Travelblog, St. Louis

“You ain’t seen nothin’, ‘til you been in a motel, baby, like a Holiday Inn.”—E. John/B. Taupin, “Holiday Inn”, 1971

In all my years of traveling, I’ve always wanted to stay at a Holiday Inn, but for whatever reason, I never had until this past weekend.  I usually just Motel 6 it on my road trips, or occasionally upgrade to Red Roof Inn now and then.  My original plan was to stay at the Red Roof along I-44 in St. Louis near “The Hill” (more about that below) for $75 a night, but I waited a day before booking that rate, and during that time, the rate suddenly shot up $14 a night for the same freakin’ room!  That’s when I decided to give myself a late birthday present by splurging a little and booking the Holiday Inn right next door to Red Roof for $110 a night instead, and it was totally worth it because the accommodations were outstanding.  My room came with a terrific panoramic view from the balcony of the surrounding area to the north and east of I-44, including the former site of the old St. Louis Arena (which once dominated the horizon straight above the highway billboard sign in the foreground in this pic), and I merely needed to lean over the balcony and look to my right to see downtown and the Arch.  Meanwhile at Red Roof, I would’ve had an enthralling view of the Public Storage facility next door (and no balcony).  In addition, I got free Internet access in the lobby and two free breakfasts out of the deal, as well as a killer LG plasma TV in the room with 80 channels.  My only two real complaints were the elevators (too slow and not enough of them for a building that size) and the hotel bar—closing time @ 10PM on a Saturday?  Ditto goes for the Dirt Cheap liquor store just across the parking lot.  Seriously, people?!?  I bet even Amish bars are open later than that…

ARTY-FARTY!

On my way to those free breakfasts at HI, I passed by this wall just off the lobby, which is evidently someone’s ersatz tribute to Shredded Wheat!  A Lucky Charms display might have livened the place up a bit more…

“THIS USED TO BE A PLAYGROUND…”

And here be 5700 Oakland Avenue, the above-mentioned former site of St. Louis Arena, which I paid tribute to in a 2007 post here.  My friends and I spent several nights there doing Blues hockey and Steamers soccer games in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and it was my favorite old-school sports venue outside of K.C.  Located just across I-64/U.S. 40 from Forest Park, it now houses a semi-bland mixed-use complex comprised of office buildings, retail outlets, loft apartments and a Hampton Inn hotel.  The Arena used to sit in a bit of a hole, but they’ve since raised the ground level so it slopes up north toward Oakland Avenue, where I snapped the current photo.  I also didn’t realize it until I drove through the place that they actually built the whole development around the original footprint of The Arena itself, leaving a nice green common ground in the middle, thus you can walk your dog and let him/her poop right where center ice once was!  They’ve also placed a nice fountain dedicated to organ donors and transplant recipients approximately where the back wall of the old building was situated.  That’s all fine and dandy, but unless I missed something, there’s no plaque, no Blue Note, no historical marker, no nothing on the site to commemorate the “Old Barn”—and that’s just plain wrong!  The only hint of its existence anywhere nearby is the Arena Liquor store around the corner on Hampton Avenue.  Rather surprising too, considering how much the city of St. Louis usually reveres and honors its rich history. Let’s get on the ball (and/or puck, in this case), St. Lou!

CAN YOGI COME OUT AND PLAY?

Barely a mile south of The Arena is the locality in St. Louis known as “The Hill” (or “Dago Hill” before it became politically incorrect), an area heavily populated by those of Italian descent.  I’d heard of The Hill for many years, but never knew where it was located until recently, and I feel like a real dolt now, because for years I’ve driven up and down Hampton Avenue (the western boundary of The Hill) and never knew I’d been passing right by it all that time—there’s definitely A hill going up Hampton, but I never realized it was THE Hill!  Anyway, you’re looking at the boyhood home of one Lawrence Peter Berra, Hall of Fame catcher and King of the Malapropism.  It’s only natural that he and fellow catcher/character Joe Garagiola would become such lifelong close friends, because they literally lived right across Elizabeth Street from each other (I was standing in front of Joe's place when I snapped this photo).  Liz Street was also home to one other rather famous St. Louisan…

WHERE’S THAT JOE BUCK?!?

Down at the east end of that same block on Elizabeth Street resided one Jack Buck, legendary Cardinals play-by-play man, in this classy little brick abode.  I’m assuming this is the boyhood home of current Fox Sports announcer Joe Buck as well.  What’s so cool about The Hill is even though most of its homes are over 90 years old, not a one of them is run-down, and it’s a very clean and safe area for being in the inner-city.  That’s a whole different story north of downtown and east of the river, but the south central part of St. Louis is very quaint and fun to roam around in.  This little tour turned out to be a fun and educational gambit, and it didn’t cost me a freakin’ dime…

Meantime, I’m still doing my A-Z by song title thing on my iPod (which I started in March!) and I’m up to the W’s, so it was perfect timing that it tracked through all the “Walking” songs (“Walking In L.A.”, “Walking On Sunshine”, “Walking Down Your Street”, “Walking To New Orleans”, etc.) as I hoofed it through the streets of The Hill.  Synchronicity personified…

“I DON’T TRUST NOTHIN’ BUT THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER”

If you won’t come to this river, then by dingies, this river will come to YOU!  With all the recent heavy rains upstream along the Mighty Mississip, it’s overflowing just a skosh along the St. Louis riverfront.  It’s not an unusual occurrence for the road in front of the Gateway Arch to be under water, but the scary part for me is this ain’t nothing compared to 1993 when the water reached up to the steps leading to the Arch.  I would’ve been completely submerged in the spot where I stood to snap this pic at the foot of the famed Eads Bridge.  Meanwhile, as I took this photo, my ever-prescient iPod—with no assistance from me whatsoever—kicked in with Bob Dylan’s “Watching The River Flow.” I swear, friends, I’m NOT making that up!

YOU’LL FIND YOUR THRILL…

…or you’re bound to, anyway, at Blueberry Hill, a nifty bar/restaurant/nightclub in the Delmar Loop entertainment district in west central St. Louis, yet another St. Louis “Hill” I was blissfully unaware of until now.  It’s worth the visit just for their food alone, but the coolest part of BH is all the music and pop culture memorabilia they have on display throughout the place, which literally takes up its entire city block.  They have a little of everything—Beatles collectibles (stuffed dolls, lunch boxes, etc.), old-school Pez dispensers, “Simpsons”/“Scooby-Doo”/“Star Trek”/“Star Wars” figurines, sports stuff and a dandy tribute to St. Louis native Chuck Berry, who STILL performs there once a month.  Joe Edwards, the dude who runs the place, apparently knows all the stars, as well, and several walls at Blueberry Hill are covered with photos he had taken with them, everyone from Tina Turner to Barack Obama to Stan “The Man” Musial to Motorhead!

Mr. Edwards also took a page out of the Hollywood playbook by founding the St. Louis Walk Of Fame, which Blueberry Hill resides along.  Unlike the Hollywood WOF, which merely lists the name of the honoree, each sidewalk star in the St. Louie version is accompanied by a brief bio, as they honor numerous famous St. Louisans.  In addition to entertainers, people from other realms like sports, local history, architecture, the arts and culture are included as well.  This was also quite educational for me—for example, I wasn’t aware that actor Robert Duvall was from St. Louis until I saw his star on the Walk.  But just as with the Hollywood WOF, I have issues with some of the more questionable inductees, Cedric The Entertainer?!?  Riiiiiiight.  And there’s something warped about placing the likes of Nelly right next to Scott Joplin, but beyond that, the STLWOF is quite boffo, and Kansas City needs one of these—it would slot in perfectly in the new Power & Light District.

EAST ST. LOUIS, TOODLE-EWWW!

East St. Louis, Illinois doesn’t get its bad reputation for nothing, as evidenced by this crumbling edifice—one good windstorm could probably knock this whole damn thing over.  It would be an appropriate venue for G. Carlin's "St. Louis Home For The Totally Fucked".  Apart from Gary, Indiana, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an uglier and more dilapidated shithole of a town than ESL, which I cruised through on board the Metrolink commuter train.  Just for kicks, I rode the entire length of the route, which extends eastward way the fuck over into Illinois to its terminus at Scott Air Force Base near the town of Shiloh.  You get to view a little of everything on Metrolink—suburbia, office parks, freeways, tunnels, major sports venues, downtown/riverfront splendor, storm sewers, ghettos and cornfields.  Great way to get around the city, too—it hits many of the major attractions in St. Louis, or at least gets you within walking distance of them.

NOT PICTURED HERE
Does anyone know the average number of beers announcer Mike Shannon goes through during a typical Cardinals game broadcast?  I listened to parts of all three games this weekend with the Royals, and he sounded pretty incoherent most of the time…

I paid my first visit to Lumiere Place casino at Laclede’s Landing this weekend.  For all the hype and hoopla about Lumiere, I was pretty unimpressed.  Gaudy décor (for a casino, anyway), unattractive cocktail waitresses, bland-looking sports bar and an overpriced dinner buffet (which I passed on).  Meh—I’ll stick with Harrah’s and Ameristar…

Why are there Gulf Oil logos on the outfield wall at Busch Stadium?  There ain’t a Gulf station within three states of St. Louis, is there?

The mighty K-SHE 95 never fails to play some cool old song I’ve never heard before on their Sunday morning lost classics show whenever I’m in town.  This time it was 10CC’s “Rubber Bullets” from 1973.  I must take a few points off K-SHE, however, because of the 20-something chick DJ in the afternoon who was yapping about a new Jimi Hendrix DVD set that will feature his appearance on the “Dick Cavett Show” back in the day.  Instead of ‘CAV-ut’, DJ chick pronounced Dick’s surname ‘Cuh-VETT’.  Fail!

We Want The Funk!

"You kids don't know Grand Funk?  The wild shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner?  The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher?  The competent drumwork of Don Brewer?  Oh, man!"—H.J. Simpson, 1996

Homer, my good friend, Mr. Brewer’s drumming was WAY more than competent.  And he once sported the greatest white-man afro of all-time…

I haven’t done a band tribute in ages here, but since I recently read Billy James’ biography An American Band-The Story of Grand Funk Railroad, now’s as good a time as any.  James was/is a longtime fan of the band and sought to get their story told, and overall, he did a pretty fair job in chronicling their history.  One downside to the book is it was published in 1999, so it doesn’t cover the more recent history of GFR, which includes guitarist Mark Farner’s (apparently acrimonious) departure and subsequent replacement by former Kiss axe-man Bruce Kulick on guitar and vocalist Max Carl, who once was ever-so-briefly the lead singer for .38 Special in the late ‘80s.  The other downside is how Mr. James is a tad biased!  At times he puffed up the band to be way better than they really were!  And his overuse of exclamation points where they weren’t appropriate throughout the book was more than a little annoying!  (Sorry, couldn’t resist…)

The first Grand Funk song I ever recall hearing on the radio was “Footstompin’ Music” in 1972, which I thought was pretty cool, but the one that made me a fan for life was “We’re An American Band” the following summer.  Even though I was only nine and didn’t know what a Chiquita from Omaha was (let alone who Sweet Sweet Connie or Freddie King were), I fell in love with that song from the get-go, from the cowbell intro to Farner’s opening riff to Craig Frost’s rhythmic organ figure to Mel Schacher’s rumbling bass to Don Brewer’s powerful lead vocals.  GFR churned out plenty more hits over the next couple years and sounded great even on AM Top 40 radio.  They were also one of the hottest concert attractions of the ‘70s, breaking house records at numerous venues and even selling out New York’s Shea Stadium in 1972 for the first time since The Beatles played there in ‘65.  The band’s success was all the more impressive because early on they got virtually no support from the press or Rock radio—it was all pretty much via word-of-mouth that the Funk built up its extremely loyal fan base.  The band’s success also confounded and rankled music critics no end—in particular the elitist know-it-alls at Rolling Stone—and the Railroad was often the target of unfair and biased (not to mention scathing) album and concert reviews.

For the longest time, I never understood why the critics loathed this band so much.  However, after reading all about it, so to speak, and recently pirating their early CDs from the library and giving them a good long listening-to, I can now kinda see why they had issues with Grand Funk—to a point, anyway.  Apart from the majestic 10-minute opus that was “I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home” in 1970, the bulk of Grand Funk’s output from their first four studio albums (On Time, Grand Funk, Closer To Home and Survival), sounded rather sloppy and amateur-ish to me.  I struggle with a lot of GFR’s early stuff just as much as the critics did—I just don’t groove to their long, mopey “My-baby-done-left-me” bluesy jams like “Heartbreaker”, “Paranoid” (not to be confused with the Black Sabbath classic of the same name), “Mean Mistreater”, et al.  The Book Of Rock Lists once ranked Grand Funk’s first live album (the cleverly-titled Live Album) as one of the Worst Live Albums of All-time, and for good reason—it was just a travesty of noise.  Control-freak producer/money-laundering-schmuck manager Terry Knight’s constant hyping of the band didn’t exactly endear them to the Rock press either, thus their understandable disdain for the group.  More on moron Knight later…

Having said all that, however, it’s no small coincidence that Grand Funk Railroad’s records improved immensely after they fired Knight in ’72 and began working with more experienced and dynamic producers like Todd Rundgren, Jimmy Ienner and Frank Zappa (yes, THAT Frank Zappa).  They went for a cleaner and more commercial sound with shorter tracks, added old friend Craig Frost on keyboards to give more color to their music and Mark Farner reigned in his voice a bit and actually sang instead of half-shouting/half-singing like on the early records.  Drummer Don Brewer also became more prominent by writing and/or singing lead on more songs than before, most notably on hit singles like “American Band”, “Shinin’ On” and “Some Kind Of Wonderful” (trading off with Farner on the latter), and frankly, I think his voice is far more interesting and superior than Farner’s anyway.  But, by the time GFR’s albums became more polished and sophisticated, the critics had all pretty much closed their minds to anything GFR put out, regardless of its quality, thus the unjustified critical flogging continued unabated until the band broke up in 1977.  No doubt those critics mourned the loss of their “whipping-band” back then in much the same way stand-up comedians were crying in their beer when the Dubya Administration ended.

Another facet of the band that may have rubbed the critics the wrong way was how Knight tried to spin Grand Funk Railroad as the new “spokesmen for America’s youth” as soon as the band hit the big-time, not to mention Farner’s outspoken political views, especially about protecting the environment, energy conservation, religion, et al.  While he’s certainly entitled to say/do what he wants, I get so turned-off when people in the entertainment industry—especially Rock musicians—go on these “save-the-world” crusades simply because they suddenly have everyone’s attention.  This same pretentiousness/ arrogance turned me off to people like U2, Jackson Browne, Neil Young and Don Henley (and even John Lennon, to a certain extent) for many many years.  Sorry dudes, but you’re STILL just a Rock band/musician, and you’re naïve as hell if you think you’re going to change the world just because you have a microphone and/or a guitar in your hand.  I don’t listen to music or attend concerts to hear some lecture/guilt trip about “stryofoam boxes for the ozone layer” or my fossil fuel-burning vehicle polluting the air, etc., and to be brutally honest, I don’t really give a rip about the rain forests, either.  Sorry, Sting...

In spite of their on-going popularity, by our country’s Bicentennial, the “American Band”, ironically was running on fumes.  Basically, they’d had it all/done it all by the Summer of ’76, and everyone in the group was pretty well burned-out, especially Farner.  Perfectly understandable, though—almost constant touring and producing 11 studio albums and two live albums in roughly 6.5 years would do that to most any band, and Grand Funk quietly ceased to be in 1977 after releasing just one album for MCA.  Messers. Frost, Brewer and Schacher (pronounced ‘shocker’) tried forming another band called Flint (as in their hometown in Michigan) in the late ‘70s, but little came of that venture.  Craig Frost subsequently joined Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band in the ‘80s, as did Don Brewer for a brief time (that’s DB playing on Seger’s live take on CCR’s “Fortunate Son” on the Like A Rock album).  A Grand Funk reunion (without Schacher or Frost) in the early ‘80s was a monumental flop and another one (with Schacher, but still without Frost) in 1996 was a semi-success, resulting in a benefit live recording called Bosnia, and a VH-1 “Behind The Music” appearance in 1999, but evidently the renewed good will didn’t last long amongst Mark, Don and Mel, and Farner returned to his farming/environmentalist/American Indian concerns and Christian music career while Don and Mel carried on with the aforementioned Kulick and Carl (and keyboardist Tim Cashion) as the current touring version of Grand Funk Railroad.

Oh yes, this Terry Knight character, aka Richard Terence Knapp.  Grand Funk Railroad history actually began in the late ‘60s as Terry Knight & The Pack, which included Farner and Brewer at various times, and gained a regional following in the Michigan-Ohio area in particular. TK&TP recorded a few minor hit singles, including “I (Who Have Nothing)” on the Cameo-Parkway label in its dying days, where they were label-mates of one young Bob Seger, as well.  Knight couldn’t carry a tune with a handle, so he got more into the production side of the music business, working with acts like ? And The Mysterians, whose latter-day touring band included Mel Schacher, whom Farner and Brewer snapped up in a heartbeat when they searched for a bass player.  After getting Grand Funk Railroad rolling down the tracks, Knight also produced their rather infamous Capitol label-mates Bloodrock, whose 1971 post-plane crash death dirge “D.O.A.” is a macabre classic of its own kind.  TK also found he was well-suited to work the business side of music as well—a little too well, one might say.  And what a charming gentleman he seemed to be, based on his interview bytes on “BTM” and unrepentant attitude about his management practices with GFR, saying:  “The media have always looked at Terry Knight as wearing the black hat.  That doesn’t bother me as long as I can wear the black hat to the bank every week.”  In reality, he swindled the band out of millions of dollars between 1969-72, and screwed them over in some investment deals as well.  When he was fired by the band in 1972 once they realized how much he was skimming from the top, Knight showed his true colors by morphing into a litigation whore, suing Mark, Don and Mel left and right for every little transgression.  Then he pissed away all the money he made off GFR on drugs, booze and women.  On top of that, his musical acumen was limited at best, hence the often sparse production values on the early Grand Funk albums.  Terry Knight was murdered in 2004 while trying to defend his daughter from a knife attack by her estranged boyfriend.  Apparently he at least still had SOME chivalry left in him, but he came across to me as a real asshole.

MY ALL-TIME GRAND FUNK TOP 10:
10) Gimme Shelter (1971)  Serviceable remake of the Stones’ classic from a couple years before and one of Don Brewer’s first lead vocals with GFR.  The track would’ve sounded better without Knight’s pedestrian watered-down productions, especially the drums, which sound really timid here.
9) Pass It Around (1976)  Wonderful track that I recently discovered off the Good Singin’, Good Playin’ album, on which they worked with Mr. Zappa.  What a pleasant surprise this record was—it certainly lived up to its title, but was totally overlooked by both radio and critics alike, and this sadly was more or less the end of the line for the Railroad (pun intended).  “Pass It Around” features great vocals from Brewer, and I love the overall attitude and feel of it, thus it went straight to my iPod after one listen.  For a band that was supposedly in total burnout mode at the time, they sure sounded rejuvenated here.
8) Rock ‘N’ Roll Soul (1973)  Great song in spite of lame lyrics like “It’s kinda funky like an old-time movie…”  Are old-time movies really all that funky?
7) Bad Time (1975)  This one might have been a tad too Pop-sounding for hardcore Funk fans, but I always liked it.  Mark Farner’s vocals had really matured by this point and he sounded so much better here than he did on the early records.  No one realized it at the time, but this was GFR’s final sniff of the Top 40.
6) The Loco-Motion (1974)  GFR took a bit of a chance by doing this one, and some die-hard fans did look upon them as sellouts, but you can’t argue with success.  Grand Funk managed to cover this song and make it their own without sounding schmaltzy.
5) Shinin’ On (1974)  Lots of echo here, and a very underrated track. Don Brewer’s growing confidence as a vocalist is quite evident too.
4) Footstompin’ Music (1972)  Craig Frost’s recorded debut with Grand Funk, “Footstompin’” actually started off as just a jam and morphed into a hit single.  I was always partial to the “Does ev-ar-ee-body want to?” part.
3) Walk Like A Man (1974)  The ONLY Top 40 song I can think of with the word “cock” in it!  I truly hope Don Brewer lives another 36 years so we can see if he still truly can “strut like a cock” until he's 99.
2) Some Kind Of Wonderful (1975)  Have to admit I got kinda burned-out on this one for a while because it got played to death on Classic Rock radio, but it’s still a great track.  I always like exaggerating the high-pitched “My baby!  My baby!” bits while singing along with Farner during the “Can I get a witness?” section.
1) We’re An American Band (1973)/I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home (1970) [Tie]  I can’t choose between these two, so it’s a flat-footed tie.  These two are such favorites of mine that they’d both easily land in the higher reaches of my Top 100 Songs of All-Time list, if I ever get around to compiling them.  I already discussed “American Band” above—Rock ‘N’ Roll 101, without question. As for “Captain”/”Home”, oddly enough, I didn’t really discover this absolute masterpiece until the early ‘80s, but I want this sucker played at my funeral—if I actually DO die, that is!

Concert #110

The Rainmakers/The SnotRockets (Saturday, May 14, 2011—Knuckleheads)  Ticket price: $15.00

I wasn’t real sure what to expect heading into my fourth concert encounter with Kansas City’s most successful Rock ‘N’ Roll band ever, the mighty Rainmakers.  It had been 13 years since I last saw them perform, which is almost as long as they’ve been inactive.  The band has reunited this year (sort of) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their 1986 debut album on PolyGram, The Rainmakers, by releasing a new CD entitled 25 On.  I was a late-bloomer as Rainmakers fans go, not really getting into their repertoire until the early/mid-‘90s after they'd broken up.  Not sure where my head was at in the late ‘80s when they were regularly packing the Uptown Theater and/or Parody Hall, receiving regular airplay on the old KY-102, and getting to “play the gee-tar on the MTV” now and then via their videos and even developing a rabid following in Scandinavia, of all places (hence the title of their live album, Oslo-Wichita).  Hell, the Swedish Chef probably caught them in concert before I ever did, and I’ll plead total ignorance for missing out on their original heyday!  To wit (to what?), I never got to see the original linuep of lead guitarist Steve Phillips, singer/leader/rhythm guitarist Bob Walkenhorst, bassist Rich Ruth (originally known as the trio Steve, Bob & Rich) and drummer Pat Tomek—play in concert.

And oddly enough, I STILL haven’t!  When I saw them play on those three previous occasions circa., 1997-98, Ruth had departed to Nashville to pursue other musical avenues, and was replaced by Michael Bliss for their 1997 CD Skin.  Well, now RR’s back, but Phillips could not participate this time because of commitments with his current outfit, a Celtic-Rock band called the Elders. D’oh!! Guitarist Jeff Porter fills his spot now.

The boys got right down to bidness Saturday night by reeling off “Rockin’ At The T-Dance” , “Downstream” and “Let My People Go-Go” in succession, and I thought to myself, “Man, they’re knocking out the biggies early tonight.”  Two songs later, my night was totally made when they whipped out “Big Fat Blonde”, a song I never expected to hear.  Although “BFB” is a big fat fan favorite, Walkenhorst had sworn off playing it live and has expressed regrets in recent years for writing it, citing how its sexist overtones now clash with his current pro-woman sensibilities.  I've never taken its lyrics seriously anyway, in much the same way no one really takes Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" seriously.  Nobody's tying any mothers down, and by extension, there ain't that many guys clamoring for the Anna Nicole Smiths of the world—It’s just a damn funny song to me, and the crowd went bonkers doing the “Sooo-weee!” bits.  Check out the youngstas in this here video performing the song back in the day.  Anyway, it took me a while to realize they were playing the first album in its entirety in original track sequence to begin the show, and following the closer track "Information" , Walkenhorst thanked everyone for “letting it be part of the soundtrack of your lives.”

Next up, they test-drove some songs from 25 On, which I have yet to get a hold of, but I sure liked what I heard from it, especially “Half A Horse Apiece”.  The second and third albums—Tornado and The Good News And The Bad News, respectively—were then finally visited, including two of my Rainmakers favorites, “The Wages Of Sin” and “Reckoning Day”, with the latter featuring the repeated refrain, “Get outta my way!”, which came in rather handy as I emerged from the restroom and made my way back through the crowd to my seat!  The only real glaring omissions from the set list were “Tornado Of Love”, “Snakedance” and “I Talk With My Hands” (all off Tornado), but the surprise inclusions of “The Width Of A Line” and “Another Guitar” from 1994’s Flirting With The Universe made up for them.  Much to my astonishment, Skin was the only Rainmakers album that they ignored altogether.  A time-honored Rainmakers tradition also continued—during their encores these guys love to tackle a couple AM Top 40 golden oldies (often welded together with “Drinkin’ On The Job”).  Past selections include the likes of The Fireballs’ “Bottle Of Wine”, the Monkees’ “Daydream Believer”, C.C.R.'s "Proud Mary" and Chuck Berry’s “Memphis” and I've heard that somewhere that back in the day, the band even took on Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and Bob Walkenhorst sang it word-for-word!  I’d give anything to hear a tape of that today. Anyway, this year’s Way-Back Machine picks-that-clicked were a raucous rendition of Elvis’ “Burning Love”, as well as Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away”.  Hey, Bob, if you’re out there reading this and taking requests for next time, might I suggest the Blues Magoos’ “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet”?  Youse guys would sound awesome on that little ‘60s rave-up…

Looking more than a skosh grayer than the last time I saw him, Brother Walkenhorst was his usual energetic/animated self on stage, and he also displayed his typical good-humored banter between songs.  As mentioned, this was my first time seeing Rich Ruth on stage, and he acquitted himself quite well on the bass, and also filled in nicely on vocals in place of Steve Phillips on “Nobody Knows”.  I couldn’t see much of Pat Tomek because my view of him was blocked most of the night, but he sounded rock steady on the skins.  As for Phillips’ replacement, Jeff Porter, he wasn’t too bad on lead guitar, but didn’t necessarily blow me away, either, and I definitely missed Steve’s distinctive slide playing.

This was my first experience at Knuckleheads, which is a rather unique venue.  It’s an indoor/outdoor nightclub with the stage outside at the west end of the block.  Technically, our seats weren’t actually IN the venue itself, but for larger shows like this, K-heads cordons off the adjoining street to allow for expansion of their seating area, and in spite of sitting on what is normally a city sidewalk by day, our view was just fine at stage left, about 20 yards from the stage.  I also rather enjoyed our close proximity to the $3 beer stand a mere 15 feet away!  The sound was outstanding too, apart from the first ten minutes of the Rainmakers set, which was a bit too bass-y before they corrected it.  The downside to Knuckleheads is the horrid part of town it’s located in, an area called the East Bottoms, with ‘bottom’ being the operative term.  To use a line from a song played early on in the Rainmakers' set, we were in "the lower parts of beautiful downtown Doomsville, baby," as you have to drive through industrial parks and W.T.H. (White Trash Heaven) to get there, and the venue itself literally abuts an active railroad line, thus Casey Jones and Union Pacific came chugging by at regular intervals all night.  The crowd was estimated at around 600, which justified adding a second show on Sunday night.  In spite of the unseasonably cool weather (upper 40s by show’s end), everyone seemed to go home happy, including my good friend Phil, who for one of the rare times, out-imbibed yours truly!

Opening the show were K.C.’s own SnotRockets (every city should have their own SnotRockets, doncha think?), fronted by local radio personality Doug Medlock on guitar and vocals.  They played a snappy 30-minute set of edgy Reverend Horton Heat-esque Rockabilly and were quite good.  High point of their set might have been their rather humorous rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Daddy Sang Bass”.

SET LIST (Incomplete and kinda-sorta in sequence):  Rockin’ At The T-Dance/Downstream/ Let My People Go-Go/ Doomsville/Big Fat Blonde/Long Gone Long/The One That Got Away/Government Cheese/Drinkin’ On The Job/Nobody Knows/Information/Given Time/Half A Horse Apiece/Like Dogs/Wages of Sin/Small Circles/Spend It On Love/The Lakeview Man/Another Guitar/Reckoning Day/Shiny Shiny/Width of a Line/Hoo-Dee-Hoo. ENCORE:  Burning Love/Not Fade Away/One More Summer

A Salute To NFL Films

I’m a little surprised I haven’t done a blog tribute to one of my all-time favorite sports entities, the good people at NFL Films.  Hard to believe they’ve been serving the National Football League for almost 50 years, and there is no equivalent in any other sport to their peerless documentation of NFL games since it was founded by Ed Sabol in 1962.  I’ve always said my “dream job” would be head film librarian for NFL Films, where I could have access to everything they’ve ever produced, because I could spend hours on end watching those old highlight reels (especially from the ‘60s and ‘70s).  Unfortunately, I don’t live near Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, where the company is headquartered.  Maybe I should move there—I’d be closer to my beloved NJ Devils too!

NFL Films was initially called Blair Motion Pictures (named after Sabol’s daughter) and Ed bought the rights for $3,000 to film the 1962 NFL Championship game between the Giants and Packers at Yankee Stadium.  Then-commissioner Pete Rozelle was impressed enough with the results that he brought BMP on board to film the action at all NFL games, and the name was eventually changed to NFL Films.  Sabol immediately hired his son Steve, who many now know as the face of NFL Films on their many compilation videos, including the wonderful “Lost Treasures” series.  The younger Sabol served as camera operator as well as editor, and in the early days of this venture, a lot of what the Sabols and their crew did was trial-and-error when it came to the equipment they used, camera angles they shot from, who and what they emphasized on the field (close-ups vs. wide shots, for example) and the film editing process, not to mention enduring harsh weather conditions—it never dawned on anyone initially that film freezes and cameras can jam when it’s 10-below outside!  It was quite a learning curve, but over time, the classic NFL Films presentation style evolved into the model of consistency and class that football fans have become familiar with today.

I came of age right when NFL Films was hitting its stride in the early ‘70s in conjunction with the AFL-NFL merger, and it’s my favorite era of highlights to watch over and over again.  I became addicted to them via several avenues, including the syndicated “This Week In Pro Football”, hosted by Pat Summerall and the late Tom Brookshier, where Pat and Brookie would recap the previous week’s NFL action, as well as the old “Sports Challenge” quiz show hosted by Dick Enberg.  I think a lot of people’s first big exposure to NFL Films (exposure/film pun partially intended!) was Howard Cosell’s venerable Halftime Highlights feature during “Monday Night Football”, where his “He…could…go…all…the…way!” and “Sir Francis Tarkenton—right there!” calls while narrating the previous day’s action became the stuff of legend.  For NFL Films, it was a fairly Herculean task back then to round up the footage from the selected games from all across the country as soon as Sunday’s contests concluded, get them all to New Jersey, and edit them down into the 10-minute MNF highlight package in just over 24 hours.

The early ‘70s/merger era was by far the most interesting to me because of all the changes that took place and altered the landscape of pro football.  You had new match-ups of teams who’d never faced each other before, like Miami vs. New Orleans, Philadelphia vs. Houston or Denver vs. the L.A. Rams.  This was also the period before the plastic multi-purpose stadium boom of the ‘70s, so most teams were still playing in their original home parks, or in the case of the Boston/New England Patriots, seemingly playing in a different stadium every year.  While all those new venues were under construction, the Philadelphia Eagles still called Franklin Field home, the Bengals played at tiny Nippert Stadium at the U. of Cincinnati, the Cowboys were still in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas and the Patriots hovered between Fenway Park, Harvard’s Alumni Field and Boston U.’s Nickerson Field.  The irony here is all six of those stadiums are STILL standing and still in use, while the facilities that replaced them—Veterans Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, Texas Stadium and Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium, respectively—are all either parking lots or vacant lots now.

I also love viewing those one-time occurrences like when the Dallas Cowboys visited the Bills at ancient War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo (and even had a brawl!), the San Diego Chargers playing the Giants at old Yankee Stadium, and especially seeing the Washington Redskins and Pittsburgh Steelers in their lone appearances against the Chiefs at my beloved Municipal Stadium here in K.C.  It was also fascinating to see Denver’s Mile High Stadium when it was still essentially a minor league baseball park prior to it’s mid-‘70s expansion or when Busch Stadium in St. Louis had real grass the first time.  I love seeing all those wonderful Vikings tilts in the snow at old Met Stadium in Bloomington, the beauty of the Detroit Lions playing home games outdoors on real grass (okay, real dirt/mud) at Tiger Stadium and even the heresy of the Chicago Bears playing on AstroTurf at Soldier Field.  Today’s fancy new stadiums with all the bells and whistles just can’t compete with the old joints in my eyes.  I’ll take San Fran.’s old Kezar Stadium any day over the new Meadowlands joint, even as nice as it seems to be.

The other aspect I love about the post-merger era was the helmets and uniforms the teams sported back then, some of which I think are light years better than today’s overblown and gaudy duds (Eagles, Seahawks, Bengals, atten-shun!).  I love seeing the Eagles in their white helmets with the green wings and the Redskins with the yellow helmets with the “R” on them that they wore for only two seasons (1970-71).  The Houston Oilers had silver helmets for a brief time back then that I thought looked really cool, and of course you had the San Diego Chargers in their famed power blue uni’s.  Given their popularity now, I don’t see why they don’t just revert back to them permanently—their current navy blue uniforms are rather boring to me.  And am I the only person who loves the L.A. Rams in just blue-and-white (during the Deacon Jones/Merlin Olsen/Roman Gabriel era) before they added the gold to their uniforms in 1973?  Cool uni's to me, anyway.  Other subtle stuff is fun to examine in the old reels too, like when there were no names on the players’ jerseys, none of the fans in the stands sported their team colors and the coaches wore suits and ties on the sidelines (with the ever-dapper Hank Stram of the Chiefs being the trend-setter).  It’s funny to see the goalposts in the fronts of the end zones instead of the back, not to mention those cheesy facemasks the players wore back then—I’m amazed there weren’t some major facial disfigurations in those days!  What’s also amazing about NFL Films is their ability to make a highlight reel look timeless.  Apart from the helmets, uniforms and stadiums, their game films from this past season don’t really look all that much different than the ones they shot 30 or 40 years ago.

As beautiful as their visuals were, no discussion of NFL Films is complete without mentioning two fundamental elements of style on the audio side that made their presentations special:  the background music and the narration by the late John Facenda. I’m a non-believer, but if there really is a God, then I'm pretty sure this is what He sounds like.  Facenda’s commanding baritone added that extra touch of drama to even the most mundane contest, like Super Bowl V, aka the “Blooper Bowl” between Baltimore and Dallas, for example.  Facenda was a longtime TV newsman in Philadelphia and huge football fan, and since the Sabols also hailed from Philly, the match was a natural.  He didn’t write “The frozen tundra of Lambeau Field…” but JF made it sound like his own.  Meantime, Facenda’s narrations were laid over some wondrous music beds, many of which were composed by musician Sam Spence.  Most of these musical pieces were 2-3 minutes in length, and they fit the various highlight packages like a glove.  My personal favorite piece was called “The Over The Hill Gang”, and many are instantly recognizable, like the Oakland Raiders’ theme "Autumn Wind" .  These recordings were even available on vinyl albums back in the '70s, and I was ever so pleased when much of the NFL Films music catalog was re-released on CD in the early ‘00s in a classy 10-disc box set called Autumn Thunder.

Another technical concept NFL Films pioneered was the use of mircophones by coaches and players during games.  Their first full-fledged effort was one of the most memorable, as Chiefs coach Hank Stram became an instant hit with his constant jabbering on the sidelines during Super Bowl IV vs. the Vikings, thus introducing "matriculate that ball down the field, boys" and "65 Toss Power Trap" into the pro football vernacular.  Hank was a real hoot, but the all-time sideline classic for me was the late Lou Saban on the Denver sideline pitching a fit over a botched Bronco play and exclaiming, "They're killin' me, Whitey, they're KILLIN' ME!"  Whitey was assistant coach Whitey Dovell, who ironically, later served on the Chiefs staff.  Miked players and coaches are all quite commonplace now, but in 1970, this was considered revolutionary.

NFL Films’ best-selling videos are their “Follies” blooper reels, which oddly enough, the NFL brass was initially very reluctant to make public.  The league was overly-paranoid about image and didn’t want the sport or its participants to be made out to look bad, but when Sabol and crew privately screened these films for the actual players in the late ‘60s, they found them utterly hilarious and even begged to see more.  And when it came to the stellar plays in NFL history, NFL films provided those classic tight spiral passes caught on film by the likes of cinematographer Ernie Ernst and other iconic shots like Franco Harris’ “Immaculate Reception” (also by Ernst), Dallas Cowboys’ head coach Tom Landry silhouetted in profile against the Texas Stadium crowd, and Lynn Swann’s acrobatic catches in Super Bowl X.  My favorite shot is the one of Raiders defensive back Willie Brown (see photo) returning his INT in Super Bowl XII chugging straight toward the camera while his helmet bobbed around on his head with every stride and late Raiders’ play-by-play man Bill King screamed “Old man Willie!!  He's gonna go all the way!”  The “Lost Treasures” series that Steve Sabol narrates is must-see viewing for any NFL fan, as he chronicles the off-beat and quirky stuff the company accumulated in its vaults over the years, like an early interview with wide-eyed rookie Terry Bradshaw (when he had hair!), fashion faux-pas from the ‘70s like Tom Landry and Don Shula in tacky plaid slacks and even a feature on the short-lived and ill-fated World Football League.  The three-DVD “Inside The Vaults” collection is an excellent starter set for the uninitiated on “Lost Treasures” and is readily available.

Ed Sabol is now 94 years old and—almost too late—has been selected for enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year.  Ed has been long-since retired and Steve Sabol is now president of NFL Films, a company that is far more well-run than the outfit it services sometimes, given the currenly NFL labor strife.  I'm saddened to learn that Steve was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I hope he's able to recover—I thoroughly enjoy his stories from back in the day on the videos.  One also hopes that when the Sabols are gone that the baton will be passed to someone who can carry on the dynasty and uphold its stellar reputation.

Flea Circus or Flee 'Circus'?--an addendum

After further review in ye olde Circus magazine issues, I found some more interesting meat to chew on... 

SKIP TO MY LOU? BETTER YET, JUST SKIP HIM ALTOGETHER!
I’m a little surprised I didn’t tackle the spectre that was Lou O’Neill, Jr.’s “Back Pages” column in my previous Circus blog post.  It’s just as well that I saved it for now, because I have quite a bit to discuss.  Lou, Jr. was your basic gossip hound/rumor monger—the Rona Barrett/Hedda Hopper of Rock music, so to speak—who tried to pass himself off as some sort of all-knowing authority on the Rock biz, all the while injecting his own unsolicited opinions along the way.  A feeling of déjà vu came over me while I perused various “Back Pages” pages, like I’d read this same kind of stuff even more recently than the ‘70s and ‘80s and then it hit me:  this guy’s writing style was almost a carbon-copy of yet another gossip maven I greatly loathe, former Kansas City Star columnist/column-inch-waster, Hearne Christopher, Jr.!  I detailed my distaste for the great and powerful Hearne in a blog piece here a couple years ago, and as I re-read O’Neill’s tripe, I marveled at how these two Juniors both used the same arcane phrases like “Heard on the streets…”, “Inside skinny/scoop”, “In the know…” and “Rumor has it…” so frequently that I began to wonder if they’re not the same person.  And when not-so-sweet Lou’s ego got as big as his fat head, his columns started featuring photos of him taken with various and sundry music and entertainment people, just to enhance his credibility and prove how “hip” he was, as if to say, “Dig me, I had my picture taken with Joan Jett—how do ya like of me now?”  Sorry Lou, a dork is still a dork, no matter whom one poses with.

Anyway, here’s a little compilation of Lou’s gems:

“’Music Must Change’ is sure to be one of the most talked-about Who songs ever recorded.”—Issue # 194, October 17, 1978

Riiiiight.  I’ve never heard all that many jaws flapping over “Music Must Change”, even amongst rank-and-file Who fans like myself.  I always thought it was one of the weaker tracks off Who Are You, and far too many people (music critics, especially) were reading way way way too much into Pete Townshend’s lyrics here, claiming it supposedly signaled some kind of seismic shift in The Who’s sound and/or in Rock music in general.  Keith Moon’s untimely passing right after it came out is merely a coincidence, but some people (O’Neill included) considered MMC to be some sort of premonition of his demise by Townshend, all because Moon didn’t even play on the track.  At most, it was quite possibly The Who’s quirkiest number, and to me it’s simply a footnote in their career instead of a revered classic or turning point.

“We’re calling it his strongest effort since Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  What we’re talking about, of course, is Elton John’s new album, A Single Man.  It’s obvious that the Madman From Across The Water went to the well with this record.  His back was to the wall.  But the really great talents bear down and thrive under this kind of pressure:  Reg Dwight was no exception.  Elton has definitely salvaged a large portion of his cherished “progressive” image with this new album.  It’s a commercial hit!  The single “Part-Time Love” is also climbing the charts”—Issue 203, December 19, 1978

Oh, turn off the hype machine already, Lou!  Chuck the clichés, while you’re at it, too.  And in the words of the dude who Clint Eastwood wanted to make his day in Sudden Impact: “Who is ‘we’, sucka?”  I hated the way this smarmy hack always used “we”, “our” and “in our judgment” to make his column sound like it represented the consensus opinion of the entire Circus staff when it was merely his own personal opinions.

A Single Man was the beginning of E. John’s lost-in-the-wilderness period when he ceased writing with lyricist Bernie Taupin for about three years.  After five prolific years where virtually everything he touched turned to gold and/or platinum, the bottom was bound to fall out sometime, thus by 1977-78, Elton fell and fell hard.  He was also suffering the unfair-yet-predictable backlash for coming out as being gay, which did some major damage to his career for a while.  He even ditched his trademark crazy eyewear in favor of contacts, got his ear pierced and tried to look and act all serious all of a sudden, as the cover photo of ASM makes him look like some snooty aristocrat—a far cry from “Captain Fantastic” three years earlier.  He’d have been better served to just take an extended break from the music biz, but EJ still owed MCA more albums, so onward he trudged, working temporarily with lyricist Gary Osborne.  Meantime, Elton was lashing out in the press at other acts like Jethro Tull and the Moody Blues for putting out contractual obligation albums when all the while he was doing the very same thing!  The man himself has freely admitted what a miserable fuck he was during that time—he was so jaded, bored, drugged-out and burned-out and it’s obvious his heart wasn’t totally in his music at that point.

Getting back to Lou’s commentary:  "Strongest effort since Yellow Brick Road?!?"  Hardly!  Elton’s intervening LPs Captain Fantastic and Rock Of The Westies were as solid as anything else he’d done to that point, and I've always thought Caribou was unfairly drubbed merely because it was such an inevitable letdown after GYBR—a victim of unreasonably-high expectations.  Of his post-Yellow Brick Road studio output up to that point, only Blue Moves proved unsatisfying to me—it was too unfocused and would’ve been better as a single LP instead of a double album laden with throwaway tracks.  A Single Man did contain some good cuts, like “Part-Time Love” and one I thought could’ve been a hit single, “I Don’t Care”.  The best track was the mostly-instrumental “Song For Guy”, which was indeed a song for a guy, but not in the way all the homophobes out there might have you believe—it was about a young man named Guy Burchette, who was a messenger/gopher in Elton’s entourage who was killed in a moped accident.  Still and all, A Single Man wasn’t even as good as Caribou—let alone Yellow Brick Road—and was hardly the blockbuster “commercial hit" that Brother Lou cracked it up to be.  “P/T Love” climbed those charts all the way to #22, btw.  ASM was one of Elton’s more soulless and weaker efforts, IMHO.  Things got worse before they got better for EJ, too—witness the utterly pathetic 1979 disco album Victim Of Love that he pretty much phoned in—and it would be the early ‘80s before that cat named Hercules’ music would once again be relevant.

"Cheap Trick is playing with fire by utilizing pre-recorded tapes in concert.  Ask another big touring band (this one from England) what happens when the word gets out that you can’t perform songs ‘live’ without some help from the friendly Sony tape deck.  And besides it’s deceitful to allow people to think you’re live when in reality, you’re not.  ‘Nuff said.”—Issue #225, July 10, 1979

“’Nuff said” was yet another overused grating/irritating Jr. O’Neill catchphrase.  No doubt he was referring here to The Who’s use of tapes of the synthesizer bits from “Baba O’Riley”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and songs from Quadrophenia, while chastising Cheap Trick for doing the same on “Surrender”.  Wait, it gets better…

“In our last issue we [‘I’?] stated flatly that Cheap Trick is utilizing pre-recorded tapes in concert.  This is incorrect…the truth of the matter is that a Cheap Trick roadie, hiding behind the curtains backstage is actually playing the keyboards…Let’s not split hairs.  CT is not using tapes.  But I [what happened to ‘we’, asshole?] still believe what they’re doing is not kosher.”—Issue # 226, July 24, 1979

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the sound of Lou O’Neill Jr. extricating his foot from his mouth!  Queen always used taped accompaniment for the Scaramouche (sp?)/Galileo section of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the intro to Elton John’s “Funeral For A Friend” was always canned in concert, yet Brother Lou never bitched about that, so why all the fuss about CT?  Who the hell was this wanker to tell a band how to perform in concert anyhow?  Was he a professional musician?  Now I will say that if a band augmented their songs with tapes throughout an entire concert, I might have issues, but for one or two numbers that are especially difficult to reproduce live, who gives a Royal rip?

“The Rolling Stones are working on what probably will be their hottest record ever… Prediction:  The album will not only be the commercial success everyone expects, but will also be hailed as a creative monster.  Keith and Mick are working their magic again and the result is some of the greatest rock you’ll ever hear.  There may be two Number 1 singles on the next Stones LP”— Issue # 230, September 18, 1979

More grist from Lou Jr.’s hype machine.  That would be the fairly putrid Emotional Rescue debacle he refers to here.  Ironic that “She’s So Cold” was the only true standout track on such a “hot” album, and there weren’t no #1’s on it either.  Okay, the title track got to # 3, but it's not all that fondly-remembered amongst Stones fans.  Apart from their consistently-lame live albums, Rescue may well have been the biggest flop in the Stones’ career.  Lou’s prognostications had all the accuracy of Dubya’s WMD intelligence info.  Please witness the following, as well…

“One cut [from Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk] that’s gotta be a single…is Lindsey Buckingham’s ‘Not That Funny.’ The tune can’t miss…”—Issue #234, November 27, 1979

Well, it did.  “Not That Funny” even managed to live up to its title, too…

“It saddens and sickens us to see one of our all-time favorite bands sell out for the lure of corporate money”—Issue #276, February 28, 1983, in regards to The Who’s 1982 “Farewell” tour.

Uhhh, as if the Stones were any better?  And again, there’s that “us” and “our” crap.  Again, I can’t stand it when scribes try to make their personal opinions sound like those of the entire publication they’re printed in.  It’s just phony pompous grandstanding in my book.  It’s true that Pete Townshend was a money-grubber in the ‘80s, and I too, could’ve done without the Schlitz logos everywhere on that 1982 Who tour.  But you know what?  The man has been extremely generous in donating his money and time to major charities, like the Secret Policeman's Ball and Teenage Cancer Trust, among others.  Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend is a lot of things, but he's certainly no Montgomery Burns.

Meantime, O’Neill also had this annoying habit of alluding to people in his little blurbs (usually under the heading “Inside Stuff or Secret Stuff”) without naming names, as if we readers could easily decipher whom he meant.  For example:  “A major label is very unhappy with its continuing large losses at a certain high-profile subsidiary.  The ax-man is honing the blade right now.”  Okay, Lou, care to elaborate a little more?  Some 33 years later, I STILL don’t know who he was referring to here.  What’s worse is he rarely, if ever, bothered to follow-up on any of these non-sequiturs in future issues.

To sum up,:  just as with Hearne Christopher’s “Cowtown Confidential” column in the Star, Lou O’Neill, Jr.’s “Back Pages” column was the epitome of vapidity.

CRITICAL MASS IGNORANCE
Another example of why I view music critics merely as a subhuman species:

“The kids who are buying the album on the strength of ‘You Really Got Me’ won’t be disappointed even though the rest of the songs suffer by comparison.”—Dr. Oldie & Big Al, Issue 185, July 6, 1978, in their review of Van Halen’s classic debut album

First off, why does it take TWO people to review a record?  Secondly, WTF?!?  “The rest of the songs suffer by comparison”?  Which Van Halen album were these stoners listening to?  Surely not the one containing “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, “Jamie’s Cryin’”, “Runnin’ With The Devil”, “Atomic Punk”, “On Fire” and “I’m The One”.  That album rocks from start to finish and is one of the greatest debut sets in Rock history.  You can bet these same two doofuses (doofi?) were just raving about the latest Elvis Costello album at the time.  As David Lee Roth himself accurately pointed out at the time, “The reason music critics like Elvis Costello so much is because most of them look like him…”

And here’s another…

“There is, though, one song that doesn’t work.  It’s glaringly weak and its position (next to last) gives it away.  Seemingly given the least attention, even synthesizers and a pounding sledgehammer beat can’t save “All My Love”.  Plant’s vocals don’t strain or even reach, and there’s nothing to distinguish the song from a product of other rock groups.”—Shel Kagan, Issue # 230, September 18, 1979, in his review of Led Zeppelin’s In Through The Out Door

Hmmm, then why was this the most-frequently played track off ITTOD, Shel, baby?  While not one of my big fave Zep tracks, it sure sounded like a hit to me for being so “glaringly weak”.

DRIBS & DRABS
Other misc. caca from the annals of Circus…

“But I won’t be part of an assembly-line show like Kirshner or ‘Midnight Special’ that’s going to put me on in front of a band like Kiss.  The whole thing’s shoddy, and I’m not going to identify myself with acts like that.  I’m not going on with the giant letters B-I-L-L-Y in back of me, or with the ‘Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert’ logo…it’s not the Kirshner rock concert…if I’m out there, it’s the Billy Joel rock concert.”—Billy Joel, Issue 200, November 28, 1978, on his reluctance to do TV appearances in the pre-MTV days

Bill, I believe you are killing me!  Being the card-carrying Kiss fan I was at the time, I was majorly offended by “I’m not going to identify myself with acts like that.”  Okay, in 2011 I can kinda see his point—Billy’s hardly a spectacle-type performer, and I respect that—but back then it came off to me as such an elitist put-down of my favorite band, and I took it wrong.  Because of this quote, it would be a couple more years before I finally warmed up to Mr. Piano Man’s music and truly embraced him.

The recently-departed Mr. Kirshner didn’t get no love from The Cars, either:  They turned down “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert”, according to Ric Ocasek, “because we couldn’t stand his fucking introductions.”—Issue # 229, September 4, 1979

They also passed on appearing on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” for similar reasons:  “they didn’t like the show.”  Gotta admire their honesty, if nothing else…

One rather curious item I found in Circus was an advert for a special edition Kiss issue—published by Creem magazine!  Why on earth would you accept advertisements from your direct competition?!?  Burger King sure doesn’t hype Big Macs, now do they?  Very strange…

In a feature about Styx (Issue # 235, December 11, 1979) Circus publicly outed bassist Chuck Panozzo about 22 years before he did so himself with a caption under his photo that read, “Panozzo’s dark looks can mask his gayer moods…”  Nice job, Circus, I bet that just made CP’s day to see this in a national magazine while he was still struggling internally with his sexual identity.  I just found this rather odd because it was so out of step with the article in the first place.  I highly recommend Chuck’s otto-biography, The Grand Illusion: Love, Lies, and My Life With Styx, by the way—interesting stuff, not only about him, but the band, as well.

From the Strange Bedfellows Dept.:  Issue #243, May 27, 1980, featured this photo featuring (L-R), Rick Derringer, Edgar Winter, Andy Warhol, Ted Nugent and—keep your smelling salts handy—Truman Capote!  And Nugent has his arm around the latter, too, as he gazes longingly at Warhol!  I always thought Theodocious Atrocious didn’t play for that team!  And I'm clueless as to what event brought these five together in the first place.

From letter-writer D.W. in Pittsburgh in Issue #245, July 22, 1980:  “There’s no excuse for [David Lee] Roth’s sickening arrogance and constant use of four-letter words. He needs lessons in manners, maturity and class.”
Uhhh, D-Dub, this is Rock ‘N’ Roll, not the Christian Science Reading Room, bud…

In an ad for Import LPs on sale, Black Sabbath’s Live At Last, their legendary ode to marijuana “Sweet Leaf” was listed as “Sweet Lease”!  Good ol’ Ozzy and Geezer were really into rental properties in those days…

Issue #254, April 30, 1981, did a feature entitled, “The fiery return of The Who” in regards to the quite flaccid Face Dances album.  Apart from John Entwistle’s contributions “The Quiet One” and “You”, the majorly disappointing Face Dances had all the spark and flame of a Zamfir album.  Chalk that feature title up to the Circus hype machine.  It’s no small coincidence that you can’t spell Face Dances without ‘feces’!  I hereby quoth the “Men on Film” boys:  “HATED IT!”

Issue # 256, June 30, 1981 had a bit on Ted Nugent’s new backing band, the D.C. (Detroit City) Hawks, which already featured three lead guitar players.  “Some fuckin’ SWAT team, ain’t they?” Ted mused in his inimitably humble manner.  Three guitarists plus Nugent—can you say OVERKILL?  Ted quickly learned that bigger isn’t necessarily better, and by 1982, he wisely welcomed back his original singer/guitarist Derek St. Holmes and also added journeyman drummer Carmine Appice to his band.

Issue # 273, November 30, 1982:  Circus printed a list of “10 records to shun at any cost” and one of them was Motorhead’s classic Ace Of Spades.  But in the same article, they urged readers to rush out and nab those latest Gino Vannelli and Gary Numan releases.  Surely they jest(ed)!  Even dumber, Ace Of Spades wasn’t even Motorhead’s current release—it was already two years old by then and Lemmy and the boys had put out two subsequent albums by late ’82.

"Send In The Clowns"--An ersatz tribute to 'Circus' magazine

Okay, I lied, I decided to get off my ass and post something new here after all!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m currently in the process of going through my personal archives, inventorying old belongings, purging stuff and reorganizing the rest, which includes the old Rock ‘N’ Roll periodicals I used to collect.  Circus magazine, “The Leading Rock & Roll Bi-Weekly”, and/or “The Voice of American Youth” as they alternately dubbed themselves, is the one I read the most (along with Creem and Hit Parader, to a lesser extent), and it was my primary source for Rock news and music features back in the day.  I bought my first copy of Circus in the summer of ’76 when I first got into Kiss and spotted Gene Simmons’ tongue on the front cover, and was a regular reader until the nether end of the ‘80s when Circus featured nothing but hair bands ad nauseam and ceased writing about under-the-radar musicians like Nick Lowe, John Hiatt and Dave Edmunds like they used to.  Thumbing through these old issues here lately has brought back a ton of memories, which I will share here (in no particular order)…

CONCERT GUIDE  Circus featured a Concert Guide in each issue with the latest tour dates for every major group/artist.  And I do mean EVERY group or artist—along with the usual suspects like Aerosmith, Z.Z. Top and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Circus also included listings for people they never even featured in the magazine, like Waylon Jennings, Steeleye Span (who?) and Shirley Bassey (WTF?!?).  Predictably, the guide was usually very inaccurate and already outdated by the time each issue hit your newsstand.  The funniest part was how these editor clowns constantly mangled the names of the event venues in their listings.  Kansas City concert-goers supposedly went somewhere called “Chief Stadium”, there was a “San Diego Coliseum” (aka, San Diego Sports Arena) and a “Ridgefield Stadium” near Cleveland, better known as Richfield Coliseum, former home of the Cleveland Cadavers.  Toronto had a “C&E Coliseum” and Vancouver had a “P&E Coliseum” (to wit, CNE and PNE, respectively) and Seattle’s new domed stadium at the time was listed as just plain “Dome Stadium”.  But my favorite bon mot of all was Chicago’s “Kaminsky Park”, home of the White Sox!  Renamed for Electric Light Orchestra’s Mik Kaminsky, I suppose.  In addition, in 1978, the Concert Guide had some intrepid upstart band called Van Halen listed alphabetically under 'H'!  I give Circus an A for effort, but it was a bit lacking, all the same.

LETTERS  The Letters column in Circus was almost a forerunner of today’s Internet message boards/forums as it was a breeding ground for the never-ending pissing matches between Kiss and Aerosmith fans, not to mention the snoody Prog. Rock fans who looked down their noses at those same Kiss and Aerosmith fans and acted as if they were better than everyone else just because Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, et al, were all such virtuoso musicians.  I’m already on record here about my distaste for much of ‘70s Progressive Rock—I found a lot of it to be cold, overblown, soulless and downright boring—give me Black Oak Arkansas any day over that pretentious lot!  At least Jim Dandy and the boys were fun to listen to, which is often far more important to me than musical virtuosity when it comes to Rock ‘N’ Roll, but I digress…

I’m really kinda stunned at some of the stuff Circus actually accepted from readers and printed in the Letters section, like the following classic from Tony in Stirling, Ontario:  I would like to tell you that your column “Into Your Head” is a ridiculous waste of space. Who the hell is interested in some crazy bopper’s sexual hang-ups? You’re supposed to be a music magazine. Also, I just want to say that I think Elton John is a fag, and the Beach Boys suck.

Classy guy.  I’m real curious to see what all they edited out from Tony’s original letter!  Letters like this one really have no place in a first-class national periodical, but oddly enough, Tony was right on all three counts—Sir Elton is indeed a homosexual, the Beach Boys pretty much did suck in the ‘70s minus Brian Wilson, and “Into Your Head” fit in Circus magazine about as well as a nun at a frat party.  IYH was a Dear Abby-esque advice column compiled by some psychiatrist hack who seemingly got his degree from Hazzard County A&M.  One of the correspondents to his column had issues with “fagits”, whatever those are...

Here’s another gem of a letter from Issue #150, February 28, 1977 by Stephen from Mississauga, ON:  In regards to John Casale’s letter in CIRCUS, which insinuates that Freddie Mercury is queer, sorry to disappoint you fella, but I am now going to quote from the book ‘The Queen Story’ by George Tremlett, renowned rock biographer.  "No one could be more heterosexual than Mercury, who had been living with his girlfriend Mary Austin…"  So go back to your Bowies and Jaggers and leave Fred alone ‘cause you’re barking up the wrong tree!

Fella?!?  How gay is that? Excuse me, fella, but both you and the book author were shoveling more bullshit than highway workers in the wake of an overturned manure truck.  And as we all know from our homework, Freddie Mercury was most decidedly gay, and hardly tried to hide it.  Mary Austin was indeed a longtime girl friend and confidant of Fred’s but she was never his girlfriend.  He half-heartedly tried to make it appear that way to get the press off his tail, but everyone knew he was busy with X-number of boys of his own…

In a semi-related item in the same issue, Ed from Bloomsburg, PA chastises Robert Duncan (whom I chastise below here) for a feature he did on the just-released Led Zeppelin concert flick in which he (for some bizarre reason) referred to Robert Plant’s talleywhacker several times:  ...since you have an obsession to keep mentioning Robert Plant’s cock so many times dealing with movie sequences, you should have entitled the article '"The Dong Remains The Same.''

Friggin’ brilliant!

A Kansas City letter-writer, Clare, ripped Ted Nugent a pretty good one following a 1977 article in which Nuge—true-to-form—bragged on himself a bit too much about his appearance at Arrowhead Stadium in ‘76:  First of all, he didn’t break any attendance records here in K.C. that I know of.  The 41,000 people came, for the most part, to see REO Speedwagon because they have been K.C. favorites for years.  A lot of people including myself left midway through Nugent’s set.  Ted also boasts that “police received complaints [about the noise] from people 15 miles away.”  Because of that, stadium concerts were almost banned here…He has blown it for himself because he will never play an outdoor concert here again.

I think that whole “15 miles away” business is a pure B.S. urban legend that Ted chose to create.  We lived five miles from the Truman Sports Complex and I never heard a thing.  And Nugent has indeed played outdoors in K.C. several times since then, including my first major Rock concert at Arrowhead in ’79, at which I was rather miffed and disappointed with the lack of volume—the powers-that-be obviously made Ted turn it down a bit by that time.

ALBUM REVIEWS  And then there were the atrocious album reviews.  It was through these often-pompous, condescending, sarcastic and grating reviews (as well as those found in Rolling Stone, which were ten times worse) that I developed my healthy long-standing loathing of Rock music critics.  And just as with today’s ESPN-dominated sports media, there clearly was/is a definite East Coast bias amongst these critics.  Everything the Ramones, Patty Smith, J. Geils Band or Bruce Springsteen ever did was the cat’s ass with these schmucks, but except for Cheap Trick and a scant few others, most Midwestern and Southern acts like Styx, REO Speedwagon, Kansas or Z.Z. Top never got a fair shake from these assholes.  Some reviews were so overblown and snarky that the reviewer (Lester Bangs, atten-shun!) would prattle on for ten paragraphs about totally unrelated crap before finally getting around to talking about the record he/she was reviewing.  Some never even mentioned the LP in question at all!  I much prefer a track-by-track analysis over three columns of unnecessary (and usually unrelated) prose in an album review.

The single-most asinine album review I’ve ever read appeared in Issue 138 of Circus, August 24, 1976, Robert Duncan’s hatchet-job of the Kiss classic Destroyer, in which he proclaimed “The new Kiss album stinks.” Yes, I know opinions are like assholes and all, but this review was such utter stoat excrement, and it was blatantly obvious that Duncan’s sole purpose was to mock the band just to make Aerosmith’s Rocks look that much better in the same review.  Personally, I think Toys In The Attic was the far superior Aerosmith platter compared to Rocks, but that’s just me.  What I never got is how the critics ripped the first three Kiss albums because they sounded too amateur-ish, yet here they came along with a very slick and sophisticated record, and the critics still ripped it to shreds anyway.  I maintain to this day that Destroyer is Kiss’s finest hour in the recording studio, and it remains my second favorite Kiss album of all-time, right behind Kiss Alive!

Anyway, check out a couple more of Duncan’s witticisms here:

In "King Of The Nighttime World", they have this little bastard kid talking in the background as if Kiss themselves were unable to relate any more to what a drag it is living at home.

Uhhh, Bobbo, there are no children talking in KOTNW.  No doubt, the little bastard kid he refers to is the one who appears on the following track, “God Of Thunder” (producer Bob Ezrin’s son, to be exact), and he wasn’t relating to what a drag it is living at home, either.  Evidently, Duncan Donut was too stoned here to know what song he was reviewing.

In "Shout It Loud" [sic], they have a grand piano playing the descending riff, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, the grand piano is an acoustic instrument!

Wow, what a shocking revelation this was!  And guess what, Bob—I have actual photos Kiss without their make-up on!  Was it some sort of unpardonable sin for an acoustic instrument to appear on a Kiss album?  This certainly wasn’t a new phenomenon—they had previously utilized acoustic guitars on both “Black Diamond” and “Rock Bottom”, not to mention another piano on “Nothin’ To Lose”.

As one might expect, this thing instigated a lot of tongue-wagging in the Kiss/Aerosmith pissing match forum, but letter-writer Holly from Joliet, IL probably summed it up best in a later issue:  “All I can say is this Robert Duncan is so full of shit he can’t hear the records he reviews.”

I do realize all this analysis and hair-splitting on my part is 35 years too late and fairly pointless, but I didn’t have a blog in ’76, and besides, I love doing shit like this!  Duncan authored a similarly-scathing review of Love Gun in ’77 that I thought was uncalled-for.  What cheeses me off is this is the same man who authored (and I assume made money off of) a suck-up biography book about Kiss in the fall of ‘76.

MISCELLANEOUS  The full-page album ads (especially for Kiss) were often highlights of each issue of Circus.  I especially liked the ones that said “Alive II is coming…”…Circus ill-advisedly tried to get into the socio-political and culture realm for a brief time by featuring non-music people like Caroline Kennedy, The Fonz and Chevy Chase on their covers, but a fair amount of backlash from readers quashed all that in a hurry…I remember how Circus made a major effort to hype two bands who had Kiss connections that are now long-forgotten, Angel and Starz.  The all-white-clad Angel were label mates of Kiss on Casablanca Records, and featured one Punky Meadows on guitar and another guitarist named Greg Giuffria, whose self-named band had some success in the mid-'80s (with a little help from G. Simmons).  Angel had a cool logo that looks the same when viewed upright or upside down, but they never really went anywhere.  Same goes for Starz, who were stable mates of Kiss at Rock Steady Productions.  Mostly style over substance, I think.  Yet another Casablanca act, The Godz, suffered a similar fate, although Rock Steady did produce a promising band called Piper that featured a young hot-shot singer-guitarist named Billy Squier…I’ve found it rather fun to go back and read stuff about bands that I really dig now whom I ignored, overlooked or just plain dismissed back then like Rush, The Band, Rainbow and Aerosmith…Circus was good as misidentifying songs and people over the years, like when Cheap Trick’s perennial concert closer “Goodnight Now” was labeled “Good-Bye There”, the album released by the The Doors featuring Jim Morrison's poetry was An American Dream instead of An American Prayer in Circus, and in a 1981 feature on Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Rudy Sarzo was referred to in the photo caption merely as “Rudy from Cuba”.  Sarzo himself was quite miffed over this in his autobiography book.  When Circus reviewed Z.Z. Top’s Eliminator in ’83, they inexplicably titled it Destroyer!...Photographs were often reversed in Circus, like in the 1976 feature about Black Sabbath and Nugent in concert together where Ted is depicted as a lefty guitarist and southpaw Tony Iommi is shown as a righty in the same spread!  It also wasn’t uncommon to see Paul Stanley’s star over his left eye…

I found the following quote rather fascinating:  “This is the Rock & Roll album of the year, my friends…It’s a son of a bitch.”—Frank Zappa (Issue #138, August 24, 1976, regarding Grand Funk Railroad’s Good Singin’, Good Playin’, which he produced)

THE Frank Zappa?!?  Anti-establishment Frank Zappa?  Funny-looking moustache Frank Zappa?  Father of Dweezil and Moon Unit Frank Zappa?  Talk about strange bedfellows—I never knew about this unholy alliance before now.  I just can’t fathom Mr. Avant-garde/Anti-establishment/corporate music-hating Frank Zappa producing a commercial Arena Rock band like Grand Funk!  I have yet to actually hear this LP (which was GFR’s debut on MCA after Capitol Records let them go), thus I can’t speak to the quality of it, but I do know that it didn’t fare well at all and Grand Funk were sadly already on the downside of their career by then.  As for Zappa, he never struck me as being such a chest-thumper, either.  Sorry, Frank, but I gotta give Album of the Year for ’76 to Destroyer.

Circus was published from 1966 to 2006, and I read it regularly from '76 through about '88 or so when it devolved into a shell of what it once was.  The album reviews—crappy as they were—were reduced to little drive-by short-attention-span blurbs, the feature articles on the bands were all-hype and no substance, and the rest of the mag featured nothing but full-page photos of Poison, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Def Leppard and Whitesnake, et al. I swear, they used the same in-concert photo of Motley Crue’s Vince Neil in three straight issues at one point!  It was at this point that Rock ‘N' Roll started circling the drain anyway, with the impending Grunge malaise, so it’s probably just as well.  I’m still perusing the old issues currently, and if I find some more juicy quotes and oddities, they might make it into a future post here.  Meantime, I found an interesting Circus tribute site should you desire further background.