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| xmag.com
: March 2001:A whore like the rest |
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"...offensive, repellent,
repulsive and totally without
redeeming social anything."
--Liza Williams, head o' publicity for
Capitol Records,
on Meltzer's scribblings.
Well,
seein' as how I'm rearin' to get the hell outta this burg,
I gotta tie up/cut off the loose ends, right? And seein'
as how there are no more cowboys out here in the storied
West, a gal's gotta invent 'em, right? But there's still
tequila, and there's still RICHARD MELTZER. I've had Meltzer
in my sights (for an interview, jackass) for ever-so-long...but
was waiting 'til I finished his latest book, A Whore
Like the Rest, ya know? But Meltzer can be an--er--challenging
read. Witness this CCR review from Creem, circa
1971:
"You you you kinda kinda kinda get
get get the the the impression pression pression that
that that Creedence Creedence Creedence Clearwater water
water keeps keeps keeps doing doing doing the the the
same same..."
You get the idea. But then, as he says
in the intro, "....rock repeats itself more than any of
us ever could." And HE SHOULD KNOW!! He was there since
the beginning!! And, to those of us who still CARE about
the genre, he's a god of sorts. Cuz, see, he wrote the
book on rock criticism, and back when it mattered, back
before the rules got invented. Back when he could make
up fake interviews with Andy Warhol or title reviews "Hot
Tuna is Hot Fuckin' Shit" and "What a Goddam Great Second
Cream Album." Back when--get this!--rock criticism was
regarded as an art form in itself!! Perhaps even equivalent
to plain ol' rocking!! Jimi Hendrix read the first US
review of his shit--by Meltzer--and shook the guy's hand
and said, "You were stoned when you wrote that, right?"
AND IT DON'T GET NO BETTER THAN THAT. Not if you live
in Viva's world...
Of course, calling a spade a spade has
never been too popular, and Meltzer probably got kicked
out of more magazines, parties, and concerts than he got
invited to (and by the likes of Rolling Stone and
Bill Graham, no less). A goddam COWBOY.
Unbelievably, a fishwrapper still prints
his heatseaking missives. The San Diego Chronicle seems
to know what it's got, and once even let Meltzer weigh
in on a Pat Benatar show (11/28/97) thusly:
"ROCK DEATHS THIS WEEK: Art Garfunkel
(stroke)...Van Morrison (smallpox)...Mark Mothersbaugh
(crushed by falling safe)...Belinda Carlisle (contract
killing)...Richard Hell (natural causes)...Cat Stevens
(don't ask), Steven Tyler (deviated face).
"STILL LIVING:...Pat Benatar."
But enough slanderous accolades. I'll
let the man speak for himself. AND HE DID! For two hours
of tape! Yikes. That's well over 3000 words, here chopped
to bits so you can see more nubile ho's on the following
pages. 'S alright. Cuz everyone who knows knows there
ain't nuthin' better in this world than a nubile ho, and
one thing's FOR SURE--no one knows this better than
RICHARD MELTZER!!
"The sixties
were the only time since TV came to take over when kids
stopped
watching television... So they had to figure out a way
where this would never
happen again, and that was MTV."
(We begin our interview
after Viva and Richard have been philosophizing extensively
on Valentine's Day, the horrors of romantic love, the
different kinds of pain this life has to offer, how
all love leads to grief, but how people would rather
hurt than feel nothing, right? Otherwise HOW DO YA KNOW
IF YOU'RE ALIVE?? RIGHT??)
VIVA: So, uh, my questions...What
song, if you can remember, did you lose your virginity
to?
Meltzer: Well, there wasn't music
playing.
Meltzer: See, once upon a time
rock 'n' roll was not always playing. In fact, it wasn't
until the early eighties that I realized you had this
state of sound everywhere. So, when I first got laid,
I think it was the spring weekend of 1963 or 4...went
to school on Long Island....
Meltzer: Yeah...in my college
dorm room with some horrible person named Enid Levine,
and she became my first official girlfriend and now,
in retrospect, was the second or third worst girlfriend
I ever had.
VIVA: Well, what would you
say is the best music to get laid to?
Meltzer: It doesn't mean that
much to me. I guess I'd prefer that the music not
be too loud. But usually, cuz I'm such a gent, I would
let the woman pick the music. And there are certain
musics I would not listen to. I wouldn't listen to
show music. I wouldn't wanna hear Madonna, or Billy
Joel. But the point is, I've had sex with women who
listen to Melanie, you know? She's someone who had
a song called "I Don't Eat Animals (Cuz I love'Em)."
She was this fat chick who sang bad songs about things
you weren't interested in. But I remember being with
some woman who had a Melanie album. The sex act crosses
all cultural barriers, you know? Yourself?
VIVA: I dunno...Led Zeppelin...
Meltzer: You like Led Zeppelin?
I never liked Led  Zeppelin
cuz I saw them as being kinda the nail in the coffin
of the British Invasion....an overkill version of
lesser Stones. They seemed cheesy. They always seemed
like a comedy act to me.
VIVA: Well, that's really all
I heard in high school. Kinda the soundtrack to my
sexual beginnings, I guess. "I Can't Quit You Baby."
They're all just old blues covers.
Meltzer: I've been listening
to a lot of very old blues, and there's this cut "Ham
Hound Crave" by Rube Lacy. He recorded maybe two or
four sides back in 1927, and then he was afraid he'd
go to hell so he became a minister. But he did what
I think is like the ultimate rock 'n' roll cut; it
has this line, "I don't want no kissin'/ don't need
no huggin'/ momma got a ham-bone/ I wonder can I get
it boiled?" 1927! It doesn't get any better than that.
He recorded a great thing and then he gave it up.
He was really onto something. And I think that rock
'n' roll was much better served when it was just fish-fry
music, you know, pass the hat and here have a drink
of this. Just a ritual music for creating this frenzy.
VIVA: Yes. Gettin' the panties
wet.
Meltzer: Does music itself
ever get your panties wet?
Meltzer: Really? Cuz music
itself has never made me stiff. It's the thoughts
themselves.
VIVA: So, is there a worse
time to be alive than right now?
VIVA: I agree. And it's only
gonna get worse.
Meltzer: It always gets worse!
But the fifties were pretty bad. If rock 'n' roll
hadn't come along to redeem the fifties...the best
you could've hoped for was to grow up to wear a
tie to work every day. But then when I was eleven
years old, I saw Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show the
night before I was going to go to junior high for
the first time. It was insane! The sound delivered
me to a different place, and it did this for a hundred
million kids! My parents could never tell me what
kind of clothes to wear ever again, or how to comb
my hair. I'd seen this movie The Invasion of
the Body Snatchers with Kevin McCarthy. In it
these pods take over and turn everybody into these
unfeeling androids. And Kevin McCarthy is on to
it, "what are we gonna do?!?!" And in the end he
just about gives up and has this look of surrender,
it's the end of the world. And Elvis had the same
exact look! I don't even think I related to it sexually.
It was just the madness of it. He had the same look
as this guy in a monster movie, and yet it was celebration.
It reminded me of monster movies and wrestling.
VIVA: And for an eleven-year-old,
that's the height of it, huh?
Meltzer: Yes! And wrestling
was good then! I can't even watch wrestling today.
VIVA: Now they've got that
wrestling football team where hopefully people will
actually die. That's what the consumer wants to
see.
Meltzer: The XFL. When's
that on?
VIVA: I dunno, but I hear
about it all the time. People love it. Real blood!
Reality is getting to be something you only experience
on TV.
Meltzer: Yeah, and that's
what's so bad about it. What the sixties were was
the only time since TV came to take over when kids
stopped watching television. There were things to
do! You know, play some sides, smoke some dope and
if all else failed, you'd smoke more dope and turn
on the TV with the sound off and make fun of it.
That was the only function of TV: a joke. So they
had to figure out a way where this would never happen
again, and that was MTV.
VIVA: That's the nail in
the teenage coffin, huh? Jesus. So, what's the
best Dylan album?
Meltzer: Time Out of
Mind. The thing that got me was that it's
the most fully evolved, fully developed album
on the theme of death and dying. Every cut is
about "Going down the road..I'm bound in irons...they're
taking me to the train....trying to get to heaven
before they close the door..." It really got to
me.
VIVA: Best Stones record?
Meltzer: Aftermath.
It was the first album they did where they wrote
everything on it.
VIVA: Who's better, the
Beatles or the Stones?
Meltzer: The Beatles. Without
the Beatles you have no Stones. They were totally
influenced by the Beatles.
VIVA: The Beatles get such
a bad rap...
Meltzer: Cuz of McCartney.
VIVA: And their songs aren't
as clearly about fucking, I think.
Meltzer: Well that's a
fact.
VIVA: What's the best rock
song of all time?
Meltzer: Have you heard
of "Fat Man" by Fats Domino? Some people consider
it the first rock song as such. It's from 1949.
The lyric is, "They call me the fat man cuz I
weigh 200 pounds. But the girls they love me cuz
I know the way around." Two sentences! The Ramones
always reminded me of Fats Domino. He was a real
dumb guy who just had this primitive grasp of
music. And the Ramones were just dumb guys who
kept it simple and did sorta similar music.
VIVA: Who's sexier, Patti
Smith or Debbie Harry?
Meltzer: How about neither?
Patti Smith I knew as a friend, a good friend.
The day Jim Morrison died we sat around in our
underwear and drank 151 and listened to Doors
records. I'd lay my head on her tits or put my
hands on her cunt, but never fucked her.
VIVA: I hear she has great
tits.
Meltzer: She has enormous
tits! She'd wear these outfits so that ya never
knew, but she had great tits. She was in many
ways a very girly-girly girl. I didn't see anything
androgynous in her at all. You know, she smelled
like a mammal, I found her very appealing. But
the second she transformed herself into a rocker
chick she went from being completely real to completely
fake.
VIVA: Do you still have
a Patti Smith pubic hair mounted somewhere?
Meltzer: I don't know if
I ever really did...I had a hair, and I remember
putting it into my wallet. There was one occasion
when we were sitting around and I said, "Well,
Patti, I'd like to fuck you someday, but I guess
there's really no rush." And she says, "Yeah,
we could do that some time." And I reached into
her pants and came out with a hair.
VIVA: Sexiest song of all
time?
Meltzer: The first record
I bought, Elvis's "Hound Dog"
and "Don't Be Cruel." The greatest two-song single
of all time. They're two fuck songs! One of 'em
angry and the other not so angry. "Don't Be Cruel"
there's a part where he just goes "mmm!" It was
just so rude! All these nuances of "uh-fuckah-me-babay."
VIVA: Would you rather
go bowhunting with Ted Nugent or drink 'til ya
puke with Lemmy Kilmister?
Meltzer: Lemmy for sure.
But I don't wanna puke. I don't like puking. I've
only puked once since I got to Portland and that
was only cuz I drank tequila for the first time
in many years. Well, twice, the other time was
beer.
VIVA: What color panties
are ya wearing and how long have you been wearing
them?
Meltzer: Black, and fresh
today cuz I took a shower. Yourself?
VIVA: Lessee... Um, I've
got cute little gray ones on. T-back with pink
zig-zag borders and this naughty little pink ladybug
on 'em.
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