This is better than anything the Stones have done in YEARS!  Certainly of higher quality than the lame "Sweet Neo Con" on "A Bigger Bang" that was directed at Condoleeza Rice which Mick Jagger DENIED, fearful he’d get negative press in America and his tour wouldn’t sell out.  In the hype for his new amazon.com show, Bill Maher said: "I wish more people were provocative.  I wouldn’t ever say there’s censorship in this country.  But there’s a lot of peer pressure.  Because when anybody says anything that’s the least bit feather ruffling, everybody just goes nuts.  If anybody in this country is forced to undergo a single moment of discomfort, the person who caused it just must go away." 10 Questions for Bill Maher That assumes someone’s listening.  Nobody’s listening to Willy DeVille.

There used to be five rock stations in Los Angeles.  The one that rocked the hardest, unofficially known as the "Led Zeppelin station", was KWST, at 105.9, now home to L.A.’s number one urban outlet, Power 106.  But, the seventies were not like the twenty first century.  Despite playing the works of the long-haired resplendent rockers with Les Pauls they also tested the limits.  They played Mink DeVille.

Maybe I heard "Spanish Stroll" too many times, I bought the album.  And this wasn’t when you purchased the full-length because they wouldn’t sell you the single, but because you felt that this taste on the radio was the tip of an iceberg you wanted to lick ad infinitum.

Rock shows did not run like they were managed by Mussolini in the seventies.  They didn’t start on time.  And waiting outside the John Anson Ford Theatre in Hollywood, we wondered if Willy DeVille and his ragtag band would show at all.  But about half an hour after the supposed four o’clock starting time, a tour bus slowly ascended the steep driveway and they let us into the venue.

It wasn’t full.  Not everybody was hip to the band.  Even though we’d gotten there early to insure admittance that turned out not to be a problem, the venue only filled to 80% capacity.

And after listening to some Led Zeppelin over the sound system for the better part of an hour, Mink DeVille took the stage.  Willy DeVille looked like he’d never seen daylight.  And it’s hard to exude charisma when the sun is out.  But Willy and his players were so ODD, so DIFFERENT, that it worked.

It was as if the night before a spaceship had landed in Spanish Harlem, picked up this crew and deposited them amidst these palm trees.  It was so STRANGE!  Willy’s hair was oily in a dry hair era.  He had PRODUCT in it.  And he sported one earring when straight guys were only just beginning to ponder getting pierced.  And he had the pointy boots.  And when he sang, it was like we weren’t even there.  He was singing to an audience hipper than us, out in the stratosphere.

I bought the next Mink DeVille album.  Saw the band again, I believe in a triple header, opening for Rockpile and Elvis Costello or something.  And then they slipped off the radar screen.  Because they didn’t deliver that one big track.  Unless you were on Warner Brothers, if you didn’t break through big on AOR, your label lost interest.  Capitol lost interest.  Then again, the whole COUNTRY lost interest in AOR as disco took over and the business tanked.

It’s not like I don’t have Willy DeVille tracks in my iTunes library.  I took them back in the early days of P2P.  But every once in a while, Mike Marrone plays something from a latter-day barely released album and I go wild and have to go hunting again.  For tracks like "Spanish Jack".  Which is the kind of urban cowboy song Bob Dylan wishes he had written, if Pat Garrett had been Popeye Doyle instead of some western sheriff.  "Spanish Jack" encapsulates New York City, right down to the pavement, better than suburban Bruce Springsteen ever has.  Oh, I appreciate the Boss, after all, I grew up outside the city too.  I was SCARED of people not only like Spanish Jack, but Willy DeVille.  Fuck the Magic Rat, Spanish Jack is the real thing.

Then, two nights ago, Mr. Marrone played "Southern Politician".

You know that Keith Richards guitar sound?  Where you feel like there’s something missing?  Like there are chords caroming off the walls but there’s no center?  That’s what the axe in "Southern Politician" sounds like.  But, unlike Keith, Willy DeVille can sing.  Actually, it’s not much of a voice, Willy’s almost talking, but you’re not rooting for him to hit the notes, like with Keith, you’re just paying attention, somehow this guy is wiser than you are, he’s SEEN MORE!

Willy DeVille is the kind of guy Ann Coulter wants to fuck and won’t admit it.  The bad boy, the exotic, who’ll take you on an adventure you can barely CONTEMPLATE!

Took me two days to finally find "Southern Politician".  You can’t buy it on iTunes.  You can’t steal it from some Website.  There’s no MySpace page.  I wonder if the people working with Willy even HAVE computers, never mind broadband connections.

No, I had to go to P2P.  Where the truly exotic lives.

And I’d just about given up on the track when this afternoon, I locked on.  Someone had it, I took it.

Monday I’m going to Washington, D.C.  To visit XM.  Yes, I’ve written some shit about the service recently.  But when something you love is getting fucked up it’s best to weigh in BEFORE it’s terminal.

At the car wash today I read a Sirius brochure waiting for my car to dry.  Shit, if I compared the fliers for both companies it would be no question.  Sirius has got STARS!  They understand FLASH!  Marketing.  Whereas XM is as clueless as its partner GM.

I like Little Steven and his Underground Garage.  But he’s not in the LEAGUE of Mike Marrone.  Mike’s Loft is not a show, it’s a LOCATION!  A place where you live.  Because you trust the guy, he’s taking you places.  Not on a one note adventure, like Little Steven, but an all-encompassing trip.  The Loft can be mellow, but it can rock too.  Mike can ruffle the feathers.  You like to ruffle the feathers, don’t you?  Don’t you want to BELIEVE in your radio?  Don’t you want it to be BETTER than you?  Don’t you want to be turned ON to stuff as opposed to hearing the same old shit?  That’s the difference between Sirius and the original XM.  Which has been teetering.

How about an ad with the XM personalities.  In an era of reality TV, of average citizens shining on YouTube, doesn’t Hugh Panero realize it’s the regular man personality of Mike and the other deejays at XM that would sell the service?  Does anybody believe Eminem spends any time thinking about Shady 45?  Or Jimmy Buffett’s working hard on Radio Margaritaville?  Hell, OPRAH is barely on XM.  But people like Marrone are working 80 hours a week to get their message across.  That there’s great music out there, and they’ll guide you to it.  That’s what we’re all looking for in this complicated almost incomprehensible world, a guide.  To turn us on to life-changing tracks like "Southern Politician".

Reading this you can’t feel the power.  Because no written word can compete with music.  But, imagine driving your car long after dark and being ENRAPTURED by what’s coming out of the speakers, just willing it not to end, almost unable to wait until you get home and download it.  That’s what hearing "Southern Politician" on the Loft two nights ago was like.