Ashoka the Great, Duke Ellington & The Tolpuddle Festival!

An Injury to One Is The concern Of All!

Being a Pop-Slop Nobody can be a frustrating business at times my friends; Flopped on the settee whilst other, more industrious souls, are out there busting a nut to pay taxes and National Insurance premiums.....but sometimes action is called for! One such occassion happened just recently when the occupier of the S t o n e d   H o l y   
D r u m   S t o o l  received his marching orders for Ungentlemanly Conduct unbecoming to one who, as part of the S t o n e d   &   H o l y   R o c k i n r o l l i n   
M a c h i n e , had, however unbeknowingstly, concurred with The Rollers Mission Statement regarding The Secular Preaching of Love & Brethrenosity!  Decisions had to be made. Justice was swift.. It is at times like these when it is best for one person to assume the role of Chief and the mantle of Responsibility that goes with it. So it was that the s t O N e D H O l y b l O G g E r found himself in Cloak & Wig and pondering the Politics of Power.

Land, Peace & Bread!

Now, just last year it was, the
S t o n e d   H o l y   R o l l e r s  made one of their Sporadic Musical Raids on the Folks down South in England to play at The Tolpuddle Festival and it is in recalling this and the recent events mentioned above that the S T O n E d h O L y B L O G g e r must hereby make Contentious remarks concerning Democracy, Trade Unionism & Being in a Band! My Contention reads thusly - That the
S t o n e d   H o l y   R o l l e r s  and other Musical Groupings of that ilk, are not the Best Exemplars for the Guiding Principles of Trade Unionism, seeing as they function best under the Auspices of Dictatorship. Benign maybeez, but Dictatorship nonetheless!

Right at the outset, to avoid Misinterpretation and Confusion, allow me to set out The S t o n e d   H o l y   R o l l e r s ' Political Stall, as it were, and state clearly that we, the aforementioned Musical Proselytizers of Love & Togetherness, fully support the Rights of Workers to Come Together and Act Collectively to Attain Common Goals. Furthermore, we also Endorse fully the idea that Direct Action at the Points of Contact with Corporate Forces to Effect a Change in the Body Politic at large is Wholly Legitimate!

Kicking Ass For The Working Class!!

The World of the Workers is Wild, sure enough, but Beat Combos are not Trade Unions and the same Rules Do Not Apply! If our Representative Democracy shows that we are not sufficiently developed Politically as a Society for anything more refined, so also with the Functioning of Musical Outfits - A Musical El Presidente is necessitated to Call the Shots. A Generallissimo, a Shogun, a Caesar. One who Conducts the business of Music Making. Let's call that person The Conductor!!

The really hard part of this PopFlop n Slop business of being in a band is not being squeezed together in the back of a Ford Transit or the endless lugging of heavy equipment but the actual finding of bandmates in the first place. The want-ads are filled with desperate pleas from Wannabes but the Alchemy of 3 or 4 Minds Cracking in Action, Time & Vision comes but rarely in this life and is Ephemeral at best. So it is in the absence of this that One must assume the role of Big Boss Man. Some, such as James Brown or John Mayall, can be almost Tyrannical in fulfilling this function but others can be more Benificent. The S T O n e d H O L y B l o g g e R  feels confident in expounding the view that his alter-ego,
T h e   R i g h t   I r r e v e r e n t   S t o v e p i p e   S t u d b a g e l , is one such, seeing as his Megalomania & Messiah Complex are Abstemiously Tempered by his thorough understanding of  both Marxist Dialectics and Why The Chicken Crossed The Road!

Workers Of The World, Unite!

Tomfoolery aside, I hope that this is providing you, Dear Nameless Ones of the Blogosphere, with at least a Glimmer of Understanding into the Musical Process and that you may now see why, although being able musicians in their own right, Jimmy Knepper & Danny Richmond could only truly fly under the Firm but Dictatorial Wings of Mr. Charles Mingus. Nobody's gonna pay to see The Fall if Mr. Mark Edwin Smith isn't on the stage....believe me, Marc Riley's tried it! Note also that Tommy Hall ruled The 13th Floor Elevators with an Iron & Acid-Drenched Rod even though he couldn't sing a note & his Musical Abilities amounted to making funny noises with a fruitjar pressed to his cheek! Bob Wills couldn't sing much neither and was nowhere near as accomplished a fiddle player as either Johnny Gimble or Joe 'Jody' Holley but The Texas Playboys were definitely his band and no-one elses! The list goes on.....

All Power To The Soviets!!

In jotting down these impressions, the StonedHolyBlogger feels it necessary to inform you, Good Readers, that
Liberty, Fraternity & Egality are, indeed, carved in stone on the lintel above the doorway here at R o l l e r C e n t r a l  and that these notes, here presented, are in no way to be construed as Championing Entrepeneurial Capitalism as a System whereby to Organize the Affairs and Doings of Humankind.....but oh, the contradictions we carry within....maybe Benign Dictatorship is the Way Forward after all! On the surface, the great Mauryan Emperor Ashoka and Duke Ellington do make for strange bedfellows but maybe they weren't so different really when you come right down to it!

I may expand on this theory of mine and give a talk on the matter at length....maybe at next year's Tolpuddle Festival, if they'd have me! I rather fear not, being somewhat 'off message'!!

The Union Makes Us Strong!

Power To The People!!

Burnished Hearts & Buffoonery!!

Now you, Dear Cyberpeepers, may think being in a Rock N Roll Band is all about excess - Snorting lines of white powder from off the perfectly formed midriffs of prodigously curvaceous yet mentally vacuous & impressionable young ladies or thrusting your Priapically swollen nether regions at a fawning audience... but tis not so! Being currently between gigs and enjoying a period of Stoned & Holy Down-Time, I have found myself mulling over life in the Rock n Roll Slow Lane. So here, for your further entertainment, Pop-Pickers, are a few notes regarding the Dreary Glissando into Inanity, if not out n out Insanity, that the Rollers of the Holy Stone  have somehow managed to perform over these last few decades. So come with me now on a trip down Memory Lane.....

Here at the outset, Gentle Readers, allow me first to impress upon you the fact that it was with Burnished Hearts & Young Minds crowded, if not clouded, with Ideological Fervour that our Holy-Rollers-To-Be embarked on their Protean Rise to Nowheresville! Those classic twin motivators of Drugs & Sex were of no consequence to our Angry Young Men. These Post-Pubescent Politicos had a 'Message' to Punt! Our Over-Zealous Young Turks were above such petty concerns as Drug Induced Euphoria & Sexual Satisfaction, their time being spent in labouring over how best to turn the history of the Paris Commune of 1871 into three minutes of Energised Punk Pop Burblings!

Alas, these Whining Whippersnappers were also almost wholly unaware of the Wider World's indifference to their earnest toil. Dedication to craft & Self-Sacrifice are not qualities ensuring your easy progress along the bumpy, cobblestoned thoroughfares of Human Strivings. But apprenticeships must be served, dues duly paid. And Lo! Did it come to pass. These Stroppy Striplings played on & ploughed their lonely furrow, woefully outtastep with the decade providence had cast them adrift in ; studiously learning all the whilst whilst engaged in various crummy jobs for low pay and little realising that this world of  vacuous consumerism & 'shake n vac' commercials can be a hard Master Mason to young & eager chisellers!

We would be happy to report that their Earnest Efforts & Assiduous Application were rewarded, in some manner as recompense, in regards to the Company & Favours of the 'Fairer Sex', but twas not so. Cruel fate had other plans for these aching gonads! So they took it on the chin and flailed their strings anew and all the more arduously! Thus the cheerless days shuffled past.

There may be those amongst you, Cyberpeepers, who are familiar with the alchemical way whereby a Rude & Lusty Ruby Port is transformed into an altogether more complex and rewarding Tawny. If so you will understand all the better how, with the slow tick of time, our Teenage Firebrands morphed imperceptibly into the Melodiously Delighting yet still Effecting Profanity that is the Stoned Holy Rollers of the Now.

So now it falls to me,  in the Self-Deprecating & Self-Effacing manner that has always been our wont here in the StonedHolyVestry, to inform you, Dear Starers of the Glowing Screen, that finally, after 25 or so years of plugging away at this Pop-Slop-Zero Mallarkey, we have had the ONE incontrovertible FACT of  being in a RockinRollin band revealed unto us :  We care not now to consider the Conceits & Smugness with which we have so often patted ourselves on the back and congratulated ourselves for being so clever. Time Has Humbled Us...and gifted us a more Forgiving, Gestalt-Style Overview of Human Foibles & Failings! But yes, We Fiercely Independent Nay-Sayers, We Truculent Autodidacts, We Champions of the Marxist Dialectic,  We Pathological Kickers against all Pricks, have realised what any A-Grade Dimwit would've twigged in  the time it takes to say 'Buffoonery' - Namely, that the two best things about being in a band are :  1/ The Birds and 2/ The Booze!!!

Oh, How We Plumb the Phony Depths of Bathos!!

.

Here Endeth the Sermon!!

Adieu & Exit Stage Left!!