|
|
|---|
An unofficial web site about Scott Sparling Last updated April 1, 2006 Written and edited by Bob Seger
seger@sparlingfile.com
- Click for the full contents
- Search the Sparling File
- Why would you want to?
- News
- New Job? Haircut?--
- Hints, Rumors, Speculation
- 2005 Updates
- 1953-2004 Updates
- What's there to say, really?
- Unreleased Writing
- Bin 4
- More Stuff We Found in his Garbage
- Forward Into the Bin --
- 26 Unfinished Chapters
- Return to the Bin -- 18 More Unreadable Drafts
- The Bin --31 Wasted Pages
- Written but Unreadable
- Photos
- Photos 1
Photos 2
- Photos 3
- Out of Focus Photos
- Mug Shot Annex
- The Early Years
- First Grade
- Second Grade
- Third Grade
- Third Grade, Take Two
- One Last Chance
- Fourth Grade
- Who Really Cares?
- College
- The Wasted Years
- After College
- The Empty Years
- Middle Age
- Years That Were Worse Than Empty or Wasted
- Vilification & Remorse
- Ex-girlfriends
- Roads Not Taken
- Roads Not Even Noticed
- Rebate Forms He Forgot to Mail
- Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda
- Christmas, 1967
- Brushes with the Law
- Ace Hardware
- Canada
- FBI File
- Dayton, Ohio 7-11 Store
- Little Victories
- Mayor For A Day
- Eighth Grade Science Fair
- Stadium Bowl-O-Drome
- A Nice Rejection Letter
- A Nanosecond of Fame
- Dead End Jobs
- Car counter
- Photo processor
- Phone subscriptions
- Soul Killing Jobs
- Electric Utility
- Advertising
- TV Appearances
- Yeah, right.
- Like a Mazda
- Like a 1991 Mazda that barely runs, to be precise.
- Hobbies
- If you can call trespassing a hobby.
- Hospitalizations
- Credit Record
- Don't ask
- Dreams that Died
- The "Free" Store
- McGovern for President
- The Great Teddini
- Seger File: The Movie
- Shelter From the Storm
- A love story
- Best of Email
- See Britney Spears Naked
- Take this pill now...
- Re: Your Credit Application
- Free iPod For Sparling
- Please Update Your Paypal Account
- Locker room worries?
- Replica watches
- dzcreet shipping
- Vi@gra solution :) 4 U
- Mail Delivery Subsystem vpinity uptick dofa
---- April 1, 2006 ---- South by Southwest Sparling
It's official. South by Southwest is dead. When a guy like Sparling shows up, you know it's over. The magic has fled.
It doesn't matter how hip Sparling thinks he is. The fact is, he's a fifty-something white guy with a day job and a house in the suburbs. That puts him so far out of the demographic, his middle name ought to be Buzzkill.
Bands know this. When they see aging baby boomers like Sparling coming, they pack their guitars and run for cover.
Think I'm kidding? Just look at what SS and his boomer buddy, Earplugs Two, did to the Arctic Monkeys. On Friday morning, this young British band was the hottest thing going. Friday night, SS and E2 showed up to give a listen. They didn't even get in the door, just hung around outside for a few minutes.
That was all it took. Saturday morning's review of the band was basically an obit -- "the phhht you heard last night was the sound of the air going out of the Arctic Monkey's balloon."
I know it's not intentional. But by definition, if a band attracts someone who qualifies for an AARP discount, that band is no longer hot.
And so it went, with the two boomers casting their yellow jinx-eye on band after band, destroying careers right and left. Deadboy and the Elephantmen, you're history. The Fold -- done before you got started. Socratic, we barely knew ye.
Only a few bands survived their interest. Neko Case barred the door. Racoon got a lucky break when the oldsters couldn't find the Red 7 Lounge. Apparently map- and schedule-reading is one of the first skills to go. Yeti In A Kepi survived by switching venues every three or four hours.
In fact, the biggest thing Sparling accomplished was getting arrested by one of Austin's undercover vice cops. He walked up to her on Sixth Street and paid her ten dollars for something he called a "seedy" -- some kind of boomer sex act, I guess. As the cops were hauling SS away, I heard Earplugs 2 muttering "Good people: Naughty naughty ice creams" -- whatever that means.
Sparling caught busking with someone who said her name was Mary Lou. I don't even want to know what the ice cream perversion is about. And in the end, SS and E2 missed the hottest band in Austin -- Total B.S. I caught their act and loved it. No doubt about it: these guys are shoalin'.
Junk Lawsuit Tossed Out of CourtFeel free to breathe a sigh of relief. The case of Segerfile, et al, v. The Entire English-Speaking World has been given the old heave-ho by a judge who ruled that, duh, ordinary conversation cannot be copyrighted.
Segerfile's junk lawsuit attempted to extort payments from hardworking musicians by charging royalties every time a roadie said "check check" into a microphone. The suit claimed that sound checks "are part of a band's performance and thus subject to copyright law."
The judge dismissed these claims as "ludicrous on the face of it. Also on the ass of it and every other part of it."
Further, the court found that the so-called "best-selling spoken-word album" allegedly recorded by Sparling and Earplugs 2 was nothing more than a single cassette tape that broke the first time it was played. (Note to Boila: Let's look into getting some tapes like that for the Vault.)
The lawsuit confirms what I've always suspected. Not only is this guy not in the arena. He wouldn't know the arena if it fell on his head.
Final Draft of Novel Delayed AgainFor like what, the twentieth time?? And he calls me a perfectionist.
Posted on April 1, 2006. Maybe you're reading this on some other day. But inside this box, it's always April 1.
For more falsehoods, click here.
MainMenu
- Got a story, accusation, complaint, bill of particulars or other embarrassing material marginally relating to Sparling? Keep it to yourself.
seger@sparlingfile.com
