Decline and Fall of Alternative Civilization

by G S Oldman

  ~ ~ ~

  Cruising altitude:

  At 35,000 feet air speed becomes the phantom of motion. Minus turbulence, an aircraft is flying in reverse, seatbacks dissolving into air, bodies becoming flotation devices. A physical illusion not noticed in the aisles with meals and drinks inching forward or backward. On the ground there is a tactile connection with positive and negative forces, matter, antimatter, and somewhere in the folds of deepening night is the locus where all sound and all energy converge. As June drove, tapes played, stars and mesas danced a slow atomic ballet, quiet conversations flowed and ebbed. In the glow of dashboard lights she was part of an eternal drama and enveloped in a beautiful loneliness. She drove until she felt lightheaded, then forced a stop, a change of drivers, and crawled back into the loft to dream, maybe even sleep.

  True slumber was difficult drifting in and out of time's playground. They could have been in a desert or on a 747 or joyriding in Chicago, in Finnegans Flyer driving around and around, winking Muffler Men leaning on tall buildings. There was Tom and Uncle Kevin, lips moving, waving from the side of the road, hitchhikers in the Twilight Zone, and June unable to hear what they said. A stop for gas, a stop for food, a mingling with the CrabAbble, and by touching flesh to toilet seat she could reset reality to the here and now. Black holes abound. From the bright lights of Flying J's to the submarine darkness of the loft, Stephen Hawking would understand. At one point Bryan, Dedra and Prez were all in front having a wild discussion about sex against a soundtrack of the Swingin' Neckbreakers and the Cramps.

  Then there was Spike Jones.

  In some secluded rendezvous?

  Are you there, Dr. Hawking? It's me, June.

  An incredible, beautiful loneliness. Deep in the heart of New Mexico, or maybe they were already in Texas. The measurement of time put on hold. It felt good to choke up for no explainable reason.

  Out past the west Texas town of El Paso, June was driving again. She punched off the Led Zeppelin tape and after letting her ears readjust (somehow they were the hundredth monkey) she took a silent sip from the shoreless sea of her roadside coffee. Everyone in the van seemed to be asleep. She couldn't bear to hear the wailing of aliens at Valhalla's walls yet another time (a thousand monkeys, a thousand Les Pauls). Awake and Yes, looking for the city of No (roads lined with the litters of poets' own rejections).

  Yes, No.

  No? Yes?

  She listened to the engine-the valvetrain clacking out the rhythm of the Indy 500 at idle (the ladies will start their engines too)-and took a swig from the holy brew. Its warmth cascaded down the insides of her chest like oil down a cylinder wall and the caffeine hit the brain and twirled her ears open. Like a washing machine dream, the engine churned more smoothly than she had ever remembered. She considered her sleeping bandmates, considered the speedometer hovering at 60 and applied more foot to the accelerator until the needle hit 70, then 75, and held there for a trucker's moment. She didn't see a cop in sight and there were no billboards for one to hide behind. High beams scanned the dark for the swirling of nocturnal moths on their final approach to the windshield. June wanted to mash the pedal to the floor. The night floated with promise and bodies sleeping at 3500 rpm and a warm emptiness opened up within her and shook its way down to her feet and out to the tips of fingers that tingled on the steering wheel (the pace lap will begin). She longed to disrobe and climb through the engine cover to wrap her legs and arms around the throbbing V-8, wanted the cylinders exploding against her chest til she throbbed along with it, locked forever in a four-wheel drift. A curve advanced from the darkness and she eased the van back to 60 mph.

  Dedra began mumbling in her sleep halfway through the curve. One of the guys may have said something also. She wanted to drive all 24 hours of Le Mans without a co-driver. One of her ex-husband's friends had supposedly been involved in road racing and he would mention Le Mans in conversations. Names like Sebring, Daytona, Willow Springs, Road America careened through her mind.

  Gravity and inertia pulled her mental weight up a high, banked wall like hands on a floating keyboard, sounds on a blue canvas of woolly acceleration. She felt herself connected to the ground via tires revolving on warm, spinning bearings. All motion smoothly jerked into reverse gear, leaving her insides suspended over the road racing backward. Radials hummed a baby's contentment. The bottoms of her feet tingled up into conversations that buzzed from the past like donuts spinning on frivolous blacktop. Dedra mumbled again and a masculine snoring came from the loft as well. Another moth met the windshield.

  XIX

  "Love is in fact so unnatural a phenomenon that

  it can scarcely repeat itself, the soul being

  unable to become virgin again?"

  -James Joyce

  On their descent from cruising altitude, from Interstate 10 to US Highway 290, Prez was in seventh, maybe eighth heaven with Rub?n Gonz?lez sizzling on the stereo. Aside from the Capper incident in Arizona, nothing evil had befallen the van other than a sudden loss of power caused by a slip in the ignition timing. A loose adjustment bolt, it was a minor annoyance quickly fixed on the side of the road in the pre-dawn hours with Dedra earning brownie points by holding the flashlight. Was it additional sabotage, Bryan questioned? Prez insisted, no, it was "just one of those things." That was not the Capper's style.

  Final approach:

  Bryan was yacking up a storm, excited to be reaching the destination. He hoped the experience would give him a real kick in the ass. He needed a real kick in the ass after all the years in the Seattle scene and the flaky disappointments with the bands and girlfriends he'd been involved with. Like June, he didn't want to be stuck in a crappy factory routine the rest of his life to pay bills and rent. The American Dream still seemed like a good idea, disconcerting as it was to fall asleep at nights and not have dreams at all. Passing through the hill country, he offered Dedra his hand and decided they should get married when they hit town. A justice of the peace could give them a quickie, she could dump Luke for good, and he would be content to be her loving slave and subordinate. Do her dishes, do her laundry, help her drink her beer and whiskey, so long as he had more time to play music. After a laughing spell she began considering it.

  June remembered a layover she had in Austin where she boldly allowed a passenger to take her out for dinner and a drink. A nice enough guy who claimed to be single, it was sufficient reason to flirt with infidelity. They dined in a classy bistro on Sixth Street. Directly across the street from a biker bar featured in a cheap little B-movie she had seen, the restaurant was a few doors down from a dimly lit, man-eating punk club. She recalled strolling past the loud, open door and being hit by the perfume of d?j? vu-the smell of old punk gigs in Chicago. She wanted to go in but her date suavely talked her out of it, needing to protect her from such iniquities and drag her away. The aphrodisiac denied, it might have been all that was needed that night-a chance the bleary scent of sonic abrasion would rekindle a flame from when she was loose, single and first meeting her husband. It was probably all for the best. She didn't relish explaining to this handsome doctor that she was married.

  Touchdown:

  The squadron landed late Monday afternoon. Base camp was in a sleepy residential area on the north side of town. In a brilliant stroke of luck, both bands found lodging at the house of Doug Speltz, a well-known producer and engineer who once recorded a project with two of the members of CrabAbble. Their Austin connection, they called him a few months beforehand and he graciously offered his unconditional hospitality. A self-proclaimed "grumpy old man," he was a respected veteran of the 1970s-'80s punk and recording scene, having worked with a slew of influential bands. He hated everybody. He especially hated SXSW and wanted "absolutely nothing to do with it or any of the goddam tourists, industry assholes or other californians that think they're so goddam cool." When they arrived and knocked at the front door, he cordially greeted them and definitively stated, "All you need to know is I hate every si
ngle last one of you. Come on in and make yourselves at home. Shower's down the hall. No smoking anything in the house. Lemme know if y'all need anything."

  June almost fell in love with him right then.

  He'd had enough of the music business and, aside from occasional recording projects here or there, all he wanted to do was sit on his porch and play banjo or fiddle. He was an amazingly accomplished traditional-style player. June was dumbfounded when he told her, "I hate that bluegrass crap."

  It might have been exactly that moment when she really almost fell in love with him. A rare character, he appeared younger than his forty-something years.

  After six gigs and nine days on the road, the mood was for a restful evening. There was a laundromat a few blocks around the corner and their host offered to take them to Maggie Nolan's, his favorite restaurant, where he could probably wangle a discount on their meals (a 24-hour joint, he claimed to be their official late-night counter bum). And if they wanted to head downtown to check out the nightlife later, he might, depending on the "headache" state of his girlfriend, be tempted to join them for a while. When Dedra asked if he knew who Rondo Von Questador was, he howled, "Oh my god! You mean you've heard that tale?"

  He regaled them with a smorgasbord of stories. He not only knew RVQ, he knew everybody. All the writers at the weekly and daily rags and all their production staffs; all the DJs at the public and commercial radio stations and all their off-air staff; all the noisy, quirky, punk-ass, art-damaged musicians in all their dyspeptic glory; all the solid, brilliant, deep-knowledge, classy pickers and players in all their professional splendor; all the upstarts vying for recognition; all the uptight mofos with their attitudes; all the honest, easygoing lifers worthy of respect; all the sad sacks; all the princesses; all the king's horses and all the king's men and all the humpty dumptys with their worn-out cowboy boots and faded tattoos. And he knew all the hosers and hosettes at the SXSW offices. They were all his friends, and "Friends," he said, "don't let friends stay in the music business too long." That's why he was out of it and hoped to set a good example so more folks would wise up and follow his lead.

  He hated talking about the "old punk rock days."

  He hated hippies who never got over the sixties and seventies.

  Uh huh, June was definitely falling in love with him.

  Listening to him:

  Nights in Austin only appeared lazy to most folks nursing the next beer while they guzzled the next lyric of one of this month's perennially lauded singer-songwriters who might be the next minor John Prine or major critics' darling. It was like any other town where an itchy media and its scratchy word machines salved impatient listeners with oily tankards of trendy ales. Where the ales weren't trendy they were overpriced to give the illusion of economic correctness. If the "Live Music Capital of the World" cannot pull its own up by their guitar straps, then it must pull on the guitar straps of the players with the road shows; they get paid to play. And if guitar straps cannot be pulled, then the LMCOTW must pull from the pockets of tourists, yankees, and californians; they have money enough to be bilked.

  Any night will do. Any fleecing will be done-on Earth as it is in Austin, in Heaven as it is in Nashville, Athens, Hollywood, or (god forbid) Seattle. From the roads of diesel guitars and faraway bars there's the chant of angels hitching rides on the next land freighters, following the next big dream that squashes the next armadillo. And this little roadkill cried wee wee wee when it maybe shoulda stayed home.

  Lazy nights searching for the next phrase to be clipped and used in some artist's press kit, and the next beer accompanies the next strummed G-chord, G-chord, G-chord that must be THE NEXT BIG THING! A music writer's antidote to the Texas hiccups, acoustic Martins give way to their Takamine cousins, and none of it was meant to be "unplugged." It was all meant to be plugged and pitched and publishing dealt to death. Salesmen be damned to fill another song's grave while royalty looks on if royalty feels like it. And the paupers and the poor toke another smoke if they think that's how Willie done it.

  Stories floating in the next round of light, dark, or remedially browned. One beer begets another and life's regrets beget regretful songs but who's counting? A bummer in the summer needs at least two minor chords. But who's counting when the cooler is full of Lone Star and PBR? A splinter in the Winter chaps skin that allergies can only add insult to, and only one flatted thirdly will be needly or wordly. The trees that grow high in Washington are cut low by the flood of nouveau Texans who insist that da blues is thicker than da blood of immigrants who sang the only songs they knew. From the lands of browns, blacks, reds, and yellows. Remembering an Alamo that laughs at a history that whitewashed the malls in important discounted fabric and stone. Attention, K-Mart shoppers! We have the ravings on of lipstick hues and macho, macho cries of love giving birth to another impotent voodoo child caught in the wet underskirts of a virgin mother who had no choice but to breathe the scented wood of another sweat-soaked, belt-buckle-pocked, peeling Strat. Ooooh, someone said gimme that. Gimme that thing. Forgive us, St. Leo, for we have sinned. The Fenders of love on the insincere hoods of '57 Chevys destined to be frozen in time and in some fat fucker's untouched collection.

  Oh??My??God??

  June was definitely in L-O-V-E.

  XX

  "You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws,

  and thumps about things which the intellect scorns."

  -Mark Twain

  Fantasy:

  Thus did the Brave and Strong Faux Toppa come from Afar! Four Hearts Pure and Virtuous! To join in the Faire! Drink Rousingly of the Mead and the Ale! Joust and Jig! Slay Grandiloquent Dragons! Lay Hands upon the Eminent Sword of Excalibur! Strike Blows for Truth and Beauty in the Musical Camelot of the United States, of the Kingdom, of the Tower of Song!

  Reality:

  Faux Toppa were nothing more than four more chumps amongst a vast congregation of chumps, bands and musicians (aka artists) hobnobbing with managers, agents, writers and other assorted music biz folks (aka vultures) for the lofty ideal of NETWORKING! This may have been how vaudeville started and died. Up close, show biz ain't pretty. Not many have lamented the passing of the blackface routine and fewer will shed tears over the demise of its modern-day equivalent, the music conference. As long as it's viewed as the simple lark in the morning after a sleepless night of partying, no one will be led too far astray from what it all means, if it means anything at all. Puppy dogs denied a bone will be at a disadvantage regardless, and puppy dogs know not to press their luck when it comes to begging. Humans are not so insightful-artists and vultures even less so.

  A showcase, once again, is purely that: an unpaid performance for unpaid performers and woe unto the audience that has the privilege of paying to see such a spectacle. The powers that be had the economics all figured out. When Dedra sent the FT demo and press package to the conference offices she also sent the required application fee as all applicants must. Considering the number of artists accepted, at least twenty times that are not. No application fees are returned and, upon being accepted, there is the clause that states something like:

  "Showcasing bands and artists shall not perform at any non-SXSW venue or non-official event during the period that the official festival is underway."

  Sure.

  Since the inception of the whole damn thing, chagrined and otherwise irreverent Austinites and their visiting compadres had established the lofty tradition of "Anti-SXSW (aka South by So What)" activities-parties, club gigs, after-hours keg bashes, more parties, jams, more club gigs, warehouse hoots, backyard BBQs, picnics, what-have-you. Good-natured rebellions where artists could play and display their wares, and it only added to the considerable mystique that Musical Camelot was already bathed in. After initially attempting to squash these soirees, conference honchos realized the mighty wisdom of simply stating the law and then looking the other way. Why worry about justice when beer is flowing freely for everyone?


  Hyper-Reality:

  The great speed bump of showcase booking policies was an adherence to satisfying the landed aristocracy, the favorite sons, the aging nobility of the Rolling Stone Top 100. Never mind that these greying nobles no longer rocked, they screamed carefully. And never mind that the new breed of alternative nobility was greatly a sham too, in their air-conditioned tour buses and custom-ripped raiment. The jousting lists were still being decided within the ranks of nobility. Alas and alack. Rock & roll, as well as all music of heart, was never meant to be categorized, super-sized, compartmentalized, formalized, institutionalized or otherwise coerced into predictable behavior. This was always the stumbling of scoundrels and third-rate businessmen. Here, too, they followed the money when they should have followed the beer.

  After years of being ping-ponged about by the nobles, local indie label Song & Dance Syndicate (aka SADS) had developed a formidable roster of noisy, insolent, grassroots bands, and they were well respected nationally. Thanks to the whims of nobility, they locally were interdicted to third-rate status, as conference scoundrels were like to do. Aside from their rowdy local fans, and the fact that their shows had strong draws, they went woefully unnoticed by Austin aristocracy. This year was the same old story-a label showcase at a pending venue on a pending night without the pending-ness ever settling to a dependable date and location. The label head finally threw up his hands. On short notice he made a deal with a failing nightclub that was not an official venue but was located right in the thick of things. He had enough bands on tap-and knew enough other bands that wanted to play and have fun-to fill three or four nights as well as charge a small cover and actually pay the bands.

  Sacrilege!

  To dare to rattle the swords and halberds of free enterprise!

  Ms. Fatiuchka had once upon a time done surgery on the cover of one of the label's releases and, thanks to this connection, Faux Toppa was invited to participate in the revelry. Perhaps not a gig in the penthouse of the Tower of Song, it would suffice. Better jesters in a small court of joy than expectant monkeys in an unseen king's zoo.

  The first couple of days in Camelot were smooth and relaxing. On Tuesday, CrabAbble visited the local public radio to promote their upcoming shows, and later that night both foursomes got sucked into a rehearsal party at a garage with a couple of local bands. Wednesday, having official badges, Gus and Dedra made the rounds to the seminars and industry events during the first day of the conference portion and were quickly disillusioned. They heard Johnny Cash deliver the keynote address but were sorry they didn't cover up the word Seattle on their laminates. After the Man In Black they were yawned by the hipness-selling vultures declaring how much "I've always loved Nirvana!" The same ones caught with their pants and panties down the year Nevermind busted through the door and they were still trying to save face. They were nothing but a bunch of people who came together for the purpose of talking about what they wanted to talk about; yep, just talk about maybe talking. Thank god there was free beer and free food that almost made up for the lack of real insight. And there was a chance their badges would get them into Mr. Cash's solo show at a local club the next night. That would be worth it. Maybe they could talk him into recording a version of the old song "Yakety Yak" as a tribute to music conferences everywhere.

  Meanwhile, their badgeless bandmates were making the rounds of unofficial parties and day shows where more beer and food was flowing freely. Gus and Dedra escaped from the seminar-go-round and joined their friends out on Los Caminos del Camelot Musical. ?Bienvenidos a la Fiesta! Badges? What badges? You don't got to show us no stinking badges! Life was cheap for this sort, and righteously so.

  When the official showcases got underway it seemed that when Merriam-Webster added the term cluster fuck to their dictionary the only definition needed would be "see SXSW." The best way to deal with it all was to see the one or two or three shows you really wanted to see, then find out where the parties were. The basic directive: when in doubt, go with the free beer. Faux Toppa's Song & Dance show was Thursday night, their official showcase Friday; CrabAbble had wangled themselves into three free shows-one after hours on Thursday night, two parties across Friday-and their official showcase on Saturday night. Hangovers abounded, but they were young, they were strong.