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Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
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1:55 pm - Captain Beefheart (1941-2010)
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kevin_avery
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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.
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| Sunday, March 14th, 2010
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4:17 pm - The Doors Redux
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kevin_avery
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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.
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| Saturday, January 9th, 2010
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5:08 pm - Lou Reed
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kevin_avery
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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.
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| Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
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12:22 am - Happy New Year - ABBA. Guitar cover in Abmaj.
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| Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
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12:40 pm - Stepping into People's Lives
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kevin_avery
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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.
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| Sunday, March 15th, 2009
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8:28 pm - Newbie
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nezmaccaham
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Ello!
I am VERY new to Livejournal, and still lookin around for a place to settle and to get to know people.
Soooooo.....I came here! I like a lot of 70's music. My three faves are Slade, Fleetwood Mac, and Badfinger.
I'm in LOVE with Badfinger! ok, that's a little exagerrated, but......whatever :]
So.......anyone else really into Badfinger?
current mood:  full
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| Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
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1:18 pm - great new compilation
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tallicadude37
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I thought this would be a good place to let ppl know about the new soundtrack for THE WATCHMEN movie...there are so many great songs/artists on this thing...Dylan, Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, MCR, and of course - Jimi Hendrix! I can't wait to see how these songs work with the movie...Check it out!
current mood:  excited
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| Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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10:24 pm - Rod Stewart Concert in Hong Kong.
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rukia1314
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Hi there.
I have 2 tickets to Rod Stewart's concert in Hong Kong this saturday.
due to certain reasons i have to sell them
so I was wondering if anyone is interested in purchasing
More information can be found HERE
Thanks
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| Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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11:27 am - Kansas (FAQ)
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msblackeyeliner
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I have recently come across a unique opportunity to interview a member of the band Kansas! He is currently their drumming apprentice and travels the country with them. He sets up for concerts, plays during the shows and hangs out with them all the time! AND we at  mossip are going to take questions from the fans to pass along to him!
If you would like to ask a question or want more information please go HERE!
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| Thursday, January 29th, 2009
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6:15 pm - Paul Nelson's White House Connection
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kevin_avery
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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.
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| Monday, October 27th, 2008
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11:13 am - No More, No Less
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kevin_avery
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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.
Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
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| Sunday, October 19th, 2008
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7:26 pm - David Forman
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kevin_avery
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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.
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12:53 pm - Max's Kansas City
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kevin_avery
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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.
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| Monday, September 8th, 2008
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4:39 pm - anyone going?
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movehalfaninch
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is anyone else going to the 98.7 KissFM Liberty R&B Jazz Fest in NYC at liberty state park? Aretha Franklin, Erykah Badu and the O'Jays are playing. I'm looking for new people to meet up with.
here's who is playing (or click here: http://www.987kissfm.com/rbjazzfest08/):
Saturday, September 13th 12 - 10 pm
Performances by Aretha Franklin• Erykah Badu • Leela James • Kem • Euge Groove • Bobby Caldwell • The Jeff Foxx Band • Jean Baylor
Sunday, September 14th 12 - 8 pm
Performances by The O'Jays • Kool and the Gang • Roy Ayers • Brian Culbertson • Gil Parris • Soul Generation • Elisabeth Withers
tickets: http://www.987kissfm.com/rbjazzfest08/tickets.htm
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| Monday, August 25th, 2008
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1:12 pm - Bumping into Geniuses
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kevin_avery
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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.
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| Sunday, August 17th, 2008
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2:14 pm
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| Thursday, August 14th, 2008
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9:05 pm - Bob Dylan Revisited
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chidder
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Paul Nelson wrote: "It is hard to claim too much for the man who in every sense revolutionized modern poetry, American folk music, popular music, and the whole of modern-day thought; even the strongest praise seems finally inadequate. Not many contemporary artists have the power to actually change our lives, but surely Dylan does—and has."
Paul wrote this in 1966, the year after Dylan "went electric" at the Newport Folk Festival and left behind a heretofore devoted audience of dyed-in-the-wool folk-music enthusiasts (an event that also contributed to Paul resigning his post as managing editor of Sing Out! magazine—but that's another story).
Performing Tuesday night at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Dylan remained just as artistically unyielding.
The last time I saw Dylan live was 20 years ago and also outdoors, near Park City, Utah. His face was puffy and he was slightly hunched forward, as if he were being crushed by the weight of his own reputation. One of his surlier periods, he would just blast through song after song, each one almost indiscernible from the next. This wasn't Dylan gone electric—it was Dylan gone electrically bombastic.
But I was not surprised. I knew from recordings that Dylan performing live was a chameleonic chimera. There was the bellowing Dylan (with the Band) from 1974's Before the Flood; and two years later there was the punk-rock Dylan spewing fiery deliveries on Hard Rain. What we got at Prospect Park this week was a defiantly elegant Dylan, his voice at once ravaged and ravishing, as thin as a whip and just as dangerous. His band was sharp and exact—like a surgeon's knife, or Jack the Ripper's blade. He played his music the way he wanted to play it, everybody else be damned.
So it was with some amusement that, on our way out of the park after the concert, we heard grumblings to the effect that Dylan "didn't even know the words to his own songs," which "didn't sound the same," and (my favorite) "He didn't even play 'Mr. Tambourine Man'!"
Forty-three years after Newport, he's still got it. And 42 years after Paul's words, even the strongest praise still seems inadequate.
Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
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| Monday, July 7th, 2008
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10:46 pm
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stevies_grl233
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Steve: you smell like lavender...
Joe: you smell like cigarettes...
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| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
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5:55 pm
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stevies_grl233
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IF you do... just click on my defualt picture (steve face... hehe) and check out my journal, pics, and join my community if youd like!! its all about aerosmith! and pretty musch anything thats has to do with seventies rock n roll!!!!
current mood: ecstatic
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5:53 pm - Whoah... THIS IS AWESOME!!!
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| Saturday, June 28th, 2008
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9:24 pm - I'm new here as well...
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bingostarr
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Hey.
I basically joined here to talk about classic rock; none of my friends listen to classic rock. They've offended me many times for saying that Keith Moon is ugly. D:
WHO CAN NOT LIKE KEITH?!?
-.-'
current mood:  shocked
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| Friday, June 27th, 2008
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8:04 am - i'm new. . . please read this
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egsweeney
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Hi, I’m only seventeen years old but I must say I know more about classic rock than the average fifty year old man! I constantly struggle in school coping with girls who think people such as the Jonas Brothers & Hillary Duff is classified as Rock. It drives me insane knowing what good music is out there and they are stuck in this cliquey teeny bopper type of music world. I am constantly teased because I listen to “corny” music. The music I choose to listen to such as Stevie Nicks, Led Zeppelin & the Who is far from “corny”. Music that I listen to has a purpose. The lyrics actually mean something. I am a huge fan of Stevie Nicks; she is one of my role models in life. I went to her concert last year on June 15th and it changed my life! It was amazing. The way the crowd was roaring, everything about it was just . . . amazing, there is no other way to put it. There were tons of people sitting around smoking pot getting high, and I didn’t have to do that. I just sat there in awe getting a high from the music. When I grow up I hope to be a singer/songwriter. I have many role models that are in the music industry such as Carly Simon; Stevie Nicks . . . shit even Janis Joplin. They are all people I hope to be like when I get older. I wouldn’t know where I would be without CLASSIC ROCK. There is nothing I would rather listen to. Although I do listen to an occasional Motown song (haha). This music that I prefer was also a choice. I didn’t get this music forced on me by my parents. This is music that I love. If it weren’t for classic rock I wouldn’t be the unique girl that I am, I would be either listening to 50 cent on a corner or listening to the fucken Jonas Brothers while having a “totally awesome like sleepover” thank god for classic rock cause I would have to kill myself if I would ever become like that. Well this is kind of long but I thought I would put this all out there =) Thanks for listening . . . if you did.
current mood: cheerful
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| Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
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11:16 am - Download HIDEOUS SEXY for FREE
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| Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
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7:26 am - Perceiving the Doors
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kevin_avery
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Paul Nelson didn't write a lot about the Doors--and he only briefly met Jim Morrison--but what words he did put to paper were poetic, to the point, and unashamedly revealing of a critic yearning to understand not only the the band's music but the nascent and far from established new art form called rock & roll. For instance:
And Jim. To see him sing is like witnessing a man dangling in some kind of unique and personal pain. Watching Morrison come face to face with some ultimate truth in song can be truly frightening. The shrieks and screams come from a subconscious layer under the conscious artistry: Morrison is levels, not all of them pretty.
When I learned that the intense and talented writer and director Tom DiCillo (Living in Oblivion, Box of Moonlight, and his most recent film, Delirious, are among his best) is feverishly at work on a Doors documentary, I forwarded him Paul's rare writings about the group, the best of which is "Perceiving the Doors," a piece written for the long out-of-print songbook We Are the Doors. "What an amazing writer," DiCillo responded. "It is pretty astonishing. I particularly liked his analysis of the Doors' sound":
When they play, they seem to be held together by both terrific, almost terrifying, strength and by sheer nervous tension. They expand, contract, and the song is stretched like a live thing to a point of birth or breaking or both. The passion is always contained within the control. Ray [Manzarek] plays the organ like a holy man, his thoughts almost as visible as smoke, while Robby [Krieger] oozes out those slow, melted flamenco notes as if he were shaking them from a slow-motion guitar. John [Densmore] is all speed and power on the drums, a perpetual-motion machine. And Jim. To see him sing is like witnessing...
"It is close to my own view of what distinguishes the group," DiCillo continued, "but he writes extremely eloquently and with real, knowledgeable detail. I thought his review of the first album showed real perception." In fact, so alive was Paul's forty-year-old prose that DiCillo had a request: "Can you please pass my admiration on to him?"
I informed him that Paul had passed away in 2006. "I had no idea," he replied, "It touches me deeply. It has much deeper meaning now."
Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
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| Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
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10:05 am - "Point of Know Return" Misheard Biblically!
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geistig
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Here is a mishearing of "Point of Know Return" by Kansas, arranged into a Bible story and deconstructed by Foucault. Warning: blasphemous!
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| Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
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2:43 pm - Van Halen at Madison Square Garden
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movehalfaninch
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Hey everybody!
The folks over at AlmacksDanceHall.com went to the Van Halen show
on May 23rd at Madison Square Garden. There is a hilarious review
of it up on the site. Here's a little taste of it:
"For me, the original Van Halen is one of few bands that actually have
both amazing showmanship AND solid musicianship to back it up. David
Lee Roth is the ultimate entertainer and has an immeasurable amount of
charisma and energy, even now. He emerged on stage wearing a circus
ringmaster jacket and for a fleeting moment I thought I was accidentally
at the comeback performance of Ziegfried and Roy. But Diamond Dave was at
his best– beaming personality, physically fit, and acting like a surprisingly
appropriate version of himself from days ago. He channeled his old persona,
but thankfully he recognized no one wanted to see a 50 year old humping an
inflated microphone in a spandex number. Me especially. His vocals and moves
are completely intact, and he delivered all the sass and sleaze we have come
to associate with his over the top performances. A high point for me was
when Roth referred to having sex as “getting leg.” Guess what? I’m officially
stealing that phrase and using it from this point forward."
Read the rest of it here!
Have a great day!
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| Monday, May 26th, 2008
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11:00 am
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alice0201
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hello again i need some advice see im going to try out for a talent show at a camp im going to with my church and i don't really know what i want to do so got any suggestions.
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| Monday, May 19th, 2008
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2:47 pm
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| Sunday, May 11th, 2008
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4:58 pm - Rod Stewart
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kevin_avery
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The backstory: In the early Seventies, Paul Nelson accepted a publicity job at Mercury Records. One of the artists with whom he worked closely, and with whom he became good friends, was Rod Stewart. During Paul's five-year tenure at Mercury (he eventually was promoted to A&R, in which capacity he would sign the New York Dolls to their first recording contract), Stewart produced some of his best albums, including Gasoline Alley, Never a Dull Moment, and one of the best rock & roll albums of all time, Every Picture Tells a Story.
In 1975, the same year Paul resigned from Mercury and returned to writing full-time, Stewart switched labels and landed at Warner Bros. where his first album was Atlantic Crossing. Writing in Rolling Stone, Paul gave the album a rave review, concluding: "If Atlantic Crossing isn't Rod Stewart's best record—and it isn't—it at least comes within hailing distance of earlier masterpieces."
In 1978, Paul wrote one of his best articles, a lengthy, praising piece that sympathetically depicted Rod at odds with his ex-lover, actress Britt Ekland, who was suing him for $12 million, at odds with the burgeoning punks, who had singled him out as their anti-poster boy, and at odds with the critical mass in general, who were of the opinion that he'd sold out and gone Hollywood (which he literally had, having relocated from England).
In 1981, Paul co-wrote a book with Lester Bangs that pilloried Stewart and his music, with Paul recanting much of his earlier praise. He wrote: "As a young man in his twenties, Rod Stewart seemed to possess an age-old wisdom: some of the things he told us we could've learned from our grandfathers. In his thirties, however, he suddenly metamorphosed into Jayne Mansfield."
Fast-forward to Thursday afternoon when I received a phone call that asked: "Can you meet Rod Stewart for drinks tonight?" I'd been trying to secure an interview with him for almost a year and a half. Four hours later, I found myself at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan, across the table from a very dashing and dapper-looking Rod Stewart. (Due to a miscommunication between his manager and publicist, he'd been waiting for me for twenty minutes there in the sedate Astor Court—while I'd been waiting for him for twenty minutes around the corner in the rowdy King Cole Bar and Lounge.) Looking still very much the young rogue on which he'd made his reputation, the 63-year-old Stewart was charming and funny and, of course, occasionally bawdy. My scheduled fifteen- to twenty-minute interview ended up lasting almost forty-five minutes.
Stewart fondly remembered Paul Nelson as I did my best to stir up his memories and remind him of incidents that had occurred more than three-and-a-half decades ago. As I sipped on my Bloody Mary (which, according to legend, had been invented by King Cole bartender Fernand Petiot, circa 1939) and he on his martini, we traded stories: his about the Paul he knew, me about what had happened to Paul in the many years since Stewart had seen him last.
I even quoted Paul's contention that Stewart had "metamorphosed into Jayne Mansfield" and asked him how it had felt having his friend savage him in book form. I asked him if there had been any validity to what Paul had written. And he answered every question honestly and to the best of his ability.
What he had to say will appear, of course, in the Rod Stewart chapter of Everything Is an Afterthought.
When Stewart's twenty-seven-year-old wife Penny Lancaster arrived, he announced that the interview was over and rose to greet her. When he introduced us, he told her, "We've been talking about a dear old friend of mine." And before we parted, he wished me luck with the book and added, "Thank you for just doing it."
Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
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12:08 pm - Neil Diamond myspace.com secret show - NYC
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Hey everybody!
A few nights ago Neil Diamond played a secret show in New York City for myspace.com members. AlmacksDanceHall.com has some great pictures and videos from the venue. Check em out!
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