Go Metric

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

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.

Twelve You May Have Missed In 2012

by Gary Pig Gold

Those Beach Boys and Rolling Stones weren’t the only septuagenarian rockers celebrating 50th (give or take) Anniversaries over the past twelve-or-so months, absolutely not. Just about each and every singer/songwriter/guitarist still standing – well, those with lucratively deep catalogs ripe and ready for recycling, that is – had multiple multi-media packages (and, in the Stones’ case, four-figure-plus concert tickets) competing for what remained of a loyal boomer’s nest egg throughout 2012.

So should you feel so inclined, unless you’re still busy searching for the real Bob Dylan via David Dalton’s Book Of The Year “Who Is That Man?” that is, may I wholeheartedly suggest Going Metric with: 

Deep-Catalog Purple

by Gary Pig Gold

"Just what the world needs: Another record company."

And with those typically snide words, on the Seventh day of February, 1968, Bizarre Productions was duly incorporated, and two hundred shares of no par value common stock issued in the State of New York, thereby creating the first of several record companies Frank Zappa would oversee during his most colorful life and career.

Herman's Hermits Made Movies, Two!

by Gary Pig Gold

In the utterly go-go, trans-media flurry which was mid-Sixties pop(ular culture), every television star worth their Nielsens was expected to not only chase spies and rope steers, but compete with those rock 'n' rollers of the moment upon the Top Forty to boot. To cite but two examples, Lorne Bonanza Greene and his 1964 chart-topping "Ringo," not to mention Captain James T. Kirk's similarly Beatle-busting Transformed Man album. Which contained the possibly definitive version of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," I kid you not.

Bob Dylan Revealed #10 & 35

by Gary Pig Gold

A mere twenty-eight seconds into Joel Gilbert's extensive new Bob Dylan Revealed documentary, the subject matter himself warns us "There's many sides to the coin, y'know, and you haveta really, uh, the longer you go on, the more sides you show that are, that are, that are there to be, uh, unraveled."

Sometimes it's Sunset, Sometimes it's Sunrise: Inside the Mind of Larry "Wild Man" Fischer

by Gary Pig Gold

Irwin Chusid (author, Songs In The Key Of Z): Outsider music is a slippery genre. It's musicians who tend to be self-taught, untrained, working certainly way outside the channels of mainstream music. There are very important qualifications: They are sincere about it. They mean it. They're not doing it to be funny. They're not doing it to be outrageous. This is a sincere musical expression. Wild Man Fischer in many ways is a poster child for outsider music.

In the Bee Gees' Time

by Gary Pig Gold

2010 marked the Fiftieth (!!) Anniversary of the Bee Gees' career as fully professional all-singing, all-playing musicians, songwriters, and performers.

This January 12 marked eight years since self-styled “man in the middle” Maurice Gibb's tragic passing. And in 2011, remaining Gibbs Barry and Robin are actually threatening to continue recording, and perhaps even tour the globe, beneath the hitherto-mighty Bee Gee moniker.

This is a proposition I frankly find quite incomprehensible to fathom, let alone purchase three-figure tickets to witness in person. Though with Messrs. Pete and Roger insisting on conducting business both on stage and off as [sic?] “The Who,” I do suppose anything is possible (if not exactly practical and/or ethical).

Nevertheless, I'm far happier to report that 2011 also sees the appearance of a grand new five-decade-plus DVD retrospective on Barry, Robin, Maurice and even Andy Gibb entitled In Our Own Time. And from its very opening ultra-decibel, fire ‘n' flashpot-festooned montage of “You Should Be Dancing” footage spanning '76 clear through '96 – which then cleverly cuts far back to a '56-vintage Elvis and his similarly dance-crazed “Blue Suede Shoes” – it's clear this is going to be one of those far too rare roc doc's which actually has a wise and sharpened sense of socio-historical pop perspective. I mean, who was Tony Manero after all than simply Vince Everett in polyester white as opposed to jailhouse black?

Our ride duly launches out of post-war Manchester, England as Barry, Robin and (via interview footage culled from David Leaf and John Scheinfeld's equally adept This Is Where I Came In documentary) Maurice describe years spent as pre-teen Everly wannabe's who eventually emigrate all the way to Australia, where they form a singing act to perform for spare change at a local race car track. But such is this young trio's charm and already obvious talent that they soon blossom into bonafide Down-Under Beatles:   the televised performance herein of a ‘63 Bee Gee “Please Please Me” alone makes In Our Own Time nothing short of Required Viewing. Yet the fully airborne promotional footage we're treated to next for their first Number One hit, 1966's still-buoyant “Spicks and Specks,” displays a far more Monkee as opposed to Beatle-like mastery of the lip-sync'd absurd.

Returning to their homeland and soon after magically hooking up with none other than Fab sub-manager Robert Stigwood, a recording contract and string of (self-written and purposefully “melodramatic,” it is revealed) classics appear in typically Sixties warp-speed. Colourful “New York Mining Disaster,” “I Can't See Nobody,” “To Love Somebody,” “Massachusetts,” “Idea” and “Words” clips follow, and even a glancing view towards each should erase all doubts that The Bee Gees were one of that genius-packed decade's surely most accomplished by far. Case closed.

Caution: What shoots way, way up must of course fall down. So as Sixties become Seventies our heroes found themselves struggling beneath the weight of red velvet-ensconced rock operas, mutinous solo projects, meddling better halves and even their very own ill-fated television spectacular, Cucumber Castle (which may indeed be much more fun than Magical Mystery Tour ,  though it's certainly no Monkees' Head ). Once the audio-visual wreckage cleared however, the brothers found themselves chastened enough to not only fully reform, but come up with two unashamedly allegorical gems, “Lonely Days” and “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart,” which appeared to all concerned to be their career swansongs.

But! We're less than half-way through our show! And so what exactly did spare The Bee Gees at this critical point from a fate worse than Oldie Goldie residencies near Clacton-on-Sea?

Two words: Arif Mardin.

Luring them to the decidedly more sympathetic climes of Miami's Criteria Recording Studios, then cleverly steering the brothers towards their previously unexplored r'n'b leanings (via Barry's falsetto most pointedly), the result was a slow but steady climb both back onto their feet and then extremely high back up the international sales charts. No further explanation is really needed by me here: At least 100 million of you out there bought the ensuing records.

The backlash, of course, was instant and fierce. “Bee Gee-Free Weekends” on radio stations the world over. “Bee Gee Bonfires” of Saturday Night Fever soundtracks in Chicago baseball stadiums.

“The enigma with a stigma,” as Barry still brands The Bee Gees to this very day.

And I'm sure he doesn't just mean the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie either.  

Yet for anyone who tuned away from the tale right about here, In Our Own Time continues on through subsequent years of Gibbs stubbornly continuing to craft monster hits …only for other singers (Streisand, Celine, The Divine Miss Ross and Kenny and Dolly, for example:   why, there's an additional twenty-or-so million in sales right there). Unfortunately, this otherwise platinum period also saw the loss of a severely over-self-medicated Andy Gibb, and the frightful near-exit of a similarly lost “Brother Mo” to boot. Most thankfully indeed though, Maurice eventually bounced completely back to help create what, tragically, would be his final Bee Gee masterpiece, “This Is Where I Came In,” before death on January 12, 2003.

Well, the story perhaps does not end there. One hour and fifty-one minutes into Our Own Time finds a stoic Barry insisting, and I quote, “The legacy of the Bee Gees MUST  go on, one way or the other.” Cut to contemporary footage of he and faithful brother Robin, recently reunited before twin microphones in some faux-recording studio setting, crooning “To Love Somebody” and “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart.”

Fade to black. One can only hope.

Video: The Bee Gees' "Please Please Me"

Ten Reasons Why "Brian Wilson: Songwriter, 1962-1969" Should be the Last Beach Boys Documentary You Ever Need to Watch

by Gary Pig Gold

1. Veteran SoCal socio-musical historian Domenic Priore, sitting alongside a tiki totem beneath a strategically placed orange branch, more than ably launches our story over a wealth of Eastmancolor'd freeway and beach footage, drawing, as only he can, that all-important connection from Gidget to Dick Dale all the way to teenage Brian's Hawthorne, California music room.

2. We see some very cool vintage Four Freshmen footage, and the undeniable influence that quartet's equally cool jazz vocal stylings had on Brian and his Boys, explained to us by none other than First Lady of the Wilsonian Bass Guitar, Carol Kaye.

3. Next, back-to-back clips of Chuck Berry serenading “Sweet Little Sixteen” at The TAMI Show and the young B. Boys themselves belting out their just-released “Surfin' USA” in full deck-swabbing gear illustrate, as thousands of words over the years have til now failed to, why CHUCK'S name is the one listed as composer of the latter hit.

4. Similarly, Inside The Music of Brian Wilson author Prof. Philip Lambert takes to the piano to juxtapose Phil Spector's “Be My Baby” with Brian's equally ingenious “answer” song “Don't Worry, Baby” …as Phil's former Wrecking Crewman (and Brian's drummer of choice) Hal Blaine gets a little Prison Wall of Sound joke in at his ol' boss' everlasting expense.

5. We get to hear lots of fly-on-the-acoustic-tile recording studio chatter, stretching all the way back to the making of that very first Beach Boy record “Surfin'” itself. Not to mention, I'm afraid, a terrifying example of father / manager / producer [sic!] Murry “I'm a Genius Too” Wilson putting the psychological screws into Brian's brain at the infamous “Help Me, Rhonda” vocal session (which ended at least one person's career).

6. Why, we even get to hear Winterreise by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe used in the very same sentence as Pet Sounds !  

7. Three Dog Night tripper Danny Hutton, however, has an even better word for this all: “Marijuana!!”

8. Original Beach Boy David Marks talks about all the treble Capitol Records liked to put on the band's Fender guitars, while current Beach Boy Bruce Johnston talks about all the trouble Capitol Records liked to put Brian Wilson through whenever he dared stray from his original musical sun-n-fun formula.

9. Which reminds me: Brian's most note-worthy by far collaborator Van Dyke Parks is shown in the old Tower Records parking lot off Sunset Strip circa 1976 in an attempt to explain why Mike Love never could get  a lyric such as “Over and over the crow flies uncover the cornfield” in to his head, let alone out of his mouth.

10. And, as if the Seventies weren't cruel enough already to all concerned, we end with lifelong Beach Boy friend, confidante, and concert promoter Fred Vail still, forty years later, shedding a righteous tear recalling how he failed to get the band's “Add Some Music To Your Day” single added to a powerful East Coast radio station playlist back in the daze because, he was told, “The Beach Boys aren't hip anymore.”

Needless to say said program director – not to mention his station (and Top 40 radio in general) – is long long gone, Fred for one survives to tell this and many other poignant Beach Boy tales and, of this there can be NO doubt, Brian Wilson's magical melodies are poised to enter their second half-century of faithful, never disappointing service to one and all.

This magnificent 190-minute, two-DVD package, and the fine cast of musicians, historians, and Wilson pals and players therein, do a most remarkable job in explaining to us exactly why. It should indeed be considered Required Viewing by all who still love to add good vibes to their days.

Available Right Here, Right Now...

A Film About the Doors...Finally!

by Gary Pig Gold

The summer of 1970 was certainly a strange one in, for, and around what we may now quaintly call the pop/rock scene:   Paul had just left his Beatles, for starters, the Stones and Dylan were missing-without-much-action, kids were throwing various Jacksons, Osmonds, and even Bobby Sherman way up the charts whilst the older kids were pretending to get back to the garden via a newly-released big-Hollywood Woodstock movie.

Meanwhile, yours very truly was busy buying up every single Creedence Clearwater record he could lay his young hands on, I'll have you all know.

Then again there was the, well, strange case of John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison who, after having closed out those Sixties with a “flop” album ( The Soft Parade ) and even floppier run-ins with the law (their singer having gotten busted acting naughty on stage in Miami, and again on a Phoenix-bound airliner) now found themselves in 1970 under immense pressure to resurrect their career and get back to where they once belonged. As in the basics, musically speaking that is.

These various struggles, conflicts, lewd behavior indictments and then some are all fully explored – along with, thankfully, lots of great music too – in a fascinating new documentary entitled When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors , freshly available on DVD and Blu-ray from those fine folk over at Eagle Rock Entertainment.

Now, unlike the band's own series of understandably self-serving concert films over the years or, on entirely the other hand, Oliver Stone's utterly cataclysmic 1991 biopic The Doors , Tom DiCillo's When You're Strange perhaps comes closest to finally presenting, as no less an authority as Ray Manzarek has long promised, “the true story of The Doors.” It does so by wisely keeping 21st Century interference to a bare minimum, concentrating instead on a wealth of live and studio footage from throughout the band's surprisingly brief career intriguingly intercut with – and this is the film's real coup to my eyes – never before seen segments from Jim Morrison's barely-released 1969 short subject HWY: An American Pastoral.

Without ever getting overtly ham-fisted a la the above-mentioned Mr. Stone, DiCillo (along with Johnny Depp's narration) weaves the HWY footage of Morrison speeding across the California desert to actually drive When You're Strange forward, onward and upward from the band's infant gigs on L.A.'s Sunset Strip through the recording of their landmark debut album in 1966 and subsequent stardom. It's interesting, not to mention important to realize and understand just how big a pop star Jim was at this time: He may have been playing it so cool by singing the dreaded “higher” word when The Doors performed “Light My Fire” on The Ed Sullivan Show , but at the same time this was a man only too happy to appear bare-chested and love-bead-adorned alongside Davy Jones and Mark Lindsay across the pages of 16 Magazine .

When You're Strange similarly pulls few punches in charting the band's just-as-speedy fall from those poppiest of heights, mainly but not fully on account of Jimbo's descent into the depths of alcoholic fear and self-loathing. It was indeed, and still remains, quite disheartening to watch The Doors' slinky frontman decline from the leather-clad Lizard King of every bad girl's Summer of Love dreams to the bearded, bloated ragamuffin who hauled sheep on stage in 1969, only to then berate his audience with cries of “You love it, don't ya? Maybe you love gettin' your face stuck in the shit. You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!” Oh, Morrison…

Such performance Art with a capital “F” notwithstanding, footage from the band's 1968 European tour, and then a remarkable sequence from the “Wild Child” recording session itself, show The Doors were without a single doubt a four -piece band, oh so much greater than the sum of its equal parts, with each man contributing his own special brilliance to the creation. There wasn't ever a single weak musical link to this band, its writing, arranging, and (usually) its performing skills, and When You're Strange never once lets the viewer get distracted from this critically important fact …despite the carnival atmosphere which never seemed to cease swirling around the entire proceedings.

Finally, we also see how, following that tricky Summer of 1970, the band fully rebounded with its final two albums, Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman (again, When You're Strange presents fabulous footage from the latter's recording sessions …apparently, the last existing footage of the band as a whole).

But then, most inconveniently, Jim moved to Paris and rumor has it actually died there very early on the morning of July 3, 1971.

Now he may indeed remain “hot, sexy, and dead” as Rolling Stone declared a decade later, kicking off the Doors Resurrection each surviving band member continues to propagate most efficiently to this day. Yet Tom DiCillo has bravely succeeded, where few have ever even attempted to before, in stripping away the excess, puncturing the mythology, and – What a concept! – letting The Doors' MUSIC do the talking.

Strange indeed.

When You're Strange: A Film About the Doors (Official Site)

When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors (HD Theatrical Trailer)