ROCK

So anyway, Tony reads last week's column, right, (which, I might preface this week's column by saying, was brilliant, and, if not brilliant, at least it was art, and you don't cavil with art), and he comes up to me this week during the ritual "doling out of magazine space," he comes up to me, and he says to me, "Vomit. People like Harry's column and they think your thing is vomit."

Well, I happen to know of about six or seven people out there who think my column isn't vomit, although I think it is vomit, but artistic vomit, and you don't cavil with artistic vomit. (Vomit for art's sake, you know.)

So some people think it's vomit or they don't like it because I don't sign my name, or I make up silly names for the groups I list, and I make up different names (funny, right?) for the guy who writes the column every week, and I do off-the-wall (funny, right?) things like list the magazine masthead in my column, and, most importantly, my listings are incomplete. ("Well, tough jujubes, Tony," I said.) I'm on a multi-year contract here, and nowhere does it say that my listings have to be complete, or, for that matter, incomplete, or, for that matter, unfunny, or, for that matter, anything other than funny. There is really no bona fide outlet for truly creative writing around here, and so I sort of reserve this little niche, this little corner of the sky, this little piece of the proverbial pie, for whatever the hell I, the writer-as-writer (Read: WRITER), want to write. Nobody, including you, has to read this. Nobody jams Hustler magazine down your throat every month, Mr. or Ms. Community Standards. Now I'm getting mad, so I'd better stop. (But let me tell you this--words like "vitiate," "template," "crenelated," "absolve," and "New York Review of Books" come to mind!)

Listings? You want listings? I'll give you listings!!

Gary Wright, with Manfred Mann's Earth Band and John Miles will be at the Music Hall on April 2 at 8 p.m. Go home for vacation.

Charlie Daniels with the Steve Gibbons Band, April 8 at 7 pm at the Orpheum. Qua qua qua qua qua.

Joan Armatrading at the Orpheum the next night at 8 pm.

Marshall Tucker is sold out.

So much for the Don Law concerts.

(Sale on Landlubber denims at Jordan's this week.)

Oops! Don Law is also presenting Jethro Tull at the Garden on the 28th at 8 pm! Don't forget Bob Schvieger and Der Silverbulletbund with Der Ringer and Starz on March 18 at 8 pm. At the Music Hall.

Al von Schtewart has been rescheduled until April 15 (taxes!), so cool your buns.

ZZ Top and Santana too, and a normal reviewer would call this a Big Concert, but I just say, "At the Garden, last night, and you missed it."

(Sony sale at Brands Mart.)

Harry Chapin will be at the Brandeis University Shapiro Gym on March 27 at 8 pm. Dave Mason, etc. on Saturday at 8 at BC's Roberts Center. These college dates don't get enough exposure, at 5.6, 1/125, especially.

You also missed Kenny Rankin, because I left him out of last week's column, because I felt like it.

ELO!! ELO!! ELO!! March 30 at the Garden at 8 pm. Iggy Pop at the Harvard Square Theater Saturday at 8, and you already know about Bowie playing piano for him. This entire penultimate graf, which was supposed to contain a really clevel "tag" line, you can assume to have been Blown off in the Shop. Blown off in the Shop. And that's always REALLY funny.

Suggestions: Read the Real Paper Read Crawdaddy. Read Rolling Stone. Read Harry's column. Don't cavil with art. Lay off, OK? Later.   Another Pseudonym for Rich