Atlanta January

It was a typical January morning in Northern Indiana. Fat white snowflakes poured from the still-dark early Wednesday morning sky, gently slamming into my windshield and dancing in the glare of headlights as I sped down the slippery two-lane road. Behind the wheel of my old Corolla, my brain was in automatic mode. My suitcase and bass in the back meant I was about to leave on another adventure. The Long Ryders were playing their first shows in 21 years in Atlanta that very weekend.

I was too tired and numb to be overwhelmed by this scene. The white stuff was piling up again. I observed the snow, and the usual impatient cars sliding in all directions, driving too fast for conditions. It distracted me.

I’d been a homebody recently, not venturing out for more than a few miles at a time, and almost never by myself. I did leave once that previous summer. My daughter Sarah had scored a play, a burlesque, which was selling out in a small theater in Chicago. Her music was brilliant. She assembled and rehearsed a stage band of a standup bass, piano, sax and drums. The vibe was a Tom Waits/Kurt Weill cabaret, but with a distinctly original feel. This was not her Daddy's music. She had clearly come onto her own. Although Mom & Dad always encouraged her every musical whim, she was now firmly into her own, and the results were breathtaking. This was not the gun-to-the-hear parental pat-on-the-head "very nice honey" kind of support that comes after two hours of soul-numbing school concerts and pageants. This instead was material that put me in awe of her talents and how self-contained and bulletproof her work had become, with a maturity that defied my inevitable perception of her as my eternal little girl, dependant on us for everything. I was beyond proud. If this is what living a long life meant, I was shown how fulfilling it could be that very night.

Sid's email came sometime in July. He explained that a promoter in Atlanta, Chris Chandler, was again asking Sid to play a one-off Long Ryders show in Atlanta. Sid explained he had no time to deal with this, and asked if I could try. I accepted the challenge, with no expectation that it could work.

It turned out the previous no-deal breaking point was a silly misunderstanding over money. Chris and I cleared that up quickly, and suddenly the first Long Ryders show in the United States for 21 years was real.

Aligning everything with the gig took a lot of back-and-forth with various members and Atlanta people. Luckily, promoter Chris' experience and easy-going nature made details a breeze to work out. When he started buying us airline tickets and hotel reservations, all my doubts about whether the gig was indeed real stopped cold.

I also threw myself at recording around this time, and finished a song, Black Beauty, which I'd left sit for a couple years. The inspiration may have been through listening frequently to a mono version of Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence LP I’d recently found, with its lyrical interweavings about seasonal change and death, with Dylan's Highway 61 band backing them.

The joys and tensions of Christmas and New Year's had come and gone, and the day approached. I nearly forgot several things, but didn't. The T-shirts almost didn't happen. I let silly little things get to me when I should've let it all roll off my back. I was not used to organizing a road show for The Long Ryders, but I did know instinctively what was needed. I tried very hard not to make the mistakes of the past, and to have double-backup for screw-ups. And the pay off was about to arrive.

So there I was, driving slowly in the dark on the ice in Mishawaka, Indiana, maybe 20 miles from where I now call home, on the way to the airport shuttle bus. James and Elaine came along to see me off. Zachary was safely in school. He would not have liked riding in the car on this ice.

First hurdle: the bus to the airport. The shuttle drivers were, in a word, surly. No humor, no joy, just drive. The diesel fumes had darkened their souls. I can imagine that the only time a smile may flicker across their faces is just before the flaming bus plunges into the ravine. Your bus, not theirs.

All the coffee I had that morning was not a good idea. The door to the bus toilet would not latch and bumps made it fly open. It was a long 3 hour drive, but Midway Airport, little brother to Chicago’s more-familiar O'Hare, was soon outside the dirty bus window.

All airports look nearly the same today. Since malls and gallerias fell out of vogue, paving the way to gaudy, cold strip malls, maybe those designers took their craft to airports. The bright airport corridors held long mixes of overpriced food courts, newsstands and gift shops. One waiting area had life-sized statues of the Blues Brothers, as an advert to House of Blues. Jake and Elwood sat in chairs, looking at the crowds, looking at you, through the haze of Ray Bans, hangovers and unknown ingested substances.

The flight to Atlanta was quick and painless. My row in the plane was empty, and I was designated to help with the emergency exit in case of unexpected evacuation. All we got were little bags of pretzels, and free ear buds with which to listen to in-flight XM radio. There was no music worth listening to, so I fell asleep to some Air America clone talk radio show.

Once in Atlanta, I walked briskly through the airport, glancing up at the signs directing me toward the baggage claim. I passed sign after sign, exhilarated, while discreetly eying several beautiful women of all ages and origins that passed close to me. I was overjoyed to be free of the confines of bus and plane seats, and so I walked, and walked.

A mile or so later, I looked to my right and saw people entering and exiting a train. I relented and jumped in to hasten my arrival at baggage claim.

Just then my cell phone rang. It was Jeff Clark, there to pick me up. He was already watching my bags spin around on the conveyer, and wondering where I was.

We met; I grabbed my suitcase, bass and carry-on bag and piled them carefully onto my $3 rental cart. We soon found a bar and sat down. We discussed music, parking at length on the fresh subject of The Stooges' Ron Asheton's death. He suddenly, dutifully got up to look for Sid, who was expected an hour after my own arrival. Late but not too late, there Sid was at baggage claim. He looked exhausted from his London to Atlanta flight, but happy, just like I felt. We found his Rickenbacker 12-string guitar behind a counter and finally hit the parking lot and the freeway to the hotel.

The Highland was once an old flophouse hotel, now spruced up nicely enough, but with some rough edges still in evidence. The floor in my upstairs room was at an angle. The bed pushed me backward and to the right, and was so soft I sank a couple feet into it. Still, I'd slept on worse. I always think of the raw linoleum floor in Chico, CA as the bottom rung of my sober sleeping experience. These accommodations were far better.

I had to get the TV remote from the desk clerk: a graying, Southern beatnik-looking guy in his 50s with a friendly Georgia drawl. I turned on the hotel room TV (which doubles as a watchdog), laid down, and a rock-like sleep was fast upon me. I woke a couple hours later to my ringing cell. Greg and Stephen were on their way, said Chris. I woke slowly and got dressed.

We met up downstairs at the main desk, and it felt like only a week had passed since we last saw each other. We then had a drink next door at the Ballroom Lounge, a cool little basement club with a mirror ball, before we scooted off to a restaurant bar. There we were joined by several others, including people from the bands with whom we were to play.

At some point at the restaurant, it all struck me in a rush of reality. There was Greg on his cell sitting next to me at the table. Sid and Stephen were across from me. I felt fortunate simply that we were all alive, and could all be in the same room again.

People sitting at the table and passing by all knew my name. I didn't always know theirs. Maybe I met them in 1986 at the 688 Club, in the haze of young Chris Robinson's thunderf*ck herb, being studiously quizzed by Marty Willson-Piper about my use of psychedelics during composition and/or recording. Maybe we jammed with them one night after a show at a mansion we were driven to. Maybe they read my comments in any of the free music mags that were all over town. Someone even professed their mutual admiration for Zooey Deschanel.

The pics in those free mags, staring at us from racks seemingly everywhere we went in Atlanta, were from another time. We were all late 20s, youthful and as if fired from cannons. But now we stood comfortable in our own skin, 21 years away from how it all went both right and wrong, determined not to change the past, but to get on with the future, for all it was worth.

Our conversations are often amazing. We found ourselves at one point telling our own stories of our few minutes at Right Track Studios in NYC in 1987 with Mick Jagger. The cubism involved with hearing everyone else's descriptions of the same event meant I will never remember it in the same way again. It was not just my memory, it was everyone’s, through different eyes. What I gained was an enhanced, 360 view after living with just my viewpoint for two decades.

But as I looked in amazement at the other three living, breathing, healthy, vital Long Ryders, it was obvious that none of us have changed. We all love the band, which binds us together. There's chemistry too. Change one guy in the band and we would not sound nearly the same. Each member is why The Long Ryders sound as they do.

Next morning was rehearsal. We'd stayed out late and I woke early, and had some cereal off the hotel’s "continental breakfast" area, which later left me with a bad sugar crash. An increasing problem as I age.

It was very easy for me not to eat or sleep during the entire Atlanta trip. There was much to do every minute of every day there. That morning a guy showed up at the hotel to sell Sid his Gibson Nighthawk guitar, a model recommended highly to Sid by his friend Duane Jarvis. Grab guitars and coffee and it was off to rehearsal.

Practice was in a huge basement owned by Johnny McGowan, with pop culture everywhere we looked: Schwinn Sting Ray bikes parked randomly, highway signs, period toys and gadgets in their original boxes. There was even a full-size I-75 road sign leaning against the house in the backyard. Johnny also provided us with vintage 60s Fender amps and me with a spare P-bass, just in case of stage emergency.

Another amazing happening was the arrival of our very good friend Phast Phreddie Patterson from Brooklyn. As was later observed, it felt as if the Pope had arrived to bless the entire event. We were all fans of his band Phast Phreddie and Thee Precisions in the 80s in L.A., and Sid worked with him at Rhino. Phast was a musician, DJ and scenster. Phreddie was always found in cool places that we loved to visit. I also heard that he was a big Points of View fan. It was 1988 or so since I'd last seen him. Phast heard about our gig, and got on Priceline where he picked up a flight, hotel and rental car. He even came to rehearsal with us.

Practice went on for about five hours, with us slamming through over thirty songs. Once again, we'd lost none of our energy or sound. I was enthralled and was pushing myself as if I were in performance.

After rehearsal and arrival at the hotel, I withdrew as a survival technique. I was beat. Sightseeing, shopping and hanging out would all have to wait for me. I locked the door to my room, flipped on the TV and sunk down in the old hotel bed. Almost instantly, sleep overtook me. A few hours later my cell rang again, and it was time for the Big Dinner Out that Chris had set up weeks in advance.

The restaurant was really good; the waiter even succeeded in selecting a red wine to go perfectly with my enchilada. We again were in the company of wonderful people like Jimmy J from The Skylarks, a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy with whom you could discuss anything for hours, and Johnny McGowan, who gave us our rehearsal space, most of our amps and onstage support for our entire stay, and of course, Chris Chandler himself, the ringleader and happy cause of it all. It seemed the town was full of people like them: happy, intelligent, with nothing to prove or reasons to get defensive. Just let it all flow and enjoy. It was how I've tried to live too.

Friday arrived fast, and it was show day. I walked to the market and bought toothpaste and plenty of bottled water, of which I drink gallons at home. I had a decent brunch next door, took a walk, did some writing after, and then a hard nap, again. Napping is a survival skill for road musicians, even for those in their teens. I noticed strength and stamina return. Sid and few others visited the (Jimmy and Rosalyn) Carter Center, but I chose to continue my hibernation to recharge for the big show. A few hours mercifully passed until my cell, obviously acting as my alarm clock this trip, rang. It was time for soundcheck and they were already in the lobby. We loaded our guitars into Chris' Explorer, and just as I was about to get in the truck, my cell rang again. My friends Lina and Rory had arrived and were in the hotel lobby. Lina saw us disappear around the corner to the parking lot. We were on a schedule so I told her we'd be back after the soundcheck.

There to meet us was Barry Shank, the very first Long Ryders bassist, bearded and smiling, same old great guy. Barry is now a professor of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University in Columbus. He sang the Gene Clark lines in his song Ivory Tower on Sid's mic, and strummed Sid’s newly acquired Nighthawk while Sid played his Rickenbacker 12-string.

The usual convoy was Chris driving his Explorer, and Phast driving his small rental car. It was nice to have Phast around to take in everything along with us. We had a growing entourage, full of incredible people. The entourage grew as Lina and Rory arrived, along with Michele and her husband Patrick, and Sid’s friend Phil Dennison. They’d all flown from L.A., and Michele and Patrick from Portland, to witness the event. We hadn't seen Michele since my very first tour with The Long Ryders, which was six days in the Pacific NW, Michele rode along with us throughout that tour. Lina I'd never met but love dearly from our constant, nearly daily email correspondence over the last nearly four years.

It's a new phenomenon: Internet friends with whom you discuss nearly everything and share passing days with, without ever meeting face to face. That summer, my friend from England, Pete Baker, died suddenly of heart failure. Although we’d never met in person, we'd traded countless cassettes and CDs of Bob Dylan and other artists over the past 15 years. He also left a lot of people like me who'd never met Pete face to face, yet news of his death hit us just as hard as if we'd been old schoolmates or army buddies. Pete was also three years younger than I.

Atlanta was certainly a time to finally meet friends never met in person, and old friends that have gone missing for 20+ years. All came by plane, by car, or whatever, with one main purpose: to see The Long Ryders.

We would not be disappointed by the Friday crowd. It had been added late as a second show, but the venue was nearly full as we emerged from backstage. From the moment we hit stage, the same vibe surrounded us. The same intense, accepting, loving feel that we got from all the people with whom we hung out was intensified. This was it.

The set lists, cobbled together by me quickly in the tiny backstage area and then copied by hand, were left backstage by me as we hit the stage. No one knew to pick them up. Phast began his patented intro: "BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE OF ATLANTA! BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE OF ATLANTA! YOU'RE ABOUT TO WITNESS...." when Sid loudly interrupted from his stage mic: "WHERE'S THE SET LIST??"

We all started laughing.

At many "serious" rock concerts, an awkward silence may follow a pre-show question like that. In fact, heads might roll, but not here. Phast looked a little freaked, like he neglected a duty; he did not. In fact I felt bad that we interrupted a master at work for want of our missing setlists. It was actually a major relief that the first gaff of the night was the lack of lists, a problem that made everyone laugh. It broke the tension and was easily remedied. We knew little gaffs were bound to happen, we only hoped they would be this benign.

The crowd was close and was an integral part of the proceedings. It was as if we were as much witnesses to the event as they were. Song after song came forth from the stage like a gale blowing through the place. It was an environment. Curt, the soundman, knew how to play the room as a big instrument, and had us up as loud as it took to make the room resonate with our sound.

And what a sound it was. There was no mistaking us. As was said, we sounded just like,,, The Long Ryders. When Sid strapped on his 12-string while Stephen played lap steel, or Stephen played his amped-up string bender leads, there is was: the evidence. Intact and authentic, still full and rich after 20-odd years. Too many missed us for too long. Yet here it was: a glorious feast for all in attendance.

The crowd was joyous. I saw tears.

I also saw every kind of 2009-era consumer gadgetry used to record the shows. Cell phones were being held up to take still photos or movies, flash photography evident from all sides; a few videocams were carefully cradled, trying to stay steady in a sea of moving people.

They laughed at all of Sid's jokes; they seemed to appreciate every little nuance. Barry Shank got a warm reception on Ivory Tower, and we made sure to thank everyone that helped us, as well as the other bands.

After the show, we went to the merchandise table and signed autographs on anything they gave us. Through eye contact it really sunk in that the night was beyond special to everyone there, as it was for us. T-shirts, poster and CDs were all selling briskly. All this went on and on until they finally threw the crowd out for the night.

We were dropped off at the hotel, and soon a bunch of us decided to walk to The Majestic, a 24-hour, neon-trimmed diner I'd already visited twice during this trip, with food just below mediocre both times. It didn't matter. We didn’t exactly choose The Majestic. It was there, and it chose us. A pack of us arrived at the door at straight-up 3 a.m., and the policeman at the door told us we had to wait with the others. The place was full of tipsy college-agers, all talking simultaneously at white-noise level. They were likely using the dodgy food to counteract the effects of that night’s alcohol and tomorrow's nearly-certain hangover. As we sat and absorbed the room, I felt like I was hanging out in a sea of Sarah's friends, all mid-20s or so. Then I looked at our table, with our hair turning silver, a few wrinkles maybe, but with the same light in everyone's eyes as before.

Saturday’s show had the same great vibe, but all was larger than the night before. We played even better having the successful Friday show under our belts. Stephen seemed more confident playing his string-bending leads off the cuff and spot on. Many of the same faces were there, along with some different. The Saturday crowd extended all the way back to the very back walls. Both sets were longer than we'd ever played in our career: Friday’s was one hour forty minutes, and we played an hour and fifty minutes Saturday. Despite their length, each set flew by. On Saturday we played our two encores as we had Friday, and adjourned to the dressing room, thinking we were done. There we heard Phast riling up the crowd yet again. We quickly decided to do “Feel a Whole Lot Better,” and I volunteered to sing it. Sid's voice was shot.

After Saturday’s show and merch table session, I was called back to the club’s business office. I had to count and split up the money. I hadn't done band business since my high school days, and with good reason. It’s like an affliction: I lose powers of concentration after any intense gig and even some dexterity, for anything except playing an instrument. I embarrassed myself counting the money over and over. Greg was back in the office too, making sure that stage and amp man Johnny and soundman Curt each got a hundred-dollar tip. Then there was Sid's share for Saturday. Promoter Chris let slip that one of his young children had cerebral palsy and may never walk. Sid donated his Saturday guarantee back to Chris for anything needed for his child. Chris wept. I nearly did as well.

The gang was set to return to The Majestic. I considered joining them, but declined. My flight was leaving in a few hours, and I was about to collapse, although I was still wide awake excited. Somehow I remembered Lina and Rory mentioning meeting up, so I called them. They were awake but already in for the night. So I packed up my CDs, the free magazines I'd grabbed with our pictures and words, a few matchbooks and other reminders of the trip, my clothes, my compressor box I'd brought along, and all the items scattered around the small bathroom. I didn't want to attempt packing everything in the morning. There was always the possibility of forgetting items in a quick pack-and-run, and of over sleeping and not having time to both pack and make the flight. I’d had a superb time, but I was ready to go home to Indiana.

So I finished packing and laid down, the TV on, and the cell rang. I looked at the time, and it was quarter to seven! It was Lina, making sure I was awake. We were all going to share a cab to the airport, since our flights left within minutes of each other, and our gates were very close. We cabbed and checked into our respective airlines. They grabbed $79 extra this time to check in my bass guitar. In 2009, flying commercial meant we had to remove coats and shoes, place them in small plastic tubs, and place it all on a conveyor. I walked through without setting off an alarm, and grabbed my stuff. After stumbling back into my shoes and finding my gate, I looked, and there were Lina and Rory. We grabbed seats at one of the few places open, ordered semi-dodgy, overpriced breakfast sandwiches, and had random conversations about who knows what, with all of us running on nearly no sleep, but anxious to fly.

Lina was my close friend, and I just kept looking at her without staring, breathing her in, and feeling the glow that surrounded her. I felt like we knew each other for decades. I would miss being in her presence, but felt assured that we'd have plenty of future time to write and converse about what we'd just experienced, and what came after.

The flight was already boarding after we parted. The time in the air was smooth and fast, and as we descended for a landing, I noticed the deep snow covering the broad, empty Illinois fields below. I could sense that it was freezing cold, and I knew I'd find out what that meant soon enough.

Baggage claim was fairly empty and easy. Not many on my flight and not many in the terminal, for that matter. In both Atlanta and Chicago, I inspected my bass for damage as soon as I recovered it from baggage claim. My friend had a rare guitar broken at the neck after one flight. Luckily, my bass emerged intact, just as it has after the dozens of flights it has seen in its 25 years of flight experience. I again swiped plastic to rent a cart to haul my two bags and monster bass case, and I was off.

The shuttle bus was the final travel frontier. But where is it? I circled the area marked for the shuttles, but it was nowhere to be seen. I finally found an information desk, and the woman motioned to where I'd just been, but outside the door. I could see through the glass that it was snowing hard. There were already two buses parked outside, so I sprinted out the door, maneuvering the baggage cart in the snow. The temperature in the teens had an effect on me: it was like falling into a lake of ice water. I turned the cart and rushed back into the terminal, got my Amish black wool hat and scarf from my bag, and again proceeded through the icy wind and snow to the first shuttle bus.

The unsmiling bus driver looked at me as if I were a leper. I asked if he went to Mishawaka. He said no, and pointed to another shuttle parked up the street. I thanked him anyway and pushed on. The other driver was also surly, but explained that the buses there now were chartered for a bunch of Notre Dame Students. The next shuttle would be here "later." He was more helpful, but minimally so. I pacified myself while waiting by doing laps with my cart through the edges of the terminal. The only thing edible in the whole building was a couple counters full of Hostess-like snacks, candy bars and other junk masquerading as food. I passed it all as I kept up my slow, deliberate laps. Finally, after a few dozen revolutions, I spied another shuttle, this one with the familiar South Bend/Mishawaka markings. This woman actually seemed like she wanted to help, but also had that sad look like someone who had been beaten too much. She confirmed that this was my bus, and allowed me to load my bags and have a seat. The bus was empty, and I settled in the back and soon fell into a twilight sleep. We finally took off, bumped and jarred by bad shocks meeting miles of bad road. Then about a half-hour into the trip, the bus pulled into a run-down station with an old TV with an NFL game on, and a few old soda, non-food snack and battery-acid coffee vending machines lining the walls. The people waiting were mostly watching the game, or else zombie-staring into the dirty station walls. These people gave the impression of being professional drivers, or at least weathered travelers, haggard and road-wiped on a Sunday afternoon. Finally the other shuttle arrived and the people, including myself, quietly lined up, transferred their luggage to the bus bottom yet again and found seats.

By then I could not sleep. The stops ticked off: Gary, Highland, Merrillville, Michigan City, South Bend. All the while the snow kept falling. Finally the Mishawaka stop, which was also the last for the driver. We were ten minutes early and I got out alone. It was the last stop. Elaine was obviously running late. I dragged my bags and bass out of the bus and into this dirty station. They also had vending machines for candy, chips and coffee, and a pay phone that someone was using.

Finally, Elaine arrived. I planted my belongings inside the old trusty Corolla. She drove, which was fine by me. As it grew dark, I was still more than a little disoriented by lack of sleep, and all the snow. We stopped again at Panera, as we had for breakfast early Wednesday. I had decaf to try to ensure that I'd sleep with all the excitement.

Tomorrow, I would go back to my day job for the first time in three weeks. Christmas, New Years, and now the Atlanta shows were behind me. I felt more than accomplished. Having Elaine there grounded me nicely. We'd just seen the 25-year anniversary of our marriage, and we approaching 27 of living together. She drove home as the windshield wipers sounded their back and forth rhythm, and the snow looked like far away fog, yet it dived fast and slammed into the front windshield like little kamikazes. The feeling was that everything was more than alright, as it always was. My sons waited for me at home, my Southern California native wife was driving like a pro in the 14 or so inches of snow, having learned well from our twenty years of life here. I was home, yet I carried a lot that came back with me from the trip that would stay close to me for the rest of my life.

First Solo Gig: The Troubadour, West Hollywood, December 8, 1980

My old band Magi was history by late 1980. Two of the guys had already moved back to Indiana. They were soon using the Magi name to play more gigs. I didn't mind. We gave up our condo in Silver Lake, and I moved to Santa Monica. I lived alone in a rather intense, creepy garage on 9th Street converted to a so-called "beach house." It was nine blocks from the Pacific Ocean and rent was $195/month. There were fist holes in the wall of the living room, and two dilapidated beds nearly filled the only other room in the house. The bathroom and shower were in a separate building. My first neighbors were a quiet and odd young man and woman who told me they were brother and sister. However, passionate sounds coming through the thin wall at night were not the type usually heard from siblings.

I had no TV. I did have my records and stereo, my Martin D-18 acoustic guitar, and a small cassette recorder. That was when I started seriously, nearly obsessively writing songs. A Tower Records co-worker, Alan Seymour, was a songwriter and in a band called The Adaptors. He liked my songs, encouraged me and planted the "write one every day" concept in my head. I was far from one-a-day prolific, but I was often finishing about one or two songs each week. Most were not great by any stretch, but it was part of the reinvention process into which I was forced after Magi's breakup and the lack of another band. This reinvention was not without its immediate rewards.

The creepy vibes of the Santa Monica house, combined with the dominance of L.A. punk, influenced my music, but in an opposite fashion. Rather than surrendering and writing creepy punk songs, I would instead write simple, innocent, straightforward pop songs. I fashioned them like weapons again the din. I was listening to a lot of Byrds, Buddy Holly and Big Star. I strived for simplicity and emotional honesty in the face of punk posturing and the ghosts of anger I heard through the holes in my living room. I would often casually strum Buddy Holly songs on my Martin after coming home from work, as if to exorcize demons.

Another co-worker at Tower Records, Lauren Fowler, now known as Lauren Adams, was also a songwriter. She needed a bass player for a gig she was doing at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. I accepted, and used the opportunity to observe the scene. At the Troubadour in 1980, Monday nights were "hoot nights." You waited outside the club until it opened, and then signed up to play onstage for fifteen minutes. If someone liked you, you got a slot to play at another hoot night.

One Monday evening, I drove my soon-to-be-dead 1968 White Rambler to the Troubadour. I waited in the doorway, signed up, and played my first solo show ever. My solo fifteen minutes onstage went over well, and I was hired to do another show.

I noticed an unusual vibe in the crowd that night. Although I'd certainly heard of the place, I'd only been to the Troubadour once, when Alan Seymour took me to see his friends The Bangs play. The vibe tonight was different, and I sensed that it was not just because it was Hoot Night. The crowd was attentive and polite, smiled at times, but looked drained and even a little sad. The next act mentioned something about their "favorite rocker" who died that night.

It was December 8, 1980.

I left the Troubadour shortly after my set, still none the wiser. Before I drove home, I decided to stop at Tower Records to hang a bit. On the way, the AM radio station was playing Beatles songs non-stop.

After the second song, the word came. John Lennon had been shot dead in New York City.
Tower Records was already in full pandemonium when I arrived. Lennon's records had flown from the shelves within minutes. Bootleg souvenir hawkers were already beginning to arrive in the parking lot outside. Inside and outside of the store, people were weeping. Every major media organization sent crews that were literally running in the door. They mercilessly badgered anyone showing any emotion, and their cameras zoomed in like vultures on the teary-eyed mourners. I instinctively went into Tower employee mode, despite being off the clock. The Tower phones were ringing non-stop ("Is he REALLY dead?"), customers kept pouring in, and my friends on the late shift needed help which I gladly gave, as did the masses that were streaming into Tower. Those masses wanted answers, hope, and resolution. They could get none of the above.

Christmastime was far from the same that year.

In hindsight, it was very strange for me to have played the Troubadour on that night. Lennon fans know it as the place where he and Harry Nilsson consumed too many Brandy Alexanders, and Lennon came out of the bathroom with a Kotex on his forehead. (He: "Don't You Know Who I Am?" Waitress: "You're Some Asshole with a Kotex Stuck to His Forehead.")

At Tower, I found my friend Elaine, the woman I would marry three years and three weeks from that night, and we hugged for a long time. I can still remember that hug. It was healing.
I was 24 years old. Once again, our world had changed, and not for the better.

Bootlegs

Bootlegs. I love 'em.

It's August of 1971 again, I'm 14, at a music camp at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, I'm walking hand in hand into a record store near the campus with Laura, a beautiful, frizzy light brown haired violinist from Fort Wayne I'd just met. On a wire rack to the right of the counter were several bootleg LPs: James Taylor, Cat Stevens. Yeesh, I thought, folk's sure getting popular. I wound up purchasing a Jimi Hendrix record and leaving, no doubt to engage in more pleasures of the 14-year-old flesh with my new sweetie Laura.

Hearing the same records over and over got boring. The thought of hearing my faves in the raw was a welcome promise when I first read about the existence of bootleg LPs in Hit Parader magazine. It was a bit about how pissed Led Zeppelin (or their manager) was over their bootlegs.

Later when I was in a band that a lot of people came to see play, I found myself bootlegged. Strange. When you're listening to other peoples' performances on a bootleg, you expect them to be not up to professional standards, which is exactly what intrigued me. Slickness is falsehood, guts are everything. The buzz I got listening to The Beatles' "Kum Back" or the Stones' "Live-r Than You'll Ever Be" was indescribable. Now, while listening to an audience tape of me, I was reminded of the first time I heard a tape of myself talking into a tape recorder at a young age. Like meeting a new person, or in this case, a new band.

I personally allow taping at all my gigs. The last big venue I played there was a big sign saying "no taping/no photography" like it was a proprietary thing. Who knows how many brilliant, earthshaking performances have been lost forever over the centuries due to that mindset. Speaking of proprietary, a big moralistic complaint about bootlegs is that the artist sees no money from it. Wrong, bucko. Canadian radio play (and, admittedly, subsequent royalty checks) from my unreleased song "Silence" made me release it legitimately on Points Revisited. Through the miracle of bootlegging (or in this case, tape trading) some radio station in Canada was playing my song, and reporting it to BMI, who in turn was sending me checks. Go figure.

As I write The Long Ryders were recently honored by their second bootleg and first boot CD. This was taken from a Bottom Line in New York FM broadcast from 1987, at the start of my last tour with them. I thought it was a terrific piece, better than the live BBC disc that was taken from the UK leg of that fateful tour.The Long Ryders, despite being praised in the press, have up to now never been a cash cow for anyone, so I knew immediately that whoever it was that put out that disc did not consider the profit motive (or lack thereof) but rather took the risk on sheer love of the music. All I can say is, thanks.

Slayed?

The Columbia Hotel quickly became a second home to us. We almost always stayed there while in London, and we grew quite fond of the place. Sometimes the Columbia was full and we'd have to endure the dark and dingy Averard Hotel instead, but, even then, we'd make the short trek to the Columbia bar, sneaking in to see friends who would invariably be there. The desk clerks all knew us well, and Francesco at the bar always treated us kindly, with quiet dignity. He sometimes opened the bar when we came in late en masse, even though he was not supposed to do so.

Frequent guests at the Columbia in late 1985 included Dave Hill and Noddy Holder from Slade. Slade was the toast of the UK in the early 70s, when loud guitar bands in silly haircuts banging 200-second pop songs ruled. Slade may have been a hit machine in the UK in their day, but they never broke as big in the U.S. I'd became a lifelong fan from the Friday night I saw them play Cum on Feel the Noize on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert TV show in the early 70s. I'd also seen them live a few times, including a South Bend Indiana gig in 1973 where, strangely, King Crimson opened for them. This pairing no doubt embarrassed not only Robert Fripp, but Slade themselves, who were huge admirers of King Crimson. That night, as Fripp spoke to the boogie-hungry crowd, he was interrupted by someone in the audience pathetically yelling, "ROCK AND ROLL!" Robert calmly suggested that if someone wished to hear some rock and roll, they "should purchase a transistor radio and tape it to their ear." Dave Hill remembered that incident as I told it with a grin and wide eyes.

Dave Hill and I became friends over many pints at the Columbia bar. Dave was the Slade guitarist with the bowl-cut hair and big smile. He was outspoken and friendly. I could ask him anything without seeing him flinch. Besides talking the usual guitars, amps and tour trivialities, we discussed parenthood. My son James was on the way that February. Since Dave was already a veteran dad, we also talked in depth about the art of fatherhood.

Noddy Holder was always the character onstage and on camera, but quite a few times when I saw him at the Columbia, he was worse for wear and barely able to speak, possibly due to the number of pints he consumed. Although I recall him at my table at the Columbia bar more than once, soaking up the suds with Dave and myself, I don't recall him saying much.

One evening I was sitting at a table in the bar, having a pint of lager and reading Hammer of the Gods, a Led Zeppelin biography. I was at the part where Noddy Holder is mentioned, and as if on cue, Noddy walked past me and nodded hello. I without warning (and rather rudely, in hindsight) burst out due to my misreading: "Hey Noddy, what's this about you almost joining Zeppelin?" He paused, then looked down at the floor for a very long few seconds, shook his head, then continued walking without saying a word. I immediately regretted my outburst, but it was too late to retract my words.

After a little Q&A from Sid ("WHO do you want to give this single to?"), I presented Dave with his own copy of our new single, Looking for Lewis & Clark. He seemed pleased and curious. Next time I saw him, he immediately blurted out, "I heard your new single -- it's GOOOD!" His eyes bulged with enthusiasm. I felt it a great honor. Later Noddy reviewed the same single favorably on BBC radio on a review panel that included Roger Daltrey and Phil Collins. Daltrey and Noddy loved it, but Phil remained on the fence discussing it with a condescending tone. I was instantly glad I never had to suffer through a meeting with ol' Phil.

Silently, Dave Hill was sensitive about Slade's failure over a decade before to duplicate in the United States their amazing success in the UK and Europe. I felt the frustration in his voice when the subject turned to touring in the US. After 17 hits in the UK including six number ones, they instead struggled and felt cursed across the Atlantic. As for the reaction of my friends to Slade back then, I recall that some actually hated them on Don Kirshner, the same way they hated The Ramones a few years later on the same show.

Among the many times I saw Slade in concert, I attended a triple bill at the Masonic Temple in Detroit in the summer of 1974 with 10cc, Robin Trower and Slade. 10cc got only polite applause, but the crowd enthusiastically ate up every Hendrix-borrowed riff from Mr. Trower. Slade headlined and provoked mixed reactions. A large contingent in the crowd rushed the stage and joined in enthusiastically with Noddy's every call-and-response and danced joyously in the aisles. So much so that the police began to hassle those in front. I had brought my trusty tape recorder to this show only to have it confiscated at the entrance and held until the concert was over. At the same time the fans were having a blast up front, others rose angrily from their seats, flipping off Slade and yelling "you suck!" Was this the future Kiss Alive crowd?

The mixed reaction puzzled me, especially coming from a Detroit audience. I can only imagine what Slade discussed after the show in their dressing room and hotel. By 1985 Slade may have felt down due to the strange turn of past events, but they were far from out. They'd found new life to their careers via MTV, which provided their biggest hits in America, over a decade after England was putty in their hands. And Slade was recording once again, which prompted their stay at the Columbia.

As for The Long Ryders, our second successful 1985 tour of the UK and Europe was about to segue into Christmas 1985 back home with my family in Ventura, CA. Another baby was due for us in February, and the biggest U.S. tour of our careers was to commence in March. On the heels of a top 40 hit in the UK with Looking for Lewis & Clark, The Long Ryders seemed set to take the same success back to America in 1986. We were inspired, confident, and I was on top of the world.

Elkhart

I wrote this a few years back, and it still feels relevant. Hope you enjoy.

i need no flag to claim it
my love she sleeps tonight
and I finally realized this is my home...

Elkhart, Indiana stands almost exactly one-hundred miles east of Chicago. Interstate 80-90 runs through the northern part that borders Michigan. The land stolen from the Potawatamis and Miamis became a mecca for band instruments, Alka Seltzer, and more recently, recreational vehicles. It is still an industrial heaven and abhorrent to original thought. Conservative in politics and religion, it nonetheless spawns lots of misfits that break free and carve their own niche.

I've been reading Kenneth Rexroth's autobiography. Another lost Elkhart-bred boy. His tales of hanging with his Native American friend and observations of the land and feel make me sad that those times are gone.

So-called progress has long since changed the landscape almost completely, attracting an urban feel to a once quiet town. Profits over humanity. From all over the Americas people flood in, often penniless, to work in soulless factories, pounding profits and flushing away rights and dignity in exchange for a paycheck to survive, and for the privilege of modern consumer-culture indulgences.

I grew up there. The public school system didn't (and probably still wouldn't) know what to do with a kid who could read and write fluently at three, play guitar with abandon at seven, and immediately challenge everything. The mold was slammed down on me early, and my family, silently or not, taught me to play the game. Here they rarely educate children to broaden the mind or enrich the soul, but rather to prepare the young for proper droneship. Sit down, shut up and assume facelessness.

I escaped once. Hollywood was at first invigorating, like a mad, happy dream. Lots of people from all over the world, many just like me, searching for a way out of something or a way to somewhere. I found plenty, oddly too much, of what was lacking back home. Insane, fiery spirits, wild speed music, intensely beautiful women, and hope. The future was mine. Grab on and hold on tight.

Ten years later the thrill was gone. When did the end come? The band broke up. My car had been stolen twice within a year while I was recording. I found myself again doing jobs for money in places I would never be seen in otherwise. A boss was making obscene phone calls at all hours to my house, probably in retaliation for my telling him to fuck off during one of his attempted power trips.

Some money showed up and I was gone. Back to Indiana. Home.

My parents were living in the same house I grew up in. My bed was still there. My father and I finally started talking man-to-man in brief wonderful moments. Less than two years later I watched him reduced from strength to defeat to a sneaking cancer that finally killed him. He passed on May 31st, the same day his mother and father died. Sixweeks later my appendix burst and I nearly died as well.

I lived.

After all this, depression set in. Life was slow. I wanted things that didn't exist. My thoughts of the past were glorified in my head. Memory easily reveals only what's comfortable. I was also reinventing myself and didn't know it.

I don't know when it was, but later, a cloud lifted. That ugly melancholy, that in hindsight I realize I craved, was leaving, and I didn't even miss it. I started to be comforted by the sight of the familiar arrangement of trees in a field near my home. The roads were also familiar and led anywhere I pointed the wheel. My family was here. It was somewhere that was mine.

Traditionally, Elkhart's history remembers those who assumed power and/or made freight trains full of cash: the businessmen, the politicians. Maybe some were indeed honorable human beings as well. The artists, poets, musicians that broke free and continue to walk the globe making noise are not talked about in their own hometown. And the silence is deliberate.

Right now, though, a light, beautiful snow is slowly falling down on the Saint Joseph River as I look out of a window of the 19th century house I lay down to sleep in every night. And that is just enough to remind me why I'm here.

Logrolling

I don't consider myself a superstitious man. Break a mirror? Clean it up carefully and buy a new one. Draw aces and eights while playing cards? Write a song. Spill salt? You know what to do.

I am familiar with karma. The term is often misused, but I never argue with "you reap what you sow" logic. And sometimes, it is demonstrated in unexpected, powerful ways.

My family found itself renting a decent enough house years ago on West Franklin Street in Elkhart, IN. Franklin Street is a winding road with lots of crazy drivers, and we lived just east of where the speed limit jumps to 50 MPH. The road then leads to South Bend (home of Sneaky Pete Kleinow, R.I.P.) and points west.

There was no on-street parking in front of our house, and our driveway was an accident waiting to happen. You either backed into it from the street, or backed into traffic on the way out. all the while hoping that no one whipped around the curve and smashed into your car. Traffic habitually flew around that curve. I even got a speeding ticket there in my youth.

I soon discovered a safe way to enter. Another driveway from a side street led behind a beauty salon and another house, then connected to my driveway. I was overjoyed to find it, and started using it exclusively.

One summer day, I saw a rusted car parked where the back driveway connected to mine. Inside the car was a guy in a dirty white ribbed T-shirt. He smoked a cigarette while he watched my daughter on the swingset. I quickly confronted him. His name was Ed. He made a sweeping motion with one arm while he talked to me, explaining that he owned all of the properties to the west of my house, and that I must stop using his driveway immediately. Just because. He then drove away.

A little investigation confirmed that he was indeed the landlord of that sweep of properties. But I figured I was doing him no harm, so I continued using that back driveway as I had before.

Weeks later, I was nearing my house late one night and suddenly had to hit the brakes. Ed had laid a very big log across the driveway. I got out to move it, but it apparently weighed several hundred pounds. That damned log blocked access to both my driveway and the beauty salon that he owned.

We heard sirens nearby about a month or two later. Jumping to the window to catch what was happening, I saw the flicker of orange flames through the window of the beauty salon, and smoke starting to rise from the building. Someone had left a clothes dryer running inside. The lint in the dryer had ignited, and the fire spread from there. The salon was closed, so no one was hurt.

I saw the flashing lights and the firemen out of their trucks. But instead of readying their hoses to put out the fire, they were all frantically trying to move that damned log so they could get the fire trucks in. This took several minutes, as the fire continued to burn.

Ed never did move that log back, and I don't remember ever seeing him after that night.

Electrocution

"At least you didn't die in Italy" - Juno, the case worker in the movie Beetlejuice.

"I don't want to play electric guitar. I might get electrocuted." - my son, age 6.

Florence, Italy, December 1985: Another stop on The Long Ryders second European tour. We'd been on the road since October, traveled thousands of miles, slept little, and were nearly delirious. Greg came onstage with the words "Eat Me" written on his forehead. Since I was the designated setlist creator, I used the loopy vibe to completely skew our set for the evening. Out went quite a few of the usual song we played, and in went Danny & Dusty covers and other unusual songs. Some local guy, drunk in his black leather jacket and doing his best Jim Morrison jumped onstage as we started playing Gloria, and had his sloppy 200 seconds of fame.

Italy was beautiful beyond words, and always very kind to us. The food was an art form. Driving through Italian countrysides revealed small towns with winding paths and centuries-old small shops and restaurants. The men and women aged beautifully, with grace and style. The fans at the gigs were warm and passionate, although sometimes their passion went to an extreme. Once we were recognized, some fans would not leave us alone, no matter what we were doing. One price of fame, I thought. At the Italian concert halls, the promoters would set up in front of the stage what resembled a reversed baseball backstop with wire mesh. It was their attempt to keep fans off the stage. The first time I saw this backstop, I figured that it was pure over-reaction. We'd seen some wild crowds in the UK and elsewhere, but never was wire mesh needed to separate our fans from us. I always loved shaking hands with the crowd and getting warm hugs from exuberant female fans. But our first gig in Italy demonstrated why those backstops were needed. The crowd pushed violently forward all night, and there were fans in front with their faces pressed against the wire mesh as we played. Watching them, I imagined them examining the waffle-like imprints on their faces in their bathroom mirrors the morning after. Further back in the crowd, I caught glimpses of smiling fans jumping up and down, holding their tape recorders overhead. They'd tape our set, then try to interview us on the remaining tape after the show. We didn't mind. It was flattery.

We saw other unusual things at gigs in Italy. One of our first there was at the Communist headquarters in, I think, Rimini (road haze sets in). The building included a radio station and concert hall, "The fascists hate rock and roll," it was explained to us, and they showed us the bullet holes in their building from frequent fascisto drive-bys.

Tonight in Florence, the weirdness continued. Upon our arrival at the hall, I noticed that our amps were set up on a pure metal stage.

Playing an electric guitar in the old garage days meant you got shocked. A lot. If your amp's polarity (the direction of AC, alternating current) was different from the polarity of the PA that your mike was plugged into, a jolt would be felt when you touched the microphone and the strings of your guitar at the same time. I never liked getting shocked, although I think some of my fellow band members did. One guy even volunteered to test the strength of 9V batteries with his tongue.

This also brings to mind when, as a school kid in about 1973, I saw a band called Uriah Heep at Notre Dame University. Their bassist Gary Thain had been badly shocked days earlier in Dallas under similar circumstances: an electrified microphone. During their show, I'll never forget seeing Gary suddenly fall backward into a wall of Marshall amplifier stacks, which came tumbling down on him like building blocks. Not long after I witnessed this, he died.

Meanwhile, back the Florence soundcheck, our excellent British crew were setting everything up for our show. Three months on the road had not dulled their ability to get everything right. This type of expert care was a form of heaven for weary traveling musicians. I tuned my bass and plugged it into my amplifier as usual, then cautiously stepped across the metal stage to the microphone. To test for shock potential, I had a trick that drove sound crews nuts. I held the back of the wooden bass neck and slowly brought the metal bass strings to my microphone without touching the mic with my hands. Damn good thing I did this. An ugly orange curve of electricity went from microphone to string, Bride of Frankenstein-style. For the rest of the night I could still see the temporary burn superimposed on my retinas, like a flashbulb from hell.

It seems that the town factory had shut down for the night, and about 700 volts of electricity was going through our amps and PA.

Rather than canceling the show, our road crew, deep into their show-must-go-on work ethic, ran a long cable from the PA to outside the hall, and literally buried the cable into the ground. This "grounded" the PA (or "earthed" as my Brit friends would say) to prevent those stage shocks. I later found out that our local promoters grabbed a guy representing the venue, and under fear of violent death (this was Italy, and those promoters did not mess around), they made the venue guy stand guard over that buried cable during the entire gig. Our show went on, the crowd loved it, tapes were made, autographs were signed, and back into the van we went. Yet another London show was coming soon with a live recording planned, and then home to L.A. for the holidays. I couldn't wait to see my baby daughter Sarah and my amazing, beautiful wife Elaine, who was now seven months pregnant.

The Alarm/Long Ryders Tour 1986

The Long Ryders were in the midst of their lengthy Fall 1985 tour of the UK and Europe. We were supporting our new State of Our Union LP and hit single Looking for Lewis and Clark, playing live on BBC-TV's Whistle Test with Andy Kershaw, when the word came. We were asked to go on tour with The Alarm in the new year, playing dates at U.S. colleges during spring break. Those Alarm guys were already our pub pals, and plenty of pints and laughs were had at the Hotel Columbia bar with Mike, Eddie, Dave and Twist when The Long Ryders were calling London our second home.

Although the 1986 Alarm-Long Ryders tour mainly centered around colleges in New England, it was slated to begin in Stockton, CA on April 9. Upon our arrival in at the venue in Stockton, we noticed that our backstage door was adorned with a sign that the Alarm guys had scribbled and posted to welcome us: "Finally, a GREAT opening band!" We were backstage later that evening when, unexpectedly, the entire show was suddenly canceled. Mike Peters was very ill. Immediately I flashed fearfully on the UCLA show looming in three days. It was to be a major event, complete with an MTV live broadcast. We wondered if Mike would recover in time.

Fears were dashed when we did our first successful show of the tour at The Fillmore in San Francisco a mere two days later. Mike's earlier illness was not evident at this show. I recall the Fillmore's Gestapo-like ushers and Alarm fans in the crowd with simpatico hairspray. Immediately after the gig, we began the six hour haul down I-5 to our homes in L.A.

Sleep came and went, and Saturday, April 12, 1986 dawned. My parents were in Los Angeles from Elkhart, Indiana to see the concert, our family, and especially their new grandson. During the concert they got the VIP treatment, watching their son play in front of 12,000 people on TV while enjoying the amenities of an on-site hospitality room, My father couldn't stop talking to his friends about what he experienced that day, his friends later told me.

Stage lighting in indoor venues usually prevents the performer from gauging the size of the crowd beyond the first few rows. At UCLA in broad daylight, the 12,000-strong masses were in plain, awesome view. It was dizzying, by far our largest crowd to date. MTV did not broadcast The Long Ryders' set, and it was clearly The Alarm's day to shine. For us, the hometown opening act, the crowd did show respect and some enthusiasm. For The Alarm, they went absolutely bonkers.

The rest of the tour was great fun. Greg Sowders and I were the party hounds in The Long Ryders at that time, with Stephen and Sid being the reserved ones. The Alarm had a similar two-for-two split with Dave and Twist the party guys. Dave, Twist, Greg and myself often embarked on some wild adventures throughout the tour.

The Long Ryders already had two 1984 U.S. club tours under our belts, but we spend 1985 almost exclusively on tour in the UK and Europe. The Alarm tour allowed us to resume playing the States, this time in larger halls. My favorites were to mid-size Palace-era theaters like the Orpheum in Boston, the Beacon in NYC, and the Tower in Philadelphia. Besides playing for more people at once, playing bigger venues gave us a feeling that we were at last starting to get real traction in the United States.

The Alarm's kindness was constant. They let us ride in their tour bus during a particularly long haul from Corpus Christi to San Francisco. Their crew (no doubt helped by our bribes of fifths of whiskey and cartons of cigarettes, added to our rider for this purpose) gave us full lights and sound. This was fairly unheard of in a world where jaded, grizzled headliners often do their worst to sabotage wide-eyed opening acts. Instead, The Alarm were then a youthful, high-energy, hard-working band riding high on the charts and loving every minute of it with quiet intensity, all the while keeping to an all-must-share philosophy with their opening acts.

During the last show of the tour, at Irvine Meadows near L.A., we had an on-stage shaving cream battle, and joined them during their encore to play a Maggie Mae/Stand Down Margaret medley. My sister-in-law was caught up in the vibe (and a few drinks) and begged me to introduce her to Mike Peters, which I did. Ah, starstruck kids.

Ending the tour was nearly tearful. We said our goodbyes. As we promised, we did see each other again soon, on their side of the pond.

Mike, Dave, Eddie and Twist: wherever you are now, a million thanks for the respect, the fun, and... everything. Your kindness will never be forgotten.

Gene Clark

Tom Stevens, Carla Olson, Gene Clark - on stage in Santa Monica, 1986

I was probably only eight years old, but very aware, when I first heard that song blasting out of my dad's car radio. Under one of those loud-mouthed 60s DJs I could hear in rapid succession:

that guitar riff,
the 12-string doubling it,
and that voice singing The reason why...

That song was "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better," written and sung by Gene Clark, and recorded by The Byrds. It changed me.

After quickly finding the 45 at the local department store for $.78, I wore it out on my little red record player, while figuring out how to bounce my finger up and down on the guitar fingerboard to play that riff.

Fast-forward to 1984: It's August and I'm at A&M Studios in Hollywood on the old Charlie Chaplin lot with The Long Ryders, recording our first album. I'm a long way from my boyhood home in Elkhart, Indiana. My wife of eight months is very pregnant 60 miles away in Ventura, where her brother is taking his last breaths due to liver failure, having drank himself into an early grave at age 33.

The studio door opens and in walks the man, Gene Clark. Hungover, smiling, gracious, tall, sculpted like a cigar store Indian, carrying quiet dignity through it all.

Gene was to sing on "Ivory Tower," a song on The Long Ryders' first LP Native Sons. Even though I'd joined the band mere months ago, a day like this may not have seemed unusual, but for all of my memories of my younger self sitting by my record player listening to Byrds records.

We all gathered in the control booth with our producer Henry Lewy, listening to Gene sing. There was that beautiful voice I heard so many years ago. But now it was tired and damaged by too much that still rode with him, whether he wanted it to or not. Somebody compared his earliest attempts at getting a take to the vocalisms of Wild Man Fischer. Gene's vocal, doubling a previously-recorded one by Stephen McCarthy, had to be recorded over and over again, but finally we got something that truly added to the song. That quality I recognized years ago was still intact.

That same month, The Long Ryders were opening for Roger McGuinn, playing two acoustic sets at McCabe's in Santa Monica. Still being part star-struck kid and part archivist, I brought my trusty tape recorder, and sat out in the audience after our first set to hear and record Roger. Sitting directly in front of me in the audience were Gene with Carla Olson, a true and dear woman I'd already known for many years from my days working at Tower Records on the Sunset Strip. On that tape you can hear Gene and Carla singing along from their chairs, and later in the set Gene got up on stage and sang "Chimes of Freedom" and "Bells of Rhymney" with Roger. Gene also joined us backstage before one of our sets, and the picture above shows us on that hot California August evening, all smiles, setlists in hand.

A little later, The Long Ryders were booked to open for Gene's electric band Firebyrd at the Country Club in Reseda, CA. We arrived early in order to do our soundcheck. It is customary for an opening band to wait until the headliner is done with their soundcheck before setting up their equipment for theirs. Gene hadn't arrived, so wait we did. Minutes became hours. Drummer Greg Sowders and I became dutifully impatient and decided to look for Gene. Instinct told us to check the bar across the street. Sure enough, there was Gene with Michael Clarke, his current and past drummer from The Byrds, laughing, drinking, lit up like Christmas trees. Gene greeted us warmly when he saw us. We immediately forgot about trying to hurry him to the soundcheck. Instead, we joined Gene and Michael at the bar for quite a while, until the other two Long Ryders caught up with all of us, on a similar "where are those guys" mission. In good time, we had many laughs, soundcheck was done, and the show went on.

Two and a half years passed. The Long Ryders toured Europe and the States extensively, got signed to Island Records, had a top 40 hit in the UK, saw the press love us, hate us and love us again, and my beautiful baby daughter soon had a handsome baby brother to play with. Everything seemed on its way straight up, and nearly every day continued to be an amazing time in my life. I was home in Burbank in early 1987 between tours when I got a call: "Gene and Carla are doing a show at a venue called At My Place in Santa Monica in March, would you like to play standup bass for them?" The gig was great, doing material from Gene and Carla's new LP So Rebellious a Lover, with Skip Edwards from Desert Rose Band and Dwight Yoakam on piano and Michael Huey from The Classics IV on drums. Before the gig, Gene and I spent some time talking. I told him how "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" had such an impact on me, and he related the story of him hearing The Beatles' "She Loves You" on a jukebox in the basement of a gig he was playing with The New Christy Minstrels, and how it changed him forever.

Not so good for me was the rest of 1987. The Long Ryders were suffering from, among other things, a lack of support by our management and out-and-out sabotage by our record label, resulting in our brotherhood showing intense strain in some very uncomfortable ways. The spring 1987 tour of Europe was a nightmare. Despite a major label "deal," we were broke, and I found myself having to find another source of income so that my growing family could eat and have a roof over their heads. In June of 1987, when the other Long Ryders insisted upon doing a U.S. tour that was expected to lose five figures, I announced that I was leaving the band. I recorded and proudly shopped my new material to the sound of crickets. 1988 came, and early that year, I got a call to do another gig with Gene and Carla at Club Lingerie in Hollywood.

We rehearsed before the gig at Gene's house in Sherman Oaks. His old red Firebird was parked out front, and remnants of recent faux Byrds reunion roadwork were scattered about the house: hotel soaps in the bathroom, rock magazines in various languages. For a guy with more than one hit still in heavy rotation on oldies radio, I was struck by how modestly he lived. Gene had once told me, point blank, that he had put at least one million dollars of coke up his nose. He also made it clear that at the present time in his life, he was looking for a way out of all of that.

The rest of the band gathered in his living room, talking about recent gigs. Gene sat back on his couch, strumming his guitar. Someone asked him about a new song, and he started playing one. There was that big, spooky voice on top of his acoustic guitar. Those demons, some of which we'll never know, came out of Gene like a musical Rembrandt, fully formed and made incredibly beautiful. All this was further intensified by the fact that I was hearing it all unfold within the confines of his living room. Was he improvising? It all struck me as tragic that Gene, still prolific in potential, was able to release so few of his songs in his later years, and that the recordings that did surface tended to sound more like squeaky-clean studio projects rather than the enormously arresting sounds that were now filling the room.

Sometime during the course of those rehearsals, I told Gene I'd left The Long Ryders. Rather than the curious or shocked reaction shots I usually got from that announcement, a great sadness immediately filled his face. At once I realized that this brought back the pain of Gene's ill-fated early exit from The Byrds. He had high hopes of realizing new success with new projects, but sadly, that success eluded him, and Hollywood has never treated perceived has-beens with kindness or sympathy. His look made me sad, too. For both of us.

The Club Lingerie gig was short and to the point, and well received. Talking after the show with Gene and his manager Saul Davis, Gene expressed disappointment that David Crosby had not come to the gig, despite him telling Gene that he would be there. It was during that conversation that I learned that Gene was about to have stomach surgery for some lingering problems that were getting worse. He was trying to get clean then. I knew it was going to be rough, having lost my brother-in-law during those first sessions to similar circumstances. Gene was only 43 at the time, but several lifetimes of hard living and pain showed more and more in his tired eyes and walk. He was tired of the politics of the business he had helped define many years ago with the early success of his music, tired of both substances and sobriety, and tired of the fight.

I never saw Gene again after that night. The summer of 1988 came, and I moved my family to my old home in Indiana to seek an easier, calmer, better life. A year later, Tom Petty's version of "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" was released. Since Petty was a still a hit machine then, I was happy thinking that Gene could again enjoy some well-deserved extra revenue. I also hoped that he could stay clean enough to use that money for something other than powder and parties, as he had done in years past.

On Bob Dylan's birthday in 1991, they found him. My mother saw the notice in the newspaper, and asked me if the Gene Clark that died was the same Gene Clark that I had worked with. He was only 46, two years younger than I am now. I wasn't surprised, but the sadness is still there.

I've seen a lot written about him, but here's what I can tell you from knowing him personally:
He had a natural gift for creating a song, and a voice that was as distinct as it was deeply moving. Gene stayed honest as a man, sometimes to the point that others would actually try to censor him. In a just world, his castaway songs would've found their full depth on recordings that would live past the expiration date on his tired body.

But he did leave behind a very nice catalog of work, both with The Byrds and solo, and I have my memories of a guy that always treated my band, and me personally, as an equal and a friend. Rest easy, Gene.

My ride with Danny & Dusty

My ride with Danny & Dusty

A few months ago, Steve Wynn had posted on his blog the possibility that he and Dan Stuart writing songs together.

It has happened. Danny & Dusty ride again. But without me, and two of the other guys - Sid Griffin and Dennis Duck.

Yes, I played bass for the original crazed mass that was Danny & Dusty -- in 1985-1986. There were three live shows, one LP on A&M, and a bottled fifth of memories during our brief time as the first incarnation of that band. Gather around kids, and I'll tell you my story of how I saw it all happen, way back when.

It was early 1985. I was smiling through the fabulous roller coaster ride that was The Long Ryders. Our Native Sons LP was released in the Fall of 1984 on Frontier Records and was taking us to new heights. On the strength of that record and the tremendous press response we'd received in the UK and the Continent, we were about to leave on our first tour across the pond, where many good things were waiting for The Long Ryders.

We'd already played shows with Green on Red while we both crisscrossed the U.S. on tour in the Spring of 1984. The camaraderie was magical. We'd toss a coin to see who would go on first and last. Dan and Chris would come up on stage during our set for various songs, and we'd do the same during their set. Friendships were formed that continue to this day.

I think I first met Steve Wynn when he and Russ Tolman from True West jumped on stage during one of the first gigs I played with The Long Ryders in the Bay area, and did a frightening version of Green River. Weeks later, Steve and I had a chance to have our first good conversation at Folk City in NYC, again the occasion was a Long Ryders gig.

I recently found a tape of a Steve Wynn solo show at McCabe's in August of 1984 where Dan gets up and sings a heartfelt "Bend in the Road" with Steve. This gig seems to signal the beginning of what would become Danny & Dusty.

Steve Wynn's band Dream Syndicate was already signed to A&M, but was going through some serious changes with the not-so-amicable departure of Karl Precoda. Is there ever such a thing as an amicable split? Anyway, changes we looming.

In January or February of 1985, we got a call. Danny and Steve had written a song and wanted to record it for a compilation, then titled "Little Sisters." This LP was to be a compilation of L.A. bands doing country-tinged songs. Later I received an early tape of proposed tracks for the LP, including songs by The Bangles (under the pseudonym Donna and Phyllis Everly), Michael Stipe/Matthew Sweet duet on "Tainted Obligations," and in the studio I heard stuff like Jeffrey Lee Pierce doing Bad Moon Rising. The LP did come out later, under the title Don't Shoot, with far fewer tracks than I heard initially, and the songs I just mentioned left out.

Seven guys entered The Control Center studio in Hollywood that evening for the session that turned out to be the beginning of the first Danny & Dusty LP. It was Sid Griffin, Stephen McCarthy and myself from The Long Ryders, Dennis Duck from Dream Syndicate and Chris Cacavas from Green on Red, along with Dan Stuart and Steve Wynn.

We got to work almost immediately. We first stood around Danny, who was seated with an acoustic guitar, and he played us Bend in the Road, the song we were to record that night. The tape soon rolled and we nailed it with little effort, and unexpectedly, Steve introduced a new song called The Word is Out, which we also finished that night.

It then became clear that we needed to finish an album. Those two songs were killer and the band instinctively knew their way around the mood and material. We had rehearsals, but not many. It was all happening fast. It was from listening to a rehearsal tape that I realized how good the material really was.

We recorded the rest of the LP on a Saturday and Sunday, again at Control Center. At one point Danny wanted to play Phil Spector and sit in the control booth and listen while we churned out instrumental tracks, but it soon became obvious that his spirit was needed in the studio. Whenever he was there singing, twirling, and antagonizing Steve Wynn, the band was at its wildest and best as a result.

There were modifications to the original LP. It was decided by someone (Wynn?) that Bend in the Road should be left off, so that the Little Sisters LP would have an exclusive track. Also gone was the brief, impromptu version of Green on Red's Gas Food Lodging that once was sequenced between Miracle Mile and Baby We All Gotta Go Down. The Little Sisters LP, after going through a series of changes, came out years later as Don't Shoot, with Bend in the Road intact.

Danny and Dusty had no label deal before we started recording, but Steve assured us that his label, Down There, would release it if no other came forward. Both The Long Ryders and Green on Red were on independent labels and not bound to exclusive label restrictions, but Dream Syndicate was at that time signed to A&M Records. As a result, Steve had to give submit the LP to A&M, and submitted the finished LP to them.

Someone from A&M loved it, and they picked it up.

Despite rave reviews, sales of the LP were not spectacular. Radio in 1985 was much more geared toward Madonna and Tears for Fears rather than a rootsy, rollicking band whose lyrics reflected the damaged underbelly of modern American culture. A&M never knew what to do with us, so they did next to nothing. Across the Atlantic, reaction was much more friendly. Tour offers were made but never happened. We played our last gig at the Music Machine on February 1st, 1986. Danny & Dusty never officially broke up, but we were all bound to our individual projects, and eventually we all were scattered to different parts of the globe. Ten years ago, Sid tried to launch a Danny & Dusty reunion in London, with all of us but Danny agreeing. Danny was retired for showbiz at the time, for personal reasons.

I'll let you in on a little secret: Sid and I have been working on a Danny & Dusty - The Lost Weekend CD, slated for release on Universal UK, with two extra tracks: the deleted Gas Food Lodging mentioned above, and a live Down to the Bone from Club Lingerie in Hollywood in 1985.

Fast-forwarding to today, you can bet that any new collaboration between Steve Wynn and Dan Stuart will contain great songwriting, and sound as good 20 years from now as today. Steve Wynn's last three releases (...Tick...Tick...Tick, Static Transmission and Here Come the Miracles) have been superb, and required listening and ownership by those of us who care. Dan surprised everyone by emerging last year with a reformed, original-lineup version of Green on Red, who played many beautifully honest and devastating gigs this summer.

Here's what I recently wrote to Dan and Steve. Obviously, this was before I knew that Chris was joining the fold as well.

Dan,

My thoughts of the prospect of you and Wynn writing new material together trump any narcissistic feelings that I may have over me not being a part of it.

I know that every note that I improvise, every lyric or chord change that I write, is strongly influenced by every band or musician with whom I've ever played music. It's inescapable. That extends to the dodgy bands that I've slaved alongside here in Indiana just to keep my stage chops sharp, and into the truly great bands I've lucked into. Danny & Dusty was one of those truly great bands, one of those rare far-greater-than-the-sum partnerships. Best of all, the material was strong enough to fuel the band into giving beyond their best, and inspire on a lasting level. I know that the lasting effect for me being a part of Danny & Dusty will affect me in a very tangibly positive way for the rest of my life.

Am I disappointed? Hell, yeah! But getting guys spread around three continents to back two guys whose potentially fragile reunion could explode at any time under the weight of their very own idiosyncronicities could indeed be ruled a form of insanity. Case closed.

I understand totally why you guys are doing what you're doing in converting to Danny & Dustyball. The show must go on. But, in a non-linear way, Chris, Dennis, Sid and myself will always be a part of Danny & Dusty through how it enriched all of us, even those that cannot remember as well as I do. Again, it's inescapable.

Thus, the brotherhood is not broken. It's expanding.

Tom Stevens

Tower Records going out of business

I started writing this as soon as I heard that Tower was going out of business for good, forever. I was an employee of Tower Records on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood for four years, from 1979 until 1983. I wrote this to celebrate what was.

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Wow, was I green.

It was April 1979. Magi, the band I was in at the time, got fed up with the Midwest and decided to move to Hollywood to Make It Big. We found a condo on Silver Lake Blvd., across from what is now Spaceland.

Never being independently wealthy, my arrival in Hollywood meant that I could only watch in horror as all of my savings were flying out of my wallet, with no source of replenishment in site. Hollywood has ingenious ways of separating people from their money. Time to get a job.

Since a great record store has always been heaven on earth to me, I applied to them all over Hollywood: Wherehouse, Licorice Pizza, Music Plus, Aron's, Rene's All Ears, Peaches, Tower, and probably more.

The first serious interview I had was with Wherehouse. The guy enthusiastically suggeted moving me directly into an assistant manager position. I was honored, until hearing that they say that to all of their prospective employees. They never called me back.

Lack of food money became a concern. The band was no help, and it was already showing signs that the end was near.

I found myself returning to Tower Records on the Sunset Strip via the RTD bus, to just hang and soak in the amazing collection of music and the Sunset Strip vibe. An employee there told me that they were about to do an inventory, and they always needed extra people for that. Sure enough, I soon landed a two-day inventory job with Tower.

Almost immediately after the inventory, I was hired full-time by Bob Delanoy. My hiring was probably due to my little notes on the inventory sheet - for example, under the record bins I found and noted several carrying cases for 45s with psychedelic designs. "You're hired," enthused Bob, "we can always use someone sharp like you." Wow, it was that easy? So began the next four years of my daily existence.

During that inventory, I met a devastatingly attractive young woman in the back parking lot of Tower while pizza was being served for lunch. She smiled and it was obvious. Her name was Elaine. It was a slow build, but I've now been married to her for nearly 23 years.

I can say that the rumors and stories you're heard about Tower Records on the Sunset Strip are all true, at least when I was there. There were indeed celebrities there: truly great stars, stars as normal people, stars as derelicts, along with everyone else, all the time. My mother would always ask what stars had visited lately, and I could never remember half of them. There were those who embraced modern times and those that seemed perfectly preserved from another era. All were welcome.

There was always a buzz of excitement, creativity, struggle and success bouncing off every wall, customer and employee. Industry and customers alike looked after us. Record companies would send graphic artists, who would paint the latest album covers on the large boards that draped the outside of the building. Clerks were sent by the industry to inventory their own stock. Tower's fly-off-the-shelf factor was famous, so there was big return in making sure that one's product was well-stocked at all times. Those labels reps would also give us promos of any new LP we asked them for, along with comp and drink tickets to shows at the nearby Whiskey or Roxy, and larger venues like the L.A. Forum.

My fellow employees were a motley collection of unique characters, often refined with Hollywood precision to make their familiar-to-me Midwestern equivalents seem still-in-development. Some would stay at Tower for years, some would disappear without a trace weeks later. Some were losers, some were destined for far better. The amazing networking potential was fed by the diversity of co-workers and clientele. At any moment one's life could change drastically if one could just see the door opening for that split-second.

Tower Sunset employees came from all over the world, often going on to musical, acting, film, writing careers, or just going back home. There'd be the world-wise-but-damaged California-bred perennials, East Coast transplants, Vietnam vets, oil-rich kid good guy Kaz from Iran, and naive people from who-knows-where, all successfully escaping their nowheresville hometowns, if only for a while. Just like me.

The diverse music played constantly, and it was all chosen by the employees. Everyone got their pick of one side of an LP, pulled off the shelves. We wrote our names on the shrink wrap, and placed the LP under the to-be-played stack next to the turntable behind the register. Joy Division followed by Tito Puente followed by the Sweeney Todd soundtrack followed by the latest disco mix followed by Miles Davis follwed by The Kinks. Each selection was chosen by the employee, either to hear and share music they loved, or to be used as a weapon to piss off those too narrow to appreciate the full sweep of the collection of music we sold and soaked in daily.

It's a wonder I made any money there at all. Freebies aside, we always swooped down upon new arrivals of independent and import 45s and LPs, devouring them. Great bands that I'd only read about in mags like Creem and Who Put the Bomp were in stock en masse, begging me to take them home. A little short on cash? No problem! Just sign that little charge slip and a Tower employee's records, tapes, magazines, and maybe even a salary advance for lunch money would come out of the next check. Did your piece of crap car break down again? See Bob for a small loan! Must've been an accounting nightmare, but it worked for us.

The phone rang constantly. Tower Sunset employees were regarded as musical experts, so we were often called to settle arguments and even bets. Once when I explained that it was Them featuring Van Morrison and NOT The Shadows of Knight that recorded the original version of Gloria, the caller groaned and a whoop of triumph came from the background. No telling how much money traded hands as a result.

There were in-store appearances and parking lot concerts. One of my first was The Pretenders, looking tired and edgy, signing their brand new first LP while guzzling Heinekins at ten in the morning. One could always tell what Elvis Costello's next LP would be like by the type of records he bought before. Robert Fripp sitting with his guitar performing Frippertronics, so close to me that I could kick him. While I was working the cash register one morning, there was a grumbling in line that Richard Dreyfuss, also in line with purchases, had refused to sign an autograph for a customer. I rang his purchases up, he signed his credit card slip and handed it to me. I waved that slip over my head to the people in line, declaring, "I've got it!" to applause. A diminutive Bruce Springsteen was spotted hiding in the tape department, but he still signed my copy of Born to Run with gratitude. James Brown signing customers' aging King label 45s during an in-store, always with a gracious smile. Robin Williams, worse for wear but still razor-sharp that late Sunday, giving me a hiliarious, obviously improvised routine at the info booth. Brian Wilson's, er, morning episode, with 45s having to be removed from the ceiling afterward, all with a white-coated Dr. Landy standing guard at the endcap. Why did Rick James always want to use our bathroom? Rodney Dangerfield doing an in-store, then walking to the Tower back room, firing one up and passing it around. Helping a cool and cordial Tom Waits find the first Hollywood Fats LP, misfiled in the oldies section. Father Guido Sarduci signing Devo records. An alluring Lauren Hutton bumming cigarettes off me. Rickie Lee Jones and I just hanging out early on a Saturday morning, shooting the breeze like old high school buds. David Lee Roth wishing me a Merry Christmas. Slowly I adjusted and the unexpected became routine, but never, never dull.

Larry from Magi remained in Hollywood, eventually running Music Plus on Vine Street, across town from Tower. While working the info booth I was thinking about how we hadn't chatted for a while. As if on cue, up comes a harmless but very obnoxious customer, who started asking for an album in an accent that I could not decipher. I stopped his rant and calmly wrote down Larry's name and the Music Plus address, assuring the looney that Larry could help him. Half an hour later, Larry was on the phone, livid. This began our series of "good will customer exchanges." I think the topper was when he sent Wild Man Fischer looking for me.

Remember that TV commercial about ten years ago with Daffy Duck being turned down for a purchase because he didn't have ID?

That really happened at Tower Sunset in the late 70s. To one of The Beatles.

Stars and record company folks would often bring purchases to the info booth to use a company charge. Store policy had recently changed, and anyone requesting a company charge had to show ID first.

One day, up to the info booth comes Ringo Starr, a stack of records in hand, to charge them to the Capitol Records account.

"Hi, Ringo. Can I see some ID?"

Silence. If this was a joke, Ringo was not at all amused. "You're kidding?"

"No, Ringo, I have to see some ID."

The sound of commotion filled the store. I do not know exactly what Ringo said, but the words were not pretty. He left the store, vowing, "I'll never come back here!" He never did. Said employee was reamed sideways by Delanoy, and was gone not long after.

A few years later, Harry Nilsson, a frequent flyer at Tower, bought a bunch of LPs for Ringo and wanted them delivered. My friend Regina and I gladly volunteered, and made the drive to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Ringo lived at the time. Regina and I were major Beatles fans, so we could barely contain our excitement on the way over.

But the hotel desk clerk would not let us see Ringo, only allowing us to leave the records for him at the desk. This was early 1981, paranoia was running high among a lot of celebrities after John Lennon's killing, and who could blame Ringo? We left the records with the desk clerk and went back to Tower.

I never did get to meet Ringo, or any Beatle for that matter.

Meanwhile, full-tilt life went on at Tower. For sanity's sake, I'd have to detach myself from the swirling, intoxicating chaos every once in a while, just to observe rather than being caught up in the movement of the herds of people from everywhere passing through the Tower doors with dizzying relentlessness. They'd line up outside for our opening early in the morning, and we'd be throwing them out of the doors after midnight. Stars mingled with street people, Broadway lovers lined up with punks. To see it through the eyes of a cashier, Tower and the music business brought everyone together, and was an unstoppable money machine. There was no end in sight, or so it seemed at the time.

Then trouble started in 1983. Business suits from the outside somehow came into control of Tower and started making jarring changes. The first thing they did was to freeze our salaries. More changes loomed, and none for the better. It was a clampdown. What were they thinking? These guys were proudly out of touch with what made Tower great. Knowing how quickly things can fall apart, I immediately started searching for a new job, as others did at the same time. I soon found one at an import LP distributor in Santa Monica. That business got red hot when we started selling imported compact discs. The hype for CDs was devastating in early 1983. None were being made in the U.S., but compact disc players were arriving with much fanfare at U.S. hi-fi dealers. Those dealers were starving for compact discs of any type. Having shelves of CDs to sell and a major untapped market at the waiting, I bought stacks of metro yellow pages, made cold calls and got orders for thousands of compact discs within days. Of course, that boomtime had a built-in poison pill as labels soon cracked down on such imports. I was safely in The Long Ryders by the time that business died, and you may well know the rest of my story with The Long Ryders.

Why is Tower no more? I've heard the long debate. The emergence of the compact disc and forced demise of the LP from music retail was the most obvious "beginning of the end" marker. Strange coincidence that the suits at Tower had come into the picture just months before. Compact discs were expensive from the start, and promises of cheaper CDs in the future were never fulfilled. The labels kept quietly increasing the wholesale price of a compact disc to stores, forcing retail to take the bullet. Also, a CD will never have the soul of a record album. Relative to an LP, everything on CD is miniaturized and squeaky-sounding. Forcing customers to re-buy their music in an inferior package for twice the price resulted in old-time customers not going along for the ride. Many loyal customers never returned to their former buying habits, including me.

Slowly but inevitably, karma happened. The next generation of music lovers emerged. Those music lovers never knew the joys of buying cheap LPs by the dozen. As prices went up on music CDs, prices went down on CD burners and blanks. This little thing called high-speed Internet allowed music downloads to flourish. Internet music downloading was going to happen with or without the record labels, and the labels showed no leadership in propelling this emerging music delivery system. As a result of that lack of leadership, it was left to the public to perfect the system, and perfect it they did, throwing music downloads into a weird de facto public domain state. Instead of embracing music downloads, the industry response was raising compact disc prices yet again, whining to legislators, signing even fewer new artists and offering us even less in terms of excitement, innovation or diversity in new music. Artists found it harder to survive on their label deals and were often forced into bankruptcy. Then the record industry started suing their own customers via their pitbull, the RIAA. Nice PR move. The implosion of the music business has been the saddest, slowest suicide that I have ever witnessed in my years on the planet. And the downward spiral is still in full horrifying slo-mo descent.

There are glimmers of hope today for music fans. MySpace is one, despite of all its flaws. You can hear new music from brilliant artists like The Last, who have not yet been able to secure a traditional record deal, but three of their new tracks are here. Steve Wynn has released three killer albums in a row, and you can hear songs from them here. How else would I hear Jenny & The Belmont Boys? The list goes on...

As for the future of music and music distribution, I truly believe that there are huge things on the horizon that haven't emerged yet. iTunes is a start, but that's not it, mainly because DRM is yet another way to make war on paying customers and restrct the free use of paid-for music. Despite the hostile tactics from the old guard, there will always be ways to get our favorite tunes and support artists. All ways are welcome, but any music distribution system that expects to survive must exist to the benefit of artists, industry and customers alike. When all three aren't synchronized, we lose wonderful institutions like Tower Records as a result.

There are so many lessons to be learned with Tower's demise, but I'm done philosophizing. Mostly, I'm more than a bit sad right now, and the full impact hasn't hit me yet. I do know that my world without Tower, particularly Tower Sunset, will be a lesser one.

Home, What Was, and the Brave New World

 

"The CD as it is right now is dead" EMI Music Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Levy, to an audience at the London Business School in October.

Home, my new release, is now available as of November 6 on iTunes.

But, there's more to the story...

If you live long enough and are as obsessed with music as I have been throughout my life, you will see formats change again and again.

I learned to read while playing 45s on my little red record player and staring at those labels, probably trying to put the words together with the songs I heard.

I started going to nursery school when I was four, in 1961. I found the games played by my peers boring and unnecessarily emotionally involving, so I avoided them like an incurable disease. Instead, as my teachers complained in my permanent record, I tended to go off by myself, picking out tunes on their piano or playing records. "He needs to work on his social skills," they insisted.

My favorite record at that school was a Bozo the Clown album. It was a multiple set of 78rpm records in a fold-out cover, brightly illustrated, like a photo album, hence the name album. All was well in my 78-spinning young world until one day I dropped and broke one of the 78s. I cried and was guilt-ridden, and later talked my Dad into checking into a replacement for Bozo at Jack's Record Shop in downtown Elkhart, which was patterned after Wallach's Music City in Hollywood, with listening booths and everything at list price.

My Father returned with the news: they didn't make 78s anymore, only LPs and 45s. I never owned a 78, so it made sense.

So was the first change noted in my young mind: 78s were dead, replaced by the 45 and the LP.

Sometime in the late 60s, cassettes emerged, and I got a Norelco cassette player for Christmas. It was fun and portable, but nowhere near as nice and hi-fi as LPs or even 45s. Eight-track cartridges were also popular, and I actually bought a home 8-track player which I sold later. I did love sticking my head between the speakers and turning up the volume, and this was the first really identifiable stereo music player I'd ever possessed.

There were also 4-track cartridges, similar to 8-track cartridges, but they died a fairly quick death.

Eight-track cartridges were cool since they were the first portable media to catch on, so you could listen to something other than the radio in your car. Dealers had trade-in programs for eight-tracks. Pirate eight-tracks meant that you could often find well-compiled tapes full of the hits of the day, before big copyright changes came in 1972. But they were fragile, and their design flaw of unspooling the tape from the center meant that the lifespan of an eight-track cartridge was short. They also didn't sound as good as LPs.

For those of you who read my Tower blogs, you'll know I got a job there in 1979, and there were still eight-track cartridges on the shelves, but not for long. Only the cassette survived in the realm of tapes as the 70s drew to a close. Vinyl still thrived, until the mid-80s, when compact discs emerged. Suddenly, vinyl was disappearing as compact discs took over the shops. What the hell was going on?

Overnight, prices for recorded music doubled. CDs had a heyday when labels began to reissue long-out-of-print albums, and add bonus tracks to CDs. Still, something was wrong, consumers knew it, and slowly people stopped buying CDs.

So, here we are. My daughter and her friends think that iTunes is totally legit, in fact, preferred. Why buy a CD for nearly $20 when you can download it to your iPod for $9.99?

As you know if you were listening to Ghost Train, Flying out of London and Belladonna on MySpace, I have a new release that kept nagging at me: "When am I coming out Dad? Don't people like me as they did my older brothers and sisters?". To stop that nagging, I've made my usual rounds to CD labels old and new, and I heard:

1) CDs are really hard to sell nowadays.

2) I'm going through a divorce, and the label had to go as part of the settlement.

3) We folded about a year ago, despite our best efforts. It just wasn't profitable.

4) I can't see this type of music on my label. (Label goes bankrupt weeks later)

5) You want an advance??? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

6) Mastering? Sure, I've got software that came free in a box of Wheaties.

7) (the sound of crickets)

Meanwhile, thanks to my old friend Gary Stewart, once bigwig at Rhino and current Chief Music Officer (CMO) at iTunes, I inked a swell deal with AWAL UK. Home, my new release, will be available November 6 via iTunes. I'll be writing more in the coming days about this release, but for now, keep watching, because it's coming soon.

Already I've fielded weird looks. Among those that remember the bygone eras above, iTunes is simply not a substitute for a real LP/CD/8-track that you can hold in your hands, study the liners and gape at the pictures. It's a brave new world.

The Garfield Ghost

Around 1977, I lived briefly with a young woman best described as a rebounder. My psycho high school sweetie had ungraciously smashed my heart like a bottle of cheap beer against a wall. To try to heal (foolish me) I took up for a while with another on the rebound. We had a old house near the one I grew up in, on Benham and Garfield in South Central Elkhart. It was a beautiful two-story duplex, with lots of natural woodworking, a mail slot that led to a glass, metal and mahogany mailbox inside the house, wooden swinging doors to the kitchen, and creaky steps that led to the upstairs bedrooms.

One night we were slightly, er, imbibed and laughing, when suddenly we felt a breeze and noticed the kitchen doors swinging. We were alone and the house was shut tight. My girlfriend, out of the blue and in her infinite (lack of) wisdom, made a derogatory crack about a damned ghost in the house. As if on cue, a coin that had rested on the top of the TV came spinning violently down onto the floor in front of us.

Uh-oh.

For the next few months, we'd wake to unexpected sounds, mostly of the kitchen doors swinging or the steps creaking. Things placed on tables at night would be found on the floor in the morning. If at night I had heard the sound of an actual burglar stealing all of our belongings, I would've just chalked it up to yet another ghosting episode and went back to sleep.

My relationship with the rebounder just wasn't working out at all. She wanted marriage and children pretty much immediately, while I was looking to exit the sheer misery of punching a factory clock for a living. Deep scars within me began to form from her games and deception that my wife Elaine is still helping to fully heal, bless her.

Then opportunity knocked. Girlfriend had located her long-lost father in Florida, visited him there and loved everything about her trip. I seized the opportunity and began coaxing her to move there. She did so not long after, and got married six weeks later, arranged by her father. Suddenly I was free, coincidentally started doing much more life-affirming band roadwork, and suffered few pains of withdrawal.

I returned from taking her to the airport for the last time to what was now my own home. On the way I stopped at the store to change the brand of cigarettes I smoked. As I laid alone in bed that night, *creak* *creak* went the stairs. By now, this was far from being a scary experience for me. Instead, it bordered on obnoxious. Still, if this was a genuine ghost, and I could think of no other logical explanation, I took pity. They went to church faithfully in their living state, my young mind pondered freely, believing all the while in the promise of Heaven with its wings and harps. Instead they found themselves in a dull purgatory of walking this old house, and out of spite or boredom doing their best to terrorize its inhabitants du jour. Too sad. So, I got up out of bed only partially clothed, came down the stairs, and began to speak to the ghost, explaining:

1) My girlfriend has moved out permanently and I'm the only one here now.
2) I apologize for any disrespect shown to you.
3) Your noises are unnecessary, they don't frighten me and must require some futile effort on your part.
4) We're both stuck here in this house for now, I'm only renting it, will be on the road with my band and thus gone a lot, and probably won't even live here for long.
5) I can't stop you from cavorting around the house, but I really wish that you'd come to rest and find some peace for both of us.

I never heard the ghost again after that, not even when I had overnight guests. This was the house I stayed in during the Blizzard of 1978. I was returning from a 6-night gig in Rockford, IL, where every female I met there proudly claimed that they "knew" Rick Nielsen, with the same star-struck tone as those women I met during the early Long Ryders U.S. tours that proudly proclaimed that they "knew" Paul Westerberg. I drove a woman's Vega all the way from Rockford to Elkhart, and the normal four hour drive took more like nine to ten hours. They'd just opened I-80/90 and there were still ice craters all over the road. I got back and marveled how the old house felt just like home. It was warm and loving with my writings, records and guitars. After my travel companion Vega-ed slowly back to Rockford, I worked on a new song that I was writing on a Sony 2-track reel-to-reel tape recorder that I owned since I was a kid. I then paused to look out the window at the 12-foot drifts still covering most of the neighborhood, and pondered the ghost once more. Did it leave the house, venturing into the unknown, or was it merely quietly observing my lifestyle without a sound? I'll never know, but one thing struck me as ironic.

I, too, was looking for a way out.