Common Ground

Just another friendly reminder you should purchase SuperHeavy for your loved ones this season. Because lining Mick Jagger’s pockets benefits all of mankind. Because it’s freaking awesome, duh. Because don’t get your hopes too high for new Rolling Stones material, get your fresh Jagger on the side. I don’t know how I arrived at thinking Mick Jagger is an underdog who needs a promotional boost, but seriously, here’s a record that deserves to sell millions. Though Superheavy did chart in the top forty, at 26th position, and made it to number 1 in Austria. Not that chart performance means a rat’s ass anymore, but I still very hypocritically promote buying records. So I generally don’t buy albums unless it’s a really nice reissue (or go to the movies unless it’s something I’ve already seen) but I contribute my thing, I go to concerts and stuff, in fact I spend a large chunk of my discretionary income on going to concerts, which is my benefit to take from living in a big city, but you who don’t live in a big city where concerts occur should buy albums.

Gideon’s Bible

In the festive holiday spirit… Not really. But I’m trying to relax, and this helps. John Cale isn’t always the most relaxing guy in the world, but he set the mood on Vintage Violence. Later he said that record was too ‘pop’ as if that were at terribly bad thing. I have to remind myself of the context here; in the seventies people had different ideas about credibility. Nowadays being mainstream and being indie are totally not incompatible at all. But what do I know what John Cale thinks about his credibility. Maybe he wishes someone would give him a gig judging a televised singing competition. In fact, I wish somebody would. Yeah, it would be called The Factory: Search for the  Next Superstar, the judges would be however’s left alive from Warhol’s gang – Cale, Lou Reed, Holly Woodlawn, whomever else hasn’t died yet – and the competitors would be judged on their fabulosity and ability to stare blankly into the camera. It would be both slicingly relevant and utterly redundant. Wouldn’t that be neat? I’d watch that.

R