TomFlannery.com

It’s 9:3o at night and I’m finally able to step foot outside without feeling like I’m being cooked. No rain but at least the sun has pissed off for a few hours. This heat is unbearable to a football fan like myself. And it’s not even July yet. I wish I could take a pill and wake up in September.

I’m going to be playing a benefit show on July 9th. It’ll be made up mostly of cover tunes so I’ve been spending the last few days brushing up on the chord changes of 45 year old Beatle songs, which is great fun. The odd Who tune and Van Morrison vamp as well. I haven’t played much lately so my fingertips feel like they’re on fire. But the pain is exquisite. I’ve been bashing away so hard that my strings feel like worn rope. Time to break the bank and pick up some light gauges.

Odd sitting out here now. I live on a fairly busy street but now minutes go by with nothing. And with traffic lighter, speeds increase dramatically. It’s more like a racing strip when it gets dark actually. One time a guy with too much money, too much car, and too much cocaine lost control and drove into our backyard, obliterating much of our fencing in the process. I don’t expect such activity tonight……surely lightning won’t hit the same place twice no?…but I’ll try not to think of such things as I sit here and cars weave down the road doing more than double the speed limit. If the cops ever decided to pull out the radar gun the town would be back in the black in a week.

Been listening to the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers record “Mojo” a lot lately. The old dudes can still shake the walls. Some great songs. Most of them are driven by Mike Campbell’s sterling guitar playing. Petty is a lucky bastard. I wish I had a Mike Campbell. Things might have turned out differently. Petty would not be Tom Petty without Mike Campbell. Their’s is the most underrated partnership in rock history.

Just finished reading a book about the making of the Woodstock festival. Great fun. The concert itself seemed the least interesting part of the entire spectacle. Hippies may have dressed and smelled differently and had better taste in drugs than their elders, but they shared the same entrepreneurial greed. It’s been 40+ years now, and I’m not sure how I feel about the whole thing. Granted I was only 3 at the time, but just thinking about half a million people willingly sitting in their own shit for 3 days to be entertained by Country Joe McDonald and Melanie and Mountain and Grace Slick makes me feel sorta superior. I’m not sure this makes me a better person….but I may hold the Michael Lang’s of the world to a higher standard. I don’t know.

Funny too how many of the Woodstock acts are still out there wearing the same clothes. Richie Havens. Santana. The Jefferson Whatever They’re Legally Able to Call Themselves This Year. Outside of the ones who killed themselves, just about everybody who played a note at the festival is still pumping out the nostalgia. Interestingly enough, the ones who killed themselves are the only ones anybody still takes seriously. Something to be said for that, although I’m not sure what.

Well, I just got my cue to go inside. Some teen in Daddy’s car just drove up the road pumping out the rap music at a volume even I find offensive….which is hard to believe. Middle class white kids listening to rap music always depresses me and makes me feel old. Like Max Yasgur or something, only much less tolerant.

In a bit…

–tf