Other than Warren Zevon...

ROCKIST CRACKER.

oh god, i was in tears too.

i loved how he incorporated the fact that he was dying into his general curmudgeonly persona (rolling his eyes when the producer asked him for another take - "come on man, i don't have time for this shit" etc).

Wilko Johnson Set Out To Make One Final Album, But It Didn't Work Out That Way

Glen Campbell.

Zevon made a brilliant, dignified exit. Spent his last days making art and enjoying the company of his family, while keeping a sense of humor about it all. He left with class.
― Dave Bush (davebush), Wednesday, May 10, 2006 4:00 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you read the zevon bio, you may change your mind about this.

Holy Christ the Wilko Johnson story is awesome

If you read the zevon bio, you may change your mind about this.

if you read the zevon bio, you may change your mind about humanity in general.

Yeah! Although, reading the bbc site, looks like his surgery was a lot more drastic than specified by npr--but music excerpts in the npr feature are bloody good---must check whole thing (never heard Dr. Feelgood or prev Wilco solo, what's the story overall?)

What Zevon bio are yall referring to?

"i'll sleep when i'm dead: the dirty life and times of warren zevon" by crystal zevon. it's a warts-and-all oral history of his life, minus the "all," since the warts part covers basically everything.

i know it's been discussed in another zevon thread or two in these parts, but the book makes him sound like he was the world's most insecure man, and he pretty much parlayed that in security into being a horrible father, husband, boyfriend and human being. and that's based on the testimony of his closest friends.

Zevon book makes you want to take a shower. I frankly can't listen to him without thinking about it at least a little bit.

(never heard Dr. Feelgood or prev Wilco solo, what's the story overall?)

Whoops. My Bad.

Wait, not my bad, my bad.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tR7W0M5k5tQ/S-QgZqFXrpI/AAAAAAAABa0/O3q4nhdkak8/s1600/oil+city+confidential.JPG

Thanks Josh. I'll try to see the doc.

I've never heard any dr feel good or other Johnson material. But I followed his story through my regular read of Classic Rock mag, which is pro-Wilko, and as a who fan I owe it to myself to check out the daltrey Johnson collaboration. Plus he seems like a good guy so I'm happy for him.

He's a great guitarist, and an equally great character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMlhWvIh7U4

He claims he picked a red pick guard to hide the blood.

This is cool to watch, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imTpekYHPVo

i know it's been discussed in another zevon thread or two in these parts, but the book makes him sound like he was the world's most insecure man, and he pretty much parlayed that in security into being a horrible father, husband, boyfriend and human being. and that's based on the testimony of his closest friends.

― fact checking cuz, Friday, January 2, 2015 7:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The problem with that book (and I totally accept that he was an awful guy) is that they made some effort to balancing out the portayal by including sentences that were all like "oh, but warren wasn't all bad, he had a wicked sense of humor and was so much fun etc etc" but they would never flesh that out at all, whereas you'd get blow-by-blow chapter-long descriptions of his domestic abuse and OCD shopping habits.

Everything you need from Dr. Feelgood is available in a 3CD/1DVD box which, in addition to containing their first three studio albums, a killer live album, and a bunch of previously unreleased stuff, also includes a DVD of TV and live performances which is way more crucial than that documentary, which I didn't like much at all. (Too much about how much it sucked to live in 1950s England, not enough balls-out rockin'.)

The short take on Dr. Feelgood is that they were an early '70s "pub rock" band (read: primitivist R&B sped up to what-did-we-think-we-needed-punk-for? velocity and aggression) with an incredible up-front team of Wilko on guitar and Lee Brilleaux an absolutely terrifying frontman—he wore these incredibly grimy suits and looked like he wanted to jump off the stage and start randomly punching audience members. Plus their bassist and drummer rivaled Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd for minimalist groove power.

A representative clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHm7uIC84YM

Another one from the same show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlCkczAakL8

one more dr feelgood clip with the classic wilko riff at the beginning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rn45_OO9rk