Overheard on the Bus: Metallica, "Death Magnetic"

Being a simple folksy fellow, a "Joe Sixpack" if you will, I do my best to avoid the elitists and their corresponding ideas; I steer clear of libraries and refuse to look beyond the celebrity gossip section of the newsstand. But sometimes a person can't hide from genius because sometimes a person rides the bus. The public bus, as in open to the public bus, i.e. anybody can ride if they have a buck or a smokin' hot bod that the bus driver appreciates. Nobody got on for free that day.

As I boarded the #34, there were several things I expected to witness: a gaggle of teenagers being depressed, a gaggle of teenagers being morons, a gaggle of teenagers being depressed morons, three veterans with a combined total of nine and a half limbs, and an elderly Hispanic woman trying to perform an exorcism on the bus itself. I never expected to hear a sage statement like the following:

"Two Words; [sic] Hell Yeah."

I frantically turned around to try and determine the erudite source. Instead I found the Hispanic woman's silver crucifix in my face. Could she be the one?

"For the first time in twenty years, Metallica has a great album. I listened to it three times in full today alone. It comes really fast, well wrapped and really coooooooool. I've never seen this album in this price!! excellent."

No, the proclamation came from behind her. Settled in the molded plastic seat was an unassuming twenty-something male. From the visible absence of a collection of Pavement original pressing albums, and his admiration for an album being "well-wrapped," I could tell that this man was not a professional music critic. His capacity to hold my attention by way of mouth was even more amazing considering his abcedarian status. Even more extraordinary was that he appeared to be talking to no one in particular. He sat alone, leaning his head against the bus window and watching the potholes pass us by. He continued,

"It certainly is not nearly as good as the 'black album'. It's not as bad as St. Anger. Yet unlike Toby Keith, they're not as good once, as they once were. A recurrent problem for me is thinking that I'm buying into a group at the zenith of their appeal to me. Metallica apparently is well past that. I can listen to this but all the cuts in a row is harder to take than it should be. Repetition tends to bore me and bored I am if I don't just listen to a select couple of tracks."

I dug through my man-purse, desperate to find a pen and paper so as to record everything this public-transit prophet had to say, but as I did so, the modest vaticinator quietly slipped off the bus. The world would only be allowed to hear the stream of splendor I was able to commit to memory.

Professional music critics beware: our savior is amongst us! He will cleanse the back pages of music magazines of posturing and pretension, leaving only ads for recording arts institutions and sex cushions.

There is nothing that I could give to this review, only what the review gave to me: hope.

Mark Kemp: B.B. King, "One Kind Favor

It ain’t easy being a bluesman. Need proof? Go listen to a blues song--any one of them, even the upbeat ones--and you’ll see that the life of a bluesman is filled with nothing but crises, predicaments, and quandaries. And what is the origin of the bluesman’s pain? More often than not, a trifling woman.

Broken hearted? That trifling woman!

Stuck at the bottom of the bottle? That trifling woman!

Broke and busted? That trifling woman!

A spotty discography, despite having incredible talent? That trifling woman!

Too often, though, there is another source of grief that is often overlooked: the music critic. Their sharp, forked tongues offer up a vitriol that, at times, can be comparable to an affable woman. (Of course nothing compares to the ire of the dreaded average-to-cold-hearted woman)

In his review of B.B. King’s most recent release, “One Kind Favor,” reviewer Mark Kemp offers up an asteism for King: your album is good, if only because there was a lot of crap that came before it. More insulting than this is the fact that Kemp uses his review of King’s album as a soapbox to promote the Southern agenda against Eric Clapton.

“For too long, King has drowned in slick production, propped up by stiff duets with the likes of Eric Clapton.”

Oh? You haven't heard about the collective Southern hatred for the English guitarist? Not surprising if you live outside of Dixie. Allow me to boil down the delusions and give you the condensed version of the theory. WARNING: If this makes absolutely no sense to you, keep in mind that you are not alone.

Like all other Southerners, Mark Kemp, a native North Carolingian, strongly holds to the idea that the untimely death of guitarist Duane Allman was intentionally caused by Eric Clapton. Supposedly Clapton first heard Duane Allman’s playing on Wilson Pickett’s rendition of “Hey Jude.” It was then that Clapton, overcome with jealousy, decided that Duane Allman must die(!!!). Clapton invited Allman to play on his "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" LP, a ploy to garner the trust of the Southerner. His scheme worked, and an apparent friendship was formed between the two guitarists.

While the rest of the country (and world [and universe]) accepts that Duane Allman’s death was the result of an unfortunate accident after he was thrown from his motorcycle while trying to avoid hitting a truck that stopped suddenly ahead of him, the South grew suspicious. The idea that a truck driving anywhere near Macon, Georgia would stop unexpectedly is suspect enough, but a truck that had the honor of driving ahead of Duane Allman? Not only improbable, but impossible as well.

The explanation offered up by Rebels everywhere, including Mark Kemp, is simple enough: Eric Clapton was the driver of the truck!

Shame on you, Mr. Kemp! You've invoked B.B. King's name in vain, just so that you could try to convince the world that Eric Clapton is a real sonuvabitch. Sure, he can never be forgiven for that song he did with Babyface, but accusing him of murder? You're supposed to be a professional, not some merchant of paranoid delusions. For betraying the venerable trade of music criticism, your review of B.B. King's "One Kind Favor" is awarded the causes of acute renal failure.