Dance ‘Til I Die

A song to accompany the pre-apocalypse

Every now and then, against my better judgment and my inexplicably optimistic natural disposition, I listen to the annoying intellectual half of my brain and lapse into a spate of temporarily refreshing doomerism. It is then that I tend to write, and to broadcast these writings carelessly into the void.

On Substack and other social media abominations, this behavior commonly results in the algorithms assaulting me with the ravings of other iconoclastic malcontents, including but not limited to fellow anarchists and assorted Nietzscheans, nihilists, neo-passéists, neo-decadents, neo-romanticists and others not so nice, including some potty-mouthed n-word enthusiasts, with whom I share no human sentiment whatsoever.

Then, inevitably, I come back to my customary lack of sense, say a big “fuck it” and return to sticking my dumb fucking ape head in the sand while listening to, composing, or singing a song or two.

On that note, here’s an upbeat tune to help you do the same! I recorded it on an iPhone using my old Korg M1 and didn’t have my preferred backing chorus of turned-out former gospel ladies, so give me a break on production values. Pretty sure you can still dance to it.

Imagine while listening that it’s an old MTV video featuring Travis Bickle driving a hot chick to a disco in an uber with a bunch of assault weapons in the trunk. After he drops her off, he grabs a violin case from the back, ducks into a dark alley and comes out as a white-suited Tony Manero. You can fill in the rest …

One thing I regularly fail to include in my musical resume is that I have a very short and very successful (if anonymous) track record as a contract dance music producer. In 1995 I was paid $400 to work on a track for the producer working with a Europop group called No Mercy. With a sampled drum track and swatches of samples of the singers that had been recorded in France and linked to the keys of a synthesizer, I had to figure out the changes, construct the song and make up/record keyboard and bass parts. The song was called “Where Do You Go,” and turned out to be a huge dance hit in the U.S. and U.K. This song will probably not do as well, but what the fuck. By the way, I just jump-started a new band featuring the dude in the photo a little lower below and a couple of other world-class motherfuckers, so get ready:

More on my musical “career”: