#1975-1979

[dopescissorscashwagon]

Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Cynthia Wood - Apocalypse Now (1979) / Costume concept art by Alex Tavoularis (c. 1975)

[fanofspooky]

Scream King - John Hurt

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Reggie Nalder as Barlow, in Salem's Lot (1979)

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

April 11, 1979, Japan - From New York (USA), Freddie Mercury and Paul Prenter arrive in Narita International Airport, during 'Live Killers Tour'

👉 Behind Freddie there is the presence of Mr. Itami (his personal bodyguard since 1975 when Queen went to the country for the 'Sheer Heart Attack' tour)

[federer7]

Frog and Toad. Possible poster illustration, circa 1975-1979

Watercolor and pencil on paper by Arnold Lobel

[thislovintime]

Photo by Matthew Asner:

“First day of school in 9th grade. I am nervous as hell because it is my first day of high school and it’s all new. I walk into my Social Studies Class and am greeted by the teacher who just happens to be Peter Tork of The Monkees. A guy I watched goofing around on TV religiously as a child was teaching me about the world. He was a tough teacher. We had a thing in his class where he would always think that I wasn’t paying attention. He would always make a point of stopping what he was teaching and say to me, ‘What did I just say`’ I would always answer him correctly and it always seemed to frustrate him. He was very smart and loved to read from Mao’s Little Red Book. I was truly happy for him when The Monkees started touring and he found success again. I took this picture in our schoolyard at New Dimensions High School.” - Matthew Asner (Ed Asner’s son), Facebook, July 1, 2023

“Since September he has been teaching English, math, drama, Eastern philosophy and ‘Rock Band Class’ at Pacific Hills, a private secondary school in Santa Monica, Calif. A college dropout, Peter got the job on the strength of his interview with Dr. Penrod Moss, the school’s director. ‘I like to hire people who are independent and creative,’ Moss said. ‘I was impressed by his personality and his ability to speak.’ […] While Tork the musician still has dreams of one day returning to the rock circuit, Thorkelson the teacher is happily planning his next course, ‘Mao, Marx and Mama.’ ‘I’m doing something important,’ he says. ‘I never do anything less than important.’” - People magazine, April 5, 1976

“For some time, [Tork] said, the students in his high school classes had trouble forgetting their teacher was once a teen idol. ‘Until I gave out a few F’s,’ he added, grinning.” - The Clarion Ledger, November 1, 1979 (x)

“I was a schoolteacher in Southern California, and I taught music as well as academics, and I really very much love to teach, and, and I think that if circumstances show me that I am not to entertain anymore or my entertaining career per se winds down, I would very, very much love to coach young entertainers.” - Peter Tork, Headquarters radio, September 1989

“[A]s a teacher, I realized that in order to teach something well you need to understand what your student is going through as they try to learn.” - Peter Tork, The Journal Times Online, August 12, 2005

On a 2018 blog post at the Monkees Live Almanac, one former student, Mark, commented: “Best high school teacher I ever had […]. Tremendous empathy.” (x)

“I taught English and social studies. And sure, the kids probably saw me as a Monkee, but they got over that in a hurry. Once I lost my temper at the kids, they’d see I was just like all the others — and I probably lost my temper too many times, since I was in an angry state back then. I have a life now, that’s the difference. I have a spiritual core. I’m not Shirley MacLaine but I believe in greater or lesser worlds and consciousness. Most people think of themselves as cut off from each other; others know there’s a connectedness that can be tapped into.” - Peter Tork, The Boston Globe, August 10, 1989

“In the mid-’70s, Tork got jobs teaching English, social studies and music at two private schools in the Los Angeles area. The first job, which he enjoyed, was at ‘a radical progressive school in Santa Monica.’ The second was at a school he describes as ‘a holding tank for budding fascists. I couldn’t hack it. I found more integrity in being a singing waiter’ — his next job.” - Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1992 (x)

More about that next job here.

[arconinternet]

Once Upon a Blue Moose: Three Novels (Book, Daniel Pinkwater, 1975/1979/1986, collected in 2006)

You can digitally borrow this collection of Pinkwater's moose books here.

You can find free audiobooks of all of them on the author's website here.

[rolandrockover]

Soulburn

I can get a good idea of why the sinisterly stalking Burning Up With Fever (1978) (1) was not taken into consideration for Destroyer (1976) back in the day. If you take into account that the preferred God of Thunder, as the archetype of all so called Demon songs, forms an almost insurmountable benchmark and virtually its own closed dimension, you don't necessarily have to be Sherlock Holmes to find a reasonably meaningful answer (2).

But why it was also excluded from Rock and Roll Over (1976) is another question, because there is no other Demon song on this album.

I never noticed any positioning or questioning of this almost Kiss-atypical circumstance anywhere, but maybe it was simply because with Rock and Roll Over they wanted to let it go for once with the dark song and it was probably too peculiar for the spirit of the album, and not rock n' rolly enough, because they probably saw need to focus more on classic, light-hearted dick songs again. And then again, maybe Burning Up With Fever just wasn't lightweight enough (3).

But hey, maybe it's all just a funny coincidence, who knows, besides, this is only supposed to be the, ahem, introduction anyway, just to warm up to the subject matter a bit.

So where did this troublemaker of a Gene song, which finally found an adequate and comfortable home on Gene's '78 solo album, actually originate?

Well, somehow with Jeff Beck and his Rock My Plimsoul (1968), I would say. More or less, because this one has the classic blues in it and also moves rather quietly and smoothly, as if it could do so all night long. Gene brings the rough edges into this groove with his spindly, somewhat awkward monster walk, half gorilla, half Godzilla, coming towards you with equally slow, but in its grotesqueness almost comically irregular steps.

Gene basically puts Jeff Beck on as a costume over his Love Gun outfit, complete with red Dracula cape. You know those full body suits that are printed with something extraordinair and are so thin that you can basically always see exactly what the costumed person is wearing underneath? You know what I mean?

The Devil in Disguise.

Side Note:

(1) Originally first moved into the Kiss picture as a '75/76 pre-production demo for Destroyer, or something like that.

(2) It probably didn't quite fit into Bob Ezrin's musical concept/vision either.

(3) But as I said, almost Kiss-untypical. On Hotter Than Hell (1974) half the album was dark and gritty, Dressed to Kill (1975) at least had the gloomy-stoic She, Love Gun (1977) later had Almost Human, but what about the debut album? Yep, no Demon song at all. Rock and Roll Over and the self-titled debut are thus the only two Kiss albums of the klassik (and even not so klassik masked) period without a dark and brooding Gene song.

And, oh yes, I do indeed include Naked City from Unmasked (1980), albeit this track contains more Drama than Demon, but still has enough Demon in it to hold its own as such against all the Gene songs post-Lick It Up (1983). More on this, wrapped up in a sneaky love triangle between Love Gun, Dynasty (1979) and Unmasked, sometime in the future.

No highlighted inks, but Burning Up With Fever begins directly without that jangling intro:

Rock My Plimsoul (1968)

Burning Up With Fever (1978)

[jhsharman]

three's a crowd

[brookbee]

David Bowie performing "John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)," 1974

[feraltwinkseb]

Modern F1 Could Never / 3/?

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Cambodia, between 1975 and 1979, in just 4 years it is estimated that 1.7 million were killed by dictator Pol Pot (1925-1998)

*  Skulls of Khmer Rouge victims

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

Today - June 29th, 1979 Queen Story! Queen released 'Love Of My Life' bw 'Now I'm Here‘ 7" single in the UK

Taken from 'Live Killers' album

👉 'Love Of My Life' written by Freddie Mercury

('A Night At The Opera' album, 1975)

"'Love Of My Life' is adapted on stage for guitar, but it was written on the piano. I've totally forgotten the original and if you asked me to play that now, I couldn't. Sometimes, I have to go back to the music sheet, and I can't read that well either!"

- Freddie Mercury

Interview 02/05/1981, Melody Maker

👉 'Now I'm Here' written by Brian May

('Sheer Heart Attack' album, 1974)

"That was nice. That was a Brian May thing. We released it after Killer Queen. And it's a total contrast, just a total contrast. It was just to show people we can still do rock 'n' roll we haven't forgotten our rock 'n‘ roll roots.

It's nice to do on stage.

I enjoyed doing that on stage."

- Freddie Mercury

Interview 21/05/1976, Record Mirror

📸 Pic: Cover Album - Japanese Sleeve