From ANDRAS JONES: Goddamned liars!!! Chuck E. Weiss is a local Hollywood rock and roll legend with a vast knowledge of the music’s history and legacy so, of course, All Day Sucker guitarist Jay Gore spends a good portion of this segment contradicting Chuck’s knowledge and lived experience with sarcastic inaccuracies. It’s just more of that fractious good humor that is part of being in a band I suppose but, NO, Elvis is NOT the king of rock and roll. Chuck’s question about the insult to history that is The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is the perfect set up for one of my favorite All Day Sucker songs about a guy from my generation being taken to task by a young woman he is trying to impress with his love of  70’s pop culture. You can decide for yourself if the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is represented by the young woman who knows nothing of “Rumors”, “Glass Houses” & “Revolver” or if it’s the old guy who thinks those albums represent a never-to-be-repeated high water mark in the development of world music. And then there is the temporal fact that this was recorded just before the dam broke on all the allegations of sexual misconduct and impropriety typified by old guys lusting after young women (and men) in the halls of power they inhabited. Not that Morty and his band of street level rock and rollers can be compared to the machinations of a pig like Weinstein but, in the realm of sync, it’s not surprising that as we focus our attention on an icon of Jewish Hollywood like Canter’s we are going to come up against an array of conflicting cultural elements. Swastikas on the ceiling?

Since the song is so firmly from the point of view of the guy in the aforementioned scenario, let’s say that this reading represents the “pussy grabbing back” against the flailing attempts of old creepers to, as Shakespeare put it, paint “thy age with the beauty of thy days” . To her we are as sad, unnecessary, out of touch, and riding on the fumes of the 20th century as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame itself. That said, it’s a fucking great song played by some of the best musicians I know.

Worst Case Scenario

I saw her across an overcrowded after-hours warehouse.
She seemed to bring the dance floor to a standstill.
Her accelerated lifestyle seemed to celebrate my wind-down.
She waved a glow stick in her hand, but all I saw was landfill.
I was caught between the new-wave and the ravers.

Best, better, good, bad, your worst-case scenario.
My best, better, good, bad, to worst-case scenario.

I took her to Canter’s for a coffee cause her buzz was wearin’ off.
She sat there starin’ at the ceiling and I got this awful feelin’ I was failin’ as I tried to relate.
And as I waved the waitress down she put her gum on my plate, she said,
“You seem really nice, but you refuse to evolve. I bet you’re still listenin’ to ‘Rumors’, ‘Glass Houses’, and ‘Revolver’.
Well, I’ve never seen ‘Star Wars’ and I don’t think I’m gonna
Get involved with a guy who used to masturbate to Madonna.”
She said, “What has Lindsay Buckingham done lately?”
I’m sittin’ here at Canter’s with no answers ‘cept that rock ‘n roll can’t save me, oh, oh, o-o-oh.

Best, better, good, bad, your worst-case scenario. My best, better, good, bad, to worst-case scenario.

My nostalgia’s the useless trivia she barely endures.
She accused me of trying to recapture my youth, I said that
‘I just wanna tap a bit of yours’.

Sitting there alone I finally found out,
the pain I got from growing didn’t show until I started slowing down.

Best, better, good, bad, your worst case scenario. My best, better, good, bad, to worst-case scenario.

I never caught a glimpse, never had a chance, never saw the sign.
It seems like it was creepin’ up to me every time.
Now I’m just the guy that goes to raves and I rant. I don’t have a chance, I never had a chance, no.

Best, better, good, bad, to worst-case scenario. My best, better, good, bad, your worst case scenario.
My worst-case scenario.

Left to Right: Tom Waits, Chuck E. Weiss, Rickie Lee Jones & Lowell George