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1st record/1st concert
The first rock record I bought was "The Battle
of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton, a Number One in April 1959. Growing
up in America in the 1950s, you were much more aware of history than kids
are now. I think it was a reaction to the end of World War Two, an escape
to a prior, more heroic time. Not only was Disney's Davy Crockett extremely
popular, but there was an endless supply of Westerns (most notably "Gusmoke")
on TV, new shows as well as older feature films. I enjoyed reading about
the early Presidents, and knew about Andrew Jackson, the Colonel Jackson
referred to in the song. As a consequence of growing up in that era, I
became interested in American history at an early age. I might have majored
in it at UCLA, but I couldn't figure out what I could do with it other
than teach. Obviously my interest in history expressed itself through
the nature of Rhino's business.
While I was too young to be aware of the nuances
in what makes a great record, "The Battle of New Orleans" certainly
had them: it told a story, it was cinematic in that the background chorus
sounded like an army marching, and Horton certainly delivered an effective,
dramatic lead vocal. It was definitely a unique record.
Interestingly enough, much later a neighbor gave
me a copy of Homer and Jethro's "The Battle of Kookamonga."
I liked that record, too. And through records like that, and those of
Stan Freberg's and Mickey Katz's, and later, Alan Sherman's, I developed
a lifelong love of novelty records.
The first "concert" I saw was The Seeds
at the Westchester Recreation Center. It must have been late 1967 or early
1968. My guess now is that the Seeds were on the commercial slide to consider
playing the venue. Whether or not that was the case, it was an excellent
show. Even without a regular bass player (like the Doors lineup), they
matched the sound of their records. Sky Saxon was charismatic, pushing
his "V" displayed hand at the crowd. Daryl Hooper, the keyboardist,
was dressed in 18th century finery and very animated. The group faithfully
played their hits, "Pushin' Too Hard," "Mr. Farmer,"
"Can't Seem to Make You Mine. " It was exciting.
--- HAROLD BRONSON is the co-founder of Rhino Records,
and producer of the new film “My Breakfast With Jimi,” a docu-drama
about the Turtles’ visit to England in 1967.
AFM - Mar 04
Hello, Larry
Larry Geller was a guest on my tv show recently. He was always a mystery
figure in my readings about Elvis: “Hairdresser/spiritual adviser”
is not a job description I’d seen elsewhere.
New York born, Larry went to Fairfax High in L.A., a classmate of Phil
Spector and the Teddy Bears. He worked in Los Angeles at Jay Sebring’s
Fairfax Avenue hair salon when, in 1963, he was called up to Elvis’s
Trousdale Estates home to give Elvis a haircut. When finished, Elvis asked
him to tell him what he was “about.” Larry said he had been
studying religions for many years, that he was a spiritual seeker. Elvis
said, “Wait a minute, I want to TALK to you.” From that moment
til he died Elvis kept Larry at his side (excluding 1967-72) as a trusted
friend and counselor.
He was at Elvis’s house when the Beatles visited.
He prepared Elvis’s hair in the casket.
Larry was a vague figure to the Memphis guys. Colonel Parker treated him
like a fellow con-man, eventually telling him he respected him for “snowing”
Elvis. But then Larry’s home was burglarized and ransacked while
on a compulsory visit to Parker’s Palm Springs home, and he was told
to leave the inner circle by a tearful Elvis.
He was called “the swami” and “the rabbi” and other
things by the guys around Elvis, so there was no true explanation of his
role til his 1989 book, “If I Can Dream.” It’s quite a
story.
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I saw this sleeve on a french
45 and the pic shocked me, because of the thousands of pictures
of Elvis I’ve seen, this is the only one that he ever looked like
Lisa Marie. Larry concurred!
Service
My girlfriend in college and after worked as a waitress1.
I heard lots of stories. How the middle-aged man would leave cute, vivacious
Bonnie a $100 tip, and as they slid from the booth his wife would pocket
it. How the party-giver would hand a stack of money to the maitre’d
“for everyone” and he would keep it. And how merely being a
customer can empower thwarted tyrants.
The good thing about her working at a prime restaurant up the Flatirons
in Boulder was that every night a drunk would come in and order a steak
and not touch it. Bon’d bag it and I’d eat good at midnight.
But I am uncomfortable at restaurants. I feel a tug of war between the
servers and me. Of course, I have this waitress-deflection ray on my forehead;
if my gal is scanning the room, her gaze slides right past my upraised
hand and pleading eyes. (Maybe she’s scanning to ensure that nobody
wants her, and my appearance disrupts that picture.) When I tug at another-body
and ask for her, they say “She’ll be with you in a minute,”
with not the slightest engagement.
But though I don’t lack, uh, verve, I am loath to chide the waitress
who avoids me. The idea that I am entitled to boss them around for the
pittance I leave (I’m a 20 percenter, but sometimes that’s a
buck!) makes me feel arrogant. I think the wait-persons seethe at me the
same as at all diners.
The thing is, the only people who should be in restaurants are kings.
Frank Sinatra tipped 100%. For that, people fawned over him. When I have
pie and coffee, how many times am I entitled to call you for refills when
I’m giving you 75 cents? And the flipside is imprecise. If the wait-person
has been remiss, never even bringing the butter, just disappearing into
the back til she brings the check, what good will it be for me to non-tip?
Whether I look like a vagrant or a millionaire, that blank table will
just say to her, “Bum,” and she won’t mend her ways, she’ll
lament the cheapskates and losers she gets.
I enter restaurants anticipating anxiety. I eat at home a lot.
1 This is a music
item. The Waitresses made “I Know What Boys Like,” a very good
song.
No Truffles, Just Pigs
November 20th, the daytime tv ‘news’ orgs were sick with redundancy
in their obsessive quest for Michael Jackson. For a long time, seven or
eight screens on my tv held a picture of an airplane in a hangar. “Michael
Jackson is allegedly on that airplane” they said in their various
brainless ways. Then a car, or caravan emerged, and a few dozen helicopter
pilots risked their stupid lives circling with 2% different shots of a
bunch of cars on a highway, and then a tripod shot showed, with great
excitation from the announcers, Jackson exiting a car and entering a bldg.
The chatter was unbearable. KCBS’s Kent “I’m getting Under
The Table” Shoknik’s prattle was typical: “It is a black
sedan. He is getting out of the rear passenger door. Does anyone know
why we were told he would be in an SUV? Someone find out if that was a
diversionary measure.” This was Santa Barbara, not Iraq. The screens
continued to be filled with still shots and repeats of Jackson’s
entry walk, abetted with airheaded rehash and innuendo for more than an
hour after his entry. This moron-frenzy was a new low, even for tv news.
That was November. Since then ceaseless reports and speculations clog
the newspaper and airwaves. All are negative; comes to mind an L.A. Times
headline that the Santa Barbara prosecutor “failed to get a convic-tion”
in 1993. I believe in our legal system that means he’s not guilty.
And the L.A. Times’ Randy Lewis did a dull-thud docutorial on the
fact that Jackson’s sales have slipped in the past ten years. Did
Lewis or his editor think this oft-noted news was startling? Or necessary?
Were his thumbs-down quotes from customers at a record store “representative”
as he presented (or, god help us, believed)? If the sales drop is really
hard news, where was Lewis or his boss in 1975 when John Lennon put out
his last lackluster album in a long sliding series?
The difference then from now: Lennon wasn’t an accepted target like
Jackson or R. Kelly or Martha Stewart.
Funny, but not2
More TV news. Seconds before a commercial break, an ‘anchor3’
said “And coming up, Calcium -- Maybe it’s not the cure for
osteoperosis.”4
The station then ran an ad for a calcium supplement for osteoperosis.
When the news returned the story was gone.
Nobody thinks tv news is there to inform you; it’s just there to
fill space between ads. But you might relax your guard once in a while
and think it has some slight veracity. Cancelling news in deference to
an advertiser shows their business to be clearly craven. But they’re
so good at car chases5.
2 Pointed out
by Todd Everett.
3 An anchor is
a mass of lead.
4 From wire services
no doubt. Those Action News teams you see on the sides of buses sweeping
arm-in-arm down the street are on their way to their agents or makeup
advisors, not on the trail of “breaking news.”
5 How can these
fools face one another, or look in the mirror, after an hour spent saying
“Look he’s changing lanes without signaling” and “He
ran another stop sign. How many does that make?” And someone, somewhere,
somehow tell me how the guy driving the car is the “suspect.”
He is the driver! He is the guy who just did what we just saw. You don’t
have to name him, just say he’s the DRIVER. Someone release me from
this Alice In Wonderland world!
Jaz Me, Dady
When people have questions about jazz they come to me, after they’ve
queried every other person on the planet. Still, I opinionate.
In the 70s the term Triple-Z Jazz (Jazzz) was invented. What it described
I couldn’t tell you -- jazz with funk? jazz for screwing, like John
Klemmer?
With Norah Jones and Al Green and Van Morrison on Blue Note, the new definition
of jazz is simple; pop music by people who swing slightly.
Let’s call it Single-Z jazz -- if just to help crossword puzzle writers.
Rumors
I don’t know what has happened to journalism training and newspaper
standards since I went to J-school. Though I learned little there, a few
things stuck, like don’t print something you can’t prove, and
investigate quotes, don’t run them wily-nily.
On an A&E tv bio of George Reeves: “His manager was reported
to be connected to the mob.” Reported? By whom? (“Confirmed?
Of course not, but let’s run with it anyways.”) Of his first
wife: “Supposedly, she burned an eternal flame in his memory.”
(Supposed by whom? Is it true or isn’t it? “Oh, just run with
it, it sounds good.”) “Legend has it” that he talked a
young boy out of shooting him with his father’s rifle. (“When?
Who cares, it sounds sexy.”)
That’s tv. You don’t look for truth there. But in the 2/12/04
NY Times, Sharon Waxman writing about Michael Jackson (the unconvicted
buggerer!) includes these jello-solid additions to the ongoing character
assassination:
-- His new adviser “is alleged” to have ties to the mob. (He
denies it, but that’s no reason not to run the allegation.)
-- Consumer advocates “have criticized” his business practices.
(So, then are they true? DO SOME INVESTIGATING.)
-- Jackson has rented a $70,000/mo. house while not paying his bills “two
vendors said.” (WHAT ARE THEIR NAMES? LOOK AT THEIR RECORDS.)
-- “One adviser” said Jackson had plenty of income. (WHAT IS
HIS NAME? DID YOU LOOK FOR PROOF OF THIS?)
Why do I have to vet these amateurs? Aren’t there editors at the
NY Times?
TODD EVERETT: 1/9/04 Letter to the L.A. Times
In today's paper, one of those who are noted as
having crossed over is the 54-year-old author of three well-received novels,
who died Dec. 22. The story continues, "(Lucas) Crown, her literary
executor, said that she had completed a fourth novel, 'Ghosttown,' and
that efforts will be made to have it published posthumously." As
if there were any other way!
Britney’s wedding took (or didn't take) place, the Associate Press
story continues, in a Las Vegas chapel that "has been the site for
weddings by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore and Natalie Maines, among others."
Show of hands, now: how many of us knew that Willis is a bigamist? Hell,
I didn't even know that he was a Mormon.
I Watch TV (too much)
I enjoy the shock of music history references on tv shows, but a rerun
episode of Nash Bridges, set in San Francisco, was too much even for me.
A cop, seeking to authenticate a woman’s localness, asks her if she
saw the Jefferson Airplane’s debut show at the Fillmore, adding “I
fell in love with Grace Slick that night.” She says yes. The cop
says “She’s lying. If she saw their debut at the Fillmore, she
would have known that Signe Anderson was the lead singer then.” Yoiks.
And re-watching “The Buddy Holly Story” I spotted two errors.
- When they’re offered champagne in the record company office, one
generic7 Cricket
says “Just get me a Dr. Pepper.” This was New York in 1957:
Dr. Pepper wasn’t sold anywhere outside the south then. (In fairness,
maybe the scene where the office assistant says, “WHAT?” was
cut out.)
- The announcer at the Apollo8
says he feels as “clean as a Safeway chitlin.” Safeway? In New
York in 1957?10
As the blind man handed a matzoh said, “Who wrote this shit?”
7 One ongoing
R&R Hall Of Fame shame is the Crickets. They inducted Buddy Holly
and -- that’s it. He did swell records solo, but “That’ll
Be The Day” wasn’t solo, and neither was “Rave On.”
When Decca took him to Nashville in 1956, they supplied him with inappropriate
accompaniment, and the recordings were terrible. When he resumed with
the Crickets -- Wham! The Crickets sound. So, then, their omission from
this movie -- their real names are never used -- and from the friggin’
R&R Hall Of Fame -- Of Shame! --must make them very frustrated.
8 The black man
who announces the Crickets’ arrival at the Apollo office is “Stymie”
Beard -- from the Little Rascals9!
9 The Young Rascals,
one of the best bands of the 1960s, dressed in Little Lord Fauntleroy
outfits at first. But in that entire decade and since, NO ONE has had
the audacity to duplicate the Little Rascals’ Carl “Alfalfa”
Switzer’s middle-part/single straight-up hair-strand hair style.
(“Alfalafa” is buried in the Hollywood Forever -- I’ll
say! -- cemetery on Santa Monica Blvd near Gower, not far from Rudolph
Valentino’s crypt. He was shot dead in an altercation over a card
game in 1959.)
10 The L.A. reference
betrays the writers’ homeplace and unworldliness (like TV shows that
routinely refer to any state’s automobile registration office as
the DMV). This, then, relates to a recent rant by Todd Everett. (See if
you can find the sarcasm in the opening line.)
As you know, it takes a lot to get me riled up.
One of the things that does upset me, though, is the use of local references
on television programs; Worse still when the writers get the local reference
wrong. I was watching "CSI," the current top-rated show. It
takes place in Las Vegas, and is shot in Valencia (about 30 miles outside
Los Angeles). In this episode, the inventory of a van includes “a
Thomas Guide." Well. We in California -- a group that most likely
includes the show's entire production staff -- know a Thomas Guide is
a book of detailed maps of California's major metropolitan areas. But,
I wondered, is there one for Las Vegas? The answer is: no. Thomas (now
a branch of Rand-McNally) makes Guides only for California, part of Arizona,
and Washington. D.C. Not Las Vegas. Since he doesn't elaborate on what
a Thomas Guide is, everybody other than those familar with those specific
areas (but not familiar enough, maybe) is left in the dark. It took me
about two minutes to learn that Thomas Bros. does not make a "Guide"
for Las Vegas. So what's the show's excuse?
The Way I See It
Corporations run our lives! So I decided not to go the big corporate 99
Cent Store11 recently,
and opted for the lesser-known 98 Cent Store on Vine, to kill time while
waiting for the shish-kabob and hummus plate at Al-Wazier on Gower Avenue.
(The same street made famous by Warren Zevon on “Desperadoes Under
The Eaves.”) The junk was cheaper by more than a penny because it
was not obtained with the buying power of that big mean chain. Still there
was stuff. One thing was a pair of smallish (I have little beady eyes,
like all the great lovers: Warren Beatty, Jim Morrison) sunglasses that
had a polarized tag. I was fascinated when Polaroid12
sunglasses came out in the late 50s13.
You kept your head straight, and glare lessened. You turned it sideways
and it returned. You peered at the polarization-sample on the tag, and
turned it til it turned black: double polarization is black magic!
I bought them, and later handed them to an unaware friend and had her
look at the reflection on a kitchen counter. She did, and said it didn’t
look any different. “There there” I said, “turn them sideways”
and she did - and voila! the glare went away. And that was when I realized
the glasses were mismounted in the frames: the only time the polarization
worked was when you turned your head sideways 90 degrees.
I guess I’m back in the arms of Corporate America.
11 A friend swears
he saw a 99 Cent “outlet” store on Reseda Blvd. in the Valley.
12 On a Huey Meaux
radio show from the early ‘80s, he refers to his friend as “Polaroid’
because he’s Cool Ray.
13 Only after
getting a long, expensive line of them did I realize they made them of
plastic intentionally, so they would scratch and wear out. GLASS polarized
lenses came out around the 70s; I don’t think Polaroid ever made
them.
The Last Laugh
When I taught a R&R history class at UCLA Extension in 2002, Phil
“P.F.” Sloan visited, at my request, to speak and maybe drum
up some ticket sales for his forthcoming appearance at McCabe’s Guitar
Shop.
When guest Gene Sculatti said something about the “death of hippie”
march in Frisco in 1967, Sloan interrupted to say that he was there in
1967, and that wasn’t how the hippie movement died -- Nixon and others
had put bad drugs on the street to steer kids away from political action
and turn them into mindless consumers “like the people in this room
today.” He knew how to shock a room into silence.
Phil thought succceeding generations had sold out. But it’s the current14
thing for everyone! I was talking to a keyboardist about the established
punk band he’d joined. “It’s not clubs so much now as corporate
gigs” he said. I gagged at the idea of their playing a business gathering,
as much as I did a couple of years ago when I learned the Cramps played
them. “It’s not about whether to sell out anymore, it’s
about how to.” This launched him on a description of a record cover
he once saw, a black singer dancing on a table in white tie and tails
while a bunch of businessmen stared up at him. “It was called ‘I’m
Not Selling Out, I’m Buying In.’ ”
This stopped me even deader. And then him, when I told him that the artist
was Swamp Dogg, and the second businessman on the left was me.
14 Who can forget
the Jefferson Airplane’s white Levis ads? Praps that’s what
they wore at the revolution.
LEN CHANDLER, SWAMP
DOGG COVER, Big Jay McNeely
A Simple Twist Of Fate
Folksinger Len Chandler was recently on the show. He made two albums for
Columbia in the early 1960s, then one, “Live In Japan,” in 1975.
A longtime fixture on the folk circuit, Len sang at Martin Luther King’s
appearance at the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, backed
by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. He also worked in the voter registration drive
in Missisippie in the early 60’s. And in the late 1960s he was a
fixture on radio KRLA in Los Angeles, singing songs about the day’s
news.
In 1962, he wrote, “Beans In My Ears,” a song advising children
not to put beans in their ears. The Serendipity Singers recorded it as
their followup to “Don’t Let the Rain Come Down” and it
attracted good airplay and sales, then suddenly went off the air. Len’s
father in Akron, Ohio, called the local radio station asking why they
had stopped playing the song, and was told that local and national boards
of health asked for its removal because of an increase of children putting
things in their ears.
Len, a lively 68, lives in the Silver Lake area of L.A. with his wife,
actress Olga James, who had a prominent role in the film “Carmen
Jones.”
The Deacon’s Still Hopping
On February 7th, I had Big Jay McNeely on the tv show. It’s so great
that he’s still touring and rocking, considering his first hit, “Deacon’s
Hop” was in 1949. His day-glo sax is prominently featured in the
Experience museum in Seattle. HIS song, “There’s Something On
Your Mind,” was the first version, released on Swingin’ (Hunter
Hancock’s label, in Los Angeles) a year before Bobby Marchan’s
version.
Today Jay’s biggest market is europe, particularly Germany. There
he has toured and cut an album (“Blues At Daybreak,” Acoustic
Music, 1992) with Christian Rannenberg, the German blues pianist, with
whom he appeared on my show. (I love my “work.”)
Jay still blows up a storm, and “walks the bar.”
And he’s always looking for gigs in his native land.
Technophobia
I went to a modern recording studio15.
The engineer explained that the latest quad technology is actually 6-speaker,
so the middle isn’t just in the middle, it’s in the front and
rear. I asked what this had to do with music.
“Absolutely nothing. It helps the economy.
The record companies get to reconfigure successful old albums and re-sell
them. Now you can hear the cymbal hit in the front, then glide over your
head to fade behind you. And as they rise from 48-bit to 96-bit to 192-bit,
they eat up more space and require more memory so you have to buy more
computers. It’s a glorious engine designed to waste money and energy.”
Sitting there, I came up with the techno-revolution’s slogan:
“When the music’s not enough........”
15 I saw a Sony
Music poster honoring 100 years of Sony labels: Columbia, Epic, Okeh and
more. I endorse calling these Sony labels, as I intend to
buy the Phil Spector catalog and re-name it The Art Fein Sound.
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Mark Leviton’s son Michael wanted suggestions for make-out music
for a party. Only requirement they be pre 1968. Here’s my response.
Stay Beside Me - Ritchie Valens
I’ve Just Got To Forget You - Bobby Bland
No Use Cryin’ - Ray Charles
Love Hurts - Everly Bros.
Since I Fell For You - (Young) Rascals
Red Sails In The Sunset - 5 Keys
My True Love - Jack Scott
After Midnight - Amos Milburn
I Need You So - 1. Ivory Joe Hunter 2. Elvis 3. Orioles
I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton
(1974, but good for shock value -- she wrote it, and sings it just a tad
better than that howling banshee who did the 80’s hit)
I Almost Lost My Mind - Pat Boone
Lonesome Town - Ricky Nelson
It’s Over - Roy Orbison
Twelfth Of Never - Johnny Mathis
La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf
Giving Up On Love/Need To Belong - Jerry Butler
No More Lovin’ - Bo Diddley (C’mon, a Diddley ballad!)
Ginny Come Lately/Sealed With A Kiss - Brian Hyland
Fool Fool Fool - Impalas
She Cried - Jay & The Americans
What Time Is It - Jive 5
Two People In The World - Little Anthony & The Imperials
My Prayer - Platters
Azure-Te - Louis Jordan (MCA/Decca)
Paradise - Ronettes
I assume you don’t need the big hits of the 50s, Donna, To Know Him
Is To Love Him, etc. A few of these are from 1960-1963. Not much of significance
happened after that.
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