1,244,824 @ 4:26 am
What the heck am I doing up at 4:26 am?
Like 30 years or so ago the prestigious Rock and Folk magazine out of France called your editor one of the five "crazy geniuses" of rock and roll, along with Captain Beefheart, Phil Spector, Frank Zappa etc. if memory serves...you try finding the article written all in French!!! ...Oedipus from WBCN brought the article back for me...so last night when I was on a 50,000 watt station I returned the favor and noted that Oedi was the second d.j. to go on the air at the dawn of the New Wave (after Debbie at WHRB) and thus the scene launched from the clubs and the radio.
The attention we are getting for the sixth anniversary of the Rat reunions is humbling, and quite fun, actually.
So I am contemplating leaving Medford to work at a recording studio in Maine, or maybe one in Yarmouth or Martha's Vineyard, which, of course, is the thing I love most in this world, more than writing, producing records.
Back in 1988 I managed one of the three studios that launched the New Kids on the Block, recording Aretha Franklin's drummer, working on an album for my friend Jo Jo (she was signed to Mercury and earlier to Pye in the U.K. with Andy Summers and possibly Sting on her first recording...) in an elevator in Los Angeles prior to having lunch with the music editor of U.S.A. Today, the editor brought up Jo Jo's 45s... "Oh, did Joe Vig get them to you?" He replied, "No, my wife and I have them in our collection."
Dear Jo Jo was very impressed. Her band was Jo Jo Laine and The Firm on Mercury (produced by Ray from the band Fancy who had a couple of hits including that remake of "Wild Thing") but Jo Jo gave her dear friend Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) the name The Firm and the rest is history. When her friend Terry died from heart failure Mr. Page sent a big bouquet of flowers to the wake. Now Terry had a strange story to tell after his heart transplant. He wanted to eat his own heart! The doctors in the U.K. refused to let him.
That's Rock and Roll, isn't it?
So one of my lawyers back in 1988 calls me and says "You can't get us into the Atlantic 40th Party, can you?" and my reply was "I need to hang up on you now, how many tickets do we need?" (Now you know why I dropped him!) ...we made him pay for the trip, and another trip to New York, ha ha...so at the Atlantic party there were backstage passes (orange) a different color than the band passes (green, if I recall, heck, it was 30 years ago) and Jo Jo and I decided to go backstage. So I turned my backstage pass (plastic) upside down so you couldn't see the color, only that it was a backstage pass sticking out of my shirt pocket, Jo Jo and I head to the dressing room while the Young Rascals were playing, reunited, or the Bee Gees, one of those acts, before Led Zeppelin took the stage and the next thing you know my then-lawyer and his friend and two guys we met, a stream of people all followed me past the security and right to the Zeppelin dressing room with Jo Jo waltzing up to her old friend Robert Plant saying "Robert, how ARE you?" ...incredible times...It was all written up in some English magazine where the English writer made up some scandalous stuff that was totally untrue, so of course I sent a fax to the U.K. threatening a lawsuit and she backed off claiming "Oh, my son wrote that version, I didn't see it." Right. No one ever gets to see it when Joe Vig puts his foot down. Haven't they yet learned not to piss me off?
Actually, that was the tamest trip we ever had, no funny business, no threesomes, foursomes, what have you, just business. But it was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime concert. The late Lavern Baker was dynamite, just a few months after she was holding my kitty cat at the recording studio (they were recording the SHAG film soundtrack if I recall)...Jim Dandy to the Rescue...love Lavern...so many of them gone, but I got to hang out with many of our heroes, so whatever your definition of success, I've been fortunate enough to exchange information with those I admire.
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When one of my roommates recently saw my resume he said "What the heck are you doing here?" and, you know, he's right. What the hell am I doing fixing public access in Medford, Malden, Winchester, Somerville when the whole damn thing is going to implode anyway...I have albums to make, and - just perhaps - getting away from recording was good for the soul, take a long step back like John Lennon did (of course, he got shot after his comeback, but that was Jedgar Hoover's doing with a Manchurian Candidate, or so they say...I just have to be on the watch for the Muccini Candidate, but I digress again...)
Can't wait to work on my new record album after all these years.
"Bang the Rastafarian" is a hit. We won't be playing it live because I'm re-writing the lyric to make it even more indecent and salacious! Yes, indeed! But there'll be soundscapes and dramatic overtures stuck inside the grooves...
Mark 6:4 is so appropriate, n'est ce pas?
New Living Translation
Then Jesus told them, "A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family."
English Standard Version
And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”
The Rejection at Nazareth
…3Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t His sisters here with us as well?” And they took offense at Him. 4Then Jesus told them,“A prophet is without honor only in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own household.” 5So He could not perform any miracles there, except to lay His hands on a few of the sick and heal them.…
Yes, I am the Jesus Christ of Public Access TV.
You think Pat Gordon is going to have a "vision for access!"
HA - that puppy was neutered by Darth Stephanie the minute that he signed on the dotted line.
To paraphrase our Lord, "A genius is without honor only in his hometown."
They haven't got a fucking clue at Medford City Hall, people of this great Commonwealth...the last thing they want is a legitimate "vision" for access TV
Patrick Gordon will give you the bastardized version because he's working with a real bastard who goes by the name of Stephanie Muccini-Burke!
She's the real thing
And so am I. Real Genius vs Real Bastard!
now excuse me...I gotta get ready to take the stage and entertain some people...
2016 White Light White Heat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnJ23zks18k
White Light not part of 9-1-18's set. We are performing
Sister Ray/Jumpin' Jack Flash medley as a tribute to
Lou Reed and producer Jimmy. RIP ...
and a special version of the Stones' Let It Bleed
You can bleed all over me.
You can come all over me.
Good old Mick Jagger doesn't mince words, does he?
Let It Bleed, Produced by Mr. Jimmy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS5NQW8QGGw
[Verse 3]
Ah, get it on rider, get it on rider, get it on rider
You can bleed all over me, yeah
Get it on rider, get it on rider, yeah
You can be my rider, you can come all over me, oh
Get it on rider, get it on rider, get it on rider
You can come all over me
are you shocked yet?