Sunday, October 20, 2013
Bradley Beach NJ
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Long Branch NJ
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Ray Manzarek 1939-2013.
It's an uncomplicated story. Takes bit of telling. In fall of 1966 I bought a cheap portable organ & got myself into a garage rock band. Garage rock bands needed organs. I hardly knew what I was doing, but I didn't need to know much. The band had two guitars, bass, drums, organ, & a jerk lead singer. "96 Tears" was my featured spot. We were really awful.
The Doors released their first LP in January 1967. I probably had heard of the band- they had made some noise in L.A. that got their name into magazines, but I can't recall hearing anything from them until "Light My Fire" was released as a single. It was an extraordinarily distinctive record in its full version. They sounded like a garage band, but not my band or any other local band I had heard. & what was with that long organ solo? The organist clearly was not a virtuoso, but it was an interesting long solo. I bought the LP & loved it, except for the silly, long song conveniently placed last on side 2.
I still don't think we learned "Light My Fire." We changed jerk lead singers. The rhythm guitarist left - band was interfering with his night job pumping gas, & his car was expensively high maintenance. We were still really awful.
That summer, The Doors were hastily booked into Convention Hall in Asbury Park, one show, not widely promoted, supplanting one of two Lou Rawls shows there. My girlfriend & I went to see them. We were impressed. She, of course, loved Jim Morrison in his leather suit. He was one sexy guy. What I noticed was the leanness of the band, that although Jimbo was the "star" of the show, the four band members were working as equals. There was no bass player - the organist played simple figures on a keyboard bass (something is lost without a bassist, as both they & The Rascals knew), The Doors were a true collective creative enterprise, & they sounded it. Jim Morrison was not the "leader" of the band. As each member had their musical moment in the spotlight, Jim got out of the way (usually. He rubbed up against Ray Manzarek during the "LMF" solo).
Below me (I was in the front row of the balcony, the venue about 1/3rd empty seats), were members of Lou Rawls' ace touring band looking on uncomprehendingly; "We were bumped for this?"
Asbury Park Convention Hall was probably the largest type of venue in which The Doors could be really effective as the kind of band they were,. a "chamber rock band" (a rock critic term) designed for the rock clubs that nurtured them. There had always been rock bands like this, back to rockabilly trios, or The Velvet Underground in NYC, of which I had only a passing awareness because I knew they were "hip" in the city.
Ray Manzarek was inviting garage band organists like me to step up & play with intelligence even if we were largely self-taught, on the instruments we had. I felt liberated from the examples of Booker T & The Young Rascals' Felix Cavaliere (an almost god-like presence in Jersey rock), with their Hammond B3s, & from Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum, who would become a favorite as "A Whiter Shade of Pale" climbed up the charts that summer.
I determined at the Doors concert that my band had to change to better accommodate me. I must have done a pretty good selling job, as no one in the band was particularly creative or ambitious (the remaining guitarist began showing a good musical intelligence). We learned "Light My Fire." "Soul Kitchen" (the essence of their sound), Twentieth Century Fox." "I Looked At You," "Take It as It Comes." I upgraded to a Vox Continental (later added a Leslie speaker, I never did abandon a love of thick, Hammond textures). The bass player was pushed out. He was my best friend, but he was worse than really awful. My weak left hand was better than him. I bought a Rheem key bass. We picked up four songs from the second LP, including the complete "When the Music's Over." We struggled on into 1968, a very bad year in America & in my own life. The drummer eventually moved on. He had graduated high school & his real love was accounting. We somehow found a replacement,. & a new lead singer was right in front of us, a guy we hung out with, rather bookish-looking but who sang well & was completely transformed at the front of a band. Girls loved him.
We milked one good year out of this band, which didn't sound like The Doors or The Rascals; we didn't try. We raised our level from really awful to just awful (Joe Walsh considers this the natural transition, that the important part was getting out of the garage & before an audience). Some of our music & arrangements were relatively adventurous. We jammed too much & too tediously, but that was characteristic of most garage bands.
Ray, by some accounts, was not always a nice guy (a friend has direct experience of it). In '67 he was somewhat older than the average rock musician with a first hit. This was to his advantage. He had a college degree (economics), was in film school. He hadn't scuffled up through bar bands. Either consciously or intuitively (I haven't read his autobiography) he had a vision of a band as a complete conceptual package, like the art school-influenced bands of New York, London, & later New Wave. They covered a Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht song on their first LP (it wasn't "Mack the Knife"). This was very attractive to an 18 year-old garage band organist who read poetry. Jimbo wasn't a great poet but he certainly understood it as a concept.
One night in 1968 several of us from the band went to midtown New York just to hang out, a common pastime for bored Jersey kids. We were walking on a side street by the Americana Hotel when a couple came around the corner ahead of us & walked toward us, an attractive woman & a familiar man. As they came closer, the man looked more & more like Ray Manzarek. "Are The Doors in town?" I asked my friends. One said he thought so. It was Ray Manzarek. As they passed (she was a very attractive woman) I said, "How yah doin', Ray" He said, "Good" & they walked on.
The Doors released their first LP in January 1967. I probably had heard of the band- they had made some noise in L.A. that got their name into magazines, but I can't recall hearing anything from them until "Light My Fire" was released as a single. It was an extraordinarily distinctive record in its full version. They sounded like a garage band, but not my band or any other local band I had heard. & what was with that long organ solo? The organist clearly was not a virtuoso, but it was an interesting long solo. I bought the LP & loved it, except for the silly, long song conveniently placed last on side 2.
I still don't think we learned "Light My Fire." We changed jerk lead singers. The rhythm guitarist left - band was interfering with his night job pumping gas, & his car was expensively high maintenance. We were still really awful.
Below me (I was in the front row of the balcony, the venue about 1/3rd empty seats), were members of Lou Rawls' ace touring band looking on uncomprehendingly; "We were bumped for this?"
Asbury Park Convention Hall was probably the largest type of venue in which The Doors could be really effective as the kind of band they were,. a "chamber rock band" (a rock critic term) designed for the rock clubs that nurtured them. There had always been rock bands like this, back to rockabilly trios, or The Velvet Underground in NYC, of which I had only a passing awareness because I knew they were "hip" in the city.
Ray Manzarek was inviting garage band organists like me to step up & play with intelligence even if we were largely self-taught, on the instruments we had. I felt liberated from the examples of Booker T & The Young Rascals' Felix Cavaliere (an almost god-like presence in Jersey rock), with their Hammond B3s, & from Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum, who would become a favorite as "A Whiter Shade of Pale" climbed up the charts that summer.
I determined at the Doors concert that my band had to change to better accommodate me. I must have done a pretty good selling job, as no one in the band was particularly creative or ambitious (the remaining guitarist began showing a good musical intelligence). We learned "Light My Fire." "Soul Kitchen" (the essence of their sound), Twentieth Century Fox." "I Looked At You," "Take It as It Comes." I upgraded to a Vox Continental (later added a Leslie speaker, I never did abandon a love of thick, Hammond textures). The bass player was pushed out. He was my best friend, but he was worse than really awful. My weak left hand was better than him. I bought a Rheem key bass. We picked up four songs from the second LP, including the complete "When the Music's Over." We struggled on into 1968, a very bad year in America & in my own life. The drummer eventually moved on. He had graduated high school & his real love was accounting. We somehow found a replacement,. & a new lead singer was right in front of us, a guy we hung out with, rather bookish-looking but who sang well & was completely transformed at the front of a band. Girls loved him.
We milked one good year out of this band, which didn't sound like The Doors or The Rascals; we didn't try. We raised our level from really awful to just awful (Joe Walsh considers this the natural transition, that the important part was getting out of the garage & before an audience). Some of our music & arrangements were relatively adventurous. We jammed too much & too tediously, but that was characteristic of most garage bands.
Ray, by some accounts, was not always a nice guy (a friend has direct experience of it). In '67 he was somewhat older than the average rock musician with a first hit. This was to his advantage. He had a college degree (economics), was in film school. He hadn't scuffled up through bar bands. Either consciously or intuitively (I haven't read his autobiography) he had a vision of a band as a complete conceptual package, like the art school-influenced bands of New York, London, & later New Wave. They covered a Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht song on their first LP (it wasn't "Mack the Knife"). This was very attractive to an 18 year-old garage band organist who read poetry. Jimbo wasn't a great poet but he certainly understood it as a concept.
One night in 1968 several of us from the band went to midtown New York just to hang out, a common pastime for bored Jersey kids. We were walking on a side street by the Americana Hotel when a couple came around the corner ahead of us & walked toward us, an attractive woman & a familiar man. As they came closer, the man looked more & more like Ray Manzarek. "Are The Doors in town?" I asked my friends. One said he thought so. It was Ray Manzarek. As they passed (she was a very attractive woman) I said, "How yah doin', Ray" He said, "Good" & they walked on.
Labels: Asbury Park, growing up, music, obituary
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Asbury Park NJ
Sunday, January 06, 2013
Asbury Park NJ
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Asbury Park NJ
Sunday, July 01, 2012
Long Branch NJ
Long Branch Amusement Pier & boardwalk
It appears to be in decline in the postcard. Eventually the boardwalk & most of the pier were destroyed in 1987 by a "suspicious" fire. Pier & boardwalk fires are always "suspicious".
In a terrible abuse of eminent domain, the government of Long Branch condemned practically every house within two blocks of the waterfront for the construction of condos. Many of the homes had passed through three generations of family. Most took the money & went, but a handful of home owners struggled on for years through the courts, eventually winning a victory that may have been Pyrrhic. I don't know; I haven't to the town in years. Nothing remaining there to interest me.
It was not unusual in the Sixties & Seventies to boardwalk hop from Long Branch to Asbury Park to Point Pleasant Beach to Seaside Heights. Whether or not you stopped off at a boardwalk depended on how fast & how close you could find a parking place on the street. But if you made it all the way to Seaside Heights you always parked, no matter how distant.
Labels: Asbury Park, boardwalks, jersey shore, postcard
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Asbury Park NJ
South End, Wesley Lake, Palace Amusements
late '50s - early '60s
late '50s - early '60s
Labels: Asbury Park, boardwalks, jersey shore, postcard
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Asbury Park NJ
In Memory of Karen [ Battell ] Silva
The Doors at Asbury Park Convention Hall.
Postcard is from 1968. But I saw them here in summer of 1967.
The Doors had been hastily booked in place of a Lou Rawls show, on the strength of the monster hit "Light My Fire." Tickets were cheap, the Hall maybe 2/3rds filled. I brought my beautiful girlfriend, Karen, always up for a night on a boardwalk anyway. We'd been together about a year. She enjoyed the concert. Members of Rawls' ace group, who'd had their second show canceled so The Doors could perform, stood at the rear of Convention Hall looking utterly baffled as Jim Morrison - still a gift from the rock gods & not yet a penis-waving drool drunk - squirmed around the stage. Magical. The experience totally changed my idea of what a rock band could be, & the role of a cheesy portable organ in a band. I immediately coerced my garage band into adding almost the entire first Doors LP to our repertoire (not "The End"). The band had no leader, so I must have made a good case for it. A high point "date" with Karen. No doubt, Karen forgot a whole lot about our time together when we were teenagers, but I'm confident she remembered this. I hope she found occasions to brag about it.
***
In the short version of this anecdote, I'm "with my girlfriend." The longer versions include a fond description of what a knockout of a girl I'm with & how great she looked on the boardwalk; the way Karen would want it told.
Labels: Asbury Park, boardwalks, growing up, jersey shore, Karen Battell, love, music, obituary, postcard
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Asbury Park NJ
Monday, December 05, 2011
Hubert Sumlin (1931 - 2011)
Playing with Howlin' Wolf for two decades, Hubert Sumlin was a creator of a library of fundamental electric guitar blues riffs. Any guitarists knowing their stuff learn from Hubert Sumlin.
On his own after Wolf died, Hubert became one of the most admired & beloved guitarists in the world. Just the other day he was named 43rd on the Rolling Stone list of the 100 Best Guitarists, but of course Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & most of the other living rock guitarists ahead of him on the list would gladly have stepped aside to let him move up. Keith was especially fond of him.
This photo was taken on the shabby Asbury Park boardwalk five or six years ago, in front of the space age Howard Johnson's, a hot summer afternoon, before the boardwalk's more recent renaissance. WFMU radio host Glen Jones, who knew Hubert, encountered him at the bluesman's Saturday night Stone Pony gig & invited him to drop by for a live broadcast the following afternoon. Hubert showed up with his guitar, a funky old amp was somehow procured for him, & the master musician provided a loose, entertaining set. As you can see, he didn't "dress down" for the occasion.
On his own after Wolf died, Hubert became one of the most admired & beloved guitarists in the world. Just the other day he was named 43rd on the Rolling Stone list of the 100 Best Guitarists, but of course Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & most of the other living rock guitarists ahead of him on the list would gladly have stepped aside to let him move up. Keith was especially fond of him.
Labels: Asbury Park, jersey shore, music, obituary, photograph, WFMU
Friday, October 14, 2011
Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love
Gave a close listening to this song for the first time last night, concluded it's one of his finest singles. Not that I know all of Springsteen's singles, over the years they've been whatever I happened to hear piped over store sound systems, which is how I knew "Tunnel of Love" was some kind of hit. I still have not heard the 1987 album of that name from beginning to end in sequence (the last album he released in two side LP format).
Four E Streeters play on this song, Roy Bittan on keyboards, Max Weinberg on drums, Patti Sciafi contributing vocals, & Nils Lofgren providing the excellent guitar break. I suspect 80% of it is Bruce. A meticulously constructed studio song (hangs together pretty good as a live number).
Great synth hook that dates it but doesn't keep it stuck in the era; he carries the amusement ride metaphor all the way through; the couplet "Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us / You, me and all that stuff we're so scared of" is worthy of Neil Young. Spooky layers of clanks, rumbles & voices in the mix, & the song sounds like something you'd hear blasting out of a boardwalk ride like the Himalaya. "Tunnel of Love" is a sad, mature song about adult relationships, yet connected to a shared American memory of couple of teenagers on a dark ride at an amusement park or fair. It's a very high expression of Springsteen's art, tough & unsentimentally romantic, what one always hopes from him, big praise coming from me.
The back story everyone knows is that his marriage to actress Julianne Phillips wasn't taking. He had also tried to relocate to California.The couple split during the Tunnel of Love Express Tour. European paparazzi were taking all kinds of cozy pix of Bruce & Patti together. For that tour Bruce had promoted Patti to his main stage companion, pushing Clarence off to the side, & in a video of this song from the tour the rumored new couple were singing at the same mic, lips 1/4 inch apart, if that far. No wonder Julianne packed up & went home. It was semi-scandalous, but I paid no attention to any of it at the time,
Springsteen's public persona is so complete & protected, even when he's just being "Bruce," that you can't learn much about his personal life from his songs. This one comes close. Around the same time, 1989, Neil Young woke up from the strange musical dreams he'd been having, & in Freedom & Ragged Glory there was no doubting he had documented midlife crises of love, commitment & identity in searing personal songs. Their careers have taken parallel paths ever since.
At the end of the video is a melancholy glimpse of the classic Asbury Park Casino carousel being dismantled, sold off in pieces. The ferris wheel in background at Palace Amusements had a few years remaining. The city, wretched as it was in 1987, had a distance to drop before hitting the bottom of its long fall.
Labels: Asbury Park, boardwalks, Metropolitan Man, music, New Jersey, video
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Asbury Park NJ
Mrs. Jay's in the 1940's
The corner building was sold in 1974 & became the Stone Pony, the open air "Mrs. Jay's Garden" next door operated as a beer & music venue popular with bikers, it was a dump. That was eventually razed & became the Stone Pony outdoor stage.
Labels: Asbury Park, jersey shore, music, postcard
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Clarence Clemons
It just plain sucks that Clarence Clemons died of complications from a stroke he suffered last weekend. He wasn't The E Street Band's best musician, but he certainly was its face from the very beginning. He physically dwarfed Springsteen, a rather slight man, & Springsteen knew Clarence could steal the show whenever he wanted. The story of Clarence meeting Bruce, perhaps a bit apocryphal, has the wind ripping the door to an Asbury Park club off its hinges during a thunderstorm as the Big Man walked in, & was then introduced to Bruce. He was a star entertainer in his own right.When Springsteen performed without E Street, Clarence was the one you noticed wasn't there,
Clarence in his dressing room with his portable "Temple of Soul." If E Street tours again, Springsteen will have a saxophonist but probably make "Jungleland" a Clarence tribute & use a recording of the famous horn solo.
When the change was made uptownClarence's diminished role in Springsteen's recordings probably didn't matter that much to him. He always had studio work. Lady Gaga gave him a call. He was paid handsomely & given plenty of perks for his long, grueling tours with Springsteen & E Street, was the second most popular musician on stage, & was indispensable to the classic, big numbers Springsteen performed night after night. I don't envy the horn man who tries to fill Clarence's shoes in 'Jungleland."
And the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city
All the little pretties raise their hands
"Tenth Ave. Freeze-out"
Clarence in his dressing room with his portable "Temple of Soul." If E Street tours again, Springsteen will have a saxophonist but probably make "Jungleland" a Clarence tribute & use a recording of the famous horn solo.
Labels: Asbury Park, music, obituary
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Thursday Poem
Asbury Park
Bruce Springsteen
standing on the boardwalk
outside Convention Hall
while his wife's band rehearsed inside.
Three, four people chatting with him,
I'd left my camera on a table
at the space age Howard Johnson's
that looks like a flying saucer
while I checked out Bruce's 'vette
& some other classic cars
successful musicians
can afford to own.
"How ya doing, Bruce?"
"Hey, Buddy, howya doing?"
He was never a regular guy
but he has it down in theory.
Labels: Asbury Park, jersey shore, music, poem
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Storm over Asbury Park
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Asbury Park NJ
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Ocean Grove NJ
The North End Hotel
Demolished in 1978, It was a lively bottleneck at the entrance to Casino Pier & Asbury Park, with caricaturists, popcorn stands, & games.
Labels: Asbury Park, boardwalks, jersey shore, postcard
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Ocean Grove NJ
Manchester Inn, Ocean Pathway
Burned down yesterday with 5 other structures.
Children's Chorus on Ocean Pathway
Labels: Asbury Park, jersey shore, motel hotel, postcard
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Manchester Inn
Fire at the Jersey ShoreA rainy, windy morning. These wonderful old irreplaceable structures never had a chance. Bad as it was, fhe fire could have been much, much worse. Ocean Pathway is a broad open area from the oceanfront to the great wooden Tabernacle, which is bordered by the community's famed tent cabin section.
OCEAN GROVE NJ — At least four buildings, including the historic Manchester Inn, have been reduced to charred rubble and three others damaged by a wind-swept fire in Ocean Grove.
Dozens of firefighters are still battling the blaze, which began about 5 a.m. at the Manchester at 25 Ocean Pathway, said Michael Bascom, deputy emergency coordinator for Neptune Township.
Five homes facing Ocean Pathway and two facing Bath Avenue, which borders the block to the north, eventually caught fire. Several of the homes that burned were occupied, Bascom said, but residents were safely evacuated and none were injured. Two firefighters are being treated for minor injuries, he said.
Labels: Asbury Park, in the news, jersey shore
