Infinite Jest

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled coverage of the collapse of civilization to bring you this unsolicited book report.

INFINITE JEST, DAVID FOSTER WALLACE-- 1996. BACK BAY BOOKS 1079 PAGES

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It’s not like I just go rushing to the dentist with every new tooth decay. But 29 had pretty much been reduced to rubble, so I scheduled the crown in an attempt to avoid a canal. I knew it would be a long appointment with built-in breaks, so I brought noise-cancelling headphones and a book the size and approximate density of a cinderblock. It doesn’t as much sit in your lap as on it…

“I see you’re reading Infinite Jest,” remarked my DDS, a skilled craftsman but not someone I consider a particularly agile small-talker. “Are you enjoying it?”

I said I didn’t think enjoying was the right word-- but that like it was powerful literature, sure.

“I haven’t read it,” he admitted, sitting to my right, already holding the syringe. “It’s kind of about dysfunction, isn’t it?”

The novocain shot is always the worst part. I looked from him to the needle, then back at him. The dental assistant was behind me, to my left. No one spoke or moved for what seemed like a very long moment, even considering how compressed time can feel in the dentist office. Eventually I rested my head back in the cradle of the chair and said ‘yes.’

“Alright Jeff,” he chirped buoyantly, the same as if I’d responded to a comment on the weather. “I’m gonna ask you to open up real wide for me...”

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The Boston Globe called Infinite Jest rabidly intelligent. The Atlantic Monthly proclaimed it a work of genius. Harper’s Bazaar said it was a sprawling piece of intellectual wizardry & social satire-- that it was at once serious, diagnostic, frightening, and lyrical and describing author David Foster Wallace’s imagination as limitless.

But those are dustcover reviews, probably commissioned. I’m writing a book report for free, because I’m out of episodes of Netflix or something. And book reports are supposed to like say what a book’s about.

I wish I knew...

My dentist hasn’t read it but even he knows it stars D. Function. And while there’s a lot more to it than that, he’s not incorrect-- neither is he the only one who hasn’t read it. Infinite Jest is among the most widely unfinished books of the last century. How many copies slouch on low shelves, sneering at lesser works-- a forgotten bookmark sticking out a third of the way through?

Most of my favorite books are short: Breakfast of Champions, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Crying of Lot 49. You can read them in a weekend or in three baths if you really want. I liked Jonathon Livingston Seagull. Infinite Jest is a thousand rigid pages, the last hundred of which is an appendix of 388 errata drawn from the body of the novel. Some are as brief as #349 which simply reads [sic]. Others are lengthy (#110 is 19 pages) often with multiple footnotes of their own, meaning you need two bookmarks and a string tied to your ankle to find your way out of the somehow even more densely-leaded forest of errata (9pt!). Many of these asides feature complex underplots and formulas, graphs, unredacted field interviews and supertechnical social schematic equations related to concepts that increasingly diverge from the original footnoted idea 748 pages prior that you forgot about altogether and are subsequently surprised to be reminded of once you do finally return to the original like jumping off place.

I’m a slow and very linear reader. I read every word without skipping discriminately ahead UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE I KNOW and I don’t employ ghostreaders. I did read every page of Infinite Jest, many of them more than once. My pace-- call it steady-- is not complicated by the squinting associated with decoding metaphor and symbolism. When a white horse vaults a split-rail fence at the climax of a passionate love scene, I just go ‘huh.’

All good and well-- but what is it about?

Even DF Wallace didn’t always appear to understand exactly what Infinite Jest was about. While he did say in 2003 that it’s fairly clear ‘what happens’, he also conceded a certain lack of resolve, (dis)claiming “the answers all exist… (but) out of the right frame of the picture.”

“The story can’t fully be made sense of,” he admitted. Then he committed suicide in 2008.

So I think in terms of conventional like book report gradings, this one should be a sliding scale even though I don’t expect full credit since I’m turning it in 20+ years late…

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Insomnia is not without its benefits. I’m not usually relaxed enough to enjoy fiction when anyone else in my household is awake-- so most of my reading is done in the very dark of night or the gathering dawn. Merely sayin’-- and also copping that I would never have read this fucking book without this past six months’ reliable sleeplessness. Still: even during the day I could feel it staring at me, and more than once had to get up and put it in another room or otherwise out of my sightline. It’s no pamphlet; if it’s in the room, you can see it.

Infinite Jest starts in the future and ends in the past. At times hyper-precise as if written with a slide rule and ton of cocaine, while other times rambling and tangential as if transcribed from a voicemail left from a moving vehicle, it often feels like the Sympathy for the Devil movie-- a ponderous panning of seemingly unrelated vignettes depicting abstract violence and torture, a macabre theater of uncooked spaghetti right up the ol’ urethra.

The characters are almost universally unlikable. I guess I kind of rooted for Gately, and Mario is at least happy even if it’s only because he doesn’t know any better. Pretty much everyone else is deeply flawed and/or irreparably damaged: criminally insane, grotesquely disfigured, racist, narcissistic and addicted. The antagonist and title entity is a movie made by one of the co-protagonists’ late father which is so mesmerizing that anyone who views is dies within days because of their immediate loss of interest in anything else other than watching the movie-- including food or water. Infinite Jest quite literally entertains people to death.

The governments of what was formerly known as the United States, Canada and Mexico are spying off on each other, trying to locate the master copy of the film in order to eliminate the maps of the other countries’ populations. No one really succeeds (at least within the boundaries of the rightmost frame).

Generations of adolescences are spoiled by performance anxiety at a prestigious tennis prep school in New England. The Enfield Tennis Academy is covered in snow in its last appearance in the book.

Chemical dependence is a leading character and often manifests itself as the ghost of Recovery, specifically Boston AA. But despite the longterm sobriety of many of the ‘crocodiles,’ there are no blue skies or renewed leases or any actual redemptions seemingly for anyone. Rather, it is the ragged-right, secondhand smoke LABOR of Recovery—the plodding, rote obedience to a dogma that no one seems to truly understand or really even Trust, entirely. It’s a cruel swirly, but the best chance any of them have to stay alive-- so they keep coming back…

All that stuff happens, but I don’t think it’s really what the book is about.

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I don’t know if Infinite Jest is as hard a read as Gravity’s Rainbow or the Holy Bible—I’ve never read either. But after 800 pages of menacing concave ceilings, obsessive turd-tallying and repeated uses of words that not only do we no longer use in literature today but in truth were already not using in 1996—a reader kind of feels invested and that he might as well like finish. This is a great time for main characters to abruptly and without explanation begin speaking in first person after being portrayed till now in the third. This is the perfect time to provide detailed physical characteristics of main characters who to this point have not been described and to whom-- naturally and by necessity-- a reader has already assigned their own physical images. This is the ONLY sensible time to descend into a 36-page fever dream, fully eight of which are one single uninterrupted paragraph. Multiple colons in many sentences, levitating above the paper towel dispenser-- top hats for all my friends!

Because it does take six months to read. At least it did for me. To be fair, I did put it down between Thanksgiving and New Year’s as a Christmas present to myself. But it’s not like I felt any more or less hip after my winter break. It was still just as greasy a fistful of stories of Disease, abuse, disconnection, generational abandonment and unhealthy relationships between adults and minors—all running more-or-less parallel, sharing the same unfiltered tank asking what’s water. The apple (or pear, plum or peach) does not rot far from the tree...

Oh, it’s SUPER funny—don’t misunderstand me on that. DFW is a master of catch-and-release humor that elicits lolling about even the least-conventionally hilarious topics. As flung as this book seems at times, one does get the feeling eventually that there is not a single word out of place. What might be casually read or excerpted from the greater work could come off as random, but I don’t think there are any accidents in Infinite Jest. It is much more than the sum of its riddles, but I for one am going to have to read it again to understand exactly how much more.

Just probably not right now. Maybe a little Raymond Carver while I rest.

Riddle In Ruby

Unsolicited quarantine book report #11. A RIDDLE IN RUBY BOOK 1 by KENT DAVIS, 2015. GREENWILLOW BOOKS, 425 PAGES.

I'm not what you'd call a 'regular' in the Young Adult genre. After vanquishing the postmodern turnbuckle of Infinite Jest, I read Kurt Vonnegut's personal favorite of his own works, The Sirens of Titan in a weekend. It wasn't MY favorite of his numerous masterpieces, though it did feature the familiar themes of prophesied arrivals of half-wit chosen ones (Happy Easter!), space & time travel, and farmed sex in space.

Richard Bach's timeless Jonathon Livingston Seagull is only 10,000 words and is easily read in an evening. Should be, incidentally. If you haven't read JLS since college, give it a quick flip. Solid pandemic messaging right there.

Montana-based Davis has forged a heroine for the Now in his Riddle trilogy. Ruby Teach is part pirate, part alchemist, and all dreamer-- a reluctant, lock-picking, shape-shifting teenaged messiah (Happy Easter!) bent on the Right Things, no matter the costs. Set in 18th Century Colonial America, the novel finds the protagonist hastily cast with a small crew of similarly green bravehearts, on the run from Tinkers and Her Majesty's Royal Navy alike. Clowns to the left of her, jokers to the right. Seemingly everyone the scrappy young fugitives encounter has been expecting them. Ruby knows or has or is something that everyone is keen to commandeer. It would be simpler for her if she herself knew exactly what it was. But she's just learning, too...

From Peter Antonsson's swashbuckling cover art through to the last twist, A Riddle in Ruby is thrilling adventure story packed carefully with plenty of modern day relevance. Gender identity, social equity and a seemingly endless series of moral gutchecks lurk in every darkened iron doorway and up every winding stone staircase. A great read for young seekers or old geezers alike. Can't wait to get started on Book II. YAAF!

C

It's been a long time since I've shamelessly promoted my kids' art, but I see Patti has posted a link to Vincent's new record, so I think it's fair that I also be allowed to subject you, my unsuspecting social media acquaintance, to similar tortures.

Because it's not torture. Unless you don't like good rocking tonight, or maybe if you don't like subtly-cured melody tucked discreetly into short songs with one chorus. The first Boston record this aint. So if you like to be hit to death over the head with repetition or if you prefer polished production with glossy auto-harmonizered vocals, then maybe this not for you is.

Because 'C' was (almost) entirely made on 4-track cassette by someone without the formal training to know better-- quite intentionally on purpose. You can certainly make a record on your phone these days that sounds more conventionally professional than this, but the idea here was to build something that did not sound as if it had been crafted with the same tools available to everyone else for free. A lot of effort went in to making this album sound as shitty as it does.

Because it doesn't sound shitty. Hiss and hum and fart and the tones of discarded tracks that have been erased many sessions ago peeking out from under the final mix are the stuff that give recorded music some real DNA and that are often missing from modern music precisely because they're so easy to mute. There's a greasy, re-gifted thread that runs through this album, banding it together like a forcefield around the weird kids' lunch table in the corner of the cafeteria. They have all the secrets. They always have had.

And there are some secrets on this record. But you gotta listen to learn 'em. You might even have to listen twice. There isn't a note or chord out of place here. Some of it may sound a little rando at first casual pass, but I assure you that this is a very intentional work. The lyrics are insightful and bottomlessly clever. The melodies are sublime. And the atmosphere of the production gets more comfortable with each listen until you eventually can't imagine hearing it any other way.

But that's coming from a big fan who's listened to this a lot already. Several of these songs have been kicking around for years by now and these are merely the most-recent arrangements. Bandcamp isn't necessarily the most-familiar platform and that's no accident either. But it works perfectly fine, and I think you can pay for it if you want. However, I think Vincent would be more stoked if you listened to it without paying as opposed to the other way around. Go ahead, take a chance. On headphones if possible. And while you're there, 'B' aint bad neither...

(mastered by a real recording engineer, Evan Schiller)

(Try: Tell Yourself It's Good, Kick Down the Golden Door, Her Earlier Stuff)

Bellingham Herald

Call me old-fashioned (or worse) but I have trouble starting my day without a newspaper. It's not so much for the actual NEWS-- most of that has already been published electronically-- rather I guess I just like the PAPER part of it. Coffee just doesn't taste the same absent the smell of ink and pulp.

But not for $3.14 per day.

Unless I'm reading this statement wrong, that's what McClatchy thinks I'll pay for the privilege of proofreading the Herald. I've said it before, that publishing a daily newspaper looks harder every day in our realtime information culture. Dailies are folding at a startling rate and it's impossible to build an argument disputing the trend. The morning paper has lost its relevance and will soon be something only your parents remember with melancholy-- like ashtrays or rotary phones.

But it's still a drag.

I have to eyeball my computer enough for my job; I don't want to do any more recreational screening than I have to (he said on Facebook). But every minute I have to spend reading Gallagher or the local obituaries on-line is one more minute spent sitting on my ass at my desk or slumping into my phone. And neither of those things go well with breakfast.

But I can't continue to justify a thousand bucks a year for what the Herald has become. Sometimes I think maybe I'm the last subscriber-- that they're just hiking my rate up to get me to not renew so they can stop printing one copy a day and driving it to my house, flinging it onto my parking strip on the way to their real job.

It used to arrive on the porch.

The Cascadia News is great, but only weekly in 3 dimensions. The Seattle Times is a real newspaper, but I can get that news elsewhere. It's the local stuff I'll miss. Still, I just don't think I can afford it anymore. So long, Herry. You've been grand…

Metalfest

I don't need FaceBook to remember me today's date. I always wake up on August 29th knowing exactly what day it is.

And today happens to be the 40th anniversary of August 29, 1982-- a day that changed my life forever.

The event was a heavy metal jamboree at a roller rink in Bellevue called Lake Hills Arena. I'd just graduated from high school and had been to plenty of arena hard rock shows. But the concept of local music was an entirely unfamiliar one to me. I'd read about Culprit in The Rocket and saw they were playing with 8 other bands starting at noon on Saturday. So I put on my leather jacket-- even though it was August-- and pointed my '71 Impala in the direction of Bellevue.

I didn't know anyone. My metalgeek buddy Andy was supposed to come with me, but in the end buckled to the pressure of having dinner with his parents, it being his 18th birthday (remind me to phone Andy later). So I went alone. I didn't 'meet' anyone that day, but this was the first time I saw a lot of dudes who would become close friends later. They all seemed to know each other, and I was a little intimidated by their killer studded belts and spiked wrist bands-- not because I was afraid of studs & spikes, rather because I didn't have any of my own. These guys had a considerable headstart on me. Hartman, James, Layton.

By the time Bad Brad Sinsel and TKO came on after midnight, my mind (not to mention my ears) were in rubble. I'd had no idea it could be like this. At the arena shows I'd been to, there'd been a huge stage with barricades. Way up on top of the stage were the British rock stars and then down on the concrete floor in a pool of sweat & bile were we fans. But at the roller rink, there was no such divide between the performers and the audience. I distinctly remember arriving at the the dizzying realization that these kids were all from the same tribe-- that the dudes in the crowd were only the dudes in the next band. They were all just taking turns being the rock star. I had not previously understood this to be a possibility.

The first guy I observed grinning and winking at his friends in the crowd was Glen Logan from Overlord. In that tattered Levi's jacket and the Capezios, whirling around hockin' loogies and bangin' on that trashed V, I thought he was the coolest. So many cats impressed me deeply that day. Van Leiw. Matt McCourt. The Friels. Scott Earl and the Germ.

It didn't take me too long to get my turn on the stage. But I'm not sure that ever would've happened had it not been for Metalfest II. I always liked having the mic in my hand, but never got tired of being in the crowd either.

Long Live Crotchroads! Forty years...

Metal Machine Music

Insomnia is a rude bedfellow. I've been sleeping (or rather NOT sleeping) with it for most of my life, some periods worse than others. Thanks to the latest in a succession of Little Yellow Pills, these past few years have shown me some of the best sleep of my adult life. But once in a while my old adversary squeezes in between Patti and me, and I just have to get up and go to the guestroom and read it out.

What has worked a little bit lately, though, is Lou Reed's 1975 outrage, Metal Machine Music. Coming at the twilight of one his most-inspired creative periods which included Berlin and Transformer, MMM is an intentionally unlistenable brocade of feedback and tape effects, mixed at various speeds and pitches. True noise. There is no melody, rhythm, vocal or structure of any kind. And as if offering it at a time when the critic's spotlight was upon him was not wry enough for Blue Lou, Metal Machine Music is audaciously a 2-record set. Side A1 entirely indistinguishable from side A4.

I've tried white noise and mountain stream loops against insomnia and they've only served to wake me further thru sheer frustration. Metal Machine Music, though-- this might be 'just the thing...'

(if you try this at home, don't use Spotify. Because if MMM does its job and you're sleeping, you might just be jolted awake by "Uranium" by Kraftwerk, which Spotify assumes you want to listen to next. And the beginning of this song sounds much like the Emergency Broadcast System alert tone that we've all only ever heard as 'a test'. And that's not good for sleeping.)

Burn Out Loud

I stopped being conventionally 'proud' of Vincent's musical accomplishments once he became an adult. But I'm still a fan, and am really jazzed about his new album 'Burn Out Loud.' A year in the making, it's a technicolor departure from the lower-fi 4-track cassette recordings of the past three years. I had the rare treat of previewing it last week in Brooklyn and I can tell you it is a rich and prismatic tapestry with lots of surprises tucked into its pleats. Like a rubber duck piñata filled with nips, nails and chocolate caviar, all you have to do is hit it hard and gifts start flowing...

Professionally recorded in Boston, pre-mixed in New York and glazed in West Seattle, 'BoL' is a filling art rock meal of a record. It is being pre-released today, with the World Premier coming at 6pm PDT. You probably don't have Bandcamp already, but that's the only reason you don't. It's free and easy to download and there really is some stuff on there that you won't find on other screaming services. 'BoL' will be on Spotify next week, but if you want to be first on your block, meet me on Bandcamp tonight and we'll rock together.

Robert Blake

Don’t worry, I remember what I was saying last June about my record player.

In case you don’t, it got exploded in an electrical accident and didn’t work for five years. We finally got around to replacing it, but then that one didn’t work either-- so we had to take it to a specialist in Seattle who eventually fixed it up like new.

I was anxious to listen to some of the records that had piled up during those quiet years, but the repair shop was in Ravenna. Luckily Robert was in the neighborhood and offered to pick it up on his way home.

When I went to his house in the York District to collect it later that day, Robert slid a nice 180-gram copy of his latest album RECITATIVE on top.

“For your listening party,” he said with a wink.

I’d already worn out a copy of the CD, but was jazzed to have a vinyl copy—even if it did say LARRY on the back…

DAY #4: Recitative, Robt Sarazin Blake. Gift from the artist, 2023. Favorite side: Act I side A

If there’s a harder-working man in Bellingham show business than Robert Blake, I guess don’t know that dude. A Pacific Northwest native who’s called Bellingham home for more than 25 years, Blake is seemingly everywhere where there’s a PA, particularly in the summer. For more than 20 years, he has hosted and booked the wildly popular season-long Thursday night Happy Hour series in the garden at Boundary Bay Brewery. He’s toured extensively in North America and Northern Europe, playing small stages and house shows for fiercely loyal audiences of friends. He hosts and books the pandemic-born but surprisingly durable traveling livestream From the Kitchen Table. And of course, he is the founder and ringmaster of Whatcom’s favorite summer festival, the 21-year-old Subdued Stringband Jamboree.

And honestly, he doesn’t always even need a PA. He’ll play your wedding or your funeral, your porch or your pantry. All he needs is an acoustic guitar and some friends.

Robert will bring the songs. How he has time to write all these songs—let alone record and release them, usually on his own Same Room Records—is beyond me. This is his 11th album.

His father was a real live folk musician when he was growing up, so folk music is in Robert’s blood and bones. But his music aint really folk music, any more than all music is essentially folk music. You could call it Americana. You could call it roots. You could call it ‘singer-songwriter’ if you wanted to piss me off.

In the end it’s not all that important what you call it—neither he nor I will even have any way of knowing. Of greater urgency is what’s it sound like?

Like most rootsy Americana singer-songwriter folk troubadours, Robert Blake is a great poet and his songs need words to develop. Lots and lots of words. His streamy singing style is often as conversational as it is melodic, and some songs take on an accompanied monolog format. This works particularly well when the performer is introducing the band or reminding punters to tip their bartenders. The references to Dylan are handy (even though he’s not really-- or at least not only-- a folk singer) but there’s also a lot of Lou (Reed), Prine (John) and Todd (Snider) in his delivery and intent. He’s a storyteller.

And the stories on RECITATIVE are diverse and intriguing. Robert allows the occasional good-time up-tempo no-foul ramble like “Single Women” but also doesn’t shy away from a piercing purpose piece like “Own House, Own Guns” or “19 Shot.” His characters are inked around the edges with suggestion rather than description. You recognize that dude in “The Other Side of Fck it” without being spoonfed his vitals, and the utter hopelessness of his grim situation rings true as punch.

There's lots of humor here, like on the politically-perfect "Keeping Track." Lots of wonderfully wordy wordplay, too-- see: "Couples" and "Work." Other songs are just plain nice to listen to, and I can’t usually walk away from a spin through this record without the melancholy “Sketches” stuck in my head. Often for a week.

The images pile up and so do the reflections. Blake tucks references into verses where you might not expect to find them: same-sex marriage; gun violence; the collateral risks of war; imbeciles being President of the United States. It’s all here if you listen.

Professional musicians these days need to be flexible, and Robert Blake is indeed limber and well-hatted, never seeming to play the same song the same way twice. I’ve seen him do these songs a lot live, and it’s always a different experience. Sometimes it’s him playing solo, or maybe Jan’s to his left. David & Aaron are usually there in a combo of more than three, but not always. Sometimes it’s the whole High, Wide & Handsome Band. But not always.

The backing band on RECITATIVE is a group of friends from the Hudson Valley met on the road and courted into the studio on their turf, way back in 2015. Compared to other sparser Robert Blake recordings it’s practically an orchestra-- featuring keys, pedal steel, rich supporting vocals and the staggeringly lyrical horn interplay of Thomas Deakin.

It’s worth noting that this whole band returned the favor three years later, traveling the opposite direction to back Robert at the 2018 Jamboree, a show that eventually surfaced as the live album ONE SUMMER NIGHT. True to their words, the songs take on new life and dimension in a live setting, culminating with a humbling 13-minute version of the last song on RECIATATIVE, “Really Hard.” It was powerful live, and the recording does a faithful job of capturing some rare Saturday night magic.

The packaging of RECITATIVE is top-shelf. From the Michael Costelloe painting on the front to Larry’s name on the back, this is a heavy and handsome package—beautifully designed and produced. Lots of photos in the gatefold + melodious liner notes by the artist. The 2-record set is actually 360 grams and fully 85 minutes of music—an ambitious project fully realized. A triumph.

It occurred to me that I’ve always wondered what RECITATIVE meant, and that I’d never looked it up. I just now did, and it’s fitting. I won’t spoil it for you. Look it up for yourself (it’s on the internet) and pull it up on Bandcamp if you don’t own a copy of your own. Enjoy!

Devotchka

I don’t collect records the way I used to. With a few freakish exceptions (YKWYA) nobody does.

To be fair, I was never an obsessive—even in the 1980s. I anticipated and purchased the new records by my favorite bands on their release dates—but I was no completist. Some of my friends had problems, though. Bret had to have every available version and format. When WASP released a 12” picture disc single of “I Wanna Be Somebody,” he’d buy one (sometimes two) even though he already had the white vinyl, the gold vinyl, the clear vinyl, the splatter vinyl, the die cut 7” and the Japanese import.

That first WASP may have been my favorite record of the entire era. But one domestic copy of the LP was sufficient for me. I still have it.

But sometimes we buy records we don’t need. That’s why there’s Record Store Day.

Week #6: DeVotchKa, A Mad and Faithful Telling. Purchased at Avalon Records in Bellingham on Record Store Day, 2019. Favorite side: I honestly can’t tell them apart…

Like many people, I initially became aware of DeVotchKa via the alternate art form of film. It is still impossible for me to separate the plot & performance of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE from the music of DeVotchKa. They are one and the same, and I fell hard for both of them in 2006.

By the time I got hip, though, it would be impossible to see the band in a venue appropriate to their makeup. Between Nick Urata’s emotive crooning and the band’s array of subtle acoustic instrumentation, DeVotchKa demands to be seen in an intimate, comfortable venue. Preferably one with a round stage, velvet curtains, strong cocktails and maybe even a cigarette girl.

Imagine our disappointment seeing them for the first time in 2008 at the hellish SoDo Showbox, a concrete cooler that seemed too base even for Motorhead when I saw them there (on my birthday) several years later.

No. The days of being able to see DeVotchKa at the Triple Door or the Neptune, or busking on a sidewalk are done gone. They have been for decades.

So what’s a casual fan to do other than stir one up, slip into the smoking jacket and listen to DeVotchKa’s records at home? A MAD AND FAITHFUL TELLING is a perfectly good choice, because it sounds exactly like every other Devotchka record.

Not that I own or have even heard ‘every other DeVotchKa record’ but when I cracked the cellophane on this one after staring at it for five years, I was struck by how much it reminded me not only of the LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE soundtrack, but in fact everything I’d ever heard by the band, both live and on record.

For kicks, I whipped out my streamer and punched up the band’s latest album, 2018’s THIS NIGHT FALLS FOREVER. And I’ll be damned if it might as well have been the same clutch of songs.

All of which begs another hysterical, historical question: when a band puts out 12 records in 20 years and they all sound exactly the same—is the artist to be praised for consistency or derided for lack of growth?

It doesn’t really make much nevermind to me. I happen to like DeVotchKa’s tangos and timbre, their embrace of non-traditional instrumentation and the fact that they often sing in a language I don’t understand. But you don’t really need to own every record they’ve made. In fact, you really only need one. It doesn’t much matter which…

Coming in March: Oscar Snubs

(Cynic’s note: As if to spite me, DeVotchKa will be playing in town between the velvet curtains of the unspeakably luxurious and inviting Mt. Baker Theater on Thursday. The last time Patti and I saw them, we actually had to walk out because the sound was so bad at the first Tune-Up festival two years ago. But presumably all the microphones will actually be working indoors at the acoustically-perfect MBT. We probably should go…)

The Snubs

With the 96th Academy Awards ceremony coming up Sunday night, my attention turns as always to the stack of records accumulated during the five years my record player was broken.

The refrigerator got traumatically bashed apart at that same time-- also the stove, hotwater heater and CD player. Those were all replaced lickety split-- but the turntable gathered dust, must and disgust until recently.

By way of perspective, the academy awards for best actress and best actor that year (they’re called Oscars) went to two actors (we can just call them both actors) who portrayed actual historical figures. We call them biopics (it’s OK to call them bi AH pix. I do).

Green Book winning the Oscar for Best Picture that year was an outrage, particularly ironically since it was Black Panther that got most conspicuously beat. In early March, that’s something we call THE SNUBS.

Equally ironical, then, that there was a record waiting for me by a band of that very name.

Week #7: The Snubs. Gift from Hartman, 2021. Favorite side: B

If the Dead Kennedys had a recessive Dead Moon gene and wore disguises like Deadmau5, that band would be The Snubs.

Fast and funny, The Snubs don’t get cheated when it comes to content. When you’re getting 15 songs on a 20-minute record, you are not getting cheated. Or snubbed for that matter. It’s impressive what you can accomplish when you play fast and don’t solo.

OK, there is a guitar solo on “Washed Up Diying [sic] Fish” but it doesn’t exactly bog the song down. “Dump Run” crams 200 words into a 45-second song. Some of those words are “… found a bloody knife in an old leather pouch.”

Singer/guitarist Tommy De Nyd’s lyrics are quite hilarious and are in fact printed in unredacted form on the insert. Pearls like “Fake Mustache,” “Growing a Tail (True Tale of a SWM)” and of course “My ‘Punk Rock’ Parents Raised a Republican Kid” explore themes of isolation, neighborhood contempt and generally low aspirations-- just like their heroes. Or at least as much as any theme can be explored in 1:15. “We Suck at Partying Now” has a Monday Night Football reference, which I particularly appreciated.

It looks like The Snubs are from Seattle. They made this record in 2016 at Egg with Conrad and there appear to be several subsequent releases at least on BandCamp. I’ve never heard of them playing at Daryl’s, though, so maybe they gave up.

If they felt like they weren’t getting the respect they deserved, they’d be in good March company. Just ask Greta, Scarlett or Sofia. Shit’s tough all over. Happy National Women’s Day!

(Coming this spring: Growing up Jeff)

Broken Teeth— Bulldozer

OK so I guess my post from the other day somehow led people to believe our house exploded or something. And that’s not exactly true.

What happened was this:

It was actually only our electrical service that exploded. But it did totally explode. In the middle of the night. Woke Patti and I up from a dead sleep. Vincent was home from college for the summer, and I ran down to his space in the basement, hoping he hadn’t exploded something. I didn’t know if he was home or not. I flipped on the light and was relieved to find that he was in fact not there. But the overhead light glowed unnaturally bright before the light bulb exploded with a loud POP. My own adrenalin surging, I ran back upstairs and met Patti in the kitchen. The light in the rangehood was glowing super bright, too, and just as I reached it that bulb exploded too. There was smoke hanging in the air and the house smelled like an electrical fire. I ran outside to the garage where the exterior mounted light was shining freakishly bright and as soon as I reached it, that bulb exploded. I was beginning to think it was me...

“We gotta get out of the house,” Patti yelled, her eyes flashing. I was relieved when they didn’t explode. We ran out to the front yard to see if the whole neighborhood was pulsating. But things on the street looked normal, with the streetlight and the neighbors’ porch lights operating seemingly at regular power.

We phoned PSE and they said they didn’t see anything weird going on the neighborhood. “You need to turn electricity off to your house,” they said, “as soon as possible.”

I wasn’t stoked about going back into the house, let alone touching the electrical panel. But I found a rubber garden glove, and after psyching myself into it, I hit the main shutoff and the house went dark.

When the PSE tech got there around dawn, he lowered himself in his remote control basket and showed me the tree limb that had been rubbing on my main drop presumably for years.

“That was a pretty big explosion…” he said, examining the discoloration on the limb. “You’re lucky no one was hurt.”

And we were lucky, of course-- unless you consider your refrigerator, stove, fancy tankless water heater, microwave, garage door opener and hi-fi getting fried to be bad luck. Because all those items had been cooked by the reverse polarity generated when the casing had finally worn off the cable, exposing wires that weren’t supposed to touch. Toggling back to the unexplainable good luck-- the dishwasher, laundry machines, amplifiers, computers, television and light fixtures were all spared.

I didn’t really understand it then and still don’t now.

Anyway, it took 5 years to replace the turntable and now I have a bunch of old new records to listen to!

DAY#2: Broken Teeth, Bulldozer. Birthday gift from Matt 2016. Favorite side: A

Jason McMaster is a hard rock warrior. Not necessarily a household name-- at least in my household-- but rocking a Goog on his consecrated ass conjures a resume impressive in its perseverance alone. The most recognizable bullet is Texas-based identity crisis rockers Dangerous Toys from the very late 1980s. But this guy has not stopped working the hard rock room since first picking up the bass for Rampage as a teenager in the late ‘70s. Broken Teeth is among his most consistent and longest-running platforms, but it’s also true that he’s fronted tribute projects of the likes of Van Halen, Priest, Bon AC/DC, Rush, KISS and The Cult-- among others. Jason McMaster is a case study in rolling stones not gathering no mold. He’s a Lifer.

He's also an ordained minister in the Church of Disaster. But—you know—who aint?

The music itself has a distinct NWoBHM cast to it, reminding me immediately of ALL FOR ONE era Raven, maybe with slightly less whack vocals. Only slightly though. The musical performances are average, the production listenable. Standard issue hard rock lyrics about flamethrowers, cloven hoof and holes in the sky. Jason McMaster’s singing is fine. The whole record is just fine.

There isn’t much to set the original songs apart from each other but side A is definitely my favorite because side B has not one but in fact two fairly uninspired covers on it. On a record of seven songs, it seems a tic lazy to include two covers-- especially when one of them is a super straight rendition of Aerosmith’s “Lightening Strikes.” Who doesn’t love this song, but I already have ROCK IN A HARD PLACE and don’t need another true version of this hit. If you’re going to record a cover, pick something off-road like “The Hammer,” the closer of Motorhead’s landmark ACE OF SPADES. To Broken Teeth’s credit they did just this; to their corresponding discredit, they didn’t do a particularly interesting version of it. There was a Seattle band who played a super smokin’ version of this song in the early ‘90s.

Unlike the disappointing packaging of AMERICAN DREAM by LCD Soundsystem, BULLDOZER features a beautiful seablue splatter platter and hi-quality full-color jacket. Very tasteful.

One interesting note: being a 12” record, it did not occur to me that it might be a 45rpm spin. I hadn’t noticed there were only 7 songs on it, and put on side A. I listened through the intro of the lead song “Raining Fire” thinking what an unusual guitar tone it was. Even when the singing started, I wasn’t immediately certain that I was playing the record on the wrong speed. Maybe I’ll leave the setting at 45 and do a single next.

Tomorrow: Walking Papers, I Belong to You b/w Trophy Wives

I Was There Janes Addiction spring 1988

JANE’S ADDICTION-- MOORE THEATRE, APRIL 17, 1989

“Fuck dude, you shoulda seen it,” blurted Screwdriver into the phone. I held the receiver away from my ear. I’d been at work at the printing plant in Georgetown for several hours on this particular Monday morning by the time he called, but I knew he’d just become conscious in Ravenna, sprawled out on a futon beneath a shadeless window, fully-clothed, the smoke still lazily curling from the bigmouth of his wake’n’bake. “Perry had the fire engine-red dreds, dude, it was INSANE…”

Screwdriver had been talking up Jane’s Addiction to me for more than a year now, since their first trip to Seattle opening for Love & Rockets, Perkins sitting on the floor and all the crazy vocal effects. He’d talked that first record to death, and I’d listened to it as a courtesy, but never quite caught his enthusiasm for the band. But that was normal—Screw was the kind of guy who talked incessantly, and you could never really buy into everything he went on about, because a portion of what he talked was all shit. 

But not Jane’s Addiction. By the time this particular Monday morning rolled around, I was fully on the bus and eagerly awaiting the second show of their two-night engagement at the Moore Theater. They were touring in support of their stunning sophomore offering Nothing’s Shocking, and they had come a long way from the group who’d warmed up for Love & Rockets a year earlier. They’d even been through Seattle just a few months prior, headlining a show at the more uptown Paramount as part of FM100’s self-conscious Rising Star series. But now they were back with a two-show set in a smaller, nastier room where they could shake their shit without any coked-up radio promoters prompting them as to the call-letters and the sponsors. Now was the time to write history.

I finally clocked out at the print shop and drove directly to the liquor store to purchase a fifth of Pancho Villa, silver. Relishing the first portion of it in the fine Seattle spring afternoon, I drove to my apartment on Capitol Hill where I changed into my punk rock threads and took a few bonghits of my own, awaiting Screwdriver’s call. When it came from Belltown, Poncho & I saddled back up and headed downtown.

Now, you gotta dig Screwdriver. He has more aliases than he has fingers, but the one I’ve chosen to identify him in this column comes from a spin on his last name, which is the same as a prominent manufacturer of hand tools, and I’ll tell you it aint Craftsman. His other knicknames are considerably more vulgar, and I will spare you them this time around, though I will not promise that one of Screw’s other personas will not make their garlicpussy-breathed way to the pages of ’sup! Magazine in the future, ‘cause we had some wicked cool times together, and we’re brothers.  But even in April 1989 the guy was a fucking trainwreck, and I’ve just rolled up to him on 2nd Avenue with a zip of the kill and a bottle of horrible tequila.

So what’ya think we did? We drove around for an hour, drinkin’ and smokin’ and lookin’ for a parking place, Screwdriver all the time telling me about how bitchin’ the show the night before was. We’re listening to the record, the sun’s goin’ down, we’re gettin’ drunk and stoned-- it’s great. Eventually it’s time to think about goin’ into the theatre, so we pull in sideways to a parking spot on 3rd and head toward the Moore.

The show, of course, was fucking amazing. After pausing briefly at the merch counter to admire the tokens we couldn’t afford, we headed directly into the pit just in time for the houselights to flash, twice. The energy in the room was incredible— high like the band, but also strangely reserved, kind of like slow-motion, even after the lights went down…

Things went completely nuts immediately after, naturally, but I’ll never forget the opener, Perry Farrell holding high in a elbow-length velvet glove a bottle of Dom Perignon, the opening refrains of “The Mountain Song” cascading down upon him, pupils like Frisbees and Joker Green dreds after coming out bright red 24 hours earlier. Then the ultra-violence, punishing volume, idiots rule…

(author’s note: several weeks later, Martin & I ventured over to Jerry’s house @ 3 am after watching the Soul Kiss video to try and score some weeds. I had, 12 hours earlier, been forced to make the rather difficult decision to either shatter my wrist on the refrigerator or knock my fucking asshole girlfriend’s teeth down her face, and had opted for the former. So after having my ‘boxer’s wrist’ set at the walk-in clinic, Martin & I proceeded to take all of my pain medicine with a half-case of Schmidt. If we’d known there was tall swallow left in the bottle of Poncho Villa underneath the passenger seat of my car, we probably would have drank that, too-- before setting off in the direction of Jerry’s. As it turned out, the 500 police officers that greeted us in Jerry’s culdesac with their blue lights flashing and their guns waving were “looking for someone else” and not only could not arrest us for an open container (which we weren’t even aware of) or for being grossly impaired (which we were totally aware of), but they actually had to apologize to Jerry’s parents for the disturbance.

Jerry’s folks weren’t holding, but we considered this a pretty decent outing, nonetheless. We even got a nightcap out of the deal.)

-- Callous French 

LCD Soundstystem American Dream

Five years ago when our house exploded, losing the turntable was mostly an afterthought. Our more immediate concerns were replacing the refrigerator, stove, water heater, all the light bulbs and eventually even the CD player. It wasn’t difficult getting used to not having a record player because we hadn’t exactly been using it every day to begin with. Eventually I took the records downstairs, and the turntable gathered coins and mail like a ping pong table gathers laundry.

A friend gave us an old Kenwood KD-2000 that needed a new belt. After replacing the belt, it seemed clear it needed a new motor. So after another year of dust-gathering, we took it to the nearest broken turntable repair shop, which was all the way down in Seattle (Washington). They fixed it up like new and I brought it home and got the records back out of the basement.

I’m not a freak like some people I know, but I romanticize vinyl records as much as the next agnostic. I love how records feel and smell, how they flip. One’s own personal history with a particular record is much more acutely delighted in with an LP than with a CD or some dumb playlist. Records are for reals.

But until I started droppin’ the stylus, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the ritual of playing vinyl. Selecting one, de-sleeving the wax, examining the label on the actual record to see which side is which, putting your favorite face-up on the platter and starting the motor. Then-- with your own human flesh hand-- moving the needle over and dropping it softly on the edge. The brief crackle of imperfection followed by song one.

Then twenty minutes later picking the needle back up and starting the whole process over. A side in time…

But just because I was between working turntables didn’t mean I stopped accumulating records. And after five years, there was a little stack of strange. I’d had these new records for years without listening to them! Some of the stuff we’d already owned on other formats and others probably got streamed. But a lot of it was virgin, much of it still sealed. It’s been fun catching up, like a month of Christmases…

DAY#1:  LCD Soundsystem, American Dream. Christmas gift from the kids, 2021. Favorite side: a

If you’d played me this record in 1983 and told me I’d love it in 40 years, I’d have come at you. Hell, 10 years ago. But I’m not the least bit hesitant to say I love LCD Soundsystem.

I don’t really think of LCD Soundsystem as a band—even though they have a very consistent historical membership that plays actual musical instruments. To me, it’s James Murphy and beats—stuff I used to call disco. Until very recently, I recklessly grouped anything that didn’t have a distorted electric guitar as the predominant instrument into the category of ‘disco.’ I know better now. But really not all that much better...

I’m a vocal-centric music appreciator. If I don’t like the singing, I can’t like the band. See: Neil Young, the Police, Hüsker Dü, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Ozzy Sabbath. If I like the singing, I can get into most anything. Including disco.

American Dream was a comeback record for LCD Soundsytem in 2017. I’d be lying if I said I could tell it apart from ‘their earlier stuff’ but now that I have my own copy of one of their albums maybe that changes. It’s an ambitious work, clocking in at more than 68 minutes spread over two discs. It would have made a great single album.

There’s a lot of variety here—especially for disco. There’s even some guitar, like on the hard-driving “Emotional Haircut.” There’s also some of that stretched out percussion mural trance jamming (Murphy on lead cowbell) reminiscent of the Talking Heads’ “Cross-eyed and Painless” which feels like when you open your eyes at a party with a guitar in your hands and realize that awful noise is coming from you.

The nicest moments, though, are the sparsest ones—patiently developing vocal melodies set against a brocade of pastel tones that takes on more definition with each listening. The first track “Oh Baby” is dreamy and aptly named; the title track finds the band auditioning for Angelo Badalamenti’s recently-vacated position.

One thing I’ve always valued about LCD Soundsystem is Murphy’s rye humor. It’s here on American Dream, but you have to dig a little harder for it. There’s no “Daft Punk is Playing at my House” on this record...

Of course, one of the great joys of LPs is the large format artwork. We got pretty accustomed to squinting at photos and liner notes in the ‘90s, but returning to the acreage of the vinyl sleeve is easy on the retinas. American Dream itself is kind of a disappointment in this category, though, with minimalist packaging that looks and feels like it was produced at the community college printshop.

I’m not the least bit hesitant to say I love LCD Soundsystem. They’d probably be my favorite band if I’d been at those first Suicide practices. Instead, I grew up on hard rock.

Tomorrow: Broken Teeth, Bulldozer

Walking Papers — I Belong to You b/w Trophy Wives

Of course whenever your house explodes, it’s always on a Friday night when plumbers and appliance repair dudes charge double. Not that we could have just walked in to the water heater store and brought one home and hooked it up before taking a hot shower, even on Monday. Those things take weeks to order and schedule.

Luckily, we had another house at the time that had not even exploded. We had just finished moving the last of our stuff into our new 98225 house, and were still working on our old 98229 house—getting it ready for a renter who was on her way to Bellingham from Ohio. So we actually had a cold refrigerator to move our perishables to and place to shower.

It worked out pretty good.

Within two weeks we’d replaced the fridge and stove and the fancy gas tankless water heater in 98225. Eventually the garage door opener and microwave. Finally, we got a new (used) tuner and CD player.

But it was 5 years before the turntable was returned to its rightful place at the top of the component tower. And there’s been some catching up to do…

DAY#3: Walking Papers, I Belong to You b/w Trophy Wives. Spiff from Evan who mixed it, 2019. Favorite side: A

Jeff Angell and Ben Anderson are hit makers. Not necessarily in the conventional sense where you are given money and record player trophies. But I swear everything they do is solid gold TNT.

Their musical collaboration goes back to 2009 when they accidentally named their 2-piece act (Angell on guitar/vocals; Anderson on keys) The Missionary Position. Recruiting a studio backing band, they made DIAMONDS IN A DEAD SKY themselves. As in they recorded and mixed it themselves and put it out on their own label, The Boredom Killing Business.

Then three years later they released my favorite album of all times* CONSEQUENCES.

They haven’t as much as paused since then, toggling between Mish Pozish, the Staticland project, and the current and presumably permanent handle Walking Papers. They are constantly working. These two do not look to the side.

Like all their material, this single is dark. With his lyrics and voice, Angell creates atmosphere that has dimension and perceptible vertical drop. You can smell the secondhand smoke and feel the coarse texture of the scar tissue. Nothing good ever happens to the characters in Walking Papers songs. Corrupt, disloyal, rueful, addicted—these are deeply flawed meanies & victims who come and go via the fire escape and the alley. No welcome mats, no high-fives or warm meals. At once layered and stark, sepia yet contemporary Angell’s subjects live and wheeze as he sings them like a puppeteer.

“I Belong to You” is kind of a love song, I guess. But again—not going to make any Top 10 lists. A Seconal dirge with a distant, loose-string guitar tone and just the right dose of Anderson’s brooding organ laid gently over to stir the mood. “Trophy Wives” finds the keys more prominent, carrying the melody while the guitar slouches along the perimeter. Goddamn trophy wives…

One thing I do miss in these two great songs is the sax. These pieces don’t really call for it, but Gregor Lothian’s reeds are in the room on my favorite Angell/Anderson stuff. I don’t always dig horns in hard rock, but this shit works, believe me.

Like the songs themselves, the package is an apt reflection of the dynamic of the partnership between Jeff and Ben. Stark b/w photographs of their respective hands at work, front and back. The record itself is a murky translucent kiwi w/ black label. And a regular centre hole as opposed to the 1.5” of many singles.

Fun Fact: Unlike most singles, the record is a 33rpm spin. When I put it on initially, I instinctively toggled to 45 and the result was as comical as when I tried listening to Broken Teeth at 33 yesterday. The juxtaposition of the error only served to make “I Belong to You” sound bleaker and more spare once corrected.

Any music appreciator who claims to have a ‘favorite album’ is either a liar or a fool. There’s just too much music and we people have too many moods. Selecting a ‘favorite’ simply can’t be done. So obviously CONSEQUENCES isn’t my favorite record of all times. It’s lyrical profundity and sonic perfection is difficult to overstate, however. It is definitely ‘one of my favorite records of all time.’

Odd Ones Out

It always works, dressing children up as adults. Like those greeting cards from the '90s with the 8-year-old couple dressed in pearls & oversized porkpies, kissing on a parkbench. Cute! Or talking animals— it works every time. 

But about halfway through the second verse of any Odd Ones Out song, a listener realizes these kids can actually play. Whoa. They can actually play really good...

 Comprised entirely of middle school students, a couple kids in this band aren’t even technically teenagers yet. When Callous French was 12, he was still eating dirt. These boys are playing regular paying gigs and getting ready to make an album. And sometimes they even dress up like rock stars.

Readers of this magazine may remember Vinnie Blackshadow, the kooky 9-year-old who wore self-styled KISS makeup and his mother’s platform boots in 2006, spitting fake blood during his solo sets opening for the DTs, the Trucks and No-Fi Soul Rebellion. The kid stayed odd, but eventually got bored playing solo shows for grown-ups, yearning for homies of his own.

Tanner Wallace was a new kid in town, and the two boys quickly found common ground on a fretboard, spending hours learning and writing songs while their peers played violent video games. The duo was invited to perform at school, but knew that in order to take this thing to the next level, they would need to flesh out a proper band. Still, finding kids their age who could actually play ( and who wanted to rock ) proved no easy task.

Through BAAY the boys fell in with keyboard & utility wiz Kaleb Harrison. Another kid at school they’d been pressuring to join—bass player Gus Danielson—reluctantly agreed. And in the spring, the last piece of the odd puzzle was added when Vinnie & Tanner arranged a donught meeting at LeFeen’s with Toby Bruce, an 11-year-old blue-eyed drummer from Australia. It was all settled…

With personnel in-place, the marvels realized they needed songs, gigs & better gear—and an arms race broke out. Piece-by-piece, the ante was raised: tube amps started showing up; bass rigs; keyboards with seemingly infinite numbers of keys & sounds; road cases; Fenders, Gibsons & Gretches—oh, my!

The songs flowed. Vinnie had a pretty good backlog of material from his solo days, much of which was adaptable for OOO. He & Tanner continued working on original material while the band learned a gang of covers that by Halloween would enable them to play an impressive two hours if necessary. They did-- and more gigs followed.

Like I said, the first time you see the band you can’t help but cock your head and say “Aww-- look at that little fella behind that huge drum kit. The bass player’s wearing mirrored sunglasses indoors, how cute. Whoa—is that Moby Dick they’re playing?” It totally is. Including the drum solo. They play a couple of Zeppelin songs, actually. But don’t call them classic rock unless you want a headstock in the junk.

“We’re more like vintage rock,” the band texted me, “You don’t hear our songs on the radio. Not Yet.”

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this band, though, is its versatility. Cellos, violins, ukeles, shoulder-mounted harmonicas. Kaleb doubles on sax ( see ya later, Alligator ). Bellingham Youth Jazz Band, Mt. Baker Youth Symphony, busking regimen, BAAY, tutors—all of it. They’re like a middle-school hard rock Devotchka, passing instruments around and singing harmonies. They read, but they still rock. It’s actually pretty fucked up.

After their homework is finished, they plan to make a record at Binary and a viral-friendly video with HandCrank. They intend to lie to some more motel desk clerks and stay up super late. They’re Odd Ones Out.

Dio is God

DIO-- Dreamers Never Die

Directed by Don Argot and Demian Fenton

Starring Ronnie James Dio

2hrs 7minutes

Fuckin’ Dio, man…

Mark Maron said he couldn’t afford to watch any more documentaries because he ‘didn’t know how much time he had left.’ It’s true—some documentaries rob us of precious moments that we might otherwise have been present for. Hours we won’t get back. But others are worth the minutes, especially when Ronnie James Dio is the subject.

We’ve all seen this movie before. The format was boilerplate and even a little Burnsian at times. (Yes, that is a word. Normally I don’t take such brazen liberties with the language, but today being my birthday, I feel emboldened to make up the word Burnsian).

We’ve all seen these same talking heads head-talking in other docs about how much the subject influenced them and blew their mind when they were making a sandwich when they were 11. And they’re all in this film, too, with a notable exception: no Slash or Grohl. (DG does make an unfilmed cameo in the extra features after the credits. But his absence in the film proper is quite refreshing, and with only a couple of predictable exceptions, the interviews are killer.)

Like This is Spinal Tap (ironically and yes genuinely ironically) the best stuff is in the movie and the outs are not that interesting, except for the story of how Ronnie’s left thumb got cut off by a garden gnome and he picked it up (the thumb) and took it to the hospital to have re-attached, only they put it on backwards so much later he went back and had it re-detached and subsequently re-re-attached correctly. That was just Ronnie being Ronnie!

The schematics of his career were super interesting to see developed. He actually was a doo-wop singer in the actual 1950s, and he played bass too. My favorite Dio quote did not find its way into the film, but it is relevant considering his own complicated relationship with the bass guitar and with bass guitar players. “I was a bass player once,” he famously said. “But I got out of it.”

Absent from the movie entirely was any evidence to support the myth of Dio as tyrant. He was involved, for sure—the first one to arrive at a session and the last to leave. But he is portrayed in his own estate-commissioned epic—and rightly so—as a mere perfectionist and not an egoctopus or even particularly megalomaniacal. Frequently he is offered up as the victim, the earnest team player let down by the pitiful mortality of others.

A huge focus of the film’s message is on Dio the human. His breathtaking body of work precedes this film, of course-- and it is adequately represented in the footage. But the story RJD INC wished told was the story of what a great fucking guy Ronnie was. He would stand in the rain outside the bus and talk to fans until he was late to the next gig. He greeted them by name and remembered the names of the parents and pets. He genuinely cared about the people who cared about him.

Part of it was probably that he wanted to be Ronnie James Dio for as many minutes of the day as possible. I guess once you get on the bus there are fewer people to talk to about Ronnie James Dio. Dio liked being Dio.

There were some surprises. I always thought of Dio as the rock star who was far above such earthly delights as drugs and alcohol. But there are a lot of images of him not only drinking but actually smoking. And I know he liked grass, because Sheila Rene told me so. But he wore it well. So many of the testimonials referenced the ‘miles’ on his voice. He sang hard his entire adult life, from his teens practically until the morning of his death. One of my favorite passages from the film is with a recording engineer who made some of the later records. No, I can’t remember his name—thanks for asking. Anyway, he was talking about getting basics and Ronnie would be in the room singing while the band tracked. The engineer said ‘you know, Ronnie, we can just use your scratch vocal. You don’t have to keep doing the take.’ And Ronnie was like ‘fuck that, I’m Ronnie James Dio.’

Those years were hard ones for Ronnie, the ‘90s. The film is a bit clumsy with the portrayal of the historic transition between metal and grunge, but the point is made. One day the unsustainable and quite mad Frankenstein monster of Metal that MtV had created was King, just eating and fucking everything in sight. Then the Teen Spirit video came on and metal was outlawed, like that same day. The film actually shows the tapes being tossed into cardboard boxes for archiving at a secret underground lab in asthenosphere.

But through it all, Ronnie never flinched. He got dropped from his label and shuffled backup players. His marriage wasn’t amazing. Record sales plummeted relative to metal’s anti-relevance. But he took it for the team-- no one was ever more proudful or more metal than Dio. He’d come this far without writing a pop song and there was no reason to start now. Murray and the mechanical dragon might have shrunk as the ‘90s wore on, squeezing into smaller and smaller venues. But it was always RJD slaying the dragon with laser sword (literally) at the end of every show and there were always geeks in the alley to catch up with afterward.

I’m glad they made this film if only to remind me of what an important role Ronnie James Dio played in my own development. There was a time there right after Holy Diver came out that I listened to little else. I just toggled between that and the Sab & Rainbow records. I had a homemade pin that said Dio is God and Ronnie and I were very close. Ultimately we drifted apart and eventually I wasn’t even aware of the records he was releasing every five years, right on schedule-- each just as lovingly crafted as the last. Even if I wasn’t buying or even listening. Ronnie wasn’t doing anything different than he ever had, rather it was I who had changed. And that’s on me. Can’t say the same for Sebastian Bach.

By all means see this movie and don’t forget to turn it up!