Volume War (1993)

The year was 1993 and that behemoth called grunge rock was going strong, bands with punk backgrounds playing sludgy spluzz with lots of guitar and little else added. Bands like Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana and many, many, too many others.

I had just completed a tour of the United States with my band Trash Can School and it was largely a success considering many people didn't have any idea who we were. With the momentum of the band gaining its new-found popularity, our record company SFTRI wanted us to go in and record a new album.

Cutting a new album was easier said than done, because A: our previous engineer got a fat head and wanted a hefty producer's fee in addition to getting paid studio time, and B: the album budget was something like $3-5,000, pretty minuscule even by early Nineties standards. To put it in plain English we had to look for a new engineer, studio and they had to be nothing short of amazing.

A fan and friend of the band told us Geza X was in between big jobs and was interested in recording any crazy indie bands. When I said I was interested I asked her to remind Geza that we were in Arthur J. and The Gold Cups together. Geza accepted immediately and he was nice enough to take our poverty row budget like a mensch.

Half the album was not only written in advance but was road tested on our national tour - DT's, TV Blues, Dog Town Girl, Powershred and Steel Purse, to name a few. The other half hadn't been written yet so I had to cobble together at least seven new numbers. The newer songs were Steroid Shock, Big Time Full-On Cop Out, Taxidermist, Volume War and a couple of others.

Geza X's studio was called City Lab and was situated in a house above the Sunset Strip, high above the Comedy Store. In fact, Pauly Shore, Mitzi Shore's son lived next door with his purple jeep parked out in front. Across the street lived Peter Weller, who had a huge, resplendent villa-style home. Not bad for the guy who played William Burroughs and Robocop.

Having Geza as producer was important to me, because by this time the band had fallen heavily under the influence of the Great Pacific Northwest and the Sub-Pop sound, and to me Geza was a kindred soul in the pursuit of strange and unusual sounds, and encouraged me to go farther out than I ever had before.

With the band becoming more musically conservative in their musical tastes it was important to assert my influence on the band by emphasizing even more bizarre sounds than was previously displayed on the first album.

I made concessions toward the trendy grunge sound by writing songs like Taunt, the Ballad of Peter Green and Big Time Full-On Cop Out, but even the latter composition had a quirky Voidoids-style bridge that broke up whatever Mudhoney vibe ran throughout the song. And then there was that atonal saxophone break.

In spite of these concessions I still created walls of discordant noise with a free-form jazz ending to Taxidermist with a wall of guitar feedback. Then there was Powershred, featuring a sample of Sun Ra playing white noise on his synthesizer while a scratch vocal imitating a sax solo made the final mix, bringing some Yoko Ono good cheer to the proceedings.

Steel Purse had a stop and go pulse all through the song, like a demented roller coaster, and for good reason: it was about the Long Beach Pike, a busted-up amusement park where sailors got rolled and gangs got into knife fights and tranny hookers flashed steel, as well.

I also incorporated a great 12-string guitar that Rebecca made for TV Blues and Dog Town Girl. It added a very light touch to the band sound, which we needed badly. DT's had a backwards saxophone track to add to the menacing voodoo drone the band was laying down. I don't think we're in Seattle any more, Toto.

And perhaps that was the big problem in a lot of the fan's eyes (and ears). The album received unanimously bad reviews and even earned the enmity of Papa Bear at SFTRI. He felt he got gypped out of his money because instead of getting Nevermind Part II he got Andy's Wild Years. He'll never realize he got the most original album ever released on his label.

Making a bad grunge album would have been the easiest task in the world but that's not my calling. I made in abundantly clear to everyone that I was dedicated to making the most unusual rock music of its time, and people kept nodding their heads like I was talking drunk again.

Needless to say, the accompanying tour in support of the album was an unqualified disaster, leading up to the breakup of the band. I still listen to Volume War (named after the three guitarists turning up their amps over each other throughout rehearsal until one couldn't even hear themselves anymore) and am amazed at what a great piece of work I created with these guys. One day Volume War will have its day because all maverick works get the recognition they're due.

The Long Gone Saturday Night

"There's nothing more rebellious than some ugly person dancing around thinking they're wonderful"
-Kim Fowley

Another one gone: no sooner did I write a eulogy for the great Jack Bruce do I find myself mourning the loss of the great Kim Fowley. Kim Fowley, legendary Hollywood songwriter, performer, producer and Whirling Dervish passed on ten days ago, January 15, 2015. What makes Fowley so unique from all Hollywood movers and shakers is that there isn't anyone in Hollywood who couldn't claim Fowley as a musical associate, and that was the key to his staying power as an artist.

Through the garage, psych, glam, punk and metal eras and beyond there wasn't a style or project he deemed too small or beneath him. His work transcended trends due to his absolute belief in everything he worked on.

Talking to Kim was not for the weak of heart: he fixed his steely gaze at you from that skull-like face and spoke with a directness that either frightened you or made you laugh. It was actually a pretty good acid test to see who was sincere and who was just another Sunset Boulevard huckster.

And Sunset Boulevard! How many songs did he write about Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard? Songs like Hollywood Nights, Terrors In Tinseltown, Hollywood USA, Canyon Woman, Hollywood Child, Mayor of the Sunset Strip, ad infinitum.

Whether seeing him at Canter's in 1966 or Rodney's English Disco in 1974 or a Weirdos/Nerves show he promoted in 1977, even seeing him at the screening of "New York Doll" at the Director's Guild Theater in 2005, Fowley was there, a permanent fixture on the local scene.

My favorite album by him was Good Clean Fun, followed by Outrageous, where he took his manic Sunset Blvd. energy and distilled it into wild, raw, savage tracks, treading a demented balance between Steppenwolf raunch and Frank Zappa-style freakazoid documentary.

And speaking of Zappa, Fowley was one of the craziest voices on "Freak Out", the first Mothers of Invention album, babbling all the way through sides 3 and 4 in an improvisational foreign language known only to himself. Fowley can also be heard laying down an unbelievable rap about Wild man Fischer on the legendary "An Evening With Wild man Fischer" album.

With the loss of Kim Fowley the world has lost a lot more color. Things look a lot paler than they used to.

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Captain Beefheart fans will have to postpone their mourning for a little while, because Rhino Records in association with Warner Bros. have just released an amazing four-disc box set of iconic Beefheart albums titled Sun Zoom Spark. The discs included are the long out of print Lick My Decals Off, Baby, The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot, with a fourth disc comprised of unreleased outtakes and demos mostly recorded during The Spotlight Kid sessions.

Many Beefheart fans consider this period (1970-1972) to be his most fully realized (read freest) work ever, arguably better than his later Virgin Records output. I would advise many newbies to start with Safe As Milk, followed by Trout Mask Replica, and then this chunky monster of a box set.

But getting back to Sun Zoom Spark, the fourth disc is guaranteed to get even the most rabid fans to buy it. Beautifully packaged with tons of Don Van Vliet art, this is one of those box sets that's impossible to resist.

In addition to this treasure trove of newly released stuff is a download of the complete Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot outtakes, posted in its entirety on You Tube by Idiotska's Live Corner, seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCdwDSfsVFY. Clocking in at over three hours(!) this is even more phenomenal than the Sun Zoom Spark CD. An early version of "Ice Cream For Crow" titled Drink Paint Run Run starts the action, and it amply demonstrates Zoot Horn Rollo and Winged Eel Fingerling playing some of the most incendiary guitar you'll ever hear.

The three hour tapes reveal snippets, references and full-on previews of Low Yo Yo Stuff, Circumstances (played as a dirge), Sun Zoom Spark, Harry Irene, Suction Prints, Sheriff of Hong Kong, Ice Cream For Crow, Flavor Bud Living, Sue Egypt, Dirty Blue Gene, and even a hint of Up On The My-Oh-My.

I intend on getting the Sun Zoom Spark package because you get the great bonus disc as well as the very first official Warner Bros. release of Lick My Decals Off, Baby, which Rhino had in limited release for only two years, so seeing it back in print's pretty exciting. If you can get through a blistering thirty-minute version of Pompadour Swamp then your ship's come in. Forty years in the making and worth every minute waited.

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And speaking of Kim Fowley and Captain Beefheart, there's a great documentary on You Tube called "From Straight to Bizarre" about Zappa's legendary record labels: Straight and Bizarre Records and the artists that made it happen.

It's rich in rare footage of Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, featuring small capsule profiles on the artists run rampant on the labels: Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, Essra Mohawk (Sandy Gurvitz), Jeff Simmons,and The GTOs. There's also a few bits about non-label artists like Vito and Mr. Ubiquitous, Kim Fowley.

There was a little too much GTOs for my liking and not enough Beefheart. A little background on the people behind the scenes like Cal Schenkel, responsible for the offbeat and provocative album covers would have been great to watch.

I was also disappointed to see Tim Buckley and Judy Henske cut out of the doc, which makes it not completely comprehensive in my opinion. They're quickly dismissed towards the end as simply being Herb Cohen's folkie clients. So what? They helped give the labels just as much personality as Alice and The GTOs. Nevertheless, this is essential viewing not just for Zappa fans, but for Sixties counterculture fans as well.

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Hello, world, I'm still trying to sell my Lydia Lunch records. If you want to bask in her ridiculously nihilistic oeuvre here's your big chance!

I'm selling her 1979 album Queen of Siam on Ze Records, the Eight Eyed Spy album released on Fetish Records in 1981, and an autographed 7" Teenage Jesus And The Jerks single baby Doll b/w Feud In Flop, all for the low price of $90. Robert Quine fans note that he played guitar all over the Queen of Siam album, so there's some major skronk going down for sale. Here's the link if you're interested: http://www.ebay.com/itm/171650590192?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

The International Morphine Variations

I have a tendency to connect certain areas to events in my life, so whenever I'm in the Miracle Mile District I think of Morphine. This is due to the unforgettable show they played at the El Rey Theater on Wilshire Blvd.

Supporting their "Like Swimming" album (1995), it was one of their last L.A. performances before band leader Mark Sandman's untimely death. The show was a colossal feast of wild and raucous sounds, hitting every nerve in my body and reminding me why music changed my life forever.

A power trio consisting of an explosive drummer, a fiery baritone saxophonist who literally doubled on tenor sax a la Roland Kirk and a cool singer who looked more like Richard Hell than Hell himself and played a grungy slide bass. Morphine's eccentric musicianship perfectly suited a bizarre repertoire of dark but highly melodic blues songs.

Their sound had a simultaneously urban and rural style that I found uncanny, the slide bass dredging images of murky Southern swamps and the growly sax bursting out cinematic scenes of psychotic detectives shooting guns at brick-lined housing projects.

When I had my band Cockfight I tried to get my bassist to play with a slide in tribute to Mr. Sandman, but the resident jughead couldn't appreciate the concept and refused. Opting instead for a lousy chorus pedal - how Goth - I unplugged it and told him to expand his horizons.

Anyway, posted here for your entertainment are a few covers of Morphine songs from various bands. Whether you like the way they're covered or not doesn't matter; the point is that Mark Sandman wrote a lot of songs that people to this day love listening and playing, the mark of a truly great artist.

Night Shark are a Morphine tribute band from Amsterdam, Holland and play a pretty faithful version of "Thursday" complete with slide bass and growly bari sax. Good work.

Indie & The Jones do a damned wicked hard rock cover of "Honey White" with a wah-wah pedal guitar doing all the sax lines. The harmonies on the chorus sound surprisingly cool and add to the song. I think they added a good spin to the original. Very acid rock and audacious enough to be fun.

Then we have a Morphine cover band from Bulgaria (!) doing "Super Sex" and playing it with an almost wholesome Gerry & The Pacemakers luvvability. Dig those mad Bulgar boho chicks mouthing the lyrics to Super Sex. Weird! As weird as that scary Italian cover of Sonic Youth's "Starpower" that sounded just like Journey!

The last video on this blog comes from post-Morphine band Twinemen featuring Dana Colley and Billy Conway playing with bassist/singer Laurie Sargeant. "Spinner" is a great song and compliments Mark Sandman's oeuvre just fine. Long live the Sandman.

Cockfight - For Those Who Missed It

Cockfight was a four-piece band in the early to late Nineties that combined acid-rock metal guitar with jazz white-noise saxophone to an industrial machine punk rock beat, all dressed up in glittery glam clothes. You got a little Cramps, a little GBH, a little Sun Ra, and even some Sunset Strip metal. Like most of my music projects it was a little too much for the average rock crowd. We always did well outside of Hollywood and our only fans in Hollywood were mostly gay music fans, adopting us to play their clubs and rock showcases at The Abbey and The Garage.

I formed Cockfight as my regular band Trash Can School began falling apart, due to widely divergent musical and personal differences. One night I swung by to Rebecca's rehearsal studio to pick her up after her band Bitchcraft's rehearsal. As I sat by the front door waiting for her to finish I was getting increasingly more and ore blown away by her effortless facility to alternate between lead and rhythm guitar and sing at the same time. Her abrasive guitar tone was so incendiary it reminded me of Jimi Hendrix playing on "Manic Depression" and "Fire". I didn't need three guitarists any more because she sounded like three guitarists playing at once.

The first Cockfight rhythm section featured Rita D'Albert from the Pandoras and pre-Lucha Va Voom on bass guitar. She was a good, solid player and totally fit in with our space invaders glam rock style. She even smoked silver cigarettes. On drums was Erick Blitz who looked like he belonged in The Makers, eschewing a garage rock meets glam style.

After playing a few amazing shows with drag queens like Vaginal Creme Davis, Jackie Beat and Glen Meadmore. Cockfight guest starred on Sofia Coppola's pop-up TV show "Hi-Octane", shown on Comedy Central. We played against a dragstrip hellfire backdrop painted by Rebecca and me, and the great TV segment was directed by punk film director David Markey.

More offers for TV and recording followed: Cockfight recorded "The Stoner and The Stripper" for the Flipside Records compilation "The Devil You Know, The Devil You Don't", and Rebecca even got an illustration on the CD sleeve, too. Her style production friend Elizabeth Tobias filmed a video of the song with us performing on a huge Ed Sullivan-show type stage with guest star Ron Jeremy doing a Chippendales male stripper routine for an unruly crowd of funny money wielding grandmas. Erick Blitz left the band by this point so our friend, film director Roman Coppola sat in on drums.

Cockfight took a short break for two years and with a new rhythm section recorded a seven-song CD. Bo Kjaer played bass and surf documentary filmmaker Fran Battaglia played drums. The CD featured songs that ranged from punk blasts like "Liquor Store" to psychedelic ballads like "Lil' Albino Boy" and even drummed up a propulsive cover of The Plasmatics' "Sometimes I".

Unfortunately, in spite of all the breaks Cockfight was a tough sell given the tempo of the music scene was largely driven by jangly guitar sounding college pop bands, mostly headed by bookish looking snobs with thick horn rimmed glasses and drab Science Fair Geek clothes. Cockfight's brand of atonal glam-o-rama was too rock & roll and out of step with Seattlemania.

Cockfight, for me, was the last hurrah in playing music. Our last show was at Headline Records on Melrose (thank you, Jean-Luc!). After playing in bands for over two decades I thought it was time to find other avenues to artistically express myself, with writing providing a lot more gratification than anything. With occasional guest shots sitting in with Pressurehead, Pygmy Love Circus and The Anubian Lights it was time to simply call it a day. Cockfight, the legend and the legacy: To keep it noisy and look amazing doing so, Glam Noise forever!

Cockfight CDs and downloads can be purchased here: https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/cockfightmusic

I've Got Friends: The Sunset Of Celso Chavez

On May 9, 2012, my friend and colleague Rob Zabrecky reported the sad news that Celso Chavez had passed away at 1:42 pm that afternoon from pneumonia due to complications brought on by lyme disease. The news was surprising because of all the musicians I’ve ever played with he was probably the healthiest and most physically fit.

I first met Celso in early 1989 when Lucas McClelland, my bassist, brought him to our rehearsal. Celso picked up the songs right away and brought a great positive attitude to a band of jaded cynics like us. To be perfectly honest I look back on the 1989 edition of Trash Can School with affection and nostalgia. After searching for so many years for players that shared my quest for musical exploration it was a genuine gift to have Celso, Lucas and Manny share my enjoyment in exploring new sounds and sonic landscapes.

Celso was responsible for our most memorable song, a cover of Patti Smith's “Horses”. At one of our rehearsals out of sheer boredom we started playing a feedback-laden version of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York”, and instead of crooning the familiar opening line of “Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today”, I went into “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine”. Lucas and Manny followed Celso’s and my lead and, well, the rest is history. In fact, when you hear the opening chords to our recording of “Horses” that’s Celso you’re listening to.

One of his favorite stories he liked to tell was the time we recorded that single at Radio Tokyo. When it was time to record “Phantasm III” I asked him, “Well! Are you ready to lay down your solo?”
“I’m playing the solo? No way”. (Getting nervous)
“Didn’t you prepare a solo?”
“No! What am I gonna play?”
“I don’t know but you’re gonna have to come up with something amazing in about five minutes”.
“Dude, I’m totally scared. I’ve never played a guitar solo before!”
“Perfect, you’ll be great. Take all the fear that’s inside you and pour it out of your guitar”.

Celso recorded his guitar solo in one take, a manic, screaming slice of atonal brain shred sounding like a Latino Sonny Sharrock at his most homicidal. For the rest of his life every time Celso saw me he said, “You told me I was a lead guitarist and I wouldn’t believe you but you made me believe!” His gratitude always touched me because it was genuine, like everything he felt.

In the brief time he was in the band (less than a year) he made a substantial impression on our music as he co-wrote “Baby Lust”, another one of our biggest songs. Celso’s knack for writing and arranging great, catchy rock songs was always fine tuned.

Celso shortly left Trash Can School to play with Possum Dixon, writing and recording “Friends”, a hauntingly brilliant song about the irony of friendship with layers of feedback guitar and an eerie reverbed vocal.

“I’ve got friends who sit around
And laugh each time you walk in the room
With your candy clothes and cigarettes
The way you smile and undress
I’ve got friends…”

© 1990, Apartment Music, BMI

We went our separate ways, but in 2002 I left a comment on the message board for his new band, Pill Module. He called me shortly after and we started meeting for lunch periodically. He was working for the LA Unified School District or a similar non-profit educational agency and I worked for the LA County Department of Children & Family Services. Celso was always happy to see me and fun to talk to, telling me about how proud he was to be a father and how much he loved his wife and son.

During the time I saw him I turned him on to Emmitt Rhodes and David Garza since they both played pop music with an edge, both of whom Celso never heard before. When I told him David Garza was going to play Café Largo soon we almost went, but we both lamed out and flaked.

After another lunchtime I remember taking him to the Jewelry District downtown to my favorite jeweler because he was getting a diamond necklace for his wife, Veronica. I totally hooked him up and he never stopped thanking me for it. Another time I took him down to the LA County Department of Human Resources to check out the clerical positions there because he wanted something that paid better and had better job security. He was pretty serious about keeping his life together. Eventually we drifted apart again; I guess friendship has its irony all the time.

When I think of Celso I remember a man who always maintained a positive attitude, an open mind to new ideas, and a free-spirited willingness to gamble with a crazy bandleader who always went for broke. Although the sun has set for my friend Celso, after the sunset is the coming of the stars in the sky, and the brightest star in the Hollywood sky tonight and every night is Celso Chavez.

Photography by Chris Blum

Silverlakers, Part 2

It was just another manic Monday at the boiler room, phone calls being made and none coming back in, like all bill collectors know only too well...

"Hello, Mrs. Hernandez", the thirty-something guy with a cool soul-patch sternly directed, "you're about three months behind on your payments, and we wanted to-"

"Steve!" his equally shaggy partner, Kim, in the next cubicle waved him down. "Get off the phone. This is like way urgent!"

Steve hung up in the middle of a serious verbal beat-down by Silvia Hernandez, unemployed mother of five on the other end of the line. It was just as well; she would have hung up in his ear anyway.

"You know, bro, I was just thinking on the way in to work today...you know, Aqualung by Jethro Tull has some heavy statements to make. Valid as Hell!"

"For reals, Kim", Steve said, hoisting his stained coffee cup. "I’m steamed about Volkswagen using that Nick Drake song in their ads. Dang, dog, what a sell out!"

“That made me throw up in my nose!”
“Well, that made me throw up in my pants!”

"Word", burped Kim. "Church!"
"What?"
"Ghetto slang, bro. The real pimp's Englizzy".
"Wow, you're really down with that. For a second I didn't know what you were saying!"
"GET BACK TO WORK, YOU ASSHOLES!" Their boss thundered at them as he stormed by.

Kim picked up the phone, and a minute later, said, "Shit, got an answering machine!" Speaking slowly, as if to a deaf person from China, said, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Eleanora Purvis, this is Mr. Obama asking you to vote for me this coming November, and more importantly, please call me back at (888) 669-385. It's about your outstanding balance with Sears Roebuck".

Friday night at the Anti-Club the joint was buzzin' because it was SHOWTIME: Steve's band Bag Of Ice and Kim's awesome sonic combo The Awful Truth were doing a gig together. Shit, they were both so jazzed!

"Dude, we are so pulling in a crowd!" Kim gloated. "Damien mentioned our show on KXLU. We're getting the mad spillover from the people going to the Nick Cave show at The Wiltern, the Jane's Addiction secret gig at El Cholo and Fall Out Boy at Staples Center. Stardom is nigh, my friend!" he hoisted his lemon slice topped-bottle of Dos Equis beer for victory.

"Not to mention the $2 off with flyer discount", Steve added. "Good thing I parked early, it's a gonna be a madhouse!"

The opening band took to the stage with the packed club resounding in cheers. Why, it's none other than that all-girl group "Kitten Klaws". They've only been together for two months, but who cares when all you’re wearing is a slip and clear heels?

"Look!" Steve pointed at a portly hipster with early male pattern baldness racing by. "There's Imax, the editor of 7 Inch Rock Magazine".

"Dude, how's it going?" Imax shoved Steve out of the way to get to the front of the stage. A crowd of nothing but guys stood dutifully to the front of the stage. Some even shoved girls away from the front, and many were brandishing cameras their parents bought them for Christmas.

Kitten Klaws tear into their opening number, "I'm Mad At My Boyfriend". The song countdown is in Japanese! The guys look thrilled!!!, but the girls in the club looked pissed and gave Kitten Klaws stink eye.

"Well, you got a tiny dinky and you never seem to satisfy. You couldn't raise a bridge even if you tried", the lead singer whined.

"We are so pawned", Steve gushed. "Game over."
Kim moped big time. "Yeah, they're pulling out their "A" material. We're fucked, son."

Kitten Klaws forgot their way around the song two minutes later and all the guys in front of the stage blushed and giggled. AAAwwwww. Ten minutes later (Yeah, 10!) they finished their set and the whole audience left to hit the bars and party. There were only ten people remaining in the club.

To fortify himself before his set Kim ordered some French Fries and dug into them. Imax walked by the table and Kim lit up.

"Dude! Hey!" Kim yelled, "hey, want a fry? It's totally like vegan, y'know? Fried in canola oil, man".
"Oh, cool."
Imax sat down by Kim and tore into the French Fries, moaning like a dying moose in orgasm as he plowed through the fries. "MMMMMMOOOOOAAAAWWWWWMMMMMTTTH". he moaned as he chowed.

Kim nervously made his move. "Bro, I was thinking...can you do a big one for me? Will you kick down a righteous write-up about us in your zine?"
"I'll give it a ponder, man", Imax responded without looking up from the fries. "Got any ketchup?"

Bag of Ice began their set with Steve looking dignified and majestic with his acoustic guitar and perfected Tim Buckley in a house dress act. Somehow the impact of his stage act was lost to everyone because there was only ten people in the club. Plus after three songs the sound man interrupted his song over the PA, "That's your last song, man. Kitten Klaws went into your overtime. Sorry, my brother!"

Steve was so dejected he slunk off the stage still in his mother's house dress. Kim put his arm around him. "It's okay dude, check it out, Shawna the bass player from Kitten Klaws stayed for half of your first song."
Steve's face lit up. "Score! She digs my sounds. I knew it!!!"
With no more French Fries to eat, Imax walked by them ripping out a burp so loud they smelled it from across the club.

Kim's band The Awful Truth played to no one except Steve and his bass player, who was waiting for his ride. It was 1:30 A.M. and bouncers were making themselves busy turning chairs up on tables and dragging rubber garbage cans around the club while Kim played.
"What about the starving kids in Deeeeeehhhh-troit, that's what I want to say?" he sang to the percussion of beer bottles smashing into rubber garbage cans thrown by the sullen bouncers.

One month later, back at the boiler room, Steve snuck a look around the office to make sure his boss wouldn't catch him.
"Read it and weep, my man!" he boasted to his work-mate, room-mate and gig-mate, "I hold in my hands the newest, chillest ish of 7 Inch Record zine. Just dropped today, dog!"
Kim whispered, "Did Imax cover our gig like he promised?"
"Did he? Check this out, son", he thumbed through page after page until he got close to the back cover, "Right here, on Page 97, Concert Reviews, Kitten Klaws were awesome and foxy. Bag Of Ice played clean-up at their gig. Good job, guys!' Dang!"
"They didn't even mention my band. And I even sacrificed my fries. Shit! You get all the luck."
"Dude, I promise I'll do you a biggie! I'll even mention you to Shawna, promizzle."
"GET BACK ON THE PHONES, YOU ASSHOLES!" Their boss barked as he thundered by their desks. It gave Steve such a start he dropped his zine and it fell in the trash can.

Silverlakers

Two struggling rockers lived together in Hollywood until they heard about this new hipster hot spot called Silver Lake, which they promptly moved to lickety split. They rented a house up the hill from Spaceland, and shit doggy, they had it made, well almost. They were in their late thirties going on forty and knew they were going to catch on like wildfire in the local music scene. They knew nothing of the new bands that were popular, but as long as they pulled out their old Neil Young and Velvet Underground albums they were safe.

There was Kim, who refused to eat meat for "political" reasons. He came from Chicago, where not eating meat was pretty rebellious. He dyed a blue streak down his chestnut brown hair, strong stuff that. He also chain smoked, drank his weight in beer and avoided using deodorant. He wrote songs that were political if you read "between the lines". Kim believed in going green, which was why he never washed his Buick Riviera. It stank of umpteen spilled coffees.
Steve was his roommate. After losing his girlfriend to a paralegal he started wearing dresses on stage after seeing Falling James wearing one on the cover of Flipside Magazine. His band was called Bag Of Ice and had songs about drugs, only he never took drugs in his life. He was scared of them! What a pair.

Steve and Kim worked at the same office every day. In between business calls, Kim turned to Steve and said, "You know, dude, people in the hood don't know about our cool sounds. Let's throw a party and invite all of the coolest scenesters we know".
Steve stammered because he was out of drag and it made him nervous. "Whoa, Th-th-th-at's an awesome idea. We can look up all the coolest people in Flipside Magazine!"
"Yeah! Bitchen! Let's get a copy of the latest Flipside!" Kim slammed down his coffee mug.
"I heard if you invite the staff of the zine they'll party with you and give you a big write-up."
"Awesome!"
Their boss walked by and barked, "C'mon, break time's over. You're on the clock, guys".
They picked up their phones and made separate calls. Kim dialed and spoke, "Hello, this is Mister Richards. Am I speaking to a Mister Dwayne Franklin? Mr. Franklin, you have an outstanding credit card debt of $5,500. You have a choice of making a lump sum payment at a lower rate or you can pay the full amount in installments. What would be more convenient for you? Hello? Mister Franklin?"
Steve spoke into his phone. "Hello? Is this the Martinez residence? Hello, honey, is your daddy home? Do you know what time he comes home? No, that's okay, I'll call back at 7:30 PM".
With their cold calls finished, Kim grunted, "It's gonna be a tough one. I'm gonna need a refill!" He hoisted up his stained cup of coffee.

About a week later after many cold calls to the Flipside Magazine staff and to every scenester photographed in the latest issue, Steve and Kim got the party started.
Kim, with cigarette in mouth, proudly announced, "Safeway had a sale on Gallo Port and Vernor's Ginger Ale. We're gonna have some bangin' punch!"
Steve beamed. "Sweet!"
Steve had some party recipes of his own: he took some Jiffy Pop popcorn kernels and threw them in a stained paper bag and stapled it shut and then threw it into the microwave oven, setting it past the 3-minute mark.
Steve picked up the ringing phone. "What?" Steve's eyes bugged out in excitement. "A Gun Club tribute band wants to play an acoustic set in our backyard? Yeah, dog, invite 'em over".
After 90 seconds of buttery goodness wafting in the air smoke began emanating out of the microwave. Kim noticed the smoke pouring out, and freaked. "Steve! STEVE! STEVE!!! Get off the phone, man!"
Kim ran over with a Rite-Aid fire extinguisher and doused the little oven with it.

Ten minutes later, after airing out smoke with all the windows and doors left open, Kim asked, "Dude, what kind of records do we have?"
"Well, I have a Japanese pop band record and a CD by that all-girl band from Nebraska who hate men. That oughta cover things".
"Awesome. What happened to my Pansy Division record?"
"Your brother stole it after he came out."
"Oh yeah. I'll have to give him a call. I'll pretend to be Mister Richards, heh heh".
"That's the way, dude".

Later that night the party was going and the Port and Vernor's was a-flowing. After numerous urns were thrown up in by various Flipside staffers and scenesters riffled through their medicine cabinet, the big Gun Club tribute band went into their acoustic set. During the middle of their passionate rendition of "For The Love of Ivy" the police showed up and broke up the party. Everyone was resigned to the party being over and 90% of them left. Kim was fit to be tied.
"This is a fascist police state, damn it!" he yelled in his best stern bill collector baritone, cigarette dangling from his lips and a loyal bottle of Fat Tire in his right hand. A cop was ready to rush him but the party left-overs held Kim back and shushed him down.

Kim, still fortified by his drunken rebel reverie decided to provoke a healthy political debate with someone, anyone. He planted himself in front of a Japanese girl and a mole-like Flipsider. They were busy discussing the club scene in Silver Lake.
"I think people who eat meat are no different than the Nazis who ran the concentration camps!" he blurted out at them, defiantly staring them down.
"What?" the girl asked.
"Am I right or am I right? You're from Japan, aren't you? Did you know that Kobe beef is from Japan? Kobe has done more to ruin the meat packing industry in America than any other country!" He puffed his smoke at her like a mad bull.
"Um, yeah, okay", she groaned and got up to walk away.
"Great party, huh?" Kim asked the Flipside mole.
"Yeah", the geek writer mooned, "we gotta go out sometime and get bent, bro".
They high fived each other and a bromance was a brewin'.
"My dress is killing me", Steve twitched nervously, obviously too big for a Miss Sixty original.

The next morning, both hung over, aspirins and coffees by their telephones, they looked at each other, and moaned.
"Fuck, was that a p-p-p-party or what?"
"Killer, Steve. Flipside's promised to come to our next gig if we put them on the guest list."
"Sweet, dude. They're gonna write a review of my s-s-single once I get it pressed."
"That party - shit, that was the best investment we ever made, you know?"
"Yeah. I think somebody from a Polish fanzine was there last night."
"Bullshit!" Kim looked incredulous.
Their boss walked by and barked, "C'mon, break time's over. You're on the clock, guys".
They picked up their phones and made separate calls. Kim dialed and spoke, "Good morning, this is Mister Richards. Am I speaking to a Mister Dwayne Franklin?"
Steve spoke into his phone. "Hello? Is this the Martinez residence? Hello, honey, is your daddy home?"
Surely, success was waiting in the wings.