QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE – Overview
Back when MTV and VH1 used to play music videos, and when I wasn’t watching anything else, I would often have one of those channels on, with my videocassette recorder at the ready, in case a video came on of a song that I really liked. Particularly when there was a song in “heavy rotation” that I really wanted, I would often have the VCR already cued up, on “hold”, so that I would miss as little of the video as possible. Sometimes I would get lucky, and I would already be recording a song when another one came on that I wanted as well.
That happened one time with “No One Knows” by Queens of the Stone Age. The time was back in the Garage Rock Revival period of the early 2000’s, when the White Stripes, the Hives, the Strokes, and several other great retro bands were really getting established. I hadn’t heard the song before, but the beat sounded good, so I left the recorder running. That song got to be a real favorite of mine, and I was particularly thrilled when I later recognized Dave Grohl – former drummer for Nirvana and front man for Foo Fighters – on drums in the video (that’s a video cap from the “No One Knows” music video above).
My wife Peggy Winfree and I were just starting to date back then, and I had already picked up a copy of their album having the odd name, Songs for the Deaf. Her son Ernie Guyton and his wife Priscilla Dodds were visiting, and I had the CD with me, so I thought, what the hell: Let me see what they think of it. I already knew that Peggy had good musical taste, even though she is a few years older than I am (okay, more than a few). I had already gotten Dido’s first album, No Angel with her in mind, and she loved it.
Well, they started bopping along to “No One Knows”, and I wound up playing the whole CD for them. I quickly learned that the Queens (she also called them the Stones sometimes) were going to be appearing at the House of Blues in New Orleans, but that the show was already sold out. She and I went over to New Orleans anyway to see if there were some tickets for sale at the door that we could get. I was a little shy myself, but not her; and I will never forget the sight of my future wife walking down an alley nearby talking to people to see if anyone had any tix for sale. She did find a couple, so we waited outside a while longer. I overheard someone asking about the opening act, Turbonegro, and had anyone ever heard of them? I piped up, “Yeah, they are a good band; I have one of their albums”. Turbonegro is from Norway and has or had a big guy as the front man who used to twirl around on stage. The opening track on the album I have, Apocalypse Dudes has the pompous title of “The Age of Pamparius”, but the lyrics are anything but: “So you think you had a real good pizza / Well not like this ... / So you think you had a pepperoni / So you think you had a calzone / Well not like this”.
We definitely got some funny looks here and there, and I bet there are still people talking about the older woman on the balcony section sitting on the only stool in the place (there were a whole bunch of us trying to get Peggy a place to sit down up there), sitting there with a big smile on her face as we enjoyed that concert together.
I thought the Invisible Eyes would be another one to play for her that she would like just as well, and she surely did! I was giving her play-by-play commentary as the album went along (and as I was trying to get a little appraisal work done at the same time). As “Tired Night” came on, I told her: “Just when you think that the album couldn’t possibly get any better . . .”
(December 2012)
