This month has proven to be a particularly great one for me as a Wesley Willis fan.  Not only was I offered an original piece of art by the late, great artist/musician, but I was also mailed a copy of an amazing documentary about Willis for review.

I first discovered Wesley‘s work when I was in high school and I was immediately drawn to it (pun intended).  Clearly the man had some obvious points of comic appeal, such as extreme moments of profanity and graphic references to bestiality, but there was definitely something deeper to him, even if it wasn’t always easy to determine exactly what it was.  The documentary Wesley Willis’s Joy Rides has successfully managed to capture and express those difficult to verbalize qualities, which made Wesley such a remarkable and inspiring individual.  One quote from the film, which most aptly sums up this phenomenon, was made by Willis‘ friend/art patron, John Stulgate, who said,  “You could see people’s hearts through their interactions with Wesley Willis.”

Although I had been a long time fan, I didn’t get a chance to see Wesley live until 2002.  The show took place in Seattle at The Graceland (now, El Corazon) and Grand Buffet was opening.  I’ll never forget walking from the bar through the doorway into the venue.  I saw Wesley immediately; he was staring frighteningly out of the corner of his eye and in my direction from behind the merch table.  Due to his immense size and weight, Wesley could be a daunting figure and his breaths were loud and heavy like a tranqued hippo.  I, eventually, made my way over to the table to say hello.  I had brought a sniper deployment manual and a 25¢ hardcover book about rottweilers for him to sign, in lieu of my Book of Mormon and 100 Deadliest Karate Moves books, which I had temporarily left in California.  He signed the sniper book but, once he got the rottweiler book in his hands, he was mesmerized.  “Can I keep this book“, he asked.  “Sure“.  After that, it was like I wasn’t even there, so I slipped away as he focused intently on pictures of similar looking dogs.  When the show ended, Wesley headed back behind the table to flip his wares.  I bought a live EP and asked him if he liked the book.  “I got that right back here!” he said.  Then he added, “I wrote a song called ‘Suck a Rottweiler’s Ass‘.  I’m gonna write a song called ‘Suck a Rottweilers Dick‘!“  So I told him, “You need to write a song called ‘Suck the Stripes off a Zebra’s Dick‘.” (more…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Say what you will about our inability to beat a deadline, because we have an unparalleled skill for beating a dead horse like Chris Brown.  I only just received the review for SXSW from our temporarily disabled Austin, TX correspondent, Dr. Radical.  Based on what I’ve read, I’d like to believe that maybe this horse was prematurely buried alive and there’s still some breath in this massive beast.  Since Dr. Radical is an Austin local, his perspective on the festivities which took place is substantially different from everything else that I’ve read about the festival.  He also provides some information about maneuvering through the chaos and getting the most out of  time and money.  Don’t look at this like a review that’s a month late.  Rather, let’s look at this like an 11 month advance on the inside scoop for next year

-Dead C

SXSW 2009

I hobbled onto the bus, got my seat and looked over at a kid holding a box of cd’s. He was either going to ask what happened to my leg or see if I wanted to hear some “good” music.

An older lady missing her front teeth got on the bus after me. The bus started moving while she was getting situated. She caught her balance and looked over at the box of burned cd’s.  She sat down and asked kid, “What you got there?”

“They just hip hop cd’s for sale”

“OH…he he, I thought they was chocolate bars, he he he!”

I nodded and smiled to myself, and thought, “South by Southwest really is here!”

Lots of bands come into town for SXSW. Great bands, alright bands, and really shitty bands.   By the end of the week I will have seen a good number of each.

There are day shows and night shows. Night shows usually cost money and day shows are always free.

I’ve been in Austin for 6 years, and that helps out a lot also. I don’t spend much money at SXSW. I usually rely on the day shows and personal hook ups. (more…)

Popularity: 3% [?]

Although River of Dreams was not like Beethoven, as Billy Joel desperately wanted me to believe back in 93, Snoop Dogg and Guns N’ Roses were actually a little closer to the genre.  I’ve been thinking about all of the reunions, repackaging, or horrible new releases from the likes of Aerosmith, Queen, the Dead Kennedys (minus Jello), Madonna, and The Police. It makes me freak out that the likelihood of the new music being listenable are slim to none. There is still some wishful thinking on the internet that Dr. Dre and Guns N’ Roses may release albums that have been years in the making but that is where their similarities end.

Dr. Dre has had quite the career since he started out with the Strip Club Anthem group World Class Wrecking Cru. I remember playing “Turn Off The Lights” all the time when I was a DJ at Déjà vu.  After his mid 80s success as a booty jam maker, he produced NWA’s Straight Outta Compton. The late 80s and the early 90s had Dr. Dre producing most of the popular gangsta rap music to come out of the era and, after NWA broke up, Dr. Dre came out with The Chronic. The original Chronic was a West Coast soundtrack to the early 90s and, once it dropped, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Nate Dogg, Kurupt, Tha Dogg Pound, and more carried gangsta rap through its first wave.  Eventually, Dr. Dre decided to come out with his own label, Aftermath, in which he released a horrible album also titled The Aftermath. After The Aftermath disaster, fans waited for years for the Chronic 2001, which eventually came out in 1999. About a year after the Chronic 2001 came out, Dr. Dre began talking about what was to be his next album, “Detox“.

“Chinese Democracy” is the urban myth of an album that was suppose to be Guns N Roses’ follow up to Use Your Illusion 1 and 2.  GNR milked Use Your Illusions 1 and 2 from 1991 until 1993.  At that point, they released an album of covers called The Spaghetti Incident, which was their attempt to make their own Garage Days Revisited.  Around this time frame (1993-1994), Guns N’ Roses transformed themselves from one of the greatest rock bands into a band that did not create new music for their fans.  Axl wanted to sound like the industrial music at the time. Rob Halford from Judas Priest had a band called Fight that was short lived.  Axl Rose never let up on his dream to make Guns N’ Roses the next Fight and, in his quest, he fired every original member of Guns N’ Roses and recast them with bizarre replacements. He spent millions of dollars recording tracks that, somehow, started to leak on to the internet around 1999. The tracks that were leaking out way back then are actually the very same tracks that are leaking out now in 2008. These tracks were to be the next Guns N’ Roses album called Chinese Democracy. (more…)

Popularity: 10% [?]

The Kids of Widney High
July 12th, 2008
Northwest Film Forum
Seattle, Wa

I was recently on the Ipecac Recordings website looking through upcoming Melvins tourdates.  Ipecac is a label co-founded by Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom, etc)  and is home to projects for Hella drummer Zach Hill, Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo’s band The Moistboyz, super heavy musical onslaughts from San Diego’s The Locust, and the Patton/Melvins side projects Fantomas and Tomahawk.  Scrolling down through the various Ipecac tour dates, I was shocked  and amazed to see listings for a handy capable vocal group known as The Kids of Widney High.  They were coming to Seattle and it was only two days away.

Widney High is a Los Angeles based High School catering to special needs children from the ages of 13 to 22.  The Kids of Widney High is a group of disabled prodigees and recording artists which stemmed from a songwriting class at the school.  In 1989, after teacher Michael Monagan helped the students create and arrange their own music, the kids released their first original album called Special Music From Special Kids on Rounder Records, which included liner notes from both Smokey Robinson and Tiffany.  It had to have been around 1995 or so when I finally first heard the album and I was immediately sucked in.  At the time I was already beginning my infatuation with the late great Wesley Willis, and the energy and enthusiasm behind the music fit right into my scope of interest at the time.  The first track off of the album, titled New Car, had notes of Rain Man as former student Robert Ross sang about the glory of having a new car in his garage.  “I wash the windows, I vacuum the floors.  I wash the motor, I dry the doors.“  The song Insects warned, “Bees will sting you very hard, all over your body. Bugs are in the trees and they’re watching you” and the song Throw away the Trash discouraged littering wih lyrics like, “I wanna feel proud about my clean school,  If someone throws trash ‘I pity the fool!!’ “.  These songs and their catchy ass hooks have been stuck in my mind for the better part of the last decade and a half. (more…)

Popularity: 6% [?]

So it’s about 20 minutes before I’m supposed to do my interview with songwriting legend Daniel Johnston when my girlfriend Kim walks into the Comet Tavern. I’m drinking a Mac & Jacks African Amber and trying to get all of my notes and shit organized because I’m still under the misguided idea that I may actually be able to gear the upcoming conversation with the manic depressive musician into some direction of my choosing. Already, nothing is going as planned.

I hand Kim a DV camera and inform her that she will be filming the interview and then ask her to watch all of my equipment and notes while I run to QFC to get film. I found out the day before that I would not be recieving the Digital SLR camera that I had ordered weeks prior (this situation will be covered in another article) and so I brought an old manual Cannon AE1 for which I had accidentally bought the wrong film, in my frenzy to reach the venue on time. I purchased new film and rushed back to the bar only to find out that the Camera battery was dead anyway, so I was fucked. No camera to go with the photopass. Another opportunity lost, but such is the way of MonsterFresh.

As soon as we walk across the street to the venue, Neumos Crystal Ball Reading Room, I spot Daniel’s brother/tour manager, Dick Johnston whom I recognized from the documentary. I shook his hand and he led me around the building so that we could get things rolling. If you have seen the film The Devil and Daniel Johnston, you may remember Dick as the brother who’s ribs were broken by Daniel on Christmas. He set up the interview for me and is working as Daniel’s tour manager. Their father is Daniel’s manager and their sister Margie Johnston has been known to help with the management of his art. The family is very involved in Daniel’s finances in such ways as insuring that he is paid sufficiently, that his rent is paid, that he has groceries, etc.

We turn the corner and I see Daniel with his head lowered to the ground and smoking a cigarette. The front of his hair is yellowing from nicotine, he is wearing a faded black Spiderman T-shirt and a windbreaker, and he seems to be oblivious to who he is and what that actually means. He is standing very nonchalant outside of the building, as if he were unnoticible, when we approach. An employee of Neumos asks Daniel if he and/or Dick need anything in the way of food. Daniel has mentioned in the past that he is trying to lose the weight that he has gained over the years, no doubt due to his medication, so he makes sure to specify a “DIET” Coke in his request for a cheeseburger and fries. She says that she will go get some from a place down the street and, when Daniel implies that he will go up there himself, his brother/manager reminds him that he has a sound check to do and ushers him into the building as I follow behind.

At this point, I haven’t said shit and I am holding a vinyl copy of a live radio broadcast of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. I picked it up at my favorite local record store for Daniel, knowing his infatuation with monsters, and figured that I could use it now as an ice-breaker, considering that he didn’t even seem to react to the fact that I was there or wonder why. I say hello, inform him that I was there to do an interview, and give him the record. He responded with something to the effect of, “Man, this is really cool. I love Frankenstein!“. Dick informs Daniel that it will take a minute for soundcheck and that now would be a good time to do an interview, so Daniel agrees and finds a round table in the corner of the venue next to a bunch of trashcans to sit at. As I walk across the room to find a chair of my own, I notice that a couple of fans have lurked in but are standing back respectfully. I pull up my chair, sit down in the Chip & Peppers I scored at a thrift store, and immediately realize that I’m sitting in gum. Not old hard gum, mind you, but fresh sticky warm gum and it’s all over my ass. Fuck it! Just hit “RECORD“. We’re already in it. Let’s do this thing.

(more…)

Popularity: 11% [?]