ONE TELL ME THAT THIS ISN’T TRUE…
Thanks to Dave Holmes of American Esquire for this piece of “news”. “KidRockforSenate.com is pretty simple right now, but it sure does get its point across. It shows a simple photograph of Mr. Rock chillin’ in the “vaguely patriotic” section of the Art Van Furniture showroom.

He wears sunglasses, a gold ring with the Detroit Tigers’ logo, and his best fedora (which is to say: the one he got at the Cabo Wabo gift shop). Several children’s softball trophies are displayed in a case over his right shoulder, while to his left, we see the Declaration of Independence and a portrait of George Washington. George is hung right where a Real American would put him: about two and a half feet off the ground, with an unobstructed view of a stuffed deer’s genitals.” Just pray that Ted Nugent doesn’t get any ideas.

TWO IS THIS ANYTHING MORE THAN “CATCHY”?
I like Dan Auerbach – his work in the Black Keys, his production of Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence – and I was intrigued to hear his new record was cut with the survivors of the great American Sound Studios house band in Memphis, drummer Gene Chrisman and pianist Bobby Wood, who played on hits by Dusty Springfield and Elvis Presley. Auerbach: “I learned so much from these guys… it’s a whole history of everything I love about music.” From its deliberately artless cover photo to its almost-cheesy feel, it doesn’t work for me. It comes off as a mix of M. Ward and the Monkees, and that’s not good. If you want to hear Chrisman at his thrilling best, check out “The Power of My Love” by Elvis, on From Elvis in Memphis. Everything is simple and held in check in the verses, but the choruses (especially from halfway in) just build and build, driven by the bass of either Tommy Cogbill or Mike Leech, and Chrisman’s mighty drumming. In contrast, Auerbach’s album feels weightless and cute, a good combination for something, but not this.

THREE GOODBYE, RON
Sad news that Ron Bowden – a genuine, generous man and a fine drummer – has died. Ron played with my uncle and Chris Barber iat the very beginning of the stirrings of British jazz, played on some of Lonnie Donegan’s first skiffle sessions, and had a long career travelling the world (and being the house band on The Morecambe and Wise Show with Kenny Ball’s Jazzmen. Ron and his wife, Mina, once started a restaurant, a doomed project mainly because they never liked the idea of charging their friends – or pretty much any other customers – so it was more like a long-running party than a short-lived business. Here they are (Mina left, Ron far right) with Brownie McGee…

FOUR GO ASK ALICE…
Bob G sends a link to a Ted Mills’ piece on Open Culture, where we can listen in wonder to Grace Slick’s isolated vocal track for “White Rabbit”. “The song was written in 1965 after an LSD trip at her Marin county home where Slick had listened to Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain over and over again for 24 hours”. Glorious and steely don’t even begin to cover it…

FIVE WHOA! LOUIS ON THE BEAT GENERATION…
Thanks to Marc Myers at JazzWax for this fantastic clip: “You Beat Generation! Now your lives don’t have no meaning, though you’re living up a storm/You’ll do anything at all except conform…” Genius.

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