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If I have to attend one more holiday party, I may burst.
I might have a touch of "These Are A Few Too Much of My Favorite Things" syndrome...which can lead in only one direction, likely GOUT.
I will though anoint thee with an invite to attend the Bay Area's Xmess party to end all X-mess parties...
I'll be kicking down some holiday mixes for the gathering, and if ya ask nice, will give ya a disc to keep as a stocking stuffer...
Greetings and Happy Holidays,
On Sunday, December 23rd, at San Francisco's Make Out Room, GIBBSMO is proud to present The Parker BrothersChristmas Spectacle. Please join us for a night of rocking holiday classics performed by the Parker Brothers and including their very special guests: Beth Lisick, Chuck Prophet, Stephanie Finch, Kelley Stoltz, Mark Eitzel, CVS, Tom Armstrong, Ralph Carney, Marc Capelle, Brian and Sandra Mello, Eric Moffat, Phil Crumar, Tippy Canoe and Spiral Stairs ( formerly of Pavement).
Also featured will be the hilarious (and bawdy!) comedic stylings of Johnny Megget and Chris Portfolio, as well as classic holiday reading by Pete Simonelli.
There will be someone bi-polar dressed as Santa, a snow machine, decorations, a tree, elves, drink specials and some other festive crap. The only thing missing will be your drunk uncle, and trust me, I will be channeling him all night.
A portion of proceeds will benefit the SF Food Bank and there will be a raffle featuring fabulous prizes from DEMA, Open Mind Music, Cha Cha Cha, Savers, RubyDolls, Event Magic, Lil Tuffy and anything else I can clean out of my garage and slap gift wrap on.
Tickets are available in advance thru the Make Out Room's website at: www.makeoutroom.com, or you can risk getting them at the door.
Santa and Gary the Magical Jewish Unicorn informed me it's probably going to sell out... or maybe not. But still, better safe than sorry suckers...
Uh, This is a dressy event, so act like you are appearing in court.
Thanks everybody.
Happy Holidays and I hope to see you all there!
Cheers,
GIBBSMO & friends...
What: Parker Brothers Christmas Spectacle
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF CA, 94134
When: December 23rd, ( that's two days before Christmas, and one day before you are calling in sick to work.
Why: To benefit the SF Food Bank and to spread holiday cheer.
Watch: Doors at 8pm. Show begins at 8:30
Cost: $10 with 2 cans of food. $15 without.
Please forward this notice only to people who like to get their Santa on.
I've found myself in bars a lot lately, and nothing unusual there I suppose.
This past week, I was at two different tiki bars on opposite sides of the bay Thursday & Friday night.
Thursday's find was a delightful oasis I spotted on a basically bland stretch of Oakland residential surface streets...
Check out the Kona Club if ya find yerself near the intersection of Piedmont & Pleasant Valley Ave. I guess it's been there for exactly two years, but no one tells me these things...
It's apparently the product of the vivid imagination's of Crazy Al Evans & Bamboo Ben, two dudes who obviously made this joint a labor of love. They took a ratty run down english pub and painstakingly transformed it into a tiki heaven. The place is kept tropically cozy, even clean & tidy. The staff I met is friendly, drinks are exceptional, and exceptionally cheap when one compares what I spent at the Tonga Room the next night.
Yes that very same Tonga room in the Fairmont Hotel where a cheery cheesy cover band comes out on a party barge in the middle of a man made indoor lagoon . It rains every 15 minutes, and last call is at midnight, even on a Friday night go figger...
Then, needing extra libation, I was swept up into a cab, and ended my evening traversing the streets of the mission district between the 500 club, Kilowatt & Benders, finally shutting the dawn down at home with a cold bottle of Fernet and some roommates...
The next night, high in the east bay hills, far from the tropical concoctions, I entered the red wine zone. At a house party I was privy to a lot of very fine red wine drinking. Some Italian stuff was popular at first, but then a double magnums of 1996 Chateau St. Jean Reserve Cabernet was opened. That was a nice 3 liter black cherry and cassis burst, but then several bottles of mid 1990's "Cinq Cepages" went down rather quick as well.
For those not anal about grape juice, those 1996 Cinq Cepages were rated wine of the year by the Wine Spectator upon release, and are actually made of a blend of five red Bordeaux grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot and Petite Verdot. I suppose a couple bottles these days are going for about $300-500 and all the wine we drank down on Saturday night would collectively be worth about at least a couple grand easy, if you could find any of this stuff at all...
Then again back when I lived in Sonoma in the mid 1990's, I was getting a lot of Chateau St. Jean product out the uh, "back door" for as low as $50 a case...
But those were the uh, good ol daze, and still money don't matter to me... Since I ain't ever had much. I'm all about da music...
And that's what I'm livin for this week again I suppose...
I gotta end this posting nonsense so I can get back to planning my holiday getway to L.A and then Las Vegas where I can see the one and only Cheap Trick playing on Dec 27th.
Tomorrow night, I'm apparently headed to see the legendary retired pimp & soul meister named Darondo at the Rickshaw...
Compared to contemporaries like Sly Stone & Al Green, Darondo walked away from the biz decades ago, and was only recently rediscovered for reissue by Ubiquity label. So they put together the album "Let My People Go", and brit DJ Gilles Peterson also got in on the action for his "Digs America" series.
Apparently Darondo had moved to Sacramento and is making a one night sorta appearance back in SF after decades away from the scene. So we hope it goes down boffo, should be funky, soulfully slick if not downright awesome... Darondo - Sure Know How To Love Me
This weekend I'm sharing with y'all a rarely seen video clip I edited that helped get a band dropped by their major label.
Just one of the many things I've done for people...
Hey, X Mess is almost upon us, and I've sort of really been slacking this year on delivering up the Yuletide goods to my blog trollers.
So I'll also recycle some X-mas hits from years gone by... so y'all can stuff yer digital stocking before it's too late.
There's a few classic holiday music tracks I've had laying about that I should share with my devoted clickers out there...
so scroll down to get 'em...
In the meantime...
all you info hounds might want to peruse the latest random holiday season news you can lose...
In a situation that further polarizes the sides negotiating aspects of greenhouse gas reduction, the United State's flat refusals to negotiate in Bali are a major setback in fusing global cooperation.
Tell Burger King They Can't Have It Their Way Anymore...
Workers who labor in the field's picking the produce we eat in our "fast food" make a pittance compared to other industries. In fact their pay is among the lowest in the US, rivaling 3rd world salaries. A farmworker must harvest 2 tons of tomatoes to earn just $50 a day.
Recently a campaign by OxFam has negotiated better conditions and pay and assurances from big chains like McDonald's that they will support a code of labor conduct.
Burger King has refused to join the other large scale fast food chains including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Apparently, despite ads that long claimed you can have it your way, they must mean everyone but their workers.
Visit the link provided below if you would like to support the efforts & get Burger King committed to increasing wages and enforcing better working conditions & raise the rates they'll pay the workers who pick their produce.
Al Gore must be mighty proud that his invention the "internet" will be used to deliver Jackass 2.5 directly to an avid user base...for free.
That's right folks: MTV's Jackass franchise set free!
Michael Jackson reported to be booking a stint of gigs for next year in London England.
Bomb - Hate Fed Love back for more
This band's major label debut just showed up on iTunes after 15 years in the "out of print" category.
So in honor of this event, here is a long lost video I edited with Charles Cohen & the band's singer Michael Dean to introduce them to their new overseers at Reprise.
I'll let their former manager who posted it tell the story:
"In 1992 BOMB tricked Warner Bros into giving them an advance without having the band sign a record contract. BOMB hired Bill Laswell to produce their album "Hate Fed Love". The album was released but... Warner Bros didn't have a clue what to do with the band. Hence, BOMB produced this video to orient the corporation to their unusual world. The band was promptly dropped."
Oh ... here's those killer Christmasy cuts I promised y'all:
The groove meister out of Oakland lays down some subtle seasonal cheer here:
Had a great little dinner at the loud little Luka's Taproom in Oakland, frothy decent imported ales, a variety of fine fresh vegetables, and fish...
Got home kinda late...and began plugging in a new TV...
The old one died awhile back and we were doing our best to get by without it...
That sorta lasted a month...
But now a beastly 32 inch HD thingamajob sits were the ye olde box was...
After the set was finished looking for channels, I saw Ike Turner's face on the tube...
Which generally is never good for him...
And this time, it was final...
Newscaster said he was dead at 76...
I know he's been a media pariah for years...
But his contributions to rock n roll should go a lot further than being a mere footnote as a wife beater.
First off, let's be clear, he was a mean drug addict, but unlike O.J or your current first lady, he didn't kill anyone...
He made his amends, with the law, and at least with god... and now he's gone.
He was also one of the greatest, most driven showmen to ever wield an axe onstage or a studio.
Nuff said.
Here's the track that put him on the map... or sorta should have, since it sold a healthy half million copies in 1951. Some say it's the first real rock n roll record, made at Sam Phillips Sun Studios in Memphis.
In fact, Ike never was credited with this tune properly, just like a lot of stuff in his life.
Here he is ripping it up, at 19 years old, creating that fuzztone guitar sound long before Link Wray got his rumble on...supposedly because his amplifier had a hole poked in it by a cymbal stand.
He soon had his own unit rolling up and down the highways, and a legend was in the making. By the latter 1950's Ike Turner & His Rhythm Kings were a serious force to be reckoned with...
He was well established as a bandleader before that certain young gal from Nutbush Tennessee joined the act and became his "8th or 9th" wife. His songwriting and studio efforts are well known and he also helped other artists as an A&R man including B.B King, and many others. Check out some of his early 1950's instrumentals and production work with the Kings of Rhythm to annoit thyself with his pre-Tina legacy.
Here's an instrumental track from some 1969 sessions.
He went totally Hyperbolic at some point, and his persona changed... After Tina left him, Ike really spiraled out of control, becoming a tragic figure. By 1989, he was sent to prison for 17 months.
But let's never forget that Ike was someone long before he became her backing musician...
Here's a comeback track Ike did some ten years after getting out of the joint, with a fellow reformed rocker named Billy Rogers a few years back...
i's a classic revision of a tune he did way back in the day...
Whatever you do... get some more Ike in your collection, ya really can't go wrong...
I doi sugggest perusing eMusic , the eclectic all DRM free MP3 indie based download website that has plenty of material from this legendary cat ( at prices less than half of I-tunes & others)...
and if yer a new member, heck the first few dozen are always free to keep... with no cancellation fee or penalty if ya wanna quit a good thang...
Yet somehow I still have time to discover the truth about eggplant, and participate in viral marketing experiments.
Today I've been editing an educational video for a project currently...lotsa windows open, capture card running hot, audio sweeteners, and clip sequences in the dozens all lined up for trimming & razoring as I build the menus etc...
But in the interest of procrastination, and adding more muck to the ol' internet, I thought I'd take a quick break...
So along with an eggplant parmigiana sandwich snack, I'll get some yik yak out to ya kids in a minute... After I gulp this tasty hot sandwich, I'll let y'all gander at some random rants & content du jour...
First up,
I hope you are familiar with the delightful concept of "eggplant parmigiana", aka known as Eggplant Parmesan...
They call it in Italy "Melanzane", which means "Mad Apple"
One of the most popular varieties being "Listada de Gandia"...
They call it something else altogether in England and France, the pretentious Aubergine, but since those are annoying faded empires, why sorta escaped me...
and when I looked into it I found it had something to do with the Sanskrit word for farting...
seriously...
Here's a pretentious sorta little song from a PDX songsmith that also uses the word Aubergine as a title, but as far as I can tell the word is not uttered in the song itself
[demo of a track from the 2005 Hush Records release "In The Red"]
So let's just move on...
The first eggplants, for whatever reason they were so named, were known as being small, white & round, and have been cultivated for centuries. They likely first appeared in India, then China where they are documented in the 5th Century B.C and eventually they are found hitting European shores after the Moors conquered Spain.
It soon spread all over, and some people... they believe it is the food of the gods... or perhaps resembles GOD, or is messenger of god or something.
Any eggplant parmesan though, whether it looks like god or not... is still usually pretty good.
Parma is a city in northern Italy of course, and they make a famous decent salty dried cheese there of course as well... and they are also known for a salty cured ham.
The style there was to mix Veal cutlets with bread crumbs cooked in butter (not oil!)
...and this originating recipe was supposedly born in the town of Parma In Italy.
Therefore it could be assumed that the "Parma" way in the kitchen is now apparently synonymous with breading & lightly frying.
Others swear the dish is really Sicilian, and that the name is a distortion of a term for describing the people of Palermo aka Palermitani.
Anyhow... since no one really knows, let's assume this:
Veal wasn't always around, hence Chicken & even Eggplant ended up getting the fried & baked treatment. Making for a rich, greasy, slightly crispy savory sensation of a preparation that still has many fans some 700 years after the first fights over it's origin.
Italians somehow get credited with dishes like Chicken or Veal Parmigiane aka Parmesan...where the German's might call that a "schnitzel"... or when in Kentucky... well you know "Kentucky Fried"...
Yer basic Italian eggplant style is to take a dull toxic loaded eggplant and doctor it surprisingly well, so the poisonous nightshade flava is masked by olive oil, cheese, breading, salt or whatnot. The roots of the dish vary, and according to some they never originally used the cheese, or tomatoes, but these corruptions and bastardizations get added...and they are staying as far as I can tell.
Me, I really don't really care about much of that bickering...
Let's call 'em all improvements ok!?
What's done is done...and it tastes great and is NOT less filling.
So just enjoy:
Eggplant Parmesan or whatever ya wanna call it, is still a very popular hot sandwich throughout South Boston, or anywhere ya find Americanized Italian deli cooking...
The dish would usually be left over, and sandwiches are made with the leftovers...
This recipe below for the Eggplants was actually credited to Frank Sinatra in a celebrity cook book once, so I thought I'd share it in case yer getting hungry, or curious...
Eggplant Parmigiane ala Sinatra
1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut crosswise in 1/2-inch thick slices 1 egg, beaten 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/2 cup (1-1/2 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese 1 (6 ounce) package mozzarella cheese Tomato sauce (recipe below)
Instructions Prepare tomato sauce (recipe below) and set aside. Combine flour and salt. Dip eggplant in egg, then in seasoned flour. Saute eggplant slices in hot oil in large skillet for 3 minutes on each side, adding more oil if necessary. Drain slices well on paper towel.
Place 1/2 of eggplant in single layer in 10 x 6 x 2-inch baking dish, cutting slices to fit. Sprinkle with 1/2 of Parmesan cheese, 1/2 sauce and 1/2 mozzarella cheese. Cut remaining mozzarella into triangles. Repeat layers.
Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until hot.
Tomato Sauce: Ingredients 1/2 cup chopped onion 1/4 cup chopped celery 1 small clove garlic, minced 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 (14-1/2 ounce) can tomatoes, cut up 1/3 cup tomato paste 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon parsley flakes 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed 1 bay leaf
Instructions Saute the onion, celery, and garlic in oil in a large skillet until tender. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, parsley, oregano and bay leaf. Simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes or until desired consistency. Remove bay leaf and set aside. Proceed with eggplant as above.Yield: 6 servings
Credits Recipe from: The Sinatra Celebrity Cookbook edited by Barbara & Frank Sinatra (Scientific American), whose proceeds originally benefited the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center at Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, California
click da pic to look for a new or used copy on Amazon
Now I would just eat some of that there, then wait.
That's right, just like Lasagna , save some & put the rest back in the fridge for a day or two...
When ya return you've got some good eating there buddy boys & gals...
Slap those leftover breaded eggplant slices in da middle of an Italian or whatever Hoagie Rolls ya got, slather with a lil' more sauce & cheese, heat open faced for 5 and then close & toast for another 5 or so minutes until the bread is kinda crispy & voila!!!
wrap it with foil... take to the game, or mow it down while driving... Sit in a corner by yourself... whatever, just don't share a single bite...it's yours dammit!!!!
Just frickin enjoy it ya hear!!!
Anyhow...
I was out of town over the weekend... went down for my monthly Los Angeles sojurn...
Been down there so many times, I have bars I go to more than ones here, and after a few Allagash Wheat beers I got my hotel mixed up and tried to check into the Bonaventure instead of the Biltmore...
Like it makes a difference anyway...
I also left my hat at some Wolfgang Puck restaurant, and somehow didn't even have time to find parking so I could try the new Acai' berry yogurt in Japantown.
I eventually wandered out towards the ice skating rink in Pershing Square and watched a gawd awful No Doubt cover band destroy some Orange County classics while the bizarre scene of wary & wobbling Mexicans on ice drifted by...
I did manage to score some Debbie Harry vinyl remixes from her new release "Necessary Evil" from a couple disinterested looking corporate radio station promo lackeys...
Maybe if somebody wants me too, I'll preview a mix from that 12" thang at some point fer y'all...
But since I haven't had time to listen to Debbie's new 12", here's some rare Xmas treat, from a flexidisc that came with Britain's Flexipop magazine recorded back in 1981.
It features yer fave hip hop pioneer Fab Five Freddie getting down in that Rapture mode along with Debbie & Chris and the other Blondie boys at the time. > Blondie with Fab Five Freddie - Yuletown Throwdown
I just bought some small batch Beta chocolate online...
but I have to go pick it up in person at a pier near the waterfront in SF...
I don't have any idea what it will taste like either...
It's just another one of these fabulous dot com scams I love...
This one apparently foisted on me by the founder of Wired Magazine...
Don't bother ordering it if ya don't live nearby though...
The rest of y'all can just get on the wait list I suppose...
These guys are using Chocolate from Ghana, and despite the high price, I'm not sure about whether they participate in any "fair trade" business practices. Louis Rosetto of Wired purports to be a free market libertarian and I doubt he'd be bothered by accusations of exploitive buyers.
Lately it seems Cocoa growing has become the new diamonds...
Growers claim markets are price fixing them out of the loop, while a DeBeers like consopiracy of middle men keep them from reaping profits on their valuable crops.
Canada recently announced they will investigate the "price fixing" claims of growers who feel that they are being unfairly kept out of the money loop...
In the interest of finding a suitable compromise of music to transition from where this post started and will end, I present to you music that's sorta got that sweet holiday spirit, is a bit twisted and is still worth it's weight in bandwidth...
Speaking of Chocolate, I know y'all were loving that Chocolate Rain...
heck that guy guy has pulled in over 12 million You Tubers with that video...and network TV exposure on Jimmy Kimmel.
So our viral marketing pals over at Dr. Pepper jumped aboard his tip with their new flava "Cherry Chocolate Rain", and the rest is marketing mayhem history...
Here's the big budget video of the sequel to Chocolate Rain and of course the mp3 for all you downloadin deviants out there....
While the mainstream entertainment media is a twitter that Tom Petty can extend the life of his career a bit longer with a half time appearance at the upcoming Super Bowl, the grim reaper is never far away in show biz.
Last week, we lost Las Vegas based denizen Kevin DuBrow of Quiet Riot... and this weekend the Grim Reaper went after Houston's Pimp C.
The Reaper recently took out Houston rapper Pimp C, age 37, at The Mondrian hotel in LA this weekend.
After serving almost 8 years in a stint in Texas prison, Pimp C had rejoined UGK ( Underground Kings) and had just performed with Too $hort at The House of Blues. Other projects included recently receiving acclaim & awards for "International Players Anthem" with Outkast's Andre Benjamin, and his best known tune was likely as a guest on Jay Z's "Big Pimpin".
The hotel where when the doors were knocked down and they found out that Pimp C had kicked the gilded pimp bucket, is no shady lil' low rent motel. The Mondrian's proximity to the nightlife on the Sunset Strip and adjoining Sky Bar, make it popular with players, glitterati and wannabees alike. Generally the people going in & out of there seem to have no concern about paying bills, and his label Jive, Too $hort or the club were likely dropping some dough on Pimp C's room.
The publicity comes at a bad time for the hotel's owners Morgans Hotel Group, which owns several struggling , yet high profile party spots like the Hard Rock in Vegas, Royalton in NYC, and Delano in South Beach.
Here I am enjoying the uh, unique, atmosphere at the Delano... and a tanq & tonic.
Anyhow, the publically traded hotel group's CEO, Ed Scheetz recently resigned after a 23 year old "girlfriend" was found OD'd on cocaine & oxycontin in his Vegas condo. Amongst the last known communications from Scheetz gal pal , Michelle Lynn Hatchel, was a text message to a friend stating that ""I can't believe how much coke he does, all the time, all day long," ...
Scheetz looked increasingly gaunt in photos when compared to the chunky real estate exec of the 1990s, as seen below.
The 40 something exec had been a player in the New York City real estate scene in the 1990's before signing up with Morgans. Scheetz rose in the finance world due to his "straight laced" style, but after keepin the story out of the media for weeks, lost his phat CEO gig due to this drug death scandal. He left with a phat severance package worth millions, while Hatchell's family in Colorado couldn't even get a police report for weeks. Here is Scheetz in a recent pic with SF's party boy mayor Gavin Newsom, before both had to take account of their "personal issues" this year.
In other dumb & sad sorta non-news...
I just read that rapper Spice 1, a "straight mutha f*ckin East Bay Killer" is in critical condition after being shot early Monday morning. At least 2 bullets penetrated his chest, and the gangsta rapper who has been in the game for almost 2 decades is in bad shape.
While I ain't too familiar with all of the Spice 1 ouvere, I admit I was never overly impressed with his beats, flow, lyrics or even now, his current fate.
He was part of the prolific early 90's Bay Area rap scene, and grabbed airplay all over the country at one point, appearing alongside E-40, Tupac and other well known & not so well known Bay Rappers.
Spice 1 tended to aggrandize his violent lifestyle, spitting out a series of thuggish, mysogynist, murderous and hostile epithets in his albums.
Here's some couplets from his track "Dumpin 'Em in Ditches"
I do a 1-8-7 with this motherf*ckin glock Shot you in the body Had to break the gat off in his ass at the party, nigga Crazy as f*ck, I thought you knew me Quick to put the bullets up in the motherf*ckin uzi, bitch A og nigga, so I gotta g-o and creep slow And get this nigga while hes steppin out his car door Bust, bang, I let my nugs hang, chewed out my mustang And let this motherf*ckin gat sang A bloody glock and a pocket full of rock Got my shit on cock cause my slang dont stop
Too $hort supposedly got him signed to Jive records after Spice's his indie debut " Let It Be Known" made some buzz for itself in 1991.
He was a fan of generic rap cliches, never shyed from referring to anyone as "nigga" and bragged about his street skills, including his ability to cook his own rock cocaine for sale, rake the dough, and murder his rivals. His 1992 Jive debut went gold, as did the two followups, all playing into the gangsta rap trend that took the world by storm.
His guns, his thuggin' abilities & delivered at times with a homophobic fervor were all subjects of his "songs". Somehow a shooting fits right into the career, and if the guy lives to rap again, I'm sure it will become part of the schtick.
Here's his 1995 song "born II Die"
It used to be that only the inner city was a dangerous place around here...
But Spice 1 was shot in his suburban driveway in Hayward, a relatively quiet area near a public park & school. Spice 1( aka Robert L. Green, Jr) was apparently passed out in his car for whatever reason around 12:30 am when a suspected latino dressed in dark clothing opened fire. Spice 1 was hit in the chest & chin according to reports, and was in critical condition last I heard.
This is not typically the heated turf districts of the "murder dubs" in Oakland, or the low rent housing projects. Despite high property values, the educational background & intellectual capacity in these parts is fairly low.
Earlier this year I wrote about 19 year old Jonquel Brooks, a Hayward teen who although was enrolled in college, still managed to shoot & kill someone during an argument over a Playstation video game.
Sadly Hayward, a once simple working class suburb has become increasingly dangerous, as a bold shoot out at the commuter BART train stop in broad daylight showed last year. Murders are now double over last years tally, white flight has long been in effect, and latinos are outnumbering african-in the turf wars.
That may mean only 7, compared to nearby Oakland's 114 so far this year... but this a former farm town, where up until the late 1970's the Hunt's Catsup factory was the biggest employer. Once the tomato & other produce farms were gone to development, Hayward became a victim of it's own suburban sprawl.
It's a town with seemingly no direction or purpose, it's main assets are proximity to the freeways. Filled with mostly tacky, less than pretty looking housing, it's now becoming part of the turf wars and ranks 141st in the nation on the most dangerous cities list. Nearby Oakland, where I'm writing from today is 4th, but Hayward with a population of almost 150,000 seems to be catching a contact high. Moronic gangs are claiming "turf" in once rural areas. The fact that "Castro Valley", "south Hayward" or "North Hayward" gangs would ever exist would have elicited abject laughter just a couple decades or so ago. Now a simple search of google with the terms "nigga" and "hayward" combined comes up with over 26,000 hits, many are myspace pages & memorial shout outs for deceased drive by victims, and other gang related boasts...
With Spice 1's braggadoccio fueled murder music to keep the flames fanned, hopefully for the sake of all the blood thirsty playaz, a real honest & pointless gang war between drug gangs can make Hayward the hellhole it's been morphing into for years.
In the meantimwe, while the "street soldiers" get all armed & dangerous, let's enjoy some Spice 1 tracks while he recuperates...
I'll be busy all day saturday, so just settle in here & we'll review of a few of the past week's events... First up today is news that legendary redneck daredevil extraordinaire Evel Knievel is dead.
A native of Butte Montana, he was a media sensation in the 1970's.
Outside of a bunch of later arrests for petty bar fights and woman beating, having George Hamilton play him in a lousy tv bio pic & suing Kanye West recently (and settling just days before his death)...
he's likely to be best remembered for jumping the Snake River canyon, recounted here:
Here's Evel telling a story that was posted at WFMU earlier this year. It's one that will explain to every man & woman what they need to know about his special purpose & "why"...
Evel Knieval - Why I though can't stop thinking about Evel, because we have a tight if somewhat tense personal relationship. Mainly because he lives not only in my heart, but in the garage. No , not his action figure, I lost that years ago...
But, every day I gaze at where the Evel Kneival pinball machine lives...
excuse me for a moment as I have to go down there and work this out...
Manufactured by Bally in 1976, by 1977 this machine soon became one of the most popular on the market, and remained so for years. Just like evel it has great action, and doesn't run from a fight.
A song featuring Evel ellin it like he sees it... and how he wanted it to be
Also dying within the past week was Quiet Riot's lead singer Kevin DuBrow...
They say the 52 year old rocker may have been dead for almost a week in his las Vegas home when he was finally found...
His last words were apparently an I Love You text message sent to his girlfriend at late the final night she saw him.
When Metal Health ruled the charts in the early 80's, DuBrow had the biggest metal record of all time...
The band quickly went from touring in a station wagon to opening up arenas & playing the US Festival in 1983. They soon hit the arena circuit as headliners & topped the US album charts for over a month while selling a million units a week.
Eventually, the good times ended, their albums began selling less 7 less, from millions to tens of thousands, and later on even less.
DuBrow, who struggled with substance abuse issues, became sorta known as a big powda head asshole for years in LA around Gazarri's, Roxy & Rainbow scene...
I missed those days...but we can live them vicariously via Decline of Western Civilization pt II & any of yer Vince Neil reality shows.
It was a long way down, and Kevin continued to reform Quiet Riot with various line ups & release albums over the years, occasionally hiring all new guys, but usually incorporating drummer Frankie Banali from the original classic era lineup.
In fact if ya go back to the late 1970's when the band was formed they had Randy Rhoads on guitar, but he left to join Ozzy and died in a plane crash after recording just two albums.
DuBrow's vocal idol was originally Steve Marriott of Humble Pie & Small Faces, who incidentally died about the same age in a house fire in the early 1990's. Marriott was coming home to the UK jetlagged from some aborted Peter Frampton sessions in the US, and spent the night prior doing some blow, drinking heavily & falling asleep with a cigarette in his bed...
Here, shortly after the incident Kevin covers Marriott's psychedelic drug ode here Itchykoo Park in a tribute to his late hero.
other music related stuff: Deutsche Grammophon the renowned German classical music company founded in 1898, is launching an online store called DG Web Shop. The shop will sell songs in DRM-Free mp3 format...
Amazon will be giving away 1 billion free MP3 songs, as part of a Pepsi promotion that’s set to kick off Feb. 3 during the Super Bowl. If you want songs, you'll need 5 special Pepsi bottle caps. Some major labels are balking at the terms though, which will compensate them some 20-30 cents per track less than their usual share of the pie. Amazon is offering participating labels 40 cents rather than the usual 60-70 cents the labels normally receive for DRM free tracks.
Frank Sinatra's heirs have have formed a 50-50 Joint Venture with Warner Music to capitalize in tie ins with Ol' blue Eyes back catalog called JV Frank Sinatra Enterprises. Rhino Entertainment will manage the JV with family reps; Tina Sinatra and WMG chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. will be on the board according to a press release.
In conjunction with former label EMI, Radiohead is offering a 4GB Radiohead USB stick with all their albums on it for sale in the UK.
While in other UK music download news, the Evening Standard newspaper is getting into the indie music promo game and offering downloads of unsigned Derbyshire based band Max Raptor Max Raptor - Sparks
Just got back from about 9 days in New Orleans, and it was an eye opening experience, and something I'm still digesting, both literally & figuratively.
Clinging to a foothold in the sludge of the Mississippi basin, there's so much gustatory goodness floating around that town, I occasionally had to eat typically fattening Louisiana meals up to 4 times a day just to keep from washing into the Gulf.
Now a good ten pounds heavier and airlifted to safety, I can hopefully reflect on my journey through a town that bursts not just at the proverbial beltline, but with rich history as well. The town is as twisted as the river that's it's raison d'etre, and I could go on for hours alone just about the current crazed & corrupt political scene there...
How about the District Attorney, who finally resigned this month, not after bankrupting the office by losing a multi-million dollar anti-discrimination lawsuit twice for firing all the office's white employees...but after an armed robber and alleged copkiller was seen hanging out at his house with the DA's girlfriend.
That's just the sort of contradiction in character someone might expect in New Orleans' top law enforcement tier... The former DA claims he was victim of a racist witch hunt of course, his critics claim that like a steady stream of notorious "public servants" before him, they were the duped victims of another fatheaded fool...
Louisiana's infamous governor in the 1930's Huey P Long once put it this way "Someday Louisianan's are gonna get good government and they're not gonna like it."
Long, a storied figure in Louisiana politics was known popularly as "the Kingfish", and also once said
“Don’t say I’m working for niggers. I’m not … ‘Every Man a King’ means every man, niggers along with the rest, but not especially for niggers.”
While that may sound horribly backwards & racist in today's lingo, in 1930's Louisiana it was taken quite differently, and showed the man to be a true populist, and forward thinking in his time, considering the cracker barrel regional prejudices.
Long, a political orchestrator that would make Pakistan's Musharraf look indecisive, clumsy & weak by comparison, died a violent death at the state house in 1935, but his Louisiana legacy lives on...
Not a day goes by in Louisiana when a politician isn't running afoul of the FBI, or being investigated or on trial for some cheap chicanery...
Perhaps you heard about the longtime Louisiana congressman who attempted to hold onto office after being found by the FBI to be keeping piles of cash in his freezer wrapped in foil.
In a front page headline last week, the local paper labeled the new governor merely "trendy" for proposing ethics reform...
Meanwhile, in biz as usual, a New Orleans city councilman was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison while I was there for getting caught taking bribes...
One politician has said of the citizenry's incapacity for finding appropriate electoral leaders:
"The more I become acquainted with the inhabitants, the more I am convinced of their unfitness for a representative government... Added to this is the ignorance and credulity of the the mass of people''
While it sounds lifted out a recent editorial, it was actually the state's 1st American governor William C.C Claiborne in 1804. At the time, C.C was worried that the populous & it's candidates they would choose wouldn't be up to par, or even capable of benefitting from American democracy. He actually petitioned Thomas Jefferson to postpone elections, but Jefferson would have none of it, and ever since then... you could say city has had uh, mixed results at best in elected leadership...
Looks like recently, the political tides have churned a bit, and due to the Katrina diaspora and record low voter turnouts, for the 1st time in some 35 years there are currently more white faces on the city council than black ones...
Some of the fresh faced council members seem intent on finding out where all the tax & federal grant money has gone...
Some of those recent no bid contracts look a tad wasteful...especially when their are real everyday concerns flitting about. Basic services like public schools have yet to reopen two years after Katrina, the murder rate is the highest in the nation per capita, and taxpayers are stewing.
At a budget hearing I saw, the Mayoral appointees that Nagin put in place looked ill equipped to answer any questions, set any time tables or provide any substantive background on nearly anything under their purview...
The council members peppered department heads about perks & wasted resources, basic numbers, projected numbers and whatnot.
The dept heads merely looked befuddled...and made rambling excuses. It seems blame FEMA is the only game left worth playing, what with the Saints out of contention this year.
Many citizens complain the star of the Katrina debacle, Mayor Ray" C Ray" Nagin isn't even in town most of the time... a running joke is "C Ray?"... uh, not lately... try Dallas or Austin...
With political leadership lacking, the rumors & racism start running amok...
A lot of people in New Orleans seem deeply scarred by years of racial disparities, in some cases hundreds of years of racial disparities.
One 40 something year old black woman I saw on a local cable program calmly noted in a conspiratorial tone to the audience that for years blacks were kept at separate drinking fountains, but now that segregation has ended, she's noticed suspiciously that the whites are now drinking bottled water. hmmmm...
Interesting theory, even if the ubiquitous rise of daily bottled water consumption took about 35-40 years after segregation ended to take popular hold...
I saw black tv hosts refer to "white devils" , "fork tongues" and those who are attempting to "put a boot up our ass"...
Let's just say, despite some "Eracism" bumper stickers, not all is rosy with the race relations...
If New Orleans is anything, it is a product of distinct cultures, melding & clashing at the same time, mixing up in a muddy river of daring dreams & disjointed distrust. A sort of chaotic outcome and beautiful entropy played out on a raggle taggle stage in the swampy lowlands where America's greatest river system gathers the riches & offal alike of it's tributaries and steadily dumps into the salty sea...
Over a hundred years ago, Mark Twain once referred to the place as an "upholstered sewer", and it still fits today.
The paradoxical nature of the place makes it highly incongruous and at the same time intriguing to many, especially fitting as refuge of last resort for souls that fit outside the American norm. It steadily has attracted writers, drunkards, musicians, homosexuals, grifters, slackers, criminals,outcasts and free spirits for a never ending party at the end of the civilized world. This ongoing cycle is embodied in that "lagniappe" attitude.
The French language influence came in the 1700's when Britain exiled most of the French Canadians out of the colonies of Nova Scotia & Quebec. Those who were able to escape the slaughter at the hands of redcoats & hostile Indians went south to the boggy inhospitable malaria pit of New Orleans. Many of the Acadians who found their way there from Canada found themselves unwanted by the Frenchmen already there who were more loyal to the crown and a second slaughter was soon at hand.
Those French speaking settlers who fled New Orleans this time around became the Cajuns...short for Acadians. Meanwhile the muddy city attempted to thrive, but suitable land was scarce and there wasn't much profitable industry to export yet. Not too mention that yellow fever, small pox, mosquitoes, poor sanitation, close living quarters, dampness, and heat and numerous accompanying tropical ills plagued it.
The "inevitable" city was slow to grow, and a scheme was hatched called the "Mississippi Company" in which stocks were sold to Frenchmen who rushed to invest in the burgeoning colonial mercantile outpost. But, like dotcoms & mortgage industry of today by 1720, when no glorious bonanza of dividends were forthcoming, the "Mississippi Bubble" burst. The scheme and it's holding company collapsed investors rushed to unload the shares, and the schemers fled France just ahead of an irate hanging mob.
Then for 40 years in the late 1700's the Spanish Bourbons held the town of some 4000-8000 souls. The French eventually got the city back under Napoleon, but now in deep debt from disastrous wars, Napoleon was forced to sell it to the ever encroaching Americans.
After purchase by the United States in 1803, the predominantly creole culture underwent a rude awakening as the far less tolerant "American" values crept into the city.
When Jefferson bought Louisiana back from the French, the population was approx 50% of African descent and most were actually free men of color rather than slaves. That would change though as the Anglos, traveling, trapping and trading via the Mississippi river began seeping in.
The racial mixing that was becoming common in New Orleans was heavily frowned upon by the new "Anglais" speaking arrivals. The French that still had ties to France were aghast at the barbarian like Americans, and resisted change.
By this time, some plantation owners even kept two families, their white children and wives residing in the country, perhaps in a stately white mansion off the river road, while in the city, their creole mistresses and colored babies would be kept.
It was common for "Creole" families to live in colorful homes like those seen in the Caribbean, while whites painted their houses, uh, you guessed it... white.
Blacks that had earned their freedom under the French "Code Noir" version of slavery were the most alarmed, and endangered. While slavery was no picnic, at least in Louisiana the slaves were allowed days off, and many would congregate in the Vieux Carre at Congo Square. It was one of the only places in the US that allowed people of African descent to engage in public contact, singing, drumming and dancing during the mid-eighteenth to nine-teenth century.
The "Code Noir" was eventually abolished by "Le Americans" for being too lenient, and a resentment of these foreigners imposing their backwards culture in New Orleans had begun. The city became two places, with a distinct "French Quarter" where the savory & spicy African/Euro blended dishes of Creole cuisine was enjoyed, and the rest of town, where the more uptight Anglo "whites" lived. The older "vieux carre" part of town became a sort of melting pot, and sloppy drinking & debauchery zone. Creoles & French struggled to maintain their identity, but soon found themselves becoming ostracized.
By the early 1900's the Klu Klux Klan and other harsh white extremists begun enacting "whites only" policies. Some black business owners and citizens were outraged & challenged these policies in the courts. In a one case, a "colored" New Orleanean entered a whites only railroad car and was ousted. That anti-discrimination suit wound through the Louisiana courts & later US Supreme Court and became known as "Plessy v. Ferguson", but when the "colored" rider lost, the challengers had set up the precedent for the Jim Crow laws that reigned for another 60 years. Ironically, Mr. Plessy being a fairly light skinned black avoided some of the legal prejudice by filling out his next voter registration card as a white, and was able to "pass blanc".
It's a city full of contradictions, corruptions and cultural complexities...
Proud of it's French heritage & influence , consider the period in the 1950's & 1960's when just speaking French in a New Orleans school was punishable by physical beatings.
Proud of it's home as the birthplace of jazz, consider that musicians are now arrested for parading & performing without permits...
Now the people complain about the growing presence of Mexicans and other south of the border imports in the post Katrina era who will come in and do the jobs the African Americans & whites no longer want to do... (sign at Harrah's casino)
I'll likely rant on more in detail here in the near future...
But for now, I'll just pepper this post with some historical tracks from the past & present for those who could use a refresher course in New Orleans role in the history of American music...
I could attempt a chronological musical post, but how far back do you really wanna go?
Is Kid Ory or Piron's New Orleans Orchestra going too far back in time ?
Maybe I should try to at least use recordings made when electricity and radio were already common household items?
Today I'll start with someone that no fan of New Orleans music, or rock n roll in general should be unaware of...
In the 1950's, Antoine "Fats" Domino rose to the top of the charts and became the predominant presence in R&B and Pop music associated with New Orleans....
His main musical director was Dave Bartholomew who got Fats hooked up with Imperial records. Fats became one of the world's most instantly recognizable musical stars, and this fame was widespread. Not only was white America charmed by the jolly pianist, Caribbean islanders could even pick up faint strains of New Orleans R&B stations from their radios, further cementing the musical ties between the islands and New Orleans.
The song below was one of many he released that were popular in the Caribbean, and when Sam Cooke toured there in 1960 he said he heard Fats Domino everywhere. One Jamaican nightclub in the late 1950's supposedly even named their beer garden in his honor. This song was particularly popular in jamaica, and has a slight ska feel to it
According the book published by Da Capo Press called Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock 'n' Roll, he was a real hero & legend in Jamaica. Soon, in 1961, a year after Sam Cooke noticed his dominance of local radio waves & jukeboxes, Fats was touring Jamaica himself.
Amongst Fats many fans in Jamica were people like Bob Marley, Prince Buster and Jimmy Cliff who all later credited him for influencing the creation of their now familiar stuttered reggae & ska beats. The band Justin Hinds and the Dominos were supposedly named in his honor as well, and numerous covers & uncredited cribs of his songs appeared on Jamaican turntables over the years.
Here's a 1961 track and a video of Fat's hit song "the Four Winds Blow" done live in 1962.
Fats Domino, despite his fame couldn't even escape from the Jim Crow laws of New Orleans. Tiring of being forced to play segregated shows in the south, and then running afoul of the NAACP boycott, Fats, like Elvis Presley (the only rock performer of his day with wider acclaim & sales), moved to perform exclusively in Las Vegas.
This sorta killed his relevance & appeal... but the Beatles were upon the country now, and fats had to ride that storm out as well...
Anyhow, here's a few more classic cuts from this still living great who had 23 gold hit singles and was said to have sold over 65 million records...
This one came from a 1980 album, called simply 1980, that shows that the man had lost none of his charm, chops or relevance despite the disco decade having pushed him aside from the mainstream radar. By the 1970's, Elvis himself called him the true "king of rock n roll"...
In 1979 Cheap trick recorded fats "Ain't That A Shame" for their Live at Budokan album reintroducing a new generation, even if unwittingly to Fat's style.
On May 1, 1985, Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw ( once of Rusty & Doug) recorded a session with Fats at the now destroyed Ultrasonic Studios in New Orleans. This song here is the end result, and Fats can be heard happily jamming along with the fiddle player, adding his trademark piano triplets and deep vocals to the Cajun zydeco classic "Don't Mess with my Toot Toot". Fats made a video in which then Louisiana governer Edwin Edwards appeared as a limo driver. Edwards would be unable to attend any of Fats Domino's tributes as Edwards 80th birthday was spent in federal prison, after being sentenced to 10 years in prison on racketeering charges from a 2001 conviction.
Fats some years ago claimed he'd never retire as he wants to play music for the rest of his life, but the revered piano man's age is slowly getting the best of him. During Katrina, we all saw him being lifted out of his flooded 9th ward district home. Some 60 years after starting his recording career, earlier this month when he came to New York for a tribute, the once world famous singer went basically unnoticed by passerby in Times Square when posing for a photo session...
Sadly, I bet a talentless hack like 50 Cent or Soulja Boy wouldn't have had that problem on a NYC street. But I suppose we'll have to see who pays tribute to Soulja Boy or T-Pain in 60 months, much less some 60 years after the tides of time take a toll on today's fickle music audiences.
Here's also a video and a link for the new tribute to Fats Domino entitled "Goin Home : A Tribute to Fats Domino". It features numerous New Orleans artists and special guests including Robert Plant,Corinne Bailey Rae, Joss Stone, Lucinda Williams, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt etc. It is a unique album put together to not only pay tribute to Fats, but raise dough for the Tipitina's Foundation.
Anyhow, that's our classic New Orleans artist profile, and in interest of the present I'll highlight another local fave performer today below.
I hope you'll check back at this website later this month at and I'll include a few more New Orleans tracks as we continue to look at Louisiana's vibrant musical community. It's a special scene that unlike the business & political failures, simply thrives & even exceeds all expectations because of the unique region...
I'll look at some of the currently operating creative forces that are strong enough to float above fray. The artists that are truly excellent examples of essential spirits that are keeping that city alive, despite many of the setbacks it's had over the past few years.
The city of course has an incredible musical history for well over a century, and one could study the varied players and their numerous contributions.
No look at the current crop of Louisiana's finest players could ommit Mr Kermit Ruffins.
Co-founder of the world renowned ReBirth Brass band, and for ten years plus now, he's been an incredible solo performer whose band the Bar B Q Swingers have been an equally respected local fixture. In fact one local t-shirt company called Dirty Coast has added a Ruffins for Mayor t-shirt to it's line... If I lived there I would definitely be sporting that one...
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Anyhow, Kermit Ruffins' spirited jazz trumpet playing and showmanship have seen him compared to the legendary Louis Armstrong, and no trip to the city is complete without a stop in the Bywater at Vaughan's where he generally can be found every Thursday for the past 15 some years.
Here's two cuts by Ruffins... the first from his album "Live At Vaughans", one of the best selling CD's at the annual jazzfest, it's raucous live sound perfectly captures the ecstatic energetic & casually contagious New Orleanean funk fervor to be found in a Ruffins set.
The next cut is from a reunion collaboration between Ruffins and the Rebirth Brass Band, and the song brings us the all too appropriate title tie in to this post...
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Amongst the last known communications from Scheetz gal pal , Michelle Lynn Hatchel, was a text message to a friend stating that ""I can't believe how much coke he does, all the time, all day long," ...
The 40 something exec had been a player in the New York City real estate scene in the 1990's before signing up with Morgans. Scheetz rose in the finance world due to his "straight laced" style, but after keepin the story out of the media for weeks, lost his phat CEO gig due to this drug death scandal. He left with a phat severance package worth millions, while Hatchell's family in Colorado couldn't even get a police report for weeks. Here is Scheetz in a recent pic with SF's party boy mayor Gavin Newsom, before both had to take account of their "personal issues" this year.
Psssst...
"Drop Me Off In New Orleans"
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