About this time last year, myself and the super-talented San Franciscan, DJ B. Cause, finished an album of “pop song sandwiches” that we titled, ‘The Jukebox Wizard.’ It is obviously a play on The Who’s ‘Tommy’ but with a twist. The New Yorker’s in-house music critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, graciously wrote a fictional eye-witness account of The Jukebox Wizard at work:
I have no idea who this guy was. He arrived around 7:45 PM, ordered a beer, took a sip, and just sat there and let the beer turn to lawn water. That was it. He just sat and stared. He had on these dumb mirrored shades and wore a Dungaree jacket. He could have been 21, 41, I have no idea. He never talked to anyone. Everybody thought he was blind, but he never stumbled or fell or used a cane. Not in front of me at least.At some point, when nobody else was using the jukebox, he went over and layed his hands on it. No—I got that wrong. He layed one hand on it and stuck out the other arm like he’s Trent Reznor reaching out to touch the black dragon. Some song I know we got on the jukebox, like “White Rabbit,” starts playing. Except it’s not that song. It’s that song plus The Police or something else from the radio. Most people liked it OK. People bought him beers, but he never touched them. This one guy gave him a twenty and the kid did nothing but stare at him. After he did his thing, he sat down and ordered another beer, took a sip, and then left. I haven’t seem him since. I kinda liked that one with Yes and Lionel Richie. It was angry and sad. I think the kid had, like, a GPS in his coat to pick up radio signals but Pedro patted him down and all he had on him was a pack of those Christmas Trees you hang from your rearview mirror. Dude was somewhere else.
– Bartender. Bill’s Bar and Billiards, Omaha, NE
Doc Delay & DJ B. Cause – Jukebox Wizard by Jukebox Wizard
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