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Chairman Ralph's Ministry Of Truth

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Communiques

**** UPDATES, 03/02/21:  NOW POSTED: Ordering info for DESPERATE TIMES #2 ("Anyhow, Anyclub, Anywhere: The Rise & Fall Of Safari Sam's: An Oral History"), out now, plus info and sample pages, via this website!

AND: Another interview for WE ARE THE CLASH, via the For Songs Podcast (10/16/20), with Mark Andersen...on Featured Interviews. You can also find our 60-minute clip from Politics & Prose (Washington, DC, 7/06/18), and nearly two-hour-ling appearance at Brickbat Books (Philadelphia, PA, 7/10/18) there, too.

AND: More blasts from the past, in the Press section: "Chairman Ralph Takes The Stage," plus, my June 2009 Michiana Entertainer interview (and bonus one-sheet)..."Singer Mixes Folk, Punk For Concert At Eagle St."... "Recent Exhibit Is A Feather In The Cap For A Bird-Themed Artist (and bonus press release)...Jackson Citizen-Patriot Q&A...and 
Hillsdale Collegian concert review (2/16/06). More work to come.

AND: "What's In A Name?"/Make The Economy Scream," my extended look at the tragedy of the military coup that took place on this date, 9/11/73, in Chile -- ushering in two decades of torture and repression under the late General Augusto Pinochet. They'll remain up awhile longer, to mark the other significant anniversary of that time period (the death of Pablo Neruda, Chile's top national poet), and Chile's recent vote to successfully undo the Pinochet-era constitution. 
For further details, see Featured Songs. 


COMING SOON: DESPERATE TIMES #2, chronicling the rise and fall of Safari Sam's, the legendary Huntington Beach night spot -- an oral history, and hard-boiled narrative of its brief, but highly-charged two year-run (1984-86).

DELETED (FOR NOW): HAPPY TRAILS (LITTLE BUDGIE IS 47)...because I only have so much space. It'll return at some point, I'm sure. :-) 

Due to various boring technical issues, like abuse of privilege, comment capability is back off, and preapproval is required. But if you really have something on your mind...you know where to find me. ****

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OUT NOW: DESPERATE TIMES (ISSUE #2): THE RISE & FALL OF SAFARI SAM'S
Mar 2, 2021

At last...here it is, then. Two-plus years in the making, 95 pages, our first theme issue, chronicling the rise and fall of Safari Sam's, the long-gone, yet warmly remembered, epicenter of punk rock, deep in the heart of Republican Central (Orange County, CA)! But that's not the full story.

While Safari Sam's established itself as a hotbed of great rock 'n' roll, it's also a story of a strongly conservative social culture, constant harassment from city bureaucrats and cops, and, ultimately, a force that proved too strong to overcome...gentrification. It's a story that was relevant then, and still plays out today, all around the nation. Now, you can read it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions.

Copies are available, through this website, for $10 postpaid. Just visit the Contact page to set up the transaction, we'll give you the relevant link to pay, and out it goes, simple as that! No muss, no fuss, no nonsense.

Can't wait for a paper copy in the mail? You can also get issue #2 electronically, as a PDF. Just specify print or e-edition when you order, we'll take it from there, and thanks again for your support! (Sample pages are available with this entry, so you can see what it looks like.)

<REVIEWS>
"Ralph Heibutzki, a.k.a. Chairman Ralph, pays homage to the classic DIY fanzine format of olden tymes here with a haphazard scissors-and-glue-stick collaged layout, complete with paste-up lines, blurry photocopied photos and newspaper clippings, hand-drawn illustrations, and the pages all held together with a single staple in the top left corner.

"The throwback format is appropriate as the issue tells the story of Safari Sam's, a Huntington Beach venue that was one of the hot spots for the underground music scene in California's Orange County in the 1980s. The 'zine charts the rise and fall in a scrappy oral history format..." (Mike Stax, UGLY THINGS 55, Winter 2020)


<SUMMARY>
"Roll the credits in your mind for this story, which has played out since the dawn of DIY (in general), and punk rock (in particular): Anykid in Anytown USA doesn't like what's happening there. Maybe they don't hear their type of music, hope to carve out room for something else...or simply want something else besides the standard issue profit-mongering water hole.

"Whatever the reason, Anykid gets Anyclub up and running. Anyclub survives the initial growing pains (hit or miss bookings, spotty audiences, official and unofficial sabotage). For awhile, everyone has a more interesting place to go. Then, sadly but surely, the obstacles start piling up -- too many to overcome in short order.

"The doors slam shut, and the lights go out, leaving Anyclub to live on, in people's memories, and a big black hole in the local scene once more. Roll the credits: wash, rinse, repeat."

For two years (1984-86), Gil Fuhrer and his partner, Sam Lanni, lived and breathed that story as co-owners of Safari Sam's (Huntington Beach, CA), deep in the dark Republican heart of Orange County, no less, yet remains fondly remembered for hosting the respective local and US debuts of Jane's Addiction, and Jesus & Mary Chain, as well as becoming a reliable stop for the likes of fireHOSE, the Minutemen, Social Distortion, and Sonic Youth...plus a slew of local acts that sprang up in their wake, like El Grupo Sexo and Exobiota, The Final Tourguides and The Fad, The Satellites and Satan's Cheerleaders. Along the way, the club branched out into offering non-musical fare, including an experimental opera, plays, and a weekly spoken mic that rapidly became one of its most distinctive -- and eagerly anticipated -- offerings.

Now, you can read the club's story for the first time, in "Anyhow, Anyclub, Anywhere: The Rise & Fall Of Safari Sam's," an oral history -- featuring extended interviews with Gil, and three of the key players in the scene that sprang up around Sam's (Jeff Beals, Holly Day, Dee Madden).

 

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NOW AVAILABLE: "MY LIFE AS A VAGRANT" (AMAZON KINDLE PUBLISHING)
Sep 21, 2020

Your punk band may crash and burn, but you'll never have a better time before your dream runs aground. The Vagrants are no exception, as Ralph Heibutzki learns in 1989, in six dizzying months of playing bass with them. Like so many other bands, their story ends with the usual kiss off: "So near, and yet so far."

You've never heard of the Vagrants, who never got out of London, never got signed, never put out a record, never played more than a handful of gigs to pockets of garage-punk fanatics. Yet for these prisoners of rock 'n' roll, the dream often seemed tantalizingly in reach.

Follow Ralph around London in this short sharp shock, 28 page recollection, as he learns six and a half songs in an hour, meets x-members of the Clash, and shreds what's left of his hearing, as he and his bandmates wait for their rock 'n' roll ship to finally come in.


Well, it's taken a bit longer than I'd expected, but after a couple months of work, I've released my first Amazon Kindle Publishing, "My Life As A Vagrant (Digging For The Bones Of Strummer & Jones)," which looks back at the band I joined during my six-month stay in London (see description above), against the backdrop of what was happening at the time -- Acid House, anti-Thatcher agitation, and much, much more. Though the band didn't realize its potential, let alone release anything, it marked a special time period in my life, to which I wanted to pay tribute.

I'd toyed at various times with the subject over the last 20-odd years or so. The earliest versions go back to July 1999, which makes sense, coming a good decade after the original experience, when I thought it might make some kind of a memoir. Eventually, though, once I'd decided to give the whole Kindle thing a try, I filleted the fish, so to speak, pulled out the most relevant parts -- the Vagrants' rise and fall, plus the Clash anecdotes -- and set about writing a (relatively) compact piece about it all.

To get the various basic boring details right, like where and when we played, I dipped into my journals from the time, along with the usual flyers and ticket stubs that I still had from that era. Funnily enough, I have a live shot or two of the band, but after turning my flat upside down, I can't seem to come across it. Maybe tomorrow, as the Pretenders song says, maybe some day...

I spent a fair amount of time trying to work out the usual technical bugs, like spacing, for instance. I got additional help in that area from Don Hargraves, whose photos have appeared here; thanks, Don, for your assistance there.

"My Life Is A Vagrant" is intended as the first release in a series of short and medium-length articles for Kindle, which some pundits assert is the true "sweet spot," notably Kate Harper's book, How To Publish And Sell Your Article on the Kindle, which encouraged me to give it a go. So here we are! Time will tell how it all works out, but it seems a lot more exciting than sitting around and waiting for someone to say "Thumbs up," or "Thumbs down" -- if, in fact, if they aren't having too much success to let you know either way.

I think back on those times, and wonder whatever happened to my fellow Vagrants, with whom I spent much of those six months, scratching, clawing and scheming, as we plotted 'n' planned on taking the rock 'n' world by storm, swearing to take no prisoners along the way. Whether we did or didn't, it was a hell of a ride, which you can find out for yourself -- and buy a copy -- by clicking here:

https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-As-Vagrant-Strummer-ebook/dp/B08HJ491Z5/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=ralph+heibutzki&qid=1600296877&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

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COMING SOON: ANOTHER ENTRY
Sep 21, 2020
This space will serve as a placeholder, so I can move content around more easily.
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REVIEW: I BROUGHT DOWN THE MC5 (MICHAEL DAVIS)
Sep 21, 2020

Michael Davis
I Brought Down The MC5
Cleopatra Records

If the MC5 is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” to coin the famous Churchill phrase, then surely, a memoir written by Michael Davis, its late bassist, must rank among the mysterious and enigmatic work of them all.  Information about the legendary Detroit band – which fused assaultive rock 'n' roll, free-form musical explorations, and radical politics into an incendiary cocktail – has been notoriously hard to come by, leaving conjecture, rumor and street talk to fill the void.

I got a sense how large that void loomed in 1994-95, when I wrote a major retrospective for DISCoveries, for which I interviewed nearly all the major players – including Davis, guitarist Wayne Kramer, and drummer Dennis Thompson – which required a lot of additional fact-checking and follow-up work.

The finished story went down well, and drew a roughly dozen letters, including one from the person who'd taped the oft-circulated '69 Westfield High School show, writing in to correct the actual date! I've rarely seen that type of fervor, before or since. Since they’re the first major inside accounts, Davis's book, along with Wayne Kramer's chronicle, The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, The MC5, And My Life Of Impossibilities, seemingly arrive as timely additions to the canon. Sadly, Davis didn't live to see the fruits of his labors, dying in 2012 from liver failure, at 68.

At the start, I Brought Down The MC5 reads like the Byrds' famed directive from “So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star”: “Get yourself an electric guitar, and learn how to play.” Davis does a fine job of conveying how it felt to grow up in such a fast-moving era, when today carried greater weight than tomorrow, and constant competition forced bands to up their game rapidly, or risk getting weeded out: “It was 1966. Life was still being experienced in black and white, stuck in limbo between postwar and Pop art. Stereo was still a new technology. LPs were still being produced in mono. But after years of street rod projects by teenagers and car buffs, muscle cars were appearing in the showrooms of Detroit. Acid was the new drug, and the MC5 were on the doorstep of a breakthrough.”

In the MC5's case, though, the transition proves particularly dramatic – even by the ‘60s' hyper-accelerated standards. One minute, they're decked out in the regulatory matching uniforms, dishing out the usual suspect covers, like “Pipeline,” and “Ramrod”; the next, Fred Smith hits on the droning guitar riff that yields the MC5's signature free-form showpiece, “Black To Comm.” The original bassist and drummer aren't having any of it, so they quit, “like a script in a corny movie,” as Davis puts it. Their departures clear the field for Davis and Thompson to ignite and refine an ever-accelerating process of exploration that yields Kick Out The Jams, the audacious live debut album, recorded over Halloween weekend, 1968, at the band's Detroit stomping grounds, the Grande Ballroom.

By then, Elektra has scooped up the band, whose potential seems limitless – until it's brutally derailed by a fiasco over the censorship of a certain heavyweight curse word from “Kick Out The Jams” itself. “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” gives way to “Kick out the jams -- you can almost hear the snip of the producers’ scissors – brothers and sisters!” Further protests with Elektra follow, to no avail. Suddenly, the band loses its deal, and – not surprisingly – begins to doubt itself amid the fallout of being tagged as “not ready for prime time” by music industry gatekeepers, and “sellouts” by their countercultural fanbase, a tag that’s reinforced and underscored by Back In The USA (1970), a far cleaner, more restrained beast than the fiery debut.

Bit by bit, the original dream of “rock 'n' roll, dope and fucking in the streets” crumbles under poor record sales, intra-band infighting, and crippling smack habits – except for Tyner, who focuses increasingly on marriage and family life as the nightmare ticks down to its inevitable end. Davis casts himself as an insecure outsider in his own band, whom he paints as distant and remote, especially late vocalist Rob Tyner, and late guitarist Fred Smith. When not scoffing at the Five's political stance, he's pillorying his former colleagues for all sorts of chemical, sexual and personal hypocrisies. That Davis also points those fingers at himself doesn't make the read any easier.

On a certain level, I Brought Down The MC5 brings new life to Ian Hunter's truism, “Trust the message, not the messenger.” After missing an important British gig, Davis’s bemused colleagues have had enough, and elbow him aside, as they soldier ahead, with a string of replacement low enders. However, Davis sees them off for one last blast at the Grande on New Year's Eve, 1972, which earns the MC5 the princely sum of $500, or $100 per man – not much money, then or now, for a couple sets' work.

This book often reads like a rock 'n' roll-style episode of “Intervention,” as Davis spirals down into a seemingly endless cycle of broken relationships, alcoholism and drug abuse, yet fails to find a place in the rock 'n' roll world he knows, or the regular Joe world he hoped to leave behind for good. The weight of it all lands him in federal prison in 1976, where Davis is surprised to bump into Kramer, also doing time on drug charges, though they don't become best buds there, either. So much for the idea of band bonding, I guess; if you ever entertained any illusions on that score, I Brought Down The MC5 will bring you down to earth in a hurry.

Davis fares little better after his release. Though he quickly finds another major gig in Destroy All Monsters, which pairs him with former Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, the experience feels no more satisfying than his MC5 days did, as he details in one of the best chapters, “Delirious Alcoholic Megalosaurus.” For Davis, the band represents a considerable step down from the heyday of the Grande; instead of playing to 3,000 people, DAM grinds it out to far smaller crowds during the punk era -- dozens or low hundreds, depending on the night -- playing its brand of brutish heavy rock at precisely the time that the masses don’t want to hear it.

You can feel the squirming leap off the page, as Davis dismisses Niagara (“Her deadpan, flat, half-spoken vocals gave the music an air of laughable contrivance”), and Asheton’s leadership of the band (“he was content to turn the project into a super-hip couple show”). All the Spinal Tap cliches seem present and correct, as a disillusioned Davis quits in June 1984, feeling satisfied at “having departed the court of the royal couple.” Ouch!

Overall, I Brought Down The MC5 is well-written and worthwhile, though at times, I had to put it down periodically -- seeing so much dysfunction spun out over nearly 350 pages, at times, makes for a wearying read. (I often found myself saying, “Dude, maybe you should have bought a chastity belt instead of a Rickenbacker.”) Newcomers should start with the handful of other major resources first, like Guitar Army, a collection of writings by the MC5's oft-maligned first manager, John Sinclair, whose perspective provides another essential ingredient to the story, regardless. As much as his enemies have sought to whitewash him out of existence, if you don’t seek out his viewpoint, the MC5's story won’t make as much sense.

I should also point out that these resources don't just exist in book form. Actually, the best starting point is the Ann Arbor District Library -- which hosts an extensive alternative and underground press collection from the '60s and '70s online, at https://aadl.org/community/oldnews. To access the “good stuff” – or all things MC5- and Sinclair-related – go to the Ann Arbor Sun: https://aadl.org/papers/aa_sun. You’ll be glad you did.

One other issue deserves comment. Memoirs are equally notable for what they leave out, as much as what they leave in, and I Brought Down The MC5 omits a slew of potentially interesting reading. That includes Davis's feelings about the DKT/MC5 reunion (2003), his 2006 motorcycle accident, last marriage, and the formation of his foundation, Music Is Revolution – all of which are hurriedly noted, but not detailed, in an apologetic, but brief, epilogue.

Did Davis plan on saving these topics for another book? Or did he just find those particular pieces of psychic turf too painful to revisit, or did they seem less important than the story he'd already laid out? We don't know, because the editors, whoever they were, didn't see fit to tell us. Is that playing fair with the reader who's hung in there for nearly 350 pages of one person's dysfunctional odyssey? I don't think so. Readers aren't mushrooms to be fed crap, and kept in the dark. Some sort of forward or afterword outlining these decisions, and how Davis's book came to light – as a project of Cleopatra Records, instead of a conventionally published, or self-released work – would have worked wonders.

As a fan, I'd also really have appreciated some info about the albums themselves, but you won’t find that here – other than a page or two about the struggles of making Back In The USA, an album that, ironically, saw Davis yield his bass to Kramer for half of it. It’s a missed opportunity, because I didn’t care who the MC5 slept with, or what they smoked, but what they played, and how they played it. A little of that info would have gone a long way, particularly on the final album, High Time, which represents a solid marriage of basic songcraft with the band’s freewheeling live approach. Alas, you won’t see that here, either.

Even the book’s title is something of a head scratcher, since the band trundled along for a good 19 months after parting company with Davis in February 1971. He didn’t have any songwriting credits, other than the collective attribution given to Back In The USA, so while he wasn’t chopped liver, it’s hard to figure where the title fits what the tin says. Technically, the loss of Thompson’s rhythmic undertow, and Tyner’s vocal fury, exerted a far greater negative gravitational pull on the increasingly rudderless MC5, as one listen to the flatulent and unfocused proceedings captured on Finnish TV (“Pop Konsertti”) in December 1972 will demonstrate.  

As a longtime fan, these omissions – and lack of context or explanation for them – are only all the more frustrating, when we have yet to see A True Testimonial, a 90s-era documentary scuppered by lawsuits, and the late Ben Edmonds' abandoned biography, No Greater Noise: The MC5 Story. Both works would surely stand as definitive, if somebody would ever release them! (In fairness, I understand that Edmonds's book is still in the pipeline, waiting for another writer to complete it. I don't know what's happening with A True Testimonial, of which Davis also says little, beyond a story or two about his involvement in it. You'll probably have to score a bootleg review copy, like I did, to fully understand my frustration at not seeing this film get a proper release.)

I'll have to see if Kramer's book addresses these issues, when I get my hands on it; I'll let you know how that turns out. For now, I Brought Down The MC5 is a worthwhile addition to the story, but best appreciated as one more link in a wider screen narrative that awaits a fuller retelling. If not? Then the logic spelled out in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” might end up having the last word: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Enigmas are funny like that.

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IGGY AT GOOSE LAKE (TAKE I) IGGY AT GOOSE LAKE (TAKE II)
REVIEW: THE STOOGES: LIVE AT GOOSE LAKE: AUGUST 8TH, 1970
Aug 9, 2020

Fifty years ago this weekend, the Stooges played one of their most mythologized shows, on a 400-acre site in Jackson County's Leoni Township – seven miles east of the county seat, Jackson, MI – at the self-styled Goose Lake International Music Festival.

Organizers had expected 60,000 people for the event, billed as “Michigan's answer to Woodstock”; a reported 200,000-strong, mostly youthful crowd, converged on the property for a weekend (August 7-9, 1970) that featured top mainstream draws (Chicago, The Faces, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The James Gang, Jethro Tull, Mountain, John Sebastian, Ten Years After, The Litter).

All these heavyweights, major and minor, paired up with the cream of the Michigan rock scene – Brownsville Station, Detroit (featuring Mitch Ryder), Savage Grace, SRC, Third Power...and the Stooges, whose own performance that night became an essential building block of their own slow-burning mystique.

There's a certain irony at work here, since precious few recordings of Iggy Pop and company actually exist before their the era of their final album, Raw Power (1973), blew in – a gap that's attributed to a dearth of affordable, portable recording technology that, by the early '80s, became common currency. By then, however, a lifetime's worth of music had come and gone, literally and figuratively, along with the supporting cast of musicians playing it.

They'd shed the experimental ethos of Fun House (1970) – whose anything-goes collision of brutish hard rock, free jazz and primal proto-punk is widely viewed as their masterpiece – and also, the support of Elektra Records, who'd dropped them, after the album had failed to sell in encouraging numbers.

That process arguably began at Goose Lake, the last stand for founding Stooge Dave Alexander – whom singer Iggy Pop summarily fired, right after the show, enraged by what he regarded as a total non-effort and non-performance on the bassist's part.

Depending on whose story you believe, and which part of the myth seems to make more sense, Alexander a) froze up onstage at the sight of such a huge crowd, b) drank, smoked or snorted something that didn't agree with his overall constitution, resulting in either a c) shabby or sub-par performance, or d) non-performance, as in – didn't play a single, solitary, stinkin' note.

The mystery only deepened when a clip of one song (“1970”) surfaced in 2010 on TouTube. Yet the resulting footage, which barely cleared the two-and-a-half minute mark, raised more questions than answers. Ron and Scott Asheton sounded inspired as ever on guitar and drums, respectively; so did Iggy's vocals, what you could make out of them, but as for Dave, you couldn't hear his trademark rumble coming from anywhere out of his massive cabinets.

Even so, Dave looked reasonably engaged, to my eyes, anyhow, and didn't seem to be having any trouble staying upright. Had he really fucked up or frozen up, as both Iggy and Ron had claimed, over the years? (Let that point sink in for a moment. As often as Iggy and Ron sparred over so many parts of the Stooges narrative, how did this particular issue end up being the one they actually agreed on?) Or had he simply run afoul of the usual technical gremlins that so often plagued bands in those days?

Still, I suspect the clip raised a lot of hopes: There's gotta to be a tape, because somebody's gotta to have recorded this, somewhere. Well, now we know. Somebody did.

The solution to the mystery is this release, The Stooges: Live At Goose Lake: August 8th, 1970, on Jack White's label (Third Man), sourced from a well-tucked away soundboard recording made by the late audio engineer Jim Cassily, who recorded the Stooges' entire set, plus 10 other bands, including Chicago, the James Gang, and Mitch Ryder, for his own amusement, on his own recognizance.

The family first went through the tapes in 2016, as it prepared to sell the house. By then, Cassily had been gone 11 years, felled at age 60 by lung cancer – his precious tapes from Goose Lake, and many, many, many others, having spent decades in storage. (That's a compelling story in itself, but for simplicity's sake, visit the relevant link below.) Now, here they arrive, like light from a distant star, and...guess what? 

Dave did play for the entire 45-minute set, which sees the band burning through the entirety of Fun House, in the same running order – except for a flip-flop of “Down In The Street,” and “Loose,” which typically opened Stooges shows of this era.

Unfortunately, "Loose" is also the most visible casualty of Alexander's fucked-up or frozen state, lack of concentration, overly casual attitude, take your pick. His fingers fumble helplessly out of sync of his colleagues, who barrel relentlessly and ruthlessly through Iggy's ode to the joy of unrestrained carnal knowledge. He fares better on the next songs (“Down In The Street,” “TV Eye”), where he sticks to a dogged two- to three-note rumble, which isn't terribly distinguished – what you can hear of it – but at least one that so consistently at odds with what's happening onstage, anyway.

And then, and then....  And then, we get to the dark heart of the sonic cyclone that we know and love as Fun House, as Scott crisply kicks off the epic side-closer, "Dirt," where Alexander finds his footing, at last -- now prominent in the mix, and playing what he should, while Ron and Scott expertly fill in the spaces, and Iggy pours out his don't-give-a-damn-narrative ("I been dirt...And I dooonnn't care"). This is how we always imagined the Stooges sounding in their lowdown dirty prime, given the relative lack of live tapes from this era, but what a great feeling to confirm that we were right, all along.

That sense of feral ferocity grows ever more vivid on "1970," as saxophonist Steve Mackay steps out to battle with Ron's trademark wah-wah flourishes, grunts and squeals for dominance of the sonic spectrum (though we don't get the all-out assaultive vocal flourishes of its vinyl counterpart that kicks off side two of Fun House proper). Barely three minutes later, the sonic blast is all over, showing the Stooges as seemingly tighter and more disciplined than the legend suggests (at this point in their career, anyhow -- or possibly, shadowboxing yet another technical gremlin, which we wouldn't know, without any visuals to go on).

But the real revelation comes with the closing one-two punch of "Fun House," and "LA Blues," the freeform assault that closed Stooges shows during this era. Up to now, we've enjoyed a set of mostly uptempo songs that sound raunchier, a bit faster 'n' livelier than their recorded counterparts, marred by a few flubs and technical problems -- standard stuff, you'd think, for any recording from this era.

However, all bets are off when Mackay's sax kicks in, blatting, howling and squonking, as the band unleashes a storm squall of amplified sound underneath him. Alexander sounds just fine as he kicks off the central riff to "Fun House," in all its dark, gritty glory, and we don't have to wait too long before all the gloves come flying off.

The band freely swaps roles back and forth with abandon, allowing everyone to function like a lead instrument, At times, Scott's machine clatter leads the charge, with Dave bobbing and weaving underneath him. Other times, it's Ron's wah-wah-draped leads, or Iggy's array of whoops, bawls and screams, which sound eerily natural amid Mackay's own Coltrane- and Coleman-ish-style flourishes.

My own favorite moment comes at the 5:18 mark, where the band coalesces around a song within a song, with Iggy singing whatever comes to mind ("I sing this song, just to break my heart/I sing this song, just to tear it apart" -- or, I think that's what he's saying, at any rate).

The boys fall deftly in step, kicking up the tempo, bit by bit. Just then, the curtain on this brief respite from free-form noise pulls shut, almost as quickly as it began, leaving "LA Blues" shuddering to a halt in a wash of feedback, with nary a beat left to make the point. Hearing this moment from the comfort of your chair is one thing; I can only imagine how it must have felt to experience it in person.

Goose Lake marked more than the end of the original Stooges lineup. The post-festival coverage, such as it was, predictably focused on sensationalist elements, notably allegations of rampant drug abuse...leaving those who showed up to recount the more pleasant aspects of Goose Lake, such as they were, like the revolving stage built specially for the event.

The local authorities that sought to spike the festival beforehand succeeded in getting an injunction against future gatherings at Goose Lake Park, and also rolled out an indictment against co-promoter Richard Songer in December 1971, for promoting the sale of drugs, only to see him acquitted of all charges. (What a coincidence, right? And if you believe that, well...) 

Even the state's top officials couldn't resist weighing in. Governor William Milliken thundered,  “I do not oppose rock festivals, but I do oppose and will fight drug abuse such as took place at Goose Lake," while Attorney General Frank Kelley offered a more muted response: "I think we have seen the first and last rock concert of that size in Michigan."

It's unfortunate that Goose Lake gotten tarred for so long with this particular brush, and cast such a disproportionate impact on the Stooges' story arc, in particular. What's often forgotten, in the oft-told tales of Alexander's dismissal, is that this was a band riding high, in the middle of its first major national tour, having already picked up a diehard fanbase that seemed ready to follow them anywhere.

Only a month before this show, the Stooges had appeared on network TV, thanks to the impact of its now-famous Cincinnati performance, which seemed fated to ramp up even more press around the band and its outrageous doings. That's not luck, or chance, or even good fortune; as Ron himself said, "We learned our trade by being onstage."

Live At Goose Lake should confirm -- and reaffirm -- that feeling for anyone who still harbors any doubts on that score.  Ron and Scott, in particular, show a marked improvement on the rawer form of the first album, but all the individual Stooges have their moments, including the unfortunate Dave Alexander, all his flubs and missteps aside. Even so, this album allows him to finally reclaim some measure of posthumous glory and respect, because he is playing, from start to finish, and reports of his disastrous showing -- mostly, on the opening blast of "Loose" -- seem greatly overstated, at least on this evidence.

That evidence also blows some cobwebs off a few other myths. Nowhere do you hear the plug being pulled, early through the set, nor Iggy repeatedly exhorting anyone to tear down the barriers set up to contain the crowd (unless you count his vocal improvisation about the wall during "TV Eye," followed his shouts of, "Ram it!"; again, without the visuals, it's hard to tell for sure). Wouldn't Cassily have captured such things, as his tape machines kept spinning? Presumably, yes. It makes you wonder about all the other tales of gratuitious drug taking and violence that ate up so much media attention.

That said, is Live At Goose Lake a perfect recording? Hardly. It sounds as you'd expect: a rough 'n' ready document of an equally rough 'n' ready band. It's not a professional and pristine recording, by any means. But it does boast more clarity than the handful of guerrilla recordings that predate the Raw Power era, even if the overall balance isn't all it could be, at times.

For this reason, I don't see Live At Goose Lake as the ideal starting point for newbie fans, who might want to check out The Stooges (1969) and Fun House first, to get a fuller perspective on how they sounded, before circling back to this release (and then, revisit Raw Power, followed by the various live bootleg/studio outtake collections).

But that's the beauty and the curse of such endeavors. I've spent roughly half my life collecting black market and gray market recordings of various provenance and quality, and I'd echo what any member of the tribe tends to say on these matters. The crappiest, lo-fiest recording beats the shiniest, best rendered document of any event, especially if it's historically relevant, in some way.

On that level, Live At Goose Lake succeeds, and then some. Short of a seance, it's the only way you'll ever experience this particular lineup, on this particular night, which also carries an undeniable poignance, since Iggy remains the last man standing.

That brings up one more point. However you decide Dave Alexander fared at Goose Lake, once you've heard this album, his sacking had a profound impact on the Stooges, as they soldiered on without him. His dismissal broke the magic circle of a band that had already achieved some measure of national prominence, one that seemed poised for bigger and better things, all without weathering a single lineup change -- a truly atypical event for a '60s band (compared to situations like Michael Bloomfield's abrupt departure from Electric Flag, or the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, for example).

Dave's exit also profoundly altered the chemistry that had enabled the band to create an album like Fun House. Once he'd gone, he took his dark, greasy sense of tone and timing out the door with him. The Stooges never sounded like that again, nor did they bother to try. Instead, they slowly backed off their artier, more experimental side, and closer towards Raw Power's more conventional full-throated rock stylings. But that's another story for another time. We can't hang our heads all the time wishing and hoping for what might have been. All we can do is base our feeling on the evidence, whatever it's telling us.

That's the value of Live At Goose Lake: forget what the mythmakers and the naysayers have all told us. Now, you can make up your own mind about what happened to whom, and how -- and whether you just view it as a great night out from an influential underdog band, or the final, fleeting snapshot of an era that might have been. Either way, it works for me, and should work for you, too. That's the beauty of it.

 

DETROIT METRO TIMES: Goose Lake Memories:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150908222510/http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/goose-lake-memories/Content?oid=2192525

DETROIT NEWS: Rock Legend Debunked:
Redemption, Goose Lake and the Lost Stooge:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/2020/08/07/unearthed-goose-lake-recordings-debunk-iggy-pop-and-stooges-lore/3304610001/?fbclid=IwAR3de2-XUc4B7blxNGcJi4RSdGmwRSnqzKruBRngHduM0geBxZxlUkTzDZI

REVUE: Goose Lake 1970:
https://revuewm.com/music/events-festival/item/2817-goose-lake-1970

THIRD MAN RECORDS INFO:
https://thirdmanrecords.com/news/third-man-records-announces-the-stooges-live-at-goose-lake-august-8th-1970-out-on-vinyl-cd-and-digital-on-august-7-2020

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"HEART FULL OF SOUL" BIO: REVIEW+AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Aug 3, 2020

Heart Full Of Soul:
Keith Relf Of The Yardbirds
By David French
McFarland Books (198 pp.)

(https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/heart-full-of-soul)

What becomes a legend most? The answer seems obvious, but the outcome is never so clear-cut, as David French makes plain in this thoughtful, first major biography of the Yardbirds' lead singer, whose life ended up brutally cut short at 33, by an accidental electrocution at his home, on May 12, 1976.

However his death passed largely unnoticed, outside of hardcore fan circles, and the handful of colleagues who attended his memorial service. Yet most accounts wrongly gave his death as May 14, grim confirmation – for anyone who needed it – of Keith's nether status at this time in his life. The struggles of a former Yardbird whose glory days seemed long behind him rated fewer column inches, presumably, than the coming of punk rock in Britain, along with the economic convulsions that would give birth to it.

Fortunately for Yardbirds fans, French is keen to set the record straight, and he does so, with gusto. In some ways, it's surprising we've waited this long to see a biography of Relf, the voice of the Yardbirds, who created an insistent, gritty and urgent harmonica style that inspires musicians to this day.

In other ways, it's not that surprising, as the Yardbirds' story is typically told as a training ground for future star guitarists (Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page). As the old joke goes: you've probably heard of these guys. That focus has often left the lesser-known Yardbirds – Keith, Chris Dreja (rhythm guitar, bass) and Paul Samwell-Smith (bass) – in the dust, which Heart Full Of Soul aims to correct.

On one level, it's the story of a fiercely introverted man who battles asthma and emphysema en route to becoming one of the Swinging '60s' gutsiest and most distinctive frontmen. He achieves it by learning on the job, essentially – first, as a street corner busker, and then on the bandstand, as the Yardbirds take off. Naturally, that process brings plenty of growing pains, as fellow busker Laurie Gane tells the author: “We got by, but frankly, we were all learning – learning to play, learning to sing.”

That DIY determinism served Keith well all through his life. As Heart Full Of Soul chugs along, you learn that he was responsible for naming the band; choosing much of the material, especially in the early days; and helping lead the charge to more adventurous terrain. “No one was playing harmonica like that, no one,” Dreja asserts. “No one was riffing with a guitar player like he did.”

Like many lyricists, Keith displayed a knack for coining distinctive phrases, such as his description of the Yardbirds' sound as “new wave pop music” to the Leeds University Union News – a good decade or so before such terms became common currency! Then again, as French points out, the Yardbirds' singer showed himself as someone consistently ahead of the curve, like his colleagues.

Heart Full Of Soul's readers will especially appreciate its middle chapters (“Pop Up,” “Blow Up”), where those “five live Yardbirds” spring vividly to life. Through French's tightly-paced writing, we witness the collision of the band's experimentalist streak – which reached a feverish peak on their '66 LP, Roger The Engineer – against the pressures of chasing the next hit (Keith: “You've got to keep producing new sounds to keep in the running”), and a relentless schedule that slowly erodes morale (such as the 19 gigs, seven TV shots, and four BBC appearances for October 1965 alone).

By 1967, the Yardbirds are splintering apart, as French vividly documents in the aptly-titled chapter, “Dazed And Confused.” The hits are drying up, along with the band's UK profile, while the band sounds increasingly hobbled with poor production and mediocre material. The Yardbirds find temporary solace in America, where crowds seemingly can't get enough of a newly aggressive, improvisational streak that emerges in songs like “Dazed And Confused.”

Yet the center doesn't hold for long. By July 1968, the Yardbirds are no more, leaving their final star guitarist, Jimmy Page, to refine the original blueprint with his next band, Led Zeppelin, to international success. By contrast, Keith is more interested in pursuing the quieter, folkier sounds that have caught his ear, which he does in Renaissance, with drummer Jim McCarty, his closest friend in the Yardbirds, and sister Jane, who joins as an additional vocalist.

At first, all seems well, as Keith vows to keep the PR hounds at bay (“We don't rely on pretty faces”), and forge ahead with his unlikely fusion of folk and progressive rock (“I think our music is the valid new music”). But before long, Renaissance's promise unravels, amid niggling reviews (“sounds like a harpsichord factory struck by a bomb”) and a grueling five-week US tour with bands that sound nothing like them (The Kinks, Savoy Brown).

Feeling worn to a nub once more, the former Yardbirds bail out, even as Led Zeppelin climbs their self-styled “stairway” to platinum nirvana. The news comes as a surreal, if unwelcome reminder of rock's ever- changing fortunes, as McCarty recalls: “We'd given it up and then it really took off big.”

Though he doesn't know it yet, the remainder of Keith's musical life yields more modest returns. He carves out a fairly successful production career with colorfully-named obscurities like Hunter Muskett, and Smokestack Crumble, plus Medicine Head, whose unexpected Relf-produced hit single, “Pictures In The Sky” (#22 UK, June 1971), leads to him joining as their bassist. Only in the freewheeling '70s, right?

Satisfying as these ventures seem, however, Keith can't resist reaching for the brass ring once more. He heads to America and forms Armageddon – whose rip-roaring progressive metal leanings seem as unlikely as anything he's ever done. Still, despite a stellar cast that includes drummer Bobby Caldwell (Captain Beyond), bassist Louis Cennamo (Renissance, Steamhammer), and guitarist Martin Pugh (Steamhammer), Armageddon's momentum dissipates amid a steady drip-drip-drip of bad breaks.

Eventually, after a difficult slog in the studio, the band's lone album – the last one Keith lived to complete – appears to mixed reviews (“The music is too fast for comfort”), though it's considered an overlooked gem today. Superstar manager Dee Anthony bails out, while a promised tour with Eric Clapton also fizzles, forcing Armageddon to settle for five nights at the Starwood (Santa Monica, CA) – the only shows they'd ever play.

Frustrated and fed up, Keith rejoins his family in Britain by the end of 1975; less than six months later, he'll be dead. French does a fine job of sketching out these developments with crucial insights from his bandmates, and widow April Mannino, who clears up the cobwebs of myth that have surrounded her late husband's death for so long.

We also get equally astute observations from shock rocker Alice Cooper – whose pre-fame band, The Spiders, actually supported the Yardbirds – and Chocolate Watchband lead singer, David Aguilar, who sheds additional light on how they influenced his own presentation style. Anthony “Top” Topham, the “forgotten Yardbird” – whose departure at his parents' behest enabled Clapton to take the guitar slot – offers colorful and useful insights on the band's development, and Keith's role within it, along with McCarty (who's led a revived Yardbirds lineup since 1992).

Notable omissions include “those other guys,” Beck, Clapton, and Page – who are represented through quotes from other magazines – as well as Jane Relf, and Keith's son, Danny. As desirable as these contributions would have been, their absence honestly doesn't hurt Heart Full Of Soul, either, though Beck's quotes are well-chosen. A deep dive critical discography/overview and lots of period photos round out the book's presentation nicely.

Although he died tragically, Keith's life was hardly the slow-walking train wreck it's often made out to be. In reality, French notes, the overall picture was more complex, since Relf and McCarty had planned on forming a new band (Illusion), buoyed by royalties from their Renaissance work. That may have given Keith one more shot at wider success, though he'd probably have benefited from the '80s-era Yardbirds revival, if only he'd lived to see it.

One other measure of Keith's influence are all the bands that reached greater glory without him – notably, Renaissance, and Medicine Head. Yet, with so much going for him, why didn't Keith achieve more as a producer or a solo artist? The major impression conveyed here is a man out of time, one often at odds with himself, and a business that doesn't seem able to understand him.

The best explanation possibly comes from Keith himself, when he sat down for an unlikely interview with the compilers behind the More Golden Eggs bootleg (TMOQ: Trademark Of Quality, 1975): “I guess it's a failing of mine; I walk out of things.” Maybe so, but he still left a considerable body of work, anyway, one that makes him more than a mere footnote to his Yardbirds bandmates.

Thanks to Heart Full Of Soul, Keith Relf finally gets the chance to speak for himself, and come alive once more, if only through its pages – allowing us to see him as he saw himself. There's no higher tribute than that.

 

"HE REALLY WAS THAT GUY": INTERVIEW WITH DAVID FRENCH (7/14/20)
One other piece of business remained, with the excitement of reading Heart Full Of Soul still ringing fresh in my mind. Naturally, I had to track down the author, and find out more about the thinking that went into its creation. Heart Full Of Soul's Amazon.com blurb states the premise sweetly and succinctly: "Numerous books have been written about the Yardbirds' famous guitarists--Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page--yet Keith has remained a mysterious and elusive figure since his death by electrocution at age 33."

With that sentiment in mind, I had to ask myself: "What sets a person off on that type of mission?" Well, wonder no more. David French has written about music for Downbeat, JazzTimes, The Los Angeles Times, The Oxford American, Interview, Paste, The Boston Globe, and many more. He's also involved on the activist side of things, too. He works at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, a historic nonprofit organization, leading their efforts to create a healthier and more equitable food system.

French, who lives in New York City, recently took time to answer my questions about the experience of writing Heart Full Of Soul, via e-mail, and the detective work he undertook to tell this story of the introvert who followed his own path, "as the band's guitarists became household names playing blues-based rock," Amazon's blurb states. "Keith insisted on pursuing new musical paths, always searching for something new and trying to extend the Yardbirds' spirit of curiosity and innovation." Our chat follows below.

CHAIRMAN RALPH (CR): As you mention, for many people, Keith had essentially become a “whatever happened to” story at the time of his death in 1976. What inspired you to tell that story, beyond your own appreciation of him, and what do you feel refutes that perception?

DAVID FRENCH (DF): The first piece of music writing I published was a profile of a Swing Era trumpet player named Ziggy Elman, who played with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey in the Thirties and Forties and achieved some lasting fame for a song he wrote and played on called “And the Angels Sing.”

Ziggy’s career nosedived in the 1950s and he drank himself to death by 1968, but at the time I was working on that article, in the early 2000s, there were still a fair number of people alive who had known and worked with Ziggy, though most were then in their mid-to-late eighties. It was an amazing experience but even as I was working on the article people I’d spoken with started to pass away – now, twenty years later, they are all gone. It was a really profound lesson for me that if nobody writes down the stories they will disappear.

The Yardbirds had been my favorite band in high school in the early 1980s – I was a complete obsessive going to used record stores to track down all the rare singles and bootlegs I could find. I particularly identified with Keith – he was a really important hero to me – and his story always seemed so poignant. After years of listening mostly to jazz, I rediscovered the Yardbirds a few years ago and couldn’t believe how much material was now available on the internet – but there was still so little information about Keith. It made me sad to see him so ignored when there were dozens and dozens of books about the guitarists, most of which were pretty dismissive of Keith’s contributions to the Yardbirds. I suddenly realized that if I didn’t do this book nobody would and Keith’s story would disappear forever.

Keith was pretty much forgotten in his lifetime. By the time he died it had been a decade since he’d had a hit with the Yardbirds. That’s a long time to be out of the limelight in popular music. I think he was always searching for his next thing and excited to further himself but did not have the drive and the ego to build a career second act that was as successful as the Yardbirds. He also struggled with some serious health challenges, as well as depression. As his friend Louis Cennamo said, “He wanted a quiet life.”

CR: Getting Alice Cooper to write your foreword is impressive! Did you consider trying to chase up Messrs. Beck, Clapton and/or Page, or did you think they've been heard from enough already?

DF: Alice was amazing – both he and his manager, Toby Mamis, are huge fans of Keith and the Yardbirds. Alice told this amazing story about opening for the Yardbirds in 1965 when he was in high school with his band the Spiders – I think it was really a defining moment for him. I did reach out to Clapton, Beck and Page’s people but never seriously expected they would contribute.

I think they are quite happy with how the Yardbirds story has been told all these years – focusing almost entirely on the guitarists – so it really isn’t in their interest to undermine that narrative by giving away any of the credit. Fortunately, I was able to uncover decades of interviews with the guitarists that do give them full presence in the book and help detail Keith’s relationships with each of them. Jeff Beck, in particular, has said some really thoughtful things about Keith over the years.

CR: Why didn't Jane and Danny Relf participate? I'd think that she could have shed a lot of light on various aspects of her brother's life and thoughts – plus aspects like the Renaissance era, in which she played a key part.

DF: When I first reached out to Jane Relf in 2016 – pretty much exactly 40 years after Keith’s accidental death – she sent me back a quite emotionally raw email telling me that “it is too soon” to talk about Keith. That was an eye opener. After meeting Jane and Danny and communicating with them at length, it became clear that Keith’s death had been extremely traumatic to the family and in many ways they have still not fully come to terms with the tangle of emotions that left behind. Ultimately, I think it really was too soon for them.

CR: What were the most challenging aspects of trying to tell Keith's life story properly? Any big surprises that you ran across, that changed some of your own perceptions?

DF: Writing about an introvert is always challenge. They generally don’t generate lots of colorful anecdotes or make big pronouncements about their thoughts or feelings that people file away in their memories. So I had to dig deep on the research but it really paid off because I found many articles and interviews with Keith that helped to bring him to life.

The biggest surprise for me was the extent to which Keith really was the person I’d imagined him to be in high school by listening to his voice and lyrics and looking at his pictures. He was this really sensitive, earnest introvert fronting a rock band and he also grappled with depression throughout his career. Think about someone dealing living with depression having to navigate the machinery of Beatlemania-era teen magazines and music coverage – it’s like a premise for either a tragic or an absurdist novel. It must have been very, very difficult for him.

So many interviews I found he talked about how he didn’t like to be in cities or around other people – he wanted to be out in nature or in an English churchyard. He was like a throwback to Wordsworth and the Romantic Poets. And he drew on that, unconsciously most of the time I think, to give the Yardbirds this tinge of melancholy and depth that was way ahead of its time. That’s why I used the title Heart Full of Soul – he really was that guy. It really meant something to me when the book came out and people that knew Keith reached out to say what a perfect title it was.

CR: What's your take on the source material that's already out there – particularly the various magazine articles that you consulted, along with the more cinematic (shall we say) efforts of Richard Cole's and Stephen Davis's respective Led Zeppelin tomes?

DF: I think writing about rock’n’roll has come a long way since I was in high school. At this point, the lives and careers of Clapton, Beck and Page have been documented in exhausting detail. My taste in rock’n’roll – with a few big exceptions – goes up to 1966 or 1967 and then leapfrogs up to the punk and post-punk era. So in the process of writing this book I had to consult a lot of sources that I’m personally not that interested in, but it also highlighted for me just how different Keith was from your typical big-ego rock star and how challenging it must have been for this introverted, depressive guy to function in the music industry.

What was thrilling for me was to uncover so many original interviews from throughout Keith’s career. For years, the interview Keith did for the More Golden Eggs bootleg has been the primary source used for a quote in any article about the Yardbirds, so you tend to see the same few quotes over and over again. I was able to find dozens of interviews in which he gave extremely honest and personal answers to questions about himself and his music and the contemporary music scene, so those were just incredibly valuable for giving Keith voice throughout the book and seeing his evolution as a musician and as a person.

CR: How do you think people look at the Yardbirds now, in general, and Keith's contribution, in particular – since he's often been overshadowed by the “guitar god” angle? Actually, the overall talent level in the band was amazing – with Dreja going into photography, Samwell-Smith to production, Topham, to an art career, and Keith to his various production/progressive pursuits. Do you see a more balanced perspective these days?

DF: If you follow #yardbirds on Instagram, it’s pretty obvious that people still like to see pictures of Jimmy Page in his dragon costume with a Les Paul down below his crotch – so I think the guitar god angle persists! At the same time, music writing has gotten so much smarter and more inclusive and so many great artists have finally gotten the attention they deserve.

A quick example: I recently found a band bio – Hadley Lee Lightcap by Sam Sweet – about Acetone, a band I really liked but knew nothing about in the Nineties. This is a self-published book about a band most people have never heard of and it is one of the best music books I have ever read, a very powerful and beautifully told story. So, while I don’t need to ever read another word about Clapton, Beck or Page, I am delighted that so many writers are finding incredible new stories and that is what I was trying to do for the Yardbirds.

In the process of writing this book I spent a lot of time listening to the Yardbirds, especially live recordings like Five Live Yardbirds and the BBC sessions. I came away even more impressed by what an incredible and interesting band they were, no matter who they had on lead guitar. I was also so interested to learn more about the early years with Top Topham and how far they came professionally in just a few months – even before Keith invited his art school friend Eric Clapton to join. I have always loved Jeff Beck’s guitar playing with the Yardbirds. And Clapton recorded a couple of solos – on “A Certain Girl” and “I Ain’t Got You” – that are mind-blowing compared to what anybody else in England was doing in 1964. But for me it was always Keith’s voice and harmonica that really made the Yardbirds exciting.

After Keith, the other guy who really deserves more attention for the Yardbirds’ innovations is Paul Samwell-Smith. He was the architect of the Yardbirds’ sound, produced their records, arranged many of their best known songs, arranged and sang their very distinctive background vocals, contributed some of their best songwriting, supplied the monster bass that drove their famous rave ups and also shared with Keith and Jim McCarty a very introverted, poetic nature that gave the Yardbirds that sense of mystery and intelligence that set them apart. Jim and Chris were amazing, as well. These guys weren’t just lucky nobodies that kept getting the big break of backing all these guitar players – they attracted that talent and enabled it to grow because they were an amazing band that was breaking down barriers from the start.

CR: I've always seen the Yardbirds as an example of a great band ground down through sheer attrition and indifference – constant touring, crap material ("Paff Bum," "Questa Volta," for example), and hack production (the Mickie Most era coming to mind).

Yet the grit of the band still survived on B-sides, as Keith himself pointed out in his interviews with the TMOQ guys. Could anything have been done to forestall those developments, or would they have run out of steam anyway, once the glam rock brigade, mirror ball army (“Disco, disco duck”) and the soft rock flotilla had all gotten into full swing? Or could Jimmy Page's stewardship have steered that good ship safely through those tides?

DF: It's interesting – Jim McCarty speculated to me that they might have turned things around if they’d had better management, if they’d been encouraged to take some time off from touring to focus on song writing and recording. While that is certainly true, I also think the Yardbirds suffered a fatal blow when Paul Samwell-Smith left in 1966. They were never again as powerful and really seemed to lose their musical identity.

Plus, Keith did not like Jimmy Page as a person and his musical taste had evolved since the early days – by the time they split up in 1968, Keith was done with the blues and basically wanted to play contemporary folk music, like Simon and Garfunkel or Tim Hardin. On top of that, he was worn out after five years touring full-time for not a lot of money. He just wanted out and I don’t think anything would have changed his mind.

CR: As you point out often in your book, Keith always seemed ahead of the curve, whether in his prog era (Renaissance), the folkier one (Medicine Head), or his return to balls out rock 'n' roll (Armageddon) – yet none of these ventures, as tantalizing as they seemed, quite panned out. The same story seems to hold true for his forays into production, where he could have built a good track record.

Why didn't all these efforts work out? Do you think he lacked confidence, since he tended to walk away from things – or was it simply a case of, “Too much, too son,” which is the plague of many an artist, underdog or not?

DF: My sense is that Keith did not have a clear vision for what he wanted to do in music or in life. He was a dreamer, always coming up with new ideas in the short term but not really able to bring something bigger into focus for himself. I also don’t think he had a strong enough ego or belief in himself to push through projects once he ran into challenges. He was the front man of all his bands – the Yardbirds, Renaissance and Armageddon. If he had really wanted to, he could have pulled rank, replaced the musicians that were pulling the band off course or making him unhappy and powered through to fulfill whatever vision he wanted to pursue.

But he was not that kind of person. I think he also suffered from depression that dragged him down and made him give up on things as soon as they started to go wrong. If he had just stuck to one thing – Renaissance or Armageddon or building a career as a producer – I’m sure he could have built a successful career. If he’d lived longer, he probably would have pulled things together for himself somehow – as so many of us do gain confidence as we grow older or change careers or otherwise figure out what we really want to do in life. Unfortunately, he ran out of time before he could reach that place.

CR: As you point out, had he lived a bit longer, Keith might have benefited from the Yardbirds revival of the early '80s – but let's take that parlor game a step further. You mention playing intimate rooms as a solo artist, but what else do you think he might be doing, if we still had him today?

DF: This is pure speculation but I’ve lately been getting into some of the early ambient music from the Seventies and Eighties and it really resonates with me that if Keith had had a few more years, he might have gone in that direction. I don’t know if he ever heard No Pussyfooting or other things that were coming out toward the end of his life, but Keith always talked about wanting to make “pictures in sound” and left behind hours and hours of tapes of very spacey synthesizer and guitar noodling. I also think making ambient music would have dovetailed beautifully with his deep interest in Buddhist meditation.

I know his close friend Jim McCarty got involved in ambient music under the name Stairway in the 1980s. There’s some great footage of Stairway on YouTube, with both Jim and Louis Cennamo playing in a church in London. It’s far, far removed from the Yardbirds but it’s beautiful music and I can 100% imagine Keith being involved in something like that – it would have been a perfect combination of all of his talents and interests.

CR: What are the key takeaways from Keith's life story, especially for a young musician who's diving deep into the Yardbirds – or his other bands – for the first time? What do you think his greatest achievements are, in the grand rock 'n' roll scheme of things?

DF: First, I think that Keith and the Yardbirds typify the magic of rock’n’roll – that you only need to know a few chords to start making music, that sometimes a group of young people can come together and just hit that thing with energy and attitude and volume and make something extraordinary.

At the same time, the thing that really set Keith and his bandmates apart from their peers was their interest in experimentation – as they developed musically, they kept advancing, whether it was stretching out and improvising on these simple blues songs or bringing in new sounds like the fuzz boxes just being developed then, or harpsichord, Gregorian chant, Latin percussion, feedback or sound effects – whatever was around they were always looking for new things to try.

We take it for granted now, but it’s so interesting to see all these articles from the period that refer to their “modern” or “futuristic” sound – the Yardbirds were really innovative in their prime. Keith had gone to art school, he was very aware of the radical cultural changes taking place around him in the 1960s and he very much wanted to push boundaries and make music that was innovative and different from anything that had been done before – he used to refer to their music as “pop art” and referenced things like musique concrete and third stream music in interviews. So he was pretty hip. That was the main reason he didn’t want to keep playing blues rock – he’d done that already, he was restless, he was always searching for the next thing.

Finally, while I don’t want to lose sight of what a kick ass belter Keith was on tunes like “I’m a Man” and “Train Kept a Rollin’,” Keith was ahead of his time in expressing emotions beyond teenage heartache through pop music. Partly this was through lyrics and arrangements, but it was also just the sound of his voice – it is there on “Heart Full of Soul” and especially on songs like “Still I’m Sad” and “Turn Into Earth” and “Farewell.” He brought an edge of melancholy to the material that gave the band an element of mystery and depth that was unique.

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CHERIE CURRIE+YER HUMBLE NARRATOR ...After the show, as you can see from the figures working in the background, tearing down the equipment. Kapsanis wowed the Acorn Theater crowd with instrumental versions of &#34;Paint It, Black&#34; (Rolling Stones), &#34;Redemption Song&#34; (Bob Marley), and &#34;Soul Sacrifice&#34; (Santana), among other songs, anchored by his percussive tapping and fingerpicking techniques. SETLIST FOR THE ACORN SHOW Cherie (second left), Brie and band rock the Acorn crowd during their 11/24/19 show there. The set focused on songs from the album, &#34;Their Motivator,&#34; which features versions of &#34;Do It Again&#34; (The Kinks), &#34;Get Together&#34; (The Youngbloods), &#34;Gimme Shelter&#34; (The Rolling Stones), and &#34;Something In The Air&#34; (Thunderclap Newman). Here&#39;s how the view looked from stage right at the Acorn. The pair also thrilled patrons with two of their originals, &#34;I&#39;m Too Good, That&#39;s Just Too Bad,&#34; and &#34;This Is Our Time,&#34; from their new album, &#34;The Motivator,&#34; along with a couple of standbys from the Runaways era, &#34;American Nights,&#34; and &#34;Cherry Bomb,&#34; which closed the show. Cherie Currie signs the concert poster for Yer Humble Narrator after the show. I think the camera was moving here, ever so slightly, but...you get the idea.
"TAKE YOUR PLACE, AND EARN IT": CHERIE CURRIE & BRIE DARLING: THE FULL RUNDOWN (10/14/19)
by Words: Chairman Ralph/Images: Don Hargraves, Corey Parks
Apr 19, 2020

"Back in the day" probably ranks among the most abused phrases on the planet, next to similar well-worn expressions we'd rather not hear again (or similar gems like "at the end of the day," "put in a bucket," "unpack," and so on).

But when my thoughts turn to pioneers like these two women, Cherie Currie and Brie Darling, I can't coin a better phrase to describe my own feelings about their contributions that they've made in their respective bands, The Runaways, and Fanny, two trailblazers that should find room in anyone's record collection.

Because, back in the day, rock 'n' roll culture as we knew it -- and popular general, in general -- worked way differently than it does nowadays. Sure, there was no lack of dross, especially in the Top 40, but it's also easy to forget how the same decade that produced the likes of "Undercover Angel" and "The Night Chicago Died" also gave us the first stirrings of punk, rap, and yes, Fanny and The Runaways, the first notable all female rock bands.

I first became aware of The Runaways' influence at record shows, where I specialized in selling live tapes. My top sellers, the ones that always went first, were a live Misfits compilation -- a pretty watery-sounding one, but apparently, with several versions of songs you couldn't find anywhere else -- and Bad Reputation, the first notable Joan Jett bootleg, which captures a 1981 show from Long Island, with plenty of blazing guitar to stroke your earlobes. Needless to say, I played that tape a lot back then, and still pull it occasionally now. 

Where the Runaways lived and breathed, Fanny didn't fall too far behind, as I discovered on my semi-regular trips to our local township library, where I discovered The Butts Band's self-titled debut, Electric Music For The Mind & Body (Country Joe & The Fish), Hall Of The Mountain Grill (Hawkwind) -- and Rock 'N' Roll Survivors, Fanny's final album.

Let that sink in for a minute. A library record rack, a cassette box at a record show -- if that's not some kind of deep cultural footprint, what is? Actually, I'll add one more, because I also remember the excitement at going out to the mall and getting Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story (1989), right when it came out, another all-American moment, if you want one.

Nowadays, there's plenty of markers to let everybody know what they missed the first time around, whether it's The Runaways biopic, the Fanny documentary, or all the CD reissues and new releases.

But back then, or back in the day, their work didn't get the respect it deserved, having already been filed and forgotten as curios from another area. With no Internet to suss out what you were getting, you had to scour bookstores, record shows, and relevant shops -- the hippest ones, always way out of town -- and put together the relevant puzzle pieces yourself.

It was an often tiring pursuit, but a strangely exhilarating one, at the same time, because you only appreciated your success all the more, when those proverbial dominoes or puzzle pieces finally fell together in the right way.

So when I found out last fall that Cherie and Brie were coming the Acorn Theater, and had released an album, The Motivator (Blue Elan Records), my excitement rose by several notches. How could I turn down the chance to talk to them, and catch their show? Thankfully, I got to do both, including an advance story for The Herald-Palladium, but inevitably, I only had so much room. 

What follows, then, is the longer version of my interview with Cherie and Brie, as it unfolded for them in Los Angeles, and I, back here in Michigan. Pull up a chair, and remember...we still don't give a damn about our bad reputation.

"I WAS READY TO THROW IN THE TOWEL"
CHAIRMAN RALPH (CR): Reading the (recent) story in Rolling Stone, I was really amazed to find out that, even though you guys are part of the same era, you never met until 2017?

CHERIE CURRIE (CC): That's right.

CR: So how did that come about, and lead to the momentum for this record that you have just done?

BRIE DARLING (BD): I was making a record with two of the girls from Fanny, and I had had this idea to call in some of the women from girl bands – from all different times. We had girls from the Go-Gos, and the Bangles, other members of Fanny that weren't involved in the record yet. And, of course, the Runaways.

Patti Quatro introduced me to Cherie, Cherie came in, and just blew me away. I loved her, from the second she walked in the door, and I had to know her better. And that's what happened. We never got a chance, the girls in Fanny, to go out and support that record, because Jean, the bass player, had a stroke, right when it was released.

Cherie and I, meanwhile, had become friends, and found that we had a lot in common. And the rest is kind of history. Cherie, you can take it from there. 

CC: Well, for me, I was actually putting my house on the market for sale. I was in escrow for some land up north. I was throwing in the towel with that damn music business (laughs)!

BD: You'd had it, right?

CC: Yeah, just kind of had it, and I felt like, I was at the end of whatever I was going to be doing. And I was asked to come on in and sing on Fanny Walks The Earth. I don't know if you've heard that record.

CR: I haven't – I've heard of it, though. I know of it.

CC: Oh, you should listen to it, it's great. I'd heard the songs, and I was being asked to back (them up, vocally) – and I thought to myself, “Who is this singer?” I mean, first of all, I'd known of Fanny since I was a kid. I mean, I was, “Why isn't she a big star?”

And I was so intrigued by the songwriting, by the production, I just wanted to do this project – and then, when I met Brie and her husband, Dave Darling, who's a six-time, Grammy-nominated producer, I mean, something clicked with all three of us.

Now I'm not selling my house, and here, I've got a record out with Brie, we are getting ready to go on tour, and it's really exciting.

BD: Yeah, we're pretty excited about it.

 

"I'M A HAPPY CAMPER"
CR: So then, how did you guys – since these are mostly duets, right – how did you decide to divvy up the vocal parts (on The Motivator)?

BD: Well, Cherie, you've got a good sense of this one, because she kind of made this happen, so you go ahead.

CC: Yeah, when we decided to test the water a little bit, of course, Brie had thrown “Gimme Shelter” into that, which was a song – basically, Dave just wanted to hear what we sounded like together, was more the idea.

But then, when we really loved how we sounded together – I think Dave's first idea was that, I would do a few songs, and Brie would do a few songs, we'd back each other up.

Brie was doing scratch vocals on all the songs, “The Motivator” happened to come around, and Dave had made up his mind that I was going to sing lead on that song. But I had a completely different idea.

I heard her on that second verse. I mean, it's clear as a bell, and it wasn't until I got in the studio – she, being the team player that she is, even though she really loved the song, she loved singing the song, she was going to let me have it, being the cool chick that she is (BD laughs).

CR: Right (laughs along).

CC: And the thing is, is that I just turned to Dave, Brie had excused herself from the studio, and I said, “I'm telling you, this has to be a duet.” And I said, “Please put her scratch (vocal) in that second verse, and hear it.”

And he did, and he just said, “Wow.” And so, the fact that we brought her in... To see the look on her face, when her vocal came in on the second verse – and we just really realized, we just make each other better.

So why not share these songs, really capitalize on what this union is, and make it a joint recording, because our voices just sound great, when we do duets?

The thing is, is that we're a team, and this is what this whole project is all about.

BD: Plus, I really loved singing in the studio with Cherie right there. It makes me sing better, and she inspires me. She does something, I hear something, and it's not like I copy her. But she inspires me to step up my game, and I love that. I love being pushed.

And it's a real support thing between us, in a lot of ways. Not just the singing, but in our making decisions about the band, what we do onstage. It's really a great team, and it's my favorite thing I've done so far. So I'm a happy camper.

 

"ONE FOOT IN THE BUSINESS, AND ONE FOOT OUT"
CC: It's a breath of fresh air in a business where women are usually a little cutthroat, and always jealous, and always afraid of someone else's talent. To me, it's just why I'd had enough.

BD: Not just women, men, too, men can be...

CC: Yeah, most all people. Well, I guess you have to be somewhat narcissistic, to be in this business, anyway – but the thing is, that I'd reached an age where I was just not gonna play (laughs). I'm not gonna play the game anymore.

CR: Yeah, I understand.

BD: It's heartbreaking. When you're in a band, you have this hope that you're having a family, and you want it to be this beautiful thing. And sometimes, it hurts, really bad, and it's disappointing. So far, we're two years in, and we're having a ball. And hey, we have our struggles, too.

CC: Yeah, Brie, but we're just having a great time.

CR: What I've found, in interviewing a lot of folks, and trying to play with folks, as a musician, is... This business attracts a lot of people who have a lot of talent, but they often seem to have something missing.

CC: Interesting. Me bringing up the whole narcissistic thing – I mean, I'm not exactly sure that's the right word, but you have to develop some sort of it (narcissistic quality), to even survive in such shark-infested waters.

And not just this business – Wall Street, it's the same kind of mentality, I believe. I really felt like, I just didn't have it in me. I mean, sometimes, you have to just give up the fight, because it's just not worth it.

It's not worth the heartache, when you can't be a loving person, or be a supportive person in this business, without, in the end, getting stabbed in the back, is what it felt like, to me.

I guess I've always had one foot in the business, and one foot out. I could never fully engulf myself in just the cruelty of it all.

 

"IT REALLY WAS OUR WORLD"
CR: But, to go back to your record, how did you go about picking these songs? Because one thing that strikes me on hearing (the duo's versions of) “Gimme Shelter,” or “For What It's Worth,” they seem to be more current now, than they did at the time.

BD: Isn't that crazy how that happens? Sometimes, a good song, a real song, written about what's really going on in the world – and I think that, really, maybe things never really, really changed. Human beings, we go through the same struggles, over and over and over again. So we find ourselves experiencing some of the same things.

For me, a lot of things like “Get Together,” is talking about, what's really important in life? Loving one another, and making that effort, and that speaks volumes, to me.

It's a period of time – like, when Fanny had the last album out, The Runaways were coming up. And I actually did go to see her (Cherie) perform, in the mid-'70s. I didn't meet her, but I saw her perform, at SIR Rehearsals.

It was like, we were handing over the torch, without having met. There was some music coming out, ending right around that time, but that was part of our reference in life, that music, that we listened to.

CR: So it was part of the soundtrack of your life, as it were, I guess.

BD: There you go.

CC: Oh, absolutely. I mean, these songs made us feel good as kids. I mean, you know, a natural high, that euphoria. If you can grab that, and hold onto it, then every time I hear these songs, the original – still, I go back to better, simpler times. And Brie and I really wanted to pay homage to people who have written such outstanding songs, that changed, and mattered, to our lives.

BD: Yeah. And Cherie's younger than me. And for me, I don't know if that was the time, when I first started listening to music, when it was simpler – with the Vietnam War going on, and everything – but it was still a time when music really spoke to the young people.

And it did make me feel like, there was a place in my head and in my heart, that I could go, and I could express myself, and I could play with my rock 'n' roll band, and be a person, have my own brain, and get away from some of the things that were, that I couldn't understand, when I was a teenager, because I started playing when I was 14. I don't know if Cherie was born yet (laughs).

CC: Was!

BD: She was. I'm kidding (laughs). But yeah, it's pretty incredible, what music means to young people, or at least, from our day. It really was our world. And yeah, soundtrack of our lives, for sure, like you said.

 

"WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED"
CR: So how you might see this evolving, then, for the next record? Because that's always the million dollar question.


CC: Yeah, I think Brie and I, just going out on tour together, I think we're going to write songs together, obviously – and probably take our experiences, and turn them into music. We'll always want to put a couple songs from our past, covers, on the record.

We've got a four-record deal, but we're just looking forward to getting out onstage together, getting our sea legs, and having fun, and being able to see the fans, and all that good stuff. It's about fun. This isn't about going out there, and... We're not planning on taking over the world, like we did, when we were kids.

CR: Right.

CC: It's about really, truly enjoying what we've done in our lives, and what brought us to this point, yeah.

CR: For sure.

BD: The originals on the record, the three originals, we wrote those while we were doing the record. So we were just getting to know each other, and we clicked so well, that these ideas – those are brand new songs that just came out, while we were actually working.

So if that's the kind of stuff that we can create, in just those couple of months, I'm going, “Wow, I mean, we need to come up for air here,” because we've just been slamming, getting ready for this tour, and all this stuff following the release of the record.

But yeah, once we get out there, and we're driving in the van, I'm sure there's going to be some things that we get to share, because the songs that we wrote are about real situations, and real feelings.

So I think that we're going to experience those things together. We're just getting started. We got a whole lot to learn about what we have to say together. I'm so looking forward to that.

 

"FOR ME, THAT'S THE MAGIC"
CR: Well, I really enjoyed those too. I think it seems like it was a natural evolution, and will continue to progress. It's also nice to see guys in your situation committed to doing new stuff, not just relying on the glorious past to get you a passing grade, if you will.

CC: Yes, absolutely! And we've both been songwriters throughout our lives. And it's just so neat, to actually have someone to work with.

BD: I know! I love it.

CR: Yeah. And bounce ideas off of, as well.

BD: Both of us are inspired by things that we've thought together, or loved together. And, for me, that's the magic. But there are a couple of songs, like Cherie mentioned, and I was, “Oh, my God, we got to do that on the next record!”

So there's a couple that poked their heads out after the fact, that we'd loved to do, too, so... But I'm not going to tell you what they are.

CR: Well, we'll have to wait to be surprised by the next one, I guess.

BD: That's right.

 

"LET SOMEBODY ELSE KEEP TRACK"
CR: How do you guys feel, when you look on your respective back stories? We have the Runaways movie, the Fanny documentary, the Rhino boxed set that came out, some years back.

So you finally have your place in the culture after, what, 40 years? Does that feel a bit bittersweet, that the acceptance took this long? I mean, how do you look at that?

CC: You know what? To be honest, I'm pretty amazed, that in our current society, that anyone even took the time. All I know is that I'm just so happy I grew up in the time I did, before social media, and all this craziness that is kind of hard for me to wrap my head around. But I never thought that the Runaways – I thought we were all but forgotten.

I thought that, 22 years ago – and for almost 20 years, I didn't even listen to our music. And it wasn't until I started looking at videos, listening to the music again... I went, “Wow! We really were trailblazers.”

We were following in the footsteps of Suzi Quatro. I think that the Runaways wouldn't have existed, had it not been for her. Big shout out: I hope she gets in the Rock 'n' Hall of Fame – please!

BD: Yeah.

CC: Hey, I'm just glad that the people do remember Fanny, the Runaways, and Suzi Quatro, and women that really worked hard, to kick the door open.

BD: It's a funny thing. Instead of looking back at the past, I've always looked at, what am I gonna do next? And I'm just discovering, that that's how I've looked at it, all my life.

Right now, I'm looking at some things – because we've got this event that's coming up, that Cherie and I are gonna do – I'm looking at some of the things I've done in the past, I'm going, “Wow, did I do that?”

I mean, I'm not even aware of listening to the records. I want to keep moving forward. I'm excited about what I'm going to do next. I'm good with somebody else keeping tabs on the past.

CC: I like that a lot, Brie!

BD: But I wanna do it with you, girl. I like that. Let somebody else keep track of the past.

 

CR: Let somebody else keep the flame, I suppose, right?

CC: Yeah. And you know what? Thank you for that, by the way. If it wasn't for people like you, we would have been all but forgotten.

BD: Well, I appreciate it. I'm just not doing that anymore.

CR: I understand that you want to keep on keepin' on. Conversely, what do you think accounts for that turnaround.

Because, I've got to say, when I was preparing for this – I looked, for instance, at some of the old music press things of the Runaways, like in CREEM – and there was some horrible kind of stuff written, and said. Even by publications you'd think would be on the cooler vanguard really fell down, in that respect. So what accounts for that turnaround, you think?

CC: Well, I guarantee you, that most all of them were written by men.

CR: Yeah.

CC: Sometimes, men like to dig their heels in, and not give women a chance, especially teenage girls. And Brie, her whole experience, I think, also, with Fanny – I mean, the music was different. These chicks really know how to play. I mean, they were superb musicians.

The Runaways were more of the three-chord crunch, in your face, or like, as Joan would say, just kick you in the face, from an attitude. But, I mean, we evolved. It had to happen. It was going to happen.

Now, I mean, as you can see, it's almost like a tidal wave, at this point. And of course, women and their feelings, on the subject, I should say – which I don't care to get into.

CR: Yeah.

CC: But it is a tidal wave now, of women's unhappiness with the male dominating type, the world we live in. So I think it'll all burn itself out, and maybe we'll have something a little more (favorable) afterwards, I guess.

BD: For me, I guess I've always felt blessed in doing what I love, playing drums and singing, and if somebody gave me a hard time around upon it, I don't remember it so much, as to how much I enjoyed doing it. 

CC: I think you got really good reviews, Brie (laughs)!

BD: I'm sure it got done. But to be honest with you, I didn't give a fuck. I just really enjoyed, I loved doing what I loved doing, and I just didn't let it get in my way, I don't think. And if somebody didn't like it, it was their problem, and not mine.

And today, I think, if you want a place, take your place on that stage, or in this business, just be freakin' good at what you do. And that way, if you're the best one in the group, nobody can push you off that spot. So take your place, and earn it. Be good at it.

That's one thing, that when I look at the old tapes of Cherie doing what she's doing, she was just – she owned that spot! And nobody was pushing her off it. And I love that. I get goose bumps talking about it, because her voice, her presence, her performance, everything about her was so commanding... In that day, she owned it 1,000%.

CC: Welcome to it! This tour is just you out front with me, so...

BD: I love it! I honestly love it.

 

MORE INFO:
https://www.blueelan.com/artists/cherie-currie-brie-darling/

 

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JAKE @ THE MIC Stiff Little Fingers, left to right: Ian McCallum, Steve Grantley, Jake Burns, Ali McMordie. Left to right: Greg Ingraham, Penelope Houston, David Bach, Hector Penalosa, in all their glory, at the Bottom Lounge. ...And yeah, it&#39;s a bit blurry, but that&#39;s rock &#39;n&#39; roll, isn&#39;t it? You get the idea! Again, a little on the blurry side, but we&#39;ll call it an art shot, and call it a day! :-) This ain&#39;t a classical concert. :-) DAVID BACH @ THE DRUMKIT Here&#39;s that most precious of totems -- the set list, for Stiff Little Fingers&#39;s portion of the show. I was too tired to scoop one up myself, but somebody else was nice enough to let Don snap theirs.
"HERE WE ARE, 40 YEARS LATER...": SLF & THE AVENGERS GATECRASH CHICAGO (10/16/19)
by Words: Chairman Ralph/Images: Don Hargraves
Feb 18, 2020

Stiff Little Fingers/The Avengers
The Bottom Lounge, Chicago, IL (10/16/19)

When I first heard about this pairing, I probably needed, what, all of five seconds to decide: "Yeah! Gotta  go, gotta catch this one!" What feels more inspired, you may ask, than seeing a reconvened Avengers -- still anchored around original vocalist Penelope Houston, and guitarist Greg Ingraham -- with one of the most explosive Class Of '77 members, Stiff Little Fingers (SLF), long led by singer-guitarist Jake Burns, and also boasting one other original, in bassist Ali McMordie...especially when you realize that the world of songs like "The American In Me" ("Ask not what your country can do/What's your country been doing to you"), or "Suspect Device" ("They play their games of power/They cut and mark the deck/They deal us to the bottom/But what do they put back?"), to name two respective examples, is (sadly and unfortunately) more relevant than they were back in the day, given all the crap that we're expected to keep on swallowing, economically and politically?

The Bottom Lounge itself is your standard issue neighborhood bar, not terribly fussy nor fancy, much like the bands themselves, I suppose. (Which is another way of saying, it's standing room only, literally -- I see one barstool in the corner that some punter has already commandeered for the night, leaving me pogoing on the balls of my feet for two hours. Such is life, I guess.)

The Avengers take the stage first, as Houston, decked out in black, recalls with a knowing laugh: "Last time we played here, it was, like, 92 degrees in the sun at Riot Fest. I thought I was gonna die, I thought it was gonna be our last set ever! Anyway, we're the Avengers, in case you didn't know..." And with that preamble out of the way, we're off to the races, as the band counts off and barrels through "Cheap Tragedies," "Thin White Line," and "Teenage Rebel," that still throb with all the meaning and menace that distinguished them when the band emerged in San Francisco, in 1977.

Ingraham proves deft and effective throughout the set, wringing feedback-laden leads as the mood requires -- from the faster efforts, like "We Are The One," to the midtempo one-two punch of "Corpus Christi" and "Uh Oh," and the night's lone slow burner, "The End Of The World," whose lyrics seem eerily apropos, in light of the Australian fires that ravaged their country ("Look down, your shadow's on fire/This day will blot out your past"). Houston describes it as "another one of these 40-year-old songs that is still applicable, sadly, today." 

The rhythm section of bassist Hector Penalosa (The Zeros), and drummer David Bach -- standing in for respective cohorts, Joel Reader and Luis Illades, of Pansy Division, who couldn't make this tour -- keeps the proceedings crisp and tight, without getting in the way. Houston's voice remains gutsy and strong as ever, a must for putting across the emotional terrain of songs like "Desperate" ("Gotta get out of here, there's nothing here for me"). She's up to the task, and then some.

A lighter mood makes itself felt, too, as Houston notes, when she introduces "1-2-3" as "an easy song to sing along to, if you can count to three." Steve Jones and Paul Cook ended up reworking it for their own band, The Professionals, after the ex-Sex Pistols guitarist produced some sessions for the Avengers. It's not hard to see why they found it attractive, once the song's punked-up Chuck Berry drive kicks in -- serving as a reminder of the band's strong singalong melodic instincts. 

The set ends with a romp through "Paint It, Black" (The Rolling Stones), emerging from a flurry of feedback-drenched howls and moans that Ingraham evokes so effortlessly, and "The American In Me," whose questioning of media and power structure priorities makes for a truly chilling counterpoint, coming after almost 20 years of imperialist wars that have driven our country into the red  ("It's the American in me says it an honor to die/in a war that's just a politician's lie"). Only "We Are The One" would have offered as strong, or even stronger closing note ("We are not capitalist industrialists/we are not communists/we are the one"). Either way, Penelope and company have made their mark, and their point, tonight.

So how do you follow that type of set? By keeping the temperature up, as Burns and his merry men -- McMordie, who rejoined in 2006, plus longtime drummer Steve Grantley, and guitarist Ian McCallum, who've held those spots since 1997 and 1993, respectively -- demonstrate with an opening salvo of songs from the Nobody's Heroes/Go For It era. At first, the sound levels hover near the underwater mark, though Jake's trademark rasp and Les Paul-driven leads cut through the murk admirably. 

By the third song ("Just Fade Away"), however, the soundman seems to figure out the balance, and it all comes together, in a flurry of downstroking, and rat-a-tat-tat drumming, driven along by the McMordie undertow. The audience responds with its own bursts of energy, one that leads Jake to describe the Windy City -- which has always boasted a fervent SLF following -- as "a bit of a hometown gig for me."

Officially, tonight's agenda focuses on the Inflammable Material album, released in 1979, which ranks among punk's unlikeliest success stories. Released by Rough Trade, SLF's debut became the first indie release to enter the UK chart, peaking at #14, and selling 100,000 copies -- a remarkable achievement for a band that had just been dropped by the major label who'd courted them (Island Records). (The affair inspired a key track on the album, "Rough Trade," which surely ranks alongside the Sex Pistols' "EMI" as one of the best anti-record label blasts ever committed to vinyl.)

As Jake notes, when introducing "Rough Trade," SLF had no expectations going into the recording, since "every record company on the planet had turned us down," he tells us. "So this was just make sure we had something to play to our grandkids, when we got old: 'This is what I did when I was young, and fuckin' stupid. Here we are, 40 years later, playing the same songs!" (Except for the last track, "Closed Groove," that is, for which Jake has always expressed disdain, and it's not hard to hear why -- as it's built atop a clunky, repetitive riff that had more common in post-punk, than SLF's full-blooded major chord blood and thunder.)

What's remarkable about Inflammable Material, once the band digs into it, is how well it stands up -- even its minor songs, like "Here We Are Nowhere," SLF's stab at Ramonehood, of which Jake cheerily says: "If this next one lasts more than a minute, we've done it wrong." They don't. So while its best-known tracks, like "Suspect Device," "Wasted Life," and "Alternative Ulster," are rightfully celebrated, lesser-known efforts like "Law And Order" and "State Of Emergency," deserve the same plaudits.

The band's 10-minute rumble through "Johnny Was" (Bob Marley) remains an equally noteworthy melding of rock and reggae, just as the Clash did, for instance, with Junior Murvin's "Police & Thieves," on their own debut album. I've also had a soft spot for "Breakout," which kick-started a tradition of escapist songs -- understandable for someone who grew up in Belfast, and the Catholic-Protestant conflict that racked the city -- and gets a suitably giddy reading here.

And, while the overall muzzle velocity remains uptempo, cranked up to 10, Jake's got the storyteller touch, as he periodically pauses to explain the inspiration behind certain songs, like "White Noise" -- an anti-racist song that "kind of backfired," he admits, because "we used the violent, disgusting language we could think of, to point out out the error of their ways, of these fucking knuckleheads."

The song's subsequent release on Inflammable Material prompted the city of Newcastle to bar the band from playing there, even after the local paper printed a photo of SLF "playing in front of this huge fucking banner that read, 'Rock Against Racism,'" Jake laughingly recalls. "There it is." The audience howls back its delight.

Jake's explanation of writing "Safe As Houses," from Go For It, is equally priceless -- a song that the band essentially stopped playing, because "I stupidly wrote in a key that was too fuckin' high for me to sing," he he recounts. "Now, I know what you're thinking: 'But Jake, any fuckin' decent musician will tell you, 'Just drop it a key, and sing it in that key.'" He pauses for the punchline. "That presupposes that we were decent musicians!"

Of course, Jake Burns and company are decent musicians -- well, way better than that, actually -- but such stories showcase a charming side. (This is the band, after all, that wrote, "No one is a nobody/Everybody is someone.") At times, the mood turns pensive, such as Jake's introduction of "My Dark Places," a song that tackles his struggles with depression. He notes that in the UK, 4,500 men take their lives every year, which amounts to one person every three hours ("It's pretty fucking terrifying, when you think about it in those terms"). It's one of the highlights from the band's last release, No Going Back (2014), which ranks among their best efforts.

Other highlights include the as-yet unrecorded "16 Shots," about the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, which makes an apt lead-in for the Inflammable Material songs, and one where Burns pushes his vocals to the emotional limit: "You got 16 shots, nine in the back/16 shots on a Chicago night/16 shots ended a young man's life!"

I can definitely relate to this song, having lived in Chicago during the mid- to late '90s, and saw how the Mayor Daleys and Emanuels of the world were already leaving entire neighborhoods to rot from malign neglect -- linguists, please withdraw the phrase "benign neglect" from the dictionary, as there's no such f#cking animal -- as they trampled each other to throw their city's huddled masses under the proverbial bus, in favor of those shadowy men behind the curtain (no women, because they're never invited to join that particular club). 

A one-two punch encore of "Tin Soldier" and "Gotta Getaway" powers the set to a close, and sends the crowd home happily across the finish line. But, as songs like "16 Shots" demonstrate, tonight's show isn't only a celebration of the band's history, "it's also a celebration of the future, and looking froward," as Jake notes. On this evidence, both SLF and The Avengers have plenty more to say. Catch them if you can, miss them at your peril.

SET LISTS
THE AVENGERS: Cheap Tragedies/Thin White Line/Teenage Rebel/Corpus Christi/Uh Oh/Desperation/We Are The One/I Want In/The End Of The World/1-2-3-4/Open Your Eyes/Car Crash/Paint It, Black/The American In Me  <https://www.penelope.net/>

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS
Roots, Radicals, Rockers, Reggae/Nobody's Heroes/Just Fade Away/Strummerville/At The Edge/My Dark Places/Safe As Houses/16 Shots/Suspect Device/State Of Emergency/Here We Are Nowhere/Wasted Life/No More Of That/Barbed Wire Love/White Noise/Breakout/Law & Order/Rough Trade/Johnny Was/Alternative Ulster/ENCORE: Tin Soldier/Gotta Getaway <https://slf.rocks/home-base>

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DAVID DANN MICHAEL MAKES HIS FEELINGS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR...
GUITAR KING: CHAIRMAN RALPH INTERVIEWS DAVID DANN ABOUT HIS NEW MICHAEL BLOOMFIELD BIOGRAPHY (7/28/19)
Nov 3, 2019

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

Permalink
KIM THAYIL MARCUS DURANT LETS IT ALL HANG OUT BRENDAN CANTY THE DETROIT COBRAS IN ACTION
"I GIVE YOU A TESTIMONIAL": MC50 IMPRESSIONS (20 MONROE LIVE, GRAND RAPIDS, MI, 9/22/18)
by Words: Chairman Ralph/Images: Don Hargraves
Aug 11, 2019

"Brothers and sisters, the time has come for each and every one of you to decide...whether you are gonna be the problem, or you are gonna be the solution!" 

The lights dim. The crowd steels itself, stirring at the familiar words ringing out over the PA system, spoken above an undertow of hand clapping that crackles with an impatient momentum all its own.

If you've bought a ticket, you know them well, as the opening spoken blast of Kick Out The Jams -- rapped out with apocalyptic gusto by JC Crawford, MC for those two nights of recording (10/30-31/68) that resulted in Kick Out The Jams, the MC5's audacious live debut album. 

"You must choose, brothers! You must choose! It takes five seconds! Five seconds of decision! Five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet!"

In the darkness, the musicians begin taking their places onstage. A ripple of drum sticks here, a stray power chord there. We're almost underway. Tonight's openers, The Detroit Cobras, just wrapped up, having roused the audience with their own stripped down brand of rock 'n' roll, filtered through the Detroit attitude of old.

"It takes five seconds to realize that it's time to move! It's time to get down with it! Brothers ... it's time to testify, and I want to know: Are you ready to testify? Are you ready?"

Now it's time for the main event, MC50, billed as a celebration of the MC5's music, in particular, and the incendiary spirit it embodied, in general. (Hence, the billing, to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Kick Out The Jams, and the searing year in which it arrived, in February 1969.)

Hearing Kick Out The Jams as a 16-year-old marked one of the happiest times of my life, one that inspired two questions. What kind of shock politics is this, I wondered, and why does all this Top 40 stuff sound so turgid and slow, by comparison? The minute I heard it, I didn't look back, and I didn't want to settle. 

"I give you a testimonial! The MC5!"

A full-throated roar greets the arrival of "Brother" Wayne Kramer, lead guitarist and next to last MC5 member standing, plus lead guitarist, Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), bassist Billy Gould (Faith No More), drummer Brendan Canty (Fugazi), and vocalist Marcus Durant (Zen Guerilla). (Drummer Dennis Thompson, the MC5's other remaining original, declined to take part in this outing, as Kramer noted on his Facebook page.)

No matter. Kramer and company waste no time getting down to business with the one-two punch of "Ramblin' Rose"...der-der-der-der-der, der-der-der-der-der-der...and "Kick Out The Jams," whose intro ("It's time to -- kick out the jams, m#therf#ckers," not, "Mother Superior") got the band in so much hot water so long ago. Kramer wrings fast, yet precise, volleys of notes from his red, white and blue Stratocaster -- really, how can Rolling Stone rank him 92nd on its 100 Greatest Guitarists? -- which Thayil answers with a thunderous authority of his own.

And that's how the next 45 minutes unfolds, more or less mirroring the original album running order -- save for "The Motor City Is Burning," which unexpectedly pops up as the third song in the set -- barreling along with the full-throated roar that you'd expect, without losing command of the groove, something that writers don't always seem to appreciate in lauding the band today. It's worth recalling that R&B ravers like "I Believe To My Soul" and "I Put A Spell On You," from Ray Charles and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, respectively, were staples of the MC5's set at the time, yet didn't make it onto Kick Out The Jams, for space reasons, presumably-- c'mon, Elektra, let's see an expanded CD edition with those leftovers. I can't imagine they're doing us any good, sitting on the shelf somewhere, taking up space in a vault!

The MC5 also regularly dipped into the well of free jazz, via their original guiding light and manager, John Sinclair, which "Starship" allows tonight's lineup to revisit, gloriously, complete with Durant squonking on clarinet -- you and Patti Smith, I remind myself, you and Patti Smith -- as you might have expected to hear them do at the time. Few bands navigated such different worlds, and lived to tell the tale, but that mixture of free-form exploration and sure-footed rock is an equally crucial aspect of the MC5's chemistry, and is no less so here tonight.

Durant proves the night's biggest surprise, managing to channel his inner Tyner -- as in Rob, the MC5's lead singer, who died in 1991 -- without merely copying him. It's a fine line to walk between tribute band, and finding space to interject your own personality on the proceedings, but Durant walks it well, between blasts of his own skilled harp playing.

The other big surprise is how Kramer and company apportion the remainder of the set, which leans heavily on Back In The USA ("Call Me Animal," "High School," "Let Me Try," 
Looking At You"), the MC5's controversial middle period album, and skimps on its swan song, High Time, save for a restrained, almost folky version of "Shakin' Street," and the fierce funk-rock protest anthem, "Future/Now." MC5 partisans undoubtedly split down the middle, in terms of their affections for this record or that, but the production issues often cited as a reason for not loving Back In The USA are nowhere in sight here; that's the beauty of live music, which can turn the stiffest album filler into a performance for the ages.

That's definitely true of "Let Me Try," a rare ballad that Durant handles with soulful aplomb, indeed, and a turbocharged romp through Van Morrison's "I Can Only Give You Everything," another unexpected highlight that induces plenty of head bobbing and fist waving action among the crowd. (Not for nothing did Michael Davis, the band's late bass player, cite those early self-released 45s, of which "Everything" is one, as his favorite recorded MC5 moments, when I interviewed him for my massive 1995 DISCoveries feature.)

The strangest aspect of the night is the half-full house that makes up in fervor what it lacks in numbers. The diehards, presumably, are pinching their pennies for the two-night Detroit stand that closes out this particular tour (10/26-27/18). I'm tempted to blame the ambience of 20 Monroe, which seems designed by a sadist -- one who made sure to charge 10 bucks for drinks (and plenty more for anything else), stick the bathroom on the second floor (which requires hiking a long flight of stairs, or waiting for an elevator), and leave no place to sit on the main floor. (Only afterwards do I learn that some chairs had been discreetly tucked away, off to the side...isn't that how it always works?) 

In some ways, though, the half-full head count makes the perfect metaphor for an underdog status that doesn't always ring the cash register, nor register on the official radar of approval (Madonna's in the Hall of Fame, but the MC5 isn't? Go figure, as they say). Yet it's impossible to imagine the darker, heavier strain of today's punk and metal without the declamatory blast that the MC5 harnessed to such devastating effect. It's a spirit that can't be copied or copped so easily, either, another quality that lifts kindred spirits like the New York Dolls, the Stooges and the Velvet Underground to greatness, right along with the Five. What do all these names have in common?

As the oft-quoted cliche goes, they didn't sell records by the gross, but most anyone everyone who heard them formed a band. It's the reason, I suspect, that Kramer seems genuinely moved by the reception he gets, as he notes slyly, at one point:
"I'm 70 years old, man. Believe me, man, I'm glad to be anywhere!" So am I, and so are we. Kick out the jams, indeed.

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Co-author Mark Andersen, at Merriweather Post Pavilion, just before hand-delivering copies backstage of We Are The Clash to Foo Fighters singer-guitarist Dave Grohl, and a friend. (PHoto by Chairman Ralph) Ralph poses after the Foo Fighters show at Merriweather Post Pavilion with a copy of We Are The Clash. (Photo by Mark Andersen) Ralph (right) makes a point during a signing/presentation with Mark Andersen (second, left) at Politics &amp; Prose, in Washington, D.C., which marked the first stop on their tour (July 6) to promote We Are The Clash. (Photo by Don Hargraves) Ralph and Mark work feverishly to sign copies for Politics &amp; Prose customers. About 150 showed up for the event, which also ran about 15 minutes over time -- a good sign of engaged they were! (Photo: Don Hargraves) A page from the scrapbook of Jo-Anne Henry, who hung out at Electric Lady Studios when the Clash were recording their best-selling album, COMBAT ROCK. According to Jo-Anne, who came to the Politics &amp; Prose signing, this was an early working tracklist. Wonder what became of &#34;Due In Kangaroo Court W1,&#34; and &#34;Fulham Connection&#34;? (Photo by: Chairman Ralph) Chairman Ralph (left) and Mark Andersen (second, left) with their audience before their presentation and signing at Brickbat Books. Mark suggested taking this photo, following the central idea expressed in &#34;We Are The Clash&#34; -- that the band is more than just people onstage, it also includes those who listen to them, and are inspired by them. (Photo: Frank Blank Moriarty) But someone&#39;s got to do it, right? Ralph and Mark (rear) sign book plates for We Are The Clash&#39;s publisher, Akashic Books, before the signing/presentation at the Book Cellar, in Chicago, IL (7/30). The book plates went inside copies of We Are The Clash for select patrons of a Kickstarter campaign, who asked for his signature, and that of co-author Mark Andersen, as part of their pledged contribution. (Photo by Lisa D. Quinlan) <br />
CHAIRMAN RALPH HITS THE ROAD TO PROMOTE WE ARE THE CLASH
Aug 23, 2018

Anyone can write a book. But only one thing matters, whether you convince someone else to take the risk, or self-publish – getting it over the finish line, and getting it out. For those who do make it – as Mark Andersen and I have managed, with our new book, We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher And The Last Stand Of A Band That Mattered (Akashic Books) – the result feels like running a marathon. You're elated and exhausted, and a little bit anxious, too. What will reviewers think, and how will people react?

Last month, I got to find out some answers to those questions, as I went on a book tour to the East Coast, after Akashic released We Are The Clash on July 3. While nearly everyone I knew looked forward to some badly-needed rest on July Fourth, I'd have to leave home for ten days, so I could join Mark for book signings in Washington, D.C. (July 6), Philadelphia (July 10), and New York (July 12).

We kept busy during our downtime, too, including a local radio interview in Takoma Park, MD (July 8), and a 45-minute one with our Philadelphia host, before our signing at Brickbat Books.

We squeezed in some related tasks, too, like hand-delivering a copy to Foo Fighters singer-guitarist Dave Grohl – backstage, no less, at the Merriweather Post Pavilion, after we'd caught the last hour of his band rocking a screaming, sold-out, 13,000-seat house.

For those who haven't toured the country, I definitely recommend figuring out how you're passing the time, because – like so many bands say – one mile blurs into the next, and one town doesn't look much different than the last one.

Or, as I told my friend Don, after stopping in Lucas County, Ohio, searching vainly for somewhere decent to eat around 10:30 p.m: “We must be on tour, all right. We're having dinner at McDonald's!”

But he'd volunteered to drive me down, right? That's the game.

Similar thoughts ran through my head on the return trip to St. Joseph, which required taking three trains – from New York, to Washington, D.C., and then, Chicago, and back home – for about 23 hours (no kidding!).

Sure, I got my fair share of sleep between all of these stops, but suffice to say, I felt like I'd run several marathons by the time it all ended. Still, We Are The Clash marks my second book with a Washington, D.C. area connection. My first book, Unfinished Business: The Life & Times Of Danny Gatton (Backbeat Books, 2003), focused on another previously untold story, that of Washington, D.C.'s late “Telemaster” of the guitar. I ended up making a major research trip to the area in 2001, and doing a couple of book signings in 2003, which is the last time I've made it out there.

For any author, book signings offer the nitty gritty flipside of all the hours that you put in – when you meet and greet readers, whether they've already bought your book, or waiting for you to sign it that night.

Whenever I felt my energy flagging, I'd think back on those nights, and the conversations I'd had. There's no other experience like it, which is why you do it.


“Pop Will Die”

We Are The Clash deals with the final two years of the British punk band's existence. That era started in 1983, when lead singer Joe Strummer kicked co-founding guitarist Mick Jones out of the band, which he aimed to remake in a leaner, harder-rocking, and more out aggressively political image. Only two years, however, the Clash would fall apart – and split up for good – after releasing its final album, Cut The Crap, in November 1985.

With help from three replacements – drummer Pete Howard, and guitarists Nick Sheppard and Vince White, all in their mid-20s – Strummer hoped to blow away the era's dominant trends of synth-pop and heavy rock. “Pop will die,” he vowed, “and rebel rock will rule.”

With rare exceptions, though, this story has only been told in bits and pieces. However, it's also one with a strong sociopolitical streak running through it, as our publisher's press release notes: “While the world teetered on the edge of the nuclear abyss, British miners waged a life-or-death strike, and tens of thousands died from U.S. guns in Central America, Clash cofounders Joe Strummer, (bassist) Paul Simonon, and (manager) Bernard Rhodes waged a desperate last stand after ejecting guitarist Mick Jones and drummer Topper Headon. The band shattered just as its controversial final album, Cut the Crap, was emerging.”

Suffice to say, We Are The Clash isn't just another sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll story – although all of those qualities make their appearance. As Mark and I feel, the issues that fired up the Clash's music through the '70s and '80s – and such heated political debate – still dog us today, whether it's social inequality, the growing political divide in American society, or workers' rights, to name only three.


“More Than A Footnote”

On those grounds alone, Mark and I hope that We Are The Clash will strike a chord with readers, whether they experienced them during the '80s, or didn't. And, whether they agree with our conclusions, or not, we also hope that our readers appreciate the human interest side of the story – including the Clash's May 1985 “busking” tour of northern Britain and Scotland, in which the band played impromptu “unplugged” sets for whoever showed up, and passed the hat after the finished, just like any other street performer.

It's an audacious idea that no major band has tried since, and one of many stories from this era of the Clash that haven't been told fully – until now. For Mark and I, We Are The Clash also puts an exclamation points on five long years of work, that also required launching a successful Kickstarter campaign, to help Akashic with the production costs – for which we raised $16,131, from 211 supporters.

What happens now is up to the public, and the reviewers – whose verdicts, so far, have proven sufficiently supportive, and encouraging, of what we've tried to do, such as this notice from Publisher's Weekly: “This is an inspiring take on the rock-band bio format, as much a political history of the 1980s as it is a look at an influential band in its final years. More than a footnote to the rise and fall of one of the last great rock bands.”

Six weeks or so after We Are The Clash dropped on the public, the road show behind has continued to roll on – with book signings in Chicago (July 30), where I joined Mark – who headed on to Minneapolis alone (August 1), and off to the West Coast, as part of his family vacation.

As usual, we squeezed in a couple joint radio interviews, too – If I need anymore inspiration, I'll only to recall Mark's words from our press release announcing the book: "I was a Clash fan from 1977 on, and the band was a tremendous inspiration for me as a teenager. But this period of The Clash -- for all its failures -- actually may have had an even bigger impact on the work I've done with Positive Force and other community projects since 1984."

For more information about We Are The Clash, visit www.akashicbooks.com.

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Here&#39;s what the bonus LP will look like -- if you get your hands on a copy this weekend! <br /> <br />(Photo: Crooked Beat Records)
CHAIRMAN RALPH APPEARS ON CROOKED BEAT LP RELEASE
Apr 16, 2018

Last Thursday, I got the thrill I'd awaited since this summer, when I recorded my contribution. RECUTTING THE CRAP VOL. 2 (Crooked Beat Records) landed, right on my doorstep, plus the bonus LP, THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN, which I ended up on. As the cliche goes, it's one thing to see any object on a screen, but a different feeling to hold it in your hand. And what a package it is -- the two photos I've posted only scratch the surface (so to speak: I'll post more images after this weekend).

RECUTTING THE CRAP picks up where last year's VOL. I release left off, with various Washington, D.C. area bands recasting songs from the Clash's final bow, and likely, its most controversial: Cut The Crap (1985), as well as the handful of unreleased tracks that have circulated mainly in tape trading and bootleg circles ("In The Pouring, Pouring Rain," "Jericho," and so on) all these years. 

THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN, for which I recorded "Beyond The Pale" (Big Audio Dynamite), rounds up the various Joe Strummer-Mick Jones collaborations that they managed after the Clash broke up, including those that made it on record (notably, the second BAD album, No. 10, Upping St.), and those that didn't (such as "Dog In A Satellite," and "US North," which BAD actually played on their spring 1987 tours). I also wrote the liner notes, as well (while my compatriot, Mark Andersen, with whom I co-authored We Are The Clash, did the honors on VOL. I).

Crooked Beat will release both albums on Record Store Day, which is Saturday, April 21. This edition is limited to 1,000 copies, so act fast, if you want a copy, as they tend to go quickly. For more information, see: http://www.crookedbeat.com/.

For "Beyond The Pale," I carried the full instrumental load (bass, acoustic and electric guitars), and sang the song, while my longtime friend, Don Hargraves, did the drum programming, helped me work out the arrangement, and produced the track. We largely recorded it in August 2017, with additional touch-ups and remixing completed in October.

I chose to record this song for one simple reason: its central theme ("Immigration built this nation/You got a bloodclot standing here"), which provoked no less argument at the time of its release (1986) than it does nowadays. Some of Joe's most powerful and provocative lyrics are here, particularly this line: "If I was in your shoes/I'd say Soweto's gonna happen here, too." Not surprisingly, many fans see it as the "great lost Clash song".

More pertinently, I relate to this song on a personal level, since my late parents came from Germany to the USA...though they went three times, before they finally decided to stay here for good, during the 1960s. Like many people in that era, they simply hoped to build a better life -- as the so-called German "economic miracle" was still a long way off -- without clamoring for undue attention from the powers that be.

That attention waxes and wanes, depending on the level of demagoguery attached to it, and whether the haters manipulating it think they can get away with it. I still hold strong memories of the '90s, when the Republican-controlled Congress floated ideas to cut off legal immigrants, as well as their illegal brethren. I'd never seen my father so angry in my life -- it was "intergalactic," as Miles Davis's biographer observed of the late trumpeter's equally explosive outbursts.

Thankfully, that mania passed, but Trump's ascendancy -- and determination to punish all who disagree with him, legal or illegal -- is a warning not to relax too deeply, or risk sliding into banana republic status. Ironically, I might not have ended up in our current political situation, had my father gotten his first wish: Australia. He wanted to go there first, but couldn't get in, due to strict labor quotas in place at the time.

I often think of how differently my life would have turned out, in a country several time zones away...one of many associations that comes to mind when I listen to "Beyond The Pale," or play it live.

Now, all I need is a record player to hear it...and I'll be in business!

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Desperate Times, Issue #1, as it unfolded on the layout table. (Photo by: Ralph Heibutzki)
DESPERATE TIMES 'ZINE: NEWS & REVIEWS
May 24, 2017

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.

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...which included (left) the founder of Black Lives Matter, while the gent on the right read an amusing story about horses. ...which I&#39;ve included, just so you can get an idea of what the space was like. This came during a brief lull in the action, as the room stayed busy nearly all afternoon. ONE OF THE 'ZINES THAT I BOUGHT ("PRAY 4 PUNK") Written by R. Hendricks, this story of an autistic guy&#39;s 1991 disappearance in Grand Rapids kept me turning the pages...and broke my heart, as well. Check it down for yourself, and find out! Matt Feazell, the mastermind behind &#34;The Amazing Cynicalman&#34; series, gave a 90-minute workshop showing you to make mini-comics...so my fellow attendees and I can add that to our list of creative achievements! ...as Matt shows off his completed mini-comic at the end of his workshop: DIY production at its finest.
GR ZINE FEST WRAPUP (7/25/15)/ANNOUNCING THE 'ZINE: "DESPERATE TIMES"
Aug 2, 2015

The hunger for something tangible seems all the rage these days -- as anyone witnessing the return of vinyl can attest. The same situation seems to apply to 'zines, those gloriously cut 'n' pasted, hand-designed, errantly-stapled samizdat dispatches from some alternate universe where nobody gives a rat's ass about celebrity A-list circle-jerking...the latest auto-tuned pop something-or-other phenom...let alone the latest installment in some mercifully forgotten movie franchise.

No, 'zines serve a purpose, and more people seem to have reached the same conclusion, judging by the turnout I witnessed at the Grand Rapids Zine Fest (7/25/15), which took place at the Kendall College of Art and Design's Fed Galleries. Having planned on doing a 'zine myself for some time now, I decided to go and see how the field looked. After all, pundits and scenesters alike had been sounding the death knell of 'zines since the 2000s, when blogs seemed to have taken over the space that they'd occupied. The '90s era of zinesters-make-good-now-here's-your-book-deal seemed as unthinkable as an ashtray on a motorbike.

However, the energy on display in the room said something else to me, as my wife and I made the rounds of tables -- from anarchist-oriented, to feminist, to personal and back again, all the passion on display made me want to pursue my objective that much more. Given the heavy hand of tech developments like "Mobilegeddon," all of a sudden, paper looks like a better and better bet: you can hold it in your hand, you can put it down again. Hey, what a concept! I suspect that's one reason for developments like the return of vinyl records, and the apparent rebound of indie bookstores.

The day's bigger draws included Matt Feazell, best known for his series of mini-comics: "The Amazing Cynicalman." Fittingly enough, he gave a workshop on the subject -- and, 90 minutes later, I found myself creating my first one! Now that's energy in action, I say. The afternoon concluded with a workshop, where several exhibitors read from their own 'zines -- and, though I didn't have a table, I was able to read excerpts from one of my own 'zine's forthcoming articles. Hear it for yourself on the "Featured Songs" portion of this site.

Somewhere, somehow, an inner ring of true believer is doing its best to keep the cause alive, which makes me want to sign up all the more. The nature of instant publication is hard to deny, especially when you're used to publications sitting on your ideas for weeks -- or even months -- at a time, only to say "NO" anyway...or, worse, seeing them watered down through sheer attrition in the editing process.

While I can't leave these developments behind just yet, I've dedicated that it's time for my own outlet, my 'own zine -- and its name is DESPERATE TIMES, which will combine my lifelong love of outsider music and art with personal commentary, essays and reflections on whatever topic or issue might strike my fancy (though it'll most likely come wrapped up in a social bent). I'm working on it this week as I speak -- creating a look that dips into the currents of Punk and Mod, without permanently dropping anchors into the choppy waters of the past.

DESPERATE TIMES will cut through the fog of those '77-era ills that seem stronger and more noxious than ever -- cultural apathy, glaring social inequity, mindless media content, and narrowing of opportunities for the majority -- with humor, without a concern for the passing of trends, or falling into the common traps of art/cynicism for its own sake, or making lengthy lists of rules that everybody else but the compilers feel obliged to follow. DESPERATE TIMES will offer a voice to music and the culture on the margins, and -- in the process -- reclaim a space outside mainstream cliches of "elevator speeches", "media platforms" and "staying on message." DESPERATE TIMES will stake out a presence away from the gatekeepers' mindless power games of "thumbs up, thumbs down, what else you got, kid?"...and, hopefully, leave its own lasting imprint.

What happens from this point? Stay tuned, as I begin assembling the final product, and figuring out the usual distribution/promotion issues...but all I know is, after seeing all that energy on display, I don't feel like standing still.

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Vaughan MacKay: &#34;This shot was taken at a lake. somewhere in Southland. Maybe Lake Manapouri, as we played a show near there..Looks like we were dressed up to play. Would have had a bit to drink on the bus as it was a three hour trip.&#34; Vaughan MacKay: &#34;This would have been a few weeks after he (Mason) joined the group. He ordered a Ludwig Kit. It hadn’t arrived so he was using Phil&#39;s [Sharman&#39;s) Premiers. (They used to be mine). According to Vaughan, don&#39;t let the date in the background sign fool you -- &#34;it was from an agricultural show (of) the previous year.&#34; Vaughan MacKay: &#34;I used a Gretsch this night. What a terrible guitar. I was usually using a cherry Gibson 345 stereo, and that spoilt me.&#34; Woodend takes its name from one of New Zealand&#39;s early settlers (Thomas Woodend), and is quite small (population: 2,637, according to the 2006 Census).  <br /> <br />However, the band had other reasons for playing there, as Vaughan MacKay explains:  <br /> <br />&#34;In New Zeland at that time it was illegal to have alcohol in night clubs or public dances. We used to hire the Woodend Hall, print $2.00 invitations and sell them prior to the night...Private do, you could drink as much as you liked. We did this a few times. You can imagine how popular these nights were!!&#34; DAVE HOGAN (LEFT)+VAUGHAN MACKAY SHARE A LIGHT MOMENT According to Vaughan MacKay, this color snapshot dates from late 1969,  &#34;when Phil rejoined the group on bass, or shortly after that when Dave went to live in Melbourne.&#34;
"THE CROWDS WERE ALL IMPORTANT": VAUGHAN MACKAY RECALLS THE UNKNOWN BLUES' LIFE+TIMES (8/9/14)
by Words: Chairman Ralph/Images: Vaughan MacKay Archives
Aug 16, 2014

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.

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