Even Dave Wallflower gets the blues

(Wallflower/Blues Gangster/BeatHog David Rinck waxes indigo and finds the musical treatment for it. What’s your prescription?)

Bluesy DaythumbThe other day I had the blues
I walked down the street in my old shoes
I know you won’t believe it’s true
But even Dave Wallflower gets the blues …

Yes, even Dave Wallflower gets the blues. Had ’em for a while now. Go’n through some hard times.

But that Sunday morning a few weeks ago in Liberia, brothers and sisters, I was down. I’d just come out on a long flight from Nairobi the night before, and I was tired. I headed out of the hotel and down those beat old streets for my early morning walk.

Read moreEven Dave Wallflower gets the blues

Noise 292: “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

Detail: Matthew Rothenberg, Noise 292Here’s another helping of sonic steak Tartar, to borrow Dave Rinck’s evocative phrase: Noise 292 serving up a very raw version of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” at the Headquarters in Pacific Beach, August 26, 1983 (opening for the Pandoras and the Answers). This was the first Noise 292 lineup, and this number features Kristin Martin on bass; David Rives, guitar; Hobie Hodge, trash percussion; Joanne Norris, drums; Matthew Rothenberg, vocals and S&M tambourine (with which I raised a big hematoma on the heel of my hand every time we played this song). Leighton Koizumi (later of the Gravedigger V and the Morlocks) made his live rock-‘n’-roll debut playing electric violin on “Heroin” that evening, although Wendell Kling also took over violin duties when he replaced Hobie on percussion.

I always enjoyed how this cover threw a bunch of our noise-rock, art-rock, punk and garage influences into the Cuisinart and basically hit “purée”! (Can anyone identify the voice of the girl talking about her calculator at the beginning of the track? I keep wondering if she ever got it back.)

Listen to it now!

The Che Underground