Please, Fucking Surrender

After my parents divorced, my brother and I has the dubious fortune of making the semi-regular trek from League City (30 miles south of Houston), to Jersey Village (20 miles north of Houston), in order for what I considered my noticeably reluctant father to fulfill his court ordered visitation duties. I dreaded these trips for numerous reasons, most of which I’ll spare you. Suffice to say that on these interminable jaunts from burb to burb, we has the incredible misfortune of having to listen to whatever music my father deemed not only worthy of a listen, but also worthy of a triple decibel aural assault that left us dazed and even more apprehensive of the days ahead then we may already have been.

My dad is one of those guys with inexplicable dad music taste. His record collection when I was a kid never ceased to amaze me with its eclectic mix of classic rock, folky rock, the occasional item of wonder, and a number of things nobody ever dared listen to but which he kept for years on end nonetheless.

He had Dylan records he never touched, Neil Young’s “On the Beach”, also never touched, Emerson Lake and Palmer’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (brutal, brutal stuff), Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” on which I have written in blogs of yore, several Cat Stevens albums that were played incessantly, Frank Zappa’s “Apostrophe”, and a whole shitload of garbage like The Kingsmen, and other unmentionably forgettable trash.

But for our trips up to Houston’s northwest hell pit, we were treated to a number of his most exclusive delights. One of those treasures was Rush’s “Exit Stage Left”, which is, for those not in the know, their infamous 80s live album.

Now it may cloud things to mention that I actually liked that album (still do), but the thing you have to get is that whenever we had to be cooped up in his car, driving 50 miles just to spend a weekend at his place, and all while listening the “Train to Bangkok” at ear bleeding volume for the entire drive, things got a little, uh, thick for my taste.

But it doesn’t stop there. Oh no. he also introduced us to the joys of the Captain and Tenille (ask Carlos, he knows about them), the Bee Gees, Neil Diamond, and as the coup de grace, my dad’s all time favorite hellish commute album, Super tramp’s “Live in Paris”.

I don’t really suggest that those without knowledge of this album should make any effort to hear this travesty. Just be confident in trusting me when I tell you that while that album is one giant turd of an album in every possible way, it is the masterpiece of the album that has worked its way into my subconscious mind like the face of the man who would kill your dog in front of you while laughing. That particular gem is titled “Fool’s Overture”, and holy living fuck, that is one seriously terrible fucking song.

Supertramp always had a way of utterly destroying whatever genre they cared to plunder in all of their material, but in “Fool’s Overture”, it is their abuse of the prog archetype that renders me a giant heap of hurt. This unending cut is their massive, synth driven, bloated corpse, washed up on the shore of my subconscious, from which I can have no rest.

In fact, all I need to hear now are bits of Winston Churchill’s 1940 House of Commons “Never Surrender” speech, and it’s all fucking over. Out come the knives, and some motherfucker is getting cut.

To my dad, this track was like listening to Jesus serenade his flock. To dad, “Fool’s Overture” was like the sound of angel’s wings caressing him in his eternal celestial repose.

To me, having to hear that song over and over and over and over… for the entire drive, was the sonic equivalent of having an entire recorded interpretation of Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” played through the soothing sounds of baby harp seals being clubbed in front of a bank of SM57s.

Yeah.

Changing subjects.

I hate rock star “autobiographies”. I use the quotes because none of these “autobiographies” are actually written by the subject themselves. In fact, they always have some other rock “journalist” to write it for them, uh, I mean, assist them.

I don’t hate all of them, though. In fact, I am rather fond of the one from that dickweed in Korn who left the band and found Jesus. That book slays. I highly recommend that one. But otherwise, that Anthony Kiedis one, fuck me, that one is murder. How about that one by that utter imbecile Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue? Total shit. Slash’s little nugget of rock wisdom? Scatalogical, and not in a cool way. Wait, is there one?

The best part is that these guys all think they are all-good now that they have stopped smoking crack off the bathroom floor in a Central Park toilet. They think they are now the ambassadors of the newly minted marriage of rock excess with a hope for longevity.

Of all these fellows, I think Slash deserves some sort of reward because he is the one who walked away from drugs and alcohol with a pacemaker. That’s right, his heart can’t keep him alive on its own because Slash has done so much heroin, so much coke, and had so much to drink that his heart finally told him to go fuck himself.

So sure, Slash might be a shredder as Justin has shown us this week, but he is also wearing a fucking pacemaker because without it, he would die from years of epic substance abuse.

Now that is rock.

Rock stars don’t need to write books, they need to fucking rock. Velvet Revolver is not the place to rest on your laurels, Slash. And as for you, Mr. Sixx, going sober and learning the err of your ways is not even slightly inspirational, and it’s even less interesting. Write another track like “She's Got the Looks that Kill” and I’m in. Confess in your love for Jesus, and report on your new found sobriety, and I am long gone.

However, let's not get ourselves all worked up here, because, in the case of that Korn guy, finding god, going all churchish, dressing like your interpretation of the man himself, and wearing robes as well as a long Jesus-y beard is absolute gold.

So, in summation, if you are a long ago washed-up semi rock star, and you are out of creative ideas, I’d like to give you some advice. Get a job, and then in your free time, pray that VH1 is on their way over to get you to reunite for one last hurrah.

It worked for the Mike Gunn.