Devotion #6

“For all debts public and private.”

I started my last post with quotes, and used quotations to open a lot of papers and essays in high school and college, until a professor told me it was a lazy tactic and I needed to stop. Thanks, Dr. Query!

But this week’s quote is significant for a few reasons. Reason one being that I owe you guys a little something extra to make up for my hiatus last week. And Audiversity on a whole owes belated condolences to the passing of yet another musical great, and also a fellow blogger.


Audiversity has mentioned the deaths of legendary keyboardist Joe Zawinul and soul stirrer Bobby Byrd, the man credited with launching the career of James Brown, but we would be remiss in not acknowledging the loss of Wilson “Willie Tee” Turbington, who was among the many pioneers of New Orleans funk and soul. In addition to being a major contributor as a writer, performer, producer, label head on the local scene for four decades, Turbington also enjoyed a career in which he played alongside other greats such as the late Zawinul, Nat and Cannonball Adderly, and Herbie Mann. Check out tributes here and here.

Personally, I must offer condolences to the family and friends of Megan Matthews, a contributor to Moistworks.com, which has been one of my favorite Internet stops for a number of years. I didn’t know Megan personally, but I definitely knew of her, and the time and dedication that she and her colleagues put into their posts and song selection has always made Moistworks a joy to visit. She’ll be missed.

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“For all debts public and private” is a portion of a phrase printed on U.S. currency, which I find a bit ironic considering how much of it is not going toward our country’s insanely high national debt, which currently sits at a little over $9 trillion. Apparently, we’ve been doing more deleting and a lot less saving, and out of that $9 trillion-plus, close to $30,000 is the share for each individual American. It’s a bit of a problem, but that’s what happens when the President is a narrow-minded businessman and not a progressive politician, which is not as much of a slight against George W. Bush at it seems. Hell, I wouldn’t care if the Head of State was Chris Rock if it meant that the dollar would actually be worth something somewhere other than U.S. soil.

I, like most people, hate being in debt or indebted to anyone. I don’t hate debt enough not to have put a down payment on a new car last Saturday, but I do hate the drain it puts on my bank account at various times throughout the month. My father used to joke about how he would put all of his bills in a hat, and pull them out one at a time and pay until he ran out of money. Those statements that didn’t make the cut would get preference on the next go-round. I got no problem with bills, and I do have surprisingly decent credit, but that doesn’t mean that I like having to drop down with that scrilla all the time. Having a job, however, does help, and even though being a corporate drone is some bullshit, I don’t mind using one unpleasant condition to remedy another. In the end, it’s a push – nobody wins, but nobody loses either, especially not your boy Ronnie.

Other, more informal forms of debt come when we proverbially let our mouths write checks that our asses may or may not be able to cash. I do this often, as I did in referencing an “albino Scientologist blues-rocker” in my first Audiversity post. Fortunately, I can make good on this one. But it’s funny how we all make these kind of seemingly minimal promises and declarations in our lives, yet they may potentially have results more damaging than anything Citibank or Capital One could ever do to us.

The Edgar Winter Group – “Frankenstein” – They Only Come Out At Night (CBS/Epic 1972)

They Only Come Out At Night is a great album, as is this one – both produced by famed guitarist and songwriter, Rick Derringer, who is also a frequent “Weird Al” Yankovic collaborator. Winter didn’t really fit that well into my African-American, middle-class upbringing, but I did get a lot of exposure to his music while hearing the Group’s biggest hit, “Free Ride,” during multiple viewings of Richard Linklater’s teen-stoner epic, “Dazed and Confused.” I would also hear it often as a Phish fan, when the band played note-for-note renditions of “Frankenstein” during their live shows. It’s not like “Dazed and Confused” or Phish were any bigger in the hood than the Edgar Winter Group were. But the weed was.

Led Zeppelin – “That's the Way” – Going to California bootleg (Trade Mark of Quality 1971-ish)

I bought both of those Edgar Winter records and about forty or fifty others on the cheap from the library at Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower campus. It was one of those experiences where you spot a few pieces of vinyl in some random, unassuming place - like the bottom of a book cart - then after thumbing through them just long enough to draw attention, you hear those magic words that make any record collector salivate with Pavlovian fury:

“We got more in the back.”

Yes.

“In the back” was also where I found the Led Zeppelin – in the back of this massive thrift outlet and used furniture warehouse on 78th and Stony Island in Chicago, to be exact. If you know anything about this city, you probably know that 78th and Stony is one of the most un-Led Zeppelin-like neighborhoods around, which made it an even more remarkable discovery. I was in there for hours, sifting through an ungodly amount of garbage records when I noticed this blue Rubbermaid Roughneck storage bin in the rear of the store. It stood out in considerable contrast to the drab and beat-up second-hand surroundings, and for some reason only known to the thrift store gods, contained nothing but late ‘70s and early ‘80s hard rock and metal LPs – AC/DC, Metallica, Judas Priest, the Zeppelin, and a few other bands I’d never heard of. Amazing.

I ended up copping the Zeppelin, Van Halen’s Women and Children First, AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock, and Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All and $5.98 EP/Garage Days Re-Revisited for a dollar apiece. But, I only got one-half of the two-LP, red and blue vinyl Zeppelin set. This pains the collector inside of me every time I think about it. Trade Mark of Quality pieces go for much more than a dollar online – as does the Metallica – so if ANYBODY has a lead on the blue vinyl, please let me know. I’d never sell them. I’m just a manic completist, and will spare no expense when it comes to finding the mate.

Once I got more details on the Zeppelin bootleg, I made a crazed dash back to the store to check if I had overlooked the missing LP.

All of the records – and the bin – were gone.