IN THIS ISSUE OF COSMIK DEBRIS: Interviews Big Ass Truck (maybe the coolest band in Memphis? Lotsa sound clips, so you can be the judge) and lounge radical Richard Cheese; Ray Charles turns 70 and Rusty Pipes was at the House Of Blues for the festivities; The various arms of the Grateful Dead machine release records; John Sekerka's own Xmas CD guide; In Everything Else In Review we have concert coverage of Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, The Clarks and David Grissman, and a few books to check into. Plus reviews, columns and stuff!

COSMIK RADIO!: Finally! A brand new edition of Cosmik Radio to listen to. With only a hint of Christmas cuz you're probably already up to here with that stuff, right? You just need a RealAudio Player to listen. If you don't have one, go pick one up. Cosmik Radio is just the kind of Net-Only audio that radio station program directors don't want you getting hooked on. So go ahead. Inhale!

BIG ASS TRUCK - Memphis is home to way more hot bands than the average city, but if you haven't heard Big Ass Truck, you aren't ready to cast your vote for the city's best. Guitarist Steve Selvidge interviewed by DJ Johnson.

RICHARD CHEESE - Think hard... Imagine the words to the Dead Kennedys classic, "Holiday In Cambodia." Got it? Good. Now imagine it being done by a lounge singer! Not just any lounge singer, though. This is the king of the cheese, so much so that he took the name Richard Cheese. Interview by Rusty Pipes.

GRATEFUL DEAD STUFF!! - There's a whole lot happening in the land of the Dead, with new albums from The Persuasions and others. In the center of it all, as usual, is David Gans. Shaun Dale has the scoop.

RAY CHARLES TURNS 70 - Brother Ray's birthday is celebrated at the House Of Blues in Los Angeles, with such guests as Willie Nelson, Billy Preston, John Cougar Mellencamp, Quincy Jones, Ashford & Simpson and our own Rusty Pipes, who lets you in on the details.

SEKERKA'S CHRISTMAS CD GUIDE - More like what's gonna be spinnin' in Sekerkaland this yuletime. Don't come lookin' for the latest Christmas music releases, because what you'll find is the stuff that may not be tagged at $18 this year, but definitely will put the nog in your egg. Give it a look.


CD & RECORD REVIEWS - Everything from rock to jazz to reggae and back again.

EVERYTHING ELSE IN REVIEW - This month it's four concerts and two books. Next month we might review a labor dispute. You just never know what's gonna be in Everything Else.



PIGSHIT - Gary "Pig" Gold asks just about everybody what the best and worst Christmas songs are.

TUNING IN TIME - DJ Johnson focuses on one specialized area of the Old Time Radio show collecting hobby: sports.

WALLEY@WITZEND - David Walley surveys the post- election mess and speculates on what President [FILL IN THE BLANK] can expect.

CLOSET PHILOSOPHY - Elway rolls right, pitches to Al Gore, who follows Confucius' block into the end zone for a touchdown!! Wait... what? I think we need our resident philosopher, Rusty Pipes, to put that into perspective.



CREDITS - The names and e-mail addresses of the people responsible for this thing.

COSMIK RADIO - Want an hour of music that fits the personality of Cosmik Debris Magazine? That's right, Sinatra segues into Megadeth into Peter Tosh into Man Or Astro-Man into... well, you get the picture. It's a little something we like to call Genre Whiplash. Or maybe you're in the mood for a trip into The Fog Machine, our mix of music of the ethereal variety. All you need is a RealAudio player. Come on in.

INTERNET RADIO STATIONS - Great radio is alive and well on the Net! Cosmik Debris presents links to take you where the good ones are hiding, from St. Louis to Dublin. You're no longer stuck with just the "classic rock," "young country" and "24-hour talk" that has your town held hostage.

OUR OWN WEBSITES - Many of the Cosmik Debris writers have websites of their own. We have some links right here.



Did you miss an issue? We now have many of our back issues online, including sound clips and extras. Check out interviews with The Witches, Electric Frankenstein, the Vampire Beach Babes, Jeff Berlin, Curve, Michael Shermer, Steel Pulse, Transglobal Underground, Mark Helm, The Southern Rock All-Stars, Ottmar Liebert, Jason Noble of Shipping News, Phil Vassar, Joel Dorn, Mark Cline of Love Tractor, Texas Terri (of Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones), Mike Keneally, Chris Shinn of Unified Theory, Alley of Wise Monkey Orchestra, Mario Escovedo of The Dragons, The Clarks, Big Ass Truck, Richard Cheese, Paul Krassner, Tony Iommi, Ron Dante... and too many more to list!!



I'm one of those people who has a lot of trouble with the concept of time. I can't quite make sense of the fact that the first eighteen years of my life took forever and the next eighteen seemed to happen while I was in the tub one night. While I was trying to reconcile that in my mind, another five years went by and I hadn't even taken my hand off my chin and changed expressions yet. It's very strange.

By the same token, it seemed as if John Lennon had been a part of this world - and I'm talking about his being a public figure - for a very, very long time when that horrible thing happened back in 1980. At the time, I couldn't remember the world without John Lennon in it, and for me he was a big part of it. Now here it is, twenty years after the tragedy that took him from us, and I realize that he's been gone three years longer than the total time the world was aware of him, and that just has me thrown.

He'd be sixty years old. I can't help but picture that V-Dub on the cover of Abbey Road, only in my version the license plate is 60IF. The night it happened, I, like millions of others including, I'm sure, a lot of you, sat alone and stared at nothing, not comprehending much of anything. Just numb. Twenty years have passed, we've all seen countless documentaries and tributes and heard numerous recordings, and somewhere along the way it just became a fact that ached a bit as long as you didn't think about it too long. Strange thing is the anniversary seems to have brought it all back. As my speakers pump out "How Do You Sleep," I wonder about Mark Chapman. I looked for my candle, the one I held at the vigil in 1980 and kept in my dresser drawer all the years after, lighting again only on the 10th anniversary of his death, and I can't find it. I don't know that it would have helped, anyway.

I wonder what the rest of you feel. I wonder if others have felt it all come back because of twenty years being such a milestone. Well, tomorrow it'll be time to get it back to just occasional thoughts of what was lost and what might have been.

And then there's this business of bringing you a magazine, which we have. Plenty to read about, plenty of sounds to hear. And I'm very, very pleased to welcome Melanie Campbell back after a year's hiatus. Check out her review of The Clarks' concert in Everything Else In Review, and next month she'll have an interview with them, too.

That's it. Enjoy the issue, and happy holidays from everyone at Cosmik Debris Magazine.

DJ Johnson
Editor