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Looks like it's Thursday again. How time flies. Anyone interested in keeping the streak of socializing alive? Maybe back to the Local? Anyone? Maybe it will be a small turnout due to the poor planning, in which case our options for venues will increase slightly. So let us know if you're on the bus or...
An effective, low-cost solution to combat mind-control.
Sandy Bull, a Master of Musical Fusion With Open Ears, Dies at 60
By JON PARELES 4/14/01 for NYT
"Sandy Bull, a guitarist, composer and improviser whose extended fantasias merged American
folk styles with jazz, classical and world music, died on Wednesday at his home in Franklin,
Tenn. He was 60.
The cause was cancer, said a friend, Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Mr. Bull came out of the folk revival of the 1950's and the early 60's. But while many of his
contemporaries were trying to recreate backwoods American styles, Mr. Bull turned his ear to
the wider world. During his career he performed not only on acoustic and electric guitars, but
also on electric bass, piano, banjo, oud, sarod and pedal steel guitar. His instincts, and his
fondness for the drone at the basis of many music styles, led him to what would later be
called fusion or world music.
Mr. Bull was born in New York City and grew up in Florida, living with his father after his
parents separated. He briefly studied drums and got his first guitar when he was 8. His
mother, Daphne Hellman, is a harpist whose repertory spans jazz and classical music, and he
began living with her in New York when he was 11.
He listened to Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly and Pete Seeger, and as a teenager he took banjo
lessons from Erik Darling of the Weavers.
By the late 1950's, Mr. Bull had begun a peripatetic career as a performer. In 1959 he played
on the streets in Paris, where he first heard Algerian music.
While studying music at Boston University in the late 1950's, he performed at Boston and
Cambridge clubs, sitting in with singers including Joan Baez. In New York in the early
1960's he worked around Greenwich Village at the Gaslight, Folk City and the Bitter End.
His music was constantly broadening. He heard Lebanese music in a friend's jewelry shop on
Macdougal Street in the Village and the Indian sarod on an album by Ravi Shankar and Ali
Akbar Khan.
Mr. Bull recorded his first album, "Fantasias," for Vanguard Records in 1962. It included
arrangements of classical pieces by Carl Orff and William Byrd, gospel and Appalachian
tunes and an extended piece based on Indian tunings; the band featured the drummer Billy
Higgins, who had been working with Ornette Coleman. Mr. Bull's next album, "Inventions,"
included Bach, Brazilian tunes and Chuck Berry's "Memphis." Mr. Bull also became a disc
jockey for a radio program called "Music of Man" on WNCN-FM in New York.
Mr. Bull moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1963 and shared an apartment with Hamza
El Din, the Nubian oud master. In the late 1960's Mr. Bull spent time in London and in
Egypt, where he performed on Radio Cairo. But by the end of the 60's he had become
addicted to heroin, a habit he finally broke in 1974. He re- emerged playing oud at shows in
Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975, and he studied sarod with Mr. Khan in 1976.
But from 1972 to 1987 he could not get a recording contract. "Some label people wanted me
to play the way I'd done on my first two albums," he said in an interview with Folk Roots
magazine. "But I was always trying to do something a little different, change, try different
approaches. I didn't want to repeat myself."
He moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1980's. His 1988 album, "Jukebox School of Music"
(ROM), included salsa-flavored tunes and programmed keyboard parts. His "Vehicles" in
1991 featured the Senegalese percussionist Aiyb Dieng.
Mr. Bull moved to the Nashville area in 1992 and in 1996 started his own label, Timeless
Recording Society, which released "Steel Tears," the first album to feature his singing. He
had surgery for lung cancer in 1996. In 1998 Vanguard released a compilation album, "The
Vanguard Sessions." Mr. Bull had been working on an album of instrumentals, including
solos for oud, sarod and electric guitar and a piece with percussionists from the Tito Puente
Orchestra.
He is survived by his wife, Candy; a daughter, K. C.; two sons, Jesse and Jackson; a sister,
Daisy Paradis; a brother, Digger St. John; and his mother."
Golden door closed.
The new Ellis Island Records site opened yesterday, but I haven't been able to get in yet. May try changing my name to Vilsonsku.
How those internet rumors get started.
(I was looking for a quote from Sheridan, honest.)
Situationist International Anthology
SI primer
a west wing creators problems mushroom.
chinoiseries, chinoiseries, chinoiseries, chinoiseries, chinoiseries
In following Bill's billiken link I was not entirely suprised to find that one of my favorite childhood places, Seattle's Ye Olde Cruiosity Shop had a role in clarifying the origin of the good luck charm.
The site is a bit goofy on my browser because of all the Java but some may find it worth the poke around.
Especially you James Ensor fans, this is the sort of souvenir shop he lived and worked in.
favorite charity at this moment
i should be happy i get to go to French Guiana for two weeks but i cant help but think of how in some whys it will be a sad trip--taking a river (tourist) cruise to visit some indian tribes (they dont let you all the way into the deep interior), seeing first hand thier lost of ancient ways--maybe its because i finished "Tales of the Shaman's Apprentice" or that i spent much time in the early 80's partying in Venezuala just a few 100 miles away instead of seeing first hand one of the last holdout's of ???? (the first McDonald's arrived this year) well there is a Creole/Amerindian etc food fest in one town while i am there:>)
Seems to me like the posting frequency is going up a little bit around here. Remember, if you are signed in, and the new post tracking system is driving you nuts because you can't or don't want to keep up - you can turn it off for certain pages in your preferences (link on the left of the home page - and I'll add my standard disclaimer about the interface being horrible and also how much better it will be very soon.) Also, if you like the tracking, but just want to get caught up in a single swoop, just go to clear.php3 and it will zero all the counters for you.
I Live In Weird New Jersey.
The Origin of the Billiken
Zig-Zag Man
wow. how bout matt haughey on the cover of brills content. heres the blurb.
From today's New York Times:
"Richard Evans Schultes, a swashbuckling scientist and influential Harvard University educator who was widely considered the preeminent authority on hallucinogenic and medicinal plants, died on Tuesday in Boston. He was 86 and lived in Waltham, a Boston suburb.
WFMU's most self satisfied
Douglas Wolk
I was watching ccn last night as the plane taxied acoross the tarmac and took off live from china (7:30 pm edst). The tv crew had a hand held dig video camera with a (cell?) telephone connection. Then the cops came and made 'em stop. "W" listened in on a cnn audio feed and the Generals at the pentagon watched on cable.
Any links available for info on that broadband two-way satelite company ?
Tomorrow's Thursday gathering serves as Bill's birthday party! (It's actually on Good Friday the 13th, so if we stay up till midnight you can ask him if he knows how old he is.) I don't think any firm plans have been hatched, so input is welcome. This could be an opportunity for early-comers to check out the Paul Laffoley show at Kent (Prince & Crosby), which should definitely been seen. It's only up till the 21st, and till 6:00 PM.
You just gotta love a rat eating Hawk
Wheel: I met the Butthole Surfers on the Lollapalooza Tour and we stays friendly until they stopped touring.
Paul Leary: Lollapalooza was the first tour where we didn't have to drive our own vehicle, set up our own equipment, tune our own guitars, and collect our own money at the end. That set us free so, we could get a
little bit fucked up.
Jim Berry: We all enjoyed it because we played the second slot in the afternoon. I'd be rolling the last case in by 4:30. They always took care of us, gave us plenty of beer and liquor. Our bus was a good escape for Perry Farrell and everybody else who'd want to hang out and not be bothered. No one would think, to look on the Butthole Surfers' bus.
Hale Milgrim: They totally were into improvisation. I'm a Deadhead, and I like the Butthole Surfers for some of the same reasons. This group kept on changing their sets, kept on growing and improvising. I knew that we would have some problems with key accounts that unfortunately are into censorship. I talked to the Capitol promotion department. I said, "Look, whatever you can get the group to go along with, the 'B-Hole' Surfers, would be appreciated [by the sales and marketing staff]." But I knew what I was signing. The A&R people didn't come to me and say, "Hey Hale, we want you to sign the 'B-Hole' Surfers."
Wheel: It was after the band signed to Capitol that the started playing the same show every night, I remember one day after 4 shows that were almost the same I said "You cant do this the same people come to each show" They played some different songs that night.