Come And Go Blues

Elton and the Stooges

from the guardian

Several of the band's fans, including Ben Edmonds of Creem magazine, conspired to raise their morale with an endorsement by Elton John. Elton was sweeping across the US on a hugely successful stadium tour and he decided to signal his support for the band, plus his own general zaniness, by renting a gorilla suit and planning a one-ape stage invasion during the Stooges stint.

Creem had prepared a photographer for the stunt. Unfortunately, no one had prepared Iggy. Indeed the previous night he had disappeared with the usual local 'Rich Bitch', to use the Stooges' term of endearment. Early in the morning she brought him back to the band's hotel unconscious; he had gobbled down her entire supply of Quaaludes. Drummer Scott Asheton and a friend of the band, Doug Currie, were called to lift his dead weight out of her Corvette; carrying him into the hotel, they dropped him and were overcome with a giggling fit, seeing him peacefully sleeping, sprawled over a spiky Mediterranean bush.

He was still hardly conscious that evening when Doug and Scotty carried him into the club, and after a quick discussion of what to do, Doug announced he had some speed. James Williamson managed to find a syringe, and they duly shot their singer full of methamphetamine sulphate in order to get him on his feet.

For a couple of seconds, as Elton emerged from the wings in his gorilla suit, Iggy thought he was hallucinating, or else a real gorilla was raiding the stage. The Creem photograph documenting the event is hilarious, showing James Williamson transfixing the uppity ape with a malevolent glare that signals, he says, his intent to 'take him out. He lucked out, because he was smart enough to take his head off to let people know who he was, just in time.'

Sixty Years On

I'm watching/listening to this webcast right now and it's pretty fucking good!
watch live

Elton-Newton-John

Before The Big Split
Happy 60th Elton

oops...you're avant garde

David Thomas of Pere Ubu from OCT 2006 issue of WIRE:
It's people like Eminem or Britney Spears who are the weird experimentalists. They are avant garde. They are dealing with weird alternative worlds. If you put our view of the human condition alongside Britney Spears', one of them is experimantal and weird, and it's Ms Spears'.

Zorak Joins Boston

From Space Ghost Episode:Curling Flower Space
Zorak: Luckily, Boston came by and picked me up.
Space Ghost: Oh bull!
Zorak: They said they needed a keyboardist and I said, "I'm your man-tis!"

It won't link so copy and paste this URL to watch:
http://www.thirdstage.ca/boston/media/video/space_ghost.wmv

more Boston videos

Moonlight Feels Right

Former Wings leader Paul McCartney has joined forces with Starbuck sources say.
"I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird" the singer was quoted as saying.

Farming By Day

Gardening At Night
Bill Berry Won't You Please Come Home

Something About You

I've finally heard the infamous Tom Scholz demos and it's clear to me that Boston would have been just another boogie band (a la Foghat) had Scholz not been driven to perfection by major label rejection. They were not another Yes or Led Zeppelin ,as early reviews suggested, but a straightforward Rock and Roll Band with a killer guitar sound. The first album is all you need to know and even the hardest of critics had to be impressed. Sound isn't everything though, which is why subsequent releases never lived up to the debut. How do you beat perfection?
Fast forward 30 years. Lead singer Brad Delp has taken his own life. No one will ever really know why this happened but one suspects the bitter split of the original "band" had something to do with it. Scholz claims he did it all with Delp.
Original guitarist Barry Goodreau and mates think otherwise. Delp was caught in the middle. The "nicest guy in Rock and Roll" still sang with both camps to this day.
One thing is clear. It's not nice to leave your family and friends this way. No one will ever look or listen to a Boston song or album the same way. You might expect a thirty year old kid who was thrown into the limelight (like Kurt Cobain) to commit suicide but not a teetotaling thirty year veteran of classic rock. And for those who think Boston was just classic schlock well...nevermind.
gonna hitch a ride (mother's milk version)

Too Many Singers Spoil Roth

Why was this man singing Van Halen?
from Billboard
Frontman Scott Weiland explained the ensuing controversy: "We were asked to perform. Kinda what happened was, he wanted to sing the song 'Jump.' We felt from an artistic standpoint, and I'm being totally honest with you, that it wasn't a song we felt comfortable with. We don't have keyboards. To bring a keyboard on stage wouldn't work for us. We said we'd do "Janie's Cryin'" or "You Really Got Me," and he was adamant that wasn't okay."

Number 9

No More Time Left To Criticize

I remember waiting forever for that second Boston album to come out and it was a big disappointment when it finally did. The spaceships had arrived but the quality songs had not.
I also remember someone (name withheld) buying used records with the name Sib written on the corner wondering if this might be the name of the former Boston drummer. It was and it was his record store. I have an autographed copy of the first album to prove it.
I dont listen to Boston much (ever)
anymore but here's a couple tracks you might not know from their first tour.
shattered images
television politician

We'll Be Right Back

did you know? Peter Holsapple was once an auxilliary Blowfish.

There's More Than One Way To Rock

Sammy Hagar on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

from the san francisco chronicle
"I'm really happy about Patti Smith," he says. "That's one thing I like about the Hall of Fame. I never expected to be inducted. I really didn't. I knew Van Halen would eventually somehow, someway, but it was still hard for me to imagine Sammy Hagar being part of it. But it is. I'm so honored. But someone like Patti Smith, who really had such a short, intense career. She did it so cool. She really deserves it for being such a rebel and being a girl at that time. She was cool. I think it's cool that they honor those kinds of people. Some awards shows don't. They go with the most commercial. Half the people don't know who Patti Smith is, but I think it's awesome. She was a true artist, a Neil Young kind of artist, where, s -- , man, you do it my way or forget it. I like that. I'm almost that kind of artist. For some reason, my art doesn't project that. But I'm that kind of person. I never cop out. I never sell out. I never endorse things. It's so funny. What did I do wrong? Or right?

"R.E.M. -- another artsy band. I like R.E.M., they're not my kind of band, but they made some great records. Grandmaster Flash. I don't own a Grandmaster Flash record, but he was really the innovator. I like who they're recognizing this year. The Ronettes. How long have they been waiting? For Sammy Hagar to be a part of that crazy, eclectic group, I like that part of it. If it was Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Sammy Hagar, I'd be this thin, little guy -- oh, man, I'm going to get no respect at this thing. But with this eclectic group, I kinda fit in, quirky-wise."

"This is something that is so etched in stone that when you say I'm a Hall of Famer," Hagar says, "you have to live up to it. I think that every time I step up to a microphone from that day on, I have to live up to it. I think I'm going to have to be a f -- Hall of Famer."

Land Of Confusion

NRBQ or NKOTB?

Should Have Known Better

from blogcrtics.org:
For you younguns what don't remember 1970, the Stooges were a pre-punk garage band with no discernible skills as composers or performers who made three albums of crap. Look, a chainsaw ripping through an old growth redwood has "raw power," but you wouldn't call it music. These guys wouldn't know a real song if it bit them in the ass, but David Bowie, among other people who should have known better, figured Iggy Pop as a brilliant primitive artist. Personally, I prefer the infamous Shaggs album, which at least had personality. Lacking any actual songs or skill though, the Stooges never had anything resembling a hit and broke up.

Still, what else have they got to do? Thirty odd years later, they've made a couple of albums while they wait around to die. Weirdness is their new one. Perhaps they have belatedly-developed talent as composer and musicians.

Nunsense

Navy Blue Nuns-The Wanting
@ McGillicuddy's
Worcester, MA
March 1988
excerpt from the forthcoming
deluxe19th anniversary edition DVD

Happy Birthday

TO LOU!

Rough Justice

from contactmusic.com
The fiance of RONNIE WOOD's daughter was terrified by THE ROLLING STONES after his proposal to art student LEAH. British journalist JACK MACDONALD, who works with Sky News, got down on bended knee to the 28-year-old on a recent holiday to Kenya. While Leah's parents Ronnie and JO were delighted with the news, the engagement has prompted some warnings from the bride-to-be's extended family - namely, aging rockers SIR MICK JAGGER, KEITH RICHARDS and CHARLIE WATTS. MACDonald says, "Mick, Keith and Charlie all took me to one side separately and said: 'If you f**k with this girl, you're in big trouble.' "That was more scary than meeting Leah's family, because you're confronted with Keith Richards!"