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BIRDLAND
By Pepsi Sheen |
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"I feel her skin/it's thin and white as pressed
milk/I closed my eyes- She vanished just like burnt silk..." -Jim
Carroll "Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say/Chained to all the places that he never wished to stay...As he faced the sun, he cast no shadow..." -Oasis SHE BELONGS TO ME... There WAS a time when I thoroughly adored alot of bands that traded, primarily, on hype, attitude, and image. That time is gone.
Predictably, I think me and Sleaze both got fired for drinking on the clock, and chronic absences, and tardiness, on the same week, and this was all back when I was still being somewhat supported by the World's Most Devoted Jacobites Fan, and the Plate Hurling Songstress Who Can't Be Named. You have to have alot of roommates to afford to live in Boston, if you're an inescapably impoverished wage-slave like me, and I'm getting too old and crabby to put up with people nodding out with candles burning every night, spending the rent at Blanchard's, and all the arguing about phonebills and who drank the rest of the vodka - like THAT was some mystery. One fringe benefit of cohabitating with a rent-controlled household fulla unemployed saxophonists, enflamed artistes, and angry girl singers, was always having access to stacks of shiny, new British rock magazines that would herald and crucify every Next Big Thing rock act, all in the same week. These were the halcyon daze of Brit Pop and the Manic Street
Preachers "New Art Riot", and "Stay Beautiful", when we were all spraypainting insurrectionist buzzwords on our junk shop suit jackets, and having all night conversations about
Ian Dury and Noddy Holder and the Jam, and
still wearing black, liquid eyeliner to look for jobs. We didn't know how
good we had it. At least, I didn't! I used to drink a bit, and was always self-importantly pissed-off about having to labor for my starvation
wages, and constantly feeling passed-over in the whole commercialization of rock'n'roll rat-race, but that was probably my saving grace, a profound blessing in disguise. I've seen what a taste of the tinsel done to my former friends, and it wasn't pretty. My only real problems in those
days were my foolish agonizing over my various flaky bandmates, who've all fucked-off, one by one, to pursue nine-to-five, lockdown lives of never being able to satiate the ever growing demands of gluttonous
significant others, some eating and drinking and drugging disorders, and like,
trying to keep the Plate Hurling Songstress Who Can't Be Named happy - which
was, of course, impossible. While me and my last few faithful Mash
Kings were still scrambling desperately to find a glammy drummer with long, black hair who'd fit in with our
Lords Of The New Church/Throbs/Motorcycle Boy looking rockgroup
Murder Stars, these wiley Brit pomp-rockers, BIRDLAND, savvily, pulled
a photo negative on us, when they came out with everyone
BLONDE! Those BASTARDS! MONEY FOR NOTHIN' & YOUR CHICKS FOR FREE... |
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Not to be confused with Lester Bangs, the All-time Second Greatest Rock Ranter's not-so-hot band with Robert Quine, this BIRDLAND, four lads from Coventry who shook, well, my apartment in Cambridge, were all strangely pale, Brian Jones/Andy Warhol/Nick Rhodes lookalikes - they were everything the Dandy Warhols flirted with like ten years later. Audacious, poppy, snotty, and fey - but they rocked. Their bubble glam sound was equal parts Gen X and the Jesus & Mary Chain, and they did the whole Sigue Sigue Sputnik/Transvision Vamp "And We Don't Care" thing marvelously. They even had the dumb guts to attempt a cover of Patti Smith's "Rock'n'Roll Nigger" a good ten years before Marilyn Manson bought that "Natural Born Killers" soundtrack. They were just askin' for it, really. The English Press thesaurus abusers really went out of their way to absolutely skewer these bleach headed mop tops for being snotty poseurs, but I really kinda dug 'em. Birdland, the Manics, and Hello Disaster were my big faves that year. |
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BEAT ME LIKE A STAR.... |
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Lately, it seems alot like old times again. I'm in the midst of my annual, imminent break-up with another girlfriend I got too attached to, I got disconnection notices all over the floor, and I'm dreading the usual eviction process, having walked off the job at Burger King. All my old lady's main bitch with me was always the same. I suck at making money. "Failure To Thrive". I don't "produce". I've taken every last shitjob in the world, and they just keep getting worse and worse for less and less money. Remember when Mojo Nixon sang, "I ain't gonna piss in no cup/unless Nancy Reagan's Gonna Drink It All Up" ? What happened to us? I've gone through all the haircuts and hairnets and shoestore ties, and psychological profiles, and whiz-quiz after whiz quiz. All the humiliating attempts to conform to fit the standards of Franchised America, but it never, never gets me nowhere, in spite of the eternal lectures about Horatio Alger myths I'm routinely subject to, year in and year out. |
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And not just
from my girlfriend's families anymore, but the grieving Rockateers, as
well.
None of them folks have been on the job trail in decades, though. It really is
a different world. I fell through the cracks a long time ago, and believe
me, it's a wonder that I'm still here, even in extreme poverty, and under constant duress, I'm still here - stuck permanently at the very bottom. Rock-bottom. The Dark Stuff, dig? I dunno what happened. My parents
didn't love me. I'm a drunk. I never been to college. I broke up every band
that I ever begun. Middle-Managers in the Bible Belt can always tell I ain't really a moustache-guy, no matter whose penny loafers I wear to the
second job interview. So here I am, still thinkin' about you, and Hello
Disaster, and Corazon, and Birdland. Sorry - I TOLD YOU I WAS POOR.
OF COURSE I GOT A POISON ATTITUDE! I seen this video at a
friend's place last night-some aggro turd kid band, a glammier Papa Roach, called
Avenged Sevenfold, who have some million dollar corporate video called "Bat Country" - obviously, a sad cash-in/exploitation of Hunter's nobel
legacy. I nearly vomited. These Blink 182 dress up like Nikki Sixx lookin' dork
kids get to make albums and videos and rip-off our last noble super hero,
He's dead, and I'm outta my mind. Who told Jon Bon Jovi he could make this
big corporate comeback? Man-I fuckin' hate that guy. "Runaway", and "Livin'
On A Prayer" were alrite when me and my skatebored sidekick, China White,
used to steal Little Kings out of rich people's garage refrigerators and I didn't know how to inhale yet, but I could barely stomach that shit
when I was SUPPOSED to like it. Nickelback's even back. I watched
Green Day's video and realized--again--that Brother Ralph Nader WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG--Democrats really
ARE just Republicans in cooler clothes. I'm so
sick of all this phony shit everyone I knew's bought into. It's hard to
believe that cool as fuck, post-fab, brash snot merchants like BIRDLAND used to
get dissed for having too much chutzpah, and style, and for not being
authentic enough. Remember Ritchie Manic's "4-Real" episode with that English reporter? At least Birdland had cool as fuck hooks to back-up all the cocksure, artschool posturing. Even
Cheetah Chrome dug 'em! I'm a man
outta time. I met the new boss, y'know? Same as the old boss. HOLLOW HEART... |
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I dunno where BIRDLAND are now, or Hello Disaster, or
Cora, for
that matter. I kinda doubt they got the blonde hair now. The purple haired ZEROES
didn't even dye their hair purple for the partial reunion, at
that show with the Fizzy Bangers a few months back. I bet they're probably
just, like, working some high paying, regular joe jobs that they hate, or
like, bumming out. I'm sure they're as depressed about the state of things as
I am, cos the Brits are alot hipper than Americans to class issues. I
keep working these 40/hr. a wk., minimum wage jobs, cos all my relationships with women always seem to hinge on my (in)ability to maintain a five
dollar and fifteen cent degrading fast food goes nowhere job, and if it was
you in this turquoise checkered polyester uniform, you'd be kinda sullen about
it, too, believe me. I figure with this endless war, and greedhead economy,
and endless inflation, and gas prices, and shit, more and more of my
estranged fellows from the mid-to-upper classes are eventually gonna get bit in
the ass by the money problems, too.
It sucks being me, but there are billions more, undereducated people in this world right now, |
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squatting in rooms
with the utilities turned off - if they're fortunate to have rooms
- and I just wish a real American middle-class actually still existed--or a class of
REAL ROCK'N'ROLL REBELS who would rise up and help empower people, and take action to thwart this sick occupation of our nation by the Conference
Room Men With No Eyes. It ain't all tinsel, anymore, friends. It ain't all
hottubs and Brandy Alexanders, White Russians and strippers in red
leather. Losing Hurts. I know I make it look easy, being an unloved, indigent
member of the permanently exiled fast-food doomed underclass, but that's just
from years of practice. Years of people reminding me over and over again
that I ain't allowed to be no rockstar no more. It's all back-break, from
here, on out. Stuck in this rut of throwing down the apron, moving after dark, Greyhound stations and storage units. Car wrecks and boiler room
floors. Funerals and forty ouncers, crackheads, and street kids. Detox and pawnshops. None of that bullshit seems romantic whatsoever anymore.
Just memories and fears and aches and pains. A half a pack of cigarettes and
a pair of sunglasses used to be all we ever needed. Now I need health insurance, a dentist, doctor, lawyer, and a shrink. Call the Vatican,
just in case - I'm a fuckin' mess. BRING ON THE FLAMING COCKTAILS.... All those fuggin' remodeling shows make it seem like we're all prospering in the land of nothing's free, but I'm a side-effect. A perfect example of the "Other America" John Edwards discussed on the campaign trail of that last rigged election. Left Behind. To rot and die. Graveyards, jails, and institutions. Once radiant dreams ground to a shameful, juddering halt, and the ongoing shockwaves that still ripple through these years. Forgotten but not gone. Squeezed out. No Exit. Discarded and replaced by goobers and gomers and Central Park West Heirs, and crunchy granola home improvers and this is no place for me. On my knees for minimum wage. Pinkslips and blisters. Blackeyes and buckets full of foul, filthy water. Always burning yourself by not adequately diluting the industrial cleaning chemicals. Always being paid even less than what you earned and having to fight for your real paycheck. It's no wonder I find myself constantly sentimental for a time when you could still hit the bigtime rock'n'roll jackpot with a bottle of bleach, some clever posing, some wry wit and lip pursing, some power chords, and a belligerent affection for real rock'n'roll. BIRDLAND weren't even probably all that great- compared to loads of other groups from that era - but they still positively smoked all the richkid fad bands of today. Come back to the five and dime, Ritchie James, Ritchie James... -FIN- Further: Birdland fansite |
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*backed up the Sleazegrinder himself on the Weird City TV theme. Still, easily, one of the top five prettiest girls I've ever seen. She wouldn't let Pepsi come over to my house, though, and he only lived 15 minutes away. She beat him up alot, but was always real sweet to me. I kinda miss her, too. -Wistfulgrinder |
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In
Sleazegrinder's peerless
