When I was younger and approaching the age of consent, I had a nasty scare and tested positive for hepatitis C after giving blood for free tickets to a Moody Blues concert. My charity always comes at a price. I tested positive a second time, had to get an MRI, see a specialist, you name it. It was all quite mysterious because I wasn't exactly sexually active at the time, nor prone to needle-sharing, so I couldn't see how I got such a mysterious, and then newly discovered, disease. Time revealed they were false positives, as the tests were still early generations, and sure enough I passed a third and fourth test with flying colors and my liver kicks ass to this day.

Austin's great unheralded tunesmith, Alejandro Escovedo, hasn't been so lucky since being diagnosed with the possibly fatal disease a few years ago now, but it didn't stop him from recording an amazing piece of work in A Man Under the Influence (bloodshot), a rich, vibrant sort of sad and hopeful roots rock/power pop amalgam that falls somewhere between early/mid 70s John Cale and Neil Young, with a hint of Let's Active (Mitch Easter guests on guitar) and the DB's (Chris Stamey produces) thrown in for good measure. Two songs in particular have made an impression on me lately, one about how we live our lives, together or apart; the other about the need to keep going even if it seems the end is already here:

"Don't Need You"

There's Heaven then there's somewhere else
and those who fall between
the cracks and land upon their feet
with the rhythm of the King.
But most they sway from side to side
just to keep the story lit
and guide the rest across the rooms
the borders and the lines...

I don't need you (repeat twice)
Like you don't need me.

Someone can wish you everything
then take all that he gives
and tie a rope around the neck
of the promises he gave.
The time he takes to twist his lies
just to keep the story lit
and you wish you would have bit your lip
then just followed him to sleep.

(chorus)

There's heaven then there's somewhere else
and those who fall between
the cracks and land upon their feet
with the rhythm of the king.
But Me I sway from side to side
just to keep the story lit
and hold your hand across the rooms,
the borders and the lines...

I don't need you
like you don't need me....
you don't need me.

"Velvet Guitar" on the other hand is a rousing old style power-pop dream rush which features Stamey and Easter on electric guitars with Escovedo and his band working together as a soaring bird of intricate, dreamy guitar flights and more unhinged fuzz blasts swooping beneath a simple lyric about endlessly strumming that pretty old guitar of the title. A definite MUST for the power pop enthusiast inside us all, and not a bad reason to keep waking up.

Next up, some words about the amazing MV & EE show last night, which I recorded on minidisc, and hoped to transfer to my pc for sharing, but as you probably know, Sony disabled this feature in an effort to protect their own bloated interests. Fuckers. But apparently I can still go the old fashioned analog route. We shall see...fuckers.