TVD’s The Idelic Hour with Jon Sidel

Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

I wish I was like you / Easily amused / Find my nest of salt / Everything is my fault / I’ll take all the blame / Aqua sea foam shame / Sunburn freezer burn / Choking on the ashes of her enemy

In the sun / In the sun, I feel as one / In the sun / In the sun / Married / Married

Married / Buried / Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

GRUNGE. The first time I heard the expression was to describe my band. Late ’80s, as I recall after a rehearsal, Tom Loggia and I rolled by a party for Stephen Sprouse. The clothes were very rock ‘n’ roll, but the crowd’s super uptown Madison Ave types. We rolled up, dressed head to toe in leather, unshaven, stoned. I remember photographer Matthew Ralston greeting us with a big grin, grabbing me by my dreads, kissing me on check as he exalted “you’re so grungy, I love it!”

I’d not say I invented grunge, but I did own a bar in the heart of Hollywood called Smalls, and in the summer of 1990 when the Budweiser, dope, and dreadlocks were flowing. 4am would find me cruising my convertible Impala slowly west on Melrose listening to an advance cassette of Ritual De Lo Habitual. Our crew of “Hollywood Homies” were high as the August sun.

This first half of this week’s Idelic Hour was sparked listening to a new California band, Beach Bums. I was reaching for a musical comparison. It was Nirvana’s In Utero and the production combo of Albini and Scott Litt. A heavy and complex listen. I worked to find a crop of new sounds with the same attitude.