Band.

So, I am drowning in snot and had an epic fight with my roommate which almost ended when she locked me out of her room. So I went outside and yelled abuse through her window.Someone got their Joe Pesci on…

No passive aggression for this little solider,no sir-ree.

We are now not talking but that’s cool.I yelled everything that I wanted to say.

Have spent the night in bed coughing my fat guts up and alternately texting my guitar player Marcus Depasquale.It is so fucking rad to be able to say that..”My guitar player”. I am now to four super-talented guys their “Singer/bass player” on top of that and its the best feeling in the world.I never thought that I would ever be in a band again let alone one with some of the guys that have written songs that have made up huge dashing parts of the soundtrack to my very existence and kept me company on my trailblazing vagabond life.

Phew.

I am using my sick time to write songs about Gilles de Rais and to get all my lyrics into a swanky new notebook.Marcus is so great.Finally a supernaturally talented being who has all the time in the world to teach and guide less talented beings ie: me. Unlike drunk fuck-wits who make you feel like shit while riding on your coat-tales. Note to self: never work with insecure addicts again. When I think of how great my old band was at the point when we broke up due to one cuntish six stringers fear of success?…well,lets just say there were a lot of things broken in the summer of ’07.Should have been his chicken neck but life will get him in the end.Last time I saw him he looked shiny with dirt and tweaked out his limited mind while I was glowing with rude health and borne aloft on wings of vengeance.

Rosco Deluxe ,Bass god and brother is back in town from Berlin for a few months and I cant wait to catch up with him and hopefully get some bass lessons. Have to wait till I am a bit more healthy than this though.Its been ages since I have had the unfettered pleasure of his company and I know that we will pick up where we left off.

I really have to get my game face on.I used to feel physically sick going in to work with Pointy mc Asshole in my old band but  I know working with this new band is going to be a lot more organic and way cooler.A death march in the last days of World War Two would a walk in the fucking clover compared to being in my old band .Giving myself a hysterectomy with a broken beer bottle would be a joy comparatively.Ok,I will stop.You get the picture…

We are a five piece .(We ARE!!!!) Two guitarists,two bass players and the best sloppy drummer in the world! I mean that in the best way too. Three vocalists and about the same amount of tunings.The bliss of being a sideman is hard to explain .I get to step up when needed and then my bass drags me back into the shadows.

Do you have any idea how loud and heavy it will be?

I really want an Ampeg but if a Marshall is good enough for Lemmy? Well then….

Swaddled in fever and a dirty migraine I imagine getting in the van again.Going on tour and I am craving it like a highway narcotic. Even the idea of jamming and rehearsing,which I used to hate with a passion usually applied to ugly shoes,neo-nazis and 99.9% of humanity in general has my limited and broken heart  all aflame.Just when you think that you are shit out of luck and ta-da!! Elvis grants you a boon. That and I have to get busy on organizing another mid year acoustic show at my beloved Club 77. I am happy to be loud again.

So let me tell you about  my new brothers.

Sigh,I finally have the band of pirates that I always wanted,that I craved .For the record ,I did in Tourettes as well ,bar the guitar player.Ross Empson and Michael Quigley taught me,and I am not saying this lightly, how to be a front-man.They constructed the best wall of rhythm outside of Muscle Shoals Alabama and its there that I earned my stripes and I am in their debt always and forever.

But after Meldrum and playing with Michelle Meldrum( R.I.P) ,Gene Hoglan,Laura Christine and Freda Stahl and the traveling the world acoustic with my sadly lost felonious fuck- up of an ex for a million miles .Onto doing my own laborious solo shit and getting to play with the best big brother in the world,Blackie,well,lets just say that I am ready to step up.

As an amazing man once said to me in a fog of punk rock greatness and post show euphoria before sadly exiting my life. “Get your wings.”

And I have.

Ok,the boys in the band….

Josh Nixon and I met ten years ago when our presence was requested to be part of a group interview for the now defunct “Kerrang” magazine. I was foul due to just quitting smoking as we all grouped at my beloved Annandale hotel. I can hardly remember anyone else at the table so strong was the impression Nixon made on me.We monopolized the proceedings and I gleefully received much fabulously inarticulate  hate mail from the battalion of semi-homosexual metal-heads who where never quite sure if they wanted to fight me,fuck me or be me over the coming months.

This  fortuitous crossing of paths lead to me becoming  friend of the man  and a fanatical fan of his incomparable band,Pod People,who it must be noted are the laziest band I think this country has ever produced only putting out  two long players in almost twenty years .That topped with his  brief but blistering early to mid o0’s defection to my fanatically worshiped Blood Duster during their immortal “Cunt” era sealed his stoner star status in my baby blue orbs for-fuckin-ever.

And now I am in a band with him.

Fuck.

Then you have Nathan from Sumonus on the drums and Marcus on guitar and Jason from the band Daredevil who have loved since I first heard them on 1st bass and then lanky here on second and therefore tuned down a step  2nd bass.The angles wept Patron silver while dressed in the finest Alexander McQueen and the perimeter burnt all night long. Thank you Elvis. To hear how brilliant Marcus is I suggest that you make aural acquaintance with a song from his band Looking Glass by the name of “Freya” Its is the finest seven minutes and one second you can have with your clothes on. Trust me.

I’m giddy with it.I remember devouring  Sir Hanks oh-so-necessary tome “Get in the van” and day-dreaming about what it must have felt like to step into the mighty Black Flag. This is my version of that. Intimidation mixed with balls of steel. My dear friend Leizel from the LBC wrote to me of feeling invisible. I know the vibe all to well but suddenly I am the non-mulleted Courtney Cox to a four headed stoner version of Bruce Springsteen in the “Dancing in the dark” film-clip .True! I have been plucked out of the marauding masses and pulled on stage by the peers that I admire.

I shall dance recklessly and with great abandon!

Hot damn!

See you at the show.