My life with Davy Jones

I didn't plan on spending all day today on the computer, reading about Davy Jones' death, but somehow I have. My first real crush, the light of my childhood life, is dead, and try as I might, I just can't wrap my head around it. Others have written better than I can about his effect on their life, how much the Monkees meant to them as musicians, as comedians, as pals growing up. But I can't let this little bit of my childhood pass without my own tribute to him and to the group, and how Davy especially affected me as a young girl.

My parents loved music. My mother is a piano teacher and gave me my love for classical music. My dad was a big fan of "real" (I say that, he never did) country music. They both loved the smooth torch songs of the 50s and 60s as well as early rock and roll. They could dance the jitterbug like nobody's business. My dad knew the Everly Brothers in high school, and told me stories about sitting in the local radio station in Knoxville while they did live broadcasts before they were famous.

Obviously, this death hits close to home for me, so much so that I didn't even know until I wrote it that my opening paragraph would be about my parents, and not about Davy Jones at all. All this to say that I grew up listening to music, all the time. I don't know if it's true or not (you know how faulty memory is) but in my mind, a record was always playing when I was a child. I remember at some point I began taking my parents' "Chubby Checker's Your Twist Party" record into my own room and playing it on my record player. I later pilfered more -- Andy Williams, Peter, Paul and Mary, the "West Side Story" soundtrack -- and would play them while I read, or danced, or sat around playing in my room and daydreaming.

Soon I began having my own records and my own musical interests. I bought mainly soundtracks from my favorite movies, like Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Oliver!, and the like. And then, suddenly, there were the Monkees. I don't know when I first heard them or saw the t.v. show, but in many ways there is no beginning to this story. They were just always there.

I think what attracted me as a kid was first, the songs, of course, but also the fact that they were funny and sweet, mischievous and silly...kind of the big brothers I never had. They were a part of my life just as much as my parents and eventually my little brother were, maybe even more, because they were mine. I found them, I responded to them, I loved them, they were my own music to listen to. I watched the show, religiously. I bought the records. Every album. Every single. I knew all the words to all the songs, except the few I didn't like ("Auntie Griselda", for example.) I was the queen of mis-heard lyrics, some of which I still sing today. "I'm a believer, I could enleave her if I tried," and "When I needed sunshine on my brain" are two of the best. I'm still quite proud of them.

I remember once visiting my Great Aunt Renie and Uncle Harold in Atlanta, and bringing my Monkees records with me. (Again, memory being what it is, who knows exactly how this transpired...) I remember lying on the sofa in their den, listening to one of the albums, singing along. Soon my great uncle came in. He was a kind of gruff older country man who often scared me with his loudness and grumpiness, but that day saw the end of any chance of me ever liking him. "What the hell is that?" he asked. "Now Harold," my ever-genteel great aunt said, "Julie likes them. She brought her records to play for us, now let her listen to them." "What do you call that? Rock and roll?" he continued. "It's the Monkees, Uncle Harold," I told him, kind of confused. "Hmmmph," he grumbled. "Sounds like nigger music to me."

Now my family was not particularly strict, in fact, they let us do just about anything we wanted, but there was one word we were never, ever allowed to utter, and that was it. I remember those words hitting me like a punch. I felt my face get hot. I didn't know what to do. I got up from the couch, very upset, and started to cry. Not only had he been mean about my band, my only band, the band DAVY was in, but he used the n-word! I can't remember what happened after that, or how the scene ended, but I'm sure Aunt Renie made him apologize, then fried me a chicken or something to make up for it. But I remember for the first time feeling as if I myself had been insulted, by extension, when he talked bad about the Monkees.

So back to Davy. As I said before, he was my first love. I remember watching the show, looking at his beautiful face -- in truth, a perfect face -- and feeling nothing but a pitter-patter in my chest. Sometimes I would look at my album covers and just stare into those beautiful, soulful brown eyes. I dreamed about him, about meeting him and kissing him. His lips were full and soft, his hair brown (like mine) and straight (like mine). He was not macho at all, and for a young girl, seemed the perfect "boy" to be with. In fact, it was years before I ever dated or even had a crush on any male who was the least bit tall, or bearded, or manly. Davy was my ideal. I could imagine walking through the park with him, holding hands, like they sometimes did on the show...

Oh, and the accent! He had that beautiful melodic voice, and the cute British accent. He was from England! It seemed so exotic to me. I loved the songs he sang on best, and especially was fond of the slow, romantic (and sappy) ones, like "I Wanna Be Free," and the still-wonderful "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)."  Davy's songs were the best, and the episodes on the show where he fell in love and got the stars in his eyes were my favorite.

I recently saw a documentary on the Biography Channel about the Monkees, and was astounded to hear that the show was only on the air for two years. It felt like a lifetime. I never thought any of it would end.

Of course, at some point it did end. Davy was replaced by Donny Osmond, and then Peter Frampton, and then a slew of others, but he was aways my first. His death greatly saddens me. Tonight I am mourning you, David Jones. RIP sweet friend I never knew.

Music an' shit

I have Sirius radio. I got it from the kiddos for Mother's Day. It's the most amazing thing...I think it's changed my life. I find myself going on unnecessary errands now, which is really great considering the price of gasoline, but I don't care cause the pleasure I experience from the music playing in my car makes it all worth it.

Tonight I met Domenica for pinot noir at Apres Diem. We got a bit tipsy. On the way home I loudly blared various stations - my fave is "First Wave," which plays stuff from the late 70's and early 80's, as one might expect by the name. It's fabulous. I heard this song just as I got in the car, which I swear I've never heard before. It blew me away, partly because I am drunk, partly because it so goes along with my mid 80's vibe of earlier in the day. It made me miss Kris Clower again, really badly. Great song...



That thing he does with his voice at around 2:05...then again at 3:04...I love it. I sang it over and over all the way home. What a great pop song. What funny lyrics. I've always had this I-know-he's-gay-but-so-what crush on Morrissey. Now I remember why.

Then I changed the station, and heard this, another blast from the past:



I hate ELO, I thought, but man...what a great song this is - the harmonies...the sentiment...the melody...the memories from high school. Just lovely. I can't wait to go somewhere tomorrow and listen to more.

David Cook, my hero

I'm double blogging here, cause he's all over my Myspace page, but is it wrong for me to have such a crush on this guy? He's the boy I think I've been in love with my whole life. Does anyone out there know what I mean?

The Definition of Sellout - Fleetwood Mac?

I was on iTunes last night, screwing around, looking for some music to accompany my lonely dissertation-writing Friday night. For some reason I had a hankering to hear some old Fleetwood Mac songs...'old' as in from 1975. Before I knew what had hit me I had stumbled upon some REALLY old stuff, and holy cow! I couldn't believe my ears! I always knew that before becoming the supergroup that rocked my teenage world they had been a very talented blues band. But I didn't know until last night just how great a distance they had traveled from 1967 to 1977. The shift from their early, serious music roots and Stevie Nicks' flowing butterfly-dance stadium rock ending is shocking. Shocking and somewhat sickening, actually, that it's the same (well, I'll get to that later) band.

'>

This is Peter Green, one of the original guitarists. The 'Danny' he refers to is the extremely talented Danny Kirwan, later kicked out of the band for being an alcoholic and general pain in the ass. Now I realize that technically this is NOT the same band...there were numerous changes in personnel over the course of the early 70s, each change bringing a slightly different sound...but the name and two of the original members remained. This early stuff is absolutely amazing, and makes me feel very sad for what they became.

Once again I ask my naive question: how could one band (again, given the lineup changes that term is fluid) allow itself to put out the music they released in their later years...Gypsy, Say You Love Me, Don't Stop...given the quality of the music they had made previously? Of course, to address this question we also have to examine the concept of 'band' in the first place. Where does the true soul of a group lie? Is it dependent on each individual member? If one person leaves, is it actually a different band? Now, I realize that a rhythm section does not a band make, but nonetheless the name and two original members remain in the two very distinct incarnations of this group. How do we explain it? Are the two Fleetwood Macs completely unrelated, having nothing in common but the name?

Don't get me wrong. I realize the contribution the later Fleetwood Mac made to pop music in general, and I'm not denying that they had a certain appeal, given the era. I had all their albums in high school, saw them at the Atlanta Omni (God rest its concrete soul) in 1979, played their records at our many drunken parents-out-of-town parties - I admit that they were IT in the late 70's. But now, as a music connoisseur (ahem,) I must ask myself: did they actually feel good about what they turned into, given what they had been?

I suppose it's all relative anyway. There was no such thing as an arena band until the late 70s, so it isn't as if Fleetwood Mac made a conscious decision to give up their blues roots and become hugely popular. In a way they helped create 'hugely popular' in the first place. Nevertheless, there was a conscious decision at some point to go for success rather than quality. The music they were capable of and inspired to make in an earlier incarnation is light years away from the supergroup pablum they are famous for.

I think we have to ask ourselves, especially at this point in music history, where the value of a song is most often determined based solely on how many copies it sells: in the final scheme of things, is money truly the motivation for any artistic creation? Is all music ultimately a sell-out? Are the obscenely large number of album sales really worth the compromise Fleetwood Mac made, music-wise? Is this just the way it is, when art is a commodity? Is art ever NOT a commodity?

'>

Lester Bangs, A Great American Soul

Here is a great rock and roll read for anyone who has been asleep for the past twenty years and somehow missed it: Lester Bangs Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung. The book is a collection of articles written over the course of Bangs' colorful downward spiral of a life, and was published posthumously in 1988. Irreverant, disgusting, hilariously funny, often sad, like Bangs himself the essays represent an era of American youth culture long gone.

For those who knew him personally, Bangs was a big teddy bear of a drunk, a rampant club-goer who ultimately just wanted someone to sit with him and listen to him rant. But clearly he was doing more than just drinking and ranting. Bangs was, if you’ll pardon the trite analogy, a kind of human sponge, showing up, absorbing, watching, categorizing, analyzing and theorizing the world around him in the moment. His writing reads like that of a wizened cultural historian looking back on a bygone era. But that moment was now.

He got music, completely. He didn't hesitate to lay bare the good, the bad and the ugly of those he wrote about and of himself. Part of his appeal is that he was never afraid to go out on a limb and say something illogical, angry and sometimes downright nasty. And this at a time when malicious journalism wasn’t commonplace, in an era of no internet, no blogs, no common medium for random bitching. Bangs wrote raw, ugly, passionate articles for relatively mainstream publications long before nasty was cool.

Lester Bangs is painfully of his time, a relatively innocent period of American culture when there was still a lot of ground to be broken and music to be made. Yet in retrospect he is also of the ages, a timeless and weary voice. His writing is poetic as well as ugly: disjointed yet coherent, pissed yet eloquent. In other words, his work mirrors the venom and passion of the music of the bands he writes about – Blondie, Velvet Underground, Brian Eno, the Ramones – as if the energy of the music had been translated into language. In a style reflecting the earthy poetic bop of the beat writers and a complex thought process akin to something penned by a critical theorist, Bangs reflects the raw and edgy qualities of these performers, as seen in this passage he wrote about Patti Smith's album, Horses:

What must be recognized is that she transcends bohemian cultism to be both positive and mainstream, even though her songs go past a mere flirtation with death and pathology. She just saw that it was time for literature to shake it and music to carry both some literacy and some grease that ain’t jive. The combination makes her an all-American tough angel, street-bopping and snapping her fingers, yet moving with that hipshake which is so like every tease you slavered after in high school. 

Bangs saw music as something more than just an isolated art form. He saw and seemed to understand the links between wildly disparate cultural markers – art, music, random rebellion, beauty – and the people who spawned them, proving himself to be one of those rare individuals who is able to glimpse the connections that link the cosmos. Lester Bangs understood the complexity of music and life at a level few people can even imagine, but it was his incredible breadth of scope that really made his writing unique. An article in which he beautifully expresses the relationship between free jazz and punk opens with this paragraph:

In a New York City nightclub, a skinny little Caucasian whose waterfall hairstyle and set of snout and lips make him look like a sullen anteater takes the stage, backed up by a couple of guitarists, bass, horn section, drummer and bongos. Most of his back-up is black, and they know their stuff: it’s pure James Brown funk, with just enough atonal accents to throw you off. The trombone player, in fact, looks familiar, and sounds amazing: you look a bit closer, and of course, that’s Joseph Bowie, brother of Lester, both of them avant-garde jazzmen of repute. But then the anteater begins to sing, in a hoarse yowl that sounds more like someone being dragged naked through the broken glass and oily rubble of a back-alley than even the studied abrasiveness of most punk rock vocalizations. The songs are about contorting yourself, tying other people up and leaving them there, and how the singer doesn’t want to be happy. After a while he picks up an alto sax, and out come some of the most hideous flurries of gurgling shrieks heard since the mid-Sixties glory days of ESP-Disk records. The singer/saxophonist’s name is James Chance, and you have been watching the Contortions.

Damn, that's good stuff.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you



I saw Jeff Buckley in Atlanta in about 1994 in a small club…one of the most amazing nights of my life. He was soulful, sexy, beautiful. I spoke to him after the show, he asked me to come chat backstage, I couldn’t. Then he was gone. I have wished ever since that I’d managed to talk with him…

But some things aren't meant to be. Many things aren't meant to be.

Athens Georgia

Back in 2005 I was on the planning end of a huge mega-party/music/photography/art event called Athens Rewind. Having honed my pop culture teeth on the Athens scene of the late '70s and early '80s, I had become very nostalgic about that time and place, and was yearning to somehow experience it all again. Was it possible?

Athens was a place like no other, a time when anything was possible. An undercurrent of energy ran through the town like lava, and each person who felt it somehow became psychically connected to all the others. The creative outlets, mainly music but also art and writing, were barely enough to contain the passion and angst which spilled out into other areas of our lives. These were beautiful young people who realized that they were just a little (and yes, sometimes just a lot) outside the norm, and who embraced that realization with a fervor. Whereas most 18 to 25 year olds were content with football, frat parties, and towing the status quo line, these kids felt the need to shake things up. The New York and London underground scenes came to us vicariously, and we all felt part of something much bigger, much bigger.

Everyone who lived through it was touched with that special mojo that can't quite be defined, but that Ort called "the zen of Athens." Peter Cline comes damn close to capturing the Athens zen. Peter, if you read this, please forgive me for lifting it. It's too beautiful not to share:

I remember the Coffee Club, and all the incarnations of the 40 Watt Club, and Tyrones OC, and the Mad Hatter, and KT’s and the B&L Warehouse.. I remember small town drag queens who didn’t know (or care) if they were black or white. I remember dancing with Wes to Hotel California, drinking too much at the Speakeasy in the Georgian Hotel. I remember being young, elegant, and not having any idea that I was either. God bless memory.

Writing all this, I realize, I remember, that I remember both too much and too little; that memory is unreliable, fragile. I remember the dead, who I will not recite here but whom I remember with every living breath and regret, no not their dying, which is impossible to regret, but that, likely, I did not cherish them in life as they deserved, as I should have realized they deserved, to be cherished. I will remember, they will not know, I will forget, and we will all be forgiven.

Fast-forward to 2005. Assembling a few of the key players from back in the day - the famous KO, whose birthday party at the church was REM's first gig, Paul Scales, who founded the 40-Watt Club, Maureen, who knew everyone who ever passed through the gates of the town - we set out to find all the movers and shakers, artists and musicians, drunks and drag queens from those golden days of debauchery. Amazingly, we found most of them.

What grew out of our collective curiosity - "I wonder what happened to Mark Phredd???" - soon expanded into a guest list of over 400 people. We secured a location (the 40-Watt Club, natch) a band (Pylon, natch) another band (Oh OK) deejays (Kurt Wood, David Pierce, the inimitable Ort) photographers (Sandra-Lee Phipps, Molly Woo, Laura Levine) and more unexpected offers of relics than the Pope could have hoped for. It was a beautiful thing.

Though Athens Rewind was not able to reproduce that energy we felt back in the glorious day of our collective youth, it did serve to reunite people who still share a creative soul and who even now are connected by the Athens phenomenon. The weekend reminded us of how damn lucky we were to have been a part of the scene at all.

The Raspberries

My first album was Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything. My second was Elton John, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player. My third was The Raspberries, some greatest hits record that I can't find anymore, neither in my collection (no big surprise...it was a while ago) nor on the internet, which is odd.

In any event, what a great album it was. It had all the hits - Let's Pretend, Go All the Way, Overnight Sensation, I Wanna Be with You - and had a huge impact on my budding pre-teen insanity. At a time when I was naturally thinking about breaking away from my family, this music fueled images of being an adult, doing what I wanted, experiencing life on the road (no, I didn't yet know about Kerouac,) in short, a fantasy world of rock and roll where anything could happen. I don't really think I ever got beyond that stage, in many ways.

I recently rediscovered the Raspberries, and hearing those songs brings back a flood of strange feelings, almost tossing me right back into that place in 1974, my great era of pop music and AM radio and pre-pubescent desire. I feel a twinge of the soul-searching that only a 13 year old can experience. Hearing these songs makes me think of my bedroom, which I painted royal blue to contrast the white shag rug and white-painted furniture. It reminds me of falling asleep listening to Crocodile Rock, Will it Go Round in Circles, Lean on Me, and Mandy, on my little clock radio. It gives me a feeling of hope and despair, one because all of life is ahead of me, the other cause I have no idea what it's all about.

Here's to Eric and the boys, who by the way, are touring again. But that's fodder for another blog.


">