Saturday, March 31, 2012

Texttape, side A track 2: Don't Fear the Creeper

M. Crossley

Texttape side A, track 2:

Don't Fear the Creeper

03/29/12





My brain is broke. My brain be broken.

I wake up, the reverberations of last nights music still rattling around up in there and making an interesting melange in my head. I'm at a loss, call it a seasonal condition. I don't get out much

this time of year.

My Apartment, my room, let's call it that, 'cos that's really all I got. It smells like burnt riffs and cashed bowls. Quiet desperation and stale Coors. It's all mostly the fault of the Blue Oyster Cult.

--What the hell is this band? And I'm not the type of dude that needs some kind of linear definition

of the music I'm listening to in order to understand it, but most bands tend to wear their influences on the outside, making it easier to understand where exactly they're coming from... I get caught up in BOC

and get stuck in chord progressions for days on end. They don't end when I wake up and go to work, they stick with me. That in itself is a powerful thing, but I'm stuck more often than not in a band that doesn't make sense. I think I like that. Really dig it, in fact.

Are Blue Oyster Cult the "Best Band in the World"? No, hell no. Are they even the best ambassadors

of stoner guitar rock? No, they are probably not. And maybe I like them all the more because everyone

thinks that they are a joke. Much like I've always felt about Rod Stewart.

Well, it turns out, that BOC might actually be a joke. Or at least, one of the first "ironic bands", and don't start here with the Monks, and Paul Revere and the Raiders, and all of that Monkees bullshit. I know damned well they weren't the first ironic band, but maybe they pulled it off so well no one even suspected the joke.

I was flipping through some stuff at a bookstore the other day, one was about the best heavy metal bands of all time. It mentioned that Blue Oyster Cult's in joke on the industry was so hilarious to Rob Reiner, that Spinal Tap was actually inspired by them.

Studio Apartments on Flame with Rock N' Roll:

At a French Letters rehearsal one evening, we were joking about how funny it is that some bands find the need to put the words "Rock N' Roll" in their rock n' roll songs. As if the listener couldn't discern or

file that particular puzzle piece themselves, what with all the wailing solo's and awesome riffage said

songs usually entail. When I got home, I sparked some Northwest Blend and started Youtubing some

songs with "Rock N' Roll" in the title. BOC came up, but here's where I took a turn...

I saw all of these awesome song titles, so in I went. This is important, recipe time,



Northwest Blend:

6-7 bags leftover from various strains that were never finished because you copped new.

1 zest lemon peel

1 zest orange peel

mix as if small salad, seal and leave overnight.

Remove zest and enjoy.

Play: Then Came the Last Days of May from BOC's self titled first album.

(You can substitute Workshop of the Telescopes here if need be, also Before the Kiss, a Redcap.)

So now I'm stuck, and my brain is broke.

Stuck in riff transmission. It might just be the winter, but I'm just one step from replacing all of the light in my room with black lights. So you think you've got "Marshall will boy, and Fender control?"

I sure the fuck don't, but I wanted to delve deeper, so I did. It turns out, what can set an entire city aflame with rock n' roll? ... 3000 guitars, playing at once. You may scoff. But they may be on to something here.(BTW, yes, I can question mark into ellipse if I want to. I'm grown.)

Seriously, imagine it. Three Thousand Guitars Fill the Sky. 10% of those are going to blow fuses, maybe start a fire, if a club or practice space has a leaking gas main nearby... Boom. City on flame. Occupy that you passive bitchez.

So now I'm stuck, and my brain be broken.

My room smells like burnt riffage and cashed bowls. A hint of stale Coors, beneath that, the hue of Cordite. I've been listening to BOC for 2 months straight. Long enough to know that they ain't the best band ever, but I really dig them for what they are. And that's what this is all about. They toured with Patti Smith Group and the Stooges. Can you imagine that show? I know I do everynightly.

Blue Oyster Cult, Self titled... I found a copy of Curse of the Hidden Mirror for cheap, it kicks ass, especially Dance on Stilts, looked at the liner notes, 2001. BOC formed in 1971! Thirty years, do you know what that even means? If you ain't in a band... Then no, you probably don't.

I just got Tyranny And Mutation, their second album, and it's my favorite so far. But I gotta start at the apogee.

I'm gonna sell it all, burn it all down on a drunken dare and trade it for a Chevy Custom van with an airbrushed Viking on the side. He'll have a spliff sword and be in grievous battle with a barbarian who wields a Fender SG as a battle axe, the wounds they strike into each other will bleed pure riffage as well as blood. I'll probably be driving through your town blasting BOC from some house speakers in the back, so come kick it with me... It's lonely in here and it smells like burnt guitar strings and cashed bowls.

1 comment:

  1. I don't break the stanzas up like this, I copy paste from Jarte. It's a little upsetting.

    ReplyDelete