Friday, July 28, 2023
Thursday, June 01, 2017
Gregg Allman 45+ Minute Interview (New Orleans, 1982)
WHAT IT IS:
45+ minutes of unedited, unreleased footage of a 1982 interview (exact date unknown) of Gregg Allman, apparently used for a 7-minute New Orleans TV news spot when the Gregg Allman Band were playing at the Saenger Theater in New Orleans.
CONTEXT FOR THIS INTERVIEW:
This video shows Gregg Allman at his most sober, calm, relaxed, intelligent, charming, humorous, reflective, emotionally honest best. The video was shot backstage, and you hear rehearsal music in the background, guys shouting back and forth, general mayhem--and at two points someone opens the door into Gregg's head, which he handles with aplomb and graciousness.
He reminds me in this video quite a bit of his brother Duane---a less manic version of Duane. I have struggled over the years to see a huge resemblance between the two, but you see it here. It may partly be the lighting, which brings out the strawberry in his blonde hair and eyelashes, like Duane--but also more of Duane's sort of cleverness, wisdom, and wit (which I personally have not seen a lot of, over the years, in Greg--while Duane was known to be overbrimming with all of the above).
There are many lovely parts, but my favorites might be when he's talking about getting together, falling in love with Cher and the impact that and living in Beverly Hills had on his life (minute: 32:47-38:35 ). And the little back-and-forth I pasted below as a sort of comic strip (minute 31:21-31:38)
CONTEXT FOR THIS VIDEO:
I "spliced" this video together from 14 different videos on youtube -- the quality is rough, and I'm not 100% sure I got the clips in the original chronological order -- I edited out redundancies but there seem to be some missing parts and it ends abruptly.
CONTEXT OF THE GREGG ALLMAN BAND:
The Allman Brothers Band had signed to Arista Records in 1980, released 2 critically maligned albums in 1980-81, which the band themselves considered "embarrassing," and disbanded in early 1982 after playing a final performance on Saturday Night Live on January 23, 1982 (the Allman Brothers Band wouldn't play together again until April 1986). In February 1982 Gregg Allman formed the Gregg Allman Band with the Toler brothers and began touring.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Last chance wildflower tromp
Friday afternoon, tromping
around Red Rock Canyon before the wildflower blooms fade. Last chance to see the beautiful wildflower
bloom! Today it shot into the 90s & 100s++ and expected to stay hot
until September.
After tromping around Red Rock Canyon, looking at flora and fauna and rock formations until sunset, ended up at a place that [on paper] had looked quaint and atmospheric, and in reality could be the site of a very scary movie.
The place is a a former Nevada State Park with horseback-riding, restaurant moto-lodge with rooms for rent, and a petting zoo--horrific petting zoo, gauging from the frightful discontented animal noises coming from behind the gate, padlocked by the time I got there. It may just have been peacocks, but in the near-dark it was bone-chilling, especially given the restaurant and over by an old sun-cracked stage coach a hand-painted sign: "Beware Zombies." (did it mean that zombies had better beware because they will be taken out? or that humans had better beware of roving zombies.
Built in the early '60s in Olde Western saloon style--walking up to the side door, next to an olive green "stream" with a waterfall and ducks with stained green feet, "Sweet Home Alabama" thumped. Walked in, the bar area was covered with $1 bills. All over the ceiling, walls, and columns? The music was coming from the Dining Room.
Doing a great job of vocally channeling the van Sants, in a tight Nudie-type Western shirt, dancing off-beat, moving from one foot to the other, like a white frat boy, was a strapping black man. It was confusing and discomfiting. I sat down and noticed everyone was very Western, with those dried apple faces -- both men and women, but the men had hats and the women had lipstick. I realized then my ride in the parking lot was the only one that wasn't a pickup truck or motorcycle.
I figured I could dig it. But the next guy, in a white Stetson, in his early 70s, got up on the rostrum, and after a corny karaoke musical intro, he launched into the lyrics f a country song...about....Dixie. Them good old days, etc.
The waitress hadn't come over in the span of 3 songs I was there, so I figured no one would mind terribly if I sidled back out the door, past the slime pond, screaming peacocks, and the pack of feral kids loping around in the gloaming. Past the trucks and bikes. Bowed out just as the remaining light dimmed down to dark, gunning it to get past the zombie children of the desert corn.
After tromping around Red Rock Canyon, looking at flora and fauna and rock formations until sunset, ended up at a place that [on paper] had looked quaint and atmospheric, and in reality could be the site of a very scary movie.
The place is a a former Nevada State Park with horseback-riding, restaurant moto-lodge with rooms for rent, and a petting zoo--horrific petting zoo, gauging from the frightful discontented animal noises coming from behind the gate, padlocked by the time I got there. It may just have been peacocks, but in the near-dark it was bone-chilling, especially given the restaurant and over by an old sun-cracked stage coach a hand-painted sign: "Beware Zombies." (did it mean that zombies had better beware because they will be taken out? or that humans had better beware of roving zombies.
Built in the early '60s in Olde Western saloon style--walking up to the side door, next to an olive green "stream" with a waterfall and ducks with stained green feet, "Sweet Home Alabama" thumped. Walked in, the bar area was covered with $1 bills. All over the ceiling, walls, and columns? The music was coming from the Dining Room.
Doing a great job of vocally channeling the van Sants, in a tight Nudie-type Western shirt, dancing off-beat, moving from one foot to the other, like a white frat boy, was a strapping black man. It was confusing and discomfiting. I sat down and noticed everyone was very Western, with those dried apple faces -- both men and women, but the men had hats and the women had lipstick. I realized then my ride in the parking lot was the only one that wasn't a pickup truck or motorcycle.
I figured I could dig it. But the next guy, in a white Stetson, in his early 70s, got up on the rostrum, and after a corny karaoke musical intro, he launched into the lyrics f a country song...about....Dixie. Them good old days, etc.
The waitress hadn't come over in the span of 3 songs I was there, so I figured no one would mind terribly if I sidled back out the door, past the slime pond, screaming peacocks, and the pack of feral kids loping around in the gloaming. Past the trucks and bikes. Bowed out just as the remaining light dimmed down to dark, gunning it to get past the zombie children of the desert corn.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Perseids night...Las Vegas style
Perseids Night--A great phonecall came in at 10 o'clock, so didn't head out to Northshore Road, which loops around Lake Mead, until 11:45pm.
Drove and drove. It got darker but not hella darker. Eventually saw a klatch of cars down a dark ravine road. There met Tom, Thomas, and Amy. They had an extra reclining chair. Tom and I reclined, watchingthe stars--meanwhile Thomas (vs. Tom) slept it off in the pick-up bed, and Amy rummaged through the front seat of the truck, eventually lying down with her head out the open door, calling out star-narration "Thatone had a PINK tail!" "THAT went left to RIGHT!" Tom, a comforting Upstate NY accent, told me that since it's nearly mid-August I have made it through my first Las Vegas summer. Regretfully, I bade them adieu, saying I might find a darker vantage point but not one with better company. Tom replied "It's all about the stars, Sue."
Next shared time with a couple 15 miles down the road, also both had very nice voices (it was dark, so....). They had just pulled to the side of the road. I got on top of my car, saw few stars but almost fell asleep listening to them talk in quiet-in-nature murmurs that reminded me of childhood camping. Many cars went by, each time wrecking our dark-adjusted eyes. They would periodically repair to the comfort of their car to smoke meth. After Round 2 Becky was talking a mile a minute, tho still quietly. Seth's low calm voice was becoming a bit less soothing. I decided to leave them to their night, driving another 15 steep snake-like dark (but never dark quite enough) miles.
Pulled off at a rest stop--which would mean off the road far enough not to get blasted by klieg lights of every (albeit few and far between) passing car. True---but a veritable neighborhood of people had set up cookers and hammocks, children riding bikes in the dark, and Abe Simpson apparently was among them, bleating across the wide parking lot, like "Well....I don't know how they manage it, but with all these things falling outta the sky somehow they don't never hit no HUMANS! har har har They never DO!!"
So back on the road---I knew I would find the best place. And I did. 20 more miles down the road. Echo Bay, Nevada. Dark as sin. A long dirt road--off to the side 4 acres of broad, dried-up arroyo, Way off the main road. But by then it was so remote there were no more Perseid looky-loos anyway.
Climbed onto a nest of thick faux sheepskin blanket on the car hood, lay back, drank a liter of water, and watched the marvel of star-trails, Perfect temperature. Perfect---like heaven. The slightest soft desert breeze, no sounds except very lite wind through vegetation I couldn't see. And not one bug. The sky was dark and the stars bright and juicy. Sky all around. Felt like a tree house or an inflatable raft bobbing in a sea of stars....Funny how well you can come to see in even pitch dark.... and it's unbelievable how meteors fall in colors. So quiet. Like childhood silence....filled with maybe-noises or maybe-nots....more like frequencies.... I started laughing aloud at one point. I thought: "I am lying on top of a car in a desert." That's hilarious. I became aware of the presence of hills around me as the hours passed. I thought "I feel like an Indian out here alone in the desert. But lying on a warm car as it starts to get cold." I realized the blanket I was lying on could cover me. And it did. And feltexactly as sweet as when a lover covers you in the night just as you were feeling chilled. I felt like Keith Richards at Joshua Tree, wrapped in my warm blanket. You don't always need peyote.
But it is always darkest before dawn--and it's always coldest before dawn---so that was the most intense time for the Perseids, because the multicolored trailers/tracers/whathaveyou did seem to fall like showers then. And then, alas, at the best moment, light started to overcome the dark. This dark that I was so grateful to have snuggled into all night and been held by, watching joy-making art in the sky. The light was washing over the dark like a gentle but unrelenting rising tide lapping up and over the castle you were just savoring a moment of satisfaction over....washing it all away. Orion's Belt had been with me all night, changing position, and it was the last night-light to get erased by dawn.
Now....at home, feel like I was in another country over night. I might have felt thus anyway, but especially so upon discovering I was in the mountains. Not sort of but actually flanked on all sides by big-assed red-rocked mountains of holy gorgeousness--lit with lilting gilded early morning sun turning everything dark apricot.
Drove and drove. It got darker but not hella darker. Eventually saw a klatch of cars down a dark ravine road. There met Tom, Thomas, and Amy. They had an extra reclining chair. Tom and I reclined, watchingthe stars--meanwhile Thomas (vs. Tom) slept it off in the pick-up bed, and Amy rummaged through the front seat of the truck, eventually lying down with her head out the open door, calling out star-narration "Thatone had a PINK tail!" "THAT went left to RIGHT!" Tom, a comforting Upstate NY accent, told me that since it's nearly mid-August I have made it through my first Las Vegas summer. Regretfully, I bade them adieu, saying I might find a darker vantage point but not one with better company. Tom replied "It's all about the stars, Sue."
Next shared time with a couple 15 miles down the road, also both had very nice voices (it was dark, so....). They had just pulled to the side of the road. I got on top of my car, saw few stars but almost fell asleep listening to them talk in quiet-in-nature murmurs that reminded me of childhood camping. Many cars went by, each time wrecking our dark-adjusted eyes. They would periodically repair to the comfort of their car to smoke meth. After Round 2 Becky was talking a mile a minute, tho still quietly. Seth's low calm voice was becoming a bit less soothing. I decided to leave them to their night, driving another 15 steep snake-like dark (but never dark quite enough) miles.
Pulled off at a rest stop--which would mean off the road far enough not to get blasted by klieg lights of every (albeit few and far between) passing car. True---but a veritable neighborhood of people had set up cookers and hammocks, children riding bikes in the dark, and Abe Simpson apparently was among them, bleating across the wide parking lot, like "Well....I don't know how they manage it, but with all these things falling outta the sky somehow they don't never hit no HUMANS! har har har They never DO!!"
So back on the road---I knew I would find the best place. And I did. 20 more miles down the road. Echo Bay, Nevada. Dark as sin. A long dirt road--off to the side 4 acres of broad, dried-up arroyo, Way off the main road. But by then it was so remote there were no more Perseid looky-loos anyway.
Climbed onto a nest of thick faux sheepskin blanket on the car hood, lay back, drank a liter of water, and watched the marvel of star-trails, Perfect temperature. Perfect---like heaven. The slightest soft desert breeze, no sounds except very lite wind through vegetation I couldn't see. And not one bug. The sky was dark and the stars bright and juicy. Sky all around. Felt like a tree house or an inflatable raft bobbing in a sea of stars....Funny how well you can come to see in even pitch dark.... and it's unbelievable how meteors fall in colors. So quiet. Like childhood silence....filled with maybe-noises or maybe-nots....more like frequencies.... I started laughing aloud at one point. I thought: "I am lying on top of a car in a desert." That's hilarious. I became aware of the presence of hills around me as the hours passed. I thought "I feel like an Indian out here alone in the desert. But lying on a warm car as it starts to get cold." I realized the blanket I was lying on could cover me. And it did. And feltexactly as sweet as when a lover covers you in the night just as you were feeling chilled. I felt like Keith Richards at Joshua Tree, wrapped in my warm blanket. You don't always need peyote.
But it is always darkest before dawn--and it's always coldest before dawn---so that was the most intense time for the Perseids, because the multicolored trailers/tracers/whathaveyou did seem to fall like showers then. And then, alas, at the best moment, light started to overcome the dark. This dark that I was so grateful to have snuggled into all night and been held by, watching joy-making art in the sky. The light was washing over the dark like a gentle but unrelenting rising tide lapping up and over the castle you were just savoring a moment of satisfaction over....washing it all away. Orion's Belt had been with me all night, changing position, and it was the last night-light to get erased by dawn.
Now....at home, feel like I was in another country over night. I might have felt thus anyway, but especially so upon discovering I was in the mountains. Not sort of but actually flanked on all sides by big-assed red-rocked mountains of holy gorgeousness--lit with lilting gilded early morning sun turning everything dark apricot.
Tuesday, June 07, 2016
David Bailey 1968 Rolling Stones Photoshoot
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Last day in California (for awhile...)
Spent the day in former Santa Cruz stomping ground yesterday prior to moving to the desert, which will be fun and beautiful in its own right...but very different.
Everything was so green....the grasses and redwood come alive this time of year...flowers everywhere...crashing waves...whales puttering by in the distance against the Monterrey Mountains...funny sea birds...Santa Cruz characters....two California blonde 7 years old girls---by themselves--in wet suits, crossing the street with surfboards (not boogie boards) on their heads, heading toward the cliffs where they'd climb down to catch some world class swells at day's end before dinner, with probably 200 other local people, as per ritual this time of the year---glistening moss on rocks---people doing tai chi by the water---guy sitting on a dune playing guitar--another guy asks "Hey, would you happen to be stoked to do some interesting alternative type of work from home?"--I say "No thanks - but could you take my picture?" he smiles and says "Right on."
Everything was so green....the grasses and redwood come alive this time of year...flowers everywhere...crashing waves...whales puttering by in the distance against the Monterrey Mountains...funny sea birds...Santa Cruz characters....two California blonde 7 years old girls---by themselves--in wet suits, crossing the street with surfboards (not boogie boards) on their heads, heading toward the cliffs where they'd climb down to catch some world class swells at day's end before dinner, with probably 200 other local people, as per ritual this time of the year---glistening moss on rocks---people doing tai chi by the water---guy sitting on a dune playing guitar--another guy asks "Hey, would you happen to be stoked to do some interesting alternative type of work from home?"--I say "No thanks - but could you take my picture?" he smiles and says "Right on."
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