Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music

Imagine that you have been invited to a huge party, and when you get there everyone is a somebody... a Somebody in the history of pop music. Who do you talk to first? Do you walk around looking for your favorites first? Or do you just saunter around talking with whoever you run into next?

That's what it's like to pick up the book Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music.

Obviously a party like that can only be assembled by someone with connections. In this case the author is Joe Smith, who happened to be president and CEO of Capitol Industries-EMI (the same ones who signed the Beatles, Dylan and so many more.) Before this he had been president of Warner Bros./Reprise and Elektra. A Yale grad who became a popular and successful disc jockey, Smith seems like just the right guy to gather all these other pop celebs under one roof.

The book is handled just right. There are no long interviews. Like the party, you can bounce around for a brief spell with Tom Petty, then George Harrison, Little Richard, Ray Charles. Over here is Dylan and is that Yoko Ono? Oh yes, talking with Joni Mitchell, Phil Collins and Ella Fitzgerald. Joan Baez, Robert Plant and James Taylor seem to be enjoying themselves over there with Tina Turner and David Bowie. Then you see the jazz guys, Lionel Hampton, Stan Getz and Dave Brubeck staring out the window onto the lawn where Quincy Jones is listening to Robbie Krieger, Mary Travers, Frankie Valli, Al Kooper and Herbie Hancock. Donovan pensively listens to John Fogerty and David Lee Roth. Judy Collins seems to be reminiscing with Graham Nash and Stephen Stills. I Lou Rawls and Tom Petty can't seem to get enough of Henry Mancini.

O.K., you get the picture. And the stories they tell are fascinating because pop culture has played a role in all of our lives.

My bedtime reading ended with Mike Nesmith talking about the Monkees. They were not a music group, they were characters on a television show. The purpose of the show was not to end up with hit records, he says. But one day they're driving along in the car and hear that their song Last Train to Clarksville is #2 on the national charts. Nesmith says the very notion of it was bizarre. Suddenly everything changed.

The Monkees were shipped to London to prepare for a road tour as a music group, but they weren't really sure about how they really felt, nevertheless they followed through. One strange quirk about the tour was having Jimi Hendrix open for them. Mickey Dolenz had heard Hendrix in a London club and made the recommendation, which Nesmith off handedly thought was O.K., sight and sound unseen. When they arrive in Raleigh, North Carolina, to do their first gig, the Hendrix trio is mind blowing, even in appearance, but the teeny bopper screamers are there only for one purpose, and it's not the Experience of Jimi Hendrix.

Nesmith says he disguised himself and went into the crowd to snatch a listen. He'd never heard anything like it. "It was the most exhilarating, the most majestic, the most entertaining, the most fulfilling music I'd ever heard," said Nesmith.

But the mismatch was self-evident and after eight gigs Jimi had had it. The girls were chanting, "We want the Monkees," and in the middle of a song the most incredible guitar player of a generation left the stage in the middle of a song, disgusted.

For the record, this book offers a lot. It's real, it's intimate, up close and personal. Recommended.

Steve Wynn's Famous Oops

Time magazine called billionaire Steve Wynn one of the world's 100 most influential people. Certainly having suitcases full of money gives one a fair measure of leverage in circles of power, and even though the troubled economy reduced his net worth by half he still remains in the billionaire league.

You can't go to Las Vegas without seeing Wynn fingerprints everywhere. Beginning with The Mirage, Wynn established a new standard for lavish casinos on the Strip. Ultimately, through various investment and development deals, and superb timing, Steve Wynn achieved the kind of fame and fortune most people won't even dream about because it's just too far out there.

There are probably two primary reasons people go to Las Vegas. One is to gamble, and the other is to see the shows, many of which are quite spectacular. The highlight of one of my business trips to Vegas was seeing Steve Wynn's personal art collection which used to be on display at the Wynn Casino.

I do not know how extensive his personal collection really is -- he owns paintings by Cezanne, Gaugin, van Gogh, Manet, Matisse, Picasso, Vermeer, Rembrandt and Andy Warhol -- but for a very small fee I was able see a portion of it here. It was set up so that when you walked into the room, they gave you a headset which enabled you to hear Steve Wynn warmly describe each piece, it's history and what he particularly enjoyed about it. Sadly, the gallery closed in 2006, though many of the works are purportedly still on display around the resort.

The centerpiece of Wynn's collection was Le Rêve, a Picasso portrait that was the working name of this resort project. Wynn purchased the painting in 1997 for $48.4 million. In 2006 he reportedly was preparing to sell it to fellow art enthusiast Steve Cohen for $139 million, which would at that time have been the highest price paid for any piece of art. Unfortunately, two days after reaching they came to an agreement, Wynn got a wee bit too close to his masterpiece and put his elbow through it, while showing it to a group of reporters. Wynn apparently suffers from an eye disorder and failed to notice how close his elbow was to the surface.

Needless to say, Wynn still owns the painting. Hopefully he will retain enough of his eyesight to continue appreciating it.

Light and Sound

I remember once when I was a teen in New Jersey watching a neighbor pounding a metal stake into the ground with hammer at dusk. The interesting part was that I was several houses away and that when the hammer hit, I would see the sparks, but the sound came a couple seconds after. This delay made an impression on me.

Last Sunday evening here in Duluth I re-experienced the same phenomenon during the Garfield Avenue time trials, that is, drag racing. My family and I were up on Skyline Drive, overlooking the bay. Down below on Garfield cars were revving it up and giving it a full go, with gusto. The noise up close must have been deafening, but from where we stood there was no sound at all when the cars leapt from the starting line. Three or four seconds would pass and then we'd hear the muted roar.

The speed of light is approximately 186,282 miles per second, the speed of sound approximately 1,125 feet per second or 768 mph.

Here's one way of comparing. A superloud ka-boom would take about 16 hours before it could be heard on the other side of the world, whereas light would be there (if it could bend) in a fraction of a second. In short, light and sound travel at different speeds.

What I was thinking is how there are things in life that are a little like the differential between light and sound. For example, we see something happen now but the impact of what we saw takes time to reach us.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor was something on this order. The surprise attack hit the news wires almost immediately. The drums of war quickly followed. The mobilization of America's young men and the impact of those war years took longer still.

The collapse of the housing market and the subsequent economic turmoil is another such example. I knew people who saw the light, but it wasn't till later that we heard the moans.

There's an interesting line in Bob Dylan's Lonesome Day Blues that twists this relationship between light and sound on its head. "Last night the wind was whispering, I was trying to make out what it was. I tell myself something's coming, but it never does." What if we think we see light and anticipate an explosion, but the explosion never comes? It's been said that 90% of what we worry about never happens.

I guess that's why history books aren't written in advance. That's really part of the adventure of living because we really don't know what's going to happen next.

Have a thoughtful day, and a very special weekend.

Conquistadors

I've recently been reading a book about the Conquistadors, with its focus specifically on how Hernan Cortez conquered the Montezuma and the Aztecs. It is an almost unbelievable account of how an army of hundreds brought down the most powerful empire of what is now called Central America. The population of Tenochtitlan, the island city at the center of the Aztec empire, had been as much as 200,000. So the Cortez expedition was audacious in the extreme.

A week or so ago I came across an interesting document assembled by the U.S. Marines called Elements of Combat. I had been intending to blog it and make comments on how it applied to Viet Nam (I had just finished watching Hamburger Hill) and World War I (I had just finished Kubrick's Paths of Glory, also) and then see how it applied to the Civil War as well.

As I read through this list, I thought about the men whom Cortez was leading into the heart of the continent back then in 1519-20. Their eyes might have been mesmerized by the prospects of gold, but their hearts were undoubtedly set on home.

According to the NAVMC 2767, “User’s Guide to Marine Corps Leadership,” the nine elements of combat are:
• Violent, unnerving sights and sounds
• Casualties
• Confusion and lack of information (fog of war and friction)
• Feelings of isolation
• Communications breakdown
• Individual discomfort and physical fatigue
• Fear, stress and mental fatigue
• Continuous operations
• Homesickness

Pray for our young people in Afghanistan today. You can be sure it's no cakewalk.

Warhol and Lichtenstein

I picked up some Warhol books from the library yesterday. Andy Warhol, A Retrospective is an overview of his art and influences. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) is a potpourri of insights and observations on everything, from the Warhol perspective. When I was looking at it last night it reminded me of Jack Handy, a weird wrinkled way of looking at the world. I noticed also, based on a photo in The Life & Death of Andy Warhol, that he died at age 58, the age I will be in a few weeks.

What led me to pick up the Warhol books was an article on Roy Lichtenstein that I had seen recently. Lichtenstein was a pop artist who produced large reproductions of comic book panels or paintings in that comic book style. Both he and Warhol, with those soup cans, had emerged big time on the New York art scene in the 60's. As an early 70's art student I was put off by both. I took my inspiration from painters, from Picasso and Matisse to Dali and Magritte. Even Duchamp, who abandoned painting altogether, was at least philosophically stimulating. The pop art movement didn't get me, or rather, I didn't get it.

A half century later I believe I was half right. Even though Lichtenstein continues to be praised, I just don't get into his work. He coined a style and I think the style silly. I would love to discover that in some private part of his life he was actually painting landscapes or tigers and that these comic book blow ups were just what he did for a living because a few rich people were willing to pay him a small fortune to do it.

Lichtenstein is referenced in the book 501 Great Artists, "a comprehensive guide to "the giants of the art world." And this Urban Monarch page called him one of five artists you should know about. But why? Who decided this stuff was great art?

Warhol, on the other hand, might be one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century. Can most people even name an artist from that period? Paula Rego? Giovanni Anselmo? Donald Judd? Claes Oldenburg? O.K., most people have probably seen an Oldenburg sculpture, but probably don't know his name. I liked David Hockney's paintings, and Rauschenburg's innovations, but these talented guys have never transcended the art scene have they?

Warhol's work, on the other hand, bled across all barriers so that his most basic observation about fifteen minutes of fame is as well known as a line from Shakespeare. Warhol himself was a work of art, his persona crafted. "Oh, that's interesting." But his process of mass reproduction (via screen printing) enabled collectors all over the world to have a piece of his action.

Whether you like the man himself, or his values, his genius for self-promotion and his understanding of the culture are both undisputed. Hence his cult status in many circles. Was his art really a joke? I don't think so, even if much of what he said comes across that way.

The Amazing Daisy Rosebud

I met Daisy Rosebud on July 31 when I went to the March for Freedom on behalf of the hikers taken captive a year ago in Iran. Cindy Hickey, whose son is still imprisoned, had been a dog agility trainer with Daisy being one of her incredibly talented clients, and Kim Vogel Daisy's owner. Cindy's involvement with training canine athletes explains why there were dogs present on the day of the march when Senator Franken led us from the Lakewalk to the Tech Center. While waiting for the senator's arrival I was introduced to Daisy and Kim.

Kim: This is Daisy Rosebud. I have 190,000 pictures of her.

Ennyman: 190,000!

Kim: Ever since she was a puppy, she's 8 ½ now, I've taken the pictures. I have a little studio and I'd dress her up in different holiday outfits, different themes. She also does agility*, so we do pictures of agility. And she's also a registered therapy dog and she responds to over 200 commands. She goes to Gillette Children's Hospital and does tricks for the kids.

E: What are some of the commands?

Kim: Oh, she licks her lips, and she waves, and she does the hokey pokey and patty cake, and roll over, and wave, and bow, and what else? She can spin around in circles, weave through my legs and do serpentines around cones, and agility. All the agility things and the therapy type things. And the Minnesota state lottery commercial, of the dog eating the roast beef, the pug, that's her. And now she's posing for Target.

E: Is that on YouTube?

Kim: I don't know, I don't think so. When she poses, you can put her in any position, and get her to pose, move her eyes anywhere you want, turn her head, so they really like her. So she poses for Target ads. She was just recently in the Target ad in a big billboard above the rugs.

E: So is she destined for the kind of fame that will give your children an inheritance?

Kim: Probably not. You don't get a lot of money, you do it just for fun. I train her every morning so she responds really easily. I can teach her tricks really, really easily.

There sure are a lot of interesting people in the world... and dogs, too!

*Agility is an international dog competition. The trainer guides the dog through an obstacle course involving tunnels, jumps, weaving through poles and more without actually touching the dog or the obstacles. Dogs are judged on their speed and accuracy.

Kim and Dennis Vogel are chemists at 3M in St. Paul. Read more about Dog Agility Training at eHow.

FREE THE HIKERS. Josh, Shane and Sarah have now been detained 389 days and counting.

Photos courtesy Kim Vogel. Click images to enlarge.

Ten Minutes with Andrew Perfetti

It's been said that if a man is worth knowing at all, he's worth knowing well. I met the entrepreneurial Andy through his business Goin' Postal, a Fedex/UPS/shipping store here in Superior, Wisc. When I saw some of his photography I was impressed. And through Facebook learned he is a musician in a number of bands.

Ennyman: How long have you been doing photography seriously?

Andrew Perfetti: Seriously? I've been doing photography seriously for probably about a year. I've been shooting pictures for about 2 years, so I haven't been doing it for that long but it’s become kind of an obsession.

E: What drew you to photography?

AP: Honestly, this is going to sound very strange, but the show Six Feet Under. My family, the last couple years we've been going through some health issues; my father has gotten cancer pretty serious, and my grandfather had cancer, and we took him down the road and he finally passed away last February. But the show, I started watching the show Six Feet Under, and it’s this family of funeral directors. Anyway, one of the characters is a young woman who's having this hard time dealing with her life, and she's very artistic and she finds photography by chance, and finds it to be something she can use as an outlet. Ironically enough, that's kind of what happened to me. So the more that I got absorbed in that show, I thought it could be something that I could really use as a benefit to my personal well being.

E: Doing photography?

AP: Yes, photography. I borrowed my dad's old film camera about 2 years ago. Actually he gave it to me because I didn't have money to buy a digital camera, so I thought I would try this out. So I took the camera and I went out and bought a bunch of rolls of film, and I went over to a friend of mine that had a concert, one of my fellow musicians, and I took pictures at his show. When I developed them, I was surprised how they turned out. So I started reading all kinds of books on photography, and got inspired to pursue it further by this television show, which is kind of shallow, but I just started getting a knack for it and it became sort of a healthy obsession. I'm the kind of person who needs to be doing something all the time. I'm not good at just sitting and not doing anything. I have a hard time relaxing, and photography gives me an excuse to get out of the house and go out and be social, while normally I would be kind of cooped up watching movies and playing music and not interacting with the outside world.

E: You do more than just take pictures. You work with Photoshop and you fine tune, and you seem to have a very interesting vision with regards to your work. Did you have that when you were young and when did this first come out like that?

AP: A lot of that has to do with music. When I was in high school I painted a picture of Jimi Hendrix in my art class, and it took me a couple weeks and it’s a very simple portrait, but I listened to Jimi Hendrix the whole time and I was just obsessed with it through the music. And of course Jimi Hendrix is one of my huge inspirations as a musician. I think if you look at my photos, the feeling and the mood of how I work with color and contrast in my photos is very related to the music I'm listening to while I'm editing them. I listen to a lot of Velvet Underground, a lot of drone music like that, Arcade Fire, things that are very emotive in their context, and music inspires that emotion in me. If I'm in an angry mood I listen to angry music, and my rock and roll photography comes out very aggressive looking. But if I'm listening to melancholy music then my colors are a little softer and there's a little more fog and mystery in the photos. The darkness tells more in a photo to me than the light does. I tend not to use a lot of flash and things like that, but I do a lot of rock and roll photography and a lot of band photography, so that music element kind of dictates how I frame the shot and in the end it dictates how I address the photo in Photoshop. I try not to do any real modification outside of enhancing color, sometimes adding a color filter to change the color a bit and I will enhance or decrease the contrast, but I don't do any photo manipulation per se. I don't add outside structure to my photos or anything along those lines.

E: So you mentioned painting Hendrix to the music of Hendrix. I also paint listening to music and a lot of artists do, probably. But you're also a musician yourself, you play guitar and you're in a number of bands. How did that emerge?

AP: Well when I grew up, my brother and sister were Duluth Accordionaires, and I used to have to go to all of their shows. My parents would load us up in the minivan and we'd drive to Iowa for an Accordion show or Chicago or so forth. And I really, really made it a point to my parents that I did not want to play accordion. I was a fan of rock and roll music from a very young age. My first cassette tape was Michael Jackson’s Thriller when it came out when I was in kindergarten and the very next tape was Iron Maiden Piece of Mind. So I always gravitated towards guitar oriented music and as far as the guitar aspect, when I was in high school, or junior high, I think I was in 8th grade, I had a paper route for many years, and I saved up my paper route money and bought a guitar and I became very attached to it. As a matter of fact when I was a kid I used to sleep with my guitar, and bring it to school with me. I didn't really know how to play it for a couple years but it was always on me, on the bus. I took lessons and I didn't really grow too much until later in high school I became a real fast player, heavy metal, which at the time was kind of popular and I wanted to play fast. And Jimi Hendrix… I liked to listen to that kind of thing but it didn't really appeal to me as far as playing it, because I don't think I was at the age where I understood what they were trying to say. At that age you just have a lot of angst and energy and you just want to play.

I kind of fell out of it and joined the army and through the next eight or ten years didn't really play any music. My parents sent me a guitar when I was overseas in the army and that was nice but I didn't really play much. Then about five years ago, some friends from college needed a band for a college party and I always helped organize events and I said I can’t find a band but I'll just put one together. So that started me back into it. Just like my photography obsession, when I get into something artistic I pursue it to the nth degree. And I played in several bands and I help promote shows and I teach guitar.

I teach advanced soul techniques and stuff like that. I've moved away quite a bit from real structured music and I play reggae now, whereas I used to play blues and heavy metal quite a bit. I feel like guitar helps me paint layers of sound. I use a lot of multiple delay pedals and wop pedal and a lot of effects to build intensity like a whirlwind of sound, and kind of use that to add a layer over to the music. And that's kind of what I feel like I do with my photography. I look at things in layers and add layers or take things away so. It’s always got to be dramatic, which is maybe a downfall, but it’s what I have a flair for.

E: It's who you are.

Lower right: my interpretation of Andy, bringing it home, on guitar.