Michiko Uehara, U.S. Citizen

Me and mom at my graduation from Chico State, May 1992. She passed away from cancer in the early morning hours of January 1, 1993.

INTRO: Hey friends, this is Lance. What you’re about to hear is an essay entitled, "Michiko Uehara, U.S. Citizen," and you will learn who that is shortly. This was actually the first bonus episode for Don’t Call It Nothing family members, but I knew I wanted to eventually add it to the general feed, and maybe YouTube. Anyway, considering that today is the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, it seemed like an appropriate time to release the episode into the wild. One thing I like my bonus episodes to do is maybe put a different spin on the podcast. In this case, the details are both biographical and autobiographical. So, as you take in the details of the story, it might explain why I have such little patience for the white counterculture and their inflated mythology of heroic self-sacrifice. In fact, let’s start in the late ‘60s.

Today’s story begins in La Habra, California, a middle and working class enclave at the north end of Orange County, where I was born in August 1969, the son of a Japanese/Hawaiian mother and white father. I spent my first seven years in La Habra, which at the time was mostly white, but there was definitely an Hispanic presence. Not much Asian. Up the hill on Euclid St and above Las Positas Elementary — which was where my brother Craig went to school — that was where the two-story houses were with their huge, tree-lined streets. Down where we were on West Parkwood Ave, just off Imperial Highway, there were lots of perfectly cute one-story ranch houses and not much in the way of status symbols. At least I didn't notice and I was like 5-6-years-old. If there were shiny objects, I was gonna notice. However, in June 1976 I moved to Huntington Beach, a coastal fantasyland dominated by insulated white people whose insatiable pursuit of status symbols definitely wasn't masking deep-seated insecurity. We moved to HB so my brother and I could live in a “safe neighborhood” (wink) with “good schools” (double wink) and as I got older I resented my parents, especially my mom, for moving me to this aryan wasteland.

Mom, me, Craig. 1988-89.

Why especially my mom? Because my dad was a selfish dick. He was a degenerate gambler and narcissist, so that he wasn't paying attention was on brand. Unless I was riding a horse he bet on, I'm not sure he was gonna notice me or my brother. For the record, my dad and I worked it out and I enjoyed our final decade together. He passed away in 2013, a fact for which I’m now exceedingly grateful because within a few years that entire side of the family came down with a terminal case of Trumpycrackeritis. My mom, though, was smart, capable, and beautiful. I couldn't figure out what the hell she saw in my dad and I sure as shit didn’t know why she wanted to live around these empty white people and their status-y bullshit. I could never figure out, for example, why we weren’t living in Hawaii, where she was born. Living in Orange County just reeked of assimilationist nonsense.

However -- and this is where context matters -- that word "assimilationist" needs to be cracked open. What I was too young to realize was that Asians assimilated in postwar southern California for very good reasons. They weren’t making lifestyle choices like most contemporary Asians. They were making survival choices. I knew about the internment camps at a very young age. Mom made sure I knew about Manzanar. She made sure I knew about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Infantry Battalion, the “Go For Broke” Japanese-American badasses who are still the most decorated combat units of their size in US military history. What mom never told me, though, and the facts were classified for close to 75 years after the war — meaning long after her death — was that she and her family were interned for the duration of the war. It wasn’t a camp. It was Hawaii.

Waikiki Beach was fortified with barbed wire during WW2, officially in the event of a Japanese invasion. Unofficially, that fence wasn't stopping shit and everyone involved knew it. It was to keep soldiers in and locals out.

For some reason, when people think of Hawaii during World War II, it's Pearl Harbor and then ... nothing. Hawaii is a postcard, not a real place. And if it’s not a real place, then it doesn’t have real people. Well, my mom’s family saw the smoke from Pearl Harbor from the roof of their home. Lots of people know people or were people who experienced 9/11 up close. How many people do you know who experienced Pearl Harbor directly? And while you're pondering that, ponder this. In the same way everyone thinks about 9/11, but rarely thinks about the legal implications of 9/12, Hawaii went into martial law on December 7, 1941. Most people, myself included, don't fundamentally understand terms like "martial law," let alone "internment camp." We know these are bad things, but they're abstractions. In an article published on January 11, 2017, Wyatt Olson details life in Hawaii under martial law. And as I read through a section of his essay, it's only fair you know the name of the leftist rag publishing his remarks. It's called Stars and Stripes. Olson writes:

Immediately after the attack, Joseph B. Poindexter, Hawaii’s territorial governor, declared martial law, and National Guard members took control of the cities. It was believed that the surprise attack was just the prelude to a full-scale invasion of Oahu, and the military and citizenry set about fortifying the island for such an onslaught.

But martial law was also a reaction to the perceived threat by the presence of roughly 150,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the territory, which represented about 35% of the population.

Freedom for Hawaiians was severely curtailed by the suspension of constitutional protections in order to “discourage concerted action of any kind,” the military governor said at the time. Those rights remained suspended for almost three years and were reinstated only after numerous challenges in court.

A strict curfew barred anyone from being on the streets between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. -- and people of Japanese descent had to be in their homes by 8 p.m.

Everyone older than age 6 was fingerprinted, registered, and required to carry military-issued identification cards. The military maintained intelligence reports on a vast number of Hawaiian residents.

Newspapers required licenses to operate, and no publication was allowed to be printed in any language other than English. The telephone company was commandeered by the military, and all mail was read and censored.

Islanders were ordered to construct bomb shelters.

Nights were dark during that period because a “blackout” order required all civilian lights -- whether bulbs or flames -- to be extinguished at nightfall. Doors and windows of residences were required to be covered. Car headlights had to be painted a dark color to dim them.

Martial law ended Oct. 24, 1944. In 1946, the Supreme Court ruled that the suspension of civilian courts had not been justified by law.
--Wyatt Olson, "Exhibit details martial law in Hawaii following Pearl Harbor attack,” Stars and Stripes, January 11, 2017

Raise your hand if your mom was fingerprinted and registered as an 8-year old enemy of the state, lived behind barbed wire, was subject to strict curfew, and saw her brothers, friends, and neighbors forced to build makeshift bomb shelters. What Olson doesn’t include is that gas masks were also issued to all Hawaiian civilians over the age of 7 and drills were regularly run for poison gas attacks and air raids. Food was rationed, liquor was banned, and in a move that feels particularly egregious, military officials reviewed and confiscated any photographs that contained barbed wire, beaches or military bases. Those last few facts come from a 2016 Huffington Post article entitled, “Forbidden Photos Reveal What Life In Hawaii Was Like After Pearl Harbor.”

Poison gas drill in Hawaii under martial law

In the US government's defense, martial law in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor was not only defensible, I'd even say it was responsible. Like any crime scene, you have to do your investigative due diligence. If there were Japanese co-conspirators, we'd need to know. But, you know how that turned out. There were never any co-conspirators, which means there was a point where martial law stopped being about protection and became what it’s always about: white control. If you're a kid, any age is bad to be seen as a suspect. If someone thinks you stole a pack of gum and you didn't, you're gonna be upset. Imagine being 8-years-old and you're branded a suspect by an entire nation and already exist in the shadow of its military apparatus, much of which was just destroyed by people who look like you. Does that feeling of being a suspect ever leave? Isn't some part of you forever behind the barbed wire?

I think about my mom, born Michiko Uehara, but going by Jane because it was less threatening to haoles. Was that even her choice or was she told she was Jane? I think about her moving to Colorado of all places to attend the University of Denver in the early 1950s. The story she told me was that there were three Janes on her dorm floor, so she renamed herself Billie after Billie Holiday, which is a flex on multiple levels. But, as a 52-year-old grown-ass man, I now read that story much differently. If my mom was white, I get it. "Ohmigod Jane, I'm Jane! Have you met Jane? Look at us bonding!" Real talk? I know my mom changed her name to Billie because she didn't want to give them white bitches ANY reason to call her Jap Jane. Bigots are gonna bigot, you don't need to toss up alley-oops.

This cracker looks like he could've been my dad's dad. That's not unsettling at all.

What 16-year-old me couldn't possibly have known -- because my mom quite understandably didn't wanna talk about any of that shit -- was that assimilation was her only way out. Can you blame any Japanese of her generation for assimilating? When it comes to hating minority groups, white America doesn't need much persuasion. But, the intense brutality of the Japanese in the Pacific theater inspired a very intense hatred of the Japanese on the mainland. Who do you think bore the brunt of that hatred? It’s one thing to assimilate by choice. It’s another to assimilate under duress, as a survival tactic. Thus, Michiko Uehara, U.S. citizen, became Billie Jane Davis, non-threatening, white on the phone American. I only knew my mom as Billie Jane Davis. To white America, maybe even to my mom herself, her assimilation was complete. Michiko Uehara was gone, erased. Billie Jane Davis won out.

Only that's not how it works.

There's an old saying that lives in my head. "You're not just the age you are. You're every age you've ever been." Everything that's ever happened to you lives inside you. Michiko Uehara was never erased. She just lived deep inside my mom where no one could reach her, no one could ask for papers, and no one looked at her like a suspect. That’s why my mom didn’t move back to Hawaii. It was never gonna be the haole tourist destination of my immature imagination. It was forever gonna be the place where an 8-year-old girl was forced to make peace with that barbed wire. As I write this, my youngest daughter Lucy is only a couple months younger than her maternal grandmother was on December 7, 1941. When we're eight, we cannot conceive that the world as we know it will suddenly disappear. There's no way to prepare for a sustained aerial attack, or a church bombing, or jets flying into buildings, or white terrorists storming the US Capitol. There's a before, there’s an after, and nothing is ever the same.

Podcast Episode 16 – See That My Grave is Kept Clean (Pinkpop 1)

Thelonious Monster at Cal State Fullerton, October 21, 1992
L-R: Pete Weiss, Dix Denney, Bob Forrest, Pat French (aka Frenchie), Dallas Don Burnet, Chris Handsome (obscured)

Transcription

Theme Song: Mike Nicolai, “Trying To Get It Right” [Bandcamp]

Welcome to Don't Call It Nothing, the podcast dedicated to the lost history of '90s roots, rap, and rock 'n' roll. I’m your host Lance Davis and today is the first of two shows I’m gonna dedicate to Pinkpop 1993. Pinkpop – one word, pink like the color, pop like a balloon – is a music festival that’s been going steady in The Netherlands since 1970. The fest is not in Amsterdam. It’s actually 2½ hours south of the city in a small Dutch town called, well not called Landgraaf, so much as that’s how it’s spelled and I’m a dumb American. I need a Jan the Lazyman app that translates English into charming Dutch. Anyway, this festival is south enough in The Netherlands that it’s actually closer to Brussels, Belgium to the west and Dusseldorf, Germany to the east than it is to Amsterdam. And I bring all this up because the location of Pinkpop will become relevant later in the pod.

BUT – and a big Sir Mix-a-Lot but indeed – before we get to alla that I wanna welcome NINE new family members since the last podcast! What the hell??? We’re gonna need a bigger boat. Signing up at the $5 Good Beeble Level we have “The Judge,” Sean Courtney, the Mayor of Wigginstock, Mississippi. We have Jeff Olmstead, who once sent me an Otis Redding biography because he thought I’d like it, which is basically foreplay. We have Ed Hicks @browndogfarmandworkshop on Instagram, which I bring up because on Instagram in his bio it says, “The only thing wrong with dogs is that they don’t live forever.” I’m gonna cryyyy!!!! And we have Anne Warth, who you might remember from such Canadian TV shows as Tetanus Boy and Mimes: The Silent Killers. Happy birthday Anne! Glad to have you all on board.

Meanwhile, joining my boy Tom Engfer in the $20 Smell The Magic cocktail lounge and taqueria is Dr. Caleb Rose, who also just announced his engagement, so a big week for you, man. Congratulations are in order and if Facebook is any guide, you outkicked your coverage, sir. Joining Caleb in the Woo Pig tent will be fellow Razorback, John “Ducktaper” Smith, one of the greatest hosts the world has ever known. Faculty Lounge forever. Love ya brother. Let’s welcome Brian Raleigh, who remembers the “Ryan Adams is no Brent Best” debate on Yahoo Groups, as does Lauren Zieffler, who also joined at the $20 level, and as I look at every new member, the common denominator is Slobberbone. We have a Slobberarmy. Hell, other than Terry and Wendy, I can’t think of two people who’ve seen Slobberbone more than Lauren and Anne. What can I say? There’s a certain kind of love you can’t dispute. Finally, I wanna send a big ol hug out to Jules Campbell, wife of the late Lane Campbell, who joined at the $20/month level on his behalf. Thank you so much, Jules. Lane you are loved, missed, and repped. In fact, if you know Lane from Postcard, I’ve planted an Easter egg in this podcast that’s a little hat tip to him. Love ya brother.

Remembering Lane Campbell at the Slobberbone show
Photo: Joe Castrianni

All family members received my first bonus episode about my Japanese mom growing up in Hawaii during World War Two. I’m cooking up another bonus episode about Bill Hicks and how what once felt transgressive and righteous now mostly sounds like a loud white guy punching down. Hey, good thing standup comedy solved that problem, amirite? To become a Don’t Call It Nothing family member, hit that “Buy Me a Coffee” button at the top of the page or the “Support” button at the bottom. Or just hang out and listen, that’s cool too.

OK, so why Pinkpop 1993? I’m not a fan of music festivals and this one’s in the middle of Europe. What the hell’s so special about it? One reason is that it’s almost perfectly bisected into ‘90s music haves and have nots. On one side of the aisle you have Lenny Kravitz, Black Crowes, and Alice In Chains, who were booked and made the poster, but were replaced by Rage Against The Machine. Forget about the fact Alice didn’t play. Them, Rage, Kravitz, and the Crowes represent the ‘90s for the normies and basics. I have no doubt that were this podcast about those bands I’d have more downloads by orders of magnitude. But, how fucking dull would that be??? Alice In Chains goat singing grudge rock, Rage Against The Microwave Mao schticka Mao Mao, Kravitz and the Crowes doing classic rock karaoke. Just get the Chief and suffocate me with a pillow.

In terms of economics, I get it. The top half of the poster pays for the bottom half. But, I’m interested in music not PNLs. So, Don’t Call It Nothing will spend the next two podcasts at Pinkpop ’93 exploring the acts who played while the sun was still out. The Jayhawks and Bettie Serveert will be next pod. This pod you’re getting Thelonious Monster, my very first favorite favorite no really guys I mean it this time favorite band ever, who played a disastrous set. Actually, that’s not true. The band played a good set. Lead singer Bob Forrest was a disaster and we’ll get to him and them shortly.

Thelonious Monster in Antwerp, Switzerland, March 17, 1993
L-R: Frenchie, Dix, Dallas Don, unknown (probably European tour manager), Weissmaster, Bob

I wanna start with The Red Devils, who opened Pinkpop 1993 and began life in 1987 as The Stumble Bums, an offshoot of The Blasters featuring drummer Bill Bateman and not-yet-Blasters guitarist Smokey Hormel that featured a rotating cast of musicians in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. According to a 1998 Hormel interview, the early days of The Stumble Bums featured Johnny Ray Bartel on bass and Pat French (aka Frenchie) on harmonica. Before long the Bums were The Blue Shadows, Johnny Ray’s older brother Dave Lee was on rhythm guitar, and Frenchie was replaced by a Little Walter disciple named Lester Butler.

The band turned their regular Monday night gigs at the King King, a dive bar on 6th and La Brea in LA, into such a phenomenon that in 1991 Rick Rubin offered them a deal with Def American. But, he did so on three conditions: 1) They have to change their name again, 2) They have to get a permanent guitarist, and 3) They have to hang out in Rubin’s clubhouse, wearing sweatpants, listening to The Beatles. They said no to the clubhouse, yes to the other two conditions, and Rubin relented. The Bartel brothers were in a high school rockabilly band called The Red Devils, so that became the new name and Paul Size, a 19-year-old kid from Denton, Texas became their hotshot lead guitarist.

In July 1992, Def American released the band’s debut named after the bar where they not only honed their sound, but where the tracks were recorded. King King is a wonderful tribute to the heyday of Chicago blues and it led to short tours with the Allman Brothers, ZZ Top, and Los Lobos. At this point, the only thing standing between The Red Devils and a steady career on the blues circuit was drugs and ego. But come on, what are the odds of that???

From the King King bar, though NOT the King King record – lemme make that clear to Def American’s cyber defense bots – that’s The Red Devils with Little Walter’s “Just Your Fool.” Shuffling their ass off, Butler throwing down on harmonica, it’s easy to see why for a hot minute they were the baddest motherfuckers in town. It’s when they left town that things took a turn for the worse.

In November 2019, Classic Rock ran a feature entitled, “Blues, drugs, fights, cops, jail, death: The incredible story of The Red Devils.” It’s posted at loudersound.com and I’ll have a link in my show transcription. According to writer Paul Rees:

Three months into the tour the band was in tatters. Dave Lee Bartel walked out after a show in Dallas, claiming Butler was paid double what the others got. They limped through the rest of the tour with a friend of Paul Size filling in and bad blood in the air.”

“It got to the point where Lester was doing crack at every town we went through,” says Johnny Ray Bartel. “He’d stay up all night and listen to the board tapes of the gig we’d just done, and then go scream at Bill, the best musician in the band, telling him he was dragging. He basically just turned into this psycho drug addict who was never happy.”

Butler’s sister, Ginny (Tura), disputes this image of her brother. “Les had occasional lapses with drugs and alcohol, but for the majority of his professional life he was sober,” she insists. “The stress of being together with the band 24/7 while touring was just too much for him. He was always a perfectionist with his music and he noticed when anything was off.”

Let me interject here because multiple things can be true or true enough. I have no doubt Lester was a perfectionist and touring is stressful. But, being sober for x amount of months or years doesn’t mean the selfish asshole behavior didn’t happen, especially while cracked out. And that’s true for all concerned. These guys weren’t angels. Returning to Rees’ piece:

“We were rowdy guys,” says Bill Bateman, cackling. “We went out for 120 days straight and there were all kinds of illegal things going on – drugs, fights, hookers, cops, jail, you name it. One of us was bound to end up dead. Lester had actually clinically died four times in previous years. On one occasion he woke up in the morgue with a sheet over his head. It was his opinion that he led a charmed life.”

Um, WHAT??? He woke up in the morgue with a sheet over his head?!?! That sounds too cinematic to be true. But if true, you think that would prompt some personal changes. I don’t know. If I woke up in a morgue because people logically surmised that I was dead what with the not breathing and no heartbeat, I might be convinced to take up yoga, maybe mix in a salad, possibly even join a gym. That’s just me, though. Back to Rees.

When Butler returned to LA, he told Rubin he wanted to work with different musicians. Rubin humored him by holding a series of open auditions, but then informed Butler he was only interested in the original Red Devils. The patched-up band, with Dave Lee Bartel on board, toured Europe through the spring and summer of 1993, hitting a peak on an early afternoon slot at the Pinkpop Festival in Holland. Pinkpop was the Red Devils’ valediction.

The Red Devils with a song I’ve seen titled “Your Turn To Cry,” “Time To Cry,” and “Backstreet Crawler.” Also the first song played at Pinkpop 1993 because the Devils were the first act to hit the stage. You hear Paul Size tear ass on guitar and you’re like, “Well, nothing’s topping that,” and then here comes Lester Butler bringing the heat on blues harp. But, the solos mean nothing if you don’t have that fat fucking pocket. That’s the key. Take away the solos and this is still a jam. Keep the solos but replace the rhythm section with hacks and you got nothing. It’s all about bottom up. It’s that insistent, hypnotic John Lee Hooker boogie rhythm with the rim clacks and snare drops, Johnny Ray Bartel’s bass on and just behind the beat, and Dave Lee occasionally playing rhythm guitar like a piano. You can hear this last part underneath Butler’s solo about 1:40 into “Cry.” It’s a wonderful thing.

Lester Butler Interview

Q: Who’s Little Walter?

A: Little Walter was the greatest harmonica player ever. He electrified the instrument and sorta did what Jimi Hendrix did to guitar, but for harmonica. He was from Louisiana, but he moved to Chicago and played in the postwar '50s with Muddy Waters.

Q: What's typical of the Chicago blues from the ‘50s?

A: It's what rock 'n' roll to me is based on. It's raucous. It was dance music in the clubs back then. There's a lot of different elements, but that's what I like to search out, the more raw, rockin type deal.

That’s the great Little Walter Jacobs with “Hate To See You Go,” recorded in April 1955 and released as the B-side to “Too Late” on Checker Records that September. Why did I highlight this track? Because even though Walter unleashes a bitchin eight-bar solo towards the end of the song, it isn’t about the solo. It’s about how the harmonica fits inside the sock rhythm established by drummer Fred Below, bassist Willie Dixon, and rhythm guitarist Luther Tucker, which allows Jacobs to sing and blow harp above. And right in between both is that sweet guitar riff anchoring the song. Who’s that? None other than the great Bo Diddley upon whose song this song is based.

Recorded March 2, 1955, the same day he recorded “I’m A Man” and the song that bears his name, “Bo Diddley,” that’s a little taste of “You Don’t Love Me” with Otis Spann on piano, Willie Dixon again on bass, and Billy Boy Arnold on harmonica. Listening to it now, it sounds like a poor man’s “Bring It To Jerome,” which Bo cut a few months later. Turns out that Walter was at the studio that day, so it’s not a stretch to see how he got from “You Don’t Love Me” to “Hate To See You Go.” He sped up the arrangement, removed the piano, and leaned hard on Bo’s guitar.

Billy Boy Arnold was no Little Walter, but who was??? He was a solid player who cut a few sides for Vee-Jay in Chicago, but was never quite able to make the jump from sideman to solo star. However, in a weird quirk of fate, two of his singles were recorded by Eric Clapton-era Yardbirds and one of those, “I Wish You Would” became a blues staple in the years to come. The Yardbirds version kinda sucks. If you wanna hear that song done right listen to The Blasters first album. Not the self-titled one with cartoon Philface on the cover. The one before that, American Music [Adios Lounge], which was released here in SoCal on Rolling Rock Records. Oh, you know who else covered “I Wish You Would?” The Red Devils at Pinkpop.

Video includes most of The Red Devils’ Pinkpop set, starting with “I Wish You Would”

Lester Butler Interview

A: Oh yeah, I’ve gone all kinds of different ways. Punk bands, rockabilly bands … this is sorta like a mixture of the Canned Heat, ZZ Top, as well as classic Chicago blues. We like Jimi Hendrix just as much as Howlin Wolf.

Q: You have such a tight band I noticed.

A: About 100 dates in a row will fix anything. Besides, early in the morning we had no time to drink [laughs].

That’s The Red Devils at Pinkpop 1993 with “Goin’ To The Church,” a jet engine performance that reconciles the band’s love of Chicago blues with Led Zeppelin. Here’s the thing, though. I don’t like Led Zeppelin. I think everyone should go through a Zep phase, preferably in or around high school, but it’s emotionally stunted Nuremburg rock. This is what I love about “Church.” It appropriates the stacked riffs and Balrog drums of “How Many More Times,” and Butler’s overdriven harmonica echoes Page’s guitar feedback, but the Devils spend ONE track in Mudsharkistan. If the Red Devils had 6-7 songs like “Goin’ To The Church,” they would’ve been intolerable. Actually, they probably would’ve been massive and co-headlined Pinkpop ’93 with the Black Crowes [laughs].

As Rees noted earlier, “Pinkpop was the Red Devils’ valediction.” Unfortunately, the good vibes didn’t last. Within a year of this performance, Paul Size quit, the band was dropped by Def American, and Johnny Ray told Rees, “Lester stole a bunch of money from us and wiped the band out. We were broke and having to sleep on our fans’ couches. It was strictly his greed that took us out – that and drugs.” Bill Bateman returned to The Blasters and the other three musicians returned to day jobs and part-time gigs. Says Bateman, “Lester got back on the shit and he was a rookie. It was his first band, and he didn’t realize how hard it was to get five guys together that play that well. He tried to undermine it and it blew up in his face.”

From 1987, that’s Thelonious Monster with “Walk On Water,” a slashing funk jam produced by Flea. For all of the things to rightfully dislike about the Chili Peppers yabba dabba doouniverse, this is not one of them. I love how Dix Denney and Chris Handsome do the wah-wah weave as Jon Huck plays NOT the annoying slap bass you might expect when you hear words like “funky” and “Flea.” No no. Huck is playing a bouncy countermelody that works both with Handsome’s melodic vamping, but also down low with Pete Weiss’ steady drumming. Lyrically, singer Bob Forrest turns Neil Young‘s “Don’t Be Denied” on its head. Where Young lamented being objectified by the business part of show (“a millionaire through a business man’s eyes”), Forrest embraced it. He loved being told how good he was by journalists, labels, other musicians, scenesters, and podcasts 34 years in the future. He loved being compared to John Doe and Paul Westerberg. Of course, the downside to believing the hype is you turn into an asshole. Thus, “Walk On Water” serves as critique of the celebrity industry and self-critique of one’s need for celebrity. Bob may have been an asshole, but at least he admitted it, and his charmingly brutal honesty was an intrinsic part of the Monster’s appeal. This is important to note because where 1987 may have been the apex of Bob Forrest and Thelonious Monster, Pinkpop ‘93 was the nadir. If Lester Butler undermined his own band because of drugs and ego, he wasn’t alone. In a 2019 interview, Bob reflected on his past self, Pinkpop in particular.

“I was kind of a drug addict alcoholic train wreck on a good day. I caused a lot of trouble and was very selfish. Alcoholics and addicts are very selfish and self-obsessed. So are musicians. So, when you have an alcoholic addict musician songwriter, that’s about the biggest asshole you can be [laughs].

The day of Pinkpop, I was so used to playing at 10:00 at night or midnight that I got a bang on my door at 9:30 in the morning. ‘We gotta go.’ ‘Go fucking where???’ Because the further we got away from Amsterdam, the further I was getting away from heroin that was gonna get me well. So then we’re there, it’s 12:00 in the afternoon, we have to play at 2, I’m hungover, dopesick, depressed, and saying I wanna kill myself [laughs]. That’s the state of mind of me at that time. If I couldn’t get dope, if I couldn’t drink, I wanted to die. I felt like I was dying. Fortunately, the wonderful people at Pinkpop put a bottle of Jägermeister in our dressing room. [cracking up] Why you would put that in there, I don’t know! But, I drank a considerable amount of it trying to get over my dopesickness to go play. By the time I got out there I don’t remember where I was or what was going on.”

That was Bob Forrest of Thelonious Monster just a couple years ago talking about that fateful Pinkpop. Over the course of the set he jumps in the photographer’s well and then realizes he can’t get out without literally climbing the stage scaffolding, which he does and then hangs out like he’s on the monkey bars at school. He then shimmies up the scaffolding to the very top of the stage like 30-40 feet above the ground, realizes “Oh shit, this is way higher than I thought,” and then comes down via the curtain, which rips and Bob kinda goes Night At The Opera back to the stage. (And FYI, that’s the Marx Brothers Night At The Opera, not Queen.) There are parts of the show where he’s singing the words laying down dissolute or sitting on the monitor. So, as I play “Body & Soul” from the festival, think about the fact you’re hearing a song about a guy trying not to have a nervous breakdown while having a full-blown nervous breakdown in front of tens of thousands of people.

That’s Thelonious Monster with “Body & Soul” from their ill-fated 1993 Pinkpop performance. Lemme say that even though Bob melts down, the band keeps it together. That’s the sub-tragedy of the Monster’s set. I’m sure Bob’s bandmates weren’t any happier about going on at 2 in the afternoon, but they came to play. Dix Denney, in particular, slays on guitar and earns bonus points for a garish orange shirt pulled straight from the H.I. McDunnough Collection. I believe it’s the same one from the Stormy Weather cover. I could be wrong, though.

Side note: Years before he was in Thelonious, Dix Denney and his brother John were in The Weirdos [Adios Lounge]. For a hot minute in the late ‘70s they were the best band in Los Angeles and they’ve got a few tracks everyone should be familiar with. “We Got The Neutron Bomb,” “Destroy All Music,” “A Life Of Crime,” and “Helium Bar,” just to name four. They were probably too, well, weird for the mainstream of 1979, but they didn’t do themselves any favors by not releasing an album until 1990, long after they had any kind of commercial momentum. Still, Condor is a pretty good record and considering it came out in the 1990s, I should do a podcast on it.

If Thelonious Monster was a band I’d never heard of UNTIL Pinkpop, I’d probably be like, “Fuck these guys. This lead singer sucks.” [laughs] But, the reality is Thelonious Monster was my Replacements and Bob Forrest was an unexpected mentor. I saw the Monster or Bob solo probably 15-20 times between 1990-92 and as often as I could I’d talk to him. He was funny and charming and he could obviously tell I was a total fanboy, but we spoke like equals, which I appreciated. Bob’s the one who preached to me about Tonight’s The Night for fuck’s sake. Thelonious played “Mellow My Mind” and it was like someone turned on all the lights in the house for me. When I came up to Bob after the show to ask about the song I got a full lecture about Neil Young, Danny Whitten, and the Ditch Trilogy. A dry eraserboard may have been involved, but that could be me projecting. Like the Mats, Bob and the Monster taught me that as much as I enjoy some classic rock, what I really love is classic rock filtered through punk. Add a perceptive singer/songwriter to the equation and occasionally you get magic.

One of Bob's finest moments as a songwriter and Thelonious Monster's finest moments as a band, "Lena Horne Still Sings Stormy Weather" is essentially a folk song done as rootsy punk rock. Rhythm guitarist Chris Handsome is credited as co-songwriter with Forrest, so I have to imagine he came up with that sweet opening riff. And that slide guitar has to be Mike Martt, who came to Thelonious from Tex And The Horseheads, mid-‘80s punk ‘n’ rollers who definitely influenced the Monster. John Doe produced their 1985 album, Life’s So Cool, which is my favorite Horseheads record and one you should track down. I don’t know if this is coincidence or irony, but Doe also produced Stormy Weather, the 1989 album from which “Lena Horne” matriculates, and also my favorite Thelonious record.

Forrest's songwriting triumph – especially in the context of Reagan/Bush America – was in striking a note of optimism. There's no reason for the protagonist of “Lena Horne” to feel hope, especially against a backdrop of depressing and destructive materialism. Two of Los Angeles' most distinctive googie-style coffeehouses, Ships and Tiny Naylors, were torn down because that's what Los Angeles, and by extension, America does. We don't preserve the village green. We raze it and open a Starbuck's. We'll do just about anything to squeeze an extra dime, we'll probably even sell our own grandmothers.

And yet, the song's message remains one of perseverance. Forrest doesn't say things are bad and getting worse. He says things are bad, but they could get better. Not will, but could. A vote for Jesse Jackson isn't a pointless and cynical gesture of protest, it's one man's emphatic endorsement in the machinery of democracy as a force for change. Maybe we’re working our ass off and can't afford to pay our bills, maybe Tiny Naylor's was torn down, and maybe there are people who'll sell their own grandmothers. That doesn't mean things can't get better. We just have to believe they can get better and hope and pray and wish and give it our all.

Bob Forrest – Colorblind intro

Before I moved here (Huntington Beach), I lived in Inglewood with my mom and dad and we lived in these houses that all looked the same. Every house on the block looked exactly the same. It was an all-white area, there was no black people or Mexican people anywhere near this environment.  And in one house these black people moved in and it was such a tragic thing in our family. We couldn’t live on the same block as black people. So, my dad put the house up for sale, we moved, and this is a song about that experience.”
–Bob’s intro to “Colorblind” at Pepper’s Golden Bear, Huntington Beach, CA, February 7, 1991 (I, the HB resident home from Chico, was in attendance)

Thelonious Monster - “Colorblind”

Probably my favorite song about racism not involving Ras Kass or Ice Cube. “Colorblind” is not a sweeping broadside like “The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll,” yet it’s no less effective in exposing white supremacy to the harsh light of truth. It’s one thing to tackle the subject as an adult, but Bob’s masterstroke is writing the song from the perspective of his 6-8 year old self. His world is Marco Polo, Slip ‘n’ Slide, and playing hoops with Michael Johnson. He doesn’t yet understand that redlining in Los Angeles WAS Jim Crow and that SoCal police departments, exemplified by William Parker’s LAPD — and later Daryl Gates’ LAPD — loved being vicious dogpack racists just as much as Bull Connor’s redneck armada. There’s no way young Bob could possibly comprehend that whites drive blacks out of neighborhoods for the exact same reason cops murder unarmed black people. Both groups see whiteness as a thing to serve and protect at all costs and blacks as less than human, essentially deserving what they get.

“They said it wasn’t a question of race
It was just property values”

This lyric is dead-on brilliant because it ties directly to the history of redlining and nails with surgical precision how the first rule of white supremacy is: DO NOT TALK ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACY. If you don’t talk about it, don’t address it, then it doesn’t exist. I mean, Bob heard all the men in the neighborhood getting trashed and hate vomiting n-bombs at the bar in the back of his house. He may have been a little kid, but he knew they were talking about his friend Michael. And yet, these fragile-ass white dudes couldn’t even admit it was race. They hid behind property values, as if property values were a scientific concept like gravity and not a subjective assessment of value based on waspy notions of good and bad neighborhoods. That’s why the second rule of white supremacy is: Gaslight yourself first and you’ll find gaslighting everyone else is as easy as flipping a switch.

The climax of pretty much every Monster show – and often the last song before the inevitable encore – was their rendition of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.” An existential scream as roaring punk blues, “Grave” was the final song of Thelonious’ Pinkpop set, but far from a climax. The moment that drew the biggest crowd response was when Forrest was trying to duct tape Dix, fell, and hurt his knee. Again, it’s hard to blame the band for any of this. They sound good, especially Chris Handsome on wah wah and the churning Pete Weiss/Dallas Don Burnet rhythm section. Bob sings about half the song and bails, as the band vamps to the outro. If you watch the video, the camera follows Forrest as handlers take him to a trailer for ... observation? To yell at him? Get him medical attention? Maybe all of the above.

Bob wouldn’t gain control of his addiction for another three years and Pinkpop was the symbolic, if not practical end of Thelonious as a viable, marketable entity. They may have played a few other dates in Europe just to fulfill a contract, but once they got back home they were done. Even if the band wanted to play, Bob was in no condition, and their rep in LA was shot to shit. They’d reunite for one-off shows and they put out independent albums in both 2004 (California Clam Chowder) and just last year in 2020 (Oh That Monster), but their touring days ended in ‘93.

That was Bob Forrest interviewed in 2019 about how he got sober, stayed sober, and then used his sobriety to become a drug addiction counselor. At the start of that clip was him performing “Cereal Song,” a tune about addiction that he wrote for Bicycle Thief, his band after Thelonious Monster. The song is about how heroin and cocaine controlled his life and killed his friends and the hook is devastating.

“And what has it got me
Just some teeth I can't chew
My favorite cereal with”

I’m proud of Bob for making it through the other side. Rock culture prefers a sexy death spiral over a redemption arc, but as a 52-year-old recovering alcoholic who may or may not have had his own cocaine problem once upon a time and fistfights depression and anxiety on a regular basis, I’m gonna be a stan for life’s second acts.

You know who’d love a second act? Lester Butler. Things didn’t work out as well for him. He scuffled in LA for awhile until finally in late ‘96/early ’97, he put together a new band called 13. When I say they’re Diet Devils, it’s not because they suck. It’s just that one band had Bill Bateman and the Bartel Brothers and one didn’t. 13 released a self-titled album in 1997, but if you have Spotify, check out Live @ Tamines 1997. Recorded on August 29th of that year at the 7th South Blues Festival in Tamines, Belgium, Butler's harp playing and gravelly vocals are pure fire. Guitarist Alex Schultz throws down some sweet leads, as bassist Mike Hightower and drummer Eddie Clark swing the pocket. Next to Tamines, the studio album feels a shade sterile. Still pretty good, just not blazing.

Let’s return to Paul Rees’ article about The Red Devils. He writes:

On the evening of May 8, 1998, Butler pitched up at Bill Bateman’s house in Hollywood. He was with another girl from the fast crowd he’d been running with.

“He’d been smoking rock, snorting coke, taking downers and drinking rum, so he was high,” remembers Bateman. “The two of them sat in my living room and Lester was begging her for an injection of heroin, rather than snorting it like he had been.”

Bateman says he then left the house to go score his own heroin. He’d recently been convicted on a drunk-driving charge, so was on foot and gone for more than an hour. When he returned, he says, Butler was still nagging the girl to shoot him up again.

“Eventually she did and he OD’d,” Bateman continues. “I was high myself by then and wasn’t paying them much mind.”

We may never know exactly what happened, as accounts differ, and by his own admission Bateman was worse for wear. Bateman recounts that the girl’s boyfriend came over, panicked, took Lester’s cocaine, and shot it up through the veins in his hand.

“They had the idea that this would bring him back, and it killed him. They took him in his van to their house and he died there. After he’d been dead for eight hours they dropped him off at my place again, and I took him to the hospital. Then the cops turned up.”

Ginny Tura (Lester’s sister) challenges Bateman’s account of her brother’s last hours and also the notion that he’d careered out of control. “Lester was sober for many years, and this relapse was fatal because his tolerance was low,” she maintains. “Bill did not make the emergency call when Les first passed out and allowed two drug addicts to go off with his body. In my opinion he should have also done jail time.”

Red Devils at the King King, 1992
L-R: Johnny Ray Bartel, Bill Bateman, Paul Size, Lester Butler, Dave Lee Bartel

Ginny wasn’t the only person challenging the official account. In a post dated December 15, 1998, so seven months after Butler’s death, the following was published anonymously to a Lester Butler tribute website I believe based in Finland. I found it at the Fuller Up Dead Musician’s Directory and I’ll link to it in my show notes.

Now, you can certainly hear the word “anonymously” and dismiss the contents. It’s possible that the writer originally included his or her name — I feel like it’s a woman — but in subsequent reposts the name was lost. Whatever the case, I simply want you to listen and ask yourself if this accounting of events seems credible. I don’t know if every single assertion is airtight fact, but to me it sounds plausible, like someone with inside information. The post is as follows, judge for yourself.

Again, that was originally posted on December 15, 1998, and while it makes Bateman look very, very bad, he admitted he was a junkie and obviously in a dark place. I have to imagine he harbors an immense amount of guilt over Butler’s death because it was such a stupid, preventable tragedy of errors. At the same time, this is precisely what can happen when you’re an addict. The dope lies and you fall in love with the lie. You need the lie. It can destroy your band, your life, and yet one night your need for that lie is so strong that it leaves you dependent on people caught up in their own lies. "For they that sleep with dogs shall rise with fleas." Though often attributed to Ben Franklin, that line was actually written by English playwright John Webster, who in 1612 published a play exploring the way people depict themselves as good, virtuous, and “white,” despite all evidence to the contrary. The name of the play? "The White Devil."

From Raji’s in Hollywood on April 2, 1992, that’s Thelonious Monster with their signature set closer, “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.” The band recorded it for a possible live album, unfortunately the EQ got all fucked up. I did what I could, but there’s still not enough bottom end. It’s a hoppin performance, though, and shows how powerful the Monster could be on their best night. By the way, that harmonica you hear is Pat French (aka Frenchie), who regularly sat in with the band in ’92-’93. He’d play on “Grave,” but occasionally stuck around for another song or two. If his name sounds familiar, it should. I said it at the beginning of this podcast. Frenchie was one of the original harmonica players in The Stumble Bums, who became the Blue Shadows, and who ultimately became The Red Devils.

Outro

That’s gonna do it for Part 1 of my look at Pinkpop 1993. Gimme a few weeks to finish up Part 2 featuring The Jayhawks and Bettie Serveert. As I said at the top of the show you can become a member at the $5 or $20/month level by hitting that Buy Me a Coffee button at the top of the page or Support at the bottom. Please visit the Don’t Call It Nothing Facebook page and website, dontcallitnothing.squarespace.com. Like, comment, tell yo mama, and tell a friend.

Talk to ya next time!

Coming Soon: Pink Turns to Blue

A little preview of the next TWO Don't Call It Nothing podcasts. I’ll be talking about four of these bands in total, with two in each pod. Can you guess the four? I’ll give you two hints. Alice In Chains was actually replaced by Rage Against The Microwave and I talk about neither. Hope that helps!

I Don't Wanna Say Goodnight

A pair of 1999 Blue Mountain setlists I recently discovered in my archive. The one on the right actually went with that Homegrown poster I recently published. Since the shows were only a few months apart, the setlists are fairly similar. But, the band kicked out the jams at every show, so even if you got repeat tracks you were too busy enjoying yourself to complain.

Podcast Episode 15 – Camp Black Dog

Camp Black Dog Family Photo
1) Dave Bielanko, 2) Chris Hudson (Cary's cousin), 3) Jeffrey Reed (Black Dog producer/engineer), 4) Paul Dickman (Marah's manager), 5) Danny Metz, 6) Noah Saterstrom, 7) Laurie Stirratt, 8] Cary Hudson, 9) Serge Bielanko, 10) Tyler Keith, 11) Bruce Langfeld, 12) George Sheldon, 13) Paul Smith (Marah's engineer), 14) Frank Coutch, 15) Ronnie Vance

Transcription

Theme Song: Mike Nicolai, “Trying To Get It Right” [Bandcamp]

Welcome to Don't Call It Nothing, the podcast dedicated to the lost history of '90s roots, rap, and rock 'n' roll. I’m your host Lance Davis and today we’re going back to Mississippi in the summer of ‘98 and we’re gonna spend a little time at Camp Black Dog. Before we get there, just wanna give a quick shout-out to Karla Ludzack and Rob Haire for joining the Don’t Call It Nothing family. I saw Rob propose to Karla at a Centro-Matic show, so you know that relationship is built on solid ground. Where was that? The Red Eyed Fly in Austin, I believe. Anyway, love that you guys are on board. If you’d like to support the only music podcast that matters you can do so at the $5 and $20/month levels. At the $20/month level, you can collaborate with me on a specific podcast and get access to the YouTube and Spotify playlists that are a backbone of this pod. Beyond that, the levels are pretty similar. All family members recently received my first bonus episode about my Japanese mom growing up in Hawaii during World War Two. So, Rob and Karla, you can expect that. To become a member, hit that “Buy Me a Coffee” button at the top of the page or the “Support” button at the bottom. Or just hang out and listen, whatever’s cool with me. If I may quote my French Dinosaur Jr cass-single. Oh, look at me showing off. I’m just glad you’re here.

From their 1998 album Let's Cut The Crap And Hook Up Later On Tonight, that’s Marah with “Eventually Rock.” In a 2006 interview with Perfect Sound Forever, Dave Bielanko said of the band’s debut, “Cut The Crap is the one moment in your life when you don't have any idea how to make a record or what the music business is. We didn't even have tuners! I can remember, we couldn't record electric guitars 'cause we didn't have amps!” (Perfect Sound Forever, May 2006) That’s basically true. Outside of a clean electric guitar on “Firecracker” and Chuck Berry-style lead guitar on “Head On,” most of this album is arranged around acoustic instruments, Dave’s soulful, old man lead vocals, and Serge’s backup holler. Aside from having one of the greatest album titles ever, Let's Cut The Crap And Hook Up Later On Tonight is the textbook example of alt.country as rock 'n' roll.

The Bielanko embrace of acoustic instruments is the story of Cut The Crap. “Eventually Rock,” which we heard, is carried by banjo and lap steel. “Rain Delay” is carried by mandolin and acoustic guitars that I assume are capoed way up the neck. “Baby Love” is Townes Van Zandt-esque acoustic fingerpicking blues. “Boat” is anchored to an upright piano and handclaps. “Limb” makes room for banjo, dobro, lap steel, and dulcimer. For all of the Springsteen romanticism and Stones boogie, these arrangements are fundamentally closer to The Gourds than they are to any sort of classic rock.

Now, Crap is probably too ambitious for its own good. “Fever” might’ve been better without horns, or at least 1 or 2 horns as opposed to the entire brass section from a Mummers parade. “Limb” was probably a minute and a half too long as is and THEN the brothers added bagpipes and snoring [laughs]. But, the failures are at least interesting. And can you blame them for throwing in bagpipes? It’s easy to see from the perspective of 2021 that Marah was destined for some kind of greatness. But, they didn’t know that going into this recording. For all Dave and Serge knew, this was their shot. And if that’s the case, fuck it. Put in the bagpipes, stack the horns, get the steel drum, get the xylophone, and for the love of God get the female backup singers. The Bielankos are going to church.

Song: Marah - “Boat”
Pictured L-R: Christine Smith, Adam Garbinski, Dave Bielanko, Danny Metz, Serge Bielanko & Mick Bader (Marah circa 2000)

In a curious case of synchronicity – though possibly due to a ghost in the machine – a couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of Blue Mountain on Facebook, Instagram, and the Don’t Call It Nothing blog. It was a promotional poster for Homegrown used for a 1999 Birmingham, Alabama, show that I attended. I wanted to include the poster in the transcription for my 1999 podcast, but it didn’t fit, so I published it separately. That exact same day – and I think within the same hour – Serge Bielanko published an essay entitled “A Band Called Blue Mountain,” a deeply heartfelt homage to Blue Mountain set in the summer of 1998. You really owe it to yourself to read the essay. I just wanna read one small excerpt because it pertains to Cut The Crap. Serge writes:

Once, outside Silk City, the diner bar on Spring Garden in Philly, me and my brother, Dave, handed a cassette to Go to Blazes guitarist Tom Heyman, who was a friend of ours. We had all just watched a Blue Mountain show that had left everyone giddy. Certain bands can do that, make the crowd high.

The tape was a copy of the first Marah record, an album we had made ourselves on ancient recording gear in a small space above an auto garage in South Philadelphia. It was unreleased then, we’d just finished it, and we were hungry to get it into the hands of Cary Hudson and Laurie Stirratt from Blue Mountain because they had started a new label called Black Dog Records. And we figured that if we could get on their label then that would mean they liked us. And that’s all we kind of wanted. Fools we were, when it came to the business of music. We knew nothing of record deals or making money. We only wanted to be on a label owned by a band who were legends in our world.

And you know what? It worked.
--Serge Bielanko, “A Band Called Blue Mountain,” October 8, 2021

The only downside to Serge’s brilliantly evocative essay was that much of it took place in the summer of 1998 when Marah opened for Blue Mountain in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. If you’re thinking to yourself, “LD, didn’t you move to Tuscaloosa in the summer of 1998?” That would be an affirmative. Unfortunately, I moved mere weeks after this show took place. But, don’t worry about me. I was in Baton Rouge enjoying 95% heat, 100% humidity, and 0% Blue Mountain. [Cue Nelson Muntz “HA HA!”] Actually, until reading Serge’s essay I forgot that Let’s Cut The Crap was issued on Black Dog Records. Given Marah’s obvious classic rock touchstones, it’s easy to overlook the Mississippi influence. Which is to say, I suspect the Bielanko boys were in T-Town because they were already in Monticello, Mississippi recording at Camp Black Dog.

Camp Black Dog was the nickname given to Route 1 Recording, a studio that doubled as the headquarters of Black Dog Records. For about a week in the summer of ’98, Marah, Blue Mountain, John Stirratt (Laurie’s brother and bassist in Wilco), Tyler Keith (singer and guitarist for my beloved Neckbones), and a low-key multi-instrumentalist named Noah Saterstrom all essentially camped out in this studio located in a patch of woods just south of Highway 84, an hour and a half west of Hattiesburg and closer to New Orleans than Oxford. The musicians jammed, smoked, drank, told stories, experimented, wrote some new songs, recorded some old songs that didn’t fit in other projects, and ultimately emerged with a 10-track collaboration called Camp Black Dog Presents Rock & Roll Summer Camp '98.

Song: Dave & Serge Bielanko - “Livin' On The Road”
Pictured: Laurie Stirratt & Serge Bielanko

Officially, that’s Dave and Serge Bielanko with “Livin' On The Road.” Dave is on banjo and the first voice you hear. Serge is on acoustic guitar and the second voice you hear. I have to laugh because it’s written like a Steve Earle song and Dave sounds a bit like Earle, so I can imagine Steve rushing to sign Marah because they reminded him of himself. “These guys are great! They’re like a young me!” [laughs] In fact, there are some lyrical gems in here. I’m fond of the final verse, when Dave sings, "I was a drunken teacher, an elementary preacher in a porno shop," followed by Serge declaring, "I was a wino beggar, a pretty good trumpet player with piss-poor chops." While the arrangement is different, it’s hard for me to hear this and not think about “Johnny Come Lately,” Earle’s collaboration with The Pogues on Copperhead Road.

By the way, the reason I said “officially” it’s Dave and Serge is because that’s how it’s credited on the CD. In fact, Danny Metz from Marah plays bass here as he did on Cut The Crap. However, instead of Ronnie Vance on drums, it’s Frank Coutch from Blue Mountain and he’s arguably the best part of the song. Listen to the snare and THEN listen to how he drives that floor tom. Badass. Cary Hudson plays mandolin, Laurie Stirratt doubles on acoustic guitar, and glue guy Noah Saterstrom doubles on banjo and adds the distinctive, Spider Stacy-esque tin whistle. Hootin and hollerin in the background are Jeffrey Reed and Paul Smith, the duo who produced, engineered, and mixed Camp Black Dog. Reed was a Mississippi guy tight with Blue Mountain, an actual part of Black Dog Records, and who’d previously worked at Ardent Studios in Memphis. Smith was Marah’s engineer and came down for the week. Wisely, he and Reed split production responsibilities.

Song: George Sheldon - “S.O.B.”
Pictured: George Sheldon

That’s Blue Mountain bassist George Sheldon bangin away on acoustic guitar and singin his pottymouth Johnny Cash-esque original, “S.O.B.,” which I know I heard at least once in a Blue Mountain set. Laurie and Frank are on bass and drums, so this is one Cary Hudson away from being a full-on Blue Mountain track. Serge is on harp and backup holler and Bruce Langfeld of Marah plays lap steel and electric guitar. Marah’s Ronnie Vance sits in on washboard and while he’s no RJ Simensen, he’s solid.

Song: Cary Hudson & Laurie Stirratt - “Big Black River”
Pictured: Laurie Stirratt & Cary Hudson

Officially credited to Cary Hudson and Laurie Stirratt, “Big Black River” features all four members of Blue Mountain making jugband rock ‘n’ roll sexy … as they were wont to do. Cary sings and plays mandolin, Laurie sings harmony and plays acoustic, George is thumpin standup, and Frank is on snare. Add Dave Bielanko on acoustic guitar, Saterstrom on banjo, and it’s pretty much the greatest thing ever. What’s interesting is that Hudson and Stirratt had released this song before.

From the 1991 album of the same name, that’s “Big Black River” by The Hilltops, an Oxford, Mississippi band whose members included Cary Hudson, Laurie Stirratt, and John Stirratt, as well as Hank Sossaman on drums. Though only separated by seven years, the two arrangements are 900 miles apart. The Camp Black Dog version is a concise 3:37, locked in on the beat, and completely sure of itself. The 1991 version wastes time with a long intro, includes some Loveless-esque drone, and wanders around for six minutes. I bring this up not to throw shade, but to demonstrate that even southern rock titans like Cary Hudson went through phases where they were figuring their shit out. This is the part of music that fascinates me. How does a good song become a great song? How does a good musician become a great musician? Some of it is practice. Some of it is tenacity. And some of it is just life experience. Cary and Laurie moved to LA in 1992 because I guess they didn’t have enough self-loathing and disgust for humanity and wanted to wallow in it. Within a year they moved back to Mississippi completely refocused, started Blue Mountain, went through a couple drummers, finally found Frank Coutch, and the road to Dog Days was set.

To be fair to Hudson and The Hilltops, they had moments of brilliance. When I said the two “Big Black Rivers” were 900 miles apart, that was deliberate. The Hilltops’ arrangement of the old folk song “900 Miles” IS the arrangement “Big Black River” should’ve had, even down to the Zep riffage. And it’s a tight three minutes. Perfection.

Song: Hilltops - “900 Miles”
Pictured: Laurie Stirratt rockin the bass

From the 1991 album, Big Black River, that’s The Hilltops with the traditional folk song, “900 Miles.” That album was reissued in 1996 by … Black Dog Records and I think it was the first release on the label. Where you can hear Hudson working toward Blue Mountain, John Stirratt’s songs have more of a Meat Puppets kinda vibe, but not at that level. That said, there is one track of his that I’d like to highlight. Slobberbone fans, see if you agree with me that the opening guitar riff here is like the older brother of the opening guitar riff in “Sober Song.”

Song: Hilltops - “I Might Be The Last One”
Pictured: Laurie & John Stirratt

That’s John Stirratt and The Hilltops with “I Might Be The Last One,” which you can find on the 1991 album, Big Black River, later reissued by Cary Hudson and Laurie Stirratt on their own label, Black Dog Records in 1996. You get Stirratt sibling harmonies, a sweet four-bar guitar solo from Hudson, and it comes and goes in 1:56.

Song: John Stirratt - “Not So Far Away”
Pictured: Frank Coutch

We return to Camp Black Dog and John Stirratt with “Not So Far Away” backed by Blue Mountain and Marah. It’s good country pop that sounds like early Wilco and manages to work “pantaloons” into the lyrics, a success in and of itself. I like how Serge’s harp seems to be in conversation with Cary’s slide and again, it’s nice to hear the Stirratts harmonizing with each other.

Speaking of which, in the liner notes Laurie is named Camp Black Dog MVP. First of all, duh. She’s a total badass, of course she’s MVP. But, I suspect she was so-named because she’s the only musician to appear on all ten tracks.

1. Dave Bielanko And Serge Bielanko - Livin' On The Road
Laurie Stirratt – acoustic guitar

2. George Sheldon - S.O.B.
Laurie Stirratt - bass

3. John Stirratt - Not So Far Away
Laurie Stirratt – acoustic guitar, backing vocals

4. Cary Hudson And Laurie Stirratt
Laurie Stirratt – vocals, acoustic guitar

5. Noah Saterstrom - Crow Jane
Laurie Stirratt – backing vocals, handclaps

6. Dave Bielanko And Serge Bielanko - The River
Laurie Stirratt – bass, acoustic guitar, backing vocals

7. Dave Bielanko And Serge Bielanko - Part Of Me
Laurie Stirratt – vocals, bass

8. Serge Bielanko And Cary Hudson - Grey & Blue
Laurie Stirratt - mandolin

9. Noah Saterstrom - Sail Away Lady
Laurie Stirratt – acoustic guitar

10. Tyler Keith - Reckless Night
Laurie Stirratt – electric guitar

Most tracks feature Laurie on acoustic guitar or bass. However, one song has her rockin the electric.

Song: Tyler Keith - “Reckless Night”
Pictured: Tyler Keith (L) & Dave Bielanko

That’s the great Tyler Keith on vocals and lead guitar taking an early stab at “Reckless Night.” The following year it was released on The Lights Are Getting Dim, the second and final Neckbones album. What makes this version interesting is that you can argue it’s the first Preacher’s Kids track. That was Keith’s band after The Neckbones broke up and their 2001 debut, Romeo Hood, featured Tyler backed by Laurie Stirratt on electric guitar, George Sheldon on bass, and Frank Coutch on drums, all of whom play those roles here. The only difference is that Bruce Langfeld of Marah plays electric guitar here instead of Hudson. Langfeld also adds the piano, which is buried in the mix, but adds a nice percussive element. As much as I like this, though, nothing beats the original.

Like I needed an excuse to play The Neckbones. They had bad timing, a weird relationship with their label, Fat Possum, which meant sketchy promotion, and broke up in 2000 just as garage rock was becoming a thing again. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play? So, they got all the business parts wrong and all the show parts right. Let’s focus on the show. “Reckless Night” features Tyler Keith on vocals, lead guitar, AND piano. Renaissance punk, y’all!

I’m gonna leave you with one final song from Camp Black Dog song. It would be easy to go with “Grey & Blue,” the Civil War folk ballad credited to Serge and Cary. Similarly, “The River” is a Bielanko joint that’s like a Steve Earle murder mystery trapped inside of Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freight Liner Blues.” However, my last Camp Black Dog hurrah is going to “Part Of Me” because it sounds like Marah channeling “Revolution Blues.”

Song: Dave & Serge Bielanko - “Part Of Me”
Pictured: Cary bashin, Tyler crashin

How dope is that? Serge on harp and lead vocals, Laurie on bass and lead vocals, Dave on banjo and chorus holler, Cary on fiddle, Ronnie Vance on drums, and secret weapon Bruce Langfeld on the Neil-esque electric guitar. “Part Of Me” is very On The Beach, but between the southern rock, the specter of violence, and characters making difficult choices in shitty circumstances, it kind of anticipates what the Drive-By Truckers would soon become. When these tracks were being laid down at Camp Black Dog, the Truckers were in between their first two albums. It’s easy to forget this now, what with the DBTs rep built on three guitars and the rock show, but if you go back and listen to Gangstabilly and Pizza Deliverance, there is way more acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, standup bass, and John Neff on pedal steel than you might remember. That’s how I felt about Let’s Cut The Crap when I started this project. I expected to hear the blazing rock of Kids In Philly because that’s how I remembered it in my head. When I started listening to the tracks, I got the rock ‘n’ roll. But, I was surprised to hear it mostly filtered through acoustic instruments.

The last song of today’s show goes out to Lane Campbell in the great beyond. I think he would’ve loved this podcast. See you on the other side, brother.

That’s gonna do it for this week. As I said at the top of the show. you can become a member at the $5 or $20/month level by hitting that Buy Me a Coffee button at the top of the page or Support at the bottom. Please visit the Don’t Call It Nothing Facebook page and website, dontcallitnothing.squarespace.com. Like, comment, tell yo mama, and tell a friend.

I’ll talk to ya in a few weeks!

Soul Asylum & Thelonious Monster, 1990

My first Soul Asylum show and my first Thelonious Monster show. This was at the end of Soul Asylum’s final tour for A&M, the axe to be dropped within weeks of this show. Also one of the Monster’s first shows since the death of bassist Rob Graves (aka Rob Ritter of early Gun Club). Their new bassist was Martyn Lenoble, who’d leave for Porno For Pyros within the next couple of years. Their new bassist was Martyn Lenoble, who’d leave for Porno For Pyros within the next couple of years. I remember the guitarists being Mike Martt and Chris Handsome, but that could be wrong. Pete Weiss was definitely behind the kit in tighty whiteys and cigarette smoke. Bob Forrest came out to sing "Free Fallin'" with SA and lyrics may have been forgotten, who can say??? Fun show. I think I have the flyer buried somewhere in my archives and for sure I’ve seen a jpg of it. It's totally basic, but if I track it down I’ll post it.

Podcast Episode 14 – The Old and New They Get Mistaken All the Time

Soul Asylum L-R: Karl Mueller, Grant Young, Dave Pirner, Dan Murphy

Transcription

Theme Song: Mike Nicolai, “Trying To Get It Right” [Bandcamp]

Welcome to Don't Call It Nothing, the podcast dedicated to the lost history of '90s roots, rap, and rock 'n' roll. I’m your host Lance Davis and today we’re gonna discuss Soul Asylum’s 1990 album, And The Horse They Rode In On. We’ll also get to some Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy acoustic tracks from around that time. Before we get into that, though, lemme give a shout out to Megan Stokes. She not only became a member at the $5/month level, she declared publicly that I amm the only middle-aged music nerd she will allow to mansplain to her. For example, when I pointed out that she spelled her name wrong, there was no showy production, no “listen here little lady,” it was just a confidential, respectful moment between friends … on social media. That’s what I bring to the table. The personal touch.

If you’d like to support the only music podcast that matters you can do so at the $5 or $20/month level. At the $20/month level, you can collaborate with me on a specific podcast and get access to the YouTube and Spotify playlists that are really a backbone of this pod. Beyond that, the levels are pretty similar. All family members should’ve just received my first bonus episode which is about my Japanese mom growing up in Hawaii (awesome!) during World War Two (oof, not awesome). Strange, too, because I was writing a different story and an anecdote about my mom within that story blossomed into this whole other thing. That original story needs tightening up or maybe I’ll turn it into a two-parter, I’ll figure it out. That will be the next bonus episode (or episodes). To become a member all you gotta do is hit that “Buy Me a Coffee” button at the top of the page or the “Support” button at the bottom and magic will follow. Or if you wanna just hang out and listen, that’s cool, too. Whatever the case, just glad you’re here.

Considering Soul Asylum is covered in sweat, we can assume this is backstage right after a set.
L-R: Karl, Dave, Dan & Grant

OK, so today’s episode is more specific than my first run of pods, which were more survey-based. A little taste of each year of the decade. Today I wanna zero in on one band at a very specific moment in their career. In 1990, Soul Asylum released And The Horse They Rode In On, and if you go by cassette listens at the time I don’t know if any tape I owned received more spins in my Mitsubishi Colt than Horse on the A-side and Thelonious Monster’s Next Saturday Afternoon on the B. If it was Top 3, maybe Top 2 IN 1990, in 2021 it’s dropped all the way to 8. I know, I’m a monster. There’s 2-3 songs I’d omit and I wish the bottom was a scosh fatter. But, I don’t wanna crack on it too hard. "Veil Of Tears" is a personal fave, like early '70s Stones with Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy on dual riff and Karl Mueller squeezing out a number of cool countermelody bass runs. "Spinnin'" and "Easy Street" are tight as a drum and built around killer melodies. It’s not surprising they were chosen as singles. “All The King's Friends" is kin to "Veil" in the sweet riff department, especially in the hippie freakout middle section. It also has one of my favorite lines, when Pirner sings, "How would I know if there was something wrong, when the weak of heart out-survive the strong?” Pirner doesn’t get a lot of credit as a lyricist, but “All The King's Friends" and "Nice Guys (Don't Get Paid)" have a number of striking images.

Hijackin' fanatics who kill for religion

In a city full of addicts and color television

Or

Amazingly infazeable, entirely replaceable

There's nothing I would rearrange, don't ever change

That’s quality. Murphy has a co-writing credit on “Easy Street,” which I’m guessing is the line, “At thee last moment he picked up the phone, and gave you a call.” He also wrote "Gullible's Travels," a rock 'n' roll sea shanty featuring Bernie Worrell of P-Funk on melodica, a small keyboard you blow into, which you may remember from your Neutral Milk Hotel phase.

I wanna throw a little love to “Brand New Shine.” It’s my favorite sounding track on the album, maybe my favorite track altogether. I love that it sounds like early Lone Justice and Pirner’s vocal is stellar, but I really Iove that Grant’s drums are way up in the mix. Because Dave is country picking on Tele and Dan is chording around him, the mid-range isn’t swallowed up by guitar wash, so Young’s drums and Mueller’s bass have a chance to breathe. I like the reverby effects and the crowd noise towards the end of the song, it’s just a fun arrangement. Where most of Horse is Soul Asylum the rock and pop band, this is a nice peek into Soul Asylum the charming rock ‘n’ roll goofoffs.

That’s Soul Asylum with “Brand New Shine,” the first part the band working on the song in the studio and then obviously the second part the track itself. And look, we can talk about this album or that album, but Soul Asylum was Soul Asylum because of their live show. When old-timers speak reverently about the band’s classic 1986-90 period, it’s their performances that form the backbone of this belief system. I was lucky enough to see these guys twice in 1990 and I can confirm that the legend of live Soul Asylum is 100% true. They didn’t need a light show or smoke bombs or fire. They were fire. Four dudes playing stripped down, locked-in rock 'n' roll with crunchy guitar solos, singalong choruses, and a loose, swinging rhythm section.

The first time I saw the band was also the first time I saw Thelonious Monster, on November 16, 1990, at the Country Club in Reseda. I drove 7 hours south from Chico, a straight shot down I-5, right to the venue, and despite my exhaustion, both bands killed it. Frontman Dave Pirner was charismatic as hell, but the whole band had your classic midwestern likeability. Bob Forrest came out to sing “Free Fallin’” towards the end of Soul Asylum’s set and as I recall he forgot the words [laughs]. Oh, and why “Free Fallin’”? Because “it's a long day livin' in Reseda,” silly. About a month later I saw Soul Asylum again, this time upstaging the Pixies so thoroughly and so convincingly, Black Francis would've been better served playing Bossanova over the Warfield PA.

Soul Asylum, Cabooze Bar, Minneapolis, October 23, 1990. “Veil Of Tears” starts around 31:40.

That’s Soul Asylum with “Veil Of Tears” recorded live at the Cabooze Bar in Minneapolis on October 23, 1990. As you heard at the end there, the show was simulcast on KJ104, an FM station in the Twin Cities. But, it’s my understanding that KJJO and KJ104 were the same station. I bring this up because in the early days of the internet I used to trade tapes with other nerds and I’d see KJJO and KJ104 used interchangeably for what appeared to be identical sets and dates. It wasn’t until the web started filling up with stuff other than porn and conspiracy theories that I was able to suss this out. In one of these trading excursions I got this Cabooze show and it spent a lot of time in my car’s tape deck, though by this time my car was a black 1999 Honda Civic that if you knew me in Austin, you probably saw me driving this car. One of my favorite parts of playing that Cabooze show was at the very end, when that same announcer describes the experience of seeing Soul Asylum on a night when they brought their A game.

KJ104 Announcer

Take that, Abbie Hoffman! Hippie buffoon DOESN’T make the Pentagon levitate and white boomers are over here doing chest bumps. Soul Asylum actually makes the Cabooze audience levitate and they’re all, “OH, TURN THAT RACKET DOWN!!!”

Fine. I will.

Two weeks before this Cabooze performance, on October 10, 1990, Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy visited KJ104/KJJO for an interview and to play a few songs on acoustic guitar. This wasn’t unprecedented. I have acoustic sets from 1986 and 1988 and I’m sure there were many others. And while both men were at their best in the midst of a raging Soul Asylum performance, their acoustic sets brought a different energy to the table that’s worth exploring.

Dave Pirner (L) and Dan Murphy, 1992-ish.

Dave Pirner & Dan Murphy – Never Really Been + Gullible’s Travels + Cars Medley
KJJO, Minneapolis, October 10, 1990

That was Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy at the KJJO Studios in Minneapolis . That was October 10, 1990. This was a strange period for Soul Asylum because though they were kicking ass live (as per usual) and though they gave A&M, if not their best record, then certainly a record for which they should be damn proud. There was one minor problem. Horse didn’t sell. So, the label dropped them, and to add injury to insult Pirner developed hearing issues. When you’re in a band called Loud Fast Rules, it’s not the Fast part that catches up with you. It’s the Loud. Breaking up was considered and I can see why. They’d been together for a decade, spent time on an indie, spent time on a major, it kinda sorta worked out, but not really. And now, if they couldn’t play loud, let alone fast, what was the point? It would no longer be Soul Asylum.

The band played a few scattered shows in ’91, but Dave and Dan were just as likely to play as an acoustic duo. Or, they’d have shows that started out with an acoustic set and then Karl and Grant would come out for the second set. It made sense. If Pirner was struggling with tinnitus or something similar, then not playing loud rock shows would help. They recorded some acoustic demos and played acoustic sets as a way to keep their name out there. And a funny thing happened on the way to the “Where Are They Now?” file. Columbia signed them, a milk carton video happened, and one day we looked up and someone said pointing, “Hey, isn’t that Soul Asylum playing for the Clintons?”

Hillary Clinton with the Soul Asylums

I’m sure my ambivalence toward the Soul Asylum catalog from this point forward is tied to Pirner’s hearing loss. If you’re a badass writer of rock songs, but can’t perform rock songs or you’ll go deaf, you’re probably gonna start writing songs on acoustic guitar and piano. And while that resulted in less reckless Soul Asylum material, as a middle-aged dude I empathize with Pirner’s decision a lot more than I did in my 20s and 30s. Anyway, a few of my favorite Dave and Dan acoustic numbers come from this lost period between Horse and Grave Dancers Union. Here’s an excerpt from one.

Dave Pirner & Dan Murphy – In My Hour Of Darkness (1:20-2:07)
Top Note Theater (secret room at Cabaret Metro), Chicago, April 13-14, 1991

From the Top Note Theater in Chicago in April 1991, that’s Dave Pirner singing the Clarence White verse from Gram Parsons’ “In My Hour Of Darkness.” Dan Murphy comes in on high harmony and then he kinda takes lead on the chorus with Pirner moving to low harmony. Again, this was 1991. These guys weren’t riding a sweet alt.country wave because that was still several years away. If anything, it shows that the incipient alt.country audience and incipient indie rock audience were in many cases the same audience.

Dave Pirner & Dan Murphy – Nice Guys + P-9

That’s Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy at the Top Note Theater in Chicago. They played two nights, April 13 and 14, 1991, and all of these performances were on one of those two nights. The first song of the two you just heard was “Nice Guys Don’t Get Paid” from And The Horse They Rode In On. And that was followed by “P-9,” which you can find on the Clam Dip & Other Delights EP from 1988. That song was written for and about union workers at a Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota. P-9 was the local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and they entered a protracted strike on August 17, 1985, due to dangerous working conditions, and a wage cut, and a wage freeze. It’s easy to see the villain in this song as the Hormel plant. “Is it just a paycheck that I'm fighting for?”

But, with the benefit of hindsight, Hormel is only the most obvious villain. Less obvious is the fact that the UFCW itself sold out Local P-9. In an August 2019 Minnesota Post article, Susan Marks writes:

“Throughout the strike, the UFCW sided with Hormel management, eventually leading them to order Local P-9 to end the strike in June (1986). When Local P-9 refused, the UFCW suspended P-9 officers, forcing the local union into receivership as it was taken over by the parent union. The action essentially ended the strike, although it did not officially end for several more months.”
--Susan Marks, "The 1985 Hormel strike was one of Minnesota’s most contentious labor disputes," Minnesota Post, August 12, 2019

“You gave me nothing now you're taking it away.” It’s hard to not read that lyric as a critique of union leadership. Hormel hired scabs and the UFCW did nothing. Which means every member of Local P-9 was paying dues into a system that was actively undercutting them. Pirner sings, “There'd be enough to go around if I could just get around you” and the “you” in question could be Hormel, could be the UFCW, and could be in a broader sense capitalists, forever the worst part of capitalism.

Speaking of which, the deck was so stacked against this entire generation of bands, I’m glad that Soul Asylum got the golden ticket. Like I said, I’m not crazy about any of their records after Horse, but can we stop pretending like they weren’t as good as any band in America from roughly 1986-1990? And it wasn’t like they were suck-ass before ’86. Soul Asylum, like Local P-9, paid their fucking dues in a bunch of divey punk rock clubs and if they deserve to be criticized for some lesser, later efforts, they deserve to be praised for blazing a trail for Thelonious Monster, Uncle Tupelo, The Figgs, Slobberbone, and Grand Champeen.

Outro

That’s gonna do it for this week. As I said at the top of the show. you can become a member at the $5 or $20/month level by hitting that Buy Me a Coffee button at the top of the page or Support at the bottom. Please visit the Don’t Call It Nothing Facebook page and website, dontcallitnothing.squarespace.com. Like, comment, tell yo mama, and tell a friend.

Talk to ya next time when we go back to Mississippi for a little camping!

The One That Got Away

A poster that didn’t make the cut in my Episode 13 transcription. FYI, Homegrown was released in ‘97, but this show in Birmingham took place on July 17, 1999, when Blue Mountain was touring Tales Of A Traveler.

Podcast Episode 13 – 1999 (Blue Mountain + Damnations)

Damnations L-R: Rob Bernard, Deborah Kelly, Amy Boone. Hidden: Conrad Choucroun. This was the first Austin City Limits Festival in 2003. In fact, this may be the very first performance in ACL Fest history because this set was at like 11am.
Photo: Yours truly

Transcription

Theme Song: Mike Nicolai, “Trying To Get It Right” [Bandcamp]

Welcome to Don't Call It Nothing, the podcast dedicated to the lost history of '90s roots, rap, and rock 'n' roll. I’m your host Lance Davis and today we dive into 1999 as I finish up this initial run of episodes where I’ve been giving y’all a little taste of each year of the decade.

Before we get into that, though, lemme give a shout out to Will Brucher, who became a member at the $5/month level and apparently has been on the LD train since back in the Adios Lounge days. So Will, thanks so much for joining the Don’t Call It Nothing family and I have to admit, when I saw the name Will Brucher, my first thought was [Frau Blücher sample]. Anytime I can get a Young Frankenstein scene in my head, that’s a good day. If you’d like to support the only music podcast that matters you can do so at the $5 and $20/month levels. All you gotta do is hit that “Buy Me a Coffee” button at the top of the page or the “Support” button at the bottom and magic will follow. Or hell, just hang out and listen, that’s cool, too.

OK, so I was starting prep for this week’s show and thought about the If Then game. If you like Green Day, then you should like The Muffs. If you like The Stooges, then you should like Mudhoney. If you like jumping headfirst into a woodchipper, then you should like Smashing Pumpkins. That sorta thing. For shits and giggles – and I assure you, it was way more of the former than the latter – I Googled “alternative rock 1999” and the first or second link was a BuzzFeed article entitled, “25 Alternative Songs That Were Huge In 1999.” Perfect. I don’t want the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, or Pitchfork try-hard opinion. BuzzFeed is pop culture at its most basic and in a weird way, honest. There’s no pretense of art. This is music as product and brand management accessory, no more or less important than your bucket hat, Adidas warmup, and used copy of Fush Yu Mang (callback!).

I was gonna do, “If you were listening to this in 1999, then you’ll probably like that,” but when I saw the list of options I knew that gimmick was dead as Dillinger. Here’s the list. I’m not even gonna read it out in numerical order, I’m just gonna go artist-song. So, we have:

1. Filter, Take A Picture

2. No Doubt, New

3. Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly

4. Lit, My Own Worst Enemy

5. Sugar Ray, Every Morning

6. Smash Mouth, All Star

7. Blink-182, What's My Age Again?

8. Offspring, The Kids Aren't Alright

I make fun of boomers for being gaslighting loudmouth narcissists — and they are — but I'm hard-pressed to find a more functionally useless generation of white boys than my Gen X cohort. There’s a reason we went high while these dipshits wallowed in the low. Pictured: Larp Bisquick.

9. Limp Bizkit, Nookie

10. Korn, Freak On a Leash

11. Cake, Never There

12. Bush, The Chemical Between Us

13. Lo Fidelity Allstars, Battleflag

14. Fatboy Slim, Praise You

15. Moby, Bodyrock

16. Orgy, Blue Monday

17. Garbage, Special

18. Len, Steal My Sunshine

19. Lenny Kravitz, American Woman

20. Hole, Malibu

21. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Scar Tissue

22. Everlast, What It's Like

23. Creed, Higher

24. Pearl Jam, Last Kiss

25. Goo Goo Dolls, Slide

[deep sigh of disappointment]

If you were forced to listen to any of these songs in 1999 and ESPECIALLY if you like any of them, that’s called Stockholm Syndrome and it’s not your fault. I repeat, it’s not your fault. I don’t even know where to begin, but if the Chili Peppers have maybe the best song on a list of “25 Alternative Songs That Were Huge In 1999,” then you need another fucking list. I didn’t know most of these songs, so I listened on Spotify and it was like being in the back seat of your friend’s car as he weaves toward Taco Bell in a 2 am post-strip club cocaine fugue state that I would know nothing about [laughs]. Future generations need to know there was a far more meaningful 1999 happening all around the tribal tats and backward hats who dominated the public consciousness. Maybe Taco Bell actually is the best metaphor. Eat that shit long enough and you start craving the taste of shit. So much so that actual food doesn’t taste right anymore. If this describes you, if you’ve been fed a steady diet of Bizkits and Korn with a spoon, don’t fret. As it happens I specialize in palate detox.

That’s the Compulsive Gamblers with “Mystery Girl” from the band's 1999 LP, Bluff City. If that voice sounds familiar it’s Greg Cartwright, who’d very soon after this – with maybe slight overlap – give life to the Reigning Sound. If you’re not down with the Sound, get on that. However, in ‘99 Cartwright was still partnered up with Jack Yarber and they resurrected the Gamblers after breaking up The Oblivians the year prior. As far as I’m concerned, Bluff City is the best record in either band's discography to this point. Oh, and just because I’m a nerd for these kinds of factoids, the Gamblers were from Memphis, which is known as Bluff City because it sits on the Mississippi River where a number of small, rounded cliffs (aka bluffs) overlook the city. #hashbrown #themoreyouknow🌈

Conveniently, the band divided the songs fairly equally between garage rockers (Side 1) and soul weepers (Side 2). Cartwright sings most of the songs because he wrote most of the songs (eight to Yarber's two), but the two men trade guitar, bass, and organ duties as usual, with Bushrod Thomas on drums. Longtime Gambler Dale Beavers plays guitar on half the songs and Scott Bomar plays bass or piano on three.

I chose “Mystery Girl” because it’s a fantastic rocker that plays with dynamics in an interesting way. Everything we’d come to love about Reigning Sound, was foretold in this track from 1999. Another song, though, shows a more subdued side of the Gamblers, far beyond the trash rock vibe of their earlier work. And let me state for the record, I’m cool with trash rock. I am not above metaphorically dumpster diving. But, “New Romance” is Willie Nelson-esque torch pop and a clear sign not only that Greg Cartwright had found his songwriting voice, but that he’d outgrown both the Gamblers and Oblivians.

That’s the Compulsive Gamblers with the lovely “New Romance” from 1999’s Bluff City. Now we’re gonna jump onto Interstate 40 heading east-northeast. We’re going through Nashville and Knoxville, switching over to Interstate 81 and hitting Bristol and Roanoke, Virginia, switching over to Interstate 64 and heading east-southeast through Charlottesville, and ultimately settling on a farm outside of Richmond, Virginia. Before we meet the occupant of this ranch, a brief story.

On January 19, 1996, Sparklehorse opened for the band Tindersticks at the London Astoria. Later that night, bandleader Mark Linkous passed out in his hotel room after combining valium with antidepressants, possibly including alcohol and heroin. He was revived 14 hours later, his legs having been pinned under his body the whole time without circulation. So, when the medics straightened his legs out, the toxins that had pooled in his legs raced to his heart and sent him into immediate cardiac arrest. He was technically dead for three minutes. He was revived, but then his kidneys shut down, which necessitated dialysis, itself triggering a chain reaction of health and mental issues. He spent twelve weeks in a London hospital — “St. Mary's,” immortalized on track 3 of Good Morning Spider, which we’ll get to here shortly — underwent seven surgeries, graduated to a wheelchair, then leg braces, and ultimately regained full power in his legs. He moved to a 1200-acre ranch in Richmond, Virginia and built a home studio. And it was in that studio that most of Spider was created.

Sparklehorse perform “Painbirds” on Dutch television show 2 Meter Sessions. Filmed November 6, 1996.

That is Mark Linkous aka Sparklehorse with "Painbirds" from the album Good Morning Spider, which was released in Europe and Australia in 1998, but in the US in early February 1999. So, that’s why I have it here. "Painbirds" sounds like what Joe Henry was trying to do in the mid-to-late '90s, but Linkous' soul folk is so organic it makes Henry sound almost blackfacey by comparison. It's like Elliott Smith by way of Al Green. The song is held aloft by reverby guitars in each channel, a Wurlitzer, strange keyboard effects, and Linkous' unobtrusive, but insistent drum programming. At the second chorus (1:19), we quietly hear Sophie Michalitsianos (aka Sol Seppy) enter on harmony vocal, followed by a middle 16th (1:34-2:23) featuring Paul Watson (cornet, panned center-left) and electric guitar (panned right). The third verse begins (2:25) with a swell of mellotron strings, followed by Linkous and Michalitsianos singing co-lead, but the voices are run through a delay and split off into each channel, so it's like 3-4 voices floating above the bed of guitar and keyboard funk. The song doesn't build to a riotous conclusion. Instead, at 3:25 a Mellotron bursts open with fluttering organ lines, faux strings, and tinkling bells.

In interviews at the time, Linkous made it known that he experimented with a lot of different keyboards. In an interview with TapeOp that ran in February 1999, he says:

"I wanted this record to be more keyboard based than the last one, just soundwise. There's a lot of Optigan on there. I have a couple of Wurlitzer organs that are kind of messed up and that's why they sound good. I have a Magnus Cathedral organ, it's a fancy Magnus in a wood cabinet with a tube amp in it. I also have little Casios."
–Mark Linkous to Adam Selzer, Tape Op, February 1999

Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse
Photo: Bo-Ho Films

Good Morning Spider is a masterpiece of rural snowglobe folk. By the end of the decade, a number of underground American rock bands/artists – Sparklehorse, My Morning Jacket, Will Oldham in his various forms, Vic Chesnutt, Drive-By Truckers, Centro-Matic, Mercury Rev, The Glands, the entirety of the Elephant 6 community, and though the Flaming Lips weren't underground necessarily, I'd include them in this list – which flipped the folk paradigm by embracing the acoustic guitar-based folk song, but surrounding said guitar with heavy drums, distorted guitars, pedal steel and banjo, a bunch of different vintage keyboards and synths, lo-fi recording techniques, close mic vocals, lots of space, reverb, and claustrophobia. Being out of key or using non-traditional harmonies wasn't necessarily a dealbreaker.

This generation of bands were predominantly rural or rural-adjacent, many of them in the south, midwest, and Texas. It's not that authentic folk artistry can't be made in New York or Los Angeles (see: The Bicycle Thief), it's that the sanding down effect of the industry rarely allows for flaws, mistakes, and eccentricities. Songs always need to be louder or prettier or cleaner, not because that will make them better songs, but because the industry always needs to let you know it's in charge. This is the luxury of living outside of Richmond, Virginia, or Athens, Georgia, or Denton, Texas, or Buffalo, New York, or Norman, Oklahoma. You're not constantly bombarded by industry influence and expectations. What you're "supposed to do and sound like." Those things are abstractions. That these bands mostly recorded in home studios makes perfect sense. Ruralness, and its attendant outsiderness, creates a kind of punk rock siege mentality in its denizens. Instead of chasing the pop star dragon, musicians like Mark Linkous were hunkering down in bunkers of their own making (i.e. snowglobes).

For all of the folk touches and soft keys, Good Morning Spider leads off with "Pig," an epic punk rocker that Linkous wrote to his new, broken body. He was understandably angry that after the overdose and death his body didn't work the same. That's why he calls himself "a butchered cow." That isn't what makes this song special, though. If a band's significance is tied at least somewhat to their influence on later music, "Pig" basically invents A Giant Dog, the best rock 'n' roll band of the 2010s. The song is all slash-and-burn guitar riffs, Scott Minor on drums, and Mitchalitsianos' overdriven, snarling lead vocals doubled in the chorus that evoke Sabrina Ellis from A Giant Dog.

Coincidentally, A Giant Dog hails from Austin, which is where our final band called home in 1999. However, before we settle in the 512, I wanna head back to Oxford, Mississippi. We first visited this college town in the 1997 episode when I highlighted the mighty Neckbones. This time I want to highlight the band who blazed a trail for them and Tyler Keith, lead Neckbone, had a great quote to this effect. In 2007, he told Newt Rayburn of The Local Voice, an entertainment weekly based in Oxford:  

"We looked up to Blue Mountain as a model because they did a lot of stuff themselves. They worked extremely hard, you know? I’d go over to their house and they were playing music all the time, they always had a gig, Laurie (Stirratt) always worked the phone. Blue Mountain, they were really a model as far as working music. (And ) they didn’t drink which helped them immensely, I’m sure."
–Tyler Keith to Newt Rayburn, The Local Voice #31, June 28, 2007

That’s Oxford, Mississippi’s Blue Mountain with the leadoff track from 1999’s Tales Of A Traveler CD. Written by Stirratt, “When You’re Not Mine” is lovely country pop featuring clever three-part harmony. Cary Hudson's voice is surrounded by not one, but two Lauries, giving the song extra punch. Lots of acoustic guitars, I think I hear a 12-string, and a slide guitar is prominent. I never go far without being reminded of Big Star.

Let’s be clear, though. Blue Mountain couldn't catch a fucking break. Wrong label (a metal label for the love of God), bad contract, no place on the radio, and even here in 2021 this album isn't on Spotify. Which is too bad because it’s their best record. Just kidding. That’s Dog Days. But, the first eight tracks on Tales are close to flawless. "When You're Not Mine" to "My Wicked Wicked Ways" is a helluva run and "Just Passing Through” is an elite closer. Worth mentioning, too, that this was their first album as a quartet. Not that Cary Hudson needed any help on guitar, but George Sheldon joining on bass and piano allowed Laurie to play rhythm guitar and start writing songs, which were both positive developments in Camp Black Dog. The extra guitar filled out the band's sound, which was made formidable mostly by Cary on spitfire Les Paul, as well as organ, harmonica, fiddle, and piano. But, having the versatile and reliable Frank Coutch on drums was a nice security blanket for both songwriters. For example …

That’s the great Blue Mountain with “Poppa,” a big dog '70s rock jam with all the riffs, wah wah, and cowbell your heart can stand. Reminds me a bit of Neil Young and Danny Whitten’s "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown." As I said earlier, this album isn’t on Spotify, so a bunch of people who might dig Tales Of A Traveler probably have no idea it even exists. The same is true of our final band in Austin, Texas, where it seemed inconceivable at the time that The Damnations (aka the Damnations TX) didn't break bigger. It didn't help that their record label (Sire) was going through a reorg just as the band’s debut, Half Mad Moon, came out in 1999. Deck chair reshuffling aside, when you have two talented, beautiful sisters – Deborah Kelly (acoustic guitar, lead & harmony vocals) and Amy Boone (bass, piano, lead & harmony vocals) – with honey voices, natural harmonies, and comfortable with several different permutations of roots soul you wouldn't think that'd be difficult to market. In fact, they were impossible to market. They were too country for rock stations, too I don't know what for AAA. In 1999, Adult (Album) Alternative wanted women to sound like Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Sarah McLachlan, and Natalie Merchant. The Damnations weren't crust punks, but they certainly weren't auditioning for Lilith Fair.

That’s the Damnations with the lead single from their 1999 debut, Half Mad Moon. "Unholy Train" sounds like Motown by way of The Monkees’ “Mary Mary.” Amy's bass is way out in front of the beat like James Jamerson as drummer Conrad Choucroun sits in the pocket. Rob Bernard weaves in and out with Keef riff while the Jon Blondell Horns get brassy in the chorus. It's a wonderful single that went nowhere because people hate nice things.

But, you come to the Damnations for those lovely vocals. "Black Widow" is a slow blues about their amp getting stolen with Amy on lead and Deb on harmony. "Catch You Alive" is a Mike Nicolai song on which Deb sings lead and I love how she climbs higher and higher, Amy joining her at "catch you alive." For pure harmony magic, it's hard to top "No Sign Of Water," a Boone track that in retrospect reads like a metaphor for the music industry itself. Pitch perfect heartbreak with the sisters dropping pearls of wisdom, my favorite being, "They don’t ask for much, but it ends up being everything." Truth.

That’s the Damnations with “No Sign Of Water” from their 1999 debut, Half Mad Moon. Sadly, the album is not on Spotify, but it is well worth tracking down. So, I’m gonna leave you today with some bonus Damnations. At the very end of last week’s show I made a Y2K joke and as it happens, on the night of Y2K (December 31, 1999), I was at Stubb’s BBQ in Austin. The Gourds and Damnations were gonna serenade us as the world imploded due to a clerical error. SPOILER ALERT: The world did not end. However, we did not know that at the time, so everybody at Stubb’s that night was shiiiiitfaced [laughs]. You can track down The Gourds' set on archive.org and I kid you not, Kevin Russell is so drunk at one point that he starts singing in a British accent [laughs]. I was so drunk I fell asleep walking home. But, even on a night of unadulterated hedonism there’s gonna be a sweet spot, a point where the anxiety, excitement, and mind-altering components synergize before they break down, derail, and fully antagonize. And that sweet spot was the end of the Damnations set.

That’s the Damnations from Stubb’s BBQ on the night of December 31, 1999, aka Y2K. Rob Bernard led us through a glorious rendition of Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” and then they romped through Ted Hawkins’ “Watch Your Step.” These are the kind of gold nuggets you get on Don’t Call It Nothing. Again, you can become a member at the $5 or $20/month level by hitting that Buy Me a Coffee button at the top of the page or Support at the bottom. Please visit the Don’t Call It Nothing Facebook page and website, dontcallitnothing.squarespace.com. Like, comment, tell yo mama, and tell a friend.

Talk to ya next time!

Podcast Episode 12 – 1998 (OutKast)

Transcription

Theme Song: Mike Nicolai, “Trying To Get It Right” [Bandcamp]

Welcome to Don't Call It Nothing, the podcast dedicated to the lost history of '90s roots, rap, and rock 'n' roll. I’m your host Lance Davis and if you want to support the only music podcast that matters you can do so at the $5 and $20/month levels. Heads up, I haven’t done any bonus episodes to this point because I felt like I needed to get the feel for actual episodes before jumping in with the extras. Well, I kinda feel like I’m there now and to that end I’ve been sketching out some biographical stuff, so I can talk a little bit about my family background and where that intersects with music – or not. Anyway, I’m aiming for the first bonus episode to publish sometime in the next week.

Speaking of which, next week will be the 1999 episode and that will conclude my initial run of episodes where I’ve been focusing on a little slice from each year of the decade. After ’99 I’m toying with a few different ideas, but honestly, I’m open to whatever. If you’re not a family member, I’m fine if you just hang out and chill, but if you wanna join the cool kids’ club like I said I have the $5/month level and $20/month level. Hit that “Buy Me a Coffee” button at the top of the page and work it out.

OK, so 1998 was a massive year for rap and I could go in a hundred different directions, but I wanna begin in the south. I actually started 1998 living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which, coincidentally, was home to one of the genre’s biggest names. But I’ll confess, I don’t think I’ve heard a single Master P track that I’ve liked and outside of a few Snoop songs, the entire No Limit catalog does nothing for me. However, in August of 1998 I moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a three-hour drive straight down I-20 from the soul of hip hop: Atlanta, GA.

That’s OutKast with “Chonkyfire” from the album that finally kicked the door open for southern rap. Aquemini (rhymes with Gemini) is a joyous celebration of southern blackness, a reconsideration of drug life and thug life in a "three strikes" world, and the impact of technology on black America. It's a showcase for André 3000 and Big Boi's upper level verbal flow and rhyme scheming, in tandem with the Organized Noize production squad — at the time essentially inventing trap music. Best of all, Aquemini incorporates live instrumentation throughout: acoustic guitars and Eddie Hazel/Jimi Hendrix-inspired electric guitars, piano, Moog synths, drums, of course there’s that harmonica drop in the middle of "Rosa Parks," and a full-on horn section in "SpottieOttieDopaliscious." There's vocal contributions from Cee-Lo and Erykah Badu, who at the time in a relationship with André. "Synthesizer" was written by and featured vocals from hip hop godfather, George Clinton. And in arguably the album's most important collaboration, Raekwon from Wu-Tang takes a verse in "Skew It On The Bar-B." If OutKast was standing on the verge of getting it on going into the Aquemini sessions, they were in it to win it after.

Big Boi (L) and Andre 3000 on the 1998 Source cover shoot
Photo: Jonathan Mannion

I love these words from David Dennis, Jr, a southern black man, who speaks of the album from a much deeper, more profound place than I ever could. He wrote the following passage for The Undefeated in September 2018 on the 20th anniversary of Aquemini’s release. He says:

The idea of having pride in the South has for a long time generally been associated with whiteness. ‘Southern pride’ conjures images of Confederate flags and a longing for a time when the states below the Mason-Dixon could own black people. But what about black Southerners? What do we have pride in? Growing up in Mississippi, I didn’t find any pride in my elementary school named after Jefferson Davis. I didn’t find pride in the Dixie flag fluttering above my head every time I drove through downtown Jackson.

But when Andre 3000 grabbed the mic at the Source Awards, he gave black kids a South to be proud of. They made us feel pride in a place that wasn’t made for us to feel happy in. That night in New York shifted the culture. Black kids had been wearing Timbs in hot Mississippi streets because they wanted to be like the Wu-Tang Clan. We thought that being like a New Yorker was the pinnacle of black culture, and that if we could make it out of the South, then we’d make futures for ourselves. But what Andre 3000 proclaimed that night, and what OutKast together declared on Aquemini, was that surviving and thriving in the South was its own victory.

OutKast showed us our reflections as seen in the shiny spokes of Volkswagens and Bonnevilles, Chevrolets and Coupe de Villes bouncing off Old National Highway potholes. They reminded us of the life we could find pride in. The Bayou Classics. The Essence Festivals. Music crafted with the same love and care that the Gullah use to weave a perfectly made handbasket. That perfect slap of a domino smacking the table to drown out the sound of stomachs growling waiting for the ribs to get off the grill.

While we were fighting for monuments of oppressive Southern pride to get torn down, OutKast was constructing a monument to the beauty in the ugliness around us. Aquemini was a love letter to home – a reminder that we were imperfect kings and queens in flip-flops and socks. Aquemini‘s promise was that, if we turned our love inward toward the place that raised us, then we’d see the beauty around us. Because excellence is only magnified by the obstacles overcome to get there. That’s why OutKast including that Source clip at the end of the album is so powerful. They stuck the landing.
—David Dennis, Jr, The Undefeated, September 27, 2018

The reference to “that Source clip” is to the 1995 Source Awards when OutKast was booed by the New York crowd for winning Best New Artist.

Andre told em, “The south got something to say,” and they did. I talk a lot about the toxic effect of gatekeeping and I’m usually referencing white male boomers. In this case, hip hop itself was at a crossroads because it was assumed that “real” hip hop came from New York or California. Booing OutKast, then, represented both real and symbolic gatekeeping. Real in that Dre and Big Boi walked onto that stage hearing real boos, but symbolic in that it wasn’t necessarily about OutKast. It was the idea that ANY southern rap act had “something to say” was outside the box. With Aquemini, Dre and Big Boi were basically saying to hip hop’s gatekeepers, “Why the fuck you need boxes? What are you trying to do? Build a clubhouse?”

OutKast was pushing the envelope in ways other than awards shows. Beginning in around 1997, Dre started wearing turbans, scarves, and blonde wigs and the hip hop community started asking questions like the ones heard on “Return Of The G.” “Big Boi what's up with Andre? Is he in a cult? Is he on drugs? Is he gay?” In fact, at the end of that track is a skit where someone says:

“First they was some pimps, man. Then they was some aliens, or some genies, or some shit. Then they be talkin' about that black righteous space. Whatever, man. Fuck them. I ain’t fuckin' with them no more, man.”

Andre 3000 and Erykah Badu in the late ‘90s

This dumb controversy shows the ingrained heteronormativity and homophobia within hip hop, which is to say fragile masculinity isn’t the sole province of white dudes. On another level, though, questions about the group’s creative direction speak to the destructive power of conformity. When they played the stereotypical pimp role, OutKast was beloved. It was when they started tapping into their higher consciousness that the questions started coming. They could’ve coasted on Pimp Trick Gangsta Clique and by the time Aquemini came out they would’ve been over. Instead, they worked on their craft, experimented, kept some things, ditched others, and evolved, so that by the time Aquemini came out they were ready to write “Return Of The G.” Big Boi initially fought for “Y’all Scared” as the leadoff track, but having “G” up front was a masterstroke. Right out the box they addressed everything while being straight up gangsta, satirizing gangsta, and elevating gangsta with live drums, live keyboards, either a real harp or a harp sound on a synth, gospel vocals, and cinematic sound effects. It was the thing and a comment on the thing with Dre and Big Boi performing a magic trick where you’re so busy looking at the cards that you don’t notice them picking the pockets of their idiot gatekeepers. Respect.

That’s OutKast with “Return Of The G” from 1998’s landmark album, Aquemini. In repping Atlanta, Dre and Big Boi were the rising tide that lifted a lot of local boats, one of which were their close friends in Goodie Mob. To be honest, I want to love these guys, but I find them kinda generic. Not terrible, just unremarkable, and mainly worth mentioning in 2021 because the Mob’s most talented member, Cee-Lo Green, would become bigtime by the end of the following decade. However, there is one moment in the Goodie Mob discography where motive meets opportunity and it happened in 1998.

Whatever misgivings I have about Goodie Mob, “Black Ice (Sky High)” is an elite fucking jam. The first three verses and hook are from Big Gipp and man, that hook!

Touch what I never touched before
Seen what I never seen before
Woke up and seen the sun
Sky high, sky high

The fourth verse is Big Boi and the fifth and final verse is Andre – who, by the way, also plays bass. And the final lines of that final verse = so good. Dre says:

"We've all indulged in the bulge of those no-nos
No, you ain't solo/so low, there's even lower levels you can go
Take sun people, put 'em in a land of/Atlanta snow"

On the lyrics website Genius, “Black Ice” has a pair of annotations that interpret these lyrics pretty much the way I did. The first says, “Nobody is innocent. We have all done gritty things (no-no’s) but some of those actions might be done out of necessity in order to make ends meet and put food on the table. However, the sin of the average man pales in comparison to the crime of selling Africans (sun people) into slavery and bringing them to the relatively cold climate of North America or, more recently, housing them in bad neighborhoods where cocaine is being pushed (a land of snow). The next note follows up with, “I’ve always thought that solo here was used for multiple meanings based on the lyric before and after it. ‘We’ve all indulged,’ so you’re not solo, but ‘there’s even lower levels you can go’ so you’re not so low.”

That’s quality. Now let’s leave the south and head west.

In the way The Gourds or Uncle Tupelo can be a gateway into country, bluegrass, and folk music, Del The Funky Homosapien can be a gateway into hip hop for people a little slow to the form. If you're a Tribe Called Quest fan I think you’ll enjoy any of Del’s records, but his 1998 album, Future Development, is my favorite. Del is an underrated lyricist and vocally reminds me of Slick Rick in the way he extends rhymes, lands on odd (but correct) beats, and uses overlapping vocal tracks, so it's like he's harmonizing with himself and/or finishing his own sentences. It’s a really cool effect.

Some of you old heads may remember his 1991 hit, "Mistadobalina" ("Mista Bob Dobalina"). That was his breakout single after signing with Elektra, who very much exploited the fact that Del’s cousin was Ice Cube, who was listed as producer. In fact, Sir Jinx did most of the work and they came up with a few gems. "Sleepin' On My Couch," for instance. I love that tune, you should check it out. But, Del didn’t wanna be seen as riding his cousin’s coattails, especially since he was the opposite of gangsta rap. So, he moved up to the Bay Area and hooked up with the Hieroglyphics Crew, who handled his second record, 1993’s No Need For Alarm. That album would've been better with 10-11 tracks instead of 14, but "Catch A Bad One," "Worldwide," "In And Out," and "Don't Forget" are must listens.

That brings us to late 1996/early 1997, when Del originally started work on Future Development, splitting production duties with A-Plus and Opio from Souls Of Mischief, another Hieroglyphics crew. Elektra realized by that point they were never gonna get Ice Cube sales, so they dropped the Funky Homosapien from the label. In a move that presaged the music business of the 21st century, Del finished Future Development – a remarkably prescient title – and instead of waiting around for a major label to pick him up and distribute it, he said, “Fuck it,” and released a no frills cassette version exclusively through the Hiero Imperium website. Hiero Imperium being the label created by the Hieroglyphics crew. So, they originally issued it in 1998, reissued it on cassette in 2000, and then finally in 2002 it was released on double vinyl and CD.

I love Del because he delivers minimalist funk that swings. We get lean basslines and keyboards that sound like actual instruments, integrated with drums that are usually programmed. However, "Del's Nightmare" features an actual kit.

From 1998’s Future Development, that’s Del The Funky Homosapien with "Del's Nightmare," a brutally honest depiction of life under white supremacy, which is why you get the John Carpenter-esque piano. Whether it's a cotton field, church pew, or record rack, white America has been psychotically obsessed with control from day one. The genius of “Nightmare” is how it juxtaposes the control mechanisms of slavery (the first verse) with the control mechanisms of the major label (the second verse). But, right in the middle of the song, hiding in plain sight at the end of the first verse, Del notes white America’s complicity all along. He says:

"Now it's '96 and white people say,
'Forget it. It's all in the past.'
And some even regret it
Cause they think we'll set it

In other words, white people want the luxury of American history beginning right now. The rest of us have to live with generational trauma, but white America is gonna die on the hill where everything that happened before right now is ancient history and in no way connected to our current reality. Anyone noting, for example, structural incompetence and inequity built into the American sociopolitical landscape by very deliberate white people … forget it. It’s all in the past. Get over it. The music industry is merely another manifestation of the American plantation, a gangster economy leveraging the depredations of contract law, itself codifying white supremacy for centuries.

Future Development features plenty of pot smoking and dissing of wack MCs. Standard fare rap subjects. But, we also get deceptively radical feminism — especially within male hip hop — where Del openly discusses how men bully, abuse, and objectify women within relationships. He also paints a vivid portrait of a dude having no clue and blaming the woman for it. Check it.

Excerpt starts at 2:18

Love Is Worth
Now put yourself in the shoes of this guy
You fall in love with this girl and you don't know why (why dude?)
Cause you don't feel the same but you give it a try
Eyes wide, like you a child in a candy store
Even though you the one she couldn't stand before
Cause you was houndin' her, surroundin' her (damn) with confusion
You used to be friends, but now the friendship is losin'
Cause you visualize the romance, she like "no hands off"
She don't wanna fuck with no man, "not even a slow dance?"
You tried to kiss her and she even agrees
But that don't mean you about to be Adam and Eve
In the Garden of Eden, but maybe for the evening
You say she leading you on, but you just added pressure
Of course she like you, you're friends don't try to test her
She says she likes you as a friend, not a lover or wife
So get a life, let her live hers and find another
Don't let her smash your ego, cause we know you're great
Let it be her mistake, yeah
Don't waste your time bro cause you know
If she don't appreciate what he do for her
Then tell me why he should wait around

You got to know what your love is worth
Baby boy you got to know what your love is worth
Baby girl you got to know what your love is worth
Everybody got to know what their love is worth

That’s Del The Funky Homosapien with a little excerpt from “Love Is Worth” from 1998’s Future Development. Now another track on the record, "Corner Story," displays the rich specificity of a master storyteller, but I also appreciate that it weaves its social commentary inside of a party jam. In fact, that this is primarily a story about a group of friends going to the corner store to buy beer and Swisher Sweets might be the best thing about it. So much black art understandably focuses on past trauma, but pure joy exists, too, and it’s ok to celebrate that. Del acknowledges domestic violence, his lifestyle conflict with the Nation of Islam, and that the inner city has limited access to healthy and affordable food, what we now call a “food desert.” However, the song is ultimately about hanging with your friends.

Excerpt starts at 2:30

Corner Story
"But anyway, we pass the local grocery store
And you can be sure the meats and the produce ain't good no more
Some of it is from days before
I want it fresh and the clerk ain't my race so he stress
They doin me in my community, fuck it, we there
Ain't enough for a six-pack so we had to share
A nice little stroll through the April spring air
We hide our shit so the Nation (of Islam) don't see it there"

We 'bout to roll to the corner me and my crew
We 'bout to roll to the corner and get us some brew
We 'bout to roll to the corner and some swishers too
So we can roll a fat blunt and get perved

Let’s stay in Los Angeles for my final spotlight artist from 1998. I’m gonna guess that most of you are unfamiliar with Ras Kass – R A S K A S S – but he’s an unbelievably talented lyricist and rapper who got his start in the ‘90s. If you haven’t heard 1995’s “Nature Of The Threat,” your mind will be blown. I promise you I’m not hyperbolizing when I say it’s basically “It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)” multiplied by Gil Scott-Heron. I’ll do a podcast on that one later. In ’98, Ras released his second full-length, Rassassination and most of the album is hood music about drinking, getting laid, cars, guns, etc. I’m not a huge fan, but it has its moments. However, right in the middle of Rassassination is "Interview With A Vampire,” a three-way conversation between Ras, God, and Satan, in an effort to understand Christian teachings and the role of black people in it. What I wanna do is play the song, but then I’m gonna play a clip of Ras himself talking about the song.

That’s the great Ras Kass with 1998’s “Interview With A Vampire.” Now, here’s Ras discussing the song in 2018 as part of a series on his YouTube channel called “Line 4 Line.” Basically, he selects a passage from certain songs in his catalog and then discusses the lyrics.

That’s Ras Kass breaking down the opening lines of his 1998 masterpiece, “Interview With A Vampire.” There’s a tendency to see rap music and rap artists as cartoonish monoliths because, well, let’s just call it social training. But, there’s always context. There’s always layers. Hip hop is gangsta and poetry. It’s stark reality and exaggerated simulation of reality. It can be homophobic, misogynistic, and a brilliant dissection of white male supremacy. It’s the thing and the comment on the thing, ugly and beautiful and fucked up and angry and thoughtful. Like America, it contains multitudes.

And now that your brain is all tingly, let’s go to an August 2019 conversation between Ras Kass, Talib Kweli, and Jasmin Leigh. You might know Kweli from his work with Mos Def in Black Star whose lone album came out in ’98, so look at us staying on point. Kass, Kweli, and Leigh talk for almost an hour and a half and it’s a great listen. In this particular clip, the first voice you’re gonna hear is Kass saying, “There’s a problem in America.” Leigh responds a couple of times — she’s the only woman on set — but Kweli doesn’t really chime in until talking about Stone Mountain, Georgia. Just so you have all of the voices in your head straight. OK, here we go.

Excerpt is from 33:47-40:00

That’s Ras Kass, Talib Kweli, and Jasmin Leigh discussing how race and class are weaponized in America through hierarchy. It’s a spirited discussion and Kass and Leigh disagree over the placement of black men and black women in the heirarchy. But, who’s on bottom isn’t the point so much as who’s on top, you know? I like how Kweli swoops in – like a good host – and assures both Ras and Jasmin that they’re both right. You didn’t think I’d end a hip hop podcast with a dap to empathy, but here we are. I’m full of surprises.

Outro

Friends, you can surprise me by subscribing to this podcast and thank you if you’ve already done so. You can become a member at the $5 or $20/month level by hitting that Buy Me a Coffee button at the top of the page. Please visit the Don’t Call It Nothing Facebook page and website, dontcallitnothing.squarespace.com. Like, comment, tell yo mama, and tell a friend.

Talk to ya next time when we explore 1999! Y2K!