| I have the devil in me! |
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 | | Piano leg: Jerry Lee Lewis circa 1970. | | (Jorgen Angel/Redferns/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "I have the devil in me!" | | - Jerry Lee Lewis, 1935 – 2022 | |
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| rantnrave:// |
Whole Lotta Somethin' Goin' On
JERRY LEE LEWIS was arguably (he himself would argue this) among the very best of the rock and roll musicians who tilted the axis of pop culture in the 1950s and inarguably the worst human in the bunch, and neither of these things negates nor absolves the other; they're both simply true, and we've been living ever since with the contradictions the man with great balls of fire brought to one of the 20th century's signature cultural revolutions and which have resonated down, in various ways, through generations of musical descendants. Or, as MIKAL GILMORE puts it in his Rolling Stone remembrance, Jerry Lee Lewis "wasn't just complicated; he was f***ed up." His music, an unholy stew of gospel, blues and sundry Southern spices that still sounds raw and unhinged nearly 70 years later, is worth romanticizing: "maelstroms of intricate runs and cascading and sometimes dissonant chordage" banged out on his piano, Vulture's BILL WYMAN writes, while he "keened, howled, and caterwauled in a way that gave fairly innocuous lyrics... a lusty, unmistakable carnality that left very little to the imagination." Lewis' life is not worth romanticizing. Most of his seven marriages were physically and emotionally abusive, and the wife he may or may not have murdered (Lewis and the authorities said no; a Rolling Stone investigation raised a number of troubling questions) wasn't the one he was most infamous for. That would be his 13-year marriage to MYRA WILLIAMS, who was 12 when they met, 13 when they married (even though he wasn't yet divorced from his previous, second, wife) and who was his second cousin. The awful details of the awful marriage are here and here, among other places, and there's zero reason to doubt Williams today when she says, "I was the adult and Jerry was the child."
Lewis has been mythologized as a spiritual fathers of all that came afterward, and the mythology, to its credit, has never overlooked his crimes, which weren't limited to his relationships with women. The myths might, however, give him a sort of pass for them, which is another contradiction and conundrum to add to a life of them. Lewis' rock stardom was short-lived. He was exiled after his marriage to Myra, having proven himself too debauched and devilish even for the universe of Elvis, LITTLE RICHARD and, eventually, JIM MORRISON and JANIS JOPLIN. But he was accepted, ironically, by the allegedly God-fearing world of country music, which gave him his very American, very weird, second chance. (You might, if you were so inclined, find lines to draw straight through to the culture and politics of 2020s America.) The wild, unhinged rock and roller became an almost conventional country singer, and he could be pretty fantastic at that, too, his voice and lived experience a perfect match for songs like "WHAT MADE MILWAUKEE FAMOUS" and "ANOTHER PLACE, ANOTHER TIME." He's in both the rock and country hall of fames, having entered the latter just this May, the same month DOLLY PARTON was voted into the rock hall. He, like she, fully belongs in both. And he'll fully deserve every raised eyebrow and look of disdain as 21st century music fans walk by and contemplate his plaque and the maelstroms hidden within. RIP.
Etc Etc Etc
TAYLOR SWIFT's MIDNIGHTS debuts at #1 in the US with nearly 1.6 million "equivalent" album sales, which includes more than 1.1 million actual sales. It's the biggest week for any album since Swift's REPUTATION in 2017. And she's the first artist ever to own the top 10 spots on the BILLBOARD HOT 100, one-upping DRAKE, who held nine out of 10 spots when CERTIFIED LOVER BOY came out in September 2021... BOB DYLAN's book THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG is out today, as is BONO's memoir, SURRENDER: 40 SONGS, ONE STORY... DUA LIPA chats with BRANDON WOLF, a survivor of the PULSE nightclub shooting, on her AT YOUR SERVICE podcast... HOWARD STERN hosts BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN... MEGAN THEE STALLION, ERYKAH BADU and QUESTLOVE in a VANDERBILT classroom.
Rest in Peace
PATRICK HAGGERTY, who led the pioneering gay country band Lavender Country. The Washington state band's self-titled 1973 album was little heard upon its release but gained a cult over time following and was heralded as a gay music landmark when it was reissued in 2014. Haggerty, who had largely walked away from music "because Lavender Country put a scarlet letter on my back and I was untouchable for a long time," released a second Lavender Country album, "Blackberry Rose," this year... Longtime Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. PELIGRO. "He was not just our powerful unforgettable drummer. He was a gifted singer, songwriter, guitarist and so much more," Jello Biafra wrote. Peligro was briefly in the Red Hot Chili Peppers—he co-wrote three songs on their "Mother's Milk"—and recorded three albums with his own band, Peligro... K-pop singer and actor LEE JIHAN, who was killed in the Halloween crowd crush tragedy Saturday in Seoul, South Korea... R&B singer GERALDINE HUNT, best known for her 1980 disco single "Can't Fake the Feeling"... Sound designer and composer NORM CHAMBERS, who recorded ambient music under names including Panabrite and Jürgen Müller... Dubstep DJ/producer WALSH.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | The Ringer |
| | The Night Warren Zevon Left the 'Late Show' Building | | By Alan Siegel | | On October 30, 2002, a cancer-stricken Warren Zevon returned to the 'Late Show With David Letterman' stage for one last performance. Twenty years later, Letterman and more remember the gravitas and emotion of that stunning night. | | |
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 | | Vulture |
| | Jerry Lee Lewis Was an SOB Right to the End | | By Bill Wyman | | Jerry Lee Lewis was known as the Killer, and it wasn't a casual sobriquet — a schoolmate called him that after he tried to strangle a teacher. He once shot his bass player in the chest; just about all of his seven wives, including one who was a child, said he beat them; and there's a lingering suspicion that he murdered wife No. 5. | | |
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| | The Ringer |
| | TikTok Killed the Pop Star | | By Matthew Belloni and Lucas Shaw | | Each year fewer and fewer new pop stars are cracking the top 10--Taylor Swift notwithstanding. Matt is joined by Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to discuss the fracturing of the pop music landscape and the dilution of monoculture in music. | | |
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 | | Appetite for Distraction |
| | Music NFTs Don't Exist | | By Yash Bagal and Maarten Walraven | | Do music NFTs actually exist? If they do, how should we utilize them? | | |
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| | Vulture |
| | 'The Crowd Was Very Emo' | | By Chris Payne | | On the ground at the nostalgia-fueled pop-punk When We Were Young festival. | | |
 | | The Seattle Times |
| | Breakout rockers Enumclaw are ready to be everyone's new favorite band | | By Michael Rietmulder | | By now, the sweat has dried. So have the signatures on the stacks of records the guys from Washington's buzziest band, Enumclaw, sold during what frontman Aramis Johnson deems the young indie rockers' top local show to date - a Friday night album-release bash at a packed Easy Street Records, a rite of passage for hometown acts on their way up. | | |
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| what we're into |
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| Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" |
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