Tuesday, February 13, 2018

10,519. TREMBLING AROMATICS

TREMBLING AROMATICS
If I went into to surgery unprepared,
they'd still knock me out and I could
then only hope they knew what they
were doing. I'd always wished to be
awake for the big cuts : the slice down
the lobe, the rip in the gut. Something
to remember them by.
-
Like they remember me, maybe, in
1973  -  punching and pawing my way
for them on stage after stage of drudgery
and blood. Places like Max's and CBGB's,
just getting going, more glitter than crud.
They called me the three-chord psycho.
-
I came and went, mostly I hoped to come.
Yeah, it was like that a lot  - nobody knew
what they pawed and everything was green.
Money flowed in anarchic forms  -  fake
managers and screaming equipment guys;
little girls with cream and soda. Two new
fags, pounding heads.
-
I opened for Flowless Foxy Raye. Whatever
all that was, I never did stay  -  jokes and
violence, two guitars that made no sense,
and a guy twirling knives while something
danced. Might have been Foxy, but it sure
couldn't sing. You could get away with
stuff like that back then.
-
Surefire virgins, doctors with scalpels,
vestcoats with pockets for fish, a tall man
in a taller hat, always hanging around like
some Abe Lincoln in dazzle, and that, that
again was something to see. Some kids
from Long Island, bent as bad spokes,
called themselves Glum-Ox and played
for the rafters  -  loud as could be. The
kids loved, and more. Drugs on the
scenery; pushcart babies in blue gauze.
-
We finally got it together enough to be called
Punk. 'Razor-Punk' we said we wanted. We
called ourselves  -  well, eventually  - the
Trembling Aromatics and it worked. We
hoped for a record deal and even a show,
for real. Then (God-damn him) Arnie
sold us out  -  took our name and had
us do a perfume commercial for a new
fragrance they named after us. Fucking
jerks  -  went and ruined everything.
We got 1600 bucks, and that was that.
Nobody wanted to even hear our name.




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