RollerCoaster: Now Is Different Review

RollerCoaster: 'Now Is Different' 

(Reglar-Daddy Academy, 2023) CD, Spotify, Bandcamp, iTune

***
'For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country'
John, 4:44
***
So there's some back story to this.

RollerCoaster is Mike Chappelle, vocals and lyrics, and Henry 'Broz' Rowland, backing vocals and music.

I met Mike Chappelle sometime in 1979, not long after Dave Stidman and I bought Wax Trax Records from the guys who then took off for Chicago to get on with a store and label out there. Mike had a band, The Gluons, and we, Wax Trax, had a party planned for early 1980: The First Annual Wax Trax Crash Party.

'Crash', you see, from when a car crashed into Wax Trax in February, 1979 -- a crash that took out a big chunk of brick and glass and part of the side of our building. In the winter. At night. It was fucking cold.

Worse, we lost a lot of vinyl LPs and 45s. Some of it from the car smashing into racks and boxes and some of it from looting by people passing by. Yeah, great world.

Anyway, it took us awhile but we were back up on our feet and wanted to kick out the jams so we decided to throw a party, a crash party. We put some money down for a night at the Slovenian Hall out in Globeville at 45th & Washington.

And we started lining up bands: The Young Weasels, The Jetsons, Leroy X, The Defex... and The Gluons, Chappelle's band, their first gig ever: Saturday, Feb. 16, 1980. As the flyer says, 'Live Vile Brutal Punk Music. 7:00PM to 2:00PM.' Yeah, long night.

It was a great, crazy party. In the winter. At night. It was fucking cold. The bands, tho, were on fire. The crowd was wild, drunk off their asses, pogoing, skanking, wearing black plastic trash bags and enough safety pins and metal spikes and studs to set off metal detectors a mile away. But the party's another story, one for another day.

*The flyer you see here was handmade by yours truly on a xerox of the Denver Police Report the cop handed me the night of the crash, Feb. 7, 1979. My talents as a graphic artist have been sorely neglected for the last 40+ years but I could come out of retirement for the right offer. Let me know.

****
So, yeah, Mike Chappelle, The Gluons... RollerCoaster.

I liked The Gluons. Lean, clean, bonehard New Wave -- before New Wave became a phrase you used to describe Haircut 100 or Kajagoogoo (don't know 'em? look 'em up -- keep the barf bag handy!).

Chappelle has a knack of running into people, Norman Mailer, Noam Chomsky... Allen Ginsberg. So Chappelle met Ginsberg and talked him into doing a recording of one of Allen's poems, 'Birdbrain', with The Gluons backing him. Then Mike talked me into paying for and putting the 7" single out: 'Birdbrain' b/w 'Sue Your Parents'; this last being Mike's song: a little preachy - that sort of thing was going around then, a line of descent going from Bob to Bruce and back to a Bob (Geldof) of the Boomtown Rats and a future Knighthood after he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. Mike hasn't been knighted, yet!

Which I did.

So, Mike and I go back, way back.

I also hired him to work at Wax Trax. And, as Mike likes to point out often when we meet for coffee these days, I fired him a few days after I hired him. And, yes, I did fire him... Fun is Fun; but, of course, Business is Business.

Music, tho, isn't business. Or, rather, it's not always business.

And that, skipping over a lot, brings us to RollerCoaster.

****
RollerCoaster, 'Now Is Different', is a four track CD with one standout bit, two damn good pieces and one that's ok but not going to set the world on fire. And here's the kicker: Mike wants to set the world on fire.

So let's just stick with the fire: 'Subcellular Cognitive Warfare Blues'. I'm going to go out on a limb here and just say it out loud: I think this is a great song! A Barnburner! A Thumper - set this going and head for the nearest sietche because it is going to call up Shai-Hulud and set him dancing - you won't want to be caught on the sand: you're going to want to know where you stand.

The musical backbone of 'Subcellular...' is lifted pretty much from Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', which was released in 1965 and is one of the great all-time Thumpers in itself - a classic of Sixties paranoia and finger-pointing: 'Keep a clean nose / Watch the plain clothes / You don't need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows...'

Mike and Broz have given that melody a slinkier feel, sinister and hypnotic, cold fusion with four on the floor. You'll like it.

Mike's vocal is whispery, reedy, conspiratorial as he tugs at your elbow and warns you about how dangerous the world we live in is right now: 'Shake shake shake, Sleepers awake / How much reality can you take?'

And what is that 'reality'?

Well, 'Nano swarm / Aerosol / Small robotic units / Wearables Implantable / Digital Credentials / Brain space / Interfaced / Inner space / Know your place...'

It keeps getting realer: 'Drugs, Bugs, Drugs, Bugs, Toxins, and Devices... Supply chain crashing / Chain chain chain of fools / Lining up, rationing / Strange things happening / Factories burning / Sabotaging... Look out kid / Nothing you already did / Pre-crime's / Predicting / When you'll / Flip your lid.'

And then, maybe, just plain too much 'real': 'Kill Shots / Blood clots / Automatons / Athletes on the field / Dropping...'

Yes, listening to this you might think Mike has flipped his own lid - he and I have spent a lot of hours arguing over this stuff. And while I don't agree with a lot of what Mike's on about, I know this is a dangerous world and there are lot of bad people out there looking to do us harm.

And Mike isn't just pointing a finger. He has hope and he has advice: 'Don't follow leaders... / Take your time / Dig yourself / Reinvent the wheel / Dig yourself / Run your mouth / Act on what you feel / To your own conscience / Make an appeal / Subcellular / Cognitive / Warfare / It's real.'

'Run your mouth'. Mike does that a lot. I do that a lot. You should too. Let's all do it. Raise your voice. Be heard.

***

 

*** 

RollerCoaster Bandcamp

Mike today...(Wax Trax Sidewalk Show)

Mike yesterday... (Gluons at the Crash Party)