Better Late Than Really, Really Late
Photo by Photobill/Bill Daniel
My brother used to say that when he was running behind. He’d make a real dumb face and say “You know what they say! Better late than REALLY, REALLY late!”
He’s dead now, which means he’ll never be late again. But I still say it, because it’s funny.
Another person who’s dead is Spot (aka Glen Lockett), and that’s who I want to talk about today.
If you listen to the Revolting podcast (and of course you do, because you’re the sort who likes to have their finger on the pulse of even the most obscure subcultures), then you’ll know that we talk about music constantly. In fact, Revolting is probably really a music podcast masquerading as a cycling podcast (or maybe it’s a live group therapy session for a pair of attention-shattered adults), but why try to pin it down?
The point I’m struggling to get to is that music is real important to both Stevil and myself, and specifically, loud, fast, chaotic music, which, through our superior taste and advanced breeding, we’ve trained ourselves to sing along and tap a toe too. MANY of the seminal recordings in our personal record collections were produced and engineered by Spot, who was the in-house producer at SST records from 1979-1986.
He was behind the controls for Black Flag’s Jealous Again, Damaged, and My War. He was there for Husker Du’s Metal Circus and Zen Arcade. He recorded the Minutemen and Meat Puppets, Descendents and Misfits. This is, honestly, a large part of the punk rock canon. Can you imagine dealing with all those ass-hats in the studio. Dude probably deserves a sainthood.
Spot was also a fine photographer who captured all sorts of LA roller skate, surf, and punk rock culture during that same formative period.
So this post is late. Spot passed away in March, but I’ve been meaning to write it for a few months, and at least it’s not really, really late.
We’re grateful, Stevil and I both, for Spot’s contributions to the aural joy we’ve experienced over the last 30 years.
I was cruising around recently and happen to have the internet radio station Metal Detector from Soma FM on. They play a wide variety of “metal” from early Sabbath to the Cookie Monster stuff and everything in b/t. Not too much hair or glam stuff, but no big loss there. Out of the blue “No More” comes blasting through. It was as if not more crushing than the songs before and after it and I had to do a double take just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. Ginn is one of those guitar players that even after years of listening, watching and learning guitar I still have no idea what he is doing. Black Flag sounded like no one else and while I always wondered what those records would’ve sounded like with a louder more full mix/mastering it still holds up. Just turn it up and let it smash your head into the concrete.
By definition, your brother IS late, and always will be. RIP.