Special from the Segerfile

Posted on Apr 1st, 2014

For the past 16 years, my other site – Segerfile.com – has covered the music of Bob Seger. That site is built entirely with the long-defunct Claris Home Page software, which runs only on the PowerPC platform. To update the site, I've kept an old black Powerbook on the shelf for years. Yesterday, the black laptop refused to boot up. Maybe that's not a tragedy – I post almost all Seger news on FB these days anyway. But tradition calls for an annual April Fool's Day post on the Segerfile. So, until I can get the black laptop running again, I'm posting the annual spoof here. Enjoy.

 

 

These Artists Thought They Were Simply Playing A Tribute to Bob Seger.

What Happened Next Will Change the Way You Think About Neutrinos Forever.

CLICK HERE!!!

Oh wait. You’re already here. Hmmm. Would you mind going away and coming back a few times??? I need to get my page views up or corporate says they’re giving my job to an unpaid intern from South by Southwest.

Speaking of which (SEGUE! Ba-da-boom! Can interns do that? They can??? Crap.), this year’s SXSW was more frenzied than ever. In addition to attracting a huge cohort of women in skinny jeans and cowboy boots (approx. 97,000), it also featured a record number of Shriners in medical boots (approximately one. But still a new record.) 

The presence of a Shriner in a boot cast drove SXSW to a fever pitch,

according to this hastily written photo caption.

The festival was also notable for the number of “tributes” to other artists – longish events where lesser bands played lesser versions of songs that influenced other songs that influenced songs you actually like.

The Lou Reed tribute was a case in point. It began Friday evening in the packed Paramount theatre and is scheduled to conclude by Memorial Day or when Wayne Kramer takes the stage, whichever comes first. So far, the tribute has featured an unforgettable half hour of music and 340 set changes.

A tribute to Jimi Hendrix was also held, timed to coincide with the unveiling of the new Jimi Hendrix postage stamp.

The tribute began with an amazing and seemingly impromptu set of opening remarks by a baldish administrator from the United States Postal Service. Performing solo, and dressed in stunning Casual Friday attire in honor of Jimi, the administrator wowed the multitudes with his virtuoso introduction, moving from rhetorical to declamatory techniques and back again. Holding his notes behind his back, he spoke fluently about commemorative stamps of all types, incorporating passages of epideictic and didactic hortatory, dive-bombing into a mixture of Pig Latin and jargon, before ending with dissuasive and beatbox elements tracing back to Aristotle and Run DMC.

“It was a total mind-blower,” the guy next to me did not say. “At first we thought, what is this? As it went on, we realized history was being made. Bland introductions will never be same again. I thought there were three guys delivering prepared remarks simultaneously, but it was just this one dude.”

Letters using the new Hendrix stamp will be delivered by dragonfly and will take “about a half a day,” to get where they’re going, the administrator claimed. At which point he set his speech on fire.

After the giant Jimi banner collapsed, a number of musicians who should never be allowed to listen to Hendrix songs, let alone play them, took the stage to demonstrate through contrast why Jimi was the best. The crowd, dazed by a Level Four Contact High, murmured approvingly while dreaming of snack food.

The Postal Service honored the most innovative guitar player ever with a "stamp" for an outdated communication tool called a "letter." What happened next will blow your mind!!

But of course, it was the Seger Tribute that was most anticipated. A full half of all festival attendees staying in Room 330 of the Radisson Hotel said it was the best SXSW tribute they had ever briefly imagined while waiting on line at Amy’s Ice Creams.

Like ancient Gaul, the Seger tribute was divided in three parts. “The Raw Years,"  “The Radio Years," and “The Kid Rock Years.”

The original plans called for the post office to unveil a stamp honoring Seger, just as they did for Jimi. However, plans broke down when a) Punch sent the artwork back to be redone for the 15^th time, b) Bob said the adhesive on the back of the stamp needed a little more acacia gum and a slightly higher grade of polyvinyl alcohol before it could be released, and c) focus group testing revealed customers believed that using a Bob Seger postage stamp would mean their letters would be delivered in about a year, or the year after, or three or four more years, or possibly much later, if at all, depending on when the postal muse struck.

So the show went on without an official stamp. But what a show it was.

Could this irrelevant picture of Ultraman lead to exciting news about Seger's new CD? You'll never know unless you click!

For The Raw Years, a reanimated James Brown belted out “Gets Ya Pumping” and “Lucifer.” To the delight of several, a reanimated Otis Redding jumped onstage and joined Brown for a duet of “Red Eye to Memphis.” True Seger aficionados experienced an unforgettable rush of fanboy superiority, while 99.3% of the crowd turned to each other and asked, “What the hell are they playing?” Emergency responders did a terrific job of handling the epidemic of shrugs that followed.

The Radio Years segment did not go as well, unfortunately. First up was “Against the Wind” by a reanimated version of The Eagles. The actual Eagles wanted to perform, rumor had it, but promoters, attuned to the average festival-goer’s limited attention span and need for maximum stimulation, preferred the livelier, reanimated version of the band.

The next performer, Suzanne Vega, delivered the most heartfelt tribute of the night. “This is dedicated to the man who set the standard for everyone who followed. A man who spoke for all of us, a genuine troubadour for humankind, he always lived his ideals – from his days as a young communist, to his support of peace and freedom everywhere. There will never be another like him, and I miss him terribly.”

The crowd, slightly confused, was nevertheless moved – until she launched into a medley of  “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Seger fans, enraged that their hero had been confused with a banjo-playing folk singer for the one-zillionth time, stormed the stage, intent on tearing Ms. Vega from limb to limb.

  

So it was perhaps provident that Ted Nugent chose that particular moment to wander up to the mic toting a .223-caliber Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle with a 30-round magazine, which he proceeded to empty into the air, quieting the crowd. “Where’s Rand Paul?  he asked. “It this the CPAC convention?”

Realizing he was in Austin, he began to unwind a long rant about “subhuman liberal varmints addicted to cellphonesboozeandbirthcontrol.” Seger security man John Rapp reacted quickly, firing a tranquilizer dart into the right butt cheek of the Motor City Madman Who Doesn’t Actually Represent the Motor City in Any Conceivable Way, thus allowing the show to continue.

After a long set change, a new band, The Fauntleroys, took the stage and attempted their version of “Turn the Page.” After 17 false starts, the band left.

Could this be the entrance to the famous Segerfile vault

where unreleased tracks are kept???

Then came the night’s dramatic finale, featuring a five-story Silver Bullet that rose from the stage. Posed provocatively atop the bullet was SXSW’s biggest celebrity, Lady Gaga, who belted out an autotuned, hip-hop version of “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll,” modifying the lyrics slightly to remove any reference to “old,” “time” or “rock ‘n roll.”

Unexpectedly, as she began bootie shaking through her final number – “Twerking on My Night Moves” – Ms. Gaga lost her footing on a bit of synthetic vomit from her previous show. Slipping off the bullet, she went into a five-story swan dive to the stage below.

What happened next was a textbook example of professionalism in action. Immediately, Ms. Gaga’s expert team of highly trained sycophants swung into action, producing their cellphones, tweeting and posting on Instagram. For the next fifteen seconds, #GagaCanFly and #AboutToGoSplat? were trending worldwide on Twitter, which Ms. Gaga’s social media director later heralded as “an unsurpassed triumph.”

At first, a collective cry of relief issued from the crowd, as it appeared Ms. Gaga’s fall had been broken by a six-foot pile of Doritos. Roadies who rushed to the salty pile of processed, nutritionless treats were the first to discover the staggering truth.

In fact, the singer’s fall had not been broken by the crispy snacks, as originally hoped. Rather, Lady Gaga herself had broken into a pile of Doritos. Representatives of PepsiCo, attempting heroic measures, quickly scooped the chips into a dozen extra-large garbage bags. “We’ll reassemble her!” their leader shouted. “To the factory!”

The evening thus seemed headed for a happy ending. Unfortunately, the PepsiCo team chose to take a shortcut through the Hendrix tribute. When they emerged on the other side, only three of the 12 garbage bags remained.

“I didn’t really think I’d like Lady Gaga,” one hardcore Hendrix fan said. “But she was delicious.”

Later in the night came the sad report that PepsiCo would be unable to rebuild the pop diva. “We ask only for your support, and God’s,” a spokesmodel mourned. “With the chips we’ve got left, we can only make Miley Cyrus.”

Contacted in his home outside Detroit, Seger commented only briefly on the event. “A tribute for me south by southwest of here? You mean Lincoln Park? Imagine.”

Posted in Music