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
Ron Robin
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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 John Borders III
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Energetics
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"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
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
Brian Thompson
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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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