Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 153

U2 welcomes in 'New Year's Day'

Under a blood red sky....the original vid.

Wake Up and Fight

So ends a list of 33 New Year's Resolutions from the great Woody Guthrie.  Here are others (go here to see all plus ones from Jonathan Swift, Susan Sontag, Marilyn Monroe):

Work more and betterWork by a scheduleWash teeth if anyEat good — fruit — vegetables — milkDrink very scant if anyWrite a song a dayWear clean clothes — look goodRead lots good booksListen to radio a lotLearn people betterKeep rancho cleanDont get lonesomeStay gladKeep hoping machine runningDream goodBank all extra moneyHave company but dont waste timeSend Mary and kids moneyPlay and sing goodDance betterHelp win war — beat fascismLove mamaLove papaLove PeteLove everybodyMake up your mindWake up and fight

Saturnalia

You really can't beat photo compilations of drive-by shootings of Saturn,  its famojs rings, and its many moons, and now there's a new one to gawk at.  Who knew that even some of its moons have moons.

Hank's Last Ride

Every year at this time I mark the last ride of Hank Williams, in reality the first rock 'n roll star, which started about now at very end of 1952--meaning this is the 61th  anniversary.  Meaning he could still be alive at 90 today.   Imagine songs we lost.  And yes, there was a recent failed flick titled "The Last Ride," starring...Henry Thomas of E.T. fame, no less.  Trailer for that below. Then there's great Emmylou version of the final ride, "Rollin' and Ramblin'."   And classic Waylon Jennngs, "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?"  And Tim Hardin's "Goodbye Hank Williams."

Football at Ground Zero

Don't miss: My story at The Nation on wildest football game ever: the "Atom Bowl," on New Year's Day, in Nagasaki, 1946, played right on a killing field.  With star players from the U.S.   From my book, Atomic Cover-up .   Excerpt:  "More than 2000 turned out to watch. A band played the fight song, “On Wisconsin!” The rules were changed from tackle to two-hand touch because of all the glass shards remaining on the turf. Press reports the next day claimed some Japanese observed the game—from the shells of blasted-out buildings nearby."

Greatest Beatles Performance Ever?

So claims writer at The Atlantic today, citing (and re-playing) a seven-song live set for Swedish radio in October 1963, before they came to USA.  Here's a highlight (and soon they would be rolling in "Money"):

TV or Not TV

Our cat Zoe tries to join her brothers and sisters beyond the TV screen..

You Can't Beat Bo

Sure, plenty of rock 'n roll pioneers gave us unique songs and stylings but how many invented a drum beat heard in hundreds of hits since? That would be Bo Diddley, so let's celebrate his birthday with early Stones version of "Not Fade Away."  Bonus coverage: Buddy Holly's version.

Happy Birthday, Patti

Patti Smith turns 67 (!) today. So, looking back:  It was 1975.  Patti had just started recording with Lenny Kaye and her original band but her first album, Horses, would not be released until the end of that year. But I'd followed her work for several years and felt certain she was about to break through.

The article—which she gave me over coffee in a shop that used to exist just below our Crawdaddy office at 13th Street and Fifth Avenue (which we later turned over to The Nation)—was titled "Flying Saucers Rock and Roll." It recalled her childhood in New Jersey and then the move to New York City where she experienced Jimi Hendrix, and met Mapplethorpe in 1967.

You can read most of it here. One passage, more evocative than ever given the period covered in her (now) award-winning memoir, follows. (For more Crawdaddy fun from that era, see excerpt from my ebook on Kurt Vonnegut.)

Destiny plagued me. I never slept, I laid, and watched the night unravel like the future. Music crystallized like snowflakes; gradually the entire storm. Guitar necks sticking out of the ground like bayonets. The war between sounds. Alexander coming to conquer with a fender and a saucer. I knew it was coming and I wanted to be in on it. I knew it came and went and I wasn't in on it.

I was at this party. All I knew was James Brown and somebody put on "Third Stone from the Sun." Everybody was looking at me, so I pulled out my whistle, the one shaped like a cigar with black pick-ups. By the end of "Foxy Lady" it was pure amp damage. They were banging their pates into the plaster but I was laughing hysterically. The ones who ripped their wigs fascinated me the most, to watch these bald and slick comet shapes rushing the walls. It reminded me of something, but I was too giddy to get my mind shining. I wasn't in on it, wasn't in on it, I couldn't stand it. I wasn't born to be a spectator.

It was 1966 '67 '68. Every place I went it was somebody else. I could-not-live-today. Too plugged into sanguine rhythms past and the silver video we call future. Here I come future, coming to get ya. I see it all moving on an immense yellow highway. They come on like trumpets and violins—cars, armies of cars that move off the ground, glowing cigar shapes, and the radio just pumps like a fist. Brick roads, turnpikes, they drive me insane 'cause I can see what's coming. ELP, ELO, nothing real 'cept UFO. Got to be royal rock warfare cause it's sitting in limbo. Not what was and not what will be. Rock got to move out of its stagnant moment. Pray for something bubbling under the sky's canopy to rip open and rush like gas.

Photo of the Day

Continuing my Photo of the Day selections from my portfolio...see more here.

"St. Francis Church, Taos, New Mexico" (made famous by Georgia O'Keeffe, Paul Strand, Ansel Adams)