RollerCoaster: “Now Is Different” (Reglar-Daddy Academy, 2023) CD, Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes
“… a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” John 4:44
RollerCoaster is a Denver-based duo; Mike Chappelle, vocals and lyrics, and Henry ‘Broz’ Rowland, backing vocals and music. They just put out a 4 track CD, but Mike has a lot of history with the store, so bear with me on the back story.
I first met Mike Chappelle sometime in 1979, not long after Dave Stidman and I bought Wax Trax Records from the Chicago guys. Mike had a band, The Gluons, and Wax Trax was planning the “First Annual Wax Trax Crash Party” for early 1980.
It was to celebrate, or maybe commiserate, the night a car crashed through Wax Trax in February 1979, tossing big chunks of brick and glass into the aisles. In the winter. At night. It was fucking cold. Worse, we lost a lot of vinyl. Some of it from the car smashing into racks, and some of it from looting by people passing by. Yeah, great world.
Anyway, it took us a while but we got back on our feet and we wanted to kick out the jams, so we decided to throw a party: a crash party. We put some money down for a night at the Slovenian Hall out in Globeville and started lining up bands.
We gathered The Young Weasels, The Jetsons, Leroy X, The Defex… and The Gluons, Chappelle’s band, for their first ever gig. As the flyer said, “Live Vile Brutal Punk Music. 7:00PM to 2:00AM.”
It was a great, crazy party. In the winter. At night. It was fucking cold.. The bands, though, were on fire. The crowd was wild, drunk off their asses, pogoing, skanking, wearing trash bags and enough safety pins, metal spikes and studs to set off metal detectors a mile away. But the party’s another story, for another day.
So, yeah, Mike Chappelle, The Gluons… RollerCoaster, and it’s cold outside once again.
I liked The Gluons. Lean, clean, bonehard New Wave — when it was still new, before it became a phrase you used to describe Haircut 100 or Kajagoogoo (don’t know ’em? Look ’em up — keep the barf bag handy!).
Chappelle also had a knack of running into people, big names of the 60s counter-culture like Norman Mailer, Noam Chomsky… Allen Ginsberg. Chappelle met Ginsberg and talked him into doing a recording of Allen’s poem, ‘Birdbrain’, with The Gluons backing him. Then Mike talked me into putting the 7″ single out on the store’s Local Anaesthetic label: ‘Birdbrain’ b/w Mike’s ‘Sue Your Parents.’ Which I did.
Suffice to say Mike and I go way back. And that, skipping over a lot, brings us to RollerCoaster.
RollerCoasters recently released four track CD, ‘Now Is Different” has one standout, two damn good pieces and one that’s okay. But Mike always wants to set the world on fire, so let’s just stick with the standout: “Subcellular Cognitive Warfare Blues.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say: This is a great song! A barnburner! A thumper.
The musical backbone of “Subcellular” is more or less lifted from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which was released in 1965 and is one of the great all-time thumpers itself. A classic of 1960s paranoia and finger-pointing: “Keep a clean nose / Watch the plain clothes / You don’t need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows…”
Mike and Broz have given that melody a slinkier feel, sinister and hypnotic, cold fusion with four on the floor. You’ll like it. Mike’s vocal is whispery, reedy, conspiratorial as he tugs at your elbow: ”Shake shake shake, sleepers awake / How much reality can you take?”
And what is that reality?
Well: “Nano swarm / Aerosol / Small robotic units / Wearables Implantable / Digital Credentials / Brain space / Interfaced / Inner space / Know your place… Drugs, Bugs, Drugs, Bugs, Toxins, and Devices… Supply chain crashing / Chain chain chain of fools / Lining up, rationing / Strange things happening / Factories burning / Sabotaging… Look out kid / Nothing you already did / Pre-crime’s / Predicting / When you’ll / Flip your lid.’
Yes, listening to this you might think Mike has flipped his own lid. He and I have spent hours arguing over much of this stuff. I don’t agree with a lot of what Mike’s on about, but I do know this is a dangerous world and there are people looking to exploit their fellow humans. So maybe he’s got a point now and then. Or maybe paranoia is starting to make sense.
Mike isn’t just pointing a finger. He has some hope and advice just as Dylan did: “Don’t follow leaders… / Take your time / Dig yourself / Reinvent the wheel / Dig yourself / Run your mouth / Act on what you feel / To your own conscience / Make an appeal / Subcellular / Cognitive / Warfare / It’s real.”
“Run your mouth.” Mike does that a lot. I do that a lot. We don’t have all the answers, but we aren’t about to figure this insane world out alone. It’s good to talk it out. Raise your voices. Be heard.
Mike Chappelle, Prophet without honor, but at least his pants are on!
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