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First Record/First Concert
The first LP I bought was Little Richard's second one on Specialty, LITTLE
RICHARD, in 1958 when I was 11. The first one I wanted was HERE'S LITTLE
RICHARD, but my mother wouldn't buy anything like that. She was horrified
by Mr. Penniman's wild, screaming mug on that bright orange cover and
surmised, correctly, that the "jungle rhythms" contained therein
would corrupt her Uptown child. Even at that tender age I was headed down
the road to hell. I saw these records in the grocery store. That's where
you bought records then. I don't know why race records where on display
at a white Uptown New Orleans market, but there they were. Calling to
me. I'd heard Little Richard on the radio via WYLD on the Larry and Frank
show and WBOK on the Poppa Stoppa Show. That's what the maids listened
to as soon as my momma left the house and they got me to chopping onions,
garlic and celery. I HAD to have his record. On a saturday I took the
streetcar and my allowance to the Canal Villere Market and was crushed
when the orange record was gone. But there, under Ray Charles was LITTLE
RICHARD! Holy shit! I was afraid it was a gospel side with that red halo,
but one spin of GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY and KEEP A KNOCKIN' and LUCILLE
proved that fear unfounded. I had to hide the LP like porn and play it
on the sly upon the console reserved for Dino, John McCormack, Verdi and
Mozart. I'd play LUCILLE real loud for Lucille Holmes, our cook, and she'd
hip me to when my parents would be pulling in.
The first single I bought was a year later. GO TO THE MARDI GRAS by Professor
Longhair. On RONN. I was 12. I think they started playing this song around
Mardi Gras in 1960. All the stations, black and white, played it. Super
infectious and it mentioned the Zulu Queen and local streets and Carnival
Balls. The second line funk was magic coming out of the shitty little
radio speakers. I wanted to listen to it all day and all night. They didn't
have it at the Canal Villere. They didn't sell records there any more.
(Maybe someone complained about that Negro Music?) That's when the above
mentioned Lucille Holmes came through. She said she could get it at a
record shop by her house. (It was really a One-Stop run by Joe Assunto
who owned Ronn and Watch, but I didn't know this until 10 yrs later.)
She got it for me and I played it until it wore out. Now that I'm about
wore out, I have mint copies of both those records and a cat named Lucille.
Not after Richard's song.
Concert? 1961 at the new Orleans Miserable, oops, Municipal Auditorium.
Bobby Bland and James Brown. My friend, McGhee, was 15 and stole his Momma's
Cadillac so we could fit in. We were the only white people and I most
remember TV MAMMA. She was enormous and shook each butt cheek separately.
Bobby Bland's hair was mysterioso and Brown's cape was on fire. I was
14.
Hudson Marquez, artist and bon vivant, never quite recovered from
an early exposure to Negro music.
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-- ELVIS SHOW VENUE CHANGE:
This year’s Elvis Birthday Bash will be held january 8th at the Avalon,
nee the Palace, 1735 N. Vine Street in Hollywood right across the street
from the Capitol Records tower. 8 p.m.
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AFM Jan 04
It Was 20 Years Ago Today
I enjoyed playing nickel-dime poker with friends in high school. The fun
came as the games got sillier. The same ethic applied in the late 70s
when I joined a friend’s game in North Hollywood.
When that broke up I held occasional games at my house, with low stakes
and various degrees of expertise, mainly none. Whatever the opposite of
cut-throat poker is, this was it. But we had many laughs.
In 1984 -- twenty years ago January 21st -- I debuted my tv show, Li’l
Art’s Poker Party1,
on local cable. (The title was a goof on Li’l Wally’s Polka
Party, a band whose records always showed up in thrift stores.) It was
an extension of my then-current kitchen-table games. It was a talk show,
cushioned by the fact that whenever we ran out of things to say we could
resume playing cards. Richard Meltzer and Todd Everett were on the first
show; one of them continues with it today.
People apparently like poker, judging from the spate of televised poker
games on lower-rung cable. First it was only the Travel Channel but now
it’s on many. (Bravo’s Celebrity Poker lacks pith. They’re
playing for charity so
there’s no drama. And they’re actors, so they’re not real.)
This leads to Jake Austen’s2
new book, “A Friendly Game Of Poker” (Chicago Review Press,
www.ipgbook.com). It’s a fascinating compendium of poker stories
including an interview with me and a short by the Meltzer mentioned above.
The funniest one is Jake’s straight-faced “How About A Cowboy
Poker Night?,” suggesting you pretend you’re cowboys in the
mid-1800s. But, he says, you needn’t go whole-hog on period authenticity:
after all, ”When the White Sox play their ‘turn
the clock back to 1917’ game they still let the black players suit
up...”
1 In 1989 I dropped
the Li’l Art bec nobody got the joke.
2 Chicago-based
Jake’s multi-media life is quite similar to mine, only more ambitious.
He hosts a 60’s style kid-oriented public access tv show, “Chic-A-Go-Go,”
with way-out guests (T. Valentine! Rudy Ray Moore) and obscure records3.
He publishes and edits the always-fascinating Roctober magazine, which
in a recent issue introduced the world to Sid Lavarents.
3 After an interview
with L.A. oudist Guy Chookoorian, it was amazing to see pre-teens frugging
to a rock record sung entirely in Armenian.
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Kitchen
poker party at 1840 El Cerrito Place, 1982.
Clockwise from AF (red shirt): Keith Joe Dick, Pat Faulstich, Screamin'
Scott Simon, Nick Tosches, R. Meltzer, Bob Merlis, Gerrit Graham. |
Merry Merry, Xmas Is Over
A couple of years ago I was talking to someone who had a large hand in
producing some later Beatle records. “Phil4”
I said, “how come that commercial for ‘Come Back to Jamaica’
sounds exactly like “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”?
He explained, as I recall it, that when he heard the Jamaica ad he told
John Lennon he wanted to sue them and John said, “Uh, maybe you’d
better not, Phil4.”
Undaunted, Phil4
pursued litigation. A few months later four Jamaican men wearing dreadlocks
came to Phil’s4
office in New York with an old record player. One took out a 78 rpm disc
and put it on the turntable, and they listened to the traditional Caribbean
tune, “Come Back To Jamaica.” Phil4
said “I asked John, ‘ Have you ever been to Jamaica? ’
and he said, ‘Well, maybe, I think so.’ ”
4 Not his real
name.
Holiday Jeer
From Candye Kane, the San Diego area rockabilly chanteuse, who recently
converted to Judaism5:
i actually had a weird thing happen. someone
egged my window where my menorah was and broke the window! the cops said
it was a hate crime! that made me feel pretty bad but not bad enough to
remove my menorah.
It’s their way of saluting polytheism in Oceanside.
5 Great theologian
that I am, I cannot comprehend any Christian disliking Jews, generally.
Jesus was Jewish, and so is the Old Testament. A like absurdity would
be hating all Black people bec one killed Malcom X.
Careful
I got an out-of-the-blue email from an old friend6.
In the ‘subject’ box was “Has It Been 9 Years?” I
nearly threw it away unopened. I’m not worried about viruses, I just
get tired of friendly teasers like “Hi” and “Where have
you been?” from people selling stuff. When contacting someone for
the first time in a long time, put something personal in the subject box
like ‘Whisky/Palomino 1976’ or ‘It’s me, Risa Huruwitz.’
6 Old friend Mercy
Bermudez from the Heaters7,
my favorite-ever L.A. band, now married and living in Arizona.
7 It’s because
of the Heaters that I met Phil Spector. In 1986 I sent him several of
their new girl-group songs and it led to several meetings at his house.
But no recording session ensued8.
(Two other groups, 20/20 and the Knack, told me they had similar experiences.)
8 That’s
not true. There was one in 1989. Spector rang together nearly the whole
Wall Of Sound into Studio 57, nee Radio Recorders, to do a Heaters song
with Mercy singing. But the 4-hour session crashed due to equipment problems
and the project was shelved.
On Below-The-Radar TV
Interviewing members of Lisa Finnie’s band, the Nice Guys:
Rob Gothar, guitarist: “My first concert was
the Who at the Forum, 1971. It was great. It was like a dream. When the
house lights came on, it was like a dream had happened.”
Colin Cameron, bassist: “I played for a while
with Lonnie Mack. We even played Madison Square Garden --opening for the
Doors. Forty-five minutes of ‘We want the Doors, we want the Doors.’
”
His first concert attendance was his dad dragging him to a ballroom in
San Diego to see Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two. Would that we all
had such rockin’ daddies!
The Chase Is Off
I was reluctant to go see David Allen Coe for the second time in this
century because my previous experience was so magical.
In 2001 I’d gone with two friends to Bakersfield to see him at Buck
Owens’ Crystal Palace. We were on a mission. Coe, mystical and marvelous
in the 1970s, hadn’t appeared in California in 25 years. That show
was a mind-boggler, mowed us down. And the two-hour each-way drive contributed
to the magic, escaping our humdrum lives to dig the infinity of Coe.
This show, December 13, was at the Key Club on Sunset Strip, a ten minute
drive for me. The place has a steel cage on the dance floor. What goes
on there? Wrestling? Lion-taming? Coe was fine, but it wasn’t the
levitation I felt in 2001. Sometimes magic can’t be repeated. And
the sound was too loud and ear-slicing.
I credit it to CDs. I blame everything on CDs.
Haberdashery News
I was at a cheap dept store and saw sweat pants and thought I’d snag
a pair. Last time I’d passed a pair was at a drugstore for 5 bucks,
so thought it would be the same at this mock-fashion place.
Oops. They were all marked down to 34 dollars from some other equally
silly price. Why didn’t someone tell me they are now dressware?
And this from the “Doesn’t Anyone Remember Anything?” department.
I wanted a safari coat, a tan thing with lots of pockets, so like a fool
I went to Banana Republic9,
where I knew they would cost $150 but it was a start. I asked the eyebrow-ringed
boy at the counter where they had the tropical and safari gear and he
looked at me with the look of puzzlement and disdain I’ve come to
expect and said “We don’t have anything like THAT” and
kinda giggled into his fist.
Banana Republic. Does he know what that means? Does he know how the store
made its money? Apparently all they sell now is tuxedos.
I need daily updates on everything.
9 My wife ordered
one from a catalog. Around $150. Then I went to Sears to get some mixed
paint (Martha Stewart brand, wife’s choice, they carry it) and the
nozzle that fits into the can of white paint was misaligned to it sprayed
golden paint onto my pricey surplus coat. So it’s on its first step
to becoming a camouflage jacket.
Thoughts While Watching Jackie Cooper10
on “Columbo”11
- Columbo goes to a gas station asks for a counter check. In Chicago
I never saw a counter check, because Chicago is a normal distrustful city.
But when I went to college in Boulder in the 1960s, all the finer stores
on “the Hill” had counter checks - a pad of blank checks on
which you wrote your bank’s name and your account number!
- Cooper pretends to make a phone call while surreptitiously holding down
the answer button. This flung me back 30 years to the time I did this
while a gal was at my house, pretending to prolong a conversation to construct
a future alibi. But while I was talking the phone rang. I said they had
hung up suddenly. I don’t think she bought it. I led an entangled
life.
10 The first chapter
of Jackie Cooper’s autobio, “Please Don’t Shoot My Dog”
(when Cooper was a child actor, a director told him if he didn’t
cry on cue he would shoot his dog) is a lulu. In it, he tells about a
chance encounter with the father who abandoned him in childhood. It is
darkly cynical, but breathtakingly .... just?
11 My favorite
episode is the one featuring William Shatner as an actor/ killer. Exactly
why do people mock his acting? He is great. That episode also features
my idol Tim Carey, about whom Peter Falk told me, “He didn’t
take direction.”
Shadings
But I’m an emotional timbre sleuth, like Columbo. We all perceive
nuances -- a glance, a pointed pause -- but I think I see it more. There’s
a Supremes lipsynch where I can tell Diana Ross has recently been crying.
A year ago I noticed that Rush Limbaugh sounded like he was drunk, but
everyone I mentioned it to didn’t hear it. (On this one I was wrong12.)
Recently flipping stations I saw Barry Manilow13
duetting with Cyndi Lauper. He said, “Gee, Cyndi,
this is the first time we’ve worked together isn’t it?”
She lowered her head for an instant, and not smiling said yes.
I surmised that Cyndi, who’d originally been a rock singer and is
now doing -- surprise! -- standards, was embarassed14
being paired with the guy who so very much symbolized non-rock15.
12 He wasn’t
drunk, he was whacked on drugs. Though I don’t think anyone should
be jailed for using drugs, I look forward to seeing him in a striped suit.
Do federal prisons have chain gangs?
13 Born same day
and year as me, maybe. I saw a letter in a 1964 Playboy Advisor from a
Barry Manilow in Brooklyn who said he was 20, which’d make him 59
now, not 57 as he claims. But he coulda been lying then.
14 I do not wish
to besmirch Mr. Manilow. In 1973 I reviewed a Bette Midler concert for
Variety, and commended Manilow’s solo turn (he was her pianist) on
“Could It Be The Magic.” A week later I got an album from him
signed “Art - Thanks for sticking your neck out.” (Thought I’d
explain this so my heirs won’t be puzzled by the inscription when
they find it.)
15 Little remembered,
and certainly never mentioned by Manilow, is his leap on the rockabilly
bandwagon (seriously) in 1982 with his version of a Shakin’ Stevens
composition (!!), “Oh Julie.”
Journalists In Shorts
- Todd Everett’s letter to the L.A. Times: Which
was your favorite Times "Chestnuts" article
-- the one on Dec. 25 positing that nobody knows what a chestnut
is, or the Dec. 17 story where Susan La Tempa claims, "The chestnut.
It's about as avoidable this time of year as the endless loop of Christmas
carols playing everywhere." Once again, I ask: Does anybody who works
at The Times actually read the paper?
- The lead in the 12/24/03 NY Times front-page story about the recent
reversal of Lenny Bruce’s obscenity conviction in 1964, opens “Lenny
Bruce, the potty-mouthed wit....” POTTY-MOUTHED? This from
the estimable (you estimate him) John Kifner.
- Patrick McDonnell’s 12/16/03 front-page L.A. Times story about
Saddam Hussein says “Hussein was ratted out
by a man from a prominent Tikrit area family.” RATTED OUT!
Wow, McDonnell’s street creds are dope!
- Bob Pool, perhaps a pen name for L.A. Times writers whose work requires
anonymity, opens this 12/13/03 L.A. Times story about Heidi Fleiss’s
entry into retail with: “Who’s putting
the ho-ho-’ho16
into this holiday season?” Who is he, or the L.A. Times, to
call Fleiss a ‘ho so freely?
- Great lead in Hilary DeVries’s 12/14/03 NY Times article about
holiday horse-painting in Malibu: “Among the
party animals there seemed to be a difference of opinion.”
16 The newspaper
had the final ‘ho’ with apostrophe and italics. What is the
apostrophe for? In what sense is the word ‘ho’ shortened at
the front? Does the L.A. Times have a style rule for this word? It shouldn’t.
Gary Stewart
The NY Times ran an unsigned box obit17
(in their ‘potters field’)for Gary Stewart (d. 12/15/03), the
greatest country singer of the past fifty years.
Are any Johnny Cash-style tributes brewing? Certainly none are prepared;
no one knew he was going to die but him. His loss is a great one.
17 Better than
the L.A. Times, which ran nothing until Jan.2, 2004.
Music Man’s Burdon
It’s not a music world. Never has been. I am shocked, still, when
a canny reference to it pops up in real life.
A story in the 12/21/03 NY Times SportsSunday section was headlined “A
Soul Whose Intentions Are Good.” And to drive the point further,
the subhead started, “Jerry Jones, Often Misunderstood....”
And have you seen the commercial for ..... Gee, I don’t know what,
that features the instrumental vamp only from Dave Edmunds’ version
of “I Hear You Knockin’ ”? What if that song had been co-written,
would the lyricist get royalties if the instro vamp is all that’s
used? I once asked a scion of a lyricist whether his dad got paid for
the Tijuana Brass version of his dad’s song and he said “Sure.”
Sounds wrong to me.
I got a little argy-bargy about my confusion about “The Lady Is A
Tramp.” Of course, the woman is down-to-earth and not an upper-class
twit, hence her trampiness, which means goodness, but I still maintain
it’s insane to be singing those ambivalent lyrics today. Their haziness
and misdirectedness must confuse others besides me.
But as Karen Carpenter said when Todd Everett (HIM again!) asked her how
she, a squeaky-clean Carpenter, could sing Leon Russell’s “Superstar,”
about a groupie -- “Nobody listens to lyrics.”
Little Fact
Perusing records at Rasputin Records in Sun Valley, I heard a bunch of
Motown songs, which reminded me of this; “Fingertips” by Stevie
Wonder stops at the end, then resumes, and as Stevie toots the harmonica
signalling the return, one panicked musician yells “What key? What
key?”
December Social Whirl
12/16 Gene Sculatti, John Gummoe (the Cascades) AFPP;
12/3 Brian O’Neal (Busboys), Doug Fieger, AF, Neil McCabe, AFPP;
12/17 Drummist Danny Frankel and Addie Somekh, AFPP;
12/11 Lisa Finnie & The Good Guys (missing John Palmer), after AFPP;
12/5 Skip Heller, Bob Drasnin, Howard Green, Wayne Peet at Farmers Market,
L.A.
Damn Those CDs
Here’s what’s wrong:
In our day we said good music ‘cooked.’
Today’s music is burned.
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