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First Record/First Concert
It’s hard to pinpoint the very first record that I bought because music
was always around the house. I mean, I was playing Louis Jordan 78’s on
the record player when I was in diapers. As I got older my aunt Alice would always
buy my brother Charles and I, whatever new elvis record was out around Christmas
time. I will never forget the 45 of “jailhouse rock”, I think we also
got “wake up little Susie” by the everly brothers. So I didn’t
buy any of those but I owned them. I wore out the elvis record. “treat me
Nice”, the flipside of “Jailhouse rock” was my meatball. So I
believe the very first record that I bought with my hard earned cash was the
Ritchie valens album, the one with “donna” and “la bamba” on
it.
I got it for my birthday in October
of 1960. Ritchie had been dead for over a year and I remember seeing
the album in the advertisements for 12 records for 1.00 or something,
I think it was Columbia record club, don’t know for sure. But I remember underneath the album it called
him, recently dead…..immortal. so I figured his album had to be
pretty good.
So anyway one Saturday in October
of 1960, I went up to johnson’s
music store on myrtle avenue in Monrovia and bought my copy of the Ritchie
valens album. It cost 3.98. I still have the album and the price is till
there for all to see, barely. I remember it was Saturday, so after “gunsmoke”,
I put it on and it knocked me out. The song “in a Turkish town” was
world music before there was such a thing and the song “hi tone” reminded
me of this girl named Doris Bullock that I was infatuated with at time.
I played the album constantly for
the next few weeks but by then I started buying other records like “when Will I be loved b/w be bop a lula” by
the everly brothers and “the hucklebuck” by chubby checker
with his cover of “whole lotta shakin’ “ on the other
side. I soon forgot about the girl and jumped right into music.
So anyway the 60’s were rolling along, the Motown thing was happening,
james brown was on the scene and the impressions too. Sometimes you had
to go a little further down the am dial to pick them up. In November
of ’63, the week before kennedy was shot I bought “baby, Don’t
you weep b/w for your precious love” by garnet mimms and the enchanters
and by this time, another girl had my nose open. Dolores butler was her
name. of course, the next week the world changed and everything went
dark for awhile.
Which brings me to the first show
that I ever saw, it must have been early November of ’63 at the Duarte armory, there was show featuring
the rumblers, round robin. Robin ward and keith colley, I think. It was
a Saturday night and we were all there, dressed up like pride and
dignity. Everyone lip synched except for the rumblers. They were for
real. Remember this was the time of petti coats and spike heels and trying
to slow dance to every song. It was a great evening. It was my first
experience at a live show and it did not prepare me for the hysteria,
2 years down the line.
Within a two week period I saw
the stones and bob Dylan, both at the height of their powers. My buddy
got me the stones ticket because he snuck off campus and stood in line
at a record store in arcadia, the neighboring city. The show was at
the sports arena, downtown L.A. it was quite night, the stones were
loud, ragged and right that night. See, for the longest time. I didn’t
even know that anybody could go to a show, I always thought you had
to be special. Had I known different, I would have started earlier.
2 weeks later, Dylan and the hawks (the Band) were at the Pasadena
civic. Dylan was has white as ghost and he had on that brown checkered
suit that he was wearing at the time. The Hawks (the band), looked
like a bunch of country preachers. But the music that they played that
night was for knife fighting and whisky drinking.
I remember seeing my future brother
in law walk out because this during the time of that Dylan has gone
electric period. He was blowing the folkies minds. You have to
remember that this was 1965 and Dylan and the stones on stage, well
that was a nightmare to some people because the walls were beginning
to crumble. I was really never the same after that. Much to the chagrin
of my great aunt effie. Despite all goodness of all of that, here was
a show that I missed at the Pasadena civic, Ray charles, his orchestra
and the raelets featuring Margie Hendricks. It was a Friday night in
January 1961 and I wanted to stay home and watch the twilight zone.
Go figure
Paul Body, spoken word person, sheiks of shake drummer, television
panelist on the poker party, video clerk at video journeys, a lover of paris
and author of “love is like rasputin” and soon coming sometime
this millennium “hostage to the Beat”. If you want to hear more
about 1965, I have copies of the cd “love is like rasputin”.
Another Fein Mess
AF Stone’s Monthly
January, 2006
Bookends
Crazy times1. Had some
PRESSURE on my MIND in Nov/Dec. I lost interest in eating, though I ate. It’s
weird to disconnect from food. You look at it and think “I should be stimulated
by this, but it’s meaningless.” I lost 25 lbs, which should be enough.
Recently regained a bit of hunger, hope not to resume my old constant-eating
habits.
Went to a hypnotherapist. For $125 (!!!) I was in for an hour. After a
40-minute inquiry he put me under. Sort of. I never was hypnotized before
and didn’t
quite believe it this time. “Your arm will now rise by itself” he
said confidently. I raised my arm not to disappoint him. I laid back on the
reclining chair, closed my eyes on cue, and heard him softly build up to one
word, “acceptance.” Crap. For that dough I wanted a whole litany
to ward off the pain I was feeling.
I believe the subconscious feeds the mind. In a Self-Hypnosis book/tape2 I
bought, I learned that the phrase “Every day in every way I’m getting
better and better,” which I’d heard parodied in the 50s, was a byword
for a 1930s movement which maintained that the subconscious locks in good things
which, when repeated, led you down the expressed path. Which made me think
warily of my own mantra the previous two weeks, “I want to die” and “I
want to kill myself.”3
I felt no better after leaving. But 5 days later I thought I was cracking
up, so I called again. He went throught the hypnotism rap again, but this
time I went under fast, like I was glued to the chair. He shortened the preamble
and presented stories, parallels, pointing toward the solubility of my problem. “Put
it in a box” he said. “Enjoy, in retrospect, the wonderful thing
you once had, and celebrate it.” (Let’s say I lost my little red
wagon.) “Everything changes and things move on, so just appreciate the
fact that you had something that wonderful.”
It was a good rap, and I walked out of there dizzy like I’d taken a drug.
That calmness lasted well into the evening, when the ‘calamity’ reshaped
itself and revisited me.
But I had a tape. The therapist (no medical degree, PhD in psychology) made
it while talking to me, and suggested I use it at home. (The trance you enter
into is voluntary, and since you’re conscious you can break out of it
at will.) It was only 20 minutes on a 90, so I made my own affirmations. repeated
ten and twenty times over like the ‘30’s people. As days passed I
added more items, and by the end was skipping the therapist portion entirely,
choosing to concentrate on my problem as I identified it. It works sometimes,
is all I can say.
1 Decent song by Gene Vincent. Co-written
by my fr Paul Hampton.
2 The folks at the Bodhi Tree should
have given me 50% off. It was a TAPE. Nobody wants a tape, except me. Copyright
was 1995.
3 Though I did utter these things many
times, I never was serious. I could not kill myself for a simple reason.
I believe that everyone leads everyone else’s life, eventually. (Time
is, of course, an illusion.) I think this because I have had an untroubled
life. No major successes in any field, but I have not suffered, really, ever.
No great pains, no limbs lost, not born with irregularities, no horrid mistakes,
not born to a poor family in Rwanda, not burned at a stake, on and on. It
guides me in dealing with other people: if I hurt or swindle you, I will
someday experience that same malfeasance when I’m you. Next time around
I might be an ant that’s burned to death on a sunny day by a kid with
a magnifying glass. I’m certain I have lived and am still living an
easy life, up in the top 1% of all human existence, so I’m in no hurry
to see what comes next.
Old Record News
In 1971 I got the Drifters “Their Greatest Recordings” album from
Atlantic. Saw “There Goes My Baby” at the very end, cut 14, and a
bunch of other stuff I didn’t know. “Darn” I would have reviewed
it if I’d reviewed it, “what a ripoff.”4
Of course, when I got to know all the mid-1950s, pre-”There Goes My Baby” stuff,
I changed my tune: “Three Thirty-Three,” what a rocker, Clyde McPhatter
singing. And “Whatcha Gonna Do?” And Clyde again on “The Bells
Of St. Mary,” obviously the model for Bobb B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans’ version.
And, Clyde once more, “White Christmas” - holy smokes, the version
that Elvis did on his Xmas album.
Some gifts come in surprising packages.
At a book store in Walnut Creek in December I saw a 10-CD box set called “Rock ‘n’ Roll.” The
promise of Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, and others made me think “Chuck
Berry on Mercury, Bill Haley on Warner Bros and Carl Perkins on Columbia” and
other similar off-label junk. But I turned the thing over and glanced at the
6-pt titles of the non-name songs that followed each “star” lead-off:
Dig Me Little Mama, Back Up Buddy, Sag Drag & Fall, Diggin’ & Datin’,
Jumpin’ From Six to Six, Rock Me Baby, Beetle Bug Bop, Real Gone Rocket,
Saucer Boogie, Bawlin’ & Squawlin’, Whoa Boy, Good Deal Lucille,
Dig That Hot Rod.....
That’s 14 titles. There were 186 others on the box. It was a lalapalooza,
a goldmine of country and rockabilly and boogie faves from the early and mid-50s.
A bonanza for the epicure, and probably a drag for the ones who want to hear
the hits. (But maybe if they buy it they’ll catch on.)
The set cost $29.95, and I was the only one buying.
Order # 223002 from Membran International GmbH, Hamburg Germany
4 Even then I would not have used that
cliche.
Progess, Shmogress
I had the trans rebuilt in my ‘86 Volvo. It was that or buy a new car
for $30,000. The Volvo has 350,000 miles on it, but only 110,000 on the rebuilt
engine. What’s so special about this car? Nothing. It’s a square
car (literally, figuratively) that has a big enough trunk, and I can see 360
degrees around from the inside. (When I crane my head. I don’t have eyes
in the back.)
I learned from Rip Masters that the window area of a car interior is called
the greenhouse. (Nice!) This car’s greenhouse differs from any new car’s
in that it has strategically placed posts and supports, but no convertible-toplike
cowling that cuts out visibility. All cars today are designed with blackout
spots! And moreover, today’s cars’ rear’s rise. You look out
the back and the trunk lid slopes up. That way it’s difficult to know
where the car ends. A downsloping trunk gives you, again, good visibility.
So I’m sticking with what I know.
I Almost Took A Job 5
Among many humiliations in my life, job-applying, back in the
Mesozoic Era, ranks high.
* Just out of high school in Chicago I applied at an employment agency downtown.
The kid interviewing me was about a year older with an accent from, oh, Kentucky.
He gave me a test form and after I completed it said “That’s great,
Arthur, only one wrong.” Which one?, I said. He showed me a math problem. “The
answer is .001, not .01.” I protested that it was right, and showed him. “Well,
goll-lee, you sure are smart. Now tell me, how much would you be willing to
pay for a job?” I left.
* Sometime later, applying somewhere, I took another test that had you pick
out one thing out of phase in this series: Table, chair, dresser, window, chesterfield.
I wrote window, bec all the others were furniture.
“No,” the man said, “the answer is chesterfield. That’s a
cigarette.”
I reeled, and took hold of the test.
“This test is from Canada. They call a sofa a chesterfield there.”
The guy thought me dumb. The feeling was mutual.
* Being too smart (Oh, the burden!) isn’t so good. At a company meeting
at Elektra Records a department head proclaimed “The new Joe Walsh album
is going to be our penultimate new release.” Afterwards I pulled him aside
and said “I know you meant the primary or most important, but penultimate
means next to the last.” He countered with, “No it doesn’t.
I learned that word from a promotion man in Boston.”
I didn’t last long at that job.
5 A famous David Crosby song?
The Ignoramus Is Not An Endangered Species
This bit of mean-spirited rock writing from Michael Corcoran, Austin American-Statesman,
describing Joaquin Phoenix in the Cash biopic as "Ray Liotta with a harelip." Speaking
of overcoming medical handicaps, how about a sentence written by someone with
shit for brains? (KB)
Police Notes
In November I saw four police motorcycles sandwich the two black limos heading
up Highland by the Hollywood Bowl. A lone motorcycle cop headed into a sidestreet
and made a U-turn and stood sentry, insuring the limo passengers’ safety
from side-fire. I wondered what head of state was in town, but quickly realized
it was the Rolling Stones.
How the hell do you HIRE uniformed L.A. Police? If I have enough money, can
I make them drive around in circles for my amusement?
Antiques Roadshow
This venerable PBS show has undergone a change toward kindness. Every item
shown is a winner. In the past, they’d include people holding useless
things and record their disappointment. Like the guy who had a beat-up violin
with the name “Sophia” written inside it. “Someone told me Sophia
was Stradivarius’s girlfriend” he said. What a riot!
But every so often this blonde gal Lara Spencer appears and hollers some unwanted
information. Maybe PBS viewers are all hard of hearing.
Tales of LA City (-adjacent)
When Virginia’s ‘82 Toyota was totalled she got $1500 in compensation
and sought another car. She saw only heaps in L.A., and when in San Diego on
a Sunday phoned an ad that offered a 1999 Chevy Corsica for $3500. She left
her cell-phone #, and got a call-back from a man at a country-club who said
the car had 99,000 miles on it and was well-maintained. “I have only $1500” she
said. He said the price was $3500. “Well, I’m a 75-year-old single
woman holding two jobs. Does your country club ever give consideration to needy
people?” He said he would talk to the officials. Ten minutes later he
called back and said “Come pick up your car.”
Business
I can think of two stores that sell cell phones in poor reception areas. To
test them you have to walk out the door and down the street. The stores have
been there for years. Do they have an ironclad 20-year lease? The Sprint store
in Studio City has a line to pay your bill, and a notice saying it will cost
you $4 to do it.
I love the new vacuum cleaners that display the dirt and eliminate bags. The
bags were invented to make disposal neat! Now you have to shake the plastic
jar over a trash can and get dust in your face.
Breaking News! Everyone’s ordering online. You send in money and they
mail you merchandise. Just like the Montgomery Ward catalog in 1900.
This Just In: El Pollo Loco, which had supplied good plastic ‘cutlery’ has
thinned out their implements so they bend. But they haven’t yet gotten
to sporks, so we should be grateful.
And how about the thrill of on-line banking? The ads show a customer wide-eyed
to learn that he can do all the bank’s work -- and they don’t charge
him anything for it! The world has gone nuts.
Man it's great to live in the center of the universe.
I went to Amoeba Music6 at
10 p.m. to pick up my drivers license. That's not so pretty: I’d been
searching for hours, they'd had it for days (didn't need it til this morning),
they made no effort to contact me. After all, people who lose things don't
usually know where they lost them! Regardless, I went in at 10:10 headed to
see if any Alison Kraus CDs were cheap (like Dolly Partons that occasionally
drop to $5.98 - nope) and I heard a familiar song. Jesus Christ, it was "Too
Much," the original, on 4 Star by Bernard Hardison. I ALWAYS KNEW ABOUT
IT BUT NEVER HEARD IT. It was on a Memphis or Nashville R&B 1945-1955 CD
put out by the Country Music Foundation - Volume 2! I was dizzy from the serendipity
of encountering it. So I picked up a Kendalls album for $1.98 and a 20-cut
Helen Humes CD for $4.98 when I heard this incredible New Orleans back beat.
I asked the guy if it was Smiley Lewis, and he said "Close," not
the answer you'd get everywhere. He showed me the Champion Jack Dupree CD on
Atlantic. "Sold" I said. (He was pricing it, at $5.98 used.) This
was an incredible 15 minutes in my life.
6 Amoeba, at Sunset and Cahuenga, is absolutely
the most immense record-sales depot in L.A. It’s wiping out many smaller
(every other store is smaller) stores like the venerable Aron’s, which
is closing its doors.
Outside
the Modern Folk Quartet show, Kulak’s/North Hollywood, Dec
18th. Jerry Yester, Cyrus Faryar, Paul Surratt (formerly of Shilo, owner of
Research Video, L.A.), partly hidden - Chip Douglas, Tim Hauser, Henry “Tad” Diltz.
Blasters, AF 12/15
Carlos Guitarlos, Marcy Levy, Liquid Kitty/Santa Monica. 12/18
Carlos, Todd “Slim” Everett,
Santa Monica. 12/18
- 57 -
Letters
Every Xmas the last five years, we've been going up to Kutshers, one of
the last remaining old-school Catskills resorts. (Kosher kitchen - no butter
on the table at dinnertime!)
Sunday night, onstage at the Stardust Room: Joey Dee & the Starliters.
Out front - Dee, David Brigati and Bob Valli - latter two being bros
of you know whos.
Midset, Brigati steps up to the mic and asks if anyone in the crowd can help
him decide which Medicare Prescription Drug Plan he should sign up for. After
40-odd years in the biz, the man knows his audience!
Bob Valli kind of looks like Frankie, albeit put through the Addams
Family rack: According to Dee's onstage banter, he's a "44 long." Actually
he looks like Frankie crossed with SCTV's Joe Flaherty in Count Floyd mode...from
the audience, the whites of his his eyes looked completely red.
Not easy bein' Frankie's not-very-successful bro, I'd surmise.
Especially in Jersey.
The set, by the way, was one-third Starliters songs, one-third Four Seasons/Frankie
V. solo material - Bob sounds close enough - and one-third Rascals songs,
even though the only Eddie Brigati-on-lead Rascals tune they did was "How Can
I Be Sure." (So, sadly, no No "Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore.")
Then again, David sounds enough like Eddie and Felix Cavaliere combined that
it was pretty good.
Random historical musing: While we all associate "Shout" with
the Isley Brothers, it was actually Joey Dee's version that was the Top
Ten pop hit (#6 in March, '62.) While released twice-- '59 and '62--the
Isleys' original never made the Top 40 nationally. True fact.
Even better: At the show, Dee threw in "What Kind of Love Is This?' their
last big hit, from summer '62. Listening, it finally dawned on me that the
words AND melody of its opening line--"What kind of love is this?" --is
another Isley rip-off...stolen from "Respectable" ("What kind
of girl is this?")...said song to be found, along with "Shout," as
we all know, on the Isleys' '59 debut LP. And just to rub it in, of course,
the Outsiders re-did "Respectable" and had a hit with it in '66.
A double steal, then...pretty rare!
Billy Altman
From Neal McCabe
In the LA Weekly, Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics says this:
"Early Eurythmics videos were based on everything from Salvador Dali to
Marcel Duchamp."
Since both of these guys were Surrealist painters, this is undoubtedly the
most narrow (and thus the most meaningless) range I have ever encountered on
the Fein scale!
Man Ray
This One From Peoria
Hey Art,
hope things are going well this hectic time of year.
I got an email from a friend of a friend about his days going to hear Link
Wray play for frat boys. Dig it:
Dear Mike:
Your long message and World Tour attachment came at the perfect time. I checked
my e-mail Tuesday morning soon after learning that Link Wray died on November
5 at age 76 in Copenhagen. I got to know "The Link" as
we called him in the early 1960s. He played fraternity parties at the three
big weekends at Cornell U. and quickly became a legend. Recordings do
not capture the power and magic that Link Wray brought to the small parties
held in the basements of TKE and other houses. He loved dance parties--and
drew energy from the crowd. Definitely shades of "Animal House." Link
and his band would drive up from Dunn, NC, in an old hearse (I think a Caddy)
pulling a trailer with the drums and amps. Was the music loud? Oh, yes. After
three hours one was in pain--but, of course, a
good kind of pain. When I transferred to Union College in Schenectady in 1963
I encouraged friends at fraternities to book the Link and he became a legend
there. Those were the days when rock was accessible. Small venues were the
norm. Bo Diddley played fraternities at Cornell and I remember that the campus
cops used to take him from one gig to another because the band was so stoned.
But oh was the music dynamite. Please pardon my trip down memory lane. I obviously
have fond recollections of the good ole days before the Beatles changed the
landscape in 1964.
Cheers, Chuck
Art, I asked another friend who grew up at that time why everyone stop digging
Bo and Link when the Beatles came along? Bo and Link were still good, correct?
These fans liked them and then they didn't because the Fabs flew into JFK?
Puzzling.
Michael Ochs' pix of Conway are fantastic! I love "Long Black Train" on
MGM and "Give Me Some Lovin'" on Mercury as well as the smattering
of Sun stuff I've heard. Oh, and "Lonely Blue Boy."
One last thing. Peoria native Richard Pryor died last week and up comes one
of my favorite puzzlements: the chitlin' circuit. "Richard cut his teeth
on the chitlin' circuit...etc etc." Where is this circuit? Someone must
have researched this by now. There has to be an actual route. Or is it just
a metaphor for backwoods clubs and there is no acutal rhyme or reason to
the geography of it. If you know, please clue me in.
Happy Holidays, bob paton
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