Fat Wreck Chords is releasing a Screeching Weasel anthology this Fall. I wrote some liner notes but upon finishing I realized they were too long and way too curmudgeonly. I re-wrote them, resisting the temptation to just give them the last line of the original version.
Here's the original piece I came up with, no doubt heavily influenced by my irritation at anything to do with SW, brought on in large part by having spent a good chunk of the last 6-7 months getting everything set up for the Asian Man re-issues.
In short, I was cranky, but it may still be worth a look for the fan:
I'm sitting on my bed in a hotel room in London, waiting for the next interviewer to show up. It's September of 1995 and I'm playing in a band called the Riverdales with Vapid and Panic from Screeching Weasel. We're three gigs away from the end of a 30-day European stint opening for Green Day, who are at the peak of their success across the pond.
We haven't been getting much press. Back home, our label has dropped the ball, and not for the first time. Our distributor has shipped more copies of our just-released album to Europe than any other initial-release record they've sold, including the Dead Kennedys, Operation Ivy and Green Day (back when they were on an indie), but the magazines aren't covering us. In Prague, there's a gaggle of magazine and newspaper reporters gathered in a conference room at the venue, waiting to talk to Green Day. Billie, Mike and Tre refuse to grant an interview until the press interviews us first (talk about sticking up for the retards!). Which makes for quite a sight. We're sitting there behind a long table, trying not to cringe as the reporters fumble around, asking ridiculous questions because they have no idea who we are and they really don't care; we're their obstacle to the real band. Which makes sense; they may not have heard us, but we know damn well in our heart of hearts that Green Day knows how to play their instruments, that they can write a killer tune, and that they worked their asses off to get to the point of selling ten million records. We, on the other hand, can barely play our instruments, we're notoriously lazy and contradictory - often just for the sake of it - and every night is a test to see if we can make it to the stage without beating the shit out of each other. Frankly, it's a miracle that the critics are even bothering to feign interest as they take notes they have no intention of ever publishing.
But there's something else that those Czech rock writers don't know, and will likely never know, which is that in spite of our bedraggled appearance, our (perhaps well-deserved) anonymity, and our surly demeanor (hey, you try being all cheery and peppy on two hours of sleep and after having spent the morning detained at the Czech border by a bunch of rifle-wielding soldiers), we know how to write a fucking song. And there's something else that they don't know: after 8 years of banging our heads against the walls of the punk rock trenches, we know perfectly well that it doesn't mean a fucking thing sales-wise that we can write a great song, but we do it anyway, because it does matter, to us, if nobody else. But that kind of crap doesn't make for a good story.
So back at the London hotel, Vapid's getting ready to head out to find a Pizza Hut or a McDonalds or something that doesn't smell like fish or curry, while I hold down the fort, keeping the appointments with the fanzine people, the only people who our label rep could convince to come out and talk to us. Which is fine; the fanzine people have a clue, and they want to talk to us, and they actually know what they're talking about. True, we've had a couple of brushes with rock journalism greatness in Holland, and a writer for a big-time British metal magazine tried to contact us when we were in Italy (I was too sick to talk, so he just copied text from one of my MaximumRockNRoll columns and framed it to look like I'd actually given him an interview, which would've pissed me off except for the fact that it was so stereotypically and charmingly British). But mostly, we've been toiling in anonymity for this stretch of the 3 month tour, which isn't so bad; for the first time in my so-called career in music, I'm in a band that has a tour manager, and a driver, and a soundman and lighting guy on loan from Green Day, and since Green Day brought their own cook, we eat well every night. Sure, we're losing money. But we knew what we were getting into, and it sure beats sleeping on some punk's floor and eating Ramen every night, or if we're lucky, spaghetti with marinara and a few warm Black Label's or Schaefer's.
So there I am, sitting on my bed, waiting for the girl to show up for the next interview and I decide to flip through the latest issue of her fanzine to get an idea of what I'm in for. I see an interview with Semi-Famous Old-Time Punk band #1.
"Green Day ought to float some of the money they're making our way," says the singer. "They wouldn't be doing what they're doing if it weren't for us." Then he goes on to lament all the money he spent on coke and heroin during the days when they had their shot on a major label. He ends the interview by noting that it's time for him to meet his dealer. Which, I suppose, is also somebody else's fault.
On to Semi-Famous Old Time Punk band #2.
"Green Day ripped us off," whinges the main songwriter. "We did all the work and they made all the money." His current band is a jazz fusion math problem set to music. If all you knew was his current band, you'd never guess that his old band was pretty great; you'd think he wouldn't know a melody if it crawled in his ear and laid eggs in his brain.
I point this out to Vapid, noting solemnly that if he ever catches me talking like that, he has carte blanche to treat me as his personal punching bag until my head finally pops out of my ass.
And that's my roundabout way of clarifying something that's come up in interviews with allegedly legitimate mainstream rock critics over the past five years since we broke up (man, they always adore you when it's too late for it to make a difference, don't they?).
Am I bitter over the success of Green Day, Blink-182, and half a zillion other bands on MTV?
No. Fuck no.
Why not?
1. In case the critics haven't noticed, we really barely could play our instruments. I mean, we got better as time went on, but we were never going to win any musicianship awards. That we were able to enjoy a moderate amount of underground success was due to the ability to write a song, which, as noted before, doesn't count for a whole heck of a lot in the music industry. We didn't have any stage moves. We really and truly were utterly guileless when it came to that stuff. For most of our so-called career, we remained mired in a bog of naivete, convincing ourselves that someday songs would matter again and we'd finally get our due. True, we had conviction and energy and passion and a sense of urgency to go along with the songs, but that and a few quarters will get you a cup of coffee.
2. Unlike us, Green Day, to use one example, knew how to play their instruments. They also knew how to play to an audience properly, and they knew enough to hire the right people to negotiate their deals and handle their business. They already had a leg or three up on us; they were fuck-ups too, but they hadn't yet been completely been beaten down by life like us old, bitter, malcontents. They had the kind of drive and ambition that I'd only seen in movies; it was certainly nothing with which I was personally familiar.
3. The idea that Green Day was influenced by Screeching Weasel was and is laughable. Those guys were influenced by the Kinks and The Who, and by the heavy metal they'd listened to as teenagers (just like us), and by the bands that played Gilman in the early days, like Operation Ivy and Crimpshrine and Isocracy. They weren't influenced by Screeching Weasel any more than they were influenced by the junkie or the crybaby mentioned above - in fact, I'd be shocked to learn that they'd ever even heard those bands prior to around their own third record.
4. To the extent that Blink-182 may have been influenced by Screeching Weasel, the debt, if any, was paid in full when they covered one of our songs on their first album. The dough from those mechanicals comes in mighty handy during these trying times, let me tell you. I think Blink-182 is the kitty's nightgown and I suggest you stop reading and go order their first album, stat.
5. To the extent that anyone else was influenced by Screeching Weasel, they don't owe us anything anyway, not that it wouldn't be dandy if they were to cover us. We were influenced by the Ramones and the Buzzcocks and the Queers and the Rezillos and the Barracudas and the Undertones and the Fastbacks and the Mr. T Experience and D.O.A. and Black Flag and the Circle Jerks and a zillion others, and we never felt guilty for a second, because we weren't ripping them off, we were influenced by them, and there's a big difference. I have yet to hear a big-time MTV band that sounds like they're ripping us off. Okay, I heard a guitar lead once that sounded familiar, but I don't even remember what band it was. I think it was in one of those American Pie movies. But so what? Influence is part of rock and roll, and if we all owed somebody else, all our mechanical royalty checks - from the Rolling Stones to U2 - would be going to Chuck Berry and the estate of Buddy Holly anyway, so what right do I have to complain about being just one of many links in the chain? Right, none. Exactly. To say nothing for the fact that I know in my heart that we were never a big-time rock band who didn't get our due; we were a bunch of goofy retards who managed to cobble together a facsimile of a real band that, admittedly, ended up being pretty cool in its own way, but which in any case could never be confused with the stuff you hear on the radio. Personally, I tend to dig the underground, facsimile approach much more, but then if I ruled the world, Kim Shattuck would be living in a mansion in Bel Air and Lil' Kim would be cleaning her toilets, so what do I know?
6. I was not - and probably still am not - in the possession of a rock and roll temperament, i.e., I have a hair trigger bullshit detector and zero tolerance for gladhanding, ass-kissing and game-playing. All things considered, I am an odd fucking bird, and if guaranteed success were ever handed to me on a silver platter, I'd most likely find a way to un-guarantee it quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. And I'd spit on the platter to boot. I just don't play nice with others.
7. Furthermore, even if I hadn't been all curmudgeonly, Screeching Weasel never had what it took to make it in that big time rock star world. Never. Maybe, just maybe, we could've succeeded if we'd replaced all the band members with people who possessed musical talent and socially acceptable personalities and just let me write the songs. But even then, I kind of doubt it. Screeching Weasel was a band of people who were and are perpetual outsiders. Guys in punk bands today discuss their favorite five-star restaurants and the benefits of skiing at Gstaad as compared to Vail while they're doing their hair and make-up in their dressing rooms, just before they hit the stage to growl at the audience about the system and evil corporations and all that stuff that seems just as immediate and relevant to me as does the price of babushkas in Estonia. We hit the stage in our ill-fitting clothes, unshaven, unrested and usually annoyed. Our backstage area was the ratty old love-seat that passed for a bench seat in the back of our about-to-fall-apart van, and we stepped on stage to tell the ten or twenty people who bothered to show up, "You're The Enemy." We came from a totally different mentality, one that was about the human condition of humans who had been conditioned to expect disappointment and abject failure at every turn. We were constitutionally unable to pass for normal. I want to make that clear: it wasn't a choice; good God, if I'd had a choice I'd be sitting in the dining room of some swank hotel in Rome deciding what French entree to order while my wife shopped for a jewel-encrusted rocket car instead of sitting here sucking down Miller's trying to explain myself to you. Choice never entered into it. We were born with bad genes, and the only thing we could ever do without completely fucking it up was to play stupid punk tunes to a bunch of other stupid punks who were also unfit for normal society. There was a time, believe it or not, when the guys who beat you up in high school weren't sporting t-shirts featuring the logos of the days most popular punk bands while they shoved your head in the toilet; the guys in the most popular punk bands were the ones with no dates for the prom, no friends besides the other losers, and no future other than banging out loud, fast tunes in some dingy club in the shittiest part of town for a handful of like-minded miscreants. So don't get the idea that I'm not bitter; you bet your ass I am. It's just that I never felt that the bands who earned millions in punk owed me anything, or that they were ripping off something real and making it fake in pursuit of the almighty dollar. I kind of wish it wasn't that way, but it is, and there's no point in crying and pointing fingers. I'd like to think that what we lacked in success we made up for in giving people something a little different, but that may just be wishful thinking. And in any case, those bands had the drive and the talent and the ability to take their stuff to the mainstream and make them choke on it, and I salute them, if for no other reason than it brought attention to those of us who just aren't wired to do things that way.
8. Here's the most important point. As I type this, it's 3:00 p.m. CDT. I'm sitting in my beautiful, spacious, three bedroom apartment (which I own, pending 14 years of mortgage payments) working on my G4 Powerbook. True, I don't own a mansion in Bel Air, and I drive a Honda rather than a limited edition Jaguar featuring a steering wheel made from the bones of an extinct-as-of-yesterday species of amphibious carnivore native to Tierra Del Fuego, and I'm married to a terrific Irish girl from New York instead of a WASP-y blonde supermodel from L.A., and I'm more likely to be found chowing down on ribs at Robinson's in Oak Park than sampling the sushi at Tsuki in Chicago, but life is very good, my friends, very, very good indeed. When you go from being a juvenile delinquent, incarcerated-for-two-years, barely-graduated high school movie theater ticket taker to janitor, to warehouse lackey, to graveyard-shift Shell mini-mart attendant to newspaper-delivery hack to pizza delivery boy to sandblasting plebian for a pipe manufacturer to glorified lawn-cutter for a landscaper to "beauty-product" assembly line factory stooge to community college librarian and you end up at reasonably-paid fuck-up in a punk rock band, you thank your lucky stars that you didn't wind up on skid row, and you can't do anything but sneer at the know-nothings who are clueless enough to suggest that you haven't succeeded. We did succeed, and we did it without selling our asses to the highest bidder, and we did it in spite of having no fucking idea, and even less of a desire, of how to market ourselves and act cool and wear the right clothes and cut our hair the right way, and ingratiate ourselves to the right people, and we did it by being true to ourselves and doing what made sense to us, even when it didn't make any sense at all, and if you don't think that's success, then you don't know what you're talking about. So to those who would say that we should be bitter about others having done better than us, I can only say that you're cracked.
Are you kidding me?
Fuck you; we won.