 I’m having very minor surgery this week, but it was probably still a bad idea to catch a screening of The Human Centipede. Anyone who doesn’t know the gruesome details can let IMDB fill them in on the medical mayhem. It’s still a well-made film, despite a script that requires the protagonists to act in abominably stupid ways. I was also impressed by German actor Dieter Laser, who plays the film’s mad doctor. He explained in a Q&A afterwards that he enjoyed playing an absurd version of Dr. Josef Mengele, mostly as a kind of revenge on his country’s Nazi past. Laser went on to praise “the American heroes” of World War II who saved him from living “a terrible life” where he might have ended up as a true zombie.
Then he abruptly shouted, “Thanks, America! You have my respect!” That might not be much, but it was probably the most patriotic moment that’s ever been heard at the Independent Film Channel Center.
Catching up other news, since I’ll be distracted the rest of this week: The new A Nightmare on Elm Street is lousy, but not exactly lousy in the way I expected . The big change is that Freddy Krueger is now just a child molester instead of a child killer. That’s Hollywood’s way of making Krueger sympathetic, since so many industry types don’t even think child molesters should go to jail—let alone suffer fiery vigilante justice.
Also, as previously Twittered , I’m betting on a Dixie Chick as this week's upcoming Out Celebrity Lesbian. Queen Latifah has a romantic comedy to push, so the folks in Marketing wouldn’t approve. And since some people have had fun goofing on CNN’s Roland Martin this week, here’s an older Twitter where I noted what Martin was contemplating this past September 11th. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get ready to wake up in the year 2173...
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 I should post something to show that I’m back from vacation, and here’s an old music video that’s worthy of comment. Until recently, I didn’t even know Material Issue made a video for their cover of “Kim the Waitress” on 1994’s Freak City Soundtrack. It’s even more tragic to think the money was just wasted on what is clearly one of the most screwheaded videos in the history of rock. As you’ll hear, the song is a lovely pop ode. As you’ll see, the video is a paranoid Leftist fantasy.
Jim Ellison—who wrote plenty of great songs as Material Issue’s frontman—was then just a few years away from being a power-pop suicide. It’s a miracle this video didn’t kill him sooner. It’s a miracle that Jeff Kelly of the Green Pajamas (whose original version can be heard here) didn’t kill himself, as well. The video kind of has a happy ending, but you’ll marvel at how some idiot director heard this lovely tune and decided it was the proper setting for political allegory.
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 How few conservative rock critics are out there? So few that a has-been like me still gets trotted out as the sole name when someone decides to write a piece about the topic. It’s a thoughtful article, though—and, in the spirit of Good Friday, you’ll find that I’ve added a comment where I discuss my persecution.
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 Verily I swore via Twitter that my Alex Chilton tribute would be the best, and now it is revealed as so—until I check this link to my article and find a whole bunch of things that I probably should’ve rewritten. The most nerve-wracking part of the piece was trying to verify that my story from 1986 actually happened in 1986. But here’s a link to another fine Chilton tribute where a commenter thinks my 1987 story happened a year earlier, so clearly everyone was addled that decade.
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 I ran into Sal Maida the other day, and he mentioned that he’d recently
been over to Iraq on a USO tour. Maida’s the bassist for Cracker, so
they weren’t hanging out with the megastars. They were touring in jeeps
and keeping their heads down. Anyway, it reminded me that my 2009 Stomp and Stammer interview with Maida had never been posted online. (That’s
him on the far left, incidentally.) His weird career certainly needs to
be covered, especially since he was left out of the recent Runaways
biopic. So here’s the story of Sal, and apologies for the headline.
It’s been several months, and I still can’t think of anything better…
Glam Cracker
Sal Maida’s March from Glam to Country to Whatever Cracker is Nowadays
“I was thinking the other day,” says Sal Maida, “that I was the
fifth bass player for Roxy Music, and I’m pretty sure I’m the fifth one
for Cracker.”
No other musician can make that claim—or anything close to it. Maida
has had a stellar pop career by just about any standard. In a very
short period in the ’70s, Maida managed the hipster hat trick of being
in three of the glam era’s best bands. That’s before there were even
hipsters. Maida now gets to be part of a hot band that should
technically be an oldies act, with Cracker touring to rightful
acclaim for their new Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey.
Maida’s no mere sideman, either. “I’m still the new guy,” he says from
his Brooklyn home, “but this new record seems to make me a full-fledged
member. I have co-writing credits on nine of the ten songs. A lot of
people are saying this record is the best since Kerosene Hat, so I
guess that’s considered their artistic and commercial high point. I
always thought The Golden Age is underrated. It’s got a lot of great
songs, and there’s some incredible playing and production. You can hear
on that album why Cracker would be so perfect for me. This new one has
all my old styles, from punk to glam to country-rock, and some new-wave
and power-pop.”
Maida’s old styles are Cracker’s old styles, too, considering how much
territory has been covered by founders David Lowery and Johnny Hickman.
Maida gives them both credit for beating him to discovering country
music, though. He spent the start of the ’80s in New York City while
flirting with synth drums. Maida still managed an unfashionable early
start on Americana with The Lovin’ Kind in the early ’90s.
Maida stayed with that ignored NYC scene, too, and that helped him land
in Cracker for a 2007 tour. Sunrise makes good use of Maida’s
complicated musical history, which began when the native New Yorker
moved to England after getting his BS in Economics.
“I’d just gotten there,” recalls Maida, “and I saw Roxy on television
doing ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache.’ Like a lot of people, I
thought they were the most intensely original band around. I knew they
didn’t have a regular bass player, but it never entered my head that I
could play for them. I was working in a record store when [Roxy
drummer] Paul Thompson and [keyboardist] Eddie Jobson came in looking
for a Family album. I hid the copy we had, and told them I’d order it
for them so they’d come back to the store. We got to know each other,
and then I got a call one day from Paul saying that their bass player
couldn’t tour, and inviting me to audition.”
Fortunately for Maida, that would be one of the tours immortalized live
on 1976’s Viva! album. Roxy’s revolving door soon had him looking for
work, though, which is when Maida landed another classic gig—although
it would take decades to become classic.
“I came back to New York,” Maida recalls, “and was approached about
working with Milk ‘n’ Cookies. There was already a pretty big buzz
about them as a glam-pop band. Then it took forever before the album
was finally released in ’76, and the critics just killed us.”
It didn’t help when the band members made fun of the Bay City Rollers
during a UK promo visit. Still, the sole Milk ‘n’ Cookies album is now
a proper cult item, most recently reissued last year on American vinyl.
Check out the album cover, and you can tell that Maida wasn’t getting
by on his image. His imposing presence doesn’t suggest anything glam or
twee about him.
“Yeah,” says Maida, “I was still this guy from Little Italy, so I had
to shed some testosterone. I was always looking to Overend Watts for
inspiration. He’s a big tall guy, and he was wearing five-inch platform
shoes—so I figured, you know, that’s cool. I was standing out like a
sore thumb in Milk ‘n’ Cookies. Roxy Music was a lot better. Phil and
Andy and Bryan are all at least 6’ tall. I was 6’5” and 150 pounds.
That emaciated look really helped.”
Maida didn’t have to look precious when he joined up with Sparks for
1976’s Big Beat. “They had the same manager and producer as Milk ‘n’
Cookies, so that’s the way it happened. Sparks had been a big glam band
in England, but they were trying to crack the American market. Big Beat
was their take on Aerosmith—or, you know, as close as they could get.”
Big Beat would also lead to more live immortality for Maida, as he’s
featured onstage with Sparks during the climatic sequence of the 1977
disaster movie Rollercoaster—in SenSurround! Cracker doesn’t have anyone else with that kind of background. Lowery
only has Camper Van Beethoven to his credit, while Hickman has an
embarrassing history with the failed ’80s guitarslingers of The
Unforgiven. Frank Funaro got his start drumming with the Del-Lords.
Things still work out nicely with Cracker’s latest incarnation.
“We were playing all the time around 2007,” says Maida, “and the
chemistry was really coming together onstage. It was still kind of a
surprise to be told we were heading into the studio to write a record.
They were just touring off Greenland when I joined the band, and that
had gotten great reviews. Now there’s a real contrast with Sunrise.
It’s completely different as a rock album. The reviews have been great,
the airplay’s been great, and a lot of shows have been sold out. It
feels pretty good knowing all that came together on the stage.”
As noted, a lot of what’s come together with Sunrise reflects on
Maida’s bizarre history—which has a few unheralded chapters. Those
include Maida’s unlikely stint as a member of The Runaways for 1977’s
Waitin’ for the Night.
“I was in the Rainbow parking lot in L.A.,” explains Maida, “and
[producer] Kim Fowley came up and asked me if I was Sal Maida. He said
that he needed me for the new Runaways album. He had a dream that
Vickie Blue was tied up by snakes around her arms—or maybe it was that
her arms were snakes. Anyway, Vickie was the Runaways’ new bass player,
and she couldn’t play in Kim’s dream, so he took that as a sign. I told
him that I’d be happy to help out, but he was going to have to tell the
girls before I showed up at the studio. So I walk in the next day, and
all the girls are there. Maybe not Joan, but Vickie sure is, and they
look at me and say, ‘Who are you?’”
Maida never told anyone about his work as a Runaway. Nobody knew until
Waitin’ for the Night was reissued in 2004, when Fowley revealed that
fun fact in the liner notes.
“Yeah,” says Maida, “Kim outed me. I wouldn’t have told anyone. That’s
part of being a working musician. There are a lot of great musicians in
New York who don’t have regular gigs. I’ve been spending the past few
years with Cracker and working with Mary Weiss, so that’s been kind of
great. People ask me if it feels weird, but I don’t know if that’s the
word for it. I’m just appreciative."
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 The Ten Commandments is probably one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s over three hours long, but moves as quickly as any kiddie matinee. Still, it’s not the only movie worth watching as a Passover event. The Abominable Dr. Phibes is about a vengeful psycho who’s out to kill the eight doctors (and one nurse) he blames for the death of his wife. His elaborate murders are based on the Biblical plagues that God brought down upon the Egyptians. There were ten plagues, but that’s a plot point. The Jews aren’t having an easy time nowadays, so it’s nice to enjoy any movie that honors their proud history.
There’s also the matter of my wanting J.R. jr. to have strong Jewish role models. My 6-year-old likes mad doctors, and really likes Dr. Phibes. It’s pretty funny to hear a little kid robotically intoning, “I am…already…dead.” Anyway, I suggested to him that Dr. Phibes might be Jewish. “Dad,” he sighed, “Dr. Phibes is a bad guy. There aren’t any bad Jewish doctors.” Oy!
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 It looks like Hot Tub Time Machine isn’t going to be the new The Hangover—although the comedy about guys going back to 1986 had a decent weekend at the box office. I knew not to look for right-wing content, though. The movie stars John Cusack, and he spent the ’80s complaining about Ronald Reagan using the Constitution as toilet paper. (I’m thinking that Chris Lemmon—son of Jack—once said the same thing. Maybe they got together at Spago’s to think up that kind of stuff.)
Anyway, the funniest ’80s flashback with Hot Tub Time Machine just ran as a letter to the New York Times. A proud Canadian feminist took great umbrage at a roundtable discussion about the ’80s that ran in the paper last week. The stars of Hot Tub Time Machine were interviewed, and I hope Cusack is proud to have been part of such a sexist endeavor. Enjoy this statement from Elizabeth Collins of Vancouver, and marvel at how the ’80s was full of joyless morons just like her (and all weird grammatical touches are as originally run):
Re: “Remembering Those Awesome ’80s” by Dave Itzkoff [March 21]:
In Mr. Itzkoff’s article four actors are asked “Dynasty: Krystle or Alexis?” and, “Tiffany or Debbie Gibson?”
To what is this referring, and to whom is it of interest? I’m guessing, based on the responses, that it has some male-centric sexual preference quotient, and am offended that The New York Times deems it of interest to its readers.
Perhaps Mr. Itzkoff would like to survey, instead, a high school boys’ locker room and then publish the result on a blog about “hot,” or sexually attractive women. Or, in Maxim, or Playboy magazine.
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 If you think fans of Janeane Garofalo and Bill Maher are sad, then check out the cult of deceased stand-up comic Bill Hicks. I’m happy to see that I’ve already summed up my disdain for Hicks while celebrating a far better comic. Sadly, his fanatical following now brings us the insanely self-congratulatory trailer for American: The Bill Hicks Story.
That trailer does a pretty good job of suggesting how dull Hicks was in his outrageousness. Among his many moronic routines was one about those crazy Christians who wear crosses, with Hicks noting it was like honoring John F. Kennedy by wearing a small gold rifle. I remember my sister making that same comment when she was about 13 years old, and lots of other kids have done the same at that age. Hicks just took a lot longer to figure it out. Then he found an audience stoned enough to laugh at the tired idea.
Hicks was actually a pioneer in making a living by reassuring desperate folks that they were all really cool and insightful, just like him. That’s Garofalo’s gig now, and also Kathy Griffin’s. There’s one inadvertently hilarious moment in the American trailer where Hicks is literally screaming at his audience about how everyone in the club with him is so much smarter than everyone else. The trailer is funny, but Bill Hicks remains pathetic—and the people who go see American are the same types who honestly believe they’re smart because they prefer Conan O’Brien to Jay Leno.
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 Remember a few weeks ago when a pompous academic made an ass out of himself while commenting on the shootings at the University of Alabama Huntsville, but then everyone forgot about it because it was just passing idiocy that couldn't be fanatically politicized? As it turns out, there isn't anything I can't fanatically politicize.
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 Here’s my Kim Fowley interview, just in time for that biopic about The Runaways and some fine reissues of his early studio productions. Anyone not familiar with Fowley will find his interesting history helpfully covered in the article. Not much politics here, but you’ll see that the guy isn’t kidding himself when he claims to be politically incorrect.
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