The Return of the Vague Blur, and others

Here's what I've been reading lately:
* Anthony Peake: THE MAN WHO REMEMBERED THE FUTURE: A LIFE OF PHILIP K. DICK (2013) -- I had trouble with this book from the point where Peake moved the site of JFK's assassination from Dallas to Houston. If Peake can't get the well-known facts right, how's he gonna do justice to science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick's life?
So: Science-fiction writer K.W. Jeter gets his name spelled wrong more than once. Timescape Books becomes Timewell Books (the book-line's editor was David G. Hartwell). Dick moves from one California town to another -- and ends up living on a street with the same name. Possible, but unlikely. Maybe only in a PKD novel. There were other minor errors. The proofreading could have been better. Still, Peake got his book published in hardcover, which is more than I can say.
Peake depicts PKD as a talented but potentially dangerous paranoid with multiple personalities and delusions of grandeur -- a guy who had several emotional breakdowns and went through a succession of marriages and relationships -- a guy whose handle on Reality was so shaky he couldn't walk out of his own yard without passing out from stress. Absolutely the last person you'd ever want to live with -- but the definition of a brilliantly creative writer!
The synopses of PKD's novels make them sound better and more involving than they really are. PKD had an amazing ability to depict the gritty realities of everyday life for most people. But have you ever tried to READ his books? Some of them are kind of dull. But I'll admit that PKD's THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH and A MAZE OF DEATH are both mind-altering experiences.
There are probably better PKD biographies out there.
* Jann S. Wenner and Corey Seymour: GONZO: THE LIFE OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON (2007) -- Add this to E. Jean Carroll's HUNTER (reviewed below) and you have a helluva oral biography. Like Carroll's book, GONZO gathers a ton of HST's closest friends to tell the story of the crazed gonzo journalist's life. Unlike Carroll's book, this includes the famous final scene -- when Hunter suicided out by gun when his health started failing him. It's a moving portrait, even if Jann Wenner is quoted too often, and even if Wenner makes it sound like his relationship with Hunter was all smooth and all-forgiving. Read HST's letters.
* Peter Biskind: DOWN AND DIRTY MOVIES (2004) -- There is some appalling behavior recounted here -- but not as appalling as that in Biskind's earlier, excellent EASY RIDERS RAGING BULLS, which was about '70s filmmakers. This book's about '90s filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, etc., the rise of independent films, and the rise of Miramax Pictures. Most of the screaming here is done by Harvey Weinstein, co-head of Miramax -- and the people who have to work for him. Worth a look if you like 90's films (PULP FICTION, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE, GOOD WILL HUNTING, CLERKS, any number of smaller films), but maybe not as compelling as EASY RIDERS.
* Clinton Heylin: THE ACT YOU'VE KNOWN FOR ALL THESE YEARS (2007) -- A fairly detailed look at the events surrounding The Beatles' recording of SGT. PEPPER in 1967, and what some of the other musical acts around them were doing at the same time -- Stones, Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, The Who, Hendrix, The Move, etc. As Heylin admits, this is all pretty well-covered stuff, but his writing is smooth and his book is enjoyable enough, even if you might not learn much that's new.
* George Martin: ALL YOU NEED IS EARS (1979) -- This modest autobio recounts George's long career as a producer with EMI and independently, and his long relationship with The Beatles. Martin is modest in his measure of how important he was to their success, and though his stories are amusing and fairly well detailed, they're not very revealing and you won't learn much new. His writing's so low-key I didn't feel compelled to read the two-thirds of the book that DOESN'T include The Fabs. The most arrogant statement is made by whoever designed the cover -- who claims that Martin "created" The Beatles.
* Jim Bouton: I'M GLAD YOU DIDN'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY (1971) -- This shorter, lighter follow-up to Bouton's classic tell-all baseball memoir BALL FOUR (reviewed below) is basically just a lotta laffs. Most of the book is about reactions to BALL FOUR -- who loved it, who hated it, how much, quotes from critics, quotes from Major League ballplayers, etc. There's a whole chapter on Bouton's hilarious meeting with then-MLB-Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Then Bouton tries sportscasting, goes on book tours, tries for a comeback as a pitcher, etc. It'll kill a couple hours.
* Peter Bebergal: SEASON OF THE WITCH: HOW THE OCCULT SAVED ROCK AND ROLL (2014) -- I don't think Bebergal ever explains how the occult "saved" rock and roll, other than by being thematic material rock acts could draw upon. But some of Bebergal's explanations of the occult go on for pages. All the usual suspects are here -- Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, etc., but not much that's new, and if there was a conclusion or summation, I missed it.

Mopping up

PRINCE: Well, how 'bout him? He did some great stuff, though I wasn't that big a fan back in the day.
I played "Purple Rain" a couple times at work last Friday night. The first time through I got all sad and nostalgic, but the second time was pure exaltation. It always was a gorgeous song. And that guitar riff at the end keeps going round and round in my head....
I always loved "1999," too. "Kiss" and "When Doves Cry" have grown on me over the years. "Sometimes it Snows in April" is a nice low-key piece off of PARADE. "Anotherloverholeinyohead" is interesting, too, also from PARADE, sort of an echo of "When Doves Cry." Some of Prince's more sexually-oriented stuff was just too in-your-face for me, and I don't think I even HEARD him after about 1989....
I heard "I Wanna be Your Lover" for the first time EVER on the radio last Saturday night (it came out in like 1978), and it sounded good, cute, solid. The guy was obviously meant for bigger things. He had a great few years there, from '81 through about '86 or so.
This has sure been a bad year for musicians. Keith Emerson and Paul Kantner were the ones that hit me hardest, but this one was also a shock. No more for awhile, OK? (Sorry, no breaks -- blues guitarist Lonnie Mack died this past week, too. KPLU's "All Blues" ran one of Mack's songs, "Stop," which is pretty freakin' great....)

GOOD NEWS FOR SEATTLE-AREA ROCK FANS: "Little Steven's Underground Garage" is back, starting at 11 p.m. Pacific Time Sundays on KZOK-FM 102.5 (I assume they also stream over the Internet). In the three weeks they've been back around, Steven and friends have done a two-part salute to The British Invasion that included great stuff by second-tier bands like The Searchers, The Pretty Things and Creation, and a salute to The Ramones -- in the middle of which up popped The Ronettes' great "The Best Part of Breakin' Up." Steven didn't understand why that song only peaked at Number 39, either....

CHECK YOUR GOODWILLS!: In the past month-plus I've found an amazing amount of good CHEAP music and books at my four area Goodwill stores. The books would make too long a list, but the CD's I've bought (or at least seen) include half a dozen Beatles albums (ABBEY ROAD, WHITE ALBUM, SGT. PEPPER, REVOLVER, HELP!, PLEASE PLEASE ME, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR), Van Morrison's MOONDANCE, ASTRAL WEEKS and BEST OF, Moody Blues' DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED, Todd Rundgren's SOMETHING/ANYTHING?, Al Green best-of, lots of later Bob Dylan, a brand-new solid eight-CD set of early-'60s folk music for a ridiculously low price, lots of various-artists hit-singles collections, TONS of '60s and '70s jazz (Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, etc.), some earlier jazz (Ellington, Louis Armstrong, etc.), Can's CANNIBALISM 1 best-of (how the HELL did that get here?), Prince's PURPLE RAIN and ULTIMATE best-of, RAMONESMANIA best-of, Sex Pistols' NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, Clash's LONDON CALLING, Dave Edmunds' best-of, Rolling Stones' FORTY LICKS best-of and EXILE ON MAIN STREET, Santana best-of, lots of later Pat Metheny, and a whole lot more.
Course the vinyl bins are worthless -- that's all Jim Nabors and Ray Conniff, with only a VERY rare surprise....
I try to give my area stores at least a week to re-stock, and then I go hit 'em again. It seems to be all about the timing. Lately it's sure been paying off. If you're on a tight budget, you might want to check your local Goodwills out. They're practically GIVING this stuff away. But you probably already know this....

TELL ALL: Spent most of this past week re-reading former major-league pitcher Jim Bouton's excellent BALL FOUR (1970), which I seem to re-read about once every 20 years and get more out of each time. It's a hilarious, quick, easy read. And I'm not that big a baseball fan....
The first of the "tell-all" sports books, BALL FOUR was revolutionary because it treated professional baseball players not as the stainless All-American heroes they'd been held up as in the '60s and before, but as real men: They chased women, drank, partied, used performance-enhancing drugs, worried about their careers, didn't get paid enough (back in the stone age), had marriage and family problems, didn't always get along with each other, played hideous practical jokes on each other, and basically behaved with all the maturity you see at your average local high school. What a bunch of characters....
The baseball establishment was shocked, and more sports-tell-all books followed. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn asked Bouton to sign a statement saying that he made the whole thing up. Bouton refused, and instead wrote a sequel, I'M GLAD YOU DIDN'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. I'd like to find another copy of that, now. It's been years since I read it....

Sharp right turn

Ron David's JAZZ FOR BEGINNERS (1995) is the best, funniest book on music I've read in quite awhile. It really is a sort of comic book, presenting a short history of jazz in less than 150 pages -- so simple that even a dummy like me can understand it.
I love David's jazz Attitude. ("If jazz can't include Keith Jarrett, that's jazz's loss." And "Miles Davis died in 1991 -- 10 years after his horn." Ouch. Has David not heard Miles's AURA?) David's text is laugh-out-loud funny, he's not shy about expressing an opinion, and he includes a long list of key albums to hear. And the drawings/cartoons/caricatures of jazz legends are both hilarious and true-to-life. Easily worth an hour of your time if you're interested in the music. (The BEGINNERS series also includes SEX FOR BEGINNERS -- maybe I should check THAT out!)
E. Jean Carroll's HUNTER (1993) is an attempt at a biography of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, famous for writing books like FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72, HELL'S ANGELS, and lots of great, crazed, allegedly non-fiction pieces for ROLLING STONE back in the '60s and '70s.
However, Carroll's book isn't a biography. It becomes an excellent "oral history" of some of Hunter's outrages, narrated by his old friends, old girlfriends, former co-workers, and his ex-wife. There wasn't much of Hunter's life that he didn't write about himself in his string of books that came out in the '80s and '90s. Carroll chose to set the friends' excellent oral history in a fictional framework -- in which she tries to out-outrage HST himself, and it's just silly.
Of course, the real final chapter isn't here -- Hunter's suicide, which happened a decade or so later. He always DID have way too many guns around. You can read all you want about Hunter's real life and his constant scrambling for money in the two huge volumes of letters that he left behind.
If you're a fan, HUNTER's almost worth it for the friends' fond memories.
Michael Largo: THE PORTABLE OBITUARY (2007) -- I had some hopes for this, a detailed look at the ways rich and famous people of the past really died. But it isn't very funny, not even "darkly" funny, and Largo's writing is sometimes kind of awkward. If you're going to tackle a subject like this, you've got to do it with some style....
John McPhee: THE RANSOM OF RUSSIAN ART (1994) -- In one of his shortest books, McPhee tells how a bumbling, rather absent-minded professor from Pennsylvania was able to smuggle thousands of paintings by Soviet dissident artists out of Russia during the height of the Cold War. The paintings are now worth millions of dollars. McPhee includes photos of some of the art -- there was some pretty weird stuff in the stash. The IDEA of this book is brilliant -- so was the smuggler. But the book is maybe too short, it doesn't quite hit with the impact it should. After the art photos, McPhee's text is only 144 pages. You can read the book in an hour or two. Interesting what people can get away with, though....
Ed Viesturs: K2: LIFE AND DEATH ON THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MOUNTAIN (2009) -- I was hoping for some of that icy-cold Jon Krakauer/INTO THIN AIR feeling here, and there is some of that -- Viesturs has been around for some harrowing mountain-climbing disasters. But in his writing he sounds like such a competent, level-headed guy that it's hard to believe he'd ever make a bad mistake while climbing.
Mikal Gilmore: NIGHT BEAT (1998) -- A big collection of music pieces from ROLLING STONE and other places. Gilmore writes sensitively and with feeling about the artists and the music, but his subjects are the same old lineup -- Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Springsteen, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Punk Rock, Lou Reed, Doors, Randy Newman, Elvis, Miles Davis, etc. There isn't much new here, and Gilmore -- though good, detailed and conscientious -- isn't Lester Bangs or Robert Christgau or Greil Marcus, though he's enjoyable enough to read. It just isn't enough somehow. Not much jumps off the page like I hoped it would. Best thing in the book is a hilarious, cranky series of interviews with Keith Jarrett -- that man really IS a pain in the ass!
Barry Miles: PAUL MCCARTNEY: MANY YEARS FROM NOW (1997) -- Not much new here either, unless you want to argue with Paul over old songwriting credits. "In My Life" was half Paul's? Paul was into tape-loops and the avant-garde long before John? OK, but only the Beatles era is covered here, as if Paul's life ended in 1971. There's 650 pages of Paul setting the record straight. And there's STILL no further details about that Frank Sinatra/Perry Como-style big-band "crooner" album Paul recorded before he joined The Fabs....
Timothy Egan: THE WORST HARD TIME (2006) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but it's already pretty involving -- a detailed look at the Dust Bowl, probably the worst ecological disaster in America's history, described by the people who lived through it. My grandparents were in the Dust Bowl, in Kansas, so I have some interest in the subject....
Carl Honore: IN PRAISE OF SLOW (2004) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but Honore's thesis is that everything is better if you slow down a step and take time to enjoy it a little -- work, food, sex, everything. (I thought everybody knew sex was better when taken slowly...?) Hard to argue with Honore's thesis, but good luck selling it in a country where most people seem to be in a hurry all the time. Especially young people....
Rod Stewart: ROD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (2012) -- I've only sniffed at this. I plan to read about Rod's early rocker/singer-songwriter years before he became mega-famous, then stop. Unless he proves so charming that I can't resist. Which seems unlikely....
It's amazing what you can find at Goodwill. Most of the books above I found at one of the four Goodwill stores in my area. Just wanted to say thanks for donating for people on a tight budget -- like me, most of the time....

Total idiot writes about jazz!

Jazz explorations continue, budget and time permitting. Latest listening has included:
Count Basie: ESSENTIAL, VOLUME 1 -- This is too old and too big-band-ish for me to be able to hear, though the horn lines on "Miss Thing" are cute. Also, I could hardly hear Basie's piano. If I were to keep listening to this I'd probably someday be able to get into later Soft Machine. That ain't gonna happen.
Horace Silver -- "Song for My Father" is OK, but it keeps trying to turn into Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number"....
Chet Baker -- Light, cool, almost distracted vocal on "Let's Get Lost."
Gary Burton: WORKS -- A best-of/sampler from Burton's dozen albums on the ECM label. Light, airy vibraphone tunes. Guitarist Pat Metheny guests on a couple of tracks, but it doesn't make much difference -- there's none of Pat's usual melodic flow. Some nice Mick Goodrick guitar on "Three," but when the orchestra enters, it turns into a movie soundtrack. "Brotherhood" is a handful of notes -- pointless atmosphere. OK waking-up music, but not riveting. And the folks at ECM spell the word "crystal" -- as in Burton and Chick Corea's duo album CRYSTAL SILENCE -- wrong TWICE in the album booklet. Once with an extra "h." English is a tough language....
Ornette Coleman -- I could hardly hear his frenzied smears of sax sound on he and Pat Metheny's album SONG X (supposedly a masterpiece). But I got through "Lonely Woman" on Ornette's THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME. And I could actually HEAR it. And it wasn't terrible. So, more exploring to come....
Miles Davis and John Coltrane: THE BEST OF (1955-1961) -- Milestones, Straight No Chaser, My Funny Valentine, Someday My Prince Will Come, So What, Blue in Green, Round Midnight, Bye Bye Blackbird. All solid stuff, even if it didn't grab me by the throat.
Miles Davis: BITCHES BREW -- Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, Sanctuary, Pharoah's Dance. The last of these sounds like "In a Silent Way," only sped-up. You sure can tell that's Joe Zawinul on the keyboards. Which leads us directly to....
Weather Report: 8:30/LIVE -- There's some great stuff on here. "Birdland" ALWAYS sounds lame, but "Boogie Woogie Waltz" is one of the greatest pieces of noise I've ever heard, and it just SCREAMS! "Thanks for the Memory" is a nice but eccentric sax solo from Wayne Shorter. "Black Market," "Teen Town" and "Slang" are also pretty cool. Amazing that I can enjoy WR's live stuff this much when I think their studio work is all stone dead....
John Coltrane: MY FAVORITE THINGS -- Not as screechy as I first thought. There's some nice McCoy Tyner piano in the middle of the title standard, which is good waking-up music. Coltrane has a lot of fun with it, takes it a long way out. But Tyner's solo on "Every Time We Say Goodbye" is a little cocktail-lounge-ish. I've never liked George Gershwin's "Summertime" in ANY version, but Coltrane gets away with it here because he hardly bothers to PLAY the melody -- some nice, rough bouncing-all-over on sax. Elvin Jones's drum solo is kind of dull, but he comes out of it with a nice roll and a smash. I can hardly hear any of the original tune on "But Not for Me," but it doesn't matter -- it's a nice finish to the album, a real quick 9-1/2 minutes. But where are the BONUS TRACKS?!  
I also heard:
Miles Davis -- Concerto De Arunjuez.
Herbie Hancock -- Watermelon Man, Tell Me a Bedtime Story. Haven't heard anything bad by Herbie yet.
Wayne Shorter -- Juju, Footsteps.
Lee Morgan -- The Sidewinder.
John Coltrane -- Spiritual, Softly as in a Morning Sunrise.
Pat Metheny -- "Orchestrion" sounds like the Pat Metheny Group, only with wind-up-toy instruments in the background. Not that this is a problem....
Pat Metheny Group -- Phase Dance, Forward March, The First Circle, Praise, As Falls Wichita So Falls Wichita Falls, Ozark, Yolanda You Learn. Do I have to rave about any of these? "Yolanda" is a little better than I remembered -- but "Forward March" is still a painful joke. The rest are wonderful.
Happy the Man -- On Time as a Helix of Precious Laughs, Hidden Moods, New York Dreams Suite. Woops, how did THESE get in here? Ah well, "Precious Laughs" is a friggin' masterpiece, worth it all to hear Stan Whittaker's guitar erupt out of the bed of Kit Watkins' keyboards and Frank Wyatt's sax. I even like Whittaker's kind of uncomfortable vocal. The other two tracks are solid mood-music. And let's face it, if there was more good Prog out there I wouldn't be turning to jazz in a search for new sounds....
More coming soon. Hope to get back to Thelonious Monk's UNDERGROUND and Miles Davis's PANTHALASSA (especially "He Loved Him Madly," dark mood-music recorded on the floor of the Pacific Ocean) and IN A SILENT WAY, plus I'm looking for Miles's JACK JOHNSON, ON THE CORNER and GET UP WITH IT, more Mingus, and some of Keith Jarrett's quartets.
Suggestions and hate mail can be submitted below, as always....

Jazz phase

Hey, sorry for the delay, but I got distracted. By music, for a change. So there will be no reviews of four music-related books here, yet.
A week ago when my CD player started showing renewed signs of life and my income-tax return came in so money wasn't quite so tight, I went out looking for cheap new sounds to celebrate with. And I found a few. And I'll be looking for more.
Since I was starting to get a little bored with the same 170 Blues songs over and over (see last post), I decided to take another plunge into jazz -- this time to see how much of it I can actually HEAR.
I can count the number of jazz albums I value on both hands -- a few Pat Metheny albums, Miles Davis's IN A SILENT WAY and the PANTHALASSA remixes, John Coltrane's GIANT STEPS, Thelonious Monk's UNDERGROUND, Weather Report's 8:30 live album, Keith Jarrett's EYES OF THE HEART, maybe a couple others. I have a problem with pre-electric-Miles jazz: I can't hear most of it. It doesn't rock. I get bored.
Course, I have some problems with post-electric-Miles jazz, too: Some of it just sounds like noise. Most Miles I've heard after SILENT WAY has no real melody -- ever. I tried to treat The Mahavishnu Orchestra as if they were King Crimson Without Tunes, but that didn't work either. If there's a TUNE, I love jazz-rock's loudness. If there isn't, well....
Maybe I've just been listening to the wrong stuff. It seemed a good time to experiment and see if I can get past all this. And I made some progress. A little.
So far, I've made it halfway through Pharoah Sanders's 34-minute(!) "The Creator Has a Master Plan" from Sanders's 1969 album KARMA, and I like it. I like Pharoah's screechy, squalling sax, and the jangling bells and Indian/African sound-effects. I even like Leon Thomas's vocals. Pharoah at least sounds happy. The customers who came into my store seemed to like it, too.
My heroes at the PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ say KARMA is fairly awful, that it's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing, so I figured I'd better grab it and see for myself. I'll update you if I survive the rest.
Another nice surprise was Charles Mingus. I'd never heard him before. About a dozen of his tunes are included on THE DEFINITIVE MINGUS, part of the KEN BURNS' JAZZ series. Mingus's music is very passionate, very alive. His band may only include four or five guys in the studio at a time, but they sure make a helluva noise.
I'm more impressed with "Haitian Fight Song" as a piece of raucous group-noise than as a bassist's showcase. "Fables of Faubus" is heated early-'60s political satire and a piece of friggin' genius. And the ensemble playing at the end of "Peggy's Blue Skylight" is beautiful. The others are all growing on me.
And the band! Mingus's saxophonists! (Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Charlie Mariano were among 'em.) And his drummer, Dannie Richmond -- he's all OVER it! I'll update as I absorb the rest of this.
Put on some old faves at work -- Coltrane's GIANT STEPS has at least half a dozen memorable themes that I can hum or whistle along with, it keeps me moving when I'm working, and it's one of my favorite jazz-blowing albums ever (Monk's UNDERGROUND is the other). I listened to Coltrane's A LOVE SUPREME again for the first time in a couple of years. Last time I wrote about it here, I'm sure I must have mentioned that it's dark and turbulent and hard to catch all of. Repeated listenings required, I'm sure. Also tried out the title track of Coltrane's MY FAVORITE THINGS, with Trane on soprano sax -- kind of screechy, but the things he did to that tune....
Tried out Miles's KIND OF BLUE again for the first time in a couple years. I'm sure last time I could barely HEAR it. This time around it was pleasant enough -- some tracks seemed to end way too soon, too abruptly. And the contrast between the playing styles of Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley -- whenever Cannonball's throatier sax sound came in, it made me laugh every time. "All Blues" and "Blue in Green" are especially good.
Keith Jarrett's KOLN CONCERT is like going to church. Except for the parts where it sounds like he's having sex with the piano, of course. Pretty in places (supposed to be a jazz classic), but I'm tempted to say Jarrett sounds better in a group -- on his EYES OF THE HEART, you can HEAR the stress and tension as his quartet falls apart in front of an audience. It's the undercurrent that MAKES that album.
So I'm gonna have to track down some more Jarrett in a group setting. I've heard his gorgeous "Country," and I know his "Long As You Know You're Living Yours" is good -- it was good enough for Steely Dan to steal it as the gorgeous melody for "Gaucho."
Also played old faves "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" from Dave Brubeck's TIME OUT. Saxist Paul Desmond sure wasn't worried about making his playing conventionally "pretty" was he?
Also sampled George Winston's LINUS AND LUCY -- THE MUSIC OF VINCE GUARALDI. I've always been a sucker for those mid-'60s Peanuts cartoon-show soundtracks. Winston takes Linus and Lucy's theme and plays it straight, then starts messing with it. But he's on solo piano, and the first thing I thought was that Guaraldi was part of a trio -- and I missed the bass and drums. "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" is pleasant, though.
Interestingly, the CD came in a low-budget package with just Peanuts artwork, the title and Winston's name -- no indication of record company or copyright date, or anything else. It looks like a bootleg...!
Tried a BEST OF THELONIOUS MONK, made up of tracks that go as far back as 1947 -- the original versions of the jazz classics he wrote back in the day. This stuff may be too old for me to hear. I'll have to try to work through that. I know one thing after one listening -- that glissando (is that the right word?) Monk does all the way down the keyboard is charming the first few times. And then it gets old. And he does it in almost every song. But I like Monk's UNDERGROUND, even if that's supposedly watered-down Monk near the end of his career. So....
I'm gonna keep at this jazz thing until it gets boring -- hope to update with more views in a few days. Could be fun: "Total idiot writes about jazz!" Might be funnier than some of those rock books I was gonna review this time.... Hope you'll check back to see how much a fool I've made of myself....

The Very Best of KPLU's "All Blues"

I promised y'all this list MONTHS ago. Here's 170 really great blues, soul and R&B songs I would NEVER have heard without KPLU-FM's "All Blues" show, airing every Saturday and Sunday from 6 p.m. to midnight Pacific Time, streaming worldwide at kplu.org.
All these songs are recommended and well worth your trouble to track down -- or just visit kplu.org and listen for awhile. You might discover even more stuff you'll like. (I may have missed a couple of greats, but this is the best I can do right now.)
By the way, KPLU's trying to raise $7 million by June 30 so they can stay a locally-programmed blues, jazz and news station. So if you've got a couple million dollars available to donate, it would go to a good cause. (Maybe they'd start running "All Blues" every night and make my work week a little easier....)
Here's the list, in no particular order:
Sonny Landreth -- Howlin' Moon, Walkin' Blues, Congo Square, The High Side, Zydeco Shuffle, Illinois Blues.
Eric Bibb -- Drinking Gourd.
Sue Foley -- Howlin' for My Darlin'.
Danielle Nicole -- Breaking Up Somebody's Home, You Only Need Me When You're Down.
Trampled Underfoot -- Bad Bad Feeling.
Lloyd Jones -- Trouble Monkey.
Aron Jones and The Way -- My Love Remains.
Kim Wilson -- Gotta Get Out.
James Cotton -- Cut You Loose.
Gene Taylor -- Mississippi Heavy Water Blues.
Screamin' Jay Hawkins -- I Put a Spell on You.
James Harmon -- If the Shoe Fits Wear It.
Professor Longhair -- Big Chief.
Tracy Nelson -- Down So Low.
Junior Wells -- Messin' With the Kid.
Otis Redding -- Shake (live), Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, Hard to Handle.
Staples Singers -- You've Got to Earn It.
Ry Cooder -- Crow Black Chicken, The 13-Question Method, Fool for a Cigarette/Feeling Good.
Tangle Eye -- Oh Death, Work Song.
John Mooney -- Sacred Ground.
Cassandra Wilson and Wynton Marsalis -- Rosewood.
Paul Reddick -- One Way Trip.
Dave and Phil Alvin -- Mr. Kicks.
Tedeschi Trucks Band -- Anyhow, Made Up Mind, The Storm, Come See About Me.
Derek Trucks Band -- Wade in the Water, Down in the Flood, Crow Jane.
Joe Bonnamassa and Beth Hart -- I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know, Sinner's Prayer (live).
Joe Bonnamassa -- Drive, Jelly Roll Baker, Dust Bowl.
Aretha Franklin -- I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Dr. Feelgood, The Night Life, Try Matty's, Trouble in Mind, Rock Steady, The House That Jack Built, As Good to Me as I Am to You.
Dr. John -- Why Come it is?
Lowell George -- Two Trains.
Little Feat -- Candyman Blues, Fat Man in the Bathtub, Dixie Chicken.
Howlin' Wolf -- Sittin' on Top of the World, 300 Pounds of Joy.
B.B. King -- You Might Have Made Your Move Too Soon, Why I Sing the Blues, Understand, Days of Old (with Eric Clapton).
Slim Harpo -- Tina-Nina-Nu.
Joan Osborne -- Shake Your Hips.
Janis Joplin -- Kosmic Blues, Turtle Blues.
Heritage Blues Orchestra -- Sealine Woman.
Delbert McClinton -- B-Movie Boxcar Blues, One of the Fortunate Few, Better Off With the Blues.
Imelda May -- Johnny Got a Boom-Boom.
Etta James -- Losers Weepers, The Jealous Kind, Shaky Ground.
Earl King -- Trick Bag.
Elmore James -- Madison Blues, Stranger Blues.
Shamekia Copeland -- Lemon Pie, Devil's Hand, Never Goin' Back (KPLU live studio session available at kplu.org), I Can't Let Go, Isn't That So?
Otis Grand -- Ham.
Ray Charles -- Mess Around, Lonely Avenue.
Ronnie Earl -- Ernie's Gospel Groove.
Boz Scaggs -- Cadillac Walk, Sick and Tired.
Marvin Gaye -- Can I Get a Witness?
Kari Lee -- Voodoo Woman.
Eric Clapton -- Tore Down.
Delta Deep -- Bang the Lid.
Susan Tedeschi -- You Got the Silver.
Ian Segal -- Now I Am the Blues, Swagger, The Revelator.
John Hammond -- Black Maria.
Euphoria -- Back Against the Wall.
Grady Champion -- On the South Side.
Johnny Winter -- Medicine Man.
Johnny "Guitar" Watson -- Gangster of Love.
Jimmy Thackery -- Mercury Blues.
Shaun Costello -- Don't Pass Me By.
Johnny A. -- Wichita Lineman, I Had to Laugh, Hip-Bone, Oh Yeah.
J.J. Cale -- Lies, Call Me the Breeze, Don't Wait.
John Mayall -- Room to Move.
Bob Dylan -- Maggie's Farm.
Ann Peebles -- Read Me My Rights.
Bo Diddley -- Mona, Can't Judge a Book by its Cover.
Irma Thomas -- The River is Waiting, I Think it's Going to Rain Today.
Irma Thomas, Tracy Nelson and Marcia Ball -- Sing It.
Marcia Ball -- That's Enough of That Stuff.
Geneva Magness -- You Were Never Mine, Bad Blood.
Duke Robillard -- Alimony Blues.
Tom Waits -- Emotional Weather Forecast, The Heart of Saturday Night.
Leo Kottke -- Busted Bicycle.
Buddy Guy -- Meet Me in Chicago.
Taj Mahal -- Fishin' Blues, Swat That Rabbit, Good Morning Miss Brown (live).
Keb' Mo' -- Suitcase.
Neville Brothers -- Hey Pocky Way, Bird on a Wire.
Bonnie Raitt -- Gypsy in Me, Two Lights in the Nighttime, Angel from Montgomery, Guilty, Hell to Pay (with Boz Scaggs).
Wild Magnolias -- Coochie Molly, Pocket Change, Party.
John Hiatt -- Riding With the King.
Alabama Shakes -- You Ain't Alone, Gimme All Your Love.
Coco Montoya -- Casting My Spell, Tumbleweed.
Lyle Lovett -- She's No Lady, My Baby Don't Tolerate.
O.V. Wright -- I'd Rather be Blind Crippled and Crazy.
Jimi Hendrix -- Little Wing, Midnight Lightning.
Stevie Ray Vaughn -- Little Wing.
John Cleary -- Viva La Money, Boneyard.
Nina Simone -- Funkier Than a Mosquita's Tweeter, Do I Move You? (live).
Daveena and the Vagabonds -- I Try to be Good.
Joe Tex -- The Love You Save, Show Me, I Want to do Everything for You.
ZZ Top -- Jesus Just Left Chicago.
Los Lobos -- That Train Don't Stop Here Anymore, I Walk Alone.
Allman Brothers -- Come and Go Blues, Southbound, You Don't Love Me, One Way Out, Don't Keep Me Wondering (live).
Walter "Wolfman" Washington -- Mary Ann.
The Five Blazes -- Mary Jo.
Rory Block -- Rock Island Line.
Lou Rawls -- All Around the World, Your Good Thing's About to End.
Little Willie John -- I'm Shakin'.
Lazy Lester -- I'm a Lover Not a Fighter.
Roy Rogers -- Slide of Hand.

Grab bag

Here's some quick reviews of what I've been reading over the last week or so....

Peter Greenberg: DON'T GO THERE! (2009) -- Greenberg is the Travel Editor for NBC's TODAY SHOW. His book was filed in the Humor section of my favorite local used book store, so I thought it might be funny. It wasn't. Basically, Greenberg spends 250 pages warning you about lots of places NOT to visit in your travels, all of which illustrate Karl Malden's First Rule Of Travel: Don't Leave Home. I can see where Greenberg might be funny on TV, but after the first couple chapters warning you away from Chernobyl, Bhopal and Love Canal, it all gets kind of dull.
I was also shocked that none of the places I've lived made any of Greenberg's "Must Avoid" lists. Ankara, Turkey didn't make it into the Top 10 for Worst Air. Worland, Wyoming didn't come anywhere near Most Boring. And Washington didn't break into the Top 10 Suicide States -- though Wyoming did....

Richard Burton: DIARIES (2012) -- A former big-time actor, Rich had all the same problems as the rest of us lower-earners: Hating his job, being bored, not wanting to be around most people, and whether he should buy ANOTHER million-dollar diamond ring for his wife. His diaries are surprisingly readable, very good waking-up reading. I was reminded in places of another actor's diaries published a decade or two back, Charlton Heston's AN ACTOR'S LIFE. But Burton goes into more depth -- when he's in the mood, and not drinking heavily. And it's interesting how much stuff he pours out onto the page when he's happy with his wife Liz. When she's not around, he pretty much clams up. Parts of the book are laugh-out-loud funny, but there's 650 pages of it.

Alice Sebold: LUCKY (1999) -- It takes me awhile to Get things, sometimes: The Cars, Madonna, Prince. Sebold was quite a publishing sensation a decade or so back when she published the Number 1 bestselling novel THE LOVELY BONES. This memoir came first: It tells how Sebold was beaten and raped while a student at Syracuse University. It is brutal, shocking, and absolutely riveting to read. You THINK the toughest, hardest-to-read part of the story is right up front. And it IS tough. But more shocking stuff follows. There are signs that Sebold maybe didn't know where to END her memoir, but it was worth the trip. She was lucky that she was a strong and quirky person, and she's doubly lucky that her family was a bunch of fruit loops who stood behind her and helped her hold her life together.

Pat O'Day and Jim Ojala: IT WAS ALL JUST ROCK AND ROLL (second edition, 2003) -- O'Day was a disc jockey and station manager for Seattle's KJR AM in the '60s, back in the days when that station was one of the premiere AM stations in the country. His descriptions of what it was like to work in radio back in those days are unique, solid and enjoyable, and when he talks theory about what he -- as a manager -- thought made for an enjoyable AM station and talented AM DJ's, he's on solid ground. I still think there's a great book waiting to be written about working in AM radio in the '50s and '60s, and O'Day has a good start on it here.
But this isn't the book. Much of O'Day's rock-'n'-roll history-writing is from the first-the-earth-cooled-then-the-dinosaurs-came school, and his stories about hanging out with rock stars (Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, Three Dog Night, more) aren't funny or revealing (even the story about Hendrix returning to his alma mater, Seattle's Garfield High School), they're just kind of sad.
O'Day writes ONE PAGE about his alcohol problem -- the cure for which he's been doing radio and TV commercials about in the Seattle area for a decade. There was maybe the basis for another book there -- but O'Day says he was a happy drunk, and that all his friends and co-workers agreed with him....
There are other problems. Glen Campbell and Ahmet Ertegun are among the well-known names who get their names misspelled more than once. Pat sometimes writes women (plural) when he means woman (singular) -- this also happens more than once.
This is the updated second edition of Pat's book. It looks great, and there are some nice black-and-white photos of Hendrix, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Mamas and Papas, The Lovin' Spoonful, and other stars who played in Seattle. But did anyone proofread the book?

Grumpy old men

I first heard about Manny Farber while reading David Thomson's excellent NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM (see review under "Movie-ing 2," below). Thomson described Farber as a longtime movie critic who never liked anything much, and was well known for his crankiness.
Hey, a grumpy old guy who spent years finding faults in lots of classic old movies? Sounded like this was right up my street. I wondered why I'd never heard of Farber before.
Now I know why. Because I grabbed FARBER ON FILM (2009/2016), a complete collection of Farber's movie reviews from the early '40s through the late '70s.
Man, was he grumpy.
Farber started writing movie reviews for magazines like THE NATION and THE NEW REPUBLIC, then moved to CAVALIER in the mid-'60s, and later wrote for FILM COMMENT and ARTFORUM. And though he occasionally admits to liking or admiring some aspect of a movie, most of the time he picks stuff apart, or gives one paragraph of attention to movies you've actually heard of.
I didn't realize there was going to be 800 pages of this. But I got through a huge book of Graham Greene's writing on movies awhile back, so I figured I could handle this, too. And I thought seeing lots of old movies through the eyes of an old grump might be amusing.
And I was wrong. I got about 150 pages in before I started skimming, then skipping around. There may be some hidden gems in there somewhere, but I doubt it. Farber hits a real low point in the late '60s -- hey, it was a bad time for movies -- but he comes back to life briefly in the mid-'70s, just in time for a whole new generation of filmmakers. Most of whom he doesn't like. Also just in time to retire to become a teacher (on film studies) and a painter. He died in 2008.
Farber wrote like a college professor. He knew a lot, but it's often really technical, or it's really dry.
He seemed to get very little joy out of his work. Even when Pauline Kael was reviewing a really bad movie, at least she got something out of it so you could sympathize with her suffering. Manny just grinds it out, like he started out tired.
He didn't like CASABLANCA, for instance. He called it hokum. It was -- a big dish of wartime feel-good hokum. But how sour would you have to be not to enjoy it? Not to enjoy Bogart saying almost everything you ever wanted to hear him say in a movie? Or Claude Rains when he says "I'm shocked -- SHOCKED, I tell you -- that there's GAMBLING going on in this establishment!" What kind of clod couldn't enjoy that?
Farber hardly ever cracks a joke, unless it's to make fun of someone's name -- pretty much the lowest of the low when it comes to humor. He doesn't ever seem to be enjoying himself much -- though he DID seem to like putting together lists of REALLY BAD movies. Maybe he just SAW too many REALLY BAD movies.
Even in the late '60s and early '70s, he was still complaining. He grudgingly admits to admiring some parts of EASY RIDER and THE WILD BUNCH. He enjoys Marty Scorsese's work, first MEAN STREETS, then he goes on for pages about TAXI DRIVER. (Is this why there's a laudatory quote from Scorsese on the back of the book?) But by late 1975 he's already got a grudge against Steven Spielberg.
For years I've wanted to see a book called something like THE COMMON MAN'S GUIDE TO MOVIES -- what an educated non-film-expert thinks of a batch of movies, without getting into all the critical theories and biases that even Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert got sucked into.
This is not that book. And unless you like hearing someone complain for hours on end, it ain't worth $30.

Sell, sell, sell!

Money got tight, so on Monday I took four boxes of books and music to Half-Price Books in Tacoma. They took half the stuff I'd packed up and gave me $100, which I thought was pretty fair. I've got a little breathing room in my checking account now.
It's hard to predict what they will and won't take. I swore before I made the trip that I wouldn't sell anything I had an emotional attachment to -- no music that I'd miss later because it wouldn't be around to remind me of old friends, old times, good times.
After all that soul-searching, Half Price only took a little bit of the vinyl. I'm stumped on why they took ELO but left ELP, took a Can best-of (which you'd think would have fairly limited appeal, nothing personal) but left English-import albums by Caravan, Camel and Gentle Giant. They took The Headboys, but left Squeeze and The Jam. They took Heart, but left CCR and John Fogerty. They took the Dixie Dregs, but left a King Crimson best-of. They took almost all the travel-writing I couldn't get into last fall, but left short-story collections by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg
They took almost all the CD's. They took ALL the rockstar memoirs I've given bad reviews to over the last month.
Not that I'm complaining. A year ago they paid me $160 for a pile of what I thought was mostly pretty dire stuff. So it all balances out.
Naturally, I didn't come home empty-handed. I grabbed a new edition of THE PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ, which I first fell in love with when I grabbed a previous edition at Half-Price back in 2008. This new version is -- good God! -- TWICE as big as the old edition. And I'm sure there's more great criticism and more hilarious jokes.
I grabbed science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick's EXEGESIS and have already started it. It's a monster. On Page 21, he takes a pretty good shot at describing what happened to him back in early 1974, when he started seeing funny colored lights and started dreaming in Greek. At first he thinks it's some ancient Greek trying to communicate with him. Then he thinks it's his late friend Episcopal Bishop Jim Pike trying to communicate from The Other Side. Then Dick thinks he might have been contacted by some Vast Autonomous Living Intelligence System transmitting from space. And all through it, he's cracking jokes.
God knows if I'll finish it. I've already started skimming and skipping things. But what a story.
I hit the Clearance section and brought home Joe Queenan's CONFESSIONS OF A CINEPLEX HECKLER (2000), a couple dozen articles about movies, only $2. Queenan writes for MOVIELINE magazine.
These aren't really movie reviews -- well, a couple are, and one's a brief book review of a Hollywood producer's memoir. The rest are silly articles about films and some of the BS around them -- how Hollywood presents views of life that have nothing to do with reality; how many ears have been severed in a decade of Hollywood films; how many Merchant-Ivory movies can Queenan watch before his brain turns to Swiss cheese, etc.
In two pieces entitled "Don't Try This at Home," Queenan proves some things done in movies simply can't be done in reality. He dunks himself in cold Atlantic waters to prove Leonardo DiCaprio couldn't have done a five-minute monologue near the end of TITANIC -- he would've been dead in two minutes. (Queenan lasts less than 30 seconds.)
But Queenan IS able to walk through busy Manhattan traffic while wearing dark glasses and pretending to be blind, like Al Pacino did in SCENT OF A WOMAN. Taxis don't run over Queenan -- possibly a first for NYC.
I don't recommend reading this book in one sitting, like I basically did. Though it's funny, the humor tends to wear out. Queenan tends to pick on the same movies over and over, and his stories tend to repeat themselves in structure and punch lines. So read one essay a day for the next few weeks and you'll be happier than I was. I wish the book had been funnier.
But for $2, I'm not complaining.

Something Good

At last, something good to talk about. Let's start with the FAQs.
PINK FLOYD FAQS (by Stuart Shea, 2009) and THE WHO FAQS (by Mike Segretto, 2014) are two in a series of 30+ 300-to-350-page books published by Backbeat Books/Hal Leonard, in which writers try to tell you more about your faves than a mildly interested fan would already know.
If you're a rabid fan, you might not find all that much new here. So the secret then is to do the job with a little style and a sense of humor. Shea and Segretto have both.
Shea does a great, detailed job -- in part because he admits up-front that he's not the world's biggest Pink Floyd fan. He thinks their post-Roger Waters studio albums are no big deal, and their albums before DARK SIDE OF THE MOON are criminally overlooked by most so-called fans. I'm OK with that.
Shea also has little use for Floyd tracks like "The Great Gig in the Sky," "The Final Cut," "One of My Turns" and "The Trial" -- some of my favorite Floyd songs ever. I'm OK with that, too.
Because one of the ways Shea Does The Job is to point out the overlooked stuff -- in fact he has several lists of great overlooked tracks that a sometime-fan like me should look into -- all from Floyd albums before DARK SIDE.
Shea thinks there's a ton of great stuff hidden away on the Floyd's early movie soundtracks. He also thinks there's a fair share of hideous garbage on MEDDLE and ATOM HEART MOTHER and UMMAGUMMA. Pointing those awful tracks out makes for good comedy.
Segretto points out lots of great lost Who songs, too -- it was especially nice seeing "Zelda" and "Melancholia" mentioned. You can hear excellent demos of those songs on Pete Townshend's SCOOP.
And I am loving the long lists of great forgotten gems from the '60s and '70s, best Who solo albums, etc.
Overall, both books are good solid value for the money, if you're a fan of either band.
ROCK CHRONICLES (Second Edition, 2015, general editor David Roberts) is a sort of triumph of design and layout, in which a couple dozen contributors give you short histories of 250 top rock acts -- accompanied by beautifully-reproduced photos, band-membership timelines, mugshot photos of the most important members, etc. You probably don't want to see pictures of some of these folks -- look anyway. Rock and roll is a hard road.
This is definitely a ROCK encyclopedia -- it starts with AC/DC. Abba ain't in here. Which makes it a mystery when A-Ha turns up a few pages later. I assume Elton John and Paul McCartney were too big to ignore. So why no Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Janet Jackson? If this isn't a "pop" encyclo, fine, but they should have said so. I don't get what their dividing-line is.
I could bitch a lot about who they left out, so let me bitch some more: Soft Machine, Can, Magma and Popol Vuh are all in here. So why not Gong? Or Amon Duul II? Richard Pinhas? There are also Japanese and Chinese bands here I'll bet no one in the States has ever heard of.
To get a little more obvious -- why isn't Joan Jett in here? Also not included: John Mellencamp, Bonnie Raitt, The Rascals, Janis Joplin, Rod Stewart (he was a rocker for awhile, here only mentioned while he was with Faces), Sly and the Family Stone.... You see what I mean about not knowing where their cut-off is?  
Iron Butterfly hasn't released an album since 1976, so why are they in here? Why Moby Grape and not It's a Beautiful Day?
There are sometimes TOO MANY photos of the bands performing or backstage -- do we really need double-page spreads on Kiss, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Guns 'n' Roses, Black Sabbath, Scorpions, etc., when the editors could have fit in more band bios?
I don't know if I learned much new, but the book looks very good and it reads smoothly. The band histories -- though brief -- are detailed and accurate. This is a pretty good place to start, if you want to learn more about any of these folks.
There are occasional typos here and there. The only "major" error I found was the mugshot photos were shuffled-up in the entry on Men at Work.