A dozen acres of wilderness hills and valleys, with a sunken natural amphitheater on the highest point of land in sight.
150 or so Pranksters came from across the land, traveling by every mode there is to play the play like only Pranksters play. No passengers. Everyone here’s a participant, a character — a bunch of characters.
And there were babies, under 10s, tweens, teenagers, 20-somethings and every-somethings through their 70s … everyone interacting on an equal level … no cliques … no divisions … no separation … and everyone in a beaming mood all weekend … nuthin’ but fun on so many levels in SO many locations — the house, the front porch, the covered shed, the clothes painting area, the RVs, the Bertha Bus scene, the sign painting scene, the yurt, the first party tent, the second party tent, the Mad Hatter hat, the 300 section looking down on the amphitheater, the natural balcony level, the stage pit, the bonfire pit, the camping scene, the chess table and other installations in the field — that’s about 17 wink wink different scenes right off the top …
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And then there’s the part where right afterwards people were saying things like . . .
“One week ago, I left New York to see people I’ve never met and to experience something like I have never experienced before. It was by far the most memorable weekend of my entire life, and I cannot express my love enough for each person I met. You all radiated an energy that I can’t even put into words. And you brought the spirits that couldn’t be there right to the party. Sometimes you invite spirits and they don’t show, but with this amount of positive energy and love in the air, the spirits couldn’t help but be there with us!”
Or . . .
“One day at your party was better than my entire vacation in Hawaii last week. It’s one thing to be in paradise, but quite another to be around incredible people.
“I just lost two of my mentors in the space of a few days and I was feeling pretty down about it all … and suddenly there I am standing in front of the stage … talking to some magical people … and seeing this amazing performance art … then in the mist of the music and the night … the message came from the singer on the stage … “anything is possible.”
Or . . .
“I met my best friends that I never met before … I feel so rich.
“I can’t even begin to to describe how much fun being a Merry Prankster has been! I’ve met some of the Greatest People that I would have never known if it wasn’t for taking that chance last summer. I have over 100 New Friends (and some I’m still meeting) from all over the country.”
Or then . . . Original Bus Prankster Anonymous saying . . . “You have no idea … I’m already rebelling and having thoughts of cross-country driving … the wonderful thing is you awoke this sleeper … and nothing is the same anymore ….. ”
It was three days … but really it was five … or two weeks for some … or six months for a few … and lifetime for all. Leading to this place.
Like … up on the hill, a giant 15 foot high top hat … and if you cracked the hidden slit in the side — there was a full Mad Hatter’s tea party going on inside with teapots and teacups and teaspoons and a full compliment of Mad Hatters sitting around speaking Jabberwocky.
Or there’s Grandma Tigger baking cookies by day and blowing fire by night.
Or there’s the kids painting their faces and putting on a play on the main stage. Or there’s Anonymous who jumped on The Bus in Calgary in ’64 holding court with tales of The Road. Or there’s me on stage reading On The Road with the Adam’s Ale soul-swingers, or my own Road Tales with JoJo Stella gettin’ stellar with the groove. Or there’s Aretha’s trombone player blowin’ his rhythmic squonks across the land – sayin, “You made lightning strike.”
Pranksters. Nuthin but Pranksters. And they’re nuts! You know the type. A little too crazy to fit in naturally with regular folk … they’re always on Adventures … and playing … and goofing … and smiling … and hugging. And man! … a first-thought best-thought was to add up how many miles each person travelled to be here. Could you imagine?! East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast, Canada … then you know the way sports are covered? — with every hit & shot & everything counted? — what if you counted all the hugs n kisses over this weekend?! We’d be burying Babe Ruth numbers.
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Maybe a lot of groups feel this … and I’ve been in some pretty huggy close families … from Landmark Forum to MTV Networks to Deadheads United … but there was an inhibition-free love here I haven’t experienced before. Cool as the best work family collectives may be, you’re prolly not the You you are on a secret weekend getaway. Or in those self-help groups, you have to buy your way into their advanced programs before you’re in a really special place. But being a Prankster costs nothing. You don’t even have to like the Dead — although most people do. 🙂
It’s a mindset. It’s about being playful and participatory. Maybe you’d find this in a cool theater company’s get-together. Or an invitation-only musicians party. And oh my gawd — the music!
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Part of Wiz’s whole idea, which he worked up with Yoda, was that all the musicians would play together. He hired four killer bands of the kinda players you could listen to all night … and that’s just what the hell happened. Saturday there was no break in the music from about 8PM till 5 in the morning. A non-stop improvised amalgam of jazz-level cats merging in and out of the flow for nine hours. It was musical medicine alright … just as Yoda prophesied. And meanwhile on the hillside next to the stage there’s a dancing psychedelic light show playing out among the trees as people dance in it and dogs run through chasing the lights causing wolfian sculptures of shadows dancing to the Fire On The Mountain. And then an octopus appears . . .
And then there’s this part where everybody paints or performs or pranks or cooks or makes installations or photographs or cleans up … or lots of the above … and it’s this communal gathering with not just people being nice to each other, but everybody letting their freak flag fly and creating whatever it is they do. Maybe that’s playing with somebody and tweakin’ their Twanger. Maybe that’s bringing 50,000 beers and giving them away like Gubba, Uncle Mike and Hootie did — after flying in from Vancouver and Albuquerque. Or maybe it’s tracking down one of the original Bus travellers and flying her in like Moray, the laugh-after-every-line Babbs of the Next Generation, did. Or maybe it’s arriving with a half dozen costumes for a three day party. Or maybe it’s becoming a Butterfly and dance-flying all around the garden.
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Whatever it is — everyone brings it.
And the whole gall-darn point is — it can be done anywhere, by anyone. It’s just upping your Prankster game, and beaming in on those who shine. Weir everywhere.
But of course this one was silly special. The first Family Reunion after the 50th Bus Tour last year that brought all the Pranksters out of the woodwork. And now with The Summer of The Dead … and everything going on in Chicago in July … this is obviously a springtime to feel free to freak freely — “Let your freak flag fly,” as Crosby put it — letting out whatever’s inside that wants to emerge. That’s the Prankster ethos.
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As I talked to people all weekend, from kids to old folks, there was a leprechaun glisten in their eyes, an electric wildtude, a Prankster twinkle. Nobody here was normal. Everyone was touched and screwy in their own way. Didn’t fit in. Reminds me of a line in my own book about Jack’s friends being odd ducks. I dunno, but it worked for him, and it’s working for me. The weirdest and most twinklingly playful people around you are prolly the ones you wanna get closest to.
I was well into Jack — and this whole conference kicked that up a few dozen notches — like it did everybody else — but The Chief and The Boys (the Grateful Dead) — those were the magic beans I wanted to come home with handfuls of. So I immediately parlayed myself into being Kesey’s handler — the guy who was supposed to make sure he was where he was supposed to be. Good luck with that!
His first event was a big press conference with Allen and Burroughs. And of course he’s late. Way late. I’d called him at the house where he was staying, and he promised they were just leaving. Like, an hour ago.
After much pacing and looking back and forth from my watch to the furthest cars driving anywhere near — Kesey finally just “appeared,” all alone, blissfully walking up the sidewalk … and I was quickly learning what was known as “Buddhist time” in Boulder: Things were supposed to happen at a certain time. Unless they didn’t.
You’re immediately struck by his size and stature, and I don’t just mean literary reputation. This was a big man — a wrestler with a tree-trunk neck, a barrel chest, and Popeye forearms; a mountainman with ruddy cheeks and glowing skin; but more impactful than anything was his ever-present smile, his big, easy and infectious laugh, and the Prankster twinkle perpetually flashing in his leprechaun eyes.
“How was the trip here?” I asked.
“Great. We drove 40 hours non-stop,” and he turned and smiled a wide one in pride at their Cassady-like achievement. In fact, I’d hear him tell people this for the next week. “All the way from Eu-gene,” he’d say, emphasizing the first syllable and not the second, like he always did.
This all sounded well and good and very On The Road and In The Spirit and all that, so I never broke it to him that I got here from Portland, which is furthur, in 42 hours — and I didn’t even have a car! Smoke that in your pipe and hold it.
As we speed-walked the sidewalk to the gig, he also shared, “It was a return trip.” I looked at him. “My pa packed up the family and moved us from right near here to where we live now. I was born not far from here. Smack in the middle of the war he up and moved us all to Oregon, been there ever since. But this was my first home.”
And then, oh man! That press conference was sumpthin! I’ll just say straight out — there are very few people I’ve been around who change a room just by walking into it, but Kesey’s one of them. This was just the first of many times I would experience it. It has to do with energy, there’s no other way to explain it. People radiate energy, and I saw the effects of Kesey’s many times. He’d enter a room, and the whole space would change, even for people who didn’t know he was there or who he was. It would get louder and more animated. He was this huge splash in the energy pool and ripples would roll across the room, hit the far wall, and come rolling back again. Mind you, he was also partnered with his Lieut. Babbs, the former Vietnam helicopter pilot and Senior Prankster who’s got a bellowing baritone to match his big Oregon frame. So . . . things change when they walk in a room. As they did to the nines in the Glenn Miller Lounge at this press conference.
Lined up next to each other were Babbs, Ginzy, Anne Waldman, Burroughs and Kesey in front of the microphones and cameras and tape decks and standing-room-only reporters. The first question was to Kesey, and he was off, galloping with words and thoughts and obscure references, and leaning forward into the questions, not sitting back in his chair, and playing the room, merging the artists and audience like the best musician magicians can do.
The one and only time my trusty Kodak Instamatic X-15 screwed up and took multiple exposures was with Kesey and his convertible.
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You can order a copy of the book from CreateSpacehere . . . or Amazon here.
Or you can check out a bunch of performance videos with various musical line-ups here.
With all the energy peaking over The Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary shows, here’s a little excerpt from my upcoming book — “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” — that shows part of why we keep coming back.
These shows at Red Rocks in ’82 were part of the largest gathering of Beats ever assembled, before or since — and The Grateful Dead played the half-time show.
Here’s what it was like as we arrived . . .
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And man — what a scene! A Grateful Dead party on the top of a gorgeous red rock mountain with a natural amphitheater carved right into it! And the colors immediately start to kick in — 10,000 tie-dyes, maybe more, tripping through nature’s brilliant rock masterpiece to nature’s brilliant rock band under a brilliant multi-hued sky at a giant family reunion. Everyone’s infectiously smiling, and hugs are free n flowing.
There’s girls in short shorts and bikini tops, and guys in short shorts and no tops. There’s colorful clown costumes complete with jester bell caps, and straight looking doctors and lawyers and such with close-cropped hair, ironed alligator shirts and expensive watches … coming to their 100th show. There’s people walking around with giant backpacks like they just came down from the Himalayas, and unencumbered wide-eyed Coloradans at their first show, meandering in mouth-opened silence.
Moveable feasts surround every car, van, customized truck and psychedelic school bus — every one with a different state’s license plate — and you can just walk right up and start talking to anyone who looks interesting. “Strangers stropping strangers just to shake their hand …”
Veterans could talk to veterans, but someone at their first show was absolutely golden and had an All Access Pass to everything. Deadheads really make a fuss over show virgins — anyone who has the interest and the courage to make the trip is immediately embraced. It can appear to the uninitiated like a most intimidating world that’s functioning on a very evolved party level — and if you haven’t been through the arc of a night even once, well, help’s on the way.
Which reminds me of a beautiful moment from the Dead’s Rainforest Benefit a few years later at Madison Square Garden — the ninth of a nine show run when they broke the Garden record for most sell-outs at the world’s most famous arena by anything other than a sports team. All sorts of special guests joined them that night — Mick Taylor, Baba Olatunji, Jack Casady, Bruce Hornsby (who later became a member of the band for about a year and a half!), Hall & Oates (?!), and … The Muppets via satellite!! And at one point Suzanne Vega came out, this petite fragile sensitive singer who I was hanging with on the bar stools at Folk City in the early ’80s when we were all regulars there and before she became famous. So this now well-known tiny delicate flower walks out onto this giant dark and Deadly stage in this roaring arena full of the only unbroken chain of raging concert goers since the sixties, thinking, “We aren’t in Folk City anymore!” But the beautiful part was — with this petrified little bird at center stage and all the spotlights on her, Jerry walks from his normal spot in the shadows by his amps to the front and center line and stands right beside her and looks to her and plays to her and smiles to her … and carries the whole room with him. He gave her his 100% attention, and by so doing, he brought this whole crazy rock ‘n’ roll audience with him — and graciously handed them to her. It was the most touching generous beautiful thing.
And that’s the spirit we DeadHeads show to everyone, especially the most fragile among us.
. And on a whole other level — there’s countless tour-heads strolling the scene holding up gorgeous hand dyed, hand lived t-shirts for sale, and quickly flipping them around so you can see the back as well. Asking 15, but they’ll take 10. Some are printed with classic all-purpose Dead lines — “The bus came by and I got on” — and others are customized just for these shows with “Dead Rocks” or “Mountain Dew” along with the dates.
In between unicyclists and bike riders and girls twirling hula hoops are people hawking bumper-stickers like “Grate things happen to Good people” and “Who are The Grateful Dead and why do they keep following me?” or buttons with the original family motto “The Good ol’ Grateful Dead” which was first winked between the knowing as early as 1966, or carrying bags of gooey-gum-balls (basically, round pot brownies), or there’s a long-haired girl in a long-flowing summer dress with tinkling ankle bracelets passively carrying a small rack of homemade jewelry as she silently and blissfully wanders the rows of cars in the spiritual belief someone will just walk up and buy one. And someone does.
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You can order a copy of the book from CreateSpacehere
So … hold on — the guys who made Pet Sounds were the same people who made the The Monkees’ “music”?! And the goofy band on those Sonny & Cher albums were the same cats who played The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man? What?! Crazy! But true. And they have a great story — told by the players themselves in this new documentary The Wrecking Crew — which was the name they were dubbed by the old guard they replaced — because these whippersnappers and their new-fangled rock n roll was “wrecking” the music business.
What happened was — because L.A. was where television and movies were being made, they built a lot of different recording studios — and they were very busy. Add to that the Beatlesization of the world, and by ’63 or so, the star-maker machinery for pop music was in full rage. The old maestros of the musicals were suddenly getting invaded by smoking, bearded, dungaree-wearing beatniks. Who could play. A few years hence, groups of young people would form themselves into bands and this whole manufactured record-company-creation of pop stars would become obsolete, but while it happened, this same loose collective of 20 or so players made the music on everything from Sam Cooke to Paul Revere & The Raiders.
You’ll hear more Top 10 hit records in this documentary than in any film you’ve ever seen. And they’re all played by the same people! You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, Strangers In The Night, Everybody Loves Somebody, Good Vibrations, California Girls, Help Me Rhonda, Surf City, California Dreamin’, Monday Monday, Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In, Be My Baby, Da Doo Ron Ron, Up Up and Away (In My Beautiful Balloon), These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, Windy, Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves, Love Will Keep Us Together, Wichita Lineman, Galveston, Eve of Destruction, Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds, A Little Less Conversation by Elvis, and The Beat Goes On and on and on …
And besides all that, members of the Crew also played the famous sax melody on ThePink Panther Theme, the galloping electric guitar on the Bonanza theme, that ridiculous Green Acres song, the acoustic guitar behind the M*A*S*H theme, the Mission Impossible theme! … and Batman fer gawdsakes! Not to mention the music in Cool Hand Luke, The Deer Hunter, Cocoon, Field of Dreams, Caddyshack, Around The World In 80 Days and on and on.
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And that’s a whole backstory on the film — it was made by Denny Tedesco, the TV producer son of the main guitarist in The Wrecking Crew — but in order to include the music that makes the story he actually had to do a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds for the music rights! He wisely started shooting interviews back in the ’90s when the Crew were all still alive, and it was finished as a film in 2008, but has taken until now to get the licensing fees paid!
The documentary itself is really fast-paced and snappy, with choice stories of how licks were written and what life was like for a working session player. One of the producers had a great line — “If you want to be successful in this business — never say no until you’re too busy to say yes.”
The story’s told by not only a bunch of the core Crew themselves, but also Brian Wilson, Leon Russell, Frank Zappa, Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, Lou Adler and a host of others. Basically these musicians were The Beach Boys. The Mamas & The Papas. The Association. The 5th Dimension. Gary Lewis & The Playboys. Glen Campbell’s band. Phil Spector’s band. Herb Alpert’s band. They were taking on more different roles than the busiest Hollywood actors. And as the wonderful bass player Carol Kaye put it: “I was making more money than the President of the United States.”
There is a stark contrast between the lives and the music in this documentary and that depicted in other recent excellent behind-the-scenes docs including the one about another studio scene, Muscle Shoals, and about another batch of unknown but widely heard musicians, Twenty Feet From Stardom, but put together they weave a rich tapestry of the stories behind the music you’ve been dancing to your whole life.
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In select theaters starting Feb. 20th, 2015. DVD release to follow.
It’s New Year’s Eve in the universe ………..and we’re on a mission.
The Wizard of Wonder called on Christmas Day. Seems The Pranksters are needed for a little Merry Jerry conjuring on New Year’s Eve in O-Hi-o. The official good-time resident Grateful Dead-vibed band of the state, Adam’s Ale, is having their big album release party, and they’re loopin in a few friends to bring it home.
A nice addition to the magic ‘n’ mystery is — it’s being held in a church-cum-theater called The Mission, just down the road from the Football Hall of Fame in Canton — disguised as best you could possibly be by a surrounding buffer of industrial warehouses — in a hidden forbidden green-space under old-growth trees, down by a creek at the end of a road where nobody er nuthin comes snoopin ‘cept those invited with an underground wink.
And thus we Merry Pranksters from Indiana, West Virginia, North Carolina, Canada and more roll in for this Woodstockian New Year’s in an old performance space with a half-dozen jazz ‘n’ Dead-friendly bands, and a whole night of magic, madness and mischief.
It was all put together by Adam’s Ale bandleader John Welton — the kinda guy who knows all the best players in the state. The psychedelic power-trio Big Black Galactic, the funk bomb droppers Jive Bomb, and Ohio’s own homegrown Prankster, Smilin’ Joe, are just some of the musical caravans that carried the vans fulla people from all corners out to the dancefloor and up to the rafters of surreal euphoria.
At the far end of the main room from the stage, the playful character who rescued this Mission also believes in physical play like us Pranksters and has filled the space with foosball and ping-pong and bumper pool and pool tables … and air hockey! which this traveling prairie Canuck grew up on and hadn’t seen in millennia! Not to mention a huge fully functioning kitchen that’s churning out everything from sizzling fresh stir-fry and pizza to bacon & egg breakfasts the next morning.
We’ve got the whole playground to ourselves — and anything goes. Trapeze artists are flippin around mid-air in the old theater wing, fluorescent hula-hoops are spinning easy hallucinations, homemade bars are being set up next to tents in the indoor camping sections, castaway couches surrounding the dance floor are filling with necking couples, easels are set up that people are painting on, gems and jewelry are being sold by craftspeople on tables, non-stop music’s makin’ the masses move, and crazy Pranksters are tootling the multitudes as everyone becomes instant family.
Patty Cake and Stage Left, who’ve also driven down from The Great White, are bouncing balloons they’ve rigged up with glow-sticks inside, and have a bunch of clothespins with funny or prophetic expressions written on them that they’re surreptitiously clipping onto people’s clothing when they’re not looking. Grandma Tigger and Mountain Mama are dancing around with bags full of glitter and iridescent rainbow tinsel and streamers and such and are sprinkling it on people making everyone sparkle in the flashing psychedelic lights. The Wizard of Wonder dons a different costume every 90 minutes, adopting different characters and keeping the masses guessing all night. Brother Pooh Bear is in charge of liquor and brought a case of crazy indy brews and ciders and wines and is manning the bar and instigating toasts every chance he gets. And Tater Bug brought a couple of her teenage musician sons who weave their way into some jams but stay off the toast.
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Before the festivities roar into gear, Gets Things Done talks to promoter / bandleader / Bill Graham-of-the-night John Welton, whose CD release event this whole shindig is, and he’s got it all mapped out, including how his band’s going on at 11 which’ll lead into the balloon drop at midnight, and he conveys the whole blueprint to us M.C.ing Pranksters, and all the world’s a go.
‘Cept it was the craziest show-producing thing I ever seen — and I’ve been doin this since I was 16 and have worked with said Bill Graham and stage managed and produced shows all over the world. The way staging of multi-act shows works is — there are always delays caused by personnel and/or equipment, and the stage manager / promoter are in a constant battle with the band on stage to get them off when they’re suppose to. And on this night, even though we’d started nearly on time, as the first band Big Black Galactic funked on including really interesting interpretations of Pink Floyd’s Money and The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows —> Within You, Without You in an otherwise all-original set, as they’re getting to the end of their allotted slot, they say something from the stage to that effect, and Big Bossman John is meanwhile happily engaged in a pingpong game at the back of the house, and calls out for them to go ahead and play a few more. Never seen that happen before. Throwing off your own show’s schedule, especially when you’ve got a hard deadline of midnight everything is built around. But that’s just the kind of 21st century acid test we’re living.
So, this is all happening … then this Steve-Goodman-meets-Bob-Marley songwriter Smilin’ Joe comes on, and he’s playing these funny perfectly Prankster topical tunes like Help Me Find My Way Back To My Tent and I Believe In Circles If They’re Round about not believing in false prophets but only in things you know to be true.
Then the funk-jam powerhouse Jive Bomb fly in . . . and they need to be off by 11 in order to get John’s own headlining band on for the midnight magic — but as they’re reaching the end of their set, again, they say something to this effect, and again John calls out from the back of the room, this time from the pool table where I hear him proclaim he’s now won 38 games in a row on this table! to keep on playing … and he says out loud, though it seemed mostly to himself, “Maybe just keep rollin till midnight,” as he cracks another ball into the corner pocket.
Here’s the guy who’s put together this whole massive event to promote the release of his CD, which should obviously have his band on stage for the key pre and post midnight slots, but he’s just la-de-da … lettin it roll out however the vibe feels. Never seen a looser approach to show production in my life. Bill Graham would be hemorrhaging about now.
Eventually there’s a bonafide balloon drop from the cathedral ceiling, corks’a poppin, noisemakers screeching, glitter flying, genies unleashed, wishes granted . . . and finally the headliner takes the stage — a New Orleans quality quintet complete with Dr. John voodoo vocals and squawkin’ dirty trombone with comical lyrics to balance their serious groove.
There’s the bass player formerly of Ekoostik Hookah in his satin wine-colored Jimi Hendrix smoking jacket delivering a passionate knee-dropping Isis, while the psychedelic Solar Fire Light Show flashes dancing colors all over the room, and the reggae-meets-funk-meets-jazz starts melting faces and limbering limbs as the dancefloor begins to bubble like gumbo on the grill.
And all set long the original lyrics are baptizing the room in a harmonic hymn of music as medicine — “Heal your heart with musical medicine” — “I’m closer to God whenever I hear it” — “If you’re sinkin’ down deeper than you’ve ever been, and feelin’ like you’re never gonna smile again, let the music be your friend” — “I wear my music on me everywhere I go” — “Move your body with righteous vibrations” — “You’ve got to free yourself if you want to be yourself” — “I’m gonna make a difference in the world with my songs somehow” — “It’s not the singer, it’s the song; with the best of intentions, how could it go wrong?”
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And this musical Elixir rolls on for a couple ever-expanding sets through the first several hours of 2015 until by 3 or 4 o’clock the final peak’s been climbed, the final silver mined, the church bells chimed, and the guitars lined, as the final spunions spun, and the post-show groove-down’s begun.
And in the looseness of the gooseness, visionary John scheduled Sister Charmaine to step into the air on her keys and fill the mellow with her Tori Amos-like etherial voicings — a sort of choir in the church, a female voice all alone after an all-male high-energy funk-jazz powerhouse of a night — a contrast, a soprano, a Carole-King-meets-Fiona-Apple singer-songwriter at the piano to refreshingly cleanse the palette.
And as she’s winding down her solo choir, so is the audience, as people are gradually retiring to various indoor camping sites, while Gilligan’s homecookin restaurant in the back corner is quietly serving up late-night recovery dishes, and all the musicians are starting to really play together after they no longer have to play.
And up on stage after Charmaine’s gone, I notice some kids setting up — I guess in some exit filler slot — prolly sons of one of the many middle-aged masters we’ve already been groovin to. With the room largely emptied out, and us having been raging since … well, day before yesterday … it was time for Gets Things Done to Get Some Lie-down on the giant air mattress the Wizard of Wonder set up in the Pranksters’ 10-person tent. And … good ol’ Wiz — none of this would’ve happened without his twisting my arm from afar and settin up not only the tent but this whole Prankster summit — the Next Generation Kesey katalyst ringing the bell that our kat ears are trained for herding.
Lying down on the heavenly air in the theater’s acid echoes, my body thanks me for the horizontal while my mind dances in the sky of kaleidoscopic rainbows spinning to the music from the other room.
And this is when things get weird.
As I’m going on this wondrous visual and auditory ride floating on air … I’m thinking … there’s no way this music’s coming from those kids on stage … they must have put on a tape … drift off in the swirling spectrum … dreaming in the immensity of it … distant music scorching a soundtrack and conducting a light show … and wait … Zappa’s Muffin Man?! … naw … must be a weird live recording … drift away … ou … nice colors … morphing fractals … drift back … is that … Peace Frog by The Doors?! … what is happening out there … must be a mix tape … ride the lovely lightning waves … but then … Crash! into the shore of … massive cheering … ??? … the room was empty … the night was over … there’s no one there … the headliner’s done … who the hell is screaming in joy? … and who the hell is playing?!
After a couple more of these I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-hearings — that’s definitely Willie Dixon’s Spoonful ! — I realize this thing must not be over! and roll myself off the air mattress onto solid ground where from I can rise again in the sleeping silence of this echoing church and weave back into the performance space — into one of those moments that so rarely happens …
All the other band members who were still here and a few still-standing Pranksters are gathered like for an all-star final bow — except weir not on the stage but at the foot of it applauding this … kid … who was obviously channeling something from way beyond.
I quickly learn it’s some quartet called Jojo Stella — with a 24-year-old old-timer driving the kit in a ball of sweat, a 20-year-old calmly thrumming Leshian lines on the 5-string bass, a 21-year-old goateed jazz beatnik on the keys who luckily loves the sound of the Hammond B3, and out front this hair-in-his-eyes 22-year-old singing like a young Keith Richards with gusto, or if Tom Waits was dosed and really going for it. He’s got this bluesy, personality-rich timbre and story-telling style that’s emotive like Tina Turner, but growly and old and edgy like Howlin’ Wolf. And then there’s … his guitar playing! … uncategorizable for sure … a Hendrix unconventional openness to playing every part of the instrument … with a thrashing Neil Young passion but with precise Jeff Beck or John Scofield jazz lines … but somehow tinged with heavy metal riffs … and all run through a filter of old-timey Robert Johnson blues.
And just as I had emerged from my psychedelic hibernation, people are steadily drifting up from downstairs, rising from sleeping couches, stirring from their nests, and the once empty New Year’s Eve-littered dance floor is filling again at what’s it gotta be? 5AM?
The eyes I was looking into before my air mattress ride were retiring eyes, satiated eyes, drifting off eyes … and now in front of the stage it was balloons popping as Frank would say — every face lit up, every jaw a little dropped, every eye beaming electrified brightness at What the Wow?! — including in the hair-covered eyes of our wailing bandleader who knows well he’s left this Earth and is flying with family in some uncharted galaxy without a net.
“Are you seeing this, too?” every face is gasping.
And Brother John who put the whole thing together for his band’s big CD release party is not only not bemoaning these kids miraculously stealing the show and having things run until 6 in the morning … but he’s on stage cheering them on! Their hour set had grown to two, and he’s giving these little raps between songs, telling them to keep going and how they’re the new generation that’s gonna carry the torch for us geezers … just as we had advanced the story from those who came before.
And although I was hearing Paul Simon singing, “It’s late in the evening and he blew that room away,” instead they broke into a Young Man Blues / Love Supreme medley! And they’re not just playing them, they’re changing them, readapting with new lyrics and altered melodies into this hybrid of psychedelic jazz rock … by these … kids.
And they’re improvising like crazy … and feeding off each other and following different paths as the guitar pairs into a duet with just the bass, or just the drums, or just the keys … and this is all prestissimo — and suddenly we’re in a downstairs jazz club in Manhattan for the after-hours set when the front doors are locked and it’s just fellow magician musicians collectively powering the room and creating the elevation where any leap is possible — dancing on tightropes crisscrossing the stage — no separation between band and audience as fellow players are yelling “Go! Go! Go!” and “Yes! Yes! Yes!” just like Kerouac captured Cassady doing at the birth of Bop.
And suddenly I realize Mountain Mama is standing next to me, and we look at each other with speechless amazement. Eventually I hear her lean in and say, “This is the kind of performance people are going to be talking about 20 years from now. You know? Like — Were you there?!”
If you’re a Cat Stevens fan — and you know who you are! — stop reading this.
Close the link and go somewhere else. Anywhere.
Keep your music and memories intact. Beautiful gardens are too hard to find in this world.
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Okay? Nobody here who doesn’t want their bubble burst?
Just makin sure.
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Holy historic frickin weirdness!
Apparently “Cat Stevens” died a long time ago of a self-inflicted something back in the 1970s, and he is not currently on tour. As brother Barnaby caught me afterwards, “That was not Cat Stevens on stage. That was some guy named Yusuf playing Cat Stevens songs.”
I hate to say it … I love the guy’s music … but sadly there was just no authentic anything there. Just . . . nothing. “Soulless” was the word that kept coming up in my mind over and over all night in hopes of it being dispelled … but it never was.
This is a guy hitting the jukebox (which, hey! I love to hear ’em too!), but this is not “a band” by any stretch … in fact, what WAS this? It can’t be a money grab. He’s loaded. He’s not trying to reestablish himself in music or he’d have a top-notch band … and be doing more than 6 puckin shows! Like, … what is this? A toe in the water of a sea he swam away from a long time ago?
Sumpthin’s off here . . . and I’m a fan! And in fact I’m a little “off” meself, and I actually think his new album rocks! But … boy …
The Cat who wrote those songs — that beatific joyful soul bouncing on a stool, the cherubic smile … doesn’t exist …
I flashed on Donovan — similarly cherubic guy — peace & love — same era, same dozen Top 10 Hits — you go see that guy today and it’s a very soulful experience — he makes you feel like you’re the only one in the room . . . that connection between an authentic artist communicating … with an audience he has no fear walking among … [See Security Warnings Ahead]
And who knows what it is with Yusuf’s religious stuff — but not only was there no Allah / Islam at all (and I didn’t spot a hijab all night), this was more of a Christian gospel show if anything — Morning Has Broken being a Christian hymn he turned into a hit single, and his Curtis Mayfield cover of “People Get Ready” is straight-up gospel —
but it’s more that this guy hasn’t been functioning as a band, as a performer, as a conveyor of songs — he’s superficially warm, but with these pat showbiz lines you can hear echoing from every place he’s said them for years.
And he’s definitely not a “band” guy . . . like, you know how at the end of a show the bandmates come together and hug after their amazing once-ever journey … and salute the audience for their role … yeah, well, there’s none of that here. Bandmate connection nor audience acknowledgement.
Picture, if you will, any major singer-songwriter type person you’ve seen in the last year, or five, or ten . . . call up that band in your head . . . the one supporting Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Phil Lesh, Roger Waters, Robert Plant … all similar hit-rich people from the same era … where you wouldn’t even need the front guy those bands are so good. I mean, I saw Gordon Lightfoot last year — and his band was better than this! And by that I mean — they were part of the equation, the conversation, the storytelling, participants, accents, taking a solo for a ride … some fuckin purpose other than musical wallpaper.
But then — when the players are set back 25 feet away from the leader in the far corners of the stage, in the dark, with the rhythm section separated from the keys & guitar by a 50 foot train station such that they can’t even see each other — it’s pretty hard to lock into a groove.
And then there was the part where — you know how you hit the men’s room right after a show — I can only speak for the pants side of the divide — but people are whoopin’ and singing the songs and “Hey, wasn’t that great?!!” And, “How ’bout THAT!” And everybody’s yippin and yappin and jazzed from the magic they just experienced . . . but the basement of Massey Hall (the only men’s room in the joint) was a fuckin morgue. Not one person was saying a thing — it was creepy ominous weird — and this is a huge bathroom with like 50 guys in it — and … dead. Nuthin. Like when you’re at a sporting event and the home team’s lost and no one’s talking about it and everyone just wants to get out of there. That.
Oh — and then before it started ! … don’t get me started! . . . all I’m sayin is, there’s sumpthin screwy in the belfry. You won’t believe it but . . . so, fer one, it was this whole ticketless ticket scheme to circumvent scalpers — which is admirable in theory — except … they have to check every single person’s credit card and print a ticket — and even every guest’s photo I.D. … for why?! — and there was a line around the block from 6:00 til 9:00 . . . for an 8:00 showtime …
and THEN half the time when people got to the door the credit card scanner didn’t work — and they had to go stand in a second line … and it’s like minus ten celsius — and they’ve been waiting for an hour on the first line! Good times!
and THEN there’s the full blown walk-thru airport metal-detectors … with guards and wands … and you put your stuff in this grey bin while you walk thru and they search you … sick shit. Over the night I talked to a bunch of longtime Massey staff and they’ve never had anything like this. And even the will-call guests like Ron Sexsmith I spotted … had to empty their pockets and go thru full-on full-body metal detector. Any of my showbiz friends ever remember seeing this?
and THEN … you can’t take photographs! . . . maybe with a flash, sure, I can understand that … but people paying 2 or 3 hundred bucks a seat should be able to take a lousy picture with their phone for their kids — especially since they couldn’t buy them tickets cuz a person could only buy two. And so all night there’s these photo narcs running around poopin on these pleasant aging beatific hippies just wanting to have a good time one last night in their life.
and THEN you couldn’t even stop pre-show in front of the stage to check it out — seriously … I mean, like, a half hour before the show … just standing there checking out the stage gear … and “You can’t do that.” What?
At one point I circumnavigated them, and got talking with the guitar tech, cuz I wanted to ask about that cool lookin National electric he’s playing. And the guy says, “It’s a piece of shit. A $3,000 piece of shit.” 🙂
And then the fuckin security narcs swoop in and that’s the end of that little chat.
So . . . all this shit’s goin’ on …
and then … “Cat Stevens” comes on stage … right? … except it isn’t Cat Stevens at all. Whoever this guy is, he’s definitely not Cat Stevens. And he should stop using his name.
And for sure I dig — despite the fatwa and all that shit … this cellularly walking Cat-Yusuf human was given the Nobel “Man of Peace” Award, and gives tons of money to charities and stuff, and I’m sure in his weird convoluted heart he’s trying to do good things … but … music’s sure low down on that totem pole.
remember “I hope I die before I get old?” How that made so much sense when we were dumb. I mean, young. … before we learned that artists can, y’know, grow.
This is really a case where a guy retired from the big leagues long ago, and never really kept up his chops … and now he’s comin back in the World Series … at least he’s chargin World Series prices for a nearly seven-game series of theater shows … and he’s comin in with these School of Rock kids backing him singing the old hits … passionlessly … I mean, beyond the showmanship way that he pretended he gave a shit, it was so fucking inauthentic … I got the feeling he didn’t even “get” his own songs. Or at least didn’t give a shit. Maybe I’ve been blessed and spoiled over the last many years seeing all the masters I mentioned above, but this was the least authentic musical show I’ve attended since I can’t remember.
Here’s this guy singing, “If you wanna sing out, sing out, … If ya wanna be free, be free …” who brought the first airport metal detectors into Massey Hall, and won’t let his fans take a picture of him on stage or stand in front of it. It’s a pretty fuckin funny idea of freedom this guy’s got.
And, y’know, I keep trying to get to the music here to tell you about it … but there was just so much bullshit in the water … and it was so phoney … just … Not Real. And I’m 10 rows back on the floor right in front of him. This is not a real guy makin real music. And the kicker — his new album is rockin. If he’d only apply himself, this guy might get somewhere.
On the upside, they got a really purdy (Peace) Train Station set and bigsky backdrop … dressed ‘er up mighty fine, but, Musicians Alert: if you weren’t in on a song, you had to sit on a bench outside the faux Train Station acting like you’re hot and waiting for a train …
And musically . . . every fucking song was 2½ minutes or less, made to Casey Kasem / Jack-radio Jackshit order. I mean, really? The only time he broke out of the rote bullshit was when he was playing the new stuff. Which is so weird! I mean, maybe he can grow this groove . . . there’s an optimistic line to follow . . . and maybe someday he’ll get back to the promised land of soul in sound.
In the meantime, I’ll always have the memories of hearing Peace Train at Massey Hall — but boy was it weird!
If you wanna hear the hits of Cat Stevens sung in the original voice you can theoretically do that in one of 6 theaters in North America. And if you’re there and close your eyes you can maybe hear it like you once heard it … but if you opened your eyes and looked at this guy, in so many ways … he’s not there. So … keep that original image and sound alive … “preserve your memories” as Paul Simon put it.
Cuz like a lot of others, Cat Stevens died in the ’70s.
We Are Continually Exposed To The Flashbulb Of Death
The Allen Ginsberg Photo Exhibit University of Toronto Art Centre Sept. 2nd – Dec. 6th, 2014
. So, here’s a weird trip!
I’ve been going to Beat gatherings for 30 years — and even at the very first one — the Kerouac SuperSummit in Boulder in ’82 — I actually knew a couple of people — the beatific publishers Arthur & Kit Knight who I’d hung with at an NYU book fair the year before. I’ve been to about 50 billion of these things since, both mega-huge conferences and tiny club readings — but never once where I didn’t know a single person! It’s always an “old home week” of hugs n howdies at these things … but here I was for the first time walking into this nearly naked gallery all alone … no schmooze, no booze, no wailing music from a bandstand in the corner, no cluster of smokers out front. No one.
But tons of Allen!
The show’s on the University of Toronto campus, which is a trippy other-world to begin with — one of those massive, sprawling, tree-filled labyrinthian fantasylands of old stone castles and planetariums and co-ed touch football games in the rustling leafs with Marshall McLuhan’s ghost breezing around. I finally found the show in the very back of a dark cluster of galleries in some wing of one of the hundred buildings, and the whole hour + I was there, there was all of one couple and two other lone women who wandered around for a few minutes … once again reminding me, “I’m not in Manhattan anymore.”
The wall inside the front door.
A funny thing — they’re playing, fairly loudly over some crystalline speakers mounted in the ceiling corners of each of the five big rooms, Allen reading Howl and Kaddish from 1959, and Father Death and some other meditations with the harmonium. Somehow in clean and proper Canada, his shocking candid candor sounds as jarring here as it probably sounded in middle America in the 1950s. Ya just don’t get a lot of “fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists” round these parts.
About 200 photos are on display of the nearly 8,000 that came with the massive archival bequeath. For old beatniks, there’s not a lot new here, but … there were a lot of shots that included ol’ Allen’s peepee. Those pics you’ve seen of him nekked but covering up also had other shots on the same roll … and for just a moment it did feel like I was back in New York again.
(Taking photographs was strictly prohibited, you understand. 😉 )
. It’s a collection of all Allen’s greatest hit snapshots — Jack on the fire escape with his brakeman’s manual in pocket; on the beach in Tangiers; Burroughs & Jack play-fighting on the couch — and most of them printed on large 18″ x 12″ paper with Allen’s chickenscratch captions nearly big enough to be readable! . 🙂
My favorite might have been the bearded Lucien Carr portrait sitting at a dining room table in 1986. Besides the touching capture of a quiet touch of grey moment between two brothers, photos of him post-1950s are so rare period. And a crazy thing — in discussions about Lucien on one of the Beat message boards a few months ago, something hit me — I bet in some weird ironic way, Lucien may have been the most widely read Beat of them all, with all his years writing wire copy for the U.P. that went into countless newspapers all over the world. I thought this was some pretty new thinking — I’d certainly never seen anyone suggest it before — because we all want Allen, Jack or Bill to be The Beat Supreme … Well, imagine my surprise when I squint at Allen’s chickenscratch under the Lucien portrait and he’s written, “More eyes read his anonymous wire-service prose than Jack K’s & mine all these years, I’ll bet.” !! . 😮
There was one flat glasstop display table in the middle of each room with various smaller snapshot prints and other ephemera, and the whole museumy nature of the space brought flashbacks of that historic Whitney show in ’95.
It’s great that Allen’s photos have been preserved, and that exhibitions are rightfully devoted to him, but even with his peepee hangin out, Beat shows just don’t feel right in these pristine, fancy, sanitized, sterilized showrooms. As much as everyone in the Beat world strove for that imprimatur of respectability — me and Allen included — once there, it just doesn’t feel like home — and only made me long to be sitting on some wobbly chair in a small crowded club listening to barely published poets howling out their lives.
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For the first-meeting-Allen story at that Jack summit in ’82 check out Meeting Your Heroes 101.
Or for another tale from that crazy Boulder adventure soon to be a major motion picture check out this Allen, Edie & Henri Cru riff.
Or for, say, a Carolyn & John Cassady adventure there’s always that classic Northport Report.
Or here’s a tribute to my late great friend Carolyn Cassady.
Or here’s me tellin some tales of all this stuff on YouTube.
Or here’s where you can buy a bunch of different Beat photo prints nearly as good as these — taken at the Jack Summit in ’82, including some seen in my book — from the Lance Gurwell Collection.
How “Down & Dirty” Captured Johnny Winter’s New Spring
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Johnny Johnny Johnny … where for art thou, Johnny?
In the long strange lineage of tragic rock n roll irony — see: Keith Moon sitting in the “Not To Be Taken Away” chair on his last album cover — Johnny Winter made his “comeback” documentary just in time to leave the building.
Johnny was messed up for decades — mostly methadone, booze & bad management — and all in his already compromised albino’s body. The hero of the story turns out to be one Paul Nelson, who joined Johnny’s band as his complementary guitarist, and finally “risked everything” by telling Johnny his manager was killing him. He knew he could be terminated on the spot, but instead turned out to be The Hundredth Monkey — the final person in a long line who told Johnny to get away from the man who was keeping him too “medicated” to think — yet another tale of a music business slimeball taking advantage of the very artist he was being paid to protect.
Paul Nelson & Brian Hassett at RIFF opening night.
With his new guide’s guidance, Johnny was weaned off anti-depressants, booze, methadone, cigarettes, and pot, in that order, and came out of the darkness and into the light. Once this happened and he was lucid and presentable for the first time in decades, Paul told the record label it might be a good time to do a documentary. As the fates would have it, shortly after this, a Texas-born, New York-based indi film & video maker named Greg Olliver heard Johnny spryly soloing on an NPR interview and approached the label about making a film on the still living legend. And as the fates would furthur have it, the guy turned out to be a true auteur with a storyteller’s vision and musician’s timing who basically ended up shooting and creating the whole optical opus himself.
This could never have been made back in the day when you needed a crew with lights and sound and production. It was shot entirely on a small Sony digi in such close backstage / bus quarters even one more person would have been too much.
This may be the most open, honest “warts n all” rock doc you’ve ever seen. The Beatles and Metallica may have faught on camera, but this is a senior citizen surrounded by “family” who long ago stopped giving a damn what anybody thought.
This has the raw confessional intimacy of the Maysles’ “Salesman” — except it’s about a famous public figure. Almost universally, entertainers (and their handlers) overly manage every image, every soundbite, every split second of exposure. Johnny, being from another century and another planet — Bluesmania — just doesn’t give a shit about bullshit. All he ever cared about was the sound his fingers could make, and the stories his smoker’s cords could sing. Once filmmaker Olliver passed the entrance exam, he essentially became part of the band, and was there when Johnny woke up, went to bed, and everything in between.
And the bonus is — he’s a helluva filmmaker. You’ll love when the movie opens and closes with “Highway 61,” fast-cut to the lightning beat of Johnny’s playing. Then there’s the long-exposure time-lapse road shots that bring the poetry of the highway to life worthy of Kerouac. And there’s a beautiful sequence where Johnny has (what turns out to be) the last drinks of his life on his 70th birthday in New Orleans that is the most realistic cinematic portrayal of a drunken revelry ever captured on screen — the distortion, the pacing, the volume, the confusion, the surreality, the dreaminess, the mayhem, the unhinged laughter . . . all echoing that classic Rick Danko–Janis–Jerry scene in Festival Express — with Johnny in the role of Rick. We can love their playing, but it’s also a joy to see them playing with their friends.
As Paul confided after the opening night RIFFscreening in Toronto, he saw to it that the four tall Stoli-on-the-rocks Johnny ordered only had about a half ounce of booze each. But with his frail tiny body off the sauces, combined with Paul’s placebo psych-out, Johnny got himself quite smashed — or thought he did — and had one helluva final birthday.
This is what it’s like to be in the krewe of a blues / rock legend on the upswing.
There’s the autograph-hound scene — comedically edited, creating a funny Buster Keaton routine of the put-upon nice guy being trampled by the outside world.
We see the tricks brother Paul came up with to get his boss to eat food and drink water, the physiotherapy to build back his muscles, and the little boy’s joy shining through an old man’s body.
We see historic footage of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Son House, Willie Dixon, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Freddie King and all the rest who created the music Johnny built upon.
Blues Brothers — John, Muddy, Johnny & Dan.
We hear contemporary masters like Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry and others explain how Johnny inspired their approach.
We meet Edgar Winter, Johnny’s beloved younger brother, who had been kept apart from his hero elder sibling by the evil former manager, and we see them hugging again, and their vastly different lifestyles of the limo-riding rock star with hit singles that’ve been licensed up the wazoo in ads and movies and who didn’t spend his money on dope, versus the dyed-in-the-Blues junkie. As Paul summed it up after the screening — “That’s the difference between success in rock n roll and the blues.”
We see Johnny playing records at home, recording in the studio, on the road, playing gigs, and classic TV appearances over the decades. We see the arc of his musical life from his first guitar teacher, to playing the closing night of Woodstock with The Band as his opening act; From B.B. King letting this 17 year old kid sit in for a song, to Johnny producing Muddy’s late career comeback album; From his early Johnny “Cool Daddy” Winter persona as a young regional hit-maker in Texas, to getting the biggest record company advance in history at that point.
We hear him tell stories about the first Rolling Stone article mentioning him that changed the trajectory of his life, and his recent Christmas when he was given the gift of being methadone free.
We see him playing with B.B. King and Muddy Waters, and singing a passionate, monumental “Georgia On My Mind” via Ray Charles at a karaoke bar in Japan.
We hear the stories about getting beat up as a kid and the prejudice in the South — “It’s just nuts. Just cuz you’re a different color, they don’t like you. They don’t like black people because they’re black, and they didn’t like me cuz I was too white. It’s just stupid.”
We hear a deejay explaining how seven years ago when Johnny came in for an interview he was so out of it he gave one word answers and didn’t seem to even understand the questions. It was so embarrassing, they couldn’t air it. As St. Paul first began his Mission, Johnny came back and was answering in complete sentences. And now we see him at the same radio station telling long colorful tales in full paragraphs.
This was supposed to be an upbeat story of redemption, the old “overcoming obstacles comeback” routine, until one night in Switzerland in July Johnny ran out of breath in his sleep, and this suddenly became an invaluable eulogy, a priceless profile that couldn’t be made now, any way any how. And yes, Johnny was still alive and well when he attended the film’s world premiere at SXSW in his home state of Texas.
In the last scene in Johnny’s movie — both this one and writ large — he said, “Most of the stories about musicians with drug problems don’t end well. But mine has,” as he laughed in his transcendent ageless twinkling send-off sparkle.
Giant hearts all around.
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Some Bonus Extra Weird / Cool Things learned from “Down and Dirty“:
— “What made you first pick up a guitar?” Johnny: “Chuck Berry.” !! (and the movie has a scorching version of him doing “Johnny B. Goode” circa 1983)
— He’s still playing the same Gibson Firebird guitar he bought in 1970 for $225. (!) And like a happily long married spouse, he still calls her, “The coolest lookin’ guitar I’ve ever seen.”
— Edgar Winter played with Johnny at Woodstock. In fact Edgar says, “Woodstock changed my life.” And Johnny called it, “Still one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.”
Although the film is still being screened at festivals around the world, it was shot more for the small screen than the big, so I’m sure it’ll be on some movie network / Netflix / DVD store near you soon.
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For another great movie on debauchery gone bad then gone good again check out Festival Express.
I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time! As a teenager in Winnipeg in the ’70s, Neil was a god to us. We drove the 500 miles to Minneapolis during grade 12 at Kelvin to see him for the first time — and to our great dumb-luck fortune, it was the Rust Never Sleeps tour!
I went and found his picture in the old yearbooks in the Kelvin library, but beyond that it was really hard to find out anything about his life in the Peg. Just like Lowell Mass ignored Kerouac for decades, Winnipeg never really embraced any person from there who did anything with their lives. It’s so sad. And so stupid.
Well — everything’s changed now! Woo-hoo! FINALLY I got to read about every gig, every band line-up, every guitar he ever played, every girl he ever flirted with, every teacher he had, every house party he went to . . . FINALLY the detailed scoop!
It feels like the author interviewed every living person Neil ever came in contact with. I happened to go to the same high school and community clubs where he played, but I gotta think this book would bring that world to life for anybody from anywhere. It was high school, it was dating, it was insecurity, it was being broke, it was a search for adventure.
But the biggest take-away for me was how Neil didn’t give up. How he kept re-approaching from different angles all the obstacles of having a band and making his way in music. Things were hopelessly bleak — no amp to play through, bandmates for whom music was far from their first priority, very limited gig options, pressures from teachers at school, a broken marriage by his parents, being a weird kid in a new town who was shy and awkward and couldn’t play sports and didn’t cotton to authority — I mean, EVERYthing was against him. This is the template storyline of somebody who went on to become some famous badguy … or one of the millions of petty criminals we never hear about.
And it wasn’t like he was some sort of genius prodigy. When you read biographies of those people, they’re so above-&-beyond and different from most of us that you can’t really imagine yourself in their shoes. But this isn’t some Stevie Wonder or Stevie Winwood playing with the masters before they’re old enough for a driver’s license. This guy was next to helpless, I mean hopeless — no babe magnet, no supernatural gifts, no money, no father figure … and stuck in Winterpeg a thousand miles from anywhere. There’s no WAY this guy should ever have amounted to anything.
And that’s the beauty of the story. And why anybody can relate to it and be inspired by it. All he did was keep at it. All he did was not give up. When Winnipeg didn’t work, he went to Toronto. When Toronto didn’t work he went to New York. When nothing else worked, he went to L.A. When bands fell apart he formed new ones. When he didn’t have an amp he played through a stereo. When his car dropped dead on the side of the road he jumped on the back of a motorcycle and kept going. He always found some way to keep moving forward, around all obstacles, against all odds. And that’s what makes this so inspiring. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t be denied. Cuz you might end up in the supergroup of your dreams.
My tribute to the late great Carolyn Cassady on the one year anniversary of her passing …
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Or “The Pranksters Invade the Woodstock Museum” . . .
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Or here’s opening the Marry Prankster Reunion weekend in 2016 . . .
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Or here’s debuting the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” at The Pranksters in Wonderland . . .
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Or here’s a riff for French filmmaker Noemie Sornet’s documentary on Kerouac and “On The Road” . . . including the Adventure Story of the movie premiere in a palace courtyard in London . . .
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and part two including “On The Road’s” final cut world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and meeting Walter Salles and that whole Adventure . . .
