Dear Friends,
Welcome to the wonderful world of randomness that is the first part of the blog today. I have no idea where this is going to go. No plan. Nothing.
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I had a headache for most of the day yesterday. I can’t believe allergies are back. Stupid allergies. I dislike them.
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I either need to get way better at giving directions or I need to ask about 70% of my student’s parents to unclog their fucking ears. When you get to the point where you don’t know how you can make something any simpler, it’s a great thing that ChatGPT exists. I mine that AI sumbitch for info a lot.
But yesterday, it even came back with this message:
“Your students are fucking stupid.”
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I’m kidding, but only sort of.
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I’ve gotten to the point in Suits where several of the main characters are gone and they have added that Katherine Heigl lady to the show. I don’t care for her. I’m going to give it a few more episodes, but if it goes where I think it is going, I might just read the show synopsis pages online and skip the disappointment.
I mostly don’t care for Heigl because she fucking sucks. She was bad on Grey’s Anatomy which I used to watch because Rhondi got me hooked on it when we were first dating. I stopped watching that after Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey left the show. Now Patrick Adams has left Suits and I don’t know if I can stomach it.
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I’m going to give Godless a try, though, and also watch Godzilla Minus One before I turn my attention to another streamer. Netflix, you are on your last legs.
At least Only Murders In The Building is back. Hulu gets my dollar tonight.
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Thanks to yesterday’s post, I decided to just stay in the same neighborhood and reflect on the excellent 1981 record, Adolescents (the Blue Album) by Adolescents.
A few years ago, I did a one-off project with my buddies, Sick In The Head (S.I.T.H.), a local punk rock outfit, who wanted to play some Adolescents’ covers for a Halloween event that happens every year here in town. They asked me if I would sing with them, and I jumped at the chance to be just a lead singer for a band.
I spent many hours with The Blue Record for this one as almost all the tracks we played came from it. I wish I could say that I learned every lyric by heart, but that was not the case. I was doing as good of a Tony Cadena impersonation as a I could, but a lot of his vocal delivery on this record is just too cool and too much his own for me to inhabit his mind.
Outside of hanging with my friends and making music, the best part of doing the project was really getting acquainted with a record I had always loved but never dug into nearly as much as I did in 2022. Working on the songs gave me a whole new appreciation for them as this type of experience often does. You don’t really know a song until you try to play it, I guess.
When I listen to the Blue Album now, I feel it in a different way. It became a small part of me, and I feel a tiny sense of ownership with it. If I had it to do again, I would have gone even further into it, I’m sure. There is rabbit hole you can go in when you do something like this and I hope to do it with another record down the road.
Obviously, I love the two tracks from Someone Got Their Head Kicked In! “Who is Who” and “Wrecking Crew” have both been counted among my favorite songs for almost forty years now. Singing them was a lot of fun and they were two that I probably had the easiest time with the lyrics.
“L.A. Girl” became a favorite during the process of learning the songs, too. The way Tony C. attacks the song is really cool and the band behind him is playing some mighty punk rock. Rikk Agnew is one of my favorite LA guitar players ever and his riffs are always excellent.
“Kids of the Black Hole” is such a great example of what Rikk Agnew can do. Casey Royer’s drumming on that one also makes it manic and vibrant. I have to mention the late Steve Soto, too. I love his basslines. He added a ton of flavor to all the albums he played on and I’m glad I got to see him play live several times.
“No Way” is another one that I can throw my whole soul into when I sing it. I really enjoyed doing that one with the S.I.T.H. guys. It’s two minutes of chaos and I love it. You should really listen to it right now, dear reader.
A couple of the songs that I hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to in the early days of having this record were “Democracy” and “No Friends.” I grew to love them both and I’m surprised I never gravitated to “Democracy” before 2022. The song is right up the alley I’ve always loved to hang out in when it comes to my punk rock.
“No Friends” is one that we fiddled around with that I don’t think we ever really got down. It’s a tough song to inhabit. “Rip It Up” was similar. It’s a great song, like “No Friends,” but I struggled to make it my own.
I’ve left out a few of the other tracks, including the ever-popular “Amoeba” but if you’ve read this far this year, you know that I’m only writing about records I love. This one is one of the first group of really great LA punk rock records from the 80s and if you listen, you can hear why.
Adolescents (the band) and Adolescents (the record) have been huge influences on me. It might not be obvious to some, but their influence is right there. How could you like punk rock and not love this record?
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See you tomorrow.
This is so weird. I kind of love it. Thanks AI.
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