You know I think almost anything with an afro has groove to it but how these overstuffed lumps o’ rubber afro power came to symbolize the quality of groovin’ must be attributed to the fact that they were made for the apple pie American Greetings Corp. Vintage 1972, when everyone had a groove.
How I didn’t know about this dynamo drummer and firecracker of a spirit named Jerrie Thill when she’s led her own all female bands for over 60 years is nuts. Especially given my proclivity for being attracted to distinctive characters like The Del Rubio Triplets or “Shagman” Seymour Heller, Liberace’s manager for 37 years, who forge their own way where no way has existed before. The sheer force these people exude to manifest whatever vision they have of themselves is a trait I’ve aspired to emulate ever since I realized I had a mutant career that didn’t follow the normal Hollywood path to success. It would be up to me to pave my own orbit if I wanted to ever combine everything I did – music, art, video, technology, collecting, entertaining, et al – into one fiery ball of art expression. Jerrie Thill, NINETY ONE AND STILL SMACKING THE SKINS, propelled herself into a similar orbit drumming and singing her way from The Great Depression to The Might As Well Be Great Depression upon us today.
Jerrie isn’t happy unless two sticks are in her hands and high heels are on her feet tapping the bass drum like a steady heartbeat. Her body language is a study in HAPPINESS, her little arms flapping like birds as if the sticks lift her off from the drumheads. For the past 4 months she’s been attached to an oxygen tank. It’s slowed her down some, just for the sheer pain in the ass of having a tank as a third arm. Not to mention those tubes that connect it to your nose. But I’m so into the quirkiness of a 91 year old drummer, female no less, that the oxygen just becomes an interesting fashion accessory and makes the overall intensity of what I’m seeing and hearing even better.
My neighbor, songwriter Alison Freebairn-Smith, introduced me to Carol Chaikin, Jerrie’s younger sax sidekick, at our block party this summer. Carol’s been playing with Jerrie since 2002. Alison documented them for her just-about-finished documentary of all girl bands which, by the way, did not start with The Go-Gos, but has been alive and flourishing in the US since the 1920’s. Jerrie’s led or been in tons of those bands including the famed Dixie Belles, who I saw on Johnny Carson in the late 80’s and almost needed oxygen myself.
These days Jerrie and Carol and whoever else feels inspired to join them play Sundays at El Cid, a gem of a vintage Mexican eatery in LA. But their most important stop is right here at Willis Wonderland where we’re recording a song I wrote in her honor, “Hey, Jerrie”. Jerrie came over last week and smacked out the drum track in one take. Her kick drum sound is the best I’ve ever heard, 60 years of high heel grime and funk on the ones.
We’re almost done with the record, also featuring a 6 year old drummer and 11 year old Blues and Jazz guitar virtuoso. Then I just need to whip a video together and you’ll hear it. Hopefully that won’t take the usual 7-9 months my other videos have taken. I got to move as fast as Jerrie!
I do a lot of different things. I never knew what to call myself. Composer/ songwriter/ lyricist/ musician except I don’t know how to play/ artist/ interactive artist/ writer/ director/ producer/ party captain/ social planner/ technologist/ collector. By most standards totally different hats. By my standards the road to being a totally integrated, self realized individual. By entertainment industry standards a liability until the Internet finally pounded into their thick heads that someone who was self sufficient and capable in more areas than the one they signed a contract in was an attractive pet to have in the stable. With two notable exceptions my music publishers never got why I had the urge to paint, the art gallery owners viewed me as a songwriter who sometimes paints and very few of them ever got that my real artform was the Party, where all my pursuits sloshed together in one interactive swirl of social interaction and finely honed environment.
But now, 17 years after I jumped onto at that time the slow chugging train known as the Internet, the day has finally arrived where you can be whatever you want to be, with as many different talents and interests smashed together as you can manage. You can emerge as a revolutionary force if you just have the balls to offer something different. The tools, information and distribution channels are all there and the former keepers of the castle no longer hold the keys.
1992. I told you so:
So, the big realiziation is that it’s not the song, it’s not the painting, it’s not the new wall color, it’s YOU who’s the artform. Your hair, clothes, front yard, job, relationship, house, car, friends – they’re all physical manifestations of you. Your life in cyberspace, be it an accurate reflection and extension of your real self or a complete fabrication, is you splatted out on a vast neverending canvas of infinite time and space. You can exist as a little pea in a great big vast black hole or you can fill it with color, shapes, spirit and new friends and push yourself to places you could never dream of going when held to the confines of physical space and laws of the former universe and gatekeepers.
So be bold with the new extended YOU. Only decorate and inspire it with what makes you feel passionate about yourSELF. On physical and virtual planes alike cut out the crap that weighs you down, makes you feel bad, guilty, ugly, fat, jealous, angry and otherwise depressed. You may think that every decision you make is about the thing you’re making the decision about. But it’s always about you – how much you think you deserve, how worthy a person you think you are, what you think your potential is. I’ve always been good about cutting off from dysfunctional collaborators, not taking jobs for money but for the creative high or freedom they will bring. I flip careers like cooks do pancakes. But it’s never been to actually change what I’m doing but rather to evolve into whatever I think I want to be.
The entertainment industry is self destructing from arrogance and greed. They thought the Internet was a place for dorks. They thought no one but highly paid creatives, lawyers and businessmen could create content fit for mass consumption. They missed what the whole revolution was about – empowering individuals with the ability to express themselves. And what spilled out naturally and honestly – cats playing piano, homemade music videos of songs recorded by any means necessary, exploding vegetables, whatever – inflamed the imagination of the worldwide public more than any scripted by committee property ever could.
So, be yourSELF. You’re the canvas. Paint like a motherfucker. Now’s the time.
