This blog entry has special meaning for me

Jeff Taylor

First of all, I have reached entry #15; if I were married to the blog, we would be celebrating our crystal anniversary. Secondly, I am writing for the first time with my readers in mind. I first started Streffa Jeffa just to be involved with radio again, to get my foot in the door of Radio Olsztyn. I had no idea that somebody would read my rambling thoughts in the from of badly written sentences (Just because I teach English, it doesn’t mean I’m good at it). I assumed nobody would check the Radio Olsztyn website except maybe to set their clock (not entertaing radio, just functional) or to find out when Alannah Myles’s „Black Velvet” would be played again.

(This next section is not vital for the entry so it’s enclosed in paentheses. I’m continuing writing after a short day-long break. Earlier today for some reason I was listening to RO, and of course which song was being played? „Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles. I need to know which loser/radio programmer believes that this is a good song to play continuously for over twenty years.)

To tie everything together now – while I was waiting for Olsztyn’s supreme thrash-core metal Monolit to play last Saturday at Andergrant, my friend Klaudia (Hi!) thanked me for writing such nice comments about the band in my blog. My first reader! Besides being an awesome thundering concert that ripped through your body in a good way, it was a sad moment because Monolit were playing for the final time. After seven years (I’m guessing) of banging their heads against the wall attempting to make it big, they decided to call it a day.

In a previous entry, I had praised this band – one of my favourite metal bands and the newest at that. Michał „Drink-It-Up!” Wypij shreaded that guitar like Zeus throwing lightening bolts at all the loser mortals below. Łukasz was the only vocalist who could use his voice as a f**kin’ instrument; who needs lyrics when you can scream like a possessed MoFo! Radar, the only drummer who could keep the beat with chaos. Finally, Kuba, the Mt. Everest of bassists, who gave the band that groove (also the bassist in my band BINGE).

So, if Monolit is so awesome, why do I have to stop listening to them but continue hearing „Black Velvet” like clock-work? Hell, we should just use the damn song as Olsztyn’s f***in’ hejnał. In entry #14 I urged people to forget some classic over-played songs so that other lesser-known but great songs have a chance. Now I do the same with total crap. For every „Black Velvet”, „Final Countdown”or „All You Zombies” (The Hooters), there is a better song by The Stubs, JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound (my brother’s band), my band BINGE or of course MoFo Monolit (MoFoMoNo!). Give us a chance…damn it!

A band that should record soemthing new and decent or call it quits and stop rehashing the same song is Polish rock legend Perfect. I will be first to admit that this band, the Led Zeppelin/Rolling Stones of Poland, had some great songs, but for the past ten years we have had to hear one song „Kochaj Mnie.” Even worse, I’ve heard this song on mostly Radio Z, which sucks so much it’s embarrassing (Crappy hits for people who don’t like good music) and at weddings along with their other ballads. I’m sorry but the only other music I hear at weddings is disco polo and that stupid train song. Is Perfect a wedding band? So if they don’t want to be remembered as a wedding band, Perfect must get back to rocking. They are a rock band which has had the opportunity to be rich and popular and shouldn’t take this for granted. So many other band would kill for this chance and most likely do it better. I still believe that Monolit should take your place as Polish rock gods but who’s going to listen to me?

Finally, besides Monolit there were two other bands playing that night at Andergrant. Łydka Grubasa is a great band and I wish them all the best. As well as to all the other local bands in Olsztyn or anywhere who dream of….fame, fortune, big houses, lots of sex, fast cars, private jets, fans’ adulataion, rock immortality. The simple things in life. Rock on.