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 Macedonia and from Tokyo.
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 1962 to 1976.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Cairo and Hong Kong.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Tehran 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 1983 at the first Lewis practice in a loft in Vancouver.
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 Sonny Sharrock to the grunge 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 Gang Starr. All the underground hits.
All Bob Dylan tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Gabor Szabo record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal funk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a marimba and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Blackbyrds record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your organ and bought a harpsichord.
I hear that you and your band have sold your harpsichord and bought an organ.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
The Monks,
The Real Kids,
Archie Shepp,
Bill Near,
Manfred Mann's Earth Band,
Second Layer,
In Retrospect,
Parry Music,
Black Sheep,
Pulsallama,
Massinfluence,
Don Cherry,
Public Image Ltd.,
Scrapy,
Make Up,
The Happenings,
Tres Demented,
Talk Talk,
Bobbi Humphrey,
The Raincoats,
Shoche,
The Sound,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Lower 48,
Zapp,
T.S.O.L.,
The Black Dice,
Maurizio,
Sexual Harrassment,
Bobby Hutcherson,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
The Tremeloes,
Tommy Roe,
Crispian St. Peters,
Soulsonic Force,
KRS-One,
Brass Construction,
Duran Duran,
Connie Case,
Moby Grape,
Reuben Wilson,
Absolute Body Control,
Steve Hackett,
The Angels of Light,
Vladislav Delay,
The Knickerbockers,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Rakim,
Magma,
Man Eating Sloth,
Mars,
Ten City,
This Heat,
Junior Murvin,
Flash Fearless,
The Seeds,
Fugazi,
Crime,
Lyres,
Black Moon, Black Moon, Black Moon, Black Moon.
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.