La Vie En Robe

Blast From The Groovy Past: 20 Images From Info-Mat Magazine

Info-Mat magazine? No, I'd never heard of it either, at least until my friend Josh Mills — who always seems to have a knack for unearthing interesting and oddball things — laid this 1968 issue on me about five years ago. And as far as I can tell, this may have been the only issue of it that ever existed. Not only can I not find any info on it on the internet, but I can't even find a masthead or any mailing info inside the mag; all of which leads me to suspect that this "complimentary issue" was a trial run for a magazine that never actually got off the ground.

So what was Info-Mat, then? It looks like someone wanted to do a Los Angeles-centric Ebony, though with the exception of an excellent interview with saxophonist Charles Lloyd (conducted by photographer Paul Slaughter, who also handled record reviews for the mag's "Info-Scene" section), much of Info-Mat's written content consists of banal ad-speak regarding alleged trends in fashion, cooking — a "gourmet foods" section revolves around recipes whose "secret ingredient" is invariably one Lawry's seasoning packet or another — and home decor.

Still, Info-Mat is a fascinating artifact, if only for the ads, which (aside from being just plain awesome in their own right) say much more about the upscale black community of Los Angeles circa 1968 than the editorial content does. Only three years after the Watts riots, there was clearly quite a hip fashion and nightclub scene happening in South LA, especially around Santa Barbara Plaza in the Crenshaw district — a shopping center which has now been sadly derelict for decades. (For a fascinating/depressing exercise, try typing some of these addresses into Google Maps, and check out the 21st century street view.)

How I wish I could pick up a new suit from Lesner's Men's Shop or Esquire Men's Clothing, and then take Miss Howerton (looking fine in mod fashions from Donna Michele's or Black Foxe, LTD) out for a steak and some jazz at Earl Bostic's Flying Fox, Vee Jay's Bill of Fare or Marty's On The Hill, then pick up some classy booze from Empire Liquors and repair to our shag-carpeted mid-century modern love pad. But until I get my time machine out of the repair shop, these images below will have to do.

Beef Burgundy Flambé, anyone?

Don Cornelius, RIP

What a supreme stone drag it was to open up the internet this AM and read that Don Cornelius had died, most likely from a self-inflicted gunshot. That's no way at all for the unimpeachably smooth cat who brought us Soul Train to go out...

I can't put it as beautifully as Questlove from The Roots says it here, but suffice to say that my life would have been considerably poorer — and a lot less funky — without all the amazing music, dances and fashions that Soul Train turned me on to in the 1970s. For me, Don Cornelius was more important than Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack and Don Kirshner combined. Thank you, Don... I only hope you know how much joy and meaning you brought to so many people...

So let's go down the Soul Train line, one more time for DC...

I Think I'll Call It Mourning

Gil Scott-Heron died last Friday — which, in our no-attention-span, endless-news-cycle present, means that I'm way late to the funeral party. Everybody's already onto the next big piece of news, like the NBA finals, or that Facebook spam video thang wherein some woman "gives birth" to a grown man's head. A few folks, like Greg Tate of the Village Voice, have already penned some wonderful eulogies for a man who was one of the great poets and prophets of our time; countless others have hung two-paragraph obits upon such easily-digestible (if profoundly limiting) phrases like "godfather of rap" and "spoken-word artist." Why add one more voice to the chatter, this "late" in the game? Well, Gil Scott-Heron's music and message touched me deeply, and I've got a few things of my own to say about him.

But let's start with something someone else has already said. As Tate points out in his fine piece, "Gil knew he wasn't bigger than hip-hop—he knew he was just better. Like Jimi was better than heavy metal, Coltrane better than bebop, Malcolm better than the Nation of Islam, Marley better than the King James Bible. Better as in deeper—emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, politically, ancestrally, hell, probably even genetically." Which is why it tastes like spoiled milk every time I read some obit that calls Gil Scott-Heron a "spoken-word artist"; yes, the man had a gift for words, and he often delivered them with a profoundly resonant speaking voice, but he was also an incredibly soulful singer, songwriter and keyboard player, not to mention a (Tate again) "oracle, troubadour, poet, gadfly, muckraker, and grassroots shit-talker." Yeah, he's the guy who did the brilliantly incisive "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "Whitey On The Moon," but to consign Gil Scott-Heron to the "spoken-word artist" box is like calling Curtis Mayfield a "soundtrack composer" — it was truly only one small facet of who he was and what he did.

To me, Gil's greatest gift — and perhaps ultimately his Achilles heel — was his humanity, his empathy for other human beings. For all his righteous anger, for all his intimidatingly-sharp intellect, for all his deft wordplay, for all his loose-limbed funk grooves, an open heart was his most important tool. Songs like "Home is Where the Hatred Is," "The Bottle" and "Angel Dust" stared unflinchingly at addiction, just like "No Knock," "Winter in America" and "Johannesburg" faced down The Man, but they were anything but dispassionate journalistic missives. You knew that Gil gave a shit about what was going down, on an emotional level as well as intellectual, and that it hurt him severely to see other people hurting, being exploited, being oppressed. But when you feel that much, when you care that deeply about the fate of your fellow man, when you make your art and your living by communicating those feelings and concerns to the rest of the world — and creating such nakedly emotional songs as "Save the Children," "Your Daddy Loves You" and "I Think I'll Call It Morning" — and you don't have a filter to shut off the hurt and despair...well, the process comes with an eventual price. Who can really blame him for his tragic, decades-long romance with the crack pipe? “Ten to fifteen minutes of this, I don’t have pain,” he said in last year's upsetting New Yorker profile, referring to his crack smoking. The pain he spoke of was from a spinal issue, but there had to be a great deal of psychic pain going on within him, as well.

Still, it's that same open-heartedness — as well as his clear-eyed anger — that has repeatedly drawn me back to Gil Scott-Heron's records over the years. I recall hearing his stuff for the first time in the late 70s, probably through one of my Mom's friends, and I seem to remember that 1984's "Re-Ron" — a typically scathing indictment of Ronald Reagan and those who wanted to re-elect him — got some decent airplay in Chicago at the time. But it wasn't until 1990, when I was a college grad trying to make sense of the world I'd graduated into, that I really started exploring his work, which thankfully started being reissued on CD in the early '90s. And in late 2000, when George W. Bush was handed the keys to the White House in the same way he'd been handed everything else in his life, I spent countless hours curled up with 1971's Pieces of a Man LP; though it was nearly three decades old, it was still the only album I could find at the time that fully articulated and validated my depression and anger, while simultaneously reminding me to live and love life to the fullest, as opposed to becoming fatally consumed by the despair I felt and the bad times that I knew were on the way.

Which is, unfortunately, much more than I can say about 2010's I'm New Here, his final studio album. A haunted, haphazard affair recorded after he was released from his second prison stint, the album lasts only 28 minutes and contains far more of Gil's parched-voiced reminiscences than actual new songs. While XL Recordings head honcho Richard Russell is to be commended for trying to get Gil back into the studio, the results are hard to listen to; though many buckets of critical jizz have been spilled over I'm New Here, Gil frankly sounds like a reluctant guest on his own album. “This is Richard’s CD,” he told the New Yorker. “My only knowledge when I got to the studio was how he seemed to have wanted this for a long time. You’re in a position to have somebody do something that they really want to do, and it was not something that would hurt me or damage me—why not? All the dreams you show up in are not your own.”

The Gil Scott-Heron who shows up in my dreams is the one of "Lady Day & John Coltrane," a song from Pieces of a Man that I have put on countless mix tapes for friends over the years. Quite possibly the best song ever written about the transcendent, transformative, healing and uplifting power of music, "Lady Day & John Coltrane" also manages to be remarkably healing and uplifting in its own right. It's a song that will stay with me for the rest of my life, both as a reminder of why I care so much about music, and as a reminder (and a means) to "let the sun shine through" and keep my heart open during those times when living all of my days in darkness seems an easier option. It's a complicated, maddening, fucked-up world we live in, and Gil saw that clearer than most; but he also communicated its beauty (and the beauty of existence) more effectively than most, and for that I will always be grateful.

Peace go with you, Brother. Thank you for helping to wash my troubles away.

What's Goin' On?

Been on a heavy What's Going On kick lately, rediscovering Marvin Gaye's 1971 masterpiece for the umpteenth time since my early 20s, when I first heard the album in its entirety. This time, it's thanks to Ben Edmonds' awesome tome What's Going On? Marvin Gaye And The Last Days Of The Motown Sound, which I somehow overlooked upon its initial 2001 release, but which recently blew my mind with its detailed (and totally transfixing) account of the creation of the finest full-length album Motown Records ever released.

And since I'm slowly rebuilding my vinyl collection these days after hard times forced me to liquidate it several years back, I figured it'd be worth shelling out 20 bucks for a mint, 180-gram pressing of What's Going On. "Worth it" is an understatement, actually — I'm picking things out of the dense, rolling layers of sound that I never remember hearing before, especially on Side 2. As interesting as the 2-disc "deluxe" CD version of the album from 2001 is, the vinyl still beats it.

One of the interesting facts I gleaned from Edmonds' book is that Marvin only performed the album live in its entirety once — on May 1, 1972 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Now, I don't believe footage of that show exists (or if it does, I haven't seen it), but this live clip from the 1973 documentary Save the Children — which features Marvin backed by a number of great Motown session cats, including the legendary James Jamerson on bass — gives us a pretty good idea of what it must have been like. And viewed from the early 21st Century, when contemporary political "discourse" seems mostly to be a contest in which people vie to shout inflammatory comments the loudest, it's instructive (and beautiful) to hear the playful, prayerful and matter-of-fact way that Marvin puts his message across. And oh, what a groove they've got goin', here. Right on Brother, indeed.

It's Funny Because It's True

I didn't write much at all about politics in 2009, mostly because my outrage glands were completely burned out after eight years of Bush/Cheney and the introduction of Sarah Palin into the national spotlight. Plus, I knew Barack Obama had been left with a gigantic shit-filled trench to dig us out of, and I wasn't expecting results immediately. A year of fuckin' NO results, on the other hand, wasn't quite what I had in mind...

Really, I've been inclined to give Obama and the resurgent Democrats the benefit of the doubt; but given their continuing pussing out on the health care issue, last week's debacle in Massachussetts, and the general lack of leadership, balls or spine on the part of the alleged majority party, I feel no desire to defend or support these ass-clowns any longer. But rather than work myself into a bitter lather, I thought I'd just pass along this priceless collection of jokes reprinted from David Rees' fine blog, which are indeed funny because they're horribly on the money. From now on, whenever Harry Reid, James Carville or any of those other worthless, careerist fucks in the Democratic Party sends me an email begging for donations, I'm sending this back in return...

5 Jokes About The Apparent Eagerness Of Certain Democratic Members Of Congress To Abandon Health Care Reform In Light Of Scott Brown’s Electoral Victory:

1. A Democratic congressman walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve your kind here.” The Democratic congressman whimpers, “You’re right, I’m sorry, I never should’ve come in here, it’s all my fault, boo-hoo, please, bend me over, I’ll do whatever you want because I’m a little punk.” The bartender says, “Jesus Christ, you people are pathetic.”

2. What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs wearing a sombrero? I don’t know, but whatever you call it, it’s got about 1,000% more fight in it than these jackass Democrats.

3. A member of the House Democratic Caucus goes to the doctor. The doctor says, “I have bad news and good news. The bad news is you have a broken foot. The good news is, you’re a congressman, which means you have health insurance, which means you’ll be able to get treatment without going totally bankrupt, unlike many of your constituents, who you are actively betraying by thinking only of your electoral prospects. And also,” the doctor continued, “I can’t believe you actually broke your foot by jumping off a bridge just because a Republican told you to. What kind of spineless loser are you? Get out of my office. I can’t stand to look at you.”

4. The entire United States Senate is flying on a plane when its engines start to fail. The plane starts falling through the sky. There are 100 senators on board, but only 41 parachutes. The Democrats say, “Let’s give all the parachutes to the Republicans—that way we can just sit on our fat asses and die while the plane crashes because we’re a bunch of self-hating pussies.”

5. Little Johnny Congressman (D) was sitting in class one day. All of a sudden, he needed to go to the bathroom. He yelled out, “Miss Jones, I need to go pee!” The teacher replied, “Johnny, that is NOT the proper word to use in this situation. The proper word is ‘urinate.’ Use the word ‘urinate’ in a sentence correctly, and I will let you go.” Little Johnny thought for a bit, then said, “If a Republican wanted to urinate on me, I would let him because I have no self-respect.”

Keep On Keepin' On

I was struck yesterday by all the New Year's Eve Facebook posts I saw that were giving the proverbial finger to 2009 in particular, and to the last decade in general. All those "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" sentiments made me think about how lucky and blessed I am to be able to say that, in fact, 2009 was probably the best year of my life.

Happiness, good health (for me, my close family and the cats - none of whom had to pay an emergency visit to the doctors in '09), a sweet summer romance, the best friends anyone could ask for (many of whom I reconnected with via FB after years or even decades of being out of touch), delicious food, amazing adventures, wonderful music, immersion in the awe-inspiring beauty of nature — all of those are things I'll remember 2009 for, along with actually being gainfully employed at a job I love, and the mind-blowing thrill of seeing the cover of my forthcoming '70s baseball book for the first time. Yes, living alone in the desert has been an isolating, challenging and lonely experience at times, but this past year of desert exile has also done much to clear my head and center my heart. And if my Walden Pond just happens to be a kidney-shaped swimming pool, well, that's how I like to roll, baby...

As for the decade that's just ended, well...I can't argue that it was pretty rough on us all, and nobody reading this needs me to run down the socio-political/economic checklist as a reminder. For me personally, the "oughts" were truly the best and worst of times: While filled with career highs and life-affirming experiences (including numerous trips to Europe), this was also the decade where I miraculously walked away from a very bad car wreck, nearly died from a burst appendix, spent two years in IRS hell (and got royally fucked by my shitbag accountant — thanks again, Rick Birnbaum of Birnbaum & Glucksman, CPAs), got evicted from the lovely apartment I'd lived in for 11 years, got burglarized twice at my next apartment, lost the best feline friend I've ever had to heart and kidney disease, and ended a 17-year relationship. No wonder there's grey in my sideburns...

But as the new year (and decade) dawns, I have to say that I'm happier than I've ever been in my life, and have finally figured out how to live each day in a way that's true to my heart, soul and gut — and there's no question that it took a rough ride on the rapids of the last decade to get me to where I am today. There's also no question that the next year and decade will be extremely challenging for all of us, both as individuals and a collective people of the world. But I'm greeting 2010 with wide open arms and a smile on my face because, well, why the hell not? I already wasted way too much time this past decade curled up on the floor (mostly figuratively) in a PTSD fetal position, and I simply ain't goin' out like that...

I wish you all a healthy, happy and fulfilling new year and decade, filled with tons of laughter, love, tasty eats and righteous tunes. And when the times get tough, as they are now, I hope that you'll still be able to smile, savor the myriad joys of existence, and find the strength to keep on keepin' on. Take it away, Curtis...

Pizza Not Peyote: A NYC Vision Quest

Let's get one thing straight, right from the start: I love Southern California. In the 16 years I've lived here, I have never been one to whine about its plasticity, vapidity or its maddening traffic; and as I was just saying to some Chicago friends the other week, if the constant threat of earthquakes and fires is the price that we must pay for 72-degree-and-sunny Christmases beneath the swaying palms, then so be it. Yes, there are many massively fucked-up things about L.A. in particular, and the Golden State in general, but it still feels as much or more like home to me as any place I've ever lived.

And yet, New York City, the metropolis of my birth, has been exerting one helluva pull upon me this year. Actually, it's been calling my name for several years now; looking back at the five or six trips I've made to NYC since the fall of 2006, it's now quite clear to me that I've returned from each visit with new perspective on life and new insights into who I am — kind of like a Native American "Vision Quest," only with pizza instead of peyote.

It's only been a week or so since I returned from my 10-day vaycay in Manhattan and Brooklyn, which is way too early to fully process the lessons and experiences from this trip and figure out what the hell it all means — though I can already tell that there are some major life changes on my horizon. But hey, it was a righteous time in any case, so I'm-a just go 'head and run down some of the highlights from the past week and a half. First, of course, the food and drink...

Best Pizza: The brick-oven Margherita pie from La Pizza Fresca on 20th Street. (Pictured above in all its cheesy glory — thanks again, Jessica!) For sheer deliciousness of sauce and chewiness of crust, nothing else really came close — though the Margherita from Sal's in Carroll Gardens was pretty decent, as well. Not that I sampled nearly as many pies as I woulda liked, thanks to the fact that I was using my Dad's place on the Upper West Side as my base of operations. For whatever reason, the UWS seems curiously devoid of above-average pizza; I still mourn the loss of the old Vinnie's at 74th and Amsterdam, where I would often eat "breakfast" and late-night dinner in the same day during my visits back in the '90s.

Best Soup Dumplings: Man, this one was a real toss-up — the crab meat and pork ones at Grand Szichuan in Chelsea, or the shrimp and pork ones from New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe in Chinatown? Both totally delivered the goods, packed as they were with succulent fillings and soul-warming broth. The spicy Dan Dan Noodles at Grand Szichuan were pretty damn satisfying, too. 

Best Finger Food: The crostini at Gottino in the West Village. I ate there my first night in town, and copious amounts of wine were consumed, so I'm a little vague on what we actually ate — I just remember sardines and figs-with-goat cheese were involved. (Rebecca, if you're reading this, please jog my memory!)

Best Beer: When I walked into the Blind Tiger and saw something called Kuhnhenn's Fourth Dementia on the draught list, well... how could I not? (The fact that it was over 11% alcohol had nothing to do with my decision, I assure you.) Rich, dark, smooth and so tasty I wanted to lick the glass after I'd emptied it, it was the perfect comforting accompaniment to the lively music journalist war/horror stories I was trading with Michael.

Best Meal: Frankie's Spuntino in Brooklyn. The house-made cavatelli (little rolled bullets of pasta) with Faiccos hot sausage and browned sage butter was absolutely outta this world, as was the melt-in-your-mouth pork braciola marinara. The ricotta cheesecake tasted a little too much like "lemon fresh" Pledge, but I was just happy to have an excuse to linger longer in their romantic-as-all-hell back garden.

Worst Meal: The utterly vile gristle n' MSG lo mein at Wo Hop in Chinatown. Yeah, I know it was 2 a.m., and we were drunk, but surely there were better places we could've gone for a post-karaoke feast than this? Right, Shawn?

Best Karaoke Choice: Shawn and I wound up hitting Winnie's not once but twice during the course of my visit; and even though their blown bass cabinet prevented me from rocking the house with a rendition of Foreigner's "Dirty White Boy," the highlights were still too numerous to name. But our painstaking scientific research did prove that nothing gets the party started quite like a tag-team version of Rick James' "Super Freak."

Best Live Band: Okay, I only saw three — Silver Summit, White Hills and Psychic Paramount — all in one night at the Union Pool in Williamsburg. Though the sound was kinda off-kilter from where I was standing (i.e., the bar), I was once again blown away by Silver Summit's freaky brand of electric folk music for mind and body — and their new rhythm section added a whole Zep III vibe to the proceedings that definitely tightened my trousers. Didn't like the other bands as much — White Hills were unspectacular stoner rock saved by a truly spectacular drummer (Kid Millions, also of Oneida), and Psychic Paramount's all-instro kraut-psych just plain bored me. But hey, lotsa folks dug all three...

Best Musical/Religious Experience: Actually, there were many. Before heading to NYC, I'd put together an iPod playlist of songs that were about New York, recorded in New York, recorded by New York artists, or all three. Every day when I would leave the house to traipse through Manhattan and/or Brooklyn, I would fire that sucker up and inevitably be rewarded for my efforts — whether it was hearing the New York Dolls' "Subway Train" or the Ramones' "Rockaway Beach" while on the subway, grooving to the Jaynetts' "Sally Go Round the Roses" while walking through Central Park, or blasting Mongo Santamaria's "Hippo Walk" while boogalooing down Broadway. But listening to Side 2 of Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle while pounding the Midtown pavement on Labor Day — good god, y'all. I mean, just the part towards the end of "Incident on 57th Street" where Gary Tallent kicks on the fuzz bass... A friend of mine just went to see Bruce play Born to Run in its entirety in Chicago; not sure I'd pay to see that (especially since he's typically played most of those songs in concert since the late '70s), but if he ever decided to play Wild/Innocent in its entirety, I'd seriously be on that shit like grease on pizza.

Best Ballgame: By sheer stroke of luck, the Cubs were in town to play the Mets — and Brendan managed to score us two front-row seats at the "New Shea" (I refuse to call it by its heinous corporate name) in the upper deck between home and first (view pictured above). Derrek Lee hit two home runs, the Cubs won, and the Italian sausages weren't too bad either. Hoped to get out to a Brooklyn Cyclones game on Coney Island, as well, but couldn't fit it into my schedule. Next year, for sure!

Best Picnic: I'd only recently heard that Governors Island was now open to the public, so when Nina invited me to join her and her pals for a Sunday picnic there, I jumped at the chance. Didn't get to explore Castle Clinton (pictured above), but had a great time chilling and chowing while watching the island "fun run" (which we all decided was truly a contradiction in terms) and gazing out at the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the southern tip of Manhattan.

Best Walk: Matt's guided tour at dusk of the Brooklyn Promenade (from which the above pic was snapped) and Brooklyn Heights, followed by a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge — an engineering wonder whose wonderousness is exponentially magnified when you're actually standing on the sucker. Wow...

Best Nature Hike: Though I've passed through Central Park countless times since my Mom used to push my stroller there, I really fell in love with it for the first time in 2006, when I re-learned how to walk there after my appendix went kaput. Since then, I've really gotten into exploring Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's Manhattan masterpiece, and I took a long walk one day in the gorgeous  "North Woods" section of the park, which I'd never previously ventured into. I spent a long time sitting by the above waterfall, feeling about a million miles from the city I was in the center of.

And finally, thank you once again to all my friends and family members who gave me such a warm welcome and showed me such a good time. Much as I love the Big Apple, it would be a considerably less tasty place without your beautiful presence...

Taco Tuesday: Public Option

Since I know you've all been waiting for Taco Tuesday to weigh in on the raging health care debate — as well as new records by Municipal Waste and Mariachi El Bronx — Jay and I finally joined the fray with our latest episode. Watch out for that pitchfork-wielding mob of angry insurance executives!

Les Paul, R.I.P.

My friend Bob just wrote me, rightfully admonishing me for a lack of Les Paul love on "The Robe." Been a crazy week, though, so I'm just gonna have to re-run the ShockHound obit I wrote for Ol' Les yesterday. But I will add that I had several opportunities to see the great man play at Fat Tuesday's in NYC back in the late '80s, but blew them off due to the 20-dollar cover charge, the two-drink minimum, and the fact that I would have felt VERY awkward and out of place at the time in a jazz club. In retrospect, of course, I totally regret not going...

Les Paul, Giant of the Electric Guitar, Dies at Age 94.

ShockHound is deeply saddened to report that Les Paul, a man whose technological innovations massively transformed the electric guitar — not to mention recorded music as we know it — passed away last night at the age of 94.

    Born Lester William Polfuss in 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the son of Jewish immigrants initially embarked on a career as a country guitarist at the age of 13, billing himself as Red Hot Red and Rhubarb Red, before gravitating towards jazz in the 1930s. After moving to Hollywood in the 1940s, Paul lent his nimble guitar stylings to recordings by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, before striking Top 40 gold with a series of duets featuring his wife, Mary Ford. Their ethereal, playful hits like "Vaya Con Dios," "How High The Moon" and "The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" all featured multi-tracked, vari-speeded and electronically-echoed guitars and vocals — techniques that Paul actually invented and perfected in his home studio, and which would later become commonplace in the recording industry. Paul's Thomas Edison-like flair for technological tinkering earned him the nickname, "The Wizard of Waukesha"; he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.

    Of course, Paul's best-remembered legacy remains the solid-body electric guitar, a device he began tinkering with in the 1930s. Frustrated by the feedback and lack of sustain endemic to the hollow-body electrics of the day, Paul created "The Log," a length of 4" x 4" lumber outfitted with a guitar neck, a bridge and a pair of electric pickups, which he then deposited in the hollowed-out body of an Epiphone guitar. Though Paul's axe was about as awkward-looking as the Frankenstein monster, the ideas and innovations that led to its creation were eventually incorporated into the first solid-body electric ever manufactured by the Gibson Guitar Corporation — a model known as the "Les Paul."

    (Contrary to popular belief, however, Paul didn't actually invent the solid-body guitar; Leo Fender was working on one at the same time Paul was tinkering with "The Log," and the Rickenbacker company issued a solid-body of its own in the 1930s.)

    Introduced in 1952, the Gibson Les Paul has long since become one of the iconic axes of rock n' roll, prized for its beefy sound, singing sustain and fast-playing neck. The guitar's adherents have included Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Duane Allman, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Ace Frehley of Kiss, Slash of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, and Ozzy Osbourne's right-hand men Randy Rhoads and Zakk Wylde, to name but a few — and nearly every guitar manufacturer has since "borrowed" some of the Les Paul's innovations for their own axes.

    And yet, despite the guitar's popularity among hard rockers, Paul himself remained true to his musical roots, recording with country picker Chet Atkins in the 1970s and playing weekly residencies at New York City jazz clubs throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Still, he was always happy to share the stage with the young guns who idolized him, and he retained his charming Midwestern modesty 'til the end. Honored last year at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's American Music Masters Concert, he joked, "Everybody thought I was a guitar until I played here tonight."

    According to a press release issued by Gibson Guitars, Paul died from respiratory failure at a hospital in White Plains, New York, surrounded by friends and family. Of course, the Wizard of Waukesha had more friends than could ever fit into a hospital room, and his "family" extends at this point to just about anyone who's ever rocked a solid-body guitar or run a mixing desk. If you listen today to any music made in the last 60 years, spare a kind thought and a prayer for ol' Les — because chances are good that, in one way or another, he had something to do with it.

Don't Forget the Motor City

I read last night that the final wrecking balls have started swinging at Tiger Stadium, which by now is such a foregone conclusion that only a handful of Detroiters actually showed up to watch their city's beloved baseball stadium (where I also happened to see my first-ever major league game) literally bite the dust. I suspect that the slow death of Detroit itself is now a similarly foregone conclusion, which is such a massive tragedy on so many levels — economically, historically, culturally, racially, musically, even culinarily if you're a Coney Dog kinda person (I, for the record, am not) — that I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. Doesn't seem like too many other folks can, either.
    I last visted Detroit five years ago on a Revolver assignment; I specifically asked to stay downtown, so that I could wander around and take photos in my free time. As a kid growing up in Ann Arbor in the 1970s, the Motor City seemed to me a scary but still vibrant and glamorous (at least in a seedy way) kinda place; when I explored it in 2004, it was scary and still, which made it seem even more unnerving. I literally walked around downtown for hours one Saturday morning without seeing a single living soul — with the exception of two bums who asked me, "Hey Elvis, you got any change?"
    I took a number of photos that morning with my old Lomo, which I finally got around to scanning and put up as a Flickr set. I regret that I didn't take better notes about what most of these buildings or streets are/were; the silence was so eerie, I felt like I had to keep moving or I'd become a target for whatever zombie armies were lurking in this or that abandoned hotel. But you can still see the beauty and the power of the city in these old buildings, and get a brief whiff of the days when Detroit was still the baddest place to be and be from. I wish I'd taken more photos while I had the chance.