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BANDS: Punk
& Ska INTERESTS: Venues ETC... About LOTD
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The Cramps once played a state mental hospital in California in 1978. Target Video was there. Its not exploitive, if that what youre thinking. Its not. This was before hate television. When it wasnt cool to make fun of someone, and then broadcast. AND MAKE MONEY off of them. It wasnt. The residents of Napa State Mental Hospital are obviously enjoying the moment (but not the person reading the paperprobably an orderly anyway). And their life... can the rest of us feel as free as they look? In any moment? Theyre jumping up and down. Theyre dancing. They dont care whos looking at them, including the camera. Poison Ivy is busy trying to look cool (the Von Bondies will be old one day, by the way); The drummer is either confused or thinks Another punk rock show. Lux Interior is giving effort to give his Best-Iggy-Show, but certain residents repeatedly try to hijack the mic. One of them gets a hold of it, doesnt quite know what to do with it, and then screams an unbelievable scream. Exumas stand-in? Lux is wrestling with the residents now. He mentions his need for love (in song) and gets three separate hugs from a big black dude with a cowboy hat; and guitarist Byron Gregory is loving every minute of it. We are lucky now. Listening to the Stooges is like taking your medicine. Its about once again finding yourself and what youre supposed to be doing and everything thats happening at this moment is good. Always. Moments are moments, but just the power of the Stooges musicmaybe it could change the bad to good. It worked for my head. Blow Steve!!!! Those words were once again a command at the Big Electric Co. Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan that reaffirming evening last August. This was their return. The Stooges were Detroit. They are Detroit. They are the Mid-West. They are punk rock. They never gave a fuck cause nobody gave a fuck. It was to regain power and dignity for yourself. To do it, to make this music that only a few would understand (always the point). End up a pioneer? Be remembered? To make music that was their own in every way. They were living the American dream, and they didnt know. It happened. No spotlights, just the band, Iggy, the Ashetons, Mike Watt. Ron Asheton once said that nobody can play Dirt like me, meaning that nobody who Iggy got to be in one of his touring bands could play the song like it isexcept him. And hes right. The solos are hot; Iggy is Iggy is Iggy: Rock, steady; and Mike Watt losing his mind, finally. Seeing them play together was not normal. It was like seeing the ghost of an elder who died when you were young. With the Stooges, its hearing those stories every once in a while from someone who was actually at the shows back in the day... in the beginning, when no one really knew or cared, just the people who were truly affected by the music. There was nothing cool about liking the Stooges. They were and are there for the desperate. The outcasts with bad acne, dandruff, a slight weight problem, an inability to talk to girls without shaking, the losers with just a few friends and barely hanging on. Be cool? Like them? Then they find you and.And then there they are. And then there you are. Together. How did it happen? That is the feeling. This is a celebrationcant you hear me?????!!!!! I Feel Alright!!!!!!! Iggy. Again and again. Listening to 12 takes of 1970 from that BOX. It gets in there. I Feel Alright!!!!!!!!! I must be.
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