Jimmy 3000 absolves you of your mediocrities

We have as station here in New York; 92.3 WXRK, called KROCK, from what I understand; Clear Channel Radio has several “KROCK” cookie cut radio stations, complete with DJ’s who squash the intro’s of all the songs with their voiceovers praising how stoned they were the night before and how incredible it is they can function in the work environment right now (i.e. looking at a list on a fucking computer screen and playing that sequence of music and answering the phone.) or my favorite, taking about how rough the traffic in New York was preventing them from getting to work when they’re actually broadcasting from no where near the city but pretending they are (and the fact they are never late, so what was the showboat all about?)

I have no clue what the purpose of this is, but I am going somewhere with this.

It’s probably my own goddamn fault. I have a great CD player for my car in my trunk, but it’s not hooked up to anything; so I listen to KROCK as WBAB and Q104 feels the necessity to play the Goofball laced “Shooting Star” by Bad Company once every hour along with the impossibly annoying “Fool in the Rain” (Which leaves me with the ingrained image of letter “I” from Dr. Seuss’s ABC book “Ichabod is Itchy”) and the “I don’t know what the hell he was thinking: Foxy Lady” which; as a Hendrix aficionado; pains me, especially when I have to speak to other musicians about the validity of Jimi Hendrix when this is really the only thing they ever heard. So yea’ I listen to KROCK, and NPR; when NPR is not eating laurel leaves at the shrine of Shawn Colvin and getting all glossolalic about Pete Yorn or the next Starbucks new Bob Dylan vente musselccino. (footnote 1)

Where was I going with this? KROCK, ok, KROCK does the “Furious 5 at 9” which are the top 5 requested songs played at 9:00 PM. I missed 5 and 4 as I was heading east to band practice but I managed to catch #3; a reprehensible cover of Pink Floyd’s radio-dulled classic “Another Brick in the Wall part 2” or for all you rock dudes out there who think “Baba O’Riley” is called “Teenage Wasteland” it’s that “We don’t need no Education” song; done by the very “GWAResque, but taking itself a little too seriously” influenced Korn; now spelled “Corn” from what I understand as “Korn” was not sinister enough. You know, this is what killed “Stryper” (No, not the kleptomaniac fox from Dora the Explorer, I’m talking the Christian Heavy Metal Band that were dressed as evangelical bumble bees.)

Well, it was pathetic, amateur and insipid. The guitar solo sounded like someone looked it up on a tab site on the web, and the rhythm guitar played D minor for about 45 minutes without bothering to do a goddamn thing. The rest of the song sucked something fierce. Song #2 was Tool/Circle of whatever’s cover of “Imagine” by John Lennon. First off, I hate even the Lennon version of this nonsense. Is there health care in this hippy-assed planet that is envisioned? How about free will? Nothing disgusts me more than a bunch of misinformed burnouts rallying behind this anthem as it represents all that is “assy” in the world. I’ve already ranted about how bad this cover is, I will spare all from my irk.

#1 was of course GreenDay’s magnum nauseum; “Jesus of Suburbia” which, I live next door to several guys named Jesus, in very suburban settings so not grabbed by the title. I know Tom loves this fairy buggery but I tried to give it a listen (along with 3 other songs on “American Idiot” to see if I was missing something; I ain’t), just to see and I can say I heard several lifts of Beatles melodies and a staccato guitar doodling that went nowhere except to the same 4 major cords over and over.

Kid’s: It’s not your fault. Your rock and roll is gay, gay as a pink boat filled with homo’s off to (flamingo friendly) homo island for a banana eating contest, and it’s highly unoriginal and the sad part is; it makes no sense.
You see: rock is not dead, but radio is doing it’s best to kill it. Nebula is putting out albums, they’re fucking brilliant. Queens of the StoneAge had about 4 seconds of fame on New York radio. Probot outsold America’s Sweetheart like 10:1 but Courtney Love is a celebrity (i.e. she drives drunk with her 10 year old in the car, sniff’s drain-o at rehab but we should be aware of her morals and follow her example.) but radio has not touched this album. Jack White plays three chords, slightly out of tune with a temperamental patch chord and he’s the top 12 guitarist of all time, Cracker please! Johnny Ramone was doing this before I discovered “Iron Man” was a cool song to play on my Sound-Design™ tape deck (with built in condenser mic and plastic coated chrome-like monophonic speaker) barreling down a treacherous hill on my Schwinn 20/20 into a pile of cinderblocks playing “Dukes of Hazard”

It’s all been done, and Its getting old. Time to move on.

Why do British bands understand this but American ones do not? They’re still courting the Rap/Rock thing like Faith No More just showed up last week. Which reminds me: Listening to NPR reporting on the death of Russel (Old Dirty Bastard/Big Baby Jesus/Old Dirty Jesus/Shit McDirt/Jesus McBastard) Jones you would have thought the Hip-Hop community had lost Maya Angelou. I was going to pick up on this when I found this link

http://www.8bm.com/diatribes/volume01/diatribes045/diatribes918-933/diatribes928.htm

Go there, it’s like I have a doppelganger or something.

(1) I concocted the first “Musselccino” at a fine dining establishment that employed me as a waiter many years ago. It was a cappuccino glass garnished with the dark husky shell of a salt water mussel. I set it very professionally at the placing of Tom’s sister while she was on a date with someone and announced delivery of this one-of-a-kind marvel, a marvel in-it-self that said; imaginative beverage “did not become one” with the place my brain is stored (inside my head, three to five days a week.)

You still here? You go now round eye.

Yes, the line in the title was from Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) who was one of W.A. Mozart’s closest friends, instructed Mozart’s children and was Ludwig (but not “Camper”) Van Beethoven’s music teacher, but you would never know from that goddamn movie with “Otter” from Animal House and that dude who gets thrown out the helicopter in "Scarface" and who (Salieri) by-the-way was a fucking awesome and very talented composer despite that films damage.