Complete Control

Let's go out to the movies!

Two recent rock-related films deserve extra special mention here--

Firstly, Anton Corbijn's "Control", could be just about the best rock biopic to date, maybe even the best film of the year (confession: I'm more than slightly biased: Anton's an old friend since the Beefheart days, he shot some memorable photos of Don Van Vliet in the Mojave Desert, one of which is on the cover of the final Beefheart album "Ice Cream for Crow", Don looking sorrowful and soulful in front of a Joshua tree, which might well have been the inspiration for Anton's buddies' U2 and their album of the same name)...

...right after Caroline and I got married in 1984 we began to hang and visit Anton frequently in his various London studios and apartments, bombing around London in his little sports car in the middle of the night... he took us once to the fabled Windmill Restaurant, a second story walkup on Oxford Street, alas no more, eventually falling afoul of the wrecking ball a few years ago like so much of the world, a 30's architectural marvel sporting a fantastic roccoco-a-go-go design by famed Scottish surrealist photographer Angus McBean...later Anton gave me a print of an actual portrait he made of the mad bearded wandering Angus--also a shot of a nude Ari Up (from the Slits) and a very pregnant (with Herman Brood's brood) Nina Hagen, taken on a beach somewhere in Spain...many years later Anton took a photo of me on the old Christopher Street docks, which I used for the cover of my 1992 "Gods and Monsters" album, you can view it on my home page and in the discography section of my website--soon come, too, online, as about 10 of my catalog albums are about to be re-released digitally...

Besides his incredible photos, I've loved much of Anton's actual film work since Paul Morley got him to direct some of the early videos for Propaganda...he also made an excellent short film entitled "Some Yo-Yo Stuff" about Don Van Vliet which brought tears to my eyes upon viewing in the late 90's...his lighting and composition sensibility is masterful, his ability to make familiar faces and subjects strange and dislocated is artful and miraculous--but who could guess that he would turn out to be so adept and accomplished a director of actors?

The performances he pulls out of Sam Riley as Joy Division's doomed singer Ian Curtis and Samantha Morton as his long-suffering wife are revelatory, and ever so true to life (and death)... you kind of forget these are actors up there on the screen after awhile, the scenes of the band's formation/gestation and the low level Mancunian pop 'n pub life in general have the ring 'o truth/right shade of grim about them...I was never a huge Joy Division fan back in the day quite honestly, although the late lamented Lou Stathis (the erudite cultural critic whose music writing in the pages of "Heavy Metal" and other publications was quite prescient/on the money) kept pressing their records on me, and entreating me to listen to them more closely--good on ye, Lou... over the years my appreciation of the band increased, quite a bit...and Anton's film captures their moment and momentum and ultimate tragedy superbly--Bravo, Anton!

(Addendum: there was a witty play/japerie about the life and death of Ian Curtis that was performed at the New York Performance Works in Tribeca about 10 years ago, written by "Spin" scribe Marc Spitz, entitled "I Wanna Be Adored"--very entertaining in its black humorous, droll-ish way, opening scene was Ian Curtis waking up in limbo with a noose around his neck, marveling "I've finally done it! I've topped meself!"... the play boasted cameos by slinky and tres erotique Annie Parisse ( "Law and Order"'s Alexandra Borgia) as Ian Curtis's Belgian Other Woman, and Peter Dinklage (of "Station Agent" fame, currently knocking 'em dead on screen as the dwarf hustler in Frank Oz's "Death at a Funeral") as a devilish imp who comes to close the proceedings and ring down the curtain at the end)...

The other really good film in a musical vein out there currently that I've seen recently is Julien Temple's excellent documentary about Joe Strummer, "The Future is Unwritten".

Now I have more than a glancing acquaintance with the subject at hand, as once upon a time I worked on the advertising supporting the first US releases from The Clash as a writer in CBS Records' Creative Services Dept., authoring the line "The Only Group That Matters" which was used on various Clash posters and print ad campaigns, and which seems to have stuck in the public consciousness to this day/entered the pop vernacular (probably my most famous ad line--it was quoted by the nerdy brain police/techies in Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"--but not nearly as fun as authoring "Can You Take 12 Inches of 'British Steel'?", for Judas Priest's eponymous album of the same name; or dressing Rob Halford, the group's lead singer, as a school safety patrolman for some MTV promo clips we shot in Hollywood for JP's "Turbo" album--breaking the law, breaking the law!). Both A.O. Scott and Owen Gleiberman referred to this line in their review of the Strummer documentary in the NY Times and Entertainment Weekly, respectively, Scott referring to it as "record company hype"--hype it might have smacked of, coming from a monolithic record company..

But let me assure you dear reader, that personally, corporate tool/wage slave though I might have been, there was usually more than a touch of the subversive about a good deal of my efforts (yes); indeed, on the days when I wasn't feeling like a total whore, I felt like a complete mole in the decaying corpus of the corporation (the group's name is Nature's Divine? Okay--how 'bout an ad with the headline: "People Everywhere are Answering the Call of Nature!" No problemo.) (And they bought it, too...)

But vis a a vis The Clash--in that particular time and space, 1978-79--I honestly did believe, fervently, that they were, for sure--The Only Group That Mattered.

Which I continued to believe--up to the point when I joined Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, in 1980--

After which I believed that WE were the only group that mattered :-)

But hey, let's return now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, as the Clash's manager Bernie Rhodes comes a'calling in the fall of '77 to the lucky 13th floor of Black Rock, 51 West 52nd Street, home of Epic Records, a division of CBS Records (before it was gutted and sold to Sony), having come for a sniff 'round the premises where his charges are due soon to be unleashed on the world, Epic Records having the honor of releasing their work in America due to an actual random A&R toss of the coin at the 1977 CBS Records Convention in London--which resulted in The Vibrators (!) being assigned to Columbia Records (they were on Epic in the UK), and The Clash assigned to the (to quote Jeff Beck in Rolling Stone): "lesser of the two labels" (this is not necessarily my opinion: indeed, I had many friends working at Epic when I did my time at Black Rock, many competent people worked there...but it is true to say that, within the corporate culture itself, Epic was not considered the front-line label)...

In any case, just about the only people in the whole company directly after the CBS convention who had actually listened to the Clash on import, and honestly, really gave more than a tinker's damn about them, were me and my pal Marilyn "MT" Laverty (pre-Alan Betrock, living in a residential hotel in the east 20's, at the time a secretary for Columbia Records' publicity department....also, a real cutting-edge music enthusiast, and a gifted freelance writer for "Trouser Press" magazine, author of the classic "Devo--Threat or Menace?" article)...to us, in the summer of '77, that first Clash album sounded as good as music gets.

Somehow or other shortly thereafter Marilyn and I hooked up with Mr. Rhodes (who had grown weary of correcting the record company local girls--who mercilessly razzed this be-leathered munchkin as 'Bernie'-- with a pained: "It's BerNARD!")--I guess in his eyes Marilyn and I were the only record company employees who mattered, or at least, gave him the respectful time of day...

and so we took him out of the building one afternoon and headed Downtown, to scout suitable venues for The Clash's first NYC appearance, which was still about a year away (at the Academy of Music on 14th Street)...I remember we went for a look-see to Irving Plaza, also CBGB's, of course, and--I found I really liked the guy--he was a wind-up artist, sure--annoying, cryptic, evasive, haughty, and sly--and yet, essentially benign, dedicated thoroughly to his boys/instilling in them his left-socialist anti-authoritarian worldview/agenda, and very down to earth (his Eastern European Jewish prole roots kept showing)--sharp as a needle, in other words (he made a pun at one point about "bringing home the (Francis) bacon"), a good kick up the ass/rallying point/father figure for wayward British yout'--another yiddishe upsetter of apple carts--originally Malcolm McLaren's shop assistant (Julie Burchill used to refer to him as "the assistant haberdasher"), he'd broken away, found his own band, and helped mold them into the magnificent Clash (a controversial subject at best in the ranks of Clash fans--really, the guy probably doesn't get enough credit for this--it's an old story)...anyway he left Marilyn and I at the end of our evening out with him drinking in a bar with a promise to come back to town with his boys and "give you all a good thumping!" Which they did, in spades...

And--what else is there to say, really, but that Joe Strummer was, is, and remains, an absolute Giant, a Hero, a fantastic songwriter/rebel rouser/frontman and foil to great-in-their-own right) Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon (and don't forget Terry Chimes)--ironically, the last to join after Mick and Paul, Joe was the heart and soul of that band, it was always his show, from the get-go, in the total service of You, the audience...and this film captures Joe and The Clash's essence pretty damn well, though some may quibble with its overly schematic format--I didn't mind in the slightest...

shortly after Joe died, Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven did a fantastic version of "London Calling" at the Grammies--and truth to tell it was the best live number I'd ever seen performed on that show...like Bruce, Joe had the total power of conviction as a performer and writer, and the skills to back it up...

Yep, I was honored to work on behalf of The Clash, I was a Believer (and truth to tell, there were a few others at Black Rock--among them Felice Rosser, Robert Smith, Arthur Levy, Susan Blond, Ira Sherman, Bruce Harris--who brought in Sandy Pearlman to produce their great second album)...and I hung in there as a Believer, to the bitter end, I actually enjoyed much of their last Bernie Rhodes--or was it Jose Unidos?-- produced album "Cut the Crap"..."This is England" is one of the great singles of all time, I played it over and over and over in my annus horribilis of 1985, while recuperating from hospital....that, and The Smiths' "The Boy With the Thorn in His Side" (which I literally could relate to)...and also, the first Big Audio Dynamite album...

Played them over and over and over...

Doin' It to Death...

xxLove

Gary

ps One final film note: Michele Ohayon's "Save a Pencil for Me" is one of the finest documentaries ever--a Holocaust-themed memoir about a Dutch couple whose love endured the death camps and flourished and ripened into splendid old age (they're both still alive, mirabile dictu)... a documentary that transcends its dark numbing context... it lifts one up soaring at the end into the realm of the best of human possibility...please see this film if you get the chance.

Staring Up at the Sky

Just back from late spring/early summer in Australia playing 4 Golem shows down under, I been working baby oh so hard, staring up at this guy ('cept in Melbourne when they provided me with a computer monitor screen placed directly before me showing the filmed image simultaneously projected behind me--screen in this capacious cinema was so high off the ground as to have given me whiplash peering up into it)...

But first things first.

Re my last pop quiz: had some good educated guesses submitted from Out There as to the provenance of Bernard Herrmann's famous 6 note cyclical motif which opens his score for Hitchcock's "Vertigo"...Habib Rahman, writing from Pursat Town in Cambodia ("they're comin' from all over the world") had the right composer, wrong opera (I hinted that Hermann's hypnotic motif derived from a 19th century opera, remember) in asserting Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" as the source for the intro figure in "Vertigo"'s Prelude...in fact, Wagner's "Liebestod" from "Tristan" does indeed figure largely in a later theme in Hermann's "Vertigo" score; namely, as the inspiration for Hermann's love theme ("Scene d'amour") that recurs every time Jimmy Stewart/Scotty thinks he's successfully sighted or possessed Kim Novak/Madeleine (a Proustian moniker if ever there was one, ever so appropriate for Scotty's feverish/obsessive memoirs de l'amour fou)...Alex Ross, the New Yorker's classical gasser, who, along with fellow New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones, is one of the most erudite and entertaining music writers on the scene, at my invitation made a very good attempt at identifying the source as Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande", or possibly Mussorgsky (Alex has an excellent new new book out, "The Rest is Noise", through Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)...

but Noooooo-- the correct answer is the "Ho-Yo-To-Ho" motif--Brunhilde's Battle Cry-- from Wagner's wild "Ride of the Valkyries", Act II, Scene 1 of "Die Walkure" (or as my buddy the late Jon Arlow used to parody it-- "Hyatt Hotel! Hyatt Hotel!")...Hermann takes these intervals, transposing Wagner's descending scale a half-step down to D Bb F# D, and adds an ascending fillip of F# and D to fashion his recurring musical momento mori...the same borrowed Wagner figure turns up in the first movement of Vaughan Williams' 7th Symphony, "Sinfonia Antartica", which might also have been a source for Hermann (and maybe a private, allusive joke when he came to compose his "Vertigo" score, as Vaughan Williams' 1953 symphony derives from VW's own score for the 1948 film "Scott of the Antarctic"-- a good description of Jimmy Stewart/Scotty's glacial post-traumatic stress condition at the beginning of "Vertigo")...

Not the first time Bernard Herrmann has copped a feel from the classics, and otherwise (Zorn and I chuckled many a year ago over Hermann's appropriation of avant-trombonist Grachan Moncur III's Blue Note side "Evolution" for Hermann's main title theme for Scorsese's "Taxi Driver": stop-start dissonant whole note crescendos over accelerating Tony Williams percussion bursts)...all this is in no way to take away from Bernard Hermann as a film composer supreme--his "black and white" frenzied, stabbing music for "Psycho" is quoted endlessly to this day, respectfully (I did a solo arrangement for my "Hitchcocked" medley, and a band version with Gods and Monsters on "Coming Clean") and as parody...not so much his "Vertigo" music--although, hold on, Von Dexter does quote it pretty much verbatim near the top of his main title music for William Castle's 1959 howler "The Tingler"...also, Hermann likes to quote himself (many of his murkier "Taxi Driver" themes are recycled from his score for "Jason and the Argonauts"--some of his "Sport and Iris" cues recast the music accompanying Hylas and Hercules' plundering the cryot of Talos in "Jason")--and there is that chilling moment at the end of "Taxi Driver" when Cybil Shepard sees De Niro/Travis Bickle's eyes in the rear-view mirror of his cab, and Herrmann's ominous 3 note "Psycho" motif comes to the fore (F up to Eb and then down to low D )...and you know--as Cybil knows-- that Travis is a living time bomb who's due to go off again)...

Ran into rockwriter Billy Altman and his lovely wife at a preview of Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n Roll" Halloween night on Broadway (what better place to avoid the ghoulies and ghosties and long legged beasties running rampant down in the Village)...I've already written glowlingly about this play in an earlier posting as read in the Faber and Faber edition during my holidays 2 summers ago in India--just wanted to say that actually seeing the play in the corporeal here and now brought a big smile, especially the ending (Rufus Sewell as the befuddled Czech intellectual/ex-Communist Jan sees the future of Eastern Europe democracy writ large in the form of the Stones playing a stadium in Prague post Velvet Revolution)--a Stoppardian big wet sloppy kiss to the World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band as the living embodiment of Dionysian energies at play today after Syd Barrett's earlier piping at the Gates of Dawn proves an evanescent harbinger of things to come, at best ("Tom always wanted to be Mick", opined Andrew Loog Oldham in an earlier email exchange about this)...nice and fitting really that my buddies the Plastic People are taking the Stones' place live at the end of the current Czech production at the National Theater in Prague, they are a fantastic band live who I always enjoy jamming with...

Gary and Aishlin Harrison, Gods and Monsters live at the Bowery Poetry Club NYC, 11/2/07

photo by Insky | click to enlarge

Had a cool gig with Gods and Monsters at the Bowery Poetry Club on Nov. 2nd the Mexican Day of the Dead, Jerry Harrison was in town and joined us along with his fetching young daughter Aishlin on background vocals who is attending the Clive Davis School of Recorded Music at NYU...the whole shebang was covered by film maker Doug Sloan who earlier that week had filmed the band in rehearsal (me teaching the guys 2 new tunes) up at Gibson/Baldwin in the old Hit Factory...the band keeps getting better and better, and young Joe Hendel really is coming into his own as an improvisor, also a versatile multi-instrumentalist (he took over from Jerry on keyboards for several numbers and is really sounding great on that instrument)...inda house were James Truman and his lovely lady friend, Cineaste editor Richard Porton, and Kevin Coyne's widow Helmi all the way from Nurnberg (Kevin is one of the best kept secret treasures of the music world, he was Richard Branson's first serious signing to Virgin after Mike Oldfield, an intense singer/songwriter/blues shouter beloved of (among others) the 3 Johns--John Peel, John Lydon, and Jon Langford--and a wonderful friend and collaborator--check out the pair of tracks I recorded with him in the 90's in the 'Giving to You' section of my homepage)..

Then it was off to Melbourne Australia Saturday afternoon on a 24 hour journey that landed me there early Monday morning due to crossing the International Date Line, where I was warmly greeted by Les Rabinowicz, the founder of the Australian Festival of Jewish Cinema which he's run successfully these last 15 years...Les, a wonderful and sensitive guy surrounded by a great friendly and sympathetic support staff (thank you Lina and Les from the Grand Mercure Hotel) made sure my trip ran as smoothly as possible and started off things right by putting me up throughout my week long stay Down Under in 4 star hotels (yeah!)...his lovely wife Diane, the Festival's Artistic Director and an accomplished documentary film maker in her own right (her film "Escape to the Rising Sun", about Jewish emigration to the then free-port of Shanghai between the wars, is a a must-see) acted a superb hostess and drove me around the next day showing off the beautiful city of Melbourne, which I'd played a couple years ago in the company of Future Sound of London..ace Festival publicist Justin Rogers had lined up a spate of radio appearances for me, the first a national one on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) on Richard Stubbs show, which proved a really fun encounter as he let me gab for about half an hour as well as play acoustically...I got a phone message shortly before I went on from my old friend Mick Harvey of The Bad Seeds, who was in Melbourne and had heard about my appearance on Stubbs' show--he invited me to a Nick Cave retrospective which was opening at the National Gallery on Friday...my opening night gig went off smoothly that night at the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) in Federation Square, a very well attended concert in an amazing cavernous space, superb sonics too, playing to a 35 mm print of The Golem--quite a dream engagement!

The next night on the way to the soundcheck, after taping John Safran's humorous/intellectual show "Sunday Night Safran" which he shares with the 70-something Catholic priest Father Bob McGuire, Justin and I stopped off at the National Gallery to say hello to Nick Cave, who had flown in from Sydney that day to set up his gallery exhibition--he looked great, with an overflowing handlebar mustache (very Tracy Pew-ish, original Birthday Party bassist), and was exceedingly warm and friendly, last time I'd seen him was at a Tribute to Harry Smith I played at St. Ann's Church about 7 years ago... I've known Nick since the early 90's and have collaborated with him several times since, he is really one of the authentic greats in music, a guy who has definitely tread his own path defiant of trends and fashion (plus-- he really has a terrific feel for the deep dark blues)...

Unfortunately I woke with a chill and a fever the next morning, some bug I'd picked up en route, and it was determined to take me up to Sydney to rest up for for my next couple performances (it was two Golem shows in Melbourne, two in Sydney), so I had to miss Nick's opening, which looked fascinating with lots of art and artifacts tracing his career...good idea to move as I got sicker and sicker on the flight to Sydney, ears popping from the de-pressureization, nearly swooned in the taxi queue when Justin and I arrived...but the timely arrival of a female Asian doctor at my hotel and a judicious application of antibiotics more or less improved things by showtime next day, and I played a great opening set at the West Bondi Junction cinema, which was well attended as well (lots of avant-garde musicians/ friends of Phillip Johnston)...got up rather early and only slightly the worse for wear Saturday morning and made it over to Radio FBI studios with Justin where I had a delightful on-air chat with the loony crew who preside over the Saturday morning show known as The Naked City--including Dr, Gabriel, Coffin Ed, Miss Death, and Jay Katz...and of course, Jack the Poodle, their canine psychic mascot! Diane arrived as well that morning, and me and Justin and Diane took a lovely stroll in the Botanical Gardens and to the magnificent Sydney Opera House where Kiki and Herb recently ruled the roost--

The next night Steve Hendel's friend the boisterous John Kempler showed up for the soundcheck with his lovely family, and invited me over to his house to dinner for my last night...Phillip Johnston, my partner in Fast 'N Bulbous and an Australian resident for the last few years showed as well, and the next day we hung out near Bondi Beach an at his studio going over arrangements for our next F 'N B album, he looked great and happy to be living in the summery paradise of Sydney...then it was off to the Kemplers and some wonderful salmon on the barbie...a short sleep and then off to the airport for a grueling 22 hours flight home to NYC (not my idea of fun!)...sat next to an Iranian Ph.d architect on the plane back from LA and the 2 of us watched a small plane covered in flames burning out of control on the tarmac at JFK just as we set down at 9pm Tuesday night, surrounded by fire trucks lights a 'flashing and men dousing the wreck with chemical hoses...a Fire of Unknown Origin...not a word about this curious incident in the local papers either, my my...

been walking upside down inside hand-cuffs ever since
but now in the throes of recuperation
so thought I'd write you this letter and and
and

xxLove

Gary