Movie Night: KISS Loves You

Hello Friends,

Grab your popcorn and pull up a stool, its Movie Night again on Vinyl in the Valley!

Tonight we're watching a 2004 documentary about the self-proclaimed world's greatest rock & roll band and their loyal legions of devoted fans, KISS Loves You.

The film begins in 1994.  Its been over 10 years since the band toured with their makeup on and even longer since the four original members performed together.  KISS cover bands and KISS conventions become a sort of cottage industry for fans nostalgic for the music, the kabuki makeup, the comic books and the pyrotechnics.

All this changed by 1996 when the original members of KISS decided to reunite, don their makeup and go on a massive world tour-- putting the novelty of a lot of the cover bands on the back burner.  (Also, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were pretty aggressive in putting an end to unauthorized KISS conventions... jerks!)

Speaking of jerks, one of the film's most memorable stories has to do with Ace Frehley-imitator, Bill Baker.  Bill played the Spaceman in a pretty solid Ace Frehley tribute band, "Fractured Mirror". He talks about how through the years he and Ace actually became sort of friends.  Ace would hook him up with an old guitar or some old costumes and Bill would help his "friend" Ace out occasionally as well. He'd help him move, lend him money, etc.  When KISS reunited, Bill called Ace to see if he could get him some concert tickets and, you guessed it, Ace dropped him like a hot potato!  Poor Bill, you've been Aced!

The documentary is pretty interesting.  Its a DIY, low budget affair that has some great interviews with various fans and musicians like Dee Snider, Sebastian Bach, Handsome Dick Manitoba and Jerry Only.  The film is at its core an ode to fandom and fans of KISS just happen to be some of rock & roll's most fanatical!

We give this one two raised cocktail glasses!

We'll see you next time, friends, until then the Tiki Bar is closed*.  

(* not really)

The Picturebooks - "Your Kisses Burn Like Fire"

Wow! What a fucking boot-stomper!

Great video and great song from German motorcycle-blues-garage rock duo, The Picturebooks.  This is what The Black Keys should sound like!

This song is from their October 2014 release, Imaginary Horse.  Check it out at their great label, Riding Easy Records.

Raw, stripped-down blues, trains, motorcycles and a smoking hot brunette to boot! What's not to love?

We think The Picturebooks are going places, friends!

Here's the band's website.

Songs and Dances of Death

Modest Mussorgsky - "Russian Songs from 'Songs and Dances' of Death" (1978) - Summit

Hello Friends,

October's here.  Days are shorter, leaves are changing and we're classing the place up with some Russian songs and dances of death courtesy of one of our favorite Russian composers, Modesto Mussorgsky.  

Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881) was one of five important composers from the mid-19th Century whose work focused on themes unique to Mother Russia and who often turned to Russian folklore for inspiration. Late in his career and deep in the throes of alcoholism, he would compose his "Songs and Dances of Death" song cycle, one of his last important works. 

Written for piano and voice (usually a bass or baritone), the song cycle is comprised of 4 compositions with macabre lyrics based on really dark poems by a friend of the composer, Count Arseny Golenischev-Kutuzov.  

On this particular record the piano duties are handled by Giorgio Favaretto and the bass vocals by Nicolo Rossi-Lemini, two very distinct, non-Russian names!

Obviously these songs are sung in operatic Russian. But a quick look at the English translations reveal some of the best death lyrics ever written:

A child is groaning...  A candle, burning out,
Dimly flickers onto surroundings.
The whole night, rocking the cradle, 
A mother has not dozed away with sleep...

Magical languor, blue night,
Trembling darkness of spring.
The sick girl takes in, with her head dropped, 
The whisper of the night's silence...

Your body is tender, your trembling is ravishing...
Oh, I'll suffocate you 
in my strong embraces: listen to my seductive 
chatter! ... be silent!... You are mine!"...

Forest and glades, no one is around. 
A snow-storm is crying and groaning,
It feels as in the gloom of the night
The Evil One is burying someone...

The battle is thundering, the armour is shining, 
Copper cannons are roaring, 
The troops are running, the horses are rushing
And red rivers are flowing.
The midday is blazing -- people are fighting, 
The sun is declining -- the fight is stronger, 
The sunset is fading away -- but the enemies
Are still battling more fierce and hateful.
And night has fallen on the battlefield.

(Complete translation text here.)...   \m/

In a nutshell, Trepak takes place on a bleak and snowy night when death comes along and begins dancing with drunken peasants.  Death tempts the revelers into eternal sleep with thoughts of Summer, warmth and contentment.

Lullaby is being sung by a mother to her dying child while in Serenade a young ailing girl is being serenaded by a seductive Death who sings outside of her window.

The fourth and final piece of the song-cycle is The Field-Marshall (or The General) in which Death assumes the guise of a General overlooking the slaughter on the day's battlefield with a certain grim satisfaction.  In tribute to the fallen, Death will conduct a dance of death over their bones at midnight!  Weird shit! 

Because the song-cycle only occupies about 20 minutes (or a single album side) of space, this LP is rounded out with some of Mussorgky's shorter vocal works including, Song of the Flea, Where Are You Little Star, The Grave, The Seminarist & The Old Man's Song.

All are pretty good, but we really like the Death stuff!

In our experience, cold nights, warm, flowing drinks, Russians and the spectre of death all seem to go pretty hand-in-hand, so this album is going to be a favorite on our October turntable! NOSTROVIA!

RATING: 4 Evil Ones Burying Someone out of 5

Movie Night: Beware of Mr Baker

Hello Friends,

Grab your popcorn and pull up a stool, its Movie Night again on Vinyl in the Valley!

Tonight we're watching a documentary on the extraordinary rock & roll life of Cream drummer, Ginger Baker, Beware of Mr. Baker.

Hey kids, how many times have you wondered to yourself, "Hey, I wonder what happened to Ginger Baker after Cream and Blind Faith broke up?  What's he been up to?" 

WHAT? You've never pondered the fate of one of rock's greatest drummers?  Whether you have or not, the 2012 documentary, Beware of Mr. Baker, is here to answer all of your questions and get you caught up to speed!

Basically, Ginger Baker was one of rock's greatest drummers.  Technically speaking, he was vastly superior to Moon or Bonham.  The problem was he was a huge dick on a steady diet of drugs and booze!  Pissing bandmates off and burning bridges right and left!  In the Seventies, after the dissolution of both Cream & Blind Faith, Baker retreated to Africa and became good friends with Fela Kuti, whose band he would often be found sitting in with. Every couple of years, Baker would come out of hiding in order to pay some bills with a new band or a reunion of some sort.  Usually, because of his short-fused temper and codgery demeanor, these would be short-lived as well!

Directed by Jay Bulger, the film centers around the director's quest to go to Baker's South African compound and get a tell-all interview that documents all the ups and downs of his career.  At one point the director even gets knocked in the noggin by Baker's can! 

Good interview footage with Clapton, Jack Bruce, Carmine Appice, John Lydon, amongst others.  Its an interesting little film about an oft-overlooked rock icon who peaked, historically, over forty years ago and whose influence is still felt today!

We give this one two raised cocktail glasses!

We'll see you next time, friends, until then the Tiki Bar is closed*.  

(* not really)

It ain't easy livin' like a gypsy, tell ya honey how I feel

Aerosmith - "Live Bootleg" (1978) - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

Tonight we've got a great double-live album on the turntable that captures one of the 1970's best hard rock bands at the height of their creative powers while in the the throes of drug addiction and overindulgence!  Sounds like a recipe for some great rock & roll!

Contrary to the LP's title, "Live Bootleg" is not a bootleg at all. Actually, it was kind of joke by the band and the record label to spoof the bootleg format which was usually plagued by bad photocopied artwork & really crappy sound quality!

Not only is Live Bootleg one of the 1970's best live records (its right up there with Alive!, Live at Budokan, Live at Leeds, If You Want Blood You've Got It and The Last Waltz), but it also would prove to be the high point in the band's career.  In our opinion, 1977's Draw the Line would be the last great, sleazy Aerosmith LP.  1979's Night in the Ruts isn't very good, 1982's Rock in a Hard Place is missing Joe Perry & 1985's Done With Mirrors is abysmal!  We all know the story how Aerosmith resurrected their career in the mid-80's thanks to MTV and Run DMC, but none of that stuff can hold a candle to their first five studio albums!

And unlike a lot of the other great live albums of this era, Live Bootleg captures the band at their most raw and strung out.  The album is not littered with polished-sounding overdubs or glossy production.  This is the band warts & all and by 1978 Aerosmith was a hot mess!  (And if you listen closely you can even hear some fans throwing M80's at the stage!  Apparently in the seventies, this was a "thing.")

The album begins, like most Aersomith shows in '77 & '78, with the sound of Norman Bates' knife music and kicks right into the opener, an amped-up version of the cowboy sex anthem, "Back in the Saddle".  

"Sweet Emotion" follows and then a sped up, seven minute version of "Lord of the Thighs". Side One ends with "Toys in the Attic" which, according to the liner notes, is a "folk song about the band's state of mind!"  Nice!

Side Two gives us "Last Child", "Walk this Way" and the underrated classic, "Sick As A Dog". It also contains a hard rocking cover of the Beatles' "Come Together" that the band would later record for the Sgt Pepper's movie.  Can't believe these guys didn't get more acting roles!

Side Three kicks off with the obligatory, "Dream On" followed by the bluesy, "Chip Away The Stone"-- the album's lone single as well as the only Aerosmith song on the LP that wasn't previously released on record!  There's a "nice and ratty" version of Draw The Line's "Sight for Sore Eyes" as well as great, great versions of "Mama Kin" and "S.O.S. (Too Bad)".

Side Four actually takes us back to two early recordings from a live performance at Pall's Mall in Boston in April 1973: the blues-standard, "I Ain't Got You" and a cover of James Brown's "Mother Popcorn".

If you look at the liner notes on the record you would not see the song, "Draw The Line", however in true bootleg fashion the song is included here in all its raucous glory!



The bad boys from beantown wrap things up with a rollicking version of The Yardbirds' "Train Kept A Rollin".  House lights come on and our ears are still ringing! But I just couldn't tell her so...

Live Bootleg is a fantastic listen from start to finish!  Capturing the band at their hardest, most cynical, strung out and sleazy! Even though the band would stick around and actually flourish over the next several decades, it's the band that you hear on this record album that's a reminder to what a great rock & roll band Aerosmith actually was!

RATING: 4.5 Keepin' Touch with Mama Kins out of 5

Fun Fact Friday: Hitler would have loved Tonetta!

Hello Friends,

We don't know much about outsider artist, Tonetta, but we know we LOVE it!

Catchy, synthy pop songs with crude, rude and downright crazy lyrics!

This is the kind of You Tube sensation we can get behind!  Its like if Buffalo Bill went viral!

The video above is for his song, "Pressure Zone".

Here's a few more videos for "Yummy Yummy Pizza", "Drugs Drugs Drugs" and "Hitler" in which he sounds like Leonard Cohen singing lead for early Ween.

Hitler certainly would have loved you, Tonetta!  Rock On!

Prog Rock Saturday: Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (1977) - Atco Records

Hello Friends,

Another Summer is growing long in the tooth and we're celebrating the changing of seasons with one final Prog Rock Saturday.  Who do we have on the Vinyl in the Valley trusted turntable tonight? Why, its our old friend Peter Gabriel and his first solo album since leaving Genesis, aptly titled, Peter Gabriel.

In fact, this would be the first of four Peter Gabriel solo albums to be called Peter Gabriel so in most Peter Gabriel circles, to avoid confusion, his first album is usually referred to simply as Car due to the big blue car on the album's cover.  (Incidentally, his other three solo album nicknames would be Scratch, Melt & Security.)

In our opinion, Car would be the best of the bunch! (They all have pretty great album covers though!)

First, a little background.  In August 1975, when Genesis was at the peak of their prog rock prowess, frontman Gabriel wrote a letter to the English press (aka the "Out, Angels Out" Letter) that began:

I had a dream, eye’s dream. Then I had another dream with the body and soul of a rock star. When it didn’t feel good I packed it in. Looking back for the musical and non-musical reasons, this is what I came up with:

OUT, ANGELS OUT – an investigation.

Basically this letter became his resignation with the band effective upon the conclusion of their successful, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway Tour.  Stress amongst band members got to be too much for Gabriel, not to mention the stress of everyday life, his marriage to his first wife and the birth of his first child.  He gave the band his blessing to go on without him but, secretly, we're pretty sure he was hoping that they'd fail miserably! The funny thing is that Genesis continued on with drummer Phil Collins taking over the lead vocal spot and their success greatly endured in Gabriel's absence! 

In just as an unlikely scenario, Gabriel too would flourish as well as one of the most successful solo artists of MTV's Golden Era.

"Moribound The Burgermesiter" opens Peter Gabriel and it sounds pretty much like something off of Nursery Cryme with a slightly more polished production (courtesy of Bob Ezrin!)  The song seems to be about a Medieval village who comes down with the plague and the only effective remedy seems to be St Vitus's Dance.  

"This thing's really outrageous, I tell you on the level
It's really so contagious must be the work of the devil
You better go now, pick up the pipers, tell them to play
Seems the music keeps them quiet, there is no other way."

The record's second song is also Peter Gabriel's first single as a solo artist (and perhaps his best solo recording ever)-- "Solsbury Hill".  Its a real departure from the sonic escapades and cartwheels of Genesis and, instead, is a straightforward, catchy pop song which seems to be about the artist reflecting on his recent move from band-guy to solo artist:

"To keep in silence, I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut.
Turning water into wine,
Open doors would soon be shut."

And speaking of sonic escapades, the album's second single "Modern Love" sounds unlike ANYTHING Gabriel has ever done.  Its very upbeat, sharp and dare we say, dance-able? Think Face Dances-era Who redone as a New Wave album!  Do yourself and check out the video.  Its pretty fucking amazing! 

Don't worry sports fans! Things get weird again on "Excuse Me" which has Gabriel sounding like a very odd, very depressed Randy Newman fronting a barbershop quartet. 

Side One's closer, "Humdrum"-- a dreamy, slow burning ballad with cryptic lyrics like "I saw the man at JFK / He took your ticket yesterday / In the humdrum" and "Empty my mind, I find it hard to cope / Listen to my heart, don't need no stethescope" is nothing short of fantastic!  

Bob Ezrin recruited Alice Cooper guitarist, Dick Wagner (who died earlier this year... RIP!) to supply some hard rock licks on Side Two's "Slow Burn", which sounds a little like something off of Welcome to My Nightmare mixed with some more late-period Who.  An arena rock anthem that never was!

"Waiting for the Big One" is a seven-minute long jazzy torch song that comes across sounding like overproduced Tom Waits.  Its pretty clear by this point, seven songs in, that Gabriel really wanted to explore a lot more musical styles than being in Genesis would have allowed him to!  Eclectic is good, as long as its not too eclectic!  

"Down the Dolce Vita" employees some disco beats and some spaghetti western orchestrations (courtesy of the London Symphony Orchestra.)  Obviously, someone was doing a lot of cocaine during the recording of this album!  Our money's on "The Ez"-- producer Bob Ezrin. Sure the guy produced Alice Cooper, Berlin, Destroyer and The Wall, but can we really forget he was manning the controls on Music from The Elder.  "Down the Dolce Vita" is not a bad song by any stretch, but it sounds like it could be the closing credits to a dystopian roller ball movie where the winners compete to be society's most respected celebrities and the losers are gunned downed by lasers!  Hey Tiki... Get my agent on the phone! 
  
Remember earlier in this post when we said that "Solsbury Hill" might have been the best Peter Gabriel solo song.  Well we were mistaken.  That distinction belongs to the album's closer, "Here Comes the Flood".  Probably one of Gabriel's best solo pieces!  An incredibly sad and pretty song that seems to be about "the big one" that Gabriel was talking about two songs ago.  From the St.Vitus dance in the opening song to the world ending in Biblical proportions here, Peter Gabriel at its heart is a very dark and morbid record in spite of much of the music sounding uptempo and bright.  

It reminds us a little of The Killers' first record, Hot Fuss, which on the surface seemed like a danceable post-punk, New Wave record when, in reality, a lot of its theme's had to do with stalking, raping & murdering!  The good ol' rock & roll dark stuff.  No doubt, The Killers (at least on their first two or three records) owed something to Uncle Pete!

Rumor has it that Gabriel was somewhat critical of Ezrin's bombastic-sounding production on the record and we tend to agree.  Parts of this album do come off sounding a little over-done and showtuney.

Two years later, Robert Fripp (who played guitar on Peter Gabriel) would re-record "Here Comes the Flood" in a much more stripped-down, bare bones manner with Gabriel reprising his vocals.  Quite a difference! 

Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry! 

RATING: 4 Grab Your Things I've Come to Take You Home out of 5

(Bad) Movie Night: Devil's Kiss (1976)

Hello Friends,

Grab your popcorn and pull up a stool, its (Bad) Movie Night again on Vinyl in the Valley!

Now we're not exactly sure what the hell is going on in this darkly-lighted, poorly-dubbed Spanish film, The Devil's Kiss, also sometimes known as The Wicked Caress of Satan (great title!) or The Print of the Devil. 

Here's what we can tell you... a bunch of aristocrats get together at a castle in France for a party that culminates with a spooky seance.  What the occupants of the castle don't realize is that the medium who conducted the seance, Countess Claire, has a bone-to-pick with them.  She teams up with mad scientist, Professor Gruber, and proceeds to create a freaky reanimated corpse in the castle's basement laboratory that she will control with her psychic powers! There's plenty of dim-lit creepy sets, naked women, horny dwarfs & satanic scientists to go around! 

Oh and there's a pretty rockin' fashion show...

And just for the record kids, we are wholeheartedly on Team Betty! 

We got to be honest friends, this one is a pretty bad "bad" movie!  But it is creepy with a generous amount of beaver nudity so we'll still give this one two raised, um, cocktail glasses anyways!  Hey, they can't all be Citizen Kane! 

We'll see you next time, friends, until then the Tiki Bar is closed*.  

(* not really)

(Bad) Movie Night: Godzilla's Revenge (1969)

Hello Friends,

Grab your popcorn and pull up a stool, its (Bad) Movie Night on Vinyl in the Valley!

Also known as All Monster's Attack, Godzilla's Revenge (1969) is the tenth film in Toho Studio's Godzilla series and its a doozy!

The movie is about a little Japanese kid, Ichiro Miki, who is bullied at school and whose parents are too busy working to really pay attention.  In a dream, he is transported to Monster Island and becomes friends with Minilla, Godzilla's son, who is also the victim of bullying-- by the monster, Gabara.  While on the island, Ichiro witnesses the mighty Godzilla do battle with a giant sea monster (Ebirah), a giant spider (Kumonga) and some Japanese jets!  

Later he aids Minilla in a one-on-one fight with his antagonist, Gabara, and wouldn't you know it, the little guy wins!  When Ichiro wakes up back in the real world, he has the wherewithal to escape from some bank-robbing kidnappers (?) and eventually gets up the courage to fight back against his tormentors.  What's the lesson here kids?  Well if you want to grow a pair, you've got to hang out with giant monsters! 

Directed by legendary kaiju director Ishiro Honda, Godzilla's Revenge is the first Godzilla film that seems to be specifically targeted at children which makes it appear even sillier than your usual giant monster fare! Actually if you think about it, theme-wise its not too different from the book/movie, Where the Wild Things Are. (Cue James Gandolfini starring as Godzilla in the middle of an existential crisis just sitting and staring at ducks in his pool!)

The movie ain't all that great but of course we were counting on that!  One major upside is the movie's theme song. 

Touchdown!

Good bad movie!  We give this one two raised cocktail glasses!  (Because that's at least how many drinks you need to enjoy this one!)

We'll see you next time, friends, until then the Tiki Bar is closed*.  

(* not really)