Fats Domino Makes The Passage

 

Antoine 'Fats' Domino passed away last night in New Orleans, of natural causes. He was 89.

Back in the 1950's and early 1960's he fused N'awlins R&B with white pop and early rock n' roll memes to create a unique style that opened the door for a whole lot of acts from New Orleans. You can hear it in huge hits like 'Blueberry Hill,' 'Ain't That A Shame,' "Blue Monday' and one of my faves, 'Walking To New Orleans.'

At one time, he was a huge star, but he apparently succumbed to something that seems to hit a lot of musicians from New Orleans...a feeling that he was more comfortable just being a big name at home, in New Orleans, and was happy with that. Oh, there were bookings in places like Vegas now and then, but basically Fats stayed home with his family.

I met him briefly once when I got backstage at the Jazz and Heritage Festival back in the early 80's after his set, which the audience responded to the way you greet a beloved friend you haven't seen in awhile. And offstage, he was pretty much like his public image...friendly,courteous and relaxed. I remember thinking that he was one of the happiest people in the business I had ever seen, just totally comfortable with it all.

There was another time I was supposed to see him play, at Tipitina's, but he never showed...pity, because it was an amazing night with Professor Longhair and some of the Meters falling by. He would have fit right in beautifully. He always did.

 

In 2005, after Katrina hit, he came back out of retirement at 77, for one final album, “Alive and Kicking,” to benefit New Orleans musicians who were affected by the hurricane. His voice wasn't what it once was, but he could still play great, and it's well worth a listen if you can find it.

Rest in peace, Fat Man...and thanks for the music.

Chuck Berry Makes The Passage…1926-2017

 

Dammitt. Chuck Berry just passed away at 90 years of age 'after 'an illness' as the press likes to put it. Once he finally stopped performing about 5 or 6 years ago, I figured it wouldn't be too much longer.

That legendary vitality of his finally wore down.

Almost all of the old rockn'rollers have passed on to that Great Concert in the Sky, and when they're gone something unique will have gone with them.There's always was an ageless quality to Berry, something about that old spine and leg catharsis that still seemed young, powerful and ageless. Jerry Lee has it too and now in his eighties, he's pretty much just what he always said he'd be...the last man standing.

Two personal memories of Chuck Berry...two sides of the same coin.

A hot, humid summer night on the road, checking into a hotel in the Midwest, the name and exact place lost in the memory banks. Not a roach hole or a five star, but the sort of moderately priced place you stay at if you're on tour and trying to keep the costs down.

And who should I see checking out and headed towards the door with a guitar case and a small, black, travel bag in hand but Chuck Berry.

I'd seem his show a few times, so I walked over, ascertained that it really was him, and introduced myself politely. I told him what band I was playing with and made a remark about how much I loved his music. The response? "Thanks, kid" and then out the door..no smile, no chit chat, no handshake, no nuthin'. It was as if I had insulted him somehow, it was that detached and frigid.
I shrugged, and went back to the hotel desk.

Take two...a night at the Aquarius theater in Hollywood, at a filming of the old TV show, 'In Concert'. I was there courtesy of a backstage pass from the manager of one of the eminently forgettable bands set to be filmed that night, some of them with actual records on the radio.

Loads of roadies and plenty of heavy duty equipment. Marshall stacks, huge drumsets, big hair, flashpots and pyrotechnics, nubile young ladies checking out the bulges in the spandex, a slight smell of marijuana in the air, schmoozing and those little white lines laid out backstage...a typical concert scene for the times.

One by one, the bands came on, did their shtick, and they all got a nice, enthusiastic response from the crowd.

And then out walked a fifty-ish Chuck Berry...one small Fender Twin amp, one guitar, and just like always, an obvious pickup band consisting of a bass player and a drummer, probably hired for scale from the local union for that night's show.

What happened next was sheer magic.

Chuck checked his tuning..and then he did one of those metallic signature intros to 'Johnny B. Goode', and the left foot came down.

Within ten minutes, he had the whole theater shaking, literally.

Most of that night's audience were probably still in diapers or not even born when most of the songs he played that night first came out. And I'd bet a lot of them didn't even know who he was. But there was something magically seminal about it that just connected, something dangerous, sexy and energizing that settled over the audience like a cloud.

Security tried to keep people from crowding the area in front of the stage and dancing in the aisles, but it was a losing battle and they just gave up after awhile. And me, I just stood in the wings, watched, listened and marveled.

This was the true, anarchistic spirit of rock 'n roll unleashed and it didn't sound like an oldies show in the least..it sounded new, wild and untamed, and I could catch a glimpse of how it must have hit the teenyboppers at places like the old Brooklyn Paramount right between the eyes back when Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy and Elvis laid it on them in the fifties.

One guy, a guitar, an amp and a two man rhythm section. It was perfect. The original Brown Eyed Handsome Man en extremis. I can only imagine what he was like in the 1950's.

He finished and  walked right by me and I just nodded and smiled. He kind of jerked his head at me in acknowledgement, but I learn quick, so I wasn't about to say anything more.

The band that appeared after Chuck Berry finished with that crowd looked positively tired and ill by comparison. They just seemed glad to just get the whole ordeal over with. A real, actual case of the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu perhaps, and I betcha it wasn't the first time Chuck Berry gave that particular version of the disease to somebody scheduled to follow him on stage.

I have a soundboard tape of what went down that night, and it's one of the things I still crank up and listen to when I want to remember what real live rockn'roll sounds like.

So long, Chuck. Rest in Peace, and thanks for the music.

Keith Emerson, 1944-2016

Keith Emerson, one of the great keyboardists and showmen of rock n' roll was found dead today in his Santa Monica California home. He was 71.

Half Jerry Lee Lewis and half Van Cliburn, Keith Emerson started out in England as a classical pianist who later got interested in jazz, rock and the Hammond organ. He first hit the big time in the 1970's with Emerson,Lake and Palmer, a band he formed with singer, bassist and guitarist Greg Lake from King Crimson and drummer Carl Palmer. The band's original albums mixed classical memes with pop and rock influences and synth hooks. They even had the chops to pull off their own version of Mussorgsky's 'Pictures At An Exhibition' - and issue it as a live album! I'm sure Mussorgsky, something of a rocker himself would have absolutely loved it.



Watching Emerson onstage was amazing. He pioneered the use of synthesizers in live rock n'roll back in the days before preset patches, so it all had to be done by hand on the fly in front of an audience, and the switchboards themselves looked like space age consoles. I can't imagine how he pulled it off. Aside from his amazing playing, he was known for doing to a Hammond (usually the Smaller A models, not the B-3's) what Jimi Hendrix used to do to a Strat. He'd knock it around, throw it on its side, rock it back and forth to make to oscillators scream and even used to stick a knife in the keyboard so one note would sustain as a drone while he played the other notes on the keyboard.

I saw the band 3 times, and one of my favorite concerts of all time was a show they did at the relatively small Anaheim Convention Center to promote their hit album 'Brain Salad Surgery'...in quad, believe it or not, with speaker stacks in all four corners of the hall and the incredible sounds they were making whizzing around the hall.

They called it a day in 1979, and since I was just getting started in the biz around the time they pulled the plug, I never ran into Keith Emerson although I would have loved to. A superb musician and by all accounts a pretty nice guy.

RIP Keith. And thanks so much for the music.

So Long, Lemmy...Rockin' Until The End

Bassist, singer and catalyst Lemmy Kilmister has made the Passage, at age 70 from cancer. Considering the other stuff he survived, well...

Lemmy stated out as the bass player for the old British trance/sci fi rock band Hawkwind, and after leaving or being fired depending on whom you talk to, went on to form one of the original proto-metal bands, Motörhead in 1975. They stuck around for twenty two albums and remained a favorite on the touring circuit. Playing was pretty much his life, and I can't help but think that's how he wanted to go out. Here he is earlier this year at Rock am Ring, playing 'Overkill.'



So long and rest in peace, Lemmy. You were definitely one of a kind.

BB King Makes The Passage 1925-2015

BB King, that icon of blues and R&B has gone to the Lord, at the age of 89.

The news isn't unexpected, since he had diabetes and was in poor health generally. According to his lawyer, Brent Bryson, BB King went peacefully, dying in his sleep at his home in Las Vegas.

BB King was more than just an incredible guitar player and singer. During his career, which went back to the 1950's, his amazing performances influenced virtually anyone who played guitar. Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Mike Bloomfield, Robbie Robertson, Elvin Bishop, Mick Taylor, Billy Gibbons, Peter Green,Stevie Ray Vaughn and Robert Cray were just a few of the musicians whom he inspired and in some cases mentored. To say he changed the face of music is to state the simple truth.




Riley B. King grew up in the Mississippi Delta, on a cotton plantation near Indianola, Mississippi in the Roaring Twenties, the time of the Great Flood and the black migration from the south to the north and west. There, he heard the sounds of people like Robert Johnson, Peetie Wheatstraw and his cousin Bukka White, music he later integrated with his gospel singing roots into his own unique sound. At the age of 23, he was appearing on Sonny Boy Williamson's King Biscuit Flower Hour on KWEM in Arkansas, a show that could be heard all over the South and even as far north as Canada if you were lucky.

 

Later, BB went across the river to Memphis, the northern corner of the Delta where he got himself a spot performing and deejaying on WDIA. That's where he discovered the electric guitar courtesy of T-Bone Walker who was a guest on BB King's radio show.

A couple of years later he was recording for the Bihari Brothers' L.A. based label, with most of his tracks being produced by none other than Sam Phillips, who also recorded a number of other bluesmen like Howlin' Wolf, Pat Hare and Ike Turner, and later went on to form Sun Records...where one day, a skinny, black-haired white teenager with the unusual name 'Elvis' walked through the door.

 

BB King was a regular on what was then called the 'chitlin' circuit - small to medium sized black clubs and social halls - ever since his first real hit, "Three O'clock Blues" in 1952. He was young enough to be able to deal with the extended touring involved and in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the revolution electric instruments and amplification brought to popular music.

It was around this time BB switched his guitar permanently from Fenders to various models of Gibson's ES ('electric Spanish' ) semi-hollow bodied guitars. The one below is, I believe,  an ES-345 SV with stereo wiring or an ES-335, the non-stereo version. Both utilize a Varitone, a switch to change the mid-range and treble on the guitar for different tones.

 

 B King always called his guitars 'Lucille, ' a reminder of an incident on the chitlin' circuit where two men got into a fight over a woman named Lucille. One of them knocked over a lamp and set the club on fire, and BB ran back into the blazing club to retrieve his guitar. He called all of his guitars Lucille ever after.



BB King's real break came in the sixties, when the rock and roll guitar idols began mentioning his name in interviews as an influence, The Rolling Stones took him on tour with them in 1969 and he had a major 1970 crossover hit, "The Thrill is Gone" and a TV appearance on Ed Sullivan that brought him into the mainstream. Here's a fragment:



Just as he had for decades, BB continued to do his 300+ shows a year, slowing down only a little as age and illness crept up on him.

I ran into him three times, once on the road, once backstage after an incredible show with Bobby Blue Bland and Albert King, and once at his night club in Los Angeles. He was always gracious and friendly well beyond the usual show biz norm once he had sussed you out and realized you just wanted to say hell or, talk music or guitars and weren't trying to put the arm on him for something.

BB King went off peacefully, thank G-d, and his music will live forever.

We've lost quite a few wonderful musicians lately, and when someone like BB King leaves the building, it breaks a chain that goes all the way back to the Delta where it all started.That is a very grievous loss, because in many ways, music is sort of a conversation between musicians, which is how it grows and changes.  BB King was a huge contributor to that conversation. and sadly,  there aren't many new ones coming along whom are part of it,  whom are connected to that tradition, or have the talent to keep the flame kindled even if they were.

And that loss saddens me no end.

Happy Birthday, Wolfie!!

Congratulations to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on his 259th! And above all, thanks for all the wonderful music.

Music To Hate By - The Met and The NYT Bring Anti-Semitism Mainstream

The Metropolitan Opera has an interesting choice in its repertoire for this year's season.

It's the debut of its production of John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer on October 20, just under a month from now. The opera is fairly controversial, because of the way it treats the victim of a heartless atrocity and the terrorists who committed it.

 

Leon Klinghoffer was a 69-year-old American Jew who was a decorated American World War II veteran, wheelchair bound and was taking a cruise in 1985 with his wife and 11 friends to celebrate his 36th wedding anniversary on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro.

The ship was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists from Black September, and Klinghoffer was taken aside and shot to death, murdered on the direct orders of Yasser Arafat. His body and his wheel chair were then thrown into the sea. He was no physical threat to the terrorists and was murdered simply because he was a Jew.

An opera based on these events was composed by John Adams with the libretto written by apostate Jew Alice Goodman, a convert from Judaism who's now Anglican.

The opera was apparently designed to 'equivocate' the Arab terrorists and their victim morally and show the 'humanity' of both sides. The very title, using the word 'death' rather than 'murder' is a good indication of where this opera stands.

Needless to say, given the expansive growth of Jew hatred, including the recent beheading of a Jewish journalist by Islamic State, this drew some major flak, to the point that last June the Met cancelled a gala worldwide HD broadcast of this performance scheduled to stream to theaters and on radio.

But they are still putting on the opera.

Actually, the opera itself doesn't merely 'morally equivocate' an old, harmless Jew in a wheel chair and his murderers. It comes down squarely on the side of the Arab terrorists.

It openly refers to the Israelis as the new Nazis. The opening scene shows graffiti on a wall, “Warsaw 1943, Bethlehem 2005,” while Jews wearing kippot are shown planting trees and building on 'plundered Arab territory'. The Palestinian chorus sings, “My father’s house was razed in 1948 when the Israelis passed over our street.” The Palestinians sing, “We are soldiers fighting a war. We are not criminals and we are not vandals but men of ideals.”

 

Yes, brave soldiers fighting one unarmed 69-year old Jew in a wheel chair. How heroic!

And the rest of the libretto is riddled with typically anti-semitic stereotypes and slurs. At one point, the principal terrorist says, “Wherever poor men are gathered, they can find Jews getting fat. You know how to cheat the simple, exploit the virgin, pollute where you have exploited, defame those you cheated, and break your own law with idolatry.” Later, he yells at Klinghoffer, “America is one big Jew.”

That of course reveals the truth of the relationship between a crippled American Jew and Palestinian hatred. It has never been about Israel per se, but about the Jews. All Jews, where ever they are, no matter how Left-leaning and 'anti-Zionist' they are, not matter how self-degrading.

 

And the music itself deliberately  underlines the superiority of the viewpoint of Arabs as freedom fighters and victims. The Palestinian choruses are strong, virile and filled with emotion, especially as the opera progresses and more of their grievances against Jews are revealed and explored in the opera and the libretto. The Jewish choruses and lyrics are flabby and vague..exactly the way Adams wanted the two sides portrayed.

It is the Palestinian who are shown throughout the opera as heroic with justifiable anger while the Jews are shown as money grubbing and exploitative, always in an unfavorable light. What the music and the libretto both underline in a particularly sick way is that Leon Klinghoffer's murder was justified, because his death was a sacrifice for the 'crimes' of his fellow Jews.

Needless to say, both the Met and the New York Times are beating the drum of 'artistic freedom' to justify putting this propaganda - because that's exactly what it is - on stage. The Times in particular praised Met general manager Peter Gelb for being “true to its artistic mission.” 

Now I wonder...what would happen to a composer who wrote an opera about KKK members in the South during the Reconstruction lynching a negro who was a tool for their carpetbagger oppressors and attempted the same sort of 'artistic statement' that John Adams and Alice Goodman put together, showing moral equivalence of murderers and victim? Would the Met stage that opera? And would the New York Times laud it as 'artistic freedom'? Would the composer ever get another commission to compose anything? I think we know the answers to those questions.

Does the Met have the right to put on this anti-semitic work in a mainstream cultural arena that justifies violence against Jews? Of course they do. Did John Adams have the right to compose it? Of course he did. Was a it a moral and decent thing to do? Are they being sympathetic and respectful of the feelings of the Klinghoffer's children? Do they bear some responsibility for violence done to Jews as a result of what amount to a justification for it.

Absolutely. And no amount of rationalizing about 'artistic freedom; cleanses that guilt, before G-d or man. To even try to do so is to reveal oneself as morally dead.


Peter Gelb can be reached at pgelb@metopera.org or call (212) 799-3100.

Happy 70th,Jimmy Page!

Happy Birthday, Elvis..

"The King is dead, but he's not forgotten..."

And never will be.

Brad Paisley And Carrie Underwood Goof On ObamaCare At CMA Awards

George Strait's reaction( as well as the audience's) is a hoot.

Of course, the Left is screaming 'ra-aaa-aa-cism' via Twitter...

Lou Reed 1942-2013

 

Singer songwriter Lou Reed has taken his final walk on the wild side, making the passage at the age of 71. The cause was apparently complications related to a recent liver transplant.

He died in Brooklyn, not too terribly far from where he was biorn and is survied by his wife, performance artist Laurie Anderson.

Reed first surfaced musically back in the 1960's with a group called The Velvet Underground, together with John Cale, a classically trained cellist and violist,guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen "Mo" Tucker. They specialized in avant-garde rock, with Reed's lyrics on songs like 'Heroin' 'Run Run Run'. 'Waiting For The Man' and 'Venus In Furs' delving into gritty urban themes that included drug addiction, sadomasochism and homosexuality.

That made them absolutely perfect for artist Andy Warhol, who took over as their manager and featured them in the dada art scene that eventually became known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

The group never sold much and were not popular anywhere but certain parts of the greater New York area.In an effort to increase sales, Warhol had them add German singer Nico to the lineup for their debut album 'The Velvet Underground And Nico'.It didn't do much business, but it caught the ears of a number of people and became one of those seminal albums. Oddly enough, while the VU was never exactly popular, a lot of people ended up being influenced by them. I forget whom it was that said that maybe 50 people actually were fans of the VU, but every one of them formed a band. In a sense, Reed was the godfather of punk,influencing people like David Bowie, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop and a whole slew of the New York punk scene.

Reed eventually surfaced a year or so after the VU broke up with a solo album on RCA, 'Transformer' produced by David Bowie and Bowie's guitar player Mick Ronson which did moderately well, providing Reed with a hit, 'Walk on the Wild Side' that was basically a series of short vignettes about some of the folks he knew back in the Warhol/Exploding Plastic Inevitable days.

Lou Reed's whole career was odd in that he rarely was all that popular, but his influence continued to be outsized. People tended to take his ideas and clean them up for commercial consumption. For instance, I have a bootleg of him in Australia playing a version of 'Waiting for The Man' (a song about hanging out waiting for his drug dealer to show up with the goods, of course) with an arrangement that Talking Heads borrowed almost note for note for their own hit cover of Al Green's 'Take Me To The River.'

That's simply how it went.

I was never a huge fan, simply because I have to be in a certain mood to listen to Reed's music and I'm seldom in that mood. But I'll when I am, albums of his like 'Berlin', 'Magic And Loss', some of the VU's better moments and the odd song here and there remain pretty compelling. His work meant a lot to a lot of people and his reach,in the end, exceeded his grasp. There's not much more an artist can ask for than that.

 

RIP

1928- 2013..Jewish Show Biz Legend Eydie Gorme Makes The Passage

Eydie Gorme(pronounced Gor-MAY), one of the world's great pop singers passed away in Las Vegas Saturday of an illness. She was 84, and died just a few day shy of her August 16th birthday.

Along with her husband, Steve Lawrence, she was one of the great pop singers of the 1950's and 1960's, starting out with Tex Beneke's Big Band, where Steve Allen, the originator of the 'Tonight Show ' format saw her and hired her back in 1953.

She met her husband Steve Lawrence on the show, where Lawrence was also working.

“Eydie has been my partner onstage and in life for more than 55 years,” Lawrence said in a statement. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and even more the first time I heard her sing. While my personal loss is unimaginable, the world has lost one of the greatest pop vocalists of all time.”

The two became a vocal duo noted for their onstage back-and-forth banter long before Sonny and Cher, and had a successful TV show that ended in 1958 when Lawrence was drafted and spent two years in the army.

Her first album with Lawrence, We Got Us, won a Grammy in 1960. The two also recorded separately, Steve hitting Billboard’s top 10 with “Go Away Little Girl” in 1962 and Eydie having a hit with “Blame It on the Bossa Nova” in 1963 and winning a Grammy for “If He Walked into My Life” in 1966:



Yeah, she could sing.

Eydie Gorme was a Bronx girl, a Sephardi Jew whose father was a Sicilian tailor and whose mother was originally from Turkey. She grew up speaking Ladino, the equivalent of Yiddish for Sephardic Jews as well as English, and her Spanish was good enough for her to find work as a translator before her singing career took off.

Interestingly enough, she was a pioneer in Latino/Spanish language recording back in the mid 60's, fronting a group called Trio Los Panchos that had hits both in the U.S. and Latin America.

When rock n' roll hit, Steve and Eydie lost some of their audience because they stuck to traditional pop stylings, but they always were in demand in Vegas and had enough of a devoted following to do the odd television special, and to open for none other than Frank Sinatra as Ol' Blue Eyes' opening act on several tours.

A great singer and entertainer. RIP.

Roger Waters Brings His Jew Hatred To The Concert Stage

It's no secret that Brit musician Roger Waters has a thing about Jews and Israel. The former Pink Floyd bassist and composer has been known to go into red-faced tirades on the subject, and is an outspoken anti-Israel activist and Palestinian groupie. But on his latest tour, he appears to be making his bias a big part of his act.

Waters is now using giant inflatable pigs emblazoned with the Star of David, dollar signs, the hammer and sickle, and swastikas as stage props in his concerts.

The above picture is from the opening show of his European tour July 18th at the music festival in the city of Werchter,Belgium.

Some Israelis who attended the concert (and I can't imagine why any Jew would want to put money in Roger Water's pockets) were shocked.

“I came to the concert because I really like his music, without any connection to his political stance toward Israel,” says Alon Onfus Asif, an Israeli living in Belgium. “And I had a lot of fun, until I noticed the Star of David, on the inflatable pig. That was the only religious-national symbol which appeared among other symbols for fascism, dictatorships and oppression of people. Waters crossed the line and gave expression to an anti-Semitic message, beyond all his messages of anti-militancy.”

Apologists for the swine (the pig full of hot air or the artist, take your pick) are telling the media that the pig balloons have always been part of the concerts, and that Waters song "Run Like Hell" and the Wall movie attack racism, anti-semitism and religion-based intolerance.

The lyrics and the film are decades old, whereas Roger's current Jew hatred is a lot newer. He's always been against oppression, anti-religion and anti-authoritarianism, or so he says. So why no Muslim Star and Crescent on the balloon? The pig's old news too, but the prominent Jewish stars on it aren't. He's making a statement here, and he's entitled, but I'm also entitled to call him out on it.

'Anti-ZIonists' are anti-semites 99.9% of the time...and usually you don't have to dig too far.

Paul McCartney: "They Threatened to Kill Me if I Played in Israel"

When Paul McCartney came to play concerts in Israel back in 2008, it turns out he was literally risking his life because of death threats he received from sufferers of Israel derangement Syndrome:

“I got death threats, but I'm coming anyway,” the singer was quoted as saying by Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs researcher Adam Shay.

“I got explicit death threats, but I have no intention of surrendering. I refuse to cancel my performances in Israel,” Shay quoted McCartney as saying.

The former Beatle is not alone.

Dozens of other artists who schedule dates in Israel are lobbied, bullied, threatened, and even attacked at concerts by anti-Israel groups who are bent on isolating Israel culturally, as well as economically. Many artists, said Shay, claimed that their web sites have been attacked by hackers right before their Israeli concerts.

Alicia Keys, who recently played a concert here last week, supplies the latest example of intimidation faced by artists who play Israel. Several of her fellow singers – notably Elvis Costello and Roger Waters – urged her to cancel, calling Israel an “apartheid state,” and Keys' Facebook page was littered with condemnations of her on the day of the concert. Costello himself cancelled a concert in Israel in 2010, as did Carlos Santana, after being hectored by anti-Israel groups. Other notables who have cancelled planned concerts in Israel are Jon Bon Jovi, the Yardbirds, Joe Lynn Turner, and the Pixies. Spanish singer Paco Ibanez went one better, telling a French newspaper that he is boycotting the Hebrew language, which he can speak, for political reasons.

But despite the pressure and threats, there are many artists who continue to play Israel. In the past month, rock bands Deep Purple and the Pet Shop Boys have held concerts in Israel, and American artist Rihanna is scheduled to take her second tour here in October. And of course, there was Madonna.

Many of these artists, Shay said, decided to perform in Israel despite the threats. “When singer Moby was interviewed on Army Radio shortly before he performed in Israel, he said that the intensity of the attacks against him before he came to Israel made him suspect that this wasn't an objective movement that was concerned with people's welfare, but with something dark and dubious.” Unfortunately, though, “most artists just don't want to deal with it. It's much easier for them to release a statement that they won't be appearing in Israel 'for reasons of conscience' rather than to say their lives are being threatened and they're frightened.”

Sir Elton John is another artist who told the haters to get bent.

Just as in the 1930's and 1940's the lines are being drawn. Some stand tall and refuse to knuckle under.Others put their consciences aside and take the easy way out.

Rolling Stones To Israel haters:'Up Yours'

In spite of a concerted campaign by 'anti-Zionists', the Rolling Stones have announced they have no intention of cancelling their planned concert in Jerusalem on Israel’s Independence Day, Monday, April 15.

“We’ve been slammed and smacked and twittered a lot by the anti-Israeli side,” said Mick Jagger, the band’s leader and most recognizable member since 1963. “All I can say is: anything worth doing is worth overdoing. So we decided to add a concert on Tuesday.”

Needless to say, tickets to both concerts, Monday night in Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem and Tuesday night in Bloomfield Stadium, Tel Aviv, have been sold out even as Jagger was speaking.

“This is a huge mistake for the Stones,” declared BDS proponent Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb. “They stand to lose a lot of money as a result of showing solidarity with Zionism, because their most devoted fans also support boycotting Israel.”

“I don’t really count myself as a very sophisticated businessperson,” Jagger responded when asked if the Israel concerts are a bad move business wise. “I’m a creative artist. All I know from business I’ve picked up along the way.”

Mick Jagger, as usual, is putting on whomever was interviewing him here. He came from a well educated middle class background and did quite well in school, enough to get a scholarship grant to attend the London School of Economics at a time when a very small percentage of Brits attended university.

It's also worth mentioning that a number of the Stone's musical contemporaries (Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello, Jon Bon Jovi, and Stevie Wonder, among others*) have cancelled concerts in Israel out of fear of counter boycotts or ideology.Some of them have been borderline anti-semitic, like Waters and Annie Lennox.

Unless you're suffering from Israel Derangement Syndrome, it takes courage to face up to these people and tell them exactly where they can stick their Jew hatred. And having enough of a rep even after all these years doesn't hurt.

Thankfully, the Stones have both. And they still rock!


*As a footnote, I no longer listen to, let alone buy music by any of the above artists...

UPDATE: Ah, this is too funny! The entire episode appears to have been a masterful Purim joke by the Jewish Press, which sucked in a huge section of the Israeli press as well as other news media! I bet even Mick and Keef are laughing at this one.

It was good because it was so believable...Mick sounded exactly like Mick Jagger would sound, and the crazed Lefty BDS Rabbi ( who is an actual real life BDS lunatic) also had an authentic tone.

It also may have the added cachet of making itself come true..rumor has it that the Stones are considering adding Israel to their tour.

Happy Birthday, Elvis

The Rolling Stone's New Single Kicks *ss!!

Their new single, 'Doom and Gloom', off their first album in 7 years. Some things just never get old,and the attitude, wit and funk are still there intact somehow.

This, by the way, is their anniversary...1962-2012. 50 years together.

Gibson Guitars Settles With Feds

Gibson Guitars essentially did a plea bargain with the feds that amounted to $600,000 in fines and arbitrary levies in order to end litigation for what amounted to selective prosecution by th Obama Administration.

"We felt compelled to settle as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve," CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said in a statement late Monday night.

"This allows us to get back to the business of making guitars," he said, noting that the settlement would allow them to continue sourcing rosewood and ebony from India as it has for decades.

"We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted, and a matter that could have been addressed with a simple contact from a caring human being representing the government," he said in his statement. "Instead, the Government used violent and hostile means with the full force of the US Government and several armed law enforcement agencies costing the tax payer millions of dollars and putting a job creating US manufacture at risk and at a competitive disadvantage."

Gibson agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, abandon its claims to about $262,000 worth of wood seized by federal agents and to contribute $50,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to promote the conservation of protected tree species.

George Gruhn, whose shop in Nashville is famous among guitar player had it exactly right:

"Regardless of the merits of the case on either side, it would have cost more than that by far to pursue it," he said. "Even if they thought they conceivably they could win, it would have probably cost more than $1 million to do it."

The law involved was the Lacey Act, which was originally a decent piece of legislation designed to stop the trade in endangered wildlife goods, like ivory. In 2008, lobbying by environmental wack jobs to a Democrat dominated congress added rare woods to the bill.

While Justice and Interior Department officials said in a September letter that those who "unknowingly possess" an instrument made from illegally imported materials don't have a criminal problem, I wouldn't trust them one bit.That 'unknowingly' gives the leeway to go after selected targets. Your prosecution will be based on your political contributions, just like Gibson's was.

If you own a pre-1970's Gibson guitar, all of whom used Brazilian rosewood, ( or a number of other vintage instruments) I'd be very careful. Certainly I'd never take it through customs.

This Article Made Me Physically Sick- Pianos Being Dumped And Destroyed

This article got a visceral response from me. Apparently, perfectly good pianos, some of them antiques by famous makers, are being dumped and destroyed en masse:


The Knabe baby grand did a cartwheel and landed on its back, legs poking into the air. A Lester upright thudded onto its side with a final groan of strings, a death-rattling chord. After 10 pianos were dumped, a small yellow loader with a claw in front scuttled in like a vicious beetle, crushing keyboards, soundboards and cases into a pile.

The site, a trash-transfer station in this town 20 miles north of Philadelphia, is just one place where pianos go to die. This kind of scene has become increasingly common.

The value of used pianos, especially uprights, has plummeted in recent years. So instead of selling them to a neighbor, donating them to a church or just passing them along to a relative, owners are far more likely to discard them, technicians, movers and dealers say. Piano movers are making regular runs to the dump, becoming adept at dismantling instruments, selling parts to artists, even burning them for firewood.

“We bust them up with a sledgehammer,” said Jeffrey Harrington, the owner of Harrington Moving & Storage in Maplewood, N.J.

The story? People don't want to pay the costs of moving them, keeping them tuned and repairing them, and competition from new digital pianos at much lower prices is fierce.

So these fine instruments simply end up being destroyed, after a lifetim eof making beautiful music:

O’Mara Meehan Piano Movers said it takes 5 to 10 pianos a month to the debris transfer site here. The company was founded in 1874 by the great-grandfather of the brothers Bryan and Charles T. O’Mara Jr.

Bryan O’Mara and an employee, James A. Fox, drove their truck into a hangarlike structure one day last week. Inside the truck were six uprights and four grands. Several came from the Philadelphia school system and one from a retirement home. “This was Mrs. Dombrowski’s from New Hope,” Mr. O’Mara said, patting the Knabe.

Mr. O’Mara and Mr. Fox pushed them off the back of the truck one by one. The top of an upright popped off when it landed. Mr. Fox tossed amputated piano legs and a pedal mechanism. Sprayers from above sent out a swirl of dust-settling mist, adding to the surreal atmosphere.

Mr. O’Mara had charged the former owners about $150 per piano. The trash site charged him $233.24 for dumping them all. A recycling company would pick up the debris and separate the wood from the metal.

Beethoven Pianos, a restorer, renter, mover and dealer in New York, has a 34,000-square-foot warehouse at the base of the Third Avenue Bridge in the Bronx, with scores of pianos awaiting disposal, said the owner, Carl Demler.

“In wintertime we burn them,” he said, pointing to a round metal stove. “This one has eaten many pianos.”

Many of these instruments were made back when craftsmanship actually mattered. They were made of real wood, often in quality joined or pegged cabinets and designed to be more than just a musical instrument, but a sign of culture and beauty in the home.

Any society that treats these items in such a fashion, as disposable items, is incurring a kind of cultural sickness.

Not much more I can say about this.

True To Form - Google's Fourth Of July Logo

I have to admit, I find the above amusing.

To celebrate our nation's birthday, Google chose as its July Fourth logo a line from a song by Woody Guthrie, an admitted communist radical and a long time apologist for Stalin who used to write for the Daily Worker.

In fact, the song in question was Guthrie's response to Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America', a song he hated. "This Land Is Your Land", written in 1940 is essentially a Marxist oriented protest song, if you look at the entire lyric instead of what's usually sung:


As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign there, It said "Private Property"
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!
That side was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

Woody Guthrie also was one of the Americans of that time who was adamantly opposed to the U.S. getting into WWII once Hitler and Stalin signed their non-aggression pact. In other words, for these folks, what Hitler was doing to the Jews, the Poles and others was of no concern.

The hypocrisy of this stance was revealed once Hitler invaded Russia, about 6 months before Pearl Harbor. The same people who had been touting U.S. non-involvement suddenly became 'anti-fascist', began screaming for America to get into the war, and once we did,to immediately open up a Second Front to rescue Uncle Joe and the Soviets.

Great songwriter,Woody Guthrie, but essentially a dupe who wouldn't have lasted an hour as a free man in the communist Russia he idealized. And a questionable choice for a logo celebrating a nation's birthday where the right of people to acquire and own private property was one of the foundations and is enshrined in the Constitution.

UPDATE:'Arfin Greebly' (a pseudonym for the husband of a good friend) has an interesting examination of previous Google Fourth of July logos:
"This year, however, they went one level deeper into devious. While whipping up a “patriotic” looking doodle, they managed to just happen to settle on a patriotic song title from the past — one by a raving communist — Woody Guthrie.

So, while those who have no background for it will see it as a (*choke* – *gag*) patriotic glyph, those who were there and who remember the icons of the 50s and 60s will smile knowingly. Woody was their patriot."

Indeed he was.Theirs, and Stalin's.