Well, one cool thing about last night's Academy Awards was that Summer of Soul won an Oscar for Best Documentary — which ties in nicely with this tribute to the late, great jazz flautist Herbie Mann (whose incredible 1969 band with Roy Ayers and Sonny Sharrock makes a tantalizingly brief appearance in the film) that I penned for today's Forward.
You can read it here:
My mom, sister and I saw a LOT of movies together in the summer of '76, which was of course totally fine by me.
Even at the age of ten, I was already feeling the pronounced rumblings of what would turn out to be a lifelong fascination with film and film history. Not only was moviegoing a fun and cheap way to beat the L.A. summer heat, but just being able to see Hollywood movies in (or near) Hollywood was a real thrill for this Midwestern boy — it felt closer to The Source (not the Sunset Strip vegetarian restaurant, though of course it was close to that, too), like I was getting a baguette fresh from the baker instead of a pre-sliced, shrink-wrapped loaf from the shelf of the A&P.
I wasn't especially particular about what we saw, just as long as it wasn't a movie "for kids" (I hated being condescended to, even back then) or a foreign flick with sub-titles. If it looked cool, funny, exciting or featured a big-name star, that was lure enough for me — I just wanted to absorb as many movies as possible. And we weren't especially particular about where we saw them, either; that summer, we hit screenings everywhere from Century City's pristine multiplexes to crumbling Art Deco picture palaces like the Pantages and the Wiltern.
Wiltern photo by Anne Laskey, 1978.
We often traveled via public transportation on our moviegoing expeditions, so it was hard to time our arrival perfectly; often as not, we would arrive at the theater a good 30-45 minutes before our intended screening. And since the Wiltern was always showing double features, we would usually just walk in and catch the last reel of whatever was playing before our film. This was not always a sound decision — the last twenty minutes of Food of the Gods, which perversely preceded (I think) The Gumball Rally, were fully responsible for instilling me with the fear of rats that, er, plagues me to this day. And then there was the time we went to see the Burt Reynolds flick Gator, but wound up catching the end of J.D.'s Revenge. I didn't understand what the hell was going on in it, at all — something about a cackling ghost appearing in a broken mirror, someone getting shot, and a bald man sobbing hysterically. It scared and saddened and confused me all at the same time, and made me wish we had just stayed in the lobby until after it had ended.
Last night, 43 years and change later, I decided to give J.D.'s Revenge another look. Directed by Arthur Marks (Friday Foster, The Monkey Hu$tle) the film has often been cited in books and articles I've read over the years about blaxploitation cinema — specifically those dealing with the horror sub-genre that gave us such classics as Blacula, Abby, and Sugar Hill, and it's been kicking around the bottom of my various streaming queues for a while now. But I only recently learned that J.D.'s Revenge was shot in New Orleans; and, having recently returned from an all-too-short vacation there, I was curious to see if the Crescent City of the mid-Seventies looked anything like I'd remembered from the brief visit my family made to New Orleana in the summer of '74.
On the latter score, J.D.'s Revenge definitely came through: the film features numerous shots of the French Quarter, including a Bourbon Street that's less chaotic but significantly sleazier than the present-day version, just as I'd first experienced it. (One of my most vivid memories from that 1974 trip is of watching horrified parents holding their hands over their children's eyes as they walked past one Bourbon Street strip club after another.) As a film, well... I found myself confused and a little upset by it all over again, albeit for somewhat different reasons than when I caught the end of it back in 1976.
The basic plot: An earnest and upstanding young law student named Ike (Glynn Turman) becomes possessed by the spirit of a zoot-suited hood (David McKnight), who seeks revenge on those who killed him and his sister back in 1942. It's a straightforward if improbable conceit, but it isn't helped by a convoluted screenplay (written by Jason Starkes, who later went on to co-write the basketball comedy The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh) or some strange casting choices — most notably, the great Louis Gossett, Jr. playing a sixty-something jackleg preacher. Gossett would have been about forty at the time of the filming, and an extremely vital and young-looking forty, at that; it seriously took me about two-thirds of the way through the movie to figure out that his character had been one of the people involved in J.D.'s death, because he looks like he would have still been in nursery school at the time.
The film features a fair amount of violence, some of which is cartoonish and played for laughs. But the scenes where J.D.'s spirit abuses and rapes Ike's wife (Joan Pringle) are downright nasty, and the footage of a cow getting disemboweled in a slaughterhouse (which is repeatedly shown as part of J.D.'s flashbacks) is both sad and deeply disgusting. All of which makes it hard to recommend J.D.'s Revenge to anyone other than devoted blaxploitation fans.
That said, Turman is truly excellent in this, really sinking his teeth into (and chewing up) the scenes where J.D. takes over Ike's body and personality. Though occasionally absurd — "You don't like yo' Daddy's CONK?!?" he glowers, when Ike's wife bums out on his new 1940s-style 'do — these are by far the most entertaining moments of the film, with J.D. coming off like a cross between Dave Chappelle in his "Time Haters" skit and a genuinely dangerous Rudy Ray Moore.
While I don't think I'd watch it again, I have to say I'm glad I revisited J.D.'s Revenge. Maybe it's just because I'm getting older, but over the last few years I've found myself drawn back to a number of films I haven't seen since childhood — not out of nostalgia, per se, but rather to unlock long-forgotten memories of those days, as well as to try and better understand how my young brain perceived life and art, and why certain things stuck with me while others vanished almost instantly from my consciousness. Call it film therapy, I guess, though I don't think I'm ready to give Food of the Gods another shot.
There's something about films made and/or set in the New York City of the 1970s that always keeps me coming back for more, and the same goes for the London of the same period. Maybe it's because childhood visits to both of these cities vividly imprinted themselves upon my fragile eggshell mind; while these were clearly not easy cities to live in, the vibrant energy of citizens going about their daily business against a backdrop of faded grandeur and crumbling glory captured my youthful imagination in the same way that Hubert Robert's paintings of "life among the ruins" would later fascinate me. Though there were signs of decay everywhere, there was also beauty in that decay — a beauty so profound that even a midwestern boy raised on TV and the intrinsically American philosophy of "newer is better" couldn't fail to notice.
I recently finished reading Rob Chapman's Psychedelia and Other Colours, a fascinating and occasionally frustrating book that is less of a history of the original psychedelic era than a series of free-associative essays about why and how LSD impacted popular music the way it did. One of the best aspects of Chapman's book is the way he lays out the differences between American and British psychedelia — not just stylistically, but also culturally. In his British chapters, he repeatedly underlines just how dingy and drab life was in post-WWII England, especially when compared to the space-age shininess of life in the US; and how even at the height of "Swinging London," most of the grumbling grey city still felt barely a few years removed from the traumas and deprivations of life during The Blitz.
If Chapman's book didn't exactly turn me on to any great psychedelic records that I wasn't already aware of, it did lead me to The London Nobody Knows, a haunting documentary filmed in 1967 by Norman Cohen (but apparently not released until 1969), which was based on the 1962 book of the same name by Geoffrey Fletcher. Narrated by James Mason, who also serves as the film's tour guide, the film explores London's seamy underbelly (and its Victorian remnants) at a time when the wrecking ball of progress was really starting to kick into high gear.
Chapman cites The London Nobody Knows as being particularly illustrative of how shabby the city really was, even at the peak of its pop cultural influence, and the film certainly doesn't disappoint in that regard. Though a few sequences here are speeded up a la Benny Hill for comic relief, the London we see here is a bleak place, indeed, one filled with rusting Victorian urinals, rotting pubs, splintering tenements, toothless street performers, and open-air markets filled with wriggling eels and shady pitchmen. The few minutes devoted to the city's fashionably-attired youth seems almost jarringly out of place, like they were only added (and possibly under protest) after the producers begged to see some of the mods and mini-skirts that London was famous for.
Again, though, there is beauty in the decay — and with his dry wit and seemingly unflappable countenance, Mason is perfectly suited to guiding us through it. Whether wryly cocking an eyebrow at the ugliness of the newer buildings along the north side of the Thames, or begging the pardon of a market patron that he's inadvertently bumped, he comes off more like a savvy local than a movie star. In one particularly moving sequence, he unselfconsciously sits down with several senior residents of the local Salvation Army, and lends a sympathetic ear to their hard-luck stories. (I'm guessing he prudently chose not to mention his own brush with Thunderbird wine.)
My favorite moment in the film, however, is a non-Mason one: A shirtless street performer of indeterminate age hectors passerby to bind him with a length of heavy chain, from which he then performs a Houdini-like escape. While the man's performance is quite entertaining in its own right, and certainly harkens back to an earlier London — there were almost certainly escape artists doing the same trick on the city' streets in the 19th century, if not hundreds of years before that — what blew me away was the realization that I had actually seen this very gentleman in action, seven years after this sequence was filmed. While I knew that I would recognize some of the London I experienced in '74 in this film, I had no inkling that I would actually recognize one of the people I'd encountered while I was there.
That year, my sister and I were living in Leamington Spa with my father, who was on sabbatical at Warwick University. On weekends, we would often take train trips to other parts of the country, and of course London was on our hit list. While my most vivid memory from our London trip is of ordering a plate of ravioli at a restaurant, only to find that there was nothing inside of said ravioli — London dining was significantly less worldly than it is today — our visit to the Tower of London also stands out for me, and not just because of the thrill of coming face to face with nearly 900 years of English history. On our way to the Tower entrance, we came upon this very same shirtless gent, who had attracted a rather sizable audience with his salty pronouncements and his impressive feats of escapism. (There was also a younger partner working with him, who was similarly swathed in chains and locks.) After busting free, the man passed the hat, and then cussed the crowd out for not putting enough into it. "There's not enough in here to get me into a pay toilet," he cried. "I hope every last one of ye gets bloody diarrhea tonight!" Oh, how my sister and I howled with laughter; I think I even asked my dad for a few coins to contribute to his cause, simply because I was impressed that anyone would loudly wish diarrhea upon a group of tourists.
Obviously, that's the sort of thing that sticks with you for decades after the fact, and when my wife and I visited the Tower of London last spring — her first visit, and my first time returning since 1974 — I half-expected that this guy would be standing outside the tube station, haranguing us into tying him up. He wasn't there, of course; I'm guessing he'd be around a hundred years old today, if he's even still alive. Still, it was a real thrill to see him again in this documentary, and to feel viscerally connected for a second to the London of 1967, even though I didn't actually experience the city until seven years later.
Anyway, watch the film. You won't regret it.
Simon & Garfunkel's brilliant Bookends LP turns 50 today.
I've long thought of this album as the Jewish Sgt. Pepper's; so on the occasion of the album's Golden Anniversary, I took the opportunity to reflect upon its Jewish Pepper-iness for the Jewish Daily Forward. You can read it here. (Though as my friend and former Jupiter Affect bandmate Michael Quercio has pointed out, I neglected to mention the contributions of co-producer Roy Halee; it was an oversight on my part, and not meant in any way to minimize his role in what is probably my all-time favorite S&G album.)
A few other recent pieces by yours truly that you might enjoy:
A Rolling Stone essay on Burt Reynolds' amazing performance in the new film The Last Movie Star, and why we should take a new look at his underrated filmography.
An October conversation with Wayne Coyne of the FLaming Lips about his band's forthcoming Record Store Day music and beer collaboration with Dogfish Head Craft Brewing.
A look back on the making of Meshuggah's landmark ObZen LP for Revolver.
A look back on the making of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon for Rolling Stone.
Oh right — though it's still cold, damp and dreary in much of the US right now, baseball season has started. And if you happen to be in Chicago on April 17, come on out to the American Writers Museum (located at 180 N. Michigan Ave, just up the street from Millennium Park), and see me and my fellow scribes Josh Wilker, Joe Bonomo and Ricky Cobb read from our baseball writings and those of the baseball authors who inspired us. It should be a lot of fun — and you can get your tickets here.
Happy April, everybody!
Finally got a chance to watch Gimme Danger, Jim Jarmusch's Stooges documentary, this weekend. I genuinely learned some things (like how Iggy's wanton shirtlessness was inspired by Yul Brynner and other silver screen pharaohs of the 1950s), was annoyed by the repetition of certain footage and the omission or soft-pedaling of some favorite Stooges lore (the band's bloody '73 demise is only briefly mentioned, for example), but overall found the film incredibly entertaining, and it's totally sent me down a(nother) 60s/70s Michigan music rabbit hole.
Sure, there's plenty of things for diehard Stooges fans like myself to carp about, but I'm happy that the film officially exists and is commercially available, so that newcomers can enjoy it and learn about one of the mightiest, most influential bands to ever stalk a stage — as opposed to the MC5's True Testimonial doc, which was much better than this one but will never officially see the light of day thanks to an unfortunate tangle of legal wranglings.
My favorite thing from Gimme Danger, though? This photo of über-guitarist Ron Asheton hanging out at Ann Arbor's Nickels Arcade, which I'd never seen before. My family and I lived in Ann Arbor from mid-1967 to the end of 1978 (just a few blocks away from the MC5's Hill Street enclave, in fact), and during that period we must have walked through Nickels Arcade at least a thousand times, probably more. I often got my hair cut at the barber shop there, and my sister used to buy miniature glass animals from a little shop at the west end of the arcade, just to the left of where Ron is standing here.
It was a magical, otherworldly place for us, with its Beaux-Arts terra-cotta details and vaulted glass skylight that ran the entire length of the gallery. And learning that one of my all-time favorite guitarists hung out there as well, probably killing time while waiting for Iggy to get off work at the nearby Discount Records (where I would eventually buy my first 45s), makes it even more magical for me now.
This Saturday, March 4, my friend Joe Bonomo — one of my favorite writers — and I will be doing a reading at The Book Cellar in Chicago's Lincoln Square. Joe's got an excellent new book of essays out called Field Recordings From The Inside, which he'll be reading from; I'll be reading from a new work in progress — a chapter from what I hope will be my next book project. Unlike Big Hair and Plastic Grass and Stars and Strikes (both of which will be available for purchase at the Book Cellar), this one will be more personal, as well as more music-oriented... and the chapter I'll be reading from involves the elegant gentleman pictured above.
Two great writers + one great independent bookstore (where you can also buy wine and beer by the glass, btw) = a swell time. The event starts at 6 p.m., and the Book Cellar is located at 4736 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. For more info, call the store at 773-293-2665. Hope to see some of youse there!
Also, as long as I've got your attention, here's a few of my favorite pieces from the last couple of months...
From Rolling Stone: Why Slap Shot is the Greatest Sports Movie of the 1970s.
From Guitar Aficionado: My interview with the great Ricky Gervais about music, guitars, and his new Netflix film, David Brent: Life on the Road.
From October: The Soul Battles of 70s Macrobrew.
And from The Hardball Times (you didn't think I could stay away from baseball forever, did you?): The World Series of Love - The Rolling Stones at Shea Stadium.
And finally, I'm still very much in the market for a full-time editorial or digital content job. If you're reading this and know of any available position in Chicago that requires a great editor, writer or content manager, please give me a shout...
Rock on,
Dan
The holiday season is once again upon us, and along with it the scramble to find the perfect gifts for the ones we love.
Well, if you've got a baseball fan on your Xmas list, why not get them a hardcover first-edition of my book Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of 1976, autographed and personalized by the author himself?
That's right, folks — just send me $30 via PayPal (see link below), and I'll send you a copy of my critically-acclaimed journey into the heart of the Spirit of '76. The Big Red Machine, Billy Martin's Yankees, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Charlie Finley's fire sale, Oscar Gamble's haircut, Bill Veeck's wooden leg, the White Sox shorts, Phillies Fever, Ted Turner's Ostrich races, the first free agent re-entry draft — it's all here, along with Salem witches, Jimmy Carter, the nationwide Bicentennial celebration, the Ramones' first album, Frampton Comes Alive, Taxi Driver, Rocky and (of course) The Bad News Bears, along so many other crazy things that made 1976 such a memorable and important year, both for major league baseball and the USA as a whole.
The $30 covers shipping and handling (offer only applies to the continental US, so contact me for shipping rates if you're in Alaska, Hawaii or other countries); be sure to let me know your giftee's favorite 70s team or player when you're checking out via the PayPal link, and I will find a way to work that information into the signature.
I only have a limited amount of these hardcovers left, so act like Mickey "Mick the Quick" Rivers and snap 'em up while you can!
On Monday, August 8, I'll be doing my only Chicago-area book-signing for the paperback edition of Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of '76 , in conjunction with a rare 35mm showing of one of the biggest film hits of 1976 (not to mention the greatest baseball film ever made): The Bad News Bears.
This joyous event will take place at Chicago's legendary Music Box Theater, located at 3733 N. Southport Ave. in Chicago. I will be co-hosting the event with WGN radio's Nick Digilio, and copies of Stars and Strikes will be available for sale in the lobby via those fine folks at The Book Cellar, my favorite local indie bookstore. Tickets for the screening are $12, or $9 if you're already a member. The actual screening begins at 7 pm, and will be followed by a discussion of the film led by Nick and myself.
If you've already read Stars and Strikes, then you know how much this film means to me; the one-two punch of The Bad News Bears and the sudden emergence of spectacular Tigers rookie Mark "The Bird" Fidrych went a long way towards making ten-year-old Dan transfer his obsession with war comics and G.I. Joe dolls to all things baseball-related. If it wasn't for the Bears and the Bird, my life might have taken a much different path, and I almost certainly wouldn't have written Stars and Strikes or Big Hair and Plastic Grass many years down the road. So it's a huge honor to be able to present this wonderful film — whose slyly subversive script still holds up remarkably well 40 years later — on a big screen.
If you've never seen the film before, or it's been years since you've watched it, here — via a piece I wrote for Rolling Stone this spring — is a little reminder of why it remains the greatest baseball movie ever made.
There are no Cubs or White Sox games scheduled that night — so if you're in or near Chicago, I hope you'll come out and say hey. Buttermaker would have wanted it that way, man...
The first time you see your new book in print is a huge thrill — but it's an almost equally huge thrill to get a paperback edition of said book in the mail, because it means that enough people bought the hardcover version to make a paperback printing worthwhile for the publishers. So I'd like to thank everyone who has already bought Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of '76 for making the paperback possible!
And for those of you who haven't bought it yet — or already did, and dug it enough that you'd like to buy many, many copies for your baseball and pop culture-obsessed acquaintances — the paperback edition officially hits the streets via St. Martins Griffin on February 9. You can pre-order copies from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or of course from your friendly neighborhood indie bookseller.
I probably won't be doing a ton of reading events in support of the paperback — full-scale book tours require copious amounts of time and money — but I'm sure I'll schedule a few things in Chicago and the Midwest before the summer is out, especially since 2016 is the 40th anniversary of the Bicentennial. Watch this space for future updates!
Looking to add a 70s horror flick to your watch-list this Halloween season? I highly recommend Blood Freak, Brad Ginter's no-budget 1972 flick about a "husky" biker who becomes addicted to marijuana (as one does) and turns into a murderous half-man/half-turkey that bears a suspicious resemblance to the San Diego Chicken, who would find fame a few years later. (Too bad they never made a sequel starring Ted Giannoulas!) Bonus points for the Criswell-type narrator who has a genuine coughing fit in the midst of one of his moralistic sermons. "A 20th Century Horror Beyond Belief," indeed!
And if my description doesn't seal the deal for ya, check out the trailer:
Seriously, people — if you've ever wanted to see an Art Howe lookalike get his leg severed by a table saw, THIS is the film for you!