Sunday, December 31, 2006

Podcast - NEW YEARS EVE DEC 31, 1971 –Plus SETLIST

Further on down the road
Who? Where? JIM HAAS’S HOUSE BASEMENT, AUGUSTA ST, RACINE, WIS.JOHN RUETZ, GUITAR; BOB STEPIEN, BASS, PAUL DEMARK, DRUMS, MIKE BRUSHA, SAX, JIM HAAS, HARP; JACK VAUGHAN, VOCALS. It ain’t been a bad year. Got to be with the buds through the miracle of the Web. Funny thing learned .. memory plays tricks. Who said what when? We have different recollections. I know some of mine are false, but nevertheless, incredibly vivid. I’ve carried around a document of a set list we did one New Years, surely one of the greatest parties. Thanks to Marguerite and Norbert Haas as well as Jim. I’d like to think this document doesn’t lie, and that we can agree that this happened in this order. Shalom all! 1-LITTLE QUEENIE 2-LAST TIME 3-I’M 18 4-HEART OF STONE 5-JUMPIN JACK FLASH 6-HONEY DON’T 7-PACKED FAIR AND SQUARE 8-ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER 9-STILL GOT A LONG WAY TO GO 

Correction: Note at least two mistakes in audio commentary… 1. Loaded coincided with end of 60s/start of 70s and 2. Bob Dylan and Band toured and recorded live After_Flood in 1974, not 1972. Somewhat related, my Punkie Screed of 2006 http://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2006/05/hey-what-about-punk-music.html

Year in Review: 2006 at Moon Traveller Herald, favorite moments.

Motto for year: On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.

Doug's Pool Hall -Poem - 2.2006


Blues Reunion with Jim and Dave in SF -Journal - 2.2006


The Pogues, The Orpheum, Boston, Mar. 15, 2006 -Review - 3.2006


Cuttin’d’News - Judas: God’s Man in Judea? -Essay 4.2006


Hey what about punk music? -Essay 5.2006


Art of Jeff Hull- Review 5.2006


Dr. Shroud - In June and July, a series of .. er Fragments and -Drawings 6.2006


American Primitive Vol. 2, I Got a NuGrape, Soda Pop Art - Review - 6.2006


Ben-Hur Epic: Gordon Thomas goes long Review by Gordon Thomas - 7.2006


Filene and Steffens - Essay - 7.2006


Spysmasher Serial -Poem - 7.2006


One’s 2 many…and a hundered’s not enough Ruetz and Co take NY- Journal - 8.2006


Dylan in Modern Times - Review - 9.2006


Dreamland Sea Bound A group grope - Group Poem Experiment - 10.2006


Long-buried Robert Junior Lockwood interview - Interview/Appreciation/Obituary - 11.2006

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Funny Papers

I have been fooling around with something called StripGenerator for a while. Some Slovene* cats made it. Right now it is being worked on [a new release - but once it's rev'd you can try it at stripgenerator.com. Let's you create cartoons, up to a point. With the help of Nuno Texiera, I was able to add color to the rudimentary pieces, so that now we are quite competitive with the production quality standards of, say, SouthPark. We are Zorb.

See the latest drawing - Microsoft Speechwriters' HQ

*Correction

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

List of Jack’s Best 2006

stampjackjpg

Here’s this years picks that clicked. This year I’m gonna focus on songs rather than albums. Don’t know, may have done that last year too, for that matter. As we’ve said, the industry is moving back to this idea of the single. And it is probably what people want, and what the artists are capable of. I don’t mind paying 99 cents to see if there is a there there, as for example, with JJ Cale and Eric Clapton, or Cat Ibraham Stevens or the Holy Modal Rounders meet Godzilla.

But before I babble on too much … here is the List of Jack’s Best 2006.

The Levee’s Gonna Break - Bob Dylan, from Modern Times
Till I Gain Control Again - Van Morrison, from Pay the Devil
That Kind of Fool – Jerry Lee Lewis (duet with Keith Richards), from Last Man Standing
Maimed Happiness – The New York Dolls, from One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This
This Is Us – Mark Knopfler and Emmy Lou Harris
Buried Alive in the Blues – Chicago Blues Reunion, from Buried Alive in the Blues

But different this year is a total lack of effort to reach out to different types of music These are all just about golden rockin 60s oldies people. High geezer factor. Also a pretty white bunch. And mostly guys. This is due to some budget cutbacks at MoonTravellerHerald. But understand, by saving money on CDs, we are able to keep a full staff, no layoffs, and bring the news you need regularly to you good people out there like you expect. Did just get a great Christmas present from Cecelia: The 2006 release of King of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Vol. 1 by Sol Hoopii [1927 – 1936]. Just getting into that. She got it at the Tower Records fire sale.

Kwitcherbellyachin .. okay.

I hear and buy and lease and burn plenty of stuff from many music types, don’t get me wrong. Finding stuff that is specifically from 2006 is actually the mitigating factor.. And one of the above numbers actually isn’t truly from 2006. The devil made me add it. Too, I’ve tried in the past to balance up music and downer music. Not this time.

I like to think the previous incarnations of this project are worth a look see. So the addresses for these cavalcades are offered here. My top picks for 2005 - ProudTruth Awards for Music of 2003 - Music Faves of Ought Two


imgThe Levee’s Gonna Break – Bob Dylan, from Modern Times.
Eagerly awaited and no let down the CD. So what’s your favorite number? Mine is The Levee’s Gonna Break. It’s got a good Choctaw beat, and you can dance to it. I remember this: AOL did a videocast of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, put together with grit and groceries in the Spring after Hurricane Katrina. And Dylan was a headliner. And there he was doing “The Levee’s Gonna Break” which I at the time took to be Flash on the Levee but wondered because it was upbeat. The camera was set back in the jiggy grunge audience, and a guy in white shirt and his bohemian babe in sun skirt were doing the second line two step. Which all seems terribly apropos of art’s ability to change things. In my opinion. Doom, determination, blues, beat. This song has got it..”Some people on the road carrying everything they own.” The indelible image now obscured in public consciousness by news of Lindsay Lohan and Miss Teen USA. I view the album as one in a series of three.

Also see...
Modern Times Review 9/2006
Another week of Dylan blogging 9/2006

imgTill I Gain Control Again - Van Morrison, from Pay the Devil.
Van the Man has gotten a bit too good at rewriting other songs [say from New Orleans era, Tin Pan Alley, or Sam Cooke oeuvre ] with his own semipoetic twist and oddball delivery. He's also taken part in too many themed CDs [tribute to jazz, tribute to skiffle, etc.] and this coupled with his limited capacity for humor has put him in the category of old fart. So you don’t expect too much from his country send up call Pay the Devil, right? Ok he's got you. The humor is bubbling. The performances are just slightly over the top, and the authors largely are not Van! Then you hear him sing - over a great combo - "Darling, I only hope that you will hold me now, until I gain control again." He takes on Rodney Crowell's Till I Gain Control and knifes it. This is the number that got me off my butt to buy a CD that is a virtually complete success. Till I Gain Control is about a cat trying to get it together, whose plaint is understated yet desperate.

imgThat Kind of Fool – Jerry Lee Lewis (duet with Keith Richards), from Las Man Standing.
Many years now Jerry Lee Lewis was in a holding pattern. Not heard from. But I heard tell that hours after his most recent divorce became final, he was in the air to gigging in Europe. This record is deeper than his last – more cuts. It is one of those duet things. The selection I pick is That Kind of Fool. He sings this country beer bar ballad with Keith Richards whose singing, well, it just keeps improving. “Look at that fool, one drink and he goes home ..” In this story Jerry is painting a picture of a bar lounge lizard ne’er-do-well observing an occasional imbiber paying his tab. Jerry’s whole life passes in front of him. At the trailer, you can here an energetic Englishman [Richards] enthuse: “Got the feeling Jerry!”


imgMaimed Happiness – The New York Dolls, from One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This.
This was impulse buy. Jake and I were down in old New York. Had seen the Doll posters - they’d [all two of them original] just put out their first record in over 30 years. And there it was on sale, at Virgin near 14th St, and, anyway, they’d been king of the downtown when I was there way back. Seemed like a theme to go with. Included a DVD [which had some interesting musician interplay - always fascinating, that - including discussion of how not to chord like the Rolling Stones - beside guitar choice, it is a matter of pick strum effect ]. There was a really tremendous this is the next big band thing going on with the Dolls in their time and place - and many sad end results that now give their music even greater depth. David Johanssen’s lyrics and performance on Maimed Happiness show a world-weary Doll, a ground down Doll. To the tune of a doo-wop slow dance waltz. At the end of all the parties, hope and hype: dread. ‘’Been to the doctor, not a lot he can do. Says: ‘You got the human condition, son I feel sorry for you.’’’ A mediation on sorrowful joy. Magic that disappears.

Also see
Subway to glitter 6/2006

imgBuried Alive in the Blues – Chicago Blues Reunion, from Buried Alive in the Blues.
Once John Sinclair told me someone asked him to take part in something or review it..it was called "Chasing the Blues." And he said to me: "Have you ever heard something so stupid?" Well I kind of looked at him, dumbly. So he sayd "You run from the blues, you don't chase it." Well blues is about living..for sure..so being buried alive in it is particularly poignant. Nick Gravenites has been carrying this song for years, but he really hit it with the Chicago Blues Reunion group at the end of last year. We saw the band and him do it in Feb in S.F. Since then, it has been on my CD rondelle on many a Friday morning - as I shuffled off to Daily Breadland."Its sunday morning everybody's in bed...this big dumb brickwall ain't heard a word I said. I'm buried alive in the blues." It is a blues march, driven by Harvy Mandel's guitar..including a transcendent [3-bar?] lead exercise in guitar dramatics.

Also see:
Blues Reunion 2/2006

Also noted

This Is Us – Mark Knopfler and Emmy Lou Harris
Power chords, high mandolins, cool attitude. Known life. Kodaks moments. Pretty simple stuff sufficed with high art. This is us. The straight dire drone. You and me making history. Sad to say, I have had enough of Emmy Lou’s heavenly nose borne intonations at this point. But she is the greatest long time running she singer. And she’s back with this one…just like all the guys above back from obscura of varieties. The piece with Knobfler dopler a tad too laconic maybe. The drummer don’t care. It’s the snare head hit of the year. Crossed many playlists. And I got this as iPod thing for 99 cents .. lived to see it.. no idea about the album or the DVD… got it just like I usta get some of those old 45s at Woolworths, cept there was a lotta techno-doo-doo on the way.

Further also noted, great songs on Film Soundtracks in 2006:
Sister Ray, Velvet Underground – “Brick”
Sweet Dreams, Roy Buchanan – “The Departed”
Hardcore Troubadour, Steve Earle – “Talledega Nights”

Past lists
Again, I like to think the previous incarnations of this project are worth a look see. So the addresses for these cavalcades are offered here. My top picks for 2005 - ProudTruth Awards for Music of 2003 - Music Faves of Ought Two

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Christmas Locomotive

Ran this on Radio Weblog, bring it back for this occassion. Happy Christmas.


[Assembled by dwarves]


[At left, wreathe by Jeanne; photo by Mike]


Opposite your chorus line of thought
A trembling train with convictions rides
In circles and clovers
And unravels the poked pathway
To find your feet

Ten track minutes away from the Christmas tree glow
That father digested
Where copper
through tourniquet currents
flows

To the chimney
where no one has been
To see the thin clank
of the opening

Just a panthering train
cross the swells of the carpet
Through oriental valleys
and their piled paisley sockets
Through skyscraper wrappings
the apple spanked harlotty papers
and things to return
to your feet

Flocking petitions like rotary blades
remind of a balking sacred day
when manger roasted hay and chimera
wave hanks at a Lionel train

--Jack Vaughan
Adapted from original; "Garage," 1967

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Pentagon agency's brain research raises eyebrows

Darpa looks at Augmented Cognition. Kneejerk eyebrows raise. The questions: Is it ethical to send orders directly to the brain? Shouldn't they go through the mind first?

read more | digg story

Sunday, December 10, 2006

About the Third Throne

I wandered into the great art of James Hampton when his Third Throne of heaven was on loan as an installation at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston in 1977. Had no pre-knowledge or preparation for it. It was just there. And what it was was a spiritual experience of supernaturalness on earth.

Most properly it is known as Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly. Imagine the Sliver Gate Quartet crossing paths with Sun Ra, all in the mind of a polite curator parson. Godsmacking, hey?

Hampton was a person who in spare time and during retirement built an altar, wrote in cryptic Afric tongue, and kept all mostly to himself, all in Wash Dc. He created an altar in a rented alchemist garage. Discovered to the art world after he died in 1964, it was the biggest folk art treasure since Grandma Moses or the Peaceable Kingdom. But people are still picking up on Hampton in 2006. He is not too well known. His work is now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

On a second trip to the Throne at MFA in '70s, this time with a date [she liked Hobbs or maybe it was Locke and liked fact that Hobbs or Locke liked billiards], I wrote a poem that I used to call “The Rose of Sharon.’ I think it was that time of year. All these objects was finding at the time were pointing to another life. The artifacts in the museum too, with Hampton’s garage the most supremely transcendent. A lot of goneness in his garage too. Awed, I tried to write it down. Oooh, the feed was all is lonliness .. you know the tune.. In the meantime this affair wasn’t working and I was surprised to discover I was the non-working part this time.

Now back to our story…Hampton’s work has been described as one of America’s sleeper masterpieces. True enough. But it does not render itself in pictures. What’s there is too hidden for the photo process. Check it out when you go to Washington.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hampton_(artist)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115774695415557914.html?mod=todays_us_pursuits
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/interact/zoom/hampton_throne.cfm
http://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2006/12/at-throne-of-third-heaven.html

James Hampton and the Third Throne

At the Throne of the Third Heaven

i.

 Sweet little queen of spades 

Strange little stone heart 

A chestnut! 

The architectural fragments 

Of gone civilizations, like 

The beaded silverware of a king 

Now in a museum. 

He’s got snakes on his head 

And Buddhist dancing girls 

Surround him. 

 ii. 

 How different it looks 

My second time in the throne 

Of the third heaven 

 Last date 

In the tin-foil palace 

Of silver and gold where 

Religious balls hover 

And flying wings wing 

 Fear not! Hampton sings 

In my garage 

I am a Saint 

And God is the king. 

 iii. 

 Now in my ososad apartment 

With the found fens rose 

Long gone Sharon 

Off over tea W

e stared at each other 

Over Aphrodite 

Wrote a poem together 

And I realized 

I was a turkey 

 How small in the third heaven 

I am an altar boy 

Lighting candles 

Everyday more revelation.

-- Jack Vaughan

Friday, December 08, 2006

Dec 8

Yea we'll walk the vast savannahs
alongside your resuurrection
and with legs of spiritus
we'll wade in the hossanahs of new water

from For John Lennon, Gregory Corso