Painting by All Four Beatles Heads to Auction

10 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

A painting created collaboratively by all four Beatles in 1966 is being offered as part of a music memorabilia sale by Philip Weiss Auctions, in Oceanside, N.Y.,  on Sept. 14. The auction house estimates that the painting, now called “Images of a Woman” will sell for between $80,000 and $120,000.

The group produced the work during a visit to Tokyo in 1966, as a way to relieve the tedium of being all but locked into their hotel rooms by their security-conscious Japanese hosts. They were concerned about death threats the group had received from devotees of sumo wrestling, who regarded their engagement at the Budokan arena to be a matter of sacrilege. After Paul McCartney and John Lennon slipped out for some unchaperoned touring, security was tightened.

To while away the hours, the group set a 30-inch by 40-inch piece of white paper on a large table, put a lamp in the middle (slightly off center) and each began painting a corner of the sheet using bright red, yellow, black, blue and green oil paints. When they finished the abstract work, which anticipates the psychedelia that would explode through the pop world a year later, they removed the lamp and signed their names around the edge of the white circle that the lamp left.

The Beatles gave the painting to Tetsusaburo Shimoyama, the president of their Japanese fan club. Mr. Weiss said that be believed that the current owner bought the painting from Mr. Shimoyama, possibly in the 1990s. It was offered for sale on eBay in 2002, but was withdrawn after it failed to meet the seller’s minimum.

(Reprinted from the New York Times Artbeat)

Screaming Lord Sutch: The ORIGINAL Shock Rocker

10 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

Having come of age in 1970’s America and not 1960’s England, perhaps it’s to be expected that Screaming Lord Sutch escaped my musical radar.

But it’s with some embarrassment that I find I’ve been repeating a common but innacurate tale about Alice Cooper “inventing shock rock”–not surprising since that’s the version you’ll read in any and all Alice-related interviews, bios, and liner notes.

While Alice Cooper has certainly influenced every so-called shock rocker who came after him, and in my opinion contributed more classic tunes to the rock songbook than anyone else in the genre, it turns out he was not without antecedent.

The UK’s Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow is more deserving of the title of the original Monster Rocker. (An argument could also be made for Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, although Cooper’s act seems to owe more to Sutch than to Hawkins.) Sutch had a horror-themed stage show, emerged from a coffin, dressed as Jack the Ripper…and for a time had Ritchie Blackmore in his band, by the way.

He also ran in parliamentary elections, sometimes as representative of his own Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

Two other dubious biographical details: The album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was named as worst album of all time in a BBC poll in 1998. Also, the Rolling Stones are referring to Lord Sutch (as “a guy who’s all dressed up just like a Union Jack”) in “Get Off My Cloud”, supposedly a reference to an incident when Sutch turned up uninvited in Jagger’s room.

Screaming Lord Sutch, who suffered from depression, committed suicide by hanging in 1999.

Video by Ed Cyphers

David Bowie–The Story of Ziggy Stardust

08 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

Video by Ed Cyphers

Johnny Cash’s To-Do List

05 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

(Reprinted from Open Culture)

Johnny Cash wrote down at least two lists in his lifetime. Let’s start with the big one. In 1973, when his daughter Roseanne turned 18, the legendary musician pulled out a sheet of yellow legal paper and began writing down 100 Essential Country Songs, the songs she needed to know if she wanted to start her own musical career. The list, writes the website FolkWorks, didn’t construe country music narrowly. It was eclectic, taking in old folk songs, Appalachian ballads, and also protest songs, early country classics, and modern folks songs sung by artists like Bob Dylan. This essential list never went public, at least not in full. Roseanne Cash guarded it closely until 2009, when she released an album featuring interpretations of 12 titles from her father’s list. The other 88 songs still remain a mystery.

Now on to that other list: Somewhere along the way (we’re not sure when) The Man in Black jotted down 10 “Things to Do Today!” This list feels almost like something you and I could have written, the stuff of mortals. Heck, in a given day, we all “Cough,” “Eat” and “Pee.” We struggle with will power (not eating too much, perhaps not smoking, maybe not fooling around with anyone but our spouse). And we’re hopefully good to our loved ones. So what sets Johnny Cash apart from us? Just June and that piano.

Oh, and the fact that Johnny’s to-do list sold at auction for $6,250 in 2010.

“Sweet Child of Mine” Played on a 1920’s Fotoplayer

03 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

Do you love polka? Do you love Guns ‘N’ Roses? Do you love antique, pre-war musical instruments? If you answered all three of these questions with a resounding “Yes!,” then you’ll love this rendition of Gus ‘N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine,” which served as the introduction to an episode of California’s Gold with Huell Howser.

After a brief introduction, Howser sends it over to his colleague, Joe, who busts into a spirited version of the Guns ‘N’ Roses classic on a fotoplayer from 1926. Joe’s hands are in constant motion as he adds whistles, clanks, bells, horns and other polka noises over Axl Rose’s vocals. How the fotoplayer actually works is beyond us, but it sure is entertaining to watch a master like Joe in action.

(Reprinted from Paste)

Video by Ed Cyphers

Keith Moon Passes Out at 1973 Concert; 19-Year-Old Fan Takes Over

03 Sep 2012 2 Comments

In November 1973, Scot Halpin, a 19-year-old kid, scalped tickets to The Who concert in San Francisco, California. Little did he know that he’d wind up playing drums for the band that night — that his name would end up etched in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll.

The Who came to California with its album Quadrophenia topping the charts. But despite that, Keith Moon, the band’s drummer, had a case of the nerves. It was, after all, their first show on American soil in two years. When Moon vomited before the concert, he ended up taking some tranquillizers to calm down. The drugs worked all too well, not least because the tranquillizers actually ended up being PCP. During the show, Moon’s drumming became sloppy and slow, writes his biographer Tony Fletcher. Then, halfway through “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” he slumped onto his drums. Moon was out cold. (See it all happen above.) As the roadies tried to bring him back to form, The Who played as a trio. The drummer returned, but only briefly and collapsed again, this time heading off to the hospital to get his stomach pumped.

Scot Halpin watched the action from near the stage. Years later, he told an NPR interviewer, “my friend got real excited when he saw that [Moon was going to pass out again]. And he started telling the security guy, you know, this guy can help out. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere comes Bill Graham,” the great concert promoter. Graham asked Halpin straight up, “Can you do it?,” and Halpin shot back “yes.”
When Pete Townshend asked the crowd, “Can anybody play the drums?” Halpin mounted the stage, settled into Moon’s drum kit, and began confidently playing the blues jam “Smoke Stacked Lighting” that soon segued into “Spoonful.” It was a way of testing the kid out. Then came a nine minute version of “Naked Eye.” By the time it was over, Halpin was physically spent.
The show ended with Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Scot Halpin taking a bow center stage. And, to thank him for his efforts, The Who gave him a concert jacket that was promptly stolen.

As a sad footnote to an otherwise great story, Halpin died in 2008. The cause, a brain tumor. He was only 54 years old.

(Reprinted from Open Culture)

Video by Ed Cyphers

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