I've known the Razorcake guys since they started, but I finally contributed something to the last mega punk zine standing. I saw they were looking for webcomics, so I made them one. You can see it here: https://razorcake.org/webcomic-529-by-wred-fright/.
For more laughs, please read my latest novel, albeit not a graphic one, Fast Guy Slows Down!
And, speaking of punk, here's some bonus Yeast? for you:
Growing up, it seemed like every neighborhood had its own corner store, basically a place you could buy milk, other staple groceries, pop, magazines, candy, even lunchmeat if they had a deli counter (and they usually had a deli counter). Pretty similar to today's convenience stores, these were a tad different. Usually run by a mom and pop operation, the corner store wasn't in a strip mall or a commercial district; it was usually on the corner of a residential area, usually on the main street that ran through that residential area, thus the name, corner store. There was a certain charm in being able to pop down to the corner store if you needed something. They generally went under because they couldn't compete pricewise with the volume wholesale buying of the larger supermarkets, but they also disappeared from the landscape because the owners got older and retired and died and the next generation wanted to do something else with their lives. There were a bunch of corner stores when I was a kid in New Castle, Pennsylvania USA. Today, I think one of them, Tic Toc on Highland Avenue, is still around, and Tic Toc probably survived because it appears to be part of a chain of stores. My personal corner store, The Sheridan Market as we called it or The New Sheridan Market as it was officially named, wasn't actually on the corner. It was one or two houses in from the corner for some reason, but it otherwise had all the hallmarks of the corner store. It looked like a family ran it. I usually bought comic books there until they went out of business sometime in the 1980s. Today, there's a yard where the store used to be and driving past it one day I wondered if the neighbors even knew there was a store there once. Thus, this song was born.
Musically, it has the usual guitar, vocals, keyboard bass, and drums. I played a tin whistle for the weird instrument (you can hear it in the instrumental break or third input as I like to call it, based on The GoGoBots song). The trebly bit of the percussion is an old broken musicstand that folds together with a nice clank. I liked the riff of the chorus and wanted to feature it on its own at the end, but the song sounded better with the chorus going all the way to the end, so that will have to wait for a remix someday if ever. I also didn't have a low enough B note on the keyboard, so I had to do the third input bassline acappella and it sounds like I channeled Allen Ginsberg collaborating with The Clash for that. It sounds pretty cool, so I might do that again. I also like the echoey bit at the end of the song.
Lyrics are below:
I'm going down to the Sheridan Market.
It's not on the corner, but it's a corner store.
I'm going to buy an issue of All-Star Squadron
and maybe some Swedish Fish.
I'm going to
the corner store
Today, there's just a yard where the market used to be.
The people living next door probably don't even know there was a store there.
Now I can't just walk down to the corner store
because the corner store ain't there any more.
No more corner
store
Now if I need something I have to drive to the Walmart,
and if I don't like that Walmart, then I can drive farther to another Walmart.
They say it's the greatest time ever to be alive,
but I kind of liked walking to the corner store.
I miss my
corner store
More tracks from the Gang Of Foreigner album will appear in future months here, but next week, we'll get back to the songs from the What's Your Flow Setting, Baby? album. Thanks to The Tinnitist for featuring "Hey, Honey" on a playlist! It also looks like he featured "The Calling"--I didn't even know about that one!
For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7"!
And, speaking of Yeast?, here's some bonus Yeast? for you!:
full disclosures: 1) i used to be smart, but then i started working at a community college in west texas…..i haven’t read a book in five years, and i haven’t written anything….2) wred fright has been my friend for 30 years, and i certainly love him----i want to write this review as a psychoanalysis of wred (not the narrator), but i know that would be wrong…..3) i grew up as a fat kid in the blue ridge mountains of Virginia…..when i went to the drug fair to buy pro wrestling illustrated, there was a small comic rack with batman, spiderman, and archie comix----that was the entire selection……and i’m sure some comic book aficionado will correct me, but i don’t remember bruce wayne or peter parker ever saving a fat kid…..occasionally there was a fat supervillain like king tut, but i never remember batman driving off with a fat chick in the back of the batmobile…..reggie mantle may have hit a fat girl in the face with a pie, but i don’t remember jughead jones ever asking one to the prom…..i’ve never really believed in superheroes either----just professional wrestlers from 1979 and rockstars (and jim morrison was real and left a beautiful corpse when he overdosed in that paris bathroom in 1971)……wred fright says in the afterword to Fast Guy Slows Down that he “loved superheroes, but they're a 20th Century thing, and it's the 21st Century” and i think that’s a good way to approach his novel as well as life in 2022……superheroes were pretty scarce (at least for fat kids) in 1982, and they’re seemingly obsolete in 2022….i like it that way, and the concept of an aging superhero questioning his mortality seems a shitload more real to me
i’m supposed to be an academic, but i don’t even remember the big words that i’m supposed to use….i think i’m going to try to review the novel through bits and pieces of pop culture….and the first idea that keeps coming back to me = johnny depp’s the lone ranger (2013)…..i didn’t even see the entire film, but i remember the critics hated it…..my 86-year-old dad used to listen to the lone ranger on the radio, and i remember thinking that a 1940s white cop with a native american sidekick aint gonna sell to postmodern social media…..that concept is certainly a part of harry fox’s (the hero of fast guy slows down) mindset, and i would have to agree that our world doesn’t need white cops as heroes anymore…..the 2022 justice league = whoopi goldberg, joy behar, sunny hostin, and sara haines----you know, the old hens from the view…..and i’m certainly not the comic master that wred fright is, but i think it would crush me that that part of americana was now dead…..my dad asked me why no one went to see depp’s lone ranger, and i didn’t have the heart to tell him…..i think he knew though as does wred fright----and that sadness/melancholy is one of the key components to fast guy slows down……the second part of pop culture that i want to use in my review is a portlandia skit commonly referred to as “early onset grumpiness”……the character (fred armisen) goes to the doctor to see what is wrong with him, and the doctor’s diagnosis is that he has e.o.g. (early onset grumpiness)……the character is supposed to be in his late 40s, but constantly says shit like “who are these people” while telling the neighborhood kids to “get off his lawn” like he was in his early 60s----and lest you think i’m free-riffing, there is a section in the novel that deals with lawn care…..the point is, i’d argue that both harry fox and wred fright have a case of e.o.g…….and the last time i reviewed one of wred fright’s novels, i described him as a good-natured, comic strip character (think calvin from calvin and hobbes experiencing the mean streets of cleveland while retaining his boyish optimism)……well, that review was 10 years ago and the world is considerably more awful in 2022…..covid came, and i think calvin was obliged to spend more and more time inside with hobbes……the third pop culture reference that i want to mention in relation to fast guy slows down is a podcast that i listen to called “hold my order, terrible dresser: the wkrp in cincinnati podcast”….the moderators, mike grasso and rob macdougall, are canadian, business professors who essentially argue that everything we do in 2022 = 1982 in high definition---in other words, nothing (except the technology) is original or innovative anymore…..and if i didn’t need (practical/grounded) superheroes in 1982, i damn skippy don’t care about the social media award for best cgi in 2022…..i imagine this hurts wred fright a great deal, and this cynicism/pessimism is very much a part of narrator harry’s world…..wred fright still resembles calvin from calvin and hobbes, but the boy and his tiger remain trapped inside a covidian wasteland if they dare to go outside
YIPS (and yips are good things): 1) i like what wred fright argues about covid in the novel….i didn’t kiss any strange grandmas in 2021, and my school gave me the afternoon off and paid me $100 to get the shots, but i didn’t particularly give a shit about covid (and hillbillies take care of their own)…..it disappoints me that the punkrockers fell all over themselves agreeing with the government and/or chris cuomo----the same goes for 1960s counter culture hippies----it seems to me that all that’s left of our culture is lining up to get a cookie from human resources…..2) i was intrigued by the character of the witch in fast guy slows down, and it made me wonder about wred fright’s lost love life……was the witch the girl who gave me a pain pill every time she saw me or the one who wore so much goddamn makeup that i don’t even remember her name or what she looks like…..wred fright would want me to issue a disclaimer that “the witch was a fictional representation of several character types,” but i think you should ask him about the witch when you see him….3) if i’m telling the truth, my favorite part of the novel was the afterword…..wred fright has always had a big brain, and many times in my academic career i’ve taught from the cliff notes…..i don’t necessarily know anything about the workings of big comix (corporate comic books), but i 100% believe everything wred fright said in the novel (even if i didn’t understand what he was referencing)----the same goes for his shout outs to legendary comic book creators…..i would imagine there are dozens of references in every chapter that i completely missed----and if you’re a comic book aficionado, i dare you to keep up with wred fright’s encyclopedia brain…..i think the #1 theme of “fast guy slows down” is that the world doesn’t need superheroes anymore and that makes me sad as well (if only for my dad and wred fright)----if it makes a difference, professional wrestling in 2022 sux even more……wred fright is too nice to really shit on anyone’s head, but i appreciate it when his hero tells me whose heads deserve to be shat on……there really is no free speech or critical thinking anymore----there’s no doubt in my mind that the world was nicer before the internet, but perhaps it’s the only place you’ll find a modicum of truth in 2022, especially if you still need to believe in superheroes like harry fox
Agree with Crazy Carl? Disagree? Read the novel and write your own review! And now it's time for some bonus Yeast?:
Google introduced a new feature where their A.I.s can create an audiobook. I decided to experiment with it by having them take a run at Edna's Employment Agency. I thought it came out pretty well. It sounds better than the robotic-sounding traditional text to speech apps that can turn ebooks into audiobooks--their availability is why I never pursued a complete audiobook version of one of the novels before--, but it still doesn't grasp all the nuances the way a human reader would. Google had a variety of voices available, but I went with Mia. Some of the other voices were more amusing, but I thought they would be grating on a listener over the course of a novel, so I went with the more neutral, pleasant-sounding voice. The link to the audiobook is here: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAED8DSZNyM. You can even listen to a sample of Mia reading the hype copy text there. I'm not planning on doing another novel this way because for those who need or prefer an audiobook, generally, the text to speech apps will do you just fine, but if you like the Google Play audiobook A.I. style, then please let me know, and I can do another novel for you that way. And, if you want a real reader, and you buy a book, then I am not averse to recording a whole dang novel for you. Releasing an audiobook would be new territory for me, but I'm sure I could figure it out as it's probably easier that recording music. Just get in touch (and if you can't figure out how, then you're probably a bot yourself).
And speaking of audio, here's some bonus Yeast?!:
This song was originally called "Hey, Holly", but the woman I was dating annoyed me, and I changed the title, fortunately avoiding the songwriting equivalent of having an ex-spouse's name tattooed on oneself. It's a happy song aside from the terrorists bombing a bus in the first stanza. I recorded an earlier demo version that you can hear here: https://soundcloud.com/wredfright/hey-honey?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing. For this version, I put some accordion on the choruses and looped a bit of the demo version throughout the entire song. I also played with the drums presets on the keyboard, so the percussion sounds like a mix of Big Black and 1980s Def Jam hip-hop. Otherwise, it's the usual guitar, vocals, and keyboard as bass. There might be some live drums on the recording as well, but I don't think so. This is yet another track from the What's Your Flow Setting, Baby? album. Thanks to my buddy Loren for playing the previous single, "The Calling", on the radio: https://www.facebook.com/wqudfreewheelin.
If you want to hear more music, then listen to the first Yeast? 7"!
And here's some bonus Yeast? for you:
So RouteNote did their job and got Severe Platter Damage on Spotify, which is cool. Unlike Neil Young (who over a half-century after exploiting the tragedy of May 4th for financial gain has still never shown up to play "Ohio" in Kent, Ohio USA for one of the May 4th commemorations), I like Spotify. For other independent artists out there, I should note that OneRPM was annoying to deal with and the other music distributors generally want you to cough up money before distributing your music to streaming services (and that's about the only way to get your music on a streaming service). The reason they want you to cough up money is because they know they aren't going to make money from you, so they need it upfront for their work. RouteNote has an option to pay a flat fee as well, but you can do that after your music catches fire and starts earning (in the meantime, it's like a 70/30 split in favor of the artist). So in the unlikely event your music goes viral, you can always switch up and keep 100% of the royalties. Not to be a negative nelly, but there's a lot of music out there (some of it even good), so odds are bad no matter your talent, so I opted to play it conservatively and pay nothing upfront for distribution. Fortunately, I found RouteNote, and it's worked out so far. I have friends who are paying $20 a year to distribute their music--and that's actually not a bad price compared with some distributors--(and that's every year--if they don't pay, the music gets dropped by the distributor and from the streaming services). They get to keep 100% of their royalties, but 100% of nothing is nothing. It would be nice to make bank from streaming royalties, but you need a lot of plays to make any money. Still, it's how a lot of people listen to music today, and it is great having instant access to almost all of recorded music history including the new stuff coming out. You can find Severe Platter Damage at https://open.spotify.com/artist/4jtrirYbvh6O1zQ7AJghIB?si=HUNQJGBXTQu_J4AcSZAKyw. They also have a cool feature called Artist Radio, where a bunch of similar music gets featured along with the individual artist. On Wred Fright Radio, I'm in interesting company including PJ Harvey, Modest Mouse, Therapy?, Beat Happening, GG Allin, Electric Eels, Mirrors, Jay Reatard, Swell Maps, and much more cool stuff. I even found a cool new band called Helvetia that way. Presumably, that's an algorithm doing that and not some grizzled college radio dj manually curating, but if so, then that's a pretty hip algorithm. If you listen to it also, then we'll double my listenership--ha! I'm guessing that RouteNote has the album out to the other streaming services as well, but if not, then please just let me know, and I can look into it.
And here's bonus Yeast? for you (who are not on Spotify):
So I am still having fun on Substack. Last month, I published an example of what to do when you buy a bad comic book, a Happy Orthodox Easter greeting, a comic with multiple punchlines (just like David Lynch's The Angriest Dog In The World), a comment on how politicians in favor of gun control are always protected by men with guns somehow (any one of them ever tried giving up their guns first and see how that works out?), an application of the logic politicians who catch Covid-19 after being vaccinated and boosted and then write about how happy they are to be vaccinated and boosted use to other product failures, a cheat sheet for whomever takes over Jen Psaki's position once she cashes in by becoming a cable tv news pundit, and backup plans for The Cleveland Browns after the Deshaun Watson thing blows up in their faces. Half the stuff is free, so just sign up and don't pay anything and get it in your email as it's published (you're welcome to pay, of course, as well, especially if you want to read it all--that makes it more likely I'll keep doing it). The Stack is here: https://wredfright.substack.com/.
And here's some bonus Yeast? to listen to while you check it out by opening a link to the Stack in a new tab:
After The GoGoBots wrapped up, I was finishing my dissertation and didn't have time to be in a band, so I went solo and just played guitar and sang. I also released a song a month on my website. This song, "The Calling", was one of those. I recorded with a single microphone that sat in front of my guitar amp while I sung into it while playing the guitar. The results were pretty lo-fi, but they sounded good on the little computer speakers of the era. I used to put the MP3s on MP3.Com (long gone now) and I made a Real Audio version for streaming. I did that for about a year or so until I graduated and lost access to my website (hosted on the university server). The university kept the site up for quite a few years afterwards, but eventually they pulled the plug, and by that point MP3.Com was long gone as well, so it's probably been over a decade or so since anyone's heard "The Calling". It's a song that I really enjoy playing. It documents someone trying to repress her or his true nature or desire, and, of course, failing. I kept the matter ambiguous so the listener could identify with her or his own such struggle. Certainly, people could interpret the song as being about sexual orientation, or being in love with someone the conscious mind was trying to avoid, or any such matters. I always personally interpreted it as just playing music past college. In college, being in a band was cool, but, postcollege, when people play in bands, people often regard them as stuck in terminal adolescence, so I've known more than one former bandmate who liked to pretend that he had put music behind him as he settled down to an adult career and whatnot, but he could never deny the creative spirit and eventually would end up playing music again. Sometimes, you just have to rock out, no matter what the world thinks. Musicwise, this rerecording has me on the usual vocals, guitar, keyboard as bass, and drums. I don't recall using a weird instrument on it, but I monkeyed around with multiple vocals.
If you want to hear more music, then listen to the first Yeast? 7"!
And, speaking of Yeast?, here's some bonus Yeast? for you!
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