another peculiar Hellerism explained
Sep. 27th, 2002 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wickedfleaThere's a little town outside of Starkville named Mayhew. Or I guess it's a town or a village or something, though all you ever hear is "Mayhew Junction" (otherwise known as the Crossroads (famed for its country-line beer joints, not its Robert Johnson connection; that's over in or near Clarksdale)). There used to be a joint out there called Doug's Place. For several years Doug's held a shindig called the July Jam, where several local cover bands and more-established regional cover bands would come out and play . . . covers. This was the mid-to-late '80s, so you heard a lot of Guns N Roses and Motley Crue. Being a bunch of kids who were STARVED for live music, my friends and I considered this gathering a pretty big deal.
The best band that played those shows was from nearby West Point. They went through a couple of different names, all of which were incredibly bad. The first time I saw them they were Rock Damage; the next year they were Concrete Jungle. Though I was more into stuff like Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax, I liked them enough even to go with Fool to their guitarist Rogers's house for practices a few times. Despite their questionable judgment in material, they were obviously quite talented. They were one of the few bands who could actually pull off "Sweet Child O' Mine" and Zep's "Black Dog" without sounding pathetic. And I have to cut them a little slack for their overemphasis on Axl and the boys, because this was when G&R was just breaking and before they'd become bloated and ridiculous -- long before "November Rain" and that Terminator II song. (For the record, I still consider Appetite for Destruction a fantastic rock album that's wrongly been lumped in the hair-metal crap that Nirvana supposedly saved us all from. But that's kind of a touchy subject with me. While there was a lot of stuff out there that needed wiping out, I don't think that Nirvana single-handedly did it (Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, RHCP, Soundgarden, and don't forget R.E.M. certainly had a hand in it), and besides, I think Appetite holds up better than Nevermind, which was a good album but nowhere near as good as a lot of other albums coming out of Seattle in those days, especially from Mudhoney and Soundgarden. But I digress.)
So Rock Damage/Concrete Jungle eventually went as far as they could in the Golden Triangle area (which didn't take long) and moved out to L.A. Before long I heard that they had a demo out that sounded kind of like Jane's Addiction and was starting quite a buzz among A&R people. Their drummer eventually moved back home, but a drummer from Starkville "progressive" band Cafe des Moines moved out and joined them. (There was about five minutes in the late '80s and early '90s when "progressive" referred not to bands like early Genesis, King Crimson, and Yes but to college-rock bands such as R.E.M., the Pixies, Dead Milkmen, etc. Does anyone else remember that?) They also hooked up with a singer who coincidentally was from the same town in Indiana as Axl Rose; he even turned up as a guest on their "Don't Cry" song and video.
Before long the band's self-titled debut album, Blind Melon, came out and went nowhere. I picked it up and thought it was pretty good but didn't get into it a whole lot. I was kind of bummed that it didn't sound as much like Jane's Addiction as I'd heard it was supposed to. After the album had been out several months, I started seeing their video for "No Rain." And then I began seeing it a LOT. So you all know the story from there -- they got hugely popular, got tagged as "The Bee-Girl Group," released a follow-up album that went nowhere and stayed there, and ended up breaking up when singer Shannon Hoon overdosed.
Recently I got ahold of that demo that ended up getting them signed (known as The Good Foot Workshop), and I'm blown away at how good it is. These guys could play, and they wrote good songs. And it has studio sound quality, but it didn't go through a major-label production process, so it still sounds raw and real. It's a pity that everyone still associates them with the Bee Girl and thinks all their songs probably sound like "No Rain." Goddamn MTV.
Oh yeah -- I just remembered what got me started on all this. At one of the July Jams we kept seeing this crazy guy shaking his ass at the side of the stage. He had this long frizzy hair, was thin as a rail, had these big-ass flares like Neil's from The Young Ones, and had a cigarette perpetually hanging from his mouth. He looked a lot like Scuzzy Cliff Burton of Metallica (dog rest his soul). Anyway, between two of the bands this guy got on the mike and started chattering to the crowd. I think he was giving away T-shirts.
"OK, OK, let's give one away to someone local. Where am I? What? What? Mayhem? OK, anyone here from Mayhem? MAYHEM, MAYHEM, anyone here from MAYHEM? What? May-what? OK, Mayhew, fine. Whaddya expect from me, I'm FRIED, OK? I'm fried. MAYHEM, MAYHEM, anyone here from Mayhem?" Meanwhile I was dying laughing.
And that, my friends, is why I can still be seen walking around my department sometimes babbling "Mayhem, Mayhem -- anyone here from Mayhem? I'm FRIED, OK?"
The best band that played those shows was from nearby West Point. They went through a couple of different names, all of which were incredibly bad. The first time I saw them they were Rock Damage; the next year they were Concrete Jungle. Though I was more into stuff like Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax, I liked them enough even to go with Fool to their guitarist Rogers's house for practices a few times. Despite their questionable judgment in material, they were obviously quite talented. They were one of the few bands who could actually pull off "Sweet Child O' Mine" and Zep's "Black Dog" without sounding pathetic. And I have to cut them a little slack for their overemphasis on Axl and the boys, because this was when G&R was just breaking and before they'd become bloated and ridiculous -- long before "November Rain" and that Terminator II song. (For the record, I still consider Appetite for Destruction a fantastic rock album that's wrongly been lumped in the hair-metal crap that Nirvana supposedly saved us all from. But that's kind of a touchy subject with me. While there was a lot of stuff out there that needed wiping out, I don't think that Nirvana single-handedly did it (Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, RHCP, Soundgarden, and don't forget R.E.M. certainly had a hand in it), and besides, I think Appetite holds up better than Nevermind, which was a good album but nowhere near as good as a lot of other albums coming out of Seattle in those days, especially from Mudhoney and Soundgarden. But I digress.)
So Rock Damage/Concrete Jungle eventually went as far as they could in the Golden Triangle area (which didn't take long) and moved out to L.A. Before long I heard that they had a demo out that sounded kind of like Jane's Addiction and was starting quite a buzz among A&R people. Their drummer eventually moved back home, but a drummer from Starkville "progressive" band Cafe des Moines moved out and joined them. (There was about five minutes in the late '80s and early '90s when "progressive" referred not to bands like early Genesis, King Crimson, and Yes but to college-rock bands such as R.E.M., the Pixies, Dead Milkmen, etc. Does anyone else remember that?) They also hooked up with a singer who coincidentally was from the same town in Indiana as Axl Rose; he even turned up as a guest on their "Don't Cry" song and video.
Before long the band's self-titled debut album, Blind Melon, came out and went nowhere. I picked it up and thought it was pretty good but didn't get into it a whole lot. I was kind of bummed that it didn't sound as much like Jane's Addiction as I'd heard it was supposed to. After the album had been out several months, I started seeing their video for "No Rain." And then I began seeing it a LOT. So you all know the story from there -- they got hugely popular, got tagged as "The Bee-Girl Group," released a follow-up album that went nowhere and stayed there, and ended up breaking up when singer Shannon Hoon overdosed.
Recently I got ahold of that demo that ended up getting them signed (known as The Good Foot Workshop), and I'm blown away at how good it is. These guys could play, and they wrote good songs. And it has studio sound quality, but it didn't go through a major-label production process, so it still sounds raw and real. It's a pity that everyone still associates them with the Bee Girl and thinks all their songs probably sound like "No Rain." Goddamn MTV.
Oh yeah -- I just remembered what got me started on all this. At one of the July Jams we kept seeing this crazy guy shaking his ass at the side of the stage. He had this long frizzy hair, was thin as a rail, had these big-ass flares like Neil's from The Young Ones, and had a cigarette perpetually hanging from his mouth. He looked a lot like Scuzzy Cliff Burton of Metallica (dog rest his soul). Anyway, between two of the bands this guy got on the mike and started chattering to the crowd. I think he was giving away T-shirts.
"OK, OK, let's give one away to someone local. Where am I? What? What? Mayhem? OK, anyone here from Mayhem? MAYHEM, MAYHEM, anyone here from MAYHEM? What? May-what? OK, Mayhew, fine. Whaddya expect from me, I'm FRIED, OK? I'm fried. MAYHEM, MAYHEM, anyone here from Mayhem?" Meanwhile I was dying laughing.
And that, my friends, is why I can still be seen walking around my department sometimes babbling "Mayhem, Mayhem -- anyone here from Mayhem? I'm FRIED, OK?"
