The ZOMBIES @The Troubadour 9/11/18

The British Invasion band The Zombies “brought it” to their second night gig at the Troubadour which brought to mind a Zombie Apocalypse of a musical kind. Kind of an Apocalypto if you will with an experimental nature that resonated with the sold-out crowd. The band was animated, chatty and performance driven as they totally rocked up the club.

The Zombies were formed in St. Alban’s in 1961 and by 1964 had a hit titled “She’s Not There” followed up with “Tell Her No.”  I first discovered them in a film titled “Bunny Lake Is Missing” in which they had three songs including my favorite “Just Out Of Reach” in 1965.  The song is featured in television scene in the film.  The Zombies had me at “Just Out Of Reach” and it was the beginning of a great fandom for me.  I even own a copy of the film.  The Zombies performed all of these gems at their Troubadour show. Real toe tappers for this former Go Go Dancer.

Around six months ago there was a very conceptual milk commercial that aired on television that featured a song that got me thinking how do I know this song?  I grabbed my cell phone and hit the SHAZAM app and voila there it was “The Zombies/I Love You.”  I have Zombie songs in my iPod queue,  but not “I Love You” and I quickly added it.  It was truly a blessing to me that the band played that tune at the show and did so in such a way that I could not stand still.  I was dancing all around the aisle in a 2 -foot space. I happily kicked up my heels and offered up my apologies for elbowing my neighbors and stepping on more than a few toes with my boot heels.

Perhaps one of the best known songs associated with The Zombies is “Time Of The Season” which is from their 1968 album “Odyssey and Oracle” and is in itself quite an enigma as it originally did not garner much attention, but developed a “cult” like following during the fifty plus years they have been The Zombies.  It still ranks at #100 on RollingStone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 9 of the 12 songs on the psych-pop ear candy were recorded at the infamous Abby Studios and they used the “Studer 4 Track Machine” that The Beatles used to record their “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”  It came in at 113 which was just under the  U.S. Hot 100 list.  This song sounded amazing live and is the first time I have ever heard it performed.  Colin Blunstone’s voice is still full-bodied with a  range of a much younger vocalist. The vibrato is strong and constant and not weak and wavering as some singers newest work seems to be. This song is truly a treasure to hear.

Argent writes most of The Zombies’ material, but the stand out song of the night was “Hold Your Head Up” which Blunstone told his adoring fans was actually penned by former member Chris White and performed originally by Argent’s band “Argent.”  This song provided quite a “jam” and included a potpourri of rifts from many other tunes. “Hold Your Head Up” came off slick, polished and oozing with Argent’s adept musicianship upon his organ.

When I was a Go Go Dancer at The Teen Fair’s at The Palladium in Hollywood there were many bands that performed covers of The Zombies’ hits and I did get to experience the thrill of dancing to their tunes, but this is the first time that I’ve ever been lucky enough to dance to them live.  The last time I was at The Troubadour I had told staff person Mike that when I returned it would be without the cane I was hobbling around with due to a fall down a flight of stairs at a Ringo Starr concert. His answer was “And I’ll bet you were dancing in the aisle…right?”  Wink, wink.

The Zombies are professionally trained musicians that have an experimental bent woven into the tapestry that is their body of work.  It is beyond this music lover how they could be eligible for The Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame since 1989, be nominated in 2014, 2017 and 2018 and not selected.  I voted for them every time as did the legion that comprise their faithful “Zombie Cultist” force.  Not exactly an Army, but definitely a perpetually moving train heading your way and telling you to get on board.

 Many thanks to Facebook gal pal Michele Coombe, Siren Artist Management, for making this night possible as we celebrated her 39th birthday…wink, wink.

It was nice to catch up with The Zombies’ road manager, Chris Tuthill, and hearing that The Zombies are on their third consecutive tour.  Tuthill also added that touring with Uriah Heep seemed logical.

The Zombies are slated to join British Rockers Uriah Heep on October 27th for a European tour.   Uriah Heep have 25 studio albums, 13 live albums, 16 compilation albums, 27 UK singles and 17 videos under their respective belts and feature heavy organ orchestration in their body of work.  Tunes that one might recognize them by are “Wizard,” “July Morning” and “Stealin.”

Uriah Heep are touring in support of their current release “Living The Dream” which is set to drop on September 14, 2018.

 

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John Lennon “Forever” Stamp Set For Release By USPS

The new John Lennon “Forever” 50 cent postage stamp released on 9/07/18. There are: sheets of stamps at $8.00 each, set of four digital color postmark which features a peace sign at $6.60 and first day of issue covers at $3.76. This release is part of the Music Icon series by the USPS.
The release coinsides with the October 9 release of a new remastered boxed set of Lennon’s work titled “Imagine-The Ultimate Collection.” The 6 disc set will have 4 CD’s and 2 DVDs and a 120 page book. October 9 would have been Lennon’s 78th birthday.
Lennon’s son Sean Ono Lennon and widow Yoko Ono Lennon were in attendence at the unveiling of the colorful stamp’s unveiling and Yoko was involved in all aspects of the remastering.
The Unlimate Collection is ready for pre-order on Aamazon for $99.98.

I am a big John Lennon fan.  I own lots of books, magazines, photos, CD’s, DVD’s and I have collages of him hanging in my apt as well as a poster from the Grammy Museum and a large framed photo of him in front of the Statue of Liberty.  I’ve even made friends with Andrew Solt’s brother John.  John Solt is a lovely poet that i met through a mutual poet friend named Morgan Gibson.  As big of a fan as I am, I’m not so sure that I want to shell out $100 for the new ultimate collection boxed set that will be realesed on Lennon’s birthday.  Purchasing stamps dedicated to Lennon’s memory is not a stretch for me since I have collected the Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin releases.  I also collect stamps when i like them.  I have a large collection of Bicentennial stamps in my collection which I am proud of.  But…….. $100 for stuff I already own seems redundant.  Who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind.  Hopefully, I’ll make up my mind Lennon’s birthday on October 9.

50th Anniversary of The Doors’ “Love Street” Photos

 

I’ve added photos from the 6th annual Love Fest on the legendary Laurel Canyon where music found it’s creative groove. You can go to http://www.nohoartsdistrict.com/lamusicscene to see the full column about this awesome event.  Unfortunately videos cannot be posted to this blog site….hmmmmmmm. So glad that I was able to see Krieger perform as well as Johnny Echols of LOVE and Micky Dolenz.  All were flawless sets of sweet memory producing music from my youth.

Included in the photos are: Robbie Krieger and John Densmore of The Doors presiding over the renaming of a portion of Rothdell Trail to LOVE Street by City Councilmember David Ryu; Former Monkey Micky Dolenz; Fem Zeppelin Led Zeppelin Tribute band; Love co-founder Johnny Echols and friends; Get The Led Out DJ Jim Ladd; Henry Diltz autographing my “Morrison Hotel” t-shirt which Robbie Krieger also autographed; a verse from “Love Street”; Jim Morrison’s house and Music Maven with Ms. Mindi Muse.
Love-In 2018 is slated for next Sunday, August 12 by the merry-go-round at Griffith Park. Photos from that event will be posted here at News From The Front.

Greta Van Fleet

It is always a treat to see fresh young talent and that is what Greta Van Fleet is. They are ear candy of the highest degree. I like these 4 kids and have nothing but praise for them and wish them well on the their current path to success.
What I find disturbing is those that do not agree with my opinion making threats to me via some obscure cult that calls themselves “The White Rose Resistance Group”. Curious enough to look this group up, I found out that they were a group of intellectuals and scholars formed in 1942 to fight the Nazis. This group is said to HAVE been non-violent and was situated in Munich, Germany.
This resistence group is suppossed to no longer be active, but Judith Phipps told me that they still exist and are very secretive. Phipps is the fan that roared by threatening me with untold nonspecific consequences. All this because I dare to like Greta Van Fleet.
Phipps’ spelling was hard to make out in the private message she sent me on Facebook. And it made me wonder what was going on with her spelling and the use of too many commas and periods.
I am going to write what she said to me. I think she is slandering the group myself. Maybe you can decide.
“Greta Van Fleet was the name of a Nazi sympathizer who Robert (Plant?) disliked. She is the heiress to the Van Zeppelin fortune and is no longer alive. The Van Zeppelin family used Zeppelin for the Nazis to destroy many people. Thus developing a fortune, they had to meet with her to use the name Zeppelin. Then to be rude to Robert and others by refusing acknowledgement any repetition of Zeppelin style in their music…outragious. Rude little guys will never be a fan.
I am a (member)-I could not make out the word that was spelled paet. This group is also secrative. Activly fights inhumanity against fellowman. Started during Nazi Germany.”
I am guessing that Phipps is insisting that Greta Van Fleet are Nazi’s and that this group is anti-Nazi and will terminate them. I did a lot of reserach to write my next column and never did I come upon anything that would indicate that they are anything more than young guys from from a Baviarian town in Michigan where they heard someone mention the name of local resident Greta Van Fleet. She is in her 80’s and recently met up with the guys at a concert.
The band acknowledges Led Zeppelin’s influence upon their craft. There is no disrespect coming from them.
There does come a point when some less than diligent “reporters” asking them the same thing that has been already been asked or stated over and over again when a person will rebel. If that is the case, I am willing to overlook it.
It would seem that Page and Plant are getting tired of hearing it. Even though the remaining members have moved on from Led Zeppelin, except to remaster to reissue and sell, and have their own projects going. They all seem pretty happy.
If this nonsense was started by some misguided super-fan in an attempt to stir up trouble or maybe get Led Zeppelin to regroup and start touring…let it go because it isn’t going to happen. Their 50 year anniversary is coming up and who knows what they’ll be doing. Look at Plant’s agenda as well as Page and Jones to see what those say.
Not everyone is going to like or care for Greta Van Fleet and that is ok and is normal. But, please leave the juvinile threats behind and grow up.

The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy: A Review

Must confess that ever since Penny gave Leonard a first edition copy of “The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy” on “Big Bang Theory” I’ve been curious. This last Sunday, June 17, 2018 my curiosity was cured when I was able to go to the “Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts” and a live performance of it at “The Lovelace Studio Theater”.
A lot of the times I do not enjoy plays as the scenery doesn’t allow for spelling it out and I have to stretch my imagination to envision the sight
that the actors are trying to project. I am lazy.
Having said that, I must confess that although the scenery was sparse and I needed to really exercise my imagination I got it. I got it so well that I understood the “in-jokes” and I found myself laughing at some of the humorous
lines when no-one else appeared to get it.
When I announced my intention to go to see this play, I had a few comments that were related to this play: #42 and “Marvin.” When I asked my friend James shen what the #42 meant, he said it was the answer to the meaning of life. Big question mark in my popped up and I quipped up that I thought it was 73 as that was Sheldon’s answer to the best number in the universe.
The friend that mentioned “Marvin” had chosen wisely as her favorite character, I kept wondering if “Marvin” was going to be like “Marvin The Martian” of cartoon fame. Nope, “Marvin” was a robot in the play. A very serious character that had bursts of concern.
The play was written by Douglas Adams and directed by Madeline Dahm and featured a cast of multitalented people: Trecey Dory, Jayde Lief, Matt Macguire, Kelvin Morales, Mauricio Morazon, Madelina Nastase, Jo Rodriguez, Helya Salarvand, Alex Shelton and Siera Williams.
The lead characters are Martha Dent and Ford Perfect played by Siera Williams and Mauricio Morazon. These two actors held my interest and are pivotal to the cohesiveness of the play. The two meet on Earth and are swept up into a space ship that is working on the destruction of Dent’s homeland. Perfect gives her a copy of “Don’t Panic” which she tends to not get its significance during the play; that changes at the end of “The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy.”
The cast are a gender-bending ensemble that play multiple roles one of which is Alex Shelton that had a variety of roles that displayed his ability to go from actor, to puppeteer to musician in a matter of seconds. Loved his flow in the character that he was at any given moment. After the performance, I grabbed the unsuspecting actor to hug him and to tell him how awesome the cast was, how they blew my mind and how the ending song was a showstopper for me.
Kelvin Morales and Helya Salarvand played the character of “Zaphod”. This two-demential character required the to move and speak as if they were one and really had engaged. Jo Rodriguez played the robot “Marvin” to a tee in a cosmic costume that made me take notice, especially the helmet with the robot from “Lost In Space” on the top.
Working together this ensemble brought me though their adventure and got me to understand the hitch-hiking part of this play.
This play is the second production for this season for “The Wallis Studio Ensemble” and “The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy” was selected because they were looking for a robust, absurd and funny with a social conscience. I think that they chose well with “The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy” as it does make a statement about the world we live in today as well as when the story was first written back in 1978.
At the end of the show a song by “Portugal, The Man” titled “Feel It Still” which had the cast all dancing and also enticed some audience members to jump in and add to the experience. This song keeps turning up for me. It’s a song from “Coppertone” and I first heard it by “Portugal, The Man” on the recent “Grammy Awards Show.”
Thank you to this talented ensemble for putting on a such a wonderful enterpitation of this lively play.

@Jim Morrison’s Grave & Nelson Vard

When I was led by fate to Jim Morrison’s grave at Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise in the 20th Arrondissment in 2014, I had no idea why I was being led there or what I was going to find. It was obvious to me the spirit of Morrison had something in mind as the spirit was working overtime to get me there. Relentless hounding from the moment I got off of the airplane, getting lost in MontMartre by the “Soul Kitchen” cafe, having my iPod get stuck on Doors’ songs to writing an ode to Morrison; there was no doubt that I had to go to Morrison’s grave.
When I finally found the internationally famous and much talked about grave of THE Jim Morrison, I found a beautiful young man and his mother there too. The young man introduced himself as Nelson Vard and show me evidence that he had just been selected by “Nouvell Star”, a French equivalent of “America’s Got Talent”, to compete on the show as a singer. He made it to the end, but did not win because he is rock n’ roll and France signs techno-pop.
Vard picked up his guitar and began to sing some of The Doors’ music and it sounded beautiful. I remember thinking that this kid has talent as I was listening. Vard was very helpful and hopped the fence around the grave to put my roses, my brother’s ashes and the ode that I had written to Morrison on top of the edifice there at the grave.
Over the years we have kept in contact and he has sent me links to his work and has kept me appraised of his musical progress. Last year I put him contact with an industry friend in London, England to help him get to the next level of his development. This kid has a great future. He reminds me of a 21st Century version of Donovan.
I am working on going back to Paris later this year to discuss with my friends how are we going to proceed with Vard now that he is an adult and his music is maturing.
In the mean time I would like it if you all would go to “SoundCloud” and look up Nelson Vard/GoGo Juice. I tried several times to post the link, but could not get it to work. Listen to it and then let me know what you think…PLEASE.

Arctic Monkeys VS Stub Hub

After an absence of four years,the Arctic Monkeys announced that they were doing a gig at The Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware in June. They had also listed some dates in Europe. This was exciting news because most fans thought that this day was never going to come. But, there weren’t many dates on the tour and only one in the entire USA. I thought about going to Delaware for a few minutes and giving up on my trip Paris, France later this year. Then I came to my senses and began sending messages all over the internet to the Arctic Monkeys begging for more dates and please have some in Los Angeles.
Happily the band complied and announced a show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (HFC) May 5, 2018. Tickets would go on sale at 10:00am, Friday March 16, 2018. Ok I thought. We can do this.
I took off work and was poised to pounce when 10:00am on March 16 rolled around.
But, almost as soon as I got there the 3,000 tickets were sold out. Reading the thousands of Arctic Monkeys’ fan responses to this occurrence was sad and pitiful because they all said the same thing…Shut out as soon as I got on. A few lucky fans did manage to purchase tickets, but not very many.
Almost 70% of the fans believed that something fishy was afoot and so the investigative journalist in me kicked in and I began to ask the “event” person at HFC questions about this travesty perpetrated upon the fans of the Arctic Monkeys.
I was informed that 40,000 fans were trying to purchase 3,000 tickets which is in itself a conundrum. 1 show with only 3,000 tickets and 40,000 all trying to purchase at the same time. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
At about this same time, fans started posting pages from “Stub Hub” which is a ticket resale site on the internet. Tickets were going for $325 to $2,500 on this site and we fans were all outraged. I went back to my contact at the “event” division and growled about “Stub Hub’s” rape and pillaging of the Arctic Monkeys’ fans.
I was told that they have asked “Stub Hub” to cease and desist selling their tickets, but according to my contact they have continued selling the scalped tickets anyway. Here is the very sad and pathetic part of this resale business;
there are very specific rules concerning this matter posted on HFC’s event page. In bold letters it states: THESE TICKETS ARE NON-TRANSFERABLE & NOT FOR RESALE! RESOLD TICKETS WILL NOT BE HONORED! THE ORIGINAL PURCHASER OF THE TICKETS MUST ARRIVE WITH THEIR PARTY, PHOTO IDENTIFICATION, CREDIT CARD USED TO PURCHASE TICKETS AND ENTER THE VENUE USING ONE OF THEIR TICKETS.
Also stated in smaller print is: Customers with more than 2 tickets will be automatically refunded without notice.
To me this reads as a very clear notice of their intent so that if a fan purchased a scalped ticket that they paid the $325 to $2,500 for, they will be not only out of the concert, but also out the money they spent on the scalped tickets.
This is so wrong on may levels and I think that “Stub Hub’ needs to be stopped because these poor desperate fans are going to ripped of.
I have been a fan of the Arctic Monkeys since 2010 when I moved back to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara, CA. Their alternative rock meets punk is awesome and my feet cannot keep still when I play them on my iPod. I have as many songs on by them on my iPod as I do The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. My most favorite song by these lads from Sheffield, England is “Do I Wanna Know.” Other songs are “Don’t Sit Down Because I Moved Your Chair,” “I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor,” and “Why Do You Only Call Me When You Are High.”
It was a great day when they performed a “Beatles'” medley at the 2012 Olympics in London. I was mesmerized. Beatles’ Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr enjoyed their performance as well and said so. This put me over the moon, because I had been working behind the scenes promoting them to “Rolling Stone Magazine,” “Spin Magazine,” and “Billboard Magazine.”
Their licks are hot and frontman Alex turner’s voice is something that I could easily fall in love with. I’ve said more than once that I would make love to Turner’s voice if I could.
The Arctic Monkeys have announced that they’ll be having a new LP release in May, 2018. I wait for that release with bated breath on pins and needles.
Still, it would have been nice to see them live for the first time ever since I first discovered them via Decca Records in France.
A journalist friend at an industry gig magazine told me that perhaps on Monday or Tuesday there will be an announcement that the Arctic Monkeys have added more shows in Los Angeles and that things happened the way they did because they wanted the frenzy and hype to gauge what the demand was. If that is true, and this person would know, there are still at least 40,000 fans clamoring for tickets to see them in Los Angeles.
Does Turner remind me of the incredible guitarist of Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page?
Well yes, sort of. They were both born in January and both have written a ton of music for their respective bands. But, Jimmy Page doesn’t sing and Alex Turner does. The fact that 32-year-old Turner has an estimated worth of $25 Million doesn’t hurt my impression of him either. In fact, anytime a musician can make that kind of money tells you he is something exceptional.