Podcasts about Pretty Things

This week, we tackle the lofty, ambitious, sometimes bombastic topic of rock operas and concept albums. Most acknowledge that the rock opera was the outgrowth of the psychedelic era where, particularly in a post-Sgt. Pepper world, the rock n' roll album became an artistic statement. As musicians sought to expand and alter the fabric of pop music, “rock operas” with narratives, character development, and distinct movements were being explored on records like the Pretty Things' SF Sorrow (1968) and the Who's Tommy (1969). All rock operas are concept albums, but not all concept albums are rock operas. The concept album is a collection of songs that are tied together to present an overarching theme, going back as far as Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads, a 1940 collection of 78 rpm records that stayed true to the title.  Joining us as our Third Lad for this discussion today is Dave Gebroe, the creator & host of the music obsessives' podcast Discograffiti. Dave dives into amazingly deep and immaculately researched discussions on the catalogues of a wide range of artists - if not with the artist themselves, then with a jaw-dropping roster of guests. Dave is also a filmmaker, writing, producing and directing the movies The Homeboy and Zombie Honeymoon. If that weren't enough, he's masterminded a 2 LP tribute to-slash-reimagining of Lou Reed's much maligned album Metal Machine Music, and I believe is working on a rock opera of his own. Oh, and you thought Gregg ruins everything? Just wait until he meets his match...Berlin! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textPeter Holsapple (dB's, R.E.M., Hootie and the Blowfish, Continental Drifters, The Paranoid Style) pays YMAAA a visit to introduce Al to The Flame's 1970 self-titled album. Peter talks about discovering the band's music as an outgrowth of his love of the Beach Boys and why the album has held up for him as a favorite for more than 50 years. He also offers another album recommendation—The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow. Peter winds up his visit with a discussion of his new solo album, The Face of 68 (out April 18), and his upcoming plans.There are lots of places to keep up with Peter and get his music!Instagram: @peter.holsappleFacebook: @Peter-HolsappleBluesky: @halfpearYouTube: @peterholsapple1320Peter's Does This Band Make Me Look Fat blog: https://halfpearblog.blogspot.com/Al is on Bluesky at @almelchior. This show has an account on Instagram at @youmealbum. Subscribe for free to You, Me and An Album: The Newsletter! https://youmealbum.substack.com/. You can also support the show on Buzzsprout at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1542814/episodes or at the link at the bottom of these show notes.1:31 Peter joins the show3:11 Peter recalls the moment when he was introduced to The Flame4:14 Peter talks about becoming a Beach Boys fan when he was growing up6:18 Peter explains how his Beach Boys fandom led him to discover The Flame11:11 Peter talks about his first impressions of The Flame14:40 Is the band called The Flame or The Flames?15:45 Peter reveals the existence of a second album by The Flame18:07 Peter explains the meaning behind his song “My Idea #49”18:58 Al identifies the one track on the album he doesn't like21:35 Peter cites some notable facts about The Flame and “See the Light”24:51 Peter talks about the time he met Blondie Chaplin and Brian Wilson27:53 Peter breaks down the elements that give The Flame its lasting appeal34:06 Peter discusses The Flame's varied influences40:03 Peter notes that The Flame is heavily Beatles-influenced while still sounding distinctive45;56 Peter's love of listening to music keeps him going as a recording artist48:06 Peter talks about the reissued dB's albums49:38 Peter explains why he decided to make The Face of 6859:09 Peter mentions some of the albums that inspired the sound of his new album1:01:14 Peter does not like bonus tracks as much as the next guy1:05:14 “That Kind of Guy” taught Al about Dick Taylor1:08:39 Peter talks about The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow and other song cycles and rock operas1:11:48 Peter shares his upcoming plansOutro music is from “That Kind of Guy” by Peter Holsapple.Support the show

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Come to a Dehoarding Accountability Zoom Session: http://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/ticket Subscribe to the podcast: https://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/subscribe Podcast show notes, links and transcript: http://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/  In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Jan Eppingstall to explore a fascinating angle on hoarding: its artistic side. We'll tackle the connection between creativity and hoarding, including why so many people who hoard are into arts and crafts, and diving into how people who hoard might view their possessions in an unusually aesthetic light. Jan shares insights from both clinical experience and research, offering a fresh perspective on the parallels between art and accumulation. Whether you're a creative type or just curious about the psychology behind collecting, this conversation will give you plenty to think about. Curiosity: Example of using curiosity to cope with pain. Gratitude: Using the Finch app to practice gratitude daily. Journaling: Imperfect journaling as a new approach to managing emotions. Arty, Crafty Side of Hoarding Trends seen in clients regarding art and hoarding The challenge of managing craft supplies in people who hoard Analysing Creativity and Hoarding Comparison to detectives and acute perception Consideration of feeling overlooked Struggles with Crafting and Perfectionism Challenges in starting and completing craft projects Study on Artists and Hoarding Traits shared by studio artists and people who hoard ADHD and executive dysfunction parallels Art and Beauty in Hoarding Tendency to keep beautiful things Struggles with displaying or appreciating collected items Analysis of Andy Warhol's Accumulation Discussion of Warhol's collection as art vs. hoarding Socioeconomic and behavioural aspects of collecting vs. hoarding Aesthetics and Inclusion in Hoarding Discussion of under-inclusiveness in categorising objects Exploration of seeing beauty in ordinary objects Potential Neurodevelopmental Aspects of Hoarding Insights from MRI study Brain regions potentially linked to hoarding behaviours Using Art to Represent Hoarding Space Artists using clutter and hoarding as themes in art Questioning the nature of representing hoarding through art Fear of Sterile and Soulless Homes Addressing the fear that tidiness equals lack of personality Discussing clutter core and maximising aesthetic displays  

What is the price of beauty? The guys have explored the Price Of Fun, but can we all have affordable, beautiful cars? Then they debate interesting choices for Zhen, who doesn't need a larger car but has a growing family. Social media questions ask if the guys wish future sports cars would have FSD, what's their favorite shape of shift knob, and what else can Stellantis do with their new Hurricane I6? Please rate + review us on iTunes, and subscribe to our two YouTube channels. Write us with your Car Debates, Car Conclusions, and Topic Tuesdays at everydaydrivertv@gmail.com or everydaydriver.com. Don't forget to share the podcast with your car enthusiast friends! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textWelcome to Guess the Year! This is an interactive, competitive podcast series where you will be able to play along and compete against your fellow listeners. Here is how the scoring works:10 points: Get the year dead on!7 points: 1-2 years off4 points: 3-5 years off1 point: 6-10 years offGuesses can be emailed to drandrewmay@gmail.com or texted using the link at the top of the show notes (please leave your name).I will read your scores out before the next episode, along with the scores of your fellow listeners! Please email your guesses to Andrew no later than 12pm EST on the day the next episode posts if you want them read out on the episode (e.g., if an episode releases on Monday, then I need your guesses by 12pm EST on Wednesday; if an episode releases on Friday, then I need your guesses by 12 pm EST on Monday). Note: If you don't get your scores in on time, they will still be added to the overall scores I am keeping. So they will count for the final scores - in other words, you can catch up if you get behind, you just won't have your scores read out on the released episode. All I need is your guesses (e.g., Song 1 - 19xx, Song 2 - 20xx, Song 3 - 19xx, etc.). Please be honest with your guesses! Best of luck!!The answers to today's ten songs can be found below. If you are playing along, don't scroll down until you have made your guesses. .....Have you made your guesses yet? If so, you can scroll down and look at the answers......Okay, answers coming. Don't peek if you haven't made your guesses yet!.....Intro song: Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas (2009)Song 1: Pink Friday Girls by Nicki Minaj (2023)Song 2: Alien Blues by Vundabar (2015)Song 3: Hammond Song by The Roches (1979)Song 4: Am I Wrong by Keb' Mo' (1994)Song 5: See a Little Light by Bob Mould (1989)Song 6: I See You by The Pretty Things (1968)Song 7: It's Only Love by Bryan Adams (feat. Tina Turner) (1984)Song 8: Scumbag Blues by Them Crooked Vultures (2009)Song 9: Light in Your Eyes by The Subdudes (1989)Song 10: I Know You by Craig David (feat. Bastille) (2017)

When Ashley Manning's son started preschool, she learned that his teacher had recently lost her husband to cancer. As Valentine's Day approached, Ashley felt a deep pull to offer comfort. So, she arranged a bouquet and gifted it to her, simply acknowledging how hard the day must be. She was moved, and months later, she shared just how much that small act of kindness had meant. In that moment, Ashley realized the profound impact of showing up for someone in grief—a lesson that would soon blossom into something far greater. The Valentine's Day Widow Outreach Project, founded by Ashley Manning of Pretty Things by A.E. Manning, brings comfort and support to widows on a day that can feel especially lonely. What started as a small gesture of delivering a few bouquets has grown into a heartfelt movement, with hundreds of volunteers reaching widows across multiple cities. Through bouquets, the project offers a powerful reminder to those in grief that they are not alone. Manning's initiative not only uplifts widows but also fosters a spirit of community and connection. In today's episode of Celebrate Your Story, Bridget Hogue Costello, Head of Experiences at 1-800-Flowers.com, sits down with Ashley to explore the emotional struggle widows can feel during Valentine's Day, community strength, and the idea of giving as a gift.

Esta semana, en Islas de Robinson, completamos el salto hacia atrás iniciado hace una semana y en bucle psicodélico caemos entre 1966 y 1968, con algunos clásicos de los primeros arrebatos ácidos de por aquel entonces. Suenan: 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS - "DON'T FALL DOWN" ("THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUNDS OF THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS", 1966) / CLEAR LIGHT - "NIGHT SOUNDS LOUD" ("CLEAR LIGHT", 1967) / THE MUSIC MACHINE - "ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY", 1967) / THE SPIKE DRIVERS - "STRANGE MISTERIOUS SOUNDS" (1967) / THE ID - "SHORT CIRCUIT" ("THE INNER SOUNDS OF THE ID", 1967) / GOLDEN DAWN - "MY TIME" ("POWER PLANT", 1968) / THE FALLEN ANGELS - "YOUR MOTHER'S HOMESICK TOO" ("THE FALLEN ANGELS", 1967) / KALEIDOSCOPE - "DIVE INTO YESTERDAY" ("TANGERINE DREAM", 1967) / THE PRETTY THINGS - "DEFECTING GREY" (1967) / FAMILY - "VOYAGE" ("MUSIC IN A DOLL'S HOUSE", 1968) / TRAFFIC - "COLOURED RAIN" ("MR. FANTASY", 1967) / JULY - "YOU MISSED IT ALL" ("JULY", 1968) / BLOSSOM TOES - "LOOK AT ME I'M YOU" (WE ARE EVER SO CLEAN", 1967) / THE NICE - "THE CRY OF EUGENE" ("THE THOUGHTS OF EMERLIST DAVJACK", 1967) / HP LOVECRAFT - "MOBIUS TRIP" ("HP LOVECRAFT II", 1968) / Escuchar audio

Oh my friends, do I have a treat for you today! My dear friend Dr. Edie Wadsworth is in the house today for a VERY special conversation.It's a conversation that runs the gamut, but one every woman NEEDS to hear, and I can't wait for you to listen in.We're going to be chatting with Dr. Edie, who also happens to be our physician advisor here at Thinlicious®. She's also a mom of nine, a bestselling author, and a certified life coach, as well as the founder of the Life Mentoring School, also known as LMS, not to mention one of my very best friends in the whole world.Today we're talking about alllllll the things, so without further ado, let's dive in.----------Dr. Edie Wadsworth is a physician and life and health coach who has revolutionized her own life and health using the tools she teaches in her signature program LIFE MENTORING SCHOOL. She also founded a christian life coach certification program and is the physician consultant for TAS. She and her husband Steve share 9 kids and 2 grandbabies and love their newest hobby of wake surfing! She's also the author of the bestselling memoir, All the Pretty Things!You can join Edie's LMS program HERE. And listen to her podcast—House of Joy—HERE.----------Get our FREE guide to finally fix your metabolism!Losing weight & getting healthy is never easy, but lately you might feel like it's suddenly become impossible.Our Flip the Switch guide will help you clearly understand what's been going on, as well as exactly what you can do to get your metabolism working again so that you can look and feel your best—it's easier and more simple than you think! Get it HERE.

Send us a textThis week we dive head first into the 1968 psychedelic rock opera by the Pretty Things, S.F. Sorrow. Ask any music fan what was the first rock opera was and most would say Tommy by the Who. That answer would be wrong. Recorded on S.F. Sorrow started a year before the Who even went into the studio to begin Tommy. Unfortunately the release of the album was delayed and was released after Tommy, placing S.F. Sorrow  into the "also ran" category for the vast majority of critics and the music buying public at the time. Which is unfortunate because the S.F. Sorrow is a wonderfully imaginative album, and the blueprint for many a concept album to come. One listen illustrates how inventive and influential it was for many albums at the time, including Tommy. Starting out life as a blues-based band in the vein of the Rolling Stones (one time Stone's guitarist Dick Taylor was a founding member), by the time the Pretty Thing were set to record their fourth LP, they had become much more divers in the music they made, incorporating such diverse element as pop, psychedelia, folk, and even proto-metal) into their sound. And while the concept of S.F. Sorrow is a sad one, the music is remarkable and the lyrics compelling making repeated listens a must.  S.F. is a true underrated masterpiece.Visit us at www.tappingvinyl.com.

Song: DigBand: Stiff Richards From: Melbourne, Australia Album: State Of Mind, 2020Song: Mr. SituationBand: Stiff Richards From: Melbourne, Australia Album: State Of Mind, 2020Song: Big CountryBand: RØBBERFrom: Orange County, California Album: Man In The Mask, 2024Song: Young OnesBand: SuspexFrom: HalifaxAlbum: Technically Deficient, 2024Song: Abandoned Band: Mutated VoidFrom: Dartmouth, Nova ScotiaAlbum: Tarnished, 2024Song: BodybagBand: Rickshaw Billie's Burger PatrolFrom: Austin, Texas Album: Big Dumb Riffs, 2024Song: Shut UpBand: Private Function From: Melbourne, Australia Album: St. Anger, 2019Song: One Headed DogBand: Private Function From: Melbourne, Australia Album: 370HSSV 0773H, 2023 Song: BabBand: Aborted Tortoise From: Perth, Australia Album: An Beach, 2017Song: The WheelBand: Split System From: Melbourne, Australia Album: Vol. 2, 2024Song: CheapBand: GraziaFrom: LondonAlbum: In Poor Taste, 2024Song: DemiRepBand: Bikini KillFrom: Olympia, Washington Album: The Singles, 2012Song: Nipple TwisterBand: The Sex OrgansFrom: Switzerland Album: We're Fucked, 2024Song: MoveBand: MeatbodiesFrom: Los Angeles Album: Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, 2024Song: St. Stephen (cover of Grateful Dead)Band: Ty SegallFrom: Los Angeles Album: Fudge Sandwich, 2018Song: Enrique El CobradorBand: Thee Oh SeesFrom: San Francisco Album: Smote Reverser, 2018Song: Bleeding MoonBand: Useless EatersFrom: Oakland, California Album: Bleeding Moon, 2015Song: 6666Band: Kerosene KreamFrom: Stockholm Album:  Look Mom, 2020Song: Psychedelic Ranger Band: Kerosene KreamFrom: Stockholm Album:  Buying Time, 202Song: L.S.D. (Cover of The Pretty Things, 1965)Band: Acid TongueFrom: SeattleAlbum: Acid On The Dancefloor, 2024Song: Where Did You Go?Band: Dark ThoughtsFrom: Philadelphia Album: Self-titled, 2016Song: Valley IIBand: Teen MortgageFrom: Washington, D.C.Album: Self-titled, 2024Song: The StuntBand: Veuve ScarronFrom: France Album: Thanks For Nothing Find Me Nowhere, 2024Song: Try Again Band: Life In VacuumFrom: TorontoAlbum: Lost, 2023Song: In The Time Of QueensBand: DermabrasionFrom: TorontoAlbum: Lunate, 2021Song: WandBand: Flying GolemFrom: Los Angeles Album: Ganglion Reef, 2014Song: John Cage BubblegumBand: StereolabFrom: LondonAlbum: Little Pieces Of Stereolab, 2024 (originally recorded 1992)Song: IsengardBand: Queen SereneFrom: Austin, TexasAlbum: Self-titled, 2023Song: LaughlinesBand: The Everywheres From: HalifaxAlbum: Slow Friends, 2013Song: Better Than GoodBand: The Bug ClubFrom: WalesAlbum: On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System, 2024

Clin d’oeil aux Moody Blues, même si on attaque avec T-Rex et les Pretty Things (toujours une référence au magazine Ugly Things…). Les Cramps, Moody Blues, Moby Grape, les Who, voici ce à quoi vous aurez droit… Et on complète avec Love, the Other Half, New Trolls, Le Orme, Small Faces, The Emperors, Love, Frank […] L'article Maggot Brain – Steeling A Night Away est apparu en premier sur Radio Campus Tours - 99.5 FM.

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The special folder on my hard drive was full, so it was once again time to have a show devoted to cover songs. This time around there are fantastic remakes of songs by the likes of the Stones, Pink Floyd, Small Face, Pretty Things, The Cure, Joy Division, and tons of others. Most importantly, there’s a generous helping of Jesse Malin covers from the new triple album benefit album, Silver Patron Saints. Two years ago, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke, and his friends gathered together for this wonderful set of Malin’s own tunes. It’s a rare tribute album that stands proudly with the original versions, and this is one of them. For more info, including setlists, head to http://scotthudson.blogspot.com

The special folder on my hard drive was full, so it was once again time to have a show devoted to cover songs. This time around there are fantastic remakes of songs by the likes of the Stones, Pink Floyd, Small Face, Pretty Things, The Cure, Joy Divis...

Anexos al abecé de la música popular de Brasil en forma de compilaciones. Intervienen: Arthur Verocai, Azymuth, Sabrina Malheiros, The Beach Boys, The Swinging Blue Jeans, Ken Colyer’s Skiffle Group, Marty Robbins, Ian Gomm, Don Covay, The Pretty Things, The Bunch, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Remains, Buddy Holly y Jay & The Americans.Escuchar audio

In this episode dubbed 'Seeing Them Live After Show Report,' Doug and Charles take listeners to The Liars Club in Chicago, where they record brief conversations with fans and performers at a live music event. The focus is on the band Soraia, first introduced in S02E01 by guest Dawn Fontaine, who shared how their music had a life-saving impact on her. After Dawn's episode, Charles and Doug interviewed ZoZou Mansour from the band in S02E07. The hosts finally meet the band in person at the Liar's Club and conduct an interview with lead singer Zuzu Mansour, who talks about the influence of music on her life and the songwriting process.The podcast captures the dynamic energy of the concert and provides a vivid account of the live event, including attendee experiences, band interviews, and their impressions of the venue. Fans express their admiration for the bands performing that night, and discuss the club's excellent sound quality and inviting atmosphere.BANDS: Ricky Liontones, Soraia, Tara Who?VENUES: The Liar's Club PATREON:https://www.patreon.com/SeeingThemLivePlease help us defer the cost of producing this podcast by making a donation on Patreon.WEBSITE:https://seeingthemlive.com/Visit the Seeing Them Live website for bonus materials including the show blog, resource links for concert buffs, photos, materials related to our episodes, and our Ticket Stub Museum.INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/seeingthemlive/FACEBOOK:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550090670708

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Blamison start off their Halloween series with a bit of a rocky start as Blake's mic seems to have been glitchy. First it sounds like Jamison is talking to himself, but eventually Blake's voice comes into the mix. This may be the case with the first three episodes...unfortunately. That being said we start our exploration with Osgood Perkins' first(?) film I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House which can only be found on Netflix much to our chagrin. We talk about watching this film inebriated or high or on acid and how nothing about this film seems like something that would get made now. Perkins hit the sweet spot with Netflix. Yet we find certain charms in the film. Also talked about: parenting, coming up with the name of our series, and the typical bullshit. Clip: Nathan For You, Sn. 2, Ep. 1

  PULSARS mark the end of that era. Leader Dave Trumfio (vocals, guitar, synths production and most anything else) and his younger brother Harry (drums) grew up playing music in a suburban Chicago basement.  While still in his teens, Dave abandoned college-level music production and engineering studies to focus on songwriting and artist endeavors; his native talents soon found him an apprenticeship at Seagrape Studios working with talents as disparate as house music pioneer Mr Fingers, British first-wave stalwarts The Pretty Things and dub plate sessions with the legendary reggae producer / musician Niney The Observer . . . all within months of his first real go behind the mixing desk. Chicago's past musical glories felt far in the past then, replaced by a sea of skinny tie power pop bands, poofy hair metal combos of some timidity and a few rough-hewn exponents of sub-Buzzcocks punk and Fiorucci-ready new wave.  Ignoring it all, Dave ran a small studio in a shared house he rented with friends before taking the risky - and expensive - plunge into opening a 'real' studio on the northwest corner of Wicker Park, soon to burst into a degree of infamy due to a small contingent of cult heroes who lived there for cheap rent and cheaper bars - Liz Phair, Eleventh Dream Day, Big Black, Urge Overkill, Tortoise et al. Daves role in all of this was minimal by nature; he preferred to record acts from farther afield - Billy Bragg, then-recent Chicago transplants Wilco, The Mekons, Young Marble Giants guitarist and songwriter Stuart Moxham, Barbara Manning, Captain Beefhearts main man Gary Lucas, an array of other acts from Iceland, Australia and all corners of the UK.  Business was good, and it grew.  A quick writer of odd pop ditties, one day Dave called in his brother Harry and recorded - in a single afternoon session - a set of nine demos known.  The story's been related countless times, but within weeks the band was opening for Oasis and found itself being courted by a dozen labels. Their few local shows were undefinable. Dave played guitar and sang, Harry drummed triggered a reel of additional music, often with video backing . . . which dazzled spectators in that pre-laptop era.  After months of negotiations, the band signed a multi-million deal with Almo Sounds, a new label begun by A&M founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss and distributed by Geffen.  It was - and likely still is - the largest deal ever offered to an emerging Chicago musical act. The band engaged in numerous tours to support their self-titled debut, playing with Sean Lennon & Cibo Matto, Blur, Supergrass, and many others, as well as seemingly infinite jaunts to Japan, where Dave and Harry were hailed as heroes of subversive minimalist pop - the ecstatic screams of young fans at the first few notes of Submission To The Master& at first bewildering the brothers.  Suddenly, the Almo Sounds deal with Geffen fell apart at the start of a tour supporting then-current sensations Weezer.  Promotion was pulled; radio support for the first single from the album collapsed in a mere moment. Due to contractual vagaries, the band was allowed to complete a second (unreleased) album just before the label folded.  And that was it, until the news of the 2021 release of Pulsar Transmissions", a collection of unheard songs and versions that the band recorded before and during their short-term deal.  Rolling Stone offered their self titled debut ;Pulsars as one of the 40 greatest albums ever recorded by an act with one real album:     PULSARS's Info Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/pulsarsband/?hl=en X / Twitter:  https://x.com/PulsarsBand Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pulsarsofficial/  

This week, Steve picked an hour of songs about summertime, just in time for the unofficial end of summer.  We'll hear the artists: Barracudas, Go-Go's, Fountains Of Wayne, Kiwi Jr., Public Access T.V., Bad Lieutenant, The Sighs, emmet swimming, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Malarians, The Pretty Things, Jet, Bobby Mahoney, Baio, Freezepop, Pajama Slave Dancers and Eddie Cochran. On the Air on Bedford 105.1 FM Radio      *** 5pm Friday ***      *** 10am Sunday ***      *** 8pm Monday *** Stream live at http://209.95.50.189:8178/stream Stream on-demand most recent episodes at https://wbnh1051.podbean.com/category/suburban-underground/ And available on demand on your favorite podcast app! Twitter: @SUBedford1051  ***    Facebook: SuburbanUndergroundRadio   ***    Instagram: SuburbanUnderground   ***    #newwave #altrock #alternativerock #punkrock #indierock

TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: I am Grateful for the Pretty Things TODAY'S GRATITUDE PROMPT: Pause to appreciate the pretty things. Affirmations, positive affirmations, gratitude, gratitude practice, gratitude prompt, mindfulness, mindfulness practice, mental health, wellness, wellbeing, positive mindset, health Download our Top 10 Most Powerful Affirmations and get a FREE Gratitude Meditation! subscribepage.io/1vuwPi Strengthen your Mind + Raise Your Vibe - Download NOW  subscribepage.io/1vuwPi Follow on Instagram @daily.tonic  

Today on Too Opinionated, we visit with the director of Clawfoot, Michael Day! Michael Day is a writer, director, and producer born in Pittsburgh, PA. While in college, Michael got his start by directing a music video for a then, up-and-coming rapper, WIZ KHALIFA. After college, he immediately immersed himself in the film industry, working on such films as THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, DJANGO UNCHAINED, and TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, among others.  In the feature world, Michael wrote and produced an action trilogy, titled ROGUE WARFARE. The second film in the series ranked #1 it's first week on Netflix. More recently, Michael started producing for Yale Entertainment, including such films as AS THEY MADE US,  RARE OBJECTS, and THE KILL ROOM.  Producing those films opened the door for Michael to produce and direct his first feature film for Yale, a dark comedy/thriller, CLAWFOOT, starring Francesca Eastwood, Milo Gibson, and Olivia Culpo. CLAWFOOT will be available on major VOD platforms. Michael second feature film, FOG OF WAR, starring John Cusack, Brianna Hildebrand and Jake Abel, will be released in the winter of 2024.  Since then, Michael has produced several films that are currently post production: PRETTY THING, a sexual thriller starring Alicia Silverstone and Karl Glusman, directed by Justin Kelly; STRANGLEHOLD, an action comedy featuring Ashley Benson, Jake Lacy, Justin Long, and Ron Pearlman, directed by Clark Duke; and MIDNIGHT, starring Rosario Dawson, Milla Jovovich, and Alexandra Shipp, directed by Joshua Miller.     Want to watch: YouTube Meisterkhan Pod (Please Subscribe)

WERBUNG – Alien: Romulus ab 15. August exklusiv im Kino. Tickets verfügbar unter www.alienromulus.de Longlegs mit Nicolas Cage wird als bester und gruseligster Horrorfilm der letzten Jahre gehypt und hat schon diverse Rekorde gebrochen – zurecht? Kolja und Wolf quatschen über Erwartungshaltungen, Teufelserscheinungen auf der Leinwand und klären, wer von den beiden in Maika Monroe verliebt ist. Hier kannst du uns unterstützen: ► https://steadyhq.com/de/horrohrpodcast Hier gibt's schickes Merch: ► https://horrohrshop.de/ [Unser Community Discord!](https://discord.gg/ME9ar8XK4f) Infos zu neuen Folgen und genereller Schwachsinn auf X: [HorrOhrPodcast](https://twitter.com/HorrOhrPodcast) Wie oben, nur mit mehr Bildern bei Instagram: [HorrOhrPodcast](https://www.instagram.com/horrohrpodcast/) [Wolf auf X](https://twitter.com/GameWolf) [Wolf auf Insta](https://www.instagram.com/gamewerwolf/) [Kolja auf X](https://twitter.com/KeylesArt) [Kolja auf Insta](https://www.instagram.com/itskeyles) Fanpost, Liebesbriefe, schlechte Horrorfilme an: Postnummer 1061644681 Packstation 149 20148 Hamburg Impressum: https://www.deinimpressum.com/horrohrpodcast Theme by [Dave_Lo_](https://twitter.com/Dave_Lo_) Besprochene/erwähnte Filme, Serien und Games: Truth or Dare Titane Raw Gretel & Hänsel Mandy The Guest It Follows Sieben Conjuring Hereditary Five Nights at Freddy's I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House The Blackcoat's Daughter [Steady](https://steadyhq.com/de/horrohrpodcast/) Allerschrecklichsten Dank an unsere allerbesten Supporter: Anja Winkler Benny Grobi Markus G. Kerstin G. McLovin008 Slighlty Uncomfortable Indy Jonez Martin B. Kiritainment Gordon H. Gees Torben Lucas R. Patryk K.

This week we go gaga over The Pretty Things' 1964 number, "Rosalyn." You know it, you love it. Textbook early garage that takes its cues from Saint Bo Diddley. The second version is by Steve and the Board, a group of Australian teen treblemakers.  The third version is by scary Cheshire cats Stack Waddy. Thick, fuzzy, thudding claustrophobic 70s sledgehammer proto-punk! Robin from Ghosts fave version. The fourth version is by a little known singer named David Bowie, who did a glammy version one year after Stack Waddy, and it's okay, which sums up his entire catalogue. Sure as sin!!!!

Recuperamos canciones del pasado, algunas clásicas y otras menos conocidas, y volvemos a escucharlas a través de las versiones de distinto pelaje que han hecho grupos y artistas de generaciones posteriores. Damos protagonismo especial a un disco llamado “Punk me up; a tribute to Rolling Stones” (Cleopatra Records).Playlist;(sintonía) MESSER CHUPS “Wicked game” (Chris Isaak)JAH WOBBLE “Start me up” (The Rolling Stones)PETE and THE TEST TUBE BABIES “Mother’s little helper” (The Rolling Stones)THE QUEERS “Jumpin Jack flash” (The Rolling Stones)THE VIBRATORS “Satisfaction” (The Rolling Stones)THE MEMBERS “Angie” (The Rolling Stones)ANTI NOWHERE LEAGUE “Sympathy for the devil” (The Rolling Stones)JEFF DAHL “I can’t explain” (The Who)THE PEAWEES “Don’t look back” (The Remains)THE COURETTES “Bikini girls with machine guns” (The Cramps)THE DAHLMANNS “Blue letter” (Fleetwood Mac)THE PINE HILL HAINTS “Pretty thing” (Bo Diddley)THE LOONS “Cries from the midnight circus” (The Pretty Things)SAMMY THE HILLBILLY BEATNIK “A hard day’s night” (The Beatles)FATBOY “I won’t share you” (The ASmiths)THE ANDERSON COUNCIL “Citadel” (The Rolling Stones)NICK PIUNTI “Ruby Tuesday” (The Rolling Stones)Escuchar audio

Musician, comedian and writer Dave Hill returns to the Power Chord Hour to talk about the new Valley Lodge record Shadows in Paradise and lots moreDAVE HILLhttps://www.davehillonline.comhttps://www.instagram.com/mrdavehillhttp://www.valleylodgehq.comhttps://valleylodge.bandcamp.comPCHInstagram - www.instagram.com/powerchordhourTwitter - www.twitter.com/powerchordhourFacebook - www.facebook.com/powerchordhourYoutube - www.youtube.com/channel/UC6jTfzjB3-mzmWM-51c8LggSpotify Episode Playlists - https://open.spotify.com/user/kzavhk5ghelpnthfby9o41gnr?si=4WvOdgAmSsKoswf_HTh_MgDonate to help show costs -https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/pchanthonyhttps://cash.app/$anthmerchpowerchordhour@gmail.comCheck out the Power Chord Hour radio show every Friday night at 8 to 11 est/Tuesday Midnight to 3 est on 107.9 WRFA in Jamestown, NY. Stream the station online at wrfalp.com/streaming/ or listen on the WRFA app.Special Thanks to my buddy Jay Vics for the behind the scenes help on this episode!https://www.meettheexpertspodcast.comhttps://www.jvimobile.com

Esta semana, en Islas de Robinson, baño nocturno veraniego entre clásicos de profunda esencia psicodélica. Suenan: LOVE - “NOTHING” (“FOUR SAIL”, 1969) / THE ACTION - "A SAYING FOR TODAY" (1968/1985) / TRIPSICHORD MUSIC BOX - "ON THE LAST RIDE" ("TRIPSICHORD" 1970) / CRABBY APPLETON - “CATHERINE” (“CRABBY APPLETON”, 1970) / FAMILY - “HOW-HI-THE-LI” (“FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT”, 1969) / JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - “IN TIME” (“CROWN OF CREATION”, 1968) / 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS - “DUST” (“EASTER EVERYWHERE”, 1967) / THE FALLEN ANGELS - “DIDN’T I” (“IT’S A LONG WAY DOWN”, 1968) / JETHRO TULL - "LOOK INTO THE SUN ("STAND UP", 1969) / PINK FLOYD - “IF” (ATOM HEART MOTHER”, 1970) / THE PRETTY THINGS - “GRASS” (“PARACHUTE”, 1970) / RAINMAN - “GET YOU TO COME THROUGH” (“RAINMAN”, 1971)Escuchar audio

Francoise Hardy, Peter and Gordon, Little Richard, The Swinging Blue Jeans, The Pretty Things and more versions of "Hello, Dolly!" than you might expect as we continue our four-sided odyssey for June. #MadeonZencastr

In this episode we pay tribute to the late Pretty Things lead singer Phil May. Mike Stax talks to Pretty Things manager and producer Mark St John about the band's last years and the challenges, trials and triumphs of making their brilliant final album, Bare As Bone, Bright as Blood. Please support the podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/uglythingspod, where you can enjoy special bonus content plus much more. Become a Patreon today! Check out Ugly Things Magazine: https://ugly-things.com/ Patreon Bonus: Mark St John talks about Phil May's friendship with Van Morrison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's show, after a 2002 Decemberists ditty: brand new John Cale, Rain Parade, Miki Berenyi Trio, New Model Army, Blushing, Greg Hoy & the Boys, and Matt Hunter & the Dusty Fates, plus Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pretty Things, Bob Gibson, Left Bank...

Will and Nicholas discuss the latest releases by Corridor, S:Bahn, and Krautwerk, plus bonus songs and more.

It's all things British this week as Sammy and Matt gear up for a trip to the UK. There's tracks from the 60s and travelling through the decades from The Pretty Things, The Who, The Clash, The Jam and Corduroy.Inspired by recently supporting Brisbane band Cool Brittania, there's also britpop from Blur, Pulp and The Fratellis plus some classic Jam and a couple of 2tone favourites from The Beat & Selecter.For more info and tracklisting, visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up/Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up, Sunday from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.//Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Album Years' time machine lands in 1968! Steven and Tim discuss the "big hitters" from the year alongside UK psychedelic and underground rock, with notable albums by The Pretty Things, The Zombies, Small Faces and more all discussed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Krishona Martinson, equine extension specialist at the University of Minnesota, tells us what to be on the look out for what may be lurking in the shadows.  Poisonous plants can often be found in shady, wet areas and along fence lines.  Learn what you need to be aware of in your horse pastures.

In this episode, Mike Stax talks to Pretty Things bass player and songwriter Wally Waller about the heady days of 1969 and 1970, and the making of their post-psychedelic masterpiece, Parachute. https://wallywaller-beyondtheprettythings.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/makemavit/ Please support the podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/uglythingspod, where you can enjoy special bonus content plus much more. Become a Patreon today! Check out Ugly Things Magazine: https://ugly-things.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Stax talks to Pretty Things bass player and songwriter Wally Waller about the heady days of 1969 and 1970, and the making of their post-psychedelic masterpiece, Parachute. https://wallywaller-beyondtheprettythings.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/makemavit/ Please support the podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/uglythingspod, where you can enjoy special bonus content plus much more. Become a Patreon today! Check out Ugly Things Magazine: https://ugly-things.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get the fuzz out with this new garage rock heavy episode of Punks in Parkas!Hear tracks by the likes of Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Pretty Things, Castaways and more!

This week we bring you a cornucopia of obscure psychedelic sonic nuggets from the one, the only Cap'n Content himself; Robert Harrison. Share a tab and grab a fork as we dig into some tasty blues inspired psychedelia curated by the good captain. These are bands and songs that co-host Kevin Williams was mostly unaware of until now, so we are flipping the script a bit in this episode! Welcome to BizarrObscuria!What is it that we do here at InObscuria? Well, we exhume obscure Rock n' Punk n' Metal in one of 3 categories: the Lost, the Forgotten, or the Should Have Beens. As always, our hope is that we turn you on to something new!Songs this week include:Love – “Slick Dick” from False Start (1970)Steamhammer – “Midnight Blues Train” from Wailing Again (2022)The Pretty Things – “All Light Up” from Balboa Island (2007)Third World War – “Ascension Day” from Third World War (1972)Highway Robbery – “Ain't Gonna Take No More” from For Love Or Money (1972)Lone Star – “She Said She Said” from Lone Star (1976)Please subscribe everywhere that you listen to podcasts!Visit us: https://inobscuria.com/https://www.facebook.com/InObscuriahttps://twitter.com/inobscuriahttps://www.instagram.com/inobscuria/Buy cool stuff with our logo on it!: https://www.redbubble.com/people/InObscuria?asc=uIf you'd like to check out Kevin's band THE SWEAR, take a listen on all streaming services or pick up a digital copy of their latest release here: https://theswear.bandcamp.com/If you want to hear Robert and Kevin's band from the late 90s – early 00s BIG JACK PNEUMATIC, check it out here: https://bigjackpnuematic.bandcamp.com/Check out Robert's amazing fire sculptures and metal workings here: http://flamewerx.com/

Arthur Brown burst out of obscurity in 1968 with "Fire," an energetic fusion of blues, jazz and psychedelia with his over-the-top vocals invoking the dangers of the dark side. “Fire” launched Arthur to fame worldwide. He was born in North Yorkshire in 1942. After attending a grammar school Arthur studied at University where he focused on law and philosophy. His interest in music began to overwhelm his academic pursuits, and he formed his first band, an R&B combo called Blues and Brown. After a spell in France, where he dabbled in theatre, Arthur returned to the U.K. and worked with a number of groups in London. Not long after Brown left one -the Ramong Sound, they changed their name to the Foundations and scored international hits with "Build Me Up Buttercup" and "Baby, Now That I've Found You." Arthur however wasn't fussed. He had Kit Lambert and Pete Townshend produce his self-titled debut album from which “Fire” emerged and The God of Hellfire was born. His band, The Crazy Worldof Arthur Brown was known for its live show, which featured Arthur wearing a helmet that spat fire. Sometimes he would take to the stage naked and as such became one of the most talked-about characters in British rock.  In the wake of the success of their debut, the band cut a second album and kept touring; for a short while Carl Palmer took over as drummer. Arthur's next group's sound was darker and even more esoteric than the Crazy World. Arthur then stepped out as a solo act with 1974's Dance with Arthur Brown, a more straightforward and accessible album rooted in international rhythms. His public profile got a boost in 1975 when he was cast as the Priest in Ken Russell's film adaptation of the Who's rock opera Tommy, which was a major box office success. The following year, he made a guest appearance on Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe, the debut album from the Alan Parsons Project. In 1979. Klaus Schulze, of Tangerine Dream invited Arthur to lend vocals to some of his work but in the early '80s, Brown left England to settle in Austin, Texas, where he earned a degree in counseling and opened a music-based practice. He also opened a house painting and carpentry business with Jimmy Carl Black, a former member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. For the most part, Arthur had stepped away from music, though he and Jimmy Carl Black did team up again for 1988's Brown, Black & Blue, a powerful blues-rock set. The new Crazy World returned for 2003's Vampire Suite, and Brown became a regular guest at Hawkwind concerts, appearing on their 2006 album Take Me to Your Future. 2008's The Voice of Love, released under the moniker the Amazing World of Arthur Brown, included guest appearances from Dick Taylor and Mark St. John of the Pretty Things. A spate of archival live releases dominated Arthurs's catalogue in the 2010s as he continued to tour extensively, including dates with Carl Palmer's group ELP Legacy and Hawkwind. Brown returned to recording with his latest edition of the Crazy World for 2014's Zim Zam Zim. Arthur celebrated his 80th birthday in 2022 and today is in hot demand to play concerts and festivals all over Europe. We catch up with the iconic artist this week and he regales us with a whole host of interesting stories. If you'd like to learn more about Arthur Brown head for his website https://www.thegodofhellfire.com/ and if you'd like to get in touch with me - comments, feedback or requests for future guests - don't hesitate to reach out through my website https://www.abreathoffreshair.com.au I hope you enjoy the story of The God of Hellfire.  

We're celebrating the month of love by giving you our regular Shooting the Flames episode, where we discuss all your comments, questions, and voicemails, and give you the latest horror movie news and trailers! If you have anything to add to the discussion, please don't hesitate to do so by reaching out to us on social media @TheFilmFlamers, or call our hotline and leave us a message at 972-666-7733!            News Universal Epic to Open in 2025 With Dark Universe Section: https://bloody-disgusting.com/the-further/3797822/universal-epic-universe-opens-in-2025-at-universal-orlando-features-horror-themed-dark-universe/?fbclid=IwAR24VyZNVD66HxRfXG8_qm-_lqrnc9xu98wa2CijZUAJ6W8JgF7rsnpkIxo_aem_AZj3SqspUMKJyNHlT0QGvU5vNrG-kejhGhY2sH9uUWereMcnathkWDxqqqOGKYR35kc Blumhouse Partners With The Stanley Hotel To Create Horror Destination: https://bloody-disgusting.com/the-further/3797746/blumhouse-joins-forces-with-real-life-the-shining-hotel-in-colorado-for-a-unique-horror-destination/?fbclid=IwAR0rUSSkKHh8Kg8LvWVcyIrdjzlwPEBbhQLsljGT8lQe7KASgZEG7vTS0Es_aem_AQlxGhcUCBpXYStri6MgGT68LwWg4N0xVXfh4e-NK7isBp-zGutnLP6GXeRrEi_56I0 Danny Boyle and Alex Garland are reteaming for the long-awaited sequel to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, titled 28 Years Later: https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3798127/28-years-later-sony-officially-boards-danny-boyles-sequel-with-cillian-murphy-producing/  David Gordon Green Exits Exorcist Sequel, Blumhouse to search for new Director: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/david-gordon-green-exits-exorcist-sequel-1235869381/        Trailers Lovely Dark and Deep (VOD, Feb): https://youtu.be/zrqNHTkUPDs?si=G6yVML0dCzgxTJp0 Stopmotion (Theaters Feb): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Debr5KI1QIU  Immaculate (Theaters, March): https://youtu.be/ewxS9Z-XXYo?si=SmNX-9sI6RHzEgcW  Abigail (Theaters April, starring Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens): https://youtu.be/3PsP8MFH8p0?si=tvIJzG8nTAfP5ijT The First Omen (Theaters, April, starring Ralph Ineson, Bill Nighy): https://youtu.be/H4xk8yLiFwM?si=sDLZe_5PR2LydSeT  Tarot (Theatres, May): https://youtu.be/bvDArsKoTOE?si=BQtfXy_JPWK7QZHv  In a Violent Nature (Shudder 2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tReIOFzR2w  Longlegs (Theaters 2024, Directed by Oz Perkins (The Blackcoat's Daughter, Gretl & Hansel, I am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House), starring Nicolas Cage, Maika Monroe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdr8iCtyi6Y         Out this Month: Week 1: Shooting the Flames Week 2: Possession Week 3: It Follows Patreon: Bonus Episode!     Coming in March 2024 (Zombie Month!): Night of the Living Dead (Remake) Cargo      Get in Touch:  Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheFilmFlamers  Visit our Store: https://teespring.com/stores/thefilmflamers  Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheFilmFlamers  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thefilmflamers  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFilmFlamers/ Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/thefilmflamers/ Our Website: https://www.filmflamers.com  Call our Hotline: 972-666-7733     Our Patrons:    #ExiledTexan Alex Mendoza Anthony Criswell Ashlie Thornbury BattleBurrito BelleBeignet Benjamin Gonzalez Bennett Hunter Big Dave Bonnie Jay BreakfastChainsawMassacre Call me Lestat. CenobiteBetty Christopher Nelson Cj Mcginnis Dan Alvarez Gia-Ranita Pitt Gillian Murtagh GlazedDonut GWilliamNYC Irwan Iskak James Aumann Jessica E Joanne Ellison Josh Young Kimberly McGuirk Kitty Kelly Laura O'Malley Lisa Libby Livi Loch Hightower Mary Matthew McHenry Nicole McDaniel Nikki (phillyenginerd) Niko Allred Orion Yannotti Penelope Nelson random dude Robert Eppers Rosieredleader Ryan King Sean Homrig Sinesthero The Dean Swann Tony Pellonari Walstrich William Skinner   Sweet dreams...      "Welcome to Horrorland" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Includes music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

In this episode we plunge back into the world of the Pretty Things. Mike Stax interviews bass player and founder member John Stax about the group's early days along with a track-by-track exploration of their fabulous debut album and wild stories about their days at 13 Chester Street, Belgravia. https://www.theprettythings.com https://www.cigarboxguitar.com.au/ Please support the podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/uglythingspod, where you can enjoy special bonus content plus much more. Become a Patreon today! Check out Ugly Things Magazine: https://ugly-things.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode we plunge back into the world of the Pretty Things. Mike Stax interviews bass player and founder member John Stax about the group's early days along with a track-by-track exploration of their fabulous debut album and wild stories about their days at 13 Chester Street, Belgravia https://www.theprettythings.com https://www.cigarboxguitar.com.au/ Please support the podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/uglythingspod, where you can enjoy special bonus content plus much more. Become a Patreon today! Check out Ugly Things Magazine: https://ugly-things.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The long awaited final episode is here and for it I present to you the lovely minds that contributed to the recently released “That's a Pretty Thing to Call It”. Learn from some of the writers as they reflect on their time spent with folks on the inside. To purchase “That's a Pretty Thing to Call It” click here. All proceeds from the book will go to support Dances for Solidarity, a project that acts in correspondence with the more than 200 people incarcerated in solitary confinement through its chapters in New York and Denver. Introducing The Speakers: Erin Wiley - Erin Wiley is a poet, creative writer and workshop facilitator who studied Anthropology and Peace & Social Justice at the University of Michigan. She spent many years facilitating open format creative writing workshops at various Michigan prisons through the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), has worked in girls juvenile facilities and participated in theatre workshops at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility. Today, Erin lives in a remote part of Southern Chile as an adventure travel specialist, planning outdoor adventures for folks who wish to visit Patagonia. You can find her on instagram @superboamagic. Karla Robinson - Karla Robinson is a community based arts educator, conceptual artist, and poet, her multi-media work spans discipline and medium. Karla is the Poet in Residence at Sadie Nash Leadership Project and is a recipient of a Creatives Rebuild New York Artist Employment Program grant to start Document.Dream.Disrupt., a multi-generational, Bronx based boutique press dedicated to nurturing youth voices. Leigh Sugar - Leigh Sugar is a writer, educator, and mutli-disciplinary artist. She holds an MFA in poetry from NYU and an MPA in Criminal Justice Policy from John Jay College. She has taught writing to previously incarcerated scholars at CUNY's Institute for Justice and Opportunity, and facilitated writing workshops at various prisons in Michigan through the Prison Creative Arts Project. She has also taught poetry at NYU, Poetry Foundation, Hugo House, Justice Arts Coalition, and more. Her debut poetry collection, FREELAND, is forthcoming from Alice James Books (2025), and she created and edited the anthology "That's a Pretty Thing to Call It: Prose and poetry by artists teaching in carceral institutions" (New Village Press, 2023). A disabled and chronically ill artist, Leigh lives in Michigan with her pup Elmo. You can find her at leighksugar.com or on Instagram @lekasugar. Isaiah 41:10 "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠

In the episode Mike Stax interviews Dick Taylor, lead guitarist and founder member of the Pretty Things about their flawlessly brilliant 1965 album Get the Picture? Along with an immersive track by track examination, Dick shares strange and hilarious stories about their experiences in the pulsing epicenter of mid-sixties midnight-to-six London. https://www.theprettythings.com Please support the podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/uglythingspod, where you can enjoy special bonus content plus much more. In this episodes bonus content, Dick Taylor talks about producing the first Hawkwind album in 1969. Become a Patreon today! Check out Ugly Things Magazine: https://ugly-things.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the episode Mike Stax interviews Dick Taylor, lead guitarist and founder member of the Pretty Things about their flawlessly brilliant 1965 album Get the Picture? Along with an immersive track by track examination, Dick shares strange and hilarious stories about their experiences in the pulsing epicenter of mid-sixties midnight-to-six London.   https://www.theprettythings.com Please support the podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/uglythingspod, where you can enjoy special bonus content plus much more. In this episodes bonus content, Dick Taylor talks about producing the first Hawkwind album in 1969. Become a Patreon today! Check out Ugly Things Magazine: https://ugly-things.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The early 60s marked a transformative period for The Kinks, a British band that left an indelible mark on the music scene. Led by the legendary Ray Davies, The Kinks ventured into the burgeoning world of early 60s rock music with a distinctive sound that blended raw energy, catchy melodies, and socially observant lyrics. Their breakthrough single, "You Really Got Me," released in 1964, showcased a rebellious spirit and introduced a distorted guitar riff that would influence countless rock acts to come. The Kinks' early repertoire, including hits like "All Day and All of the Night" and "Tired of Waiting for You," captured the essence of the British Invasion. Ray Davies' songwriting prowess and the band's dynamic performances laid the groundwork for their enduring legacy, making them not only pioneers of the era but also influential figures in the evolution of rock music.Includes tracks by: The Stooges, Mad Sin, Oblivians, Deep Purple, The Pretty Things, The Wylde Mammoths, Nigel Lewis, and more!  Join me on my Patreon page at patreon.com/radioblivion Blow Yer Radio Up, Baby!! If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element DOWNLOAD | SUBSCRIBE

For Episode 148, as the podcast takes a brief break, we revisit a backlist episode…the Best Books of 2020 with Susie Boutry (@NovelVisits). Re-listening to this one is a unique opportunity to get a look back on a strange year. Whether you're new to the podcast or have been with us for a while, everyone loves a TBR filled with backlist gems! Library holds should be easy and paperbacks editions have been released! So, let's take a look back at our favorite 2020 books (overall and by genre) and our picks for tons of bookish superlatives. This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!). This is a backlist episode. It features a new introduction and has been cut for content, but first aired on November 25, 2020, in its entirety, as Ep. 71: Best Books of 2020 and Bookish Superlatives with Susie from @NovelVisits. Highlights 2020 Podcast Overview (including favorite and most downloaded episodes)  Overview of our reading years (including the impact of COVID-19) Favorite books of 2020 (trends, overall, and by genre) 2020 Bookish Superlative Awards Our Favorite Books of 2020 (Overall and by Genre) [18:25] Sarah Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West | Amazon | Bookshop.org [18:56] Untamed by Glennon Doyle | Amazon | Bookshop.org [21:28] The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel | Amazon | Bookshop.org [23:15] The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan | Amazon | Bookshop.org [24:39] The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe | Amazon | Bookshop.org [26:13] Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West | Amazon | Bookshop.org [28:30] One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London | Amazon | Bookshop.org [29:06] Long Bright River by Liz Moore | Amazon | Bookshop.org [31:19] The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett | Amazon | Bookshop.org [32:24] Craigslist Confessional by Helena Dea Bala | Amazon | Bookshop.org [34:50] We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper | Amazon | Bookshop.org [35:00] Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey | Amazon | Bookshop.org [37:55] Smacked by Eilene Zimmerman | Amazon | Bookshop.org [38:11] This is My America by Kim Johnson | Amazon | Bookshop.org [39:25] Susie The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab | Amazon | Bookshop.org[19:34] A Knock at Midnight by Brittany K. Barnett | Amazon | Bookshop.org [22:20] The Night Swim by Megan Goldin | Amazon | Bookshop.org [23:41] Godshot by Chelsea Bieker | Amazon | Bookshop.org [25:15] The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett | Amazon | Bookshop.org [26:52] Writers & Lovers by Lily King | Amazon | Bookshop.org [27:40] The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez | Amazon | Bookshop.org[30:12] Long Bright River by Liz Moore | Amazon | Bookshop.org [32:00] Greenwood by Michael Christie | Amazon | Bookshop.org [33:48] Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi | Amazon | Bookshop.org[35:52] Open Book by Jessica Simpson | Amazon | Bookshop.org [38:41] American Royals II: Majesty by Katharine McGee | Amazon | Bookshop.org[41:00] A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet | Amazon | Bookshop.org [42:52] Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam | Amazon | Bookshop.org [43:37] 2020 Superlatives [43:54] Sarah The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett | Amazon | Bookshop.org [44:18] Running by Natalia Sylvester | Amazon | Bookshop.org [44:58] We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan | Amazon | Bookshop.org [46:02] Untamed by Glennon Doyle | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:13] The Searcher by Tana French | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:59] Sea Wife by Amity Gaige | Amazon | Bookshop.org [49:28] Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West | Amazon | Bookshop.org [50:18] This is My America by Kim Johnson | Amazon | Bookshop.org [50:29] The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe | Amazon | Bookshop.org [52:29] Deacon King Kong by James McBride | Amazon | Bookshop.org [53:25] Anxious People by Fredrik Backman | Amazon | Bookshop.org [53:58] Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Amazon | Bookshop.org [53:59] A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler | Amazon | Bookshop.org[54:00] Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel | Amazon | Bookshop.org [54:02] Smacked by Eilene Zimmerman | Amazon | Bookshop.org [55:17] Eat a Peach by David Chang | Amazon | Bookshop.org [55:25] Stray by Stephanie Danler | Amazon | Bookshop.org [56:33] Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam | Amazon | Bookshop.org [56:45] The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel | Amazon| Bookshop.org [57:40] Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Amazon | Bookshop.org [57:46] The Boys' Club by Erica Katz | Amazon | Bookshop.org [58:59] The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:00:54] The Office by Andy Greene | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:01:19] Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:03:56] A Knock at Midnight by Brittany K. Barnett | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:05:10] The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim | Amazon| Bookshop.org[1:05:20] Caste by Isabel Wilkerson | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:05:37] Susie Perfect Tunes by Emily Gould | Amazon | Bookshop.org [44:22] 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand | Amazon | Bookshop.org [45:18] Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore | Amazon | Bookshop.org [46:26] Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:22] Anxious People by Fredrik Backman | Amazon | Bookshop.org [48:34] Greenwood by Michael Christie | Amazon | Bookshop.org [50:41] A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet | Amazon | Bookshop.org [50:43] Last Couple Standing by Matthew Norman | Amazon | Bookshop.org [50:47] Want by Lynn Steger Strong | Amazon | Bookshop.org [51:14] Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore | Amazon | Bookshop.org [52:21] Writers & Lovers by Lily King | Amazon | Bookshop.org [53:10] The Night Swim by Megan Goldin | Amazon | Bookshop.org [54:20] The Guest List by Lucy Foley | Amazon | Bookshop.org [54:23] Pretty Things by Janelle Brown | Amazon | Bookshop.org [54:25] When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole | Amazon | Bookshop.org [54:27] 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand | Amazon | Bookshop.org [54:57] Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld | Amazon | Bookshop.org [56:56] Memorial by Bryan Washington | Amazon | Bookshop.org [58:17] The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe | Amazon | Bookshop.org [58:23] Smacked by Eilene Zimmerman | Amazon | Bookshop.org [58:38] The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:00:40] The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez | Amazon | Bookshop.org[1:01:55] A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:02:15] Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:02:43] Other Books Mentioned Beach Read by Emily Henry [15:57] The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel [23:19] The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan [24:46] The Mothers by Brit Bennett [27:23] The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen [35:13]  In Cold Blood by Truman Capote [35:15] Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt [35:18]  Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi [36:03] American Royals by Katharine McGee [40:54] The Witch Elm by Tana French [48:01] Beartown by Fredrik Backman [48:59] The Girls of Corona del Mar by Rufi Thorpe [52:50] Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight [1:02:28] Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi [1:02:41] Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle [1:03:42] Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby [1:04:34] Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell [1:04:42] Other Links Ep. 116: Micro Genres We Love with Susie (@NovelVisits) Ep. 145: 2023 Micro Genres We Love with Susie (@NovelVisits) Ep. 43: Jordan Moblo (@jordys.book.club) on Growing a #Bookstagram Account Ep. 63: Helena Dea Bala (Author of Craigslist Confessional) Mini Ep. 59: Reviving Your Reading Life + Ann Patchett Deep Dive with Alyssa Hertzig (@alyssaisbooked) Ep. 56: Holly Root (Literary Agent) on the Rise of Rom-Coms & Publishing in the Coronavirus Era Ep. 66: Kate Stayman-London (Author of One to Watch) Ep. 64: Catherine Adel West (Author of Saving Ruby King) From Novel Visits: Reading in the Midst of a Global Pandemic | Musings From Novel Visits: The Night Swim by Megan Goldin | [Spoiler] Discussion About Susie Boutry Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram Susie has loved reading for as long as she can remember. Some of her fondest childhood memories involve long afternoons at the library and then reading late into the night. More than ten years ago, she began journaling about the books she read and turned that passion into writing about books. Her first forays were as a guest reviewer on a friend's blog, but she soon realized she wanted to be reviewing and talking about books on a blog of her own. From there, Novel Visits was born. That was in 2016 and, though the learning curve was steep, she loves being a part of the book community. Novel Visits focuses on new novel reviews (print and audio), previews of upcoming releases, and musings on all things bookish.

Episode one hundred and sixty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “The Weight" by the Band, the Basement Tapes, and the continuing controversy over Dylan going electric. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "S.F. Sorrow is Born" by the Pretty Things. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Also, a one-time request here -- Shawn Taylor, who runs the Facebook group for the podcast and is an old and dear friend of mine, has stage-three lung cancer. I will be hugely grateful to anyone who donates to the GoFundMe for her treatment. Errata At one point I say "when Robertson and Helm travelled to the Brill Building". I meant "when Hawkins and Helm". This is fixed in the transcript but not the recording. Resources There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Bob Dylan and the Band excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two, three. I've used these books for all the episodes involving Dylan: Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald, which is recommended, as all Wald's books are. Bob Dylan: All The Songs by Phillipe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon is a song-by-song look at every song Dylan ever wrote, as is Revolution in the Air, by Clinton Heylin. Heylin also wrote the most comprehensive and accurate biography of Dylan, Behind the Shades. I've also used Robert Shelton's No Direction Home, which is less accurate, but which is written by someone who knew Dylan. Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan is a partial, highly inaccurate, but thoroughly readable autobiography. Information on Tiny Tim comes from Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim by Justin Martell. Information on John Cage comes from The Roaring Silence by David Revill Information on Woodstock comes from Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskyns. For material on the Basement Tapes, I've used Million Dollar Bash by Sid Griffin. And for the Band, I've used This Wheel's on Fire by Levon Helm with Stephen Davis, Testimony by Robbie Robertson, The Band by Craig Harris and Levon by Sandra B Tooze. I've also referred to the documentaries No Direction Home and Once Were Brothers. The complete Basement Tapes can be found on this multi-disc box set, while this double-CD version has the best material from the sessions. All the surviving live recordings by Dylan and the Hawks from 1966 are on this box set. There are various deluxe versions of Music From Big Pink, but still the best way to get the original album is in this twofer CD with the Band's second album. Transcript Just a brief note before I start – literally while I was in the middle of recording this episode, it was announced that Robbie Robertson had died today, aged eighty. Obviously I've not had time to alter the rest of the episode – half of which had already been edited – with that in mind, though I don't believe I say anything disrespectful to his memory. My condolences to those who loved him – he was a huge talent and will be missed. There are people in the world who question the function of criticism. Those people argue that criticism is in many ways parasitic. If critics knew what they were talking about, so the argument goes, they would create themselves, rather than talk about other people's creation. It's a variant of the "those who can't, teach" cliche. And to an extent it's true. Certainly in the world of rock music, which we're talking about in this podcast, most critics are quite staggeringly ignorant of the things they're talking about. Most criticism is ephemeral, published in newspapers, magazines, blogs and podcasts, and forgotten as soon as it has been consumed -- and consumed is the word . But sometimes, just sometimes, a critic will have an effect on the world that is at least as important as that of any of the artists they criticise. One such critic was John Ruskin. Ruskin was one of the preeminent critics of visual art in the Victorian era, particularly specialising in painting and architecture, and he passionately advocated for a form of art that would be truthful, plain, and honest. To Ruskin's mind, many artists of the past, and of his time, drew and painted, not what they saw with their own eyes, but what other people expected them to paint. They replaced true observation of nature with the regurgitation of ever-more-mannered and formalised cliches. His attacks on many great artists were, in essence, the same critiques that are currently brought against AI art apps -- they're just recycling and plagiarising what other people had already done, not seeing with their own eyes and creating from their own vision. Ruskin was an artist himself, but never received much acclaim for his own work. Rather, he advocated for the works of others, like Turner and the pre-Raphaelite school -- the latter of whom were influenced by Ruskin, even as he admired them for seeing with their own vision rather than just repeating influences from others. But those weren't the only people Ruskin influenced. Because any critical project, properly understood, becomes about more than just the art -- as if art is just anything. Ruskin, for example, studied geology, because if you're going to talk about how people should paint landscapes and what those landscapes look like, you need to understand what landscapes really do look like, which means understanding their formation. He understood that art of the kind he wanted could only be produced by certain types of people, and so society had to be organised in a way to produce such people. Some types of societal organisation lead to some kinds of thinking and creation, and to properly, honestly, understand one branch of human thought means at least to attempt to understand all of them. Opinions about art have moral consequences, and morality has political and economic consequences. The inevitable endpoint of any theory of art is, ultimately, a theory of society. And Ruskin had a theory of society, and social organisation. Ruskin's views are too complex to summarise here, but they were a kind of anarcho-primitivist collectivism. He believed that wealth was evil, and that the classical liberal economics of people like Mill was fundamentally anti-human, that the division of labour alienated people from their work. In Ruskin's ideal world, people would gather in communities no bigger than villages, and work as craftspeople, working with nature rather than trying to bend nature to their will. They would be collectives, with none richer or poorer than any other, and working the land without modern technology. in the first half of the twentieth century, in particular, Ruskin's influence was *everywhere*. His writings on art inspired the Impressionist movement, but his political and economic ideas were the most influential, right across the political spectrum. Ruskin's ideas were closest to Christian socialism, and he did indeed inspire many socialist parties -- most of the founders of Britain's Labour Party were admirers of Ruskin and influenced by his ideas, particularly his opposition to the free market. But he inspired many other people -- Gandhi talked about the profound influence that Ruskin had on him, saying in his autobiography that he got three lessons from Ruskin's Unto This Last: "That 1) the good of the individual is contained in the good of all. 2) a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's in as much as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. 3) a life of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living. The first of these I knew. The second I had dimly realized. The third had never occurred to me. Unto This Last made it clear as daylight for me that the second and third were contained in the first. I arose with the dawn, ready to reduce these principles to practice" Gandhi translated and paraphrased Unto this Last into Gujurati and called the resulting book Sarvodaya (meaning "uplifting all" or "the welfare of all") which he later took as the name of his own political philosophy. But Ruskin also had a more pernicious influence -- it was said in 1930s Germany that he and his friend Thomas Carlyle were "the first National Socialists" -- there's no evidence I know of that Hitler ever read Ruskin, but a *lot* of Nazi rhetoric is implicit in Ruskin's writing, particularly in his opposition to progress (he even opposed the bicycle as being too much inhuman interference with nature), just as much as more admirable philosophies, and he was so widely read in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that there's barely a political movement anywhere that didn't bear his fingerprints. But of course, our focus here is on music. And Ruskin had an influence on that, too. We've talked in several episodes, most recently the one on the Velvet Underground, about John Cage's piece 4'33. What I didn't mention in any of the discussions of that piece -- because I was saving it for here -- is that that piece was premiered at a small concert hall in upstate New York. The hall, the Maverick Concert Hall, was owned and run by the Maverick arts and crafts collective -- a collective that were so called because they were the *second* Ruskinite arts colony in the area, having split off from the Byrdcliffe colony after a dispute between its three founders, all of whom were disciples of Ruskin, and all of whom disagreed violently about how to implement Ruskin's ideas of pacifist all-for-one and one-for-all community. These arts colonies, and others that grew up around them like the Arts Students League were the thriving centre of a Bohemian community -- close enough to New York that you could get there if you needed to, far enough away that you could live out your pastoral fantasies, and artists of all types flocked there -- Pete Seeger met his wife there, and his father-in-law had been one of the stonemasons who helped build the Maverick concert hall. Dozens of artists in all sorts of areas, from Aaron Copland to Edward G Robinson, spent time in these communities, as did Cage. Of course, while these arts and crafts communities had a reputation for Bohemianism and artistic extremism, even radical utopian artists have their limits, and legend has it that the premiere of 4'33 was met with horror and derision, and eventually led to one artist in the audience standing up and calling on the residents of the town around which these artistic colonies had agglomerated: “Good people of Woodstock, let's drive these people out of town.” [Excerpt: The Band, "The Weight"] Ronnie Hawkins was almost born to make music. We heard back in the episode on "Suzie Q" in 2019 about his family and their ties to music. Ronnie's uncle Del was, according to most of the sources on the family, a member of the Sons of the Pioneers -- though as I point out in that episode, his name isn't on any of the official lists of group members, but he might well have performed with them at some point in the early years of the group. And he was definitely a country music bass player, even if he *wasn't* in the most popular country and western group of the thirties and forties. And Del had had two sons, Jerry, who made some minor rockabilly records: [Excerpt: Jerry Hawkins, "Swing, Daddy, Swing"] And Del junior, who as we heard in the "Susie Q" episode became known as Dale Hawkins and made one of the most important rock records of the fifties: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, "Susie Q"] Ronnie Hawkins was around the same age as his cousins, and was in awe of his country-music star uncle. Hawkins later remembered that after his uncle moved to Califormia to become a star “He'd come home for a week or two, driving a brand new Cadillac and wearing brand new clothes and I knew that's what I wanted to be." Though he also remembered “He spent every penny he made on whiskey, and he was divorced because he was running around with all sorts of women. His wife left Arkansas and went to Louisiana.” Hawkins knew that he wanted to be a music star like his uncle, and he started performing at local fairs and other events from the age of eleven, including one performance where he substituted for Hank Williams -- Williams was so drunk that day he couldn't perform, and so his backing band asked volunteers from the audience to get up and sing with them, and Hawkins sang Burl Ives and minstrel-show songs with the band. He said later “Even back then I knew that every important white cat—Al Jolson, Stephen Foster—they all did it by copying blacks. Even Hank Williams learned all the stuff he had from those black cats in Alabama. Elvis Presley copied black music; that's all that Elvis did.” As well as being a performer from an early age, though, Hawkins was also an entrepreneur with an eye for how to make money. From the age of fourteen he started running liquor -- not moonshine, he would always point out, but something far safer. He lived only a few miles from the border between Missouri and Arkansas, and alcohol and tobacco were about half the price in Missouri that they were in Arkansas, so he'd drive across the border, load up on whisky and cigarettes, and drive back and sell them at a profit, which he then used to buy shares in several nightclubs, which he and his bands would perform in in later years. Like every man of his generation, Hawkins had to do six months in the Army, and it was there that he joined his first ever full-time band, the Blackhawks -- so called because his name was Hawkins, and the rest of the group were Black, though Hawkins was white. They got together when the other four members were performing at a club in the area where Hawkins was stationed, and he was so impressed with their music that he jumped on stage and started singing with them. He said later “It sounded like something between the blues and rockabilly. It sort of leaned in both directions at the same time, me being a hayseed and those guys playing a lot funkier." As he put it "I wanted to sound like Bobby ‘Blue' Bland but it came out sounding like Ernest Tubb.” Word got around about the Blackhawks, both that they were a great-sounding rock and roll band and that they were an integrated band at a time when that was extremely unpopular in the southern states, and when Hawkins was discharged from the Army he got a call from Sam Phillips at Sun Records. According to Hawkins a group of the regular Sun session musicians were planning on forming a band, and he was asked to front the band for a hundred dollars a week, but by the time he got there the band had fallen apart. This doesn't precisely line up with anything else I know about Sun, though it perhaps makes sense if Hawkins was being asked to front the band who had variously backed Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lee Lewis after one of Riley's occasional threats to leave the label. More likely though, he told everyone he knew that he had a deal with Sun but Phillips was unimpressed with the demos he cut there, and Hawkins made up the story to stop himself losing face. One of the session players for Sun, though, Luke Paulman, who played in Conway Twitty's band among others, *was* impressed with Hawkins though, and suggested that they form a band together with Paulman's bass player brother George and piano-playing cousin Pop Jones. The Paulman brothers and Jones also came from Arkansas, but they specifically came from Helena, Arkansas, the town from which King Biscuit Time was broadcast. King Biscuit Time was the most important blues radio show in the US at that time -- a short lunchtime programme which featured live performances from a house band which varied over the years, but which in the 1940s had been led by Sonny Boy Williamson II, and featured Robert Jr. Lockwood, Robert Johnson's stepson, on guiitar: [Excerpt: Sonny Boy Williamson II "Eyesight to the Blind (King Biscuit Time)"] The band also included a drummer, "Peck" Curtis, and that drummer was the biggest inspiration for a young white man from the town named Levon Helm. Helm had first been inspired to make music after seeing Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys play live when Helm was eight, and he had soon taken up first the harmonica, then the guitar, then the drums, becoming excellent at all of them. Even as a child he knew that he didn't want to be a farmer like his family, and that music was, as he put it, "the only way to get off that stinking tractor  and out of that one hundred and five degree heat.” Sonny Boy Williamson and the King Biscuit Boys would perform in the open air in Marvell, Arkansas, where Helm was growing up, on Saturdays, and Helm watched them regularly as a small child, and became particularly interested in the drumming. “As good as the band sounded,” he said later “it seemed that [Peck] was definitely having the most fun. I locked into the drums at that point. Later, I heard Jack Nance, Conway Twitty's drummer, and all the great drummers in Memphis—Jimmy Van Eaton, Al Jackson, and Willie Hall—the Chicago boys (Fred Belew and Clifton James) and the people at Sun Records and Vee-Jay, but most of my style was based on Peck and Sonny Boy—the Delta blues style with the shuffle. Through the years, I've quickened the pace to a more rock-and-roll meter and time frame, but it still bases itself back to Peck, Sonny Boy Williamson, and the King Biscuit Boys.” Helm had played with another band that George Paulman had played in, and he was invited to join the fledgling band Hawkins was putting together, called for the moment the Sun Records Quartet. The group played some of the clubs Hawkins had business connections in, but they had other plans -- Conway Twitty had recently played Toronto, and had told Luke Paulman about how desperate the Canadians were for American rock and roll music. Twitty's agent Harold Kudlets booked the group in to a Toronto club, Le Coq D'Or, and soon the group were alternating between residencies in clubs in the Deep South, where they were just another rockabilly band, albeit one of the better ones, and in Canada, where they became the most popular band in Ontario, and became the nucleus of an entire musical scene -- the same scene from which, a few years later, people like Neil Young would emerge. George Paulman didn't remain long in the group -- he was apparently getting drunk, and also he was a double-bass player, at a time when the electric bass was becoming the in thing. And this is the best place to mention this, but there are several discrepancies in the various accounts of which band members were in Hawkins' band at which times, and who played on what session. They all *broadly* follow the same lines, but none of them are fully reconcilable with each other, and nobody was paying enough attention to lineup shifts in a bar band between 1957 and 1964 to be absolutely certain who was right. I've tried to reconcile the various accounts as far as possible and make a coherent narrative, but some of the details of what follows may be wrong, though the broad strokes are correct. For much of their first period in Ontario, the group had no bass player at all, relying on Jones' piano to fill in the bass parts, and on their first recording, a version of "Bo Diddley", they actually got the club's manager to play bass with them: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins, "Hey Bo Diddley"] That is claimed to be the first rock and roll record made in Canada, though as everyone who has listened to this podcast knows, there's no first anything. It wasn't released as by the Sun Records Quartet though -- the band had presumably realised that that name would make them much less attractive to other labels, and so by this point the Sun Records Quartet had become Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. "Hey Bo Diddley" was released on a small Canadian label and didn't have any success, but the group carried on performing live, travelling back down to Arkansas for a while and getting a new bass player, Lefty Evans, who had been playing in the same pool of musicians as them, having been another Sun session player who had been in Conway Twitty's band, and had written Twitty's "Why Can't I Get Through to You": [Excerpt: Conway Twitty, "Why Can't I Get Through to You"] The band were now popular enough in Canada that they were starting to get heard of in America, and through Kudlets they got a contract with Joe Glaser, a Mafia-connected booking agent who booked them into gigs on the Jersey Shore. As Helm said “Ronnie Hawkins had molded us into the wildest, fiercest, speed-driven bar band in America," and the group were apparently getting larger audiences in New Jersey than Sammy Davis Jr was, even though they hadn't released any records in the US. Or at least, they hadn't released any records in their own name in the US. There's a record on End Records by Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels which is very strongly rumoured to have been the Hawks under another name, though Hawkins always denied that. Have a listen for yourself and see what you think: [Excerpt: Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels, "Kansas City"] End Records, the label that was on, was one of the many record labels set up by George Goldner and distributed by Morris Levy, and when the group did release a record in their home country under their own name, it was on Levy's Roulette Records. An audition for Levy had been set up by Glaser's booking company, and Levy decided that given that Elvis was in the Army, there was a vacancy to be filled and Ronnie Hawkins might just fit the bill. Hawkins signed a contract with Levy, and it doesn't sound like he had much choice in the matter. Helm asked him “How long did you have to sign for?” and Hawkins replied "Life with an option" That said, unlike almost every other artist who interacted with Levy, Hawkins never had a bad word to say about him, at least in public, saying later “I don't care what Morris was supposed to have done, he looked after me and he believed in me. I even lived with him in his million-dollar apartment on the Upper East Side." The first single the group recorded for Roulette, a remake of Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" retitled "Forty Days", didn't chart, but the follow-up, a version of Young Jessie's "Mary Lou", made number twenty-six on the charts: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Mary Lou"] While that was a cover of a Young Jessie record, the songwriting credits read Hawkins and Magill -- Magill was a pseudonym used by Morris Levy. Levy hoped to make Ronnie Hawkins into a really big star, but hit a snag. This was just the point where the payola scandal had hit and record companies were under criminal investigation for bribing DJs to play their records. This was the main method of promotion that Levy used, and this was so well known that Levy was, for a time, under more scrutiny than anyone. He couldn't risk paying anyone off, and so Hawkins' records didn't get the expected airplay. The group went through some lineup changes, too, bringing in guitarist Fred Carter (with Luke Paulman moving to rhythm and soon leaving altogether)  from Hawkins' cousin Dale's band, and bass player Jimmy Evans. Some sources say that Jones quit around this time, too, though others say he was in the band for  a while longer, and they had two keyboards (the other keyboard being supplied by Stan Szelest. As well as recording Ronnie Hawkins singles, the new lineup of the group also recorded one single with Carter on lead vocals, "My Heart Cries": [Excerpt: Fred Carter, "My Heart Cries"] While the group were now playing more shows in the USA, they were still playing regularly in Canada, and they had developed a huge fanbase there. One of these was a teenage guitarist called Robbie Robertson, who had become fascinated with the band after playing a support slot for them, and had started hanging round, trying to ingratiate himself with the band in the hope of being allowed to join. As he was a teenager, Hawkins thought he might have his finger on the pulse of the youth market, and when Hawkins and Helm travelled to the Brill Building to hear new songs for consideration for their next album, they brought Robertson along to listen to them and give his opinion. Robertson himself ended up contributing two songs to the album, titled Mr. Dynamo. According to Hawkins "we had a little time after the session, so I thought, Well, I'm just gonna put 'em down and see what happens. And they were released. Robbie was the songwriter for words, and Levon was good for arranging, making things fit in and all that stuff. He knew what to do, but he didn't write anything." The two songs in question were "Someone Like You" and "Hey Boba Lou": [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Hey Boba Lou"] While Robertson was the sole writer of the songs, they were credited to Robertson, Hawkins, and Magill -- Morris Levy. As Robertson told the story later, “It's funny, when those songs came out and I got a copy of the album, it had another name on there besides my name for some writer like Morris Levy. So, I said to Ronnie, “There was nobody there writing these songs when I wrote these songs. Who is Morris Levy?” Ronnie just kinda tapped me on the head and said, “There are certain things about this business that you just let go and you don't question.” That was one of my early music industry lessons right there" Robertson desperately wanted to join the Hawks, but initially it was Robertson's bandmate Scott Cushnie who became the first Canadian to join the Hawks. But then when they were in Arkansas, Jimmy Evans decided he wasn't going to go back to Canada. So Hawkins called Robbie Robertson up and made him an offer. Robertson had to come down to Arkansas and get a couple of quick bass lessons from Helm (who could play pretty much every instrument to an acceptable standard, and so was by this point acting as the group's musical director, working out arrangements and leading them in rehearsals). Then Hawkins and Helm had to be elsewhere for a few weeks. If, when they got back, Robertson was good enough on bass, he had the job. If not, he didn't. Robertson accepted, but he nearly didn't get the gig after all. The place Hawkins and Helm had to be was Britain, where they were going to be promoting their latest single on Boy Meets Girls, the Jack Good TV series with Marty Wilde, which featured guitarist Joe Brown in the backing band: [Excerpt: Joe Brown, “Savage”] This was the same series that Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent were regularly appearing on, and while they didn't appear on the episodes that Hawkins and Helm appeared on, they did appear on the episodes immediately before Hawkins and Helm's two appearances, and again a couple of weeks after, and were friendly with the musicians who did play with Hawkins and Helm, and apparently they all jammed together a few times. Hawkins was impressed enough with Joe Brown -- who at the time was considered the best guitarist on the British scene -- that he invited Brown to become a Hawk. Presumably if Brown had taken him up on the offer, he would have taken the spot that ended up being Robertson's, but Brown turned him down -- a decision he apparently later regretted. Robbie Robertson was now a Hawk, and he and Helm formed an immediate bond. As Helm much later put it, "It was me and Robbie against the world. Our mission, as we saw it, was to put together the best band in history". As rockabilly was by this point passe, Levy tried converting Hawkins into a folk artist, to see if he could get some of the Kingston Trio's audience. He recorded a protest song, "The Ballad of Caryl Chessman", protesting the then-forthcoming execution of Chessman (one of only a handful of people to be executed in the US in recent decades for non-lethal offences), and he made an album of folk tunes, The Folk Ballads of Ronnie Hawkins, which largely consisted of solo acoustic recordings, plus a handful of left-over Hawks recordings from a year or so earlier. That wasn't a success, but they also tried a follow-up, having Hawkins go country and do an album of Hank Williams songs, recorded in Nashville at Owen Bradley's Quonset hut. While many of the musicians on the album were Nashville A-Team players, Hawkins also insisted on having his own band members perform, much to the disgust of the producer, and so it's likely (not certain, because there seem to be various disagreements about what was recorded when) that that album features the first studio recordings with Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson playing together: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Your Cheatin' Heart"] Other sources claim that the only Hawk allowed to play on the album sessions was Helm, and that the rest of the musicians on the album were Harold Bradley and Hank Garland on guitar, Owen Bradley and Floyd Cramer on piano, Bob Moore on bass, and the Anita Kerr singers. I tend to trust Helm's recollection that the Hawks played at least some of the instruments though, because the source claiming that also seems to confuse the Hank Williams and Folk Ballads albums, and because I don't hear two pianos on the album. On the other hand, that *does* sound like Floyd Cramer on piano, and the tik-tok bass sound you'd get from having Harold Bradley play a baritone guitar while Bob Moore played a bass. So my best guess is that these sessions were like the Elvis sessions around the same time and with several of the same musicians, where Elvis' own backing musicians played rhythm parts but left the prominent instruments to the A-team players. Helm was singularly unimpressed with the experience of recording in Nashville. His strongest memory of the sessions was of another session going on in the same studio complex at the time -- Bobby "Blue" Bland was recording his classic single "Turn On Your Love Light", with the great drummer Jabo Starks on drums, and Helm was more interested in listening to that than he was in the music they were playing: [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "Turn On Your Love Light"] Incidentally, Helm talks about that recording being made "downstairs" from where the Hawks were recording, but also says that they were recording in Bradley's Quonset hut.  Now, my understanding here *could* be very wrong -- I've been unable to find a plan or schematic anywhere -- but my understanding is that the Quonset hut was a single-level structure, not a multi-level structure. BUT the original recording facilities run by the Bradley brothers were in Owen Bradley's basement, before they moved into the larger Quonset hut facility in the back, so it's possible that Bland was recording that in the old basement studio. If so, that won't be the last recording made in a basement we hear this episode... Fred Carter decided during the Nashville sessions that he was going to leave the Hawks. As his son told the story: "Dad had discovered the session musicians there. He had no idea that you could play and make a living playing in studios and sleep in your own bed every night. By that point in his life, he'd already been gone from home and constantly on the road and in the service playing music for ten years so that appealed to him greatly. And Levon asked him, he said, “If you're gonna leave, Fred, I'd like you to get young Robbie over here up to speed on guitar”…[Robbie] got kind of aggravated with him—and Dad didn't say this with any malice—but by the end of that week, or whatever it was, Robbie made some kind of comment about “One day I'm gonna cut you.” And Dad said, “Well, if that's how you think about it, the lessons are over.” " (For those who don't know, a musician "cutting" another one is playing better than them, so much better that the worse musician has to concede defeat. For the remainder of Carter's notice in the Hawks, he played with his back to Robertson, refusing to look at him. Carter leaving the group caused some more shuffling of roles. For a while, Levon Helm -- who Hawkins always said was the best lead guitar player he ever worked with as well as the best drummer -- tried playing lead guitar while Robertson played rhythm and another member, Rebel Payne, played bass, but they couldn't find a drummer to replace Helm, who moved back onto the drums. Then they brought in Roy Buchanan, another guitarist who had been playing with Dale Hawkins, having started out playing with Johnny Otis' band. But Buchanan didn't fit with Hawkins' personality, and he quit after a few months, going off to record his own first solo record: [Excerpt: Roy Buchanan, "Mule Train Stomp"] Eventually they solved the lineup problem by having Robertson -- by this point an accomplished lead player --- move to lead guitar and bringing in a new rhythm player, another Canadian teenager named Rick Danko, who had originally been a lead player (and who also played mandolin and fiddle). Danko wasn't expected to stay on rhythm long though -- Rebel Payne was drinking a lot and missing being at home when he was out on the road, so Danko was brought in on the understanding that he was to learn Payne's bass parts and switch to bass when Payne quit. Helm and Robertson were unsure about Danko, and Robertson expressed that doubt, saying "He only knows four chords," to which Hawkins replied, "That's all right son. You can teach him four more the way we had to teach you." He proved himself by sheer hard work. As Hawkins put it “He practiced so much that his arms swoll up. He was hurting.” By the time Danko switched to bass, the group also had a baritone sax player, Jerry Penfound, which allowed the group to play more of the soul and R&B material that Helm and Robertson favoured, though Hawkins wasn't keen. This new lineup of the group (which also had Stan Szelest on piano) recorded Hawkins' next album. This one was produced by Henry Glover, the great record producer, songwriter, and trumpet player who had played with Lucky Millinder, produced Wynonie Harris, Hank Ballard, and Moon Mullican, and wrote "Drowning in My Own Tears", "The Peppermint Twist", and "California Sun". Glover was massively impressed with the band, especially Helm (with whom he would remain friends for the rest of his life) and set aside some studio time for them to cut some tracks without Hawkins, to be used as album filler, including a version of the Bobby "Blue" Bland song "Farther On Up the Road" with Helm on lead vocals: [Excerpt: Levon Helm and the Hawks, "Farther On Up the Road"] There were more changes on the way though. Stan Szelest was about to leave the band, and Jones had already left, so the group had no keyboard player. Hawkins had just the replacement for Szelest -- yet another Canadian teenager. This one was Richard Manuel, who played piano and sang in a band called The Rockin' Revols. Manuel was not the greatest piano player around -- he was an adequate player for simple rockabilly and R&B stuff, but hardly a virtuoso -- but he was an incredible singer, able to do a version of "Georgia on My Mind" which rivalled Ray Charles, and Hawkins had booked the Revols into his own small circuit of clubs around Arkanasas after being impressed with them on the same bill as the Hawks a couple of times. Hawkins wanted someone with a good voice because he was increasingly taking a back seat in performances. Hawkins was the bandleader and frontman, but he'd often given Helm a song or two to sing in the show, and as they were often playing for several hours a night, the more singers the band had the better. Soon, with Helm, Danko, and Manuel all in the group and able to take lead vocals, Hawkins would start missing entire shows, though he still got more money than any of his backing group. Hawkins was also a hard taskmaster, and wanted to have the best band around. He already had great musicians, but he wanted them to be *the best*. And all the musicians in his band were now much younger than him, with tons of natural talent, but untrained. What he needed was someone with proper training, someone who knew theory and technique. He'd been trying for a long time to get someone like that, but Garth Hudson had kept turning him down. Hudson was older than any of the Hawks, though younger than Hawkins, and he was a multi-instrumentalist who was far better than any other musician on the circuit, having trained in a conservatory and learned how to play Bach and Chopin before switching to rock and roll. He thought the Hawks were too loud sounding and played too hard for him, but Helm kept on at Hawkins to meet any demands Hudson had, and Hawkins eventually agreed to give Hudson a higher wage than any of the other band members, buy him a new Lowry organ, and give him an extra ten dollars a week to give the rest of the band music lessons. Hudson agreed, and the Hawks now had a lineup of Helm on drums, Robertson on guitar, Manuel on piano, Danko on bass, Hudson on organ and alto sax, and Penfound on baritone sax. But these new young musicians were beginning to wonder why they actually needed a frontman who didn't turn up to many of the gigs, kept most of the money, and fined them whenever they broke one of his increasingly stringent set of rules. Indeed, they wondered why they needed a frontman at all. They already had three singers -- and sometimes a fourth, a singer called Bruce Bruno who would sometimes sit in with them when Penfound was unable to make a gig. They went to see Harold Kudlets, who Hawkins had recently sacked as his manager, and asked him if he could get them gigs for the same amount of money as they'd been getting with Hawkins. Kudlets was astonished to find how little Hawkins had been paying them, and told them that would be no problem at all. They had no frontman any more -- and made it a rule in all their contracts that the word "sideman" would never be used -- but Helm had been the leader for contractual purposes, as the musical director and longest-serving member (Hawkins, as a non-playing singer, had never joined the Musicians' Union so couldn't be the leader on contracts). So the band that had been Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks became the Levon Helm Sextet briefly -- but Penfound soon quit, and they became Levon and the Hawks. The Hawks really started to find their identity as their own band in 1964. They were already far more interested in playing soul than Hawkins had been, but they were also starting to get into playing soul *jazz*, especially after seeing the Cannonball Adderley Sextet play live: [Excerpt: Cannonball Adderley, "This Here"] What the group admired about the Adderley group more than anything else was a sense of restraint. Helm was particularly impressed with their drummer, Louie Hayes, and said of him "I got to see some great musicians over the years, and you see somebody like that play and you can tell, y' know, that the thing not to do is to just get it down on the floor and stomp the hell out of it!" The other influence they had, and one which would shape their sound even more, was a negative one. The two biggest bands on the charts at the time were the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and as Helm described it in his autobiography, the Hawks thought both bands' harmonies were "a blend of pale, homogenised, voices". He said "We felt we were better than the Beatles and the Beach Boys. We considered them our rivals, even though they'd never heard of us", and they decided to make their own harmonies sound as different as possible as a result. Where those groups emphasised a vocal blend, the Hawks were going to emphasise the *difference* in their voices in their own harmonies. The group were playing prestigious venues like the Peppermint Lounge, and while playing there they met up with John Hammond Jr, who they'd met previously in Canada. As you might remember from the first episode on Bob Dylan, Hammond Jr was the son of the John Hammond who we've talked about in many episodes, and was a blues musician in his own right. He invited Helm, Robertson, and Hudson to join the musicians, including Michael Bloomfield, who were playing on his new album, So Many Roads: [Excerpt: John P. Hammond, "Who Do You Love?"] That album was one of the inspirations that led Bob Dylan to start making electric rock music and to hire Bloomfield as his guitarist, decisions that would have profound implications for the Hawks. The first single the Hawks recorded for themselves after leaving Hawkins was produced by Henry Glover, and both sides were written by Robbie Robertson. "uh Uh Uh" shows the influence of the R&B bands they were listening to. What it reminds me most of is the material Ike and Tina Turner were playing at the time, but at points I think I can also hear the influence of Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper, who were rapidly becoming Robertson's favourite songwriters: [Excerpt: The Canadian Squires, "Uh Uh Uh"] None of the band were happy with that record, though. They'd played in the studio the same way they played live, trying to get a strong bass presence, but it just sounded bottom-heavy to them when they heard the record on a jukebox. That record was released as by The Canadian Squires -- according to Robertson, that was a name that the label imposed on them for the record, while according to Helm it was an alternative name they used so they could get bookings in places they'd only recently played, which didn't want the same band to play too often. One wonders if there was any confusion with the band Neil Young played in a year or so before that single... Around this time, the group also met up with Helm's old musical inspiration Sonny Boy Williamson II, who was impressed enough with them that there was some talk of them being his backing band (and it was in this meeting that Williamson apparently told Robertson "those English boys want to play the blues so bad, and they play the blues *so bad*", speaking of the bands who'd backed him in the UK, like the Yardbirds and the Animals). But sadly, Williamson died in May 1965 before any of these plans had time to come to fruition. Every opportunity for the group seemed to be closing up, even as they knew they were as good as any band around them. They had an offer from Aaron Schroeder, who ran Musicor Records but was more importantly a songwriter and publisher who  had written for Elvis Presley and published Gene Pitney. Schroeder wanted to sign the Hawks as a band and Robertson as a songwriter, but Henry Glover looked over the contracts for them, and told them "If you sign this you'd better be able to pay each other, because nobody else is going to be paying you". What happened next is the subject of some controversy, because as these things tend to go, several people became aware of the Hawks at the same time, but it's generally considered that nothing would have happened the same way were it not for Mary Martin. Martin is a pivotal figure in music business history -- among other things she discovered Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot, managed Van Morrison, and signed Emmylou Harris to Warner Brothers records -- but a somewhat unknown one who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Martin was from Toronto, but had moved to New York, where she was working in Albert Grossman's office, but she still had many connections to Canadian musicians and kept an eye out for them. The group had sent demo tapes to Grossman's offices, and Grossman had had no interest in them, but Martin was a fan and kept pushing the group on Grossman and his associates. One of those associates, of course, was Grossman's client Bob Dylan. As we heard in the episode on "Like a Rolling Stone", Dylan had started making records with electric backing, with musicians who included Mike Bloomfield, who had played with several of the Hawks on the Hammond album, and Al Kooper, who was a friend of the band. Martin gave Richard Manuel a copy of Dylan's new electric album Highway 61 Revisited, and he enjoyed it, though the rest of the group were less impressed: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Highway 61 Revisited"] Dylan had played the Newport Folk Festival with some of the same musicians as played on his records, but Bloomfield in particular was more interested in continuing to play with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band than continuing with Dylan long-term. Mary Martin kept telling Dylan about this Canadian band she knew who would be perfect for him, and various people associated with the Grossman organisation, including Hammond, have claimed to have been sent down to New Jersey where the Hawks were playing to check them out in their live setting. The group have also mentioned that someone who looked a lot like Dylan was seen at some of their shows. Eventually, Dylan phoned Helm up and made an offer. He didn't need a full band at the moment -- he had Harvey Brooks on bass and Al Kooper on keyboards -- but he did need a lead guitar player and drummer for a couple of gigs he'd already booked, one in Forest Hills, New York, and a bigger gig at the Hollywood Bowl. Helm, unfamiliar with Dylan's work, actually asked Howard Kudlets if Dylan was capable of filling the Hollywood Bowl. The musicians rehearsed together and got a set together for the shows. Robertson and Helm thought the band sounded terrible, but Dylan liked the sound they were getting a lot. The audience in Forest Hills agreed with the Hawks, rather than Dylan, or so it would appear. As we heard in the "Like a Rolling Stone" episode, Dylan's turn towards rock music was *hated* by the folk purists who saw him as some sort of traitor to the movement, a movement whose figurehead he had become without wanting to. There were fifteen thousand people in the audience, and they listened politely enough to the first set, which Dylan played acoustically, But before the second set -- his first ever full electric set, rather than the very abridged one at Newport -- he told the musicians “I don't know what it will be like out there It's going to be some kind of  carnival and I want you to all know that up front. So go out there and keep playing no matter how weird it gets!” There's a terrible-quality audience recording of that show in circulation, and you can hear the crowd's reaction to the band and to the new material: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Ballad of a Thin Man" (live Forest Hills 1965, audience noise only)] The audience also threw things  at the musicians, knocking Al Kooper off his organ stool at one point. While Robertson remembered the Hollywood Bowl show as being an equally bad reaction, Helm remembered the audience there as being much more friendly, and the better-quality recording of that show seems to side with Helm: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm (live at the Hollywood Bowl 1965)"] After those two shows, Helm and Robertson went back to their regular gig. and in September they made another record. This one, again produced by Glover, was for Atlantic's Atco subsidiary, and was released as by Levon and the Hawks. Manuel took lead, and again both songs were written by Robertson: [Excerpt: Levon and the Hawks, "He Don't Love You (And He'll Break Your Heart)"] But again that record did nothing. Dylan was about to start his first full electric tour, and while Helm and Robertson had not thought the shows they'd played sounded particularly good, Dylan had, and he wanted the two of them to continue with him. But Robertson and, especially, Helm, were not interested in being someone's sidemen. They explained to Dylan that they already had a band -- Levon and the Hawks -- and he would take all of them or he would take none of them. Helm in particular had not been impressed with Dylan's music -- Helm was fundamentally an R&B fan, while Dylan's music was rooted in genres he had little time for -- but he was OK with doing it, so long as the entire band got to. As Mary Martin put it “I think that the wonderful and the splendid heart of the band, if you will, was Levon, and I think he really sort of said, ‘If it's just myself as drummer and Robbie…we're out. We don't want that. It's either us, the band, or nothing.' And you know what? Good for him.” Rather amazingly, Dylan agreed. When the band's residency in New Jersey finished, they headed back to Toronto to play some shows there, and Dylan flew up and rehearsed with them after each show. When the tour started, the billing was "Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks". That billing wasn't to last long. Dylan had been booked in for nine months of touring, and was also starting work on what would become widely considered the first double album in rock music history, Blonde on Blonde, and the original plan was that Levon and the Hawks would play with him throughout that time.  The initial recording sessions for the album produced nothing suitable for release -- the closest was "I Wanna Be Your Lover", a semi-parody of the Beatles' "I Want to be Your Man": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks, "I Wanna Be Your Lover"] But shortly into the tour, Helm quit. The booing had continued, and had even got worse, and Helm simply wasn't in the business to be booed at every night. Also, his whole conception of music was that you dance to it, and nobody was dancing to any of this. Helm quit the band, only telling Robertson of his plans, and first went off to LA, where he met up with some musicians from Oklahoma who had enjoyed seeing the Hawks when they'd played that state and had since moved out West -- people like Leon Russell, J.J. Cale (not John Cale of the Velvet Underground, but the one who wrote "Cocaine" which Eric Clapton later had a hit with), and John Ware (who would later go on to join the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band). They started loosely jamming with each other, sometimes also involving a young singer named Linda Ronstadt, but Helm eventually decided to give up music and go and work on an oil rig in New Orleans. Levon and the Hawks were now just the Hawks. The rest of the group soldiered on, replacing Helm with session drummer Bobby Gregg (who had played on Dylan's previous couple of albums, and had previously played with Sun Ra), and played on the initial sessions for Blonde on Blonde. But of those sessions, Dylan said a few weeks later "Oh, I was really down. I mean, in ten recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song ... It was the band. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that" One track from the sessions did get released -- the non-album single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?"] There's some debate as to exactly who's playing drums on that -- Helm says in his autobiography that it's him, while the credits in the official CD releases tend to say it's Gregg. Either way, the track was an unexpected flop, not making the top forty in the US, though it made the top twenty in the UK. But the rest of the recordings with the now Helmless Hawks were less successful. Dylan was trying to get his new songs across, but this was a band who were used to playing raucous music for dancing, and so the attempts at more subtle songs didn't come off the way he wanted: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Visions of Johanna (take 5, 11-30-1965)"] Only one track from those initial New York sessions made the album -- "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" -- but even that only featured Robertson and Danko of the Hawks, with the rest of the instruments being played by session players: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan (One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"] The Hawks were a great live band, but great live bands are not necessarily the same thing as a great studio band. And that's especially the case with someone like Dylan. Dylan was someone who was used to recording entirely on his own, and to making records *quickly*. In total, for his fifteen studio albums up to 1974's Blood on the Tracks, Dylan spent a total of eighty-six days in the studio -- by comparison, the Beatles spent over a hundred days in the studio just on the Sgt Pepper album. It's not that the Hawks weren't a good band -- very far from it -- but that studio recording requires a different type of discipline, and that's doubly the case when you're playing with an idiosyncratic player like Dylan. The Hawks would remain Dylan's live backing band, but he wouldn't put out a studio recording with them backing him until 1974. Instead, Bob Johnston, the producer Dylan was working with, suggested a different plan. On his previous album, the Nashville session player Charlie McCoy had guested on "Desolation Row" and Dylan had found him easy to work with. Johnston lived in Nashville, and suggested that they could get the album completed more quickly and to Dylan's liking by using Nashville A-Team musicians. Dylan agreed to try it, and for the rest of the album he had Robertson on lead guitar and Al Kooper on keyboards, but every other musician was a Nashville session player, and they managed to get Dylan's songs recorded quickly and the way he heard them in his head: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine"] Though Dylan being Dylan he did try to introduce an element of randomness to the recordings by having the Nashville musicians swap their instruments around and play each other's parts on "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", though the Nashville players were still competent enough that they managed to get a usable, if shambolic, track recorded that way in a single take: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"] Dylan said later of the album "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up." The album was released in late June 1966, a week before Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention, another double album, produced by Dylan's old producer Tom Wilson, and a few weeks after Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. Dylan was at the forefront of a new progressive movement in rock music, a movement that was tying thoughtful, intelligent lyrics to studio experimentation and yet somehow managing to have commercial success. And a month after Blonde on Blonde came out, he stepped away from that position, and would never fully return to it. The first half of 1966 was taken up with near-constant touring, with Dylan backed by the Hawks and a succession of fill-in drummers -- first Bobby Gregg, then Sandy Konikoff, then Mickey Jones. This tour started in the US and Canada, with breaks for recording the album, and then moved on to Australia and Europe. The shows always followed the same pattern. First Dylan would perform an acoustic set, solo, with just an acoustic guitar and harmonica, which would generally go down well with the audience -- though sometimes they would get restless, prompting a certain amount of resistance from the performer: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman (live Paris 1966)"] But the second half of each show was electric, and that was where the problems would arise. The Hawks were playing at the top of their game -- some truly stunning performances: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (live in Liverpool 1966)"] But while the majority of the audience was happy to hear the music, there was a vocal portion that were utterly furious at the change in Dylan's musical style. Most notoriously, there was the performance at Manchester Free Trade Hall where this happened: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone (live Manchester 1966)"] That kind of aggression from the audience had the effect of pushing the band on to greater heights a lot of the time -- and a bootleg of that show, mislabelled as the Royal Albert Hall, became one of the most legendary bootlegs in rock music history. Jimmy Page would apparently buy a copy of the bootleg every time he saw one, thinking it was the best album ever made. But while Dylan and the Hawks played defiantly, that kind of audience reaction gets wearing. As Dylan later said, “Judas, the most hated name in human history, and for what—for playing an electric guitar. As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord, and delivering him up to be crucified; all those evil mothers can rot in hell.” And this wasn't the only stress Dylan, in particular, was under. D.A. Pennebaker was making a documentary of the tour -- a follow-up to his documentary of the 1965 tour, which had not yet come out. Dylan talked about the 1965 documentary, Don't Look Back, as being Pennebaker's film of Dylan, but this was going to be Dylan's film, with him directing the director. That footage shows Dylan as nervy and anxious, and covering for the anxiety with a veneer of flippancy. Some of Dylan's behaviour on both tours is unpleasant in ways that can't easily be justified (and which he has later publicly regretted), but there's also a seeming cruelty to some of his interactions with the press and public that actually reads more as frustration. Over and over again he's asked questions -- about being the voice of a generation or the leader of a protest movement -- which are simply based on incorrect premises. When someone asks you a question like this, there are only a few options you can take, none of them good. You can dissect the question, revealing the incorrect premises, and then answer a different question that isn't what they asked, which isn't really an option at all given the kind of rapid-fire situation Dylan was in. You can answer the question as asked, which ends up being dishonest. Or you can be flip and dismissive, which is the tactic Dylan chose. Dylan wasn't the only one -- this is basically what the Beatles did at press conferences. But where the Beatles were a gang and so came off as being fun, Dylan doing the same thing came off as arrogant and aggressive. One of the most famous artifacts of the whole tour is a long piece of footage recorded for the documentary, with Dylan and John Lennon riding in the back of a taxi, both clearly deeply uncomfortable, trying to be funny and impress the other, but neither actually wanting to be there: [Excerpt Dylan and Lennon conversation] 33) Part of the reason Dylan wanted to go home was that he had a whole new lifestyle. Up until 1964 he had been very much a city person, but as he had grown more famous, he'd found New York stifling. Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary had a cabin in Woodstock, where he'd grown up, and after Dylan had spent a month there in summer 1964, he'd fallen in love with the area. Albert Grossman had also bought a home there, on Yarrow's advice, and had given Dylan free run of the place, and Dylan had decided he wanted to move there permanently and bought his own home there. He had also married, to Sara Lowndes (whose name is, as far as I can tell, pronounced "Sarah" even though it's spelled "Sara"), and she had given birth to his first child (and he had adopted her child from her previous marriage). Very little is actually known about Sara, who unlike many other partners of rock stars at this point seemed positively to detest the limelight, and whose privacy Dylan has continued to respect even after the end of their marriage in the late seventies, but it's apparent that the two were very much in love, and that Dylan wanted to be back with his wife and kids, in the country, not going from one strange city to another being asked insipid questions and having abuse screamed at him. He was also tired of the pressure to produce work constantly. He'd signed a contract for a novel, called Tarantula, which he'd written a draft of but was unhappy with, and he'd put out two single albums and a double-album in a little over a year -- all of them considered among the greatest albums ever made. He could only keep up this rate of production and performance with a large intake of speed, and he was sometimes staying up for four days straight to do so. After the European leg of the tour, Dylan was meant to take some time to finish overdubs on Blonde on Blonde, edit the film of the tour for a TV special, with his friend Howard Alk, and proof the galleys for Tarantula, before going on a second world tour in the autumn. That world tour never happened. Dylan was in a motorcycle accident near his home, and had to take time out to recover. There has been a lot of discussion as to how serious the accident actually was, because Dylan's manager Albert Grossman was known to threaten to break contracts by claiming his performers were sick, and because Dylan essentially disappeared from public view for the next eighteen months. Every possible interpretation of the events has been put about by someone, from Dylan having been close to death, to the entire story being put up as a fake. As Dylan is someone who is far more protective of his privacy than most rock stars, it's doubtful we'll ever know the precise truth, but putting together the various accounts Dylan's injuries were bad but not life-threatening, but they acted as a wake-up call -- if he carried on living like he had been, how much longer could he continue? in his sort-of autobiography, Chronicles, Dylan described this period, saying "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses." All his forthcoming studio and tour dates were cancelled, and Dylan took the time out to recover, and to work on his film, Eat the Document. But it's clear that nobody was sure at first exactly how long Dylan's hiatus from touring was going to last. As it turned out, he wouldn't do another tour until the mid-seventies, and would barely even play any one-off gigs in the intervening time. But nobody knew that at the time, and so to be on the safe side the Hawks were being kept on a retainer. They'd always intended to work on their own music anyway -- they didn't just want to be anyone's backing band -- so they took this time to kick a few ideas around, but they were hamstrung by the fact that it was difficult to find rehearsal space in New York City, and they didn't have any gigs. Their main musical work in the few months between summer 1966 and spring 1967 was some recordings for the soundtrack of a film Peter Yarrow was making. You Are What You Eat is a bizarre hippie collage of a film, documenting the counterculture between 1966 when Yarrow started making it and 1968 when it came out. Carl Franzoni, one of the leaders of the LA freak movement that we've talked about in episodes on the Byrds, Love, and the Mothers of Invention, said of the film “If you ever see this movie you'll understand what ‘freaks' are. It'll let you see the L.A. freaks, the San Francisco freaks, and the New York freaks. It was like a documentary and it was about the makings of what freaks were about. And it had a philosophy, a very definite philosophy: that you are free-spirited, artistic." It's now most known for introducing the song "My Name is Jack" by John Simon, the film's music supervisor: [Excerpt: John Simon, "My Name is Jack"] That song would go on to be a top ten hit in the UK for Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "My Name is Jack"] The Hawks contributed backing music for several songs for the film, in which they acted as backing band for another old Greenwich Village folkie who had been friends with Yarrow and Dylan but who was not yet the star he would soon become, Tiny Tim: [Excerpt: Tiny Tim, "Sonny Boy"] This was their first time playing together properly since the end of the European tour, and Sid Griffin has noted that these Tiny Tim sessions are the first time you can really hear the sound that the group would develop over the next year, and which would characterise them for their whole career. Robertson, Danko, and Manuel also did a session, not for the film with another of Grossman's discoveries, Carly Simon, playing a version of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down", a song they'd played a lot with Dylan on the tour that spring. That recording has never been released, and I've only managed to track down a brief clip of it from a BBC documentary, with Simon and an interviewer talking over most of the clip (so this won't be in the Mixcloud I put together of songs): [Excerpt: Carly Simon, "Baby Let Me Follow You Down"] That recording is notable though because as well as Robertson, Danko, and Manuel, and Dylan's regular studio keyboard players Al Kooper and Paul Griffin, it also features Levon Helm on drums, even though Helm had still not rejoined the band and was at the time mostly working in New Orleans. But his name's on the session log, so he must have m