'Nuf Said

Television in Terry Ork's loft 1974/That's All I Know . . . Right Now/Poor Circulation

I am not one for awards but in my mind Richard Hell should one day be considered our poet laureate if that title actually means anything. My guess is that he will be awarded the French National Order of Arts and Letters before that happens. I have written here before that 1974 was a great year for videotape. Here is Exhibit B. What can I say. One of my favorite bands of all time with their greatest line-up. I could paraphrase what Patti Smith said about Television in the October 1974 Rock Scene but instead I have scanned and resurrected the original from the barn archive below. I also have finally figured out how to take still video captures so you get a few images from the barn video archive as well. There is something quite amazing about the quality of this video. It is in black and white and has the same feel as a lot of the early installation video pieces or of some black and white surveillance camera tape. One of the last two clips on the 60 minute tape are 1974 era Television doing a number that really was a Neon Boys tune carried over to the new band. Called “High Heeled Wheels” on the 90’s Overground reissue, this really is the just what the tail end of the Nixon-era needed – a hyped up Beefheart-Dolls garage band hybrid. That could describe late 80’s Claw Hammer but that is the subject of some future post. What a fantastic tone they got on those guitars, true authenticity to the 1966 sound.

Was it thee Terry Ork filming this thing? Whoever it was just thinks Richard is the bees knees and cant take the camera off the guy. Thing is, based on his charisima on the video – even while getting a passive aggressive beatdown by Tom Verlaine while being taught Venus de Milo, Hell really is deserving of the attention he gets. You know who my favorite nouvelle vague film star is. Not Belmondo, Karina, Delon or Deneuve et al. No, in the alternate time machine it is Richard Hell nee Meyers. Yeah, he never was in one of the films, born in Lexington, KY (1949). He should have been a huge screen star. In my mind he is. What do I base that on? Not that much really. Lemmee see Smithereens, Blank Generation, Amos Poe’s short film. I blinked and missed getting my mits on the Rachid Karouchie film “Final Reward.” Can some reader help me out with that. The entire rehearsal video tape (of which I have several audio variations) should be in the Smithsonian one day – as rich a US cultural artifact from the second half of the 20th century as any.

I guess it has been said a million times previously but not only does Hell possess a beat sensibility, but also a European one with a mirror reflection back on the best of Anglo-American 1940’s-60’s pop culture. His cultural signifiers are analogous to the Cahier Du Cinema writers on classic Hollywood form/film noir who then influenced the New Hollywood of the 70’s. His stance is the poetbreakthrough of the 60’s/70’s via Dylan, certain of the Beats, the New York School poets and perhaps foremost the French Symbolists, filtered through the transcendental act of writing alone in a spare room (with or without substances) and venturing out to see the Max's era Velvets and the Dolls. Why Todd Haynes did not cast Richard in I’m Not There is beyond me. For Richard, its not like the hippies never happened but the only hippies who grokked the 1880’s, the Charlatans, were looking to Reno, Nevada and Carson City, and not Paris and Algeirs. He is the last of the breed, art house cinema by way of the worldview of Iggy Stooge. I don’t hear/see the nihilism that Bangs writes of. To me, it is a love of exploring the boundaries of consciousness with words. The 1970’s that Bresson depicts in “The Devil Probably,” and which I have written about here before in connection with Hell, speaks more to Hell's early 70's mindset than something as empty as the kinda dismal Blank Generation film (other than the great live clips with Bob Quine). Is Hell nostalgic for this initial youthful period of inspiration? He has written about that period (or published his diaries) in the Hanuman book and Godlike touches on the period as well. It obviously still transfixes him (and us). We are a fly on the wall to one aspect of that time period with the Ork tape. He was making some of the most important music of the last century. As much time has passed from the recordings of the Neon Boys/nascent Television to the present day as from the first electric Muddy Waters recordings to the early 70’s. Is one more deserving of serious critical appraisal than the other? I think not. Time is moving forward and we cant stop it.

Last time I saw Richard Hell in person he was then working on (finished?) his latest novel set in the early 70’s NYC poetry scene. Richard had come through LA probably 2 maybe 3 times in the past decade to read. Last time (at least that I know of) when I was still living in there, he did a great reading at Beyond Baroque in Venice. Anyway, at that reading, Richard read a chapter from the novel that became Godlike. It was the tail end of that historical time frame that the Ork video inhabits and one thing I was thinking about when the word spiel was coming down from the mike that night.

Finally, here is Television live in Terry Ork's loft in NYC 1974 performing "Eat the Light" (for some reason excerpts get taken down as quickly as they go up):

Smile for the camera Neil!

If I wanted to, I could probably string together another 25 more of these bad Neil photos the bootleggers decide they have to use. What gives you morons? The guy is a fucking genius.

Dear Gulcher 1977

Gulcher. One of the epicenters of proto-punk America (I'm talking the non-drugstore/newsstand distributed variety) along with Bomp, Back Door Man and you name it. About twenty years ago I sent this to Sonic Death the fanzine when it was still active. Some anonymous person wrote back saying they had never seen this letter and were going to print it. Never did. I used it as stationary for a long time so a few of you have seen this one but I haven't seen it on the net. I forgot to ask Thurston about it when I met the band at Rhino Records on the Daydream Nation tour. More Gulcher-related posts to come soon.

Baby Jane's in Acapulco, We are Flying Down to Rio/Dan Flavin and Stairway to Heaven/The Pensioner

For the past several decades, I keep coming back to the first five Roxy Music lps as a highwater mark of seventies popular music. Can you name another group or artist who had as good a streak during the 70's who can claim the VU as a front and center influence (other than the Ramones) and put out five great albums in a row? For most critics, Eno gets a free pass for his 70's solo work. When he moves past his suppressed rockist tendencies, the music goes limp. It seems his extracurricular activities gives him the high grades. He records Television with Richard Williams at their near height and then co-opts an entire scene a few years later (thank you for the document though). However, Ferry as person and solo artist is ridiculed. Here is Bryan at CBGB's in 1975 catching the Ramones pre-lp (photo courtesy Danny Fields) - where were you:

What drives the hatred? Is it as Iggy said off the cuff: "you can throw any thing at me but your girlfriend will still love me you jealous @@*&$$$#s!" Succint. I think the 70's rockcrits deeply felt this is panning the solo lps. Devo had another possible theory - in my mind likely derived from spending too much time with Eno:

We first got those blue firemen's jumpsuits and we wore those masks that took your faces away, cause what we decided that what we hated about rock & roll was STARS -- we watched Roxy Music, a band we liked, slowly become Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music. If you got a band that's good, you bust it up and sell three times as many records. Take the Beatles for instance, the magic was in the combination -- nothing that any single Beatle did after that matches up. (Search & Destroy, 1978).

Well I can argue that one with Mothersbaugh till I am blue in the face but it won't change his mind. Eno is lionized for his solo lps (rightfully so in some cases) and Ferry is accused of being a STAR. And, as anyone who knows me well, I can talk the merits of "Beaucoup of Blues" as ranking up there with Beatles '65. (Aquarium Drunkard image of first four post-Beatles solo singles).

Here is Ferry paying his respects as only he can (with Spedding on guitar). Dig the great Dan Flavin/Powell & Pressburger homage. Eno can only wish he could grow such a beard!!:

Saturday Night Pogo 1978 KROQ Radio Ad/Radio Free Hollywood/The Berlin Brats 1976/Rhymes With Seltzer

Is Richard Meltzer embarassed by the 1978 Saturday Night Pogo cover? As a teenager, I was embarrassed by the image. Meltzer was 33 years old when he posed for the cover. At 34, he lionized the Germs (GI) lp in a rave Los Angeles Times review which demonstrated he hadn't lost all his marbles. In fact, it is among his best reviews of albums he actually listened to. Courtesy of Dr. Riff Buttons, you get to hear the LA radio ad for the lp plus some added Rodney bumper commentary:



The Saturday Night Pogo lp would seem to be a b-team of the LA punk era, right? Well yes and no. The Radio Free Hollywood crowd never really got their due with all the revisionist history of what constitutes year zero of LA punk. I agree it is no "Tooth & Nail" or "Yes LA" but there are some shining moments. Who among the best of the old guard Hollywood punks pre-Masque have not gotten their due? Well, let's see. The Droogs are from the Valley (and worthy of their own post) and the Dogs are originally from Detroit. So I guess that would leave Saturday Night Pogo stars, the Berlin Brats. Rubin Fiberglass and I would both agree going back to our Santa Cruz days, that "Tropically Hot" off that lp and the 45 are among the great unsung Dolls/trashy songs you never heard. At Waitakere Walks, that sort of thing is our bread and butter. Both the A and B side of the 45 are among the best pre-hardcore punk 45s to emerge from Los Angeles - that is if you like the Dolls, Stones, early rock n' roll etc. A battle royale of Clap, the Berlin Brats and the Imperial Dogs could get pretty bloody (Daddy Maxfield had already split the scene). As a pre-teen, the fact that the Berlin Brats were in "Up in Smoke" did not register. The Dils later did, but I swear, so brief is the appearance of the Berlin Brats that it is missed if you so much as sneeze. Just as memorable may be the image of Rodney with his glam mullet wearing a Sex Pistols shirt at the side of the stage with Cheech Marin. I wish Fowley had made the cut. Somebody get Lou Adler on the line so we can get the full footage released!! Here is all there is:



Here is the great 45 of Tropically Hot/Psychotic:






What has been a real revelation at headquarters are the 1976 Berlin Brats demos and some live shows of the same era. Here is the demo of "Tropically Hot" slowed down with some very sweet acoustic overdubs, the great "Do I Love You Today" and a live cover of the Animals "It's My Life" from Hollywood 1976 - we need the 180 gram pressing of this stuff:







Back to Saturday Night Pogo, here is a clip of VOM at Malibu Beach (?) performing their track from the lp. Meltzer does undo some of the damage from the lp cover here and we do love Gregg Turner's vocals which he used to great effect in his next project:

What Hath Lenny Kaye and Greg Shaw Wrought/Underdog

I have to say it pleases me to no end that unnamed greedy Euros have decided to perform the public service of comping great glam singles on various glam comp lps ala Killed By Death. The first one of these I was able to track down from the UK was "Glam Sandwich and Electric Flares." It cost a fortune to get and was housed in a flimsy thin cardboard cover of the quality of a takeaway chips holder. The music itself, yes the music, was topnotch.

The junk shop glam cds that came out several years ago ("Velvet Tinmine" etc) were among my favorite reissues of the last decade. As Robin at the always great Purepop site wrote a few years ago, these junk shop glam singles ARE the new freakbeat (my paraphrase may be slightly off). Which brings me right around to an lp and single Robin featured a few years back as well and which has been sitting in the barn archive waiting for a spin: Giorgio Morodor's "Son of My Father" from 1972.

There are just some tremendous moogy-synth-glam tracks which as an entire lp holds up really well (with a great cover to boot). The title track has always had that great glam chug that made "Spirit in the Sky" jump out on AM transistor radios worldwide. This ain't your mama's "Terminal Jive" or "Midnight Express." Morodor also produced the Chicory Tip cover of his song which became the bigger hit. As you can see below, Giorgio ain't no Bryan Ferry so we can be thankful he didn't become a teen idol. "Underdog" has great anti-authoritarian lyrics and is pure bubble gum - it will stick in your head like the best of early 70's glam pop.

Here is Chicory Tip (with the great simulacrum of Morodor's accent!!) mooging out on the beach though not quite Magic Band "69 style if you know what clip I mean - this version replaces a non-karaoke version that was pulled by youtube: