I was absent from the last issue of bay times due to a rather unexpected housing emergency. I won’t go into the unsavory sordid details of it all but the bottom line is I’m being forced to end my nine-year tenancy in that perch above the bar My Place, the infamous funky hovel overlooking Folsom street. It feels like the end of an era with my stay here coming to a close soon. It seems a rather unconventional habitat in a lot of ways, residing above a noisy little cocksucker’s bar on a stretch of a once thriving and ever-changing party and nightclub strip. People had a lot of pre-conceived notions about what it must be like, you could tell by the tones in their voices or the look in their eyes whenever I mentioned it, an undercurrent of sexual connotation inherent to the address and the almost invariable comment, “Well isn’t that convenient.” Then there were all the bumbling drunks over the years that tried to slip in the gate and front door every time it was open as if my apartment were merely an extension or host to the activities common to the darker regions of My Place. I can’t count the times I’ve had to make my little speech about this place being a residence where individuals lived, worked, ate and slept to some slavering sexual predator trying to slip inside my door, acting like an innocent retard who had been told it was okay. Granted, this apartment was no cloistered monastery by any means, but come on! It reminds me of a great song by one of the greatest American rock bands ever, X, called “In This House That I Call Home.” It may have seemed to be many things to many people, party house, sex club, tranny pit-stop, haunted, flop house, swinging bachelor pad, gateway to the underground city of druids, etc., but to me, above all, it was home. “Nobody knows the party rules/ gotta get in but there’s no room/ in this house that I call home.” I’ll never forget my near decade of living on Folsom street, some of my stellar room mates of the past like the vivacious Tauna and the caustic and hilarious Canadians Adam and Michael and the core nuclear family formed by myself, my loyal room mate Tish and that darn cat Handsome. I will happily forget, as long as I live, the miserable force of bitterness, hypocrisy, jealousy, greed, and a pathetic maniacal quest for control that destroyed our longtime home. Some things you can do without forever, and I plan to.
Rock and roll is one thing that remains consistent in my life and the lives of many and for this I am grateful. It thrills me endlessly that my jobs are playing rock music in a couple of bars weekly and attending many live shows and buying new releases to review in these pages. So many of my co-workers are also fully immersed in the whole rock and roll life, not only holding posts behind the bars that play rock and roll, but also being actual members of great bands, sometimes as many as three different ones simultaneously, or producing and recording their own bands as well as new and upcoming acts, or booking shows that feature young hardworking touring bands from all over the nation as well as locally, talented bands that could be well on their way to popularity and success that need to be seen, and even forming a variety of one-off tribute bands for special occasions, honoring certain icons of rock history familiar to everyone and executed with a slight tongue-in-cheek sense of humor yet performed with a definite respect-the-rock level of skill and expertise. Musicians have always astonished me with their ability to create one part of a larger whole in the form of a powerful majestic song. That talent is magical and when I see it or hear it, be it in a small bar, a large stadium, from my home stereo or a passing car, I’m reminded that rock and roll music really is everything I live for. I’m so lucky that it is also seemingly the lifeblood pumping through the veins of so many of my friends, friends who understand what I mean when I say it’s everything I live for, because they embrace the rock and roll life even more fully than I do, they create the music. I’m in awe of musicians in the same way I was in awe of rock writers, the people who chronicled the lives and critiqued the work of Rock Stars, writers like Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau and more from the pages of Creem Magazine and Rolling Stone and Hit Parade which I started reading when I was 10 or 11. I was even fascinated by the groupies, the wild women, like Pamela DesBarres, Bebe Buell, Cynthia Plaster Caster, and even the actual wives of the rockers, or the series of fashion models, actresses and other musical artists who were romantically linked to rock and roll stars, sometimes wed, others notoriously un-wed and others even associated by merely a scandal—and legends grow rapidly in the world of rock. One such fascinating character who has lived through a share of past associations with various rock figures, even got arrested with Mick Jagger for possession of marijuana in 1968, was a pop star in her own right, an accomplished stage actress, a symbol of London’s swinging scene of the 60’s, and an outspoken modern girl who advocated the taking of LSD on a British talk show. This person was Marianne Faithfull, and that event was over 34 years ago. Marianne’s star faded somewhat in the 70’s when drugs became a serious priority and the former songbird ended up homeless and broke and scrutinized heavily by the press, an example of a casualty of the excesses of an era. Then in 1979 she recorded and released a comeback LP, Broken English, a startlingly honest and harsh collection of songs featuring one of the nastiest, dirtiest cuts about an unfaithful lover I’d ever heard, let alone by a woman. It was called “Why’d Ya Do it” and it brought the outcast singer back to the fore with gusto and a remarkable vocal quality that asserted itself on the edge of broken, balancing between a hardened raspy quality and a velvety richness. The world took note once again of this controversial figure in a new way. Here was a surviving member of an extreme rock and roll existence, one that could have killed her but it didn’t, and she’s going to tell us about it.
Marianne has continued working since then, recording many LP’s, touring frequently, experimenting in other styles, applying her voice to the works of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht which was a match to be reckoned with, as if she were born to sing those songs, and collaborating with other composers like Angelo Badalementi who scores films for David Lynch, Elton John, Van Morrison, The Chieftains, and the list goes on and on, leading us to her latest release Kissin’ Time, for which she matches up with a handful of contemporary artists like Beck and Billy Corgan and Will Oldham and Jarvis Cocker and they wrote songs together. It’s a welcome return to the more pop and rock styles for her, having devoted a lot of time to the songs of the Weimar Republic and singing with just piano accompaniment or traditional orchestrations. Kissin’ Time is possibly her best record in years because it is quite literally a celebration of her—her ribald nature, her sense of humor and irony, even a touch of self congratulatory survivor, and a sensitive personal one about her father and Nico and a truly epic song called “I’m On Fire” that has become my favorite on the record.
It wasn’t my favorite until last week when I caught Marianne’s show at the Fillmore and heard it performed live that I was so swept away by the greatness of this composition. I’ve seen her live about 4 times over the years doing various material or pared down cabaret style versions of all her best songs or with an orchestra and this show was the first time I’d seen her with a band that even resembled a rock configuration since I saw her in 82 at the Kabuki Theatre when she was demanding 4 grams of cocaine backstage or she wouldn’t go on. She was great then too, but nothing like the regal, stunning and consummate performer that owned the Fillmore stage and commanded it perfectly, leaving the audience awe-struck with the sheer power and skill of her talent and the unflappable presence and beauty of her soul.
She looked absolutely stunning and radiant as she walked onstage opening with a great old favorite “Fallen From Grace” diving right into to the deep end of her troubled personal life while the band kept the arrangement sort of upbeat and rolling. Her voice has clearly developed into a masterful instrument, the characteristic imperfections, that raspy smoke-laden husky quality is firmly in place and effectively used, no longer hinting at vulnerability or the edge of breaking, everything about this voice was well placed. The audience was responding with cheers mid song as she soared in complete control. To me she’s never been in better voice.
The band was pretty amazing as well, creating a punchy funked-up throb on “Broken English” that actually got the crowd moving a bit, then perfectly adding distinctly western touches of slide guitar on a fantastic version of “Working Class Hero” and really hitting on the proper edginess and rage, weaving the perfect sense of menace into the haunted voodoo reggae style of “Why’d Ya Do It.” When they finished that song Marianne said, “That one used to be our last song, but recently we got a new last song written by my friend Jarvis Cocker, and I should point out that he wrote the words, not me.” The song “Sliding through Life On Charm,” is a definite high point of the new record with Cocker’s poetic and clever lyrics summing up Marianne’s life and pointing out her undeniable influence and inspiration on others. “The family tree was chain sawed Wednesday week/ so now I have to mingle with the meek/ Hey mister you have finally met your match/ Now everybody wants to kiss my snatch/ To go where God knows who has gone before/ I am a muse not a mistress not a whore/ Oh suburban shits who want some class/ All queue up to kiss my ass and I was only trying to please/ I never got any royalties/ Oh no –not me, I’m still sliding through life on charm.” It’s a great new last song, and the encore of the Tom Waits original “Strange Weather” was a nice short and sweet way to close this set of perfectly chosen songs, an adequate testament to the brilliant career of a rock and roll survivor.