Dr Frank Weakly Reader for 01.18.2019
Well, yes, as you can see we made it to our shows over the weekend. It was more or less routine, the usual plan, fly in to the Friday city, drive to the Saturday city in a mini-van and fly out of the Saturday city on Sunday. However, there was this huge snowstorm in the Saturday city on Friday. The St. Louis promoter called me to make sure we understood the general situation, which was a bit ominous. Then on Saturday morning, I spent an hour in the motel lobby watching the Weather Channel, which made it sound like driving to St. Louis would be absolutely insane. I mean, they had named the storm (“winter event Gia”) and were estimating the number of dead and such. Rather gleefully I must say.
Well, they exaggerated, which is apparently the Weather Channel’s business model. The drive was just fine, except for around twenty minutes on the outskirts of St. Louis where it was a bit dicey. Once we arrived we wondered what all the fuss was about.
And the shows were great. There is a secret room at the back of the Melody Inn in Indianapolis, and in it are these busts of the Demon and Starchild. Heres’ the St. Louis setlist, from someone’s Instagram. Here’s where I snapped a picture of my guitar case waiting for the plane.
And now, on to the links….
MONDO MTX
— Mtx forever: still working away at this MTX Hot Rocks type thing. And you can still vote, here.
— reel 1 / side A of what became LK 134 Love Is Dead, and a salute to one of rock and roll’s greatest labellers.
— MTX Starship: Sounds Radical is doing another limited “pop-up” run of the classic MTX Starship shirts, this time with an enamel pin. Starting Jan. 21.
— Lauren Banjo celebrates 15 years of Yesterday Rules.
— Richard put together a YouTube playlist of the originals of songs covered by MTX. I wasn’t keeping track, but it’s 21 songs, more than I’d have guessed.
— The Mr T Experience — “Unpack Your Adjectives”, live in Genoa, Italy, 28 October 1996. And here are the “minor secrets” thereof. (There’s more stuff like this on my YouTube channel.)
DR FRANK vs REALITY
— leafblowers in the rain.
— and your Friday morning “You Today”, c/o the internet. Covers playlist here.
— 43 years on, courtesy of Amazon Prime Video, I have finally seen Linda Lovelace for President.
OTHER PEOPLE’S MUSIC
— All My Vinyl, part v: my weekly post on Medium was an aggregate of my write-ups for Vinyl Collector group on minds.com, featuring Funky Junction / Thin Lizzy, Humans, Iggy, Herman Brood, Dr Hook, Rolling Stones…. (If you’d like to join us at minds.com — and you should if you’re concerned about corporate censorship and content manipulation on social media — here’s a sign-up link.)
— and, speaking of: Here I am appreciating the Tuff Darts LP on the very same Vinyl Collector group. It’s all for the love of rock and roll…
— Grim Deeds interviews the Horror Section (who were on the bill with us in St. Louis) and they “shout out” to MTX songs so of course I must link, as this is the nature of linking.
PICTURE BOOK
— posted: show your thinking; Burne-Jones’s The Viking Ship; arm reliquary of Felix of Nola; sex and kill (and Kelley); detail from Delaroche’s Young Martyr; Miss Rickenbacker; just another sci-fi spacescape; Max Ernst’s Temptation of St. Anthony; Dali’s Three Graces.
IN THE NEWS
— cancel them both forever, I say.
