the interview

What follows is question #1 of 5 that MOI of bite the apple gave to me as a part of a meme that's going around. i never expected such an interesting and difficult group of questions. Moi should have been the one to replace Tim Russert; no weasel politician could squirm out from under her questioning. anyway, this interview was like preparing for a term paper or something. So complex are the questions that i am posting them one at a time.

question #1:

You are organizing a rock band and must pick three other musicians – all currently alive and kicking – to make up your quartet. Who are they, what kind of music do you all play, and what is the name of your band?


I started building my band with the drummer cause that was easy. That'd be Neil Peart of RUSH. i still get chills when i hear the drums on Tom Sawyer.

i love his big echoey sound and tempo change ups. his work is complex like nobody's business. and he is 56 years old putting him in the right age group for my band. he's the PhD of drumming i dont think anyone can touch him even if i raised the dead.

runner up? there isnt anybody. There is only Neil. and frankly, everybody pretty much agrees.


i would be the base player, just cause realistically speaking i could probably handle that.

My guitar player? this was tough. real tough. do i choose a virtuoso? a rock God? mr or ms popularity?
I couldn't believe it when my best friend took me to the Prince concert a few years ago. He did all the expected hits - but then he sent everyone off stage and did 15 minutes of just wailing. when he stopped there was about a 20 second moment of silence before the stadium erupted into a mixture of ecstasy and disbelief.

if you have never seen the video where all the guitar greats play on stage in a tribute to george harrison and then Prince comes out and smokes them all, you really need to see his royal badness show 'em how its done

the cool thing about choosing Prince would be that we could share clothes. im pretty sure he could roll with my gold sequined mardi gras pants. and the platform boots!


There were so many i liked and considered but in the end, i chose someone who's world view i understand; someone i agree with on many levels and again, of the right age group.

That would be the motor city madman; the one, the only Ted Nugent.

I like ted. He gives liberals fits. he's not one of these guitar players that instructs us on how shitty america is every time he opens his mouth. Hes also not one of these tedious self important doofuses like that punk from Green Day who i can't stand and fronts a three-chord band anyway. and he likes it out in the woods, as do i. Ted threatened to run for office because he said he couldnt find a candidate who respects the U.S. Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights enough to suit him.

at a concert in california he famously invited barbara boxer to suck on his machine gun. in these days where rock and rollers are spokes punks for every possible crisis that results in limitations of individual freedoms, or talking about how war is a drag (no! really?) nugent seems to be one of the last rebels standing. he doesnt give a shit what the liberal media thinks of him and i like that. is he the best guitar player of all time? probably not. he aint' bad either. and if i should require my band mate to hunker down in the survival loblolly post-apocalypse; hell, i couldn't fare better than with bow-hunter Ted Nugent. That's me: always looking for the worst case scenario contingency plan.


runner up: angus young of AC/DC. a scottish bad ass in a school boy's outfit topping out at 5'2" - whats not to love?

speaking of AC/DC, i could live with Bon Scott as my front man but alas, like so many other of my top picks, he's otherwise engaged in his eternal dirt nap. also wouldve chosen jim morrison, freddie mercury and janis joplin. i never really understood about janis until i saw the monterey pop festival footage. holy hannah she was smokin' hot. i get it now!

lets see...chris cornell of soundgarden? what. a voice. i love him. and he looks good too.

but something a bit more intense and alive is what i have in mind. is IGGY still alive?

how about alice cooper? still not quite what i had in mind....anthony keidis? getting closer.....how about the dude from rage against the machine? too leftist. and possibly not quite active enough loud, but not active enough physically...maybe Run DMC - i dont know whos who - i mean who is run and who is DMC? either way, like their stage presence a lot. George Clinton? a good possibility.

i really love corey glover of Living Color. and i almost chose him. That is a bad-ass band. but still i searched and finally, i arrived at the all important front man. and i am ready and willing to endure the ridicule for my choice- just like i did when i said young Burt Reynolds in "deliverance" is as hot as it gets. that is ALPHA my friends. not these eyebrow waxing prius drivers.


















for my front man? i going with david lee roth. Ol diamond dave. im sorry, i expect to be ridiculed but IMHO he was everything a front man should be: egomaniacal, clownish, energetic, athletic (how bout those jumps in "jump?") and a decent singer. you think he sucks? well without him van halen sucked. even a guitar god like eddie cant roll without DLR -and forget sammy hagar and whoever that last guy was. in Atlanta, there is an all female Van Halen tribute band called "She-ruption". i just gotta get out and see this. sounds like a opportunity for a video blog post dont it?

What kind of music do we play? i will call it "rip rock". It will be very loud, lots of fun and i will also have it re-mixed for clubs so you can dance to it - kind of like how the Cure did with their remixes. i will soup up neil's drums so you feel like you are having a heart attack - low end in a good way. and our light show would rival Pink Floyd's. we'd give out free CD's just like Prince does and stick it to the record companies and corporate music dictators.

the name of the band? "Atticus Flinch" - kind of a take/homage on the greatest depiction of manhood ever laid down on celluloid - the flip side of alpha Burt but every bit as compelling and powerful. and distinctively southern.

for those about to rock. we salute you.