Jon

(Preface for a collection of my brother Jon’s lyric put that came out in Europe in 2010. It’s a remarkable book, incidentally, Jon’s very literary songs and his matching introductory essays . Good luck finding one though,)

We pick Jon up. He’s in one of those little pads that clings to a lane that’s tucked against the side of a hill. Right near Spaceland. Cool spot if you don’t mind the yuppie bohos moving in from the Westside, thinking a cool ‘hood will make them cooler. It doesn’t. You can paint yourself black in tattoos with Sanskrit that reads fuck me in the ass but they told you was something deep and meaningful. You can grow the tiniest, hippest beard. Drink wine at the local wine shop and listen to KCRW till you pass out but you’re still a nothing. Just Westside rich kid garbage that washed in with the 90’s boomtide. Now your life sucks, that mortgage is killing you and no one gives a flying fuck about your exotica collection. You’re just an aging little hipster fuck.

 So that’s Silverlake. Continue reading

The Anti-Mogul (aka Long Gone John of SFTRI)

(written for a fanzine I can’t recall the name of, 1992)

The Headquarters of Sympathy For The Record Industry–perhaps the world’s pre-eminent truly independent label–is in Long Beach, California in a smallish house crammed to the eaves with record boxes and artwork and tapes; but also with paintings and wacky looking statues and ghoulish dolls and odd photos and little figurines and beggar’s bowls carved from human skulls.  Everything.  The office, far in the back, is the most crammed room of all–spikey death bronze pagan ritualistic voodoo punk rock’n’roll souvenir shit from floor to ceiling so that it’s almost sacred in some tattooed way–lots of weird funny cartoon art on display or in piles–Sympathy records and discs and paraphernalia everywhere…oh, and a desk, a little clutter of papers, a calendar and Long Gone John, self-proclaimed Anti-Mogul.      Continue reading