Cleveland Rocks: Special Your Tuesday Moment of Words Fail Me/Folk Rock Fashion!!! Edition

You know, it's very easy to be cheaply cynical about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I get it.

I mean, two words -- Jann Wenner.

But I gotta tell you -- walking through the exhibits over the weekend and suddenly coming across iconic articles of clothing from the album covers of two of my all time favorite LPs was...a mind blower.

To wit -- David Crosby's leather poncho from The Byrds' Turn Turn Turn...

...and Skip Spence's fringed jacket from Moby Grape's eponymous debut.

Swear to god -- these two alone were worth the trip and the price of admission.

More stuff from the Hall tomorrow.

Cleveland Does Indeed Rock....

...but no "real" new posting until Tuesday, after we've decompressed from our return trip.

Lotsa cool photos TK, however.

Cleveland Fucking Rocks!

So a certain Shady Dame and I are off to the heartland to spend a weekend gawking at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Sounds like fun to me -- see you all with new postings (including photos, one assumes) on Monday

Mister, We Could Use a Man Like Adolf Hitler Again

The great Brother Theodore unveils his political program on the Letterman show in 1985.



Heads will roll. I wish.

And My Soul's Been Psychedelicized

Another recently discovered live performance -- from 1991 -- being considered for a bonus track on the upcoming remaster/reissue of this masterpiece.

Vocals and rhythm guitar by Gerry, spectacular lead guitar by J.D. Goldberg, inspired drumming by Glen "Bob" Allen, my musical director for the last 40 years, and pedestrian bass and lame joke at the top of the song by some guy whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels.

Too bad we were born to late to get the tune on the soundtrack to this.

And yes, the song itself IS a fairly shameless pastiche of "Eight Miles High." The difference is we admit it's about drugs.

Closed Due to Genius(es) at Work

Off to the city and fabulous Below Rogue studios to work on our "live" album.

Regular posting, involving music made by actual musicians, resumes tomorrow.

Come to Think of It, This Guy Could Have Played the Red Skull

So we went to see the Superheroes in Gotham show at the New York Historical society over the weekend...

...which I highly recommend (it runs through next February). And not just because I got to pose with and photograph one of the coolest cars ever.

That one there was one of the three Batmobiles they made; two were used in the TV series, and the third (the one seen above) was the one they sent out on promo tours. I actually saw it at Shea Stadium in 1966 at the big Batman Concert, starring The Chiffons, The Rascals, Skitch Henderson and his Orchestra, Frank Gorshin and (of course) Adam West.

Also in the exhibition is the actual Superman suit from the 50s TV show, and in its honor, please enjoy my old Greenwich Village chum Erik Frandsen and his droll and ultimately touching tribute to the show's star -- "Nobody Grieves For George Reeves."



I should add that Erik, besides being a splendid singer/songwriter and guitarist, is also a comic actor of some repute. Here he is, as the existentially depressed German ambassador to the United Nations, on The Colbert Report.



You're welcome.

The Way We Were

For those of you who've been following the saga of the forthcoming "new" EP Letter From Liverpool, by the fabulous Floor Models (featuring a bass player whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels), two bits of news. The entire thing has been mastered and is ready to go (as soon as a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance finalizes the artwork).

More to the point, the guys and I have had so much fun in the studio over the course of the project, we decided we're not quite ready to retire yet. So we're getting right back to work on remastering and reissuing this 1995 album by a later incarnation of the band, which has been out of print for a while.

Here's a live tape we recently discovered in the vaults and digitized; we're considering including it on the reissue as a bonus track. I think it kicks major ass, if truth be told.



A studio version of that, in a significantly different arrangement, closes the CD, but I've always been partial to this one. The quote from "Day Tripper" at the end is a particularly nice touch, I think.

Have a great weekend, everybody, and I'll see you on Monday with a less self-indulgent posting. Or not.

Closed Due to Being Incredibly Old

Man, that birthday stuff yesterday really tuckered me out.

Regular and more peppy posting resumes tomorrow.

The Greatest 1966 Hollies Song The Hollies Never Did

From 2013, and their charmingly monikered album Crummy Desert Sound, please enjoy The Resonars and "The World is Wrong."

I know absolutely nothing about these guys except they're from California and they seem to have been genetically bred to produce music that sounds like The Hollies Stop Stop Stop album and god bless 'em for that.

Seriously, this is fucking awesome.

[h/t Capt. Al]