Music Review http://www.culturecatch.com/music en Bobby and Gary http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4362 <span>Bobby and Gary</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/user/7162" lang="" about="/user/7162" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Gary Lucas</a></span> <span>September 14, 2024 - 08:53</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/222" hreflang="en">Grateful Dead</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><figure role="group" class="embedded-entity"><article><img alt="Thumbnail" class="img-responsive" height="439" src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-09/weir-wasserman.jpeg?itok=eP_Vd8Sh" title="weir-wasserman.jpeg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="834" /></article><figcaption>Rob Wasserman and Bob Weir</figcaption></figure><p><meta charset="UTF-8" />Some years ago (June 8th, 1999, OK), I played solo at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival, an event organized by the Knitting Factory NYC, down at the South Street Seaport. My tent was right next to Bob Weir's, who was with <a href="https://ratdog.org/setlists/1999">his trio</a> (bassist Rob Wasserman and drummer Jay Lane). </p> <p>While waiting to go on, my roadie, Bob Jacobson, went next door of his own volition and wangled an invitation from gracious Bob for me to sit in with him during his set on National Steel. </p> <p>I went into Bob's tent to meet him. He was chilling, sitting there with a lady friend, sipping wine and looking very mellow and casual.</p> <p>We talked a little about Beefheart. I told him I had my 1921 National steel with me, and he said, "Oh, bring that!"</p> <p>Then he looked at me intently and said: "Do you know 'Friend of the Devil'"?</p> <p>Hell, yes! </p> <p>I know lots of 'em...</p> <p>As the sun was setting, I joined his band onstage at the appointed time, and Bobby called a tune. </p> <p>The problem is that he and his band were all going directly into the board—no onstage amplifiers—and all were wearing in-ear monitors—all except for me. </p> <p>Meaning when they started playing, there was pretty much zero sound onstage, as there were no onstage monitors. The band all had a perfectly great mix going on in their ears. All that I could hear from where I sat was the vague plinkety-plunk of electric instruments being fingered and plucked on dead unresonant strings, keyboard keys being poked soundlessly, and drums being thumped dully, with a vapor trail of vocals hanging over the seemingly bloodless disembodied, some might say funereal proceedings. </p> <p>All of the mighty band's music was projected directly at the large crowd, pumping out of the PA speakers which were, of course, in front of us, the band. The stage sound was non-existent, if not atrocious.</p> <p>I had to twist in my chair and strain to hear what damn key the song was in! I grabbed onto what I thought were the relative chords and hung on for dear life, picking and grinning and sliding my glass bottleneck with all my might up and down the neck, praying I was in the right key. I got through it ok with no apparent gaffes—PHEW!! </p> <p>The audience cheered at the end. I got up to leave—and amiable Bob called after me: </p> <p>"Hey, man! Where you goin'?? Come on back here!!" </p> <p>Which I did. </p> <p>And I played <a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bob-weir/1999/south-street-seaport-museum-new-york-ny-bc2311a.html">four more songs</a> with him, somehow…</p> <p>The moral being—You Gotta Fake It 'Til You Make It 😄</p> <p>For weeks, I felt some reverberations in NYC stemming from this guest spot with Bob.</p> <p>I'd be walking down Houston Street in front of the Knitting Factory, and a random street freak across the road would holler after me and punch his fist in the air:</p> <p>"HEY DUUUDE! BOB WEAHHHHHH!!"</p> <div class="video-embed-field-provider-youtube video-embed-field-responsive-video form-group"><iframe width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9zJmXXmARTo?autoplay=0&amp;start=0&amp;rel=0"></iframe> </div> <p> </p> </div> <ul class="links inline list-inline"><li class="comment-add"><a href="/node/4362#comment-form" title="Share your thoughts and opinions." hreflang="en">Add new comment</a></li></ul><section> <a id="comment-5430"></a> <article data-comment-user-id="0" class="js-comment"> <mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1726674261"></mark> <div> <h3><a href="/comment/5430#comment-5430" class="permalink" rel="bookmark" hreflang="en">playing w/ bobby weir trio in &#039;99</a></h3> <div class="field field--name-comment-body field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field--item"><p>i was at this show. great story!... bobby was 'chilling w a lady friend' and asked if you knew friend of the devil... can't beat that! and here's the setlist memorialized at ratdog.org for your viewing pleasure.... best, gh https://ratdog.org/setlists/1999</p> </div> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderLinks" arguments="0=5430&amp;1=default&amp;2=en&amp;3=" token="aWChLdYSI0lwjLPNj0cVrNtqC525OxS6_SdsShSqzLw"></drupal-render-placeholder> </div> <footer> <article typeof="schema:Person" about="/user/0"> <div class="field field--name-user-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field--item"> <a href="/user/0"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/extra_small/public/default_images/avatar.png?itok=RF-fAyOX" width="50" height="50" alt="Generic Profile Avatar Image" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /> </a> </div> </article> <p>Submitted by <span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">gordon hensley</span> on September 15, 2024 - 11:42</p> </footer> </article> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4362&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="qGXJQPHHOOQve8InJsfAxUGRMax2FEOK31A55F6HUrc"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Sat, 14 Sep 2024 12:53:56 +0000 Gary Lucas 4362 at http://www.culturecatch.com How German Is It http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4361 <span>How German Is It</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/user/7162" lang="" about="/user/7162" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Gary Lucas</a></span> <span>September 11, 2024 - 09:04</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/949" hreflang="en">Kraftwerk</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><figure role="group" class="embedded-entity"><article><img alt="Thumbnail" class="img-responsive" height="1068" src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-09/ashtry-tee_3.jpeg?itok=1pmMVU3Z" title="ashtray picks" typeof="foaf:Image" width="960" /></article><figcaption>A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS: Nicked saucer from a TEE train on a journey from Paris to Amsterdam in 1978</figcaption></figure><p>KRAFTWERKEN: I first heard the industrial strength anthem "Trans-Europe Express" wafting over the PA before Iggy Pop went on (with David Bowie on piano) at the Berkeley Community Theater on April 17th, 1977. What a revolutionary year that was for new music—esp. Punk and Reggae—but this was SOMETHING ELSE: an earworm-doomy, Germanic, hypnotic; what WAS that?? The clickety-clack propulsive percussion drives it along like a stagecoach to Valhalla, and the Wagnerian arpeggiated stacked minor key chords give it an iconic, endless feel (like announcing a—gulp—Neu Thousand Year Reich). These guys are volk-artist Pioneers of Ingolstadt—pace Fassbinder—harbinger heralds of a Brave New Welt. "And looking very relaxed, Arthur Schopenhauer and Friederich Nietzsche on vibes":</p> <div class="video-embed-field-provider-youtube video-embed-field-responsive-video form-group"><iframe width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JKHfSwoALYE?autoplay=0&amp;start=0&amp;rel=0"></iframe> </div> <p><meta charset="UTF-8" /></p> <p>A few months later, my first wife, Ling Ling Kee, and I had relocated from SF to the greener pastures of NYC, specifically the West Village, and were up in Central Park grazing in the grass.</p> <p>Suddenly, a squadron of young black kids on bicycles came tearing down the drive that snakes through the park, BLASTING this track on boomboxes slung over their bikes' handlebars. There was that song again!!</p> <p>Later that afternoon, I visited the cool Discorama Record Store on Bleecker Street between 6th and 7th Ave. down the road from where we were sub-letting and scored a vinyl copy of Kraftwerk's <em>Trans-Europe Express</em> album on Capitol as a cut-out for a mere $1.97! I was in heaven--and that album quickly became part of our soundtrack of Summer '77 (along with the first Clash album on import, the first Modern Lovers album, the first two Ramones albums, the Live at CBGB's double album with Mink Deville, Talking Heads <em>'77</em>, Jonathan Richman's first two solo albums, etc).</p> <p>Flash forward to 1989, and I'm on tour in Germany, culminating right around Xmas with three nights solo at East Berlin industrial concrete squat the Tacheles (freezing! They had to heat it with hoses that spewed pre-heated plumes of air). The audience looked like the zombies from <em>Night of the Living Dead</em>, all bundled up from the cold but comatose, and they seemingly did not move a muscle while I played.</p> <p>Finishing my engagement, I took the Deutsche Bahnhof train from Berlin to the Central Station in Amsterdam to play a concert at the Patronaat Haarlem—a journey of about 8 hours across Germany into the Netherlands. I whiled away the time reading and playing chess on a magnetic board with a young German while the scenic landscape rolled by. Arriving in Amsterdam, I took a cab directly to the club, set up, and waited to go on.</p> <p>When I finally hit the stage at about 11 pm, I opened with a solo guitar version of "TEE," which I'd figured out in the dressing room—and segued into my version of "Autobahn."</p> <p>I was exhausted but played my heart out for the Dutch fans.</p> <p>Sheer bliss…</p> <p><iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/26469066&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true" width="100%"></iframe></p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4361&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="r4p6jk-SQmGz7hsculLIYda0ZUX8w1qM6eb1t4PdTqI"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Wed, 11 Sep 2024 13:04:11 +0000 Gary Lucas 4361 at http://www.culturecatch.com McGuinn Takes Us On a Trip Upon His Magic Swirling Ship http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4358 <span>McGuinn Takes Us On a Trip Upon His Magic Swirling Ship</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/users/jon-geffner" lang="" about="/users/jon-geffner" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Jon Geffner</a></span> <span>September 2, 2024 - 15:51</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/580" hreflang="en">folk rock</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><article class="embedded-entity"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-09/roger_mcquinn_photo_live.jpeg?itok=PkSnU2ds" width="980" height="602" alt="Thumbnail" title="roger_mcquinn_photo_live.jpeg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p><strong>Roger McGinn</strong></p> <p><strong>Space at Westbury, NY</strong></p> <p>I knew going into Roger McGinn’s show at the Space at Westbury that McGuinn was a great singer/songwriter and virtuoso guitarist but I found out that night that the was something else as well—a masterful raconteur. His show was more of a one-man show than a concert in the traditional sense. Similarly to Bruce Springsteen’s Broadway residency, it was an oral history of his life and times with his iconic songs interspersed more or less chronologically to fit the narrative. He gave the audience insight into his influences and his songwriting process and regaled us with amusing anecdotes of those he encountered along the way—Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Pete Seeger (of whom he did a hilarious impression), Bobby Darin, Tom Petty, Peter Fonda, and of course his Byrds bandmates David Crosby, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman. And, natch, the songs were glorious: "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Turn! Turn! Turn!," "Mr. Spaceman," "Eight Miles High" (a real guitar de force), "Ballad of Easy Rider," "Chestnut Mare," and more.</p> <div class="video-embed-field-provider-youtube video-embed-field-responsive-video form-group"><iframe width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oGZ0OMgVNlY?autoplay=0&amp;start=0&amp;rel=0"></iframe> </div> <p>The songs were performed solo with all of the great guitar arrangements—on acoustic guitar, banjo, and of course the famous Rickenbacker—that we have come to know and love. It was amazing how McGuinn filled the room with sound. He is not so much a solo performer as a one-man band. At 82, Roger McGuinn is at the top of his game. Sometimes when one goes to see a legend in concert it can be like seeing a dusty old museum piece. And, with the stage set-up, with the guitars lined up and the plants, it looked as though that could be the case with McGuinn. It was anything but. McGuinn is no mere legend. He’s an American icon. If his tour brings him anywhere near your town, I highly recommend that you go and see him. You’re welcome.</p> </div> <ul class="links inline list-inline"><li class="comment-add"><a href="/node/4358#comment-form" title="Share your thoughts and opinions." hreflang="en">Add new comment</a></li></ul><section> <a id="comment-5438"></a> <article data-comment-user-id="0" class="js-comment"> <mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1727119086"></mark> <div> <h3><a href="/comment/5438#comment-5438" class="permalink" rel="bookmark" hreflang="en">Roger McGuinn</a></h3> <div class="field field--name-comment-body field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field--item"><p>I have been listening to Roger's and the Byrds' music since I heard them as a 12 year old in 1965. Turn! Turn! Turn! captured me and remains my favorite recording of all time. I saw Roger's show twice this year in Saratoga, CA and Torrance, CA and could barely contain myself. His effortless guitar playing without the drama of a Neil Young performance is simply a treat for the ears, heart, and soul. Those of us from that '60's era still marvel at the quality of their music. And we continue listening because there's been nothing better since. At 82, he's lost nothing of his skillset and will not disappoint. His wife, Camilla, who sells CDs at intermission and after the show is also such a warm and generous person. See him absolutely, if you have the chance. Legends like Roger are rare and someday he may actually think about retiring!</p> </div> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderLinks" arguments="0=5438&amp;1=default&amp;2=en&amp;3=" token="PIixdLgy09PIzZij4R5n7M9FkKaY2VSacFe4aCXAj98"></drupal-render-placeholder> </div> <footer> <article typeof="schema:Person" about="/user/0"> <div class="field field--name-user-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field--item"> <a href="/user/0"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/extra_small/public/default_images/avatar.png?itok=RF-fAyOX" width="50" height="50" alt="Generic Profile Avatar Image" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /> </a> </div> </article> <p>Submitted by <span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Ted Geldberg </span> on September 18, 2024 - 18:45</p> </footer> </article> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4358&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="l7kV8M9_VfQv4-O8cP-VLbZQi8cizZk12FfIf7oLa_s"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Mon, 02 Sep 2024 19:51:01 +0000 Jon Geffner 4358 at http://www.culturecatch.com The Wagner Group http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4354 <span>The Wagner Group</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/user/7162" lang="" about="/user/7162" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Gary Lucas</a></span> <span>August 26, 2024 - 08:55</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/837" hreflang="en">classical</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><meta charset="UTF-8" /></p> <article class="embedded-entity align-right"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024/2024-08/richard_wagner_-_wikipedia.jpeg?itok=PS4ogeda" width="346" height="480" alt="Thumbnail" title="richard_wagner_-_wikipedia.jpeg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p> </p> <p>The thing about <a attributionsrc="/privacy_sandbox/comet/register/source/?xt=AZV30C_VDKipzVc6MELCthESRBAgL6Nv9i-pN-XQc5ebqfFs39MeuMKaY-AMJYFlZ4sUNGg2zb9ZK7UYwbLewms0HZQxJgb2Hy1iDBk_CxdSyzXaCpfaVl9dSdikhRbiceWoMxQLxzYfXaNlioRE_gPeP5G_X802W2ppR_FmBuTFrD4AfY0cTHHGvB8mtYPQKh1vBbf_F4dvvsy9sFWIoGWESF1gLbz_FBT6px_mBDJbB31vd0ra-y_vyBFEXxvHb1T-XcnGl0Fj37bw_uEm_TccI9sPSTKvtiRfCLHNP7phgTmNLc7TzDh_37NBEcQwzgawRLSThVyZMVaDZ4LsB5Ahi1I87toIlDvh9cOnXvYAfISYaWoTD-5cQNjU4YDkMZDO0G0EeRan8JfBQBZtoE5ObUQu_ukjPI_cM7gKG4Gwkzz6gld6hpam_ndtSSb8_sbJhfR3q03i4OACc3avlI8PGTYv18V5q6_tWFa6NiVDjiIfGZQDwbDoFgC2TllCah41iO6RbqotIsRovlDxQCjivzuPYebj5a_jFkOo-ZekvXklqjwwa8ZnbgV7V-uNECVUpzeDByJ_TtKrml_SDctLiKPu5bst9T8RN4zrWfJCZyfRxSWk7Ba_pdR5rIk-hZePLW2pT9m1HE41zcRH-qxqwGInfAzxUmCp8XgAfDdXLVltL8XsYW5rkOhyUdPGmkHhsuf9hz12Ym-dQojXG9mr66Z4N7t6pjSY8cZ1GKw4Ewo_At2MhSEvONC2L56TdtpMYXXV_I4krHWQ7rO5KGepIuWlyl-T1IwQ23EzqpoYMRTVl1Fb6lHR-7DlQtXvethu_YuwEVJIixobUxkx0B3M_WGGuXM161ysVF97Mgbr-i6fOZKe5SuCY7ja_TIuLfo4i1jnZYvEw-355C3F0ivUlp4JekuaYoxds7DAXz6XeefwjOVN2-0kj1P46hYA3kQVjuHkLoJcXWrYuFIJe40U_nv5gJsWei4CKoHVkgOAOKNmGM4tHO8Js7Qr7yPwSFlpTSYZtLxftH31iVeC_LXzhrracg3Ge_VP7f2mLDxJklA-Vx7_qOvpCjuo06tn0PQqWUq86lZMYsmnYI1auge9Beo-h6PUTAKfuLDP61eqZXiJIGkjfcbY7CusTu-yS-VPEB39_ABZRTgMlML_PxmGmGJudYajALWGHVtHBxpvGLoDNFAC4f7wmaqgYJM8YOgTmAv9X_EvfEXHBQdOW34qLEqVRb8-BE3MpthLrcUXtmpNY9R66sUYwQ9otFHKZ7-ZJtrwMmlpvHQTw19JvT7I4E3E4oQbuugzsDE87Ca-eVrGhOZ2dAGeTfFzUoKqgRCMVv2QowqIJMUd3d6t9BKW5JY4zDBeplNGiYup_LQ6X-AcqSy2rQGsTeGemalodeU" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/227581860716343/?__cft__[0]=AZWyhJmp3sPK1H-nvWvq3BQ59yPrHpwghzufa0_PmaoLJkaMNxro6p0bCfW0Vj2YFu7tBIu48PgGe9Ds-p2BaMhknRgN424V3ycNDrN8a2ew2UjJV42-NLMdB69DbzB86yz83p3lcjYSag3vCzNg45H2AO7gIli_M2lNPfs9PasJacutlkOHIcdsWRtR6I0vODg&amp;__tn__=-UK-R" role="link" tabindex="0">Richard Wagner (1813-1883)</a>, whose music I have frequently arranged for solo guitar—he WAS a heinous anti-semite. And he wrote a particularly atrocious screed, "Judaism in Music," an attack on what he viewed as the mongrelization of "pure" classical music by inferior Jewish composers (my kind of guys!).</p> <p>Still—Wagner's music qua music is so divinely inspired—and so sensually listenable (forget the dumbass librettos)—that he attracted plenty of Jewish enablers in his lifetime and plenty of Jewish adherents over the years who "should have known better" (including the father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, who wrote his book <em>The Jewish State</em> while listening to "Tannhäuser" every night that he worked on it). Plenty of Wagnerian nay-sayers over the years, too, of course, including George Bernard Shaw's 1898 attack on the Ring Cycle, <em>The Perfect Wagnerite.</em></p> <p>I grew up hearing a lot of Wagner's famous leitmotifs in things like <em>Popeye</em> cartoons (1934's "Shiver Me Timbers" contains a quote from "<a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2wo0fb">The Flying Dutchman</a>").</p> <p>But I really fell under the spell of Wagner thoroughly in 1977 after obtaining a boxed set of his <em>Complete Orchestral Music</em> from CBS Masterworks, which I occasionally wrote copy for—a box that contained "Entry of the Gods into Valhalla" from <em>Das Rheingold</em>.</p> <p>This music so enchanted me (especially when zonked, which is what I had to do in Excelsis Deo just to get through a typical day—Good or Bad—at Black Rock on West 52nd St.)--music that so thrilled me, lying on my back on the carpet in a half-daze with my head between the speakers—that I recall thinking:</p> <p>"If I die right now at this precise moment, I will not have had a more transcendental experience in my entire lifetime than listening to this heavenly music."</p> <p>Which is obviously what Wagner's music was designed to do.</p> <p>Anyway, despite a ban on Wagner in Israel for years (which I broke—shhhh!—when I played my live score co-written with <a attributionsrc="/privacy_sandbox/comet/register/source/?xt=AZV30C_VDKipzVc6MELCthESRBAgL6Nv9i-pN-XQc5ebqfFs39MeuMKaY-AMJYFlZ4sUNGg2zb9ZK7UYwbLewms0HZQxJgb2Hy1iDBk_CxdSyzXaCpfaVl9dSdikhRbiceWoMxQLxzYfXaNlioRE_gPeP5G_X802W2ppR_FmBuTFrD4AfY0cTHHGvB8mtYPQKh1vBbf_F4dvvsy9sFWIoGWESF1gLbz_FBT6px_mBDJbB31vd0ra-y_vyBFEXxvHb1T-XcnGl0Fj37bw_uEm_TccI9sPSTKvtiRfCLHNP7phgTmNLc7TzDh_37NBEcQwzgawRLSThVyZMVaDZ4LsB5Ahi1I87toIlDvh9cOnXvYAfISYaWoTD-5cQNjU4YDkMZDO0G0EeRan8JfBQBZtoE5ObUQu_ukjPI_cM7gKG4Gwkzz6gld6hpam_ndtSSb8_sbJhfR3q03i4OACc3avlI8PGTYv18V5q6_tWFa6NiVDjiIfGZQDwbDoFgC2TllCah41iO6RbqotIsRovlDxQCjivzuPYebj5a_jFkOo-ZekvXklqjwwa8ZnbgV7V-uNECVUpzeDByJ_TtKrml_SDctLiKPu5bst9T8RN4zrWfJCZyfRxSWk7Ba_pdR5rIk-hZePLW2pT9m1HE41zcRH-qxqwGInfAzxUmCp8XgAfDdXLVltL8XsYW5rkOhyUdPGmkHhsuf9hz12Ym-dQojXG9mr66Z4N7t6pjSY8cZ1GKw4Ewo_At2MhSEvONC2L56TdtpMYXXV_I4krHWQ7rO5KGepIuWlyl-T1IwQ23EzqpoYMRTVl1Fb6lHR-7DlQtXvethu_YuwEVJIixobUxkx0B3M_WGGuXM161ysVF97Mgbr-i6fOZKe5SuCY7ja_TIuLfo4i1jnZYvEw-355C3F0ivUlp4JekuaYoxds7DAXz6XeefwjOVN2-0kj1P46hYA3kQVjuHkLoJcXWrYuFIJe40U_nv5gJsWei4CKoHVkgOAOKNmGM4tHO8Js7Qr7yPwSFlpTSYZtLxftH31iVeC_LXzhrracg3Ge_VP7f2mLDxJklA-Vx7_qOvpCjuo06tn0PQqWUq86lZMYsmnYI1auge9Beo-h6PUTAKfuLDP61eqZXiJIGkjfcbY7CusTu-yS-VPEB39_ABZRTgMlML_PxmGmGJudYajALWGHVtHBxpvGLoDNFAC4f7wmaqgYJM8YOgTmAv9X_EvfEXHBQdOW34qLEqVRb8-BE3MpthLrcUXtmpNY9R66sUYwQ9otFHKZ7-ZJtrwMmlpvHQTw19JvT7I4E3E4oQbuugzsDE87Ca-eVrGhOZ2dAGeTfFzUoKqgRCMVv2QowqIJMUd3d6t9BKW5JY4zDBeplNGiYup_LQ6X-AcqSy2rQGsTeGemalodeU" href="https://www.facebook.com/walter.horn.11?__cft__[0]=AZWyhJmp3sPK1H-nvWvq3BQ59yPrHpwghzufa0_PmaoLJkaMNxro6p0bCfW0Vj2YFu7tBIu48PgGe9Ds-p2BaMhknRgN424V3ycNDrN8a2ew2UjJV42-NLMdB69DbzB86yz83p3lcjYSag3vCzNg45H2AO7gIli_M2lNPfs9PasJacutlkOHIcdsWRtR6I0vODg&amp;__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" tabindex="0">Walter Horn</a> accompanying the 1920 German Expressionist horror classic <em>The Golem</em> at the Next Festival in Tel Aviv in Spring of '99—a score which contains a quote from "Ride of the Valkyries")—plenty of Jewish folks love them some Wagner!!</p> <p>Case in point—Larry David, who scandalizes a pious Jew by humming the "Siegfried Idyll" to Cheryl Hines while in line for a movie (and what the heck is SHE doing with RFK Jr.??)</p> <p><em>Curb Your Enthusiasm</em>: <a attributionsrc="/privacy_sandbox/comet/register/source/?xt=AZV30C_VDKipzVc6MELCthESRBAgL6Nv9i-pN-XQc5ebqfFs39MeuMKaY-AMJYFlZ4sUNGg2zb9ZK7UYwbLewms0HZQxJgb2Hy1iDBk_CxdSyzXaCpfaVl9dSdikhRbiceWoMxQLxzYfXaNlioRE_gPeP5G_X802W2ppR_FmBuTFrD4AfY0cTHHGvB8mtYPQKh1vBbf_F4dvvsy9sFWIoGWESF1gLbz_FBT6px_mBDJbB31vd0ra-y_vyBFEXxvHb1T-XcnGl0Fj37bw_uEm_TccI9sPSTKvtiRfCLHNP7phgTmNLc7TzDh_37NBEcQwzgawRLSThVyZMVaDZ4LsB5Ahi1I87toIlDvh9cOnXvYAfISYaWoTD-5cQNjU4YDkMZDO0G0EeRan8JfBQBZtoE5ObUQu_ukjPI_cM7gKG4Gwkzz6gld6hpam_ndtSSb8_sbJhfR3q03i4OACc3avlI8PGTYv18V5q6_tWFa6NiVDjiIfGZQDwbDoFgC2TllCah41iO6RbqotIsRovlDxQCjivzuPYebj5a_jFkOo-ZekvXklqjwwa8ZnbgV7V-uNECVUpzeDByJ_TtKrml_SDctLiKPu5bst9T8RN4zrWfJCZyfRxSWk7Ba_pdR5rIk-hZePLW2pT9m1HE41zcRH-qxqwGInfAzxUmCp8XgAfDdXLVltL8XsYW5rkOhyUdPGmkHhsuf9hz12Ym-dQojXG9mr66Z4N7t6pjSY8cZ1GKw4Ewo_At2MhSEvONC2L56TdtpMYXXV_I4krHWQ7rO5KGepIuWlyl-T1IwQ23EzqpoYMRTVl1Fb6lHR-7DlQtXvethu_YuwEVJIixobUxkx0B3M_WGGuXM161ysVF97Mgbr-i6fOZKe5SuCY7ja_TIuLfo4i1jnZYvEw-355C3F0ivUlp4JekuaYoxds7DAXz6XeefwjOVN2-0kj1P46hYA3kQVjuHkLoJcXWrYuFIJe40U_nv5gJsWei4CKoHVkgOAOKNmGM4tHO8Js7Qr7yPwSFlpTSYZtLxftH31iVeC_LXzhrracg3Ge_VP7f2mLDxJklA-Vx7_qOvpCjuo06tn0PQqWUq86lZMYsmnYI1auge9Beo-h6PUTAKfuLDP61eqZXiJIGkjfcbY7CusTu-yS-VPEB39_ABZRTgMlML_PxmGmGJudYajALWGHVtHBxpvGLoDNFAC4f7wmaqgYJM8YOgTmAv9X_EvfEXHBQdOW34qLEqVRb8-BE3MpthLrcUXtmpNY9R66sUYwQ9otFHKZ7-ZJtrwMmlpvHQTw19JvT7I4E3E4oQbuugzsDE87Ca-eVrGhOZ2dAGeTfFzUoKqgRCMVv2QowqIJMUd3d6t9BKW5JY4zDBeplNGiYup_LQ6X-AcqSy2rQGsTeGemalodeU" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5yPuiJHlYo&amp;fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1f9gqjzHTmmBGW42tlPMldb2OQ50Q1NIRc76DyXjyVyqGWA9ufcLavJ5Y_aem_Mp2Rq-68dWE3WhTPJOeaFA" rel="nofollow noreferrer" role="link" tabindex="0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5yPuiJHlYo</a> </p> <p>All this is to say that after arranging a whole lot of Wagner for solo guitar over my career. "To defeat thine enemy, sing his song" was how I put it in the liner notes to my Tzadik album <em>Street of Lost Brothers</em>—my pal, the brilliant producer/conceptualist Sandy Pearlman (Blue Oyster Cult, The Dictators, The Clash) engaged my services to arrange the 4th movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony for solo electric guitar, for a class he was teaching at McGill University's Schulich School of Music entitled <em>Bruckner as Heavy Metal: From Chord Power to Power Chord</em>.</p> <p>BRUCKNER—not Wagner??</p> <p>Well, Sandy was a diabolical contrarian...</p> <p>So, anyway, I allowed myself to get lassoed into arranging this movement using the live recording below, an air check off Austrian radio on Oct. 17th, 1944, of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Musikverein conducted by the legendary Wilhelm Furtwängler, provided by Sandy as a template.</p> <div class="video-embed-field-provider-youtube video-embed-field-responsive-video form-group"><iframe width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0o2DWPZFnw0?autoplay=0&amp;start=0&amp;rel=0"></iframe> </div> <p>According to Sandy, this recording was made right when the Allies were at the Gates of Wien—and if you listened closely, you could hear the incoming cannonades. I'm not sure about that (I can't hear 'em, and I have pretty good ears).</p> <p>Nevertheless, please do enjoy this (slightly truncated) Final Movement of Bruckner's 4th Symphony—and you be the judge.</p> <div class="video-embed-field-provider-youtube video-embed-field-responsive-video form-group"><iframe width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YcNHr4mDK1U?autoplay=0&amp;start=0&amp;rel=0"></iframe> </div> <p> </p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4354&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="y3ncYEhWE5jlQsZ1ihCejamy7QtY6OWA1yLt6u-ccKg"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Mon, 26 Aug 2024 12:55:17 +0000 Gary Lucas 4354 at http://www.culturecatch.com Desperately Seeking Sue Kahn http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4347 <span>Desperately Seeking Sue Kahn</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/user/460" lang="" about="/user/460" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Robert Cochrane</a></span> <span>August 9, 2024 - 06:34</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/735" hreflang="en">folk</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><article class="embedded-entity"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-08/sue-kahn-acetate.jpeg?itok=b3FnfwbA" width="1200" height="1200" alt="Thumbnail" title="sue-kahn-acetate.jpeg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p><meta charset="UTF-8" /></p> <p><strong>A Quest For A Face.</strong></p> <p>1963 was a good year for New York folkie Sue Kahn. The recent graduate from New York College of Music was performing in the coffee houses of the Big Apple, having also secured the prestigious gig of a resident folk singer at Grossinger's, the Jewish holiday complex in the Catskills. A radio interview she undertook that summer with Al Wasser on <a href="http://folkmusicworldwide.com/sue-kahn.html">Radio New York Folk Music Worldwide</a> survives. It reveals a young woman brimming with ideas and passion. In it, she talks about her album appearing the following year, her influences, and her plans regarding a music career. </p> <p>Resident at 29 Woodmere Boulevard, Woodmere, a building that still stands, Sue Kahn was going places, but quite where we no longer know. The anticipated album failed to appear, evidence of her career exists solely in that radio interview, and no photograph puts a face to her brief ambitions. Still, there is the beguiling existence of seventeen recorded songs. These stretch across three acetate discs, two 12 and one 10-inch. </p> <p>They appeared on eBay about a decade ago, each listed individually at an opening bid of $2.99, stating simply <em>Sue Kahn. Folk Singer. Acetate</em>. Curious, I googled her, discovering zilch. Placing three $20 tries, I was surprised to find an invoice for $8.97, the postage to the UK dwarfing their lowly purchase cost. When played, there emerged a trained, pure voice with guitar, her vocals occasionally a little too neat for the folk genre, but the songs have a distinctive professionalism, a period charm, her guitar playing is pretty nifty, too. </p> <p>There's a Russian folk song, Jewish and Haitian ones, American and English too, as well as covers of Tom Paxton's "Ramblin' Boy," Sydney Carter's "Crow On The Cradle," and Gordon Jenkin's "This Is All I Ask."  Kahn obviously knew her songbooks. Labels on the discs, where such remain, the state simply Sue Kahn sings and plays her guitar. The acetates, cut at Variety Recording Service, 225 West 46<sup>th</sup> Street' are housed in buff-colored sleeves within a torn brown paper envelope, "Sue Kahn - Acetates" scribbled neatly in pencil on the front.</p> <p>Having had them digitized, I've grown in the intervening decade to admire the unique talent of Sue Kahn, as have a few friends. She has the air of a young Joan Baez, but apart from the radio interview lurking in the corners of the internet, years of searches for a photograph, or even a trace of her, have proven fruitless. She'd have had posters or flyers for her Grossinger's and coffee house sojourns, but such ephemera doesn't always survive. </p> <article class="embedded-entity"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-08/sue-kahn-album-side_2.jpg?itok=B2XIP7wK" width="1200" height="1200" alt="Thumbnail" title="sue-kahn-album-side_2.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p>My hunch is that the acetates are those played on the radio show and were her personal and sole copies. Acetates were expensive in both dollars and time, and these may have come on the market after her demise. If she were alive, she'd be in her eighties. Did she willingly disappear circa 1964, in the fashion of Connie Converse and Jim Sullivan, if indeed any willingness can be attached to their absences? Perhaps she simply met a nice Jewish boy and got married? Maybe she died in a car crash? Such are the conjectures that arise when nothing yet remains.</p> <p>Her songs could make a delicious double vinyl album, a wonderful postcard from the past at the beginning of the folk explosion. Without a face to adorn one, such a project would be pointless—a failure by design. Someone must recall seeing her perform, and somewhere in a closet, an abandoned filing cabinet, something will reside of Sue Kahn. A fading polaroid of her singing from a holiday at Grossinger's would suffice. A mention or a memory, a description of her face, so her songs from sixty years ago can finally entertain and grace the wider world.</p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4347&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="PI4uB1RBHqIc18uyIg2bdUTwe7l-UWvNFUBhMu_6lBI"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Fri, 09 Aug 2024 10:34:15 +0000 Robert Cochrane 4347 at http://www.culturecatch.com Less Is More, If You Know The Score http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4342 <span>Less Is More, If You Know The Score</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/user/460" lang="" about="/user/460" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Robert Cochrane</a></span> <span>August 4, 2024 - 19:02</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/769" hreflang="en">pop rock</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><meta charset="UTF-8" /></p> <div class="video-embed-field-provider-youtube video-embed-field-responsive-video form-group"><iframe width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XkShuPsh5ng?autoplay=0&amp;start=0&amp;rel=0"></iframe> </div> <p><strong>JOHN HOWARD: <em>Currently/I Am Not Gone</em> </strong></p> <p>We listen to music differently these days, a subtle change in our appreciation having transpired via the largely invisible digital revolution. Once, and not so long upon the time ago, you'd catch a song on the radio, or hear a record at a friend's, and a quest would evolve. A visit to a record store, and then another, if the first hadn't the album or single that you sought. You might even order it and wait, returning to squire home your purchase to play it again, and again, and again. </p> <p>I'm not saying that people don't still seek to find, but we have lost the thrill of the chase, the fine art of waiting having flown, we suffer the absence of anticipation. We now click and listen, a more disposable relationship is formed with a song on a screen, phone or tablet. The thrill of the chase, that need to find and own something that was always inherently ephemeral, has been diminished by everything being a mere search, swipe, or tap away.</p> <p>Quintessentially English singer-songwriter John Howard's new single "Currently" c/w "I Am Not Gone" belongs to the days of record shops with listening booths, when shiny black plastic records were the format that reigned. In those days it would likely have been a Double A-Side, whence both songs were deemed equally relevant and fine, and such is the case with this fetching brace of offerings. They reveal a diligent artist at home with his gifts, possessing a deceptive effortlessness without ever seeming clever or contrived. Nifty and refined, they have a lingering catchiness, a thread of hooks that ensnare the mind.</p> <p>"Currently" is as mini-baroque and chamber masterpiece laden with deceptive eloquence. Elements pervade of early Al Stewart or Cat Stevens and their bedsitter maladies, with melancholy shades of The Beatles and The Zombies, but with a dash of The Left Banke's classicism. "I Am Not Gone" has a flippant skip in it's step harking back to a Saturday afternoon on Carnaby Street. Laconic, with an effortless air that conceals the subtle songcraft within. At two minutes and fourteen seconds it delivers with the subtlety of a wistful kiss that immediately fades before you realise it has been delivered. The song could be a lost remnant from Keith Wast's successful but ill-fated "Except From A Teenage Opera."</p> <p>John Howard has seen a remarkable renaissance in the past twenty years, after as many decades of stalled creativity. He belongs to a host of neglected once, but gradually respected piano men, Bill Fay and Jobriath spring to mind, who were ignored in the days that were supposed to belong to them, but who've a much greater relevance in the here that we call now.</p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4342&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="h-o1VRvpnkLQszYAQbcV8dspnaAKrO5hVLsEQIQZEsM"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Sun, 04 Aug 2024 23:02:57 +0000 Robert Cochrane 4342 at http://www.culturecatch.com 1964...Knocking At Your Door http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4341 <span>1964...Knocking At Your Door</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/user/7162" lang="" about="/user/7162" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Gary Lucas</a></span> <span>August 4, 2024 - 18:03</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/817" hreflang="en">The Rolling Stones</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><meta charset="UTF-8" /></p> <article class="embedded-entity"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-08/rolling-stones-poster.jpeg?itok=feEDEr_E" width="1179" height="1853" alt="Thumbnail" title="rolling-stones-poster.jpeg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p><meta charset="UTF-8" /><meta charset="UTF-8" /><meta charset="UTF-8" /></p> <p>Walking past the Carnegie Diner on 57th Street and 7th Avenue recently, I spied this Stones concert poster for a Carnegie Hall double gig on June 20th (my birthday), circa 1964, hanging in the window.</p> <p>It was for the Stones’s first-ever appearance in NYC.</p> <p>What was I doing on that red-letter June 20th birthday up in my hometown of Syracuse, NY?</p> <p>As mentioned, I was only dimly aware of the Stones at that point. It wasn't until "The Last Time" featuring Brian Jones's immortal hypno-riff came over the airwaves in March '65 that the Stones' actual music drilled itself into my adolescent consciousness.</p> <p>Actually, on the evening of June 20th, 1964, I was watching a revival of <a attributionsrc="/privacy_sandbox/comet/register/source/?xt=AZXo-RWwNDtLmBNg3PUWxD0LjT1G0BYBIal4X_dawWG3v3Smjpg4Reo87x0GjAnZ-aFT8xEXbcgYMnfVCjaMl08KcnA9WKwDyQCSGvt75Z4_-WuIMovzT_9YL2iR0tpK4xyWeDwrtcaYiEGQdFd1epUUO4TRxZRNbWqk2Ubf1J0zJBjYVmD1A14GtudbEr7eIGEiQ-lBPmh_u4mypCfgog-MyIHopL2vy7skJWKBjlRIxbc_X9VZ_cUmE5A3UOjtXkE2BGbxlDfqoFh1Dw82rOphxReTH6nUyt6w5AR0j9778UgaJ2hKzmB2Fhb0mk9DI80MeITUvdYvpWMWtUChpJnQwwwVfFlPXIENALOzdJ_p8HJWk5xX--nH6IUP9UogKl9OimIaVHtsTxWnlRSZW3xaYZSt96Fap-sgJzrwPdLixUuDLvPY0Gn_hHOYcSuc_nRIednSwH1kZGwLfbu_hD-bw_G0fR_GERAc4IF17eVrt-JsA4YQIYzZsxuhqyxFKeF_KH0suyJRQ-tCMcc87oew1xZt-u1KasMqyzgL3xlh1Daktz9N9TJYopfCeCtpvjJ1vGWQTCQk6Ipc4PVz2fA8xOQaa9J5fBGZb06NQcylrt1tQXfDDxf1U3fUVU8oNVLGF4Ge8-JKMiV5VhrsIRcDerI_N6vxEjS0LNQI_4v_XRZzqER6B9wQ1iFDmCo9bfhWjd8gDr4NwtHrPNVfAUaYGktn9dWoYfP9dOkKi8hew6R2coTyk07y6Et_i6cDvMg8Sx_O7LkqtdmVyo7wdz3fhKfcZPyVyOakk5X-CCs6I_-ii4eFWqQfLLFFGQ3YrCrjxvMfJCiUvq6kUzWT9VEsk61zfS6ql-8q6SV4t9E-JXK096vrYYZUbi2gyHM1DGJ_MpTi-fRg-MElnV9nsVYiXzbmhGn8HZ21L1Hu76_hT3Ti6H3aYGV2jh0dJhvPcEvCggzclCFwum4PnS0o71YX3t37MS0jJzcBqSVepqE1VGj3AG6tZoumP9ZBIjCMBsm0XrVsv4byWHm4E8XBiPcyeBt0n3RuMmD9dhVQKHnVWalBbNl7ek0DMr7f9yLSGseYZHue_1z974uEIVoTIg6CqDD5Ep9Huz0lhf-hKaqi0vex_-m7T3mzEAo88RF8kxp841U2ACVSbADVRgBcr-73awQHvdPISYz2Y2NOY2ihlTfNfN2KCF_9wtVmLHnB4d2XErcVm5I3_XeNeSNHh6VR1x4rFxN6hfOdaAr8ruJOxAt0ynpojMvI3_4lKfULg6HIILSi-1Jag4RvGXx0kjM-LRmqEG1hL1LHyYKC6yI5ZQS--xmr3IXNWizpTDn-K7xV59iTaP5blsWMXTX6Bw4SoSfkcYvGP-Cfdlu8AfUDwoP-yvQBLzDgTYcRBsQ0RTYulATvn128oUlMjpEjNr_CqlL-nU4_TKDrEQh_EKPdFf7qf1UkQ4Uf9g9LSgvX9ZvFRqEdgbxod-eCO5FwEBvPqUAReZLcnw_qOGOmDIssVw" href="https://www.facebook.com/RogerCorman?__cft__[0]=AZVH2OFsVjBo_m5IR9X_3MW9D-kXYBRKNg4KUKO0zU5hXn3O_OKf5XtfnrLKzWUoykBUXZoFewEOJp8f922bvN7CX0mkocVzJgrlFY_0-ybrBvFw8aY1PqtdFhdxcCog_lf1EqScA_EMY0WEezZJIhc7oEvr4G9eVTSXs1p5jF1wQusi2wkdM5MbpEMBZb_4-L1UhYeUQR4_I1ty2E77v8b6&amp;__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" tabindex="0">Roger Corman</a>'s <em>The Little Shop of Horrors</em> (1960) with my birthday crew at the Westcott Theater in Syracuse and laughing my ass off at Seymour Krelborn reacting to the giant plant Audrey Jr.'s command: "FEED ME!!"</p> <p>I dug the Beatles from catching their very first <em>Ed Sullivan Show </em>appearance in February '64 (the Swinging Sixties, as we recall it, actually started there, truly)—but absolutely adored the IDEA of the Stones as the Anti-Beatles (without hearing a note of their music) when I heard ABOUT them later that year at summer camp—Camp Kennebec to be precise. By the summer of 1965, the Stones were all over the airwaves worldwide with "Satisfaction." But in the summer of '64, they were more of a rumor.</p> <p>Three days later, on June 23rd, 1964, I was shipped off to Camp Kennebec (oy!).</p> <p>Kennebec was a prominent (established in 1907 by three Jewish intellectuals from Philly) summer camp in North Belgrade, Maine. A rugged, competitive, tradition-bound, and sports-oriented eight-endless-weeks-long sleep-away summer camp. </p> <p>God, I hated that camp! ("It's an odd-boy who doesn't like sport"—Bonzo Dog Band). I was bullied and teased there for not being a jock. The accent on sports…feh!</p> <p>Yet somehow, I managed to have a pretty decent time despite the competitive rah-rah rough-rider vibe permeating Kennebec. </p> <p>I would spend long hours at night perusing handwritten diaries that went back to 1907 housed in their Library archive in the woods. I was especially fascinated by entries circa World War One. Sad to read how many camper alumni had enlisted and were sent into harm's way only to tragically fall. A life lesson learned.</p> <p>Another refuge deep in the Maine Woods was Kennebec's excellent Theater Guild program, where I acted and performed on guitar in several elaborate productions—including Edward Albee's <em>The Sandbox</em> and Lionel Bart's <em>Oliver</em>! (it was a non-Kosher but very Jewish summer camp!). </p> <p>Some famous showbiz folks sent their kids to Kennebec. English film producer Walter Shenson shipped his son Ricky there, and thus, we got to see a pristine print of <em>A Hard Day's Night</em> without any screaming girls in the crowd drowning out the soundtrack (which happened earlier that year when I went to see the flick in Syracuse's Loew's State Theater). </p> <p>Then there was the Rifle Range. Now, THERE was a sport I could excel at!! I quickly discovered I was a crack shot, which led me to join the Yale Rifle Team some years later.</p> <p>In trawling through some online reminiscences of this camp, I found the photo circa 1964 below. I am the little shaver on the far left in the bottom row. I, for one, will never forget the motto Uncle Earl Ferguson (top row far right) instilled in us at the Rifle Range: </p> <p>"This is my Rifle (miming holding a .22 in the standing position), and this is my Gun (gesturing crotch-ward). <br /> One is for Shooting--the other for Fun!"</p> <article class="embedded-entity"><img src="/sites/default/files/2024/2024-08/lucas-summer-camp.jpg" width="1918" height="1040" alt="Thumbnail" title="lucas-summer-camp.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p>Best of all, I did make some good friends there—including New Orleans-based R&amp;B writer/Hackberry Ramblers manager Ben Sandmel—who turned me on in a big way to the Stones post-Carnegie Hall in that seminal summer of '64.</p> <p>FYI: This particular Stones concert advertised (the 2:30 p.m. matinee show anyway) was written up by Tom Wolfe in his <em>Girl of the Yea</em>r profile of Warhol It Girl (pre-Edie Sedgwick) Baby Jane Holzer, which appeared in Wolfe's 1965 anthology <em>The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby</em>. It is a great read, as is his account of The Teen Tycoon of Rock, Phil "To Know Know Know Him is to Love Love Love Him" Spector, in the same book.</p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4341&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="Zoafx2ceZygM251zybMsuGBxNonfqB5z0d2yldt-2Q8"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Sun, 04 Aug 2024 22:03:41 +0000 Gary Lucas 4341 at http://www.culturecatch.com Crooner of the Sea http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4321 <span>Crooner of the Sea</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/users/brandon-judell" lang="" about="/users/brandon-judell" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Brandon Judell</a></span> <span>June 6, 2024 - 17:52</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/148" hreflang="en">Cabaret</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><article class="embedded-entity align-right"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-06/michael-shapiro-singer.jpeg?itok=bFP0_QAI" width="522" height="596" alt="Thumbnail" title="michael-shapiro-singer.jpeg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p> </p> <p>Here I am, sitting at the helm of the World Voyager. Day 3 of my itinerary. We left the coast of Spain yesterday. Tomorrow France.</p> <p>Yes, this is the first time if someone told me I was "at sea," it would be a compliment.</p> <p>The determined waters of the Bay of Biscay pound away as I sip my third coffee of the morning for medicinal purposes. The sky is one huge blue-grey cloud with slivers of white. No coast in sight in any direction.</p> <p>So, what could be a more appropriate time to recall Michael Craig Shapiro's never-less-than-engaging performance of last night? At 9:30 PM in the Atlas Lounge, <i>Showtime! A New York Cabaret </i>began for those who signed up for the Atlas Ocean Voyage "10-Night Lisbon-to London" trek.</p> <p>Now for some Shapiro background. This attendee of the University of Colorado Boulder, when not letting loose vocally, is this yacht's cruise director. He also conducts weddings, organizes cocktail parties, and even hosts gastronomic pastry demonstrations. Throughout the day and night, he's seen everywhere on the boat's seven levels, making sure there's not a morose passenger within ten feet of himself.</p> <p>On dry land, Mr. Shapiro also acts. In the past, he's appeared in vehicles such as the NoHo Arts Center's <i>Yo Ho Ho! A Pirate's Christmas </i>in North Hollywood—and I believe he was somehow involved with <i>Pest Control: The Musical. </i>Doublecheck that.</p> <p>Well, let's start the show.</p> <p>The blue-jacketed, serenely starched, white-shirted Mr. Shapiro opened with some advice he garnered from Tony Bennett: make sure your set is no longer than 45 minutes, or the audience will leave. He followed that advice, and no one left. Instead, there were screams of "Encore!" which were succumbed to.</p> <p>His track list was perfectly chosen for his audience, including old chestnuts from Cole Porter to Kander and Ebb to Mama Cass, but as essayist Joseph Epstein noted, "Familiarity breeds content." Clearly, in every seat, on every couch, there were folks mouthing the lyrics of the chosen tunes.</p> <p>There was a heavenly "Stairway to Heaven," a wry "They All Laughed," and a quite persuasive "You Can't Take That Away from Me."</p> <p>Mr. Shapiro then captured the winsome romance of George Gershwin's "He Loves and She Loves":</p> <p>"He loves and she loves and they love,</p> <p>So why can't you love and I love too?</p> <p>Birds love and bees love and whispering trees love,</p> <p>And that's what we both should do!"</p> <p>(When you have time, check out Ella Fitzgerald's take.)</p> <p>Two songs later came "Just a Gigolo," Irving Caesar's 1929 adaptation of the Austrian tango "Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo." You might recall David Lee Roth's hit version. For this rhythmic treat, the singer pulled a traveler from San Francisco, the quite game Ms. May Lee, who was transformed in seconds from being a just delightful young woman into not a bad copy of Ginger Rogers.</p> <p>A pitch-perfect "Dream a Little Dream" reminded me of a recent article declaring Mama Cass did not die from eating a ham sandwich. A sly "Sara Lee" made me hunger for the poundcake of my youth, while Mr. Shapiro's poignant rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" especially showed off his vocal skills. "New York, New York," meanwhile, had a sassy blonde with a drink in each hand bopping to her seat as she sang along. The audience, as noted, went wild, and the encore was a solid "My Way" that came with a concise history of the song.</p> <p>Accompanied on the piano by the pleasing Dan Murphy, the song fest had now ended, and a highly contented crowd climbed up one flight to the Dome to view the stars and the moon and feel the gusts of Mediterranean winds upon their smiling faces.</p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4321&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="TRSY4a0xuM10xbBwhZw_hfheM-V6J3o6GdOhliKI5PI"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Thu, 06 Jun 2024 21:52:43 +0000 Brandon Judell 4321 at http://www.culturecatch.com Song of the Week: " There's No Mountain" http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4230 <span>Song of the Week: &quot; There&#039;s No Mountain&quot;</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/users/dusty-wright" lang="" about="/users/dusty-wright" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Dusty Wright</a></span> <span>May 31, 2024 - 10:00</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/580" hreflang="en">folk rock</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><div class="video-embed-field-provider-youtube video-embed-field-responsive-video form-group"><iframe width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NMz-AxuMvsA?autoplay=0&amp;start=0&amp;rel=0"></iframe> </div> <p>"There's No Mountain," indeed. We can overcome. And, in these days of turbulence, cynicism, and divisiveness, we need songs that connect.</p> <p><meta charset="UTF-8" /></p> <p data-pm-slice="1 1 []">Some songs beg to be played again and again and again. I don't know how this wonderful one slipped through the cracks last year without fanfare, but it did. This gorgeous, heartfelt love ballad is from the fifth solo album by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOUXj7dIrW6y-9MuxUPBGFA" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Glen Hansard</a>, <em>All That Was East Is West Of Me</em> ( Anti-Records, 2023).  As some of you know, Glen i the frontman of the Irish band The Frames--a worthy band in their own right. Some will know him from his moving indie film <a href="https://youtu.be/k8mtXwtapX4?si=gYlEV5nhNNXZdbjO" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Once</em></a><em> </em>(2007) and the Grammy-winning tune "Falling Slowly;" moreover, the Broadway play won 8 Tonys.</p> <p>But for me, Glen as a singer-songwriter, is the biscuit. Watch and listen and live and learn. This is a <em>life</em> song about staying in love, climbing any mountain to endure the peaks nd valleys. Glen is the rare ba d who bares his soul on every song he shares. d most of them are excellent. This one is a keeper, a corker, a love lesson.  His lyrical prose borrows from Jackson C. Frank's majestic ballad "Blues Run the Game" and a traditional gospel tune "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning," and it does so with humility and honesty. His voice sells it and sells it again and again.</p> <p>"In love, it's the same<br /> There's no doubt blues is running the game<br /> Keep your lantern trimmed and burning till the end of the night<br /> Put your cheek to the wind<br /> When you go without, then you'll go within<br /> If it comes to blows, take it all on the chin<br /> There's no worthier fight"</p> <p>Truth. </p> <p>Love <em>is</em> all you need. And it <em>is</em> worth the fight. And it <em>is</em> worth scaling. And a song this authentic connects with our souls finds a small area in hearts to occupy, and affords us optimism.</p> <p>Won't you grant him the courtesy of a genuine listen, add the song to your playlist, or buy his CD or vinyl album? He'll be at the Beacon Theatre in NYC on Sept. 6th.</p> <p>For further exploration, here are a few of my favorite songs from his pen and guitar:</p> <p><iframe allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="352" loading="lazy" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/03Oi86I3NhKsh3e4m0v2Wt?utm_source=generator" style="border-radius:12px" width="100%"></iframe></p> <p>(Thanks for your attention, I needed to get this off my chest for months.)</p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4230&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="E75hrKfTpGOj3YmeN3EdKbbiYNC2d_MV3gs1ietJoUM"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Fri, 31 May 2024 14:00:00 +0000 Dusty Wright 4230 at http://www.culturecatch.com I Came for Copland. I Will Remember Ray Chen http://www.culturecatch.com/node/4304 <span>I Came for Copland. I Will Remember Ray Chen</span> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/users/c-jefferson-thom" lang="" about="/users/c-jefferson-thom" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">C. Jefferson Thom</a></span> <span>April 11, 2024 - 19:51</span> <div class="field field--name-field-topics field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Topics</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/music" hreflang="en">Music Review</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/458" hreflang="en">classical music</a></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><article class="embedded-entity"><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2024/2024-04/sso.2024.04.04_carlin.ma-1125.jpeg?itok=7NHvruU7" width="1200" height="845" alt="Thumbnail" title="sso.2024.04.04_carlin.ma-1125.jpeg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p><em><b>Appalachian Spring</b></em></p> <p><strong>Seattle Symphony</strong></p> <p><b>Benaroya Hall, Seattle</b></p> <p>There's a decent chance I just witnessed the most incredible live performance by a violinist I will be privileged to experience in my lifetime. Ray Chen has a reputation for the intense passion that precedes him, but any hype was dimmed by the supernova burst of hearing him live.</p> <p>This was my favorite of many memorable evenings spent with the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall. Beginning with a dynamic modern composition by Dorothy Chang titled "Northern Star," the fuse was lit for a night of explosive energy. Chang masterfully wields the loud-quiet-loud with a contrast that offers a more extraordinary richness to both ends of that spectrum. This fuse beautifully burned its way to the readied dynamite of Erich Korngold's "Violin Concerto in D major" and Ray Chen's waiting violin.</p> <p>Chen breathes intensity through the bridge, strings, and bow. He speaks directly through his violin as an extension of himself. If there is a division between the two, it is difficult to see and nearly impossible to hear. He reads the language of Korngold's music, knows it, and shares it as his own with the deepest feeling due to each note. His vibrato resonates through his arm, wrist, and fingers. His double stops sing with a choral unison. His bowing seems endlessly seamless, stretching onward into a continued infinity. His joy and love are ever present, and we in the audience were graciously lavished with wave after wave of passion, playfulness, and pure celebration. If there is something exceptional about being human, moments like these best make a better argument.</p> <p>Also exceptional was the work of conductor Xian Zhang. Of the many conductors I have seen lead the Seattle Symphony, Zhang coaxes a new level of intensity, bringing this body of musicians closest to dancing on the razor's edge. Aside from having the mastery to answer Zhang's call, the members of the Seattle Symphony should be credited for the adaptability of maintaining their consistent level of play while rotating through so many conductors. Since I began attending their performance in December of last year, I don't believe I've seen the same hand lift the baton twice, but these musicians make that flexibility look effortless.</p> <p>Closing out the program were the soothing sounds of Aaron Copland. If America were ever to live up to the purity of its professed ideals and intentions, it might sound something like Copland's <em>Appalachian Spring</em>. This is a piece that has brought me to joyful tears many times, and it was this offering that drew me to Benaroya Hall last Saturday night. What a perfect way to wrap up a program of forceful fireworks. The calm after the storm… and how wonderful it was. My heart is cradled in these bars—the quiet which gently builds. The strings work double-time, and the brass supports with sustained notes from below. There is such hope. Such yearning. Such a desire for better. Maybe, like the films of Frank Capra, it's an idealism that stretches too far and sees not so clearly. Still, I have fallen for Copland ever since I first heard what he had to say and getting to listen to his <em>Appalachian Spring</em> played so wonderfully live was a gift, the warmth of which still gives me a little smile.</p> </div> <section> <h2>Add new comment</h2> <drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&amp;1=4304&amp;2=comment_node_story&amp;3=comment_node_story" token="dR1OdNiqxjjDoDwY2DQO6ss7znBDr54x43de6UwopF8"></drupal-render-placeholder> </section> Thu, 11 Apr 2024 23:51:19 +0000 C. Jefferson Thom 4304 at http://www.culturecatch.com