1. These original live recordings – totaling 47 tracks over five hours plus – have previously been semi-available only on long-out-of-print releases (not counting quite inferior-sounding bootlegs), and in the case of the Winterland performances now features three (!) full discs of additional material. Continue reading
Just like most near-lifelong Beatlemaniacs stuck in the summer of 1980, news that no less than John Lennon was about to reenter the recording studio after an unprecedented five year AWOL filled me and my ears with eager, excited anticipation. I mean, there could be no doubt the Chief Beatle would have identified with, not to mention greatly appreciated, the leather-jacketed back-to-raw-basics approach the late Seventies’ p-rockers had brought to an otherwise milquetoast music scene during his hiatus. So, naturally, these new Lennon recordings would undoubtedly reflect said fire and fury, righting all that was wrong upon my AM and maybe even FM radio dial. Right?
Bob Dylan’s ex-wife sits on the bleachers in a smoky little Hoboken nightclub watching her latest son-in-law belting out his latest demo tape to an appreciative but slim audience of friends and scene-schemers. Bob Dylan’s ex-wife’s looks certainly belie her too many years of lawsuits and sleepless months: she’s still slim, dark, and her eyes still sparkle mischievously with the magics of eras gone by. Continue reading
August 16, 1977.
August 16, 2011.
It’s that day again.
But why should ANYBODY, ANYWHERE care anymore?
Well, in a word or 1030 I believe, here’s Why!
Ready?
First of all, if it hadn’t been for Elvis, we simply wouldn’t be sitting here reading this right now. Really! Think about it: If you like and/or make rock and roll music, Elvis – indirectly or not – is the reason why.
“Just what the world needs: Another record company.”
And with those typically snide words, on the Seventh day of February, 1968, Bizarre Productions was duly incorporated, and two hundred shares of no par value common stock issued in the State of New York, thereby creating the first of several record companies Frank Zappa would oversee during his most colorful life and career.
At this very same point in time, 3500 miles and one ocean to the east, the world’s biggest pop group launched their very own Apple company, whose singles and albums were manufactured and distributed in North America by that granddaddy of all (once-) indie labels, Capitol Records. Of course, as they usually were, Capitol’s resident Beach Boys were already over a year ahead of the Fab Four in creating their own personal Brother Records imprint, ostensibly conducting business right out of that iconic Capitol Tower on the corner of Hollywood and Vine (though, truth be told, most Brother board meetings were held in Brian Wilson’s swimming pool or, if the vibes so dictated, under a tent in Brian’s living room).
Imants, Gary and the Fleshtones watch The Trashmen
It was at a staff meeting for The Pig Paper, upstairs at Toronto’s Beverley Tavern sometime in very late 1975, that I first had the pleasure of bumming a ride home from the one, the only Imants Krumins. You see, he was the only denizen of our nascent Blank Canuck Generation way back then who not only had an (operable) car, but a job as well. You have NO IDEA how vitally important this was to all of us Ontario College of Art drop-outs then unwittingly littering Queen Street West in search of what was to soon become, quote, An Alternative Lifestyle.
Although it’s already spent a good two years here in the ol’ sty, I’m hardly surprised to find I’m still discovering, hearing, and even seeing fresh goodies galore buried within that great big Neil Young Archives box of mine. But, seeing as yet another O Canada Day is now upon us, I sought to find another way to commemorate the greatest living Canucklehead this side of Dr. Stompin’ Tom Connors.
Now, while some may take offense a mere three-minutes-twelve into the show at the comment Toronto, Canada is, and I quote, “a city not noted for its musical invention” (plus, if you look real close, note photos of Buddy Holly and Sonny & Cher appearing later are actually of impersonators, NOT the real deals), Sexy Intellectual’s Here We Are In The Years: Neil Young’s Music Box does present quite the journey through the past. And, as The Man himself would approve, this is one documentary which seldom finds itself in the middle of the cinematic road; it does indeed prefer a somewhat rougher ride, and we sure do see more interesting people there as a result.
In the utterly go-go, trans-media flurry which was mid-sixties pop(ular culture), every television star worth their Nielsens was expected to not only chase spies and rope steers, but compete with those rock ‘n’ rollers of the moment upon the Top Forty to boot. To cite but two examples, Lorne Bonanza Greene and his 1964 chart-topping “Ringo,” not to mention Captain James T. Kirk’s similarly Beatle-busting Transformed Man album. Which contained the possibly definitive version of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” I kid you not. Continue reading
While the very concept of the “Tribute” album has over the years become quite a scary one, the Beatle Tribute can strike downright terror into the hearts of any who still value their sensibilities, let alone that hitherto-durable 214-song catalog. Yes, as far back as William Shatner’s 1968 stab at “Lucy In The Sky,” John, Paul, George and even Ringo have had their melodic legacies sliced, diced, half-baked, botched and certainly butchered by those both well-meaning and, well, just plain mean. Truth to tell, these days I find it increasingly hard to sit through that Bee Gee/Frampton Sgt. Pepper movie even with tongue deep in-cheek. Continue reading
A mere twenty-eight seconds into Joel Gilbert’s extensive new Bob Dylan Revealed documentary, the subject matter himself warns us “There’s many sides to the coin, y’know, and you haveta really, uh, the longer you go on, the more sides you show that are, that are, that are there to be, uh, unraveled.”
So in between sessions with Daniel Mark Epstein’s 496-page The Ballad of Bob Dylan, and the actual man’s actual Original Mono Recordings box, I spent the month of Robert Allen Zimmerman’s 70th (!) birthday pondering that…
1. Although the subject is dwelled upon for less than a minute during Bob Dylan Revealed (we are later treated to some great Super 8 footage of him gallivanting ’round Europe with his young bard however), Albert Grossman and that more-than-complex relationship with Bob Dylan is delved into, and possibly even explained, in a way Martin Scorsese failed to during all two-hundred-and-eight minutes of his own No Direction Home.
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