Big Star’s original lineup. L-R: Andy Hummel, Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, and Jody Stephens.
 
Listen to the second part of my appearance on the Discograffiti podcast, reviewing the Big Star catalog, at the end of this article. Part one is here.

The following post was first published in 2018; it’s been lightly edited.

Being a big fan of Big Star, I was excited to receive an advance copy of the oral history book, There Was a Light: The Cosmic History of Chris Bell and the Rise of Big Star (HoZac Books). I started flipping through it and was immediately drawn to the story of the Baker Street Regulars. The band existed for a brief period in 1976, and featured two former members of Big Star, Chris Bell and Jody Stephens. Considering this was a seldom discussed part of the Big Star story, I asked HoZac Books if we could run the Baker Street Regulars passages in the book. They not only said “Yes,” but provided us with the majority of the images here—many of which have rarely been seen before. There Was a Light author, Rich Tupica, has even written an introduction just for us.
 

Chris Bell in Ardent Studios, pre-Big Star.

Often overshadowed by his iconic Big Star bandmate Alex Chilton, the genius of the late Chris Bell wasn’t truly uncovered until years after he was tragically killed in a car wreck in December 1978. The 27-year old remained in obscurity until 1992, when I Am the Cosmos, his posthumously released solo album was finally released to much praise.

Today, Beck and Wilco cover the enigmatic songwriter’s works, while members of R.E.M. still praise his work when asked about their favorite bands—yet at the time of his death, Bell was anything but a rock ’n roll legend. After the release of 1972’s #1 Record, Big Star’s debut LP on Ardent/Stax Records, Chris suffered a bout a clinical depression and heatedly exited the Memphis-based group—the band he masterminded from the ground up. He also had a falling out with Ardent Studios owner and Big Star producer John Fry. His life was in shambles and he realized his dream of breaking Big Star into the mainstream wasn’t going to happen.

 

Big Star in Alex Chilton’s bedroom, posing for a ‘#1 Record’ promo photo. (Courtesy of Carole Manning)

With Bell out of the picture, Alex Chilton and John Fry took the reins and kept Big Star going for two more equally acclaimed albums, Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers—but with little financial successes, the band fully dissolved.

Meanwhile, Bell not only became a devout born again Christian, he also attempted to launch a solo career. He even moved to London with his older brother David Bell for much of 1975 and pitched his reels of solo material to any A&R rep who’d meet with them. They were ultimately turned down by every label. By 1976, America’s Bicentennial, Chris was back in Memphis living at his parent’s upper-class estate in Germantown.

For money, Bell flipped burgers at his successful father’s fast food chain, while in the evenings he played as a sideman guitar slinger alongside fellow Memphians Van Duren in a short-lived band called the Baker Street Regulars. The band would never record a single track, but its short list of dates at low key Memphis bars would be the only time a full band would ever play Chris Bell’s solo material in front of an audience.

 

Chris Bell on stage during a Baker Street Regulars gig. (Courtesy of Van Duren)

The following excerpt is a portion of Chapter 20 from There Was a Light: The Cosmic History of Chris Bell and the Rise of Big Star (HoZac Books), which details this period of Bell’s life.

Chapter 20: Baker Street Regulars: 1976
Within weeks of his return from England, Chris connected with Van Duren and promptly formed the Baker Street Regulars—a Memphis-based bar band named after the Sherlock Holmes characters. The group—which also comprised former Big Star drummer Jody Stephens and guitarist Mike Brignardello—played Van’s and Chris’s original tunes along with some semi-obscure covers. For the first time since his pre-Big Star days, Chris played music just for fun.

Mike Brignardello — Bassist, Baker Street Regulars, Nashville session player: I grew up in Memphis, then hit the road immediately after high school in the early ’70s. I was in a little club band and learning about being a musician, then I came back in the mid-’70s. Big Star had come and gone in my absence, but I heard about them when I got back. They were local heroes, already a semi-cult band. One of the first guys I met when I came back to Memphis was Van Duren. We hit it off and started playing together. He was the guy who hooked us up with Chris and Jody.

Van Duren — Musician, songwriter, solo, Baker Street Regulars: The Baker Street Regulars was the name when the band first started—Chris thought of it. In December of ’75, we started to get together and rehearse, but we had been kicking around the idea of forming a band for months before that. The first time I went out to the Bells’ house, Jody took me over there for our first rehearsal. We turn off down this street and it turned into this winding driveway. You couldn’t even see the house from the street, the property was so huge.

 

Chris Bell poses in front of his parents’ home, Christmas 1977. (Courtesy of Bell Family Archive)

Mike Brignardello: Chris lived in, to my eyes—at least back in the day—a full-blown mansion. I remember turning down the driveway and driving, and driving, and driving and thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me! He lives on this estate?” I had grown up as a poor kid in Memphis. He had us set up and play in the living room because his parents were overseas for like a month. I was like, “Who goes overseas for a month?”

Van Duren: Chris was different, obviously upper crust. I come from a blue-collar background, so that was a new world for me. He was from privilege and he acted that way sometimes, but he could also be quite humble. He always had a twinkle in his eye, much like Alex in a way. Sometimes you couldn’t tell if he was putting you on or being serious.

Mike Brignardello: We practiced in a corrugated-metal storage room—it wasn’t insulated or anything like that. We’d just roll the door up on hot, humid Memphis days and rehearse. My girlfriend got that photo of us in there. I thought it perfectly summed up where we were at. We were hungry to play. We sweat through those rehearsals.

 

The Baker Street Regulars in the metal storage unit. L-R: Chris Bell, Mike Brignardello, Jody Stephens, and Van Duren. (Courtesy of Beverly Baxter Ross)

Van Duren: It was pretty miserable in that twenty-foot-by-ten-foot mini storage—those things were brand-new in 1976. It was on Lamar Avenue and was the first of its kind in Memphis. One day, Chris showed up two hours late for rehearsal out there. He walks in wearing these tennis togs with the sweater wrapped around his neck and says, “Sorry I’m late, Tommy Hoehn and I had a vision on the tennis courts.” I didn’t know if it had to do with his religious beliefs, or if I was supposed to take him seriously or not. I was a little bent out of shape, but I just laughed when he said that. It wasn’t the first or the last time he was late. He operated on Chris time. Even so, by January of ’76, we were out playing.

The Baker Street Regulars landed shows at now-defunct venues, like Aligahpo’s on Highland Street by the University of Memphis, Procapé Gardens in Midtown on Madison, and the High Cotton Club, just south of Overton Square.

Van Duren: We played those three clubs about three times each, but the first gig was in the springtime in Oxford, Mississippi at Ole Miss at a fraternity party. We did originals and some cover material—but the covers were Beatles, Bee Gees and a lot of fairly obscure things at the time, like Todd Rundgren. We played things nobody had picked up on yet, especially in Mississippi. We threw in my songs, some Big Star songs and a few of Chris’s songs. We’d do “I Am the Cosmos,” “Make a Scene” and “Fight at the Table.” We learned Chris’s songs by listening to what he was calling demos—what later emerged as his solo album. It was a wonderful experience, even though when we played gigs we were pretty much ignored. That’s probably why we didn’t play much in the six months we were together.

 
Continues after the jump…

 
I’m the guest on the latest episode of the fabulous Discograffiti podcast discussing the work of ‘70s cult band, Big Star. Host Dave Gebroe and I recently had a splendid chat about the group, and the conversation was so epic it’s been divided into two parts. Check out the first installment at the conclusion of this post.

While I love all three of the Big Star albums released in the 1970s, I’ve always had a soft spot for Radio City. It’s the first one I bought, and I instantly fell for the tight-yet-loose, catchy rock ‘n’ roll embedded in the LP’s grooves. Years after becoming a huge fan of the band, I was surprised to discover that three of the songs on Radio City aren’t really Big Star at all.

The Dolby Fuckers were a studio project that consisted of Big Star’s Alex Chilton, drummer Richard Rosebrough, and bassist Danny Jones. Chilton and Rosebrough first met back when the former was fronting the Box Tops, and at the time of the recordings Rosebrough was working full-time as an engineer at Ardent Studios. Jones, a local musician, roomed with Chilton after Alex’s marriage fell apart.

There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the Dolby Fuckers tracks, but one thing is for sure—no one remembers, exactly, when they were recorded. It seems most likely that the sessions took place during the months-long stretch in 1973 when Big Star were inactive. After they played a series of January shows at Lafayette’s Music Room in Memphis, which were Big Star’s first public performances following the departure of Chris Bell in late 1972, the group effectively went on hiatus. They reconvened for a now legendary concert at the first and only Rock Writers’ Convention, held on May 25-26 at Lafayette’s. The band received such a positive response from notables like Lester Bangs, Nick Tosches, and a teenage Cameron Crowe, that they decided to keep Big Star going. In the fall of 1973, the group went into Ardent to cut what would become Radio City.
 

Big Star: Jody Stephens, Andy Hummel, and Alex Chilton in the William Eggleston photo that appears on the back cover of ‘Radio City.’

Here’s Richard Rosebrough on the wild late night sessions at Ardent that produced two of the songs that wound up on Radio City—“She’s a Mover” and “Mod Lang”:

The Dolby Fuckers were just some sessions we did. There was a period when I was hanging out with Alex and I may have been working all day, then we’d meet at the bar later that night. The bar was just two doors down from the studio and we’d go in the studio at 2 a.m. and just start going crazy and making these recordings…Alex at that point was starting to fall into chaos. It got to be anything could happen. (from Big Star’s Radio City (33 1/3))

 

Richard Rosebrough.

A third Dolby Fuckers track, “What’s Goin’ Ahn,” was recorded during a formal Chilton session at Ardent. 

Big Star recorded everything in their arsenal for Radio City, but it wasn’t enough for a full LP, so the Dolby Fuckers tracks were added to round out the record. The only information on the album related to the Chilton-led project is this credit: “Danny Jones and Richard Rosebrough played too.”

The British Invasion-sounding “She’s a Mover” is probably the oldest track on Radio City, possibly dating as far back as mid-to-late 1972. The looseness of the evening it was captured in is preserved in the recording, which ends with a jam. The odd feedback sounds came from waving a pair of headphones over a microphone. Andy Hummel later overdubbed a bass part, so he’s on the final version. Big Star took a stab at the song, but their rendering was shelved, as it was felt it didn’t have the spirit of the Dolby Fuckers’ take.
 

 
Chilton was reportedly so pleased with how “She’s a Mover” turned out that he booked a session at Ardent with Rosebrough and Jones. The result was the achingly lovely “What’s Goin’ Ahn.” The song was written by Hummel and Chilton in Alex’s bedroom, many moons before Radio City was conceived.
 

 
The rocker “Mod Lang,” credited to Chilton and Rosebrough, comes from another debaucherous evening session at Ardent. Its title is an abbreviation for “Modern Languages,” a Memphis State department. Chilton later admitted he stole the lyrics from a bunch of old blues songs.
 

 
Despite the fact that they aren’t actually Big Star songs, the Dolby Fuckers recordings fit seamlessly with the rest of the tracks, contributing to the album’s greatness.

And where to they get “Dolby Fuckers” from anyway? During one of the sessions, Alex, wondering what the point of Dolby Noise Reduction was, asked Richard, “What’s this Dolby fucker do?” Needing a way to label the recordings, that’s the name they wrote on the tape boxes.

As with #1 Record, Radio City (released in early 1974), wasn’t properly distributed, playing a large role in its failure. Their final LP, Third (a/k/a Sister Lovers), is comprised of material taken from a Chilton/Stephens project. Released years after it was recorded, it’s a Big Star album in name only.

On April 25th, 1993, Chilton and Stephens reunited, along with Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, for the first Big Star show in nearly two decades. From that gig, here they are, playing the majestic Radio City track “September Gurls.”
 

 
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George Miller’s marionette studio in Glasgow.
 
George Miller aka Kaiser George is an artist, musician, and leader of the cult band The Kaisers—hence the moniker Kaiser George.

Miller is also the talent behind KGM Marionettes - the home of quality rock ‘n’ roll and R ‘n’ B pop merchandise. Two years ago, Dangerous Minds introduced you Miller’s marvellous marionettes, prints, and trading cards. Since then, Miller has expanded KGM’s output to include some British rock ‘n’ roll legends like Johnny Kidd and Wee Willie Harris and more famous ones like the Rolling Stones.

Miller’s work is more than just fun. It is culturally important artwork which brings the joys of the Golden Age of rock ‘n’ roll and some of its greatest (though often neglected) stars to the Spotify generation.

What have you been working on since last we spoke?

George Miller: Initially the plan was to make a Top Trumps style card set, so the puppet making went into overdrive for quite a while in order to have enough cards for the game to work properly. The String Stars set featured only stars from the US, but we made the decision to include some of the more notable UK artists, which meant a fair bit more work, but good fun nonetheless. Johnny Kidd was particularly enjoyable to make and think I may have the only Wee Willie Harris marionette in the world, but I’d love to be wrong about that.

We now have enough characters for the Top Trumps style set, but that particular project has been put on hold for now, meaning I have a cupboard full of idle puppets, but they’ll be put to work eventually.

What has the response been to your marionettes and KGM merchandise?

GM: The response has been incredibly positive to the point where I feel I have to keep making the marionettes for as long as is humanly possible. Reading the comments folk put on Facebook and seeing the photographs of KGM merchandise on display in their homes is a real thrill. People really do seem to love the puppets and the merchandise, which makes all of us at KGM feel mighty good.

The puppets have been featured in a few national newspapers and a chap by the name of Austin Vince came to Glasgow to make a short documentary which will be shown at the Adventure Travel Film Festival in the Cotswolds in August. I’ll be there to give a kind of ‘Confessions of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Puppet Maker’ talk.

I was also asked to make a marionette of the artist John Byrne for his foundation’s charity auction, which I was delighted to do as I’m a big fan and he’s a brilliant subject for sculpting. Also he was a Teddy Boy in the 1950s, which makes me like him even more.
 

Playwright (‘The Slab Boys’) and artist John Byrne who is also known for his album covers for the Beatles, Donovan, Stealer’s Wheel, and Gerry Rafferty.
 
GM: The KGM team got pretty excited when the new owners of Sun Records asked us if we could make a bubble gum card set of Sun artists, but unfortunately US image copyright law scuppered the project. Thank goodness we don’t have that in this country.

What new wonders have you for sale and are working on?

Currently we are still selling the original String Stars card set, plus greetings cards/post cards and also ‘String Stars Stand-ups’ which are cardboard cut-out figures of a select few of the marionettes - in full colour and attractively packaged, folks.

The current major KGM project features five young men you may not want your daughter to marry.
 

KGM Cards: The Rolling Stones.
 
Ah, the Stones! Tell me about the Rolling Stones marionettes and what your plans are for them. Why the studio? why the van?

GM: The Rolling Stones marionettes have rather elbowed the Top Trumps project out of the way, which seems apt somehow. I thought it would be fun to do a band for a change and the Stones seemed the perfect choice, given that they all have tremendous facial features and also it was an interesting challenge to try to capture their ‘bad boy attitude’ while retaining enough toy-like charm to make people smile.

When they were completed and dressed in Ursula [Cleary]‘s wonderful outfits, they seemed so alive that we decided we just had to do a bubble gum card set, similar to the A&BC Stones set from 1965. The set will take the form of a loose visual narrative based on a typically busy day in the life of a successful British R & B group, in which they cram in a photo shoot, TV appearance, recording session etc before a riotous gig in the evening. As with all the other KGM stuff, it’s basically an art project masquerading as pastiche pop memorabilia. It feels like we’re somehow giving the concept of celebrity an inquisitive poke with a reasonably sharp stick.

Naturally, we have no desire to infringe anybody’s copyright, so the set will be called simply ‘England’s Newest Hitmakers’ and it’ll be up to the viewer to join the dots.
 

 

 
Because I love all of their albums so very much, it’s difficult for me to say which is my favorite Gun Club album—it’s Mother Juno, but just by a hair—and much easier to pick out my favorite Gun Club song. That would be “Walking with the Beast” from The Las Vegas Story.  (“Lupita Screams,” “Death Party” and “The Lie” run close behind.)

“Walking with the Beast” is a motherfucking motherfucker of a song. It grabs you by the throat and and shakes you until you are limp. Patricia Morrison’s rumbling bass, Kid Congo Powers’ feedback-driven power chords, and Terry Graham’s POUNDING drums almost attack the listener. It’s heavier than any heavy metal. For those of you reading this who have never had the pleasure, “Walking with the Beast” is simply the musical equivalent to looking up at the sky and realizing that a violent tornado is about to overtake you.

(I’d have embedded the song here, but YouTube currently lacks even a single upload of the studio version. I direct you then to your favorite streaming service. PLAY IT LOUD.)

When an album starts off that strong, you would think that it’s all downhill from there, but there’s one classic Gun Club winner after another, including two leftfield cover versions. At the start of side two, a skronky snippet of Pharoah Sanders’ “The Creator Was A Master Plan” segues into a plaintiff take on “My Man’s Gone Now,” the widow Serena’s aria from from George Gershwin’s classic opera Porgy and Bess. On paper, that shouldn’t work, but it does, spectacularly so.

I’ve bragged on this blog many times about seeing Gun Club live—one of the best, most exciting live shows I’ve ever seen in a long career of concert going—but what I didn’t realize until recently is that the band that I saw—Morrison, Graham, Kid Congo—didn’t last but a few more shows, when drummer Graham snuck out in the middle of the night and returned to America after discovering he wasn’t going to be paid for the tour. The incarnation of the Gun Club that recorded The Las Vegas Story, that everyone tends to see as the most iconic era of Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s revolving door of a band, lasted but a single year.

I got to see one of my all-time favorite bands, supporting one of my all-time favorite albums, but just by the skin of my teeth. Five days later Graham would leave the band, for the third and final time.

There is a new “super deluxe” release today of The Las Vegas Story on double vinyl and as a two CD set along with a DVD of “home movies” from some American tour dates of 1984 (shot by Terry Graham and his girlfriend) from Blixa Sounds.

I asked The Las Vegas Story‘s producer Jeff Eyrich some questions via email.

How did you get involved with the Gun Club?

I’m from L.A. and was aware of the band from the L.A. scene at that time — from working with (producing) the Plimsouls and the Blasters. I had never seen the Gun Club play live but I knew them by name, maybe heard a track or two on the radio. I got a call from Ron Faire who was a young A&R guy at Chrysalis records and he asked if I’d be interested in producing Gun Club — that he really didn’t understand or ‘get’ their music but that they sold a lot of records overseas. He added that the budget was minimal and that he’d like to get it done in 2 weeks,  start to finish. I was between projects at the time so I met with Jeffrey Lee and Kid Congo to get an idea of what they wanted to do, what the songs were — they played me some stuff on a cassette — I liked what I heard and I was impressed by how serious Jeffrey Lee was about his music, his vision, and how supportive Kid was about helping Jeffrey Lee see his vision through. I sensed that there was somewhat of a ‘risk’ factor involved but I was up for the challenge, especially given the budget and time constraints but I felt we could pull it off.

What was your take on Jeffrey Lee?

Jeffrey Lee was very serious about his music and he had a vision for the record… so much so that I felt that my role as producer on this project was basically to facilitate Jeffrey’s vision — for me to set the stage, make sure everybody was comfortable in the studio (sightlines were very important since this was a live band), that the sounds were happening right away so we could capture the spontaneity of the moment, and to keep things moving forward. We recorded the record at Ocean Way’s studio B. I mention ‘sightlines’ being crucial, as studio B is like two basketball courts side by side separated by a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. I had Terry and Patricia on one side and Jeffrey Lee and Kid Congo on the other. Jeffrey Lee and Kid had their amps turned up real loud.

We had one pre-production rehearsal that was somewhat chaotic but the one thing I took from it was how solid, simple and groovin’ Terry and Patricia were as a rhythm section. I knew from experience that whatever Jeffrey Lee and Kid did on top of that rhythm section we were going to have something that felt great.

What was he like to work with?

I found Jeffrey Lee, and everybody in the band — Terry, Patricia, and Kid Congo — very easy to work with… reasonable, communicative, respectful. No problems… on time… there to work and to make music.

What was the drug situation like in the studio?

I wasn’t aware of any drugs in the studio. The vibe in the studio was really good, the sounds happening (thank you mark ettel) — everything was happening so easily. Any drugs would’ve just fucked that up. That being said… I don’t do drugs and didn’t at that time so maybe I was just oblivious but nobody seemed drunk or stoned to me.

Did everyone realize at the time what a seminal album had been created?

I think that everybody was happy with the result and that everybody hoped for the best for the record — mission accomplished — on time and on budget. Maybe not the kind of record Chrysalis was adept at promoting, unfortunately. After I finished the mastering and turned the record in I was off to the next project — I believe it was T-bone Burnett’s Proof Through the Night— and I lost touch with the band.

But I remember about six months later running into the Gun Club in Paris — they were on tour over there — and they invited me to the show. I went and wound up mixing their sound that night. It was crazy, loud, and primal… but really good.
 

This performance was taped in Newcastle on October 19th, 1984 for ‘The Tube’ and is probably the best video representation of this short-lived classic Gun Club line-up
 

The new “super deluxe” expanded reissue includes a DVD of ‘1984 Home Movie: The Gun Club On The Road’

 
I just read the sad news that the great Irish vocalist Cathal Coughlan has died. The frontman of both Microdisney and Fatima Mansions was 61 and died in the hospital after what was described only as a long illness. He was one of the very finest vocalists of his generation.

I am a really huge fan of his music. Microdisney’s “Mrs. Simpson” is a desert island disc for me, and his unjustly ignored solo record Black River Falls is one of my top favorite albums of all time. (It’s the album I wish Scott Walker had made instead of Tilt. Yes, it’s really that good and you should go stream it now.)

During the course of the past few years, I’d become friendly with Cathal over email. Not that long ago I sent him a copy of Nico and Phillippe Garrel’s film La Cicatrice Intérieure, which he seemed highly amused by. We were planning to meet up in London in late Summer. Now that will never happen. I’m glad I got to tell him how much I love his music.

The world of music has lost a truly great talent. RIP Cathal Coughlan.
 

“Black River Falls”
 

“Payday”
 

“Witches in the Water”
 

“Are You Happy?”
 

“Mrs. Simpson”
 

“Singer’s Hampstead Home”
 

Microdisney on ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ in 1985, doing two of their best songs, “Loftholdingswood” and “Birthday Girl.”

 
The Leeds band Girls at Our Best! were only around for a couple of years in the early 1980s, but they left behind some solid tunes, including one of the finest songs from the post-punk era.

The story of GaOB! begins in 1977, when singer Judy Evans and guitarist James Alan met while attending art school. Alan was in a punk outfit called SOS, which Evans eventually joined. The group morphed into another act, the Butterflies, a purposefully pretty name that was a response to all the negative and/or nasty monikers from the punk period. The Butterflies got some notice and had at least one high profile fan in Sid Vicious, but broke up as the decade was coming to an end.
 

The cover of the first Girls at Our Best! single.

Evans and Alan started Girls at Our Best! simply to document the songs they were writing, but Rough Trade Records heard one of the tracks, and they encouraged the duo to put out a 7-inch. In April 1980, the GaOB! debut, “Getting Nowhere Fast” b/w “Warm Girls,” was released via their own label, Record Records, which was distributed by Rough Trade. “Getting Nowhere Fast” was named NME’s “Single of the Week,” and made the top ten of the UK indie chart, but Girls at Our Best! wasn’t exactly a band; it was still just Evans and Alan. So, with high demand for a second 45, a bassist and a drummer were brought into the fold.
 

 
After their second 7-inch, Girls at Our Best! signed with Happy Birthday Records. The label put out a couple more GaOB! singles, as well as what ended up being the group’s lone full-length, Pleasure, in October 1981 (a pre-fame Thomas Dolby plays synth on the record).

In late ‘81, GaOB! headed to America for a brief tour, which did not go well. Seemingly no one knew about the band—they even had a Spinal Tap-like experience when nobody showed up for a record store appearance—and they grew increasingly tired of each other. Girls at Our Best! called it a day in 1982.
 

 
“Getting Nowhere Fast” is a perfect post-punk song. Possessing a killer, angular guitar riff, and a propulsive bassline, the defiant lyrics speak to the emptiness of capitalism, the passiveness of the masses, and the feeling that your failing life isn’t what you signed up for. After two exhilarating minutes, the number ends in an abrupt, dramatic fashion.
 
Much more, including DM premieres, after the jump…

 
“A report in 2019 revealed that Queen Elizabeth II and her family cost the British people £67 million per year,” says grateful subject Andrew Liles, introducing his elongated version of the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.” The monarchy is a sweet deal for Britons, since the royals put on the occasional horse show starring Tom Cruise to thank the common people for expending their lives in toil so that their betters may luxuriate among jeweled combs and Sèvres tea services.

Now, Liles has found a musical way to tell the royals “you’re welcome” for the generalized misery that supports their year-round debauch: extending Her Maj’s favorite Pistols choon from a length of about three minutes to 45, one for each year since 1977. In all likelihood, this is the very melody she will be humming this morning while she consumes a year of your wages for breakfast.

Unfortunately, there’s still no future, but on the bright side, there’s a lot more of it!
 

Laibach’s new album ‘Wir sind das Volk (ein Musical aus Deutschland)’

Laibach’s latest project, a musical theater production based on texts by the German playwright Heiner Müller, has been staged in Berlin, Klagenfurt, Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Hamburg. As Laibach’s early work was not enthusiastically greeted by authorities in post-Tito Yugoslavia, so Müller, whose New York Times obituary described him as an “independent Marxist,” was banned for years from the East German stage. Indeed, the director of one of his early plays was rewarded with a trip to the coal mines.

Müller’s association with Laibach dates from 1984, when the group composed music for a Slovenian production of his Quartet. Laibach and Müller met in Berlin the following year, and he suggested that they collaborate; but though he apparently did use Laibach’s music in one of his stage productions, the collaboration did not come to pass before Müller’s death in 1995.

More than twenty years later, prompted by a suggestion from Anja Quickert, the head of the Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft (International Heiner Müller Society), Laibach renewed their collaboration with the dramatist. As Laibach explains its approach to creating Wir sind das Volk in the press release:

We followed Heiner Müller’s own strategy of cutting and rearranging the material, taking his text and putting it into another context, rebooting it with music, in order to drag the audience into it or alienate them from it. Music unlocks the emotions and is therefore a great manipulative tool and a powerful propagandistic weapon. And that’s why a combination of Heiner Müller, who saw theatre as a political institution, and Laibach, can be nothing else but a musical.

Laibach kindly answered a few questions about Wir sind das Volk and related matters by email.
 

Photo by Valter Leban

Speaking in Dresden in 2014, South Korean President Park Geun-hye proclaimed: Wir sind ein Volk! What is the difference between this assertion and Laibach’s Wir sind das Volk?

Laibach: Wir sind das Volk is a more general slogan and Wir sind ein Volk is a more particular one. When East Germans demanded the change of policy and reunification of the two Germanies in 1990, one of the slogans of the protesters at the time was Wir sind das Volk—“We are the people”—which meant that it is the people who will decide, not the authorities. When the wall between the two countries actually started to crumble, the slogan on both sides of the wall quickly changed to Wir sind ein Volk—“We are a people, one people, one nation, one state…” In this spirit, in 2014, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, speaking of the idea of reunification of the two Koreas, proclaimed Wir sind ein Volk!, which, of course, in the context of South and North Korea, means that they are one nation, violently divided in the Korean War and which, in a certain perspective of time, should be again reunited, just like Germany was.

Please tell us about the production of Laibach’s posthumous collaboration with Heiner Müller. Why, for instance, does the album open with the figure of Philoctetes?

Back in 1984 we contributed music for Heiner Müller’s Quartet, a play that was presented at the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana, directed by Slovenian director Eduard Miler. This was at a time when Laibach was officially forbidden in Slovenia and Yugoslavia, and we were grateful to Eduard Miler for being brave enough to include Laibach in this theatrical piece, performed by the national institution. A good year later, in February 1985, we met Heiner Müller by coincidence in Berlin, where we had a concert at some festival, and it turned out that he was very enthusiastic about Laibach and he also proposed that we collaborate on one of his upcoming theatre productions. Unfortunately, that did not happen (in the meantime we were invited by another legendary theatre and artistic director and in fact Heiner Müller’s fierce opponent, Peter Zadek, to work the score for Shakespeare’s Macbeth in 1987—and perform in it—staged at the Deutsche Schauspielhaus in Hamburg), but we were told that Heiner Müller had apparently used some of our music in a theatre production that he worked on. Heiner Müller passed away in 1995 and only a few years ago, in 2019, we finally received an invitation from Mrs. Anja Quickert, the head of Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft (H. M. Society), proposing a project based on Heiner Müller’s texts, to be premiered and performed at the HAU (Hebbel am Ufer) theatre in Berlin. The premiere of Wir sind das Volk—Ein Musical nach Texten von Heiner Müller was held on 8 February 2020 and more shows followed after the pandemic. At this point something like 10,000 people have seen the musical, in spite of the epidemics.
 

The poster for ‘Wir sind das Volk’

Heiner Müller is one of the most prominent post-WWII German playwrights, writers, and intellectuals, and one of the main protagonists who radically practised the denazification of Germany and ruthlessly led German Volk through the purgatory of collective guilt. Our ‘musical’ speaks of this process of denazification, but also about Heiner Müller personally, about his observation of his own life in the postwar reality of this country, divided by the Cold War. He was very fond of German national traumas as well as of the time of German patriotism and this is the topic in most of his writings. The texts and songs for the musical were selected by Anja Quickert, who also was the dramaturge and director of the show. The musical opens with an extract of Müller’s interpretation of the Philoctetes, the tragedy where he dramatizes the state’s predicament as it finds itself adopting inhumane methods in order to achieve a humane future for its citizens. In presenting the state’s point of view, Müller boldly challenges Sophocles (Philoctetes) and Gide (Philoctète), who focus their plays on the individual, not the state. Müller’s radical rewriting of the myth negotiates the question of belonging: exclusion and inclusion in a society that wants to destroy the “other” and destroys itself by tolerating only an ability to function. In the part of the text that we are using in the musical, Müller is actually talking about his own childhood traumas and that is why this text stands at the beginning of the album as well.

We hear so much about populism in politics these days. Who are the people, and what do they want? As Freud might have asked, Was will ein Volk eigentlich?

People are the suppressed majority that occasionally smells the power of victory and then they want it all.

At least one reliable source reports that Russian propaganda is simultaneously insisting that Ukrainians are racially inferior to Russians and denying that Ukrainians have a distinct nationality. If citizenship in the NSK State is not based on language, nationality, ethnicity, or race, what are the criteria?

Possession of at least one Laibach album and a good sense of humor, especially when inferiority and superiority complexes are in question. For all else we are quite flexible.
 

‘Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi)’ by Gottfried Helnwein (via Denver Art Museum)

How does Laibach’s approach to working on theatrical productions (Krst pod Triglavom-Baptism, Macbeth, Also Sprach Zarathustra) differ from its usual working method? Do any principles of Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre’s work persist in Laibach’s approach?

We approach each project in a completely different way. We don’t have any creative platform or templates to use either for theatrical productions or as ‘usual working method.’ Composing is always different because most of the time we work with a slightly different combination of people, and we therefore adapt to a common operating model. Within the theatre projects it is also important who initiates it, who leads or directs it. For these productions we create the material in communication and collaboration with directors, and we try to adjust to their ideas and their vision of how the music and sound should function, as much as we can. It is true, however, that usually it is best that producers and directors give us a totally free hand for the best results.

Is it possible to express one’s personality in Schlager music or Volkslieder without ruining the performance? For instance, giving voice to the German national character seems to suit Heino so well because he only uses emotions as signs of filial piety. “Folk music” in the US these days, on the other hand, consists almost entirely of people crying about their hurt feelings.

They really do it in pop and rock music too, there is a lot of ‘crying’ and trading in emotions in pop and rock music tradition. In principle we do not see much difference between pop-rock music and Schlager music or Volkslieder in Germany. In the context of the German national character, Heino, who deals with emotions perfectly, as well as Kraftwerk, who actually took a lot of their inspiration from Volkslieder and Schlager music—their versions are not contaminated by emotional hyperinflation. In America, on the other hand, it’s hard to imagine popular music—with the exception of hip hop and rap—without such emotional exploitations… What would Presley, Prince, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton or Taylor Swift (etc., etc.) be without their hurt feelings? 

Singing in 1985, U.S.A. for Africa proclaimed: “We Are the World.” Is Laibach the world, too?

We are Africa and the Universe.
 

 
In July 2019, we told you about the marvelous seventies rock ‘n’ roll band, the Hollywood Stars. The occasion was the emancipation of their shelved 1976 LP recorded at the famed Sound City studio. The album, appropriately titled ‘Sound City,’ is about to be released on vinyl for the first time, so we’re reposting our profile of the group. It’s been lightly edited.

The Hollywood Stars were managed by Kim Fowley, and their songs were recorded by the likes of KISS and Alice Cooper, yet the band wasn’t widely heard in their time. They released one LP, which failed to make an impact, while superior recordings of theirs remained in the can for decades. An exceptional, previously unreleased Hollywood Stars album is about to come out, and Dangerous Minds has the premiere of one of the fabulous never before heard tunes on the disc. We also have a new interview with an original member of the group.

In 1973, mover and shaker, huckster, and jack-of-all-trades, Kim Fowley, had a vision for starting a west coast version of the glam band, the New York Dolls. Fowley quickly assembled a group of Southern California musicians, and the initial lineup of the Hollywood Stars was in place before year’s end.
 

 
The Stars immediately made a splash with their live show, gigging frequently at the legendary Whisky a Go Go. It wasn’t long before they were signed to Columbia/CBS Records. Around this time, Fowley exited as manager. Sessions for their first LP included such strong material as “King of the Night Time World” and “Escape,” but after new A&R at Columbia came in, the album was abandoned, and the band was dropped. The recordings came out nearly 40 years later as Shine Like a Radio: The Great Lost 1974 Album.
 

 
By the end of ’74—just a year after they formed—the Hollywood Stars were no more.
 

 
They did give it another go in 1976, though, with guitarist/main songwriter, Mark Anthony, also now their lead singer. The revived unit were soon in the Sound City studio with producer Neil Merryweather. They then signed with another major label, Arista Records, who wanted them to re-record what they had done at Sound City. Though the band were frustrated, as they had a completed album they were pleased with, they agreed to start from scratch with a different producer. The subsequent sessions didn’t go well, with Mark Anthony overdoing it in the studio. Though the group preferred the Sound City tapes, the Arista recordings were put out in 1977. Anthony soon left for a solo career, with the Stars continuing for a short period before breaking up once again.
 

Album cover for their debut full-length; note the marquee in the background.
 
After 43 years, the Hollywood Stars album produced by Neil Merryweather is being released as Sound City. The band is back, too, with an upcoming show at their old stomping grounds, the Whisky a Go Go.

Dangerous Minds recently interviewed Hollywood Stars drummer, Terry Rae.

When did Kim Fowley pitch the Hollywood Stars concept to you? Were you immediately sold on the idea?:

Terry Rae: The first time Kim pitched me on the idea was at Capitol Records Studios. He came to see the band I was in at the time, the Flamin’ Groovies, recording some demo tracks. I was initially surprised with his Stars pitch because he had been instrumental in getting me together with [founding Groovies guitarist] Cyril Jordan in the first place.

We talked again at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset. Kim explained his plan and promised to be personally involved in every aspect. What he was laying out began to make sense on a practical level. The Groovies were based out of the Bay Area, so if I was going to fully commit to that band, it would mean moving out of my apartment in Hollywood. I didn’t really have the cash to relocate, and my heart wasn’t in leaving.
 
Much more, after the jump…

 
The following is an excerpt from the liner notes to Riches to Rags, by Bob Mehr, the NY Times best-selling author of Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.

The work of The Replacements’ co-founder and legendary lead guitarist, Bob Stinson has been well chronicled since his tragic passing in 1995. In addition to the expansions of The Replacements catalog, Stinson’s post-‘Mats work – in the prog-psych band Static Taxi and his collaborations with punk vet Sonny Vincent in Shotgun Rationale – have all been collected and anthologized. But unaccounted for in that discography is the time Stinson spent as Bleeding Hearts’ lead guitarist. 

Although Stinson’s shadow looms large over the history of the band, Bleeding Hearts were the brainchild of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Mike Leonard. Raised in suburban Minneapolis, Leonard cut his teeth on the punk rock of The Clash. By his late teens he’d become a skilled guitarist with a Rolling Stones obsession (and a magnificently exaggerated Keef-style coif to go along with it).

After moving to uptown Minneapolis, the then-21-year-old Leonard launched Bleeding Hearts in 1990 as a trio initially, with drummer Bob Herbers and bassist Rob Robello. Leonard was eager to expand the fledgling band into a two-guitar lineup, but finding the right player proved tricky.

“We went through about four or five guitar players in a short span,” recalled Leonard. “The last guy we had decided to leave the band when his car caught on fire after a show with his guitar and amp in it. I guess he took it as a sign to quit.”

A habitué of The Uptown bar, Leonard made the acquaintance of one of its other regulars, Bob Stinson. “I was at The Uptown five nights a week then, and Bob was hanging out there too,” he said. “I struck up a conversation with him. Actually interrupted him telling a joke—I told the punchline.”

At the time, Stinson—many years removed from The Replacements—was still in the midst of a long run with his group Static Taxi. “Static Taxi was very much Bob’s thing musically,” said Leonard. “It was all his favorite stuff: Yes and Steve Howe and psychedelic Beatles elements—that’s what his heart was really into, and which didn’t have a home in The Replacements.”

“Bleeding Hearts were actually more like The Replacements, more like a classic rock ‘n’ roll band. Since we were admittedly influenced by The Replacements, I figured why not have Bob Stinson play guitar? When I approached him about playing with us, he agreed.”

Stinson arrived at Bleeding Hearts’ practice space with his Fender Quad Reverb in tow, several sheets to the wind. “We started playing together, but it was total cacophony,” recalled Leonard. “The whole time we’re playing, Bob keeps saying, ‘You guys should get Jamie Garner to play guitar.’ At first, we’re like, ‘No, Bob, we want you.’ But after about an hour of this cacophony, we were like, ‘Uh, Bob, who’s this Jamie Garner guy again? Can you introduce us?’”

Stinson did just that, connecting the band with Garner, a vet of Twin/Tone Records outfit The Leatherwoods. Garner, a skilled player in his own right, joined Bleeding Hearts and spent much of the next year playing with the band. “Jamie was great, a phenomenal guitar player who took us up a couple notches,” said Leonard. But by the end of 1991, Garner had decided to move to San Diego and Bleeding Hearts second guitar slot was open once again.
 

Photo: Dan Corrigan
 
This time, Stinson—at loose ends after the breakup of Static Taxi—approached Leonard about joining the band. “Bob saw us one or two times, and he decided he wanted in,” said Leonard. “This time I was a little bit skeptical, but he was determined to play with us.”

At the time Stinson was living with his mother and stepfather, on the other side of town from Leonard. “It was the dead of winter and he trudged from way down on East Lake Street to where I lived over on West Lake Street,” said Leonard. “It was freezing outside, and he was wearing a light windbreaker and no hat or gloves. By the time he got to my apartment his face was red and frozen.”

“But we sat down and played guitars and he learned every one of our songs in a single sitting. He could be a really quick study. We banged out all the tunes and he came up with some embellishments that worked perfectly. Came up with all these cool harmonized guitar parts. I think he was happy to join the band and start playing around again. We were almost trying to resurrect him in a way too; he’d been written off by a lot of people by that time.” 

Leonard also made the generous, if perhaps unwise, move of inviting Stinson to come live with him. “I had this sense that the only way I’d be able to keep him in check was if he moved in with me,” said Leonard. Exactly ten years younger than Stinson, Leonard took on the role of a younger brother as well as caretaker. The two played together daily, roughhoused like little kids, rehearsed with the band five times a week, and listened to music the rest of the time.

“Bob had these stacks of speakers that he brought with him. And he’d just crank his music so loud,” said Leonard. “Bob would be dissecting the very first ten seconds of like an Urge Overkill song or something. Needle dropping it over and over again. He would analyze a one minute section of a song. He really heard music microscopically.” 

By this point, Bleeding Hearts were about to welcome a new drummer in Pat McKenna. Stinson —who, by this point, knew how to sharpen a band—would help fine tune the group.

“Bob really was like a musical savant. He would show the drummer how to do little detailed parts; he would come up with really good basslines,” said Leonard. “He was a weird talent. In a way, he couldn’t tell you what he was doing at all—like what scale or what chord he was playing. But then I’d come home and he’d be jamming along to Yes records, playing ‘Roundabout’ note for note. He just had an uncanny ability.” 

In early 1993, the band began doing pre-production for their first album. Stinson’s old friend and guitar successor in The Replacements, Slim Dunlap, would help prep the band at its rehearsal studio. “Slim came over and recorded some songs,” said Leonard. “He was always looking out for Bob, helping out however he could.”

A couple months later, in March of 1993, Leonard enlisted Twin Cities engineer Tommy Roberts—leader of the band Fauna—to cut a session with Bleeding Hearts at Terrarium Studios.

The recording was done mostly live, and found Stinson not only working in tight six-string tandem with Leonard, but adding other musical flourishes, like the bongos at the end of “Gone,” and the memorable whistling that starts “Imagination.”
 

Photo: Dan Corrigan
 
With half of a record complete, Bleeding Hearts seemed to be a band poised on the cusp of some kind of breakthrough in 1993. The Replacements’ former manager Peter Jesperson had picked them as a band to watch in the local alt-weekly City Pages, and they played a triumphant show opening for Tommy Stinson’s new band Bash & Pop at the 7th Street Entry, in what was an emotional reunion for the Stinson family. 

But behind the scenes, Bob was suffering, dealing with a combination of his own escalating mental and substance abuse issues—and reckoning with his son Joey’s health problems, as the infant had been diagnosed as a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. “That really affected him. He’d talk about it but it was very hard on him,” recalled Leonard. “I think that drove him into a dark place.”

A professional complication in the band’s career came with a SPIN story that was published in the summer of 1993. Stinson, who’d been off the national radar since leaving The Replacements seven years earlier, had agreed to a feature interview in the magazine thinking it would help boost Bleeding Hearts profile. But the piece would instead focus on Stinson and his troubled Replacements’ past, painting him as a lost and wasted figure, while Bleeding Hearts were dismissed almost entirely. “We thought that was going to be a door opening for us, but it almost felt like a door closing,” said Leonard.

The story concludes in the liner notes—by Bob Mehr, author of the New York Times bestseller Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements—from Riches to Rags, the long-lost album by Bleeding Hearts.