What Émile Cohl Produced 100 Years Ago

The Wondrous And Strange Stop-Motion World Of Ladislaw Starewicz

News flash: 3-D animation techniques didn't start with Pixar in the 1980's or Henry Selick in the 1990's.

While quite a few great, creative, original and innovative artists - Charley Bowers, Willis O' Brien, George Pal, Ray Harryhausen, Jim Danforth, Karel Zeman, Jiri Trnka, Art Clokey - developed stop-motion animation techniques, arguably the most vivid, dreamlike, and strikingly surreal 3-D animation universe created onscreen was by the Russian-born entomologist turned animator Ladislaw Starewicz.

Starewicz produced puppet animation films for six decades. He began his career in filmmaking in 1909-1910 in Russia, then fled during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and produced a wide range of puppet animation films in France until his passing in 1965.

He started as an entomologist making educational films with bugs - yes, bugs. . . real bugs. Working on a documentary illustrating the mating rituals of insects, Starewicz discovered stop-frame animation, and realized that he could make "trickfilms" featuring said bugs. So observe the following remarkable and surprisingly adult-themed piece produced nearly one hundred years ago - starring insect philanderers.



What separates Starewicz from his animation contemporaries - with the possible exceptions of the Fleischer Studio - is a macabre sensibility. His 1933 film The Mascot (a.k.a. Fétiche) remains the only stop-motion film I have seen to elicit the reaction "holy crap - this is a 3-D Heironymous Bosch painting!" No doubt viewing an original 35mm nitrate print of Starewicz' complete 30 minute opus would be an amazing big screen experience - and here is the very scene that provoked that reaction:



Starewicz worked for ten years on a feature film Le Roman de Renard (a.k.a. "The Tale of the Fox"), released in 1931. Here's a clip:



So today, this blog raises a snifter of Stoli to the memory, vivid imagination and visionary imagery of Ladislaw Starewicz, the spiritual predecessor of present-day stop-motion surrealists The Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer. The following DVD can still be ordered via Amazon.com.



For more info, check out Eric Schneider's piece, Entomology And Animation: A Portrait Of An Early Master: Ladislaw Starewicz in Animation World Magazine, as well as this scholarly article penned for the Senses Of Cinema website by Adrian Danks, president and co-curator of the Melbourne Cinémathèque.

Bye Bye Facebook

Earlier today, a "friend suggestion" that I absolutely did not do was attributed to my Facebook account, so I deactivated it. I sincerely hope that this was the only bogus communication that went out under the auspices of my account. Finding out that messages I never wrote had been sent from my Facebook account was not exactly the experience I sought in the social networking world.

So, again, for now, Sayonara Facebook!

(And, yes, I know, I'll be back in a couple of weeks. . . and certainly back by July 1)

Charley Bowers: The Geek As Hero

Did any cartoon producer/director not named Gregory LaCava or Frank Tashlin even dabble successfully, even briefly, in live-action films?

Yes – and it was one guy, a cartoonist, illustrator and special effects designer named Charley Bowers, who ranks alongside such innovators as O'Brien, Emile Cohl, Lotte Reineger and Ladislaw Starewicz as a genius of animation, far ahead of his time.


By all accounts, Bowers' upbringing was as wild as his pictures. One urban legend has persisted that he was kidnapped by circus performers at age six and subsequently a pint-sized star of many a big top (not unlike the fabulous 1930's comedienne Lyda Roberti). Further stories claim that Bowers was an accomplished bronco buster, draftsman, designer of all kinds of elements - scenics, costumes, sets, effects - for theatrical presentations, as well as a seasoned vaudeville performer from a tender age.



Bowers moved into animation in the teens and produced hundreds of Mutt and Jeff cartoons for Bud Fisher Film Corporation and Pathe-Freres. He also created the illustrations for The Bowers Mother Goose Movie Book in 1923.

Like the aforementioned Reineger and Starewicz, Charley Bowers was an innovator of stop-motion animation techniques - but unlike them, he starred in his own series of two-reel comedies. The 18 "Whirlwind Comedies" produced by Bowers and collaborator Harold Muller in 1926-1928 (released by FBO and then by Educational "The Spice Of The Program" Pictures) were largely forgotten until the mid-1980's, when Louise Beaudet of the Cinemateque Francaise brought a short but astounding Bowers retrospective to the United States.



Check out the following clip from Say Ahhh! (1928). The unique live-action comedy + animation blend compares with the Fleischer Studio's Out Of The Inkwell/Inkwell Imps for invention and sheer audacity.



For a later, post-talkie example of The Bowers Touch, here's his 1935 film, Believe It Or Don't.


Believe It or Don't

Bowers’ screen characterization, either a genial and brilliant (but wacko) inventor or a brazen “tall tale teller”, is clearly secondary to his animation, but key to his vision. His most frequent characterization, perpetually pale and wan from too many consecutive days in the workshop devising gadgets, personifies the geek as hero. Here are clips from his 1930 film It's A Bird.



It’s also okay to use the word surrealism in describing Bowers' stop-motion universe – none other Andre Breton loved the way-out comedies of Bowers a.k.a. Bricolo.



Although the original 35mm nitrate negatives and prints for many of Bowers' silent short subjects perished in vault fires, the surviving films can be seen on the Image Entertainment 2-DVD retrospective, Charley Bowers, The Rediscovery Of An American Comic Genius.


On the DVD set with what's left of the Whirlwind Comedies is Bowers' last stop-motion masterpiece, Wild Oysters, originally released by Paramount Pictures as an entry in the Animated Antics series.



The title characters (oyster #1 enters at 5:19) are a fitting expression of Bowers' "Gumby On Hallucinogens" or "Willis O'Brien Meets David Lynch" universe.

Warner Archive Strikes Again

This week's noteworthy DVD release is Warner Archive's Classic Musical Shorts From The Dream Factory. It includes several entries from MGM's infamous Colortone series of bawdy pre-Code musical novelty shorts (note: I have devoted blog entries to clips from two of them, Crazy House and Over The Counter), as well as miscellaneous vaudevillian weirdness from the inimitable "dawn of talkies" era.

Want that 1932 cocktail of kitsch-camp-bizarreness and scantily clad showgirls inhabiting a garish and inexplicable Freudian Technicolor dreamscape? Yep - and, by cracky, that's entertainment!

Burt Bacharach Day

Don't ask me what logic leads this blog from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Zappa to Sonny Sharrock to Dionne Warwick. I don't know. Just enjoy this 1967 performance of a worthy but lesser known Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune, "Don't Make Me Over", sung by Dionne Warwick with her customary sensitivity and panache.

Jazz Rock Guitar Geek Rapture #2: Best Power Trio (Plus One) Ever

What I will remember most about Sonny Sharrock - even before the music - will be the laughter, the sense of humor, the fun. We laughed a lot. We laughed at the conditions that we had to tolerate to continue doing creative music. We laughed at the reaction - the response to that music - from the journalists, the audience, even the musicians - the same sad, phony, lost motherfuckers who will show up now to say how great he was. How overlooked and underrated he was. How he could have done so much more... We laughed a lot. But this part is serious. Serious as a heart attack. Peace, Sonny. You gave a lot...more than they'll ever know.

----Bill Laswell, May 30, 1994

Today's loaded question is not "who wrote The Book Of Love?" but who presented the most innovative, most sonically textured, most ridiculously powerful yet subtle and nuanced, most remarkable scary-virtuoso electric guitar/electric bass/drums amalgam ever assembled?

Hendrix-Mitchell-Redding (or Hendrix-Cox-Miles)? Nope? Page-Bonham-Jones? Terrific band - but I don't think so. Beck-Clarke-Cobham? Great, but isn't even close. Townshend-Entwhistle-Moon? Best of the British Invasion - and no. Fripp-Wetton-Bruford? Akkermann-Havermanns (or Reuter)-Van der Linden? Both fabulous - and no. Zappa-Fowler-Thompson? Never, ever short of amazing, but no cigar.

My answer to today's question links to a Halloween concert at the 1987 Zurich Jazz Festival by self-described "futuristic electronic folk music" guitarist Sonny Sharrock. Here he is, playing a solo as part of the Last Exit band (bassist Bill Laswell, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, and saxophonist Peter Brotzmann) in 1988.



The download today's posting links to is the best recording of the '87 lineup of the Sonny Sharrock Band I have heard.



Bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummers Abe Speller and Pheeroan akLaff join Sonny, a fearless guitarslinger if there ever was one, for an excursion deep into the farthest outposts of that frontier between the often Balkanized genres (jazz fusion, rock, punk, avant-garde). These are intrepid sonic explorers, the real deal, way off the "guitar geek" charts, and a fine antidote to all flavors of corporate focus group researched entertainment.

Gentlemen and ladies, start your downloads:

Sonny Sharrock Live At The Zurich Jazz Festival, Part One

Sonny Sharrock Live At The Zurich Jazz Festival, Part Two

KFJC Declares Today "Frank Zappa Day"

KFJC-FM, my favorite radio station, as part of its annual "May Mayhem" series of specials, is dedicating May 15, 2010 to the wonderfully indescribable and original music of composer-arranger-guitarist-bandleader Frank Zappa.



I thank Frank personally for expanding my horizons as a listener. After repeated listenings to Mr. Zappa's instrumental and orchestral works in particular, the very cornerstones of cutting-edge 20th century music - from Euro-classical music (in its many flavors) and varied types of world music to post-bop jazz to blues to doo-wop to Sondheim to film soundtrack music to the farthest frontiers of "prog rock" - were no longer utterly beyond my limited understanding.



What was once frightening, incomprehensible or "too old" (A.K.A. yours truly, at that point a Level One Listener, didn't get it) miraculously became music I could both comprehend and enjoy.



Once one "gets" Frank Zappa, the shackles of Level One Listening - marked by the unshakable belief that only a "single melody with accompaniment" format qualifies as "music" - are gone, gone, gone. Those with the patience to learn are rewarded a hundredfold.



So click here before the Pacific Standard Time witching hour that ends May 15, 2010 arrives, and enjoy the genre-defying music of Mr. Zappa.



Then check out the inevitable film clip, in this case from a 1976 appearance on The Mike Douglas Show.

Ella Fitzgerald, Montreaux Jazz Festival, 1969

And if that clip leaves you wanting more, the next logical step is to break down and buy the Twelve Nights In Hollywood 4-CD box set.

Remembering Two Awesome Blondes: Vera-Ellen And June Christy

Today, this blog pays tribute to two particularly creative, stellar, wonderful and underrated artists who stand out among the numerous awesome blondes in 20th Century show biz: dancer Vera-Ellen and jazz singer June Christy.

Their careers parallel each other; both absolutely blazed in the 40's and 50's, leaving prolific artistic legacies behind, before health issues led to early retirement - and neither came close to living long enough to enjoy the fresh rounds of accolades, respect and admiration that accompany "master/elder stateswoman" status. Too bad.

Here's Vera, doing the physically impossible in her first film, Wonder Man.




Last Christmas Eve, several friends and I were simultaneously (and very unfortunately, not together) watching the ritual TV broadcast of the 1954 Michael Curtiz-directed musical White Christmas. The e-mails and Facebook postings we subsequently exchanged tended to echo each other, along these lines:

• Vera-Ellen is AWESOME!
• That's not a stunt double, that's freakin' Danny Kaye - he's actually dancing with Vera-Ellen and keeping up!
• Oh dear, Vera's waist is disturbingly small. Make that frighteningly tiny. Yikes, my ankle is bigger!
• Vera-Ellen is AWESOME!

Indeed, Vera is awesome in all the clips I've seen of her.

Unfortunately, a bonafide starring vehicle, helmed by the best directors in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "Arthur Freed unit" (IMO, Vincente Minnelli and the team of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen), eluded Vera. . . this excellent dance number from On The Town notwithstanding.



As it turned out, a subsequent career as a character actress was not in the cards for Vera, and her last appearances on movies and TV were in the late 1950's.


No doubt, Vera also found herself on the lethal horns of the dilemma for athletes and dancers (and faced by such silver screen stars as Doug Fairbanks, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd): where to go and how to segue to the next phase once those stressed-to-the-max bodies can no longer do impossible feats all day long.

June Christy may be the most underrated jazz singer of her era.



One could compare her to a superb outfielder who just happened to be playing major league baseball when Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson and Henry Aaron were tearing it up.

It was obvious from her stint as vocalist with Stan Kenton's big band that June, like Ella Fitzgerald with the Chick Webb Orchestra and Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey and Harry James, was light years beyond the standard band singer of the era and possessed chops beyond her years.



June's solo career hit the ground running in the 40's with such recordings as "Supper Time" and "Prelude To A Kiss" (which revealed startling depth for a vocalist in her twenties), and kicked off a series of great albums, matching and raising the bar line set by The Chairman Of The Board, as well as fellow Capitol stars Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Bobby Darin.



Add to that list such inspired and original vocal talents active at that time as Ella, Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross group, Anita O'Day, Sarah Vaughan and singer-trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker and Roy Eldridge - and the extent to which that era was indeed a "golden age" of jazz singing becomes clear.

Here's June, personifying relaxed yet uptempo swing on The Nat King Cole Show.

And on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's classic TV show, "Not Only But Also", in 1965.

It was just one of those things that June Christy would be merely one brilliant, incandescent and memorable shining light among many in those days, and arguably under-appreciated. We can be thankful that she at least got the opportunity to record albums and tour prolifically.

Art Tatum, 1954

How does one follow a posting featuring the great Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown and Nils Henning Orsted Pederson? With the equally incomparable Art Tatum.

Two Upright Basses, One Piano

Have yet to find another clip of blazing jazz guitarists that compares to T.J. Kirk, so I will shift from the guitar to that big brother of the cello, the venerable bass violin (A.K.A. standup bass). Obviously, pianist Oscar Peterson wanted to hire the best, so he got two ridiculously skilled bassists, Ray Brown and Nils-Henning Orsted Pederson, to join him on this gig. Big fat bass notes? Check. Driving swing? Yessir. Harmonic nimbleness? To the nth degree. Fabulous intonation? Yep. Enjoy!

Burt Bacharach Day

I would have liked to have found a clip of a bunch of gifted jazz guitarists tearing into some Burt Bacharach chord changes, thus deftly continuing the thread from my last blog entry. . .but couldn't. And not only did I miss Burt Bacharach Day last month due to the untimely passing of favorite indie rocker and Box Tops/Big Star mainstay Alex Chilton, it was just a few days ago that I finally did stumble upon an Alex cover of "The Look Of Love"; alas, that performance was not preserved on video, and not on YouTube or Daily Motion.

That said, we'll double up on Burt-related clips this month. Here's singer Mike Patton, who I had heard many years ago doing remarkable vocal pyrotechnics with the wry avant-hard rock ensemble Mr. Bungle (and who turned out to be the guy sitting next to me at San Francisco Yoshi's when I heard John Zorn's Electric Masada there last year). Enjoy Mike and Faith No More performing one of the better covers I've heard of this BB tune.



Next up, the tried-and-true Burt and Dionne Warwick combo, fabulous way back when. . . and sounding great now.

Jazz Rock Guitar Geek Rapture #1: T.J. Kirk Live At The Up And Down Club, 1994

Once upon a time in the early and mid-1990's, some amazing music was being played in San Francisco clubs on a regular basis. It was the closest thing to the heady days when giants from several musical eras and genres, the majority lacking U.S. recording contracts, were performing in Bay Area venues from Keystone Korner to the Mabuhay Gardens to Kimball's (San Francisco) and, later, Yoshi's and Koncepts Cultural Gallery, proving that both jazz and rock were alive and blazing if you knew exactly where to find it.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a set at The Up And Down Club by a remarkable group that was tearing it up in those San Francisco clubs, at times more than twice a week. Their original name was James T. Kirk, as they performed cross-pollinations of music by James Brown, Thelonious Monk and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, three of the aforementioned music giants. I don't remember specifically whether the lawyers of Paramount Pictures ("Star Trek" owners) complained, but the band subsequently (and soon) changed their name to "T.J. Kirk" - thus also recalling William Shatner's uber-cheesy 1980's cop show.







The band members - guitarists Charlie Hunter, Will Bernard, and John Schott, plus the equally creative and propulsive drummer Scott Amendola - all headed other stellar ensembles and still do, but truly wonderful things happened when the four hit that happy zone together onstage. I consider myself fortunate to have caught some of that magic in person.

For more, check out the liner notes for the last T.J. Kirk recording.

The spirits of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, James Brown, Thelonious Monk - and Jimi Hendrix - are smiling.

The San Francisco Symphony Proclaims "Happy Birthday, Charlie Chaplin"

Today is the 121st anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's birth. While not the first Hollywood film star, he arguably remains the movies' top comic in terms of enduring worldwide fame - and was pretty much king of the world through much of the silent era. Chaplin followed the lead of the first silver screen comedy star, Paris' own Max Linder, by combining physical slapstick comedy and sight gags with greater nuance, sophistication, and ultimately - in his creative development from the best of the 1915 Essanay series and most entries from his 1916-1917 Mutual comedies to his 1920 feature The Kid - drama and pathos.

To celebrate, there will be screenings at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall of the 1925 comedy classic The Gold Rush , accompanied by a performance of Charlie's own musical score by the San Francisco Symphony.



Assistant Conductor Donato Cabrera will lead the orchestra's performance of Chaplin's original score. An hour before each concert, Stephen Salmons, the co-founder and former director of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will give a presentation and talk about the film.

There will be shows tonight at 8:00 p.m. and at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. Here's where to buy tickets on the San Francisco Symphony website.

Still More Amazing Stuff To Download

Musician and writer Greg Forest has done us (the music-obsessed sonic omnivore public) an immense favor byposting a slew of outstanding downloads, under From The Vaults, Live Recordings From Austin and Liberty Lunch's Post Punk Heyday 1987-1989. He also got permission from the artists and various recording companies (no small feat, although I note Little Feat isn't among the the bands represented).

Here's hopin' a 5 buck Pay Pal donation from many of us who have downloaded these great mp3s will enable Greg to post further gems from the vaults. Nice work, Austin Archives!

More Amazing Stuff To Download

Just in case there isn't more than enough fabulous material available for download via The Internet Archive and Concert Vault, Phil Milstein's Probe! Is Turning - On The People website offers yet another invaluable source for fun music, comedy, novelty and spoken word mp3s of dizzying variety.

Happy downloading, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Happy Easter

There are at least four moments in this Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Bob McKimson - at 1:35, 2:35, 6:20 and 6:50 - that never fail to get huge belly laughs out of me, no matter how many times I see it. Happy Easter!

Blogger And Spam Spam Spam Spam

A shout-out to anyone else who reads this blog who is using Blogger: are your comments dominated by spam spam spam spam (99.82% of it wholly unrelated to not only the specific blog topic, but all blog subject matter)? For that matter, are friends and colleagues on Typepad having a similar experience? I know of bloggers who migrated to Typepad after getting hacked on Blogger.

Just curious.

The San Francisco Bay Area Kicks Off April WIth More Cool Film Events

While we are sad to see the Stanford Theatre's splendid Akira Kurosawa Festival come to a close with the end of March, some excellent and unorthodox movies will ring in the new month of April in several Bay Area venues.

Thursday, April 1: The gala day of San Francisco's St. Stupid's Day parade and April Fools' Day will include cool film shows.

At the Balboa Theatre, 3630 Balboa Street (between 37th and 38th Avenue), San Francisco: 7:00 P.M. screening of the documentary Gumby Dharma

At Kingman’s Ivy Room, 860 San Pablo Avenue, Albany, starting at 8:00 p.m., Thrillville presents James Bond Nite: featuring classic 60s spy cinema on the bar TVs, classic cocktail specials (including the original Bond martini, “The Vesper”), prizes and live theremin lounge music by Project Pimento: no cover.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 2-4
At the Victoria Theatre, 2961 Street, San Francisco
Author Peter S. Beagle will appear in person for three showings of the animated adaptation of his fantasy novel, The Last Unicorn. This will be the first time since 1982 that a 35mm print of this film has been shown in the Bay Area.

Friday and Saturday: doors open at 7 PM, audience Q&A with Peter starts at 8 PM, screening starts approximately 8:30. On Sunday, doors open at 6 PM, audience Q&A with Peter starts at 7 PM, screening starts approximately 7:30 PM. There will be special prizes, and a post-screening author-signing.

Friday, April 2: At Stephen Parr's Oddball Film Archive, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco. Guest curator Pete Gowdy presents Lost Animation IV.

Saturday, April 3: Also at Oddball Film Archive in San Francisco's Mission District, yours truly will be guest curator for two shows, starting with my cinematic contribution to his third Surreal Body Shop program at 8:00 p.m. and Attack Of The Killer Commercials at 10:00 p.m.

This Week: Creature Features and KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival

Tomorrow night, Thursday March 25 at 7:00 p.m.: Creature Features At The Balboa with John Stanley, horror host of KTVU-TV's popular late-night show (and who very capably succeeded the equally wonderful Bob Wilkins) IN PERSON! Watch the trailer for this extravaganza, which holds forth at one of my favorite theatres in San Francisco.



Saturday night, March 27: the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival returns, jam-packed with trailers from bad films, martians, robots, campy musical shorts, incredibly strange cartoons, classic television clips, indescribable celluloid oddities and commercials for products like this one:


The amazing 1955 Kelvinator Foodarama Refrigerator-Freezer


When: Saturday March 27, 2010 - from 7:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Where: Room 5015, Foothill College campus

Next week, after recovering from Psychotronix, I will pick myself up, dust myself off and prepare an evening of celluloid oddities and wonderment for Stephen Parr of San Francisco's Oddball Film. I will be guest curator there for two shows at Stephen's excellent film archive on the evening of Saturday April 3.

Something I Didn't Want To Read Anytime Soon: Alex Chilton's Obit

I generally prefer to avoid posting something about a death, since wonderful, beautiful, inventive amazing people die every day - and, bluntly, I am "Way Too Damn Lazy" to write blog postings about even a fraction of 1% of them. Sadly, here's an untimely passing I'm compelled to call attention to.

One of the most inspired, original songwriters and impassioned performers in rock n' roll, Alex Chilton, succumbed to a heart attack on March 17 at the age of 59. He was a rare talent who could seamlessly jump from rock to psychedelia to folk to jazz to blues to Beatle-esque pop to Memphis r&b (at times in the same set) and sound great in every genre. And Alex' best known work, with The Box Tops and Big Star, is strictly the tip of the iceberg.





Alex was slated to appear with Big Star on Saturday night at the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.


Big Star, 1971: Jody Stephens, Chris Bell, Alex Chilton and Andy Hummel




Although most of us (myself included) didn't hear Big Star, which Alex co-led with the very talented singer-songwriter-guitarist Chris Bell, when their albums were first released, barely distributed and never, ever played even on FM radio back in the early 1970's, the band would be hugely influential on the music that followed: without Big Star, there's no R.E.M., no Replacements, no Marshall Crenshaw, no Beck, no Wilco, etc.





Keith Spera in the New Orleans Music News has done an excellent job delving into who Alex Chilton was and how he loved New Orleans, where he lived for the last 28 years of his life. There is also a good tribute written by Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney for NPR Music, the official obit from NPR, which also includes links to various interviews and other pieces, as well as a good article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Aidin Viziri.

I add to this the following excerpts from Chris Talbott's article for the Associated Press."It was Chilton's work with a second Memphis band, Big Star that cemented his legacy as a pioneering voice for a generation of kids looking for something real in the glossy world of pop music. The band was never a commercial success, but R.E.M. counted Chilton as an influence, the Replacements name-checked him with their 1987 song "Alex Chilton," and his band still provides a template for musicians today. "In my opinion, Alex was the most talented triple threat musician out of Memphis — and that's saying a ton," Paul Westerberg, the former Replacements frontman, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "His versatility at soulful singing, pop rock songwriting, master of the folk idiom, and his delving into the avant garde, goes without equal. He was also a hell of a guitar player and a great guy."

Original Big Star member Jody Stephens and Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of The Posies, who joined Chilton in the reformed group (a.k.a. Big Star 2.0), all plan to play Saturday's show as scheduled. Stringfellow said the band will likely invite special guests to join in, but that details were just starting to be worked out.

"That Alex died two days before we were going to play, it has dropped the bomb on South by Southwest in a lot of ways," Stringfellow said in a phone interview from Paris. "We have a lot of fans there. I hope this show will be a good release and a kind of way to memorialize Alex. He deserves that and a lot more."



Paul Westerberg, author of the aforementioned fabulous song about Alex, has posted links to a host of tributes here on his website. No doubt many more are forthcoming, especially at SXSW over this weekend.

Here are three songs from the August 2008 concert by Big Star 2.0 (Alex, Ken Stringfellow, Jon Auer and Jody Stephens) at the Rhythm Festival in Clapham, Bedfordshire. There is no band that synthesized protean elements of American folk-rock and pop - Gram Parson's songwriting and Roger McGuinn's jangly guitar sound from The Byrds, plus Arthur Lee's cryptic lyricism and the vocal harmonies of Brian Wilson/ Beach Boys - with British Invasion soundscapes (from The Beatles to The Move to The Kinks to The Small Faces to The Who to early Pink Floyd) quite like Big Star. It is also noteworthy that Big Star, devoted to succinct pop songcraft, existed completely apart from the pronounced early 1970's bent towards flashy, highly theatrical "stadium rock".







Also posted on youtube were the following home movie clips of the 1971-1972 Big Star lineup, shot by Andy Hummel and the late Chris Bell, with "Thank You, Friends", one of Alex' best tunes as the soundtrack. It is just one of many Chilton songs that has grown on me over the years.



Always musically curious, he loved all kinds of genres and incorporated all of it into his unique approach. Thus, like Elvis Costello, he remains close to Mr. Blogmeister's musical heart. Only Alex Chilton could pull off rocked-out versions of both "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "April In Paris" in the same set as covers of "There Will Never Be Another You", Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" and "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" by Sky Saxon And The Seeds in its full psychedelic era rave-up splendor - or even attempt to.

The most interesting pieces I have seen thus far about Alex have been Robert Cass' Bootleg City article and Michael Baker's The Glory and Grandeur That Is Defeat: The Music of Alex Chilton, a fascinating 2004 study (in two parts) from the enjoyable Perfect Sound Forever online magazine. Baker is a highly opinionated, entertaining, wonderfully florid and very good writer, as well as one deeply knowledgeable music geek.

I'll simply close with both the painfully obvious understatement that Alex Chilton, still underrated after all these years (only in his earliest incarnation with The Box Tops was he ever a pop "flavor of the month"), left a highly original, often inspired legacy - and three great recordings of his. First, a cover version of an irresistible Byrds-Beatles style song by Scottish rockers (and frequent collaborators of Alex) Teenage Fanclub, then a caustic lil' number which ventures successfully into Jimi Hendrix "The Cry Of Love" territory. The third song is a well-known jazz standard and Nina Simone signature tune.







R.I.P. Alex - you are much missed!

Harold Lloyd Interview

One of those responsible for a million laughs, the great Harold Lloyd was born on April 20, 1893. There are so many hilarious Lloyd films it is difficult to know where to start! Why Worry and Safety Last! never fail to crack me up.

The thread involving interviews with the great comedians of silent movies will be another brief one; while Chaplin and Keaton wrote memoirs, Harry Langdon, Charley Chase and Edgar Kennedy all passed away in the 1940's, so no interviews of them appear to exist (certainly no extensive ones), outside of some Hollywood trade paper and newspaper articles. The urban legend goes that Jerry Lewis spent quite a bit of time with both Chaplin and Stan Laurel, but one suspects that whatever was said between them will remain confidential.

The great Harold Lloyd, whose films are still unequaled in their blend of comedy and thrills with the action hero ethos, periodically made public appearances at screenings of his great 1920's features, and also released feature-length compilations of excerpts from his classic movies.

Here's Harold in 1962, interviewed by Harry Reasoner on a CBS-TV interview. Enjoy.

Buster Keaton Interviews

He was among the greatest of movie and vaudeville comedians, as well as an actor, producer, director, writer, editor, daredevil stuntman, tumbler and acrobat. But there's more - he also made his mark as a gifted engineer and special effects designer! Now it's 2010 and there's still only one person in the history of motion pictures who personifies all of those talents: the incomparable Buster Keaton. Fortunately and luckily for us film buffs, Buster outlived many of his contemporaries long enough to be interviewed several times.

From Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, here are more interviews with Buster Keaton, conducted in 1958. You can listen to and/or read the transcript of Buster reminiscing about his years in vaudeville and film.

Part 1 Buster Keaton's Vaudeville Childhood

Part 2 Fatty Arbuckle Puts Buster Keaton In The Movies

Part 3 Buster Keaton On Making Movies

Part 4 Buster Keaton On The End of Silent Films

Here are two more interviews (note: these are Windows Media files, which will only open on your Mac if you have the appropriate plug-in software):

1. CBS interview, broadcast on April 17, 1964: posted on Hollywood Or Blog
2. CBC Interview
   

I extend big time thanks and a tip of the Jimmie Hatlo hat to Silent Comedy Mafia don (Northern California division) Paul J. Mular for sending these links!

Stan Laurel And Oliver Hardy Interviews

I hope to, in scouring YouTube and Daily Motion, find a few interviews with my favorite comedians of the silent and early sound era. Here are some excerpts from Arthur Friedman's August 1957 interview with Stan Laurel.






The complete interview has been posted on Ross Owens' Blog. Lots more interesting material on the world's greatest comedy team can be found on Laurel And Hardy Forum.

The following 1950 "Ship's Reporter" program is among the rare interviews with Oliver Hardy. Ralph Edwards' unsuccessful attempt to build a "This Is Your Life" show around Stan and Babe, unfortunately, was an utterly flubbed opportunity for a fun and historic interview with the boys.




Alas, many of the great screen comics and comedy creators of the 20's and 30's - Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle, Charley Chase, Lloyd Hamilton - lived hard and not only died very young, but many years before the concept of film history was even a glimmer in James Agee's mind.

Happy Birthday, Tex Avery

Whatever modest snippet of humanity reads this blog very likely not only knows the legend of innovative and outrageous animator Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery, born in Taylor, Texas on February 26, 1908, but owns DVD copies of every cartoon he directed for Warner Brothers and MGM. That said, if you happen to stumble upon here in those rambling cyberspace travels and have a bit of free time, enjoy this fine documentary about Tex - a cinematic comic genius if there ever was one - produced by John Needham for TBS in 1988.

The Pinewood Dialogues

If you enjoy reading or listening to interviews with film and animation artists, check out the Pinewood Dialogues in the Museum Of The Moving Image
website.

Stan Getz And John Coltrane, Dusseldorf, 1960

Indeed, they are playing together! With Oscar Peterson (Piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums).

More Zoot Sims

Burt Bacharach Day

Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Zoot Sims

Big Fun In The Comedy Way-Back Machine

After producing the much-enjoyed Pre-Code Follies with the fabulous Kitten On The Keys at the Edison Theatre last weekend, I'm back at Niles to attend the three-day Midwinter Comedy Festival. Historian Richard Roberts, who produced the Slap Happy Comedies series - which ran on PBS (that is, if your local PBS station is any good) - presents the equivalent of a Slapsticon West at Niles every February. As a certified - and certifiable - comedy, classic film and history geek (who probably needs to join a 12-Step program for such things) I find the programs lots of fun and never less than fascinating; the extensive program notes, by Roberts and his co-godfathers from The Silent Comedy Mafia, are most informative and a pleasure to read.

Last night's show spotlighted both very early and not-so-early talkies - and emphatically demonstrated that such inspired comedians as Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Charley Chase and Lloyd "The Poor Soul" Hamilton kicked ass even when their personal lives and physical health were a shambles - while much of the rest of the weekend will focus on exceptionally rare silents. Today's screenings encompass funmakers ranging from reknowned to unknown, include a rare short subject starring the talented silent screen comedienne Alice Howell, a feature film starring the ever-dapper "silk hat slicker" Raymond Griffith, as well as a selection of little-seen gems from the Hal Roach Studio (a.k.a. "The Lot Of Fun").

That said, film buffs, historians and comedy fans: I'll see ya at The Edison Theatre.

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