Self-reflection

Photo by will.the.brain

All You Need is Cash

I can remember when this first aired in the States, and I bought the soundtrack album and listened to it heavily for a number of years. I rented it on DVD recently and nearly wet myself, I was laughing so hard. It's top-notch satire, but what really makes this amazing (as I've ranted previously) is Neil Innes' brilliantly observed songs, each of which incorporates elements from several different Beatles songs.

Evening Star

Today ended with one of the most beautiful autumn evenings I can ever recall in London, and the colours of the sunset, as well as the feelings they inspired, took me back to this wondrous album.

Scenes from London life

Riding with Neil

Neil Young is 67 today. There are few people as cool, in my book, and I struggle to think of many who have brought me as much enjoyment through their music.

Back in ancient times, there was a guy named Larry whose parents lived across the park from my house in East Memphis. He was a couple of years older than me, and I didn't really know him when we were kids, though I did have a crush on his younger sister at the time. Years later, when my buddy, Mark Edwards, and I were trying to start our first band, we "auditioned" (a pompous and misleading term, given that typically it felt like we were trying to woo people to join in our tuneless racket-making) Larry as a drummer. I had seen him at some sort of university party with another band, and he was a decent drummer, plus he was a funny guy and seemed to know how to have a good time.

Anyway, invariably our rehearsals in those days were short on musical content and long on drinking and talking. Larry regaled us with tales of his job as a room service waiter at the Hilton in East Memphis. He seemed to have met all sorts of rock stars in the course of his work, and it must have been a real shock to knock on the door of room 515, or whatever, only to discover Pete Townshend on the other side. But he seemed to be pretty cool about it all. Maybe it was all made up, who knows, and who cares?

The best one I remember was when he knocked on a door and was greeted by a very bored Neil Young, who bribed him to take him out in his car to buy a six pack of beer and drive him around Memphis for a couple of hours, talking and listening to the radio as Neil smoked the occasional "left-handed cigarette."

More from the Panther vaults

I've never seen this gem before, but thanks to the miracle of YouTube, here we witness Lorette Velvette, Giovanna Pizzorno, and George Reinecke, tooling around in Tav Falco's signature 1965 Thunderbird through some of Memphis' most scenic streetscapes, and into the wilds of Mississippi along Highway 61, before encountering the man himself, to the band's cover of Z.Z. Hill's classic "Shade Tree Mechanic." I think this was 1988/89, because I remember missing a party at which I believe this may have had its premier, as I was living in Japan at the time. But it was a long time ago, and I could be wrong.


 

Panther Burns, 1979

I wish there were more footage from this era on the web. This would be about six months to a year before I first saw them play, but this is very much the way I remember them sounding, apart from the fact that Alex and Ross seem much more coherent and sober in this footage. I don't recognize the venue, but through the murky light I think I recognize a few young faces as being familiar. Also noteworthy is that the band was still known as "Panther Burn" at this point.

Elected

Apparently there is something happening in the political arena Stateside today. If only a cigar-smoking chimp and alcoholic, snake-handling rock-star were actually involved...

Happy Halloween

Here's some truly scary music. A couple of years ago on a car trip, I tormented my children with "War Pigs" several times, and my younger daughter astutely observed, "He's rhymed 'masses' with 'masses' - how stupid is that?" I can't argue. Stupid it may be, but stupid can be heavy and awesome too.

Roba (Robbery)

During most of my final days in Memphis in the early 90's, I pretty much just listened to jazz and ethnic music of various descriptions, and in parallel with the Tuvan rabbit hole I fell down, I also developed a serious sweet tooth for the amazing sounds coming out of Madagascar at the time. I spent so much time listening to D'Gary that I began to have serious doubts about whether it was even worth ever picking up a guitar again, and Tarika Sammy's second album was also in very heavy rotation. Every track on it would have been a hit, in my view, if not for the language barrier, strange instrumentation, and whirling polyrhythmic patterns which often seem to turn in on themselves, mesmerizing and disorienting Western ears. Still, they were commercial enough to make the New Orleans Jazzfest, and this is a great performance, with the added bonus of my old Memphis chum Candace Mache being visible in the audience in the opening seconds.

Scenes from London life

I'm Glad I'm Not a Man

Another gem from a great unsung Memphis band. By my reckoning, this was the third incarnation of The Marilyns, the one I recorded in 1988, not that I can find my tapes from that immensely enjoyable session, with a lovely group of people. Dang.

"Cyndi Lauper, she's so stupid, 
Says girls just want some fun,
But all we want is your money, honey, 
To buy ourselves some guns,
We wanna give some pleasure,
We wanna get some pleasure,
But all the boys we treasure,
Just drink and do drugs,
Drink and do drugs,
Drink and do drugs, and screw,
Well, screw you baby,
We're The Marilyns comin' atcha now!"

When Something is Wrong With My Baby

Life is full of conundrums, mysteries, and unanswered questions. How many angels can dance on one hand clapping? If a bear shits in the woods and no one is around, does it actually make a sound? How stupid can a person be and still work as an estate agent? What is the point of Quora? Why would anyone ever willingly become an actuary?

A couple of days ago, an anonymous friend sent me a scan of this photo, apparently taken by Deanie Parker, whom I met on a magical night several years ago. And the question which arose in my mind was, why is there no audio or film record of this moment, which must have been incredible, and probably very funny, beyond words? Here we find David Porter and Isaac Hayes performing at the 1969 Stax Records sales convention, presumably doing a Sam & Dave pastiche to the music which they wrote for the very same Sam & Dave. The mind boggles.

Wire - Pink Flag

Probably one of the most influential albums that you may well never have heard, though track 15, at 21:44, should be familiar to all R.E.M. fans. 1977 goodness that never stops giving.

Memories of a day on Highway 61, summer 2012

A gift, undelivered

This is such an awesome story, that I asked permission of my colleague, who told it to me, to blog it, because I thought it needed to be aired. He granted me that permission, but mentioned that the artist in the story might feel that confidences had been betrayed if she were identified by name without consultation, so I have taken pains to honor his wishes, and also not to be too specific about the artwork involved.

So, on Monday, this colleague of mine who is also very much into music, approached me first thing, with a big smile on his face, and said, "I've got the most amazing story, and I know that you, of all people will appreciate it." He had spent the weekend somewhere out in the great English countryside, and the place he was staying just happened to be the home village of an artist he really admires, one of whose pieces of sculpture he owns. He described it (generically, for your eyes, dear reader) as a small-ish sculpture of an historical figure of note. He had picked up on the fact that she sometimes does private viewings of her work at her home, so he contacted her, and she graciously invited him over to look around.

As he was touring the home, he noticed a drawing on the wall, apparently of the same historical figure of note as the one in his sculpture.

He enquired, "Is that a drawing of [historical figure of note]?" "Yes," she replied.

"Did you do it?"

Somewhat reluctantly, apparently, she replied, "No, it was done by a former boyfriend of mine, a long time ago."

She then explained the background story (the details of which I will shuffle, so as to preserve the surprise element of the narrative): it seems that the drawing had inspired the sculpture which my colleague today owns, and she had created it with the intention of giving it as a gift to her long-gone boyfriend from many years before. Except that he unfortunately died just days before she could do so, and the piece ended up being sold, and now rests in my colleague's home.

During the course of the back story, the artist apparently proffered a tid-bit of information, in that her old boyfriend had been in a band. "Which band?" my colleague asked. Rather sheepishly, apparently, the artist responded, "The Clash."

It would have spoiled the story if I'd opened with this line, but my colleague's opening line to me in telling me this story, in reality, was, "I feel like I'm living with the ghost of Joe Strummer..."

     

Milo, Sorghum and Maize

Boy, oh boy, the sheer unhinged enthusiasm and insanity of this first Meat Puppets album just never seems to get old. There was a time when I used to listen to it at least once a day. The interview from 1994 is very amusing, and I like the fact that Curt says he hasn't figured out what the band sounds like yet (after 14 years and eight albums). Certainly, the contrast between the first and second albums couldn't be greater, and they subsequently stumbled through the lands of early ZZ Top, Prince and King Crimson (to my ears, plus any others I might have missed) in their next few outings. If the fans couldn't get a grip on the group's "sound," then why would the band itself have had any better idea? I saw them twice, once in 1985 supporting "Up on the Sun," and again after "Huevos" came out two years later. All within the same set, they could be both utterly transcendent and embarrassingly awful, and they didn't really seem to care which. The second show I saw featured Curt making fun of Cris' fashion sense and generally belittling him at every opportunity, as well as steadfastly refusing to play anything from the set list. Poor Derrick Bostrum sat behind his drum kit, calling out song after song, being ignored, while the two brothers blanked each other. I guess they've achieved some sort of happy ending, which is probably one of the least likely outcomes from a very messy history.

Scenes from London life

If I Had a Hammer...

... I might be tempted to take it to this rare piece of vinyl, but I'd probably think better of it, because you never know when you're going to need a bit of the healing power of truly bad music, and this is pretty much the gold standard in that department. We can only imagine how the planned collaboration with Jimi Hendrix might have changed things for the better.

Let it All Hang Out

When I meet people here, they invariably ask where I'm from. If they know anything about Memphis at all, they then invariably ask me what kind of place it is. My stock answer is that it's beautiful in parts, that its musical DNA (past and present) is unique and powerful, and that there's also a lot of senseless violence. The sad events of 14 October underscore this more clearly than ever. I never had the pleasure of meeting B.B. Cunningham, though I do recall seeing him play this immortal classic at a gig at the Antenna many years ago, backed (if I recall correctly) by both the Easley brothers, among others. Since the sad news of his pointless death, I have seen an immense outpouring of grief and admiration on Facebook, and I know that some of my friends who were close to him have nothing but good things to say about the man, and it's a sad commentary on Memphis and America in general that such a creative and energetic soul should die working the night shift as a security guard at the age of 70, shot by some fucking punk-ass gang-banger, doubtless over some meaningless dispute. Easley - McCain Studios, where Linda Heck's Transformed was recorded, and where I have spent such happy hours, is housed in a building which once housed B.B.'s studio, and he maintained an office there until the end (perhaps he owned the building, I don't know). When I was doing some work with Linda and Doug Easley there this past summer, I wandered around in the front part of the building, where I could hear, from behind a closed office door, a bird chirping loudly. "That's B.B.'s bird," said Doug.

"Nobody knows what it's all about, it's too much, man, let it all hang out."