This is the infamous performance of “Light My Fire” by The Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show in September of 1967.
Jim Morrison and the band had been asked by the producer of the Sullivan show, Bob Precht, to alter the lyrics of the song so as to eliminate the phrase “we couldn’t get much higher.” Sullivan’s sponsors didn’t dig the idea that the song’s lyrics might suggest drug use. The band agreed to change the lyrics but come show time Morrison sang the lyrics as originally written. As a result, The Doors were banned from ever again appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. As if it really mattered. The Doors were unstoppable and nothing, certainly not a TV variety show, was going to get in their way.
While The Doors banishment by Sullivan is an oft told tale, the video footage of the performance has only been available on the Internet in low quality truncated form. Here’s a good quality clip of the performance in full.
Bollywood special effects spectacular Endhiran is getting a lot of attention for its over-the-top action sequences but I found the musical numbers to be the most entertaining parts of the movie. With music by the fabulous A.R. Rahman and choreography by Prabhu Deva, Endhiran’s song and dance numbers are a high calorie feast for the eyes and ears. The musical sequences come out of nowhere and have little relationship to the plot of the movie, but in Bollywood it hardly matters. One of the more lavish numbers takes place in Machu Picchu which is totally baffling because there is no reference to Peru anywhere else in the film. For five minutes the movie suddenly shifts to Peru without explanation. Why? Because it looks awesome. No explanation needed. Goofy, surreal and silly, Endhiran is three hours of non-stop Bollywood insanity. Try to catch this one on the big screen in a theater with a good sound system.
Coming on like a mashup of Michael Jackson and Duran Duran videos with bits and pieces of Star Wars , The Terminator and Viva Las Vegas, the following clip will give you a taste of the pop culture explosion that is Endhiran. The song is “Arima Amira.”
One more Monkees-related post: a seldom-seen clip of them (sans Peter) performing “Nine Times Blue” in 1969 on The Johnny Cash Show. And let’s not forget that “The Man in Black” was born today in 1932.
Continuing on with my recent, rampant bout of middle-aged man Monkeemania, I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t post about Eric Lefcowitz’s fine new group biography, Monkee Business: The Revolutionary Made-for-TV Band. Author of a previous Monkees book, Lefcowitz was early on the curve that saw the Monkees’ reputation rehabilitated when MTV began screening the Pre-Fab Four’s antics to a new generation in the mid-80s. In 2011, decades after the fact, who really cares that they were a “manufactured” group when they left behind so much amazing music in their wake? In the context of today’s pop music, the concept is practically meaningless. It’s not like this held back the Spice Girls, NKOTB or Gorillaz, is it?
For Monkee Business, Eric Lefcowitz has expanded his earlier bio, The Monkees’ Tale, with additional information on the big money cottage industry that sprung up practically overnight to surround the project and the four over-whelmed young men at the heart of it. The fact is that the Monkess were a pop culture “product” that had an awful lot of money put behind it and it paid off handsomely. The Monkees generated unbelievable amounts of cash. Selling over 50 million records is not exactly a small accomplishment as Lefcowitz makes clear and it took something of a “machine” to make it happen (It’s also something that might attract the attention of the mob, as it reportedly did…). What I particularly like about the approach of looking at the business side of things when examining the phenomenon of the Monkees, is that it properly ascribes credit to the apparatus that made all of this great music possible, while the author also makes it plain to see that none of it ever would have worked in the first place sans the lucky accident of casting exactly these four guys and the charisma and the individual and collective talents of Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork.
[Try to imagine Stephen Stills in Peter Tork’s role or Neil Young wearing a wool cap playing “Mike” (or Frank Zappa for that matter!). Could say, Steve Marriott, have made a better “Davy”? It falls apart quickly doesn’t it? All I know is that I’m glad I was born into this universe and not a parallel one where the Monkees, exactly as we know and love them, never existed.]
Lefcowitz also pays careful attention to the roles that some major behind-the-scenes talent had on the success of The Monkees: Series creators Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider who would go on to make films like Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, and The Last Picture Show; the late millionaire music mogul Don Kirshner; Head’s co-writer/producer, a then-unknown Jack Nicholson; and of course the A-list songwriting talent who wrote for the Monkees like Neil Diamond, Carole King & Gerry Goffin, Harry Nilsson and Boyce & Hart and the studio musicians and producers who made their records so memorable, like Glen Campbell, the Wrecking Crew, Chip Douglas and others.
Along the way we also learn of the various other luminaries the Monkees’ orbits collided with, including The Beatles (who were big fans and threw the Pre-Fabs a party when they were in London) and Jimi Hendrix, who infamously opened for part of their first American tour. Lefcowitz also comes up with a few amusing anecdotes about drug use (well, Micky and Peter’s), over-inflated egos and the madness of being thrust into instant worldwide celebrity (Peter Tork would compose a newspaper editorial about this subject after the death of Michael Jackson). He also follows their post 1970 careers closely, whether together or apart, including the various reunion tours.
Eric Lefcowitz’s Monkee Business is a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading and if you suspect you might feel the same, well, you probably will too. There is a special collectible edition of Monkee Business with a die-cut cover containing Monkees “quarters” (yes, actual metal coins with the faces of Davy, Micky, Peter and Mike on them). Only 300 copies of this special limited edition have been manufactured and if you haven’t heard, Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork will be reforming for a UK tour soon.
Download a PDF file of two Monkee Business sample chapters here.
Below, minus Peter Tork, the remaining Monkees performing “Teardrop City” in 1969.
John Kowalski and Rian Trench formed Solar Bears in 2009, after they met at college. Their connection was a liking for world cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick, and science fiction. Their influences came from electronica, Death in Vegas, Primal Scream, and film composers like John Barry, John Carpenter, Ennio Morricone, George Delerue, Vangelis and Gorgio Moroder. All of which filters thru their work and tells you everything you need to know about their sound. Listening to Solar Bears is like listening to a beautiful and compelling soundtrack to a brilliant, cult sci-fi film:
...a mix of programming, acoustic instruments, synths and vintage tape machines. The freeform approach of their writing and recording lends itself to varying tones and colours. Tracks often have differing sound sources from each other creating a unique musical experience.
In September 2010, Solar Bears released their debut album She Was Coloured In. It was impressive stuff, a fabulous mix of sci-fi pop and pulsating soundscapes, which lead Obscure Sound to write:
...the duo are clearly masters of believable soundscapes, and their elaborate songwriting and production really go a long way in separating Solar Bears from the masses of atmospherically-dependent electronic artists.
..the very best stuff on She Was Coloured In manages to touch all the bases, using the low-key moments for atmosphere and juicing them up with stylish genre tweaks. “She Was Coloured In” pulses with a progged-out, psychedelic energy, while “Crystalline (Be Again)” is a delicate club jam that oozes late-era New Order. Highlight “Dolls” ambitiously drags bleary, wistful keys and strings through an epically aggressive trip-hop suite, followed by an anthemic final act. In these moments, She Was Coloured In really pops; the mysteries of the universe as imagined in a pulp novel seem to come into focus.
It’s a fine album and Solar Bears are well worth getting to know, so here for your edification and delight are a selection of their tracks, some of which have been married to clips from the films The Planet of the Apes, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain and Fantastic Planet. Enjoy.
The artist Mark Rothko died today on the 25th February 1970. His body was found in his studio by his assistant. He had ingested an overdose of barbiturates and had slashed an artery on his right arm. He lay in a sticky pool of blood, dressed in white long-johns and black socks. Rothko was sixty-six. He had been suffering from depression, and had also been diagnosed with a mild aortic aneurysm.
His death increased the value of his paintings overnight - the price nearly doubled. More interestingly, his death led to legal suit by his children against his gallery and the executors of his estate.
The trial revealed that Rothko’s dealers, the Marlborough Gallery, and his executors had conspired to “waste the assets” and defraud his children out of their rightful share of their father’s estate. It was also found the gallery had deliberately stockpiled and undervalued Rothko’s paintings for years, with the intention of selling them at an increased value after his death. The Marlborough had purchased “one group of 100 paintings for just $1.8million, a sum it would pay over 12 years and with no interest, with a down-payment of only $200,000.” The total assets of 798 paintings were worth a minimum of $32million.
In 1975, the defendants were found liable for “negligence and a conflict of interest”. They were removed as executors of the Rothko estate, by court order, and, together with the Marlborough Gallery, required to pay a $9.2 million damages to the estate. Sounds a lot, but not much when compared to the value Rothko’s paintings have since attained - his 1954 painting, Homage to Matisse sold in 2005 for $22.4million, while his 1950 White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), sold for a record $72.8 million
Simon Schama’s excellent documentary on Rothko starts off with Schama’s own epiphany when first seeing the artist’s paintings:
“One morning in the spring of 1970, I went into the Tate Gallery and took a wrong, right turn and there they were, lying in wait. No it wasn’t love at first site. Rothko had insisted that the lighting be kept almost pretentiously low. It was like going into the cinema, expectation in the dimness.
Something in there was throbbing steadily, pulsing like the inside of a body part, all crimson and purple. I felt I was being pulled through those black lines to some mysterious place in the universe.
Rothko said his paintings begin an unknown adventure into an unknown space. I wasn’t sure where that was and whether I wanted to go. I only know I had no choice and that the destination might not exactly be a picnic, but I got it all wrong that morning in 1970. I thought a visit to the Seagram Paintings would be like a trip to the cemetary of abstraction - all dutiful reverence, a dead end.
Everything Rothko did to these paintings - the column-like forms suggested rather than drawn and the loose stainings - were all meant to make the surface ambiguous, porous, perhaps softly penetrable. A space that might be where we came from or where we will end up.
They’re not meant to keep us out, but to embrace us; from an artist whose highest compliment was to call you a human being.”
Schama is a cultured story-teller, who has a great enthusiasm for his subject, and he fully appreciates the value of the small tale by which an artist’s life can be apprehended. One particular sequence, highlights the irony of how Rothko, who famously removed his paintings from a swanky Four Seasons restaurant at the Seagram Building, in New York, because:
“Anybody who would eat that kind of food, for that kind of money, will never look at a painting of mine.”
has become the center of such phenomenal financial speculation.
Lately I’ve been really intrigued by LA-based teen hip hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (or Odd Future for short) and I’ve been going back and checking out their musical output and videos. Odd Future is like the collective id of 4chan set to a beat. As a longtime watcher/commentator on underground culture, I’m thrilled to report that—finally, at long last—there is actually some truly rebellious music being created again by young people. Something as insane, nihilistic and as thrilling as punk rock was for me when I was a kid. I’m not saying I completely understand their appeal or that I necessarily relate to what the members of Odd Future are rapping about, but then again, I’m a married 45-year-old white guy and I don’t think the teenagers in Odd Future give a flying fuck what I think. Or what you or anybody else thinks, for that matter. Nor should they. They’re teenagers.
The kids in this scene are both media savvy and fearless in the extreme—not unlike the Jackass crew, who they have a fair amount in common with, as you’ll see. With the goal being to create a viral YouTube clip, this really is a brilliant example of how you would go about topping what has come before you. This video, “Earl,” features Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt (who was 16-years-old when this was made) and friends drinking something nasty and getting way fucked-up, going skateboarding, pulling off their fingernails, vomiting, spitting blood and pulling their own teeth out. You think I’m joking? Hit play.
A lot of you will probably watch this video with shock and disgust, but before you condemn their artform, keep in mind that the object of this video WAS to shock and disgust folks like you! (Pasolini didn’t exactly make Salo to entertain people, either). More than that, it was made to thrill Odd Future’s fanbase and that it does. If you ask me, their artistic strategy is right on the money—Were you a little shocked? Check. A little upset? Check—and 100% successful in delivering on what it promises in extremely NSFW amounts! Say what you like about this video, young Mr. Sweatshirt and co. certainly have the courage of their convictions, whatever these convictions… may be… Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All are the honey badger of hip hop and as we all know, honey badger don’t give a shit.
Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All are booked to play this year’s Coachella Festival but it’s up in the air if Earl Sweatshirt, currently doing time in some sort of “boot camp” for juvenile offenders, will be able to join them. With the lame line-up this year, Odd Future’s set should get loads of attention. I suspect they’re going to go all out, but how do you top something like this? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
