Bad Copy

I’m still recuperating from my bike crash so I’ll have to keep digging into the archives for a little while longer. But before I do, I would like to take a moment and address those who have been making fun of me for being old and feeble…

Hey, assholes, you should be making fun of me because I now look like Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber, and for still trying to woo my wife with my rudimentary BMX skills.

Prior to this accident I still felt as comfortable on a bike as I did was when I was pulling Miami Hoppers in the Stoneridge Mall parking lot as a teen. And I still have no reason to think that I need to dial it back just because these days I grunt every time I rise up out of a chair. My crash was not the result of my will writing checks that my body can no longer cash, it was just a freak accident caused by, I’m told, wet pavement (I honestly don’t know, I have little recollection of the event).

You know what? If I may dip further into my archives to help prove my point, here is a (long) story illustrating just how delusional bike-savvy I (think I) am.

I mean, look what I was doing just six months ago! I crashed a number of times the morning we filmed this, including once when the handlebars came undone and I barrel-rolled over the front of the bike (at 3:31).

So I don’t look at this as a wake up call. Instead, I’m trying to appreciate all the times I escaped this same fate when it was actually warranted.

ANYWAY…

This installment of the LoveSong of the Month was originally by two brothers performing under the name 50 Million. I feel #hellafuckinblessed to have grown up where and when I did so that I could see bands like 50 Million and their countless offshoots in parks and garages and in the backs of record stores. I’ve seen them at legitimate clubs (like, with a stage) but this band is best experienced elsewhere.

50M were two brothers, but even when they added the occasional third member they still had plenty of room in the van for their shotguns and machetes.

Even in the grimy, drug-laced sea of enduring lo-fi Pop Noise that San Francisco churns out, 50 Million still manages to loom larger than their contemporaries. Their sordid life experiences rendered into infectious hooks and captured on dirty recordings are magical to me. I read somewhere that their first recording dates back to the late ’70s. Even if those first recordings are just two kid brothers farting into a boombox that’s still a long time to be making music together.

50 Million only play occasionally these days, and I always seem to find out about it the day after. But I guess after 45 years of being an underground band why change now? Wade lives in SF and plays with Apogee Sound Club with Liz from Kirby Grips and Harrison from The Big Forgive (who is currently in possession of my treasured “Ego Box“). The other brother, John, now lives in New York and, along with Jen Starcleaner, continues to pump out more catchy gold in a different two-person music-and-art powerhouse called Shellshag.

I think this is the first video I made during quarantine. The shirt that all the me’s are wearing is for “Dave and Ethan’s 2000 Inch Weird Al Podcast,” a weekly podcast where two guys, conveniently named Dave and Ethan, interview people adjacent to Weird Al in one way or another. I was a guest after unknowingly selling Ethan my collection of Weird Al fanzines, The Midnight Star, via eBay. That episode is here and if you listen to it please let me know if is not the nerdiest thing you did all year.

Listen/Download audio here: