Chairman Ralph's Ministry Of Truth

Time never stops playing tricks with your mind. The Five Emprees' first reunion show in four years seemed so far away when details of it were announced in late July, and tickets went on sale during the first week in August.

Bit by bit, though, the clock began ticking more loudly, as updates about the pace of ticket sales began appearing on the Five Emprees' Facebook page, with one message being quickly, and urgently, driven home – don't wait.

That message reached a fever pitch on August 28: “As of yesterday, tickets were almost completely sold out. For those of you who want to go and are planning to get tickets at the door, you might want to rethink that plan and get them NOW.”

The countdown toward the final week has whizzed by, in a blur, toward tonight's result: the band has sold out Hidden Pointe, which holds 500 people. It's an amazing outcome, considering how much time has passed since the band first called it a day in the early '70s.

“Fifty years later, and they can still pull a crowd,” Don marvels. “How many local bands can say that?” “Not many, I wager,” I respond.

Sadly, however, longtime bassist Ron Pelkey isn't here tonight, for reasons that become clearer after a dramatic announcement between sets. He and his wife, we learn, are both in assisted living care, which means that any future reunions will likely go on without him. (The first one happened in 1988, at Babe's Lounge, in downtown Benton Harbor.)

Steve Phillips, who replaced Pelkey when his predecessor quit the band, to attend college – ably covers the bottom end basics, leaving vocalist/guitarist Don Cook, guitarist Tony Catanaia, and keyboardist Bill Schueneman as the other remaining original members to carry the flag. Drummer Bill Winans fills in for Mike Derose, who left music long ago to become an architect, while Cook's wife, Debbie, and Terry Vandenberg provide additional vocals.

Guess what, though? The band is as potent as ever, and doesn't skimp on pulling out all the stops, as Catanaia's crisp leads and Schueneman's synthesizer and piano blasts make clear on well-worn '60s rockers like “You Really Got Me” (The Kinks), “Kicks” (Paul Revere & The Raiders), and a giddy romp through The Beatles' “Back In The USSR,” where Rick Pirri joins for a one-off cameo on bass.

It's one of many spontaneous moments that pop up during these shows, and help to make them so fun, and memorable. Ditto for a second set coupling of “Sugar Shack” and “Sugar Sugar,” which is truly inspired, and helps to keep the dance floor humming.

Another surprise comes when the band breaks into “Eye Into The Sky,” by the Alan Parsons Project – which seems at odds with the overall emphasis on the '60s. Yet, on another level, it's not a stretch at all, because it allows the band to showcase its harmonies – another quality that set the Emprees apart back in the day, along with their R&B influences.

Debbie Cook's vocals prove relevant in this regard, enabling the Emprees to expand their sound. She steps up to the mike to belt out girl group and soul staples like “Be My Baby,” and “Lady Marmalade,” respectively, with able support from Vandenberg. Her voice also shines through on pop nuggets like the Turtles' “Eleanor,” a mainstay of recent reunion shows, and “The Air That I Breathe” (The Hollies).

Catanaia also proves himself a capable singer throughout the night, as he demonstrates on a swooning version of Sam Cooke's classic, “You Send Me” – not exactly a choice for a novice to tackle, especially if you're trying to fill those particular shoes. But the band pulls it off, with all the panache you'd expect of seasoned veterans, who also make sure to inject plenty of their own, highly individual styles into the equation.

As ever, eclecticism is the name of the game. How many average bar bands could swing from the likes of “Fun, Fun, Fun” (The Beach Boys), to “Sweet Caroline” (The Beach Boys), and “You Don't Have to Say You Love Me” (Dusty Springfield)? The Five Emprees manage, without missing a beat, making them like a natural fit alongside their classic debut single, “Little Miss Sad” – the only song that gets a repeat airing, in both sets, yet inspires an all-out romp along the dance floor.

What makes these shows all the more remarkable is that Cook is the only member who lives in the local area fulltime anymore. Catania divides his time between South Haven, while Phillips lives in Florida; Schueneman, in Georgia; and Winans, in Kalamazoo. (Pelkey until his recent health issues, also came from Georgia, to do his part.)

These sorts of logistics complicate the rehearsal picture, to put it mildly, so it's not surprising that the odd rough spots creep in here or there – at one point, Cook has to redirect his cohorts on one of the soul numbers into an ending that clearly isn't planned, for instance.

For the most part, though, both sets flow seamlessly toward the one-two punch ending of “Little Miss Sad,” and the Abbey Road medley – another longtime staple of past reunions. That pairing primes the crowd for the lone encore, a fun romp through “The Letter.” This time, however, we're being treated to the funkier, grittier Joe Cocker version, instead of the Boxtops' breezily familiar soul/pop original.

It's another reminder of the band's ability to put its own spin on what we've been hearing all along, and there's no sign of the interest letting up, judging by the fervency of the response – as well as the odd bit of banter that bounces back and forth.

“I'm old. Older than most of you!” Cook jokes, before the second run through “Little Miss Sad,” until someone in the audience suggests otherwise. “You're 78?” The singer asks. “I'm glad to hear that! I'm sick of being the oldest!”

Speculation had been rife, going into Sunday's show, that this affair might mark the Five Emprees' “last dance,” hence – the sellout. I'm not so sure about that, myself. That kind of talk has floated around for a long time, as I discovered in going through my archives, such as a 2015 preview I wrote about the 50th anniversary show at Hidden Pointe, for the Herald-Palladium: “Whether any more reunions happen is still uncertain.”

So much for predictions, right? But in a sense, it doesn't matter. Time will tell if Sunday's show marks the final exclamation point on a long-standing tradition, but based on what Don and I witnessed, there's no doubting this much – they'll be talking about this night for a long, long time.

There's press releases, and then there's press releases, but as opening lines go, this one hooked me from the get-go. "A snare of drummers could be a collective noun for percussionists," I read to myself.

Sounds promising, then, I thought. Keep going: "Here, Nick Cash, once drummer with Fad Gadget and now with The Members, brings together 17 fellow drummers who also make art. An eclectic mix of work, encompassing painting, collage, video, drawing and sculpture. Drummers from cult punk and post punk bands, the NY No Wave scene, sound art and improvisors."

And what an impressive list it is, too, as you'll see (below). With pedigrees that range from the likes of Glen Matlock and Johnny Thunders, to Year Zero scene makers like Palmolive, Derek Goddard (The 101'ers), Brian Grantham (The Drones, Slaughter & The Dogs), and many, many more, Nick seems to have definitely covered the bases.

Having done a couple art shows myself, I related to the subject matter, and figured, OK, I gotta find out more here! It's always great to see events that happen without Somebody-Official-Or-Other giving the high sign, so I naturally had to email Nick -- who's currently working with his colleagues on a new album, that should drop by early next year -- and ask him about it. 

So if you're in the neighborhood, by all means, drop by. If not, then go with the conversational flow below, check out the images, and follow the relevant links, as we touch on music, art, and how that drumming thing does -- or doesn't -- fit into the equation.


CHAIRMAN RALPH (CR): First, what inspired you to put this show together?

NICK CASH (NC): I was in an art exhibition curated by John Bunker, which by fluke had three drummers in it. John was going to make a show with us, but didn't know more drummers, and other projects took precedence. I asked to take on the Idea, and John was happy for me to take it on.

CR: As I can see, there's lots of recognizable names -- Chris Musto, Paloma McLardy, and so on -- and some that the eagle-eyed album credit reader may not recognize so well. How did you end up choosing the people who appear in it?

NC: You have to remember, there are only so many drummers that are artists and they don't necessarily advertise the fact. Once I put the word out, names were suggested, and I would ask if they were interested. The list kind of made itself.

Some people I knew slightly, like Chris Musto, and Chris Bashford, and I knew they made artworks. I had Kevin Teare, from NY, and Tony Smith on email, through John Bunker.

Giles Perring, I toured with in Fad Gadget, and then made two albums with as Unmen. An old friend artist writer and musician, Neal Brown, got me in touch with Palmolive and Derek Goddard. Dawn Evans I played with in Big Pig, and others were suggested to me.

Two exhibitors, David Mach and Richard Wilson, are well known artists and less as drummers. Richard I had met over the years, and when I got to talk to him, was interested in the idea. I didn't know David Mach was a drummer, but Victoria Snazell mentioned he was, and had his number.

CR: Tell me a little bit about yourself, and your own artistic ride, if you will. How long has it been, and what mediums do you work in?

NC: I went to St Martins 74/5, and met Glen Matlock, who took me to see the Pistols rehearse. Then saw the first gig on Nov. 6, with Bazooka Joe supporting. I applied to do sculpture at Ravensbourne, and got in to do a BA but got busy playing in bands, first prag VEC, then The Lines and Fad Gadget.

Over the years, I made some artworks, and when we started using samplers, I started to think what a visual version of sampling would be. I made some postcard size collage, using sellotape to "sample" the surfaces of magazine images, taking them apart, and rebuilding them.

I like collage. it is a very democratic medium, open to anyone with a few magazines or newpapers, and a pair of scissors. It can be very simple, where one intervention is made, or very sophisticated, e.g., Richard Hamilton, where the composition is very painterly. It can be totally abstract or figurative.

CR: Who really inspired you the most?

NC: The Nouveaux Realistes, especially Jacques Villeglé, and Gils Wolman. Steve Willats was not a direct inspiration much, as I like his work, but what interested me about him was the fact that he unapologetically described himself as an artist. And he involved me in various projects of his, which got me thinking about art again.

CR: What is it about drummers and artwork, exactly, that seems to make it a natural combo -- at least, judging from the length of the list? :-)

There's that whole image people have of the drummer being the quiet guy in the back, but it seems like there's more to the story, isn't there?

NC: I don't really think it is a natural combo, and I am sure some people are surprised that I could find 19 that made art. But I guess there are a lot of people in different professions that we don't associate with art. For example, there were a group of miners that painted https://wizzley.com/miners-in-art-and-pitmen-painters/. We shouldn’t be surprised, anyone can be an artist.

CR: What do you hope visitors to the show will get out of the experience? What do you want them to walk with?

NC: This is a very mixed group of people, with quite different forms of artwork. I don’t expect the audience to like everything, but it is intriguing to see things rubbing up against each other, and making your own connections in the work.

E.G., I noticed on Max’s panel there was a mention of Diz Dizley, who was mates with my dad, he was a fantastic guitarist who played with Stéphane Grappelli. Diz was notorious for borrowing money, even hitting me up for ten bob when I was a kid, I did get weighed out a year or so later.

CR: How does this show fit into the overall scene locally -- since I know there seems to be quite a flourishing one in the East End, right? Or, at least, that's what I've heard in the past.

NC: Not sure about that. The gallery Tension Fine Art is in Penge and is a bit of an outpost. It ploughs its own furrow and punches above its weight.

Ken Turner is the gallery owner. He is an artist and curator, and is doing an MA at Goldsmiths. He is a good man, organising the exhibitions, and giving emerging and mature artists a chance to exhibit in a constantly changing programme.

CR: Is this show a one-off, or is there a sequel in the offing? What else can we expect from your own artistic ventures?

NC: I'm hoping to do another Crash Ride Snare possibly in a city like Manchester or Glasgow and would very much like to hear from anyone who has a gallery and would be interested in hosting it.

I am doing a Paste Table Gallery event at Muse Gallery, in Portobello Rd, opening on Thursday the 7th Sept. all welcome to the PV. I continue to make analogue collage in my shed, on my allotment.

CR: Last, but not least, what can we expect from the forthcoming Members album?

NC: You can expect a group of interesting songs that will be quintessential Members. That means non-generic punk rock with other flavours that might disturb purists, but after a few listens, have you hooked.

Crash Ride Snare
@tensionfineart
135 Maple Road, London SE20 8LP, UK
11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun
Closes at end of day, Saturday, Sept. 26

Featured Artists
Chris Bashford - Chelsea, The Ides of Sedition 
Nick Cash- Fad Gadget, The Lines, prag VEC, The Members
Dawn Evans - Big Pig
Derek Goddard- The 101'ers
Brian Grantham -Slaughter and The Dogs, The Drones,
June Miles Kingston- The Modettes, Jimmy Somerville
Giles Leaman- Echo City , Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Rip Rig and Panic 
Josh Ludlow - Mutant, Turbogeist 
Paloma McLardy- Slits, Raincoats
David Mach - The Voyeurz
Chris Musto- Nico, Johnny Thunders, Glen Matlock
Dorothy Max Prior- Rema Rema, Psychic TV
Giles Perring - Echo City, Unmen, The Shout
Paul Raggity- Raggedy Anne, Roddy Radiation 
Tony Smith - Kit
Kevin - MX80
Richard Wilson - Bow Gamelan
Z’ev

<LINKS TO GO>
https://www.themembers.co.uk/

Spring offers the promise of renewal, and local artist Lisa Quinlan-Heibutzki feels no differently, as she prepares for “Budgie's Garden,” her first major show in 14 years.

“I had created a lot of art work, and felt it was time to get it out there. I always derived pleasure, knowing that one of my paintings was being enjoyed by someone else. I had sold some individual paintings online, but felt it was time to do a show,” she said.

“Budgie's Garden” opened April 1, at Front Street Crossing, 227 S. Front St., Dowagiac, and runs until Monday, July 31. The show is cosponsored by Blue Dart and Cass County Council on Aging (COA), and features paintings of birds, flowers and landscapes.

Visitors will also see illustrations for short stories by notable local author, Charles McKelvy, and a joint work created with Lisa's husband, Ralph, who also has several collages of his own, in the show.

Quinlan-Heibutzki holds an art education degree from Western Michigan University. Previous shows included “Budgie's Nest,” which ran in October 2006, at the Hillsdale Annex (Hillsdale, MI), and a smaller affair, held in 2009, at the Livery (Benton Harbor, MI). She has also sold numerous paintings privately.

Blue Dart Art Director Sharron Ott hopes that visitors will take inspiration from Quinlan-Heibutzki's view of nature, “and by the way she works the materials to create an intriguing painting,” she said.

“I have always enjoyed Lisa's paintings,” Ott said. “There is a unique raw strength, while at the same time, being refined, and well-rendered. This is why I was excited to invite her to participate in the Engage Program.”

“Budgie's Garden” is part of a joint effort by Blue Dart Art and Cass County COA “to provide these shows for local artists, helping the artists share their work with the community,” she added.

The theme of “Budgie's Garden” also fit the season, Ott believes. “Being spring time, I thought that Lisa’s pictures would be very appropriate, as many of her works depict flowers and gardens. I hope it to be as if the flowers are coming up inside of the COA, when the people come down the hallway,” she said.

As an artist with disabilities, Quinlan-Heibutzki draws on influences ranging from Charles Schulz, the late creator of “Peanuts,” to Impressionist painters like Van Gogh, and Monet, and outsider artists who don't show up on the popular radar, she said.

“I taught myself to draw using 'Peanuts' comics at age five, and, kept drawing and painting. Visually, I am influenced by my own photographs, my stamp collection, and Victorian-era photos. My painting, 'Budgie Information,' was inspired by a vintage photo of a circus performer and her birds, with some obvious changes,” Quinlan-Heibutzki said.

Other inspirations happened closer to home, such as at Berrien Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (St. Joseph, MI). She began gardening there, after a raised gardening box had been built for members' use.

“I took pictures there, and based a few of the paintings on them,” Quinlan-Heibutzki said. “The painting 'Midnight Garden' is based on one of those pictures. I also took pictures of my own produce, and painted 'Make Your Salad' from them.”

Those activities ended up inspiring her show, in ways she didn't imagine. “I had never gardened, and it became a new hobby, that I found out I liked, and thought it would be an apt name to celebrate this show,” Quinlan-Heibutzki said. “'Budgie' is a nickname of mine, so it made sense.”

Whatever draws people to “Budgie's Garden,” they'll find no shortage of imagery to inspire, when they leave the show, Quinlan-Heibutzki feels.

“There's some variety in my art work, I think people will enjoy. Also I hope my love for nature and birds comes through the show,” she said.

For further details on the show, or purchasing information, contact Blue Dart Art Group, at bluedartart63@gmail.com, or Quinlan-Heibutzki, at biggreenfrog40@yahoo.com.

You'd never know it now, amid the plethora of boxed sets, bootlegs, remasters and reissues hitting the racks these days, but once upon a time, copies of the Stooges' landmark albums – The Stooges (1969), Fun House (1970), and Raw Power (1973) – were on the level of Bigfoot encounters, UFO sightings, or exotic rock rumors (“Jim Morrison is alive 'n' well, reborn as a corporate warrior/7-Eleven counter lackey/off the grid adventurer”). In other words, experiences and glimpses of something bigger, to speak about reverently, but not taken seriously, since – what were the odds that anybody would ever actually get to hear any of those so-called legendary platters?

Few bands started with such a promising bang, yet fewer still made the transition from hero to zero with such rapidity. I came of collecting age in a world where the infamous, in-concert snapshot, Metallic KO (1976), was the only Stooges album that you might even spot in a record bin – coming two years after their final breakup, even as their body of work languished in out of print limbo, curiosities to be seen, and maybe furtively enjoyed, but never actually heard.

Eventually, the world caught up -- somewhat. By the time I began rounding up the usual suspects in 1994-95 for my eventual MC5/Stooges retrospectives in DISCoveries, and Goldmine, the albums had finally become common currency (though, even then, workarounds persisted – hence, I found myself making do with a French import of The Stooges, after I'd snagged the other two albums). The notion of “Detroit rock” had finally become embraced as some sort of legitimate sub-genre, and highbrow rags like MOJO had begun publishing in-depth pieces – but that was as far as any power broker sitting behind their desk seemed prepared to go.

It's hard to imagine what followed, in hindsight, when I spoke to the Stooges' perennial backbone of Ron and Scott Asheton, on their Ann Arbor turf. Although they were finally getting a bit more respect – and even royalties from their albums, God forbid – neither were enshrined in rock 'n' roll Heaven just yet. Scott was playing locally, with various bands – including Stand Fast, fronted by his sister, Kathy – while Ron was dividing his energies between his major post-Stooge band, Dark Carnival, and trying to get various movie projects off the ground.

The phenomena that led to their renewed prominence – the Stooges reunion (2003), and their induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame (2010), along with the resurgence of the Detroit music scene, and Stooge music featuring prominently in commercial – lay a good half-decade or more off, light years away, in pop culture terms.

The notion of an academic exploration of the Stooges' music and legacy seemed equally far-fetched – what light, if any, could you shed on the lyrical mindset behind the likes of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” – yet that's exactly what Michael S. Begnal has done in his new book, The Music And Noise Of The Stooges, 1967-1971: Lost In The Future (Routledge), which offers a fresh look at the band, while trying to pierce through the fog of myth that surrounds so much of their history, as you'll see shortly. (Full disclosure: I provided full transcripts of my interviews with the Ashetons, because when you're involved – you're involved.) For availability, or other information, visit www.routledge.com.

Drawing on the critiques of scholars like Theodor Adorno, and interviews with many of the principals – notably, the MC5's guiding light, John Sinclair – The Music And Noise Of The Stooges raises the curtain on the collision between art and commerce, “with the band's 'noisy' music and singer Iggy Pop's 'bizarre' onstage performances confusing their label, Elektra Records,” its back cover blurb notes. “As Begnal argues, the Stooges embodied a tension between market forces and an innovative, avante-garde artistic vision, as they sought to liberate audiences from passivity and stimulate an imminent joy in the rock 'n' roll moment.”

All of these subjects definitely seemed worthy of deeper examination, once I read The Music And Noise Of The Stooges, which we then explored in our interview (3/09/22) – so crank up, drink up, rear up, and proceed accordingly. The highlights follow, as always, for your reading pleasure below.

PT. I: “THEY ALL HAD A VISION”

CHAIRMAN RALPH (CR): So let's get down to it, I guess, without further ado. Let's start with the level of fandom. I've told you my story. When I started, Metallic KO – for a long time – was the only Stooges record you could get, let alone find.

The Stooges were a name that everybody seemed to know, but not a lot of people got to hear. So what was your journey through all this? How did you find them, and how did that affect you?

MICHAEL BEGNAL (MB): I was into the Ramones when the first album came out in '76, when I was 10, thanks to a family friend, who brought the record to our house. At first, it was the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. The Sex Pistols had covered “No Fun,” so, I knew that was a Stooges song, even though I hadn't heard the original yet. And that Sid Vicious album, Sid Sings, he does “Search & Destroy.”

CR: That's right.

MB: So I was like, “Those are really good songs,” and I got Raw Power. I got it in New York City – we would go to New York a couple of times a year, when I was a kid, when I grew up in Central Pennsylvania. It was '81, and I got an import version of Raw Power, which was the '77 reissue, with the British reissue.

So I was into that, Raw Power, even before the Elektra ones. Of course, as you can tell from the book, the Elektra ones were the ones that really became the big ones for me, probably even more than Raw Power, obviously. They're all great. So I was into Raw Power, and then – was it '82, before the Elektra albums were finally rereleased?

CR: I'm gonna say '83, because that's when I remember buying Fun House, in the summer of. I'd gotten Raw Power during my high school days, at the mall, of all places – in the bargain bin, at Boogie Records!

MB: Yeah. Well, I bought 'em in '84. I remember getting into the first album, in the summer of '84, and I kept seeing the guys in Black Flag, Henry Rollins and Chuck Dukowski, at least a couple of times, mention that Fun House was the shit.

So I got that rerelease of Fun House, which isn't the gatefold, and then I had all three of the studio albums. Then I started getting into them, and I picked up Metallic KO around that time, too.

CR: Wow, so your trajectory's completely opposite of mine, basically.

MB: Yeah. It was just what was out there, you know? I'd heard of them because of the Sex Pistols. I knew it was Iggy Pop – Iggy Pop was having solo albums out, that I'd heard. I had the Soldier album, probably got that around the same era, and the same time I got Raw Power.

Also, there was an Iggy Pop Autodiscography in Trouser Press, in '83. And that had him talking about all the Stooges albums, so I was aware of them from that, too.

CR: And, of course, he was continuing to play the Stooges material live.

MB: Yeah. I mean, I didn't see him live at that time. But you'd hear the name the Stooges mentioned, any time you heard something about Iggy Pop.

CR: So, what made you decide, to write about them, and especially, to take the route that you did? At the time – in purely commercial terms – they didn't achieve a lot, really. As you point out yourself, they only really got welcomed back to the party, once their influence spread enough, to the point where they had something to sell.

MB: Right, right, yeah. I mean, that's one of the main arguments of the book, is the way that capitalism drives all this stuff. It's not like they were welcomed back, or got into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, simply because of three influential albums, and then, nothing.

But yeah, why? I mean, it was one of those things, where it was, “Oh, they influenced the Sex Pistols, and all these punk bands. I guess I should check them out.” But then, it's the power of the band itself, and I don't know, it just got me at the right time, I guess.

When I started getting into Fun House, in '84, I guess I'd just turned 18. Fun House was one of those albums, that it grows on you over time. You keep listening to it, and hearing different things in it, and hearing it differently. In fact, when I first played Fun House, I was like, “Nah, I didn't like it quite as much as the first album, or Raw Power.”

But yeah, something's weird about the sound, it's got that big echoey metallic sound, as opposed to the, sort of fuzztone sound I'd been getting into on the first album. But then, I kept listening to it, and it started to grow on me, and it just becomes too powerful to deny, I guess.

CR: Oh, OK, that makes sense, I think.

MB: Actually, it is kind of funny, though, because a lot of the ideas that I've had about the Stooges' music over the decades, all came out in the book – but I wouldn't have had the wider critical context, or the theoretical context, to kind of somehow connect all these dots. That's something I've only been able to do later.

CR: So basically, the book is your attempt to put all these things into perspective, not only for yourself – but those that don't know a lot about the Stooges, or just maybe only know the name, and a song or two, and that might be it, them.

MB: Yeah, right. Well, I wanted to really bring out their importance beyond just, “Oh, it's cool music,” or, “I really dig them.” I wanted to do more than just describe them, but rather, to actually analyze, to the extent that I could. And honestly, I wanted to do more than just do, yet another Stooges fan type of book.

I wanted to take it somewhere else, and bring this critical context to it, and analyze it, in this wider context. Because I think, a lot of people actually tend to see the Stooges as separate from any context. “They were just out there, doing their own thing, and they were ahead of their time.”

I'm arguing back against that idea, throughout the book. And why that subtitle, Lost In The Future? Because a lot of people see them as ahead of their time, or influences on the stuff that happened later, and not that many people really stop to think about them in their own moment, in their own context.

CR: Even if they didn't sound like everybody else, to say the least. But what contributed to that impression? I mean, why did people take it like that?

MB: Yeah. I mean, I guess you could understand that with Fun House. That doesn't really sound like a lot of other stuff that was happening. The first album, it's almost – you listen to it, and it sounds very '60s now, with the wah pedal, and the fuzz tone, and all that.

When you really stop to think about the musical structures, the things that they're doing, they really are connected to the blues, and they really are connected to rhythm 'n' blues.

But that's one of the points I make in the book, is that that had gone out by the late '60s. That's when you had all of these players trying to be real slick, and do concept stuff. So that basic rock 'n' roll sound had come to be seen as passe.

CR: Yeah, and I'm reminded of when I interviewed Jimmy Silver for my Goldmine piece. You may remember the quote, when they opened for Ten Years After, the guys passed the time in the dressing room, making fun of them, and doing impressions of them, calling them Five Minutes Later?

MB: Yeah, Ten Years After, they're the villains for a part of the book. Even in your Stooges article, at that period in '69, the Stooges played with them a few times, and really hated them, and hated their audience, and their audience hated them, so Ten Years After gets to be the villain. But they do sum up what we were just saying, I mean, because Ten Years After was playing old rock 'n' roll covers, and they were doing some blues rock, but they were doing it in a slick way.

CR: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, and of course, to what extent does the influence – and the isolation, or the relative isolation of the Midwest – play into all this?

MB: Well, I mean, again, they weren't isolated from everything. The Detroit sound was its own thing, and they were part of that, for sure. It's not like they weren't original, in any way. Of course, even in the Detroit scene, they were seen as weirdos, or whatever, musically.

CR: Again, to go back to this way that the Stooges are seen – of course, you've got the Ed Ward review, which is awfully condescending, to put it mildly: “Yeah, this is pretty crappy, you might see something in this, God knows why.”

MB: Yeah, I think the line is, “But the fun is infectious.” He spends most of the article slagging them, but then condescends to be like, “But it's fun.”

CR: But I guess, one of the other things that I thought of, did that reputation get baked in, in some ways?

MB: Yeah, I think that's true. That's also easy, to critics like Ed Ward – and that is a condescending review – but a lot of critics really liked them, like Bangs, and Marsh, and all those guys. They got a lot of really good reviews.

Sometimes, the good reviews were still driven by that, “It's a clear degeneracy,” kind of thing. But they got a lot of good press. Yeah, I mean, maybe Elektra could have done more, maybe they just didn't resonate, to an extent.

But one of the points I'm making in the book, and that other people are making – that was a big thing that Sinclair was telling me. He said the Doors got big, because Elektra pumped a lot of money into promoting them. And they didn't do that for the Stooges.

CR: No, and one thing occurred to me when I read your book, that popped into my head was, you could even see that, in the way they were signed – because the MC5 got a $20,000 advance, and the Stooges only got five [$5,000]. Kind of underscoring their position as not just an underdog, but almost as an afterthought.

MB: Yeah, right, and that's why you got to thank Danny Fields for getting them signed at all. But yeah. I mean, Elektra thought the MC5 was going to be the next big thing.

CR: For sure. A bit more conventional, in that sense. So what do you think was the key factor, then, in the Stooge evolution, between the first album, and Fun House? Two albums, that are worlds apart – hard to believe it's the same group of people behind them, too, really.

MB: I know. I mean, I think they had a vision. This is the thing – the standard narrative is, “Iggy had the vision. The other guys were kind of just of his backup band.”

CR: They were there for the ride.

MB: Yeah, but I think they all had a vision. At the time, they were really locked in, as a unit, and it wasn't just Iggy. I don't meant to discount, Iggy, obviously, but I mean, I think Ron's vision is just as important as Iggy's. And all the guys were – I mean, they were playing all the time.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to put your finger – it's hard to analyze that sort of intangible thing that happens, when an artist takes their art seriously, and puts their vision into effect, what's the chemistry behind that?

It's tough to quantify, but I think they had a collective vision, that they wanted to take a giant leap forward, and made it happen together, by playing all the time.

CR: Or, as Ron said, “We learned our trade by playing live.” And that, I think, is pretty much on the money.

MB: Yeah. And I guess Ron practiced a lot. There was that CREEM piece on the Detroit bands, where it talks about Ron practicing with Bill Cheatham. Bill was his understudy, and it talked of Bill being on Fun House, but then, he wasn't. But I guess Ron was teaching Bill the rhythm parts, so that he could work on his solos. So there was a lot of thought and effort and practice behind it.

PT. II: “JUST GO WITH THAT SOUND...”

CR: Well, and of course, when I finally got to hear the complete Fun House sessions... I spent, what was it? The whole summer of 2018, driving around in my car – which, I guess, is a very Stooge-like thing to do, and listen to these things – and what struck me about it was, it seemed much more disciplined and thought out, than we all had been led to believe, all these years.

MB: Right, even by the band members themselves – whether they just forgot some stuff, or they were purposefully, or maybe subconsciously, trying to create this myth: “It was almost all first takes.” No, it wasn't! There was, thirtysomething takes of “Loose,” or whatever.

CR: Forty-four. I mean, I spent a whole day or two, listening to those. It was almost like highway hypnosis, at a certain point.

MB: Yeah, yeah, I know. I've listened to the whole thing through twice now, and some of the other selections, just a number of other times. The last time I listened it through was in the early stages of writing this book, and I actually was driving back from a trip. And it was a 10-hour trip, and I listened to four of those (CDs), straight through, on that drive.

CR: Wow.

MB: Yeah. I know, but right, they were really intent on playing them, over and over and over, till they got the one that just felt right.

CR: Which is, in an odd way, very similar to the way that the Rolling Stones did stuff.

MB: Yeah, right, right. I've read a bit about the Exile On Main Street sessions, anyway. But with Fun House, the whole idea that it was basically just a live album just turned out, not really true.

I mean, in a way, yeah, because Iggy was singing live through a PA, but there's overdubs on almost all the songs, and it wasn't like the Kingsmen doing “Louie, Louie,” where they're like, “All right, go in. We wanna do a practice one.” “OK, go ahead.” “Wait, that's it, it's done.” “What?”

CR: Exactly. And then, of course, you have Steve Mackay as the X factor, which dramatically changed the sound.

MB: Yeah, absolutely. Steve Mackay's great on that. You know, it's weird – a couple of the reviews that came out, like Dave Marsh's review, and I think, Jazz & Pop, said something like, “These guys have a few things to work out yet, but I'm sure they'll end up being really good.” And it's like, “What? What are you talking about?” His playing is great on that album.

CR: Yeah, for sure, so you even still see a little of that, “What is this?” kind of stuff dogging the proceedings, with comments like that.

MB: Yeah, right.

CR: So, with that being said, when Iggy's asked, “How do you think they're going to take it?” He says, “I think the kids are going to flip out of their minds.” And some of them did, obviously, but not nearly enough. Why not?

MB: I don't know. I mean, again, part of it could be marketing, or lack of marketing. Like Iggy always says, he wanted to make music that he could get off on, the way that he got off on music that he really dug. So I think that they did that, and why that didn't resonate at the time for others, I don't know. I mean, it definitely doesn't sound like a lot of stuff that was happening out there.

One of the things that I'm arguing in the book is, by 1970, and really, a little earlier – but definitely by 1970 – the big thing in rock was going back to your country roots, like the Byrds, and the Dead. I mean, I like the Byrds, and I can even listen to Grateful Dead stuff, once in a blue moon, and the Band.

CR: They were the apostles of that, of course.

MB: Yeah. That kind of thing was getting really big around '69-'70, and the Stooges just didn't fit into that kind of zeitgeist.

CR: You also mention, of course, the '50s revival was starting to gather steam, too. And obviously, they weren't anything like that.

MB: Not really. I mean, they had the Bo Diddley beat on the first album, but they weren't overtly doing that in a recognizable way. So that couldn't be their shtick, or whatever. They were using elements of all that kind of music, but not in a recognizable way.

CR: Of course, as you point out, in the book – your here and now isn't working, so you're going back to some imagined halcyon time. And you can recreate this on your terms, and it's not a very exciting choice, right?

MB: Yeah. I mean, it's the narrative of authenticity. You think of the Dead and the Byrds: “We did that psychedelic thing, we were into the drugs, and we were into all that weird stuff. But now, we're into this real thing,” which is going back to, like you said, this idealized version of Americana.

CR: So I guess the Stooges didn't fit into anything like that, did they?

MB: No, I mean, it's that nostalgia thing that you see happening at the end of the '60s, and they definitely weren't doing that. And Alice Cooper wasn't doing that, at the time, and Alice Cooper was able to get gigs in '71.

CR: Well, because he, of course, and his merry men shed their artsier, psychedelic leanings on their first two albums, which – at times – sounds quite club-footed, to put it mildly, but it's entertaining, in that sense.

You're hearing them try all these weird things. But then, suddenly, when Bob Ezrin comes into the picture, it gets much more focused in the pop-rock realm, with some heavier guitars, basically.

CR: Yeah, I know, just poppy enough to get on the radio, but also hard rock enough, in a more structured way than their first two albums, that they're able to still keep their hard rock cred, or maybe even their new sound, hard rock cred.

They adopted Detroit, and I guess, Detroit kind of adopted them, and they took on that Detroit hard rock sound, and then, Bob Ezrin gave them just enough of that pop edge to get on the radio, which the Stooges couldn't do. The Stooges couldn't get on the radio, really.

CR: Not really. Even though, again, you go back to the first album, the shorter songs are are all pretty much to the point, and catchy, on their own terms.

MB: Yeah. Well, that's true.“1969” is pretty catchy, right. Just listen to it, on its own terms – it's catchy enough, that if there was promotion push from the label, who knows? That's what Danny Fields was arguing in that letter that's reproduced in the Jeff Gold book, where he writes to Jac Holzman, trying to tell them to do just that.

CR: Yeah. He's arguing, “You're missing the boat here, if you don't do this.” Although, when we get to Fun House, and they try the single there, what's telling is – the full-out assault, it's all edited out, before your ears are allowed to get to that point.

MB: Yeah, I think they edited the solo on “Down On The Street,” right?

CR: Yes. Well, there's that. And then, of course, you have that brief experiment, where Don Gallucci is doing his best Ray Manzarek impression...

MB: Yeah. That never came out at the time, though.

CR: No, but it's almost as if somebody upstairs felt, “We need to hedge our bets a little bit, so we can sneak this strange cargo across the counter.”

MB: Right. Yeah, like, “Is there anything you can do with this, make it a little more radio-friendly, or something?”

CR: “A little more presentable?” I mean, I have no complaints with what he played. What he played is appropriate. But it just ends up sounding like the Doors with a heavier guitar, maybe.

MB: Yeah, it does, it does.

CR: And it loses their identity, and I thought, “I'm glad that this didn't come out, because that would have been the wrong direction to go in,” as far as I'm concerned.

MB: Yeah. That totally would have.

CR: As you say, part of your book is how capitalism drives this stuff, this push, and this pull. They were able to get signed, and yet, from the very beginning, there almost seems to be this hesitancy on the part of the Elektra regime, to fully embrace what they have taken on.

MB: Yeah, exactly.

CR: So, from your perspective, when do things start to go south? When does it all go “pear-shaped,” as they say in the UK?

MB: I mean, in terms of just working with the label, or...

CR: Or even, in terms of the promise of the group, especially, because there's a lot of talent in in the original band, right? Scott's a terrific drummer, always knows what to play.

MB: Yeah.

CR: And Ron, need we say more? Ron is the guy that launched a thousand ships on guitar. And Fun House, for my mind, is Dave Alexander's peak as a bass player, really.

MB: Yeah, well, I mean... They fired him, what was it, three months after that, or something?

CR: I know. But, I mean, “Dirt,” and “Fun House,” it's that big, booming sound of his, that really drives the song along.

MB: Yeah, I know. You can really hear the difference between the two albums, the two Elektra albums. Dave's playing on the first album is fine, and he does a couple interesting little things, here and there, but like all the other guys, something happened in that year, where you hear his playing on Fun House, and it's just like, “Whoa, that bottom!” And his playing is doing things, like bending the notes in and out, and it's a heavy bass sound. And yeah, that group, with Steve Mackay? Just incredible.

I mean, this isn't that original for me to say, but I think the promise went south, once they realized that Fun House wasn't really selling. And then, of course, that's when the heroin came in, big time. So Fun House came out in August 1970, and a couple, few months later, it didn't seem to be going very well. The habits started getting out of hand.

CR: Yes, exactly. Although, as we see in that final chapter – and you make that point quite well – they almost pull it out of the ashes, even on the edge of oblivion.

MB: Right, right.

CR: There's all those songs, poorly recorded as they are, on that boxed set – which is the only evidence that we have of them, right? Yet it suggests, had they been allowed to, they could have made a pretty compelling third album, that – again – would have sounded nothing like the other two.

MB: Right. No, I mean – yeah, I think it would have been a great album. It's weird to me the way, more recently, that Iggy and James both have been, I don't know, critical of that material.

Maybe it's just the recordings, where it's hard for anybody who's not really into it, to just tune into the murk of the recordings. Obviously, it puts a lot of people off, but when you really do tune in, through the murk, the material itself – it's amazing stuff. It really would have been a great third album.

Then again, it would have been, probably not that marketable, which – aside from the drugs – was Elektra's issue. But who knows? There's a couple of pieces in there, that maybe could have been catchy enough for a single, or whatever.

CR: Yeah. Well, “Big Time Bum,” when I first heard it on YouTube – I thought, “This sounds like, if you had taken Mick and Keith and company, and fed them Mexican super meth (laughs). It's the Rolling Stones on meth, really.” But it has that raunchy rhythm 'n' blues-style drive, that you don't hear in other bands of that time period.

MB: Yeah, right. I mean, it's kind of a piece with “I Got A Right,” in terms of the tempo, and so on. Just a year later, the Stones are doing “Rip This Joint,” which is about the same speed, but a little more rockabilly-fied, there.

CR: And a little more cleaned up, obviously, to say the least.

MB: Yeah, yeah.

CR: Yeah, I've seen some of the comments on YouTube: “But I can't make out the words!” I think, “Just let the music carry you along. The music tells you what the mood's going to be, really.” It's not an issue for me, and it's not an issue for you, obviously.

MB: Right, right. Yeah, it's not, and that's a good point. Obviously, you can analyze lyrics as lyrics, and write about their meaning.

But there's another level, where you're just hearing the whole thing, and the lyrics is part of it, but it's a sound that's not analyzable, in the same way as just getting at the meaning of lyrics. And like you said, you can just go with that sound.

CR: To go back to the subtitle of your book – 1971 is where you draw your line of demarcation. Because there was a third album, Raw Power, and a different guitarist, in James Williamson – and Ron, of course, infamously gets shifted over to bass, and there's that whole drama.

MB: Right.

CR: So why is it not included in your line of thought? Why is that not the Stooges, or is just, Iggy & The Stooges?

MB: Well, it is the Stooges. I'm not even making a value judgment, about which is the better version – I think they're both great. I felt like stopping, and the band broke up there (in 1971). It's a natural stopping point.

There's a trajectory to the Elektra years, from when they started, to '71, that I track in the book. I think it's convenient for me, to those arguments that I'm making, because it does allow you to focus on the Stooges, how they were treated by Elektra, and their attempts to make the third album, and then, the breakup, and the collapse. It makes sense to follow that arc. And they pick up again, and the arc kind of repeats itself.

CR: Except, this time, it's [MainMan overseer Tony] DeFries, and Columbia, and not Jac Holzman, and Elektra, right?

MB: Right, exactly, but it's kind of the same thing, although the arc peaks and dips much more quickly, in the Raw Power years. But yeah, it seems like, the '67-'71 period is like a unit in their history, and they break up – it's a clean break.

At the time, that was it. Well, actually, there is the thing in the White Panther paper. They announce the breakup of the Stooges, and it does quote Iggy saying, he might use the name for something in the future. So that actually ended up happening, of course, but at the time, even Iggy and James, none of them knew what was going to happen.

The band was broken up. Iggy was like, “Yeah, I'll go to New York, and hang out in Danny Fields's apartment, and see if I can meet some people, and try to get something going.” But he had no idea that he was gonna be reforming the Stooges.

CR: Right, there were no guarantees.

MB: Yeah, so it was a clear break. The band was done. So, I mean, it seemed like a good stopping point. I guess, I don't know if this'll work out – it might not, so I'm not making any promises – but I've started trying to write an intro for a book, on the '72-'74 years.

CR: Yeah, because you could almost make the case for treating that on its own, just like you treated the Elektra era, really.

MB: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely.

CR: We'll see how it turns out. Was there anything that surprised you about the Stooges, in all your research? Or something you learned, that you didn't know before?

MB: I mean, there's a lot of myths about the band out there, that aren't really true, and a lot of information keeps getting repeated, as if it were true, but it's not.

CR: Such as?

MB: Well, I knew you were gonna ask me that. I mean, one, which we've kind of already covered, is that it's all Iggy.

But really, they wouldn't have been who they were, without all four of those guys contributing. And Ron, especially, I think, didn't initially get as much credit for the vision of the Stooges' sound, as he does now... I'm not saying, that's all thanks to me, obviously.

CR: Right, right.

MB: But, boy, I think one of the myths is – when did the heroin start? Some people think Fun House is a heroin album, and it's not. OK, Iggy may have sampled it one time, in San Francisco, but even that, Iggy denies that.

And it was late summer, or early fall, really, when that stuff started. So Fun House is definitely not a heroin album. And then, “Loose,” “I'll stick it deep inside,” is definitely not about shooting up.

CR: No. Well, I never thought that, even when I first heard it.

MB: Yeah, I know. I never thought that, either, but I've seen people saying that. “What? And then, that makes you like it? That's why you like it?” You're crazy.

CR: Maybe that says more about them, than it does about us. OK. What else? Well, people treating them separately from everything that's happened, we've kind of covered that.

MB: Separately, yeah, I mean, and that's one of the main arguments of the book, that we've kind of touched on, this idea that they were punk before there was punk. Well, punk was already being talked about in 1970. It's not exactly the same as punk as we know it now, but...

CR: Right.

MB: So they weren't proto-punk – that's a term that I hate.

CR: You dislike that, you make that pretty clear, I think.

MB: Yeah, yeah, it's just a retroactive term. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's like, “Hey, guys, I've got a great idea for what we should call it! Let's call it proto-punk, and then, in 1977, there'll be some British bands that...”

CR: “That'll pick up on it...”

MB: Yeah (laughs). “And they'll call it punk,” even though it was already being called punk in America, from 1970 onwards. This is something, that if I'm able to manage to write book II, that I want to get into more, is because the punk thing actually does start to take off, in around '72, '73, even before the CBGB's scene.

The term starts getting used a lot more often, and people are defining it a little bit more specifically, than just like, an odd mention here or there, than something like Lester Bangs does there, or something.

PT. III: “THEY DID CREATE SOMETHING ORIGINAL”
CR: What is the thing that you want people to take away most from your book, in general, and the Stooges, in particular? What do you hope they understand?

MB: I would like people to understand that the Stooges were great artists, and that they thought about their art, and that they had a vision for it, and that they were pretty uncompromising in their vision, and it wasn't just a bunch of, “Oh, I don't know, let's just play some crazy rock 'n' roll.”

Like Ron Asheton says in that interview – I think that's a filmed interview – “People would see us onstage, and doing all this stuff, smashing things, and they'd be like, 'Oh, it's the Stooges, just being these crazy guys.'” But they actually were also very serious about their art, and they knew what they were doing.

It wasn't just random chance events that led them to do what they did, and I think they really wanted to create their own genre of music, that would be original. But I think that they thought that they could also be commercially viable somehow.

CR: Yeah.

MB: In retrospect, I don't know, maybe that seems a little far-fetched. But then again, that's the other part of the book is, we like to think that all this stuff is just random, “Oh, you know, people's tastes, and it was just ahead of their time.”

But the way that the music industry has a stranglehold on this stuff, and shapes people's tastes, and basically tells them what to like, plays a big factor in it. And the industry chose not to allow the Stooges to be a viable band for very long.

CR: Yeah, I guess, Culture Industry: 1, Stooges: 0, and all roads lead back to Paul Butterfield, at some point, is the box score, right?

MB: Yeah (laughs). I mean, I guess I didn't really talk too much about Butterfield. I mean, of course, there's the famous connection to Sam Lay, and Iggy's time in Chicago. But yeah, I know, the Stooges were pretty into those early Butterfield albums, as I recall.

CR: Exactly. Of course, you had the band that Iggy was in before the Stooges, the Prime Movers, who were even more overtly influenced by that kind of material.

MB: Yeah, that's another one of the myths. Because Iggy tells that story about coming back from Chicago: “I'm not gonna do the blues anymore, and I'm create something totally original.” So they did create something original, but it is actually, also, connected to the blues. There's blues stuff and blues material throughout the Stooges, but it's just not in that recognizable eight-bar form...

CR: That we're all used to.

MB: That we call the blues. That's not a completely original idea, either, but it's something that I think needs to be reiterated. There's a really great book on punk that just came out, pretty recently, by Evan Rapport, on punk. And he makes that point, too, that these early punk bands were a lot more connected to blues roots than we realize. It's called Damaged: Musicality and Race in Early American Punk.

CR: Wow. That's quite a mouthful, but I think that sounds promising.

MB: He's approaching it from a musicological standpoint, and also, a sociological standpoint. He transcribes, in musical notation, some of these songs – and then shows you how the early Stooges, and the New York Dolls, and he writes a lot about the MC5, as well – he shows you the connection to the blues roots that these bands have. Even the Ramones, who pretty overtly claimed they didn't have any blues influences, in fact, do.

CR: Sure. Well, they're using the classic I-IV-V form, again and again and again...

MB: Right, right.

CR: That's the early template that sets their style, right?

MB: Well, “Blitzkrieg Bop,” that totally uses the I-IV-V.

CR: So that's what you want them to take away, that's what you want them to know. That there's more here than meets the eye, and what you've been told is not necessarily true.

MB: Yeah, I mean, pretty much. On the one hand, yeah, there's an intangible quality that serious artists have, where they're taking that stuff, and transmuting it into something new – but it's not as if they're completely sui generis, as if they're not connected to history, or their own time, and place. Because, of course, they are.

CR: Absolutely.

The passage of time is a complicated and mysterious thing. It's something we never think about, until some anniversary or other reminds us of its passing – and forces us to think about our mortality. However, it can also lend a dose of perspective that's hard to come by, when the latest, greatest phenomenon in any creative field is enjoying their day in the sun.

This is especially true of popular music, where today's trend quickly becomes tomorrow's curiosity, such as the solo crooners and quirky instrumentals that served as the soundtrack of British life in the early '60s – before the Beatles dropped their first single, “Love Me Do,” and changed that equation forever.

Though much of its sales were concentrated around the Fab Four's Liverpool stronghold, every guitarist who heard “Love Me Do” now had to think about learning to sing, and write their own songs – or risk falling behind in the race of chart success.

On the flipside, there are plenty of musicians who never become household worlds, but persist in people's memories, long after they pass on. So it is with Danny Gatton, who left us too soon in 1994 – yet remains an influential name among guitar players, although he never scored a Top 40 pop hit, and rarely toured nationally. In his lifetime, much of his exposure came through his two major homegrown releases, Redneck Jazz (1978), and Unfinished Business (1987) – which served as the title of my book.

I've covered cult heroes of all shapes and sizes in my writing career, but the aura surrounding Danny Gatton -- and his jaw-dropping instrumental ability – puts him near the top of that list. We're closing on 20 years since Unfinished Business: The Life & Times Of Danny Gatton saw the light of day, yet I still get emails at a steady clip to this website.

Every now and then, however, you get one that reminds you of why you did the work. Ronnie Joyner's email (August 16) is only the latest such example. He's recorded a fine, rockabilly-driven tribute, “It's Alright, Rest Easy, Dan,” whose dclivery – and chorus – tells you what you need to know: “Well, listen now, I feel you near, I got a message that you'll want to hear/It's alright, rest easy, Dan – everything's fine, with Holly, and Jan.” You can hear it at the link – which you can cut and paste below, or hit from my Links page.

You'll want to hear Ronnie's other songs, like “Girl Too Beautiful,” about the doomed Twenties silent screen idol, Barbara LaMarr – which he's posting at a steady clip on his YouTube page. (See that link, too, for further reference.)

But like all true deep divers, Ronnie didn't leave it there – he also shared his thoughts about what inspired “It's Alright,” followed by his own recollections about Danny's life and legacy.

I post them here, because they definitely show – along with the other various bits and pieces on the “Danny Gatton” corner section of this website – the depth of his legend, whether you know him as “The Humbler,” “The Master Blaster of the Telecaster,” or “The Telemaster.” Enjoy, dig in, and remember, there's always room for one more.

RONNIE JOYNER: WRITING “IT'S ALRIGHT” (8/16/21 email)
Hi, Ralph — my name is Ronnie Joyner! I’m from DC, but I live down in Charlotte Hall, just 10 minutes from where Danny Gatton lived in Newburg. I’m a singer and rhythm guitar player in a rockabilly band called Flea Bops — and have been since 1992. My band opened for Danny a couple times at Tornado Alley in Wheaton, Maryland.

I don’t know why it took me so long to read your book about Danny, but I finally read it about six months back and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What an epic accounting you did of Danny’s life and career. Invaluable! Reading your book recharged my consciousness about Danny, so I got the urge to do what I usually do when that happens — write a song and make artwork.

The COVID-19 layoff from gigging encouraged me to finally learn GarageBand so I could start recording demos of my original songs that have been piling up. It’s been fun and I’ve uploaded about 21 songs to YouTube over the last year.

So, I wrote a song about Danny. My son played electric guitar on the recording and I gave him the direction to play like Danny (haha — impossible!), and he did a pretty good job. I told him to play with the vibe of what Danny played on “Driving Wheel,” right down to paying homage to Danny’s lead break, which is a lick Danny liked to play over and over throughout his career.

Meanwhile, I did an illustration of Danny that I used for the page graphic on the YouTube “video.” It’s not really a video — it’s really just a static image — but it looks pretty cool.

Incidentally, my band played at the Sam’s Crab House tribute, and I designed/illustrated the commemorative t-shirt for the event.

Anyway, for obvious reasons, I thought you might enjoy checking it out: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIofzO07HSA.

GROWING UP WITH DANNY (8/16/21 email)
“It’s Alright, Rest Easy, Dan” is a song I wrote about guitar legend Danny Gatton. The Telemaster. The Humbler. By the time of his death in 1994 at age 50, Danny was recognized by many folks as arguably the greatest guitar player ever. While I didn’t know Danny, he was in the orbit of my life for as long as I can remember because of my father.

My dad loved hot guitar, and Danny could play some hot-ass guitar. Plus, Danny was from the same Washington, DC neighborhood as my dad. Dad was two years older than Danny. They didn’t know each other, but Dad knew all about the kid from Elmira Street who was a guitar burner in the still-early days of rock-n-roll in the late 1950s. Dad was born on January 17, 1943 and Danny was born on September 4, 1945.

Oddly enough, Danny and I share the same birthday, although I didn’t come along until 1963. Dad saw Danny play while Danny was just a teenager gigging with a local band called the Offbeats. And Dad followed Danny’s upward trajectory through the 1960s and into the 1970s. I still have Dad’s copy of the Danny & the Fat Boys' 1975 45-RPM single “Harlem Nocturne” on Aladdin Records. It was magical to me. Danny’s take on that classic song became one of his signature tunes.

Dad had neighborhood pride, so Danny was a made-man forever in Dad’s eyes. And Dad knew good guitar. It was all around him. In fact, Dad’s best friend was another neighborhood kid named Dwight Clark. Dwight’s brother was none other than Roy Clark, another legendary picker. Again, I was always in the wake of Danny as he (and my family) moved further and further away from DC over the years. Danny moved to nearby Oxon Hill, Maryland in the 1960s, and my family moved to Oxon Hill shortly thereafter. Danny and his wife (Jan) later moved to Accokeek, Maryland, and it was there they had their only child (Holly).

When I got married in 1989, my wife (Carla) and I bought a house in Accokeek. In 1988 Danny and his family moved to rural Newburg, Maryland, and my family moved to nearby Charlotte Hall, Maryland in 2002. And always there was Danny’s music around me. My dad was nearly ten years gone by then, but I met Danny in 1993 — and Dad would have been amazed.

I was in a rockabilly band (Flea Bops) that was on the undercard of a Danny Gatton gig at Tornado Alley in Wheaton, Maryland. I met him and watched his set in awe from right in front of the stage. We played one more gig with Danny, but it would be the last.

Sadly, Danny, a sufferer of depression, shockingly took his own life on October 4, 1994. Here was a guy that, from the outside looking in, seemed to have it all. He could play the guitar like nobody else alive. He had a wonderful family. And he lived in an old farmhouse with lots of surrounding land and a big garage for his hot rods.

But depression is a dangerous thing, so much so that anyone suffering from it is capable of a desperate act to escape it — even if it means leaving devastated loved ones behind.

My song is a prayer sent to Danny. If I could tell him something to relieve his immortal soul (if it needs relieving), it would be, “Hey, Danny, it’s alright now. Rest easy — everything’s fine with your wife and daughter.” I don’t know Holly or Jan, so I’m not really qualified to say they’re fine. But everything I’ve read about them seems to indicate that they soldiered through the tough times after Danny’s death, and are now doing great in their lives. Because of how life ended for Danny, it’s hard to hear his name and not think of that tragic finish. My way of shaking that off is to play some of his music. His guitar playing is so amazing that you can’t help but get swept up in its genius — and soon you’re thinking of nothing but goodness.

If you play guitar, and know a little bit about the blues, chances are, you'll offer an eager response when I ask, "I just got this Mike Bloomfield show from 1980, wanna hear it?" If you're part of the general public, you'll probably just shrug, or ask, "Michael who?" That's hardly surprising, as his name gradually receded from commercial consciousness after his glorious 1960s run -- first, with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, then, with his incendiary guest shot on Bob Dylan's album, Highway 61 (1965), and his work with the Electric Flag on The Trip soundtrack, and his only album with them, A Long Time Coming.

And, while Michael did his share of inspired work during the '70s -- notably, If You Love These Blues, Play 'Em As You Please, his mail-order-only album for Guitar Player's short-lived recording division -- getting it was no mean feat. As a teenager, it required a lot of detective work to track down, after a high school teacher turned me on to those '60s-era sounds.

For me, it meant scouring rack after rack of discarded "Special Value" eight-tracks, which is how I scored The Best Of The Electric Flag, among other treasures, and Nick Gravenites' My Labors, one of many albums that Michael guested on. (Alas, I never got to hear it in its entirety, after going through two eight-track -- and one cassette -- an omission that I've since remedied, with the bootleg stuff from that era.) 

My quest accelerated after Michael's untimely death in February 1981, at just 37, which inspired a fine profile in Rolling Stone -- one that raised bigger questions. How (or why) did someone with such a fiery, instantly recognizable guitar style, fall so firmly off the commercial radar? Why didn't more people acknowledge his influence at the time? What contributions did he make, in the grand scheme of popular music? And what particular hellhounds -- chemical, emotional, psychological, take your pick -- led to Bloomfield's sad and lonely end, abandoned by his partymates in a battered old  car, after failing to come around for the final time?

Now, we have a better idea, thanks to Guitar King: Michael Bloomfield's Life In The Blues (University of Texas Press), by David Dann, who addresses all of these issues, and many, many more, in 740 breathtaking pages.

Monumental and massive, Guitar King gives its subject a suitably epic feel, even as it moves at a brisk pace through the peaks and valleys of Bloomfield's life -- building on the foundations laid down by earlier efforts, If You Leave These Blues: An Oral History (Backbeat Books, 2000), by Jan Mark Wolkin and Bill Keenom, and Michael Bloomfield: The Rise And Fall Of An American Guitar Hero, by Ed Ward (Cherry Lane Books, 1983, reissued in 2016), and then, taking those works to the next higher level.

As Guitar King takes shape, you feel Bloomfield's larger than life presence all over again, and other bygone figures with whom he hung out, or played, like Albert Grossman, Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, and Buddy Miles, to name just a few -- as well as Paul Butterfield (another figure overdue for rediscovery and reappraisal, which has partially happened with the documentary, Horn From The Heart, now available on DVD).

As a longtime Bloomfield fan, I couldn't pass up the chance to talk with David, to whose website I contributed, as he notes -- and revisit the larger questions that surround Bloomfield's life, and art, which we naturally could only do on the most relevant occasion, as all-American as one you could find...what would have marked the Guitar King's 76th birthday (7/28/19). So sit down, strap yourself in, and...well, hell, enjoy the ride.

PART I: "...VERY, VERY FEW GUYS WHO SOUND LIKE BLOOMFIELD"
CHAIRMAN RALPH (CR): So what thoughts run through your mind, on that particular occasion (Michael Bloomfield’s birthday)? I worked with you on the site, and watched that grow by leaps and bounds. Then, gradually, I saw you expanding it further. You did the radio special.

DAVID DANN (DD): Well, obviously, it’s a day to think about Bloomfield’s contributions to American pop culture, which is – for me – a fairly large consideration.

The radio broadcast was done in four hour-long segments. I had a show for many years here, at Catskill Public Radio – it was broadcast there, and a few other stations. That was really the very first effort I made to reach out to Bloomfield’s former bandmates, and some of his family members, and get them on tape, so that I could use them for the radio program.  

But I had no inkling that I was ever going to write a biography of Michael. Certainly, the radio broadcast, I thought, was going to be the end of whatever my efforts were.

CR: But when I listened to it, I thought, “If you really want to do the excavation work, there’s a hell of a book in here, and a hell of a story to be told.” What got you on that particular path?

DD: Bill Keenom and Jan Mark Wolkin published an excellent oral biography, If You Love These Blues. I had read that book, and that was what got me started on doing the website – you were the first person to make an outside contribution, which I very much appreciated, because it was all about Norman Dayron, who, at that time, was sort of a mystery man. To me, anyway.

CR: And kind of a polarizing figure among some, too.

DD: Indeed! Very much so.

CR: And we’ll get to that, of course…

DD: Sure, sure. On my doorstep one day arrived a large carton, which turned out to be all of Bill Keenom’s interviews – and he very kindly sent them to me,  because he saw that I’d been working on the website, and thought they would be helpful.

At least half the material on these tapes never quite made it into their book. I just became more and more fascinated in the story, and started to do interviews of my own for the website. One thing led to another, and I started to write, about seven or eight, nine years ago. Here we are today.

CR: For sure. And then (came) the search for someone to publish it, which, of course, you successfully managed, so…

DD: Yes. I was very lucky in that regard. I first went to the University of Chicago, thinking that –

CR: That would be the logical home.

DD: Yeah, because Bloomfield spent so much time in Hyde Park, he’s from Chicago, and it’s (about the) blues. They said, “This isn’t the kind of book we do, but there’s a place in Austin, Texas, that would love this. The editor there, he’s a big Bloomfield fan. So contact Robert Devens, at University of Texas Press, and see if they’ll go for it.” That’s what I did, and they were very interested. It was very easy. I didn’t…

CR: You didn’t have the struggle.

DD: No, no struggle at all. No agent, no nothing.

CR: I was really glad that they gave you the space and the time that you needed, to get the story told.

DD: They were great, in that way. My editor, at first, was alarmed, because I sent him over 850 manuscript pages (laughs) – he was expecting 300, I think, or 400.

And he said, “You know, this is wonderful, but it’s far too large for us to publish. Economically, we just can’t manage it.” So I spent about a year, hacking away. After seven edits, and (cutting) 140,000 words, we came up with something that was too big for them, but too small for me, so we sort of met in the middle.

CR: But you have the website. And you could put extras from your book on it.

DD: That is, in fact, the plan. A number of interesting anecdotes and side stories are going up on the website, once the book comes out. I’m going to do a fairly detailed thing on Bloomfield’s Les Paul, the guitar that is pretty much identified with Michael, and he lost in 1974.

CR: Right, when he just ran out on the guys at the –

DD: The Cave, in Vancouver. I had a lot of help, from several Canadians – Chris Okey, who owned the guitar after Michael passed. He, unfortunately, has passed, but we had a great couple years’ worth of e-mail conversations about it. He was looking for it, trying to find who had it, and I think he found the person – but he couldn’t confirm it, nor could I, so I didn’t include that.

CR:  But do we know where that guitar is, then?

DD: I have a pretty good idea. It’s in the United States.

Tony Bacon, the British writer who’s a guitar expert – in his book, Million Dollar Les Paul, he speculates that Bloomfield’s guitar, should it come on the market, would approach that figure.

Which is wildly absurd, when you think about what Michael thought about his instruments, didn’t take care of them, and didn’t really care whether he played a Les Paul, or a Sears Silvertone. So, to think it could be of that value, is just –

CR: Mind-boggling.

DD: Sweetly ironic.

CR: It is. Well, I remember asking Norman about this, and as he so eloquently said to me: “He didn’t give a shit.”

DD: That’s right (laughs).

CR: It’s an example of how he approached his art, because Norman went on to say, that Michael liked to say, “It’s all bare meat on steel strings.” And the more you use effects, the more you sound like everybody else.

DD: Yes, that’s very true. Well, he certainly didn’t, and that always is an indicator for me. Because there are people who can sound like (Jimi) Hendrix, (or) Robin Trower – and do so convincingly – and there are a legion of people who approximate what Clapton can do. There are guys in every town who play like that. But there are very, very few guys who sound like Bloomfield. Almost nobody.

To me, it’s like a jazz signature. There’s nobody who sounds like Bird, nobody that sounds like Ben Webster. Johnny Hodges had a distinct sound. So that tells you a lot about the quality of Bloomfield’s playing, and the uniqueness of it.

CR: For sure. So what were some of the biggest challenges that you encountered, along the way?

DD: Well, one of the more challenging aspects of the early writing was to find people that he knew in his grade school and teen years, his high school years. There were lots of stories about Bloomfield going to the South Side, and sitting in, all that kind of stuff – but most of it was sort of urban legend-type stuff.

I was very lucky to find a couple of guys, through endless searching on the Internet, and calling wrong numbers, eventually connecting – Gerry Pasternak was one of Michael’s drummers in his high school years. He and Michael played together on Rush Street quite a bit, and that was fascinating. He told me lots of Bloomfield stories.

The other guy was Roy Jespersen, another of Michael’s drummers. And he filled me in on the famous (story of) Michael playing the talent show, his sophomore year – he was supposed to play a Chet Atkins tune, which is nice and mellow, and they played that tune.

And then the curtain came down, and the kids were applauding, and the curtain came back up, so Bloomfield went into this rock ‘n roll number they had rehearsed, and the whole place just broke out in pandemonium. The kids climbed on the stage, and were screaming and yelling, and got him in quite a lot of trouble. But Roy filled that in, with all the color that you might expect. So that was great.

I spoke to maybe a dozen of his childhood friends, and they had some wonderful stories to tell me, family members, as well.  But, of course, the other difficult thing was Michael’s death – which was controversial, and sort of shrouded in…

CR: In mystery.

DD: Exactly. Well, I had a number of things to work from. Roy Ruby’s friend, a friend of Michael’s, Brent Pellegrini, who is an investigator, did some research for me.

He came up with some data that very much helped in formulating the story. I mean, no one knows for certain what happened, but I think I’ve gotten pretty close to the circumstances – and there’s no conspiracy involved, or anything really mysterious. It is speculation on my part, to some degree, but I also had some information, that I was unable to use, because I was asked not to publicize it – that pretty much confirms the scenario that I create.

CR: And I assume you had the old police reports, toxicology (reports), and things of that nature, to work with?

DD: Yes. He was poisoned with meth, and some other forms of amphetamine, and that was something, of course, all Michael’s friends knew he would never, ever have taken, because his system was running in high gear, constantly, so…

CR: Sure. So, I guess, it was almost like the scenario in Pulp Fiction, then (the accidental overdose scene).

DD: Yes, I think that’s pretty much what happened. Except that Michael didn’t wake. He woke up, and then, he went back (to unconsciousness).

CR: Right, and then, the second time, they couldn’t bring him around. Or he didn’t come back, basically.

DD: Exactly.

CR: The quote that really got to me was what Norman said, when he had to claim his car, seeing his (Michael’s) leather jacket on the back seat, and that’s when it hit.

DD: That was a powerful moment, when he said that. I think Norman was really shocked by it, because he had just seen Michael the day before. And Bloomfield seemed to be in good spirits, and good shape, relative to how he had been, prior to, the month or two earlier.

PART II: "THINGS WERE COMING TO A HEAD"
CR: Yeah, for sure. So, were there any surprises along the way, as you went through and researched those lesser-known corners of his life – like his involvement with the Mitchell brothers, for instance?

DD:  Yes, yes. The Mitchell brothers had opened a theater in San Francisco, the first real porn palace. They had the big theater portion, where they showed their films, but there were rooms for specialized viewing and activities.

And Michael, being an inquisitive guy, wandered in there, at one point, and met them. Being Michael Bloomfield, he struck up a conversation with them, and so, they knew him. They were running into trouble with the censors, because their stuff was seen as gratuitous, defined as pornography, and they wanted to put a high art gloss on it.

So they decided to hire real musicians, to compose real music, to go behind their unseemly movies. I’ve seen a bunch of them, and they’re about as unsexy (laughs) as anything I can imagine.

CR: Well, c’mon, something like Hot Nazis – how sexy could that really be, right?

DD: Exactly! It is not. And something that struck me as interesting, that Michael, being a person who identified very strongly with his Jewish background, Jewish culture and heritage, that he would do music for…

CR: For something like that, yeah.

DD: So I have to think, that he probably never saw any of these things. Or he only saw a few of them, and he was just given a script, and just cooked up some tunes, which is pretty much what Norman said. Norman probably told you about that. (CR mentions the presence of names like vocalist Anna Rizzo, among the all-star talent that Bloomfield recruited.)

DD: I know! She was the vocalist for the Sodom and Gomorrah theme. She obviously recorded it in the studio, and it sounds like “I’ll Be There,” something in that genre. If you heard it, you would recognize it. When she did see the movie, she was like, “This is too weird for me, I’m leaving.”

But you know what, Ralph? The most interesting thing about Sodom & Gomorrah is Michael’s music. If you can get through the visuals… it’s really world music. It’s quite impressive. It’s too bad that he didn’t do it for a legitimate Hollywood-type movie. Because I think he would have been lauded for real creativity, for the soundtrack. It’s pretty impressive.

CR: Because if he had been attached to something more legit – I think it would have done a lot more for him, probably.

DD: I think that’s true, but as you pointed out about Michael’s guitar, he didn’t care. He really didn’t care about his career, at that point, not in the commercial sense.

CR: No, that’s true, and again, we can get into all this. But were there any people that you didn’t get, like (Bob) Dylan?

DD: I had back channels to Dylan, and managed to get to Dylan’s guy. And apparently, the request was passed along, but was politely declined. Which is not unusual. Because, who am I, and he’s Bob Dylan (laughs), so…

CR: Sure. Was there anybody else who fit that category?

DD: This is funny, but I have six or eight hours of in-depth interviews with Nick Gravenites, that Bill Keenom recorded. I reached out to Nick, because I wanted to talk to him about certain aspects, that I wanted to fill in, from Bill’s interviews.

And I sent him to my website, so that he could see the kind of work that I was doing. He went there, and saw your interview with Norman – and he was so incensed, that he refused to ever talk to me again.

CR: Really? What did he object to?

DD: Hey, listen, I have no idea. I tried to reason – I said, “Listen, this is perfectly innocuous. This is an excellent interview.” I hadn’t even talked to Norman at that point.

CR: And we just mostly stuck to the technical aspects, which is what the piece was about.

DD: Exactly, but I think there was such bad blood between Nick and Norman, for one reason or another, over the years, that just the mention of Norman – that definitely will turn Nick off. So that was one thing I regretted, not being able to talk to him. But I did have a lot of wonderful interviews that Bill Keenom did with him.

CR: Yeah, and certainly, in that book, he comes across very colorfully, and very well-spoken.

DD: Yes. He is. He really is exactly that, he’s a marvelous storyteller. And I have to sympathize with these guys, because they’ve told the story many, many times, and here comes another author, who wants to know something or other. And I can see where you’d sort of reach your limit.

CR: Yeah, and of course, if you look at the Jan Mark Wolkin book, there’s some acknowledgment, from Norman’s side, that things were not always what they should have been.

DD: Yeah. Norman is fairly candid about that. He was with me in the week that I spent out at Mill Valley with him. He’s apologetic about it, but Norman is an inveterate storyteller. He’s a real natural raconteur.

And he can just entertain you for hours. And, like, Michael was famous for embroidering the truth, stretching a story, that kind of thing – and I think Norman does that, to some degree. But once you know, you know where the truth is, and where it isn’t. And Michael was doing quite a lot of drugs, off and on, and Norman was, too, and so, judgment was always kind of –

CR: Clouded.

DD: Exactly.

CR: I mean, you point out, quite correctly, some of the flaws (on the Dayron-produced albums). I just took the liberty, before I talked to you, of listening to some of that (material) again. Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’, the title track, the vocal is really garbled.

It’s hard to make out what Michael’s actually saying. And I thought to myself, “Well, somebody should have caught this,” because the track is fine. If you can’t hear what the guy’s saying, I think that does take away your enjoyment, somewhat.

DD: Well, I think that’s true. I forget who it was – maybe it was Susie, when she heard it, she said, “Michael, I don’t know what you’re saying. I can’t understand you.” On that tune, anyway.

But I think, at that time, things were coming to a head – the EMTs in Mill Valley had regular trips up there, to revive people from overdosing. It wasn’t a healthy environment.

CR: No. And we’ll get into this, in a little bit – but my impression, at least of the Takoma albums was, Norman was doing the best with what he had, which wasn’t much.

DD: I think that’s right, and I think that Norman was really making a concerted effort to really have a production company. CT Productions had been incorporated, it had officers, and a base of operations, and he was working with Takoma, and a few other small labels. He was trying to make a product out of Michael’s creative efforts. And so, you got to give him credit. Because if it hadn’t been for Norman, we may not even have had those records. I think we would have not heard from Michael for the last portion of the ‘70s.


PART III: "MICHAEL WAS NONE OF THESE THINGS"
CR: So, to reel it back to the beginning – as you say, at the beginning of the book, the conflict with his father is certainly one of the major driving forces of his life, I would say.

DD: Yes. I think that’s a very important aspect of Bloomfield’s psyche. Harold Bloomfield was a driven man, a very gifted businessman, and someone, who, along with his brother and his father, Sam Bloomfield, created one of the great kitchenware industries in the country.

And so, this is something that only happens if one is quite committed to (being) very responsible, working round the clock. And he had this son, who was casual, to say the least – about, not only about his school work, but his responsibilities…

CR: His approach to life, for that matter.

DD: Approach to life. And the only thing that seemed to interest him was playing this guitar, this music… It wasn’t the kind of music that he would want his son to play, if he would want his son to be a musician, which he certainly didn’t.

He was a professional boxer, for a period – excellent sportsman, horse rider – and Michael was none of these things. He wasn’t particularly coordinated. He was heavy as a kid, clumsy, he was loud and obnoxious, at times. Harold was taciturn, to a fault.

So right away, father and son did not see eye to eye, and pretty quickly, I think, Michael knew, the bright and sensitive kid he was, realized that his father did not love him, did not care for him, was constantly judging him, and judging him negatively.

As Allen Bloomfield, his brother, told me, Michael never felt his father’s love. And he was always looking for it. And I think that created many issues in his life later, where he felt expectations being put upon him… And he either resisted them, or failed to make them.

CR: Where the gatekeepers of the music business, and the audiences he played for, become a surrogate father that he didn’t feel like satisfying.

DD: Absolutely. And his first manager, Joel Harlib, told me over and over again, that Michael had this weird, insecure side to him, where he could be this egotistical guitar player, who would climb up on the stage with Muddy Waters, at the drop of a hat.

He was also a guy who was really uncomfortable doing a solo set, at Mother Blues. Joel said, “I had to drag him to these few gigs that he would do, so he would have a career that I could manage.”

So he was very insecure about certain aspects of his life. Once he felt that he was not measuring up, and being judged as not measuring up – not only in his family life, but in his professional career – he was really overwhelmed, with feeling the inadequacy.

And I think that had a lot to do with, essentially, his breakdown around the Super Session recording dates, where he flipped out, and could not complete the recording. Then had to be sedated to sleep when they did the live Session (album). I think he really just, basically, had panic attacks a great deal.

CR: Yeah. And as Mark Naftalin says, in the Wolkin book, he would walk away again and again, rather than deal with this stuff.

DD: Yeah. He would retreat to the safety of his room, watch TV, play guitar to the commercials.

CR: When you talk about the (Paul) Butterfield, and the Electric Flag experiences – the one thing they had in common was… Well, first of all, how could the departure of one guy make such a difference? And yet, neither band was really ever the same, after he left. So that’s one thing.

DD: Yes. Good point. 

CR: The other thing that occurs to me is, even if they hadn’t overbooked them – as he complained to the press – I’m not sure that he would have stuck around that much longer, anyway.

DD: I think you’re right. He began to resent the direction the band was going in, with (drummer-vocalist) Buddy Miles. He wasn’t real happy about that. Also, as I point out in the book, his marriage had just fallen apart, and that was really a difficult time for him.

Plus, he’d been internationally humiliated in (Ralph J.) Gleason’s “Perspectives” column (in Rolling Stone), where he just said, “Hey, Bloomfield’s a phony. He’s not a black man, he never will be a black man, he’s just pretending to play this stuff. Why doesn’t he play his own stuff?” And I think Michael felt that deeply for years afterwards.

All of that came together – he just had to get out of it, he had to hide away. So, you’re right. I think he would have probably left the Flag at some point, anyway, because that’s what he always seemed to do.

CR: OK. So – once he quits those (two) bands, he’s done the Super Session record, which, on paper, makes him somewhat marketable, as a performer, right? It was his only gold record. It should have been the ideal launch pad to establish him as a solo artist. But that didn’t happen, either. How come?

DD: Well, for the reasons we’ve enumerated. He was an emotional basket case at that point. The best indication of his emotional state was his solo recording, which came out six or eight months after Super Session, It’s Not Killing Me. I mean, it was killing his listeners to listen to it, because it was a very, very painful and personal recording.

I asked Michael Melford, one of the co-producers  – “Why did he record those tunes?” Melford said, “Well, he had something he wanted to get off his chest. He wanted to really tell his public what had been going on in his emotional life. You know, he didn’t realize this would be painful for people to listen to.”

CR: And (Bloomfield thought) they would take it for what it was.

DD: Exactly. People were used to hearing Super Session, hearing those Butterfield albums, and that was another Michael Bloomfield they knew, not this guy who’d sing these slow country tunes badly (laughs).

CR:  It took him, I think, a few years to come to grips with singing, I would say.

DD: I agree. He was never a natural singer, but he found – certainly, in those recordings that were done at the McCabe’s Guitar Shop, in Santa Monica, in ’77, I think? They’ve come out in a million different guises, but his singing there is really, probably, the best that he ever recorded. He’s together, he’s relaxed, he’s not swinging for the fences. It sounds totally natural.

CR: I love his performances, too, on (Between The) Hard Place And The Ground, where his voice careens through things. It gives it, kind of an odd character, that a more polished singer would not have been able to do.

DD: Yes. It occurred to me, one time, listening to one of his very last recordings, that he sounded quite a bit like Ray Charles, in the way that he approached the vocal, and everything?

CR: Yes.

DD: I don’t know if Michael was consciously or unconsciously thinking of Ray Charles when he sang – he loved Ray – but it had never occurred to me before, and it gave me insight into what he was trying to do.

CR: I have to say, too, when I started doing my thing, I thought, “OK, if he can get away with it, maybe I can, too” (laughs).

DD: Well, yeah, you could, yes. You know, if it comes from the heart, you can do it.


PART IV: "NOT QUITE WHAT THEY HAD IN MIND"
CR: So, in terms of his addiction, which seems to be the filter through which he made a lot of his choices in life –

DD: Yes.

CR: What was the gateway? Lack of love from his father, or the culture of the time, which began to get more freewheeling? Because I think it started much earlier than most people surmised.

DD:  Allen Bloomfield told me an interesting thing about his brother.  They used to be shipped off, in the summers, to these dude ranches, camps out in the Southwest, for a couple of months.

He said that Michael developed this thing they would do there – I think he was probably 10 years old. They’d hyperventilate, then, a friend would grab them around the chest, so they couldn’t inhale. Allen would say, “We’d do this, and you’d see stars – you’d be tripping for 10, 15 seconds. A great high.” Which they didn’t understand was a high, but it just was a thrill.

His brother, loved to do this, just for the sensation, the thrill of it, the excitement of it. The other thing he would do, they would ride the Silver Streak at Riverview Park, which is an amusement park, in Chicago. It was the biggest rollercoaster, and it had an 80-foot drop, the first hill. He said that Michael would time it, to get in the front car. And Michael would stand up, just as they were tipping over the hill, so that he would levitate for a second in the car.

CR: Oh, jeez!

DD: He says, “My brother was totally into these wild, crazy sensations and thrills.” I think it was just built into Michael, that’s just his makeup. He was accelerated, and his personality hyper, most of the time. This was just like a peak experience for him, invariably. So drugs were more of the same, I think, and as long as they came along, he was going to take advantage of it.

CR: And in a sense, it was just an extension of his natural brain chemistry, then?

DD: I think that’s true, I really do. But now, it’s interesting, because it didn’t extend to alcohol, not until very late in his life.

CR: And so, now, to open this theme a little further – was Michael bipolar? There’s speculation in the Wolkin book, to that extent.

DD: Well, Allen thinks he was. And Allen also thinks their father, Harold, had issues.

CR: To put it mildly.

DD: Yes. Well, he manifested them in a different way. But I talked with the head of the Psychology Department at Rutgers, who was a fan of Bloomfield’s. I laid out Bloomfield’s personality traits, what I knew of his medical experiences, and this doctor said he really wasn’t convinced that Bloomfield was bipolar in the classic sense.

CR: Why not?

DD: He thought, he might have been OCD, or some other clinical definition – which, I apologize, I don’t have this right in front of me. It’s fairly technical.

CR: Sure. But, at any rate, he didn’t buy it.

DD: He wasn’t convinced. Not being able to actually examine Michael, he couldn’t say for certain. But so, obviously, Bloomfield had lengthy periods of mania, and didn’t have the accompanying depression, which is usually an indication of bipolar condition. At least, there’s not much evidence of Michael having the low moods – he was hyper all the time.

CR: No. But I would say, the OCD part fits. Especially, when we talk about things like that incident in Canada, where all he’s thinking about – he wants to watch that (PBS) TV show he’s on!

DD: Yes (laughs). Correct.

CR: He bitches to the performers. He rushes through the performance, so he can get back in time (to fiddle with his hotel room’s TV set) – this is extraordinary behavior, for sure.

DD: Right, absolutely. And it resulted in him abandoning his signature instrument. The interesting thing is, he never mentioned it again. That guitar, it’s just disappeared, completely off the face of the earth.

So Bloomfield had, I think, obsessive qualities. And he very much had an active mind. He couldn’t calm himself down. That was a large part of his issue. That’s, of course, why he liked heroin, and later, Placidyl.

CR: And, of course, the other issue was his discomfort, and his absolute dislike of going on the road, too, right?

DD: Yes, because he couldn’t sleep.

CR: Well, having been on my book tour with Mark last summer (for We Are The Clash), I thought, “I can empathize completely.” (DD laughs.) And when you do yours, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

DD: I’m sure I will (laughs). Yeah, well, that’s a good insight. Imagine –Bloomfield had been doing it for two and a half years, by the time he quit the Flag. Even gone abroad, and done it with Butterfield – and the tour they did there was rigorous, to say the least. I mean, they slept on the bus, some of the time, they were just dragged here and there. Well, it’s a young man’s game, obviously.

CR: I imagine, that was where a lot of the drug stuff came in. Because you were using it as a tool, just to sort of get through it.

DD: Absolutely. I talked to a couple of guys who played with Michael, in the early ‘60s, on the North Shore of Chicago, and these were older musicians – and they told me quite a bit about amphetamine use, that it was extremely common. You took a couple of pills before the set, and that would get you through the night. And then, you’d take a pill to go to sleep, and you’d repeat that routine seven days a week.

And some of these guys had been doing it for years and years, so, the rigors – and these were people who weren’t on the road. They were just working a local gig. You can see that it’s arduous, it’s really difficult.

CR: What was the moment, for all practical purposes, that he became box office poison to a major label?

DD: Well, he famously did an interview with the LA Times, just prior to the release of the album that he had recorded with Barry Goldberg, and Ric Grech, and Carmen Appice, called KGB.

And Michael said, basically, “This whole scam, I don’t know these guys, the company says we’ve been dying to play with each other, and we’re creating wonderful music.” He said, “We go in the studio, I have no connection to these people whatsoever, I have no idea why I’m doing this, I’m just doing it for the money. It’s all hype and more music industry shenanigans.”

The was published, pretty much verbatim, what he said – and as you might imagine, the label (MCA), was outraged. So Bloomfield wrote a letter, resigning from the band, and later said, “I probably shouldn’t have said all that stuff, that was stupid, what I did,” although what he said was true (laughs).

His records prior to this hadn’t really been selling at all. But now, he was not only a guy who wouldn’t tour, and wasn’t producing hit records, but a guy likely to turn on, to attack his parent company in public. And nobody wanted to deal with him anymore. That was pretty much the end of his major label recording opportunities.

CR: And yet – right after that, you could argue, he gets into a sustained period of creativity and focus, from the Guitar Player record, to Andy’s Bad, and Analine, the all-acoustic album, his first album for Takoma.

DD: I would agree with that. He said, at the time, he had developed this aesthetic that was his own. He called it his “set of Bloomfield criteria.” He realized he didn’t have to play music that had commercial appeal.

He didn’t have to play music that pleased his manager, or his record label, should he have a record label. He could just play what he wanted to play. He didn’t even care if he pleased the audience. And I think he had been greatly impressed by Randy Newman, and by Ry Cooder. He saw those guys making their own kind of music, in their own way, not really worrying about the standards of the industry or what was selling, what wasn’t selling. And that really impressed him.

And that’s why he showed up at Radio City Music Hall, to play the Newport Jazz Festival, the opening night, for the midnight blues show. Bloomfield’s introduced, and the crowd goes wild, because there are so many fans who knew him from the Electric Flag, and Butterfield days, and he very rarely was in New York.

He comes out with a couple of acoustic guitars, sits down on a chair, in the center of this huge, 100-foot stage, and proceeds to play these acoustic blues numbers. Everybody, at first, is like, “What the hell?” No one knew what he was doing.

CR: Right.

DD: They were charmed by it, because Michael is such a good player, but then, he played two or three other numbers acoustically, and people began to get restless. Mike Michaels, who was playing harp with him – a friend, from the Hyde Park days – said he could hear people shouting for (songs from) Super Session.

And Bloomfield’s just plucking away on the stage, playing whatever he wanted to play, and that was the first time he did that. And he did that more and more, so that he would always do an acoustic set, sometimes on piano, then bring out the electric band. Toward the end, he was just doing solo sets himself. That played well with some people, but a lot of people in his audience did not understand what he was doing, and that made it…

CR: Yeah, and I think you make some pretty perceptive comments in your book about that, that it could be a rough ride, because he didn’t necessarily explain what he was always about to play.

DD: No, he didn’t put in the context. Even as late as 1980, when he played Washington, D.C., with Woody Harris, and played the acoustic gospel music – the reviewer said, “Everybody was like, ‘Where’s his amps? Where’s the drummer? What’s going on? We don’t understand. This is Michael Bloomfield, the Super Session god.’”

CR: Of course, he didn’t want to be the guitar god anymore, and people deep down, (were) hoping he would be. 

DD: Absolutely. Everybody was hoping, “Well, maybe the old fire will come back, and we’ll have Michael Bloomfield again.” But it did not happen.

CR: Exactly, so… Well, we could argue the Takoma relationship arose by necessity, as much as anything else, because nobody else would have been interested in letting him go down that path, right?

DD: I think you’re right. Takoma was issuing lots of acoustic music, and folk music, as well as blues. They were following the path of the early independent record labels of the ‘60s, like Vanguard, and Elektra. And they put out lots of really good records. Some of Bloomfield’s records are good.

CR: So, well, let’s get to that, then. Where does Norman fit into that picture? As we’ve mentioned, he’s fairly polarizing. And to some fans, those records are fairly polarizing, too. People either seem to like them, or not like them.

DD: I think everyone pretty much agrees that they were not quite up to the standard that one expected from Bloomfield, with his talent, and his musical vision. But they were also created on a budget, and at a fairly chaotic time in Michael’s life. Norman had left Chess Records, after the death of Leonard Chess, and it was bought by GRT. And he came out West, and was teaching one of the first audio engineering courses.

CR: Right, as I documented.

DD: Yes, yes. But I think that wasn’t really paying the bills all that well. I think he realized that Michael could take control of his own art. That was the motivation – he was going to help his friend get his music out, but they were going to make some money doing it.

CR: Right, and as you alluded to earlier, he hoped to establish himself as a go-to producer for that kind of thing.

DD: Yes. Yeah, that’s right.

CR: Like I said, I think he did the best with what he had. Which wasn’t much.

DD: I agree. I think you’re right. As you reported in your interview with him, he got $2,000 to record, and then, they spent another $2,000 on production, to actually manufacture the records. But that was it.  That was their budget.

CR: I mean, even in the ‘70s, that wasn’t much money, really.

DD: No, you were working with Columbia…Or some of the other (major) labels, which Michael had been. The only time that Michael and CT Productions was working with a real budget was when they recorded the Count Talent album, for TK.

CR: Yeah, and that was $50,000, I think, is the figure Norman quoted.

DD: That’s right. But that was the exception.  I mean, that was very unusual.

CR: Because you had somebody that was actually prepared to sink that kind of money into it. Although, as you document, even then, they were less than happy, and they made them go back and redo things, right?

DD: Yes, they tried to remix the recording. But that is an odd record.

CR: It really is. Not without its charms, though. And I thought it was his weakest, although now, I think there’s actually a pretty good double EP trying to get out.

DD: I think that’s right, yeah.

CR: I like his vocal on “Saturday Night.” I like “You Was Wrong.” I like Nick’s song, “Bad Man,” that’s exceptional. He did a good job on that. “Sammy Knows How To Party,” I’ll put on there, too, because it’s so weird, and so unusual, and knowing that it’s about Sammy Davis, I think, “Okay. Now I know what he meant.”

DD: Yeah, but without that context, it is weird.

CR: It is weird, and it doesn’t make sense, right. I would agree with you on that. Those particular ones, I think, are the standouts. Maybe one of the Bob Jones cuts (“Let The People Dance,” “Love Walk”), too. Those were pretty good semi-disco records for the time.

DD: Yeah, the playing is good. It just, it’s certainly not what TK was looking for, because they wanted to launch their Clouds label as a rock ‘n’ roll label.

CR: Right, and he comes back with, as you said, celebrations of rhythm and movement. Not quite what they had in mind.

DD: Not quite what they had in mind, no, that’s true.


PART V: "IT'S A GREAT RELEASE"
CR: So, when we get to the end of that (Takoma) period, marking the downward slope of Michael’s life – could he could have gotten himself out of that? Why didn’t he get better? Why didn’t he make the effort?

DD: Part of it was, that he was surrounded by lot of drug users, heroin users, people who needed things from him. Woody Harris said he was astonished, when they were recording the gospel record… how people took advantage of Michael. They just manipulated him, and were constantly pestering him for various…

CR: Like hitting him up for money?

DD: For money, or a place to stay. So his home environment was just…

CR: Chaotic.

DD: Chaotic and toxic, to some degree. So you try to be creative, in an environment like that, and you also are dealing with pretty unsettling emotional stuff. His relationship with Christie Svane was probably the best thing he had in his life at that time.

CR: Yeah, but he couldn’t make the effort (to clean up) even for her, really.

DD: No. He tried, but… And the claim was, at the end of his life, he was cleaning up, getting himself together, and looking healthy. And that he was encouraged, because he was pretty sure that they were going to get married, and he was very excited about that.

CR: So that house must have been like a train station.

DD: I think it was. There were a lot of people in and out, all the time. Chris McDougal, who was Michael’s assistant during the Flag days, said that during that period, and afterward, there would be guys just banging on the door night and day.

There’d be junkies from down in the city, looking for a fix – they were strung out -- or there guys looking to sell whatever they had on hand, psychedelics, or narcotics... That’s a pretty rigorous environment for even a healthy person to deal with, and Michael was not, emotionally, in good shape.

He was drinking toward the end, way to excess, and I actually have a recording of Michael, singing and playing, when I can only think that he’s really, completely knackered, and it’s pretty terrible.

CR: It’s excruciating, I imagine.

DD: It is, yeah – and yet, the playing still is, like, “Wow! Boy, this is really great.” But I also think that Michael was charming. He was a charming guy, even when he was loaded – and that was one way he was able to move in certain circles on the South Side, or the West Side, or to hang out with Polish polka bands, because he could just talk his way into anything.

So when he’s up on stage, in the last portion of his life, and he’s clearly inebriated, and he’s not quite together, he does have this kind of boyish charm that I’ve seen, over and over again, in videos from that period.

CR: Yeah, even on those Italian shows, where the crowd could get fairly difficult.

DD: Yes, exactly! That’s one thing I was thinking of, too. Those were painful, those shows.

CR: But let’s turn it around. What if he had lived? Because (in) the ‘80s, if your name wasn’t Stevie Ray Vaughan, or Robert Cray, you were in for a bumpy ride (DD laughs), really. Well, they were the only two, in my mind, who survived it.

DD: That’s true, if you were going to play in that style. I doubt, very much, that Michael would have been playing that way. If he’d gotten himself cleaned up, somehow gotten his home life together, and got into the hands of a responsible and capable producer, who wasn’t his best friend, and party mate, which Norman was, to some degree…

CR: Right. Yes.

DD: I think he would have done very much what Ry Cooder did, which is, explore different kinds of music. He would have played electric on occasion, but he certainly never would have been in the category of Stevie Ray, or played like that, anyway. I think those days were long gone, and I don’t think he had any regrets about that.

CR: Right, although I’ve seen some things online, which mentioned that, supposedly, he was suffering from arthritis in his hands those last couple years. Did you find any documentation of that?

DD: Yes. In ’76, I believe it was, he was in the hospital, in the summer, for an operation on his thumb. He didn’t say what that was, but I have him on tape saying he’d just gotten out of the hospital for that treatment. I think he probably had a bone spur … I don’t know if that was arthritis, but he did have a problem with one of his hands.

And I speculated for awhile, maybe, that’s why he played so much slide, because his fingers were hurting, toward the end of his career. But (Mark) Nafatlin said to me that he was not aware of Michael ever having any pain in his fingers.

But the way he played, I can’t imagine that he would not have had some physical difficulty on occasion. Just add the intenseness, the intense way he played, particularly with Butterfield…

CR:  Yeah. Right. It’s fairly demanding music, right?

DD: Absolutely, and people don’t realize that. As a guitar player yourself, and I am, too – you got to be in good physical shape to play like that.

CR: You do. That part is not negotiable.

DD: Yeah, and so, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had trouble with his fingers.

CR: But you didn’t actually find anything one way or the other, then?

DD: The only thing I know is that he was in the hospital for a procedure on his hand. But I don’t know – it doesn’t sound like that was arthritis. It sounds more like a bone spur, or something…

CR: But when we look back, what do you think his legacy is? For a non-listener, a non-initiate coming late to the party – where they should they start?

DD: Well, they should start with the first Butterfield record. That’s a really good place to start. The tunes are short, the soloing is intense, the playing is first-rate, and that’s how people learned about Bloomfield’s talent.

But I think Michael’s real contribution is that he was a guy who was an amalgamator. He brought together disparate musical styles, and created something more out of them. He took blues, and infused it with rock, sort of a rock sensibility, where the soloing was intense, and it was loud, fast, and exciting, and it was long.

There was that aspect of jazz, Coltrane or Pharaoh Sanders taking a 20-minute solo, well, Bloomfield would take a 20-minute solo. No other rock guitar players ever did that. They had 15 or 20 seconds of solo, before the singer came back. But Bloomfield would wail, he would just go. So that was part of it.

And then, of course, taking a bastardization of Indian music, and adding that to the mix, for “East-West,” then, getting into soul music and other world music styles, with the Electric Flag …I like to kick around the idea that Bloomfield’s playing with Butterfield, and later, with the Flag, pointed jazz in the direction of fusion. Because fusion was largely driven by guitars. I think that Michael had a hand in setting the stage for that.

So I see him as somebody who helped pop music to grow up, from the early ‘60s formulaic stuff, to a music where you not only rocked out, but also listened. And, of course, brought blues to the greater consciousness of the American listening public, which was a huge contribution. And pretty much shaped the sound of rock for a good portion of the ‘70s, certainly, the late ‘60s.

CR: Well, and “Another Country” always struck me as the logical sequel to “East-West.”

DD: Absolutely, yes. And it’s sort of like “East-West,” using the studio as an instrument, in addition to the musicians.

CR: Yeah, I actually got introduced to it by, The Best Of The Electric Flag, on eight-track, of all things.

DD: Wow! That’s great.

CR: Yeah. But, as a teenage boy, I remember, when it got to that free-form interlude, my head was completely blown apart. “Wow,” I thought, “this was radical, even for 1967.”

DD: Well, it wasn’t the first time that had happened. But it was within six months of the first time, or seven months. That record is probably my favorite Bloomfield record, just because it encapsulates so many different ideas, and so many different styles. And it’s got some great pop tunes on it, it’s got great soloing, and –

CR: It’s got great everything, really.

DD: Yeah.

CR: And to go back to “Another Country” – what’s exciting, once they blow your mind, with the free-form barrage, and then, how he leads the band back out of it.

DD: It’s a great release.

CR: It is.

DD: And it’s very similar to what he does in “East-West,” with the melodic portion, the third portion… Where you get this intense aural assault going on, and suddenly, boom, it all drops out, and it’s just Bloomfield in rhythm. And it’s, wow!

CR: Exactly. So, yeah, that is masterful. Because, as we know, that kind of thing, especially back then, was pretty deadly when it fell into the wrong hands.

DD: Yes (laughs), that’s certainly true.

CR: Of the later things that he did, what would you recommend? The Guitar Player record, perhaps, if they can get it?

DD: Yes, that would be a good place to start. There’s some exceptional playing on it. I love “Thrift Shop Rag,” that just knocks me out every time I hear it. Some of the other tunes, as well – “Death In My Family,” that’s great. It’s all good.  So, yes, that would be the record, I think. (Between The) Hard Place (And The Ground) would be good, too. That’s an excellent recording.

CR: I always enjoyed that.

DD: Yeah, it is good. You know, what’s interesting, too – is that three of the tunes on there are not from the (Old) Waldorf.

CR: Yeah, they’re studio creations, right?

DD: They were recorded for Columbia. And I think Norman just purloined them. They were supposed to be on Try It Before You Buy It, Bloomfield’s second solo album. I guess Norman had to fill out the rest of the record, and he said, “Oh, we got this tape, let’s throw it on there, so…”

CR: Which is surprising, considering how much stuff he did record of them (live), that he couldn’t find enough to fill that record out, right?

DD: It is surprising, but I think he also thought that those were good tunes, and – as I quoted him (saying) in the book, “We were done working with the corporate people. It was Michael’s stuff, and we were gonna put it out.”

CR: Yeah, and that definitely makes sense to me. Because, if you had gone to see him in that time period, those are songs he probably would have been playing anyway, right?

DD: Yes, I think so, yeah.

CR: So, what do you think is next for you? What are you kind of looking at down the road, if anything? Or is this (book) going to be it for awhile, you think?

DD: Well, it’ll be it for a bit of time, but I would love to do a detailed history of the Chicago music scene, starting around 1955, and going up to, maybe 1967, ’68, after Big John’s closed. There was so much stuff going on at that time, and it had such a huge effect on the national scene, by the end of the ‘60s.

The guys from Chicago, or who had been through Chicago, were making huge success and affecting the sound of pop music. Nobody’s talked about those early days, and all the guys in Old Town, the clubs there, who was playing, and who was down on the South Side. That would be a fascinating story.

CR: All right. I think we’ve basically covered what we need to cover – unless you can think of something I’ve forgot.

DD: No, I think you’ve hit all the bases, and then some – I appreciate it. Very good. This has been really terrific. I really appreciate your taking the time, and investing in this interview. I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job of covering Mr. Bloomfield on his birthday.

Special thanks to David, and also, Joel Pinckney, University of Texas Press, for images, press materials, and a copy of the book!

RELEVANT LINKS
Michael Bloomfield: An American Guitarist:
http://mikebloomfieldamericanmusic.com/#top

michaelbloomfield.com:
https://www.michaelbloomfield.com/d2ijjklh0eixt0ejvreg8dg18kgbzq

What a spring we've enjoyed at Desperate Times Towers! First, I'll mention our latest review,via Xerography Debt, which said (for the benefit of those who can't read sideways): 

"Pure old-school vibe and I love it. This one takes me back to the times when 'zines in punk were a very essential part of communications on the scene. This publication has a lot to read, but is also very artistic with its words and images. It is both interesting to read and look at it. The 'zine talks about music in a way that makes you want to read more and more about the topics. I cannot wait to see what is coming next from this publication. I am very sure that I will not be disappointed."

Thanks, Xerography Debt! I hope that future issues live up to that particular billing.

Locally, we seem to have caught the fever, too. On April 14, Krasl Art Center hosted a grand opening for a new 'zine library that it's creating, complete with a 15-minute keynote speech from Luz Magdaleno, founder of Brown & Proud Press (Chicago, IL). Not surprisingly, I wound up recording and writing many more comments than my resulting Herald-Palladium story could accommodate, but I think the basics came across well.

I swapped a copy of Desperate Times #1 with Luz, for her 'zine, Serio....and, best of all...was asked to drop off two more copies of DT for the library. Since then, my wife and I have also taken out time to contribute one page apiece for a special collaborative 'zine that Krasl also rolled out for the grand opening (and will also end up in the 'zine library). That just goes to show, there's no limit to the formats and styles associated with 'zines, which the best part (and reason) for doing them.

Lastly, but certainly not least: Desperate Times #1 is now available at Quimby's Bookstore, in Chicago. I pulled off that feat by dropping off five copies at their table, for a consignment, during the Chicago 'Zine Fest, on May 6. I'd missed it a couple times before, because I couldn't seem to remember that it preceded the Grand Rapids 'Zine Conference -- the event that inspired me to get into the game.

Suffice to say, the variety and diversity on display across the Chicago 'Zine Fest Floor proved awesome to behold -- and, naturally, difficult to summarize in a paragraph or two. However, based on the energy and commitment that I witnessed, it's fair to say that proverbial printed paper comeback of 'zines continues apace. I caught up with Luz again, this time at her table, and handed off a photocopy of my Herald-Palladium story, which she'd requested. 

Overall, it's been a great couple of months. We'll find out soon enough what the rest of the year holds, as I begin the process of compiling Desperate Times #2. Onward and upward.

<REVIEWS: ROUND ONE (2/09/16>
Well, the verdicts are trickling in (along with the orders): thanks to those who have shown a willingness to wrap their arms around Desperate Times, the 'zine that sticks up for the right to cut, paste 'n' comment...without a care in the world for where the chips may happen to fall.

Here's what they're saying so far: UGLY THINGS #40: "....A throwback to the classic cut 'n' paste style of the '70s and '80s with collaged Xeroxed images, hand-drawn graphics, and -- ah, yes, I remember them well -- paste-up lines." "Written, assembled and stapled by UT writer Ralph Heibutzki, Issue #1 has articles on Swedish Killed By Death favorite Hemliga Bosse, a reappraisal of the second Jam album, and Sylvain Sylvain stage banter, and some personal commentary pieces." Thanks to my main man, UGLY THINGS Supremo Mike Stax, for his comments there...as you'll gather from the above company, this is one instance in which I don't mind being seen as a throwback....they don't call it "old school" for nothing, right?

MAXIMUM ROCK 'N' ROLL (#391, December 2015): "Mostly punk oriented, Chairman Ralph is putting in work to dig it up; digging through clues in comment threads in old KBD blogs to contact the old '77 punks behind classic singles or making the two-hour drive for a 'storytellers'-style session with Sylvain Sylvain. It's good to know that someone is hoofing it to dig up and preserve the gritty details....Curious to see what gets turned up for #2."

POSITIVE CREED #28 (UK): "All the way from the States, DESPERATE TIMES is a new 'zine with a difference. Ralph has done a good job with this debut effort, and put it together in a Dada kind of way, which gives it an old look, which takes me back to a time when 'zine editors relied on imagination, not modern technology. "Inside this issue, you'll find an interesting piece on the New York Dolls, an article on the Jam which goes back over their THIS IS THE MODERN WORLD album, a brief chat with Paul Shand from The Numbers, a really nice piece of writing regarding theft at work, and various other things which have been thrown into the mix. "For a first attempt, I'm impressed with what's going on here, and my only criticism is that each page is only printed on one side, which makes it a bulky read...and I think it would not only be cheaper to distribute, but easier to follow if both sides were used. Nice work, Ralph, and I look forward to seeing issue #2 soon, my friend." Thanks, Rob, nice on that score, as well!

And, as I freely acknowledge, the last point he raises about the single versus double-sided issue is a fair one....believe me, though, it's not intentional, or some kind of art statement on my part...it's more a reflection of living in a small town where your options are crap! :-) Or, in other words...the best deal I've found on double-sided copies so far is 9 cents a page, versus the nickel per page I currently pay for my single-sided copies....so guess what's winning out? And I'll probably have to stick with the latter, at least for the short run, until I find some clever way around the whole nonsense.

Or, put another way...I could have waited for the ultimate moment, with all the options falling into place...but you don't always happen to get that particular combo, in life or in art...so I followed my instincts, and went with what I had. If you have any interest in the proceedings, I hope you won't mind...for all I know, I suspect you won't. So what are you waiting for?

Check out the contents for yourself, all 44-odd pages, with a color stock cover that'll make you sit up and take notice (trust me)...for only $5 postpaid, to: PO Box 2, St. Joseph, MI 49085-0002, USA. Go ahead -- just take a deep breath, and take the plunge! And it'll beat seeing the usual stacks of junk mail, or bills...more updates to come, as events and space dictate.

Some ideas just take on a life of their own.

When I started delving into the Unknown Blues' life and times -- and the resulting DVD, ANTARCTIC ANGELS AND THE UNKNOWN BLUES -- I imagined that I'd do a writeup of the film, and call it a day....at the least.

However, that notion quickly fell by the wayside after the filmmaker, Simon Ogston, put me in contact with some of the former Unknown Blues members...one thing led to another, which is how Dave Hogan's interview came onto this webpage...and how you're reading this email chat now with lead guitarist Vaughan MacKay, who's gone above and beyond in providing his own recollections for me. (Thanks to Vaughan for providing all the photos, as well.)

Given the length of this chat session, I thought only fitting to include Vaughan's thoughts separately, so we don't have a super-lengthy block of text to read...so dig in, delve on and don't think you've heard it all...especially when we get to the story of that German military tunic!

CHAIRMAN RALPH (CR): What made you want to be a musician, and who inspired you -- especially since you switched from drums, to guitar? And how did that percussive approach carry over to your playing style?

VAUGHAN MACKAY (VM): I learned drumming in boarding school and played in the college pipe band. Mainly out of boredom, but once I started learning I was hooked. After leaving school I took a few lessons from a jazz drummer and bought a drum kit. Started playing Shadows, Cliff Richards and Beatles music. Gradually, a few Rolling Stones tracks. As I was drumming I would watch the guitarists at rehearsals and pick up a bit from them. Little by little. I don't think playing the drums influenced my playing style really.

CR: Tell me a bit about your previous band, The Whom -- did they make any recordings, and how were they different (or not) from Unknown Blues?

VM: I played in a few bands before Whom. Whom was a polished outfit, matching Beatle suits. The equipment set up on stage like the Beatles and playing a lot of Beatles stuff. We did play numbers by other groups such as the Searchers, The Kinks, The Animals and a few of The Rolling Stones at my insistance.. The group was tight and strong vocally. We recorded a single with our own song (I can't remember the name) on side one, and "That's How Strong My Love Is" on side two. My one recording as a vocalist. We also appeared on NZ TV playing "Satisfaction" to demonstrate the Fuzz Box...I felt stifled in Whom as they were very conservative. I was getting more and more into the Stones. I was sacked as a result. (Thank God). The Unknown Blues were the complete opposite. We were very serious about our music, but not into uniform dress and a clean cut public image.

CR: What was New Zealand's music scene like before the Stones and the Pretty Things arrived there -- and how did it change from that point on, since bands like yourselves -- and Chants R&B, to cite another example -- drew so much inspiration from them?

VM: I think up to this point Instrumental Guitar bands and American pop were very popular. Bands doing steps on stage and solo performers with show band backing. Conservative.

CR: One of the things that fascinates me about watching the film is how these harder-edged London sounds traveled half a world away. What accounts for the appeal of that music, then and now?

VM: It's easy to play, Is great party music and has a great beat. It is based on american blues and is timeless

CR: I love this description from the Audio Culture entry on the band: "At their peak, they could pack out the swirling psychedelic decorated basement club, playing with local fellow travellers, The Third Chapter and The PIL. One memorable YMCA concert was filmed showing Hancock smashing a redundant semi-acoustic bass, Who-style, in a blistering finale to a hot show. They were not asked back."

Throughout the film, there's an element of "...their reputation preceded them wherever they went." Which gigs were the best -- or most riotous -- and which venues were good for you? (And who were those bands mentioned above -- what they were like? As wild as Unknown Blues, I suspect?)

VM: The Best Gigs we played were The Cellar Club in Dunedin, The Ag Hall Dunedin and a club in Christcchurch. I think it was called Sweethearts. We also played some private dances in Invercargill at Woodend which we ran. They were invitation only and the tickets were about $2.00 each. For this you could drink as much as you could.

After these nights we didn't use brooms to clean the floor. We used Squeegies!!!

Many Invercargill girls lost their "Cherries" at these nights The Third Chapter and The PIL were resident groups at The Cellar Club. They were great musicians and welcomed us to The Cellar. I remember their great parties.

The Dunedin crowds were much different to Invercargill ones. The girls, or some of them, liked to shock. I remember on girl called The Leppy Lady as she was very short, walking into a party in high boots and fur coat. She opened the coat... Stark naked with a very nice figure.. Just one of several memories.

CR: OK, let's talk about that Luftwaffe jacket -- as you probably know, that photo of you wearing it is among the most iconic images associated with the band. As I've mentioned to Dave, and Simon, this is a good 10 years before Johnny Rotten & Co. -- and the New York Dolls, as well -- flirted with such imagery (including the swastika, which we also see in the film).

Obviously, you guys weren't pro-German, or anything like that -- but what motivated you to wear that kind of clothing, and how does it fit into the overall equation of the Unknown Blues' look and sound?

VM: Someone said to me "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story"... So here is the truth.

We didn't dress or act to upset people. We wore what we wanted to. Dave loved white or yellow and wore leather waist coats. Bari loved jeans and always wore blue suede boots. Rocket wore anything he liked and was very fashion conscious. Wombie changed his style of dress during his time with the Blues but was always tidy and well dressed.. As for me, well, I liked uniform tunics. I had my old school cadet jacket. with Sergeant's stripes which I wore a lot. I also had an old redcoat jacket and ripped the sleeves off as it was too hot on stage.

The Unknown Blues stopped playing in July 1969 and up to that point I didn't own a German tunic. I went up to new Plymouth for four months after that time and during that time bought a German Wehrmacht Cavalry Leutnant's jacket. I thought it looked great. When I returned to Invercargill in November or December we did one or two extra gigs and I wore the tunic on stage during this time. I make the point that it wasn't a Luftwaffe tunic. It was a German army one. Nor was it a "NAZI" tunic, but an ordinary army officer's tunic.

We never played at the RSA according to me extensive band archive. I think the photo was taken at St Mary's. There is no way I would have worn the tunic in an RSA as my father was in German capivity for four years. I was brought up to respect our veterans, not upset them. Hope this clears this up once and for all!!

CR: In retrospect, bands like Chants and Unknown Blues could be considered forerunners of punk -- and the film makes a strong case for that, as well. How do you feel about your association with the term, and the movement that exploded during the mid-'70s (and also resonated strongly in Australia and NZ, too)?

VM: This question just makes me smile. We often used to party before gigs and would go on stage in whatever we were wearing that day more or less. We wern't anti social, in fact I would say we were very social. The girls loved our parties. Some of the snobbie girlfriends of other Invercargill bands would leave their boyfriends and then sneak out to our flat. Yes, we were sometimes drunk in public sometimes but were usually happy drunks..

CR: As I've told Dave, your association with the Antarctic Angels immediately reminded me of another parallel to '70s punk (specifically, the Sex Pistols' diehard fans -- the Bromley Contingent). How did the relationship affect your music, and what did they see in it, from your standpoint?

VM: We were kicking around with a lot of the guys who were later Antarctic Angels before The Antarctic Angels were formed. A lot of these guys loved our music and one by one started buying bikes. Roy Reid, the Founder of The Antarctic Angels, was a close mate and was often our Roadie when we went away. He learnt a bit of guitar and was on stage with us from time to time. RIP, Roy!

CR: Between yourselves and Chants, the talent definitely existed to record an album, or two -- though you primarily did covers, in your own way, and were known primarily as a live phenomenon, Why didn't you achieve more in that arena, you think?

VM: We were never interested in recording. We were a live band. I think when we played there was an excitement which fuelled the crowd which in turn fed back to us and took us up higher. This was not drug fuelled as we weren't into that. We drank a lot but put a good performance above everything.

When we were offered to do sessions for Viking in Christchurch we saw it as an opportunity to get there to play and bracketted the sessions with gigs in Christchurch. I think we spent about four days there. One huge party from beginning to end. We arrived at the recording session after a night of playing and parties. Bari's guitar case was full of beer and someone smuggled in a bottle of whisky..

We were surprised to see some session brass musicians in bow ties there to fatten out the rhythm section. They were really square with bow ties. Man what a circus.. We were doing a cover of John Mayall's "Suspicions" and I laid down a pretty good fat solo. Sounded great but a sax player thought he could do a better one. Had to remind him they were backing musicians on this day.. What a hoot. Later in the day we found a party and then off to play a gig. It was a riot..

CR: What do you think led to Unknown Blues' demise -- did it come down to a lack of an audience for original music, or simply a case of not being able to fend off real life any longer?

VM: The demise of the Unknown Blues came over a few months. I became engaged and wanted to see the North Island. Dave, Phil (Sharman) and Wombie wanted to go to Melbourne.

Bari wanted to stay in Invercargill, although he lived in Melbourne later.

We lost interest to a degree I think. Maybe we were burnt out as we were living in party houses and sometimes the parties would go on for weeks with only brief interludes and playing engagements. Our rehearsals often developed into parties.

CR: How long did you continue playing after the breakup, and is music a significant part of your life today?

VM: After The Unknown Blues broke up I played in another group in Invercargill for about a year. I think The band was called Powerhouse. Bari Fitzgerald was in this band with me along with another friend, Paul Kirkwood, on drums. We played in Dunedin, but by this time The Cellar Club was gone.

I then moved to Dunedin in about 1972. I played as a fill in guitarist for Noah with Steve Brett and Richard Lindsay (a fine guitarist!!)

Around this time I also played with a Group called Roach whose members came from Timaru. Still rock but J. Geils type music. I still have a few guitars around the house and enjoy myself with them, but no more playing (in) public.

CR: How did you react when Simon first approached you about making a documentary about Unknown Blues, since the story had effectively been lost to time (and the memories of the participants involved)?

VM: I was very surprised but became enthusiastic about (the idea). I think it was a great experience.

CR: The chemistry between yourselves come through loud and clear in the film. What other factors do you think made the "classic" lineup (Bari, Dave, Keith, Rocket and yourself) so potent, musically speaking? Did you learn anything new from watching the final product?

VM: Not really, except it was a great week -- there is a chemistry there, but it's hard to define. Rocket's bass and Wombie's drums put down a solid beat and Bari, Dave and I bounced off each other. On a good night a single number could go for two hours. The crowds were all important. It wouldn't have happened in an empty hall.

CR: As the cliche goes -- the reunion footage makes it seem like you'd never been apart. Do you see a day when the Unknown Blues will rise again, or has that day passed, you think?

VM: Not really. maybe four of us will but as for the fifth. Nope I don't think so. I love those guys. We lived through a very special time.

CR: Are there any bands in today's Kiwi scene that you might regard as a kindred spirit?

VM: I really don't know. I have lived in Australia since 1979.

CR: And lastly, the million-dollar question -- any regrets, and what kind of footprint did the Unknown Blues leave on Kiwi music?

VM: No regrets. I think we were all blessed to have been born when we were. We were teens during the pop revolution. What can I say? Met so many wonderful people. It was right in the hippie time and many of those people are lifetime friends all around the world.