Style '65 (Part 1 of 2)

John Stephen & Barbara Hulanicki meet Twinkle and The Pretty Things

Here are some cool pages from the February 1965 Rave magazine. The following month they ran a great photo feature on Carnaby street which I will endeavor to load up for April.

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!

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.

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?

Help, the Slow Poisoner has gotten to me!



The multi-talented Andrew Goldfarb, the Slow Poisoner (and best thing to come out of the San Francisco area since Tee And Thee Crumpets), has recorded and released some excellent and atmospheric yet kick-butt music over the past few years and you might just do yourself a favor to investigate his CDs and comic books. His Roadside Altar and Magic Casket albums have been getting a few spins here and I'm looking forward to discovering the new Lost Hills set!



According to current plans you can also catch his act in Seattle at The Funhouse (across from the Space Needle) on Sunday March 25th 2012 if you dare!

www.theslowpoisoner.com

www.ognerstump.com

Clickety-click, Barbatrick!

Everyone knows that You Tube is a great place to look up all the obscure old tv shows you remember but nobody else does. Here in Canada we often saw British programs, but also shows from other countries dubbed into English (and on the French language channel au Francaise). One I fondly remember is a Dutch or Belgian kiddie show dubbed into English called Barbapapa. It featured a family of blobby characters with different colours and personalities. One of the blobby things was Barba-Bo, a sort of hippie artist who addresses other creatures as 'man' as you can find out below.



Other such shows I enjoyed were Vision On, Hattytown, Simon In The Land Of Chalk Drawings, and I have vague memories of a show about two mice in French called Nik & Pik who rode in a miniature hot air balloon. I'm sure I'll find them eventually on You Tube. Vision On included an actor named Sylvester McCoy who went on to play Doctor Who. Later on I became quite fascinated with a sci-fi show called The Tomorrow People. That series has been made available on DVDs playable in North America finally and you bet I've ordered all of them! I'm afraid I missed one series based on The Owl Service book, and another titled Children Of The Stones (which are both supposed to be a little along the lines of The Wicker Man), but I did follow something involving a Phoenix but no idea what the title was now. Maybe some of my readers in Old Blighty can help with that? I have ordered The Children Of The Stones DVD but there doesn't seem to be an Owl Service that will work in North America as yet. I was a little old for it when it came out but I also remember a kiddie show with the voice of Peter Ustinov called Dr. Snuggles and it had a sort of yobbo sounding Badger in overalls. I think I'll see if I can find that right now...

The new header graphic by the way is of a movie theater in Seattle Erik once worked at. I've personalized it and it's neighbors (a comic book shop and a deli) just a little bit). There is a very good music store underneath called Neptune Music with lots of quality vinyl, not to be confused with Vancouver's Neptoon which is equally renowned. Down the road a ways is a Dick's drive-in hamburger place with amazing fries!

A gift of Mr. Jones



Here're a few pages of vintage Brian Jones... (from Beat Monthly April 1964 above)



From the January 1965 Rave





From the April 1964 Rave



From the July 1964 Rave



From the February 1965 Rave





and lastly from the June 1966 Beat Instrumental

Wishing you an 'appy chrimbo, and may all yer stockings get stuffed!

I just got through giving the new Green Pajamas CD a spin and I'm liking it a lot! It's hard to find the words to get across what a quality production this album is (album in the best sense of the word), it's unlike so many modern releases that try so hard and polish so much that they shoot themselves in the foot artistically or become a stillborn gimmicky pastiche. This however is a beautifully balanced album, Byrdsian in it's hooks but with a genuine identity; every original song (and they all are originals) brings something to the whole! Jeff Kelly's lyrics rival Robert Hunter for making me wonder about possible realities underneath, and the variety of instruments are complimentary, never introduced to prop up a swaybacked composition.

Oh heck, enough trying to think in rural metaphors, I just really dig this set! I think it'll be a grower too; if only the robots that program 'country' radio would slip any of these tracks into their playlists people like myself who tuned them out about when Shania Twain rode in might just come back like when Foster & Lloyd or The Mavericks were charting. I'm glad this great group took this particular detour, and if the PJs were to continue on this same trail I can't imagine anyone being too disappointed. 'Father, Father Do You Wait' is my personal fave track so far, while 'Last Night Was Like The End Of The World' comes a close second.

Available from Green Monkey Records

or via the Green PJ's Secret Day website.

Trouble In Hippieland!



This Newsweek cover has become iconic of the end of flower power and the dreams of the summer of love. Inside are a number of stories detailing the progression from LSD and marijuana to speed and heroin and the aggression, paranoia and violence that went with that. Rather than just focusing on Haight-Ashbury there is also coverage of the scenes in Boston, The East Village and L.A., the cover couple were found living in a communal apartment NYC digger style.



There is also this story focusing on one so-called Hippie, although there are many like her in our society today and they don't seem to have any fashionable label or hip credibility, they're just the homeless and underemployed.

Portobello Pages

from the Dec. '66 Rave; don't you wish you could hop on a bus and head there?

Did you ever buy an LP with genuinely good music despite exploito graphics and text? Well, here's one to rival all the late '50s African drum albums with the lame jungle savage thing exagerrated to the hilt! It's tough being a non-ironic appreciator of polynesian music, just check out the back cover text, and yet the recordings are both authetic and accomplished. Probably some office suit shmuck with too much time to daydream wrote this tripe! There is some hep log bangin', some awesome vocalising and tasteful guits, I'm told most 49th State label records are as worthwhile.



I picked it up recently at a funky side street vinyl emporium that was packed with some great '50s R&B/Blues, and I also snagged a Gabor Szabo set there (and a Stick McGee CD for Erik).

LP found at Mossy Bottom Records, Brooklyn Ave., Seattle

Back To School: '67

Here are some fun fashion pages from the August 1967 'In' magazine. I like the shade of red and the then current LP covers!

I know I ain't no fashion icon but hopefully I'm not quite hopeless either, here is a sort of montage of snaps... guest appearances by Erik & Hidey Bear...

Stone Age Part 1

Perhaps the earliest photo of Brian, Mick and Keith together (at a Chuck Berry show).

Here are some of the earliest mentions of Andrew Loog Oldham and the Stones in Pop Weekly and Beat Monthly magazines. Early coverage was also given the group in Record Mirror from whom Oldham heard about the group before the piece was even published.

Pop Weekly started with this small news clip (May 4th, 1963)...



Followed with a not bad review (June 8th, 1963) from someone who found Johnny Cash's 'Ring Of Fire' monotonous...



in a late June issue came this tidbit...



and an early look... 



followed a month later by this announcement...



although the official story is that Oldham was co-manager (with Eric Easton) prior to the first single being recorded, but maybe Pop Weekly was catching up?

a week later they are on the Everlys tour...



The July Beat Monthly gives the group a full page...



...and the first single a review...



the first single enters the chart (helped by Oldham's buying some copies through fans in the shops that counted, smart feller)...



peaking less than a month later...



peering over the Pop Weekly fence...



firing that second shot (?)...



inside front cover of the September Beat Monthly...





 ... big headline in the October 5th Pop Weekly...



...cracks begin to show...



but stealing the show anyway (Oct. 12th, 1963)...



another great Rave pin-up (from September 1964)...



If you haven't read it, Andrew Loog Olham's book 'Stoned' (St. Martin's Griffin, 2000) is a great read and the Stones don't even appear until halfway through! Another goody is Alan Clayson's 'Origin Of The Species' (Chrome Dreams, 2007).