http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:54:16 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/20/095416.php Mike HendrixThis weekend I sat back and watched a new breed of small miracle happen. Chances are, so did you. And the amazing thing is, you probably barely even noticed.Seen the latest GM commercial? No, not the one with the 18-wheeler brodying into the dealer parking lot, although that one is badass too. I did that once in my truck-driving days myself. Unintentionally. I was coming down the side of a mountain at the time. In the snow. In traffic. Needless to say, I lived, but I'm not so sure about the elderly driver in the car beside me in the right-hand lane. If I nearly had a heart attack (and I did), I can only imagine what sort of extreme pants-loading palpitations that poor old codger went through when he realized he was about to be swept off the side of a mountain by a sliding, careening, out-of-control fifty-three foot trailer like a fly off an elephant's ass. I was too busy trying to get said trailer back in line with the tractor to notice whether the guy went over the side clutching his chest and praying to the Big Skipper for deliverance. Hope he's okay. But all that's another story for another day, and probably another blog as well.No, the miracle I'm talking about is the miracle of a musical meme being born in front of our very eyes -- or rather, ears. The commercial is the one featuring drivers of assorted GM vehicles playing a game of Frisbee in various shifting locales. The soundtrack is a too-catchy-by-half tune by a somewhat-obscure band from Portland called the Dandy Warhols. You've heard it, and it stuck in your head like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth, too. That's the whole idea.This business of TV advertising launching unknown alt-whatever bands to new heights of fame and (presumably, but maybe not; in fact, probably not) fortune is a new thing. Remember a certain Mitsubishi commercial a while back that had a song in it you never heard before but couldn't forget afterwards? That song was called "Days Go By," by a band that wasn't even a band at the time called Dirty Vegas. You know the one I'm talking about, and there's a way better chance that you've heard of Dirty Vegas now than there was before that commercial aired. It all might be water under a well-traveled bridge by now, but the inescapable fact is that Dirty Vegas was Somebody for a few minutes there, and they had never had any real expectations of that happening before Mitsubishi came along. Says so right in their bio.And now the Warhols are next in line for the fifteen-minute commercial-star treatment, and good for them. I hope they make a ton of money, and I hope they spend it wisely -- but not too wisely. There needs to be a little rock and roll excess in the plan. But at the end of the day, there also needs to be a plan. The plan is there for the band's sake; the excess is all ours.The influence and direct effect that the advertising industry is having on the music biz, while still sort of a new thing, is one that in my opinion shouldn't be underestimated. It presents bands with both an opportunity and a risk. If bands are smart enough to use their leverage with advertisers looking to appeal to the coveted 18-35 demographic to their advantage, it can spell all sorts of good things for them. Cries of "sellout" should be disregarded as the plain and simple envy they always were. But even that isn't really the miracle I was talking about. It's related, but it's a side issue.No, in the end the miracle I refer to is the creation of another perfect pop song, one with actual guitars in it, in an age when guitars are almost an amusing anachronism, like Grandma's snuff tin or Grandpa's garters. The Dandy Warhols have scored a publicity bonanza with the song "Bohemian Like You," and it's a good 'un. It features a central guitar riff so Stones-like you almost expect to smell Keef's whiskey-and-cigarette breath wafting over your shoulder as he cracks that geezer grin in righteous approval. It's bouncy and infectious. It sports the kind of singalong woo-hoo-hoo chorus that only comes along at the point in time where we're all beginning to think that such things just aren't being made anymore, that they're as dead as the dodo. The entire song, not just the part used in the GM commercial, is a rollicking, hook-laden testament to songcraft and ingenuity. It's innovative, but only to a point, and it's the right point. It sounds at once brand-new and old as dirt. It is, in a word, pretty darned cool. You hear it once, and you can't help but want to hear it again.I don't know much about the Warhols; I didn't spend a lot of time digging through their site. I just wanted to know what That Song was. And make no mistake, it is indeed That Song, and it will be for a while. Then, with any luck, another one will come along. And as I said, that's the miracle.Just when you think Rock is well and truly Dead (and maybe some of you think: good riddance), along comes a jaunty little piece of silly pop nonsense that you just can't stop thinking about. How does that happen? How does a certain group of people in a certain space of time come up with something seemingly out of the ether that everybody just kind of likes, no matter their usual musical preference?The song might not amount to anything other than pop fluff; it might be forgotten before summer ends, and the Dandy Warhols right along with it. But for a while there, they had most of America singing along with them. If you ask me, that's not only pretty cool, but pretty damned amazing, and almost completely inexplicable. The Warhols themselves probably couldn't tell you where the inspiration came from. Most good songwriters, when asked about the nuts and bolts of how they work the magic, will try for a sentence or two to wax all poetic and philosophical about it and will then end up sputtering something like "it just happens." They're right.I've written some things that I thought were pretty respectable, that others seem to like a lot, and it's always the case with the best of those that I have no idea where it came from. It just ups and hits you in the face one day almost fully-formed, and you can't get rid of it until you've gotten together with the guys in the band and hashed it all out in rehearsal. Shortly after playing it some, you never want to hear it again. Ironically, that's just the point in the process when everybody wants to hear it again. It doesn't matter in the least. You'll play it, and when you do you'll reach a point in the middle of it where you're happy it's there. You get into it; it sweeps you away to someplace else, and that someplace else is a wonderful place to be. Works like a charm every time, because in reality it is a charm. Nobody really cares where it came from, because the truly compelling thing is where it takes you.The GM commercial featuring the Warhols' little slice of immortality makes me want to drive around with the windows down and the music blasting -- in a GM car. And I'm as hardcore a Ford guy as you'll find; I have shame-and-disgrace problems even riding in GM products, much less driving 'em. The Warhols' ditty makes me want to disregard my own Chevy-hate for a minute and just rock.If that ain't a miracle, I sure don't know what is.(Also posted at http://thepainkillers.us) Music17647@blogcritics.org Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:54:16 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/01/102824.php Mike HendrixThis excellent article ran in my hometown fishwrap yesterday: I've given up on country music.My commute is no longer accompanied by the sound of what passes for country today. If I want pop, I'll tune to a pop station.CMT is just a TV station to surf past on the way to something better, unless you want to watch Wynonna introduce the 40 greatest drinking songs for what seems like the 400th time.I haven't bought a country CD in years; I don't even have an interest in browsing that part of the record aisle for fear of running into a 12-year-old whose main options today are Shania, Kenny Chesney and Rascal Flatts.After a lifetime of living proudly with Cash on the hi-fi and Haggard in my heart, you could say I've turned my back on country music.But the truth is country music has turned its back on me.I started giving up last November, when it dawned on me that the big winner at the Country Music Association was dead. Johnny Cash deserved every award. But what does it say about country when the best thing it has going is gone -- and when country radio quit playing the Man in Black years ago anyway?That was just one sign traditional country is fading, and that the new stuff being marketed in its place not only isn't very good and lasting but isn't as popular. The poets of my day who sang of love, loss, loneliness and poverty have been replaced by Kenny Chesney doing a mediocre Jimmy Buffett imitation. Amen to every word of this one. Country is dead, and the heart of rock and roll is pretty weak and arrhythmic these days too. It's sad, but I don't see much coming down the road to change it. This link requires (free) registration, but the article is worth taking a moment to sign up to read. And there's a larger issue here too, one that's very near and dear to my heart. I'll be talking more or less about rock and roll here, but it applies to country and blues as well.The straggly, scrawny kid who grabs a guitar in hopes of finally getting some kind of attention from the girls other than sneers and spitballs is no more. He's been replaced by turntable-wielding, dirty-limerick reciting little turds who might know their way around Logic, Reason, and Cubase better than I do, but who couldn't plunk out a modal scale if you tattooed a map to the root on their foreheads.But then, why shouldn't it be that way? Who's going to bother with a couple of years of guitar lessons and woodshedding if he can go to a store and grab a couple of turntables for less than the price of a nice tweed guitar case nowadays? Why bother spending the time it takes learning to actually play an instrument when the girls will be just as impressed by the letters "DJ" in front of whatever goofy name he chooses for himself? What club owner is going to hire four guys, two of whom have alcohol and/or drug problems, two of whom can't stand each other and whose mutual van-life-inspired hatred just might lapse into fisticuffs on stage, and all of whom may or may not show up, over a kid who takes five minutes to set up, will turn it down if you ask, and will play whatever anybody wants to hear - and who will charge about a third of what the four ego-addled spoiled brats will?Live rock and roll clubs have been closing down all over the country the last few years, and there's a very good and simple reason for it: there really isn't much demand for live music anymore. Bands are breaking up right and left, and even long-time road dogs accustomed to making a decent living from their chops are hanging up their touring spurs in favor of playing for dwindling crowds in small local dumps that pay squat. Guys whose primary ambition in life was always just to be able to proudly say the golden words "I'm a professional musician" when asked about what they do for a living are now ruefully searching the want ads for any kind of paying gig they can get. I do not mean "gig" the way it's usually meant, either. I mean: "shit job."Don't even think of arguing, because I've lived it myself; I'm living it right now, in fact. And I'm more fortunate than many, in that I do have at least a bare modicum of other marketable skills. I'll stop before I start sounding even more like a curmudgeonly old stick in the mud than I already do. But it does make me sad.And I'm not really assigning all the blame to anybody or any particular thing here, either; times do change, after all, and there's more than one reason for live music going the way of Al Gore's political career. But if you value your virgin ears, do NOT attempt to engage me in conversation about how great the latest, hottest CD from the rapper or turntable jockey of the week is. You will not like what I have to say on the subject, I assure you. Music13284@blogcritics.org Mon, 1 Mar 2004 10:28:24 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/23/005129.php Mike HendrixOkay, first thing you have to know is, I'm a Mozart man. There seems to be this weird dichotomy in classical music whereby if you love one, you can't love the other. If you like Mozart, Beethoven is too much shallow sturm und drang for you, too much cheap roaring noise, the kind you can buy in a dime store for...well, a dime. If you like Beethoven, Mozart is basically a sausage-slurping pussy, someone who was too overly concerned with being all delicate and prissy and light to ever yield to the more extreme passions that Beethoven gave that big fat green light to. Mozart was First, Beethoven was New and Improved. Beethoven is Man, Mozart is Child. But the people who think this are assholes, and they're way too concerned about what their choice of music says about themselves than they are to consider the music on its own merits. So say I, a rock and roll moron.Beethoven is a rocket to Mars (the God O' War planet, by the way, and not for nothing do I make that comment), and Mozart is a finely-tuned Ferrari. Beethoven is all brute strength and power and anger and the sweetness of purest blistering rage, and Mozart is every good thing that God ever made, with all the warmth and achy longing and bittersweet feeling that God intended when he cursed us Men with Women. Beethoven is how pissed off we Men are about it, rutting viciously with that universal blind confusion that wonders why we're made to suffer so. Mozart is the part of us that says, "Ahh, but it's so wonderful to hear them when they're lost in the pure moment of passion; their sighs, their moans, their ecstasy." Beethoven spurts violently, all over her; Mozart saves it for later, after she gets hers, which every good Mozart lover knows is the best part. And then Mozart cleans up and sleeps on the wet spot.BUT....Then there's the Emperor Concerto.I just downloaded my first piece of music from the iTunes Music Store, and it was the Emperor Concerto. Played by Van Cliburn with the Chicago Symphony, it's a fairly well-known and well-regarded recording. I'm something of a Van Cliburn fan anyway. A little something about the man, for those of you who don't know him: Krushchev had just come into power on the heels of one of the most repressive regimes the world had ever known. This was the same Krushchev who would be remembered by most Americans as the roly-poly Soviet leader who would bang his shoe on the UN table and threaten, "We will bury you!" In the United States, this period followed the McCarthy Senate Hearings where anybody with the slightest, or even imagined, affiliation with communism was branded as subversive. To complicate matters, a few months prior to the Competition, on October 10, 1957, the Soviets had shocked the world by launching Sputnik, the first man-made satellite ever to orbit the earth. Americans had been beaten in the race to space. It was a devastating psychological blow. Sputnik symbolized the technological superiority of a totalitarian government. Even more frightening was the possibility that such rockets could carry atomic bombs. Americans feared communism would soon take over the world. Enter 23-year-old Van Cliburn, child prodigy pianist from Kilgore, Texas. Cliburn was quite oblivious to the intrigues and posturings of international and military politics. Looking back, he'll admit to the fact that it "wasn't the friendliest of times between our nations." But since it was the first international piano competition ever to be held in the Soviet Union, and so rare for Americans to get the chance to travel there, Cliburn wanted to go. "I didn't see life in the present," Cliburn admits. "I was remembering the wonderful stories of the grandeur of the Russian musical life from the past that my mother had told me." Cliburn's mother, Rildia Bee O'Bryan, had been her son's only piano teacher and mentor from the time he was three until he entered Juilliard School at 17. An extraordinary pianist with unimpeachable musical credentials, she had grown up in a period of time when it was "not proper for a young lady from a good family to concertize." Fortunately, for many young people, she channeled her energies into teaching. She had studied in New York with the famous Arthur Freidheim, who had been born in St. Petersburg, and who, in turn, had studied with great pianists like Anton Rubinstein and later Franz Liszt. Perhaps, it was Van's naiveté that served him so well. The Soviets detected his openness, spontaneity, and genuineness. They responded to his musical interpretations, many pieces of which had been composed by their own masters. For the celebrated "masses" who chanced to hear Cliburn play one of the first live concerts ever televised nationwide throughout the USSR, he somehow didn't fit the stereotype of an "evil capitalist". For many, it was the first time they had ever seen an American, and they embraced him wholeheartedly.Fifty contestants from more than 19 countries took part in the competition which demanded three performances in front of a jury that was composed of some of the finest musicians ever gathered, including pianists Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels (Jury Chair and first Soviet musician to perform in the U.S.); Lev Oborin; Dmitry Kabalevsky (Composer); Sir Arthur Bliss (Master of the Queen's Music from England); and others. The General Chairman for the entire competition (piano and violin) was the renowned symphonic composer and conductor, Dmitry Shostakovich. Actually, Van Cliburn's virtuosity turned out to be rather embarrassing for the Soviet jurists. Some had already selected Lev Vlasenko, a Russian pianist, as the winner. Cliburn presented a dilemma. No one was quite sure how Khruschev would respond to a foreigner, especially an American, winning the Grand Prize of the very first Tchaikovsky Competition. It has since been discovered that some of the jurists, fearing Khruschev's indignation, were boycotting Cliburn despite his brilliant performances. On a scale of 0-25, some gave him scores of 15s, 16s and 19s and added one or two points more for other participants-just a slight enough difference to make no one suspicious that anything illegal was taking place. Richter and a few others sensed what was happening and they set out to distort the scheme by giving Van the highest scores possible, perfect 25s. In the meantime, Richter gave twelve of the contestants zeros, even though some of them were quite good. When confronted by the head of the jury for his idiosyncratic voting patterns, Richter replied, "People either make music, or they don't." By the time Cliburn was scheduled to play his third and final round in the competition, all tickets were sold out. There wasn't even standing room. Like all participants, he had to perform concertos by both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. He chose Tchaikovsky's No. 1 in B-flat Minor, and Rachmaninoff's No. 3 in D-Minor. The orchestra was conducted by Kiril Kondrashin of whom Cliburn sings only the highest praises: "He was one of the most fabulous conductors that Russia ever produced.After Van finished playing, the Hall burst into applause! Everything backstage was in absolute confusion. "There was a rule that after you had taken your bow and left the stage, you could never return again." But the ovation continued for eight and a half minutes. "Suddenly, I saw Gilels coming towards me," Van recalls. "He took me by the hand and led me back on stage where he embraced me publicly. The year before, I had heard this brilliant pianist play at Carnegie Hall and had admired him immensely, so his extraordinary public gesture overwhelmed me. He saw the jurists giving him a standing ovation and also was able to distinguish Khruschev's daughter and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium up in the Officials' Boxes. "It was such a thrilling moment." But the competition wasn't over. Several finalists had still not performed. It became clear to Gilels that the only thing he could do about this Cliburn phenomenon was to approach Khruschev directly about the Prize and let him make the decision. So together with the Minister of Culture, Ekaterina Furtsava, they sought Khruschev's opinion. "Well, what are the professionals saying?" Khruschev wanted to know. "Is Cliburn the best?" They avowed that he was."Then, in that case," concluded the Communist Party Chief, "give him the Prize!" 23 years old. Twenty fucking three. At twenty three, I was still asking my mom what was for dinner, and not eating if she didn't feel like cooking that night. My God. At twenty three, I still had schoolbooks and "sweethearts." But then again, I lived a fairly sheltered life. Up to a point, and then suddenly all hell broke loose. Right around twenty three, if I remember right.Van Cliburn went on to tour relentlessly, pretty much nonstop until 1978, and to be forgotten, as all real musicians are, sooner rather than later. He worked tirelessly to promote classical music, to establish educational foundations and competitions for young students, to just generally elevate us all. He seems to get more derision than respect these days, and I will never understand that. Nor do I want to, frankly. Not in an age where "music" means "ripped off guitar and drum tracks with monotonous dirty limericks recited over 'em." Not in an age where...well, that's a whole other rant, and maybe I'll get to it someday.BUT...the Emperor. Van Cliburn plays it wonderfully. His piano and the orchestra work together as few I've ever heard do, achieving a rare unity, a totality that defies description. The famed transition between the Adagio and the Allegro is so tight it fairly squeaks when it moves. And it does nothing but move. The Adagio itself is simply heartbreaking, in that beautiful, crying way that none but Mozart could really pull off. And of course Beethoven, just this once.The Allegro is so joyous that it's all I can do to keep from jumping up, tears still wet on my face from the Adagio, and shaking the stiffest....fist.....you ever saw at the world, and defying any three of you punk-ass bitches to say a fucking word about it. It is just brilliant, that's all. If your heart doesn't practically leap out of your chest on hearing it, you need to check your heart, pal. Or have it done for you; most likely, you're all but dead and can't do it yourself.Mozart plumbs the deepest depths and scales the highest peaks of human emotion, and does it all so effortlessly and routinely it's like watching the guy at Jiffy Lube change your oil. It's so easy for him it almost means nothing. But that, of course, means everything.When Beethoven gets it, boy, does he get it. He nails it so completely you can feel those rusty iron pins going through your very feet, nailing you to the eternal bloody cross. And with Cliburn on the keys, well, the agony is just that much sweeter.And to those of you who can't see the connection between all this and my usual rock and roll boogie-woogie persona, well, I pity you. Music8592@blogcritics.org Tue, 23 Sep 2003 00:51:29 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/16/134048.php Mike HendrixSad news: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer-songwriter June Carter Cash was born into country music royalty and went on to marry Johnny Cash after writing about her forbidden passion for the Nashville hellraiser in the classic song "Ring of Fire."June, who died in Nashville on Thursday aged 73, rescued her husband from a destructive methamphetamine habit and turned him into a born-again Christian following their marriage in 1968. While some critics carped that June blunted Johnny's edge, the union was successful. With Johnny waylaid for the past few years by illness, June devoted herself to caring for the "Man in Black," now 71. Her recipe for a successful marriage? "I've been walking just far enough behind John for him to think that he was way out in front," she told Reuters in a 1999 interview. "Women, if they've got any sense, will do that. They walk just far enough behind. That's where they stay."A brown-haired beauty with a sharp wit and wonderful way of telling stories, she was the last surviving daughter of Maybelle Carter, who formed one-third of the Carter Family. Superstars by every definition, the Carter Family launched the modern era of country music in 1927 by selling millions of records, including folk standards "The Wildwood Flower" and "Wabash Cannonball" from their Appalachian base. And it makes me even sadder to realize that, given his own failing health and the statistical rule that long-married men usually only outlive their wives by about a year on average, Johnny won't be far behind her.I once had the extreme good fortune to share a stage with both Johnny Cash and June Carter, as well as Waylon Jennings, his wife Jessi Colter, and Robert Duvall. Yes, all at once. It was simply overwhelming. Since people generally don't believe that when I tell 'em, I usually don't bring it up very often. But here's proof: That's me behind Waylon, and the Telecaster he's playing is mine - was mine, I don't have it anymore. June is in front, singing "Will The Circle Be Unbroken," as I recollect. The whole thing took place at a wrap party for a Tom Cruise movie that was filmed here in part. Nobody had any idea that those folks would be showing up; it was a surprise for Cruise put together in secret by Duvall.The thing I remember most from that night is how completely dumbfounded and awestruck we all were when Johnny and the rest of them walked into the room. Cash came up to the stage to compliment us on a song we had just played, and I invited them all up to play a few. They ended up onstage with us for a half hour or so, and the thing is that we were just so completely overwhelmed to be up there with them that we couldn't play a lick. I mean, we were awful. Every bit of music we ever knew went immediately and irretrievably out of our heads, and I swear to this day that Johnny was at least eight feet tall. We were all as giddy as schoolkids for days.And they were all just as kind, sweet, and nice as they could be, Duvall and Cruise included, but June was maybe the nicest of all of them. She seemed to understand how completely bedazzled we were by them and acted almost motherly towards us. She was as country as they come, too - she reminded me of my own mother in that, really.She lived a long, full, and remarkable life, and as the woman who tamed one of the wildest of them all, she will always be remembered right beside the Man in Black, as she deserves to be. Not, as she says, walking behind, but as she truly was: at his side, one of the strong supports that helped to prop him up when he needed it, and lifted him higher than he would have been without her. I know that Johnny's heart is broken by her departure, even as he must be gladdened by the memory of the years he had with her; and I wish him strength, the same kind of strength she gave him in his darkest hours. May she rest easy. Music5362@blogcritics.org Fri, 16 May 2003 13:40:48 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/03/03/101432.php Mike HendrixThe great Hank Ballard is dead: AP: Hank Ballard, the singer and songwriter whose hit "The Twist" ushered a nationwide dance craze in the 1960s, has died. Ballard, who was suffering from throat cancer, died Sunday at his home, friends said. Friend and caretaker Anna Ayala said Ballard's birth records indicate he was born in 1927, but biographical information lists his birthdate as 1936. "He was just a very good man and loved by so many people," Ayala said. Ballard might have been known mostly for "The Twist," but there was certainly a lot more to him than just that. "Work With Me Annie" and all the sequels to it, "Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go," "Finger-Poppin' Time," among a ton of others. My own Ballard favorite is probably "Little Sister," which was covered by Stevie Ray Vaughan years later. And of course I can't leave out "Sexy Ways" either. Etta James did "Work With Me Henry" with Ballard and the Midnighters and got herself in a peck of trouble over it too. The bluenoses couldn't ban it fast enough - way too racy for the airwaves back in '55.Go easy, Hank. I'll let him have the last word: "If you're looking for youth, you're looking for longevity, just take a dose of rock 'n' roll. It keeps you going. Just like the caffeine in your coffee. Rock 'n' roll is good for the soul, for the well being, for the psyche, for your everything. I love it. I can't even picture being without rock 'n' roll." Amen, Hank. Works for me. Music3561@blogcritics.org Mon, 3 Mar 2003 10:14:32 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/02/04/094425.php Mike HendrixMost of you probably never heard of Ronnie Dawson. In the Great Pantheon of Rock and Roll Legends (no, I most certainly do not mean the Hard Rock Cafe, nor do I mean that Hall of Shame in Cleveland either; I call it the Hall of Shame because any institution that took so long to recognize Gene Vincent - and fought it tooth and nail too - ain't got a whole lot to do with rock and roll in my book), Ronnie has a whole wing to himself - in the place nobody goes to much, which would be the Rockabilly Building. That's the down at heels one, the one with the peeling paint, the crumbling facade and broken windows. You know, the one behind the cafeteria, over by the dumpsters, where the greasy-haired tough guys in leather jackets go to sneak smokes.But Ronnie is a good friend of mine. I first met Ronnie when the Playboys opened for him at Maxwell's in Hoboken, sometime in '91 or thereabouts. We must have had a pretty good set, because Ronnie approached our manager and asked about us doing some touring with him as his opener and backup band; being arrogant little shits back then, we turned that down flat. Just as well, maybe - years later I heard from several places that Ronnie was legendary for being, shall we say, difficult to work with. I eventually came to realize that in truth, Ronnie was something of a perfectionist, and demanded a lot of his players. He took what he did very seriously, and was absolutely committed to giving his fans his absolute best whenever he took the stage - all night, every night; no excuses or slacking off tolerated, ever. For someone who cared less about his music than he did, I suppose that qualifies as being "difficult." For Ronnie, it just meant giving the fans their money's worth.But over the years, what I came to realize about Ronnie was just that he was always a really good guy. He cared a lot about the people who came to his shows and bought his records, and it always came through onstage like sunshine blasting away a morning mist. Ronnie's shows have always been just plain fun; I've had some of the best times of my life bouncing around in the front row of a Ronnie Dawson show.There was the time at the big Lead East car show, when Ronnie jumped up onstage with us to do a few of his songs and the whole thing just blew up in our faces. The show was outdoors, and the "stage" was a tiny little old-fashioned bandshell/gazebo that everybody just kind of stood back from to listen to the various bands. We launched into "Knock Down Drag Out," which was one of Ronnie's signature numbers; Ronnie got a running start and leaped right over the rail to get up with us (he was in his fifties at the time, and I was in my thirties, and I couldn't have done it then or now), and all of a sudden all the greasers just dived for the gazebo and ended up sprawling on the ground in a knuckle-dusting heap. The girls, being sensible, just stood back and laughed. Actually, everyone was laughing, including all of us onstage; that's just how you always feel when Ronnie is around. It's all about letting the good times just roll, and Ronnie knows how to spark 'em just about better than anybody I know.But anyway, after meeting him in Hoboken for the first time, I didn't see Ronnie again for a year or three. Next time I saw him he had enlisted our pals the Frantic Flattops from Rochester, NY as his backup band. They used to travel around in an old early-60's Cadillac hearse, and they drove about sixteen hours from up there somewhere down to Charlotte to do a show with us. We got to the club a bit early (first and only time that ever happened) and were just hanging out waiting for the Dawson/Flattops crew to arrive. Up pulls that beat-up old hearse with all the gear loaded in the back and Ronnie riding shotgun; before the thing had even creaked and groaned to a complete halt, Ronnie dives out wearing shades, some ratty old shorts and a T-shirt ,all sweaty from the hell-drive (no A/C in that thing, and it was mid-summer), rubs his ass, and yells "God DAMN!" in that Texas drawl, grinning like a mule eating briars the while. It turned out to be a hell of a night. I have a tape of it, which I still listen to when I need a good jolt of the real-deal Rockin-itis.Ronnie got his start in Dallas when he was about fifteen or so, and had a minor hit on his hands - after a Big D Jamboree appearance - with "Action Packed" in 1958, and again shortly thereafter with "Rockin' Bones." But if you ask him, Ronnie will tell you that the years of his greatest success have been the more recent ones.He got asked back in the late 80's or early 90's by Brit record producer/promoter Barney Koumis if he'd be interested in providing some old archival material for a rockabilly comp Koumis was producing, and Ronnie's response was priceless, and so typical of him too: "well, Barney, what I'd really like to do is just come over there and play, you know." Barney brought Ronnie over and the fans went ape. Ronnie hadn't lost so much as a single step since his previous heyday in the Fifties, and when he got up on the stage the roof rocked and the foundations rolled. Of course, he later put out a record or two, and wonderful things they are, too.So we did a bunch of shows with Ronnie over the next few years, and every last one of them was a solid blast. But the time I like to remember best was when Ronnie came to NYC - with a wonderful trad-RAB band called High Noon in tow as backup - to do his first appearance on the Conan O'Brien show.What a fine night that was. All the hardcore greaser crew showed up at Rockefeller Center for the taping. My friend Pete and a few others of us went over to the Green Room Bar to get properly prepared for the show, over the insistence of the girls that we would lose our spot in the line and end up not getting in at all. We got in, got seated, and waited squirming in our seats for the Blonde Bomber to rock the house. And boy, did he. Towards the end of the song ("Monkey Beat," an infectious, rolling, rollicking slice of pure musical joy that was always one of my favorites), Ronnie waved his arms wildly, beckoning our crew down front to be with him in his moment of triumph on national TV. We were all standing up on the seats and hooting for all we were worth, but we didn't manage to get to the front - the song ended just as a few of us were making the move. Conan watched the whole thing with a sort of half-frightened smile on his face, as if he feared an imminent break in the fragile sluice-gate that was all that stood between his nice, neat set and a raucous flood of raw rockabilly madness.And I have to say this, though it might sound like some sort of monstrous ego-trip to some of you: I have had Little Richard praise my singing voice ("It's so powerful, like my friend Gene Vincent"); I have been told by Johnny Cash that "You guys sound real good, son, just like we did forty years ago"; I have had my guitar playing complimented by Dick Dale and Link Wray; I have been so extremely fortunate as to have met many of my idols, and had respect and admiration for my own ability expressed by them in terms that make me blush even now. But I don't know that any of it will ever mean as much to me as that moment, right before Conan came back from commercial to introduce Ronnie, when he looked right at me and mouthed "This one's for you!" with a big smile on his face. It was beautiful, and I'll never, ever forget it.After the show, we all went back to the Paramount hotel to pick up Ronnie and High Noon, then went out bopping around the West Side. We hit Coyote Kate's, which was having an open-mic night, and took over the stage completely for a couple of hours. The handful of folks there didn't have any idea what was going down or who any of us were, but they witnessed a pricelessly rare jam session that night. About midnight or so, we started ambling down 8th Avenue trying to find a bar with a TV not tuned to a hockey game so we could watch the broadcast of the Conan show. After failing utterly at that, it was decided that the whole lot of us, about 20 left by then, would adjourn to my apartment on East Broadway with a Great Lake of beer and bourbon to watch Ronnie's first national TV appearance. My friend Pete, who died a little over a year later at 22 when he was hit by a car at the intersection of 1st and 1st, was nearly in shock. He simply couldn't believe he was hanging out all night with Ronnie Freakin' Dawson, as he frequently put it in little muttered asides to me throughout the course of the evening.We watched the videotape of the performance again and again, and around five in the morning I drove the band back up to the Paramount and dropped them off. I still have that same tape I made of the Conan show that night, and whenever I need a lift, into the VCR it goes. I can still pick out some of the voices of my New York friends screaming and yelling on it, and I can still vividly remember what it felt like to share one of Ronnie's greatest moments with him so closely.Which just makes it that much harder to write this. In November of 2001, Ronnie was found to have cancer on his right tonsil. He underwent radiation therapy and chemo, and as of June 13th of last year had been told everything was just fine. He had pretty much stopped touring, but still played some of the bigger RAB festivals in the States and Europe. Despite the picture here, Ronnie wasn't much of a smoker. He'd light a butt or pipe up very occasionally, when the mood struck him, but the truth is Ronnie is a health nut. He stil runs ten miles a day, and while on the road he carried a juicer with him and fairly lived on a concoction of carrot, spinach, and apple juice (nastiest-looking stuff you ever saw, trust me - looks like something you'd see in the south end of a north-bound dirty diaper).But this past weekend I got one of the most depressing e-mails I have ever in my life received. The cancer is back; it has invaded his tongue and lungs, and is essentially incurable. The only possible treatment is removal of his tongue and jaw, along with part of his lung, which would leave him unable to speak, sing, or even eat, and would only give him another year or so at best anyway. He has declined to put himself and his family through this and decided to live out his time in as enjoyable a way as possible. He's doing a show February 26th: the Rockabilly Rave in the UK, which will quite likely be his last show ever. I urge any of you over there who ever cared even the smallest bit about rock and roll to be there, and to give the Blonde Bomber a rebel yell for me.And I really don't have much else to say here, except this: Ronnie, I love you. I wish there was something I could do to change all this. Thank you for the good times, and the wonderful music. And as long as I draw breath myself, I swear you won't be forgotten, my friend. Enjoy your time with us, no matter how short it may turn out to be. Another thirty years wouldn't be enough anyway, for some of us. And take comfort in the joy you brought to so many over the years, if you can, for it's a gift that so few of us ever receive, and so few nowadays even seem to appreciate when they have it. Music3005@blogcritics.org Tue, 4 Feb 2003 09:44:25 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/12/23/091113.php Mike HendrixIn the midst of all the holiday joy comes sad news: Joe Strummer is dead. (Via Michele)Joe was something of a jackass, I'll just say that up front. I was a huge Clash fan for a long time, but they're one of those youthful enthusiams of mine that hasn't stood the test of time, at least for me. They began to lose me right around the time "London Calling" came out. Their experimentation with ska and dub for the most part left me cold, even though I like ska as a rule, and they did it fairly well. I hardly listen to them anymore, even though I still like the early stuff.But there's no denying how influential they were with all the young punks in those days, myself included. And there's no denying Joe's sincerity and commitment, either. He was a largely unskilled musician who still managed to find a way to express what was in his heart and his soul, which is the founding and inviolable Prime Directive of rock and roll. He was in the vanguard of the movement to re-empower and re-energize the adherents to that principle by snatching rock and roll from the withered hands of the prog-rock dinosaurs and the overproduced showbands and pompous art-rockers and putting it back in the hands of the garage bands; by bringing the music out of the studio and back to the clubs and barrooms of the world, and by making sure people started saying "rock and roll" again instead of just "rock." There is a difference, after all, and it's crucial. As Jerry Lee Lewis once said, you have to have the "rock" AND the "roll."Joe was about as Left as they come politically, and he used his music to express his political beliefs, which is something I generally don't care for and usually try to avoid. I was a lot younger and a lot more Left myself during the Clash's heyday, and that's probably why I liked them so much more then than now. And I had occasion to meet Joe on a couple of different occasions, at late-night Lower East Side hangouts like Veselka and the bar where I worked, where I actually had to help throw a very drunk and obnoxious Strummer the hell out one night.And once again, as with DeeDee and Joey, I'm reminded of the fact that I myself am not getting any younger as the heroes and influences of my youth fall one by one. Joe and the Clash did some wonderful things in their time, and their modern-day obsolescence in obscurity in no way diminishes their achievements. Along with the Ramones, the Pistols, the Damned, and the rest of their contemporaries, they literally changed the world by making us all rethink our prejudices about just who had something worthwhile to say, and about how it should be said in the first place. Rest easy, Joe. God's Own Band just increased its stage presence and heartfelt sincerity by a mighty big jump. Music2402@blogcritics.org Mon, 23 Dec 2002 09:11:13 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/14/001437.php Mike HendrixI've been sort of half-trying to watch this Jackie Gleason made-for-TV semi-bio on CBS this evening. Somehow, I just can't get into it; I know, I just dead-solid know, that they're going to screw it up. And that would just break my heart. So maybe I'll just write about him instead. Maybe that'll help.See, it's like this: my whole life, or the sentient parts of it anyway, I've aspired to be what for lack of a better term I'll call a Badass. I can't say a "man's man" because it just doesn't work. And "guy's guy" sounds like some sweater-wearing dweeb in a "What Sort Of Man Reads Playboy" ad, giggling inanely because he just bowled a gutter ball and his girlfriend just spilled her O'Douls down the neck of her 700-dollar shirt. So Badass it is. No, I don't mean the sort of half-intelligent bare-knuckled man-ape generally conjured up by the word; I mean something else entirely.I'm thinking more along the lines of the kind of man Gleason was, onstage and in life too. The kind of guy who is always having a good time, unflappable, cool as some cucumbers (as Wodehouse always said), sharp, suave, knowing, confident; the kind of man who can pull off a Brioni suit and Italian loafers or a pair of jeans and engineer boots with equal aplomb, the kind of guy who walks into a room and, as the old joke goes, the guys want to be him and the women want to do him. The kind of guy who's humane enough to be polite to a street bum and tough enough to kick his ass if he cracks wise to the beautiful woman on his arm. The kind of guy who is equal parts elegance and earthiness, who knows both the proper way to decant a fine cognac and the proper way to sink the eight-ball in a tough joint for all the money, and who knows why that sort of knowledge matters. The kind of guy who catches everyone's eye without ever trying, and the kind of guy nobody really resents for it. The kind of guy who always has the mot juste on the tip of his tongue and the wit to know when to say it, and when not to. The kind of guy who's smart enough to know when it's okay to act stupid. I always tried to be that guy, and I think I might even have been successful at it. Once, maybe twice, for no more than five minutes at a time, my whole life.My grandfather on my mother's side was that way, albeit in a more countryfied version. He was a jolly, happy-go-lucky sort, and nothing ever really seemed to bother him too much. The rest of my mom's family (except for two of my uncles) are a bunch of certified nuts, running the full gamut: I have criminal cousins, hysterical manic-depressive aunts, befuddled henpecked uncles, and crack-whore nieces. In the midst of this ongoing maelstrom, this human flying circus, this anthropologist's nightmare, my grandfather was untouchable cool personified, and the whole family looked to him for what strength it had. When he died, the whole thing just flew apart. One aunt attempted suicide. So did a cousin. At the burial, one aunt threw herself onto the coffin begging to be buried with him. If I remember right, she hadn't even spoken to him in 20 years.And even the way he died was cool. He had a heart attack coming home at dawn from an all-nighter at an illegal whiskey-and-gambling house in rural Cabarrus County. He was 66. I never found out, but I'd just bet he had a pint of Rock & Rye in one pocket and most of the other poker players' cash in the other. It would have been just like him.So that's the kind of guy he was, and the kind of guy Gleason was too, or the Brooklyn version of it anyway. The man knew how to live, and he lived till he died. In these days, when real male role models are only just beginning to claw back up from the ground they'd been buried in by Birkenstock-clad treehugging politically-correct pseudohippies, sniveling pretentious yuppies, and hypersensitive New-Age types, Gleason's life looks like some sort of bizarre, buck-wild anachronism. It's a good thing he's gone, really. I don't think he would've been very thrilled with life in the no-smoking smarm of the Tofu Era.Gleason was never the only one, either. Where have all the badasses gone? The guys like Robert Mitchum, say, or Clark Gable? Can you imagine Babe Ruth getting hired on by any modern-day MLB™ team? My God, they'd require him to go through booze-and-hot-dog rehab and a year's worth of sensitivity training first. He'd give the patrician puppies running baseball nowadays a coronary, and it sure wouldn't be because their arteries were clogged by too many Dodger Dogs either.Fats Waller was another one. Fats played in the clubs half the night, then spent the rest of it playing some more at whatever house party was going on in Harlem, a jug of whiskey at his feet, a cigar between his teeth, and a platter of fried chicken on top of the piano. Everybody knew Fats, and everybody loved him. The joint was never jumpin' until Fats was in the house. By the time the sun came up, the jug was dry, the plate was empty, the cigar was a forgotten stub, but Fats kept right on swinging. I saw an interview with his son a few years back on TV, and he claimed he hardly knew his dad when he was little because he was usually asleep during the day after being out all night making the music he'll be forever remembered for. When he got a little older, Fats would take him around some, and the great thing about it all is that his son didn't seem to resent the whole near-absentee-father thing at all. He didn't spend a moment grinding any of those "I'm neurotic because I was neglected" axes; he flat-out said that he realized his father belonged to the whole world, and he actually felt privileged to have had as much of him as he did. If the Waller phenomenon had happened in the modern era, not that it possibly could anyway, the kid would be singing in some poor-pitiful-me whiny-assed emo band by now. Or he'd maybe be suing somebody, or both.Oh God, the guy playing Gleason just attempted a "Bang, Zoom!" It was pitiful. But I suppose it isn't really his fault. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes for anything. Trying to play Gleason for this actor must be like me trying to be Elvis; not mimic Elvis or mock Elvis, but actually be what he was. Today's actors have spent so much time trying to "internalize" their characters, to "submerge themselves" in their roles, to "play small," they've Method-acted their way out of any ability to understand what Larger Than Life means. Can you imagine Keanu Reeves trying to play Charlton Heston, or Charlie Sheen trying on Spencer Tracy? The poor schlemiel is simply in over his head.Johnny Cash is another one. I had the pleasure of actually performing onstage with the man. He showed up at one of my band's shows and, when I dedicated a tune to "the Man in Black" (not realizing that he had written the damned thing), he strolled up to the stage and stuck out his hand. I took it, stammering who-knows-what silly-assed babble. He said, in that inimitable voice, "Ya sound real good, son." I swear to God he was at least 7 feet tall, I know he was. I saw him years later in New York performing at The Ritz (not the old one, the one uptown). The crowd actually booed him when he asked for a round of applause for the flavor-of-the-month from the Nashville Hat Squad who opened the show, and who he was bringing up onstage for the grand finale. I was initially pretty pissed at New York for that, but eventually I realized that they weren't booing Johnny so much as they were booing the very idea of Johnny taking a moment of his valuable time to try to stand this dwarf up on his shoulders. It was kind and considerate of Johnny, but it was also wasted effort. I can't even remember the guy's name, and I'd bet that nobody else who was there that night does either. He was in over his head too.A great Gleason story: once in the early goings of The Honeymooners (a show I'd still rather watch than just about anything else on TV now), Gleason and the rest of the cast got handed a script which was just simply not good enough. Since Gleason never bothered with rehearsals, he, Art Carney, and a couple of the writers decided in the hour and a half or so they had before airtime to head back to The Great One's apartment and write a new script. They sat around for a good while scratching their heads and coming up with exactly zippo. Finally Gleason decided that maybe they'd come up with something if they were sitting in a bar rather than around his kitchen table. Needless to say, they ended up sloshed. They got back to the studio and drunkenly improvised the whole segment, start to finish. On national TV. Gleason was sure he'd be fired immediately. The whole cast was looking at the want ads for work before the klieg lights had even cooled off.The episode was hailed as one of their best ever. I've seen it, and you know what? It is.Now that's badass. Culture1282@blogcritics.org Mon, 14 Oct 2002 00:14:37 EDT