Popeye-X Bids Joe X A Big
Farewell-X
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Popeye-X Bids Joe X A Big
Farewell-X
from: popeye-x
dialup04222.intersatx.net 03-03-15-12:05
I only just heard the tragic news... Joe-X is leaving his "position"... Oh, No! not Joe-X! After 12 years of pledge driven, roots nazi limitation, "something unexpected" has happened, and ol' Joe will no longer be controlling what we hear on the radio. I'd like to thank all the friends and loved ones who made it all possible... but first, I'd like to list a few of the songs I played on that Joe-X was totally unaware contained SYNTHESIZERS and SAMPLERS.
The first had to be when Nancy Gray opened her pre Third Coast Era show with Rawhide, by Claude Morgan and the Blast, from the Blast From The Past LP. In the middle lead, I played a 1983 Fender Rhodes Chroma thru an Intersound IVP preamp, with it switched on "screaming fuzz". The intensity of that sound is hard to put in words, it was the kind of LOUDNESS one associates with lead guitar in a rock group, but the notes didn't quite sound right. They were guitarish in tone, and certainly based on the blues notes most solos use, but the bends were kind of odd sounding, they sort of sounded semi-familiar... yet inevitably wrong. The starts of the notes didn't have that pick edge, either. It was just obnoxiously loud and stuck out like a sore thumb from the wall of noise the band was pounding out. So, I would like to thank Claude Morgan for having the musical insight to know that being different was better than being the same. His open mindedness and his do or die pursuit of originality for originality's sake is what opened the door for what I wanted to do, namely let the synthesizer kick ass, instead of kiss ass.
My Chroma would also like to thank Augie Meyers, the LP was his idea and paid for by him. I first heard of his idea when playing for The Mo-Dels, he suggested we make an LP of old songs, to which I said "Hell, yeah!" He had probably talked to Claude about it, too, I'm just glad the Blast did it instead of the Mo-Dels. They were always "against" my fuzz toned mutilations of the classics. The fact the audience would yell approval back at me made no difference to them at all, I was violating their mental presets and frying their memories into pork rinds with my sonic blowtorch. Claude Morgan never had any hang-ups whatsoever about my deviant keyboard concept, neither did Augie Meyers. Thanks to Claude, Augie, and Nancy, I was frying brain cells on KSYM before TCMN ever existed. I got your roots hangin', boy.
About 10 years later, deep into the TCMN clampdown on anything new, Claude "Butch" Morgan released Now Is The Time, I played synthsizers on various songs, but the one I am most proud of was a song where you couldn't even tell I was there. Augie Meyers had flown in and was jet lagged when he played a squeezebox track, there were some clams on one part, it really wasn't Augie's fault at all, Butch had recorded the rhythm track such that one section was slightly different the second time. They didn't have time to fix it, so I sampled one of Augie's accordian notes, and recorded the obtuse section and carefully played it so that it sounded exactly like it was Augie. Actually, it WAS Augie, I was playing him being Augie. Do you have any idea how much fucking fun that was for me? I bet even Augie didn't notice I had been there. TCMN played that track several times.
Later on, when I announced online that samplers ruled the music world, I was told by several DJ's they would never, ever play any music with that non-musician's instrument, the accursed sampler. They were also asking each other, who is this guy? I had so much fun telling them, "I've played sampler on your station bunches of times, and you didn't even know it. I used one to perfect Augie's accordion track on Butch's CD. By the way, how many of Augie's tracks have you played on? Have you ever played on a CD at all? You're a DJ, calling me a non-musician, and you have decided all by yourself my instrument will never be allowed on your radio staion. You are so ignorant, you've been playing me FOR YEARS, and you didn't even know it. I hate to be the one to pop yer bubble, but every time you slap on a Hank Williams CD, your are playing nothing but samples." They replied, "Yeah, but its not changed any from the original." I said, "Are you aware that every note you ever heard of Hank Williams was in fact electronic music played by a machine?" Then I pointed out their concept of music was stuck in the past, lifestyle wallpaper to go with their hats and their beers. I said, "The reason you say you like "live" music better is because you're alcoholics, that's where your favorite bands play, in bars, right? You can keep your honky tonk lifestyle, I much prefer hearing music in my recording studio, if you don't mind. Just because you watch Bonanza doesn't make you a cowboy."
Joe-X said his thank you to every person he ever knew, this is cool! That means he really is GONE. Then Estebanito, the cutesy name for Steve Cureton, gives us a summary spam of every payola cut he has mixed that ever got airplay on TCMN. Is that unbelievable?
"Look how much you did for me, Joe! Hey, everybody, look how much my ass kissing has paid off! I've been waiting for a good excuse to show everyone the whole list! No one will know I wasn't allowed to mix most of these cuts. That's why I've worded it so that you assume I mixed them, without me actually saying the word "mix", I was allowed to do the drudgery of setting up mics, running cables, and setting levels. Alas, I wasn't allowed to mix because my only contribution was to provide the necessary lies and cover for Mike Taylor and Bob Cox. I'm the Donnie Meals connection, the Overall Lie Manager/Coordinator for the group, not to mention working undercover as a friend, keeping tabs on where Otto's head is at and reporting back..
I begged Taylor, please just let me mix ONE song... please! But Taylor wouldn't go for it. He even kept the master tapes under lock and key the whole time. Once, he went out of town, and left me the keys, so I paid Flaco Jiminez $300 out of my pocket to overdub on a shit band I dredged up, I thought I could at least have one song I could say was mine... but no... Taylor got pissed that I would try such a trick without his permission so I had to eat my $300... I guess using my check to buy the ADAT's and being reimbursed with cash from Bob Cox thru Taylor didn't entitle me to any actual MIXING... the thing I'm known for... my mom even dropped over $1000 bankrolling the promotional banquet, she was so proud of my success in San Antonio... then that darned Taylor started getting cold feet because no matter how much he mixed, it just sounded like shit... so the CD was postponed and the promo was a washout, with every artist refusing to even play, we had to find more acts to play the plaque gala with no CD product... Taylor had complete dictatorial control, he was worried about his reputation going downhill, so me & Wanda got completely fucked out of everything we were getting out of it, that's when I got real drunk and told Otto the original track, the "Robert Johnson" track by Bob Margolin wasn't even recorded by us... it was Margolin in Dallas, done live in one pass, the recording was the mix... gaaa, how does he do it? (Otto's answer: He's a musician, by the time he finishes controlling the intonation of that slide and the subtle shifting between straight time and shuffle, mixing the balance between the strings is automatic, he does that with how hard his picking hand plays, that's what musicians do, make music that already sounds perfect) Cureton continues: I didn't mix anything... but even Taylor didn't mix the one Robert Johnson related track... neither one of us had anything to do with the centerpiece of the album... but it was our idea to surround that track with local artists, like a tribute to the historic San Antonio recordings done at the Gunter! Don't you see? Gunter??? The plaque! Its the biggest thing I've ever done... I was so bummed when I didn't get to mix at all... and the CD didn't come out for the banquet... I lied my butt off all year and got burned for all my effort... but it was only delayed a few months, and the next year we were ready and hit the banquet spam trail full force... thanks to TCMN, we had people clamouring to buy $40 per head tickets, includes dinner at the Gunter, and a CD, and a night of music and celebration, and of course... the plaque... my mom wasn't so eager to cover the catering this time... I still didn't mix anything, darn it, well no one will know.. Joe X is leaving, TCMN is over, this may be my last spam... I'll just list these wonderful tracks I "worked" on, no one will ever know my real job was just to maintain the LIE... the rest of it was a lie from begining to end, one more giant lie in spam form won't hurt... this may be my last chance to lie to everyone in one big Internet mega-post..." Wave goodbye to that list, you'll NEVER hear any of those pieces of shit again. Besides, I bet he didn't mix most of them, he only set the recording levels. I know damn well he never played or sang a single note of any of it. Adjusting the relative volumes is the easiest part of the whole process. Every knob on every synthesizer I own would like to stop and wave goodbye to Joe-X and his zydeco nazi wet dream.
Please note: You are gone, my sound is still here. You never did anything except reject me outright, without even listening once. You have always treated my music like it didn't exist. Now, you don't exist. Please take your brown nosing Estebanito with you. The days of SABS and TCMN are OVER. Stand back as the whole thing starts the final spiral and disappears down the cosmic toiletbowl.
Popeye-X yells into the bowl: "And don't you ever let me catch you with an X anywhere near your name again, you goddamn X-cremental nub from a densely packed buttloaf that finally pinched off.... "
The flush handle is hit, there is the sound of rushing waters, and something that should have never been swirls out of view...
