January 15, 2003

WHAT'S THE STATE of the Nation's Jan. 13 music issue? Pretty flaccid, with a few exceptions, such as a hip-hop and politics piece by Bay Guardian contributor Jeff Chang. Sure, I'm biased, and I admit I've never been an avid reader of the magazine, but I came to the pages with clear eyes and an open mind, eager to sink my teeth into their take on pop and agitprop. I was willing to give the Nation a chance – unlike the annual Vanity Fair music issue, which seems specially designed to be gleefully dissected and ritualistically destroyed, from its puzzling choice of models for those desperately glam photo spreads (will Sting ever recede from the public eye? pretty please?) to the preponderance of ancient rock history.

The problem starts with the centerpiece, a quasi roundtable with Experience Music Project senior curator and former New York Times music critic Ann Powers and political music figures such as Boots Riley of the Coup, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, and Tom Morello of Audioslave and Rage Against the Machine. Just to backpedal a bit: I really enjoyed Powers's stories for the New York Times – her last regular gig as a daily journalist. She was a breath of fresh air gusting through the gray old girl, covering nontrendy, musically interesting bands.

Unfortunately, she fails to blow the dust off here: midway through the roundtable, I had to throw the story down, turn around, and loudly gripe about the entire endeavor to the nearest unlucky bystander. Powers – or someone – decided to lay the gist of the story in the laps of the artists, who in turn saw fit to promote their own projects, such as Morello's Axis of Justice organization, or just expound on topics that are actively mildewing as you read.

Boots comes off pretty well, but who's going to argue with the Indigo Girls' Amy Ray when she says benefit concerts are "valuable"? Do we really need Eddie Vedder to even remotely trot out that stale Emma Goldman quip about dancing at the revolution? Don't you get dizzy and have to sit down when Goldman's chestnut comes up once again, like you're in some kind of hellish vortex of déjà vu and utter redundancy, in another story, about Kathleen Hanna. I'm dying over here when Ray touts Jenny Toomey's worthy Future of Music Coalition and then I flip a few pages back and see a wonk-off of a story by the good Ms. Toomey herself – on her own nonprofit. Someone – dare I say, an editor – needed to stop these performers before they killed off their last fans with sheer tedium, preaching to the converted with received truths and old news.

It makes me think (never a desirable thing): can good politics, good art, and good music journalism coexist? I'm down for it, but apparently it's not going to happen in Nation country. With the aforementioned exception or two, the editors treat music as if it were the scourge of the right, only acceptable if it's doused in deadly abstraction or hermetically sealed with canned correct thinking.

The issue also includes a weirdly kiss-ass story about Russell Simmons – do they owe him money or something, and does he really need to be further deified? And then there's the equally strange fact that the majority of the magazine's editors chose Patti Smith's Horses as one of their Desert Island Discs, making me wonder whether some of them have listened to any new music since 1980. You can only agree with Bay Guardian editor Johnny Ray Huston, who was once asked to contribute to the issue. He offered them a story on Detroit music – years before it became a geographic touchstone for music in 2002 – and was told it wasn't suitable. "Pop music doesn't mean very much to the Nation," Huston throws over his shoulder.

Hello, good-bye

What does mean a lot: Longtime KUSF-FM DJ and Incidental Music label owner Brad Stark, a.k.a. Uncle Brad, is now on the mend after being seriously hurt in an apartment fire Nov. 9. After the accident he spent six weeks in the hospital, four of them unconscious as his prospects hinged on the repair of his respiratory system (he inhaled so much toxic plastic from his "oversized music-nerd CD collection," he has said). Now recuperating with his family in Connecticut, he reports he's doing well and plans to return to the Bay Area in early February. Unfortunately, the title of his label's last CD release, the Kris Kristofferson tribute album Nothing Left to Lose, is taking on a new bittersweet meaning for Stark: he lost everything he owned in the fire. At least he still has a breath in his body to build up Incidental Music once again.

Adrian Cote wasn't quite so lucky. A familiar face at the door at Slim's, Pound-S.F., and the late C.W. Saloon, the 36-year-old Cote was killed three weeks ago when he was hit by a Muni bus Dec. 15 while crossing the street in the Lower Haight. Contrary to reports in other publications, Cote was not homeless and not drunk when he was struck, says his close friend and Swingin' Utters drummer Greg McEntee. McEntee emphasizes Cote's clean-and-sober lifestyle and a generosity of spirit that led so many visitors to visit him at S.F. General Hospital before he was finally taken off life support that the hospital had to open up additional rooms to hold all of them. "He had gone through stuff in the past but was on his way to becoming a counselor for drug and rehab – he helped me with a lot of stuff," McEntee says.

Cote's sister Jennifer signed his body over to McEntee and another friend, Slim's put up much of the money for cremation and funeral costs, and Cote's friends organized the Jan. 13 Slim's show with Youth Gone Wild, the Sick, the Oozzies, Wilson Gil and the Willful Sinners, and Black Furies (groups Cote loved and palled around with) to pay extra expenses and send money to Cote's pregnant sister, Jennifer. It was the least he could do, says McEntee, who is handling all of his friend's possessions and his remains. "Honestly, he was one of those guys – he'd got to a place where he always wanted to get to in life. He'd help people at the drop of a dime."

You can dance – for inspiration

A final shout-out back to Gravy Train!!!!: Lead G.T. maniac Chunx decided to haul the Bay Guardian into the thick of the throng at the Bottom of the Hill Dec. 5. Molly Neumann of Bratmobile, Jason Thinh of Short Round and the Chinkees, and Lauren Andrews of Xiu Xiu were in the house to catch the Train. But that wasn't good enough: everyone had to get down and boogie. "What are you, too cool to dance? Afraid you're going to look too uncool to be in the next Bay Guardian '80s-revival story?" Chunx said, taunting one audience member. Whoa, down, lady. Dancing doesn't exactly chap our hides, but I think we're already moving onto the '90s revival.