Here’s a piece of Philadelphia rock ‘n roll history we nearly overlooked. A little more than 33 years to the day, Philly’s “original rock” band Arety, from my old stomping grounds, had their sports-rock fantasy come true: a chance to play in the old picnic area at Veterans Stadium before a Phillies game. History has forgotten Arety (but large swaths of Philadelphians have not lost the amazing Philly accent on display by the band’s spokesman/drummer), and only Phillies fans of a certain age remember the picnic area, but I bet the members of Arety never forgot their dream come true!
When I’m watching a movie, especially a rock movie, I”m not usually a stickler for historical accuracy, anachronisms, continuity, and the like, but the period films of Oliver Stone have a special place in my critical eye based on Stone’s unbelievably shoddy use of spirit glue and fake facial hair and wigs. I can’t watch The Doors or Born on the Fourth of July, for instance, without being completely distracted by the seeping spirit glue running down the actors’ fake sideburned cheeks. If I had my druthers I’d invite you over tonight and spend the evening screening these films and cutting up on just this topic, but today I’d rather have us turn our critical eye on the following clip from Stone’s Doors flick.
Click on this formative scene (sorry, you’ll need to click the link because all versions of this classic excerpt I can find on YouTube prohibit embedding – we wouldn’t want to mess with Stone’s vision, you know) from the Book of Doors. At one point I’m pretty sure I noticed a blatant anachronism, one way worse than the occasional woman with a poofy, early ’90s hairdo. What is it that I immediately tuned into?
Some of you are much better tuned into this stuff than me. Why don’t you join me in identifying other anachronisms and whatnot?
Make sure you don’t get a whiff of that spirit glue!
It’s supposed to get up to around 100 degrees in the Philadelphia area this week, and 100 degrees coupled with this area’s stifling humidity means at least one Townsman is going to be sweating his ass off! If I’m going to be drenched in sweat, then please let it be the joyous sweat pouring from the “Wicked Pickett,” Wilson Pickett, and his throng of adoring fans in this video. Check out the on-duty cop grooving along with the crowd at the 22-second mark!
Townspeople, in preparation for our first taste of the Dog Days of Summer, I invite you to post your most joyous, sweaty performances. Please limit posts to no more than 3 clips at a time, and please introduce your clips so your fellow Townspeople have an idea of what’s coming. Thanks!
Certainly there are still a few bare-chested rockers out there, including the eternally bare-chested Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, and Anthony Kiedis, the last of whom who’s wisely begun working vests into his wardrobe, but when these veteran rockers are gone will a younger generation be prepared to pick up the slack?
One of the great byproducts of live gathering of Townspeople is the new topics for discussion that develop. Not all Townspeople type as quickly as others or have the ability to type out their observations on a given subject during the blog’s peak periods. In the presence of any combinaton of you, few rock insights and wisecracks are left unexpressed. At Saturady night’s Sausages for Sammy gathering my close, personal friend Townsman chickenfrank shared a few insights on a video that we were watching that quickly entered my mental notebook. Here’s the video that was projecting onto the wall of my garage:
As a yardful of Townspeople nodded along to this ultimate display of rock’s Power & Glory, chickenfrank, seated to my right, made the following key observation:
