Rock Town Hall’s Saturday Night Shut-In: Welcome to L.A.

 Posted by
Jun 112011
 

Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!

This week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In has been pre-recorded to allow Mr. Moderator to fly out to Los Angeles to visit sammymaudlin for a healing weekend of unadulterated Mandom! To prepare for his trip—his first ever trip to L.A. proper—your host meditates on the meaning of the trip to the accompaniment of the soundtrack album from Alan Rudolph’s 1976 film Welcome to L.A.

[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-32.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 32]

[Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download of each week’s podcast.]

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Bullshit On: Phil Spector

 Posted by
Jun 102011
 

Because of the series in which this post is being framed I run the risk of being perceived as inflammatory for no good reason—or naive or even outright idiotc. I like my share of Phil Spector‘s works; own his box set, Back to Mono; and know more than enough about his influence on The Beach Boys and beyond, including the reach of his studio cats, The Wrecking Crew.  That said, I am tempted to call bullshit on Spector and his Wall of Sound, or maybe more accurately the degree to which it’s praised.

I unabashedly like probably a baker’s dozen Phil Spector productions. The Ronettes were the best of the bunch who worked under him. Ronnie Spector has personality out the whazoo. The Crystals had some winners. He cowrote “Spanish Harlem,” which is, as Lenny Bruce put it, “so pretty, man!” His Christmas album is charming, although a couple of years ago I had my fill of it and have done my best to leave the house whenever my wife wants to play it by the yuletide. Like a lot of Spector’s work, it grows cloying over repeated listens.

Continue reading »

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Philly Phlashback: Arety Live in the Veterans Stadium Picnic Area, June 2, 1978

 Posted by
Jun 102011
 

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!

What’s your sports-rock dream?

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Lady Gaga and Amazon.com…do the math

 Posted by
Jun 082011
 

Rolling Stone magazine, after giving Lady Gaga crap for selling 440,000 of her 1.1million CDs last week through Amazon.com at a slashed price of $0.99 (for the whole record, not a single), are now giving her crap for only selling 74,000 this week (all at $10–$18 per disc, I assume). And it’s STILL #1.

I also think it’s cheating. So is a “free download” with your concert ticket (a-hem..Bon Jovi, Prince) or a CD included in the local newspaper (guilty again, Prince), although the claim on all three is that they charged the full rate on their end and there is no law against a loss-leader at the retail level.

So Gaga sells Born This Way to Amazon for $9.00 and Amazon instead of selling it for $11.99 sells it for $0.99. $8.01 loss per downloaded record x 440,000 = $3.5 million dollars. That’s a big single-day loss!

OK, Maybe they got the “Gaga Special” and paid only $6 per download – $0.99 = $5.01 x 440,000 = $2.2 million dollars. Still a big loss. Can’t see that being the whole story.

I smell a rat. Continue reading »

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What’s Wrong With This Picture: Oliver Stone’s The Doors

 Posted by
Jun 082011
 

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!

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