People don’t understand creative work.\u00c2\u00a0 They think it’s just like the kind of
work they do.\u00c2\u00a0 They make phone calls all day and boy are they TIRED!\u00c2\u00a0
Creative work…you do nothing all day, you live in your head,
then you EXPLODE and it takes HOURS to come down.<\/p>\n
I spoke at a class at LMU last week.\u00c2\u00a0 I told the students that was why all
the bands were on drugs.\u00c2\u00a0 They played to 20,000 screaming fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe even got
blown after the show.\u00c2\u00a0 Then they got back on the bus with the same assholes
they grew up with, who won’t give an inch, who know where all the bodies are
buried…this is a DREAM?\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not like you can get in your bunk and crash.\u00c2\u00a0
You’re wired.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re eating pizza from the late night joint.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re
watching a DVD.\u00c2\u00a0 It just doesn’t square.\u00c2\u00a0 For an hour and a half you were god, now
you’re a loser driving god knows where in the middle of the night in a bus.\u00c2\u00a0
There’s only one solution.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to do DRUGS!\u00c2\u00a0 To bring yourself down, so
you can sleep, before the sun comes up and you’ve got to do it ALL OVER AGAIN!\u00c2\u00a0
Those bands, the ones the label hates, the ones who blow off interviews, who
don’t show up on time, they can’t see straight.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t get this far by
going to college.\u00c2\u00a0 They had to play in a thousand shitty bands in a million
hellholes just for this opportunity.\u00c2\u00a0 To drive around in a bus making money for
somebody else.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t keep up a relationship, you’re never home.\u00c2\u00a0 And this
is your MOMENT!\u00c2\u00a0 At least you’re IN a bus.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t take time off.\u00c2\u00a0 At least
that’s what your label, manager and agent say.\u00c2\u00a0 The ones who when you’re
washed up will just move on to the next band.<\/p>\n
Then again, those guys never get those peaks.\u00c2\u00a0 When you ARE playing in front
of those 20,000.\u00c2\u00a0 When you’ve got them in the palm of your hand.\u00c2\u00a0 When those
girls who wouldn’t look at you in high school are just dying to meet you.\u00c2\u00a0 When
you’re on stage doing what you always desired, PLAYING MUSIC!\u00c2\u00a0 Then you’re
high.<\/p>\n
That’s creative work.\u00c2\u00a0 Incredible highs and incredible lows.<\/p>\n
I ripped off a podcast at Rhino.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was INTIMIDATING now that they’ve
gone live.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean now people are LISTENING!\u00c2\u00a0 And there was suddenly a time
constraint.\u00c2\u00a0 I was inside my head, squeezing one out, since I do no preparation,
since I’ve got no script, my whole life PREPARED ME FOR THIS!\u00c2\u00a0 It took less than
twenty minutes, but when I was done I was like a dishrag.\u00c2\u00a0 Worn out, but
revved up.<\/p>\n
And after bullshitting with the assembled multitude, I got in my car and
dialed my mother.<\/p>\n
They don’t live forever you know.\u00c2\u00a0 Her voice was all scratchy.\u00c2\u00a0 Freaked me
right out.\u00c2\u00a0 As I drove across the San Fernando Valley.<\/p>\n
And when we finally ended, I started pushing the Sirius buttons.\u00c2\u00a0 Trying to
learn the system.\u00c2\u00a0 Trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n
There were some fascinating things.\u00c2\u00a0 Robyn Hitchcock doing McCartney’s "Let
Me Roll It".<\/p>\n
Then I heard it.\u00c2\u00a0 That sound that was the soundtrack to all the teen movies
of the eighties.\u00c2\u00a0 The sound of optimism.\u00c2\u00a0 HAIR METAL!<\/p>\n
Has there been a more reviled genre since disco?\u00c2\u00a0 Young men with blow dried
hair in spandex trying to look menacing but playing melodic music?<\/p>\n
Melody.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s missing from the hit parade today.\u00c2\u00a0 Rap is about the hook.\u00c2\u00a0
And punk, that’s about the riff.\u00c2\u00a0 What if you had music with hooks, riffs and
MELODIES?\u00c2\u00a0 THEN you’d have hair band music.<\/p>\n
So I’m navigating the backwoods of Sherman Oaks.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can say such a
thing.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m frazzled to the point where I’m lost.\u00c2\u00a0 My brain’s still somewhere in
Burbank.\u00c2\u00a0 And I hear this CONCOCTION!<\/p>\n
Well the first time that I saw you Can’t you SEE IT?\u00c2\u00a0 On MTV circa…BEFORE REAL WORLD!\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a smoke Oh, it peaked in ’86 with "Slippery When Wet".\u00c2\u00a0 With the "Wanted Dead Or And then, when that band sold so many records everybody imitated them and And I’ve never heard Black ‘n Blue’s "Miss Mystery".<\/p>\n That’s why we have satellite radio.\u00c2\u00a0 To ENRICH OUR LIVES!\u00c2\u00a0 To turn us on to I mean I’ve GOT a Black ‘n Blue CD.\u00c2\u00a0 Universal sent it.\u00c2\u00a0 I figured one day It would take me HOURS to find it now.\u00c2\u00a0 So I just went to P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t find And I’ve got to tell you, when it first came through my computer, it wasn’t But, as the MP3 unfolded I realized this just WASN’T trash.\u00c2\u00a0 There WAS magic The band is defunct.\u00c2\u00a0 It has no website.\u00c2\u00a0 Not even a fan tribute site.<\/p>\n I looked it up on allmusic.\u00c2\u00a0 They talked about all the albums the band had And then I googled the lyrics.<\/p>\n I didn’t find them.\u00c2\u00a0 But I found this strange link.\u00c2\u00a0 To JIM VALLANCE’S site.<\/p>\n God, unless you lived through the eighties you might not know who Vallance Does Bruce Fairbairn belong in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame?<\/p>\n Yes, he does.\u00c2\u00a0 Alongside Mutt Lange.\u00c2\u00a0 This guy lifted genre music to Come on, Miss Mystery Classic eighties song plot.\u00c2\u00a0 Boy meets girl.\u00c2\u00a0 And she leaves him reeling.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, this is the OLD stars.\u00c2\u00a0 The MUSICIANS!\u00c2\u00a0 Not the NEW stars.\u00c2\u00a0 The It’s a conundrum.<\/p>\n But it’s not only the life of the musicians, it’s the life of the FANS!<\/p>\n To stay home all afternoon and listen to records you’ve GOT to be a social Today I found it.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun was almost completely down.\u00c2\u00a0 I was mentally
You were runnin’ with the wrong crowd
With your head up in a dark cloud<\/em><\/p>\n
machine, some girl with big hair is off in the distance.\u00c2\u00a0 As the lead singer sings
these lines, as he walks over to her.\u00c2\u00a0 We didn’t know what we were doing.\u00c2\u00a0
Videos had a bit of story, and a bit of performance.\u00c2\u00a0 And the twain met somewhere.\u00c2\u00a0
This was before Blues Traveler basically wasn’t even in their own video,
because they weren’t good-looking enough.\u00c2\u00a0 This was before the productions were
slick.\u00c2\u00a0 This was when directors who couldn’t get arrested in movies rented
cameras and filmed essentially on a whim.\u00c2\u00a0 And we were HOOKED!<\/p>\n
Alive" video.\u00c2\u00a0 They should have ended performance videos after that one.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s
never been a better one.<\/p>\n
killed the genre.\u00c2\u00a0 Which brings us to today, when hair metal is a joke.\u00c2\u00a0 Almost
an unmentionable.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody USES the word "disco", but it’s all over the
airwaves.\u00c2\u00a0 But I bet most teenagers have never heard most hair band music.<\/p>\n
things that are right in front of our faces.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the major label pradigm…RESTRICT ACCESS!\u00c2\u00a0 They say it’s the opposite, that they WANT people to play their music, but this is untrue.\u00c2\u00a0 THEY support Top Forty radio.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not interested in any outlet that doesn’t have a PLETHORA of listeners.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want satellite radio to play too many tracks by the same artist in a row.\u00c2\u00a0They don’t want internet radio they don’t control.<\/p>\n
I’d play it.<\/p>\n
"Miss Mystery" instantly, but finally I got it.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I wrote the title down
while listening in my car.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how much I needed it.<\/p>\n
the same.\u00c2\u00a0 Really, "Miss Mystery" is CAR music.\u00c2\u00a0 When you’re pissed off, or
elated, or just lost, having worked so hard you don’t know which end is up.<\/p>\n
here.<\/p>\n
made that had not broken through.\u00c2\u00a0 It was no help.<\/p>\n
was\/is.\u00c2\u00a0 He co-wrote all those legendary Bryan Adams hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out HE
co-wrote "Miss Mystery".\u00c2\u00a0 And that it was produced by…Bruce Fairbairn.<\/p>\n
LEGENDARY music.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s Fairbairn who produced "Slippery When Wet".\u00c2\u00a0 And who brought Aerosmith back from the dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Think of Bruce’s early work with Loverboy.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a major act.\u00c2\u00a0 But listen to "Turn Me Loose"!\u00c2\u00a0 There’s an urgency.\u00c2\u00a0 The track is as big as Canada.<\/p>\n
Here I am, what’s left of me
Some day, Miss Mystery
You’re gonna find out what you meant to me<\/em><\/p>\n
Funny, despite all their stardom, these stars were misfits, who were using music
to get EVERYTHING!\u00c2\u00a0 Money, fame and sex.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the game.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t last
long.\u00c2\u00a0 The public loses interest.\u00c2\u00a0 The dope kills you.\u00c2\u00a0 YOU lose interest when
you realize that it’s not out there, but inside, that being a star doesn’t
solve all your problems.<\/p>\n
FACES!\u00c2\u00a0 Groomed by handlers to be famous.\u00c2\u00a0 These new people revel in the
exposure, they’re comfortable with it.\u00c2\u00a0 But the real musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re outsiders.\u00c2\u00a0
ALL creative people are outsiders.\u00c2\u00a0 Living in their heads.\u00c2\u00a0 But hating their
loneliness.\u00c2\u00a0 They create for connection, but when they get it they don’t know
what to do with it.\u00c2\u00a0 They STILL can’t fit in.<\/p>\n
misfit.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s these misfits that are the heart of the business.\u00c2\u00a0 The people who
NEED the music to get by.\u00c2\u00a0 The casual buyer…to him the music is an
accessory, that can be discarded as easily as last year’s purse.\u00c2\u00a0 But try to get a
vinyl junkie to part with ONE record.\u00c2\u00a0 To these people…they’re searching for a
HIT!\u00c2\u00a0 Like DOPE ADDICTS!\u00c2\u00a0 They keep flipping the stations, keep reading, just
looking for something that will feed their jones.<\/p>\n
bedraggled.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I heard Black ‘n Blue’s "Miss Mystery" that mood disappeared, I was in RELIGIOUS REVERIE!<\/p>\n