Career opportunities

Village PeopleAnother where-are-we-now topic to connect the dots between our past and present: While a select few of us indeed earn our adult living in the music business, most have found other sources of income.

Today’s question: What do you do nowadays to pay the bills? And what (if anything) did you learn from our salad days that helps you now?

This one’s pretty easy for me. I’ve worked in publishing (in SF and NY) for 20 years, more than 10 primarily online. I generally run large teams of creative, verbal, offbeat young people who’ve converged on the big city for aesthetic and social stimulation. Sound familiar yet?

Read moreCareer opportunities

The Answers: “Lucifer Sam”

Dave Fleminger of the AnswersThe Answers’ sizzling cover of the mini-masterpiece “Lucifer Sam” by Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd was a catalyst for myriad musical adventures.

Tell-Tale Heart Eric Bacher recently recounted how bandmate Dave Klowden’s urging to come watch the Answers play “Lucifer Sam” changed his musical life; it’s a tale eerily similar to my own memory of Noise 292’s David Rives insisting I run to watch a San Diego band that was actually covering Barrett! (I’ve long regretted that the Answers’ absence from the UCSD gig with the Three O’Clock prevented us from instigating a mass “Lucifer Sam-off.”) Gravedigger V and Nashville Ramblers vet Tom Ward also vividly recalls the Answers’ “Lucifer Sam” a quarter-century after the fact. It’s astounding the effects two-and-a-half minutes of music can wreak!

This viral gem was recorded in February 1983 and features Dave Fleminger (guitar, vocals); Jeff Lowe (bass); and Dave Anderson (drums). It’s spiky and wonderful, and it still holds the creative fizz of that moment of musical discovery.

Listen to it now!

The Che Underground