09/01/2018

I have been refraining from blabbering about political matters for a while now. The time for making fun of the revolting buffoon currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is well past: The Drumpf regime is no laughing matter and hasn’t been in quite a long time (if ever it was). I find myself struggling daily to comprehend the horrifying depths to which this pathetic excuse for a human being will sink, aided and encouraged by the shameless complicity of his spellbound cabal. Watching clips of Drumpf’s never-ending campaign rallies I despair of the possibility that we can ever find common ground again in any of the core values that this flawed union was founded upon. The hate and divisiveness seem overwhelming and appeals to reason and decency fall on deaf ears.   The passing of Senator John McCain, however, provides an exceptional opportunity for reflection. I long found John McCain to be a frustrating presence in the national political debate—frustrating because I considered him a thoughtful, honorable and decent individual whose hawkish tendencies I strongly disagreed with. In the waning days of the second Obama administration, when the nuclear treaty with Iran was being hammered out, I was dismayed to hear McCain insist that we should not be negotiating with the Iranians—his approach was more along the lines of ‘Bomb now, talk later.’ Of course, I was adamantly opposed to his presidential ambitions and his fateful decision to hitch his star to the likes of Sarah Palin for the 2008 campaign was ill advised in the extreme, not only in terms of how it diminished McCain’s own stature but in that it conferred a certain degree of legitimacy on the nascent Tea Party movement. Those now seem like innocent and idealistic times.
08/08/2018

In late 1969 the Rolling Stones were touring the United States for the first time in three years, having suffered through a variety of legal hassles and harassment at home and the departure and subsequent death of the group’s onetime leader and guitarist, Brian Jones (replaced by the young virtuoso Mick Taylor). A lot had changed a lot since 1964 and the T.A.M.I. Show and Mick’s lack of formal neckwear didn’t seem quite as scandalous. The band had decided it was time to bust a cinematic move and they hired the Maysles Brothers—Albert and David—and Charlotte Zwerin, to film and direct a document of the tour in which the Stones presented their bonafides as ‘the Greatest Rock n’ Roll Band in the World.’   By the time ‘Gimme Shelter’ was released in December, 1970, everybody knew perfectly well what had transpired at the tour-ending free concert in Altamont, California. The film starts setting up the horror from the very beginning with scenes of Jagger and Charlie Watts in an editing suite looking at film clips and listening to recordings of radio broadcasts from just after the concert. Sonny Barger of the San Francisco Hell’s Angels, calling into a radio show, deflects all the blame for the Altamont disaster onto drugged up hippies and the Stones. Mick looks perplexed, Charlie mutters ‘What a shame.’ A shame it was indeed and ‘Gimme Shelter’ looks it directly in the face, recording everything with a disconcertingly unflinching eye. The movie ricochets from one locale to another, jumping to Mick and Charlie back in England on a photo shoot for the cover of ‘Get Your YaYa’s Out.’ Next, the Stones are bopping around in an Alabama motel room (with journalist Stanley Booth), hanging out backstage at Madison Square Garden, crammed into a small control room at Muscle Shoals Sound listening to mixes for ‘Sticky Fingers.’ Everyone looks zoned out. Charlie gets into a staring contest with the camera. The scene bounces from riveting stage footage at Madison Square Garden to lawyer Melvin Belli’s office in San Francisco as he negotiates to find a last-second venue for the free concert. The energy and momentum build and for a few moments the mood seems somewhat upbeat.
08/02/2018

In reference to rock journalism, the late Frank Zappa once famously posited that it was ‘written about people who can’t play, for people who can’t read, by people who can’t write.’  Zappa made this observation in 1977 and one can’t help but wonder whether it might be more or less true now than it was then. Either way, Zappa’s epic cynicism would probably be severely strained to accommodate contemporary levels of mendacity. His riposte was witty (there’s a reason why people have been quoting it for the last 41 years) but I must take issue with Frank. I think, or rather I know, that there has been some excellent writing done by people who can write about people who can play for people who can read (amongst whom I number myself, in the third category at least). I’ve been reading about rock music since I were but a wee lad and some of it has been genuinely informative, insightful and moving… but we’ll have to leave that for another day.   The topic of the moment concerns a different medium: Film. Specifically, rock and roll on film. To extend Zappa’s hypothesis: Movies about people who can’t play/act, for people who can’t watch, by people who can’t write/direct? In some cases, undoubtedly, but there have been numerous notable exceptions over the years and some films that arguably rise to the realm of true cinematic greatness. In the early to mid 1950s, before rock and roll had become a fully viable form, there were a few notable films that managed to communicate something of the essential rock and roll attitude. Foremost among them is ‘The Wild One’ of 1953, the progenitor of the outlaw biker movie genre. Marlon Brando stars as Johnny Strabler, leader of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club, and in a classic bit of dialogue he expresses an attitude that extends from early Elvis to the Who to the Sex Pistols to late 20th/early 21st century punk:    Girl: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Brando: Whaddya got?   The essence of rock and roll in a nutshell.
06/28/2018

This missive is intended to address the myth and the mystery of three great albums of late ‘60s/early ‘70s rock n’ roll that have, to various degrees, disappeared from public circulation and from the collective sub- or un-conscious. None of them is completely gone—the original albums exist on the margins of the marketplace, on eBay and in the rarities bins of collector vinyl emporiums (emporia?) and some have been reborn in modern guise—but they remain largely obscure relics of special interest only to pathetic dorks such as Your Humble Narrator. Each one of these albums was important to me as a wee lad back home in New Orleans and I listened to each one of them countless times on my plastic close-and-carry record player back in the days before digital anything and Oranguntans-in-Chief. Ahhhh, thems was the days.   The recordings in question are ‘Live Yardbirds, featuring Jimmy Page’ by the Yardbirds, ‘Coast to Coast, Live: Overture and Beginners’ by Rod Stewart & Faces, and ‘Time Fades Away’ by Neil Young. All three of these recordings disappeared from the record stores not long after they were issued, largely due to the artists’ subsequent dissatisfaction with their quality. They languished in cut-out bins for a while, available for $1.99 or thereabouts before eventually vanishing altogether. In two of these three cases, those of the Yardbirds and Neil Young, only recently has the material been rehabilitated and reissued, nearly 50 years after the fact. As for Sir Roderick of Stewart, I suggest not bothering to hold your breath in anticipation of his following suit.
06/03/2018

Welcome, Gentle Reader(s), to yet another installment of Ye Olde Matador Playliste, this one clocking in only scant weeks after the last! Extraordinary, you say? Unprecedented? Trend setting, what? Not at all, actually, but it certainly bucks the trend of the last six months. Despite the calendar tally of Thursdays only three playlistes have been generated as Your Humble Narrator has been resident once again in the town of his origin, down pon the Big Muddy in Louisiana. The Mississippi River actually shares that nickname with the Missouri River and while the Missouri is some 20 miles longer than the Mississippi, I can hardly imagine that it could be any muddier and still manage to flow. Anyway, the Missouri flows into the Mississippi while the Mississippi flows into the sea, or the Gulf of Mexico at least, and that, in MHO gives the Mississippi the upper hand. So there.
04/21/2018

Where do I begin? I have no idea where to begin, how to begin, what to begin... So I'll just begin.   I am returned, Gentle Reader(s), to the virtual pages of this site after an unprecedented absence of, what... six months? Hard to believe but true nonetheless. Affairs of the heart, mind, body and soul have taken the fore and my muse has been elusive, if not entirely absent as of lately late. On top of that,  a fairly epic slump at Ye Olde Matador Lounge resulted in numerous abbreviated evenings and uninspired playlists that didn't seem worthy of the effort of publication and the resultant temporal demands upon yourself and Your Humble Narrator alike. Should forgiveness be required for these lapses, I beg that of you and, for what it's worth, hereby resolve to do better in future. But don't hold your breath.
10/11/2017

Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s), to the third report from New Orleans for 2017, with the added bonus of Ye Olde Matador Playliste. It has been nearly two months since my last posting and in the intervening days I have been traveling back and forth betwixt and between Ink North and Ink South whilst doing my best to keep body and soul in a relatively sound state of repair (the mind being another matter altogether). Central to the satisfactory pursuit of this goal is regularly climbing aboard the varied fleet of Inkcycles resident in my far flung locales to take to the streets and trails to observe and consider life’s rich pageant. Riding the bicycle is an undertaking of quasi-religious import for Your Humble Narrator, providing exercise, pleasure, excitement, contemplation, and a much-needed respite from the woes and cares of life in these trying times. I am resolute in my conviction that the bicycle is not only the finest mode of transportation ever devised, but also one of mankind’s greatest inventions overall. Regardless of whom one credits the origination of human-powered two-wheeled transport with (the various claims are well laid out here, through the good graces of Wikipedia), the bicycle makes the world a better place. This I truly believe.
08/15/2017

This post is dedicated to the memory of Heather Danielle Heyer, a martyr to the cause of standing up to racism, injustice and intolerance in our society. This young woman, a paralegal working and living in Charlottesville, VA, died on Friday, August 12, run down by a deranged racist coward while peacefully protesting in her hometown.
08/11/2017

It’s the never-ending cycle, Gentle Reader(s): New Orleans, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, New Orleans—it keeps me on my toes and it helps keep Southwest Airlines in the black. It’s all routine by now but Southwest does throw me the occasional curveball, just for yuks. The routing on my last trip to see Inky Mum was from Albuturkey to Milwaukee by way of Baltimore—a slight 800-mile diversion—and the return trip was to Albuturkey by way of Phoenix. But who am I to second guess Southwest? My most recent trip was back to New Orleans, where I was last on an extended driving trip in late April/early May. The balmy spring weather was a distant memory as late July was hammering down with the full-court press of mid-summer heat and humidity but I did not let it dissuade me from my duly appointed rounds upon the InkCycle. I took to two wheels once again, meandering through Uptown and then north and west on the levee trail as far as my stamina would take me. As in my last bit of reportage, I have indulged in a bit of informal architortural documentation, the fruits of which labors are below offered.
08/02/2017

As you may well have ascertained by now, Gentle Reader(s), while spending the majority of his time in La Ciudad Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis Your Humble Narrator regularly travels to Ink South in New Orleans and, alternatively, to Ink North in Wisconsin to see Inky Mum and to commune with nature of the northern woodlands variety. Ink North is located just outside of the lovely town of Sheboygan, which is about 50 miles north of Milwaukee on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The paleface history of Sheboygan dates back to the 1780s and the town was incorporated in 1846, probably to the chagrin of the Potawatomi, Menominee, Chippewa and other native tribes that originally called the region home. It currently has a population of about 50,000 souls and just south of the city limits is the town of Wilson wherein there is to be found a lovely, densely wooded neighborhood known as Black River.