Due in a matter of days...
Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Rt. Hon. Duglas T. Stewart has intimated that tomorrow night's (Sunday 16th July) Evie Sands show at the ABC2 will start at 7pm. Not 8pm as the ads said. This is presumably so the, er, "club" can strike up the disco for "the kids" later. Whilst being of elder years, I appreciate being able to get outta dodge at a reasonable hour, this whole concept is - how can I put this... oh yeah, fucked!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
You'll hardly notice, considerin' my lack of postings on this here NBT blog, but I'll be off on a short holiday break.Back soon enough I'm afraid, but in the meantime I'll be "out there havin' fun in the warm Walcheren sun" (if that means anything to ya...).
Obviously, Captain Hutton 'll remain in charge here, but at least you'll be spared my inane ramblin's for a while...
“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” (allegedly). I’m settling at the minute for the fact that recent events haven’t in fact killed me. Waters and wells and Joni Mitchell songs reverberate in my noggin. Driving to and from the stalag today, I got re-aquainted with “Nights of Forgotten Films” in anticipation of the Edinburgh Film Festival programme dropping through the door. I need to give it the full forensic treatment tonight but a quick skip through the site, and said print, doesn’t look like I’ll be holing up in Auld Reekie too much over the two weeks. No Monks, no Pankrti, nothing terribly musical at all except maybe The Pixies documentary - "loudQUIETloud". If you aren’t down with that album by The Strange then I’d advise you to spring for that before you even think about film festival tickets. Because it evokes the kind of pictures we WANT to see. It’s The Bambi Molesters + Chris Eckman. What’s not to like for chrissakes!?
Meanwhile, coming up on the horizon sooner than said movie fest – Evie Sands show at the ABC2 this coming Sunday (16th) should be on your radar. Time to pick over that programme then to plan the festival schedule whilst listening to Amy Rigby and Marti Jones. There’s nothing good on TV (anyway).
"STOP F+CKIN PRESS
Well the rumour merchants continue to decypher what was said to the great Zidane by his fave italian Matterazzi, and we at Phobics HQ can reveal what drove Zid Vicious to Head Butting crazy man mode...... " Hey Zinedine, can you get my effin' phobics cds back from your sister and mother cos now we've won the world cup I wanna celebrate you loser!"
Expect to see both in the crowd for this Saturday's gig - but be nice gentlemen or we'll be flashing our red cards!
Yessir our last minute reminder for Saturday 15th July. Barnets birthday extravaganza at the 12 Bar in Denmark Street - THE PHOBICS are on at 10:30 and will be signing autographs and body parts all through the night.
Aiding and abetting will be TOXIC SLUT, LAY OUT THE TRAPS, VACANTS and APB and headlining are the mighty evil-elvis-tastic VIVA LAS VEGAS. It's six quid in with a flyer which you can download from the photos section of www.myspace.com/thephobicslamf
those of you who like candid entertainment should make your way to the punk photo exhibition in west london which has some fab heartbreakers shots by leee- it's free and at the redferns gallery in bramley road near to latimer road tube.
....and those for a likeing of great punk journo overload should check the latest edition of trakmarx which is a new york dolls special edition.
All this in the same weekend of Johnny Thunders Birthday and the Anniversary of Arthur Kane's death so lots more reasons to raise a glass or three. see you at the (12) Bar!
tomx"
Well the rumour merchants continue to decypher what was said to the great Zidane by his fave italian Matterazzi, and we at Phobics HQ can reveal what drove Zid Vicious to Head Butting crazy man mode...... " Hey Zinedine, can you get my effin' phobics cds back from your sister and mother cos now we've won the world cup I wanna celebrate you loser!"
Expect to see both in the crowd for this Saturday's gig - but be nice gentlemen or we'll be flashing our red cards!
Yessir our last minute reminder for Saturday 15th July. Barnets birthday extravaganza at the 12 Bar in Denmark Street - THE PHOBICS are on at 10:30 and will be signing autographs and body parts all through the night.
Aiding and abetting will be TOXIC SLUT, LAY OUT THE TRAPS, VACANTS and APB and headlining are the mighty evil-elvis-tastic VIVA LAS VEGAS. It's six quid in with a flyer which you can download from the photos section of www.myspace.com/thephobicslamf
those of you who like candid entertainment should make your way to the punk photo exhibition in west london which has some fab heartbreakers shots by leee- it's free and at the redferns gallery in bramley road near to latimer road tube.
....and those for a likeing of great punk journo overload should check the latest edition of trakmarx which is a new york dolls special edition.
All this in the same weekend of Johnny Thunders Birthday and the Anniversary of Arthur Kane's death so lots more reasons to raise a glass or three. see you at the (12) Bar!
tomx"
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
monks
the transatlantic feedback
a play loud! documentary film by dietmar post + lucia palacios
(100 min - usa/germany/spain 2006)
two screenings at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN on Wednesday July 19 and Saturday July 22 at 10:15pm The filmmakers will be in attendance.
MUSEUM LICHTSPIELE MÜNCHEN press screening July 22, 2006 at 12:00 AMat Maxx 5
Visit the play loud! site to see reviews and get news of the upcoming Monks tribute album.
Hollywood Reporter review
RADIO BIRDMAN have their new album "Zeno Beach" released by Yep Roc in August and they'll be embarking on a global trek to promote it. The monster lands in the UK at the DWC on Wednesday, September 13th so none of this "onstage at 6.30pm" malarky that hampered their last visit. Word is that there's a pretty nifty line-up in the works for that Dirty Water evening. Full details if, as and indeed when. They're also playing at the great La Maroquinerie in Paris during their schlepp. Click that global trek link for full details.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Sunday, July 09, 2006
I heard that divot Gary Robertson on Radio Scotland say “Have The Who had a hit since ‘My Generation’?” Only slightly rising to the bait I managed to quell the urge to send an e-mail rocket. What would be the point? And what difference does it make in the grand scheme of things?? You just expect people to know, y’know? Particularly those who aren’t exactly spring chickens themselves. Anyway, Pete and Rog are getting much media mileage out of closing P in the Dark tonight. The “hope I die, etc” is on a constant loop. I know who I want to die and those two aren't even in the pecking order. The tossers that reckon this constitutes “news”on the other hand... And also the popularity of some of the others on the bill. Watching some of the performances on TV last night perplexed me. The Zutons aren’t too bad but The Ordinary Boys? Calling themselves that is surely damning themselves with faint praise. Terrible tuneless pish. Wolfmother’s Jack White/Zep via Deep Purple heavy rock codswallop – dearie me. And Paul (F) Weller (to quote those Voladoras) , I had to switch over at that point such was the scale of utter averageness. The Kooks are pretty mind-numbingly awful too, it has to be said. Why do I bother? Well, I like to try and find out about what’s popular and make up my own mind. Rather than just jump to any conclusions. But no wonder sales are down. The stuff they’re pushing to the kids is, at best and for the most part, tripe. In the end I voted by pressing the off button to ponder whether or not I’m prone to over-reaction. It's true, I do have more pressing matters to concern me and I don't need any cranking up of the irked-ometer right about now. But it's not all doom and gloom. there are still events being organised in this world that offer a ray of hope. In Spain, this approaching September there’s a festival that includes some GOOD bands at least. Check out the AZKENA bill then. I'm not sure if they're certain of good weather but you wouldn't mind getting a bit wet in the presence of some of these...
Brother Patrick's US Tour Reports sounds like it was a blast! parking and speeding tickets notwithstanding...
June 22 – July 5, 2006
"The only thing I knew is that we (my son, Jonathan and I) were starting out in Boston and leaving from Chicago. Well, I also had a book that Ben gave me, “Rock’n’Roll Traveller USA”, it was very useful (and the GPS that helped to find records shops and other cool places).
In Boston, Chuck and Jim (aka Nimereht, theremin backwards) were waiting for us at the airport – they took two days off to show us around, cool guys. They’d planned to go the Crypt shop opening that was supposed to happen on June 23rd but was postponed to early July. We stayed at Chuck’s place and they drove us to all the cool places. Record shops (Stereo Jack’s on Massachusetts Ave, is the only one that I remember the name of), the place where The Rat (then Ratskeller) used to be, their favourite restaurants (Mexican) or clubs - the Middle East, where the MC5, Dirtbombs, the Monkey Butlers have played, the Museum of Fine Arts ( we saw sthe great paintings mentioned by Jonathan Richman in his song “Girlfriend”, but there was also this special and great exhibition called “Americans In Paris 1860-1900”. We probably visited the whole downtown Boston (New England), beautiful place.
And they wanted to pay for everything! Chuck even stopped in the first record shop to buy the new Demolition Doll Rods CD (I already had an advance copy but this new Swami record on seems not to be that well distributed) and Jim gave us T-shirts, pins, records of his own group, The Monkey Butlers. By chance I had brought some records and Champagne for these generous guys. Talking about records, we finally all found copies of The Coachwhips vinyl – Jim “you’re member of every garage forum ... and a guy told you, did you go to see the Coachwhips show the other day, they’re a kinda mix of Mummies/Gories/Oblivians – Who ? the Coachwhips! they issued 3 or 4 albums (I found 3) and you even never heard their name!”. The guy we met who saw The Coachwhips show is called Pip. He first saw the Cramps in Boston (1984) and that show changed his life; he said that Lux got into a fight after 3 or 4 songs and that Nick Knox came to the rescue, jumping on the guy Lux was fighting with. He said it was the wildest show he ever saw, and that included a Lords Of The New Church show during which Stiv got a blow job from 2 girls while singing! Another great story is when Chuck and Jim were in Philadelphia to see the Cramps. They went to Rich Lustre’s place, he is one of the greatest people they ever met and had said, “too bad I couldn’t reach you on the phone, Lux and Ivy were looking for someone who could drove them to the venue ...” – Jim told him “stop, I don’t want to hear that”. In Boston, I also bought the Volcanoes “Into The Psyche” LP, probably one of the best Cramps sounding album, along with Art Phag’s “Instant Ventriloquism”.
After another rest in Chuck’s beautiful house (he’s an architect), we went with Kim, his sweetheart, to have a marvelous breakfast at Joey’s Diner, a 100% Fifties place with parts of vintage cars and a great jukebox ... then we went to visit Porthmouth, a beautiful port. We got our first ticket (fine) there but Kim said she’ll take care of that.
After a quick visit and sleep in Providence, we headed for the big apple, where we got our second ticket (the main problem in the USA with the prohibited parking places – sometimes up to $ 15 for the 1st hour). Even a New Yorker parked just behind us couldn’t explain why we got it. Jim told me it happened to him too. After a few difficulties with finding a hotel room, we finally found one at The Newton on Broadway). It was time to go to the special Bar-b-q show at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn. The bar-b-q was cancelled due to the weather but the show was the most important part. A special Canadian set with Imaginary Icons, BBQ and Demon’s Claws. The 2 others were pretty decent but BBQ one man band was the real deal, awesome - what this man can do with just a drum kit and a guitar (sometimes played with just one hand!) – during the last 3 songs, he was accompanied by 2 guys from the Demon’s Claws. I chatted with Pierrot who told me that he just left The Fatals and Mighty Go Go Players to play organ with The Demon’s Claws (my advice : not a good choice). I noticed this beautiful girl with a bag designed with the Rolling Stones “Aftermath” (English edition) LP cover, and asked her if she was Miriam : she was – and Billy was there too – I told her all the good things I think about Norton records, the Cramps, A-Bones etc. She’s a real cutie, very kind – she really enjoyed BBQ show and also told me that she was born in Canada. Our second day in New York was visiting – from uptown (Harlem) to downtown, we must have walked around 20 miles. I noted all the record shops addresses for Sean, a few good ones, too bad Bleeker’s Bob doesn’t exist anymore. After a visit at CBGB / CBGB Gallery (313-315 Bowery) where I bought the CBGB book, featuring a cool photo of the Cramps in 1977 (with Miriam), lotsa Ramones. Went for a giant dinner at The Carnegie Deli – we couldn’t finish the whole thing but we impressed the other clients and even the crew considering the amount of what we ate (I was ashamed when I remembered that some people are starving). The World Trade Centre was a strange place to see too, very emotional (by chance I went to NY before 2001), the only thing that sucks are those guys selling postcards or books with the planes crashing into the towers. We also went to MOMA museum – special Dada exhib (Marcel Duchamp...), fantastic. I wanted to visit Passout Records in Brooklyn, probably the best garage shop in this part of the USA said Jim, before heading for Philly, but it seems those guys needed to rest (shop not opened at 2 PM!).
Philly is a cool city too. We went to The Philadelphia Record Exchange, very good shop, a la Born Bad, with cool new stuff (I bought the brilliant Leather Uppers LP on Goner) and also tons of old stuff (I bought the Drifters “Under The Boardwalk” LP for Ben). The shop owner told me that Hasil Adkins played in the street in front of the shop the 1st time he came in town. He also saw Lux and Ivy once in the 80’s, freezing in the street. Maybe they were visiting the Sickidz.
By the way, the only bad thing during our trip is that we couldn’t meet Rich Lustre of Sickidz fame. I called him on his cell phone and he asked me to call his house later. But due to my bad English or rather (I hope) because of the noise on the street, I misheard one of the numbers, and the cell phone wasn’t answering (some some reason, I had other problems calling from hotel rooms and other places). So we missed Rich but caught up over a couple phone calls since – a very very cool character. I asked him about a new Sickidz album: maybe in a while; here’s hoping.
Hotel in Newark, then Baltimore. Rather boring city except for those houses in the suburbs that make us think of John Waters’ movies. So we spend a long time at the public library to check our emails. Met a great character by the name of Groucho Magic, he showed us a few tricks with coins, traded euros vs. $. He’s a dead ringer for Groucho Marx (it’s his job) and he told us that two of his uncles were members of the Three Stooges.
Hotel in Somerset, Pennsylvania (just before the flood), then Pittsburgh and visited the best record shop I’ve ever seen, Jerry’s Records with probably more than 500,000 records including thousands of 50’s and 60’s unsorted singles, all $3 a piece or $5 for the most recent arrivals (if they don’t sell within 2 months they go in the $3 boxes !). I found tons of incredible stuff like Fortune label (Diablos - Nolan Strong, Nathaniel Mayer), Ted & The Young Lions “Open Up Your Door”, the Poets “Dead” (a monster song as good as Zacherle “Dinner With Drac”, lotsa stuff from Lux & Ivy’s favourite and other ones, just because of the label (Checker : Bo Diddley, Dale Hawkins) or the name of the group (Tim Tam and the Turns On ...) / the songs (I’m A Nut” ...). And this day was a special 16 % minus on prices ! Eyde’s used to be a good shop too (3 floors), but it’s so so now.
Akron (Ohio), Lux’s city is rather small but it looks good. We got our card from the Akron-Summit County Public Library and had dinner in a cool Japanese restaurant there and the beautiful waitress who took care of us was called Ivy ! (don’t believe me ? I’ve kept the bill ...).
Cleveland – well, rather than going to the Rock’n’Roll hall of Fame, we tried to find batty bucks for Chuck – those shoes with bat laces that Mad Daddy used to wear – and also visited record shops (15 closed within a few years) : Royal Garden Records with something like 100,000 records, most unsorted, and the best ones : My Mind’s Eye (13727 Madison), lotsa new stuff but also oldies (bought some singles, “Hungry” by Paul Revere & The Raiders ... and Nolan Strong & The Diablos CD, among others). The guy was so generous that he gave me a special box to put all my singles. I showed what I’ve already found and we religiously listened to the Diablos “The Wind” (Fortune, blue label), his Grail – I promised to buy a copy for him if I saw one in Detroit, but no luck. I was in a hurry to get to Detroit : drove at 80mph instead of 65 and got a $105 fine, the price you pay to visit a police car.
Detroit looks like no other city, and I love it : Hitsville USA, the Magic Stick, the Michigan Theatre is now a parking lot ... Almost all the buildings are abandoned, except for a few downtown. A guy told me that this city and the people living here are fucked up, but I loved it anyway. There’s no subway, just the Detroit People Mover on a rail, which only serves a small part of the city – it was built with the idea of bringing factory workers in to spend their money in the bars or to shop downtown.
We visited 2 record shops recommanded by Danny Dollrod : Peoples (615 W Forest) with lots of unsorted singles (bought 15 singles – Fortune ... and a Wilson Picket LP for a total of $20) and Mays (on 8 Mile street), more expensive ($ 10 for Ray Charles “I Don’ Need No Doctor” on ABC records, but only $5 for this fantastic other 7” by the Poets “She Blew A Good Thing”, ...), but it’s worth the visit just to see this tall 70 year old guy who knows exactly where everyone of his records is (and they’re mostly unsorted).
Then it was time to go to this Comerica Tastefest free festival. We saw Cat Power, Ray Davies – show mostly composed by Kinks songs, a great moment, he speaks a lot of his brother Dave who, I guess, is very sick, and DEMOLITION DOLL RODS. It was great to see them on their home turf, with more people than usual : their public, of course, but also little girls dancing with hula hoops, just in front of the scene. The master of ceremony announced “after Dan playing solo 2 years ago and Margaret last year, now here are the Demolition Doll Rods band, the one in Detroit”. DDR played a short but intense set of 10 songs, featuring a new one called “Dream It Or Leave It”. As usual, they were cuties and they accept one photo before leaving in their 60’s cars.
A guy who distributed his free fanzine “Inflame Media” told me that DDR will be on the cover of next issue, that he’s gonna send to me (I wore a Gories T shirt, his all time favourite group). We also visited The Henry Ford Museum (my son likes cars) and I was glad to see “Rosa Parks Bus”, where the Martin Luther King movement began, a piece of history. There’s also Kennedy’s car and other cool stuff, the biggest train I’ve ever seen ...
A quick trip to Ann Harbor, Iggy’s place, saw the Stooges Manor, now a bank. Then to a beautiful beach, Benton Harbor on Lake Michigan – we decided to stay there that night.
Our last destination was at Ben’s in Chicago. After a visit downdown by ourselves : 2120 S Michigan Avenue = Chess studios, now Chess Museum – Vee Jay studios are located W Michigan; Ben drove us to cool places: the alley where Dillinger was killed, the Metro (the Cramps and lotsa punk groups played there), record shops (found Archie Blyers’ “Ernando’s Hideaway” and the Novas’ “The Crusher” on Parrot records). Ben made me hear some of the awesome new stuff he recently discovered (a show by the Cramps featuring “Hungry”, in 1978!). We were lucky that Gobo, his lizard wasn’t too cranky, he didn’t bite our toes. We also visited some Chicago suburbs - just because this damned GPS took us at the wrong place – or with Ben, to see the very first Macdonald’s in Des Plaines (1955: hamburgers for 10 cents), Lake Michigan and other great places. We spent July 4th (I bought the new Johnny Cash “American V”, issued that special day) in Kankukee, with Ben’s friend’s and family – we were received like kings and our trip finished with a big fireworks party, surrounded by bats and glow in the dark insects (lucioles).
The USA is a beautiful country, the people we met were very kind to us and we can’t wait to go back. "
"The only thing I knew is that we (my son, Jonathan and I) were starting out in Boston and leaving from Chicago. Well, I also had a book that Ben gave me, “Rock’n’Roll Traveller USA”, it was very useful (and the GPS that helped to find records shops and other cool places).
In Boston, Chuck and Jim (aka Nimereht, theremin backwards) were waiting for us at the airport – they took two days off to show us around, cool guys. They’d planned to go the Crypt shop opening that was supposed to happen on June 23rd but was postponed to early July. We stayed at Chuck’s place and they drove us to all the cool places. Record shops (Stereo Jack’s on Massachusetts Ave, is the only one that I remember the name of), the place where The Rat (then Ratskeller) used to be, their favourite restaurants (Mexican) or clubs - the Middle East, where the MC5, Dirtbombs, the Monkey Butlers have played, the Museum of Fine Arts ( we saw sthe great paintings mentioned by Jonathan Richman in his song “Girlfriend”, but there was also this special and great exhibition called “Americans In Paris 1860-1900”. We probably visited the whole downtown Boston (New England), beautiful place.
And they wanted to pay for everything! Chuck even stopped in the first record shop to buy the new Demolition Doll Rods CD (I already had an advance copy but this new Swami record on seems not to be that well distributed) and Jim gave us T-shirts, pins, records of his own group, The Monkey Butlers. By chance I had brought some records and Champagne for these generous guys. Talking about records, we finally all found copies of The Coachwhips vinyl – Jim “you’re member of every garage forum ... and a guy told you, did you go to see the Coachwhips show the other day, they’re a kinda mix of Mummies/Gories/Oblivians – Who ? the Coachwhips! they issued 3 or 4 albums (I found 3) and you even never heard their name!”. The guy we met who saw The Coachwhips show is called Pip. He first saw the Cramps in Boston (1984) and that show changed his life; he said that Lux got into a fight after 3 or 4 songs and that Nick Knox came to the rescue, jumping on the guy Lux was fighting with. He said it was the wildest show he ever saw, and that included a Lords Of The New Church show during which Stiv got a blow job from 2 girls while singing! Another great story is when Chuck and Jim were in Philadelphia to see the Cramps. They went to Rich Lustre’s place, he is one of the greatest people they ever met and had said, “too bad I couldn’t reach you on the phone, Lux and Ivy were looking for someone who could drove them to the venue ...” – Jim told him “stop, I don’t want to hear that”. In Boston, I also bought the Volcanoes “Into The Psyche” LP, probably one of the best Cramps sounding album, along with Art Phag’s “Instant Ventriloquism”.
After another rest in Chuck’s beautiful house (he’s an architect), we went with Kim, his sweetheart, to have a marvelous breakfast at Joey’s Diner, a 100% Fifties place with parts of vintage cars and a great jukebox ... then we went to visit Porthmouth, a beautiful port. We got our first ticket (fine) there but Kim said she’ll take care of that.
After a quick visit and sleep in Providence, we headed for the big apple, where we got our second ticket (the main problem in the USA with the prohibited parking places – sometimes up to $ 15 for the 1st hour). Even a New Yorker parked just behind us couldn’t explain why we got it. Jim told me it happened to him too. After a few difficulties with finding a hotel room, we finally found one at The Newton on Broadway). It was time to go to the special Bar-b-q show at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn. The bar-b-q was cancelled due to the weather but the show was the most important part. A special Canadian set with Imaginary Icons, BBQ and Demon’s Claws. The 2 others were pretty decent but BBQ one man band was the real deal, awesome - what this man can do with just a drum kit and a guitar (sometimes played with just one hand!) – during the last 3 songs, he was accompanied by 2 guys from the Demon’s Claws. I chatted with Pierrot who told me that he just left The Fatals and Mighty Go Go Players to play organ with The Demon’s Claws (my advice : not a good choice). I noticed this beautiful girl with a bag designed with the Rolling Stones “Aftermath” (English edition) LP cover, and asked her if she was Miriam : she was – and Billy was there too – I told her all the good things I think about Norton records, the Cramps, A-Bones etc. She’s a real cutie, very kind – she really enjoyed BBQ show and also told me that she was born in Canada. Our second day in New York was visiting – from uptown (Harlem) to downtown, we must have walked around 20 miles. I noted all the record shops addresses for Sean, a few good ones, too bad Bleeker’s Bob doesn’t exist anymore. After a visit at CBGB / CBGB Gallery (313-315 Bowery) where I bought the CBGB book, featuring a cool photo of the Cramps in 1977 (with Miriam), lotsa Ramones. Went for a giant dinner at The Carnegie Deli – we couldn’t finish the whole thing but we impressed the other clients and even the crew considering the amount of what we ate (I was ashamed when I remembered that some people are starving). The World Trade Centre was a strange place to see too, very emotional (by chance I went to NY before 2001), the only thing that sucks are those guys selling postcards or books with the planes crashing into the towers. We also went to MOMA museum – special Dada exhib (Marcel Duchamp...), fantastic. I wanted to visit Passout Records in Brooklyn, probably the best garage shop in this part of the USA said Jim, before heading for Philly, but it seems those guys needed to rest (shop not opened at 2 PM!).
Philly is a cool city too. We went to The Philadelphia Record Exchange, very good shop, a la Born Bad, with cool new stuff (I bought the brilliant Leather Uppers LP on Goner) and also tons of old stuff (I bought the Drifters “Under The Boardwalk” LP for Ben). The shop owner told me that Hasil Adkins played in the street in front of the shop the 1st time he came in town. He also saw Lux and Ivy once in the 80’s, freezing in the street. Maybe they were visiting the Sickidz.
By the way, the only bad thing during our trip is that we couldn’t meet Rich Lustre of Sickidz fame. I called him on his cell phone and he asked me to call his house later. But due to my bad English or rather (I hope) because of the noise on the street, I misheard one of the numbers, and the cell phone wasn’t answering (some some reason, I had other problems calling from hotel rooms and other places). So we missed Rich but caught up over a couple phone calls since – a very very cool character. I asked him about a new Sickidz album: maybe in a while; here’s hoping.
Hotel in Newark, then Baltimore. Rather boring city except for those houses in the suburbs that make us think of John Waters’ movies. So we spend a long time at the public library to check our emails. Met a great character by the name of Groucho Magic, he showed us a few tricks with coins, traded euros vs. $. He’s a dead ringer for Groucho Marx (it’s his job) and he told us that two of his uncles were members of the Three Stooges.
Hotel in Somerset, Pennsylvania (just before the flood), then Pittsburgh and visited the best record shop I’ve ever seen, Jerry’s Records with probably more than 500,000 records including thousands of 50’s and 60’s unsorted singles, all $3 a piece or $5 for the most recent arrivals (if they don’t sell within 2 months they go in the $3 boxes !). I found tons of incredible stuff like Fortune label (Diablos - Nolan Strong, Nathaniel Mayer), Ted & The Young Lions “Open Up Your Door”, the Poets “Dead” (a monster song as good as Zacherle “Dinner With Drac”, lotsa stuff from Lux & Ivy’s favourite and other ones, just because of the label (Checker : Bo Diddley, Dale Hawkins) or the name of the group (Tim Tam and the Turns On ...) / the songs (I’m A Nut” ...). And this day was a special 16 % minus on prices ! Eyde’s used to be a good shop too (3 floors), but it’s so so now.
Akron (Ohio), Lux’s city is rather small but it looks good. We got our card from the Akron-Summit County Public Library and had dinner in a cool Japanese restaurant there and the beautiful waitress who took care of us was called Ivy ! (don’t believe me ? I’ve kept the bill ...).
Cleveland – well, rather than going to the Rock’n’Roll hall of Fame, we tried to find batty bucks for Chuck – those shoes with bat laces that Mad Daddy used to wear – and also visited record shops (15 closed within a few years) : Royal Garden Records with something like 100,000 records, most unsorted, and the best ones : My Mind’s Eye (13727 Madison), lotsa new stuff but also oldies (bought some singles, “Hungry” by Paul Revere & The Raiders ... and Nolan Strong & The Diablos CD, among others). The guy was so generous that he gave me a special box to put all my singles. I showed what I’ve already found and we religiously listened to the Diablos “The Wind” (Fortune, blue label), his Grail – I promised to buy a copy for him if I saw one in Detroit, but no luck. I was in a hurry to get to Detroit : drove at 80mph instead of 65 and got a $105 fine, the price you pay to visit a police car.
Detroit looks like no other city, and I love it : Hitsville USA, the Magic Stick, the Michigan Theatre is now a parking lot ... Almost all the buildings are abandoned, except for a few downtown. A guy told me that this city and the people living here are fucked up, but I loved it anyway. There’s no subway, just the Detroit People Mover on a rail, which only serves a small part of the city – it was built with the idea of bringing factory workers in to spend their money in the bars or to shop downtown.
We visited 2 record shops recommanded by Danny Dollrod : Peoples (615 W Forest) with lots of unsorted singles (bought 15 singles – Fortune ... and a Wilson Picket LP for a total of $20) and Mays (on 8 Mile street), more expensive ($ 10 for Ray Charles “I Don’ Need No Doctor” on ABC records, but only $5 for this fantastic other 7” by the Poets “She Blew A Good Thing”, ...), but it’s worth the visit just to see this tall 70 year old guy who knows exactly where everyone of his records is (and they’re mostly unsorted).
Then it was time to go to this Comerica Tastefest free festival. We saw Cat Power, Ray Davies – show mostly composed by Kinks songs, a great moment, he speaks a lot of his brother Dave who, I guess, is very sick, and DEMOLITION DOLL RODS. It was great to see them on their home turf, with more people than usual : their public, of course, but also little girls dancing with hula hoops, just in front of the scene. The master of ceremony announced “after Dan playing solo 2 years ago and Margaret last year, now here are the Demolition Doll Rods band, the one in Detroit”. DDR played a short but intense set of 10 songs, featuring a new one called “Dream It Or Leave It”. As usual, they were cuties and they accept one photo before leaving in their 60’s cars.
A guy who distributed his free fanzine “Inflame Media” told me that DDR will be on the cover of next issue, that he’s gonna send to me (I wore a Gories T shirt, his all time favourite group). We also visited The Henry Ford Museum (my son likes cars) and I was glad to see “Rosa Parks Bus”, where the Martin Luther King movement began, a piece of history. There’s also Kennedy’s car and other cool stuff, the biggest train I’ve ever seen ...
A quick trip to Ann Harbor, Iggy’s place, saw the Stooges Manor, now a bank. Then to a beautiful beach, Benton Harbor on Lake Michigan – we decided to stay there that night.
Our last destination was at Ben’s in Chicago. After a visit downdown by ourselves : 2120 S Michigan Avenue = Chess studios, now Chess Museum – Vee Jay studios are located W Michigan; Ben drove us to cool places: the alley where Dillinger was killed, the Metro (the Cramps and lotsa punk groups played there), record shops (found Archie Blyers’ “Ernando’s Hideaway” and the Novas’ “The Crusher” on Parrot records). Ben made me hear some of the awesome new stuff he recently discovered (a show by the Cramps featuring “Hungry”, in 1978!). We were lucky that Gobo, his lizard wasn’t too cranky, he didn’t bite our toes. We also visited some Chicago suburbs - just because this damned GPS took us at the wrong place – or with Ben, to see the very first Macdonald’s in Des Plaines (1955: hamburgers for 10 cents), Lake Michigan and other great places. We spent July 4th (I bought the new Johnny Cash “American V”, issued that special day) in Kankukee, with Ben’s friend’s and family – we were received like kings and our trip finished with a big fireworks party, surrounded by bats and glow in the dark insects (lucioles).
The USA is a beautiful country, the people we met were very kind to us and we can’t wait to go back. "
Saturday, July 08, 2006
So does CBGB’s heading for Vegas signal the apocalypse (or A-rock-alypse as Lordi call it)? Or is it just a logical outcome for the “brand”? Between hard rockisation and a hard place, I really don’t know. The increasing fragmentation of what the “music business” is morphing into makes it difficult to comprehend any bigger picture. I mean a Ramones “musical”? Who coulda seen that coming? Not me from “doon the front” at the July 4th 1976 Roundhouse show that’s for sure. There are so many distractions, so many angles that subtract from the enjoyment of the actual commodity. Ignorance is, most, definitley bliss. But, whatever happens to CB’s down the line, nobody can takeaway what it was or indeed still is at the original location. Urinals notwithstanding.
Friday, July 07, 2006
RIP - Paul Nelson (link courtesy of MT). Interview at rockcritics.com
also RIP - Tom Weir
and finally... RIP - Kathy Wood (Widow of Ed)- link courtesy of Ben Gart via Staysick.
also RIP - Tom Weir
and finally... RIP - Kathy Wood (Widow of Ed)- link courtesy of Ben Gart via Staysick.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Regular stoppers-by will have noticed that my posts of late have been a bit spotty. This is because of stuff beyond my control labeled "real life" or what passes for it.
Anyway, some things that I've meant to run by you folks in the Glasgow locale...
Volcanic Tongue have a store at 1129 Argyle Street, G3 8ND. Tel: 0141 204 3322...
OPEN TUES-SAT 11AM-6PM
Picked up a free tabloid thing calle THE SKINNY which provides a comprehensive "Whats' On" guide sorta like The Village Voice for Central Scotland and beyond. In there I discovered some info on the upcoming Evie Sands/BMX Bandits show at the ABC2 on July 16th. Evie's band will include Norman Blake and Davie Scott. You can pick this up almost anywhere so check availability if you're jetting in from wherever.
On the subject of the Scottish Music Scene, folks are invited to check out Martin Kielty's BIG NOISE and pitch in should you see fit.
Was just talking to Sir David of Arnoff who caught the Gun Club movie in LA. There's no bloody music in it. Just talk. Interesting as that could be, what the heck is up with not including the whole point of such a beast in the first place? Wasted opportunity or rough cut awaiting finishing touches? Lets hope for the latter. Wonder what's coming up music-wise in the EIFF programme due July 12th. The Monks? Luna? The Upper Crust? Probably none of those but a guy can dream, right? And coming in September...
The Stripchords @
Sonic Reducer, London, Saturday July 15th - FREE!
All hail, sweaty kits'n'glowing kittens! Well, the summer is well and trooly upon us, and with temperatures hitting the early 30s in Londinium, what better way to make yer weekend special than with a Saturday night at Sonic Reducer? Saturday July 15th will see instro twang sleazemeisters The Stripchords play the 'Reducer, soundtracking their acclaimed selection of vintage 8mm burlesque flicks, with the addition of live go-go dancers! As one patron of the 100 Club put it: "That's not jazz!" And who are we to argue?
The Stripchords will take to the stage at 10.30pm.
Videos, and downloadable tuneage is always available via www.myspace.com/thestripchords ... As per, BigKegShandy and Teenslain will be spinning platters that may or may not matter, and if the first 'Reducer at The Spitz is anything to go by, the place will be jumping madly by the witching hour ... So expect the seasonal mix of soul, funk, garage punk, beat, R&B, ska, mento, calypso, reefer jazz, and any other kool trash we can gets our greezy pawses upon! Plus the new Jack Oblivian 45, of course ... See ya the bar!
Selah, BigKegShandy & TeenSlain
-------------------------------------------
Sonic Reducer @ The Spitz (gallery space)
July15th, Spitalfields Market, The London E1
8.30pm-1am, FREE ENTRY Tube: Liverpool Street
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)