#Bob Bert

[jgthirlwell]

JG Thirlwell has contributed four pages of exclusive new graphics for the new edition of Pioneer Zine. This issue was curated by Bob Bert (Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth, Chrome Cranks etc) and features contributions by JG Thirlwell as well as Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Lydia Lunch , Jasmine Hirst, Reuben Radding and Mark C. You can pick it up here

[spilladabalia]

Sonic Youth - Society Is a Hole

[omegaremix]

Omega Radio for October 26, 2013; #34.

Daydream Nation

"Death Valley '69" (f. Lydia Lunch)

"Get Into The Groovey"

"Starpower"

"Kotton Krown"

"Expressway To Yr Skull"

"Halloween"

"Tuck N' Dar"

"He's On Fire"

"Kool Thing" (f. Chuck D.)

"Disappearer"

"TV Shit" (f. Yamatsuka Eye)

"Bull In The Heather"

"Little Trouble Girl"

"My Arena"

"Skip Tracer"

"Diamond Sea" (alt. end.)

interstitial: selections from Silver Sessions

Sonic Youth tribute celebrating Daydream Nation's 25th; and the first-ever full-album play.

[iamdangerace]

Sonic Youth, Death Valley '69 (With Lydia Lunch), from Bad Moon Rising (1985).

Coming down, Sadie I love it Now now now, Death Valley '69

[thatrickmcginnis]

PUSSY GALORE, Toronto 1988 & 1989

If most people who lived through the '80s made a movie of their life, they'd probably soundtrack it with, I don't know, U2 or A-ha or Tears for Fears. My '80s biopic would be scored to Pussy Galore - probably my favorite band of the decade, and one whose three albums and four EPs bring me back to the first years of life on my own, post-college, making a precarious living as a writer and photographer. They were another major enthusiasm of Tim Powis at Nerve, and he made the rest of us fans (my then-girlfriend had a maddeningly not-so-secret crush on PG front man Jon Spencer), though they didn't actually show up in town until the magazine was effectively defunct. I was without a steady gig then, but I begged a portrait session with the band during their two-night stand in April of 1988 at the Silver Dollar Room on Spadina. My big memory of the weekend was that Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D was playing the room in the basement under the club, and that Jon and the rest of the band were more enthusiastic about catching his show than doing their own gig.

Jon Spencer formed Pussy Galore at college in Washington, D.C. with Julie Cafritz, added guitarist Neil Hagerty then moved to NYC, adding Cristina Martinez on guitar and ex-Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert on drums and junkyard percussion. Cristina had left and Kurt Wolf had replaced Neil Hagerty by the time I did my first shoot with them, while they were touring to promote their first LP (and - to me - undisputed masterpiece, Right Now!). They were cultivating a bit of a bratty reputation, so most of my two rolls of 120 film from the session are the band goofing around, pulling faces, and making it as hard as possible for me to get the sullen, iconic group portrait I hoped to take. I did, in the end, get two decent frames right next to each other, but decided against shooting the gigs in favour of just enjoying their cacophonous (but deceptively tight) show.

My friend Chris Buck also shot the band that weekend and ended up with some really nice portraits; my shots were harder to work with - beyond my meagre darkroom skills at the time - and would remain unseen and unpublished for at least twenty years until I posted one on my old blog a few years ago. I would, however get a second chance to shoot the band live a year later, when they were on tour again after releasing their Dial 'M' for Motherfucker record.

When Pussy Galore returned to Toronto in August of 1989, they'd had another lineup change, with Julie Cafritz leaving the band and Neil Hagerty returning. They played the Apocalypse Club on College Street and I ended up putting the band up in my Parkdale loft - the first of several times I'd give Jon Spencer and his bands a place to stay on tour. For some reason I was in an on-camera flash mood, and shot the show using a big new Metz potato masher flash fitted with a big bounce reflector. I also asked the band if we could do a quick portrait session in the dressing room, just as they stepped offstage, and I set up a light stand and umbrella, finishing off the last half of four rolls of Ilford film with the group.

Pussy Galore would be reduced to a trio with Spencer, Hagerty and Bert when they released their final posthumous album, Historia de la Musica Rock, in 1990. Jon and Cristina Martinez would found Boss Hog around the time the band was falling apart, and he would form the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with Judah Bauer and Russell Simins just after Pussy Galore broke up. Jon continues to record and tour, and I'd end up with him in front of my camera again, but that's a story for another day.

[weneverlearn]

TOMORROW! Thursday June 20 — I’ll be singing on this Suicide tribute show, along with a mass of hep noisemakers. Not to mention, it’s the book release party for the brand new Alan Vega biography, Infinite Dreams, written by author Laura Davis-Chanin with Vega’s wife/collaborator, Liz Lamere. Lamere will be reading at the show tomorrow too.

[kdo-three]

Sonic Youth - Hallowe'en (1984) Kim Gordon / Thurston Moore / Lee Ranaldo / Bob Bert from: “Bad Moon Rising” (CD) (CD Bonus Track)

Noise Rock | No Wave | Experimental Rock

JukeHostUK (left click = play) (320kbps)

Personnel: Kim Gordon: Vocals / Bass Guitar Thurston Moore: Guitar Lee Ranaldo: Guitar Bob Bert: Drums

Produced by Sonic Youth | Martin Bisi | John Erskine

Recorded: @ The Before Christ Studios in Brooklyn, New York USA during September - December of 1984

Released: in March of 1985 Blast First Records (UK) Homestead Records (US)

[coffeeandcinema]

In 1963 photographer Bert Stern photographed some of the top actors/actresses at the height of their fame playing their dream roles for a photo series in LIFE magazine's December 20, 1963 issue.

Cary Grant as Charlie Chaplin's Tramp / Audrey Hepburn as Pearl White in 'Perils of Pauline' / Tony Curtis & Natalie Wood as Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky in 'The Sheik' / Paul Newman as a Douglas Fairbanks Sr. swashbuckler / Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin as Judah Ben-Hur and Messala from 'Ben-Hur' / Bing Crosby & Bob Hope as 1930s gangsters / Jack Lemmon as a war pilot / Shirley MacLaine as one of Busby Berkeley's showgirls / Rock Hudson as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[madmensideblog]

Mad Men + The Major Arcana (Part 1)

[saturdayisover]

[bleedingcoffee42]

"'For Easy Company...,' Captain Speirs drew his words out for emphasis, 'The winner is.....serial number one, three, zero, six, six, two, six, six....Sargeant Darrel C. Powers.' His voice rose like a radio announcer as he said that last part of my name. The captain, known mostly for his fearless and killing ways, musta had a softer spot to him after all." - Shifty Powers, Shifty's War

[lookslikethatsallthetimewehave]

They are paranoid together ❤

[spilladabalia]

Sonic Youth - Justice Is Might (Live in New York City, 1984)

[thislovintime]

Head premiered on November 6, 1968. (Edit featuring the two Tork songs - in the studio and demo versions, respectively - and a line from the movie.)

“What’s happening as time goes on is that the movie [Head] is becoming a chronicle of an age. At the time, it was just a chronicle of the Monkees.” - Peter Tork, The Monkees Tale (1985) Q: “What do you think of the music from the film ‘Head’?” Peter Tork: "Well, since I wrote and produced two of the songs myself, I think it’s fine. I did ‘Can You Dig It?’ And ‘[Long Title:] Do I Have To Do This All Over Again.’” - Goldmine, 1982 “The funny thing is that the lyrics [to ‘Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?’] came to me right out of the air. I was just playing those chord changes on the guitar, and I opened my mouth and that’s what popped out. The song was weirdly prophetic. I had no idea that was going to be my attitude about anything having to do with music when I wrote that song." - Peter Tork, Listen To The Band liner notes (more about "Long Title..." here) “‘Can You Dig It’ is about the Tao. The hook line I wrote in my dressing room on the set [of the television series in 1967]. The chords for the chorus I’d written in college, and [they] had just stuck with me.” - Peter Tork, Head box set liner notes (more about "Can You Dig It?" here) "I think they're ['Can You Dig It?' and 'Long Title...'] the best songs in the movie [Head]. I love both of them. I thought they were just terrific. He had plugged himself into that whole Stephen Stills connection and was working with those guys. I think they fit the movie better than anything did. When those two songs start up in the movie, it comes alive for me.” - Michael Nesmith, Head box set liner notes “Thorkelson expressed a preference for the Monkees’ ‘Headquarters’ album, because it was the group’s first self-performed album […]. The soundtrack to the [...] movie ‘Head’ also is among Thorkelson’s favorites. ‘It was a little tinny, but back then I guess we were a little tinny,’ he said. ‘That movie will always look good,’ commented Thorkelson.” - The Bowling Green News Revue, May 24, 1979 "'When we made Headquarters, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven,' says Tork. 'My whole goal had been to be a member of a band that worked. The next thing I know we're making a movie and it doesn't have anything to do with the business of being in a band together.' [...] 'There's some weight behind the idea that Bob and Bert wanted to wreck the Monkees, to stop it cold in its tracks,' says Tork. 'I've never known for sure. Bert and Bob might have thought out loud: "Let's kill the Monkees!" Or they may have not thought so out loud but at some unconscious level, they were sick of the Monkees and wanted to do something else.' [...] 'It was a joy seeing a movie being made, but I didn't like working for Bob Rafelson,' Tork says. 'I did what he told me, but I can't say that I ever had any heart connection with him.' His favorite scene, in which he recounts what he has learned from an Indian mystic, was actually directed by Nicholson. [...] Tork has seen Head around 80 times but it took him years to work out why it bothered him so much. In the movie, the Monkees are hoodwinked, bamboozled, chased, assaulted, mocked, trapped in a black box and reduced to dandruff in the hair of actor Victor Mature, before ending up back where they started. In the words of the sardonic Nicholson-penned theme tune, 'So make your choice and we'll rejoice/ In never being free.' 'Most people are dazzled by the psychedelia, and that's fine, but for me finally the point of the movie is the Monkees never get out,' Tork says sadly. 'Which is to say Bob Rafelson's view of life is you never get out of the black box you're in. There's no escape.' So how would a Peter Tork cut of Head end? 'There might have been a scene where we get out,' he says wistfully. 'We jump in the water and get away.'" - The Guardian, April 28, 2011

[oldpersonnewspaper]

New transcript of a phone call from Head (1968) pre-production discovered!

“Hi Mike, Micky, Davy, and Peter! It’s Bert and Bob here. We’ve finally decided on a plot for the new Monkee movie! It’ll be about the psychological torture. Hugs and kisses!”

[movie--posters]