Vince Taylor was a strange boy. It is unlikely if you live in the United States that you have heard of his music. What’s remarkable about the man is not really the music, but more of his image that was thrown into the world of pop circ. Very early 60’s. It’s not enough to hear his recordings, but to see him live or better yet via photographs.
If you ever get a chance do see “J’irai cracher sur vos tombesâ€Â (I Spit on Your Graves). It’s a strange film. I have it on DVD, and it has no English subtitles, but I know the story. Like the book the drama takes place in the U.S., yet was filmed in France. And it looks like a European’s idea what a small U.S. town looks like.
My favorite scenes are the ones in the bookstore. I love the magazine display in the store. Also I like the thought that the killer works at a bookstore. I work at a bookstore and therefore I feel like I am in good company.
As one knows by now, Vian had to sneak into the preview of this film. At the time he was arguing with the filmmaker. Basically he hated it. He died during the screening.
I think I got this link from Slate: a fascinating article on the iPod shuffle mode.
Some lunatic has put online all 2,846 of Pauline Kael’s capsule reviews from her fine compendium, 5001 Nights at the Movies. While I don’t advocate the unauthorized hijacking of anybody’s copyrighted works (the site’s been out there for a while now, so who knows whether or not it’s been sanctioned), it’s indeed handy having these insightful cinematic kernels available at one’s fingertips. (Which is to say, it saves me the arduous task of getting up off my butt and taking the book itself off the shelf.) Such is the insidiousness of the Internet.
On paper or in cyberspace, one thing these reviews reveal is that Kael was at her best writing in the long form. Reduced to the amount of space usually permitted in Entertainment Weekly, often lost are the insights, the snap of her words, and the sense of enjoyment that shone through her writing. Kael, like Paul Nelson, was as much a stylist as she was a critic, in some cases rendering the reviews she wrote better than the films she was writing about.
A message from Andrew Earles about a very rare and Lost in the Grooves performance not to be missed!
Hello:
My good friend DJ Ian Marshall is putting on a show on November 1st at Little Pedro’s with the 1960’s folk rock enigma Bob Lind. This will be Bob’s first gig in Los Angeles in over twenty years and he still sounds fantastic.
For those of you unfamiliar with Bob Lind, he is best known for his big hit song of 1966 “Elusive Butterfly”. Following the success of that single Bob went on to record two exquisite baroque-pop LPs in 1966, “Don’t Be Concerned” and “Photographs of Feeling” with legendary over-the-top producer Jack Nitzsche (famous for his work with Phil Spector and Neil Young). These 2 albums are underrated, unknown classics and must haves for fans of sixties music in the vein of The Left Banke, The Byrds, PF Sloan, early Gordon Lightfoot, Judee Sill, Donovan, Richie Havens, Val Stoecklin, Margo Guryan, Love, Dylan…etc etc… but Lind’s strange poetry, unusual guitar chords and unique vocal-stylings are truly indescribable. A nice CD comp of his material from this period is out-of-print but still findable in used shops- it’s called “You Might Have Heard My Footsteps”. The original LPs are commonly found in the folk section of used record shops in the $1 to $12 range.
In 1971, Lind released another fine album in more of the mellow singer-songwriter vein, with tinges of country rock, entitled “Since There Were Circles”. Guest musicians on these sessions include Gene Clark, Bernie Leadon, Larry Knecthel, Carol Kaye & Hal Blaine. This one is harder to find on LP, but a CD re-issue is in the works.
Bob lives in Florida these days. He has been in and out of retirement as a performer since the 70’s. Please don’t miss this rare chance to see a performance by this extremely gifted and unusual singer-songwriter. DJ Sir Ian of Marshall will be DJ-ing a set of great 60s & 70s obscurities in the folk-rock / baroque vein; so this will be a fun themed party for anyone who likes this sort of thing. This is an early invite- I’ll repost as soon as I have any news on an opening act (if there is one).
Details:
Bob Lind appearing at
Little Pedro’s – WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 1st
901 East 1st Street (south of Alameda)
Los Angeles, CA 90012 (basically Little Tokyo)
doors 10pm, $8.00 cover charge.
Ten reasons I love living in NYC:
1. Thanks to ![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nydeborah‘s brother and sister-in-law, last night nydeborah and I attended the opening of Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005 at the Brooklyn Museum.
2. Thanks to nydeborah‘s persistence (tempered, I hope, by my amusement), we prevailed over the drastically mismanaged distribution of first come, first served tickets for the “conversation with the artist” and landed seats in the first row, right in front of Leibovitz and museum director Arnold L. Lehman.
3. The pieces of paper fastened to our seat backs identified us as “Guests of Annie Leibovitz.” Whoda thunk it?
4. nydeborah got to ask Leibovitz a tough question about life and death and the whole damn thing. (Leibovitz’s life with, and the death of, Susan Sontag is a major concern of the exhibit.)
5. A last-minute addition to the evening’s festivities was a performance by Patti Smith on the museum’s fifth floor, right outside the Leibovitz exhibit.
6. We were (again) right up front, this time stage right, for the short but lovely acoustic concert (close enough to see Patti, before the show, emerge from a backstage meeting with Leibovitz, her mother, Sontag’s daughter, and assorted family members, and wipe a tear from her eye).
7. For her last number, Smith recounted how, a few years ago at her annual New Year’s Eve concert at the Bowery Ballroom, “Someone came backstage and told me that Susan Sontag had been dancing to this song.” Then she and her band launched into “Because the Night.” Leibovitz rose to the occasion to dance with her five-year-old daughter Sarah while, directly across from us, Sontag’s daughter kept wiping away the tears.
8. Afterwards, serpentining our way through the museum and admiring Leibovitz’s work, we happened upon Lenny Kaye, Smith’s guitarist (as well as rock critic and the man responsible for the classic Nuggets collection). After saying how much we’d enjoyed the show, I reminded him that we’d met before (last month at Paul Nelson‘s memorial service), and asked him if I might interview him for my book about Nelson. Kaye admitted that he hadn’t known Paul that closely. “So I’m not sure how much help I’d be to your book. But,” he added as we parted, “I look forward to reading it.”
9. On our way out, we wandered through the reception, which by then was winding down, weaving our way through the various looming Rodins as I snagged a few of the remaining potato chips.
10. I got to go home with nydeborah.
A meme borrowed from the inestimable David Schwartz at Mumble Herder:
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here’s how it works:
Blue Ash is a Lost in the Grooves artist. Click to sample the music or purchase tracks from Around Again – A Collection of Rarities From the Vault 1972-1979. And keep an eye peeled to Frank Secich’s Blue Ash blog here at LITG for news, photos and insights straight from the band. This reissue (of a double CD first put out by the good folks at Not Lame) is just the start, as we’ll soon be digging deeper into the Blue Ash vaults for songs never before heard by fans.
Metal Mike Saunders provided this vintage record review for the Lost in the Grooves anthology:
Blue Ash No More, No Less (Mercury, 1973)
“I Remember A Time” could do for Blue Ash what “Mr. Tambourine Man” did for the Byrds: the start of a brilliant career, a Number One hit, instant mythology. The guitar intro lasts all of five seconds before Jimmy Kendzor and Frank Secich’s voices come in, oozing of everything the Byrds and Lovin’ Spoonful ever promised, the soaring harmonies in the chorus driving over jangling lead guitar work. It’s the sound of tomorrow right here today, it’s the perfect folk-rock single. It’s beautiful, that’s what.
This is one of the most spirited, powerful debuts ever from an American group. No More, No Less opens with “Have you Seen Her,” a fast rocker kicked off by four whomps on David Evans’ snare. This is the one that makes me think of The Who; the lead guitar is pure West Coast, though.
"Just Another Game” is the one quiet song, an effective tonedown before “I Remember A Time.” “Plain To See” is similar to “I Remember A Time” in the way its simple, compelling melody rocks out with vocal harmonies framed over a trebly Byrds guitar sound.
“Here We Go Again” follows, midway between the hardest and softest numbers on the first side. What’s great here are the group vocals on top of the tuff folk-rock cum hard rock instrumental sound; it’s like killing two birds with one stone, the whole premise behind the old and new Mod groups (Small Faces, early Who, the Sweet), not to mention the hard pop masterpiece known to the world as “Do Ya.”
By the time this album ends, there’s no doubt about it, Blue Ash have got themselves one hell of a debut LP that may send fellow stateside groups like Stories, the Raspberries, and Big Star running back to the woodshed to come up with music even better than their present stuff. (Mike Saunders)
I just read that Claude Luter passed away. For those who know the book I co-edited for Rizzoli “Manual of Saint-Germain-des-Prés” by Boris Vian, his name comes up often. One of the key figures in the whole Paris post-war generation – he is probably the key figure to bring New Orleans jazz to that great city and culture.
Sadly not that much information on him in English, but I imagine him to be a fantastic personality – especially anyone who was close friends with Boris Vian. If I am not correct he played regular shows at A club till very recently. Luter was 83 years old and forever young. TamTam salutes you!
There is a fascinating interview with Henri Lefebvre on his relationship with Guy Debord and others in the Situationist International. Check it here:
https://orbita.starmedia.com/~novosdebates/Lefebvre/Lefebvre3.htm