rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Of Hip and Hop and Hope and Hate: Random Thoughts on Growing Old Disgracefully

     Finally got a day off and got to the library. Thoughts racing like a train. Find myself walking too fast all the time, even at home. Have to constantly ask myself "What are you in such a hurry for?" and force myself to slow down. Let's see what's been on my furry little mind lately?

     I've noticed that lately I've been turning up the radio, or stopping on the television music channel for hip hop stuff more and more. I really like Kanye West (although I wish his records sounded as tough as he apparently thinks they do. I have/had the same problem w/Metallica). VH1 showed  a Jay Z concert from Madison Square Garden that rocked harder than anything I'd seen since ... since... well, since the Beastie Boys concert movie made up of vidcam shots from the audience. Jay Z represents, to me, the Uptown rapper - sorta like how B.B. King represents Uptown Blues where the Beasties are like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: all rackety roll and a little cartoony around the edges, a tactic that helps the millionaire posing as a thug stance seem a little more credible.

     I know that most, if not all, 'popstars' lie through their bonded teeth about who they are and where they came from, padding their resumes w/drug dealer pasts and shooting incidents. Some real, more embellished, some outright invented I'm sure. I'm at the point where this perceived hipocracy seldom gets in the way of my enjoying the random slamming groove, shall we say,  but as usual I yearn for that elusive, non-existent Truth or, failing that - and we all fail that - at least a modicum of sincerity.

     Enter Britney Spears. Growing up in public. Pulling a solid (if vapid - hey this is dance music, right) album out of the trailer park tabloid trainwreck that has become her public image, if not her life, in recent months. For all the tragedy surrounding Spears and her ex and the kids, and I don't minimize the tragedy, I just don't see it as any of my business, an aging cynic like myself finds a twisted comfort in the celebration of all things fucked up her life has become. Not since Iggy was a Stooge has self destruction looked so appealing.

    Yes, I know I'm sick. See what my problem is, is I'm happy. Or at least content. Work's become a real source of pride and accomplishment and all that happy nonsense. Besides which, I've just been too damn busy to piss, moan or write much. I fear I'm falling into the sobriety trap. I'm not comparing my work to the following folks, but it seems almost all ther artists I've looked up to during my long, long life became, after a prolonged and impressive drinking/drugging/depressive artistic cycle either got sober, got therapy or got both and/or found Jesus or Buddha or somebody  and wound up thereafter putting out lousier and lousier record.

  SEE: Reed, Lou - Westerberg, Paul - Dulli, Greg - Smith, Aero (although I've always found them dreadful) etc.

     So I got this guitar and I'm spending what little time off I've had lately watching tv w/the sound off and playing the blues like any other divorced dentist or stockbroker when Ii should be writing anthems of anger (I mean the whole world IS still going to hell in a handbasket. Come on, when even Matchbox 20 believes 'the world in burning to the ground" then we're in trouble people.) but I'm just too damn well fed and self satisfied to raise any ruckus 'cause my life's alright.

    Becoming what one hates: It's the new American Dream, if not the new black.

    See y'all later, I'm gonna go shopping online for a beatbox.

    

            

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:08 | link | comments (4)

Been a Long Time Since I Rock and Rolled, Uh Huh

  Greetings, poetry lovers! I must apologize for my lengthy silence, it was not intentional. Due to recent heavy rainfall in my beloved Arkansas Valley, the library where I shovel this tripe was flooded and, as a result, closed for 2 months.

  Adding to that, my recent promotion at the Hippest Convenience Store on the Prairie has kept me busybusybusy and, although the new library opened last week (nice new digs, it's in the old school where the town once passed on opening a shelter for Katrina victimes, oh well) today's the 1st day my schedule allowed the opportunity to sit and spell a spell.

     So let's see what's up? Still don't believe in god but the job's got me to thinking that there might actually be something to the whole 'community' angle. Gathered up Kenny and Dan and played what very well might have been the last Flashback gig 3 weeks ago. (Hey, NONE of us are getting any younger, or healthier for that mater). Anyway, we hadn't played out in over 2 years and hadn't even rehearsed in over 6 months when we plugged into borrowed amps on a flatbed truck/stage in front of 250 or so end of summer partying drunks in the parking lot of a bar called the Buzzard's Roost in Lamar, Colorado.

    Sandwiched between 2, count 'em, 2 heavy metal bands, the 3 of us, w/a combined experience of over 150 years, smoked the young 'uns, got 2 encores and yr humble narrator even got slapped on the ass by a very cute waitress who's image I will take w/me to my grave.

    Now that my finances are starting to look almost like those of an actual adult, I hope to start recording new stuff w/decent equipment for a change and to also make and make available copies of The Instruction Manual and all the other stuff I've been promising for like 2 years now. What can I say other than I'm still climbing out of a hole I'd dug myself and hey, things take time.

     Animal news. Both Bleeker and Mac Dougal have taken off, although friends report seeing them around town so, while Ii miss them I wish them well. The reason they took off, I think is that Camille and her 4 kittens ALL turned out to be female and as a result my little grey hole in the ghetto is awash w/kittens and (in Bleek and Mickey's eyes, I'm a-guessin') just too damn many babymamas.

     Buster is still my best friend and confidant, although he's not too happy about having to take his morning walk at 3:30 am on the days I open the store. He keeps getting mud on his pajamas.

     Lynn is great, all the noisy neigbors have moved out for the time being so I'm actually getting some sleep. Not that any of this matters to anyone reading this but I've missed you. And maybe next time I get here I'll write something about rock and roll.

    

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:04 | link | comments (11)