Music and more with claudecat17 (aka Chris Davlin)!

This will be the last thing I do today/tonight /this morning. If you’ve been reading today you know it’s been a crazy and extremely stressful day. I was almost homeless, and learned a lot about my family. I was in existential panic mode for a good few hours, and reached out in more than one way to my one brother that’s not a maga. Not a peep. I’ve been trying my mom’s number for months now, leaving messages, emailing, etc. Not a peep. It seems they all think I’ve become one of the bad guys or something but it could just be them being themselves, every one of them a supremely self centered person struggling with their own shit no doubt, but did they have to so summarily and completely write me off, like forever? To the point that even desperate cries for help go unacknowledged, let alone not responded to?

These are not my people anymore. I can no longer bear this burden. I can’t and won’t! I’m questioning everything right now as my alleged brain attempts to come down from a day of too much stress and caffeine. I literally drank over 64 ounces of iced coffee within a 4-5 hour period earlier today, which I’m still feeling. I now have that twitchy yet tired feeling, like a dog winding down after a rough day at the track, the rabbit just an object of white hot hatred and contempt. He’s on the floor in the corner, limbs flailing occasionally, powerless to do anything but look ridiculous.

But I need to do a tune to keep the daily thing going, and it’s super easy so here you go music lovers! Richard Thompson, one of the greatest guitarists nobody’s ever heard of! This was one of his most accessible albums, and even sold pretty well. MTV airplay too, and VH1, remember them? The diet MTV, for the ladies! That was my take, certainly wrong. It was just less hair metal is all, and fewer rappers. Lots of white folks, lots of cheesy 80s production. Gated toms! Synth stabs! Drums that sound like gunshots! I really hated the 80s pop music, with Prince the only real bright spot for me and my bizarre batch of neurons. I liked Crowded House a lot too, who were also pretty big for a year or two. Not much else…

Didn’t learn about Richard Thompson until mid-decade when I was hanging around a lot at the world’s greatest record store, the Bop Shop in Rochester, still there, still with Tom Kohn doing what he’s always done. It’s a record store that also books and promotes shows, always with top notch artists even if you don’t care for the genre.

Tom and I always disagreed on punk and its precursors. He likes a lot of it, I say it’s mostly garbage with almost no nutritional value as purely music as opposed to social commentary or fashion. It was all a scam, but is it a scam if nobody bought the records? Judging by what the critics have/had to say you’d think some of that shit sold, but no. It did not. Ever. Go ahead and look. See?

Back to the tune, it’s a winner, with a real nice melodic motif that repeats throughout, strong songwriting as usual, and subject matter ideal for appealing to the US audience, with lots of allusions to sex and debauchery, even violence, which is what really gets us going. As a country I mean. You do you, ideally violence-free, but if that’s your thing? Just leave the kiddies out of it, and the dog.

Thompson waits until near the end to really even be heard on electric guitar, but when he hits the solo he’s off into his ultra-bendy, bagpipe-y thing as great as I’ve ever heard, if a little excited sounding. He comes in late with the vocal after that, having gotten carried away it would seem. I always find RT’s soloing to be unique, almost completely free of all blues clichés, instead based on Scottish and Irish music, and not the kind in the Lucky Charms commercials. No, the scary kind that’s heard behind weird and gory scenes in very old movies with maybe vikings or something I guess. No direct knowledge on that.

That’s my Richard Thompson. Scary, dour, gloomy. His masterpiece is probably “End of the Rainbow”, whose opening line is: “I feel for you, you little horror, safe at your mother’s breast, no lucky break for you around the corner. (be)Cause your father is a bully, and he thinks that you’re a pest, and your sister, she’s no better than a whore” etc. Cheery shit! One of his collections is called Doom and Gloom From the Tomb. Deep catalog, and Fairport Convention’s well worth checking out if you like RT. That’s his old band. They made a great live album called House Full, and Liege and Lief is a classic, indispensable really. Steeleye Span is worth a listen too, Parcel of Rogues especially. It’s refreshing music if you play or listen to a lot of blues, like a palate cleanser.

So here’s the tune, as first broadcast back in 1991. They don’t give a date or month even, but I’d guess summer judging by attire.

Adieu until tomorrow! I’m gonna eat a little something, then take a bath and shower, then into bed, this horrible awful day having imprinted itself on my psyche in a way I’m sure won’t cause any trouble at all. It’ll be fine! It’s fun being despised by your own family!

Later!