Review: L.A.M.F. Live at the Bowery Electric

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2018

Images from the Internet
Note: there are no ads on this page, so no profit is make from use of images

L.A.M.F. Live at the Bowery Electric

Directed by James L. Reid and Margaret Saadi Kramer

Jungle Records / Industrial Amusement Inc. / MVD Visual

47 minutes + 22 minutes extra, 2017 / 2018

www.mvdvisual.com

There are always raging question, such as “Who was the first punk band?”, or “What was the first punk release?” For me, a more important question is “Which is the most influential punk album?” Yeah, there are lots of them, such as The Stooges, The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Ramones, The New York Dolls, and Never Mind the Bollocks. The simple answer is… I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure near the very top of the list is the Heartbreakers’ L.A.M.F., originally released in 1977.

Richard Hell-era Heartbreakers

The Heartbreakers were Johnny Thunders (vox, guitar), Walter Lure (vox, guitar), Billy Rath (bass) and Jerry Nolan (drums). Of them, Walter is the sole survivor. He’s been playing with his own band, the Waldos, for decades now. For the 40th anniversary of L.A.M.F.’s release, he decided to play the album from beginning to end. Of course, it couldn’t be as the Heartbreakers, but he and Jesse Malin put together an all-star group and named it after the album to be played. For this gathering at the Bowery Electric during November 2016, Walter is joined by Clem Burke (drums) of Blondie, Wayne Kramer (guitar) of the MC5 and Gang War (in which he was a member with Thunders), and Tommy Stinson (guitar, vox) of the Replacements and Guns ‘N Roses. In one form or another, I have seen all of them play, including guests Cheetah Chrome (guitar, vox) of the Dead Boys and Jesse Malin (vox, guitar). The sole newbie to me is vocalist rocker Liz Colby.

The new line-up played three shows at this venue, all of which sold out, and this DVD is a compilation of the best of it. They played the album from start to finish. While I wasn’t there, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to view this. Plus, the visuals and sound are crystal clear (with the exception of a few fuzzy images here and there), unlike the muddled original pressing of the album, thanks to Nolan’s tinkering.

Let’s face it, part of the charm and importance of the Heartbreakers isn’t the band’s music al clarity. The playing is sloppy, the vocals are equally so, and the songs range from pretty silly to drugged out bashing. But it was a combination that so incredibly powerful for just those reasons. I loved to go see the Heartbreakers. When they were there, they were a force. That is sort of what I was expecting: sloppy yet stormy. And that’s just what this is, thankfully.

Stinson takes the lead with “Born to Lose,” which has the great lyrics, “Living in a jungle, it ain’t that hard / Living in the city it will tear out your heart.” One of the names often given to this Thunders’ masterwork is “Born Too Loose,” and Stinson plays it just that way, screaming up into his microphone in modified-Lemmy fashion. The man can’t sing to save his life – not that Johnny was a stunning vocalist, but had a discernible and unique sound that was endearing. But Stinson has the energy and heart, matched by Kramer’s excellent guitar riffs. He also covers the next song, “Baby Talk” which doesn’t quite have the chantable chorus of “Born...” Damn, I can’t help but compare it to Johnny’s (both recorded and live), and the melody of the song gets lost here in the way he raspily shouts it.

I have been a fan of Walter’s since the first time I saw the Heartbreakers. Not surprisingly, he seems really at ease with one of my fave songs off the album, “All By Myself” While I always preferred the Live at Max’s version over the L.A.M.F. one, that’s not to say it’s any less great. Here, the retired Pharmacist and Stockbroker is in fine form, even though occasionally his voice sounds a bit scratchy. Shit, I’d still go to see him play at a moment’s notice. I smiled all the way through it, and even mouthed along with the song (well, I did that with most of it, but don’t tell anyone).

For the next two numbers, D Generation’s Jesse Malin (and co-proprietor of the Bowery Electric) hops up on stage, doing well to channel Johnny in the raucous “I Wanna Be Loved,” and the ballad “It’s Not Enough.” Jesse is vocally sloppy in a similar way to Johnny, so it’s a great fit.

For the first time at this point in the DVD, it’s easy to spot that there is a visual melding all three shows together as he dressed differently for each of the three shows, even though the sound is continuous from one of them. The cut-and-pasted images would be continued throughout the show.

I was at this show

While DeeDee Ramone wrote the song, and the Ramones also sang it, it was the Heartbreakers that first brought “Chinese Rocks” to the studio, and it’s rare to hear me say it, the Heartbreakers did it better. Again, I’m a fan of the Live at Max’s take, in which Walter adjusts the lyrics (i.e., making it not radio-friendly), and 40 years later, with Walter and Tommy at the vocal forefront, it still kicks ass. For this number, Kramer plugs in Thunders’ actual guitar. I’d like to add that Burke does well matching Jerry Nolan’s stand-out drumming on the song.

“Get Off the Phone” is another Walter classic, and I use that word sincerely. Walter handles it with aplomb – as always – again getting everyone to sing along. More than Thunders, Lure usually wrote songs whose choruses are more enjoyable to sing along with – said with no disrespect to Thunders’ who wrote some great numbers as well, of course.

Picture disc L.A.M.F.; I have it

Malin is thankfully back doing his best Thunders with “Pirate Love,” bringing up Cheetah Chrome to join in. Chrome is an excellent guitarist – always has been – and I’m glad as time has gone by, more people recognize it (and while you’re at it, check out his excellent autobiography, Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boys’ Tale, but I digress…).

“One Track Mind” originally was a Walter Lure/Richard Hell composition, beginning its life as “Love Comes in Spurts.” After Hell – err – left the Heartbreakers, Walter changed the song around a bit and came up with another strong piece that was one of the Heartbreakers’ tunes on heavy rotation in the old Max’s Kansas City days. It definitely holds up (as does “Love Comes…” but I guess this isn’t the time or the place for that). And yes, I sang along. Kramer takes on Thunders’ guitar break, with Walter taking over at the end. This shows something important about what made the Heartbreakers so special. Kramer is a stunning guitarist, but he is quite clinical, without Johnny’s sloppiness. Walter is as loose as ever, and the contrast here puts firmly why Walter and Johnny were so great together as they complemented each other. Here, the sharpness of Kramer and the looseness of Walter sounds a bit strange. Wonderful, but strange.

Wayne Kramer and Liz Colby

I miss Johnny singing with Joy Ryder (d. 2015); usually they did “Great Big Kiss.” I bring this up because Liz Colby brings a dose of feminine rock to Johnny’s “I Love You,” a solid song that blasts, and she is up for the task, giving it an occasionally smoky, bluesy texture. She also made me think, “Wow, Johnny never jumped around the stage as much as she does”; then again, he usually couldn’t. He was more of a stage roamer with his tongue often doing the most movement.

                                                                                                

Cheetah comes back on both guitar and vocals knee deep with “Goin’ Steady.” While it is not as rough as Stinton’s, Chrome’s gritty voice matches the sound and the mood of the song, doing the Heartbreakers proud. Same can be said about Kramer, who takes the lead for “Let Go,” a powerhouse of a number. The rave up has a great chorus, especially when the band sings along.

Appropriately, Burke sings “Can’t Keep My Eyes on You,” which was a contribution to the album by drummer Nolan. Of course the song is about fashion, as that was one of Nolan’s (many) specialities. Burke’s vocals are a bit rough around the edges, buy hey, so was Nolan’s. Still a great song, though, and it gets the respect it deserves. Same with Kramer taking on the Thunders cover of The Contours’ “Do You Love Me,” which is a high-energy song to end the set.

Walter, Cheetah, Tommy, Clem

For the extras, there is a 3:08 minute interview with Clem Burke about how he came to be included, and his fandom of the Heartbreakers, especially Jerry Nolan. Next up is 3:29 of Jesse Malin who also discusses his love of the Heartbreakers and Walter in particular. For 3:10, Stinson fuckin’ talks about how fuckin’ important the fuckin’ record is and how fuckin’ drugs fuckin’ influenced it. In other words, he doesn’t really say that fuckin’ much that the whole fuckin’ world doesn’t already fuckin’ know. Walter’s bit is 4:41, and he discusses the place of the Heartbreakers in the local musical spectrum of its time, and his relationships with other Heartbreaker members. Last up is Wayne Kramer at a full 7:04, who waxes poetic on how Beethoven, Charlie Parker, rappers, etc., were punks, and how ignorant he was about the Heartbreakers’ music, even though he knew some of the songs as he was in a band with Thunders and played some of them live before.

I’m amazed at how young so much of the audience is in these three sold-out shows, and yet they’re singing along. That shows the power and influence of the Heartbreakers. My only annoyance – and this shows my age more than anything else, is how much of the view is blocked by people taping the show on their cellphones. Either get the pro cameras higher (if that’s possible or even realistic), or have a no taping policy. Yeah, I’m a curmudgeon about this, because I want to see the musicians through the lens of either my own eyes or the camerapeople, not the blue glow of the cells.

Just sayin'...

Now if I had a choice between seeing the capture of this reunion show or something like Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, about the last show of the Band, there is no question in my mind that I would plug in this. The odds are better of my not falling asleep with Uncle Walter and Co. I care more about being told to get off the phone than finding out about the night they driving old Dixie down. Hands down. Now how about a Rent Party show, Walter?

Bonus video (not included on this one):

DVD Review: Blowing Fuses Left and Right – The Legendary Detroit Rock Interviews

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2016

Images from the Internet

Blowing Fuses Left and Right: The Legendary Detroit Rock Interviews

Directed by Gil Margulis

O-Rama / MVD Visual

180 minutes, 1988 / 2013

www.o-rama.net

www.mvdvisual.com

It was 1988, and print fanzines were kind of petering out, and the Internet was still a gleam in the eye. It was more a time of cable access coming into the realm of fan possibilities. New Jersey native and future tech-wiz Gil Margulis knew that. Being a big fan of the sound that had come out of the nascent punk scene of the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, he grabbed his camcorder and with a birthday present plane ticket from his parents for his 19th birthday, he set out to find out more.

What he came away with was phenomenal, including extensive interviews with Ron Aston, Rob Tyner, and Dennis Thompson, three legends from the Detroit music scene of the late 1960s that are presented here. There were others (an extended version of this DVD exists with more interviews), which would be culled into a documentary directed by Margulis called Back on Shaking Street. Now he’s released the original, full interview tapes.

There is a recent documentary I reviewed about the Grande Ballroom called Louder than Love, and missing were interviews with Ashton and Tyner, as they both had passed on a while back (both of heart attacks), so it was good to hear their take on it all, even from nearly 30 years ago.

There is no doubt that the bands that Ashton, Tyner and Thompson represent are part of the pantheon of what was to become not just punk rock, but heavy rock and metal in general. No one presented rock and roll the way they had before, be it the fuzz and noise of the Stooges, or the sheer weight and pounding of the MC5. For its time, it truly was musical anarchy.

Back in the days of camcorders, which generally weighed about 7 pounds (bought mine in ’85), it seemed like an amazing tool: a video you can make yourself was proto-Social Media. Looking back after years of High Definition and wear-and-tear on the breakdown of the magnetic tape in the VHS, the quality is kinda… iffy by today’s standards. But oh, what gloriousness has been captured by the little folks who previously could only view what was presented rather than creating what you want to see.

The DVD is broken up into four parts. The first is just over a minute long of Margulis standing in front of his Westfield, New Jersey high school, where the MC5 played in 1969 (around the time he was born), talking about how the music that came from that city changed his life. He isn’t the only one, as even Henry Rollins has oft discussed the turning point of hearing the Stooges and MC5. For some, I know it’s Alice Cooper; others, the garage madness of the Amboy Dukes. But the Stooges and the MC5 were a different, rougher breed that relied on power more than shock theatrics or psychedelia (without my meaning to disparage either of those bands).

Ron Ashton, who died in 2009, was the guitarist of both the Stooges and noise-punk pioneers Destroy All Monsters. Thing is, Ashton had a reputation for being, well, cantankerous and standoffish. But for Margulis, that didn’t seem to be an issue. With the camera set up in the kitchen of Ron’s mother, a few Coors and ciggybutts, Ashton frankly tells his story of the Stooges, straightforward and very relaxed. You can hear his mom in the background, and someone named Bob answering a phone, but Margulis askes some decent (but not overly deep) questions about the Stooges history.

In describing the early Stooges, their volume was infamous, and that is where the title of this DVD comes from, as Ashton comments that when the Stooges played early on, they were “blowing fuses left and right.”

Destroy All Monsters doesn’t come up until nearly the end of the interview. After being finished with the basic Q&As, we are taken to and shown the front of the house where the band rented to first practice for the summer before their gigging started. After a few minutes there, we are next taken to the house of the Stooges first manager. The importance? It is where the Stooges played their very first gig, in the front living room of that (then) tiny house, which is now a business. We don’t see the insides to these two places, but hey, that is really okay. It is a treasure to hear the Stooges story from Ashton, as it tends to come from either Iggy Pop or James Williamson, the band’s second guitarist who joined after the band was established. This segment last for 40:19. Hell, it’s almost worth it just to hear him use the phrase grok.

The next segment is a lengthy 1:13:00 with Rob Tyner, the vocalist of the MC5, who changed the world with his now infamous battle cry, “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!” Margulis’s camera is set up in his home, and he is also very straightforward and quite charming, as he sips his mug and talks about what Detroit was like when he was growing up, where your choices were the factory, the military or college, and how he was determined to do none of those.

One of the interesting topics he covers is how competitive the Grande was, especially to the British touring bands, rather than a communal “flower power” mindset. Tyner tells about how Cream found it rough to play with them, and reported them as “Insolent” to Grande owner Russ Gibbs. But Tyner says, matter of factly (but with a gleam), “This is Detroit and they’re lucky we didn’t shoot ‘em.”

Tyner especially starts to perk up when he talks about political philosophy, discussing Reganism, violence, and especially his bitter feelings towards the MC5’s association with political poet John Sinclair, who managed the band. According to Tyner, the way Sinclair described himself was as “Pharaoh of the Hippies,” as he drained the money from the MC5 to further his own Maoist and “White Panther Party” rhetoric and movement. One of Tyner’s major regrets was the association of the MC5 with politics, which he believes brought down the band in the long run.

Thanks to some more comprehensive questions from Margulis, Tyner elaborates a lot of what he thinks of the then-flourishing punk movement (NME sent him to England to write a story about the British scene), the differences of Detroit then and now both musically and communally, and his work with the band Vertical Pillows.

However, he never mentions a single other member of MC5 by name. It’s also interesting to hear Tyner talk about the future, and his fear about where the world is going when he’s old. He further mentions that he could die at any moment, thoughtful considering he died just three years after this interview at only 46 years, in 1991.

Last up is the MC5’s drummer, Dennis Thompson, for 45:12. Thompson sits in a room in mirror sunglasses (which he takes off early on, thankfully), Hawaiian shirt, smoking a series of cigarettes, and for some reason has an assault rifle behind him next to a window. Thompson was also the key for Margulis to contact and set up the rest of the interviews.

While he starts of a bit on the pretentious side (“today’s music sucks because they don’t have fast cars; now it’s all four cylinder”), when he gets down to it, he really strips it down, explaining how the band was not the political vanguard, it was all hype, and other than being against the Vietnam war, they were apolitical. Their manager, John Sinclair, however, was not, and knew how to manipulate the media. All the MC5 wanted, he posits, was to be a great rock and roll band. And that, he further states, was ruined in part by Jon Landau: the MC5 were the first band he produced, and Thompson states he didn’t know what he was doing, so the record – and band – suffered for it.

In the second half of the interview, Thompson starts plays schoolteacher to Margulis by holding a globe and explains how people are now mediated and revolutions from the ‘60s were buried and controlled, which also affected the legacy of the MC5. He challenges Margulis with “you have to go back to look at bands that are dead and gone because they had something to say, and you don’t hear that nowadays.”

The last third of the interview is the most interesting (it’s all worth watching, but this especially), when Thompson goes on an absolute political rant about governments, capitalism, terrorism and the world under Reagan. Wow.

Honestly, it took me a while to get to this DVD, being 3 hours long, but now that I’ve watched it, it was a good time spent. It gave me a bit more of a background of the Detroit scene of that time, which really was a unique macro-ecology/-economy of thought and sound, which has since spread this message beyond the barrier of the time in which it took place.

DVD Review: Louder than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2016

Images from the Internet

Louder than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story

Produced and directed by Tony D’Annunzio

74 minutes, 2016

www.thegrandeballroomstory.com

www.mvdvisual.com

When most people think of music from Detroit in the ‘60s to ‘70s, the first bound to come to mind is Motown. Great stuff, no doubt, but there was more to the city than that. Out of the industrial city came a thunder of guitars, unprecedented attitude, and attack-mode rock from a venue called the Grande Ballroom. The title of the documentary comes from the music of the Grande being more voluminous than another club called Love a few blocks over, but I also think it could be interpreted as being louder than most of the other music from either Coast during that Summer of Love. The MC5, the Stooges (with Iggy Pop), Alice Cooper, the Frost, and even the Amboy Dukes rose out of the Grande to change the face of music and prepare the way for the punk movement that was to come nearly a decade later out of New York.

The Grande Ballroom (pronounced Grand-ee), however, was not the “Detroit CBGBs,” but more like an explosive Fillmore (pick East or West), in which many of the touring rock bands, such as the Who, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Cream would play on their way across the States.

Though actually only around for a relatively short while (1967-1972), the effect on American – and British for that matter – music is undeniable. Sure the Stones had Toronto as their fave place, but the Who were so enamoured with the Grande that they premiered Tommy on its stage. Alice Cooper points out here that the talent level on that stage so was high that it was either get better to get lost. To inspire bands, the crowd was known to shout out, you got it, “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!” which is the origin of the MC5’s infamous and ground-breaking call to arms.

The amount of interviews throughout the documentary are staggering including nearly all surviving members of the MC5, Roger Daltry, Alice Cooper, Dick Wagner (d. 2014), BB King (d. 2014), Slash, Lemmy (d. 2015), Grand funk Railroad’s Mark Farner, the omnipresent Henry Rollins (who was 11 years old when the club closed, but is acknowledged to be a huge Stooges fan), Stooges’ second guitarist James Williamson, and even scuzzbucket right wing nutcase Ted Nugent (while I didn’t necessarily need to hear anything he had to say, the Amboy Dukes were an amazing band). No Iggy, though, FYI.

For me, one of the important interviews was with Russ Gibb, who was the owner and founder of the Grande, on the level of Bill Graham without the ego. Well, him and most of the staff of the place are interviewed in detail with lots of anecdotes. Which brings me to:

There are three themes in this that are worth nothing. First and foremost are the interviews, including with Ruth Hoffman, a self-described groupie who tells a tale of getting drunk with someone and comparing men’s butts, only to find the person get up on stage and it’s Janis Joplin. Or, the stories of the whole audience participating in loading up a band’s gear so they can make it to the airport. Then there’s someone bringing Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker to their parents’ home for supper. There are these, along with the “The Stooges!” “Alice Cooper!” “The Who!” meshugas.

Second, there are the images. I am not talking about the talking heads interviews, I mean both the live footage and stills from the day that show just how extreme the entire scene quickly became. There’s everything from onstage action to, well, Eric and Ginger at the family supper.

What I found also interesting was the juxtaposition shots of what the Grande looked like then and its condition now, but more on that later.

For me, the weakest spot is the use of music. Listen, I understand that if all the music discussed would be played as a focal point, this film would be about 20 hours long. That being said, most the sounds you hear are in the background; it runs through the whole film, but little of it is identified except in the song credits at the end. Also, in most cases, it’s snippets… well, probably, because it is in the background under the dialog, so it’s hard to pay attention to it except peripherally. But if that’s the biggest complaint I have, it’s a mere four bars considering the magnitude of the story behind it.

There are a number of really nice extras. The first, at nearly 16 minutes, is “Grande Tales,” which is further interviews (with no indication of who is talking, so watch the film first). At nearly a half hour, you can see what their infamous light shows looked like (sans sound… or mind altering substances). After the 5-minute long trailer, there’s “Dave Miller Grande Wedding,” at nearly 4 minutes. Dave was the MC, and his wedding show was infamous among the inner circle; he wore outrageous make-up that makes Alice Cooper’s look moderate, and it’s also silent, as is the next 10-minute long “Dave Miler’s Home Movies” (I’m guessing 16mm), where he shoots various band members at his parent’s house. It’s a lot of fuzzy fun. Last up is “Belle Isle Love In” (1967), another silent home movie lasting over 5 minutes that focuses in on the audience (especially the women) as much as the bands.

When the Grande closed in 1972 (though there is no mention of why here), the building was abandoned and is in a state of severe disrepair. Watching the comparison shots of the place then and now is both fascinating and heartbreaking. Personally, I’d love to see it become a heritage building, and have the Detroit government not only fix it up, but turn it into a museum. But, of course, Detroit is broke, so that’s not gonna happen anytime soon.

Considering the number of talking heads, the stories are fascinating enough to keep the viewers’ interest for the entire time, and D’Annunzio keeps his ego in check to make this just the right length to do that. A must for anyone who is into rock history, the nascent beginnings of punk, or just love to hear stories about that period. A visual kicking out of the jams.

Bonus video (not on DVD):

DVD Review: Gold

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2013
Images from the Internet

                            

Gold

Directed and Organized by Bob Levis and Bill Desloge          
Wild Eye Releasing                        
90 minutes, 1968 / 1972 / 1996 / 2010    
www.WildEyeReleasing.com
www.MVDvisual.com

By 1968, when this film was shot, the Hays Office style of extreme film business gatekeeping was essentially toothless, after years of legislation ripping it of its power, such as proclaiming the studios must be separated from the means of distribution; in other words, the studios could no longer own the theaters. This broke their monopoly, opening up the chance for foreign and independent features. This started early in that decade, giving rise to the likes of the material of Roger Corman and Herschell Gordon Lewis. Yet, this film didn’t see any theaters until it was shown in England in 1972, and had its US premiere in New York in 1996, thanks in part to a minimal number of negatives leading to the film becoming lost.

Continuing with my geekology, social theory shows that trends start with the poor, get picked up by the rich who are trying to show how “cool” they are with the lower social strata, and then by the middle class who are trying to climb the social ladder. Langston Hughes was writing about this in the early part of the 20^th Century in stories like “Slave on the Block” (1933). In this case, the hippies were indigents who were praised and emulated by the Hollywood youth (such as the Fondas).

Put these two together, and you have a perfect storm of the idealistic having enough money to display their incompetence (a drugged version of the Peter Principle, perhaps?). This is not to say I do not respect what they were trying to do¸ because even the punk movement had its reflective moments (think of the British film Jubilee [1978], which has very similar vibes to this one, dealing with similar grand motifs of overbearing systems of control, anarchy, and both the differences and similarities).

That being said, this film was made for about $1000, most of which went to the insurance for the rental of an olde style train used for one day of shooting in the month-long filming, the rest going to equipment, food, and other mind-altering substances. Sure some of the cast and crew were either professionals in the industry already, and others wanted to be, but it is equally obvious that some were there to share in the chemical and herbal vibe. The end result may be considered, using a modern idiom, a hot mess. There is no writing credit for the film because much of it was improvised, and that is easy to figure out pretty quickly.

The stick of the premise is that a second gold rush gets a group of people – er – motivated to head to northern California. There, a small corrupt government springs up among the new town (whose members include Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Dan Hicks!), and it takes the local loser to rise up and lead la revolución! Truly, for both sides, it is shown that violence is, indeed, inherent in any system, even the loving, herbal kind.

But this is mostly a comedy. Well, actually it is pan-genre, sometimes switching from scene to scene or character to character. When the film starts, it’s a western, and most are dressed accordingly as they board a train headed for the locus of supposed gold (that we never see a hint of other than a mine shaft door near the end). One exception is the villain of the piece, a cop called Harold Jinks (as in, “Jinx! It’s the cops!”), portrayed by Garry Goodrow, who dresses like a 1920s G-man and talks in the quick patter of Jimmy Cagney of that period, see? Yeah, that’s it, see? Jinks is obsessed with control and stopping nudity, something nearly everyone else is swaying and bouncing the other way. Meanwhile, a sexy woman (Caroline Parr) with big – er – hair gets on the same train definitely flashing some legs and belly in a cut-out dress, seemingly right out of Carnaby Street.

At the start of the film, we meet our hero, Hawk (Del Close, d. 1999), who is on crutches. We watch as he almost misses the train and ends up riding underneath it (Close foolishly did his own highly-dangerous stunts, surely empowered by some – er – altered state of mind).

Through much nudity (lots of full frontal of all genders) and multiple trysts, with some nearly prescience to the mud-caked denizens of the Woodstock Festival in the coming year, Jinks goes to the dark(er) side and starts arresting people left and right and puts them into a barbed wired corral (either a pig sty or cow pasture of the commune on which it was filmed). More of the town ends up there than on the outside, of course. Finally, the mayor, not such a wonderful person himself, starts to object, but you’ll see where that leads.

With power corrupting absolutely, in a comment on the war in Vietnam and the then-current Democratic Convention in Chicago that ended in disaster, a hero must arise, with that being Close’s Hawk character (again, a reference to being pro-war).  Easily no longer a western and certainly more an allegory to the then-modern Marxist-influenced groups like the SDS and the Weathermen, you know which way the wind is going to blow when Hawk starts reading Mao’s Little Red Book and quoting Che Guevara, even coming to physically resemble him. With his drunken buddy, LeRoy Acorn (Orville Schell) they start planning a violent coup via a homemade arsenal (including bazooka!). Note that all the main characters are men…I’m just sayin’.

While I won’t give away what happens – and even though I’ve told quite a bit of the story, yet not enough to diminish the fun of the flick – perhaps it’s worth noting how religion plays a background role in the whole mishegoss. There are lots of songs on the soundtrack about Jesus, and Christianity is mentioned or referred to as a recurring motif in the dialog. I am not certain if this was a commentary about church and state, the hypocrisy of how the state sometimes uses religion (e.g., “opiate of the masses”), or it was so imbedded in the filmmakers that it came naturally without regard to its exclusivity of the rest of the culture (and much of the business end of Hollywood at the time).

Speaking of soundtracks, the reissue is very proud of the fact – and rightfully so – of their use of songs by the then-unknown Motor City Five (aka, the MC5), which ups the films credibility among more modern hopelessly obscure nostalgia collectors. You just know there is a whole contingent of First Wave punkers who are going to see this for that reason alone.

Extras include two somewhat interesting full-length commentaries, an hour-long access cable interview with the director, trailers, and more.

Whatever your motivation, or mind-altering substance intake, the sheer insanity of this film makes it worth seeing. There is so much happening, and it takes a vivid snapshot of a counterculture that is the remnant of the original Beat hipsters of its period, much in the way the Ken Kesey Merry Pranksters group did with the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test road trip. Gold is both a throwback and ahead of its time, concurrently. What’s more, it’s groovin’ in these equally harsh times.

 

THE GIZMOS: Quims, Queens, Teens and Screens

Interview text © 1977 by Lincoln D. Kirk;
RBF intro © 2012 by Robert Barry Francos
Images from the Internet

The following article about the Gizmos was originally published in Big Star magazine, issue #1, dated May 1977. It was conducted by music historian Lincoln D. Kirk (who wrote for FFanzeen as well), and reprinted here with the writer and publisher’s kind permission. Text added by me in 2012 is in [brackets].

In their day, the multi-peopled Gizmos were as revolutionary as many of their idols, such as the MC5, KISS, and possibly the Stooges. Oh, they may not have had the chops of those bands, but that is part of what made them the enfant terrible of the Midwest in general, Bloomington, IN specifically.

This article is definitely a piece of its time, and certainly not current PC. The Gizmos were not the only group to write salacious songs, and are in a noble group such as the Angry Samoans, or even W/Jayne County, but the ‘Mos were among the first in the indie recording world of the mid-‘70s. And that they came from the middle of the Bible belt makes it all the more intriguing. Looking back, a lot of this material is cringe-worthy, with comments that would now be considered misogynist, racist, homophobic, and even anti-Semitic, but much of it was done in the ignorance of youth (note that this was years before punks were wearing swastikas) and a twisted sense of humor. But peeking at this material through 2012 social eyes is like reading Kate’s speech at the end of The Taming of the Shrew by way of that same lens. Even Victor Hugo and Charlotte Brontë came out with some doozie questionable lines by today’s standards, and the Dr. Doolittle books and Bugs Bunny cartoons were full of racist material. No, I’m not making excuses, but I also know that some ex-members of the Gizmos look back and wince at some of these lyrics as well.

The entire Gizmos catalog is currently available from gulcher.gemm.com. – RBF, 2012

Introduction: Gizmos Invade Dunkirk

April 6, 1976, was a pretty hectic day all around. So a bit of chamber music seemed like a good way to inject some sanity into my tired body and soul. Melos Trio, Diers Recital Hall, Fredonia State – excellent recitals, especially the Beethoven. Nonetheless, arrival home at 10:30 PM (after a half-hearted and unsuccessful attempt at hustling my buddy’s fiancée – not that I was in any condition to do much with her anyway; the day was that hectic) found me ready to drop in my tracks.

Walk in the door, ready to force myself upstairs to my room, when my mother stops me in the hallway. “There’s a couple of fellows here to see you.” So I drag myself into the living room, spot two dandies I’d never laid eyes on before, and figure they must be long-lost cousins or something. The grinning, red-headed Prince Valiant who looked like an oversized John Denver (his partner looked too rock-star cool to pin down so specifically) twangs out in his thickly accented, molasses-in-January Alabama drawl, “Ah’m Eddie Flaw’rs and this here’s Kin Hah-lun.” Or maybe it was Ken Highland who introduced Eddie Flowers. Remember, I was so knocked out from sheer fatigue (and so, it turns out, was Eddie) that my memory’s a bit hazy. Put it this way – from Beethoven to Highland is a greater culture shock than any mere mortal can be expected to absorb!

It turns out that Eddie and Ken had been entertaining my mother and grandparents for about a half-hour before I stumbled home. Well, actually, Ken had done the entertaining; a High-Energy Highland is as garrulous as Eddie (leading contender for the 1976 Calvin Coolidge Memorial Trophy) is silent; Eddie communicates by grinning. I ask you: how many of you have had real live rock stars in your very own home? Of course, Eddie and Ken weren’t rock stars yet (are they now?). They were both merely two long-haired civilians without a record on the market, like any two people reading this.

The next three hours or so are exceedingly difficult to sort out in my brain. I probably should have scribbled down notes knowing that someday I’d take up Ken’s suggestion to commit their visit to paper, but my yawning cerebral cells and shot nerves would have forbidden my mind and hand to coordinate properly. So all that’s left is impressions; some very bizarre ones, but impressions nonetheless.

The impression that’s relevant here (as if anything I’ve said so far is relevant) concerns a cassette Eddie and Ken tried to get me to listen to. The Gizmos, Ken said. Gizmos? The name didn’t mean a thing, but I figured it was some hot new Columbia band like Aerosmith / Dictators / BOC / whatever. In any case, here we are at Eddie’s car parked up a few houses from mine, ransacking the back seat for a huge crate of LPs I was about to get my pick of, when the chilly Lincoln Avenue midnight (and, like most Dunkirk neighborhoods on a spring weekend Lincoln Ave. is almost always mausoleum quiet) was suddenly shattered by the hard smash of wild, mental-jumping guitars and frantic singing, at an obnoxiously loud volume. “Hey, you guys, better turn that thing down. This is a respectable neighborhood!” Thank goodness I wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics or I’d have had a coronary right there in the street! [Dunkirk is a small town in western New York State, southwest of Buffalo and near the shore of Lake Erie. – RBF, 2012]

To be honest, I don’t remember actually listening to that tape, even after it was turned down and even with Ken prodding me for an opinion. I suppose I mumbled something really critic-heavy like, “That seems pretty good” or maybe, “It’s not bad.” I don’t really know now (if I knew then!). When I think of the journalistic coup I blew, I’m virtually heartbroken (slight hyperbole). Here I was, probably the first bigshot-reviewer-type (discounting those directly involved with the project) to hear the Gizmos, and I was too dragged-out and dog-tired to know the difference!

4 x 8: The Rolling Gizmos

And who, you may ask (that is, if you’ve been hibernating or have spent the last six months in a monastery) are the Gizmos? I grew up thinking a “gizmo” was somewhere between a “gadget” and a “whatchamacallit”; a mechanical contrivance the name and / or specific use of which was unknown to the person using or perusing the object. According to Gulcher Records’ president, Bob “Mr. Bear” Richert, “’gizmos’ = stooge / squirrel / Yankee Doodle Dandy / loner / outcast / gimp / etc.” But that definition is so broad it can be applied to nearly every man, woman and child in North American (except maybe Karl Malden). These Gizmos are a savage-young, brutish, doltish, zippy little octet with a four-song 33-1/3 EP (at one time it would has been classified a 7” LP, the term EP being reserved for extended-play 45s; however, producer Bear blanches when the term LP is used in connection with his product, as he’s afraid prospective purchasers will expect a 12” model, which it ain’t) that says it all (a useful advertising slogan that doesn’t mean a thing, but impresses the feeble-minded).

Any musical legitimacy the Gizmos may possess grew out of a band from the northern Indiana community of Highland (no relation to Ken Highland; indeed, it’s one of the few municipalities in the U.S. of A. where Ken has not resided) called Cerberus. At the time of the EP’s recording (March ’76), Cerberus consisted of Rich Coffee (no connection with Coffee-Rich), now 19, on guitar and vocals; Rick Czajka, 17, on guitar; Dave Sulak, 20, on bass; and Jim DeVries, also 20, on drums. Aside from DeVries, who played with polka bands (great training for keeping a steady beat, mixing accents and the like) in the Hammond, Indiana, area, none of the Cerberi had any real musical experience before mutating into the Gizmos.

This mutation came about in a manner perhaps unique even in the annals of rock’n’roll history. Ken Highland, 20, famed fanzine editor (Rock On! and Trash) and writer (Gulcher, and its earlier incarnations Beyond Our Control and the WIUS Tip Sheet) struck up a correspondence with Rich Coffee’s girlfriend in Highland, IN, as a result of her reading Trash. About a year later, Ken (already a fledgling rock’n’roll guitarist and songwriter) pulled up stakes again, moving from Brockport, New York, to Bloomington, home of Bob Richert’s Gulcher publishing / recording empire, the scourge of Southern Indiana. In late ’75, Ken took a sabbatical northward to Highland to meet his correspondent and, while there, jammed with Cerberus (this was some time before DeVries joined the band). In March of ’76, when producer Richert decided it was time to unleash Ken Highland’s concepts on vinyl, Cerberus was the natural choice to become the instrumental portion of the Gizmos.

Three more Gizmos were added as lead and backing vocalists. The legendary Eddie / Eddy / Edde Stenson (take your pick) Flowers, 19, the personification of the rock fanzine sprit in print (although a surprisingly slow-moving, slow-drawling good-ole boy in the flesh) journeyed north from Jackson, Alabama, to Bloomington (which he calls the “hippy-homo haven of the Midwest”). Two other Gizmos were recruited from the Indiana University student body (IU is, of course, located in Bloomington; you didn’t think all the hippies and “homos” congregated there by accident, did you?): Ted Niemiec, 19, is the black lipstick, black nail polish, white-faced “just a regular dude” of the band and co-author of the Gizmos’ greatest hit, “Muff Divin’,” with Davey Medlock, who is, at 21, the senior Gizmo and a college DJ. The Gizmos’ producer and ninth star, Bob Richert, is in his late 20s, comes from Attica, NY, and hopes to see his publication become “the Creem of the ‘80s.” So much for vaunted ambitions.

What do they sound like? Remember the Sonics’ “Psycho”? Divorce it from its “Louie Louie” spasto-rhythm blend in unequal amounts of early Stones, Velvets, Shadows of Knight, Stooges, Barbarians, Chuck Berry, Yardbirds, and hot-flash boogie rave-ups, and then and only then will you catch a glimpse of what all the Top Critics are shouting about. (Case in point: the Gizmos even managed to get a certain Richard Meltzer [who would later form the Angry Samoans] to write the EP’s liner notes.) If you dig wild, two-note guitar solos (remember, it’s not the quantity of notes that counts, it’s the quality, and Highland picks high-quality notes!), chaotic group-shout vocals (and that, too, is a compliment; who needs punk vocals that sound prissy?), over not-quite-organized yet steamrollin’ accompaniment (neither inept nor particularly ept, either), then… [at this point, Kirk directs the reader to Gulcher’s then-address; the new e-address is above in my introduction].

”Kick Out the Giz-jams” – E. Flowers

Hmmm, I haven’t even mentioned the Gizmos’ pornographic lyrics yet – that’s what’s attracting so much of the attention the band has been getting. The aforementioned “Muff Divin’” – aside from its obvious and fully intended offensiveness to women (ardent feminists should sit this one out; they’ve got enough to worry about without these eight nerds lousing up their lives even further) – is the most inventive, most humorous, most perverted, and most educational (Paul Simon might have called it “50 Ways to Lick Her Pussy”) porn-rocker ever written. Really clever stuff, “Muff Divin’” is an instruction guide to the kinkier aspects of cunnilingus, involving the use of such common household items as peanut butter, ice cubes (“muff cocktail on the rocks”), Alka-Seltzer, shower nozzles, and the like. None of this fruit-scented love-cream aphrodisiac nonsense; this song is as raunch-filled lyrically as it is musically. Written by Highland, Niemiec (who sings lead), and Cliff Wolff (a friend of Niemiec’s who lives in Willkie South, the IU dorm which figures prominently in the lyrics), “Muff Divin’” alone is worth the $2.50. Indeed, it was “Muff Divin’” which delayed the EP’s release, as the original pressing plant (a religious-oriented outfit) refused to handle it after sitting on the masters for a couple of months.

The other three songs are less hardcore pornish, but far removed from the WYSI playlist, nonetheless. “That’s Cool (I Respect You More),” a Stones-type which is the only less-than-up-tempo-track, was written and sung by Highland from personal experience, as he tries to seduce a teen lovely who refuses to “go all the way” (now, if Ken were Eric Carmen…). “Mean Screen” (“Dick Clark oughta be my poppa”), written by Ken and Eddie (who sings it) from an original poem by fanzine writer Scott Duhamel, concerns masturbation while watching American Bandstand. “Chicken Queen,” the grand finale, is an “inside joke” of sorts. How many bands do you know with the gall to insult and embarrass their own producer on their first recording?: “Well, five-to-eight of hairy bear / Some don’t know and the rest don’t care / Boys and girls, inbetween / You’re all fine to the Chicken Queen.” It so happens that Bear is a friend of mine, and he never made any improper advances my way, so I won’t get involved with the question of the song’s accuracy (even thought the facts are well-known!). Written by Eddie (with embellishments by Ken and Dave Sulak) and sung by Ken, “Chicken Queen” includes some honest-to-goodness musicianship in Rick Czajka’s clean, neo-Santana guitar on the fade (which conjures up Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” and “Johnny B. Goode”: “Go, Queenie, go-go-go”), following an ingenious rap featuring Rich as the Queen and Ted as the Chicken, in a parody of the Doors’ “The End” (“The bear awoke before dawn… / He walked on down to the chicken coop and he said, ‘Chicken?’ / ‘Yes, Queen?’ / ‘Chicken?’ / ‘Yes, Queen?’ / ‘I want to…’,” etc.). The EP’s engineer, Richard Fish, appended a subtitle, “The (Ass) End,” to the track; I could say that this subtitle was pregnant with meaning, but reproduction of the species has nothing to do with it!

The Gizmos were originally intended as a one-shot project, existing on and around March 20, 1976 (the date of recording). But stardom, even on the fanzine level, brings its pressures – public demand for an encore being one of them. So the Gizmos reunited for a second round of rock’n’roll lunacy. In April, they reformed for a double-EP / triple- / album (which format it will eventually assume has yet to be decided; albums are less cumbersome, Bear) and their first live appearances. There’s at least one change as Rick Czajka has quit Cerberus (which has since changed its name to Loner) to become a folkie. When not Gizmoing, Ken Highland admitted he is in the United States Marine Corps (a family tradition), Stenson Flowers is in Alabama, Messrs. Coffee and Sulak are in Chicago, and Jim DeVries was busted on a dope charge, while Ted Niemiec and Davey Medlock remain in Bloomington.

Upcoming on future Gizmos vinyl you should hear such instant classics as “Gimme Back My Foreskin,” “Human Garbage Disposal,” “Amerika First,” and “Pumpin’ to Playboy” (which I have a tape of; believe me, it’s a killer, built around an irresistible Iberian guitar riff).

Gulcher Records may also issue an album by Loner without Ken, Eddie, Ted and Davey; and possibly one by Bob Richert’s answers to the Runaways and the Quick, a group of 13-to-15-year-olds called the Chickens (I’m not so sure I believe that one, myself…).

Now, would you like to know about MX-80 Sound?

[I saw a later version of the Gizmos play at Max’s Kansas City in the ‘70s, which was released as a live EP titled, Never Mind the Sex Pistols, Here are the Gizmos. It was a wild and hairy show.]

Here is some “Where are they now” info:
Rich Coffee: Was in the bands Thee Fourgiven, the Unclaimed, and the Tommyknockers.
Eddie Flowers: Now in the experimental, lo-fi, noise rock band Crawlspace; CDs available from Gulcher.
Ken Highland: A long and varied musical career, mostly in the Boston Area, including quite a large number of bands that he has fronted, such as the Hopelessly Obscure and Kenne Highland and his Vatican Sex Kittens. Still touring after all these years. Nice guy, too.