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 Panama and from Woodstock.
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 1969 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Bologna and Johannesburg.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Calgary 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 1973 at the first Television practice in a loft in New York.
I was working on the clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Tom Verlaine 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 Lower 48 to the funk kids.
I played it at CBGB's.
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 DJ Style. All the underground hits.
All James White and The Blacks tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Dark Day record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grunge hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a chamberlin and an oboe and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Ash Ra Tempel record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought a spring reverb.
I hear that you and your band have sold your spring reverb and bought a guitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Dennis Brown,
CMW,
Dead Boys,
Camouflage,
Magma,
Interpol,
James Chance & The Contortions,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
Zapp,
Boz Scaggs,
The Standells,
One Last Wish,
The Busters,
Guru Guru,
Cymande,
Radiohead,
The Gun Club,
Joey Negro,
Tears for Fears,
Bobbi Humphrey,
Faraquet,
Black Pus,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Wings,
Black Bananas,
Reagan Youth,
Terrestrial Tones,
Warren Ellis,
Tres Demented,
Yellowson,
Basic Channel,
Judy Mowatt,
L. Decosne,
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band,
Bang on a Can All-Stars,
Sun City Girls,
Nils Olav,
The Smoke,
Alton Ellis,
Niagra,
ABBA,
Drive Like Jehu,
The United States of America,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Bobby Hutcherson,
Electric Prunes,
Sound Behaviour,
Echospace,
Loose Ends,
Tomorrow,
Justin Hinds & The Dominoes,
Barrington Levy,
Smog,
Grandmaster Flash,
Hardrive,
Janne Schatter,
The J.B.'s,
The Jesus and Mary Chain,
Zero Boys, Zero Boys, Zero Boys, Zero Boys.
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.