hot out here

I’ve finally put together an up-to-date clip portfolio.  It’s kind of awe-inspiring to sit back and realize how prolific I’ve been over the past two years.  There’s still a lot left to do – I’d really like to scan in the entire WB/CIF zine archive someday and streamline those web pages, not to mention the articles I wrote for other zines – but this is the beginning of a long-overdue housecleaning, at least.

My take on the Court Tavern’s closing, Village Voice‘s Sound of The City blog.

Though I’ve been writing for a Village Voice Media-owned publication for a few years now, this is my debut in the actual Voice.  I’ve been reading the Voice since high school and have fantasized about writing for it almost as long, so this is a big deal.  But that’s not what I want to focus on here.

I have a vice-like memory, which I apparently get from my mom.  Calling her yesterday to tell her about this, she remembered the Court Tavern as “the place where I almost had you arrested, right?”  Here’s what happened:

After my first semester at college, I lived at home for a few weeks during winter break.  During that time, I took my first-ever trip to the Court.  At least at the time, they were very strict about checking IDs, and I didn’t have a fake one.  However, sometimes – very rarely – I’d get snuck in.  That’s what happened this night, I’m sure.  If I remember correctly, it was a WRSU night.  I don’t remember who played; I want to say that Zoo Musick was the headliner, but I might be confusing my shows (oops, scratch that comment about a vice-like memory).  A night at the Court generally didn’t end until 2 am or so.  After the show, I went to a party at a friend’s house, and then drove home to Monroe.  I got home at about 5:00 am.

Having gotten acclimated to college, this didn’t seem like a big deal.  I’d forgotten, however, that my mom wasn’t used to this new schedule of mine.  Also, I hadn’t called her to tell her I’d be out late – this was years before cellphones.  So while I was out, she apparently called the New Brunswick police to report a missing person.  They told her that I had to be “missing” for at least 48 hours before they could start a search.  This was one of the few times I’d managed to actually freak out one of my parents.  I think I just shrugged it off when I got home and went to bed, feeling vaguely “adult” for one of the first times in my sheltered life.  I’m just lucky she didn’t call the Court itself.

The obvious question: How would I feel if one of my daughters pulled the same stunt?  Answer: we’d talk about how they needed to call us if they’d be later than a certain hour, and what penalties would result if they didn’t.  I’d hold off on the APB.

Two recent things I’ve written, and an item of interest:

Neutral Milk Hotel in Missouri, 1996-1998.  Riverfront Times.  Sometimes you direct the story; sometimes the story directs you.  The original idea was to do an oral history about each of the four Missouri shows NMH played in the ’90s (three in STL, one in Columbia).  To my surprise, I could barely find anyone locally who had any memory at all of these shows.  I probably spent more time finding quotes/sources for this story than any other – I must have asked 25 or 30 people over a three or four-month period.  The people who did respond were all pretty articulate, luckily.  And with a couple days’ perspective, I would suggest that the story that emerges is closer than intended to the actual NMH showgoing experience.  Life as an indie-rock band, even a great one, is a tough road.  At the Side Door, half the band was audibly sick, the drummer didn’t even show up, and you can hear their ragged voices and performances.  It makes an inspired show, sure, but we weren’t the ones who had to pack up our gear, get up the next morning and drive to Chattanooga or Lawrence.  If it means my story was something more than yet another Jeff Mangum hagiograph, I’m happy.

Pazz and Jop 2011 picks.  Village Voice.  I’m long past the point where I have anything relevant to add to Pazz & Jop.  I haven’t even heard a big chunk of the top 20 albums.  Therefore, for the past few years I’ve done this, I’ve just listed a bunch of records that meant something to me in the previous 12 months.  Kind of surprised to be the only one to mention Seapony or Brave Irene (Rose Melberg’s most recent project, and her most upbeat since prime Go Sailor days).  Kind of relieved to see that other people felt as strongly as I about Grass Widow’s “Milo Minute” and Vivian Girls’ Share The Joy.  Very proud of my writer colleagues for not putting Rebecca Black’s “Friday” in the top 20 singles out of some annoying sociological impulse.  And no one’s more surprised than I am to have included two mashup projects – Wugazi‘s 13 Chambers and Ghostfunk – but apparently one can never have too many alternate mixes of “Daytona 500″ and “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’.”

New Brunswick, NJ’s Court Tavern closed “indefinitely”.  mycentraljersey.com.  The Court outlived rezoning, gentrification, rent hikes and unwelcome visits from liquor control, but if what I hear is correct, it might finally be gone for good.  I won’t lie about it: to me, the Court was often a frenemy in nightclub form.  I had some of my all-time favorite evenings there: endless Tiny Lights and Spiral Jetty sh0ws, Pavement’s first-ever show, the Butthole Surfers, so many hazy nights of Rolling Rock and thick smoke.  But there were an equal number of nights where I left the club feeling absolutely miserable and defeated.  I haven’t been there since the mid-1990s.  Still, it was always comforting to know it was still there, surviving us all.  So do I pay my tearful respects, or do I spit on its grave?  The obvious answer: both.  Cheers for lasting three decades, and may the Court’s spirit haunt whomever owns the property next.

Speaking of which, here’s a link to the infamous Summer 1986 Butthole Surfers show.  Kind of amazed it even exists.

Some short bloggy pieces:

JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound, live at Off Broadway

I live in a cave, so I didn’t heard JC Brooks’ version of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” until last month while browsing Euclid’s vinyl section.  Live they were lots of fun.

Matisyahu cuts his beard, frum world goes nuts for a couple of days.

Most of you know that I lived the Orthodox life a few years ago.  It ultimately wasn’t a good fit for my family or me.  So when I read about Matisyahu’s Shave Heard ‘Round The World, I felt a certain empathy toward him and his decision.  I never actually grew the beard or wore the black hat, but I felt like I understood the steps he was taking and the repercussions that would follow.

Vaclav Havel’s musical inspirations

Neither my wife nor my music editor knew what a huge influence the Velvet Underground was on Havel, so this was a good excuse to expound online about it.  I rarely write political pieces, and I realized halfway through my first draft that I didn’t actually know that much about the geopolitical and cultural movements that led to the breakup of Czechoslovakia and the fall of Communism in that country.  So I fell back on my old journalist trick: do enough research and all of a sudden you can seem like an “expert.”  Hopefully I captured at least some of it.

In alphabetical order:
The Beach Boys – The Smile Sessions (Capitol)
Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 (Capitol)
Dum Dum Girls – He Gets Me High EP (Sub Pop)
The Feelies – Here Before (Bar/None)
Grass Widow – “Milo Minute” 7” (HLR)
Low – C’mon (Sub Pop)
The Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck (Merge)
tUnE-yArDs – W H O K I L L (4AD)
Vivian Girls – Share The Joy (Polyvinyl)
Widowspeak – Widowspeak (Captured Tracks)

Some notes: DDG’s Only in Dreams didn’t make the cut because I didn’t think it had enough strong material, whereas the 12″ was compact and concise.  Wild Flag’s self-titled debut didn’t make the cut because I haven’t heard the whole thing yet, though the few songs I heard sounded fine.  I think I have to see them perform these songs live before I truly “get” them, though, and who knows when that will ever happen in STL?  Reading Rainbow’s Prism Eyes would have knocked the Beastie Boys out the Top 10 if only it had been released 2 months later.

Live shows to come later this year.  I still have a few more to attend.

I’ve always been both inspired and spooked by music.  In general, it’s the quieter moments that have the most potential to spook me.  Put on something intended to be loud and scary – say, Big Black’s “Kerosene” – and I’m generally unmoved.  Put on something that sounds like a radio stuck between two stations, or a TV station going off the air, and I’ll concoct some sort of doomsday scenario around it and generally get unnerved.  Here are five examples.   Despite the numbering, these are in no particular order.

1)  Stevie Wonder, “Fingertips Part 2″ as heard on AM radio.  Growing up in the 1970s, you still heard ’50s and ’60s hits on AM radio.  AM is, of course, scratchier and fuzzier than its FM counterpart.  The static and noise acted almost as an additional instrument or production layer.  In the case of “Fingerprints Part 2,” it made Little Stevie Wonder sound like an apocalyptic child preacher in a Deep South shack/church.  Sudden drop-outs, stark harmonica solos, audience screams and Wonder’s high voice made this an unspeakably spooky listening experience.  The fact that he sneaks in “Mary Had A Little Lamb” just adds to the tension; it sounds almost mocking.  Just when you think it’s over, there’s about 30 seconds of chaos, and then – terrifyingly – there goes the harmonica, and the whole thing starts again.  You don’t get the same effect listening on FM or iTunes; there, in high fidelity, it sounds more like the soulful shouter it was meant to be.

2)  The Beatles, “Can You Take Me Back” / “Revolution 9″ / “Good Night.”  1968′s The Beatles double-LP is a deeply, deeply unsettling set in general, but it doesn’t get truly unhinged until the end.  You probably already know at least the backstory of “Revolution 9.”  I’ve written about it here.  It almost always tops polls of Worst Beatles Song by virtue of being such an amusical departure, but I never thought of it as the “worst.”  Its sheer power to cause terror made it singularly unique.  Less appreciated, however, are how its bookends amplify the effect.  Just after “Cry Baby Cry” we have “Can You Take Me Back,” a short, plaintive Paul snippet which sounds disoriented and confused.  It works as notice of an imminent descent into hell.  Then 8 minutes of “R9.”  An uneasy silence, and then the lush “Good Night,” which comes across like a post-apocalyptic Busby Berkeley soundtrack.  It’s as if “R9″ was the world ending,” and “Good Night” the lullaby for the dead planet Earth.  At the very end, Ringo whispers. “Good night everybody…everybody, everywhere.”  It’s really incredibly chilling.

3)  Richard H. Kirk, “False Erotic Love.”  Apparently spoken tape-loops by blase Brits scare the crap out of me.  I bought the Disposable Half-Truths cassette having fallen for Cabaret Voltaire’s “Nag Nag Nag,” not knowing what to expect.  Turns out Kirk’s solo album was Cab Volt reduced to its essence – out-of-context tape loops, primitive electronics and distorted vocals.  Minus the structure of “Nag” or “Silent Command,” the result was eerie.  “False Erotic Love” featured a bored-sounding woman repeating two or three phrases – “no fucking chance at all,”"…felt the need to use the body sexually,” etc. against a staticky backdrop.  Easily as creepy as anything their friends Throbbing Gristle recorded.  (Can’t find it online, but here’s “Information Therapy,” which is actually the closest in sound and structure to classic Cab.)

4)  Young Marble Giants, “Wind In The Rigging” as used by WPRB-FM as signoff music.  Signoffs in general have always scared me.  When I was a kid, TV stations used to go off the air at night.  Usually they’d conclude with a short statement of FCC compliance, followed by “The Star-Spangled Banner.”  Then, abruptly, a test pattern and an eerie electronic tone.  Radio signoffs, however, are even scarier, because there’s not even a test pattern to assure continuity.  They just go poof! into white noise.  WPRB‘s 1980s airstaff was apparently aware of this feeling.  For their signoff, they used the closing track from Colossal Youth with some official language overdubbed.  “Wind In The Rigging” is the closing track, the latter of two instrumentals, and it features mournful organ tones against a somber drum-machine beat, punctuated by what sounds like rising and falling radio static in the background.  Then it cuts off completely.  And so, in WPRB’s hands, does the station signal itself.  (Ironically, the YMG song about nuclear winter, “Final Day,” does not have nearly the same effect on me.)

5)  John Lennon and Yoko Ono, side 2, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions.  Again with the Beatles.  They may have been the most popular band of all time, but as Scott Miller suggested in his recent book Music: What Happened?, it was truly scary as a kid to delve into the weirdness of their latter days.  “Revolution 9,” of course, but also “I Am The Walrus,” “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number),” and all the crazy and sinister-sounding solo projects by John and Yoko.  The Two Virgins cover, the weird films, the incomprehensible art sensibility…it was all rather heavy stuff if you were 12 years old and used to the “red” and “blue” greatest hits.  As an adult, I finally summoned the courage to listen to the two Unfinished Music records.  (I still haven’t heard the Wedding Album.)  Two Virgins was just boring, neither scary enough nor intriguing enough to make for captivating listening.  I think I made it through the whole thing once.  Life With The Lions, on the other hand, was something else entirely.  Even as an adult who’s made peace with “Revolution 9″ and heard all kinds of challenging music, this one was frightening.

The cover: Yoko on a hospital bed, John on the floor, both wearing blank expressions.  The back cover: the couple herded into a police car, John seemingly oblivious to the whole thing, Yoko clutching him for support.  Side 1, “Cambridge 1969,” was a 26-minute free jazz piece and unsettling enough.  Side 2, however, was where the horror really began.  It was recorded at Yoko’s bedside at the hospital after her first miscarriage, seemingly with a primitive tape recorder.  First track: “No Bed for Beatle John,” in which the two chant newspaper articles about themselves like a couple of cantors or monks.  Yoko is heard in the forefront, John in the distance, and there’s something about the cool, dispassionate tone in their voices that gives chills.  Next we hear some chatter, and an ultrasound heartbeat.  It is the heartbeat of the child Yoko miscarried.  This goes on for about 5 minutes, and then comes the Cageian “Two Minutes Silence.”  It’s as if you’re hearing the child die in the womb.  Finally comes “Radio Play,” 12 minutes of a radio being turned on and off as the dial is turned and Lennon is on the phone in the background.  Staccato, harsh and violent, “Radio Play” is hard to listen to all the way through.  When it’s over, you’re left with a woozy silence.  What do I do with this?

Originally posted on djearlybird.blogspot.com, November 27 and 30, 2003.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, which is why I remember the bad ones so vividly.

Worst Thanksgiving ever?  It was in 1988, I think. I know I was in college at the time. My parents had divorced a few years earlier, and my dad had just moved back to Philadelphia, taking an apartment in Trevose. Dad had asked my brother Steve and me to spend Thanksgiving with him, so we drove down to Philly, meeting him at his new apartment.

First we visited my grandmother at her nursing home, a depressing facility in a rough area north of Temple University. Grandmom had always been a cantankerous sort, and had only grown nastier as she grew older. Hence, Steve and I always dreaded these visits – which may be why Dad didn’t tell us in advance about this excursion. Grandmom was, as I recall, not in her worst mood ever, which was somewhat of a relief.

Afterward, it was time for dinner. As we drove away from the nursing home, it suddenly occurred to Dad that he’d forgotten to plan that part of the night. I guess we figured that Dad would bake a turkey, which even then seemed laughable – Dad barely knew how to use a microwave. After driving around awhile, we ended up at a Shoney’s restaurant in the northern Philly suburbs. Shoney’s is kind of like an off-brand Denny’s. The time was fairly late by Thanksgiving dinner standards – about 8:30 pm or so. Shoney’s was nearly empty, our waitress was weirdly perky, and of course the kitchen was out of turkey. I ended up ordering a chicken breast sandwich, figuring that hey, at least it was still poultry. I think all three of us felt a palpable sense of depression. I know I did.

On the way home, I lost my Pennsylvania Turnpike ticket. I had to pay full fare – about $14 – to drive 2 exits. That felt like an insult-to-injury move. I think I cried.

Actually, come to think of it, that only was the second-worst Thanksgiving of my life. At least it’s a memory of my dad, who died in 1992. The worst was probably the year before, when we spent the evening with Mom’s current boyfriend, an oily guy who lived in a creaky apartment. That was miserable in all sorts of ways. My mom broke up shortly thereafter with him for giving pot to my brother.

Wait, scratch the above.  Talking to my mom on the phone last night, I remembered what was, in fact, the Worst. Thanksgiving. Ever.

Growing up, my parents, brother and I used to drive down to Richmond, VA every Thanksgiving. My maternal aunt and uncle lived there. They had two kids – my cousins – who were the same ages as my brother and me. We were all fairly close. The cousins would include us in outings with their friends, that sort of thing. I always looked forward to these trips. Sometimes I even fantasized that my parents would move to Richmond, since things always seemed so much easier there.

In autumn 1983, however, my parents decided to separate. Therefore, my dad stayed home from our yearly trip to Richmond, while the rest of us took off down I-95 South. It was a long, difficult ride down. Mom’s car was leaking oil, and we had to stop every hour to add another quart. To my brother and me, it was something of an adventure – to this day, I liken the car ride to our own personal National Lampoon’s Vacation – but I’m sure my mom was stressed.

That Friday night, the grownups all went out for Chinese food. We kids stayed home, ate junk food and listened to records. Our cousins had discovered rap, so we listened to “White Lines” and “It’s Like That” at loud volume. Suddenly my aunt and uncle burst in front the door. It seems that Mom passed out in the restaurant and had to be rushed to the hospital. Don’t worry, we were assured: she was OK. However, we’d be staying in Virginia until Tuesday, when she was well enough to travel.

This did not suit me at all. I basically panicked, insisting that I had to be back at school by Monday to take a test. I simply would not listen to reason. The most important thing in my life, as far as I was concerned, was that I get out of Richmond ASAP and high-tail it home to New Jersey. So the next morning, my uncle paid for a train ticket and drove me to the station. Dad picked me up at the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and drove me home. I guess my mom and brother followed a couple of days later.

Looking back at it, this may have been the most selfish thing I’ve ever done (and I’ve done some pretty selfish things). I’m wincing just thinking about it. I really can’t understand what was going through my teenage head. My mom’s in the hospital, she’s dealing with her marriage dissolving, and on top of that it’s not at all sure her car will make it home…and all I care about is taking a train ahead of everyone else? Like I wouldn’t have been able to take a make-up test at school? It’s amazing that my mom didn’t disown me right then and there. Don’t think my uncle ever forgot, either: he insisted that I pay him back, and a decade later was still reminding me of the incident.

My RFT piece about GG Allin’s unlikely critical durability.

Story ideas can come from anywhere.  For me, this one began germinating sometime between hearing Dum Dum Girls’ “Don’t Talk To Me” cover and local band Shaved Women’s version of same.  I don’t think that GG Allin was or is “cool,” nor do I endorse anything that he did to audience members and fans…but it fascinated me that the guy kept getting covered by such unlikely sources as Dum Dum Girls.  Clearly there was something that people found compelling about him beyond the bleeding and poop-flinging.  If freak shows were all it took to ensure a permanent fanbase, we’d be hearing a lot more Gwar covers.  I don’t think I answered that question, but I do appreciate those interviewees who helped me get to the bottom of it.

Next article will be much more in my usual positive vein, I promise.

Currently reading I Want My MTV, the new Craig Marks/Rob Tannenbaum oral history, with some fascination.  I was 15 when MTV first hit the air, but I missed its first several years.  Our cable system in central New Jersey didn’t have MTV, and I didn’t have cable in college, so I was pretty much at the mercy of friends and relatives with such access.  All I had were knockoffs like Friday Night Videos and HBO’s Video Jukebox.  As a high schooler I claimed to hate MTV, but whenever we’d go to functions at my grandparents’ house in Philadelphia, I’d isolate myself in a spare room and watch MTV until dinnertime.

By and large, though, my own musical development was never video-driven.  It was radio and records, and later concerts, for me.  So I was as surprised as anyone else when I ended up working there in 1992.

I’d been unemployed for several months after being laid off from my first job writing and editing for a small business magazine.  I’d interviewed everywhere I could- scientific journals, book publishers, Reuters, Barnes & Noble’s catalog department – but nothing clicked.  These were desperate times, so when I saw the Sunday New York Times classified advertising temp work at MTV Networks, I said to myself, “This is it.  This has to be the job.”

Interviews were scheduled to begin at 3:00 pm.  I got to the interview site at about 10:00 am and was one of the first people there.  When they finally opened the doors, I was among the first group to fill out an application and have a brief interview with an HR rep.  “Do you know Word for Windows?” they asked.  “Oh, sure,” I lied.  (I’d had a two-day temp assignment the month before where I used it to transcribe medical dictation.  It was the first time I ever used it.)  They had me in for a diagnostic test not long afterward, and I eked just enough of a decent Word for Windows score that they offered me a spot as a floating temp.

That was in June 1992.  For the next seven or eight months, I worked a series of brief assignments within the least glamorous areas of MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon.  First I worked in HR for a month, during which time I briefly worked with Julie from the first season of The Real World (see page 554 of I Want My MTV for reasons she didn’t last).  Dave Kendall was fired from 120 Minutes during that time, and I was sitting across from the office when he had his exit interview.  Then I spent time in ad sales, international, accounting, legal…pretty much everywhere except creative or programming.  This makes sense now – those departments needed the most paperwork – but I was hungry to see the inner workings of the place.  Once my friend Jennifer took me to visit the MTV studios, where I met Kurt Loder.  He was shorter than I expected, but less curmudgeonly than I Want My MTV paints him.  But I never got to meet Tabitha Soren or Duffy.

I moved to NYC on the strength of this job.  An apartment opened up and I took it eagerly.  At the time my mom was wary about this.  This annoyed me at the time, but let’s face it: I had no reason to expect a full-time job to come out of this.  My career as an MTV temp could have ended at any time.  But at age 25, I was in a position to take the risk.  I was spending most weekends in NYC anyway, and nothing was working out for me jobwise in New Jersey.

In February 1993, I reported to what would be my last assignment – rights and clearances.  MTV had its own department for copyright matters; VH1 and Nickelodeon was bundled into its own set of staff.  This ended up being permanent, and I stayed for almost 7 years.

At first I was disappointed about working for VH1 rather than MTV.  Indeed, it’s amusing to read on pp. 262 and 263 that VH1 was never meant to be good in the first place.  “In the beginning we actually tried to make VH1 bad on purpose, because we didn’t want it to hurt MTV” said Les Garland.  As it happens, John Sykes returned to the Viacom fold shortly after I started, and VH1 transformed itself into a real contender.  This was the era of Pop-Up Video, Behind The Music and Legends – serious, interesting programs about music on which I was lucky enough to have worked.

I’ll never know a work environment like that again, for better or worse.  It was a very loose, casual place, even in the more buttoned-up departments like mine.  I just kind of took it all for granted, not knowing that this wasn’t how the business world actually worked.  Unfortunately, I Want My MTV stops just after my own history with the network began.  As a result, I cannot confirm  most ofthe debauchery chronicled in its pages.  All I have is the Julie/Real World story, several brief phone calls and elevator-sharing with minor celebs, and extremely drunken nights at the annual MTV Networks holiday party.

And yet there are still stories left untold.  I’d like to see a part two that covers MTV’s gradual decline as a cultural influence (which the book blames on a combination of The Real World, the Internet and a natural tapering-off of videos in general), and VH1 and Nickelodeon’s concurrent rise.  It would also be interesting to read about MTV’s futile attempts at coming to the grips with the Internet throughout the ’90s, the epic fight for benefits by freelance employees/producers, the San Francisco and London seasons of The Real World, Total Request Live‘s final spasm of video-driven mania, and the bizarre sight of nouveau-riche rappers and rockers showing off empty rented houses on Cribs.

Jesus and Mary Chain, Fez, Feb or March 1998.  As awful as the first five terrible concerts were, this one may win the booby prize for all-time worst.  JMC had just signed to Sub Pop and were playing a series of private acoustic gigs in various cities.  I knew Fez’ booking agent, and he got Callie and me onto the list.  Cool, right?  Until we found out that the show started at midnight.  On a weeknight.  When you live in Hoboken and the event is in Manhattan, there’s no such thing as stopping home; you either find a way to keep yourself occupied, or you most likely fall asleep on your couch in front of the TV.  This seemed like a unique enough event that we made the effort.  So we sat in Limbo, a sadly-defunct Avenue A coffee shop that frequently served as a meeting place before shows, for three hours, reading books, drinking coffee and trying to keep awake.  At 11:30, we walked back to Fez and got in line.  The customary tables and chairs were cleared out – which at least meant we wouldn’t be hit up for a drink minimum – and there were four stools and instruments onstage.

To the JMC’s credit, they actually started close to the scheduled time.  Unfortunately, what they played was some of the worst music I’d ever heard.  First of all, whose bright idea was it to have them play acoustic anyway?   Unplugged (OK, semi-plugged), you could hear every sophomoric lyric, every hackneyed chord progression, every bored vocal.  The Reid brothers would mumble incomprehensibly into the mics in between songs.  I guess William Reid asked, “Would any of you girls like to suck my cock?” according to the only review I could find online.  I vaguely remember him saying something rude, but honestly, by that point I was trying to figure out how quickly we could get home.

They only played for about half an hour, but it felt like much longer.  Riots famously interrupted this band’s early shows, but if you ask me, the angry mob should have shown up at Fez on this night.  Even if you brought back Bobby Gillespie on stand-up drums and turned up the feedback, it still wouldn’t have saved this travesty.  Absolute bottom of the barrel.