Here In 1975 - still here    
Kene at Large
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5/22/2017

 

Monday, May 15, 2017

saturday 13 may 17, "one more rainy day"-Deep Purple BUT WMEX 1510 AM has SIX hours of oldies: 3pm-6 pm Solid Gold ("smokin' in the boy's room"-brownsville station, fucken AM mono radio Cub Koda!) and then 6pm-9 pm Golden Oldies with my facebook friend Jimmy Jay (read about him in Vulcher!) For Mother's Day "I'll always love my mama" as played by Rene Sampson at the Other Side but Jimmy Jay had Tad Bonvie
Robin
Ron Robin
as guest and what a history of Boston's DISCO heritage! sure, I recorded "death to disco" in '77 but now I eat (and lissen to!) CROW, so "evil woman dont play your games with me"! Seems Tad had promo 45s, freshman in college, fall '78 whilst I was hangin' at cantones and Sonny Joe White used to pick up promo 45s and declared he was gonna start a disco station, that being Kiss 108 (Sonny Joe also did a 12-inch 45 on atlantic! it's on youtube!). Tad and Jimmy were talkin' 'bout "dead boston clubs" and Boston Boston, Mad Hatter, Lucifer's, spinning 45s at Zanzibar, what the landsdowne street clubs were called.....Tad's MENTOR in radio was......RON ROBIN! "disco notes" and late '78 he'd give ME rock 45s he didnt want (I even had a promo of Journey's "Lights"!) ( I was good friends with his then live in boyfriend-ed); Ron now owns a restaurant in provincetown where my mayflower ancestors landed with ancestors of Mark Giroux/Bob White and Kill Slug, all PROMINENT punk-rock musicians (and GG Allin and Merle from richard warren; Plymouth rock shoulda landed on the Pilgrims!). on sunday 28 may 17 when club-linehan-ago-go plays C-note in Hull, there's a Motown musical in worcester so GEE JULIE couldnt win (well, I told her DONT see me but she opted for...ME! and do you blame her?). trivia answers: John Luongo Kiss 108 had done a remix of Jackson's "shake you body down to the ground" which outsold Hello World. I woke up almost 9 pm to "it's raining men" released 10 sept 82; all my Radiobeat recordings from then are on Five Beers Ahead of My Tyme but fuck! hearin' this song in mono AM radio....other trivia question was, for Motown, birthday, last name Morris and yes saturday WAS Stevie Wonder's birthday! ok, so I missed Joefest and Blue Oyster Coughlin but wouldn't Joe Coughlin have wanted me to wake up on a floor in Roxbury with the Weather Gurls blastin' out of a lil radio in AM mono, man?"......

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Bishop
Bishop John Borders III
Energetics

Energetics
"Mother's Day 0700, AM radio channel surfin' and I get WEZE and Bishop John Borders III whom I know from my gospel career also. I'd hear his sermons and he'd mention "back when I was in the "world" playing in the Energetics"....once after church I told him the 1975 "me and my girl" on Top-Top (Gizmos formed 5 dec 75) was going for $75. So last few days I been researching RARE BOSTON SOUL cd; kinda like Bloodstains Acrost the 'Hood. Maurice Starr's name keeps coming up and other impresarios and I DO know each project each artist hailed from. But today (dunkin' donuts in hand) let's give tribute to the Energetics and Bishop Borders. There's a 1974 b-side (running parallel with O. Rex) where they do a VERY OH so soulful "rainy days and mondays" (yes the Carpenters toon but I LOVE r&b covers of soft-rock hits like "wildflower" et al). And then they got signed to Atlantic doing a 1979 album that outsold Hello World and is damn good! Quite ENERGETIC in an earth wind and fire way. Tony Rose has a book www.tonyroseenterprises.com.tr-bio that is the link i promised John Keegan after club linehan-ago-go practice (sunday 28 may 17, c-note hull, mass with tokyo tramps!) (That link does not work, I've used a different one-ed);Tony was working with Main Ingredient and then signed the Energetics. Some members dead, preachers, still recording, facebook links too but this morn I found a religious blog and Bishop Borders (possibly born one year after Ken Kaiser) was guitarist in Energetics from age 10 til 21; even being in Billboard! he was reading the Bible in Geneva, felt the call to be a preacher and he's QUITE well-known, so he DOES stand by his convictions. Little Richard and I both float between gospel and secular (you shoulda heard me singing "Shout and Shimmy"; TOTAL Blue Hill avenue!). Energetics music IS on youtube, so check it out and let's bombard Ken Kaiser with EIGHT MINUTES of "aint nuthin' wrong in going to a disco"! on Brian Young's WMFO show! and the 1974 45 "you make me nuthin" is the most soulful, heartfelt vocal since "I love you laurie" on Kleen Kut!"......

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

"let me Finnish up Mother's Day, I DO have some rock news concerning me but actually more important was: Bishop John Borders III got my ass to church! 1669 Old South Church where Phyllis Wheatley attended, it was their annual Phyliss Wheatley service. a WGBH lady that worked on Eyes on the Prize got an award and did a nice talk on her female Southern ancestors. I walk outside and imbedded in the church is 1701 gravestone for John Alden Junior died 1701, accused of witchcraft! My great-great-grandmother Highland's Hicks ancestor sailed on the Fortune, 1621, got land adjoining John Alden and I DID live with two descendants! (this while Obama lived in WINTER HILL; fall of '88; neither of us at Lyres at Bunratty's, I guess....)....I had HOURS to kill (Gee Julie up north) so "we" discussed my Sybil paperback with the Globe's wait staff (the slowest waitstaff on earth btw!-ed)...then onto Fenway Cinema with a discount pass and it was the new King Arthur movie done by one of Madonna's ex-husbands (her guru, Philip Berg, kaballah, was Solomon and Jay Gruberger's uncle and "Suzi", like Madonna and my dad, all from the Motor City!). $4 extra for three-D glasses but like the Byrds sang in "5-D" (Morgan Taft Huke on sound!) "all my two dimensional boundaries are gone"....I really thought those spears and stones were flying at me! I shirley woulda dug this film age 8-12 probably, before I started catching "counter-culture" films at Strand Theatre Brockport NY which DOES remind me ("boys on film"-Duran Duran?) every saturday in June somerville theatre is an Orson Welles-worthy 60s film; to wit: beyond the valley of the dolls (with my eighth cousin once removed Michael Blodgett) and also: RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP! As you read this Brattle has Death of Lousi XIV for a week...."maybe go out/maybe stay home...maybe call Ma on my CELL PHONE"....I DID! "happy 61st Mother's Day!" i sez. to quote Kenne "Giztar" Watson: "that's a real mutha foe ya""........

Thursday, May 18, 2017

"dang, the week gittin' ahead of me and nice weather now too...Monday practice, ides of MAY, club-linehan-ago-go; John Keegan thinks next gig is Out of the Blue Gallery which is Father's Day, it's actually C-Note, Hull, Mass. sunday 28 may 17 with tokyo tramps, but if John wants
Cnote
to say "hello Hull!" in Central Square memorial day sunday, like Bobby Brown, "it's my prerogative". "Shout and Shimmy" has been added to set, me singing, saw Kids Are Alright and it's my FAVOURITE Who toon (living in Charleston SC trailer then and a Lance corporal, but not Lance Bass); I DO make it QUITE James Brown, as the Southie Boys play the Isley Brothers toon; I even toss in "respectable" from my 1973 copy of Having a Rave Up! (vince's record store, main street, brockport NY). ride home from practice I DID tell John Keegan how I'm researching the Roxbury Soul Scene (not that it HASNT been wrote about) and let's not forget Prince Charles Alexander DID play sax in the aforementioned Energetics. on the day of Wodin, I stopped down wally's cafe for the jam; my notes: trumpet/trombone/upright bass/drums; one standard was "I thought about you", which Miles Davis DID record. This kids sounded like a Miles album on Prestige that I woulda lissened to post-Altamont, Seymour library, brockport NY whilst reading On the road (lift bridge bookstore, post-woodstock, brockport NY; I was only in 8th grade but "hey beat mon"!). THen GEE JULIE and I watched on youtube BET New Edition tail; imagine coming off tour, orchard park projects, eustis street, roxbury, gittin' a check from record company for $1.87? shit, man, I pay Ken Kaiser better than that! (also: "where's those condoms I gave you guys?" "yo man, these are the Soul Train dancers"...GIROUX-approved!).When they sang earth wind and Gizmo's "reasons" to a young lass as the schoolyard, that was washington irving middle school, 105 cummings highway, roslindale, mass which I certainly COULD take a trip to! and lastly, Gizmos, chicago, sunday 23 july 17 with MOTO AND there's a gonna be a documentary but the Blodgett farm aint Orchard Park projects, though I always was the Bobby Brown bad boy" of any band I in. IF the documentarian DOES go to brockport NY, birthplace of Gizmoism and due west of Mormonism and spiritualism, it'll be closer to Todd Phillip's HATED"......

Friday, May 19, 2017

THOMPSON
Brian Thompson
Sringtyme in Boston, not quite Springtyme in Paris but, age 60, I have a $40 French cultural center membership and there was an opening of ink and gouache drawings of garden and gourmand. Me: Gourmand, oui (wine/cheese/cold cuts/bread/pretzels) but as far as gouache, Gee Julie agrees I know more about gauche . Since I had water from a "water at my place" regular dude, I wasn't gauche though; Brian Thompson of WMBR's French Toast introduced himself to me and now Light Dawns Over Marbelhead, I helped him do some fundraising in the '90s. He looked GREAT, age 76, still does pushups to show the young kids....pushin' 80 and still doin' radio? "I been Shut Down!". words of wisdom: "when you stop learning you're dead" (he also for many years was a French teacher down UMass harbour campus). French Toast is podcast, archived, all that modern stuff; I remember he always played Yves the latest world music from France. (Brian Thompson website) Trying to get "the big payback" (produced by Bob Both!) on my membership, next week is a lebanese dinner tuesday and a movie thursday. So all you French-Americans (Dad has Hugenot and Walloon, Ma has Quebecois), FORTY BUCKS senior discount! you live that fucken long you deserve it....now if we can only get that at a Cal Cali show...."......

 

 


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