In Defense of Bad Taste
Faux Raga
There’s something kind of cool about seeing your name in the newspaper, am I right?
Whether you are writing or being written about, there’s something satisfying about it.
If you’re a music journalist, it means you’re getting paid and helping to establish taste.
If you’re a musician, it means you’re doing something right and you might eventually get paid.
I should point out that I am not a music journalist.
I am just a musician who writes.
Although I did write some pieces for the Minneapolis zines The Squealer and Cake, that was in the 90s, and I think we can all agree the 90s don’t count.1
Anywho.
The first time I saw my name in the newspaper, I was pretty jazzed.
I think I was eight years old.
I had joined my friend to visit his family in the tiny town of Regal, Minnesota, population 44.
Pretty sure the paper was called the Paynesville Press.
My friend’s mother, whom I adored, had underlined my name in pencil and pulled me aside to show me this great achievement the next week between drags of her Marb light.
It was just small town news saying that Matthew Schindler had come to visit the town with this friend’s family.
Still, it felt pretty cool.
And I was hooked on ink.
First time I got my picture in the newspaper, I was hovering above the mosh pit at a Hüsker Dü show at the Orpheum Café in Duluth, Minnesota.
That photo ran in the Duluth News-Tribune and Herald, which was also my first employer.
Jazzed.
When I started playing in bands in the clubs of Minneapolis, I was excited at first just to see the name of my band in the newspaper.
When I decided to start using the name Faux Jean as a performer, I wrote some letters to the editor of the Minneapolis City Pages and signed off as Faux Jean.
I was jazzed to see this new name in print.
I was transitioning to Faux Jean.
When Faux Jean started getting reviews, or a little pieces written about us, more jazz.
I remember one reviewer said that our record sounded like a mix between Roy Orbison and the Doors.
“Finally, someone gets it!” I thought to myself.
I had been obsessed with The Doors when I was in junior high and high school.
I remember being at a street fair in northern Wisconsin in 1985 watching a cover band and screaming out begging for them to play a song by the Doors.
Please! Make the universe right! Play something by the Doors!
I remember being in a car accident in 1984 or so, my sister Gretchen was driving our old 79 Honda Civic. We crashed and came to a stop and the engine died, but the tape player was still going, and a cover of Gloria by The Doors was playing loudly.
I noticed even back then that the older taste-maker types looked down on my Doors obsession.
And nowadays, it seems fairly common to see people throwing shade at the Doors.
Like, liking the Doors is considered bad taste.
You don’t have to be a Lizard King to notice this.
Nor do you have to ride the snake to the lake.
I think now looking back at it, that this was just a backlash from the Crosby Stills, Nash and Young/Grateful Dead/Byrds crowd bellyaching about these upstarts who got more marketing money and hadn’t paid their dues, which infiltrated some of the press, which then goes in the newspaper in black-and-white and becomes some sort of reality. Taste.
This is just a theory.
I was heartened to see Patti Smith (a hero of mine) post a little praise for Jim Morrison on her Substack not too long ago.
I was also heartened to learn recently that Jim Morrison had first sung with the musicians that became the Doors when they had been a different band and he got up on stage to sing “Louie Louie” with them after haranguing them from the audience to play the song.
One of my first rock performances was getting up on stage and singing “Louie Louie” with a band whose singer had not shown up.
We also did a cover of “Diane” by Husker Dü.
I think the band had called themselves the Lobsters that night.
All of this to say, today’s song addition to the “Mixed up Files” shows more than a little influence by the Doors.
I’ve called this song Faux Raga. (Listen in the player below.)
From a taste perspective, it’s not for everyone.
Is it really a Raga? I don’t know.
I made this on tape back in 1997.
It is a loop taken from the end of another song demo called “Sitting in the Dark,” which I will share later.
This loop repeats for a while and then it’s gone.
It’s over in less than two minutes.
Poof!
I remain your humble servant.