I was leafing through the bootleg albums that were on sale at Lewin’s Record Paradise on Hollywood Boulevard. In the 1960s the store was important as it was the only one in the area that stocked English imports. The original Beatles and Rolling Stones albums released in England were coveted because they had additional songs and different covers from their American counterparts. Only later were the imports also valued for their superior sound. By the early 1970s, with The Beatles having broken up, and with the same albums now issued on both sides of the Atlantic, the store was a shadow of itself, reduced to selling bootlegs. When I commented on the high prices to a fellow shopper, he alerted me to a guy who had a record concession in Santa Monica, who not only had lower prices, but who also took records in trade.
Bootlegs were records made by fans of an artist, usually recorded on nonprofessional equipment at a concert. They were illegal to make and sell—not own—because they were unauthorized, and the artists, songwriters, publishers and record companies received no money. The justifying attitude among bootleggers and fans was that the record companies and artists were making so much money already they weren’t being deprived. As a record fan, you knew these pressings were illegal, but you wanted them to further your experience as a fan of the artist’s music.
Apollo Electronics was on Broadway, across from a parking lot. Richard Foos had a section of the store in which he sold used records and bootlegs. With his curly hair and beard, he looked like a dusty prospector from an old movie. Richard was friendly, if low-key, and gave me a better deal than when I traded my promotional albums at Aron’s Records in Hollywood. I picked up The Rolling Stones’ Beautiful Delilah, an album of unreleased outtakes, among other items.
On Monday, January 31, United Artists Records hosted a “Legendary Sock Hop & Malt Party” at the Whisky a Go-Go to kick off their Legendary Masters Series. Fats Domino, Ricky Nelson, Jan & Dean, and Eddie Cochrane were the subjects of the first four releases. Each package contained lots of hits and comprehensive liner notes. It was rare to see such quality in a reissue of older music. Early in the evening, before the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band could make a surprise appearance, the electricity went off, and stayed off. The result was that Sherman Cohen and I felt less inhibited about talking to the girls who sat in the row in front of us: Shelly Heber, her younger sister Nikki, and their roommates. Sherman was impressed that Shelly worked in the charts department at Billboard. I was impressed that she had been president of one of The Yardbirds’ fan clubs in the 1960s. The electricity never came on, which limited the fun that the evening promised.
On the turntable: David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Yes’ Fragile, Colin Blunstone’s One Year, The New Seekers’ I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Billie Holiday’s God Bless the Child, The Concert for Bangla Desh.
February
On Thursday, February 10, Michael Nesmith played a free noon concert at the Ackerman Grand Ballroom, accompanied by Red Rhodes on pedal steel guitar. I went backstage and chatted with Mike before the show.
On Tuesday the fifteenth, T. Rex headlined the Hollywood Palladium. While Ballin’ Jack performed, Marc Bolan was off the stage, on the left, dancing along. Nobody approached him. During his set, Marc was enthusiastic and confident, but his lead guitar playing was overly ambitious.
I enjoyed the oddball black comedy Harold and Maude and was taken by how well Cat Stevens’ nine songs enhanced the mood. The music had a similar effect as Simon & Garfunkel’s in The Graduate. I particularly liked the two new songs, “Don’t Be Shy” and “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” which were both life-affirming. Neither song was included on Cat’s current album, Teaser and the Firecat, and there isn’t a soundtrack album for the movie.
The English clerk at Discount Records had just returned from London where he had picked up an album, Another Monty Python Record, by a comedy troupe that had their own TV show. It was outrageous, and English! I’d never experienced anything like it. The jacket looked like a classical album, with lots of cross outs and the title handwritten in on the side. I heard two cuts, “Spanish Inquisition” and “The Architect,” and made a mental note to get the record when it was released in the States.
On Thursday the seventeenth, my ad ran in the Daily Bruin for Redbone, a group that had climbed into the Top 30 with “The Witch Queen of New Orleans.” In the 1960s, a successful advertising campaign in New York featured posters of obvious non-Jews—like an American Indian—eating rye bread with the caption “You Don’t Have to be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye.” As Redbone promoted their Native American ancestry, I featured a photo of Mark Leviton with “war paint” and a feather taking a bite out of a 45-rpm record pressed between two slices of bread. My title was “You Don’t Have to be Indian to Enjoy Redbone.” I plugged their album and an upcoming appearance opening for Ike & Tina Turner at The Forum.
Badfinger, with their Beatles-like, power-pop sound, were among my favorite artists of the early seventies. Their first four records were all hits: “Come and Get It,” “No Matter What,” “Day After Day,” and “Baby Blue.” In April 1971, Ben Fong-Torres, Rolling Stone’s music editor, called the Daily Bruin office looking for a writer to interview the group. Jim Bickhart, my editor, recommended me. It was my first professional assignment. They performed at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Friday, April 30, and on Monday I interviewed them at the Continental Hyatt House. They weren’t stimulating conversationalists, but they were friendly, and I liked them. They seemed like humble, regular guys. They didn’t flaunt their rock star success or Beatles connection. They weren’t egotistical or pretentious.
I hadn’t seen them in a year when they returned to the Los Angeles area to perform a number of dates. On Monday the twenty-first, they played a good set at the Whisky a Go-Go, after which I visited with them backstage. It was a large room on the second floor furnished with two black leather sofas. I sat on the carpet in front of the large window that looked down on the Sunset Strip. Guitarist Joey Molland expressed his frustration that their playing time in clubs, like the Whisky, was limited. They had to play two sets a night, and audience response was sedate compared to that in larger venues. I talked mostly with Pete Ham, the group’s main vocalist, lead guitarist, and songwriter. I found his gentle demeanor appealing. I spent more time with him the following evening during a reception Capitol Records threw for the band at the Black Rabbit Inn on Melrose Avenue.
On Thursday the twenty-fourth, the Daily Bruin ran the ad I composed for the new Firesign Theatre album, Dear Friends. It plugged that evening’s Firesign Fest, an hour of programming on KLA. I provided albums for the station to give to winners of a contest.
The next night, I joined Mark Leviton at the Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills to see Badfinger headline over Pure Prairie League and Billy Joel. Mark had been assigned to write a feature on them for Phonograph Record Magazine, and I covered it for the Daily Bruin. We met them backstage and then joined them and their publicist at Charley Brown’s restaurant, nearby, for dinner. Most of the customers were families. Nobody approached the band. Despite the prospect of a good meal, they weren’t in the best mood. Although their most recent album, Straight Up, was a commercial success, and “Day After Day” their biggest hit, they were demoralized. George Harrison having vacated his producing duties halfway through recording the album had left them artistically dissatisfied. George had hired Todd Rundgren, whom the band found selfish and restricting. They complained that sometimes Todd would be playing piano for his own pleasure in a different room while the group was working in the studio. Harrison’s departure, coupled with Paul McCartney’s having himself departed—after championing the band and writing their breakthrough single “Come and Get It”—left them feeling abandoned. They also heard that John Lennon didn’t like them. And, as with so many groups, where was the money? They still all shared a rented house in London with their fifty-nine-year-old manager
.
On the way back, Joey and drummer Mike Gibbins piled into the back seat of Mark’s Ford Fairlane; I rode shotgun. Joey marveled at the Troggs album Mark had. Mark pulled into the parking lot of the Valley Music Theater and greeted the attendant by thumbing in the direction of the backseat and, with an affected English accent, purposely uttering the novel phrase, “We’re with the band.” We dropped them off and, after parking the car, had trouble finding their roadies—Nicky and Fergie had to be the nicest in the business—before gaining admittance. Mark and I enjoyed the show, but the pacing was off. We joined them afterward.
Pete, frazzled, stormed into the dressing room and spouted, “It’s fucked” (his assessment of the performance). They complained about the “shitty” sound, and having to play on a revolving stage. Badfinger loved The Beatles, were inspired by them, and created splendid singles, but when they toured the States they felt they had to cater to the audiences expecting their concert experience to be characterized by harder sounds and a heavier orientation—longer songs and long guitar solos. Because of equipment limitations, they weren’t able to use a proper piano, which meant that they had to rely on up-tempo songs at the expense of their equally effective ballads. As a consequence, the rhythm of their set, which included two songs by Dave Mason that hadn’t appeared on a Badfinger album, never found a proper flow. Those Mason songs, and a cover of Little Richard’s “Lucille,” failed to ignite the crowd. Upon departing, they gave me their address and phone number, and invited me to visit them when I made it to London.
On the turntable: Grin’s 1 + 1, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s All the Good Times, The Coasters’ Their Greatest Recordings, The Drifters’ Their Greatest Recordings, George Carlin’s FM & AM, Paul Simon, America, John Kongos.
March
Big Brother and the Holding Company were coming to town to play the Whisky, and a free noon concert was booked in the Ackerman Grand Ballroom on Thursday, March 9. Their Cheap Thrills was one of my favorite albums, but singer Janis Joplin had felt constrained and quit the group at the end of 1968. I didn’t like the music she made with her next ensemble, Kozmic Blues Band, which incorporated horns. Big Brother reformed a year later with Kathi McDonald stepping into the void. Kathi, who’d sung backup for Ike & Tina Turner, had a different approach from Janis, but was capable. The band was tight rather than drug-addled, as their image might have promised. Afterward I escorted them to KLA to be interviewed by a DJ. Kathi was carrying her baby. I thought it must be tough to be in a touring rock band with such a young child.
That evening The Kinks played the Hollywood Palladium. Although I had seen them perform three times previously, tonight was extra special. Singer Ray Davies was resplendent in a green jacket and a red, white, and blue floppy bow tie. He camped it up, throwing kisses to the audience. Ray had a lot of fun with “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” a Jamaican folk song, which had been a big hit for Harry Belafonte in 1957, encouraging a call-and-response with the audience. When The Beatles and other rock bands were interviewed in the 1960s, they commonly cited musical influences of rock ’n’ roll, rhythm and blues, and just plain blues. Here, Ray was flaunting a calypso-style song far removed from those genres. Similarly, Ray engaged the audience on “Alcohol,” far exceeding the arrangement from their current Muswell Hillbillies album. He performed the song grasping a beer can as a prop, to the surprise of those pressed to the front of the stage, who endured a shower of suds. It was an exhilarating show.
Afterward I went to the Continental Hyatt House hotel for a party RCA Records threw for the group. I arrived early, when few people were present. I noticed singer Carly Simon. I thought she was alluring from the photos on her album jackets, but in person she didn’t appeal to me at all. She was tall and gangly with big lips. That’s when I understood the concept of being photogenic.
More people came, and later on as Ray arrived, our eyes met, and I nodded to him, but I didn’t approach. Ordinarily, I would have. Ray was a hero to me. In writing songs with Mark, we were most influenced by him, The Who’s Pete Townshend, and The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. I had read a recent interview where the writer commented on how surly Ray was. His point was that it wasn’t always a benefit to meet one’s heroes, as often they’ll disappoint you, and you’ll feel less about them than if you never met them.
The next night I joined Bickhart and Leviton to take in a triple bill at the Fox West Coast Theatre in Long Beach. With the increasing popularity of motion pictures in the post–World War I era, ornate movie palaces—with stages for vaudeville performances—had been built. In the 1950s, as television viewing flourished, movie attendance declined. By the late 1960s, many of these movie palaces had fallen into disrepair. Some were retrofitted into rock concert halls, like New York’s Fillmore East—converted from the Village Theater—Detroit’s Eastown Theatre, and Elizabeth, New Jersey’s Ritz Theatre. The Fox West Coast Theatre was the first in our area to be transformed and offer a consistent program of live performances. Since the mid-1920s, it had been the premier venue in that area, but by the early 1970s the Spanish Colonial Revival–designed building had lost its luster.
Opening the show were Daddy Cool who, the previous year, scored a number one album and single in their native Australia. Atypically for a 1950s revival band, they had good original songs that often incorporated contemporary arrangements. They were touring the US on the strength of radio play of their song “Eagle Rock.” Next up was the Pure Food and Drug Act, which featured virtuosos Harvey Mandel on guitar and Sugar Cane Harris on electric violin. We had come to see the headliners, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, three members of which were former Mothers of Invention. Mark was a big Beefheart fan. The band performed material from their newest album, The Spotlight Kid.
The Magic Band members had strange names: Rockette Morton, Zoot Horn Rollo, Winged Eel Fingerling. And so did the song titles: “Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop,” “Japan in a Dishpan,” “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby.” The band was good, and I enjoyed most of the set. I preferred Daddy Cool, however. The following month Bickhart, Stan Berkowitz—a film major and fan of Russ Meyer’s sexploitation films who also wrote for the paper—and I trekked out to the Theatre to see Little Richard. Richard was nearing forty, and well past his prime. Despite his excessive self-aggrandizement, he still was a thrill to see.
Gibson and Stromberg were promoting Yes, so on Friday, March 17, publicist Bobbi Cowan arranged for a limousine to drive a group of writers eighty miles to the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino to see the English band. It was a welcomed diversion, as I’d had final exams the past week. En route, Bobbi offered me a hit of cocaine. It was my first time, so I tried it. Fortunately, it didn’t do much for me. It was a comfortable ride. But I wasn’t fooling myself. I didn’t feel like a rock star as our limo slowly rolled into the parking lot; I was more amused. Milling teenagers, thinking we might be on the evening’s bill, gawked at us, offered goofy smiles, and flashed peace signs.
Backstage we met the members of Yes. Rick Wakeman, the group’s gifted keyboardist, was changing into his stage gear. With his pasty pallor and long blond hair, he could have passed for a Viking except for his flabby body. I had heard that there was friction in the band between Wakeman, who was a drinker and an omnivore, and the rest of the band, who were vegetarians. I stepped out into the auditorium to see the end of Black Sabbath’s set.
This first tour of the US has helped to propel Yes’ current album, Fragile, into the Top 10 and their “Roundabout” single into the Top 20. The tour and royalties earned on the album—which cost $30,000 to record—will be the first big money the group will have made. Yes performed well in San Bernardino. The sonic quality of Jon Anderson’s lead vocals was impressive, as were the group’s three-part harmonies.
On Thursday, the following week, Emerson, Lake & Palmer played the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I had been a fan of Keith Emerson’s keyboard playing with his former group, The Nice,
but this was the first time I had seen him in concert. The group played an enjoyable set that incorporated classical and jazz styles. Their current album, Pictures at an Exhibition, was a live recording based on Mussorgsky’s piano suite.
On March 25, the UCLA basketball team defeated Florida State to win the National Collegiate Championship, capping an undefeated season. I watched the game on TV. When I was in my teens, I was a big baseball and basketball fan, but my interest had waned as I was attracted to the music scene. I had attended only one game all season. Since The Beatles, there had been a divergence of sports and music fans. Sports participants tended to be physically oriented, masculine, and conservative. They were uneasy with the rock music world of long hair, drugs, undernourished bodies, flamboyant clothes, and, generally, a liberal way of looking at the world. A girl who would be attracted to a football player wouldn’t be interested in me.
Steve Gabor owned the Music Odyssey, the best-stocked record store in West LA. UCLA contacted him about putting in a record store on the A-level of Ackerman Union. As the space was prepared, I met Steve and the store’s manager, Michael Warner. I thought the new store was a bad idea. Ackerman Union’s previous record store, located in another part of the complex, had seemed never to do much business. Ron Mael, later a member of Sparks, was behind the counter. In November 1970, when my first record, “Nose Job,” came out, it was the store’s biggest-selling single, which meant that it sold one copy in the two weeks it was stocked. Before the new store opened at the end of the month, Gabor had a small kickoff party, enlivened by the presence of his stunning young wife, who was very sociable.
I visited with Michael Ochs at CBS. He was always friendly and welcoming. I had just picked up copies of our new single, “Street Baby” backed with “Party Games.” He put it on his turntable. Although he thought we had progressed from our first record, he wasn’t enthused. He also admitted that he hadn’t liked any of the singles Columbia had released the past year either. His eyes lit up when he replaced my single with a recent, rare acquisition. “Listen to this,” he said. His excitement was apparent as he played “Baby Let Me Bang Your Box” by The Toppers. A 1954 release, it was an example of the novel, double-entendre records of the period. Even though he didn’t like my record, I dug Michael because he was a real music guy.
My British Invasion Page 5