"Um....Hey?!" was my reply.

"What's the NAME of that....ya know....that SAUCE....ya KNOW?!!!!"

"Um....I really don't know, Man....." I answered.

"Awww....Come ON, Man....it's that MEXICAN sauce....yaKNOWwhatIMEAN?!!!"

In a daze and royally hungover, I hadn't the foggiest notion of just what the hell this dude was TALKING about.

"No, Man....no shit, I REALLY don't KNOW....Man!" Was my annoyed but politely expressed reply.

The dude, wearing an orange shirt with white stripes, brown cut-offs (or JORTS, as some people call them) and tenner shoes with Velcro on them, shook his head (as if I'm an idiot...I mean, HE was the one who couldn't think of what the fucking SAUCE was called, ok?) then got his "food", and he and his foodie-in-crime went and sat down.

I was relieved.

A couple more minutes passed. My "food" was finally ready. I then went to grab ketchup and napkins and other-such shit. When I turned around to head toward the door, the head of the Mexican Condiment Investigation Task Force was standing standing in my way.....and he uttered something indecipherable.....

"Heh?" Was my incredulously annoyed response.

He repeated something I still couldn't understand...but it sounded vaguely like, "She's PORTLY!" Right?

I made a face, and was just ABOUT to retort, "Well, you aren't exactly THIN YOURSELF, there, JACK!!!"

But I didn't.....because just as I was ABOUT to say that, he bellowed it, and I understood....he finally figured out what the mystery sauce was, and was sharing this valuable bit of information with me....and it was....

"CHIPOTLE!!!!"

Thanks for reading, and have a kickass weekend!

Your good friend,

Marty E.

PS-I have a fucking million of them!

A short and sweet statement from the bottom of my heart

2010-08-04T20:18:00.003-04:00

Rock N' Roll (or what's passing for it these days) has been hijacked by Hip Hop, hipsters, and horseshit!

My band, the Dirty Pearls, are preparing to steal it back.

Mark my words.

Rehearsals/pre-production for our debut album with David Kahne start one week from today.

When we're through recording this fucker, get on board....or get your sweet ass out of the way!

Your good friend,

Marty E.