It appears everybody’s favorite human-hybrid Chris-Chris has made the jump to Facebook. Not sure how he’s able to post seeing that his monster hands would crush most keyboards. And smartphones. Plus, Goat Island doesn’t have the tech infrastructure that allows for neither dial-up nor DSL. My guess is he’s hanging out at an Internet Sweepstakes parlor.
Could a Twitter account be in Chris-Chris’ future? Stay tuned.
I almost forgot I had this video. This is now ex-Burlington Councilman Jim Butler performing a little David Allan Coe at The Rusted Bucket in October.
It was so inspiring that yours truly followed Butler’s lead and sang “Heart Shaped Box” with the Back Porch Orchestra. Unfortunately, no footage of that performance exists but I do believe Angie Ball, the Bucket’s owner, has some blackmail photos of me singing.
I have to give it to Butler. He gets points for belting out some good ol’ DAC. I can’t imagine any other local politician doing such a thing. Well, maybe former Mebane councilman Bob Hupman singing Pink Floyd’s “Money” or Bill Lashley singing “Street Fighting Man.”
A few things about the video: The audio on the video is terrible and loud so be sure to turn your speakers down. Also, it was very dark so it’s hard to see Butler putting on a Bob Seger-esque performance. Finally, the cameraman was, let’s say, a little, um, tired at the time so the footage not exactly, um, steady. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Photo by Kirk Weddle
Tuesday saw the release of the Deluxe Edition of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” which was originally released on Sept. 24, 1991.
In honor of the 20th anniversary, here are some of my memories involving Nirvana:
1. Shaking Kurt Cobain’s hand after the May 1990 show at the Cat’s Cradle on West Franklin in Chapel Hill. Kurt gave me the dead fish shake while staring off into space on the side of the stage while Chris Novoselic hawked Nirvana T-shirts from a cardboard box on stage. This was all after Cobain had destroyed what was left of his duct-taped-together guitar and destroying his amp. Of course, Danville kids being Danville kids, some of my friends tried to actually steal the equipment from the stage.
2. My late friend, Leo Liu’s micro-cassette recording of the aforementioned show. He dropped the recorder into a hole beside the stage. Needless to say, the recording is rough but it is listenable. This is how we first heard the songs that would make up “Nevermind” as well as the “Sliver/Dive” single.
3. Chris Novoselic nearly running over two of my friends with the tour van before the aforementioned show.
4. Nirvana’s October 1991 show at the Cradle. Show was packed but this was before “Nevermind” went nuclear. Before 24/7 rotation on MTV. Somehow I ended up playing “Coat Check” for my friends’ jackets and flannels while they went off to get in the pit. Another late friend of mine, Brandon Gusler, came to the show from a high school football game and handed Cobain a pom-pom which Cobain shook sarcastically.
5. Buying the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” CD single. I believe it came out a week before “Nevermind.” I was at VCU at the time and I drove to the Plan 9 record store as soon as it opened for the day. The opening riff threw me. I was thinking “This sounds like Firehose!” until the distortion kicked in.
6. Spreading the “Nevermind” gospel to a roommate at VCU. This guy was all about hip-hop and R&B but he loved the song “Drain You.” He would come into my room, kinda drunk wanting to hear it and he would hum along to it.
7. Nirvana playing “Saturday Night Live” for the first time. It was, I believe, the second episode of the 1991-92 season. Rob Morrow was the guest host. I watched it with a look of slack-jawed amazement in the Bottom Inn, a TV room at Averett College with my girlfriend and another couple. Here was a band that I loved on national TV. We were actually trying to crowd surf on the couches. Now how dumb is that?
8. Hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on a radio station for the first time. It was a Classic Rock station in
Kurt Cobain wears a ball dress to MTV's "Headbanger's Ball" hosted by hair farmer Rikki Rachtman
Richmond. People forget that radio was playing that song way before MTV got its claws into it. I have no recollection of seeing the video for the first time other than I’m sure it was in my mom’s den on a weekend home from school. Heavy rotation is a gross understatement for what MTV did with that video. I remember they even had a version of the video with lyrics at the bottom of the screen.
Not to get on an anti-MTV tangent but that channel has never blazed the trail as far as new music goes. At the time “Teen Spirit” was blowing up, that station was still stuck firmly in the mire that was late ’80s hair metal.
9. Hearing about Cobain’s death while I was at work at Pizza Palace in Danville. A co-worker told me and I didn’t believe him because it sounded like one of those wild rumors that Danvillians feed on like crack. I believe I ended up calling someone and got confirmation that he was dead. I spent the rest of the night watching news reports and listening to Nirvana. I suddenly realized how John Lennon fans felt after he died. I can’t say for certain that I have ever gotten over Cobain’s death.
10. Rolling Stone magazine’s review of “Nevermind.” This is where Rolling Stone officially became a magazine for older people. The reviewer gave the album only three out of five stars (The preceding link says RS gave it four stars. Good to see RS’s Orwellian side) and was less than impressed by the album. I remember reading the review at the magazine rack in the Safeway on West Grace Street in Richmond. I figured it got such a lukewarm review because the guitars were too loud for the aging hippy reviewer and because U2 or Bob Dylan wasn’t involved in the record.
Wow, this event totally flew under my radar. Fitting that it is happening in the Orange County section of Mebane. One band that is on our local music site, Surround Sounds, The Mantras, will be performing.
Still don’t have an answer but a friend of mine sent me this link to Roadfood.com about the closing of the A&M. They hint at a couple of reasons why it closed but nothing definitive.
And my wife’s cousin sent me this link which just says it closed. However, a commenter did bring up that perhaps the arrival of Smithfield’s played a part in A&M’s demise.
Does anyone know what is going on with the A&M Grill? Is it closed for good? Changing ownership and reopening? Did the owners simply retire?
This place is an institution in Mebane so it is strange to have seen it shuttered so quickly and quietly.
The only signs that are on the door are handwritten. One announces the new summer hours (6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and the other tells a linen company where their inventory can be picked up. Also, I saw what appeared to be a locksmith changing locks on one of the doors to the bar and grill side.
Here’s ‘cue aficionado and Burlington resident Bob Garner’s review of the A&M.
Shame if this place stays closed for good.
This is part 4 of a series about me digitally converting my vinyl albums. In this series, I explain why I decided to convert certain albums and share my earliest memories of the albums.
10. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Psychocandy
Why?
Random songs and bands pop into my head every so often when I’m not having deep discussions with myself about how things may be different in a world inhabited by horses with thumbs or building robots that do nothing but smoke cigarettes.
In case you’re wondering, the horses could make excellent house painters. The robots’ programmed habit would be too expensive. What would stop them from chaining smoking constantly?
Anyway, “The Hardest Walk” by the Scottish quartet, The Jesus & Mary Chain (JAMC), came to mind. It’s like I forgot all
about them. And it is hard to forget that song or this album. “Psychocandy” is unforgettable because it takes the “Wall of Sound” production idea literally and to the extreme.
It is a noisy record that sounds like all the amps are on 10 and everyone is playing into them. I’m talking feedback, screeching and distortion pushed to ear-drum aching limits. It sounds like it was recorded in an all-aluminum warehouse with a Mr. Microphone that is transmitting to a transistor radio that has a station of Velvet Underground and Phil Spector songs bleeding into it.
It’s a real thing of beauty because the white noise is coupled with simple song structures and bittersweet lyrics about love and love lost. “The Hardest Walk” (I have no idea what this video is about) and the leadoff track “Just Like Honey” are two of the tamer songs soundwise on this album. It is amazing that a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records released this in 1985 because it sounded like nothing being released in mainstream or indie music at the time. And that holds up for today. It’s truly a timeless record.
Earliest memory: I was 14 when I got the cassette version of this a few months after the album was released. I
Anybody want to store some recipes on a cassette drive?
remember listening to it while “doing homework” or messing with my powerhouse Vic-20 computer and thinking the tape player on my boom box was eating the tape. Or the tape head was falling apart as it was playing. That is how noisy the sound is. Like the cassette is crumbling in the player.
I took the tape out a few times to inspect it and then proceeded to keep playing it. It took three plays of the album for me to realize it was supposed to sound like that. And, honestly, I wasn’t convinced it was supposed to sound like that until I heard other copies and even the CD in later years.
The impending chicken rumbles on Mebane Oaks Road between the Zaxby's and Chick-fil-A gangs could be scary.
Just heard that a Wendy’s is being built beside the Sheetz on Mebane Oaks Road. Across from Sheetz, Chick-fil-A will serve up their addictive brand of chicken sandwich. (I’m convinced the chickens are raised on some habit-forming substance that is then passed on to humans, leaving us utterly hooked to the bread, chicken, pickle trinity.) And, what I had pegged as a PF Chang’s has turned out to be a future Duke medical facility that will be popular among transplanted New Yorkers and New Jerseyans no doubt.
Add in the usual plunderers and closet hoarders headed to Walmart and Tanger Outlets and you may be able to see what I see: A traffic nightmare looming on the horizon.
Things are already bad on that stretch of Mebane Oaks. The McDonald’s drive-thru traffic was so horrific they had to split the line into two. And apparently Sheetz has some kind of force-field that causes people to lose all knowledge about how to drive once their tires hit the store’s parking lot. Drive on the right side, people.
We’ll see how all of this will play out. Now can we get an Indian restaurant, please?
Saw Steve Smith noodling across the street from the co-op in downtown at around noon today. If you’re headed that way, stop by and check him out. Not sure if he is actually playing anything coherent. Had a real Captain Beefheart feel. Anyway, we need more of this type of stuff downtown.
What can I say? I have a loyal following. According to the woman's shirt she may also be a fan of Parliament/Funkadelic.
Here’s a column I wrote the other day for our print edition. I touch on some of the newer features on TheTimesNews.com
My next plan for website promotion will involve teenagers dressing up as Libertarians and holding signs on the side of the road.
Burlington Times-News on Facebook
ROJONEKKU: Word Fighting Arts