The inimitable and charming Mark E. Smith!!!  You may ask, what does this have to do with anything?  The answer is EVERYTHING!!!!  Long Live The Fall!

I’ve been doing a shitload of repairs lately and listening to all kinds of great early 70’s Glam Rock…can I still call it that?  This stuff regularly gets me through the day of fixing people’s greasy broken guitars!  New York Dolls, Iggy, Roxy Music, Slade, David Bowie, Todd Rundgren!!! 

Am I nuts or is this the best shit ever recorded? Conceptual, rocking and very loud.  I’ve decided to crunch this photo and top-notch video for y’all.

Juxtapose for the good of all Humanity!

Okay look, there are only so many people I can stand….Lhasa de Sela is someone that I just got to know…not personally, but I love her voice and I just found out that she sadly passed away on the first day of this year 2010…from  breast cancer …age 37…please check out this video and tell me if she isn’t one of the sweetest things to have ever graced this planet. Stuart Staples is one of my heroes as well…..I’m very sad.

Kiss your dog goodbye…..I’m wearing my Pink Ribbon today…and from now on.

Howdy! I’ve been asked many times to have a Bulletin Board in the shop so people can advertise for musicians wanted, gigs, art shows…etc…
Okay, here it is, only it’s not in the shop, it’s right here under your nose. Just click the Bulletin Board Tab and get your band on…I’ll help you!
Now for your enjoyment. An early shot of one of the best bands to ever walk the Earth. The Birthday Party. Rowland S. Howard and Tracy Pew R.I.P.

The amazing …….

Tielman Brothers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a little post x-mas/happy x-year present for all you rockin’  knuckleheads out there.
C’mon down to the shop this week and get a free Guitar Safari T-Shirt and join the G.S. Bocce Team for the grand opening of the new 22nd Street Park on, you guessed it…22nd Street! That’s this Saturday, January 9th, Twenty Ten. BYOJ. Two unscathed and pristine Bocce Courts and contrary to legend, A FREE LUNCH for your enjoyment. Who ever said that There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch? It’s on the sign just outside the park! Check it out. This is serious! I’m calling out all the other music shops in town to take on the Fire Breathing Guitar Safari “Botched Executions” Team. End of story!

Jesus Christ!  Point Fermin Park was bursting with holiday merriment today in a veritable celebration of inebriation for the virgin birth we’ve all been waiting for since 0000 B.C.  That’s right,  the core crew from the G.S. got our groovin’  Booty Call Butts out on the lawn and jumped into a gnarly  game of Poison.  Please be aware, this is a far more vicious version of pedestrian Croquet, maybe not for all you thumb-suckers out there.  In rare attendance were the usual suspects…I know that doesn’t make any sense but I like the sound of it….The ridiculous Laskey Brute Brothers: Adam & Chris, Danny “The Dandy”, Max “Worldwide” Webb, DJ G-Spot, “Tall” Nick, Jenny “Punkin’ Butter” D. and yours truly.  Not one of the aforementioned had ever held a mallet in their girly little  mitts, yet after much tutelage from their coach (me) regarding the finer points of the game, all of which were immediately discarded, the wicked battle ensued.  Three bottles of wine and several fried chickens later, Max had achieved the dubious and soon to be revealed, appropriate distinction of “POISON”…which means that if he touches anyone’s balls with his own, they’re dead, out of the game…but I’ve only got to hope that you would have known that already.  Sadly but not so shocking, the first to go down to Max’s tireless wrath was DJ G-Spot.  Not living up to his name nor his game due to an extended previous all-night frivolity and morning Pub Crawl, it was more a case of euthanasia on Max’s part, to single him out and send him to the loser’s drinking blanket early.  An almost  sad yet apropos development indeed. Soon and quite remarkably,  “Dandy” makes it past Max’s horrifying minefield of imminent death back to the safety of the home wicket, claiming victory as the winner of the match.   Everyone else falls prey in a merciless succession of Max’s spherical ricochets of expulsion  save for our hero, Adam with the aid of Super Coach and newly appointed Good Witch Of The West, aka Punkin’ Butter, who managed to steer him to whack his ball through a series of imaginary flaming hoops of actual  fiery flaming fire that threatened him at every turn while being chased by Mad Max.  Adam finished the contest in a not so unusual for him,  “sloppy seconds”-style second place.  It was incredible!  The  guy’s as hapless as a blind salamander who’s volunteered to take a ride on a rotating Barbeque  Spit.  He can read and write but in his own words knows “nothing about math or physics”.  You know, like holding a wooden mallet and projecting a theoretical straight line so as to send a croquet ball in a rolling trajectory that doesn’t resemble a dog’s fucking hind leg.  So, once again, a synopsis of the finish line…First Place (with honors) Danny. Hell yeah! Now where’s my drum-head?   In a “Special Mention” Special Olympics kind of way Second Place, the guy that I lost money on by betting against him not lasting more than thirty seconds without crying about the injustice of the game, Adam. You Kill Bro!   Lastly, “Worldwide” with a pretty tight performance as POISON in Third Place. You ain’t so bad neither! Good Job to all who dared!  It was an amazing and inspired tournament throughout the afternoon.  We rounded out the day by eating cookies and sipping what dribbled from the empty wine bottles and talking hilarious shit about lost “loves” and maligned interpersonal relationships manifested in endless wild gesticulation, followed up by falling over dead in the grass as evidenced by the portrait of Chris, (scroll back up) sleeping with drink and smoldering cigarette in hand, dreaming away in everyone’s  familiar,  favourite, frustrating and pointless  “Where did I go wrong?” mode.  Sorry about the lack of pictures of the actual Croquet Game but believe me, we’re all very happy to still be alive. See y’all next year!

The last photo is of six foot six newcomer and non-litterbug “Tall” Nick sporting his totally radical nimbus.

MERRY NIMBUS DAWG!!!!!!

…Freak out in a Moonage Daydream Oh Yeah!  As if I don’t have enough to worry about.  I guess I just don’t get it.  I don’t know or really want to know who’s thinking about a  purple marshmallow 13 minutes ago.   All of this one sentence Cyber-Farting is getting me down.  I reluctantly joined MySpace just so I could connect with local musicans and it’s been pretty handy but there’s so much garbage being pumped into it now with advertising and the new “look at my banal observation”-style  messaging that it’s become hard to even think about logging on…then, now everyone else  has abandoned  last week’s  “latest craze” and is on the Facebook deal and basically saying nothing to each other all day long.  C’mon folks!  People constantly tell me that I need a Facebook page.  Why?  Here’s what I say…if you really have something to say, get yourself a Blog from WordPress like I use, or my good friend Alan who does a music commentary about all kinds of cool stuff and bands you might have never heard of.   You’ll find a link to it on my site.  It’s called…nowthat’swhaticallbullshit.  Then there’s the Cell Phone thing.  Remember when we had Pay Phones? You wouldn’t spend all day yacking about idiotic nonsense just to hear yourself speak…would you?  “Where you at Dog? ” “Who me?  I’m chowing a Big Mac in my Suburban right now and throwing the wrapper out the window.  Gotta  get me a Big Gulp to wash this shit down.  Where you at now Dog?”  The phone bill for talking to someone during the day on a pay phone away from your home phone was about 25 cents.  Or if you had a copy of “Steal This Book” by Abbie Hoffman, it was free!  All you needed was a paper-clip to rub against the pay phone coin box and the reciever, you could call anyone for free.  My apologies to Ma Bell.  I did it all the time.  Sorry to hear that the phone company is  nearly destitute due to my antics.  Why do we  ‘mericans love being railroaded?  Consumerism as a lifestyle is being shoved down our throats by corporate swine who have just stolen this  country, not to mention the financial state  of  almost the entire world.   Remember the recession?  Get out there and buy something or service you don’t need!  This is officially the end of this rant for the time being.  Now for something completely different…before the advent of the Internet, Cell Phones, (sit on my) Facebook,  and the “Deer in the headlights”-type kids who are forever transfixed to brainless, numbing video games… There was Glam!
Ladies & Gentlemen, Mick Ronson in better days.

Sorry, but now I gotta go sign up for Facebook. I can’t wait to tell everyone what kind of mundane  and clever thing I’m thinking about right this very second.  Or did I just do that already?