Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
stew!
stop by Atlanta on your way home.
You can sleep on our couch as long as you want to...
  

    
tftp
  

    

Stew, care to comment on the death of Joe Strummer?
  

    
(I emailed the question about Joe Strummer to Stew, and got this 
response...//jonl)
---
i found out about Strummer's death while listening to BBC (i'm in Berlin
right now). That in itself was VERY weird. One associates those ever so
careful accents with announcing the deaths of politicians and authors, not
punk rockers. And yes, it does make one feel a bit aged - especially when
yer trying to explain punk rock to your 10 year old who just got a red
streak put in her hair and thinks its SO 2002.

Joe's voice was not stylized/art school enough for me to love in the way i
did Lydon's, Devoto's or Vanian's. Nor was it lovably pathetic in the way
Shelley's or bandmate Mick Jones' was (my fave Clash dude, by the way). Joe
really sounded like a trash collector who'd been hustled into the studio
with a copy of das kapital filled with yellow highlites courtesy of
McClaren. He sounded like the streets.

I saw them when they toured give em enough rope and Joe was energetic
beyond belief. I actually thought he was gonna hurt himself he was rocking
so hard.

I started a hilarious debate in Rhino records one evening when I brought
back London Calling the day after I'd bought it. Though I genuinely didnt
dig the record I was nonetheless well aware that i was making a "punk rock
statement" by returning it.

I met Joe once in an Army Surplus store on Hollywood Blvd. He was buying
dog tags. He was very friendly and genuinely seemed happy to be chatting.
He seemed shocked that I knew & liked the tune "This is England" from what
i think was their last and not too good release.

I had heard he was opening for someone just recently. I was always rooting
for him in post clash days. He always seemed like a cool cat.

/stew
  

    
FWIW I have an essay -- or what's left of one -- on Strummer in
tomorrow's NY Times Week In Review section. Sort of an interesting
side-comment on what Stew just said. 
  

    
nice piece
esp. mescaleros=musical polymaths
well said
  

    
We'll be sending Stew back to you Americans tomorrow. It was wonderful
having him here. Probably by the time he gets back here again I'll
have those pix from Jarman up on a webpage somewhere.
  

    
Very cool, Ed!
  

    
some northern cali stuff for y'all:

the STEW thing will be at:

wednesday january 22nd
The Space, 2509 R St.
Sacramento, CA
phone: 737-2304

friday january 24th
Oakland Metro
201 Broadway
Oakland, CA
510-465-8480

these shows will have "big rock" potential as we'll have 
1st St. MARTY BELLER banging some skins. but hes very
sensitive.
  

    
A sensitive drummer? What the hell?

See you at the Metro again, sir.
  

    
Stew, you might want to post about your Oakland gig in the <oakland.>
conference here on The WELL. And the <berkeley.> conference, too!
  

    
and at the stew and the negro problem topic in music
music.1630        L   Stew and The Negro Problem

by the way two 6 year old boys sang along with 'rehab' in my car this week.
the biggest carpool hit since tmbg's fibber island.
  

    

Very cool:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,398634~4||397796|1~0~ewstomsinc
lairnames,00.html
  

    
Nice Bary Blitt artwork on the error page, but... that URL didn't work for
me.
  

    
Worked fine for me. That's some high exposure!
  

    

The URL works for me too.
  

    
Dang.
  

    
Number one. Yay!
  

    
NDP also made my top 5 list at cosmik.com, but hey, EW!  Yay, indeed.
  

    
"...it's Stew's lush sense of melody and witty, journalistically detailed 
lyrics that make his second solo album, with its reminiscences of 
psychotropic drug dalliances and portraits of well-read women who carry 
switchblades, a true treat for those who care about innovative, 
thought-provoking pop."
  

    
hey Los Angeles folks-

The Cover Problem does Madonna
@ Spaceland This Friday Feb 7th
(thats tomorrow).

For those who don't know -  The Cover Problem is The Negro Problem's
evil twin - actually, maybe its not that evil at all. TCP takes revenge
on those records that were so big you couldnt get away from them by
sending them through our twisted, irreverent musical meat grinder. What
we end up is usually fun and funny. Past victims have included
Thriller, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt Pepper's and Saturday Night Fever.

As far as the 35 and up members of TCP are concerned, Madonna doesnt
really have an album with the pop cultural mega-voodoo of any of the
above. So we have broken TCP tradition and simply attacked what we feel
are her greatest hits. 

I thought the bee gees lyrics were lame but after reading her
lyrics...wow. How many of you know that situated within the tune
"Stayin Alive" is the line 

"You can try to understand/
The New York Times affect on man"

ok, so i have no idea what the hell they're talking about. But at
least it makes you go "Hmmm..."

Oh, and regarding kids in the carpool listening to ReHab - i've been
thinking for awhile now that i'm in the wrong branch of this bizz. If i
could tame my foul mouth maybe I could be the new Raffi. After all the
brain cell destroying dives i've played in I think the IQ level of the
kinder would come as a welcome relief.

chow,
/stew
  

    
Wow.  What time?
  

    

We'll be there, David. After the radio show.
I hadn't told you that part of the evening yet!
  

    
Wow, that's great!!
  

    

Fun and wacky show last night at Spaceland, with The Cover Problem doing the
music of Madonna.

The band consisted of Stew on Guitar and vox, Heidi on bass and vox, Probyn
Gregory on guitar, Carolyn Edwards on keys and Joe Berardi (of Double Naught
Spy Car) on Drums.

Highlights for me were: "Material Girl" played Allman Brothers style,
complete with twin guitar leads from Stew and Probyn. And "Like A Virgin"
done as a tango. Wonderful.

As they had run out of Madonna material by the time they got to the encore,
they did a wonderful version of the TNP song "Peter Jennings" with a great
midsong monologue from Stew about driving home drunk and stoned late at
night, trying to find something sobering on the radio.


A blast.