|
1st Record/1st
show
It’s difficult to pick and describe what I would call
the first concert
I attended; there were so many encounters, places I showed up at and
consequently got to see/hear a band.
Music was a big part of my family. My dad was always rehearsing with big bands
and my mom was a singer and played organ. There were old musicians around our
house and always some sort of record spinning on the turntables.
In 1964, we lived on Resistol Street in Garland, Texas. We had a 7-11 a few
blocks away and one Saturday afternoon I witnessed what I would probably describe
as my first real concert; it was a rock’n’roll band, I didn’t know
the name of the band even then. There were 4 guys; one was on electric guitar
and singin’ lead, another guy was also on electric guitar, another on
electric bass guitar, and a drummer. They played songs I had not heard before
except maybe at the movies where my older brother and I would usually go every
Saturday and get in with a quarter with a nichol left for a sucker. (Strawberry)
It was very exciting to hear rock’n’roll live and in person and our
dad swiftly dragged us away saying that “it isn’t music”.
We continued our love of Rock’n’roll of course, through many resources
such as our uncle’s records (Buddy Holly, Elvis, etc), and most importantly
the local movie theatre where we saw Dick Dale in “Beach Party” and
the Beatles in “A Hard Days Night”.
We moved to Holme Street about a mile up the road in 1965 and all the kids in
that neighborhood were amazed that we had no Beatles records.
I had collected records since 1961 when my older brother assisted me in breaking
my leg, and I had to lay down the whole summer. So my mom would get the records
for me that I liked on the radio.
It’s once again difficult to say which was the first; but amongst my favorites
back then would be “Witch Doctor”; Sinatra’s “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers” (I
later took this to school and got sent home for bringing “mature music” to
class!), etc.
I would later buy my own 45’s of course, and the first of these would include; “Little
Red Riding Hood”, “Dirty Water”, “Barbara Ann”, “Hanky
Panky”, and my favorite record/song of all time “She’s Just My
Style” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys.
On Holme street in Garland, we saw some other live bands at various places
such as; the Texas State Fair in the Cotton Bowl where there was a rock’n’roll
combo playing “Roll Over Beethoven” in the Beatles style. The guitarist
rocked, which is more than I can say for any of the “guitar players” I
have heard nowadays.
The first concert I paid to get into was also when we lived on Holme Street
and there was a Roller Skating rink, (I didn’t roller skate, but I went
there cause there were supposed to be a lot of girls that hung out there. I
did skateboard of course), we went to occasionally.
One night when we went there, they charged a 50 cent cover, which was a lot
for us but we paid it anyway. When we went in, lo and behold, there was a rock’n’roll
group blastin’ the joint! It was the “Cavemen”, all dressed up
in furs and such, and rockin’ the kids with a bitchin’ version of “Louie
Louie”!
Later, in 1965, I formed my first band which I wanted to call the “Surfers” but
settled on the “Batmans” (sic). This group included my best friend
Todd Quigley who chickened out on performing in front of an audience and had
to be replaced by a guy named Rusty who lived across the street from us. An
improvement in musicianship but the Batmans were never really the same. The
rest is history. Party on.
Frank Lee Sprague is a Sprague Brother by birth. His new CD, “Merseybeat,” on
Wichita Falls Records, is selling ‘round the world.
***************************
Click Here For:
***************************
Another Fein Mess/
AF Stone’s Monthly
April 2005
I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times Pt. 1,298,356
When I worked at Variety (1973), and throughout the 1970s
long I’d
gone, the staff used standard non-electric typewriters. It was perhaps
to hark back to their old-timey roots. There I applied what I learned
in journalism school, to keep a bottle of rubber cement to insert a
paragraph in a story.
With each move up in technology my writing lost a little soul. Typing
on my Underwood No. 5 (it still has a good “throw”) was faster
but less focussed than writing. The IBM Selectric was a dream, but
also involved a loss of spirit. Now that I can insert words and paragraphs
without consequence -- one of my two technological lifetime dreams,
the other being a phone to use while walking -- my soul is buried in
the gleeful word-avalanche that I spill out, and I must pick through
it to find it.
My first computer was a Commodore, with floppy discs that flopped. It had
a diabolical feature that could only have been designed by The Devil. The
disc held 5000 letters, but if you reached 5000 it locked shut! If you were
in the 4990s and your fingers were flying you might overlook it and -- Bam!
All gone. On this self-lacerating system I wrote my first book. Today I use
a shaving-mirror iMac, and we have a lead-weight Gateway PC in my daughter’s
room that is used only for accumulating pop-up ads.
Last Xmas I got a good (Bose!) CD “walkman” to use at the gym.
(Actually to make me go to the gym.) But at SXSW I felt like I was carrying a
78 player with a crate of shellac records. “You carrying those huge silver
discs around?” prying, pitying eyes seemed to be saying.
Everyone had an iPod. “I’ve got 1,100 albums on this thing” some
maniac told me like the time he spent loading them was an accomplishment
rather than a cry for help. But SXSW itself was great. (See above.)
Oldies Dope For Youngies
-- In BACK IN THE USSR” by the Beatles, he’s “flying to Miami
Beach BOAC”. That’s British Overseas Airways Corporation, now defunct.
-- In WOOLY BULLY he says “Don’t you be L-7, come and learn to dance.” The
letter L and the number 7, when pushed together, make, almost, a square. So “Don’t
be a square.”
-- In JAILHOUSE ROCK by Elvis, “the whole rhythm section was the Purple
Gang.” Detroit hoodlums in the 1940s. Songwriters Leiber & Stoller were
ten years behind the time, crimewise. Their ‘SEARCHIN’ “ by
the Coasters cites radio gumshoes Sam Spade, Charlie Chan, Boston Blackie
and Bulldog Drummond years beyond their currency.
-- Leiber & Stoller had nothing on the writers of Fats Domino’s
1959 hit BE MY GUEST, which invited dancers to do the Lindy Hop, written
to commemorate Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic in 1927.
- In Sonny Burgess’s WE WANNA BOOGIE, he jumps in his “flivver.”1 This
word for a jalopy was ancient when I saw it in Hardy Boys2 books.
- BABA O’RILEY, title of a Pete Townshend record, is a goof both on
his reverence for a guy named Baba AND a dessert that was offered at fine
restaurants in the 50s and 60s, baba au rhum. (Sponge-cake soaked in rum
sauce.)
- Emerson Lake & Palmer’s BRAIN SALAD SURGERY was a line from a Dr.
John song that they liked. (And who ever thought ELP was just two steps from
Cosimo’s in New Orleans?)
- Bob Seger’s album SMOKIN’ OP’s refers to a midwestern expression
for cigarette moochers: “Oh, your brand is OPs, eh? Other People’s!”
- Led Zeppelin’s song-title D’YER MAKER should be read “Jamaica,” as
the song is reggae-influenced, with the added interpretation of one bloke asking
the other if he “made” a girl. (Dya make her?)
1 This hard-rocking (the rockingest!)
Sun record features the only rockin’ trumpet solo in history. Besides “Paralyzed.”
2 This series of boys’ books had
no author, but were written by a committee and periodically updated.
Ya Gotta Have Friends
Phil Spector hosted a party to celebrate his recent engagement. Someone showed
me the invitation list and commented that the guy who edits the music dept
of one of L.A.’s million-circ newspapers would be there.
“No he won’t” I said. “Phil is controversial right now. That
newspaper guy claims to be friends with every big musician he meets, but he won’t
risk his standing at the newspaper by showing up at Phil’s thing.”
Sure enough, he wasn’t there.
Business
It’s a year-round holiday now. Once, cards were sent at Christmas, Mothers/Fathers
Day (holidays that were invented to sell cards, goods), Valentines Day and
-- what else? Now when the Valentines cards go down, the Easter cards go
up. EASTER Cards? Remember Halloween cards? Me neither. St. Patricks Day
cards? Thanksgiving cards?
But I do like the category, “For Dad and His New Friend.”
Rockin’ Critics
On a recent show I rued the fact that you can say more clever things when slamming
someone than when praising them.
Neal McCabe said, “And you look more powerful. When you criticize someone,
you are superior, looking down on them. When you are praising them, you are
below, looking up.”3
That sums it up : Admit your inferiority or roar your superiority --
For crits, it’s a Hobson’s Choice.
3 An exception is Bob Hilburn of the L.A. Times (in “some say” his
first appearance in this month’s AFM) who looks equally smart in both
praise and criticism.
The 7 Question Method
Why say ‘ironic’ instead of ‘sarcastic’?
Why say ‘penultimate’ instead of ‘ultimate?
Why say ‘quintessential’ instead of ‘essential’?
Why say ‘legendary’ instead of ‘old’ or ‘revered’?
Why say ‘flaunt’ instead of ‘flout’?
Why say ‘infamous’ instead of ‘famous’?
What’s with “an” in front of “h” words? I heard on tv
this morning “the police received an hysterical phone call.”
“An” is inserted by people afraid of being declasse. You can spot them
at baseball games ordering “an hot dog” or “an hamburger.”
And can we drop “wild card” unless we know what it means?
It is a matching-card. If you have 2/3/4/7 and a wild card, you have at best
a pair of 7’s and you lose to a ‘natural’ pair of 8’s.
It is not an extra card.
It is not a sure winner.
It does not always tip the balance.
Tangier - Ian McLagan
Ian McLagan and the Bump Band, based in beloved Austin, Texas, recently
performed in L.A. (Mark Andes, from Spirit, is now in Ian’s band.) Ian told
me that Tangier restaurant, new to music (where I’d seen Jonathan Richman
in February) had simply refused to pay him:
“We had a blinder of a show and the place was packed, but afterwards the
manager of the club told my tour manager he wasn't going to pay us. Luckily
my agent was in town for the Grammies so she gave him a piece of her mind and
he eventually paid up. Wanker! I've heard since that he tries it on with every
band and some of them just accept it. Bastard! Now at the Mint it was a completely
different story. Everyone was so great to us and we were paid extra! We're
going back for two nights soon and we'll never have to go back to the Tangier.”
When I noted that he was the original iMac. He said: “And my full name,
Ian Patrick McLagan is an anagram of Maniac Part Lacking.”
Old Tapes
Vetting an old tape cabinet I found cassetes of many interviews I’d done
in the 70’s -- Frank Zappa, Sensational Alex Harvey (both of those in noisy
venues, almost useless) -- and I thought of my friend who always threw his interview
tapes away. As a historian I shuddered and asked him why, and he said “So
people won’t know how stupid I am.”
Listening to my tapes I see his point. If those interviews ever got out, people
who actually KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT the artists would tar and feather me.
Supercilious Snobbism in “American Heritage,” Feb/Mar 2005
Jazzbo Will Friedwald, asked to reflect on Elvis (!!!) writes: “His
demotion from king to laughing-stock was confirmed for me in the eighties and
nineties, when he was increasingly spotted walking the earth, always by hayseeds:
Elvis pumping gas, Elvis driving a pickup truck, Elvis ordering a bucket of chicken
from the Colonel (Sanders, not Parker). But for years two people I revered, the
critic Gary Giddens and the writer and editor Robert Gottlieb, kept telling me
I was wrong to dismiss Presley so offhandedly. Finally, in the summer of 2004,
I decided to see what all the shaking was about. I got hold of RCA Records’ four
big Essential Masters boxes.”
So THAT’s who they’re pumping out those reissues for -- idiots! We’re
supposed to cheer because he “came around” in 2004? That he consulted
brahmins to find his way? Thank god it wasn’t someone pumping gas or
driving a pickup truck!
And the jackass doesn’t know when to quit:
“In my head I can hear Louis Jordan or Ray Charles doing “Blue Suede
Shoes,” but not “His Latest Flame” or “Girl of My Best
Friend.”4 These
last titles are particularly peurile.”
Peurile! You mean like “A Tisket A Tasket” by Ella Fitzgerald?
This guy should be kicked in the head! American Heritage has no class.
4 “Latest Flame” is my favorite
Elvis song. Of the other, I kind of agree with songwriter Sam Bobrick that Elvis
didn’t give much effort to GOMBF. It sounds like a first-take. Ral Donner’s
was better.
I’m Sorry
to pick on journalists, but ....
In the 3/9/05 NY Times, Robin Pogrebin tells us someone’s tearing down
a 1949 bldg in NY, which irks preservationists:
“Although Lapidus’s mix of French Provincial and Italian Renaissance
styles were long scorned by some critics as “palaces of kitsch,” the
Miami Beach style has come back into vogue in recent years, giving his buildings
both a retro and preservationist appeal.”
What a tangled mind has Pogrebin. (“Were” for one.) The style was long
scorned as “palaces of kitsch,” in quotation marks. How can you put
this in a quote form, yet not quote someone? -- or more than one, since “they” scorned
it? The work “kitsch” came into common parlance around 1970: as
what, then, was the bldg scorned before that? (And, of course, by whom?)
And what of this anonymous, long-held negative judgment? The style is only
good or bad vis-a-vis “some critics” (“some” could be 20%, but
not 80%, or even 50%). The whimsical and arbitrary notion of these critics’ notions
is exactly madness: today’s champions will, then, certainly be overtaken
by succeeding naysayers. No actual standards exist, she avers. Ergo, architecture
critics are as full of shit as those in art and music.
Speaking of New Yorkers
Thomas J. Lueck, in a 3/7/05 NY Times article about malls in Times Squares
disturbing locals, quotes one Annette Heally, first (she must be pretty old!)
vice president of CB Richard Ellis, saying “Who wants to shop where
you get caught in that slow-moving crowd from out of town?”
She resents OUT OF TOWN crowds? She can tell who’s not “from here” en
masse? Leuck’s failure to call Heally a paranoiac xenophobe speaks ill
of what passes for normality in that city.
Grrrr
In a 2/19/05 L.A. Times article about a man whose credit rating was ruined
by Home Depot’s refusal to address their own reporting errors, Staff Writer
David Haldane, apparently new on planet Earth, characterized this as out of character
for HD, a company that, he wrote, “prides itself in customer service.”
David, it’s always good to visit a store you’re describing. Home
Depot, rather than priding itself, disgraces itself by closing 7 of its 8
checkout lanes so customers can swipe their own purchases and bag them after
waiting in long self-service lines!
“We fire our service people to make more money for ourselves” is their
motto. Soon they’ll force customers to unload trucks.
Changing Of The God?
In the 1/31/05 L.A. Times, Bob Hilburn writes that Bono “has taken over
Peter Townshend’s role of resident philosopher in rock.”
I was astonished. So, perhaps, was Townshend. Maybe Bono.
The passing of a crown is a big deal. Who, then, bestowed the switch? And why?
Has Townshend, apparently the lame-duck bull-goose philosopher, willingly relinquished
his title? Did he know he had it? Why, then, is his philosophy now rejected by
a fickle bunch of..... Say, what kind of people seek philosophers among rock
stars?
The answer is Bob Hilburn. He is both the king and the audience for this.
As Bono whispers great nothings in his ear he writes them down, for he is
the philosopher king’s scribe. What does Bono say now? And what did Townshend once say,
and why isn’t he still saying it?
I knew Jerry Lee Lewis was the ALL-TIME philosopher of rock in 1976 when
I heard him intone at the Palomino: “Women! Women! Women! I love WOMEN!
I was born feet-first with a hard-on!”
Good Bad
I’m not always a positivist. I enjoyed these slams.
- Book reviewer Louis Menard in the 2/7/5 New Yorker: “If you have a
tolerance for repetition, digression, first-person indulgence, and general
narrative shagginess, then you are not likely to find a more affecting and
intellectually absorbing book on film as a popular art.”
- Stanley Crouch in his book “The Artificial White Man” (as reviewed
in the NY Times): Calling rap videos “the new minstrelsy” he chides “gold
teeth, drop-down pants” rappers being portrayed as “bullying, hedonistic
buffoons,” adding that if a white producer had dreamed them up “they
would be run off the planet.”
Ackwards-bay Ompound-cay Urd-ways
Upswing is a rarity, an acceptable backwards word. Offputting is another legitimate
one. But what about offloading? Unloading sufficed for a couple hundred years.
Upscale is of course detestable, no room for discussion.
So let’s reverse everything --
I was off-dozing at the concert.
That guy off-pissed me.
I Don’t Wash My Hand
Groucho Marx, in ‘The Marx Bros Scrapbook’:
“Harpo played the fucking harp, which I hated.”
“George M. Cohan was a dirty cocksucker.”
In 1974 there was a party for the new Grand Funk Railroad album at the Beverly
Hills Hotel, and Alice Cooper came in with Groucho Marx. As they passed through
the crowd people flew over to see them.
When they passed by me I shook Groucho’s hand.
In My Diary
March 11, 10 p.m.
I just watched a movie and I am shaken.
I got it at my late friend Bill’s house. I went through his tapes and took
a few, among them the “Big TNT Show,” the 1966 followup to the TAMI
show. It is widely unavailable, no CD, never was a VHS. I’d meant to tape
it when it aired on PBS two years ago but screwed it up. (Apparently Bill got
it right.) So tonight in rewinding it (it was in mid-reel) I stopped to make
sure it was indeed what it was marked, and stumbled on the opening of the Ike & Tina
portion.
I fell apart. It was SO POWERFUL and SO REAL. Tina was settling into “A
Fool In Love” with Ike and two other guitarists doing steps back, forth,
and sideways while a drummer pounded and three black girls in high school
cheerleaders clapped and swayed manically5.
It was a sensory overload. It was so goddam great I began sobbing. (I was
alone.) A joy like this don’t come knock knock knockin’ every day. That song
ended and they did “I Think It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.” I know
Tina’s good, but I never saw anything like this. A third song, “Please
Please Please,” was great. Then “Goodbye So Long” with interplay
between her and Ike. It was so wonderful.
I rewound to the front. The film opened with a bunch of kids running to the
theater and the Modern Folk Quartet doing “This Could Be The Night,” which
sounded like it could have come off the first Brian Wilson solo album. (It was
produced by Phil Spector. Phil organized the music for the movie.) It set a pulse
of excitement. At the outset David Callum “conducted” an ork who ignored
him, then it was Ray Charles doing “What’d I Say.” This was powerful.
Then Petula Clark doing “Downtown.” Funny this 30-year-old woman
playing to an audience of 15-year-olds6.
(The longhaired boy whose hand she took was Sky Saxon!) Then it cut to Bo
Diddley. He was on fire, hitting the guitar and strutting, launching into “Hey Bo
Diddley” with girl singers undulating sexually. So great. Then into “Bo
Diddley,” wonderful. Then the Lovin Spoonful, good. They did a false
start, then re-began. What a great move, leaving that in. They looked not
too young, and happy.
Then -- Joan Baez. She gets a bad shake in history. Nobody likes her, do
they? She comes on like a nun and sings in endless vibratto. When I saw her
in “Festival,” the
lookback at the Newport Folk Festival 1964-66, she was cute and funny and warm
and sexy even, joking around with Dylan. She needed PR. Someone to warm up her
image. She was serious. She sang “There But For A Fortune,” and
it was grim. Then Ray Charles again doing Georgia, and then Let the Good
Times Roll. A Louis Jordan song!7Then
Joan came back and did “You Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ “ with
Phil at the piano. Decent. Still too much vibratto. The the Ronettes, my god,
stupendous. Then Roger Miller did three songs. Now Pet Clark again. (Her “You’re
The One” seemed natural til I remembered the Vogues had the hit with it.
Turns out they covered her song -- she co-wrote it.) Now Donovan, “Universal
Soldier,” place gets kinda quiet. Don’t know this second song, about
a cat; guess I ought to listen to his pre-Epic stuff. Now “Bert’s Blues” --
great! Now a fourth Donovan song - let’s return to rock & roll please.
Oh joy, it’s Ike & Tina, once again. As breathtaking as my first viewing.
I am re-bent in ecstasy. When she’s on a runway screaming, “Has anyone
here ever been HURT?” I saw Phil racing down an aisle maybe to correct
an equipt thing, and sensing he was on camera he ducked down.
Finally, oh goodie, David McCallum again. Oh that’s right - he had albums
on Capitol conducting recent pop songs. Maybe he got the idea from the equally-valid
Andrew Oldham Orchestra.
The opening credits blare that it was filmed live in Hollywood (at the Moulin
Rouge, nee Earl Carrol’s Vanities, soon to be the Hullabaloo). My fr Domenic
thinks that’s a plus, bec the L.A. scene here was the envy of kids throughout
the world.
He’s wrong; it was a secret. I was a pretty aware kid, and all I thought
of Los Angeles was that it had blonde simps like the Beach Boys. Could I have
imagined - would I have believed - that the Ronettes’ heavenly New York
street sound came from L.A.? (New York singer and producer.) Or even that
the Doors hailed from here? I thought nothing of L.A. except the kids seemed
healthy (from my family trip, summer 1961) and hot-rods in car magazines
seemed to come from here.
But Hollywood? That was where the movie stars were, and they were not square
they were supersquare: nothing on screen pulsed like music. Hollywood was movies,
and movie people existed in a vacuum.
5 New York guy Billy Altman says he shows
this clip to kids when he teaches R&R history, and someone always asks him
if it’s been sped up.
6 Pet Clark was one of the successful
interlopers of that period. She was not a young person, she’d been a
chanteuse in the 1950s (!), but she was accepted as an idol, even though
she was just visiting. Except for Ike Turner, who was around in 1951 (!!!!!!!!!),
were any other 60s acts carried over from the 50s? Frankie Laine and Andy
Williams and Frank Sinatra all tried to adapt to the times, but none sustained
themself in the rock market. Neither did Petula, come to think of it.
7 The song is about a poor guy going
out on the town. After the line “I got a dollar and a quarter, but don’t
sell me cheap, I’ve got 50 cents more that I’m gonna keep!” he
laughed “I don’t think y’all know what I’m talkin’ about.” He
could tell that the audience was mostly teenagers.
Puzzling
In the 7/23/04 NY Times crossword puzzle, 62-across is a 15-letter word or phrase.
The clue is: 1959 pop hit that asked “Why?”
I can’t find the 7/24 issue with the answer.
My letters, which may be wrong, are:
- - - E N A - - - I - - - - E
Harvey Sid Joke
Did you hear about the musician who won a million dollars in the lottery?
Asked what he was going to do with the money, he said
“I’ll just keep gigging til the money runs out.”
- 57 -
Letters
------------------------
From Mark Leviton:
OK you didn't attribute it to me which is probably good -- I was the guy
who started the Angelinos singing Barbara Ann at one of Sandy Fox's NY/LA
afternoon fundraisers, and Major Bill (Liebowitz) waited patiently before
telling me what an idiot I was.
I was, but I do learn from my mistakes. Sometimes.
-------------------------
From "Anonymous":
Damn, Kate Sullivan is a powerful(ly bad) writer!
Love the intro to her Marianne Faithfull interview in the L.A.Weekly :
“It’s time we considered the gift artists give us when they don’t
die— ladies especially.”
Why “ladies especially”? No reason given.
Later in the interview she was upbraided by Faithfull for not knowing “The
3rd Man Theme” (movie or song).
You go, Katie.
|
