Yesterday was like one of the wackiest days I’ve seen in a while. First, I was driving to get Morley for rehearsal ( I was blasting the Stones on a hot Monday at 7pm) and there was a huge auto accident on the intersection of Fountain and La Brea. So Mors and I had to go all the way to SM BLVD and then up Highland but then there was a huge traffic jam of people trying to get to the 101 so I got off Highland and cut up Citrus to try to get to Scott’s studio. THEN we ran into that original Fountain traffic and had to wade thru there. All in all, it took us 15 min to go 6 blocks.

Rehearsals was brilliant, the one exception being I wrote CITY LIFE in the wrong key and this confused everybody. Well, I wrote the music out as a guitar chart but it’s really screwy and I have to redo it because it’s on The Freedom Man’s site and it’s not really accurate. Well, it is somewhat but only if you CAPO up to the 6th fret, and who likes to do that except Dolly Parton? After rehearsal I turned the radio on (95.5 KLOS) and “Keep on Rocking me baby” was on and, I don’t care what anyone thinks; Steve Miller rocks, for my money. I mean, this is totally PARTY driving music. The words are totally dumb but the band rocks. This is the whole reason why I ever picked up a guitar (well, actually it was to get chicks, but that’s outside the scope of this diary…) in the first place-because it FEELS good to rock.

When I was a kid I used to beg my folks to let me stay up late and watch Johnny Carson JUST to see if Chuck Berry was gonna be on. And it seemed like either he was ALWAYS on or I had super powers because whenever I switched it on, there was Chuck, rockin’. I have never met Chuck Berry. But I don’t think I could express to him how special he is to me so if I ever did meet him I would probably say, ‘Thanks.’ I mean, he’s heard it all. Why waste the man’s time. I’ve heard he’s not very nice but you hear all sorts of things about people and then you meet them and realize none of it’s true. Anyone who thinks Elvis Presley is the King of Rock and Roll wrong. He’d have to stand in line behind Chuck, Little Richard, Freddie King and Bill Haley. I’ve never seen a Chuck Berry concert in person either. That’s at the top of my list.

Well, tonight I thought I was only going to go see CHEAP CHICK but, after running into STEW and the ever-wonderful HEIDI Sunday, I found out they are opening that show under the moniker of “THE COVER PROBLEM”, which is the THE NEGRO PROBLEM doing Madonna covers and other goofy stuff. Stew asked me to jam with them. How could I refuse? Plus I can pub the wed show at the Knitting factory; GO SEE MY SHOW! See you there…

Mike Randle