Following in the Outlandos tradition of Letters from the Road, our guest post this week comes from Skip Matheny of my new fave band Roman Candle:

Dear Fanny,

I saw your band/show last night. Thanks for putting me on the list and asking for advice, critiques, etc.... I'm not sure what to tell you exactly. You all were great. In fact, I imagine you will be very popular, and maybe better --- very quickly. I don't have a critique in the world about your show or aesthetic. You all seem to have nailed that down pretty well. However I might say the same thing to you I usually tell any writer, including myself, which is: think in terms of "songs" and listen to a fair amount music made before the year you were born.

Off the bat, that might seem like a nostalgic thing to suggest. It's not. It's about finding and learning about good art. Your band's songs are great but if you want to make records for the next 10 or 15 years, artistically speaking, you will likely find more substance in songs than in guitar tones. I think there's a lot to be learned by realizing you are a writer in a long tradition that stretches back before your own time, even (way) back before recorded sound --- and the "thread" or the common thing through all of that tradition is the form of the song. It's an interesting and mysterious thing, and it repays the attention you give it.

If you go listen to any of the records that came out last Tuesday and then listen to, for example, Joni Mitchell,"The Gallery" or David Bowie, "Life on Mars," or Stevie Wonder, "Do I Love Her?" you'll probably hear some similarities (verses, choruses, 3 minutes long). In contrast to the new records which, for the most part, are a bit vacuous [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Damn! BYO Records turns 25

Pete Wentz wasn't even wearing eyeliner when brothers Shawn and Mark Stern decided to start BYO (Better Youth Organization) Records 25 years ago. The label, which put out releases by Youth Brigade - the Brothers Stern's own punk band - went on to put out seminal punk releases from bands like Leatherface and 7 Seconds.

To quote the band, BYO was founded as "part political movement, part business venture that began as a way to organize punks to take positive action to help sustain their scene and their way of life."

To commemorate their 25th anniversary - not bad considering how many other labels have come and gone during that time - BYO is putting out a 31-song box set, featuring a who's who of American punk rock. Groups like Bad Religion, Dropkick Murphys, NOFX, Anti-Flag and the Bouncing Souls all took turns covering BYO bands. The set also comes with the documentary Let Them Know, which looks at the influence of the label through interviews with Ian MacKaye (Fugazi, Minor Threat, founder of Dischord Records), Fat Mike (NOFX, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, founder of Fat Wreck Chords) and Steve Soto (Adolescents, Manic Hispanic), among others.

Shawn Stern, in the middle of a Youth Brigade tour, took some time recently to answer questions about the label, the band and punk rockin' as a 40-something.

Are you surprised that the label is still up and running 25 years later?
I'm surprised that we were able to put out one record, let alone nearly 120! When we started I never thought I'd be playing music in my 30's let alone my 40's and approaching 50. For us to last this long is kind of amazing to us and we feel extremely lucky.

So how do you think you've able to keep it going for so long when so many others have folded?
Pure luck! (laughs) Well, I think we just put out good music that we like and people seem to respond well. We never did this to make money; we never had any business plan or really any plan at all. We put out records ‘cause we had a band and we put out other bands' records ‘cause we liked the band, the music and what they had to say. I guess we're doing something right, otherwise we wouldn't have survived.

Do you think its easier running a business with your brothers or ultimately harder?
My brothers and I are all very close, so I think it's really easy to work together. I mean we've been doing it all our lives, so it's pretty natural. We can argue - and we do - but we don't take it personally, we just go eat lunch or go have a drink after.

Ever get into any Kinks style fist fights over the band or the label?
Nah, our punching each other out ended in our teens. Screaming arguments once in awhile that we usually end up laughing about is the extent of it.

Have you always had a defining principle or set of principles that BYO was founded on?
Well, like I said, we never had a plan we just did things as they came up. The principles have always been those that our parents and grandparents instilled in us as kids, think for yourself, life is about learning and giving back, helping people. From that we devised our own ideals about what punk rock is to us, that one should question everything and decide for yourself what makes sense. Don't be a sheep, don't follow anyone. I was heavily influenced in my senior year in high school by an existential lit class I took. I read Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus and the next semester I had an entire class on Herman Hesse. They all had a profound effect, but Albert Camus' "The Stranger" and the "Myth Of Sysiphus" were almost life changing for me. I think those ideals will always stick with me.

What was always the deciding factor in putting out a band's music?
We put out bands that we like as people, whose music we like and believe in and we feel we can help them. There's lots of bands that we like and would like to work with over the years but for one reason or another it just didn't work out.

Do you get a sense of enjoyment of watching major labels falter and grasp to stay relevant?
Hmm, I'm not really someone that takes pleasure in other people's failure. I don't really worry about other labels, it's not something I can control or be a part of. But I'm not gonna lose sleep over the fact that a multi-national corporation leaves the music business, because in my view they only look at music as nothing more than a way to make money and I think that is not good for anyone. So the more of them that leave music, the better it is for music and all of us.

Was it difficult deciding who would be on the album that comes with the box set? More important, was there a fight between bands to cover "California is Sinking"?
We just asked all the bands we like and they all said sure. Now getting them to actually get in the studio and record, well that's another story. Everyone is busy, when they are recording a new record they are concentrating on that and putting together a cover sometimes isn't at the top of their list of things to do. Picking songs was up to the band, there were a few that wanted to do a certain song but someone had already picked it, but there were no "fights." Worked out really well I think. Well, I guess everyone can listen to the record and decide for themselves, but it's a pretty amazing record.

A lot of folks cite you guys as influences in starting their own labels. Did you really have anyone to emulate or learn from when you were starting BYO records?
No, there were very few labels at the time doing punk rock on the level we did it when we started. Slash and Dangerhouse were about it in L.A. but we just sort of figured it out on our own. Ask questions, call around, talk to the guys at the pressing plant about how to do things ‘cause they had been in the record business for years and they knew the basics. A lot of it was just logic, go around to stores and ask them to take the record. That was our early distribution.

Why did the band ultimately decide to call it quits?
Adam had left the band to go back to school in '84, we got Bob Gnarly in the band and changed the name to The Brigade and our sound got a little more "poppy" I guess you could say. The punk scene was dying, the hair bands were taking over the sunset strip and we were burnt so we just decided it wasn't fun anymore.

So was it an easy decision to get the band back together and tour?
Yeah, we were all playing music again in different bands. I had a band, That's It and my brothers had all started the band Royal Crown Revue and met up on tour in Germany. People had been asking about Youth Brigade on both our tours, so we talked about doing a "reunion" and I said if we wrote new songs and make a record then I would do it. We all agreed, it was pretty easy and we've been going strong ever since.

Did you find that you missed playing together?
I think we found that we had fun playing together. Mark (Stern) and Adam (Stern) and our other brother Jamie were all playing together for a few years in Royal Crown Revue and having fun. That's the bottom line, it has to be fun. Otherwise what's the point!?

Was it surreal participating in the documentary?

No, not surreal. We put it together but we tried to not involve ourselves too much in the planning. We wanted to let the film makers make the movie, not us. We told them people they should talk to and gave them a chronological line of what/how things happened, but we let them put it together. I think they did an amazing job.

Listening to the interviews, were you surprised at how influential the band was to so many?
I'm flattered. I don't know if I'm so much surprised ‘cause I think there was only a handful of bands in the punk scene that have lasted all these years and odds are they have lasted because people like the music and that's ‘gonna influence bands that are coming after.

Any chance you'll revive the BYO split series?
Oh it isn't dead, just been on hiatus. The box set was such a huge undertaking, the biggest project we've ever done, so it took up nearly three years of our time. We've had quite a few bands interested, just haven't managed to work it out. But we will hopefully soon.

You know the drill but indulge me for a little reminder here....

We know, for example, that fans prize souvenirs --- a tactile take-away that reminds you of the feeling you have when listening to music. It's kind of like what we're doing with The Daily Dose --- further enhancing the "sensory experience" with rock 'n roll wine and cheese picks so as to emphasize "more than music." Certainly, a recommendation isn't exactly "tactile," but it does bring us closer, drawing upon multiple aesthetic experiences and uniting them in one place. So, perhaps upon purchasing the wine or cheese of the day, upon tasting them, you'll conjure up the associated songs, thereby giving the taste an added, well, taste.

All of that, the long way of saying: multiple aesthetic experiences rule the day. And things that you associate with music are likely the same things other people (who like the same music as you) might be curious about. It's a Tribes-thing.

Hence, this month's semi-random compendium:

1. Dunder Tchotchkes

Perhaps one for everyone you know this Christmas? Plus they have action figures, star mugs (sans Jim and Dwight), Office Clue... it was really hard for me to not buy one of everything. And it's totally overpriced. I don't care.[...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

No. 2: Quite excited

By Bryan Reed

I first saw Black Cobra (above) about two years ago. They were opening for Pelican in a double-bill at Tremont Music Hall in Charlotte. What I remember most about the show was thinking that Black Cobra was monumentally more captivating than Pelican - which put on a good set, just not as good - and feeling bummed about not having enough cash for records. So to say I was excited when the Cobra's third record (first for Southern Lord), Chronomega arrived in the mail is a mild understatement: I was quite excited.

Having settled into Chronomega, the new jams fail to disappoint. Opener "Negative Reversal" is a blunt-force stomp indicative of the rest of the album - sharp riffs, gruff grooves and a driving, sludgy feel somewhere between High on Fire and early Mastodon. This is no kind of reinvention, but the collection hits its mark without getting stale. I still prefer Bestial (Black Cobra's 2006 debut), but I wouldn't have even mentioned Chronomega if I weren't suggesting it's at least worth a listen.

Lately, though, I've found my attention drawn elsewhere, to three albums, each playing within the black metal spectrum, though not necessarily completely: Azaghal's Teraphim, Merrimack's Grey Rigorism and Mount Eerie's Wind's Poem.

Azaghal's latest, Teraphim, out Tuesday via Moribund Records, comes closest to the sound of the Norwegian first-wave, putting chaotic blast beats behind expansive guitar melodies. This corpsepainted quartet from Finland doesn't stretch the boundaries of what black metal is, but even as it colors inside the guidelines the band adds shades of nuance by way of thrash riffs and - on the record's most divergent cut, "Hänen Musta Liekkinsä" - by way of synthesized orchestral arrangements that are simultaneously cheesy, endearing and adeptly atmospheric. It's telling that the first three seconds of almost every track sounds the same - immediate blast beat that gets ripped open with an introductory roar from vocalist Varjoherra. It's also telling that when it doesn't, as is true of "Filosofi," we can expect a slight but important shift in approach as the song adopts a steady riff and a strong chorus that reminds somewhat of Boris in its melody and vocal pairings.

The Merrimack record, also released by Moribund, has been out for some time now, but has kept my attention because it doesn't seem to settle. Black Metal, for me anyway, is a dish best served with a healthy portion of unrest, lest the waves of guitar become sedative white noise. Like Texas' Absu, or Illinois' Nachtmystium, Merrimack (who, by the way, hail from France) relish elements from all stripes of heavy metal: death metal's bottomed-out groove, sludgy textures and thrash urgency to scratch the surface. I've seen the term black 'n' roll used when describing black metal bands that pack a Motörhead-style hook, and even though I think the term sounds stupid, it fits Merrimack. Check out "In The Halls of White Death," and notice how from the first notes it finds a solid midtempo groove and rides it insistently, even as the guitars float in like an ominous fog to wrap the song into a dark haze.

That haze is pretty much the only thing Mount Eerie's so-called black metal album shares with its European counterparts. This is less br00tal, more br00ding, like Phil Elverum, the perennial indie-dude, discovered a Xasthur record and informed his entire picture of what "black metal" is from that. But - and this is a crucial "but" - Elverum's seemingly shallow venture into the kvlt realm serves this project well, making an album that is good both as a lo-fi indie entry (hey, this is Blurt, not Terrorizer) and as a metal entry. Folks familiar with the plaintive, melancholy folk Elverum's been peddling for years might be startled at first by opener "Wind's Dark Poem," and its harsh-if-muffled roar. But Elverum's not donning corpsepaint or switching his quiet croon to a strangled yelp, he's appropriating textures from the insular, claustrophobic and somehow broad-stroked bedroom black metal of Xasthur and Leviathan, stretching their bleak sounds capes over his own mournful singing and poetic songwriting. "Stone's Ode," the final word in Wind's Poem, is not at all unlike much of Elverum's work, even as it sustains its chords like worn , grayed tulle behind him, and even when he recasts last year's profoundly intimate "Lost Wisdom" (here as "Lost Wisdom Pt. 2") as a droning, blackened dirge, it's Elverum's voice, the sad clarity of it, that grabs us even in the darker, harsher environs he's masterfully created for this effort. That, if you ask me, is quite exciting.

ALSO IN ROTATION: Lightning Bolt - Earthly Pleasures (Load); Horseback - MILH IHVH (Turgid Animal); Baroness - Blue Record (Relapse); Pyramids with Nadja - Pyramids with Nadja (Hydra Head); Chord - Flora (Neurot); Iron Age - The Sleeping Eye (Tee Pee); Landmine Marathon - Rusted Eyes Awake (Prosthetic, reissue); Title Fight - The Last Thing You Forget (Run For Cover)

***

Bryan Reed is from North Carolina and, despite his best efforts, he still hasn't grown out of the racket that irritated his friends and family in high school, and continues to irritate them in the present. Stalker-types should know that they can follow Bryan on Twitter @subparrockstar.

[Photo Credits: Black Cobra, bu Shannon Corr; Merrimack, Vertigo; Mount Eerie, Mount Eerie]

Yes, being great at whatever it is you do has merit (for it). But quality isn't nearly enough. You HAVE to huck it, kids. Every second of every day. Re: The Death of Marketing? Sorry Bob, respectfully disagree.

I don't care how friggin spectacular you are... if you don't have anyone to tell, it might as well not be true. It's a chicken and the egg deal. Almost. Because, you CAN have real, passionate, loyal fans at every stage of your career, from fledgling to Trent; if I like you, I'll help you. Period.

Think of it like this: the way you make me feel about your product handily trumps the actual product. In a heartbeat.

So... how do you do it? Um, it's called MARKETING.

Singer-songwriter Seth Glier recently quoted a fan who said it best:

"You know Seth, I know we don't see each other a lot but I consider you a friend.....Coldplay is JUST music to me."

And Seth is hands-down one of the most spectacular self-marketers I know.

It works like this, in this order [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Menace To Society

by Otep Shamaya
 
I write to you today from the burning green of the deep, deep South. It is a hot and humid day that fosters a weighted atmosphere of sloth and fury. Perfect. I have been asked and eagerly agreed to speak at a church rally in support of a grassroots movement hoping to rid our society of the most morally egregious degenerates we have ever known. I think we all know who I refer to. And yes, I joined this crusade to combat this diseased vermin before things get out of hand. As we've seen all over the news, these degenerates have started to organize politically and demand equality.
 
But never fear, fellow citizens, this threat will not go unchallenged, I assure you.
 
Our nation was built on the good God-fearing Judaic-Christian heritage of Andrew Jackson, George Wallace, General Custer, Nixon, McCarthy, and J. Edgar Hoover. We are not, nor have we ever been, a nation of equals. We are a nation of chutes and ladders. Everyone knows this. But this group of hooligans intends on disrupting the status quo.
 
Well, this will never do.
 
The social terrorists I am referencing (and opposing) are the notoriously strange and flamboyant RED MENACE, better known on the street as "Gingers".
 
Indeed, we at the "National Organization for a Red-Head Free America" are outraged at the recent hubbub and associated ruckus these "Gingers" have created by demanding equal rights and many other absurd notions that plainly do not apply to them.
 
We have done our own studies and proven that blondes and brunettes are physically superior and have more brain mass than Gingers. In fact, we have proven that the "Ginger Gene" is a myth and an abomination in the eyes of God. Have you ever seen a picture of Jesus? What color is his hair? I think I've made my point here.
 
But despite all this scientific and religious data some of these reprobates openly celebrate their sinful lack of pigment, freckled skin, and burning bright hair as if they deserve to be equals among us! Shameful!
 
We firmly believe that being a red-head is a choice. Sure, some might be born that way but they could easily assimilate into society if they accepted their deformity and decided to live as the rest of us, and remedy it with a quick dye job.
 
These freaks of nature must not be allowed to live openly in our society. What about our children? We all know the evil inside the Ginger heart. They want to convert our kids. And what will we do once our children start painting their hair red and painting freckles all over their body? Oh, I shudder at the thought.
 
We must protect them from this Crimson Tide bubbling to the surface of our national awareness. It is more important now than ever! The Ginger Rights Movement is demanding that it be made LEGAL for them to marry EACH OTHER! Holy Christmas! Can you imagine what will happen next? You guessed it: A godless red nation of milky-white sin and orange flair debauchery. 
 
It is a historical fact that Ginger equality caused the fall of the Roman Empire. Is this what we want for our beloved America? To be brought down by Gingers?
 
If only our government would take a stand against these mongrels as they have against the other misguided miscreants our society has tamed and tolerated over the years.
 
Why can't they treat them like we do the Gays?
 
Our government has made it clear; you are not a full citizen if you are not a heterosexual. Gay Americans don't have the same rights as NORMAL Americans: they can't marry, they can't join the military, but they must pay the same taxes. Heck of a deal, if you ask me. They subsidize our narrow way of life ....just as God intended.
 
I know the Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal. And yes, we hold the truths to be self-evident. How could we not? But I stipulate here today that if the implication of the language the Forefathers used in the phrase "all men" also applies to women (we believe they meant HUmen) then I argue today that it implies the additional qualifications for equality: Caucasian, Republican, Wealthy, Christian, Heterosexual, non-Ginger.
 
So, you see, my friends, that yes, America is the land of the free and land of opportunity - but only within limits. I mean, let's be real here. As a species we need our hierarchies.
 
Gingers and Gays need not apply. 

Singer/frontwoman/activist/poet Otep Shamaya has led her band Otep through 4 albums of NIN/Sonic Youth inspired metal. Check out her own blog at http://www.imnotamonster.com/ and Otep online at http://www.myspace.com/otep

No. 1: We do this to ourselves...

By Bryan Reed

Beginning a thing without a determined endpoint is necessarily uncertain, but I'd argue that's a part of its excitement. This could be a failure. Or it could succeed. Or it could merely be, neither failing nor succeeding for whatever lifespan we deem to grant it.

As I embark on this uncertain and exciting experiment in offering my own excursions into the happenings of popular music's louder, less accessible poles, I find it painfully ironic that one of my favorite metal bands of the past few years - the Durham-based Tooth whose Animality EP features prominently in my memories of my senior year in Chapel Hill - is dead. Tooth is yet another casualty of the Summer-of-Death that so far has claimed a handful of celebrities and, apparently, America's ability to bite its collective tongue.

(Tooth guitarist Rich James leading his band's final show in Durham, N.C. Photo credit: Jordan Lawrence.)

That Tooth disbanded before fulfilling its potential for greatness is perhaps most indicative of the nature of beginning something with no pre-determined endpoint: it will end, eventually, and when it does it'll make an impact.

Fortunately, Tooth's dissolution arrives with a concession, bittersweet though it might be, in the form of a split LP with Philadelphia's The Claw. In a way, the record marks an end for both bands. The A-Side captures Tooth's final recordings. So when Tooth vocalist J-ME Guptill declares "We do this to ourselves," in "Suicide Myth," it's hard not to assume his lyrics are foreshadowing the band's own demise. The B-Side documents the last tapes cut by former vocalist Mikey Brosnan who died in late 2008 at the hand of a drunk driver. And when The Claw launches into its first of three songs, "Grief Is For The Living," it's hard not to let a sense of doom creep into the experience knowing that not long after recording this song, Brosnan would be dead, and his living friends and family would be grieving.

The Claw, though, soldiers on through their three songs - tense, thrashing metal with an ear for Swedish melody and Florida brutality - and into the future. Tooth, though, has made its final statement with three songs that somehow amplify both Rich James' perfect guitar leads and the band's hardcore urgency without sounding contradictory.

My friend Jason Kutchma, of the band Red Collar, wrote a summary of Tooth I really can't beat, so here it is:

"It seems these days that most metal bands have solos that go on forever, jerk-off sessions that I can't stand. In order to make themselves more interesting, they have rhythms that get head-y and too complicated but I think it often has the opposite effect: I think it makes it boring as hell. Tooth however are everything, and I mean absolutely everything, that I ever loved about metal and truthfully about music in the first place. They do everything right. They are perfect. I kept on seeing them live, listening to their two song demo to see if I really mean it when I say I believe they are perfect. If anything, it just strengthened my belief. I believe them when they play. I believe in them when they play. They are a most beautiful Frankenstein, put together with the greatest parts of metal, thrash, and punk. But they don't lumber and thud along with their arms outstretched, motivated by an Abby Normal brain wondering where Master is with their next quick fix of an electrical jolt to get them through the night. They have what Frankenstein and the many, many metaphorical Frankensteins in the music world never could have or never bother to get: heart and soul."

Tooth leaves us this three-song testament to their largely - and criminally - unheralded greatness. But I still believe in them when it plays.

ALSO IN ROTATION: Marduk - Wormwood (Regain); Lowbrow - Broken Speech EP (Self-Aware); Greymachine - Disconnected (Hydra Head); Keelhaul - Keelhaul's Triumphant Return to Obscurity (Hydra Head); Earth - Radio Earth (Southern Lord); Magrudergrind - Magrudergrind (Willowtip); Graf Orlock - Destination Time Today (Vitriol); Pryamids with Nadja - Pyramids with Nadja (Hydra Head)

***

Bryan Reed is from North Carolina and, despite his best efforts, he still hasn't grown out of the racket that irritated his friends and family in high school, and continues to irritate them in the present. Stalker-types should know that they can follow Bryan on Twitter @subparrockstar.

     Capitalism is dying, boy. It's dying of its own internal contradictions.[He was, after all, a Wall Street financier, so I listened carefully.] You think the revolution's gonna take five years. It's gonna take fifty! So keep your head down and hang in for the long haul, because I'll tell you something. The sons of bitches running things don't give a shit about their children or their grandchildren, and they certainly don't give a shit about you! They've paid their dues, and they want to get out with theirs! They're gonna sell off everything that's not nailed down to the highest bidder. Don't get crushed when it topples down. Take care of yourself and your family. If you can make a difference, do it, but there are huge forces at work here, and they have to play themselves out according to their own design, not yours. Watch yourself.     
 
       Wall Street Financier, Morris Cohon, to his son, Peter Coyote---Winter of 1969/1970

     The above passage is from Peter Coyote's excellent memoir, "Sleeping Where I Fall". In the next sentence, Coyote adds,
   
     As far as I can determine, everything he prophesied has come true.

   Sure enough, last year, 2008, balls out free market capitalism stepped on its dick and fell on its ass. We had lived a fantasy for nearly thirty years. In the interest of short term gain, Reagan peeled back New Deal banking regulations designed to avert thirties style crashes, Clinton peeled them back some more. The elder Bush knew Reaganomics was folly, he called it "Voodoo Economics" when he ran against Reagan, but by the time he got in, there was no stopping the allure of the fantasy. To step out in front of it would have been political suicide, so he didn't try. Greed was seen as a good thing, markets were deemed to be infallible. We failed to see Enron's implosion as the  microcosm for the global economy that it proved to be. Suddenly we witnessed an economic crash, the scale of which us forty somethings had been raised to believe we would never see. We had always been told we were safe now, the daddies were in charge, and they had learned from the Great Depression, they had put in safeguards . . .

Oops, they took the safeguards out, too cumbersome and restrictive of the free market.

     Yet we cling to the notion of capitalism as if it were the only thing that keeps us American.  We still demonize any form of Socialism. Long ago, the term Socialism was, in our country, linked to Soviet Communism, which was reciprocally linked to the devil. It's very easy for the right to get their base stirred up, because the buzzwords have been in place for nearly a century. All that mean little parrot, Phil Gramm, ever had to do was start squawking the words "Socialized Medicine! Socialized Medicine!", then throw in a dash of Harry and Louise and the Clinton Health Bill's threat to the private insurer and pharmaceutical corporation dominated status quo was over and done with.

     My paternal grandfather railed against the prospect of Socialized Medicine and always hated Lyndon Johnson, but he took his Medicare just like everybody else. Socialized Medicine is ok as long as we call it something else, like "Medicare". Johnson was for sure a genius, folks. Yes, he was also crooked, but he got some good things done.

    I personally, have no problem with Socialized Medicine, even when called by its proper name. To me, Socialized Medicine means the lady that checks me in at the hospital doesn't first ask me how I intend to pay for services rendered, but rather asks me, "Where does it hurt?" I know people who have had such an experience, people who live in countries that we now call Socialist, places like Britain and France, NATO allied nations who stood with us against the "Evil Empire" during the cold war, nations that were considered to be part of the free world then, Socialist attitudes toward medicine notwithstanding. True, citizens of France do pay high taxes, but they get something in return, universal free health care. Our tax money mostly goes to the military, half of it anyway. We Americans don't want our government all up in our business, so rather than pay for government health care, we prefer to pay private insurers who do everything in their power to keep from honoring claims, to keep from actually providing the care that our insurance dollars are supposed to guarantee to those few of us to whom they actually grant policies.  I don't have insurance. My insurance company was bought out by another. The new parent company staggered the premium schedule and I missed a payment while on the road with my band. I came home to find I was uninsured. That particular insurance company was lame anyway, so I didn't much care, but I dicked around and didn't get aggressive about finding a new insurer until after I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Sure, you can argue that in this environment, my predicament is my own fault. Fair enough, I did know the rules here. But I have friends who are much worse off than I, friends for whom "this environment" is poisonous. One has a child with a bone disease. He had insurance, but his insurer was allowed to go bankrupt, leaving my friend's child uninsured with a serious pre existing condition. Texas High Risk Pool is his only option, ten thousand dollar deductible, I believe. My friend's experience is just one of many examples that illustrate the pure immorality of our healthcare for profit system.

     Healthcare for profit capitalizes on illness. To profit on drugs and surgeries one must have a steady supply of sick people. We have some very sick people among us and we seem hell bent on keeping them sick. Every time I go to the supermarket, I see fat people, and I don't just mean regular old fat, I mean grossly obese. Many are diabetic amputees in electric wheelchairs. Soft drinks seem to be a popular item with them. I don't remember seeing such people when I was a child, when I pretty much lived on Dr. Peppers, which were then sweetened with cane sugar, rather than the high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten nearly everything today, a sweetener that our bodies just don't know how to handle. I don't know if the corn lobby is in cahoots with the makers of those electric wheelchairs, but I would say the times are good for both. I make my living driving across the country, occasionally stopping at Walmart for fresh socks. I see obese people in the Walmart and miles and miles of nothing but corn from eastern Nebraska to eastern Ohio, one big cornfield. Correlation does not imply cause, but one does notice.

     I don't understand the preoccupation, fanciful or not, of the angry white people at the town hall meetings, with the notion that the government might tell them which doctor they can see. Even if the fear mongers were right this time and the government really was going to dictate to us our choice of doctors, so what? If  I could see a reasonably competent doctor for free, I'd be perfectly glad to see the doctor of my government's choice. Most of us can't really choose our doctors anyway. If we don't want to pay out of pocket, then we must find a doctor who takes our insurance. And as for the  "death panels" hysteria, we already have death panels. We call them private insurers. Insurers decide who gets coverage and who does not, in effect, who lives or dies, and they base their decisions on potential profit.  And in the arena of potential profit, white people still tend to fare better that the rest.

     I believe that our chief objection to any form of socialism is, and has always been, rooted in racism. Thirty years ago, the specter of the Cadillac driving black welfare mother was the A-Number One bogeyman for the angry white man against socialism crowd. The notion that that same Cadillac driving black woman might receive federal dollars to pay for an abortion would really get the bibles thumping(funny how fathers are always left out of the abortion equation. No one blames the irresponsible male who knocked up the Cadillac driving black welfare mother. And the same people who want to ban abortion don't seem to favor open discussion of contraception. weird).

     Now, it seems that the illegal alien has eclipsed the black welfare mom as bogeyman du jour. Our bigots have progressed. Fearing a backlash of political correctness(and subsequent loss of funding), they no longer engage in unabashed racism. Now they cloak their racism in nationalism, the second string motivator of the paranoid moron masses, easily spun as patriotism, a supposedly more noble virtue. But what sort of illegal aliens do they fear?

     I once employed an illegal alien, a tour manager from New Zealand, white fella. Once, while traveling East along interstate 10 back in the pre-Homeland Security days, we came to a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. When the man in the green uniform asked if everyone in the van was a U.S. citizen, the tour manager simply answered, "Sure mate". The man in the green uniform was eyeing our San Antonio born and raised Hispanic bass player rather suspiciously and didn't seem to notice the tour manager's Kiwi/Aussie accent. He eyed the bass player for a second or two longer and then waved us on.

     I don't think the town hall hooligans are worried about Kiwi tour managers receiving health care on their dime. When they say "illegal aliens" they mean "brown people".

    Why would it be such a terrible thing for a brown person from another country to receive free healthcare here in the U.S.? My current bass player was recently treated for a bad flu while touring in Germany. I think the doctor visit cost about twenty-five dollars and they didn't mind that he wasn't a German citizen or that he didn't pay German taxes. He was sick, so they tried to help him.
     

We don't seem to have any trouble finding the money to fly planes halfway across the world to drop bombs on brown people. That gets pretty expensive you know. I'd be willing to bet that socialized medicine is cheaper than war. Maybe Iraqi oil revenue could pay for our healthcare, just like it paid for the invasion of Iraq . . .   right, it didn't pay for the invasion, our great grandchildren will have to do that, but when Rumsfeld put forth that wonderful piece of fiction, did any future town hall storming, bible thumping, constitution waving pissed off red faced white guy question Rummy's logic? Nope

     Europeans can be racists too. They don't necessarily like it that the dark skinned natives of their former colonies came home to them when the great colonial empires collapsed, but they grant them citizenship and extend to them the requisite benefits of citizenship while occasionally grousing about the dilution of their national character. They have their extreme nationalist factions and lunatic fringes, but they recognize them as such and for the most part behave sensibly. They're not afraid of big government, because to them, governments are service organizations designed to aid the people. And when they don't like their governments, they throw them out. Remember W's "coalition of the willing"? It consisted  mostly of our troops, a good many British, a few Aussies and Italians, and a hundred or so Spaniards. The Spaniards all went home after their people caught their government in a lie. Bombs had gone off in the Madrid Metro. At the behest of our government, the Spanish government blamed the bombing on ETA, the Basque separatist movement. The Bush administration didn't want anyone to think the bombings could have been done by Al Quaida, so they talked the Spanish government in to blaming ETA. But Spaniards aren't stupid. They're sick of ETA, but they know that ETA does not indiscriminately bomb subway stations. They saw through the lie, tossed their government out on its ass, and brought their troops home from Iraq. Spain, it seems, is an actual democracy. Perhaps we'll be a democracy someday.

   We have recently made bold strides towards democracy. We flipped the majorities in both houses of congress and voted in a President from the previously underdog party because a vast majority of us were sick of the status quo.  And I did say "vast majority".

     Obama won by a fucking landslide, people. Unlike Bush's two elections, Obama's election was nowhere near close enough to steal. We, the vast majority that voted for Obama, knew he would try to reform healthcare. So, why are the town hall mobs getting so much media attention? They can't constitute that much of the electorate. Probably, the media needs a story to sell, and they can sell it more effectively if they add suspense by making the playing field look even. Republicans aren't acting like the field is even. They are snarling like cornered wolves, booing and hissing at the President during his address to the joint session of Congress. People get mean when they feel outnumbered. Joe Wilson and his ilk can still stir up their base, but their base is shrinking.

     Still, they might block healthcare reform one more time. The drug companies and insurers have so much money with which to combat common sense, that we may have to go another round. But universal health coverage will come to the people of the U.S. and its opponents know it. The only question is, how broke will Americans have to be before they no longer care whether or not their health care system would once have been considered Socialist and rise up and demand the reform that should have been theirs long ago? It's true that when it is ultimately implemented, our newly socialized healthcare system will be an unholy mess for a while, because we don't yet know how to do universal healthcare. If we'd let President Truman have his way, and implemented universal health care sixty years ago, when the rest of the free world did it, we'd probably have our system worked out by now.

     I've noticed that some of the people who don't want healthcare reform are also upset by Obama's stimulus package. They were also upset by Bush's stimulus package, and I don't blame them. I'm upset too. I don't like it that we have to bail out the people who ripped us off, but that seems to have been the only viable course of action. Paul Krugman seems to think it worked, at least for now. From my hotel window in downtown Cincinnati, I don't see any bread lines. I'll pose a question to those who's greatest fear is socialism. Those bankers that you hate so much, those bankers whose bailouts your grandchildren will be paying for while they're also paying for the wars and maybe a bit of healthcare, those terrible evil banker people . . . are they socialists?
 

No one's a bigger fan of social media marketing than me. But lord, lord, lord... it is motherfucking exhausting. Imagine running 2 companies (including 21 people working for free, miracle of God, I am beyond thankful every day) and still finding time for newsletters, status updates, and of course, blog posts. Let's just say, more often than not, the basics (eating, cleaning, dressing, exercising, brushing teeth) take a backseat. Oh, priorities.

But the truth is, I count on YOU to help me keep at it. Your feedback (your e-mails, your retweets, your comments, your fandom, your forwards); that's the FUN part. And I can't do it without you. Just plain can't.

So, thank you.

Now on to what's been playing around Outlandos HQ:

1. One eskimO, One eskimO



Wow. Wow. Wow. Smart, clever and remarkably (I hate this word but it's true)... fresh. And it takes a little bit creep up on you, which is my favorite. Seal/FYC meets 70s Stones meets Tom McRae, translation: singer-songwriter-pop-dance-rock. What? Really. Buy it [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

                            Osama Dick Dale-Rock & Roll History's Missing link

Excerpt from the upcoming book, "The Porky From New Yorky's Guide to Weight Loss and Positive Mental Health.

THE PORKY STAPLE- THE BOWL OF BEANS

          Ingredients

1          .   One 15.5 oz can of light or dark red kidney beans
2    a teaspoonful or nice dollop of curry powder
3.    4 packets of duck sauce(from a Chinese take out restaurant)
4.    4 packets of spicy mustard(as above from a Chinese takeout)
5.    a healthy dollop of catch-up
6.    a light sprinkling of pepper  
Directions:

1.    Strain a can of beans in a colander and then put it in a microwaveable bowl
2.    ad all of the above ingredients and mix it up
3.    microwave for 2 minutes
4.    take out of microwave
5.    drink two large glasses of water
6.    take bowl and sit down in front of TV watching a moderately interesting thriller or drama


A Porky as I explained earlier in the book is a person who feels a strong sense of entitlement. This entitlement is not one of an arrogant nature-but is the reflection of the internal torture a porky feels as he daily tries to grab his 15 minutes of fame(he wants more) or spends at least 15 hours a day thinking about it. In my particular case I had spent 20 years trying to recapture my radio glory of yesteryear failing miserably but trying at least mentally every day to get back there. It was at this time my dear friend, world-renowned rock critic Mark Jenkins suggested I try to get a job at XM radio.  I talked to the Program director, at the time a fellow named Dave Logan-and in his best am style-he said," show me your stuff. Just the challenge a "Porky wants to hear," the year was 2002-a turbulent time in America with terrorism on everyone's mind. Well to make the long story short-I had by chance known Osama Bin Laden's younger brother(Kamal) who was a fellow student in the Foreign Service School at Georgetown(this was the early 70's). Without going into to much detail I managed to hook him up with this "hot blonde" in exchange for surrendering his apartment on "W Place" in Glover Park. His date was a success--- we remained in touch over the years and I thought-I can get an interview with Osama-this will certainly get me a show on XM Radio!! Dave Logan told me it sucked(typical radio douchebag)-the FBI visited me and I almost spent a few summers at Guantanamo Bay. But this Porky soldiers on-Now for the first time ever-listen to this amazing interview and

(Hear the audio version here)

discover the answer to one of Rock Music's many mysteries!!

Osama:  Hahlo, Hahlo (Middle Eastern accent)

(Engineer) Bruce:  I don't think we can wait.....

Steven: Okay, okay (pause) okay, okay

Osama:  Whom am I speaking? Identify yourself, Infidel.

Steven:  (laughing) Today we have a very exciting show.  After a long and hard negotiation through several third parties, we have lined up an interview with ...

Osama:  Hahlooo?

Bruce:  Here he is Steve, here he is.

Steven:  We have lined up an interview with the FBI's most wanted, Osama bin Laden.  In our pre -negotiations, we were surprised and amazed to find out the real grievances he has with the American people.  Uh...is that you, Mr. bin Laden?  

Osama:  Yes!

Steven:  Mr. bin Laden, I am delighted and a bit stunned...

Osama:  To whom am I speaking? (suspicious)

Steven:  My name is Steven, Mr. bin Laden.  I am a friend of uh Mr. Farley who is a friend of the uh grandson of the uh Saudi Arabian Prime Minister. (fumbling to make something up.)  But let me say, Mr. bin Laden.  I am delighted and a bit stunned.  The whole world thought that the Middle Eastern radio and television station Al Jazerra would be the one to get to interview you.  Instead you have given this worldwide exclusive to us.  Can you tell me why?  Why are we so lucky?

Steven:  Are you there? Are you there?

Osama:  Hahlo?  

Steven: (laughing) Are you there Mr. bin Laden?

Osama: One moment please. (talking to someone in the background) Kamal!

Steven: Okay.  (talking to audience) Apparently it sounds like we are in touch with a cave in Afghanistan.  We are making landmark history here.  

Osama: (heard talking to his brother Kamal in background.)  Listen carefully. I want the following doughnuts.  (with an urgent tone in his voice giving a command) I want to get a dozen.  I want two jelly. I want to get two chocolate iced.  Some of the  Bavarian cream, and I want another one....I think they are maple flavored, and the others are iced all over with the things on top. (thinking for the English word.)  

Osama:  "Sprinkles."  Lots of sprinkles.  Please.

Steven:  It sounds like we do have a transmission.  It sounds like we've made a connection, based on this recording; it's got to be in a cave somewhere.  It's just got to be in a cave.

Osama:  (drawling his voice in politeness)  You have to excuse me.  I am under a lot of stress.  It gives me an appetite.

Steven: But again, Mr. bin Laden. Sahib.  Tell us why you chose to come to our network here, at the XM Network, when you could have gone anywhere else?  Why did you come to us instead of Al Jazerra?  That is the big question?

Osama: Well.  There are several reasons.  My relationship with Al Jazerra , like everyone else, soured because at the last interview I did for them, they did not live up to their commitment to provide me with:  three cases of Perrier, 15 bowls of M&M's, (red and yellow only,) 2,000 pounds of Bulgarian caviar and enough shish kabob to feed the 200 men, and you ask for five white women dressed as American police women for the entertainment.

Steven:  (stunned) Excuse me?  White women dressed up as police women?

Osama:  (solemn)  As Muslims we must be fully covered.  However, my men need some entertainment, and the decadent entertainment is what you in the West specialize in.

Steven:  Okay.  Okay.  I can understand that.  I see.  Why did you consent to be interviewed by the XM Network when you were being seriously pursued by ABC, CNN, MSNBC and CBS?

Osama:  I wonder if you have any idea, how hard it is to get fair representation in your Western media.  This is a serious choice I must make to get my word out.  I was slightly partial to CNN as I have great admiration for Paula Zahn, but the Infidels who run CNN would not give to my demands.  I was hoping she would interview me in a swimsuit.  However, I did choose XM because it has some admirable qualities.  First up, I am aware that your show has played music from all over the world, and you have played the songs I have written.  Many times.  Particularly, my world wide smash "Miserlou."  Secondly, your station has the greatest representation of all kinds of music with a good selection of world beat sounds, and what the world does not know is that I am first a musician and great songwriter, not a freedom fighter or a terrorist.  I am misunderstood.  I am misrepresented in your media.

Steven:  Yes.  Hello.  We are still here with you.  Please go ahead.  I  (sound of machine gun fire.)  We can still hear you. (more gunfire)  Sahib Osama.  Mr. bin Laden. Okay.  

Bruce: We've got him back.

Osama:  After a long, long negotiations with your crafty CEO there,  Hugh Panero, we worked out a deal in which I give him a new round of financing, (to the tune of 30 million I might add,)  for which I have promised my own station called bin Laden Network.  24-hours of Koran readings, belly dance music, Turkish bouzouki music, Arabic music and environmental sounds.   (gunfire in the background.)  You know I just love the sound of cows mooing in the morning.  Of course, the many tunes I have written, especially my greatest hit "Miserlou," stolen by that Infidel,  second rate bouzouki player, third rate surf guitar player, Dick Dale.  

Steven:  Dick Dale?  Can you tell me about Dick Dale?  Tell me about your relationship with Dick Dale.

Osama: (laughing) Oh don't worry.  I can tell you about Dick Dale. Listen.  Well get to that story in a minute.  Ah.  Further.  My poor friend, my good friend, Hugh, also promised me five female interns of my choice and remote broadcasting.  I can't very well come to the United States, now can I?  (gunfire and beeping.)

Steven:  Are you there? (beeping)  Engineer?  How are we doing there?  By the way, this show is being orchestrated by Bruce, the engineer here, well known in music circ....

Bruce:  The transmission seems to be getting faulty...Uh...

Steven:  See if you can bring him in.

Bruce:  There's some interference from some "a" wire stuff.

Osama:  Who is this Bruce person?  

Steven:  He is just the engineer Osama.  He's an engineer.  That's all.

Osama:  Is he CIA operative?  

Steven:  No.  No.  He's a technician.  He's here to...

Osama:  He's clean-shaven, I'll bet.  

Steven: (laughing) He's here to see this interview goes well.  Please move on.  Talk.  Tell us what your thoughts are.

Osama:  I don't want you to forget that you promised me 1,000 pounds of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, flown to my hide out in Hindu Kush Mountains every three...uh...did I say Hindu Kush Mountains?  I meant to say Kandahar (drawling word out.  Kandoooohaaar.)  

Steven:  Kandahar. Okay.  So.  Osama.  You don't mind if I call you Osama, do you?  Is that all right?  

Osama:  That's all right, under the circumstances.  

Steven:  (more gunfire in the background)   So what's the story with Dick Dale?

Osama:  You don't know our customs and our way of addressing,  so it's all right.  I will bear with it to get my story out.  

Steven:  Tell me your relationship, or the story with Dick Dale.

Osama:  (gunfire)  Well you're not going to leave it alone, are you?  But in the mid-sixties, Dick Dale and the Del Tones were on a Mid-East tour of the Hilton and Intercontinental Hotels and my band, bin Laden's Lamb were the house band in the Phoenica Hotel in Beirut where, when this American Infidel, Dick Dale,  got the gig and there we were, promptly told that we would be the opening act and lost our status.  You can imagine that a Muslim man, like myself, with loss of pride. This was a hard pill to swallow.  In any case, I befriended Dick and showed him around the red light district and turned him on to the Turkish delights, chars or, as you say in America, "hashish."  It was on a night with the full moon.  We took our camels and we went to the desert.  We imbibed some chars, and I played him a beautiful song I had written about my camel, "Serti."  Dick told me that night (gunfire in background) it was the most beautiful song he had ever heard (gunfire)  He was like a brother.  Then he left and went back to the States and betrayed me.  The rest is history.  "Miserlou" is my song.  The West must know.  It's not a question of money.  It's a question of pride!

Cue to song "Miserlou" sung in Arabic.

Steven:  ....and of course, when Pulp Fiction came out....(cue to Dick Dale's intro of "Miserlou.")

Osama:  Very funny. (angry)  I am not amused.  You're laughing, but to me it is like a spear through my heart.  I remember when that film came out.  A prime example of your Western decadence.  I had to see it three times just to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me.  And when I left the theatre....I was so angry.  I was boiling.  You dissed me.  And when I saw your battleship in the harbor?  I commanded that one of my boat's ram into it.  ("Miserlou" still playing.)

Steven:  Let me ask  you another question, Osama.  Since I see that it's a particularly sore point for you...

Osama:  It's more than a sore point.

Steven:  I realize that, so I was thinking we'd move on to another question.  Tell me. The Jews.  Why do you hate the Jews, Osama?

Osama:  I don't hate the Jews.  Some of my best friends are Jews.  There are a very funny people.  They keep a little humor.  They..uh...we need that here in the desert wasteland of the Middle East.  As a matter of fact, at my wedding, to my sixteenth wife, Henny Youngman was the entertainment.  I loved that guy.  We spent many hours laughing.  He almost convinced me to have a circumcision.  Can you believe that?  (incredulously)  

Steven:  Quite something.

Osama:  In fact.  His big joke.  His main line, "Take my wife," is now part of the Muslim dialect.  It's a great joke we have together when rich Muslims with many wives get together, over some chars, and drink a little too much Turkish coffee, we say to each "Take my wives...PLEASE."  

Steven:  You claim in this Al Qaeda press release that we received,  that many of your other musical ideas were stolen, Osama.  Can you give me a further example?

Osama:  I can tell you more stories of injustice than the 1,001 Nights.  But there was a time in the early eighties when your superstar, Prince, or whatever that Infidel calls himself now, looked me up.  Of course he came to Osama.  I am known as royalty in the pop world of the Middle East.  I offered him a cultural tour of the Pyramids and the many mosques we have.  But all this man wanted was to hunt for women.  He said to me, "How can you tell what they look like, all covered up?"  I told him, "We go by the ankles. We "read" the ankles. And.  By the "walk."  I told him the most sensual women of the Middle East are the Egyptian women.  Whenever we see a hot babe walking by in a burka, we say, "She walks like an Egyptian."  So what does he do?  He writes a hit song, and he gives me no credit.  I call for a fatwa on him.  

Steven:  I can see, Osama, that there is definitely  a lot of bitterness you have, and that apparently if what you say is true, you deserve a certain amount of retribution.  

Osama:  I wonder if you have any idea?  But listen, I've got to get going here.  The old clock on the wall says "it's time to go."  

Steven:  Osama, I'd like to thank you for (gunfire) spending this time with the XM Network and giving this exclusive interview and uh letting us know (gunfire) exactly what does fuel the fires.  I can hear some gunfire in the background.  What is that, Osama?

Osama:  That's the cue to get out of town.  They hunt me like an animal (gunfire)  But never will they catch me.  I've got to go now, but I'll tell you, (yelling) I NEED MORE BEN & JERRYS.  AND THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON OF THE SOPRANOS.  (gunfire followed by loud explosion)

Cue to Who singing "I Can See For Miles."