The Fillmore East and West: Getting Backstage and Personal with Rocks Greatest Legends. John Glatt
 
It was as much about Janis and Grace as it was about the venues and about Bill Graham. There was a lot about Santana and some about Jimi. In all a really interesting read.
I took a break from reading: Written in my Soul: Conversations with Rock's Great Songwriters. It is from 1985 but still really good, not as exciting as the Fillmore book but some really good insight into some great minds. It is by Bill Flannigan.
 
I think I already mentioned it but Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and it's Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World. Nicholas Shou (He is now in the process of doing a documentary film version of the book, it should be good).
 
I recommend them both. (all three)
 
J

Hi,
 
There is a mentality, on the one music board I used to be a part of, that the drugs prevented the music from going much further than it did, and because of its "free-form" that it would not be considered as "proper" and "valuable" music.
 
Simply because some of it might be improvised, and not previously written is more of a factor of the times, the place, and the incredible improvements to music making in the 20th century, which was not available to others before ... thus, for any of us to consider "popular music" and "improvised music", not valuable, is, in essence taking away a valuable side/part of the human spirit.
 
it could be said, that TODAY, we are too married to the DAW, and actually forgot music per se, and instead adjusted things to a "standard" that was designed by someone else, not necessarily YOU, but it made it easier that you did not have to think about other instruments and helped you concentrate on your part better ... but in the process, you lost the "person'al" (real people) ability since no one else was there to help you interpret what you saw and wrote.
 
I always thought that the NY scene and the California scene were very important, and guess where the Fillmore's were? And there was a reason for it ... because the acceptance for new things is much better seen than in a place like Chicago and/or New Orleans ... I get frustrated when someone thinks of Chicago as just blues ... in the late 60's and early 70's, it was highly progressive and viable for a lot of long cuts and music that meant something ... the Chicago 7 thing was not a joke, and a lot of music came out of there that was important ... and it wasn't blues! But it was a place where even one band, noted for always being late, would also set off a small riot that had a lot of us banged over the head ... for nothing, but being impatient that the band was already an hour late!
 
All in all, America does not get enough credit for a lot of its music, even when its sales numbers are huge and is the main reason why foreign bands want to get over here as fast as possible. But the social/star setup prevents new music from making a dent, and the only way it can make a scratch in America is if the music and art scene come together with a public something or other, otherwise, the media will kill it, like they did everything else.
 
In all my writings, I have always had a soft side for the works in that area ... the literature was excellent and gave rise to the "beat" writers and poets, the music was fantastic, on both sides of the ocean, and the painting/arts part of it was exceptional, in both coasts ... but no one discusses the beauty of one of the richest artistic periods that was ever visible in the history of the American civilization ... the only thing we remember is some dope and some girl we had fun with and a picture or two on the TV ... just like a few months back when I reviewed Neil Young's film by Jonathan Demme, and the emotional side of those days was very clear ... but often ignored, and commented on by folks in the board as ... who cares? ... and this hurts the very sould experience of the folks that were there and were a part of it.
 
I know that Frank Zappa had a tendency to junk it, but his put down was not the actual folks that were there and in it, but the card copies with flowers in their hair that even spoke their own language!
 
All in all, I consider this one very special time and place for America ... it just saddens me that it is remembered for some assassinations, and a killing on campus, and a serious disturbance in Chicago created by the brutal abuse of the police their at the time. And the value of the arts around it, get forgotten and wasted.
 
On the other side, I find the cynicism by some artists, that made a fortune in that time, really sad and sadistic. There were people that died and believed in a lot more than just greed! Instead of the human spirit celebrating its beauty, we get to see the side that does not deserve the fame and fortune at times!

You would enjoy the books I am sure of that and I would like to read some of your stuff if you can send me some links by PM, if you're OK with that. I am a voracious reader. This book, Written in my Soul: et cetera, by Bill Flannigan is sort of up and down. Some interviews are like Ehh then there will be a great one. I'm on Van Morrison now and completely surprised, knowing his reputation. Now I'm getting an understanding.
Zappa made fun of the hippies, that is for sure but he lived in the "Log Cabin" the center, if you will, of the LAurel Canyon scene in the 60s LA music scene.
I do most of my reading on the Kindle but I'll read on my iPhone or anything else. I highlighted a John Lennon quote last night from the Van Morrison interview... well, no. I looked it up, it was Jackson Browne, according to him Lennon said, well, let me just quote the interview: But I always think of this thing John Lennon said: that he was an artist and did not want to become a craftsman.
I think that is the same thinking, wanting to remain a musician, a songsmith, and not someone who sits in the studio and goes on and on. He went on to say: "I think about that sometimes. Because of course, that is the danger. The better you get at making records and using the studio, the more likely you are to do those things. I don't think John Lennon ever stopped being an artist. But I don't think he realized how great a craftsman he was. I'm looking for that balance. I want to do what I haven't done yet and I want to do what I know how to do well."
There are so many GREAT books. I hope the quote is OK with the TOS, I figure the worst that can happen is it may grab someone's interest and maybe Bill will sell another book. It is a good one, but the Fillmore book was REALLY good. Well, they both are.
 
Thanks for the interesting thoughts. We certainly went to different schools together! It was a blast too! LOL.
 
J

Hi,
 
Am reading right now, "Eurock", Archie Patterson's book that has all the issues of his magazines from 1977 and on. It uses the actual "real-time" reviews (the originals kept in place) and it is funny how some of the commentaries are totally insane and sometimes weird and sometimes totally crazy.
 
Last night I read the last part of the 1977 editions, and it had a massive article by Richard Pinhas (Heldon) and it was actually ver difficult reading discussing, conceptual ideas in music to a molecular/cellular level that most of us can not relate to at all. It was a very tough read, as you had to catch up with each segment, but if anything, it explained his Heldon and solo albums really well ... and you get to appreciate something different, specially if you have the music, and can compare the ideas written with the music itself ... yeah ... makes a pop song seem really poor for the most part.
 
Just finished Bill Bruford's book, and before that Dave Cousins' book and his story of the Strawbs. On deck, is the Edgar Froese book, I already paid for that is due before the end of the year, that his wife is trying to upgrade/finish out the stuff in the early days, that apparently was quite incomplete. They even had a request for any information and interviews that anyone might have had, specially the early days in America. It kinda tells you where the missing stuff is, but I have a feeling that he might have gotten rid of the stuff around/with Christopher Franke on purpose. Things must have gotten bad in there ... and Chris is the only person that has not even posted something or other on the website ... he might have done so privatly , but we would not know that.
 
I'm in the process of removing most of my stuff from the other board, and place it on my website. I have come to the conclusion that the website is not interested in "progressive" anything and there is way too much disrespect and back-stabbing, and if you believe in an art form, you have to have some appreciation for the other folks in it. It's just another top ten, controlled by folks that don't really know that there are other views and works out there ... and England/America did not invent the music or the world. Heck for that matter, Portugal and Spain owned the world at one time!!!! "Eurock", at least, is very much "anti-establishment" as I am, and the other board, is just another establishment getting rid of "undesirables" and their aesthetics are highly questionable. The even suspended me for making a racial comment. I find that weird, considering I am a minority and have been on the other end of "****" and other fun words in Southern California. Or a couple of other words used in Eastern Oregon for the Indians and the Spanish speaking folks 30 years ago! If I wrote something bad, I would have gladly corrected, but I was not given the chance ... for they are the law and the everyone else is just a peon and a low class person. The kind of establishment that has helped kill a lot of music the world over. The commerciality of the concept and idea is even disgusting. The kind of class that half of the "progressive" movements in Europe were trying so hard to get rid of, but failed.
 
All my book reviews and concert reviews will get updated in the next 30 days, hopefully. I'm even creating a separate page for Book Reviews and Concert Reviews as they are getting way too big in other sections.
 
As they used to say ... long live the king, the king is dead ... thank gawdddddd!!!!

Hi,
About John Lennon:
 
I am not, what most folks would call a "fan" of anything! Born in a house of literattii with a library of 40k or more books of Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian literature, had most of our family a lot more aware of the (supposedly) higher levels of anything, than popular music, or sports, for example.
 
Thus, when the Beatles came up, and we were in Brazil, the ability for a 14 year old to decide this was good, or great or influential in my younger days, was a very large NO ... I was more aware of Luis Bunuel, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein ... than I was anything else.
 
Up until the Abbey Road album, I never thought any of the Beatles were that good or great, though I the first piece that really got me, was the long song on the radio ... that really got my mind turned around.
 
When we came to America, within a day, in Madison, at the house our family stayed for a month before we got our own, I had heard Bob Dylan, and even though I spoke no English, the intonation and attitude was much more important for me, than the Beatles, very much pop song oriented stuff, that I did not exactly appreciate ... I did enjoy it a lot ... don't get me wrong. And of the last 3 albums, Let it Be, White Album and Abbey Road, the one person that stood out for me was John.
 
The fact that he was running around and checked out other arts and scenes, is what did me in. It's no surprise that the way I see this, is about the same time that he met Yoko, and she was already into what was considered (still is!) "anti-art", or what I consider a subversion of the surrealistic attitudes for the modern arts!
 
All of a sudden, and it is quite vivid in the Let It Be film, and in the Beatles Christmas Shows, John comes out as more mature, with Paul the pop machine and George the one that went along, and had the library of old rock music ... so to speak. It was, for me, a very mature attitude towards the work in question, and I think that for Paul and George, did not exactly grow out of it ... John BECAME a very good "craftsman" and I attribute a lot of that to the VERY DIFFERENT things he was hearing and seeing, and it was not just dope ... but artists. The story about the white wall with the dot is on the "Tonight We All Love in London" show/film, and the list of people associated with that are major artists in their own right, in many disciplines, ... for Paul and George, it was meaningless, for the most part if you compare it to their work individually.
 
John, at the very least, was learning something valuable to an artist ... an understanding of where it all came from, and how to work it, instead of just being clever with a few lines of text and then add a few notes about it, which is the story of most popular music.
 
John, also, had an interest in writing and theater and film ... something that the other 3 did not exactly show, but it tells you that John also had another perspective on things, and of course, when he heard Frank Zappa, he spoke immediately ... the others were probably going ... who's he at that time?
 
I simply thought, and still do, that his inner honesty, was good ... and it was just a shame that we did not know that it made sense, a lot more for an "artist", than it ever did a pop song writer. I don't consider Paul an "artist" ... it's almost always clever hooks and melodies for my ears!
 
Sorry about this being so long! At least you know how important music is to me, but stuff buried, steeped, soaked in various pop music marinades is not my idea of art and what makes an artist.  

Hi,
Another major thing that I just came across in "Eurock".
 
Starting in 1969 and for a few years, a lot of bands in several places were doing things that also included theater, and other multimedia concepts. These will include Italy, Belgium, Germany, Czeckoslovakia, France and many others.
 
During that time, there also existed massive theatrical companies that blew people out. Julian Beck and his Living Theater, was a type of Frank Zappa meets Pablo Picasso in the midst of an audience. America had a really hard time with this stuff, even if it was already trimmed down for the Americans, where in various other places in Europe, some of the nudity and other details were kept in the performance.
 
So, it comes to no surprise that CAN had an American actor with them (Malcom Mooney) in their early days, and then later (Damo Suzuki) that likely came from a blend of the "beat poetry" theater, that Peter Handke and others were doing in Germany, and Amon Duul 2 came from the commune that also included a large number of actors, and then Ange in France was extremely theatrical and in fact in their first album they celebrated Jacques Brel, and Ange also had a touch of the Brecht/Weill touch, that no one else was able to work with. Guru Guru was actually very political  but they kinda did it surrealistically, as did Grobbschnitt. With costumes, kazoos and all the toys you can imagine.
 
There is an interview of some members of the Italian group called "Osanna" and they were using masks and other costumes on stage for a long time and created "opera theater" with electrical instruments, which kinda makes sense given their history of music. Czeckoslovakia had many of these and they were extremely valuable in their revolution in 1968 and 1969.
 
And then, an English band starts using some costumes, and everyone thinks that Genesis created the "progressive" mold ... kinda sad and pathetic if you know the history of the arts in Europe, specially the 50's and 60's and 70's and the amazing experimentations in theater, film, and live performances, with or without music!
 
The part that was weird for me, watching some of these things and hearing them, was that it looked like folks at the East and West performance halls were too ripped to know if anything ever happened on stage other than some instruments playing. specially when some of that early stuff was so theatrical in the first place, because of its experimental edge, which opens it up to visual/aural interpretation, rather than the idea of being told by the lyrics what it is about, and the solo is how you are supposed to feel about all this! ... which we all know is presumptuous and silly!
I never got a chance to catch any shows in those places, but have enough albums of many of the bands to have an idea, and really ... sometimes, you do not have to go any further than "Ball and Chain" from the "Cheap Thrills" album ... and you and I can just imagine the incendiary light show going along with this. What the Americans lacked in "theater" they made up in light shows. But that's like saying that the opera sets in Beyruth did not have the best lighting that has ever been done in the last 200 years! ... the pictures alone are breathtaking! The "light show" already had existed for at least 50 years by then, and is now almost 100 years old.
 
But the East/West had one thing the others did not ... it had posters and some art work, that gave the music and musicians an "identity" that was difficult to have in Europe, because of so many divergent cultures and languages. The West Coast had the posters, and the East Coast had Andy Warhol kind of thing.
 
I honestly believe, and think, that the Fillmores, are probably a bigger representation of that whole scene than we give it credit for. Some might consider that hocus pocus, because of the dope, and this and that, but in the end, I think this was the vehicle that carried so much music. America was not exactly arts oriented ... always was "star" and "movie" oriented, and thus, thinking of these musicians as important and valuable, is not something that the kids would do ... they went to see them because it was their "generation" ... though I admit to having enjoyed more than one generation of music and the arts, which I do not see anyone around me ... doing at all!

Moshkito
Hi, all!

Cliff Notes version. 

craigb

Moshkito
Hi, all!

Cliff Notes version. 

You'll never be a good student!  
 
I think that's too bad you say that. It defeats all the small stuff that helped create long cuts, symphonies and concertos and operas ... just about everything that has made music so important to us all over the years.
 
Say that to a wife, or significant other, and your time is up! Life loses its preciousness!
 
That's just not me! 
 
Sorry!
 
PS: I guess I think of the Coffee House as one where artists can share ideas, and thoughts ... but in general, in Paris, the drinking of a coffee, would normally go more than 5 minutes! And the discussions have been know to create complete arts scenes. Maybe I think that the Coffee House is a similar place, or gives me a similar place ... well, at least I know it's not the Magic Theater! (as much as I wish it were!)

I am doing a little more "light reading" enjoying but little tedious. I don't know if I could read what you're referring to because I lack a point of reference... I'd probably lose interest. I'm a poor student too.
I am reading: Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkle, James Taylor, CSNY, and the lost story of 1970. by David Browne 
(1970 was a special for me... I am HS class of '70 and the year included a lot of firsts for me).
 
J

jbow
I am doing a little more "light reading" enjoying but little tedious. I don't know if I could read what you're referring to because I lack a point of reference... I'd probably lose interest. I'm a poor student too.
...

So far, other than "Cherry Red", I found almost all of them "light reading", the exception being the Eurock book and its encyclopedic amount of bands, and articles from all over the world. Nice to read, and though it might "compare" one or two things, the comparison is "light" and not heavy in the sense that makes you feel like it was copied.  
 
But it's scary and hard to read the comments from Osanna, way before Genesis ... and know (I already did through theater and film!) ... that Genesis was not as original as they thought on stage. In music, no question, but in presentation, no! But it was what got everyone's attention!!! All the media pictures at the time were one of the costumes!
 Europe had been doing theatrical performances with music in many countries before Genesis, and will continue to do so for many years to come after Genesis is long gone. It's a part of their tradition, their arts, and their being! Not just a show. Sorry Peter.