I feel like when bands pose questions in songs, that they should answer them...I think it’s their moral obli- well not moral but it’s their obligation ya know...instead of leaving us wondering, ya know..ol’ Southpaw’s melon twisted around like that... People have been asking questions in songs since the dawn of time..I mean maybe not as hard-hitting as stuff like How Much Is That Doggie In The Window? or Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bedpost Overnight...an investigation that I still don’t think has been properly resolved...and I mean could it ever be? Isn’t it all about the individual...heck both the person and the particular piece of gum itself...I’m not sure we can say with any certainty given any stick of gum in combination with any human being...and that’s what makes life so terrifying... I mean the questions weren’t always about candy...or as hard as teeth themselves ya know...though I mean in Sweet Child O’Mine, Axl was quite concerned with knowing ‘where do we go now?’ and I mean he sounds like he’s in pain with all the ‘ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow’s at the end...I mean is he hinting he needs to go a hospital...maybe he’s having stomach trouble from things being..all too sweet...I mean I know producers drive you hard to get the right take but couldn’t they have taken him to a doctor first? and why did they want to doc-ument his agony like that? but I also feel they could have easily answered that question had they put Paradise City after Sweet Child O’Mine on the record, it would’ve been such a simple fix..insteada leaving Southpaw staying up nights unable to sleep tryin’ to figure out ‘well, where are they going now?’...answer coulda been simply ‘Paradise City’...instead of all the endless conjectures...to China to try and instill democracy...to Italy for some sorta of incident involving pasta...or to the land of illusions where there’s apparently a civil war going on...such is the danger of leaving these questions unanswered...I mean with Paradise City, even if they didn’t mean it, you know if they had no intention of even putting it on their GPS...GNR’s GPS, that would go for a fortune on ebay...but they coulda just said it to give us a placebo, Placebo being a band who funnily enough had Come Home as first song first album...could that be the same home Axl was talkin’ about with ‘won’t you please take me etc’...and I guess that’s another question, won’t you? and I mean it’s all about the Depeche Mode Guns N Roses connection, really, I mean tellingly, in 86, the year before Appetite, Depeche Mode themselves, masters not servants of the interrogative form, released Black Celebration, containing two songs with the word question in them – A Question Of Lust and A Question Of Time – but no question marks! I don’t want things to get too crazy but it woulda been rad if they were written the Spanish way with two, ya know the upside down one at the beginning of the sentence and all that jazz Depeche Mode of course – who years later would put out a song of their own called ‘Home’ on Ultra – but they got their properly punctuated queries out right away on the first album with What’s Your Name? even though the lyrics themselves asked no questions whatsoever...a smart move, the listener can simply answer the question of the title by stating their own name out loud – or silently I guess like if like they’re on a bus to a submarine museum or just shy you know – but after that they don’t have to worry about entering any sort of existential meltdowns brought on by queries within the lyrics...and then The Clash had ‘What’s My Name’...the New York Dolls predicting this sort of confusion years before with Personality Crisis...but I mean a personality crisis...Imagine if UB40 covered The Cure’s Why Can’t I Be You?... it would break minds ya know what’s crazy is that I grew up thinkin’ the tv show What’s Happening had a question mark at the end, cause that’s how I heard it thank you very much but now watching reruns, which is crazy, I mean if there’s any show to watch re-runs of, I mean it’s like an infinite time loop watching a re-run of Rerun, but anyway my point is that it’s got not one but two exclamation points at the end of it like you would have if you transcribed what I just said but the thing is I can’t be sure they just didn’t add those in later, that the show I watched as a kid did indeed have a question mark but for nefarious reasons they, whoever they are, have altered it in later years...there’s no way to prove this of course, I mean unless we had a time machine...I mean we could ask Nietzsche but I don’t wanna take time outta him following the Wu Tang Clan around...and I mean I don’t know why they would change it in the first place And this could definitely be applied to movies, you know like with The Wizard Of Oz, question mark on the Oz, The Wizard Of Oz? Cause no one knows what Oz is, did they refer to Australia as Oz before that? I don’t know...and anyway that would only further serve to confuse things, I mean we all know Australia has different wildlife with their dingos and boxing kangaroos but to conjecture they also have an Emerald City with cowardly talking lions might be all too much...unless I’m completely wrong about this, and The Wizard Of Oz was just a 1939 documentary on Australia..hence the question mark...but regardless of all that it’s still a reasonable question – the wizard of Oz?? I mean you could do it with every Star Wars film too...Star Wars? The Empire Strikes Back? Return of the Jedi?...Return of the Jedi? I mean is the emphasis on return or the jedi? I mean I guess it could be both..Return? Of The Jedi? but then you’d prolly need two question marks...then like Phantom Menace? Attack of the Clones? Revenge of the Sith?...and then of course like Revenge Of The Sith and Return Of The Jedi are like almost interchangeable so like you can have a whole nother movie if you can get this question thing goin’ right..a whole nother two movies prolly... like – Revenge of the Jedi? Return of the Sith? – cause by now people are gonna know what the words jedi and sith mean so the questioning emphasis doesn’t have to be on them...I mean there ya go... and then, oh man, I don’t remember what the newer ones are called, I know I’ve seen ‘em and I liked ‘em, a lot too, so I mean let’s move on..cause like every movie..ya know...Night Shift? Who’s Harry Crumb? that’s already got one...Stripes? ..actually nah, Stripes is prolly the one movie you couldn’t, it’d just be confusing..cause you’re like asking did they get the stripes? not really the focus of that film...I mean there ya go..question mark But like Star Wars? people are gonna be questioning that, especially in 1977..I mean what stars are going to war with one another, I mean they don’t have human aggression...just up there so high, like a diamond in the sky...well maybe those are just the little stars you know...that don’t have the manpower to go to war...they’re just up there writin’ poems...well that poem was prolly actually written by a human...I don’t know if any stars write poems...I mean how would they do it, they don’t have any hands...or feet...though maybe I’m being too literal with the ‘write’ ..perhaps they just talk them into their tape recorders..or phones I guess nowadays..though in 77 it woulda been a tape recorder, big one too...but I mean if they do, do they return the favour and write little ditties about us humans?...again, not that we know of...or even just eight line poems...but I mean still, imagine how much better Star Wars would’ve been if David Bowie was in it like they originally planned you know... and it was the Rebel Rebel Alliance...but like The Man Who Fell To Earth really messes with the timeline ya know, a literal prequel coming out the year before and there aren’t even any Ewoks in it! Or Ewen McGregor!...but perhaps this whole conundrum was what Bowie was talking about with Space Oddity though of course Starman ya know, Bowie predicted this, again highlighting that only men start wars I mean was Ziggy Stardust the Luke Skywalker of his day...which was only 5 years before! Which is crazy when you think that 5 Years is the first song on the album And of course Bowie had the greatest question-marked song of all-time, ‘Life On Mars?’, and did he answer that question – on the very next album – by naming Ziggy’s backing band The Spiders From Mars?

Ya know that song, It Might As Well Rain Until September, ya know? But I mean, what if it’s October 1st and September’s just passed and you’re sayin’ it’s ok to rain for an entire year...that’s crazy...and ya know as Axl pointed out, that rain gets cold in November...I mean I guess that song was a warning disguised as a love song, a secret plea to those who are inclined to be so willy-nilly about the weather like that...and Blind Melon, despite needing the precipitation for that melon to grow took up a rather hardline stance against this kind of thing And that song It’s Raining Men, imagine if the two were combined...I know It’s Raining Men is a real positive happy song, people love to dance to it, but it also sounds to me like one of the biblical plagues...frogs, locusts, ya know, just men coming from the sky...and who knows what type of men they are? could be armed marauders...or those with ideas for a jam band where they’re just banging on bowls of jam, on the jam itself ya know, to be authentic..get that kind of splishy, jiggly sound...and there’s so many of them dropping from the sky the record companies are trying to get them to be in one almighty band together so as to eliminate saturating the market with rivalries...all this despite what a nightmare touring would be... I don’t know if jam bands were around back then, certainly aren’t mentioned the book of Exodus...but I mean like imagine if that thrash band Exodus – ya know, Toxic Waltz, Last Act Of Defiance, all that – imagine if they covered It’s Raining Men...I mean that’d be crazy...ya know they say stranger things have happened, that’s an expression, but I can’t imagine anything stranger than Exodus covering It’s Raining Men...straaaaange raaaain, that’s got kind of a nice sound to it ya know... And you know it’s biblical, with the Hallelujah and the Amen And like ya know if it’s the torrential downpour that the song suggests, why would anyone think these men are going to be in any sort of working order when they land – I imagine very few would ‘hit the ground running’ as Roth sings in Unchained, the finest rock song ever recorded – but like if these guys are falling from the skies, if they do land on their feet – and with the wind factor, that’s a big if – they’ll probably twist if not sprain or even break their ankles or maybe even their whole legs...and of course being thrown about in the sky like that, a good number will probably come down on their heads, knocking them unconscious..if they’re not already from cracking into other similar souls up there in the sky...and it’s like do you know how many raindrops there are in a storm?...if an equal number of men came down, there’s no way the Earth could sustain them...not enough housing or food...though I mean it could drive up album sales if they all just started buying records immediately, I’m not sayin’ this is a plot on the part of the record industry but I’m not not saying that either...get RATT back in the charts you know...and let’s not forget that in a storm lightning is a possibility, just picking dudes off left and right, their fried remains hitting the ground, well I guess it doesn’t matter how as they’ve already been electrocuted to death...unless some are riding the lightning as Metallica says...sky surfing...I mean is Metallica behind this?..and these are the puppets they were talking about on the next album? and then you got Blackened being the first song on ...And Justice For all... I mean – as they say in the song – this is happening at half past ten at night..it’s dark out for goodness sake! and kinda late, people are tired, or stumblin’ around drunk...and with all this happening, of course they’d be at the Frayed Ends Of Sanity and like getting back to Unchained, they better hit the ground running cause if not they’re gonna have a whole heap of bodies landing on them in seconds, in fact these bodies would be piling so high in a matter of minutes you prolly wouldn’t be able to see the sky anymore – I mean would that stop the rain? – though I guess these dudes would eventually be breaking their successors falls, so that the later ones could just walk down the heap of bodies to get to the earth – but where do they go? I guess Nelson dealt with this on their After The Rain of course...it’s all well and good being after, but there’s no practical advice for what to do while this storm is occurring! And where are they all originating from? I mean did the Stones start this with Hey You Get Offa My Cloud? then Joni Mitchell picked up the mantle with that album...I mean is this where the phrase Cloud 9 comes from? The only safe place to be up in the sky, the only cloud you wouldn’t soon be ejected from and thrown to your likely death?!...and what about Hendrix’s If 6 Was 9, what was he up to there? now It’s Raining Men came out in 1982, and it can’t be any coincidence that that same year Duran Duran released Hold Back The Rain, aside from everything else, they knew all those dudes would drown if they landed in the Rio Grande and Tones On Tail formed in 1982 too – that’s 1982 also I guess, I’m not talking about 10,000 years in the future – and they had Burning Skies, and also Rain, not sure how else you’d reconcile the two but with the lightning-singed bodies of what The Weather Girls were talking about! ya know what’s crazy too, is the producer Flood recorded that second Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album, The Firstborn Is Dead, and the very first track on that is Tupelo, about the almighty storm that flooded the town back when Elvis was born, ‘say these streets are rivers, call these rivers streets’...I mean having Flood record that album, that’s just tempting fate but as if that wasn’t enough, he produced Erasure’s Loveboat album, I mean taking a boat out in a flood, nevah knew they were such daredevils!, though I guess they did have Ship Of Fools.. but ya know going further they’ve got the song Cryin’ In The Rain on the Loveboat album too, cause why not add more water...I say that completely sarcastically, I don’t want the rains to carry me away Then this chap Flood mixed Depeche Mode’s Delta Machine, I mean why would you chance it?! But ya know what? Thinkin’ more about that whole November Rain No Rain thing, was that...was that another rivalry thing? like I was talking about on the Moon a few episodes back, but here on Earth...one that Blind Melon was tryin’ ta start?...I mean 1993 Year Of The Water Rooster too, what were they playin’ at, of course there’s gonna be rain...but look at the words, N-O spells ‘no’ but is also the first two letters of November?!...look at them just throwin’ down the gauntlet of whether roses or melons were gonna grow in the garden...or wait just a second!...with those titles being so similar...was it..a cover?!...a wildly interpretive one maybe, but a cover nonetheless...in which nothing about the original song remains...ya know, like jazz...and cleverly, disguising this even further, neither of the two songs sound even remotely like jazz...so well played I guess

I was listenin’ to that song, you know that song - Good Vibrations by the Beachy Boys double B ya know basketball..baseball too I guess but uh...no, good vibrations GBV right in there - one of that greatest rock n roll bands of all time!...though I guess it’s G V B, but ya know with things all vibratin’ around like that...BUT! I had like a major revelation, like Revelation Mother Earth that Ozzy song ya know double O double BO - BOBO like the clown.. or Oboe..a clown playin’ an oboe, I mean they must, right? at least once..but naw oboe’s one B, but is there oboe on Good Vibrations? he was using all sorts a crazy instruments musta used an oboe at least around that time, ya know whether or not there was a clown playin’ it or not.. and like! well I was gonna say the oboe actually isn’t that crazy of an instrument but it totally is! the old double reed ya know...like Donna Reed and Oliver Reed...or like the Reid brothers of the Jesus And Mary Chain..imagine if all those Mary Chain songs were - instead played on fuzzed out guitars all feedin’ back, if it was like an orchestra of oboes? Just Like Honey, well I mean honey might make the reeds stick together - I mean the wooden reeds of the instrument not the brothers ya know I mean there was that long hiatus...and they did Surfin USA too ya know...but then like an orchestra of oboes that’s a whole lot of reeds, more than just two and I don’t know how many other siblings they had...there was that Sister Vanilla album, though I think that’s it..but I mean I wouldn’t put money on it...I think I might be gettin’ confused but then like the other way around - O B - there was that crazy catchy ad in the 90s ya know - keep it simple, and set yourself free... but where was I? I gotta tell ya that Beach Boys and JMC connection took me by surprise, blindsided me...and like what if I were to go see an optometrist just to make sure my head was on straight after this - or am I takin’ blindsided too literally? - but still, never can be too careful, actually I don’t if that’s true but anyway, what if I went to the optometrist and there was a giant B on the eye exam chart!...the letter I mean...not the insect, though I mean they are kinda small so that might prove my eyesight was ok.... but oh yeah Revelation, you had that Iron Maiden song too - and like there were live versions of both of those, well I mean of course there were but I mean live recorded versions on Tribute and Live After Death...man, tons of revelations today...but like I was talkin’ about Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys and like despite the ending in -shun, neither the Iron Maiden or the Ozzy song is a cover of that... but that would be wild! if like Iron Maiden and Ozzy got together and..and like Maiden’s got like 3 guitar players now - Janick Gers, Adrian Smith, Dave Murray all playin’ together, it’s crazy ya know! so maybe if you had like Ozzy joining Bruce Dickinson, keepin’ with the rule of threes, get Paul Dianno back to do a cover of Good Vibrations ya know! all those backing vocals woo!...the B V’s...maybe get some otha people in ya know, I don’t know who..though I mean Ozzy, I guess that suggests Lita Ford and like get Blazes Bailey from Wolfsbane who was in Iron Maiden for a little bit ya know...the 3 vocalists of Maiden...tho like all those 3s and Blaze was in Maiden for the two albums with numbers in the title, I said Numbers with an S so not Number Of The Beast though the albums themselves were singular numbers, and Roman numerals no less, you know how fond I am of those...for the curious, those would be The X Factor and Virtual 11, X-I ya know..actual what am I talkin’ about...Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, though you could argue and if like we were in court about this, I would... that the word ‘seventh’ isn’t technically a number, merely a word denoting a number, alright I mean you could contest that it’s an ordinal number but I didn’t say ‘ordinal number’..though I guess I didn’t say ‘cardinal number’ either so...my bad... so I mean should we get like 7 vocalists for this? I mean that’s more than on the original..and would outnumber the guitarists and like there aren’t even that many guitars on the original..and ya know Steve Harris could prolly handle all that with the bass anyway..so like maybe a bass a capella version, naw! you want Nicko McBrain on there.. ...you know you do you know.. but what I’m sayin’ is, I was listenin’ to Good Vibrations and it hit me, what has always unsettled me about the song...and..well, I’ll just tell you what it is.........that ‘ex-citations’ line..ya know, ‘she’s givin’ me ex-citations’...he’s talkin’ about bein’ excited there ya know! ex-exciting ex- exsigh?...but like the way he said it, cause like people don’t really say it like that, so for years - decades ya know - I’ve been thinkin’ - cause he’s sayin’ emphasizing it so it just sounds like ‘citations’..like you’d get to go to court ya know - well I mean yeah, like maybe for the whole cardinal/ordinal numbers thing, I don’t know if that’s ever happened in the history of the known universe but if we do go to court about it I mean there’d be a precedent already set - and dang ordinal numbers ya do get like citations for an ordi-NANCE violation ya know... but that’s always the first thing that crosses my mind whenever I hear the tune, confusin’ me a little bit but I mean it’s rather poetic too ya know in that 60s..surreal..art movement kinda thing..ya know, influenced by the Beats and whatnot ya know I guess..like ya know ‘She’s givin’ me ex-citations’ like I got a summons to appear in court but she’s X’in it out - TAKIN’ IT AWAY! - x factor ya know, just like that Maiden album..their cover of Good Vibrations shoulda been on that!.....but..what I’m sayin’ is...ya know... that..that’s loooove..if someone cares that much about you, they make it so you don’t have to appear in court....BUT! the Beach Boys aren’t talkin’ about that at all it seems...Ain’t Talkin Bout Love being like that anyway as Van Halen might’ve later put it..but actually wait a minute, let’s not be so hasty..maybe it’s poetry that works on quite a few levels..but like maybe I’m the fool here cause it took me forever to realize they’re talkin’ about being excited, of course you’d be excited if..you..didn’t..have..to..go..to..court....ya know?..I mean you ever get a traffic ticket and you go and try and fight it and the officer who gave it to you doesn’t show up?..I mean that’s EXCITING ya know...that’s love, in a way... but I mean that’s some bad vibes in the first place gettin’ a ticket getting’ pulled over...you’re not feelin’ no good vibrations when that’s happenin’....well I mean I guess unless your car is operating in a very specific way that is actually sending some sort of pulse out that you’re all into but in a way that is technically illegal and that’s why the cop is pulling you over..but I mean even without that, I don’t wanna be the one to say it, but you could actually be..breakin’ the law...woah! I mean is Halfred involved in this? He gotta be! Get him in on this cover with ol’ Brucey D, Ozzy-oh, Lita Ford, and Paul Dianno...indeed! Rob Halfred...and woah again! Of course you gotta have Robert Pollard! I mean Good Vibrations - G V B, you gotta have the frontman of GBV......and we’re up to six singers now...who would be the logical seventh to go with the ordinal number of that Maiden album? answers on an electronic postcard please...and man I’m still seeing this as a Maiden album since the backing band would basically be, well now, actually is, Iron Maiden...I mean if they were to form a supergroup - I mean G V B would be the name to go to - but again confusin’.. all these questions and this one a two-parter.....which is - should this version of Good Vibrations be credited to Iron Maiden or should they form a supergroup and what would the name of it be? so I guess answers to this also...on an electronic postcard...

I really wish I could get over the fact that I’ve Had The Time Of My Life and Hungry Eyes could not possibly be of the time period Dirty Dancing deals with! I mean I was doin fine, hadn’t thought of this in quite a while. And then some days ago I was out at the supermarket hoping against hope for some soup, and the radio started playin’ Hungry Eyes. Which – WOAH! I mean now that I think about it is a genius thing to be playin where they sell food. Well I mean in principle, just slippin it in, arrogantly thinking people aren’t gonna equate it with the phrase ‘your eyes were bigger than your stomach’. Such bravado, ya know. But obviously they didn’t count on the effect it would have on me. Just send me into a state of confusion, like that Kinks album ya know, came out in 1983 while Dirty Dancing didn’t hit theaters until 1987. So the two of them spanning David Lee Roth being both in and out of Van Halen – like a Schrodinger’s Cat, I guess – a Schrodinger’s Roth…. But I heard that song, I forgot all about food and just started ponderin’ ya know. Well heck brooding wouldn’t be strong a word for it! Cause it bugged me out, ya know. I mean first of all, eyes aren’t hungry. That’s a property of the stomach, ya know. But then I started questioning myself, like was there some sort of scientific development in the mid-80s where they were testing these things that I just completely missed out on? Or ya know, like during the time that Dirty Dancing was supposed to take place, was there some sorta scientific research going on, and there’s this underlying theme that no one really picked up on in the movie? That like it was about eating…with your eyes… I mean it didn’t seem like a horror movie. Well, maybe to some… And that whole phrase ya know ‘your eyes were bigger than your stomach’, that doesn’t even make any sense. Of course they’re not…or weren’t…to keep the tense right… Though there’s those big-eyed paintings, ya know. Margaret Keane. But even then, I don’t think they’re bigger than an actual stomach. And I mean, you’d never say this to a cow, they’ve got 4 of ‘em! They’d be all like – which stomach, yo? And again, Margaret Keane didn’t paint any visible stomachs in those big eye portraits or at least there’s none I’m aware of. So it’s impossible to make that call… But wait! Is that what those pictures were all about?! The before photos, when they ordered too much food! Are there after photos anywhere? Maybe hidden on the sets in Dirty Dancing? And ya know the sayin’ is meant to imply you thought you could eat more than you could, ya know. So it all boils down to money. Cause you’re wastin’ food. Unless someone else eats it, and then like, how big are their eyes? But is there a part of the body that corrolates to money? Like the stomach does to food? But like, what if you eat your own eyes? That would be a problem…for many reasons… No one does this…that I know… tryin’ to teach the eyes a lesson like…so you’re not orderin’ more food than you could possibly consume again on a future occasion. But I mean in this case it makes sense to ya know, scarf down one’s own eyes. Like an eye for an eye, have the punishment fit the crime. So an eye for a stomach, a little twist there. Maybe a twist of lemon to make it more palatable… But there weren’t any major food scenes in Dirty Dancing, that I can remember… I mean they were eating breakfast and whatnot when Baby’s all talkin’ to her Daddy. But I mean Dirty Dancin and food, was it dirty because there was like a food fight ya know that they’re dancin’ in? I mean that seems more messy than dirty. But like at the end of that Czech film Daisies from the 60s…ya know Vera Chytilova… I mean hardly seems like it could’ve inspired Dirty Dancing… But I can’t rule that out. The 80s were a weird time. I mean David Lee Roth had just left Van Halen… I mean if they were gonna use modern songs, they shoulda done Dance The Night Away ya know? Or ya know maybe change it to Dirty Jumping? And like, well, I’m just gonna say it! After Roth had left Van Halen we had enough to contend with with that fact alone. We weren’t really prepared to deal with I’ve Had The Time Of My Life and Hungry Eyes. It not being in any way possible that they could have come from 1963 when the film takes place. I mean I guess in the confusion maybe they thought they could just sneak that in and no one would mind cause they’re still dealing with Roth’s departure… But if we take it at face value, that this was on purpose – a layer to the film that we’re supposed to pick up on – I mean the only thing that really solves it…is time travel, ya know? I mean Back To The Future had come out a couple years before… But I mean, it’s tough cause as far as I can tell, and I’ve seen Dirty Dancing multiples times, it seems to be constantly on television…and maybe even on other mediums we don’t even know about… but as far as I can tell, you never see the time travelers in that film. I mean please message me if I’m wrong. Though wait a minute, I’ll be so embarrassed if it’s like completely obvious… But like if you don’t see the time travelers, that also means you don’t see them eating. So I mean…wooo-eeee! I just don’t know how to resolve this one And it’s been what? 33 years since it came out?! I mean maybe, since this is a soundtrack related issue, when it turns 33 1/3 they’ll send out an official statement explaining it all… Though woah! I should put in a disclaimer right now – I have not seen the musical. If they do explain it all – ya know, with the eye stomach experiments and all the time-travel – in the stage show then I apologize for wasting y’alls time And let me know, please. I mean if they address all these issues in the musical – maybe even produced the show as its raison d’etre, to clear it all up – then I should go see it, set my mind at ease… And She’s Like The Wind too! Almost forgot about that one. While the hungry eyes studies were going on were there also concurrent experiments with weather and invisibility? All going on at this resort in the Catskills in 1963? BUT WOAH!!! That New Order song 1963, ya know the b-side to True Faith. That came out in 1987! Why wasn’t that on the soundtrack?! Woulda cleared a lotta this up!

So I’m doin another podcast, one where I interview artists I really dig, it’s called Etcetera ETC with Young Southpaw. You can find it at all the places ya know. And last week’s one was pretty eye-opening man. I interviewed The Indelicates, a band I’ve loved for a long time, and Simon Indelicate pointed something out… Now it’s weird man, like I’m not exactly sure his last name is Indelicate, I wouldn’t put money on it, especially against him. But that’s the name of the band and so the last name he uses I’m pretty sure. I mean this is the way things have gone since The Ramones, since the end of last century, or I guess the last fifth of last century, that album came in 1980 I think… But ya know, hey ho, let’s go with it… But speaking of real names, there was that character in Tommy P’s Inherent Vice novel called Vincent Indelicato. And well I can’t say that I’m not sure that that’s his real last name cause he’s someone that Thomas Pynchon created so like… I don’t know, I mean, he’s obviously a fictional character, but it’s probably the fictional character’s real last name. There was no indication in Inherent Vice that he was, that this was an alias, or that he was even in a band. I mean I doubt he was even in The Indelicates. Man, I guess I missed a trick. That I should have asked The Indelicates have they ever had any fictional characters, by Thomas Pynchon or otherwise, in their band. And then like this guy would have been a bit of a rebel too, insisting on Indelicato while the rest of them are Indeli-cate ya know… But anyway like Simon Indelicate ya know…aka……..Simon Indelicate… pointed out that Jovi, ya know Jon Bon… his first appearance on record was actually that Star Wars Christmas album that came out in 1980 ya know. Woah same year as The Ramones’ End Of A Century! I wonder what that’s implying. I mean centuries can be used to measure the distance ya know like for a long time ago in a etc ya know. But this got me thinking – why didn’t the Star Wars movies, ya know, like the Bond films, have theme tunes with like the popstars of the day on them? Woulda been rad! And huge for the music industry! I mean they wouldn’t have to have the Ramones do one, even though that’s probably what we all want! I mean they were on that Space Ghost Coast To Coast promoting their Acid Eaters covers album but we’d want original material, ya know! Like Rocket To Russia would be more appropriate especially if like after blowing up the Death Star the Ramones themselves – I mean I guess they’d have to be in the film now – so like they help the rebels blow up the Death Star then they take said rocket and go to the Soviet Union to fight Drago. I mean yeah it’d have to be like all four of them cause they’re like skinny guys living on junk food… But ya know, like the Bond films, I think we’d want the theme songs to be done by a different band for each film. I mean Shirley Bassey, she’s a whole different story, can’t get enough of her. Imagine her covering Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough, for a Bond film no less! And besides ya know you can’t be poaching people who have already done Bond films. Though if that lead to a Star Wars film where James Bond himself was playing a lead role, that’d be pretty amazing! So like who can we get? It’s 1977, right? And yeah the John Williams theme tune is classic enough but who’s to say it wouldn’t have been an even bigger movie ya know if like KISS had been in it?! I mean that makes total sense too ya know. Ya got StarChild and Ace as the Spaceman and like Gene Simmons’ make-up coulda easily been like another Darth Vader type character! And then like Peter Criss – don’t you find it weird that with all the different planets they visited in those films you never see one cat! And like if KISS were in Star Wars, woulda saved us all from KISS Meets the Phantom Of The Park. Though I gotta say I do like the acoustic version of Beth from that film… Then we’ll slate The Ramones in for Empire and then we got Jedi… I mean 1983 was a killer year for music Would Return of the Jedi have been better if it had a soundtrack of Def Leppard, something from Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, and Metallica? Like the Imperial March is rad and all but imagine adding Seek & Destroy to the Empire’s theme music?! And then of course I forgot all about why this is happening in the first place, gotta get ol’ Jon Bon himself involved! I mean Jovi was an actor for a while, he was in Ally McBeal. In one of those high Boston office buildings too. I mean closer to space than here on Earth and ya know legal battles are kinda like wars ya know. I mean lawyers always seem so busy, I don’t know if they’d have time to go see a film called Moderately High When Compared To The Ground…Wars… And it would’ve had to have come out before Legal Eagles I think. Ya know if the Star Wars franchise stood a hope of surviving. But I mean this could be the New Hope they’re talkin about! And like Calista Flockhart, that’s a name up there with Luke Skywalker! She was as, Jovi himself pointed out in Living On A Prayer, “halfway there”. I don’t mean to imply that Star Wars was some sort of documentary about Ms. Flockhart and Jon Bon Jovi on the set of Ally McBeal… But wait a minute! Cliff Clavin from Cheers was in Empire Strikes Back! Makes sense too with him being a mailman and he’s in that scene on the ice planet Hoth, I mean Boston gets real cold in the winter! And ya know “neither snow nor rain not heat” etc. – snow is the very first one in the mail carrier’s motto! So like maybe he’s in the mail room at the Rebel Legal Office and he delivers some important maybe even the plans to yet another Death Star if they wanna keep harpin’ on that, delivers em to ol’ C Flock herself. Woah! Should Flock of Seagulls do her theme tune?! That’d be wild! But then like, would Jovi end up composing his own theme tune? I don’t know how I feel about that… And like legally speaking, Simon Indelicate was the one who pointed this out to me in our interview, so it seems only appropriate that The Indelicates should soundtrack one of the films themselves… But like they didn’t form until 2005, and I don’t even think in time for Revenge Of The Sith. Unless like, I mean if they were to remake the films now and have a subplot be about a band from the south of England time-travelling in order to get on the soundtrack of the very film we’re all watching! I mean it might be a bit more believable

Love will tear us apart, I mean maybe ya know. I guess that’s a possibility. I’d certainly never thought of that before I heard the song. That’s kinda dark. Though you look at those photos of Joy Division, they’re all black and white as well, real gloomy… But ya know love, maybe… like I said, but ya know what would definitely tear a couple apart? Bears! I mean why wasn’t it Bears Will Tear Us Apart? Same number of syllables, ya know? I’d have to think that just by using logic Ian Curtis woulda thought of that before love occurred to him. Comes first alphabetically too! In case like the charts were rigged that way. I guess A would be even better but… Can’t think of anything…axes? Nah, see that’s two syllables. And they more chop apart than tear. Though that So I Married An Ax Murderer had a pretty good soundtrack ya know. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin doin’ Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers. Boo Radleys coverin The La’s There She Goes. Suede with My Insatiable One. Now that’s pretty dark when you’re talking about ax murderers. Insatiable, woo. I wonder if New Order were even considered for that soundtrack? They coulda done like…well Lions & Tigers & Bears was a chant, not really a song. But ya know how they had a certain fondness for like frog noises and whatnot, on singles no less? They coulda thrown the Lions & Tigers & Bears chant into their tune for the So I Married An Ax Murderer soundtrack. A knowing nod to their secret history. But wait a minute like what if New Order…covered the entire Wizard of Oz soundtrack… And like if you pressed play on it at the beginning of So I Married An Axe Murderer it was like the most psychedelic experience ever! But I mean yeah again axes and definitely axe murderers chop more than tear. Could be a combo I guess. Not so snappy of a song title though, ya know – Axes & Axes Murderers Will Chop & Tear Us Apart. Rarely do such themes make it into the singles charts. Though So I Married An Axe Murderer was ultimately a film about love. So this is quite problematic… But like what strictly tears? Eyes I guess, not in the same way of course. That’d be crazy if tears…teared…tore? I mean now we’re in Pixies territory, no pun intended. Though I don’t know, who knows the inner workings of my mind and what it means to intend and whatnot? But that’d be crazy if Debaser was actually a cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart. Done to point out exactly what I’m saying here about the tearing. Imagine if Salvador Dali went on to sing for Joy Division, they just kept the name after Ian passed and like Peter Murphy ended up bein’ their chauffeur. And that’s what that Duran Duran song is about! That makes perfect sense! Though if it was a bear drivin’ a car, like if Peter Murphy couldn’t make it to work one day. I mean I assume if Peter Murphy was going to get someone to replace him, bear or otherwise, he’d make sure they could drive. Heck they even had that Spy In The Cab, he’d totally know who he was putting in charge of cartin Joy Division around. Heck, it might even be too much of a system. But let’s just say, like there’s a communication breakdown, Jimmy Page workin’ some dark magic ya know, and a bear who doesn’t have a license, doesn’t even know how to drive, has prolly never even been behind the wheel of a car before – or any vehicle, tractors and gold carts included – let’s just say this bear finds himself there. What can he do? Does his best, I’m sure. But there is a very real danger that this bear…could tear them apart… Just by wrapping them around a tree or somethin’. And the car, car would go first. This could be what the songs Confusion and True Faith are about, heck maybe even Everything’s Gone Green – ya know this bear just taking them all back to the woods where he knows it’s safe. Rather than on busy city streets with radio stations refusin to play Axes & Axe Murderers Will Chop And Tear Us Apart But like back to what I was sayin’ about alphabetically, eyes would be out cause E comes after B. Though like Bear’s Eyes Will Tear Us Apart does sound real cool and poetic, heck even more intriguing than Love. Lots of people fall in love, or claim to for whatever reason. But how often do you come face to face with a pair of bear’s eyes? Then like they could be crying, the tears tearing apart…it’s all startin’ to make sense now… And like Paddington Bear, ya know! Keepin’ it English. I’m not sayin’ Paddington Bear was violent at all. And neither am I sayin’ Joy Division should have been playing children’s television shows. If that’s what you’re taking away from this, let me correct your misconceptions. Though I mean I don’t wanna take money outta their pockets either. I mean kids prolly woulda liked Dali’s moustache, not payin’ so much attention to the sounds coming out of the speakers… Huh… Though there’s prolly some copyright stuff with Paddington Bear but like ya know I mentioned they liked sampling animal noises, I imagine since those were still early days of electronic music you’d need a live bear at some point in the equation. Like musos didn’t regularly have authentic bear samples on hand. I mean where do ya go? Well Liverpool, of course! Bill Drummond and Dave Balfe got Zoo Records going… Woah, speakin’ of bears and Liverpool, there was that band Care ya know. Paul Simpson and Ian Broudie. Care Bears ya know, woo! They had that tune Flaming Sword. Imagine facing that on the dancefloor! That’ll tear you apart. Well, I guess more slice though. But still, Care Bears With A Flaming Sword, now we’re talkin! There were apparently a lot of animals in Liverpool at the time, certainly enough for a zoo – Lori & The Chameleons, Wild Swans, even Bunnymen – and then like all that Beatles memorabilia of course. Other cities prolly had Zoo Envy. Well how bout Zoos Will Tear Us – or heck Zeus! Will Tear Us Apart. I mean his lightning certainly would. Split you right in half. Like that Smiths song you know. And the Greeks woulda been fond of division too. Archimedes and his crew, all those cats. Maybe they even wrote Zeus Will Tear Us Apart and it’s just been floatin in the ether ever since for Ian Curtis ta pick up on thousands a years later. I mean I wonder how many songs this happens for…

I have a new album out, ‘The Lost Archimedes’. You can get it over on Bandcamp, youngsouthpaw.bandcamp.com And on the album I broach the subject that what if David Bowie had replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen? I mean makes sense, ya know. Coupling two of the most innovative musicians of the 20th century. Heck, prolly even of the entire Universe since Time Immemorial. But also ya know, they both had songs called 1984. Van Halen’s the first track on the greatest album ever made, Bowie’s was on Diamond Dogs…Diamond Dave, there ya go! Makes perfect sense… And they also both covered The Kinks’ ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone’. A very relevant question after Roth’s departure And I mean the Bowie Jagger Dancin’ In The Street is a hard thing to reckon with man. But when you realize it came in 1985, the very year Roth left and a mere months after that devastating event. Ya gotta figure it might have been some sort of signaling, ya know. VH themselves had also covered it back on Diver Down – another DD, like Diamond Dogs – an odd way to go about it, but ya know, lettin’ em know that he was available for the position. Gettin’ some moral support from his good buddy Mick And then like 5150 man, that’s gotta be a nod to the US Festival ya know. Van Halen had a clause in their contract that no one could be paid more than them. So when Bowie was gettin’ a million and a half dolla bills, that brought VH’s fee up to also 1 point 5. 5150 ya know, even and then gettin’ raised up 5150 ya got Inside as the last…song, I guess, if you can call it that… Then Bowie goes and releases 1.Outside, a decade later of course, obviously he’s still smarting that it never happened. Heart’s Filthy Lesson and all that… BUT!! Before that – and this is HUGE – his feelings best came out a few years before this, in 93 with, well you guessed it – Jump They Say. I mean who else says Jump, ya know…it’s right there… Well I guess The Pointer Sisters said Jump as well. That woulda been rad, David Bowie bein’ in The Pointer Sisters. They coulda all covered I’m So Excited about Bowie actually joining Van Halen. The gracious sisters of course completely understanding how great it would be for him. Even if they were losing a now vital member… But hold up a second cause I’m about ta blow yr minds. Bowie put out Jump They Say in 1993… And there’s someone else sayin’ Jump even just the year before. That’s right – HOUSE OF PAIN!!!! Which if you’ll recall…was a Van Halen song!!! And the last song we ever heard from the original Van Halen, well I shouldn’t even be sayin original, you know what I mean. Last song we heard from Van Halen for quite a while, it bein the final song on 1984 and all… Who coulda foretold that in the early 90s House Of Pain would become a band. And not only that but their song, their big hit, would be Jump Around! Callin’ back to Jump at the beginning of the 1984 album. And like House A Pain was an old tune of theirs, brought back just for the occasion. And it was also the b-side to the Jump 45. They knew! I mean it’s kinda like Jump gave birth to House Of Pain. It’s 8 songs before on the record ya know, like 8 months of pregnancy, like House Of Pain was…a month premature. I don’t know, maybe they were just dyin’ to get out and jump around, you know. Reminds me of that chapter in Ulysses, where Joyce mimics the nine months of pregnancy with – sure it does, sure it does, reminds me of that – where Joyce mimics the styles of writing throughout the history of the English language over 9 long paragraphs. But Van Halen’s House Of Pain is 8 months cause it’s pop music, just dyin’ to get out there, it’s very nature. And woah H-O-P Hop! Like jump! Why wasn’t it Hop Around? Well of course because it was Jump that gave birth to it… And you know if we trace it back from House of Pain we’ve got Drop Dead Legs but you wanna elevate the legs if you’re givin’ birth and then of course Panama! Like the Panama Canal! The waters breaking and like Ulysses was based on the Odyssey which was all about sea travel. And then I’ll Wait is a big clue too! It was 8 years between 1984 and Jump Around, just like the 8 songs! The 8 in the 19-8-E4 – E4 like a chess move – prefiguring the Wu Tang too. But I’ll Wait man, little did we know how long we’d have to wait for Roth to rejoin them. Or if it would ever happen. And I guess Bowie was waitin’ forever And keeping going backwards, the first word of Panama is Jump! It’s like that song extends beyond the boundaries of time ya know. And if you played the record in reverse Panama would then turn inta Jump! Right after they say that first word! Actually also turn inta that riff that became Top Of The World, same album as Run- around. This is all too much! Though I mean obviously we always knew 1984 had great cosmic energies flowin’ thru it And of course Van Hagar’s Runaround, man, came out the very year before House Of Pain put out Jump Around. Sure a lot of stuff goin around. Like that Ratt song, Round and Round. Of course if there’s a bunch of rats runnin around you’re gonna be jumpin’ Ya don’t wanna get bit by a rat. Even Warren DiMartini, unless like he could transfer his guitar playin skills to you that way. But that seems like a weird way to get around – here we go again – just practisin’ ya know The Ramones took an early stance with this, with I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You, first album 1976, while VH were still recordin’ demos with Gene Simmons Of course Bowie covered Chuck Berry’s Round And Round early on… And he had You’ve Been Around on Black Tie White Noise, same album as Jump They Say But like 1992 when House Of Pain – the band House of Pain came out – was the same year as Kriss Kross. Also with a Jump! I was both really excited and confused at first cause I was expecting Kris Kristopherson to be covering the Van Halen classic. Took me a bit to get used to that that is what it would sound like. But then like slowly I got it ya know, they were wearing their clothes backwards cause they want to get back to a time when David Lee Roth was still in Van Halen. Symbolic, ya know… But like 1984 being full of cosmic significance, the idea of Bowie being in Van Halen has been around a long time. Maybe even since the beginning of time itself. But as it goes with mysticism, the first hints I can see of it date back to 1972 and 73… 1972 Bowie releases 5 Years, obviously aware that in 1977 VH would be recording their debut album. Of course he would release Heroes towards the end of 77 just to remind us what was coming And back in 73 he goes and releases a version of Jacques Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’. A nod to the Van Halen brothers homeland of course Diamond Dogs came out in 1974, same year Eddie and co changed their name from Mammoth to Van Halen. Bowie keeping the animal symbolism going as well as the Diamond of Diamond Dave as previously mentioned. And putting out the song 1984 like that was such a bold statement of intent And then like who else could he have been referring to with Young Americans? Setting aside for a moment that their last name is clearly Dutch, cause of course they embody the very spirit of American Rock N Roll. Heck the very spirit of America And the overtones keep goin’, 1980 ya know, both albums Scary Monsters & Super Creeps…gotta save the Women & Children First of course And then like off Fair Warning we had So This Is Love? and Hear About It Later, which of course we did – two years later – Bowie bringing out Modern Love to answer their question Offa Let’s Dance…Let’s Dance The Night Away ya know… And like what else would you light up the sky with but Ziggy Stardust?! Heck maybe even Changes was about all this. Ya know, the darker side. Obviously you’d start putting it out in 1971 that Roth might leave Van Halen, a band that didn’t even exist yet, ya know to make sure people were prepared. Of course no one could ever be prepared but Bowie should be lauded for tryin’… And I gotta think Roth woulda been cool with it ya know, being replaced by…I mean this is David Bowie we’re talkin about

I’ve been reading Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff’s autobiography ya know... and like although he played until 1984, his last World Cup was a decade before that....and like the Netherlands took second place to West Germany which was where the match was being played too...but I mean Kraftwerk was busy recordin Autobahn in 1974, of course the odds were stacked against anybody playin West Germany and then like Cruyff retired from international play in 1977, a year before the next World Cup, and the Netherlands were runners up then too so I’ve been thinkin’, like it’s such a shame that Cruyff never got to experience being a World Champion like that...so like what can be done about this...it’s weird cause Holland didn’t even qualify for the next one in 1982...but still like you’d wanna show Cruyff your appreciation of his talent and mastery of the game before he retires completely so like what if instead of the 1982 World Cup final, instead of it bein’ West Germany vs. Italy, what we know of as the final, that game was instead the semi-final... and the winner of that went on to play....Van Halen...another Dutch powerhouse...and yeah, just the four members of the band ya know...it’d be wild I’m not sayin Van Halen would’ve played the whole tournament, mind you... they’d just go straight to the final...without having played any previous matches...at all...on the strength of them just bein awesome and I mean 1984 wasn’t even out yet, they weren’t even at their peak...but of course they had the strength of Unchained, ya know, destroy anybody... and checkin that 82 setlist, they’d open with Romeo Delight and go inta Unchained...how can you stop that?! Well I guess it would be a little weird if Van Halen weren’t in it for the whole thang..but then you just assume they would win ya know...and like of course it would take away from the drama of the big reveal...now is this a secret to the rest of the world?...ya know like that song off Diver Down, Secrets...do the teams know about it? cause I mean imagine the exhilaration of believing you are world champions after a gruelling six week tournament...and then being told that no, to really win the title and claim the Cup...you’re gonna have ta face... an American rock band but I mean that only adds to it, ya know...especially with it being West Germany vs Italy...crazy..to think one a them would then go on to face the mighty VH West Germany had Kraftwerk like we said, the whole Krautrock scene, cosmische mu-sik ya know...Italy’s got Giorgio Moroder..all that Italo-disco...I mean no wonder 1984 was so synth heavy So I mean yeah, maybe reveal the plans to face Van Halen...ya know right before that match...get all the players pumped up, see what these teams are really made of... I mean I’m not sure Van Halen plays soccer at all but any awkwardness on their part would be countered by the other team...not used to playing against a rock band So I think it would be a good match, cause you’ve got Roth’s frontman antics, all those gymnastics and whatnot...Eddie should prolly have his guitar with ‘im and an amp, well the amp would be on the sideline, you can’t have it interferin’ with play...but he’s got like a wireless system and is just burnin people that way! takes control a the ball....Goal!..he’s on fire, like the song says...and no of course he can’t touch the ball with his guitar, I mean that’s an obvious handball...but the soundwaves comin’ outta it, that’s a whole different story... now...I know that some would say..that the cover of Diver Down was like.. two red caarrrds ya know....as if the Halen boys were...taunting the opposition already...though Diver Down I mean, I don’t know if they’re suggesting getting a swimming pool involved...on the pitch...I mean probably not...or maybe they were like gonna dive off a diving board..down onta the fieeeeld ya know...and FIFA not having anything in the regulations about this would rule against it...though I mean to be fair the stadium would’ve had to put a diving board over the field at some point without drawing attention to it.....ruin the surprise.....almost impossible, ya know....so the Halens parlayed this idea into them...well, “them” in quotation marks...them parachuting into the US Festival a year later...ya know how four figures dove out of a plane with parachutes then as soon as they hit the stage the lights flashed and Van Halen ran out and started playin’...I mean it wasn’t them who jumped outta that plane, but it’s rock n roll ya know...maybe they would use that same sorta strategy against their opponent like uh well..I mean that would be crazy if like due to their...their hubris..they just had like...just had Alex in goal for the first like ya know half..figured he would just shut down any attackers...and then Dave, Michael Anthony, and Eddie would parachute in at the beginning of the second half..make a dramatic entrance ya know...or maybe not half...maybe first 10, 20 minutes...they understand having to keep the crowd interested...or maybe that’s what they would do...maybe like like cause their 1982 set was so killer, opening up with Romeo Delight straight inta Unchained then third slot the Drum Solo...maybe they would come on for those first two tunes, then leave the field for Alex to do his thang, ya know, light his gong on fire...can you light a gong on fire in goal under FIFA regulations... and then they would parachute back in...well again, leaving the field prolly comes up against another official rule....maybe if they established such a lead and really how could you not openin up with Romeo Delight and Unchained...the three others could just take off leaving Alex to kick pedal away any shots on goal...and then when it was obvious they were definitely going to win, I’m sure parachuting back onta the field as a sort of victory lap would be fine...even if they were immediately sent off again... though when it comes to putting on a show...you’d want them on the field as much as possible before they leave and then parachute back in...like launching into Loss A Control whenever they stole the ball...or Somebody Get Me A Doctor whenever someone claimed to be injured.. I’m not sayin any a that’s right, but I mean smacktalk is part of the game... as long as they don’t go inta D.O.A....but I mean on the positive side imagine Everybody Wants Some! whenever they scored a goal... how exciting can you get! and let’s not forget that all this is to celebrate Cruyff...is he involved or he is just watching the whole proceedings, overcome by tears of joy?...I mean he could be suited up as an honorary member of Van Halen..but then like that sort of precedent..I mean the whole world would be after it...actually maybe it might make us better as human beings...what we need as motivation...knowing that that’s a possibility if you’re really really great at your job...you might get to be in Van Halen for a couple of hours...

So my friend The Chaize, you know The Chaize, somehow connected to that band Lunar Lions...loves the word ‘Portugal’, I think he just likes the way it sounds, always seems to, to please when he says it...I’m not sayin’ he’s a Portugal poseur, I mean the dude was texting me the other day about their crazy spice routes back in the day...I mean I know when some people say ‘back in the day’ they’re referring to when Minor Threat was still together but the country of Portugal was doin’ this years before that... So anyway The Chaize texts me about that story a few podcasts ago where I was talkin bout ya know Love Will Tear Us Apart...I mean sure, maybe...but Bears definitely would tear you apart...lot quicker than love too I would think...though I don’t know, there’s that Pet Shop Boys song Love Comes Quickly ya know... and The Chaize is all yeah, and ya know at the chorus of Love Will Tear Us Apart at the end, they say ‘again’ I mean it’s a bit different with bears because if a bear is gonna tear you apart, you imagine it’s only going to happen once...either that’s the end of you...or you learn your lesson...but that Joy Division song is all like ‘love...love will tear us apart...again’...I mean it even says love twice...though I mean maybe that first ‘love’ is supposed to be like a question, ya know...like if I was producing that single, I’d be all like emphasize the question mark at the end of it, ya know...like Love? Love Will Tear Us Apart...Again I say Love? ya know, it gives you some credibility, like you know what you’re talking about...I mean supposedly someone who had been through this with a bear might be a little averse to going through it again...can’t be all lightheartedly crooning Bears? oh yeah Bears Will Tear You Apart...if you’ve been torn apart by a bear...well I don’t know maybe it was always your lifelong dream to be in a Joy Division cover band or just like a generic 80s cover band...I mean you know how common bear attacks are with those...but then like this happens to you and you realize you’ve been wasting your time and you’ve really got to get to it.... or maybe they coulda done the double ‘love’s as like a call & response... Love? Love.... but like in the title of the song it’s only once, I mean was that like so that could have a little surprise when you get to the chorus, you’re like listening to it and you hear him say love and you’re all like ‘alright, I know what’s gonna happen now’...but you don’t!..if you’ve never heard it before, you’re expecting the words ‘will tear us apart’ not another ‘love’...I mean, it’s the ultimate psych-out but anyway I’m getting away from the point which is...if you’re torn..apart ya know...you gotta leave time for that wound to heal... I mean this was a big single...it’s still constantly played at the clubs, and when it came out if it’s on the radio a couple times a day, that’s not enough time inbetween for the body to repair itself...specially if you’re rubbin up on sumthin on the dancefloor....if it correlates to every time it’s bein played, scars just keep reopenin and reopenin, ah!...ya gotta give it a rest...it woulda made more sense for Nurse With Wound to have done this song... and like the word ‘again’, I mean is it just coincidence that you can separate it out into ‘a gain’...which allegedly if something good was happening to you and it was repeated that would be considered a gain...but like if you’re twice torn apart by a bear....or any creature I would imagine...woodland or otherwise...you could hardly count that as an advantage, a tick on the plus side How many other songs have again in the title? Buzzcocks - Something’s Gone Wrong Again... I mean that clearly points to a bear attack...to put it mildly Human League went balls out nuts with that word, had Rock Me Again And Again And Again And Again And Again And Again...etc...I mean how many total times they’re rocked there, I have no idea...seems an impossible equation...I mean I get they say it six times...but like are they adding up or is it exponential?...I mean they could wait a while and ask Def Leppard ya know, Let’s Get Rocked, another Sheffield band...crazy good music city that...and actually another Sheffield band that had an album called Hysteria...crazy times, man...no wonder it was Hysteria...but wait a second, was The Cure’s Six Different Ways written as like a companion song to Rock Me etc...I don’t know man, are they being rocked differently each time...is that what Robert Smith was implying?...I mean Sammy Hagar said There’s Only One Way To Rock...but like there was a time when he was in Van Halen and also a time he wasn’t in Van Halen...and Van Halen, by definition, rocks...so I don’t know man...is this like Schrodinger’s Halen?....and like Schrodinger, Schroeder from the Peanuts cartoon, he was always playin the piano like Eddie started doin when Sammy Hagar joined the band...Peanuts, ya know...honey roasted...but like if you’re attacked by a bear, a Human League sounds like the very thing to form, to prevent it from happening again...strength in numbers and there’s that Dokken song Alone Again, and like if Love Does Tear You Apart, you’re gonna be on your own...I mean..I’m not saying that like Joy Division became Dokken, had this like dual identity thing going where they were both New Order and Dokken at the same time...again this Schrodinger thing...but Breaking The Chains, the first Dokken album, has everything to do with this...breaking the sutures, the stitches, it all kinda makes sense...Tooth And Nail...I mean of course that’s what a bear would use to tear you apart...and the cover of that album is all blue...like Blue Monday...I mean the clues were there...that album cover also has like a claw on fire coming up out of the ocean...perhaps some sort of mystic symbolism showing the duality of these two bands...Blue Monday and Tooth And Nail both came out right around the same time...83, 84...I mean Roth was still in Van Halen so that sort of power was still in this world... and then like the next Dokken album was called Under Lock and Key...which conveniently...sounds like Under Dokken Key...nothing to do with New Order that I can see, just a little tidbit there for ya But it was on Under Lock And Key that Dokken started with the dream stuff...with In My Dreams...then they had Dream Warriors ya know...New Order had Dreams Never End first song first album...man, some people say this whole world is a dream...that’d be crazy if we were all being dreamed by Dah-....I shudder to think....not the band Shudder To Think, I don’t wanna bring them into this too, if I can help it, for their own sanity.... Kiss Of Death though first song on Back For The Attack - and you know the lyrics to New Order’s The Perfect Kiss say the perfect kiss is the kiss of death....man it’s a wonder all these albums don’t say in the credits written by Hook/Sumner/Morris/Gilbert/Dokken/Lynch/Brown/Pilson Dream Warriors last song on Back For The Attack, Dream...Attack...that New Order song ya know and ya know usually if just look at things simply it’s all there, ya know just look at the word Dokken, look at it....backwards....N - E - then instead of a double U, you get a double K...well they musta thought this was getting too obvious ya know...though the rest of the letters O and D...they’re in the word ‘order’ too...so I know I claimed before that New Order and Dokken were NOT the same band, but now I just don’t know and like let’s not leave Back For The Attack too soon...cause it’s got that instrumental Mr. Scary on it, which might be the whole Lynchpin to this thing, pun somewhat intended, cause again on Technique, New Order had Mr. Disco...I mean what else would you get if you crossed Dokken and New Order but Scary Disco!...like if the two bands merged into their one true identity...which came from Joy Division...I mean we all know Joy Division were an incredibly powerful band...I don’t think any of us had realized the full extent of it...until now... and like these album titles provide clues...ya know...perhaps this is the very thing Robert Palmer was looking for clues about...let’s not forget there were two videos for that one, one for the US and one for the UK...right?....but like Technique and Back For The Attack...when taken together...could provide us with the techniques to make us...whole again...another again song...that Atomic Kitten one...woo!...Atomic Kitten...Atomic Punk, ya know!...Schrodinger’s Atomic Kitten!...maybe this is what The Chaize was talkin about...ya know, with the word ‘again’....eternal duality becoming one...in the form of Dokken and New Order...gonna have to...tread carefully with this...

I was on a big KISS kick - nice double KK there, like K.K. Downing ya know...I mean what would his make-up have been like if he had ever joined KISS? Woo! I mean that cyclone on the cover of Turbo, that would make raddddd face paint! Ya know? In fact, call him ‘The Cyclone’, lightning fast fingers ya know..or like The Cyclone Kid... or maybe Cyclone Cyclops - the eye of the stoooorm, ya know, paint an eye like where Vinnie Vincent’s ankh was, ya know the third eye point...I’m not suggesting he also join Third Eye Blind...I mean in addition to Judas Priest and KISS, that’d be a hectic schedule...even for The Cyclone So I mean yeah, I was on a KISS kick, and of course I’m always like on a Parliament Funkadelic kick and it just hit me...concurrently...during the 1970’s...there was The Starchild AKA Paul Stanley of rock legends KISS of course....and there was also Garry Shider of the megaforce P-Funk...also known as The Starchild....and both...were on Casablanca Records!....I mean woah! Talk about a Mothership Connection!...I mean Casablanca, White House...I’ve always said George Clinton should be President...and imagine if Bernie Worrell was the piano player at Rick’s gin joint... Funky Blanca...Casa Funk...I mean I hadn’t thought there were ways you could improve that movie, but now we’re talking... and like once you start to look closer you know...woo! crazy stuff...like in the song ‘Star Child’ ya know Mothership Connection - and woah! like ya know how Ace covered ‘New York Groove’ on his 1978 solo album? Well how rad would it have been if Paul covered that P-Funk song?! - but like in that tune he says ‘we have returned to claim the pyramids’ and then like KISS starts using all this Egyptian imagery in the 80s, Vinnie Vincent’s makeup as we said before, the Hot In The Shade album cover with the sphinx with the sunglasses you know...I mean what else could the sphinx be in the shade of if not the mothership?...I mean heck even the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame is pyramid-shaped...I mean can imagine the stage show if Kiss and P-Funk combined forces...Starchild squared, ya know And then like, I know I’ve been talking about Joy Division a lot lately, something in the Atmosphere you know...but in 1995 Virgin Records put out that A Means To An End tribute album...and there was a band on there called starchildren! Who just happened to be a project of Billy Corgan’s from Smashing Pumpkins...and it’s weird they choose Isolation as their cover...ya know as we’ve just seen, the Star Childs were two not but one...ah, that woulda been crazy if there was another Star Child in the Spice Girls...I mean maybe when time travel is invented we can go back and talk Emma Bunton into it ya know...but I mean not only were there two Star Childs, they were playing to tens of thousands of peoples every night! In no way could you call that Isolation and I mean it’s just odd, ya know - does Billy Corgan think Joy Division was a KISS and P-Funk cover band? And absolutely no one in the music industry set him straight? I mean you can kinda see it though, ‘C’mon And Love Me’ could just as easily be ‘C’mon And Tear Me Apart’...’New Dawn Fades’ ya know, I mean that’s when you’d need a Flashlight...Twenty Four Hours ya know - well, Rock N Roll All Night And Party Everyday...Mothership Connection itself says Ain’t Nothin But A Party Y’all... this all started cause I was listening to the audiobook of Paul Stanley’s autobiography ya know, Face The Music...good title...and then like New Order had that song Face Up, one of my faves too, even with the grammarbomb ‘your eyes was blue’...but like what if New Order, whenever they played that song live, like did it as an encore, and came back out in full KISS make-up, that’d be rad... But I also got to researchin’ cause, and I’ve talked about this elsewhere lately, after talking to David Ryder Prangley on the other podcast, the ETC one, I went back with a friend of mine, the VOL, and we revisited the KISS solo albums...and I mean Gene’s Radioactive has always been my favourite tune from those...and like Peter Criss’ woah, and that was the third KISS related album The VOL ever bought when he was but a young un, and we realized that like much like the prohibitions against studying Kabbalah, that Peter Criss record can’t really be fully understood by anyone under the age of 40...and like Paul’s, some great tunes on there, It’s Alright and Wouldn’t You Like To Know Me, woo!... but like in my Googling of Paul Stanley 1978 solo album...I saw a very distressing image...which was... him...with different make up...not the Star Child we all know...but apparently, at the beginning of their career that Casablanca asked him to try out a different design, something more symmetrical like the rest of the band had...and he came up with The Bandit...which kinda...looks like a raccoon, or I guess some say like the Lone Ranger, not the Lone Night Ranger, though I guess raccoons are actually night rangers...phoo, this is tricky...and like The Bandit make-up is cool and all but it’s no Star Child... but like ya know how Paul Stanley has that soul band nowadays, Soul Station, prolly where the Mothership docks and he says it’s cause he grew up listening to all that stuff and like he just put a video out in May of them doing Ooo Baby Baby by Smokey & The Miracles...I mean you see where this is going, right?...what if he kept The Bandit makeup back then for a side project with Smokey Robinson?!...Smokey & The Bandit!...Get Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed in it too for the ultimate supergroup! woo!...that film came out in 1977! Same year as Star Wars...Star Wars, Star Child...he coulda had everything covered that year, all the bases...The Rebel base, coulda switched instruments with Gene for a couple songs, heck The Bad News Bears had just come out the year before, coulda bought the franchise and made it into the Bad News Raccoons...have it be yet another Burt Reynolds sports film...but with KISS too - The Phantom Of The Baseball Park!...though like Bad News Bandits has a much nicer ring too it...the alliteration ya know...and you got Smokey Robinson is like the pitcher for The Miracles who are at the bottom of the league the whole season but then like as is inherent in their name...the Miracles start happening...they end up winning the pennant, defeating of course these Bad News Bandits, also inherent in their name...simple as that...then have Terry Gilliam make Time Bandits as the sequel...like I say, simple as that