|
|
►Original Musical Compositions and Select Covers |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RARWRITER 1Q INTERVIEW
|
Is
this Anything?
|
Dan Hicks at Davies HallCelebrating 70 Big Time
See kids, subversive musical types like Dan Hicks, who will celebrate his 70th birthday April 6 at San Francisco's plush Davies Symphony Hall, have been flipping off photographers forever. This is probably one of the weirdest affectations of all professional poses, but practically part of the standard kit of deliverables for deconstructionist of the popular music vein. This is, after all, street business, and the louts who get knocked around all day for low pay have a kind of "fuck you" attitude and somehow Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks have always captured that in an alternative musical way. Hicks started his musical life as a boy drummer in a Santa Rosa high school marching band. He was distracted for a time, earning a degree in broadcasting from San Francisco State College, where he also took up the guitar, but after graduating he drifted into loud and loose company, becoming the drummer for the seminal "San Francisco" rock band The Charlatans. The Charlatans came into full form at a 1965 house band engagement at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada, and there, good readers, began the modern era of music in San Francisco. What happened is that the Red Dog performances became a "be-in" type of event, a psychedelic forerunner that would set the template for what was soon to become the "San Francisco Sound". With a passing reference to the 1967 Summer of Love, the SF sound carried a distinct musical signature that blended folk, rock, blues and jazz, producing strains that were identifiable for their San Francisco DNA even while exhibiting a phenomenal range of musical stylings. Ambitious bands like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service came out of that pot house. Dan Hicks, though known to only the most hip of musical connoisseurs - that has changed over time, as he stayed around to become a living legend - was a key figure in what seemed and smelled like an organic development. San Francisco, prior to The Charlatans, was high-end jazz clubs, the bohemian scene in North Beach, and Carol Doda, a waitress (whose breast measurement had been enlarged to 44") who almost single-handedly created the topless bar and made The Condor Club an historic site. There was a folk scene and within that there was a subversive element, including the members of The Grateful Dead, whose inspiration included jug band music, which even in 1965 seemed about as deconstructionist as one could get. There's that fuck you finger, again, or so subversiveness has always seemed to me. The mere act of choosing alternative instrumentation - and in 1965, that included the instruments of our grandfathers, because the electronics of rock'n roll had obliterated the wood era of modern music - seemed radical, like a statement that said we can control your hearts and feet and minds without banks of Marshall amplifiers to make you feel energized. At the same time, Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks - Dan Hicks had moved on from The Charlatans by this time - were that dangerous contrapuntal alternative, cutting through the fog of the psychedelic era with acerbic wit, devilish licks, a fun stage act, and attitude. And it was not necessarily the attitude of gratitude, or any other such Summer of Love bullshit, but more like the attitude of a sly table-side slight-of-hand artist; the kind that picks your pocket while you are watching him mysteriously toss playing cards so they stick to the ceiling above. Just for reference, I always thought of Dan Hicks as Dan Hicks and the Special Niche, because like his friend Ray Benson, with Asleep at the Wheel, Dan Hicks rolls into town with a truck load of musical tradition that onstage translates into gravitas and makes one feel the presence of a dangerous force. Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, because of authentic talent and all of that history just referenced, means something. Exactly what that something is may be a study still in motion - I sense there are clues in the wonderful artwork that Dan Hicks has created for his album covers over the years - and on April 6 a whole bunch of highly qualified subject matter experts are getting together at Davies Hall to play it out, make tribute to Dan Hicks, and see if it all adds up to a conclusive whole. The performers that night will include the Original Hot Licks plus The New Millenium Hot Licks (Roberta Donnay and Daria), Tuck & Patti, Rickie Lee Jones, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Maria Muldaur, John Hammond, Harry Shearer, Van Dyke Parks, Roy Rogers, Jim Kweskin, Bruce Foreman and Ray Benson. - RAR (4-6-12) _________________From Another Drumming PlanetTerry Bozzio
Six bass
drums, two snares, and 26 melodically tuned toms of various
sizes (all DW Vertical Low Timber drums), a Roland Handsonic,
glockenspiel, six hi-hats, 30 cymbals, three gongs, and a
one-octave tuned set of Wuhan Chinese bossed gongs. Toms are
arranged in rows of two and three, many of the cymbals are
stacked, and 18 floor pedals are arranged in a semi-circle
for operating kicks, hi-hats, toms, and various percussion
instruments... There is an old baseball maxim that states that fielders are easy to find, particularly in the Latin leagues: shake a tree and a dozen gloves fall out, but try to find a guy who can hit major league pitching and you are in pursuit of one of the rarest treasures in all of sports. (In what other pursuit can guys who are successful in less than 30 percent of their efforts pull down 7-figure annual salaries?) Ditto for really good drummers. Drummers are falling out of trees too - what else could explain such personalities - but most land on their heads and then start banging away without having any knowledge of musical composition or even basic notation. They are not musicians, in all too many cases, but more like framing carpenters who lay down a bull work of scaffolding upon which to hang melodies and chord changes and vocal arrangements. This has always been a fairly abysmal process, at least from a songwriter's perspective; rather like trying to wire a house with the assistance of a friend who really only knows how to hammer studs into place. It is frustrating as hell, and I suspect that it has gotten ironically worse over the last couple decades, since the advent of hip-hop has led young dudes to believe that "building beats" is the same as making music. All it really is, of course, is providing a static metronomic groove over which to mouth a bunch of rhyming words, usually unencumbered by the demands of actual melody. This is the thing I hate most about hip-hop: lack of musicality, with melody jettisoned in favor of bleats and exclamations and repeats - which now that I think of it is all the same things that most drummers provide, not melodic enhancements or expressions, but droning click tracks marked by periods and exclamation marks. Back in the early 1980s, a drummer friend of mine - I actually do have friends who are drummers, despite my cold reaction to what many of them do - named Gerry Capone introduced me to Terry Bozzio, the former Frank Zappa prodigy who at the time was running his band Missing Persons. Fronted by Dale Bozzio, Terry's wife at the time, and including refugees from Zappa's outfit (Guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and Bassist Patrick O'Hearn), Missing Persons was pretty straight-forward stuff compared to the musical-intellectual boot camp the players had emerged from (i.e., Zappa), but the drumming was anything but "beats", as the kids of today say. Terry Bozzio was using a big kit even back then, though about half the size it is now, and the thing that really jumped out at you was his polyphonic approach to playing coupled with Olympian physical capacities. He had a string of tuned hi toms that he could roll through with one hand, and do it seamlessly in such a way that his drums were a part of the musical arrangement, rather than just a set of boxes providing a groove beat. It was awe inspiring, not in that Travis Barker bombast way, but in that way that was really born in the much earlier big band era, when master drummers like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich (among many others) were propelling sophisticated sounds with musical ingenuity and showmanship. Bozzio recently gave a clinic on drumming, which is what the video above comes from. If you are wondering if that ridiculous drum set he sits in the center of is all bells and whistles, just gimmickry and useless overkill, check out his video for some thoughtful illustrations of percussive musicality. - RAR
|
_________________________
|
|
OH DAMN... Amy Winehouse (1984-2011)
Damned few authentic talents have emerged in music, not just in the past however many years, but ever. They come along only once in a great while and for some reason many of them last only a brief time. So it was with Amy Winehouse, found dead yesterday in her North London home. Her "Back to Black" video is a pretty good summation of her world view, which was unremittingly inspired but bleak. She wanted to be an artist and she achieved that. She also disastrously became a substance abuser and manic depressive with the associated self-esteem issues, and through all that an icon to less-than-fabulous disaster. And yet to her fans, there were only the classic melody lines, the smirk, the pooled eyes, and the deep, round-tone voice, un-diluted by any inclination to be any other than itself. Her toothy smile bespoke a vulnerable soul, which was the final link in the connection she made with fans around the world. We rooted for her to survive, to get well. I have no idea if she now is, only that we all have lost a channel to something real in human feeling and expression, and with her passing a bit of our own opportunity to know the sublime is lost. - RAR |
|
|
______________________
The hot weather brings the summer tours and for the past three years that has pitted two of the only colossally large pop acts left standing: Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. RARWRITER.com respects both, but it is Katy we really love. The video below of her extremely compressed preparation time before launching the first big show of her tour tells why. Katy has an amazing perspective at 26 years of age, which compares rather favorably against the monstrous machinations of Lady Gaga.
|
First Published June 2010
__________________________________________________________________________________________
First Published June 2010
______________________________
First Published March 2010
First published March 2010
|
From October 2009 _____________ Trauma, Unrest and Need
by RAR If social history means anything at all - and it does, usually more than we can comprehend as it is happening - we are about to experience something fresh, new and revitalizing; something through which the human spirit will be reborn, at some level, and aspects of living will be reinvented for a new age. What we may go through to get to this new place may not be pleasant. In fact, it will likely be awful. What will transpire, however, will inspire generations to come while antiquating the thinking of generations that have gone before. Mankind will not be transformed but as a global community we may feel that we have been. We will fall under the spell of a new avatar, who will tap into that channel of communications that exists incomprethin our human beings and vibrates at the core of our response to the world we experience. It happened in the 1930s, during the ironically dubbed "Great Depression", the first world-wide socio-economic phenomena in human history, which ushered in a new age of planetary engagement and awareness. In that "event" we had the key ingredients of change: traumatic disruption to the status quo, social unrest including broad public disillusionment with ideas previously considered "sacred", and open expressions of need. We turned on the radio, tuned into film, and opened our hearts in hopes that our voids would be filled with something hopeful, imbued with salvation. And while we met on the battlefields of Europe, Africa, the Pacific Isles, and Asia, we slaughtered to the sound of an odd entreatment, of big bands crashing wildly on brass and skins and melodic metals, Sinatra stepping forth from Tommy Dorsey's army of sound to rev up the romance, and build the launch pad of the next generation, which was pop culture. It wasn't all for the good, of course. In electrifying the young people of "the Greatest Generation", Sinatra and his counterparts paved the way for a transition to youth culture that had the unfortunate effect of bidding adieu to some of the greatest contributors of the first half of the 20th century: George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington... Sinatra, to his everlasting credit, always made it a point to introduce his songs with references to their composers, their arrangers, and to his supporting musicians. The establishment of pop culture, with its emphasis on youthful themes, became a catalyst itself in the 1950s, in which trauma took the form of the "Korean Conflict", there was growing civil unrest in the south, and the needs of the nation included growing economic disparities featuring pockets of devastating poverty, and this in a nation that now stood astride the globe and claimed the 20th as the "American Century". This combination of societal pressures coupled with technological change ushered in "the age of Elvis", who married visuals with music in a way that changed the way people expressed themselves thereafter, and in turn opened the door for "race music" to enter into the panoply of the new pop culture. Big wheels turning indeed. Trauma to the new pop culture world, which by then had become a televised event, came in the form of a rapid-fire series of bullets discharged in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. It was a crack in the newly formed cosmic egg, to borrow a title of the times. Trauma, Unrest and Need, the holy triumvirate of change, unsettled horsemen on the road to apocalypse, rode us into the next age, the "Age of Aquarius" whose avatars were The Beatles, whose spell we have remained under these many years. Who will it be now, that the cycle of trauma, unrest and need is upon us anew; possibly not fully vested yet? The shock may be soon to come, and it feels unsettling. The trials of life, gnashing of teeth, rending of hair...it is precursor to what will eventually be, which will likely be profoundly positive, for hard times tend to strip humanity to its core, and while this often reveals the worst in us, the thing that always prevails in the end is love, the best in us. However dysfunctional we become as groups and individuals, the one shared aspiration we have without question is the need to love and be loved. The Beatles got it right and they produced a brilliant tribute of sound in celebration of the insight. Now it is someone else's turn, someone who is somehow gifted with light the way the previous avatar's of change were. They will always be artists, rather than politicians, business people or religious leaders, because art, and particularly music, transcends all human experience, speaking uniquely to each and every one of us even as the entire world hears and shares its sound. It is magic, and the next Cosmic Magician is out there somewhere. Maybe this time this person will be a Black or an Asian. We haven't seen a female avatar as yet, but it could be part of what will change. Whatever color, and whether boy or girl, the person will be as a Shaman, confident and wise in his or her ways, though likely without pretension. He or she will be young and it is almost a certainty that "we" do not know at this time whom he or she is. Someone does though. Maybe there are friends who notice a certain flash in someone in their company that seems other than that coming from anyone else. There will be charisma and nascent creativity that will start to grow by staggering bounds. There will be fun and energy. There will be organic phenomena, like people skipping work to go hear this agent of change sing and play, drawn to the flame like a moth to a light, and lines will grow around the block where this "change artist" sets up to play. And word will get out through the Internet and social networks, and the message will somehow obliterate the competing, numbing buzz of those who don't yet know that they are of a time already past. They won't have seen or heard anything like this. And the spirits and the minds of people worldwide will be changed through some future event, some Ed Sullivan moment when some cosmic MC will step before the cameras to say "Now yesterday and today our theater's been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation, and these veterans agreed with me that the city never has seen the excitement stirred by these youngsters from..." And the camera's will pan to the new light, and the world will be born anew. ___________________________________
The Beatles, 1964, rehearsing back stage for the "Ed Sullivan Show". There is a nice account of the story behind the booking of The Beatles for the series of Ed Sullivan shows they did in early 1964, which introduced them to American audience, thus bringing "Beatlemania" across the pond from Britain to the U.S. Click here to read the back story.
|
|
Sons of Adam Bassist Recently, RARWRITER.com received an email message from a former Boulder resident - "back then it was 'Cynde Holmes'" - who was interested in information about another former Boulderite. The communication went as follows:
"I came across your
web site looking for an old friend from Boulder. To my surprise,
I read about many people I used to know from Boulder CO back in
the 70-90's. I was a wild one back then. There is a friend of
mine I knew in Hollywood[ Calif} back in the 60's. His name is
Michale Port. Bass player. Was in a group called The Sons of
Adam. They never got very far. The man who produced Sonny & Cher
was their manager. {I think} Michale also did studio work for a
band called Love. I don't know how old you are, so I don't know
if these musicians are before your time. Is there any way you
can find out if he is still on the planet? He was a close friend
and for some crazy reason I thought of asking you. It was really
good to read about so many guys I used to know and hear where
they are today. Boulder was a crazy town, I was one of the
crazies from there. Thanks for whatever you can do. In fact,
Michale was the reason I wound up there, It was the last place I
saw him. Cindy. P.S. At one time he thought of changing his last
name to Anderson {it was his grandparents' name}." Originally a "surf band" out of Baltimore called the Fender IV, because guitarist Randy Holden had wangled a Fender endorsement, they drifted west and eventually reached L.A., where they became the Sons of Adam and had one minor hit single with "Mr. You're A Better Man Than I," which was a British Invasion-flavored departure from their earlier surf sound. Sons of Adam, pictured here (circa 1966) from left to right, are: Michael Stuart-Ware, Randy Holden, Joe Kooken, and Mike Port. RAR did a little looking around for information on Port and the Sons of Adam and found this intriguing note at http://mza-garage.blogspot.com/2008/04/sons-of-adam-moxie-ep-compilation-raw.html amid a quote from Sons of Adam guitarist Bryan MacLean (1946-1998): "Mike Port was our bass player. Thin, soft features, baby face, gentle, expression, but the other guys had filled me in. As a kid, Mike was forced to fight his way through one of the toughest neighbourhoods in Baltimore everyday, to get to the store and buy his Mom a pack of camels, so he got tough. (more in his book)." That quote appeared in the book 'Pegasus Carousel' by Michael Stuart-Ware, the drummer for the Sons of Adam. Go to http://www.bryanmaclean.com/sonsofadam/index.htm for additional information on MacLean and the Sons of Adam. MacLean had been a roadie for The Byrds, joined the Sons of Adam and lived with the band in their communal style in L.A. before splitting for a new band, Love, leaving this quote: "The Sons of Adam are never gonna go anywhere. They’re just another band. My group Love is about to record some shit that’s bound to blow everybody’s mind ..." MacLean had met multi-instrumentalist Arthur Lee, whose band The Grass Roots was a popular house band at The Brave New World club in West Hollywood. When a San Francisco band by the same name released their first LP, the L.A. Grass Roots changed its name to "Love." Essentially a psychedelic rock outfit, they produced some interesting music including a lasting composition, "Alone Again Or" that was written by Bryan MacLean. If you are out there, Mike Port, or if anyone has information on Mike Port, contact Rick@RARWRITER.com.  RAR NOTE: Go to http://www.hollywoodagogo.com/Faces%2012.htm for some great period photos of the band Love. (First published in March 2009) |
Profile: Graphic Illustrator and Concept Designer Daniele Montella
Genoa,
Italy - Genoa-born Daniele Montella studied art,
painting and sculpture at the Artistic Liceo before becoming Art
Director for Italian advertising agency Artematica. He has been
credited with concept art and painting on numerous video games,
including Crime Stories: From the Files of Martin Mystère
(2004), Leader S.p.a. Druuna: Morbus Gravis (2001), and
MC2-Microïds. You can learn more at Daniele Montella's website
at
http://www.dan-ka.com/2008/home.asp.
RAR became aware of Daniele's talents through an image called "Haunted House," described in detail at http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=2634. Daniele takes readers and viewers on a step-by-step explanation of how the extraordinary image was pieced together from other images and enhanced to produce the final truly wonderful vision. I have used the image of Daniele Montella's "Haunted House" on the Essay page of rarwriter.com. Take a little time to wander through the detail of that composite image. I could spend all day there, myself. Really fabulous work by a gifted visual designer. - RAR
___________________________________________
Reprinted from September 2008 edition
Drummer Earl Palmer: 1924-2008
"I Invented this
Shit"
Los Angeles, California - Earl Palmer, the legendary New Orleans drummer who died September 19 just a couple weeks short of his 84th birthday, was reportedly once asked by Cracker band leader David Lowery if Palmer could "play along" with Lowery's songs. The drummer, who earned his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame credentials playing with Fats Domino (all his hits), Little Richard ("Tutti Frutti"), Lloyd Price ("Lawdy Miss Clawdy"), and Smiley Lewis ("I Hear You Knockin'"), is said to have listened to young Lowery's tracks and reported - "I invented this shit."
Palmer was good for quotes. Of his non-combatant role as a World War II GI, he said "They didn't want no niggers carrying guns." In later years, after he had established his musician's credentials and his trademark sound, he was once asked if he would loan his drum kit out for a session; the session called for his "sound." Palmer reportedly replied - "You really want 'em? Really? Okay. Cost you triple scale and cartage...What the hell, they think the drums play themselves?'"
Palmer is often credited with inventing rock drumming's big backbeat, reportedly borrowing from his New Orleans Dixieland experience to create a special groove for Fats Domino's "The Fat Man." Palmer said, "That song required a strong afterbeat throughout the whole piece. With Dixieland you had a strong afterbeat only after you got to the shout last chorus. It was sort of a new approach to rhythm music."
In fact, Palmer spent a lifetime translating his experience with traditional music into innovative approaches to percussion. By the time he was five years old, Earl Palmer was tap dancing in the black vaudeville circuit and touring with Ida Cox's Darktown Scandals Review.
Palmer migrated to the west coast and Hollywood in 1957, and for the next 30 years played on movie and television soundtracks, as well as on sessions for Frank Sinatra, Phil Spector, Rick Nelson, Ray Charles, Eddie Cochran, Ritchie Valens, Bobby Day, Don and Dewey, Jan and Dean, Larry Williams, Gene McDaniels, Bobby Darin as well as jazz sessions with Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic and Count Basie, as well as on blues recordings with B. B. King.
Palmer never let New Orleans slip from his musical vocabulary. "You could always tell a New Orleans drummer the minute you heard him play his bass drum," he said, "because he'd have that parade beat connotation."
________________________________________________________________________________
Reprinted from May 15, 2008 edition
Guitar Gods Among Us
Johnny V and The Night Visitors
Photo by Arlic Dromgoole
Links buddy Johnny Vernazza and his band of bluesmeisters have been booking around San Diego and L.A. steadily of late. At their recent show at the Malibu Inn they were visited by guitar greats Don Peake and Albert Lee, along with stellar blues belter Diane Lotny. Pictured Above (from left): Don Peake , Diane Lotny , Albert Lee, Gregg Gerson , Johnny Vernazza, Val L'Heureux, and Mark Bentley.
* * *
ABOVE: Drummer Gregg Gerson (front and center behind the kit) performing The Rock Concerto 2006, Alexander Markov & Ivan Bodley with The Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra & TRT Istanbul Youth Chorus, Conductor Ender Sakpinar, Ataturk Cultural Center, Istanbul, Turkey April 2, 2006 - April 8, 2006. (From his website)
* * * * *
Drummer Gregg Gerson has a look of unending youth, but there is a huge reservoir of experience behind his innocent look. He has been a dude at the top registers of the musical food chain since arriving in New York City in 1976. His first exposure was as a flutist playing for street change. This gained him the attention of a core group of pro musicians including Jack Sonni of Dire Straits, and players comprising a club band called "The Doug Rock Show" that included Carlos Alomar of David Bowie and Iggy Pop's bands and John McCurry, whose credits included Cyndi Lauper, Alice Cooper, and Billy Joel, all acts in their primes at the time. Gerson's career took off. He was recruited by guitarist Steve Stevens into the Billy Idol band and recorded and toured with Gloria Estefan, Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger, and Roy Orbison. He played and recorded with jazz guitarist Stanley Jordon and performed with Roger Daltrey and The British Rock Symphony. (You can read all of this at Gregg Gerson's site: www.gregggerson.com. )
Diane Lotny is another New York City native with a resume as long as your arm. She has recorded and performed with Dr. John, Albert Collins, Irma Thomas, Albert King, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Buddy Miles, Coco Montoya, Leon Russell, and on and on. (You can read all about Diane at her site: www.dianelotny.com.)
When Diane Lotny showed up at the Malibu Inn last week, where she sang a few tunes with Johnny Vernazza and crew, she had in tow a couple friends of her own, Albert Lee and Don Peake.
Don
Peake (pictured at left in a 1972
photo taken of him recording Jackson 5 Motown tracks and playing the Crown
guitar that is now part of the permanent iconic guitar collection at
Cleveland's Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame) is one of those guitarists whose
work you have heard your entire life, but whose personal credits may not
have registered. Don Peake was among the guitarists for "The Wrecking
Crew," the name given to the brilliant assembly of musicians brought
together by Phil Spector to build "the wall of sound." He
was also a Motown stalwart, and played lead guitar for Marvin Gaye
("Let's Get It On"), and on many of the Jackson Five's hits,
including “ABC” and “I Want You Back." He recorded with the
Commodores, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, The Temptations, and many more.
He played on the John Lennon records that Phil Spector produced, and on
all of Barry White's hit records, some of which he arranged. He
went on to become a soundtrack composer for film and television. (He
scored 77 "Night Rider" episodes.) Don has a site at www.donpeakemusic.com
that is way worth the visit. He started his professional musical career in 1961, as
a 21-year old lead guitarist with the Everly Brothers. He toured the U.S. and Europe
with them for two years before going on to his studio career. Established
in the music industry for decades, Don has served on the Board
of Directors of the Society of Composers and Lyricists and has judged the
"Arranging Category" for the Grammys for the last 3 years. He is
a member of the Music Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences, as well as the Television Academy.
* * * * *
ANGELS
AMONG US: There are those, like Eric Clapton,
who suspect that Albert Lee may be the most talented guitarist in the
world. Albert, pictured left with another pretty good guitarist, Johnny
Vernazza, is preparing to do a show in England with former Rolling Stone
Bill Wyman. Wyman has assembled a band of stalwarts to open for a Led
Zeppelin reunion, or at least such is the plan. The show keeps getting
postponed, most recently because Jimmy Page is said to have fallen in his
garden and injured his pinky. Mr. Page has also been quoted as saying he
would be "wearing an emotional condom" for the Zep reunion show,
so hard to gauge his commitment. Rather than whiling away the hours
wondering if Led Zeppelin will ever get off the ground again, do yourself
a favor and watch Albert Lee's performance videos on YouTube.com. Click here
to see the most effortless (and egoless) guitar mastery available anywhere
in the world today!
Johnny Vernazza, Jerry Garcia and Steve Miller
|
www.levidexter.com Levi, you might recall, first appeared on the scene in the late-‘70s, a little ahead of the Stray Cats and the mini-rockabilly craze that flashed briefly at the dawn of MTV. Rockabilly got another round of life several years later when the swing dance craze hit, but not so much for Levi. He was long ago consigned to a ghetto of kitsch and nostalgia, a perception he attempted to blunt by booking himself among acts associated with less-retro genres, punk for awhile, then modern rock. He has traveled under various names, including Levi & the Rockats, Levi Dexter & the Ripchords, and Levi Dexter & Magic. Moving in on 50 years of age now, but preternaturally youthful looking and sounding, the London-born Levi feels more at home on a bill with rockabilly performers now than he used to, and he counts Rip Carson, Ray Condo, the Hyperions and Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys as rockabilly bretheren.
This Paul Bakan photograph on Levi's website is titled "LongGoneLeviDexter. " The notion of being "long gone," as the term was used in the '50s, seems quaint now. But that is how it looks when you get there. Cool, eh? Iconic. Levi has contributed. |
|
| Want Roy Rogers'
Home? It's For Sale It looks like Roy and wife Ganell are headed for the hills - or mountains, actually. They have their Novato, California home on the market and they are moving to the Lake Tahoe area. I am taken by this story in that for a lot of people who grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area, as Roy did, Tahoe is that place they all went on family vacations when they were kids. And when they got out of college, many of them went and got jobs in Tahoe while they figured out what they were going to do with themselves as adults. And then they moved away and got real jobs but still return to Tahoe regularly, and they conceive children there - it's like a spawning ground. My wife was conceived there, as was one of my kids. Tahoe is the Rivendale of Northern California, and apparently Roy is going native. I also like this story because I think people outside of California will find it interesting to see what you can buy in this state for this price. It is a topic that never ceases to inspire wonder - as in, I wonder why anyone would live there (in California)? Californians can give you one million three-hundred-ninety-five thousand reasons - or whatever amount they are trying to qualify for a mortgage. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
| Starting Price: $1,395,000 | ||
| Realtor's Description - Nestled in the hills of Pleasant Valley, the residence of Roy Rogers, slide guitarist and producer, is on one and one-half acres of private, prime real estate. Offered for the first time in 16 years, this comfortable custom ranch home boasts valley views, gardens and nature, all within reach of the best Novato offers. Easy one-level living, the home has 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths; a living room made for entertaining; an Italian country-style dining room; two fireplaces and hardwood floors throughout. A family room with 8 foot French doors opens onto the pool and Robert Tenaka designed large deck. The Dining Room opens to an inner patio, two offices, and a two-car garage. Located near award-winning Novato Schools, there is easy access to horse country and the Verissimo Valley Nature Preserve....or keep your own horse on the property. This property affords a rare opportunity for a new owner. Create your own vineyard, private compound or develop a new residence. Investigations are underway for a possible lot split. |
Features:
|
| BARBEE
KILLED KENN
http://profile.myspace.com/barbeekilledkenn1 Between 1999 and 2002, BARBEE KILLED KENN was a lot of people's favorite San Francisco punk-rock band. Fronted by Miss Dian, a former Vegas flamenco dancer and beauty pageant contestant, BKK was a high-energy, up tempo and largely upbeat "mostly all-girl" group. Together, Dian and bassist Athena are some of the best songwriters I have encountered in my 20-plus years in the Bay Area. Seem implausible? Listen to the MP3s below, which I love for their energy, intelligence, sense of humor, surprising melodic changes, and because they are just plain fetching. (Okay, so I'm weak for girl groups.) Barbee Killed Kenn isn't really a group anymore, at least not in any steady way. Athena has moved to Southern California and previous to that they lost guitarist Ruba F. Tuesday (see profile below), whom they tried unsuccessfully to replace, and her departure seemed to dissolve the band. (I met them through a classified listing as they advertised for someone to fill their Ruba-vacated guitar slot, unlikely as that is to imagine. Note to SFMusician ad posters - a little more detail, please.) I hadn't heard of them in a couple years, then heard that they had recently played a reunion gig in San Francisco and found them - where else? - on myspace. I listened to their songs and am blown away all over again. Their time as a prominent act in San Francisco was just after the millennium, and even then their sound seemed unstuck in time. They really belong musically to the new wave of the early '80s. They put me to mind of a louder Josie Cotton or The Waitresses, with a kind of a camp punk musical edge. In a kitschy way, though, the songs work. As good as the songs are, they wouldn't work as well as they do if it wasn't for front person Dian, who has a really appealing pop voice and likeable stage presence. She is self-possessed and projects fun and star quality. Dian and Athena have recently "resurfaced" with a new unit - The Unprofessionals. The songwriting duo is providing the material for the new band, but it sounds to me like their pop-punk days may be behind them. The new sound is more acoustic and thoughtful, more aged in some ways, but still good. Ruba has gone off in different directions, finding modest success with some good groups - The Zodiac Killers, Dead Vanity and Subimage. |
Dian - Athena - Ruba
On stage at the Paradise Lounge, San Francisco |
|
BARBEE
KILLED KENN MP3s:
Copyright © 2006-2007 Barbee Killed Kenn, all rights reserved |
"I'm
a friend of Dian's (from Barbee Killed Kenn). |
| RUBA
F. TUESDAY
As I recall, she left that band to concentrate on school, an effort that apparently paid off handsomely. She earned a degree in molecular biology and is now a manager in an engineer recruitment firm. But that hasn't diminished her focus on thrashing guitar. She has gone right into three excellent follow-up bands to her BKK experience: Zodiac Killers, with whom she released three LPs and toured Europe; Dead Vanity, which had a great sound and was really her band - hear the MP3s offered here; and now Subimage, in which Ruba resumes a supporting role, backing songwriter Chris. (Apparently surnames weren't being issued to people born during a certain period or after a certain date. The brainy Ruba apparently thought to make one up.) They are all great bands that carry a certain Ruba stamp. (As she says on her myspace site - "More than hard core - it's Ruba core.") This is one to keep an eye on. Mad skills.
|
|
Dead Vanity
Dead Vanity MP3s:
Copyright © Dead Vanity, all rights reserved Dead Vanity was Ruba's "baby" - the band in which she surfaced as a primary songwriter. |
|
Subimage |
Zodiac Killers |
|
|
"BKK was my first
band - when I first started I had only previously played in my bedroom and
could barely even play guitar standing up. Songwriting - I couldn't even
fathom it. Eventually, after playing 173598716716 gigs and working with
Athena and Dian who are very talented songwriters, I started to pick up on
it. I made a significant contribution to several (BKK) songs including
"Head Over Heels", "U-Turn", and "Rockstar
Boy" with some other contribution on the other songs. |
||
|
|
| Lydia
Pense and Cold Blood
www.myspace.com/coldbloodmusic
Lydia disappeared for awhile in the '80s and early '90s, taking time out to raise a daughter, but she came back with the same energy and voice to resurrect Cold Blood, which she built anew around a stellar cast of local Bay Area players.
|
ABOVE: Lydia with Cold Blood (clockwise from far left) - Rob Zuckerman (sax), Steve Dunne (guitar), Donnie Baldwin (drums), Steve Stalinas (keys), Rich Armstrong (trumpet) and Evan Palmerston (bass). LEFT: Playing a sold out show at the Fillmore. |
||
 |
Lydia and Cold Blood released
Transfusion in 2005 to strong reviews. The release reunited players
associated with Cold Blood's long history, as well as the association of
Cold Blood and East Bay Grease champs Tower of Power.
There is a review of Transfusion at http://www.jazzreview.com/cd/review-17215.html. |
|
|
|
LYDIA PENSE AND COLD BLOOD MP3:
Face
the Music - From Transfusion
- Lydia Pense (vocals), Steve Salinas (keyboards), Mike Morgan
(percussion), Steve Dunne (guitar), Rich Armstrong (trumpet, percussion),
Evan Palmerston (bass), Rob Zuckerman (alto, tenor, baritone saxes), Donny
Baldwin (drums). Plus 14 guest artists including Skip Mesquite, Lenny
Williams, Michelle Shocked, David Garibaldi, Bobby Vega, Mic Gillette,
Dennis Cruzan, Roger Smith, Raul Matute, David Kessner, Mike Rose, Michael
Carrabello, Jeff Tamelier and Joel Behrman. Copyright © 2006 Lydia Pense and Cold Blood, all rights reserved |
 About 1974 Cold
Blood, as a band, had one of those moments of truth and recognized their
star. They went from the album on the left to the image on the right, and
forever more became "Lydia Pense and Cold Blood." The very
provocative cover of Lydia is deceiving, however, because they
weren't really selling a gorgeous chick. They were selling the best rock'n
blues singer of her day - and many other. Lydia was produced by
guitar man Steve Cropper, who was a big part of the Stax Records house
band Booker T. and the MGs. |
||
|
The Oakland Tribune recently did a feature on Big Rick, which he seems to be happy with - it is posted on his blog (see below) - but to me it almost completely missed the point. The focus of the article was on how much Big Rick loves music and radio. Big Woop. I would imagine every deejay on every station more or less loves music and radio, maybe some more than others. The thing that makes Rick Stuart special - and he is special, easily the greatest disc jockey I have ever heard, bar none - is that he is Big Rick, the finest tongue-in-cheek monologist I have ever heard anywhere. He practices his endearing silliness between songs, and even through commercial spots, virtually non-stop during each of his six-hour air stints. He does it with such humorous aplomb, matching nuance and subtlety with occasional bursts of obvious buffoonery, that I listen wondering how many radio listeners are really getting how great he is. Big Rick, flat out, is a master. I
think of Big Rick Stuart as the anti-deejay, the one who is so distinctly
different, so flaunting of commercial radio's ridiculous conventions that
he stands apart from it like a touchstone to intelligence and perspective. While The Quake became a footnote in San Francisco radio history, Big Rick moved on to the then-new SF radio station KITS, otherwise known as "Live 105," which filled the modern rock void left by The Quake. Though it was and is part of a Philadelphia-based syndicate of stations that has since gone into the pooper, it was great in its early years in the mid-80s. It was the place where you could hear Nina Haagen and Guadacanal Diary, acts that existed almost exclusively on college radio and in the clubs of Europe. Big Rick had the great good fortune to be surrounded with an on-air staff - like Roland West the reggae aficionado, and super mix master and music director Steve Masters - that made Live 105 a cutting edge place. Steve Masters was bringing back music from Europe, which gave the station an eclectic and wild play list, particularly for the evening shifts (Big Rick's drive-time and later), and Big Rick was just smoking with hilarious banter. |
Big Rick seems totally unscripted - he just starts talking and keeps it up until his spot is over, and listening to him is akin to watching a high wire act. Sometimes he slips, starts to fall, but catches himself. He's a little like Johnny Carson use to be - at his funniest when he is struggling. Other times he is flat-out brilliant, weaving his stories and insights through intricate turnbacks and asides, and somehow wrapping them up in neat bundles just in time for the next segment. And none of it is serious, it's all for laughs. Big Rick is endearingly self-effacing, the target of much of his own humor. He'll get on kicks that he will revisit - he used to go on forever about his "pea-sized brain" - but there is nothing pea-sized about this guy. Remember that Ellen Barkin line in Buckaroo Bonzai - "You're like Jerry Lewis - you give me hope to carry on." That's Big Rick Stuart to me, a sign of intelligent life in the universe. Sure, he loves radio and music, but he also sees right through it, or sees it for what it is, and he is forever puncturing pomposity and self-importance, not with snotty attitude and cheap insight, but with an "everyman's" humor that is so sharp that I'm not sure "everyman" gets it. As "Live 105" went into decline I became bored with the station and stopped listening, then after a time learned that Big Rick had moved on himself, landing at the venerable San Francisco adult-rock station KFOG. The first time I heard his familiar voice on KFOG I could hardly believe it, because KFOG for years was a really musty old dinosaur (though it premiered in the '80s around the same time as "Live 105) that played a lot of classic rock, including the Grateful Dead and other bands closely associated with '60s San Francisco. My first thought was that Big Rick didn't sound very happy at the sleepy station, which played music that he had poked fun at for years. But it wasn't long before he became himself again, and now he is pretty much the same guy he always was - older but as funny and loveable as ever. He seems to find things to like about the KFOG play list, though I sense he recognizes that he is no longer associated with cutting edge radio. Still, the radio personality Big Rick Stuart is always worth the listen. |
|
Big Rick has a blog at http://www.bigrick.fm/blog/blog1.html that you may find entertaining, particularly if you are familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area. |
You can hear Big Rick's show streamed on line weekdays from 4 to 10 p.m. Pacific by going to http://www.kfog.com and clicking on Click To Listen. |
| JILL
CAROLE
JILL CAROLE has been on the edge of stardom since her 1998 signing with England's Mystic Records and subsequent tours of the U.K. She toured with Al Stewart, the "Year of the Cat" guy who has developed quite a connection to Bay Area artists (see Paul Robinson's profile below), and Colin Blunstone, who was once lead singer for the '60s band the Zombies, as well as Byrds founder Roger McGuinn. Jill has also toured with Suzzy Roche of the Roches (now there's your Boulder, Colorado link, the Roches being long-time residents). She had a minor hit, in the fall of 1999, with her single "Every Now and Then," which did well on adult contemporary charts. From her website - "She also received airplay for her witty and topical tune, 'I Slept With Kenneth Starr' on San Francisco radio stations KGO-AM and KPFA-FM. Larry Kelp, music critic for the Oakland Tribune and host of 'Sing Out' on KPFA in Berkeley, called the unreleased political thriller 'one of my favorite songs of 1999.'" (And in a political sense, there's your Bay Area link.) The Alabama native, but long-time Bay Area resident, grew up in rarified air similar to Deborah Winters, profiled above. Jill's mother was an opera singer and Jill apparently inherited her three-octave range. From her website - "(Jill) left the South to study at Amherst College and then at The Berklee College of Music, where she twice received the top singer-songwriter award. She migrated to California, trading her acoustic guitar for an electric, and rekindling her affair with the piano." Jill's music is hard to classify, but it is certainly wild and sex charged, a sort of adult pop-punk. The themes are adult (marriage, infidelity, cultural iconography) and manipulative but tasteful and certainly smart. They are produced for a modern audience, maybe even a modern rock audience with their emphasis on techno effects and club-inspired spatial choreography. (Scot Mathews produced her Trophy Wife LP.) |
RAR Note - I am really not sure how active Jill is these days. At one time she was playing SF clubs with her rock band The Contrarians, but I haven't heard of them being around for awhile. I hope to find out more about this talented singer/songwriter and update this profile in the future.
BELOW: Jill Carole's Trophy Wife was released in 2002. The Easter Bunny, Sex and Santa Claus was released in 1998. |
|
| JILL
CAROLE MP3s:
Jill Carole MP3s can be heard from the CDs page of her site. |
|
|
|
|
BOB LOGAN MP3s: 2nd Ray - Barney Kessel type jazz instrumental Acoustic #1-acoustic instrumental Pedal Over the Bridge-acoustic instrumental C.F.T.-Lee Ritenour type jazz-funk instrumental
Copyright © Bob Logan, All Rights Reserved
|
|
GARY
SWAN’S "HOW TO BUILD A BAND"
I, RAR, have spent a lifetime trying and failing to achieve my fondest dream, which is to establish and maintain a really great band. For some reason I have had trouble finding a large group of supremely talented musicians who want nothing more than to unselfishly lay their personal interests aside so that I may fully satisfy my personal obsession with...well, me. You know, the man and his music. (You wonder why this hasn’t worked?) Still, I’m a mere lad, not 54 for another month yet, so figure I have a lot of time left to achieve my sincere, heartfelt, potentially world-shaking dream.
To this end, I
recently contacted my dear friend Gary Swan to ask how he goes
about putting together his bands. Here is 1.
The
Golden Rule is “He who has the gig rules.”
So, I'm taking Gary's advice. I know it's going to be a long, hard road, but look for me Tuesday and Thursday afternoons down at The Pizza Pirate. I’ll be playing children's’ birthday parties for awhile, until I can get my horn band together. Of course, if the kids don’t like me I’ll have to take a fallback position yet to be determined. Please send your positive vibes my way. I’d like to make this happen while I can still affect a comb over. Gary writes: "Next we will put up my new book, "MY STRUGGLE TO STAY AT THE BOTTOM." |
| BAY
AREA UPDATE: ARE COVER BANDS GOING THE
WAY OF THE TRANSISTOR RADIO?
Here is a story I never thought I'd live to tell - either a good news or a bad news item depending upon whether or not you are a songwriter. Bay Area cover bands have fallen on hard times. Rich Flynn, featured above, who has played around the Bay Area for years in both cover and original music units, reports that "bar bands" have fallen out of favor with a younger generation that would prefer a DJ and current sounds. "These days if people walk into a place and see a stage set up with musical instruments, they turn and walk back out the door." The exception seems to be those venues that are known for featuring original acts. In San Francisco that would include places like Hotel Utah, The Paradise Lounge, and Cafe Du Nord, among many other throughout the Bay Area. It is ridiculously expensive for Bohemian songwriters to try to survive here - hell, it's ridiculously expensive for corporate cheese eaters to survive here! - but hard core Bay Area music fans have always supported the fresh idea, and still do. The cover bands, however, not so much. |
|
GO TO: ARTIST NEWS • YOU ARE ON AN ARCHIVES PAGE
|
Learning
from Jimmy Iovine
RARWRITER.com
Archives
In
the ongoing battle of good vs. evil...
You
see this girl
The
charming Ms. Tuesday wrote an email message to me the other day describing
her music career to date.
Some
time earlier this year my wife came home from a weekend in the Sierras
where, as she reported with great excitement - "I ran into Lydia
Pense!" I immediately thought that she meant that literally, because
we had occasionally suffered vehicle damage with the wife behind the
wheel. I mean, she doesn't actually know Lydia Pense. Except that,
everyone who was in the San Francisco/Oakland area between 1967 and 1977
feels that they do, because musically speaking they all grew up with Lydia
Pense. She, to this day, is the female voice of San Francisco, even
more so than Joplin ever was because Janice left, and then she left
forever, and Lydia remains.
BOB
LOGAN is a talented Bay Area guitarist whose stock and trade over the
years has been playing in show bands and supplying soundtracks to Electronic
Arts video games. He is a smoking jazz fusion/jazz funk player who also has a
deft touch on acoustic guitar, all of which is demonstrated on his CD release titled
Faster Than The Speed Of Wood? 
