I promise you the plethora of record albums on this site day after day after day are purely from the subconscious. It wasn’t my intent to have pages and pages of vinyl LP reviews, they just started proliferating again; that’s just a big part of my life so here it is:

You might say “this guy’s totally insane” but I did get a good deal for about $6.50 tonight for a bunch more vinyl – Petula Clark, Bette Midler, Olivia Newton John, Al Martino (with some interesting liner notes,) too good to pass up….excuse me as I mix drinks….my icewater and Cranberry juice at 1:08 am…

…Not only do I OWN vinyl records, I review them as well! Found my old Manhole CD/LP review (I reviewed it off the vinyl all those years ago) …so many eBay dealers using my thoughts on the music!

Product Description
Originally released on Grunt Records.
Personnel includes: Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, David Crosby, Pete Sears, Jack Casady, John Barbata, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan.
Producers includes: Paul Kantner.
Liner Note Author: Jeff Tamarkin.
Recording information: Wally Heider’s, San Francisco.
Manhole was the last of the experimental Jefferson Airplane, and Grace Slick’s first official solo album. While Bark and Long John Silver, the final stages of the original Airplane, displayed the excessive psychedelic nature of the musicians within the confines of their group format, Blows Against the Empire, Sunfighter, and Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun allowed for total artistic expression. Manhole concluded this phase with 1974’s other release, the Jefferson Starship’s Dragonfly. By taking the name from Paul Kantner’s Blows Against the Empire solo project, Dragonfly began the renewed focus on commercial FM which would turn into Top 40 airplay. Manhole is the antithesis of that aim, but is itself a striking picture of Grace Slick as the debutante turned hippy being as musically radical as possible. To the kids who think she’s the cool singer on the mechanical Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, Manhole is an alien concoction, but it works on many levels as great head music. The title track itself is almost 15-and-a-half minutes of orchestrated underground rock with Craig Chaquico on lead guitar; Jack Casady on bass, along with Ron Carter; voices from David Crosby, David Freiberg, Slick and Paul Kantner; mandolin by Peter Kaukonen; and a 42-piece orchestra (51, if you include the fragments of the Airplane/Starship onboard). It’s fun stuff, but looking back one wonders how they maintained a distribution deal for Grunt records with R.C.A., the material being so far from commercial. The title track has a left-hand piano part which “was stolen from an improvisation by Ivan Wing,” Slick’s father, and the epic is rife with Spanish/English by the singer, translated in the booklet with Slick’s “phonetic Spanish spelling.” Again, this is total underground excess, but it is actually more than listenable than it looks on paper, and for fans, it has the serious/eccentric nature of this woman who emerged as a big, big star due to her quirky personality having the talent to back it up. Attacks on the government and Clive Davis in the elaborate booklet only prove all involved were not out to make friends, but songs like “Come Again? Toucan” are compelling and intriguing, more so than some of what would constitute 1981’s Welcome to the Wrecking Ball, which contained more elements of guitarist Scott Zito than the star. On Manhole, the music is wonderfully dense, macabre, exhilarating, and totally out there. This is a great portion of music from the lead singer of one of America’s great music groups. Maybe David Freiberg’s “It’s Only Music” deserved to be on an Airplane project or solo LP of his own, but it sounds great and works. “Better Lying Down” is Grace Slick and Pete Sears re-writing Janis Joplin’s “Turtle Blues,” a nice change of pace from the heavy instrumental backing of the other tracks. Slick is in great voice, and reflecting on the album years after it was recorded, the conclusion is that Manhole has much to offer fans. Compare this to Deep Space — recorded live at the Hollywood House of Blues in the 1990s to see the difference between capturing the time and trying to recapture the magic. Despite the eye toward success and the more serious nature of that later project, it just doesn’t have the charm of this artifact from the glory days. It’s also a far cry from the 1980s, when Slick returned with three more solo outings: Dreams, Welcome to the Wrecking Ball, and Software, projects which differ vastly from Manhole. The hard rock of Wrecking Ball and the synths and post-Kantner Starship feel of producer Peter Wolf’s collaborations on Software show a woman dabbling with other rock formats. Put those three discs in a boxed set with Manhole, and you have true culture shock from a major counterculture figure. Manhole is orchestrated psychedelia at its finest with the voice from “White Rabbit” stretching that concept across two sides. ~ Joe Viglione

Wikipedia referencing my review of Gary Wright …someone on eBay using the review to sell the disc June 18, 2021

Notes

Gatefold sleeve. Inside gatefold are liner notes by Ken Barnes and a Gary Wright/Spooky Tooth personnel lineup listing.AllMusic Review by Joe Viglione
     In 1971, United Artists Records released a double LP entitled Winwood, which was called off the market almost as quickly as ABKCO’s Grand Funk meets Terry Knight & the Pack amalgam, Mark, Don & Terry. Gary Wright’s That Was Only Yesterday compilation fares a little better, and should have been much bigger. The late Jimmy Miller, former producer of Spooky Tooth, had put together a production company which boasted Gary Wright, Chrissie Hynde, and others. When the money people fell off the stock market, Miller’s company was no more, and he told this writer he had to release Gary Wright prior to The Dream Weaver. Wright made the jump from A & M to Warner Brothers, where he hit big time, resulting in this marvelous collection of 19 tracks for A & M to cash in on their original investment. Credited as a Gary Wright/Spooky Tooth album, the tracks are scattered across four sides with no apparent rhyme or reason (except that they sound pretty good in this order). There’s a 20-paragraph essay by the brilliant Ken Barnes, former editor of Radio & Records and Ice Magazine, now at USA TODAY. Barnes neatly wraps up the treasures, the two excellent singles “I Know” and “I Can’t See the Reason; four tracks from the Jimmy Miller-produced Spooky Two and one from Tobacco Road; four titles from Footprint, the album that featured George Harrison and Doris Troy; two from Extraction; and only the single from Wonderwheel. There are also tracks from the latter-day Spooky Tooth projects, You Broke My Heart, so I Busted Your Jaw and The Last Puff. So musically, how does this hold up? Incredibly. “Sing a Song,” from the Extraction album, is in the same vein as the Elton John/Bernie Taupin composition from The Last Puff, “Son of Your Father.” These recordings are classic and every bit as valuable as the work of Steve Winwood. The beauty of all this is it is before Wright went off on his keyboard kick, saturating everything in keys and becoming some astral minstrel. It’s bothersome to give a record label credit after they’ve let an artist move on, but the placement of “Holy Water” with “Stand for Our Rights,” from Wright solo to Spooky Tooth, show how influential his contributions were to a band that boasted a future Mott the Hoople guitarist in Luther Grosvenor and future Foreigner with Mick Jones. While Black Sabbath covered Crow’s song “Evil Woman,” the Spooky Tooth song by Weiss became an underground classic. The dirge-like epic, all nine and a half minutes of it, is included here. As Jethro Tull was able to turn “Living in the Past” into a hit years after it was recorded, it is certainly a statement that A & M couldn’t climb the charts with a single from That Was Only Yesterday. Regardless, it is a treat to hear these songs in this context, and a great primer for Gary Wright’s pre-The Dream Weaver work. https://www.allmusic.com/album/that-was-only-yesterday-mw0001879392

The Esoteric Diary of Joe Viglione 1:48 am June 18, 2021…

So I invested in a rock band, a four piece group who came up with an amazing song. First, I promoted the music which got airplay from Spain to Australia, Los Angeles to parts across the known universe. The band had no direction, and when I set up an interview the 29 year old lead singer wanted to say the most incredibly obnoxious things. Calmly this writer explained to him that a bad tattoo is something you may regret ten years later and need to have scrubbed off. The band leader forgot to give the websites so the interviewer was kind enough to let him send an update and actually promote the music.

The level of serious that they presented was absent.

I get a phone call and the band leader explained that he had a blowout with two of the band members. Not good. The leader/bassist/singer said that the two gentlemen were “egotistical.” He also called them lazy. Some lawyer friend of a relative was working out a deal where they would pay off the guitarist and a drummer and come back as a trio. The trio were going for a Leslie West sound – but the big problem is, the exquisite sound that I was promoting was replaced with a 23 year old amateur with bad drumming habits.

A prescription for disaster. Since I funded the project and the trio started deciding how the session would go. They wanted to record at 8 AM. What do I know? I’ve only been doing this for fifty years, half a century. My outline is simple: don’t have a session go over five hours, no pot smoking, no alcohol, we are there to work not to party. The band got too close to the engineer, the son-in-law of my pals who own the studio. Incredibly, the engineer was telling me that he could record the band without me, and that he would. What am I after producing Grammy winners, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and such? Match.com? Some kid who can’t even stay awake during the ten hour session, looking like he’s losing the digital information that I’m paying for (the late Jimmy Miller called erasing any part of a session akin to murder,) and now I’m getting a lecture on the law from the upstart. Sheesh.

I get an apology:

Tue, Jun 1 at 5:27 PM

Hey Joe,
I wanted to apologize for my unprofessionalism and crossing any boundaries I might have crossed with you. I have never worked with a real producer before so I was not aware of the proper workflow or procedures during a session like this. I did not mean to step on your toes or overstep my position as the engineer. It was never my intention to undermine you, I only wanted to make sure the music coming into the system was good and usable for what you and the band want to do with it. My ambition got the best of me this weekend, but please know that I have your best interest in mind. 
In regards to the files, all track sessions are on your hard drive already. I still need to condense them down to just the stems of each track. Those will be on a separate folder on your hard drive once that’s been done. 
Once again, I apologize for my behavior for this past weekend as I really do feel terrible about it all. I hope that I have not tarnished my relationship with you. I look forward to keep on building this relationship with you, and moving onward and upward!
Best regards,

Feels terrible about it all? I gave two examples of bands in 1978 and 1979 that the lad’s father-in-law worked on with me. How great it was to work with the bands Unnatural Axe and Phobia. Indeed, Kurt from Phobia also played in Tall Paul with a member of the Axe, Frank, and they hired me to promote their single years after I launched Unnatural Axe and their classic e.p. They Saved Hitler’s Brain.

Well, after praising Phobia and our reunion, which I thought was a couple of years ago but the lead singer, a dear friend, wrote to tell me our Phobia Reunion was five years ago, August of 2016…how time flies. While I’m praising the band in comparison to the trio that caused a ruckus and thought partying was how you make records, we get word that guitarist Kurt passed away on Monday, June 14, 2021. Five years younger than me, it puts a stamp on the fact that life is too short to argue.

• https://clubbohemianews.blogspot.com/2021/06/rip-guitarist-kurt-henry-from-phobia.html

Gary and I were making GREAT classic punk / new wave before the bands of today were even born. Classic recordings that go for big dollars, and some punks calling their ex bandmates “egotistical” put ego on display rather than talent.

Now the group who took ten hours to record six basic tracks…what a waste of time…I could have written and recorded two albums at the piano in that time, blowing each one of their compositions out of the water and off the map. Insult upon insult, investing in them, they abused my time, my consideration for their emerging songwriting, and now they want to steal the tapes without compensating me for my time, energy and efforts on their behalf. It is truly stunning their own self-sabotage of their career.
The studio e mails me that the band who didn’t pay a nickel, who started drinking a bottle of liquor at the studio that didn’t even belong to them, how they – with no cause – want to sue the studio

Wow, how to make friends and contacts in the record industry. Of course all three are either married or getting married…as soon as they start having offspring, well, you know the routine …the women in their lives will start that immortal chant “Isn’t it time you grew up? You tried it, you failed, now be responsible.” They go off to their day jobs, chained to life outside of rock and roll…maybe reuniting with the two members they screwed over because the 23 year old drummer going on five years of age still has his bad drumming habits- can’t remember the full songs, can’t keep time, and his drum rolls sounding like a seagull burping. Music not BY the Byrds, but music FOR THE BIRDS.

Imagine someone offering to put up the money for studio time, give his production ear, and an engineer and band ignoring a man with half a century of production experience.

They know better than everyone with an amateur drummer when I got have brought in any number of Grammy-winning, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummers to make a real record that would entertain the world.

But it wasn’t about entertainment. It’s about their enormous, bloated idea of self-worth, their self-indulgence, their partying and ransacking the serious art of recording that I set up, and that I paid for.

And now, with no cause, they want to sue the recording studio where they created chaos and acted unprofessionally, foolishly, and didn’t burn bridges…they blew them up.

Welcome to today’s edition of Esoteric Diaries…

es·o·ter·ic/ˌesəˈterik/ Learn to pronounce adjectiveadjective: esoteric

1. intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.”esoteric philosophical debates” h Similar:abstruse

obscurearcanerecherchérarefiedreconditeabstract

di·a·ry/ˈdī(ə)rē/ Learn to pronounce nounplural noun: diaries

1. a book in which one keeps a daily record of events and experiences.”I resolved to keep a diary of events during the war” h Similar:journal

memoirchronicleloglogbookweblogblogvlogday-by-day accountdaily recordhistoryannalrecordmoblogdaybook

It’s interesting to write thoughts contemporaneous with our position in the universe at what man calls 10:28 pm Eastern daylight time on Thursday 6/17/21 but which, in actuality, is where the Architect has us situated in the Matrix; where the Talosians have us in their imaginations on Talos IV, or what petrie dish we are in at any given moment in time or space or on the spiritual switchboard. Captain Kirk, of all people, on William Shatner’s recent birthday says as he is in his 9th decade that none of it matters anyway. Not the Mr. Spock article in today’s Boston Globe interview with Adam Nimoy.

• British

As some of you know I’ve been working on tapes recorded August 4, 1971, my dad singing standards like “Release Me,” “My Way,” “Green Green Grass of Home,” “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife.”

well, we have three renditions of “Green Green Grass of Home” so for Father’s Day this weekend, June 20, 2021 I had Eric Lee put some fiddle tracks down and asked Peter to add some drums, bass, keys etc. and add Lee’s fiddle and do a mix. What is amazing is the authenticity of Mr. Calo and his cowboy acoustic guitar. Then it was like, duh, I wrote a review of his amazing Cowboy Song CD, so Pete is the perfect guy to put early cowboy guitar playing on dad’s country CD. It’s not that he’s my pa and that these tapes are a half a century old now, recorded on August 4, 1971 at 7-8 pm on my two track reel-to-reel, but that the music is so much more entertaining than this new 2021 slick country/pop/rap hybrid. The original is still the greatest.

Vinyl Stocker has my review of West Coast Bound from the Blues Magoos up on eBay. God Bless him! Re-exploring my thoughts on albums from long ago here on the Esoteric Diary

Blues Magoos Gulf Coast Bound Vinyl LP – ABC ABCS-710 (1970)Condition: VG Vinyl and Cover. Original gatefold cover with original inner sleeve. Cover has light to moderate ringwear but no splits.
AllMusic Review by Joe Viglione As original member Peppy Thielhelm and original producer Bob Wyld expanded the Blues Magoos’ foray into Latin music meets mainstream blues, these May 1970 recordings take the previous years’ Never Going Back a step further. Gulf Coast Bound is an improvement, retaining John Liello’s vibes and percussion and pianist Eric Justin Kas, who is the major songwriting contributor here (strangely enough, he is listed as “Kas” on the album jacket and “Kaz” on the songwriting credits). “Slow Down Sundown” could be the band Chicago vamping without their horn section, some strange imitation monkey-sound vocals making their way onto the platter mixed in with Daddy Ya Ya’s out-of-place tambourine as the song fades. Erik Kas does the lead vocal on the 12-minute-plus opus “Can’t Get Enough of You,” which sounds like a strange marriage between Steely Dan and Traffic.
Of the pyschedelic/garage rock bands which changed over to another format — the Electric Prunes, H.P. Lovecraft, etc. — in what seemed like gambles to become “respectable,” this is the best of the lot. 
TracklistGulf Coast Bound 3:51Slow Down Sundown 6:09Can’t Get Enough Of You 12:21Magoo’s Blues 7:54Tonight The Sky’s About To Cry 4:14Sea Breeze Express 4:13

PersonnelEmil “Peppy” Thielhelm – guitar, vocalsRoger Eaton – bassEric Kaz – keyboardsRichie Dickon – drums & percussionJohn Leillo – percussion

Perry Mason on S1 Ep13 The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink is on 9:43 am

Commercials are SO annoying, the mute button is my best friend. Got my Vanilla coffee next to me; nice to write these things down for future reference…like what I had for coffee five weeks ago,right? So much to do, got my 351 list handy of “writings for the future” or “writings of the future.” Our index of possibilities, thank you Weird Scenes inside the Goldmine (Doors)…index of past achievements, all for fun for the future generations. I cannot remember any details of this morning’s dreams. Will have to keep a notepad and work on it.

Joe Viglioneimagine the trillions spent on wars instead being spent to build firm housing under the surface, let the animals frolic and have more space…mankind is so stupid and people in positions of power, especially thug Republicans, want people to remain stupid. Jim Jordan as pied piper…ugggh

If I knew then what I know now! Big letters are more appropriate on these kind of websites. The personal touch!

“Can’t Wait to See You Smile” b/w “Thought About You” are the songs on my new online single, from the albums “Love Songs Just For You” (Smile) and Boston Rock and Roll Anthology Chapter #21 (Thought)

“If men believe in fallible computers, it should be easy for them to believe in an infallible Spiritual system, call it God, Christ, Subconcious or whatever” Joe Viglione 12:46 pm May 10, 2021

Joe Viglione’s Original Hotline to the Underground, …since the 1970s

The Batman 2021

THE BATMAN Trailer (2022)

Thirty-two million, eight hundred fifty eight thousand, five hundred and fifteen views on this particular YouTube video / preview / trailer …the ” First trailer for The Batman starring Robert Pattinson” https://youtu.be/-FZ-pPFAjYY begs the question – could DC screw up their franchises, in concert with Warner Brothers, any more than they already have? First, Robert Pattison looks more like Robin than Batman, but ANYTHING would be better then Ben Affleck, God help us and save us. Political castings are so passe’ – and boring. People love the familiar, and Christian Bale rescued the franchise from the abysmal castings of Michael Keaton (fine as Vulture in Marvel, horrible as Batman courtesy of DBPS (Director Bi-polar syndrome) Tim Burton. George Clooney was clueless, Val Kilmer put the stake in the bat’s heart and killed the franchise. IF the film company had any decorum Adam West would have been the Batman for the first Burton film. Yes, Burton made money for the company (not so much for Dark Shadows though, did he?) and that being said, the biggest mistake after the stale television show which needed reinvention into a serious Batman series, the original Batman movie from the 1960s should have been serious. As serious as Planet of the Apes or Star Wars. Then there’s the earlier two serials, starting with 1943 (see below) and 1949’s Batman and Robin. The Batman was never treated properly until Christopher Nolan’s trilogy – Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Even that tremendous turn of events (Batman Begins 373.6 in 2005; the Dark Knight 1.005 billion 2008; The Dark Knight Rises (2012) 1.081 billion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_in_film#The_Dark_Knight_Trilogy_(2005%E2%80%932012) the poor villains of the first and the third made the films more difficult, though vastly superior to every other Batman entry. Heath Ledger seconded by Christian Bale performances saved the day, but one must have superior scripts to work alongside superior acting. Christian Bale was necessary for this role…an older Batman and Robin could save the day, but no matter how much money Pattison makes it is still going to be an “alternate universe” Batman. One of the most famous figures in film and comics has still not yet has his day. Christian Bale can return and make things right. Rob Pattison? Kind of like an alternate universe Joker that Joaquin Phoenix gave us, not coming anywhere near Heath Ledger’s brilliance.

32,858,515 views•Aug 22, 2020436K25KSHARESAVE

Ian Hunter When I’m President

By Joe Viglione – September 20, 2012

On September 3rd 2012 I reviewed the wonderful title track of this album, and seventeen days later Mr. Hunter is scheduled to be on my TV show, Visual Radio Live, 8:00 PM carried on cable access TV  We’re going to explore his album in depth, but right now, here are my immediate thoughts. Read more Ian Hunter reviews on ClubBohemia.club https://clubbohemianews.blogspot.com/2021/05/ian-hunter-strings-attached-by-joe.html

“Comfortable (Flyin’ Scotsman)” has a roller coaster “Brown Sugar” ride resplendent in that classic style familiar to Mott The Hoople fans around the globe.  The Rolling Stones may have been exiled on Main Street back in the 1970s but as Ian Hunter crafts album after album with solid songwriting his musical essays are expanding the original vision while simultaneously migrating from label to label.   1995’s Dirty Laundry was on Cleveland International, 1997’s Artful Dodger on the OutofTime imprint, 2000’s Rant on Fuel 2000, the live DVD Just Another Night on MVD (2004)the beautiful Strings Attached on Sanctuary (2005),  Shrunken Heads on YepRoc (2007),   Live In London – a cd release of some of Just Another Night on The Great American Music Company (2007), Man Overboard on New West (2009) and now, three years later, When I’m President on Slimstyle Records (2012). 

If you’re counting that’s nine labels in 17 years, an amazing feat in an era when hit radio is controlled by corporations spoon-feeding nonsense to the masses.  We can thank Congressman Ed Markey (located right down the street from my home where I write this) and the usually reliable Bill Clinton for the disarray. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 didn’t work out the way Markey and Clinton figured it would, and the radio industry as we knew it no longer exists.  Nor does the record business, two components of alleged “free enterprise” that have exacted even more hardship on creative artists and their fans.

And perhaps that’s the submliminal message that “When I’m President”, the song, sends out.

This album rocks with authority, picks up and delivers, and has some unique surprises. “Ta Shunka Witco (Crazy Horse)” is not an ode to an old Neil Young band, nor is it Paul Revere & The Raiders’ “Indian Reservation.”  “Ta Shunka Witco (Crazy Horse)” quotes the film Galaxy Quest’s battle cry “Never Surrender” (well, their rant was actually “Never give up! Never surrender!”).   It’s a slow, dreamy, eerie stylistic change for Hunter, and it is brilliant.   Where 2009’s Man Overboard had its moments the CD When I’m President chugs along with the inspiration we want…and expect…from this rock icon.  “What For” could have been an out-take from Brain Capers or Mad Shadows, vintage Hunter in great voice and a charging Rant band that is relentless in its execution.  “Black Tears” is another abrupt change of pace, everything falling into a groove with stylish lyrics and splashy sounds from the very efficient and very spontaneous band, Ian churning out the passion in a way the rock-star-wannabe 20somethings of today have yet to provide… or experience.

“Just The Way You Look Tonight”   is not a cover of the classic Frank Sinatra tune (“The Way You Look Tonight”, no “just” in the title), nor a take-off on former (early, early) almost Deep Purple musician’s “The Way I Feel Tonight” (made famous by the Bay City Rollers), it’s a fun stomp that has magical instrumentation and an eloquent expression from the veteran frontman.   The entire album works, “Wild Bunch” deserving special mention, and while Man Overboard had an extraordinary few moments (“Arms & Legs”), this album has Ian Hunter being Ian Hunter, a great leap forward, a welcome return to what the fans love about this icon.   He’s got our vote.

Ian Hunter, When I’m President – Track Listing 1. Comfortable (Flyin’ Scotsman 2. Fatally Flawed 3. When I’m President 4. What For 5. Black Tears 6. Saint 7. Just The Way You Look Tonight 8. Wild Bunch 9. Ta Shunka Witco (Crazy Horse) 10. I Don’t Know What You Want 11. Life

Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He was a film critic for Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal, has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com and produces and hosts Visual Radio. Visual Radio is a fifteen year old variety show on cable TV which has interviewed John Lennon’s Uncle Charlie, Margaret Cho, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix Cavaliere, Marty Balin, Bill Press and hundreds of other personalities.

http://www.tmrzoo.com/2012/37871/ian-hunter-when-im-president

They were published over a decade ago. Links no longer work

New York Times reviews

Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/368256/Kenny-Ball-and-His-Jazzmen/dvd/181480

NRBQ: One in a Million
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/309319/NRBQ-One-in-a-Million/dvd

How To Create A Rumba (Como Se Forma una Rumba)
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/289396/How-to-Create-a-Rumba/dvd

TG Sheppard: In Concert
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/372794/T-G-Sheppard-In-Concert/dvd/162266

Ian Parker  Whilst The Wind
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/325589/Ian-Parker-Whilst-the-Wind-Live/dvd

John Lennon: The Messenger [With CD and Book] [2 Discs]
(View all DVD Editions)
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/267203/John-Lennon-The-Messenger-In-Spite-of-All-the-Dangers/dvd

John Martyn: Man Upstairs – Live in Germany
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/410048/John-Martyn-The-Man-Upstairs-In-Concert-in-Germany/dvd

Frankie Laine  That Lucky Old Sun
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/406376/Frankie-Laine-That-Lucky-Old-Sun/dvd

Sharon Shannon -and Big Band: Live at Dolans [DVD/CD]
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/382220/Sharon-Shannon-and-Big-Band-Live-at-Dolans/dvd

Fathom
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/91136/Fathom/dvd

Mother Jugs & Speed
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/33433/Mother-Jugs-Speed/dvd

Waking The Witch Live
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/416483/Waking-the-Witch-Live/dvd/176295

Gerry Goffin “It Ain’t Exactly Entertainment” 1973
http://time-has-told-me.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html

Ian Lloyd reviews
http://incaroads-wvkayaker.blogspot.com/2007_12_16_archive.html

Jo Jo Laine tribute
http://judecalverttoulmin.blogspot.com/2006/11/artists-muse-tribute-to-jo-jo-laine.html

合計収録時間 | 01:42:36

The DVD of Strings Attached could also be called Ian Hunter Lite, a nice bookend to the singer’s Just Another Night: Live at the Astoria, London disc. The orchestration here, recorded in Oslo back in January of 2002, doesn’t have (or require) the bombast found on Ian Anderson Plays the Orchestral Jethro Tull, but it is fun to see the always serious Hunter actually indulging in a more spirited, humorous, and playful mode. Of course, “Twisted Steel” is all business, and with more distance in time and space from the 9/11 tragedy, how many outside of Hunter’s hardcore fans realize that this artist is effectively articulating the insanity of that day? The R.E.M.-style delivery works well in this setting, as does the rise and fall of the accompaniment in “Boy” and the pure pop of “23A Swan Hill.” As with the Just Another Night DVD, there are some delicious soundcheck cuts and valuable interview material. And while Rod Stewart is selling millions of “Songbook” albums like a Columbia House special in the 1960s supermarket racks, one might think it parody for Ian Hunter to follow suit. Remarkably, the Mott the Hoople frontman successfully dips into that arena, providing a pleasant diversion from the mission at hand. Brook Benton, Bobby Darin Nat King Cole, Rosemary Clooney, and Bing Crosby have all sung the Eric Maschwitz/Manning Sherwin classic “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” and that gem provides a nice segue into Hunter’s own “Michael Picasso.” Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott keeps showing up on Hunter’s DVDs, and he provides the intro on a collection of orchestrated folk-rock that touches upon key moments in the songwriter’s prolific career. The haunting approach to “Roll Away the Stone” breathes new life into a song that has never received the appreciation it deserves. To see this Oslo audience mouthing the words to “Saturday Gigs” provides another clue to what the U.S.A. missed when the song wasn’t pushed in America, and when Mott the Hoople couldn’t rejuvenate themselves with the addition of Mick Ronson. The insightful interviews add much and the rendition of “All the Young Dudes” is so campy gay that it could be considered politically incorrect in this era of Brokeback Mountain, when gay without the glitter is definitely the trend. Perhaps because Hunter is merely acting the part (where Gyllenhaal and Ledger might not be — acting, that is), Strings Attached reminds viewers that the times they are a-changing. ~ Joe Viglione

1. 1. [DVD]
   • 1. Rest in Peace
   • 2. All of the Good Ones Are Taken
   • 3. I Wish I Was Your Mother
   • 4. Twisted Steel
   • 5. Boy
   • 6. 23A Swan Hill
   • 7. Waterlow
   • 8. All the Young Dudes
   • 9. Irene Wilde
   • 10. Once Bitten Twice Shy
   • 11. Rollerball
   • 12. Ships
   • 13. Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, A
   • 14. Michael Picasso
   • 15. Wash Us Away
   • 16. Don’t Let Gos
   • 17. All the Way From Memphis
   • 18. Roll Away the Stone
   • 19. Saturday Gigs