New Noise Magazine is pleased to be bringing forth the exclusive premiere of “End of the Bender” by Man’s Body.
“There is nothing quite like the wallop you feel watching your father’s impending death. Especially when he’s got ALS. It’s like watching him ride a fast, steep rollercoaster down to an abyss. Feeling kinda kicked and fidgety as you just sit there reading him Ham on Rye. The dedication says “To all the fathers.” For his sake, you act like it’s hunky dory. Yeah, hold on tight, but the gorilla grip that turned you into his little “crumb crusher” slips over time, and he looks sad and angry, looking straight into your soul, when you’re cleaning him up.
You don’t fucking cry, you just don’t, ever. A relief for him when he died in October 2006. It was the beginning of my fall from grace.
He was a vet, was in Germany in ’57. He did some college, had some good jobs. He was smart as a whip. He made my sis in ‘64 and me in ’65. Good dad, good baseball coach, maybe a square peg at work, also not a great husband to my mom, but a better one to the next, he righted his ship. To us, a guru. Got to 70 years old, and then came down with this unfair curse. No reason – he was a good guy.
The song is not about a night sitting at home playing checkers. It was about two fucked-up guys looking for a bad old time out in the bar scene of LA, just after their dads were whacked by this thing we call life. We had an agenda. It was to get fucked up. Then came one serious crazy night when the bullets ripped thru metal but not our flesh. Some asshole lit up my Cadillac. Maybe just for fun, we never asked. Cat and I nipping at the heels of fate, just waiting I guess for this chop to the guts. It all went down on a hot August night in the ruts, running a beast of a vehicle up to 100 mph through the streets of historic Filipino Town, up a ramp to the 101/110/5, out to a quiet Glendale. We lived to tell the tale, but shaking in our sneakers, pounding down the very last tequilas these two friends would ever sit down to. So like the truth that hits as a second bell, it was the end of the bender.” – Vocalist Greg Franco, Los Angeles, June 2018
Pick Up Put Your Family In It here
“Greg Franco is a big man – a man who dreams big, with a big heart. I first met Greg when my band Ashtray Boy played L.A. in 2014. He was a friend of sometime Ashtray Boy member Andy Creighton (more well known for his current band, The World Record). Greg crashed an Internet radio interview Ashtray Boy was guest hosting, and from the get-go, I knew I had met a real mensch. Once in awhile you get that feeling. Turns out Greg’s in this band Rough Church, who Andy had turned me onto during an earlier L.A. jaunt. And so I’m flattered when Greg asks me to join the church of Rough Church for some shows in Chicago and NYC as their guest drummer. Somehow in a whirlwind couple of days, we also squeeze in a Daytrotter recording session 175 miles away in Davenport, Iowa, the same day as our Chicago gig. I build Greg a bronze colored Telecaster. He turns 50 in New York and we live it up on the Lower East Side.
Fast forward a year, and Greg is set to master the new RC album in Chicago with Bob Weston. I get another call from Greg, asking if I want to track some songs at Electrical for fun while he’s in my hometown for the mastering sessions anyway. I recruit my pal Marco, a co-worker of mine and bass wunderkind, to learn the tunes. Greg flies his buddy Manny Nieto out to engineer the session; Greg and Marco meet one another, and a few hours later we have five songs in the can. The three of us celebrate downtown at Greg’s hotel. Over a subsequent trip to L.A. a few months later, again with Manny engineering (this time at his Estudio), I lay down some guitar and keyboard tracks, and Greg touches up vocals and guitars a bit. As well, Manny lays down some guitar, Kaitlin Wolfberg contributes some transcendent violin and backing vocals, and Fredo Ortiz (former Beastie Boys drummer!) cameos on percussion. But for the most part, what you hear herein is what we spontaneously recorded in Chicago that day in September. We thought about a cologne to go along with this record. Man’s Body. There’s something about a Man’s Body. Or, There’s nothing like a Man’s Body.
Stay Found.” – J. Niimi.
