On the Shelf

Alan Licht channels James Lipton on Inside the Actor's Studio and we get one of the best music/film books for some time. Great concept and execution, with some real insight by Will on an otherwise inscrutable process. Had me searching for records that have not been played in some time, as do all good music books. And that is when we don't get some real dish on his contemporaries and elders. A "you are there" conversation, and definitely will be a reference guide for future bios. A real left field add to the cannon, and as unexpected as Will's subtle play in "Old Joy." Score one for Faber and Faber and file next to "Lennon Remembers: The Rolling Stones Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono."

Sparks, the Stones and Elton

Being back in Los Angeles has one thinking of all things Sparks of course. Case in point was the first find of the trip: a 1975, Penthouse Publications cash-in on Eltonmania in the form of an eight page mini magazine/fold-out poster devoted to EJ. What is intriguing is that the editor decided to place Sparks alongside the Stones and EJ as the band/performer of the moment. Which had me thinking that in a 1975, pre-“Rumours” moment, somebody out there believed that the Mael Brothers could be the next megastars of the 70's to come out of Los Angeles. We don’t count the success of carpetbagging country rockers or do we? Reverse carpetbagging of the sort that the Mael Brothers engaged in is a-ok though. Of course, history has shown that the true quintessential, homegrown superstar Los Angeles band of the 1970’s are the brothers from Pasadena, no? Any other suggestions? Enjoy the back page Pioneer ad at the bottom.

Billy Squire and the Velvet Underground/Magic Terry & the Universe or How Klaus Flouride Met Jim Morrison

Those two Piper albums are pretty sweet, and "Who's Your Boyfriend" is a great post-Raspberries, shoulda-been AM radio hit. I would love to hear recordings of Billy's time in the Sidewinders in the post-RCA era (a union orchestrated by Ben Edmonds), especially the set where Andy Paley and Billy backed Ronnie Spector as honorary Ronettes. Cant locate the Rock Scene with his Sidewinders photo in it cause I am pretty busy packing, but they apparently were proper reet live according to the Robinsons. Do the original u-ground Boston rock and rollers rate him in the same way the Gulcher folks dropped Johnnie Cougar? Mind you, is 1985's "Scarecrow" an equal lp to "Bad Moon Rising" from the same year with beefier drumming (sorry Bob)? Yer call on how ya define "roots" rock. That said, Edmonds' excellent liner notes to the "Reach for the Sky" comp make a strong argument that his credentials are pretty unassailable, including time in the must hear legendary Boston band Magic Terry & the Universe. In my research I have discovered that none other than DK's bassist Klaus Flouride may have been a fellow bandmate (more on that below). Fast forward to 1980 (or is it 1981?), and Billy was unstoppable, riding on the crest of "The Stroke" among other mega anthems. Enough of a force to merit Metal Mike's attention. There it is at the 3:28 mark: "I Got One Thing to Say ... Billy Squire." Why oh why does this one part of the Angry Samoans' "New Wave Theater" appearance still linger in my memory after the original broadcast decades later? One of my legal brethren's imitation of Metal Mike's "Squire comment" ad nauseum over the years since the broadcast never fails to bring a smile to my face, nor does Peter Iver's nonpareil interviewing technique for that matter:



Edmonds' excellent liner notes to the "Reach for the Sky" contains this great anecdote:

As AM airwaves gave way to FM we haunted the Boston Tea Party, the area's first psychedelic ballroom. One particularly memorable evening, Billy and I ventured in to see the Velvet Underground & Nico, bigger stars in Boston than they ever were in New York. Wandering in as the light show playground between sets, we stubmbled down from the balcony - and smack into Andy Warhol and Nico, who were trying to negotiate their way past us up the stairs. We turned on our heels and followed them back to the balcony, where two sixteen year old suburban boys found themselves with the best seats in the house. We watched the Velvets, we watched Andy Warhol watch the Velvets, and we watched Nico watching nothing at all. (If we'd known where to look we could've watched Jonathan Richman, a kid our age from the next 'burb over, watching this too. Many years and several biographies later, I discovered that we'd been witness to a momentous episode in Velvet Underground lore. Warhol and Nico had flown all the way from Europe for this gig, only to be informed by Lou Reed that the band had hired a new manager and had no further use for a chanteuse. It is cliche to say you watch history being made every day, but we were blessed to have been deposited in a time and place where that was the literal truth. Thanks!)

Now, anybody out actually heard Magic Terry & the Universe? Klaus, any tapes. From an interview with Klaus here:

In 1969, I was in Magic Terry and The Universe. This guy looked sort of like Rob Tyner from The MC5. He didn't really sing, but he read poetry over hard rock music. And he did all these characters. This was before Ziggy Stardust. And we had rehearsals from midnight until six in the morning, and people would show up. Jim Morrison showed up with these bigwigs from Elektra. Morrison ripped off one of Terry's pieces for "An American Prayer." That was Terry's. But we were young... We were getting attention from RCA, and there was a bidding war. We played a show opening for Ten Years After, and Terry mooned the audience. It was supposed to be four dates, but we got kicked off. We should have been playing with The Velvet Underground. They were still playing then. But we were all like "Fuck this business." It wasn't until ten years later that I got with Dead Kennedys. I was like "Music isn't going to take me anywhere career-wise, so I may as well have fun with it." It's probably a blessing, because if we had made it with Terry, I'd probably be an acid casualty.

The Long Goodbye and Ball Four/"Yeh I've Been Searchin'"/Marlboro Man (repost April 2012)

Is The Long Goodbye the second best Altman film of the 70's after Nashville? Filmed primarily in Los Angeles in 1973 (released in 1974), I do know that The Long Goodbye is the only one that has Jim Bouton in a compelling and understated supporting actor role. What I associate now when I watch The Long Goodbye (other than Jeremy Blake), is Bas Jan Ader's One Night in Los Angeles, the first part of his work In Search of the Miraculous (1973). In that work (image below), Ader spent a night walking from the Hollywood Hills to the Pacific Ocean. It is the same nighttime trajectory that Marlowe takes in his car to find out what happened to his friend Terry Lennox.










As I recently re-read Bouton's "Ball Four," it turns out he got a call at 3AM from Elliot Gould telling him that he "was going to be in a movie with him called The Long Goodbye, directed by Robert Altman and [he] should catch the next plane to California." Bouton's "audition" consisted of shaking hands with Altman at the airport. Obviously Gould and Altman were big baseball fans, and figured that Bouton had taken enough heat over the book to give him some paid work - check out Jim on What's My Line about 15 weeks after Ball Four was published below.



The Long Goodbye has aged well, and may be Gould's finest work. Though consciously self-referential to the history of noir both on film and in fiction, it was of its time to such an extent that if I want to project myself and feel what Los Angeles of 1973 felt like, I watch it (Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence filmed around the same time works somewhat though not as successfully for me). Name me another film that has the old Ships in Westwood as part of a chase scene of sorts.



Throw in Neil Young's On the Beach and "Rubber Legs"-era Stooges, No Other, Heart Food and the Imperial Dogs' Unchained Maladies and you just may have 1973-74 Los Angeles covered for me. Even Neil gets in a baseball reference in "For the Turnstiles" to tie it all up in my head:

All the bushleague batters
Are left to die
on the diamond.
In the stands
the home crowd scatters
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles.

LA Scene Report: Spring 1978/"The World's Worst Band"

From the barn archive. Some amusing real time remembrances circa Spring 1978 before the real alchemy of "GI" was committed to wax.  "But now it's a half year later, and the Germs have been playing the Whiskey regularly and have a single out on What Records called 'Forming.'" What kind of pact was made to turn the band into such a juggernaut in only six months.  Just wonderin' . . .  Was Nicky Beat still on drums or had Don taken over by that spring/summer?  The fantastic "Raw Power" kinda had a similar aesthetic to what I was going on about in my ""Over the Edge" post a few years back though you may need to add in the Cars and KISS. This issue had Terrible Ted on the cover and features on Cheap Trick, Styx, Blondie, AC/DC, Sex Pistols (five different reviews of the lp), Rex Smith, the Babys and retrospective features on the New York Dolls and Mott the Hoople. It also had a feature on one of Blackie Lawless' first bands in LA playing live at Palisades High to the students!

Robbie Basho live 1971 on KQED

Amazing archival dig by the folks here and those behind an upcoming Basho documentary

The Enemy "Pull Down the Shades" (1977)/"Band Dressed Like Hippies"