Rockin' Down the Highway with Paul Grushkin

one month later . . . more ROCKIN' automotive-themed concert posters and an invite to the May 17th Marin-Sonoma Concours

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:42:00 +0000

(above) Jackie Greene, poster by Randy Tuten

(above) poster by Daymon Greulich

(above) poster by Tobias Geye

(above) poster by Scrojo

(above) poster by SteWo (Germany)

(above) poster by Jason McElweenie

(above) poster by Chris Hopewell /Jacknife Studios (England)

(above) poster by Art Chantry

(above) poster by Billy Perkins

(above) poster by Hugh D'Andrade

(above) poster by Victor Marco (Bordeaux, France)

(above) poster by Print Mafia

(above) poster by Craig Horky

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In the midst of all my 24/7 prep for the MARIN ROCKS exhibition, opening in the Fall in downtown San Rafael, I confess to have neglected my blog responsibilities . . . until I found a few spare moments to once again reflect on the abundance of talent contemporary artists bring to the automotive-themed concert-poster arena.

First up is a masterpiece by Randy Tuten, for a Jackie Greene show at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. No one does concert poster lettering better than Tuten, in my opinion. And that's Tuten's own shoebox Ford! Now run, go check out www.rtuten.com.

I post the Black Keys piece in honor of my new book-production editor-partner, Jason Eisinger. Jason and I are doing collaborative editing on Blair Jackson's new book, THE OFFICIAL BOOK OF THE FILLMORES--about the original San Francisco Fillmore, the Fillmore West, the Fillmore East, the new/old SF Fillmore brought back to life after the '89 earthquake, and all the Live Nation Fillmores (Detroit, Denver, Miami, NYC). The book will be published this Fall by Signatures Network (a div. of Live Nation) in partnership with IDW Publishing.

FYI, the Black Keys used to rehearse in Jason's basement when he lived in Ohio.

I don't know much about Tobias Geye, but he sure nailed the Hootenanny '02 poster shown here. Wonderful rhythm and what a lineup!!!

The Scrojo piece is unusual for him . . . he doesn't traffic in automotive-themes usually. But this one should come with its own pair of 3-D glasses. You'll remember Scrojo did the front and back devil-girl / angel-girl cover illustrations for Dennis King's and my ART OF MODERN ROCK. Scrojo is probably the most prolific rock concert poster artist on the planet.

Jason McElweenie recently appeared for the first time at www.gigposters.com. The conception for the old timey wagon-based illo is really right on for Old Crow, in my opinion.

There is nobody rockin' the UK quite like Chris Hopewell and his Jacknife Studio. This is one of three pieces advertising the Eagles of Death Metal. You should check 'em out--powerful and seductive artworks all. Remember the series for Queens of the Stone Age which I showed you here several months ago? Yummy.

Art Chantry is a most distinguished art director, postermaker, poster historian, and gadfly. We met during the production of my ART OF ROCK, back in the mid-1980s. Art suffers no fools, as I learned only too well. This piece is typical of his sense of humor, which often involves turning classic American advertising art on its head.

Some artists need no introduction. Several of Billy Perkins' pieces appeared in ART OF MODERN ROCK and then in ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY. Ol' Perkins continues to be the soul of Austin, TX.

I'ved admired many a Hugh D'Andrade piece done for the SF Fillmore under the art direction of Arlene Owseichik. This one, for Calexico, is emblematic of his style--colorful and spooky in all the right ways.

Who is Victor Marco? What is he doing hot-rodding in Bordeaux, France?

I've shown you many, many Print Mafia posters over the years. Sometimes they hit you over the head with a lead pipe, sometimes they speak with rueful amusement. I liked their entire series for Lucinda Williams, an iconoclastic musician if there ever was one.

Finally, there's Craig Horky, associated with the print/design studio of Burlesque of North America, which is one of modern rock's cutting-edge shops. He's another whose body of work merits a good long look at www.gigposters.com.

HERE'S AN EVENT YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS: the May 17th Marin-Sonoma Concours D'Elegance, to be held at the Marin Civic Center in San Rafael (for which Frank Lloyd Wright designed the buildings). Charlie Goodman is heading up the event--his collection is known all over the world. And among the exhibitors, Sammy Hagar and James Hetfield (Metallica), who are passionate car guys. Charlie and I are working on getting Neil Young's Linc-Volt to the show, along with the '57 Cadillac Biarritz that was the inspiration for Darell Mayabb's cover-art illo for ROCKIN'.

The Concours is the first major car show in Marin in perhaps 25 years. I'll be there autographing copies of ROCKIN' at a special booth, so do stop by and say hello.

Keep rockin' in the free world y'all.

yer ROCKIN' author returns, with the latest automotive-themed rock posters

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:04:00 +0000

above and below: artist: Ken Taylor (Melbourne, Australia)
(below) artist: 8Ball (Austin, TX)

(below) artist Crosshair aka Dan MacAdam

(below) artist Jay Ryan - The Bird Machine Studio (Chicago, IL)

(below) artist Lindsey Kuhn (SWAMP, Denver, CO)

(below) artist Willem Koolvoort for Club Vera (the Netherlands)

(below) artist Mike Martin, Enginehouse13 Studio (Columbus, OH)

(below) artist Jeremy Wilson (Canada)

(below) artist Jim Phillips (Santa Cruz, CA)

Yes, I've been away for several months, taking a brief break from the ROCKIN' blog while other projects matured. And hats off to President Obama. It's all about hope, change, and commitment to making a difference in peoples' lives. U rock, B. My son Jordan (a freshman at Georgetown) was in front of the White House on election night.

I've just completed my sixth book, ART OF CLASSIC ROCK, about the Rob Roth collection of rock music promo posters focusing on the Rolling Stones, Elton John, The Who, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Queen. The publisher is Carlton Books, based in the U.K., and it should be out in time for Xmas '09.

I've also been researching and writing the exhibition MARIN ROCKS for the Marin History Museum. This will open in September, 2009 in downtown San Rafael, CA. It's the first-ever exhibition focusing on the history of rock thru the Marin County lens. Because of Marin's proximity to San Francisco (just across the Golden Gate Bridge), many extraordinary musicians have made Marin their home for decades (or were visitors of note, or recorded major albums there). That would include the Otis Redding ("Dock of the Bay"), Grateful Dead, Carlos Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller, members of the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Co. with Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Narada Michael Walden, Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield from Metallica, Dan Hicks, Huey Lewis and the News, the Sons of Champlin . . . the list goes on. More on MARIN ROCKS shortly.

So I thought to reopen the blog by showcasing some of the car-themed rock posters which were produced in the last several months. These ain't all; many more to share with you in the next blogs.

Atop, the work of Ken Taylor from Melbourne, Australia, widely considered rock's top illustrator now. The first poster is of course of Neil Young's Linc-Volt, about which many of you have read stories in your local newspapers. You can see more of Ken's work at http://www.gigposters.com/ and also make purchases from the linked Beyond the Pale, his poster-publishing company. I gather Neil himself was very pleased.

Next, one of my personal heroes, 8Ball from Austin, TX. A true punk, a real renegade.

Dan MacAdam (Crosshair Studios) did the Conor Oberst poster. You should check out all of Crosshair's work at http://www.gigposters.com/, as Dan does spectacular work involving re-purposed decaying uban architecture. This was his first use of a vehicle, and when I bought my copy I could hardly believe his attention to detail. Simply outstanding! One of my top 10 of the past five years.

Jay Ryan, head of The Bird Machine Studio in Chicago, did the latest in his Flatstock series, this time using a classic racer. Flatstock is "Woodstock for postermakers," and happens twice each year, first at SXSW in Austin, TX (later this month - the 20th such show), and later in the year at Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle.

I met artist Lindsey Kuhn, who runs SWAMP in Denver, while authoring ART OF MODERN ROCK (Chronicle Books, 2004). Lindsey is an accomplished skateboarder and printer. Nothing is too wild for Lindsey to tackle.

Willem Koolvoort's poster for the Dirtbombs at Club Vera in the Netherlands once again emphasizes that automotive-themed rock poster art is not at all confined to the U.S. Club Vera, as a youth organization, dates back well over a hundred years, and for the past fifty years has been one of the Netherland's premiere clubs.

I don't know anyone more hard-core-rock than Mike Martin (with the possible exception of our buddy, rock poster artist Stainboy Greg Reinel from Orlando), and everytime I visit Mike's home in Columbus, OH I remember why I got started in this car-rock thang. Because . . . it rolls.

Canada's young Jeremy Wilson is one to watch. Just sayin'.

Finally, Jim Phillips may be known to many of you because he's synonomous with the skateboarding industry. He drew the famous screaming hand logo. Jim's been a close friend ever since the days of ART OF ROCK, and it's always a pleasure to acknowledge his work. This particular piece, for Zero, at the famous Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, is quite exemplary of his automotive style.

Lots to update you about in the weeks ahead. As Neil tells us, keep on rockin' in the free world.

a new ROCKIN' blog feature_random best car-and-rock photos

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:24:00 +0000

(above) Ricky Nelson's 1958 Cadillac Brougham
(above) possibly the Red Barchetta from Rush's song of the same name,
here the 1958 166MM (Mille Miglia) Touring Barchetta

(above) from the movie 8-MILE (2002); (left to right) Mekhi Phifer,

Eminem, Evan Jones, and De'Angelo Wilson

(above) Janis Joplin and her Porsche

(above) Bruce Springsteen and his Corvette,

Haddonfield, NJ, 1978; photo by Frank Stefanko

c Frank Stefanko, shown by permission

(above) Charlie Ryan, who wrote the original HOT ROD LINCOLN,

with his own--legendary also--cherry-red hot rod

(above) Hank Williams' 1952 Cadillac, the car he died in,

on display at the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, AL

photo by Dave Martin (AP)

(above) Ken Kesey's second FURTHUR (or FURTHER) Merry Pranksters bus

photo c Richard Blair

(above) Jose Pasillas, drummer from Incubus,

with his 1999 Ford F150

(above) The Kingston Trio, Mill Valley, CA, 1963;

photo by Lisa Law

photo c Lisa Law, shown by permission

(above) Neil Young, rockin' down Skyline Blvd.

photo by Danny Clinch

photo c Danny Clinch, shown by permission

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Since beginning work on ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY back in 2004, I've had a keen eye out for really outstanding rock-and-cars photos. I aim here to share some the best I've seen.

This will be a regular feature on this blog, going forward, so I hope everyone enjoys these as much as I do. Many came into sight after the book was published in 2006; some have been lingering in my archive, unfortunately too low-res to have included in the book, such as Ginny Winn's shot of Gram Parsons, shown at bottom left.

I've many photographer friends, as you can imagine. My own work as an author has been inspired by the craft, dedication, and inspiration demonstrated by Lisa Law, Richard Aaron, James Haefner, Frank Ockenfels III, Michael Marks, Charles Peterson, Greg Bojorquez, Bruce Steinberg, and particularly (in no particular order) Jim Marshall, Paul Natkin, Robert Alford, Joel Bernstein, Jay Blakesberg, Danny Clinch, Steve Coonan of The Rodder's Journal, Henry Diltz, Glen E. Friedman, Lynn Goldsmith, David Perry, Neal Preston, Ken Regan, and Pamela Springsteen--to name just a handful.

I hope, going forward, to credit each and every photographer whose work I display here. Sometimes I just don't know who took the photo, so if anybody out there knows, let me know pronto and I'll make the addition / correction.

P.S. I plan to blog soon about the red Barchetta, and the Cadillac Brougham, so keep comin' back for more.

Enjoy!

ROCKIN' with David Coverdale and Whitesnake (oh, and Tawny Kitaen too)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:10:00 +0000

Whitesnake. That's David Coverdale top right.

(above and all below) Tawny Kitaen in a highly memorable role.
Above, the incredible opening moment when she flips left to right.

I've been researching rock-and-cars video singles as we get closer and closer to turning ROCKIN' into film and television. Suddenly I remembered the Whitesnake video for "Here I Go Again," with David Coverdale singing and Tawny Kitaen (left and above) . . . dancing. Or, rather, slipping around rather provocatively on the hoods of two Jaguars, one of which was Coverdale's.

This was back in 1987, when Coverdale and crew re-recorded "Here I Go Again" for their eponymous 1987 album WHITESNAKE (the original version was released as more of a blues song on their 1982 album SAINTS & SINNERS). The re-recorded song soared to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on October 10, 1987 and number 9 on the UK Singles Chart on November 28.

Personally, I think it had something to do with Tawny's . . . uh, performance.

The music video was directed by Marty Callner, who directed most of Whitesnake's videos in the 1980s. As one website put it, "this '80s sex kitten, Tawny Kitaen, ushered many a boy into puberty by writhing around in lingerie on the hoods of the two cars." Amen, brother. I can only imagine what it was like seeing it for the first time, as Kitaen comes into view immediately as the video begins, doing a full left to right round-off across the two hoods. Yeah, baby!

Kitaen would become Coverdale's wife for a couple of years, and she appeared in several other of their videos, including "Is This Love" and "Still of the Night." They divorced in 1991. Before Whitesnake, she had been associated with the burgeoning "glam metal" scene of the '80s, as she dated Ratt guitarist Robin Crosby. Her legs appeared on the cover of Ratt's self-titled EP sporting black stockings and black pumps, pictured with white rats. Then, in ripped-up clothes, she appeared on the cover of Ratt's OUT OF THE CELLAR.

After her divorce from Coverdale, she was romantically linked at various times to Tommy Lee, O.J. Simpson, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart. She married Anaheim Angels pitcher Chuck Finley in 1997, but had a difficult personal time for many years. In 2002, she was arrested in Newport Beach, CA and charged with domestic abuse and battery for attacking Finley while the two were driving home. Kitaen reportedly kicked Finley several times with her high-heeled boots (shades of the Whitesnake video shown above), leaving visible marks. Finley filed for divorce three days afterwards. Actually, she's had a pretty active run as a television actress.

What we remember from all this (besides Kitaen's big, big hair and lithe body) is the sheer astonishment brought forward by '80s cars-and-rock videos like this. Here are just a few of the 5,265 comments (thus far) accompanying the continuing YouTube broadcast of "Here I Go Again":

mikeandjonnie (1 year ago): "this is quite possibly the greatest song ever made."

ThisWasTheLastName (1 year ago): "BTW, if you pause at 2:19, you can clearly see a nipple!"

enzo454 (1 year ago): "Wow, for me, "Here I Go Again" is the best song ever from Whitesnake. It's a good song to [get it on with] a pretty girl. And, yeah, I did it."

PhoenixCelticEnigma (1 year ago): "They aren't glam. They're hair metal."

nascar9141 (1 year ago): "I never lived through the '80s. I'm only 14. But I love this music and this is my favorite band."

morningsnoopy (1 year ago): "I used to love this song, but the video [now] makes me cringe from the "look at me" redhead and too much shaggy perm going on here, but, hey, it was the '80s, and so I dedicate this to the old crowd I hung with."

friskydingo2007 (1 year ago): "Tawny Kitaen dancing on ritzy cars. It just doesn't get better than that!"

mernmernstein (1 year ago): "Check out the image at 2:18 of this clip. Are my eyes mistaken or did my day just improve??"

javier855 (1 year ago): "Hard rock at its finest."

PhantomsAngel1870 (1 year ago): "Ummmmmm . . . the only reason I watch this vid . . . that damn David Coverdale can work wonders with a mic . . ."

berfolley (1 year ago): "This band is still brilliant. I'm 23 and love them. My Mom loved them when she was younger."

rrtt11 (1 year ago): "This was a fantastic song when it came out in '87, and I was a senior in high school. Saw them and others at the Texas Jam--Boston, Aerosmith, Whitesnake, Poison, and Tesla. Great, great day, except it was over 100 degrees on the field. I miss the '80s."

Guffstang (1 year ago): "I saw these guys live in '87 with Great White opening. Tawny was there on the side of the stage. Such good times!!"

Hunkola (1 year ago): "Oh baby . . . Roll down the windows and crank this baby loud and proud 'cuz it's a freakin' anthem for the ages!!!!"

omega5959 (1 year ago): "My uncle used to listen to Whitesnake and he told me they are one of the coolest bands of all time."

BritishBobbie (1 year ago): "I'm nearly 16 and my god I'm in love with the '80s. I mean, Dylan, Dire Straits, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, and Springsteen. Where the heck is that kind of talent these days?"

millionspiders (1 year ago): "I love this song. I just hate that my Mom won't let me listen to it in her car."

nickmaroudas (1 year ago): "Tawny is like the sexiest woman to ever dance on a car. Man, she is fine."

bossford1 (1 year ago): "There is nothing like '80s videos!!! The '80s were the best time in my life!"

Say no more, boys. Gotcha loud and clear. This vid's for the ages. I will remember that!

Best ROCKIN' automotive-themed concert posters for September '08

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:50:00 +0000

(above) RANCID, by the Firehouse
(above) NICK CAVE, by the Firehouse
(above) PERTH DANCE MUSIC, by Ed Shepherd (Australia)

(above) MELVINS, by Bobby Dixon

(above) SOCIAL DISTORTION, by Jimbo Phillips

(above) CONOR OBERST, by Print Mafia

(above) COLUMBUS DUO, by Adam Bogusiak (Lodz, Poland)

(above) STEREOLAB, by Matt Terich

(above) DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, by Gary Houston

(above) DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS, by Jeff Wood / Drowning Creek Studios

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As you can readily appreciate, September was a great month for seeing the release of new automotive-themed rock concert posters, as well as one unearthed from Jeff Wood's Drowning Creek Studios archives and one done by Jimbo Phillips earlier this year for Mike Ness' Social Distortion.

But I'd have to say that the silver championship cup goes to the Firehouse, for their two fabulous entries. Sometime later this week I'll be picking up my own copies!

Especially nice to celebrate: posters from Australia and Poland.

Poster lovers and collectors, heads up: the annual poster artists showcase produced by TRPS (The Rock Poster Society) will be held on Saturday, October 11th at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco (10:00 am - 5:00 pm). You'll see Chuck Sperry and Ron Donovan from the Firehouse, Gary Houston (who'll have traveled down from Portland, OR), Jimbo Phillips (who'll have traveled up from Santa Cruz) and one of ROCKIN's all-time heroes, Stanley Mouse--among many other notables.

Many of you will note that Gary's DEATH CAB poster again uses his scratchboard technique that he employed to such great effect on the "State Trooper" full-page meditation in ROCKIN'. That technique also has graced Gary's work for posters he did for Willie Nelson, Alejandro Escovedo, BB King, and other notable musicians.

The featured guest postermakers at the TRPS event will be Malleus, a hugely imaginative design-and-screenprinting collective from Italy, who've just released their first retrospective book, THE HAMMER OF GOD. They also will have a special show the night before at the ArtRock Gallery in San Francisco, and a book signing event at the 540 Gallery (also in SF) the day after, before heading up to Portland and Seattle. Readers of this blog may remember my sharing their snowscene-on-the-street poster done for Sonic Youth, which is absolutely stunning.

It still amazes me, and happily so, that after all this time--forty years after Randy Tuten's Cadillac-centric Led Zeppelin poster produced for Bill Graham for their Fillmore West appearance with Country Joe McDonald--that such imagination can still be brought to bear on automotive-themed rock posters.

one ROCKIN' new book: WHOLE LOTTA LED ZEPPELIN

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:46:00 +0000

(above) Led Zeppelin, London, England, 1968, photo by Dick Barnatt/Redferns

photo courtesy Voyageur Press, used by permission

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A beautiful new book has appeared on Led Zeppelin, full of rare memorabilia and outstanding reminiscence. This would be WHOLE LOTTA LED ZEPPELIN, published by Voyageur Press, and out this Fall. The compiler is Jon Bream, with photos by notable lensmen such as Robert Alford, Jorgen Angel, Adrian Boot, and a ton of others, along with anecdotal and historical contributions from Jim DeRogatis, William McKeen, Jaan Uhelszki, and many others as well. For all fans of this great band, I would regard this as a must acquisition.
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Plus, it has one of my favorite rock and cars photographs, shown above. And, WHOLE LOTTA was co-edited by Dennis Pernu, the editor for ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY. Congrats to all.

a ROCKIN' cover story 'bout rock and cars in Sunday's Washington Post (Style & Arts)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:50:00 +0000

(above) the Style & Arts cover story art which accompanied the

cars & rock piece in the Washington Post this past Sunday 9-7

photo-illustration by Chris Meighan - The Washington Post

Hey, when a reporter does his homework, a great story is possible. All props to Josh Freedom du Lac, staff writer at the Washington Post, for his insightful piece about rock and cars which appeared in yesterday's (Sunday) edition as the cover story in their Style and Arts section.

The thrust of his argument is that songs about cars have lost their way. While that's a matter of perspective (what isn't?), I was happy to shed some light myself, as you'll read below.

Indeed, we have to hope for a resurgence, so that the next generation has their own "Little Deuce Coupe" and "Rocket 88" and will still know what you're supposed to sing about when you go "Racing in the Street."

Herewith, the entire text of "Rollin' On Empty":

Rollin' on Empty: In the World of Rock Music, Songs About Cars Have Lost Their Way By J. Freedom du LacWashington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, September 7, 2008;

"Dude, where's my car song?

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"While you were electronically adjusting your side-view mirrors or being guided by GPS or reading the external temperature gauge or something, a curious thing happened in rock: The car-song trend sputtered and lurched and finally went kaput.

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"According to the diagnostics, those revving automobile engines -- the inspiration for countless rock-and-roll songs, from the Cadillac-Ford race of Chuck Berry's classic "Maybellene" to Bruce Springsteen's rhapsody about "a '69 Chevy with a 396/Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor" in "Racing in the Street" -- have gone silent.

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"They ain't writin' car songs no more," laments Paul Grushkin, author of "Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People That Made Rock Roll."

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"They ran their course; they did their thing," says Brian Wilson, co-author of some of rock's greatest car songs, both for Jan & Dean ("Dead Man's Curve," "Drag City") and his own group, the Beach Boys, who released enough automotive-themed tunes in the 1960s to fill their own gas-'n'-go compilation. Among them: "409," which celebrated Chevrolet's new 409-cubic-inch V-8 engine and opened with a vroom vroom.

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"Never mind that it was apparently a Chevy 348 making all that noise; gearheads were geeked, especially with Mike Love singing about "my four-speed dual quad posi-traction 409" as if he'd just emerged from under the car with grease all over his face.

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"As a genre, rock-and-roll fetishized cars and celebrated car culture from the get-go. Indeed, the ongoing debate over the starting point of rock music usually includes Ike Turner's fuzzed-out 1951 chart-topper, "Rocket 88," a paean to the Oldsmobile 88 on which Jackie Brenston (whose name was on the single instead of Turner's) sang of a "V-8 motor and this modern design/My convertible top and the gals don't mind."

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"A caravan of car songs followed, spanning decades, makes and models, and filling more than a few summer soundtracks, not to mention road-trip mixes.

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"Today, there are still automotive references in popular music, particularly in hip-hop. But they're usually brief mentions that often aren't about cars at all; instead, they're sexual metaphors ("Girl you look just like my cars; I wanna wax it," R. Kelly sings) or status signifiers ("I deserve to do these numbers/The kid that made that deserves that Maybach," Kanye West raps).

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"The few later-model car songs that have been released by brand-name artists aren't actually car songs at all, as with Audioslave's "Getaway Car," a 2002 album track about escaping a relationship, or Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," a 1988 hit about a cycle of poverty and substance abuse.

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"Or they are about cars but aren't paeans: In Cake's "Stickshifts and Safetybelts," from 1996, John McCrea is annoyed with his vehicle, rather than in love with it, because its design seems to be conspiring against him and his female companion. Particularly those bucket seats. "When we're driving in the car," he sings, "it makes my baby seem so far."

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"In country music, when Craig Morgan isn't singing about his combine harvester, trucks are the vehicle of choice, often used to represent something like a companion -- a motorized horse.
So much for the song-length homage to hot rods and luxury cars and the like.

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"Even as Hollywood continues to churn out movies about cars ("Death Race," "Talladega Nights," "Cars," the upcoming "Fast and the Furious" sequel), the trend in rock-and-roll has gone the way of the Oldsmobile and the in-dash eight-track.

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"There were songs in the pre-rock era, of course, such as "Cadillac Boogie" by Jimmy Liggins, along with automotive references by the likes of Hank Williams. But they exploded when the new idiom arrived, with songwriters romanticizing their rides and all that they represented.

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"Back before cars became utilitarian things -- Point A-to-Point B conveyances with computerized everythings powered by $4-a-gallon gas -- they were objects of lust, symbols of liberation and power, the center of the youth movement's sexual universe in post-World War II America. (What happens in the back seat stays in the back seat!)

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"Cars and rock-and-roll defined youth culture, screaming power and freedom and individuality. Cars were celebrated in cinema and on TV, but they were most at home in rock-and-roll.
Loud music and loud machines in which young people listened to that loud music: Of course the twain would meet.

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"The whole obsession of cars in rock music was a reflection of teenage culture," says Bob Merlis, a music publicist and automotive journalist who curated two "Cars and Guitars" exhibits for the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. "The car was a very exotic thing that gave the teenager a place of his own, or her own. It's where you'd go to escape your parents. . . . It was a refuge from square culture and repressive attitudes. It was your own universe where you could have your own social life."

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"To Dean Torrance, cars represented freedom and creative expression. But, he says now, he and Jan Berry weren't thinking about cars quite so deeply in the 1960s, when their group, Jan & Dean, had success with several automotive-themed songs, including "Little Old Lady From Pasadena," a Berry song (co-written by Don Altfeld and Roger Christian) about a Super-Stock Dodge that tore up the quiet streets of Pasadena, Calif.

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"It was just the only other thing we knew anything about," Torrance says from his Orange County home. "We started out writing about boy-girl situations and our surfboards. There had to be something else to write about. What else did we know anything about? Cars!"

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"Cars, especially the American ones, were romanticized, celebrated as shining objects of desire, with their metal-flake paint, red-line tires, sexy lines and all that horsepower. Hubba , hubba.
They were good for getting girls, but also desirable "girls" themselves: In "SS 396" by Paul Revere and the Raiders, the car of the title is referred to as "she."

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"In the early 1960s, Brian Wilson and the rest of the Beach Boys were infatuated with cars -- along with girls and surfing -- and they turned their obsession into a minor industry, with hits including "Little Deuce Coupe" (about a lightning-fast 1932 Ford) and "Shut Down" (detailing a drag race between a Super Stock 1962 Dodge Dart and a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray).

"If Chuck Berry was behind the wheel of the bandwagon, then Wilson was riding shotgun, with his frequent lyrical collaborator, the AM-radio disc jockey Roger Christian, in the back.

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"But Wilson gave up the seat years ago. In a telephone interview, he says he can't remember the last time he came up with a song about automobiles.

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"I was always fascinated by cars," he says. "They made me think of the competitiveness of life. I still like cars, but I don't write about them anymore."

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"Do you blame him?

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"Personal cars circa 2008 tend to be impersonal, ubiquitous and inherently uninteresting weapons of mass environmental destruction. (Your mileage may vary.)

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"Don't bother looking under the hood; you won't find a muse. There's nothing particularly exotic about driving anymore. The new-culture smell is long gone.

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"There's not as much focus on car culture these days," says Merlis, the automotive writer and music publicist whose clients include the noted gearheads and occasional car-song singers in ZZ Top. (His cars include three Studebakers.) "People need cars, they drive them, but they [complain] about putting gas in them. They're so anonymous. The romance is gone.
"What's still there is mostly nostalgic: 'Remember that '57 T-Bird blah blah blah.' Younger people don't relate to that."

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"Says "Rockin' Down the Highway" author Grushkin: "It's still the American prerogative to sing about your car. The problem is, most of the songs about cars were written a while ago. So we're singing about something that now is not your primary vehicle. And with gas being so expensive now, you're not even taking that car -- probably American, hopefully a convertible -- out for a joy ride on a regular basis. It's expensive even to drive down to the Trader Joe's."

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"And besides, writing car-centric songs right now: kind of silly, says Nils Lofgren, whose old band Grin paid tribute to a "Heavy Chevy" on its 1972 album, "All Out."

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"Cars used to be romantic, but nothing's as romantic as it used to be, because there's so much serious stuff going down," says Lofgren, who has performed with Neil Young (a car buff who never really did car songs) and Springsteen (a car buff who did). "With the ominous destruction of mankind, we're all a little distracted."

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"Which isn't to say that car culture has disappeared. NASCAR is one of America's most popular spectator sports, and people are still pimping their rides, on MTV and elsewhere.

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"But it's more of a series of subcultures now: classic hot rods, tricked-out low riders, souped-up Japanese imports that have never held much lyrical appeal in Western pop. Car culture is no longer a part of the mass culture.

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"And yet Grushkin says the relationship between music and cars is as evident as ever, if only for this reason: "Music still sounds great in a car. People will always be driving down the highway, listening to their tunes, beating on the dashboard. . . . It doesn't matter if you're listening to a Wilco song that mentions a car in passing, a rap song, a Brandi Carlile song that was used in a GM commercial or Bruce Springsteen's 'Pink Cadillac.' The beat goes on."

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Now, if you're motivated (or "motorvated," as Chuck Berry might say) cruise on over to the Washington Post's comments section underneath the story, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090501060_pf.html and let 'er rip. Josh du Lac and I'd both be very interested in your viewpoint.

as August ends, a ROCKIN' potpourri of items discovered this summer

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:18:00 +0000

(above) friend and ROCKIN' TV supporter Darrel Burnett

with his sweetie Kelly and Darrel's black & white Thunderbird

(viz: The Delicates' song of the same name)

at the USAF Thunderbirds event in Rockford, IL

(above) finally, a great shot of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' bus,

FURTHUR (also known as FURTHER)

(above) Janette Beckman's shot of RUN DMC
in their hometown of Queens, NY (courtesy Morrison Hotel Gallery)
(above) Commander Cody in Modesto, in the '70s,
with opening act Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs
(handbill art by Chris Frayne--George's brother)
(above) outtake shot of Bob Dylan and then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo;
photo by Don Hunstein, who took the FREEWHEELIN' cover shot

(above) typically nervy handbill art for John Seabury's own band,

Psycotic Pineapple

(above) 2008's never-say-never renegade, Amy Winehouse,

signing autographs, in her car

(above) Green Day, in (their) car, in New Orleans, photo by Danny Clinch

(photo courtesy Danny Clinch)

(above) Muddy Waters, bluesman and bandleader,

on the bus in the mid-'60s, in Europe

(photo courtesy Reelin' in the Years Productions)

(above) Fats Domino's car's license plate, outside his

New Orleans home, photo courtesy Geary Chansley, photo researcher
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(left) found at Amoeba Records, in Berkeley, CA, but the cover art's something of a disappointment, considering the novelty of the song itself

So here we are on the last day of August, before school officially begins for my wife Jane (she teaches special ed at the award-winning Lincoln Elementary School in Vallejo, CA, where the school topped the entire district with its test scores--hooray!!), and for our son Jordan, whom we just dropped off at Georgetown University to begin his freshman year. And what else did I do this summer, you may ask?

Besides acquiring, from our daughter Jessica, a smart as all heck Yorkie-Poo (Yorkie Terrier / Poodle mix) named Charlie, we basically celebrated the end to high school (and volleyball and soccer and enormous cuts of red meat and huge washing machine loads) for both our kids, and got ready for the long-anticipated trip to Washington DC to install Jordan . . . and I kept searching for all things rock-and-cars.

From the top:

(1) Next month, many presentations begin taking place to develop ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY into television. This is being headed up by Michael Rose Productions, out of Marina del Rey, in Southern California. Michael is a tremendous filmmaker, responsible for (among much else) the acclaimed television series GREAT CARS. He's a rocker, too.

Among many rockers who've elected to join the cause as a support team member, is Darrel Burnett, who's based in Rockford, IL (along with radio program director John "Brizz" Brizzolara, whom you'll meet shortly in another blog). You see Darrel (and Kelly) above, with his black and white Thunderbird, at the Rockford airport where the USAF team of F-16 C/D Flying Thunderbirds gathered for an airshow. It was quite an achievement for Darrel to be able to wheel his 'Bird out onto the tarmac. All this is relevant to ROCKIN' because one of the episodes will be devoted to The Delicates, who wrote and performed "Black and White Thunderbird," of whom Denise Ferri and Bernadette Dente are also on the ROCKIN' team. More on them shortly, too (and refer back to the essay on The Delicates in ROCKIN', please).

(2) If I didn't already tell you, it's been much harder than I'd ever thought finding THE picture of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' bus FURTHUR (or FURTHER). But here's one which arrived in my lap quite unexpectedly. DAY GLO!!!

(3) Morrison Hotel Gallery has become of the top locations (in several cities, and on the Internet) for showcasing the work of the top rock photographers. Here we see RUN DMC outside their home, and by a car (of course), in Queens, NY, photographed by Janette Beckman.

(4) One of my great joys in writing THE ART OF ROCK (Abbeville Press, 1987) was meeting George and Chris Frayne. George is Commander Cody, and Chris (now passed) was his artist brother. Chris created many of the Cody band's great posters and handbills. Here's an unusual one, for a Modesto, CA gig, with Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs (now there's a rock-and-cars band name) also on the bill.

(5) Earlier this year, Suze Rotolo released her book of reminiscence, A FREEWHEELIN' TIME: A MEMOIR OF GREENWICH VILLAGE IN THE SIXTIES. Rotolo was Dylan's girlfriend during the time he wrote songs like "Blowin' in the Wind," "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," and "Masters of War," and Dylan penned other songs about their love affair, including "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Boots of Spanish Leather," "Tomorrow Is a Long Time," and "One Too Many Mornings."

Rotolo was photographed with Dylan for the cover of FREEWHEELIN' WITH BOB DYLAN, strolling down a street in Greenwich Village in New York City, about which I blogged some time back. The photo above, by Don Hunstein, is an outtake from that legendary session. Check out Anthony DeCurtis' visit with Rotolo in the NY Times' "Memoirs of a Girl from the East Country (O.K., Queens)") which appeared on 5-11-08.

(6) The original artwork for a Psycotic Pineapple handbill-to-be, is by John Seabury, also a bandmember in Pyno, and is typical of John's brilliant outrageousness. His flyers are among the all-time-most-amusing-ever, in Berkeley, CA--where millions of flyers have been created and posted since the middle '60s. John's a good friend who you can meet at many NorCal poster events, and even, every so often, at national poster events such as Flatstock, now being held for the 18th time, this time again at at Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle this weekend. You can read more about John at http://runawaydinosaur.com/2008/01/29/rock-art-wednesday-john-seabury/ and see more Pyno art by searching the archive of his art at http://www.gigposters.com/.

(7) Amy Winehouse, autographing for fans, in her car, somewhere in the UK. Great singer, but "nuff said.

(8) Green Day, in the truck of their car, in New Orleans, shot by Danny Clinch. I cannot say enough about Danny's talent. It was an absolute joy to have his work included in ROCKIN'. And I hope that everyone survives Hurricane Gustaf, another humdinger of a storm, which seems to have come just minutes after Katrina in the scheme of things.

(9) Muddy Waters, in his tourbus, somewhere in Germany, in the mid '60s. I thank the greatly respected photo researcher (and my pal) Geary Chansley for turning me on to the resource known as http://www.reelinintheyears.com/. Check it out, you'll see why. At some point I intend to blog about Chansley, because it's people like him who help authors like me discover spectacular and previously unknown material. Among much, much else in his career, Geary was the Package Coordinator for CELEBRATE: THE THREE DOG NIGHT STORY, 1965-1975.

(10) It was Geary who turned me on to this shot of Fats Domino's car, parked in front of his 9th Ward home in New Orleans, years before Katrina. The photo is by Paul Harris, in Geary's words "a cool cat from England who's come to the American South many times to photograph guys like Fats . . . plus other great stuff." FYI you can see more of Paul's work at http://www.paulharrisphotography.blogspot.com/.

Fats' home has now been rebuilt, but will it withstand Hurricane Gustav? I hope and pray it will. Fats is a national treasure.

(11) And finally, trippin' around Amoeba Records in Berkeley (one of the last great independent record stores in America, with two other locations, in S.F. and L.A.) I stumbled across this '45 single for the Chordette's "No Wheels." That novelty song is well known among aficionados, but the cover art is, shall we say, lacking. But it is history. And the history of the rock-and-cars interface is a lot of what I'm all about these days.

Hope to hip you to what's happening with ROCKIN' television shortly. Hope everyone had a relaxing and rewarding summer.

a tale of two ROCKIN' musicians and their GM commercials: Steve Earle's "Revolution"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:15:00 +0000

(above) LIVE FROM AUSTIN TX, recorded at "Austin City Limits" 9-12-86,

the same summer GUITAR TOWN, Earle's first LP, shook up Nashville

(above) a few years later, circa COPPERHEAD ROAD,

but Earle was headed for a difficult time

(above) older, still basically uncompromising,

but the years, the road, and some time in lockup have taken their toll

(above) the justly celebrated 1986 GUITAR TOWN that, for some,

suggested Earle was "the next Springsteen"

(above) imperfectly assembled, but nevertheless the "Guitar Town" video
(above) the reward--and chore--of a hit album, even for a radical:

autographing an LP on the bus for fans (also from the "Guitar Town" video)

(above) "There's a speed trap up ahead in Selma Town,

But no local yokel gonna shut me down."

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Singer/songwriter/bandleader Steve Earle, just like Brandi Carlile more recently (see previous blog), made a decision to associate his recorded product with that of General Motors, back in 2005. But even just three years ago, GM was not touting its hybrids and its bio-fueled cars of the future: it was pickups and doolies, dude, and what amazed some is that one of the songs chosen was Earle's "The Revolution Starts Now" (which, I guess, by name alone, or also by a shallow reading of the lyrics) actually became a sales tool. But, for many amongst Earle's legion of fans, that decision to "sell out" (if that's what a radical musician does when he finally cashes in) was a slap in their faces.

But who's to say, right? "Revolution" can mean any number of things . . . possibly including a campaign to sell vehicles. Back then, Chevy was emphatic about promoting on TV and radio the concept "American revolution," as it tied into their products through an appeal to elemental patriotism and the promotion of Americana. . . but using Earle's song was a risk because the suits also left the door open to Earle's own wider, darker (certainly left-leaning) interpretation of the term . . . revolution.
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"I was walkin' down the street

In the town where I was born

I was movin' to a beat

That I'd never felt before

So I opened up my eyes

And I took a look around

I saw it written 'cross the sky

The revolution starts now

"The revolution starts here

Where you work and where you play

Where you lay your money down

What you do and what you say

The revolution starts now

"Last night I had a dream

That the world had turned around

And all our hopes had come to be

And the people gathered 'round

They all brought what they could bring

And nobody went without

And I learned a song to sing

The revolution starts now"

As the revolution Earle was positing was not written, per se, about developments in American automotive product, but rather about the desire for social and political change, one has to ask . . . did the suits mis-read his intentions? Did they assume his songwriting was simply in the same vein as Seger's "Like a Rock," which carried no political baggage?

Carlile clearly stated on her website she wouldn't have done an ad for pickups, but saw the advantages of helping promote GM's (avowed) new change in direction. For his part, Earle just needed the money, and if the song was in the same anthemic vein (as Chevy's ad agency believed it was), as John Mellencamp's "This Is Our Country" and Bob Seger's "Like a Rock," then what the heck, right?

Well, yes . . . and no.

According to Wikipedia, "Since early on, Earle was involved with political causes. [Going back to his first public performances], Earle was unable to play in bars due to his age [he ran away from home at age 16], and took to playing in coffeehouses alongside anti-Vietnam War campaigners. These experiences had a strong effect on him, later on prompting his strong opposition to the war in Iraq."

For instance, years after GUITAR TOWN brought to the forefront Earle's exceptional songwriting talent, he recorded "John Walker's Blues" on his 2002 album, JERUSALEM. Although Earle said he was just emphathizing with John Walker Lindh, (the American Taliban recruit) and not glorifying terrorism, anyone would have to say Earle was putting forth a controversial message. Two years later, he issued the album THE REVOLUTION STARTS NOW which coincided with the 2004 US presidential election (for which he backed John Kerry), and the title song of the same name was chosen to promote Michael Moore's anti-war documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11.

My point is, Earle came to the table with heartfelt antiwar bona-fides, and briefly got away with something that neither he or his fans--or Chevy and GM, for that matter--really could justify. It's just not possible to imagine Chevy and GM then having any intention to lean in a particularly unusual direction, although I'm guessing they don't consider the green revolution as politically left--it's beyond Al Gore, it's actually a mainstream sentiment now--making it so that Brandi Carlile's concerns more naturally square with those of the carmaker.

Earle's manager at the time was quoted as saying, "It was just a business decision we decided to make and we went with it." On the website http://www,nucountry.com.au, it's noted: "In 2005, "The Revolution Starts Now" was inked for a TV ad for Chevy pickups. But as karma collided with the singer, Chevy inexplicably killed the ad days after it began airing. Earle hadn't actually signed his contract, and he only got a fraction of the money he'd been promised. "It just goes to show you," Earle said, "when you finally get ready to sell out, nobody's buying.""

Another blogger put it very simply, "Don't ever fault a man for making money."

But let me give you several other sentiments expressed at the time:

Jim DeRogatis, the distinguished rock critic and columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times interviewed Earle at length, and published excerpts from the interview on March 4, 2008. Earle noted, amongst much else, "I've never written a record that had no chick songs, and I've never written a record that had no political songs!"

One of DeRogatis' readers, Scott Tipping, responded: "But how could you not take the opportunity of doing the interview to ask him about selling "The Revolution Starts Now" to Chevy trucks? Knowing your thoughts on corporate shilling and the destruction of rock & roll through advertising, I thought you'd be the one guy to take him to task and ask, "WHY??" Why would you take a political piece that was intended to inspire people, and reduce it to a car commercial?"

Austin Mayor, another reader, responded to Tipping's point: "What Scott said. Hearing "Revolution" promote Chevy's fossil-burners really turned me off to that whole album. I don't really believe it's about "selling out"--we've all gotta eat--but putting that particular song in a truck commercial really underminded the legitimacy of its political content. Steve Earle broke my heart selling that song to Chevy."

DeRogatis, to his credit, responded to both men the following week, by saying: "You guys are right. I dropped the ball on not asking Steve about that commercial. I guess I blocked out the painful memory of it!" (And, apparently Earle did have some further reponse, elicited by DeRogatis, but I was unable to find it while preparing this blog).

For those interested, there are excellent discussions of this painful topic at:

http://www.houstonpress.com/2005-07-28/music/breakdown-lane/ -- by John Nova Lomax, in which he concludes, "As for Earle, it must be remembered this is a man with no fewer than six ex-wives and close to an equal number of ex-managers, some of whom he still owes money. In his 2003 biography, Earle told author Lauren St. John that, all told, his overhead was then $35,000 a month. Kinda reminds me of a quote from bluesman R.L. Burnside, a musician with similar family obligations, if on a smaller scale: "Man," he once told a reporter, "I got to put 12 biscuits on the table 'fore I get to eat even one." Chevy ad deals buy a lot of biscuits, people. What's more, Chevy is an American company that provides a lot of increasingly rare, blue-collar living-wage jobs. Sure, selling "Revolution" will rob one of Earle's songs of some of its pure radical power. Get over it--he'll write more--and as it happens, Earle was wrong. Dubya won. The revolution didn't start then, anyway."

Mark Caro's 2007 blogs in the Chicago Tribune under the title "Pop Machine," including "Finally, some sell-outs we can enjoy!" and "Wilco loves certain German Cars," and "Mellencamp's sell-out backfires," and best of all, his 10-4-06 column (with huge readership response) is this one: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_popmachine/2006/10/because_they_di.html

There's also great stuff at http://www.cheezeball.net/Features/SteveEarleAndChevrolet.htm

including this comment: "Apparently the same commercial that left us scratching our heads angered a bunch of wingnuts on the opposite end of the political spectrum. While we couldn't figure out why Earle had gone corporate, they couldn't figure out why Chevrolet had hired a "radical musician." Sort of mollified our outrage. If Earle pissed off a bunch of wackjobs by "selling out," maybe that makes the whole thing some sort of subversive act. (Or maybe not). In any event, the thought of the commercial angering its target audience is rather amusing."

Also, check out http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-shaw/dylan-havens-and-earle-_b_6113.html

and watch the fur fly. Similarly, the exchange at http://portland.metblogs.com/2005/08/22/the-revolution-startshow/

So, three final thoughts.

(1) From "Pete" at http://ickmusic.com/category/steve-earle/page/2/, "It IS possible to discover cool music through commercials." Yes, true, because that's how I encountered Brandi Carlile.

(2) Tom Waits, quoted in the L.A. Times, "By turning a great song into a jingle, advertisers have achieved the ultimate: a meaningless product has now been injected with your meaningful memory of a song. The songs and the artists who have created tthe songs have power and cultural value, that's why advertisers pay out millions for them. But, once you (the musician) have taken the cash, you, your song, and your audience are forever married to the product."

and (3) the first song on Earle's LIVE FROM AUSTIN TX, which is his "Sweet Little '66." Because, just as we'll forever stand in awe of GUITAR TOWN as a fully realized, impeccably crafted set-piece of great, inter-related songs with great highway settings, we all should remember that Earle comes from the right rock-and-cars place too:

"Now I'm a pretty big man around this town

I got me the hottest little Chevy around

My sweet little '66

"She got a yellow front fender and a gray one on the back

But my income tax is comin' and I'm gonna paint her black

Sweet little '66

"She got the 396, she got the four on the floor

And those stickers in the window ain't just for show

My sweet little '66

"Now old Bubba and me built her back in '79

Then he went into the army so now she's all mine

Sweet little '66

"I used to run her down on River Road and make a little dough

But can't afford another ticket so I'm layin' kinda low

Me and my '66

"Now she ain't too good on gasoline, she burns a little oil

But she was built by union labor on American soil

Sweet little '66

"So when your Subaru is over and your Honda's history

I'll be blastin' down some back road with my baby next to me

In my sweet little '66."

Maybe that's the song Steve Earle should have sold to Chevy. All the right sentiments from an ol' leftie. Just sayin'. Peace out.

a tale of two ROCKIN' musicians and their GM commercials: Brandi Carlile's "The Story"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:40:00 +0000

(above) from GM's ad presaging the future . . . plugging in

at your local alt fuel cell depot

(above) a page from Brandi Carlile's most excellent website

(above) from the video for "The Story" - worth checking out
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As with probably hundreds of thousands of other seriously-hooked Olympic television-watching fans (go Nastia Liukin!!!), I wouldn't have learned about singer-songwriter-bandleader Brandi Carlile had it not been for an intriguing commercial created for General Motors, promoting their newly fuel-efficient and technologically-forward vehicles, an ad which has been given considerable airing in prime time.

Carlile has a mesmerizing voice. That's what just chased me to buy her CD (her second major-label release) and download the GM video again. Her voice has a really haunting sound, in a timbre that's always grabbed me. And GM's message at least comes off like they're changing direction . . . and for the better . . . and what's not to like about that.

THE STORY (the name of the album as well as the song) was released on April 3, 2007. Initially, the album peaked on May 5, 2007 at #58 on the Billboard 200 chart. But due to the GM ad airing heavily during the first half of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the song has increased in downloads and is currently sitting at #36 on Billboard's Top 100 "most downloaded songs" chart, and #5 on the "most downloaded rock songs" on iTunes. Also currently, THE STORY album is #9 on Billboard'sTop 100 "most downloaded albums" and #1 on the Top 100 "most downloaded rock albums" in iTunes. Pretty fine accomplishments, no question.

So who is Brandi Carlile?

She's 27 years old, born and reared in Ravensdale, WA, a very rural town north of Seattle. Columbia Records discovered her in late 2004 on the strength of her home recordings made during her early scufflin' days, and reports from musicians like Dave Matthews that she was the real deal.

In 2005 she was featured on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "10 Artists to Watch in 2005." By the end of 2006, she had toured and supported other musicians including the Indigo Girls, Chris Isaak, Tori Amos, and Shawn Colvin. The development of her music also was greatly influenced by her songwriting and musicwriting partnership with bandmembers Tim and Phil Hanseroth, as well as the esteemed T-Bone Burnett who was brought in to produce THE STORY.

Then in 2007, the popular television drama "Grey's Anatomy" began featuring some of her tunes. Likely it was the association with "Grey's" which hipped GM's advertising execs to a fresh talent with a compelling song.

Many people now have commented, both reviewers and bloggers, that Brandi Carlile evokes comparison with Elton John (and his partner songwriter Bernie Taupin), Bette Midler, Leonard Cohen, the Indigo Girls, Rufus Wainwright, Ani Defranco, and Jeff Buckley. As for myself, she just sounded immediately like I should check her out. Different. New.

Ok, so why did this admittedly "loud mouth tree hugger" (her words) make an alliance with General Motors?

On her excellently organized and visually compelling website http://www.brandicarlile.com, she delivered this response:

"Hey all, I'm writing you from a plane bound for Portugal. While we're gone, you may have already heard our song "The Story" in an Olympic advertisement for GM. Depending on how you feel about music and advertising in general, you may be wondering why a band like us would do something like that. Well, I have a few good reasons, so allow me to shine a little light on the subject.

"When GM approached our band to use "The Story" in their 2008 Olympic ad, visiions of SUVs and full-size pickup trucks driving through a rugged mountain range were dancing through my head. I promptly and politely declined. (Although I don't want to be a hypocrite: our band did tour in a GM gas-guzzling van for many years).

"But when they came back to us and offered to involve us in [a much different] an ad campaign promoting hybrids, bio fuel, bio hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell cars, and yes, even the infamous electric car, the Chevy "Volt," I felt the need to think twice about having the opportunity to be part of a huge American car company creating an ad campaign for environmentally responsible cars. We feel they allowed more than a fair amount of input from us and made an honest effort to create an environmentally conscious ad. We are proud of it.

"I also believe in American jobs. Keeping people employed in the US and building fuel-efficient/alternative cars could help reduce and one day help eliminate our dependency on foreign oil. To really make a positive impact regarding the climate crisis, we all need to work together to make the change, even GM.

"Regardless of what my feelings are about the agenda behind the sudden wave of corporate environmental awareness, it's still awareness just the same.

"The twins I play with, Phil and Tim, and I are proud to say that every last penny from the GM ad is geing donated and split between several environmental organizations exploring alternative energy and effecting change on a grass roots level.

"Touring, while virtually unavoidable for an artist like me, can be wasteful and bad for the environment, so we're trying to find ways to lessen our footprint.We recently got involved with a non-profit organization called Reverb to help us plan a more environmentally sustainable tour. We will donate $0.50 from each ticket sold for the tour to help offset the CO2 emissions our tour will generate. The money will help support Reverb's mission as well as NativeEnergy's family-farm methane projects, which help reduce global warming pollution by reducing the amount of fossil fuels the farms themselves use for heat, cooling, and electricity, or by preventing emissions of methane gas from manure stored in lagoons.

"The emissions we'll offset include [each] venue's electricity, our bus, and [compensate for] fans driving to and from our shows. We're offsetting the equivalent of having one car drive over 3,000,000 miles!"

Thanks, Brandi, for giving me the opportunity to share your message with the readers of this ROCKIN' blog, and for them to chase down "The Story" for themselves. I love your sound, girl, so rock on.

In the following blog, I'll explore what was a far more controversial link-up with GM only three years ago, that of Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts Now." Earle of course has written many brilliant automotive-themed or highway-based songs, not the least of which is "Guitar Town," and is himself the subject of one of the essays in ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY.

ROCKIN' with roadie Charlie Kelly and Yogi Phlegm (aka The Sons of Champlin)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:44:00 +0000

(above) The Sons of Champlin's road crew, truck, equipment, and PA

(above) Yogi Phlegm in 1970, better known as The Sons of Champlin
(above) an earlier promo shot of the Sons, probably 1968 or 69
(above) the plate from their last truck

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I made it out from New Jersey in the Fall of 1969 to begin my freshman year at Stanford. I was in the first true coed dorm there on campus, Florence-Moore Hall, known as Flo-Mo. There I would encounter the music of the Grateful Dead and many more Bay Area-bands. . . including the Sons of Champlin.

The Sons were led by vocalist Bill Champlin (perhaps better known--certainly in recent years--for his work with Chicago). In Flo-Mo, their album "Loosen Up Naturally" was played often. I remember one song in particular, that began, "why don't you . . . open the door," and in the midst of many a late night stony session, that was cause for much merriment. Ah, the strange things you remember about your first year in college.

The Sons were a brass and organ-driven band, unusual for the Bay Area (most of the Bay Area bands were guitar-driven), and actually all of the Sons were more accomplished musicians (in the beginning) than the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother (with Janis Joplin), or Quicksilver Messenger Service.

But they never quite caught on nationwide, despite being, to this very day, revered in their home territory, much like the Ides of March in Chicagoland (see earlier blog).

In 1970 - 71, they went through some internal changes, reforming briefly as Yogi Phlegm, a name that promoter Bill Graham absolutely hated, and literally refused to book them under that name, despite their playing the closing of his legendary venue the Fillmore West during the summer of 1971 (they are credited on the "Closing of the Fillmore" album as The Sons of Champlin).

Charlie Kelly was the Sons' main roadie--in the great tradition of Marin County rock band roadies. He has vastly amusing stories on his website, http://www.sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/yogi_phlegm.htm, including many (a few reproduced below, with a nod of thanks to Charlie) about trucking the band's equipment and P.A. The small photo of him and a Sons truck was taken outside Black's Butte, near Redding, probably in the mid-1970s.

I apologize if Charlie's stories are a little bit out of sequence, but you'll fdefinitely get the flavor of what it was like to be a true 'quippie in the "good ol' days of homegrown classic rock."

STORY SEQUENCE ONE:

"From 1968, when I joined up with the Sons, to 1972, poverty was the principal state. This wasn't too hard on me, because I was a bachelor and could sleep standing up in the rain. Bill Champlin was the only family man, and he was always under pressure to provide his family with the minimum standard of living. Bill always had a decent rental house, and probably spent more on rent than the rest of the band put together. Even though the necessity of this arrangement was obvious, the two standards of living separated Bill from the other guys in a subtle fashion. None of the other guys had kids, and their wives/girlfriends had jobs. Terry could sleep anywhere. And did.

"For me, the relative poverty translated into the minimum amount of truck it took to deliver the equipment. When Tooth (Steve Tobin, also aka Steve Tollestrup) and I blew up Bill Champlin's Econoline in 1969 (hey, Tooth was driving), we [resorted to using] the Quicksilver Messenger Service's truck for a while, because they weren't getting along and weren't playing any gigs.

"By the time we used up the Quicksilver favor, Tooth had already quit, so [Sons' manager] Fred Roth hired a reasonably professional roadie, Gary Jackson, who had handled gear for the all-girl Ace of Cups. Gary was hired more for the fact that he owned a van than for any other reason, and he wasn't much into the family aspect of the Sons.

"When we were getting ready for the two month tour that finished off 1969, Gary saw the writing on the wall: two months of hard living for not much money with a bunch of guys he regarded as marginally crazy and a partner who didn't give a shit about money. He quit, and was replaced by "Hog" Steve (Rhodes), our old friend from the Hog Farm, my third roadie partner in a year and a half.

"Steve and I turned out to be completely compatible. He knew it was an adventure, and that comfort was not required, and he was the only guy I worked with whose stamina matched my own. We never argued over a thing.

"We desperately needed a truck for our tour, one that was big enough to hold all of our gear plus a P.A. system. We didn't have the money, so Fred Roth and Julie Salles [the Sons' then Office Manager] went to see Bill Graham. In his office they asked him point blank if he would buy the band a truck.

"According to Julie, Graham exploded. He went on for some time, and when he stopped, Fred and Julie were still waiting for a truck. Finally, in opposition to every commercial principle he had, Graham said he'd co-sign a loan so we could get a truck.

"It was really the minimum truck we needed, a Ford one-ton, and it was the no-option package with a wimpy engine and a cheesy box. It had a lift-gate, which we considered essential for loading the Hammond B-3 organ, but when the lift died about three weeks after we got the truck, Hog and I had to pick the organ up to chest height to put it in the truck.

"By the time the band broke up in 1970, the Ford was trashed. We drove it back to Graham's offices, and gave him the keys.

"I took a job as sound man at The Lion's Share, a nightclub in San Anselmo where various groupings of the Sons and their friends played just about every Sunday night under several names, such as the Nubugaloo Express. I always roadied for them, and I doubt if they ever looked farther than me when it came time to move some equipment.

"In late 1970, Bill Champlin decided that he was going to move to Santa Cruz, and start a band called the Rhythm Dukes with his friend Jerry Miller, formerly of Moby Grape, and John Barrett and "Fuzzy" John Oxendine. The latter two had been in a band called Boogie that had practiced at the Heliport, and Fuzzy had been the second drummer in the Sons for one awful month.

"The first Rhythm Dukes gig took place before Bill had even moved down to Santa Cruz, and there was this little problem of getting the Hammond down there, about 100 miles. I knew a girl with a pickup truck, and I asked her if she wanted to go to Santa Cruz for the weekend with me. Oh yeah, do you mind if I throw a Hammond, Leslie and a Twin Reverb in the truck? Oh, did I mention we're driving your truck?

"We got the stuff down there, and after a day or so, the girl started to get the feeling that I was more interested in her truck than in her. Maybe I said something, I don't know. She took off in a huff and drove home, leaving me in Santa Cruz with all this equipment that had to be brought back to Marin. I had to practically hitchhike back with it. I had my bicycle with me, so combed the area, asking about anyone who might be heading north, and I finally found some hippies who dug the band and had a VW bus headed up the coast. We loaded the gear and got it home.

"When the Rhythm Dukes phase was over, Bill moved back to Marin and the band reformed as Yogi Phlegm. The name came from a fictional Indian mystic who was always being quoted as the guru of weirdness. Bob Cain had invented him while we were all in a restaurant one evening, and he became symbolic of new-age nebulous philosophy.

"The real reason that the band changed the name was that the Sons of Champlin had been a brotherhood, and when Bill decided that he wanted to play with a different bass player and drummer, the problem arose: is the Sons this specific group, or does someone own the name and have the right to apply it anywhere? Rather than hassle about it, it was easier to get a couple of new guys and call the band something else. Of course, there were probably better choices than Yogi Phlegm, but the name had a lot in common with the music.

"Yogi Phlegm was Bill, Terry [Haggerty], Geoffrey, and bassist Dave Schallock and drummer Bill Vitt. Dave Schallock had been in Bill's high school class, and along with Bruce Walford had been the unofficial producer of "Loosen Up Naturally." Yogi Phlegm never practiced, they just played gigs at the Lion's Share. They didn't really have material. Bill would name a key, count to four, and they would play something. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, and when it didn't, people left.

"One memorable night, they emptied the Lion's Share except for one guy leaning against the bar grooving his butt off, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. That was probably the low point, and from that point they started to once again build a repertoire.

"Things started to turn around when Bill Graham started putting together the "Last Days of the Fillmore" show in 1971. By this time the guys had finally put together a few tunes, but even though they referred to themselves as Yogi Phlegm, Bill Graham hated the name. On the posters for the gig there was a subtitle, (Sons of Champlin) and on the record album that was later released from the concert, the one tune ("Papa Can Play") was credited to the Sons of Champlin.

"Of course we didn't have anything like an equipment truck for the last days of the Fillmore. I can still remember the look on the Quicksilver roadies' faces when I drove the equipment up to the back door of the Fillmore in a borrowed 1951 Chevy flatbed that looked like it might have flunked the Mexican safety inspection.I came up with what turned out to be a pretty good idea, although it didn't look that good when I had it. It looked more like desperation.

"I had met this fellow at a Fillmore show, a roadie for a group called Rock City from Ohio. We had kept in touch, and I knew he had an old Pepperidge Farms delivery truck. What the hell, I wrote him a letter, two sentences, which I can still quote from memory. "If you want a job, come out to California. Bring your truck, your dog, and some rolling papers." And on the basis of a short letter from a guy he had met one time, Tony Black left Ohio for what turned out to be the rest of his life. (So far at least.)

"Tony got as far as Reno before he ran out of money, so he called me and Julie, and we found fifty dollars to wire to him and get him the rest of the way. Tony arrived with Rosie, his dog, and eventually shared the little rental house behind the Church with me. Although we needed another roadie, a truck was a lot harder item to find than a guy, so it was more the vehicle than his abilities that got him the job. Sorry, Tony. But who CARES how you get where you get?

"Once Tony arrived, he was obviously part of the gang, because he had made a major commitment to be there, and you had to respect that. I know I wouldn't have moved 2000 miles with everything I owned on the basis of two sentences from a guy I barely knew.

"[Tony's] truck was no great deal. It had limited seating, and the third occupant had to ride on top of the engine cowling with his back to the windshield. The rear door was tiny, more suited to a guy stepping in and out with loaves of bread than a B-3. It had no gas gauge, so we kept a full gas can handy, because when it ran out, you had to jump right into the drill of getting some fuel into it. Fortunately, the fuel filler was at the bottom of the step by the passenger door, so you could reach it from inside the truck. One time it ran out on the Golden Gate Bridge, and we got it refueled before it even stopped rolling.

"One other adventure in Tony's truck stands out. We had done a gig in Santa Cruz, and at about 3 a.m. we were headed up I-280 for home when we blew a tire. Damn, no spare, and on the big truck it took equipment we didn't have to change a tire. If you can't change the tire, what good is a spare anyway?

"Complicating the picture was the presence of Steve, who caught a ride to the gig with us and had ingested LSD earlier in the evening. He was no problem as long as the truck was rolling, but when we pulled to the side of the road, the truck rocked from the air blast of every car passing us a few feet away. It was not a comfortable situation, and Steve started getting very anxious. "I can't take this." Like, what exactly are the options here?

"Just then a car pulled up , and it was several members of the band, asking what our problem was. "Steve is our problem. Take him, with you." So we got rid of Steve, which improved the situation only slightly. We were still stuck on the side of a freeway in the middle of the night with a flat tire and no money. We caught whatever sleep was possible, sacked out on top of the equipment, and when the sun came up, we staggered out to deal with the situation.

"A Highway Patrol car pulled up to see what was up. Well officer, we have this flat tire. Can you help us? It turned out that Highway Patrol officers don't do tires The tire was our problem. He just didn't want us to be there. Well, gosh.

"We ended up hanging out there most of the day. I finally walked a mile or so to an exit, found a house where a woman didn't want to open the door, and asked her to call the CHP for us. Another officer arrived, and in the absence of any other possibility, allowed us to contact a tire shop through his radio patched into a phone.

"The absence of any money was still a problem, so we somehow got Julie, now back in San Anselmo, to contact the tire store. I have no idea what means of persuasion she used, but they actually advanced us the $50 tire and came out to put it on. We really did pay them, too.

"It takes a few seconds to tell about all this, but it was about twelve hours out there on the freeway, a long day, and there was no coffee shop handy.

"Tony's truck got us through a critical phase, late 1971 to early 1972, but it was rapidly approaching the condition of toast. Good thing a new phase was opening up, the Wally Haas years.
-

"As 1971 turned into 1972, hope appeared on the horizon in the form of Wally Haas. The scion of a prominent San Francisco family whose wealth goes back to the founder of the Levi Strauss company during the Gold Rush, Wally had money, was a devoted fan of the band, and felt that what they needed was a manager and some decent equipment. He said he could provide both, and with no one else lining up for the job, the Sons took him up on the offer.

STORY SEQUENCE TWO:

-
"Bill's Econoline blew up early in 1969. It had been knocking really bad for a few days, because it had run low on oil. The motor was under a cowling that was in the middle of the cab. It wasn't meant to be the pasenger seat, but it was for whoever lost the toss, if there were three in the vehicle. A long trip was torture for the loser, because that sucker got hot.

STORY SEQUENCE THREE:

"Whenever there wasn't a passenger in the truck, we had coats, food, whatever else you might find in a truck that we just about lived in, stacked on the motor cover. The amplifiers and instruments were jammed up against the back of the cover. Checking the oil was a bitch, so we never did it, and with a truck as beat up as that one it may have been a good idea to monitor oil usage. Somehow, the truck had never let us completely down.

"The time when the fanbelt broke, we had enough momentum to coast into a gas station in Pismo Beach. The time when it got this big bubble in the front tire, Tooth had punctured the bubble with his pocketknife, and since the tire still seemed to hold air, we drove it 200 miles up the coast to Eureka and back. Despite bald tires, we never crashed it, and the time we got cited for the headlight being burned out we were right by a gas station outside Atascadero, and besides, that was where we met the guy from Chicken Little's Cosmic Farm and found out that King Kong died for our sins.

"I drove that truck when I shouldn't have, in amazing weather conditions, in advanced states of fatigue, and if I had needed to stop it quickly for any reason we probably would have died, but I didn't and we didn't.

"Of course, it was so dangerous to drive that we may have been trying subconsciously to get it off the road. We took it on that last trip to Sacramento, and it made so much noise that it was an open question whether we would get there. Loading out of the club, I remember the security clown looking at the pile of equipment next to the truck and laughing. "No way that all goes in there."

"Of course we got it all in, then we went to a gas station and filled the crankcase with straight STP. It kept the noise down enough so we could talk over it. We had to choose between a slightly shorter route on a more deserted road, or the freeway and a little longer drive. Freeway it was, and it looked like we were going to make it. Tooth nursed the throttle, trying to maintain decent speed, without stressing what was left of the engine.

"Just as we took the last bit of freeway into San Rafael, one mile to go, he got excited and stepped on it. Big mistake. We scattered the motor and a lot of lubricant along a hundred yards of Highway [101], and had to get it towed to my house.

"Our good relationship with Quicksilver manager Ron Polte got us through the truckless era. We didn't have the kind of money it took to get a new truck, and our credit was... Our credit was... Credit? Quicksilver had a new truck, and Ron lent us their old truck, a Dodge van much heavier-duty than the old Econoline. One of my first acts was to rear-end a car on the way to a gig, and later I backed it into another car in a parking lot. I was not endearing myself to Ron or Fred Roth.

"When Quicksilver was recording, we got the use of their new truck, an aluminum stepvan of the UPS style. It was noisy, cold, uncomfortable truck, but fortunately we only used it in the summer.
Then Tooth quit. It was hard for me to believe that he felt there were better personal opportunities for him in traveling to India, but that's where he and his girlfriend wanted to go, and he could hardly keep the job and go there.

"We needed a roadie AND a truck, and we needed them pretty quick. Gary Jackson got the nod. He was a career roadie, who had worked most recently for the Ace of Cups. This Sons of Champlin family shit wasn't his thing, but he could drive forever, and he was a really big guy who had no trouble picking up his end of the organ. He even owned a set of organ dollies, an amazing luxury. He wanted a real salary, none of this communal business, and he cost the band a lot more than I did.

"Gary and I did one long drive together, a sweep of the Northwest, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake and Boulder. We used a rental truck; actually we used one UP, and checked it in at Salt Lake City for another one. A little problem with the brakes caused by driving some distance with the parking brake on.

"Outside of California it was more obvious that we had chosen to present ourselves a little differently from middle America. Driving through the hills outside Salt Lake City, Gary and I stopped at a pizza place. At the time both of us affected fringed leather jackets, with looong fringes, a foot or more off each arm and the back and front. Long hair, and I'm big, and Gary's much bigger at six-five and 240. When we went into the pizza place, the girl who took our order spoke for the first time to authentic, California hippies. She was so terrified she could hardly finish the transaction."

Charlie lists the various guys "who shared the truck seat with me since 1968:"

1968 - 1969: Steve "Tooth" Tobin

1969: Gary Jackson

1969: Paul Stubblebine

1969 - 1970: Steve "Hog" Rhodes

1971 - 1974: Tony Black

1972 - 1975: Howie Hammerman

1974 - 1977: Zero Nylin

1975 - 1977: Mark Deadman

1999 - 2002: Jeff Ocheltree

I should also mention that Charlie is one of the great mountain bikers, a founding father of the movement so to speak, and there is much rich material on that aspect of his life on his website.

Thanks, Charlie, for these great truckin' reminiscences. Here's hoping they'll also make it into a museum of rock exhibition someday, in Marin County no less--cause that's the plan in the works.

Best ROCKIN automotive-themed concert posters for July '08

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:27:00 +0000

(above) Dan Stiles_The Hold Steady
(above) Gary Houston_Death Cab for Cutie

(above) Nix_The Hell Caminos

(above) Jeral Tidwell_311 and Snoop Dogg

(above) Print Mafia_Lucinda Williams (Maine)

(above) Jeral Tidwell_Widespread Panic

(above) Print Mafia_Lucinda Williams (Wisconsin)

(above) Nocturnal Show Print_Cory Branan

(above) Pablo_Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

(above) Stanley Mouse_Cosmic Car Show (1967)

Hey, everyone--

Sorry about the paucity of posts during the month of July. Been busy scoring some new jobs, and took a family excursion to the Midwest (before wife Jane and I take our son Jordan to begin college at Georgetown later this month).

Some beautiful automotive-themed rock concert poster art here, some quite recent, a few from the archives. I'll be at the blog hard and heavy now that it's August. Enjoy!

Paul

contender for best ROCKIN' car song . . . "Vehicle" by The Ides of March

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:47:00 +0000

(above) The Ides of March, promo photo, circa 1970.

note "Vehicle" sticker, promoting their hit song

(above and two below) Chicago-style versions of "Hullabaloo" or "American Bandstand"

featuring the Ides of March and spotlighting the horn section

(above) the tv show was titled "Something Else" and first broadcast in 1970

(above) Their first LP, but was the cover art in tune with the times?

The band thought it was pretty terrible art direction.

(above) Berwyn, IL's version of the Hollies

(above) promo in a Berwyn parking lot;

the Shon Dels would become the Ides of March

(above) the Rhino re-issue, with the color photo

(above) the Ides' famous brass section, in the studio today

(above) hometown Berwyn, IL's "The Spindle," now gone

Jim Peterik (below, today, and back in the '70s) has been at the helm of the Ides of March for more than four decades. The band, from Berwyn, IL (west of Chicago), is very much active today and still is celebrated by its fans. The Ides are best known for their 1970 single (and the title of their first album), "Vehicle"--which will forever be a top contender for "best car song of all time," rivalling (as one example) Golden Earring's "Radar Love."

Peterik formed his first band, the Renegades at age 13 with some fellow classmates at Berwyn's Piper [middle] school. Singer/guitarist Larry Millas asked Jim to join his band the Shy Lads, which covered Beatles songs. Soon they would change their name to the Shon Dels, whose idols apparently were the Hollies. During Peterik's senior year in high school, soon to be headed off to the University of Illinois, the Shon Dels expanded to include a full horn section, and adopted a new name based on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the Ides of March.The band signed with London Records' imprint Parrot Records and first charted with "You Wouldn't Listen" and "Roller Coaster" in the fall of 1966. Switching to Warner Bros., they burst onto the national stage with their single "Vehicle" which soared to number two on Billboard's pop chart on May 23, 1970 (and to number one on Billboard's rival, Cashbox), kept out of the top spot only by the Guess Who's "American Woman." And so began the saga of a classic road song, made forever popular by an enduring Midwestern band.

"Vehicle" to this day is one of the songs most covered by similarly horn-driven rhythm-and-blues bands, but even more importantly by new generations of high school marching bands. "Vehicle" sounds like it might have come from the Ides' rival, Blood, Sweat & Tears, but no, it was always the Ides' very own trademark. You remember it, right? How could you not--it's run out every fall on just about every high school football field in America.

"Hey, well, I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan

Oh won't you hop inside my car?

I got pictures, candy, I'm a loveable man

And I can take you to the nearest star.

"I'm your vehicle, baby

I'll take you anywhere you wanna go

I'm your vehicle,woman

By now I'm sure that you know

That I love ya (love ya)

Need ya (need ya)

I want ya, got to have you, child

Great God in heaven, you know I love you"

That GREAT GOD IN HEAVEN is also a legendary musical punchline. It was most recently delivered with appropriate gravitas by Bo Bice, performing the song on "American Idol." Bice then released it as his first single, produced by the legendary Desmond Child with the participation of Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora and Paul Stanley of KISS.

Here follows some of what's been said about the Ides, and about "Vehicle."

from http://www.pauseandplay.com/

Jim Peterik: "It does feel like yesterday that the Ides walked into Salerno's Pizza (our favorite hangout in Berwyn) after a gig and heard someone say that our record was just played on WLS [Chicago's longtime radio hitmaker]. We went, "oh, yeah, sure." Then, on the way home in our van, the song was played again . . . "new from the Ides of March . . . it's "Vehicle" . . . ba da ba ba dah!" A few minutes later we must have hit 70 miles an hour going down Cermak Road, the main street of our hometown, rushing to tell our folks. That extraordinary moment will live with me always."

Jim Peterik: "When we started 40 years ago, it was just friends wanting to get together to make music. We were fans, first and foremost--fans of the Ventures, the Beatles, the Dave Clark 5, the Hollies, the Zombies. And, ourselves, we were great friends going all the way back to Cub Scouts, for some of us. We also found benefits in our popularity status with the Morton West High School girls. That never hurts your motivation. No grand design, no master plan, we just had the spirit of 'Hey, if we record this song we just wrote, maybe we can sell it after the sock hop, after the basketball game.' One thing just led to another. And it's still evolving."

Jim Peterik: "The first LP I ever bought on my own was Meet the Beatles.I bought many 45s prior to this, like "Shortening Bread," "Walk, Don't Run," and "I've Had It." But when the Beatles came along, they left everyone in the dust. I saved my money and went down to the Cermak Plaza Record Store (the big record store in our hometown of Berwyn) and plunked down my cash. Then, all I did in my spare time was wear the grooves off that record!"

Jim Peterik: "[The first big concert in our lives] was the Beatles at Comiskey Park. Not a bad place to start your career as a fan! I remember being overwhelmed by the spectacle of it all--the screams, the teeming crowd . . . and the Beatles. They were amazing. I remember tears welling up in my eyes when they hit that three-part harmony in "Baby's in Black."

from www.idesofmarchfancentral.com

"Chroniclers of popular-music history can be forgiven for confusing "Vehicle," the one Top 40 national hit by the hard-driving, horn-driven Ides of March, with any number of vehicles by the hard-driving, horn-driven Blood, Sweat & Tears. The Ides' song just missed the top of the Billboard Pop chart in 1970, when BS&T was in the middle of its Top 40 hot streak.

"Jim Peterik, the Ides' singer, songwriter, lead guitarist, and frontman, was only 19 years old when he sang the hell out of "Vehicle." Imitation--at that time, anyway--was the sincerest form of flattery. "We got religion when we went down to the Kinetic Playground in Chicago and saw BS&T," Peterik says. "We were real hip to their first album, with Al Kooper, and by the time we saw 'em they had David Clayton-Thomas. And they blew us away. I wasn't trying to sing like David on "Vehicle," but I guess I did. He wanted to sing like Ray Charles, and I wanted to sing like David Clayton-Thomas. And so on down the food chain."

"In 1966, the Shon Dels were discovered by Parrot Records, which had only one rock act anybody could think of, the Zombies. The band's debut was "You Wouldn't Listen," written during an all-night sleepover on Peterik's 15th birthday. Tommy James & the Shondells were starting to head up the charts, leaving Parrot's newly minted teen act in a quandary. "Our record was just ready to come out, and we had to scramble for a new name," Peterik recalls. "We all were reading Julius Caesar in high school at the time. Bob Bergland came across "Beware the Ides of March." It sounded like the name to me."

"By 1968, the Ides were regularly playing James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, and Arthur Conley covers in their sock-hop shows, so the decision was made to add horns. Enter more school chums, Chuck Soumar (trumpet) and John Larson (trumpet and flugelhorn). Bergland began to play saxophone on stage. Local promoters Bob Destocki and Frank Rand caught the Ides' act when they were opening a show for Neil Diamond, and after a little negotiation, they took over management and started promising big things. Destocki was also a regional promotion man for Warner Bros. Records and through his contacts he got the Ides a four-song demo deal with the label.

""We put "Vehicle" last on the demo," Peterik recalled. "We didn't really value that song. The first three songs we thought were the ones. We sent them to the label and they went, "Are you kidding me. The fourth song is the smash." Peterik had written the sexually charged "Vehicle" as a joke. "I got the idea from one of thos anti-drug pamphlets they distributed in school. The song was intended to be very tongue-in-cheek."

""You gotta realize, at the time "Vehicle" was released, we were all 18-19 years old," says Peterik. "We were a harmony band with horns at that point, still looking for a sound. Most people have their formative years in private, because they're under the radar. Here we were--definitely big time, front and center, on the radar--and we weren't certain, still, who we were. Sure, you can hear BS&T's influence, but there's also Creedence in us. The Ides ultimately are the way our voices blend, the way we play together, so if there was a palette of influences on us, it was our palette."

"The Ides spent most of 1970 on the road, opening for the likes of Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin. Peterik has been telling this story for years: "We were on a bill that included Iron Butterfly, the Youngbloods, Ides of March, and Led Zeppelin . . . in Winnipeg, Canada. And it was our night, that's all I can tell you. Zeppelin had an off night, we had an on night, and the next day's entertainment headlines said, "Ides of March steal the show." We did our 20-minute version of "Eleanor Rigby," and brought down the house." Years later, the Guess Who's Randy Bachman ran into Peterik at a Nashville trade show, and said, among other things, that he'd been in that audience in Winnipeg, and that the Ides really had smoked Zeppelin. Peterik says, "I said to Randy, 'then it was real! I didn't dream it!'"

from http://www.totalmusicgeek.com/:

"They were often mistaken for Chicago, or Blood, Sweat & Tears (and they still are). But Chicago-based garage band Ides of March added their new horn section to this song, and wham, they had a monster hit for Warner Bros. This song had more hooks than a Hellraiser movie, from the unmistakable horn motif to the driving rhythm guitars. Right in the middle, there was what we all called the "cheesy guitar solo," but looking back at it, I can name about 100 worse solos than this one. And get a load of that album cover--what's that about? But you gotta say, "Vehicle," the song, still exudes a ridiculous amount of cool.

"Notable geek trivia about "Vehicle:" songwriter and guitaris Jim Peterik went on to form the '80s rock group Survivor and wrote most of their hits, like "Eye of the Tiger." And Peterik has a great website where he has a two-part article explaining how he wrote "Vehicle." I also found this totally wild, completely obscure early video [ed's note: a still shown above] of the Ides lip-syncing their way through "Vehicle" (dig the clothes and the light blue kerchief around Peterik's neck. It's also worth noting that if you go onto YouTube, it's amazing how many videos there are of marching bands covering this song."

from Richie Unterberger's liner notes for the Ides' LP re-issue, at http://www.richieunterberger.com/:

"When the Ides' song "Vehicle" roared up to #2 in the spring of 1970, it might have seemed to most of North America that the band had come out of nowhere, so swift and sudden was the single's rise up the charts. In fact, the group had been recording and performing since the mid-'60s, putting in years of honing their craft in both the studio and at Chicago-area gigs before the big payoff. The horn-driven soul-rock of "Vehicle" might have been what first caught the ears of many listeners, but the band's extensive experience in all forms of rock music was reflected in the Vehicle album itself, whose diverse material also encompassed folk-rock and included extended progressive workouts."

"Obviously BS&T was a big influence on the Ides, but what many people don't know is this: "I actually brought BS&T a tape of "Vehicle,"" said Jim Peterik. "It was a little demo tape of the song, a kind of rehearsal tape, to see if they were interested in recording it. I don't think they listened to it until after the song made it to the top. But I ran into BS&T's Steve Katz in an airport, and he told me, "Yeah, should have listened to that song.""

"In keeping with part of its musical inspiration, a lot of literal blood, sweat, and tears went into the recording of "Vehicle." I didn't know it at the time, but I was doing a spot-on David Clayton-Thomas imitation," admits Peterik. "I mean people in the studio said it was scary. I thought that was it--that first take--that was the take. And [engineer] Frank Rand said, "Peterik, would you stop trying to be David Clayton-Thomas and just be Peterik?" I go, "I am, I am." He says, "Just do it again." So I did a real pissed-off take, and that was, of course, the money take." As the backing vocals were being recorded, fourteen seconds were accidentally erased from the master tape, by the second engineer. Fortunately, creative editing saved the day when fourteen seconds were inserted from take one to replace the missing snippet."

"The Ides were not wholly pleased with the LP artwork Warners chose for Vehicle. "I think I can speak for the band saying we were pretty appalled by the cover art. It was one of those moments where [we were told[, "okay, here's the artwork." It was kind of a Spinal Tap moment, with all of us looking at this naked baby doll in the grass. This was courtesy of Warners' crack graphics staff."

from reviews at http://www.amazon.com/

Mitchell S. Steven: "Bo Bice really blew me away when he sang "Vehicle." I hear the original almost weekly on varous rock oldies shows, always loved the song, and I thought Bo would be perfect for it on American Idol. To my ultimate surprise, that's what he came out blowing. I was so happy and impressed and shocked, because I'd just told a co-worker, a week before, that I knew of a song Bo should try. He also ended the song on a different note from the original, and it was a GREAT ending note too."

Jeffrey Ellmann: "The album finally went gold in April, 1971. The Ides are one of the most overlooked groups in history. If you ever have a chance to catch one of their live performances, do so . . . you will come back for more. They do not forget about their fans."

Raul Velez: "It's still one of my all-time favorite albums. You know, the title track, "Vehicle," was widely used for General Motors car commercials at one point."

from http://en.wikipedia.org/:

The LP, Vehicle, reached #55 nationally. The band opened for many acts throughout 1970, including Jimi Hendrix. The Ides were also among the participants in the legendary "Festival Express" train tour across Canada (featuring the Grateful Dead, among many others), documented in a 2003 film, although the Ides were not featured in the film. In 1990, the Ides' hometown of Berwyn offered to have the re-united group headline their "Summerfest." The concert was attended by over 20,000 and the Ides returned from a long hiatus to regular live performances.

from http://youtube.com/comment:

Tessiree: "I remember being gobsmacked at seeing Sammy Davis, Jr. singing "Vehicle" on Johnny Carson.

Vid0385: "This was the song in the movie Lockup, starring Sylvester Stallone, where they fix up the old Mustang."

Oppieoops: "Probably the coolest song ever written and performed. High school bands perform it even today. Can't keep an awesome song down!"

Big FatFairy1970: "Wow, I had always thought those guys were Black."

Torres1009: "I was driving in Los Angeles listening to this song, doing 95, and got pulled over by the CHP."

hiznibz: "I first heard "Vehicle" on Stuart Hendry's show on Radio Luxembourg, and thought it was Chicago. My best friend heard it there too, and he thought it was Blood, Sweat & Tears. But it was the Ides of March! A true classic."

majerseyboy: "Good God!! The song hasn't lost a thing since it came out in 1970. There are not many songs you can say that about."

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Many thanks to Rockford, IL's Darrel Burnett for reminding me to blog about "Vehicle." And I commend everyone to take in a current Ides concert. You can read about their current activities at http://www.theidesofmarch.com/. Their modern-day version of "Vehicle" can be enjoyed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=_EBMo8xHGNs. And, when in Chicago, tune in to Bob Stroud on WDRV-FM (97.1), 'cause he's one of the Ides' great champions.

Last but not least, these notes about Berwyn (from Wikipedia):

"Berwyn (was) notable for the sculpture Spindle [pictured above], created by artist Dustin Shuler, and originally located in the Cermak Plaza shopping center with other works of art. This spindle was shown in the movie Wayne's World. Spindle was demolished an scrapped on the night of May 2, 2008 to make way for a new Walgreens pharmacy store.

"In the 1950s and '60s, Berwyn had a large Czechoslovakian population, and to celebrate their heritage, the Houby Day Parade was first organized in 1968. It coincides with the Fall mushroom harvest. Ogden Avenue in Berwyn is part of the historic Route 66, and an annual Vintage Car Show has been taking place there since 1990. The avenue, from Ridgeland to Oak Park, is shut down, and thousands of gearheads and car enthusiasts come out to celebrate the spirit of Route 66. More recently, Berwyn has begun to host an annual art-car parade called Cartopia. Art-car artists from all over the country have met (until recently) under the giant car spindle sculpture.

Some members of the rock band Styx lived in Berwyn at least once in their lives.

some very ROCKIN' automotive-themed rock concert posters appeared in May

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:45:00 +0000

(above) DIRTBOMBS, by VonDada (Kirk Diedrich)
(above) SOCIAL DISTORTION, by Craig Howell

(above) CLUTCH, by Jeral Tidwell

(above) NEW BRUTALISM, by Ryan Duggan

(above) DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS, by Powerslide Design

(above) FIN FANG FOOM, by Ron Liberti

(above) VIBROLAS, by Chris Hosner

(above) ZEKE, by Billy Bishop

(above) VELCRO LEWIS, by Crosshair Design (Dan McAdam)

(above) THE SLINGERLAND RIDE, by 1090 Studios

(above) "VAMPIRE WEEKEND," by Dog & Pony Showprints

Honoring our good friend Alton Kelley, the great rock concert poster artist who passed away, here are the posters-of-the-month for May.

Note that some are brand new, for May and June events, and others surfaced from the archives--and of note, the ZEKE poster, which Billy Bishop in Austin, TX spontaneously created by overprinting on some especially cheesy pre-printed stock. Kudos, Billy! Still one of my all-time favs.

Also gotta give special props to CAD designer Craig Howell, selecting a car much like that which Mike Ness drives; Jeral Tidwell, for continuing his own tradition of excellence; and VonDada (aka Kirk Diedrich) for his inspired DIRTBOMBS poster, who wrote on www.gigposters.com "these are 4-color screenprints (grey, red, "flo" (fluorescent) green, and black) on 110 lb. bright white stock, supertight printing done by Nick at Tugboat Studios. Edition of 100. These sold out at the show for $30 a pop. Crazy!"

Enjoy!

further updates upon Kelley's passing, he was indeed one ROCKIN' dude

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:39:00 +0000

Above, one of Kelley's many beautiful airbrush paintings. He was a hot rodder, he had a particular jones for custom cars, and he was an excellent mechanic. Thank you Frank Vacanti, for unearthing this beauty from the archives.

from Alton Kelley's family:

Thank you all wonderful family, friends, colleagues for the tremendous outpouring of love and support. Many of you have been asking how to contribute to the family for Kelley's medical expenses. You can wire or send a check toWashington Mutual Bank, 101 Western Ave., Petaluma CA 94952. Tel 707-763-4148. An account has been set up in the name of Marguerite Trousdale (account #3952762942) for wires (routing #322271627).We will let everyone know details about the memorial, when a time and place is determined. Peace and blessings to all.

A reminiscence from Kelley's good friend about his Connecticut years, penned by John Alfonso, of Richmond, CA:

"I'm still very shaken after reading his obituary in the SF Chron yesterday. I'd been talking about Kelley with some friends recently, and was thinking about tracking him down. Kelley and a group of us came out to California in 1963 from Bridgeport, CT. We spent some time in Venice hanging out, eating Mexican food, going to the flat track races at Ascot Park, smoking up a storm and drinking a lot of Guinness.

"Most of the guys ended up back in Conn., but I stayed in L.A. and Kelley drifted up north. I last saw him in late 1964. He came down to Venice and stayed with us for a couple of days. He told me about the Family Dog having just been formed, and tried to convince me to come back up to SF, but for a lot of reasons I stayed in Venice and eventually moved to the Bay Area in 1971.

"Mostly I remember my late teens with Kelley in Connecticut. He opend a world to me that I could have never found for myself. We worked on cars, took the train into Manhattan to go to the Guggenheim, listened to Jean Shepard, looked at Kelley's strange paintings (Pollack-like in those days, one was even triangular) and hung out at Parmelees motorcycle shop until they threw us out (Kelley got his Matchless there, finally).

"Kelley was one of the most important people in my life, and I regret very deeply not seeing him again later in life. My very deepest condolences to his family here and in Connecticut. He will be in my heart always."

John Alfonso
Richmond, CA

and, from yesterday's Los Angeles Times:

Alton Kelley, 67; artist created psychedelic posters for rock groups

By Mary Rourke_Los Angeles Times Staff Writer_June 4, 2008

Alton Kelley, a San Francisco graphic artist whose psychedelic posters and album covers captured the mood and music of the Grateful Dead, the Steve Miller Band, Journey and other top rock 'n' roll groups of the '60s and '70s, has died. He was 67.

Kelley died Sunday at his home in Petaluma, Calif., according to publicist Jennifer Gross. The cause was complications from osteoporosis.

With his creative partner Stanley Mouse, Kelley helped launch a poster art revolution in the mid-1960s, turning out vividly colored works for concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore Auditorium, where Jimi Hendrix, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service were among the headliners.

"Kelley was one of the first to see it coming, the rise of the psychedelic era in San Francisco," Paul Grushkin, who wrote "The Art of Rock, Posters From Presley to Punk" (1987), said this week. "He was a pioneer."

Using images inspired by vintage prints and lettering that flows like smoke, Kelley and Mouse designed graphics now considered emblems of the psychedelic age.The best known of them all is a skull and roses design they created for the Grateful Dead.

"Kelley had the unique ability to translate the music being played into amazing images that capture the spirit of who we were and what the music was all about," Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead said in a statement this week.

The album covers that came out of the Kelley-Mouse collaboration with the Grateful Dead included "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty" in 1970. The idea for a skull and roses came from an illustration in "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," a collection of poems by the Persian poet who died in 1123.

Kelley once explained that he found the illustration in a library book, enlarged the image, and added color and other details that dramatically changed it. "I knew right away it was a classic, " he said in a 1995 interview with the Palm Beach Post.He and Mouse created several other graphic images that became signatures for certain bands. Among them is a Pegasus that looms from the album cover of the Steve Miller Band's "Book of Dreams" in 1977 and a scarab on the album cover of "Departure," by Journey in 1980.

"Images Kelley and Mouse put on playbills, posters and album covers became a major part of the music experience of the time," Dell Furano of Signatures Network, which merchandises rock artworks, said in an interview this week

.Kelley was born June 17, 1940, in Houlton, Maine. After high school he worked as a mechanic and took art classes but never graduated from art school. He moved to San Francisco in about 1965 and helped found the Family Dog Collective, a group that produced some of the first psychedelic dance concerts in San Francisco, with light shows, dancing and poster art as part of the program.

He met Mouse about a year after he arrived in San Francisco. At the time, the Haight-Ashbury district was starting to bubble over. "It was really fun. Everybody was really enjoying themselves," Kelley told the San Francisco Chronicle last year. "We all came out of the rock 'n' roll world." When they began working together, "Stanley and I had no idea what we were doing," Kelley told the Chronicle. "We had free rein to just go graphically crazy."

Their posters combined images borrowed from Native American and Chinese art, Art Nouveau and Art Deco, reworked in acid colors and swirling letters that were a dramatic break with tradition. "Before that, all advertising was pretty much just typeset with a photograph of something," Kelley told the Chronicle.

"It was a glory period for record album covers," Grushkin said of the artists' inventions. "Kelley and Mouse created art that captured what the music sounded like.

"Kelley continued working as a graphic artist throughout his career, sometimes teaming up with Mouse. Their most recent project was for the March induction ceremony of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

Kelley is survived by his wife, Marguerite; three children; two grandchildren; his mother, Annie; and his sister, Kathy.

mary.rourke@latimes.com

And from me, having meditiated on all the wonderful things that have been said in the last several days, my conclusion is . . . bless you Kelley, you've brought all of us together again.

another man done gone, RIP Alton Kelley, a great ROCKIN' poster artist and greater friend

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:06:00 +0000

(above) the iconic Family Dog #26
Grateful Dead at the Avalon Ballroom, September,1966

poster by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse

(above) GRATEFUL DEAD BOOK OF THE DEAD HEADS (1983),

cover art by Alton Kelley

authored by Paul Grushkin, Jonas Grushkin, and Cynthia Bassett

illustrating The Dead's "Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion" song

(above and below) in the last ten years of Kelley's life he took huge joy

in painting hot rods and customs, as fine art and for t-shirts and other merch.

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Our great, good friend, poster artist and illustrator Alton Kelley passed away last night from complications due to a lingering illness. I will miss him. All his friends will miss him.
-
I've spoken about Kelley's legacy several times in previous blogs. He and his colleagues in the original Family Dog collective changed the course of San Francisco, the Bay Area, and rock & roll forever, having put on the world's first psychedelic-mode dance concerts--before Chet Helms, before Bill Graham. Then Kelley went on to do posters with Stanley Mouse, then album covers, then hot rod art.
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I'm reminded, on Kelley's passing, of Robert Hunter's words and Jerry Garcia's music, as performed by the Grateful Dead in "Black Peter," on the album WORKINGMANS DEAD:
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"All of my friends
Came to see me last night
I was laying in my bed and dying

-
"Annie Bonneau from St. Angel
says the weather down there, so fine
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"Just then the wind
Came squalling through the dark.
But who can the weather command?
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"Just want to have
A little peace to die
And a friend or two I love at hand.
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"Fever roll up to a hundred and five,
Roll on up, gonna roll back down.
One more day I find myself alive,
Tomorrow maybe go beneath the ground.
-
"See here how everything
Lead up to this day.
And it's just like any other day
That's ever been.
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"Sun, going up and then,
The sun it go back down.
Shine through the window,
And my friends they come around."
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And here is Kelley's official obit. Those of you know me, may recognize my contribution.
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"Legendary artist Alton Kelley created a graphic stype that rocked the world beginning in the psychedelic Sixties. His concert posters, logo designs, LP album covers, and fine art have forevermore defined that time.
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"Kelley, born June 17, 1940, passed away peacefully at home June 1st of complications from a long illness. He is survived by the true love of his life, Marguerite Trousdale Kelley. He also leaves his mother Annie, sister Kathy, and beloved children Patty, Yossarian, and China, and beautiful grandchildren Life and Lacoda.
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"Through his mind-expanding creativity and over several decades, Kelley gave rock music new colors, shapes, and themes expressing the optimism and enthusiasm of young people around the globe. His graphics defined youth culture as much as the music itself--in effect, his art was a break-thru collaboration with musicians and bands such as the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. As Joel Selvin, rock critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, put it, "Kelley and Mouse drew the first face on rock music."
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"Kelley and his life-long collaborator, Stanley Mouse, are best known for their posters for "San Francisco style" dance-concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium, Winterland Arena, Avalon Ballroom, and a host of other Bay Area theaters and amphitheaters. They also created world-renowned posters and album covers for the Grateful Dead, Journey, Steve Miller, Hendrix, The Beatles, and others.
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"The two artists historically worked as a team, in their words "riffing off each other's giggle." They joyfully appropriated from historic sources, in one instance re-working an obscure nineteenth-century etching to create their iconic Grateful Dead "skeleton and roses" design. They combined vibrant sixties color with French poster-making joi de vivre technique to generate compelling pieces often issued on a weekly basis, ultimately dazzling millions worldwide. Thus, they even changed advertising art forever, as their posters belonged to one of the most important art movements of the latter part of the twentieth century.
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"When Kelley (a native of Maine) met Mouse (a native of Detroit, MI), in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in late 1965 (the "Haight" was the epicenter of the hippie movement, culminating in the "Summer of Love" in 1967), they instantly recognized they were kindred spirits in what Mouse described as "one of the juciest scenes of all time."
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"Their concert posters, commissioned by Fillmore promoter Bill Graham and Graham's rival, the Avalon's Family Dog collective, were eagerly snapped up by bands and fans alike. In the decades since, Mouse and Kelley's classics have established even greater popularity, rivaling the interest long shown by collectors of French turn-of-the-century Belle Epoque art made famous by Toulouse-Lautrec and others.
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"Kelley's (and Mouse's) art is licensed worldwide by Signatures Network, Inc. "There is one word for Alton Kelley's lifelong contribution, and that is "iconic,"" said Dell Furano, President of Signatures Network.
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"In lieu of flowers, donations can be made at the Washington Mutual Western Street branch in Petaluma, CA for a memorial bench in a Sonoma County park. A memorial event will be announced shortly."
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And so, In the refrain of a great, and painful, and ultimately uplifting country-blues song:
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"Another man done gone, another man done gone, down on the county farm, another man done gone."
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RIP Alton Kelley. Bless you, man. Wherever you fly to, wherever you land, be sure to kick some hot rod tires for all of us.
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celebrating Robert M. Knight's ROCKIN' photography, with a great automotive tale besides (involving Led Zeppelin)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Grushkin) — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:19:00 +0000

(above) tinted for effect by the photographer, here is Led Zeppelin arriving

at Honolulu Airport, 5-12-69, about to jump into photog Robert Knight's VW bus