SLIPPY TOWN TIMES #3

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(photo: ©2009 JASON SIMPSON -- jason-simpson.smugmug.com)

Hey everybody! Yeah, it's been more than three years since the last "issue" of this thing. (It's NOT a blog!) Now that things are collapsing, and I've just about fallen apart myself, things are starting to get exciting again! Hey man, I enjoyed the vibe of the pre-punk 70s--the underground when it was so underground that it didn't exist (barely). We're gonna all get through this shit--most of us anyway. I certainly intend to make it out more or less alive (nobody's gettin' younger, you know). I'm not one to put on a happy face unless there's a reason, but I gotta tell you, friends, I think we're in the throes of both exciting and necessary change. It's been a fucking generation since punk, hiphop, and noise changed the face of (un)popular music. Get with it, you lazy kids!

And good fuckin' luck to us all! 12% unemployment here in California!? And that's the fake numbers the gov'ment gives us--it's probably more like 20%. Times are tough--for real. I'm a very private person, but I've always tried to be open and honest with people. I've also tried to walk that fine line between yes and no for a long time now. In the past year or so, I kinda "lost it." Let's just say that if you ever thought I was kinda "crazy"--so do some other official-type folks now. Wiggy depressed--you know? Not locked up, or even strung out, but sometimes I felt like it. Finally, though, things are looking better here--in my brain, if not in my wallet. (BUY SOME STUFF!) Sorry if any of my recent nuttiness has touched you personally--if I never got back on a trade or anything (especially sorry to Ed at Eclipse--he's a very cool guy--BUY HIS STUFF TOO!) Drop a line and let me know what's up. Promos, yes, are appreciated!

(photo: ©2009 JASON SIMPSON -- jason-simpson.smugmug.com)

Um, and . . . Crawlspace played our first show since 1994! ("DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK!") It was a blast and a half, man! The line-up: Greg Hajic on guitar (Crawlspace since '93), Joe Dean on bass (since 1990!), and drummer Bob Lee ('8pace '88-'91 + a couple times later in the 90s + the past year or so). We've got a whole new album just about ready. We played seven of those tunes, plus some oldies: "Solitude Smokestack Head," "August," and "Ocean = You," which turned into a half-hour breakdown, much of it brought to life by mystery man O.S. D'vil doing the DJ thing w/ 2 turntables.

Jack Brewer introducing Crawlspace. (photo: ©2009 JASON SIMPSON -- jason-simpson.smugmug.com)

This all went down at American Legion Post 206 on Sept. 5 in the lovely L.A. area known as Highland Park (ese!). Headlining was the ever amazing Saccharine Trust. Jack Brewer gave us a long, rambling, from-the-heart intro that almost choked up this insane old motherfucker. The opening band was a duo called Peg Leg Love--loud and punky--missed most of 'em, though, w/ the pre-show "preparations" in the alley. Anyway, it was a crazy rockin' shambles--you should've been there!

Thanks to everybody I can remember right now: Bob Cantu (great guy who booked the show), Hanni Hajic, Amy Dean, Cathy Brewer (wife of Jack), Saccharine Trust (fuck yeah!), Sylvia Juncosa (who shot us on video!), long-time pal Carmen Hillebrew, Marc Mylar (who released our first stuff on his Trigon Records comp Gimme the Keys back in '88), Dean Abramovitch (old-time cassette taper--now using digital video like everybody else), photographer Jason Simpson, the beautiful Karen Stevens, Tim Tierney (nephew of Lawrence Tierney!), and everybody else I can't remember now! It was a very Crawlspace-friendly bunch!

Rock the house, DJ D'vil! Note the MX-80 button on the forehead of his wrestling mask! (photo: ©2009 JASON SIMPSON -- jason-simpson.smugmug.com)

Mutant hiphop DJ O.S. D'vil is currently roamin' around various outposts of Slippy Town in the Southwest. This cat's always on the move! He is now available for club shows, parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, quinceañeras, private orgies--you name it. Just don't TELL him what to play! He'll set your own mood on fire. You can reach this wigged-out turntable-ist at myspace.com/osdvil. And don't let that "hiphop" label throw ya. He digs and spins everything from MF Doom to Meercaz to Blue Oyster Cult to odd Mexican records--techno heart-attack shit and heavy metal too--cute chicas and 12" vinyl get his move groovin'--and much more, man! He can literally rock and roll the house, as well as "rock the house"! You should hear him matchin' up some boss breakbeat with crazy 50s rockabilly!

So, y'all havin' a party out there yet? Ain't it the times?! Brother, can you spare a hit? The worst of times, the grooviest of times, get your priorities straight. And keep buyin' so we ain't dyin'!!!

On this week's episode: Cpl. Agarn receives a special pony-express delivery: several sheets of blotter from Lowell George & The Factory. The whole fort turns on! Go, Wrangler Jane--gogo!

Meanwhile, back at the beginning of time, I was listening to my older brother's copies of Otis Blue and Dictionary of Soul by Otis Redding, and Johnny Rivers' Golden Hits, and Hang On Sloopy by the McCoys, and Drag City and Jan & Dean Take Linda Surfin' and Folk 'n Roll by Jan & Dean, and a couple of Ventures LPs (not very good ones). And he had Dave Brubeck's Take Five LP. Um, Chubby Checker's For Teen Twisters Only! A year or two later, he went to Vietnam, and came home with the news that Jimi Hendrix is god. He would later decide some guy named Jesus is god, but I strongly disagree.

Pictured above is 12-year-old David Rikard. We're hangin' out in my 1969 12-year-old bedroom in Jackson, Alabama. Just a cool photo I ran across as I was sorting out crap. It was taken probably fall '69, but typical for my folks, left in the camera and not developed for many months. David's holding my second cousin Tommy Stringer's (R.I.P.) Silvertone guitar (on the left). We'd lean the guitar against its amp (built into the case, as you can see in the photo) and let it feedback. Then David would start beating the strings of my cheap acoustic guitar (on the right--psychedelic paint job by yours truly) with a drum stick, while I beat my Slingerland marching-band snare-tom with the other stick. I also had a "cymbal" that was a pot lid hanging from the ceiling of my family's basement (directly below my bedroom) where we would jam and record (cheap reel-to-reel tapes stupidly thrown out a couple of years later!!!). We called our duo the Diesel Airplane, and our feedback theme song was called "Diesel Airplane" (influenced by side 2 of the Plastic Ono Band's Live Peace in Toronto and side 4 of the Mothers' Freak Out!). (More pointless photo information: On the wall is a poster for the Monkees' The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees, a poster of Charlie Brown [with peace symbol] and Snoopy, a felt pennant of Linus from Peanuts [yeah, I was still stuck between kidhood and teenhood], the poster of Cream that came with their Goodbye album [ah, getting hepper!], and below that a small fold-out flyer with ads for flicks playing at the one movie house in town, the Locke Theater. Next to the psychedelic guitar on the bed is a military cap my older brother Paul "Tabby" Flowers brought home from Vietnam, and what I think might be a straw cowboy hat.)

So, you know, the latest installment of this nonsense follows. It's become more fragmented as my mind rolls and rocks along. Also greetings and thanks go out to Byron Coley, Angel Corpus Christi & Rich Stim, Brian Abundis, Alan Bishop, Tony Rettman, Muzz Delgado, Matt at Tic Tac Totally, Jim O'Hare, Grady Runyan, Dave Fontana, Kenne Highland (back in rockin' action!), Bob Richert., and Alien Rock.

Oh yeah, we just confirmed a show for November 21 at Grady's Record Refuge in Ventura. See ya there, squares!

Yeah, man, ain't these the motherfuckin' times?!?

--Eddie (fanzine dork circa '72 pictured below)

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SLIPPY TOWN TIMES #3
IN THIS ISSUE:
Intro
This Week in Slippy Town
Meercaz Q&A
Paul Revere & the Raiders
Watchin' Videos
Spinnin' Some Vinyl
Comix???
Shout Bamalama!
Outro (R.I.P.)

Extra! Extra!
TRASH #6
The remnants of the never-published last issue of Ken Highland's Trash, edited by Eddie Flowers after Ken went into the Marines. It was supposed to be published in '78 by Gulcher. It wasn't. Most of it's gone, but here's a taste, along with some "related" items.