Category Archives: Features

PIGSHIT: Ten reasons why the New York Dolls are STILL lookin’ fine on television

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1. The fully, perfectly B&W action kicks straight off down some desolate roadside with a dusty, yet meticulously trashy-as-ever Dolls being asked "how you, um, guys got together." "I met Arthur on MacDougal Street," says Johnny. "Na na na, that's not how it started," complains Sylvain, as nearby twigs 'n' cigarette butts suddenly become airborne. And? We're off !!

2. Vintage "Lookin(g) For A Kiss" performance footage is expertly intercut with shots of our not-yet-ready-for-celluloid heroes as they walk down Hollywood Boulevard, checking out the neighborhood novelty-slash-porn shops, cruisin' Frederick's, and catching David JoHansen actually experimenting for perhaps the first time with a terrifyingly great big proto-Poindexter coif.     

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Feb 18 – Blankfest Quebec IV – It’s About The Homeless; Nothing More, Nothing Less

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In the cold they sit and in the cold they wait. Montreal's homeless never have it easy as the city streets they live on are notorious for having brutal winters, with temperatures well below zero. For that reason, year after year, Montreal's music community comes together to help keep warm. Blankfest Quebec is proud to announce its annual return for its 4th year in support of one of Canada's oldest and largest homeless shelters, the Old Brewery Mission. 

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PIGSHIT: Dexter Romweber’s Freedom of Night

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Very late one evening in the very late 1980s, my oldest pal Doug and I were dejectedly roaming the Canadian television airwaves when we suddenly chanced upon footage of these two guys playing music out on someone's porch.  

Our collective jaws – to say nothing of the remote – immediately dropped. 

It seems we'd stumbled upon a movie called Athens, GA: Inside/Out. The two guys playing the incredible music turned out to be Chris "Crow" Smith and, on starry Silvertone guitar and vocals, Dexter Romweber. When a graphic across the screen reading "Flat Duo Jets" eventually appeared both Doug and I realized, among several other things, that we had a New Favorite Band. 

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PIGSHIT: “MACH SCHAU, PEEDLES!”

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Every Sixties recording artist seemed to have ‘em:  There were the Beach Boys’ Hite Morgan tapes, the Stones’ IBC demos, the Byrds’ notorious Jet Set sessions, and even the Velvet Underground’s attempts at becoming East Coast studio stringers for Gary Lewis and the Playboys (…just kidding about that last one) (I think).

As a brand new collection called The Beatles with Tony Sheridan: First Recordings, 50th Anniversary Edition more than proves, even the almighty Fab Four were not immune to this pre-fame plague of skeletons-in-the-audio-closet. For you see, when not binging on Chuck Berry, Preludins and Schnaps in Hamburg’s red-light district throughout their, um, formative years, our heroes also served as in-studio back-up band to one of Britain’s then very biggest rock stars.  Continue reading →

PIGSHIT: The small machine that could

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For all intents and purposes, Lindsey Adams Buckingham has lived a charmed life.

Raised in the comfy Bay Area opulence of 1950′s Atherton, California, a handsome, athletic golden boy suddenly and forever sidetracked by his elder brother’s Elvis and Buddy Holly 45s. He quit the school water polo team, moved with his guitar into a local hotshot band called Fritz, left for L.A. with their singer Stevie, produced with her the magnificently understated Buckingham Nicks album, was soonafter asked to join Fleetwood Mac with whom he helped craft a 40-million-plus-selling album called Rumours and, by 1978 at the age of twenty-nine finally found himself at the very tip-top of his game.

For all intents and purposes, that is.  Continue reading →

PIGSHIT: High Tide and Fazed Cookies

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The jury – to say nothing of the legal teams – appear to still be out on precisely how much of a bigger bang the Rolling Stones are planning next year to mark their fiftieth (!) year together as a band. Will they in fact, even for a concert or two, be able to regain the best bass player they ever had? Can even long-lost Mick Taylor again be convinced to try to fill Brian’s musical shoes for maybe a solo or two?? Anything to prevent, or at least delay, the next Jagger so-low album, I can already hear all of you thinking out there!  Continue reading →

PIGSHIT: They Ain’t Heavy…

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Never as naughty as the Rolling Stones, nor as pin-up perfect as Herman’s Hermits; seldom as musically adventurous as the Yardbirds, nitty-gritty as the Animals, or full-on bombastic as The Who. Of course, as truly no-one was, they just weren’t as precociously talented as those Beatles either.

In fact, throughout the entire artistic marathon which was 1960′s pop, perhaps their only true competition – in the vocal department at least – would be the all-American Beach Boys. And, like them, it seems the only true “crime” The Hollies ever committed during their illustrious decades-long career was that they solely concentrated on, well, just making good records.  Continue reading →

PIGSHIT: Much more of The Monkees

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Can it really be true that Rolling Stone publisher/magnate Jann S. Wenner has personally conducted a decades-long campaign to bar The Monkees from induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Far-from-dummy Monkee Peter Tork certainly thinks so.

“He doesn’t care what the rules are and just operates how he sees fit,” Tork told the New York Post in 2007. “It is an abuse of power. I don’t know whether The Monkees belong in the Hall of Fame, but it’s pretty clear that we’re not in there because of a personal whim.”  Continue reading →

PIGSHIT: Iggy, in the hands of the fans

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As the opening credits of this grand new MVD Visual DVD state, (and I quote), “On September 3, 2010, Iggy and the Stooges performed Raw Power live in Monticello, New York. Six fans filmed the concert and interviewed Iggy and the Stooges after the show.”

Really then! A concept so crystalline in both its simplicity and beauty – much like Iggy himself, one such as myself could argue. But the result is mountains above and beyond the ultimate DIY epic for Generation YouTube: What we have here is a real-time and, of course, real LOUD (thanks in no small part to the work of audio recordist Max Bisgrove) down ‘n’ dirty antidote to all those precious Jonathan Demme-style concert films regularly being awarded art-house praises and prizes.  Continue reading →

PIGSHIT: Ten Reasons to Now Revisit Hendrix at Winterland and In the West

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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 →