Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Great Erik 4-A

Here are a couple of great songs by Erik before I ever knew him. The first is from 1990 when he was still a student at Evergreen College in WA and is an experimental low-budget type of thing and I really love it! Before this circa 1986-89 Erik had been in and out of various Seattle scene combos (The Bass-ics, The Mongrells, The Surrealists), you know how that is...



Ain't that just more fun with ties than you could ever imagine? Next up is from 1999 as part of The Long Faces. They did this Seattle music show called 29 Live. The studio broadcast tower was actually hit by lightning the night they were on and the station went off the air for a number of seconds... perhaps why the band ended up dissolving, bad mojo! But a great song and a odd performance (that's Otto D. Struct on the other guit, the group's other songwriting talent).



But the best was yet to come of course, which is happening right now ; four Howlin' Houndog CDs so far and more to come. Erik has a lot of great original songs and I just wish more people would discover them!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

The Great Gene Clark

There are some great clips of Gene Clark on YouTube but here are two of my personal faves from when Gene & The Firebyrds were out my way to promote their fantastic LP of the time (which has the definitive recording of Mr. Tambourine Man in my opinion). He was in great form as you can see...



I'm not sure about how not afraid of flying he ever was but the details about Eight Miles High are great to hear right from the originator's mouth! Harpo's was a venue in downtown Victoria that has since closed. They appeared on CKVU's general interest Vancouver show shortly after...



Thanks to mcd220 for uploading this great material, and Erik for leading me to it!

P.S. You can tell that the interview comes from the same VHS tape and machine as the clip from the Vancouver show. Also Gene even has the same turtleneck and jacket on! There was a cable access show in Victoria at the time covering the music scene weekly and so I am sure this is nothing to do with a Detroit Harpos club.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

New York Public Library Oz collection on-line.



I love the work of illustrator John R. Neill, but vintage or even recent quality editions of the Children's books (The Sea Fairies and many Oz titles) he worked on can really add up, but here you can download adobe or other versions of the books to view on your PC screen or tablet...

archive.org-New York Public Library (Baum)

You can also find downloadable vintage magazines and comic books at archive.org, try searching for Smash Hits or Photoplay for example or maybe Ha Ha Comics are more your speed?