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1st Record/1st Concert

Alright. Dionne Warwick/Stevie Wonder was my first concert. It was the first time I wore a pair of pants on a date.

But my most memorable concert was Springsteen, late 70s. At the time a friend of mine and I were working in the U.S. Senate for Harrison Williams (D-NJ). We got tickets for Bruce’s show at the Cap Centre outside of DC.

He was amazing. Most of the time I spent smoking (yes, back then one could), drinking, dancing, and singing (lost my voice next day). At the end my friend and I wanted to meet him. After several cocktails and a pack of smokes a lightbulb went off in my head. We worked for the Senator from NJ, Springsteen was from Jersey. In our stupor we presented our Senate IDs to officials at the Cap Centre and I can’t believe how far we got (believe it or not, back in those days working in the Senate actually carried some weight, albeit phony). We were so proud of ourselves -- we got all the way to the backstage door but, alas, no amount of begging and pleading could get us past a savvy roadie. Still, we were proud of ourselves and proceeded to brag afterwards about our ingenuity to all our friends. I had seen Springsteen before and after, but that was the most memorable.

"Meet the Beatles" was my first ‘adult’ album. However, my rocking/dancing roots were the sounds of Perry Como and the McGuire Sisters, THEN "Dede Dinah" by my first crush Frankie Avalon. I was movin' and groovin' to Bandstand in ‘57 - ‘58, dancing with my imaginary partner in my school uniform (just like the big girls on the show before the nuns disallowed it). First love of my life, Ricky Nelson, first album "Rick is 21," first broken heart, when he got married. I loved the early stuff; slept with my transistor radio under my pillow.

I pretty much lost interest in the Beatles after "Get Back". I never got into their "genius" works. So much for my early years. I have always been, and always will be, a music nut.

Susan Oros DeLany lives in Frederick, MD, with her family and continues to listen to music, go to shows (when able) more often than her family can understand, and talk music/musicians to anyone who will listen. To paraphrase the Box Tops, “I Met Her on Facebook.”

Another Fein Mess
AF Stone’s Monthly
February 2011



The Elvis show on January 9th was a success because many acts played and everyone enjoyed themself. Ronnie Mack and me are like the girl who can’t say no, booking in way more acts than we could fit and only last-minue attrition saved us. Eight dropouts 24 hours before the show allowed us to end on time at about 12:45.

Attendance wasn’t as good as last year, but 2010 was a Friday night, this year’s an offset (January 9th) Sunday. We lost a few people who had to work the next day. But I am contemplating next year (a Sunday again!) running from 2 in the afternoon til 8 pm. That way kids can come too.

Normally this decade the final act has been the Blasters, but they needed to go on immediately upon arrival after flying in from Detroit. Phil’s voice reflected the wear of their tour yet he soldiered on through four songs. (I’d’ve been happy with two.) And after the Blasters there was no loss of audience. People stayed to see Big Sandy, Russell Scott, Lisa Finnie, Eddie Nichols, Rip Masters, Ray Campi and Ronee Blakley. If we’d continued til 2 am we would have kept a full house. It’s been great having Ronnie Mack back co-hostimg after his dozen-year hiatus. He’s the host with the most.

Ladies loomed large in this year’s Bash. Some in their absence: Candye Kane and the Dusk Devils had to postpone til the 2012 show, and anticipated Kathy Westmoreland didn’t make it, but Karling Applegate, Lisa Sanders, Molly Foote and Ruby Friedman made their debuts and a lot of other great gals tripped the footlights. Todd Eckhart and Lori Dewitt did a smashing reenactment of “The Lady Loves Me,” and Linda Kay - well, there’s no words to equal her smashing appearance (in every sense!).

I sent this story to Anthea Raymond, for her article in the Echo Park Patch:

Blasters made it 11 pm or so, off the plane from Detroit, their luggage in the van. Phil was singing with the strain of the tour, but gave his all

Running the Elvis  Birthday Bash is a pleasure, not a chore. Oh, the musicians ache and moan about their time slots, but never about the show. Everyone plays for free, the door money goes to charity. It's not about Elvis as much as community. Everyone is having a grand time at a shared frequency. Elvis is the thread, though not everyone is a 100% Elviser. 

It's an annual outpost of harmony, an evening of camaraderie in a city that's as impersonal as any. My satisfaction is standing at the helm and receiving praise for what the musicians do. To hijack a phrase, it's fun to be king. 

My motivation was summed up by a stranger who told me a dozen years ago that the reason he still lives in Los Angeles is to attend the Elvis show. And then by the other guy who told me the same thing last year.

ELVIS PICS

A
Molly Foote

Lisa Sanders

Clive Kennedy

Screamin’ Scott Simon

Laura DeWitt and Todd Eckhart

Karling Applegate

I See Hawks In LA

Ruby Friedman

Carlos Guitarlos and Big Manny

Frank Lee Sprague

Tom Kenny

James Intveld

Linda Kay

Big Sandy

Russell & Eddie

Blasters (Phil takes a call: Ronnie waits)

Blasters

Rip Masters

Ray Campi

Ronee Blakley

Kent Geib Photos : Elvis Birthday Bash, 2011 - from Kent's Facebook Gallery

Dan Bern - This Month’s Mess Troubadour

I am a Dan Bern fan but he is a hard sell. People say “Aw, he just sounds like Dylan” and I say “Your point?” I first heard him at SXSW in 2002. He sounded like Bob Dylan, his songs were Dylanish and his band played like The Band. He said “I know I sound like Bob Dylan, I can’t help it.” It knocked me out -- I like him more than post-1980 Dylan. Still, some people don’t have open minds when it comes to music with its roots showing. This applies especially to Dylan. Did people resent Badfinger or ELO sounding like the Beatles? Ral Donner, Terry Stafford and others sang Elvis-style - I don’t remember a backlash. Levi Stubbs phrased like Dylan on the 4 Tops’ “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” - did anyone mind? Graham Parker sounded like Springsteen - nobody cared.

I’ve seen Bern ten times and each time I’m delighted by his cleverness and virtuosity. He is a terrific, and most of his songs don’t sound like Dylan.

TV Jeebies

I’m thinking of things that moved me on tv.

The first sight of Saturday Night Live was like an earthquake. It felt important. And Dana Carvey’s debut as the church lady to lead off the 1986 season stunned me again, auguring that something good and crazy had been unleashed. In the same vein, sorta, when the two characters in Moonlighting lunged at each other to the first beats of “Be My Baby” it purt near threw me to the floor, it was so perfect.

Really not much else. Live riot coverage was upsetting but only the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968 filled me with red-hot indignation. (I could summon that feeling again watching an entire Glenn Beck broadcast, but why.) I saw Dean Martin reunite with Jerry Lewis on that telethon, that was pretty cool. And of course, seeing Jerry Lee Lewis for the first time on the Steve Allen Show caused me to thank God - it was my deliverance.

Beatles on Sullivan? Good, I felt the excitement without being overwhelmed. Phil Spector on the David Susskind show -- who was this guy! He kept saying “far out.” I was mesmerized. Dylan on Les Crane was good. There was a Beatlemania-like stir in the audience, and though I liked the music my big fascination was the hair. It was feathered.

Music

Paul Hampton, the songwriter/actor, is making a rare appearance, performing Valentine’s night at the downstairs room at Il Postino in Manhattan ... To get to LAX I take La Tijera Blvd and then go left on Airport. But in late January I exploratorily continued on La Tijera for a mile and spotted Soundsations - a record store! This necessitated slamming on the brakes, and a visit. This part of town, Westchester, is a hamlet and I thought maybe I’d slipped into the Twilight Zone 1. Of course, I ran into someone I know there ... Looks like I got it wrong with “wheezing like a bus stop” in “Summer In The City.” I got it from a reputable (!!!) lyric site. “Wheezing at a bus stop is” right, though inelegant ... Certain artists reach a peak with one album. My votes are: Dylan - Blood On the Tracks, Warren Zevon - first on Asylum, ELO - Eldorado, Kinks - Face to Face, Beatles - Rubber Soul (USA version’s all I know), Stones - I like Between The Buttons. (Note: The people I like best didn’t make albums, just singles.)

1 A recent PBS lookback at science fiction tv shows featured the Twilight Zone. Like the death of rock & roll in 1959 and the disappearance of cool cars in the 60s, the end of the Twilight Zone tv series devastated my young soul. It was my lifeblood 2, it didn’t seem right or reasonable that Rod Serling would be alive and NOT do it. I am still smarting . From stories now being hashed about CBS/NBC/ABC pulling the plug on the Smothers Brothers, dropping all the 50’s pioneers and axing Twilight Zone it seems right that as the tv execs of that era die their obits be headlined “Justice at last.”

2 When I asked Paul Body what the first live music he saw was, he said it would have been Ray Charles in 1962 when his aunt offered to take him, but he chose to stay home to watch the Twilight Zone. Who knew there would ever be reruns?

Music Writing

Randy Lewis in the 12-24 LATimes, heralds the bravery and fortitude of the RCA guy who pushed, 20 years ago, for a multi-disc Elvis Presley retrospective. Such praise would have been warranted if he had successfully pushed for a multi-disk Neil Sedaka set ... Ann Powers interviewing Pink on 12-21 salutes her bravery in permitting a greatest hits package to be released - Mother Theresa, move over ... In the 1-14 LATimes, Mikael Wood tells us that Lissie, 28, is working on her debut album. Well, never too soon. Wood buries the lede when he writes “she was expelled from high school for a crime she declines to describe.” Yow. Armed robbery? ...

Cuervo Gelt

You have to hand it to someone at the LATimes for pure, dynamite-charged contrariness. Probably they call it irony.

Young drunkess Jessica Gelt, who makes hard-drink evaluations on a regular basis for the Calendar section, is given much of a page on Fridays for an assay of booze joints AND a recipe for mixing cocktails. Just like the Playboy Advisor! This flies so boldly in the face of a large movement toward sobriety that you might admire the effrontery.

The arrogance of whish I shpeak, sorry, of which I speak is the tiny title of her weekly blat: The Enabler. 4 This is the AA name for people whose behavior leads or tempts you back to being a wretched drunk.

“Enabler my ass,” says the LATimes, which in light of its financial strain “may” be accepting a significant grant from the liquor industry. So deduce “some people.”

4 Maybe I was an enabler when I wrote them suggesting their writing could be a bit more lush.

On The Screen

While I think I approve of the new IFC show “Portlandia,” (‘the place where young people go to retire’), I also have reservations because it opens the door to sneering. In the 1-30 LATimes, Melissa Maerz gets all giddy mocking Portland, with the qualifier that she grew up there (though she’s now a New Yorker. Grrrr 5) ... “It Should Happen To You,” a 1954 comedy, was originally titled “Pffft.” I know this bec I was preparing for school and saw Jack Lemmon on the Today show being asked “What’s it like being in a movie with no vowels?” I never heard of “Pffft” again, but 40 years later realized this was that movie ... ‘Love... and other Catastrophes,” a 1997 Australian film, features a student whose term paper “Doris Day: Feminist Warrior” is based on ‘Calamity Jane.’ I was surprised to see that anyone cared. ‘Calamity Jane’ is so great and Doris Day is so magnificent that I’ve seen it a dozen times (mostly, though, when my 5-year-old daughter stood on the couch slapping my back while I pretended to drive a stagecoach). It came out when I was a kid and hated ladies in films (in films like “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” still do), but Doris was my ideal guy-girl, dressed in buckskin, handy with a gun. In all the talk about 50s musicals you never hear about Calam. It’s perfect from start to finish!

5 She needn’t’ve noted it. You can tell from “Decades ago, some people might have insisted that Los Angeles was the place where young people went to retire. But that started to change around the mid-1980s ..” Yes, I remember the day that changed. (Repeat. This was in the Los Angeles Times.)

Bikes, Ire

The city of Berkeley is giving $221 tickets to bicycles chained to prohibited fences. In Berkeley, a town filled with bicyclists. This could turn you into an anarchist. Life, it’s impossible.

I love bicycles, but cannot figure out how they can exist in this city unless street parking is turned into bike lanes. And that won’t happen because that would stifle one of the city’s proud industries, parking tickets. And am I the only one to wonder how $191 jaywalking tickets and $450 traffic tickets are established without a ballot measure?

An LA Times editorial blasted “people” for not buying the right vehicles. While tiny gas-sipping electromagnet powered 3-seaters are bought by a small wedge of actors, holisticians and vegetarians, regular Americans buy SUVs and trucks. Who besides a multi-gender NPR-listening meditater wants a small tinny car? As a person who survived a 35 mph rear impact in a strong-framed car, I’m the ex-atheist in the foxhole.

Little Bit O Politics

When the senator who looks and talks like Deputy Dawg whined that the congressional bill sessions were a ‘war on Christmas’ because he wanted to go home mid-December, didn’t anyone tell him that most of “the people of America” work til December 23rd or 24th or 25th? In an economy in crisis, proclaiming you will suffer if you don’t get nearly the whole month of December off is a strange stance.

News etc.

Is anyone actually interested in the enormous coverage of each year’s Sundance Festival? ‘Dispatches’ are filed and celebrities spotted as are complaints about cold bus rides and bad movies. Filler ... AP Story 1-29, an airman got jail time for adultery (!) with four female staffers. What did not follow is that the four, all married, were also court-martialed. A crime’s a crime ... Jeremy Peters in an unbiased 1-24 NYTimes report about L.A .readers losing interest in the L.A. Times calls us “the city that has always striven to show how a sense of sophistication lies beneath the silicone and the superficial.” This jerk knows superficial. To prove his point he talks to one woman in Larchmont Village. Attaboy, Germy ... In the 12-18 LATimes, Joel Rubin, Andrew Blankstein and/or Richard Winton gave the LA Weekly a gratuitous collegial nod for inventing the clumsy and unsonorous name “The Grim Sleeper” for a killer. (So-and-so, “who has been dubbed the Grim Sleeper!” says the wide-eyed tv news reader.) MURDERERS SHOULD NOT GET NICKNAMES. 3 “The Night Stalker” was simply Ramirez..

3 Oh lord. An L.A. Weekly cover story about a killer who posed as a refrigerator repairman was bannered “The Chiller Killer.” Incarcerate killers, then the killer-nicknaming fools.

The Times Of L.A.

Jan 8, Business section, Tiffany Hsu, at the electronics show in Vegas, says that the newly-returned booth models (“known as ‘booth babes’ “ quotation marking the wrong words) “have one of the toughest jobs at the convention.” Among their labors is to “remain upbeat and professional while standing on their feet for hours.” I’m sure booth-renters who have staked their investment and reputation on selling their new inventions’ hearts go out to the stalwart standers ... The 12-27 LATimes hed “Killing in L.A.” (like it’s a sport) “Drops to 1967 Level” can be of little comfort to those killed that year ... Amy Scattergood disincludes 99% of readers in the 1-13 -11 LATimes food section opening “Unless you’re reading this in your grandmother’s Brooklyn (!!! AF) or Minnesota kitchen” you may be unfamiliar with home-baked dark rye bread. The “you” and that “we” are restricted to the two places she knows is arrogant and naive simultaneously ... J. Gelt writes 10-8 of a bar in Hollywood that aims for an atmosphere that would have suited Ernest Hemingway. The guy blew his brains out - any bar would do.

Words

Here’s how cracked I am. I saw the name Jasperson and thought someone named Jasman changed their name to not be sexist. Honest ... In his online music industry column, Moses Avalon, having gone to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, made reference to “iPadophiles” ... a friend described an acquaintance of who prefers the comfort of her small home and never leaves, so I said she had claustrophilia ... on the tv log, the movie description said a woman went to work for a “chauvinist.” The movie was contemporary, not set in the early 19th century, so why would the woman be a follower of Nicholas Chauvin, the excessively enthusiastic Napoleon supporter? Without the requisite “male” (or “female,” like the writer) the word just hangs there ... Diana Henriques, in a 1-29 NYTimes story about a veteran evicted from his house, waited til 80% into the story before saying that the persistent GI and his lawyers “soldiered on.” It was a good usage, and I admire the restraint! ... I have noticed a surge - no, a mandate - to use “ramp up” and saw no special sense to it, it sounds like amp up with an extra letter. But I saw it recently in a headline in a 1963 issue of Billboard 6. Some things are best left dead .... Stephanie Rosenbloom in the 12-30-09 NY Times observed Wal-Mart warehouse workers stacking crates “like a real-world version of Tetris.” Pretty neat ... NYTimes 8-10-10, a Zen studies teacher is ‘guilty’ of sex with adult students, their trust ‘betrayed.’ Don’t women and savants ever have satisfying sex together? It must go unreported. Or, it “must” go unreported.

6 I haven’t the coordinates, but every issue of Billboard is available for free online. It’s like diving in a time-hole that won’t let you escape.

Bop Talk

I heard most 50s bop and beatnik talk, and everything since. Also some 40s and 30s hep cat slang (Cab Calloway’s Dictionary was a help), but still some got past me.

* In 1980 I fairly quaked hearing Roy Good Rockin’ Brown aside, “Baby, there’s a dead cat on the line.” It was like someone speaking Sumerian. Definitions on the web vary (gasp!) all over the place. I thought maybe it came from the scene in “The Postman Always Rings Twice” 7 where a cat corpse shorts out the electrical lines, but it’s in a Tampa Red song from the 30s too.

* Betty Hutton sings “Murder, He Says” which means (I guess, since music-talk fills the song) that a good tune or solo was “Murder!” I heard it in a movie, too.

* The Tony Pastor family, on their “Live In Vegas” Capitol album, does “That’s Your Red Wagon,” which means that’s your business not mine. I know it was kicking around, but haven’t heard it anywhere else.

* Then there’s “Hi-Ho-Trailus Bootwhip,” of which nothing more need be said. Swingin’ times!

7 An auxiliary explanation is that James M. Cain heard the expression and worked it into his book.

A-I

Always a problem, ai. The french restaurant Taix has gone by ‘tex’ since the 1930s. But what is it in french? I think it’s “tie,” silent x, but maybe I’m thinking of Thai or mai tai.

It’s a different dilemma with LA weatherman Jai Goldberg. I always thought the “More” musician Kai Winding was ‘kie,’ but he was ‘kay.’ The weatherman is certainly ‘jay’ but with him there’s a different question. He is clearly half black and I bet many people think he’s Whoopi Goldberg’s son.

Techno File

Remember how the movie companies shoved ads in the front of a VHS movie so you had to fast-forward past them? Well, tha*k god we now have DVD, a technology that kills the “skip” button . Slaves to corporations, that’s us. And when you mis-choose a function and it spins away, slowly, back to the beginning I say “Thank you, Mr. DVD.”

‘round the house

I really have to clean out the desk drawer once in a while. The Lexar USB thumb or rabbit foot or whatever they’re called’s package claims that at 128MB it’s “like having 88 floppies in your pocket” ... and in the Pauline Kael “I Lost It At The Movies” paperback that travels betwen the car and the house I found a Radio Shack 30 minute cassette card, a 2002 receipt from “Cashier Emilio” (the top is washed out), a year 2000 Norm’s restaurant calendar, a 2003 dentist appt card, a 2005 dry cleaner receipt and a prescription all stuck in various pages. Were they all highlights I wanted to check later? Probably. She is the greatest writer ever 8. Her opinions are so darn interesting that I don’t care if I agree. What a mind. What flair ...

8 When I mentioned PK to a gal a couple of years ago she replied coolly “I had to read her in college.” This is not an indictment of our educational system exactly, but the unintended effect of forced reading.

TV Jeebies

“Columbo” was good in the 70s. It disappeared in the early 80s, then came back in 1989. I bought the 1989 season on DVD at Xmas and, boy, you can’t go home again. The feeling is wrong. It seems to be mostly interiors (did they have no budget to shoot L.A. exteriors, a bedrock of the show?). He is not yet too old, but it holds together so poorly I won’t gamble on the 90s or, horrors, the past decade. (“Columbo Goes To a Rave Party” won the shark-jumping olympics that season) ... the Science Channel “How It’s Made” makes me uneasy. It’s a sea of machines stamping and filling and capping and cutting. Sometimes a human hand shows up. Is everything done by robots? Is nobody employed anymore? Between showing products being made, they show commercials - as if the show itself wasn’t one.

Car-Jumpers

Pic in the 10-8-10 LATimes, protester jumps on car in San Franciso, angry about light sentence for cop killer. (A cop that’s a killer. No one protests killing a cop.) The jumper, his face masked, holds a sign. Maybe he thinks the driver needs to see it closer. Reminds me of a Proposition 8 opponent beating on a car hood and getting clobbered by the driver, who was obviously anti-gay - only a bigot slugs a guy who damages his car.

I know a couple of seemingly sane people who rapturously laud protesters on destructive bents. “Sometimes you just have to speak out.” Yet the crowds don’t destroy their own property nor march where there is strong opposition - “We want to hurt people but not have them hurt us! It’s called freedom of speech!”

If you’re angry about a political thing, stay in the tree when the bulldozer comes, get run over by a tank. That’s commitment, the rest is safe theatrics.

Other Headlines On Call

Area begins rebuilding after fire/flood/quake/storm

Houses Are Slipping off Cliffs After Rain

Residents Living Under Big Rock Sue City

Millionaire/Movie Star’s Child Says “I Made It On My Own.”

Obits

A gal died, 49. Her contribution to life, acc to the NY Times? “Brand Enhancement.” Getting Smirnoff Vodka to be James Bond’s drink, and other successful stuffing of ads into movies. “She was passionate” said the president (!) of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts (!!) and Sciences (!!!). A black box around this cultural saboteur’s sendoff would have been suitable ... the LATimes obit for the guy who invented the laugh-track 9 likewise lauded him for his hand in manipulating tv audiences. Fie on him ... a little box in the LATimes noting 2010’s dead mentioned Doug Fieger of “the bank the Knack.” I knew they made money, but jeez. And Eddie Fisher’s life was synopsized as “known for his scandalous personal life.” He had two sensational divorces, wow, but also made many hit records and at his peak he was more popular than Sinatra. Doesn’t anyone at the Times know this? (Film - Reynolds, Taylor - always trumps music)... Forgive me, but what was so great about Elizabeth Edwards? She was smart like a lot of women, fought cancer like a lot of women, put up with her husband’s girlfriends for a while then ditched him like a lot of women. That she was in the public eye doesn’t make her heroic for facing life’s problems, does it? She sounds like a swell person, but are we so hard up for heroines we lionize her?

9 Desi Arnaz was hailed for filming ‘I Love Lucy’ before a live audience, yet that show is stuffed with so much prerecorded laughter that individual yips and patterns are recognizable.

Credit Where Credit’s Undue

I watched a movie and wondered who did a certain song. I fast-forwarded the tape past about 200 credits and found the answer - music is always the back of the bus.

In L.A. I always find opposition to my contention that post-movie credits are stupid: “Oh, don’t you want anyone to see your name when you write something?”

Writer, yes. Stars - YES. Director ... I don’t know what they do. Second Unit Truck Driver - NO. DGA trainee - Nix. Catering Service - Shaddup!

Commerce

Kinda cute. The “unknown” caller said ”Hi, this is Liz with XYZ Contractors. We’re painting down the street and wanted to know - “ “You’re painting down the street? What street?” She named my street. “What address?” Click. There are only six houses on our street ... My friend said that every day he checks on the internet for the time and location of a certain food truck. Stunned, I said “John? It’s a truck. On wheels. It’s supposed to come to YOU.” It’s a mixed-up muddled-up shook up world.

Personal Worst

When I was in England in 1982, I made a call from a phone box. The instructions said to insert coins “when you hear the rapid pips” and just at that moment Gladys Knight’s ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’ came on and I put in pence til I was broke!

Agatha’s Worst

In the movie nee novel ‘Evil Under The Sun,’ James Mason says he’s written a book titled “It’s Right And It’s Fair.”

Diana Rigg responds “Well it’s not about a black man’s left leg.”

- 57 -

Letters

Hi Art, 
I just did a tribute thing to Cub on my radio show, which ran last night, I initiated a new occasional recurring segment called "What Might Cub Play?". (He was the first musician I ever knew who did a radio show..). On the first installment I played, for one thing, Cub's personal copy of "Sinner's Dream" by Eugene Fox, of which I'm now the proud owner.. Anyway, it's possible, even likely, that Cub was friendly with Andrew Oldham; Cub's mgr., Doc Cavaliere, and Doc's wife (now widow) Christine Ohlman were (are) close friends of Andrew's.. 

In "Summer In the City", I thought he said "wheezing AT the bus stop"; if not, maybe that's what he meant to say.. 

MC  (Marshall Crenshaw)

-------

(January 17)

Hi Art
Happy New Year. Hope the Elvis show was a success.

Funny, a day before I read your January post I read a Cub Koda piece he had written about Spike Jones (a blogger had posted it). I had forgotten how Cub's enthusiasm came through in print, one of those things that looks easy until you
try it. Glad you got to know him however brief.

I found this today in the obit of British filmmaker Peter Yates (Bullitt, Breaking Away):

His first film as a director was the frothy 1963 musical "Summer Holiday" starring Cliff Richard — a singer billed, optimistically, as the "British Elvis."

Hmmmm. "Optimistically?"

Marshall C. is coming through mid January. Should be a gas. Last time I saw him was '88 and what a show. He's being backed by the Bottle Rockets who should bring some extra wattage to the performance.

take care

Bob Paton
Peoria, Illinois

(January 23)

Marshall put on a great show Friday; was good to see him backed by a band. Bottle Rockets are a tough band. Surprise of the show: Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos was in the audience and played "Surrender" as the last encore. Place went up for grabs.

I wanted to hang out and see if I could talk to MC after the show but it was late and cold (minus 10) so we headed home.

Bob Paton

----------------------

Thanks for the Liz Phair tip-off.  Interestingly, all your quotations were lifted from the opening para. Perhaps her tone of relentlessly grating idolatry prevented you from proceeding further.  

I foolishly skimmed some of the later passages, purely in the interest of nauseating myself, and came upon this jewel:
"When Bob Marley is described as a Johnny-come-lately, you know you’re dealing with the crème de la crème." 

I haven't read the Keith book, nor will I, but it seems to have inspired a lot of this sort of drivel, from Ms. Phair, and others.

Interesting to look at the two photo sections in the book. Throughout the first, encompassing the first decade of his illustrious career, he is always pictured stone-faced, engaged in his work.  Whereas, throughout the second section, comprising the next three decades, he is always smiling, sopping up the adulation of his peers and confreres, enjoying the rewards of a well-spent life.

John Tottenham

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re: Elvis Show

Hey Art,

We're on our way to Tahiti! We'll sing an Elvis tune on Bora Bora on the 8th and 9th!

See you next year.

Fred & Mary Willard

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Sent to me late January - I posted Mouse & The Traps on my youtube site:

Forgive me for soliciting , Art (Tho' I'm really not.). Bugs Henderson announced that Ronnie "Mouse" Weiss is going to have to undergo a Lung Transplant. Donations , to defray medical costs , can be sent to: First State Bank 14269 State Hwy 64 , PO Box 97, Ben Wheeler , Texas. 75754. Checks can be made out to Ronnie Weiss , w/ "Benefit Account # 9643303 " in lower left hand corner. Bank ph. # 903 833 5861 if you have questions. Help out , if you can.