The 60s, 70s and 80s

Captain Beefheart (1941-2010)

2010-12-21T18:53:12Z

Don Van Vliet, better known in the music world as Captain Beefheart, died on Friday (you can read The New York Times obituary here).

In the very early 1970s, shortly after Paul Nelson accepted a job in publicity at Mercury Records, he worked closely with Beefheart. In Paul's memoirs, which are included in Everything Is an Afterthought, he detailed "two great memories" he had of Beefheart.

And, as mentioned here a couple of years ago, Paul played a part in making sure that Beefheart's classic Trout Mask Replica became part of the White House Record Library back in 1979.

Copyright 2010 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

MEME: Top 10 Led Zeppelin songs

2010-10-26T16:21:38Z

Hello! I've recently been introduced to the amazingness that is Led Zeppelin, after being coerced into writing an article for the this 70's band that is still held in high esteem even now. Last night, I read through the entire Wiki page in one go after listening to Whole Lotta Love, Kashmir and Stairway to Heaven and a few others, and I was surprised that they were... this famous.

I mean, I knew they were famous, but I never really comprehended just how famous until I read about their achievements. *__* So, I'm hosting a discussion meme in my journal to know what the masses think of Led Zeppelin. Are they really the greatest rock band of all time? Or is their music just overrated? Or are they old and washed out, soon to be replaced by contemporary talents, and the in-your-face attitude of the wannabe rockette?

What I will tell you, though, is that I love that flamboyant, long-haired look the members had going on, so have a picture:

The good ol' 70's

And another one:

Almost four decades later

Now onward to the meme! Take a look at the MEME right here and share your thoughts!

Signing off,
~I.

not your babe, not your babe

2010-06-23T16:27:27Z

[12] The X-Files
[72] Lady Gaga
[12] Grateful Dead

{{[[ you know that i love you]]}}
Comment & Credit :)

Conversations with Clint

2010-06-17T03:41:12Z

I'm pleased to announce that Continuum Books will be publishing my second book, Conversations with Clint – 1979 to 1983: Paul Nelson’s Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood.

A little background:

In 1979, Paul Nelson convinced his higher-ups at Rolling Stone that a cover story about Clint Eastwood was in order. A devout genre film and literature fan, Paul idolized Eastwood, who for him was, among other things, a handy and accurate cultural reference point. Reviewing a live performance by rock & roller Warren Zevon in 1976, Paul had written that “seeing the man onstage was like experiencing... Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry... at a very impressionable age. Rightly or wrongly, your life got changed.”

Paul embarked on what at the time, according to critic Dave Marsh, was “probably the longest series of interviews Clint Eastwood's ever done with anyone,” occurring off and on until 1983. Much to Paul's pleasure, he and Eastwood hit it off. The actor-director seemed to trust him and enjoyed spending time with him, and provided him with a wealth of material.

Still acting in other people’s films, the most bankable star in the world was honing his directorial craft on a series of inexpensive films that, without fail, he brought in under-budget and ahead of schedule. Operating largely beneath the critical radar (he took the critics even less seriously than they took him), he made his movies swiftly and inexpensively. Few of his critics then could have predicted—nor would they most likely have gone on record if they had—that Eastwood the actor and director would ever be taken as seriously as he is today.

But Paul Nelson did.

Unfortunately, for reasons explored in the chapter of Everything Is an Afterthought that is devoted to his relationship with Eastwood, Paul—despite the almost twenty-two hours he'd recorded with Eastwood and another ten with his friends and associates—was unable to get beyond page four of the article he'd set out to write.

For over twenty years, the whereabouts of Paul Nelson’s legendary “lost” interviews with Clint Eastwood have been talked about by Eastwood and Nelson fans alike with the same holy-grail hopefulness that cinephiles used to invest in the directors’ cuts of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil or Sam Fuller’s The Big Red One. The tapes were discovered in Paul's apartment following his death in 2006.

The recordings reveal that Eastwood was indeed relaxed and confidential with Paul, speaking openly and without illusions about his influences, his strengths, and his public persona. Aside from their obvious value as a window into the life of one of our major actors and directors at a specific time and place in his career, they reveal a man who’d found a friend in his interviewer and who gave him the benefit of the doubt again and again over a four-year period because he liked him and believed in him.

The publication of Conversations with Clint – 1979 to 1983: Paul Nelson’s Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood will finally bear out that belief.

Copyright 2010 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

The Doors Redux

2010-03-14T20:16:34Z

I've addressed Paul Nelson's writings about the Doors before, back in June of 2008 ("Perceiving the Doors"). In that same entry, I mentioned that award-winning director Tom DiCillo was at work on a Doors documentary. Now that DiCillo's movie, When You're Strange: A Film About the Doors, is preparing for its U.S. premiere (in select theaters on April 9) and the Internet is abuzz with anticipation, it seems like a good time to post this ad from July 1967, which incorporated part of Paul's Hullabaloo review about the band's first album. Just click on the image to enlarge it.

And, while we're on the subject, here's the trailer to DiCillo's film, which is artfully composed entirely of period footage, much of it previously unreleased.

Should you miss DiCillo's film in the theater, fear not: it's also scheduled to appear on PBS's American Masters series on May 26.

Copyright 2010 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

"Mel Lyman's America"

2010-02-01T14:58:57Z

Though I finished writing Everything Is an Afterthought over five months ago, hardly a week goes by when I don't receive an e-mail or a phone call that is in some way connected to Paul Nelson. (Thankfully, with publication imminent this fall, the Stewie Griffin-inspired "How you comin' on that book you're workin' on?" inquiries have pretty much subsided.) Recently, I heard from William MacAdams, author of Ben Hecht: The Man Behind the Legend. In addition to being a longtime friend of Paul's, in 1995 William coauthored a book with him: 701 Toughest Movie Trivia Questions of All Time.

Kevin,

You probably know that at one time (and perhaps to the end of his life?) one of Paul's favorite albums was Jim Kweskin's America. To Paul the creative force behind the music was Mel Lyman, thus he referred to the record as "Mel Lyman's America." He introduced me to it sometime in the early '70s, before I moved to Europe. I had a vinyl copy, which disappeared a long time ago. Just the other day, don't know why, I thought of Lyman and checked to see if someone on Facebook had a Mel Lyman page (there isn't one), which led me to search for a CD. There is a double Kweskin set including America. I bought it, wondering if it held up. Got it yesterday and couldn't stop playing it.

When Paul died I was saddened but didn't grieve (we had been out of contact for several years, as you know, Paul shutting me out, a deeply hurtful mystery that will never be explained). The music brought Paul back so vividly I broke down in tears, especially upon once again hearing "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight," "The Old Rugged Cross," and "Old Black Joe," Paul's favorites.

I thought you might be unaware of Paul's fondness for Lyman's music. If so, the whole saga of Lyman's remarkable life is worth reading about, the Rolling Stone hatchet job/exposé, et al.

William

I'd never heard of Jim Kweskin or Mel Lyman, let alone the album in question. Nor could I find where Paul had ever made mention of them in any of his writings. But, trusting William's judgment (he'd proved himself an invaluable resource regarding All Things Paul Nelson), I downloaded the album posthaste from iTunes. I wasn't disappointed. While I was familiar with many of the tunes by way of other artists' versions, there's something deeply felt and unique about Jim Kweskin's America. It reminds me of something Paul wrote about Jackson Browne's Running on Empty (and which was quoted in the program at Paul's memorial service):

It's simple enough to talk about lyrics, aims, structure, and all the critical etceteras, but it's very difficult to pinpoint what it is that's actually moved you. It has to do with essences, I think, and all those corny virtues like truth, courage, conviction, kindness, and the rest of them.

Jim Kweskin's America has all those corny virtues, I think, as did Paul.

Copyright 2010 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

Lou Reed

2010-01-09T22:08:04Z

One of the more frustrating aspects of selecting which of Paul Nelson's writings to include in Everything Is an Afterthought was deciding which works not to include. For a guy who's famous for his struggles with getting the word onto the page, he wrote a hell of a lot. As much as I hated to, one of the last chapters I deleted from the manuscript was devoted to Lou Reed. Reed was a frequent touchstone and reference point for Paul, but he wrote about the singer-songwriter-founding Velvet Underground member surprisingly few times. Fortunately, two of his best pieces about Reed are available online.

When Paul was still in A&R at Mercury Records, he seized the opportunity to acquire some previously unreleased tapes of the Velvets performing live in Texas, less than a year before Reed departed the band. When the album (a double) was finally released in 1974 as 1969 Velvet Underground Live, Paul penned the liner notes that appeared on the back of the LP’s gatefold cover. (For the inside, he invited singer-songwriter Elliott Murphy, whom he was still trying to sign to Mercury, to compose some liner notes of his own. Murphy writes about the experience here and, although he misremembers the year—it was 1973, not 1972—offers a download of his original handwritten notes.)

In 1975, a few months after Paul left Mercury Records and returned to criticism, he wrote about Reed again, reviewing Lou Reed Live, the artist's follow-up to his classic Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal. “Had he accomplished nothing else,” Paul wrote, “his work with the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties would assure him a place in anyone's rock & roll pantheon; those remarkable songs still serve as an articulate aural nightmare of men and women caught in the beauty and terror of sexual, street and drug paranoia, unwilling or unable to move. The message is that urban life is tough stuff—it will kill you; Reed, the poet of destruction, knows it but never looks away and somehow finds holiness as well as perversity in both his sinners and his quest.”

Paul ended his critique of Lou Reed Live on an optimistic note and, as his review the following year of Coney Island Baby attests, his faith in Reed was rewarded. The review contains some of Paul’s best writing, his usual well-chosen words expressing not only his aesthetic admiration for Reed’s new work but also the sheer pleasure he derived from listening to it. The review—one of the rare times that his writing reflected his love of sports—also boasts one of my favorite Paul Nelson last lines.

Which makes me want to enjoy the entire piece over again.

Copyright 2010 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

Stepping into People's Lives

2009-09-30T16:39:52Z

I'm late in posting this, but Bruce Springsteen turned sixty one week ago today. Over at Mental Floss, Matt Soniak posted the very entertaining "60 Springsteen Facts for Bruce's 60th Birthday."

Regarding Number 17 on his list—

Springsteen lore has it that Bruce was once spotted in a movie theater watching Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories (which comments on artist/fan relations). The fan who saw him challenged Bruce to prove he didn’t regard his own fans with the contempt as the Allen stand-in in the movie by coming to meet his mom and have dinner. Bruce did so and supposedly still visits the fan’s mother every time he’s in St Louis.

—I was reminded of a passage from the "Two Jewish Mothers Pose as Rock Critics" chapter of Paul Nelson and Lester Bangs's Rod Stewart book wherein, during a give-and-take between the two critics about the nature of fame and what it can do to an artist, this same story about Springsteen came up. Paul said:

I've been backstage at Springsteen shows where Bruce'll open the doors and let thirty kids hanging around outside come in and talk to him. Hope Antman [of CBS Records] told me a story that when Bruce was in Minneapolis and had a night off he went to a movie by himself, and this kid recognized him as he was buying a ticket and said, "Hey, you wanna sit with me?" And he sat with him, and the kid said, "Hey, you wanna come home and talk and my mother’ll fix us some things?" And Bruce went home with the kid and spent the whole night with the kid. And that ain't ever going to happen with Rod Stewart.”

I asked Bruce if any of this were true when I interviewed him in 2007.

"Oh yeah," he said, "oh yeah. I think it was St. Louis, though, or St. Paul. I forget where. I was by myself. I sort of enjoyed the license that that strange part of my job, where people recognize you, allowed me to kind of step into people’s lives, and it was just a night where I wasn’t doing anything and it just sounded like a good idea. The kid ran into his room and came out with an album cover and held it up next to me [laughs] after we came in the door.”

Springsteen volunteered that he does still see the kid's mother occasionally when he's in town (whichever town it may be), though it sounded as if such meetings were in the nature of a before- or after-concert encounters, not a visit on his own part.

Alfie Icons! (Michael Caine)

2009-03-06T09:01:22Z

{54 Alfie ('66) icons}

1	2	3

♥ ♥ ♥

(Please let me know if this isn't allowed ;3)

Paul Nelson's White House Connection

2009-01-29T23:15:18Z

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, David Browne reports that in 1979 Paul Nelson was recruited as an advisor to a commission headed by legendary producer John Hammond to update the official White House Record Library. As a result of the commission's efforts, President Obama can enjoy vinyl versions of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Springsteen's Born to Run, Randy Newman's Good Old Boys, Led Zeppelin IV, the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed, the Ramones' Rocket to Russia, the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, the Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin, as well as records by Santana, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Isaac Hayes, Elton John, the Cars and Barry Manilow.

It's not difficult to surmise which selections were high on Paul's list of suggestions.

The entire article, "Obama's Secret Record Collection," can be found here.

Paul Nelson Mentioned

2009-01-14T00:15:10Z

Last week, William Zantzinger, the murderer made famous not by his heinous act but by Bob Dylan having written a song about him, passed away. Michael Yockel's excellent article, "Willian Zantzinger's Lonesome Death," examines not only the man who inspired Dylan's classic "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," but also the truth behind the song. In doing so, he wraps up his article by quoting Paul Nelson.

The trouble is, as fitting as the quote may be in the context of Yockel's article, the words—critical of Dylan's having played fast and loose with the truth—do not belong to Paul. To the contrary, Paul had called the tune "Dylan's best protest song."

The quote actually belongs to another fine writer, Clinton Heylin, from his 2001 book Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited. Circa 1999, he interviewed Paul and, in the book, writes about Paul's Dylan connection.

60s70s80s @ 2008-11-25T12:16:00

2008-11-25T09:16:49Z

Santana 1970

60s70s80s @ 2008-11-25T11:28:00

2008-11-25T08:28:37Z

Unplugged is an album by Eric Clapton released in 1992. It was recorded live in England for the MTV Unplugged series. The album includes an acoustic version of the hit single "Tears in Heaven" and a heavily reworked acoustic version of "Layla". The performance also included an early version of "My Father's Eyes" and "Circus Left Town" but the tracks did not make the final album[citation needed]. Clapton earned three Grammy Awards for the album: Album of the Year, Best Rock Male Vocal, and Best Rock Song; he earned another three for the record and song "Tears in Heaven".
Clapton performed the show in front of a small audience on January 16, 1992 at Bray Film Studios in Windsor, England.
In 2000 Q magazine placed Unplugged at number 71 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums.
Clapton played a Martin 000-42 guitar for much of this performance

playlist:

( Посмотреть концерт можно вот здесь )

"Signe" (Clapton) – 3:14
"Before You Accuse Me" (Ellas McDaniel) – 3:44
"Hey Hey" (Big Bill Broonzy) – 3:16
"Tears in Heaven" (Clapton, Will Jennings) – 4:36
"Lonely Stranger" (Clapton) – 5:27
"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Cox) – 3:49
"Layla" (Clapton, Jim Gordon) – 4:46
"Running on Faith" (Williams) – 6:30
"Walkin' Blues" (Robert Johnson) – 3:37
"Alberta" (Traditional) – 3:42
"San Francisco Bay Blues" (Jesse Fuller) – 3:23
"Malted Milk" (Robert Johnson) – 3:36
"Old Love" (Clapton/Robert Cray) – 7:52
"Rollin' and Tumblin'" (Muddy Waters) – 4:12

No More, No Less

2008-10-27T15:13:44Z

In 1972, Paul Nelson was promoted from publicity to East Coast head of A&R at Mercury Records. His first real signing was Blue Ash, a band from Youngstown, Ohio. The group's 1973 debut album, No More, No Less, earned a place on several critics' best-of-the-year lists but, as these things often go, didn't make a connection in the marketplace. Blue Ash's MySpace page remembers it this way:

In July of 1972, the group signed a contract with Peppermint Productions of Youngstown and began recording and sending out demos. In October, legendary A&R man and rock writer Paul Nelson from Mercury Records flew to Youngstown to see Blue Ash "live" and immediately began signing procedures. They started recording their first album No More, No Less in February 1973 with Peppermint's John Grazier producing and with Gary Rhamy engineering. Executive producer Paul Nelson introduced them to a never-before-published, never-before-recorded Bob Dylan song called "Dusty Old Fairgrounds" and suggested they record their version of the Beatles' "Anytime At All" both of which appear on the lp...

On May 15, Mercury released the first Blue Ash 45 "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)" b/w "Dusty Old Fairgrounds" On May 25, No More, No Less was released. Rave reviews and feature articles followed in Rolling Stone, Creem, Crawdaddy, Zoo World, Circus, Phonograph Record, New Times, Record World, Billboard, Rock Scene, Fusion and many others. That summer they began touring and opening for acts like Bob Seger, Iggy and the Stooges, Ted Nugent, Nazareth, Aerosmith and more. Blue Ash along with Raspberries, Big Star and Badfinger became "critical darlings" of a new sound later to be called power pop. Despite the good press Blue Ash was not getting much national radio airplay or sales...

Thirty-four years later, No More, No Less has finally been released on CD. As Blue Ash's bassist and vocalist, Frank Secich (now of the Deadbeat Poets), recalls in the Cd's liner notes, "In June of 1974, Blue Ash was dropped by Mercury Records (under heated protest from Paul Nelson) for lack of sales. Paul was subsequently sacked from the label, too, in large part for signing Blue Ash and the New York Dolls."

While that has indeed been the legend of Paul's departure from Mercury, it's not quite that simple. Reasons for leaving seldom are.

Blue Ash and friend in 1973 (left to right): Frank Secich, Jim Kendzor,
Bill Bartolin, Paul Nelson, and David Evans. Photo by Geoff Jones.

David Forman

2008-10-19T23:20:15Z

August of 1974 was a memorable month for singer/songwriter David Forman. A few days after being involved in the most benign and fanciful takeover ever of the World Trade Center—high-wire artist Phillippe Petit's 45-minute walk back and forth on a steel cable strung between the Twin Towers—Forman penned his amazing song "Dream of a Child" and somehow, in some way now lost to memory and time, came to the attention of Paul Nelson at Mercury Records.

While Paul was unsuccessful convincing his higher-ups to offer a recording contract to the artist (Forman says, "They looked at him like he was out of his mind"), Forman ultimately was signed by Clive Davis to Arista, where he recorded one classic, self-titled, and now very collectible album (there's a used CD on Amazon right now going for $109.99).

Forman, who went on to forge a musical career and an alter-ego with Little Isidore and the Inquisitors, can currently be seen on the big screen in James Marsh's brilliant documentary about Phillipe Petit, Man on Wire, where he even performs "Dream of a Child."

Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

Max's Kansas City

2008-10-19T16:54:01Z

In January of 1973, a few weeks after Elliott Murphy first played his demos for Paul Nelson, then an A&R guy at Mercury Records, Paul presented him the recently released debut album of another songsmith: Bruce Springsteen's Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Later that same month, Paul invited Murphy to join him at Max's Kansas City, where Springsteen was playing with a very early incarnation of the E Street Band.

This week over at Wolfgang's Vault—which features free streaming of vintage live concert performances—the featured concert is, with relative certainty, the show in question. Recorded January 31, 1973, after the show Paul introduced Elliott to Bruce, thereby launching a friendship that continues to this day.

Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

60s70s80s @ 2008-09-07T18:58:00

2008-09-07T15:03:42Z

7 поколений рок-н-ролла. Пятая серия. Heavy Metal

2008-09-04T04:27:44Z

( Посмотреть пятую серию можно здесь )
посмотреть другие серии можно вот здесь

John Henry «Bonzo» Bonham - Moby Dick

2008-08-26T07:35:56Z

Смотрел не отрываясь 15 минут. Чего и вам желаю))

( Посмотреть можно здесь )

60s70s80s @ 2008-08-26T01:49:00

2008-08-25T18:50:46Z

Punk rock 70-90 http://community.livejournal.com/funhouse_x/profile

Bumping into Geniuses

2008-08-25T17:11:58Z

Rock journalist. PR guy for Led Zeppelin. Nirvana's manager. Good friend to Kurt and Courtney. Record company executive. These are but a few of the descriptions you might apply to Danny Goldberg, whose latest book, Bumping into Geniuses: My Life Inside the Rock and Roll Business, hits the bookstores next month. In addition to the appellations I've already dropped, among the many behind-the-scenes tales Goldberg tells are how he covered Woodstock when nobody else wanted to, when he talked Kiss into taking it all off (makeup-wise), and how he launched Stevie Nicks' solo career. What emerges is the profile of someone savvy enough to know that doing business is all about relationships—and that you can't succeed at either one at the expense of the other.

For our purposes here, Goldberg also writes about such Paul Nelson favorites as Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Ian Hunter (whom Goldberg now manages), and Neil Young. Most importantly, he writes about Paul.

Touching on Paul's five years at Mercury Records, when Goldberg was writing for Circus magazine, he also reflects on Paul's role in the Warren Zevon saga in a lengthy and loving chapter about the singer/songwriter's final years (Goldberg was head of Artemis Records and released not only Zevon's last three studio albums but also the fine tribute album, Enjoy Every Sandwich: The Songs of Warren Zevon). He also reflects on Paul's memorial service at St. Mark's Church on September 7, 2006.

What emerges is Goldberg's admiration for both Paul the man and Paul the writer. As he wrote for RockCritics.com shortly after Paul's death:

Paul was hopelessly miscast as a PR guy. He was literally incapable of hyping an album or artist he did not believe in and was always apologetic when he called about a Mercury artist.... Paul was far more likely to go into a track by track analysis of the latest Leonard Cohen album on Columbia than even to mention a mediocrity on Mercury. I don't know how he got himself into a position where he was able to sign the Dolls (not normally the kind of thing a PR person could do at record companies) but I suspect he just wore out his superiors. But he did enjoy the expense account that allowed him to take a long list of writers to La Strada and other Midtown restaurants.

Towards the end of Bumping into Geniuses, Goldberg realizes that "People like me were only valuable to record companies to the extent we could identify and sign commercial talent. And the way that the business world judged your talent for picking and signing and working with artists was not how smart you were, how much you loved music, how hard you worked, what skills you had, or what critics thought of your taste. To be taken seriously by the grown-ups you had to be associated with big hits. That was the coin of the realm."

Which pretty much sums up why Paul Nelson's record company career ended in 1975.

Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

The Pink Floyd and Syd Barret story

2008-08-25T14:29:14Z

The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story

( Посмотреть весь фильм можно здесь )

Led Zeppelin - Danish TV 1969

2008-08-22T23:40:02Z

Led Zeppelin - Danish TV 1969

1)Communication Breakdown
2)Dazed And Confused
3)Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
4)How Many More Times

( Посмотреть можно здесь (30 минут) )

7 поколений рок-н-ролла. Вторая серия.Art-rock

2008-08-22T15:46:35Z

( Посмотреть вторую серию можно здесь )

а первую здесь

A little announcement for this very interesting community!

2008-07-19T14:19:08Z

Susan Olsen is raising the bar on reality-show-quality
by focusing on kitten foster care in a humorous way,
but this is a cause she promotes all the time, seriously.

Part of staying on the show is about Susan getting
the most views on her entry in the show's YouTube video contest!
The more you click on the video the more of a victory it is
for Brady fans and animal lovers everywhere! And it's funny!

Click here to help her WIN

Additionally, please spread the word to your friends who are Brady Fans, Animal Lovers,
or just Spending A Lot of Time Online Anyhow