Flaming Pablum

John's Bag

I first came in contact with John Darnielle via Ilxor, which — as Urban Dictionary so succinctly describes it — was “a rather fine but occasionally tempestuous, pretentious and easily-distracted internet-based message board, initially conceived as a music forum.” I should’t say “was” as, technically, it’s still going today (find it here). John and I were both regular fixtures there for a great while in the late 90s through to the late-2000’s. Or at least that’s when I largely dropped out. John might still regularly participate there, I’m not sure.

While it might seem like heresy to some, I must admit that upon first engaging with John, I was entirely unfamiliar with his status as the singer/songwriter in the Mountain Goats. As far as I knew, John was just some similarly inclined music head with just as much of a passion for discussing all facets of the subject, and given his predilections for several of the same hoary goth, punk and metal bands that I voluminously espoused on a regular basis, we became fast friends in that forum. From where I was standing, John and I spoke the same language, and he managed to jovially overlook my pugnacious penchant for contentious overstatement (something not exactly everyone in said forum was inclined to do, much to my continued embarrassment, this many eons later). As the years went by, we bonded further over a mutual affliction (John and I both suffer from Tinnitus, although I haven’t heard an update from him on the subject in some time) and both became doting dads.

The funny thing, though, is that while I just sorta considered him this super-knowledgable music-geek pal o’ mine, it only gradually dawned on me that he was critically revered in several significant circles. Beyond being an established musician of some renown, John’s also a burgeoning author, having now published a couple of well received novels. Not too long back, another friend of mine was looking at my contact lists and spotted John’s name. “Dude, you know John Darnielle?” For some reason — inarguably to John’s credit as a regular, approachable human being — it still never occurs to me that he’s this crucial figure.

In any case, the last time I saw John in person, I believe, was actually the first time I saw John in person. I was walking up Thompson Street in SoHo and he suddenly shouted my name (see pic above). To this day, John and I are in fairly regular contact on Facebook, but I just spotted something that showcases both the bottomless depth of John’s affinity for music and his perpetually inclusive, affable nature. John was featured on “What’s In My Bag?”, Amoeba Records’ excellent web series I wrote about back on this post. To my mind, despite his numerous accolades and notable cameos (he was a featured guest on Damien Abraham’s “Turned Out a Punk” podcast, last summer), this is a true honor befitting his vast wealth of knowledge and his convivial, big-hearted nature. Way to go, John! 

I am in awe and roiling with envy.

Enjoy….

The Mystery Song

I used to have a problem with Patti Smith. I just never heard what everyone else claimed was so groundbreaking about her music, and I found her records to be sort of mewlingly overwrought. I did not equate her with her storied peers in bands like Television and The Ramones, etc. This opinion did me no favors.

Were that not enough, I was then asked by a rock-writer friend of mine, a German gent named Sky Nonhoff, to pen a chapter in a book he was putting together about sacred cows. Sky wanted me to address Patti’s oft-celebrated album, Horses, and give it the redressing it allegedly deserved. So, I did that, pulled no punches and went from being a passive non-fan of Patti Smith to an open detractor. The book came out — albeit only in Germany (I have a copy, but I’ll be damned if I can tell how Sky edited my copy) and the deal was sealed. Just for posterity, I re-posted my original English text here on my stupid blog. This was was even later sourced, much to my embarrassment, in Eric Wendell's 2014 book, "Patti Smith: America's Punk Rock Rhapsodist." Again, this did me no favors. 

After years of alienating friends of mine with my continued reluctance to capitulate to the cult of Patti Smith, I started to suspect that my position was becoming an untenable one for lots of folks who otherwise liked and tenuously respected me (I had a similar problem with the Grateful Dead). As if on cue, Patti Smith published her memoir, “Just Kids.” I didn’t race to the bookshop for a copy, but — being unemployed that summer — I had lots of unsolicited free time, so eventually picked it up and read it, almost devouring the book whole in a only a couple of sittings.

In that rarest of instances, Patti’s book completely upended my preconceptions about her, and I suddenly felt like a world-class jackass for shooting my mouth off about her for all those years. I recanted with another post on my stupid blog, for whatever that was worth.

This all said, while I took back all the mean, dismissive thing I’d written about Patti Smith, I still didn’t really enjoy her music. I still found so much of her vocal delivery to be sort of cloying and affected — not unlike the same problem I’d formerly had with Tom Waits. But where I was able to overcome my Waits problem, I still had a hard time getting past Patti’s cadence and histrionics. I respected her way more than I’d ever used to, but I still didn’t want to hear her music, if I could avoid it.

Last night, I was coming home from visiting a loved one in NYU Langone Hostpial on 34th and First Avenue, zig-zagging my way slowly to the southwest through the bitterly cold and dark streets of the Medical Corridor. For whatever reason, this stretch of Manhattan always makes me think of New York City in the grim late 70’s. Sure, much of it has been re-built and radically gentrified like the rest of the island, but there’s still a bit of that dour, function-over-form, brutalist aesthetic that makes it feel depressing and charmless. As such, whenever I’m on that stretch, I tend to flip my iPod to listen to bands like the Jim Carroll Band, Richard Hell & The Voidoids and the afore-cited Television — artists whose music defined Manhattan’s vibe back then. In the middle of listening to a playlist I’d made in 2015, filled with those bands and others like Missing Foundation, The Feelies, The Lounge Lizards and the Dead Boys, this one song suddenly filled my headphones and almost stopped me in my frigid track right on Second Avenue.

It sounded like Patti Smith being backed by a way-less-indulgent ensemble, anchored by a taut, pugnacious groove and a suitably Television-like riff. Holy shit!! How did I ever miss this? Listening intently as I walked further, I couldn’t recognize the track as ever having been on Horses, nor later records like Easter or Radio Ethiopia. Was it from the “Piss Factory” era? Wracking my brain to identify the true provenance of the song, I simply hit play again without looking. How did this song even get on my iPod? Where did I get it, and how have I never appreciated it in all these years?

When I could no longer unspool the riddle and still without a flicker of an answer, I gave up and looked.

It wasn’t Patti Smith at all, but rather a comparatively obscure band from the original CBGB set called The Erasers. I’d gotten the song off the Numero Group’s truly excellent 2015 box set of the Ork Records stable. Prior to this cut, the only Erasers song I was even aware of was their fleeting turn in Amos Poe’s movie, “The Foreigner,” where they play a song called “No Se,” while the film’s protagonist Max gets beaten up by members of The Cramps. You can see that here.

Removed from the context of all their esoteric, historical minutia, when I heard “I Won’t Give Up” by the Erasers, I *immediately* assumed it was Patti Smith, which makes me wonder if others made that same assumption at the time.

In any case, today is Patti Smith’s birthday. If you are so inclined, cue up a bit of her music and raise a toast, but maybe also enjoy this taste of the Erasers, who probably wouldn’t have recorded anything were it not for Patti knocking down the original doors. For more about them click here.

 

Goodbye & Go to Hell, 2020

I'd suggest it’s fair to say that 2020 was a year like no other. That said, just because we are approaching the end of the calendar year, that doesn’t mean that the problems of 2020 are necessarily over. Hopefully, 2021 will provide the remedies we so sorely lacked in 2020. In any case, here’s the annual survey, for whatever it’s worth.

What did you do in 2020 that you'd never done before?
Instead of citing a host of predictable unpleasantries, I’ll kick this off with a light-hearted answer: I carved my first turkey.

Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Nope, I rarely do and probably won’t until they are mandated by a medical professional.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, my sister-in-law gave birth to a lovely little boy.

Did anyone close to you die?
Mercifully, despite the carnage of the crisis, no one in my immediate circle passed away.

What countries did you visit?
Surely, you jest.

What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?
Vaccinations.

What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory?
Probably March 15, the day both my wife’s office and mine issued the “work from home” directive.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Staying gainfully employed, reasonably healthy and marginally sane.

What was your biggest failure?
Failing to note or anticipate a duplicitous vendor’s reluctance to remind me about a certain contractual clause. This was an expensive oversight.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
I managed to dodge COVID-19, but I did somehow still find time to zealously bruise my ribcage whilst trying to exit a bathtub. My wife declared it “the least Punk Rock thing, ever!”

What was the best thing you bought?
For some reason, getting it delivered was a Bataan Death March of false starts and delays, but we got a new Casper bed, which is indeed quite nice.

Whose behavior merited celebration?
Health care professionals, essential workers and my two excellent children, who've gotten through this difficult experience with a minimal amount of complaint and are both thriving as high school students and exemplary individuals. 

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The Trump Administration, the Republican party and embarrassingly large swaths of the American electorate (but mercifully not large enough).

What did you get really, really excited about?
Election 2020 was pretty compelling, all things considered.

Where did most of your money go?
School tuitions.

What song will always remind you of 2020?
For whatever reason, during the summer months, we kept a certain Rolling Stones compilation in the car’s disc player, and I was prone to frequently play “Bitch” at irresponsible volumes.

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Honestly speaking, despite the tumult of this year and the state of the world, at the moment, I feel it would be remiss of me to do any complaining. I’m fine. My wife and kids are fine. Our extended family is fine. We’re getting on with it. Not everyone has been so lucky.

Thinner or fatter?
Absolutely fatter. The pervasive attitude of “fuck it, it’s a pandemic!” -- when applied to consumption and imbibement -- became unfortunately de rigueur, after a while, and I’m now feeling it’s time to put that back in check. Wish me luck.

Richer or poorer?
Well, certainly not richer, but as mentioned above, I have no right to complain when others have suffered much greater losses than I have.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
I’m having a hard time answering this, as options were pretty slim, for the most part. There was a freelance project that I participated in that, in retrospect, I wish I’d contributed more to. I’m happy with my part of it, but I now feel I should have given it more time and done a bit more for it.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Stressing out.

How did you spend Christmas?
Just the four of us at home. Kept it simple.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Normally, I don’t know the answer to this, but in the COVID era, I believe I spent an inordinate amount of time on calls (and Zoom conferences) with my team at work. Honestly speaking, we’re the better for it, in many ways. We’ve become a more efficient unit.

Did you fall in love in 2020?
I was already in love, and we marked our 19th wedding anniversary in the summer.

How many one night stands in this last year?
I didn’t, given that -- despite many flaws -- I am a faithful husband. That said, who would actually answer this question?

What was your favorite TV program?
It seems like I watched it a million years ago, now, but I quite enjoyed “Ozark,” which has totally redeemed Laura Linney for me, after her godawful turn in the indefensible "Love Actually." That, and a French series called “Call My Agent” (or “Dix Pour Cent” in French).

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Well, I don’t know if I hate any new people, per se, but my roiling hatred for Donald J. Trump has only increased, especially now in his petulant and destructive lame-duck period.

What was the best book you read?
Probably “Waiting for Another War” by Trevor Ristow. Rise and reverberate!

What was your greatest musical discovery?
I answered this in sweeping detail on this recent post.

What did you want and get?
A Biden/Harris win.

What did you want and not get?
Trump removed from office prior to serving his full term and locked behind bars.

What were your favorite films of this year?
I cannot honestly remember seeing any “new” films. There were a few documentaries I enjoyed, like “Where Does a Body End,” about SWANS (the band).

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 53, which is a shitty number, and I had a lovely dinner with my wife and kids.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Trump leaving office in disgrace and in handcuffs.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
Normally, I write something pithy here, but I had no personal fashion concept this year. It was not, as they say, “top of mind.”

What kept you sane?
The hope of Trump losing the election and of the imminent arrival of a COVID vaccine.

What celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I normally don’t have a good answer for this one, either, but I have to say I think Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is kinda damn sexy.

What political issue stirred you the most?
The fact that it was a political issue at all is astonishingly appalling, but the mask debate.

Who did you miss?
I continue to miss certain departed members of my family, but am very grateful they didn’t have to deal with the bullshit of this year. Beyond that, … Terry Jones, Andy Gill, Florian Schneider, Dave Greenfield, Eddie Van Halen, Neil Peart, Hal Wilner, Bill Withers. I’m sure I’m forgetting others.

Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t know that I met anyone new, this year, other than my new little nephew.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020
WEAR A FUCKING MASK AND BELIEVE IN SCIENCE, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!

Song lyric that sums up 2020
Well, I believe Cop Shoot Cop may have said it best…

It's making me sick,
I want no part of it
Stop waving that flag
All you idiots bought right into it
And who's left holding the bag?
Surprise, surprise.
Surprise, surprise.
The government lies.

A Prophecy Fulfilled

Back in the summer, when author/archivist Chris Bryans reached out to me across the Atlantic via email to solicit a testimonial for a book he was putting together on my beloved Killing Joke, I regret to say that my first reaction was empathetic skepticism.

Many ambitious book projects on the subject have been launched — including one by yours truly, some years back — only to be dashed on the rocks of the band’s iron-willed reluctance to let anyone into their inner circle. I was going to warn Chris of this, but thought better of it — not wanting to derail his enthusiastic momentum. Deep into the brow-furrowing travails of the working-from-home dynamic, at the time, I strung together some pertinent anecdotes about my affinity for Killing Joke and shot them off to Chris worryingly close to the deadline. With that, I wished him my best, half-expecting the spectre of futility to lay waste to his endeavor much as it had done all those other projects that never reached fruition.

Months went by when suddenly I started spying signs of the book’s progress. Driven by both my desire to see Chris achieve the heretofore unachievable and by my vain hunger to see my own name in print, I gamely pre-ordered a copy of the stately tome, now officially dubbed — fittingly enough — “A Prophecy Fulfilled” — and yet still wondered if it would still ever actually see the light of day. Once again, given the volatile nature of this particular subject matter, even the best laid plans tethered to Killing Joke — tour dates, albums, spoken-word projects, deluxe box sets, etc — frequently seem to go pointedly awry in a manner that suggests the clandestine intervention of external and — possibly infernal — forces.

To be fair, there is an elite coterie of individuals who *have* pulled it off. Photographer/author Mont Sherar graphic artist Michael Coles and photographer Frank Jenkinson have each put out handsome books rife with striking images of the band and, in Coles’ case, their distinctive iconography, but all three of these gents could be construed, more or less, as inner-circlers, if you will. I would also be remiss not mentioning Shaun Pettigrew, the intrepid filmmaker that attempted to tell Killing Joke’s story in his 2013 opus, “The Death & Resurrection Show.” While said documentary was an unprecedented glimpse — one that took over a decade for Pettigrew to complete, and that allegedly threatened to implode on several occasions — it would not be offsides to suggest that however sumptuous a finished product it was, it did not genuinely give its viewers the full picture.

Chris Bryans, meanwhile, was attempting an oral history — a recounting the band’s myriad hills and valleys through the recollections of figures from both within that secretive cabal and folks from the world outside. Despite being friends with certain folks, I still fall into that latter demographic.

In any case, Christmas came early for me, today, as a big fuckoff box containing Chris Bryan’s magisterial work arrived safely on my coffee table. A bright and colorful artifact to behold, “A Prophecy Fulfilled” is a strikingly rich and heavy text, replete with all sorts of period-specific photography and artwork. No hastily assembled fanboy vanity project (like mine probably would have been), this book is clearly a labor of love by a fellow Killing Joke acolyte with a dutiful adherence to professional presentation. That he saw fit to include my messy tangles of pompously overwritten drivel is testament to his big-hearted, inclusive nature.

I cannot wait to dive into it.

Virtual CB's

I have the sneaking suspicion that at some point in the last 15+ years of doing this stupid blog, I've put this link up before, but, honestly, I can't be arsed to look for it, and it's still worth evangelizing, so here it is .... possibly for the second time.

I've gone on record here a number of times to suggest that the time for lionizing the legend of CBGB may have reached the end of its tether, and that by continuing to weepily bleat about it, those of us who cling to its memory are becoming just as cloyingly insufferable as those who continue to harp on and on about friggin' Woodstock. But, that's the cynic in me talking.

In reality, I am a fucking brazen nostalgist. It cannot be argued. For better or worse, I carry multiple torches for any number of landmarks and touchstones of lost eras. It's just the way my DNA is hard-wired. I gotta own it.

In recent weeks, I've been helping a friend fine-tune a very cool book project that has many topical tendrils wrapped around this particular stretch of the Bowery (note also my rumination on soon-to-be-razed Bowery Bar, yesterday).  As such, I am more reminded of my affinities and associations for the sweatily cramped confines of CBGB than usual, not that it's ever that far from my mind. When that book project nears fruition, I'll report more. 

As a result, when I re-spotted this "virtual tour" of the interior of CBGB, it took me right back there. Once again, is the place over-rhapsodized? Maybe, ... but what it was represented -- and continues to represent -- means a lot of a lot of people. And I'm one of them. 

Take a look inside.

Hipster Hiraeth

Weirdly or perhaps fittingly, Brooklyn started becoming a “hip” thing right as I was exiting that whole realm.

After years of being a beery and sneery Manhattan rock pig, prone to darkening the doors of any number of seedy bars and irresponsibly loud live-music venues in the East Village and Lower East Side, I found myself suddenly married and siring children just as things were kicking off on the other side of the East River.

Prior to all that, I’d certainly been to Williamsburg — where friends in pre-hipster bands like EBN and Cop Shoot Cop had decamped in the name of affordability — but it seemed more like Belfast during the Troubles than the future site of any burgeoning, Pabst Blue Ribbon-fueled subculture. By the time the Mrs. and I had moved from East 12th to East 9th and were picking out baby gear, the great sea change of relevance was well underway, and apart from very occasional sorties across the river to check out the new scene, I was very much not a part of it.

If my previous missives poo-poohing Lizzie Goodman’s sprawling “Meet Me In the Bathroom” didn’t already amplify same, I was largely okay with all that. I’d had my time and my era, and while I didn’t think quite as much of the new bands and the new scene — let alone their somewhat cloying cultural touchstones and sartorial/tonsorial trappings — there was undeniably some amazing music that was spawned from it all. But while it was happening, I really wasn’t there. I was more likely to be found rocking one toddler or another to sleep or blearily wandering the aisles of Buy Buy Baby in a slumber-deprived stupor quite unlike the ones I’d cultivated at Max Fish, The Pyramid or CBGB just scant years prior.

Here in the apocalyptic epoch-eclipse of 2020, meanwhile, Hipster Brooklyn has summarily fallen prey to a neck-snappingly steep level of gentrification, albeit in a seemingly more accelerated manner than what happened here in Manhattan, although that may just be my biased projection. And much as with Jesse Malin’s bars and clubs still strategically positioned around the East Village, while some holdout venues and ventures remain peppered around Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the hipsters are basically all gone.

In turn, that has led to the requisite advent of nostalgia, a word I am certainly no stranger to. And while it seems like only weeks ago to oldsters like myself that McCarren Pool was a cool concert venue or that the first Grizzly Bear album came out, there is now a groundswell of longing by former participants for the bona fide brand of Brooklyn cool that once thrived over there. I call it …. Hipster Hiraeth.

Case in point is this weepy article that came out in Inside Hook yesterday, Dubbed “Remembering the Early-Aughts Hipster Bars That Built Williamsburg As We Know it,” it’s a slavishly detailed run-down of since-vanished concerns that allegedly defined the core of Hipster Brooklyn, and I cannot say I knowingly entered into any of them apart from having a fleeting couple of beers at Enid’s with erstwhile Killing Joke drummer Big Paul Ferguson back in 2004. Beyond that desperate bit of name-dropping, I cannot begin to add anything to this article as it pertains to a world and an era I just wasn’t privy to. Why is that? Because I’m old.

While it’s certainly weird to find oneself steeped in nostalgia, a quandary I frequently weep about here, it’s even weirder to watch younger individuals start to come to grips with it. As someone smart, famous and sadly dead once sagely sang, hey look out, you rock’n’rollers — pretty soon now, you’re gonna get older.

In any case, below is a fleeting snippet of the Hipster Brooklyn I remember best….

Sing This Commendation To Me

Just to close the loop on this, after I reviewed his awesome book, author Trevor Ristow nicely "blurbed" my review on the back of the second printing of "Waiting For Another War," which I got in the mail today. Huzzah!

Get your copy here.

This, meanwhile, is the Sisters of Mercy...

You've Got To Be Kid A'ing Me

As noted as recently as this past June, there’s a certain entry I posted back in the balmy, comparatively carefree days of 2006 that has gone onto become the single-most clicked post in this blog’s fifteen plus years of existence, that being my windy unpacking of Chuck Klosterman’s frivolous theory that Radiohead’s Kid A predicted the events of September 11, 2001. Chuck wasn’t entirely serious when he wrote it. I wasn’t entirely serious when I recapped it. But the clicks flock to that entry like the swallows used to flock to Capistrano. I guess it doesn’t hurt that when I type in “Kid A,” “Klosterman” and “9/11” in Google, that entry is the first that seems to pop up. Results will vary, of course.

As I mentioned back on that June post (and in 2016 and in 2010), that entry has evidently become a de-facto starting point for folks wishing to discuss the matter, usually on message boards and Radiohead fan sites, but also on otherwise quasi-reputable websites like Cracked and Noisey. Last week, though, I noticed a sudden, new spike in traffic on my blog and – sure enough – it was that post, newly picked up by Pitchfork. Curiosity piqued, I went over to check it out.

In this instance, my shoddily written recap and rumination on Klosterman’s original essay were fleetingly alluded to in a review of a new book by one Steven Hyden titled “This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A And The Beginning of The 21st Century.” Fittingly enough, we are but mere days away from the twenty-year anniversary of the release of Kid A, which landed on unsuspecting listeners on October 2, 2000. Seems like yesterday.

The excerpted passage from Hyden’s book in the Pitchfork piece prompted me to go pick up a copy – less intrigued about the actual subject matter than by the fleeting chance that maybe – just maybe -- my stupid blog post would get a mention and/or plug in the text. I’ve gotten lucky like that in the past – earning invocations in Joe Gross’ book about Fugazi, Bryan Waterman’s book about Marquee Moon, Eric Wendell’s “Patti Smith: America’s Punk Rock Rhapsodist” (asserting a frankly misinformed position I’ve since recanted) and on the back cover of Trevor Ristow’s “Waiting For Another War.”

Well, no such luck, this time. Either Hyden bypassed my entry and went right to Klosterman (who gets a single invocation on page 134), or learned about it without any help from me. Oh well. I'm still looking forward to reading the book.

In terms of the premise of my original post and Chuck Klosterman's theory, however, it seems some inventive individual took the time to make ... the video in the link below. Please note, if you are triggered, disturbed or offended by graphic depictions of the events of September 11, 2001 ... which, even this many years after the fact, is entirely understandable ... I strongly advise you against watching.

The Pointless End of Summer 2020 Survey

I know I recently suggested I wasn't going to do one of these, as I didn't really feel it warranted discussion. But, at the moment, it's raining like mad out here in Quogue, and I am, in a word, bored. We're here for three more days before it's back again to the city for good and the kids start their hybridized in-person/virtual learning school year. 

If we collectively consider Labor Day to be the very end of the season, technically, we have about another 9 days before Summer 2020 is officially over. That said, as I mentioned not too long back, Summer 2020 felt like it was over — for me, anyway — upon the arrival of Isaias, which seemed to prematurely snuff out the verdant warmth brought on by June and July. Sure, the calendar still says August, but everything currently feels like it’s in a declining slope towards Autumn. Summer seems pretty much over.

Then again, Summer 2020 hasn’t been like any other summer. It almost seemed like an afterthought while we collectively grappled with the pandemic ... and everything it brought with it. With normal summer activities either sharply compromised or just flat-out cancelled, the usual associations of summertime seemed incidental and ultimately non-applicable. We went though the motions, but we kept reminding ourselves that this wasn’t your average summer. Next year — God friggin’ willing — will be different.

But, y’know, as bizarre and unsettled and muted as it may have been, … it was still summer, so I figured why not dust off the End of Summer Survey, last taken in 2019. I've also augmented it with a host of other stupid questions: 

Defining Moment of Summer 2020:
As mentioned way back in March, when the pandemic turned New York City upside down, my wife, kids and I took my mother up on her offer to let us use her house out on the Eastern End of Long Island, which made for a comparatively more expansive place to remote work and remote school, as opposed to our intimate Manhattan apartment. We stayed there through the end of May, until my mom came back from Florida. When she did, we had to clear out, and ended up basically subletting a cottage in normally rented by some friends of ours from North Carolina. While it was about as roomy as the abandoned bus in which they found the body of Christopher McCandless in Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild,” The Lamb Cottage, as it is called, more than met our needs for the summer in between periodic returns to the city.

A lot has happened in the three months we’ve been here, but if I had to slap a “defining moment” on any of it, I would say our initial mastering of a particular dish called Beer Can Chicken, wherein you coat a whole chicken with the rub of your choice, shove a half-consumed can of beer (we used Stella Artois) up its slimy posterior and then precariously perch it standing upright under a closed grill. This is not as simple as it sounds, but the end results were spectacular each time.

Best Purchase of Summer 2020:
I can’t say I did a lot of purchasing this summer, not least because for the most part, most shops were closed. Inspired by a then-impending interview with funk legend Bootsy Collins, I went on a big Parliament kick, which inspired me to buy a t-shirt with the cover art of Mothership Connection on it, which I probably wore more than any other garment, this summer. That’s about it.

Best Book You Read of Summer 2020:
I would say it’s a toss up between Trevor Ristow’s “Waiting For Another War,” which I wrote about here and here, and the memoir of Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz, “Remain in Love.” It's largely a fun, illuminating read, but like so many other rock memoirs, it has a way of poisoning preconceptions about favorite music. While he's obviously a tirelessly nice guy, the sour grapes Frantz feels about David Byrne (and, for that matter, Brian Eno) is unfortunate. I'm not suggesting he's not entitled to feel that way or that any of it is untrue, but there's a dirty laundry aspect to it that's a disservice to the band. I don't think I ever thought of Talking Heads as a perpetually harmonious family, but learning about how frequently weird, callous and inconsiderate Byrne was and how petty and petulant Eno was maybe wasn't something I needed to know. Still, it was an enjoyable read.

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2020:
Well, obviously, no movie theaters were open this summer, but beyond that — I cannot say I watched too many whole films. I did recently watch “Gimme Danger,” Jim Jarmusch’s documentary about The Stooges, and thought that was pretty amazing.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2020:
For Father’s Day, my wife gave me some lovely new underwear. That sounds pretty tame, I realize, but they’re genuinely pretty nice.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2020:
Don’t really know where to start with this one. Very mercifully, no one in our family has contracted COVID-19, as yet, although we do know a few folks who had it. There are several local businesses in Manhattan that were forced to close their doors because of the pandemic, and those are all very sad. There’s so much loss going on in the world, at the moment, that it seems petty trying to quantify it all.

Song That Best Sums up Summer 2020:
I can’t say I’ve really latched onto any new music, in the past several months. Sure, I did get the new eponymous long player by Human Impact, which is the supergroup I mentioned (and didn’t go see live) back here that features former members of favorite bands of mine like SWANS, the Unsane and Cop Shoot Cop. As much as I dig that album — its ponderous bleakness fit the world’s circumstances just a little too well. My favorite track from the album is probably “Consequences."

Happiest Memory of Summer 2020:
This will invariably sound like a hokey cliché, but in as much as the pandemic has turned everyone's life upside down, it has afforded us the opportunity -- nay, mandated the requirement -- of spending an inordinate amount of time with our kids. Being that they're both teenagers now, under normal circumstances, they might have both been otherwise loath to spent so much time in our company. That has been our silver lining, during all of this. 

Saddest Memory of Summer 2020:
The state of the world, at the moment, has provided more than enough material for this. Where does one begin?

Scariest Memory of Summer 2020:
Watching some of the video of initial unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd was pretty jarring. 

Word That Best Describes Summer 2020:
Transformative.

BONUS QUESTIONS: 

Single greatest album of all time is …..
Funhouse by The Stooges

3 Books You Read This Year
- "Remain in Love" by Chris Frantz
- "Waiting For Another War" by Trevor Ristow
- "Girl to City" by Amy Rigby

What’s Your Favorite Rolling Stones album?
Today, I'm saying Emotional Rescue, and you can bite me.

3 Last Albums You Purchased:
- Human Impact by Human Impact
- Gymnopedies & Gnosseinnes by Erik Satie
- Live at Goose Lake by The Stooges (which has not arrived, as yet). 

Your favorite James Bond film was
Toughie, but I have a very stubborn affinity for "The Man with The Golden Gun."

3 songs you never want to hear again:
- "Santeria" by Sublime
- "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi
- "American Pie" by Don McLean.

3 albums you own that you wouldn’t want to leave on your coffee table when your in-laws were coming over:
- Scatology by Coil
- Dial 'M' For Motherfucker by Pussy Galore
- Freaks, F_____s, Drunks & Junkies by GG Allin

The most physical pain you have ever experienced:
Kidney stone in 2008.

First Record You Ever Bought With Your Own Money:
Dressed to Kill by Kiss

Notable Moment From This Summer:
I had to bury a dead bird that showed up in the back yard of the Lamb Cottage. It was missing its head.

Recommend three books:
- "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain
- "Downtown" by the recently late Pete Hammil
- "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris.

Beers on me. What’ll it be?
Almaza (great, albeit hard to find Lebanese beer)

First Concert You Went To:
Devo at Radio City Music Hall, Halloween 1981

Last Concert You Went To:
End of Hope at Niagara's on Avenue A, February 2020

Recline your seat-back on airplanes: Yes or No?
HELL, NO.

3 Favorite words
- Sepulchral
- Vespertine
- Defenestrate

Song That Will Remind You of Summer 2020:
"Bitch" by the Rolling Stones

David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar or Gary Cherone?
DLR without a moment's hesitation.

Recommend 3 TV shows:
- "Ozark"
- "Endeavor"
- "Mad Men" (we're currently re-watching ... it's as good as you remember it).

Last Movie You Saw in a Theatre & Where:
Michael Apted's "63 Up" at the Quad Cinema on West 13th.

My preferred way to listen to music is via:
Vinyl, Cassette, Compact Disc or iPod, but never streaming.

Worst date movie ever:
Toss-up between "Dead Ringers" (about twin psychotic, coke-crazed gynecologists) and/or "Last Tango in Paris" -- Fun fact: I saw both of these on dates. Neither ended well.

Your favorite member of Monty Python?
Michael Palin

3 quintessential summer songs:
- "Shout To the Top" by Style Council
- "Summer's Cauldron/Grass" by XTC
- "Listen" by Tears for Fears

3 Biggest Pet Peeves
- People who order a "cheese pizza."
- People who recline their seat-backs into my lap on public transport.
- The tenacious vernacular of "hate on." One does not require a surface on which to put that verb into action. One does not hate on, hate over, hate alongside or hate under. One just hates.

Fried or Scrambled:
- Fried. Sunny side up.

3 Things You Wish You Could Do:
- Cook with stylish proficiency
- Play guitar
- Credibly speak another language.

3 Things You Miss Right Now:
- Live music
- My friends
- The illusion of certainty.

Amphetamine Logrolling

Some of you might remember a post from way back in June — gosh, remember June? — wherein I discussed the new book by my friend Trevor Ristow about the first few years of a mutually favorite band of ours, The Sisters of Mercy. As something of a connoisseur of this very type of rock bio, I was delighted to discover that Ristow’s book, “Waiting for Another War,” was not the usual half-baked tangle of dubiously executed typing, but rather a thoughtfully composed chronicle of the band’s inception through to the recording of their debut long player, First And Last And Always. I remarked as such in my own review of the book in that June post.

Well, as the saying goes, one good turn deserves another. Unbeknownst to me until just recently, Trevor graciously decided to “blurb” me on the back cover of the second printing of the book. I thought that was jolly nice of him. See it below.

Cool, right? I thought so. In any case, get your copy of the book here.

This, meanwhile, was the Sisters in 1985…