Friends! It’s been so long!!! I don’t even know what year it is and I’m all out of blow. Luckily, it appears the clubs are opening up. So, once again, our humble little rag answers to the call to be stuffed back in shelves for you lovely patrons to jerk off to and find out about what I hope will be a slew of exciting events that may or may not be happening around town, depending on them case numbers. Fingers crossed—after you wash your hands, of course.
During the plague year, it’s been hard trying to come up with my branded sardonic scene criticism since...well, there is literally no scene. I fell back on my insufferable music nerd tendencies and, luckily, our merciful and generous editors-in-chief have let it slide. Still, I feel like I got hired for a reason and that was to talk shit about the live music scene here. Obviously, there are still no shows to observe and scoff at, but I anticipate all those special little darling hipster basement bands are just itching to get back out there. Before we (yes I’m one of you assholes) interrupt these poor patrons’ cocktails, I think we need to take inventory of what coping mechanisms we picked up during our time in lockdown and make sure that everyone is only partaking in a substance that is right for them.
As long as we’re making people deaf, we don’t want to be sloppy about it. Not everyone in the band can be so blitzed they make Fat Mike feel uncomfortable. Sure, we should all have a sexy habit of some sort, but it’s gotta jive with our role in the band. Obviously, everyone in the band is a functioning alcoholic, so there’s no point in having just one of you be that guy in the band. I would actually recommend against it. Having the one too-drunk guy in the band is just unbearable for everyone involved.
Use this as a handy dandy guide to know which drug is right for you.
I hate to be the first to tell you this, but you probably aren’t the wordsmith you think you are. My best guess is you don’t even know what iambic pentameter is. I’m sure you’ve been through enough breakups to know how to describe how sad you’re feeling in a neat way, but let’s not go pretending your lyrics will be collected for a book of poetry at some point. Yet, there is hope yet for you, attention whore. Blast your mind out of whack and just keep a journal nearby, to make sure those death trip fever dreams are at least partially articulated. If people don’t understand your lyrics, they’ll pretend to so they feel like they’re intelligent or some horseshit. However, I highly recommend only fryin’ up your noodle offstage. You do not look or act as cool as you think you do when you’re trippin’ balls onstage. Trust me.
The best way to stay in the pocket is to get your ass Velcro'd in there. I’m not saying the bassist in a band always has to be a root-note playing wallflower hanging around stage left, but I think if you’re gonna go H.A.A.M. on something, pot is your best bet. It’ll only enhance your contribution to the overall sound. If you’re setting the pace, mood and literal tonal structure of the song, I think it makes the most sense to just get baked, set a course and drive.
I think time has proven over and over that this is really the best option. Zillions of sold copies of Fleetwood Mac records should be reason enough. Just as the bassist needs to be in the groove, the drummer needs to push it along without any question of why he should or where it’s going. The true workhorse drug for the workhorse of the band, one would think that coke would lead to a frantic, chaotic mess of a drummer—but, that same "one" has clearly never done blow. Refer back to my last article for a drug-themed issue, with Exotic singing the praises the white powder has had on music. I think if someone is going to be burying their face in the repetitive hyper-powered go juice, it might as well be the drummer.
Nobody likes dealing with a junkie, but if one of you beautiful bastards is going to do it, I highly recommend it be the sorry excuse for a bandleader that is usually the guitarist. There is no better way to tamp down that bloated, throbbing, veiny, pulsating ego that every guitarist on the face of this fucking planet has. History has shown it doesn’t really effect their playing and keeps them content during the off-season. Shoot up and shut up. You’re welcome, other band peoples.
