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1st Record / 1st Concert

My first 45rpm disc was the Rolling Stones’ “Tell Me (You’re Comin’ Back To Me),” an early manifestation of Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham’s mega-crush on Phil Spector. The song sounded tough and theatrical and strangely distant, awash in reverb. “Tell Me” was issued by London. Dull blue backgrounds and grey type defined the look of London singles, grim and stolid as a library card, the kind of thing you’d buy in Detroit, my hometown, even during a bull economy.

My first album I was guided toward by WABX, the freeform FM station that turned up in Detroit in 1968. In a happy coincidence, I was given my first FM radio that year. DJ Dave Dixon’s midnight show introduced me to records made by English hippies and during his shift I heard two bands whose singers were both distinguished by unstrung, exaggerated vibrato. I couldn’t understand either one’s lyrics, though I was fairly sure they were singing in English. It seemed that I usually heard these bands during the vulnerable minutes prior to deep sleep. I could remember their voices as I was drifting off, but it seemed inevitable that I was all the way unconscious by the time Dixon would back-announce that set. I didn’t know the name of either band or singer. That bugged me for a long time.

My allowance had increased to an amount where albums were within my reach. As my family had moved across the river to Windsor, I took the Tunnel Bus to downtown Detroit, to Ross Records. I wandered the aisles and scanned unfamiliar sleeves. Finally, a stark black and white image fixed my attention: Circus performers packed tightly together, surrounding a naked woman whose butt-cheek protruded from a bass drum. The cover seemed self-consciously eccentric, slightly Victorian, at one with the granny-glasses and vintage clothes of the psychedelic Beatles. (UK hippies, as George Melly pointed out in Revolt Into Style, didn’t find much to like in the modern world.) I don’t recall seeing any information about song titles either side of the sleeve. So I took a chance and bought Family Entertainment, the second album by Family.

It paid off. Family’s singer, Roger Chapman, was in fact one of the two weird voices I’d hear on Dave Dixon’s show. Not long after, I found an album by the other guy whose vibrato fascinated me: Marc Bolan, whom I’d heard on Unicorn, the premiere American release by Tyrannosaurus Rex. I’d found the music that, literally, had haunted my dreams. It augured well for subsequent trips to the store.

1st Concert

WABX played a hand in my choice of 1st concert. I’ d heard on the radio that the MC5 was going to make a live record. And better, this was going to take place at the Grande Ballroom, Detroit’s equivalent of the Fillmore. The two dates in October 1968 were billed as ‘recording evenings,’ which seemed pretentious, but was indicative of local humor. I got a ride with some older guys, both of whom probably qualified as bad influences by my parents’ standards. Kids from Windsor, though they lived only a mile from the U.S., were (and probably still are) scared shitless of Detroit. I had no such fear. Everything I wanted was in Detroit, and I’d already lived there. So I became the Designated Jungle Guide at my high school for Canadians in search of culture in the terrifying Motor City. It made snagging a ride that much easier for an otherwise shy fifteen-year-old.

The first recording evening was scheduled the night before Halloween. The Grande was just off the freeway, a building that felt like a fortress, albeit one with panhandlers in the moat. All the things that I could only imagine prior to that night became real as soon as I emerged from the car: Actual hippies! Marijuana smoke! Girls without brassieres! Inside the Ballroom, I recognized the MC5’s manager, John Sinclair, a hippie charismatic surrounded by acolytes. He may have been the first subject of newspaper photography that I’d seen in the flesh. His hair was much longer than most of the guys in his vicinity; the ‘freak look’ hadn’t kicked in en masse as yet.

The band was great. I can barely remember anything else, save that their wardrobe was impressively showy, that they tried to synchronize their onstage moves, and that they were very, very loud. Trying to speak with one of my friends, I felt the words being pushed back down my throat. The MC5 was my initial exposure to Better Living Through Amplification. Speaking in monosyllables was all that I could manage.

Though my first experience at the Grande was fun, it didn’t seem much more than that at the time. I certainly didn’t expect that evening (or maybe the next one) to follow me around for the rest of my life; I guess this is what the MC5 and episodes of Gilligan’s Island have in common. The album, Kick Out The Jams, became one of the Dead Sea Scrolls of punk. I Was There: Gigs That Changed The World includes an account of the ‘recording evening,’ with an unfocused picture of vocalist Rob Tyner onstage at the Grande. (Another first that evening: Caucasian males with Afro hairdos. Seeing Rob’s hair I thought, ‘That has to be labor intensive.’) The still images from that evening as seen in A True Testimonial, the documentary film about the MC5, are equally blurry. It would seem, to borrow from writer Ian Frazier, that the event existed beyond the capacity of existing photographic technology to record it.

Richard Henderson is a music editor and occasional music supervisor for feature films; he functions in both capacities for Brüno, currently in release. He also wrote for many magazines, when he had more time on his hands. These days, his only regular print outlet is The Wire, an English magazine. He is also the author of a forthcoming entry in the Continuum Press 33 1/3 series; his little book concerns the making of Van Dyke Parks’ debut album, Song Cycle.

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See new column, They Hate L.A., by Gene Sculatti, at end.
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Another Fein Mess
AF Stone’s Monthly
July 2009

A Tale Of One City

Hollywood is a bunch of things. The flats vary from good to bad, the hills are on high literally and figuratively. All tolled, it doesn’t average out to swanky.

The Gelson’s supermarket on Franklin draws from the heights. You see people there you recognize but don’t know. It’s good for the spirits to mingle with people of tone, a relief from hoi polloi.

Ralphs, an earthier market chain, is peppered around town. They installed one a few years ago in a new mall on Hollywood & Western, an area known as the unclear border between Thai Town and Little Armenia (ethnic segregation here is official). A sign of the neighborhood’s transition is the huge plaster hot dog atop the shuttered Thai restaurant (one business failed, then another) and the thrift store in the brand new apartment building.

At Gelson’s my head spins around (subtly!) at Tim Curry.
Or that girl - What show was she on?

At the other it spun around when two guys tumbled in the front door and exchanged punches on the floor til one got up and put on his Ralphs apron.

My Pride

Daughter Jessie graduated 1 from Immaculate Heart High School 2 with a hundred other girls on June 4th on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl 3 . The ceremony was, not surprisingly, divine. The assemblage sang two heavenly songs which I figured to be religious hymns unknown to me but were in fact “I’ll Remember” by Madonna and “The Call” by Regina Spektor. I’m so out of it, and so happy.
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Jessie, center, top, red hair, Hollywood Bowl 6-2-09
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1 Pedantic friend “Todd” always writes correctly “was graduated from,” which of course marks the gradual ascension which culminates in propulsion from a school.

2 Jessie being nominally Jewish was rare at the Catholic institution. They teach Catholicism and have statues of saints, but have a liberal agendum. When, freshman year, Jessie brought home a photo on her phone of a girl dressed in a beard and work shirt at Halloween, I asked who she was supposed to be and she said “Jesus, the carpenter.” Three weeks after we rented the film “Bible Camp” they showed it at school. A few showbiz people inevitably are alumnae (Mary Tyler Moore, Luci Arnaz, Tyra Banks) but the school was also well known for its radicalism in the 60s. Jessie’s orthodontist remembers a nun at a graduation ceremony in 1970 saying “Right on” and “power to the people.” Corita Kent, a nun there in the 60s, designed the well known “Love” design that was issued on a postage stamp in 1985, a year before her death.

3 Many schools in this area graduate at the Bowl, before the concert season officially opens.

Music

‘How little we know’ is a song title that applies to me. Assaying Ray Charles full Atlantic output (I better know the ABC stuff) I saw “This Little Girl Of Mine” and “Leave My Woman alone” and thought “from the first Everly Brothers album” .... I explained to a youngster - 40 - that “Throw Mama From The Train” was a Patti Page hit in the 50s, sung as if by an immigrant (to her son leaving for the army?), hence the broken English of “throw mama from the train a kiss.” But the song never sounded the same after I read in the margins of Mad magazine “Throw mama from the train a knish, don’t leave her hungry behind” .... The iPod popped up “I’m Livin’ Good” not in the state I knew it, but an acoustic version. It took me a second to remember the record bec it was super-odd, a 1965 single by Louis Williams and the Ovations, a Sam Cooke sound alike group. Who the heck was doing THAT song? Was their record collection as odd as mine? It was a Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham concert album. They wrote it! I’m sure if I’d been in the audience I’d’ve been the only one who knew it ... The first time I heard a song I thought I knew alone pop up on radio was 1978 when I caught a few bars of the new George Harrison single and realized it was “Got My Mind Set On You,” from the James Ray album I bought in 1962. I’d wager George and I were the only people who did. He visited America in ‘62 ... “There I Said It,” the 2007 CD by Tommy Womack, is just plain brilliant, a story album of a character’s gradual realization that he will not become a rock star. I am fascinated and dazzled. (I saw him perform with partner Will Kimbrough at SXSW in March, they were brilliant, too) ... The R.B. Greaves album, issued after his hit “Take A Letter Maria” in 1968, is a stunning hunk of Muscle Shoals soul, produced by Ahmet Ertegun ...In a recent Kid Rock video they place an Elektra/Asylum record on the turntable. They were dancing to Jackson Brown? Carly Simon? Bruce Roberts? ...

The L.A. Times Are Upon Us

Architecture Critic (what the hell?) C Hawthorne, June 1, writes that the Century Plaza Hotel deserves preservation as “a rare connection to the context and planning history of its time.” Which means it’s ugly and all others like it were torn down ... Do you cringe when a columnist, in this case Patrick Goldstein 6/2, opens with his getting a phone call from a movie producer? It seems a tad self-important. And he writes that the guy’s wacky idea seemed to come from “the proverbial Hollywood crack pipe”? WHAT proverbial crack pipe? The film industry’s? Wha? ... On June 2 there was more blather about L.A.’s mayor’s girlfriend. Writer Phil Willon ‘reminds’ us the mayor’s previous dates “raised” questions and “created a firestorm.” The ‘firestorm’ came from nosey newsies, it didn’t ‘raise’ itself ... The big news on the sole page devoted to the entire Nation May 21? How the swine flu is affecting people in NY ... Is there really a Bob Pool? I’ve always felt that the lightweight stories under that signature are done by anonymous staffers, perhaps interns, hence ‘pool’ written. That would explain the endless parade of piffle like the 7/4/09 lede “It could have been a scene out of a Gene Autry horse opera - a cowboy-versus-Indian-style faceoff, potshots being fired by both sides, a hero riding to the rescue in the final reel.” ENOUGH WITH THE MOVIE PLOT INTRO! It’s been done and done and done and done and done... Ken Bensinger AND Julie Strack dig deep : “America’s auto crisis has stretched beyond the Midwest all the way to California.” June 30th! The first we’ve heard, or they’ve ...

Nearing My Limit

The July 3 front-page L.A. Times article about someone being shot to death in a Rolls Royce LAST DECEMBER still intrigues the fools at the Times. For years we have craved, they think, news about people crashing in Ferraris; now this bunk. Grammy night one of the local tv stations ran FOUR HOURS of a Rolls Royce sitting in North Hollywood after a police chase. The speculation by the “news team” was far below the twaddle heard during a car chase. And though the tv geniuses became giddy when one said “Do you think it is someone famous?” and they twittered, lower-case, over the possibility, it didn’t even make the papers the next day because the driver, who committed suicide, was a nobody. Damn the tv news, and all the tv news we see in print.

I watch tv

The ad where John McEnroe screams and demands he get the car he wants has been toned down; now he smiles. The scene probably frightened people who don’t remember his 80s antics ... Craig T. Nelson’s words should propel him into Republican politics: “If a business fails it fails, it shouldn’t get government handouts. I was broke once too, I got welfare and food stamps, but I didn’t get any government handouts!” I quote inexactly from a tv interview ... Watching ‘Volcano’ about an eruption under L.A. I remember 20 years ago, more, when methane gas escaped under the pavement near the La Brea tar pits and flames shot up through the sidewalk cracks. What a town!!! ... Poorly hidden product placement in the “Drugstore” category on Jeopardy “Sure, it’s the best-selling denture cleanser but it also works for toothbrushes” ... the Seinfeld with Bette Midler climaxes with a female singer crying because something - her blouse? - became undone. It’s a parody of skater Tonya Harding whining to a judge about an untied shoelace. In the news in ‘92 ... also in that episode Seinfeld says “and a hot dog makes her lose control,” a line from the Patty Duke Show theme song.

Events

Went to a Penn & Teller interview at the Writers Bloc series at the Writers Guild theater in Bev Hills. Eddie Gorodetsky, who’s not only a founder of ‘Two and Half Men’ and other tv shows but also programs the Bob Dylan radio hour, was the host. Penn said of an audience member whose accomplishments towered over everyone in the room, “If you don’t know anything about Stan Freberg, I don’t want to know you.” I would have said it more forcefully ... Took ex-SF Chronicle music editor Joel Selvin to Ian Whitcomb’s Monday night ‘roundtable’ at a restaurant in Pasadena. Fun was had ... Same Selvin took me to Hollywood/Highland to see N’awlins’ Trombone Shorty. Saw Edie McClurg there, and a thousand other people ... Went to see Chris Sprague and the 18-Wheelers at Saddle Sore’s in Norco, a town suffused in horse lore and commerce, 60 miles south of Hollywood, my first visit to the town formerly known as North Corona ...

Did not see:
* Aretha Franklin singing across the street. (Hollywood Bowl.)
* Etta James ditto.
* John Fogerty July 4 also there!
* Crowds on Hollywood Blvd smothering Michael Jackson’s star.

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PHOTOS

Self, Crystal, Rodney Bingenheimer, Dan Kessell, Rachelle Spector’s birthday party, Cafe 50s, Santa Monica. 6-9-09

Harvey Sid Fisher serenading outside Cafe 50s. Same.

Penn, Teller, and Stan Freberg. (Cellphone pic.) 6-18-09

Ian Whitcomb, Jim Dawson, Joel Selvin, yers truly. 6-22-09

Trombone Shorty (he played mostly trumpet) at Hollywood/Highland. Free show. 6-23-09
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Words

“Do not bend, spindle or mutilate” appears on signs and in protest songs of the 60s, but nobody now knows that this complaint about conformity referred to IBM cards that were punched like braille and held your college info. They were the only computer access of the time ... In the NY Times, ‘glamor’ has gained a “u.” Veddy teddibly swank. Going after UK readers, one supposes ...

Franny and Suey

That a writer adopted a Salingerish nom de plume and wrote his own update on ‘Catcher in the Rye’ is funny, tho it’s less funny that his lawyers 4 call it a ‘rip-off,’ a terrible, terribly unliterary term. A.G. Sulzberger coverage of the story in the June 17 Art Fein’s Birthday edition of the NY Times was an interesting examination by an intelligent writer. Lacking same, the L.A. Times assigned undignified punk Meghan Daum, who deemed Salinger “paranoid, mercurial and even delusional.” Maybe she was reading from her own resume.

4 In the same NY Times article it mentions that the publisher of a Harry Potter Lexicon was successfully sued by J.K. Rowling. I proposed such a book in 1995, but it was to be a guide to the British-only words that slipped through, such as lorry. (I mentioned this to Brit friends and they said they’d read both versions and thought all the Brit terms had been excised.) Nobody wanted it, rightly I guess, because it was just deemed actionable.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Schnorr

Why are there so many angry and gun-bold women at newspapers? In a nice 1/4 NY Times profile of comedian Kristen Wiig (which includes in the sub-hed the popular and meaningless “That’s pretty good for a 35-year-old”), hothead Melana Ryzik casts her lot with the demons when she observes that Wiig’s arrival “over the last year” (What did she think of her in previous year? Nothing?) comes “when Ms. Fey and others may have finally stiletto-stomped the masculine surprise at the notion of a funny woman.” Ms Ryzik, just off a boat, never knew a funny woman til now, yet she writes for a major newspaper. And “stiletto-stomped the masculine surprise”? Note to NY Times: English speakers preferred ...

Jacko Journalism

I watched Keith Olbermanni present speculation about Jackson on Monday, June 29, five days past the death and thought about R. Meltzer’s book title, “A Whore Just Like All The Rest.” A guy at the L.A. Times, a guy with The Joker’s face in Florida, all had something to say to questions like “What do you think was in that bag the police took from the house today?” Obermann’s ratings went up when he ditched his principles and reported ad nauseum on the death.

This is a canned-concept story. When a child dies, people interviewed say “He liked animals” or “It’s a terrible thing.” A plane crashes and each victim is “looking forward to seeing his wife,” “a community leader,” “would soon graduate.” Just fill in the names. The L.A. Times had reporters in a dozen countries file firsthand hard gotten Jackson quotes like “He was wonderful” and “I’ve loved his music since I was a child,” as unenlightening from someone in the Seychelles as here but gotten at great expense, like buying a tire rolled by hand from Ohio.

Kid Stuff

The death of Michael Jackson is being treated like Elvis’s. I can’t say it isn’t as important. People embrace him as hard. But the dreary L.A. Times “King of Pop Dead” headline excessively honored the publicist who invented it. Could have meant Dr. Pepper died.

The news media schreyed over child-molestation accusations, when he was never convicted of anything. A friend of mine said “Come on, you really think he was innocent?” and I simply said he wasn’t proven guilty. “What about the money he paid out to some parents?” I don’t know. Honestly. 5

I can understand how a guy raised as a boy yet lacking boy companions could build a fairyland for them. “I missed it the first time, so this time I’m doing it right.” He wouldn’t be the first person to try to reinvent his childhood.

When Jackson said he liked to sleep with boys, it was honest. It didn’t mean he had sex with them! “Sleep with” when used by men is literal. Only women use it euphemistically.

5 I am sidestepping the possibility of guilt because it seems unthinkable that a guy would go as far as charged when he’s so visible. But anything is possible.

LAT Obits

In its salute to Sky Saxon on June 27th, uncredited staff pulled up this quote from the Times archives: the Seeds had “been adopted by the hippies - the flower children - because of their open-ended songs which generally skirt neatly plotted thoughts and didacticism.” Surely this was included for laughs, to highlight the pomposity the Times countenanced back then, but not crediting the writer denies us the chance to snicker back at him. I look forward to the day when Times obits include apologies for the preposterous, errant and arrogant remarks of its reviewers - and names them.

July 5, In the obit for manager Allen Klein, additional information came from an interview with Bob Hilburn. (How far will they go for sources at the Times? A couple of desks over.) But Geoff Boucher repeated the press handout’s citation of the Stones’“previous management”without identifying him as Andrew Loog Oldham. But maybe he and Bob Hilburn didn’t know.

And is it really sad that the guy who made a fortune SCREAMING AT YOU on tv ads died? Testimonials poured in for him. Why? He hacked new holes in the sinking ship of our culture. To hell with him.

Annie

Ann Powers has been in the rock-crit driver’s seat at The L.A. Times for a long time now. But the Powers ouvre is impossible to pin down. How do you grasp smoke? Take the June 23 Regina Spektor thing.

“Of all the lines an artist can find herself crossing, the one between ‘cute’ and ‘cutesy’ is one of the riskiest.”

Of ALL the lines. Like “Howl” by Allan Ginsberg, Galileo’s assertion that the earth revolves around the sun.

“Seriousness attaches itself to explicit violence or sexuality - “

Seriousness. Attaches. Itself. First I’ve heard of its prerogative. Also, then, things NOT about violence or sexuality are piffle.

“think of Eminem and Madonna, discussed in the halls of church and state.”

State? Discussed in government? By whom? When? Where? Why?

“Going deep into the realm of childlike wonder and whimsicality has the opposite effect. People smile at art rendered in pretty colors and a sunny voice, but they don’t think about it too hard: doing so might result in sugar shock.”

Finishing on a clever homage to Jimmy Gilmer, Annie dictates truth as she knows it. Ugliness is profound, beauty is shit. It’s a sentiment that resonates in all rock writers because it corresponds to a low sense of self. Bring on the beastliness! Happiness is a lie!

Everyone’s A Crit

On a Jack Benny documentary, Dinah Shore shakes her head and says ‘The Horn Blows At Midnight’ was “as bad as everyone says it was.” Wow. Benny always said his movies were awful, but that got laughs. They were boxoffice failures but Gloriosky, so many were great! ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ is the champ, followed closely by “THBAM.” Funny funny funny. She shoulda shut up. She was buying the Benny line, which surely was a creation of his writers.

I Can Drive 55

Driving 365 miles up Route 5 and back, I get to thinkin’ how I hated the 1000-mile drive from Boulder to Chicago when I was in college, running low on gas in a snowstorm near a small town in Nebraska at 3 in the morning wondering if they had an open gas station (they did). There were always other drivers with me, but you tend to stay awake all the time when you’re on a mission.

This was before the mid-70s imposition of the 55 mph (gas-saving) national speed limit. Before then, the states of Arizona and Montana (the west is the best!) had no limits, and you could cover long empty stretches at 95 and 100 mph, risking a ticket only if you drove recklessly. But somewhere in my first 10 years behind the wheel I noticed that whenever my mind drifted and I wasn’t pressing on the gas pedal to make time I slowed the vehicle (‘64 Dodge 330 2-dr with a 318 engine - the V8 the only option opted for in the $1900 brand-new price) to 55. Fifty five is in fact a ‘natural’ speed, won’t fray your nerves. Well, mine.

On this trip I bought sixteen CDs for $24 at Rasputin Records in Concord, CA. Among them one by the incredible Dan Bern, and yet another copy of the Tommy Womack album mentioned elsewhere here. (I’m lousy 6 with them.) At Half Price Books I found a 1993 copy of Pete Frame’s ‘Rock Family Trees’ for $8. It’s wonderful to have a niche. In any city, I have a home in a book store or record store. If there’s either.

6 For younger readers, if any, lousy is a bad word, though not a dirty one; it means covered with lice, each of which is a louse. To be are lousy WITH things means you have so many they are infesting you like lice. My mother objected very strongly to me using this word.

Ha ha

I try to end each column with a joke or something like it, but last month’s was too obscure.

That Robert Plant’s “aim was true” in his search for a female singing partner refers to Elvis Costello’s song “My Aim Is True,” parenthetically titled “Allison.” Now he sings with Alison Krauss.

Jacko - Mo

It’s too bad my friend Bill Liebowitz isn’t around. This is a large and general truth, but in this case I refer to the contributions he, who died in 2004, could have made to the Jackson press pileup.

In the 90s Michael would come to Bill’s store, the Golden Apple on Melrose, and shop for comic book and fantasy wares. Bill would close the store for him and his phalanx, and Michael would walk through and point to things he wanted.

One time Michael pointed to three monster heads and asked how much each was. Bill said five hundred dollars. “And how much for three?” Bill, cognizant of the star’s conversion to the Jehovah’s Witness faith, said “Michael, so now you’re Jewish?”

Michael doubled over laughing.

- 57 -

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AFTERBURN
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Mark On The Move

I had one of those “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium” months. Had a lot of fun.

I read about “The Dancing Saints” at St. Gregory of Nyssa Church (in S.F.) and decided to check them out. The recently-completed 2,300-square-foot, ten-year project of painter Mark Dukes and architect John Goldman depicts 90 modern and ancient saints (chosen by church members) holding hands and dancing on the walls above the altar, with Jesus “The Lord of The Dance” in the center. This church’s services feature congregational dancing (hence the genesis of this commission), and a liberal attitude about “sainthood” and other religions. The mural includes not only Thomas Aquinas, Paul of Tarsus and Francis of Assisi, but John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, William Blake, Cesar Chavez, Charles Darwin, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Mead etc., each in characteristic dress and with gorgeous, golden medieval-style halos. It is a breathtaking, joyous thing to stand in the beautiful sanctuary and swivel around to view all the larger-than-life figures. The artwork binds together thousands of years into a stately, yet ecstatic, celebration of common humanity. You can visit http://www.saintgregorys.org/worship/art_section/243 to learn more, but I really recommend a visit to get the full impact.

In New York, I spent about ten hours in the Metropolitan Museum and Museum of Modern Art, despite the fact that I’d been in each many times. They are just overwhelming, one magnificient work after another. The permanent collection actually varies from time to time, as paintings go out on loan and are replaced with stuff from the vaults, plus there are always temporary shows (like the Francis Bacon exhibition at The Met which induced a little nausea because of some of the subject matter – lots of flayed carcasses -- but mostly awe due to the power of the artist’s execution and intelligence). I hadn’t been to MOMA since cellphone cameras became ubiquitous. Now aside from fighting the crowds, you have to contend with people taking photos of Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” which struck me as silly. It’s already one of the most reproduced pictures in the world, available in thousands of books and online – surely the quality of a cellphone picture can’t compete. Plus, I guess memory isn’t so persistent if it needs all these reminders. (It made slightly more sense to me when people had a photo taken of themselves standing next to the painting.)

I also had the chance to attend an exhibit at The Guggenheim that my daughter – who got a job there straight out of UC Berkeley – helped organize, working on a program that sends working artists into public schools and then displays the art made by the kids in response to what they’ve learned. Miriam Leviton, take a bow!

The revival of “Guys and Dolls” on Broadway couldn’t have been better, with Oliver Platt (Nathan Detroit), Craig Bierko (Sky Masterson), Kate Jennings Grant (Sarah Brown), Tituss Burgess (Nicely-Nicely Johnson) and Lorelei-of-The-Gilmore-Girls-TV-show Lauren Graham as Adelaide. I sat next to a guy who saw the original cast when the play opened in 1950, and he thought the new production was terrific. We got the benefit of improvements in production craft. At the drop of a hat, stage wizardry constructed 42nd Street scenes, diners, Cuban nightclubs, a Salvation Army mission, and a sewer where crap games might be held, but it was the singing and acting that really shone. I don’t think I’ve heard “Adelaide’s Lament” sung better than Graham did, and Grant’s version of “If I Were a Bell” sounded like she’d just thought up Frank Loesser’s lyrical masterpiece on the spot. The style of presentation wasn’t unduly modernized, although “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” benefitted by using Burgess’ gospel chops to sound more like a contemporary Baptist church. I was getting ready to tell everyone I knew in New York to see the show immediately when I found out it was closing five performances later (in fact, the cast probably got the word on the day I saw the show). The bad economy and lack of Tony Awards doomed several shows including this one, and a number of Broadway theatres are going to be dark this summer. One of the remaining lights on the Great White Way is for my broken heart.

-- 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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THEY HATE L.A.

By Gene Sculatti

Art and I have been following this stuff for years: the hard-on that much of the rest of the country has against L.A. and, by extension, California. Both of us have lived in and loved L.A. since the early ’70s (I’m a native Californian). The purpose of this occasional column will be to comment on the ongoing art of Angel City/Golden State bashing as expressed throughout the media. And away we go…

June 14, New York Times Book Review. Reviewer Judith Newman turns in some good stuff in her appraisal of the novel Beverly Hills Adjacent. Judy goes with a strong opening: “In Hollywood, it is fair to say, attention is power; attention is money. It is the currency of the land. Giving it, getting it and losing it can become the central dramas of existence.” WTF is she talking about: “Attention is money”?? The novel, about the wily ways of movie execs’ wives, Judy explains, is spot on. How could it not be? Its authors are the L.A bureau chief of the New York Times and the daughter of a former editor of the National Lampoon and NY’s avatar of snark, Spy magazine. The book’s protagonist at one point, Judy informs, turns to “Rich Friend [these gals have wicked humor chops!], seemingly the only man in Los Angeles not repelled by an intellectual.” Such a cultural wasteland is our burg: 13 million people here, let’s say half are guys, virtually all of them resolute knuckle-draggers. Thank God for the Auden-quoting Mr. Friend! Judy saves her best for last, concluding her rave, “As a satire, Beverly Hills Adjacent has that shooting-fish-in-a-barrel feel. Still, we New Yorkers can’t help appreciating the facile Los Angeles/New York comparisons. (Los Angeles is “where everyone was trying to Botox, exercise and juice-fast his way toward immortality, while New York is “where people ate and drank and stayed out late, accepting the joyous toll of life”). Mirrors and Jamba Juice: You’ll search in vain for either in Midtown.

May 25, L.A. Weekly. Reviewer Randall Roberts does a Q&A with P.J. Harvey and John Parish, following a recent in-town gig. Roberts opens by telling us the fun duo “introduced California to songs from their incredible new collection, A Man Walked By. Forget the “incredible.” Forget even the gussied up “collection” as a synonym for “album” (over at Pretentious City, KCRW, albums are “works” and tracks “pieces”). No, Polly Jean & John-boy introduced California—us poor, intellectually deficient slobs—to their album. Jesus, I’m grateful, you guys. Should we curtsy in gratitude? Randy goes on to praise Harvey’s song, “Leaving California,” which includes the line “Get me out of here.” Wait, you just dropped in to bestow your collection on us, and now you’ve gotta go? Please, P.J., what can we do to make you stay a while? How about some Auden poems? Fearless Roberts then goes all Woodward & Bernstein, lobbing the tough one straight at Polly. “This being L.A., I feel compelled to ask you about ‘Leaving California.’ Can you talk about that song, Polly?” “Well,” she demurs, “I’m sure you know I choose to not discuss lyrics. So I don’t choose to talk about that.” Sure, babe. Props to you for your fearlessness. You can leave now.

Gene Sculatti hosts, as DJ Vic Tripp, the online radio show Atomic Cocktail at www.luxuriamusic.com, Thursdays, from 5 to 6 p.m. California time.

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Hey @:

There's a particularly amateurish review of the new Leiber & Stoller book in today's NYT Book Review. The reviewer is an idiot. Surprise! He strikes me as a geek (bad) as opposed to a record geek (good and knowledgeable). I get the idea that he ran to his friends' CD collections for a quick refresher course when he had to review this book.

Yeah, I know that "Kansas City" didn't spring out of those teenage boys' heads, and that Elvis was actually doing the Freddy Bell & the Bellboys "new and improved" version of "Hound Dog", but hey - L&S still made some great records... a lot more than this dopey reviewer ever made.

So here's the letter I just sent to the Times:

Jim Windolf, after searchin' every which a-way, wastes most of his review of the new Leiber and Stoller autobiography (June 14) by dragging in fuzzy and not necessarily reliable "he said-she said" testimonies about the origins of the songs "Hound Dog" and "Stand By Me." In that quibbling, pedantic spirit, I'd like to point out that Mr. Windolf's description of the composer, songwriter and master stride pianist James P. Johnson as a "boogie-woogie great" is as misguided as calling James Brown a "great folk singer." Some artists are beyond category - and that includes Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Bill From L.A.

This woman I know wrote on Facebook about fucking an older (64-plus) rock & roll star she loved all her life. It sounds like a fantasy, but she has access to people close to him, so it could be true.

She is a whore (not a pro, anymore, just a man-user) but the act she describes blow-by-blow is peculiar to women - transferring the emotion of music to the performer. Men don’t go that way.

Judy Collins, quite a looker in her day, sang beautifully, but a man didn’t necessarily transfer that to physical sex. Musical beauty is a totality. A man COULD act upon her, but her specialness once horizontal is the same as any equally pretty or sexy woman.

Music good. Woman good. If they sing badly or have trouble forming sentences, well, they’re not Sweet Judy C or Ann Coulter (heh) but they’re as welcome in the sack.