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God's Angry Man

August 31, 2013, 11:13 am
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Dr. Gene Scott is mad as hell and (R.I.P.) he's not taking it any more!

GOD'S ANGRY MAN (FERNSEPREDIGER)
Directed by Werner Herzog
(West Germany, 1981, 16mm, color, 45 minutes)
This is an amazing one of a kind documentary that probably could only have been made by Werner Herzog. - Documentary Heaven


I recently found this unusual film while boxing up my treasures in anticipation of an imminent move. I only have a crappy low-res black-and-white bootleg of this documentary (filmed at a theater screening - you can hear the 16mm film projector running!) about the indescribable televangelist Dr. Gene Scott (August 14, 1929-February 21, 2005), but am elated that a few discerning fans have uploaded it to the Internet, like the folks at the wonderful site Documentary Heaven (documentaryheaven.com), where the 45-minute unreleased documentary can be watched in its entirety in six nine-minute segments.

Click here to watch God's Angry Man on Documentary Heaven's site.

God's Angry Man is also available online at YouTube, where someone named novoiluminismo has posted the German-language film version in its entirely (with Herzog himself providing his inimicable, soothingly Teutonic narration), as shown below:


God's Angry Man (43:45)

The film consists mainly of interviews with Scott and his parents and selected clips from his television show Festival of Faith; the highlight is undoubtedly the wind-up toy marching band Scott rechristened "The F.C.C. Monkey Band."

The F.C.C. Monkey Band
The more the merrier: The F.C.C. Monkey Band


From Documentary Heaven's capsule review:



This is a portrait of Dr Gene Scott a televangelist who ran into problems with the FCC in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s. Scott was eventually shut down, briefly, by the FCC. The documentary, which consists of little more than interviews with Scott and clips from his show [Festival of Faith], doesn’t really deal with the reasons why the FCC was after him, rather it tries simply to show a man on a mission trying to save people while battling his inner demons.

This is an amazing one of a kind documentary that probably could only have been made by Werner Herzog. Herzog isn’t interested in showing anything other than the man. There is no judgment as to what Scott is all about, there is just Scott talking to Herzog and to his audience. The result is a portrait of a man on a mission, who is doing what he feels to be right. The result is that you walk away from the film feeling that you’ve just met a real person and not a manufactured man of god.
Perhaps Herzog was drawn to Scott because of this "man on a mission, who is doing what he feels to be right" aesthetic, one eerily similar to that of Klaus Kinski's mad conquisdator character in Herzog's classic feature film Aquirre, the Wrath of God (1972).

San Francisco's answer to New York City's Spy Magazine was The Nose, and years ago they ran a terrific feature on the world's angriest televangelist (which I also stumbled across while packing!), as shown below.







See also:
Dr. Gene Scott - God's Angry Man tribute site (www.godsangryman); "He will not be forgotten by the saints  he made aware - God speed DOC!"

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Dylan's Baltimore Song Still Raising Cane 50 Years Later

October 23, 2013, 12:25 pm
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by Tom Warner


















(October 23, 2013) - The northwest corner of Baltimore and Calvert streets, where the main office of the SunTrust Bank now stands, was the setting for one of Bob Dylan's best songs and one of Baltimore's worst moments. Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" - recorded 50 years ago today (it appears on the The Times They Are A-Changin' LP) - is a moving, although somewhat inaccurate (call it poetic license), account of a real-life incident that occurred there on the night of February 9, 1963, in what was then the Emerson Hotel.
William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled 'round his diamond-ringed finger
At a Baltimore hotel, society gathering
And the cops was called in and his weapon took from him
And they rode him in custody down to the station
And charged William Zanzinger with first-degree murder
Listen to Bob Dylan play "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll."


Bob Dylan - The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll

It's true that William Zantzinger (Dylan inexplicably dropped the "t" in his song), a 24-year-old white tobacco farmer from Charles County, was attending a society ball at the Emerson Hotel that night. And, by all accounts, he was drunk, disorderly, and offensive, especially with his lightweight carnival cane, which he liked to tap people with to get their attention. And it's also true that he struck a black waitress, Hattie Carroll, once above the right shoulder with that cane when she didn't fetch his bourbon and ginger ale as fast as he would have liked it.

Illustration by Tom Chalkley (City Paper, December 7, 1992)

Though she collapsed moments later, she neither fell "under a rain of blows," as some press reports claimed, nor was she killed by that single stroke of William Zantzinger's flimsy cane. Rather, it was the inhumanity of the racial slur that accompanied this blow - "You black bitch" Zantzinger bellowed - that triggered, in the medical examiner's words, a "tremendous emotional upsurge" in the 51-year-old mother of nine (not ten as referenced in Dylan's song).

"Matron Felled by Cane in 'Old Plantation' Setting (Baltimore Afro-American)

Given that Hattie Carroll was not in the best of health (she suffered from arteriosclerosis and hypertension) and was described by her friends as accutely sensitive, most likely it was the shock of William Zantzinger's words that brought on the cerebral hemorrhage that claimed her life eight hours later at Mercy Hospital.


On August 28, 1963, Judge D. Kenneth McLaughlin sentenced William Zantzinger to six months' imprisonment, declaring, "We find that Hattie Carroll's death was not due solely to disease, but that it was caused by the defendant's verbal insults, coupled with an actual assault, and that he is guilty of manslaughter."

Those were the facts, but they were dwarfed in significance by what the case had some to symbolize in those nascent days of the civil rights movement. To the press, to civil-rights leaders, and to a folk singer in New York City, William Zantzinger represented the plantation-owner mentality of the still lingering antebellum South, while Hattie Carroll represented the oppression of all underprivileged people, regardless of race, creed, or religion. Details didn't matter in what became, in Sun reporter David Simon's words, a "morality play." (Simon's excellent analysis, "The Case of Hattie Carroll," appeared in the February 7, 1988, Sun Magazine.)

You'd think being the villain in a morality play would be enough infamy to last anybody a lifetime, but William Zantzinger managed to outdo himself and was in the news again in late 1991 when he pleaded guilty to 50 misdemeanor counts of unfair and deceptive trade practices for collecting rent on run-down Charles County properties he no longer owned. Before the county seized Patuxent Woods shanties from Zantzinger in 1986 for failing to pay taxes on them, his record as a landlord was far from exemplary. Patuxent Woods was a virtual rural slum, with dirt roads and no indoor plumbing. In January of 1992, Zantzinger was sentenced to 18 months in jail (he spent only nights in jail), fined $62,000, and ordered to perform 2,400 hours of community service for local groups that advocate low-cost housing. Having lived down his image as a racist plantation owner, Zanzinger managed to gain new notoriety as its modern equivalent - the slumlord.

(Portions of this article originally appeared in my "Raising Cane" contribution to the December 7, 1992 City Paper article "Baltimore Babylon.")

For more on this story, see WYPR's podcast "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" ("Maryland Morning," October 23, 2013), which includes Dylan biographer Howard Sounes' 30-minute BBC Radio 4 documentary about the song. Sounes' Dylan biography Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (2001) is the best I've read to date and his BBC report is fantastic; not only did Sounes track down William Zantzinger's notorious cane, but listeners get to listen to Zantzinger "cursing Dylan unrepentedly" in what is believed to be his only recorded interview before his death at age 69 on January 3, 2009.

Related Links:
True Lies: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (Planetslade.com)
Fifty Years Later, Hattie Carroll's Death Remembered (Afro, March 8, 2013)
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Kitty Kultists

November 4, 2013, 9:31 am
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My girlfriend Amy and I are still unpacking boxes from our September move into a new house. We packed a lot of junk, of course, that we are having second thoughts about holding onto in our new, smaller digs. But there are also some legitimate treasures buried in all those Home Depot and Extra Space Storage boxes. Like Amy's 1984 diary/journal in which she saved a City Paper clipping that mentioned her and her former husband, the late musical legend Mark Harp (1957-2004), as "Kitty kultists" talking about their Hello Kitty collections.




Amy was very excited to find this clipping, pasted in between her exemplary cursive handwritting (a beautiful thing to observe, if you're a Cursive Cultist!).

Amy is vaclempt after finding her name published in the "City Paper."

"Wow," I said, scratching my head. "That sounds like something I would have written up back in my days at the City Paper. I remember I did a story on Hello Kitty back in the '80s."

Amy pulled out her journal, and lo and behold, it was written by me! I recall I went down to the big East Coast Sanrio outlet in Tysons Corner, Va., to research the story and I have a vague memory of  visiting Mark and Amy's Charles Village apartment at some point (it may have been during a party) and being impressed by their Sanrio collection. Amy doesn't remember that, but then again this was almost 30 years ago and we are now AARP members with sometimes faulty memories. (Like, we've been together eight years, but we only vaguely knew each other back in the day as acquaintances because we were part of the same Punk-New Wave social scene that frequented clubs like the Marble Bar and Galaxy Ballroom. Then we didn't see each other for decades until we ran into each other at a musical tribute-wake for Mark Harp in January 2005.)

It may seem trite today to see a story about the Hello Kitty phenomenon - after all Sanrio products are seemingly available everywhere one looks and for every imaginable use (from stickers and pens to TVs and even vibrators) -  but the first Sanrio shop in America didn't open until 1976 (and that was in San Francisco), so Kitty curios were still a relatively new thing in 1984.

The full article, called "Hello, Good Buy: Pet Peeves," appears below. (Naturally there were factual errors, which fact-checking proofreader extraordinaire Amy clarifed in her cursive script comments; to wit, she was asked how old her kids were at a Highlandtown store selling Hello Kitty items, not in Tysons Corner. Geeze, everyone's a critic! Did I mention I was a hack writer, Ames?)






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Viva La Difference: French Football's Naked Ambition

November 25, 2013, 7:04 am
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A Nation is Happy To Sing Les Bleus

Even if you don't follow world soccer (the real "football"), you have to applaud the after-effects of the French national team's dramatic qualification for the 2014 World Cup finals last Tuesday, following an improbable come from behind, two-leg playoff win against Ukraine, 3-2 on aggregate (0-2, 3-0). Apparently the libido of the nation was riding on the (soon-to-be) climatic outcome of the dramatic victory. Following are the titillating updates from the online edition of my favorite footy mag, World Soccer.

French weather woman does indeed strip naked
(World Soccer Daily, 21/11/2013)

Doira Tillier stays abreast of Les Bleus fortunes















Doira Tillier, a weather girl on Canal+’s Le Grand Journal programme, who made a promise on Tuesday’s show that if France beat the Ukraine to reach the World Cup she would read her weather report on Wednesday in the nude, has come good on the pledge – although perhaps not in the way that her myriad admirers would have chosen. Running around a field sporting nothing but a pair of boots, Ms. Tillier did her report without any clothes on, although viewers, even those who freezed the footage frame-by-frame, were unable to make out any detail.

Watch Doria Tillier's Naked Forecast.



French fans celebrate with free porn
(World Soccer Daily, 21/11/2013)


A French porn producer was left red-faced after France defied the odds to qualify for the World Cup finals on Tuesday.  

Marc Dorcel offered football fans free access to his X-rated website if the national team turned around a 2-0 first leg deficit and defeated Ukraine in the World Cup play-off. After a 3-0 win for France fans were clicking on Dorcel.com expecting to celebrate the win in some style.

However, such was the demand that Dorcel’s server crashed under the weight of traffic. And that was before French duo Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema had logged on to peruse the barely legal section.

But, frustrated French fans will get a second chance to take advantage of Dorcel’s offer with the producer promising to keep his pledge when the site was up and running again.

He tweeted ‘Dorcelvision.com exploded on the whistle. Mail your details to lesbleuslontfait@dorcel.com to receive your film tomorrow.’

Naked weather forecasters, porn on demand, it would seem that the libido of the entire French nation was riding on the outcome of Tuesday’s game.
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A Hard Day's Blight

March 19, 2014, 10:03 am
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The Walking Dead now talk - and have library cards!

It's been a hard day's night, and I've been been working like a dog dealing with a bizarro alternate universe of humans known as library patrons. Though I was trained as a journalist, lately my missives about my job sound more like science-fiction prose describing the far reaches of the cosmos. I swear, I can't make this stuff up...

The Scorpion Lady
A woman came in tonight asking about the status of her movie "hold". 

"Remember that one I was talking about?" she said, assuming that I could remember an alleged transaction from months ago and that I hadn't helped anyone else with "holds" in the interim. I replied that, sorry, I didn't recall it. (I love it when people you helped a long time ago come in and say stuff like "That book I wanted come in yet?" like it was yesterday; Janice, a woman I last saw two years ago, when I had security escort her out of the building for pulling plugs out of a public computer ("It's OK, I took an online course and am an expert in computers" she assured me, to which I replied "Great, practice on your own personal computer!"), actually asked me that recently.)

Of course, she didn't have a library card but, exhibiting a modus operandus I've noticed in many idiot savants, had memorized her library card number. And, of course, she had no holds. (Maybe she placed a hold in the astral plane. Who knows?) She was looking for Woody Allen's Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) because she claimed her sister's house in Ellicott City appears in it - but she didn't have a VCR, a DVD player, a computer, or a TV set to watch it on.

I told Scorpion Lady that a) we don't own a copy b) no library in the state has a copy available for loan (though I placed an interlibrary loan request out-of-state for her) and c) we don't have viewing stations and, no, if she does score a copy she can't come down to the library to watch it at the PC on my desk. She then whined that she wasted a trip riding the bus down to the library "around all those smelly people." I suggested perhaps she should call first next time. But, natch, she doesn't have a phone. 

She then asked if I would sign her up for Netflix though she doesn't have any platform to watch anything she would get from them. Is it just me, or was she kinda needy?

(Upon reflection, I feel kinda guilty that I didn't use my credit card to sign her up for a Netflix account or invite her over to my house to watch this movie, as I know how important it must be to see a 10-second shot of her sister's house in it.)

I thought it was rather odd that the New York City-based Woody Allen would have shot a film in Maryland - that is, the old pre-World Tour (Barcelona, London, Paris, Rome, San Francisco) Woody of the Noughties - so I subsequently looked up the film on the Internet Movie database and learned that The Curse of the Scorpion Lady was filmed in New York (natch), Long Island and Los Angeles. Maybe her sister moved. Maybe her sister moved to My Sister's Place. Who knows?

The Snake Man

Then some rough-looking guy with wild hair and a cigarette stub tucked behind his ear (who reminded me of Taxi's Reverend Jim Ignatowski, minus the charm) and wearing a mud-encrusted camouflage jacket and baggy, decomposing pants, came in 5 minutes before closing.

"Ya got any DVDs about Snakeskinplesskin?" he mumbled as he leaned over my desk.

"I'm sorry," I replied, trying to deconstruct the phrase "Snakeskin something-or-other,""Snakeskin, what was that word?"

"Snakeskin Plesskin," he re-mumbled, slower this time, with a look that seemed to add "You Ee-di-ot!"

"I'm unfamiliar with that term," I said, adding, "We have one VHS tape on snakes and reptiles, but that's about it." (Yikes! I didn't even mention Snakes on a Plane.) Wait, maybe he said Rumpletstiltskin?

"No man! You mean you haven't ever seen Escape from New York City (sic)?!?" he shouted. "I can't believe you're a librarian, man, and you haven't seen Escape from New YorkCity? What, the library doesn't carry it because, what, it's too violent or something?"

"Oh, you want Escape from New York? Sorry, I'm afraid we don't have it," I replied, now comprehending that he was referring to Kurt Russell's eye-patch-wearing character "Snake" from John Carpenter's 1981 cult film, which also spawned the sequel Escape from L.A. (1996).

"I cannot believe you've never seen it man, and you call yourself a librarian, man!" Rev. Jim snarled. (I made a mental note to give him bonus points for pronouncing my profession correctly, instead of the "lie-barian" pronunciation 99% of my patrons employ to describe "lie-berry" staff.)

"Sorry about that, I'll get right on it," I said. "I'll add it to my Netflix bucket list."

"So what do you watch, like pornos, I guess?" he snapped dismissively.

"Sure, but I also watch a variety of things," I countered.

"Like what? Like Mary Poppins or Doctor Doolittle?" (I sensed this was also said in a dismissive tone. I got the distinct vibe that Rev. Jim didn't care for family entertainment.)

"No, all kinds of things."

"Like what, like name me one thing you've seen, man!"

"OK, Blade Runner."

"Oh that," Snake Man snorted. "Isn't that that freaky movie where all these freaks are running around with machetes cutting shit up and - "

"No," I cut him off, "Not at all. It's a futuristic sci-fi movie starring Harrison Ford. No machetes." (Was he possibly think of the Danny Trejo-starring action spoof Machete?)

Stumped momentarily, Rev. Jim now reverted back to Conspiracy Theory Mode (public libraries are "the government," after all, man!).

"So you're saying the library doesn't have Escape from New York City (sic) because it's too violent or something?"

"No, I'm not saying anything other than we don't appear to own a copy of that film, but we probably should. I'll see if our distributor has it."

I looked it up and found that, indeed, it was carried by our distributor and placed it in a suggested purchase cart. I told Rev. Jim that I had placed a suggested purchase of Escape from New York for him.

"It's Escape from New York City, man, not Escape from New York!" he spat out contemptuously.

"Well, you can call it anything you want," I countered, "But the named listed on the poster, DVD and the Internet Movie Database is Escape from New York. See?" With this I turned my PC monitor around so he could see the cover of the DVD.

I sensed this encounter was turning into Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" skit. This guy was obviously looking for a fight, verbal or physical, and, of course, what better place to take out one's aggressions and frustrations than at the library, where one can tangle with those power brokers, The Mild-Mannered Librarians? (Forget the Bilderberg Group, librarians rule the world! Didn't everyone see those Noah Wyle Librarian movies?)

"Yeah well..." His voice trailed off before he came back with his stinging zinger. "Nice sweater, man...That's a [snorting] nice sweater." 

He was pointing at my Argyle sweater vest. I guess he thought it was laughable compared to his Sunny Surplus-style commando gear. I was waiting for the inevitable "faggot ass preppy" or other dis as a followup (yes, I've heard every imaginable dis regarding my sexual orientation from patrons, over the years - I'm so glad they take an interest with my social life!)

"Thanks!" I replied. "Nice camo jacket on you." (It was tres Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver; all it was missing was the blood and splattered brain remnants.)

Flustered, Rev. Jim now took his case to the security guard who was announcing, as the lights went out, that the library was now closed. I heard him rant about the outrage of the library not carrying Escape from New York.

Officer Greg came over to me and smiled. "We see everything here, don't we Tom?"

Unfortunately, we do, we do.

Watch Escape from New York trailer.


Prophet Man
Oh, almost forgot Prophet Man, who came in earlier in the day. Like many of our road scholars, he was a would-be Religious Studies scholar (they're always the best and the brightest! No, really.). Just as Cornel West has to preface everybody's name with a "Brother" or "Sister" (which I find most annoying), this gentleman, newly converted to Islam but seeking out all sides of The Greatest Story Ever Told, had to preface everything with "Prophet."

"Do you have anything on the prophet Muhammad? Do you have anything on the prophet Jesus? Do you have anything on the prophet Abraham? Do you have anything on the prophet Moses?"

The only prophet he didn't want was the Prophet Chuck, aka Chuck Prophet, the American singer-songwriter guitarist formerly of Green on Red, even though he has an album called Temple Beautiful.

Another day, more brain cells lost on the front lines.

I live to serve.



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"How Do I...Do Everything?"

May 7, 2014, 11:48 am
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Why, Just Follow These Easy-to-Follow Steps!

If you ever have a question about how to do, well, anything, just ask a librarian. We're here to help the helpless.

The answer to all your queries, all your problems, and all of life's mysteries is just a phone call away and operators are standing by to take your call.

Ready? Grab a pencil and some paper and follow just these steps. Aren't you glad you asked?

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  1. Welcome!
  2. Spell out your full name, surname first. Fill in the circles completely with a No. 2 pencil. Make sure your marks are heavy and dark.
  3. Enter your five-digit PIN number. If you do not own a touch-tone phone, hold for operator assistance. If you do not hear an alarm within sixty seconds, force the door open. If the door won’t open, try closing it first.
  4. Insert tab A into slot 6. Color in any space marked “3” with cornflower blue. Do not put all your eggs in one (1) basket. Do not pound square pegs into round holes. Guide them in gently. Think outside the box. Then fill in boxes 7a(a)-7a(c) with your age, address, and conception of the afterlife.
  5. Think, write, revise. Lather, rinse, repeat. Before you begin assembly, locate the fissile isotope plutonium-239. Determine its expiration date, then predetermine your own.
  6. Check at least once a month, perhaps in the shower. Search carefully for a hard, pea-size growth. Remove the hard drive with a flathead screwdriver. Phillips-head screwdrivers are awkward tools and untrustworthy lovers, like the Danish.
  7. To avoid the appearance of sexist language in your writing, try to pluralize, stylize, or just tell lies. Always replace “he” with “he or she.” Also replace “she” with “he or she,” unless preceded by the phrase “he or.”
  8. If you are travelling with a child under the age of twelve, strap your oxygen mask to your face first, then put your child’s oxygen mask on your face. If your oxygen supply runs low, photosynthesize. If you experience technical difficulties, weep softly, with prudence. When finished, configure the plutonium-239 into a small “pit” packed with explosives. This pit will compress symmetrically into a supercritical mass when detonated. Be careful not to apply this product, or yourself, in high humidity or at abnormal altitudes.
  9. Just say “No!” If you speak Spanish, say “¡No!”
  10. Take a deep breath. Think about slowly moving clouds that are white, like wedding dresses and Deborah’s legs in the rain. Don’t worry about shark attacks, terror attacks, or the inheritance tax.
  11. Do not stare directly at the sun. Do not exceed the recommended dosage of anything, except Vitamin C and meaningful emotional contact.
  12. In the rare event that a mature adult of the human species confronts you, stretch your arms above your head to make yourself as tall as possible. Shout strong commands with a strong, commanding shout. If you are assaulted, fall down and play dead. Do not play dead for more than seventy-two hours, or you will die.
  13. Pause. Pause again.
  14. Insert your card into the machine and determine if you are happy or sad. If you are unsure, ask a loved one, but the likely answer is a combination of four to six numerals. Make sure to refrigerate after opening. A sulfurous, or “rotten egg,” smell is a sign that something is wrong. Notify transit authorities.
  15. Take a moment to ease your mind, stretch your legs, and exercise your Second Amendment rights. Review your work thus far. Is this the best you can do? Why won’t you settle down and grow up? Why must you constantly confuse ranch dressing and Russian dressing? Why did Deborah wait through twelve years of marriage before leaving to pursue her career as an office temp?
  16. Seventeen syllables is a haiku. Eighteen syllables is an unauthorized withdrawal of company resources and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
  17. Studies show that Monday afternoons are optimal. Engage the employee in a room near his desk. Compliment his kinfolk and establish a light, collegial atmosphere with an icebreaker—perhaps a gender-sensitive joke about mulatto children. Use positive inflection and never say the words “you’re fired.” Talk about company cutbacks. Talk about hope, about faith, about weather cycles, about anything other than testicular cancer and corporate liability. Call the employee “a real trouper.” If he or she looks sad, talk about sports. Everybody likes sports. Except, of course, golf.
  18. If the one who is “it” touches you, you are now “it.”
  19. The addition of tritium will boost fissile power. Now that the plutonium is properly packed, the device is functional. Carefully consider other dieting options before starting a thermonuclear war or ending a thermonuclear peace. Remember, violence is not an alternative. Violence is not an answer. Unless the question is “What is an eight-letter word for something painful that is neither an alternative nor an answer?”
  20. Be mindful that bees smell fear but not toxic chemical defoliants. Humans, like most life-forms (lobsters, lichen), can smell neither. God can smell both fear and defoliants, because God is all-smelling. If only Deborah’s orthodox Lutheran upbringing hadn’t closed her mind to this revelation, widening the schism between us. If only she could have diverted her energies from stapling and faxing to refreshing the stagnant adolescence of our marriage. If only she weren’t Danish.
  21. No, no! Refrigerate after opening!
  22. Put your left leg in.
  23. Take your left leg out.
  24. Put your left leg in—
·        a. Shake it all about. If you experience feelings of “warmth,” “uncontrollable laughter,” or “death,” the process is operating properly.
·        b. Bathe, floss, and move your bowels daily. Do not fall in love this often.
  1. That’s what it’s all about!
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Nostalgia for an age yet to numb

September 22, 2015, 9:23 am
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The September of My Years: A Weekend Trip Down Memory Lane at the Nostalgia Convention


"Come meet Hollywood celebrities & get their autograph!"


(September 17-19, 2015) - It was the best of times, it was the Fest of times. After a mentally grueling week at the social services factory (aka, The Public Library), I came home Friday night longing for escape from the harsh realities of the Here and Now. Maybe it was the words of one of my library regulars, a Beatles-obsessed middle-aged spinster, ringing in my ears. "I don't care much for the Modern World," she explained, when I asked her that day why she loved the Beatles so much. "Those were happier days back then [when the Beatles were together]." (Hmmm, maybe minus the Vietnam War, the Manson Family murders, and the MLK rioting. I'm just saying, everything's relative...) So it was that I similarly sought solace in a blast from the past, and what better way then to head out for a late-night run through the 10th annual Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention (MANC) being held at the Hunt Valley Wyndham, Thursday through Saturday.

Nostalgia Con merchadise: anything and everything from the past!

Amy and I made a preliminary "recon run" Friday night on the upstairs (free admission, free-range vendors) level of the Wyndham, where a similarly Beatles-obsessed Amy bought 31 (!) Fab Four buttons and guitar picks and a Yellow Submarine postcard from one elated nostalgia vendor. "I have to get Ringo buttons to wear when we go see his All-Star Band at the Lyric in October!," Amy rationalized. (Point taken!)

Fab fare at the Memory mart

Neither Amy nor I go to these conventions to get autographs or selfies with the celebrities in attendance. It's just not our thang. Plus, it's expensive. We leave that to friends like Dave Wright, who took advantage of this year's cinema and TV Land celebrity bounty - Lee Majors, Richard Anderson (89 years old!), and Lindsey Wagner (a youthful-looking 66!) of The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman series; Hammer-and-Bond Babes Martine Beswick and Caroline Munro, as well as Hammer Horror Honeys Veronica Carlson and Suzanna Leigh; and Barry and Stanley Livingston and Tina Cole of My Three Sons, among others (Angela Cartwright, Dean Stockwell, Tempest Storm, et. al) - by bringing his Hammer Glamour book to get signed by the well-preserved, still-sexy starlets.

Marcus Hearn's "Hammer Glamour" book

Of course, Dave couldn't resist the "hands-on" experience of also posing with his film femme favorites, as well (that Dave is such a poseur!):

Caroline Munro & Dave Wright

Martine Beswick & Dave Wright

Dave Wright & Suzanna Leigh


Likewise, fanboy Tim Finnerty (erstwhile drummer and current bassist of Middle River rockers The Krudz) and his fanboy-in-training son Patrick were also there, with Tim scoring a much-coveted selfie with Lee Majors and Richard Andersen. "I had to, because I always kick myself for missing these opportunities," Tim confessed, adding that he missed the chance to get "a Polaroid sitting in the Batmobile with Adam West for just $15!" a few years ago when he unwisely decided to catch an Ace Frehley concert instead. (He's never forgiven himself.)


Bionic fanboys Tim & Pat Finnerty with Six Million Dollar celeb Lee Majors

The Finnertys have Richard "Oscar" Andersen's back


89-year-old Richard Anderson  is still rocking the Celebrity Nostalgia Trail!


The Bionic Man and Woman were definite highlights of this year's MANC, with special edition program guides for sale and some fans ever donning costumes in homage to their idols.

Bionic fans do the Robot Dance

Dave Cawley & Gina Houten get ironic with the Bionics


Steve Austin edition guide


Jaime Sommers edition guide


No, Amy and I prefer posing (for free!) with our fellow nobodies, peeps like Dave Wright (for once not wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt)...


Dave Wright, Tom Warner & Amy Linthicum

...and  Big Dave Cawley, King of Memorabilia (who made sure that he stepped away from the table selling Jerry Lewis memorabilia so that he wouldn't be asked for autographs!)...


The Gruesome Twosome: "Men about town" Tom Warner & Dave Cawley

But Amy and I do love looking at all the toys, games, books, comics, magazines, records, DVDs, movie posters, and assorted memorabilia from our youth that are on sale. For instance, Amy spotted a Shari Lewis and Lambchop word descrambler toy she remembered playing with as a toddler. It was called the Shari Lewis'Magic Answer Cards, though Shari and Lambchop have nothing to do with it except appearing on the box cover.

Shari Lewis Magic Answer Cards

The game asked questions and if you couldn't guess the answer, you placed a cheap piece of plastic with holes in it over the Answer Board to reveal the answer, as shown below:

Automatic Answer Board

It's...it's magic! Oh, the games people play!

And speaking of magic, dinosaur-loving Dave Cawley was amused to see a vendor selling a vintage Strange Change Machine, the late '60s Mattel toy that heated up blobs of goop in a "Time Machine" and turned them into miniature dinosaurs. Or not. "My dinosaurs always came out as blobs!" Dave admitted.

Mattel's Strange Change Machine toy


The Strange Change "Time Machine" created these creatures

Of course, no one needs to create dinosaurs anymore. They're all over the place now - but today we call them "Republicans"!

Watch a 1968 Strange Change Machine commercial.



The same vendor also had a box of "Banned Dukes of Hazzard Confederate Flag Zippo Lighters." Since the Hazzard boys and their General Lee wheels are now politically incorrect, I didn't see any takers. (He'd probably fare much better at the  Dundalk Heritage Festival, where a vendor quickly sold out of Confederate flags this summer!)

Amy looks for good-value rock & roll items at these conventions, like the aforementioned Beatles merchandise, or anything to do with retro music formats, like the Vinyl Forever vendor who "repurposed" records as candy bowls and album covers as handbags.

Vinyl Forever!

I tend towards dumber fare like a bootleg of the 1975 Golden Harvest-Australian Film Development Corporation kung-fu co-production The Man from Hong Kong, starring Jimmy Wang Yu and one-time Bond George Lazenby (who also starred in Golden Harvest's 1974 martial arts movie, Stoner, opposite Angela Mao), and comic book collections like DC's Blackhawk - the latter an ill-advised purchase, as it was the later edition of the racially stereotyped flyboys battling Commies in the 1950s rather than Nazis in their '40s glory days).

"The Man from Hong Kong" was the first Australian-Hong Kong co-production

Blackhawk & Co. battled Commies and killer whales in the '50s


Did I mention that Blackhawk was somewhat racially insensitive? Early version of Blackhawk team member "Chop-Chop"


We spent quite a bit of time chatting with first-time vendor Jennifer Vanderslice of MoonGlow PR and Beatles Freak Reviews, who brought a half-dozen interesting Fab Four books to the convention. I ended up getting the latest book by "Beatles scholar" (doncha just love that term? Who knew in 1964 that one day scholarly tomes would be written about the lovable Liverpudlians?) Robert Rodriguez, Solo in the 70s: John, Paul, George, Ringo, 1970-1980.



Rodriguez's previous critically acclaimed books include Fab Four FAQ, Fab Four FAQ 2.0, and Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll. (Like I need another Beatles book - I still haven't gotten through Mark Lewisohn's Tune In - The Beatles: All These Years! - but, hey, it's an easy and fun read!). Rodriguez's book picks up where FFF 2.0 left off, detailing John Lennon's fight to stay in America against the forces of the Nixon administration, the lawsuits against the Beatles' business associates and each other, unreleased recordings, the promo films, covers of Beatles songs by other artists, bootleg releases, and whatever else is left to say or ponder about the Fabs.

Jennifer Vanderslice with Scott "Son of Dennis" Wilson

Right next to the Beatles Freaks table was another first-time vendor. There, a friendly couple from South Jersey was manning a booth selling books about old-time radio and television stars. I wish I could remember the husband's name, because he was the author of several books about radio stars like Jack Benny, George Burns, and Bob & Ray. We talked about Jersey beaches, Jersey-style hoagies, and even my t-shirt depicting the Dundalk waste treatment facility known affectionately to locals as the "Golden Eggs." (They had never seen such a beautiful shit plant!).

The Golden Eggs

The wife commented that I looked like Matt Smith from Doctor Who.

"Spot on, mate!" Matt Smith approves of the Tom Warner comparison

"Really?" I exclaimed, not used to getting compared to anyone other than Martina Navratilova or Bill Maher. "I think I love you!" (I should have bought all their books just for that compliment alone!)

Jennifer Vanderslice recommended going downstairs into the big dealer's room to talk to Scott Wilson, son of Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, who was there to promote his memoir, the quite sensibly named Son of a Beach Boy: My Dad, Dennis Wilson. (See Jennifer's review at her blog Beatles-Freak's Reviews.)


The Legendary Chick Veditz


Also downstairs in the big dealer room was Harry "Chick's Legendary Records" Veditz. Chick was once again manning his massive sports and memorabilia trading cards table, ably assisted by his wife Arlene and their son John.

Chick's Legendary trading card table


The recently retired Chick is a true sweetheart. He gave us two "Buying Records Cheers Me Up"Peanuts t-shirts, as well as lady-sized tee for Amy commemorating Chick's Pre-Retirement Party at The Ottobar (see "Of Chick, Coddies & Camaraderie").



Adam Turkle-designed tee commemorating Chick's August 31, 2014 Ottobar Party

After spending way too much time looking over seemingly every item on offer in the dealer's room, we headed back upstairs to head out. But on my way to the exit, I overheard a familiar voice. I'm horrible when it comes to recollection, but something in the voice rekindled memories of my days as a tech writer in suburban Cubicle Land. Looking up I recognized a familiar-looking face.

"Are you Bill?" I asked. "Didn't I work with you at..."

"Tom Warner! How you doing man?" said the familiar face, now recognized as none other than Bill Horn, my old friend and co-worker from the mid-'80s when we worked  for Display Data and, later, Convergent Dealership Group, in Hunt Valley. This was back in the pre-Regal Cinemas, pre-Wegmans, pre-everything era of the Death Valley Mall, when the mall was as dead as vaudeville and you could almost imagine tumbleweeds blowing through its lonesome corridors. Back when Convergent had enough money to hire the Pointer Sisters to sing the "Convergent Theme Song": "We work for Convergent/And the times are urgent...and I think I like it, like it!" No, really. I was there.

Amy looked surprised and I blurted, "We used to work together at a computer company..."

"Display Data," Bill chirped. "Right across the parking lot here at Executive Plaza."


Display Data dudes Bill Horn & Tom Warner

Bill was an IT guy who has since gone on to get two graduate degrees in creative writing. He was helping a buddy out with his table on this fortuitous day. Long story short, we caught up best we could and made plans to get together for a Tech Throwback happy hour with former co-workers at Display Data/Convergent. I miss those days in Hunt Valley. I hadn't seen Bill since I left the company in 1992.

I remember Convergent had a newsletter and one issue had us both getting shout-outs in the "Dubious Achievement Awards of 1989." Bill's 1974 Dodge Challenger got him the nod for "Worst Wheels," while I snared "Too Cool for Words." No, really.






Like I said, it was a weekend of nostalgia for happy days past. Maybe not as far back as the Beatles spinster' lady's "happy days" but good enough for me. Thanks for the memories, Nostalgia Con!

My only regret is missing a special appearance by Jerry Beck, the celebrated Animation Historian and author of such critically acclaimed books as The 50 Greatest Cartoons (1994) and The Animated Movie Guide (2005). Beck presented a history of the Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons at the convention, a talk I'm sorry I missed!
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Sheer Heart Attack? Real Cardiac!

January 5, 2016, 12:46 pm
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Yes, Love Can Break Your Heart - And in 17 Places!


Love will tear us - and our hearts - apart. That's the heartburn-inducing news about "Broken-Heart Syndrome," according to a November 2015 report published in the American Journal of Cardiology, as reported in today's Wall Street Journal ("Don't Call It a Heart Attack," by Lucette Lagnado, WSJ, January 5, 2016). The disorder was first isolated by Japanese researchers 25 years ago, who named the condition takotsubo cardiomyopathy, "takotsubo" being the Japanese term for "octopus trap," which resembles the ballooning shape of a heart during an attack.

 
Heart-break can be a painful cardiac episode that mimics a heart attack, but typically without blockage of coronary arteries. It most often affects women in their 60s or older, and can be triggered by strong emotions (grief, anger, anxiety, intense joy or excitement) or physical stress. And how, as the Brothers Gibb once pondered harmoniously, can one mend a broken heart? According to Dr. Harmony Reynolds, one of the report's six authors, recommended prevention strategies including yoga, meditation, guided relaxation and breathing techniques.

"This is the Big One...Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you!"
"It's a romantic notion, but you really can get this from heartache."
- Dr. Harmony Reynolds, American Journal of Cardiology

Here's the WSJ article:
Harmony Reynolds, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center, recently led a study that subjected 20 women to a host of tests designed to bring on physical and mental stress.
The study looked for possible reasons some of the women had suffered a mysterious ailment known as broken-heart syndrome, which mimics a heart attack but generally doesn’t appear to be due to coronary artery disease.
In seeking a common thread among the 10 women in the group who had experienced an attack of broken-heart syndrome over the past several years, Dr. Reynolds and colleagues came to suspect they each suffered from an impaired parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system responsible for helping the body calm down.
The study led to strikingly different conclusions from what other researchers had previously believed might be behind the unusual malady. It also led Dr. Reynolds to believe that breathing and other relaxation techniques such as yoga and meditation should be tested for preventing broken-heart syndrome.
Experts say broken-heart syndrome, which most often affects women in their 60s or older, can be brought on by strong emotions, such as grief, anger and anxiety, or by physical stress. A common trigger is a loved one’s illness or death, while for some patients there is no clear-cut cause for an attack. “It is a romantic notion, but you really can get this from heartache,” says Dr. Reynolds, whose study was published online in November in the American Journal of Cardiology.
Roberta Silver, who participated in Dr. Reynolds’s study, recalls driving in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2007 when she suddenly felt her heart pounding. She pulled over to a cafe, where she became intensely ill. An ambulance took her to a hospital, and she was told she had suffered a heart attack. But a series of tests, including an angiogram, all turned up negative, she says.
“I had no blockage, nothing,” recalls Ms. Silver, who was visiting California from her home in New Jersey. After several days in the hospital, doctors concluded she had suffered broken-heart syndrome. Ms. Silver, who is 70, still isn’t sure what caused the event, and she hasn’t had a repeat episode. But she was ill with an upper respiratory infection and under stress at the time: A cousin she had been close to had died and Ms. Silver was planning to attend his funeral in San Francisco. And preparations for her son’s wedding were proving upsetting.
Continue reading "New Clues Why Women Get Broken-Heart Syndrome" online at Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com).


Heart-Break Syndrome - A Partial Hit List:

Bonnie Tyler - "It's a Heartache"


Neil Young - "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"


Tracey Ullman - "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places"



Queen - "Sheer Heart Attack"


Billy Ray Cyrus - "Achy Breaky Heart"


Bee Gees - "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"


Godley and Creme - "Cry"




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It's a MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World!

September 13, 2016, 1:44 pm
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Bang a Gong: The Beat Goes On

Smalltimore, MD: So Amy and I took a walk tonight to get out of the house (we were getting migraines from listening to our next door neighbor's power drilling; same neighbor has the perpetually barking beagle) and, on our way to Tunes, Amy noticed a bunch of drums in the window next to The Raven Inn.


The owner, Keith Larsen, saw us gawking and poked his head out the door. "You're welcome to come inside," he beckoned. This charming craftsman not only gave us a tour of his store, a former copy machine center, but showed us the drum sets he custom builds himself (he also rents out other musical gear around town for various bands and businesses).


Though the sign outside on Loch Raven Boulevard still advertised the copy machine shop, the drum store is actually called Keith Larson's MAD, the latter acronym for Mid-Atlantic Drum (www.midatlanticdrumshop.com).

Mirror, Mirror on the Boulevard: Who's the fairest drum shop of them all?

MAD is a full-line drum shop featuring new, used, custom, and vintage drums and accessories.

"Bopp Does Big Star" at WTMD's Olympic Studio

Having just seen Andy Bopp's band play the night before at the WTMD "Bopp Does Big Star" live radio broadcast event, I asked him, "Have you ever heard of a drummer named Nick Bertling?"

Nick Bertling Bopps Big Star

"Have I?," Keith replied, "He worked here for four years and I really miss him. I loaned out all the equipment for his WTMD show last night. In fact, I have his CD right up front."

Bertling Noise Laboratories: The Flehmen Response

I told Keith how impressed I was by Nick's drumming and was ready to buy the CD from him when he waved me off and said, "No, you take it. I'm gonna text him right now to tell him about this; he'll get a kick out of that!" He pulled out his iPhone and took a pic of Amy and I holding the CD and sent it to Nick.

On the CD, Bertling Noise Laboratories, Nick sings and plays everything. Not surprising, given what we saw the night before, when Nick sang Chris Bell and Alex Chilton songs and played acoustic guitar on several songs (including an impressive "Thirteen"), in addition to his drumming duties. He also had the snappiest in-between-songs banter.


Nick Bertling channels Alex Chilton on "Thirteen"

"Isn't he [Nick] from Chicago or something?" I asked. "Actually he's from right around here in Loch Raven," Keith replied. Small world! "He moved to Chicago when his wife got her PhD and a job out there."
We asked him if he knew any drummers we knew and he name-checked Joe Manfre (Ludwig kit purchaser), Jack O'Dell,Andy Small, Kelly Bell Band's drummer, and so on. Later, we found out Saxton White and Denny Bowen (Double Dagger) were also satisfied customers.

When we mentioned we went to Stanstock Fest on Saturday, Keith informed us that he loaned the Stanstock organizers all the equipment the bands used. (Way to represent, MAD!)
He then mentioned that he really liked the last band that played inside McAvoy's on Saturday night because "They didn't sound like everybody else doing the same kinda '70's and '80's cover songs. They sounded kinda punk but also kinda like Mott the Hoople and that era." That's why Keith liked the guitarist with the "really long hair,"Fernando, "because you could tell he was really good but also not afraid to sound a little rough around the edges," like Mott the Hoople guitarists Mick Ralphs and Pete Overend Watts.

Chelsea Graveyard, Stanstock Festival 2016

We told Keith that was our friends' band, Chelsea Graveyard. (Are your ears ringing, David Wilcox, Mike Milstein, and Henry Lingenfelder? You have a new fan!) Technically, their full name is Chelsea Graveyard and the Screams at Midnight - and they damn well came close to literally living up to their name, but the festival organizers had them go on at 11:15 instead of Midnight. (Close enough!)

I mentioned how good their drummer, Mighty J,  was and Keith agreed. "He was really solid, played to the songs and didn't overplay anything like a lot of drummers do. Really solid, strong drummer."

The Mighty J
We told Keith that if he really liked Chelsea Graveyard, he should check the schedule next door at The Raven Inn, where the band have already played twice before.





And there you have it, skin pounders! Get over to Keith Larsen's Mid-Atlantic Drum for all your percussive needs or just to shoot the shit with a guy who loves music! And to think, we'd never know he existed if not for our annoying neighbor's cacophonous home repairs at dinnertime!

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Big Star Light, Big Star Bright

September 14, 2016, 12:11 pm
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Still the #1 Record in Radio City

On Saturday night, Amy and I went to see "Bopp Does Big Star," at WTMD's Olympic Studio in Towson.

"Bopp Does Big Star"


Andy Bopp and his band - which included guitarist Warren Boes (Almighty Senators), Nick Bertling (Bertling Noise Laboratories), and a bassist (Eric?) who read "Big Star for Dummies" in between songs - played all the songs from Big Star's 1972 debut album #1 Record as part of a fundraiser for the radio station that used to be called WCVT back in my college days. (WCVT lasted until the advent of the '90s, which is around the last time I saw Andy Bopp play - back when he fronted a band called Love Nut, who were briefly on Joe Goldsborough's Merkin Records label). 


"Bopp Does Big Star" at WTMD's Olympic Studio

Primary Source for Big Star fans


The in-studio album-length performance was broadcast live over WTMD (89.7 FM, as if you didn't know), with an intro and outro courtesy of local music show announcer Sam Sessa. It was a great idea for a great record - and here's hoping the tradition continues next year with Bopp's boys perhaps performing the second Big Star album, the post-Chris Bell follow-up Radio City (1973). On this night, they actually did play a few nuggets from Radio City ("September Gurls" and maybe "Back of a Car"?), as well as "Thank You, Friends" from Big Star's Third: Sister Lovers, Chris Bell's post-Big Star single "I Am the Cosmos" and Alex Chilton's pre-Big Star Box Tops hit "The Letter."

All the in-the-know, cool kids were there: Jim Maher, Gayle and Mike Maxwell, Cindy France and Greg Dohler, Chris Hartlove (with his son Wynn), Janet Little Jeffers, Joe Goldsborough, Susan Selway, and so on and so forth. Many more would have posted if not for the Stanstock Festival going on at the same time across town in Parkville.

I was really looking forward to this show because, well, Big Star is one of those bands - like the Beatles, like Buzzcocks, like the Who - that comes around once in a lifetime and is a game-changer.

Straight Outta Memphis: Big Star

"I never travel far without a little Big Star" as Paul Westerberg sang in The Replacements' homage, "Alex Chilton."

Big Star was clearly influenced by the Beatles and other British Invasion bands, and would go onto influence countless others. Indeed, they came Straight Outta Memphis to critical acclaim but commercial failure and relative obscurity - until rediscovered in the '80s and '90s by fellow troubadors (R.E.M., Replacements, Bangles, Game Theory, Wilco, Matthew Sweet, Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Gin Blossoms, Andy Bopp, et. al) and rock cognoscenti alike. Hopefully, Big Star will continue to influence future generations of musicians.

And on this night, Bopp's popsters did a most admirable job of showing the audience what all the fuss was about.

"They nailed it!" enthused Jack Nicholson clone Mike Maxwell.

"Well played sirs, well played!" Andy Bopp applauds his band

Indeed, there were only a few glitches along the way, which is understandable given that the record was a true studio production and not at all easy to play live.

"Oh, no, no; definitely a studio record," laughed Andy Bopp when Sam Sessa asked if it was meant to be played live. "All those crazy chords!" Warren Boes exclaimed with added emphasis.

"The Ballad of El Goodo" was slightly out of tune and during a later number a speaker started to act up, but other than that it was a masterful display, especially during a post-broadcast rendition of "September Gurls" from the Radio City songbook. On the record, Alex Chilton got his layered guitar sound on the song by playing a Fender "mando-guitar" on the breathtaking solo. (This hybrid between a mandolin and a guitar replicates the top four string pairs of a 12-string guitar capoed at the 12th fret, raising an entire octave above a standard tuned guitar. Chilton got his from his former Box Tops bandmate John Evans, and rumor has it George Harrison had one that he used on "Words of Love.")

The twin guitar interplay between Boes (lead) and Bopp on the solo was extraordinary, given that they had no mando-guitar (few do) to try and replicate this classic solo.

Boes & Bopp do Big Star


Listening to Bopp and co. playing those beautifully melodic, alternately poignant and rocking songs, made me think back to college days...back when I first heard, and fell in love, with the cult of Big Star. The Digital Age has evened the playing field and made virtually everything available, but back in the '70s, well, even then #1 Record was hard to come by. And Radio City. And all Big Star, for that matter.

But during my undergrad daze at Towson State University (circa 1975-1980), my friend Bernie Ozol had the vinyl platters of both #1 Record and Radio City and made me a cassette tape of them. Like Dylan turning the Beatles on to marijuana, Bernie Ozol was the Gateway Drug to my Power Pop Enlightenment.

Bernie Ozol: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mentor (painting by Stuart Stein)

Bernie also made me a tape of the also-hard-to-to-find Tommy Keene LP, Strange Alliance (I think it helped that Bernie was Tommy's roommate at the University of Maryland, College Park, during Keene's brief tenure as a Terrapin!). Oh, and Bernie also turned me on to NRBQ, specifically a mixtape of the great NRBQ at Yankee Stadium album, plus some bonus NRBQ hits.

For these three random acts of rock 'n' roll kindness, I will always be in The Bern's debt. Bernie's tape got me through the digital dearth of Big Star until the late '80s, when Big Star's 3rd: Sister Lovers finally surfaced on CD thanks to PVC Records circa 1985. I have the second PVC edition from 1987, which added "Downs" and "Dream Lover" to the original version. Rykodisc later released its remastered, corrected-running-order version of 3rd, called Sister Lovers, in 1992, but I never upgraded - even though they added bonus tracks like "Nature Boy,""Till the End of the Day," and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On."

Big Star - "#1 Record" LP (Ardent Records, 1972)


Big Star - "Radio City" LP with cover by William Eggleston (Ardent Records, 1974)

"Big Star's 3rd: Sister Lovers" CD (PVC Records, 1985, 1987)


And it wasn't until 1990 that the #1 Record/Radio City double-CD came out, first on Ace and then on Stax (Ardent)/Fantasy in 1992. (I think my copy is that '92 Stax/Fantasy release.) What a bargain! What a release, every bit as significant to me as Apple releasing the Mac in 1984! (Of course, now you can buy a used copy for under $3 on Amazon...times change!)

Big Star - "#1/Radio City" CD (Stax/Fantasy, 1992)

To lovers of melodic pop (or "Power Pop," if you insist - though most bands labeled by this descriptor, like Tommy Keene, don't care for it), these two albums were like the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Scriptures all rolled together. They saw us through times both high and low, and flavored many a customized mixtape over the years.

Listen to Big Star's #1 Record in its entirety:


Listen to Big Star's Radio City in its entirety:



Then came the delightful downer mess that is Third/Sister Lovers. But that's another story for another day, a melancholy masterpiece on par with Lou Reed's Berlin that I and countless rock critics adore. Some other time. For now I am basking in the afterglow of Pure Bopp for Big Star People.

Related Links:
Album Covers Referencing Big Star's "Radio City"


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Radio Days at WJHU

September 30, 2016, 11:37 am
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The Lo-fi Era of WJHU (88.1 FM), 1979-1983





The best little 10-watt station ever?
Fans of WYPR ("Your NPR News Station") are familiar with its home at 88.1 on the FM band. But way before WYPR and its professional staff took over its bandwidth in 2002, 88.1 FM was the home of Johns Hopkins University's student- and community volunteer-run WJHU radio station. I should know. I was one of the countless "volunteers" - many of whom were Towson State radio rejects - who, though not affiliated in any way with the University, got an FCC third-class operator's license so that we could be disc jockeys on what was then a 10-watt station. I emphasis the lo-fi power because years later I worked with a woman, Jan Janes, whose husband had a show on WJHU and he loved the fact that he called his jazz show "The Voice of America" - on a station that couldn't be heard outside a 5-mile radius!


WJHU 830 AM: "Power Radio" Guide from 1960s


WJHU 88.1 FM: Programming Guide from the 1980s

The Low Spark of Lo-Fi Boys

WJHU had existed on AM radio for decades (0.25 watts at 830 on the AM dial), but it wasn't until 1979 that it became licensed as a 10-watt FM community radio station, one whose signal extended off campus. A non-student was hired to oversee the station full-time and ensure compliance with FCC rules and university expectations. (Irene Vanger?) The station operated twenty-four hours a day, featuring a mixed format of jazz in the early morning, classical during the day, and rock and specialty programming at night - predominantly New Wave and progressive NAR ("Not Available Radio") - along with sports (during the lacrosse and football seasons) and short news programming. (Of the latter genre, I recall one night the news guy, whose name I can't remember, came in drunk to do his thing. Apparently, he fell asleep, face down on the record player, his face spinning round and round for who knows how long a period of "dead air" until the DJ from the next shift came in the next morning.)

FCC radio operator's permit

Getting a radio operator's license back then meant taking a test that taught you how to check a bunch of knobs and sending in a check to the FCC. Oh, and learning the art of cueing up records and periodically speaking into the microphone without over-modulating. Jocks also were taught how to jam clunky "promo-carts" (8-track cartridges with pre-recorded public service ads and station IDs - I remember favoring the one that had David Byrne doing a station ID in that awkward, low-key way of his) into a slot every half-hour or so - it was very important to identify the station ("You're listening to WJHU, 88.1 FM, Baltimore") in between songs. I also learned that when you wanted a smoke break or needed to use the bathroom, you spontaneously announced, "And now it's time for 'Deep Cuts' as we treat you to an entire Album Side!" Programming is made of such impromptu decisions!

A WJHU DJ cues up a record

"And now it's time for 'Deep Cuts' album sides!"


My Brilliant Career, or: Hang the DJ!

I believe it was my friend and City Paper colleague Michael Yockel who got me in at WJHU, where he already had a great '60s retro-rock program called "Vintage Vinyl" on Monday nights at 7 p.m. Yockel's show was a goldmine for hearing "regressive rock"Nuggets, Garage, British Invasion, and what later came to be known as "Freakbeat." It rocked. I still recall a great set in which he played the Turtles, Beau Brummels, and early Rolling Stones, ending with Dylan's "Desolation Row." It has stayed in my otherwise overdrawn Memory Bank.

Michael Yockel hosted "Vintage Vinyl"

Initially, I met with Tom Paul, an affable fellow and music lover who was in charge of assigning programming slots. I don't know what his exact title was (or even if he was paid), but I assumed he was the Program Manager in charge of vetting the community volunteers. (I heard later that he became a cop.)

Tom Paul in the WJHU office

My then-girlfriend (later wife) Katie "Katatonic" Glancy (we were former members of Thee Katatonix with free time on our hands, as we had not yet joined The Boatniks) and I soon had a late-night Punk/New Wave show called "We Am a DJ" (our theme song was David Bowie's "I Am a DJ"), but, after Katie lost interest, I soldiered on with another eclectic rock show called "Make Believe Ballroom" (yes, the theme was Glen Miller's song of the same name). Later I recall renaming my show "Tubas in the Moonlight," after the Bonzo Dog Band song. This would have been around 1981 ("We Am a DJ") and 1982 ("Make Believe Ballroom,""Tubas in the Moonlight").

I remember two highlights in my short-lived amateur career at WJHU. One was airing a "mashup" (before it was even a term!) of a Mr. Magoo children's record (featuring dialogue from the cartoon series The Mr. Magoo Show) played over the Simple Minds's instrumental song "Theme for Great Cities." It sounded great, and I recall getting a phone call at the station from someone who wanted to know where he could buy it! The caller was devastated when I told him it was a creation of two turntables and a microphone.

This was my beloved Magoo soundtracks album (Wonderland Records, 1975)

Music Maestro, Please!: Simple Minds's "Theme for Great Cities" B-side (1981)


The other highlight was the night Katie and I interviewed and played music by the late-great local band Boy Meets Girl (guitarists Ceil Strakna and Tom McNickle, bassist Ira Kessler, and drummer Vicki Ruth - check out their Facebook page!). The interview was a Comedy of Errors as I was unable to get the intercom working between the radio booth (where I was) and the interview room on the other side of the window (where the band was). I kept having to talk, then switch off to hear them, then back again. High jinks ensued. But at least their demo tape got played.

Boy Meets Girl: Tom, Ceil, Vicki and Ira

BMG were our favorite local band and great friends, to boot. Their garage pop music was phenomenal, as the band was blessed with two outstanding songwriters, Tom McNickle penning classics like "You Better Look Both Ways (Before You Cross the Street To My Love)" and Ceil coming up with the pop-perfect "I'm the Girl With the X-Ray Vision" ("I can see right through your lies"). And they both had a knack for timeless cover material, like Johnny Cash's "Jackson." (Tom Boynton later replaced Tom McNickle on lead guitar and bassist Ira Kessler went on to join the band Elements of Design with Joe Manfre, Rose Wampler and Julie Smith.) Check out some vintage BMG songs at ReverbNation.com.


Boy Meets Girl, Version 1.0

Sadly, a UK band also called "Boy Meets Girl" (a duo consisting of keyboardist and vocalist George Merrill and singer Shannon Rubicam) appropriated the name from across the pond in the mid-80s; these pretenders to the throne are best known for writing two number one hits for Whitney Houston: "How Will I Know" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)."

I wasn't a very good DJ - for one thing, I hated talking! - but I learned the knack of doing good segues (fading records in and out), and I loved exploring the WJHU Record Library. I found obscure Punk and New Wave records there (this was the early '80s, after all, when this stuff was relatively new) that to this day are still hard-to-find. One was a 12-inch by the Scottish band Altered Images that featured Clare Grogan's delightfully chirpy cover of Marc Bolan's "Jeepster" (for decades it was unavailable on CD, until I finally found it!). Sometimes I think I was the only person who loved this group; many found Clare Grogan's baby-talk vocals grating, but I had adored her ever since seeing her film debut in Bill Forsythe's Gregory's Girl (1981).

Altered Images "Happy Birthday" 12-inch featuring "Jeepster" B-side (Epic, 1981)

Polecats EP featuring "Jeepster" (Mercury, 1981)


The library also had a cool rockabilly take on "Jeepster" from an 1981 EP by The Polecats (produced, curiously enough by Tony Visconti - who produced the original T. Rex "Jeepster"!) Another fave was the wonderfully named Youth in Asia (I played their "Danny Kaye" song a lot), an anarcho-punk band from London. I also recall playing Verna Lindt's obscure Swinging '60s espionage soundtrack homage "Attention Stockholm" quite a bit. (When it was released in May 1981, it was credited with launching the Retro-Lounge movement in the UK and Europe. Lindt was a Swedish translation student discovered by British rock producer Tot Taylor, who wanted to make a record "like a Hitchcock theme with a rock and roll beat." I think they succeeded!)

Verna Lindt's "Attention Stockholm" 7-inch (The Compact Organisation, 1981)



Youth in Asia's "Birds with Ears" LP (Attrix, 1981)

And Young Marble Giants were a revelation to me (good luck finding this Welsh group's debut album!) And I discovered I loved XTC's back catalog thanks to George Yatchinson and his New Wave show "This Is Pop."

Unfortunately, the library collection started to disappear over the years. I'm pretty sure one of the later DJs was pilfering choice vinyl. Whenever I was in a used record store and spotted an album with the WJHU imprint on it, I wondered if it was one of his thefts.

"I tried so hard to keep that collection together," says Barry Caplan, a Hopkins alumni who worked at the station during this era. "At least as best I could at 20 years old. I wanted Eisenhower library to have it."

I recently found a tape from one of my shows from June 1982, and it reminded me of the eclectic kind of music that was the night shift format at WJHU. Novelty tunes ("The Ballad of Lady Di," excerpts from the "Eraserhead" soundtrack, Divine singing "Born To Be Cheap" and "The Name Game") alternated with current Punk and New Wave faves (The Cure, Lene Lovitch, Buzzcocks, Wayne County, B-52's, Flock of Seagulls, Richard Hell).

Divine's "Born To Be Cheap" b/w "The Name Game" (Wax Trax! Records, 1981)

But I digress...enough about me! Our story continues...

WJHU still exists today, but only as an internet radio station (www.wjhuradio.org) operating out of McCoy Hall, complete with its own YouTube ad:

Digital Radio: www.wjhuradio.org




Radio Silence

At the request of students, the Hopkins administration applied for a power boost to protect the station's frequency when the FCC deregulated low-watt FM stations in the 1980s. In 1982, the FCC approved the university's application for a 25,000-watt license, which would extend WJHU's reach throughout the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. areas. At the time, this was the largest radio station increase in history. But in the spring of 1983, the station was forced off the air due to the renovation of the building where the studio was stationed: Alumni Memorial Residence (AMR) II. This building was right behind the tennis courts that line the campus just off Charles Street.

JHU's AMR II Building (#3): Home of WJHU radio station

AMR II Today: Alas, we had no groupies waiting for us outside the studios back in the day!

Razed on the Radio

In November 1984, students constructed make-shift studios in AMR II. Students had been reassured by University officials that the new high-power station would continue to be student- and community-run. But by the time the station returned to the air in February of 1985, the University hired a professional general manager and announced the creation of a new $1 million-dollar professional radio station on North Charles Street. The format shifted towards classical and talk radio. WJHU tried to take on WBJC in a battle for classical music lovers, but admitted defeat by 1995 as it moved toward talk and news radio. The University sold the station to Your Public Radio Corp., the organization that runs WYPR, in 2002. As JHU alumni Mark G. Margolis (Arts & Sciences, 1985) complained in a letter to the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, "Students never had the opportunity to run the high-power station. Student radio remained dead until it was resurrected by WHAT/WHRS."

Margolis went on to attribute WJHU's transition from a student-run station to a professional operation to economics. "The University had been subsidizing the operation, and decided they weren't getting a return on their investment."

Tentatively: an Inconvenience


My Name Is: tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE

His was not the only voice of contention. During WJHU's student-run days in the early 1980s, artist-provocateur tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE (aka "Michael Tolson) had several run-ins with the University over his radio collaborations with WJHU DJs Ron Cummings (aka "RAN from NAR," host of "A Glow in the Dark") and Steve Stec ("Pop Tones"). tENT (it's too tiring to type his full name) has uploaded all of his "endeavors in radio" to the Internet Archive (https://archive.org), where they are labeled "Radio (+ year)," starting at 1979. In "Radio 1983," tENT talked about WJHU in the 1980s: 
At the time, JHU was a wonderful community station. It was only something like one watt so it didn't broadcast very far. It wasn't long before ONE paid employee was brought in from out-of-state & all the community DJs were let go. The humorless DJ stayed on & continued on to JHU's replacement after the station was done away with altogether. He's been a jazz DJ for decades now. I wonder how many people realize what a sell-out he really is. 
Ouch! I'm pretty sure tENT was referring to Andy Bienstock, who still works at WYPR, where he is a programming director and on-air personality. I always liked Andy. Besides hosting a great jazz show, Andy is, like me, a Sinatraphile, and I learned a lot from listening to his Sinatra shows.

tENT found a fellow rebel radio spirit in Ron Cummings. "Ron Cummings was probably the most innovative of the radio people that I ever collaborated with. We shared a preference for expanding what could be done on the radio into territories most people would've never thought of or considered. Ron would run reel-to-reel tape loops in the studio by having them stretching over various objects like a spider-web in the room. He had an extremely sardonic sense of humor."

Pirate Radio

tENT also talked at length in "Radio 1983" about his collaborations with WJHU DJ Steve Stec (who is now a Baltimore lawyer):

I'd been invited by WJHU DJ Steve Stec (see the "Radio 1979" notes) to do a piece for his "Pop Tones" radio program & an article entitled "'Tentatively' speaking, 'mad scientist' takes to the radio" appeared in the Baltimore Sun the morning of the day of the program. 
The piece I made for the show was called "PAUSE FOR (Radio Play Only)"& consisted of just that: station IDs from whatever radio stations I could receive in my apartment in South BalTimOre separated by 'silence'. The idea was that listeners would see the newspaper publicity, try to tune into the program & only hear static & station IDs from other stations. They would then think that they'd tuned into the wrong station & try to find the right one. Their unintentional participation in the program's content, their tuning of the radios, would then become the actual content of the program. It was to be my way of tricking them into participating by using their radio as an instrument. 
When I arrived at the station, a very irate station manager accosted me & Steve. The article had been read by JHU personnel & they were alarmed as to what I might do. I had deliberately left my plans mysterious in my interview for the article. When I was asked by reporter Robert M. Green "Is it obscene" I replied to the effect of "Well, if it's obscene, it's obscene in the way radio is always obscene" by which I meant that one could say that the commercialism of radio is obscene. I surreptitiously recorded my interaction with Steve & the station manager - who demanded to have the tape so that he & a panel of concerned JHU censors could listen to it. They were completely confused by what they heard & were initially unconvinced that this was my 'real' tape. I think what they expected was something like 'Kill the Pigs!' - something rather unlikely to be coming from me. 
After listening to the tape, the station's lawyer was called & he vetoed the playing of it. Steve was then suspended from the station for 2 weeks for inviting me on without asking for permission from the station administration 1st. Of course, it was NOT station policy that such permission was required & guests came on all the time without it. In fact, I doubt that ANYONE had ever been required to ask for permission before. This 'rule' was made up specifically to exclude me. Track 2 here is of that clandestine recording & Track 3 is of the actual "PAUSE FOR (Radio Play Only)" program. While the piece was prevented from airing on its intended premier date, a version of it that included an excerpt from the secret tape was published by banned Productions in LA & THAT version DID eventually receive airplay somewhere. 


Steve Stec

tENT was also friends with an unnamed female DJ, who joined his radio experiments with Ron Cummings:

Around this time, I was lovers with one JHU DJ & became friends with another one: Ron Cummings (aka RAN of NAR). RAN & I had similar interest in stretching the boundaries of what people would listen to. It was probably sometime in July that I proposed to my lover & to RAN that we drive from WJHU (88.1FM) to the radio station of the University of Maryland, WMUC (88.1FM), a drive of approximately 45 minutes away, & that we keep the car's radio on 88.1 & record whatever was played on the radio between the 2 stations. I'd originally wanted to do this as a cross country trip. The idea was to have the continuity of the frequency with the discontinuity of whatever radio stations could be picked up on it on the journey. 
On the initial drive down either the radio got slightly detuned &/or we got slightly lost so the end station of the trip was WAMU instead of WMUC. We then went to MUC where we explained our project to the DJ on the air at the time & turned around to come back. Track 3 begins with his allusions to us.
By the end of July, RAN proposed that he present a NINE HOUR program of my material. This was extraordinary of him & hadn't happened before or happened since. More or less all of my recordings of the time were extremely different from what most people expected from 'music' - which was why RAN liked them. RAN went to great lengths to make this program even more unusual by making special cartridges from the TESTES-3 material (see "Radio 1979") & by processing the other tapes he played. The excerpt here (broken into Tracks 6 & 7) is from 2:40 to 4:15AM & has material from a "Lacquerland" performance (a performance by myself & my collaborator Herr Brain) while getting high from brushing lacquer on at our hard-wood floor finisher job. The other piece presented is realizations of my 1976 "dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada". 
Ron/RAN also collaborated with tENT on his infamous "Poop & Pee Dog Copyright Violation" performance in a Baltimore railroad tunnel (see my post "His Name Is Not Legend" for details). tENT's arrest and subsequent international notoriety resulting from this event led to the end of his affiliation with the radio station.

Tunnel Vision: the "Poop & Pee Dog Copyright Violation" performance

RAN was my collaborator on that. I was a member of JHU at the time. RAN & others at the station were amused by the idiocy of the 'news''reportage'& put a foto of me performing the 'ceremony' on some copies of JHU's program schedule. Track 8 is one of RAN's shows done at the time in which he plays a recording that he'd done with the dead dogs that I'd found in the tunnel - amongst other things. Shortly thereafter, I was "involuntarily quit" from the radio station at the instigation of one of the more humorless DJs. 


I Am a DJ: I Am What I Play

There were so many cool DJs at WJHU, and so many great, eclectic music shows. Some of my favorites from this period include: Sally Gillespie ("CPL-593H"), Mark Harp ("The World According To Harp"), Michael Yockel ("Vintage Vinyl"), Tom Paul ("This Space Available"), Ron Misey ("Amalgam"), Barry Caplan ("Pickled Hearing"), John Lorch ("Beans on Toast"), Bernie Ozol ("59 Words"), George Yatchinson ("This Is Pop?"), Chuck Stevens ("Bronze Nurse"), Bill Stevenson, Marc Rosen (host of "Down the Tubes" and "Radioactivity," and DJ brother of videographer Ed Rosen, aka "Lizard") and Andy Bienstock.


Sally Gillespie was one of the few female jocks (other than Katie Glancy) I remember at the station. (Though looking at an old program guide, there were quite a few: Carol Burris, Daphne Palmer, Janet Sanford, Michelle Weiss.) She loved Bowie and Bauhaus and was a Ziggy Stardust lookalike with her natural red hair, which was always worn short and closely cropped. I think all the boys there had a crush on her because she was, well, Bowie-cool and hip.

Sally Gillespie

By day she worked at Record & Tape Collector, but at night (Tuesdays?) she hosted "CPL-593H" (Bryan Ferry's automobile license plate number, referenced in the chorus of the Roxy Music song "Re-Make/Re-Model"), which the WJHU program guide described thusly: "Disengage yourself from all flowerpots immersed in hyperbole. New Wave 2 punk. Can you handle it?"


Sally G. and Two Men Who Fell to Earth outside Record & Tape Collector

Sally's later married name was Muscalli, which begat her Facebook handle of "Muscalli Sally." Sadly, Sally passed away after a long fight with cancer in July 2014. But while she lived, she never lost her love for rock 'n' roll.

In Memory of Muscalli Sally


Mark Harp (aka "Harpo" and "The King of Peru," real name of Mark Linthicum) was another WJHU DJ and he liked Sally, too, and not just because they were both redheads. Mark and Sally worked together at the Record & Tape Collector store on Baltimore Street, as did Harpo's bandmate, singer Bil Dawson (Null Set, Cabal). Mark later sampled Sally's voice (saying "I like it...Alright!") on his song "Under the House," which appeared on his 1999 CD Mark Harp's Big Thing: Insane! (Alas, another similarity Mark shared with Sally was a tragically shortened life; he passed away on Christmas Eve, 2004.)



Mark's late-night show, "The World According To Harp," was always entertaining, reflecting his oddball sense of humor as well as his devoted enthusiasm for all the records he was spinning from the record library and from his personal collection. In 2007, former WJHU DJ Bill Barnett recalled Mark's influence in his "King of Peru" post on "Bull Veneer's Music Blog":

"I met Mark when I was 17, a freshman in college. The campus radio station, WJHU, had a marvelously liberal policy regarding on-air staff: you didn't have to be a student, or even affiliated with the university at all! Mark was a so-called "community member" of the radio station. I got to know him when I graduated from the 3-6 AM timeslot into 1-3 AM; he came on after me. He scared me a bit at first, because he was a big, ugly guy. But he was incredibly friendly and his enthusiasm for music was unbounded. Every week he brought a mind-blowing case of records into the studio with him, and I would often stick around for an hour or two just to hear them, and what he did with them. Mark's ecumenical taste in music opened my eyes to so much that I had ignored until then, so he is probably more responsible than anyone else for broadening my own musical world."
(I like that line abount sticking around to hear Mark's broadcast - this was way before the Internet, when you had to listen to or tape shows as they aired. There was no Napster, no iTunes, no Cloud, no nothing but "Radio Radio"!)

Mark was also a musician in countless bands (Null Set, Casio Cowboys, et al) and would often play tapes of whatever crazy sounds he and his friends, especially Casio Cowboy cohort Chris Dennstaedt, were churning out at the moment. Mark and Chris also would play live in the studio, bringing in their Casio keyboards to perform (and record live) such bits as "Postcard From Jesus," in which the two pretended to be Christian radio evangelists.

Mark Harp and Chris Dennstaedt

One of Mark's more famous broadcasts was "Mr. Pooper," wherein Dennstaedt ran down to the WJHU bathroom with a microphone and took a dump - that Mark broadcast live over the radio. (Chris washed his hands and cleaned his toilet seat, so at least he exercised good hygiene, if not good taste.) And like a good DJ, Mark made sure he announced the station's ID! Alas, the station didn't appreciate the stunt, and it got Mark kicked off the air! (Perhaps it was inevitable; Mark was also good friends with tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE and collaborated with tENT on various audio pranks and experiments - but that's a story for another day!)




My wife Amy Linthicum, who was then dating Mark (they later married), was an Elvis Costello fanatic and recalls that Mark once did an all-Elvis show in 1983. But unless Mark played her taped broadcasts, she rarely stayed up for his program, which was usually in the wee small hours of the morning. We recently dug out one of his "World According To Harp" tapes and were amazed at the sophistication of Mark's audio manipulations - even back then he was making tape loops and playing around with sampling (repeating beats and sound bites from ABC and Yaz, two of his then-favorite bands), techniques he would refine further as digital technology became available in the 1990s. Just as he understood and embraced the power and possibilities of the Internet in the next decade (virtually all of his recordings are available online at 24 Hours with Mark Harp), Mark Harp got the max out of radio's potential during his WJHU years. As he once famously said, "What good is all of this music if no one hears it? Give it away!" (Take that, iTunes!)

Mark Harp: "What good is all this music if no one hears it?" (Photo by Sam Holden)

Mark was hardly the lone musician with a radio show at WJHU. Bernie Ozol was a bass player with The Rockheads (formerly "The Silver Rockheads," a nod to the original "Silver" Beatles) and, later, Big As a House, The Retrievers and the DelMarVas.

And then there was Chuck Stevens (aka "Chuck Goober") who, along with Bob Greenberg (aka "Blind Meat Tasty" and "Bobo Golem Bobogolem Soylent-Greenberg") made up the demented duo The Raisinets. Chuck hosted a show called "The Bronze Nurse," which the WJHU program guide called "The Slits meet the Art Ensemble of Chicago in a dark alley. Late lunch in a hospital torture device."

Chuck Stevens and Bob Greenberg of The Raisnets

The Raisinets were good friends of Katie Glancy. At the time, her friend Eleanor Ramsey was dating Chuck Stevens and our mutual Towson State friend Mindi Siegel was dating Bob Greenberg. (And Katie's friend Julie was dating John Flansburgh, who went on to form They Might Be Giants with John Linnell in 1982.) (I know: Smalltimore!) They released one five-song EP, "More Fun To Play Than Listen To" (Chocolate-Covered Muse Inc., 1979), which the reviewers at Hyped2Death (www.hyped2death.com), who included it in their list of the "Top 100 DIY Records" (later reprinted in Ugly Things magazine #19), described as follows: "Fantastic record-collector hippie-punk a la Gizmos/Afrika Korps/Half Japanese. Primitive guitar duets complete with questionable guitar duets complete with questionable production values and mucho muchacho helpings of pure static. Great post-arrest pre-OD lyrics making fun of Sid too." (The latter a reference to the song "My Friend Sid.")

Raisnets - "More Fun To Play Than Listen To" (Chocolate-Covered Muse Inc., 1979)

It was also more fun to play "More Fun To Play" on the radio, and it sure got its share of airplay on WJHU. I was partial to "Mister Sister," but fangirl Kyle Powers recalled the staying power of "What Man.""When I was the coolest eldest sibling, one of our few prized possessions was the Raisinets's 'What Man' 45. All vied for my favor to access it. Made a permanent good impression on the Powers family!"

:30 Seconds Over D.C. (Limp Records, 1978)


The Raisinets also had their song "Stay Limp" appear on :30 Seconds Over D.C., a 1978 Limp Records compilation of D.C. and Baltimore Bands. "Stay Limp" was sort of an answer song - and record label shout-out - to Devo's "Be Stiff" single on Stiff Records. It made for an irresistible back-to-back segue on radio, one I certainly couldn't resist.

Devo - "Be Stiff" 45 (Stiff Records, 1978)

I always wondered what happened to the What Man, Chuck Stevens. He seems to have disappeared online, whereas his chocolate-covered cohort Bob Greenberg is all over the Internets (CD Baby, Reverb Nation, Funny or Die, Etsy), where he has rebranded himself Bobo Golem Bobogolem Soylent-Greenberg and lists himself as a "La$ Vega$ $treet Performer."

Others have disappeared, permanently. Besides the tragically too-soon passings of Sally Gillespie and Mark Harp, the past year saw WJHU lose its beloved office manager.

Goodnight, Irene

Irene Vanger was the only paid employee at WJHU at this time. Irene passed away recently (June 2016), and Barry Caplan wrote a touching remembrance of her on her online obit page:

Before becoming the school's only paid employee at WJHU, Irene spent time working at WBAL radio. I'm not sure how she came to WJHU from there, but it was the ideal job for her and she was the ideal person for the job.  
Not only was she unflappable, but she understood perfectly how to allow each of us just the right amount of space to grow, spread our wings and fly from the nest. How far and wide we have all gone on that foundation is a, tribute to her. 
After WJHU was shut down, Irene worked at the then-new Instructional TV unit at Hopkins. There were students there, but it wasn't the same she once told me. It was a promotion for her, but students weren't really in charge of anything and she missed that aspect of her work a lot. Her work became a job. WJHU was never a job, it was a labor of love that she was paid for. 
I think we are all older now than Irene was at WJHU. For an unfairly long time, fate dealt Irene a very difficult blow, and I hope that her memories at the radio station, her role in shaping all of us, a little, or a lot, that she made for herself were hers to keep and comfort her.


Well said, Barry. I think you spoke for us all with those sentiments. (Well, maybe not tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE.)


And that's all I've got for reminiscences. I welcome feedback - and, no doubt, corrections to my faulty recollections -from those who remember the heydays of WJHU in the 1980s.

***

A Partial Pictorial Who's Who of WJHU DJs:

Michael Yockel hosted "Vintage Vinyl" on WJHU
Bernie Ozol hosted "59 Words" on WJHU

Barry Caplan, guardian of the record library

The debonaire jazz jock Andy Bienstock


Bill Barnett

John Lorch hosted "Beans On Toast" on WJHU

Rod Misey of WJHU, WCVT and now WVUD

Mark Harp (aka "Harpo," Mark Linthicum)

***

The WJHU Program Guide, circa early 1980s (created by Barry Caplan):








↧

My Fave WJHU Playlists

October 5, 2016, 1:59 pm
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These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Back in the early 1980s, I was a "volunteer" disc jockey at the 10-watt, student- and community volunteer-staffed Johns Hopkins University radio station, WJHU (88.1 FM). (See my post "Radio Days at WJHU" for details about WJHU in the '80s.)


WJHU had platters that mattered!

WJHU had a great record library, especially when it came to New Wave and Punk titles - remember, the DIY aesthetic of Punk saw a resurgence in The Single and the subsequent New Wave/Post-Punk era that followed was the heyday of the 12-inch "extended single" (often including alternate remixes and non-LP bonus tracks).

WJHU's state-of-the-art record library

This period, which reached its zenith from 1976-1982, offered many an unknown band the chance to gain exposure and get played on the radio. Some were obscure artists that only released one or two singles on small indie or regional labels, but regardless of who they were or where they were from, they were filed right alongside the big names and the big labels in college radio station record libraries. To paraphrase David Bowie, they could be heroes, if only for one day - and if only for one DJ's playlist.

WJHU "Make Believe Ballroom" setlist from May 25, 1982

I recently unearthed some cassette tape recordings of my early '80s WJHU broadcasts, and it rekindled memories of the songs and artists I liked during that period. I had forgotten many of them (as did the rest of the world, apparently.) Following are some of the many great "Platters That Matter" that I discovered at WJHU and played on my various radio shows ("We Am a DJ,""Make Believe Ballroom,""Tubas in the Moonlight") during my brief airways stint from 1981-1983 (?). A few faves - like the Dickies, Wayne County, and Go-Gos singles - came from my home record collection.

Where It's At: Two turntables and a microphone


*** WJHU Platters That Mattered ***

FAYE LOVESICK - "Party Time" b/w "Safety Pins" 7-inch (RCA, 1980)
Songs played: "Party Time"

Faye Lovesick was actually the nom-de-platter of Dutch composer-musician (theremin, musical saw!)-singer Fay Lovsky (real name: Luyendijk). I don't know much about her beyond that, but I loved discovering Euro Pop during this period, and "Party Time" did not disappoint.


Faye Lovesick - "Party Time"

Listen to Fay sing "Party Time."



So what's Fay been up to recently? Apparently, she's penned an anti-Trump song!



Here's the chorus, translated from the Dutch: "How dare you! Bring your nation down. How very very dare you. You irresponsible clown!"

As a Queen fan, Fay was also upset that Trump uses the song "We Are the Champions" during his presidential campaign. "Freddy Mercury cannot defend himself against that any more," Fay told the Dutch media. "To hear such a song in the context of Trump is terrible. It's scary how abuse is made of that music..." Obviously, she is not a fan of Grand Old Party Time!

***

COMATEENS - "Late Night" 3-song 12-inch EP (Call Me Records, 1981)
Songs played: "Munsters Theme" and "Nightmare"

I really liked the synth-friendly Comateens, whose act I caught at the Marble Bar sometime in the early '80s, probably at the big Polyrock-Comateens-Food For Worms show on June 12, 1982.

Marble Bar calendar: June 12, 1982

Formed in NYC in 1980, they played what the Lost Bands of the New Wave Era blog called "bouncy dance rock rooted in chintzy '60s Farfisa organ pop and spooky horror-movie soundtrack music." I would have heard either this EP or their full-length album on Cachelot Records around 1981.


Comateens EP - "Late Night City/Munsters Theme/Nightmare" (Call Me Records, 1981)

Listen to the Comateens play "The Munsters Theme."



***

GO-GOs - "Our Lips Are Sealed" b/w "Surfing and Spying" 7-inch (IRS, 1981)
Songs played: "Surfing and Spying" B-side

I liked (and still like) surf music, and I like non-LP B-sides. Charlotte Caffey's instrumental "Surfing and Spying," in which the only words and "Surf! Spy!" fits both bills - plus it had the added bonus of being the soundtrack to an imaginary beach espionage movie!

Go-Gos - "Our Lips Are Sealed" b/w "Surfing and Spying" 7-inch (IRS, 1981)

Listen to "Surfing and Spying."



***

VERNA LINDT - "Attention Stockholm" 7-inch
Songs played: "Attention Stockholm"

Verna Lindt - "Attention Stockholm"

Listen to Verna Lindt sing "Attention Stockholm."


When released in May 1981, Verna Lindt's Swinging '60s espionage soundtrack homage "Attention Stockholm" was credited with launching the Retro-Lounge movement in the UK and Europe. Lindt was a Swedish translation student discovering by British rock producer Tot Taylor, who wanted to make a record "like a Hitchcock theme with a rock and roll beat." How fitting, then, that these strangers met on a train! Regardless, I think they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams!

***

WAYNE COUNTY and THE ELECTRIC CHAIRS - "Blatantly Offensive E.P."
Songs played: "Toilet Love"

Wayne County & The Electric Chairs - "Blatantly Offensive E.P."


Listen to Wayne County and the boys playing "Toilet Love."

I was always somewhat of a shit-stirrer, so naturally I like Wayne (later to be Jayne) County and The Electric Chairs. Despite dressing as a woman, Wayne was tough-as-nails (just ask "Handsome" Dick Manitoba of The Dictators, whose shoulder he broke!) and his band was equally tough-as-shit, especially on the nasty bowl-boogie, doody-ditty "Toilet Love." I later stole the toilet flush ending to use on an Atomic TV commercial for Jensen Plumbing (the business run by our erstwhile cameraman, Chris Jensen).

"Toilet Love," along with "Night Time," was the only safe song I could play from this four-song EP. The other two "blatantly offensive" songs were "Fuck Off" ("If you don't wanna fuck me baby, baby fuck off") and "Mean Motherfucking Man." The EP title was certainly Truth in Advertising!

"1976 Max's Kansas City" LP (Ram Records, 1976)

I also played Wayne County's "Max's Kansas City 1976" from the 1976 Max's Kansas City compilation album because it was a great name-check shout-out to all the bands that played there. It had inspired the Katatonix song "Roger's Marble Bar," wherein Adolf Kowalski listed all the bands he liked that played at Baltimore's Marble Bar in the basement of the Congress Hotel.



Listen to Wayne and the Boys play "Max's Kansas City."

***


FRED BLASSIE - "Blassie, King of Men" EP (Raunchy Tonk Records, 1977)
Songs played: "Pencil Neck Geek."

Fred Blassie - "Blassie, King of Men" EP

Listen to Classy Freddie Blassie sing "Pencil Neck Geek."

Yes, I was a Dr. Demento and Rhino Records devotee, so naturally I loved me some wrasslin' poetry!


THE FOOLS - "Psycho Chicken" 7-inch (EMI America, 1980)
Songs played: "Psycho Chicken (clucked)."

The Fools - "Psycho Chicken" (EMI America, 1980)

Watch The Fools play "Psycho Chicken."


I'll admit I have a soft spot for silly novelty songs that have fun spoofing pop hits - from Weird Al's numerous parodies to The Swinging Erudite's "Walk with an Erection" (Bangles'"Walk Like an Egyptian") and "Living On My Hair" (Bon Jovi's "Living On a Prayer") - and this was a particular fave, especially because it took the stuffing out of David Byrne's wrapped-too-tight delivery of Talking Heads's "Psycho Killer." There's even a local shout-out in the line "I don't know what to do/He's got a thing against Frank Perdue!"

***

ALTERED IMAGES - "Happy Birthday (Dance Mix)" 12-inch B-side (Epic, 1981)
Songs played: Cover version of T. Rex's "Jeepster."

I loved this band from Glasgow, Scotland, and played the heck out of their Happy Birthday ("Happy Birthday,""Insects") and Pinky Blue albums ("Funny Funny,""Jump Jump," Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue"), but "Jeepster" was only available on this 12-inch "Dance Mix." (Nowadays, you can get just about everything they ever released on the 2007 Happy Birthday: The Best of Altered Images 2-disc CD from Music Club Deluxe.) Clare Grogan was my favorite female vocalist from this period, along with Patty Donahue from The Waitresses. I was ecstatic listening to Claire croon "Boy I'm just a vampire for your love, and I'm gonna suck ya!" I later included Altered Images's "Jeepster" on my "Top 40 Cover Songs of All Time" article for Baltimore's City Paper (see "Look What They've Done To My Song")
City Paper "Jeepster" blurb (May 27, 1988)

City Paper (May 27, 1988)


Altered Images - "Happy Birthday" 12-inch (Epic, 1981)

Listen to Altered Images play "Jeepster."

Bonus: Here's an earlier, rougher-around-the-edges Peel Sessions version that some fan taped off John Peel's BBC Radio One show: "Jeepster."

ALTERED IMAGES - "I Could Be Happy" 3-song 12-inch (Mercury, 1982)
Songs played: "I Could Be Happy" (Martin Rushent extended remix), "Disco Pop Stars."


Altered Images - "I Could Be Happy" 12-inch (Portrait/Epic, 1982)


Watch Altered Images play "I Could Be Happy."




While the music video above is delightful and captures Clare and the boys' appeal, it's the almost 6 1/2-minute "dance remix" by studio master-maestro Martin Rushent (Altered Images, Buzzcocks, XTC, Human League, Stranglers, Generation X) that thrilled me and made it one of the all-time great 12-inch remix records. (Also, I took advantage of its length to run down the hall for pee breaks!) You have to wait three minutes before Clare's first scratched vocal ("I-I-I-I-I could be happy") kicks in, but it's worth the wait.

Listen to the Altered Images "Dance Remix" of "I Could Be Happy."

Listen to Altered Images play "Disco Pop Stars."


***

ALTERED IMAGES - "Dead Pop Stars" b/w "Sentimental" 7-inch (Epic, 1981)

I'm pretty sure I also played "Dead Pop Stars" (their first single, a non-LP song - and not to be confused with "Disco Pop Stars"!), which was definitely from the WJHU library. It's now available on the compilation CDs  I Could Be Happy: The Best of Altered Images (Epic, 1997) and Happy Birthday: The Best of Altered Images (Music Club Deluxe, 2007).

Altered Images - "Dead Pop Stars" b/w " Sentimental" (Epic, 1981)

It featured great lyrics about Pop Idolatry:

dead pop stars rotting in the studiopretty bodies make the little girls screamdead pop stars hear them on the radiopretty bodies every little girls dream 
hello hello i’m back again
you can touch me but only for a moment
testing testing 1, 2, 3
i am the poster on your wall 
and now i’ve had my 15 minutes
i’m just another memory
an embar*ssing part of your youth
don’t leave me dying here
don’t leave me dying here
remember how much you used to love me?
you did love me didn’t you?
don’t leave me dying here 
dead pop stars
dead pop stars
dead pop stars
dead pop stars rotting in the studio
hear them on the radio
dead dead dead dead dead


***

POLECATS - "Make a Circuit With Me"12-inch/Mini Album (Mercury, 1983)
Songs played: "Jeepster" (Marc Bolan) and "John, I'm Only Dancing" (David Bowie)

Polecats - "Make a Circuit With Me" 12-inch (Mercury, 1983)

Listen to the Polecats play "Jeepster."

Watch the Polecats play "Jeepster" on British TV!



Here's some interesting trivia about this north London rockabilly band that formed in 1970 and signed with Mercury records in 1980: Martin "Boz" Boorer later left the group to work as a composer, guitarist and musical director with Morrissey. And their song "Make a Circuit With Me" was used for TV trailers for the Disney PIXAR film WALL-E.

***

SWINGING MADISONS - "Swinging Madisons"5-song 12-inch EP (Select Records, 1981)
Songs played: "Put Your Bra Back On,""Volare"

Swinging Madisons - "Swinging Madisons" 12-inch (Select Records, 1981)

This was one of many side bands featuring Kristian Hoffman of The Mumps, who also played with Klaus Nomi, James Chance & The Contortions, Lydia Lunch, and Ann Magnuson. (Y'know - that "New York is alright if you like saxophones" artsy No Wave crowd.) I don't know why, but I loved his anti-feminist "Put Your Bra Back On," maybe because I'm a shit-stirrer. He also did a fine version of "Volare," but I prefer Alex Chilton's cover (after the original, of course). But "Volare" provided an epiphany for Hoffman - "a perfect marriage of questionable material and marginal vocal prowess." Soon he and band were donning tuxes and doing a Buster Poindexter thing. (See "The Swinging Madisons: An Overview by Kristian Hoffman" for details.) They notably also did a rockabilly version of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man."

"Put your bra back on
(Don't burn it)
Put your bra back on
(Don't burn it!)
'Cause what we need is some resistance from below
And from the moment you smiled
I heard the call of the wild
And I said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
I just can't say no"

***

M. FROG - "M. Frog" LP (Bearsville, 1973)
Songs played: "We Are Crazy" (vocal version)

M. Frog - "M. Frog" LP (Bearsville, 1973)


French-born Jean Yves "M. Frog" Labat was a short-lived member of Todd Rundgren's Utopia (he appears on their first album, 1974's eponymous Utopia), who was later replaced by Roger Powell.

Jean Yves "M. Frog" Labat

Todd Rundgren contributed guitar and vocals to the M. Frog album, and ended up doing the final mix. Besides playing synth on the first Utopia album, Labat contributed EMS synthesizer and synth treatments to Todd's second solo LP, 1973's A Wizard/A True Star. He also was part of Utopia's brief (two-month) 1973 American tour, and his "We Are Crazy" was included in the band's setlist.



"We Are Crazy" is a zany slice of spacey prog rock, dating from a time when synth-wizardry was in vogue. M. Frog's full given name was Jean Yves Labat de Rossi; he was the grandson of composer Raphael de Rossi, who wrote the romantic chestnut "Strangers in the Night." So, yes, there is a direct connection from M. Frog to Frank Sinatra! (I wonder if Andy Bienstock knew this? Yeah, probably!)

The most exhaustive history of Labat and this album comes courtesy of Julian Cope at his Head Heritage blog (www.headheritage.co.uk). Cope says the band on the record was comprised of numerous local Woodstock musicians (Labat was living in Woodstock, NY at the time), including fellow Bearsville labelmates and Labat's friend John Holbrook on electric guitar and engineering tasks. "Not only did Todd Rundgren guest throughout on vocals and guitar but Rick Danko contributed bass and violin while fellow Band mate Garth Hudson appeared on uncredited Lowry organ," Cope writes. "Seeing better days, Paul Butterfield dropped by to add some harmonica, Joe Simon played prepared piano, Fanny vocalist/guitarist June Millington contributed vocals, while the trio of Dennis Whitted, Christopher Parker, and Michael Reilly rounded out the proceedings on drums."

Cope describes "We Are Crazy" as "a sensationally catchy exercise in sonic extremism...like Jean-Pierre Massiera backing a spirited, 3-chord/3-IQ band of heavy metal kids by blasting holes through their efforts with excruciating Synthi-A-zappings, squiggles and explosions that discharge with random precision in between both your eyes AND the gleefully moronic chant-lyrics..."

“We are crazy!We are stupid!We are lazy!We are dirty!
If you understand / You’re gonna win a prize!If you understand / You’re gonna win a prize!If you understand / You’re gonna win a prize!If you understand / You’re gonna win a prize!
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na / A washing machine!Na-na-na-na-na-na-na / A date with the Queen!Na-na-na-na-na-na-na / A sewing machine!Na-na-na-na-na-na-na / A date with the Queen!

***

I loved LA's The Dickies (they were the West Coast's answer to The Ramones, with fast-short-dumb - but always fun - songs), and probably played just about everything by them - including their Sammy Davis, Jr. shout-out "Where Did His Eye Go?" from the Dawn of the Dickies LP - but I especially liked the following singles:

THE DICKIES - "Gigantor" b/w "Bowling With Bedrock Barney" 7-inch (A&M Records, 1980)
Songs played: "Gigantor,""Bowling With Bedrock Barney"

The Dickies - "Gigantor" b/w "Bowling With Bedrock Barney" (A&M Records, 1980)

Though the "Gigantor" theme was great fun, I loved the B-side even more, even though it's complete stoner silliness. "Bowling with Bedrock Barney (Barney!)/He is the life of the party, that Barney!" and "He's such a goof, he's been smokin' dope/Barney, Barney, ooooh - Yabadabadoo!"

Listen to the Dickies play "Gigantor."



Watch the Dickies play "Bowling With Bedrock Barney."




THE DICKIES - "Banana Splits (The Tra La La Song)" 3-song 7-inch EP (A&M Records, 1979)
Songs played: "Banana Splits"



This theme song to the TV kids show band was later covered by Baltimore's own Tra La La's - but they never released their version on neon yellow vinyl! I cried when I dropped my copy and it shattered into bits. (I cleaned it up immediately so I wouldn't slip on it!)

Watch the Dickies play "Banana Splits."



THE DICKIES - "Manny, Moe and Jack" 7-inch (A&M Records, 1979)
Songs played: "Manny, Moe and Jack"




Listen to the Dickies play "Manny, Moe and Jack."



"Manny, Moe and Jack, they know what I'm after." I loved the car crash ending and am pretty sure I segued into either The Normal's "Warm Leatherette,"Bowie's "Always Crashing In  the Same Car," or Grace Jones (who also covered "Warm Leatherette") doing "Pull Up To My Bumper." (So many possibilities!) It also paired up well, thematically, with "(I'm Stuck in a Pagoda With) Tricia Toyota," the B-side of their Fan Mailsingle.

THE DICKIES - "Nights in White Satin" 7-inch (A&M Records, 1979, 1980)
Songs played: "Nights In White Satin"

The Dickies - "Nights In White Satin" the KKK picture sleeve 7-inch (A&M Records, 1980) 

Watch the Dickies play "Nights In White Satin."



This was almost an epic for the Dickies, clocking in at close to 3 minutes - previously uncharted territory for the masters of blitzkreig pop!

***

THE SHAGGS - "Philosophy of the World" LP (Third World Recordings, 1969)
Songs Played: "Who Are Parents?"



Listen to The Shaggs play "Who Are Parents?"

I know, I know. I should have played "My Pal Foot Foot," but I'm a Family Values kinda guy. Of course, Skizz Cyzyk's "Foot Foot" version is definitive.

***

3-D - "Telephone Number" 7-inch (Polydor, 1980)
Songs played: "telephone Number"

3-D - "Telephone Number" 7-inch (Polydor, 1980)

Listen to "Telephone Number."

I know nothing about this group, but the piano-roll driven song was poppy and the vocalist sounded like a cross between Graham Parker and Elvis Costello. Plus I used to collect songs about telephones or telephone numbers and make mix tapes of them. (I also did this for songs about trains, food, and girl's names).

***

FUN WITH ANIMALS - "The Test of Love and Sex" b/w "3623 A.D." 7-inch (A&M Records, 1980)
Songs played: "The Test of Love and Sex"

Fun With Animals - "The Test of Love and Sex" (A&M Records, 1980)


Listen to FWA play "Test of Love and Sex."

I liked the multiple-choice lyrics:

You say you don’t know what to feel/You say you don’t know what is real/I will help you understand/And be your 20th century man/I will show you what to do/I’ll act like you, you act like you/We’ll take the test of love and sex/We’ll mark our answers with an X 
CHORUS: A) I don’t like you B) I’m in love C) I feel nothing D) None of the above/Relationships are so much fun/But I feel great when they are done/The seeds of love so much are worth/When planted deep in Astroturf/So keep your head, don’t get involved/Problems by themselves are solved/Find some other girls and boys/Take the test and make your choice 

***

JILTED JOHN - "Jilted John" b/w "Going Steady" 7-inch (EMI International, 1978)
Songs played: "Jilted John" (electric version)

Jilted John - "Jilted John" 45 (EMI International, 1978)

"Gordon is a moron, Gordon is a moron!"



Jilted John - True Love Stories LP (EMI International, 1978)


Jilted John - True Love Stories "Ropes & Ladders" game board


Mark O'Connor (OHO, Food For Worms, Dark Side, Buck Subtle & The Lonely Planets) turned me on to Jilted John (real name: Graham Fellows) - and I am forever in his debt for the discovery. JJ's album True Love Stories is a classic concept album documenting all of John's romantic woes - from Baz's party to Julie dumping him for Gordon the Moron ("Just 'cuz he's better looking than me, just cuz he's cool and trendy"), with Sheila and Karen interludes, as well - and includes a "Ropes and Ladders" (what we Yanks call Snakes & Ladders) board game insert; every song is wonderful, but the electric (single) version of "Jilted John" is perhaps the best. The liner notes describe JJ as follows:

"Jilted John, otherwise known as Graham Fellows, is a full time drama student in Manchester and his ambition is to become a full time actor. He has 3 sisters and a very nice mother and father who live in Yorkshire. Jilted John likes fancy mice, Kate Bush and the countryside, His dislikes include Gordon the Moron, anyone successful with girls and gardening."
A native Mancunian, Fellows did pursue an acting career and even portrayed Paul McCartney in a stage production.

Listen to Jilted John sing "Jilted John" on Top of the Pops.




***

B-MOVIE - "Nowhere Girl" b/w "Scare Some Life Into Me" 7-inch (Dead Good Records, 1980)
Songs played: "Scare Some Life Into Me" B-side

B-Movie - "Nowhere Girl" 7-inch (Good Dead Records, 1980)

A synth-pop band formed in Mansfield, England, from the remains of punk ensemble The Aborted, B-Movie released several singles and EPs between 1980 and 1984 before finally putting out 1985's first proper long-player, Forever Running. The initial band was comprised of singer-bassist Steve Hovington - of whom my wife Amy commented, "Ha! Everyone sang like that, with that serious and dark tone, in the '80s!" (the template was set by Depeche Mode's Martin Gore; see also: Spandau Ballet, Thompson Twins, et al) - guitarist Paul Statham, keyboardist Rick Holliday and drummer Graham Boffey.

Guitarist Paul Statham went on to work with Peter Murphy (performing and co-writing songs on Love Hysteria, Deep, Holy Smoke, Cascade), form the band Peach (Mute Records, '90s), and write/produce with Dido (No Angel) and Kylie Minogue (Fever). For more on this band, check out the blog Systems of Romance.

Listen to B-Movie play "Scare Some Life Into Me."




Apparently, B-Movie played at Baltimore's Marble Bar on March 26, 1982, with local rockers Nuvo Blind (Mikel Gehl, Belinda Blair) opening. Who knew?

Marble Bar calendar for March 26, 1982

***

PROCTOR & BERGMAN - TV Or Not TV (Columbia, 1973)
Cuts played: "Nasi Goring,""The Pills Brothers On Drugs,""Give Up This Day"

Proctor & Bergman - TV Or Not TV (Columbia, 1973)

I was a YUGE Firesign Theatre fan. Their sophisticated style of conceptual comedy involved intricate wordplay and was made for radio (which is probably why no one today knows about them), even though they also mined television's tele firma. Two of the four Firesign Theatre guys, Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman, branched off for a number of solo projects in the 80s. One of them was TV Or Not TV. I sometimes used their "Give Up This Day" bit as my radio show sign-off on WJHU (other times I used Buffalo Bob Smith's "Goodnight, Kids" sign-off from The Howdy Doody Show - yes, I'm a Baby Boomer!), so it seems fitting to end this remembrance with their sign-off from "Rear Reverend Sport Trendleberg."

Listen to "Give Up This Day" from TV Or Not TV.






↧

Retro Baltimore: The 2016 Marble Bar Photo Shoot

October 30, 2016, 10:37 am
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Marble Bar Alums reunite for fun


"Dark. Dank. Sweaty. Fetid. Subterranean. A physical eyesore in the basement of a once posh hotel long gone to seed. In other words, the perfect rock venue." - Michael Yockel ("What Is and What Should Never Be: A History of the Baltimore Club Scene," City Paper, June 19, 1987)
"It was a dump, no two ways about it...In the summer it was blistering hot, in the winter it was freezing cold. It was dark, dingy, and stunk like piss." - Adolf Kowalski ("Glory Hole" by Brennen Jensen, City Paper, December 6, 2000) 
"The only reason any scene ever happened in Baltimore was because of the Marble Bar."- David Wilcox (singer, Pooba, Alcoholics, Problem Pets, Chelsea Graveyard)

(Sunday, October 9, 2016) - Roughly 40 old time punks and rockers showed up at the Congress Hotel on Baltimore's W. Franklin Street, curious to see what their former favorite music venue, The Marble Bar, looked like more roughly 30 years after the doors closed for good in 1987.

The Congress Hotel on W. Franklin Street

The occasion was a photo shoot organized by Chris Kaltenbachand photographed by ace photographer Amy Davis for a Baltimore Sun "Retro Baltimore" feature (Sunday, October 30, 2016). This "special session of Congress" was called to see how the Marble and its (ir)regulars looked today compared with back then. (Attendees were asked to hold off posting pics on social media until the Sun article appeared but we live in the age of WikiLeaks and, well, there was a lot of leakage from that historic basement!)

The Sun hasn't set on this crowd yet
Below is the resulting historic pic, "Marble Bar Alums," looking like a high school yearbook photo (for a school I certainly wouldn't send my -entirely theoretical - children to!):


Marble Bar Alums (Amy Davis, Baltimore Sun)
Photo credits:

Marble Bar alumni, photographed on Oct. 9, 2016, in the basement of the Congress Hotel. Seated in the middle is LesLee Anderson, 67, who ran the Marble from 1978 to 1985 with her husband, Roger (he died of a heart attack on April 26, 1984). Surrounding her are musicians from back in the day. Seated, from left: Tom Diventi, 60 (Da Moronics), Craig Stinchcomb, 63 (Judie's Fixation), Anderson, Tom Warner, 59 (Thee Katatonix), Ed Neenan, 55 (The Click) and Mr. Urbanity, 60 (Thee Katatonix). Second row, from left: Joe Goldsborough, 52 (Reptile House), Mark Shimonkevitz, 55 (Ungrateful Bitches), Billy McConnell , 65 (Strangelove), Tom Chalkley, 61 (The Reason), Mark O'Connor, 64 (Food for Worms), Woody Lissauer, 57 (Strangelove), Hoppy Hopkins, 58 (Da Moronics), Mike Milstein, 56 (Thee Katatonix) and Greg Breazeale, 55 (Beavers Cleavers). Third row, seated on bar or behind bar, from left: Adolf Kowalski, 56 (Thee Katatonix), Steven Reech, 50 (The Dinosaurs), Skizz Cyzyk, 50 (Burried Droog), Craig Hankin, 61 (The Reason), Scott Pendleton, 63 (Fuji's Navy), David Wilcox/Steptoe, 66 (The Alcoholics), Big Andy Small, 56 (Thee Katatonix), Steve Cavaselis, 54, (Party Dolls), Jamie Wilson, 64 (Da Moronics), John Gontrum/Johnnie Angel, 53 (Avalanche), William Sutherland/Brian Jones aka Lump(y), 60 (Judie's Fixation), Robyn Webb/Dick Hertz, 60 (Infant Lunch), Ron Weldon, 50 (Grey March) and Anthony Piazza, 58 (Eubie Hayve). (Amy Davis / Baltimore Sun)

And here's the accompanying text by Chris Kaltenbach:

The Marble Bar Alums 
If you came of age in the '80s and enjoyed the ravages of punk music, chances are you spent a lot of time (maybe too much?) at The Marble Bar, in the basement of the Congress Hotel on Franklin Street. 
The venue, with its 72-foot-long marble bar (where did you think the name came from?), is as storied as any entertainment spot in Baltimore — Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers were here, legend has it that Fred Astaire danced here, Muddy Waters wailed the blues here. But from the late '70s until it closed on May 9, 1987, the Marble was the city's premier punk hangout. Iggy Pop played here. So did the Dead Kennedys, and R.E.M., and the Psychedelic Furs. Even Talking Heads played here, back before most people knew who they were. 
But it was as a venue for local acts that the Marble really shone (a relative term, of course — few things about the resolutely dingy bar ever truly shone). Even today, if you listen carefully amid the boxes and tools and other signs of its impending rehab — the current owners, who have turned the Congress into upscale apartments, say plans for the basement are still up in the air — it's not hard to imagine bands like Thee Katatonix and Da Moronics still pounding away. 
Some 30 alumni of Baltimore's punk scene recently gathered at the Marble, and if the old place wasn't quite as loud as it once was, its spirit has hardly been dimmed. An elevator brought everyone downstairs, a modern convenience hitherto unimagined, and everything looked a lot cleaner and brighter than people remembered. But time has not dimmed the glory of what went down here. 
“It was just really good to see those faces,” says Tom Warner, an original member of Thee Katatonix, “and to know so many people were still around.”

"You can read it in the Sunday papers": Baltimore Sun, October 30, 2016


The key figure among all those faces was the one smack dab in the middle: Leslee Anderson. If Roger Anderson was the King, LesLee was surely the Queen of the Marble Bar Scene, and it was wonderful to see her return to her marble throne, surrounded by her adoring minions. Incidentally, she looked great, like she hadn't aged a day since the '80s.

LesLee Anderson behind the famous (and still intact) Marble Bar

Bands of Brothers
Lost in the context of the group photo was how many different bands were represented and reunited (if only by one or two members) this day. Of course, some people - like Mark O'Connor, David Wilcox, Jamie Wilson, and Hoppy Hopkins (who once famously quipped "The Marble is the first place you play on your way up, and the last place you play on your way down") - played in so many ensembles that it would be hard to list them all. Below are some of the major combos that were in attendance:

Katatonix: Tommy Gunn (Tom Warner), Steevee Squeegee (Mike Milstein), Adolf Kowalski (Ross Haupt), Mr. Urbanity (Charlie Gatewood), and Big Andy Small. Sorely missed was Katatonix founder-bassist and lone female member, Katie Katatonic. Not to mention Little Kato Kowalski (John Sovitsky).

Who let the Kats out?: Mr. Urbanity, Steevee Squeegee, Tommy Gunn, Adolf Kowalski, Big Andy Small


"Hey, where's Squeege? And where the heck is Katie?"


"We're still waiting for you to get in the picture, Steevee!"

Penniless & The Loafers: LesLee Anderson (also The Twisters), Greg Breazeale (also Beaver's Cleavers), Mark Shimonkevitz

Da Moronics: Tom Diventi, Hoppy Hopkins, Jamie Wilson

Buck Subtle: Mark O’Connor and Jamie Wilson

Buck Subtle's Jamie Wilson & Mark O'Connor

Strangelove: Woody Lissauer and Billy McConnell

Billy and Woody share Strangelove

Alcoholics: Dave Wilcox (Steptoe T. Magnificent), LesLee Anderson

Judie’s Fixation: William Sutherland (aka Lumpy, Brian Jones), Craig Stinchcomb

The Reason/Bruce Springstone: Craig Hankin, Tom Chalkley

The Click/Sunday Cannons: Ed Neenan

The Click

The Sunday Cannons

It turned out to be an historic event with an unanticipated (big) turnout. And there would have been even more Marble Bar alumni - and maybe even some gal rockers like Julie Smith (Elements of Design), Leslie Miller (Question 47), Ceil Strakna (Boy Meets Girl, Big As a House), Cindy Borchardt (The Beaters), Valerie "Onyx" Azza (The Onyx Azza Band), and Rosalie Wampler (Elements of Design) representing -  had the photo shoot not occurred on a holiday weekend (Monday was Columbus Day) when many regulars were out of town or otherwise unavailable.

"I'm sorry I could not attend. I am still underground." - Stoc Marcut (Scott Markus of Fear of God), posting from beyond the grave on social media

Besides the 30 musicians who posed for the "Marble Bar Alums" photo, there were maybe another half-dozen fans and former staff in attendance, including scenesters Amy Warner (who married two MB musicians, Mark Linthicum and Tom Warner), Donna Stinnett Bowen (aka "Lady Diode," staff writer for the Marble Bar fanzine Tone Scale), George Wilcox (brother of David and creator of many stylish Marble Bar "musigraphix" flyers and calendars), Coffin Cuties magazine publisher Mike Hearse, Robin Stuprich Linton (former bartender and manager-music booker for the Marble Bar and Galaxy Lounge), and more.

Donna Stinnett Bowen, Amy & Tom Warner, Robin Linton, & Greg Breazeal

Donna Stinnett Bowen & Amy Warner

40-plus people would have been a decent weeknight turnout for a show at the Marble Bar when it was open! There would have been even more if the shoot wasn't limited to musicians and staff. I would have liked to have seen more of the Marble gals like Katie Katatonic (don't forget, she founded Thee Katatonix), Jackie the Bartender, Carol Underwood, Wendy Wallace, Michele Oshman, Susie Borchardt, Kyle Powers, Cindi Heidel, Mindi Siegel, Julie Kalthof, Lori Heddinger, Aziza Doumani, Patti Codd, Valerie Potrzuski, and Michelle Hovatter. (Not to mention Marble Bar cheerleader Pam Purdy, R.I.P.) Unlike the hardcore scene that flourished later around town, the Marble Bar really had a close-knit sisterhood. As Robin Linton told the Baltimore City Paper in 2000, "There were no classes, no fashion or attitude. It was a centralized meeting point, a musical melting pot, and the best years of my life."

I hope this rekindles memories and, more importantly in the age of Social Media, connections between those who were there, as they share stories, pics, and memorabilia in the days and years to come!

"Other than committing a crime, this is one of the only ways to make it into The Sun!" - Ed Neenan


Marble Bar, "Home of the Stars" during its heyday 1978-1985

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello...Again!
It was a weird day. Not sure exactly where everyone would gather for the shoot, upon arriving I looked around to see if I saw any familiar faces hanging around outside the Congress. Down the street I saw a guy in a leather jacket with a cane approaching, and correctly surmised that it had to be erstwhile Reptile House guitarist and Merkin Records honcho, Joe Goldsborough. As was the day's theme, he was dressed all in black. In fact, dark clothing and leather jackets seemed to be the fashion code for all '80s rock 'n' rollers returning here.


They Stoop To Conquer: A motley crew of Marble Bar regulars reunite outside the Congress Hotel. L-R: Tom Warner, Amy Warner, Woody Lissauer, Donna Stinnett Bowen, George Wilcox, Adolf Kowalski, Robin Stuprich Linton, Ed Neenan, and "Big" Andy Small

Some people came prepared with swag, others with musical props. Robyn Webb brought a bagful of Mark Harp"Big Man" buttons (the big dude still abides!). Adolf Kowalski brought a handful of "Thee Katatonix" stickers to decorate/deface every nearby building with, as well as a flyer for the last Marble Bar show. Mike Hearse brought copies of his sexy horror magazine Coffin Cuties to distribute and have his idols pose with. Mike Milstein, Woody Lissauer, and Billy McConnell brought guitars. And Tom Chalkley came armed with his harmonicas belt.

"Are you here for the Ethical Society meetup, too?"

Congressional Lobbyists
People gathered around the gated steps that used to be the street entrance to the Marble Bar before realizing they had to go to the lobby of the hotel to get inside. Venturing upstairs into the lobby of the Congress Hotel, I passed a table where a woman was dispensing name tags for a gathering of the Baltimore Ethical Society. (How ironic!) She didn't even bother asking if I was there for the meeting - she knew something else was up!

George Wilcox lost his marbles at the Marble Bar. (He's not alone!)

Joe Manfre &  Mike Milstein reaquaint themselves with the Congress lobby

LesLee Anderson, Craig Stinchcombe, William Sutherland, Greg Breazeale, Tom Chakley and Amy Warner in Congress Lobby

George Wilcox, Woody Lissauer, Greg Breazeale, Big Andy Small

Leslee Anderson and Tom Diventi meet & greet in the Congress Hotel Lobby


Mike Milstein, Mark O'Connor, Greg Breazeale and Amy Warner


Skizz Cyzyk, Tom DiVenti, and Robyn Webb

The lobby was nice-looking, way nicer than I remembered the last time I set foot there. When Marble Bar-istas weren't downstairs in the bar, they sometimes ventured upstairs to get food from the Renaissance Room, a side room to the left of the lobby...


Renaissance Room restaurant: fine dining in the Congress Hotel lobby!

"The Marble Bar had its own fanzine, "Tone Scale," and its own after hours restaurant, the Renaissance Room. Both were crummy. Both were cool." - Michael Yockel ("What Is and What Should Never Be")


"Tone Scale," October 1982. (Cover by Dave Brubaker)

Later, regulars would also check out events in the Galaxy Ballroom (formerly The Baltimore Pub) on the right of the lobby. Vermin Supreme and his Jockee Clubbe cohorts started booking shows in the Galaxy from 1983 to 1985, when the jig was up for both it and the Marble Bar.

Galaxy Ballroom "Grand Opening" flyer

Back of Galaxy flyer: "After Hours Restaurant & Discotheque"

Craig Stinchcombe and William Sutherland of Judie's Fixation in the Galaxy Ballroom

Time Will Not Dim the Glory of Their Hole, or "The Old Place Hasn't Changed a Bit!":


Don't forget!

An elevator manned by impromptu bellhop Chris Kaltenbach brought everyone downstairs. It was, as he later wrote, "a modern convenience hitherto unimagined" by the crew gathered there.

"C'mon Adolf, suck in your gut so we can close the door," Mr. Urbanity pleads in the crowded elevator

It took five packed elevator trips to get everybody downstairs to the basement, but there were quite a few epiphanies as people stepped off and beheld the old haunt.


"The minute I got off that elevator and saw the place, I knew I was home!"- Craig Stinchcombe
"I never knew the Marble Bar had windows until that day. It was a Marble Mitzvah!" - Ed "Here Comes the Sun (And I Say It's Alright)" Neenan
"The ol' Marble smelled better than it did back in the day and a dead rat on the floor managed to keep us from feeling too nostalgic." - Craig Hankin

There was at least one casualty from the good ol' gang


Before the scrum of Marble Bar regulars filled the basement and gravitated to the namesake marble bar, the following images (taken by Amy Warner) were our first impressions of the long dormant room.

Stairway to...Heaven? (photo by Amy Warner)

Roomeo Void? (Photo by Amy Warner)

The Filth Column ?(Photo by Amy Warner)

Crack the Sky? (Photo by Amy Warner)

And then everybody's cameras came out to snap pics as Sun photographer Amy Davis scrambled to set up and figure out how to get 30 people in frame and still show some of that famous marble bar. (Thank goodness for wide-angle lens and, more importantly, her innate skill!)

Photoplay
"People take photos of each other, just to prove that they really existed...When we were young and the world was free, pictures of things as they used to be" - The Kinks, "People Take Pictures of Each Other"



"Behold, the Marble Bar, home of the stars!"


I smell a rat...oh wait, it's just Adolf Kowalski!

Craig Hankin (The Reason) and Tom Warner (Thee Katatonix)

LesLee Anderson and Craig Hankin



Amy Warner takes her rightful place at the bar



Donna Stinnett Bowen asks, "You come here often, hon?"



David Wilcox (aka Steptoe T. Magnificent)



LesLee Anderson says, "Home Sweet Home."



Tom Diventi is ready to place his order



Boys with Toys: Mike Milsteen, Billy McConnell, Woody Lissauer and Tom Chalkley


Mike Milstein, Woody Lissauer, Adolf Kowalksi


Donna Bowen, Amy & Tom Warner, Robin Linton and Greg Breazeale


Rockers roosting on the Marble Bar


"We're ready for our close-ups now!"


Amy Warner stands a step back from the madding crowd


Steptoe, Robin, and LesLee man the bar


David Wilcox, LesLee Anderson, Robin Linton

LesLee Anderson and Robin Linton sort through basement debris


"Isn't this exciting?" asks Amy, as Robyn Webb gets ready to take a panoramic shot

The troops amass

More meandering about

Tom Diventi and William Sutherland check their phones

Sun photographer Amy Davis sets the scene

Adolf Kowalski confers with Amy Davis

30 years later and, still,  "the waiting is the hardest part"

Amy Davis comes out of the shadows to snap a shot of Strangelove with LesLee Anderson

Amy Davis sheds light on Strangelove

Look at those windows! Who knew the Marble Bar had them?

Billy McConnell, LesLee Anderson, Woody Lissauer

Billy, LesLee and Woody bask in the light

Billy McConnell: Except for Rock & Roll, "We're All Doomed."



David Wilcox and Anthony Piazza pose with "Coffin Cuties" (photo by Mike Hearse)


David Wilcox, Ed Neenan (holding "Coffin Cuties" mag) and Skizz Cyzyk (photo by Mike Hearse)


Original Katatonix Tom Warner and Adolf Kowalski display flyer for final Marble Bar show

Close-up of Marble Bar Closing show (May 9, 1987)


Glory (Hole) Days
Before the gory, there was glory inside this hole. Something was happening here in the late '70s and early '80s that couldn't be found anywhere else in town. Sure, later venues like the 8x10 in Federal Hill and the post-disco (air-conditioned) Girard's would eventually siphon off the Marble base, but for a time this was thee place to be for local and touring bands.

"When Roger and LesLee took over, they wanted the Marble to be a Top 40 club, but they put on a new wave show one Sunday, and 200 people showed up. Something clicked in Roger's head, and he started booking that kind of music exclusively." - David Wilcox

The two best in-depth articles about the Marble Bar's glory days of 1978-1985 are Michael Yockel's "What Is and What Should Never Be" (a history of local music venues, City Paper, June 19, 1987) and Brennen Jensen's "Glory Hole" (City Paper, December 6, 2000). Following are some facts and quotes extracted from both.

"For a time, the Marble Bar was a scene..."
"For a time, the Marble Bar was a scene, perhaps the only bona fide one that Baltimore has ever engendered. A recurring weekend happening fed on sufficient national, regional, and local talent - and which enjoyed sufficient local support - to sustain and nurture itself. Sure, it followed trends formulated elsewhere (New York, London, Los Angeles) and it existed on the dull edge of the musical cutting edge, but it was undeniably exciting, occasionally drawing big, enthusiastic crowds which swelled with a certain self-importance as they swilled beer." - Michael Yockel ("What Is and What Should Never Be")
"...for two years, 1980 and 1981, the Marble Bar was the locus for a bona fide rock scene, a place where next-big-thing English, European, and American bands mixed with a thriving coterie of local funsters. Freezing in the Winter, roasting in the Summer, always mega-uncomfortable, the Marble Bar locked on to the burgeoning new wave...while thumbing its nose at the Beltway circuit's tired cliches and the Fish's [music venue No Fish Today] hippie haze."(Michael Yockel, "What Is and What Should Never Be")
"Given the room's squalor, it's clear that in 2000, the only thing this joint can serve up is memories. And nobody has more of those than [LesLee] Anderson. Between 1978 and 1985, she and her late husband Roger Anderson ran a rock club down here. Under their tutelege, this basment - named after its most prominent feature, that long stone bar - was Baltimore's CBGBs. It was The Scene, the bar that brought punk and new wave to a slumbering town mired in cover bands and disco."- Brennen Jensen ("Glory Hole")

Yes, during its glory years from 1978 to 1985, the Marble Bar booked some of what Michael Yockel called the "best and brightest bands to spin out of that era's punk/new wave explosion." Below is George Wilcox's famous flyer that lists all the bands (local and national) who played at the Marble Bar. Click to enlarge.

"Goodbye Marble Bar, 1978-1985" (flyer by G. R. Wilcox, 1985)


Enlargement showing  some of the many bands that played the Marble

As the "Goodbye Marble Bar" flyer attests, high-profile Marble Bar national acts alumni included Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, The Cramps, 999, Psychedelic Furs, X, Squeeze, The Talking Heads, R.E.M., The A's, Polyrock, Bauhaus, Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, Dwight Twilley, Comateens, Dead Boys, A Flock of Seagulls, The Dickies, 20/20, Huey Lewis and the News, Alan Holdsworth, Pierre Moerlen's Gong, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, John Cale, The Bush Tetras, Dirty Looks, The Searchers, Eddie & The Hot Rods, Rubber Rodeo, Robin Lane & The Chartbusters, X, Oingo Boingo, Tommy Keene, The Fleshtones, Butthole Surfers, Urban Verbs, The Ventures, The Minutemen, The Teardrop Explodes, Romeo Void, and more.

"The Marble is the first place you play on your way up, and the last place you play on your way down." - Hoppy Hopkins (Da Moronics and countless other bands)

Locally, the Marble banged the drums for Da Moronics, Judie's Fixation, Oral Fixation, Thee Katatonix, The Catholics, The Accused, Rock Hard Peter, Bangah, Null Set, Cabal, The 45s, Poverty & Spit, The Casio Cowboys, Grey March, Dark Side, The Beaters, Onyx Azza, Beaver's Cleavers, Edith Massey, The Beatoes, The Sunday Cannons, Blue Car, The Click, Boy Meets Girl, Human Remain, Scratch 'n' Sniff, The Boatniks, Ivan & The Executioners, Burried Droog, Alter Legion, Reesa & The Rooters, Zehn Archar, Richard Taylor & The Ravers, Infant Lunch, Reptile House, Fear of God, Jerry's Kids, Boys in the River, Strangelove, The Nighthawks, Root Boy Slim, Slickee Boys, Original Fetish, Bad Brains, Velvet Monkeys, ad infinitum.

Around to see - as well as to photograph, videotape, write or create art about - many of those performances were die-hard scenesters like Marty Benson, Keith Worst, George Ches, Steve Blum (aka "Studnutz,""Dr. Ray Blummo"), Rafael Alvarez, Steve Randall (aka "Steve Scandal"), Mark and Ed (Lizard) Rosen, and Adolf Kowalski's mysterious shutterbug pal known only as "Lou Reed."

Some Legendary Shows:
Iggy Pop, The Psychedlic Furs, Squeeze, 999, The Ventures, A Flock of Seagulls - all standing room only gigs packed to the gills...The Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafro almost getting electrocuted when is microphone shorted...Adolk Kowalski writing "Huey Lewis SUCKS" on the men's room wall just as Huey Lewis comes in to take a leak - and then shaking his hand and giving him a Katatonix button!...Mark Harp shaving his beard onstage with the Casio Cowboys...Thee Katatonix blowing out the sound system 10 minutes into their first gig with Judie's Fixation...Rootboy Slim passing out in the dressing room...Thee Kats later transgendering into "The Spit-Ups" after DC's snooty all-girl Pin-Ups pulled out of a gig...Judie's Fixation frontman Ben Wah (Vaughn Keith) opening beer cans with his teeth...Da Moronics singer Don White banging his mic and ad-libbing "Spinal tap, I got a spinal tap" during technical difficulties...Edie Massey doing her "punk" show with a last-minute pick-up band...and so many more come to mind.

Johnny Thunders (January 29, 1982)

In January 1982, ex-New York Dolls Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan (both now deceased) stumbled into town to play a besotted show before a rowdy Baltimore crowd. During the set, Thunders verbally abused the crowd (who gave it right back).

Johnny Thunders at Marble Bar (January 29, 1982) - photo by Jim Moon

Johnny Thunders Band at Marble Bar (January 29, 1982) - photo by Jim Moon

Tom Cohan (Zehn Archar): "This friend of mine had a beer can in his hand and - lovingly - just kinda tossed it [at the stage], as if to say 'Come on, Thunders.' But the hand of God took that beer can. It just floated across everyone's heads and smacked Thunders smack-dab in his forehead. I even have it on tape. You hear Thunders going, 'Oh, you Baltimore children are so mind-expanding,' and then all of a sudden you hear this 'pop.' He just looked at the crowd, said, 'Thank you, children,' put down his guitar, grabbed his Jack Daniel's off the top of his amp, unplugged, and went out the front door."

Listen to Johnny Thunders play "Angie's Party/Endless Party" at the Marble Bar.



Squeeze (April 5, 1980)

Michael Yockel: "Easter Eve, Saturday, April 5, 1980, is the Marble Bar's night to remember. Squeeze bounded into the place with D.C. rockmeisters The Catholics, and the place was wall-to-wall wavers. You couldn't move. With nearly 600 people crowded into the place, the Marble perspired to Squeeze's slappy new wave pop, as keyboardist Jools Holland ping-ponged off the walls."

999 (April 23, 1980)

999/Original Fetish show at Marble Bar (April 23, 1980)

David Wilcox: "For me, the 999 show [April 23, 1980] was a real high point. There were probably 550 people there, and they were on each other's shoulders. For the first time, you felt like something was happening here."


There are so many more that I can't think of at the moment. Watch this space...

Never say Goodbye, Say "Ciao!"


"Well, that was fun! We must do this again in 30 years!"

Marble Bar Milestones:


  • Thanksgiving 1976: Scott Cunningham and Jack Voss opened the Marble Bar; Voss later left the partnership. Cunningham named his club after the club's 72-foot long marble bar.
  • May 1977: A photo of a Loose Shoes Rhythm Band gig at the Marble Bar appeared on the cover of the first issue of the City Paper, then called City Squeeze.
  • Fall 1977: Scott Cunningham and Steven "TeeVee" Feldman (Loose Shoes singer) started booking music seven days a week at the Marble Bar; major acts like Talking Heads, Squeeze, Pere Ubu, and Eddie Money played there.
  • November 1978: Roger & LesLee Anderson took over the Marble Bar after Cunningham had a falling out with Congress Hotel owner Sam Palumbo.
  • Easter Eve, April 5, 1980: Nearly 600 fans packed the Marble Bar to see Squeeze; DC's The Catholics opened. (Squeeze had previously played the Marble on June 4, 1978.)
  • April 23, 1980: Over 500 people turned up to see UK punk rockers 999; DC's The Original Fetish opened,
  • May 1983: Roger & LesLee Anderson opened the Galaxy Lounge in the Congress Hotel lobby-level room formerly known as the Baltimore Pub.
  • April 26, 1984: Roger Anderson died from a heart attack. He was 37. Tom Cohan: "When Roger died, something went missing from Baltimore: club owners who loved rock 'n' roll. We were left with people who were out to make money. Roger was the only club owner I ever met who was actually a rocker. He had a fire for it."
  • 1984-1985: LesLee Anderson and long-time Marble employee Robin Stuprich kept the Marble open and continued to book bands
  • December 1984: Someone broke into Marble Bar and stole LesLee Anderson's wedding ring and Dobro guitar
  • May 31, 1985: LesLee Anderson officially closed the Marble Bar with a farewell concert featuring her band The Twisters, Off the Wall, and remnants of Roger Anderson's old band, Clear.
  • June 1985-November 1985: Marble Bar bartender Robin Stuprich, her husband Ed Linton, and Joe Gary started booking no-alcohol, all-ages hardcore shows (Bad Brains, Dead Milkmen, Henry Rollins, Butthole Surfers) at the Marble Bar.
  • November 1985: Vermin Supreme (Scott Taylor) reopened the Baltimore Pub as "The Fabulous Galaxy Lounge."
  • December 1985: Vermin Supreme reopened the Marble Bar, booking bands from the Roger/LesLee days.
  • Summer 1986: Former WHFS DJ Clara Petrini took over running the Galaxy Lounge
  • Late January 1987: The Marble Bar closed again. Three "final night" farewell shows ensued.
  • May 9, 1987: "Marble Bar Closing Night III" put the club to bed at a show featuring Thee Katatonix, Da Moronics, and Human Remain.

All over but the shouting: the final Marble Bar  show (May 9, 1987)


Some Marble Bar Bands-Related Records:


Leslee "Bird" Anderson - "Runnin' Wild" (Renegade Records, 1988)


Bruce Springstone 12-inch (Cold Cuts Records, 1982) - art by Tom Chalkley


Bruce Springstone 12-inch back cover - art by Tom Chalkley


Thee Katatonix - "Divine Mission" LP (UK Spud Records, 1984)



Thee Katatonix - "All Sold Out" 12-inch EP (UK Spud Records, 1988)





Thee Katatonix - "Daisy Chain" b/w "Home Alone" 45 (UK Spud Records, 1985)

Cabal EP (Awf-Trak, 1984)

The Accused EP (E.S.P., 1980)

Ebeneezer and The Budgeons - "Peer Pressure" EP *Primal Stomp Records, 1978)

Sunday Cannons - "Red to the Rind" EP (Tastee, 1988)


"The Best of Baltimore's Buried" LP (Balto Weird Records, 1979)


":30 Over DC" LP (Limp Records, 1978)


Marble Bar Videos:

Watch Baltimore Heritage Society's "Marble Bar" video (2013).

Below are videos from Richard Taylor's documentary-in-process about the Marble Bar.

Watch LesLee Anderson interview from "The Marble Bar Documentary" (2010).

Watch The Alcoholics play "Mean Women" (from the "Marble Bar Documentary").

Watch Thee Katatonix at The Marble Bar (from "The Marble Bar Documentary").


Suggested Further Reading/Viewing:

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I Belong to the Blank Generation: WKHS' Martin Q. Blank

November 7, 2016, 1:30 pm
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WKHS 90.5 FM: "The only High School station in Maryland on the FM Dial"

Like Johns Hopkins University's little 10-watt WJHU (88.1 FM) in the late '70s and early 1980s (and WCVT in its pre-WTMD heyday), WKHS embodies the spirit and diverse programming of "indie format" college radio. But unlike WJHU or WCVT, WKHS broadcasts from a high school - Kent County High School in Worton, MD - and beams its signal out at over 17,000 watts, meaning its programs can be picked up all over the Eastern Shore, a 60-mile radius of coverage that extends to Dover, Newark, and parts of Pennsylvania. Yes, even across the Bay to Annapolis and Baltimore. That's how my wife Amy and I started listening to, and becoming smitten with, 90.5 on the FM dial.

To be specific, we love the community volunteer programming at WKHS. By day, the station is run and staffed by Kent County High School students whose on-air skills are, well, high-schoolish, and whose musical tastes reflect generic contemporary commercial music (i.e., tuneless auto-tuned hip-hop, mall-friendly "indie" rock, mindless metal, dancepop divas-of-the-moment, and the like); in other words, it's pretty bad - although I swear one morning I tuned in and heard some teen-with-a-clue playing 10cc's "Wall Street Shuffle," so there's hope for the future!

"Talk Hard!" with Happy Harry Hard-on

But other than that one exception, you won't find any teen DJs as clued in as Christian Slater's rebellious pirate radio jock "Happy Harry Hard-on" in the 1990 movie Pump Up the Volume. Or even as hip as Johnny Slash on Square Pegs. (When the students and community members aren't there - summers, weekends, late nights - WKHS simulcasts WXPN radio from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. This arrangement helps to support WKHS from both a financial and a programming standpoint.)

"Calling all community volunteers!"

But on weekends and at night, the volunteers take over and the station soars. We've heard things we just don't hear on other stations. Imagine tuning in and hearing Hotlegs (the pre-Graham Gouldman group that would become 10cc) playing "Suite F.A."! Or a whole program on '60s Swedish Garage-Psychedelic music. These guys don't get paid. They are driven by a passion for what they play and their only reward, other than having the opportunity to share their music with a wider audience, comes from having listeners call in to chat, say thanks, or even request a song.

"WKHS also has a dedicated crew of community volunteers who do radio shows in the evenings. These shows are "labors of love" that consist of just about any genre of music that you can possibly imagine. Our volunteers are dedicated, knowledgeable, and entertaining." - WKHS web site

And while we generally like all their programs of "Commercial Free Diversity" - "Thrill of the Night" 1st Generation Rock and Roll (Sundays 6-8 pm with Al Miller and Dick Lillard, Mondays 6-8 pm with Ron Lockwood);  Charlie Stinchcomb and Bucky Murphy's "Voices from the Doorway" Doo Wop (Tuesday nights, 6-8 pm); P.J. Elbourn's "Dixieland & Big Band Jazz" (Wednesdays, 6-8 pm);  Lain Hawkridge's "Musicology" modern music "genre exploration" (Thursdays 6-8 pm); Willie "Moonman" Bacote's "Southern Soul" (Fridays 6-8 pm), Andy "The Coach" Moloney's "Music Show" (Saturdays 10 am-12 pm, Sundays 8 pm -12 am); as well as Mike Martinez's "Southern Star Country Club" (Mondays, 8-10 pm), Patrick Clancy's "One Particular Harbour" Island/Party Music show (Tuesdays, 8-10 pm), and Bill Staples'"Honky Tonk Jukebox" (Wednesdays, 8-10 pm) - it's Martin Q. Blank's "The Night Shift," which airs Fridays nights from 8-11 pm, that we LOVE.


Ultravox - "Young Savage" 7-inch (Island Records, 1977)

Amy and I first discovered Martin Q. Blank and his "Night Shift" when we heard him blasting Ultravox's "Young Savage" one Friday night. We were driving home from happy hour at a local bar and, I must confess, I was a little tight and overly enthused to hear a radio station playing anything by the early, John Foxx-led Ultravox. By this time, I had parked the car in front of our house, but kept the engine running and the radio on because the good tunes just kept coming. "They must be doing a '70s Punk and New Wave set," I recall saying, as I think we heard Richard Hell and the New Yorks Dolls in the DJ's "rock block."

Listen to Ultravox play "Young Savage."



Previously, I recall tuning in on another Friday night around the same time and being amazed to hear Barclay James Harvest (a band that practically defines '70s FM Radio AOR; I think I heard "Poor Boy Blues" and "Mill Boys" from 1974's Everyone Is Everybody Else) and Pure Prairie League (and not "Amy"- the only PPL song everybody plays - but rather "Angel" or "Falling In and Out of Love" from 1972's Bustin' Out). It was good. It was unexpected. It was album-oriented rock that harkened back to my era of musical consciousness (for better or worse): the '70s. We wondered who was playing this stuff, but it took that Ultravox-led rock block to get us to tune in regularly and find out.

Pure Prairie League - "Bustin' Out" (RCA, 1972)

“If I was stuck on a desert island with a Walkman and unlimited batteries, my choice of music would be Pure Prairie League. The first two albums are incredible.” - Martin Q. Blank (quote from "Tuned In" by David Healey, Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)

Unfortunately, there is a dearth of articles written about WKHS's volunteer disc jockeys and the station doesn't post their playlists or stream or podcast their shows. Thankfully, there are two good  features from Maryland's regional papers. The Chestertown Spy's Bill Arrowood profiled them in his "WKHS Disc Jockeys Harken Back to Radio's Golden Era" piece (March 26, 2014) and Cecil Whig reporter David Healey interviewed Martin Q. Blank in his "Tuned In" review for Easton, MD's Star-Democrat (May 22, 2005).

Martin Q. Blank is "Tuned In"

A few years back, Martin Q. Blank got tired of listening to the same old songs on the radio. Most people would have just changed stations. He started his own radio show instead. - David Healey ("Tuned In,"Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)

"Martin Q. Blank" is actually the radio alias of Michael Coleman, son of former WKHS DJ Charlie Coleman. (If "Martin Q. Blank" sounds familiar, it's because it was taken from John Cusack's character in the 1997 film Grosse Pointe Blank.)

John Cusack, aka "Martin Q. Blank"

The Colemans were natives of nearby Chestertown in Kent County. Michael actually graduated from the high school where he now does his weekly radio show. Charlie Coleman (1952-2011) was a legendary figure at the station, broadcasting a Doo Wop show from 1988-1997 before switching over to do a Country program from 2000-2008. His son "Martin Q. Blank" made his broadcast debut in 1997 and, from the start, it was clear that good taste was in his gene pool.

From the start, he followed the advice of fellow WKHS disc jockey Charlie Coleman: “‘Don’t just play the hits,’ he told me. They can hear that every single day. Play the more obscure tracks that you don’t hear any more. They’re listening for songs they may have forgotten. The music is the most important thing, rather than the DJ playing it.” - Dan Healey ("Tuned In,"Star-Democrat)

Blank breaks his three-hour "'70's, '80s, '90s & Beyond"-themed show into one-hour blocks representing each decade, starting with the '70s at 8 pm, continuing with the '80s at 9 pm, and finishing with the '90s at 10 pm. (The '70s and '80s playlists are the strongest, in this listener's opinion.) Blank has a very youthful voice, one that made Amy and I wonder how someone who sounded barely old enough to remember the '70s or '80s could know all these cool tunes from those times. So after he opened this past Friday's show with the theme song from WKRP in Cincinnati(which just happens to be one of Amy's all-time favorite TV shows - she actually sang along to it word-for-word, "Baby, if you ever wonder...")...





...followed by Buzzcocks playing 1978's "What Do I Get?"...




...and a trio of songs by D-Day ("Too Young To Date"), Blondie ("Accidents Never Happen" from Eat To the Beat) and Elvis Costello ("Oliver's Army" from Armed Forces) - all dating from 1979 - I resolved to call the station and find out.

D-Day - "Too Young To Date" 7-inch (Moment Productions, 1979)


Ring-a-ding-ding!"WKHS 90.5 FM, this is Martin," he answered.

"Hi Martin, this is Tom and Amy calling from Baltimore - we love your show!" I said, congratulating him on the night's programming so far and telling him I was most impressed by his playing D-Day's "Too Young To Date." I actually own this obscure punk single - and used to play it on my old WJHU radio show - but hadn't heard it in over 35 years! (I doubt many people have ever heard it, for that matter. Though it reached #1 on L.A.'s KROQ and was included on the now out-of-print New Wave Hits of the '80s Vol 1 - an ironically named compilation, since all the songs were recorded in 1979 - its Lolita subject matter is definitely politically incorrect and the record was briefly banned from airplay on California radio.) I asked Martin how old he was, because to me he sounded Too Young To Remember songs like "Too Young To Date" from 1979. I was floored when he told me he was 44!

I handed the phone to Amy and said, "Say hi, Amy!""Hi Amy!" she spoke into the phone. Martin Q. Blank was very friendly and glad to hear we were calling from Baltimore. He even promised to dedicate his next three-song set at 9 pm to "Tom and Amy in Baltimore." It included selections from three of my favorite one-hit wonders: Killer Pussy, Josie Cotton and The Humans.

The callers often help fuel the show. “They turn me on to so much I don’t know about or that I forgot,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll say, ‘Man, I haven’t heard that in years.’” Some nights he doesn’t take requests but does a special show. That includes his annual “Miami Vice” night featuring songs from the 1980s TV series. Another recent show was made up entirely of soundtracks from ‘80s movies. He reaches deep to find that gem from the B side or that one- hit wonder. - Dan Healey ("Tuned In," Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)

Martin Q. Blank is funny and self-deprecating. He frequently mentions that he is single and ad-libs lines when cueing up records. Tonight, for example, he introduced "What Do I Get?" by Buzzcocks with the crack, "Girls are always saying this to me." When he was interviewed by The Cecil Whig's Dan Healy back in 2005, Martin confessed that he sometimes wings it in the studio, bringing in a small number of records and CDs but otherwise playing it by ear based on his mood and the requests he gets. "As they're playing and the calls come in, that's when I start to pick the rest. I like to keep it loose."

For Blank, it’s all about the music — and the callers. - Dan Healey ("Tuned In," Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)

As this Friday night's show continued, Martin played some so-so AC/DC, Journey, Boston, and Cheap Trick ("Dream Police") before returning to some older '70s gems, like Robert Gordon & Link Wray covering The Johnny Burnette Trio's rockabilly classic "Lonesome Train" and the mid-period (pre-Buckingham & Nicks), Bob-dominated (Bob Welch & Bob Weston) Fleetwood Mac playing "Hypnotized" (from 1973's Mystery To Me LP, a personal fave).

Tom & Amy's Triple-Play Dedication:

And then at 9 pm, the '80s set kicked off with Martin's three-song dedication to us:  "This next set goes out to some new callers, Tom and Amy from Baltimore!"

Killer Pussy - "Teenage Enema Nurses In Bondage"

Killer Pussy - "Teenage Enema Nurses In Bondage" EP (Sho-Pink Records, 1982)

Josie Cotton - "Johnny, Are You Queer?"

Josie Cotton - "Johnny, Are You Queer?" (WEA, 1981)

The Humans - "I Live in the City"

The Humans - "I Live in the City" (IRS Records, 1980)

I'm proud to say I own all three records and they are inspired choices. As their titles suggest, "Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage" and "Johnny, Are You Queer?" are pure novelty songs, but San Jose's The Humans were a solid New Wave outfit and "I Live in the City" is a great song musically and lyrically ("If you're gonna act like that you better get on the stage/You're looking for something, try this...She moved up to Hollywood, where she can scream - and she gets away with it!").

And there was more good stuff to come...The La's, R.E.M., Bad Company ("Electric Land"), The Bluebells ("Cath"), Rachel Sweet ("Voo Doo"), The Church ("Under the Milky Way"), The Nails ("88 Lines About 44 Women" - later used in a Clio award-winning Mazda commercial), INXS ("Mystify"), and - completely out of left-field, Canadian one-hit wonder Aldo Nova playing "Fantasy"! I can still remember the MTV music video (back in the days of yore when MTV actually played music!). Total cheese, but fun!





"...The guy knows his music. Sometimes we sit around and talk about music and he can destroy me with his knowledge.” - former WKHS station manager Steve Kramarck (quoted in "Tuned In" by Dan Healey, Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)

I wasn't as wowed by the '90s portion of "The Night Shift," but there were some good songs here and there. Martin played Red House Painters ("Katie's Song"), Mother Love Bone, Feist, Wilco, Jules Shear, Trashcan Sinatras, and Dangermouse with Norah Jones covering The Lovin' Spoonful's "Darlin' Be Home Soon." But what piqued my interest was the first request he played, Thrush Hermit's "North Dakota." Not for the song so much as for who requested it: "My friend, Steve Randall from Baltimore."


“His CD collection is massive, and he somehow manages to lug the whole thing into the studio every week.” - Steve Randall (quoted in "Tuned In" by Dan Healey, Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)

Apparently, Randall is a regular caller and Martin claims he has discovered quite a few bands and tunes thanks to him. I wondered if this was the Steve Randall I knew, the erstwhile bass player from the '70s punk band Ivan & The Executioners, who released the classic single "I Wanna Kill James Tailor" b/w "Biafran Boy." (The spelling of  sweet baby "James Taylor" was changed, for obvious legal reasons!). In addition to Steve, this band featured my friend and former St. Paul's classmate Hoppy Hopkins (Da Moronics, Mambo Combo, Rockabilly Band, etc.) on drums. (That's him about to get his head chopped off in the picture below.)


Ivan and The Executioners (Steve Randall, far right)


"I Wanna Kill James Tailor" b/w "Biafran Boy" 7-inch (Fine Taste, 1979)


That Steve Randall (aka "Steve Scandal") had very eclectic taste and was a damned fine rock critic, as well. I lost touch with him over the years, but I wonder if he turned Martin on to D-Day and some of the other obscurities heard on "The Night Shift." Hmmm, just a thought to ponder. (If not, and if Martin Q. Blank is reading this, be sure to get your hands on this record and dedicate it to your "Steve Randall"!) Martin mentioned his friend's name several more times as he introduced new musical "discoveries," as well as other regulars whose tastes he remembers.

I admit my attention was drifting in and out during the last hour of the broadcast, until I heard something that made me stop in my tracks. Martin Q. Blank ended his show with a real stunner: He played Sinatra! (I guess that was "The Beyond" part of his show's "'70s,'80s, '90s & Beyond" format.) And not just any Sinatra, but a true Sinatra rarity, one that even this Sinatraphile didn't have on CD. I'm talking about "Half As Lovely (Twice As True)," which appeared originally on the extremely rare This Is Sinatra 2 LP (the import CD version goes for $25-50!) and which I have only on the long out-of-print Australian International Sinatra Society's Sinatra Rarities - Volume Two LP. I think Martin was playing it for a female caller he hadn't spoken to in a while. Regardless: Mind. Blown.

Frank Sinatra - "The Rarities - Volume Two" (EMI Australia, 1983)

It sounds like Martin Q. Blank gets a lot a call-ins, and that must be reassuring because "dead air" and "radio silence" are the things that make DJs lose sleep. He obviously has a following, and I'm glad Amy and I have joined the ranks. Now, if only WKHS would start publishing their playlists! Until then, we'll just have to continue to call in!

"When it stops being fun, you stop doing it. If there are a hundred people out there listening, then it is well worth my time."- Martin Q. Blank (quoted in "Tune In" by Dan Healey, Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)

Martin, it's well worth our time to listen to you! Thanks, and keep spinning those platters that matter!

Related Links:

"WKHS Disc Jockeys Harken Back to Radio's Golden Era" by Bill Arrowood (The Chestertown Spy, March 26, 2014)
"WKHS Disc Jockeys Harken Back to Radio's Golden Era" w/additional text and graphics (Baltimore Or Less)
"Tuned In" by Dave Healey, Special from the Cecil Whig (The Star-Democrat, May 22, 2005)
"Talk To Me" - Willie "Moonman" Bacote profile in Urbanite magazine (December 2008)
Martin Q. Blank on Facebook
Fans and Friends of Martin Q. Blank, The Nightshift (Facebook group)
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"New Sounds for Silent Films" screening at Walters Art Gallery

November 14, 2016, 10:52 am
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New Sounds For Silent Films
Music by Jamal Moore, Ami Dang, and WUME
November 10, 2016 @ Walters Art Museum



The Walters Art Gallery, in partnership with the Maryland Film Festival, presented three short films from the Enoch Pratt Free Library's 16mm film archives as part of its "New Sounds for Silent Films" live music program. In conjunction with the museum's special exhibition "A Feast for the Senses," musicians Jamal Moore,Ami Dang, and WUME created and performed new scores for the three "silent" films (actually, though mostly lacking spoken word, they all originally featured musical soundtracks or sound effects). Regardless, the event organizers couldn't have picked three better "trippy" films to stimulate the senses. Films included: Moon 1969, Asparagus, and Time Piece. The screening was free for Walters Art Gallery and and Maryland Film Festival members.

About the films:

Moon 1969
(Directed by Scott Bartlett, USA, 1969, 15 minutes, color, 16mm)




This is the film Scott Bartlett made with Michael Hollingshead, the guy who turned Timothy Leary (among others) on to acid with his infamous mayonnaise jar filled with 5,000 hits of pure Sandoz LSD. In it, blurred television tapes of the Apollo 11 moon trip, alternating explosions of blank and color film, music, the voice of an astrologer discussing "all-ness," love, and the stars, and abstract film patterns combine to create what the director describes as a "cosmic mind flight" and "a space-age sermon celebrating the joys of metaphysical love."


Images from Moon 69


In his study of 1960s American experimental cinema The Exploding Eye, Wheeler Winston Dixon wrote "[Scott Bartlett's films] exemplified San Francisco's preferred form of cinematic discourse for a later generation of artists, poets, writers and videomakers...The visual structures of Bartlett's films influenced the images we see on MTV today, as well as the digital special effects employed in many contemporary feature films."

According to Paul Brawley of the American Library Association, "The interrelated convolutions and spasms of image, color, and sound that filmmaker Bartlett creates is the cumulative effect of his pioneer work using negative images, polarization, television techniques, computer-film, and electronic patterns all compressed into a visual punch that directs one where he normally would not go with a film - on a trip in search of the human soul."

Gene Youngblood of the Los Angeles Times adds, "Moon 1969 is a beautiful, eerie, haunting film, all the more wonderful for the fact we do not once see the moon: only the manifestation of its powers here on earth, the ebb and flow of the waters.. fiery rainbows into a cloudy sky... men and rockets transformed into shattering crystals... creating a picture if the cosmos in continual transformation."

During his life, Bartlett was sponsored by such filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola. Yet today, despite their undiminished impact and undeniable influence, Bartlett's films are seldom shown. Pratt also owns Scott Bartlett's OffOn (1968), The Serpent (1971), and Medina (1972). Barlett's films are also available through Canyon Cinema. (Scott Bartlett, USA, 1969, 15 minutes, color, 16mm)

Check this title in the Enoch Pratt catalog.

Asparagus
(Directed by Suzan Pitt, USA, 1979, 19 minutes, color, 16mm)


Suzan Pitt - Asparagus (1978).avi from anastasios on Vimeo.


This "candy colored animated nightmare" rocked audiences upon its release - it ran theatrically with David Lynch's Eraserhead on the Midnight Movie Circuit - and catapulted Suzan Pitt to the front ranks of indie animation. From its opening scene of a woman defecating an asparagus spear into her toilet bowl to the concluding set piece (also very Lynchian and reminiscent of the theater scene in Muholland Drive) in which the artist opens her Medusa's box to release rare wonders before a claymation audience, stunning cel animation propels its blank-faced protagonist into a world of Freudian symbolism and Jungian archetypes. Winner of the grand prize at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival.


Freudian symbolism in Asparagus


Suzan Pitt later worked on some Peter Gabriel music videos. On February 15, 2008, she made a Baltimore "Pitt" stop to present a special screening of Asparagus (on 35mm!) and other works at the Maryland Institute, College of Art.

Tom Warner with Suzan Pitt at MICA, February 2008


Suzan Pitt Web site: home.earthlink.net/~suzanpitt/

Check this title in the Enoch Pratt catalog.

Time Piece
(Directed by Jim Henson, 1964, USA, color, 9 minutes, 16mm)



Time Piece is a 1965 experimental short film directed, written, produced by and starring Jim Henson (credited as "The Man"). The film depicts an ordinary man moving in constant motion, in a desperate attempt to escape the passage of time. It is noteworthy for being a non-puppet, live-action Jim Henson production.

Watch a short clip from Jim Henson's Time Piece.



Time Piece received several film festival awards, including the Blue Ribbon Award from the American Film festival in 1967, and was nominated for an Academy Award in the "Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects" category in 1966. In 2008, it became available at the iTunes store.

According to Muppet Wiki:
Henson began the project in the spring of 1964 (initially titling it Time to Go) and continued to work on it for nearly a year, between commercial projects and various Muppet television appearances. The short film premiered on May 6, 1965 at the Museum of Modern Art and was distributed through Pathe Contemporary films to arthouse theaters and the film festival circuit. It played in New York City along with the French feature A Man and a Woman. 
The surrealist film, which runs slightly less than 9 minutes, follows a nameless man who lies in a hospital bed awaiting examination by a doctor through a wide range of experiences. Mundane daily activities are intercut with surreal fantasy and pop-culture references. The relentless passage of time is a recurring motif, both visually, through various clocks, and aurally, through a rhythmic percussion soundtrack which "ticks away" throughout. Key set pieces include an examination of workplace drudgery, a prolonged dinner sequence (intended as a spoof of a scene from the film Tom Jones), and a nightclub visit satirizing the striptease (including a dancing roast chicken and a marionette skeleton). The man also rides a pogo stick, shoots the Mona Lisa, escapes from prison, and gradually applies a coat of pink paint to a living elephant. He assumes different costumes and identities throughout, from Tarzan to a cowboy, and repeatedly utters the only dialogue in the film, a plaintive cry of "Help!" from increasingly incongruous and perilous positions. 
Apart from the rapid montage cutting and superimposition of objects, Jim Henson used animation heavily to create an impressionistic feel. He personally animated scenes of moving patterns, anticipating those later utilized in various Sesame Street inserts. Don Sahlin supervised the use of pixilation and reverse motion to further "stylize" the movements.



A number of Henson Associates employees appear in the film: Frank Oz (as a messenger and in a gorilla suit), Jerry Juhl, Don Sahlin, and Diana Birkenfield. The rest of the cast and crew were made up of New York "bohemian artists" including portrait artist Enid Cafritz (as "The Man"'s wife)...

Enid Cafritz as Jim Henson's wife in "Time Piece"


...burlesque stripper April March (not to be confused with the musician "April March," real name of Elinor Blake, recording under that name)...


April March, "First Lady of Burlesque"


April March in "Time Piece"


...Broadway dancer Barbara Richman, and drummer Dave Bailey.




Check this title in the Enoch Pratt catalog.


Related Links:
"Pitt Stop: Animator Suzan Pitt Visits MICA" (Accelerated Decrepitude, February 15, 2008)
"Time Piece" (Muppet Wiki)

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China Girls On Film

March 9, 2017, 11:08 am
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Who Are the Mystery Girls?: Celebrating Countdown Reel Girls


Countdown to Ecstasy: China Girl on film leader

One of the thrills of being an audio-visual librarian at Enoch Pratt Free Library is working with 16mm films and spotting the occasional "China Girl" (or "LAD Lady," short for the "Laboratory Aim Density" industry standard created by Kodak's John P. Pytlak) on film countdown leaders. How these women got the sobriquet "China Girls" remains unknown; it's particularly unusual since most of the female subjects were white, not Asian. ("China Girls" might be a reference to the colorful flower print blouses Chinese girls wore at the turn of the 20th century, or to the "Shanghai Girls" advertising cards that came with Chinese cigarettes.) Needless to say, the term has nothing to do with the David Bowie (or Iggy Pop) song "China Girl."

Have your highlights lost their sparkle?And the midtones lost their scale?Are your shadows going smokey?And the colors turning stale?Have you lost a little business to labs whose pictures shine?Because to do it right – takes a lot of time.Well, here’s  a brand new system. It’s simple as can be!Its name is LAD – an acronym for Laboratory Aim Density.– John P. Pytlak

A recent article by Sarah Laskow ("The Forgotten 'China Girls' Hidden At the Beginning of Old Films," January 17, 2017) for the wonderful Atlas Obscura blog profiled these hidden faces that were never meant to be public and renewed my long-standing fascination with them. As Laskow writes:

Few people ever saw the images of China girls, although for decades they were ubiquitous in movie theaters. At the beginning of a reel of film, there would be a few frames of a woman's head. She might be dressed up; she might be scowling at the camera. She might blink or move her head. 
But if audiences saw her, it was only because there had been a mistake. These frames weren't meant for public consumption. The China girl was there to assist the lab technicians processing the film. Even though the same person's face might show up in reel after reel of film, her image would remain unknown to everyone except the technicians and projectionists. 
For many years photo labs would produce unique China girl images; around a couple hundred women, perhaps more, had their images hidden at the beginning of films. As movies have transitioned from analog to digital, though, China girls are disappearing.


Who are the Mystery Girls?

But not in Rockville, Maryland, where Colorlab is not only one of the last full-service film labs operating in the country, but has also revived the practice of making in-house China girls because there's no standardized "LAD lady" for the newest version of Kodak film.

And now there's renewed interest in these mystery women thanks to Rebecca Lyon and the Chicago Film Society's Leader Ladies Project, which has collected and posted around 200 China girl images (including  rare ones showing men, mannequins and even people of color). Below is a picture from the Leader Ladies Project collection that actually shows an Asian woman in the film leader for Nagisa Oshima's 1968 film Death By Hanging. (Since it's a Japanese film, she's probably not literally a "China girl," but close enough!)

"Death By Hanging"'s Leader Lady

Then there's the 2008 short film by Julie Buck and Karin Segal called Girls On Film that reflects on the anonymity of the test subjects by using an old "making it in Hollywood" movie soundtrack.




Buck and Segal described their film as follows:
Girls on Film is about 70 unknown movie stars. Despite appearing in countless films, they were never actually meant to be seen by the movie-going public. In fact, these women are so enigmatic that in most cases we do not even know their names. This film is a tribute to these forgotten women.

Officially known as color-timing control strips, these anonymous female film studio workers were affectionately dubbed "china girls" by the industry. The images in this show were meant only for use by the processing lab to match color tones in the associated film. 

Initially heavily scratched and faded, each images has been enlarged, restored and edited until these unknown and formerly unseen women resemble publicity snapshots of well-known film stars.

Jean Bourbonnais, a former projectionist at the National Film Board of Canada, compiled the heads and tails of numerous 35mm international films into a 16-minute-plus montage called China Girls. Bourbonnais addressed the mystery of these unknown leader ladies with a decidedly feminist slant, calling them "the voiceless workers of a proto-sex industry, entertaining mostly male lab technicians over the course of the working hours, similar to the pin-ups or sexy girl calendars found in most car repair shops or other blue collar male-dominated fields of work, China Girls are there to brighten up a gloomy day."

Hmm...I never thought of China Girls as the equivalent of a Snap-on Tools calendar hung in a film lab technician's workshop, but Bourbonnais makes an interesting point.


A China Girl answers the Hot Line: "A call for President Trump? Please hold, Mr. Putin!"

Speaking of Girls On Film...Years ago, I discovered China Girls thanks to John Heyn (of Heavy Metal Parking Lot fame). John also directed a short film called Girls On Film that celebrated these unknown women who appeared at the beginning of film reels and were used by lab technicians for color quality control. And it still holds a special place in my heart, no doubt because John used an obscure pop song by the Passions ("I'm in Love With a German Film Star") as his accompanying soundtrack.



Here's John Heyn's description of his film:

GIRLS ON FILM is an experimental film that captures the fleeting images from countdown leaders of old film prints. The "china girls" who appeared in these unseen film frames were posing for far less than aesthetic purposes and more for technical reasons. Their fleshtones and accompanying color-charts helped the film lab technicians calibrate the color-rendition of the film stock. The soundtrack is the 1981 new wave hit "I'm In Love with a German Film Star" by The Passions.

I recently discovered another China Girls montage set to an obscure pop soundtrack. Called "Lili On the Web" - in France, China Girls are called "Lili," perhaps after the traditional name for film slates used in Technicolor shoots -  it uses April March's song "Chick Habit" (itself an English cover of the Serge Gainsbourg composition "Laisse Tomber les Filles" - or, "Leave the Girls Alone" - which was originally sung by in 1964 by France Gall) as a musical backdrop. "Chick Habit" was also used in the film soundtracks of But I'm a Cheerleader and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof.


lili on the web from BkTs on Vimeo.

And on that note, I bid thee farewell with this knowing wink (or is it a blink?) from a vintage China Girl:



Related Links:
Leader Ladies Project (Chicago Film Society web site)
Leader Lady Project (Facebook page)
The Forgotten "China Girls" Hidden At the Beginning of Old Film Reels (Sarah Laskow, Atlas Obscura)
Countdown To Ecstasy: China Girls (Accelerated Decrepitude)
China Girls, Redux (Accelerated Decrepitude)
16mm Leader China Girls (Brian Durham, YouTube)
China Girl (Jean Bourbonnais, YouTube)
Lili On the Web (Vimeo)


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This Year's Model: Genie Vincent Remembered

March 13, 2017, 12:47 pm
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Charm City Cover Girl Eugenie Vincent (photo courtesy Mike Milstein)

A friend messaged me today via social media, asking if I recalled a record album that featured erstwhile Baltimorean and fashion model "Genie" Vincent (not to be confused with the crippled rockabilly legend, Gene "Don't Call Me Genie" Vincent), whom we knew from hanging out at Towson State University in the early 1980s. 

I didn't remember much about "Genie" (birth name Eugenie Vincent) other than she was extremely tall (5 foot 11?) and slender (hence the modeling career) and that my ex-wife and college bandmate Katie Glancy knew her from TSU. (Katie's convinced she appeared on some Steve Winwood record that I had, but I haven't been able to solve that mystery.) I only recall seeing Genie at Oddfellows Hall music shows, having graduated from TSU in 1980, though she was friends with a number of TSU undergrads like Leslie "Leigh" Miller, Mike Milstein (another college bandmate), Mindi Siegel and Marty Benson. 

Others knew her from her days at Baltimore's former hippie enclave, Baltimore Experimental High School (504 Cathedral Street, down the street from the First Unitarian Church). As Rafael Alvarez once described it in a 2013 City Paper profile, BEHS was known for turning out "some of the most creative, some of the most successful, and some of the most dysfunctional high school graduates in Baltimore." 

Genie was certainly one of the more successful grads and went on to work with a number of creative talents. She ended up crossing the pond to model in Europe, where Malcolm McLaren must have discovered her because the album she appeared on was none other than the former Sex Pistols manager and Sex boutique co-owner's 1984 opera-meets-R&B mashup, Fans. (Thanks go to the recollections of tattoo artist, music promoter and Waverly Brewing Company co-owner Bill Stevenson for remembering Genie's appearance on this record!)



Front cover of Malcolm McLaren's "Fans" LP (Charisma, 1984)



Genie Vincent (left) appeared on the back cover of  McLaren's "Fans" LP



According to her Internet Movie Database (IMDb) filmography, Genie later appeared in Mary Harron's 1996 filmI Shot Andy Warhol, though local fanboy Robert J. ("Beefalo Bob") Friedman adds, "But if you blink, you'll miss her." She plays one of Warhol's Superstars and, though her role was fleeting, Bob insists, "She'll always be a superstar to me!"


"I Shot Andy Warhol" (1996)


Her IMDb credits also include the 1996-1997 television series The Anti-Gravity Room, 1998's Anarchy TV (which, in addition to Genie, featured another Baltimore actress, Mink Stole), and Zoltan (great name!) Alexander's 1993 film short, Skinned.


"Anarchy TV" (1998)

Genie also apparently collaborated a number of times with legendary former Baltimore artist-provocateur tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE and his Neoist cronies. (tENT briefly taught a "No No Umbrella Class" at Experimental High in the fall of 1981; perhaps that's where they met.)


The No No Umbrella Class outside Acme Food Market


In October 1981, Genie worked with tENT on two "events" at the Toronto Public Works Festival. First, there was the "Seatbelt Violation Public Works Promotion," which tENT described in "Mere Outline 1981" thusly:

Eugenie Vincent& I were tied to the roof of a rented car to attract attention to us while we drove around the city with signs advertising the festival we were to participate in & "HOMEX" - the magazine that 1 of the drivers, Ricki Kilreagan (the other driver being Sin-Dee Heidel), was editor of. After 20 minutes or so, we were stopped by a cop, who was eventually joined by 2 others. The cops tried to figure out what they could charge us with & eventually decided on "seatbelt violation" - much to the general amusement.


Seat Belt Violation event, Toronto Public Works Festival


This was followed by a "Neiost Night" performance at Toronto's YYZ Gallery. As tENT describes it: 


As an impromptu contribution to the "Neoist" night at the Gallery, Eugenie Vincent stripped, with her face wrapped with toilet paper (so that no photographs could be used to incriminate her in case she were to run for political office later), & lay on the floor. Unwanted left-overs from a very authentic Chinese meal we'd had earlier (cow's lung or some such) was spread out on her chest & abdomen. The audience was told that whoever ate the most food off of Genie without using their hands would win a free Chinese dinner. Of course, we knew that it was unlikely that anyone would want to eat any more chinese food after undergoing this experience but we figured that at least a few people in the audience would want to eat this slop off of the naked girl. I, most likely, conceived of all this & acted as judge. Ricki Kilreagan attempted to play some sort of kitsch tv music. Sin-Dee Heidel probably assisted in some way or another. 2 or more guys from the audience tried to eat the food off of Eugenie. I think everybody but 1 guy dropped out repulsed by the food. The remaining one who would've won pulled out a pocket knife in a frenzy of sexual aggressiveness & started scooping up the food with it. He was disqualified as a result & no-one won. To top it off, a sleazy Yugoslavian Photographer chased Genie around, still naked with toilet paper wrapped around her face, photographing in an "artistic" frenzy. This same photographer documented Skin Transfer (#51) - telling us "I believe in you" but refusing to give us copies of the photos. Hhmmm..





Neoist Night antics, Toronto Public Works Festival


Genie's Chinese food leftovers modeling performance reminded me of my old band Thee Katatonix's first-ever show at Towson's Oddfellows Hall back on April 27, 1979. For our debut, frontman Adolf Kowalski convinced some young woman to lay prostate on the stage, covered with a garbage bag, while he showered her with the remnants of a dissected stuffed teddy bear doll (his version of a punk pinata?) and spat beer on her. I think the trade-off was she got in free and got some beers (besides the ones spat on her). Who knew then that Adolf's abusive antics were actually high-concept "performance art" that would have impressed Neoists in Toronto galleries?


Bag Lady suffers for art's sake at Thee Katatonix's debut gig, Oddfellows Hall, April 27, 1979

Adolf spays a stuffed animal

The audience was floored. Literally.



"Don't get up on my account"


But I digress...OK, back to Genie.

I think Genie also appeared in issue 2 of a art zine affiliated with British Neoist Stewart Home called SMILE. SMILE would later inspire tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE's film Transparent SMILE, which is part of the Enoch Pratt Free Library's 16mm film collection.



SMILE #2


We Dream of Genie

A number of people in the Marble Bar Facebook group remember her a lot better than me, and everyone agrees that she was a sweet soul, someone really worth knowing. Or, as Bob Richardson posted on The Marble Bar Facebook group page, "I remember her. How could one forget?"

More Genie Vincent recollections follow:

Robert J. ("Beefalo Bob") Friedman recalled: "I was extremely fond of her. A down to earth person for such a glamor-puss."

Marty Benson: "I remember her from before she went to Italy. She was a very sweet Experimental High School girl, or she hung out with that crew. Very friendly and down to earth."

Leslie Fuquinay Miller: "She and I were best friends for a year or so. We hung out in DC almost every night and slept on the second floor of the Union every morning. We used to get dressed up and eat at Au Pied De Cochon in DC. We saw The Circle Jerks and lots of other punk bands together. She was always such a sweetheart. I remember that she had to sneak into her going-out clothes at her mom's apartment or house. It's fuzzy. Lotta years gone by."

Mindi Siegel:"She taught me how to do the 'Huntington Beach' on the second floor of the [TSU] Student Union."

Amy Linthicum first met Genie when Leslie Miller brought her to a party at the Glen Burnie house where Null Set's Mark Harp and Lou Frisino lived with Marble Bar doorman Ron DeNunzio. "I remember her wearing an earring made out of a bent fork, and a furry coat in an unnatural color." 

Lou Frisino: "Yes, she was at one of the wild parties there on Cody Drive. Genie kissed the wall in my foyer. That lipstick was on there for many years, lol!"

Alex Layne: "I remember a party out at her parents house in Timonium or someplace.. the Bludgeons played.. D.M. on drums.. I always thought she was hot, but she was a bit older, out of my league."

Robyn Webb recalled another Genie performance similar to the her Toronto Public Works Festival collaboration with tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE: "I remember when she and someone did some kind of performance at the 8x10...might have actually been part of a [Larry] Vega show...they were scantily clad, in just the most minimal lingerie, and Dickie [Gamerman] flipped out, in fear of his liquor license, as they were nearing titty bar territory in their gyrations and ministrations...I think Keith Wortz was there...or under a ladder, while Genie and someone (Jenny Beetz maybe?) did her thing while Keith read poetry..."


A "Larry Vega Show" at the 8x10 Club



Dave Sarfaty was at that 8x10 Larry Vega Show and added, "I think Dickie was more 'flipped out' that Keith was on stage than pretty girls in their underwear!"


Keith Wortz


Tom DiVenti suggested that 8x10 owner Dickie Gammerman was also "freaked because he thought they were underage."

***

Rumor has it that Genie moved back to Baltimore after living abroad and in Mendocino, California for many years. Those in the know, know. But if she hasn't made contact with her other former Baltimore friends in the social media age, then it's probably for a reason. Perhaps, like Garbo, she wishes to be alone. Maybe the former cover girl wishes to remain undercover. Respect. This has been merely a look back at a local gal made good.

***

S'more Pictures of Genie:


Cassandra (Julie von Rintein) and Genie Vincent (photo from Robert Friedman)


Genie Vincent models a feathery coat that Bjork would love

Genie Vincent glamour shot



Genie photo (courtesy Robert J. Friedman)



Genie, Martini & Rossi (photo courtesy Robert J. Friedman)



Genie black and blue (photo courtesy Robert J. Friedman)
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The Damned's 40th Anniversary Tour Hits the Baltimore Soundstage

May 10, 2017, 7:46 pm
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The Damned w/The BellRays& Ravengers
Baltimore Soundstage
124 Market Place, Baltimore, MD

"Ladies and gentlemen, how do?" 

(May 9, 2017) - It's a Tuesday night, but the Baltimore Soundstage is packed to the rafters with a horde of rock and roll enthusiasts of all ages and colors (except for clothing: a uniform Clubland Black - didn't you get the memo?) - to see the first and longest running punk rock band in the History of the World (Part 1): The Damned. In fact, it's their 40th Anniversary U.S. Tour, one that initially was set to feature all the songs from their first album, Damned Damned Damned, before the band decided instead to play fave selections from their back catalog. I'm glad they changed plans; although their debut is one of only two Damned LPs I ever owned (the other was 1980's The Black Album, plus I think Marc O'Connor made me of tape of their third - and best album - 1979's Machine Gun Etiquette, and I had their Christmas EP There Ain't No Sanity Claus), I think the "Playing An Album In Its Entirety" concept has run its course; see Buzzcocks, Devo, Megadeath, et al.)

Damned Damned Damned (Stiff Records, 1977)

Back in 1979 when I was in punk band called Thee Katatonix, our confrontational style (really just a front for musical incompetence - at least on my part) led some fans (also known as "victims" - it's a fine distinction sometimes) to liken us to the then-reigning Punk Rock Signpost, The Sex Pistols. (Perhaps you've heard of them?)

"Nah," I recall Kats singer-guitarist /lead assailant Adolf Kowalski saying in response to the comparison. "The Pistols are way more slick. We sound more like The Damned, 'cause they're not political and play really loud and raucous just like us." (Wait - we weren't political with songs like "I Sure Miss My Foreskin" and "I Hate DC"?)

The Damned released the first UK punk single (Stiff Records, 1976)

Almost 40 years later, The Damned still revel in playing loud and raucous music, but they also evolved into something bigger, better and more sophisticated after Captain Sensible switched from bass to guitar on Machine Gun Etiquette. The group added keyboards and a more overtly pop polish to the raw power exhibited on their 1977 debut album Damned Damned Damned. Sure, the Pistols got all the glory (and deservedly so - they were great!), but they were gone in a flash, done and dusted by the end of their ill-fated American tour that ground to a halt in San Francisco in January 1978. By comparison, the Damned were the true pioneers, a band of "firsts" in class. The Damned released the first-ever punk single on Stiff Records on October 22, 1976 ("New Rose" b/w "Help") - beating Buzzcocks'Spiral Scratch EP by several months - the first punk LP (Damned Damned Damned in February 1977), were the first UK punk outfit to tour the States (April 1977), and were also the first UK punks to reform (after a brief hiatus following their second album, 1978's Music For Pleasure which, may the record show, contained a non-political song called "Politics").  And four decades later, they are still making Noise Noise Noise that's Neat Neat Neat!

Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible: Damned to keep the faith with the masses

Yes, original members Brian James (guitar) and Rat Scabies (aka Chris Millar, drums) are long gone, but Captain Sensible (Ray Burns when he's at home) and singer Dave Vanian are still piloting the boat along with additional crew, whose ranks now number dancing keyboardist (and Mark Volman lookalike) Monty Oxymoron, bassist Stu West (who replaced Vanian's wife, Patricia Morrison, after she gave birth to daughter Emily in 2004) and drummer Pinch (Andrew Pinching).

Monty Oxymoron and Stu West

Go West, Young Damned: The Captain and Stu make do

Monty as Monolith (awesome photo by Jennifer Beetz)

I Fall?
And the Captain still refuses to abandon ship; after a nasty fall from the stage May 4 in Toronto (as shown below - and no, it wasn't during of performance of the Damned Damned Damned song "I Fall"), Sensible sustained a broken rib and had to cancel a couple of shows in Montreal and Boston (since rescheduled to later this month).





But tonight he was back and, as befitting his unfortunate recent fall from grace, was resting his sore bones atop a nasty-looking (albeit glow-in-the-dark) toilet that looked like it was borrowed from the props department of Trainspotting. (By the way, the graffiti on the front of this throne was later revealed to say "The Eagles puked here"! I'm sure they won't be the last!)

40 years after their debut album, The Damned's career is far from being flushed down the drain. In fact, their popularity, like this toilet, overfloweth.

Fan Club: Children of the Damned
Among those in attendance this night were Skizz Cyzyk (of Garage Sale, Go Pills, Stents, etc., etc.), his sweetie Jen Talbert, Scott Wallace Brown (of Awkward Sounds of Scott & Skizz, Tralalas), Julie Smith and Greg Brazeale (of Go Dog Go!), Joe Maravi, Karen Karen, John Rouse, Laurie Rollins Anderson, Layne Garrett-Bosserman and her son Sean, Amy Pelinsky, MaryAnne Tom, Mike and Janet Ramsey, Johnny Alonso and Shane K. Gardner, whose photographs from the show are truly amazing - check out his Damned good pics at Rock N Roll Socialite.


Captain Sensible (Photo by Shane K. Gardner, Rock N Roll Socialite)

We tried to hang out with some folks but, being vertically challenged Ewoks, had to scurry about to find a spot where we could actually see the band. Wherever we stood, some girl in storm trooper boots or a 6-foot punk with an additional 6-inch high red mohawk would move in to block our view. Suddenly, I felt my neck locked in a half-nelson by someone's arm - turning around it turned out to be Adolf Kowalski, whose other arm was extended more gently around the nape of my wife, Amy Linthicum (his ertswhile classmate at Dundalk High).

Coffin Cuties Magazine

Adolf was there to interview the band with Mike Hearse of Coffin Cuties Magazine. Adolf is an "Image Consultant" with Coffin Cuties. I don't know what that means, but it gets him into big events like this, so who cares, right? Adolf had been there since 3 o'clock that afternoon, but hey, that's the price you have to pay if you wanna have Captain Sensible emerge from his trailer, toothbrush in hand, and greet you by spewing a big gob of blue toothpaste four feet in the air. (Adolf loved it - dental hygiene is important!)


Coffin Cuties cohorts Mike Hearse and Adolf Kowalski with actor-rocker Johnny Alonso

Coffin Cuties maestro Mike Hearse poses with The Damned

Adolf graciously extended his largesse to Amy and yours truly, and we joined him and his girlfriend Jennifer Beetz (a talented artist and ace photographer who took some great shots this night) up in the VIP Lounge to the right of the stage. We suddenly felt like Studio 54 royalty. And, more importantly, we didn't have to stand on tippy-toes to see the band!

Luminous Amy Linthicum Warner: "I like being this close. Now Dave Vanian can see my new striped rockchick jacket!"

We were near enough that we could get these up-close-and-personal shots of the Full Monty Oxymoron, a maniacal madcap maelstrom of boundless energy and impressive dance moves (check out his custom-cool choreography during "New Rose"):

Monty: Hair Up!


Monty: Hair Down!

Indeed, we were close enough to see the not-so-little jokes the roadies play on the band (as shown below).

The roadies got creative with their sweat towel origami. That sure looks like a giant white dick (wait, is that an oxymoron?)(No offense to Monty Oxymoron.)


Let's Wait for the Blackout
I had to work late that night, so we missed the two opening bands, but apparently that was no great loss (Skizz Cyzyk: "The last band was like a set of cliches. And they were all bad cliches!"). So we waited...for the blackout. We waited for...the Damned! And as the venue went dark, the opening chords of "Melody Lee" filled the air and The Damned kicked out the jams for the next 90 minutes with a well-selected program of songs representing all their phases over the last four decades, with an emphasis on Damned Damned Damned ("New Rose,""Neat Neat Neat,""Fan Club"), Strawberries ("Ignite,""Generals,""Stranger In Town") and especially Machine Gun Etiquette ("Melody Lee,""Love Song,""I Just Can't Be Happy Today,""Anti-Pope,""Machine Gun Etiquette,""Plan 9, Channel 7,""Noise Noise Noise,""Smash It Up"). They also added some spice to the mix with a cover of Love's "Alone Again Or" (from 1986's Anything) and Paul Ryan's "Eloise" (which they've really made their own now). The Captain even downplayed his larger-than-life presence by neglecting to include most of his popular solo career songs like "Say Wot" or his cover of "Happy Talk," though he did sneak in his cover of Elton Motello's "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" during the first encore (at least according to Setlist.fm).


The Damned get psychedelic thanks to Jennifer Beetz's photo wizardry (Photo by Jennifer Beetz)

I thought they also performed "Looking at You" and Amy thinks they may have done "Nasty" as well - or maybe our recollections just got a contact high from Jenny Beetz's psychedelic tinkling of that photo above? (Hmmm, as the President says, we'll look into that.) (The Baltimore Post Examiner review included "Nasty" in its list of songs performed. It seems individual recollections of this show follow a Rashomon model. I'm just saying...) Speaking of "Nasty," does anyone else remember The Damned playing it on the cult '80s Britcom series The Young Ones? It's worth reprising here:





And the Damned did slip a political snort into their set when Dave Vanian - looking these days like a cross between Timothy Carey and Ghoulardi and wielding a beautiful old-school microphone - dedicated "Generals" (from the Strawberries LP) to Our Commander in Grief.

Anyway, here's how the Damned's Baltimore Soundstage show went down, according to the folks at Setlist.fm (the Setlist Wiki) - though I think they missed a few that I added, like "Fan Club" (see video below), so maybe the order isn't exact (it's only rock 'n' roll, so let's not quibble over the details)...

Noise for Heroes/Music for Zeroes Setlist:
  1. Melody Lee
  2. Generals
  3. Disco Man
  4. I Just Can't Be Happy Today
  5. Alone Again Or (Love cover)
  6. Love Song
  7. Machine Gun Etiquette (Second Time Around)
  8. Street of Dreams
  9. Eloise (Paul Ryan cover)
  10. Ignite
  11. Stranger on the Town
  12. Plan 9, Channel 7
  13. Wait for the Blackout
  14. History of the World (Part 1)
  15. New Rose
  16. Neat Neat Neat
    Encores
  17. Jet Boy, Jet Girl (Elton Motello cover)
  18. Fan Club
  19. Nasty
  20. Noise Noise Noise
  21. Smash It Up (Parts 1 & 2)
  22. Anti-Pope
Following are some songs I know they played, because I taped them: "Noise Noise Noise,""Neat Neat Neat" and "Fan Club."

Noise Noise Noise:



Neat Neat Neat:


Fan Club:



As Mike Hearse put it, this show was seriously sick! Indeed, The Damned truly Smashed It Up!




And on our way out, we heard that the Orioles had battled back from a 4-1 deficit in the 8th (to Max Scherzer!) to beat the Nationals in the 12th inning by 5-4! Who says "I Just Can't Be Happy Today"? Not me. It makes me glad to say it's been a lovely day - and that's OK!

Many thanks to Adolf, Mike Hearse & co. for letting us hang with them. Be sure to check out the next issue of Coffin Cuties for a mother lode of interviews, reviews and pics of The Damned; for "sneak peeks," check out the Mike Hearse and Coffin Cuties Facebook pages.

Related Links:
Baltimore Post Examiner review
Damned Show: Rock N Roll Socialite
The Damned (Official web site)
Coffin Cuties
"Melody Lee" (SixtySecondsSteve video)
"New Rose" (mikeywolves1 video)
"I Just Can't be Happy Today" (mikeywolves1 video)
Captain Loves Bon Jovi & The Jam (mikeywolves1 video)

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William S. Warner: A Life in the WIN Column

June 12, 2017, 11:43 am
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Time Waits For No One: William S. Warner in 2012

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground
Man comes and tills the fields and lies beneath
And after many a summer dies the swan
- "Tithonus," Tennyson

On the night of June 7, 2017, my dad WILLIAM S. WARNER, 94, passed away in his sleep. He was two weeks shy of his his 95th birthday and went peacefully and with dignity, which is the way to go if you have a choice. As my wife Amy and I entered his room in the health center of the Blakehurst Senior Living Community in Towson, the O's game was blaring on the TV in the background and, right as we reached his bed, Trey "Boom Boom" Mancini hit a walk-off home run to beat the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates in extra innings. I'd like to think his parting spirit had something to do with it - that this longtime Orioles fan insisted he go out a winner, literally. In fact, as O's broadcaster Joe Angel would say, I think you could put his whole life "in the Win column."

Cheers and Tears: June 7 was a night of Boom Boom and Bye Bye


I didn't really get to know and appreciate my dad until rather late in life, after he retired and became a fixture at Blakehurst. But I came to realize that he was a pretty cool guy. And I think he would be amused and surprised by how much he truly influenced, directly or indirectly, his often wayward son. In my youth I ignored most of his good advice, only to see how right he was about many things in hindsight. He was a planner, a provider and a bottom-line realist. These are all qualities that define his generation, the generation that lived through the Great Depression and World War II. The one rightly called "The Greatest Generation."


Portrait of the Pilot as a Young Aviation Cadet: William S. Warner astride his flight school training plane


His experiences as a pilot in the U.S. Navy especially helped define his self-reliance, toughness and work ethic. After all, when you're flying a high-speed plane high above the earth, any error in judgment can result in instant death. There is no room for error, or excuses. Or, as the Navy Flyer's Creed (a card issued to all flyers that I recently discovered in a box of dad's documents) puts it: "I am a United States Navy flyer...When the going is fast and rough I will not falter. I will be uncompromising in every blow I strike. I will be humble in victory."

When a flight instructor threatened to flunk him for being late for training, he was told, "I don't want excuses, Warner - I want results. Got that?" Just the facts, ma'am, as Joe Friday would say. My dad was never again late for anything, during the war or after. Those words echo in my mind whenever I find myself or someone else whining about their fate or making excuses. The experience gave my dad a bullshit meter that he never lost - and explains a lot about why he detested our most recently elected president (he is spared having to deal with him now, a silver lining or sorts, I suppose). I use another one of my dad's go-to quotes - "You get what you pay for" (which he would often utter in response to my penny-pinching ways) - virtually every day at the library, usually when some ingrate complains about the computers being down or their CDs being scratched. Like my dad, I tend to cut through the crap that clogs the drain.

Following is a brief look back at who the man we called "Duke" was, written in newspaper obituary style because, well, these were the notes I prepared when sending the notification to the Baltimore Sun's obit writer.








**********

WILLIAM STONE WARNER was the beloved husband of the late Emaroy Soulsby Warner, dear father of William S. Warner Jr., Thomas S. Warner and the late Nancy Warner Aspinwall, grandfather of Ashley Warner McGarrity and William Gilmore Warner, and great-grandfather of William (Liam) Duke Warner.

The Duke & His Boys: WSW Jr., TSW and  WSW Sr. in 2012


Four Generations of William Warners: William "Liam" Warner, William G. Warner, William S. Warner Jr. and William S. Warner


The late great Emaroy S. Warner (d. 2002) and Nancy Warner Aspinwall (d. 2006)


William S. Warner and the late Nancy Warner Aspinwall


WSW's beautiful granddaughter Ashley Warner McGarrity



The son of Dr. Howard Hoge Warner and Ruth Stone, and sibling of the late Howard H. Warner Jr., William Warner was born in Baltimore and raised on Garrison Boulevard in Forest Park. He was actually a twin, but his sister Nancy Janney Warner was a "blue baby" who died within a week; he later named his own daughter, Nancy Stewart Warner, after her. As a youth, he spent several summers at his family's Evergreen Farm in Lincoln, Loudoun County, Virginia. Tuberculosis outbreaks were not uncommon in Baltimore in the 1930s, and Dr. Warner prescribed getaways to the clean country air of Loudoun County as a preventive measure for his family.


Dr. Howard H. Warner and Ruth Stone Warner at Evergreen Farm


Dad and his older brother Howard were members of a group of Forest Park High School friends known as The Beeler Boys (named after a newspaper cartoon character), where he got the nickname "The Duke." His great-grandson takes his middle name from this nickname. The other Beeler Boys were: Doc, Cappy, Brownie, Mooch, Ox, Pug, Stook, Jake and Larry.


Duke Warner cartoon by Beeler Boy (and future brother-in-law) Robert "Larry" Soulsby


At Forest Park, "Duke" was a member of the Boys' Leaders and Treasurer Opportunity clubs. His yearbook page quote was: "They like him best who know him best."


William Stone Warner, Forest Park Class of 1940

"Duke," 1940


Graduating from Forest Park High School in 1940, he joined the United States Navy as a pilot upon the outbreak of World War II. As a Lieutenant Commander, he flew PBM Mariners - the flying boat patrol bomber built at Baltimore's Glenn L. Martin Company - in the Galapagos Islands off the South American coastline.


The PBM-5 Mariner flying boat with insert pic of William Warner


The Galapagos Islands


Some of his flights made his hair stand on end



I wouldn't mess with this guy - would you? (His bomber jacket was a hand-me-down that I wore throughout college until it literally disintegrated.)


WSW after receiving his Wings of Gold, September 1943



WSW at ease, smiling in a Hollywood glamour pose



Lieutenant Commander William S. Warner, September 1944


Upon crossing the Equator on board the U.S. Navy ship Barnegat, he passed a wild seaman's hazing ritual and was initiated into the U.S. Navy's "Ancient Order of the Deep." (Though my dad insisted that what happens in the Equator stays in the Equator, I got the feeling that it basically involved a lot of drinking and "Fully Monty" dancing!)

The Ancient Order of the Deep


On Galapagos, my dad used to tell me that there wasn't much to do between flying missions, and that the men of his squadron, VP-209, would amuse themselves by getting their pet billy goat "Blackie" drunk and holding boxing matches. My dad was proud that he was undefeated as an amateur boxer there, though occasional collusion among the battling pilots was not unheard of (wink, wink).

Blackie the squadron's pet billy goat

Naturally, there was a lot of drinking. For courage, for nerves, for boredom, for relaxation. Below is a picture of his squadron drinking in the Galapagos Officers Club (my dad is third from left):

L-R: Lt. Bob Steven, Ens. Tom Mahoney, Ens. William Warner, Lt. Alan Pederson, Lt. Bob Wilson, Lt. Ed Prince, Ens. Fredericks, Ens. DeRosa

On January 24, 1945, he married his high school sweetheart Emaroy M. Soulsby, daughter of Robert H. "Harry" Soulsby and Emary Stewart, while on leave in Baltimore. (No one ever got my mom's unusual name right; she went by Emy, but people mistakenly assumed her name was Emma, Emily or Amy. A friend of my sister's even called her, rather annoyingly, "Auntie Em." My dad called her simply "Bo." I have no idea why. The Warner kids later teasingly called her "German Bo,""Germ" for short, in homage to her big bouffant of hair, which we thought resembled a German WWII helmet.)

Lieutenant William S. Warner and bride Emaroy Soulsby Warner, January 1945

Suave as hell: WSW on his honeymoon at the Billy Rose Diamond Horseshoe, January 28, 1945


Duke and Germ in later years, when big glasses were in vogue

Anglophiles Duke and Germ get Victorian-Jiggy with it at a Charles Dickens Party, 1999


William Warner served in the U.S. Navy from October 1942 to November 1945. He briefly considered staying in the Navy or becoming a commercial pilot, but decided against it (perhaps because he wanted to raise a family and have a more "grounded," less risky profession). After the war, he attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and became a stockbroker at Stein Bros. & Boyce, where broker-about-town "Bill Warner" was featured in the firm's early 1960s "We Work Hard!" advertising campaign, as shown below.

"There's nothing leisurely about Bill. He's typical Stein Bros. and Boyce. Our business isn't for slow pokes. Things can happen lickety-split in the market, and you've got to be on your toes all the time. And we mean all the time! At SB&B we're day people and night people too. It's what we call our 'WORK HARD' approach to things." 






"Bill" Warner also served as President of the Bond Club. He later worked at Shearson and its many incarnations, including Shearson/American Express and Shearson Lehman Brothers.

In 1964, he moved his family to Rodgers Forge, where his children attended school and he served as Commissioner of the Rodgers Forge Baseball League. In the 1970s, he was one of the first financial analysts to appear on Maryland Public Television's "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser" program.

Upon retirement, he briefly managed a housing development in Bel Air while continuing to manage his stock portfolio as a private investor. His hobbies included travel, genealogy, antique collecting, metal detecting, Civil War history, thoroughbred racing handicapping, listening to jazz music (he had great taste and was especially for fond of sax men like Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz - and Tony Bennett led him to discover and appreciate Lady Gaga!) and following the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

Dad collected antiques and fine furniture

He loved seafood, attending 23 consecutive Chincoteague Seafood Festivals and making sure oysters on the half shell were a part of his Thanksgiving Day menu.

Sucking down oysters in Chincoteague with broker buddy Tommy Brager


He also looked forward each day to his evening cocktail, of which his preferred brand was Evan Williams Black Label Kentucky Bourbon. (When he later went into the health center at his retirement home, they monitored his meds and cocktails. He would then ask me to sneak in pints of Evan Williams for him to stash in his sock drawer. He never wanted to run out or be caught short!)


When it came to cocktails, William Warner was an ultra Liberal!


Dad also enjoyed a good Bloody Mary in the summertime

Following the death of his wife in 2002, my dad moved into Towson's Blakehurst Senior Living Community, where he was a popular resident known for his fashionable wardrobe (only he could get away with making a pink blazer look sporty), astute thoroughbred horse racing picks and baseball knowledge. There he was a constant companion to another resident, Elsie F. O'Malley, until her death in 2011.


Elsie O'Malley and The Duke

Elsie O'Malley and Dad in his famous manly pink jacket (he insisted it was "salmon" colored)

Bill Warner and Elsie O'Malley on Fantasy Island


The Warner clan gathers at Elsie O'Malley's 90th Birthday Party: Amy Davis Warner, Tom Warner, William Warner (again in the pink jacket!), William Warner Jr., the late Candy Gilmore Warner and Bill Aspinwall (husband of the late Nancy Warner)


My dad was fascinated by genealogy and tracing his family's Quaker roots. He belonged to countless historical societies and was particularly keen on researching the Warner family line in Loudoun County, Virginia, where his father once owned a farm in Lincoln. After a bout of pneumonia in 2012 cancelled his plans to make a final trip to Scotland with my brother, Billy Jr. came up with a backup plan: the three of us would visit the Warner ancestral home of Evergreen Farm and tour the Quaker meeting house in nearby Lincoln. My dad loved this trip down memory lane, the highlight of which was meeting the current owners of Evergreen Farm, Jeff and Nancy LeSourd; they invited us inside and were delighted to hear the history of the place from one of its previous residents. (For a full travelogue of this trip, see my blog posting "My Old Virginia Home.")


William Warner with Nancy and Jeff LeSourd outside Evergreen Farm



The Warner Boys with Evergreen Farm's Jeff LeSourd


William Warner regales the LeSourds with Evergreen Farm anecdotes

2012 was also the year my dad celebrated his 90th birthday. We booked the main auditorium at Blakehurst to hold a celebration honoring this milestone, which was attended by countless Blakehurst residents, friends and family members. It was a big deal, reflecting my dad's popularity and standing among his peers.






Four Bills at his 90th: Billy G. Warner, Billy Warner Jr., Bill Warner Sr. and Bill Aspinwall


William S. Warner and Thomas S. Warner at his 90th Birthday Party, Blakehurst


L.L. Cool J.: Ladies Love Cool Jacket


Besides his antiques and fine art, his Blakehurst apartment was adorned with memorabilia from America's favorite pastime, including his prized signed postcard from Lou Gehrig and signed pictures of fellow legends Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.


Dad's Baseball Hall of Famers Gallery at Blakehurst


As his health faded in the last few months, he seemed resigned to his fate. As a shrewd former financial investor, he knew what was coming - successful financial investors don't get where they are by scratching their heads and consulting the Magic Eightball for advice. Savvy brokers know how to read signs and interpret trends (as do successful horse handicappers, I might add), and I'm sure his sudden weight loss signaled to him that it was time to sell short. Recalling one of his favorite childhood radio heroes, he would say, "Well, you never know what's waiting for you just around the corner...only The Shadow knows!" But he knew, too, and he was prepared. He was a planner who made sure he crossed his T's and dotted his I's. He had done all he could do. It was time. And it was a good life.



The Duke at his grandson's wedding, another check on his bucket list: Billy G. Warner, William S. Warner and Mandy Warner. His health prevented him from attending his granddaughter Ashley's wedding.


In the end, I think he was simply lonely. He had outlived most of his friends and family (his wife, his daughter, his daughter-in-law, his Blakehurst "girlfriend"), had seen his grandchildren get married, had seen the birth of his great-grandson Liam Duke. At the quiet limit of the world, I believe he was at peace and longing to reunite with all those friends and loved ones up above. A pilot ready once more to take off for unknown horizons.


At the Blakehurst Memorial Day Picnic with Amy Davis Warner, just nine days before his passing

Like any human being, he was not without his faults - who among us is? Patience was not one of his virtues, but with a son like me anyone's patience would wear out (I can still recall the many times he had to pick me up at 2 or 3 in the morning, following some automotive mishap), and he always saved my bacon and got me out of my many misadventures.

Testing the limits of my dad's patience, 1970


As a driver, well, his road rage was legendary - no doubt a genetic trait passed down to both his sons (who proudly carry on the family tradition). And there was an unfortunate schism with his brother Howard (complicated but justified) that was never resolved. But these quirks are mere footnotes in the long and voluminous story of his life. (Or, as a wise man once said: before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes - then you have his shoes and you're a mile away!)

He was a good guy. A born story teller, a charming host, and generous to a fault when it came to looking out for his children and his children's children. My brother and late sister inherited a lot of his outgoing personality; like him, they liked people and were always comfortable in a social setting (as my late sister-in-law Candy used to say, "Your brother is in his natural element at a cocktail party.").

I know my brother Billy will miss talking to him on the phone every night (a tradition of "checking in" that he inherited from my sister Nancy). And I will miss watching and talking about Orioles baseball, horse racing and family history with him. Especially the stories. Even when his memory started to falter near the end, when he wasn't sure what day of the week it was, he could still recall obscure, unexpected details about some things. When Amy and I recounted how we found a vintage Uncle Wiggily board game, and asked him if he ever read the books by Howard R. Garis, he smiled and started naming all the characters - "Oh yes, Dr. Possum, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, Lulu and Jimmie Wibblewobble..."

Thankfully I anticipated getting some of his anecdotes archived and videotaped some of his recollections. In that way, along with these pictures and reminiscences, his legacy and influence will carry on. And in the name of his great-grandson.

A memorial service will be held Friday, June 30 at 11 a.m. at Church of the Redeemer, where my dad's remains will join my mother, sister, and sister-in-law in the columbarium. There will be a reception in the adjacent parish hall following a brief interment service for immediate family.

Related Warner Family Links:
William S. Warner, stockbroker and WWII pilot (Baltimore Sun obit)
"Pictures of a Photogenic Patriarch" (WSW photo album)
Duke's 90th Birthday Party at Blakehurst (video)
Duke Takes Stock: A Warner Family History (video)
"Little Sister" (Nancy Warner Aspinwall, 1952-2006)
Nancy Warner Aspinwall Tribute (video)
Nancy Warner Aspinwall - A Picture Book (photo album)
"A Remembrance of Moms Past" (Emaroy Soulsby Warner, 1923-2002)
Emaroy Soulsby Warner Tribute (video)
Candy Gilmore Warner (1949-2016)
Candy Warner Tribute (video)


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Pictures of a Photogenic Patriarch

June 16, 2017, 12:28 pm
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The Warner S. Warner Photo Album

My father's recent passing left me in possession of most of the family photo albums. Following are some of the better pics of our photogenic patriarch, William S. Warner (aka "The Duke"), that I discovered digging through the plentiful photo archives. (Consider this a photo slide show, posted here to save having to haul out a ton of boxed-up photo albums!)


William S. and Howard H. Warner, babes in arms


Even before Blakehurst, Duke was a croquet veteran

In Navy coat outside Forest Park home

Dressed to chill in a stylish hat


Bowtie Bill with Baby Billy Jr.


Mother "Bo" takes over holding Billy Jr.



Duke with wild Elvis Presley hair, holding Billy Jr. below the famous Yardley Taylor Loudoun County, VA map

Dad with his dad, Dr. Howard H. Warner, holding Billy Jr., and Aunt Muh, Evergreen Farm


Aunt Amelia and "Carnation Harry" Soulsby flank my dad with Billy Jr. Harry was dad's father-in-law. My mom's mother died following childbirth; she was raided by Harry and "Auntie"

Dad holding up the pillars of Evergreen Farm

Dad holding Nancy Stewart Warner (named after his late twin sister) while Billy Jr. sits on a footstool

Downy Ocean with Billy and Nancy

Downy Ocean with Germ and Duke in their finest Run DMC Adidas leisure wear

Lieutenant William S. Warner, U.S.N.R.


As a pilot on the Galapagos Islands


On Galapagos, there wasn't much to do except get Blackie the goat drunk

Drinking in the Galapagos Officers Club (third from left)

Duke astride his flight school training plane



Playing ball at flight school. I used to think this was my dad, but I think he's actually on the bench, far right



Fly Guys: Dad far left


Dad trained to fly on one of these birds


Looking spiffy in his Navy khakis

Looking spiffy in his trunks

The We Flew Crew (dad is third from right)





My favorite photo of the Duke as a WWII pilot










Ensign William S. Warner gets his gold wings


Lieutenant commander William S. Warner


My mom LOVED a man in uniform


Lieutenant William S. Warner weds Emaroy Soulsby Warner, January 24, 1945


Forest Park High School, Class of 1940


Forest Park Senior Class photo (Duke is in the middle, back row)


Getting up middle of the night to quiet baby Billy Jr.


Bill Sr. and Bill Jr. chillin' in the summertime


Dad holding Tommy Warner, back yard of Lanark Court home, Rodgers Forge

Duke cuts the cake with grandchildren Billy G. and Ashley Taylor Warner


Duke with Ashley Warner, the Murphys and Joe Minutelli

Duke & Germ on holiday

Duke & Germ: Emaroy and William S. Warner in full steppin'-out mode


William and Emaroy Warner


Ole! Duke goes native in Spain

"On guard!" Duke and "Beeeel" (son-in-law Bill Aspinwall)

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille." Dad in front of fireplace, 6314 Bellona Avenue

Beeler Boys Duke and Larry: Dad with brother-in-law Bob Soulsby


At the Chicoteague Seafoofd Festival

Having a cool brew with Tommy Brager and friend at Seafood Festival

Slurpin' down oysters with Tommy Brager at the Seafood Festival

Dad, mom, Tommy Brager, Candy & Billy Warner at Seafood Festival






"You're marrying Beeel, Nancy?" Dad and Nancy Warner


The proud parents at Nancy's wedding to William Aspinwall


The Warner Family getting ready to head to Church of the Redeemer for Nancy's wedding


Giving away the bride, Nancy "Hanks" Warner


Broker About Town Bill Warner at Stein Bros. & Boyce


"Buy! Sell! Hold!" Broker Bill Warner at work

The navy blue blazer broker look

Bill Aspinwall with Bill Warner



























Getting dressed up for Wigstock
Gone fishing!



Having a cocktail with daughter Nancy on sun porch of 6314 Bellona Avenue


Four generations of Bill Warners

Family get-together at 618 Blakehurst



Continuing the Family Line: William S. Warner, Ashley Taylor Warner and William S. Warner Jr.


The patriarch with his progeny: "Fathead" Tommy, Nancy and Billy Jr.

Duke in sexy summer shorts


At a PBM Mariner flyers reunion





Down on the farm with his dad, Aunt Muh and Billy Jr.


Billy Jr. with Bill Warner Sr.



Emy, Nancy, Bill and Tommy Warner, 1968

Duke and "Bo" with Billy Jr., Evergreen Farm, Lincoln VA

Holding Billy Jr. on porch of Evergreen Farm

Hitting the greens

WSW, TSW and WSW Jr. at 618 Blakehusrt, Towson

Duke the bon vivant, with Bloody Mary in hand


Tommy flanked by mom and dad in New York City

Holding court in his famous chair, 6314 Bellona Avenue

Amy Warner with the Duke at Billy G. Warner's wedding in Northeast, 2014

Dad, Billy Jr. and friend Lou Fleury at his 90th birthday celebration, Blakehurst


Dad flanked by Harry Bowie and Steve Strachan at Billy G. Warner wedding, 2014


William S. and Thomas S. Warner at his 90th birthday celebration, Blakehurst

Four Bills at Duke's 90th, Blakehurst: Billy G.m Billy Jr., Bill Warner Sr. and Bill Aspinwall

Duke, the chick magnet at his 90th birthday party, Blakehurst


Duke opens Christmas presents at 618 Blakehurst

Warners at Elsie O'Malley's 90th birthday celebration: Amy, Tommy, dad, Billy and Candy Warner, Bill Aspinwall


"I like to lead when I dance, Elsie!" Dad with his Blakehurst girlfriend Elsie O'Malley

"Be still my heart!" Dad after dancing with young chicky Jan Seiden at a Pratt Library charity event

Bill Warner and Elsie O'Malley

Dad with me and Bill Aspinwall and Nancy Warner Aspinwall

Duke in the kitchen, 6314 Bellona Avenue





At the Blakehurst Memorial Day Picnic, May 29, 2017





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