Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Beat the Devil’s Tattoo
Abstract Dragon/Vagrant

Friends and I used to have discussions about who we would let into our cool club (the adult kind, not the school boy kind) if we ever owned one. The kind of place where only the hippest cats on planet earth would be allowed to drink, fuck, and create. Not that excluding people is necessarily cool, but we considered it more of a human dress code, if you will. And to be alive certainly wasn’t a prerequisite. In fact, it always turned out that the guest list created during any given discussion included mostly dead heroes. Somehow, death made you cooler. So, who would be allowed into such an exclusive club? Well, people like Neal Cassady, Pierre Trudeau, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Joe Strummer, Charles Bukowski, Sailor Jerry, Janis Joplin, and Tom Waits, that’s who. There was always an argument over whether Johnny Cash should make it in or not. Being tagged as a bible thumper has its drawbacks. Anyway, I always used to, and still do, imagine the ever-evolving line-up of house bands that would play this club. Thee Hypnotics every once in awhile. The Stooges once a week. And Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as often as possible.

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