It’s jangly and jarring, but irresistibly hypnotic. Mark E Smith chants this incantation as if he is literally crawling out of his skin. The performance is teeth grinding punk rock in its distilled essence. a portrait of a poet in service to anarchy. And, funny. Deeply biting and ironical, this was DJ champion, John Peel’s favorite group. The lyrics here seem improvised, but he’s a gonzo beat poet extraordinaire - he’s written it all down, and delivers it with his signature repetition in a discordant bray.

“You don't have to be weird to be wired

You don't have to be an American to be strange

You don't have to be strange to be strange

You don't have to be weird to be weird”

After seeing the Sex Pistols in ’76 Mr Smith had a vision that carried him for 42 years through a ridiculous number of personnel changes. It doesn’t matter who is playing as long as Mark is at the mic. He said once, “if it’s me and your granny, it’s The Fall”.

Mark was a difficult, complex man who died in 2018 at the age of 60, leaving behind 32 studio albums and countless live versions. One could pick out practically any Fall tune, and experience that singular voice - “attitude personified,” one journalist dubbed it. I chose this cut because it makes me smile every time I hear it. I hate being in that condition myself, but it’s fun to vicariously share Mark’s flirtation with psychosis.

At the Governors Awards, Rashida Jones spoke on behalf of her father, who died earlier this month at the age of 91.

Before his death two weeks ago, the musician and producer Quincy Jones wrote a speech he intended to deliver at the Governors Awards, where he would receive an honorary Oscar at the ceremony created by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

On Sunday night in Hollywood, his actress daughter Rashida Jones delivered that speech on his behalf before a rapt audience.

“As a teenager growing up in Seattle, I would sit for hours in the theater and dream about composing for films,” she said while channeling her father, who was a Black trailblazer in Hollywood: “When I was a young film composer, you didn’t even see faces of color working in the studio commissaries.”
Nominated seven times, Jones was given a different honorary Oscar — the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award — in 1995, back when these awards were still part of the televised Oscar broadcast. To shorten that show, the honorary awards were spun off into their own event in 2009.
Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lopez staked their seats out early while the directors Luca Guadagnino (repping both “Challengers” and “Queer”) and Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”) compared notes on film formats. The “Succession” stars Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin reconnected on the terrace outside the party; both men are supporting-actor contenders; Strong for “The Apprentice,” Culkin for “A Real Pain.” And the stars of “Emilia Perez,” Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón, proved to be popular presences in every corner of the ballroom.

The first honoree of the night was Juliet Taylor, who has cast more than 100 films over the course of her career including “The Exorcist,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Annie Hall.” While accepting her Oscar, she described her job as being “able to appreciate actors when they’re not all that likable and appreciate directors when they’re not easy.”

Daniel Craig came out to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to the producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, who have served as the stewards of the James Bond franchise for nearly three decades. After taking the reins of Eon Productions from their father, Albert Broccoli, the half-siblings produced the last nine Bond films beginning with “Goldeneye,” Pierce Brosnan’s first foray in the role, all the way up to Daniel Craig’s final Bond outing, “No Time to Die.”

-Kyle Buchanan

I’M ALWAYS DRUNK IN SAN FRANCISCO by Carmen McRae (Atlantic, 1968)

Here’s my San Francisco story: In the 1980s, Chemayne and I went there on our honeymoon, spending a week before flying to Hawaii. We stayed at The Red Victorian, a reconverted townhouse in the Haight run by a dedicated, middle aged hippie, Sammy Sun-Child. It was adjacent to the Red Vic movie house, where you lounged on comfortable couches and ate homemade delicacies. The movie that week was Meryl Streep’s Dingo ate my baby film “Cry in the Dark”. We made the pilgrimage, and had martinis at John’s Grill, the legendary steakhouse where Dashiell Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon. It was a week lovingly emblazoned on my memory forever.

This song evokes these ruminations. The piano playing chanteuse, Carmen McRae weaves a sophisticated memoir of ironic delight, and I am in the throes of her conjurations. I discovered the tune on an obscure Atlantic box set entitled The Ertegun’s New York: New York Cabaret Music, meant to memorialize that special, hoity-toity Manhattan crowd, and it’s mythic entertainers. This version was released on the label’s 1968 album “Portrait of Carmen”, arranged and conducted by Benny Carter, in a much more fleshed out version.

Carmen, who started off aspiring to be like her mentor, Billie Holiday, perfected her own brand of behind the beat phrasing and ironic interpretation, finding her unique voice and style as a story teller of the first rank, honed by way of a disciplined acting training, which led to her success in the worlds of Cabaret, television, and film.

BY JAMES BARRON

George Jones Live At The Bottom Line- New York City- 1981
1 Ragged But Right
2 The Race Is On
3 Rollin' In My Sweet Baby's Arms
4 Bartender's Blues
5 Grand Tour
6 Tell Me My Lying Eyes Are Wrong
7 You Better Treat Your Man Right
8 White Lightning
9 Once You've Had the Best
AND MORE!

Hardly anybody would have looked for an “I ♥ NY” bumper sticker on George Jones’s tour bus. “The story of him and New York was he just didn’t want to come here,” said Jack Grace, a singer and songwriter who books performers for the Rodeo Bar in Manhattan.

Mr. Jones, a country singer with a plaintive voice and a complicated life who died on Friday at 81, told people he did not like Manhattan. But maybe he needed a geography lesson. He did not seem to understand that Manhattan was in New York or that, to many New Yorkers, Manhattan just was New York.

Steve I. Weitzman, a club promoter, remembered booking Mr. Jones for a show at Tramps on West 21st Street in 1992.

“He had a fabulous time,” Mr. Weitzman said, adding that at one point, Mr. Jones told the crowd, “I’m in New York” — with, as Mr. Weitzman described it, an almost giddy sense of excitement that one would not expect from a big-name star.

A year and a half later, Mr. Weitzman booked him again. Same place, same stage, same hopes.

“The agent called me a week or two later and said, ‘George is going to cancel. George didn’t like Manhattan,’” Mr. Weitzman said. “George didn’t know that Manhattan was in New York. The agent told me George would appear if I could find another venue that’s not Manhattan, but what place was there that was not booked? I tried upstate New York, but I couldn’t find anything that was not booked.”

By then Mr. Jones was known as No-Show Jones for the performances he skipped, often because of drinking and drugs. Allan Pepper, an owner of the Bottom Line in Greenwich Village, remembered no-show dates in the late 1970s. One was a two-night stand in September 1977 that coincided with a press party for Mr. Jones given by Epic Records.

“The only trouble was, Mr. Jones didn’t show up — at either the party or the performances,” The New York Times reported. “When last heard from, Mr. Jones’s Nashville office had no idea where he was.”

A story circulated about what had happened. “Somebody said he went out the bathroom window,” Mr. Pepper said.

Fans figured he had the jitters. “A lot of those people got freaky about New York,” said Mort Cooperman, an owner of the Lone Star Cafe on Fifth Avenue, referring to famous performers. He said he had tried to sign Mr. Jones for the same dates but lost out to the Bottom Line. “Some of them loved it and turned into glowworms, like Johnny Paycheck. He was turned on by New York.”

But Mr. Jones stayed away. Mr. Pepper said the routine — agreeing on a date, signing a contract and canceling the gig — became all too familiar. “I would be upset,” he said, “but here’s the interesting thing: We would announce there was a cancellation and the fans would come up to the box office window and ask us, ‘What was it this time? He got sick? He got into an accident?’ They were prepared for this. They knew he was No-Show Jones. So I rebooked him, and again he canceled on me.”

Mr. Pepper booked him again, in 1980, and as if to prove the cliché about the third time being a charm, Mr. Jones not only appeared, but Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt — who had been in the audience — joined him onstage for several songs. Mr. Pepper said that

"REHEARSALS FOR RETIREMENT" WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY PHIL OCHS-
"IF i CAN DREAM" WRITTEN BY EARL BROWN AND RECORDED BY ELVIS PRESLEY IN HONOR OF THE ONLY ROBERT KENNEDY IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING HIS ASSASSINATION.
"THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED" DIRECTED BY ROBERT CORMAN AND NARRATED BY CHET HUNTLEY.
"THE BEST MAN" DIRECTED BY FRANKLIN J. SCHAFFNER FEATURING HENRY FONDA AND CLIFF ROBERTSON.


“There’s something about the guy that I love…” This is what Rich remembered that I had said about DJT. I didn’t remember saying it, but I think I can relate to the veracity of his accusation. It’s the re-incarnation of the Trickster that I recognize from myth - the nihilist Puck, whose talent to amuse - to entertain us as he foments chaos - is something that, I, (as someone who spent half his life trying to understand the nature of charisma) - can appreciate.

Rich, as life-long activist, sees it differently: this, he feels, might be, perhaps, the last election he’ll see in his lifetime, and the end of every ideal he fought for in his youth. But, he’s a scrappy, latter day Dead End Kid, who ain’t ready to lie down in darkness. Dig our back and forth debate.-
BILL MESNIK

Let's get ready to rumble.
In the blue corner, a childless, blackish Vice President from Oakland, CA who was inspired by John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" in her youth and presented with 107 days and a cat sandwich with which to salvage democracy.
A piece of cake kids.
In the Orange corner, a man with the graceless moves of Jerry Lewis on acid and who has never met a "fuck you" he didn't like.
A piece of crap kids.
Let the games begin.
The ball is in your court America.
I know you'll do the right thing because it's about feeding your family, right?
Wrong. It never was and once again we are forced to never forget.
As Robert Duvall recited in "Apocalypse Now", "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning".
We do, don't we?
Looking at my reflection in the mirror of social change I get it.
Deep policy was replaced by the red carpet pedigree of celebrity and the racist molester won every single demographic he insulted with the vitality of an elderly pro wrestling heel.
Hulk Schmuck.
Trump has spent his entire life learning how to throw the spitball.
Kamala had only 107 days to learn how to throw a fastball.
Orange is now truly the new black and blue.
Good luck and Good night.-
With gratitude to Norman Mailer, Barbara Dane, Dave Van Ronk, Tuli Kupferberg, Ed Sanders, Muhammad Ali, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Hunter S. Thompson, Medgar Evers, Frannie Lou Hamer and Ruby Bridges, the first black child to Integrate an All-White Elementary School in the South, on November 14, 1960, at the age of six.
RICH BUCKLAND

Any self respecting devotee of fuzz and farfisa will genuflect at the mention of Talk Talk by The Music Machine, the brain busting bombshell that exploded in 1966 at the height of the garage band culture. Along with Psychotic Reaction by The Count V, and 96 Tears by ? And The Mysterians, The Music Machine ruled the airwaves that year. My middle school band, The Full House, could play 96 tears, but Talk Talk was a bronco that was harder to ride. And, the guttural snarl of lead singer Sean Bonniwell, as he spit out the red meat of his teenage angst, was an inimitable storm surge of passion.

But, as so often happens, the complications of keeping a band together pulled at the group’s threadbare fabric, and by ’69 the band was in shreds, and Sean was on his own. This cut, Absolutely Positively is off the album THE BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE (because he was the only one left), but features some of the original players before they split. After that, the Music Machine was no more, and Sean soldiered on through an unforgiving solo career.

But, I’m thrilled hearing the roiling organ arpeggios on the verses as Sean expresses the ambivalence of not knowing what he wants, but then, emerging with determination, as he stands firm during the choruses, declaring: “Absolutely Positively I want your love!”.

I’d like to say that this is one of the best love duets ever recorded, but I demur from superlatives generally. However, I can say with certainty that it’s one of my favorites. Maybe it’s the simple, straightforward vocal delivery of these two raw-boned, pioneer types that makes me cry every time they ease into the sinuous harmonies of the chorus. And, the lyrics complement the American Gothic soundscape as they sing: “See how the bramble and the rose intertwine…” It’s a performance for the ages from two people who obviously loved and trusted each other and were dedicated to their mission to share the folk music they cherished.

I’d never heard of Mary McCaslin or Jim Ringer when I ran across their album in the cut out bin at the old Rhino Records store on Westwood in Los Angeles. And, I’m not sure what induced me to buy it - perhaps it was the inclusion on the track list of “Oh, Death,” - a song I knew from Ralph Stanley-, that clinched the deal; Maybe it was the primitive portrait of the two lovers: Mary, with her modest, down cast eyes opposite the barrel chested, ruddy cheeked Ringer, who stares directly, and challengingly, from the cover. Whatever the draw, I’m thankful I spent the $3.99, and I’ve kept it close to my heart ever since for solace, to remind me that true love, even with all its thorns, is worth fighting for.

Breaking News!

FILM PREMIERE

Maureen Gosling's
THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE
"The amazing story of Barbara Dane, a powerful radical citizen-artist whose magnificent voice and uncompromising dedication to freedom, social justice and global liberation, continues to ring."

--Danny Glover, Executive Producer

WATCH
TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdkTz4Lihmwhttps://www.barbaradane.net/

DOC 'N ROLL FESTIVAL

October 27th, 2024 @ 5:30pm

LONDON - BARBICAN CINEMA 3

Director, Maureen Gosling will lead Q&A after screening

​BARAKAN MUSIC FILM FESTIVAL

September 9th-19th, 2024

TOKYO

Director, Maureen Gosling at Sept 9th screening

​Note from Bill:
5 years ago, about this time of year, Rich approached me about celebrating the extraordinary life of one of his major influences - (he had brought her to our high school in the late 60s to participate in a benefit concert to raise money for Native American schools). I had a lot to learn because Barbara Dane's career spanned most of the 20th century and a good chunk of the present one. And, I was grateful for the study.
Starting out as a teenager from Detroit, Barbara Jean Spillman began singing with Louis Armstrong, and went on to become a sensation in the world of jazz. But, she was too big for that container - she went on to become one of the most influential folk music activists and label owners in history.
Upon learning of her passing last week at the age of 97, it seemed fitting that we revisit that special archival episode. Listen, and be amazed!

"Bessie Smith in Stereo" said jazz critic Leonard Feather in Playboy magazine when Barbara Dane burst onto the scene in the late '50s. In 1958 Time magazine said of her: "The voice is pure, rich...rare as a 20 karat diamond." To Ebony magazine, she seemed "startlingly blonde, especially when that powerful dusky alto voice begins to moan of trouble, two-timing men and freedom... with stubborn determination, enthusiasm and a basic love for the underdog (she is) making a name for herself...aided and abetted by some of the oldest names in jazz who helped give birth to the blues..." The seven-page Ebony article--their first feature story about a white woman (Nov., l959)-- was filled with photos of Dane working with Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Clara Ward, Mama Yancey, Little Brother Montgomery and others...