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 Equatorial Guinea and from Glasgow.
But I was there.
I was there in 1970.
I was there at the first Onyeabor show in Enugu.
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 1966 to 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Copenhagen and Lille.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Beijing 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 1975 at the first Ubu practice in a loft in Cleveland.
I was working on the rhodes sounds with much patience.
I was there when Donald Fagen 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 Strawberry Alarm Clock to the techno 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 Zero Boys. All the underground hits.
All Wasted Youth tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Echospace 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 mellotron and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Scratch Acid record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your marimba and bought a 808.
I hear that you and your band have sold your 808 and bought a marimba.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Donald Byrd,
Boz Scaggs,
The Men They Couldn't Hang,
DJ Style,
Kango’s Stein Massive,
Mars,
Fat Boys,
Nation of Ulysses,
Sister Nancy,
Hot Snakes,
Silicon Teens,
Minor Threat,
Arab on Radar,
Sparks,
Von Mondo,
Mission of Burma,
The Litter,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
Magma,
Gastr Del Sol,
Al Stewart,
Zapp,
Ornette Coleman,
Heavy D & The Boyz,
Aswad,
Echo & the Bunnymen,
Sad Lovers and Giants,
kango's stein massive,
Notorious BIG live in Amsterdam,
Maurizio,
Albert Ayler,
Tubeway Army,
Lindisfarne,
The Pop Group,
Half Japanese,
R.M.O.,
Camouflage,
Peter and Kerry,
Fifty Foot Hose,
Radiohead,
Fatback Band,
Freddie Wadling,
Bizarre Inc.,
Black Pus,
Morten Harket,
Theoretical Girls,
Black Flag,
Basic Channel,
Sound Behaviour,
Drexciya,
The Walker Brothers,
Stockholm Monsters,
The Doors,
Banda Bassotti,
Sexual Harrassment,
EPMD,
Can,
Grandmaster Flash,
Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan,
The Standells,
Rhythim Is Rhythim,
Alphaville, Alphaville, Alphaville, Alphaville.
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.