Enter....Stage Wes

The unlikely Professor

Ladies and Gents in a first for the old Castor Oil experience I am going to present to you a guest author for part of this post, (actually two authors I guess). Please welcome Mr. T. Wesley; guitarist for the Pharmacy Prophets, college professor, all-around jack of all things music related and admirer of…….mmm……boobies. Wes sent a review, (upon request), of our show last Friday to the Roundtable.

What, pray tell is the Roundtable you ask? The Roundtable dear lads and lassies consists of about 12 guys that argue about music and other things like handjobs and who has proclivities towards necrophilia over email all day instead of working. The Roundtable has been in existence for almost ten years now and has probably cost our respective employers hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in lost productivity. To illustrate, here’s an example of a typical Roundtable topic that has elicited two weeks worth, (and counting) of messages back and forth mostly calling each other stupid retarded gaywads with no ear for music and the like.

From Eric, Roundtabler extraordinaire……

“This list is our top 40 Cheese Rock songs of the 80's. We did it draft style, so a third of them are mine. The idea was to pick cheesy rock songs from the 80's that we liked at the time and would still listen to now as a 'guilty pleasure' kind of thing. Legitimate 70's bands that succumbed to the cheese 80's sound were welcome in addition to bands that existed mostly in the 80's. We avoided bands that transcended the 80s (Police, REM etc). We also omitted cheese metal, as that will be another list. Enjoy, let me know if there are songs that we missed that you would want on here. This list will no doubt entertain Will and make Steve vomit.

1 - 867-5309 (Jenny) - Tommy Tutone
2 - Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
3 - Working for the Weekend - Loverboy
4 - Goodbye to You - Scandal (featuring Patti Smythe)
5 - Your Love - The Outfield
6 - Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield
7 - Shadows of the Night - Pat Benatar
8 - And We Danced - The Hooters
9 - Freeze Frame - J. Geils Band
10 - I Think I'm In Love - Eddie Money.
11 - Take it On the Run - REO Speedwagon
12 - Good Girls Don't - The Knack
13 - On the Loose - Saga
14 - Twighlight Zone - Golden Earring
15 - Fantasy - Aldo Nova
16 - Lunatic Fringe - Red Rider
17 - Simply Irresistible - Robert Palmer
18 - The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em) - Greg Kihn
19 - Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
20 - Run Runaway - Slade
21 - Change - John Waite
22 - On the Dark Side - John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band
23 - Don't Pay the Ferryman - Chris DeBurgh
24 - Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
25 - Authority Song - John Cougar
26 - Find Another Fool - Quarterflash
27 - She's a Beauty - The Tubes
28 - Heat of The Moment - Asia
29 - What I Like About You - The Romantics
30 - Don't Tell Me You Love Me - Night Ranger
31 - Everybody Wants You - Billy Squire
32 - Stone in Love - Journey
33 - I Love Rock & Roll - Joan Jett
34 - Photograph - Def Leppard
35 - So Caught Up in You - .38 Special
36 - Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
37 - Raised on Radio - The Ravens
38 - Million Miles Away – Plimsouls
39 - Money for Nothing - Dire Straits
40 - Boys of Summer - Don Henley

End of email

This list has caused endless discussion twixt the Tablers’ over the merits of what Journey song rocks and what Journey song does not. I told you the conversations are pretty stupid. Journey can't rock. It's against the laws of nature. Idiots. Anyway, my input into these matters usually consists of something like, “Does it bother your wives that you wear their clothes”, “this list makes me want to tongue kiss Carson Kressley”, and "if you weren't so stupid you would realize that Hanoi Rocks is better than all of this shit". I also routinely damn Rush to the fires of hell when I don't have time to think up fresh material. I dig the roundtable, it really keeps the old brain working throughout the day.

Anyway, now that you know the context of the Roundtable here is the text of a humble and insightful review of the Pharmacy Prophets he sent around yesterday morning. From Wesley -

Opening band - Kung Fury - was really good if you like energetic, slightly out of tune NY punk. The singer/guitarist is perfect for that band and that genre. Really nice guy. Wears high-heeled shoes most of the day from what I heard.

The leaky ceiling dripped on the drums all night, which really irritated Ben. He was happy to have his bass drum pedal back though, after waiting since mid-January for the parts to come in at Guitar Center. He liked my pedal just fine; it's just that it wasn't his. Kind of like jerking somebody else's gherkin, I guess. Either that or my pedal just sucks and he didn't want to tell me that. Anyway…...

Phil was at the front end of a nasty cold, which I'm told is wrecking him full-force as of today. Of course, his hair was perfect. He sang like an angel and smoked like a demon. Steve, whose hair is only marginally less coiffed than Phil's, was also 'on' Friday night, actually getting it done on guitar. His sound was good, his playing was excellent, and even though I had his vocal pulled out of my monitor, I think he even sang well all night. At the very least, I did not witness any self-flagellation, which usually follows any song in which he bricks a sequence of notes. The guitar I built for him sounded excellent, as always.

My playing was about 90% perfect, which is pretty par for me. I fairly tanked 'Earlgray' in more than one place, most egregiously the (rather horrible) solo. I was disappointed that the sound man cut our set short by two songs, as we jumped straight to the set-closer, skipping the two songs for which I had worked up sweep-arpeggio 8-finger-tapping solos. I thought about breaking that shit out early in the set, but I wanted people to have something to look forward to, and part of me kept thinking "If I save it till the end, then all the chicks will know I have endurance and can go harder/faster at the end, and therefore want to take me home to participate in wild threesomes with their hot stewardess roommates", but alas, I lost the chance to test that theory out.

We played a new song that I actually remembered all of (and crushed on the solos - yeah that's right I said soloS, I get two in that song!), so I was pretty happy about that. I had a little trouble getting my rig balanced out volume-wise - running two amps is freakin cool, but logistically it's a bit more effort than I'm used to at a show.

I think Trey was the only 'tabler that came, and come to think of it, his girlfriend, I mean hair looked damn good too. I was kind of disappointed that his girlfriend wore a COMPLETELY unrevealing top, but they made up for it by bringing their neighbors to the show.

Lucky for me, as I was almost done loading out, Trey pitched in to help, grabbing my Les Paul and heading down the stairs. I followed him out, but couldn't figure out why he didn't stop at my truck. "Hey Trey," I hollered (I figured he'd unnerstand a 'holler'), "My truck's over here." I guess in the rain and with all the traffic, he didn't hear me, cause he kept walking. So I put down my other guitars and caught up to him at the corner. I clapped his shoulder and said, "Scuse me man, the truck's..." which is about the same time I realized I wasn't following Trey at all; it was some random white dude with a leather jacket that LOOKED like Trey from behind. So imagine my surprise...and then imagine his. He wisely put my guitar down and hustled the fuck off before I could recover sufficiently to process what was going on and step on his spindly neck. (Note: by 'spindly neck', I am not continuing the suspect's alleged similarity in likeness to one Trey, I have branched off on my own at this point.) I then put my Les Paul in my truck, chatted briefly with the very wet Mr. Ben Drummer, and headed home for a shower, cheese & pickle sandwich, nacho chips, and some well deserved satisfaction in the groinal area.

End of email.

Back to me….for those of you who are unfamiliar with our guest author let me paint a picture. Imagine a very, very large man with a shaved head, massive goatee and tattoos all over the place who loves his guitars almost as much as I love…well…myself. The fact that murder was not perpetrated on the weasely shit that tried to steal his Les Paul still astounds me. Maybe the Pope threw out one last act of mercy on his way uptown or quite possibly the allure of getting out of the rain and home to the cheese sandwich and groinal release overwhelmed the neck-stepping impulse. Regardless, that is one lucky little junkie.

And yes, my hair did look terrific.

Thanks Wesley.