These records are scorchers. They don’t sound like anything else

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Cuba and its Music has already been acknowledged worldwide as a classic, easily the best book on the subject in English. The subject itself is a field nearly as wide as, say-- jazz, for despite the small size of the island, Cuba has produced some of the most influential music and musicians in the hemisphere. Cuba and its Music, the first of two volumes (the second yet to be published will pick up the story in the late 1940's) really does begin with the first drums heard in Spain-- Almoravides war drums which arrived in Spain with an invading African army in 1086. Sublette follows the story from traveling troubadours of the middle ages (the first singer-songwriters), through the Inquisition, the discovery of the New World, the music of slaves, the diaspora that followed the slave uprising in Santa Domingo (now Haiti) through the various forms of music that developed around the island of Cuba from the earliest Spanish inhabitants to the mafia sponsored Havana of the mid-20th century, when the town was jumping. It's a mind boggling piece of research, but if my description makes it sound dry or academic, this book is anything but, it's a real page turner and Sublette's passion for the subject (and his sense of humor) shine through on every page. Sublette's thesis is that Cuban music is the lost link, one that has been suppressed since the earliest days of the embargo (1959), in the chain that makes up American popular music, he calls it "The Other Great Tradition". He also explains the music and its rhythms and beats in way that even a non-musician can easily understand. For myself, it's nice to finally know what the clave is, and how it differs from what we call swing. – The Hound

He tore pages from the Holy Bible to wipe his rectum

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I find myself re-reading one of my favorite showbiz memoirs, a book that got almost no attention here in New York when it was published back in '97 (I assume it must have made a stink in L.A. because when I was there in '97 living at the Chateau Marmont just a mention of Gilmore's name would send folks into seismic frenzies of denial), but I assure you this is a book you want to read: Laid Bare by John Gilmore. Gilmore's clear eyed, lucid prose captures Janis Joplin years before fame as a down and out North Beach tramp ("She fucks like a truck," he said. "She wants to get on top and jam up and down. She practically busted my rib cage.'') , Hank Williams at the Opry on the verge of superstardom and then pissing his pants months before his death, the only account of James Dean I've ever read that made him seem like a real person, scathing looks at Steve McQueen ("I'd see him stealing tips from bars and from tables in coffeehouses."), Dennis Hopper, the underbelly of Hollywood - the Black Dahlia, Manson, Mickey Cohen, and wait, a side trip to Tucson to cover the trial of Charles Schmidt, the Pied Piper Of Tucson, sleaze galore from Barbara Payton and Franchot Tone, sad sack Tom Neal, the sadly forgotten John Hodiak, Brigitte Bardot in Paris, Jane Seberg, Lenny Bruce, Vampira, every page of this book is fascinating. I can't remember who turned me onto it, I've given away a dozen copies over the years and have read every other book Gilmore's written, but Laid Bare is something truly special, a tell all that tells the truth, and it is written so well it sparkles like jewels on the page. I'm going back to my sick bed for a few days, I suggest you hunt down a copy of Laid Bare for yourself.- The Hound.

Burroughs knew where to find the best absinthe in a section of Paris he called "the sewer," and I went with him and another poet named Frank Milne, from Hoboken, who wore some sort of turban on his head with a bunch of fake jewels stitched to the front above the eyes. Burroughs kept staring at my crotch and almost obscenely licking his lips, or making strange remarks about "a penis colony in the desert." He drank quickly, painfully, and at one point began sweating and shaking. His eyes rolled up like an epileptic's, and he seemed to go into a kind of fit. I got up and away from him when he started frothing at the mouth and shitting his pants.

rhyming speedfreak who introduced every song as 'The Greasy Chicken'

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When looking at an album of music you know nothing about, song titles can help—for example: “She’s My Witch,” “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby,” “Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut,” and “Evil” are all good song titles, and they are all great songs ... Places with a higher murder or insanity rate usually produced a lot of good music, Memphis and Detroit being two fine examples. Same goes for places with a lot of drunks, like New Orleans and Texas. Eventually you may learn to recognize what gentlemen with beards call “regional styles.” For example, black guitar players from Memphis played too loud through broken speakers; this was good. Drummers from New Orleans were usually drunk and fucked up, so if they couldn’t find the beat they’d just play a march and call it “second line.” ... Pittsburgh’s WAMO boasted the legendary Porky Chadwick—“the daddio of the raddio, a head snapper and dapper rapper, a porkulatin’ platter pushin’ poppa.” He wasn’t “Cary Grant but can do what he can’t” and got his “PhD in insanity at the University of Spinner Sanctum” where he always had a grape in his ear “to make my head ferment.”

Tony broke out some black plastic bags,and I started throwing up

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Around that same time Esquerita Milochi aka S.Q. Reeder Jr. (who began his career playing piano behind gospel singing sissy Brother Joe May "The Thunderbolt Of The Midwest") had surfaced and was playing a regular Monday night gig seven blocks away at Tramps on 16th St, then a hangout for the Westies, a scary gang of west side Irish thug coke heads, who were also the muscle for some wise guys out in Bensohurst. Once I looked up from my drink to see a little runty lookin', red eyed leprechaun in a dirty army jacket staring at me, it was Mickey Featherstone and his glazed eyes caused me to break out in a cold sweat. I returned my eyes to my drink.

The Westies by T.J. English is the standard text on the subject and a helluva fun read.-The Hound

Everybody hated everybody. It was nothing personal.

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While we're on the subject of ole blue and red rimmed eyes, one of my all-time favorite celebrity tell-alls might have slipped by your radar, in which case I suggest you search out Mr. S. Jacobs was Sinatra's butler for fifteen years and his tales of encounters with Joe Kennedy (who berated Sinatra for hiring a black man), Ava Gardner, Swifty Lazar, Peter Lawford, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, and nearly every one who was anyone in Hollywood and Palm Springs makes this an orb popping read from beginning to end. The Chairman of the Board, his toupee and rat pack may be gone, but those of us still here can still laugh at him. -The Hound

"He couldn't sit still, and he couldn't be alone. Thus he always needed a girl, and she didn't have to be famous. First he'd go for his leading lady. If she wasn't free, he'd try some famous ex, like Lana Turner, whom he'd dated in the forties, for old times. Then he'd work his way down the food chain, starting with the starlets, then the hookers, and, if all else failed, he'd call Peggy Lee, who lived down the block."

keep it dark

 

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Jagger, who is referred to variously as "Brenda", "Disco boy, "Her majesty" or sometimes just "the bitch" takes a major beating in Life, one he probably deserves. For those keeping score, Brian Jones, Donald Cammell, Ron Wood and Anita Pallenberg also get spattered with various degrees of shrapnel. After Jagger, Cammell (director of Performance) gets it the worst--"the most destructive turd I've ever met...utterly predatory... ". Much of this I guess is just giving the audience what they paid for...Keith ends the book wondering-- "How come I could get a great drum sound in Denmark Street with one microphone, and now with fifteen microphones I get a drum sound like someone shitting on a tin roof?" I've been wondering that out loud for twenty five years now.-The Hound