Wednesday, April 10, 2024
CATCHING FIRE: the story of ANITA PALLENBERG, a take by a lesser mortal, moi
Monday, April 8, 2024
DON'T LOOK DOWN by JAMES Y. WILLIAMSON
Book cover photo above left © Seth Tiven; photo on right of the very last moment of the very last gig ever by Iggy and The Stooges, © Heather Harris.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist and composer/performer of Iggy and The Stooges' iconographic 1972 sea change/game changer "Raw Power" (which begat all hard rock/punk/metal related genres) James Williamson just released a biography by his son James Y. Williamson. It is available on Amazon, and is lavishly illustrated with photos from his entire life, many of his most important Stooge and solo occasions documented by me.
Besides detailing all the astonishing events and correcting misconceptions, son James Y. presents his unique perspective of having had a superhero for a father complete with a secret identity, as Dad was first the Stooges' legend, then a Silicon Valley technology executive who worked his way up to Vice President of Technology Standards for the entire Sony Electronics company, then post-retirement back to being a Stooge and playing his unique music, both old and new, all over again.
Monday, February 19, 2024
BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE review
For distraction, I
deliberately went movie-going on Valentine's Day to
avoid the reality of the recent loss of my soulmate of fifty years.
Happily enough, it was the first day release of biofilm "Bob Marley:One
Love." A recommend!! Bigtime! Firstly, hearing superb reggae
played in a good theatre sound system will lift anyone's spirits, it's
built into the very construct of reggae. Like African-American gospel,
it lifts you up musically before any singer even opens his or her mouth.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
REST IN PEACE GREGG SUTTON
Gregg Sutton, prolific songwriter to Tom Jones, Dolly Parton, Joe Cocker, Al Green, Joe Bonamassa, Percy Sledge, Billy Ray Cyrus, Nelson and many others as well, plus solo singer/songwriter and musician in Lone Justice, Bob Dylan's band, KGB and many others as well, plus musical director for his childhood friend Andy Kauffman, passed away suddenly at the age of 74 in the dreadful carnage of 2023, this last October.
His most recent project had been the very popular online Sunday Salvation Band which performed his compositions and anything else that anybody in the band liked as well, from reggae to Western yodels to classic Soul. At left, a Sunday Salvation Band bandmember strutting her stuff covering Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits" live onstage at a Pamela Des Barres' house party.
Last night (1.13.24) author, well liked music biz
notable and onetime high fashion model Catherine James hosted a gracious occasion of remembrance for her friend Gregg. Below, L-R at same occasion were yours truly, rock and roll couturier Evita Corby and music scene historian/retired schoolteacher Terry Moreland Henderson. We all managed smiles at his memory, despite tearing up as Catherine's talented guests finished jamming Gregg's presciently sad ballad "Closer To
Heaven," ironically a new composition in his long spanning canon. The photo below that pic of Catherine was taken a few years ago at a book reading where she read from her autobiography "Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit," since I enjoy plugging her well written, poignantly entertaining book.
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
(TARDY) REST IN PEACE JEFF BECK
The world's greatest (most creative, most adept, most influential) hardest rock guitar player Jeff Beck passed away from bacterial meningitis on Jan 11, 2023. This is the first of a series of obituaries of select persons who meant something in my life, all delayed due to care needed for my better half's extremely serious illness treatments (not Covid.)
Always in the zone as here, giving it his all while thinking up entirely new guitar adventures no one before could have even imagined. In 1968 I wore out three vinyl LP records listening to his first solo venture "Truth" which debuted his ridiculously influential band The Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Nicky Hopkins and Micky Waller. Fortunate indeed to see this force of nature in action, I nonetheless don't have photos of that 1968 show, so offered are my pics of Stewart and Wood in Faces, Hollywood Palladium, 1972. And another of mine from the 1990 "dual headliner" (they alternated) show with Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Below, fair
use photo not credited to anyone but The Nicky Hopkins Archives, which,
despite lack of visages, shows exuberant hardest rock chaos of the
original Jeff Beck Group in 1968. (those are Benday printer dots, not
pixels, so pic works best small.
Since both Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jeff Beck are no longer with us, that leaves the indomitable James Williamson as the world's greatest (most creative, most adept, most influential) living hardest rock guitar player now. He is far more influential than other remaining greats: just ask anyone who has played any genre of hardest rock since 1973's Raw Power, Williamson's masterwork with Iggy Pop and the rest of the Stooges. THAT release is the touchstone of them all.
Friday, May 19, 2023
COLLEAGUE LYNN GOLDSMITH WINS PHOTO THEFT CASE VIA THE U.S. SUPREME COURT
Front page of today's Wall Street Journal (5.19.23): photographer extraordinaire Lynn Goldsmith just won her 7 year battle against copyright infringement by the Andy Warhol estate by appealing all the way to the Supreme Court of these United States.
All working artists know you can't dragoon someone else's work into your new money-making venture. That's theft. License it already! "Fair use" was designed to protect press, reviews, and determine orphan works. And yet all who don't "get" art pulled out the stops to fight her. A Supreme Court Justice even got distracted thinking this was about the art history legacy of Warhol, not image expropriation. It's hard enough to make a living in the visual arts at any level, just license us in all ventures that include our art! Well done Lynn Goldsmith.
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
DON'T WORRY DARLING ~AND~ LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. WHY I HEART THESE FLIX
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
BENTLEY 2.0
Mr. Twister posing rakishly and yours truly at the Queen's English British Motorcar and Motorbike show in Woodley Park, San Fernando Valley, L.A., Calif on a commendably beautiful day, 4.23.23 with his own entry in the show, his 2009 convertible Bentley Azure. This is where the copy from the previous post was intended to appear. If you can't quite make it out on his poster that I fashioned for him for the show, it reads:
"Last fall I got some great news about my Stage 4 cancer - and this is an early bucket list result!
Nice enough to look good, but enough nicks and scratches that I don't worry (too much) about driving it. Only 450bhp, but 645 ft. lb. torque. Redline is a blistering 4500 rpm."
(Ed. if only this great news had held up. It was not to be. At least we had this lovely weather, perfect day occasion of his Bentley starring in our local British car show described above.)
Thursday, April 20, 2023
BENTLEY!
"Last fall I got some great news about my Stage 4 cancer - and this is an early bucket list result!
Nice enough to look good, but enough nicks and scratches that I don't worry "(too much) about driving it. Only 450bhp, but 645 ft. torque. Redline is a blistering 4500 rpm."
-Kurt Ingham, April, 2023
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Rest in peace DAVID CROSBY
I took this at the Greek Theatre, Hollywood, in 1969, their second ever gig (after Woodstock.) Neil Young was just sitting in, they were still CSN. My six degrees of separation were that someone I knew was friends with Crosby and his soon to be tragically killed girlfriend, Christine Hinton, and we once went to visit them in their Beverly Glen canyon home. Crosby was out, and I thought Christine one of the worldliest young women I ever had met, what with her sultry voice and longer than waist length hair. Crosby loved her so much that her death seemed to have messed up the entire rest of his life. Somehow, despite much physical wreckage, he managed to keep his wonderful singing voice right up to the end. Rest in peace, David Crosby.