Yesterday was January 5th and in Washington DC and in New York it was officially “Charles Mingus Day” to mark the anniversary of his death (24 years ago).

Mingus represented something that no longer exists. The world is downsized. People are unemployed because there are more people than jobs. Work decreases because the people in charge cut corners and find new ways to make more money from less people.

The music industry represents this perfectly. It’s why the role of the DJ and the covers band in the modern world is so fucking disgusting. Why hire 50 acts to play in a night when you can hire 1 to play the music of 50 people?

If you don’t know him, Charles Mingus was a composer. He’s best known as a jazz bassist but somehow that doesn’t do justice to the enormous breadth of knowledge and broad ranging sweep of musical styles he employed. Bass might have been his instrument but thats only because he didn’t have enough arms and legs to play the whole big band himself. He watched as jazz became a marginalised music form and eventually he watched as “fusion” took over jazz completely and turned it into what it is today – either a slick, calculated Kenny G sax nightmare or something that is retro to the extreme. It’s been said hip hop is the only modern form of jazz and it’s probably right. And it’s only going to be a matter of time before some fucking executive works out what’s going on and that gets downsized too. In fact maybe it’s already happened.

Mingus fought the downsizing with huge big band efforts and orchestral pieces. He struggled financially until the very end of his life (when ironically he found it easy to get gigs but physically harder to play them) but refused to yield to the times. He was a part of the free jazz movement but scoffed at it’s leading practisioners (i.e. Ornette Coleman) for their lack of formal ability. He believed in hard graft as a musician and he believed in doing it big. Whether that means a huge band line up or eating 6 steaks at a sitting.

So, there you go. Charles Mingus was a big, fat genius. Go and read more about him at MINGUSMINGUSMINGUS.COM a site run by his widow and 4th wife, Sue.

I am stuck in the living room at my girlfriends house. In the adjoining kitchen is a grasshopper the size of my hand. Sure, it doesn’t look like it’s up to much but I can see it thinking. And you know what? It’s thinking about when it’s going to land on my face. I don’t intend to give it the chance.

So, I thought I would take time to type up a document I found in the toilet on the plane over here. It was written in red ink on journal paper and appears to be some fresh writing from none other than Henry Rollins himself. As someone who has read much of his work I feel it’s my duty to publish it for the world. I only wish he’d dropped more of it in the john. Enjoy:

September 18, Los Angeles

Woke up same as normal. By repeatedly punching myself in the face to break from the false world of DREAM. Dream is evil. It is the temptation to break from what is REAL. In this dream I was at a fun fair with a friend. We were on the merry go round, screaming and laughing. As the cars went round in circles our legs were pushed together. I woke up with an erection so I punched that too.

September 19, Los Angeles

I was eating the bleeding heart of a cow with 4 raw eggs in my favourite coffee shop style tortured beat poet hangout in the trendy upmarket area of LA that I live in, when a woman approached me and asked if I was Henry Rollins. In my mind I saw myself get up from my seat and pound her pretty face into pulp.

?MY NAME IS HENRY ROLLINS BUT YOU CAN?T MAKE ME TELL YOU WHO I AM?.

But I answered yes.

She told me she was a fan of my work. But she told me she was a PIG. And she told me she was offended by the ?anti-police? content of my ?work?. Who the fuck do these people think they are? I think back to my tortured youth spent living in Mr and Mrs Ginns purpose built office, them bringing out milk and cookies to me while I picked dried cum off my gym shorts with my fingernails. The PIGS never did me any favors then, I think. I think about my adolescent pig-beating masturbation fantasies. It?s then that I snap out of it and realise I am dribbling cow blood and egg white down my moleskin slacks. The PIG looks horrified as I tell her to fuck off. I cannot believe PIGS consider themselves people or worse that they are doing anything good in their weak, pathetic lives.

I have to head back to my pad as a journalist from some newspaper is calling to profile me in advance of my upcoming spoken word tour. I walk back to my pad, carefully avoiding the fact that, by creating moral panics to sell copies, the newspaper she writes for is probably just as directly to blame for the ?attitude? of the police and the general public than the PIG I met earlier and I am about to sit down and help the newspaper out. Sure is great to be me.

September 20, Los Angeles

Wake up late. Do 860 push ups in the nude in my garden. Drink coffee. Kill neighbours cat for being representative of the lazy lay-about nature of the modern human. Rub faeces and cat brains into my chest and thighs. Masturbate. Go to bed.

September 21, Los Angeles

Before my upcoming spoken word tour I have a few European shows with my band, called The Rollins Band after me, Henry Rollins. I walk to our rehearsal space, a shitty run down garage styled hangout near my pad that I am describing here to reassure you, the reader, that I will never stray from my punk rock roots and what is real. I was in Black Flag. With that fucking wankshit cuntface Greg Ginn SPIT SPIT SPIT

who is the greatest guitar player ever and a constant source of inspiration to me even now. The air conditioner isn?t working when I get there and my personal assistant Maurice has ONCE MORE forgotten to stock the fridge with asparagus hearts. This is the rage I need to play and I play hard. The band is hot. Hot and tight. We will DESTROY on this upcoming tour on which I expect I will debate endlessly with myself and my journal about whether I like music, these people, the crowd (doubtful) etc etc reaching no conclusions I can act upon but filling 155 pages of hardback splendor available from my publishing company.

September 22, Los Angeles

Today we fly out to Europe. Being in Economy puts you in with the masses, the American masses. It?s like a wake up call to how much people stink. Their rotting bodies writhing back and forth in their tiny chairs. Their obese bellies fighting with their obese arms as they spill the shitty aircraft food onto their immediate neighbor. Dirty, diseased children fight each other for control of computer games designed to divert their attention away from the freedom of youth and bury them early into the grave of consumerism. Economy is the place to really see the world for what it really is.

Which is why I always always fly first class.

As a coincidence I am today seated next to a fellow actor; Ted Danson.. When the cabin attendant comes round I note with horror that Teddy Boy opts for a light Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil dressing for his Four Leaf salad. He must have moved out of LA as everyone I hang with wouldn?t be seen dead nibbling on a rocket leaf covered with anything except lime and crushed chili.

Later in the flight Ted asks me to kindly change into some pants as my miniscule black gym shorts are drawing attention to the veins in my legs and Ted says it looks like worms are crawling around under my skin.

September 23, London

Yesterday we arrived early evening in London, England and I hooked up with my band who took an earlier flight to save money. I am so disgusted with this wound of a city that I found it impossible to write in my journal last night so I put my laptop back in my bag and concentrated on getting to the hotel.

The streets of night time London are filled to breaking point with prostitutes and drug addicts, each one selling or abusing themselves for a cheaper, more immediate short term high. Drug addicts make me sick. I would never pollute my veins with evil, my body is a temple. A great big, rippling, brilliant, masculine temple.

I can?t wait to get back to the USA as later this year we are opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers who really are swell guys. Being American I see no irony in this.

Its HOT as a bastard. And a mosquito bit my index finger yesterday and it’s swollen up so I can’t play guitar even.

Which brings me on nicely to a venture I have in mind for late January when i get back to good old cold Blighty. THE NICE GUITAR SHOP. A revolution in buying guitars. A shop THAT TREATS YOU WITH RESPECT and (get this) doesnt rip you off by ONLY SELLING GOOD STUFF. wow. You’d think someone would have though of it before. Small business advisors watch out, I’m after a loan.

This is how it works. I work from home and I buy and sell stuff. Its all online, with nice big photos so you can peruse. If you want to have a look come and have a cup of tea and spend as long as you like.

If you want a particular guitar or bass let me know and I’ll try and find it in your price range. You just pay me a little for finding it. And by find it I don’t mean “check EBay”, I mean get you what you want.

And if you have something that you don’t use, email me – hunniisfunni@aol.com – and either sell it to me, trade it with me or I can flog it for you for commission (a lot less than normal guitar shops charge).

At the moment I have a white Travis Bean Standard guitar that I should hopefully be selling on someone’s behalf. Its a museum piece. Its that good. So email me, this one’s not cheap, but it is good. Sorry for the pointless ad.

I have 2 columns on the go – one a review of the Michael Moore book “Dude, Where’s My Country?”, the other an article called “The Soledad Brothers are not a Band”.

I have just finished punching myself in the face for 45 mins as punishment for letting The Ex avoid my attention for 24 years. Wow. Just saw them play and I haven’t seen such joyful intensity since erm…Saturday with Black Eyes but before that, years maybe. Christ. Deerhoof supported and were almost equally as great and the closest thing to the Magic Band I’ve ever seen (the Magic Band included). But The Ex, somebody kick my ass. Put the Shellac records in the damn cupboard.

Just got back from seeing Black Eyes play in Birmingham. Despite an unbearable hawk of cunts in the crowd, they blew me away. They make you recall about a million different things but the mesh of styles is never contrived. It just seems like they were born playing that way. Truly amazing. Lazy journalists of the world – if you dismiss this with a half arsed review that mentions Dischord and Fugazi you will die.

Also, spent all my money yesterday and booked a last minute flight to Australia for Xmas. I go in a week and get back in a month. woohoo.

My lack of posting is actually because of 2 things. First of all my pathetic computer is really up shit creek this time. It freezes all the time when I’m online (blue screen of death) so to combat this I hurled the keyboard at the screen in frustration as I tried to chat to my girlfriend on the other side of the world and it froze again. Luckily I only damaged the keys but for some reason it doesn’t register every key when I type in Blogger.

Also I started a new job which is notable only because I’ve managed to exceed all my previous efforts at finding the worst job ever. I am an archivist for 3 weeks on temporary assignment putting a huge companies files in alphanumerical order and devising a filing system for it after the boss wisely got his kids in over the 6 weeks holiday to do it and the fucked it up. I think the first requirement of filing is to know H comes before J. Anyway, I sit in a huge empty room, just me and my files, all day. No one talks to me. It is a piss poor state of affairs but I need the money. The only relief is burying myself in the files with a book, this week I’ve got through The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin and am 1/2 way through the Prison Letters Of George Jackson. Both books have the capacity to floor you, I’ll write more about them in the future.

But I need a new job. Does anyone know how you get to be a journalist apart from get some talent and stop swearing, using the “…” three dots at the end of every sentence and stop starting every paragraph with “Anyway”?

Anyway, fuck…

I’m liking this Blogger lark. Makes me feel like I’m living a worthwhile life if I post everything on an internet site and 3 people read it. Last night I got to tick another band off the ‘bands I’d love to open for’ checklist when Lords played with PW Long. Wish we’d played better or more people had been into it but PW and drummer would have kicked our asses even if we’d have hired dancing showgirls and a juggling monkey.

I just got stuck in a horrific traffic jam en route to Northampton but it turned good as I got to listen to the mighty GOLDEN over and over. What a band. If you have never heard them don’t fear, I’m going to get my shit together and track one of them down for an interview for Diskant but basically its guys from Trans Am, Six Finger Satellite and Royal Trux playing scorching saucy rock. With a weird South American latino salsa feel. Their first records (S/T and Super Golden Original Movement) piss on Oxes for ripping weirdo metal. Then you’ve got Golden And Rhythm-Beat Jazz which is the Golden chiefs with the horn section from the Boom/HiM. Next up is the awesome Golden Summer which is like Freddie Mercury fronting the greatest rock band imaginable instead of Queen. Then a couple of years ago they put out Apollo Stars. What a bitching record. The singing on it is just unbelievable. And the guitar solos. Wow. I don’t think they’re active anymore though, the drummer Jon Theodores in the Mars Volta, Phil Manleys still doing Trans Am, Alex Minoff was in Make Up and now is in the Scene Creamers and someone told me Ian Eagleson was an ethno-musicologist. They fucking COOK. So go sell all your nasty math rock bullshit and get a Golden shower. If you’ll excuse the pun. APOLLO PIZZA: PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH!!!!!

Aaaan another thing. A while back I started basically working as a guitar pimp on the side. If anyone sees Franz Ferdinand play then you’ll see one of “mine”. I looked through the NME last week and there was my old guitar. Lovely chap too.

So, if anyone wants a specific guitar drop me a line. Current peaches are a 1963 Mosrite bass and a Fender Mustang. For info and prices just email me.

I forgot to draw your attention (and your links pages) to the Lords website:

www.honeyisfunny.com/lords

New and improved…

I don’t know how bands go on tour anymore. I just played 2 gigs in 2 days and I smell like the underside of a racehorse. But we had a weird time, Elvis our drummer said that I would probably “post a load of rubbish about the weekend on some website somewhere” so I don’t want to disappoint.

We played Worthing on Saturday as part of our plan in Lords to only play places we haven’t been before and/or places by the sea. The gig was with Hey Colossus the new Stanton/Econoline/Yeast supergroup thing. They rocked hard, they sound like Isis and are nearly as loud. We had fun. Between songs I noticed Elv was rubbing his titties and Phil called everyone ‘FUCKING FARMFOODERS’ at one point. We played a new song that sounds like Santana. Guitar solos rule, especially when you’re as piss poor at them as me. The last band were really funny, they had really expensive guitars but no cases and they were all arseholed so were dropping these things about in the street. Stayed at promoter Colins house and sat up with him and his son talking rubbish, his whole family were super friendly generous people. Watched a great kids show on Sunday morning with 2 guys going into museums an quiet places and seeing who can shout “Bogeys” the loudest without gettin kicked out.

Which reminds me of a joke:

Q: “Why did Madonna feed her child dog food?”

Even the Lords wagon pissing diesel everywhere on Sunday morning was treated like a bit of a laugh. Dave Crofts was in tow but had already gone to the pub at 8am on Sunday to see the Rugby so we went to the beach and were seriously considering unloading the gear and doing a Magic Band style beach gig at one point. We fucked about all day then headed to Brixton where we were playing a squat with Cat On Form.

The squat was a really cool place, an old pub that can’t have closed too long ago as everything’s still set up for a pub or bar. It was pretty hectic as 5 bands played. Birds Of Paradise played first and were pretty ripping, they had a dude on drums who looked like Cee Cee Deville from Poison and his drumming style was well rock school. You kind of got the impression that some of the band had the option of horse riding or music as a hobby and opted for music, they seemed equine. Claque were grand, they had an awesome drummer who was pounding out really brittle clattering rhythms and a guy playing guitar through a bass amp and a girl on viola and vocals. It was really loose and at times gorgeous and at times really heavy. It reminded me of The Ex and also Ganger somehow. We quickly got pissed off, we played pretty badly too. There was a guy DJing who was playing fucking terrible music so we asked him to play a CD we had when we were setting up and he looked at it (John Coltrane) and asked us why so Welding told him we were a jazz band. By the time Hey Colossus had played and COF were playing I was so narked with the place. COF were really supportive of the squat onstage but I dunno, it seemed to me like the people squatting there did so because they could, not out of necessity or a out of a desire to remove themselves from something they find distasteful. Some squats I’ve been to have been set up in a way that’s really efficient and that works and is amazing but this one had the feel of a bunch of kids who could go home at any point living it rough for the feel of it. It was well organised and cool and the girl putting the gig on was really sound so I’m not getting on her case, the gig was great but something jars badly with me when you have tables full of Stop The War leaflets but there’s awful, commercial nightmare punk rock playing through the PA all night and you have these dickhead rich kids running around acting like students pissed on MD 20/20. OK, I’m pretty tired. I guess I liked the place and the people I met but there were some people there who were just really bizarre and not what I was expecting.

I did hear some awesome music at the weekend at peoples houses though – Lord Buckley is a new one on me. A spoken word artist who performed as early as the 30s and lived the life of a Lord in every way. New Nebula album is completely incredible too, not sure when or if its out as this was a CDR. Heard some recordings by Becomes The Water Of Death too that sounded great too.

A: “She couldn’t help it. Its what came out of her breast”