Wednesday, June 29, 2016

iggy says

Iggy says:

"My first pro band was a blues band called The Prime Movers and the leader Michael Erlewine was a very bright hippy beatnik with a beautifully organized record collection in library form of The Blues. I'd never really heard the Blues. That part of our American heritage was kept off the major media. It was system up, people down. No Big Bill Broonzy on BBC for us. Boy I wish! No money in it. But everything I learned from Michael's beautiful library became the building blocks for anything good I've done since."


Saturday, June 25, 2016

The Juke Box at the Lucky Cue



The Juke Box at the Lucky Cue is the altar where we share these offerings. The Lucky Cue was punk for us! Recall The Cue: You walk in there and the juke box is playing. Two long rows of greenfelt tables, pinball machines up front, more tables and a mezzanine level in the back. And the juke box is playing 96 Tears, Sometimes Good Guys Dont Wear White, You Gonna Miss Me, and Pushing Too Hard, by Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, the 13th Floor Elevators, and the Seeds, respectively. You eye the tables and the thin observing crowd.


[This is  shorter rework of an earlier piece.] What's punk? It became a style at some point. It grew out of the English Invasion Era and its antecedents- think Link Wray and Eddie Cochran- then, faded out during the Psychedelic Period, at the same time that it spawned some of what became heavy metal, and came back as a an andidote to long druggy jams, with a name in New York in the mid 70s, yes, thanks to some talents, but also thanks to a bunch of art school shites and some just plain shites. For me it was part of the context of growing up.. and not  growing up.

Garage would be as good a name. Maybe I am a bit more in favor of Garage music, than Punk music, when the truth be told. My friends Bill, Carol, Bobs  Henken, Stepien LaFrance, Dave and I invented Garage magazine together.  From first principles, in 1967. It's sonorous bounds were other than 3-chords, but collegially similar.

The garage manifest is still there. That was about “chamber thoughts” “because of darkness and you have to someplace and silent and Poe.” Separately, Garage band became a genre. But much of it happened in basements.

The Internet tells me Lenny Kaye's liner notes for Nuggets made early mention of the term 'punk music', and that garage music was already finding currency.* But now that all of that is out of the way,  let's talk about the time before.

Punk to me will always be the Lucky Cue, 1965. Of Main Street Racine. That pin ball and pool parlor palace of our factory town home. Where different samples of cloth conspired, including Black leather jackets, Beatle boots, and attitude of indifference. Simple message, if I don’t like the way you look at me, you I will beat you up. The Juke Box at the Lucky Cue made our shared history. The Lucky Cue was punk for us!

Recall The Cue: You walk in there and the juke box is playing. Two long rows of greenfelt tables, pinball machines up front, more tables and a mezzanine level in the back. Drop a quarter in the juke box. Listen to 96 Tears, Sometimes Good Guys Dont Wear White, You Gonna Miss Me, Little Latin Lupe Lu and Pushing Too Hard, by Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, the 13th Floor Elevators, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and the Seeds, respectively. Most of these artists appear on Nuggets. You eye the tables and the crowd.

Clearly the Seeds’ Pushing Too Hard and The Leaves’ Hey Joe have a punkishness to them, but are harbingers not of punk as much as the San Francisco sound. Were the Yardbirds on the Lucky Cue juke box? – Where is that Time Machine when you need it? Things go in different directions, but for moments they adhere. Punk was not the CYO dance- it was the Cue.

The sound of punk was guitars, but organs were still in competition in those days, and the sound was variations on blue – variations being failed replicas that created new instances. The Kinks have spoken to this: They’re pivotal punk presages were failed recreations of Big Bill Broonzy rips. And as per Link Wray, Dave Davies had slashed his speark for effect. All played out with awareness that James Dean had come to earth and then departed.
I think Satisfaction was a gigantic song in this regard and set the tone for this punk era to come. The buzzy fender came up through Link Wray, one of Muddy Waters guitar players, maybe Duane Eddy too. I think Satisfaction was a gigantic song in this regard and set the tone for this punk era to come. But the singer had the chant: Micky Jagger there talked to my teenage angst .. yours too … god I was so psyched to see him sing that song on TV, and ran out and tried to buy the same type of slacks her wore.

This all was seen in reflective light later on. Through the brainstorms of Lester Bangs, in the pages of Creem. For me Loaded was an epiphany –and it was an attempt really to bring it to a sum. In my first years in Boston, there was a particular flowering of punk. – Jack Vaughan (thank to Peter Bochner, Jim Haas, Jeff DeMark, Paul DeMark)

Lists

No.1

Rumble – by Link Wray
The Train kept a Rollin – by Johnny Burnette[?]
Little Girl – by Syndicate of Sound
You Really Got Me – by the Kinks
Anything – by Eddie Cochran
Louie, Louie – by Lance Davenport and the Voyagers
Wild Thing – by the Troggs
Surfer Bird – The Trashmen
Gloria – by the Shadows of Knight
I’m a Man – by the Yardbirds
Dirty Water – by the Standelles
Cant Explain – by the Who
Satisfaction – by the Ruttle Stones
Little Latin Lupe Lu - by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels
I Heard Her Call My Name – by the Velvet Underground
96 Tears – by Question Mark and the Mysterians
No Fun – by the Stooges
I’m 18 – Alice Cooper

No.2

Gimmie Shelter – the rolling stones
Anything – by The Modern Lovers
Raw Power – by Iggy
I’m a Human Being – by The Dolls
Piss Factory – by Patti Smith
Talk to Lorreta – by the Nervous Eaters
Hit her wid an axe – by Willie Loco Alexander
I was a Catholic Boy - by Jim Carroll
Rockaway Beach – by the Ramones
Anarchy in the UK – by the sex pistols
Whats so funny about peace love and understanding – by Elvis Costello
You Cant Put Your Arms Around a Memory – Johnny Thunders



*[Did I tell you I believe I bought a second-hand version of Nuggets from Lenny (at the register, and Bleeker Records)? He certainly wrote for Creem, which carried the punk drum beat forward.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Backporch Poesy June 2016





Reading from three favorite poetry anthologies on the back porch on June 17 (anniversary of Watergate breakin!) The three tomes are 1-The Poetry of Surrealism, 2-Sunflower Splendor and 3-Technicians of the Sacred. Unfortunately, the images for the 2 and 3 get swapped in the production.

The three poems are Phantom of the Clouds by Guillaume Apollnaire (TR. Michael Benedikt; Dreaming of Li Po 1,2 (actually two poems) by Tu Fu (TR. Eugene Eoyang); and, a stanza of Night Births (from the Kumulip by Keaulumoku) (Tr. Rothenberg?)

We finishwork and watch a movie or TV. To go to another place. Poems bring you to another place, too - one of musical language and concise images. I used to have more time and would be out on the porch or out in the woods, maybe with wine, tobacco, and bag full of books that worked the magic. Now, doing that, well, it is more rare. These poems bring you to a street scene as the modern western world unfolds in Paris in the early 20th century; take you to dreams where great poet Li Po visits great poet Tu fu in dreams; and take you to a prayer writ in the heart of darkness out in Polynesia where I was born - that and they show you the poet's heart and mind. - Jack Vaughan

The neon lights of downtown Racine in 1954

Un sacco di buona musica di Jeff De Mark e la band


Jeff DeMark and The La Patinas. Jeff (at about the 10 minute mark) tells the story of our trip, and encountering Bob Dylan, many years ago. Plenty of good music from Jeff and the band, as well.

Hi Ma!

http://dispatchtelegraph.tumblr.com/post/146126212024/hi-ma

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Excels is in Deo





I heard this first from the Shadows of Knight, which was a big rock band in Chicago. CYO dances, YMCA. And so on. They had heard it obviously from the originators: Them, as it was a hit in England. Like me,  they may have listened to Ron Britain's Sat recap of the British Top Ten. I don’t know. I think I bought Them's second record (found at Penny's) before I found their first record, which included Gloria, Mystic Eyes, Here Comes the Night…I guess Gloria has always been a bit about religion to me. - Jack Vaughan

Ezekiel saw a wheel way in the middle of the air.


Little wheel runs by faith - big wheel run by the grace of god.

Saturday, June 04, 2016

Bold Stumps Fan Club Page



Live August 10, 2016
The Bold Stumps
Georges Tavern
1201 N. Main St.
Racine, Wisconsin

Bold Stump broke his teacher's rule
Life time detention after school
Push the Studebaker over a cliff
Top dog on Monsignor's List
Bold Stump
Bold Stump

or

Bold stump messed up at school
Bold stump broke the sisters rule
Push the Studebaker over a cliff
and a Pontiac in the abyss
Bold stump bold stump bold stump
Bold stump at the running bare camp
Bold stump in the convent vent
M80 in the boys room stall
Bold stump don't care at all
Bold stump bold stump bold stump

Bold Stump stole the monsignor's hat
Friday fed a python one big rabbit
life was a party there's now question
never worried bout indigestion
bold stump bold stump bold stump