Bang Bang Bang v Beng Beng Beng

Posted on January 25, 2019 by markweiss86

bang bang bang is newspaper composition typsetter shop talk for a series of three punctuation marks, known as exclamation points, like this:

!!!

(you know what’s weird, but not to bore you: as i tried to type the three “bangs” I accidentally hit “command 1” and not “shift 1” and my computer booted up an old weird post about Superchunk and the Salesforce building I hate, back to the post)

I was looking into “interrobang” which is a symbol for question mark and exclamation at same time and got a long list of symbols and names and uses, on wiki. Personally, and sorry to delay all you music fans — I will make it up to you — I prefer to say “pound” to “hashtag”.  I like to bang, I like to pound. I like to bang and pound. I like to pound and bang. I like to bang and pound and pound and bang!!!

beng beng beng meanwhile is a song by Femi Kuti, the great Nigerian Afro-Pop musician composer and bandleader who is of course the son of Fela Kuti who is beyond description. Femi Kuti and band — I believe 7 musicians plus 3 dancers including his wife — played my Cubberley Sessions in Palo Alto in 2000.

I say everything in correct order, he says. She say Femi love me don’t stop!!! I remember that Kimura Dixon, a photographer and composer and it turns out the son of Fred Dixon from Hogan’s Heroes, was our guest at the show and later sent me a print.

Cubberley under Del Thorpe was actually only luke-warm on my presentations, which spanned six years, roughly twice a month or 150 shows in total. In this case, they kinda fucked me regarding the green rooms and I had to squeeze the whole band, men and women, into one small room not our often-available two. Which was a problem the artist pointed out, because there was a costume change. So I drove home, or back to my parents’ house, and grabbed a bunch of wall hangings and ended up improvising a curtain backstage like “It Happened One Night”. Missus Kuti, the wife, noted that something was amiss, I was quite concerned, and I was hustling in two ways to remedy and she made a point of thanking me for doing as well as I did.  Hear Music was a sponsor of the show, the former high end record store or CD store at Stanford, Berkeley and Santa Monica, where Don MacKinnon was the shot-caller and later he and them were bought out by Starbucks, when Starbucks was pushing plastic. And those little trading card download cards.

Femi Kuti were playing at Stern Grove, in SF, for 7,000 people with Michael Franti, as their anchor and we fell into it. The money was originally targeted to do a Blind Boys of Alabama show, but that’s a long story and in non-characteristic Plasty style, I will save it fellater.

There was also a matinee or clinic at Yoshis in Oakland and I recall running into Anton Schwartz there, the sax player and math genius and he commented that he had never heard African music played with a clave. He meant, I think, the subtle underbeat that runs throughout the composition or beat, characteristic of Latin music.

As a bonus to music lovers, and not typesetters I want to mention there is an indie rock band called !!! or click-click-click or maybe chick-chick-chick (are they all ladies?) which i think refernces Pygmy or their languages.

 

 

 

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Cormac Ryan, KZ Okpala, Ugonna Onkeywe, Kent Lockhart, Marvin Gaye, Marlinda Fitzgerald, Hans Delannoy, Mick Jagger, Jared Goff, Todd Gurley, Tom Brady, Lynn Swann, Barry Bonds, Pete Broberg, Dr. J and me

Posted on January 25, 2019 by markweiss86
hell

I was disappointed to miss Cormac Ryan, but pleased to hear “Hell” by Squirrel Nut Zippers by LSJUMB

Dear (Friend of mine, former Sports Editor of The D, Sports Ilustrated Summer Reporter, UPI baseball stats desk jockey, of counsel to Office of Commish and basketball nut):
(Re Cormac Ryan, Stanford’s new #23, from Milton Academy and Collegiate of the 212)
ryanposter

I did not get to see freshman sensation Cormac Ryan play, but I did take home this poster.

other than I think he re-sprained his ankle so I did not see him yesterday, in loss to Utah. I thought the cheerleaders were better than the players. KZ Okpala I like, although its partly because I love Nigerians.
I don’t think I ever told you –during our long radio silence — that I stopped a tall black guy, standing next to me in line at the cafe at Stanford Museum — Cantor Museum and said “Who you played for, player?” and it was Ugonna Onyekwe a two-time Ivy POY from Penn, whose search engine query yields after one minute a 360-dunk.
But I’d take Kent Lockhart and his lizard sculptures over Ugonna and his bad Marvin Gaye squawks any day.
one more: seven of us Titans Champions (Gunn Classes of 1980, 1981, 1982 or 1983s) met with our old coach, Hans Delannoy — […] — and we tried to ring Kent Lockhart who is still in Melbourne and we got his mother, the one that Sports Ilustrated says she said she slept with Mick Jagger – -actually I think SI called Kent “flower child of an orginal flower child”.
How is your son?
Mark
and1: I’m going for Jared Goff the Cal Man and the Los Angeles Rams over Pats partly because I had Goff and Gurley in fantasy football this year but also because GM for Rams and three other on his staff are Dartmouth alumni. Although also I admit I pulled over my car on Alameda De Las Pulgas only recently for the first time when I discovered where Serra High Football field is, in San Mateo, CA — Tom Brady alma mater, as well as for Lynn Swann, and Barry Bonds baseball AND BASKETBALL  frosh soph I covered him — and took a photo.
I’m kidding about covering Bonds — Serra-Gunn at Gunn I had never seen Serra or knew its exact location — it happens to be near [..] but he did play frosh-soph his freshman year but was not yet a legend — winter before becoming a legend — he was just some famous guy’s son. (but I also flashed to – -if you permit me 16 digressions – ringing Pete Broberg out of the blue for my blog, Plastic Alto and he was very talkative and claims plausibly that Dartmouth played UMass and Pete covered Dr. J and held him to 9 or 10 or 11 points — something impressive even 50 years later and maybe Erving’s worst career game. Easily.
Ed thinks Cormac will rack — we hope so!!! bang bang bang
Ugonna is good, I was just playing with y’all. Check him out:
ok, I got to apologize for above reference, first reference: Ugonna Unyekwu the former pro basketball player I met at Stanford Cantor Museum of Art makes new age soundtrack music, not Marvin Gaye falsettos. He reminds me of Kevin Kern a New Age pianist I’ve met around here at music conferences and made me think of Christopher Tin, from Palo Alto who is world-renowned for his world music modern classical, here featuring a Swahili-singing chorus:
Here is as close as I got to seeing Cormac Ryan, formerly of the great Collegiate School in downtown Manhattan (besides I think some warm-ups; the guy next to me said he was strangely short on too many long-rangers):
screen shot 2019-01-25 at 7.28.49 am

Dejean Davis, loves me some Davis – no I love one Davis, my wife Terry Acebo Davis, longtime Stanford Hospital nurse, and also an artist and former arts commissioner

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Rollie Fingers v Gregg Rolie’s fingers

Posted on January 25, 2019 by markweiss86
rollie

Whereas I never ate the gum buying Topps, I did eat the Hostess.

Rollie Fingers, Hall of Fame Oakland A’s reliever I saw play in his prime and thought of just yesterday when the current HOFs including the fairly mediocre former Stanford hurler Mike Mussina were announced. I was originally going to write this up as “Rollie and Mussina v Logins and Messina” but cut to the cutter quicker with Gregg Rolie.

Gregg Rolie is a former Palo Altan who played Woodstock above with Santana Band featuring Carlos Santana, who Gregg first met in a police raid in Mountain View. He is also founding member of Journey, with guitar whiz kid Neal Schon of San Mateo — both bands inducted into Rock and Roll HOF. Next month at the UC Theatre in Berkeley (the former flagship for Gary Meyer’s Landmark chain and now David Mayeri’s non-profit romper room of noise) Schon and Rolie reunite — and there is a rumor that Steve Perry will sit in.

While I am here I believe that is a Hostess 1975 baseball panel you cut them off the bottom of HoHo boxes. Mike Ivie was briefly my favorite player in that I saw him hit a pinch-hit walk-off home run, for the Giants. I still have a ticket stub meanwhile for Game 1 of 1974 World Series for the A’s that my Dad took me to.

This is the worst capture of Gregg Rolie in Santana at Woodstock but close enough for the internet and WordPress and Plastic Alto. Did I mention I once did a press conference in front of Gregg Rolie’s house behind Cubberley on a tip from Dan Olmstead the musician and film sound guru who played in my series and cut their lawn? Rolie is ball of hair far right:

greggrolie

Greg and Carlos should re-cut “Supernatural” with Rolie doing all the vocals.

 

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A brief memoir regarding Jonah Mekas, 1922-2019

Posted on January 24, 2019 by markweiss86
  1. photo of New York Times, Thursday, January 24, 2019; p. A24;
  2. Screen capture or cut-and-paste of copy of note sent to Eden Arielle Gordon in New York, regarding Mekas, “Pull My Daisy” and “New American Cinema”, July 24, 2019 — along with link to article in The Times, by Bruce Weber;
  3. Screen capture of texts to Steve Cohen, Eric Cohen and Brian Moore, or a text and a link.
  4. Note: Jonas Mekas born in Lithuania in 1922 was not a Jew nor was he an anti-Semite.
  5. I volunteered for Anthology Film Archives — delivering the program guide to hot spots — for about (or two bout) a month in February, 2001, while living in Brooklyn, at Jenny Scheinman’s flat, while she was on tour in Europe, a few months before the fall of the World Trade Center.
  6. John Mhiripiri donated a copy of Film Comment from 1965 or so, to an art auction at Smith Anderson in Palo Alto when Paula Kirkeby hosted Gail Price and I, running for City Council; The magazine had a cover story about a controversial, perhaps banned film about heroin users.
  7. I remember the staff would sit around a round table in the old courthouse and affix mailing labels while re-runs of “Law and Order” was half-screened (“half-watched”?) above us as we sat, the tv on a rolling cart. I can hear the characteristic scene-changing tones, of that show. (As contrasted with the discomfort I felt trying to watch my first Stan Brakhage there, then; the silence.
  8. I spoke to John but did not see him when Terry and I visited New York in September, our honeymoon. The first night I ran ahead, back down Second Avenue towards Ian Schrager’s The Public, after pasta, with another couple, to duck into the lobby of Anthology Film Archive. I spoke briefly with the box office man — and mentioned by brief history there — grabbed a program guide and dashed back to rejoin the group, two couples, huddling in an awning’s (space) comtemplating a strategy against the rain (apparently no one else thought “movie” — later on I contemplated paying $10 even for 10 minutes of the program, a screening of a student film, of which I had sussed on the net). A younger me would have gone for it, the end of the film, by an unknown or fledgling director.
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Bartles and Jaymes drink their own Kool-Aid, and die…or do they?

Posted on January 24, 2019 by markweiss86

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I’ll have what she’s alive.

save my wife or Nachmanoff?

i watched our children die, I mean I watched an hour of this movie then died.

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Kat Parra v KZ Okpala

Posted on January 24, 2019 by markweiss86

Tonight Latin jazz basketball fans have the quandary that only Spiderman spider verse could solve which is a concert in Redwood City or a basketball game on campus at Maple Roscoe pavilion I mentioned KZ Oak Poler to a Nigerian student I met in the same breath as for McCourty, Ambrose active mu Saray and someone who literally split the difference and or slamdunks Ghana of pan Ugonna Of Penn excuse the autocowreck. 0C1A5626-D667-4CDF-BF71-1928F5D56FDD.jpegKat had the unique distinction of doing a short 25 minutes at in fall 1995 in my Cubberley series by Earthwise productions In front of a packed close to frothy Fandom for the first sellout There a rare appearance of Charlie Hunter trio and Charlie’s other band TJ Kirk. I ran into Scott Amendola at the make out room Christmas party And he said that despite my claims here in plastic alto that there was a second TJ Kirk Charlie Hunter Coville years later. Scott has a birthday bash at freight and salvage coming up and a tour with Jeff Parker in the spring.

I should probably bury  this in my litter box, But I was a little bemused to note years later on Kat Parra’s homepage  she lists opening for Charlie, and I think lists Cubberley But does not list Earthwise productions which is the actual imprimatur, my dear.

Kat Parra as distinct from Cat Power.

Or Rebecca Bera.

Her maiden name was Goldschmidtdorfhauserstein.

Yorba:

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Maybe Matt Jaffe could learn “The Drug Suite” by Stew, for 4/20

Posted on January 24, 2019 by markweiss86

 

bb7fd20e-c920-4045-b4b4-cd3b38a3f086 The young singer/songwriter and band leader from Marin, Matt Jaffe is turning 24 on April 20, 4/20, which in some circles and certainly not foreign to Marin especially West Marin,  people smoke dope and get high especially reggae people.

“The Drug suite” was a nine-minute, three-parts song on Stew’s 2002 album “naked Dutch painter” which Hilton Als said was his number one album of the year in a column for entertainment weekly.  “Arlington Hill” became a scene in “passing strange” which became a Broadway smash and Tony winner and certainly changed his life and maybe mine a little bit as his former manager; this is probably the 20th time I’ve written about Stew on this blog; I saw Stew and Heidi at Stanford about a year ago doing a James Baldwin series: “Florida you kill me” et cetera.  I had seen Stew but had not seen Heidi in 15 years and she seemed happy to see me.

Speaking of birthdays I am turning 55 next week; on “Passing Strange”’s ascent to Broadway it workshopped at both Stanford, and Berkeley Rep. Stew and I and a third wheel (that’s not fair but I don’t remember his friend’s name) had dinner together at Tamerine the best Vietnamese restaurant in town —I think I paid of course; such is the nature of managers and their ex- clients. I’ve probably lost the relatively cute photo of us or us three even, probably just two. I remember recognizing Robbie Grove and Tom McGannon —two school mates from going high in Palo Alto from 20 years before —Gunn high, rather — And then Andy Grove walked in —Stop me if you’ve heard this story before or maybe it was never admitted in print— But I remember thinking, wouldn’t that be an interesting photograph, the toast of Broadway and the Time man of the year —Andy Grive being the CEO of Intel beyond having two daughters at my school. But Stew  wouldn’t yield the Talkingstick to let me say my piece so I in bit of anger and frustration decided to let the whole thing, as Ken Kesey would say as quoted by the great jazz agent Reggie Marshall, use what you can and let the rest pass you by.

Somewhere among the 15,000 images stored in this device is a screen capture of the film of passing strange made by Spike Lee which I have downloaded to my television and during that song  I think it is the exact Nidus  of his career and transformation the lyric goes “everything’s all right“ and the band goes around that riff a couple times and then when he wants them to stop he clenches his fist and I froze that moment. Well I certainly hope young Matt Jaffe has more highs than lows.  I hope he gets to play with Nick Lowe or even the band called Low who does an interesting version of Andy Gibb “I started a joke.”

And suddenly there was a meaning /Arlington Hill helped me see everything…

You know what I’d like for my birthday? Book a Stew show in Palo Alto with Matt Jaffe as the opening act.

Jon Spurney, De’Adre Azizi, Colman Domingo and Mark “Stew” Stewart passing strange y’all

706279CF-A851-4029-AEAB-22F899B2861E.jpegThis is Donna Avery, the proud Momma of someone in the picture above, can you Guess Who (That’s a clue!!)

BD83D607-5855-4F8A-BAC5-6D53666E10E9.pngIt’s 7:20 A’M and I’m going back to sleep.  Zzzzzzzz (That’s a clue; I Remember when stew came on my radio show at KZSU Stanford during the time that passing strange was in Berkeley and he sang a song but said that it sounded a lot better when De’Adre  did it. He also had Angela Davis daughter Eisa As his mom in the show so to speak it’s complicated

Edit to add 11 minutes into my nap: since this is a Music blog more than it is just me me me me, I did download to recent Matt Jaffe records thanks to my newfangled magic handheld box thingy  he does have a song called getting stoned on Easter which is a day after his birthday although I wonder if by stoning means the punishment specially the way Muslims and Hindus sometimes by our standards cultural relativism really underappreciated their daughters At the wrong term there’s an absolute moral imperative to not be head or stone your daughter he without saying etc. etc.

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This is not the case here I don’t think but he does seem to have a series of songs about funerals and death is it because his grandma passed?

and: I am still here if you are dear reader: Matt Jaffe  was in Redwood City just yesterday place I’ve never heard of, the room. There’s also a video of him rehearsing at Centercourt of the Warriors game. call him maybe he can write a new national anthem or already has: Besides being hard to sing, stars bagel better is about a flag? “Stars, Bagels, Butter” — the autocowrecked version of FSK’s  already seems like a promising improvement in a Jared Bernstein and Walter Winchell but Shoberg way. Pete Broberg son a damn fine musician and dad held Dr. J to 11 points once, grandpa lost his arm but became a judge these could be great lyrics for that song and Not just ramblings. They were friends of mine who who who who who

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Greta Van Fleet v Laura Jane Grace

Posted on January 22, 2019 by markweiss86

 

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Saturday night live music in 1980 was David Byrne doing his odd version of take me to the river Where is 40 years later with Greta it’s all about the streaming

if I told you I’m apparently losing the ability to discern gender would you hold it against me?

or: one man’s Led Zeppelin is another mans plaster caster.

And: Just this morning, and thanks to Apple music lyrics feature I just realized that the song killer Queen is a walk on the wild side

andand:  there is a picture of Jell-O Biafra do you go to the concert you did where it was in San Jose or Oakland when you went nice was a good remake did I make you want to go out and buy new glasses that are fancier and bigger no I mean like Elton used to wear such colorful sunglasses prescription glasses so if he was doing that maybe you’d have the influence of you wanting to get fancy is not that your glasses are in fancy you have lied about it it was a good Joe is not too old to rock thanks for give me the report

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Notre Dame to cover Gregori mural

Posted on January 22, 2019 by markweiss86

A3908151-0B2A-461A-8452-B49F52B5944D.jpeg

And in a related story “Touchdown Jesus” will be replaced by Leon Phelps the Ladies Man praying hard about a recent trip to Bangkok.

Fuck is you sayin…I’m shot you put.

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I’m kind of intrigued by a band I just saw on public television, Southern Avenue, with two sisters, on vocals and drums and an is really bass player (Contrasted with Charlie hunter who is an invisible not-bass player)

Posted on January 22, 2019 by markweiss86

B124860D-C109-4D5A-B282-C13C698270F9.jpeg Tierinii Jackson, hopeful I am that it is not pronounced like the word for heavy handed or forceful leadership. Tierney Sutton meets Sharon Jones? Reminds me that I also met on the train a Kenyan who wants to be The Distillers. JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound. Alvin Youngblood Hart, whose name is Gregory but his boys thought he sang like Alvin the Chipmunk.. on Stax Records. The agent Jordan Burger books or booked Vienna Teng. The manager Yoni Schwartz also had or has a connection to Coolooloosh a band I interviewed for KZSU.  I sometimes have an 18th sense about these things. Orly Naftaly bass and coleader moved to Memphis from Israel.

Wasn’t there also a band named Luscious Jackson members dated or married Beastie Boys named for 76erballer Lucious Jackson the way Pearl Jam was briefly Mookie Blaylock? Regggie Jackson, Bo Jackson. The Jackson Two.

The look of the singer is kind of an Elmore Leonard character with hints of Walter Mosley or Quentin Tarantino.

its not up to me but something in the drummers eyes makes me thing they could package with No Name — which reminds me I had a similar first impression for Cautious Clay, who is coming or came to SF The Indepent. The real Clay was from Louisville not Memphis but I’m guessing that’s only 500 miles difference.

edit to add and not to digress too far from the powerful music of Jackson Naftaly Jackson and them but Louisville home of Muhammad Ali to Memphis Sun Studios and Graceland is 7.5 hours or 375 miles and think also the famous L&N Railroad but kinda resembles my trip with Henry Butler in 2002 from NoLa to Huntsville.

 

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