Dean Goodman's Blog, page 6
June 19, 2016
Free Rolling Stones tickets in Seattle . . .
… As long as you were a parent accompanying your screaming teen to the Stones’ Emerald City debut on Dec. 2, 1965. The oldsters were placed in a special section, and got to hear Mick, Keith and the boys play such “new” tunes as “That’s How Strong My Love Is” and “Mercy Mercy,” which fans would kill to be able to hear these days.
###
There’s one in every crowd:
###
“It was a nice concert”:
###
NOTE: Completely related to the above post, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here
. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 2016 by Dean Goodman.
The post Free Rolling Stones tickets in Seattle . . . appeared first on Dean Goodman.
Free Rolling Stones tickets in Seattle
… for the Stones’ first visit to Seattle, on Dec. 2, 1965 … As long as you were a parent accompanying your screaming teen.
###
There’s one in every crowd:
###
“It was a nice concert”:
###
NOTE: Completely related to the above post, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 2016 by Dean Goodman.
The post Free Rolling Stones tickets in Seattle appeared first on Dean Goodman.
June 3, 2016
Prince: “I don’t believe in contracts”
Prince answers my question – “One” – after I asked him how many albums he would record under his new deal
It took me a while to find this report that I wrote after attending a small press gathering with Prince at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on December 13, 2005. I think it was the only time I got up close and personal with him. He looked exquisite, like a beautifully crafted artwork. He had just signed a new deal with Universal Records.
I asked him a few questions at the outset, and got a laugh with my first one:
YOU ONCE LABELED YOUR TIME AT WARNER BROS. AS SLAVERY. WHY ARE YOU JUMPING ABOARD THE BIGGEST SLAVE SHIP OF THEM ALL?
I don’t consider Universal a slave ship, first of all. Mostly the situation with Universal is similar to the one with Sony insomuch as that I give my own agreement. It wasn’t a contract. I don’t believe in contracts. I did my own agreement without the help of a lawyer and sat down and got exactly what I wanted to accomplish, the goals that I am trying to accomplish.
DID YOU SIGN ANY PIECE OF PAPER AT ALL WITH UNIVERSAL? OR IS THIS A HANDSHAKE DEAL?
Basically a handshake deal. But we do sign some agreements to ensure that business gets accomplished. I would challenge all artists, before they get into these agreements, to sit down and actually ask that every one of these things be explained to them, like free goods clauses, and digital rights, and ownership of masters, and that type of thing.
HOW LONG IS THE CONTRACT FOR? HOW MANY RECORDS?
[He held up his index finger to signify one.]
He did not say very much after that, and I loudly pronounced the evening rush-hour trip to be a waste of time. Anyway, re-reading my brief story, is it any surprise that he died without a will? He took DIY to unfortunate extremes. His disdain for legal formalities now means that lawyers will make a killing off his estate. This is the story I wrote.
PRINCE NEGOTIATES OWN DEAL WITH UNIVERSAL MUSIC
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop iconoclast Prince, who spent years clashing with the music establishment, has signed a recording deal with the world’s largest record company, proudly noting on Tuesday that he wrote up his own agreement without legal advice.
Universal Music Group will release his next album, “3121,” sometime next year through its Universal Records imprint, the parties said. A videoclip for the first single, the Latin-soaked ballad “Te Amo Corazon” (I love you, sweetheart), was released Tuesday, and shown to journalists at a news conference in a Beverly Hills hotel room.
Prince, 47, showed up briefly, accompanied by Argentine actress Mia Maestro, who stars in the clip.
His last album, 2004’s “Musicology,” was distributed by Sony BMG Music’s Columbia Records label, and given away free to fans who attended his comeback tour that year.
Most of his albums, beginning with his 1978 debut “For You,” were released by Warner Bros. Records, and the partnership produced such groundbreaking works as 1984’s “Purple Rain” and 1987’s “Sign O’ The Times.”
But Prince fell out with the label by the early 1990s, complaining that it could not accommodate his prolific output. He performed with the word “SLAVE” scrawled across his cheek, and his career waned as he went to such bizarre lengths as changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol. After splitting with Warner Bros. in 1996, he went the independent route, and distributed some albums through his Web site, selling a fraction of what he did during his heyday.
His deal with Universal covers one album only, he said at the news conference. He declined to discuss the financial terms other than to say, “They’re great.”
He said it was “basically a handshake deal” since he does not believe in contracts.
“I did my own agreement without the help of a lawyer and sat down and got exactly what I wanted,” he said, subsequently clarifying that some agreements were signed “to ensure that business gets accomplished.”
A statement announcing the Universal deal said Prince would return to the road next year. He declined to offer any specifics about the tour or the album, but said the new single was not indicative of the album’s overall sound.
###
NOTE: Unrelated to the above story, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 2016 by Dean Goodman. PLEASE DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THE WHOLE THING
The post Prince: “I don’t believe in contracts” appeared first on Dean Goodman.
May 19, 2016
Ahmet vs. Dweezil Zappa
Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa, in 1993 (Photo: Steve Appleford, originally published in Strobe magazine)
It’s sad to see the two sons of Frank Zappa engaging in a bitterly public battle over money and birthright. The New York Times in April, sparking an open letter from Ahmet to his older brother, and an angry response from Dweezil. Frank must be spinning in his unmarked grave in Westwood, although his estate planning and marital choice could have been more rigorous.
I interviewed the brothers in July 1993, at Joe’s Garage, the Zappas’ recording studio underneath the Burbank Airport flight path in North Hollywood. Under the moniker of “Z,” the brothers had just recorded an album called Shampoohorn, which I vaguely recall was pretty good, although it didn’t have any commercial success. (Z also included bassist Scott Thunes and guitarist Mike Keneally). I must dust it off one of these days.
Dweezil, 23 at the time of the interview, was already a guitar virtuoso; Ahmet, 19, was happy to be along for the ride. Dweezil was serious and shy; Ahmet was an extroverted jokester. Frank was still alive; he succumbed to prostate cancer just over four months later, aged 52.
This is the story, which was written for an alternative music magazine called Strobe, which I helped fund in exchange for the meaningless title of associate publisher (and I also did a version for Reuters):
” … the Brady Bunch is a screwed-up, dysfunctional family, compared to the Zappas, who live in apparent complete harmony and mutual affection.”
Anyway I dug up the transcript, and here are some edited highlights. I should supply some context. It was a fairly raucous interview, and we were all so much younger and sillier then.
HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE AND CONTRAST YOUR PERSONALITIES?
AHMET: He has ‘loser’ stamped on his forehead, while I walk around with sheer godliness, when I’m walking in the street, people throw rocks and garbage. But if you look beyond that I’m such a swell guy whereas Dweezil, he can only do interviews. After that he can’t speak because he’s afraid of it.
WHO HAS THE BETTER LUCK WITH WOMEN?
AHMET: What are you talking about? What are women? Are those the things you can beat up?
DWEEZIL: We have different perspectives on the reason to be involved with women.
AHMET: He doesn’t go out so he doesn’t ever get to meet anybody.
DWEEZIL: I’m antisocial.
AHMET: He’s consequently lonely 24 hours a day.
DWEEZIL: No, I have many other things to do with my life than get involved with people for no apparent reason. I’m very picky when it comes to getting involved with females. They have to be very specific. Each person I’ve ever been out with is totally different, mind you. There has to be something unique and interesting.
AHMET: It’s like a stamp of quality basically, a seal of approval.
DWEEZIL: It’s just because I can’t be bothered to waste my time with something that is not going to be totally interesting. I’ll do other things until there’s somebody that’s worth checking out. I rarely go out and do anything, and if I do end up getting involved with someone it’s by some elaborate scheme that I create. I’m a total hypocrite because certain things apply certain days and certain things don’t apply here. They just change back and forth. I’ve had a couple (of relationships) that were over a year but that was a long time ago. I haven’t had much luck in sustaining a relationship most recently because I’ve been really busy, and I’ve chosen to get involved with people who don’t even live in the same cities, so I rarely see them. I pretty much stick to recording right now.
AHMET: I really don’t have a specific lifestyle. The only thing I like to do when I am working — which is a brand new thing for me now, so I don’t know whether I can adjust other than the fact that I’m home now and seem to fit right back into my normal lazy habits. All I ever do is go and have dinner and go to the movies, and occasionally go dancing or something like that.
DWEEZIL: I have no reason to leave my house just yet. My car is 5 years old and just went and did 30,000 miles the other day. In L.A. you put that amount of mileage on it in a year. I can be in the studio 15-20 hours a day every day and I would be happy. I have a lot of things going on in my head, basically, and I need to get them on tape or do whatever the hell I want. I’m fortunate enough to be able to do that because if I didn’t have a chance to record this stuff when I want to record, I’d probably be really annoyed. I can’t sleep [when he has so many songs going around in his head].
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR WORK ETHIC?
AHMET: Work ethic? If I can wake up like at 8 o’clock then I feel pretty darn good about myself and I can think about maybe accomplishing something. But invariably (that’s) like a leap year basically. That’s how often it happens.
WHAT IS YOUR AVERAGE DAY?
DWEEZIL (TO AHMET): “You wake up when you wake up, man. You get as much sleep as you need.” He doesn’t have a schedule to adhere to, so he does whatever he pleases.
AHMET: I don’t really have a set thing that I want to do, so I don’t really have a schedule. But I would like to. The only thing that I’ve started to do now, which I’m sure will take up lots of my time, I’ve been going through commando training, just learning self-defense and things like that. I have no one to defend myself against, but I think it’s necessary. It gets my aggression out.
DWEEZIL: For me I try to accomplish things on a daily or weekly basis. I don’t like to waste time because who the fuck knows what the world’s going to be like?
ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
DWEEZIL: There are so few people who do their job properly in this world. Nobody has any pride in what they do anymore, it’s all such a fucking lazy work ethic on so many people’s part, and the entertainment industry is just pathetic because no one wants to stick their neck out for the little guy. No one knows if this will do well, but they’ll ride around on the coattails of someone bigger. It’s so rare that someone is given an opportunity. That’s the problem that we have is we’re on an independent label and have to do everything for ourselves. A lot of people know our last name. They know something about us, or a little bit about who we are or whatever, but they don’t know our music and they don’t get a chance to hear our music because nobody plays us on the radio, because we don’t play those fucking games where it’s the nightmare corruption of American radio or worldwide radio.
Ultimately we’re doing stuff that we hope will entertain people. We don’t have an attitude of ‘We’re the greatest songwriters in the world and dig how pretentious we are,’ because that’s the most hateful thing I can imagine.
AHMET: We fucking hate people like that. They should be stomped out.
DWEEZIL: We just want to be able to earn a living doing something that we like to do, because life should be enjoyed, y’know? It’s a fucking nightmare if you can’t do what you want to do. You’ve just got to work really hard to make people pay attention.
FAMILY
DWEEZIL: The main thing is that if we like something and he [Frank] doesn’t like it, we are not going to change it. He comes from a different opinion.
WHY DO YOU SEEM SO NORMAL?
AHMET: There was no reason to rebel against anything.
DWEEZIL: We all have a sense of who we are and what we want to be individually. There are a lot of dysfunctional families out there, we just happened to get lucky and not have one.
We basically disassociate ourselves from any big group or crowd of people. If there’s some one particular thing that’s really widely recognized or popularized by a certain opinion, it’s guaranteed that in our house we absolutely despise that. Everything that is ultra-popular cannot even be tolerated in our house. We find interesting things in stuff that other people overlook. We operate on a different frequency than other families.
FRANK’S BEST ADVICE?
AHMET: Don’t stick the knife into the toaster.
DWEEZIL: As far as music goes, write music that you like.
AHMET: Don’t be a jerk unless you get paid lots of money to be a jerk.
###
NOTE: Unrelated to the above interview, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 1993, 2016 by Dean Goodman. PLEASE DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THE WHOLE THING.
The post Ahmet vs. Dweezil Zappa appeared first on Dean Goodman.
January 7, 2016
David Bowie: The Brixton Years
David Bowie fell to Earth 69 years ago today, January 8, in this home at 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton. He lived here until he was about six, often dreaming of an exotic life filled with laughing gnomes, tin machines, and a beautiful Somali wife.
As you can see, it had just been sold, in July 2015 to be precise. The agent informed me that it went for close to its asking price of 1.1 million pounds, or $1.6 million (!!), and there was no Bowie premium. Bowie’s father, John Jones, and his first wife, Hilda, paid about 500 pounds for it after WW2. Take a look inside here.
Max Roach Park is nearby. I’d like to say it inspired Bowie’s interest in jazz, exemplified by his new album, Blackstar
, also hatched today, but the park—alas—was named after the iconic drummer in 1986.
See more Bowie/Brixton photos on my Tumblr page.
The post David Bowie: The Brixton Years appeared first on Dean Goodman.
January 6, 2016
Lemmy has a cold*
My interview with Lemmy in February, 2005, almost did not happen.
The Motörhead frontman wasn’t feeling 100 percent, and his publicist wanted to postpone. But I was all primed for a major drinking session at his local boozer, the Rainbow, and I persuaded her that a half-dozen Jack & Cokes would be good for him. So Lemmy, ever the trooper, walked up the hill from his apartment, took a seat in the afternoon sun at a patio table, and tentatively nursed his cold with his favorite medicine.
Things started off a little awkwardly. Lemmy was congested and tired. Like anyone else in that situation, he probably preferred to be in bed. So it was my job to lift his spirits. I soon noticed that it was my spirits that were being lifted: I was outdrinking the old boy. I slowed down, he caught up and we ended up having a good time.
Some random tidbits:
When Lemmy turned 45 he realized that he would not die before he got old.
“If I can I’ll die on stage, or fucking some chick in a hotel … preferably just after orgasm, rather than before.”
Lemmy once had sex with a Thai transsexual.
Lemmy had about five women in his life, aged 18-25, whom he had on call.
As everyone knows, Jack & Coke was his poison. He never did heroin, and he never much liked cocaine.
“I’m not a rock star. If I am anything, I’m a celebrity, I suppose. I’m not a rock star because I don’t sell any records.”
“I’m fine with my gig. My gig is everything to me … I never stop being Lemmy, 24 hours a day … It’s not a job, it’s a life.”
Lemmy didn’t listen to much music at home, but he liked ABBA. Jimmy Reed was his favorite bluesman, also Lightning Hopkins and Memphis Slim. He tried to teach bass to Sid Vicious “and he had no aptitude for it whatsoever.”
Lemmy had two sons from two mothers. He had never met the elder one, who was put up for adoption. The boy’s birth mother tracked him down, and he put his head in his hands because she was a fat social worker wearing a poncho. She didn’t have the heart to tell him who his father was. The second son, Paul, is a producer in Los Angeles. They shared a few girlfriends. “But I never had his wife. I have to draw the line somewhere.”
His mother was 90 at the time of the interview. She was always supportive of his career choice. His father was a vicar, his stepfather an engineer. Money wasn’t tight during his childhood, but they had to be careful. “We never wanted for anything, even when it was my Mum and me and my Gran. We always had enough to eat … We had the first TV in the village. We did all right.”
Lemmy said he was “nowhere near” being a millionaire. His most lucrative songs were the four that Metallica covered on their 1998 album, Garage, Inc. He put all his money in the bank, and was averse to stocks and other investments.
His biggest expenditure was on Nazi and Axis powers memorabilia. Ozzy Osbourne gave him an SS dagger and some huge banners.
“Ozzy’s all right. I like Ozzy a lot. I like him a lot more than he thinks I like him.”
“I was born in ’45, the year it all ended. It’s just over my shoulder. It’s not ancient history to me, and I don’t see it as all the good English and Americans, and all bad Germans. It’s not true. There was a resistance in Germany that nobody was helping. They all got slaughtered.”
Lemmy was annoyed about the bombing of Dresden, when 30,000 civilians were killed in one night. “When they bombed us in 1940 and did Coventry and all that stuff, they didn’t break our spirit. They just made us more determined to fight. And that’s exactly what we did by bombing the Germans. They just rallied around Hitler all the fucking more. It didn’t do any good at all. They just burned down most of Europe’s great artworks and architecture and killed a lot of innocent people, basically.”
Hermann Goering was “the only one I admire at all.” He invented the Gestapo, set up a phone-tapping service that bugged all the embassies, led the Luftwaffe and bombed airfields. “His gesture (suicide the night before his planned execution) was fantastic (i.e. a big fuck-you).”
“Goering spoke (at his Nuremberg trial) for, what? Nine days? Fuckin’ unbelievable, and he remembered everything, and he took all the blame. While everyone else was going, ‘It was orders, it was the Fuehrer,’ Goering said, ‘It was me. You would have done the same thing.’”
Concerning Tony Blair, who was UK Prime minister at the time of the interview, “He’s a miserable cunt. Anybody who smiles that often, there has to be something wrong with them.”
“I hate all politicians, from Hitler to Stalin to Roosevelt to Chamberlain. I hate the fuckin’ lot of them. They’re all lying, thieving, groveling bastards. I can generalize about that. They are all, without doubt, sinuous, devious bastards.”
Lemmy would have been more inclined to invade Iran than Iraq, “and I wouldn’t have bothered with Afghanistan, really, unless I knew that Osama was there, and apparently he wasn’t.”
Lemmy considered himself a Monarchist. “I’ve lived in this republic here for the last 15 years and I don’t see anything to recommend it over monarchy, quite frankly … America hasn’t got the pageantry. I like a bit of a show, y’know? A bunch of guys in three-piece suits ain’t gonna do it for me.”
BTW, my tab at the Rainbow? Only $40, including tip and mozzarella sticks. I guess I didn’t get as wasted as I like to think I did.
(* apologies to Gay Talese)
###
NOTE: Unrelated to the above interview, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 2016 by Dean Goodman. PLEASE DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THE WHOLE THING
The post Lemmy has a cold* appeared first on Dean Goodman.
October 20, 2015
Eddie Cochran’s last ride
A little over a year after “the day the music died”—when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash—Eddie Cochran met a similarly violent fate on April 17, 1960, dealing another critical blow to the fledgling rock ‘n’ roll genre.
London’s Daily Mirror announces the death of Eddie Cochran, April 18, 1960.
Cochran, 21, was riding in the back of a speeding taxi that was taking him from a Saturday-night gig at the Bristol Hippodrome to London so that he could catch a flight to New York for his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The driver lost control and hit a lamp post as they entered Chippenham, 14 miles northeast of Bath.
Sitting alongside his girlfriend and songwriter Sharon Sheeley, who had just turned 20, and fellow rocker Gene Vincent, who was asleep, Cochran had repeatedly asked the driver to slow down. The section of the A4 between Bath and Chippenham is pretty tortuous in parts, as I found out while retracing his final journey.
He had enough time to shield Sheeley as the car crashed and threw its passengers out onto the road. Sheeley recalled later that as she and the unconscious Cochran were loaded into the ambulance, the thoughtful medic clasped the lovers’ hands for their last ride together. They were transferred to St. Martin’s Hospital where he died of severe head injuries about 4 p.m. It was Easter Sunday.
The text that accompanied the above Daily Mirror headline. Note the reference to Ritchie Valens’ mother, who also attended the funeral.
###
For some rock stars who found fame and fortune much later, the ’50s might have been the high point of rock ‘n’ roll. Tom Petty recalled in a 2009 Rolling Stone interview how he and fellow Travelling Wilbury George Harrison shared an obsession with ’50s music, and he wryly noted, “With George, I think his interest in rock waned around 1962.”
Mick Jagger, who was 16 when Eddie Cochran died, was a huge fan. “The cat is royalty, man,” he told Pittsburgh radio program director John Rook in 1964. (Read more about their encounter, and about Rook’s friendship with Cochran at his fascinating site here.)
About 40 years later Jagger recalled
, “On the records, his sound was really fantastic. They sound very crystal clear, with a good use of sound in itself—beautifully recorded, produced records … (T)hey happened to be very influential on all British bands coming up in the ’60s, and still even now these records are known to British musicians.”
The Stones covered Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” on their 1981 tour:
The Who were also fans:
As were the Sex Pistols:
###
After several family visits over the years to Bath, which is deadly in its own right, I belatedly realized its tragic significance. So I made a pilgrimage to the various Cochran sites in September 2015. You can see more pictures at my Tumblr page.
And, in that vein, I found out that I had passed near Cochran’s grave in Orange County on many occasions. That oversight was easily corrected during my last journey there a few weeks later. He was buried at Forest Lawn´s Cypress location, about 30 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. His parents, who survived him, are on one side, and a memorial to Sheeley, who died in 2002, is on another.
Lest we forget: Sharon Sheeley was more than the girlfriend. She wrote songs for many singers, including Cochran (“Somethin’ Else”) and Valens (“Hurry Up”). At the age of 15, she wrote Poor Little Fool
, which became a No. 1 hit for Ricky Nelson three years later in 1958. I wrote her obituary when she died in 2002: Sharon Sheeley Obit
Sharon & Eddie – “Together Forever”
More reading:
###
NOTE: Unrelated to the above interview, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
The marker at the Eddie Cochran crash site • Rowden Hill, Chippenham
Copyright © 2015 by Dean Goodman. PLEASE DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THE WHOLE THING
The post Eddie Cochran’s last ride appeared first on Dean Goodman.
October 9, 2015
Edith Cavell – English nurse martyred 100 years ago
This is a scheduled break from my rock ‘n’ roll reporting to mark the centenary of the execution of English nurse Edith Cavell during World War I.
Edith Cavell (1865-1915)
Cavell, 49, went before a firing squad in German-occupied Belgium at dawn on October 12, 1915, after a German court-martial found her guilty of treason. Her crime was to help about 200 Allied soldiers escape Belgium to the neutral Netherlands. (Also executed was Philippe Baucq, a Belgian architect.)
You can read more about Cavell at this web site. The best book about Cavell is Edith Cavell, by Diana Souhami
.
The night before her death, Cavell reportedly told a priest, “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” These words are reproduced on a memorial outside the National Portrait Gallery in London.
A memorial to Edith Cavell, outside the National Portrait Gallery in London
Cavell’s execution drew worldwide condemnation (except in Germany, obviously) and transformed the humble nurse into a martyr, an icon who stirred the hearts of the British public as they hunkered down for what would be another three years of war. Enlistment rates soared as Britain’s fine young men rushed to take on the murderous Huns. In 1919 Cavell’s remains were returned to England. After a memorial service at Westminster Abbey, they were taken to her hometown of Norwich and reburied at the cathedral.
I have been intrigued by Cavell since I was a youngster and read about her in a children’s book. I vividly remember an accompanying illustration depicting her facing the firing squad. It’s surprising that no one has made a film about her since 1939’s Nurse Edith Cavell, which you can buy and stream on Amazon here
. I guess fake comic-book superheroes are more alluring.
In September 2015, I traveled to Norwich to visit her grave. I also checked out the city museum at Norwich Castle, where there is a small Cavell exhibit. I brilliantly photographed scenes from the vintage newsreel footage of her reburial (see below). My fascination with Cavell was not enough, however, to induce me to buy a horrendous commemorative coin being flogged by the Royal Mint. It does not resemble her in the slightest.
Here are some recent articles about the centenary, including a silly one from The Independent, noting that Cavell has been forgotten in Belgium. The BBC reported from a soggy graveside ceremony, while The Daily Telegraph reported in September that Cavell may have been a spy all along.
Here are some pictures. More are at my Tumblr pages here and here.
A café near Norwich Cathedral
Memorial to Edith Cavell outside Norwich Cathedral
Edith Cavell’s grave at Norwich Cathedral
A horse-drawn caisson carries Edith Cavell’s coffin through the streets of Norwich in 1919
###
NOTE: Absolutely unrelated to the above item, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 2015 by Dean Goodman. PLEASE DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THE WHOLE THING.
The post Edith Cavell – English nurse martyred 100 years ago appeared first on Dean Goodman.
September 27, 2015
Los Lobos at MacArthur Park, Los Angeles
Free is one of my favorite words, and Los Lobos are one of my favorite bands. Combine these two elements, and I made sure I was in the front row for the quasi-homecoming show by East L.A.’s greatest musical export at the Levitt Pavilion in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park on September 19.
(l-r) Cesar Rosas, Conrad Lozano, drummer Enrique “Bugs” Gonzalez, Louie Pérez
My wife and I had a great spot between singer/guitarists Cesar Rosas and Louie Pérez, with bassist Conrad Lozano—grinning ear-to-ear, and dressed like a UPS driver—in front of us. Perfection.
Yes, of course Los Lobos played “La Bamba”—it was a lengthy encore, a mash-up with the Young Rascals’ “Good Lovin'”—and they also did Ritchie Valens’ other rocker, “Come On, Let’s Go.” But Los Lobos also dusted off tunes from every part of their long and varied career, including “Kiko and the Lavender Moon,” “La Pistola y el Corazon,” “Don’t Worry Baby,” “Volver, Volver,” and “Will the Wolf Survive?”
There were no ballads. I would have loved to hear “Saint behind the Glass,” which they did when I saw them in downtown L.A. a few months ago, but I got a mind-blowing consolation, a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Bertha.” It’s actually the only song I know by that awful band, and I have never heard their version. In that vein, if I had one criticism of Los Lobos’ show, it’s that they jammed quite a bit on many of the songs. If they could tighten things up a little, add some numbers to the set list, that would be appreciated. Still, we had a wonderful time overall, and if there’s any other band I would love to follow from gig to gig it would have to be these guys.
Singer David Hidalgo, not the most talkative chap, tossed in a plug for their new album by introducing the title track, Gates Of Gold
. And he also referenced a new book about the band, Los Lobos: Dream in Blue
, written by my former colleague Chris Morris. I look forward to reading it when I get $35 worth of goods in my Amazon shopping cart.
For more pictures, go to my Tumblr page at www.deangoodman.tumblr.com.
###
NOTE: Completely unrelated to the above item, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 2015 by Dean Goodman. PLEASE DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THE WHOLE THING
The post Los Lobos at MacArthur Park, Los Angeles appeared first on Dean Goodman.
September 16, 2015
Celebrity graves in England
I’m a terrible person to take on vacation.
You might want to lounge on the beach, or go shopping or eating. I just want to visit celebrity graves and miscellaneous death sites. Fortunately my wife is a good sport about it, but when I recently had the opportunity to take a solo road trip around England (where the beaches, the shopping and the food are lousy anyway), I went into unabashed overdrive.
Here are some of my haunts, mostly in the rock ‘n’ roll genre since that is what England always does best.
Malcolm McLaren—Highgate Cemetery, London
Amy Winehouse—Edgwarebury Cemetery, Edgware
Keith Moon + Marc Bolan—Golders Green Crematorium
Keith Moon—Golders Green
Marc Bolan—Golders Green
Amy Winehouse death house—30 Camden Square
Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse
Former Who co-manager Kit Lambert—Brompton Cemetery. (Horrible addition to an existing stone. Give him his own one.)
Kit Lambert, with family
Robin Gibb—St. Mary’s Church, Thame
Robin Gibb, reverse
Robin Gibb
Andy Gibb—St. Mary’s Church, Thame. “Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”
Edwin Starr—Wilford Hall (Southern) Cemetery, Nottingham
Mick Ronson (and 2 snails)—Eastern Cemetery, Hull.
Lally Stott—St. Ann’s Church, Prescot, Merseyside.
Stuart Sutcliffe—Huyton Parish Church (St. Michael), Merseyside.
Stuart Sutcliffe memorial bench—Huyton Parish Church (St. Michael), Merseyside.
Brian Epstein—Everton Cemetery, Liverpool
Cilla Black—Allerton Cemetery, Liverpool
Cilla Black
Eleanor Rigby—St. Peter’s Church, Woolton, Liverpool
Julia Lennon—Allerton Cemetery, Liverpool
Ian Curtis of Joy Division, hanged himself behind this door—77 Barton Street, Macclesfield
Ian Curtis—Macclesfield Cemetery
Brian Jones—Cheltenham
John Bonham—St. Michael and All Angels Church, Rushock
John Bonham’s new neighborhood (beautiful place)
Freddie Mercury death house—Kensington
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury
Jimi Hendrix death house—22 Lansdowne Crescent
HONORABLE MENTION
Edith Cavell—Norwich Cathedral.
Margaret and Denis Thatcher—Royal Hospital, Chelsea
Winston Churchill—St. Martin’s Church, Bladon.
Sir Edward Heath—Salisbury Cathedral
Benjamin Disraeli-Hughenden
Farzad Bazoft—Highgate Cemetery (Sadly omitted from VIP names listed on the Highgate guide)
Douglas Adams—Highgate Cemetery
George Orwell—Church of All Saints, Sutton Courtenay
John Wisden-Brompton Cemetery
Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst—Brompton Cemetery (Was the most popular grave, now supplanted by the grave of a Russian Orthodox bigwig, and in need of some TLC.)
DISHONORABLE MENTION
Great Train Robbery mastermind Bruce Reynolds—Highgate Cemetery (Yes, Karl Marx is also buried there but he ruined more lives than Hitler, with more to come if Corbyn ever becomes PM, so isn’t pictured.)
Former site of the Dr. Crippen murder house, 39 Hilldrop Crescent
LEST WE FORGET
You—Brompton Cemetery. Picture yourself here, because you will eventually be completely forgotten
###
NOTE: Completely unrelated to the above story, but written in the same tone, my gossipy rock bio Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n’ Roll Journalist in Los Angeles is available here. For more info, go to strangedaysbook.com
Copyright © 2015 by Dean Goodman. PLEASE DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THE WHOLE THING
The post Celebrity graves in England appeared first on Dean Goodman.
Dean Goodman's Blog
- Dean Goodman's profile
- 3 followers
