Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson

My parents dropped us on the corner.
My mom said have fun and my dad said stay out of trouble, and we walked past two girls in skimpy clothes.
One of us remembered that the tickets were still in the car.
My brother knew our seat numbers and they let us in.
A weird looking dude opened.
We thought he sounded kind of like Elvis Costello.
We had no idea while we waited between shows that we were about to see the best concert we ever would.
Had we known we would have been even more excited and probably a little sad.
We were in high school and loved music more than anything except maybe football.
Over the next forty some years the Boss and Dylan and Richard Thompson and the Mekons and Warren Zevon and some other guys came close but no one ever topped that show.
Maybe it was the dope.
I think it was nineteen-seventy-eight (give or take) and I know my brother bought my ticket and probably wanted to take a girl and settled for me (thank God) and someone in the front row handed Mick Ronson a joint and he sucked it down during Walkin' With A Mountain or All The Way From Memphis and I'm drop dead certain Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson fronted the best rock and roll band in the world for at least one night.
I have proof.
Ask Brown Deer.
He'll tell you the truth.

He will also tell you that if Mott The Hoople ain't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame they ought to burn that pretty little building down and start again.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

He couldn't place a smell while he cooked for her he kept one eye on the door.
She loved her husband still and more he knew.
Her husband was his friend.
He was looking out for her and protecting his investment.
They thought her husband was dead.
He wasn't.
That changed everything.

They waited in a shack in a canyon in northern California.
He rigged a kick ass light and sound system for his hippie friends before he joined the Army.
He planed to use the canyon, the light and sound system and his considerable arsenal to keep their enemies at bay and it almost worked.

She was doing a lot of heroine he smuggled from Vietnam that some guys wanted pretty bad.
He knew they were fucked even back in Nam when he and her husband hatched the plan.
So he tried to keep her alive until he could figure something out.
He wasn't sure he could.

He was an all American clean cut kid before the shit hit the skid and the car flipped and caught fire on an empty highway in the middle of nowhere he metaphorically ran out of gas.

His lover and his friend barley escaped.
She still had to dry out and her husband had to explain why he risked it all for a half million bucks.

They found him on the empty road a half mile from where they were to rendezvous and left him.
They had too.
They were not truly safe yet and loved each other more than they loved him and he knew that while he ran down the road singing basic training songs to keep going (in case they needed him) until he couldn't and they didn't need him anymore.

Elvis

I was watching
Monday Night Football
with my father
when I heard Elvis died.

I know this could be
false testimony
if he didn't die
on a Monday
and if that's the case

I do not mislead
on purpose
and I still think about
that night
sometimes
whether I remember it
correctly or not
it never fails
to make me sad.
I do know
I was with my dad
and we were watching TV
and my father probably
said something disparaging
about Elvis.
He wasn't a fan
and neither was I
at the time.
I knew less then
than I know now
and I don't know much
at this moment
but I do know
my father and I
were wrong
about Elvis.
He sort of invented
rock and roll
for God's sake.

I know some people say
it was Ike Turner
and the old blues' guys
deserve a lot of credit
but somebody had to bring it
to the masses
with clarity and style
if Elvis hadn't

this mean old world

may have never heard
Smoke On The Water
Born To Run
and Maggie Mae
(to name just a few)
and I wouldn't
want to live in a world
without that
wonderful noise.
Would you?

Thanks Elvis.

Sugar

We wrote the songs on the fly with the tape rolling the night Daniel Mattes and I invented "grunge".

Daniel manned a keyboard and I played a cheap electric guitar Daniel had laying around his apartment.

The next night Tom showed up with an acoustic guitar and added some blues licks.

If Daniel or I wanted to play the songs we wrote that fateful weekend tonight we wouldn't know how to play them because we never did.

Whenever I tell people that my friend and I invented "grunge" they don't believe me and I lost the tape about ten years ago so I guess we'll never get the credit we deserve.

So be it.


I guess it doesn't matter if John Doe or King Buzzo or Niel Young or Kurt Cobain or Daniel Mattes and I are the Godfathers of "grunge" but it is worth noting that Sugar perfected the sound in recording studios and dive bars around the world

For about five years nothing sounded grander.

That's what really matters.

I wonder what happened to Daniel?

Mekons

I was shouting

There are eighteen wheelers on my front lawn
The truckers love my ma' but they don't stay long
One might be my pa' but I don't know
Oh no Dotsero I'd leave you but I love you Dotsero

and banging on an old beat up acoustic guitar.

Tom was playing a fake black telecaster (he was the only one plugged in). We saw X in an alley about a week before so he thought he was Billy Zoom. Someone yelled turn your fucking amp down! Tom stopped playing and said, I'm the only one here that knows what he's doing.

Lee was a decent singer but he didn't know the words to the song.
Danny had never played the drums but he had rhythm so he got the job. I told him to keep it simple.
Brown Deer was turning the tape recorder on and off.
We have to communicate, I said.
What? someone yelled.
Turn that Goddamn amp down, I said to Tom. He turned it up to nine.
Danny tried a drum roll.
This is pointless, Brown Deer said, and lit a joint.
I put my guitar down. Give me that, I said.
Let's try a different song, Tom said.
Lee knew one verse to I Walk The Line so we tried that until we ran out of coke.
Someone said, we should get some more, and that was a good idea but we were broke.