Jason Pettigrew

My publicity sherpa Whitney has always stressed the importance of indie book stores. When I was starting to promote my Land of Rape And Honey book, she instructed me to go into as many stores as I could to introduce myself and offer to sign any copies they had in stock. So in your role as an early adopter, if you purchased a copy from Exile In Bookville, The PPIM, Liz Garo’s v. awesome Stories or Skylight, you’ll have some form of my autography in your collection, sometimes tweaked with some kind of musical reference. Most of them were a nod to the refrain in  “Flashback” (“Laugh like a what?”) while others were patently absurd mashups of Luxa Pan and Pee-wee Herman (“You know what you are, but what am I?”).

Fortunately for me Skylight ambassador/podcast producer Justin Remer thought me more worldly than turdly. Turns out that he was grinding through his 33.3 book which was centered on the 1984 LP “Weird Al” Yankovic In 3D, by the titular polymath parodist. We swapped “agony aunt” stories and cracked each other up. Long story short: He read my book; we played email tennis. He finished his book; and we both put further discussion on the back burner of our respective psychic stoves. 

And now it can be revealed: I am featured on the latest episode of The Skylight Books Podcast available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and a few more places, most assuredly. Listening back to it, I think I should probably consider decaf or maybe repeated listenings of Tate McRae an hour before a live interview. (Then again, I wouldn’t want to sound like Mitch McConnell.) Justin is a solid dude, well-read and -researched and I wish him nothing but joy and a briefcase filled with unmarked $50s and $100s that doesn’t have exploding dye packs nestled in it. And while I have you here, you should also listen to the episode featuring Tyler Sonnichsen and his wonderful book on The Dead Milkmen for J-Card Press.

Thank you for landing on this webpage. Oh and one last thing: In this summer’s latest issue of SPIN, you can see me waxing about Gene Loves Jezebel, Jon Spencer, Marmozets, Crocodiles and a few more in my Vinyl Countdown column. I was also completely taken by the latest Failure album, which you can read about for free here. In the meantime, I am filling up the drive up to Doomsday (read: midterm elections) with the very thought of Angine De Poitrine, Bikini Kill, Gilla Band, Piss, Beat (now fortified with Terry Bozzio!) and Cabaret Voltaire. Because when they kick in my front door, I won’t hear it. There’s a good chance I’ll be deaf AF by then…

“It’s not the years — it’s the mileage.” — Indiana Jones, archeologist (imagined)

If I had a buck for everytime I quoted that particle of movie dialog, I’d be writing this web entry from my yacht docked in international waters, where I am spearing my own sushi, perfecting the ratio of ice tea and lemonade to make the ultimate Arnold Palmer and waiting for packages of CDs from assorted record stores to fall down from the sky like the splashdown modules that astronauts return from space in. (I’m not sure if you can actually play vinyl records on a boat. If you’re in that tax bracket, please explain it to me.) 

The other line I always use is “cut off my leg and count the rings” as a tree metaphor to discuss how old I am. The point is this: I’m glad I’m old. Seriously. Sure, I hate all the aches and pains, and am definitely not looking forward to taking 10 steps and dabbing off an albuterol inhaler further down the road, but the stuff and people that I experienced in the decades that got me here? Priceless. 

I remember being in high school and being made fun of, slurred, threatened with GBH (the crime, not the punk band) for liking Cheap Trick (among other things). Then, when everybody decided that At Budokan was the proverbial, acceptable toilet mustard, I cut back on my fandom - though I have seen them more than any other band in life. I've now lost count, I think it's less than 50 gigs but more than 40. But when everybody was railing about how awesome Journey, Boston, Bob Seger, Styx and the entire steamboat flotilla of ‘70s Southern AOR rock was, I went all prog-rock. Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Pink Floyd. Yes, King Crimson. Genesis. And… Frank Zappa.

Now if you would have told nerd-boy, highly opinionated, punchable-faced, 16-year-old PTGRW he was going to be involved in some kind of FZ-related project when he got older, I would’ve taken a deep breath and thought, How would a job like that happen? Would I have to move to LA? I won't have to like Fleetwood Mac, will I?

No more “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you” jokes: I have a substantial piece in the Super Deluxe Edition box set of the 60th anniversary of Freak Out, the debut album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention, which will be out into the world on September 25.

This wonderful artifact comes in a plethora of formats including 105 tracks across six discs (five CDs and a Blu-ray) involving newly discovered pre-master and restored mono mixes, recordings from 1966 gigs and rehearsals and something described as “a truly special three-track late-night jam session outtake collage.” There’s also several remastered colored-vinyl variants. And of course, plenty of wondrous unseen photos from Ray Leong and David Anderle, as well as essays from Leong and Earth’s prime minister of Zappavania, Joe “The Vaultmeister” Travers. There’s so much good stuff in here, I’m missing a bunch of it. You may witness it all in its pre-order glory right now.

I am extremely grateful to Tim Plumley (through him all things are great), Professor Travers (for stamping my passport into his realm), Holland Greco (project fulcrum and appreciator of my pun crimes) and Morgan Gordy (cheerful admin) at uME. Thank you to all the folks that spoke with me — Marshall Crenshaw, Ira Ingber and Gary Lucas — and such esteemed facilitators as Michael Ackerman, Josh Mills… and Van Dyke Parks!

Expect another update quite soon. As for the possibility of contributing more verbiage in the Zappa realm in the future? Well, I’d tell you but then… [sound of webmistress Furiosa braining PTGRW over the head with an aluminum chair]