1st Record/1st concert

My father was a songwriter, so I've been listening to records since before I was born. But the first one that had a memorable effect on me, when I was around 6, was "Ebb Tide." I was sitting quietly under the Victrola in the den of our new house in Great Neck when my dad came in with a record and, before putting it on the turntable, explained that this was his best song. I wish I could say it was Roy Hamilton's 1954 tour de force, but I'm pretty sure the vocalist was Vic Damone, whom I always referred to as Victor Moan.

When I listen to other versions of "Ebb Tide," even one as monumental as the Phil Spector-produced 1965 Righteous Brothers cover, they never quite measure up to my idealized memory of that first experience.

First concert might have been Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee at Folk City at some indeterminate time in the '60s. Wish I could remember more about it, but do remember that they whooped up the place and audience was literally jumping for joy.

Michael Sigman is a former editor (Record World) and publisher (LA Weekly) who now does freelance writing and editing.

A.F. - Mike’s dad wrote a lot of great songs, but the one I like best is “Civilization.” You’re hearing long gone Louis Prima’s 1965 version from Hanna-Barbera Records, sax played by the late Sam Butera.

Another Fein Mess
A.F. Stone’s Monthly
June 2009

The Weather

My friend from Michigan’s been here since 1970 and he still gets angry when the weather’s overcast. “I like it HOT” he says lizardly, Detroit in February still alive in his bones.

The first six months of an L.A. year have a few heat spurts but mostly stay moderate, climaxing in - it’s official - June Gloom. The cloudy 70-degree temp reduces traffic - some people here cocoon til the heat comes. Yet every year my poor Detroit-damaged friend says “It’s NEVER been this cold in June. Something is wrong!”

Summer comes in July, and my friend blossoms.
And I crawl under a rock til Halloween.

Into the mouth of Facebook rode the three hundred

A person or two urged me onto it. Now I have more than 300 friends, some of whom I actually know.

When I joined three months ago I was simply puzzled: What was I supposed to do? Now my inbox is jammed with people talking to each other. Exhibitionists! I’m no shy violet, but I have hardly anything to say en masse except the junk I write here. But that I’m going to bed or thinking about ice cream - why would I share it with the world?

The clutter of people bouncing off each other is daunting. There’s some worthwhile stuff to find, but it’s like pawing through camel dung to find undigested food. There are so many people with time on their hands!

Its value is as flypaper. People from the past have popped up, and I like that. But Facebook notifies you about messages on your email, so why go to Facebook? Email is enough.

I’m sure social networking is going on among people who know the people who know people etc. That’s terrif, they should mix and match and mate if they want.

But this anthill is too much for me to navigate.

Number 9, number 9, number 9

Thoughts about the 9 pm Channel 9 L.A. news, May 26, 09.

- “Soon we’ll talk to Kenneth Starr, a supporter of Propositon 8.” TALK to him? The criminal who kidnapped Monica Lewinski and grilled her til she talked about the “crime” while prohibiting her from having an attorney present? Spitting in his face would be better.

- “Supporters of traditional marriage have something to celebrate tonight.” You mean enemies of untraditional marriage. Being in a traditional marriage doesn’t mean you exclude others!

- “but the 18,000 marriages that were consummated last year will remain valid.” How do we know how many were consummated? You can’t display the bed sheets like in southern Italy.

People

Linda grew up in Pittsburg 1, CA, south of Oakland. She went to a mostly-black school and felt she knew her classmates well til in her junior year the school declared a “Bring Your Baby To School Day” ...

Greg sold guitars out of his garage. A friend told him his had been stolen and Greg should be on the lookout for it. When someone came in to sell it, Greg, who wasn’t a licensed seller, gave the guy $100 and called his friend and told him to bring over the money. Instead his friend called the police on him for buying stolen merchandise.

1 Pittsburg is near Port Chicago, which was a Navy munitions facility in WWII and the site of a famous Black mutiny. After an explosion that killed 320 people, many black sailors refused to return to munition-handling with their unit, their segregation suggesting that the Navy found Black lives expendable. They were court-martialed and jailed, the sentences commuted after the war.

Praisers

When I worked at a ‘trade’ paper, the older writers referred to publicists as praisers. It was my first ‘industry’ job and I regarded them, when cornered, with skepticism: after all, weren’t they trying to con me? But as time went on, I found that my superiors, in their way .... reported to them. They were susceptible to pressure. It had something to do with advertising.

Some publicists said the con was consensual: “You interview my guy, and I’ll help you in the future.” But as soon as I lost my seat, they lost my phone number. (Note - a couple of publicists were good people, and I still know them.)

But having been to journalism school where they taught about truth and honesty, I was surprised, and continue to be, at newspapers mentioning publicists. It seems that every dead publicist gets a big sendoff in the Obits. Isn’t that the same as admitting that the newspaper did them favors? To admit to consorting with a publicist is tantamount to saying you’re ‘dirty.’

So it was with great dismay that I read Patrick Goldstein’s 5/20 homage to his good friend the deceased publicist. In it, Goldstein chuckles about the time the guy planted an untrue story in a New York paper. Goldstein sharing the flack’s joy seems to suggest that HE printed the guy’s phony stories too. And got back whatever the mutual back-scratching brang.

These Are The Times Of L.A.

4/11 the always-good-for-a-laugh Food section’s Betty Hallock leads “For two weeks straight, the hot topic around the communal table at Seed Kitchen in Venice has been the transition of winter to spring.” She spent two weeks talking about the weather with communists in Venice? ... in the 5/18 Business section, easily amazed Peter Hong reveals that even upscale (KILL that word!) condos were selling lower, and people attending an auction of them were looking for bargains, a true dog bites man story. He writes that sellers hope to attract “a critical mass of buyers.” People about to explode? ... Opening line in Mark Sachs’s probing “My Favorite Weekend” story in the 5/15 L.A. Times: “Ali Wentworth isn’t a doctor, but she plays one on tv.” Not fresh in 1972, nor now ... May 12, an report from Carla Hall re the Miss U.S.A. Pageant : “They don’t have the power to dethrone her. That power lies only with Donald Trump ” If I was forced at gunpoint to write that, I’d turn the gun at myself ... George Drucker, 5-4-09, describes a wonderful new restaurant (as yet unopened, but still ...) but buries the lead. In showing the place’s working-man roots he writes that “you can get a simple sandwich on Wonder Bread.” It’s VERY unusual that a restauranteur would stockpile that brand, which was dropped last year. Where is it stored? How much does he have? ... And two reporters SENT TO THE MIDDLE EAST managed to frame a story about a romance between a filmmaker and a jailed journalist thusly: “The real life saga since Saberi’s sentencing Saturday seems grist for a thriller: a journalist accused of crimes against the state ... bla bla bla.” It goes on in the mock movie-script form we all demand in L.A. ... One graph in a 4/28 NY Times article about GM started “Absent such steps ....” I thought, hmm, nice to see absent used as a verb, second syllable stressed. Not clever, correct. Intelligent. Then I looked at the first line in a 4/27 L.A. Times article by Rachel Abramowitz: “Hell hath no fury like an actor scorned” and thought ‘Where are the smart people at the L.A. Times?’ ... Top item in the 5/14 Calendar’s Page 2 ‘Quick Takes” is that a new price record was set for a David Hockney painting. This is important if you own one and plan to sell it. The remaining 99.999% of readers find it useless to read about rich people’s investments. Details of its size, pre-sale expectation estimates, the anonymity of the buyer and the fact that the price included commission were included.

Moral Equivocation

Why is “hit man” a normal term in our society? It’s presented as a job, something some people do; kinda neat. One may be flying into your town soon to “do a job.”

I’m not exactly a moral crusader, but growing corn to make car fuel (and using vegetable oil in your converted diesel car) in a world where, I hear, people are starving, is grotesque.

Music Notes

Local oddity: A photo on the back of the Marcie “Bobby’s Girl” Blaine CD (!!!) she’s being interviewed, maybe, by someone from “Studio City Bandstand.” This sounds preposterous to us in L.A. Studio City could NOT have had a tv show ... But while I’m waving the local flag, I didn’t know Rochelle & The Candles were an L.A, group. “Once In A While” is one hell of a vocal group record and I assumed it was east coast .... In the 5-30 L.A. Times, Ann Powers understandably misperceives Carlos Santana as “one of the great stars of the hippie era.” That he was playing when some of the music was ‘hippie’ is true, but he’s hardly linked with them. One could as easily have called him “one of the great stars of the Moon Landing era” ... Once, oldies radio invented the past. Listener-testing guaranteed only songs approved by current ears so, for example, “You Were On My Mind,” a medium hit for the We Five, entered the 50-song rotation with a presence far beyond its original status. Now it’s movies. Because of her portrayal by singer Bouncy in a movie, Etta James is known as a soul woman on par with Aretha in popularity, but she had no big hits (27 chart records, all below #30!) after ‘Wallflower’ in 1955. It’s similar to the situation of Wanda Jackson, now the symbol of rockin’ gals of the 50s. In her time she was known only on the country circuit, and not all that much. But good for them getting recognized now! ... Dan Bern is one wonderful performer. Saw him May 20 at the Largo little room, which was site of the original Troubadour ... in the 1996 UK book “Rock, the Rough Guide,” Alan Clayson refers to Dave Edmunds’ in 1985 teaming with “rock Methusalas” Cash, Lewis, Perkins, Orbison. A bit testy, eh what? And in the Carl Perkins entry he refers to a feisty religion discussion at the Million Dollar Quartet session at Sun. Wrong. That was during a Jerry Lee session, with Sam Phillips ... If there’s a rise in obesity among older music fans, it might be traced to the onus of smoking. When I went to a nightclub in the 70s I didn’t drink so I smoked. Now if the club has food I’ll get some to ‘do something.’ It’s why I’m as wide as I’m tall. Well, feel that way.

Speaking Lyrically

‘Said to my shock you’re on the wrong block” was a line I liked in “Silhouettes” but for 45 years I never understood it: the silhouettes that the singer thought were his girlfriend with another guy were actually two strangers in another house. It must have been set in Daly City, California. Today, with GPS, the song is incomprehensible.

More old lyrics that confused me as a child:

- No need to name it: “We got chicken in the barn, whose barn, what barn, MY barn.” We’ve heard this song for 50 years WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING IT.

- “Before You Accuse Me” by Bo Diddley. He wasn’t writing kid songs. “You say I been buying other women clothes, I hear you been runnin’ round with someone else.” Buying clothes? What?

- “Rock & Roll Music” Chuck Berry - “Drinking home brew from a wooden cup.” Home brew? Isn’t that illegal? What’s that about a wooden cup? Sounds like the 1700s.

- “Moody river more deadly, than the vainest knife.” (Long story, purloined from a private letter from Todd Everett, available at the very end of this column.)

In My Life

In the 80’s car radios and tape players were sold with handles so you pulled them indoors at night. I would carry mine into stores.

During the 70’s/80’s the L.A. Planetarium played the Pink Floyd album “Dark Side Of The Moon” Friday nights in conjunction with projected astral images . Evenings. A light show. It was a city-sanctioned dopefest.

In college, a roommate from Cincinnati would melt a Hershey bar between two pieces of bread. This was odd and so was he. Later that year I stopped at a diner near Grand Junction and saw a Hershey sandwich up on their menu. Might have been a passing phase.


WORDS

Words generally devolve. Newspaper writers grab clever ones and beat them to death or mess them up.

Like something being ‘amped’ up, increasing in amplification, devolving into ‘ramp up,’ which means nothing, unless it’s related to the T-Rex album ‘Raw Ramp.’ Or “uptight,” which meant everything was alright and had a vivid sexual connotation, becoming negative through sheer misinterpretation.

When did diabetes get the hard ‘e’ at the end? I remember it being pronounced die-uh-beet-us. Another memo I missed? ... The opening to the L.A. Times Calendar column about IMAX screens, “Apparently, size does matter,” is neither funny nor clever, just childish. And “snarky” is bottom-feeding - we need elevation!... In the 6-4-09 online posting of the 6-5-09 L.A. Times story about Rachelle Spector, Harriet Ryan wrote that something was “ten-years-old,” but by the next morning, in print, the errant hyphens were removed ... Get thee to a dictionary! In one 5-21-09 L.A. Times report about the American Idol finale, Denise Martin uses “penultimate” rather than the lowly ‘final’ to designate the season’s last show. It’s a grand word, it’s a swell word, but alas, it’s the wrong word. (It is also “lifted” into the subhed.)

For a minority view on the Spector conviction: Art Notes: Phil Spector

Baseball

Watching Dodger games, thoughts spring ... Every 7th inning, another striving singer does “God Bless America” (what happened to the Star Spangled Banner?) with note-gargling that sickens me and seems to make the people in the stands uncomfortable too. Play it on the fucking organ ... when Casey Blake, a power hitter, strikes out, why doesn’t the announcer say “Mighty Casey has struck out” .... and I think people should change their names when appropriate, like the Giants pitcher named Putz (pronounced Poots) ... surprising sarcasm in the 9th inning of the June 3 game, the Dodgers runless, the announcer said “When the Dodgers come up to hit, or I should say come up to bat” ...

Tech Stuff

My new used ebay cellphone reverted to the other’s problem but I found a place on Melrose, Dialnet, that fixes them. And I lost my iPod for 3 weeks. I was resigned to buying another (the 80G was pricey at $160, but it’s deleted: now the 120G sells for $250!) when I saw a rumpled clothpile near our spare car. It was a shirt with iPod in pocket. Fully charged! This model, which debuted in 2004, is now marketed as a classic, like a ‘57 Chevy. Like me.

Back in the 80s when I had a powerful Panasonic answering machine that cost $400, I had a dozen message tapes for different situations:

* “Tuesday Afternoon” by the Moody Blues. “This is Art Fein, I’m out buying some better records.”
* “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” - This is Art Fein, I’m hiding under the table.” I used it early in the morning one day in 1993.
* “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll love ya tomorrow, it’s only a day away.”
“This is Art Fein, I’ll call you tomorrow.” People hated that one.
* “Ring Ring Goes The Bell” - Chuck Berry. “This is Art Fein. Sorry, I didn’t hear the ring. But I’ll call you back.”
* And of course “Fine Fine Boy” by Darlene Love.

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PHOTOS: Olden times at the Palomino.

As I’ve not been shooting photos much, thought I’d dust off a couple from the much-missed Palomino in North Hollywood.

- Papa Doo Ron Ron (Art Fein photo)

- John Stewart (Art Fein photo)

- Tiny, the Palomino doorman, who once got shot with an arrow by a disgruntled ejectee (Art Fein photo)

- Myself, Lucky Wilbury, Robin from RCA at a Waylon Jennings appearance, 1973

- Gary Stewart, 1975 (Art Fein photo)

- Ray Campi & The Rockabilly Rebels, 1975 (Art Fein photo)

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It’s In Our Jeans

In a recent George Will column entitled Demon Denim, he says the ubiquity of jeans among grown men was a levelling that bespoke communism. But it’s agreed-upon conformity! Men judged this the ideal garment. Should we choose attire based on what others do? That would be reactionary.

I wear jeans because I am dissatisfied with my shape. In the late 70s I bought pleated 50’s pants because I was thin and they looked cool. Now I am (slightly!) bowed where I was indented 2 and the whole look is ruined. Once I drop the 15 lbs that distorts me I will be the Beau Brummel of yore in spite of, not because of, George Will.

2 A doctor used the word ‘vagination.’ He said it meant anything that is indented. But I looked it up and it means something that sheathes, like a sword’s scabbard. Meaning vagina is something that wraps around a staff. That’s pretty ... colorful.

The Show

Like any dispossessed person, I think of my homeland, tv. It was a place for me to open up, spread out, vent. Now I do it in print but it’s not the same.

I remember shows where the guests were apprehensive. It was dark and cold when Dion entered the Santa Monica studio early one morning in 1988. A girl from I don’t know where came up and asked him for an autograph. Dion rolled his eyes and went “So this is how it’s gonna be.” Though it had been arranged by Davin Seay, who was writing Dion’s biography, and Bob Merlis of Warner Bros Records it looked to him, at first, like a fan ambush. But we sat him down and it went well. When Paul Body told him that his version of ‘Hoochie Kootchie Man’ led him to Muddy Waters, Dion said “You’re a black guy and you learned about the blues from ME?”

Hamilton Camp had been on my show, so in 1987 when Bob Gibson was in town I asked Camp if they could do the show together. We met at the same studio and when we walked in the damp dark room at 10 in the morning Gibson mumbled “Oh brother.” I said “Bob, I understand your worry, but don’t.” He looked at Camp like “What have you got me into?” but once the heat went on and we began the show it went terrific, and I heard from him several times afterwards from Chicago. In the middle of a song about making it in show business, Camp looked into the camera and said “And here we are on Li’l Art’s Poker Party!” It was cool.

A less funny one was Nick Lowe and Billy Bremner. They‘re English so they went to a bar while the studio was setting up. When the 4th guest went to retrieve them they felt like not coming so he insisted, which put them off. Then during the show I asked what widely respected singer or musician they didn’t care about (for me it was James Brown 3) guest #4, ill-advisedly put truth before tact and said “Well, to tell the truth, I’ve never been crazy about Elvis Costello.” His fate was sealed.

3 I like his early stuff, from the 50s. I can’t give up the funk because I never had it.

Music Writing

It took two L.A. Times writers, Richard Rushfield and Denise Martin, to open their May 21st American Idol story (one of three that day!) with “The black color of Eber Lambert’s fingernails described the mood for much of America’s music critics and some of its ardent rock fans.”

My newspaper was not made of glass so it didn’t shatter when I threw it to the ground. Who are these people, and why are they so disposed to joining the ranks of “America’s music critics,” whom, they aver, all think alike? And if only “some” of America’s ardent rock fans agree, doesn’t it mean they constitute only a small slice of music opinion?

What is the sound of two people sneering? May 12 L.A. Times, Harriet Ryan and Chris Lee bray together about Michael Jackson’s forthcoming tour, “The ambitious schedule of 50 sold-out shows could turn out to be the final, sad chapter of Jackson’s storied career” or a success. “Final sad chapter” is pretty uppity coming from people whose name on a marquee wouldn’t fill a phone booth. Their attitude is clear when they write “When - or if, in the view of many industry skeptics” bla bla, and then tell us what “doubters” think. What “skeptics” say about Indie Rock we’ll never know, just like what “doubters” say about U2

Then on May 31 they extended their gang-bang by repeating suppositions and adding more: the notion that two people claim to be Jackson’s manager and that an accountant was fired are trumpeted as “signs of discord” that his backers “downplay.” How many people are involved in Jackson’s planned 50 shows? A hundred? Five hundred? Two squeaks in the massive wheel and Lee/Ryan pounce.

Pipple

Do you know someone you’ve failed to meet and when you see them you both recognize each other but say nothing? One girl used to come to my rockabilly nights at Club Lingerie in the 80s and we never met. Recently I saw her at a booksigning and we continued not speaking. Weird ... And I saw a musician at a show and didn’t recognize him. He had been on the hefty side but lost 30 or 40 pounds. It dumfounded me. The guy looks so much better, seems to have more character, seems so elegant and cool that I’m loath to blubber my compliments for fear it would reveal I thought less of him when there was more of him.

TV

On Antiques Roadshow, some expert on fashion history said of a paper dress “These were very popular in the 1960s. You could wear it once, then tear off the hemline and change its style.” NOBODY wore a paper dress except models the day it debuted ... I heard a narration on TCM that included ‘iconic’ and ‘informed.’ Dates it to just recently ... At my in-laws over Memorial Day, a WWII veteran asked why they show war movies over this holiday. “They’re all phony, and who wants to be reminded of the war?”

Kvetching About Sneering

I’ve got a file called “sneerers” that’s bursting its virtual seams: the left side of this computer tilts from it. But I’ll never unload them all in this column because, after all, I’m an up guy.

Not long ago I dumped five years of New York items from the L.A. Times. Nothing bad about NY - a hell of a town! - but bad that the L.A. Times has local reporters embedded there. There isn’t enough L.A. coverage, forget the east coast (not yet called “eastcoast” by the Times, but it’s coming).

Somewhere in the sneerer file is a gal who lashes out at bad people who ... do something bad. Throw trash out their car windows, say. She, like some of her peers, adds “and you know who you are,” which, of course, is self-evident, but pointedly puts a distance between the malfeasers and the writer: “YOU make good people like me sick.” Such posturing does the same to me.

Then there’s cars. Newspapers writers are, I’d say, oh, 100% not from the car culture. Little as I know (I’m a 2.3 on a 10 scale about everything), I know never to ask a newspaper writer whether the ‘64 Dodge was SOLD with a hemi engine or was custom-installed just for racing.

Yet they intone about cars when asked. Ask ME to give an opinion on opera, I’ll say, Thank you but I know nothing. Ask a newspaper person if the car model that was just canceled was cool or not they’ll say “Fah! That thing? Nobody likes THAT.” It failed, so stomping on it is safe.

Chrysler has troubles. We who like cars like nothing about the current styles of cars. We look to the 50s for excitement and extravagance, to the 80s til today for disappointment and bewilderment from monstrosities such as a Cadillac Escalade. But newspaper people, they can’t tell the difference.

I hark back to my first shock, when media people united to attack the Edsel. Sure, the name was diabolically unfathomable (a Ford family name), but past that the car was GREAT. The push-button transmission was hilarious to the creeps (today called, with pathetic panache, pundits) who did not mock the same thing on Plymouths and Dodges because they didn’t know. The ‘shield’ grill, “like someone sucking a lemon,” was the same as seen on Jaguars, unknown to the name-hurlers. THEY didn’t sink the car, but they didn’t help. But little me, age 12, knew they didn’t know what they were talking about.

Now Chrysler is in trouble, and the next generation of jagoffs is at it. Steven Colbert, who is often good, read the script written by his writers and said it was no surprise Chrysler was in trouble after “ten years of telling us this was a cool car,” showing a pic of a P/T Cruiser. 4

Hmm, why did they make the same model for ten-plus years? Show of hands? BECAUSE IT WAS A COOL CAR THAT PEOPLE LIKED. Not news people, they spend their lives in confusion, not comedians, they’re depressed from birth, but citizens, car-lovers, regular people. The P/T may have been underpowered and my neighbor said he had to replace too many things before 100,000 miles, but the car looked good and the times I’ve rented one I’ve loved it. And on another comedy show they showed a Chrysler Caliber wagon as ‘proof’ of the company’s misguidedness.

Well Chrysler has been the only U.S. company to make a goodlooking car in 20 years. The Caliber station wagon, the full-bodied Dodge and Chrysler, the P/T Cruiser. Great to look at, at the very least.

4 The line got a weak laugh. I’m sure many audience members were shocked to see the car they loved mocked.

Accents

When I was in London in 1982, people were talking about a D-Day drama on tv, and what a job the British actor did as Eisenhower. “He did a PERFECT American accent!” That was funny, because I’d seen it and was fascinated by how he slipped in and out of a British accent. (Now, Hugh Laurie, there’s a guy who can do it.)

A 1942 UK movie, ‘Thunder Rock,’ 5 opens showing a sign marked “The Great Lakes.” But as soon as an actor spoke I thought “Well, there’s a lot of lakes in Scotland, maybe they have a Great Lakes there.” The scenes shifted to three other people on phones, all with British accents, but at the last guy’s office there was a map of Lake Michigan on the wall. I’ll bet they thought “astonishing American accents.”

And I recently heard “Buona Sera,” 6 sung phonetically in English by Italian entertainer Adriano Celentano 7. It’s fascinating hearing a non-English speaker inflect wrongly on that quasi-Italian song.

5 In this 1942 film, a guy says he’s going to China and the other guy says “The only thing a Chinaman is good for to me is ironing my shirts, same goes for all Nips and Chinks.” It’s no wonder this James Mason film doesn’t get more airing.

6 My favorite Louis Prima recording, on Capitol. Though credited to Louis and Keely, she’s not on it. Lyrics by Carl Sigman.

7 Celentano’s mid-70s recording “Prisencolinsinaincuisol” was no hit on Columbia, but his primal, blues-beat call-and-response version of English doubletalk, like Jerry Lewis doing french, is fascinating.


Baby, Baby, Where Will Our Court Go

L.A. Times, 5/7/09 James Oliphant and David G. Savage tell us that a Latino woman judge is “the subject of speculation” for a Supreme Court post, and speculation is what we get. That she is “widely touted” is uncredited, but praise comes from “Women’s groups” (No!), Hispanic groups (surprise), “a (named) Washington lawyer.” Criticism of her is quickly disparaged as coming from “unnamed clerks and lawyers” (little pishers) and then is refuted (the story’s only counterpunch) by her supporters. Of Obama, the writers assert “He is also expected,””He has yet to suggest,” and “There is near-universal belief” -- unsupported blather. I am liberal-lefty as the next guy (at the L.A. Times), but shouldn’t a Supreme Court selection be done without consideration of race or sex? ... Speaking of the Supreme Court, did you know that they are reviewing the overturn of the F.C.C.’s fining of CBS for (re David Stout, NY TImes, 5/8/09) “what may be the most controversial fraction of a second in television history,” Janet Jackson’s nipple-peek? Who cares who gets nominated if they take cases like this? ... Wait, 5/12/09 Oliphant and Savage were back, now touting more women (did the Hispanic woman refuse to talk to them?) for the big court. This overlong hot-air balloon got quotes from “a law professor” at three colleges, and included the qualifiers “It appears,” “has been left to interpretation,” “That seemingly would point,” “it could favor,” “such criteria could pave” and other fact-fighters ...

This Week’s Feature

In the 5/11 L.A. Times, tattered-armchair sociologist Jessica Gelt fawns over a new restaurant, “The New Darling Of Silver Lake”:

“When the lush coffeehouse LA Mill opened blocks from the Silver Lake Reservoir 8, with its menu by Michael Cimarusti of Providence 9 and its far-out caffeinated creations, Silver Lake officially crossed over from hipster haunt to artsy haven of health-conscious professionals.” 10

So sayeth Gelt, bard of all that is specious. The mention of those culture homesteaders was there to lead you to yet another new artsy health-conscious professional 11 boite (name unimportant) with sidewalk seating that “proves the perfect perch for watching the life of the changing neighborhood pass by in all its relaxed and flamboyant beauty.” 12

She goes on, “With the legendary music club Spaceland in spitting distance and a raucous dog park for the leisurely set just beyond that, there’s a lot of local color on parade.”

It’s not smart to use “spitting” in a restaurant review, and her designation of Spaceland as ‘legendary’ suggests she doesn’t know its time frame, though its denizens will likely provide local color for the sidewalk diners like the beggars on the Via Veneto. Punk rockers will have to get their “near-perfect perch” at the 7-11 facing the new swankeries.

And a raucous dog park? Sounds like fun if you like dogfights. “For the leisurely set” is just ... senseless.

Me, I’m going there to see that “perfect perch,” to see if it’s grand or if she was just kissing further the butts of these restauranteurs whose “tender loving care is just what the recently grown-up neighborhood has longed for.” God, what flapdoodle.

8 Mentioned because ... they get their water by tapping directly?

9 “Cimarusti of Providence” does not ring like “Charles of The Ritz.” Maybe he was sent by Providence to lead us.

10 If all the hipsters leave, the city will tilt: there are two million of them in L.A., tattooed and clothed in black, and move in great swarms like oil slicks.

11 Her reckless categorization is so sloppy at first you can’t tell which characterization is degrading. But it turns out she runs with the money.

12 “Relaxed and flamboyant beauty.” On the hoof? WHAT?

Hey La Bavaria

The German film “Schultze Gets The Blues,” about an accordionist who discovers Zydeco and travels to Texas, is a slow film with lots of still shots: it makes “Paris, Texas” look like the Keystone Cops. My humorous friend Eric said “ I think I saw the director’s cut.”

But the accordion tech should be fired. Schultze is shown on a bicycle on a dirt road hauling the instrument behind him on a flat wheeled-cart. ACCORDIONS ARE HELD TOGETHER WITH GLUE. You don’t bounce or shake them, dumkopfs.

Desperately Seeking Someone

On ‘Encomium,’ a 1995 CD tribute to Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant sang with Tori Amos. That girl-partnership didn’t continue, but he kept looking til his aim was true ...

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Mark On The Move

I have to keep reminding myself that most people don’t care much or at all about music. From the time I heard Lloyd Price singing “Personality” on the radio in 1959, I’ve been music-obsessed, and pretty much my whole life (including, luckily, my career) has revolved around it. I spent 2008 following every move of the Leonard Cohen overseas tour and the Phish reunion, waiting for the announcement of their 2009 dates in the United States, which were going to determine a good deal of my travel schedule. (I have friends who planned the birth of their children around which Grateful Dead tours they were going to follow, and they delayed one pregnancy while the group thought about and eventually decided against playing at The Great Wall of China.)

Most of my friends are music junkies, so they understand some basic things about me. But when I mentioned my excitement about finally seeing Leonard Cohen, several non-music-fanatic people I know asked “Who’s that?” “You know, the songwriter, poet. . .” Blank stare. “Wrote ‘Suzanne’ that Judy Collins did?” No response.

I was reminded of a time a few years back when the new owner of a Nevada City art shop noted I’d brought in a music poster for framing, and thought I might be able to help her identify the owner of a large photograph that had been unclaimed. When she showed it to me, I said, “Well, it’s signed in the corner by Michael McClure, and that’s him in the photo on the right.” She didn’t know who McClure was, so I briefly explained his place as part of The Beat Generation, but she didn’t understand what I was talking about (she appeared to be in her forties so I figured she would know something about it!). She asked me who the other two people were in the photo. “Well, that’s Allen Ginsberg on the left.” She never heard of him either. Okay, lots of people don’t run across poetry in their daily lives. “And in the middle there, that’s Bob Dylan.” “Who’s that?” she asked.

I’ve been reading Alex Ross’ book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, which has a lot of material about the relationship of the audience to performers and composers. More than once in the history of music, the intellectuals have decided that anything popular couldn’t possibly be good. . .or the opposite, as in Stalinist Russia, where only composers with wide lowest-common-denominator appeal were supported by the State, and the music of the elites was spat upon. It’s impossible to separate the politics, economics and music itself. (A recent L.A. Times “Pop & Hiss” piece contrasting the audiences at The Dead and KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango shows on the same night was full of nonsense like “The weekend concerts illustrated two opposing approaches to being a devoted music fan in today's pop culture landscape: Either embrace every genre and artist with the same open-minded ardor or single-mindedly invest all your energies into the one performer, group or style that defines you.” The writer then gave many examples, through interview excerpts with fans, of people who were actually rejecting the either/or philosophy just described. Nothing stands in the way of a rock-crit with a thesis to sell.)

I had an opportunity to examine my own behavior as an audience member when I went to see The Indigo Girls (Amy Ray and Emily Saliers) at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Auditorium. I own all their albums but wouldn’t exactly call myself a fan, having never seen them live in the 25 years they’ve been active. When I hear their music, I like it. Whatever stature they have acquired in the gay community (they both identify as lesbians but have never been a couple themselves) has gone over my head.

But I felt positively out of place at Zellerbach. Gay couples smooched passionately in the foyer and auditorium, women dressed in men’s suits abounded, and the opening act was a spritely gay man who spoke about getting married in San Francisco last year and sang in near-falsetto. The audience sang along enthusiastically with songs that barely registered with me (I realized when I checked their setlist that I liked their brand-new songs better than the ones considered “classics”).

My liberal tolerance should have remained intact, but I really got a sense of what it’s like to be outnumbered and out of place, and reacted defensively. I began to comment internally about the unattractiveness of this or that hairstyle or choice of clothing, complained to myself about public displays of affection (as if I’d never seen mixed-gender couples making out at concerts) and felt like people were staring at me, wondering what I was doing in their scene. The “default” of heterosexual life had been turned off for a few hours, which was a good thing for me. The thing about prejudice is that you often don’t know when you’ve got one.


-- Mark Leviton

(Mark’s sixties-themed radio show Pet Sounds can be heard alternate Mondays 10pm-Midnight PST on KVMR-FM 89.5 in the Sacramento area and streaming at www.kvmr.org )

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Rock Historian Paul Williams Gravely Ill

From Cindy Lee Berryhill

Yes, Paul Williams IS my husband, you got that right. Unfortunately he isn't doing so well. Back in 1995, just a year after he'd moved down here to San Diego County with me he had a brain injury on a bicycle. And though he had a great recovery from such a traumatic injury he now has early onset of Alzheimers due to that brain injury. So things are very challenging here. I'm starting to look for old video pieces with him that I can add to his new website (created by concerned friends of his). I'll keep you posted on when that goes up.

best wishes, cindy lee

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From America’s Biggest Johnny Hallyday Fan, Neal McCabe

Johnny Hallyday Video: I Got A Woman, live in Holland, 1963

Believe it or not, I wasn't looking for stray Johnny Hallyday references in the recent John Lennon biography by Philip Norman, but I stumbled across one that's pretty damn annoying.

In 1961, John Lennon received a £100 check as a 21st-birthday present from his Scottish auntie, so he and Paul took off to Europe. They were in Paris during the first two weeks of October.

Philip Norman writes "one night they masochistically attended a concert by the laughable French rock-'n'-roller Johnny Hallyday."

Johnny was making his first 2-week stand at the Olympia when John & Paul turned up in Paris, but barf bags were definitely NOT in order. Johnny and his band were smoking hot. This engagement was his career breakthrough --the French showbiz establishment had to recognize that rock 'n' roll was here to stay and that Johnny was its champion.

Philip Norman assumes that since all right-thinking rock critics hate the French Elvis then certainly John Lennon and Paul McCartney must have hated him too. But I knew that those two young rockers, about to return to Hamburg, would have flipped had they seen Johnny rockin' the Olympia. And I was right.

At first, I wasn't entirely convinced that they even went to the Olympia concert. Two guys who could barely afford a hotel room got tickets to the hottest show in town? None of the other Beatles books I checked mention it - including Philip Norman's own Beatles biography. But it turns out that Paul wrote a letter to the editor of Mersey Beat from Paris describing the Johnny Hallyday concert, which he and John did indeed attend. It's obvious that the lads enjoyed themselves - quite the opposite of what Philip Norman implies in his overwrought, sneering, and entirely dishonest description.

McCartney misspells "Hallyday" and his French is shaky, but here's what he wrote in the January 4, 1962 issue of Mersey Beat:

"It was 10 o clock, o clock it was, when we were entering the OLYMPIA in Paris to see the 'Johnny Halliday Rock Show.' The cheapest seats in 'les theatre' (French) were seven and sixpence, so we followed the woman with the torch (English). When Johnny Halliday came, everybody went wild - and loud was the cheering and many the dancing in the aisles, too. But, the man said 'sit down', so we had to. The excitement rose, the audience rose to dance, like the many boys and girls dancing along the back rows. Also old men, which is stranger still, isn't it?"

Later that week they went to a crazy Vince Taylor concert in Paris, which sounds as wild as a night at the Star Club. In other words, John & Paul were in their element... and loving every minute.

Therefore, Mr. Philip Norman... JE VOUS DIS MERDE!

Here's the fascinating webpage where I found all of this information:

http://www.triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/archives/parisian-rock.shtml

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Moody River

Gary Bruce was a young Nashville singer who worked on a weekly variety show hosted by disc jockey Noel Ball. Frank Slay was a record producer out of Philadelphia (his hits included Silhouettes by The Rays and all of Freddy Cannon’s singles), who had started his own Southern Sounds label, and was in town looking “for a young man, 19-20 years old, to sign to his label”, says Bruce. “It was along about the time the Everly Brothers had ‘Ebony Eyes’ and Mark Dinning had ‘Teen Angel.’ Noel said if I could write a death song that was tasteful, I’d have a smash. And that’s what I came up with.” Ball suggested a meeting with Slay. A recording session ensued, which came to halt when Bruce kept popping the “p” on the phrase “more deadly than the sharpest knife.” He rewrote the phrase on the spot. That the result – “more deadly than the vainest knife” – didn’t make any sense didn’t seem to hurt anything. Bruce’s single, issued as by Chase Webster, failed to hit outside of Nashville. Pat continues the story:

“Noel Ball in Nashville told me about the Chase Webster record, and suggested it to me. Milt arranged it a little higher than my key so I wouldn’t sound croonerish; more desperate. . After the session, I went over to a friend’s house with Shirley. When we were saying goodbye, KFWB was in the background, and I heard the intro – I said ‘wait, I’ve been doing that song all afternoon!’ Randy had cut an acetate and took it to [program director] Chuck Blore, who liked it and made it pick hit if he could he could have it as an exclusive for a week. I’m not home from the studio from recording this thing, and it was pick hit of the week on one of the biggest stations in the country. That was when the music business was interesting and exciting.”

Bruce says that Randy Wood, ever conscientious, had called Noel Ball to verify the lyric. Subsequently, radio stations ran contests, Pat says, with listeners guessing that kind of knife he was referring to. As for Pat, “It didn’t make any sense to me – I just sang it the way he wrote it.”

Moody River has been used on film soundtracks including ‘The Last Boy Scout.’ And, of all of Pat Boone’s hits that Frank Sinatra might choose to record, Moody River is one that he actually did.

Wisdom of the aged (now on a new host): http://toddeverett.wordpress.com/