Dr. Frank's What's-it

I am What I Play

Steven Rubio has some kind things to say about me in this post about small-time musicians who don't know when to quit. Erm, I mean s.-t. m's who selflessly soldier on because they love the music, regardless of how permanently small they are likely to be. They are the true Heroes of our land. God bless us, and God bless America. Hmm, I was trying to make it sound better. Never mind...

Seriously, though: he likens this situation and the musical importance of the small fry in the bigger sea, on the one hand, to that of the less exalted clubs and teams in the sporting world on the other. e.g., each Manchester United stands on the shoulders of a hundred Wrexhams. There's something in that, though for the analogy to be perfect, you'd have to assume that all the Wrexhams and their supporters secretly or openly despise the Man.U-ers and in darker moments hope they all die in a mysterious accident; even while handing over vast sums of money to M.U. while they try to sneak into the Wrexham matches. Maybe they do, at that. I don't know.

I've always seen the "alternative" music world as a kind of shadow music business/culture. Everyone involved tries to do their best low-budget imitation of the real music business. There's less of everything; it's quirkier and more interesting and more boring all at the same time, as the threshold for "failure" is far lower. There are effective "term limits" for participation-- though some people hold on for, like, ever, most participants say "the hell with it" sooner rather than later, so there's more turnover in terms of staff and customers. Practically every fan has his or her own band, as well, so everyone understands implicitly the pain and exaltation of marginality, and sympathizes with the struggles of all of those lower on the totem pole than they perceive themselves to be. (As for those who are undeservedly higher on the pole, they secretly hope they, too, get killed in a mysterious accident.) Occasionally, participants in the shadow music world manage to break in to the real music world; some manage to keep a foot in each, though that's a tough thing to manage or maintain. And there are even times (as in the late 70s) when the shadow music biz's pretensions actually come somewhat close to reflecting reality. That is, when the shadow music world actually is, as a whole, more legitimate and outright "better" than the actual music world, more real than "real."

Rubio also mentions his experience as a listener when I had my radio show on KALX, UC Berkelely's campus radio station. His characterization of my worth and skills as a dj is wildly generous and extravagant. In fact, I used to babble incoherently about nothing in particular, and my chief goal (successful, for what it's worth) was to be as annoying as possible: I was totally inept at every other aspect of dj-ing, though I did play pretty good music between all the fumbling, stumbling and technical difficulties.

I know Steven Rubio only through his charming, unassuming blog (which is one of my favorites) and through a single interview he conducted with me for Punk Planet a few years back. I still think it's one of the best published interviews I've ever participated in. Anyway, he mentions that he used to call me up on my late night show, which I don't remember specifically. You get a lot of calls when you're a late night college radio dj going out of your way to provoke people.

It's funny the callers that I do remember. There were the guys from bands who would call in to request their own songs, attempting to disguise their voices, and pretending to forget the title of the song. Those were great.

And then there was this one guy who, for a period of about a year, would call in on every single show, sometimes more than once, to request "Hinckley had a Vision" by the Crucifucks. Immediately after making the request, he would always say, in a booming, Larry King-like voice: HINCKLEY FOR PRESIDENT! HINCKLEY FOR PRESIDENT! HE HAD A SHOT AT THE MAN! LET"S GIVE HIM A SHOT AT THE JOB!

He would slam the phone down as he said the word "job," so that at first I thought he was saying "jaw." But no, I realized eventually: it was "job." Clearly, he never tired of the spectacularly witty juxtaposition of the literal and figurative sense of "shot." I'm kind of weird myself, and I started actually to enjoy these calls a bit after awhile. You gotta hand it to a guy whose priorities are such that he puts so much effort into maintaining a single, spectacularly unclever joke. I see various strange, not all that edifying parallels there. On those rare occasions when he didn't call, I fancy I experienced a vague sense of emptiness, in fact.

Even after all these years, I occasionally find myself wondering who he was, and what he's doing now. It can't have been the Crucifucks guy himself, as he would have been either in Wisconsin or some kind of mental institution at the time; plus I would have recognized his voice. That's the problem being a semi-public, shadow music biz guy with a funny voice: you can't make crank calls, or request your own songs on the radio. My own career, as musician and as crank caller, has perhaps suffered infinitesimally as a result of this fact of life, as it puts me slightly behind the other shadow musicians and crank callers to whom God gave more normal-sounding voices. In that sense, and in that sense alone, I am indeed a True Hero for our time. God bless me, and God bless America.

Posted by Dr. Frank at February 2, 2004 05:53 PM | TrackBack