{"id":432,"date":"2006-06-02T19:41:10","date_gmt":"2006-06-03T03:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/06\/02\/southern-politician\/"},"modified":"2006-06-02T19:41:10","modified_gmt":"2006-06-03T03:41:10","slug":"southern-politician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/06\/02\/southern-politician\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Politician"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is better than anything the Stones have done in YEARS!\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 In the hype for his new amazon.com show, Bill Maher said: "I wish more people were provocative.\u00c2\u00a0 I wouldn’t ever say there’s censorship in this country.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s a lot of peer pressure.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when anybody says anything that’s the least bit feather ruffling, everybody just goes nuts.\u00c2\u00a0 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<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0That assumes someone’s listening.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody’s listening to Willy DeVille.<\/p>\n

There used to be five rock stations in Los Angeles.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 But, the seventies were not like the twenty first century.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite playing the works of the long-haired resplendent rockers with Les Pauls they also tested the limits.\u00c2\u00a0 They played Mink DeVille.<\/p>\n

Maybe I heard "Spanish Stroll" too many times, I bought the album.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Rock shows did not run like they were managed by Mussolini in the seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t start on time.\u00c2\u00a0 And waiting outside the John Anson Ford Theatre in Hollywood, we wondered if Willy DeVille and his ragtag band would show at all.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t full.\u00c2\u00a0 Not everybody was hip to the band.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

And after listening to some Led Zeppelin over the sound system for the better part of an hour, Mink DeVille took the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 Willy DeVille looked like he’d never seen daylight.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s hard to exude charisma when the sun is out.\u00c2\u00a0 But Willy and his players were so ODD, so DIFFERENT, that it worked.<\/p>\n

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.\u00c2\u00a0 It was so STRANGE!\u00c2\u00a0 Willy’s hair was oily in a dry hair era.\u00c2\u00a0 He had PRODUCT in it.\u00c2\u00a0 And he sported one earring when straight guys were only just beginning to ponder getting pierced.\u00c2\u00a0 And he had the pointy boots.\u00c2\u00a0 And when he sang, it was like we weren’t even there.\u00c2\u00a0 He was singing to an audience hipper than us, out in the stratosphere.<\/p>\n

I bought the next Mink DeVille album.\u00c2\u00a0 Saw the band again, I believe in a triple header, opening for Rockpile and Elvis Costello or something.\u00c2\u00a0 And then they slipped off the radar screen.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they didn’t deliver that one big track.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless you were on Warner Brothers, if you didn’t break through big on AOR, your label lost interest.\u00c2\u00a0 Capitol lost interest.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the whole COUNTRY lost interest in AOR as disco took over and the business tanked.<\/p>\n

It’s not like I don’t have Willy DeVille tracks in my iTunes library.\u00c2\u00a0 I took them back in the early days of P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 For tracks like "Spanish Jack".\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 "Spanish Jack" encapsulates New York City, right down to the pavement, better than suburban Bruce Springsteen ever has.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I appreciate the Boss, after all, I grew up outside the city too.\u00c2\u00a0 I was SCARED of people not only like Spanish Jack, but Willy DeVille.\u00c2\u00a0 Fuck the Magic Rat, Spanish Jack is the real thing.<\/p>\n

Then, two nights ago, Mr. Marrone played "Southern Politician".<\/p>\n

You know that Keith Richards guitar sound?\u00c2\u00a0 Where you feel like there’s something missing?\u00c2\u00a0 Like there are chords caroming off the walls but there’s no center?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the axe in "Southern Politician" sounds like.\u00c2\u00a0 But, unlike Keith, Willy DeVille can sing.\u00c2\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

Willy DeVille is the kind of guy Ann Coulter wants to fuck and won’t admit it.\u00c2\u00a0 The bad boy, the exotic, who’ll take you on an adventure you can barely CONTEMPLATE!<\/p>\n

Took me two days to finally find "Southern Politician".\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t buy it on iTunes.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t steal it from some Website.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no MySpace page.\u00c2\u00a0 I wonder if the people working with Willy even HAVE computers, never mind broadband connections.<\/p>\n

No, I had to go to P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the truly exotic lives.<\/p>\n

And I’d just about given up on the track when this afternoon, I locked on.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone had it, I took it.<\/p>\n

Monday I’m going to Washington, D.C.\u00c2\u00a0 To visit XM.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, I’ve written some shit about the service recently.\u00c2\u00a0 But when something you love is getting fucked up it’s best to weigh in BEFORE it’s terminal.<\/p>\n

At the car wash today I read a Sirius brochure waiting for my car to dry.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, if I compared the fliers for both companies it would be no question.\u00c2\u00a0 Sirius has got STARS!\u00c2\u00a0 They understand FLASH!\u00c2\u00a0 Marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas XM is as clueless as its partner GM.<\/p>\n

I like Little Steven and his Underground Garage.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s not in the LEAGUE of Mike Marrone.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike’s Loft is not a show, it’s a LOCATION!\u00c2\u00a0 A place where you live.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you trust the guy, he’s taking you places.\u00c2\u00a0 Not on a one note adventure, like Little Steven, but an all-encompassing trip.\u00c2\u00a0 The Loft can be mellow, but it can rock too.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike can ruffle the feathers.\u00c2\u00a0 You like to ruffle the feathers, don’t you?\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t you want to BELIEVE in your radio?\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t you want it to be BETTER than you?\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t you want to be turned ON to stuff as opposed to hearing the same old shit?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the difference between Sirius and the original XM.\u00c2\u00a0 Which has been teetering.<\/p>\n

How about an ad with the XM personalities.\u00c2\u00a0 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?\u00c2\u00a0 Does anybody believe Eminem spends any time thinking about Shady 45?\u00c2\u00a0 Or Jimmy Buffett’s working hard on Radio Margaritaville?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, OPRAH is barely on XM.\u00c2\u00a0 But people like Marrone are working 80 hours a week to get their message across.\u00c2\u00a0 That there’s great music out there, and they’ll guide you to it.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what we’re all looking for in this complicated almost incomprehensible world, a guide.\u00c2\u00a0 To turn us on to life-changing tracks like "Southern Politician".<\/p>\n

Reading this you can’t feel the power.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no written word can compete with music.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what hearing "Southern Politician" on the Loft two nights ago was like.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is better than anything the Stones have done in YEARS!\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 In the hype for his new amazon.com […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-6Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}