NYS Music 2023

Author: Sal Cataldi

  • The Enigmatic Nick Drake Revealed in New Biography

    The life of the once ignored and now venerated Nick Drake is the subject of an enlightening new biography, one that gives new meaning to the term “definitive” – NICK DRAKE: The Life by Richard Morton Jack (Hachette Books).  

    Drake was the ultimate cult artist.  He was the creator of three well-regarded and oft imitated albums which only achieved a significant mainstream impact a quarter century after his death, in large part due to the use of his tune, “Pink Moon,” in a 1999 ad campaign for Volkswagen. 

    nick drake

    Drake was the kind of artist who couldn’t exist today.  He was one who chose not to perform live, or do interviews for that matter, a young college student who was given well over a year of studio time to create his brilliant but barely selling debut album.  Nick’s reluctance to play the careering game wasn’t born of ego or snobbery. It was the result of an emotional illness that would deepen and ultimately swamp him over time, one that would lead to his death at age 26 due to an overdose of anti-depressants in 1974.

    While not an officially sanctioned book, NICK DRAKE: The Life is the only biography written with the blessing, involvement and a mountain of material provided by his sister and estate.  The author interviewed well over 200 of Drake’s friends, school mates, family and fellow musicians to chart his life and career.  He also had full access to a deep archive of personal material unavailable to previous writers. This included volumes of correspondence by Nick, his family, friends and teachers – material that provides an almost day-by-day catalogue of his activities and frame of mind during his short and enigmatic life.  An especially important one is the diary Nick’s father kept as they worked to help their son cope with the growing disappointments in his life and musical career, and the final chapter of his battles with the treacherous illness that would ultimately win out in the end.

    Raised in a comfortable upper middleclass family, Drake’s love of music was heavily influenced by his mother, Molly.  Molly would play piano, write and record her original songs that would show their influence on Nick when they were ultimately released on an album a few years back.  Though a gifted athlete, Nick would be a largely uninspired student, all they way through his time at Cambridge University.  He would dabble on piano and sax before settling on guitar influenced by Joan Baez, Dylan, Donovan, the bossa nova of Joao Gilberto, Brit folker John Renbourn and Peter, Paul & Mary, from whom he learned classic blues and folk tunes like “Cocaine.”  His progress on the instrument was nothing short of astounding.  Through constant hours of practice, he would develop his revelatory use of a variety of alternative tunings and the intricate, clean fingerpicking that still amazes and inspires to this day.

    In his youth, Drake would establish a pattern of vagabonding.  There were with summer hitchhiking trips through France paid for by busking on the street and one to Morocco where he actually got to meet and play for The Rolling Stones.  The author actually tracks down Nick’s traveling companion for the Morocco trip who had no idea that Drake achieved any sort of fame.  He then laments having thrown out a recording he made of Nick’s performance for The Stones in a purge of his belongings during a move 20 years back.

    Somewhere bootleggers are tearing their hair out over this!

    During his school years, Drake would also develop a love of smoking hash, something that he said “soothed” his social anxiety and helped him create. By late 1967, he would pen songs like “Day Is Done,” “Time Has Told Me,” “Saturday Sun,” “Joey,” “Magic” and “Thoughts of Mary Jane,” tunes that would define his debut disc and career.

    At his first major public performance at the Roundhouse in London, he is seen by Ashley Hutchinson of Fairport Convention.  The musician who would sing his praises to his producer, Joe Boyd, who would sign Nick to his Witchseason label.   Boyd would exercise both great belief and personal support for Nick throughout his career.  He would provide him with a monthly stipend to live and work in London and make great efforts to insure Drake received his critical due well after his death.

    The author devotes a good deal of time to the making of Nick’s three wonderful albums. The debut, Five Leaves Left,  would take well over a year of sessions and take its name from a message in a package of Rizla rolling papers.  Robert Kirby, his Cambridge classmate who created the lush string arrangement for Drake’s song, would say that his lyrics were “more about atmosphere than meaning… something to compound a mood that the melody dictates.” His fellow guitarist Paul Wheeler would concur saying they were “more about sound and rhythm than meaning.”  Kirby’s orchestral arrangements were influenced by Nick and Boyd’s love of Randy Newman and Leonard Cohen’s self-titled debuts and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks.  Fun fact – the leader on the string overdubs was none other than David McCallum, the esteemed violinist father of the same named acting star of TV’s “The Man from U.N.C..L.E.”

    While everyone was convinced Nick would be a star, the release of the album on July 4, 1969, would be overshadowed by news of the death of Brian Jones and high-profile albums by Blind Faith, Jethro Tull and King Crimson. Drake would turn down all opportunities for press interviews and the album, with only 1,500 printed, would receive no radio play and no foreign licensing interest.  A long letter from his father when he was thinking of leaving Cambridge to concentrate on his musical career warns Nick that he comes “from a family of slow starters” and that “self-employment needs discipline.”

    The author sets straight a lot of misconceptions about Nick that have grown over time.  Firstly, while quiet, Drake was anything but an odd ball during his school years.  He was praised for his dry sense of humor and his proto-Goth style, like that of an old Romantic poet.  And Nick did actually play live, about three dozen gigs in total, including major venues like Royal Festival Hall and the London folk den Cousins. It was at the latter that he would finally quit live performing in the middle of set in August 1970.  Also, many were at so-called Working Men’s clubs out of London, where he would simply be drowned out and/or totally ignored, many which he opened for another new band, Genesis.  The question of his sexuality is also addressed.  The summation provided by the author and the consensus of those he quotes?  It is that while Nick had infatuations like that with his early girlfriend Kirstie Clegg and his interest in French singer Francoise Hardy, he was largely asexual. 

    For his second album, 1970’s Bryter Layter,  Boyd leads Nick to more fully arranged versions of his songs, with guest appearances by folks like Fairport Convention’s guitar virtuoso Richard Thompson and The Velvet Underground’s John Cale. Cale was at Sound Techniques producing Nico’s Desert Shore album and agreed to provide overdubs to one of the album’s most gorgeous tunes, “Northern Sky.”  Though there were some good reviews and his engineer John Wood still rates it his best, this record only sold about 3,000 copies.  Muff Winwood, the executive in charge of promotion, called working with Drake “a hopeless task,” and that maybe “he was too stoned to be bothered.”  But there are more efforts to build his career.  Boyd considered teaming Drake with another of his artists, Vashti Bunyan.  In July 1970 in an effort to get his songs covered by other artists, Boyd produces a demo disc where the then unknown Elton John performs four of his classic songs: “Day Is Done,” “Way to Blue,” “Saturday Sun” and “Time Has Told Me.”

    Drake becomes more untethered when his champion, Joe Boyd, decides to sell Witchseason to Island Records and take a job with Warner Brothers in America.  In July 1971, some of his music is finally released in the U.S. on a compilation.  A promotional party at the Troubadour for the album features an appearance by a cardboard cut-out of the reclusive Drake. 

    Drake will return to Sound Techniques in October 1971 for two, three-hour sessions where he cuts his bare bones classic third album, the 28-minute long Pink Moon.  Boyd thought its brilliant “starkness” was a rebuke to the lush production on Bryter Layter.  Others found it a reflection of Drake’s increasingly isolated and depressed existence.

    The final quarter of this nearly 600-page book is a tough read for anyone who has loved someone who has suffered mental illness. Much of this comes from the diary his father created than spanned the last two years of Nick’s life. 

    Around this time, Nick expresses a desire to quit music – to get a job at a bank or a brewery. He also makes two attempts to join the Army and has a less than weeklong stint as a trainee computer programmer.  He ends up back at his parents’ house. He will begin to make trips to London or Paris and turn around and head back home.  He has frustrations which make him lash out and smash his guitars, a tape recorder and furniture – something at odds with the effete image of Drake propagated before this book.  He will be hospitalized, have electro-shock treatments and go on and off his medications.  His friend and label mate John Martyn will spend time trying to encourage him and immortalize these vain efforts in the song, “Solid Air.”  He will return to the studio one last time cutting four even starker songs including “Black Dog,” named after Churchill’s famous term for his own depression.

    Unlike others, this author seems to conclude that Drake’s death was likely not an accidental overdose but a suicide, maybe an impulsive one.  Sixty powerful Triptyzol tablets were found in his stomach in the autopsy after he was found dead in his childhood bedroom at his parents’ home in November 1974. 

    The book concludes with Nick’s critical resurrection, led by the U.S. release of Bryter Layter in 1976 and Fruit Tree, one of the first high-quality boxed set released in 1979.

    Richard Morton Jack has done a great thing for Nick and the fans of his music.  He has provided a deeply researched and thoughtful critique of his life and creative struggle – and how a man so emotionally challenged could create such a warm and still entrancing body of work.

    The final word comes from the dust jacket and his discoverer/benefactor Joe Boyd. “This is the book we’ve been waiting for… a biography to be treasured.”

  • Grand Funk Railroad in New York: Mark Farner Remembers

    When I was growing up in the early 70’s, a hazy time captured in Richard Linklater’s movie Dazed & Confused, we were very, very serious about our music.  As hyper-hormonal, aspiring teenage guitar heroes in middle-class Queens, we had an especially deep allegiance to one particularly muscular strand of music – the power trio.

    Many an argument and more than a few fist fights erupted as we debated which threesome was ultimo. We weighted our own preferences with those of the critics at the major music weeklies like Rolling Stone and Hit Parader. These were the opinions of purported wiser men, ones that we consumed with blind Biblical fervor. They were words of praise, and just as often snark, that had a big and, in the cases like the below, misguided in hindsight influence on our views.

    Was it Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience or the guitar-less ELP who were the best rock trio? Maybe it was Rush, Blue Cheer, The James Gang or Beck, Bogert and Appice?  Or was it those rock quartets that were essentially three-piece instrumental bands, if you didn’t count their peacock strutting, axe-less singers – Led Zeppelin, The Who or Black Sabbath? 

    By 1970-71, with the demise of Cream and the death of Hendrix, and from a strict fan popularity sense, it was Grand Funk Railroad. 

    Grand Funk were a prime exponent of high energy, no nonsense “Rust Belt Rock.” It was a hard rockin’ trio that roared out of Flint, Michigan with a powerhouse drummer with a hot air balloon-sized Afro (Don Brewer) and a bassist who made you dizzy by incessantly sliding up and down the neck of his axe into his riffs (Mel Schacher). Then there was the lead singer/guitarist/principal songwriter, Mark Farner. He was a Mexican jumping bean of a man who proudly showcased his slim Cherokee heritage by striding the stage shirtless and with ass length locks, just like Geronimo. 

    Grand Funk had the fortune and misfortune of being managed by Terry Knight, the quintessential shifty Svengali who did all the talking for them and, ultimately, made off with their royalties, song publishing and oil well investments. 

    A few short months after forming, Grand Funk broke out nationally with three show-stealing sets secured by Knight at the Atlanta Pop Festival in 1969.  By the end of the year, they would hit gold record status twice –with their debut disc, On Time, and the self-title “red” album.

    And just like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, the wisenheimer critics at Rolling Stone and other magazines hated them… as much as millions of fans loved them. 

    And while the band was of Midwestern origin, many of the most memorable moments of their early career unfolded in New York City, beginning with several shows in 1969 at the Fillmore East and their debut at Madison Square Garden in December 1970.

    “We always really loved the New York audiences,” says Farner.  “They were always super enthusiastic and would send us waves of emotion as we played. It made New York City the site of some of our biggest and best gigs.”

    With the release of their third album in 1970, Closer to Home, manager Knight and Grand Funk would do what no other band before them had – purchase a street-long billboard in Times Square.

    “Terry spent $100,000 of our money on that sign,” says Farner.  “Mel Schacher and I went down there in a cab, walked around the corner and were stunned by what we saw. This was a time before cellphones, so we took a picture with our eyes.  We had only purchased it for a month but got lucky when the billboard workers went on strike. It stayed up there for four months total and probably helped sell a lot of albums.”

    Another New York apex took place when Grand Funk returned to the Big Apple to play Shea Stadium on July 9, 1971.

    “We sold out way faster than The Beatles – 72 hours vs. five weeks,” continues Farner. “We chose Humble Pie to be our opener because we had done a tour with them in Europe.  We would hear them singing Motown and R&B chestnuts in their dressing room before the show and knew they were our kind of guys.  Steve Marriot was a truly great singer and showman.”

    “When I see the video of Shea, it all comes back. I get goosebumps and can see myself fighting back the tears and floating three feet above the stage as I’m trying to sing ‘I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home).’ With a crowd of 50,000 like The Beatles, we really didn’t hear much of what we were playing.”

    In 1972, Grand Funk would return to NYC for two shows to raise money for Phoenix House, the pioneering drug rehab center.  It was here that they would also dramatically part ways with their manager.

    “We were 19, 20 when started Grand Funk with Terry and he wanted to create a mystique, so he wouldn’t let us talk to the press, something I think soured them on us right from the start,” adds Farner.  “He took out a centerfold ad in the holiday edition of Billboard Magazine where he was literally giving the finger to the industry, flipping off the world.  When we found out how much of our money he was taking as manager and producer, we decided it was time to fire him.”

    “He actually tried to confiscate our equipment at the first Phoenix House benefit because we fired him,” continues Farner. “But we had some big Michigan farm boys like Big Tree working as our roadies.  We went ahead with the shows, with our equipment, and raised enough to open seven Phoenix Houses.”

    “Our December ’72 show was also shot and aired on ABC’s Rock Concert.  What I remember most is our lighting engineer Steve Graff putting dance wax all over the stage which made it super slippery and really restricted my dance moves!”

    Grand Funk would continue to return to New York for many shows throughout their career.  They also recorded one of their most successful albums here, 1974’s All the Girls in the World Beware!!!,with producer Jimmy Ienner at the famous Record Plant. It was a disc that spawned two Top 5 hits, the cover song “Some Kind of Wonderful” and the Farner-penned “Bad Time.”

    Farner also has fond memories of another lost chunk of New York music history, its famous strip of music stores on West 48th Street.

    “I especially loved visiting Manny’s,” adds Farner. “Bill Eberline from Sunn Amps told me about it and it really was like a candy store for guitar players.  There was nothing of this magnitude until Guitar Center and Sweetwater came along.”

    Though he was the front man and writer of 92% of their classic material, today Farner is no longer a part of Grand Funk. He was voted out of the corporation (and band) in 2000 by bassist Schacher and drummer Brewer, who went to law school during a band break to better manage the music business.

    But Farner and his old bandmates are gaining new followers via dozens of reaction videos to performances, like their incendiary nine-minute plus live version of “Inside Looking Out” from November 1969 on WITF-TV in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Via reaction videos by YouTubers like RobSquad, Harri Best and Jamal_AKA-Jamal that are garnering millions of views, Farner is seeing a new generation of fans at his shows and purchasing his music and merch.

    Today, Farner is staying very busy touring with his Mark Farner’s American Band.  He has just released a new live album, Rock ‘N’ Soul: Live 1989, a 15-song set of Grand Funk classics recorded at “Woodstock 20 Years After” reunion concert in Carson, California.  

    The guitarist is also providing some very cool musical instruction free at his website with FarnerChords.  Mark has partnered with videographer Jimmy Romeo to create instructional videos showing the correct way to play some of his best-known compositions.  Check it out here.

    And as for a legacy, what better one could there be than being the favorite band of the star of TV’s longest-running animated series, Homer Simpson,  a fact revealed in a hilarious 1996 episode.

  • Rhino Records Co-Founder Harold Bronson Packs Four Decades of Adventures into New Memoir

    Harold Bronson is a true rock-n-roll Zelig. He’s an everywhere man who began his career as a teenage rock journalist before rising to become co-founder of Rhino Records, the revered label that has put decades of often overlooked and unappreciated music back into circulation to the delight of both lifelong fans and new generations of music lovers.

    rhino records

    Bronson’s latest production is another intriguing one. It’s a memoir called Time Has Come Today: Rock and Roll Diaries 1967 – 2007 (Trouser Press Books). This 440-page opus written in diary form is the third book in Bronson’s ambitious autobiography project.

    Before he co-founded America’s leading re-issue label, Bronson was just another Southern California kid who was mad about music.  He channeled his passion and discerning ear into writing about music, first for the UCLA Daily Bruin then with Rolling Stone, Hit Parader, Melody Maker and many other magazines.  After interviewing many of the greats, he helped co-found, with Richard Foos, Rhino Records from the back of Foos’ record store.  The label was created to release novelty records like those of Dr. Demento and Wild Man Fischer.  But, most importantly, it would go on to re-issue classic sounds and many unheard gems from the catalogs of artists who were critically undervalued at the time like Arthur Lee & Love and The Monkees.

    Bronson’s book is very much a diary, one rendered with day-by-day entries. It begins in the Summer of Love with him journalizing his critical take on, and the price paid for, albums like Procol Harum’s Shine on Brightly and The Beatles’ White Album. There’s also his mini-reviews of the many concerts he attended by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine and The Vanilla Fudge.  Soon, Bronson is getting his first paid work –  an interview for Entertainment World with the Bee Gees’ Maurice Gibb.  Bronson hauls his massive reel-to-reel tape recorder to the interview, one where Gibb delights in telling him a stream of lies such as that he played and sang on The Beatles’ Abbey Road.  In short order, Bronson is publishing features with artist like Cat Stevens (he looks like a “gypsy carnival worker”), Van Dyke Parks (who shows him “the future” from his office at Warner Brothers – the first fiber optic cable) and famed British session pianist Nicky Hopkins (who mistakes Jeff Beck for Mick Jagger at his first Rolling Stones’ meeting and who badmouths The Kinks for never paying him for his session work with them).  There are also notables like comedian George Carlin and The Doors’ manager Danny Sugerman who he will interview repeatedly and forge lifelong friendships with. 

    Bronson’s life kicks into high gear in 1974, when he takes a job managing the Rhino Records store in L.A.  Soon, Bronson and Foos will launch their label with novelty records by artists like Wild Man Fischer (the certifiably insane street singer discovered by Frank Zappa), The Temple City Kazoo Orchestra (with whom he makes appearances on national TV shows) and a reissue of tracks by comedian Alan Sherman of Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda fame.  But Bronson and Rhino’s true worth would come with their lovingly crafted re-issues like the 1995 box set, Love Story (1966 – 1972). Bronson would have a long history with Arthur Lee, the band’s mercurial leader, a man he calls “an arrogant Muhammad Ali.”

    https://youtu.be/ML1OS_1zuHY?si=ZJSH-4a4HB2Mjyya

    Bronson’s book is chockful of humorous meetings with the likes of Iggy Pop (who asks for money to get wine and 10 aspirin at tackle a hangover), ELO’s Jeff Lynne (who confesses he can only write melodies between 10 am and noon) and Howard Kaylan (who recalls snorting coke off Abe Lincoln’s desk during a visit to the Nixon White House with his band, The Turtles).  Also revealed is how Richard Delvy, a former surf musician/music entrepreneur, won the rights to “Wipeout” in a poker game.

    Rhino Records would get much bigger until Bronson left the company in October 2001.  Before that, there would be many acquisitions and partnerships that would find Bronson in the midst of many bigger things, such as bringing The Monkees TV show to a new generation via MTV and ultimately managing their careers, going into business with one his idols, Frank Zappa, on the Beat the Boots project and more.  There’s even a cameo by the odious MAGA architect, Steve Bannon, during his days as a venture capitalist.

    Credit should go to longtime music journalist Ira Robbins who is the driving force behind Trouser Press Books, the publisher of this and other fine releases reviewed here at NYSMusic.  If you like Bronson’s LA-centric rock time trip, be sure to check out another Trouser Press book, Rock’s In My Head.  This is the memoir of Art Fein chronicling his six decades in the California music scene, drawn from over 10,000 page of diaries he kept.  For 20 years, he was the host of Art Fein’s Poker Party, a decidedly offbeat, ultra-low budget public affairs spectacular where the cream of music – from Phil Spector and Tom Waits to Joe Strummer and the Stray Cats – let down their guard over sometimes friendly, sometimes fierce games of cards.

  • Golden Era of New York Experimental Music Captured in New Book, “Transfigured New York”

    In 1980, Brooke Wentz landed her dream volunteer job as host of WKCR-FM’s late night radio show, “Transfigured Night.”  Billed as an “exploration into the world of new music,” this Columbia University broadcast allowed the then-student free reign to conduct candid interviews with dozens of avant-garde pioneers in free jazz, no wave and electronic and world music before they emerge as internationally-renowned artists.

    Transfigured New York

    Thanks to the downtime afforded this busy music executive due to the Covid lockdown, these long unheard interviews are now contained in a fascinating new book: Transfigured New York: Interviews with Experimental Artists and Musicians, 1980-1990 (Columbia University Press). Wentz’ latest writing is a virtual and very vivid time capsule of musical and artistic creation from 1980-1990 – a juncture when New York’s uptown and downtown converged to birth bold new sounds and a new generation of sonic visionaries.

    The musicians and artists tell their stories and share their thoughts about the creative process, capturing the ambition and energy that animated their work against all odds.  Legends in the making like Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, John Lurie, Laurie Anderson and Glenn Branca convey what it was like to be a struggling artist in 1980s New York, a time when the city was alive with possibilities and affordable for artists. Others who were well known at the time, including John Cage, La Monte Young and Ravi Shankar, advocate for their distinctive ideas about art and open up about their creative lives.

    Transfigured New York contains an astonishing range of interviews covering the waterfront of creative musical genres – all rescued from dusty cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes of interviews that were only heard once, at their initial airings.  Morton Subotnick, Joan Tower, Steve Reich, Joan La Barbara, Vernon Reid of Living Colour, Arthur Russell, Eric Bogosian, Bill T. Jones and many more are included.  The scene is set with a forward written by someone who was in the thick of the experimental action, former Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo. These interviews are also accompanied by a collection of historic black & white photos, captured by renowned photographers of the era. This book is a one-of-a-kind account of one of the most exhilarating and inventive periods for art and culture in New York City’s history.

    Wentz is launching the book at a November 13 event at the home of the New York avant-garde music scene, Roulette (info here)  The event will include conversations with many of the artists profiled including Peter Gordon, Zeena Parkins, Brandon Ross, Tim Berne and Ikue Mori. Several, including Don Byron, Elliot Sharp and Shelley Hirsch, are also scheduled to perform.

    Wentz is a Billboard Music Award–winning music producer, music supervisor and founder of Seven Seas Music and The Rights Workshop.  With Seven Seas, Wentz is a key supplier of world music from 145 countries for licensing in prestige film and television productions including Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. The Rights Workshop has handled music supervision for films including Melancholia and Bill Cunningham New York.  Wentz is a leading expert on music copyrights and former ESPN music director. Her other books include Hey! That’s My Music: Music Supervision, Licensing, and Content Acquisition (2007) and Music Rights Unveiled: A Filmmaker’s Guide to Music Rights and Licensing (2017).

  • Marco Benevento Spearheads Fundraising Concert to Battle Controversial Development at Colony Woodstock

    During the height of the COVID-19 shutdown, residents of Woodstock and surrounding burgs stayed sane, in large part, due to the efforts of Neil and Lexi Howard, the proprietors of the Colony Woodstock.  While all other entertainment options seemed to be shuttered, Hudson Valley music-lovers could mask up and head to the new beer garden behind the legendary venue to eat, drink and hear great sounds – from both some national acts who were in performance cold storage due to the COVID shutdown and many fine local players.

    marco benevento woodstock

    So, it came as no surprise when the Colony opened its doors on October 22 to host a fundraising event for The Stop Woodstock National Coalition. This is a community-based group working with the Woodstock Land Conservancy to combat a proposed development that would wipe out 620+ acres of forest and wetlands with 191 housing units, a golf course and a helipad. 

    The sell-out event was headlined by Marco Benevento, the Woodstock keyboard wizard and multi-instrumentalist known for his work as a soloist, in his duo with Joe Russo and in collaboration with varied artists like Phish axe man Trey Anastasio, Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, Tortoise’s John McEntire, drummers Billy Martin and Smashing Pumpkin’s Matt Chamberlin and many others.

    marco benevento woodstock

    Benevento gathered a flock of the area’s finest for a raucous evening of funk, psych and soul-inspired jamming all for a wonderful cause. The supporting line-up included but was not limited to drummers Aaron Johnston (Brazilian Girls), Bill Carbone (Max Creek) and Chris Consico, bassists Karina Rykman and Jeff Hill (Steve Earle), saxophonist Maria Christina Eisen, guitarist Danny Blume and singers Leslie Mendleson and Simi Stone.

    The evening was kicked off with an eight-song set by singer-songwriter Kenny Roby.  Roby’s first three numbers, with just acoustic guitar and voice, were obscured by the din of the packed house.  Things kicked up several notches when he was joined by Johnston, Hill and Blume for a cover of “Street People” from legendary Woodstock songwriter Bobby Charles.  Another highlight of his set was when Leslie Mendleson joined to belt out the lead vox on “I’m Gonna Leave You Behind.”

    The night segued without break into Benevento’s set. He set things in motion with the bass and keyboard intro before kicking into trio hyper-drive with “At the End of the Beginning” from his 2022 disc Benevento. The youthful Consico laid down a thick Disco-meets-Bonham beat while Rykman kept it simple and in-the-pocket. The tune, as many in the evening, left plenty of space for Benevento’s inventive soloing on electro piano, organ and Mini-Moog.  He also laid down lots of old school synth samples (was that a vintage Crumar sound, Marco?), with added echo, delay, phase and fuzz twisted out of an array of old stomp boxes. 

    marco benevento woodstock

    The band next served up the title track from Marco’s 2019 release, “Let It Slide,” a toe-tapping stop-time pop funk crowd pleaser.  On “Why You Gotta Throw It Away,” Benevento launched a solo that showcased the many influences he melds into a unified and distinctly original whole. There’s a heavy serving of New Orleans’ funk, some experimental jazz, Krautrock and psychedelics leanings and some jazzy flourishing arpeggios that make his sound like a paisley-stained Art Tatum.

    The guest vocalist highlight of the night was Leslie Mendleson’s return to the stage for a take on Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.”  Woodstock-reared singer Simi Stone also joined to add soul on a handful of tunes including “I Can’t Let You Go.”  Benevento himself sang lead on perhaps the funkiest jam of the night, a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”  The band riffed long and hard on this, with Marco rolling out more Louisiana keyboard hot sauce.

    On the cover of “Come Together,” the assemblage sounded like “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” era Traffic, with some fine Steve Cropper-inspired rhythmic soloing from guitarist Bloom and a biting tenor sax from Maria Christina Eisen.  Another standout was the cover of the Gene McDaniel’s penned protest classic “Compared to What,” best known in its live rendition by soul jazzers Les McCann and Eddie Harris. This version had an early 1970’s Stones’ vibe of the ”Jamming with Edward” era, accented again by the broad, vintage Bobby Keyes yakety sax work.

    For more info on Stop Woodstock National, visit their website.

    marco benevento woodstock
    marco benevento woodstock
    marco benevento woodstock

  • Philip Glass, Thurston Moore, DJ Spooky and Many More Set Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry to Music in “The Fall of America Volume II”

    In 1972, City Lights Books published The Fall of America: Poems of The States 1965 – 1971, a searing collection of poetry about the turbulent state of the nation from Allen Ginsberg.  It was simply some of the best work ever committed to page by the man who kicked off the Beat Revolution with his epic 1956 poem “Howl,” a collection that would go on to be rightfully honored with the National Book Award for Poetry.

    This assemblage included Ginsberg’s condemnation of America’s actions in Vietnam, along with commentary about the moon landing, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the trials of Black Panther Bobby Seale and The Manson Family, the death of Che Guevara and more personal events such as the passing of Ginsberg’s friend and former lover, Neal Cassady. Many of the poems were initially composed on an Uher Tape recorder purchased by Ginsberg with the help of Bob Dylan.

    Now some of the world’s most creative musicians and sound artists have come together to add a sonic sheen to these works in The Fall of America Volume II (Allen Ginsberg Recordings).  This astounding musical tribute to Ginsberg benefits a most worthy not-for-profit Pen America, an organization that has protected the rights of writers and free speech here and abroad since its founding in 1922.  The album, a digital, CD and vinyl release, features performances by Ai Weiwei, Philip Glass, Anne Waldman, Thurston Moore With Saul Williams, Devendra Banhart, Miho Hatori, Jack Dangers, Yoni Wolf, Fennesz & Taylor Deupree, Stephen Hillage & Miquette Giraudy, Kai Campos & CJ Mirra, DJ Spooky / Aka That Subliminal Kid Feat Antoine Drye, and more.

    The work on Cassady, “Cremation Piece – On Neal’s Ashes,” is my favorite. The NYC poet and artist No Land joins forces with street poet/noise guitarist Oliver Ray, a former Patti Smith collaborator, to conjure a landscape of electronics and strings that weaves around the recitations by Ginsberg and the cross-talking of the poetess.  British DJ and electronic musician Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto manifests a similar vibe for Ginsburg’s ruminations on gods and spirituality in “Holy Ghost on the Nod Over the Body of Bliss.”  It is Indonesian Gamelan meets Indian tablas meets old European string quartet on a Martian soundscape dressing the poet’s riffs on Kali, Krishna and “Zeus riding a reindeer.”  The band WHY? brings an ultra-slow groove to their treatment of “Death on All Fronts.”  It, and the similarly bouncy “Bixby Canyon,” are perhaps the most commercial entries on this experimental album, a slow dance sway to lyrics that capture Hallmark moments like “poison rats in the chicken house.”

    Another worthy track is “Pentagon Exorcism.” Here the great NYC poet Anne Waldman recites Ginsberg’s anti defense industrial complex piece against a backdrop that marries hip hop beats and Art Ensemble of Chicago muted trumpet jazz, something that goes well with the poet’s bebop-inspired word play. Dave Harrington joins up with multi-instrumentalist Will Epstein for “Pertussin.” It’s another slow and dreamy outing with lots of texture and instrumental crunch that brings to mind another musician who I wish had a go at a collaboration here, ECM Records’ guitarist Steve Tibbetts. System 7, a collaboration of GONG’s guitarist Steve Hillage and keyboardist Miquette Giraudy, adds tasty and spacey treatments to “Sonora Desert Edge (The Abyss).  It’s an ideal spin for your next rave – all synth washes, echoes and periodic dance beats – a sound visioning of the colors, vegetation and animals of the desert. Only regret here is that Hillage doesn’t inject the king of fleet-fingered, melodic guitaring that has been a signature of his earlier band and solo releases. 

    There are a couple of misses here too. This list is led by Thurston Moore’s mercifully brief (:55!) “A Prophecy,” a tuneless strum (or loop) that goes nowhere fast.  Also work worthy of hitting the skip for is the album opener, “Hum Bom!”  In this, the great poet serves up a non-sensical word salad, one unfortunately read by the brave Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, to very bad (ironic?) synth that sounds like the theme for a Grade-D James Bond movie knockoff.  But thanks to Philip Glass, the album closes on a high point with “Have You Seen This Movie?”  It’s a nine-plus minute epic rant from Ginsberg set to a slowly building heavenly solo piano, one that brings to mind the work of Cal Cobbs on Albert Ayler’s live recording of “Angels.”

    I have always been a fan of the marriage of poetry and music, as heard in the works of John Cooper Clarke, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Material and one of my own humble projects, Vapor Vespers, with Alaskan poet Mark Muro. I also love that this benefits Pen America. Pen is a group I had the pleasure of working with in my former life as a PR executive, through which I met many of the brave writers and artists it honored like Salman Rushdie, Pussy Riot and the editors of Charlie Hebdo.

    While you can stream this on Spotify, why not pony up and get the vinyl with the killer bonus track by the always excellent DJ Spooky?  It’s a purchase that will not only delight your ears, mind and soul. It is something that will support free speech and the many journalists, authors and artists around the world who are endangered and jailed for simply seeking to disseminate truth and facts.

    Digital Track Listing:

    Ai Weiwei with O Future & Aliah Rosenthal – Hum Bom!

    Anne Waldman and Fast Speaking Music – Pentagon Exorcism

    Thurston Moore feat. Saul Williams – A Prophecy 

    Kai Campos and CJ Mirra – Bixby Canyon

    Devendra Banhart – Dear Queer Bar

    Jack Dangers – Holy Ghost on the Nod Over the Body of Bliss

    System 7 – Sonora Desert Edge (The Abyss) 

    WHY? – Death on All Fronts

    Seb Taylor – Over Denver Again

    Fennesz & Taylor Deupree – Guru

    Ashes (Bill Laswell, Eraldo Bernocchi & Reeno) – September on Jessore Road 

    Oliver Ray and No Land – Cremation Piece (On Neal’s Ashes)

    Dave Harrington & Will Epstein – Pertussin 

    Miho Hatori – Iron Horse (The Universe is Empty)

    Philip Glass – Have You Seen This Movie?

  • The Zombies Invade Woodstock with A New Documentary & Duet Performance

    The Zombies, one of the most celebrated bands of the early ‘60s British Invasion and pioneers of the later “orch pop” movement, came to Woodstock to showcase Hung Up On A Dream, an entertaining new documentary about their star-crossed career and ultimate critical resurrection directed by Robert Schwartzman.

    The Zombies’ Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone at the Woodstock Film Festival premiere new documentary, Hung Up On A Dream, at the Bearsville Theater.

    One of the highlights of the always star-studded 24th annual Woodstock Film Festival, the event took place before a sell-out crowd at the recently renovated Bearsville Theater.  Rod Argent, the band’s visionary keyboardist founder and principle songwriter, was joined by the still choir-boy voiced Colin Blunstone for a post-screening Q&A and a rousing five-song duet performance.

    Though The Zombies reached the top of the charts in 1964 with their debut single “She’s Not There” and a strong follow-up in 1965, “Tell Her No,” theirs is a story of old school showbiz mismanagement/exploitation followed, years later, by a critical reassessment and successful reunion.  Earning countless millions via aggressive touring and recording at the start of their careers, the barely out of their teens bandmembers would each be forced to survive on a paltry 10 British pounds a week. That was until they recorded and broke up before the release of their 1968 psych/pop masterwork, Odessey and Oracle.  By the time its single, “Time of the Season,” topped the charts, the band was well over and done with.  And three decades would pass before they would make their triumphant return. 

    The documentary begins with a rapid-fire mélange of YouTube videos where new generations of music lovers wax poetic about their love of The Zombies, and especially their orch pop motherlode, Odessey and Oracle.

    Thankfully, this documentary has none of the forced drama and cliched stupidity (drug ODs/inter-band incest/ songwriter royalty battles) popularized by VH-1’s “Behind the Music.”  Perhaps that’s because The Zombies all seem like remarkably well-adjusted suburbanites with great senses of humor (especially the always hilarious Blunstone).

    After the breakup, keyboardist Rod Argent would go on to immediate success with his surname titled band of “Hold Your Head Up” fame. Singer Blunstone would become an insurance agent and then emerge as a solo singer – first with a new name, Neil McArthur, before returning to his own for another classic disc, the orchestra-swaddled One Year, produced by Argent and the Zombies’ other great songwriter, bassist Chris White.  Drummer Hugh Grundy and guitarist Paul Atkinson would go on to working in car sales and computers respectively before serving as beloved record company A&R executives responsible for kickstarting the careers of bands like ABBA, Queen and Bruce Hornsby. In the immediate aftermath of the success of “Time of the Season,” the rip-offs continued with two bands of “fake” Zombies touring the U.S., one even including two musicians who would later go on to found ZZ Top.

    Filmicly, the documentary benefits from clips from the band’s many early appearances on television shows like Hullabaloo, American Bandstand and BBC’s Juke Boy Jury. The latter is where Beatle George Harrison dubbed their debut single “marvelous” and helped it race up the charts.

    Schwartzman does a solid job of covering all the bases on the band’s rise, fall and rebirth.  The latter begins to gather steam in the ‘80s and ‘90s as the band’s Odessey and Oracle becomes revered among hipster tastemakers like Beck, who would go on to cover their “Beechwood Park.”  It reaches critical mass in 2008 when the band reunites for a 40th Anniversary concert recreating the album, which will be followed by several tours and their ultimate enshrinement in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.  Tom Petty, Paul Weller, Post Malone, Haim, Harry Styles and Dave Grohl are all featured in the documentary sharing their love of the band, with Foo’s frontman calling Odessey his “favorite all-time album.” 

    Bearsville Theater owner Lizzie Vann with The Zombies’ Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone

    Once again, there is a lot of humor as Argent, White, Grundy and Blunstone tell their story, with the lead singer getting the most laughs.  Famously, Argent’s artist roommate Terry Quirk spelled “odyssey” wrong on the album cover painting, but the label was too cheap to re-press it.  They were also too cost-conscious to let Blunstone do another take to fix a lyrical flub in “Tell Her No” or to provide money for a stereo mix of Odessey (Argent and White paid the $1,000 from their songwriting royalties). Emotions come to the fore as they recall their final performance with guitarist Paul Atkinson at a 2004 reunion. Suffering from terminal cancer, Atkinson would play with a morphine drip and pass three weeks after the show. 

    The film concludes with a duet performance of Blunstone’s “Caroline Goodbye” from his Argent/White produced album, One Year, with the obviously music-loving director Schwartzman on acoustic guitar.

    Following the screening, Lizzie Vann, the British-born owner/architect of the recently revived Bearsville Theater, took to the stage to introduce Argent and Blunstone and joke about her earlier meeting with the jet-lagged duo over breakfast. 

    The Zombies’ Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone at the Woodstock Film Festival premiere new documentary, Hung Up On A Dream, at the Bearsville Theater.

    Argent and Blunstone performed a rousing four-song set beginning with a super slowed down and extra bluesy “She’s Not There” and concluding with an extended version of “Time of the Season,” with Argent rolling out long legato solos like a rock-n-roll Art Tatum. The second tune, “You Could Be My Love,” is from their wonderful 2023 album, Different Game. In the film,  Blunstone discusses his rigorous three-times daily practice regiment.  It came to the fore here, as he is truly in better voice than ever, something remarkable for a man in his 70s.

    Radio Woodstock’s amiable Justin Foy then took to the stage to conduct a Q&A.  In it, the duo spoke of the importance of Elvis in their decision to live the life of musicians. “He was a creature from another universe and I vowed at my first listen that I would form a band like Elvis” said Argent.  When asked how they felt about covers like Santana’s version of “She’s Not There,” Argent commented that he always felt his songs had an “understated Latin feel,” while Blunstone added: “It’s never been a problem for me, it’s a really compliment.”  As for the tendency to remix and reissue classic albums by The Beatles and their own Odessey and Oracle, Argent added: “We’re not precious about it at all.  Art is a work in progress.  We’re always delighted when someone will spend their time to improve it.”

    As for the best moment in their career, Blunstone said it was the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame event. “I didn’t know all the words but I got to jam ‘All The Young Dudes’ with Def Leppard, Brian May and Ian Hunter.”

    Foy closed the evening by twisting another tune out of the sleepy duo, a spirited version of “This Will Be Our Year” from Odessey and Oracle.  With a documentary like this hitting streaming platforms and theaters and their new album, this may be another big year for The Zombies.

  • 70 Iconic Vocalists Tell All in New Book, “The Singers Talk”


    Rod Stewart, Roger Daltrey, Tony Bennett, Nick Cave, Norah Jones, Smokey Robinson, Thom Yorke, Chrissie Hynde, Brian Johnson and Chuck D are just a few of the 70 vocal icons whose inspirations and techniques are revealed in a riveting new book, The Singers Talk (Permuted Press).

    The Singers Talk is a first-of-its-king compendium of lengthy conversations conducted with dozens of vocal greats by Jason Thomas Gordon, the lead singer and drummer of buzzworthy LA-based rockers, Kingsize.  Interestingly, Gordon is also the grandson of Danny Thomas, the early television sitcom pioneer who founded St. Jude’s, the world’s foremost hospital for child cancer patients, in 1962.  All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the hospital through its Music Gives to St. Jude Kids, a campaign created by the author.

    The lengthy subtitle to Thomas’s book tells all – The Greatest Singers of Our Times Discuss The One Thing They’re Never Asked About – The Voices. Unlike guitarists, bassists and keyboardist who get to share their thoughts on their instruments through a plethora of specialty magazines and websites, how our favorite singers cultivate their unique sounds, and what they do to maintain them during high stakes recording sessions, grueling tours and over decades-long careers, is often a mystery.  Interestingly, The Singers Talk also features exclusive interviews about many celebrated voices no longer with us. These include Steven Van Zandt on Little Richard, Butch Vig on Kurt Cobain, Clive Davis on Whitney Houston, Nile Rodgers on David Bowie, Wendy Melvoin on Prince and Jimmy Iovine on Tom Petty.

    Gordon’s conversations with and about the vocal greats are steered by 20 questions he poses to each.  These include where and when they began singing, their earliest influences and dream duet partners (living or dead), five favorite singers and several technical questions like how they warm up (if at all) and keep their voices intact on the road.  Naturally, they also reveal the stories behind some of their most famous performances on record.

    The Go-Gos’s Belinda Carlisle shares that it was Julie Andrews in the film Mary Poppins who inspired her to sing and that she never takes to the stage with consuming two Aleve tablets to fight inflammation that can compromise her performance.  If Emmy Lou Harris’ early dreams came through, she would be a singing actress in musicals like West Side Story. The country rock great credits Gram Parsons and his amazing story songs to helping her find her voice. The original leather rocker girl, Joan Jett, was also all about movie musicals in her youth, especially Liza Minnelli in Cabaret. This was before she would fall in love with rock via Paul Rodgers’ singing in Free’s “All Right Now” and T. Rex’s “Bang A Gong.”  This trio is representative of many singers interviewed here who say they keep their voices is shape while on the road by avoiding overly air-conditioned rooms and by traveling with one or more humidifiers!  And while Chrissie Hynde also ascribes to the above road Rx, she was turned on to singing by the original punk, Iggy Pop.  She says, ironically I trust, his success demonstrated that there was a space on the hit parade for “ugly Midwestern voices like ours.”

    Producer Butch Vig shares that Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain hated to double-track his voice, claiming “it was fake.”  The mercurial musician would also only be good for a couple of takes before he blew out his voice.  But Vig did get Cobain to double-track by using a bit of psychology – by telling Beatlefile Kurt that his idol, John Lennon, did it on almost every record.  The Doors’ Robbie Krieger credits some of Jim Morrison’s vocal punch to the size of his throat commenting: “Have you ever looked at the size of his neck? It’s as big as Pavarotti’s!” He also sets a long-discussed rumor straight saying that his singer’s spine-chilling performance on “The End” was indeed recorded while Morrison on L.S.D.  Ozzy Osborne also brings up the legendary Italian opera star saying he always eats as apple before going on stage, just like Pavarotti himself did (it helps lubricated the voice according to Osborne). The Who’s Roger Daltrey feels he found his voice through the band’s songs, most notably, in the studio and live performances of the rock opera, Tommy. And rock’s most iconic scream, the one in “Won’t Get Fooled Again?” Does it obscure his singing talent?  “It drives me nuts,” he says. “I’m getting to the age where it’s my least favorite song to sing.”

    The recently-departed jazz great Tony Bennett claimed it takes seven years of steady work to learn how to sing properly and that his own influencers are not singers but great jazz sax players and pianists.  Producer Nile Rodgers ascribes the success of David Bowie to his perfectionist preparation and thespian skills.  Like his career and discography, his voice was also about constant change. Bowie would develop wholly new styles and approaches for the “characters” he took on in his songs.  And the secret to Public Enemy’s Chuck D’s success? It’s that he wanted to be – and communicates very much like – a sports play-by-play announcer. “Rap carries the same rhythms as sportscasters like Marv Albert,” adds D.  His technique has been helped by his recent study of Pilates and five-years of core training.

    “Singing is so much more than hitting the right note,” Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. “It’s about connecting with the audience, connecting with something divine, connecting to your most primitive and deepest intuition, and to your nature as a human on this planet.” Adds Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, mid-interview, “This is the most geeked out I’ve ever talked about my voice!”

  • John Cale Brings New Energy to Classics at Celebrate Brooklyn!

    John Cale, one of the true OGs of the international art rock underground, gave a masterclass in performance and reinvention before a packed house at BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival in Prospect Park on August 19.

    At 81, Cale is still a striking and potent musical force, a true creator who is forever seeking new artistic horizons. He’s a man whose catalog has spanned everything from the proto-punk of the Velvet Underground to classical minimalism, gorgeous orch-pop balladry, the fiercest (and drunkenly deranged) hard rock rants to, on his first new studio album in a decade Mercy, shades of beat-driven hallucinatory electronica and experimental pop.  This new collection finds the adventurous Welshman in the company of youthful collaborators like Weyes Blood, Laurel Halo, Sylvan Esso and Actress.

    Belying his age, Cale was a most commanding force on stage – in fine voice, a sharp black Italian suit and dramatically spikey white hair, playing both keys and guitar for a 14-song, career-spanning set.

    In a nod to his new album, many of the songs were kicked off with a rhythm machine like “Moonstruck (Nico’s Song),” his tribute to the Velvet Underground chanteuse whose best solo albums, like 1968’s The Marble Index, Cale produced.  Another standout from the new album is “Night Crawling,” the first single which recalls his adventures with pal David Bowie in the New York City downtown of the 1970s. 

    Two of the most interesting and atmospheric numbers were “Rose Garden of Future Sores” and “Half Past France.”  Both featured orchestral backgrounds, disorienting chords and spacey electronic effects.  The latter was a 180-degree spins on one of the serene ballads from Cale’s acclaimed 1973 orch-pop masterpiece, Paris 1919.  Its calm was transformed into a sinister ambient Krautrock noise nightmare.  Its queasy string drone foundation was punctuated with bowed electric bass and an eerily harmonizer-effected vocal on the outro line: “We’re so far away, floating into space.”  The same sonics were present for his funereal take on Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel,” a highlight from his 1975 album, Slow Dazzle.

    Sonic dread never sounded so good.

    Cale picked up the guitar and rocked strong and hard on old favorites like “Guts,” “Helen of Troy” and “Cable Hogue.”  He returned to the keys to revisit a Velvet Underground staple to the delight of the crowd,  Lou Reed’s junkie opus, “I’m Waiting for the Man.”  Here, he perhaps deferred to the P.C. police by injecting the line “Hey buddy” for Lou’s “Hey White Boy.”

    Another fantastic rearrangement was in store with another Paris 1919 ballad, “Hanky Panky Nohow.”  Cale and his wonderfully tasty three-piece backing band made this already gorgeous song even more beautiful and relaxed – with a rhythm machine underpinning, a glacial pacing and an added sample of an operatic soprano female soloing on the song’s long coda.  This and all tracks performed were complemented with video projections that made their atmospheric sounds even more so.

    Cale’s set concluded with a raucous version of “Barracuda,” another punchy rocker from his album Fear featuring some very fine psychobilly guitar soloing.

    The surprise of the evening was the set by the show opener Tomberlin, the nom de sound of contemporary folk artist/singer-songwriter Sarah Beth Tomberlin. 

    Now living and working out of Brooklyn, this Kentucky-born performer played a well-paced set of gentle tunes from her two Saddle Creek Records’ albums, the most recent of which, 2022’s I Don’t Know Who Needs to Hear This…, was recorded a few blocks away from Prospect Park at Figure 8 Studios. 

    Tomberlin is a confident performer with the kind of droll between song banter that easily won over the crowd, one that was surely there, in very large part, to catch a glimpse of Cale. 

    The most striking element is her voice.  It has both a breathy quality that reminds me of another buzzworthy young performer, Snail Mail, and all power and range needed to bring across one of her dramatic lyrical twists. Her three-piece backing band provided sensitive accompaniment to all her songs, many that we’re mere whisps.  Airy Frisell-like guitaring, lots of shimmering brush work on the drums and lush yet minimalist keys perfectly adorned her intimate story songs and their poetic lyrical turns.

    Standout tracks in her set were the evocative “Sunstruck,” “Stoned,” “Memory” and the set closer, the sprawling psychedelic “Happy Accident.”

  • Anarchy in the Hudson Valley: The Fugs Reunite at Byrdcliffe Art Colony

    This may well be the final go-round for The Fugs, the satirical and politically-charged group of musical anarchists founded way back in 1964 in the East Village by poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg and drummer Ken Weaver. 

    the fugs

    For those not in the know, The Fugs were probably the furthest edge of the counterculture musical spectrum. They were a whip-smart, motely group known for their comical, and often lewd, noise rock lullaby/sendups of America’s hypocritical political and corporate structures, and their singularly vehement protests of the Vietnam War, something expressed in tunes like “Kill for Peace.” An FBI memo on The Doors labeled The Fugs “the most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive.”  Actually, they were, and continue to be at heart, a goodtime band whose messages are contained in hooky singalong-worthy works. In concert, these are delivered with the kind of slapstick comic timing that can warm and thoroughly engage even the chilliest audience. 

    With the release of their latest and reportedly final album Dancing in the Universe, The Fugs have reunited for a short series of what may be their final shows, at NYC’s City Winery and Woodstock’s legendary Byrdcliffe, America’s first art colony.

    Today, the group is led by its last original member, Ed Sanders.  Sanders is an insanely productive writer acclaimed for his many volumes of poetry, historical works and fiction like my own favorite, the five-volume Tales of Beatnik Glory.  He may be best known to the general public for his 1971 best-seller, The Family, the consummate work on Charles Manson and the Tate-LaBianca murders. 

    On Friday, August 18, 84-year-old Sanders led The Fugs through a spirited two-set, 27 song performance at the rustic barn at Byrdcliffe in Woodstock, where the poet has lived since the mid-1970s.

    The Fugs of today are far more polished than the 1960s edition.  A lot of the credit for this goes to Scott Petito, the group’s bassist who has also served as their recording engineer and producer since the group reformed, after a 15-year hiatus, in 1984.  The ensemble was completed by guitarist/singer Steven Taylor, an ethnomusicologist and longtime accompanist to poet Alan Ginsburg, and drummer/singer Coby Batty.

    The group kicked off their first set with a blast of East Village past, “Slum Goddess.”  This is a Ken Weaver-penned ode to a saucy and sexual free girl of the L.E.S. past, one whose “skirt is not much wider than her garrison belt.” This was followed by one their best-known offerings, “CIA Man,” a Kupferberg tune Sanders observed was “as true in 2023 as it was in the 1960s.”  Sanders the poet came to the fore with a solo recitation of his nihilist opus, “Nothing.”  Taylor performed a solo rendition of one of the standout tracks on this latest album, “God Bless Johnny Cash.”  The set also included two new songs from their recent album produced from cassette demos recorded with Kupferberg before his death in 2010, the wonderful “I Want to Be Healed” and “Where Have All the Commies Gone?”  The Fugs’ “R&R Hall of Fame” is a humorous response to Jann Wenner’s stance of forever barring the band for consideration in Cleveland’s fame rock hall.

    The Fugs of today are far more musically adept than their original editions, especially as it relates to vocal harmony. Their unique three-part harmony swaddled the second set tracks, “Swinburne Stomp” and “Ah, Sunflower.”  The thought-provoking “End Times” was an Ed Sanders’ tune inspired by a voice mail message about depression by another Woodstock songwriting legend Tom Pacheco, one where Taylor’s vocals gave off a Lou Reed vibe.  In the introduction to the psychedelic “The Garden is Open,” Sanders told how it was The Fugs who gave Jimi Hendrix one of the two prototype wah-wah pedals they were gifted, a few days before he headed off to London and stardom.  Sanders used it to make a rare positive commentary about America: “No country that can invent the wah-wah pedal can be all bad.”

    Agreed, Mr. Sanders.

    The Fugs continued to dig deep into their beefy discography with the 1966 single, “Frenzy,” and  an update on Tuli’s anti-war classic, “Kill for Peace.”  Another Kupferberg original from the newest disc, the melodic “Protest and Survive,” struck a blow for optimism in the face of our world’s problems, while “Crystal Liaison” was the perfect parody of the psychedelic “hogwash” of the 1960s, with lines like “In the great bowling alley of your mind, I am your Pin Boy.”

    As for all the hoopla of this being The Fugs final spin on disc and in concert, it’s not very certain according to producer Petito.  “It seemed like every album since their 1984 was going to be the last,” laughs Petito.  And from the sharpness of his mind and humor and his energy, one can imagine the godly productive Sanders rounding up the troops for another round of musical blows against the empire in the not-too-distant future.