Nurse the Hate: Lee Rocker and NFL Week 10

 

I remember first becoming aware of the Stray Cats like most American kids did in the early 1980s, on MTV.  Their videos were this weird combination being totally unlike the corporate Quiet Riot/Def Leppard rock of the time, yet not totally divorced from the Bow Wow Wow, Adam Ant, and Polecats videos that also were included in the early MTV playlists.  I grew up in Erie PA, perhaps one of the least hip cities in the country at that time.  There was one FM rock radio station, K-104.  That station must not have had a paid music consultant.  I bet they went cheap and skimmed their playlists from the trades which made for an unholy mix of East Coast Mega Market FM radio infused with some sort of fucked up gut feel locally.  I remember hearing Toto's "Africa" and Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" every 25 minutes blended in with Journey, Supertramp and Styx.  These MTV "New Wave" artists that suddenly appeared on our cable TV blew our fucking minds.  It was like an alternate universe appeared fully formed on our doorstep like some sort of alien landing.

It's hard to place context on the lack of cultural access in the 1980s to people today.  Today you can type anything into your computer and see it.  Leo and I typed "Clown Porn" into Gary's phone one time just to see if such a thing existed (and it does).  This might explain Gary's total disappearance as he might have been snapped up by The Authorities.  There was no way to even dream up an alternative to K-104's playlist beyond the deep tracks of everyone's stoner older brother's record collection.  You were a music geek if you knew Pink Floyd had a record prior to Dark Side Of The Moon.  The music geek debate around the lunch table was about if Yes was better than Pink Floyd because their musicians played more complicated arrangements and solos.  That was now all up in the air.  Suddenly there were all these mystery bands that played undeniably catchy songs that upended all the established thinking about what bands were "good".  These Stray Cat guys couldn't be "real" musicians because that drummer only had two drums for God's sake!  (Or so the prevailing wisdom of the locker room contended)  

It seems crazy now, but it was once considered "dangerous" to listen to Elvis Costello, Modern English and the Stray Cats.  They were so far away from the established corporate rock that had ruled the previous decade that everyone's peers had to take inventory to see where people stood. In my high school, Talking Heads was considered cool, sort of lumped in with The Police as natural extensions of Corporate Rock bands.  Meanwhile The Ramones were definitely a signifier of being an outcast. They were very dangerous.  None of it made any sense.  The bands that were "New Wave" that had radio hits bubbling up like Adam Ant, Men At Work and the Stray Cats were brushed off as being "for fags".  A comment like this could get a kid banished from a school district today, but in the early 1980s this did not signify men having sex with men, but an indication that the music being made was not overtly macho enough to be listened to by growing teenage boys looking to assert their masculinity.  Oddly enough, to be a "real man" and not "a fag" was aided greatly by owning Judas Priest records.  It was a different age.  I can't recall an open incident of homosexual behavior at my school, but at any given time someone was being call a "fag" for daring to listen to the B-52s.  It's just the way it was.

I was interested in the Stray Cats from the outset, but I held them at arms length.  One had to approach these bands delicately to make sure that the various cliques that circled the school like sharks would not turn on you like a pit of vipers.  One day you're on top of the world.  The next you're labeled a fag because you have "Built For Speed".  Who knew what the prevailing opinion was on these bands?  The shit moved fast.  "What?  Miller likes "Stray Cat Strut"?  KILL HIM!!!!".  I still think of my friend Darin planting his flag on the Ramones being great in 1981 as being a true act of courage in the Court of Versailles that was Fairview High School.  It was all pretty confusing how all these brand new bands and sounds fit together.  I lumped the Stray Cats in with the other weird videos that pandered for my attention in 1982 like The Go-Gos, Flock of Seagulls, Dexy's Midnight Runners, INXS, and Adam Ant.  The Stray Cats seemed like some cooler version of Sha Na Na that rocked harder but was sort of Happy Days obsessed.  I just didn't have the tools to understand what was really going on there.  I'm 15.  I don't who the hell Johnny Burnette is yet!

When MTV breathlessly announced the new Stray Cats video "Sexy and +17" was going to be debuted, I did note it.  Though that song's lyrical content didn't age well, that initial groove on the track sold me.  Setzer was clearly writing lyrics that mirrored the Chuck Berry/50s rockabilly playbook as a tribute to his influences (or maybe trying to copy his record collection blueprint as best he could).  Sexy and 17 wasn't an odd idea in 1982.  The idea that men shouldn't fuck kids is actually new in rock music.  If you listen to rock music from the 60s, almost all those bands are singing about having sex with REALLY YOUNG girls.  Didn't anyone notice that Gary Puckett and the Union Gap's hits "This Girl Is A Woman Now" and "Young Girl" are creepy as shit?  In context, "Sexy and +17" is pretty harmless.  Put it out now, you go to jail.  Then?  You put that little + sign next to the 17 and everyone stays out of jail.  It really didn't appear weird at all.  In the video, the Stray Cats seemed super cool how they strutted into the club to play a gig and the "Sexy and +17 girl" was 100% sexier than any of the girls in my high school.  Between you and me, I don't think she was actually 17 but probably a 24 year old model from London.  I was sold.  The Stray Cats had moved in my internal ledger from "Keep An Eye On" to "Cool Band".

It's odd how things work out.  We have played with Setzer solo a few times.  We are playing a show with Lee Rocker from the Stray Cats on Sunday the the Music Box.  15 year old me would never believe any of that.  15 year old me assumed all people that worked/lucked into million selling record careers were of a different species than myself and my friends.  I think Lee Rocker was 21 years old when the Stray Cats hit.  I never even considered that the guys in the video were approximately my age.  Then again age 21 to 15 seems like a galaxy apart whereas age 56 to 61 is the same advertising demographic age cell.  The idea that someone like you could have a video in mind numbing rotation on MTV and be a "rock star" was unapproachable.  That wasn't the path for guys like us.  Making a band seemed outrageous.  I don't think I could get my arms around the idea that I could travel to London, much less that these Stray Cat guys flew over there and worked to become big names.  Erie PA is very small and residents see a trip to Cleveland as exotic and dangerous.  London?  Good Lord. 

I haven't considered before how young the Stray Cats were when they started popping up in my living room TV set.  I don't know about you, but if I was 21/22 years old with a few hits on the radio and headlining a tour of 20,000 seat sheds, I would not have handled it well.  I don't even know how that band got such an expert grasp on the genre while they were so young.  How did those guys ferret out and recognize that cool old shit?  Being someone that gravitated to punk rock, the Stray Cats were always on my peripheral vision.  Of course, I liked them more once the general public moved on to other things like Richard Marx and Corey Hart.  I bought up the Stray Cats catalogue as I went, my personal favorites being "Blast Off" and "Choo Choo Hot Fish" perhaps because the band was forced to commercially slink back to The Rockabilly Ghetto and the clubs I frequented.  I remember a show on that Blast Off Tour at Peabody's (or was it Empire?) as being fucking great.  The band always delivered.

This Lee Rocker show should be fun.  The Cowslingers played with Lee Rocker a couple of times.  I don't think I ever even spoke to him.  Once he was with his band Big Blue and had the unfortunate timing to play Wilbert's during an Indians World series run.  I had tickets to that World Series game.  I watched six innings and had to dash over a few blocks to play our set to the lightly filled room.  I don't remember the show itself at all.  We did pick up a copy of his Big Blue record that lived in our van for a couple of years.  Big Blue's cover of "The Hucklebuck" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT7ZHjOrp1o ) was an instrumental that we attached our own lyrics of "lick my/ball sack" to the intro and would consistently sing as we had to muscle heavier gear up staircases during bad load ins almost like a traditional work song in the fields.  Ear worm warning.  I still do it now and that was almost 30 years ago.  Click that link and sing our lyrics at your own peril.

The good thing about the show being Sunday, most of my degenerate Sunday gambling will be winding down.  I am going to get on the Packers +3.5 over Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh has a winning record yet can't score.  They get outgained week after week, but somehow keep winning.  It doesn't seem sustainable.  It makes me very uncomfortable betting on Green Bay.  Jordan Love stinks, which everyone but the Packers seemed to know two years ago.  I don't know, maybe Aaron Rodgers is that big of a pain in the ass that it's worth going out with Love and probably losing instead of going to the Playoffs with Mr. "Hey, Get That Camera On Me, I Am Throwing The Ball While The Rest Of The Jets Stretch Out On The Field".  Pittsburgh probably pulls out another win, but that half point hooked me.  

I'm on Arizona over Atlanta.  You can't buy any lower on Arizona who barely looked like an NFL Football team last week in Cleveland.  However, Kyler Murray is a massive upgrade over Clayton Tune, a man that looked as about over his head as I would if forced to pilot a 747.  The Cardinals are likely trying to show the rest of the league that Murray is healthy and can be YOURS TODAY AT A LOW, LOW PRICE so they can draft a new franchise QB this April.  Atlanta is a great team to "get right" on.  These guys allowed Josh Dobbs to play backyard football and beat them, make Will Levis look like the best QB in the draft, and go 1-7 ATS in their last 8 games.  Atlanta is especially shitty on the road too.  Arizona +1.5  

In the last 15 years the Browns have won in Baltimore 2 times.  For them to win this week they will need to overcome both starting offensive tackles being hurt and the right tackle replacement being hurt.  The Ravens defense has allowed the least amount of points per game in the league at 13.8 ppg.  Deshaun Watson will need to overcome his league worst accuracy percentage and play through his shoulder injury.  That's a lot of "ifs" against what appears to be a top 3 team in the league playing at home.  Baltimore money line.  I'm going all in on Baltimore and tying them up into a teaser with Denver, who has quietly evolved into being "below average" from their previous standing as "fucking terrible".  The Bills stink right now.  Move that Denver line to Denver +13/Baltimore -.5.  Time to get this ship going in the right direction.

Current Record:  12-15-1