the bestest part of my berfday

...came at the end of the night
when my sweetie 'n' i
took a handful of balloons
out to the street
and let 'em go
and watched 'em fly
all the way up to the sky.

i'll bet you thought that i forgot.

stoogeaphilia @ the wreckroom on my b-day

below are a few shots my sweetie took of the stoogeband's probable last stand at el wreck before it closes. a bunch of ppl got together and bought me an amp -- a real nice hughes & kettner, which i'm gonna have to spend some time fooling around with the next time i have a day off -- that i typically didn't notice until lee allen pointed it out to me. i'd plugged into matt hembree's peavey when i got there, then wizard o' sound andre lowered the movie screen while i was out in the bar, and they replaced matt's peavey with the h & k and had andre call us in to soundcheck. first i picked up the paper crane that was sitting on top of the amp. then i picked up the balloons. when lee said, "look _under_ the balloons," i looked at the end of the string. duh. then i noticed the amp. also, thanks to sir steffin for letting me know i was unplugged in the middle of (i think) "tv eye."

'twas the best berfday ever. i may be mr. potato head, but i have the best friends/family in the world. much love and respect to all: jesse sierra hernandez; bill pohl; joe vano; lee and anne allen; carl and tina pack; cameron and chris from merkin; ron "the velvet hammer" geida (12 year friend); "confusajohn" stevens (10 year friend); paul; amy kadleck (#1 stoogeband fan); the central market boyzzz (beau, julio, and dave); aaron; kerry brown; eric harris; sir marlin von bungy; calvin and rat from the asian media crew; natty patty; tony diaz; dan (29 year friend), larry, and kerrie; stoogeaphiles ray, matt, jon, and steffin; dre, linda, and jeffa; riley shaw; dave karnes; aimee, james, amber, and their crew; and my sweetie, of course. and to you, too, if i forgot i saw you (too many tequila shots). y'all made my night real special.

the stoogeaphiles kicked much ass and even broke in a coupla new toons (finally!): opened with the heartbreakers' "chinese rocks" and "my idea of fun" from the weirdness, and played television's "marquee moon" (a showcase for sir steffin to shine in, but also a great rhythmic lock that worked well and felt great to play) mid-set. when we start practicing again in august, we'll be breaking in a coupla pere ubu songs. tammy gomez was gonna come flow verse over the "little doll" feedback meltdown, but we ended too soon (a band enroute from austin to chicago played after us). maybe next time. and i understand scott copeland had his best night in a few weeks. hopefully billy 'n' carl made some money, too.

a jazz collective in the fort? a quiet month ahead...

ran into dave williams at the market. he promises another ornettology performance "before the jazz festival" and says he's been rehearsing with a new "jazz collective" helmed by trumpeter leonard belota that also includes musos of the caliber of ex-master cylinder mastermind / longtime jubilee theatre composer-in-residence joe rogers, arts fifth avenue co-founder / mondo drummers artistic director eddie dunlap, young lion daymond callahan, etc. they're looking at a number of venues, including some of the smaller bass hall spaces. sounds like i need to give leonard a call.

it's been kind of a retrospective and introspective month at mi casa, and in the one to come, i'll be preoccupied with family stuff, promises to keep, etc. the jamcats' level of activity seems to be diminishing, and the stoogeband is taking the month off completely. i'm waiting to hear about some freelance writing stuff. be interesting to see what happens next.

shannon jackson bio @ fortworthjazz.com

the bio of ronald shannon jackson i penned for fort worth jazz is online now. much of it is adapted from a piece i wrote for the fw weekly a few yrs back, which mysteriously got truncated in the paper's online edition. these days, it seems shannon's working on a jazz opera. the prospect of hearing performances of new work by this master composer and jazz innovator is exciting indeed.

the move

thanks to farren, here's the move performing "night of fear" and "i can hear the grass grow." truly, they don't make 'em like this anymore.

scott copeland, carey wolff

it'll be just like old times tonight at 6th street live, as scott copeland swaps songs with carey wolff. i'd be there myself if the jamcats weren't playing the li'l wreck room -- um, right, lee?

don cherry

listening to ex-ornette sideman don cherry's eternal rhythm the other night, my sweetie remarked that when cherry's andean-sounding wood flutes give way to a martial beat from french drummer jacques thollot, it sounds like conquistadors invading the americas. while i doubt that's what cherry intended, he might have appreciated that interpretation. cherry was a world traveler who incorporated the sounds he heard in his peregrinations into his music -- in particular, a lengthy and evolving piece called "togetherness." eternal rhythm features a bunch of heavy hitters from the euro jazz scene -- vibist karl berger, pianist joachim kuhn (who later recorded with ornette), trombonist albert mangelsdorff -- as well as sonny sharrock on gtr (who'd just moved, when this was recorded at a festival in germany, 1968, from herbie mann's group to pharaoh sanders', and gets about as much on-mic time here as he did on miles' tribute to jack johnson). by that time, cherry had already worked with coltrane, sonny rollins, and albert ayler, and cut three albs as leader for blue note (two with gato barbieri before herb alpert got hold of him, two with pharaoh). he went on to play with the jazz composers orchestra, ornette (again) and the o.c. alumni band old and new dreams, among others, and to see two of his kids become pop stars, before checking out in 1995. i still 'member seeing him with old and new dreams at town hall in nyc, 1979, opening for arthur blythe. a magical muso.

captain beefheart's 10 commandments for gtrists

jerko from sunward sent this. sounds like something don woulda writ:

1. LISTEN TO THE BIRDS That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.

2. YOUR GUITAR IS NOT REALLY A GUITAR Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.

3. PRACTICE IN FRONT OF A BUSH Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn't shake, eat another piece of bread.

4. WALK WITH THE DEVIL Old delta blues players referred to amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts demons and devils. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.

5. IF YOU'RE GUILTY OF THINKING, YOU'RE OUT If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

6. NEVER POINT YOUR GUITAR AT ANYONE Your instrument has more power than lightning. Just hit a big chord, then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.

7. ALWAYS CARRY YOUR CHURCH KEY You must carry your key and use it when called upon. That's your part of the bargain. Like One String Sam. He was a Detroit street musician in the fifties who played a homemade instrument. His song "I Need A Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another church key holder is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty making you want to look up her dress to see how he's doing it.

8. DON'T WIPE THE SWEAT OFF YOUR INSTRUMENT You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.

9. KEEP YOUR GUITAR IN A DARK PLACE When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure to put a saucer of water in with it.

10. YOU GOTTA HAVE A HOOD FOR YOUR ENGINE Wear a hat when you play and keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a wet paper towel around it to make it grow.

last exit

music gets no more intense than this: ronald shannon jackson (ds), bill laswell (bs), peter brotzmann (ts), sonny sharrock (gtr).

finnish squirrel-metal rules!!!

found out today

...that my dad was diagnosed with alzheimer's (same as his mom had). my middle dtr and i are going the end of next month to see him, my mom, my sis 'n' her fam. hoping we can have a nice visit, but it'll be a bittersweet one, too.

this one time, at rock camp...

jon teague 'n' i dropped in to play "old blues negro" for one of the bands in this week's rock camp sesh at the ridglea. (they play their graduation concert this coming sat'day, 6.30, at 6th street live; next session starts 7.9.) this time out, camp-meister lee allen has help from top-notch instructors joey carter, andrew skates, and john shook. busy tcu faculty member/jazzcat joey seems to have drawn the "pop" band (two girls, one of whom has some keyboard training); when i looked in on his group, they were listening to blur's "song 2" while joey wrote out a chord chart (by ear) so he could teach 'em how to play it. tcu alumnus / confusatron gtrist andrew seemed to have the most advanced musos, who were jammin' blooze (and beatles "come together," shades of impulse of will) pretty much non-stop the whole time my sweetie 'n' i were on the set. (one of andrew's kids in particular had a nice peter green thang goin' on, altho i 'spect the sonic similarity was coincidental.) shook's four gtrists, who are playing stooges "search and destroy" along with skynyrd "simple man" and toadies "possum kingdom," caught on quickly to the sneaky "hidden" chords in "s&d"'s progression, but got antsy when jon took some time to coach the drummer. sorry i'm gonna miss their performance, but hopefully our participation was beneficial to them in some way. my sweetie took some pics 'n' will post 'em later on her blog.

around the fort

...with tammy gomez as your guide: you could do loads worse. i find her first item particularly intriguing.

ftw 6.24.2007

my sweetie made the lights at curly's come on
twice

and on the way home, we saw a man in a chair
and his cat
on a hill

fz & the moi on bbc-tv, etc.

this clip of frank zappa and the original mothers of invention playing "king kong" on bbc-tv appeared on youtube a few months ago, then abruptly disappeared, so enjoy it while you can.



my sweetie also gifted me fz's dub room special dvd, which i'd previously been warned off by damien stewart, but then again, sticky d's fave zappa band was the flo and eddie edition, so i figured it might be worth a look. i like the parts with the '74 band with george duke, ruth underwood, and napoleon murphy brock, which was the first one i saw live, real much. in the fullness of time, they sound more like a jazz group when frank's not actually playing than later zappa units would, which is not necessarily a bad thing. it's nice to have the vid to go with the tracks "florentine pogen" and "inca roads" that later appeared (the latter with a different gtr solo) on one size fits all. they also play the same arrangement of "dog breath"/"uncle meat" that the ensemble modern did on the yellow shark. the silly shit seems more _organic_ somehow in a live sitch than it did on the rekkids starting with overnite sensation. the stuff from the '82 steve vai-ray white-chad wackerman band is somewhat less cosmic. the version of "stevie's spanking" pales next to the one from italian tv that i believe is still floating around out there in youtubeland, but it's hard not to be overwhelmed by the extreme euroclassicism (scabrous lyrics aside) of "easy meat." it ain't baby snakes, but it's still nice to have around.

after watching dub room special, i had to throw on zoot allures, which is teague's fave fz alb and contains the two songs that the zappa family trust inexplicably asks cover bands not to play: "black napkins" and "zoot allures" itself. i remember being really flustered by this alb's metallic gtrissimo when it was new back in the bicentennial yr, but now it just seems like the logical place for frank to go once he had his gtr tone sorted out.

wow, i-94 bar pubs rare stoogepixxx

this from the i-94 barman:

Thanks to uber Stooges fan Craig Petty, the I-94 Bar is bringing you previously unseen and graphic photos of the Stooges in action in three Funhouse era shows in Missouri in 1970 and '71.

Some of these photos are from the short-lived line-up with Ron Asheton and James Williamson on guitars. All of them are amazing...and none of them you will have seen before.

Craig tells us the story behind the gigs. You'll be green with envy.

Click through to the Barman's Rant blog to read it and see the gallery.

The Barman's Rant blog: http://thebarmansrant.blogspot.com

the lower-numbered ones appear to be from the later show; i don't see williamson in any of 'em, but RON is stage left, playing a les paul, and i think the dude playing the gibson bass is jimmy recca. in some of the higher-numbered ones, you can definitely see dave alexander on bass, and RON is playing a strat. awesome stuff.

speaking of stooge-ism, turns out jon teague has the day off from his straight job on monday, so both he 'n' i (that's 40% of stoogeaphilia) will be helping to edjumikate de yoof at rock camp that day. it should be real o mind.

sonny sharrock

topping my playlist today: ask the ages, sonny sharrock's epochal 1991 blast wherein he demonstrates (in company of pharaoh sanders 'n' elvin jones, no less) how relevant coltrane's legacy can be to 'lectric gtrists, and how "jazz gtr" doesn't necessarily have to mean dry 'n' sterile, tone-wise. r.i.p. (thanks, sweetie.)

sci-fi

i think once i finish re-reading the vonnegut tomes my sweetie got me for my 12-day (!) berfday celebration, i'm gonna start reading sci-fi again in earnest for the first time since high school. bradbury, asimov, ellison, philip k. dick, william gibson. all because katboy has shown me you can read "speculative fiction" and still be a real cool muso dude.

ronald shannon jackson

just penned a bio of legendary drummer-composer-decoding society bandleader ronald shannon jackson for fort worth jazz. here's vid of the master at work, playing and teaching a seminar at unt on 2.20.2007.



here he is playing a tribute to late gtr great sonny sharrock with decoding society vets vernon reid and melvin gibbs at the knitting factory in nyc.



and here he is leading a hot band including gtrist jef lee johnson, saxman james carter, and bassist ngolle pokosi in gdansk, poland, 1994.



listening as i type this to shannon's when colors play album, recorded at caravan of dreams in 1986. great compositions, great band, great recording. makes me nostalgic for the caravan even tho i missed out on its heyday, when ornette, shannon, and blood ulmer were regular visitors there.

Rachella Parks

For the past few years, Fort Worth saxophonist/educator Rachella Parks has been afflicted with sarcoidosis, a mysterious disease that produces lumps of inflamed cells in various bodily organs. On Sunday, July 1st, a benefit for the Sarcoidosis Foundation of Texas, a nonprofit organization founded by Rachella's sister Laronda, will be held at Sardines Ristorante Italiano between 6:30 and 11:30pm. Performers will include a trio of John Kahsen, Chris White, and Duane Durrett; pianist Daymond Callahan with a group including drummer Daniel Tcheco; saxophonist Raymond Fowler; multi-instrumentalist Joey Carter with saxophonist Shelley Carroll; and Women In Jazz. Information on the disease will be presented, and donations to the foundation are highly encouraged.

the fellow americans

had drinks last night at the bull and bush with matt hickey and hal welch of the fellow americans and ricky chewning, a visual artist who's involved in promoting the jazz by the boulevard festival and also usedta play drums with matt 'n' hal in the rio grande babies. we discussed the irony of the fellow americans having lost their frontman almost immediately after receiving favorable press for their brand-new cd search for numb from no less of a personage than rockcrit chuck eddy. (matt's gonna try singing for the time being.) also talked about fort worth rawk dumps past 'n' present, band names (faves: "instrument of destruction" and "phil spector court hair"), and the possibility of a rgb reunion set at the wreck room's wednesday jam, or even a fellow americans show with one fingered fist (and maybe, um, stoogeaphilia) in a disused airplane hangar in weatherford. nice bunch of cats.

ph7

it was, as they say, a perfect storm: pablo & the hemphill 7 playing at my place of employment, starting just before i got off work, on the evening when my sweetie's summer va-ca begins, and i didn't have to go to work the next day.

it'd been awhile since we saw pablo play, but some things don't change, like the crowd of happy smiling people (only some of whom are part of "their crowd") dancing in front of their stage. that's just what this band does, and has been doing for the past five yrs.

what was new: seeing the generations of pablo there. not just jonathan irwin's parents, but steffin ratliff and ex-bandmate marcus lawyer's babies.

marcus' replacement matt hembree has been playing with steffin for almost a decade now, and with damien stewart and justin pate for five and six yrs respectively. the plethora of interconnections between the musos is palpable every time they hit their groove.

the only thing that nags me everytime i hear pablo: the knowledge that they have over an hour's worth of strong original material that's never seen a "legit" cd release.

birdman no, rock camp si

crap. looks like the radio birdman show at the palladium in dallas is a non-starter due to skimpy ticket sales. feh.

instead, it looks like i'm gonna spend part of one of my days off next week playing "search and destroy" with some young stooges at rock camp. thanks to rock camp-meister lee allen for the invite.

yardbirds in "blow up"

here's another clip i never get tahrd of watching: the jeff beck/jimmy page edition of the yardbirds, pretending to be the 'oo in michelangelo antonioni's '66 film blow up. gives me an idea of what to do with my misbehaving classic 50...altho jeff takes his amp frustration out on a cheap old japanese hollowbody somebody bought for the occasion.

television

listening to marquee moon and reading the village voice's coverage of what mighta been television's last hurrah in central park last sunday, with jimmy rip subbing for richard lloyd.

stoogeaphilia

at stoogeband prac last sunday, we decided that after my b-day blowout on 6.28, rather than trying to hustle another regular monthly gig, we're gonna limit our performance sked to four shows a year (barring extraordinary opportunities), at venues tbd. also decided that we need to learn a whole new set of material before we play out again. worked on three songs which should get their first public airings next thursday. after that, the month of july is pretty much a wash, what with the great tyrant playing five shows (including three on the road), plus my having to go see my folks in new joisey the end of the month, so it'll be august before we reconvene.

deniz tek

deniz tek is a cat i admire a lot: rock'n'roller, emergency surgeon, naval aviator, real fine dude. here's vid of him in 1993, a coupla yrs out of the navy, when he was just starting to relaunch his musical career, sittin' in with a local band in minneapolis, playing radio birdman's "new race."

savoy brown

wizard o' sound andre mixed savoy brown at j&j's blues bar the other night. hard to believe kim simmonds is still treading the boards in 2007, having started his career in the blooze-crazed britain of '65. my buddy geoff is still a devoted fan (then again, he also digs black oak arkansas, the foghat band that's just the drummer from the 'riginals, and jerry shirley's humble pie) and still swears by 'em. myself, i'll admit to a fondness for their blue matter and raw sienna albs from back in the day, and to having played "savoy brown boogie" a lot as a snotnose. but dre sez their new stuff sounds boss, and from the li'l bit you can hear on their website, i'm inclined to agree. go fig.

radio birdman

next monday in dallas: radio birdman. here they be's on aussie tv, 1978, playing "what gives," "descent into the maelstrom," "burn my eye," and "search and destroy." the i-94 barman reports that ivory-tickler pip hoyle (the talkative fella in the beret) won't be on board due to a family illness, so the focus will be on the dual gtr action of deniz "iceman" tek (epiphone crestwood) and chris "klondike" masuak (gibson sg, in the vid).

the great tyrant

here's some vid of the great tyrant, the band jon teague plays in with his ex-yeti bandmate tommy atkins and former american idol contestant daron beck.

goodwin

missed the premiere of three new goodwin songs on the good show sunday, but ran into tony diaz at the fwac acoustic monday thingy last night and got to hear "telekinesis vs. indifference" in his car (same place i heard "march" before the "blue album" came out). the song itself has always seemed like the bastard child in goodwin's set, but the studio has transformed it into something entahrly other -- dare i say "metallic prog?" all that's missing is a shredding solo (which evil dictator daniel "less is more" gomez is loath to play) for the goodwin guys to be ready to go head-to-head with addnerim. tony's voice even sounds higher, _almost_ (but not quite) in the geddy lee range. [pertinent facts: 1) damien stewart digs rush. 2) the underground railroad has been gigging more lately. 3) sat'day night at the sundance square flying saucer, damien and matt hembree were playing '80s hair metal toons with pablo & the hemphill 7.] not sure what this could portend, but my interest is definitely piqued.

isle of wight: who vs. hendrix

by the festival summer of '70, i believe, fortune had shifted in favor of the four ex-mods from shepherd's bush (see live at leeds). it's a tough call whether they or the stooges were the best band in the world at that particular moment (see the infamous cincinnati pop festival vid). poor jimi would be dead in a couple of weeks. while his band of gypsys / cry of love phase is prolly my favorite, musically, he sure seems _tired_ here. _you_ be the judge! (matt?)

juneteenth

from juneteenth.com:

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

better late than never, i always say.

sly & the family stone

speaking of woodstock, here's my vote for the most exciting live performance of all ti-i-ime...

ph7 @ central market this thursday

so pablo & the hemphill 7, a band we dig but don't get to see nearly as often as we'd like, are playing at central market, where i work, this thursday night, which just happens to be the night my sweetie begins her almost-nine-weeks of summer va-ca. so, it's a no-brainer. ya mo be theah -- maybe you, too?

addnerim @ the wreck room 6.10.2007

...playin' at the nguyen family benefit.

cadillac fraf

oh by the way...travelin' man / tireless self-publicist / sexy mofo cadillac fraf be's at the li'l wreck room for the fwac acoustic monday thingy, this very night.

blood of the sun @ rockyard

this from blood of the sun. i haven't been to a show at the rockyard yet, but if i were motivated that way, this'd be a goodun to check out:

Charity Concert featuring Mark [Grand Funk Railroad] Farner...Benefiting the I Have A Dream Foundation with Pat [Mr. "Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights"] Travers / The Insiders [the Rueffer brothers' country thang] / Mike Rhyner's Petty Theft / Blood of the Sun / Eight Arms To Hold You (Eagles Tribute)

Date 6.23.2007

Info Doors at 6:00...Tickets are $20 in advance at www.frontgatetickets.com and $25 day of show...This show is All Ages

mountain

was surprised to hear the audio from mountain's "don't look around" on the ass-end of another burned cd track this morning. reminded me of how deeply leslie west's fat les paul jr. tone was etched in my synapses listening to noo yawk rawk radio ca. '70-'71. the ex-vagrant (their version of "respect" made it onto the 'riginal nuggets) was like lawn guyland's very own clapton and townshend, all rolled into one isro-haired, leather-clad, bloozewailing boyo.



later on, my college band usedta play "never in my life"...



...and "southbound train."



bassist-vocalist and former cream producer felix pappalardi later recorded with the japanese band blues creation, and wound up getting capped by his wife-lyricist gail collins for screwing around on the road. r.i.p.

dennis gonzalez in portugal

here's dallas improv godfather dennis gonzalez, performing live with pianist joao paulo esteves da silva in the town square of torres vedras, portugal, in a june 9th concert that was attended by most of the townspeople. just beautiful.

mingus

i didn't get to see charles mingus until very late in his life -- 1976, i do believe, at the state university of new york at stony brook's union ballroom (sam rivers' trio opened). by that time, saxman george adams and pianist don pullen (the best combo platter of tradition and modernism to grace the mingus band since jaki byard, i.m.o.) had departed, replaced by ricky ford and jimmy rowles, respectively, but trumpeter jack walrath was still on board from the great lineup that cut changes one and two, and mingus' "25-year friend" dannie richmond was still on drums, of course. mingus was already sick by then, and he looked _tired_. the only piece i really remember vividly was the closing "for harry carney," but that's more my fault than anyone else's -- my feedback-scorched ears were still too unsophisticated to truly hear mingus music.

my first investigations of mingus were inspahrd by frank zappa, who namechecked the titanic bassist-composer in the lengthy list of influences in the liner notes to freak out!, and a review of a couple of eric dolphy releases in creem that pointed the way back to charles mingus presents charles mingus from 1960 (which bore the original "fables of faubus," complete with tongue-in-cheek lyrics about the arkansas governor who tried to bar the integration of little rock schools back in '54) and the 1964 town hall concert, which featured the first released recording of "meditiations." both of those pieces also appeared in extended versions on the great concert of charles mingus, a triple lp that became a fave listen of mine and motivated me to obsessively seek out any 'n' all recordings i could find of the band mingus took to europe in april '64 (after which dolphy stayed on in europe, only to pass away from diabetic complications a coupla months later). 'twas a happy day at my house when verve reished the great concert on cd a coupla yrs back, with some previously-unheard jaki byard solo wonderment and a complete (and correctly-titled) "so long eric," which was mysteriously labeled "goodbye pork pie hat" on earlier issues. next month, blue note is releasing another double cd of the '64 band, recorded at cornell university in upstate new york before they embarked on the eurotour. hooray!

other fave mingus sides: tijuana moods, the ellingtonian chronicle of a wild-ass post-divorce trip mingus took south of the border with dannie in tow, recorded in '57 but not released until '62; the classic '59 recordings mingus ah hum (on columbia, bearing great tunes in short bite-sized nuggets that make it a good introduction for the uninitiated) and blues and roots (on atlantic, featuring the same band but rawer and able to extemporize at greater length, including a superior version of "my jelly roll soul" from ah hum); pre-bird (from 1960, consisting, as the title implies, of pieces composed before mingus encountered charlie parker, played by a large ensemble); at antibes (the 1960 band with dolphy, ted curson, and booker ervin, playing at a french jazz festival, not as epochal as the great concert but good nonetheless); and the black saint and the sinner lady, maybe mingus' greatest work released during his lifetime, a sprawling epic "ballet" that was a fave of st. lester bangs'. when i was dating my sweetie and first played this for her, she remarked on the way the constantly-shifting textures and moods reminded her of a busy street in a city.

like zappa, mingus was a _composer_ first, although the public knew him best as an instrumentalist-bandleader. back in the day, i saw more zappa shows than any other performer's, but in later years, the recordings of his i return to the most often are the orchestral the yellow shark (the realization of a lifetime dream of frank's: to hear _well-executed_ orchestral renditions of his works) and the synclavier-generated civilization phaze III (an encyclopedic magnum opus that he tinkered with for years before making it his main focus after his last touring band disintegrated in welters of interpersonal musician-shit) -- maybe because they allow the listener to hear the music without the stupid jokes (and it's so good you don't even miss the gtr solos). in a similar vein, we've been listening a lot lately to epitaph, the recorded artifact of the 1989 premiere of mingus' masterpiece, a 130-minute "symphony" realized by conductor gunther schuller and a 30-piece orchestra from a 500-page score discovered a decade after the composer's death. it's a grandiose feast that makes the black saint and the sinner lady seem like just a snack. if that album's a city street, then epitaph's a whole city, or maybe a whole planet (or universe). in its 19 sections, it contains every kind of music mingus played in life (large debt to ellington, of course), including some familiar pieces ("better get it in your soul," "peggy's blue skylight"), an awesome achievement. while this will take a few more weeks to fully absorb, it makes me wish we'd been able to catch one of the four performances schuller took on the road earlier this year.

cow town hoe down

when she graduated from high school, my middle dtr told me she wanted to live out on her own for a yr before going to college "so i can have the experience of paying for shit." so she moved into a house in north richland hills with one of her high school friends and a coupla crazy rockabilly kids, marc and sarah, who usedta hang out at the black dog a lot. marc and sarah, at least, proved to be real good friends and roommates. they were (and are) also true believers in the faith of sun elvis, mac curtis, and cowhide cole. once when my dtr was in a blue funk, sarah suggested to her, "you need more rockabilly in your life!"

now marc and sarah are part of dixie fried entertainment, a consortium (with pal tyler evans) of rockabilly/country/roots music fanatics who are booking the "cow town hoe down," which will hopefully become a monthly rockabilly night at the stockyard saloon (2409 n. main). their first event will be on friday, july 27th, with the two timin' four. the 21+ event is free, and they're looking to attract an eclectic crowd. i say check it out. we could all use more rockabilly in our lives.

senor pablo

he runs
he slides
he steals
our hearts

a last word on uncle lou

...from my pal geoff ginsberg, writing on the i-94 bar.

father's day 2

from charles mingus' autobiography beneath the underdog:

I'm not using any of the rules. If you hadn't grown up -- in your seventies -- I doubt if I'd be talking to you now. What has the fact that you went to bed with my mother got to do with anything? The only father I have is God. Your only duty was to see me to an age to think for myself. You owe me nothing but the truth of your journey. Some day I may choose another father to teach me and you may choose another son to teach. If I sound loveless and it hurts you, I'm sorry, because then I'm not making myself clear. I'm here because I love you -- it's not your power over me as the author of my being that drew me to you at this age. The man you were once drove me away. What brought me back was your true self, the man I'm talking to today.

father's day

had coffee and talk with my middle dtr in the morning, a good stoogeaphilia prac in the afternoon, followed by a viet dinner in the h.c., and a frank sinatra film festival (the 'riginal manchurian candidate and the man with the golden arm) with my sweetie in the evening time. she also posted more of her wreck room pics (some of which were in the wreck room stories book, some of which were not) on her photo blog (a sunday ritual i now look forward to -- she puts up another seven pics each week). a good day, and a holiday (as my buddy andrew sez) the reason for which is its own greatest reward.

sunday morning

speaking of uncle lou, here he is with his latter-day band, singing one of my favorite songs ever.

lou reed and robert quine

in case you thought i was kidding about lou reed looking like piscopo-as-springsteen. would he have had to return his olympic gold medal for rock'n'roll? _you_ decide! while this is a pretty unmusical version of "some kinda love" into "sister ray," bob quine sure was a great gtrist. r.i.p.

happy bloomsday

watt writes (and i agree):

people,

go get your read on:

http://www.readeasily.com/james-joyce/00130/index.php

...18 chapters, each covering roughly one hour of the day, beginning around about 8 a.m. and ending sometime after 2 a.m. the following morning. each of the 18 chapters of the novel employs its own literary style. each chapter also refers to a specific episode in homer's odyssey and has a specific colour, art or science and bodily organ associated with it.

yeah, yeah... well, for one thing, I wouldn't have written "colour" !!!

"...that cry that has rung through the ages. and then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and o! then the roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of o! and everyone cried o! o! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of..." (pg 359, 1st u.s. edition)

watt

uncle lou reappraised

i find it interesting that my two favorite musical artistes (the stooges; lou reed) -- one of which released three bona fide albums, all of which are great in different ways and one of which (funhouse) is probably my favorite rekkid _of all time_; the other of which has released dozens of albums, less than half of which are listenable and maybe ten of which have truly stood the test of time -- as my buddy geoff from philly points out, utilize different channels (the cock; the cerebrum) to take the listener to the same place (transcendence).

since jettisoning titanic early collaborators 'n' mentors andy warhol and john cale -- after which the velvet underground devolved into a confluence of _the talent_ with two beloved friends (sterl 'n' mo) and one much more modestly gifted opportunist (doug yule) who nonetheless sought to impose his stink on the songs lou brought for their last album by overdubbing each and every one of them with a cheeseball, inorganic-sounding veneer of every last instrument he could possibly imagine) -- lou's career has been the story of his development as a songwriter. the latter-day release of robert quine's v.u. tapes, which depict the velvets as a kind of black-turtleneck wearing psychedelic jam band (three, count 'em, _three_ long versions of "sister ray," etc.), only served to cloud the picture. the _real_ thread starts with the velvets' eponymous third album, the one with all the "soft" songs. you could say that lou's latter-day music sounds like what that record would have if the velvets hadn't had all of their f/x boxes stolen immediately prior to recording it (as legend holds they did).

when reed hired quine to give his art a much-needed kick in the ass in the early '80s, he soon realized the diminishing utility of having a band that he had to yell over to be heard (see the live-in-italy vids on youtube, where lou looks like joe piscopo-as-broooce springsteen) and after another fallow period in the mid-'80s, he came up with an alternative: the "loud soft sound" he described in musician magazine around the time he released new york and songs for drella. on those two albums and the one that followed them (magic and loss), uncle lou crafted a kind of rock chamber music that's served him well ever since. in the fullness of time, he's even dispensed with the drummer in his touring band. so there.

the surfeit of hype surrounding the first quine-era album, the blue mask, when it was new probably had more to do with the assembled rockcrits of the planet becoming so accustomed (in the retreat from artistic ambition that followed the public's rejection of berlin) to lou's releasing album after album of cynical _product_, first exploiting the mainstream rock appeal of the super-slick band of studio cats that backed him on his '73 tour (who had less genuine feeling for his songs than had either the yes guys on the eponymous solo debut or the long island garage band losers that had backed him on the road in '72 and can be heard to good advantage on american poet), then churning out a half-dozen or so lackluster releases wherein worthless dreck bordering on self-parody ("dirt," "i wanna be black") rubbed shoulders with the occasional good song ("coney island baby," "street hassle"). while the blue mask bore at least two outright clunkers ("women" and "heavenly arms"), counterbalanced by two real good lou reed songs ("my house" and "the day john kennedy died"), the gtr-heavy sound crackled with spontaneity and energy and the man his own self sounded like he was trying hard again, maybe for the first time since berlin.

the subject matter of berlin (boy meets girl, boy beats up girl, girl cuts her wrists, boy washes his hands) had been enough to thoroughly bum out and scare off the legions of bowie fans seduced by the shiny pop confection that was transformer. whatthehell was all this tawdry winesburg, ohio-sounding shit about speedfreaks, they wondered. what happened to all the lipstick 'n' faux glamour? against all odds, he managed to top berlin's not-inconsiderable buzzkill quotient with metal machine music, two full elpees' worth of feedback and white noise released on rca's _classical_ label (subsequently covered by the zeitkratzer orchestra in 2002), and a few years later with take no prisoners, an andy kaufman-like comedic tour de force disguised as a double live eruption of vitriol 'n' bile directed at lou's critics 'n' fans. with the blue mask, he gave up trying to scare the bejeezus out of evabody as a spectator sport and got back to the business of finding an appropriate medium for a kind of "adult rock 'n' roll" through which he could address thoughtful lyrical content, minus the sensationalism. he found it on legendary hearts, the album that followed the blue mask.

when thom robinson recently groused in perfect sound forever about the "detrimental effect" of bringing forward fernando saunders' bass in the mix of legendary hearts at the expense of quine's gtr, he missed the point: that lower-register sounds had been lou's preferred medium for melodic instrumental statements at least since brit session hack herbie flowers' sliding stand-up bass figure on "walk on the wild side," or ex-cream guy jack bruce's signature sound on berlin. these days, of course, lou carries a cello in his band.

while he's always stripped it down to just two gtrs, bass and drums when in doubt, y2k's ecstasy employed the production services of hal willner, producer of cinematic-sounding anthologies of monk, mingus, kurt weill, and disney movie-ola, to obtain a vivid, dynamic sound unheard on a lou reed alb since the bob ezrin-produced berlin. (ezrin, of course, is the canadian who made '71-'73 alice cooper albums listenable before going on the make money doing similar work for the likes of peter gabriel and pink floyd.) since then, he's gone off chasing tangents (edgar allen poe, ta'i chi), but he's proven time and again that he can pull it together and make interesting and vital music when he wants to. (from all reports -- i missed the one chance i'll probably ever have to see him in texas when he played the bronco bowl in dallas back in '96 -- he's capable of doing so at will in a live situation. it's also interesting that steve hunter, the berlin gtrist whose intro to "sweet jane" on rock 'n' roll animal was as much of a long island bar band staple back in the day as the mitch ryder version of lou's "rock and roll" that hunter also played on, was back in lou's band for the recent spate of berlin live shows.) still, i commend to you without hesitation the following (in chronological order):

1) the velvet underground
2) loaded (in spite of my stated reservations about the doug yule issue, it was still the first lou rekkid i dug when i was a snotnose)
3) lou reed (especially "wild child")
4) berlin
5) the blue mask (except "women" and "heavenly arms")
6) legendary hearts
7) new york
8) songs for drella (wherein lou and john cale bury the hatchet for 15 minutes in memory of andy)
9) magic and loss
10) ecstasy

his batting average may suck compared to the stooges', but when he wants to enough to stop playing the fool (or, more recently, the pompous windbag), dude can write songs to make you feel as well as think. dig him.

oh by the way...

johnny singularity from the gideons and howling dervishes is moving to austin in july (altho he sez he'll be back to jam, so maybe i'll get to play "magic potion" with him again).

and bryce harp from villain vanguard is quitting the band to go to law school. so there.

and trumpeter leonard belota is talking about forming some kind of consortium of local jazz musos that also includes former master cylinder-meister / longtime jubilee theatre composer-in-residence joe rogers. we'll see.

alice cooper

here's the version of alice's "i'm 18" that jon teague's always talking about, from a '72 appearance on the german beat club tv show. basically the same arrangement as the record, except alice is garrruuunnnk and forgets all the words and the band plays a _lot_ more aggressively. watch it now, i'll bet it doesn't stay up on youtube for long.

stevie wonder

...on the greatest music show of the '70s: sesame street. (anybody else remember seeing b.b. king playing the "abc" song?")

stoogeaphilia

stoogeaphilia is my dream band: the best cats i know on their respective axes, playing music i've wanted to play all my life (the music from the first two stooges albums, along with a few selected james williamson-era toons).

ray liberio is the leather-lunged frontman for the me-thinks, who very generously allow us to use their prac pad, amps, drums, etc. 'cos that's the kinda cats they are. ray-boy's also a gifted graphic artist who designs the coolest rawk posters the fort's ever seen, and one smart, funny sumbitch as well. ray is one of three ailurophiles in stoogeaphilia, a band which started out as a joke between me 'n' ray over beers in the bar and wound up being...something else.

matt hembree a.k.a. katboy plays bass with three great (and very different) bands and was also in one of my favorite bands of all time (that'd be bindle), who i hear might be playing a reunion show or two soon, an exciting prospect. matt is prolly my fave local muso only because he purely loves to play more than anyone else i know. he grew up playing in a family bluegrass band in tennessee, just like charlie haden did in missouri, and digs sci-fi. once i showed up early for practice and found him sitting in his car reading a sci-fi paperback. he also likes to take off his clothes onstage. he's the anchor.

jon teague's signature sound from his bands yeti and the great tyrant is heavy and dark, but he also kicks real good punk-rock drums in the grand style with the stoogeaphiles. watch him play and you'll see less wasted motion than you'll observe with the majority of drummers. he has the best taste in music of any 30something i know, and has turned me onto more good music (thanks, jon). in general with the cats in this band, there's less _explaining_ required than in most bands i've been in -- nice. jon once told me that everytime he sees me now, he wants to eat pizza, because a pie from big joe's in haltom city is part of the ritual of stoogeprac. the feedback meltdown at the end of "little doll" was his idea.

steffin ratliff is my fave fort worth gtrist and he's humble enough to think that statements like that are boo-shee. still, i remain in awe of his gtrissimo with bindle (the noise and feedback quotient of the stoogeband are not new to sir steffin's repertoire, but he's also so damn melodic it'll make you weep) and need to go see him play with bobby zanzucchi sometime. pre-stoogeaphilia, steffin told me he was mainly playing acoustic at home, and you can hear it in the fingerstyle things he'll whip out in practice between songs. wait'll you hear him play "marquee moon."

we've been talking about adding new material for like six months now, including some non-stooge material from other proto-punk bands (from the era clinton heylin covered in his essential tome from the velvets to the voidoids). at one point we were actually talking about opening up the parameters to include "anything before the '80s." early on, we discussed doing the minutemen, texas punk, and the who's live at leeds. we just need to find a practice schedule that'll work for evabody involved.

we got nominated for a fw weekly award, but the paper mysteriously omitted our category from the listings during the first week of balloting, then just omitted _us_ the second week. strange. it's not like we would have won anyway even if all 12 people who like us had voted for us, but it just seems kinda odd. whatevah.

we're playing at the wreck room on thursday, june 28th, which'll be my 50th b'day, so my sweetie is getting me a cake. and i happen to know that my middle dtr and one of her friends are dressing up for the occasion. after that, i need to talk to forella about booking some dates at 6th street.

tejas eats in 2007

yesterday i was working in the cafe at the market and rang up a guy who was buying a chili dog and sushi. perfect!

woodstock: who vs. hendrix

ok, whatthehell. what you think, matt?

robin sylar

there's a ton of new content on the memorial website for robin sylar, the texas gtr legend who ended his life down the street from us and whose bio i penned. check it out.

a guide to brit accents

fascinating!

art of the jam

it mystifies me how people can think the wreck room is closed when it's still playing host to events like the nguyen family benefit last sunday (which included a woodeye reunion, for goodness sake) and sleepytime gorilla museum the other night (tuesday). they must not read the fw weekly.

the wednesday night jamcats are still at it, though, even without a soundman or a bartender for the li'l room (a.k.a. "wreck west"). these days, we play on the floor in the big room, and since graham richardson left for finn maccool's, tina pack has been holding down the bar. 'twas nice to see some of the jam "reg'lars" back last night -- the _listeners_ who've sustained this thang for the past two years 'n' change: paul 'n' nicole, anne allen, amy kadleck. plus a few musos (josh clark, mike padilla, louis from the panther city bandits) who were just visiting, not playing, on this particular night. there's also been a revolving (usually small) group of new folks of late, mainly younguns gettin' their wreck room ticket punched (not that there's anything wrong with that).

not to make too much of the imminent demise of my living-room-away-from-home; its passing will prolly generate less than a ripple in the lives of most folks here in the fort, and there are also those for whom embargo, the moon, the chat room, 1919 hemphill, pop's safari, michael's, etc. perform the same function. but anytime i start thinking "maybe i'll stay home tonight" on a wednesday (as i did last week due to sickness), i'm haunted by words a friend said to me in another context a few years ago: "how many next times do you think there are going to be?" the end of el wreck will prolly also mark the end of the jam, and that saddens me, as much as i've enjoyed playing with jam-meister lee allen throughout this endeavor.

lee-boy was there last night, his new toys (sampler/sequencer) sounding more under control and better integrated into his thang. elsewhere in a comment on this blog, matt hembree (bassist extraordinaire with goodwin / pablo & the hemphill 7 / the underground railroad / stoogeaphilia) writes quite eloquently about the art of bassplaying, but lee-boy's something entahrly other -- like a busy, very musical bassist (his idols / models be's jaco and flea) combined with a fiery, aggressive metal gtrist (he likes that tapping shite a lot). he's my favorite groovemaker / bandleader on this erf. wonder if he noticed me playing funkadelic "red hot mama" against his "voodoo chile" last night?

lucas white has become "the regular drummer," superseding josh clark (who now has his own wednesday night thang goin' on again at fonky fred's), dave karnes (playing more jazz gigs now, or so i hear), and the memory of joe "drumzilla" cruz. lucas learned valuable lessons playing with jazz gtrist keith wingate (other jamcat connexxxion: keith gifted me the indo strat a.k.a. "black gold" and li'l roland cube 60 a.k.a. "the best amp i've ever owned" a coupla years back, bless him) and found himself kicking the traps behind confusatron. now he's the skinsman evabody wants to play with (ask marcus lawyer, f'rinstance, or john zaskoda), a versatile muso who can groove or rawk with the best of 'em (and frequently does). nice cat, too. and he _listens_. what more could ya want?

ron "the velvet hammer" geida and john "johnny peckerwood" shook form the backbone of barber mack on gtr and bass respectively (it's shook's band). i've known 'em for a decade or so (ron a little more, john a little less) from zoo music, where ron taught two of my kids gtr, and he 'n' i followed each others' trials 'n' tribs through various bands and even had one together for a very, um, interesting year once. john was always "good kid gtr" behind the counter at zoo until he emerged (in my consciousness, at least) as a monster bassplayer with blues cat hosea robinson and reggae rocker kulcha far i. they've been in each other's pockets since teaming up with kulcha and in jasper stone. ron's a player of impeccable touch and taste and john's grown up (he only just turned 25, jayzus christ!) to be one of the finest musos in the fort. one of these days, i do believe he's going to mount his beatles revolver show. ("of course, it's hard. if it was easy, _everyone_ would do it.")

also on board last night: ruben salazar from denton improv outfit liquid bounce (who were as surprised to be nominated in the fw weekly music awards "blues/funk" category as were the barber mack boyzzz), playing a bass synth he bought from james norris, and scott griffin (i didn't realize until last night that the reason he's no longer "vernon" is because he'd taken his wife's name) on very fonky bass for a coupla toons (which came with the realization that we'd been playing the form to his old band sally majestic's toon "bobo" wrong; duh).

last night we played a mix of improvs that ebbed 'n' flowed but felt organic and together, somehow, and covers we could play in our sleep. i particularly dug the kinda somber 'n' elegiac "maggot brain" with just the jam-meister 'n' me, with shook joining in on drums after a minute, and jeff beck's "you know what i mean" has become the popular crowd pleaser. of course, lee's always gonna wanna play "war pigs," and so we did. it felt good, it felt right, it felt _the way it's supposed to be_, and at the end of the night, i couldn't help thinking how much i'm gonna miss this shit when it's over for good.

monterey: who vs. hendrix

who ruled at monterey: the who or jimi hendrix? katboy sez the 'oo, i say jimi h. _you_ decide!!!

deep purple

ok, the truth will out: the first record i ever bought for myself (when i was 11) was "hush" by deep purple mk 1. here they are performing it on playboy after dark. (did real people really dance like that in the '60s? i think not.) back in those days, ritchie blackmore delivered a lot of what jeff beck only promised. singer rod evans went on to legendary proto-stoner obscurity with captain beyond. and organist jon lord (who looks like john kay from steppenwolf in this clip) went on to play for 25 years "without ever having an original idea" (according to blackmore).



here's dp mk 2 in an apparently "made in japan" version of "highway star." note presence of ex-jesus christ superstar ian gillan of "i want everything louder than everything else" fame. roger glover, the guy playing the rickenbacker bass with a pick, was really the brains of the operation. right, matt?



and here's the, um, mk 8 version of the band playing the song i played more than any other in the summer of 1973. (actually blew off going to the watkins glen festival to spend an entahr weekend at the upstate home of some friend of my middle school best friend's after we scored copious quantities of some drug, playing endless versions of "smoke on the water" and "savoy brown boogie.") this clip (from 2004) is pretty funny, because it was actually recorded in montreaux, by the lake geneva shoreline. i once had the opportunity to see the mk 7 version of the band when i was reserve-ing it in italy, but d. purp without blackmore, with steve morse just seemed like a bad idea.

leprechaun bandit apprehended!

you might have heard of the leprechaun bandit, a little red-headed guy who robbed some banks here in the fort, sometimes wearing a green derby with a shamrock on it. apparently they caught this dipshit sleeping on a bench two blocks from my house and arrested him. but did they find his pot o' gold?

on approaching the end of my 50th circuit around the sun

i am not one of nature's victims;
in fact, fortune loves my ass.

i embrace all of my failures
because every one was a doorway into something better:

quitting college within rock-throwing distance
of academic termination

prevented me from wasting years pursuing
some ill-defined career i didn't want.

getting run out of aspen on a rail by the sheriff
kept me from killing myself with drugs

and brought me back to texas to meet my future ex-wife
with whom i'd create three people whom i love more than my life.

getting fired from my job in memphis when she was pregnant
led to my enlistment, which ultimately

brought me in contact with the man
who taught me how to be a writer.

getting fired again, from the highest-paid job i've ever had
freed me to do the creative work i'd always dreamed about doing

but never had the balls to try for real, in earnest
and led me to (dare i say it?) my one true love.

the only people i really pity in this life
are the ones i know who didn't make it out of their 20s and 30s,

not because everyone who lives as long as i have figures things out,
but because you have a better chance of doing so if you stick around.

humble pie

me 'n' katboy got to talkin' 'bout classic early '70s live rock albs: who live at leeds, deep purple made in japan, and humble pie rockin' the fillmore. steve marriott's screaming wasn't evabody's cuppa tea, but these guys could sure put out the energy onstage.

mingus

my bad in my fortworthjazz.com ornette coleman review -- it's charles mingus' website that has the page of unauthorized recordings, not ornette's. surfed there for the first time in awhile after watching don mcglynn's documentary charles mingus: triumph of the underdog again last night and picking up mingus' autobiography beneath the underdog for some "light reading" after finishing ulysses last week. was surprised to read online that mingus' posthumously-released masterwork epitaph was performed four times this year, in new york, los angeles, chicago, and...cleveland?!?!? also that sue mingus, who currently has three bands (the seven-piece mingus dynasty, 11-piece mingus orchestra, and 14-piece mingus big band) performing her late husband's music on alternating tuesday nights at iridium in manhattan, as well as on the road. nice.

dinner tonight

a frustrating, aggravating day, mitigated by being able to cook my sweetie dinner: a roast chicken rubbed with lemon juice and the world's greatest seasoning -- sea salt, black pepper, white pepper, garlic and ginger -- with the squeezed-out lemon sections inserted in the cavity to keep the bird moist, even without basting; and fresh ears of corn on the cob. i also roasted a bunch of cut-up spuds, sprinkled with italian parsley from our herb garden, which we didn't eat tonight but which will provide the basis for a coupla days' worth of potato 'n' egg burritos once they're diced with some onions and sauteed in olive oil. simple food is good.

also gave her part of her b-day present (the actual date is 7.19, but we believe in stretching out celebrations): a used copy of hal willner's stay awake, an album's worth of hip covers of songs from disney movies. she particularly dug los lobos' "i wanna be like you," bonnie raitt's "baby mine," buster poindexter's "castle in spain," and aaron neville's "mickey mouse club theme." she can actually use this disc for music activities at school without having to sweat "inappropriate" lyrics. now i need to chase down some of willner's other productions like weird nightmare (mingus toons played on harry partch instruments!), lost in the stars (kurt weill songs), and marianne faithfull's strange weather.

kurt rongey review @ iloveftw.com

...and my review of underground railroad co-mastermind kurt rongey's with form it threatens silence is on the homepage at i love fort worth.

ornette review @ fortworthjazz.com

my review of ornette coleman's complete live at the hillcrest club is up now at fort worth jazz.

inspirational bindleverse

"walking around with insides so wired that just a hello would shut us down"

(from "robot" -- scroll to the bottom of the bindle music player thingy)

stoogeaphilia

stoogeaphilia writes:

Although I swear we weren't on the ballot when I voted last week, it's been confirmed: STOOGEAPHILIA has been nominated for "Best Cover Band" in the FW Weekly Music Awards. Go fig. So, if you love the little Stoogeband at all, and haven't already voted, please consider voting for us for yadda yadda rakka rakka. Even though we don't have an Asian Media Crew to accept the award on our behalf.

Love,

THE STOOGEAPHILES

P.S. -- See you at the WRECK ROOM on Thursday, June 28th, as Ken completes his 50th (!!!) circuit around Old Sol and we make the noises that we make.

recent scrawl

completed but not yet pubbed: a review of ornette coleman's complete live at the hillcrest club for fort worth jazz, and one of kurt rongey's with form it threatens silence for i love fort worth. also, i might start doing some freelance p.r. stuff for the rose marine theater.

irony and the fellow americans

how 'bout this: hot on the heels of their frontman jeff price quitting, the fellow americans' new ceedee search for numb gets the thumbs-up from former village voice obscurantist / current billboard senior editor chuck eddy (you gotta scroll wa-a-ay down). who needs a frontman anyway when you've got mr. stairway to hell in your corner? is that like rain on your wedding day or what?

flipside in the fort?

speaking of wish fulfillment (for yr humble chronicler o' events, anyway): bassist extraordinaire paul unger sez flipside trio (the sterling "out" outfit consisting of paul, drummer dennis durick, and saxman dave monsch) is looking for a regular early-week gig in fort worth. we live in hope.

green river

a customer at the market spurred a 40-yr-old memory for me tonight, and gave me an oppo to learn something. he made a request for a soda pop called green river, which he said was bottled in chicago and which he'd only seen there and in seattle (where they prolly think it has something to do with a locally famous serial killer, or the band that preceded mudhoney). myself, i remembered it from my uncle charles' house in hawaii wa-a-ay back in '63, and had always presumed it was hawaiian in origin. turns out the stuff was first manufactured during prohibition, by the end of which it was second only to coca-cola in national soft drink sales. go fig.

as gawd is my witness, i'm gonna write something about music again soon. maybe tom'w. kurt rongey sent me a cd-r copy of his new alb and i'm gonna review it for i love fort worth.

still sick

...so for the past few days i haven't done much besides go to work and lie in the rack trying to shake the crud. i have, however, heard from 1) my dtr's friend brian, who's teaching english in japan; 2) her other friend michael, who just shipped out for iraq; and 3) my netbud francois of mc5.org fame, who wanted a copy of the wreck room book.

i've also done some late-night vanity googling, in the course of which i found my scrawl cited in 1) something called "jews, punk and the holocaust: from the velvet underground to the ramones – the jewish-american story," which appears to be somebody's master's thesis, albeit one pubbed by the cambridge university press; and 2) something else called all your worth: the ultimate lifetime money plan by dr. elizabeth warren and amelia warren tyagi, which shows (i believe) the desperate measures some ppl will take when confronted with a mandatory citation requirement.

leisure class

here are two more live vids from detroit-via-noo-yawk arty boho punk-funkers the leisure class. first one, "joy," was recorded at beowulf in nyc, 1991, and gets downright operatic/zappaesque.



second one, "i love my fucking country," was recorded live at st. andrew's hall in dee-troit, 1985. hard to believe foat wuth jazz eminence leonard belota usedta play trumpet with these guys, but he did.

new bindletoons

katboy posted a coupla newuns (to myspace, at least) on the bindle myspace thingy: "the view" (a demo by the original mk 1 gomez-ratliff-geist-hembree-diaz lineup) and "robot" (live from the soundboard at the steel penny pub in san angelo, 5.11.2001, featuring the mk 3 ratliff-geist-hembree-diaz-pate version). at times, the latter seems to show a distinct yes-genesis prog influence i hadn't previously detected in any bindle music i'd heard; katboy allows that he'd just finished recording debut cd through and through with the underground railroad and might have subconsciously brought some of that into the bindle mix. but that wouldn't 'splain sir steffin's steve howe-esque gtr tone on some of the sections. the vocal harmonies are rough in spots but still impressive. and all of that aside, it's just a great toon. if you're interested, better go listen fast -- he's changing the songs out every coupla days, and his archive is pert darn extensive.

wreck room pics

my sweetie posted some pics of the stage at the wreck room (and various performers) on her photo blog. andre edmonson's lighting has always given the room a special look. you'll see what i mean in her pics. (click on 'em to make 'em big.)

of course, the last three are of sub oslo, whose stage presentation has always been _something else entahrly_.

los noviembres @ mambo, saturdays

paul boll writes:

Seen last week at La Cantina Mambo -

- One local A List chef from Argentina; so of course Los Noviembres included a Carlos Gardell tango straight out of the '30s in their set, sung in Portugese, naturally.

- One art conservator from a major local museum. Since she hails from Paris a Django tune seemed appropriate and was accordingly performed!

Sometimes people like this feel a little "stranded" in good ol' cowtown and require something a little more sophisticated. And this is Los Noviembres at Mambo .... an Oasis of "Cool". Ahhh, but they like the desert too and are smart enough to dig down into that subterranean well known as old Fort Worth Blues as played out on Jacksboro Hwy circa '40s / '60s. And yes, Los Noviembres delivers the hard blues as well. Let's remember, sophisticated embraces the heavy and the cool.

Los Noviembres delivers the goods every Saturday all Summer at Mambo.

Mambo - 1010 Houston.

blues for bukowski

dig watt with violinist chris murphy and drummer stephen hodges on a track that doesn't really have a lot to do with either blues or bukowski, but grooves along nicely anyway. chris puts me in mind of sugarcane harris (of don & dewey '50s r&b fame) who usedta play with zappa. i particularly like hodges' parade bass drum, and the way watt goes all jack bruce in the middle.

mimi flynn photo show in austin

if i lived in austin, here's where i'd be this sunday:

The opening of my current show at The Flightpath (51st and Duval)
will be this Sunday at 7pm. I hope you can make it.

Thanks,

Mimi Flynn
mimiflynn.com

(you might have seen mimi's stuff hanging at the old 404 houston coffee haus downtown.)

sunday jazz @ 6th street live

also from fort worth jazz:

Sunday, June 10 []

Live Jazz at 6th Street Live

Drummer Dave Karnes has played in rock bands since his teens (most recently as a member of Sunward), but the Berklee College of Music graduate's first love is jazz. He co-led the quartet Dave and Daver with saxophonist Dave Williams, recording a fine CD of Williams compositions, Jazz Lines, before folding the tent. Karnes has toured the world as musical director for the interactive musical Tony and Tina's Wedding, but until January 2007, his musical home was at Tad Gaither's Black Dog Tavern, where he was the regular drummer on the long-running Sunday-night jam sessions hosted by Michael Pellecchia, taking over the gig when the saxophonist left town. The tradition continues at Brian Forella's 6th Street Live, where every Sunday night, Karnes takes the stage with a crew of regulars that includes vibraphonist Joey Carter, bassist Drew Phelps, and guitarist Paul Metzger, along with sit-ins and surprise guests. Behind the traps, Karnes can float like Roy Haynes or sting like Elvin Jones, and he's got a big book of standards that encompasses ballads, blues, bebop, and '60s Milesian modality. Dig it. 2756 W. 6th Street, Fort Worth, TX 76107 817.877.0666

www.myspace.com/6thstreetfortworth

bindle

goodwin frontguy / fort worth arts consortium capo di tutti capi / good show mouth tony diaz called to confirm that the bindle reunion is a definite go, venue and date tbd. all six musos who played in the band during its three-year existence -- besides tony, that'd be drummer kevin geist, bassist matt hembree, guitarists daniel gomez and steffin ratliff, and keyboardist-vocalist justin pate -- are on board for the reunion. for yr humble chronicler o' events, this is wish fulfillment at its finest.

the fellow americans

gtrist-auteur-consummate wiseass matt hickey reports that frontman jeff price has left the fellow americans. the parting, hickey says, was amiable. whether they replace price or continue as a trio remains to be seen. this continues a tradition of revolving band members that dates back to the band's exploding fertilizer daze. their search for numb ceedee, which i reviewed for iloveftw.com, remains a worthwhile listen.

tom reynolds/paul unger project @ the kimbell this saturday

from fort worth jazz:

Saturday, June 09, 5:30-7:30pm

Tom Reynolds/Paul Unger at The Kimbell

TOM REYNOLDS/PAUL UNGER @ THE KIMBELL Guitarist Tom Reynolds and bassist Paul Unger get around. The versatile Reynolds has collaborated with marquee rockers Steve Miller and Billy Gibbons, as well as local blues eminences Doyle Bramhall and the Bruton brothers, Stephen and Sumter. The agile Unger covers musical bases from classical (he's assistant principal bassist with the Fort Worth Symphony) to avant-garde jazz (as a member of Flipside Trio and Dave Williams' Ornettology). Together, they've played in settings as different as the San Francisco-based tango outfit "Montango," Arts Fifth Avenue's Django Reinhardt Festival, and an Unger-led tribute to electric Miles Davis. For their duets at the Kimbell Art Museum's buffet restaurant, the sound is straightahead jazz. On June 9, as part of the Kimbell's summer mixer series, they'll perform as a trio under the rubric "The Tom Reynolds/Paul Unger Project," broadening the scope to include funk and Latin sounds. Admission is free to museum members and $10 for non-members.

www.kimbellart.org

josh's boogie

i once saw muso-scribe josh alan friedman play a note-for-note _acoustic_ version of the yardbirds' "jeff's boogie" and was quite impressed. here he is doing it on vid for the dallas/fort worth blues scene sampler project. i mean, whew!