The Name Dropper's Symphony

A couple of years ago a friend of mine published his memoirs and it was easily the most shameless display of name dropping I've ever seen. Each and every page relentlessly referenced folks both famous and obscure with a bombing frequency that would put Operation Desert Storm to shame. I believe that the writer assumed that if enough people saw their names in print the book was a sure fire bet to sell tons of copies.

The book of course tanked miserably because the book resembled a lopsided phone book with its endless list of names. Ultimately his book (in the words of Phil Ochs) wouldn't interest anyone outside a small circle of friends.

But, zounds! What an inspiration: I have decided to write my own memoirs and hope I can drop as many high-profile names as this sagacious scribe. All of the following tales are real and star-studded, honest. I will try not to disappoint. Excelsior!

**********************

I remember when Richard Meltzer had his radio show "Hepcats From Hell" on KPFK and my friends The Human Hands, The B People and Monitor all played full-length sets broadcasting live at KPFK studios in North Hollywood. It was an all-night show on a Saturday from 12 midnight to 4 AM.

My favorite Human Hands songs were "I Got Mad" and "Trains Vs. Planes" with the late, great David Wiley delivering some very dramatic vocals while the keyboards and propulsive drumming from Dennis Duck set up the suspenseful wall of sound. They were great.

As a side note, it must be added that Dennis Duck also played in The Dream Syndicate and The Los Angeles Free Music Society, the latter which featured Ace Farren Ford, who also played six-string bass in Crowbar Salvation, the band fronted by Marty Nation, star of Richard Kern’s film “Fingered”.

The B People were equally excellent with my friend Pat Delaney on sax, who I played alongside for The Screamers and Arthur J. And The Gold Cups. Pat was also in The Deadbeats. Alex Gibson was the leader of the band and had this great sing called "Can Can't".

Where did I come in? I was asked to bring my horn and play along on a free jazz finale version of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" with Alex crooning the Paul McCartney part. All three bands played on this hoary chestnut and Pat and I got to wail or horns at 4 AM. We made enough of a row to even wake Ringo Starr (who probably lives in the Valley) up.

**********************

In 1981 I lived in New York as a guest of Arto Lindsay, who had a band called DNA at the time and were part of a compilation called "No New York". He was house-sitting John Lurie's apartment, John Lurie star of several Jim Jarmusch films. Arto was also in a band with John called The Lounge Lizards and was gracious enough to let me stay there. He promised me a gig in The Lounge Lizards Big Band, which never materialized. Oh, well.

I hit The Village Voice want ads looking for a cool band to play in. I had a very strange phone call with Rudi Protrudi of The Fuzztones, who then promoted something he called "Popodelic Wave", which to this day I still don't understand!

I did audition, however, for Jeffrey Lohn of the Theoretical Girls who was putting together a guitar orchestra much in the style of Glenn Branca and Rhys Chapman. I valiantly tried hard to sound cool with my Fender Mustang guitar but couldn't read music, which was a requirement for the band. Yes, there was sheet music on real metal music stands!

Jeff was very patient, however and said I probably wouldn't work out, but he had some friends who were looking for a second guitar player. He scribbled a phone number on a piece of paper with the names Thurston and Kim written on top. Whoa. I never called, however, because I thought any band with a guy called Thurston in it might be pretty scary. It's cool, though, I think things worked out well for them, anyway.

**********************

In 1974 my brother Peter had a classmate from school named Shelly Ganz who used to come around the house regularly. Shelly asked me if he should get the new Emerson, Lake & Palmer album or the latest from Genesis. After briefly choking, I told him that if he really wanted to blow his mind he should check out Iggy & The Stooges or The New York Dolls.

He followed my advice, loved both bands and then asked me if there was anything else like them. I said, “Nobody’s like them, but I think I know something close enough you’ll dig”, and took him to Moxieland, a garage rock record store down the street from my home on Pico & Robertson. I introduced him to Dave Gibson, owner of the store.

Well, one thing led to another and Shelly Ganz started his own garage rock band The Unclaimed, which at one point or another included Rich Coffee of Thee Fourgiven and The Tommyknockers. The Unclaimed played a great version of The Sonics’ “The Witch” that knocked me totally flat on my ass.

Shelly used to rehearse at The Masque, owned by Brendan Mullen, and probably accounts for how he met Paula Pierce, future leader of The Pandoras and Masque hanger-on. She dated Bruce Moreland of The Skulls prior to hooking up with Shelly. The last time I saw Paula play with The Pandoras was when they opened up for Nina Hagen at The Greek Theater.

**********************

I was jealous when my wife Rebecca, formerly of Frightwig, told me about the time she shoved Axl Rose of Guns 'N Roses at the dance floor of English Acid, or maybe it was White Trash A Go Go. Then I relaxed after recalling the story about how in 1984 I crossed Sunset Boulevard in my hand-painted Chelsea high-heeled boots after seeing Gun Club (okay, so sue me) and hearing a very familiar voice coming from a devil red limousine, "DUDE THOSE ARE SOME SWEET KICKS! WHY DON"T YOU CRUISE OVER!" Yes, it was David Lee Roth from Van Halen.

No, like Hell was I going to sell my hand-painted boots, besides, I heard he's notoriously cheap like Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, but that's another story. There are many stories and even more names I can drop, forever and ever.

To tell you the truth this name dropping business is pretty tiresome. I don't know how this boring cunt did it, I'm already exhausted about bragging about people I haven't even thought about in years. I guess it takes a certain gumption to brag endlessly about people all the time. And no, I never dated Courtney Love!

Moon Of Alabama

I recently finished reading Bertolt Brecht’s play “The Rise And Fall of the City of Mahagonny”, a stunning musical play about a man-made paradise of debauchery. Although the play takes place in the Gulf Coast it more likely brings to mind the sleaze of Las Vegas, highly predictive of Sin City since this great play was written in the late Twenties.

In this play four working stiffs from Alaska travel to a bed of sin called Mahagonny (note the word "Agony"). The boys blow all their dough, much debauchery ensues, culminating in the death of JJ Smith by overeating, Alaskawolf Joe by a fatal KO in the ring, and Jimmy Gallagher's sentence to death by electrocution for being broke, his hard-earned pay bankrupted by drink, gambling and women in Mah-agonny. Gallagher's death sentence for the sin of being flat broke seems more relevant today than ever.

First performed in 1930, Mahagonny was the drama world quivalent to Igor Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring", prompting boos, fist fights, riots et al at its initial performance. Dark and raunchy for its time, it brought a new experience to musical theatre that was probably the most radical thing theatergoers had ever seen.

The popular line of opinion is that Mahagonny is Brecht’s anti-capitalist concepts at work in that it shows a society so completely intoxicated by greed that it ultimately comes undone and destroys itself in a blizzard of excess. I think that the excess of alcoholism, gambling and womanizing are common traits that ruin anyone regardless of class affiliation.

As shown in the videos depicted here you can see that the German production is far more explicit in its views of decadence, shown in a highly theatrical cabaret style, as opposed to the American version, which is more traditional in its pretensions towards standard theatre. The production differences between the German vs. American version almost looks like two entirely different plays!

Pictured above is the Audra McDonald version of “Moon of Alabama”, also known as “The Alabama Song” or “Whiskey Bar”. Two other versions of the Kurt Weill melody are included here, one a duet from Nina Hagen and Meret Becker and the other from an Italian production featuring Valentina Valente. While the song isn’t particularly phenomenal, the differences in style all four singers take still represents the story well. The song is performed towards the beginning of the opera when Jenny and the prostitutes arrive in Mahagonny to work all the marks in town.

The influence of “The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny” is far reaching, and can be found in works as diverse as Tom Waits, Randy Newman, The Doors, David Bowie (who covered "Albama Song"), Slapp Happy and even Lars Von Trier's film "Dogville". While the “Threepenny Opera” is Brecht and Weill's most infamous opera, “The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny” is the piece that changed modern opera forever.