TomFlannery.com

A real honor to play the Old Lynn Concert series. Extra special this time because my good friend Ed Appnel will open the show. I’d be just as glad if the order was reversed.

Gonna be a great gig. Plan on doing lots of the new stuff, and digging out some old chestnuts I haven’t visited in a while. Great crowds. Everybody brings food to share. And the series has always been free. Over the years it’s turned into one of the top acoustic music locales on the map.

Come out and say hello. I’m gonna whisper and stomp.

More info at the Old Lynn Concert series website

Springsteen didn’t always deliver. It just seems like he did. I grew up with Bruce. I remember trying to figure out my sister’s copy of “The Wild the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle”.  A few songs skipped so I’d tape a penny to the arm of the record player to try to drive the needle into the grooves deep enough to get past the blemishes. None of this sounded like anything else at the time. Here was some grungy kid from the Jersey Shore. We went to the Jersey Shore every summer. I didn’t think anybody actually lived there. My brother got his kite caught in telephone wires one summer and the next year when we went back down it was still there, which I thought was charming.

It might have been the same year Springsteen was on the cover of Time and Newsweek simultaneously, both articles suggesting that Bruce was a product of hype while somehow oblivious that the articles themselves may have been…you know, adding to what they were bitching about in the first place. This kid. Could he really be as good as they say?

Turns out yea, and then some. Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town are two of the greatest rock and roll records ever released. The River wasn’t far behind…..a sprawling double record of frat-house rock and lonely desperation, sitting side by side and confusing just about everybody who loved to put labels on things. What did this guy want? Turns out he wanted everything. He wanted to be Elvis….but also Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash. So he released a stunning folk record called Nebraska that sounded like something pulled off the shelves at the library of congress. Then he wanted to turn rock and roll into a 4 hour spiritual experience, and on certain nights he did just that. The sheer bombast of Born in the USA was off-putting to lunk-heads who thought Bruce was wrapping himself in the flag so Reagan could get votes. But Ronnie was shown the error of his ways, and Bruce continued to work with local food banks in every town he played. His politics were all local. Feed people who were hungry. Make a connection. Break through the isolation of the 6 pack and the TV, waiting for oblivion so you could get up and do it all over again. If only for those few hours. “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive”. Fuck. Nobody else ever said that to me. I thought there was something wrong with myself. Damn sinner I was.  “I ain’t a boy…no I’m a man.” Yea, that sounded  alright. Surrounded by 20,000 others we believed every word Bruce said. Nobody wins unless everybody wins.

That was the promise. It didn’t come true. But we didn’t blame Bruce. Figured he did his part. We’d sit and drink beer in the summer rain with car doors open to hear the tape deck, and our lives would improve until the beer was gone and we had to go our separate ways. Then we’d be lonely again. None of this was long term stuff….but a little is better than none at all. And a 4 hour concert was better than a 2 hour concert.

When the promise is broken you go on living
But it steals something from down in your soul
Like when the truth is spoken and it don’t make no difference
Something in your heart goes cold

We grew cold. Attempted to warm ourselves with drink and maybe stronger things. Tried to keep doomed relationships alive just to avoid being alone. We grew old while being bombarded with being young, and could never age in reverse  no matter what chemicals we tried. What did this music mean now?

“The Promise” is 22 songs from the Darkness of the Edge of Town sessions that were never released. Most for good reason. They’re not as good. But there are moments. The full band version of “Racing in the Streets” puts a lump in my throat (the stark version he did release makes me cry). I see that girl on the porch of her daddy’s house. In her torn dress. With dead eyes. There’s nothing left for her. Dreams become cruel. I know her.

And of course the song “The Promise”, which Bruce chose not to include on Darkness on the Edge of Town. For reasons unknown, as it may be his greatest single song.

All my life I fought this fight
The fight that no man can never win
Every day it just gets harder to live
This dream I’m believing in

I’ll never forget those days drinking in the rain with friends. All of us searching for what Bruce later coined “The Human Touch” (getting everyone made at him in the process). Dreams in those days may have been hangovers gone wrong. But it felt like fighting at the time. And it seemed worth it. All we needed to do was to look into the hard faces of our parents too see the fear Bruce was writing about, and we thought we could somehow become immune to the lines in the face if we held onto each other long enough. And hard enough. The night didn’t have to end. They could be endless. We could be young forever. And together, we could win the fights others lost by themselves. If the promise was broken, we’d all gather and make it right again.

Good to be young. Stupidity comes so easy. That may be what I miss the most. Being dumb makes it difficult to be bitter. Being bitter makes it impossible to keep our own promises. Maybe….just maybe, listening to these songs will make me feel like those days back when, when we trusted each other and were afraid to let go. For reasons we all know now.

In a bit…

–tf

Just finished the new Keith Richards autobiography. Hilarious. All the bitching he’s done over the years about how he’s portrayed by writers….and he writes his own book that pretty much confirms everything they’ve been saying all along. Even using his own pen Keef comes across as a lovable, depraved, slightly menacing chemical freak who would be great to meet but deadly to spend any real time with. A rock and roll gypsy gun-slinger who once stayed awake for 9 nights running, accidently set fire to Hugh Hefner’s bathroom, and threw a knife at a record company employee who dared make a songwriting suggestion. A man who should be so long dead it’s ridiculous. His latest brush was getting smashed on some bizarre island concoction and falling out of a tree, nearly giving himself brain-damage. That was 3 years ago I think, although such things do tend to run together with this man. It’s been said that, along with cock-roaches, Keef will be the only survivor of a nuclear holocaust.

Also of course, he’s the man responsible for “Satisfaction”, “Jumping Jack Flash”, “Gimme Shelter”, “Happy”, and ensuring that Gram Parsons didn’t live to be 30, for all of which we should be eternally grateful.

Keith ain’t exactly a deep thinker. Altamont, for some the mythical end of the age of aquarius, barely gets a mention at all. Richards wonders how the armed black kid stabbed to death by the Hell’s Angels in front of the stage managed to live as long as he did….which is an interesting view of the carnage that I admit to never having considered before. It might not be the most sensitive angle on such a touchy subject, but you never get the feeling Keef is being dishonest. This is, after all, the man who on first meeting his in-laws arrived swigging a bottle of Jack Daniels and then upped the ante by breaking his guitar over their coffee table when somebody said something that displeased him. An old fashioned romantic, in other words.

The book is 500+ pages, but decades seem to pass in a few hundred words. Maybe he forgot. Many of the putrid Rolling Stones records don’t get mentioned at all, which is understandable I suppose, though I’d love to know what drugs Keith was on when recording, say, “Undercover” or “Voodoo Lounge”. It must have been amazingly potent shit for him to allow such drivel to see the light of day. But the details of such inelegant messes are glossed over entirely, and I feel cheated, quite frankly. Life ain’t all “Exile on Main St” and “Let it Bleed” you know. If it was, the world would be a much more pleasant place. I want to know why the Stones haven’t put out a decent record in 30 years. On this subject, alas, Keef is mum.

Still a good read. Reading about junkies is always fun. Reading about junkies from the perspective of a former junkie even more so. When they have the gift to write a song like “Gimme Shelter”, they can charge $30 for a book. Hard to resist. And admit it. A 65 year old man who still braids his hair? That’s pretty damn cool.

In a bit..

–tf

A song I wrote in 2005 that I still perform live from time to time.

The Show

Can’t lift my arm to comb my hair
just one more game to get back up there
fastball dragging some at 85
slept in ice the entire 12 hour drive
we come overnight from Omaha
with that hanging curve sticking in my craw
out in front he ripped it down the line
and for me it was miller time

The kids they all call me old man
I try to help ’em when I can
sometimes I catch ’em when they stare
they’re thinking what the hell were you doing up there?
about the show this much is clear
it’s better up there than it is down here
went into Wrigley and I mowed ’em down
and I was the talk of Houston town

just one more day in the show
to savor when I go
if you let me grow old I’ll do it gracefully
paint the corners black just wait and see
down here time moves so slow
just one more day in the show

I could make that radar gun dance
going every 4th day without a backward glance
6 and 2 by the end of May
everyone lining up to hear what I had to say
in Philly I landed funny off the mound
that’s where I heard the popping sound
now it was cortizone and daily mass
with a fastball that couldn’t break glass

Lost 7 of 9 thowing mostly junk
mopped up a few when my sinker sunk
then they sent me down hoping for the best
5 years on I still can’t rest
I go Thursday night in Abeliene
with a lot of phone calls in between
my little girl says daddy when you coming home
I tell her sweetheart I just don’t know

just one more day in the show
to savor when I go
if you let me grow old I’ll do it gracefully
paint the corners black just wait and see
down here time moves so slow
just one more day in the show

Stream online

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01. I’m Bound
02. Shine On
03. Strip It All Away
04. Suburban Love
05. Then You Walked In
06. Paddy Says
07. I’ll Do Right by You
08. Music Can Break Your Heart
09. High School Heroes
10. Dave Grohl
11. Take a Walk
12. State of the Union
13. Rock Record
14. Our Only Chance (Is That You Feel the Same)
15. Hand to Mouth
16. The Jukebox Knows
17. The Devil and Chuck Berry

all songs by Tom Flannery
copyright 2009

recorded July, August, September 2009

********************************************************************************************************
Ok, here’s what I remember. It was spring of 2009 and I was flush with cash. I had a hidden envelope stuck inside a book on my bookshelf and I kept slipping money in there. For a few years I was doing it. I was gonna make a rock and roll record. With a rock and roll band. Had the studio lined up. Was getting a great deal. The boys were ready. All top notch talent. I already named them. The Shillelaghs. Visions of the Warped Tour danced in my head. The bus. Jimmy Kimmel live. Conan. Groupies. Smashed guitars. Fishing out hotel room windows.

The band heard the songs and were looking forward to some mindless bashing (the songs weren’t exactly complex..three chords and a whiff of ozone). I had written a pile of tunes with screeching guitars and pounding drums playing in the back of my head. My head was playing them really loud too. It was as much fun as one can legally have with a guitar and legal pad.

Had that yellow legal pad and took it everywhere with me. Lyrics were pouring out. When I ran out of space on a page I wrote sideways along the sides. Didn’t want to be wasteful. I wrote songs about teens and booze and girls and music and filled them with angst and stolen riffs and cracked vocals. The lyrics still only exist on that legal pad. I never transcribed them, which is why this is the only record I’ve released that doesn’t include links to the lyrics. They’re in my desk drawer.

And then…..when all was right with the world…..I noticed the envelope had about $20 left in it. Apparently I’d been dipping over the years and was taking out more than I was putting in. By a wide margin. So I broke up the band I had never played with, bought a few sets of strings and some guitar picks, and was dead broke again. Familiar territory. I put the songs aside and wrote “Pete Townshend’s Ghost“, which I still think is the best thing I’ve ever done. So in a way I’m glad it all turned out the way it did.

But these songs. Hmmm. I like them. Rough and sketchy as they might be….filled with flubs and sorta-tuned strings and rock star name dropping. They’re positively warped, mind-bendingly simple, and at times completely incomprehensible. And I’m giving them away for free.

So what’s not to like?

In a bit…

–tf

I think part of what it means to grieve is having the bad memories obliterate the good ones. It’s like being stuck in deep mud. Not only does spinning your wheels do no good, but anybody who gets close is splattered. It’s not much fun being around somebody who is grieving. Party invites are rare, and when you sequester yourself in the corner nobody is in a hurry to ease you back into the middle of the room.

And it can be selfish too. What are we really missing? Perhaps the ease in which the departed could solve our own maze of problems? We want them back…but on what terms? Or who’s?

Alzheimer’s is an awful disease. I miss my father desperately. But I need to remember that it hurt more watching him suffer through it than it does seeing his empty chair. There’s no more pain. There’s no more confusion. There’s no more fear. I’ll never forget that look in his eye. The eyes can’t hide fear. Damn the eyes anyway. They are indeed windows.

But I’m not special. And my situation is not unique. That’s difficult to remember sometimes when you’re busy working on  hibernation. It’s hard enough when hibernation comes naturally.

The leaves are exploding. At their height now. I can stand on my front porch and see mountains that look like they are on 5 different kinds of fire. It can be breathtaking. There is beauty in the world. Yes. Still.

Soon I’ve pick up the guitar. Creeping that way. The songs are there. The guitar tries to hide behind the chair but the neck sticks out. I see it. All the time. Like the leaves.

In a bit…

–tf

Has it been 8 years already? Had a bunch of songs but no money. Made the decision to record solo acoustic in an old church with my friend Lorne Clarke working the mics. A freezing cold winter night with ripping winds and spooky sounds creeping under the doors. Did it all in a few hours….in the order the songs appear on the release. It was a very interesting time. Wars were both kicking off and imminent. Everybody was scared. I was a bit over-caffeinated and writing like crazy to keep the blues away. The songs are kinda all over the place….but looking back I still think they belong together.

Can’t remember how many copies I had of this, but they’re all gone so I’ve been offering this as a free download. Consequently, it’s my biggest “seller”. Funny how that works.

Give a listen here.

It’s a blitzkrieg of negative political attack ads. They run right after each other too, which can be bewildering. One minute a candidate is accusing his opponent of being a diabolical tax and spend goat fucker, and the next moment the aforementioned diabolical tax and spend goat fucker is accusing his opponent of kicking jobless people in the teeth to keep corporate interests happy.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, if you can wade through the slime. Chris Carney is my DC rep, but I’ve never supported him since he supported the war. But to vote for a right wing crazy like Tom Marino is repulsive to me. So I do believe I’ll sit this one out. I no longer care much about the democratic process, since it doesn’t really exist. These guys are all bag men for corporations in one way or the other. And while I think it was both historic and proper to vote for Obama, if only to keep Sarah Palin on the lunatic fringe, I’m plenty pissed off that he hasn’t done more…or less depending on your point of view. Bailing out the stupid greedy fuckers on Wall Street wasn’t exactly what we put him in the Oval Office to do (nor putting in charge of the US Treasury former Wall Street hacks and expecting different results. That is the very definition of insanity). And what could have been a monumental universal health care bill was gutted by so many republican hyenas that what we’re left with is hardly FDR-ish. We’re still illegally detaining people in Cuba. We’re still waging a war.

The economy being in the toilet scares people. Fear is what drives the crazies to the front of the line. Obama inherited an 8 year spending orgy that would have made Reagan blush. But Obama is the new face. And like it or not, it’s his mess now. And he’s getting the blame. Is it fair? Of course not. But it wasn’t fair that Reagan got credit for freeing the hostages either. So it works both ways. A dog shits on my floor…guess who gets to clean it up?

Fox News. Limbaugh. The “Tea Party”. This right wing noise has always been with us. In various forms. From Father Coughlin to McCarthy to Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan. Put Spiro Agnew in drag and what have you got? Sara Palin without the good legs. Being a student of history, none of this surprises me. Hate sells. Always has. And it’s good theater. Say what you want about a gas-bag like Limbaugh. But he’s good at what he does. He knows his audience. He dumbs it down. Nobody on the left can touch him….because the left insists on explaining things. Who’s got time for details when you can just scream “socialism” in a crowded theater? It matters little that someone like Sara Palin probably can’t actually define socialism. I doubt McCarthy could define “communism” either. All that matters is that what they are talking about is them. It’s the ones who look different. The ones who talk different. The ones who interfere with the price of doing business. The ones who dare ask pesky questions.  You know, like “why”?

I really don’t think on this much anymore. I used to be a political junkie, but in retrospect it seems only because I was utterly transfixed by the sheer balls of a guy like Dick Cheney, who pissed on the Constitution with the same regularity he collected draft deferements…..and still maintained that anybody who disagreed with him did not love America. It was all a bit like slowing down to a crawl on the highway to inspect an accident. I feel almost guilty for getting sucked into it actually.

Thanfully that nightmare is over, but we seem to be mired in yet another. Just watch the ads. I’ve completely lost faith in the healing powers of politics. If in fact it ever had any. I used to think it mattered. The words. The impassioned plea’s. The pomp of it all. What it could stand for if we were even aware of what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

But then…Lou Barletta and Abraham Lincoln? In the same profession? It sounds perverse. And you know what? It is.

In a bit…

–tf

In my 20s I used to dabble in drink. Maybe more than dabble actually. I took to it like a whale to water.

I’m not in my 20s anymore….a good thing for my liver. But while I was I had a main watering hole. And I met some extraordinary people during my time there. It’s been said that God loves a drunk. If so this place would have warmed his heart. It was kinda like the bar in the Star Wars movie. Only more colorful.

Tonight I met up with an old friend, who informed me that 2 of my old drinking partners, each of them not too much older than me, are now deceased. I was stunned.

Everybody dies. That’s one of the indisputably shitty things about life. But when people you used to drink with start dropping dead before they’re old enough to retire, that can ruin your day. I know it ruined mine.

Both were raging alcoholics and incredibly sweet-natured people. One drank at least a case of Genesee a day, the other was infamous for saying to bartenders….”when midnight comes, no matter what I say, don’t give me whiskey”. He was a hard guy to resist though. When drunk his neck muscles would hibernate, and he looked like a bobble-head doll sitting at the bar. That is, when his face wasn’t planted in it.

Think about a case of Genesee a day. The stuff is vile. Like drinking someone else’s urine that’s been preserved in a third person’s bladder. The wonder isn’t that the guy died. It’s that he lived as long as he did. But he was also the softest touch you can imagine….befriending every cast-off who ever walked in the place….from dwarfs who carried guns to a motley assortment of ghastly strippers, most of whom had teeth you could count on one hand. I knew he was sick. He was always sick. Guys who drink more than 20 bottles of  Genesee beer a day have no immune system to speak of. But still. To hear that he’s dead? He’s been dead 7 years. I never knew. I feel terrible for not knowing.

The other? Died in his bed apparently. Heart just gave out, no doubt prompted by a liver the size of a grapefruit. Many’s the night we’d talk until the english language became impossible for him. One night he drove home (he lived only a few block away) and managed to hit 5 parked cars. When told about it the next day he said, “only five?”

I miss him. I miss them both. Neither ever married. Or had kids. Probably just as well. One lived with his Mom. I never knew where the other lived because he always seemed to be at the bar. He may have slept on the floor. There was plenty of room. One night two brothers started to beat the shit out of each other and one ended up throwing the other through the ladies room door. For the next 6 months if a girl was modest she posted a sentry and used the men’s room.

It was the kind of place where eyes twinkled from dreams….even though those dreams were unfulfilled. It was the kind of place where everybody knew your name. It was the kind of place you could fall into like a comfortable chair. It was dark and smelly and the stools were held together with duct tape. It was also the kind of place you had to get out of if you didn’t want to die young….but that’s not what I remember.

I wish I didn’t hear what I heard tonight. I wish I thought they were still there.

In a bit…

–tf

….in case you couldn’t tell. Little bit at a time. Eventually I’ll have the entire catalog….er…catalogued.

In a bit..

–tf