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tagged w/ The Sixties
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Donovan mellow yellow again 50 years later with US tour
He was mellow yellow in the Sixties, and now Donovan jokes about being more rusted than mellow 50 years later as he prepares to tour the U.S. this summer.He was mellow yellow in the Sixties, and now Donovan jokes about being more rusted... more-
- joeeddy
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- 2 months ago
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Peter Bergman, Firesign Theatre, Has Died
The New York Times...
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March 9, 2012 - Friday
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Peter Bergman, Satirist With Firesign, Dies at 72
By PAUL VITELLO
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Peter Bergman, a founding member of the surrealist comedy troupe Firesign Theater, whose albums became cult favorites among college students in the late 1960s and ’70s for a brand of sly, multilayered satire so dense it seemed riddled with non sequiturs until the second, third or 30th listening, died on Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 72.
The cause was complications of leukemia, said Jeff Abraham, a spokesman for the group.
Mr. Bergman hosted an all-night radio call-in show on KPFK in Los Angeles beginning in 1966, “Radio Free Oz,” which served as the testing ground for the high-spirited Firesign sensibility. Phil Austin and David Ossman, two other founders of the four-man group, were the producer and director of the show; the fourth founder, Phil Proctor, was a frequent guest.
“We started out as four friends, up all night, taking calls from people on bad acid trips and having the time of our lives,” Mr. Austin said in a phone interview Friday. “And that’s what we always were: four friends talking.”
Mr. Bergman and his friends recorded their first album, “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” in 1968, followed the next year by “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?”
By 1970, their mordant humor and their mastery of stereophonic recording techniques had made them to their generation of 20-somethings what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to today’s (if Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart had a weakness for literary wordplay, psychedelic references and jokes about the Counter-Reformation).
Their records employed sound effects in ways considered pioneering in audio comedy at the time. More generally, they were considered important forerunners of comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live.”
Ed Ward, writing in The New York Times in 1972, described the third Firesign album, “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,” as “a mind-boggling sound drama” and a “work of almost Joycean complexity.”
“It’s almost impossible to summarize any Firesign album,” Mr. Ward wrote, because most of their albums were so filled with “intricate wordplay, stunning engineering and use of sound effects, breakneck pacing and, of course, a terribly complex story line.”
When the Library of Congress placed “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” in its National Recording Registry in 2005, The Los Angeles Times described Firesign Theater as “the Beatles of comedy.”
Mr. Bergman told people the ensemble’s albums, unlike most comedy records, were never made to be listened to just once or twice. “He said our records were made to be heard about 80 times,” Mr. Austin said.
While the ensemble continued making albums for three decades, Mr. Bergman also wrote and produced several one-man shows, including “Help Me Out of This Head,” a 1986 monologue-memoir that drew on his childhood in Cleveland. He also wrote interactive games, including a CD-ROM parody of the popular adventure video game MIST.
Mr. Bergman was born on Nov. 29, 1939, in Cleveland, one of two children of Oscar and Rita Bergman. His parents hosted a radio show in Cleveland when he was growing up, “Breakfast With the Bergmans.” His father also worked as a reporter for The Plain Dealer.
Mr. Bergman graduated from Yale and taught economics there as a Carnegie Fellow. He later attended the Yale School of Drama as a Eugene O’Neill playwriting fellow. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to pursue a writing career.
He is survived by a daughter, Lily Oscar Bergman, and his sister, Wendy Kleckner.
Mr. Bergman got a taste of radio work when he was in high school, according to a biography on Firesign Theater’s official Web site. But he lost his job as an announcer on the school radio system, it said, “after his unauthorized announcement that the Chinese Communists had taken over the school and that a ‘mandatory voluntary assembly was to take place immediately.’ Russell Rupp, the school principal, promptly relieved Peter of his announcing gig. Rupp was the inspiration for the Principal Poop character on ‘Don’t Crush That Dwarf.’ ”
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PHOTO:
Firesign Theatre/Columbia Records
Clockwise from far right, Peter Bergman, Phil Austin, Phil Proctor and Dave Ossman of the Firesign Theater in 1970.
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.The New York Times... . March 9, 2012 - Friday . Peter Bergman, Satirist... more-
- EthicalVegan
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- 3 months ago
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The Beatles' Photographer, Robert Whitaker, Has Died
Los Angeles Times...
Beatles photographer Robert Whitaker dies at 71
October 2, 2011, 11:19 a.m.
LONDON (AP) — Photographer Robert Whitaker, who shot some of the most famous — and infamous — images of The Beatles, has died at the age of 71.
Whitaker's friend, photo archivist Dave Brolan, said he died of cancer Sept. 20 in Sussex, southern England.
Whitaker took scores of well-known pictures of The Beatles, including the controversial "butcher" cover of the 1966 American album "Yesterday and Today."
The image of the Fab Four in white coats surrounded by decapitated dolls and slabs of raw meat proved too strong for record company Capitol, which ordered the cover withdrawn soon after the album's release.
The record was rereleased with an inoffensive picture of the band sitting on a steamer trunk. Originals are coveted by collectors and can sell for thousands of dollars.
Whitaker — a fan of surrealism — later said the image was a meditation on fame and an attempt to shake up the band's image, inspired by a dream "about The Beatles being ripped to shreds by all these young girls when they came out of a stadium."
Born in Harpenden, southern England in 1939, Whitaker emigrated to Australia in his early 20s and was working as a photographer in Melbourne when The Beatles visited the country in 1964. He was assigned to photograph manager Brian Epstein for the Jewish News; Epstein was so impressed with the resulting image of himself adorned with peacock feathers that he offered Whitaker a job as staff photographer for his company, NEMS.
The job involved photographing "Merseybeat" acts including Cilla Black and Gerry & The Pacemakers, as well as capturing The Beatles — onstage, backstage, in planes and hotel rooms and all manner of locations — over more than two years. He covered the band's final world tour in 1966 and took the pictures used on the collage-style cover of the "Revolver" album.
After parting company with The Beatles, Whitaker photographed Mick Jagger on the sets of the films "Performance " and "Ned Kelly," helped create the psychedelic cover for Cream's "Disraeli Gears" album and worked on the influential underground magazine Oz.
Increasingly wary of being pigeonholed as a "pop" photographer, Whitaker moved into news, covering the Vietnam War and other conflicts for publications including Time and Life. He also spent time photographing his artistic hero, Salvador Dali.
In the 1970s he moved to the English countryside, where he farmed and raised cattle.
Whitaker compiled several books of his Beatles photographs, including "The Unseen Beatles" and "Eight Days a Week."
He is survived by his wife, Sue, and three children. Funeral details were not immediately available.
.Los Angeles Times... Beatles photographer Robert Whitaker dies at 71... more-
- EthicalVegan
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- 8 months ago
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The Woodstock Reincarnation
As you listen to and watch this rather miraculous musical achievement by the entire town of Grand Rapids, Michigan, ask yourself, “Is America dead yet?”As you listen to and watch this rather miraculous musical achievement by the entire... more-
- joeeddy
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- 11 months ago
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Rolling Stone Readers Pick the Top 10 Songs of the Sixties
Rolling Stone... Rolling Stone Readers Pick the Top 10 Songs of the Sixties-
- EthicalVegan
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- 1 year ago
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The New York Times: Apple Has Struck a Deal to Sell The Beatles' Catalogue Online
The New York Times
November 15, 2010
Apple Strikes Deal to Sell Beatles Catalog Online
By BEN SISARIO and MIGUEL HELFT
For the next generation of Beatles fans, the wait could soon be over.
Apple is expected on Tuesday to announce that it has finally struck a deal with the Beatles, the best-selling music group of all time, and the band’s record company, EMI, to sell the band’s music on iTunes, according to a person with knowledge of the private deal who requested anonymity because the agreement was still confidential.
Depending on the terms of the deal, customers for the first time will be able to buy “Please Please Me,” “Hey Jude” or “A Day in the Life” online rather than on a CD and perhaps even as individual tracks. While the move to digital does not quite rival the band’s first trip across the Atlantic to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, it is an acknowledgment that online purchases dominate the music industry’s sales strategy.
Apple and EMI declined to comment, and representatives of the Beatles and Apple Corps, the band’s company (not to be confused with the technology company), could not be reached.
One of the last major holdouts against selling its music digitally, the Beatles are the ultimate prize for any music company, a group that has held on to blockbuster sales four decades after breaking up — it has sold more than 177 million albums in the United States alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of America — and held on to untouchable cultural prestige.
Since opening its iTunes music store seven years ago, Apple has reshaped the music industry and become the largest music retailer in the United States. But the Beatles catalog had always eluded the company and Steven P. Jobs, its tenacious chief executive.
Still, while getting access to the Beatles catalog has plenty of symbolic significance, it is unlikely to bolster the company’s bottom line.
“It is very symbolic because Steve Jobs is a huge fan of the Beatles,” said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, who has been following Apple for more than two decades.
But for all the success of Apple in becoming the largest distributor of music on the Internet, the iTunes store is not a major source of profits for the company. Apple executives have said that iTunes is roughly a “breakeven” operation.
“The music itself is a vehicle to allow them to sell more iPods and iPhones, which is where they make real money,” Mr. Bajarin said.
And despite the deal’s symbolism, its financial value for the Beatles is uncertain. About three-quarters of all albums sold in the United States are still CDs, and physical albums remain far more profitable for record companies than downloads.
Apple did its best to tease the industry — and Beatles fans — with a mysterious message on its Web site on Monday, saying that an “exciting announcement from iTunes” — one “that you’ll never forget,” no less — was coming on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern time. As sharp-eyed bloggers read the tea leaves on Apple’s site and news reports began circulating — a possible reference to a Paul McCartney song, another to the semaphore symbols on the cover of the Beatles’ album “Help!” — calls began to ricochet around the music industry that the deal might be for the digital holy grail.
Mr. Jobs has tried to make a deal with EMI and the Beatles many times before, but negotiations have always broken down, usually accompanied by a flurry of online rumors, accusations and conspiracy theories. Further complicating the relationship between the parties, Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company, and Apple, the computer company, had been embroiled for decades over trademark disputes.
In the past, Paul McCartney has said that a deal for the Beatles’ digital music would have to be approved by all the band members or their heirs.
Like AC/DC, Bob Seger and a few other major acts that sell old albums in large numbers, the Beatles stand to earn far more money from sales of CDs than downloads. But with each new compilation or reissue, like the remastered versions of Beatles albums that went on sale last year, Beatles fans have shown their willingness to buy their favorite music again and again; in the 2000s, only Eminem sold more albums in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Terms of the deal, including the pricing of the songs, could not be learned. For years, Apple insisted on selling all songs for 99 cents. But in 2009, after intense pressure from the music industry and sometimes rancorous negotiations, Mr. Jobs agreed to terms that the industry called “variable pricing.” Apple now sells songs for 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29.
As news of the deal spread throughout the music industry on Monday, many wondered if the Beatles would get s a special pricing deal.
The publicity bonanza of a major iTunes announcement could be just the thing to get fans excited. Millions of fans can already listen to their favorite Beatles albums on their iPods, iPhones and other digital music players, since they have been able to transfer tracks from their CDs to the digital devices.
“Anybody that hasn’t managed to come up with a digitized version of the Beatles’ song by now never liked the Beatles,” said John Perry Barlow, a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and the co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties organization.
But Mr. Barlow said that having the Beatles catalog on iTunes could help introduce younger listeners to songs that have become part of our collective cultural heritage.
“That music is timeless,” Mr. Barlow said. “It’s probably some of the most remarkable songwriting created by humans and there are new generations coming along that don’t already know these songs.”
Mr. Barlow the deal also represents a personal victory for Mr. Jobs.
“Steve Jobs has finally become the dominant Apple,” he said.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/11/16/business/16beatles_337-span/16beatles_337-395-articleInline.jpgThe New York Times November 15, 2010 Apple Strikes Deal to Sell Beatles Catalog... more-
- EthicalVegan
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- 1 year ago
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Rock and Roll Treasure Revealed - Never-Before Seen Beatles (etc.) Photos, Letters, Hand-Written Lyrics
;jif=21880287104703;dcove=r;
Exclusive: Rock 'N Roll Treasure Revealed
By TARA WALLIS-FINESTONE
Updated 8:12 AM PDT, Mon, Sep 13, 2010
The British invasion. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones: Their music, their fashion and their swagger. Rock 'n roll's first super groups took America by storm in the 1960s, changing the cultural landscape of American youth.
Now almost 50 years later, like a mirage emerging from a desert oasis, a Southern California woman has answers to questions that rock 'n roll's fans asked for decades.
"I was just in awe of all these beautiful people," said Patti Daley, 64. "They were just our friends, it was amazing."
The answers lie within boxes that Daley has stored for decades underneath her bed, in her home two hours east of Los Angeles.
Inside the boxes are a treasure trove of old photo albums full of rare Polaroids of icons in rock, plus John Lennon lyrics, and letters and cards from members of the Beatles. These are items the public has never seen, until now.
Perhaps the rarest set of photos she owns are two Polaroids of Paul McCartney playing piano inside Lennon's beach house in 1974. It was their first meeting since the Beatles breakup in 1970.
"It's incredible, incredible, a lot of these things are things we've only read about," said Chris Carter, host of the nationally syndicated radio program "Breakfast with The Beatles."
"I saw a picture of Mickey Dolenz climbing up a hill, a picture of Keith Moon on a shag carpet," added Carter. "You know these are rock icons and these pictures no one has ever seen. And they are not published in 25 Beatles books. These are really first time viewings for these pictures."
Amazingly, Patti's treasure includes more than just photos. She also has handwritten cards from George Harrison and John Lennon, plus personal notes from now legendary recording sessions, all signed by the musicians who were there. But the potential motherload are several song lyrics from Lennon's "Walls and Bridges" recording sessions, including what is believed to be his hand-written lyrics to his only number one song "Whatever Gets You Through the Night."
"I came to acquire those after sessions," Daley remembered. "John would come in and put the lyrics on a podium. And he would just leave them there for me to pick up."
Daley also has a copy of a letter John Lennon sent to record executives in 1976. Although it might not be worth a lot of money to collectors, it's significant historically.
In the letter, Lennon was angry with Capitol Records about the cover art selected for the Beatles' first greatest hits album "Rock 'N Roll Beatles." Among other things, an animated Lennon accuses the record executives of trying to ruin the image of the Beatles.
Daley was the ultimate rock 'n roll insider. She said the love of her life was a well-known session guitarist named Jesse Ed Davis, a man many consider one of the greatest unsung guitar heroes in rock 'n roll.
"He was the most subtle, tasty guitar player when rock and roll was really happening," said Daley. "Everyone loved his playing and sought after him to play on their records."
Legends like all the Beatles, members of the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and the Faces, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and more all enlisted Davis' skills on his trademark Fender Telecaster.
Daley said, "I still hear him on the radio, I listen to the old stations, it makes my heart smile."
For more than a decade, she toured the world with Jesse and her young son Billy, not only baring witness to, but also documenting, what is now a legendary time in pop culture.
A mother armed with a Polaroid camera, Patti took candid, one-of-a-kind pictures of icons in rock.
"I just kept my Polaroid camera on me all the time in my purse, and when I'd see a good shot, I'd take them candidly," said Daley.
The photos are incredible: From a young Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts in the early 1970s, to several shots of a care free Ronnie Woods before he joined the Stones, to a series of Beatles photos after the breakup -- many taken during John Lennon's "Lost Weekend."
In 1973, Lennon separated from his wife Yoko Ono and began an 18-month relationship with his secretary May Pang. It was a relationship that Yoko reportedly initiated. And the couple spent quite a bit of time at a rented beach house in Santa Monica. Lennon later referred to this time as his "Lost Weekend."
"It's always desirable to have material from somebody who was part of an inner circle, somebody who was really a witness to history," said Dr. Catherine Williamson, director of Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams & Butterfields auction house in Los Angeles.
Williamson said, if authenticated, Daley's treasure could be highly desirable not only to collectors, but also potentially to museums.
As for Daley, she is not sure what she will do with her treasure. She admits, though, that it was an incredible time in her life, and now she wants to share it with the world.
She said, "I feel very privileged to have met the people I have met and heard the music I have heard."
Editor's Note: NBCLA will have a series of reports this week on this "Rock-N-Roll Treasure." On Monday, we bring you more never-before-seen photos from John Lennon's Lost Weekend. Plus, what Patti Daley remembers about that day in 1974 when Paul McCartney and John Lennon first got together again to play music.
First Published: Sep 12, 2010 5:26 PM PDT;jif=21880287104703;dcove=r; Exclusive: Rock 'N Roll Treasure Revealed By... more-
- EthicalVegan
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MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST: (Almost) Live from London: PIRATE RADIO vs. THE BOAT THAT ROCKED
So I figured, while I’m in London interviewing some of the people involved with PIRATE RADIO, Richard Curtis’ film about those intrepid souls who in the 60’s brought the UK their daily dose of rock when the BBC was loathe to, why not try a little experiment in whether one dude with a netbook, a pocket camcorder, a copy of QuickTime Pro, and his hotel’s complimentary WiFi service can beat the international news bureaus at their own game? Hence this episode of MMP, our first video episode, wherein some Londoners voice their preference for film’s original, British title, THE BOAT THAT ROCKED, or the title it’ll be carrying in the U.S.
A few technical notes: First, if you’re watching this ep on Sunday the 18th or Monday the 19th, then mission accomplished — I’m actually still in London conducting my interviews. Next, I have to admit that cutting in QuickTime doesn’t allow for the most elegant product (I believe the sage physician Leonard McCoy coined the most fitting analogy: “Threading a needle with a sledgehammer”). Finally, this ep may not play on an iPod. Sorry, I just didn’t have enough time to research the proper formats. I’d appreciate hearing if you were able to see this ep or not. Just use the comments form on the MMP website.
In any case, please enjoy my chiseled good looks, and a set of rather interesting opinions on one of the more pressing issues of the day. (Okay, maybe I have to get my priorities straight.)So I figured, while I’m in London interviewing some of the people involved with... more-
- DanPersons
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- 2 years ago
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RFK: 'What we need in the United States'
It's interesting and incredibly 'coincidental' that seven hundred billion dollars is what the US spends annually on oil. Having made that point last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr dropped by NBC to promote his book: Robert Smalls: The Boat Thief, the story of an African-American Civil War hero.
At the outset of the interview, Matt Lauer demonstrated why big media continues to lose the respect of its audience.
As he is quoted on the RFK website, Matt Lauer gushed: "So --I just gotta ask: How's your Dad doing?"
Excuses for Lauer were forthcoming. He had mistaken RFK Jr for Ted Kennedy's son. Though still a gaffe, the excuse might have been credible if Lauer had not already introduced him as "Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the son of former attorney general and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
According to the Kennedy website, NBC is not alone when it comes to 'keeping their Kennedys straight". ABC News blew it in May when it reported that RFK Jr. was the son of the former President John F. Kennedy. What if he had been? Would ABC have asked: "Well...how's your dad?"
Perhaps some history is in order though there is little hope the MSM will avail themselves of it.
It was upon the death of Dr. Martin Luther King that Robert Kennedy, JFKs younger brother, addressed the issue of what we need in the United States. One can be sure that upon that tragic occasion, Kennedy had not intended to lecture or proselytize. He was not on the stump. He wasn't trying to get any one elected. His intention, I think, was one of consolation in the face of tragic loss. But, in it, is found our nation's only hope. It's about what we need in the United States. It's as true now as it was the night Martin Luther King was murdered in Atlanta.It's interesting and incredibly 'coincidental' that seven hundred... more
