Raising Our Tankards To Oliver Norvell Hardy On His 120th!

On the topic of celebrating the birthdays of those who have not been physically present here with us for quite a few decades, I am hard pressed to think of another person who brought more joy and laughter to the world than Mr. Oliver Norvell Hardy, A.K.A. "Babe" and "Ollie", born on January 18, 1892.

This scene from The Boys' 1937 feature Way Out West gets me every time.



Unfortunately, the classic comedy films of Laurel & Hardy, once the toast of every capital and a box office hit in the farthest corners of the globe, have receded somewhat in the age of 2500 cable TV channels - and that's too bad.

That is due to the spotty availability of their films, as well as a culture with a very short attention span; the last time Laurel and Hardy comedies were shown regularly on television was nearly 20 years ago (on Sunday mornings, by the American Movie Classics channel).



Until the recent Laurel And Hardy - The Essential Collection DVD release, their films remained largely out of circulation.



Laurel & Hardy silent comedies, including the hilarious You're Darn' Tootin' and Liberty have been posted on Hulu.



Film & Television Archive has launched an ambitious restoration project devoted to Laurel & Hardy. I have posted the piece on the restoration effort by film historian Leonard Maltin before - and it bears repeating.

Clip Of The Day: Chet Atkins, 1954

The topic has been guitars and guitarists in the postings thus far in 2012. The thread has included music by Hank Garland, Roy Clark, Django Reinhardt and Joe Pass.

Today's posting, featuring the amazing Chet Atkins, is dedicated to the late and much missed San Francisco Bay Area guitarist Ted "Lightnin' Fingers" Kratter.

I don't know what television shows or movies these excellent, fingerpickin' good clips come from, but the quintessential Nashville Sound of Chet is never less than a rare pleasure to listen to.







Thanks for the music, Chet - you made the world a better place!

More Golden FIngers And Fun On The Frets For January 2012

My guess is, in the immortal words of John Lennon, the following guys, guitar virtuosos all, have "blisters on their fingers", although more discreetly than he did.






While the legendary Django Reinhardt, by all accounts, loathed playing the electric guitar during his 1946 performances with The Duke Ellington Orchestra, I've always wondered how those gigs sounded. As it turns out, the recordings from them have circulated, and are available, due to the wonder of YouTube. The answer to that question is. . . "gadzooks - this is indescribably wonderful", as well as signature Django.





Listen and learn.

The Golden Fingers Of Hank Garland And His Successors

Yesterday's posting about Peter Frampton regaining his long-lost favorite guitar after 31 years led my music-obsessed subconscious directly to another guy who knew his way around a custom Gibson: the incredible Hank Garland, ace session guitarist on recordings by Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison and more.

In this clip from Country Style, U.S.A., Hank's distinctive "country jazz" radiates joie de vivre while demonstrating awe-inspiring guitar mastery.

Hank Garland's bouyant music brings to mind one other album for me: the 1993 pairing of jazz guitar guru Joe Pass and veteran country-western entertainer Roy Clark.


 
Joe and Roy's summit meeting of serious pickin' and grinnin' over the simple yet supple, challenging and enduring music of Hank Williams, Sr. recalls a certain phrase again: Joie De Vivre.

ATTN: Guitar Geeks Of The World

A question and subsequent story to warm the hearts of guitar geeks everywhere: what if your personal favorite guitar was lost for 31 years and then somehow returned?

This happened to rock and pop songwriter-guitarist-bandleader Peter Frampton, of Frampton Comes Alive who was, indeed, reunited with his favorite axe after 31 years. Indeed, to quote the title of a Peaches N' Herb song I never liked, "reunited and it feels so good."

Peter's vintage 1954 Gibson Les Paul Custom was literally the only survivor when a cargo plane that crashed on takeoff in Caracas, Venezuela. Of course, Peter didn't know this, as the instrument circulated in the three decade interim and ended up in the hands of a guitarist, customs agent and tourist board member on the island of Curacao.

Now, I heard Peter play in those days and recall a lengthy and very enjoyable set, propelled by the ringing tones and melodic conception of his rock guitar stylings. All these decades and many subsequent fearless plunges into complex, dark, dissonant modernism later, I still find that Peter's upbeat, tuneful British Invasion-influenced sounds - with 1960's popsters The Herd, his Frampton's Camel band, as a sideman with sonic chameleon David Bowie, and a member of Steve Marriott's hard rockin' Humble Pie - brings a big smile to my line-enhanced face.





Now, frankly, gorgeous as the varied Les Paul models are, I'm more of an SG and L-5 man, myself!

Then again, if the very Les Paul Jr. played with steamrolling abandon by Luther "Ariel Bender" Grosvenor in Mott The Hoople were to fall into my hands. . .

One Year Of Cartoons In Five Minutes, Eleven Seconds (A.K.A. Crack For Toonheads)

I designated the topic of classic cartoons as no more than a tertiary landing point for this blog, largely because there are so many terrific blogs on animation, several by the best historians in the country. All are by ambitious enthusiasts who are anything but Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog. However, today I'm compelled to call attention to something astounding on 1930's animation I viewed via hard-working blogger Ted, mastermind of the comprehensive Cartoons Of 1939 and Cartoons Of 1943 sites.

Ted compiled the highlights from Cartoons Of 1939 - dozens of animated theatrical shorts from a year that also brought Pinocchio, Gulliver's Travels and a preponderance of classic live-action feature films - into the following kaleidoscopic and blindingly fast 5:11. It doesn't just concentrate on Disney and Warner Brothers: every studio is represented.



And here are the main title cards from these Cartoons Of 1939:



Ted will soon start reviewing the Cartoons Of 1935 - and completing that task will take the remainder of 2012. What will he have to say about the many strange, surreal and rather dark cartoons that were released that year? We'll find out, and I look forward to it!

Released To Theaters 75 Years Ago Today

While it's tough to, when it comes to starting a new year right, equal Ernie & Edie, as well as George & Gracie, here goes. . .

Friz Freleng and the boys at Warner Brothers created this "Frankie and (Abusive Dirtbag) Johnny" tale, released on January 2, 1937. It's obvious that Friz had been wanting to break loose from seven years in the "all talking, all singing, all dancing" artistic strait jacket, so this Merrie Melodie - unlike the cartoons Tex Avery and Frank Tashlin were producing at that time - presents a Depression-era melodrama, hardly "merrie" and at times stark. And the stars are. . . MICE. Yes, rodents, seven decades before Pixar's Ratatouille.



Enjoy this subversive animated poison pen letter and bear in mind that John Hubley would get - and keep - the last word on the "Frankie And Johnny" genre 15 years later with his UPA cartoon, Rooty Toot Toot.

Happy New Year From Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog

The Best New Year's Eve Cartoon Ever

Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog bids a not particularly fond farewell to 2011 with this stellar, upbeat and good-natured seasonal cartoon, which is available for purchase on the Popeye The Sailor 1933-1938 DVD box set.



That would be the 1938 Fleischer Popeye opus Let's Celebrake, one of the rare cartoons in the series in which Popeye and Bluto aren't literally at each other's throats. That's a refreshing change. It is NOT a rare instance among the Fleischer Studio Popeyes in which voice artists extraordinaire Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and Gus Wickie outdo themselves throughout.

To all readers of this blog, make it a fun and safe New Year. In other words, don't booze it up, toke it up and drive, PLEASE - that's what friends' couches and cheap motels are for!

Tonight On WGXC Radio: The Alex Chilton Belated Birthday Special

WGXC, the community radio station for Greene and Columbia counties (New York), will be presenting their Alex Chilton tribute from 9:30 to midnight Eastern Standard Time. To listen to WGXC streaming, click here.

Now, readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of the music of Alex Chilton in all its phases and incarnations. He was great with The Box Tops, the ill-fated but wonderful Big Star and on his many solo albums, which try out everything from punk to soul music covers to experimental rock to standards.









Never afraid to tackle varied material, both as producer and performer, Alex was often the only person to perform covers of various 1960's R&B chestnuts and goofy novelty songs. For example, this 1967 hit by Brenton Wood, which qualifies as both:




He also produced one of the most original and incendiary albums of crazed rockabilly ever recorded, Songs The Lord Taught Us by The Cramps.



The 1996 Live in Glasgow recordings Alex did with Teenage Fan Club are, IMO, a standout among his later work.







Alex couldn't care less about current fads or what the recording industry wanted and, sadly, paid a price for being true to himself and his artistic vision; the fact that he could not afford to see a doctor about recurring chest pains directly led to his untimely passing on March 17, 2010.

Since he shared with Elvis Costello and Mike Patton a musical taste that was gleefully, aggressively all over the freakin' map, one can present a veritable panorama of clips and just barely scratch the surface of Alex' sonic oeuvre. He could not be contained.





This - and a sense of person behind the performer - is best expressed in the following article, The Alex Chilton Panel At SXSW, written by Ann Powers for the L.A. Times not long after Alex' passing.

Photographer Kathy Sloane Tells The Story Of Keystone Korner

"There should be a book about those jazz clubs that have been a vital part of the evolution of the music…with reminiscences by the musicians who played and hung out there.” Nat Hentoff

With Keystone Korner: Portrait Of A Jazz Club, photographer Kathy Sloane has delivered that very book.

It is tough for me to articulate into words how it felt to go to a place like Keystone Korner - where John Coltrane Quintet bandmates McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones played a benefit so the club could afford to buy a liquor license - and not just see fun, enjoyable, entertaining music but be in the presence of GENIUS, night after night. 

Without a doubt, I and the other long-haired youths who hung out at the jazz joint of jazz joints, nestled next to a police station in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, got an unparalleled music education. I personally saw everything from swing legends Mary Lou Williams and Earl "Fatha" Hines (who recorded with Louis Armstrong, the guy who started it all, in 1928) to joyfully hard bopping Art Blakey, George Coleman and Horace Silver to explosive ultra-virtuoso Rahsaan Roland Kirk to the fearlessly eclectic multi-genre Art Ensemble Of Chicago there - and loved it all.

Kathy's book includes 109 photographs, fascinating oral histories from the musicians who made it happen, and a CD of remarkable music recorded there. It will give future generations a reference to see what greatness looks like.

Today, jazz fans around the world mourn the passing of music giant Sam Rivers, who is featured in the book.

Thinking of Sam, it compels me to say that, as 2011 comes to a close, the best thing we could leave for young people today - besides hands-on music and arts education - would be a place where, like Keystone Korner, it was all about the music and miracles could happen. And did.

Gene Deitch's Excellent Idea: Gift Giving That Supports Your Neighbors And TheCommunity

Post-Christmas, I've been pondering how to plan more effectively for next year's holidays - and also listening to those great Ella, Nat, Sinatra and Dino holiday albums with awe yet again

I've also been re-reading a piece about the holidays that filmmaker Gene Deitch (creator of the wonderful "Tom Terrific" cartoons) posted a few weeks ago on his Roll The Credits blog. Gene is dead-on about the topic of moving the modern holiday gift-giving rituals away from the mindless consumerism so well described by the thoughtful, against-the-grain protagonist of A Charlie Brown Christmas and towards a more enlightened approach.

The memory of my local hardware store's "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" sign fresh in my memory, I shall paraphrase (with some revisions - once a professional editor, always a professional editor) Gene's piece.

I'm Dreaming of a RIGHT Christmas!

In these difficult times, when we seem to be helpless to do anything meaningful to make things better, I received one simple idea from a friend and put it into my own words to send to my contacts.

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous mountains of cheaply produced goods - merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American workers.

This year could be different. This year Americans can give a gift of genuine concern for other Americans.

No excuse that there’s nothing to buy that is produced by American hands. There is!

It's time to think outside the box.

Yeah, maybe many would like a flat-screen TV, but they also may be just as thrilled to have their driveway repaved, or lawn mowed and garden groomed for a year, or driveway plowed during the winter.

How about . . .

• Free games at a local golf course.
• Gift certificates from your local hair salon or barber for one or more trims.
• A gym membership - it's great for all ages thinking about health improvement (Note: if you reside in the more metropolitan parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, there are small "mom and pop" neighborhood gyms to support).
• A car tune-up? Small, American garages should be happy to sell service gift certificates. . . and also for maybe a year of car washes! How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by an American working guy?
• See a play or ballet at your hometown theatre.
• Musicians need work, too, so find places showcasing local bands, and venues who could provide all-expense gift evenings.
• There are still plenty of owner-run restaurants -- offering gift certificates. Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. Avoid the big national chains.
• Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day each week or month.
• There are surely plenty of computer firms who’d be happy to contract for a year, keeping you online and your hard disk humming.
• There are many local crafts people who can make pots, make jewelry, spin their own wool, and knit them into sweaters and scarves.

This is about supporting your home town people with their financial lives on the line, trying to keep their doors open. Isn’t that what Christmas should be about?

Christmas is now about caring about us, encouraging American small businesses to keep going.

And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine.

If we all could do this, we could have an effect, and make a social statement without having to march and camp in the streets: a painless but effective statement about how we think about the spirit of Christmas gift-giving, and about caring for each other.

THIS should be the new American Christmas tradition!

If you have any bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

A Very Merry Christmas From The Count, The Duke and Dexter

Vote For This Charming Video In The Electro Swing Awards

This fun video, starring friend of this blog Kitten On The Keys, is quite the charmer. It is sweet, genuine, the real deal (not contrived as a lot of entertainment for kids can be) and has been nominated for an Electro Swing Award.

Directed by Eve St. Ramon
Song by Bart and Baker
Costumes by Monique Motil



Vote here. Voting ends tomorrow! (December 23rd).

Burt Bacharach Day

Although this blog is largely on hiatus at the moment, I can pause long enough to post this song by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager.

If you count yourself as a Sentimental Sap (and at least some of the time I do), "That's What Friends Are For" registers a very high rating on the Sap-O-Meter. Some Burt Bacharach songs register way past the end of that dial, while others (the ones co-written with Elvis Costello), barely register.

Actually, this is my snide way of suggesting that I like this song a lot, provided the vocalist delivers it honestly, straight from the heart and without a diabetes-inducing dose of sickly, syrupy sugar. It ain't easy.



In this case, Trintje Oosterhuis, a fabulous singer, does a very nice job with this: knocks it out of the park.

On Hiatus - Enjoy This Obscure Comedy Short From 1930

Crazy House by redhotjazz

Remembering Hubert Sumlin (Nov. 16, 1931 - Dec. 4, 2011)

Today, I will break with my own assertions and be The R.I.P. Blog. Must post a few clips of innovative blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin, responsible for musical genius both on stage and in the recording studio over six decades. He is best known for his stinging solos on numerous 1950's and 1960's Chess Records sides waxed by the great Howlin' Wolf.





Hubert Sumlin's guitar work has been much mimicked, frequently out-and-out plagiarized, but never equalled.

In Person At Amoeba Records On Tuesday December 6: Maestro Brian Wilson

The recently released SMiLE Sessions box set - an in-depth look at the making of these recordings - is a treasure trove for instrumental music fans. Here are some scholarly reviews of the 1966 opus by Brian and lyricist Van Dyke Parks:

BBC - Music - Review of The Beach Boys - The SMiLE Sessions

Chicago Tribune

The Guardian (UK)

Metacritic

NPR

Pitchfork

Rolling Stone

Uncut

Brian will be at San Francisco's Ameoba Records, in person, signing the box sets for music fans on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

I love these recordings, and, as with Pet Sounds, never tire of listening to them. The more times I hear Brian's "way outside the box" arrangements, orchestrations and highly original choices of instrumentation throughout SMiLE, the more I enjoy them. The more I listen, the more interesting ideas I pick up.

The SMiLE Sessions have received the spotlight in the following 12-part series on YouTube. Here are some intriguing installments from The SMiLE Sessions chronicles - enjoy!

And This Blog Loves Elvis Costello

If any recording artist today is clearly a musician after Psychotronic Paul's jazzed-up heart, it would be Elvis Costello. In this piece from Reuters, Don't Buy My Box Set, Buy Satchmo's, he plugs the new Louis Armstrong DVD box set and gives some love to the intrepid musicologists who put it together.

Here's Elvis, on stage with Chet Baker. What a great concert that must have been!

This Saturday Night: KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival At Foothill College

The amazing 1955 Kelvinator Foodarama Refrigerator-Freezer

Alas, another December has rolled around, so that means it's time for the customary KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival to present yet another hallucinatory excursion through the irritated bowels of popular culture.



Yes, that means the usual suspects - trailers from schlocky drive-in movies featuring guys in stupid-looking robot and gorilla suits, well-meaning but now ridiculous 1950's educational films, vintage TV commercials and theatre ads, cartoon rarities, Japanese "thunder lizard" epics, musical comedy shorts, kidvid, serial chapters, puppet animation, Busby Berkeley style pre-Code insanity - will be on hand.



As will be the inevitable uber-campy Soundies. . .







And such high-stylin' tres cool Scopitones as these:







I am, indeed, way too damn lazy to write a blog or a manifesto, but present these shows as something of a personal reaction against all standard rules of curating.

Since I personally find devoting a screening to one director, one genre or one series about as fascinating as watching Black Friday-priced-to-move white latex paint dry, the Psychotronix Film Festival throws a wide variety of celluloid snippets from different places, genres, running times, techniques or time periods together for no apparent reason other than that sticking to one thing bores me.



Curator-archivist-producers-mad scientists Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon and myself, supported by ace KFJC soundman Austin Space, create the program on the fly; we respond to audience reaction and select films accordingly in what I've repeatedly termed the "And Now For Something Completely Different" approach to film programming. Works for us!



The next KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival will return (by nothing remotely resembling popular demand) to spacious room 5015 on the Foothill College campus in the lovely Los Altos Hills, not far from the dreaded Silicon Valley on Saturday, December 3, 2011. Showtime is 7:00 p.m.



Ever-facile movie music expert and linguistically nimble host of "The Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show" Robert Emmett m.c.s the festivities with panache, bon mots and a carefully picked selection of cheesy door prizes.

$5 admission benefits the innovative, un-corporate and fearless KFJC 89.7. You'll also need $2 for a parking permit.