I’ve always enjoyed ridiculous questions, concepts, prophecies and the like; and this weekend, I hit upon a new one that is really intriguing me. Sitting on my couch drinking beer and listening to records with out-of-town guests is usually the time where conversation could falter and people could be left with their mouths shut and nothing to say. Some past favorites include:

“If you could ride any animal as a means of conveyance, what would it be?”
“If you could punch one person from any point in history in the face, who would it be?”
“Would you rather have a face like an ass or a face like a weasel?” (”Weasel, probably”.)

Anywho, I hit on one that has been boggling my mind for a couple of days now: If you could be in any band in history, who would it be?

While this is a perfectly normal question that has been asked a million times, I have to add there are a few stipulations. You would not change the course of the band in any way. You would not take the place of another, more famous, member. The band’s decisions directly affect you and your life, yet you have no choice but to hang on for the ride. I think that is what ultimately makes it more interesting. You have to think about not only the band’s musical output, but their personal lives, drug use, groupies, touring, records, basically everything. I have been trying to work on my choices for a couple of days. I have a lot of free time, which I guess is why I have a blog at all.

Let’s give it a whirl:
1) RAMONES

OK, for starters, you are a member of the greatest band of all time. No ifs, ands, or buts. However, everyone in your band is 100% certifiably insane. Imagine having to ride in the van with them. I watched End of the Century at least twice in the past week (mostly because it’s the best movie ever), and just looking at the Ramones drives me crazy. All I can think about is Joey Ramone mush-mouthing and Dee Dee not being able to form a complete thought. Johnny Ramone would hate my guts.

The girls you meet in the Ramones probably all look like Lydia Lunch after a gangbang with the Dead Boys and a punch or two in the jaw. No one in your band does any drugs aside from Dee Dee and his heroin problem. You have to ride in a van with the most worthless “journalist” ever, Legs McNeil. You end up making Animal Boy, Subterranean Jungle, and the like in the 80’s. In the 90’s, you put out cover albums, have to open for Pearl Jam, and get dissed by MTV and never sell any records. After everyone in the band dies around 55, you get Blitzkrieg Bop in an AT&T commercial and no one makes any money. No dice. Moving on:

2) COCKNEY REJECTS

You’re in the toughest band of all time, but this means you have to beat the shit out of forty huge UK skins a night (and despite the boners you may see at your local pub, skinheads in England are ready to FUCKING KILL YOU). Guys who don’t like the same football club as you who don’t even like music show up to try and kick your ass when you’re fifteen years old. You get your face melted by a flying ashtray and your scalp is hanging off. Every girl has the same haircut and poor dental hygiene. Your early records all rule, but then you have to play metal and eventually end up looking like bikers wearing Adidas pants and playing shitty Euro festivals every year with tools like the UK Subs and the Adicts. And since you drank so many free pints, by the time you’re 43, you’re a lardass wearing Oakleys and a sleeveless shirt. Bad deal.

3) SLADE

You looked like this and wore 6-foot long neckties.

4) THE BAND

Robbie Robertson claims your songwriting credit and is the only one who ends up with any money. You eventually get hooked on either smack (Rick Danko) or all drugs and booze, followed by suicide (Richard Manuel). You end up in the movie The Outside Man playing some hillbilly moron. Martin Scorsese barely films your interview in The Last Waltz. You have to play Neil Diamond and Joni Mitchell songs at your final show. After your second album, 1970’s production takes over and your organ player ditches his analog rigs for some crappy synth and you have a horn and string section. Every record you play on for the next thirty years is pretty much a flop. Levon Helm as bitter as hell at you and you can’t tell why. You missed the giant coke party because you had to listen to some schmuck who is high on acid tell you about how “we all need a scene, man”.

5) BRAINBOMBS

There’s not even a picture of you because no one knows who the fuck you are. You’re stuck in a freezing town in Sweden your entire career. You only play four shows ever. You break up 300 times and no one knows that it happens. The only people who collect your records are not girls you want to have sex with. They are record nerds who are holed up on message boards waiting to pre-order your newest release which will sell out anyway since there are only 376 copies. Getting band copies means nothing since you don’t play shows. Reading pedophile rape fantasies becomes your muse. You look like an art student and no one truly knows how insane you are. You probably have to join Totalitar.

6) CREEDENCE

Rednecks get bummed on you when they find out you’re from Berkeley and not Mississippi. Fogerty eventually becomes a megalomaniac and decides he will tell you what to play even though you’re just playing 4/4 time with root notes and no fills. You get to listen to two over-30 brothers fight all day long. Your singer tells you “no more encores”, ever. The bass player and drummer are made to write 1/3 of your album by themselves, with no contributions from anyone else. Eventually you’re involved in a bitter legal dispute and go on the road with a fake version of your own band. Your song which ends up being the soundtrack for the Vietnam War and the unfairness of the draft towards America’s poor becomes a rallying cry for an administration who, thirty years later, embroil our country in a futile, neverending war which saps the life out of families everyday on both sides. Seems they never even read your lyrics. But that riff, man……..

The list goes on.

After that, I pretty much decided that I would have to look elsewhere for satisfaction. That brings me to who I think is the winner:

FUCKIN’ SLAYER

This is not only a publicity photo, but also your backpatch. After starting out wearing makeup, you realize metal is for real dudes and the girls that are gonna fuck you will like you anyways, even if you’re wearing a mesh shirt. You can wear high-top white Reeboks and a Raiders jersey and still be considered cool. You get offered all the drugs you want, but you’d rather just pound Old Style and light your farts. Hot strippers show up at your show to fuck you with your logo tattooed on them. You can date all the porn stars you’d like. Your fans carve your band name into their backs AT A GIG. You make the greatest metal album of all-time, and actually don’t get too much worse twenty years later. One of your tours involves playing said album from front to back, and it works! Your stage show rains blood on the audience. No band wants to play after you except Motorhead, and that’s OK. You call Metallica a bunch of whiny pussies and there’s nothing they can do about it except hide in their dressing rooms and do their hair. You play in front of 86 empty Marshall cabinets just to look awesome (your one half-stack probably does all the work anyway) and you don’t have to carry shit. Even when you lose your hair, you just shave your head and look tough. Can’t say I sees a problem here, folks.

So that’s that. Close tie for the winner came from:

SLEEP

Pros:
a) CRUSHING RIFFS
b) Spending your entire major label advance on Orange amplifiers and marijuana
c) Laid-back vibe, practice is a white haze
d) Write an hour-long song about pot, blow your major deal, become legends anyway.
e) You can smoke more weed than anyone ever. For free.

Cons:
a) Girls with dreadlocks at your shows wanting you to move to a commune after tour.
b) Original drummer becomes a monk, bums you out that you’re not “spiritual enough”.
c) Stigma of earlier band releasing records on Profane Existence, crusties show up and stink up the joint.
d) Constant munchies make the olfactory nerve wince during the hellish van ride (you know what I mean).

So basically, being in a band kinda sucks no matter how sweet your records are. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject, lemme know who you would be down with and why!