Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the (shudder) real world, Will "The Quill" Viharo, Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Psychotronic Paul and The Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge present The Tikitronic Film Festival, featuring trailers, drive-in snack ads, Scopitones, commercials, cartoons, industrial films and cinematic ephemera in glorious 16mm on the big screen!
The Tikitronic Film Festival
The Date: Thursday, September 22
Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
The Place: The backyard parking lot of The Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge
Where: 1304 Lincoln Avenue, Alameda, CA
Reasons To Go: Mixed drinks in the lounge, customized tiki door prizes and, outside, delirious entertainment that will have you un-squarely way deep in WTF Land within the first 137 seconds. And, of course, Scopitones like this one:
Although Mel (lucky for us earthlings) lived long enough to record tons of albums and tour the globe many times over six decades - boy, do we miss him!
Although he died in a plane crash with four members of backing band The Bar-Kays, at the end of the same year that claimed John Coltrane, 1967, Otis recorded and toured prolifically in those few years of his performing career and, like fallen jazz trumpeters Clifford Brown and Booker Little, left a legacy of amazing music behind.
I don't care if some tunes are repeated in these clips. Can't get too much of Otis tearing it up with the mighty Booker T and The MGS in support.
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Patsy Cline, Otis Redding, Rick Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughn and (much later) John Denver - DAMN!
(Imagine Andy Rooney voice here) Do you ever notice that there is only one letter of difference between "deprived" and "depraved"?
Just one letter. . . the lives of King Henry VIII, wordsmiths Lord Byron and William S. Burroughs, not to mention countless never broke but ever libidinous hedonists from 1965-1980 notwithstanding.
My Facebook group is called The Dead Comedians' Society. I am not the first person to have an online group or a blog with this sobriquet and my Facebook group is not associated with the sketch comedy ensemble of the same name.
The group's purpose: post as many clips as humanly possible by long-gone talented folks who made us laugh on the big and small screen.
I am certain that the sheer breadth of dead comedians represented in my group blows all other attempts out of the very water that a mustached star of an L-KO comedy fell into in 1916.
This week, Jason Forrest's Network Awesome has thrown the spotlight on the short-lived but memorable sketch comedy series The Dana Carvey Show, which aired on ABC during the spring of 1996. While not quite as famous among comedy buffs as The Richard Pryor Show, both series got yanked quickly after continual run-ins with Standards and Practices over controversial material.
Since the series disappeared after seven of the planned ten episodes aired, many comedy fans, myself included, did not see it until clips were posted on YouTube more than a decade later.
After seeing how funny the YouTube clips were, one wonders why HBO or Comedy Central didn't pick the show up after ABC cancelled it.
The show's humor was very over-the-top, at times with a sheer silliness recalling Spike Milligan. Its cast featured a bunch of Second City troupe veterans, including Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, a few years before their rise to fame on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and in movies.
As the writers included Robert Smigel and Louis CK, this program was not afraid to go way out for a laugh.
All eight episodes are up on YouTube. The season finale was arguably the funniest episode in the series.
Of course, the Carvey show couldn't have Robert Smigel on the writing staff without including episodes of TV Funhouse: the thrilling adventures of Ace & Gary, The Ambiguously Gay Duo (starting at 1:33).
Although 19th century author-lecturer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain were both born on the 29th of August, the contemporaneous fun fact that floors me much more is the duo from the world of music who share this birthday: Charlie Parker (1920-1955) and Michael Jackson (1958-2009).
Charlie Parker, the saxophonist, songwriter and bandleader (A.K.A. "Bird", Yardbird", etc.) passed away 55 years ago, after turning the post-WW2 jazz world on its collective ear. Here's one of the few existing clips of Charlie, playing soulfully following a strong solo by legendary swing icon Coleman Hawkins.
The links between Charlie Parker and Michael Jackson are many and the degrees of separation surprisingly few. Miles Davis, who played alongside Bird in the late 1940's Charlie Parker Quintet, worked extensively with Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.
Parker Miles and Michael all crossed paths with Quincy Jones, a giant of 20th century pop and jazz who began his career as a brass player and arranger. At one point Quincy played in the same orchestra with the trumpet virtuoso who was the closest thing to a "Bird" of the brass, Clifford Brown (1931-1956), as well as in the ensemble of formidable bop era composer-arranger-pianist Tadd Dameron. Quincy's production genius complemented Jackson's vision as Sir George Martin's gave The Beatles an expanded tonal palette to get creative with.
In another way, the King Of Bop and the King Of Pop - one famous today primarily among musicians, historians and jazz fans, the other plagued by mega-celebrity on an insane scale - share a certain polarizing "you love 'em or you hate 'em" place in 20th century culture. Their music either transports to the stratosphere or leaves a person cold.
This blog tips the Jimmie Hatlo hat to Mr. Parker and Mr. Jackson, who, irregardless of their flaws and difficulties as human beings, brought joy to millions around the world through their music - and still do. One hopes that in the next world they found some measure of peace that clearly eluded them in this one.
When I started writing this blog in 2006, in a completely arbitrary decision, I decided the 20th of every month would feature a clip of Burt Bacharach music, because I like his melodies, chord changes, arrangements and unique ability to incorporate elements of bossa nova and jazz harmonies into pure pop.
My favorite Burt Bacharach composition is "Nikki". Something about that song gets me right there in the broken heart every time.
Many more Bacharach songs, especially those on the Burt n' Elvis album Painted From Memory, resonate deeply with me.
While I periodically miss a Burt Bacharach Day just by getting stuck for a clip I like, there's always Dionne Warwick in German (thank you, Bear Family Records and The Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show on KFJC for alerting me to this).
Today's posting also reminds me to mention a concert tonight in Woodstock, New York by the much loved but short-lived pop group, The Left Banke (note: the 2011 version, led by Tom Finn and George Cameron, is based on the 1967-1969 ensemble that recorded The Left Banke Too, not the earlier Michael Brown incarnation of the band). The Left Banke's 1966 hit Walk Away Renee is a cornerstone of Baroque Pop. The genre's string arrangements and vocal harmonies strike me as artistic parallels both to The Beatles and Burt Bacharach.
Burt would very likely have, a la Brian Wilson and Sir George Martin, expanded the sonic palette yet further, incorporating nylon string guitars, Brazilian percussion and whatever other creative instrumental combinations his imagination could find.
I like satire. Like, for example, the late and incomparable George Carlin.
Or the late, great Bill Hicks.
My big problem is that what often stands for satire these days is way too nice. Give me some bilious stuff that really goes after the bastards. The nastier and funnier, the better!
Alas, we don't have anything remotely like Mark Twain these days - and if we did, the writing would be suppressed!
As a consolation prize, here are recent segments from a program that still runs on cable TV that covers mass media and current events in a humorous way. Yes, indeedy, the last faint gasp of this sort of thing available on what Ernie Kovacs altar ego Percy Dovetonsils called "the orthicon tube", Jon Stewart and The Daily Show.
Wrote on February 13 that this blog was running out of steam - and, indeed, it was. Then the For The Love Of Film (Noir) Blogathon came along and inspired a few decent postings, followed by occasional bursts of activity since: just enough to keep the blog alive and get it to the 500 posting milestone.
Looks like I have run out of things to say for the moment. Shall continue posting, even if my writing mojo has vanished to the extent that I am seeing pictures of it on the back of milk cartons.
When utterly devoid of creative writing impetus, I will direct readers to other blogs. The subject of my last posting, Gene Deitch, writes Roll The Credits, a scholarly blog previewing excerpts from his upcoming book about his life in animation. On June 28, I championed cookbook author Tinky "Dakota" Weisblat's invaluable blog chronicling caring for a parent with Alzheimer's Disease and also called attention to Only Solitaire - George Starostin's Music Reviews recently.
Today's Psychotronic Paul-picked blog, direct from Bristol in the United Kingdom, is a frequently hilarious one titled The World's Worst Records, frequently including such lines as "someone pass me a bucket - I'm going to be sick." The blog lives up to its subtitle of "An Arcade Of Audio Atrocities" and, like my writings and celluloid mixmaster presentations, can offer hours of questionable amusement.
Will the show be jam-packed with movie stars, CGI and cool effects? In a word - NO!
Will there be trailers from wretched movies, well-meaning 50's educational films, schlocky drive-in movies with guys in stupid-looking robot and gorilla suits, vintage TV commercials and theatre ads, cartoon rarities, Japanese monster epics, Scopitones, Soundies and other even more obscure musical shorts, silent movie excerpts, kidvid, serial chapters, puppet animation, double-entendre packed pre-Code clips and more? To paraphrase the immortal celluloid hero Gary Cooper, "yep".
The visual music (?) draws from a wide range of oddly tuned instruments - and we don't know what riff we'll play until the show is underway.
The festival is also something of a reaction against all standard rules of film programming. Instead of devoting a screening to one director, genre or series, the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival tosses a wide variety of films from different places, genres, techniques or time periods together into quite the kaleidoscopic salad.
As far as content goes, the more obscure, the lower the budget, the more under-the-radar, the better. If we can establish a subject link or a Monty Python-esque visual or verbal link between the segments, great, but this is not absolutely necessary.
Or, to make a further Monty Python reference, this could be called the "And Now For Something Completely Different" approach to film programming.
Archivist-producers Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon and myself create the program on the fly, responding to audience reaction and choosing films accordingly. Rob Emmett, host of KFJC's "Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show" since 1986, presides over the festivities with panache and bon mots aplenty.
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival
When? Saturday, August 6. While showtime is 7:00 p.m., get there early - these shows sell out
Where? Room 5015, Foothill College campus, Los Altos Hills, CA (El Monte exit off of Highway 280)
Why? We give away cheesy door prizes at intermission.
How Much? $5 donation benefits the fearless and un-homogenized KFJC 89.7. You'll also need $2 for a parking permit.
Although Mr. Starostin does not review jazz, he does tackle enormous chunks of the histories of 20th century rock, pop and rhythm and blues.
Even when disagreeing with his album ratings or artist career overviews - and I often do - I find George's reviews consistently entertaining, informative, well-researched and well-written. That said, I will let gladly George off the hook for his love of ABBA if he'll excuse my soft spot for the pre-Rumours versions of Fleetwood Mac.
"My imagination is beyond the civilization in which we live." Albert Ayler (1936-1970)
"To have heard Ayler in the flesh launch himself into evangelical multiphonic furies from those simple, diatonic and frequently hymnodic lead melodies was to have experienced, I think, one of the primal American musical experiences of modern times." columnist Jeff Simon, Buffalo News
"By 16 minutes the cover has melted from your skull and the sun shining from within and without and you have been transformed forever. Yeah you need this that bad. . . what are you waiting for?" Thom Jurek, from review of Albert Ayler - Complete Live At Slug's Saloon Recordings" on All-Music Guide
Who would have hit the 75 years of age milestone today? The single most controversial 20th century musician, bar none, Mr. Albert Ayler, born July 13, 1936. More than four decades after his November 1970 passing, the gritty and provocative tenor saxophonist still inspires awe and wonderment from some listeners, while scaring others to their deepest foundations.
Although there are many times in life when sunny, vocal harmony-drenched melodicism (or peace and quiet) is absolutely the ticket for me, nonetheless, I find myself very much in the awe and wonderment viewpoint when it comes to Albert Ayler, whose fundamental sound is somewhat along the lines of an emotionally unfettered King Curtis on one doozy of an acid trip. For sheer timbre, Albert was quite the powerhouse: his extreme high-register pyrotechnics are more searing and his low-register blasts are more earthshaking than any other saxophonist I have ever heard.
Once I understood how to listen to and comprehend the Rorschach Tests for how much unadulterated dissonance a listener can handle known as new music, avant-garde or free jazz, the genius of Ayler's incendiary, at times overpowering sound became apparent. And besides, I can't help but like a guy who, as a member of The Cecil Taylor Unit, quoted "Cocktails For Two" in the middle of a blistering, insanely fast high-voltage tenor saxophone solo.
Now, as far as avant-garde music goes. . . if one can listen to the "skronk meets garage rock meets modern classical meets doo-wop" opuses Uncle Meat and Weasels Ripped My Flesh by Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention, Captain Beefheart's Lick My Decals Off, Baby and Trout Mask Replica, Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, latter-day industrial and experimental noise-rock or such uncompromising post-modernist jazz artists as Anthony Braxton, then Albert Ayler's music will NOT elicit a AAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! response, followed by a mad headlong dash into treacly, gushy, sickly, diabetes-inducing commercial easy listening by The Kennys (Kenny Loggins, Kenny G) or The Lawrence Welk Show Meets Up With People.
Albert Ayler doesn't use a melody as a reference point or anchor, he completely deconstructs it and delves into a no-holds-barred scorched earth search for a song's essential emotional truth. In the moments when he finds that truth (YOW!), Albert can be deeply moving in a most unexpected and inexplicable way.
For example, Albert's harrowing take on "Summertime" remains beyond expressive. It's 360 degrees from the numerous tepid, sanitized, versions of the George Gershwin/Du Bose Heyward epic and the pristine, safe stuff that passes for "jazz" these days. The stark, brutal, devastating reality emanating from Ayler's saxophone packs an emotional wallop, slapping the listener upside the head precisely where the catfish are jumpin'.
Curiously, Albert Ayler's most explosively atonal performances, those that absolutely scared the bejeesus out of people - and still do - were mostly early in his recording career, in 1963-1964, often as part of an uncompromising trio with ridiculously nimble bassist Gary Peacock and innovative drummer Sunny Murray. Like the abstract expressionist painters of the 1940's, Ayler erased the last "don't go there" tonal barriers left, no doubt leaving his contemporaries (other than adventurous barrier-smashers Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra) to think, "WTF do we do now?"
At the same time as the Albert Ayler free jazz recordings for ESP-Disk were waxed, he also recorded an album of spirituals and hymns, largely sticking to the basic melodies. This "hymnolodic" approach and his more raw, visceral, gutteral avant-garde sound were the two interrelated poles of Albert's musical universe.
In 1965-1966, Albert started experimenting with orchestration and expanded his ensembles from trios and quartets to sextets and septets. The results continued his path of blending the utterly post-modern with the traditional: avant-garde skronk and elements of 20th century classical meet hymns, spirituals, folk melodies and pre-swing era polyphonic improvisation (reminiscent of New Orleans brass band arrangements and very early "riverboat jazz").
After appearing at Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall as part of The John Coltrane Nonet on February 19, 1966, Albert and his trumpeter brother Donald put together a touring band which included concert violinist Michel Sampson, two upright basses (sometimes a cellist) and percussion (usually Ron Shannon Jackson or Beaver Harris) and presented a unique mix of all of the above elements not heard before or since.
After 1967, Albert tried his hand at more commercial jazz/soul fusion records. Most of the time they are valiant and original efforts that have their shining moments but don't quite work, because the band's lead singer Mary Maria, while possessing a good voice and the ability to sing on key, did not have the prodigious pipes and truly extraordinary Aretha Franklin-style chops needed to power those songs home - and also because Albert's vocals neither mirrored his leather-lunged saxophone heroics nor reminded anyone of James Brown.
On the other hand, if he tried out his "skronk + soul" idea with say, Patti Labelle, The Staple Singers and/or the mighty musicians from the Stax label (Steve Cropper, Booker T. Jones, Albert King), the results would have been glorious, if not necessarily the commercial breakthrough Albert sought.
That sense of restless experimentation in jazz led by Ayler got obliterated by a nuclear bomb that hit the music world - the death of John Coltrane on July 17, 1967. One could argue that the concept that jazz music was not just enjoyable listening, but a powerful, wide-open, groundbreaking, life-changing force perished with him. And Albert was among the musicians who played at John Coltrane's funeral.
In the same way that rock music got absolutely hammered by the untimely "crash and burn" deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Gram Parsons, jazz was devastated by the loss of Coltrane, preceded in 1964 by the death of Eric Dolphy, then followed a few years later by the tragic, untimely demises of Ayler and trumpet genius Lee Morgan.
While some of my favorite Ayler music is from 1966-1967, corresponding EXACTLY with the same timeline of my favorite pop and rock music albums - Pet Sounds, Revolver, The Byrds' 5th Dimension, Forever Changes by Arthur Lee & Love, The Doors - one of his most shattering yet soulful performances turned out to be his last recordings, released posthumously, from concerts at the Foundation Maeght, in St. Paul De Vence, France on July 27, 1970.
The saxophonist's death remains a mystery, but the smart money and conjecture would be that someone, very likely an organized crime figure, rubbed him out. This possibility was noted in a Paris Transatlantic interview with frequent Albert Ayler bandmate Sunny Murray by historian Dan Warburton. Given that Albert was slated to tour Japan in 1970-1971, suicide appears highly unlikely. While ultra-modern jazz never would be the flavor of the month in the United States, Albert Ayler was in demand for concert appearances outside the U.S.
Grinding poverty, racism, broken hearts and the descent into alcoholism and heroin addiction suffered by too many outstanding and innovative musicians hammered a wide range of genres (rock n' roll, rhythm & blues, jazz, country/western) hard. At least we have the recordings to listen to, enjoy and argue over.
Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin, who produced and directed the documentary My Name Is Albert Ayler, reflects, "Maybe he did not really succeed in the way he wanted when he was living, but the interest in his music now is much, much bigger today. I think there's a lot of people coming to this music from more alternative, rock music. It's not really a jazz thing, really. But I think there's a lot more open-minded people today."
Should a fascination with Ayler's ecstatic, orgiastic music of the spheres hit one like the proverbial ton o' bricks, check out the excellentannotated discography and session list by Nobuaki Togashi, Kohji "Shaolin" Matsubayashi and Masayuki Hatta of Jazz Disco.org and the epic 9-CD box set, The Holy Ghost, from the multi-genre and fearless indie label Revenant Records.
Found in the ruins, alongside ribald drawings and disgusting, unwashed rice bowls: crumpled, scrawled foolscap jam-packed with the folksy 6th century B.C. wisdom of Richard "Dickie" Zhu. Lao Tzu, A.K.A. "The Old Master", vehemently denounced Dickie, repeatedly denied that the two were related and changed his address to avoid him on seventeen different occasions.
“Whoever can see through all fear is one crazy motherfucker.”
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with cheap airfare and an airport bar."
"He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know. He who does not know and speaks hosts a talk radio program."
"He who knows that enough is enough will always remember how to spell enough."
"Even ordinary women at the rice wine bar can be brilliant.
I alone grope in the dark.
Please let me remember what her name is before sunrise."
"Nature needs few words. And it's FUCKING COLD out."
"A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to buy my comfy La-Z Taoist couch."
"Some years ago I had a complete nervous breakdown, was dead broke and had to be put in a charity ward with 30 others. I was there 18 months and doctors didn`t give me long to live. So now each day to me is a special dividend, so I live it to the hilt". Ernie Kovacs
On Hulu, dependable source of classic movie and TV goodness (or badness and, even better, what Frank Zappa aptly termed cheepnis), ten hilarious Laurel & Hardy silent two-reelers - Leave Em Laughing, Flying Elephants, You're Darn Tootin', Their Purple Moment, Two Tars, Liberty, Big Business, Double Whoopee, Habeas Corpus and We Faw Down - have been posted and can be viewed for free (with some irritating commercials interspersed here and there), at least for now.
Enjoy these examples of the silent screen comedy gold standard while you can. If the availability of Laurel & Hardy films on DVD is any indication, these comedy jewels will very likely get pulled from Hulu soon enough.
