Simon ,'Jaynestown'
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
Mighty Mighty Bosstones just broke up. Seems Dicky Barrett is an anti-vaxer and that's what did them in. After 40 damn years.
Bad week for Trudy's bombastic musical tastes and COVID insanity I'll tell you what.
An old joke is bouncing around again in honor of the occasion:
"What's the difference between a bull and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones?"
A bull has its horns in the front and its asshole in the back.
Just scored McCartney tickets and I'm trying to not cry and beatlescream all over the office.
Mark Lanegan passed away two days ago. [link]
Oh, yes, I saw that about Lanegan, and that prompted me to do some nostalgia listening. While watching "No One Knows" [link] I noticed this gem in the comments:
Legend goes that if you say "f—, I need a drummer" in the bathroom mirror at night, 3 times, Dave Grohl shows up to play in your band.
Nightbirde died last Saturday.
It's not okay. It's not all right.
xkcd "Chorded Keyboard" [link]
The hovertext on that comic is so true...
OK, so My Chem are successfully touring and did not re-break up over the shutdown.
The Ways appear sober, Frankie is indulging in dad jokes, and Toro looks more like a Rock God than ever.
Soooo.... after ten years of waiting for them to get back together and two years of fervent prayer that they not break up again during the COVID delays I saw My Chem once more and it. was. magnificient.
Mikey has filled out and looks healthy (and I felt less like I should card him before having grown-up thoughts) playing confidently and all over the dang stage. Frankie is clearly sick with something (again) as he's playing in his cardigan and super focused on playing (as opposed to running around climbing people) but sounded great. Toro is shredding, drinking merlot, and. just. beaming. The man is obviously delighted to be playing with the rest of them. Shreds, swaps out guitar, shreds, swaps, bit of wine... Toro-smiling all the while. He's a happy happy man. (And whomever they got to air-brush on his jeans this tour is top-notch.) Gerard looks healthy (not coke-skinny, not depressed-in-the-basement-sketching-and-chain-smoking chubby). He's even got some muscle on his pasty legs (SoCal? Really? For a decade now?) which we had quite the view of as he was Donald Duckin' it all over the stage with that evening's perfomance ensemble of a big shirt and little shorts He has pedals for various vocal effects so he won't rip up his throat this tour. They're happy, healthy, and getting along.
And they tore the place up. The arena went wild. They. were. on. Gerard still owns his crowd. And a whooooole bunch of them were kids - they'd been in pre-k last time MCR played. The future looks bright.
The Bouncing Souls opened (so Frank and I were in heaven) and my friends and I ran into them afterwards. Pete and George (guitarist, drummer) were saying Chem were shredding, really tight, just fantastic, "they're a really good band." See, *I* felt that way, but when the 30 year veterans who play a pretty different genre say so I know I'm not seeing what I want to see.