Infinitely Losing My Edge
Yeah, I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from Kenya and from Tehran.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Feelies show in Haledon.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.
I'm losing my edge to the internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1961 to 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Lyon and Woodstock.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Tokyo kids in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered nineties.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
I can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
But I was there.
I was there in 1970 at the first Onyeabor practice in a loft in Enugu.
I was working on the theremin sounds with much patience.
I was there when Holger Czukay started up his first band.
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime."
I was there.
I was the first guy playing Lizzy Mercier Descloux to the dance kids.
I played it at the Troubador.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.
But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.
I'm losing my edge.
I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody.
Every great song by Skaos. All the underground hits.
All Donald Byrd tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Michelle Simonal record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal jazz hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a linndrum and a spring reverb and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Toasters record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a chamberlin.
I hear that you and your band have sold your chamberlin and bought a rhodes.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
The Associates,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
Sight & Sound,
Lee Hazlewood,
Sun Ra,
The Standells,
48th St. Collective,
Jerry Gold Smith,
Gang Green,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
The Fire Engines,
Sam Rivers,
Visionaries,LMNO, T- Love & Iriscience,
The Martian,
Sällskapet,
One Last Wish,
Tropical Tobacco,
Can,
Bootsy's Rubber Band,
Joy Division,
Groovy Waters,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Jandek,
The Slits,
Peter & Gordon,
Crooked Eye,
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy,
Theoretical Girls,
Camouflage,
Faraquet,
The Black Dice,
Sonny Sharrock,
Radiohead,
Yusef Lateef,
Rakim,
Patti Smith,
Shuggie Otis,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
Sex Pistols,
Dawn Penn,
Erykah Badu,
Pierre Henry,
Babytalk,
Yaz,
Jesper Dahlback,
Marcia Griffiths,
Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan,
Ice-T,
Jesper Dahlbäck,
Banda Bassotti,
Soulsonic Force,
Blossom Toes,
CMW,
T. Rex,
Henry Cow,
Vainqueur,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Skaos,
The Victims,
Kool Moe Dee,
The Walker Brothers,
the Germs, the Germs, the Germs, the Germs.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.