who stole my music? give it back you pricks!

What a week for rock and roll. Where do I start? Oh yeah, with Kiss appearing on Scooby Doo! Yep, that’s right… my daughter is hooked on the old hound dog sleuth and last weekend’s episode featured the masked misfits singing “shout It Out Loud” while the ghost of some old fart wandered around (it was a Halloween episode) and Paul got to crack some “give us the money” type jokes. Fuck that! When I was a mere stribling, back in 75/76 which made me all of maybe 13 or 14 I first heard “Rock And Roll All nite” and I was blown away. I didn’t know then that the make up was the big gimmick, that it never came off, that they had this enormous stage show – I just saw the film clip and went what the fuck is that? I rushed out and bought Kiss Alive on the strength of that one song. That’s right – double album on vinyl, gatefold sleeve, old Casablanca logo… we had to drive up to Mt Gambier, some thirty miles up and thirty back to get it and then my mother went to a friend’s house for coffee!!! And all I wanted to do was get home and throw that fucking album on! That was when I first realised that there was more to them than just the songs, that they had the images, the spaceman, the cat, the lover, the demon… but first came the songs… fuck me, Strutter, Deuce, She, Cold Gin… and my fave, even better then rnr all nite was Let Me Go Rock’n’Roll.
I flogged that song to death… that was the fucking anthem for me… this was the band for me. And let me tell you, forget about the megabuck machine they are now, forget about the two aging egomaniacs who refuse to let the band die, forget all that shit… back in 76, being a Kiss fan in a country town in South Australia instantly alienated you. We were few but we were strong. We believed in that band, we believed that they believed in us too – fuck were we wrong! They just wanted our money, they didn’t give a fuck about the “fans” in the end, just the moolah. So I guess I shouldna been surprised to see them as a cartoon band on a cartoon show about a defective detective dog but it still hurt.
Then much to my surprise, the Rolling Stones appear on Days of our Lives (don’t even go there). Talk about crossover merch… the band actually popped up a coupla months back with some single being played exclusively on the show in a very lame tv clip sequence that had nothing to do with the episode and now they have a concert scene in LA and some of the characters win tickets to go see them! (Apparently everyone on Days is a Stones fan) Who decided that this was the audience they wanted to reach? What a weird arse piece of marketing… hey, Mick, Keith, we reckon appearing on this soapie will really boost ticket sales! Huh? Oh, and they suck live too.Then to top the week off, we had the finale to Rockstar Supernova. Now I know I shouldn’t even be watching this shit but hey, I did, I was hooked I admit it. That houseband can play damn near any song on the fucking planet in any style and make it sound good. So to me it was like watching a damn good covers band without the smoke and obnoxious cunt in front of you waving his mobile phone. Though it has to be said that considering we had guys from Guns N Roses, Metallica and Motley Crue to impress, the song selections were remarkably lame at times… I mean Radiohead, Verve, Coldplay… where the fuck was the metal?! And then the band go and pick the fucking muppet punk Lukas. You woulda thought that Gabby, sorry Gibby and Tommy would know about getting a fucking frontman… they would know that you need more than a windup punk kit with a voice like a fucked up vacuum cleaner… but then what the hell, its all presold anyway… the concert tickets were selling out before they announced the winner so what do they care. And just as an aside, how “live” and “unplanned” was the winner anyway? I mean Magni gets eliminated just half hour before and then Lukas brings him out to play with Supernova! He just happened to be standing around backstage with an acoustic guitar to play with the band just half an hour after being eliminated?! Surely if the final four all thought they had a chance at the title they weren’t rehearsing to be playing as fucking back up were they? Kinda suss to me… but hell, we’re talking about reality tv here so why am I even bothering. Still, this week has left a nasty taste in my mouth… I used to love rock and roll – I’m old enough to remember when punk was a legitimate statement, a movement, a moment… music used to be something we fucking talked about for days – we saw the film clip on the weekend and then we had to wait another 7 days, sometimes longer… it was magic, it was enthralling, the radio was full of surprises… I’d go into the record shop and flick through the new releases maybe once a month, there wasn’t this bombardment of actors/sluts/ singers/dickheads… we had to hunt for things, find the songs, wait for the magazines to mention some minor detail and try and fit all the pieces together… it meant something so amazing… now its all marketing, demographics and you’re bombarded with it! Fuck, sex pistols and clash dvds are now in the cheap bins… who coulda thought that in 76? Who would expected that? The shit I copped for listening to Birthday Party, Motorhead, Ruts, Pistols, Angelic Upstarts… now everyone is revered and repackaged (except maybe the Upstarts…poor buggers)… when will I see nick cave on Scooby Doo or Hi5 – it can’t be far off can it? Lemmy on sunrise or johnny rotten doing cabaret at newtown rsl. Shit, you can even get countdown shirts at kmart now (as well as pistols and clash knock offs). Those fuckers have stolen my youth and I want it back!!!!!!!!

Kill her mummy...kill her

Jason Vorhees has always been my favourite wood stalking, machete wielding, blue-balled masked psycho killer and that’s probably because F13 was one of the first, if not the first, R rated slasher flicks I ever saw. I can still remember taking down the P plates (a dead giveaway that y’re underage) before entering the Starline Drive-In in Millicent in my parents' Ford Escort to see Friday The 13th. I was alone that night, don’t know where my mates were, probably had other things to do like girls or homework, but I was there. I was 17, underage and alone in my car watching as the Vorhees saga unfolded. I had no idea what I was in for, of why I had chosen this particular movie but the tv ads must have been good, though I also have a vague memory of seeing an article in Famous Monsters I think though where I would have found a copy of that in country South Australia is beyond me. As soon as those first throats were slit though I knew I was in a whole new world. I’d been brought up on Hammer Horror and late night 60’s horror flicks but nothing I’d seen had prepared me for the grue, realism, the unflinching matter of factness of Tom Savini’s special fx.
The roller coaster ride had begun and I sat there, screaming, flinching, open mouthed, slack jawed and knowing that I’d stumbled onto something that was going to be with me forever. I was amazed and then just as it was all over, Jason pops out of the fucking water!
I know nowadays we all expect the surprise ending, the villain to get up again, all that stuff and we rarely get caught out by it but I don’t mind admitting that when that little mongoloid fuck popped up and grabbed the boat I squealed like a kid. That night the wet stain on the front of my pants was a spilled coke.
(and of course the irony is that Jason wasn’t even the killer in that first flick… but hell I won’t worry about that smallish detail… it was still a Vorhees after all. Christ he didn’t even do the hockey mask ‘til the 3rd flick but he’ll always be hockey head to me)
I was hooked on splatter after that night and luckily the Starline was too. I was at just the right age, at just the right time and most weekends there seemed to be a splatter/stalker flick on—Happy Birthday To Me, The Burning, My Bloody Valentine, Slumber Party Massacre… some were good, some were crap—(Humungous anyone?) but they were all on the big screen with tits the size of yr head, axes as big as yr car, blood pouring out everywhere, girls screaming, beer being spilled, fingers getting stinky… let me tell you, it was the only way to watch ‘em kiddies, the only way.
Oddly enough when Jason Vs Freddy came out I found myself once again alone when I went to see it. But this time I was totally alone, there was no one else in the cinema at all! Yep, that’s right, nada, nil, zip, zilch… just me and my choctop. Hell, if I’d known it was gonna be like that I woulda snuck in a hipflask. So I picked the best seat in the house, sat back and watched my hockey head hero rip heads off, shit down necks, cry like a baby and beat the fuck out of that glove wearing goose Freddy the Franchise. (and can you imagine the meetings that went on when they were trying to decide which character should be the ‘hero’ - the psycho zombie killer or the child molester? It’s the only time Jason has ever looked like the ‘good’ guy!) I tell you, I had a ball—cheering hockey head, watching the grue in big screen wide arse chunks, sucking down the choctop icecreams—hell, every movie night should be like that. And it was good to see Jason doing his thing just one more time. I’d forgotten just how great he was.
So y’re probably wondering why the old guy is boring you with his ‘good old days’ schtick , well it’s all David Grove’s fault. Who’s David Grove? He’s the twisted sonbitch behind the book “Making Friday the 13th—The Legend Of Camp Blood” put out by FabPress. (fabpress.com) Grove has put together the ultimate tome on hockey head, his history, and every one of the F13 movies. We’re talking the history of the whole damn thing from the initial ideas for the first flick right thru to Jason Vs Freddy. Actors, directors, storylines, cast and crew, special fx… everyfugginthing you could want. Even the F13 tv series gets a run (‘member that dog?) - jesus there’s even a bodycount!
Groves has assembled photos, posters, interviews, facts, stories… he’s talked to everyone…. The fucker is obviously a fan and he’s put together a book that I don’t think anyone could really fault…he knows his stuff and now so do we… who did what, where they went after, career paths, the good the bad the I don’t want to know, the uncut moments...everyfugginthing, everyfugginthing…
Let me tell you… David Grove has a serious jones for Jason Vorhees and he’s done all of us proud. I don’t know what they have planned next for ol blueballs but you know I’m gonna be lining up to watch it and so will David Grove.