SCHLOCK, THE MONKEY - cultural claptrap: Obits

What You'll Find Here: Music, Movies and Me

Since May 1976, I have written in journals. When I have nothing particularly resonant to say about my own inner turmoil, philosophic ramblings, sexual peccadillos or whining on about the state of the world around me...I have always fallen back on reporting the cultural time consumption that takes up in inordinate portion of my daily goings on.

In the 40+ years since my first concerts seeing Children's Symphony presentations on Sundays at the Pasadena Civic or The Hot Jazz Society's monthly Dixieland romps in an old meeting hall on the edge of the L.A. "River" across from Griffith Park, I have been sold heavily on the magic of live music. As Neil Young so aptly put it, "Live music is better bumper stickers should be issued."

Growing up a few orange groves and canyons length away from Hollywood also contributed greatly to my family's addiction to movie going. From the time I was a small there were weekly trips to the drive-in theaters that dotted the landscape, or the local Temple theater for the Saturday matinees. Once in a while we'd drive the 12 miles into Hollywood and see something in one of the magnificent old movie palaces like Grauman's Chinese, the Egyptian, The Pantages or later the Cinerama Dome. My dad loved Westerns and War movies, as if he didn't get enough shoot-'em-up as an L.A. County Sheriff in his day gig, my mom adored musicals and comedies. My brother and I loved them all.

At SDSU, I played in my first gigging band and began booking concerts on campus as part of the well-funded Cultural Arts Board, kindling for my future life in and around music.

So it's not surprising that my first jobs out of college were working in local video rental places (which were all the rage) or managing a couple of Sam Goody record stores in Mall's on the East Coast where we marveled at the new CD format and sold the first home computers and video games (yes Commodore and Pong and Atari).

So these are really just extensions of all of those journal entries talking about the great new movies I was seeing and LPs/CDs I was listening to.

Though iPODS/iPADs, apps, smart phones and downloads now make music and movies accessible in your own pocket, there is still nothing like sitting in front of a stack of speakers with a room full of people swaying to music created before your eyes. Nor is there anything that works quite so well for me to escape the real world and all of it's pressures just outside than two hours in a dark theater, absorbing the stories flickering across that wide screen as they pull you into their world.

But a really good taco runs a close third...

Showing posts with label Obits. Show all posts

Saturday, January 4, 2014

R.I.P. - Phil Everly 1938-2014

Hi y’all… So I haven’t had time to write much here what with so many gigs of my own this past year…but I would be very remiss to not comment on the passing today of seminal rock n roll and country artist Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers at age 74.

As members of both the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Everly Brothers string of 19 Top 40 Hits between 1957 and 1962 cemented their reputation as the premier vocal duo of the early rock era. Their songs "All I Have To Do Is Dream" and "Cathy's Clown" topped both Billboard's Pop and R&B charts. "Bird Dog" and "Bye Bye Love" were #1 Country hits and their first hit in 1956, "Wake Up Little Susie" rose to the top of all three charts. All told the duo charted 12 Top Ten hits. In the 55-year history of Billboard's Hot 100 charts only two other duos had more chart success, Hall & Oates and The Carpenters.

Performing professionally together since their childhood years, first on the family’s country radio show and a few years later as one of the most influential early rock acts of the music’s formative years, their music greatly influenced not only the vocal harmonies of The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel, The Hollies, CSN, Gram Parsons and all of their progeny but their own songwriting and the writing of their main songwriting team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant have produced a rich catalog of pop compositions covered by artists from across the musical spectrum such as Simon & Garfunkel, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, . Most recently, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones have released an album, Foreverly of their interpretations of songs from the Everly's influential 1958 country album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.

For a brilliant documentary on their career through 1984 check out this wonderful offering from the BBC…

I was lucky enough to see them at a date a the Valley Forge Music Fair in Devon, PA on the 1984 Reunion tour. While I was familiar with there influence on my favorite acts via interviews and articles touting them, I had one greatest hits LP and really didn’t comprehend the scope and beauty of their musical world until I attended this show. I was at first taken with the band. I was already an Albert Lee fan from his work with Emmylou Harris but it didn’t take but a song or two to set my goosebumps arise. I’d not heard the Beatles sing together in person, nor Gram and Emmylou or Paul and Artie. But this night I couldn’t imagine anyone touching these guys. Every song was a classic. Even the new stuff like “Why Worry” or “On The Wings of a Nightingale” that came out on their follow-up releases were just jawdropping pop masterpieces of taste, precision and heart. Wow.

From that night on their influence on my own music and musical tastes have been greatly colored by the esthetic, songs and sound of the Everly Brothers. In SILVER MOON, we currently perform 56 tunes associated with the Everly Brothers. But we only perform half of any of them in that as a duo with only one singer something missing looms heavy everytime I sing one of these great songs. Everytime, I hear Phil’s invisible harmony in my head and while I always will, the sadness that his living voice will no longer be heard in real-time is a great shame.

Check out video from 1983-84 REUNION…

Unfortunately for my generation, chances to see the Everlys perform would be few and far between. Like many of the greatest sibling duos in rock the long familiarity and struggles for ego gratification between uber creative people living, working and existing in close proximity pulled the brothers apart again and again. Then again, those are often some of the same factors that makes their collaborations so essential, unique and unduplicatable. Think KINKS. OASIS. BEACH BOYS. BEE GEES. And no, the Ramones don’t count). Onstage fisticuffs, separate interviews and travel arrangements. Lawsuits. Not so easy it seems.

But seeing these teams work when things are right is hard to fathom that they could find any better partners for their musical creations.

By the way, rumor has begun again that a long awaited KINKS reunion is in the early talking stages. If it happens don’t miss this one. Dave Davies has recovered from a stroke and released a strong album full of guest stars such as and older brother Ray remains of songwriter of individuality and talent who is long overdue for a big creative splash. Cross your fingers.

Ten years ago, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel convinced Phil & Don Everly to reunite for a tour with both often fractuous duos on the bill and anyone who saw the shows will not see anything as sublime again.

Watching Phil & Don sing “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)” while eye to eye in the videos above illustrates directly that no matter the divisive quality of our lives, our egos, and our differences that harmony, compassion and love are really what we all must strive for in life everyday. Another essential lesson that great art offers us if we only open ourselves to it.

More of the passing of Phil Everly here…

http://music.yahoo.com/news/phil-everly-half-pioneer-rock-duo-dies-74-032650788.html

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5862255/don-everly-on-losing-his-brother-phil-everly

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

FIRSTS - NEIL ARMSTRONG 1st MAN ON THE MOON DIES

Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012)

So there are a few historical signposts in history for every generation where you remember where you where when you heard the news. The biggies for my father's generation there was the bombng of Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. For my grandparents it was all defined by a larger event, The Great Depression. My generation remembers where they were when Kennedy was shot, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and watching Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

When JFK announced the space program it was thrilling to a boy of seven years old. When John Glenn orbited the Earth, I was transfixed. I didn't miss one launch from Cape Canaveral (nee Kennedy). Walter Cronkite kept me posted. I read all about the astronauts, did book reports on them. I was transfixed by every thing about them as was everyone I knew. We'd get in the little yellow and red tepee in the backyard having ditched our Indian headdresses for empty cardboard ice cream buckets we'd scavenged from Baskin-Robbins and spray painted silver to use as helmets.

I was 12 years old and a child of the 60s when Apollo 11 set off for the moon. We had been dropped off at Green Oak Ranch Boys Camp in Vista, California for another summer time week of archery, horseback riding, making lanyards, studying nature and tormenting our camp counselors. But the first thing we did was run to the mess hall to watch television as Neil Armstrong took those historic steps. Of course, at the time we would never doubt the validity of anything we'd seen on TV.

Why just a couple of years earlier I was appalled when I was at the West Hollywood Sheriff's station where my father was Captain and I saw them bring in some "hippie protesters". One of the more vociferous among the young placard carrying, colorfully clothed "trouble-makers" was Bob Denver from Gilligan's Island. I was very upset that they had arrested him since I didn't even know he'd finally made it off the island. But I digress...

But the moon landing fueled our imaginations. It made us see the Earth from space for the first time and something in me felt a little scared. Finally, for the first time in my young life was I aware of the fragile nature of existence as I knew it. I was beginning to think of bigger questions than who had to pretend to be astronaut Michael Collins and stay in the tepee when we played Moon Landing in the backyard.

Here's the NYTimes Obit of Neil Armstrong
Below is a 51 minute special report on the APOLLO 11 moon landing from YouTube:

And as is always of interest to note, there are always other theories...here is a smattering of them from gawker.com.