BFrank

I started with a BANG! Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine, East Side Kids: Robertson Gymnasium, UC Santa Barbara - 2/11/1968 First jazz concert: Freddie Hubbard (I think with Junior Cook, Lenny White and ...?), Charles Lloyd: Campbell Hall, UC Santa Barbara - 11/20/1971

Check out Alison's brother, Viktor. He has a couple of albums out that are OUTstanding. Not sure what "genre" you would put them in - they're mostly instrumental and certainly leaning towards "roots" - but there's much more there. His first one, "Far from Enough" is a little better than "II", but both are worth picking up.

It was. Happy to pass on the experience - I was thinking about you guys!

A good friend of mine knew him pretty well and has about a half dozen signed prints of musicians giving the finger (including the Johnny Cash).

Yep. I think it's a done deal. ENJOY!

Thanks for clearing that up, Agg!

I believe sometime this year.

They talked about how Miles "stole" McLaughlin and Larry Young from Tony's Lifetime for this project, and their relationship was never the same after that. The bootleg series will be mostly live shows, I believe - many from European radio broadcasts. It does seem out of place at the SxSW festival, but there was a lot of talk about how this was one of the first "jazz-rock" albums (not "fusion" - Lenny hates that term). Miles himself called it 'the greatest rock and roll album ever'.

I just got back from SxSW in Austin and was very fortunate to be able to attend a panel discussion on the 40th Anniversary of Bitches Brew. The panel consisted of Ashley Kahn (moderator), Steve Berkowitz, Erin Davis, Lenny White and Vincent Wilburn Jr. It was a really tremedous hour of interesting stories and tidbits of information about the album, in particular, and Miles in that period, in general. To top it off, they gave out t-shirts and copies of the album to every attendee - AND, had 2 quiz questions where the winners received Miles Davis ear buds and the 70CD complete box. The questions weren't hard, I should have won one of those - just not fast enough. Lenny White had the most to say and a majority of the more interesting stories. I hadn't realized how involved he was in the project. It was one of his first appearances on record (maybe THE first). He had been playing with Jackie McLean, which is how Miles got his name. Berkowitz brought along a brief audio he had put together for this presentation showing the evolution of drumming on Miles' projects from '67, '68 and '69 - Tony's powerful, but still jazz-oriented riffs in '67 to DeJohnette's funky rock-style drumming in '69. Each piece would start with the standard mix and then he would take out the other instruments so we could hear only the drummer. Very cool. Erin and Vince had fewer interesting stories, surprisingly. I was tempted to let Vince know that he's a controversial figure on these message boards, although I did shake his hand while he circulated around the room "greeting" people. Afterwards I went up to the front and tried to get a few questions in with Berkowitz, but he seemed to be more focused on talking to the guy next to me (who I suddenly realized was Lenny Kaye!). He did let on that there is a plan to re-release all the metal spine box sets packaged together in a trumpet case. They're all OOP at this point but he said that he had held back 1,000 copies of each in case another opportunity came up. Finally, he said that there is going to be a Sony Legacy "bootleg" series coming out in the near future, so get ready for THOSE. A very cool hour, for sure. One of the highlights of the festival for me. Steve Berkowitz, Erin Davis, Vince Wilburn Jr, Lenny White and Ashley Kahn

Having grown up in Santa Barbara, I was never a big fan. He was always scheming to "develop" prime property for his own personal gain. He finally succeeded in building a sprawling "resort" near the beach. My parents never had a kind word for him.

Happy B-DAY, Blue! That's a great (and under-rated) set, BTW.

Hey, those are good! I just checked them out on eMusic and put them into my "Monster Surf" list. Regarding the Mermen, their recent stuff has tended towards spacy psychedelia, but their earlier albums were quite a bit more surf/rockin'. Worth looking into.

Tolliver Select - disk #2

Not sure which ones you're referring to as being "tame", but the Insect Surfers would NOT be one of those bands. FYI "Tales of the Rat Fink" is primarily very short tunes, which is it's one drawback. Don't know the Mel-tones, but let me know how THAT is. For clandestine stars playing surf, check out: *Actually Devo *Actually Mike Campbell & the Heartbreakers (Tom Petty's band)

I think that's about right.

The long-OOP Rhino box "Cowabunga" was a great 4-CD set. Maybe it can be found online somewhere. Contemporary instro guitar bands to check out: Aqua Velvets Insect Surfers Mermen Big Lazy The Sadies have a surf tendency, although their music runs more towards the Byrds, overall. They did the soundtrack to the movie "Tales of the Rat Fink" about Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. All guitar surf/hot rod music. Look into the Del-Fi label for a lot of this stuff, too. The De-Fenders, The Darts, The Deuce Coupes - all worth checking out.

Got my "Valleys" today. Haven't listened to it yet. Been hearing good things, though.

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! Happy 5-2 !!

Not sure what happened, but they're now being billed as: "The Spence Clark Band w/very special guests Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson of Moby Grape" I wasn't going to see them anyway because I plan to see Big Star who is performing about the same time.

Yep.......that's a GOOD one!

Actually, it's the Robert Stack character (Sterling Hayden!) who says "Guess I picked the wrong week to quit smoking". But it's there ... There's even a bit with the hysterical female passenger where two people take turns trying to shake her out of it (although in Airplane it's an aisle-full of people).

That was freaking AMAAAAAAAAZING. I had no idea they used that movie. In fact, quite a bit of the script and visuals are taken directly from Zero Hour. It's more than an inspiration, it IS "Airplane!".

Now it's ANOTHER year. There are some interesting shows coming up, not the least of which are some non-new acts: Big Star, Ray Davies, Moby Grape.

I've seen "Airplane!" about 100 times (well, maybe not THAT many times), never seen "Zero Hour". Have to check that out. Thanks for the heads up!

Saw the Jerry Bergonzi Trio here in Manchester three months ago. Was very impressed, even to the point of being reminded of Coltrane of the Crescent period! Cool. Next time he makes it out to the West Coast, I'll have to catch a show.