Go Metric

Ten Reasons Why the New York Dolls are STILL Lookin’ Fine on Television

by Gary Pig Gold

1. The fully, perfectly B&W action kicks straight off down some desolate roadside with a dusty, yet meticulously trashy-as-ever Dolls being asked “how you, um, guys got together.” “I met Arthur on MacDougal Street,” says Johnny. “Na na na, that's not how it started,” complains Sylvain, as nearby twigs ‘n’ cigarette butts suddenly become airborne. And? We're off !! 
2. Vintage “Lookin(g) For A Kiss” performance footage is expertly intercut with shots of our not-yet-ready-for-celluloid heroes as they walk down Hollywood Boulevard, checking out the neighborhood novelty-slash-porn shops, cruisin’ Frederick's, and catching David JoHansen actually experimenting for perhaps the first time with a terrifyingly great big proto-Poindexter coif. 
3. A lone, brave fan holds up a crudely-scrawled cardboard sign proclaiming N.Y. DOLLS ARE GREAT as “Trash” picks up, this time accompanied by off- site, quite outasite sequences of the boys poncin’ n’ prancin’ up their proverbial storm at a calculatingly lo-budget photo shoot …David's hair now back into its proper Tyler-vs-Jagger shambles, we see. 
4. Speaking of whom, hilariously quaint all-last-night's-parties footage of the man being interviewed, poolside, soon begins appearing between songs. And I quote: “Pittsburgh, they went wild. We played third bill to Mott the Hoople and the Blue Öyster Cunt [sic!]. We didn't even have a dressing room – they gave us this little trailer that was in this ice-skating rink/swimming pool complex. We ate in this diner. It was just about time to go on and EVERYBODY started throwin’ up. Violently!” 
5. The Dolls' faux-Tommy gun ridden homage to Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits, aka their “Lipstick Killers” proto-gangsta shoot, is herein repositioned beneath “Bad Detective,” followed by the wisenheimers as severely alt. cowboys in toy holsters and plastic GI Joe bazookas for, of course, “Vietnamese Baby.” 
6. Cut to WNBC-TV newsman Tony Hernandez reporting: “History is being made in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel tonight. For the first time that anybody really can remember, a Rock Halloween Party is being held here. As you can see, the Guest List appears to be quite unique” – as the WNBC cameras pan across a 1973 audience much more Rocky Horror than “rock” – “as are the hosts of this Halloween party. I'm speaking of the unique group of young men known as the New York Dolls.” Cue “Human Being,” Syl quite convincing indeed in his Charlie Chaplin costume (that little tramp) as a VERY Doll'd-up, far-from-dull pantomime horse suddenly waltzes on stage, giving David JoH quite the run for his $.
7. Those of the Gawker persuasion should meanwhile keep a close eye peeled for gorgeously grainy glimpses of Cyrinda Foxe, Michelle Piza, and other certifiably Rock Scene-approved arm candy sprawled backstage and underfoot throughout Lookin' Fine On Television. In fact, look very closely and you can even spot the Dolls' Mercer Arts Center compadre Ace Frehley celebrating his very own Rock Halloween. 
8. So nice to see so much of Arthur “Killer” Kane throughout the proceedings as well, he the solid-bottomed Ox (as in John Alec Entwistle) of mock-rock. RIP …to both of them.
9. During the concluding “Jet Boy” sequence we are naturally treated to frightfully hilarious footage of the hot-panted Dolls invading Kennedy Airport, actually being allowed to board an L.A.-bound jet (with Bob and Nadya Gruen's trusty video gear rolling!) then watch what's left of them being most unceremoniously dumped hours later out upon the left coast. This was, rest assured, many years before the creation of the TSA, all you frequent flyers out there will be most relieved to know. 
10. But perhaps the true black-and-white heart(break) of the matter is to be found within Lookin' Fine On Television's Bonus Footage, wherein David, most uncomfortably – in more ways than one – clad in some turtleneck/sports jacket contraption interviews his old – in more ways – bandmate Johnny Thunders outside CBGB. The two attempt witty, friendly banter one 1976 night on the Bowery just prior to Thunders’ UK Anarchy tour with the Damned and the Sex Pistols (“I think they're real cute; that's all I know about 'em, really. I've seen their pictures,” says Johnny). Reference is duly made – though at this early stage in the game neither can realize the full import or irony of the situation – that the Pistols are under the command of, and “outfitted,” as David points out, by none other than ex-Dolls' svengali Malcolm McLaren. “He's really got an eye,” adds JT. Malc also certainly realized, though in this footage it isn't clear if either Messrs. Johansen or Thunders do yet, that the Dolls' days and nights have already clearly come and gone; the band and its brand already tragically unhip by ‘76, rendered utterly redundant by the Ramones and painfully passé by those Pistols. More proof cannot be had of this than watching herein the stragglers outside CBs pushing obliviously by our two joking B&W video stars, busy instead with the new hot club and the new cool scene(s) the New York Dolls themselves, as Lookin' Fine On Television more than shows, more than inspired and instigated.

A World Without George

by Gary Pig Gold

Just in case you haven’t already been listening over the past sixty-some-odd years, Eagle Rock Entertainment’s Produced By George Martin documentary demonstrates once again, via a wealth of vintage clips and contemporary interviews with clients past (Paul McCartney, Cilla Black, Jeff Beck, Bernard Cribbins even) and protégés present-day (Rick Rubin, T-Bone Burnett) the sheer magnitude of the man’s sonic innovations on, and indelible contributions to, the music industry. Or what remains of it, I should say.

All of which got this lifelong record buff thinking, for not the first time mind you, what exactly our aural lives would have, could have been like if we dared Go Metric in, dare I even imagine it, A WORLD WITHOUT GEORGE….

1953:  Already well known to radio enthusiasts throughout Britain as “the funniest man this side of Lord Mountbatten,” Peter Sellers of the rightfully legendary Goon Show is urged by both his mother and others in command to expand his talents and notoriety into the world of spoken word recording. He naturally approaches all-powerful EMI’s comedy division, Parlophone Records, in search of a contract but, despite a riveting audition which apparently included a 20-minute rendition of his trademark “My Old Man’s a Dustbin,” Sellers is turned down.

Dejected and despondent, the man inexplicably soon after retires from the Goons at the very height of their renown, only to troll about the nether regions of the UK music hall circuit performing tired ventriloquist routines (“Birdie Num Num” being the most, um, notable) before bottoming out altogether, touring American Air Force bases in North Africa as part of a Wee Willie Winkie tribute act then perishing, penniless, beneath a Clacton-on-Sea fun fair helter skelter.

“If only a producer of rare insight and courage had been there in 1953 to offer the man a long-term recording contract,” lifetime Sellers acolyte Stanley Kubrick once said, “the world of comedy records, not to mention World War III movie satires, would have been completely different.”

1962: Agreeing only after a flood of pleading telegrams and phone calls to finally take a meeting with northern England’s most powerful record retailer, Brian Epstein of NEMS, the EMI Studios on Abbey Road NW8 is visited by an unruly quartet of Liverpool “beat musicians” who proceed to audition for Parlophone brass with a bewildering repertoire of Fats Waller and Ethel Merman numbers. Although the band’s drummist impresses all with not only his percussive prowess but a smoldering mean, moody magnificence, staff producer Ron Richards nevertheless declines to offer the group a recording contract.

However, such was the severity of manager Epstein’s insistence (not to mention caterwauling upon the studio floor) that EMI bowed to audition the following month another band from the man’s talent stable. This group too was a quartet fresh from Liverpool’s Cavern Club, yet possessed such an overwhelmingly obvious charm and mastery of their craft that they were immediately signed to a generous, life-clad contract with EMI’s prestigious Columbia label. Within a year, after making history topping the charts with their first three British releases, Gerry Marsden and crew carried on to America where their February, 1964 appearance on the Soupy Sales Show drew a record-breaking audience of 7300, launching what we now know as the Pacemaker Invasion of the world’s radio, television and movie screens.

Richards went on to supervise the band’s landmark Our World performance of “Ferry Cross the Mersey” in 1967, part of the first-ever live, globally-televised satellite bingo competition. Tragically however, a year later Gerry met and married a well-to-do Canadian optometrist and emigrated to picturesque Port Credit, Ontario, where to this day he runs a profitable pet supply boutique. Nevertheless, the revolutionary effect and impact the Pacemakers had upon the entertainment industry during the 1960s will be felt for as long as people have ears and, of course, disposable cash to spend collecting vintage Merseybeat records.

1964: Prior to the release of the third film in their box-office-busting James Bond series, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli approach EMI with a demo for its title song, “Goldfinger,” in search of a producer and suitable singer for the theme. Norrie Paramor, already having scored impressive chart action with Cliff Richard and the Shadows, agreed to supervise the “Goldfinger” project and duly enlisted singer Tessie O’Shea to be featured vocalist.

Often cited as one of the, in music scribe Rock Serling’s words, “most unlikely and ill-conceived matches between song and singer since Phil Collins slaughtered the Supremes,” the Paramor-produced “Goldfinger” was quickly, and wisely, excised from the film. Nevertheless, a decade later Broccoli again returned to the scene of the crime with a Paul McCartney-composed theme for the Live and Let Die film. This time, EMI turned the project over to staff producer Norman “Hurricane” Smith, fresh off worldwide success with his own "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?" Yet the resultant John Davidson-sung “Live and Let Die” was considered such a musical and cinematic misstep that some believe releasing even the McCartney and Wings version instead would have been less disastrous for all concerned.   

1975:  Increasingly desperate to reclaim the prestige of their previous acclaim, both former Yardbird Jeff Beck and noted Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young impersonators America found themselves fully, fatefully floundering ‘round the rock ‘n’ roll Babylon which was mid-Seventies Los Angeles, in search of a producer they could call their own. At least for a while.

Beck for some reason was advised to cover the iconoclastic Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats album in full. But, such was the man’s propensity for playing seventeen notes where one would suffice, the project soon spread across two full very-long-playing records, the aptly-named Blow by Blow and its multi-trillion-dollar, John Belushi-fuelled follow-up Wired. Despite the latter being successfully adapted into both book and film form during the equally empty Eighties, Beck was never again to taste the heights he once did, and was last heard trying to accompany Beached Boy Brian Wilson’s latest “come back!” tour.

America similarly lost the plot, both musically and mentally, with their alliterally cute (but little else) Holiday, Hearts, Hideaway and Harbor trilogy [sic!] before embarking upon their mammoth Hasbeen record/book/holographic revue in 1977, which instantly lost heaps more money than even Heaven’s Gate. Naturally, “thank God for the Ramones” was happily hereafter the harmonious hum of hip, highnote hearsay heard at this most harrowing hour in human history. Ha!

1982: Already a charter member of sometime-Monkee M. Nesmith’s International Association of People Who Won’t Go Away, Paul McCartney resurfaced in the wake of his former partner’s assassination with a wry ditty extolling the virtues of both race relations and piano keyboards. Originally envisioning no less than Stevie Wonder as his duet partner, McCartney’s producers recommended he align himself instead with the burgeoning Celtic/trance pigeonhole in an attempt to move tons more 12-inch slabs of polyvinyl.

The resultant “Ebony and Dexedrine,” recorded alongside British anti-soul band Dexys Midnight Runners, naturally turned out to be amongst Macca’s prodigious bevy of worst-received, worst-ever-selling records. “If only a producer of rare insight and courage had been there to slap me upside the noggin,” master pop purveyor McCartney later said, “the world of race relations, not to mention my musical legacy, would have been completely different.”

The Family That Sings Together

by Gary Pig Gold

Even after watching Louise Palanker’s absolutely riveting Family Band documentary, I have...

At Least 45 Things I Bet You NEVER Knew about The Cowsills:

• Susan Claire Cowsill is the youngest human being ever to score a genuine Billboard Top Ten hit.

• John Patrick Cowsill, still the youngest male of the original family band, retains fond memories indeed of drumming four sets a night inside Rhode Island bars and wine cellars as a seven-and-a-half-year-old (“I remember the cops coming and shutting it down. We needed to get special permission from the mayor”). 

• A detailed survey of “16” Magazines between January of 1968 and March of 1971 reveals John appeared on the cover the most times – 12, compared with Barry (9), Paul and Susan (tied at 6 apiece) and Bob with only one.

• Today, John is married to an actual Bangle.

• It’s true: Cowsills father/manager William “Bud” Cowsill, a former Naval Chief Petty Officer, stymied his brood’s big move to network television back in the day. Yep, The Partridge Family was supposed to be about, and star, The Cowsills …except Bud didn’t want his wife’s Mini-mom’ing role to go to Shirley Jones, as the project’s producers were insisting.
• (perhaps not at all surprisingly then, when the real Mother Partridge took that final colored-bus ride to the hereafter, Susan had a dream she was adopted by Ms. Jones! ) 

• Another big break Bud apparently scotched was a Cowsills appearance in none other than Elvis’ The Trouble With Girls movie.

• They did, however, get to sing the Love, American Style TV theme. But only for one season.

• And then there was their iconic four-year promotional affiliation with the American Dairy Association:  Milk. The Big Lift that Lasts, remember.

• On much the other hand, Bill Cowsill was hired to play guitar on Ike Turner’s single of “Right On.” 

• Even so, Bud made, in Bob Cowsill’s words, “his most fatal of fatal errors: he fired Bill. From the group, and subsequently from the family.” And all after a late-night, blackjack and vodka gimlet-fueled confrontation in the Las Vegas Flamingo Hotel. Over marijuana and Waddy Wachtel. Sort of. Well, whatever the cases may have been it was, in Bob’s wise retrospective words, the beginning of the end of the First Family of Music’s Golden Era. “I'm a harsh taskmaster. I wouldn't want me for a father,” Bud told People magazine in 1990.

• Probably not coincidentally in the least, on Thursday, August 21, 1975, The Cowsills filed for bankruptcy, claiming a debt of $445,339 and assets of $4,873 (plus $50 in Egyptian pounds found in Bud’s pockets). “I ain't show business,” Dad later admitted. “With a passion, I hated it. But I made it work. For a time there, we were on top.”   

• As proof, “Little Susie,” the self-confessed “Hayley Mills of the pop-rock music scene,” can still be spotted, all over YouTube and elsewhere, fruggin’ up her usual storm alongside such vintage luminaries as Buddy Ebsen, Dick Clark, Dick Cavett, Mike Douglas, Ed Sullivan, Jonathan Winters, Johnny Carson, Barbara McNair, Jack Wild (singing the “I’d Do Anything” duet from Oliver!), Dean Martin (singing a Dino duet on “Shine On, Harvest Moon”!), Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, Curtis Mayfield, Don Ho, Wayne Newton, Hugh Hefner (and Barbi Benton) and, of course, with her jingle-jangle tambourine mentor-slash-crush Davy Jones.

• Susan, however, has deftly filled the four-decades-plus since with an ear-bending assortment of accomplishments both vocal (Dwight Twilley, Smithereens, Carlene Carter and of course those Swiss orphans the Psycho Sisters) and instrumental (the Continental Drifters, not to mention playing Lil’ Sis to them Hobart Brothers).

• She also wrote a song, with Psycho Sis-in-law Vicki Peterson, which was recorded by both Hootie and the Blowfish. 

• Which reminds me: John Cowsill can be heard singing and/or keeping the non-digital beat behind such classics as “867-5309” (Tommy Tutone), “You’re My Favorite Waste Of Time” (Marshall Crenshaw), “Surf City” (Legendary Masked Surfers version, that is), Living Room Suite (Harry Chapin), No Frills (Bette Midler), “Trouble” (Bob Dylan) and, right on up to the present, “That’s Why God Made The Radio” by those one and only Beach Boys. 

• P.S.: The Christmastime 1968 Sears “Wish Book” catalog featured a genuine $9.89 Cowsill Drum Set, upon which one could, and I quote, “Play along with your favorite band! Big sound 21-inch diameter bass drum, 9 and 6-inch side drums (all steel frames), two brass-color cymbals (each sounds different). Accessories include drum pedal, woodblock, two cowbells, and one pair of 10-inch sticks. High bursting-strength plastic drum heads secured by metal spring clips. Shipping weight, 10 lbs.”

• Mattel Toys also included miniature facsimiles of both The Cowsills and We Can Fly albums as part of their Barbie doll house accessories.   

• Interestingly, “Mini-mom” Barbara suffered from acute stage fright throughout her career as an on-stage and in-studio Cowsill. Officer Bud used to “bribe” her with the promise of a new dress for every song she successfully recorded. That, and an appearance on To Tell the Truth.

• Bob Cowsill had to settle for being Bachelor # 2 on The Dating Game.
• (Bachelor # 3 won the date with bachelorette Linda though)

• There was also a Fifth Beatle in the story …or an Eighth Cowsill, that is: Bob’s twin brother Richard. But unlike Pete Best, Richard didn’t even get a chance to perform once with the group. After, in his own words, “a 30-second audition,” Bud announced “You can't play the drums. I've got enough people in the group, and you're not in it.” Richard ended up in Vietnam instead …and not at a desk job either, as Bud assured his brothers and sister he was.   

• The first record The Cowsills were ever allowed to arrange, produce, and solely perform (after 52 takes) all by themselves – on no less than Carl Reiner’s suggestion, most appropriately (he wanted to see what would happen if they “dropped their family image”) – was also their most successful record ever: a multi-million-selling version of the theme from Broadway’s iconic alt. musical Hair. So, among their many other accomplishments then, The Cowsills must duly be credited for first bringing the hippie ethos into countless pre-teen bedrooms the world over. 

• And another first? The initial release in Harvey Comics’ vaunted Harvey Giant Teen Pop series starred… The Cowsills.

• Oh yeah: and the first rock ‘n’ roll group to ever perform on NBC Television’s Today show? The Cowsills.

• The band’s very first release "All I Really Wanta Be Is Me," on none other than Johnny Nash’s JODA Records label, roundly crushed Simon and Garfunkel's “Sounds Of Silence” in a Battle of the New Record on WPRO Radio Newport back in the fall of ‘65. 

• More impressive still, “The Rain, The Park and Other Things” bumped The Who’s “I Can See For Miles” off the tip-top of Toronto’s mighty 1050 CHUM-AM’s Chart two years later. 

• And speaking of Keith Moon’s old band, another well-known UK pop/rock combo, Vanity Fare (“Hitchin’ a Ride,” anyone?) brazenly titled their debut album The Sun, The Wind and Other Things …but maybe that was because it contained their version of The Sunray’s “I Live For The Sun,” not to mention Ian & Sylvia’s “Four Strong Winds.” Maybe. 

• Michael Jackson once made a characteristically top-secret, very-late-night trip to a Haight Ashbury record store – “He smelled kind of like a Catholic priest” in the words of one employee – in search of records by “the band that does his favorite song”: The Cowsills.

• “Indian Lake” is one of Brian Wilson’s all-time favorite songs …next to “Be My Baby,” of course.
• (P.S.: The Ramones were particularly partial to “Gray Sunny Day” as well. “We didn’t find that out until we did Howard Stern’s TV show in 1990,” reports Bob. “And the Ramones were pulling up in their limo and “Gray Sunny Day” was playing in it. They thought the vocal arrangement on that in particular was great. That was a big deal to us.” )   

• Whilst taking a break from being one of Paul Revere’s Raiders, Freddy Weller took his version of “Indian Lake” all the way up to # 3 on the Hot Country best-sellers lists in 1971. 

• At the same time, Bill was actually asked to join the Beach Boys. “Oh, Billy, don't do it!” the head Boy warned. “It'll drive you crazy. It'll get you nuts.” Billy took Brian's advice.

• However, John Cowsill has spent the 21st Century as none other than a bona-fide Beach Boy …of the Love/Johnston touring revue variety, that is. Fellow faux Boy Christian Love – yes, a son of Mike – is repeatedly on record as claiming John is, in fact, “the funniest Beach Boy.”  

• All those years ago though, both John and Paul Cowsill were part of the road crew for Three Dog Night. Paul later went on to work in a similar capacity for Helen Reddy, Mac Davis, Neil Diamond and John Denver.

• The Cowsills’ 1968 hit “We Can Fly” has since been adapted by Muzak™ for elevator use within some of the world’s trendiest office high-rises.

• Fact: Probably the coolest double-bill EVER was The Cowsills opening for – ready? – the Mothers of Invention in Barbados (“That was wild. My mom wouldn’t let me watch them” - John).  

• Conversely, The Cowsills spent an entire week during the Summer of ’69 playing the Steel Pier in Atlantic City with Duke Ellington.

• In the extremely early Seventies, Bill took what remained of his Cowsills earnings and bought a bar in Austin, Texas constructed from a converted railway station.

• Bill later ended up in O Canada, where he formed the magnificent Blue Shadows band. “Hank Williams goes to the Cavern Club” is how they were described at the time, and their 1993 debut album, On the Floor of Heaven, is newly available once again. You should listen to this band immediately, and often.

• Billy Cowsill’s last commercially-released recording during his lifetime was he and Randell Kirsch’s “It Hurts To Be In Love,” my personal favorite on a little tribute project I put together called He’s A Rebel: The Gene Pitney Story Retold (…and John plays drums, by the way).

• Producer Chuck Plotkin, for some unfathomable reason, abandoned the Cowsills’ legendary 1978 Cocaine Drain album sessions and went to work for Bruce Springsteen instead …speaking of darkness on the edge. 

• Marc Nathan, A&R at Atlantic Records, got fired in 1991 for trying to sign The Cowsills.

• The record he tried in vain to issue was The Cowsills’ utterly INCREDIBLE Global album.  (see, and hear, video clip below!) 

• The Burrito Bar on Staten Island, NY features to this day a specialty 12-inch beef-in-red-sauce burrito called “By The Cowsills.” It’s right there on the menu between the “For The Byrds” chicken in red sauce and the “Light My Fire” grilled steak. 

• On April 28th, 2013, The Cowsills were inducted into The Rhode Island Music Hall Of Fame. “The fact that we are being inducted into RIMHOF and not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is more special to us. There is a little bit more meaning to us because we are Rhode Islanders, to be recognized by our own. It is very cool to go to Pawtucket rather than Cleveland!”  (Bob Cowsill)

• “It is with deep sadness that we report that the search for Barry has ended. No longer is Barry missing. His body was found under a wharf in New Orleans in late December 2005 and identified via dental records on January 4th, 2006. The coroner has determined the cause of death to be drowning in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Barry is survived by his siblings, two daughters, one son and two grandsons as well as a step-daughter and two step-granddaughters.”  (Cowsill family statement)

• “It's never been about stardom; about making millions. I've done that and it made me miserable, man. For me it's just about getting the harmonies right; it's about getting the sound down. That's all I've ever wanted to do. It's about the music; that's all there is. I'd rather die a pauper having put a sweet tune on people's lips than have the world in the bank.” 
(William Joseph “Billy” Cowsill, Jr.  January 9, 1948 - February 18, 2006) 

Much information and assistance in the compiling of this material is due to Becky Presley and her remarkable http://bapresley.com/silverthreads site.

“Family Band: The Cowsills Story” should be considered Mandatory Required Viewing as well. Here’s where to go:  http://cowsills.thinkingbee.tv

ZZ Top: Do All Bands Incorporate Fire Into Their Shows?

By John Q. Adams III

My first ZZ Top concert was at Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium on April 1, 1980. The Aud was hardly an ideal live music venue, but for my third concert ever it was still an exciting experience. My memories of that show were recently revisited when I watched the ZZ Top: Live in Germany 1980 DVD. It’s a good bet that the April 20, 1980 German gig is pretty close to what I saw and perhaps why I enjoyed it so much.

The show — filmed at the Grugahalle in Essen, Germany for the Rockpalast TV series just after the release of their classic Deguello album — captures the band “before sequencers and synthesizers, epitomizing their ‘lil’ ol’ blues band from Texas’ nickname.” In addition to a number of choice Deguello tracks, the set is complemented by tracks drawn predominantly from their Tres Hombres and Fandango! albums.

I think the key here is “...before sequencers and synthesizers....”. 

By 1980, these three cats had been at it for 10 years and were a pretty tight little unit. 1979’s Degüello was the first ZZ Top album I purchased in a store (I had the previous LPs but probably ordered them through Goldmine or maybe from a record club) and I was really stoked to learn that they were coming to Buffalo. This would be my third concert — my first two were KISS at the Aud in 1978 and 1979 — and I was wondering what kind of show a band put on without all the blood and fire.

I’ll be darned — seems like this one started with fire after all. Blacked out stage with fiery logo below the drum riser with horns playing over the PA. Did all bands incorporate fire of some sort into their show? (Actually no, as I learned at a Bob Seger show five months later.)

That would look way cooler if I knew how to make a gif of it.

And then they start right into “I Thank You.”  Got the choreographed moves going right off the bat and Billy and Dusty are scooting around the stage in some kind of slipper-looking wrestling shoes. But the playing is solid and this is gonna be a real nice time.

Two songs later and we’re at “Jesus Just Left Chicago” — a favorite of mine (I always liked it and not just as the second part of a two-fer) and one of the bluesier things these guys have ever done.  But not the bluesiest. No, that’ll come two songs after...

“Manic Mechanic.” Two things about this one. First, the gravelly vocals by Gibbons. In listening to the LP, I always thought there was some kind of Frampton "Do You Feel" voice thing going on but in watching the video, it seems like it’s just Billy growling it out. Makes it even cooler, you ask me.  Second, the line “Have mercy Miss Percy, I done put the coon tune on this bet/(vette)”.  That always stuck me as a bit racist but I read somewhere that “coon tune” is Hot Rod slang for modifying a car which is keeping with the theme of the song.

OK, “Fool For Your Stockings.” This one stands out to me due to a radio broadcast of the May 4, 1980 show at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NY. Gibbons introduces the song saying “Blues time in the Capitol Theater, right now!” and any time I hear “FFYS,” I say those words to myself. It’s almost like that introduction is a part of the song and is hardwired into my brain. (I’m guessing he probably said “Blues time in Buffalo” or something similar at the show I attended, but if so it’s lost to me, whereas the Capitol Theater line has stuck with me.) I was familiar with the song since it was on Degüello but I had no idea what kind of monster it would turn into live. 

When the Reverend Willie G. started into his “Those $15.95 come see me at midnight stockings” sermon, at the 3:10 mark in the clip below, I was slack-jawed.  Where did this come from? That ain’t on the album! “The Green Cross. The Black Cross. The Heavy Cross...” What the hell?!... By the time he was finished, I was just about ready to jump up screaming “Testify!!”  As I mentioned, I had been to a couple KISS shows so I knew that between song banter was a given (Paul Stanley, right?!...) but this was some little speech right in the middle of a song. Quite a mind blower at the time, I’m here to tell you.

One song after that and then we get “El Diablo.” For me this is a nice little number. Off the Tejas LP, it didn’t really grab me originally but viewing it all these years later it has some nice guitar work and is a pretty decent song. A hidden gem, really.

After three more songs comes La Grange. Is there anyone who doesn’t know the “Hown, hown, hown..” beginning of this beauty? Tho’ to be honest, the intro on this one reminded me of the 1977 Brownsville Station tune “The Martian Boogie.”  A nice bit of slide guitar by Billy on this one too, by the way.

At this point the band takes a short break (with backstage footage on the DVD) before returning to the stage and introducing The Lone Wolf Horns to play along on “She Loves My Automobile.” The Lone Wolf Horns is a projection of the band playing horns on a screen behind drummer Frank Beard, who seems especially taken with this technology and continuously looks back at the screen.  The Horns stick around for “Hi Fi Mama” and then two songs later we get a spirited rendition of “Jailhouse Rock” which goes into “Tush,” a tune with probably Billy’s best known slide work.

Another short break and the band returns to play a rolicking version of “Tube Snake Boogie” (studio version released a year later on 1981’s El Loco) and finishes with “Just Got Paid” (with more sweet slide and the cool lyric “If you believe in working hard all day, just step in my shoes and take my pay.”)

Including a song that had yet to appear on an album and playing 9/10s of their latest release might seem like a surefire yawner of a show, but being in the audience back then and watching the Rockpalast DVD now, I realize this was one of my favorite shows as a teen.

The 1980 show was originally released in 2009 as part of a two-disc Double Down Live set but is now available separately. The other disc in the DDL set features 11 live numbers shot during their European tour in 2008 along with interview clips and backstage footage. 

At the risk of sounding like Grandpa Simpson, they sure knew how to do it back in the day...

 

Paul Williams? Still Alive!!

by Gary Pig Gold

I first became aware of the man in 1970, as composer of what to this very day remains my absolute favorite Three Dog Night tune, “Out In The Country.”

Then, in the years to follow, that same man would somehow become downright ubiquitous upon the 25 living-color inches of the family RCA XL-100. On variety and game shows galore, on The Tonight Show of course (forty-eight times!), even trying to murder Police Woman Angie Dickinson. All as some form of mutant, leisure-suited hybrid of David Cassidy and adorable Cousin Oliver.  

Then, as did most pre-punk cultural icons in the immediate wake of that first Ramones album, Paul Williams seemed to vanish overnight from the audio/visual airwaves; a figment, perhaps, of our Top Forty, prime time past; an aberration, beloved as it may have been, from antiquated, tube-powered memory.

What defiantly remained however, losing not one single iota of their insidious appeal in all these decades since, was his string of perfectly crafted, instantly and forever recognized pure pop chestnuts – “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Evergreen,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” the Love Boat and Boy in the Plastic Bubble themes for example; need I cite any more? – which still have the innate power to bore deep within our craniums and keep us shimmying, boogieing, or at least grinning into infinity. Why, he even constructed the, um, “so close to terrible and yet somehow believable” songs for Ishtar’s dynamic Beatty and Hoffman duo: "It was one of the best jobs I've ever had in my life. I've never had more fun on a picture, but I've never worked harder." 

Fun and bubble boys aside though, it looked, and certainly sounded as if this wealth of utterly brilliant four-minute, five-chord monuments to the middle of the road were all that would remain of Paul Williams’ legacy; perhaps even his epitaph.

Until, that is, a man named Stephen Kessler arose.

A through-and-through true child of the Seventies (“I still get excited when I see the words Hungry Man TV Dinner!”) who was raised in the cathode shadow of Danny Partridge twenty-six feet from the Long Island Rail Road – and to this day unabashedly claims he always wanted to be Paul Williams – Stephen decided to go one giant step further than simply wondering where his idol went. He picked up a camera, assembled a film crew, and hit the asphalt in search of his “friend from the television.”

The result is a truly touching, yet at times emotionally gut-wrenching documentary that really could only be called Paul Williams: Still Alive, newly available on DVD from Virgil Films. In oh so many ways it is a story of fame from a “morning after” perspective, yes, but with a (gasp) happy ending. I mean, after all, we are talking about the man who taught Kermit how to find the “Rainbow Connection.”

And therein’s not only the rub, but the proverbial key to Still Alive’s impact and success as a film. Forgoing the typical confrontational guerilla style of a Michael Moore or TMZ, Kessler approaches his subject first with wonderment – at the 2006 “Phantompalooza” Festival in Winnipeg, one of only two cities in the world, the other bring Paris, where the Brian De Palma / Paul Williams epic Phantom Of The Paradise was a box office smashapalooza. But then we watch that wonder turn to curiosity, soon enough respect, and ultimately not so much empathy or even sympathy as an understanding with and obvious kinship for his subject matter. 

Equally as curious was Paul Williams’ sudden decision, after filming had already begun, to go ALL the way, cinematically and otherwise and bring Steve, with lens, totally into his life and world for nigh on five entire years. A world which in many ways, good and bad – mainly good, though – is much, much different today than it was back in those glory years spent collaborating with De Palma and The Muppets …or mired deep within the Battle for the Planet of the Apes for that matter. 

“We’ll make it The Paulie and Steve Show!” the former, in true Little Enos Burdette bravado, insisted after bonding with Kessler one day over garlic pepper squid at Thai House Express. In a “keep your enemies closer” mode, perhaps? Whatever the cases may be, there goes a newly emboldened Steve, following his subject backstage, eavesdropping on him checking e-mails and doing throat exercises from hotel hallways, and ultimately becoming a quite unwilling participant on Paul’s especially harrowing post-9/11 tour of the Philippines, which is indeed every bit as Apocalypse Now as it is “An Old Fashioned Love Song.” “Safe and scenic, safe and scenic,” the local promoter continually insists upon packing all involved onto a six-hour bus haul through the treacherous – especially according to U.S. State Department warnings – Mindanao jungle between gigs. But once safely back on a California golf course a few weeks later, for all his terror-fuelled troubles, Stephen is rewarded with an actual sleep-over chez Williams! That includes bed and breakfast. 

Then, later, the motherlode: Paul actually lets his chronicler loose in a storage locker filled with memorabilia including over 600 hours of VHS tape. Then lets him take home, and USE, anything he wants.

Stretching all the way back to Paul’s on-screen debut in 1965 as a twenty-four-year-old child actor alongside Jonathan Winters in The Loved One, that exhumed footage, as fascinating and kitschily coated as much of it may be, honestly never once manages to overwhelm or even upstage the sight of the renewed, revitalized 21st Century Williams. No, The Paulie and Steve Show more than holds its own against vintage clips from Bugsy Malone or even Baretta, such is the unmistakable, undeniable buddy-charm which “director” and “star” grow between them as Still Alive spins out its rollercoasting eighty-four minutes.

Cue “You and Me Against The World,” and fade to Bonus Footage.

P.S.: And if you haven’t gathered as much already, I’m most pleased to report our unflappable hero remains happy, healthy, and ultra-productive to this very day. Since 2009 Paul has guilelessly served as President and Chairman of the Board of ASCAP, keeps his own songwriting chops sharp (on the Scissor Sisters and Richard Barone, for example) while proudly keeping his goldies alive on stage (with Craig Ferguson just the other week), is at this moment co-writing a book based on, in his own careful words, “gratitude and trust” (“the two rails my choo-choo runs on”), continues the good fight to get Phantom Of The Paradise mounted at long last upon the Broadway stage, and graciously savors each and every sincere and loving “heart payment” he receives back from folks both known and unknown the world over – yes, even deep within the Filipino jungle – in recognition of his beautifully sculpted, musical lyrical body of work.

See? I told you this story has a happy ending! 

Or, as the man himself explains, “I didn’t have the best childhood, but I had the longest.” Words to remain Still Alive to, yessir, for lovers, dreamers, you and me.

A Brotherly Christmas

Yes indeed, it goes without saying that Brian Wilson and his familial band have enjoyed a career quite unlike any other across the cuckoo annals of show business.

Scoring a local hit in 1961 straight off the mark with their very first little indie single, then soon after placing a sophomore release into no less than the hallowed Billboard Hot 100 – and all at a time when the majority of the guys still had to be home in time to attend class the next morning – The Beach Boys, it could be argued, really started their marathon run at the very tip-top, suicidally crash-dove towards oblivion a few short years later, and only then slowly but surely began their struggle up the ladder of ever-lasting fame, fortune and, ultimately, all-American glory …and just finished touring the globe promoting a new (!!) hit album, need I remind anyone.

Ten Reasons to Immediately Watch Bachman & Turner Live at the Roseland Ballroom, NYC

by Gary Pig Gold

Elvis May Have Died on August 16, but Scott Asheton was Born on August 16

by Gary Pig Gold

As the opening credits of this MVD Visual DVD state, (and I quote), "On September 3, 2010, Iggy and the Stooges performed Raw Power live in Monticello, New York. Six fans filmed the concert and interviewed Iggy and the Stooges after the show."

Really then! A concept so crystalline in both its simplicity and beauty – much like Iggy himself, one such as myself could argue. But the result is mountains above and beyond the ultimate DIY epic for Generation YouTube: What we have here is a real-time and, of course, real LOUD (thanks in no small part to the work of audio recordist Max Bisgrove) down 'n' dirty antidote to all those precious Jonathan Demme-style concert films regularly being awarded art-house praises and prizes.

Raw Power Live: In The Hands Of The Fans is in fact, with all apologies to The TAMI Show, the best on-screen rendering of rock 'n' roll I have ever seen.

Is Paul McCartney Really Going To Be 70 Years Old This Month?

by Gary Pig Gold

In the summer of 2005, a package arrived at the Hollywood offices of Highway 61 Entertainment from London with no return address. Inside were two mini-cassette audio tapes dated December 30, 1999 and labeled The Last Testament of George Harrison.

A voice eerily similar to Harrison's tells a shocking story: Paul McCartney was killed in a car crash in November of 1966 and replaced with a double!
 British intelligence, MI5, had forced the Beatles to cover up McCartney’s death to prevent mass suicides of Beatle fans. However, the remaining Beatles tried to signal fans with clues on album covers and in songs.

Until now, the “Paul Is Dead” mystery that exploded worldwide in 1969 was considered a hoax. However, in the film Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison, the mysterious voice on the tapes reveals a secret Beatles history, chronicling McCartney’s fatal accident, the cover up, dozens of unknown clues, and a dangerous cat and mouse game with “Maxwell,” the Beatles' MI5 handler, as John Lennon became increasingly reckless with the secret. The voice also claims that Lennon was assassinated in 1980 after he threatened to finally expose “Paul McCartney” as an imposter!

Highway 61 Entertainment has investigated this stunning new account of the conspiracy to hide McCartney’s tragic death and produced this unauthorized documentary that includes newly unearthed evidence. The mysterious voice on the audio tapes narrates the entire film in what may prove to be the most important document in rock and roll history, leaving little doubt that PAUL McCARTNEY REALLY IS DEAD!

Nevertheless, as undoubtedly and forevermore convincing as this stunning film may certainly be, yours quite truly has in fact gone totally metric to fearlessly uncover, believe them or not...

Ten More Reasons Paul is Really, Really Dead

1. Give My Regards To Broad Street (…especially the movie).
   
   
2. James Paul McCartney (the real one) was born in Walton Hospital, Liverpool, on the 18th of June, 1942. Numerically, that makes him a Number 6. However, the sixth song on the album Beatles 6, “Words Of Love,” was in fact composed by Buddy Holly, who died not only on the third of February, 1959, but stipulated in his last testament that all posthumous, universal rights to his publishing catalog be granted in perpetuity to none other than JAMES PAUL McCARTNEY for the nominal fee of… two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars (U.S.)
   
   
3. When spoken backwards, the title of the 2006 Paul McCartney classical album Ecce Cor Meum is MUEM ROC ECCE.
   
   
4. Paul McCartney’s first fiancé, the actress and cake decorator Jane Asher, most recently appeared on British television in the comedy series The Old Guys. Its first season theme song was composed by the Scottish poet/humorist Ivor Cutler who, in 1967, was actually hired by the fake Paul McCartney to portray bus conductor Buster Bloodvessel in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. Buster, in one of the film’s most truly disturbing of many such sequences, is seated at a restaurant table alongside Ringo’s auntie Jessie as she is being served shovels full of stale, flaccid spaghetti by none other than… JOHN LENNON.
   
   
5. Throughout the Beatles Anthology “bonus” material featuring Threetles Ringo, George and “Paul” sitting and reminiscing over ukuleles together, George is constantly seen being painfully condescending to (when not ignoring altogether, that is) none other than… PAUL McCARTNEY.
   
   
6. When you hold a hand mirror beneath the title written across the top of The Beatles’ Second Album jacket, you have to be very careful not to tilt the cover too much to the right, otherwise the record itself will fall out of its sleeve and most likely become soiled and possibly even permanently damaged by coming in contact with the floor below.
   
   
7. “I haven’t spoken with Paul in several weeks now myself”:  RINGO STARR, Press Conference, Fallsview Casino, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, June 23, 2010.
   
   
8. Everyone, from producer George Martin on down, seems to agree that the Beatles’ 1968 double-length White Album should have been shortened by at least fifty-per-cent. But nobody to this day – including EITHER Paul McCartney – can agree on exactly which songs to cut!
   
   
9. Throughout the 1999 Nitin Sawhney remix of the Fireman single “Fluid (Out Of Body),” an electronically-altered tape loop of a voice sounding strangely like that of Percy “Thrills” Thrillington can be heard saying, over and over, “Fluid (Out Of Body) doesn’t really mean Fluid Out Of Body, as in Fluid pouring Out Of somebody’s Body – presumably mine – like the Bodily Fluids, mainly blood, which supposedly poured out of my body when I was decapitated and left to look like a walrus during a horrific car crash late on the rainy night of November 9, 1966 after I angrily stormed out of a Beatles recording session following a heated debate with John Lennon over why I wasn’t allowed to perform on the track ‘She Said She Said’ …REALLY!”
   
   
10. Had the real James Paul McCartney still been alive, the makers of Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison would certainly have already heard from his solicitors.
    
    

They Ain't Heavy…

by Gary Pig Gold

Never as naughty as the Rolling Stones, nor as pin-up perfect as Herman's Hermits; seldom as musically adventurous as the Yardbirds, nitty-gritty as the Animals, or full-on bombastic as The Who. Of course, as truly no-one was, they just weren't as precociously talented as those Beatles either.

In fact, throughout the entire artistic marathon which was 1960's pop, perhaps their only true competition – in the vocal department at least – would be from the all-American Beach Boys. And, like them, it seems the only true "crime" The Hollies ever committed during their illustrious decades-long career was that they solely concentrated on, well, just making good records.

For you see without the assist of a cut-throat manager, cutting-edge studio supervision, wily publicist or even with-it wardrobe consultant (as late as 1972 the Hollies could still be found touring North America in the kind of matching cream-colored suits even the above-mentioned Mike Love & Co. had jettisoned by 1969) Allan Clarke, Graham Nash, Tony Hicks, Bobby Elliott, Terry Sylvester et al were left more or less to simply let their own string of absolutely fab hit singles do their walking and talking for them. 

And what's wrong with that, I'd like to know?

A whopping twenty-two (!) of those hits and then some now generously fill Eagle Rock/Reelin' In The Years' two-hour-plus The Hollies: Look Through Any Window DVD, packed alongside enough behind the scenes reminiscences, vintage newsreel clips (including a fourteen-minute glimpse inside a 1967 Hollies session at Abbey Road) and even personal road-view home movies to please the most discriminating British Invader out there, I'd wager. 

Well, then! Our story begins as a six-year-old Allan Clarke is fatefully seated next to Graham Nash in an otherwise nondescript Manchester classroom. A decade later, the two pals chance upon the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" at a Catholic Girls School dance and their destinies, both musical and otherwise, are immediately and foreverafter bonded.

So, as teenagers did throughout late-Fifties Britain, Allan and Graham began honing their harmonizing in local pubs and social halls, eventually forming a series of increasingly sophisticated beat combos which, in the wake of the Beatles' initial success – and despite Graham having not a single unbroken guitar string left on his Harmony acoustic during their audition – won a recording contract with none other than EMI's Parlophone label.

A flurry of effortlessly pop-go-lucky Hollies hits follow, each lovingly illustrated within Look Through Any Window via a veritable goldmine of seldom-seen promotional and performance clips, unencumbered with annoying voice-overs and left to unspool in their pristine totality. Watch a Queen Elizabeth look-alike stroll somnambulantly through what appears to be a flower shoppe for 1963's pioneering "Little Lover" jukebox video. See the band bravely face down various Stones, Searchers, and even Beatles at the 1964 NME Poll Winners concert, then see – and hear – the Hollies meticulously craft "On A Carousel" in the recording studio (…it seems the Granada TV crew had just been ushered out of a "Penny Lane" overdub session being held next door). Clearly, for an outfit so often dismissed as being image-less and/or less-than-charismatic, we recognize instead five guys who can more than hold their own against the antics of a Gerry and the Pacemakers or even the on-stage fury of a Dave Clark Five.

Between these astonishing clips we hear the tantalizing back-stories told in contemporary interview footage with Graham, Allan, utterly brilliant drummer Bobby Elliot and wiz-kid vocalist/guitarist Tony Hicks, the latter of whom actually picks up the nearest 12-string to demonstrate his trademark "I'm Alive" solo, "Look Through Any Window" Byrds lick, and still-astonishing "Stop Stop Stop" banjo/balalaika hybrid. The man was, and remains, a disarmingly soft-spoken yet nevertheless undeniable musical wonder.

Watch closely too and you'll see various Hollies cavorting around Japan to the accompaniment of "King Midas In Reverse," discover who "Carrie Anne" really began life as, and even watch Allan Clarke looking for said song's steel drum band hidden down his trouser legs at Yugoslavia's Split Festival, I kid you not.

Most unfortunately however, the fun and games – though thankfully not the hits – began ending circa 1967 as Graham suddenly got himself all "serious" (as in severely profound-o-delic); a curious, demoralizing change of attitude, not to mention altitude, which just didn't sit at all well with his pot-pie-as-opposed-to-pot fellow Hollies. No matter though: after a bizarre fling with DayGlo menswear and albums named after holometabolous insects, the man was soon sent packing aboard his Marrakesh Express to the supposedly hipper climes of Los Angeles …and into the welcoming arms of Messrs. Crosby and Stills. Good on ya then, Willy. 

Enter ex-Escort/Swinging Blue Jean Terry Sylvester, straight into Graham's old white suit and bow tie as we watch the second chapter in Hollie History unfold with the UK # 3 hit "Sorry Suzanne" through "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" (featuring Elton John's £12 piano part), "Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress," "The Air That I Breathe" and, twenty-two years too late, induction at last into that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

Consider this entire package then, including Ben Fong-Torres' studious liner notes for the accompanying 12-page "Hollies Scrapbook," a (re-)introduction to the deceptively simple 'n' smiling musical magic which continues to be this band's stock in trade. An admittedly upbeat combo whose music, in Graham's well-put words, nevertheless remained "serious as a heart attack," with nary a vocal harmony configuration left unexplored or an instrumental note misplaced, overlooked, or thankfully overplayed. In short then, The Hollies exemplify the long-lost art of a band that did only what needed to be done; nothing more, but hardly nothing less.

Or, as Allan Clarke best sums up, "We were just a great group who sang great songs and had a lot of hits." Case closed.    

The Hollies: Look Through Any Window is but the latest addition to Reelin' In The Years' exemplary British Invasion series, so if you haven't already grabbed the rest of the set, what on Earth are you waiting for ??

P.S. Gary Meets The Hollies in 1977 Toronto