---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===-- Note: The file below may have several references to old addresses for the //Skyway\\. The new, correct addresses are: ** Skyway listserver: majordomo@novia.net ** Skyway submissions, to write to Matt: skyway@novia.net --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- // The Skyway \\ School Year 1993-4 -- Issue #14 February 2nd, 1994 (c) 1994 Bastards of Young (BOY/BetaOmegaYamma) Productions --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- ** Subscriptions, comments, contributions, anything you want to read: ** --> skyway@phoenix.creighton.edu <-- ** Manager: ** i261%nemomus@academic.nemostate.edu (Matthew Tomich) --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- The manager of this list, Matthew Tomich, and the school's facilities that this list is produced from, Creighton University of Omaha, Nebraska, are not responsible for the contents of the following mailing except for that which they themselves have originally contributed. --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- Where the hell is the sun? -------------------------- * 'Within' Your Reach' -- Obligatory babble from Missouri * GOPHER. How to get your own damn files. [Bob Fulkerson] * New people! [Kathy, Matt Proud, Brian Kennedy, Leah Weaver] * Paul Westerberg reference on Mystery Science Theater 3000 [Brent Daniel/Heather Chakiris] * "Bastards of Young" video on Beavis and Butthead [Heather Chakiris] * Origin of the name "The Replacements" [Greg @ Stanford] * Westerberg concert review: 12/93 -- Trocadero in Philly [Heather ala Green Eyes, once again] * STINK [Leah Weaver] * Future 'Mats compilation? [Michelle Hayes] * Live '89 Wisconsin recording found [Ted James] * Mode files request [Elaine Pan, eh] * The first Replacements joke (that I've heard, anyway) [Heather.] * Slacker novella excerpt [Jim Connelly] ---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===-- Live without your touch, but die within' your reach. I got a letter last night from this guy from Loyolla named Andy. He wasn't a Skyway member, but he was asking for the lyrics for "Within' Your Reach". I was about to write the guy and say, "Sorry, nobody's typed them in yet..." but I realized that I could probably do it myself. So at 3 a.m. I just decided to do it myself. I had just written a big letter to a friend from back home. I couldn't even begin to bother to explain it, but the song really kicked me hard. Sorta like that way "Unsatisfied" or "Answering Machine" or "Here Comes A Regular" does when you hear a line and it sends electricity up your spine and you go, "Man, how did they ever know it oh so well?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WITHIN' YOUR REACH I can live without so much, I can die without a clue. Sun keeps risin' in the west, I keep on waking fully confused. I never seen no mountain, Never swam no sea. City got me drownin'; I guess it's up to me I can't live without your touch. I can't live without your touch. Cool without so much, I can die without a clue. Live without your touch But die within your reach. ...reach... ...reach... ...reach... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The real clincher was when I thought I remembered some extra words from a bootleg that I have. During the 6/10/89 Chicago show at the Aragon Ballroom (the last show on the "Don't Tell a Soul" tour), there's an extra verse: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I've never seen a smile go away As fast as it did on your face. What's the problem with all your friends at home? They seem to be itchin' to {go away...} {go to waste...} ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The last sentence is mumbled, so it's either of the two. It was so totally ironic and fitting to the situation. I couldn't believe it... And something else to think about. "We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They inhabit taverns and have no self control." - From an inscription from an Egyptian tomb dated 4000 B.C. ...Cool, huh? -- M@ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 15:51:17 +0000 From: "Robert A. Fulkerson" Subject: How to access the //Skyway\\ files! Dear //Skyway\\ers, Here's the lowdown on how to access the back issues and various other miscellany that Matt has put together for the mailing list via Gopher. You'll need a Gopher client program. If you're on a mainframe platform (one which requires you to use a login: and password:), try just typing "gopher" (without the quotes) at your system prompt. If you get something, then you have a Gopher client on your system! If you don't have a Gopher client for a mainframe platform but you have a direct connection to the Internet, then you can go grab (or have someone knowledgable go grab) an MS-DOS, MS-Windows or Macintosh Gopher client program from the following site via anonymous FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher You'll need to know a few things, like the IP address of your ethernet card, nameserver and local network gateway. Like I said, if this looks horrible or you don't know what I'm talking about, just print this email message out and take it to someone who could help you (like a network administrator at your site). If they don't have Gopher client software running _somewhere_, they're behind the times, but that's okay. Just pressure 'em into getting you connected somehow! :) Once you have a client program, all you need to do is (except for the Mac version, which I'm not familiar with and the Windows version, which I'm assuming you just click on an icon) type gopher phoenix.creighton.edu and when you get the main menu, go into /Electronic Journals and Lists/Electronic Mailing Lists/The Skyway. Everything will be found there. Hope this helps you all, -- b Robert Fulkerson \ "You can't have any beauty on the outside if you Creighton University / don't have any beauty on the inside. You just Graduate Assistant \ have a false face that is well designed. That's Computer Science / all." -- George Hurrell, Photographer [P.S. If you don't have gopher, just write me and I'll manually mail the files (lyrics, discography, all that) to you. No big deal. - M@] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Jan 94 13:04:03 EST From: kathms@aol.com I'm sure I'm not the only one who fell off their chair laughing while reading Jim Connelly's story -Tommmmiiiiee! DId anyone else feel just a little bit sorry for poor old Pam ? I can't even begin to top that story - but I'll share my mats history just the same. I've been a rabid fan for about 4 years. Prior to that, I was more into U2,REM, VIolent Femmes, The Smiths...I didn't even buy a mats record until 1989 but the second I heard it, I was completely hooked. I got all the mats stuff within a month and after hearing "Skyway", became completely enamoured of them - esp. Paul . I guess my favorites are Let It Be, Tim, Pleased and All Shook Down - and Hootenany - oh, hell, I guess they are all my favorites.Like all of you, I guess I just feel a real connection with the angst,fear and loathing and sometimes hope Paul expresses so amazingly well Plus - they have always had a great sense of humor about themselves and the world in general. To date, I have no great "I met Paul" stories, but hope springs eternal. I'd like to think I would conduct myself with some level of restraint if I did....but I'm not so sure I could - Paaauuuulllieeee!. I saw the mats twice and Paul once. I SHOULD have seen him 3 times on the solo tour but the fates conspired against me. You all probably know that Paul rehearsed here in Boston for the tour and gave a "surprise" show at a club in Cambridge to kick off the tour. I waited 3 hours to get into the club and didn't make it. It was a real a pain becasue only about 50 of the people waiting in line got in - the rest of the 150 or so that got in were all guest-listed. I read later that Paul was really pissed at his publicist for leaking the news and he was sorry that so many fans got screwed. Me too! I saw him here at the Paradise in August. He opened with "Another Girl" and did a beautiful acoustic version of "Skyway".This new band is great - I'm sorry it didn't work out for them hitting the studio after the tour....I also had3rd row tickets to a Boston show in December that got canclelled . Other stuff - someone on here mentioned Tommy Keene awhile back - and I picked up some of his stuff. There is a new CD out that includes alot of his old material and some newer stuff - called The Real Underground. I think a lot of you would like him - I had never heard any of his music before and I was blown away. It's great POP ROCK music. He is going to be on Conan on Feb 1 - check it out if this come out before then. Kathy === If only you were lonely, i'd go home with you === ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 21:18:08 EST From: emp@re3sc139h.gmr.com Subject: Proud to Be Matt, I quick note to say thanks for putting me on the list and for all your work in getting this mailing list together. I am a major mats' fan and enjoy reading any material about them. I will get right to point by telling a little about myself and may relationship with the mats'. I first heard the Replacements while at school in wonderful central Illinois during my freshman year of college in 1986. The first album I heard was 'Tim', and after hearing it I became completely fixed on the band. The following year when 'Please To Meet Me' was released, I was certain to obtain this album and affirm my patronage. These two albums inspired me to get 'Let It Be' and 'Hootenanny', and of course I was completely in awe upon hearing them. Upon hearing 'Unsatisfied' - which is my favorite song - i was convinced that the Replacements were the best band that I had ever heard. Unfortunately I was unable to see the band live until the summer of 89' when I saw them at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis. The opening band was the Sidewinders, and during there set Paul happened to wander on stag in a drunken stupor. When they finally took the stage, I had the distinct pleasure of standing next to a guy who received a mouthful of bourbon that Paul had thrown out into the crowd in a plastic cup. They played a sweet show, and after that I was able to see them once again in February of 91' in Ann Arbor at the Hill Auditorium - this show was outstanding. I have seen Paul Westerberg twice during his solo tour, once at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor and once at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit. The show in Detroit was in August of 93', and the setting could not have been any better. The room was primed for Paul to take the stage, as the temperature in the hall was outrageously hot, and the humidity was overbearing. He played for about 2 inspiring hours, cranking out song after song. On the personal side I am originally from Chicago, Illinois, but I am currently living in Royal Oak, Michigan working at the GM Technical Center. Again, thanks for placing me on the list and I am looking forward to continued involvement and correspondance. Matt Proud ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Jan 94 20:16:16 EST From: Brian.J.Kennedy@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Placemats Fan I am a Replacements fan from Ann Arbor. Thanks For starting the list. I have seen the mats every time they have come to town, I think. I met them once and even shared Watermelons (the drink) with Bobby. Heard and danced to "I Will Dare" first and then had to get it all, even their bootleg tape "when the @#$% hits the fans". There's more, I know what they were talking about on the back of the "let it be" cover when they they say "we stank They skank." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Jan 1994 11:12:58 -0500 (CDT) From: KYKYRI Subject: unsatisfied Hi Matt, and everyone else... This is my first //skyway\\ submission, but this is the first time that I felt like I had something that only other 'mats fans would really understand. I recently broke up with my boyfriend of 1 year and 4 months. Even though it was a mutual thing, and we're making valiant (though hard) attempts at friendship, it's still pretty painful. The night after it happened, I found myself in my friend Seth's room (Hi Seth!) looking for some consoling. He put "Let It Be" on the stereo and, when "Androgynous" came on, I lost it. Well, Seth was awesome, I must say. He let me sit on his bed and cry on his shoulder. At one point he said "Leah, all you can do is sing 'Unsatisfied.' Just sing 'Unsatisfied,' Leah." I tried, but I couldn't, because I was crying too hard, so he sang it for me. Thanks, Seth. I appreciate it. -Leah ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 17:12:31 -0500 (EST) From: Brent Daniel Subject: Paul reference on MST3k Paul got mentioned on a recent episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Alien from LA).. One of the main characters (Gus) ran onto the screen.. at that particular instant, he looked sort of Westerbergish, I guess, so someone (Mike, I think) said "Paul Westerberg to the rescue!".. Oh well. I thought it was cool. About time, too.. Husker Du got mentioned a few seasons ago. Speaking of people who look like Westerberg.. Check out the one-sheet for "In the Name of the Father." Daniel Day Lewis looks almost exactly like Paul. When I went to work at a movie theater over break, it sort of freaked me out... (What the hell is Paul Westerberg doing on the wall..) Maybe I'm just going crazy.. I couldn't get anyone else to agree with me.. (Actually, only one person had ever -heard- of him, and that person saw him on Saturday Night Live.. uncivilized heathens...) Brent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 09:26 EST From: "CHAKIRIS.HEATHER" Subject: Paul and MST Hi, Matt! I've got another Paul reference for the Skyway: During Mystery Science Theatre 3000 over the weekend (MTV was simulcasting the comedy network), they showed the movie "Alien from L.A." At one point in the (very bad) movie, the hero appears in a doorway, backlit, wearing a plaid shirt, standing there with an attitude. Said the host, "Looks like Paul Westerberg is here to save the day!" :-) Keep spreadin' the gospel! Heather ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 15:20 EST From: "CHAKIRIS.HEATHER" Subject: The Mats on B & B Hi, Matt! It was great to see a new issue of _Skyway_ in my mailbox this morning. Just wanted to know if anyone caught Beavis & Butt-head last Friday night (1/7/94) -- they were doing their "thing" to the video of "Bastards of Young." For anyone who missed it, it was pretty funny. Butt-head kept telling Beavis to wait for the cool part and Beavis was getting impatient (since, as we know, nothing happens in the video except for a guy smoking a cigarette on a couch with a stereo in front of him ... a brief description, but a description nonetheless :-). ANYWAY ... the "cool" part turned out to be the very end, when the guy kicks the stereo speaker over and walks out of the room. Beavis still didn't seem to get it. :-) Heather hlc2@psuadmin.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 9:33:15 -0800 (PST) From: GREGS@SLC.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU >From: kathms@aol.com > >2. I've read most of the back issues of the //skyway\\ and never saw anything >about the origins of the name "replacements". I heard from a guy who used to >work at the record store where Paul met his wife - she worked there too - >that it was inspired by the Who. You know - substitute=replacement . Hi Kathy and all other fellow Skyway readers -- This is how I recall the origin of the name "The Replacements". Originally the band was working under the monicker "The Impediments". This raised a few eyebrows with club owners here and there. As I heard it, one club owner took enough offense to it so that the band upon maing their appearance told the owner something along the lines of, "The Impediments couldn't make it ... we're the replacements." And the name stuck. Any other stabs/stories heard? greg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 15:39 EST From: "CHAKIRIS.HEATHER" Subject: Paul at the Troc To put it the only way I possibly can ... I've seen Westerberg several times on every tour since _Tim_, hung out and partied with him, and I have never EVER seen him perform (and behave ;-) to the caliber at which he performed (and behaved) at the Trocadero. He was AMAZING -- the band (as usual) was solid and having a BLAST, and Paul was the most friendly, gracious, and genuinely FUNNY I've EVER seen him (while performing). When he came out, he said that he was going to do the stuff he didn't have a chance to do last August when he played Philly at the Chestnut Cabaret ("So, how was everybody's end of summer and fall?" he asked.) Then he proceeded to play every song I could have EVER wanted him to play in one show (list to follow). He played for almost 2 1/2 hours, and the only cover he did was "Another Girl/Another Planet." >From _Hootenanny_ -- "Buck Hill" >From _Let It Be_ -- "I Will Dare" >From _Tim_ -- "Hold My Life"; "Waitress in the Sky"; "Left of the Dial"; "Here Comes a Regular" >From _Pleased to Meet Me_ -- "I.O.U."; "Alex Chilton"; "Valentine"; "Skyway"; "Can't Hardly Wait" >From _Don't Tell a Soul_ -- "Achin' to Be"; "Tellin' Me Lies"; "I'll Be You" >From _All Shook Down_ -- "Merry Go Round" >From _Singles_ -- "Waiting for Somebody" >From _14 Songs_ -- "Knockin' on Mine"; "First Glimmer"; "Dice Behind Your Shades"; "A Few Minutes of Silence"; "Someone I Once Knew"; "Mannequin Shop"; "Down Love" Also -- "Seein' Her" and "Another Girl/Another Planet" One kid -- everyone seemed so YOUNG! :-) -- kept screaming for "Answering Machine," and Paul replied, "Yeah, we might do it later. ... On the bus." :-) He also made a crack about 4 Non-Blondes that cracked the entire place up. Before he did "Buck Hill," he stepped up to the microphone and said, "Now I'd like to do one of the best songs The Replacements ever did, plus a fine set of lyrics from *me*." It was GREAT. I haven't seen "Buck Hill" done in YEARS. And when he did "I.O.U.," the place was NUTS ... I haven't slammed that hard in about five years (you've got to understand that my body is slowly pushing 30 years old), and I paid for it dearly. Paul and I share the slipped-disc experience, and my back had a few things to say about the abuse it took that night. (Of course I'd do it again in a second! :-) An absolutely BRILLIANT show. I even got in a fight for old times sake! :-) Some yutz kept trying to crowd me out of my front-row-center perch until I finally nailed him. (Ironically, the last time I hit someone was at a Mats show ... back in 1989 ... when the boys were opening for Tom Petty. I punched some asshole in the face after he threw a handful of rocks at Paul. Can you say "Greek temper"? ;-) I must say I was surprised at the merchandise Paul had this time around. He's usually so opposed to it, I was kind of weirded out when I saw it. The ashtray pin is very cool, though. Oh, and I managed to find -- at the bottom of a cardboard box full of $5 t-shirts on South Street -- a t-shirt with the words "Rebel Without a Clue" emblazoned on the front. A true find! Yadda, yadda, yadda ... Heather hlc2@psuadmin.bitnet [Tell me if you ever find another one of those shirts. I'll send you a check plus dinner. P.S. remind me to very stand behind you at a concert...! - M@] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Jan 1994 14:42:49 -0500 (CDT) From: KYKYRI I finally got Stink on CD today. I was listening to it with my friend Aaron, who was sincerely trying to understand why I was so excited about this little EP with really bad sound quality. I tried to explain that it sorta got me through the hell that was junior high/high school (along with Winona Ryder in "Heathers"), as well as the fact that I think it's just a great album even without the teen angst factor. He, being a Nine Inch Nails/Ministry fan, didn't understand and dismissed me with, "Leah, you're a freak. Not as big of one as Seth, and a very nice one, but you're a freak nonetheless." But that's okay. -Leah ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Jan 1994 19:53:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Ma belle In the local alternative weekly newspaper The Twin Cities Reader, there was an article about a local band Rex Daisy. In the article, it says, "The band will soon be heard on two compilations, one of them a Replacements tribute album featuring appropriately enough a Rex Daisy rendition of "Alex Chilton. " That's all it said. AI don't have any clue who's doing it or when it's coming out. If I hear more, I'll be sure to let y'all know. Smiles Michelle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Jan 1994 15:07:23 -0500 From: Teddie James Subject: Unusual Mats 7" I picked up a curious new (old) Mats 7" the other day. It's called "Live at the University of Wisconsin 1989." At first, I thought it was the same as Inconcerated, but then I compared the track listings. Some of the songs are the same, but some of them are different. It also lists "Another Girl, Another Planet" as "Another Planet, Another Girl." This record is unopened and still in the shrinkwrap. On the front is a rather scruffy-looking color press photo of the band. On the back is a repulsive photo of a man with way too much skin. You'd have to see it to understand. Any clues? The jacket doesn't have anything on it regarding who made it. I guess it's a bootleg. I thought it might have been a promo. I paid $9.99 for it. Ted James teddie_james@csicqm.sps.mot.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 16:19:31 -0700 From: Elaine Margaret Pan Subject: mode files? Are they any mode files of Replacements stuff out there? I know...that's a terrible thing to do to their songs but I'm sick and tired of hearing other people play really crappy music all day long in the lab... -Elaine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 10:27 EST From: "CHAKIRIS.HEATHER" This is a little joke heard on the radio one morning: Over in England, a minister was due to perform a funeral service for an old coal-mine worker. After keeping the congregation waiting for a half hour, the minister finally showed up -- dead drunk. He slurred his words, sang off-key, and finally fell down and passed out. The people attending said they hadn't seen anything like it since the last Replacements concert! :-) Heather ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is an excerpt from a novel that Jim Connelly is writing. Since it wasn't directly 'Mats-oriented, I put it at the end of the issue. But it does fit into that "Generation-X"/Slacker mentality that people on this list seem to live in the midst of. So if this ain't yer thing, this is the end of the issue. This file has been edited to around 150 lines just to give a preview of the style. I'd put the whole thing in here, but I know there's people out there who are paying bucks out everytime they see a screen. But it's certainly enough to show the genre and the method... (Thanks for sending it in, Jim!) - M@ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 21:31:53 -0400 (EDT) From: JIMCONNELLY@delphi.com Subject: Novel excerpts If you're on a on-line service and you are paying for your time, then download to your computer and read this off-line. It's pretty long. According to my Word Perfect 5.2 its about 12,000 words/26 pages long. I'm not trying to scare anyone off or anything, I just wanted to reiterate what you've got here in terms of size . . . What you've got here in terms of fiction is an earlier part of my novel-in-progress (but then doesn't everybody have one?), which serves both as character development and an acutal self-contained story. As Too Much Joy said "Some of this is true/some of this is better." (Which isn't a bad quote to start the whole novel.) One more thing--if it seems like it was supposed to be in italics, it probably was, but didn't translate into e-mail. ============================================================ ============================================================ ============================================================ An excerpt from: SNEAKING OUT THE WINDOW (OR WHAT WE DID ON OUR 10-YEAR SUMMER VACATION) by Jim Connelly (jimconnelly@delphi.com) This story is fiction (mostly) and all the characters, places, and references are fictional--except for those which aren't. Oh yeah, it's also copywritten (c)1993 by No Shoes Productions until I sell it to a real publisher. THE FAKE FREE CONCERT Sometime in the Spring of 1985, Lester, Curtis and I decided to form a band. We'd had enough of all the bands we liked talking about how easy it was. Of course it didn't hurt that Lester was classically trained on piano and was playing jazz bass and Curtis had been teaching himself guitar. I was going to be the drummer. The only problem was, I didn't own a drum kit. Which wasn't surprising, because I didn't exactly know how to play drums, either. "Who cares?" asked Curtis one afternoon, as Husker Du's audio barrage came blasting down the hallway, "the kind of music we want to play requires a basic beat, and I'm sure you'll pick it up as you go along. It will all be part of our mythology: the drummer who learned to play as we went along." "What mythology?" I asked. "You hate bands with calculated mythologies." Which wasn't completely true, since by then, even the non-image of such bands as The Replacements or REM was calculated. Still, Curtis always preferred the unpredictability of The Clash or The Who over the studied image-mongering of the Sex Pistols or the Rolling Stones. "It's true I prefer bands like REM to your beloved Smiths," he paused, waiting to see if I'd respond to his usual Smiths-bashing. I didn't. "But I've always been fascinated by the process that makes a complete musical non- entity like Morrissey into some sort of pop icon for the dress-in-black arty class." It was true. Curtis hated the Smiths. I loved the Smiths. It was our running argument. Or more accurately, he hated Morrissey, who at that time was beginning his long run as one of the patron saints of the Anglophile sect of the underground. I always accused him of homophobia, or more accurately, wimpophobia, because Morrissey didn't really bother me; I liked the Smiths mostly because of Johnny Marr's fantastic guitar parts, which were akin to the ones Peter Buck was laying down for REM. "Curtis, just the fact you use a phrase like 'pop icon' puts you in the 'arty class,' and besides, you always wear black." It was something which always bothered me about Curtis: he constantly derided what he rightly called the "gloom and doom dress-in-black mentality," yet he wore more black than any five goth bands you could mention. "Yeah, but I wear it for power, not to show people how depressed I am." He looked at me slyly. "Why do you wear black?" "You know why, so depressed arty girls think I'm cool. Its the most honorable reason of all . . . sex." No way he could argue with that. "Fair enough, but we're off the subject. Back to the whole image thing. See, I've always found the way Malcolm McLaren manipulated the media wonderful and I want to do the same thing. Do you realize how many people he annoyed?" Malcolm McLaren was the manager of the Sex Pistols, who, while they didn't invent punk rock, took it further faster than anyone else and managed to divide rock and roll into two mutually antagonistic parts before they imploded in early 1978. McLaren was an integral part of the chaos and one of the many anti-heroes in their story. "But Curtis, none of it would have made any difference if the Sex Pistols weren't such a great band." "Do you really think so?" Remember what Nick Lowe said: 'It didn't really matter if they could play or not." Look at Madonna. Look at Frankie Goes to Hollywood, for god's sake." For those of you who don't remember, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were this pre-fab "band" who made it huge in the U.K. and here for about two videos riding a massive amount of cynical hype and their white T-shirts with various slogans, the most ubiquitious being FRANKIE SAYS RELAX. Everybody involved made large sums of money for about a year or so and then faded into the "hey, remember that?" category. Madonna, however, managed to mutate into some kinda icon. "Curt, why do you want to manipulate the media. I mean, don't forget we're the media, too." "I know." As he said it, his eyes lit up, and I at that moment, I experienced the feeling Ethel Mertz has every single day on reruns. "And what a perfect cover. If we are part of the manipulatees, no one would ever suspect us." "Manipulatees? Is that even a word? And what do you mean, 'us?'" "It's a word now." "Curt, what are you planning?" "I don't know, Rich, but I've just decided that I want to pull a big media hoax, and I want to pull it over the radio station as well as everybody else." I was a little confused. At that time, Curtis and I were as identified with KFSR as any two people could be. He had been Music Director for two years and I had been program director and we were both very high profile; being on the air was fun and we both did it as much as we possibly could. The question was: wouldn't any hoax on the radio station be a defacto hoax on us? Well, yes and no, as it turned out. This conversation was the genesis of the fake free concert, born out of boredom and a great need to annoy large amounts of people. More Curtis' need than my need. He loved to annoy people, and as his roommate, I was often a favorite target. I'd come home from the Wild Blue after a long night of partying and find he and his girlfriend had cleaned my disaster area of a room. And kept the $13.00 of change they'd found on the floor. Which was ok, because I'd inadvertently annoy him by leaving my dirty socks everywhere, especially the kitchen table; or accidentally taping an episode of "The Monkees" over an one-time only Tom Waits concert. The difference was that mine were by accident, his were on purpose. Every once in a while we'd team up on our eventual ex-roommate, Rob (who until he moved out would bug the shit out of both of us by listening to one side of U2's The Unforgettable Fire record over and over again for hours), by visiting him at his graveyard 7-11 shift and going through the shelves and pointing out all of the products which were past their expiration dates. He actually made employee of the month by passing on this information, completely negating our original intent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fin. --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- || Matthew Tomich || <<>> || || 1111 S. Mullanix #258 || ----> skyway@phoenix.creighton.edu <---- || || Kirksville, Missouri 63501 ||(administrative, contribution, all purpose)|| || (816)-785-5220 ||--==--==--==--==--==-*-==--==--==--==--==--|| || "You are not what you own." || ** Non-Skyway address: ** || || /\\/\\/\ - Fugazi /\\/\\/\\ || i261%nemomus@academic.nemostate.edu || --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- "There's no reason to fear!" -- Underdog