Easter Everywhere
...was the title of the second album from the fabulous Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson's gang, and it came out on the crazed Texan International Artists label right around the same time as "The Who Sell Out" and The Beach Boys' "Smiley Smile", in September 1967...San Francisco's post-summer of love's "Death of Hippie" slide into hard drugs and creeping paranoia not-withstanding, the Elevators evinced a cheerful optimism in the face of the imminent crack-up of their front man (who was miraculously resurrected by his blood brother a couple years back and is regularly gigging again, catch the documentary "You're Gonna Miss Me" as soon as you can, a revelation and a must-see about one of the seminal figures--and near acid-casualties--of rock...
and it seems fitting and appropriate in this yearly confluence of Passover and Easter to pay obeisance to Easter the holiday's nurturing resurrection motif (Patti Smith herself has acknowledged the Elevators' influence, and there of course was her own "Easter" album)-- "come on roll away the stone"...
me, I have a song on my "Bad Boys of the Arctic" album entitled "They Can't Believe He's Risen Again"...(believe it).
This arose out of a found fragment of overheard actual diurnal dialogue, one of my favorite lyrical composition techniques (take what you have gathered by coincidence), occasion being the time me and my partner in crime Bill Moseley allowed an actual mad itinerant alcoholic poet to read at our weekly Things That Go Bump in the Night horror film society gathering at Yale in 1973, at his insistence (my impulse is usually charitable when someone importunes me to share a stage with them)...the guy announced he was going to read his poem entitled "Easter", and managed to get out the one line "They can't believe He's risen again!" before being hooted down repeatedly by an egregious massed battallion of bored Yalies...but he kept at it, doggedly, staring them all down in the face of mass insurrection ("I am the resurrection and the life")...
I like that.
Backstage at the Rock-it Science Festival, Highline Ballroom NYC 3/3/09; left to right on couch: Peter Holsapple, Steve Wynn, Rufus Wainwright, Lenny Kaye, Gary Lucas; front row: members of The Amygdaloids l to r: Nina Galbraith Curley, Daniella Schiller, Joe LeDoux, Tyler Volk | photo by Ellen Zoe
click to enlarge
Gary and his friend Rufus Wainwright backstage at the Rock-It Science Festival at the Highline Ballroom NYC 3/3/09 | photo by day-V
Gary drops some science on the crowd during his solo set at the Rock-It Science Festival NYC 3/3/09 | photo by day-V
click to enlarge
Had 2 great gigs in town recently...
Played a rousing "Let's Go Swimming" with Ernie Brooks, Mustafa Ahmed and Joyce Bowden at a packed Tribute to the late great Arthur Russell held at Le Poisson Rouge here last Saturday night...
Arthur was one of my earliest supporters as I was in turn a supporter of his genius (I hooked up his last record deal with Geoff Travis' Rough Trade Records on my honeymoon in 1985)...Arthur stood way the fuck up for me when I started to contemplate playing guitar fulltime for a living back in 1986, at a session I arranged for Rough Trade that pitted Arthur's crazy dancefloor genius with the young turk rapper, my protege at the time, Mark Sinclair (whom you may know today as Vin Diesel)...
At that particular session Arthur made a very astute comment "You know Gary, you should be playing fulltime, as you are clearly happiest with a guitar in your hands"--both Arthur and Howard Thompson and Verna Gillis were the most encouraging and supportive of my friends at a time when nearly everyone else was convinced that I had totally gone off the rails to even consider such a seemingly suicidal career move at the ripe old age of thirty whatsit--
Second great gig last week was at Michael Dorf's City Winery to usher in Passover last Monday, Mike has been holding these Downtown Seders since time immemorial (well, about 10 years now) and I have attended and/or performed in them (usually essaying the role of Elijah) for about as long a time...this time cast by Michael as the "Wise Child" (Lou Reed usually does this role, he was absent this year) I played solo my arrangement of Smetana's "The Moldau" from "Ma Vlast", which borrows liberally from the ancient Italian folk tune which is shared by/is the basis for "Ha Tikvah" (the Israeli national album)...later on I came back with Dean Bowman to perform as Chase the Devil our new song "Nobody's House"...
A good week, wherein I was sought out and invited by the prestigious Jazz Cafe in London's Camden Town to perform there solo, headlining on Saturday May 16th with my friends The Dark Poets sitting in with me (check out our recent Some Bizarre album "Beyond the Pale--Gary Lucas Vs. The Dark Poets", available at the iTunes store if you can't locate the actual hard-goods cd (which sports some nifty art-work, well worth the hunt), and check out our MySpace site...Some Bizarre major domo Stevo tells me the album is about to be re-distributed in the UK through Universal and will soon be made available in the US)...
and I also this week confirmed my Gary Lucas & Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show ("it was 20 years ago today!"--well, nearly...Giorgio Gomelsky has footage of our very first gig which was held in Prospect Park at the Welcome Back to Brooklyn Festival in July 2009, which I will post shortly on YouTube, a wonderful show wherein we blew out their PA on the second number) which is to be held on Thursday June 11th in NYC at the tres cool Blender Theater at Gramercy and 23rd Street, a great music venue with plush seats and balcony reminiscent of the old Fillmore East --joining me, Ernie Brooks, Billy Ficca, Jason Candler and Joe Hendel will be my very special guest, the incredible Alan Vega--and more surprises are planned, stay tuned...
Lastly, I was commissioned by Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker Slawomir Grunberg to score his latest documentary for PBS, which will premiere at the Jewish Museum here on May 10th, and I will start recording it this Wednesday...and also was just interviewed by the lovely Olivia Williams on her syndicated radio show The "O" Show...
A good week yes...
saddened unfortunately by the passing of my father on Passover at age 86 in Riverside California...he'd been ill for a long long time...
Caroline and I are heading out to Riverside early tomorrow morning for a memorial ceremony with my mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew attending on Monday...
What can I say, he was a wonderful man;...
and you have my Dad to either thank or curse for the fact of me playing guitar today...
as he single-handedly came to me when I was a clueless little boy at the age of 9, and said (pre-Beatles):
"Gary--how about playing a musical instrument? How about the guitar??"
I will miss you terribly, Dad...
first known photo of Gary with guitar, age 10
Easter Everywhere...
Believe it.
xxLove
Gary
ps just came from a fantastic dinner at Kobma Thai with Israeli film director Amos Kollek, his lovely wife Osnat, Cineaste editor Richard Porton, and Caroline...Amos' controversial and thought-provoking film "Restless", which played the Israeli Film Festival here a few months ago, was one of the best films I managed to catch all year, and certainly Amos' best film to date, with stunning performances by veteran Israeli actor Moshe Ivgy and Israeli hearthrob Ran Danker (once linked romantically to my friend and collaborator Israeli Pop Idol winner Ninet Tayeb) as his son...sadly the film was not picked up for distribution in the US--I pray for a DVD release soon, as the film raises too many relevant issues in a coherent, intelligent and entertaining way, and should by no means be swept under the rug (especially a film that elicited the comment from one disgruntled viewer at the IFF: "This film is a disgrace to the state of Israel, and should not have been shown at this festival!"
I strongly disagree...)
and it seems fitting and appropriate in this yearly confluence of Passover and Easter to pay obeisance to Easter the holiday's nurturing resurrection motif (Patti Smith herself has acknowledged the Elevators' influence, and there of course was her own "Easter" album)-- "come on roll away the stone"...
me, I have a song on my "Bad Boys of the Arctic" album entitled "They Can't Believe He's Risen Again"...(believe it).
This arose out of a found fragment of overheard actual diurnal dialogue, one of my favorite lyrical composition techniques (take what you have gathered by coincidence), occasion being the time me and my partner in crime Bill Moseley allowed an actual mad itinerant alcoholic poet to read at our weekly Things That Go Bump in the Night horror film society gathering at Yale in 1973, at his insistence (my impulse is usually charitable when someone importunes me to share a stage with them)...the guy announced he was going to read his poem entitled "Easter", and managed to get out the one line "They can't believe He's risen again!" before being hooted down repeatedly by an egregious massed battallion of bored Yalies...but he kept at it, doggedly, staring them all down in the face of mass insurrection ("I am the resurrection and the life")...
I like that.
Backstage at the Rock-it Science Festival, Highline Ballroom NYC 3/3/09; left to right on couch: Peter Holsapple, Steve Wynn, Rufus Wainwright, Lenny Kaye, Gary Lucas; front row: members of The Amygdaloids l to r: Nina Galbraith Curley, Daniella Schiller, Joe LeDoux, Tyler Volk | photo by Ellen Zoe
click to enlarge
Gary and his friend Rufus Wainwright backstage at the Rock-It Science Festival at the Highline Ballroom NYC 3/3/09 | photo by day-V
Gary drops some science on the crowd during his solo set at the Rock-It Science Festival NYC 3/3/09 | photo by day-V
click to enlarge
Had 2 great gigs in town recently...
Played a rousing "Let's Go Swimming" with Ernie Brooks, Mustafa Ahmed and Joyce Bowden at a packed Tribute to the late great Arthur Russell held at Le Poisson Rouge here last Saturday night...
Arthur was one of my earliest supporters as I was in turn a supporter of his genius (I hooked up his last record deal with Geoff Travis' Rough Trade Records on my honeymoon in 1985)...Arthur stood way the fuck up for me when I started to contemplate playing guitar fulltime for a living back in 1986, at a session I arranged for Rough Trade that pitted Arthur's crazy dancefloor genius with the young turk rapper, my protege at the time, Mark Sinclair (whom you may know today as Vin Diesel)...
At that particular session Arthur made a very astute comment "You know Gary, you should be playing fulltime, as you are clearly happiest with a guitar in your hands"--both Arthur and Howard Thompson and Verna Gillis were the most encouraging and supportive of my friends at a time when nearly everyone else was convinced that I had totally gone off the rails to even consider such a seemingly suicidal career move at the ripe old age of thirty whatsit--
Second great gig last week was at Michael Dorf's City Winery to usher in Passover last Monday, Mike has been holding these Downtown Seders since time immemorial (well, about 10 years now) and I have attended and/or performed in them (usually essaying the role of Elijah) for about as long a time...this time cast by Michael as the "Wise Child" (Lou Reed usually does this role, he was absent this year) I played solo my arrangement of Smetana's "The Moldau" from "Ma Vlast", which borrows liberally from the ancient Italian folk tune which is shared by/is the basis for "Ha Tikvah" (the Israeli national album)...later on I came back with Dean Bowman to perform as Chase the Devil our new song "Nobody's House"...
A good week, wherein I was sought out and invited by the prestigious Jazz Cafe in London's Camden Town to perform there solo, headlining on Saturday May 16th with my friends The Dark Poets sitting in with me (check out our recent Some Bizarre album "Beyond the Pale--Gary Lucas Vs. The Dark Poets", available at the iTunes store if you can't locate the actual hard-goods cd (which sports some nifty art-work, well worth the hunt), and check out our MySpace site...Some Bizarre major domo Stevo tells me the album is about to be re-distributed in the UK through Universal and will soon be made available in the US)...
and I also this week confirmed my Gary Lucas & Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show ("it was 20 years ago today!"--well, nearly...Giorgio Gomelsky has footage of our very first gig which was held in Prospect Park at the Welcome Back to Brooklyn Festival in July 2009, which I will post shortly on YouTube, a wonderful show wherein we blew out their PA on the second number) which is to be held on Thursday June 11th in NYC at the tres cool Blender Theater at Gramercy and 23rd Street, a great music venue with plush seats and balcony reminiscent of the old Fillmore East --joining me, Ernie Brooks, Billy Ficca, Jason Candler and Joe Hendel will be my very special guest, the incredible Alan Vega--and more surprises are planned, stay tuned...
Lastly, I was commissioned by Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker Slawomir Grunberg to score his latest documentary for PBS, which will premiere at the Jewish Museum here on May 10th, and I will start recording it this Wednesday...and also was just interviewed by the lovely Olivia Williams on her syndicated radio show The "O" Show...
A good week yes...
saddened unfortunately by the passing of my father on Passover at age 86 in Riverside California...he'd been ill for a long long time...
Caroline and I are heading out to Riverside early tomorrow morning for a memorial ceremony with my mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew attending on Monday...
What can I say, he was a wonderful man;...
and you have my Dad to either thank or curse for the fact of me playing guitar today...
as he single-handedly came to me when I was a clueless little boy at the age of 9, and said (pre-Beatles):
"Gary--how about playing a musical instrument? How about the guitar??"
I will miss you terribly, Dad...
first known photo of Gary with guitar, age 10
Easter Everywhere...
Believe it.
xxLove
Gary
ps just came from a fantastic dinner at Kobma Thai with Israeli film director Amos Kollek, his lovely wife Osnat, Cineaste editor Richard Porton, and Caroline...Amos' controversial and thought-provoking film "Restless", which played the Israeli Film Festival here a few months ago, was one of the best films I managed to catch all year, and certainly Amos' best film to date, with stunning performances by veteran Israeli actor Moshe Ivgy and Israeli hearthrob Ran Danker (once linked romantically to my friend and collaborator Israeli Pop Idol winner Ninet Tayeb) as his son...sadly the film was not picked up for distribution in the US--I pray for a DVD release soon, as the film raises too many relevant issues in a coherent, intelligent and entertaining way, and should by no means be swept under the rug (especially a film that elicited the comment from one disgruntled viewer at the IFF: "This film is a disgrace to the state of Israel, and should not have been shown at this festival!"
I strongly disagree...)
posted by Gary Lucas at 10:58 PM
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