Summer of Love

At the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York there is an exhibit called "Summer of Love Art of the Psychedelic Era." It's fun. Take-away is that San Francisco did the best posters; London and LA had the better photographers. Everyone had interesting music. Great contrast with Bob Dylan headlining in Atlantic City 40 years later...

Here's a 10 second video featuring Janis Joplin's car which is parked in the Whitney yard. Give the link a few seconds to load, otherwise you will just get audio.

Things that aren't there any more

Record stores are so dodo. There used to be this great place "Steve's Sounds" -- a hole in the wall off the old Soho Market in London that sold promo and review copies of CDs for under ten pounds (OK when the dollar was stronger, and US prices were silly). I noticed it wasn't there anymore on my last visit to London. In the late 1970s, I picked up David Bowie orange RCA singles for fifty pence in the basement of this space.

And from north of the border.

Sam the Record Man, the one-time cross-Canada music store chain, will close its iconic downtown Toronto flagship location next month. Here's a report from the CBC. When the Canadian dollar was weaker it was a great place to pick up CDs very cheap. (Also there was an HMV store next door which kept prices competitive).

The Voice of Hudson

What Were They Thinking?

60 years ago today, the band were taught to play. Here is National Public Radio coverage.



I know, let's make a movie using documentary and archive footage about World War II with a soundtrack of late 70s popstars covering Beatles' songs. Here, in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" is the coming attraction for Lou Reizner's "All This and World War II." And here is the Roll of Honor of those involved.

On Times Square

The Voice of Hudson

Old Grey Lady plugs Celluloid Skyline

On the New York Times website, Caryn James has put together some cool clips of New York in the movies in connection with an exhibit at Grand Central around the book "Celluloid Skyline."

Link to clips.

Virgin Front of Plane LHR to EWR

Stephen King's Best Rock Songs Ever in EW

Here's the link to the story with some fun youtube videos attached. Disagree with many, but some great.

24. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Iron Butterfly

23. Dead Flowers Rolling Stones

22. Needles and Pins The Searchers

21. I Get Around The Beach Boys

20. On the Dark Side John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band

19. You Never Can Tell Chuck Berry

18. I Want to Help You Ann The Lyres

17. Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress The Hollies

16. Don't Be Cruel Elvis Presley

15. Ain't No Fun (Waiting Around to be a Millionaire) AC/DC

14. Sixty Minute Man The Dominoes

13. Mass. Ave. Willie Alexander

12. The Girl Can't Help It Little Richard

11. She Loves You The Beatles

10. A Big Hunk o' Love Elvis Presley

9. Bip Bop Boom Mickey Hawks

8. Let's Have a Party Wanda Jackson

7. New Orleans Gary U.S. Bonds

6. Ramrod Bruce Springsteen

5. C'Mon Everybody Eddie Cochran

4. Stupid Cupid Connie Francis

3. Mystery Dance Elvis Costello

2. Burning Love Elvis Presley

1. Anarchy in the UK The Sex Pistols

A QUIZ

Who covered which of these songs? The Sex Pistols, Nighthawks, The Ramones, The Cast of Oil City Symphony, Patsy Cline, Peter Sellers, Jan & Dean, Cheap Trick, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers?

There may be multiple answers, i.e. songs may be covered by more than one artist. Here's the link to some of them.

Meanwhile, at the official Crowded House website, you can stream the band's new single which features a guess appearance by Johnny Marr. Thank you to Jefito for the head's up on this.

Elvis On Times Square and in your driveway

Well. As the music industry tries to deal with all sorts of upheavals, Declan MacManus makes one last gasp at exploiting the back catalogue and sets us some strategic corporate partnerships. With VISA being very active in promoting his current tour, he is also now selling cars -- not used, but the very smart Lexus, who must be trying to pitch to a boomer market who would probably prefer to be seen in a Mini.

Click Here


Happy/sad. I am very excited that the first ten years of Elvis Costello's career have been reissued by Hip-o records. Having bought this material on vinyl in several colors, as 45s, albums and cassettes, along with numerous permutations of sleeve design and packaging, on at least different five different labels (Stiff, Columbia, F-Beat, Radar, Rhino, etc.), I realise I have more than a dozen copies of some of these records. That's the really sad part. The Rhino doubles are still the best and most comprehensive and I presume they are now out of print. Here is a link to a Variety story about the Elvis comeback!

Here are some links to Charlie Rose interviews with Elvis.

2001

2002

2006

Las Vegas Carpets Unknown

Six degrees of Rock 'n' Roll

Thanks to Fred Dellar at Mojo here is a link to the "bandtoband" site. Find the common link between two bands through performing members. Couldn't make a link between Dusty Springfield and Roxy Music!

Carpets of Great Hotels

Carpet outside the Stomp theatre at the Aladdin/Planet Hollywood Hotel, Las Vegas
Carpet in the Snackalot area of the Grail Theatre at Wynn Las Vegas

Last Night coming back from Las Vegas

Continental 4:50PM flight, Seat 4B

British Airways Business LHR to JFK

Real Flowers in California

Fake Flowers in Las Vegas

London, land of the $80 pair of converse sneakers

Carpets of the great hotels of the world

Soho Hotel corridors

Millerton, NY

Carpet at McCarran Airport Las Vegas

Continental evening meal LAS to EWR Seat 9C

New York Groove

Time Out New York just did a special issue on the greatest New York musicians of all time. Of course designed to stir debate. They put together a fun collection of YouTube performances which you can see here.

Also a list of the 50 greatest songs by New York's best (according to them) can be linked to here.

Time Warp. Answer to May 20, 2007 quiz relating to Stephen King's 24 favorite Rock 'n' Roll tracks. This will make no sense, so don't even try, unless you have linked here.

The Sex Pistols (C'mon Everybody)

Nighthawks (Mystery Dance)

The Ramones (Needles and Pins)

The Cast of Oil City Symphony (In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida)

Patsy Cline (Stupid Cupid)

Peter Sellers (She Loves You)

Jan & Dean (I Get Around)

Cheap Trick (Don't Be Cruel)

Jerry Lee Lewis (Sixty Minute Man)

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Needles and Pins)

Virgin Atlantic Breakfast LHR to JFK

London carpets

Room and corridor carpetting at the Montague Hotel, London

Aer Lingus coach dinner JFK to Shannon

IBR 1975 Page Six

This page represents one of the many reasons that Island was such a unique label.

All these records went on to sell more when they were released on other labels later! The Dylan albums were released on Asylum in the US after Bob Dylan had a falling out with CBS after they released the out-takes compilation "Dylan." David Geffen scooped him up for two records before Dylan returned to the loving arms of Columbia.

The first three Brian Eno "vocal" records marked an escape from his Roxy Music identity and his path to becoming the Kevin Bacon of the music industry. Everything in pop is six degrees from Eno. "Here Comes the Warm Jets" includes his thinly-veiled attack of former bandmate Bryan Ferry -- the song "Dead Finks Don't Talk" includes the verse:

"Oh you headless chicken
How those poor teeth take so much kicking?
You're always so charming
As you peck your way up there."

Guest musicians on "Warm Jets" include longtime collaborator Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson, all from Roxy Music; John Wetton, sometime Roxy, UK, Asia, Yes, Crimson, etc. bass player; sometime Womble and Sex Pistols collaborator and guitarist Chris Spedding, along with various members of Hawkwind among others!

A very short clip of "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch"

"Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)" included contributions from Robert Wyatt, known from Soft Machine and Matching Mole, as well as for his interpretation of the Elvis Costello song "Ship Building;" (here performed on the "Old Grey Whistle Test") and Phil Collins (Genesis, Brand X) who might have being doing session work because he wasn't sure if the "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" project was really ever going to get finished! Fun too was the inclusion of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, a classical music group made up of musicians assigned to instruments that they were not familiar with. (Here they play "Also Sprach Zarathustra").

Third time is a doozy! "Another Green World" is one of the great records of the 1970s. Released in November 1975 it marked the commercial transition of Eno's work into the ambient arena. (The title track is known in the UK as the theme music to the BBC arts series, "Arena"). John Cale (The Velvet Underground) joined the Eno players on this record.

An amateur video set to "St. Elmo's Fire."

Why the Internet is Wonderful

Ickmusic just reminded me about Viking Kittens. You cannot watch without cracking a smile. There are some more animated animals performing at the rathergood.com website.

Saving the Best for Last

Sylvia Miles is back from Cinecittta filming "Go Go Tales." Here is her fantastic holiday card.

Beatles moment

Here is the coming attraction for Julie Taymor's Acrosss the Universe.
Here is the website for The Beatles' Love.