Deep Grooves

EADGBE

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I tried my hand at playing guitar too late in life. I was in my 30's when I finally decided to learn. I should have started while still in my teens, when absolute immersion in something is easier because teenage hours are like buckets of water in the ocean. My path in life took me in a different direction but I am still glad I've picked up the guitar, as horrendous as my playing is.

In a way, playing the guitar is like coffee in the morning. You can't play scales or form a few chords while your mind is on something else. You have to focus. Cancel out the external and internal distractions. Internal distractions are the biggest.

If I can eke out a half hour practice from time to time, when I put my guitar down I notice the focus is still there and it sticks. I can solve problems or come to terms with an issue so much more easily. It's such an amazing way to snap my thought process into a calm shape. The problem is I didn't pick up the guitar and do this enough over the past few years.

I just didn't have the time. I couldn't find the time. I didn't make the time. There was too much to do and far too much was at stake, all the time. Time now is more like buckets of water in a pond. It's a smaller area but I can at least see the other side.

Down the lost highway

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I had been hoping to make a two or even three day record buying trip this last fall. Unexpected bills, slower than expected sales, and a lack of extra cash shot down those plans but I'm still hoping to do it this coming spring or early summer.

There is a long, narrow corridor of roads that stretch from where I live all the way to Memphis, and along the way west I can make stops in several cities with rich and noted histories in music.

Florence: The birthplace of W.C. Handy, Sam Philips, and Kelvin Holly.

Muscle Shoals: The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, The FAME Recording Studio.

Tupelo: Of course, Elvis.

At the end of the road, Memphis.

Back in the 1950's and 60's you could have traveled those same roads and run into any number of rock and roll, R&B and country legends. Muscle Shoals isn't New York or Los Angeles, but in the right place at the right time you could have found yourself rubbing elbows and chatting with Duane Allman, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin or Keith Richards.

R&B pioneers clambered into old buses and station wagons, shuttling from one city to the next while touring the Chitlin Circuit. They drove through little towns every day, just like the town I currently live in. Some times they stopped for food and gas and to stretch their legs when time permitted.

Hank Williams' last road trip on Earth took him through Fort Payne, Alabama; a town less than 30 miles from where I sit. Williams and his driver stopped at a local diner so the driver could grab a bite to eat, Williams left their waiter a $50 tip. Williams also purchased a bottle of bourbon from a local bootlegger. Off they drove toward Chattanooga and then to Knoxville, scant measured hours of life were left for Williams as they left Fort Payne. The wire stories reporting his passing would be out in less than 24 hours.

Johnny Cash had a notorious run-in with the police just north of here. In late 1967 and with a head full of pills, Cash wound up spending a night in the Walker County jail. He had crashed his car and scared the living hell out of a local by beating on their front door in the middle of the night, in his altered state he thought it was the home of a friend. Just how and why Johnny Cash found himself driving around the north Georgia mountains, so very far from Nashville, high as a pine is tall, is still a mystery to me. This area isn't just off the beaten path, it's several trails over from the beaten path, hidden by hills.

Several years after her passing I learned that even my Grandmother had one of those brushes with greatness. At one point during the 1950's my Grandmother and Mother moved to Vila Rica, Georgia for a brief period of time. My Grandmother was apparently working at a small roadside diner when Fats Domino stopped to get something to eat and his order was brought out to him. I assume he and his band were making their way between Birmingham and Atlanta, most likely for Chitlin Circuit dates. My Grandmother wasn't the person who brought his order to him but she did get the chance to see him. Apparently she was impressed with how polite he was and that he was a stunningly sharp dressed man.

The last big band to come through here, that I can recall, was REM. They came to town to visit Howard Finster and shot a video in Paradise Gardens. This was long before the big time, long before they played the big sheds.

No one comes through town anymore. I need to get back onto the road and explore.

Echoes

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

There is an album you play and it makes you a kinetic mess. Your neck moves, your face tics, and your index finger points to that one cymbal crash in the left speaker. You've heard it a million times, it's the table of contents, predictable and reliable. It's dog-earred. It's the best dish at your favorite restaurant.

There is an album you play and it's sleep paralysis. A face you can still see clearly, her voice in a long concrete pipe. The woman, the harvest moon, the chord change is the smell of her hair in summer. You've heard it a million times, you never expected the plot change when the first song began. Low fire burns down to embers.

I can lean my head back and adjust the headphones. Sometimes I see the ceiling as a movie screen, sometimes a canvas I'm painting, sometimes the ceiling is just white. The run out grooves make me stand up. I have to flip sides.

Radio Song

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I still listen to a lot of radio, especially while I am working. My work often carries over to late night when I can get some quiet time and the ability to focus is much easier. I still love picking up AM stations. A good station will not distract me from work, for good or bad reasons.

Late at night the AM band turns mysterious. The far away signals you pick up can vary from night to night based on the weather. A strong signal one night may be a static mess the next. Of course there are the odd signals that faintly come in unexpectedly. One night it's Huntington, one night it's Nashville.

I used to regularly stay up listening to the radio into the night when I was a teenager. I had to stay as quiet as possible, a plastic earphone stuck in whatever ear I could hear with better. In the summer I would regularly pick up stations in Texas and from time to time a Mexican station would come in.

There is a station out of Cleveland I listen to regularly. They play Coast To Coast AM at night and I enjoy listening to their local news before the sun rises. Something still enchants me about hearing the local news from a place so far away. Yes, I could easily look on the internet to see what's going on in Cleveland, but hearing local folks tell the story, from the place it is happening, has charm you can't get from a web page. It's a person. A voice. Contact.

Some folks are into radio DX'ing, where they try to pick up radio signals from as far as possible and keep records of their finds. If they pick up something unique they'll write the station a letter and tell them the technical details. Engineers at the stations used to send the DX'ers a postcard that thanked them for the information since it was valuable for engineers to know how their transmitters were working. DX'ers collected those postcards. I think this form of communication is now done through email. I think getting a postcard was a much better deal.

On good days or nights I'll have a vague impression of what's playing while I am busy with work. I might get pulled into a song or some DJ banter, but only briefly. When a station is doing it right I'll wonder where the time went. I'll want to pull out a record I haven't played in years. I'll feel good and positive. There will be a rhythm to what I am doing while I work.

If every day could just be like that...

Let's go down to Berlin, join the Ice Capades

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I got into The Ramones when I was 15 years old. This wasn't something I could broadcast in my little home town. This was something I did in secret. We would all grow into new music and broader ideas as the school year progressed and the changes of adolescence seemed to accelerate in speed. By time we had driver's licenses a year later we would almost be completely different creatures and even more different by time we turned 17. But at 15, The Ramones had to be a secret kept in my bedroom.

Later there would be that moment of truth, admitting to a friend that I had a Ramones album and I really thought they would like it too. A tape would be made, another wandering soul could be saved, another link in the secret chain we were a part of.

These friends had to be like minded, and those were in short supply, but they were there no matter how small the town. When I later joined the Navy I was fortunate to meet and become friends with another kindred spirit and he would introduce me to Black Flag, The Dead Kennedys and other forbidden musical fruits.

Years of loud shows and albums passed, we went our separate ways to start new lives but oddly enough I found no new kindred spirits for the music when I moved on. I learned to put up a screen where new people saw whatever it took to keep them from running away. Inside was where the other music was playing and no one to share it with.

Yes, there were the clubs and the shows and the record stores, places I could co-mingle with the other freaks. But you're really only relating to people on that superficial "public" face level at those places, unless you are going with that friend, the one who gets "it".

The one who got why you hunched your shoulders and made that weird face when playing Tin Machine.

The one who got what D. Boone was doing with that Telecaster and had his poster hanging on her closet door, like a huge guardian keeping an eye on her while she slept. Maybe she felt comfortable enough to show you because you got "it" too. You got D. Boone jumping around the stage like a wild bear in cutoff jean shorts, all treble and polemic. Maybe that was vulnerability? An 80's college girl showing a guy she was into The Minutemen.

The one who got why you felt disgust with any fellow wearing guy-liner and a blouse-y shirt with black jeans and Cuban heeled boots; while he nursed whiskey sours chatting up the girls by prattling in detail about some band who's music you could only get through mail order, as if he were Jarrell and the band were Frost.

Am I prattling right now? Well, I'm certainly not Jarrell and The Ramones were certainly not Frost.

It seems these days that folks under a certain age are less likely to be unsettled by music that has a structure different than what they are used to hearing. Maybe some of this is due to the ubiquitous nature of digital downloads for young people who's teenage and young adult years have been spent with iPods and iPhones and downloading torrents? They've been exposed to everything and it's still rock and roll to them, and I can't believe I stole a Billy Joel lyric, but it just happened. Maybe some of it can be traced back to an after effect of the Grunge breakthrough? Maybe 1991 through 1993/4 was some kind of a booster vaccination for noise tolerance? Maybe everything older than 10 years is simply quaint now?

There was a time when The Ramones were just a loud and simple mess to so many ears. Just 3 chords, inane lyrics and "they look so weird." They were a distillation of one flavor of rock and roll. It was comic books and leather jackets and crazy hair and really, really intense passion. They made music that could make you bounce along like a bouncing ball on a twisted version of Mitch Miller.

If I could have one rock and roll wish it would be that some kids cook up one more crazy distillation of rock and culture, boil off the useless medium, render the essence, and passionately throw the results back into the face of the world, saying, "See what you made us do? It's all your fault!"

The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jiveass Slippers

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Imagine the Pearly Gates of Heaven, two podiums stand side by side.

The first podium is where Saint Peter stands and he's looking to see if your name is written in the Book. He sees your name and grants your entry to glorious heaven.

You walk toward the gates and suddenly a burly black arm grabs you by the collar of your shirt, "Hold on a second, son."

Standing at the other podium is Charles Mingus. Mingus is there to judge the soul of your music collection.

Mingus can't be jived.

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

From time to time I find myself doing a little research through old issues of Billboard Magazine via Google Books. Usually this research relates to release dates of old LPs or I'll see if a record company did a press release when I find a more obscure title. Recently I found a very interesting article in the January 25, 1964 issue.

In an interview, Nat "King" Cole stated, "No one's developing stars anymore, and the industry is guided by hard sell, blitz tactics. Artists are here today and gone tomorrow."

"Today a kid makes a record and if he's lucky, it becomes a hit and he goes out and buys a Cadillac, sets up his own production company and sits around like an expert."

Things haven't changed much since 1964, except the Caddy is now a Veyron.

I got nasty habits, I take tea at three

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing and still not find the power or will to cut back. With financial needs pressing and a desire to lighten my load of heavy personal items, I've done a bit of culling from my personal book and record collections over the last year. Oddly enough, the books have been the hardest to let go of for sentimental reasons. I considered culling some copies of one of my favorite albums of all-time, but I ultimately nixed that idea.

I'm not 100% positive what year I first bought The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed but I believe it was 1980. I do remember I bought it at a flea market in the summer, and I am positive I knew the album before they released Emotional Rescue. I absolutely loved that old copy of Let It Bleed. It was well worn with plenty Rice Crispies action going on -- snaps, crackles, and pops. But the songs had an impact regardless of the high noise level.

At some point in the mid-80's I picked up a new pressing of the album and absolutely loved being able to hear such a clean sound. I could finally crank up the volume without being pelted with noise. This was followed by an early digital remaster released on virgin vinyl in the 80's that blew me away. Several years later when I was living in Virginia I was able to score an original US pressing in beautiful condition complete with the glossy poster. Of course, there are the remastered CDs. I should, by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, be able to let some of these copies go. But I just can't bring myself to do it.

I still have the ratty old copy I bought over 30 years ago, but I just feel too sentimental about it to let the damn thing go, split seams and all. It was the copy I fell in love with. The original release I found in Virginia is just one of those "nice" things I can't muster the will to let go of and quite frankly, the two 1980's re-issues just sound too good to let go of, even compared to the CD remasters. I play the virgin vinyl copy sparingly but on one occasion I played it for a friend with an audiophile's predisposition and even he was duly impressed with the sound.

Exile on Main Street may get the higher reputation, but for my money Let It Bleed was their best and most powerful album. I believe the real secret to this album's success is not in Richards' or Taylor's guitar work, as impressive as they are. It isn't even Jagger's vocals, which he seemed to finally be able to masterfully manipulate at this point. Lyrically it's one of their strongest albums. What seals this album's greatness lies in the grooves made by Wyman and Watts.

Wyman's walking bass lines are really lively and drive all through the album, my favorite being on Live With Me. He's aggressive but not once is he obtrusive. There is no sense that the bass is climbing all over the song, trying to find a groove or just exploit what's going on. He's pulling the groove along, like a locomotive.

Charlie Watts..no question this was his greatest work with the band. After all these years I am still impressed with just how well he played on this album. He alternately plays in front of the beat, behind the beat, and on the beat. He never pushes the song hard, doesn't throw out a cliched fill and sounds understated even though he's laying a groove with Wyman that the rest of the band dances upon.

It's the groove. You have to listen for the groove and follow what the rest of the band are doing with it to grasp the power of the album. It's the sort of thing Booker T and the MGs mastered, get the groove moving and hang on for the duration. This is much more raw than Booker T and the MGs and this was the essence of the Stones as the decade closed. Raw.

Pure brilliance.

Hoveround with the devil

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:29:00 +0000

So, it sounds like a new Van Halen album is really in the works. Dear Lord, all I can hope for is that they will go back to Eddie's "Brown Sound" and cast aside maturity and wisdom to the wind. No reason to suddenly grow up on us boys, no reason to experiment. Just go with the old formula and be happily done with it.

In the early 80's I genuinely admired Joe Strummer. A serious minded muckraker of Strummer's level was always a good tool to keep handy, especially in an uncertain time. Some goals and heroes should set a high standard and The Clash fit that bill nicely in those early Reagan years.

Van Halen, on the other hand, was pure teenage boy ecstasy. A generation earlier a boy of my age may have fantasized about running away from home to join the circus. In my age the fantasy was being kidnapped by Van Halen with their intent of corrupting you with loud music, illicit substances and teased hair, gum smacking rock chix (yes, with the "x").

They were everything I wasn't. I was shy, introverted, and as naive as the day was long. They certainly weren't any of those things. They were loud, smart-assed and about as serious as a 1950's Archie comic book. They were one of the last thing adults wanted us to listen to and that made the fruit so much sweeter. We weren't going to make a new religion after their image, or even a lifestyle. Just drop the needle on Diver Down or VHII and for a brief while you could live vicariously through them.

Looking back on those horrible, hormone-driven teenage years, one thing I can now see clearly with the benefit of 30+ years distance is that you can be pure with your listening tastes at that age. You don't need to reconcile the contradictions of having Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones and Rush lined up in your meager LP crate. You didn't need to worry what someone else might think if you had the new Journey LP in your collection. All it took was for word to get around that you had a copy of Iggy Pop's The Idiot and people would bring you a new Maxell tape still in the wrapper, asking nicely for a copy even if you were a Grade A high school screwball.

Just a few years later, just a few short years past puberty and into the stages of early adulthood and things would drastically change. In the eyes of some Van Morrison would be acceptable in your collection, Van Halen would not. You had to learn how to stash certain records when certain people would visit.

Diamond Dave isn't going to bring out the ass-less chaps again and there will be no more feathered hair. Eddie's even got short hair now, and a new life post cancer. Michael Anthony won't be harmonizing with Eddie either. We can't go back to 1981, but we can at least get a little taste of what we once had. The good things we had. Here's hoping for the brown sound and at least one more good laugh.

Image from Van Halen News Desk.com - http://www.vhnd.com/2011/09/09/caption-this-photodavid-lee-roth-at-the-us-festival/

Daydream of Birdland

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:28:00 +0000

A few years ago Bob Dylan was questioned by police in New Jersey after they received a report of a suspicious person peeking into the windows of an empty house. When asked why he was roaming around in a residential neighborhood, Dylan responded "I wanted to take a walk." Dylan is still out there, roaming and making music, and chances are that house in Jersey is still unsold.

2011 saw the breakup of REM and Sonic Youth. I read a number of message boards after REM's announcement and with jaded eyes I read post after post praising the band...for calling it a day. I don't know why so many of us think this way but at some point the bands we love, or at least tolerate when their efforts become less inspired, seem "old" and we want them to go away.

Does it really matter that REM would probably never make another "Reckoning" or "Automatic For The People"? Not really, as long as they were working and creating new music, wasn't that enough? Maybe, maybe not. There is Dylan though, he's still out there. Peeking into windows in New Jersey.

Sonic Youth's breakup is less like a retirement. The best description of Sonic Youth's music that I ever heard was from one of my old friends. He said "I'm not epileptic, but their music makes me feel like I am, and that isn't bad." Shortly before they announced the band was breaking up, we learned that Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon had separated. In light of divorce, a band breaking up is trivial.

The part of my brain that controls stupid behavior reacts to such news by saying, "This means Kim Gordon is available." That same part of my brain follows up with "Lot of good that does me...we don't live in the same town." That stupid part of my brain is also found in other people when they are glad to see a long-standing band break up. I can't really explain it in any other way.

I think I was 19 when I first read On the Road. Back then I didn't know who George Shearing was, but it was obvious how smitten Kerouac was with him. Shearing was a total mystery to me but I understood what Kerouac felt when he described seeing Shearing perform. I had similar experiences already, that feeling of being in the presence of some kind of perfection. Or was it a feeling of peeking into a window, seeing something miraculous on the other side?

In all the Shearing obituaries I read in 2011, none made note of Kerouac's lyrical praise of Shearing. It is a shame, actually. Source inspiration so strong that it sends a writer into a transcendent state is never to be taken lightly. REM and Sonic Youth are no longer with us in the figurative sense, George Shearing in the literal sense. There are albums and interviews and assessments left to mark their place. The vibe of their time of brilliance is, however, gone; and with it is the true explanation for what they did and why they did it. Kerouac left a template for decoding any mystery of their music.

Dylan is still out there though, he's peeking in windows.

A Day In Their Life

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:36:00 +0000

Few things go hand in hand as well with music as books about music? I currently have a small selection of nice music themed books on sale in my eBay store for your choosing. I have to say that music biographies are a very strong seller for me and they are hard to keep in stock. I'm adding new inventory when I run across something nice, so if you are interested in seeing what my current selections are I'd suggest you visit regularly.

A Drink With Shane MacGowan A wonderful biography of MacGowan written by his long-time partner, Victoria Clarke. The structure of the book is more like a long conversation with MacGowan rather than a chronological telling of his life. It's very easy to get lost in Shane's words and I often found myself "hearing" his voice as I read his words. You can almost hear his sly laughter in many of the stories. An excellent biography that probably has more in common with Cash than the average music biography.

Do I Come Here Often? Black Coffee Blues Pt. by Henry Rollins, signed.

I've been a fan of Rollins since the 80's and I think his writing is somewhat overlooked. I would love to see some of his mid-80's magazine work published again, especially the back page articles he did for Spin Magazine in it's earliest days. One of the old back issues that I still have in my collection features his article about Madonna and the music industry titled, "Desperately Seeking Something"

He had a great energy in his writing that was a definite carry-over from his Black Flag days and from living in the tool shed behind Raymond Pettibone's parents house.

Blown Away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties by A.E. Hotchner

Hotchner's book does one thing exceptionally well that I feel is overlooked. He is able to capture the darkness that seems to envelop rock and roll musicians who suffer an untimely, early death. Whether Brian Jones tempted his own fate of "death by misadventure" or if there was a conspiracy involved, what is very clear is the dark undercurrent in his life at the time of his death.

While Blown Away is less stylistic than the writings of John Gilmore, the tone and subject matter are very much in his area. I've also found the book to be a good companion piece to the Maysles documentary "Gimme Shelter".

To check out more of my book offerings on eBay, click here

How do you do business with a man who has no door?

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:45:00 +0000

Running an online business from a big city is relatively easy once you get the hang of things. Running an online business from a small, remote town? Tricky on even the best of days.

Life can throw a fork-in-the-road at you and this past spring my fork became a narrow single lane path with no place to turn around. Now, here I am. In a small mountain town trying to adjust after so many years living a life in Atlanta.

This has been an enormous learning experience as I've had no other choice but to adjust to the circumstances and find a way to make things work. Little things take on a new dimension. Run out of basic office supplies? Unless I want to consume an hour or two of my day to make a trip to a bigger town, I have no other choice than ordering these things online or hitting up the local Super Wal-Mart.

Even essentials like looking for good, new inventory is a challenge for me now as the nearest mid-sized city is an hour's drive away, in Chattanooga. Yard sales are very hit or miss and become an all day event with a half tank of gas being burned just getting "there and back".

Little tricks to get around these obstacles can be learned, and I believe I'm adjusting relatively well to the new way of doing things, but it is depressing because the changes are so drastic and fundamental in nature. Uprooting is harsh, regardless of the circumstances.

Still, I keep working and in many ways the very act of selling records is making this sea-change in life slightly less difficult. There are new records to play grade and filling my workspace with music brings ideas and hope and purpose. It isn't all gloom, there are small pleasures with the changes.

A "line" at the Post Office now means one or two people in line in front of me and that's a "bad" day. As friendly as the postal workers could be in Atlanta, it's still no match for small town postal workers. My local Post Office was constructed in 1937, very old-timey. The entrance is an old wood and glass vestibule and the lobby prominently displays a large mural that was painted as part of the New Deal/WPA programs.

My work area at home is setup so that I can gaze to my left where there is a double window and see a long mountain ridge that is part of the Chattahoochee National Forest. It's delightfully absurd to look outside, lost in noisy chaotic music, and see that glorious mountain view. It's also quite calming to have a classical LP playing and look out the window to see hummingbirds feeding just feet away.

At night I can drive up to the top of the ridge, pull onto the shoulder of the road and look north to Chattanooga. Stepping outside my Jeep I can see the lights of the city glowing 40 or so miles away. On nights with a full moon I can see the valleys and hills from that vantage point. I've done this a few times in the months since I've moved, usually late at night when there is no traffic and when I need to think.

I think about the city. I think about Atlanta. I think about what is gone and what is yet to come. Regrets and good memories come and go, always in pairs, moments I can't let go of and the ones that won't let go of me. Each time I leave the ridge I want to drive south to Atlanta instead of heading north. That moment in time is gone, and for now, I have records to listen to.

Life changes. Finding a better way isn't always possible but I am trying to find a new way.

Back in the saddle again?

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:21:00 +0000

My God, two years have passed without posting to this blog. I would love to write off the lapse to laziness and apathy but these things are always more complex. I'll settle with apathy in this case. It seems easiest to explain.

Nothing of a planned nature brought me to log onto blogger this morning, no epiphany, no incredible live show last night to inspire and bring me back to the living. Just an odd case of Musical Ear Syndrome.

What is Musical Ear Syndrome? It is auditory hallucination. Having a song or songs stuck in your head and you can't make it stop. In my case it was waking up this past Friday (or was it Thursday or Saturday?) with a melody in my head, something that felt familiar but I just couldn't remember where it was from. No lyrics, just the music. Washing my hands, I heard the melody. Writing an email, could hear a chord change. Walking my dog, vaguely recalled part of the bridge. Trying to fall asleep, impossible because the chorus was in my head on a loop. Do that for a few days, at Christmas no less, and you will seriously question your sanity.

The mystery was solved this morning as the chorus again ran through my mind while I made coffee. Words came like a silver thread, "Mighty Joe Moon can't prevent what is heaven sent". Major "a-ha! moment. I remembered it was a song and the name of an album by Grant Lee Buffalo. I pulled the CD out of a box I had packed away last spring when I moved, and as I stood there and looked at the cover art, I wondered how long it had been since I listened to this album. 1994? 1995? When? I honestly can't remember. Odd how these things happen.

In a short while I'm going to sit down with my coffee and get re-acquainted with this album. What I do remember was that "Mighty Joe Moon" and "Fuzzy" had a very strong impact on me around 1993-94. They were calming and grounding during a noisy period of living. Fond is the emotion I feel.

Maybe my apathy has been nothing more than another noisy period?

Girls! Girls! Girls! #1 - Malaguena by The Three Suns

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:39:00 +0000

Malaguena by The Three Suns, RCA Victor, LPM-1220. 1956 release date, David Hect cover photo.

While the Living Stereo imprints of The Three Suns recordings may be in higher demand, I have to admit a certain fondness for the under-rated but more common mono recordings, especially first pressing monos.

For sale in G/VG+ condition, 1S/1S pressing.

Drive the Neighbors Mad #1 - German beer drinking songs

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:35:00 +0000

"Jubel, Trubel, Heiterkeit!" (Rejoicing, Excitement, Amusement!) by The Rough Chapel Choir of the January Seamen. Europa Records.

Wild, noisy and raucous German sea shanties and beer drinking songs. This is like the old Oscar Brand albums, with less restraint and apparently a lot more booze. The cover alone is worth the price of admission. Crank this puppy and I will guarantee that your neighbors will never look at you the same way again. For sale in VG/EX condition.

Collegiate Albums #1 - The Princeton Tigertones

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:24:00 +0000

The Princeton Tigertones, 1961 - 1962 ensemble, private pressing. Cover art by MacMurray Press, NY.

For sale on eBay in VG/VG+ condition.

Fine Art Covers #1

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:21:00 +0000

Martinu Symphonies Nos. 3, 4 & 5. Perormed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conduted by Vaclav Neumann. Supraphon Records, 1979. Cover art: painting by Jan Zrzavy

2LP set for sale on eBay EX/EX condition.

Synth Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:59:00 +0000

As dated as the sound is I still have a fondness for synthesizer music. If anything, the very fact that the sound is dated may be one of the most appealing aspects I find in the sound and structure of synthesizer based music. It doesn’t matter if it’s the experimental works of Wendy Carlos, the symphonic leanings of Vangelis or the crisp sound that Jim Goodwin brought to The Call; I still enjoy listening to it. It may bring back memories of parachute pants and chintzy MTV safe videos to a lot of people but there are much more than a handful of works from the era that still sick out as listen-able examples.

The soundtrack for the film “Chariots of Fire” may have brought Vangelis’ name to the consciousness of the most casual of listeners but one other soundtrack and several of his studio recordings stick out as pure brilliance in the genre. The soundtrack for “Blade Runner” is in a class all it’s own for synth driven soundtracks of the 80’s. It’s sound is less reactive to the visuals and more moody and descriptive of the emotional undertones of the film. His 1975 recording “Heaven and Hell” is instantly recognizable to anyone who has seen Carl Saga’s mini-series “Cosmos”. Other than maybe the members of Tangerine Dream, I can’t think of any other musician who found the synthesizer as limitless of a medium for composing and performing music as he has.

Speaking of Tangerine Dream, it’s hard to imagine that anyone has been as harmed more than they have by ill-classified genre association. To this very day if you walk into a store looking for their music you’ll have to look in the New Age section. It’s a real shame as they have truly been innovators in the area of electronic music. “Phaedra”, “Stratosfear”, “Ricochet”, and “Rubycon” are amazing examples of their 1970’s work and comprise an excellent choice when listing multi-album runs of brilliance from a band or performer.

Jim Goodwin of The Call probably had the most interesting and approachable synthesizer work of the 80’s. If it is possible to call his work “organic”, that’s how I would describe it. Unlike so many synthesizer players of the era he didn’t rely on sequencers and I think this gave his work a sense of life and a feeling that it was breathing. During The Call’s recording life I happened to live in several different cities that had strong college music scenes and one of the few common threads in all those towns was an appreciation for them on each campus. I find it puzzling to this day that they did not inspire more college bands and artists.

Yes, there were bad moments. Van Halen and ZZ Top may have found new fans when they used the synth sound, and it’s hard to not wonder just how strong their synth “enhanced” songs would sound today without the damn thing. The Human League and a host of other pop artists blended the sound with their fashion sense and it’s almost impossible to justify just what in the world a lot of us were thinking. We did have Prince turning the synth into something that funk could be played on jut as easily as a guitar with a wah pedal, and Depeche Mode blended dance and rock in ways that only New Order had been able to do before.

Every decade of pop and rock seems to have a common or several common sounds that make the time capsule identifiable almost immediately. Whether it’s the echo of a Sam Phillips produced Sun recording, the four-on-the-floor beat of 70’s disco or the detuned guitar distortion of the decade we are in the final months of as I write; every era has it’s own sound and it’s own vibe.

Here are some recommended synth driven recordings for you to look for:

Heaven and Hell by Vangelis

Reconciled by The Call

Controversy by Prince

Phaedra by Tangerine Dream

Switched on Bach by Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos

Our Musical Rosetta Stone

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:57:00 +0000

I have to admit feeling more than a bit blindsided by the public and media reaction following the death of Michael Jackson. The train wreck hype of his life, that has been present for most of the last two decades, had jaded me, and I’m not very proud of that fact. The fundamental reason for his fame, his immense talent, became nothing but a whisp of a memory that was overwhelmed by the increasingly erratic public behavior we were so accustomed to seeing. For me the last week has been an interesting look back in time and remembering exactly what changed and how it changed when Michael Jackson released albums.

My memory process pulls up names and events in chunks of time, like little macro-eras, complete with central moments and bookend moments that frame the memory like an opening and closing chapter. I can remember “Off The Wall” very well from the time it was released at the end of 1979. The summer before was all about Supertramp’s “Breakfast In America” and the closing memory of that macro-era is of “The Game” by Queen. In between there was Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and a new Paul McCartney and Wings album. The words on everyone’s lips that winter were, “Little Michael is growing up.”

Back then a lot of us only bought albums of whatever genre we mainly listened to and liked. We rarely bought outside that one chosen genre and that was our musical direction. If you were a rocker, you bought rock albums; R&B folks bought R&B albums. If you started buying jazz it meant you were becoming a jazz fan and you were building your new collection. If you liked a song from a different style of music, you bought it on 45. “Off The Wall” was one of those rare albums that had the credentials to make folks buy an LP outside their chosen area.

“Off The Wall” didn’t have just a simple, straight-forward crossover appeal; it had this feeling about it that it was a completely self-realized creation at that moment in time. The artist, however, was still finding out who he was and this was obvious in the joy of each song. This was exciting and new and fresh at a time where the music industry itself seemed to have something simmering just under a boil in all areas.

For me the next two years were a part of that huge indulgence of music that comes with entering your mid-teenage years. By time “Thriller” was released in 1982 I was 16 years-old, and my tastes had begun to turn toward the wilder side of rock; but it was tempered by a great interest in pop and rock classics of the preceding 20 years. The Dead Boys, The Clash and The Ramones were equally welcomed and loved in my collection alongside The Beatles, Buddy Holly and The Beach Boys. I understood that the present is based on the works of the past; therefore they are all connected and to love one you would more than likely love the other. It was easy for me to reconcile those divergent sounds into one cohesive image of what Rock and Roll was all about.

Late 1982 was a revelation and a moment where I experienced a paradigm shift. It first came from reading the stunning reviews of Prince’s groundbreaking album, “1999”. Nervous about buying outside my comfort zone I decided to go ahead and take the risk and I bought it. By time “Thriller” hit the record stores just a matter of a few short weeks later I was seriously blowing my mind on Prince’s guitar and synth funk masterpiece. My ideas of what kind of music I liked and exactly why I liked it were being challenged on levels I had never considered. Then the Motown 25 special aired and my opinions got a lot fuzzier, very quick.

That TV special was an event that could be the central point in a book about that time and that moment in music. You had to live it to understand it. Jackson already had a hit with “Billie Jean” but his performance became the starting point of everything changing. I finally bought “Thriller” based on that live performance. The album did not have the same effect on me that “Off The Wall” had just a few years earlier but it did something just as important that still has a huge impact on my musical tastes today.

The album was wonderful to listen to. What I mean is that I used to sit down and actually listen to music when I was a teen. I put on an album and sat down in front of the speakers and intently listened to what was playing, trying to understand every aspect of it, often dissecting the structure of the songs and the album itself. Thriller was an absolutely beautiful album to listen to from start to finish. It was as rich and polished as anything done by The Beatles or Pink Floyd. In between the lush production was heavy funk with the angular edges taken off so that the very essence of what makes funk work could be understood and heard. There were heavy dance beats pinning down lovely pop arrangements. There were great melodies flowing over R&B grooves. It was like a 101-style course for R&B appreciation, disguised under the glitter and shine of rock and pop.

Between Prince’s aggressive punk/funk and Jackson’s melodic pop/soul; a new seedling took root in my musical tastes. I was not alone in this revelation.

The very look and sound of the R&B charts changed immediately after these two albums. It suddenly became full of artists who looked like Prince but sounded like Michael Jackson and vice-versa. A lot of people have pointed to MTV’s airing of Michael Jackson’s videos as the point that changed how white suburban kids listened to music, but the point must be made that if the music itself had not been so appealing and so accessible and so undeniably good, the airing of those videos would have been fruitless. There was substance behind this.

What took root from Michael Jackson’s music in the 80’s was an acceptance of black music, by whites, to a depth that no one had been able to achieve before. As wonderful as The Supremes were, as brilliant as the Jazz greats of the 20th century were and as profound as Stevie Wonder was; no one had opened the door to black music as wide for white kids as Jackson had. And no one had been as welcomed by white America as Michael Jackson was. Even Lionel Ritchie moved on to a pure pop solo career that found him with a slew of fans as white and as middle of the road as you can imagine. Prince became a movie star in his own right, his musical career growing to heights unforeseen that December of 1982 when “1999” hit the record store shelves. Michael was in a category all to his self.

Just a few short years after Thriller became an almost obligatory album one had to have in their collection, we saw the emergence of Run DMC and before they even teamed up with a down-on-their-luck Aerosmith, white kids from the ‘burbs were buying their album too. The decade ended with Anthrax and Public Enemy touring together and playing before insane crowds of white and black kids, both grooving on the wild mix of hardcore rap and hardcore metal. It wasn’t long before Rap and Hip-Hop were fully embraced by white, teenage America; who are now twenty and thirty-something America and still in love with the music of black America.

Sade, Whitney Houston and Michael’s sister Janet also joined the list of black artists who ruled the R&B and Dance charts in the 80’s and enjoyed massive success on the Top 40 radio stations as well. Jackson tuned the ears of white America to better accept what was coming. Without him, everything changes.

I think Michael Jackson’s legacy to the public at large will, for many years to come, be about his music. For me his legacy will be that he was the artist who smashed all preconceived notions that white kids and white adults had about R&B music. He broke down barriers not only of race, but also of creative expression as he merged R&B with Rock and Pop in ways that had not been done before and certainly not as widely accepted before. He gave white and black kids the chance to listen to the other side of the wall of music in a way that had never been done before.

The experience of watching his life apparently spin out of control over the past 20 years has numbed us to what he actually achieved. That achievement is staggering in the context of how our listening habits changed, either directly or indirectly, because of his music. The real tragedy I sense right now is realizing that it has taken his passing to make me understand how his work changed the very nature of modern popular music. And I consider myself a music fan. He was, in essence, our musical Rosetta Stone.

May his soul rest in peace.

As years go by

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:04:00 +0000

As different as Stiv Bators and Jeff Buckley were from one another the dates of their untimely passing are only 7 years and a handful of days apart. Bators died in Paris after being hit by a car on June 2nd, 1990; Buckley drowned in the Wolf River on May 29th, 1997; both just 10 years apart in age at the time of their death. They’ve been on my mind the past few days and it’s made me consider the emphasis placed on a rock and roll artist’s legacy and how it seems that we rock fans have always had our eye on the past.

Thanks to American Idol a few years ago, Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” saw a great deal of interest and I was glad to see this happen. I don’t know whether or not his album “Grace” stuck in the consciousness of people who downloaded the single but I hope it did. I’d hate to think his ultimate legacy is just of a tragic figure that gained lasting notoriety after his death because of a TV talent show. We only have one full studio album and a variety of studio, live and demo tracks to play “What if?” with Buckley’s legacy, which gives the man and his work a fragile nature.

I still remember when Stiv Bators entered my consciousness around the summer of 1982. The Dead Boys had already broken up and The Lords of the New Church were his new band. Between the Dead Boys album “We Have Come For Your Children” and his wildly fun performance in “Polyester”, Stiv was iconic and seemed to be proof positive to me that there was another world out “there”, waiting for me beyond my small town upbringing.

Finding albums and learning about non-mainstream performers was not an easy task for me and millions of other kids who were of my age group and didn’t grow up in an urban area. Buying new albums meant a 30 mile drive to the closest record store and if they didn’t have something it meant getting them to special order it or going to mail order firms that advertised in the back of Rolling Stone. I used to order from the mail order firms whenever I could afford it. The Dead Boys were someone I did order.

Besides having the thrill of the chase in finding these albums there was a necessary need to actually learn about who was out there recording albums, and learning about the artists of the past who had helped bring rock to it’s current place in time. It wasn’t enough to simply know who inspired the flavor of the month; you had to find the source, of the source, of the source of inspiration. Then you had to pick what would give you the definitive sound of the originator based on what you had read across various sources and buy it. Most of that stuff was way too expensive for a 1980’s teenager wallet but as time passed we all found our way to it; sometimes by trading tapes, a friend’s collection or at used record stores.

Earlier this year I heard Buddy Holly’s music described as “quaint” while his legacy was discussed on the 50th anniversary of his death. The description gave me a chill and it seemed unfair to summarize his groundbreaking creations as nothing more than quaint. When I hear the word quaint I think of pot-bellied stoves and buggy whips and not of the positive and secondary definition of quaint, I don’t think I am the only one who feels that way. Buddy was one of those originators I felt compelled to seek out a quarter century ago, luckily it was in the midst of a rockabilly revival and I was totally fascinated by him and his music.

Being a fan of a musician makes you a kind of gatekeeper of information. Some people will pass by and smirk; thinking your taste in music is horrible. Others will stop and listen to you; some become converts and some will echo your thoughts. As I get older I wonder more and more if the legacy of an artist relies not only on the work but also the loudness of the fans of that work long after the artist has disappeared. Changing tastes in music and the unpredictable nature of what becomes hip in hindsight plays a part. Regardless of how it works I think it’s safe to say that talking about the artist and their work keeps them alive for the next soul who stumbles upon them.

Maybe we should all talk less about what’s wrong with the music industry today and more about what was once right about it. Namely those who came and went; scorching our minds and hearts as they passed.

Talk about a long break

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:12:00 +0000

How long has it been since I updated this blog? Too long. Time to get back in the swing with some random stuff:

Mike Watt has just finished a tour with his Missingmen ( Tom Watson and Raul Morales). The tour was a warm up for recording his latest album, “Hyphenated Man” which took place in New York. It’s good to see Watt back in the van and spreading his word in towns across the nation. Tour diaries from Watt and the Missingmen can be found at Mike Watt’s Hoot Page.

What is up with all the copies of Cool Gabriels that have suddenly appeared on eBay over the past month? The price they are going for in this little glut are surprisingly up from 2008 before the economy sank lik a stone. The biggest seller was a promo copy that went for $511 and one copy is up to $199 with 2 days left of bidding as I write this entry.

From the Synchronicity is fun! files – Last month I happened upon a UK pressing copy of “Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein” while I was out looking for inventory. I decided to keep this one for my personal collection and yesterday I finally got a chance to give it a listen. Side 1 is Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic and The Dave Brubeck Quartet in a 1959 performance of Howard Brubeck’s composition, “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra”. Side 2 is the Brubeck Quartet playing some of Bernstein’s Broadway show compositions. The Bernstein side was pretty aggressive and it was interesting to hear Brubeck’s Quartet follow Bernstein’s direction. The Quartet side is pretty frisky. Desmond’s sax work is very nice and clear. The synchronistic aspect is that later in the day I discovered that Tom Stupen of “If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger..” blog posted the cover photo of this album on the same day I gave it a spin at home. The album has never been released on CD, Amazon offers mp3 downloads for sale of the individual tracks. I recommend you find the LP and keep the flow of the recording going as this is one of those “a sum of It’s parts” type of recording. Taking it apart and listening to it as ethereal files, unconnected, destroys the impact of the album.

Thrift Store Etiquette

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:20:00 +0000

It doesn’t matter what you collect or sell, sooner or later you run into a dealer or collector at a yard sale or thrift store who takes offense because you are buying the stuff that in their own mind, was rightfully theirs to begin with. They are the folks who hover over you as you whittle down your selection, make the occasional sigh or grunt while you pick and choose and finally say the magic words to open their conversation with you, “You’re getting all the good stuff.” It happened to me just this past weekend.

I tend to not look at what other people are picking out of the racks but I do pay attention to what they are putting back. I’ll even move around a person when they are taking a particularly long time in a single bin and come back to it when they have finished. I don’t like it when people reach around me to get their hands in a bin, so I don’t do it to others.

Make the rounds of the usual places long enough and familiar faces can be seen, sometimes you can even wind up bumping into one another as you race from one yard sale to another, trying to get there before the other one does. The next thing you know it’s like a scene out of Death Race 2000 as you scream like a banshee to the next sub-division, searching for those yard sale signs. It never fails that the one you are trying to beat has that perpetual “I’ve been sucking lemons all week long” look on their face.

Thrift stores are a little better as they are stretched out a bit in distance and most folks have their own set routines on what days they hit particular stores, so there is little overlap with other dealers and collectors as long as you don’t go on the weekend. The problem with looking in thrifts is that every one of them put the records and books and children’s toys in the same area. The children’s books always seem to be directly in front of or above the record bins. There are few things as difficult or frustrating as trying to focus on the records in front of you when a half dozen out of control kids are racing around you, grabbing at the records you’ve put aside and yelling like they are in the middle of a corn field in Kansas.

It’s all worth it in the long run. You find the gems some days and walk out empty handed on others. It’s always interesting to see folks browsing and it’s always fun to play “spot the dealer” in each section of the store. Book sellers are easy to spot as they browse the shelves and seem to only pull books with old looking spines. It’s also fun to see a teenager poke around the record bins out of curiosity. It’s even better if they buy something.

I’m all for young folks getting into the record collecting scene and I’ve been very thrilled to see the interest today’s teens are taking with vinyl. Not just because I sell; because music is a wonderful art to have an interest in. Some of these kids might try playing an instrument because of some album they’ve picked up. Some of them might just become life long music lovers. Some of them might become dealers. It doesn’t matter which path music takes them. Music will enrich their life and I’m all for them exploring this world.

So, for the sourpuss dealers and collectors out there, chill out when you are perusing the record bins at Salvation Army or St. Vinnies. There are millions of records to be found and I’m not buying the last known copy of Chet Baker Sings, there are others. You’ll score that “rare as hen’s teeth” record, you’ll find a better condition copy of that album you’ve been trying to upgrade and you’ll get what you want in the long run. As they said in The Godfather, “It isn’t personal. It’s just business.”

I have a few of these “You’re getting all the good records.” purchases from the past weekend up for sale at GEMM:

What’s better than finding the great Oscar Peterson in a thrift store? Finding import copies of Oscar Peterson in a thrift store! I have Peterson’s "Motions & Emotions" up for sale and "Soulful Samaba " (image of this album is at the top of the page).

How about a nice copy of Moby Grape’s "Great Grape" with the shrinkwrap still attached to the cover? I have a serious love for finding still sealed albums but I’m always thrilled to find one where the original owner only slit the shrinkwrap to get at the vinyl inside. Keeps those covers super clean.

For something the budget conscious would like, here is Dave Brubeck’s "Anything Goes!" for just $8.25. Folks, this cover model's legs are worth dropping 8 bucks on. Once again, this copy has the shrinkwrap still attached. The sticker is attached to the shrinkwrap so the cover is still clean and unspoiled. Nice trivia, folks who lived in Georgia back in the 70's and 80's will recognize that sticker. It was from the old chain of stores, Turtle Records. I spent many a Saturday afternoon in the Rome Turtles when I was a teenager.

Six Degrees of Seperation - Debussy to Stiv Bators

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Gilliland) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:10:00 +0000

Let’s take the Six Degrees of Separation meme and push it out a bit. It’s more fun this way and you get to cram more connections in. Let’s go from Claude Debussy to Stiv Bators in six steps and come back around to Debussy in the process and expand on it a bit to see who else ties in.

Today marks the 146th anniversary of the birth of Impressionist composer Claude Debussy. Over time his Suite Bergamasque composition has been boiled down in popular culture to a single point, the Clair de lune movement. Whether the name of the piece rings a bell with you or not, you have more than likely heard it as part of the soundtrack in one film or another. One use of this movement in a film that stands out to me is it’s beautiful and poignant place in The Right Stuff in the scene where dancer Sally Rand performs her fan dance for the astronauts inside the Huston Astrodome.

Two of the more interesting pieces of casting for The Right Stuff was the wonderful Levon Helm as “Jack Ridley” and who’s voice was also used as the film’s narrator. I’ll be posting an entry about Helm in the future as a part of an upcoming series of posts about musicians turned actors. Levon is one of my all-time favorites and he’s on my short list of the top 5 drummers in any genre. The other interesting casting choice was the inclusion of musician and actress Jane Dornacker as “Nurse Murch”.

Dornacker had quite an interesting, albiet short career as a musician and singer in various bands during the 70’s. The most notorious of these bands was Leila and The Snakes, who’s most notable release was “Rock and Roll Weirdos”. This album falls into the sub-category for collectors of “Album Cover Nudity”, as the back cover shows the actual back covers (pun intended) of the 3 female members of the band. She also performed on the song “Christopher Columbus” for R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders, a definite item to look for if you are into obscure 78’s or are a collector of underground comix ephemera. As an actress Jane also performed in Sam Shepard’s jazz opera, Inacoma and that links us back up above to The Right Stuff as Shepard played the role of test pilot Chuck Yeager. One of Jane’s other gigs was working with The Tubes during their elaborate stage shows circa 1975 to 1977.

The Tubes; now there is a band with an interesting history and a really good catalog of great pop-rock songs from the 70’s and 80’s. The Tubes did everything from appearing in a porno film (musical performance only) to being the opening band for The New York Dolls (more connections with the Dolls coming further down), Iggy Pop (more connections further down) and Led Zeppelin(yet another connection further down). I’d really like to see some band pull off the porno flick gig and get away with it these days. Some of the best Tubes albums were produced by Todd Rundgren.

Rundgren of course has a career that cannot be boiled down. From The Nazz to Utopia, producing and creating videos; Rundgren has spoiled any attempt to narrow him or his work to an easy to summarize description. He’s one of the true creative individuals of the American rock scene and I’m glad he’s still doing his thing. If there is a way to bring Rundgren down to a least common denominator in pop culture it would have to be through his relationship to actress Liv Tyler and more specificly, her Mother; Bebe Buell.

Buell was the inspiration for the “Penny Lane” character in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous and she was quite the head turner in her younger years. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still an attractive woman but she was a stunner back in the day. Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop and Jimmy Page can be counted among her past boyfriends and of course, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith; the Father of her Daughter, Liv Tyler. Tyler penned the Aerosmith song Mamamine about her, so Bebe’s place in the history of rock goes several layers deep. One of Bebe’s other love interests that rarely gets press today is the late Stiv Bators.

Stiv is the final pivot point in this rambling, winding, Six Degrees of Seperation. Stiv was one of the great characters of the 70’s rock and roll scene in New York City. He also tried his hand at acting and his performance in John Waters’ Polyester ranks very high among my favorite of the stereotypical movie punk rocker performances that we used to see in movies during the late 70’s and early 80’s. The best of these performances in my book was Lee Ving’s wild performance as “Piggy” in Get Crazy (a movie that is in desperate need of a release on DVD/Blue Ray/whatever). Lee Ving…now there is another creature of Rock that needs a posting at a later date or to be a part of a Six Degrees of Seperation, but for now let’s get back to Stiv.

Stiv walked in rare air in NYC during the 70’s. Among the many minor and major bands he was a part one of the most legendary was The Whores of Babylon along with bandmates Dee Dee Ramone and Johnny Thunders. The threads of this post come together again as The Tubes opened for the Dolls, for which Johnny Thunders played guitar, and Stiv lived with Bebe Buell for a while, and she also dated Iggy Pop, and The Tubes also opened for Iggy, and The Tubes were produced by Todd Rundgren and Bebe lived with Todd.

Stiv, like so many other rock and rollers, was not long for this world. In the summer of 1990 he was prowling the streets of Paris, drunk, and was hit by a car. After spending several hours waiting to see a Doctor in the emergency room of a hospital, Stiv tired of it all and left, only to die in his sleep a short time later. Stiv wasn’t buried in Paris like one of his idols, Jim Morrison; but among the musicians who are buried in Paris is Claude Debussy, who himself died in Paris during the infamous Spring Offensive of 1918 in the final months of World War I, with German shells tearing the city to pieces as he lay dying.

For selections of Claude Debussy’s music we can thank the wonderful 1950’s compilations for expanding our choices. You can find full length concert albums for his Symphonies and you can find Clair de lune included on many of the compilation albums by Columbia and Capitol in the early days of stereo recordings. I’m still sorting a few of these compilations and should have them posted at GEMM next week.

The New York Dolls have left us with a huge legacy but only a few vinyl albums for purchase. Check back soon for a few links to vinyl and CD releases in my stores.

For an excellent example of Todd Rundgren’s work with Utopia that I can recommend is Swing to the Right, a scathing response to the political atmosphere of the early 80’s but has a surprisingly enjoyable catchiness to the songs. Swing to the Right will be listed soon so keep checking back.

One of the overlooked albums by Aerosmith is 1985’s Done With Mirrors: http://gillilandrecord.gemm.com/ddc/search.pl?&for_seller=GILLILANDRECORD&&&&&&a_refno=GML190123876 On sale right now for $6.85 in my GEMM store.

A few months back I sold a copy of the Get Crazy soundtrack so I don’t have anything listed for sale relating to that tangent of the post. I do however recommend that if you’ve never seen the movie to take a look around for a VHS copy or at least pick up a good, clean copy of the soundtrack. Between Sparks, Lou Reed and Marshall Crenshaw you have a nice mix of pop-rock from the early 80’s but you also get to hear Fear doing their raucous version of Hoochie Coochie Man. I don’t know what Willie Dixon thought of this version but it’s a real screamer. Fear may be forever remembered as the band that was chased off Saturday Night Live but their album I Love Livin’ in the City should be in your collection if you are exploring the works of early 80’s punk bands.