Coppola Working

Artist at work on the apocalypse - photo by Michael Herr

In December of 1976 I got on a bus on Roxas Boulevard in Manila at 5am bound for Pagsanjan. Over the next two days I played an American GI whooping it up at a USO show featuring three Playboy Playmates. Yes, the famous playmate scene. Quite an education in Big Moviemaking. I did not know at the time the difficulties Francis had already been through…it did not show on his face. He was thinner than his pictures from years earlier, winning Oscars for the Godfather movies. But other than that he was like a Zen Master, walking the set (dressed in GI uniform– rank Private…his was the only one out of two hundred uniforms I saw that day that had his real name over he pocket, “Coppola”.) He stood for quite a while right next to me, watching the rehearsal unfold (we rehearsed during the day, shot at night) occasionally giving instructions to Jerry Zeismer and Larry Franco, his assistant directors. Vittorio Storaro (background, left) had a large crew and multiple camera setups. The stage performers were incredible, not only Cyndi Wood, Linda Carpenter and Colleen Camp, but the band –Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids, who laid out a slinky, killer version of Suzie Q, and, believe it or not, R&B legend LaVerne Baker, who regaled us with Jim Dandy and See See Rider. That was the day I met Bill Graham for the first time, but that’s another story.

Terry Southern? I know that name…

Southern chronicled and acidly lampooned the mores of mid-century America in his novels Candy, Flash and Filigree and The Magic Christian. With devastating screen dialogue he transformed Dr. Strangelove into a dark classic of Cold War paranoia, and likewise elevated the low-budget Easy Rider into an unflinching, unforgettable cinematic portrait of the real limits of freedom in America. His cutting-edge journalism in Esquire covered the upheavals of the 1960s, from the Bay of Pigs to the chaotic Democratic Convention in Chicago, and his beyond-the-fringe humor landed him up as a writer on Saturday Night Live. A giant of American literature whose star faded as the times changed, Terry Southern is exactly the type of cultural figure we need now. Bold and ruthlessly honest, funny and tragic. I laugh out loud, fall out of my chair, when I re-read The Magic Christian. Good for what ails ya’.
Terry Southern. American. Writer. 1924-1995.

Glue-up of a new guitar

102_1151, originally uploaded by Gordon Whiting.

April 2007. Christian Whiting’s guitar project. We glued the maple top, in two book-matched pieces, onto the mahogany body. We used Keva blocks as spacers to keep the clamps from damaging the surface. The black banding is cut bicycle inner tubes– stretched evenly but very tight. This rig did the job. The top fused cleanly to the body, and has held up very well (almost four years now).

Dirk Hamilton and Gary Roda

Dirk Hamilton and Gary Roda, originally uploaded by Gordon Whiting.

Outside Blackwater Cafe, Stockton, CA. Oct 30, 2009

The Dirk Hamilton Band has a home port called The Blackwater Cafe, a great little joint on Yosemite Street in Stockton. I don’t know exactly how long Dirk’s been playing there, but let’s just say decades. Always a treat to see him there, its got special mojo. This pic was taken on a break between sets, outside the front doors. Guirtarist Gary Roda is the gent on Dirk’s left.

The Best Friends

The Best Friends, originally uploaded by Gordon Whiting.

Live at the Poet & Patriot. Santa Cruz. November 18, 2010.

Chris Wailing

Chris Wailing

Originally uploaded by Gordon Whiting

Christian Whiting of The Best Friends, finding his mojo at the Poet & Patriot, Santa Cruz, Nov 18 2010. Chris is playing a ’51 RI Fender Telecaster, tobacco sunburst. The Best Friends play original songs that fall in the zone between traditional funk and jam band, with a dose of Captain Beefheart for good measure. Worth checking out.

Death Army, Live at Mabuhay Gardens

Death Army, Live at Mabuhay Gardens

Originally uploaded by Gordon Whiting

1979. Those were the days. The bits of white strewn about on the stage: popcorn, thrown by the basketful.

The Pierces

The fact that this is apparently their real name is poetic. It’s rare enough to come across a voice that arrests the ear, makes you stop, savor; want more. But to have a pair of singers with such a penetrating quality is a real find. I don’t know anything factual about them other than what you can read online, but ever since our intern Donna DeLoera turned me on these fabulously dark and musical sisters, I keep coming back to their Myspace and YouTube for more. Here is a recent offering, Love You More, that I dare you to hate.

Art v. Entertainment

PolyGram Filmed Entertainment…I got into a weird debate about this moniker with Kenji and Nancy about 15 years ago. Why would they call the company that? I asked. Well it’s not about stage plays…it’s film…hence ‘Filmed Entertainment’ says Kenji. I mean why are they using the work ‘Entertainment’…is that all they aspire to? I asked. Blank stares. I mean, what about ‘Art?’ Guffaws all around. Oh, right. Art.

Yes, what about art? I’m not so naive as to say movie companies are not in the biz of entertainment. They are. But do you deny that the movie companies, all of the main ones, have more than occasionally created great art? Something is wrong about renaming your company PolyGram Filmed Entertainment or, in the record biz Sony Music Entertainment. It should be PolyGram Pictures, or Sony Records. Remember MGM Pictures “Ars Gratis Artis?’– ‘art for art’s sake?’ If you declare entertainment as your mission, how does that inspire? Will you ever make a great picture, or great record, with a name like ‘Acme Entertainment?’

This now long-established naming trend is another disastrous corporate influence in the field of the arts. It comes from considering movies and records to be in the same kind of trivial category as pinball machines and carnival booths. ‘National Amusements’ is the corporate name of a chain of movie theatres owned by the Sumner Redstone family, and it is directly influenced by the arcade game industry. I love arcade games, but films and records are a thing apart, and capable of affecting us on profound levels. Entertainment yes, but so much more!

Warner Music Group, Capitol Music Group, Concord Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment be gone! Give me Smash Pictures and Groove Records, or anything that has aspirations beyond entertainment. Let’s at least believe in the possibility.

That part about getting rich…

I blogged about the possibility of well-organized indie musicians getting rich in The Corporations Are Leaving, November 26, 2009. This was based on the idea that without Big Daddy (ye old record label, et al) keeping most of the profits from cd sales and other streams, the indie musician could make it to the promised land on smaller overall numbers– ’cause the per unit profit is so much higher.

Scratch that. CD sales, downloads, concert tickets, and merch sales are all falling. I made an intense, albeit anecdotal survey of our artists, other management’s acts, indie labels and stores– and found a SERIOUS drop off over the last twelve months. This is a correction, folks, a contraction, a shake-out. This not an abstraction: fewer people will be making a living from music next year than this year. Maybe a lot fewer.

One thing I discovered was that CD sales at gigs, which often totaled, during recent years, in excess of $600/night for even a modest indie act, were not genuine indicators. In this way: by manning the table and talking up the fans who were buying, I discovered they were motivated mainly by a desire to support the artist– not because they were absolutely compelled to have the music. A Charity Buy! And after buying 4, 5, 6 or more cds at the artist’s shows over the years, and often buying repeats so they could give them to friends, these great folks are no longer buying. Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe they feel they’ve done their bit, and don’t need to keep carrying the artist– “let somebody else step up.” Maybe they’re just not buying cds anymore– yes, that era is most definitely ending. Or maybe it is just a turn of the wheel, and that behavior, of buying stuff at shows, for no particular reason other than exhaustion, is over.

Well, that is bad news for us who work with indie musicians. Add to that a depressed concert market and you have the makings of the demise of a form. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I only know it doesn’t look good.