I am still digesting our recent art binge in NYC. One day in Tribeca, one in Chelsea and one at MoMA left me me with a hundred new photos in my library. That’s not exactly true. At MoMA I studied and then photographed some of the same paintings from their collection that I’ve photographed before. So some are only sort of new. And now, after studying my photos I find it interesting that I was attracted to the same thing a few years back. I had photographed two of the three pieces above before. The newer photos are better and that is only because I am better equipped to color correct the white walls in PS.
As exciting as the new art in lower Manhattan was (and I felt like we had struck gold there) these three pieces from MoMA stand out. Despite the fact that there create dates span one century it is striking how similar they are. Less is still more.
We recently turned to our friend, Rich, for some legal advice. He told us he enjoys talking about the kind issues we like to put off. He was very helpful, of course, but the is the same individual who coined the phrase, “Often in error, never in doubt.” He told us that a song of his, the instrumental, MX-80 version, had caught on in Russia, probably in TicToc circles, and he was recieving respectable royalties from it.
Peggi and I played with Rich in a band called “Chinaboise” before moving to Rochester at the end of 1974. Peggi gave Peggi her first saxophone lessons. Hava Nagila was the first song she learned. We played Self-Conscious Pisser (the lyrics were written about another friend of ours) and I guess I hung onto the sheet music. It belongs in a museum. The Chinaboise, with new members, recorded a 1975 album with SCP on it. Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney left Chinaboise and joined MX-80 Sound. They recorded a version of SCP in 1976 for their “Big Hits” ep. The song was also included in their 1990, all instrumental smash, “Das Love Boat.” And today it is big in Russia.
Margaret Explosion LP “Per La Prima!” EAR 19 on Earring Records, released September 2023
Back cover of Margaret Explosion LP “Per La Prima!” EAR 19 2023
I wrote a review of Greg Prevost’s fabulous new lp a few weeks back. And at the time I did not want to mention that Greg had reviewed our recent lp. “per la prima.” This wan’t payback. We really love the album, mostly because it appeared to us that Greg had really transformed himself, stepped into another realm. No longer just the former lead singer of the Chesterfield Kings but Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost. Now is the time to reprint Greg’s review of our lp – taken from his Facebook page.
“Really enjoying the latest album ‘per la prima’ by the Margaret Explosion led by Paul Dodd (drums) and Peggi Fournier (soprano sax). I have known Paul since his time as the drummer in New Math back in the late ‘70s; in fact one of the first times I ever appeared in public was with New Math (when I was invited onstage by Gary Trainer and Kevin Patrick) at a Record Archive party circa ‘79. Paul was the drummer at this time so we go WAY back! I met Peggi shortly after this when my former now-defunct band opened for Paul & Peggi’s band, the Hi-Techs at the end of 1980. For those that may not know, the Hi-Techs morphed into Personal Effects who made a number of hugely successful albums and were a staple in the Rochester scene through the years that followed.
Paul and Peggi then re-invented themselves as the Margaret Explosion and are a constant in the Rochester music scene, performing intimate shows at the Little Theater where this album was recorded-LIVE. A perfect NATURAL recording the way albums are supposed to be recorded. Other members appearing on the album are Jack Schaefer (my close friend Bob’s brother, on tenor sax, bass clarinet and guitar), old pal Bob Martin (guitar), Ken Frank (double bass), Pete LaBonne (piano) and the lovely Melissa Davies on cello (thanks to a chance meeting Caroll and I had with Paul and Peggi at Durand Park, Melissa appeared on my latest album). It is nearly impossible to describe the album. If I had to, I’d say surreal, freeform and euphoric. Comparing to other artists would also not do justice since the group is so original, but think on the lines of early Popul Vuh, Lol Coxhill (at times), Ash Ra Temple, Traffic at their most experimental, Miles, Coltrane … Yeah! Hear for yourself! Beautifully mastered and pressed on vinyl.”
Drop-off for the annual Members Show at RoCo was this past weekend. I was torn between submitting a photo from my “Portals and Planes” show or the abstract above. Interesting that it came down to those two. They are really very similar. Peggi helped me make the decision and the acrylic on paper has been entered.
Rochester Contemporary Director, Bleu Cease, with copy of Margaret Explosion’s new cd. Photo by Peggi Fournier.
While we were there we gave Bleu Cease a copy of the new Margaret Explosion cd, “Field Recordings.” Peggi was struck by the color scheme. I took the color out of East Avenue to heighten the matchy matchy.
We were out of town for the opening of “Queering Democracy,” the current show so we took the opportunity to take in the show. We felt comfortable hanging around because we had parked using the new Flowbird app. You type in your location and the meter starts. It stops charging when gps notes that you left the space. Turns out we never engaged it properly so we parked for free and didn’t get caught.
The double portrait above by Rochester artist, Unique Fair, was my favorite piece. We talked to Bleu again on the way out and I had an opportunity to pass on a comment that Anne Havens wanted me to share with the Director. It is somewhat bothersome to have art shows hinged to secondary concerns, secondary to the visual that is. The wall tags are getting bigger than the artwork.
Margaret Explosion cd cover of “Field Recordings” EAR20 2024
With a little bit of editing, looping of intros, abbreviating mid-sections and cutting off the extended, musicianly endings we squeezed seventeen songs onto our new cd,. The Margaret Explosion crowd still buys cds and a few even complained that our last release was only available on vinyl. Our distribution amounts to the record stores in Rochester and the people who come out to hear the band at the Little but they are a reliable market. I prefer streaming and I’m happy to announce that our new release is available on all the streaming services today.
Margaret Explosion cd back cover of “Field Recordings” EAR20 2024
Field Recordings includes 17 improvisations recorded live in stereo at the Little Theatre Café in Rochester New York. Various combinations of the following players are featured. I hope you enjoy it.
Peggi Fournier – soprano sax Ken Frank – double bass Melissa Davies – cello Phil Marshall – guitar Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet, guitar Paul Dodd – drums
“Cloud Library” from Margaret Explosion cd “Field Recordings”Leave a comment
Forty years ago, on election night 1984, Personal Effects opened for John Cale at Scorgie’s. Ronald Reagan was running for his second term. Americans loved that guy, an old, former movie actor. John Cale behaved as if it was the end of the world. He was drinking, a bottle of cognac that Scorgie provided, and he had a TV set on stage with him, tuned to live election night coverage. He bounded on stage, maniacally shouting “Four More Years, Four More Years, Four More Years.” It was sensational. Eight years ago, the night after Election Day, Margaret Explosion played the Little Theatre Café. Another old actor had won the presidency. This time it was like a morgue but I remember it being good musically.
On the A train to JFK we noticed a heavy set man with a big suitcase asking directions with a German accent. Not all the A trains go as far as Howard Beach where we were to pick up the Airtrain and we shared his concern. We decided to get off at the next stop and re-board a later A train. The German fellow did the same. He immediately struck up a conversation with a Jamaican woman and we listened in. She told him she too was going to Howard Beach so we followed her lead.
I took a closer look at the guys’ suitcase. It was one of those bulbous aluminum fortresses on wheels, maybe three feet high, with the Statue of Liberty and American flag printed on it. We told him we were going to JFK as well. He said he had come over on the Queen Mary and had spent a few days in Boston, Washington DC and New York City. He unfolded a paper map and showed us where his hotel was in lower Manhattan. And he traced the route he had walked in the city with his finger. Across town and up to 59th Street where he took the – and here he couldn’t come up with the word, he pinched his fingers together, looked up and moved his hand across the sky. “Tram,” we said in unison.
With delight he told us he had walked over to Trump Tower in midtown. We both groaned but he was beaming. We were impressed by the amount of walking he did and I wondered if he could have possibly walked more than we had. I looked down at his shoes and they were a worn pair of real walking shoes.
Opening for Henry Taylor “no title” show at Hauser Wirth in Chelsea
The first stop on our art tour was the inaugural show at Marian Goodman Gallery, a collection of work by artists they represent. The Denzil Forrester “Two Islands, One World” show on Walker Street included a portrait of Lee Perry and funky scenes of music centered island culture. Robert Pokorny’s “Lost in a Dream” showed pop/surreal, mash-ups of Guston’s building blocks. Peter Kim’s reduced palette of simple organic, almost flat forms felt very familiar to me, like something I was fumbling to do years ago. The small oil paintings by Dorian Cohen on Henry Street reminded me of Holly’s paintings in Bloomington. The galleries are spread out here so we wandered and struck some gold before reaching the lowest portion of the lower east side where we had Basque food at Ernesto’s.
Friday was devoted to mining the galleries in Chelsea. On the train I looked to see what was at Hauser Wirth and learned they were closed until Saturday’s opening. But there are two Hauser Wirth’s in Chelsea so our first stop was 18th Street where they were showing new Henry Taylor paintings and prints, a show called “no title.” We fell in love withTaylor’s work at his Whitney show last year and here we were on opening day with his new work.
The four Henry Taylor paintings in the photo above each started with a print from an edition of his drawing of a young boy. Taylor’s paint handling is so full of life. It is luscious and rough and tumble at the same time. I loved how these four variations illustrate his mastery. The show had just been hung and the opening was that evening. One wall of the gallery was lined with Taylor’s etchings, all done in 2024 and each in an addition of 25. I started photographing them all but I stopped at the third. Something happened to me as I studied it. I was delirious. I asked a gallery attendant how much they were. He took our name and number and said it was ours when the show comes down.
In the book store I breezed through the new Chillida book (written by his daughter) and discovered it was full of pictures so we bought that. They gave us another cloth bag, this one egg yolk yellow. It looked so good on Peggi who was wearing all black. I was floating on air when we left but I kept thinking about how loose the purchase offer remained. Did we really buy it? We decided to go back to opening later that night. Maybe even meet the artist.
A block away I dismissed Kibong Rhea’s silvery landscapes as b&w photos printed on canvas but they were so beautiful we stayed in their company. We discovered they weren’t photos at all but multilayered acrylic and polyester fiber paintings, foggy day dreamscapes. A reminder to keep my mind open. I loved the large Carrie Mae Weems photos on canvas at Gladstone, shown with very little light on them, photos of wall panels surrounding construction sites that over time take on the look of abstract expressionist paintings.
We had dinner at an Italian place and returned to Hauser Wirth in time for the opening. We had a glass of champaign and were assured by Jonathan that our transaction was solid. We hung with the work and got into deep conversations about it with total strangers. We left before Henry showed up.
David Salle, “New Pastoral, Ballerinas,” 2024 at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea
There are two David Salle shows in Chelsea . He is showing monotypes and paintings of cartoon-like characters at Pace Prints and AI assisted paintings at Gladstone. Salle himself walked into the room as I was photographing his painting above. I’m not particularly fond of his paintings but I really enjoyed his “How to See” book and there is no denying he is a great painter.
According to a New York Times article Salle jokes that he sent a program to art school, teaching it how a painting works by feeding it a balanced diet of his favorites — Arthur Dove for line, Edward Hopper for volume, De Chirico for space, Warhol for color — as well as his own “Pastorals,” before administering a final exam. He effectively reverse engineered David Salle paintings.
Funny thing is in my Photos library my photo (above) has one of those AI “Look up Artwork” icons on it and when I clicked on it it took me to “The Dinosaurs of Avignon” by Martin Davey, a hideous painting that I can only hope was generated with AI. An AI creation misidentified by AI as another AI painting.
Ikebana (Escapism)” 2024 by Alexandre da Cunha at James Cohan Gallery in Tribeca
Hardly have time to post down here, looking at all the new buildings and just looking at everything. The skinny black woman in the “RAW” t-shirt, just long enough to serve as a dress. The woman in black hijab garb with clean white sneakers and a pink head scarf. The Mexican with the pompadour, tortoiseshell sun glasses and glitter speckled sweater. The young couple sitting across from us on the F train. He with a “This Is Who You Worship Now” t-shirt and she with the white dress, blond hair, red lipstick, red purse, red phone and gold shoes. All this before we got to the gallery district in Tribeca.
When Joe Barrett was doing Summer Theatre at University of Rochester he had a part in “Blood Wedding,” the Federico Garcia Lorca play about the big stuff, love, sexuality and violence. The play was in English but I understood very little of it. Years ago we saw a reading of Lorca’s “Poeta en Nueva York” in a bookstore in Madrid. The performer was accompanied by a guitar player and although I understood very little of the Spanish it was memorable because it was intensely dramatic.
Today we saw/heard “Ainadamar,” a dramatization of Lorca’s life and work in flamenco opera form at the Metropolitan. The poet-playwright was assassinated by fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War because of his socialist politics and homosexuality.
I resisted looking down at the translations and let myself get swept away by the modern pageantry. The man who played Franco, or someone like him, sang in a Saeta voice as if he was petitioning the Virgin Mary on Semana Santa. Of Lorca he sang, “He has done more harm with his pen than others with their pistols. “He is a faggot and a communist.”
Lorca, played by a woman, sang “Forgive me Father, even though I have done nothing wrong. Forgive me father for I have sinned. There is no god. Only the bull. There is no god. Only my café.”
Peggi and have been enjoying a mini news fast down here but watching fascism take Lorca out just three days before the election I could not help but think about el payaso, pictured on the streets of Manhattan (above.)
Our neighbor’s watch lost its connection to her phone yesterday. I’m guessing she was trying to find her phone with it and then discovered the disconnect. She knocked on our door for help and I suggested she start by turning off both devices, then turning Bluetooth and WiFi off and on again, the boring stuff. It fixes everything.
We hardly had time to finish our coffee this morning and we were already at the airport. While we waited for our plane I went to the nearby unisex/baby-changing restroom. I looked the door behind me and immediately an alarm went off. I pictured some sort of emergency in the airport but then spotted a phone blinking on top the toilet paper dispenser. I really didn’t want to touch the phone so I left it there and walked down to the Men’s room.
From JFK we took the train to Duane’s place. Before we even reached the turnstile we got a prompt that informed us we no longer needed to double tap to pay our fares. I held my watch up for Peggi to go through and then held it up again for me to pass but it would not allow me to do two fares. I asked Peggi to pass me her phone and I used it to get through.
This is probably a good thing. A few years ago I I tried to pay Duane’s fare and he was busy talking to Peggi and a total stranger slid through on my dime.
August Sander “Aviator” 1928 George Eastman Museum
Photography is approximately 175 years old. About as old as George Eastman would be if he hadn’t taken his own life. The museum behind his home houses an amazing collection and the curators have some choice pieces on display now. Lee Frielander, August Sander, Aaron Siskind, Barbara Kruger, Lorna Simpson, Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Brenson and Paul Strand are all represented. A Milton Rogovan tryptic of a Buffalo mother and son over a twenty year period stands out. Four 1915 mugshots from Fort Wayne, Indiana caught my eye. All were arrested for “loitering.”
You really shouldn’t have to read a wall tag to enjoy a photograph. And we couldn’t help but notice how brief August Sander’s tag was. “August Sander ‘Aviator’ 1928.” Exactly what you see. Can we have a whole show of his work?
Alison Rossiter “Exposed Paper” 2009 George Eastman Museum
My favorite photo was this abstract landscape by Alison Rossiter. The wall tag reads “Acme Kruxo, exact expiration date unknown, ca. 1940’s, processed in 2009.” Rossiter creates camera-less photographs on expired, vintage photo paper and this one is sensational.
Henry Wessel “House” 1973 George Eastman Museum
Henry Wessel took this one just for me. Point blank. An abstracted, in camera construction of flat forms. This one sings!
Bill would joke that he was a lesbian who likes women and Geri was gay and liked men. Everyone would laugh but not quite understand. It was one of those Bill things. With his long hair and beard you would not mistake him as a corporate type but before he died in 2013 he was the web master for Lawyers Coop, Thomson Reuters, and then West Publishing. The company produced all those law books you see lining lawyers’ shelves in old tv shows. Today it’s LexisNexis.
Bill owned Asymmetrical Press and they printed the Hi-Techs first 45 cover for Archive Records. He was at Scorgie’s listening to Personal Effects the night his wife, Geri, gave birth to their first son, Sam. We knew him for a long time. Peggi and I used to do a yearly slideshow for Hampshire Instruments when they were marketing an X-ray lithography process for making computer chips. We took our Canvas files to Bill when he and Geri were running Publisher’s Workshop in an upstairs office at Writers & Books. This was before PowerPoint and Canvas was the only program that would allow you to output files to 35 mm slides. The files took so long to image that we slept there while they ran. Bill was always way ahead of the curve.
Bill was a Whole Earth kind of early adaptor. A first with personal computers and excited by the egalitarian promise of the web. He helped us learn the early versions of Dreamweaver. We spent a good part of every day on the phone with him. And when a problem couldn’t be solved Bill plugged away, did the research and came back with a solution. When West wanted to transfer Bill to the midwest he quit and started Virgin Wood Type with Geri.p
Sculpture for Bill Jones in backyard
When we were doing some construction on our house Bill stopped by and picked up a piece of re-bar with concrete attached to it and he stuck in the ground out back. We left it there but the winters took a toll. The concrete crumbled and the re-bar was all that remained. This weekend Peggi and I rebuilt the sculpture using leftover concrete from a pool project mixed with the mortar we skim-coated our concrete block house with before painting it this summer. We used three concrete blocks as the forms and lined it with an old sheet of rubylith (Peggi’s idea). I cracked the blocks open in the morning and the sculpture emerged. We stuck it back in the ground where Bill originally put it.
Our Hi-Techs single, “Screamin’ You Head,” was getting some play in New York clubs and found its way onto the Rockpool charts when Cachalot Records contacted us about making a record for the label. We were in the process of changing course and we had just changed our name to Personal Effects. Eric came up from New York and worked on the project at PCI Studios, we went down to New York and did some work at Sorcerer Sound and we recorded an ep with five songs.
We did a series of dates in New York (Peppermint Lounge, Danceteria, Ritz) and Eric invited execs from bigger labels. At one he told us the sound sucked and he wanted us to fire our sound man. Eric doesn’t remember it this way but for us it was a turnig point. In 1984 we started our own label, recorded an album in the basement where we rehearsed and released “This Is It” on Earring Records with the catalog number EAR1. Bob Martin copied those original half inch, 8-track reel to reel tapes to DAT in the early eighties and is in the process of remixing that lp (along with three additional tracks) for a digital only 40th Anniversary release next month.
Personal Effects, Absolute Grey, Colorblind James Experience, Wilderness Family, The Essentials, Urban Squirrels, Invisible Idiot, Pete LaBonne, SLT and Margaret Explosion all recorded projects for Earring Records. There is no hierarchy in the organization, no execs and, of course, no distribution outside of Rochester.
Here is a track from the upcoming Margaret Explosion cd “Field Recordings” EAR20
Listen to “Cloud Library” by Margaret Explosion.Leave a comment
When Steve Hoy was in town he would sit in the front seat while Peggi drove and I rode in the back. Not that we did that much driving. We took him out to the airport for his trip back and he learned his flight was delayed because of fog. We didn’t see any fog so he suspected some sort of ruse. It was trash day in the city so the streets were aligned with garbage totes and boxes. Steve said, “Americans need to learn how to break down cardboard.” I jotted it down.
Peggi and I were scheduled for physicals this week and made the appointments back to back. Peggi went first and I sat in the waiting room. I was reading the paper but I was also enjoying the banter between the two receptionists and the calls they were fielding. At one point one of them said, “Alexa, play instrumental music” and that ruined the mood in a hurry.
I was reading how Aaron Rogers, the conspiracist/quarterback for the NY Jets, threw a Hail Mary pass to rattle the Bills at the end of the first half in their game last week. They make a big deal about him being 40 years old. Luka Modric, the Croatian midfielder for Real Madrid, is nearing forty and he is clearly at the top of game. His position as the midfield playmaker is very similar to the quarterback’s role and it is very nice thinking about aspects of your game that can get better with age.
I had a little trouble getting to sleep last night, a lot of things on my mind, and I tried counting to four as I inhaled and then to five as I exhaled. I spent some time thinking about why the one number would be lower than the other. And I thought of the Hail Mary, something I used to be able to say in seconds in grammar school. I struggled to get the verses and had to check online this morning to see if I still had it. It is really a beautiful prayer.
Cover art working files for Margaret Explosion CD “Field Recordings”
When it came to creating an image for the front cover of the new Margaret Explosion cd my temptation was to select one of my photos. Maybe one that was in some way connected to the title, “Field Recordings,” so named because the seventeen songs were selected from recent recordings at the Little Theatre Café where the live mics capture the chatter and grind of the espresso machine. I showed Peggi a few of my selections and she felt it was too much like “Civilization.” She reminded me that “Skyhigh” was still the most graphic. Nothing leaves the Earring Records office without Peggi’s approval.
I went back to the well and found some jpegs of artwork I had downloaded over the years. One was a poster Jean Arp had designed. I borrowed his color palette and drew my own organic shapes. Creating the simple vector drawings in the new Photoshop was a nightmare but I already ranted. I’m done ranting about that. I used a photo of a farm tractor in a field, taken in Spain on the inside and a photo of a man sleeping on a train (also taken in Spain) for the back cover. The song titles float above his head like he is dreaming. The cd should be available by the second week in November. Here’s a pre-release sample of the first of seventeen new songs.
Margaret Explosion “Field Recording” CD on Earring Records (EAR 20) released in 2024
“Cloud Library” from Margaret Explosion cd “Field Recordings”Leave a comment
We bought the first version of Photoshop. The program came on one 3 1/2 inch floppy disc and it was amazing of course. The coolest thing about it was that is was so intuitive. It just did what you wanted it to do. At least that’s how it felt to me. I can’t stand reading manuals and you shouldn’t have to if the program is designed properly. When we retired we stopped upgrading and went with PS Elements. I missed some of the features but I could get by as a retiree.
Our friend, Bob, found a deal on the full version so we now have a subscription to that. I HATE it but there is no denying there are still some amazing features. I’ve stumbled on them and it does exactly what I imagined it could but it is even more awkward to do it again! It is no longer intuitive.
The object selection tools are AI assisted and ridiculously simple. The guy in the middle in the photo above was the original. This photo took a few minutes to create. I helped Ken with the artwork for his AI album and found that I could RES UP a low resolution photo, one that was originally created with AI, and I was able to let the AI features in PS generate more of the previously AI generated background!
Alternative layout for Su Za album cover
The new pallet panel is a nightmare. Dozens of commonly used tools are buried in a pull down menu. Why can’t I “Save As” a jpeg? Why do I have to “Save A Copy” to get to the jpeg option. And then, just to piss you off, you have to remove the word “copy” from that file name. I don’t even want to know the answers to these questions.
Margaret Explosion plays tonight. Little Theatre Café 7-9.
This morning’s project was enumerating the Wreckless Eric, Amy Rigby gigs we’ve seen over the years. I counted thirteen. They were all so memorable it is doubtful that I missed any. Starting with the Atrium at Village Gate in 2008 when we spotted our new neighbors in the front row. They were Amy fans. We were completely out of the singer songwriter loop but knew we loved Eric.
We drove down to the Catskills for a Homemade Airplane show in Eric and Amy’s house. We talked music with Eric when he stopped next door on his way to Toronto in 2015. We caught Eric’s solo gig at Abilene in 2016 and then “the perfect night” in 2018 when Eric stayed at our house and Amy and Eric sat in with Chuck Prophet on the outdoor stage at Abilene.
We were up front when Amy read pages from “Girl to City” in 2019, We were blown away by Eric’s solo show at the Bop Shop in 2021 and his performance at Lux in 2022. We were in Spain when Amy played here in 2023 so we were really looking forward to Saturday’s Bop Shop show.
On Saturday Amy did most of the songs from her brilliant new lp, “Hang in There with Me.” Chris Schepp called it “bio rock,” songs like “Hell-Oh Sixty” and “Too Old to be Crazy.” Honest and funny at the same time, songs about writing songs and getting older. Peggi was laughing all the way through “Bangs,” (“Nico before her heroin phase.”) Eric played bass and guitar while Sam Shepard, yes, someone named Sam Shepard played drums. He was mostly a distraction especially because Amy’s lyrics were getting lost. The album is a treat with sweet sounding guitars and beautiful lush production from Eric. They have moved to England now and we’re hoping that doesn’t mean there will be no fourteenth time.
Peggi and I are camped out in the basement while workers repair some cracks in the ceiling upstairs. Upstairs, our living quarters look like some sort of art installation with mounds of furniture wrapped in plastic.
After reading the NYT obit of Herbie Flowers I sent a link to Ken, the bass player in Margaret Explosion. He replied, “I had been playing bass for about a year when that song came out. That bass part was revelatory. I spent a decent chunk of time trying to play it. I didn’t find out until today that it was two tracks. No wonder I could never get it right.”
Flowers referred to himself as a “jazzer” but he played bass on over 500 pop rock songs. His contribution to the Bowie produced, Lou Reed classic, “Walk on the Wild Side” is considered the mother of all bass lines. In fact it is two parts. Flowers played the glissando downwards on double bass and overdubbed a glissando upwards on bass guitar.
What blew me away was reading Flowers also played the bass on David Essex’s 1973 smash, “Rock On.” That 45 and “Walk on the Wild Side” are in constant rotation in our house. I can’t wait to free our turntable from the plastic wrap.
Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost and WRUR’s “Whole Lotta Shakin'” Mike Murray at House of Guitars. Photo by Peggi Fournier
It was just past noon on Saturday and there was already a giant sheet pizza on the table in front of Greg and Mike Murray. We were at the great House of Guitars where Greg was signing copies of his book and new cd while Mike was celebrating the 40th Anniversary of his “Whole Lotta Shakin” radio show.
We’ve known Greg a long time. In his book he describes his first public performance in Record Archive’s back room, same room that MX-80 Sound performed in. I was playing drums with New Math and Greg took the mic for a few songs. His performance was electrifying. In the book he says he was drunk, something he doesn’t do anymore. New Math did a gig in the seventies with the Chesterfields in the old Coronet Theatre on Thurston Road. And then, as Hi-Techs, we played with the Kings at Scorgie’s. How many records did we buy from Greg during his time at the HOG?
Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost has outrun the Chesterfield Kings and that is saying something. Greg left the Kings and that should have been it but someone stole the Kings. A ludicrous idea but how do you claim ownership of a cigarette brand? Greg was the Kings. His newest release, “After the Wars,” is a tour de force.
Greg is a musicologist so the songs he picks are choice cuts from Rocky Erickson, Armand Schaubroeck, Buddy Holly, Johnny Paycheck, Phil Ochs and David Bowie as well as traditional tunes and a few of his own. And instead of the Kings, he was able to take his pick of musicians to suit the songs. Phil Ochs’ “No More Songs” with piano, is beautiful, a word I doubt you would find in a Chesterfield Kings review. The production , from Dave Anderson’s Saxon Studio, is perfect for this project. The guitars ring like the Byrds. Raucous, lively and warm, “Twelve Gates to the City” sounds like it was recorded in a gospel church. Greg’s “No Hallelujah for Glory” could be an early Stones track. Melissa Davies (from Margaret Explosion) makes Buddy Holly’s “Learning the Game” sound like a Marianne Faithful track with her cello. From Gospel to country Greg brings a forever young rock ‘n’ roll spirit to everything he touches.
