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1st record/1st show
Most people can rattle off the first R n' R record
they ever had in loving detail. For me it’s murkier.
If you want to get technical (and really, who doesn’t?),
maybe my first pertinent plastic was "Yogi Bear Favorite Songs"on
HBR (Hanna Barbera Records). It was rock! Each of the 6 songs featured
then-current RnR stylings, whether it was the B. Pickett knock -offs "Monster
Shindig / Monster Jerk", a sorta C.C. Rider-type romp on "Super
Snooper" or the "Memphis" styled "Beowolf , the Big
Bad Wolf". Influential? You bet.
Or maybe it was ‘It’s the Batman’ b/w ‘Look
Out for the Batman’ on Batman Records ("a product of Synthetic
Plastics Co. Newark, NJ USA"). ‘Look Out … " is rocking,
using liberal doses of the Hefti surf beat of the original, every bit
a qualifying rock side in 1966 as, say, ‘The Sounds of Silence ‘.
Heck, Earl Palmer may have played on it.
One black biscuit of brilliance most shaped my
formative years in KC. My mother found me a guitar teacher, Delbert "Uncle
Deb" Dyer. He worked out of his converted basement studio, the walls
covered with 8x10’s of show biz folks of indeterminate origin (at
least to this 11 year old kid) and that cool old Capitol Studio B –lookin’ acoustic
tile. At the time, all that struck me was
that he was a grouchy old man who made me (ugh) read music. But at the
end of my first lesson he gave me a copy of one of his homemade 45's,
a slab forever seared into my brain -- 'I Hate to Take My Wife to the
Grocery Store' b/w 'Hospital Quiet'.
I absolutely fell out over side one, which starts
off in a courtroom, Deb doing all the voices: "Order in the court!
Order in the court! How do you plead?" "Well, your honor, I'll
admit I went a little berserk, but I ain't no crim'nal". Then, sung: "I
love my wife and I love my home / and never more do I wanna roam/ Now
I'll mind the kids and I'll mop the floor / but I hate to take my wife
to the grocery store"
From there, the narrative couplets just keep piling
up ("She'll meet some woman and they'll get right in the way / and
there they stand and jabber all day / while people wiggle and squirm
to get out the door / while I stand there like a dunce in the grocery
store -- stand there like an old crow with a frozen toe") until
Deb has his final meltdown: "and that, your Honor is when / I threw
the whole kaboodle right out the door / man, I hate to take my wife to
the grocery store". Then Deb as the wife: "but your Honor,
he didn't tell you I was the kaboodle he threw out the door!"
Then the twist: Judge Deb: "Order in the court!
Case dismissed. For I too ... hate to take my wife to the grocery store" Shave
and a hair cut.
Haw! Okay, so the punchline’s not exactly "Dear
Dad", but I'll submit that, like Mad magazine and Whizzo's Saturday
Circus, Uncle Deb's gentle rowdiness and sass were (at least for me)
a major push down the road to Rock n' Roll (at the corner of Disrespect
and Mockery).
(Incidentally, I’ve discovered that Mr. Dyer
recorded for the great KC country/rockabilly label Westport, was the
M.C. of the Brush Creek Follies, Kansas City's version of the Grand Ol'
Opry in the 1930's, and singer and author of the 50's hellfire tract "Satan's
Secret Service")
The ‘First LP’ is easier. You can’t
count the great (but not rocking) Sterling Holloway "Best of Aesop" on
Disneyland Records, so it’s definitely a purchase at the record
section at Macy's in KC circa 1969 – Creedence’s ‘Willy & the
Poor Boys.’ "Down on the Corner" getting big play on the
WHB (World’s Happiest Broadcasters) Top 10 List and my ear was glued
to that station constantly. Most nights I could be found burning up the
request line for "Magic Carpet Ride"...
First concert? Kinda boring… Supremes? Paul
Revere? Little Richard? No, Chicago & the Beach Boys at Arrowhead
Stadium (are there any extra points given if I say Black Oak Arkansas/Ruby
Starr opened? I might've enjoyed them most anyway), but at that age (12
or 13), it was the only concert my folks would let me attend… a
year later ('74), my uncle took me to Memorial Hall in KC, KS. to see
Fleetwood Mac, Little Feat and Triumvirat ("Illusions on a Double
Dimple"!). Anyway, my cousin Mark loved electric blues so imagine
how crushed he was when he discovered it wasn’t the Peter Green ‘Mac,
but the very un-bluesy Bob Welch crew! He kept trying to explain; "…these
guys were…uh…completely different". I liked Little Feat,
though, but never figured out what that funny, sweet, smoky smell was
all concert long. Anybody have any ideas?
Dave Stuckey -- Once part of
the late, lamented Cool & the Crazy radio show, Dave Stuckey says
that when he's not working his day job in television he plays a little
music with the Bonebrake Syncopators and the Lucky Stars, but not nearly
as much as he used to with the Dave & Deke Combo or his own band,
Dave Stuckey & the Rhythm Gang. He's also real proud of the producing
work he's done with the likes of The Hot Club of Cowtown...
Fein Mess Jan. 2005/
AF Stone’s Monthly
Sorry I’m Late!
The Elvis Show was especially time-consuming
this year.
It was great, wonderful, fabulous. More in Feb.
Dylan
I am flabbergasted by the Bob Dylan book Chronicles. I’ve read many, many
rock histories, and all have the curse of uniformity, but Dylan, unencumbered
by peer pressure, speaks freely from the heart.
Take his statement that Johnny Rivers did the best version of “Positively
4th Street.” It’s refreshing to the point of shocking to see Rivers
praised: he’s not a rock-crit favorite.1
The book is like a letter full of music enthusiasm from an old friend.
1 No rock writer would ever praise Rivers.
Maybe with the codicil “This is a guilty pleasure, otherwise I don’t
like him, I like Iggy Pop.” Comes to mind the 12/5/04 L.A. Time perfunctory
slam of Kevin Spacey’s Darin performance by the Major, who never before
admired Darin but now does, not incidentally mentioning that Neil Young likes
him.
Thinkin’ ‘bout Bob
In Chronicles, Dylan tells of his excitement hearing Robert Johnson’s songs
for the first time, but that Dave Von Ronk, sitting with him, scoffed at every
one because he knew the original versions or the sources.
Wow. Both were right! In 1964 I was unimpressed by the Stones because they were
doing Chess material just like every bowling alley band in Chicago, whence I
came. I didn’t notice their distinction - well, their distinction came later.
Watching the Blues Bros movie recently I was re-reminded how much I hated those
guys on Saturday Night Live. Not only that they were doing lousy vesions of songs
done better by their betters but more that they were dressed idiotically like
white-soxed cops2 and
did dopey movements -- like the comedians they were.
Seeing this after a couple of decades I more appreciated them, and felt amazed
at the magnitude of the damage director John Landis wrought on the city of Chicago.
And what moved me anew was the ‘narration’ underneath the (AMC) movie3 which
said that every black performer (were there any white ones?) was VERY grateful
for their exposure to a new audience of kids. All their careers got a big boost.
So hurrah for Landis and Belushi and Ackroyd, and down with fuddy-duddy purists.
2 Did Madness or those other Ska guys copy
them???
3 With those constantly-running notes, I
learned that the nerd at City Hall at the end who accepts their church payment
is Steven Spielberg.
The Phantom4
I read reviews of the movie of the “Phantom Of The Opera” with the
same relish as getting a root canal: both are painful, and predictable.
There’s nothing hep about The Phantom. It is a long-running Broadway musical
of great bombast. No pop music reviewer has ever praised it because they aren’t
inclined towards that kind of music. It’s only people who enjoy it.
Sometimes I like bombast. Phil Spector’s productions are enormous. So are
Queen’s. And “I Am Kid Rock” is some big avalanche.
And sometimes I don’t: I don’t like “Phantom Of The Opera.” And
that’s where me and the crits part. I don’t like it, so I wouldn’t
write about it. Do they send out a guy or gal who hates Neil Young to review
his show? Yet at least two reviewers (NY Times, Portland Oregonian -- I was there
on vacation -- somehow I missed the L.A. Times’ review) up and admitted
they hated the music when reviewing the movie.
It’s so damned weird that these writers think readers want to know about
THEM. I still don’t know how the movie stacks up vis-a-vis the stage show.
4 However, if you find “Love Me” by
the Phantom (Dot, 1956), seize it. It’s wild, wild, wild rock & roll.
TV Shows
-- Did two shows with Cleve Duncan (The Penguins) and Young Jessie (“Mary
Lou,” 1955.) Man, it is so wonderful to talk with guys such as these. I
am honored (and very grateful to Jim Dawson for bringing them.)
-- Did two shows with Allan Arkush. They were just fine, though I should have
watched the Rock & Roll High School DVD commentary before interviewing him:
I made him repeat a lot.
-- And a two-show interview with Gold Star co-founder Stan Ross -- our fourth
-- is making me think I’m his primary biographer! He talked about making
radio transcriptions for Jack Benny in the late 1940s - transferring big 78s
onto regular ones. He’s a fountain of stories.
Jessie, Duncan, AF, Dawson.
Mark Leviton,
Arkush, AF, Todd Everett.
Ads
I saw an older guy (50s) on a bicycle near my home and he had a boomerang-shaped
tattoo on his neck. I froze in horror: could it be the Nike logo? If so forgive
him, he knows not what an idiot he is.
Back to Tom Hanks, I just saw “Terminal,” in which brand names
are shouted, not inserted. Being in an airline terminal permitted the marketeers
to STUFF brand names in your face: Borders, Baskin-Robbins, Baja Fresh,
Burger King, Boss Clothiers, Starbucks.
I’m guessing this is a Hanks hallmark: by contractual demand.
Muddy Waters
My fr Kathe took me to see the John Waters Xmas show at UCLA mid-December.
It was gruesomely awful. A transvestite came out and sashayed for ten minutes,
saying, essentially, “Look at me,” then a lesbian comedian came out and said
nothing funny for 30 minutes. The nervous titters in the audience bore out what
I felt. Waters himself was no prize either, talking about his likes and dislikes,
many gratuitously gross. I think the people two rows in front of me came to see
an actual Xmas show, as they were older, had Scandinavian sweaters, and didn’t
laugh. Neither did I, but they stayed longer. After 30 minutes Kathe, bless her,
said “Do we need to be here any longer?” and we left.
Book Review
Reading “Wall of Pain” by Dave Thompson, the April, 2004, Phil
Spector bio. I marked some mistakes and things that were new to me.
This made me think of book reviews. A reviewer would savage the guy for
such sins as misspelling Robert Goulet (Giulet, looks like a misprint).
Even in a positive review, review-chumps always cite the errors they spot,
cadging that they didn’t really invalidate the book (“but I caught them, with my
superior knowledge!”).
The book is a good overview. To hell with the details, at least for the
general public. For the extremely limited (in number, I mean) readership
of this little column, I’d be justified in analyzing the errors for
fun, because it is fun6. But for the great
masses, mostly-right is fine.
6 On the tv show I lacerate my friends when
they make mistakes. Because we respect each other. Everyone enjoys the mock aggro.
I think.
Epiphany
- Scanning an AFPP show from 1990, I caught the musical insert, Michigan
rocker Johnny Powers backed up by Big Sandy. Damn, I know I love that music,
but hadn’t
seen it lately. It was divine.
- Likewise, I was perusing a cassette tape I made in 1987 and was flabbergasted
by all the great music. No kidding -- I made the tape! But over time I’ve
forgotten a lot of the songs -- they were discovered only for the tape.
It was like someone with my exact taste made a tape for me.
- I was looking over some videos I got for my bday. One was Clifton Chenier
Live. It was a crashing disappointment, shot live at an outdoor show near
the end of his life, and on the first cut the accordian was not miked.
(Not a misprint: the ACCORDIAN.) So with trepidation I opened ‘J’ete Au Bal,’ the
Les Blank film from 1987. Les Blank of course can be trusted, but the late-80s
date had me worrying it was a festival with new or too-old performers. Well it
was a history of Cajun music that all but slammed me to the floor. I LOVED that
music so much in the early 70s that it consumed me, but I’d put it aside
during the last decade. So the unexpected sights and sounds captured expertly
by Mr. Blank were quite a refresher course -- magnificent hardly covers it. That
I had already enjoyed ‘Hot Pepper,’ his wonderful 1973 tape (no
DVD available) about Clifton Chenier, should have assuaged my doubts. Blank
is the master5.
5 I struck up a slight correspondence
with him after viewing ‘Hot Pepper’ -- he is available through Blankfilms.com
-- but after viewing ‘J’ete Au Bal’ I was so excited I wrote him
a heavy-breathing thank-you for all he’s done and probably scared
him. I gets carried away.
AF, Clifton Chenier, 1980
Lene,
Les, AF, 1978.
My Lucky Number
Caught Gwen Stefani on tv, and she was singing like Lene Lovitch. What
a great idea! Lene wasn’t really popular here, not like in England, and her singing
style was terrific. If she wasn’t successful with it, why not Gwen?
When I heard the first Lene album it 1978 it flipped me. When she came
to L.A. with her bf Les, the Epic publicist took us all to lunch (though
I wasn’t
especially important, I was familiar with her UK-only album) and after
lunch I took Lene and Les to old-clothing stores. A year later I was in
London and saw her Mata Hari show, and talked to them afterwards.
At the lunch in L.A. I said that Kate Bush’s recent appearance on Saturday
Night Live was too weird for America; I thought Bush was simply odd. This seemed
to disturb them. I said “I meant TOO weird. You’re just right.” Lene,
who dressed like Edward Scissorshand and dropped into Russian kick-dancing
in her shows, was exotic and wonderful. I saw big things for her in an
empty field -- there was nothing like her.
But nothing ever happened for her here. Dunno if she’s still with Les, or
if she returned to Detroit, her home city (like Suzi Quatro). But she was altogether
wonderful. It’s good that Stefani is giving her style life, even if it’s
not credited.
Mind Games
I know someone who cannot understand how you can tape a tv show without
it being on the screen. He knows it works, but he just can’t grasp it. It’s
like I feel about helium: If it’s in a can, why doesn’t the can
float away? And how do wire wheels support a tire?
A recent visit to the eye doctor blew my mind anew. My daughter was eyeing the
eye chart, which was bounced from a projector to a mirror to another mirror to
the wall. I asked the doc about this setup.
“Eyesight is judged at 20 feet, hence 20/20 vision. But no doctor today
has a 20-foot room, so the projector and mirrors are set six and two-thirds
feet apart, which makes a cumulative 20 foot distance.”
Distance is broken up and reassembled? I’m sorry, that does not compute.
If I stood 3 feet from the final image, does that mean it’s really 17 feet
away? My right eye is nearsighted, so that means if I stood at one foot, my actual
focal distance, from that chart, I would not be able to focus on it because it‘s
actually 19 feet away? My mind is exploding.*
I am cursed with sensual persnicketiness. I loathe many, many sounds. But also
I suffer from excellent vision7.
When I went to movies, each visit was a struggle because few projectionists
monitor films as they subtly slide from focus. And many do not understand
the basic elements of flat-plane projection. If you focus your 35 mm camera
dead-on to a plane it’s
all perfectly in focus, but if you photograph it at an angle, only one
point can be in focus -- say the center, while the left and right sides
blur.
So many film projectors are off-center that I go mad. Recently I went to
a collegelike theater/restaurant in Bend, Oregon. I asked my movie mate
if we could sit in the center in the back, but she wanted to sit on a couch
at the front. Sure enough, when the film started the focal point was on
the far left, with the right falling off to slight but noticeable blurriness.
After ten minutes of torture -- we were on the right -- I went to the projectionist
and asked if he could choose a more central focus, as the right side was
horrible. He did not. People think I’m
crazy.
(BTW, the doctor’s office eye chart, projected so many times at angles,
was also partly off-focus -- probably good for business.)
7 One nearsighted,
one, farsighted. Together they’re razor-sharp.
Letters:
From Gene Sculatti:
“A couple of months ago, I interviewed James Darren
for a music column I write in The Ambassador, a publication of the National Italian
American Foundation (www.niaf.org). Jimmy Ercolani (Darren) was a gracious host;
the actor/singer came out of the whole South Philly neighborhood that birthed
Avalon, Connie Francis, Fabian, Eddie Fisher, David Brenner, even Mario Lanza
(a relative, through marriage, of Darren’s) and had lots of great tales.
What blew my mind, and Art’s when I told him, was Darren’s unsolicited
praise of one of the most underrated (if not outright maligned, since he flew
with the “flock of Bobbies” derided by The Killer) cats from the late
50s/early 60s. “You know who was the best of all the guys I came up with?,” Darren
asked. “In terms of pitch and phrasing, and he could swing? Bobby Rydell,
he was the greatest.” Darren himself cares a lot less for his teen-pop days
than I do (”Goodbye Cruel World” is a beaut, “Royal Majesty” a
solid made-to-order Goffin-King sequel and “Angel Face” a favorite),
so his praise for one of his contemporary Italo-idols says something. He was
also pals with Bobby Darin (Walden Robert Cassotto). Because people often confused
the two singers (Darren took his name from car designer “Dutch” Daren,
adding the extra “r” in honor of actor Darren McGavin; Darin, he claims, “got
his out of the phone book”), they nicknamed themselves “Lipschitz and
Lipschitz.” “We played cards on Thursday nights. Bobby’d
call me up and say, ‘Hey, Lipschitz, you wanna come over for cards tonight?’”
AF: Note the interaction between Jews and Itals
in that Philly neighborhood. Like Bob DeNiro (technically Jewish, his mom)
and Fiorello Laguardia. And what about Peter Falk -- He’s Jewish but he’s Columbo! And let’s don’t
forget Martin & Lewis.
Sam Cooke Reconsidered8
My fr Paul Body worships Sam Cooke as do many people. I’ve always said that
the voice was great but the material was substandard. I really can’t think
of anything I crave from him on RCA except “Change Is Gonna Come” and “Bring
It On Home To Me.” “Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha” did not engage
me then or now. “Havin’ A Party” had the adult word “swingin’” that
turned me off.9 “Chain
Gang”10 was
nothing to me. “Wonderful World” - please.
But I have to change at least the form of my gripe when I consider that
Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill” was an inane and irrelevant song from
1941, that the ancient tune “Red Sails In the Sunset” by the 5 Keys
is my pick for the greatest vocal group record ever, that every black group did
standards and transformed them. (“I Only Have Eyes For You” is a rather
good record.) And I continue to like Elvis’s late 1950s hits, even though
I now think they are embarassingly moronic. (Woncha wear my ring around your
neck to tell the world I’m yours by heck.)
This is all about me. I gotta mellow out.
8 I wrote this hed
to be detestable. It’s how pompous writers pronounce that they’ve
decided something is acceptable. Makes me puke.
9 But Bobby Scott’s different song of
the same name in 1956 was crazy, man, crazy. I didn’t locate it til
an ABC/Dunhill series of oldies singles came out in the 1970s.
10 I was likewise alienated, as a pre-teen,
by Ricky Nelson (and later, to me, Carl Perkins) doing “Boppin’ The
Blues,” as bop was that jazz stuff and blues was what Frank Sinatra sang,
like “Blues In the Night.”
Tempus Fugit
Isn’t it funny that one sign that a neighborhood is improving is tattoo
parlors?
Raising Her Right
Daughter Jessie, 13, enjoying my record collection, asked “Has anyone besides
Little Richard recorded ‘Baby Face’?“
- 57 -
(Short-) Book-Length Bonus
Last year my friend Robert Leslie Dean took a whirlwind 6-day trip
to England with a rock & roll bent. I asked him to write it out for
me.
RocnRobert's Rock'n'Roll Road Trip (Tale No.1)
By Robert Leslie Dean
Back in July 2003, I took my first (non-lysergic) trip
outside the continental U.S. of A. Destination...Manchester, England, to
see my friend Badly Drawn Boy (Damon Gough) in concert at a huge outdoor rockfest,
The MOVE Festival. At the (not-so) tender age of 53, I figured it
was time I see how England Swings.
One week earlier, just before the July 4th weekend, I was given a suspension
(5-day) from my (now-former) employer, 20th Century Fox . At the time of
my 5-day ‘lock-out',
I read in MOJO magazine that Badly Drawn Boy would be co-headlining (with R.E.M.)
the final day of the aforementioned Festival in his hometown of Manchester. So,
on a whim and a prayer I decided to ‘suspend' MYSELF for an additional
five days and fly (Virgin-Atlantic ) to London, then, ride the rails to
Manchester.
So, passport in-hand (I got one eight years before, but never used it), and one
large shoulder bag firmly grasped, I departed LAX.
(to read more ....)
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