Geezer Rock

Marlowe, Goethe, Campbell & Ciani

Drew skipped rehearsal last night to attend a family function, so Philip sat in on bass. He really seemed to enjoy himself. Philip, the fearless KDOG sound man, is trained on keyboards. But he can wheedle a little music out of almost any instrument. He showed a real flair for locking up tight with Kenton's kick drum as we ran down "Bug Eye Willie," "Mother In Law Blues," "All Grown Up," "She's Tuff" and "Hootchie Coochie Man." We even tried out some new material: "Twenty Yards Behind," "Casting My Spell" and Bo Diddley's arrangement of "I Can Tell." If Drew can't make the gig, we've got our backup guy. "I'll play from behind the soundboard!" Philip said.

"I love the band," Nick said as we went to pick up pizzas on our break. (Plenty of anchovies on the side. When I woke up this morning, my armpit sweat smelled like cat food.) I love the band, too. God knows we've nearly killed each other more than once. The tensions and rivalries make the Sunni-Shiite schism look like a summer camp sing-a-long. And yet, somehow, we've started working as a unit, instead of like four guys with conflicting agendas.

"When's our next gig?" Drew asked me the other night when I saw him at the McClatchy High School Winter Concert. (My son, Brett, played cornet in the jazz band and Drew's daughter, Abby, played upright bass in the concert band. Nothing is cooler than a girl who plays the big doghouse.) "I'm actually looking forward to it." 

When he found out that band wasn't booked until April, Drew arranged for us to play at Marilyn's on Saturday, Jan. 17. Drew's other two bands are the openers. That's good. I think we can get a lot more people. He's going to feel like a whipped mule by the end of the night: he's looking at 5 hours of playing and singing.

Bug Eye Willie: Bastard or Voodoo Child?

Kenton and Nick told me they'd worked on a new ending for "Bug Eye Willie" last night. They're right: it is only half a song. It's like a movie that ends in the middle:

Sad little song

An American tragedy

Tell you the story of Bug Eye Willie

Boy's so dumb most folks call him silly

Daddy was a rabbit

He liked running the ridges

His momma like sunning what she kept in her britches

One day his momma was cooking a brew

Rabbit said let me lick that while I'm lovin' you

Momma said don't touch that it's gettin hot

Rabbit said let me be the judge of that

Rabbit started slippin' and slidin' in the messy love goo

Bug Eye Willie said hey man I'm in here somewhere too

One day Mark came for the twins plus one

Bug Eye Willie figured himself likewise a son

He went callin' out to daddy Mark

Mark said no your Daddy was an aardvark

I agree with Kenton. The song can't end with Willie can't end with the bastard being rejected by the father. In Kenton's new version, Willie kicks his dad's ass. I thought this had Oedipal overtones and that Willie should then impregnate his mother. Kenton wasn't thinking on those terms. He wanted to turn it into a Clint Eastwood movie. Nick wasn't sure about this. "I always thought it was like 'Faust' - a tragedy," Nick said. "It started out as Marlowe's 'Dr. Faustus' and now it's Geothe's  version."

In Marlowe's play, Faust is goes to hell and his torn apart by demons. Geothe's rigs the plot to Dr. Faustus gets into heaven. "Suddenly, he's the hero."

"That's it," I said. "Willie needs to make the hero's journey, like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Or like Jimi Hendrix in real life. In New York, Hendrix is nobody. People laugh at him. Then he goes to England and blows everybody's mind and comes back as the biggest badass guitar player and showman on the Earth. That's the plot of 'Hear My Train a'Comin'"

Dig 
Gonna leave this town, yeah 
Gonna leave this town 
Gonna make a whole lotta money 
Gonna be big, yeah 
Gonna be big, yeah 
I'm gonna buy this town 
I'm gonna buy this town 
An' put it all in my shoe 
Might even give a piece to you 
That's what I'm gonna do, 
what I'm gonna do, 
what I'm gonna do

So that's it. Willie either kills his dad right then and pleasures himself with his mother. Or he does a Luke Skywalker by leaving as a twerp and coming back as a Jedi, kills Daddy Darth Vadar and then...well, I guess it's the same plot.

This all proves two things:

• Star Wars is a dirty movie.

• Nobody who's ever been to college should be allowed to have anything to do with a rock and roll band.

Bono Sells Furniture

This is an outtake from a jingle session Tommy and I did for a furniture store back in the days when people were still buying durable goods like furniture. Oh, what a time that was! I had a houseful of servants and each of my servants was assisted by a staff of trained monkeys.

Anyway, Jack Gallagher called while we were working and we immediately requested his best Bono impersonation, which seemed to fit - especially delivered over a Radio Shack speaker phone. Download Bono Sells Furniture