by clem flowers

Their folks, their family, as understanding as you could understand- hell, they've got a huge pile
of records that put the bloom of rock & roll in their heart, and two other musicians in the family.
Hell, one of them, the older sister got profiled on MTV.

It was gonna be just about her, until they learned the rest of the family were stars in the making,
as musicians or writers themselves.

Then, sister Sara mentioned that they ought to meet the baby of the family, Dexter.

She pointed to the back yard as she lit a cigarette.

“You'll find him.”

And they did, set back in the deep, deep woods of the country, where the moon is even afraid to
walk, lest those North Carolina gumtrees swallow it whole.

A little shack, like the garage of the Addams Family.

An altar.
A pulpit.
A mausoleum for rock and roll.
(Hell, even he calls it that- “The Maus,” for short.)

But he did not come to bury rock and roll, no- they came to praise it.

24 hours a day.
7 days a week.

Like every James Dean & young Brando protagonist, he just fights everything & pushes back on
even the thought of getting a “real” job.

The universe put them on this Earth for one reason, and one reason alone.

Make rock & roll.

So they do.

They play it long, they play it loud, they play it all day & all night, putting all the poetry they'd
heard reach out through the years of thick vinyl, and the poetry all their own- words of love,

words of longing, words of anger, words of ache, tears staining every pillow- stopping only long
enough to eat & pass out for a few hours, beneath the etchings of their saints- Elvis, Buddy
Holly, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, Patsy Cline- before sneaking in the big house for a shower
before their folks wake up, just to make sure the moss eating away at the wood sides of the Maus
don't start to grab hold of their bones.

Effortlessly cool (that also speaks to hours of practice interviews when alone and aping the little
posters of all the rebels without a cause up on their walls,) he & drummer Crow wake-up the
neighborhood with their beautiful, loud, loud, loud gold.

He fell backwards into national TV- and he was ready for his closeup.
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30 years on from that first moment on TV and not too much has changed.

He's got a house all his own, rather than the Maus.

He's got notebooks & a computer to write the poetry on, rather than the walls of The Maus.

He's got a lot more guitars & equipment than he used to; all of it vintage, most still functioning.

He's been around the world many times over.

He's a cult hero, with Jack White citing him as a huge influence and singing his praises.

& that's fantastic, & he's flattered by all this kindness.

But he really only cares about continuing on with the romance of the century:

Dexter Romweber and Rock & Roll