Even Worse (pt. 3) - Mouse or Rat, Steve Jones, the end

When I joined Even Worse, Jack already had a few songs from the previous incarnations of the band and he played them on the piano to show me the chord changes. He played the classics like "Last Night's Blimpie" and "Mouse or Rat." I then turned around and taught Tim how to play them on bass and then showed Thurston the chords on guitar.

I don't remember the exact date that Even Worse went in to the studio to record the aforementioned "Mouse or Rat" but I do remember that we literally went underground that summer day to lay down the tracks and the studio was both claustrophobic and hot. Oh, yeah, I don't think that Thurston was actually there for the recording so I played both guitar parts. Jack was friends with a great graphics artist (Sumishta Braun) who designed the record sleeve.

The last gig I ever played with Even Worse was at Irving Plaza. We played with Adolescent Youth (with members of the Beastie Boys), Heart Attack and Kraut. Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols was doing some recording with Kraut at the time and he planned on joining them on stage that night. Early in the day, while we waited to soundcheck I had a little chat with Steve about his days in the Pistols. I was curious as to how a band that claimed to be poor could afford such grand equipment (top of the line guitars and amps) and clothes (leathers from head to toe). He quite matter-of -factly told me that they stole everything and then went in to some detail about breaking in to Keith Richards' house and coming out with his guitars (at least that's the way I remember the story - though it could have been a lie). Later that night Jones broke a string on his guitar and leaned in to the mic "Can Steve from Even Worse come to the stage, I need to borrow your guitar." I don't think so!

Earlier that night Jack and I got in to an argument about getting paid for the gig. He said that he needed to use the money from the show to pay for the pressings of the "Mouse or Rat" single. I told him that I needed the money to buy food. He gave me an ultimatum. Either I contributed my portion of the gig money or this was the last show I'd play with Even Worse.

My last show with Even Worse was a doozie. I remember Adolescent Youth playing a punk rock version of the "Can Can" for about 15 minutes with all of the young girls from the hardcore scene up on stage with them. I wore army pants tucked into Wellingtons that were turned over at the top. At one inglorious moment, one of the kids in the audience raised his Heineken to salute to me and then turned it upside down and jammed the bottle into my boot. It turns out he hadn't drunk a drop from the bottle. That was the most expensive soaker of my life.

Even Worse went on without me. This was Jack's band after all. I went to see them play a couple of times and it was fun to watch my friends rile up the crowd. Thurston and Kim were an amazing couple and I wished I had stayed friends with them over the years. I think that their success has been incredible. I stayed in touch with Kenny for a few years while he began his career and started his family. Tim and I caught up with one another about 13 years ago when, as an A&R exec at Atlantic Records, he signed Hootie & The Blowfish. And finally, there's Jack Rabid. I hadn't spoken to Jack in 25 years and then last year, on the off chance that the Big Takeover still existed I looked him up online. He was good enough to send me a copy of "Mouse or Rat" (which you can try to find online for $150, ha!) and he took the time to correct some details of my story (that remain clear as fuzz to this day).

What’s My Muthafuckin Name?…Santigold

I thought that the music intelligencia would enjoy this press release we issued today:

Change the graffiti on the bathroom wall, get your tattoo fixed, get your t-shirt airbrushed and change the name on your year end list- Santogold is now Santigold. She’s not telling you why, that’s just how it is. No unpronounceable symbol, no numbers where they shouldn’t be, no random capitalization, just plain ass Santigold so remember that.

Downtown/Lizard King released Santigold’s self-titled breakthrough CD in April and it instantly became one of 2008’s most acclaimed albums garnering international raves. Critics and radio have championed the record’s standout tracks “L.E.S. Artistes”, “Creator” and her latest single “Shove It”.

http://www.myspace.com/santigold

Chris Brown vs Rhianna

I watched the Grammy Awards for the first time in years a couple of nights ago and I planned on writing a post on all of the reasons I thought they were horrible. Yesterday morning, as I drove in to work I heard that Chris Brown may have gotten in to a fight with his girlfriend Rhianna prior to the show and their planned performance slot was filled in last minute by Justin Timberlake with Al Green. Late in the day yesterday I got a a phone call from a reporter from Macleans asking me to comment on the Chris Brown incident.

The call from Macleans was the second that I had received in as many work days. Someone called on Friday to ask me to contribute to an article suggesting to BNL's Steven Page how to repair his image. I refused that request outright but somehow felt that commenting on Chris Brown was either not my place or totally necessary. After some hemming and hawing I commented.

I start with the fact that I don't really know the facts. I don't read celebrity magazines or gossip columns in newspapers so I don't really find these kinds of stories terribly interesting. But, of course, presuming for a moment that they did get in to a physical fight, what bothers me is how this type of coverage titillates the public and leads to further coverage of downtrodden celebs.

My eldest step-son is a devotee to the show Celebrity Rehab. When we asked him why he watched the show he said because it was educational and shows you the effects of drugs and alcohol. That's a reasonable explanation for watching the first episode but not the rest of the season.

The problems that celebrities have are the same the rest of the world has but they have to live these problems out in public. What people forget is that celebs are people too. Or, maybe they don't forget that. Maybe they like to hold these people up and then revel in the fall from grace. Maybe seeing celeb's mugshots makes the general public feel better about themselves. They laugh, take about them at the water cooler and Google to their hearts content waiting for the next police report in the entertainment section.

The Macleans reporter asked me if I thought that Chris Brown could resuscitate his career after an incident like this. I qualified my answer by saying that, as far as I know, he hasn't yet been charged with anything. Then I told her that I honestly believe that at the end of the day musical artists are judged on the quality of their music not on how they live their lives, good or bad. If Chris Brown makes a great record it will sell and he will be popular. If he makes a bad record no one will care but they'll say Sunday night's incident had a negative impact on his career. If Michael Jackson makes a great album, you can't tell me that it wouldn't sell shit loads.

The reporter asked me for an example to illustrate my point. Though I knew it to be true I couldn't really think past Puff daddy and the gun charges. Maybe that wasn't the best example. And then it hit me. Though it's not music related it is an entertainment story that dominated the front pages and cooler talk for ages. basketball star Kobe Bryant is still the most popular player in the game despite the fact that he cheated on his wife and was accused of assault. But he continues to play the game at the highest levels and people admire him for that.

Celebrities are not looking to be held up as role models but they are. Yes, they have a certain responsibility to make sure that hey don't tarnish their reputations with ridiculous actions. But we all have the same responsibility. We just don't covered in the press.

Read Macleans article here: http://blog.macleans.ca/2009/02/10/how-do-you-spin-this/

Even Worse (pt. 2) - Rick Rubin, hardcore life and getting it straight

There were only a few places to play in NYC during the hardcore punk era, but Even Worse played most of them. And when we went on "tour" it was to New Jersey. The first gig off of Manhattan that I remember playing was at Maxwell's in Hoboken.

The thing I remember most about that night was that it was the show in which we debuted the song "1984". I have no idea how I came up with the riff for the song but it remains one of the best (and certainly one of the most complete) songs I ever wrote. The lyrics were a take on the book which I had just finished reading (in 1982) for the second time. Lots of Big Brother talk and there was a break down in the middle that Kenny, our singer, could improvise. This was always my favourite part because Kenny would come up with some crazy stuff, usually from whatever the headlines in the Post were that day.

The song was kind of slow and plodding and the "crowd" (maybe a hundred people) started skanking around in a giant circle in the middle of the dance floor. After watching so many shows with mosh pits filled with flailing arms and legs, it was pretty cool to see the chaos become somewhat organized with a song they had never heard before.

Another "memorable" (more on why I have quotes there later) gig was also one of the most infamous. We had a show booked at a giant hall in Garden City, New Jersey. We were the first of three bands on the bill. The headliners were Millions of Dead Cops (MDC) and Hose, Rick Rubin's (yes, that Rick Rubin) band - sort of a kind of Flipper tribute band.

Rick lived in the same NYU dorm as Tim, Kenny and I. All of this stuff was before he started Def Jam with Russell Simmons. We all sort of moved in the same circles at the time (Rick Moreno, the front desk clerk at the dorm went on to direct a number of Beastie Boys videos including "Fight For Your Right To Party" - he plays the landlord in the bathrobe) and Rick asked me to join Hose. Now, it wasn't that I was so loyal to Even Worse but I really thought that Hose sucked and I couldn't see myself playing that kind of music. Rick was cool and totally understood. We stayed on friendly terms for years and would catch up every once and a while at a Warner sales convention or when I'd fly to LA for business.

Back to Garden City. We were running late and our car got stopped for speeding. We should have turned around right there, but we didn't. When we got to the hall, we set up the gear and took the stage to a sparse crowd of about 50. A couple of songs in to our set a girl hopped up and sat on the edge of the stage. Moments later she lit up a cigarette. There was a faction in the punk scene at the time called 'straight-edge" that didn't condone drinking, smoking or drugs. We didn't call ourselves "straight-edge" but we also didn't condone any of the aforementioned vices. We happen to be playing our yet to be released single "Mouse or Rat" and at the end of the song, Kenny went to kick the cigarette out of the girl's mouth. He missed the cigarette and clocked her right in the face.

Though he apologized immediately (by telling her she shouldn't smoke:) the damage was already done. It turns out that she was the Queen of the Jersey City punks and the crowd reaped its revenge by pulling Kenny off stage during the middle section of "1984" and kicking the crap out of him. It should be noted that neither Tim, Jack or myself came to Kenny's rescue (Thurston didn't play this gig with us) but we did play on. Kenny rolled himself back on to the stage and sang the rest of the set sitting on a milk crate behind Jack's drumkit.

Now, you'd think that that was enough but it wasn't. After our set (which we recorded) we were in the parking lot outside during Hole's set when the hall doors burst open and the crowd came running out. Somehow the sprinkler system had gone off soaking everyone inside.

Now about those quotes around the word "memorable". This story is how I remeber it but last year I got in tuoch with Jack Rabid and in an exchange of e-mails he corrected a few details:

"...that other show you mention was at a place called "city gardens" in trenton, whereas the traffic ticket we got was for speeding in connecticut on the way to a show in bridgeport's pogo's or some club in east haven, i can't remember which (we only played the latter once, with vatican commandos, now known as moby's former band if i have that right, and lost generation--or was it reflex from pain? they all started to sound alike apart from c.i.a. who were fantastic).

there's a paragraph about even worse in the book "american hardcore," but it's got about 12 factual errors including many missing members, misspelling the names of the members actually noted, and for some reason also includes my real first name which they got wrong as well! (it's paul; they had me as pete). a new edition is coming out and i sent a slew of corrections. i am not confident they will get it right or much care. but we will see."

Cheap Trick

I just accepted an invitation to join the Cheap Trick group. I'll never forget the first time I ever heard Cheap Trick. I went home that night feeling like I was a member of a secret society.

In the summer of 1976 I answered an ad in the Toronto Star in which a exotic Japanese electric guitar was up for sale. It turned out that the seller lived a few blocks from our apartment so I went over to take a look. After ringing the bell, the door opened to the world of Jim Parrott and Dee Dack. Jim and Dee were a husband and wife who's lives were dedicated to rock 'n' roll. For years they had published an underground fanzine called Denim Delinquent and had first hand stories of Iggy Pop and Ray Davies.

The guitar was red, ugly and a horror to play but I quickly became friends with Jim and Dee who used their extensive record collection to give me my earliest music education. They introduced me to the Stooges, MC5, Amboy Dukes, Dictators, Blue Oyster Cult and a million other garage bands from the late sixties. In addition to Denim Delinquent they also wrote for Backstage Pass, a magazine published by CPI for its preferred Cheap Thrills ticket holders and handed out at concerts.

On a particular evening that summer they asked me to babysit their son Eric while they went to an album launch. It was an uneventful night with Eric who watched TV with me until he fell asleep. Jim and Dee came home around 11 o'clock and he had a white 12" album cover under his arm. I had never seen an album advance before and I was curious as to what this new band sounded like.

I remember that the advance folded open and the four band members popped up from the gatefold. From the moment the needle hit the record and the first chords of "ELO Kiddies" came out of the speaker I was hooked. At school the next day I told anyone who's listen about this band Cheap Trick. Once pictures started to show up in magazines I put together homemade buttons that marked me as Toronto's first Cheap Trick uber-fan.

A couple of months later, Cheap Trick was on tour with KISS and playing in Southern Ontario. I went to the concert in Kitchener with Jim and Dee who were scheduled to interview Cheap Trick (they already knew Gene Simmons who was a fan of Denim Delinquent). It was the first interview I ever saw with a band. At the end I asked Rick Neilsen if he had any tips for a new guitarist. His suggestion was that I pay attention to how sloppy he was - and play very loud. When I watched him that night, I saw exactly what he meant.

Right before In Color came out, Cheap Trick played two nights at the El Mocambo. CHUM FM broadcast one of their six sets. I went to both nights and I don't think they repeated more than two or three songs at those shows. Rick Neilsen ended the first night by jamming his Explorer shaped Hamer guitar in to the ceiling.

When their Budokon album became a huge hit I was, of course, repulsed by the screaming little girls. For my money, Cheap Trick was a hard rock band with witty songs and great melodies - not a pop band! But I am nothing if not loyal and I kept going to see Cheap Trick concerts and buying their albums (even though I realized that Dream police was only half good). I didn't really turn my back on them until "The Flame" but then I turned my back on Aerosmith too when they started playing girl ballads.

Years later, Cheap Trick put out the album Monsters Under the Bed on Warner and I got to work with the band and I related the above story to them. Rick claims to remember Jim and Dee though he didn't remember my question about playing guitar.

Anyway, that's why I joined the Cheap Trick group on Facebook.