I love Sooty! And I'm just wild about Harry too...

I was charmed when at the end of the documentary film The Peter Green Story (Man Of The World), the famous guitarist when asked something along the lines of whom he compared favorably to mischievously boasted of being better than Sooty, and then added, but maybe not Sooty with Sweep. No doubt this statement would entirely baffle most non-Brits unaware of ace toy xylophonist and nascent anarchist bear puppet Sooty. But Sooty has been around for over sixty years now!

Puppeteer Harry Corbett was a brilliant puppeteer, if you look him up on youtube you can discover the wonders of how he brings a simple bear puppet to life (by as one child is said to have remarked by putting his hand up Sooty's bottom). You can also (if you can play region 2 PAL format DVDs) watch a number of vintage "lost" episodes http://www.thesootyshow.com/shop/index.php on two new releases well introduced by the current archivist and presenter of the Sooty Show, Richard Cadell. The sheer dexterity Mr. Corbett brought to bear as it were is inspiring; Sooty plays well enough to be hailed the Hendrix of the toy xylophone, and in a sort of spoof of industrial films goes from typing to removing specs and answering the telephone with a magician's skill. Aside from Greeny, Slade's Noddy Holder is another admirer (there is one scandalous photo of the two icons in bed together), and I have to think Johnny "Rotten" Lydon of the Sex Pistols may've learned a thing or two in biting the hand that feeds you from our Sooty!

With Sweep, an irrepressible squeaking dog puppet sidekick, Sooty is still entertaining the young and young at heart today.

For further blog reading check into:

http://aquariumofvulcan.blogspot.ca/2011/07/sooty.html

http://allbear.blogspot.ca/2008/10/izzy-wizzy-lets-get-busy.html

A must read!

The Bonzo Dog Band once asked, Can Blue Men Play The Whites? Hoo nose, but I do believe whites can play, and sing, the blues! Alongside those to make me a believer such as Brian Jones, Mike Bloomfield, Peter Green and Jo-Ann Kelly, I must include Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson. Wilson is best remembered for two widely known cuts made as a member of Canned Heat in the late '60s.

Rebecca Davis Winters' Blind Owl Blues book is the first in depth investigation of this multi-instrumentalist irregular lead singer's brief career. Like fellow Canned Heat band member Bob Hite, Alan had an intense love for old shellac, particularly with the Paramount label, listening through any surface noise to become transported into an intoxicating world of sound and human expression. He ended as one of the earliest inductees into the 27 club, accidentally OD'ing on some kind of street acquired downers on the even of a big European heat tour. Wilson had already made his mark in a number of areas however. He helped neglected blues legends like Son House back into performing and recording, contributed to the preservation of agricultural and arboreal diversity through seed collection and exchange, and was a major light in moving the blues expression into the future. He combined a Skip James style vocal delivery with electric backing and Eastern drone with On The Road Again, playing most of the instruments himself using studio overdubbing. Although he could mimic at as high a level as anybody, he successfully developed his own personal phrasing on An Owl Song. His most famous creation, Going Up The Country, effectively fuses hip flute (ala California Dreaming and Herbie Mann) with an almost Appalachian high lonesome flavored longing for release and escape; the song that would become emblematic of the 'Woodstock generation' and which still turns up in advertising aimed at a baby-boomer demographic.

To learn as much as there may well be to know about this important artist you need to get this book!

Howlin' goes nuts?

Here is a clip of the Houndog at The Walnut Festival in Walnut Creek... The band is Lari Peterson-Lead Guitar, Jane Tyska-Bass, Pete Gascoyne- Drums, John Douglas-Tenor Sax & Mark DeSimone on Trombone. It was a fun gig. I think this footage was posted by Pete Gascoyne (of Groovy Judy) And now back to maintaining radio silence.

Style '65 (Part 2 of 2)

More cool fashion pages, this time from the March 1965 Rave magazine. This will be last post for awhile, thank you all for visiting!

Scene Report: The Funhouse



In the shadow of the now fifty year old Space Needle stands a monument to all that is robust in Seattle's music scene. Even the loss of it's previously green giant clown face has not kept it down, but now developers have their eye on more profitable condos and so this punk/d.i.y. landmark's days may be numbered.

http://www.thefunhouseseattle.com/schedule.html

The green room with the green couch...



One week ago "The Night Of The Wild Men" invaded. Deathbed Playboy opened the set impressively, stomping and making righteous with the steel guitar.



Howling Houndog, joined by Dean Frasier (late of Southbound Union) on slide, were impressive in combination on House Of The Rising Sun and (cough) Hello Kitty Blues. Then James Hunnicutt burst onto the stage with tuneful (and original) lamentation to please the faithful.



To cap the night off The Slow Poisoner unveiled a set that featured new song Macabre (also set down in Studio V earlier the same day along with Green Chair).



At Studio V with an SG:


But something more wicked this way comes. Can The Funhouse be saved?

SaveTheFunhouse

http://www.cityartsonline.com/issues/seattle/2012/04/love-letter-crusty-punk-rock-dive

And be sure to check out the new Slow Poisoner album!



This has been Scene Report with beccabear reporting in memory of three PBRs...

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).