I suppose that many many blogs will reflect on John today. Maybe we can be reminded to reflect on all of the positive things that John gave the world more than once a year. He was just a man… with all of the flaws that come with that lofty title. Yet, he cast a light on us and helped us see what was possible.

Thank you, John.

Rest In Peace.

(Just Give Me Some Truth - John Lennon - (from: Imagine)
[audio:Lennon,John - Give Me Some Truth.mp3]

I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Money for dope
Money for rope

I’m sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mama’s little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now

I’ve had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
It’s money for dope
Money for rope

Ah, I’m sick to death of hearing things
from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

I’ve had enough of reading things
by neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

Carol Willis from Hit & Run, the management group that represents Genesis (and Phil Collins, and Mike & the Mechanics, and…), said on December 1st:

“There are no decisions by Genesis to perform anywhere whatsoever at this time. This situation will not alter in the next twelve months.”

So, that’s pretty much… that.

I’d love to see them do it, but they certainly have no obligation to anyone.

There’s always hope. One negative statement from Hit & Run is no more convincing than the positive statements that Gabriel, Hackett and Collins have recently made in the press. Still, I guess we’re going to have to call the chances: slim & none.

And just my luck - The Musical Box’s presentation of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is about to leave the US. Only 4 dates left in PA, MA and NY. I’ve gotta try to keep up.
Genesis

Dear Tori,

This is what you’ve been trying to cop from me for the last 15 years. Please try to keep up.

Love,
Kate

Well, at least that’s the way I see it. If you haven’t heard already, Kate Bush has a new release out, titled “Aerial”, and it’s really amazing. Apparently, Kate’s been busy raising a son for over a decade - but she finally decided to let us hear what’s been in her head.

There’s so much to say about what I’m hearing on “Aerial”… that for right now, I choose to simply say:

Buy it. Listen to it. Love it.

I missed you, Kate. Welcome home.

I’m a big time Flaming Lips fan. They’ve traveled a lot of musical roads over the history of the band, but all of it has, at a minimum, intrigued me. Clouds Taste Metallic, The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots did more than just intrigue me - those albums obsessed me. They captured something special about these strange guys from Oklahoma. Something hard to put your finger on… which makes it all that much more special.

I’m excited to hear that The Lips are working on a new album, planned for an March 2006 release. At War With The Mystics is going to have much more rock guitar goodness, which is a good thing. It also sounds like the band was inspired by their work on the cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, and Steven Drozd has done some further experimenting with heavy layering of harmony vocals.

Wayne Coyne also makes numerous references to a “Black Sabbath feel” in this article from Billboard. I think that’s probably a relative reference as opposed to an absolute one, but one can never quite tell where The Lips are going next.

That’s exactly why I love them.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the band that I was in from 1995 through 2001 - Bickley. Bickley was a punk rock band. Bickley eventually became many things - a regional (if not national) success, a way of life, a series of truly crazy experiences, and complex web of urban myths. Bickley also became an aesthetic for the guys in the band - we knew if something was “Bickley”, and if it was, we pursued it with unbridled passion.

As with most bands that last uninterrupted for 6 years, there are more stories to tell than I will ever remember. In the coming months I’m going to recall some of those stories - both fun, sad, and scary. If nothing else, there’s some sort of therapy in it for me. And if I’m lucky, perhaps an old Bickley fan will stumble upon this site and share in the fun.

So let me tell you how the whole thing started:

Randy Morris, a close friend of mine since grade school and my former college roommate, had met and become close friends with a guy named Matt Lambeth. Matt was a self-proclaimed “art fag”. He had attended art school at the San Francisco Art Institute, and experienced the punk and art scene of San Francisco during the mid and late 1980s. Another one of Matt’s close friends was Steve Hitt. Steve had been a graphic artist in Houston for a number of years and had even done a stint as a stand-up comedian. I had met these clowns through Randy, and we had done a few things together - primarily related to drinking too much beer and listening to music. So, as fate would have it, one night we ended up at The Blue Iguana (RIP), playing pool, drinking beer, and generally being debaucherous. And then it happened…

Someone mentioned Laverne and Shirley. Someone did a Squiggy impression. And then, Steve began to sing the title song to the hit TV show. And I don’t mean he just sang it - he really sang it. With a slight edge to his voice, and a genuine inspiration that was clearly fueled by the 3 Guinness Stouts he had already drank - he completely blew us all away. I remember standing there with a pool cue in my hand, thinking - damn - this guy should be in a band. So I just said it - “let’s form a band!”. What happened after that will always be a bit of a haze to me, but I do know that Steve, Matt, Randy and I started hanging out at my house once a week, playing in the upstairs loft.

It really happened so easily. Looking back on it, I remember that we had to go and buy Matt a drumset - he hadn’t owned one since high school. He didn’t have enough money to buy one outright - so Steve and I pitched in a little and helped him out. We told him that we’d either become big rock stars and he could pay us later - or we’d just sell the kit when things got boring and get our money back. We bought an old but good Pearl set from Rockin Robin’s in Houston. They were really helpful until somebody handed them the cash, and then they basically opened the side door and told us to load it up on our own. If I remember correctly, we snagged two extra cymbals and stands
It started out innocently enough. We were playing Nirvana, REM, old Green Day, and Queers covers, and fooling around with a few simple songs of our own. At that point, I don’t think anyone really thought we would ever really play a show. We’d just waste a few hours each week making noise. Our biggest fan at that point (besides the four of us!) was my next door neighbor, who would wash his car in the driveway every time we played, and whoop and holler after each song (or when we just fell apart and stopped). I never did find out who filed the noise complaint with the neighborhood patrol - but I’m positive it wasn’t our #1 fan. It must have the people on the other side of my house!

At this same time, another mutual friend of ours - Sean Kelley - was having some success with a band of his own, Sad Pygmy. Sean (better known to the world as C-Dog) and his girlfriend (now wife) Carol Sandin, along with Phil Krieg and Bob Lederer made up the psycho punk band that was Sad Pygmy. We’d all go see them play around town - Deep Phat, Emo’s, The Blue Iguana - and often we’d end up at their practices in Francisco Studios - a scary old warehouse next to a Chinese fortune cookie bakery in the Houston warehouse district. It was after one of these Sad Pygmy practices that C-Dog asked Matt, Randy, Steve and I to play a couple of our original songs for him.

It was the first audience we had as “Bickley” (we didn’t have a name at that point - more on how “Bickley” became our name later), and we played 3 songs - Dino, Superman, and Call Girl. Something happened at that moment. I’m not sure what it was for everyone else, but for me - it was the look on the faces of my Pygmy friends and the realization that we had something very unique, fun, and exciting to share. We were just 4 guys, slamming out some simple chords and singing some raunchy but harmonically pleasant vocals, and everyone liked it.

Fast forward a few weeks. Sad Pygmy has let us move some stuff into their room at Francisco’s, and we’re talking about trying to book a show. This is when Randy decided that the fun was over for him. I remember him saying that he honestly didn’t have any aspirations to play in a “real” band that was intent on playing out. It was sort of a defining moment for us - did we really have those aspirations? We talked it over and decided that we did. With no hard feelings, Randy gave us his blessings, and we asked C-Dog if he’d play bass with us. He said yes, and before I knew it, we were trying to write 10 good songs and build a set list so we could play our first show.

So how did the band get named Bickley? This was the first of many myths that we eventually created about the band. People would ask us - “what does Bickley mean?” at almost all of our early shows. By that time, each one of us had one (or more!) myths about the meaning of the word. Steve would say that it was the name of his uncle who had been executed by the state of Texas for a series of homicides. I would tell people that I traced my earliest ancestors back to the quaint little village of Bickley, and that they were all witches, so we named the band after them to continue the strength of the coven. Depending on who asked whom, you might get one of 10 different answers - all of which were completely false.

So here now, for perhaps the first time in print, is the real story of how we chose the name Bickley and how it stuck:

We were searching for a name. One that would evoke a certain feeling of intensity, of being an outcast, of being an outsider looking in. After all, that’s what we were. Older than most of the musicians around us - especially in the punk rock scene in Houston - we knew we were going to be viewed as slightly off-kilter. So at the end of a long night of playing and drinking a LOT of beer, we finally stumbled (literally) upon the image of Robert DeNiro’s character in Taxi Driver.

Remember how he shaved his head into a mohawk, and took his dark vision of justice out into the streets of New York? Yeah! That’s what we want. What was his name again? Travis Bickley, wasn’t it? Yeah, Travis Bickley!! Let’s call ourselves “Mr. Bickley”. No wait… just… BICKLEY!!

Once again, fate was working her magic:

• DeNiro’s character was NOT named Travis Bickley - his name was Travis Bickle, but we had already had at least 6 beers each, so we didn’t remember that
• Sad Pygmy was leaving to go on a short east coast tour just days after this conversation, and C-Dog made stickers that said “Bickley”, and distributed them at every show

The day after Sad Pygmy left (armed with Bickley stickers and an exciting story about this new punk rock band that C-Dog was playing bass in) I saw Matt and Steve. They told me that they’d just remembered the character’s real name. It was too late. By the time C-Dog got back home, we had come to terms with the fact that we had an erroneous but totally unique band name, and we never looked back.

Much much more to come on the life and times of Bickley. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, you can find information about the music that we released by following this link to Amazon.com. Or, just search for “bickley punk” at Google, and browse around for a while.

And tell your mom to quit calling me.

Wow.

Last night I went to a release party/CD giveaway event for a local band, and it was the best show I’ve seen in a while. All three bands were fantastic.

First band - The Falls City Angels. These guys kind of reminded me of Queens Of The Stone Age. Not to say they’re a clone band or anything, just that they have that kind of vibe going on. Definitely rocking.

Second band - The Clutters. They’re kind of hard to describe, but a very proficient rock band. They kind of made me think of The Decemberists and maybe The Rentals a little bit, without sounding much like either one. I hate describing bands. They did have a lady rocking a Farfisa, and that’s enough to get my approval. Listen to the tracks on their website.

The main act - The Alcohol Stuntband.

I have to tell you, I don’t really know what to say about this band. Obviously, the focus of the band is songwriter Chris Crofton. He’s this dude who sort of resembles Ron Howard. And he takes the stage, and your first thought is “Man, this guy is about to embarass himself”, but he starts playing this loud, ugly, noisy music about dysfunctional relationships, alcoholism, fear, suffering, and the whole while making you laugh at the absurdity of it. The music is dead simple, but it sticks with you. I can’t describe it in any way but to call it art. Every time I’ve seen them, the show sticks with me for days.

Thankfully for you, he instructed everyone who received one of their CDs to share it with the rest of the world, trade, burn, upload, etc. So if you click here you should be able to download their songs and check them out for yourself.

Anyways, great show last night.

Later

As Frank Zappa once said “I read it in Rolling Stone - it MUST be true!”

This online Rolling Stone article (Nov 9th) quotes Peter Gabriel as saying “The odds [of a Genesis reunion] are better now than before. We’re going to have the conversation.”

Gabriel has been the lone holdout in the possibility of a reunion of the 1970’s lineup. His primary concern has always been the level of commitment neccesary to pull off a reunion that was worthy of the effort. Gabriel, always the perfectionist, was never happy with the 1982 one-show reunion for WOMAD. “When we got back together in 1982, I don’t think we rehearsed,” he says. “To really do it properly, we’d have to take more time. It’s quite a commitment.”

I agree with this sentiment. I don’t want to witness a half-hearted attempt to line everyone’s pockets. I want to see these guys revisit their unique and powerful material, and maybe even write a few new songs for the occasion. I want to see them use all of the stage and performance mastery that they’ve acquired since 1975. I want to see them set a stake in the ground for future rock acts to follow.

And I *don’t* want to see Gabriel in the Slipperman costume.

Here’s hoping!

Well, it looks like there may be more hope for this than I thought! Someone just pointed me to this link, which describes a radio interview with Steve Hackett (Genesis guitarist 1970-1977). In an interview with Philadelphia radio station WMGK, Steve apparently had this to say:

“There’s something afoot. There’s a move afoot to put us together again. At
some point there’s a reformation mooted. It’s rare that I get a call from
Genesis management, very rare these days. So maybe something will happen,
you know.”

Hackett said the reunion would include original singer Peter Gabriel ,
drummer-vocalist Phil Collins , guitarist-bassist Mike Rutherford , and
keyboardist Tony Banks . Nothing specific has been arranged yet, however.

That sounds reasonably promising.

I intend to do a little research and find out if there’s a way for fans to chime in and encourage the boys to get together. I can imagine that each of them have their own reservations about a reunion, especially in this age of really *BAD* band reunions. But I’m confident that this would be no ordinary reunion of tired musicians trying to fill their retirement accounts. This could really be a landmark event for rock music and live productions, if they’d approach the old material with the respect that it deserves.

In the meantime, I’ll also be keeping an eye out for the surround sound 5.1 mixes that appear to be in the works for the Genesis back catalog, and the potential release of some of the archives of rehearsals from their old studio/retreat, The Farm.

Don’t they look like such nice boys?

I first saw The Paybacks opening for Southern Culture on the Skids, and I was totally impressed. It was one of the most rocking bands I’d seen in a long time.

Since then I’ve seen them play twice more, and it is always a great show.

The band has two CDs out. The first one, ‘Knock Loud’ has a low-budget sound, but great songs. The second album, ‘Harder and Harder’, has a much more professional sound, and equally great songs.

The music is hard rock. Hard rock like it used be. The kind of hard rock that anyone can get in to, doesn’t need an image or a gimmick, and doesn’t have a cute sub-genre name. Loud guitars, driving rhythm, and a gritty, gritty voice.

Last I heard, the band was still unsigned, doing it on their own, touring, promoting, etc. They’ve been featured several times in Rolling Stone, Spin, and similar mags. Their second album was chosen as the #2 album of the year by Entertainment Weekly in 2004. For whatever all that means.

And aside from all that, they’re a great bunch of people. I had the chance to hang out with them for a little while after a show, and they’re extremely cool folks.

Somebody get Peter Gabriel on the phone.

This article at Reuters quotes Phil Collins as being open to the idea of a Genesis reunion with Peter Gabriel. Let’s hope he meant that Steve Hackett could come along too. No that I have my hopes up for such an event, but it’s one of the few prog rock band reunions that I think could be a wonderful thing. Gabriel and Hackett have gone on to have satisfying solo careers, and have developed into true artists in their own right. When you take into account the advancement in music gear, stage technologies, and the maturity and artistic development of all of the members - this seems like it could be a landmark opportunity.

Then again, Gabriel might just tell them all to shove it.

Let’s just hope no one talks him into wearing this again:

a flower?