January 11, 2005
ON SOME ROSEBUD SHIT
When I was about 12, I saw the poster you see pictured above and, soon afterwards, the play it advertised. Both got stuck in my head, and a band was saddled with that memory for thirteen years. (John Peel was one of the few radio DJs who could pronounce the name correctly. Not a great sign.) Another important, non-band-name-generating theatrical experience came a few years later, when I played a fireman in Max Frisch's The Firebugs, a play we need much more now than we did in 1982 (and we needed it then).
That same year, when I was 15, I read a review of the Bad Brains by Gregory "Ironman" Tate (scroll down until you see red) in the Village Voice. (Just heard about the whole blog thing, what? Free content, what? You telling those bloggers before you excerpt and link to them, what?) This was the moment when I discovered that music criticism could make me feel almost the same way I did when I was listening to music. (Tate's 1982 piece, "Hardcore of Darkness," is available in Flyboy In the Buttermilk.)
I think it is possible we need Ironman right now even more than we did in 1982.
Posted by Sasha at January 11, 2005 01:33 PM | TrackBack