How's This for a Campaign Issue? Blogs for Everyone!

By Steven Rosen

(adapted from Cincinnati CityBeat)

A friend of mine, a Democrat who believes "free trade" has been a giveaway of American jobs with little to nothing in return, scoffs at those who say the solution is to retrain all those who have lost their blue-collar livelihoods to cheaper, overseas sources.

"What are we going to do," he says. "Give them all a computer and tell them to start their own Web site?"

He was being bitterly facetious. But to sidestep the "free trade" debate for a minute -- though I do worry we've lost much more than we've gained from this as a nation -- perhaps he has a point. Maybe the best way, the most artistically creative and environmentally sensitive way, out of our current economic mess (especially in Rust Belt states) is for the government to offer financial incentives for people to start up and operate blogs.

Not a fortune, but enough to pay their monthly mortgages. Or medical insurance. Or gas bills. And it can be funded by raising the taxes on the rich, excessive oil-company profits, and maybe by imposing a levy on junk e-mail. I realize some people might not like this, but they can then apply for a subsidy to start a blog complaining about it. (There ought to be, however, an income cut-off for support; Bill Gates or Courtney Love can blog on their own dime.)

That's right. Blogs for everyone!

It's such a good idea that I'll bet whoever would support it first, Obama or McCain, could clinch the election. My guess, however, is that Obama would be far more likely to propose it than McCain. By putting tens of millions of Americans to work in the new information economy, it could stimulate the economy. Those who create demand for their blogs might find themselves in demand as experts of one sort or another, or even literary/cultural figures of influence. Yahoo and Microsoft -- or Hollywood -- might even offer big bucks for a piece.

There are already 112 million blogs worldwide, according to search engine Technorati, and these diary-like Internet web-logs provide 112 million running commentaries -- sometimes with video footage and sound -- on every aspect of politics, the arts, religion, sports, sex ... even daily updates on flying-saucer sightings. They comprise a genuine populist, democratic communications network. They're a public service and a worldwide and nationwide civic asset.

But many need money to keep going. One Cincinnati-based blogger, fantasy-film cinephile Tim Lucas, recently wondered on his Video WatchBlog site (www.videowatchdog.blogspot.com) whether to give it all up. "... Blogging typically invigorates a writer's productivity; it has encouraged me to produce writing that I wouldn't have produced otherwise, for lack of an outlet or market -- but I wasn't paid for any of it," he wrote.

So far he hasn't, but why not let the government help him out? He helps popular culture out tremendously by researching, for instance, actress Mimsy Farmer's earliest TV appearance or defending a film like Speed Racer.

There is a precedent: During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration funded a Federal Writers' Project as part of the New Deal. During its existence, it employed some who went on to become our most important writers once the Depression passed: John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Studs Terkel, John Steinbeck and more.

This could do the same, at the same time helping the current almost-Recession pass. Let the government step in now with incentives to create a nation of bloggers. And next, maybe, pay us an hourly wage to read them.

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CONTACT STEVEN ROSEN: srosen@citybeat.com
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A Concert and CDs Worthy of Attention

By Steven Rosen

Ponderosa Stomp
House of Blues, New Orleans, LA
April, 2008

If you could stop dancing to the sinewy, organ-pumping, garage-rock rhythms of Question Mark & the Mysterians' "I Can't Get Enough of You, Baby," "Girl (You Captivate Me)" and "96 Tears" long enough to stare at 62-year-old Mr. Mark himself, you might want to ask him directions to the Fountain of Youth. His ageless, creaseless face hidden behind shades and a giant cowboy hat, he brought the seventh annual Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans to a thrilling and very late-night conclusion. Once again, this festival organized by anesthesiologist/record-collector Ira Padnos and dedicated to "unsung heroes of rock 'n' roll" proved its point—musicians over 50 (heck, over 80!) can still rock.

Rockabilly dominated the first night: an exuberant Dale Hawkins tackled his classic "Suzie Q"; Roy Head powered through "Treat Her Right"; the Collins Kids' Larry Collins played the fastest double-neck guitar this side of Les Paul while sister Lorrie beamed as she sang "Hoy, Hoy." On the second night, Ronnie Spector belted out Ronettes' classics with a tight, large band. "Isn't she beautiful," one lady cried, standing on a staircase to see 65-year-old Ronnie sing the Students' immortal "I'm So Young" in a voice full of youthful, melancholy longing. Yet another of the endless highlights was Austin garage-rock god Roky Erickson, his mental instability under control, playing ragingly with the Explosives.

Honoring Louisianans, the Stomp featured Dr. John on piano, reprising his earliest songs, while the now-blind old man who produced/arranged him, Wardell Quezergue, ecstatically conducted an accompanying band. Bluesman Lazy Lester showed up to play his "Ponderosa Stomp," the instrumental that gave the event its name. There was so much excellence that the exhilaration could be exhausting—except everybody felt too young to get tired.

From Elmore Magazina

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Neil Diamond
Home Before Dark
Columbia Records

Neil Diamond’s Second Coming on his Rick Rubin-produced albums, first 12 Songs and now Home Before Dark, owes as much to Diamond as to the producer’s ability to coax sensitive, subtle musical approaches from his older artists. Diamond toned down his own earnest (and sometimes bombastic) overemoting in favor of real singing, with real warmth, and also started writing less obtuse lyrics that address his maturity in a positive but not vacuous way.

“The Power of Two” is upbeat and engaging; “Another Day” (a duet with Natalie Maines) exudes shadowy, dreamlike mystery. On Home, Diamond and Rubin favor fairly sophisticated arrangements – strings, horns and woodwinds – but also welcome a bedrock, folk-rock-values band that includes Benmont Tench on keyboards and Mike Campbell and Smokey Hormel on guitar and bass. Diamond’s own acoustic guitar allows you to hear the connection between this work and his Bang Records hits of the 1960s– the urgent, sometimes-foreboding romanticism of “Cherry Cherry” or “You Got to Me” creeps through in the gorgeous “If I Don’t See You Again” or “Don’t Go There.”

Diamond could have been content to remain the Jimmy Buffet of wealthy older romantics; instead he’s stretching for musical relevance.

Standout Tracks: “Another Day (That Time Forgot),” “Home Before Dark”

From Blurt Online

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Jonathan Richman
Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild
Vapor Records

When a friend learned Jonathan Richman does Leonard Cohen’s “Here It Is” on his new Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild, he said that was perfect – the man who never grows up covers the man who never was young. And there is something about Richman’s goofy wide-eyed innocence – and the openhearted earnestness of his singing – that makes him eternally childlike. But that doesn’t mean his subject matter is juvenile. Or that at age 57 he isn’t a perceptive man of sensitivity and conscience.

Proving that point is his album’s extraordinary closing song, so sad and wise. “As My Mother Lay Lying” is a gentle ballad about spending time with his dying mother. There’s not a touch of maudlin sentimentality or false witness to it, just honest observations uncorrupted by clichés or adult self-consciousness. It’s hard to take; yet it’s also – in its humanistic profession of love – sweet. I can’t think of another songwriter who could face this subject so frankly, yet remain so optimistic about life.

Elsewhere, while there is some filler and the overall sound is familiar to Richman’s fans – nylon-stringed acoustic guitar accompanied by Tommy Larkin’s drums – the songwriting is deeper than usual. Richman seems preoccupied with confronting darkness and life’s disappointments without giving in. “Our Party Will Be on the Beach Tonight” flirts with a muted but scarily discordant arrangement and “Our Drab Ways” and “Time Has Been Going By So Fast” are Richman’s way of pleading for us to stop to appreciate pleasure. Richman thinks so much of “When We Refuse to Suffer” he has recorded two versions – acoustic and a rare electric take. It’s his philosophy of living with eyes (and heart) wide open, and it rocks.

But I have to quarrel with a point he makes: People don’t necessarily take anti-depressants because they “refuse to suffer.” Sometimes they do it because they suffer too much. By the way, his take on “Here It Is” is straightforward but melancholy, featuring his musical simplicity applied to Cohen’s lyrical complexity. And it works – it becomes a slightly unusual folk singer’s Kaddish-like tribute to family. Jonathan Richman is growing up, indeed, in a way that could serve as a role model for his generation.

Standout Tracks: “Our Drab Ways,” “As My Mother Lay Lying”

From Blurt Online

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Emmylou Harris: All I Intended to Be
[Nonesuch]

The 1995 album Wrecking Ball towers as the Mount Everest of Emmylou Harris’ recording career. Before that, she was a very hip country neo-traditionalist—like Dwight Yoakam—with a connoisseur’s taste in folk music and rock ‘n’ roll, thanks to her internship with Gram Parsons. Following it, she was a white-haired pop goddess.

Surrounded by Daniel Lanois’ cosmic wash of a rock production, singing ethereally as if wandering through a David Lynch-directed dream, she established a hierarchy of our greatest living singer-songwriters (plus Jimi Hendrix) by whom she chose to cover.

Harris has been amazingly prolific since Wrecking Ball, especially singing with others or as part of multi-artist projects. But she’s been cautious about solo albums with new studio material; All I Intended To Be is just her third major-label effort in that vein, following Red Dirt Girl and Stumble Into Grace.

It’s been hard telling where she wanted to go on her last two records, which were nevertheless musically strong. Would she continue with Lanois-style sonic mysticism, develop her own voice as a songwriter, or step back a few steps into being a more traditional-sounding interpreter? Turns out she gets the balance just right on All I Intended. Produced by Brian Ahern, the record recalls doesn't try to recreate Wrecking Ball, while also being earthy and more direct.

There is still the sense of nature-inspired awe that carries a spiritual dimension, as on Jack Wesley Routh’s “Shores of White Sand” and Patty Griffin’s “Moon Song.” But there are also songs (like Harris’ own “Broken Man’s Lament,” about a lonely auto mechanic whose wife left him to sing like Patsy Cline) that simply exhibit strong Americana storytelling in the John Prine tradition. Elsewhere, she opts for the soulfully spare, like a duet with John Starling on Billy Joe Shaver’s “Old Five and Dimers Like Me.”

For a while now, Harris has been moving toward the rock-tinged folk aesthetic of Montreal’s Anna and Kate McGarrigle, whose songs seem somehow both ancient and contemporary. Here, Harris becomes an honorary third McGarrigle sister on “How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower” and “Sailing Round the Room,” which the trio co-wrote and on which the McGarrigles provide enchanting harmonies.

It’s hard to imagine better compatriots for Harris. Both songs are melodically gorgeous and lyrically substantive, with singing that is wistfully romantic but never sweet. Here's hoping they continue working together, and that Harris continues her intriguing evolution as an iconic artist.

From Paste Online

The Balcony is Open, and It's Really Lux

By Steven Rosen

After all these years in decline, somebody has figured out a way to make the movie theater balcony hip again. Not just hip, but -- to use the terminology of National Amusements, owner of a new Showcase Cinema multiplex at northern Kentucky's Florence Mall -- "lux."

It will cost you $10 beyond the cost of your movie ticket to see for yourself. For that amount, you get admission to an upper-level foyer with entrances to private sections of auditoriums. Essentially, these are balconies overlooking the screen -- the hoi polloi sit in a separate stadium-seating area below.

The new theater is called Showcase Cinema de Lux Florence, an upscale concept for the Massachusetts-based chain but not in itself a new one. The Showcase in Springdale also is a Cinema de Lux. But this is the first Cinema de Lux built from scratch to have a so-called Lux Level. Who said there are no new ideas?

Your section of the auditorium has reserved, custom-designed, leather swiveling love seats with moveable armrests. They're the perfect size to rest your food (there's a private Lux Level kitchen) and alcoholic beverages. If you forgot to buy a drink at the bar (with your ticket you get a $5 voucher toward refreshments) before entering, you can silently buzz for a server to come in and take your order.

Best of all, no crying babies or noisy kids brought by parents trying to save sitter fees. No text-messaging teens, either. You have to be 21 or older to get in.

The theater, which opened last Friday, has 14 auditoriums but only four have these private sections. You might think, given the upscale spin of the concept, that these auditoriums would be showing art/independent movies. A Bergman retrospective, maybe? Alas, no. On opening week, they're showing Sex and the City, Wanted and Wall*E.

I'm not sure this is the right time for this concept. With gas climbing north of $4 a gallon and people struggling with plummeting house values and thus net worth, they're probably not looking for a reason to pay an extra $10 to see run-of-the-mill Hollywood fare in cushy, flattering surroundings.

But with Wall*E, Showcase might be on to something. Adults enjoy the new computer-animated family movies (especially Pixar's, like the visually inventive Wall*E). But they don't always like sitting with children to do so -- even their own.

There might be quite a few moms and dads or aunts and uncles willing to pay an extra $10 to swig a martini and relax in the balcony -- oops, Lux Level -- while the kids are delightedly squealing safely below. (You can see the whole auditorium from above, so you can check on their safety and candy consumption throughout the film.)

Of course, what happens if the grown-ups swig too many martinis? Or if they have a fight with a server over an order while the movie is playing? Or with another patron over noisy eating and drinking habits? I trust Showcase has trained its staff in the art of being quiet bouncers.

Actually, I'd like to see a theater offer a surcharge to sit in an auditorium where no food or drink is allowed -- a place where you can just concentrate on a new, beautifully projected movie in peace and quiet, without hearing or smelling your neighbors' food and beverage consumption. But maybe I'll have to wait for the Lux Lux Level -- for a $100 surcharge, you get your own screening room.

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Contact Steven Rosen: srosen@citybeat.com

Shining a Light on a Forgotten Film

New Rolling Stones concert film brings back memories of Ladies and Gentlemen
By Steven Rosen
(This originally ran in Cincinnati CityBeat)

In Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese's new IMAX film featuring the Rolling Stones in concert, the "boys" are still vital and extremely energetic Rock & Rollers -- even if they are pushing past 60.
But as exciting as they still sound (and astonishingly trim and fit as Mick Jagger still looks), there is an undeniable truth. The decades are piling up between today's Stones and the era that marked the creation of their most inventive and enduring -- and just plain best -- music.

That's why it's a good time to shine a light on another Rolling Stones concert film, an obscure and largely forgotten one that has strong Cincinnati connections: Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones. Its co-producer and director of visual production is Steve Gebhardt, who is now 71 and lives on Prospect Hill. (The film's director of record is one Rollin Binzer.)

It was commissioned by the Stones as a document of their 1972 Exile on Main St. tour and was released to theaters in 1974. It is not officially available in any format, although bootlegs can be found on the Internet.

Gebhardt wishes it could get a new life in theaters or on DVD.

"They were hot," he says of the Stones on that tour. "I haven't heard them do anything like Exile since. I thought it was awesome to be watching them then."

The Stones of the Ladies and Gentleman period consisted of Mick Jagger with Keith Richards and Mick Taylor on guitars, bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts. They were augmented by horn players Bobby Keyes and Jim Price and pianist Nicky Hopkins.

Most critics consider Exile the last in a streak of classic, career-defining albums by the Stones that started with Beggar's Banquet and continued through Let it Bleed and Sticky Fingers. It's the album where the group sounded most organic -- like a band rolling and tumbling through the unvarnished, scuffed-up, steaming, updated Roots music they had always wanted to make.

The no-nonsense film, with its many close-ups of the band performing, features five songs from Exile -- an elegiac version of "Tumbling Dice" plus "Sweet Virginia," "All Down the Line," "Happy," and "Rip This Joint." Everything else, save a Chuck Berry cover, is from the three preceding albums. All kick hard. Even "Midnight Rambler," one of the Stones' most mannered and melodramatic songs, turns into an urgently hypnotic and transcendent Blues romp.

In 1972, when the Stones were planning their tour, they hired documentary filmmaker/still photographer Robert Frank to record the behind-the-scenes antics. (That resulted in another film, the legendary Cocksucker Blues, that has never been officially released.)

"They wanted something of them on stage performing, and they knew Robert's thing was backstage," Gebhardt says. "He wasn't equipped to shoot a multi-camera, multi-audio-track film."

But Frank's sound supervisor, Danny Seymour, remembered getting to know Gebhardt and his partner Bob Fries in 1970, when they all were working in the same New York loft. Gebhardt and Fries, also a Cincinnatian, were working for John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Joko film operation making Ono's Fly, about a fly buzzing around a woman in bed. Seymour remembered and recommended them.

So Gebhardt got the call from Marshall Chess, who worked for the Stones. In July 1972, he and three other camera operators -- including Fries -- filmed four shows in Houston and Fort Worth, Tex. A mobile unit from the Record Plant recorded the sound separately, although Fries was in charge of sound mixing.

Fries remembers putting four tracks in then-experimental quadraphonic surround-sound and playing it for Richards and a bunch of the Stones' friends on a sound stage at London's Twickenham Film Studios.

"They wanted to see how it was received," says Fries, who also got a producer credit on the film. "It went very, very well."

That helped the Stones decide to release Ladies and Gentlemen as a filmed concert.

The film took a long time to reach theaters. But when it was released in 1974, it was with all the hoopla of a live concert, booked into big theaters like New York's Zeigfield. Because it used quadraphonic surround-sound system, it needed special audio equipment and its own traveling crews. After that version played out, it was distributed as a mono print.

Gebhardt most recently made Twenty to Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair, about the Detroit/Ann Arbor radical whose imprisonment on marijuana charges became an early-1970s cause celebre. Much earlier, while working for Lennon and Ono, Gebhardt had directed Ten for Two, about the 1971 Ann Arbor concert featuring John Lennon that was meant to raise awareness of then-imprisoned Sinclair. Gebhardt also currently is trying to arrange financing for a film about controversial Italian publisher Marcello Baraghini.

But he looks forward to seeing the Stones in Shine a Light.

"They're old men -- they're my age, almost," he says, laughing. "I'm amazed to see how Mick looks -- he's taking care of himself. And Keith goes on." ©