"Velvet Underground: Music and Mystique Unveiled" in June 1970/When Mel Brooks met Mel Lyman by Proxy

I swear when the Velvets decided to reform and tour Europe in 1990, it was pretty tempting to sell everything I had at the time and go follow them around. Friends can attest to that aborted plan. It didn’t happen and I thus still own the June 1970 issue of Circus below. I have derided Circus in the past, but occasionally, there were some astute pieces. The cover story on the Airplane was set to go to press almost at the exact time Spencer Dryden was being ejected/retired from the group. Luckily, the editors found that photo of Joey Covington to slap on the cover as Dryden is still mentioned in the pages as drummer. That said, Covington’s contribution “Thunk” from the underrated “Bark” is one of the better Nashville Skyline/doo wop/funk hybrids out there and a reet track to boot. Unfortunately, when Dryden left so too did all of his early Zappa-inspired creations ("no man is an island!"). As I have said previously on these pages re early JA up through "Bark": file next to Royal Trux. And why the fuck is the Howling Hex not hitting these shores this year? A future post on the greatness of even the concept of a Victory Chimp audiobook when I hear it.

But I digress. When Clinton Heylin published his Velvets reader All Yesterday's Parties, he did include the great piece below on the Velvets just on the cusp of releasing “Loaded.” In the end, Chris would have been a better choice to edit the thing and methinks Heylin knows that in his bones. But as I have said before, it is far better to SEE and read the primary source. It must have been weird in that spring of 1970 to now have all these folks claiming they were always fans of the Velvets. Nothing could be further from the truth but just look at the critical consensus gaining speed when you read them all together in All Yesterday's Parties. Where were all these hacks when Cale was around? At least Gleason reprinted his SF Chronicle VU swipe in his Airplane book. And why is Richman so prissy as to not have his Velvets juvenilia reprinted in Heylin’s book – I may need to scan it myself and post. I have been listening again to the essential “Fully Loaded Edition” from a few years back and the outtakes are fantastic to hear in better fidelity than the late 1970's boots. The whole thing just warms you up like that Plastic People of the Universe live tape of all Velvets covers from 1971 (or '72 or is it as late as '73?) which reeks of broken pint bottles sloshing around the floor - the atmosphere is that good and thick as to rival the Live at Max's lp . This Circus article hit the newsstand and drugstore racks in June 1970, Brigid Polk records the band at Max’s on August 23, 1970 and Lou is out of the band within weeks. Go figure.







So the back cover of the June 1970 Circus is an ad for the soundtrack to Zabriske Point. You would get the impression after reading How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life that Fahey would at least get a mention in the ad. This is all the excuse I need to post the Mel Lyman "cult stars" of the film Mark Frechette & Daria Halprin schmoozing and doing the creepy crawl with the irrepressible Dick Cavett – and Mel Brooks and Rex Reed (most action post the 7 minute mark). Enjoy.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight/Iggy, Elton and the Gorilla Suit/"I Simply Can't Understand Why Iggy Isn't a Huge Star"

Some of the more interesting rock reads are those where there is on the surface an incongruity between the writer and the subject material. Oddly enough the results are usually as fascinating if not more so than the material. Case in point is Byron Coley's Motley Crue book I recently wrote about, as well as Bangs' Rod Stewart and Blondie books (interestingly, Bangs did not rate very highly Blondie's later records in much the same manner of his dislike of most of Rod the Mod's solo career). Thankfully Seymour Stein and Sire Records in the mid-70's sponsored a slew of rock bios and today we feature Greg Shaw's "Elton John: A Biography in Words and Music" - nice cover shot, no? In the 70's, if you wanted an lp that was the antithesis of Luciano Cilio's "Dell 'Univero Assente," look no further than Elton at his most bombastic.



I remember seeing at least 10 copies of this for peanuts years back at a shop and passing on it. So, back in LA earlier this year prior to the return to the NZ bush, the time was right as I had just finished the essential "Bomp 2: Born in the Garage" - (a public service by Suzy Shaw and Mike Stax if there ever was one). So, Michael Gira, thank you and Alice Bag for the inspiration to reinvestigate the John catalog. You are dead on that there is something in the austerity of those early records and Greg Shaw perfectly articulates that "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" is "a powerful, hard-rocking single in the style of Slade." I couldn't have put it better myself. Greg even proclaims the single "the party record of the year." Strangely enough, "Daniel" had been the previous single. The schizophrenic nature of those first 6-8 records all within a relatively short time period is fascinating and the volume of output obviously fueled by some serious substances. The singer-songwriter with strings v. the glam/pop hits. Can't really make up our minds. Do we thank Elton for inspiring some of the lesser junk shop glam cash ins? Not unlike people who hate the Doors/Jim Morrison but lavish praise on those undeniably inspired by that font of greatness. For some reason when I see the Creem greatest hit below, I am now reminded of Nick Kent's great anecdote about luckily being confused with Elton's guitar player.



Elton gets a lot of slams for the "persona," but who else knew both Nick Drake (and demoed Drake's and John and Linda Martyn's great early songs with Linda Thompson) and Iggy Stooge - and championed them both - in real time while both Drake and the Stooges were recording. The only other Drake/Iggy connection I can think of and which I have been writing about to post here soon, is Francoise Hardy, whose 1971 lp, "La Question," I usually rate in my top 10 records.





Last time I was at the Hollywood Bowl, it was checking out John Fogerty perform an awesome 4th of July show a couple years back - man, is his guitar playing underrated. However, there were not five pianos on stage nor Groucho, Elvis and Beatle impersonators. It would have livened it up. And Linda Lovelace was not the emcee. As Gira asks, where is the audacity of the performer today and why are they hiding under rocks. I quote: "creatures like him are what make the rest of us retreat and slink away into the murk of daily existence, cowering and furtive, only to emerge again when the light and sound and magic of an Elton John lures us, hypnotized, out of our dismal caves." NB: I always thought that "Philadelphia Freedom" was a bicentennial ode but in fact, Greg Shaw notes that it was a simultaneous tribute to Gamble & Huff - thus the Philly connection with strings - and his favorite tennis player Billie Jean King. Poor Booby Riggs. Not even Bowie on "Young Americans," ripping off the same sound, could pen him a tribute.

Ask Henry Rollins "What's New for '82?"/Real Bands and Fake Bands/"People Are Going to Get Smarter"/"No More Robot Skaters"

From "lifestyle" magazine Action Now, January 1982. Same issue which features a review of "Damaged" and calls it "Damage"(sic) three times.

Juncosa!

Found this one in the barn and figured it would look pretty great on a t-shirt. Ok, I'll admit it. I saw SWA countless times during the 1980's and in particular '85-'87 or so. Also saw To Damascas and the Sylvia Juncosa Band heaps of times. SST bbqs at the Anti-Club. Yep, I was there. All the mid to late 1980's SST stuff needs a real critical reappraisal. Fer example, Always August's "Black Pyramid"? The best dollar bin buy you will make this year. As to SWA, Dukowski is a fucking master. So too is Sylvia. At the time, all those hair metal mags were covering shite and published close by in Hollywood. Right there at the Anti-Club, Raji's etc., Sylvia was ON. Sorry you missed her live, but it ranked up there for pure brain fry with the early Equidimius show I caught at some high school on the westside. I haven't seen Sylvia this century but reports are that she is back. I hope she is still surfing as well . . .

Claude Bessy Sings the Beatles

As a follow-up to the recent post on Claude Bessy, some additional pieces for Bessyologists are floating around the web.

The first Bessy clip is a sort of stop gap from the time window post-Masque and prior to Jimmie "Original Tap Dancing Kid" Spheeris little sister's "Decline of Western Civilization." From a 1980 Showtime program entitled “What’s Up America,” you get Claude briefly in his sartotial splendor. Not only that, but you also get a brief soundbite from R. Meltzer. Also on board are the Angry Samoans, Phranc, the Chiefs, Suburban Lawns and the Dickies among others. More non-Decline footage from Blackies as well as the OC's "Nu-Beams" (looking like the cover of the first Tin Huey 45).





Joe Carducci, author of arguably the best post-Meltzer book on rock music in the past 25 years, the essential "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (Redoubt, 1st ed.; 2.13.61, 2nd ed.) (also known as the Bible in this household - ed.), has pointed out on the New Vulgate site that you can see the Claude Bessy/Paul Williams Hardy Boys appearances on youtube. For your ease, watch part of it below. Worth following all the parts with Paul Williams and Claude - the first clip has Claude as part of the band "Circus" singing "White Album" Beatles acapella in the back of a VW microbus (at around 3:30 and following):

Now, while someone has uploaded portions of the lifestyle show that captured the Weirdos live at the Masque in early 1978, what they haven’t uploaded is the portion where the leisure suited host interviews Claude off camera and where Claude rightly predicts - and is resigned to the fact that - the magic of the spectacle being flimed (incl. Bobby Pyn, Carla Maddog, Terry Graham and Wiedlin acting like swooning teenagers before the Denney's), i.e., the whole Hollywood, post-glam, somewhat older Masque scene would be over in six months. It took slightly longer for the jocks to glom on to Black Flag, but Claude was a pretty fucking astute observer and it was over soon enough. We cant hold it against the entire old-Hollywood guard for the the SST-booking ban in Hollywood can we? If someone puts that up, I can get those posted here. I may also periodically start posting some of Claude’s features and reviews from Slash for scholarship purposes and to start a dialogue on his work. Does anyone have any copies of Claude's 1973 reggae zine "Angeleno Dread" so that we can read that?

Now this one is pretty unpalatable given the various music that Claude himself championed just years earlier. That said, would Claude have gone to the epic SST "The Tour" that hit UCLA in the summer of '84? I am not so sure of that either. As Spira and Long's lyrics detailed, "Reagan's In," and by that time Claude bailed LA.

"Monsters of Metal"/"Sincere Apologies to All of the Women in the World"/Black Flag and the Crüe/"Rock 'half measures'"

Do Kim Salmon, Scott Miller and Ginn/Rollins/Dukowski know that they get a special dedication in one of the first tomes solely dedicated to Mötley Crüe? Straight from the barn archive, I present to you, "Monsters of Metal" from 1986 written under Byron Coley's nom de plume, Billy Dwight. Yes, the subject matter of this one is dodgy (the same year Byron published another book on Chuck Norris though under the Coley brand name - post on that one down the line).



Not quite sure how I missed it in real time, but it is one of the funnier music books of the 1980's even if it was a quick money maker. I found this one sometime in the 90's after I heard about it. Dig the ace 80's bubblepop design:




While living in Santa Cruz, Forced Exposure was really one of the main taproots into the various streams of '80s culture. Much entertainment was had by the reviews, and I believe that a letter was sent to the magazine by me asking if one Billy Dwight would be supplying more film reviews. Here is a "photo" of the Dwight family that ran in a 1987 Forced Exposure (G. Haynes cover). Did Byron swipe this photo from a copy of Ina May Gaskin's classic from the Farm? I'm too lazy to rifle through the copy of "Spiritual Midwifery" staring at me from the family bookshelf.



The influence Forced Exposure had among my peers for a few years there in the mid to late 80's - until publication ceased really - (along with Phuud/Black to Comm, Ugly Things and a couple others) was heavy. The 90's opened up the game a bit for others as I have written about previously. I guess I can say that Billy Dwight was responsible for sending me and my mates to see Derek Bailey record the live lp at LACE that came out later on Emanen based on a FE review. I think I now know the real reason for the lapse in time between issues of FE based on the extracurricular writing of books. Byron was responsible for a lot of lexicon that folks I know used (along with Thirsty a lot of funny spelling for words we knew).



Most likely the only Mötley Crüe book, or any book for that matter, with special thanks to Black Flag, the Scientists and a Game Theory record.



That this was done in 1986 no less should really lead to the re-write of that decades history. I mean, is this fact in that Azzerad book for crissakes?

Here is a single random excerpt - you need to know more about Mick Mars. Now, why did Byron not delve into the crossover back in Indiana between Mick Mars and the nascent Lazy Cowgirls?:



This is NOT Mick Mars:



To get back to chronological order, I bought Black Flag's "Damaged" the week it came out in December 1981. At the time, I was somewhat unsure of what to make of Rollins as "Jealous Again" (and the previous singles) had been my most played music that year apart from some cantorial practice tapes. While I don't play "Damaged" too often now, I still rate and respect it and am really more of a fan of their music that followed. You caught Gira's recent comment on hardcore, right? Yes, I still join the chorus of "RELEASE THE TWO-GUITAR '82 FLAG DEMOS! However, "Side 2" - as the original Pettibon "My War" t-shirt I wore much of 1984 and have now passed on to my son says - Side 2 of "My War" is still the era I where I come down push comes to shove. Sorry knuckleheads.

When I purchased "Damaged," I did not know that also in December 1981, Mötley Crüe released "Too Fast For Love" on their own Leathur Records. I finally heard the self-released version of "Too Fast For Love" in 1986 when living in Santa Cruz.



I was unwittingly forced to listen to "Too Fast" ad nauseum by collegiate pals enamoured by acts that Carducci has politely referred to as '"rock" half measures." Pop metal in other words. Mind you I diverge with Carducci in his rating of "half measures" such as Van Halen - VH's pop and DLR's tin pan alley instincts are in part of what make their first four records palatable to my ears. Eddie Van Halen is incapable of producing a statement anywhere near "The Process of Weeding Out" and why even try.

This one is in three parts from Anarchy TV! - 1985 fuckin' live. Heavy and unstoppable:

This Game Theory album from 1985 has a pretty great Big Star cover. They did not play "You Can't Have Me" when I saw them with Rubin Fiberglass in 1985. Is "Sister Lovers" from the D. Crosby lyric in "Triad"? Can someone clear that up for me.



A gratuitous Huskers drop here? You be the judge.

Shaun Cassidy, Claude Bessy and Philip K. Dick/Fly Jefferson Airplane/Easy on Paul Williams

A couple of random facts about the late, great Claude Bessy. Claude Bessy's first acid trip was seeing the Jefferson Airplane in 1967 ("Cocktails With Claude," LA Weekly 1979 interview w/ R. Meltzer). Second fact: there was a late 70's meeting(s) between Claude and P.K. Dick with Germs manager Nicole Panter and artist Gary Panter at Dick's Orange County home, with photographic evidence that ranks up there with the great 70's photos including the Nixon/Elvis photograph and Iggy Stooge and Robert Plant c. 1973. Third, Claude had a recurring cameo on the Hardy Boys tv show playing bad boy rocker "Frenchie" (hey Claude - easy on Paul Williams there!)


Seeing Claude 20 feet high with fucked teeth spewing his rock philosophy (and with Catholic Discipline - get that great Artifix cd) - at the Sherman Theater (RIP) in Sherman Oaks during the spring 1981 original theatrical run of the Decline of Western Civilization was one of the more indelible memories of my pre-teen years. Claude is clearly someone who needs both a compendium of his writing and a critical biography.


I had originally thought I would do a big write up on the Jefferson Airplane given how much time I had spent listening to everything up through "Bark" and live recordings up to that time as well. Figured out what Kantner was on about with Pooneil. Duh, he likes Fred Neil and A.A. Milne. I reread the Ralph J. Gleason 1969 paperback "The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound" (Ballantine Books, New York, (1969), which reprints excerpts of his 1966 slam of the Velvets and the Tamarkin book (even the Slick autobio - did she actually type any of it?). Watched the great "Fly Jefferson Airplane" dvd. Godard and the pre-Let It Be NYC rooftop shoot was a revelation.



But in the end, I just think I was wrong to skip the records other than "Takes Off" and "Surrealistic Pillow" until now. Make no mistake, Skippy WAS really one of the creative forces in the band - they even cut his tunes after he left the band. I think I have to thank Haggerty for forcing me to stick it out through "Bark" via the cover of "Law Man." Those first six records - including the live one - have golden moments. Maybe hearing "Miracles" in the 70's so many times forced a reaction to shun them. Thank the Coen Brothers as well for inspiring a recontextualizing/revisitation of what those records meant at the time and Coley's PSF interview last year.



I always felt that Byron Coley was kidding when he wrote of Marty Balin's "crooning hambone essence," or referred to him like an "underground" version of Bob Hope. See Spin, Jan. 1993, Blue Light Special: Jefferson Airplane. After reading Jeff Tamarkin's book, I kinda felt sorry for the guy for having his band practically taken from him by a science fiction obsessed ego-maniac and a totally soused, limo liberal. I mean, the guy could have been considered an east coast pal of Meltzer at the height of the JA's creative and commercial peak circa '67-68. See Meltzer, R. "Marty Balin: Artist as Madman" (Rock, 1970). That said, I am deep enough in to keep an eye out for "Blows Against the Empire" and "Sunfighter" in the dollar bins. Here is JA at the Filmore '66 with Signe (looks like Dryden and not Skippy on drums) doing a number from "Takes Off," an lp that Meltzer I think correctly referred to as "post" folkrock:



Marty's lyrics are not Dylan's, but hey, the guy could write a great simple love song. For some reason, I think I had always steered clear of the band owing to the stench of the forced agitprop as well. But, like I have said before, "Volunteers" sounds great today and Jorma's Fahey-esque playing on "Embryonic Journey" on the Jerry Garcia coined title "Surrealistic Pillow" is near perfect.

Is the creative peak "After Bathing at Baxters"? George D. Henderson of the great and underrated NZ band the Puddle cites "Crown of Creation" as a top 10-er. I can imagine George having his mind blown in 1970 Invercargilll in his off time from the movie theater job. My vote for best Great Society cover is the Salvation Army's cover of "Grimly Forming." Here is the Grace Q&A from Hit Parader 1967.