I don't remember why or how I ended up buying an early 1960s Barbie (the doll) 45 when I was a kid in the late 70s. I do know that I used to hang around used records stores a lot, even when I was I single digits. I distinctly recall being fascinated with a Uriah Heep 45 with a painting of a barbarian woman with an exposed nipple that sat in the store for years until I finally bought it (it was awful, totally not barbarian nipple music) and a picture disc/shaped vinyl single of Taste of Honey's cover of Sukiyaki that looked like a Japanese fan. But I can’t figure out why the first record I took home was Barbie (maybe the record store dude gave it to me thinking I was a girl, long hair for boys was in at the time). I became entranced by it, mainly because Barbie sounded like a chain smoking, bar brawling lesbian who had been shit on by life.
It turned out that I played the 45 on 33rpm for a year by mistake, but I still contend that Brenda Vacarro-Barbie sounded so natural that I suspect that was her real voice and they sped it up Chipmunks-style to Barbie her up.
My first huge stadium show was the Police, Fixx, Flock of Seaguls, Ministry, and Joan Jett at Comiskey Park in 1983. I distinctly remember that people booed Joan Jett, not Flock of Seagulls, not the Fixx, not the Police, but that regal goddess of rock Joan Jett. Even as a 13 year old I recall thinking, "what the fuck is wrong with these fucking people?"
Jake Austen is editor and publisher of Rocktober, one of the GREATEST American rock & roll publications.
I was thinking about the Japanese tourist (maybe, someone) who froze to death or went crazy looking in the snow at a fence between Brainard and Fargo where Steve Buscemi buried the money in “Fargo.” People are sure birdbrains.
Take me. In a Lucy episode, “Cousin Ernie” comes from Tennessee. It’s Tennessee Ernie Ford. The audience doesn’t clap like they would for William Holden or John Wayne so I figure Ah ha! He was a local L.A. radio guy before ‘Sixteen Tons,’ maybe this is right before his fame.
I’m so smart! Except one thing: the audience laughter on I Love Lucy was from people long dead. You hear the same high woman-whoop every show. There was no reaction because the editors didn’t put it in. (Though my analysis of the situation may be true.)
Reminds me of Best In Show. As Fred Willard makes incredible off-wall comments, the British guy next to him gives straight answers, so I figured he must be an honest to god dog expert. Comes the Fred Willard toast at the Universal Hilton and the Brit guy speaks: “I knew as much about dog shows as Fred: nothing.”
Oh, I see. The guy’s an ACTOR. He was PRETENDING to be a dog expert.
Hahahahahahaha. Some people really are stupid.
The Holiday Season
Each Xmas I feel like I did as a kid of 14 or 15 in Chicago when Spring came. The warm spring air evoked thoughts of romance, of a girl friend I had not. I had feelings that went with the thing, but not the thing.
And in my childhood, I felt the holiday ambiance but not really involved in it. The downtown Chicago stores were decked with holly and the music played and the snow fell, but I was left out, essentially. So like the great musical Jews who wrote White Christmas and made the greatest Christmas album ever, I grew up obsessed with it 0.
In L.A. in the 70s I found myself invited to Xmas parties at record companies. Actually, it wasn’t exacatly ME that was invited, it was whoever filled the function of record reviewer, employee or other useful person. As my usefulness diminished, the invitations receded. Through the 80s and the 90s I missed those gatherings, however insincerely they were generated - after all, sometimes I met other marginal people there.
So it was terrific when I got to two Xmas parties this year.
* The first was a real “Hollywood” one in Encino, home of Fred & Mary Willard. If you threw a bomb in that crowd (Don’t!) you’d decimate the character-actor heart of American tv: Ed Begley, Dan Castalanetta,Tom Tully, Doris Roberts, Joanne Worley, voiceover people, the guy who played the fake Kramer on the “tv show” episode. I was delighted to be in such heavy company. My daughter was too.
* The next was at Phil & Rachelle Spector’s with a bunch of people I didn’t know, along with Andy Paley, Rodney B, and most of the Poker Party gang. The next morning I was unable to attend the Ike Turner memorial service 1, but Phil went and delivered a rousing speech about Ike’s enormous contribution to rock & roll.
0 I should note that my grownup far-from-home Xmases were not bleak in L.A., with friends and others all mashed together in omni-denominational gatherings.
1 Headline-writers don’t get bylines - actually, no one at a newspaper should - so I can’t identify the stinking rat who wrote “Ike Turner, Famed For Beating His Wife” (something like that) atop his L.A. Times sendoff.
YOUTUBE CONNECTOR
Neil Morrow : One Night With You -- Elvis Birthday 2007
Crits
I saw the Sweeney Todd movie with a snob. Two snobs, counting me. I’d seen the original Broadway production in NY (thrice), Chicago, and L.A. You could say I’m a fan. Daughter Jessie has seen the DVD many times, and has the re-jiggered CD with the skeleton cast (I don’t care for it).
That night we picked up Jessie’s friend to take them to a party. Friend asked if Jessie’d seen the movie and she said “I didn’t like it.” Friend agreed, but then Jessie blasted her with her - actual - superiority.
“That girl wasn’t as good as Angela Lansbury. And they took away the theme song! That theme song makes the whole thing. I didn’t think Johnny Depp sang as good as the Broadway guy.” (On record, Len Cariou. On stage, George Hearn.) bla bla bla.
I pulled her aside and told her to cool it. “You are in deeper than the others. Your comparisons mean nothing to them. Just voice your objections to the film itself, not your advantage.”
It threw me back to a not unusual conversation I overheard recently. Someone at a table said they enjoyed a movie. The couple next to me said “It wasn’t nearly as good as the book! They took out whole plot lines!”
So what should the person who liked the movie do? It seemed ungenteel to quash his movie-experience with a parade-raining corrective. I thought this years ago in a review of the remake of Breathless. “In the 1955 French movie” the reviewer said and went on and on about the differences. Well Tuez les differences! Most people go to movies to enjoy themselves, like at the Simpsons movie. It’s a diversion, a chance to laugh with your friends in a big setting. Mental challenges, comparisons? Bah. Movies = fun.
A few go to analyze them. Those killjoys write for newspapers and mags. The newspaper, I suppose, attracts “intellects,” but they don’t constitute a big number - probably the same few who get both the NY and L.A. Times. Can’t someone review a movie and tell me how satisfying the car crashes were, how much nudity (and at what point) there was, or get real enthusiastic about the flailings and torture scenes?
Maybe a “prole” review could run alongside the Deep Thinkers. It would be logical and increase newspaper circulation. Or is it just chimerical that a surge in arcane and inscrutable film and music reviewing coincides with their drop in readership?
(This just in: a 1/3/08 L.A. Times story about the success of the Chipmunks movie ran a hed with the eternal laff-line “Despite Bad Reviews.” You would think the story would continue “Once again proving the meaninglessness of critics” but instead the writer dwells on the lemminglike exit-stampede of preview-lookers! The angle was “How were so many ticket-buyers deceived?)
Hmmm
In a web column by a seasoned local writer, I found two curious turns of phrase:
* “Back in the day.” The writer didn’t say what day. Or did he mean the afternoon, as opposed to the evening or dark morning hours?
* Someone “weighs in” with an opinion. It was not an article about a prize fight. Did everyone get weighed, and if so why?
Of Not So Sound Mind
People who awakened musically in the Beatle era seem to never get over it. Though today wizened and balding and retiring they cannot stop cheering the Who, Stones, Beatles, Hendrix, and others from The Roaring 60s. I, too, enjoyed that music as it unfolded, but it was secondary to the imprint of my heroes - Elvis, Jerry, Chuck, Richard, Fats. THEY were magicians with no equals. The other guys, the latecomers, were merely an echo of that Big Boom.
I told a friend that I’d bought a bunch of Beatle CDs for my daughter bec a chain store had them at $10 each; might was well fill out the collection. He scoffed, “They’re dumping them so they can sell us the newly-remastered ones.”
That brought me pause. I am no sound buff. I had steadily-improved stereo equipt throughout my music-active life, but it never improved my apprehension of the music. Recording are documents of magic. If a book is printed on higher-grade paper it’s easier to read, but no better. If the music you love sounds crystalline, great. If it’s less than that, it’s still wonderful 3 . I asked him if he was going to get the next-mastered generation of Beatle releases.
“Of course. The byte-rate has risen exponentially. The sound will be incredible.” What are these people listening for? Ashes falling off cigarettes? Violin-strings at 220,000 vibrations rather than 22,000? How many times do you have to listen to the same music?
3 Sorta like that other sensual commodity: when it’s good it’s great, when it’s not it’s still pretty good.
Thoughts While Driving
New cars have an arrow by the gas gauge pointing right or left indicating which side to fill the tank. Handy for a rental car .... It’s a dour car world today. Look on the highway and see that 95% of the vehicles are black, silver and white - the world as seen by the color-blind .... The tv news guy describing a burning car on the freeway says “it’s some recent model, I can’t tell what kind.” So it’s not just me that can’t tell modern cars apart. Not every kid worshipped new Detroit cars in the late 50s, but I sure did. It was entirely on looks, I never gravitated to mechanics, just loved the sleekness and jet-ness of the new models as they bloomed each fall. Of course, in 1960, the fins dropped off, the details receded, and cars never looked magical again. Who’d have imagined a future in which beautiful things got worse - by design? .... And who asked for a notched volume knob? I want to hear my car radio at the space between the spaces! .... Until last summer I didn’t realize Route 66 (now I-10) ran (from L.A.) east and then turned 90 degrees south at Phoenix. Though the Rolling Stones muddled the lyrics worst, many or most singers can’t get Kingman in “Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino” ....
PHOTO GALLERY
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Amoeba, Dec 3, 2007
Carla Olson and tv’s Eric Boardman at the Sharon Jones show.
Doug Fieger’s fist full o’pills, “stayin’ alive” at Astro Burger. Nov 28, 2007
Glen Glenn, Elvis show 2006. Just a good picture, thought I’d use it now.
“The L.A. Musical History Tour” was republished in 1998 by 21361 Press, the impramateur of Henry Rollins.
When we did the booksigning party at Book Soup, I prepared a correction sheet, a bunch of which I just rediscovered. Rather than mail them to every purchaser, I’ll list the errors (which I know).
Lee Allen - “Walking With Mr. Lee,” not “Mr. Leo”
Cat & Fiddle - Gardner (now deceased) was in the Birds, not the Byrds.
Chadney’s - “Wrecking Crew” not “Recking Crew” 4 Cinnnamon Cinder - Magic Mushroom was the site of Radio Free Oz with Peter Bergman and David Ossman, and other Firesigners at times. For KRLA, not KPPC
Marvin Gaye - Dad got 5 years probation. Died 10-17-98
KMET - started 1968 by B Mitchell Reed & Tom Donohue. Persuasions also did station IDs for KPPC in 1970
Plummer Park - bookwriter was Richie Furay, not Dewey Martin
Professional Drum Shop - Blaine’s socks DO match: he had an ankle wallet
4 The wrong word is also right: the various members of this floating unit did reck their work, hence their popularity.
Word Stuff
A while ago I wrote to a journalism publication about hearing too many buzzwords - like buzzword - in journalism, complaining that ‘paradigm’ is unnecessary, as well as a hundred others. In response, someone wrote “This guy sounds like some old guy.”
True, but not guilty. The things I complain about now I always did: I once was a young grouch. I shuddered this morning seeing a news-ape write ‘ramping up.’ When you see something like that you just wait to see “back story” or “old school” or that someone’s “got game.” A person so shallow as to ape his, well, equals always embraces every current cliche.
If I learned anything in J-school - debatable, but a premise - it was plain speaking. You were told that the information was your raw material, presenting it your craft. Do you look back favorably on 60s articles that have ‘groovy’ or ‘The Man’ in them? Only for laughs. It’s a good idea to keep dignity in mind when you’re tempted to write ‘glitz’ or ‘snarky’ or, lord, ‘iconic.’ Keep your head on securely; don’t follow the herd. Write clear phrases. Using attention-getting words - to arouse, to show you’re hep - is like shooting off a gun after you tell a joke.
Product News
Those curlycue lightbulbs, good for the environment bad for the eyes? There’s a reason we don’t install flourescent lights in our homes. It’s harsh light, it’s ugly light. The plain ‘blue’ version is piercing: I passed a home in the dead of night that had a 250-watt bulb outside and had to turn away, my eyes in actual pain. The yellower ones are brighter than their ‘analog’ counterparts but still no good for reading. Back to the drawing board .... Newspaper headline-writers still thrill to call Las Vegas “Sin City,” like it’s fresh and clever. The media are in the pockets of that town, with no bad word ever spilt: we never hear “Stupidity City.” Roulette strikes me as the most crooked game. Since the game was motorized the croupier cannot, unless it’s fixed, set what number the ball lands on, but from experience they can sure steer it away from #22 if you plunk down $10,000 on it on a table full of $5 and $10 bets. It just needs land on the opposite half of the wheel ....
Music Notes
A Xmas hound dog at Walgreens was festooned with pics of Elvis and played that song. Only it didn’t sound right. I checked the back and found all the copyright info for the song itself, but then noted that the actual version was from “The Elvis Story,” of which no copy exists, far as I can tell. They went through channels to obtain Elvis photos and song clearance and then used a soundalike! Oh, those Chinese ... Listening to the mid-60s Dillards I was struck how much they sound like the Association. That is complimentary to both. The Association is like Rodney Dangerfield, gets no respect. There were just too many OF them! But it was funny when I had Terry Kirkman on the show and asked him if “Along Comes Mary” was about marijuana. He blanched and fuddled and faced with the honesty that comes from AA said yes, shaking his head sotto voce saying “we swore we’d never tell.” It was like Brian Wilson revealing his mantra .... If Jimmie Rogers was the Singing Brakeman, let’s call Jack Clement the Singing Engineer. His 1st solo album, on Elektra in 1977, is magnificent. My purist friend Dave Chipmunk dislikes Clement’s work at Sun because he put background singers on songs. Dave prefers the sounds of stools scraping the floor, fingernails hitting piano keys. God knows Clement is guilty for “Ballad of A Teenage Queen” and the bg singers on Jerry Lee’s “Matchbox.” Wish I’d done things as shameful .... Forgot that Mojo Nixon was the drummer in Jerry Lee Lewis’s band in “Great Balls Of Fire,” the movie. For me, the department store dance during the song “Breathless” was as good as Gene Kelly in “An American In Paris” (but not as good as the department store dance in “The Big Store”) .... Dave Stuckey’s “back on the air” on youtube, as pappyredux .... The Big Hurt by Scott Walker is revolutionary, in descending-tech sense. The original by Miss Toni Fisher had a Leslie type in-and-out sound - an accident created by two mono recordings played out of sync. On Walker’s, strings reproduce the techno-created sound. That’s like a vocal acapella version of “Autobahn” .... I know this makes me old, but I just laugh when I see the Rolling Stone column called “I’m Down With.” The ship?
Star Fair
On Dec 6th I went with friend Paul Hampton to Palm Spgs where he had a booth at Star Fair, signing and greeting fans. This was one of a regular schedule of gatherings of tv and movie personalities that take place around the country, more than anywhere else in California.
Many of the stars were if the “Are they still alive?” category: Rhonda Fleming, Jane Russell, Margaret O’Brien. Others are not surprisingly vertical: Tippi Hedren, Ty Hardin, Mickey Dolenz, Robert Culp, Edd Byrnes, Paul Peterson, Trini Lopez, Patti McCormick, Lorenzo Lamas, Della Reese, Adam West. Tony Curtis was in a wheelchair. Promised Eric Burdon was a no-show. I regret not getting a shot of John Saxon with Rod McKeun - a “Rock Pretty Baby” reunion.
Highlight was during Tab Hunter’s “Star Walk” ceremony when Russ Tamblyn ran up to the podium and said “Tab, I just read your new autobiography. I didn’t know you were gay! We roomed together and you never made a pass at me - and I’m a dancer!”
Some audients stood dumfounded: some choked with laughter.
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Photo Gallery
Rod McKuen and me at the pre-show reception at “Rock Hudson’s House,” a C of C greeting place. When a gal came up and said “Oh Mr. McKeun, I can’t tell you how many times I ..... loved to your music,” Rod, smiling, snarled “I hear that all the time. I wish I’D gotten some of that action. It kinda pisses me off.” I hope to get Rod on the Poker Party.
Tab Hunter and Keely Smith.
TV’s Bill Harris smacks Mamie Van Doren.
Paul Hampton at booth. He is a hyphenate, an actor-songwriter. He was the bandleader who turns Billie Holiday onto dope in “Lady Sings The Blues” and appeared in many movies and tv shows. Also co-wrote “Sea Of Heartbreak,” “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until You Lose It,” “Angry At The Old Oak Tree,” “Donna Means Heartbreak.”
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Writers’ Strike
It’s impossible to side with capital over labor. Capital always has the upper hand and if it’s unchallenged like in China or Mexico 5 or other Third World countries it will work you to death and then squeeze more out of you, like Henry Ford speeding up the assembly-line in the 1930s.
But writers? They are priveleged. Their ouput, by God’s grace, continues to pay them even after they are paid. This is remarkable. Newspaper writers don’t get this. Jingle writers don’t. Greeting card writers don’t. Internet writers don’t. I’ll bet the rate of web pay offered by the tv and movie producers is a pittance. These gilded - sorry, guilded writers have a legitimate beef, unionwise. But my heart just isn’t breaking.
Once when I went to WB Records to drop off a bio, there was a line of teamsters preventing me from entering. Why? I wasn’t violating their jobs, nothing was being shipped. These guys were thugs from Central Casting. Some had a cigarette in the mouth and sleeves rolled up on their white t-shirt. I laughed (from afar). Similarly when teachers - or cops! - go on strike they bellow like bulls and make threatening gestures at civilians.
Strange way to get people to like you!
It’s musicians I care about. My songwriting friends get royalties, though less than they are entitled to, since capital - the record companies (and The Record Company) - are institutionalized thieves who withhold money til you gather enough to audit them.
But that’s for big acts, consistent hitmakers. Musicians who just made one big record often get nothing for their induplicable sound. Mary Wells sang “My Guy” and it was played hundreds of thousands of times yet she was paid only on sales, which fell off in time, not airplay, which went on forever, and she died destitute. The whole radio industry is based on not paying performers for the music - the very (and only) thing they sell.
You sang on a hit record? Take a hike, drop dead or get a job in a car wash because singers get nothing for airing of their voice, and that exceeds the gripes of the sign-carrying typewriter-peckers who want me to honk my car horn. Until “brother” writers and teachers and truckers go on strike to correct this injustice to musicians I say to hell with them.
5 Did you notice a steep drop in dental floss prices when Johnson & Johnson left Ohio for Mexico? You didn’t? Then where the money go that was saved by the slash in labor costs?
Snearers
Here it is again. The remarkable (?) Stephanie Zachareck, reviewing Patty Boyd’s book in the 10-28-07 NY Times, opens with this: “To some readers - and you know who you are -” Boyd’s book will be of no interest.
The doggerel assault - YOU are probably an asshole - is offputting enough, but in this case you can smell a man-rant coming. Turns out that any reader not interested in Boyd would probably rather read an analysis of Clapton or the Beatles “written by an overeducated white man.”
Where do they get these harridans? Isn’t the newspaper CONCERNED when their writers reveal such flaming psychological disorders?
Computer Bewilderment
Not long ago, three years into owning this particular Mac, someone told me that iTunes had an “i” button that allowed you to trim the front and back of songs, and adjust their volume. Eureka! Then this year the damn computer stopped accepting CDs: repair cost $400. I bought instead a Pioneer DVD/CD burner for $129 and it works just fine using Toast.
But when I adjusted songs to put on a CD I realized the low-volume songs were still low and the long intro’s or early-90s coughing or “Take seven” were still there. Dammit! The adjustments I made were on iTunes, and now I was bypassing it. Toast, I guess, offers no such function. Now I guess I gotta use only songs of the same volume.
History
In “Duck Soup,” it struck me especially absurd that the president of the bad country chewed out a flunky saying “I told you to start a revolution today.” You know, shout “Revolt!” and everyone will follow.
A week later I saw a thing about the 1968 Democratic Convention on History Channel and heard Peter Coyote say that Jerry Rubin gave the orders and the Yippies rioted. Good lord, nobody knew who the Yippies were - they were comedians and they didn’t “order” anything.
And, he continued, “because tv viewers saw hippies attacking police” they turned Republican. Did the “hippies” - college age boys with button-down shirts for the most part - have clubs and hit police on the head til they were bloody? The cops were not attacked: fully armed they marched to the front of a crowd, which cannot recede as a unit, and struck the first boy or girl they saw. The official govt report said “police riot.”
Digger Pete is no Orson Wells - he’ll read what they hand him.
You Can’t Eat Just Cake
My youtube presence is primarily for rockabilly stuff, but I also throw in girl folksingers, actors, comedians, yakkers.
One forlorn fan recently wrote regarding SONiA the lesbian activist folksinger “What’s this got to do with rockabilly?” - in Spanish.
Fortunately if he cancels his subscription it won’t affect my income.
Free Advice
Didja ever think about slugging an old person, then saw the bumper sticker “Stop Senior Abuse”?
Wait a minute; that supposes you’ve started.
Or consider hitting your wife or hubby til you saw “Stop Domestic Violence?” Like you never thought about it before? Don’t I sound like Roseanne Barr?
On Nostalgia TV, in the early 90s, they took the bold stance “Stop Granny Dumping,” referring to driving your senile old parent to the hospital and running.
I never even thought of that technique til I saw the plea.
I’m sure not going to tell my daughter about it.
- 57 -
Mark On the Move
Master piano player Gene Taylor managed to reunite 4/5ths of The Blasters for a show at Cozy’s Bar & Grill in Sherman Oaks (Phil Alvin missing on December 22nd). Bill Bateman, John Bazz, Dave Alvin and Gene played two sets, the first mostly blues and the second leaning more on rock & roll, boogie-woogie and New Orleans. The venue being close to Ms. Vicky’s pad in Sherman Oaks, we decided to walk, so we could drink a-plenty and get in the proper mood. The place was filled with what looked like a pretty normal Saturday partyin’ crowd, and I said hello to several friends, including ex-WB publicist Bill Bentley, Allan Larman, Bruce Bromberg of Hightone, and music licensing chick Carmen Gouig.
Gene sang several numbers associated with Fats Domino, and did Chuck Willis’ “What Am I Living For” as if performed by Fats. Terrific versions of “Jump for Joy” and “Shake, Rattle & Roll” reminded me again of my stupidity in missing all those great local gigs when The Blasters backed up Joe Turner. Gene also sang well on Professor Longhair’s “Go to the Mardi Gras,” and excelled on versions of blues-rock standards like Little Walter’s “Lights Out” and Bo Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me.”
It was especially fun to see Dave Alvin on fire as a straight blues guitarist, a role he rarely fills anymore, being mostly a country picker in his own band. During the first set he stepped to the mike to sing Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Gangster of Love,” ad-libbing lyrics (a highway patrolman asks him “Are you Phil Alvin?” “No.”) and tearing off high-decibel riffs by the dozen. The rhythm section was so locked in they could follow him anywhere.
I’m off to Scotland for New Year’s Eve, so next report will be about how much I froze my ass off.
-- Mark Leviton
(Mark’s sixties-themed radio show Pet Sounds can be heard alternate Mondays 4-7am PST on
KVMR-FM 89.5 FM in the Sacramento area and streaming at www.kvmr.org
