"One of the things I'm most proud of is that when [Kurt Cobain] came out of his coma after that overdose the first time in Italy, the first thing he asked for was his Walkman and his Frogs tapes," Flemion says. "I'm most proud of that: that he had to have his Frogs fix -- a made-up batch, I guess. He was into us big time."
Cobain was famously fond of the phrase "God is gay" -- the title of a Frogs tune from the late '80s involving Flemion's vision of Jesus in a park, holding hands with an angel named Lark McGee.
Hop to it, sailor: Dennis and Jimmy Flemion are the
Frogs.
Details
With Little Fyodor and Babushka
and Magic Cyclops
9 p.m.
Tuesday, May 13
Climax
Lounge, 2217 Welton
Street
$8-$10, 303-292-LIVE
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"I said that before Kurt, and then I saw Kurt take credit," Flemion explains. "I'm sure I wasn't the first to ever say it. And it got spray-painted around Seattle or Portland or whatever, just to piss people off.
"I only met him once," Flemion continues. "I wanted to tour Europe with them, but they took the Raincoats instead. Had he taken us, he'd have been alive. That's what I'm sayin'. I'll never get over that one."
Accolades from grunge messiahs never hurt, but where exactly do they leave someone like Flemion in a dog-eat-frog world?
"TLC sells ten million records and they're bankrupt?" Flemion fumes. "How can that be? Because there are major motherfuckers in the music industry. Total sharks. These absolute bottom feeders are dictating to me what I can create. And at the end of the day, I'm going home and they're going to the mansion."
"Lisa Marie's third live show was on Letterman," Flemion continues on a roll. "She's never had to pay her dues in the club. Open Rolling Stone, and everyone's patting each other on the back. It's all bought and paid for, and nobody gives a shit, 'cause they're all on the payroll somewhere. Where's the ethics? Where's the morals? Where's anything?
"Even when you make it, you're on a damn pedestal and they're gonna tear your ass down. I have news for you: Just let me go to the top. I'll take it. I'm not gonna whine like these other jerks. They all whine when they're up there. I'll show you what being on the bottom is like.
"Look at Madonna. She's gonna play dress-up and makeup in the mirror the same way Prince did, because the guy's got so much time on his hands, he's gotta carve SLAVE into the side of his face, you know? So we get it. In a hundred years, is anyone gonna care what the sales were?"
Settling down, Flemion mentions plans for an upcoming Frogs boxed set -- though no definite release date or label has been decided upon -- as well as a new, unfinished record described as having a lot of space and sorrow in it, à la Neil Young.
"That's what I was going for," Flemion says. "I was trying to make somebody cry. 'Cause there's not a damn song on the radio I can hear now. They kind of censored all the sadness out of it. Everything is about the good times, you know. And that's not reality."
With night approaching, Flemion turns his attention to the one part-time evening job he holds to supplement his rock-and-roll lifestyle: a paper route. It's ironic, given his mistrust of the media.
"If I had it to do again, I guess I probably wouldn't have," he says. "I'd probably just stay in my room with my recording. I'm not playing the game. You can only whore out for so long. Unless you're handing it to me on a platter, fuck off. I don't want to know. I don't even want to hear that crap. It makes me want to hurt you."
