Apples and Oranges

No wonder poor Syd decided this life was not for him and withdrew. Seems like a perfectly sane course of action to me, particularly if the alternative is ending up like Dick Clark.

XXXXX

I lived in Japan for 2.5 years, and have visited it many times since for work and pleasure, and have pretty much nothing but fond memories of the country and its people. For all the things that my gaijin friends and I might have found worthy of light-hearted satire and derision over the years, the simple and undeniable truth is that, in most ways, it is a safer, more civilized, more egalitarian, and better organized society than almost any Western country could ever claim to be.

This achievement is not without its costs, and I can't honestly say that I would like to be Japanese if reincarnation were on the table, such are (in my view) the personal costs of membership in a society historically geared towards conformity and utilitarianism. Still, when I think back on the earnestness, affection and generosity shown to me during my time in the country, I can only feel an intense sense of distress and sadness at recent events, which increasingly beggar belief.

The analysis of the roots of this catastrophe is yet to be written: a rotten, complacent political gerontocracy; the serial mendacity of TEPCO; the excessive concentration of economic activity and population in the Kanto region; the failure to diversify energy resources; whatever other horrific revelations may follow. The Western media will arrive at some conclusion in the coming days, and it will probably be something very far from the truth on the ground.

可哀想な日本.

O, How She Dances

"Yes, friends, he eats them alive!" I stumbled across this delight not long ago - a staple of many Panther Burns shows down the years, presumably inspired by Jim Dickinson's treatment on his trailblazing "Dixie Fried" album. In my previous post on Panther Burns, I made a joke about the huge number of eclectic members the band has had in its history, and this video provides an interesting example. On drums, Jack Yarber, a.k.a. Jack O of the Oblivians (and various others, though I first knew him as a member of Rin Tin Horn in 1987 or so), and on bass, Scott Bomar, member of surf-rock group Impala, The Bo-Keys, producer and all-round Memphis music exponent.

A Love Letter to Alex Chilton

This recently came to my attention, once again through the magic of Facebook. The 9th Ward Marching Band delivers a lovingly rendered version of "The Letter."

Brian Eno Interview from KPFA, February, 1980

Captain Memphis meets The Klitz

This gem turned up on Facebook last week, and it was the first time I had seen it, though I knew about its existence. Here we find Jim Dickinson, in the guise of "Captain Memphis," recording The Klitz, "sister band" of Panther Burns and The Scruffs (Dave Branyan is name-checked at one point) at Phillips Recording in Memphis in 1979. I never saw The Klitz play, which may be something of a blessing, and I have never heard any of the recordings from these sessions, which still remain unreleased as far as I know. The scenes at the pre-restoration Orpheum, including J.D. playing "Green Onions" on the organ as a Phantom-esque character, are priceless. Producer/director Charlie Raiteri was a local TV news reporter who had the vision to document what must have been a very threatening and strange local music underground in such a conservative town. In retrospect, it all seems so tame, but in 1979 this was serious bidness.

Frippertronics

Another example of a discovery on my early musical journeys which left me transformed forever.

R.I.P. Don Kirshner

As a kid in the late 1960s and 1970s, I didn't appreciate all that Don Kirshner had done for the pop music that I loved. Of course I loved The Monkees and The Archies, and later in life I would come to discover the history of the Brill Building and the amazing artists it once housed. Eventually, I would come to see how it all fit together. Yet, back when I was starting to explore music on my own, Don Kirshner was just this funny-looking guy with bad hair and an incredibly strong New York accent, who happened to host a show which I got to watch on weekends during the summer holidays. I loved it, and it challenged me, but I didn't appreciate at the time just how special the show was. The performances were usually live, sometimes of questionable quality and sometimes unspeakably great. They were always real and honest. This, along with Burt Sugarman's equally amazing "Midnight Special," left an indelible mark on my mind, and both were arguably, to some extent, the precursors of both David Sanborn's lamentably short-lived "Night Music" and Jools Holland's long-running "Later."

Here's one example of what made "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" so special - The Steve Miller Band perform a new, unrecorded song, called "Fly Like an Eagle." How many bands in these days of industrialised music would be allowed, encouraged even, to play a fairly rough version of an unknown song for six minutes on a gig set to be aired on national TV? And what producer in his right mind would have left it in the final cut for broadcast?




I think one of the reasons for the success of "Rock Concert" was its ability to recreate the atmosphere of a large venue gig, on a similar scale to the real thing. For the kids in the hinterlands of rural America, it must have been astonishing to switch on the TV and find themselves in the midst of a raucous Black Sabbath arena gig, which they could probably have never managed to get to in reality.




To his credit, Don Kirshner was not shy about going against the grain. If you can feature heavy rock acts that fill arenas across the country, why would you expend valuable airtime on uncommercial, heretical freaks like the New York Dolls? Because artistically it's the right thing to do, and it makes commercial sense in the long run, that's why. How many frustrated, misunderstood rockers in the middle of nowhere suddenly found new courage in the wake of seeing this?




Similarly, with the likes of REO Speedwagon, Journey, and Styx in the ascendant, Kirshner gave the Ramones 10 minutes of exposure in 1977. Decidedly not consensus-led thinking.



Goodbye, Don Kirshner, and thank you.

Scenes from London life

The London Nobody Knows

Summer in the City

Amazing footage of 1950s London, shot from the back of a car and apparently intended for use as background footage for driving scenes in films. Via the Huntley Film Archives.

One of These Days

Blues in the key of W

Props to the wonderful Linda Heck for pointing me to this contemplation of sound from 1966 - 67: a reading by John Cage, Rahsaan Roland Kirk in and around London, including at Ronnie Scott's, and pianist David Tudor, filmed by documentary director Dick Fontaine. Some excellent wacked-out musique concrete and retro electronica is interspersed, as well as a fine performance by Roland Kirk of "Three for the Festival" and an incendiary excerpt from a version of "Rip, Rig & Panic," the title song from his greatest album, the studio version of which follows part three.

The Last Living Rose

Night Life

I grew up privileged to hear all sorts of music, and my dad was a huge Ray Price fan when I was a small boy. On one very memorable occasion, he returned from a Ray Price gig at the legendary/notorious Panther Hall Ballroom in Fort Worth, Texas, with an autograph from Ray, dedicated to me. Though I was only about five at the time, I was hugely impressed, and it's a moment I've never forgotten. This is a song I could listen to on infinite repeat. Ray gives it up completely on this number, penned by a then-unknown "boy down in Texas way" (Willie Nelson), with some of the most arresting pedal steel playing in the history of music. "Knockin' on your record player," indeed.

Funky New Year

I had the pleasure of seeing the Art Ensemble of Chicago twice in London, a number of years ago. Neither show featured Joseph Jarman, who had already become a Buddhist monk, and in the second show, Roscoe Mitchell was replaced by a tenor/soprano player, I believe due to ill health. Both shows were amazing, but it would have been nice to have caught them a bit earlier, as an intact unit with a much more elaborate set-up. This version of "Funky AECO" cuts off abruptly, but the footage and performance are outstanding. It seems as though this piece always produced surprises when played live, such as the Japanese recording where Joseph Jarman's sopranino sax squares off against Roscoe Mitchell's bass sax (also seen here). Their sense of abandon and discovery in revisiting their own repertoire was a unique and beautiful thing, and something I wish more musicians had some sense of. If this is your sort of scene, then stick around for the three-part documentary which follows.

Goodbye 2010, and good riddance, mostly

One of the few really outstandingly positive things in my year was regrouping with old friends on New Year's Day in Memphis to play some music for the first time in 16 years or so. It far surpassed even my wildest expectations. And, as an unforeseen bonus, later in the year I managed to get back to Memphis for some studio work with the unspeakably awesome Linda Heck and Doug Easley. I only hope that 2011 may bring me some similarly satisfying moments. And bring you whatever you are missing in life as well... Happy New Year!

Merle does Marty

As a small child there was a lot of music in the house, a somewhat baffling mixture of Beatles, Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, soundtracks from various Broadway shows, and a lot of Ray Price and Merle Haggard. All this probably accounts for my impatience at spending too long with any one genre. Merle's certainly one of the more unique voices in country music history, though I've always heard a lot of Lefty Frizzell in his timbre and phrasing. This remarkable video clip reveals his immense talent as a mimic (this is the live album segment alluded to by Ralph Emery). Marty Robbins' expression at hearing himself done so flawlessly is a joy to behold.

Christmas scenes from London life

So much for "Ebony and Ivory"

BBC Radio 4 recently ran a great documentary (sadly no longer available) on TONTO and its creators, the special sauce behind Stevie Wonder's spate of classic albums in the early 70's. One sad revelation in it was that Stevie underwent a kind of personality change as the result of a head injury (which would probably explain a lot of his desultory later output), and this, coupled with the strained race relations of the time, led him and his handlers to conclude that the "white boys" behind the scenes deserved neither recognition nor royalties. So much for "Ebony and Ivory."