BY RON EVANS
Renton-based ‘medium energy rock’ band Ball Bag has gone kaput. The Bag has played so many shows at Wally’s they almost feel like a Wenatchee band. The demise is the latest in a long-ass string of bands singer/guitarist Dicky Rossetti has watched crumble before his very eyes over the years. But, fear not - once again, Rossetti has risen like a stubborn phoenix from the ashes and will be returning to Wally’s this month with a new, freshly assembled, band - along with a ‘hot-off-the-record-press’ collection of Rossetti stuff (on vinyl no less!). The collection is a patchwork of songs from some of the musician’s many past projects. And yes... “Pizza, Chicken, Burgers” made the cut. Rejoice! I reached out to Rossetti to see just what the hell all of this is about.
A few years ago, we showed the documentary, Semi-Iconic, about you at RadarStation in Wenatchee. Twice; once to standing room only - the second to me and my brother and a few luckless women. Has life changed on any level for you post-documentary? Did that lead to any new kooky adventures?
Honestly, nothing has changed, it’s only gotten worse. I went to London a few times, but no one knew about me or the movie.
How many years was your most recent band -Ball Bag- together? Talk a bit about the forming, career and dissolution.
The Bag lasted about six years, Terry the drummer was in The Jilly Rizzo with me and I’d played with Bald Steve the bassist on and off. The group caved under the weight of emotional instabilities, financial misunderstandings, whining and overall morose.
I always loved the Ball Bag logo. Who created that?
Pat Moriarity, a very popular underground cartoonist who resides in Port Orchard. Good fuckers should check out patmoriarity.com and investigate the genius of one of the last few cartoonists actually putting pencil to paper and creating.
Your brand new release is a collection of miscellaneous doodads over your career from what I gather.
It’s called Very Limited Local Appeal…No Draw which is my entire situation in humorless, no fun, passive-aggressive Seattle. It’s been like pushing a 500 lb boulder up Rock Mountain since the Squirt days. Various rock outfits would get together, we’d play and put stuff out. I wrote, produced and did everything that needed to be done, from inception until the death of each band. There’d be all these great, great fuckin’ songs that would never be played again and this would be repeated with each ensuing group. I finally said “fuck it, these songs are stunning whether anyone had heard them or not!” And most people haven’t heard them. Maybe they will now? Probs not.
Was it pretty easy to assemble the tracks for this? Or was there some hemming and/or hawing along the way?
There’s too much good shit, “Pizza, Chicken, Burgers,” “Balding,” “Rockout,” “Does Your ‘Wife’ Like To Get it On?” “Nikki Sixx 7,8,9, 10” and “We Should Get A Divorce” had to be on it, but that leaves out the other juggernauts like “Pek Pek,” “Touchin’ Cotton,” “Butt Uglyest One In The Band” and “Ever Been So Bored You Wanna Kill Yourself?”
What are your musical plans for the future? Solo shows? A new band? Reuniting with old bands?
I’ve done a few solo shows. Actually, I emptied a place last gig, no shit! I think I lost them when I opened with “Robert Plant’s Cock” and doing “His n’ Hirsute” didn’t help with the “Bea Arthur shaves it all” line, even though most people don’t know what “hirsute” even means! My solo shows TANK.
What I’m doing now is what I should’ve done awhile back, a “greatest hits” band. I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with Swede the guitar player over the years, he was in Squirt and Twink but we’re working thru it with some weekly “come to Jesus” talks and whatnot. The drummer fella is a tall, lean, clean cut, exfoliating cat named Wedge who played in a legendary Seattle punk band called The Refuzors. And a wonderful, talented young man, a machinist from New Jersey, Matt on fender bass, and together we are Dick Rossetti & Bulk Male.
Aside from playing music, do you have any other projects in the works? Or ones you’d like to get to down the road? The great American novel? A signature line of toupees?
I’m working on a book, it’ll be awesome.
Toupees? That’s what gets me. The media, yourself included, deride them as simple “toupees.” The Bag wore actual “hair systems” that were professionally blow dried, styled and cut! Do your research, man.
You have been fairly critical of a lot of the popular music you saw come and go over the years of being a radio host. But you have also celebrated the bands that you felt were getting it right. Any current music that you’ve been digging these days?
No.
I will say this though, the only way to combat the forthcoming slaughter of shitty AI created shit music is to A) only listen to old music and B) only listen to music made by people you know, trust and can trace whether its origins are “organic” or just pure AI horseshit. Farm-to-table rock, if you will.
What’s one record (you actually play) in your collection that may surprise your fans?
I celebrate the Barbra Streisand catalog, I shit you not! That woman takes zero shit and has called the shots her entire career. It’s kinda disappointing she’s not a bigger feminist icon, she deserves it. That said, I’m balls deep in her 900+ page autobiography. Bette Midler too and enough disco titles to kick start a 1978 coke-fueled Studio 54 revival in my living room!
You have a performance coming up at Wally’s (3/23) - you have been such a staple there you feel like a local - tell us about your connection to Wally’s. And a little about what this show will be about. Will you have the record on hand?
I will have the record!
I have loved Wally’s since the first time I played there. Ando (the shot caller of Wenatchee rock) and crew were shaking up bottles of beer and then shooting the foam right into those big ceiling fans and shit got all over the place! And then they had to clean it up. I also got on the bar in my underpants and I distinctly remember thinking to myself “this is the GREATEST FUCKING PLACE in the WORLD!! And it still is.
Where else can people find the new LP?
Best way is to send a message to my FB/IG “dick rossetti bulk male” pages or the Ball Bag FB/IG pages.
Illustration by Pat Moriarity