Exile On Main Street

The new Dylan "tunes" (I use the word in its broadest sense, outside the constraints of melody) sound like the last words of Dutch Schultz with hospital radio playing in the next room. None of it makes any sense. On any level.

But Living In A Ghost Town (on U-Chewb, with a fine and strangely moving video) is not only the best Rolling Stones record since [YOUR CHOICE HERE], it's a great record. At a time when everyone is in Exile On Main Street, it's a major jolt of positive energy and a reminder just why rock n' roll is such a very, very important thing - and probably best left to the old guys.

Today's Pandemic Playtime© is a pair of pulse-pounding bootleg recordings from back when hedonism and excess were aspirational values and ours by right. We're lucky to have lived through those times. And so are the Rolling Stones.

Whatever time we have is time enough to rock and roll. 


EDIT: FiveGunsWest adds this swell postscript:

"I saw them on the 72 tour in Mobile, AL, 2 days before my 16th birthday. An amazing tale of drug indulgence and pure good luck. Went mushroom picking on the way there. Had a baggie full of chocolate mescaline caps, weed, some shit that was supposed to be thc. Get there, there are no hotel rooms. Got on a list. Go to venue, it's sold out and I only have 20 bucks. I stay there planning to hide inside til the show. It's 10 am. Talk to a black janitor out back & he says the Stones got pissed at these journalists, the front center section 100 seats were now available. I cop 3 tickets, start selling them right in front of the box office for 10 bucks, then 20, then 75 and finally 150 a pop. I have the front row center seat, my friends were all over the place as they already had tickets, a couple were with me. We also got two suites of rooms, paid for all that. High as fuck for an incredible show....I have the boot. Somehow wound up alone after the show walking & a guy up the way asks are you following me, I sez no, he says he's lost, we walk toward each other and it's my best friend from school. Get to suites and it's an orgy developing. Just an outrageous scene. I forget the name of the gospel group that opened up but the singer was so thrilled with the adulation she had to be carried off stage, then an hour and a half of Stevie Wonder and two and a half hours of the Stones. Poor Bill Wyman had fallen off the stage the night before in New Orleans so his hand was bandaged but he didn't appear to be feeling any pain. A hell of a show for 6.50 cents a head & it was only a little 10k seater. Saw Zep there on the Houses of the Holy Tour later."

TL-DR Dept. - Rob Goes To A Grateful Dead Concert

COLLECT TH' SET!

Four Or Five Guy© Rob [SWELL TRADING CARD at left - Ed.] delivers this timely and provocative think-piece in a futile attempt to pick up broads:

Last Time with the Grateful Dead - Wembley Arena, Hallowe'en 1990

The show kicks off with a tight and exhilarating Help-Slipknot!-Franklin’s and it’s immediately apparent how much Garcia’s playing has been revitalised by Bruce Hornsby’s presence. His voice is definitely showing signs of strain, but the cracked weariness brings real pathos to the lost dreams of Must Have Been The Roses - ‘Faded is the crimson from the ribbons that she wore…’

The first set highlight is Bird Song. Garcia’s voice is shot, but his guitar sings for him. It’s mesmerising. You stop what you’re doing. You forget where you are. You listen. Hornsby underpins it all – the sonic thermals that lift Garcia up, sending the guitar soaring. You take flight along with it.

Scarlet-Fire launches the second set with a carefree energy – it sounds like kids in a playground having fun - ‘The wind in the willows playing tea for two’. The bright strands of the Fire riff are woven into place in a jam that’s infectious and irresistible. When the world’s greatest ever dance band, which of course is what they are, hit the groove you dance in your head, in your heart and with your feet.

Truckin’ is their anthem and they come at it like the world’s greatest ever bar band, which of course is what they are. Another effortless gear change and they’re into an ethereally sublime He’s Gone. Garcia’s timeless, timeworn vocals remind us again that he’s rolled down the track a time or two, and it’s no wonder a cylinder or two has cracked, but you still better not get in his way.

Space starts out quietly, meditative and mysterious, before taking a darker, scarier turn. ‘There must be some way out of here…’ All Along the Watchtower explodes in a passion of urgency and warning. Garcia’s heraldic guitar rings out that ‘The hour is getting late…’ And then … Stella Blue.

This is just sublime. A fitting finale encapsulating strength and vulnerability, regret and reconciliation, accepting the inevitability of the end, and the inevitably of facing the end alone. ‘It seems like all this life/was just a dream/Stella Blue.’

You can’t really follow that, but at least the world’s greatest ever rock’n’roll band, which of course is what they are, will bounce you smiling into the night. Garcia is more of sad old hound dog than a ravening beast on the Werewolves of London encore. But you still love him.

Damn it, you still love him.

Play "Who's In My Box!®" With Tinseltown's Tuesday Weld!

Early literary endeavor

While we wait for you literary genius types to relieve me of some of the crushing burden of "providing content" (*barf*), leave us play the game sensation that's sweepin' th' nation!

Isle O' Foam© residents will be familiar with the rules, so it behooves me to introduce this week's celebrity guest, by special request - Miss Tuesday Weld! [APPLAUSE]

FMF©: So, Tuesday ... that's a weird name, if you don't mind me saying so.

TW: Likewise, I'm sure.

FMF©: So, you were born on a Tuesday, or what?

TW: It's a long version of a contraction of Susan. My father's name was Lathrop Motley Weld.

FMF©: If I hadn't just looked that up on Wikipedia, I'd never have believed it. Lathrop Motley! Haw! What a dumb fucking name!

TW: Listen to who's talking. You want to look in my box or not?

FMF©: I guess so.

Click the link, play the game, and using your skill and judgement, tell us Who's In Tuesday Weld's Box! And while you play, why not peruse these fine Art Studies of Ms. Weld?

This works for me

We're Looking For Guys What Like To Write! Dept.

Famous Author, Farquhar Throckmorton III, hard at work on th' Isle O' Foam© yesterday

Bein' a writer is a swell way to pick up broads! Yes, dear friends, as one whom has devoted most of his life to th' Nobel Art of Fine Writin', I can attest to the variety of those words! Why, there's nuthin' attracts th' dames like a pair of hornrims, a pipe, and a moody gaze into middle distance!

Oh, sweet Jesus ...

Now, In a bold new Outreach Initiative supported by Kreemé (19) [left - Ed.], False Memory Foam© offers you, Mr. Four Or Five Guy©, the chance of a lifetime to join the august ranks of such respected book writers as Shakespeare, Dan Brown, Beethoven ... uh ... the Bible ...

What's that you say? Can't write for shit? Nuthin' to say? Step right up! You're the type guy we're looking for!

Be it your favorite K-Tel appliances, a think-piece on bikini babes, or just a shit album review, give it a whirl! But take a professional's advice - don't enter it direct into the comments, ya doofus. Type it up in Word or whatever, couple hundred words, whatever, and copy paste it into this here comment section below when you think you're stunned enough by your own genius, or reach two hundred words, whichever comes first.

If it ain't shit, you get your own blog post, and I delete it from the comments! If it stinks, I leave it in the comments! Hoo boy! You simply cannot lose!!!! Some fun, huh kids?!

Imagine the looks on your friends' faces when you tell 'em "I'm a published author! Words is my business!" Why, you'll have to beat off the dames with a stick!

Note: Write in your own deadbeat style - don't try to copy mine. Or go ahead. Whatever. I'm desperate here.

Signe Of The Times Dept.

Color me confused. Here's a swell collection of early Jefferson Airplane live recordings with Signe Toly Anderson, but the last is dated October 30th, 1966, and I am reliably informed that Grace Slick's first performance with the group was on the sixteenth of that month. I'm, like, huh? Hoo hah?

Maybe you can help? Maybe you can search back ... back ... through the misty halls of memory to solve this conundrum? Maybe not. Maybe you just don't give a damn. Maybe you're too busy grouting the tiles in the bathroom, or snorting coke off a hooker's cell phone, for shame. I don't know what the hell you do with your time AND I DON'T WANT TO. Yeesh.

But if you're the type guy what knows about this type thing, do give us the benefit of your wisdom. If not, take a wild guess, ya doofus.

Note swell cover design, by latently talented FMF© Art Department Dept. Note Skippy hanging back, insanely adorable Signe, Marty's super-sharp threads, Alfred E. Neuman standing in for Jack.

I may have posted this before. Ahh, who gives a rat's ass. You don't remember, neither.

This post made possible by the Hiram U. Quagmire Academy For Aquarium Repair At Home™.