#chaknroll

[chakazard]

I have been a fan of Ezra Furman since Sep 5, 2019, when Bandcamp chose Twelve Nudes as its album of the day. I don't always check the album of the day but thankfully I did that day, and I knew before I listened that I needed it in my life. When I did listen, I was sold. I was done. I was changed. An absolutely perfect album start to finish. Since then I have flipped and fallen for a number of her songs, I devoured her 33 ⅓ book on Lou Reed's Transformer, and, like a lot of people, I came out of the shut down times being much more willing to be open about my own powerfully perplexing feeings about my gender and sexuality, and Ezra's music and her observations on Lou Reed from that book were absolutely a part of my journey. Although the show was delayed a few months, I was elated to have the opportunity to see her perform at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

There was not a single second of the show where I was not either singing, dancing, crying, beaming, or flipping the bird. I think I started crying at the second word of the first song. I am not usually one for being starstruck, but I could barely believe I was in the same room as this incredible artist. She held the audience in the palm of her hand the entire show, and I am honestly not sure to what extent she realized it. An audience, by the way, that was extremely and beautifully diverse, containing various ages, races, and especially genders, all united by the heartfelt words of the star of this evening. Ezra is the perfect mix of performer and songwriter. I may have seen people who are better at one or the other, though I can't think of any at the moment, but I'm sure I've never seen anyone better at both. Her every motion on stage seemed possessed by the songs, completely driven by the music, except for some of the between song bits, where she seemed too aware and suddenly remembered, embarrassed, that she was in front of an audience. "Songs of love and war" she kept repeating, and unfortunately songs of war are just as necessary if not more than joyous songs of love at the moment, especially from a trans artist in today's culture. She was a magnetic performer, even moreso in the way that she did not seem overflowing with confidence, but she did seem invigorated by the stage and the sound and the spirit of the songs.

And what songs! I feel like Ezra Furman's songs transport me, fully immersed inside of them, as if I am living their truths. She opened with The Train Comes Through, the beautiful song that opens her newest album evoking Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and from there exploded into the song that first made me a fan, Evening Prayer. She cracked my heart wide open with Book Of Our Names when she sang "the names will be the real ones that are ours.". I slow danced by myself to I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend and punk danced all the gunk out of my soul to My Teeth Hurt. I reverently sang all the words to Point Me Towards the Real and felt the thrill of Can I sleep In Your Brain rolling seamlessly into Calm Down. I knew there was no better conclusion than What Can You Do But Rock n Roll. When she returned for the encore and went into Lilac and Black, I pledged myself to take up those colors and join the queer girl gang. I put the final nail in my voice's coffin with the line TO THEM WE'LL ALWAYS BE FREAKS in Suck the Blood From My Wound. Before leaving, Ezra stood in the center of the stage and affirmed that the joy and anger had become one thing, and the name for that thing is rock n roll. If there is a religion based on that statement I want to join it. And she left us with Tell 'Em All To Go To Hell. My long neglected, unrecognized queer heart was full as fuck. I was expecting an unbelievable performance and Ezra overdelivered on every mark.

Before the show, I did something I normally don't at concerts and decided to grab a drink. While there I struck up a conversation with a fellow fan who had traveled all the way from Vermont for the show. Talking to strangers generally doesn't come easy to me, but I think I kept my end of the conversation moving and even entertaining. While I was talking to Geoffrey from Vermont about secret societies and life in general, two people came up to me, fellow poets who recognized me from an open mic I'd attended a month earlier. I took this all as a sign that this evening and my life as a whole are moving in a good direction. I left the bar and went upstairs in time to catch Jeffrey Lewis, who I had actually seen and enjoyed about 15 years ago, but I hadnt spent much time revisiting. He was an excellent opener, showing boundless creativity in both songs and the biographical graphic novels of Keith Haring and Sitting Bull projected behind him.

After the show, I was elated. What a perfect performance! I decided to do something else I normally don't, and wait in line to buy merch, because Ezra had more than earned my t-shirt money. When I was a couple spots back from the front of the line, I turned around and saw that she was sitting in the corner of the room, talking to someone. I reached into my rarely reached reservoir of social courage and resolved that if she was still there after I'd made my purchase, I would go up and say hi. "excuse me, I hate to interrupt, but you are fucking amazing!" was all I could think to say. Today, I think all the things I could have said. "Twelve Nudes is a perfect album!" "Temple of Broken Dreams makes me cry every time!" "I wish I had your music in high school!" "You helped me get in touch with my gender and it's made my life so much better." I guess "fucking amazing" is a decent blanket. She told me it was a dream come true getting to perform like that. I stumbled over the phrase "best show ever" and let her return to her conversation. I floated, glowing, all the way home.

Sometimes art hangs on its own and brings meaning to a life when it is sorely needed. Sometimes a life seems indivisible from the art that flows in, out, and around it. I have been riding one of those rare waves of energy and inspiration lately. There has been an influx of creative people in my life and I feel like this just made the show so much better for me. As I said, normally I wouldn't have swapped jokes and stories with a rando from Vermont, and I would have left and hopped the next train back to suburbia rather than sticking around to meet one of my favorite singers. As it is, I had an overall incredible evening that I will remember forever. I am an Aries and this is my season. There is nothing I believe in more than the beautiful two edged sword that is rock n roll and I don't think I've ever gotten closer to experiencing the purest most powerful version of that than getting to witness Ezra Furman sing her heart out in Brooklyn until the sound covered everyone who could hear. Songs of love and war, indeed.

[chakazard]

I went to see Patti Smith for the third time, because she is far too important a part of my personal mythology not to. Patti Smith is a guide post on my journey to discover myself. She made the world safe for stubborn awkward clarinet playing poet/rock stars and I may not be in her debt but in some small way follow in these footsteps. She is someone who exudes spirituality with every syllable and then turns around, spitting, declaring that she will not sell her soul to god, furious at the presumption of Jesus that he thought he had the rights to die for her sins! Patti butterflies between genres and genders and media without affixing herself to any of them. Considering the river of influence flows both ways, she exists in the center of the Venn diagram between all my favorite flavors of poetry and rock, the two art forms which speak directly to my soul.

Patti Smith is one of the most dynamic, transcendent, and evocative performers alive, and her powers may have only grown with age. The Field Marshal still leading the charge of rock n roll against the enemies of care and creativity. She opened with Dancing Barefoot, and the sound was a spiritual experience. She commanded energy and attention from everyone in the room and fed it back to us filtered through her voice. Lenny Kaye is still standing to her left after all this time and being one of the coolest fuckers to ever touch six strings. For the first few songs, she seemed ageless and eternal, repeatedly abusing her mic stand and commanding the attention of everyone in the room, (Free Money was twice as loud and fast as the record, and while Lenny and Tony Shanhan sing more lead vocals than you might expect, her voice hasn't lost any of its strength). Patti then had to interrupt the show to change her socks because they were bunching up in her shoes and making her uncomfortable ("I'm not dancing like this because I'm intoxicated, I have a sock problem!") which probably made this the most unique show I have ever attended and I loved it. It was a very human and relatable moment and Patti even made changing her socks seem artistic. She then followed that up with a positively beautiful rendition of Because the Night that brought a tear or two to my eye.

Partway through, Patti took a break and her band ran through a medley of songs about time including an unexpected but delightful Cher cover from Shanahan before the boss came back for the last half of Time Is On My Side. Patti sounded like the oldest being on Earth for a cover of Dylan's One Too Many Mornings and then got possessed by the Spirit of Fucking Itself (which popped into Lenny for a fiery guitar solo, then returned) for an unbelievably vibrant and sexual performance of Ain't It Strange. Afterwards, a cake was presented and balloons were dropped. Let me tell you. Nothing is as blissful or addictive as batting balloons around! It doesn't matter that I'm an adult surrounded by strangers. The excitement I felt whenever a balloon came close enough to hit was such a strangely tangible expression of joy. A blistering cover of the Chamber Brothers' Time Has Come Today gave way to an impassioned rant in which Patti got so invested in screaming to encourage the crowd to DO SOMETHING and make this bullshit world a better place, weaving lines of poetry in amongst primal yells, that she missed a few cues and the segue into People Have the Power. That gave her a sin to ask penance for "for fucking up the last 14 and a half minutes… but in my defense it was 14 and a half minutes of pure unadulterous joy!" (or did she say adulterous?). Her daughter Jesse joined the band to took up residence at the piano and they gave us a rendition of Gloria to shake heaven and Earth. Jay Dee Dougherty gave us a blistering drumming performance that was just as mind-blowing as it was in 1975 and Patti left us with one of the greatest things I have ever heard a human say in person. "People! A new year is coming! Be righteous! Use your voice!

Be good! AND BE REALLY FUCKING BAD!" There's my Patti, the one who sees both sides and that neither one is correct but they are two sides of the same thing. I left amidst the sounds of popping balloons, picked up a copy of Patti's new photography book, and headed back to the train, feeling like I had no fears and no limitations, and if I could only keep this feeling then I would look back a year from now and know that 2023 was one hell of a year, for me and for humanity. I talked to my sister a couple of days later and she said she had a friend who also attended and walked away with the same feeling. It was palpable, walking away from the venue, hearing the odd stomp of a balloon being burst. All people find their best selves in different ways. Patti Smith, as a performer, a poet, a concept, and someone victorious over 76 years on Earth, helps me see mine.

[chakazard]

There are so many songs in Ezra Furman's catalog that hit exactly that spot I'm looking for in music.  The most recent one I've become entranced by is "Temple of Broken Dreams" from her newest release, All of Us Flames.

Was the human heart broken by design?  Were the shattered pieces of the ten commandments the first mosiac?  Is it ok to cut your own hair in the bathroom of a diner?  These questions and more are some of the ones asked, either directly or indirectly, and possibly even answered on the brilliant song "Temple of Broken Dreams" by Ezra Furman which has quickly found its way into a deep compartment of my (assuredly broken from the start) heart, the way her songs tend to do.  (It can share a room with "Point Me Towards the Real" and live across from "Evening Prayer" and "My Teeth Hurt" from the previous perfect album, Twelve Nudes).  

Although I don't travel much and still live 10 minutes from my childhood home, lately I find myself drawn to songs about traveling, new beginnings, liminal spaces.  The feeling of only belonging to places which are not permanent, of only embodying something when nobody is looking straight at you, of only being yourself when you are somewhere in between different incarnations of the self.  The waitress has set a table for me in one of the most comfortable settings imaginable, a diner, possibly on my home island unless she's referring to a different Southhampton.  I have rarely had my hair cut in the last twenty years, but I  often find my reflection wondering if it wouldn't look better if I did so, and I feel like I would be far more likely to spontaneously do so in a diner bathroom I've never been before than at a barber in my town.  

Like Pat the Bunny, maybe god is not the right word but I believe in you.  So substituting postcards to prayer is a beautiful concept to me, raising the life saving connections between people that are so easily put aside or forgotten in the moment to the level of the holy.

I love these songs that translate thoughts I've had but never defined into words.  A collection of the shards that I can save, indeed.  I'm starting to tear up reading the words to the second verse as I type this.  So much of life is this futile battle to defeat life itself, because there is no way to be alive without feeling deep emotional pain and separation but it is through that separation that we find truth.  Or something like that, just go listen to the song!

And in the 3rd verse, after pausing to note that I too drive a Chevy, the line that give me chills.  "Just because those dreams are shattered doesn't mean that they can't matter."  Fucking blow that up and spray paint it on every building you can find.  I love the "we're all bugs frozen in amber" too.  It’s the rare absolute statement that works.  Everyone trapped in their own moment, everyone’s internal mental clock moving at different rates while we try to compare the external that will somehow never match.  Everyone traveling towards something even if we don’t know it.  Everyone traveling away from something even if you try to stay.  Hoping eventually we can find the other ones whose energy builds ours up and gives us the strength to cut our hair in the bathroom.  Mingling our dreams with one another’s and trying to see if they mix.  And never letting go of the shattered dreams and the broken hearts. It’s not our faults, it’s how the world and our brains work.  Maybe if we hold on to them we’ll figure it out.  Maybe at least we’ll find some great songs.  Like this one.

[chakazard]

Explain the tension

The feeling that breaks

Behind my eyes

When songs and stories

Hit that searching longing

Defiance

Nowhere home

The enemies inside

Consolidate against

The invasion from without

And salute one finger

Burn all bridges

Turn self inside out

Because at least

Your fingers did the turning

Safety and wholeness

Be thrice damned

And the train

Is always just about to come

Ticket or no

You know there'll be a seat

Sing it with me now

Til nothing is separate

Except that which has been

Forgot

[chakazard]

As much as I'd like to, I rarely keep abreast of new music coming out. It's pretty common for me to be surprised that a band has had three new releases since I last checked in on them. But when two of my very favorite artists cover each other's songs for fun and profit, turns out I'll give it a listen as soon as humanly possible.

West Coast vs Wessex! By NOFX & Frank Turner

A good cover should do three things, it should remind you how good the original song is, it should reveal something new about it, and it should reinforce the things you love about the musician who is trying to make someone else's work into their own art. I'd say this album hits all those marks. Has there ever been a song not only lyrically in Fat Mike's wheelhouse but also perfect for that patented NOFX final-chorus-get-in-overdrive than Glory Hallelujah? Even better, the ease with which The Ballad of Me and My Friends gets translated to something that could have closed any NOFX album makes plain the kinship between the two artists and the sense of community their songs offer to the listeners who get absorbed by their music. On Frank's side, he surprisingly outpunks NOFX with his sped up take on Scavenger Type, and follows the old adage of saving the best for last with his harrowing rendition of Falling in Love. One of my favorite songs, (and one of the worst third party heartbreaks I've experienced when I realized the relationship that inspired the song had run its course).

Fat Mike and Frank Turner are certainly amongst my top 10 songwriters personally, but they are also two of my favorite cover artists. Frank Turner has probably covered more of my favorite songs than anyone else (Queen, Bruce, AND The Weakerthans? Yes please!) and NOFX seemlessly integrates covers into their canon like few other bands do. This album is no exception on either front and I thought it was pretty great. Highly recommended for all Chakas.

[chakazard]

For years I have said that Tom Morello wields his guitar like a double-sided Darth Maul style light saber which short circuits those who unjustly hold power and cleanses the righteous spirits of those who need to, excuse the obvious, rage against that machine. Tonight I experienced that first hand as Tom imparted to the Minetta Lane Theatre his belief that music can change the world and you, yes, you (I'm looking in the mirror, or at least my phone camera on selfie mode here) can harness the power of sweet sweet otherworldly riffs and make the world an infinitely better place. After Coltrane's A Love Supreme played on the PA, Morello strode on stage in sneakers and shades, dropped a slam style poem, and picked up a guitar and the fans went wild. He told the stories of his life and career, laid down some intense solos, a folk song or two, absolutely cut several layers of bullshit off my heart with The Ghost of Tom Joad (with the Boss on piped in backing vocals) and treated me to one of the most profoundly religious moments of my life when he rocked Killing in the Name Of and every single person in that litttle theater jumped up and yelled FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME in perfect harmony. I am now energized, done with cynicism, and ready to put on my headphones and help change the world!

[chakazard]

Frank Turner @ The Paramount

Frank Turner's music is the music I always needed to hear but didn't know until I heard it.

Get Better is literally the song that pulled me out of a rut i thought would never end. When I first heard this song I said I'll never be that positive and put it away. When I was ready, I listened to it every day until it was true.

The first song of his I fell in love with was Photosynthesis. I won't sit down, I won't shut up, and most of all I will not grow up were words that we're etched in my heart from the word go and when I heard someone who had translated that etching into a catchy song - from another continent away mind you - I was instantly hooked. Of course I spent a fair amount of time hating myself because I didn't think I was living up to it. But (see above) I Got Better

I Still Believe. Another etching, another song. He asked "who'd have thought that something as simple as rock 'n' roll could save us all?". Not to brag, but I fucking did. What else could do it? I love how he uses Elvis as a quasi religious figure in this one, and Guitars and Drums and Desperate Poetry have been my holy Trinity since I heard it.

Recovery. Broken people can get better if they really want to or at least that what I have to tell myself if I am hoping to SURVIVE

Four Simple Words we've covered here before. But yeah, a song with Bohemian Rhapsody DNA that quotes Rocky Horror about dancing and punk rock and welcoming communities and shows. How the hell am I not going to love that?

Just to name a few, but these songs were the absolute highlights of the Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls show I attended tonight and it was wonderful. A lot of his songs sound better live - heavier in both the music and emotional senses, and he is obviously a performer with his little dork dance behind the guitar and his encouraging people to sing along as if their lives depended on it and getting his accountant to crowd surf and writing a song about appreciating the bar staff and, as I said before, it was wonderful. This was an even more special event for me because my love Ange accompanied me, and I hope I do not embarrass her if she reads this. I had a sinus headache and a cramp in my knee but i couldn't have been happier to be there.

Frank Turner understands the light that you can only get to by going through the darkness and he writes songs from both ends of that tunnel. He also understands that he is the conduit between his ideas and his audience and that triangle needs three sides to remain effective. I guarantee I'm not the only person who has heard their soul etchings sung back to them in an English accent tonight. And that is pretty fucking special.

[chakazard]

Once upon a time I took my significant other to see her favorite songwriter, Connor Oberst. More memorable, for me at least, was the greatest opening and I've ever seen, and a song that changed my life. The Felice Brothers had a wild and authentic energy. They were timeless and classless. Each song was like a tiny movie that you wish you could see more clearly. You got the idea that they genuinely wanted to adopt the whole crowd as honorary Felice siblings. Then, they announced the drummer was going to sing. The oldest brother, Simone, got up from behind the kit and picked up an acoustic guitar. Then I heard the voice and the words that have haunted me in the best way possible ever since.

I don't remember if he announced the name of the song before he started it, but even if I had to wait to the end of the first verse to find out I was hooked. React how you will, but I have always felt an affinity for the devil as a symbol, an allegory, a character. I'm a weirdo, a rebel, a reject, someone who feels even the villain deserves sympathy. I question things others seem to take as givens. I am the king of fire and desire and hell is my aesthetic. Anyway. When I heard that line sung in that voice it was like a personal invitation I couldn't turn down. So here we go.

Pharaoh, my pharaoh, my Bonnie is dead. Who is this Pharaoh and why does our singer answer to them? I didn't know Twin Peaks at the time I first heard the song, but it feels like foreshadowing with just the right combination of confusing spirits and the dear girl's corpse. This Bonnie lies not over the ocean, but in the back seat with sex and death, and which one would be more responsible for that tear in her dress? The Felice Brothers are a mutant strain of Americana, so naturally this fateful evening started at a drive in movie, where Bonnie asked our singer to show her the devil is real. Is he the devil? Is he possessed? Did he do the dirty deed and leave her in his Chevrolet? Is this all just a metaphor, is it fiction or hearsay? Too many questions and not a damn answer to be found, not even on Bonnie's naked body. She's got a birthmark on her arse shaped like a gallows and a cross. Sex and death and God are all here my pharaoh, but who is driving the damn Camaro? And where is it going?

Across the Queensboro bridge, of course, by way of F Scott Fitzgerald. This verse seems anomalous. Talking of the exhilarating journey the brothers have undertaken to peddle their songs across this holy holey land. Howling their way, however, is a more sinister word choice than others, but maybe the wolves are not what they seem.

I don't know if the singer is the devil, but it's clear by the end of the song that old Scratch is in the driver's seat, or at least directing the car. Maybe it's the devil that drives the singer on. Maybe he's hoping to ditch the Beelzebub somewhere along the way. But friend or foe, there are only three truths in this endless night. Bonnie is dead. This is America. And the Devil is Real.

[chakazard]

Over the last couple of years I've made it my first priority to keep my brain from doing any more damage to my self. Therapy, self help books, and meditation classes have given me a lot of tools and concepts to get me to look at my life differently and manage the bad times before they start controlling me. But the best way to learn anything is your first language and baby mine is rock n roll.

I've become a big fan of Bandcamp.com for finding new music, which is something I'm doing more regularly than I have in the past, and through their site I discovered this incredible album from the Purple Mountains. I think I first heard it four days ago, and I've already certain played it a two-digit number of times. The song is a commentary on the sickness many of us share, which cause our brains to tell us things that may not be true, even, especially, about ourselves, and how this problem permeates how we think, how we interpret the word around us, and how we interact with others. And yes, the not-quite five minute song says it all so much more succinctly than a more formal medium could ever do.

From executive dysfunction to fear of mortality, panic attacks, hypocrisy, aging, and how to find an audience for your self expression, we get a nice cross section of, presumably, the storylines that plague the writer (David Berman of Silver Jews fame). Can you relate to any of these? Can you relate to all of them? Then, until we find a cure for Storyline Fever, the best medicine we have is to sing along. And if you don't share my storyline that says my memory is crap, you might not need to out the song on infinite repeat to learn the words, but that doesn't mean you won't want to.

[chakazard]

I do not believe art needs to be neat or happy or easily digestible.  I also do not believe art needs to shit on things or disturb or shock for shock’s sake.  But art from a trusted source that plays with identity and leaves the viewer thinking that the artist has bared the deepest part of their soul (or is it kayfabe?)  is right up my proverbial alley.  After 20 years of following his lyrics - stretching for puns, left-leaning politics, and general irreverence, NOFX mastermind Fat Mike is one of my most trusted sources of art - and in my opinion he may only now be reaching his prime after the brilliant First Ditch Effort album and now, his first full-length original side project, You’re Welcome by Cokie the Clown.

Cokie the Clown is Fat Mike’s disturbing and depressed alter ego/self-caricature.  “This isn’t punk rock, it’s Performance Art”  he said from the stage last night at the Brooklyn Bazaar.   If it’s not kayfabe, Mike is using a layer of greasepaint to separate himself from his ego and process the grief, heartbreak, failure and isolation that he might normally block out or channel into humor.  The songs he sang that night covered suicides both attempted (his ex, which he foiled) and succeeded (his roomate’s), overdoses, and euthanasia (”That Time I Killed My Mom”), interspersed with a cartoon sound effect library and blunt and joyless stories about raunchy sex.  Armed with an oversized mallet (”its not real wood but it still hurts”) instead of a bass guitar, he bopped his band mates and fans jokingly, and himself a little less jokingly, between songs. I got the impression, from the bear hugs he gave his fellow musicians, that he was thrilled to have made an album outside of his comfort zone with musicians other than his usual partners in crime. He seemed excited that less people walked out of this show than his two on the west coast, too. For his closing number, music industry kiss-off "Fuck You All", his mic stand or lyric stand slid down to the ground, leaving him bent over and screaming while hordes of supporters cheered on, middle fingers raised high.

Identity is one of my obsessions, and I am fascinated by the idea that Fat Mike had to create, or manifest this Cokie the Clown persona in order to explore his traumatic experiences. Who would be taken less seriously, seen as less trustworthy than a drug addict who is also a literal clown? Is this a subversion of expectation? Does it make it safer to say the most serious things in the least serious guise? Does the painted on frown give Mike permission to keep frowning and relive the moments of his life which were least happy? Is he playing with the audience, like during Cokie's first public experience, when he duped the audience into thinking they had drank his urine? Does the separation of punk rock music from the ballads and orchestral instruments found on this album help him get into a different mindset? (Mike introduced a member of the string section as Cello Biafra!) It is these questions almost as much as the songs that draws me to this project in particular. Depression and identity issues, explored by one of my favorite songwriters? I am there.

The amazing Ange (she'll be king) bought me a VIP ticket to my birthday, so Fat Mike was supposed to do a meet & greet before the show. When he didn't show, some people started speculating he od'd in the bathroom, which would have been grimly appropriate for this show. Turns out he was asleep and promised to make good after the show. I didn't want to push through the autograph seekers and at least one sexual propositioner, and didn't know what to say anyway. But the clown himself told me (well, a group, but he was looking right in my eyes) how excited he was that Richard O'Brien liked the album because Rocky Horror was his first musical influence, and later I thought we had a mutual eye roll when somebody did something annoying, but I couldve imagined it. I also kinda waved at Danny Lohner, who produced the album and played guitar on a few songs during the show, on my way out.

I'm always going to be a NOFX fan and a Fat Mike fan. They're probably not the first thing you'd think of, but I'm always going to love his sad songs. And I'm always going or be fascinated with how artists play with identity and assign different works to different personas. I feel very lucky that I got to see the Cokie the Clown show because I can't imagine it's easy on his emotions to do that often. I wouldn't necessarily call it a good night but it was a hella worthwhile one. That's my art.

[chakazard]

Where was an intermission and I want my money back

Amanda Palmer is one of those artists, like Henry Rollins and Roger Waters, that I feel oddly protective of. Like every time any one of them are criticized I feel like I have to like them more to make up for it. I mean these are people who are at times, in ways, a lot closer to who I'd like to be than I am. So if people don't like the real thing (and I am aware there are plenty who don't), how could anyone like the cheapest possible imitation of someone else's low-res copy?

I was already going to her performance at the Beacon Theatre tonight when I got word she was doing some kind of meet up beforehand and I thought I would try to make it. So I get changed and head out and pop the album on and wouldn't you know, I get on the Wantagh Parkway as she sang "everyone you love is gonna die" (as I've said before, every song on her new record is a Tear Jerker and that is exactly why I love it) and as that line hit, directly to my left was the corpse of a cat. Of course. Of corpse. Life is both too obvious and in too bad taste to make it successful as fiction. When I got to the train station I realized that, in my rush to get out, I had neglected to bring my wallet. Oops. Thankfully you can buy LIRR tickets online these days and I had my phone. And then I missed the meetup. But at least the baby didn't die? And I ran into someone I know (hi Nico!) on the line into the venue so that eased my mind a bunch. Really enjoyed that the pre show music included Oh Bondage! Up Yours by the X-Ray Spex and by the time Neil Gaiman gave the spoken introduction I was thoroughly Ready To Rock And Also Cry A Lot.

Amanda wasted no time in justifying my affinity for her, talking about how her stepfather would accuse her of banging on the piano and not making real music, and the therapeutic powers of playing loudly and angrily. (I was classically trained but I am very out of practice and low on discipline and attention spans so I mostly just bang loudly and angrily when I do get to play. Maybe explaining why the cat hates it and knocks down all the markers and knick knacks he can find before I can even get to the chorus). Her show was more of a one-woman play interspersed with songs than a rock show and it was, like the album, Extremely My Shit. Theatrical, scripted but in a way to make it sound natural, extremely personal, diving deep into extremely dark emotions and finding the light in them. I thought it was absolutely brilliant and I'm so glad I made it.

From where I was sitting, the audience seemed completely focused on the performance. I closed my eyes during a few songs to focus better on the lyrics. Machete was the highlight for me, even (or especially) when she mixed up the words, and the sound near the end of it that I thought was someone eating popcorn turned out to be a professional camera. Also, Disney songs repurposed to represent abortion and miscarriage for fun and profit?

Between her speeches and songs I kept being brought back to things that have been kicking around my head but haven't had the right moment or the guts to articulate. Excuse me if this is less of a review of her performance (I laughed, I cried, I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in about a decade and braved an Extreme Obstacle Course so I could catch up with her while she smoked during the untitular intermission (Hi Michelle!)) and more of a check in to put that stuff down here and now.

On anger. I was an extremely angry person for many years. I don't know if you become obsessed with Henry Rollins and Roger Waters if you're not. But I get told a lot by people I don't know well that I don't seem like I ever get angry. I guess from the outside being frozen by fear looks a lot like calm peacefulness. Then I'll hear it from family members and I feel like I'm not actually being seen, and maybe that's my fault. How can I deal with expectations I know I will never live up to? I thought a lot about different human connections and missed chances. How I have family members I never got a chance to get close with and if I'd be able to if I tried, and how life will develop now that my family has a new generation. When she talked about grief I thought about my friend who died (I am lucky to only have one) and how I feel like I never really processed it and feel guilty that we lost touch before she checked out. How my best friend has been sick for years and spent months out of the country with little contact and i would get scared if I didn't see her active on spacebook for a few days. How I have friends in the city I would like to have excuses to get in touch with more regularly but probably won't and hope they forgive me, friends who live elsewhere that I hope aren't insulted if i don't visit, friends on the internet I'm still scared would lose interest in me if we ever met in real life and wondering if the fear has subconsciously kept me from trying. When she talked, a few times, about radical compassion and justice and privelage, it made me frustrated that the hardest thing for me to talk about is my political philosophy, which is deeply rooted in the idea that every person deserves respect and compassion (and basic necessities of living) and how silly it seems that I'm afraid to come out and say that, much less act on it, because it might make someone mad at me, or worse, laugh. How there are so many truths that we don't get taught or lied to about or feel like we are forbidden to talk about and I need to start making a real list so I can at least try to pass them on. How impossible it is to write when you are dealing with depression because "you just want to feel pain" which explains why I didn't write for so many years.

A few days ago I said "I can be so very bright if I'm permitted to be made of darkness" and she kept repeating that her job as an artist is to bring people as far into the darkness as they will allow before catapulting them back into the light.

Again, this show probably wasn't for everyone but it was very much for me. So I left with the desire to make more art, even if I'm not sure what form it should take and still have very little self confidence. And support more artists, and try to speak up when I appreciate things more and not assume my opinion won't be well received. I left with a lot I'd like to say. I am honest about how bad I am at taking compliments but I'm afraid I'm even worse at giving them so I don't think I've ever adequately explained how important people are to me. I want to tell people I'd like to see them more often but time and geography and mental stuff get in the way and hope that it's understood. I want to reexamine how many of the bad things I think about myself are just excuses because I'm scared of failure or rejection but trying is the point of life so don't stop trying. So I'm going to keep talking and writing weird stuff and looking for the cracks and inversions where I can find beauty or recognition. My instinct is to say I'm going to be more insufferable, but this is an assumption and not an experience. I find that I get better responses when I do talk honestly about anything and nobody has actually told me that it's insufferable. I get really happy when I see someone else shed their preconcieved imitation skin and inhabit whatever shape resonates with them at the moment. And when people are happy and in their element and it shows, even if that element is not mine. So maybe I don't need to feel like I can't try to do the same for myself. And I feel like I talk about myself too much, especially in a post like this that's supposed to be about someone else's art, but there is literally no other Chaka in the world and if I want to see these ideas expressed then nobody else is going to do it and what have I always felt like I was breaking a ton of rules for trying to do that?

I took a Lyft back to Penn Station because you can use PayPal for those and am now looking forward to next week's entry in my bluntly honest confessional would-make-some-uncomfortable Rock n Roll tour with Fat Mike as Cokie the Clown, which I need to keep typing so my phone stops trying to autocorrect to Cookie.

In conclusion, thank you Amanda Palmer for your amazing performance and not only because it made me do my favorite thing and get introspective and over emotional.

[chakazard]

MISINTERPRETATIONS (this is important to me)

MISINTERPRETATIONS

Thoughts of paint

Disguising skin as souls

Lightning that heats but does not strike

Theory of numbers

(The significance of nothing)

Reclaiming everything stolen

From it's hiding place

Until it can be fashioned

Into an instrument of power

Strike my knuckles from the record

Move like liquid

The side that knows there are no sides

Overlapping outlaw

Origin of fear

Turn me upside down

What does that remind you of?

(Words to complete the sentence/)

[chakazard]

I believe in superlatives. I throw them around generously. I believe that it is your right to have many favorites and hold many bests and greatests. I am a fan, not a critic, and when I talk about art I want to shine the spotlight on what resonates with me, and downplay that which misses the mark. Maybe it's because my moods and modes of being are so malleable I need a different favorite for every possible flavor.

That being said, I can imagine very few moods in which the greatest thing in the world is not a loud, live band with a charismatic frontperson, performing to an enthusiastic audience. It's just the best. The two flavors of that are of course big stage and small stage and they both have their moments. Again, I think it's fair and in line with my philosophy to say they are both the best.

Unfortunately, I have gone through long periods of my life where I haven't gotten to enjoy this experience nearly as much as I like, due to the demands of living, the limitations of struggling with social anxiety, and now a multiyear global pandemic.

One of the great things about a rock show in a small venue is that you can usually see the transformation that occurs when a human being steps on stage and becomes a superhero. It feels like they can unintentionally become a representation of their deeper self, in the grips of the stage and the music itself! Suddenly, they are more than they were before. They can harness the energy in the room, increase it, focus it. They can use their skills to help fight sadness, loneliness, boredom, the great enemies of the human spirit. For 45 minutes they are leading you in the army of emotions against the pressures of the outside world that can not be allowed to infiltrate this unholy altar. And for someone who, again, has major problems with social anxiety and feeling like an outcast. there are few ways to break that down faster than looking around and seeing everyone around me obviously sharing the same feelings that I am.

Sometimes I struggle to leave the house. Too many anxieties. Too many things in my mind I can't control. But sometimes I can push myself enough to make it to a show and when I do, I don't think I ever regret it. Now it makes getting through the rest of the week easier, because I got those healing rhythms and got to melt into a crowd and because I remembered where I find meaning in life beyond the necessities and requirements. I find it in guitars and drums and lousy poetry and more than anything else I have tried it makes me remember that I'm alive.

[chakazard]

I saw Roger Waters for the sixth time recently, at the famed Madison Square Garden, and in my firmly held opinion, he still is the most dynamic, theatrical, thematic, and dare I say important artist in the rock n roll world.

I really think Roger Waters is one of the true artists of our times. He has arrayed a catalog of musical and visual elements that really get at all the questions of humanity from various angles. Yes, people get all up in arms about the politics. Which are, broadly, the ideas that people who think they have the right to tell people to kill other people are always wrong, if the media, government, education system or other official channels try to tell you otherwise they are fucking liars, and all people have an equal right to enjoy their lives and cultures regardless of their race, religion, gender, or the size of their bank account. To me this is no more controversial than saying "the sky is blue" or "tacos are delicious" but to each their own. But no less an important plank of his platform is the personal. Whereas large scale political posturing can fall flat, giving it a personal, emotional resonance that keeps me at least coming back.

Vastly different musical universe, but several times im the course of the night, I found myself thinking of the AJJ song People II: The Reckoning.

"I've tried to know which words to sing so many times

And I've tried to know which chords to play

And I've tried to make it rhyme

And I've tried to find the key that all good songs are in

And I've tried to find the notes to make

That great resounding din"

One part of the reason Roger Waters work endures is that he is just a fucking good songwriter. With a nod to the composing contributions of Gilmour and Wright, Waters writes songs that just sound right. He's got that great resounding din DOWN. His melodies stick in your head and his chord progressions flow effortlessly into one another. He also knows better than anyone how to sequence his albums and concerts for maximum musical and thematic effect. Remember no matter how important your point is, if you want it to be effective you've got to put in a few sing-alongs and epic solos because the point is not to sit in an arena and be sad about all the atrocicites in the world, the point is that life is worth celebrating despite and it is from that place of hope that the momentum for change begins.

Back to AJJ,

"But there's a bad man in everyone

No matter who we are"

Roger Waters has never shied away from displaying his uglier sides, even when it provides fuel for his detractors. He discusses a nervous breakdown he once had, and is still obviously haunted after all this time by the fates of his father and Syd Barrett. As he's been doing since 1979, he still dons a fascist uniform to open the second half of the show, which is simultaneously ironic posturing, self-criticism, and a sadly increasingly relevant social commentary. He is not afraid to simultaneously delve into the depths of his own psyche and the moral condition of the world we live in.

The earliest works Roger performs on this tour are the songs that comprise Side 2 of Dark Side of the Moon. This is the album where he starts examining the pressures that lead a human mind down a troubling path. Time, work, money, war, religion, death, decisions, consumerism, changing relations prominently among them. The next album, Wish You Were Here, proceeds with the same line of thought towards work and relationships in general and the music business specifically, also touching on the loss of relationships (Barrett and Gilmour) and how work can obscure the individual identity (by the way, which one's Pink?).

Animals again expands this to the whole of the capitalist society. Here, the executive who thought the band was the man is one of many Pigs, who dont need to prod much to convince Dogs to commit physical and economic violence upon the masses of Sheep. (Pat the Bunny - another totally different animal - comes to mind here "what the news calls economics/I still call it violence"). In the final classic Floyd album, The Wall, Roger confronts the Dog, Pig, and Sheep within, while examining the greater cultural and personal forces that could easily drive him to madness had he not become aware of the bigger picture.

Adding to his later work, he has a rich catalog of sounds and visions which he can plug in to a setlist and fully enhance both the spectacle and the message of his performance. He reminds us that all of our ills are connected - feeling disillusioned and alienated by our work, disconnected and projected into roles by the people in our lives, torn apart by war and division, never escaping the electronic eyes of the pigs soaring through the air, and all for the benefit of the never ending grind of the capitalist machine. Roger starts his show with a precorded message "if you are one of those "I love Pink Floyd but can't stand Roger's politics people, you would do well to fuck off to the bar now. " To me there is no difference, the man simply cannot help but inject his deep feelings, anger, grief, sadness, and yes, hope, into every song he writes. There is no Pink Floyd without Roger 's politics. So I knew I was in for a good night when this message was met by laughter and applause, and I didnt see a single person angrily storming towards the exit.

A few notes on the show itself. The show opener is a gloomy, atmospheric reworking of Comfortably Numb, which is followed by Another Brick in the Wall (parts 2 & 3). During this, I am amused to note that Roger's attempts to dance to the chorus make him look not unlike the wiggling of the inflatable Teacher who would have graced the stage for this song during a Wall performance. Roger barely played bass this time around, focusing more on the guitar and piano, but I was glad to see him strap on his usual instrument for Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Money.

I did have a good cry when, around Wish You Were Here as the Syd Barrett tributes were prevalent, the video screen read "when you lose someone you love, it serves to remind, this is not a drill. it is real life."

I expect most people reading this to know my personal history but in case you stumbled here from elsewhere, my best friend passed away at the end of last February. Not a day goes by that I don't wish she was here, and there are a lot of feelings that get conjured about how society at large failed her when I think about her story. Personal feelings can be indistinguishable from the larger ailments of a culture and here is the best way to show it.

And the show, with its somber and weighty moments, was far from all doom and gloom. There is nothing like feeling like part of a community, all singing "WE'RE JUST TWO LOST SOULS SWIMMING IN A FISH BOWL" or "SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND" in a celebration of our shared feelings and experiences. Many of the songs had new arrangements which I appreciated. I do wish The Bravery of Being out of Range had been a bit heavier but I 'm always happy to know I'm not the only one singing along to the solo material.

I have to imagine that this show would have been rather different if it had occurred in 2020 as intended. We may not have gotten a new song and several new arrangements. The world stage was also vastly different and I would have guessed the show would have been more involved with the US election and the dangers of a second Trump term. If that were to be the case, I think I prefer the show we got. I do appreciate Roger for and not despite of his politics, but I think his art stands strongest when it has a more personal bent. I prefer the 1980 Floyd Wall shows to Roger's (still amazing and glad I went!) solo Wall tour because the focus was much more on the story of the Pink character and how it parallels the political. This show was like getting a window into Roger's mind in the modern day, and having a looser narrative I think makes the themes of the show somehow more apparent. We have all lost people we love. We have all been afraid for ourselves or others in the face of unjust authorities. We have all been frustrated to the point of explosion, we have all sought a sympathetic ear and wished to join in a communal chorus. Laid out over the course of an evening, we can see how closely these feelings can be related, and leave filled with the hope that maybe enough people do care and the future will be better and more based in humanity than the past.

[chakazard]

I got lost in between a memory and a dream, as Tom Petty sang in the great You Don't Know How it Feels.  Inferno, the  newest single by the Felice Brothers, makes an attempt at a crude map of that same territory. 

The human brain is a mysterious thing.  Some moments stick in there for the rest of our life, sometimes the context is utterly lost and we're left with scents and shadows.  The characters in the song are teens at a movie.  The time seems hazy.  I can't tell if this is a memory, a dream, or a retelling, and I don't think Ian's narrative voice does either.  Unimpressed by Jean Claude van Damme, they leave early and smoke a cigarette.  I can just see the parking lot of a movie theater, smoke billowing on a cloudy night as the endless what next?  rolls over our heads.  I've been drawn so deep into the song I can't guarantee I'm not in it now. 

The harmonies on the choruses are real goose prickle raisers.  If ghosts could sing.  I mean the song is absolutely beautiful.  Taken apart, the music and lyrics could each stand on their own as works of art.  Together and i am brought to tears.

When I said this was a map I wasn't lying.  The way home from inside a dream is always barred, Dark and Overgrown.  Phrases of shaky uncertainty line the lyrics (I can't make sense of this, I fail to understand).  And who's that singing?  I think it's Kurt Cobain but I can't be sure.  I'm not sure of anything my senses can't recall.  Is this what it feels like to be an adult stuck in a teenage memory?  Everything sounds foggy and sleepy, the chords and those ethereal harmonies do not exist in the waking world I am sure.

The teens become birds, swans not owls, but things are still not as they seem. Into the fire they go. Swept into some other world. Is this waking from the dream? Getting that high school ring and finding yourself in the drudgery of adulthood? The loss of the idealized young relationship? You wait for that last chorus, expecting another round of Kurt Cobain, but it could be someone else doing something else. But it never comes. Instead we hear an angelic twang as the song doesn't even fade but ends, so abruptly and seemingly prematurely, as only dreams do.

My general recommendation is to seek out anything Ian, James, or the prodigal Simone Felice have their names on, but this one is special. Go listen now and see what half remembered dreams and miscoloured memories it brings to your mind. Then go write about it. I promise I'll read it if you do.