The Packers vs. The Giants

The Giants catch fish better then they do footballs.

There’s no way The Giants should have lost to The Packers. The Giants were dropping the ball like crazy. All they got was 6 points the first half. They should have had 14.

The Packers couldn’t move the ball in the first half. Before they scored they had 24 yards offense. The two TD’s in the first half were a broken play and a Hail Mary.

This is what I don’t like about Aaron Rodgers. He holds the ball too long and scrambles. He’s the new Fran Tarkenton. Scrambles like eggs. When he completes a pass, he looks great. But The Giants were all over him and sacking him and he looked bad. It’s all or nothing with him.

“Blues For Allah”/ “Kingfish”

If you like the Dead’s “Blues For Allah,”

You’ll like “Kingfish’s” first album. Both recorded in Bob Weir’s studio and both have the same sound a feel.

If Weir had stayed with Kingfish, I think they could have been big.

New York Jets

 

I had to get up early and do a couple of things. While I was driving in the car, I was listening to Sports Radio talk about The Jets, Bills game. They’re going on and on how The Jets aren’t facing Peyton Manning, they’re facing Kyle Orton and they’ll be all over him. Easy win for The Jets.

I get home and turn the game on and see it’s 21 to 7, Bills leading and Michel Vick is the quarterback. I thought he started the game since it was only in the second quarter. Then I find out Geno Smith threw 3 interceptions.

I knew Smith wasn’t the answer and I said that Vick will take over around the seventh game. Vick was in there but I didn’t know he would be this bad. They way The Jets played, they made Kyle Orton look like Peyton Manning.

Got to feel bad for The Jets’ fans. Next year they’ll have a new head coach and no quarterback.

“Shell Shocked” Book Review

 

I just got done reading Howard Kaylan’s “Shell Shocked.” Pretty good book. Howard tells of his life with The Turtles, The Mothers, and Flo and Eddie. His life went something like this:

Chubby little kid joins a band which becomes “The Turtles.” They have a hit with Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.” Now that he’s a star, he gets lots of women. Gets married, and has women on the side. Finds drugs and has more women, and more drugs. Gets divorced, has more women and more drugs. Has more drugs, gets married, fools around on the side and does more drugs. Then he does more drugs, gets divorced, does more drugs, fools around, then gets married. Does more drugs, fools around, did I mention he does more drugs. More hits, more women, and more drugs.

That’s his life in a nutshell.

 

 

 

 

Part 2 of the NRBQ Review (The Dark Side)

 There was some “dick-wad in the row in front of me off to the right with a camera. They made an announcement no flash when the concert starts. The concert starts and he’s taking pictures with the flash on. Somebody came over to him and told him to stop. Five minutes later he’s taking pictures with the flash again. Same guy comes over and tells him to stop. He’s playing dumb like he don’t know how the flash turned on.

 Now this “dick-wad” won’t shut up. He keeps on yelling stuff out. You figure after awhile he would get tired. He doesn’t stop. He yells stuff out and sits there with a smug face. Finally he moves to another seat but won’t shut up. At one part of the show Terry Adams (keyboard player) is telling a story about the first time he met Sun Ra. “Dick-wad” is interrupting him. Finally Terry says,”What was I talking about before I was so rudely interrupted. “Dick-wad” yells out “Sun Ra.” A bunch of people start yelling at him telling him to shut the fuck up. He just sat there with that smug look. When the music started, he started yelling stuff out again.

 Then there was a girl in the audience, another dumb ass. When Terry was telling the Sun Ra story, she yelled out, “Is this a concert or lecture?” People starting yelling at her to shut up.

 Terry Adams really spoke once during the show for about three minutes, and I think it was to give the band a chance to catch their breath.

 When I bought tickets online, it looked like it was almost sold out. When the concert started, I see Terry looking up at the back of the theater. The Boulton Center is a really nice theater that holds 250 people. Not a bad seat in the place. When the concert was over, I turned around and saw the whole top was empty. There must have been 125 people there.

Halftime Show

Anybody see the halftime show with Beyonce? I was watching it with some young people and they said the same thing I said. It wasn’t that good. Too much dancing and not enough singing. And the songs she did sing, she said a lot of “come on sing.” I think that’s what she was saying, it was something like that.
When I see her, I see a third rate Tina Turner. Tina was a lot better singer,
and dancer.

I’m watching The Beach Boys 50th Anniversary DVD and was wondering how The Beach Boys would go over at halftime.
Let’s face it, it’s a tough spot. You only get about 20 minutes, no chance to
warm up the crowd and you have to try to please all age groups. And people just want the second half to start so they want yo off as soon as possible.

NRBQ

 

A couple of pictures I took of NRBQ from The Pastime Pub in Amityville back in the late 70’s. Me and my friends went there thinking another band was going to be there. When we got there we saw the roadies unloading NRBQ’s equipment from the truck into the bar. I remember the piano coming out of the truck. I don’t think I ever saw a band with a real piano in a bar before. They were a couple of bucks more then your average band but we figured, what the hell, we’re here already. I’m glad we stayed. I never seen a band like this before. They didn’t play regular Rock music, they played everything.

The thing I remember most about the concert was Tom Ardolino’s drumming. Every time he hit the drums, it looked like the kit was going to fall apart, then at the last second, it went back together.

 

Hot Tuna- “Hot Tuna”

I put in a request to  my friend Ralph Rumpelton (the most famous, unfamous computer painter) for a Hot Tuna painting.

He did the first Hot Tuna album, front and back.

Here’s the front cover:and here’s the back:

Later on for some reason it got reversed. The front became the back and the back became the front. I think he nailed the front cover. The back has more of the Rumpelton style then the original back.

It’s weird that he picked this cause this is the first Hot Tuna I ever bought. I think the store was called Masters, then it changed to Modells. That’s where I got them.  They were like a Woolworths. They sold every thing there. This had this table with all RCA albums on it for $1.99. I picked up some Hot Tuna, Paul and Grace stuff and some Nilsson stuff there.

This Hot Tuna album is excellent. It’s a live album with Jorma Kaukonen on guitar, Jack Casady on bass and Will Scarlet on harmonica. Scarlet was asked to sit in on a song or two and stayed for most of the album.

When the CD was first released it sounded just like the album with a lot of hiss on it. It didn’t bother me cause I used to the album. Then it was re-released with some bonus tracks on it. So I bought it again for the bonus tracks. The real bonus is that they got rid of the hiss and it sounds a lot better. This is one of the first unplugged albums. Highly recommended.

 

You Can’t Make Them Happy

No matter what, you can’t make Beach Boys fans happy. I’ve been a fan since 1964. Followed them up to the present. None of my friends were Beach Boy fans, but they always had a special place in my heart cause the first 45 I ever bought was “I Get Around.”

With the internet, I got to see what other Beach Boy fans say. They whine and cry about everything. Mike Love is big and evil. He messed up “Smile.” He held Brian back. He sings too much. If he doesn’t sing they don’t need him. The fact is, all these people that complain, they don’t know what really went on, they weren’t there.  There’s three sides here, Brian’s side, Mike’s side, and if somebody wrote a book ( doubt they spoke to Mike or Brian) their side which is the least truthful.

Now, this brings me to the new album and tour. I think it’s great that they’re on tour and the new album, I can’t say enough about it. I’ve been playing it over and over.

Now we have the people that say, “It’s not the Beach Boys up there. Too many backing musicians.” The fact is, this is what’s left of The Beach Boys. For reasons beyond our control, Carl and Dennis couldn’t make it.   As for the backing musicians, this is probably their last go around. If they want it to sound like the records, they need them there. If they weren’t there, then people would be complaining about how thin they sound.

I hear people complaining about the new album. “It sounds too much like a Brian Wilson album.” Isn’t this what they wanted, Brian to write the songs again like he did in the early years. Now that he’s doing it, people complain. Well, who’s gonna write the songs for The Beach Boy album? Mike Love. That would go over great. Then people will complain that Mike is taking over the band and not letting Brian write.
You better be happy with what you’re getting. Cause after this, I’m afraid surf’s out.

Bob Dylan at Budokan

(from the Ralph Rumpelton Collection of Fine Art)

I remember having this in album form. I hated it. Then when the CD came out I figured, why not and bought it. Still hated it so I gave it away. Then it was the only Dylan CD I didn’t have so I bought it again.

I read a couple of things about this album. Dylan needed money for alimony so he went to Japan to do a couple of shows. The promoters there wanted him to do his hits. Dylan did not like being told what songs to do so he changed them radically.  You got flutes and horns, reggae versions of songs, and big band versions.

After all these years it’s still not one of my favorites, but I don’t hate it like I used to. It’s just a part of Dylan’s career. When I listen to it like that, I like it.