well, i finally pulled the trigger.

yesterday was a beautiful, sunny southern day. felt light and full of love. felt like a day to buy a new guitar. so i rolled down the windows and went on a drive across town with the dexateens to guitar center.

i’m sitting in the acoustic room looking up at a wall of guitars. two guys are in the back picking away, and one of them stops and says, ‘don’t you have anywhere else to be?’

none other than the great jimmy sehon of flatbed honeymoon fame and his buddy bruce. three guys without regular jobs doing what comes naturally.

so we start playing every guitar in the damn store. taylors, gibsons, breedlove’s … we’re having a ball. then i pulled this martin hd-28v off the wall, played an e chord, and we all shut up. that chord just filled the room. jimmy says, ‘now we’re talking.’ bruce says, ‘kevin, that one sounds real good.’ all these other beautiful guitars just weren’t in the same league against this thing, so we immediately put them back and checked it out.

it was used. a 2007. and in immaculate condition. and highly discounted. and i was in trouble.

we ended up playing it against everything in there for about two hours and it was just amazing. felt amazing, sounded amazing, looked amazing. we checked the intonation, the neck, looked it up and down and all around. then jimmy said, ‘well, if you don’t buy it, i’m gonna buy it just to piss you off.’

so i bought the fucking thing. a few bucks more than i had put aside, of course, but that shit always works like that. i really got a good deal, i think. it was about 40% off what a new one would have set me back i figured. and without jimmy’s moral support, i never would have done it. it felt like it was meant to be.

took it home and played all afternoon. played through lunch. that unsettling, ‘you just spent a shit load of money’ feeling faded away in minutes, and i was just happy. two new songs fell right out. the damn thing’s pretty as a girl. not one of those pain in the ass girls that’ll fool ya for awhile, either. i’m talking about a real pretty girl. the kind with a great laugh that listens to baseball games on the radio and likes to dance to rock and roll music and can tell a fucking joke and throw a good punch and knows when to hold and when to fold and feels just like a friend. a real pretty girl.

so in the event of a house fire, the list now reads:

1. lefty
2. martin

and don’t worry, bud. you’ve got a lifetime lock on the number one slot.

on a related, but somewhat less dramatic note, the lawyer neighbors across the street moved and left their grill in the street. it’s a little bleary. worse for the wear and tear. but it works! electric ignition and all. side burner. you name it.

i told schmitty, ‘now all i needs a girl,’ and he said, ‘well, what do you need a girl for?’

i guess i never really thought about it.

but the guy’s got a point …

this song is the last track on the new dexateens album ‘singlewide.’ i listened to this song a dozen times before i realized that david berman – the silverest jew – lends a minimalist guest vocal. brilliant. and anyone who wonders how david berman found the dexateens, you need only hear/read the song’s first line. this one’ll move you, even though the boys are so god damn country they’re hard to understand. but they do more with seventy five percent lyrical comprehension than most do with more …

i like ronnie dio and i like vaseline
i enjoy the feeling feeling of a sharp crease in my jeans
i can see you smiling boy, so here’s a simple question

can you whoop it?

my daddy’s name is elton my momma’s name is jean
my car’s a chevy nova, and my woman’s 17
she moved into my place cause her parents intervene now

can you whoop it?

rocks are for the honest
guns are for the wise
lies are for the frightened
for the blind man and his blinds [?]
i live in the space created by your compromise

so can you whoop it?

saw the dexateens last saturday at chelsea’s. brilliant. loud. brilliant. still mourning the death of oasis, some jesus on the mainline rock and roll was much needed. i got very drunk and had to be cared for. it was one of those nights … yup, one of those nights. i stripped off all my clothes and attempted to play music before an audience. considering i still have pink toenails from the anniversary party at hooch’s, it was very guerrero street circa 1998 around these parts this weekend (in more ways than one …)

still helpless at 11 am sunday …

wanna talk about oasis but … not quite ready. lazy, i am. that’s something i’ll miss about oasis right there. they were a little lazy, too …

if los duggans isn’t playing a gig at the same time, when the dexateens take the stage they are the greatest living rock and roll band.

this is not typical kevin casper hyperbolic rhetoric.

i’m dead serious. they’re the second greatest living rock band. i saw them at chelsea’s saturday night, and i speak the truth.

swagger. early 70s. three guitars (one of which is cut from that beautiful cloth that produced ronny wood and mark ford. here he is:

that guitar player with the country bends and the crazy warm tone and the taste and the taste and the flair and the taste). a little bit of that sloppy golden smog beauty, some punk energy. great songs. great voices. southern as hell. swagger.

don’t believe me?

go to their website. download their new record ‘lost and found’ for free.

i bought 2008′s ‘hardwire healing’ on vinyl at the show. they give away the digital and sell the vinyl for $10 (which is how god intended it to be).

if you don’t like it i’ll buy you some meat sticks.