Monday, 20 June 2011
Clarence Clemons RIP
Clarence Clemons, who died on June 18 aged 69, sculpted a rambunctious saxophone sound that was a key factor in delivering Bruce Springsteen’s impassioned street-romanticism to the wider world.
As the Seventies unfolded and Springsteen led popular music away from high-faluting progressive music and stadium rock towards the everyday concerns of blue-collar life, his musical message was sweetened by Clemons’s soulful accompaniment on record and showmanship on stage.
Thereafter Clemons’s branched into acting and a solo career, and became an in-demand contributor to releases by other recording artists, including Ringo Starr, Aretha Franklin and, most recently, the Springsteen fan Lady Gaga, who featured him on her hit album Born This Way. He even appears fleetingly in the video for GaGa’s new single, The Edge Of Glory, which was released two days before he died.
But it is with Springsteen that his name will be most associated. Indeed “The Boss” was ever-keen to acknowledge Clemons’s importance in altering his fortunes when he was a struggling singer-songwriter, notably singing in Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out about the moment “the Big Man joined the band”.
The song was featured on Springsteen’s breakthrough album Born To Run. Significantly, the front cover shot portrayed Springsteen leaning for support on the 6ft 2in, 18-stone Clemons. “With Clarence at my side,” Springsteen said, “my band and I were able to tell stories far deeper than those simply contained in our music.”
Clarence Anicholas Clemons Jr was born the eldest of three on January 11 1942 in Norfolk, Virginia. Raised a Baptist, he received an alto saxophone as a Christmas present when he was nine years old. A switch to the meatier baritone sax in his high school band prompted him to fall under the spell of the influential 50s rock and roll saxophonist King Curtis, with whom his later style was much compared.
Entering Maryland State College on an American football and music scholarship, Clemons tried out as a professional for the Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns teams, but a knee injury sustained in a car accident prompted him to focus on music as a member of The Vibratones, a soul covers act.
In the Sixties a job as a counsellor with emotionally disturbed children took Clemons to the Jamesburg Training School For Boys in Newark, New Jersey, where he was recruited into another covers act, The Joyful Noyze. In September 1971, at the prompting of the band’s lead singer, Karen Cassidy, he paid a visit to an Asbury Park club to attend a show by what was then called The Bruce Springsteen Band.
“As I walked to the club, a big North-Easter blew in,” Clemons said in 2009, the year in which his autobiography Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales was published. “When I opened the door, the wind tore it out of my hand and blew it down the street. The bouncers went chasing after it and I stepped in with lightning and thunder behind me, a black guy in a white club. I found out which was Bruce and said to him: 'I want to sit in.’ So I sat in and it was a magical moment. All of the things I’d been searching for, all the music I wanted to play, was right there. Whenever I’m on stage with Bruce I still feel that moment. He looked at me and I looked at him and we fell in love.”
Clemons appeared on Springsteen’s 1972 debut album Greetings From Asbury Park NJ on such tracks as Blinded By The Light, which later became a hit for Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, and became a founder member of The E Street Band as it accompanied the frontman on albums such as Born To Run, The River and Born In The USA.
In the mid-80s Clemons appeared on two sizeable US hits by other artists, Jackson Browne’s You’re A Friend Of Mine and Aretha Franklin’s Freeway Of Love. In between recording with Springsteen and session work with Ringo Starr, Todd Rundgren and Twisted Sister, Clemons released eight albums, some under his own name and others with backing group The Red Bank Rockers and latterly The Temple Of Soul, a collaboration with producer Narada Michael Waldman.
In 1977 Clemons made his acting debut as a trumpeter in Martin Scorsese’s jazz film New York, New York, and followed this up with such cameos as “One Of The Three Most Important People In The World” in the 1989 teen comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. There were also occasional television appearances in such programmes as Diff’rent Strokes. His voice-over was used in an episode of The Simpsons and, reflecting his career before entering the music business, Clemons played a youth worker in two episodes of the gritty drama The Wire.
Clarence Clemons, who suffered a stroke, married five times. He is survived by his wife Victoria and four sons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/8587821/Clarence-Clemons.html
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Terry Gilliam on Rene Magritte
All of the surrealists got into my head, but Magritte was so direct. I liked how immediate his work was, whereas the others were more abstract. His work can be complex but in a sense he takes cliché images and puts them together in ways that surprise you. There's a night scene, but the sky is day [The Dominion of Light, 1953], there's a pair of shoes that are actually feet [The Red Model, 1934]. His work has an initial gag, but the stuff sticks with you because it's in some ways profound.
He is so firmly lodged in my brain that frequently I'll see something and think, "Oh, that's a bit Magrittean". I'll look out of my window at dusk and see the house across the street catching the last bit of sunlight, except the sky behind it is already night. He captures moments of light in the day that are just odd. I used to think it was a fantasy of his, but I now find it happening all the time. Like every good artist, he makes us see the everyday differently but he does it without the pretension of so many other artists. That's another thing I like about him, that he didn't have this serious "I am an artist" approach. He went to work with a suit and a briefcase, everything about him was taking the piss out of art yet at the same time he was a wonderful artist.
In my work, I can never find a direct line between what I've done and where it's come from, but I do know where the influences are and they all end up in a kind of Irish stew in my brain. I would never want to say: "I nicked that from Magritte", because that's criminal investigation time! But it would be fair to say that with the landscapes and blue skies in the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus I could've been stealing from either Magritte or Microsoft Windows. What Microsoft did was a direct steal from Magritte! Other people paint more elaborate skies, but it's the clarity of his painting – the perfect blue sky with the perfect clouds floating in it – that's just so appealing.
Were the other Pythons influenced by Magritte? No. I'm not sure what the word is for being illiterate at art. Maybe blind. That's what they were. Years ago, we were in a hotel in Munich and John [Cleese] called me and said: "I'm going over to the Pinakothek. Do you want to come and explain art to me?" So I went along and I didn't explain art to him because that's not what I do, but I did get him looking at a thermostat on the wall and discussing it in great detail. We managed to gather quite a crowd.
I suppose with my work I'm always trying to get people to see what the world is capable of, to show how it can be seen in a very different way and Magritte did that all the time. When you start thinking differently like that, reality becomes a kind of game. In the 60s, people took drugs to achieve that state, but for a lot of people it was enough to go and look at a Magritte painting.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jun/19/rene-magritte-surrealist-favourites-tate
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Captured: America in Colour from 1939-1943
These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.
More at: http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/
More at: http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/
Friday, 17 June 2011
Last night's set list
At the Big Jug, Durham: -
Love Song
Is It Only The Moonlight?
Blackbird
Out On The Weekend
Lots of players; an enjoyable night.
Love Song
Is It Only The Moonlight?
Blackbird
Out On The Weekend
Lots of players; an enjoyable night.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Tonight's set list
At the Fulford Arms (The Habit is being refurbished so the venue was changed): -
Let Your Fingers Do The Walking (Neil Young)*
On The Way Home (Neil Young)
Never Be Anyone Else But You (Ricky Nelson)
Dancing Shoes (Me)
Fourteen Days (Steve Goodman)
Junk (Paul McCartney)**
* As a tribute to the release of A Treasure
** As a tribute to the re-release of McCartney
Let Your Fingers Do The Walking (Neil Young)*
On The Way Home (Neil Young)
Never Be Anyone Else But You (Ricky Nelson)
Dancing Shoes (Me)
Fourteen Days (Steve Goodman)
Junk (Paul McCartney)**
* As a tribute to the release of A Treasure
** As a tribute to the re-release of McCartney
Artist at work!
A 55 minute film about the making of The Railrodder:
http://www.nfb.ca/film/buster_keaton_rides_again
Buster Keaton rides the rails in Canada
by Albert Ohayon
December 11th, 2009
In September of 1964, Hollywood icon Buster Keaton arrived at Canada’s East Coast to start filming a 25-minute travelogue for the National Film Board. Produced with the full co-operation of the Canadian National Railroad, the film would see him travel from coast to coast on a railway-track speeder.
Keaton was a star of Hollywood’s silent era, directing and starring in dozens of short comedy films from 1917 onwards. He later moved to features, which were huge box office hits. These included his masterpiece The General where he got to “play” with real life locomotives. All of Keaton’s films featured the actor performing incredibly complicated stunts, which were as astounding as they were hilarious. Following the advent of sound, his career took a turn for the worse, and he found himself starring in a string of mediocre films in which he had very little creative control.
When television appeared in the 1950s, Keaton’s films were rediscovered by a new generation, and suddenly his career was back on track. In 1964, director Gerald Potterton was going to work at the NFB in Montreal when he saw a railway track speeder on the railroad tracks. He immediately thought of Keaton’s The General and wasted no time in contacting Keaton, who agreed to star in the NFB film simply because it was about his hobby, railroads, and he would get to ride the rails in Canada.
Shooting began on the 5th of September near Halifax, where Keaton was filmed coming out of the ocean onto dry land. This gag, while very funny, was tough on him, as the water was freezing cold. Potterton shot the film chronologically traveling from East to West. Most of the gags were improvised along the way with Keaton. The film was conceived as a colour travelogue short destined for the cinema screens of Canada and the world. Filming was done on 35 mm, but without sound. It was decided to shoot in the style of a silent film of old, complete with music and sound effects, but no dialogue. Potterton later said that the noise of the speeder and other trains would have made location dialogue shooting next to impossible. Interestingly, Potterton, who had mostly made animated films up to that time, wanted to shoot Keaton in live action and add him to an all-animated film. Thankfully this idea was dropped in favour of an all live-action film.
Shooting the film in Canada was extra special for Keaton, as he hadn’t visited the country in 48 years – since the time when he toured with his family’s vaudeville act prior to moving to Hollywood.
Accompanying Keaton on his Canadian assignment was his third wife Eleanor, who watched over him day and night. Keaton turned 69 during the production, but insisted on doing his own stunts. He would often work these out with Potterton the night before. They would be inspired by whatever the men happened to see along the way. The sequence with Keaton opening the impossibly large map while crossing over a railway trestle caused concern to all. Keaton insisted on doing this stunt himself much to the chagrin of Potterton and the crew. The pair and the film crew travelled throughout the country in a special railway car complete with chef and steward.
A second film crew followed Keaton and made the one-hour documentary Buster Keaton Rides Again, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film. This documentary would be shown on Canadian television while The Railrodder was shown on the nation’s screens.
The filming took six weeks in all. The crew had to endure scheduled trains passing on the main line, which slowed down filming considerably, and cold temperatures. Keaton took it all in stride and would retire at the end of the day to watch the World Series on television in his railway car. The sequence that opens the film was shot in London with a stunt double. Keaton was later matted in.
Press coverage during the shoot was comprehensive. From coast to coast, newspapers sang the praises of Keaton. Some towns honoured him and his wife with film screenings and dinners throughout his journey in Canada.
The film was released theatrically by Columbia pictures in October 1965, playing with Gilles Carle’s La vie heureuse de Léopold Z in Quebec. In English Canada it would play with a variety of Hollywood films. Reviews, unfortunately were mixed. Most reviewers thought the film too simplistic and not very funny. They felt it should have sacrificed the scenery for more Keaton.
The film was also distributed theatrically in the USA and throughout Europe, including the UK, Portugal, France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and the USSR. Since there was no dialogue, it was very easy to sell in other language markets. It would also play on television around the world, notably in Italy, Argentina, Poland, Yugoslavia, Germany and South Africa. It enjoyed a second life on television in Canada and later on home video. Sadly Keaton would only work on a couple more films before passing away in February of 1966, just when The Railrodder was gracing the nation’s screens.
I never fail to smile when I see this film. Keaton is as spry as he was in his heyday. Some of the gags are hilarious. I especially enjoy Keaton stopping in the middle of the Prairies to enjoy his afternoon tea while a pack of bison looks on. The Railrodder remains the work of a comic genius, who could wring a laugh out of any prop on hand. As much as I admire Potterton for making it, the film is Keaton’s and will always remain his. May he forever ride the great railroad in the sky.
http://blog.nfb.ca/2009/12/11/buster-keaton-rides-the-rails-in-canada/
http://www.nfb.ca/film/buster_keaton_rides_again
Buster Keaton rides the rails in Canada
by Albert Ohayon
December 11th, 2009
In September of 1964, Hollywood icon Buster Keaton arrived at Canada’s East Coast to start filming a 25-minute travelogue for the National Film Board. Produced with the full co-operation of the Canadian National Railroad, the film would see him travel from coast to coast on a railway-track speeder.
Keaton was a star of Hollywood’s silent era, directing and starring in dozens of short comedy films from 1917 onwards. He later moved to features, which were huge box office hits. These included his masterpiece The General where he got to “play” with real life locomotives. All of Keaton’s films featured the actor performing incredibly complicated stunts, which were as astounding as they were hilarious. Following the advent of sound, his career took a turn for the worse, and he found himself starring in a string of mediocre films in which he had very little creative control.
When television appeared in the 1950s, Keaton’s films were rediscovered by a new generation, and suddenly his career was back on track. In 1964, director Gerald Potterton was going to work at the NFB in Montreal when he saw a railway track speeder on the railroad tracks. He immediately thought of Keaton’s The General and wasted no time in contacting Keaton, who agreed to star in the NFB film simply because it was about his hobby, railroads, and he would get to ride the rails in Canada.
Shooting began on the 5th of September near Halifax, where Keaton was filmed coming out of the ocean onto dry land. This gag, while very funny, was tough on him, as the water was freezing cold. Potterton shot the film chronologically traveling from East to West. Most of the gags were improvised along the way with Keaton. The film was conceived as a colour travelogue short destined for the cinema screens of Canada and the world. Filming was done on 35 mm, but without sound. It was decided to shoot in the style of a silent film of old, complete with music and sound effects, but no dialogue. Potterton later said that the noise of the speeder and other trains would have made location dialogue shooting next to impossible. Interestingly, Potterton, who had mostly made animated films up to that time, wanted to shoot Keaton in live action and add him to an all-animated film. Thankfully this idea was dropped in favour of an all live-action film.
Shooting the film in Canada was extra special for Keaton, as he hadn’t visited the country in 48 years – since the time when he toured with his family’s vaudeville act prior to moving to Hollywood.
Accompanying Keaton on his Canadian assignment was his third wife Eleanor, who watched over him day and night. Keaton turned 69 during the production, but insisted on doing his own stunts. He would often work these out with Potterton the night before. They would be inspired by whatever the men happened to see along the way. The sequence with Keaton opening the impossibly large map while crossing over a railway trestle caused concern to all. Keaton insisted on doing this stunt himself much to the chagrin of Potterton and the crew. The pair and the film crew travelled throughout the country in a special railway car complete with chef and steward.
A second film crew followed Keaton and made the one-hour documentary Buster Keaton Rides Again, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film. This documentary would be shown on Canadian television while The Railrodder was shown on the nation’s screens.
The filming took six weeks in all. The crew had to endure scheduled trains passing on the main line, which slowed down filming considerably, and cold temperatures. Keaton took it all in stride and would retire at the end of the day to watch the World Series on television in his railway car. The sequence that opens the film was shot in London with a stunt double. Keaton was later matted in.
Press coverage during the shoot was comprehensive. From coast to coast, newspapers sang the praises of Keaton. Some towns honoured him and his wife with film screenings and dinners throughout his journey in Canada.
The film was released theatrically by Columbia pictures in October 1965, playing with Gilles Carle’s La vie heureuse de Léopold Z in Quebec. In English Canada it would play with a variety of Hollywood films. Reviews, unfortunately were mixed. Most reviewers thought the film too simplistic and not very funny. They felt it should have sacrificed the scenery for more Keaton.
The film was also distributed theatrically in the USA and throughout Europe, including the UK, Portugal, France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and the USSR. Since there was no dialogue, it was very easy to sell in other language markets. It would also play on television around the world, notably in Italy, Argentina, Poland, Yugoslavia, Germany and South Africa. It enjoyed a second life on television in Canada and later on home video. Sadly Keaton would only work on a couple more films before passing away in February of 1966, just when The Railrodder was gracing the nation’s screens.
I never fail to smile when I see this film. Keaton is as spry as he was in his heyday. Some of the gags are hilarious. I especially enjoy Keaton stopping in the middle of the Prairies to enjoy his afternoon tea while a pack of bison looks on. The Railrodder remains the work of a comic genius, who could wring a laugh out of any prop on hand. As much as I admire Potterton for making it, the film is Keaton’s and will always remain his. May he forever ride the great railroad in the sky.
http://blog.nfb.ca/2009/12/11/buster-keaton-rides-the-rails-in-canada/
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Monday, 13 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Paul Merton's Birth of Hollywood
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011k4vx#synopsis
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011ldh6
Worth watching, but nowhere near as good as his series on silent film comedians; in fact, the writing is a little cack-handed and the episodes seem to jump about at times in stream of consciousness fashion. I'm also a little uneasy about the recreations. Doesn't the BBC credit its audience with the intelligence to listen?
All three episodes are available to watch for another five days on BBC iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011k4vx/Paul_Mertons_Birth_of_Hollywood_Episode_1/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011pr2s/Paul_Mertons_Birth_of_Hollywood_Episode_2/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011vmsd/Paul_Mertons_Birth_of_Hollywood_Episode_3/
Last night's set lists
At the Fulford Arms, York: -
Love Song
Is It Only The Moonlight?
Falling
Out On The Weekend
Never Be Anyone Else But You (Ricky Nelson)
Love (Lennon)
Heart Of Gold
Old Man
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
The Boxer
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Up On Cripple Creek
Mind Your Own Business
Long May You Run
Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight
Blackbird
Things We Said Today
Helpless
Baby What You Want Me To Do
Tennessee Waltz
Don't Let It Bring You Down
Roll Another Number For The Road
And after hours: -
On The Beach
Motion Pictures
Ambulance Blues
Mellow My Mind
Cowgirl In The Sand
Birds
There were only 3 other players on the night so I earned my keep. Due to there being free beer and a Laphroaig for tonight's host (yours truly) these songs may not be in the exact order played - but near enough.
Love Song
Is It Only The Moonlight?
Falling
Out On The Weekend
Never Be Anyone Else But You (Ricky Nelson)
Love (Lennon)
Heart Of Gold
Old Man
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
The Boxer
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Up On Cripple Creek
Mind Your Own Business
Long May You Run
Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight
Blackbird
Things We Said Today
Helpless
Baby What You Want Me To Do
Tennessee Waltz
Don't Let It Bring You Down
Roll Another Number For The Road
And after hours: -
On The Beach
Motion Pictures
Ambulance Blues
Mellow My Mind
Cowgirl In The Sand
Birds
There were only 3 other players on the night so I earned my keep. Due to there being free beer and a Laphroaig for tonight's host (yours truly) these songs may not be in the exact order played - but near enough.
Saturday, 11 June 2011
The early days of the FNB #2
Members were expected to know the password to attend even the most informal meetings.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
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