Hey, the head man is out of town!
This is such a freakin’ good idea. See, when our “public servants” walk into office having “plans” and “introducing legislation,” they immediately start screwing stuff up, why is why Mayor Cass’s bold move should set a precedent, from POTUS on down to the local dogcatcher: once you’re elected and you have your inauguration (if you can get a zombie James Brown to play the inaugural ball, more power to ya), you take a powder for at least three months.
Godspeed, Mr. Mayor, but stay away from the drinks that have the umbrellas. You think they’re some sort of chick drink, but they will mess you up.
Now that I have the floor, I’d like to explain a little bit about how I became a citizen of Bootleg City, and how this week’s featured bootleg is a perfect example of why everyonr should live here. Actually, I’m not really a citizen, seeing as how I was here from the very beginning — I set my homestead here long before the city was a reality. They surrounded me. These guys came to my land.
One day, if I’m lucky enough to have kids as geeky as I am (seems kind of inevitable), I’ll sit them down and tell them about the improbability of this song’s success. Sure, I’ll have to explain terms like “double album,” “record label” and “radio,” but I think it’ll be worth it. I’ll explain to them how Peter Frampton managed to remain on a major record label, A&M, despite the fact that his first three albums (as well as his first eight singles) didn’t even crack the Hot 100 (”what’s the Hot 100, daddy?”) and his fourth album peaked at #32. And that despite these failures, A&M decided that his next release should be a live album — and when he turned in the live album, the head of the record label (Jerry Moss) complained that it was too short (!) and should be a double album (!!). And so Frampton — who had recorded most of the album at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, went to record more tracks live at SUNY Plattsburgh, better known as the least sexy of all the NY State-owned colleges. (I know. My dad went there.) “Do You Feel Like We Do” was one of the tracks recorded on the college campus. Unedited, it clocks in at 14:15. And children, guess what? “Radio stations,” as they were known back then, actually played the full, unedited version of the song! “Disc jockeys,” who were the people who actually had some control over what songs were played on the radio, used the song as an excuse to go to the bathroom or do other things that I’ll tell you about when you’re older. A&M understood that some stations might not want to play a 14-minute song, though, so they reasonably edited the song…to 7:19. 7:19 was considered reasonable, children!
David, Mitzi and I are just back from a week in Vale, and I gotta tell you, I feel energized. Nothing like a couple days on the slopes to clear the mind. You should come out with us sometime. Bring your wife, Yvonne (or whatever) and see for yourself. Bundle up, though—thin white dukes can turn blue very easily out there. Ha!
