Rock 'N' Roll and the Cycle of Life : Farewell, Eddie Van Halen

So many musicians and public figures have passed away in the past ten years, especially since the 2016 triple whammy of Lemmy (Dec ‘15, actually), David Bowie, and Prince. Some people at that time blamed the year. If we just got out of 2016, no more old rock stars would die, as through old people would stop aging or getting sick in 2017.

 But time kept rambling on, and we saw more icons die, and not only Boomer ones - Tom Petty, Peter Tork, Chris Cornell, Dolores O’ Riordan, George Michael,  Fast Eddie Clarke, Vinnie Paul, Aretha Franklin, Paul Raymond, Pete Way, Paul Chapman, Kim Shattuck, Pete Shelley, Ginger Baker, etc.

 Someone asked me, "What future rock star death do you think will affect you the most?”

“Eddie Van Halen,” I said. “It’s all over after that.”

 Now of course I didn’t mean that the world or my life would be over. It would be the end of an era, a definitive sign that the younger Boomers/older Gen Xers needed to address their mortality, instead of mindlessly clamoring on like our music and pop culture still matter to the population at large. Rock music started to wither in mainstream culture in the late 90s, and was relegated to a genre for old people sometime in the ‘10s. Yeah, lots of kids are forming guitar-based bands and putting out new music, but now it’s just one of dozens of music genres on Spotify, not a rallying cry for a generation.

 

From 1978 to 1984, I must have listened to all the DLR-era Van Halen albums hundreds of times, read every magazine article, bought every poster, and listened to every radio/TV interview with the band I could find. Sure, my girlfriends and I spent an inordinate amount of time giggling about DLR’s latest antics, but every time we went to a VH show, we always sat (or stood) by Eddie’s side of the stage. It reminded me of an interview I saw a long time ago with some teen-age girls during the Beatles’ first tour of America. The interviewer asked them what they liked about the band, and three of the girls squealed about how cute and funny they were. The fourth girl said, “They have the most beautiful sound,” her voice almost drowned out by the other girls’ high-pitched giggles. 

 Dave was the face and voice of VH, but Eddie was the heart – and the soul.

   2015 Smithsonian interview

David Bowie’s death broke the internet for a week, but the news cycle is different now. Eddie’s passing floored people for a day or two, but politics kicked him off the social media and the usual bickering returned the next day. The only people who cared after that were people in Van Halen fan groups, musicians, or rock writers. Eddie may have been important to us, but, lets face it, he was a guitar hero from the ‘80s to most people, another nostalgic figure. To fans and musicians, he was much more. He was an innovator and a legend, younger Boomers’ Jimi Hendrix.

 Vernon Reid of Living Colour, wrote on Twitter

 "So you think the death of EVH is hitting you now. It’s not. Grief doesn’t work that way. Tomorrow is going to be worse than today. His passing is enormous. Exploitation will follow, like t shirts for Kobe. Don’t be too proud to cry. This is a sad time. Tears are appropriate." 

Eddie Van Halen passed away from throat cancer on Oct. 6. It’s a month later, and I’ve finally overcome the shock. I’d been doing pretty well on my new routine, avoiding Facebook and other social media for most of the day. Yay! More time to actually do work and be happy. You should try it sometime. I took a break for a mid-day check on Facebook. Wolf’s post about Eddie was at the top of my newsfeed. This can’t be real. I thought, and I stared at the post for a good 30 seconds. Finally, I accepted reality. Eddie was gone. I watched all the videos and interviews I could find, including clips with Eddie and Valerie Bertinelli from Entertainment Tonight that I hadn’t seen since 1982. I remembered every word and every gesture they made like I was watching it back in my childhood home 38 years ago. My friends and I were excited, and yes, a little jealous, when Valerie married Eddie, but we were big fans of Valerie’s since we first saw her on One Day at a Time. Better that Ed married a nice Italian girl (well, Italian/English) than some gold-digging blonde bimbo. 

 

After Eddie died, I said “Well, at least Dave will live to be 100. “Don’t say that -you'll jinx him! You said Pete Way would outlive Keith Richards, and look what happened there.” my friend responded. Way, UFO’s former bass player and leader of Waysted in the late ‘80s, survived decades of alcoholism, heroin and cocaine abuse, prostate cancer, and a heart attack, and then died after falling down the stairs in his home. He had been sober for years. He still hung on for weeks in the hospital, and was scheduled to return home the day he died. A world concert tour had been planned for 2021.

                                                        You Really Got Me Promo Video

  I first heard Van Halen on a TEAC turntable in our wood paneled basement. My brothers had commandeered the space. It  had a pool table, a silk Camaro banner. and a beer can collection.  One of my brothers grabbed an album from the shelf, in between the Ramones “Rocket to Russia” and D.O.A.’s “Bloodrock”. I didn’t even need to listen to the album right away – the photos on the front and back covers got your attention.  The photos were different than what I’d seen before. Instead of the usual posed group shot with band members in jeans and t-shirts, or some obscure conceptual art, the cover grabbed you and made you want to hear what was inside.

 Eddie looked fierce, and Dave, well, he had that Jim Dandy swagger, leather pants, and could do a backbend. Alex and Michael were obscured by lightning streak special effects, but still looked cool.

 It’s  a good thing the record company didn’t rush through the original new wave album cover. The cover was an example of the old-school thinktank record company mentality. Let’s do what the punk bands are doing - that’s the hot thing in England now. Yeah, let’s also shoot a cover that misrepresents the band’s music and their personalities. In the old days,  an album cover could be the difference between an impromptu purchase in a record store and a pass over.  

We put the record on. The first notes of “Runnin’ with the Devil” grabbed you like an alien life force. What was that sound? Where did it come from?  We couldn’t breeze through the usual comparisons to other bands or guitar players. Did the guitar remind us of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, UFO? Nah, this was something else.

 As loud as it was on normal volume, we turned the volume up until the windows rattled and you could visualize the power, the force of the music shattering the glass until it rained shards on the neatly landscaped front lawn.

 The first copy of Guitar Player I ever bought had an interview with Eddie in it. But my girlfriends and I still hung up cute pics of Eddie from Circus and Hit Parader, and some of us even raided our younger sisters' 16 magazines for pin-ups.

Like a dummy, I gave away my ticket to see Black Sabbath before I knew Van Halen was opening for them. I made up for it in 1979, when I saw VH headline at the Arrogant Brawlroom (aka Aragon Ballroom) in Chicago. I took two buses and two subway lines all the way to Uptown to see the show. In those days, everybody partied in the alley behind the venue while they waited to get in the building. You didn’t really need booze or pot, the music got you high enough, but sharing pot and booze with the kids next to you was a social thing. It was a great way to meet people and make friends.

The kids at the sold-out Aragon show were true music nerds, Van Halen II had just been released so the “normal” kids hadn’t heard of them yet. We didn’t need to compete with drunken jocks and their bored girlfriends for space by the front of the stage.

 Eddie wore a striped jacket and velour-type pants. He looked cute as hell, the grinning genius to David’s bravado. Even on the Aragon stage without mountains of amps and video screens behind them, they were larger than life. The show was hot, sweaty and primal. You could feel the notes from Eddie’s guitar, not just hear them. There were no barricades between the band and the kids crammed up in front like there are today. I could almost touch Eddie's white sneakers.   

 

                                      Here’s an 8mm clip from the Fresno show on that tour.

 1980-1982

The next year, a girlfriend and I had the International Amphitheatre’s main floor to ourselves as we watched the band rehearse. Eddie, Alex, and Michael were there but Dave was off doing Dave things.  In 1981, another friend and I hung out backstage  -that is, until I insisted on going out to watch the show. We couldn’t get backstage again. My friend was mad about that. But that’s what I get for wanting to watch the actual concert.  In ’82, we were back in the 20^th row.

 After the first two years or so, a Van Halen concert turned into a circus, with Dave as the ringmaster. Everyone else pitched in - Michael had a Jack Daniels bass, Eddie, always smiling, leapt in the air, or took a break to puff on a cigarette during solos. Alex poured beer on himself after playing a solo, and inflatable love dolls, groupies, etc. filled the venues. 

 I’ve seen hundreds of concerts, but I’ve never had more fun than I did at a Van Halen show.

 US Festival

 Naturally, my most memorable Van Halen concert was also their most infamous - the US Festival in 1983. I’d just moved to California, and didn’t know many people, but that didn’t stop me from going to the desert to see the mighty Van Halen headline Heavy Metal Day. My vision of the band was slightly obscured by barriers and a million dollar set up, but with a bit of neck-craning I could see ‘em.  Once again, I stood right up in front on Eddie’s side of the stage as he played his iconic solo.

At one point in the show, Dave pointed out that this metal day attracted 200,000 people, (the highest of the four day fest). An endless horizon of people stretched out as far as the eyes could see, with the spotlights illuminating the stoned throngs.

 I made my way out to the chartered bus after the show, and sat next to a shaggy-haired entrepreneur who made studded leather wristbands. I bought one, and wore it proudly to  shows and clubs that summer (along with my Union Jack shirt and leather pants.)

 Last Show

I bought a cassette of 5150 at Tower Records on Sunset Strip in 1986. I'd watch videos and interviews with the band on MTV in the late '80s and '90s, and I may have even bought a few cassingles (remember those?) However, that was the extent of my history with Sammy-era Van Halen. 

I didn’t see Van Halen again until their last show in 2015 at Hollywood Bowl. (Unbeknownst to us at the time, it would be their last show ever.) This time we sat in the cheap seats. But the cheap seats were rocking with vociferous fans. "Just sing the song, Dave", one woman kept screaming when Dave went into his between song novellas. “But when did Dave ever just “sing the song”?, I said. The highlights for me were Eddie’s solo and even Alex’s drum solo. It brought me back to my carefree college days. I didn’t want the concert to end. Eddie still had the same boyish grin as he did what he was born to do. I felt like I was 19 again.

We held out hope that VH would return one more time with Michael Anthony as bass player. The official word was that a tour with Dave and Mike was scheduled for 2019, but was canceled due to Ed’s health.

 

 Those days or nights spent listening to music on headphones, or blasting the stereo while enjoying a joint or a beer (or Pepsi and bag of chips for the junk food junkies among us ) are precious memories now.  There were no streaming services, Playstations, or DVDs back then, and an MTV fix wasn't enough. When you listened to music, it was the main course, not a blip in the background. You immersed yourself in every song, every album, over and over again until they were ingrained in your consciousness. 

 I wish I could remember more from that first show. But every time I hear Van Halen II or see the few clips from 1979 shows, I get the same flutter of excitement I had when the band first took the stage that night at the Aragon.

Maya Angelou once said, “You may not remember what people said, you may not remember what people did, but you always remember how they made you feel.” Well, Eddie, we remember what you did, but we also remember the utter joy of hearing you play and watching you perform.

Thanks for everything. We love you.

Music Review: Blvds of Splendor by Cherie Currie

In today's world of streaming music, with every song imaginable  a click away, it's hard to stay focused on an entire album. But you can still find gems that keep even the most ADHD-challenged music listener interested. You can listen to the digital version of Cherie Currie’s album Blvds of Splendor straight through, and come back for seconds. There’s not one bad song on Blvds. You won’t need to skip around to get to the good stuff, or buy a few tracks because the rest of the songs aren’t up to par.

The tracks were recorded in 2010 and 2011 for an album on Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records, but the release was delayed until 2019.  On Record Day 2019,  Blackheart released a limited edition red vinyl album of Blvds of Splendor. It sold out almost immediately.

The digital download of the album, released in late April of this year, contains three songs not on the red vinyl. Matt Sorum (Guns ‘N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver) produced Blvds of Splendor and played drums on all the cuts. Most of the songs were written or co-written by Cherie and her son,  Jake Hays. Jake is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer. His debut album, Room 13, is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. 

 The album blasts off with “Mr. X”. Slash and Duff MacKagan  give extra oomph to this already bombastic song about a fiery ex-lover. (Slash and Currie previously played together for a benefit in 2013 along with Lita Ford.)

“Roxy Roller” an early glam hit for the Canadian band Sweeny Todd (with Nick Gilder  and later Bryan Adams) Canadian surely played at Rodney’s English Disco and the Sugar Shack.  Nick Gilder and Suzi Quarto recently joined Cherie for a quarantine version of the song.  

Currie clears the cobwebs off “What Would All the People Say?”, a minor hit for the Monroes in 1982. The other covers include a funky version of the Tommy James hit “Dragging the Line”. The moving, string-infused take on the Hollies’ “The Air that I Breathe” brings the song to another level.  Currie’s earthy voice has matured and lends more poignancy to the lyrics. (Even in the Runaways, at 16, she had a bluesy tinge to her voice.)

“Rock & Roll Oblivion” features a rich, haunting pastiche of E-bows and thundering guitars. It’s tale of a survivor who has earned her “scars of wisdom”, and the song exhibits a lot of raw emotion.

 The title track, co-written by Billy Corgan, showcases Currie’s melodic skills. The song has a pleasant, hummable chorus, and Cherie and Billy’s voices blend well. Blvds of Splendor is the kind of song that would sound great blaring out of a car radio (aka Siruis) on a summer day.

 The catchy anthem “Force to Be Reckoned With” (co-written by Holly Knight), charges along with a steamroller rhythm, and “Breakout” has the gritty tone of an AC/DC or Thin Lizzy album cut. The feisty “You Wreck Me” calls out an ex-lover, and the Gina Gershon-penned “Gimme”  is a declaration of independence by a woman who knows what she wants.   

The Runaways have influenced decades of female musicians, and a few of them make an appearance on this album. The digital only version of “Queens of Noise” features an all-star cast of Brody Dalle, Juliet Lewis, the Veronicas on back-up vocals.

Blvds of Splendor kicks ass, whether you categorize it as hard rock, pop-rock, or melodic rock. It’s reminiscent of many hard-rock albums released from the ‘70s to the early ‘90s, attitude-wise. Modern production and more sophisticated lyrics bring the sound  into the 21^st century without sacrificing the edge.    

Blvds is one of the most engaging hard rock albums I’ve heard in the last decade.  Currie certainly deserves a nomination for best hard rock/metal performance for the 2021 Grammys, and the songwriting and production are top-notch as well.

 From Cherry Bomb to Chainsaw Chick

The photos of Currie singing onstage in a white corset with the Runaways have become some of the most iconic rock images of the 1970s. Runaways’ taskmaster/music impresario Kim Fowley initially envisioned Currie as the rock Brigitte Bardot, but she eclipsed that image almost immediately. Her voice and stage presence were sheer rock attitude. The band turned out to be much more than a vehicle for Fowley’s jailbait fantasies.

Joan Jett and Lita Ford have been rock stars in their own right for decades. Jackie Fox became an entertainment lawyer after leaving the band. Sandy West released a solo EP in 2000, and is included on many top female drummer lists.

Bassist Vicki Tischler-Blue, who replaced Fox, made the Runaways documentary Edgeplay in 2004.  Currie’s 1989 autobiography Neon Angel inspired the 2010 movie The Runaways. 

 Since Currie left the Runaways in 1978, she has reinvented herself many times as an actress, a drug counselor, chainsaw artist, and, of course, a solo musical artist. Her two post-Runaways albums, Beauty’s Only Skin Deep and Messin’ with the Boys (with sister Marie) boasted many catchy pop-rock tunes, but neither album made a dent in the U.S. chart.

Currie starred in two movies that have become cult classics. Wavelength, an indie sci-fiction movie, seemed to be inspired by an alleged UFO event in California. She played  ill-fated Annie in the teen drama, Foxes, along with Jodie Foster. (Fun Fact: Curie was up for the Riff Randall (P.J. Soles) role in Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, but turned it down to be in Foxes. )

Currie’s 2015 solo album Reverie (her first album since Messin with the Boys) was produced by Kim Fowley shortly before his death. Cherie’s son Jake Hays played guitar, bass, keyboards and co-wrote several of the songs with Cherie. Fowley co-wrote two songs “Queen of the Asphalt Jungle” and “Dark World” with Cherie and Jake.

Lita Ford delivers lead vocals on remakes of two Runaways “Is It Day or Night?” and “American Nights”. This comeback album proves that Currie’s still had the chops to rock out (and outdo) many female vocalists half her age.

The Motivator, released in 2019 by Blue Elan Records, featured Cherie and Fanny drummer/singer Brie Darling rocking nine cover songs and three originals. It’s obvious a lot of thought went into both the selection and execution of the covers on this album. The original versions of “Gimme Shelter” and “Gimme Some Truth” are pretty much ingrained in the public consciousness,  so it takes guts to even tackle them, much less perform them as well as Currie and Darling did here. The title song, T-Rex’s “The Motivator” has an infectious, danceable groove. The original tune “This is Our Time” offers an empowering message on the present – and the future. “Too Bruised” exposes the  vulnerable side of a woman letting go of a failed love affair.  “I’m Too Good, That’s Just Too Bad” is a grown-up version of “Cherry Bomb” and other strutting Runaways’ anthems. “Do It Again” by the Kinks and the 1960s’ Flower Power anthem “Get Together”, originally by the Youngbloods, round out the covers.   

Currie makes a living as a chainsaw artist carving wood sculptures with a chainsaw. In 2016, she had a near fatal accident while carving. It took her a year to recover, and she then resumed her music and art careers. You can see photos of her chainsaw art at Chainsawchick.com.

Book Review: Set The Night On Fire: L.A. in the Sixties by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener

Set The Night on Fire:

L.A. In the Sixties

By Mike Davis and Jon Weiner

It’s been 50 years since the Kent State shootings. On May 4, 1970, four students –

Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glen Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder were shot and killed by National Guard Soldiers. The incident was just one of the high profile events that symbolized the social unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s. 

A few key images come to mind when you think about the  antiwar and civil rights era. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, the marches in Selma, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the Black Panthers, the assassinations of President Kennedy, RFK, and Martin Luther King.

But every city and college town had its own political and social movements. Some of these groups were truly underground, while others appeared in local newspaper articles and made their presence known to the police and the “establishment.”

 Set the Night on Fire, an ambitious study from Verso Books covers the left-wing socio-political movement in Los Angeles in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The book was written by two respected journalists long affiliated with the counterculture.  Mike Davis was a member of the Communist Party in California in the 1960s and a local organizer for the Students for a Democratic Society. His previous books include City of Quartz. Jon Weiner hosts the Start Making Sense podcast   He wrote Gimme Some Truth about the FBI files on John Lennon.

The book’s title comes from the Doors “Light My Fire” and the introduction features a brief statement from John Densmore of the Doors about life in the ‘60s L.A.

Set the Night on Fire gives us a well-rounded look at the growing fight for the rights of women, gays, African-Americans, and Mexican-Americans in the 60s’ L.A. as well as the anti-war movement. Many of the events and organizations mentioned in the book have been lost to history and relegated to newspaper archives.

The Stonewall riots in New York’s West Village is the most famous example of  demonstrations at a gay bar in the 1960s, and it brought gay rights into the mainstream media. The New Year’s Eve raid at Black Cat Tavern in Silverlake in 1967, and the subsequent uprising predated Stonewall by two years but is rarely mentioned today.

Many people have affixed the colorful LOVE stamp on letters at one time or another. This design, created by Sister Corita Kent of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles,  was one of the counterculture silkscreens. The Sister used her art partially to protest the Vietnam War and other social issues.  Her stance caused problems with the L.A. Archdiocese’s conservative leader, Francis McIntyre. She met with anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan,created a silk screen inspired by the Watts Riots, and exhibited her art all over the world. She left Immaculate Heart in 1968 and continued making art. The iconic LOVE stamp was issued in 1984.

Liberal media was relegated to occasional public access TV shows or public radio.

The public radio station KPFK first broadcast its blend of unorthodox cultural and news programming that appealed to the beatnik crowd in 1959.  The first shows included performances by Pablo Casals and poet Kenneth Rexroth Other programs featured interviews with Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and programs opposing the Vietnam War. The station broadcast the first news reports from North Viet Nam. The station even sponsored one of the first Renaissance Pleasure Fairs to raise funds. The station is best known however, for airing Tania (Patty Hearst’s) manifesto shortly after she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. 

The L.A. Free Press, first published in 1964, was distributed in coffeehouses and streetcorner vending boxes. It covered local elections and protests, popular culture, the music scene, and even had a sex advice column. The paper’s staff was instrumental in organizing events, including  a black neighborhood forum in Watts and various concerts. Unsurprisingly, the FBI, the L.A. police, and other powers-that-be tried to close down the offices or accuse the press of publishing pornography.

The two most familiar musical happenings in L.A. to out-of-towners, 1972’s Wattstax and the Sunset Strip riots, have short chapters here. Wattstax was part of a week-long festival that had been held yearly since the Riots in 1965. The 1966 riots on Sunset Strip were a reaction to the curfew established on the Whiskey and other clubs on the Strip. The musicians and teen club-goers considered this an assault on their rights. The ensuing demonstration by teens resulted in many innocent protesters being beaten by cops.  For more detail about the riots, read Dominic Priore’s excellent Riot on the Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood

While white middle-class kids rallied against nightclubs being closed early, black and Chicano youth were dealing with more substantive issues. In East L.A., Chicano high school and college students fought for their rights to a better education, more jobs, and as a protest against unfair school policies. Around the same time in early 1967, students at a mostly black high school near downtown walked out to protest unfair conditions.  

By the time the Watts exploded in 1965, poor black people had been subject to search and seizure for the slightest real (or perceived) infraction. When the police arrested  Marquette Frye, a parolee for reckless driving, a scuffle ensued. Frye’s arrest looting and rioting began in the commercial section of Watts and spread throughout the area. During the riots, over 3,000 people were arrested and hundreds of businesses were looted or burned.  Davis and Weiner break down the events day-by-day, with a chapter and follow it up with a chapter on the McCone’s Commission’s report on the riot’s underlying causes.  

Protests against the Vietnam War accounted for the biggest swath of demonstrations across the country, and LA was no exception. On June 23, 1967, while a fundraiser was being held for President Lyndon B. Johnson inside the Century Plaza hotel, over 10,000 protesters congregated outside. The police ordered the crowd to move back; the crowd was packed so tightly many of them couldn’t move. Cops swung at the crowd with batons, striking men, women, and a mother with a baby in a stroller, according to eyewitness accounts. The mainstream press headlines the next day made it sound like the police responded to a violent mob that had attacked them.

Media in the ‘60s was slanted towards the powers-that-be, with the hippies portrayed as the Godless enemies of the people.  All you have to do is look at the raw footage from the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago to know this was an ongoing, nationwide thing back then.

Set The Night on Fire provides a comprehensive overview of how every disenfranchised group in L.A. in the ‘60s fought for their rights. The represented groups include Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, hippies, rock musicians and gay people. The information is all the more potent when you realize that these events occurred in less than a decade. The seeds for the most notable social and political changes in the late 20th Century took place between 1965 and 1973.

The book shows how rapidly society was changing, with interlocking movements challenging the status quo despite resistance. Old-guard politicians like L.A. Mayor Sam Yorty and Governor Ronald Reagan weren’t going to give up power easily, but the die was cast for the progressive politics of the late 20^th and early 21^st Century.

 At over 800 pages, Set the Night on Fire may be too detailed for many readers. However, it is an indispensable tool for students of California history, civil rights, and sociology.   

Buy Set the Night on Fire on Amazon

The Veggees - 1980s Retro Rock Comic Strip and Music Video

Limited number of 1.5 inch buttons available - 1980s comic strip “The Veggees” all-girl band logo. Message me at jade at jadeblackmore.com if you want a button. 

CD Review - Cosmic Partners: The McCabe Tapes - Michael Nesmith with Red Rhodes

Cosmic Partners: The McCabe Tapes captures Michael Nesmith at the height of his powers as a country rock pioneer. In the early 1970s, Nez released classic LPs, including Nevada Fighter, Loose Salute, Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash, and Magnetic South. A few songs from those albums are featured on this CD, a Nesmith/Red Rhodes show recorded at McCabes Guitar Shop in Santa Monica on August 18, 1973.

Several other concerts have been released as live albums, including shows by Mike Bloomfield, Townes Van Zant and Henry Rollins. McCabe’s is still going strong today.  

This CD features a show as it was recorded, directly from the soundboard. The show was transferred from analogue tapes and cleaned up for McCabe Tapes. The sound is clear and crisp the instruments have retained their vibrancy from almost 47 years ago.

The show opens with “Tomorrow and Me”, a dirge to broken love. Rhodes’ pedal steel cushions the despair of Nesmith’s bittersweet lyrics with blips of vibrancy.  

                                                                    Red Rhodes

The band then picks up the groove with “Grand Ennui”, followed by “Some of Shelly’s Blues”. Nez introduces “…..Blues” by saying it’s been covered by “374” people. (And that was in 1973. You could imagine what the number is now.)

The band consists of Colin Cameron on bass, Danny Lane on drums, Red Rhodes on pedal steel guitar. Nez provides vocals, acoustic guitar and between song stage banter.. 

The banter includes Nez’s story about the Monkees’ infamous Cincinnati incident. (The band evaded their security and took an elevator to the ground floor, where they were chased by fans.)  Nez gives some topical banter about Alice Cooper and glam rock, which was popular at the time of the McCabe’s show.

Rhodes takes the spotlight mid-show, showcasing his pedal steel mastery on three instrumentals - the Ernset Tubb favorite, “Rose City Chimes”,  the lush “Poinciana” (from Rhodes’ solo album Velvet Hammer in a Cowboy Band) and “Crippled Lion”.   

Nez lends some yodeling to the lovely, old-school country song “One Rose” and ends the set with his biggest solo song “JoAnne” (wait for that high note) and “Silver Moon.”   

There’s only one problem with Cosmic Partners – the set goes by too fast.

The CD package includes liner notes by Christian Nesmith (who co-produced the CD ), Circe Link, and original producer Ed Heffelinger, along with Joe Alterio’s essay on Red Rhodes. There’s a note from Nez, too, about his musical collaborations with Rhodes, and how the steel pedal guitar player “made the instrument sail, and take off on its own.”  

A poster of the gatefold sleeve for Not Your Standard Ranch Stash, with topless sirens in a swimming pool/makeshift lake, is also included. 

Cosmic Partners is also available as an 180g vinyl picture disc. This CD is another Monkees-related release from 7A Records out of the UK.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the Joy of Watching and Rewatching a Movie You Love

By now, most people who want to see Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood have made a trip to the theater, some of them several times.

The film’s 2 hours and 41 minutes long, and every plot point and scene has been analyzed and discussed online for the last month No one’s going to spend so much time nitpicking over a boring movie. Even people who didn’t like the movie (except for the ending) will still talk about it.

The film is intensely personal to some, a unique film for movie nerds to ponder, or a nostalgic trip for others. OUATIH is a favorite of QT fans (at least the ones who don’t expect non-stop violence) and people in their 50s and 60s were alive in 1969,  younger folks interested in 20^th Century pop culture, or anyone interested in the Manson family. 

 I’ve read about people seeing the movie at a theater eight times, though two or three seems to be the most prevalent number of return viewings. (I've seen it twice; going for #3 at the New Beverly later this month.)

Regular movie goers who just choose a random name from movie listings for their weekend entertainment will not like this film. Most people see movies as escapist entertainment; they don’t care about plot or acting or historical accuracy. They want constant action, sex, or gore, two hours of bish-bam-boom before going back to the job and family.  

Alternative History

The second time I saw the movie, the audience was too quiet  - not a gasp or “Oh, my God”, during the ending. No laughter. I didn’t see anyone rush out or give the finger to the screen, either.

I was worried about screaming or making noise during the ending the first time I saw it. Maybe I should bring a piece of gauze with me and bite down on it near the end, I thought

I wasn’t alone. Most people at the sold-out screening I attended gasped, laughed and clapped during the end scene. Those last 20 minutes have even made their way onto YouTube two months before the DVD release. Several other scenes that appear to have been filmed right off theater screens are on YouTube as well.

The best five seconds of the film for just about everyone, including the impatient and undiagnosed ADD crowd, occurred when Rick walked out with the flamethrower. The element of surprise left the audience laughing and gasping.

 Here’s a round-up of audience reactions.  

There’s a lot to see in second and third viewings.  Los Angeles in 1969- what’s not to love? The music, the TV shows, the commercials, billboards, and marquees. Even minor details that would go unnoticed by most moviegoers were authentic to the era. One newsstand contained copies of magazines from 1969 (or thereabouts). The newsstand, much less the magazines, would go unnoticed by all but the most eagle-eyed viewer.

This is a hangout movie, a bromance, that girls can love. (You should have heard the women next to us hoot their approval when Brad Pitt took his shirt off.)

The Cliff-Rick bromance is all good. It doesn’t have any cliché arguments, fights over girls, etc., common as plot twists in lesser films. It’s nice to have real human characters to root for, instead of the half-human, half-infallible superheros.

Oh, No! Not Another Western!

I almost forgot how prevalent TV Westerns were even in the late 1960s. Bonanza, the Wild, Wild West, Gunsmoke, the Big Valley and Lancer (yes, it was a real show) shared the TV Guide schedule with Laugh-In and the Smothers Brothers.  

“Oh, no,” I remember thinking before seeing the movie “How am I going to get through the Western scenes? It’s going to be excruciating. I’ll have to go out for popcorn.” Leo’s performance drew you in, and there was "Don't cry in front of the Mexicans" for comic relief.

The first two hours flew by, Westerns and all, and before you knew it, Tex, Sadie and Katie showed up – only to be quickly dispatched by our heroes.  

Driving Music 

Anyone who has who has lived in California can identify with the driving scenes. Everything was easier back  in '69, even driving on L.A. freeways. There was no road rage, texting, drive-bys, or distracted driving. You could drive with the windows down, the radio blaring, and the wind blowing through your hair.

I don’t think people have done that with abandon since the early ‘90s. Yeah, you can ride in your air-conditioned Porsche listing to the shoegaze station on Sirius, but it’s not the same.

There are snippets of several lesser-known pop songs in the movie. “Summertime” by Billy Stewart, “12:30 (Young Girls are Coming to the Canyon”) by the Mamas and Papas, “Baby It’s You” by Smith, even a snippet of Robert Goulet singing MacArthur Park on a TV. And plenty of Paul Revere and the Raiders.(Terry Melcher and Mark Lindsay lived at 10050  Cielo Drive before Sharon and Roman moved in.)

The film creates an atmosphere, a time and a place that you can soak in and lose yourself in. I wouldn’t say there’s no plot - it's just a plot that simmers along on low heat.

It’s fun to catch glimpses of old-timey TV shows like Mannix and The FBI. Notice Paul Revere and the Raiders were on the TV at Spahn Ranch when Cliff walks in to see George.   

And feet!! How many pairs of many bare, dirty female feet do we need to see? I haven’t done a count yet - maybe once it comes out on DVD. Sharon takes her go-go boots off – to put her feet on the back of the seat in front of her, Pussycat puts her bare feet on Cliff's dashboard, etc. Now, lots of hippie girls were barefoot in LA in the late 60s, so we’ll let Quentin slide this time.

And of course, there’s the quotable dialogue -

“I’m the devil, and I’m doing the devil’s work.”

“No, it was dumber than that.”

“And you, you were on a horsie”

“Are you real?”

“Real as a donut, motherfucker.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Well, the hippies sure aren’t.”

And it's never revealed if Cliff  killed his wife on purpose. His wife (played by Rebecca Gayheart) seems like a garden variety nagging wife in her five seconds onscreen.  Perhaps the subplot was inspired by  DJ Humble Harv (of radio station KHJ) who shot his nagging wife dead in 1971.

(Humble Harv appears on the soundtrack introducing songs and reading commercials.)

You want a happy ending for all the good people and you get it here. The comic book violence of the last 20 minutes is even more satisfying if you’re familiar with the Tate-LaBianca murders. It’s cathartic to watch Sadie get burnt to a crisp. The head-banging times 12, is cringe-inducing, no matter how many times you watch it.  

Right after all that violence, we see Rick's dream come true (he gets to hanging out at Roman and Sharon's house), and sweet, pregnant Sharon greets him. And now everyone gets all misty-eyed after cheering during 10 minutes of hardcore gore.

Now leaving the theater feeling happy isn’t usually the sign of a great film. Art films are supposed to leave you dazed and pondering. Blockbusters and superhero movies leave viewers feeling like they just got off an intense, 120 mile per hour roller coaster ride –and they forget about it by the next day.      

But giddy and excited to the point where you say “I have to see that again,” the moment you walk out of the theater?. That doesn’t happen too often, at least not to me.

It’s not so much that you rewatch the movie for thrills – it’s to find tidbits you missed out the first time. There’s the sound of the canned dog food plopping into the bowl is familiar to anyone raised on supermarket food in the late 20^th Century. (It took a second viewing to notice the rat and raccoon flavors.) The marquee on of the Van Nuys Drive-In (Lady in Cement starring Frank Sinatra and Raquel Welch), the quick shots of Rick involved in a DUI on Hollywood Boulevard, or taking a  swig from a blender full of margarita while telling off the dirty hippies.

Margot Robbie gives us a chance to see Sharon Tate as a real person. Too many people know her only as a murder victim. This film humanizes her. She doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but her luminous presence is the heartbeat of the film.

The other non-Manson Family female characters are tougher.  Julia Butters’ Trudi character gives us a glimpse we get of the new, liberated woman – or girl. She prefers to be called an actor instead of an actress and corrects Rick’s pronunciation of a character’s name. Zoe Bell (as a stuntwoman) gives Cliff a verbal beatdown, truncating his best two out of three with Bruce Lee.    

Cliff’s visit to Spahn Ranch  turns tense the moment Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) gets out of the car. The long shot of Cliff walking away as the girls boo him made you think something horrible would happen.

Cliff beating up Clem was especially satisfying to those of us who lived through the summer of '69, and it’s a precursor to the tables-turned ending.

People can be emotionally invested in TV series characters; we see them for years, week after week. It’s harder to get attached to a movie’s characters, unless they’re superhero or franchise characters.

Many people on YouTube and elsewhere wonder about what would happen to the characters after this movie ends. Would the police go to the ranch and arrest Charlie and the Manson girls before they could commit more mayhem? Would Rick work on a film with Polanski?

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will probably be the Tarantino film I watch and enjoy the most over time. However, I don’t think it’s his best film. I’d have to go with Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Inglorious Bastards as the Top 3, with the True Romance screenplay getting an honorable mention.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is fun – the music, the cars, the clothes, and the alternative ending where everyone lives happily ever after, except the murderous hippies. Given the state of the world now, we need some alternative history before going back into an ever-worsening reality.

CD Review: The Old Testament of Love by Steve Hooker

Prolific rockabilly musician Steve Hooker is back with another CD, The Old Testament of Love on Pimphouse Records. The seven-track CD  begins with the country-western-flavored instrumental “Necktie Party”. “The First Ones Always Free” is seven minute of  made-to-order lowdown blues, with  guttural vocals from Hooker. The title track is lighter and poppier; it’s a dance track for the club floor, while “Don’t Let the Deal Go Down” is 50s/early ‘60s raunch ‘n’ roll. The crunchy instrumental “Tighten It” has a hard rock edge, while “Crows Legs” has a steady, mid-tempo groove. “Mister Mojo Man” closes the album with some dirty, old-school blues rock. 

The players are Steve Hooker on guitar and vocals, Vic on bass, Dave on piano, Brian on drums and background vocals, and Dee on background vocals. The CD is available from Raucous Records.