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Hamell On Trial's Blog
Posted: 18 Feb 2008 07:57 PM CST
HARVEY PEKAR’S ROCK AND ROLL
sometimes things just happen for a reason, or the lord works in mysterious ways, or it's all a big mistake or whatever the fuck, but i have to say i'm glad it happened as it did...you see my friend ricki c had given me his latest and first cd he just recorded, titled "10 rock and roll songs about rock and roll" awhile back, and although i had every intention of listening to it asap, one thing led to another, and in this particular case the one thing that led to another was me having an unintentional withdrawal from my anti-depressant lexapro that plunged me into a despair so deep that my wife hustled me off to florida where i could recharge in the sunshine by the pool...it worked, god bless her knowledgeable diagnosis, and then i immediately had to hustle my ass on a plane for 2 weeks in london, threw ricki's cd in my bag and started doing the show, the first week in the theater was brilliant but left no time for extra curricular activities, i.e. listening to his disc, and now as the dust cleared, and despite the fact that i'm calling home twice a day and getting all the latest home news, (remind me to blog about my 6 year old son's current infatuation with jackson pollack and his visit with his mom yesterday to the museum of modern art, for another time....), anyway i got wicked homesick yesterday, and today, having some free time after the show i finally got an opportunity to check out ricki's cd...i should also mention that i was pretty familiar with all the tunes prior, and yet it was such a blast of fresh air, so intellectually astute, (he prides himself on his west side columbus ohio blue collar upbringing not unlike harvey pekar, so he'd cringe at that intellectually astute comment), but unpretentious and blistering in it's verbiage and ultimately manifesting itself in, yes, you guessed it, rock and roll...what a relief to hear something like this...i can hear the criticisms now...where's the melodies?...um, same place that tutti frutti has 'em...there's too many words!...you mean like patti smith or jim carroll?, and that's a BAD thing?...anyway infinitely less words than that bible you people go on and on about...and there's something so knowledgeable yet naive about the whole damn thing, just dropping names like a son of a bitch but like a letter from a friend, and you might counter, well, he is your friend ed, yeah, but it would be hard for me not to think that any passionate about the rock and roll fan that's over 40 wouldn't respond to this cd in poignant and resonate ways, and, admittedly that could be a select audience, a point that ricki mourns in a few of the songs, but so what? rock and roll probably never was meant to be mainstream, the few times that it has hit was probably a fucking miracle anyway, but this cd is proof positive that rock and roll still lives, as sure as the white stripes are doing it, as sure as the replacements did it with let it be... so, for those of you that read this, and love the rock and roll, not just like, because if you just LIKE it this cd is going to make no sense to you, but if you jam econo, are looking to get in the van, want to get your ya ya's out, are ready to testify, are a boy looking at johnny, are headed to babylon, and understand everything i just wrote when you picked up your 6 string razor than you need this cd. i did, and i didn't even know it.
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10 rock & roll songs about rock & roll
by RICKI C.
1) Action-Packed Acoustic Rock & Roll
2) If All My Heroes Are Losers
3) Monica
4) WNCI
5) A Life Of Rock & Roll
6) All I Want Is Some Rock & Roll
7) Monica's reprise
8) Today Is Father's Day
9) Katie & The Rolling Stones
10) Strummer's In Heaven > London's Burning (Strummer/Jones)
Buy Ricki C.'s latest CD
"10 rock & roll songs about rock & roll"
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including shipping and handling
to UK & Europe - $13.49
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