Nothing Ever Changes

Because of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, most of Chicago’s primary neighborhoods are laid out in a fairly normal blocked grid system…this effectively locks in the neighborhoods, and most still retain some semblance of the old way of the corner shop, the kind that has a specialized business that works well in a somewhat closed community…the corner by my dad’s house, for example, had your basic small, lo-fi grocery store, an insurance dealer, whatever (junk)…just down the road was the book shop that I worked in part-time, a hot dog stand, more junk…most things one would want could easily be gotten to by bus or bike, and so it was one fateful day that I took a ride down Austin Avenue about a mile north up to the corner of Lawrence Avenue…I wasn’t doing anything in particular that day, was bored out of my mind actually, when I dropped in on a dusty record shop that I had seen while driving in someone’s car (I had made a little mental note to check it out)…this particular intersection has it’s own set of shops: a pharmacy, a cheap steakhouse, woman’s clothing, a delicatessen, a pizza delivery joint….nothing fancy, really, except for this vintage vinyl hole in the wall…

The guy behind the counter says hello, and I start thumbing thru what they got…of course he doesn’t know that I don’t have any money, but I figure if I find anything I really want, I can always come back and get it…there is no air conditioning in the place, the heat is stifling, and the only air blowing is one of those fans that cycles back and forth…the racks are handmade with found wood, the albums sit in peach crates…pretty much a dump…the guy puts on a decent record, something I recognize from the 60’s, not totally obscure but something one would have to have some knowledge about to even recognize off the bat…I comment on this out loud, and the guy is surprised I know what he’s playing…we start tossing back and forth on different records, different bands, and before you know it, I am sitting there for a couple of hours keeping this guy company…I don’t have anywhere to go, and the music is good, so I am happy…he tells me that it isn’t his place, that it is owned by ‘some fag into show tunes’ and that he hates working there…that he wants to quit soon and get a better job…I notice after a while that almost no one comes in the place, and start to wonder how the owner even keeps the doors open…the clerk puts on some stuff I have never heard before, and I tell him I think it’s great, so he just gives me the records…”take ‘em”, he tells me, “I don’t care, keep ‘em, bring ‘em back, tape them, don’t worry about it”, so a friend is made…

I start visiting the record shop almost every other day at first, eventually every day…at first I am kind of sniffing around for a job, but even after I realize that that is probably not going to happen, I still come around just for laughs…thru the store, I meet a whole new cast of characters…Mike, the clerk…Cuz (who’s name is also Mike, Mike’s cousin, called this to avoid confusion)…Crazy Johnny (Mike’s best friend)…Hippie Bob (a German immigrant who’s dad is a U.S. citizen)…and ‘I-talian’ Nick (a much older guy who seems very mentally unstable---drives a really fast car, has a huge record collection)…on the first day that I meet Hippie Bob, he asks me if I want to go look for a job with him…I tell him that seems like a good idea, and the next thing I know, we are driving around in his old car…I don’t know where we are going, because looking for a job with Bob means driving around sort of looking for ‘Help Wanted’ signs in shop windows…fortunately, we don’t see any, so we just kind of cruise…as we do, he tells me that he is a musician, and looking to start a band…this guy seems really weird to me, not the kind of person I want to be in a band with, and I beg off the notion, lying to him by telling him I really am not all that interested in starting a band…he starts to tell me how great he is on the guitar, citing Frank Zappa as his main influence, telling me he is better than Zappa…I mention that I think Frank Zappa is a pretty good guitarist, and I highly doubt that this freak can play that well, but I am listening…when he senses my doubt, he says why don’t we go over to his house and ‘jam’…now, I just met this guy, and for all I know he is coming on to me and this is some sort of vague pick up routine (albeit a stinky one…he reeks of stale cigarettes)…Bob’s hair is fried out, he has big bottle glasses, and he is wearing clothes that went out of style 25 years ago…summing him up, I come to the conclusion that Mike from the record store wouldn’t have sent me along with this maniac if he was all that dangerous, so I tell him, “alright, let’s go to your apartment and see what you got”…

He lives in a small basement apartment alone, with almost no furniture outside of gear…right away I notice the Farfisa organ, which is the same kind of keyboard that the Doors used to use…Bob tells me that in his band he plays the organ and the guitar…his guitar is some cheap weirdo deal that has push buttons, ironically making all those Frank Zappa phased-out sounds…Bob knows I play guitar, and maybe because of the way I look, has already concluded that he can play as well, if not better than me…now he wants me to be in his band!…he hands me his guitar, and after 30 seconds sits open jawed as he spits “fuck man, you really can play! Holy shit, fuckin’ Hendrix!!”…I hand him his guitar back, to which he plays some atonal noise wonk that makes no sense and isn’t musical…he can’t play, but if you close your eyes tight you swear he is fucking with you…I make the mistake of asking him “in your band, who plays the keyboard when you are playing the guitar? Or do you sometimes just play the keyboard, and no one plays guitar?”…to which he replies “I do”…I tell him that I don’t understand, and he says “oh, no man, I play both the keyboard and the guitar AT THE SAME TIME!...here, let me show you”…he hooks up the organ, and sits on a chair so that he can reach the keys with his right hand…he puts the guitar on his lap, hits a chord, and then plays the keyboard for 2 seconds, switching back and forth, trying to make some sound with his left hand on the neck as he makes a mess with his right…it is the worst shit I have ever seen or heard, and he enthusiastically asks me “what do you think?”…I tell him he is fucking awful, to which he just laughs and goes right on playing…

I am mostly working on music alone now, because Lenny has told me that he is getting too busy with work, so our writing sessions will have to wait for awhile…I have been listening to more 60’s rock lately anyway (the influence of the records I am borrowing from the record store), many on the psychedelic tip, and want to try to incorporate that more produced sound into my songs, somewhat differing from what we had been doing at Lenny’s house…working mostly in the morning and late at night, I start making an ‘album’…it is my first attempt at putting together a cohesive group of songs, and this puts pressure on me to write different kinds of songs like one would find on any good album (one with a flow)…my father has moved into the studio control room because that is where his sole air conditioner is, so he gives me his room in the back, which is helpful because there is a lot more room to work…I have found an old console stereo in the alley that works, all tube, and sounds great, so I put this in my new room and hook up all my wires…I decide to call the album ‘nothing ever changes’, cause that’s the way I feel…I write out a map of emotions that I want to have on the record…for example, instead of songs per se, a track listing might read like this: fast song (good opener), heavy groove song, slow song, spacey song, long dark song, sad song, and so on…if I had a song already that fit one of these categories, than I would just write that in instead…this helps focus me to write towards something, as opposed to sitting around waiting for the ‘muse’ to arrive, which generally speaking produces sad slow songs (my natural cadence)…I am really excited by all of this, because it finally gives me something to live and breathe and die for…

Life is now simple…write, find money, hang out at the record store, try to stay out of trouble, try to find a new girlfriend…so this is the backstory of my life the day I muster up all my nerve to call the girl with the Betty Boop face…