Led Zeppelin used to park themselves in big city hotels (New York, LA, Chicago, Dallas) and then fly in and out of the smaller cities and back that same night, ferried to and fro between hotels, airports and concert halls via a squadron of limousines.

“The Starship,” as the former United Airlines Boeing 720 passenger jet was re-dubbed by its owners (Ward Sylvester and pop singer Bobby Sherman) had been modified at the cost of nearly a quarter of a million dollars, with the intention of renting it out to touring super-groups. Swivel chairs, a bar, and a 3/4” Sony U-matic videocassette player and TV were installed (The plane’s library contained films ranging from Deep Throat to the Marx Brothers), and a bedroom, for “privacy” was built into the back of the plane. Shag carpeting, champagne, the Starship had it all, even President Nixon’s Air Force One didn’t compare. There were two stewardesses on the plane and it cost $2500 an hour to run.

John Bonham was once rumored to have flown the jet from Los Angeles to New York. Legend also has it that he once drunkenly tried to open the jet’s hatch to take a pee while the plane was flying over Kansas City…

Having your own private jet these days, no big deal. Back in 1973, only demi-gods owned them…
 

Page and Plant on-board.
 

A fireplace?
 

Robert Plant and groupie Audrey Hamilton, the inspiration for “Hot Dog.”
 

Robert Plant and Zeppelin’s tour manager, Richard Cole, enjoy a quiet moment in the Starship’s master bedroom.
 

Jimmy Page chatting with one of the stewardesses.
 

John Paul Jones plays the Hammond organ built into the bar, as Atlantic Records head honcho Ahmet Ertegun looks on.
 

Audrey Hamilton, this time with Jimmy Page. Apparently John Paul Jones loathed her.
 

The Starship’s exterior.
 
Footage shot inside Led Zeppelin’s Starship…  

 
It seems unlikely that anyone even slightly familiar with American punk would need an introduction to the legendary iconoclast Jello Biafra. From his days as the brains, conscience and leader of the notorious and incendiary leftist punks Dead Kennedys, to his lengthy string of superb collaborative albums, to his politically charged spoken word performances, to his most recent work with The Guantanamo School of Medicine, Biafra (born Eric Boucher) has left a bigger stain on American counterculture than most. Unrepentantly opinionated (and to my reckoning, usually dead-on correct), Biafra can typically be heard issuing proclamations in a strident cadence that rings of Fred Schneider trying to imitate Mark E. Smith. Which was why it was actually quite refreshing to see this interview in Denver’s alt-weekly WestWord, wherein Biafra’s focus isn’t on politics, but rather a remembrance of his youth as a new initiate into the punk scene in his hometown of Boulder, CO. His journey to venerated counterculture elder statesman began with a stint as a hanger-on and later roadie for a The Ravers - a little-remembered band that later found much wider recognition under the name The Nails - which led to his ultimate Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment: seeing the Ramones in concert.

As far as I know, [The Ravers were] Colorado’s first punk band and one of the very first anywhere. It was more rooted in ‘60s garage than it was in Ramones or Sex Pistols and still an important part of my life and many other people’s. I’d been reading Marc Campbell’s reviews in the Colorado Daily, and he was much more brash and up front about what he liked and didn’t like.

So he was memorable instantly. Later, I found out he was the singer in the Ravers. They kind of centered around the old basement location on Broadway of Trade A Tape and Records in Boulder where I got a lot of my vinyl. They rehearsed in a back room and Rick Scott, one of the clerks there, was their manager.

Word got around, probably through Rick, that the Ramones were gonna come through Denver and play at Ebbets Field, opening for a major-label attemped flavor-of-the-month called Nite City. Ironically, it had to have Ray Manzarek and a pre-Blondie Nigel Harrison in it, among other people. It was an attempt at an instant FM rock hit, and the opening band was the Ramones.

So the handful of us who kind of knew who the Ramones were in the front row. Ebbets Field was a small, intimate place where everyone was expected to sit down. That’s what people did at concerts; everybody was supposed to sit down. Bill Graham would throw you out for dancing in San Francisco, and so would Barry Fey and Feyline security.

You undoubtedly know Rocky Mountain Low; Joseph Pope was one of the people in the front row with me. At the time, I didn’t really take the Ramones that seriously. I knew they rocked, but I would sit around playing the Ramones with my friends, and we would giggle at the lack of guitar solos and these boneheaded lyrics like “beat on the brat with a baseball bat” and “now I wanna sniff some glue.”

It had an impact enough to go down and see them. And out come these four, kinda degenerate looking guys in leather jackets—which is something you didn’t see very often then. One chord on Jonny’s guitar, and we knew it was going to be a louder than anyone of us were prepared for. We braced ourselves and instead of being goofy, the Ramones were one of the most powerful experiences of my entire life.

We were three feet from the stage and forced to sit down, of course. Not only were they really, really good, but half the fun was turning around and watching the Ebbets Field, country-rock glitterati, the guys with the neatly trimmed beards, Kenny Loggins-feathered hair and corduroy jackets, with patches on the elbows, as well as the cocaine cowboys and their women, with their 1920s suits with flowers, because that’s what Joni Mitchell was wearing at the time—they looked horrified. They had nowhere to go. Because Ebbets Field was so small, you couldn’t go hang out in the lobby because there wasn’t one. They just had to endure the Ramones.

It never would have occurred to me to try to go back stage and talk to the band. I didn’t know you could talk to rock bands. I was a wide-eyed teenager used to going to see arena rock at the Denver Coliseum or McNichols. At any rate, Joseph came back at one point and said, “Oh yeah, I was just back talking to The Ramones.” “What?! You can talk to the Ramones?”

That was the punk rock thing—we’re all from the same place. And that was the beauty of the live shows, too—my god, they’re so powerful, they’re so simple, anyone could do this. Shit, I could do this. Maybe I should. And that’s how it affected a lot of people in the room. The Ramones stayed an extra night and Ebbets Field let them headline, and the Ravers were going to open the show. Luckily, The Ravers needed what was then called “roadies.” So I me, Joe, Sam Spinner, and, I think, John Trujillo, were anointed “the roadies” on the spot.

Suddenly I thought, “All you people who thought I was a loser in school, now I’m somebody. I’m a roadie for the Ravers!” That meant many good times at other Ravers shows like playing with the Nerves and the big one playing on the top floor of the ex-elementary school at 9th and Arapahoe. Which was Driver which became The Nightflames and the Front.

By the way, if you’re curious about that Ray Manzarek/Nigel Harrison band Biafra mentions, I don’t recommend you trouble yourself with finding it, it’s horrible, horrible stuff.

Regular readers of this blog may have recognized that the Marc Campbell mentioned in the interview is Dangerous Minds’ own. I actually didn’t - DM‘s poo-bah Richard Metzger pointed it out to me. This, young aspiring writers, is why we have editors. Marc had this to add to Jello’s reminiscences:

The Ramones were traveling with a woman (Johnny’s girlfriend I think). She was dressed in fish nets and leather mini-skirt and reading a Nazi torture porn novel something like “Ilsa, She Wolf Of The SS.” Totally silent. Dee Dee kept talking about how scary it was flying so close to the Rocky Mountains. An animated goofball full of manic energy. Joey, Johnny and Tommy didn’t talk much. They were intimidating. All theater, seamless and perfect.

The Ramones’ show at Ebbet’s Field was a religious experience for me. Perhaps the most important rock show of my life in that it solidly re-connected me to what I loved about the music and made me want to continue playing it. Months later, The Ravers were on their way to Manhattan and CBGB and Max’s. Eric helped load up the van and saw us off. He was too young to make the trip with us, or at least his parents thought so. I think I remember him waving bye as we sped toward our destiny. But that may be the movie version. Jello will have to correct me if I’m wrong.

For a look at what that Colorado kid evolved into, enjoy “Sing Along with the Dead Kennedys,” a bonus feature from the Dead Kennedys - The Early Years Live DVD.
 

 
Me, I’m all about creating “new traditions,” so can we add this cute animated ode to synthesizers to our yearly holiday viewing? My Christmas wishes were always full of DEVO and New Order!
 

 
There was, for slightly better than a decade, a “golden era” of insanely decadent, yet terribly smart and sophisticated New York City nightlife. For sake of argument, let’s say it began with Studio 54 opening in 1977 and ended in the late 80s due to several factors, including AIDS, the invasion of the “club kids” and the general financial difficulties of operating anything requiring significant amounts of space in such an expensive city. Some (arguably most) of it happened before my time, but I did get to personally experience a lot of it. When I was younger, I went out just about every single night. I felt like if I stayed in, I might miss something. At the time, this was most certainly true and I made it a point to try to cram in as many crazy experiences as I could. Quite successfully, I might add…

Although I can’t say that it was personally my favorite nightclub (the Danceteria was more what I was into, with hot girls my own age), I would have to say that AREA was probably the best or greatest New York club of the 80s, at least in my experience. Every six weeks, a team of about 30 artists and carpenters would work around the clock to ready the club for the opening of a new and quite elaborate artistic “theme” like “Red” or “Confinement” or “Suburbia.” To get across what a spectacularly mind-bending and magical place it was, here’s what I saw there, with my own eyes, coincidentally on my very, very first night as a “real” New Yorker:

I arrived in New York City in late November of 1984. After setting myself up in a (surprisingly decent) $50 a night hotel, I scanned the Village Voice for something fun to do, before deciding to go to the Danceteria. Not quite understanding what was the appropriate time to show up at a Manhattan hot spot at that age (I had just turned 19 and was in fact too young to even be there legally) I arrived too early, before practically anyone else had shown up. I sat on a couch and watched Soft Cell videos as the bar staff set up for the evening. Soon I was joined by a couple about my age—a sharp-dressed black guy and his blonde Swedish girlfriend. We struck up a friendly conversation and he revealed to me that he had cocaine—about a kilo’s worth—and did I want any? The answer to that was a resounding “Yes!” and he used a NyQuil cup to scoop out at least an eight-ball from a big ZipLoc bag and just handed it to me.

So this is New York, huh? I think I like it already!

Soon we were joined by another pair of early birds, future “club kid murderer” Michael Alig—then a first year student at Fordham University in the Bronx—and a female friend. They, too, were offered some a lot of coke, accepted gladly, and Michael (who was later played by Macaulay Culkin in Party Monster) asked if we were planning to attend the opening night of AREA‘s “Faith” theme later?
 

 
I’d just gotten to town and had never even heard of the place. He insisted that he had the pull to get us all in for free, and that it was going to be amazing, so around midnight, we hopped into a cab to 157 Hudson Street, just below Canal, and disembarked into a teeming throng of people waiting to get in, waving their arms at the doormen, Day of the Locust style. True to his word, the sea of people parted and Michael got us all in for free (we were dressed weird so that helped), but as I was between the taxi and the door, I could see that there was a procession coming down the street, carrying a man on a cross with arrows—in my mind they were flaming arrows—in his stomach, like St. Sebastian. It was attention grabbing, I can assure you.
 

 
As you entered AREA, there was an impressive castle-like stone hallway, with windows on the right-hand side like you might see in a department store, but with works of art, displays, people, animals, performance art and all manner of things going on inside them. Soon the crucified guy was being carried down the hallway before he was ultimately deposited upright into a shark pool in the lounge. AREA‘s “Faith” theme saw the entire nightclub transformed into a gigantic gallery of campy religious iconography and spiritual irreverence (The bathrooms, notoriously unisex, I recall having video monitors with the Pope, Jim Jones and Jerry Falwell over the urinals at eye-level).
 

 
Utterly astonishing to me, Andy Warhol was there. Michael asked “Oh, do you want to meet Andy?” I said “Sure!” and he promptly pushed me at the great artist, from behind, as HARD as he could, with both arms. So hard that I nearly knocked Andy Warhol on his ass. (Luckily for me, Warhol had seen what had happened and directed his annoyance at Michael and not at me, so I was able to slink away, mortified, and move to another part of the club.)
 

 
The crowd AREA attracted was eclectic, to say the least. You had the freaks, the beautiful people, the up-and-comers, the semi-famous, the very famous, the very wealthy, fashionistas, artists, gallerists, professional liggers and hanger-oners, art students, rich Europeans, frat boy Wall Street-types (the ones who actually paid to get in and for their drinks) and just about any type of human being you can imagine, really. It was the sort of place where you could look around the room and see Joan Rivers, the B-52s, Boy George, Allen Ginsberg, Billy Idol, members of the Psychedelic Furs or Duran Duran, John Waters, John Sex, Ann Magnuson, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Byrne, Malcolm McClaren, Lauren Hutton, Matt Dillon, Federico Fellini, Barbara Walters, Peter Beard, Michael Anderson (the dwarf from Twin Peaks), Nile Rodgers, Stephen Sprouse, Steven Meisel, transsexual model Teri Toye, Calvin Klein, Sting,  etc, etc, etc, all potentially on the very same night. Their opening parties, especially, were not to be missed under any circumstances. Everyone in attendance knew there was no cooler place to be that night anywhere else in all of Manhattan, if not the entire planet.
 

 
It was an extraordinary nightclub for an extraordinary time in New York’s history. The city was a wild, creative and dangerous (define that how you will) place then. AREA was a reflection of the best of what the city had to offer, a place where uptown wealth met downtown chic. It’s one of the longest-running, most brilliantly realized art projects—one pulled off by a small army of weirdos (many of AREA‘s hardworking artists were junkies), visionaries and money men—probably, I don’t know… ever. That they were able to sustain it for so long, night after night, theme after theme at such a high level creatively and then go out while they were on top makes it seem all the more remarkable.
 

 
But as an art form, a party, no matter how legendary it becomes in the minds of the people who were there, is still a very ephemeral thing. Aside from memories, there are only photographs, videos and mementos left (AREA was well-known for their elaborate invitations. How I wish I’d have kept mine!). The multi-leveled social/artistic/business genius that was AREA has now been commemorated in what I’d rank as perhaps the very best art/art history book of the year. If you were there, Abrams’s AREA: 1983-1987 is a must and chances are that you already own it. If you weren’t there, it’s fascinating record of an amazing, once in a lifetime scene that will hopefully inspire some new crew to take on something this elaborate again one day. It’s a book with a cult audience, to be sure, but a cult audience that will absolutely treasure it.
 

 
Put together by AREA‘s Eric and Jennifer Goode, with an introduction by Glenn O’Brien, principal text by Stephen Saban (beyond a doubt the very best person for the job) and the photography of Volker Hinz, Ben Buchanan, Patrick McMullan, Wolfgang Wesener, Michael Halsband, Dana Buckley and others. On every level, I’d rate this publication a perfect 100/100, as a book (in literary, historical sense) and as a beautifully designed object.

More photos of AREA here.

Below, this John Sex video, “Hustle With My Muscle,” directed by the late Tom Rubnitz, is one of the few examples I can find of inside AREA on YouTube. The theme at this time would have been “American Highway” in 1986. Sadly, you really can’t get a sense of the size of the club from what you see here.
 

 
If you don’t know about it, the Mormon Church has a curious habit (tradition? doctrine? what would it be called?) of baptizing dead people as Mormons posthumously. In other words, they get “saved”—like it or not—after death. Apparently baptizing famous people became a bit of a “fad” in the 1990s.

Believe if or not, infamously outspoken hater of religion George Carlin is now, that’s right, a Mormon in the afterlife. I’m sure this will be news to him. (Can you imagine his reaction???)

Name: GEORGE DENIS PATRICK CARLIN
Gender: Male
Birth: 12 May 1937 Manhattan, New York County, New York, United States
Death: 22 June 2008 Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California, United States

Individual Ordinances

Baptism Completed, 14 August 2010, Columbia South Carolina Temple

Confirmation Completed, 26 August 2010, Provo Utah Temple

Initiatory Completed, 8 September 2010, Jordan River Utah Temple

Endowment Ready

Mormon temples across America have also claimed The Breakfast Club director John Hughes, sportscaster Harry “Holy Cow!” Caray, Nancy Spungen, Richard Burton, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, George Orwell, Jim Morrison, Tupac, Timothy Leary, Carl Sagan, Vlad the Impaler, Freddy Mercury and Truman Capote as their own. Here’s a head-scratcher: dead rapper and drug dealer Eazy-E is now a Mormon, too. Hilarious, but it made me wonder how a Mormon has even heard of Easy-E in the first place?

Would this be considered the Mormon equivalent to a prank? It’s so… Mormon I just can’t tell! Maybe they really are trying to “save” these folks and the only irony is what we non-believers might project onto this type of behavior? Who knows?

Jewish groups were outraged to find that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun appeared on LDS “genealogical” records. Heinrich Himmler’s name was also submitted for baptism.  In 1995 an agreement was made to “un-baptize” 300,000 Jewish names, many of them Holocaust victims. In 2008, after he secured the Democratic Party’s nomination, Barack Obama’s dead mother, Stanley Ann Dunham—who passed away in 1995—was baptized posthumously.

Apparently even Alexander the Great converted to Mormonism (twice) many centuries after his death in 323 BC.
 

 
“Libertarian feminist” Camille Paglia is getting press again, and every time Camille Paglia gets press, feminists are obliged to immediately declare their respective camps. There’s a camp that’s perpetually incensed with Paglia, a (dwindling) camp cheering her on, and then there’s my camp—the camp of feminists who hope that if we ignore her, she will simply go away.

To keep a very long story short, Camille Paglia just doesn’t really like women, preferring to decry her youngers, whilst simultaneously dismissing her foremothers. In fact, the only people she seems to really respect are men. Check out his charming excerpt from her latest essay in TIME, some lameass troll-bait titled, “It’s a Man’s World and it Always Will Be.”

Every day along the Delaware River in Philadelphia, one can watch the passage of vast oil tankers and towering cargo ships arriving from all over the world. These stately colossi are loaded, steered and off-loaded by men. The modern economy, with its vast production and distribution network, is a male epic, in which women have found a productive role — but women were not its author. Surely, modern women are strong enough now to give credit where credit is due!

If I may dust off an old chestnut, “Cool story, bro.”  I’m sure those noble icons of manly labor are all really pleased that some bullshit academic “feminist” wrote them a weird love letter in TIME. And the prose is downright Randian in its reverence.

Yes, as far as Paglia is concerned, no one else’s feminism is quite smart enough for her—a point which she’ll readily make to you with 9,000 words on post-structuralism and a libertarian tirade. Unfortunately, I work on the Internet, which prevents me from totally ignoring her, so maybe reminding everyone how terrible she is would make me feel better? Here’s a 1993 interview with Paglia where she acts like a sputtering, defensive fool when confronted with video evidence that her former idol, Susan Sontag, had never even heard of her (or was at least pretending not to).

There’s something sickeningly gratifying about seeing such an egotistical narcissist so miffed. And though I often find Susan Sontag’s work pretentious and politically unsound, the record of this moment alone is enough for me to want to defend her entire career. I have a sneaking suspicion that Sontag was probably in the “Let’s ignore her and maybe she’ll go away” camp. (Here’s Paglia’s meltdown.)
 

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: eBay listing is here.

I never thought I’d be blogging about shower curtains, but here I am blogging about shower curtains. Come on, you have to admit these shower curtains by NYC-based artist Glen Hanson are pretty damned spectacular, right?. I’d totally own that What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? one in a heartbeat.

I’ve selected a few of my favorites from his eBay listings at 99wooster. There are plenty more. All of ‘em have a “buy it now” for $125.00.
 

Grey Gardens: eBay listing is here. 
 

The Shining: Overlook Hotel shower curtain eBay listing here.
 
More after the jump…
 

 
David Chang, the culinary mastermind who created the Momofuku restaurant empire and elevated the stature of porkbelly buns in the hierarchy of tasty treats, has long been known as a Pavement junkie. He once named “Summer Babe” off of Slanted and Enchanted as his “ultimate side one, track one” (far be it for me to disagree!) and slotted Wowee Zowee in his top five Desert Island Discs (I’d go with Slanted, myself). When Pavement reunited in 2010, Chang flew down to Melbourne, Australia, so great was his excitement—he just couldn’t wait the extra six months it would take for the legendary indie-rock quintet to make it to New York City.
 

 
So it’s only understandable to realize that Chang is probably royally geeking out this week, thanks to the announcement a couple of days ago that one branch of his Momofuku Milk Bar (not sure which) will be unveiling a special Stephen Malkmus soft serve ice cream flavor in the new year (January 7, to be exact) to coincide with the release of a new Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks long-player called Wig Out at Jagbags. The flavor is called “Cinnamon and Lesbians,” after the album’s 11th track—for which there is a video! (See below.) It will not be a permanent addition to the menu.

Adding to the general artistic firepower involved in this soft-serve concoction, the flyer above was designed by Gary Panter, a comix artist who created a terrific book called Jimbo’s Inferno, which featured his signature character Jimbo, whom many knowledgeable people regard as perhaps the inspiration for a character named Bart Simpson. He also worked on Pee-wee’s Playhouse and did The Screamers’ logo.
 

 
Here’s the video for “Cinnamon and Lesbians.” It’s highly reminiscent of the Pavement videos of yore, which is definitely a good thing, and feels like an absurdist version of a Portlandia episode—it’s hard to dislike any song in which the singer admits, “I’ve been tripping my face off since breakfast!”
 

 
via Brooklyn Vegan

 
As a female reading this, it wasn’t immediately apparent to me what this reviewer was referring to.

I finally got it.

Via reddit

 
Like most audio gourmands, I love recommending music to friends. But while I’d like to think I give a fairly convincing endorsement of this jazz singer or that proto-punk band, I find many otherwise open-minded people possess a remarkably unyielding aversion to folk music. I’m not quite sure what it is. Almost no one would admit they’re too snobby for country. Conversely, they’d hate to be deemed a rube for a deficit in rap. But folks always seem to think folk is too… folksy. This is why I start them off with Canada’s own Stan Rogers.

First of all, Rogers had this brawny, thunderous voice—the kind of pipes that reassures the folk-unaffiliated that they aren’t about to drown in delicate acoustic guitar and fey vocals. Second of all, he’s most famous for his sea shanties, both traditional and original, and everyone loves a good sea shanty. Surprisingly, Rogers’ relationship with the maritime life was more rooted in the cultural identity of rural flight, rather than a life spent at sea.

Born in 1949, Stan Rogers was the son of former maritimers. Like many of their generation, Stan’s parents had been forced to move to an industrialized city in search of work. While he was raised in suburban Ontario, Rogers spent his summers in the sort of small towns his parents had to leave, falling in love with the sea as a sort of ancestral home. His most famous song is arguably his capella opus, “Northwest Passage,” a reverent reflection on the trials of early explorers as they endured (and sometimes perished) to navigate an ocean-route to the Pacific.
 

 
That’s not to say Rogers relegated his talents to the somber. “The Mary Ellen Carter” is the famously uplifting story of a crews’ attempt to salvage their sunken ship. There’s also my favorite, “Barrett’s Privateers,” a raucous cautionary tale for any wannabe seafarer. The video at the end of the post is an absolutely amazing live version—I cannot urge you enough to give it a listen.
 
Lest the romance tone and historical content of Rogers’ most famous songs lead you to believe he was merely infatuated with a bygone era, I assure you, the man was also a staunch champion of the working man with a sharp and sardonic proletariat wit. There’s “The Idiot,” a damn near bitter song, sung from the perspective of a factory worker avoiding his foreman and reminiscing on the country life he left behind. There’s a even a few explicit protest songs, most notably “Tiny Fish for Japan.” Stan was inspired to write that one after time aboard a fishing boat on the Great Lakes; while the fishing industry was once bountiful, the polluted waters were later only fished for tiny smelt, which was then sold to Japan.

In 1983, Air Canada Flight 797 caught fire mid-flight, forcing an emergency landing. Though the plain landed soundly, Stan Rogers was one of the 23 passengers who died when the doors opened and the sudden rush of oxygen fueled a flash fire. Before most likely succumbing to smoke inhalation, he used his last moments to guide other passengers to safety with his booming voice. I’ve heard more than one Canuck proudly declare that for all Rogers’ odes to Canada, he was never more Canadian than in his final words: “Let me help you.” His ashes were scattered off the coast of Nova Scotia.