HUMAN WRECKAGE
Cockroaches
I have never joined a political party. I am suspicious of people who actively promote themselves as activists and philanthropists. Corporations with fluffy mission statements are suspect, or worse, inept. Team-building exercises at work? Oh, please. They’re worse than meetings. I’m no plumber or roofer, never been a joiner. Most venerable, long-established human institutions are rotten. In cosmic terms a lifetime is woefully short and ultimately absurd. Dredge your own meaning should you care to; take it where you find it. Stop and smell the dead flowers. And, gee, all things considered, for the most part and way more often than not, it’s fun being on the planet.
Late last century I had a passing acquaintance with a guy whose job was masquerading as Mick in a Rolling Stones tribute band. He called their hardcore fans “freakazoids.” The adjective wasn’t meant as an insult. He spoke it with bemused gratitude; these people paid his wages. I’ve seen his band perform in the three Canadian cities I’ve resided in going back to the 80s; the last time was spring 2022. I’ve seen the actual Stones seven times, dating back to the summer of 1978 but not since autumn 2005.
It's possible I’m a Stones completist. It’s possible I have every album they’ve ever released and multiple copies of maybe more than a few of them. It’s possible there are four or five box sets stashed around the Crooked 9. It’s possible there’s a baker’s foot of DVD and book spines on a shelf in the den; it’s possible some more are down in the basement. It’s possible I have a modest collection of tour posters. It’s possible there may be a couple of Stones t-shirts in my bureau drawer. It’s possible there are some sad sack fanboy “collectible” sundries cluttering other rooms. It’s possible my emotional and intellectual growth, certainly with this particular file, stood on the brakes as I rammed in to puberty. But I am not a freakazoid.
A longtime friend of mine, a Springsteen nut though not an unhinged one, once said to me, “Had the internet existed when we were teenagers, our heads would’ve exploded.” No two-week wait for Rolling Stone’s “Random Notes” tidbits (and porn of course; let’s not forget porn as accessible as guns in the United States). Bless some of the tribes on what Pete Townshend imagined as “the Grid” for the failed “Lifehouse project,” parts of which we know as Who’s Next. There are two internet freakazoid Stones sites I infrequently waste some time visiting. Denizens have been burning up wifi and the wires this week.
“Who the fuck are The Cockroaches?” posters popped up throughout London over Easter like Banksy murals. Freakazoids noted that the type font was the same as the “Who the fuck is Mick Jagger?” t-shirt Keith sometimes wore on the 1975 “Tour of the Americas.” Equally important, The Cockroaches is a not-so-secret Stones pseudonym for secret club shows. Real life “Da Vinci Code” stuff with more gravitas. The pink poster suggested the “Miss You” 45 sleeve. The bottom right, where any graphic designer would place a logo, featured a QR code (those weird pixels – I can’t remember what phrase QR abbreviates anymore). That code led to a static website, a throwback bedroom with a black Bakelite dial phone and Bowie’s “Ziggy” LP visible on a shelf. One click infested The Cockroaches poster on the wall with scurrying vermin.
The Stones embraced the dark art of hype and promotion long ago even though their music and performance did the real talking They morphed into marketing pros with the onset of their corporate era which I date from Steel Wheels in 1989. Clothing lines in IMAX; buy the stemware and cologne; Mick could teach an MBA course. A commercial pop culture juggernaut is very different from an irresistible cultural force. Their last relevant album is the punk-goosed Some Girls dating from the time when Mick realized the Clash could indeed become the only band that matters. And he was right. Nothing the Stones released subsequently defined any of the ensuing decades(!) or any particular era therein. Times changed but the Rolling Stones didn’t.
The Stones are one of those bands poorly served by greatest hits compilations (and good gawd y’all, there’s tons of them). Their magic to me was always the rest of any particular album. To use modern phrases, the “deep dives” into “deep cuts” require patience, repeated plays. The freakazoid demands a couple of obscurities or B-sides in the set in exchange for an expensive ticket and a poor seat – not that I would know. And so… With the release of Emotional Rescue (1980) or maybe Tattoo You (1981) Stones albums had to be picked apart for gems. Inspired individual tracks, never the complete package; the music took a backseat to their status and marketing acumen. And fair enough, the recording industry was flipped on its head in the Information Age. Money-losing tours used to be offset by album sales in the millions.
The Cockroaches yesterday released “Rough and Twisted” in white vinyl in a plain white sleeve. It’s yet to exist in any other format. There’s no other way to hear it. Only available in very limited quantities in certain record shops. Marketing gimmickry up “Andrew’s Blues.” Stones-centric detectives, those internet freakazoids, have drawn comparisons to the “Cook Cook Blues” B-side of the unremarkable and less than memorable “Rock and a Hard Place” 1989 single. (I had to look that one up; flip through the collection not knowing where to start or consult a reference book – it’s possible I own an out of date Rolling Stones encyclopaedia of songs.) The next single may be called “Mr Charm.” The album, slated for a June (or maybe July) release, may be called Foreign Tongues – I can just imagine the deluge of alternate sleeves and related merch.
I emailed my friends at Blackbyrd Myzoozik hoping for a meaningful and specialized loyal customer Cockroaches trophy in a plain white sleeve, money no object. Seems they’ve ghosted me. All of this makes me feel 16 instead of 66. I have been highly amused this last week and not in a detached way. “Well all right! Are you having a good time?”
Dispatches from the Crooked 9 is your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything meaningless. No AI and little intelligence of any sort since 2013! My latest novel Sunset Oasis Confidential is available in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Be a completist! Be a happy sad sack! Collect the set!
