I've Seen The Future Of Rock 'N Roll!

I've seen the future of rock and roll...

It is a biped  with much body hair and very sharp teeth. It walks like a Man but it thinks (with all of its heads large and small) like a Wolf. But before we examine the future, let's go back to the past. Young rockers ought know where they come from. I'm not talking about the cabbage patch. You see, the thing about young people is that they always think they invented things. They didn't. We did. When we were young...

Bob Dylan stood on a stage in London. It was 1966. He had pissed off thousands of folk purists when he set down his acoustic Martin and strapped on a Fender Stratocaster. He stared out at the gathered before him. Some were there to polish his crown and some were there to see his neck stretched. One particularly self-righteous asshole shouted out, "Judas!"

Dylan squinted into the lights. He snarled back, "I don't believe you. You're a liar!!" Then he turned around to Robbie Robertson and the rest of the Band and ordered, "Play it fucking LOUD!"

Cliff Thiessen, Giancarlo Laertini and Eric Fortin are Man The Wolf.  In 1966 they were floating about the cosmos, pre-embryonic by many many years but Dylan's anger must have made it's way to them. They play fucking LOUD! And proud. They make a joyful noise, tighter than a duck's ass, but let's set the scene.

Full disclosure: Eric Fortin, the bassman and singer and one of the writers for this Vancouver riff rock trio is the fiance of an old work and singing buddy of mine. So I thought I'd buy their newly released EP to be a good guy, a patron of the arts. I mean, shit. I know. Me and Mother Teresa.

That was my mood when I got into my car on a Monday morning. I pulled out of the parking lot and then over to the side of the road, iPhone in my mitt. I went to iTunes and found Man The Wolf's newly minted six song collection. The price was right. I hit purchase. I put my sunglasses on. I put my earbuds in. I pulled my seat belt across my chest and fastened it.

I pressed "play".

Suddenly I was driving faster. Much faster. I forgot it was Monday. I was filled with a strange sensation. I'm not talking about the warm and sticky feeling of the blood leaking out of my ears. That was quite enjoyable. It was something else. More profound and harder to locate in my Monday morning brain. I cut off a few more drivers and then it came to me. Wham!

It was the sound of being young.

Man The Wolf play rock and roll like young people. The Rolling Stones still bill themselves as the Greatest Rock and Roll band on the planet. That's horseshit. Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are massive. But they are not young anymore and as much as we try when we are no longer young we cannot, should not sound young. The boys in Man The Wolf play with abandon. Mostly we are pressed to abandon our abandon when the odometer hits forty, top end.

The songs will help you dislocate the base of your skull from the top of your spine if you let your head do what it naturally wants to do while listening to them at warp ten. A trio has to circle all three of its wagons power-wise and Man The Wolf are masterful. I can think of a few hundred musicians who would kill for the big fat-ass-bottom end provided by Fortin and Laertini.

It's heartbeat steady. From song one to song six.

One of the reviewers on iTunes (they have already had their collection 5-starred and reviewed several times) said the music is good to work out to. There is a reason for that. I put it to the test. Got home and hopped on the treadmill for twenty minutes. Hey, it's not the Olympics and I'm not a kid anymore. Earbuds in again. The music supports the thump of feet hitting rubber. We choose a certain kind of beat for exercise and running. What I need it something that sounds like victory against the odds.

The opening track on the collection is called Whole. Interesting images showed up while I ran and listened. Battlefields. Wastelands. You can't have winners unless you have losers. C'est la vie. Man The Wolf sound like they plan to win. And take no prisoners...

There are, among other attributes, intimations of really good song-writing here too. Vanya slowed things down a bit. I almost quit running, but the story was worth keeping my pulse rate up for. Something about "weary bones..." and "...the prince of virtual relationships..." What's that, you say? Social commentary from people not born in the sixties? Well, maybe commentary on social networking, but let's not quibble.

Young folks are duty bound to support one another's art. I love what these young men are attempting. I wish them the very best and I hope they keep turning that molten stuff into steel. They deserve to be heard. Play them fucking LOUD!!
________________________________________________________________________

And so...

"All through the day I me mine..."
George Harrison, I Me Mine, the Let It Be album

"Strange days indeed..."
John Lennon, Milk And Honey, released posthumously

"You never got me down Ray..."
Jake LaMotta to Sugar Ray Robinson in Raging Bull

These are quotes that ring the bell loudly. The bell peels. The banana peel is for slipping on. If you meet the Buddha on the road and his pants pocket is bulging, he may be concealing a banana peel.

You don't need to be a musician to understand how a "monitor" works.You place a monitor speaker in front of you on the stage. Then you can hear the music you are playing and the song you are singing. Hopefully. The mind is a monitor. It will tell you what's what and what is going on inside your brain where your mind resides. These have been strange days. Indeed...

Some of my beast friends are musically inclined. Music, if we are in it, playing it or listening to it for reasonable reasons, will remain by our side pretty faithfully. Truth be told, because music is not human it is able to be your hairless sound wave dog, loyal even as hairless (guileless and gutless) humans seek shelter from you or ask you where you are keeping your head these days.

I am currently collaborating with two musical cohorts who are far away. It is a highly collaborative collaboration. The very beast kind. We will attempt to play music together through cyberspace. It's not exactly the Greenwich Village of my nostalgic fantasies. No meaningful eye contact is available. No fawning groupies or devoted legion of fans.

It appears to be, however, real.

Real is like vegetables. Not my favourite source of nourishment, necessarily, but real may prevent scurvy and rickets. Mentally speaking, I mean. The balance is this: strange days often bring more information than the lazy hazy crazy days of summer (or spring and fall and winter). Easy days go down like oysters. They tend to slide by and rarely produce pearls.

Real can be really bitter. The tongue curls. It may even cleave. It may, as Dylan wrote so wonderfully in The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, "snarl..." We recoil from real and seek the shelter of reality television. We hide underneath the sugar coat, wanting warmth and sustaining decay. Oh well, the weatherman says spring will arrive sometime this year or next.

I am playing with a new four track recording machine. It fits in the palm of my hand, like my forehead, but it is not slick with sweat. I will send two songs with this missive. I will not flood your inbox, nor your fax machine, neither shall I Facebook or text you, nor will I Instagram you. Under no circumstances will you read that I have emitted a tweet...

The chances are not all that great that I shall even see you in the flesh often.

But I shall think of you, with love ;-)

Your beast friend Johnny Maudlin
The Worst of all Possible Coasts

The songs are I Remember You (I'm Trying To Forget) and Sugar Pond. One is naturally corn fed, the other is for sprinkling on your cereal in your morning memory time...