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Months ago, I saw a motorcycle cop wipe out on First Avenue here in New York.
Ever been walking down a street with your iPod and heard some city sound that infiltrated the song, and weren’t sure if it was a part of the song? This happens to me all the time. Usually construction noises, as my east village turns into a skyscraper Epcot, but on this day, I distinctly heard the Doppler siren in my ear as I walked up. It turns out that some sheepishly-dressed maggot on a cellphone didn’t, and was crossing the street as this 5-0 tore up the street. There would’ve been a head-on collision, and the cop had two choices: ram into the back of a cab, or lie down and slide.
Somehow, our wayward pedestrian didn’t get arrested, only chewed out. But it made me realize that all it takes to beat a cop in this city is crosswalks, and impeccable timing. Dystopia isn’t nearly as scary when it has a beat to keep time to, or I’ve found, when I’m trying to describe it lyrically. But at least we aren’t writing songs about ‘The Hills’.
About 8 or 9 years ago, while on tour in the wilds of Tennessee, The Beatings met a young drummer named Robby, who was performing with us at the Pilot Light in Knoxville in a band called Pontius Co-Pilot. Through some miracle we kept in touch and met again on the next major Beatings run, where he opened for us in Louisville and I think was the first person to do a live cover of one of our songs (certainly the first to do one solo). Since then, the Beatings have made (and lost contact with) many long-distance friends on our cross-country excursions, but Robby has stayed in touch, even as he toured constantly and changed bands, aliases, homes, and states of hirsuteness. It’s hard to keep track of it all. Anyways, he is one of them hardcore troubadours, a rock n roll hero in the making, roaming the USA and playing his heart out. When he steps away from the stage and whatever band he is in at the moment, he is Robby Catholic of the Fanged Robot. Don’t ask me why; I don’t know what hell he’s talking about half the time. But, he stopped by the Band in Boston Flophouse earlier this month and pounded the shit out of his guitar. It’s great. Check it out.
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Another product of goofing off at the Yamaha station with a recently purchased RC-20 XL (now with loop fade-out!). This was mostly done using a finger bass setting, and overlaying the same part multiple times through an RV-3 pedal, which generated that weird scratchy sound I find so spooky. Mike swears he’s going to put words to this one and when he does, he can change the name. I don’t think it’s finished by a long shot, but still, people seem to like it. Then again, those people are my friends. Anyways, along with Early Hours this song reminds me of the end of an era, my last days as an NYC resident, sitting around in the back yard of 51st street drinking Modelo Especial, watching birdfeeders.
