|
I was born Seattle late in the summer of 1962.
I shared a room with my teenaged sister until she moved out in mid 1967.
Our bedroom walls were covered with pictures and posters of The Beatles.
The record player was in the basement where my sister and her friends
(including her boyfriend ,Gary, who looked just like Ringo) danced and
chatted and made out to the music of The Beatles. I actually have no memories
of a pre-Beatle world. They seemed to be at the center of the universe.
I remember that my sisters copy of the "Meet The Beatles" album
had kiss prints on each Beatle's faces. For years I thought the record
came that way when you bought it. At that time there were 5 of us in the
immediate family, myself, my sister, my two slightly older brothers and
my mother. We all loved The Beatles. They were a family affair, like spaghetti
dinners, which we all loved as well. It was so perfectly natural. On a
long drive to Mount Rainier or British Columbia we would all sing together
in the car, mom included, an entire Beatle album from start to finish.
I can't think of any other music since, ever bringing to my life the level
of joy The Beatles seemed to effortlessly achieve. In the late 60's I
was glued to my little transistor radio. I slept with it next to my ear
on the pillow at night as most children would with a teddy bear or security
blanket. Rock 'n' Roll saved me. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!!!
My older brothers were big music fans and I listened a lot to what they
were into for a few years, taking notes toward my own developing taste
in music. One brother was into heavy, druggy, rock such as Hendrix, Joplin,
Led Zeppelin and Free all of which at the time I disliked immensely. It
took me many years to learn to appreciate some of that music, which I
do now, to an extent. My other brother liked funny, and sometimes strange,
music such as Alice Cooper, T-Rex, Kraft Werk, and Frank Zappa. I still
don't understand how he even found some of this music. No one was around
to turn him on to it. He just found his own way. Remarkably sophisticated
of him for a 12 or 13 year old boy living in Seattle around the early
70's. A lot of girls my age were fans of Donny Osmond in the early 70's.
I couldn't have been, even if I'd wanted to be. My brothers told me they'd
kick my ass if I even thought about liking Donny Osmond, for they disliked
him so! I guess I can thank them for that.
It was 1972 and there was a beautiful song on the radio called "Daniel"
sung by a guy with the strange name, Elton John. I was compelled to buy
the 45. I don't recall buying records prior to this one. I never had to,
there was always a plethora of music in my house. I played it over and
over, watching that pretty rainbow label go around and around. I even
played the flip side!
I decided I wanted to know more of this guy, Elton John's, music. When
I got my allowance soon after, I decided to go find an album of Elton
John. I rode my bicycle down to the local record store filled with anticipation.
They only had one of his albums left in the rack, I guess he was more
popular than I thought! So, I bought the album. I was on my way back home
with my new record when one of my big brother's friends saw me and stopped
to say hello. I told him I had just bought an Elton John album. I was
so proud of myself for buying a whole album, like a teenager would do.
He said, "oh yeah? Let me see it". I pulled it out of the bag
and he looked at it. He read the titles of the songs on the back cover.
The album was called "Tumbleweed Connection". He said, "this
record's no good, it doesn't have any hits on it"! I was devastated.
My first album was no good. I got home and put it on anyway. I opened
the fold out package. I was thrilled to see all the wonderful photo's
and lyrics and...so much to look at! As the music unfolded, song by song,
I began to cry. I was having a profound artistic experience! This music
was very deep! I was overwhelmed with its beauty and the delivery of his
incredible vocal. I decided that my brother's friend was really stupid
and didn't know what he was talking about. This music spoke to my little
child soul. From that moment on, nobody ever dictated what music was right
or wrong for me.
Alice Copper was on his Billion Dollar Babies tour and I wanted so badly
to go with my brother to that show, but my mother wouldn't let me, otherwise
that would have been my first rock concert. As it turns out my first concert
was Elton John in 1974, when I was 12. He was completely outrageous and
wonderful and exiting, but I didn't really have a mind altering experience
until I saw (without knowing a thing about her) Patti Smith at the Paramount
in Seattle in 1978. She left my teenaged jaw hanging open for days. I
have to admit seeing her performance changed my perspective on music and
lead me into a whole other realm of investigation there of. I went "out
there" to see it all and now I'm back home with a rejuvenated love
of all that is Beatle!
Fein Mess May 04
Crrraasshhh
In late April, one-third of my files were deleted: I thought this didn’t
happen with Macs. (My Mac-mentor says it was something called “operator
error.” But I never called the operator!)
Therein were bits and pieces of this month’s Mess.
Dat Mess done gone. So dis Mess strugglin’ and stragglin’.
Oldies
A new station has emerged at the left end of the AM dial here in LA. Simply
called Oldies 540, it comes from Mexico (shades of Wolfman Jack!) and
plays “real” oldies, meaning pre-Beatle. That should be interesting
to me, but it isn’t much: I can’t get a thrill out of hearing
“Charlie Brown” or “Go Away Little Girl” no matter
how desparate I am for relief from the My Girl/When A Man Loves A Woman/California
Dreaming 1/Sittin’
On The Dock Of The Bay.
My first listen turned up only one “off” song, “Swingin’
School” by Bobby Rydell. I like Rydell, but it was no cause for celebration.
But the next day I was driving in my car when a steaming, rocking, familiar
instrumental came on, and I nearly went into a ditch with excitement.
I phoned Rip Masters, a fountain of instrumental knowledge, and stuck
the phone up to the speaker and he said it was “Bust Out” by
the Busters.
I own the darned record, but I did not remember just how exciting it was.
Jangling guitar, simple riffs, savage saxophone breaks, a sizzling drum
solo. It was so different - so much better - than anything on the radio
I was paralyzed with ecstasy.
So despite the morass they serve up generally, it’s good to listen
to Oldies 540. Hearing a song like “Bust Out” is like winning
the lottery.
1
Moron Oldies
But CD re-releases of old songs are often fascinating for formerly unreleased
stuff. Like a girl chorus, never heard before, on “Solitary Man,”
and an excised piano flourish on “Mack The Knife.” Or the original
version of “The House Of The Rising Sun” with the full organ
break and “One foot on the platform” verse. Or the extra verse
in “Please Mr. Postman.” Those latter two were trimmed for single
(and album) release, but nobody told the re-releasers, so we’re the
richer for it.
Or not. The slow intro now present on “Tossin’ & Turnin’
” was tossed out for single release, and it was better off without
it. (TE)
But what about XM satellite radio, that they’re throwing in new cars
now? No commercials, they proclaim. Not quite true: its 50s channel runs
50s commercials, because they’re craaaaaazy about nostalgia, and
features disc jockeys with names, like the egomaniacs who plague regular
radio.
The supposed advantage of XM is that you can look on the screen and see
the name of what’s playing, so here’s how they ruin it: On their
Folk Village station, the goddam ANNOUNCER’S NAME appears on the
screen during the guy’s run, so you wait, like on regular radio,
til it’s over for the back-announce. And, like on regular radio you
better catch it fast. Wouldn’t it be better to have the song title
run for the full duration of the song, giving the listener more than a
split-second to get the info? But why make it easy for the listener when
there’s an announcer’s ego to be fed.
They have a country station, Hank’s Place. Their promos are read
by the most phony-sounding “country” shitkickers I’ve ever
heard. If this insults me, I can imagine how it goes over in the real
South and West.
The Broadway station is OK, spans 60 or 70 years, though I could do without
the past 20. And they too sneak in an announcer now and then. They used
to have a random station, channel 31, but they took it off.
With 140 supposed channels (many missing) they could have a dedicated
rockabilly show, but instead they run a 2-hour show on Sunday nights.
I’m so grateful! And they give you commercial stations like KISS-FM,
Disney, MTV and network news.
Want news without ads? Look elsewhere.
Want non-stop music? Buy a CD.
Mother England
Longtime Santa Monica resident Chris Spedding has moved to England, emigrating
to the land of his birth. Speaking of which, Chris was given up for adoption
at birth, and recently located his birth mother there.
k-k-k-k.d.
Don’t care for “It’s A Wonderful World,” or Tony Bennett
much, but when the k.d. lang/Bennett duet of that song is played on a
tv ad, I love it.
k.d. was a real riot when she first came into American view in 1979. She
was a performance artist who claimed psychic connection to her idol Patsy
Cline. Asked not long ago what happened to that connection, she said “I
think someone else is channeling her now.”
In 1988 I went to a video taping of k.d. and Roy Orbison (oh hell, did
I tell this story already?) and stopped Orbison after the show.
“Roy” I said, “Bear Family just released your RCA sides
and the cover has you wearing the wooly white sport coat with the stripes
and black collar that Elvis wore at Gracelend with Natalie Wood. Did he
give it to you?”
Orbison grew irate: “Hey, I shopped at Lansky’s too. I bought
it before he did!” But I’m not sorry I asked.
Slippery Subject
Why is our music so mysterious to outsiders? It’s established, it’s
known, it’s not like it’s 1957 and it’s some newly-emerging
hodgepodge not understood by the mainstream.
In the Sunday, May 2, NY Times crossword puzzle, the 54-down clue is
”-- on a Monday” (Crystals lyric)”
“I Met Him On A Sunday” was an early song by the Shirelles on
Decca.
Did the puzzle makers, bearing out “a little knowledge is a dangerous
thing,” see that the group’s subsequent label was Scepter and
confuse it with Spector, then insert a Spector-group’s name? And
THEN got the day wrong!
Oops
So I called Todd Everett, to see whether he had the “Crystals Uptown”
album, full of cover songs from the early 60s -- maybe they had recorded
“I Met Him On A Sunday” -- and we both snickered at the NY Times’
sloppiness til he snapped -- “Wait a minute -- I met him on a Monday
and my heart stood still.” Da do ron ron ron da do ron WRONG.
Good thing I don’t write professionally.
Thanks, Mel!
A friend’s daughter got an online Easter card from her elderly religious
Catholic grandmother showing an animated rendering of Jesus being nailed
to the cross. The nailers spoke Hebrew.
Art Fein & Jessie Fein
D.C.
I went with daughter Jessie to Washington D.C. the week after Easter.
Two music things in the Smithsonian American History museum stood out:
- The top floor had plenty of music stuff, including “Mike McCartney’s
2 Liverpool,”
a huge installation of 1964-era Beatle photographs. (I’m not complaining,
but what part of America is Liverpool?)
- I was surprised at the liberalness of the museum. In their 1950s photo
gallery was a large portrait of the Weavers, who were blacklisted in the
McCarthy era for pro-communist leanings, or being left-handed.
I was also surprised to see a huge aerial map of Los Angeles, in a room
dedicated to California culture and products. (You could spot the L.A.
residents, drawn to the map like flies to light, looking for their homes.
We did.) Now that the Smithsonian has acknowledged L.A., maybe the Rock
& Roll Hall Of Fame will follow suit.
And the line into the National Archives is California-ish. After you trudge
slowly for 20 minutes in the line outside, you reach a sign that says
“You are 40 minutes away from entering.” Just like Disneyland!
(We trudged to another site.)
2
Rock Around The Clock
Longtime friend and Poker Party guest Jim Dawson writes interesting narrow-cast
books. One was the history of the Twist, one the history of Big Jay McNeely
and the honking sax, one was written with Steve Propes about 50 contendors
for the honor of “What Was The First Rock & Roll Record?”
(that book now selling for $100, where you can find it), another one with
Propes was the recent “History Of The 45.” And he also had a
relative best-seller with “Who Cut The Cheese - A Cultural History
Of The Fart.” He’s now preparing a whole book on the history
of “Rock Around The Clock” and the world surrounding its emergence.
So I find it interesting that two British guests on the Poker Party have
had the same story about Bill Haley. I always understood that Haley, the
first American rocker to tour England, in 1957, was met by a riotous turnout
of enthusiastic fans. Yet it turns out that although the reception was
indeed riotous, Haley himself was, overall, a disappointment to the mostly
Teddy Boy fans who envisioned him a lean, mean rocker -- a “dagger
boy” in Jack Good’s words.
Jack, sadly, was not the guest, but Ian Whitcomb was, who related that
English fans in those days idolized rude, roughneck Americans. Haley,
30, married, with a left-leaning spit-curl designed to offset his right
glass eye, was none of that, and was frankly frightened by the fans crawling
all over his railroad car as it pulled into London. Haley apparently disappointed
many people, it seems.
AF, JF, & Andrew Oldham
I say many because Andrew Loog Oldham, also on my tv show in April, made
a reference to the disappointingness of Haley that baffled me ‘til
I read his book, “Stoned.” In it he describes the same phenomenon,
teenage fans left feeling unserved when the kindly, soft Haley hit town.
But Haley’s appeal to his real fans, though, never diminished, as
“Rock Around The Clock” made #1 half a dozen times in the U.K.,
extending at least into the 1970s. And when I saw him at the Royalty Ballroom
in Southgate, London in 1979, his reception was -- royal.
Other Poker Party News
Paul Body & Preston Epps
Also had Preston Epps on the show! He managed a club called Bop City in
San Francisco in the early 1950s, then moved to L.A. (couldn’t afford
the rent in Frisco -- deja vu!) and founded the Pandora’s Box club
in Hollywood in partnership with “Seven Year Itch” star Tom
Ewell! (They were no longer connected with the club by the time of the
1966 Pandora’s Box-centered riots.)
Things That Don’t Fit
- Sonoma Valley Bagels
- The DVD, “Chicago, Raw”
- Harley-Davidson Lights cigarettes
SXSW Again
Since writing at length about this year’s South By Southwest, the
greatest musical gathering in the world, a couple other things have arisen.
Michael Hall, AF
- I met Michael Hall, the Texas Monthly writer, at the Pop Culture Press
party on Saturday. At first I noticed his close resemblance to the late
Gary Stewart, then he noticed me (!) and we gabbed. He sent me two CDs
of his band Michael Hall & The Woodpeckers, and they’re terrific,
especially “Lucky Too.”
- I recently picked up the March 22, 04 L.A. Times (I stack L.A. and NY
Timeses and read them when I get around to it, and some get pretty old)
and was horrified to find that their SXSW coverage was by Chris Riemenschneider,
who, in 2000 or so when reviewing for an Austin paper, assailed the Legendary
Stardust Cowboy when he played SXSW. He was a reckless kid then, scattering
insults and damage willy-nilly.
Complaints about his 2004 missive? Nothing drastic, just his overall snide
attitude, based on his being, well, a kid, and my discomfort -- and, should
have been, the L.A. Times’ -- over his use of the word “buzz”
three times.
What’s a buzz? What “everybody’s” saying? The reporter’s
value should be discovering stuff, not following the pack.
Old Goats
I was in an elevator of a tall building in Century City in late April
when the door opened and in walked Johnny Rivers! I said nothing, having
nothing to say and also remembering that at his last appearance at my
Elvis show he was rude and demanding. But he made some great records.
He isn’t very tall. Like Prince-size. He looks terrific, thin and
healthy. (Maybe not; it was a medical bldg.) He has kept his sometimes-trademark
goatee, though, and there’s the rub.
Ten years ago, maybe seven, goatees were epidemic (I had one), replacing
poni-tails (I had one) of the late 80’s, and a far cry though from
the 1970s when full beards were rampant (I had one) in the music world.
A full beard was a symbol, something connected to President Garfield or
the Civil War, something stable for a generation saddled with social and
political chaos uniting some of them (us) as what we were anyways, people
of an age group.
But what was the goatee? Something swashbuckling, like Errol Flynn as
Robin Hood or Douglas Fairbanks as a gypsy pirate. Or maybe a beatnik.
It bespeaks your fieriness, your potency. It is trans-hip, like the never-fading
Harley Davidson motorcycle; you have one in any era and you’re daring.
But these are black beards I’m talking about. How swashbuckling are
you with a white one? As much as Kenny Rogers, Colonel Sanders, or, ultimately,
the one from whom the name is taken, the goat.
Black beards scream out your potency, while white beards murmur that you’re
dead or nearly.
Where Was My Camera
In 1976 I was riding a motorcycle on Topanga Canyon Blvd when I spied
a garage sale. I crossed a bridge to an old house where some motorcyle-looking
guys (I was not a motorcyle guy, just a guy on a motorcycle) were sitting
around and went to a box of 45s. In it were a bunch of lousy recent promos,
so I sorta hollered “You got any more records?”
This was greeted by a hearty round of laughter. I was puzzled for a minute,
then looked closer. I was at the home of Bob “The Bear” Hite,
leader of Canned Heat 3,
one of the biggest record collectors around.
All I got was laughs. He didn’t pull out any valuable ones.
But boy, you heard stories about record collectors in the 70s. How one
would locate a warehouse full of rarities and buy as many as he could
and then somehow break the remaining ones so no other collector could
get them. (This is a throwback to a record company promotion man trick
I heard about from the earl 50s. The company rep would bring in his new
releases, and then slip into the record library and run a key along the
edge of as many 78 rpm records he could reach, causing them to crack.)
3
History Repeats Itself
Prince gave away his new CD at his recent concert here. This, and the
idea that people are letting you download their music, back-justifies
the old record company swindlers who gave a blues singer five dollars
or a bottle of wine for their singing services. Their argument was that
when the records were played on the radio the musician would become famous
and be able to charge more money for concerts.
It seems like maybe this wasn’t a ruse, as people today rush to send
their music free over the internet to become famous. Wouldn’t’ve
done much good for recluses like Harry Nilsson or Kate Bush, though.
Jokes Repeat Themselves
Now that everyone is recording at home and doing their own instruments
and vocal backgrounds it isn’t so rare anymore, but John Fogerty
was a pioneer when he singlehandedly made the Blue Ridge Rangers album
in the 1970s and two solos in the 80s.
When his string of recordings abated, it led to the widespread query “Did
John Fogerty break up?”
Gossip
What ex-Beatle was seen many nights in April singing with the house band
at a restaurant in a town near Sierra Madre?
-- 57 --
|
