#aereo-plain

[the-birth-of-art]

John Hartford, “Up On The Hill Where They Do The Boogie”, feat. Norman Blake & Randy Scruggs. From Aereo-Plain (1971).

[1264doghouse]

Aereo Plain Band with David Bromberg.

[slackville-records]

On this day (Sept 29) in 1971, John Hartford's Aereo-Plain album was released. [The music on Aereo-Plain is a blend of traditional bluegrass musicianship and the hippie spirit of the '70s. The album sold so poorly that Warner Bros. decided to devote no promotion at all to Hartford's next release Morning Bugle. Nevertheless, Aereo-Plain has been called the forerunner of the genre now known as "Newgrass". Hartford subsequently asked to be released from his contract and later signed with Flying Fish Records... The other members of the Aereo-Plain Band were bluegrass veterans Norman Blake, Vassar Clements, Tut Taylor, and Randy Scruggs... Producer David Bromberg recounted, "We'd sit around and smoke pot and play "Sally Goodin" for an hour and a half. That approach kind of became, after a while, newgrass. Hartford instructed Bromberg to "let the tapes roll, we don't want to hear playbacks until you've put the master together."... Aereo-Plain has received high praise in retrospective reviews. Writing for AllMusic, critic Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. wrote "The cult following of Aereo-Plain... has less to do with the music than with Hartford's quirky songs and even quirkier approach... One of the attractions to this material is that Hartford seems to be in his element, just doing what comes natural to him... Aereo-Plain signaled the full blooming of his eccentric talent. This is an essential album for any fan, revealing both his genius and the glory days of early '70s progressive bluegrass" (source: wikipedia)] ......☮~Mark♫♬

Read about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo-Plain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKHx6YHLoZk&list=PLXJJdDaeb5ldccAKzNRxLaI6kZteT5G5V

[banjofilia]

“To people who came to bluegrass via the Folk Scare of the 1960s, Aereo-Plain was one of the records that defined a generation’s approach to playing bluegrass. Aereo-Plain, along with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken and the self-titled debut of Old and in the Way, took the classic sounds of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs and the Stanley Brothers and updated them in surprising new ways.”

[capellibiondiconpuntenere]

✈️ Direzione: Berlino.

➡️ Instagram: __thisisnana

[lovelivelaugh95]

[intotheblue-it]

(via Duckypoo last flight www.intotheblue.it plane F4 P-38F Lockheed)

http://www.intotheblue.it/2017/10/28/lultimo-volo-del-duckypoo/

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - “Knuckleball Catcher”

A few months back, I had the pleasure of interviewing the great Gillian Welch for Uncut magazine. You can read it in the latest issue! IN PRINT. We talked for a while, so the Q&A is merely the greatest hits of the conversation ... I’ve got a few more choice bits after the jump, including some discussion of some “lost songs” that aren’t on her new Lost Songs collections. One of ‘em is this beautiful track “Knuckleball Catcher,” one of (if not the) greatest songs ever written about the love story between a pitcher and a catcher. Or something! Anyway, those Lost Songs comps are knocking me out these days — incredible tunes all around ... and there’s still more on the way! Read on for some more of the interview. 

There was some important stuff in those tape boxes — specifically the material for the new Boots collection.

Yeah, it’s not like we had forgotten what was in those boxes. We’ve thought about those 48 demo recordings over the years. But I think the tornado was the last straw. It really puts a perspective on … what is this stuff? Why are we saving this? Were we ever going to put these out? If we were gonna put them out, I guess we should put them out now, because suddenly things that you thought were always going to be around and options that you thought you’d always have can just disappear overnight. That’s really the lesson. It seemed better to put them out than not.

What was it like hearing those songs again after all this time?

It was wild. We recorded them in a weekend. All 48 of them. It was December of 2002. My publishing deal was about to renew on January 1, and I just didn’t have any business being in that deal anymore. I had signed that deal in 1994 and my life was so different. The problem was that we had become a touring act and I don’t write on the road. So every year I was falling behind on the songs that I owed them. If I didn’t play a big catch-up, it was just going to roll on forever. I don’t want to cast it in a bad light – that deal was incredibly important to me in the early days. But it was time for me to be done with it. I was not a staff writer by any stretch. It was Dave’s realization that this was possible. It was just before Christmas and he said ‘Well, what happens if you get caught up? What happens if you turn in 48 songs?’ And I said, ‘If I turn in 48 songs, I can say we’re done!’ So he started pulling out notebooks. I’m a notebook person, spiral bound. I have well over a hundred of them. Maybe 200. They’re in a cupboard. So it’s not like we started 48 songs from scratch. There were songs around that just weren’t quite finished. This was after Revelator and right before Soul Journey. And so, there had always been songs, particularly after Revelator. We kind of have a thing that we’re interested in. We have these types of songs we’re interested in. But I didn’t always start songs that fit into that. Sometimes I just start songs. And we just didn’t always finish them. And so that’s what these are. Only one song from Soul Journey came from this. I think that’s it. Some songs were cut by other people. Solomon Burke cut “Valley of Tears.” Alison Krauss recorded “Wouldn’t Be So Bad.” We had to split up the stuff. These songs were never tied to a record. They weren’t outtakes.

Still, the record hangs together really well — it sounds like a great new Gillian Welch record.  

That’s Dave’s magic. I mean truly, these were just demos, recorded largely at home. One of the reasons they were never fit to release was this horrible buzz that was on some of them. And since 2002, the tools available to de-buzz recordings have gotten so much better. So that’s another reason we can release them now. I mean, let’s talk about tape. Tape is awesome. What’s another reason these are still around, why they’re able to be released? Because they’re on tape. They weren’t destroyed, erased or made un-playable by the tornado – because they’re on tape! They’ve been through a tornado! 

Has this experience changed how you think about your own work? 

In the world of artists who have probably been too lax with their own editing and curating, versus those who have been too stringent, we’re probably over on the stringent side. We’ve sort of under-released. It’s not always as I’d have it. Any person would tell you; you should put out more music. We only put it out if we are OK with it. 

But it is interesting. One of the things that’s so interesting about the lost songs is that they kind of capture something about how they were done. Let’s take “Strange Isabella” – but they’re all this way. Dave would find the partly finished song in the notebook. I would finish it while he was looking through another notebook, looking for another song. When I finished one song, he would come back in. I would pick up the guitar – an early 60s hummingbird, he would turn the tape machine on, and I would sing the song that I just finished. And he would turn the tape machine off. We wouldn’t even listen to them! Check! The whole point was to get it on tape. Now, think about it. That is a completely different mindset when you’re making a record. There’s way more going on when you’re MAKING A RECORD. And so, what happens is something very immediate and something in a way very un-self-critical. I remember reading that John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain was made in a similar way. He never listened to the takes. David Bromberg wouldn’t let him listen. He just played. And that’s what this was like. We just played. But then we didn’t think we were making a record. So, it’s a much more immediate, much more intimate document. We’re so close to the song.

Our response to the world being upended was to try to put more music into it. So out comes this shoebox of 18-year-old tapes. That’s where Dave and I are. Our response is just to try to do more of what we do.

I gotta ask for myself here – I saw you for the first time in 2002, and you played a song that you’ve never released, but it’s been running through my brain ever since. It had the lines “Tell me what you think about” … is that on an upcoming volume of The Lost Songs?

Oh yeah! It isn’t!

Oh, you’re killing me.

Haha! Sorry. We called that one “One Love.” “Hey, tell me what you think about …” That one and a song called “Knuckleball Catcher,” those are the ones that people are like “Oh are those on here?!” No … (laughs). Honestly, that one I think would come out if we do like a bootleg release of the Soul Journey sessions. Because these songs were never tied to a record. “One Love” is an outtake from Soul Journey. These Lost Songs were something different.

[levysoft]

Independence Day: un successo globale

Il primo film del 1996 racconta di un’invasione quasi riuscita della Terra da parte di enormi astronavi aliene con l’unico scopo di sterminare l’intera razza umana e sfruttare tutte le risorse del pianeta. L’invasione inizia la mattina del 2 luglio 1996, lo stesso giorno in cui il film venne distribuito in alcune sale americane, e qui osserviamo gli alieni intenti a distruggere le più importanti metropoli del mondo uccidendo milioni di persone. Essendo un film americano che porta lo stesso nome di una delle giornate nazionali più importanti, le prime forze militari ad intervenire sono proprio quelle statunitensi, ma falliscono miseramente nei confronti di astronavi aliene dotate di tecnologie nettamente superiori. Lo stesso giorno, grazie all’intuito dello scienziato David Levinson, interpretato da Jeff Goldblum, il governo americano riesce a contrattaccare con un’azione magistrale condotta dal capitano Steven Hiller (Will Smith). Da quel momento tutte le nazioni del mondo decidono di aiutare gli Stati Uniti così da sconfiggere l’invasione aliena. La storia del film segue direttamente e liberamente le trame della classica narrativa di invasione aliena, in particolare La guerra dei mondi di H. G. Wells e il suo adattamento cinematografico del 1953. Mentre la premessa del film ha poca somiglianza, ci sono molti elementi de La Guerra dei mondi, tra cui la resistenza degli alieni contro le armi nucleari e gli alieni sconfitti tramite un virus.

Independence Day, nonostante la trama banale e piena di stereotipi, divenne il successo al botteghino più grande del 1996 raggiungendo la cifra di 817 milioni di dollari a fronte di una spesa produttiva di appena 75 milioni di dollari ed è tuttora il 25° film più redditizio di sempre. Inoltre, grazie alle celebri scene di azione e l’uso sapiente degli effetti speciali che mostrano, tra l’altro, la distruzione di monumenti simbolo degli Stati Uniti, come l’Empire State Building, la Casa Bianca e la Library Tower di Los Angeles oltre che la distruzione di intere città europee ed asiatiche, la pellicola vinse l’Oscar per gli effetti speciali proprio l’anno successivo.

La genesi della pellicola

L’idea per il film è nata quando Emmerich e Devlin andarono in Europa per promuovere il loro film Stargate. Un giornalista chiese ad Emmerich perché avesse realizzato un film con contenuti come Stargate se non credeva negli alieni. Emmerich dichiarò di essere ancora affascinato dall’idea di un arrivo alieno, e spiegò ulteriormente la sua risposta chiedendo al giornalista di immaginare come sarebbe svegliarsi una mattina e scoprire che le astronavi di 15 miglia di larghezza si stavano librando sopra le più grandi città del mondo. Emmerich si rivolse quindi a Devlin e disse:

“Penso di avere un’idea per il nostro prossimo film”.

Emmerich e Devlin decisero a quel punto di ampliare l’idea incorporando un attacco su larga scala, con Devlin che all’epoca dichiaro di essere infastidito dal fatto che “nella maggior parte dei film di invasione aliena, questi scendono sulla Terra e se ne stanno nascosti o arrivano sotto forma di piccole spore e si iniettano nella parte posteriore della testa di qualcuno. “ Emmerich acconsentì e così i due scrissero la sceneggiatura durante una vacanza di un mese in Messico. Dopo la scrittura mandarono la sceneggiatura alla 20th Century Fox e solo un giorno dopo averla inviata, il presidente della casa di produzione Peter Chernin diede il via libera allo sviluppo della pellicola. La pre-produzione iniziò appena tre giorni dopo, nel febbraio 1995.

La produzione tra modellini, effetti speciali e dubbi sul nome

Inizialmente si volevano fare le cose in grande tanto da chiedere la collaborazione alle forze armate statunitensi per fornire personale, veicoli e costumi per il film; tuttavia, si ritirarono quando i produttori si rifiutarono di rimuovere i riferimenti all’Area 51 dalla sceneggiatura. Alla fine, per il film furono necessari oltre 3.000 effetti speciali tanto che per le riprese spesso utilizzarono delle videocamere speciali con l’aiuto di modellini per sostituire gli effetti generati dal computer nel tentativo di risparmiare denaro e ottenere risultati più autentici. Molte delle riprese furono realizzate presso la Hughes Aircraft di Culver City, in California, dove avevano sede il dipartimento artistico del film, i team di fotografia e di motion control, il team di pirotecnica e il magazzino dei modelli.

All’epoca, altro dato interessante, fu che il dipartimento di modellistica della produzione costruì più del doppio delle miniature per la produzione di quanto non fosse mai stato realizzato per qualsiasi film creando miniature per edifici, strade, aerei, monumenti e palazzi storici. Il team di produzione costruì anche miniature per molte delle astronavi presenti nel film, tra cui un modello di cacciatorpediniere da 9,1 metri e una versione della nave madre che si estende per quasi 4 metri. Le strade, invece, furono ricreate con una inclinazione in posizione verticale e posizionate sotto una telecamera ad alta velocità montata su un’impalcatura che filma verso il basso. Tutte le esplosioni, quindi, scoppiavano sotto il modello e le fiamme si innalzavano verso la telecamera, inghiottendo il modello inclinato e creando il senso di totale distruzione che si vede nel film. Fu anche creato un modello della Casa Bianca che venne usato prima per delle riprese esterne in prospettiva e poi fu demolito per la sua scena di distruzione. Tutte le detonazioni richiesero una settimana di pianificazione e circa 40 cariche esplosive.

Gli alieni nel film sono stati progettati dallo scenografo Patrick Tatopoulos. I progetti erano minuscoli e basati su disegni di Tatopoulos quando fu incaricato da Emmerich di creare un alieno “familiare e completamente originale”. Queste creature indossavano tute “biomeccaniche” basate su un altro design sempre di Tatopoulos. Queste tute erano alte 2,4 metri, dotate di 25 tentacoli e appositamente progettate per mostrare che non potevano sostenere una persona al suo interno, quindi erano proprio il prototipo perfetto per un non “uomo in tuta”.

La produzione ufficiale inizò nel luglio 1995 a New York City. Una seconda unità raccolse scatti di Manhattan, Washington DC, una comunità di camper a Flagstaff, in Arizona, e la Very Large Array on the Plains di San Agustin, in New Mexico. La troupe principale girò anche nel vicino Cliffside Park, nel New Jersey, prima di trasferirsi nell’ex acciaieria Kaiser di Fontana, in California, per filmare le sequenze post-attacco di Los Angeles. La produzione si trasferì quindi a Wendover, Utah e West Wendover, Nevada, per girare le riprese nel deserto includendo l’Imperial Valley e l’aeroporto di Wendover per le scene in esterna di El Toro e dell’Area 51. Qui divenne celebre la scena in cui Bill Pullman, nel ruolo del presidente Thomas J. Whitmore, avvia il suo discorso pre-battaglia. Immediatamente prima di girare la scena, Devlin e Pullman decisero di aggiungere, alla fine del discorso, questa citazione:

“Oggi celebriamo il nostro Giorno dell’Indipendenza!”.

A quel tempo, infatti, la produzione era soprannominata “ID4” perché Warner Bros. possedeva i diritti per il titolo Independence Day, e Devlin aveva sperato che se i dirigenti Fox avessero notato l’aggiunta di quel discorso, l’impatto mediatico del nuovo dialogo li avrebbe aiutati a ottenere i diritti del titolo. Effettivamente fu così e il diritto di usare il titolo fu acquisito esattamente due settimane dopo. A quel punto il team di produzione si trasferì a Bonneville Salt Flats per girare tre scene e tornò in California per girare in vari luoghi nei dintorni di Los Angeles, tra cui Hughes Aircraft dove sono stati costruiti dei set della società via cavo e interni dell’Area 51. Le riprese vennero completate il 3 novembre 1995.

Il film in origine descriveva il rifiuto di Russell Casse come volontario per la controffensiva aerea del 4 luglio a causa del suo alcolismo. Usa quindi un missile rubato legato al suo biplano rosso per svolgere la sua missione suicida. Secondo Dean Devlin, il pubblico che vide la scena nelle prime fasi di test aveva risposto bene all’ironia della scena e al valore comico. Tuttavia, la scena fu rigirata per includere l’accettazione di Russell come volontario, il suo schianto su un moderno aereo da combattimento e lui che pilotava un F-18 invece del biplano. Devlin preferiva l’alterazione della scena invece del martirio del personaggio poiché in quest modo lo spettatore assisteva a Russell che alla fine prende la decisione di sacrificare la sua vita. Purtroppo, però, vedere un biplano tenere il passo e volare tra gli F-18 era “semplicemente non credibile”. Il film, quindi, fu ufficialmente completato il 20 giugno 1996 e fu presentato in anteprima ufficiale nel Mann Plaza Theatre di Los Angeles il 25 giugno 1996. Prima dell’uscita ufficiale, avvenuta il 2 luglio 1996 nonché un giorno prima della data ufficiale, fu proiettato privatamente alla Casa Bianca per il presidente Bill Clinton e la sua famiglia.

Una campagna di marketing aggressiva e mai vista prima

Per quanto riguarda la campagna di marketing, Independence Day vide una delle più massicce pubblicizzazioni mai realizzate prima d’ora. Infatti, mentre il film era ancora in fase di post-produzione, 20th Century Fox avviò una corposa campagna di marketing per promuovere il film, tanto da mettere in onda, per la prima volta, uno spot durante il Super Bowl XXX, per il quale Fox ha pagato 1,3 milioni di dollari. Il conseguente successo del film al botteghino ha portato alla moda di utilizzare il tempo di trasmissione del Super Bowl per dare il via alla campagna pubblicitaria per potenziali successi. Anche la divisione Licensing and Merchandising di Fox stipulò degli accordi di co-promozione con Apple Inc. per la pubblicizzazione dei nuovi laptop PowerBook. Trendmasters prese anche un accordo di merchandising con i produttori del film per creare una linea di giocattoli tie-in. Infine in cambio dell’inserimento di product placement, Fox prese anche degli accordi di co-promozione con Molson Coors Brewing Company e Coca-Cola.

[musicallyrich]

Crate Digger’s Corner: John Hartford- Aereo-Plain (Warner Brothers, 1971)

Crate Digger’s Corner…by DJ Musically Rich

(If you’d like to listen to a track from the album as you read, go to the end of the post to start the song)

This week in Crate Digger’s Corner I cover the 1971 old-timey masterpiece, “Aereo-Plain” by John Hartford. Centered in the middle of folk, country and bluegrass this album has four masterful players intermingling with John, who plays a few different string instruments on the album as well and is a fine player. His band consists of (in various configurations depending on the song) Vassar Clements (fiddle, viola, cello, guitar), Norman Blake (dobro, guitar, mandolin), Randy Scruggs (bass) and Tut Taylor (dobro) and has the tightness of a family band. He also has like-minded musician, David Bromberg, in the production chair. Despite how in sync the musicians are, this album still maintains the feel of five guys just sitting in a park jamming together on some tunes. They also put the album together, similar to if one was going to program a long form radio show. The tracks make sense in succession, the players are together in different formations to give different textures to the songs. There is a wonderful mix of instrumental and songs with vocals. It even follows the radio show form right down to a ‘Station Break’ before the second to last song, but we’ll get to that in just a moment.

To start the album Blake plays guitar and everyone (except Scruggs) sings the opening song ‘Turn Your Radio On’. It puts you inside the idea that you are sitting around a radio listening to the music hour on a Sunday afternoon. Then we touch on the everyday life of a blue collar worker in ‘Steamboat Whistle Blues’. ‘Back In The Goodie Days’ has Scruggs and Hartford opening the tune with a conversation between bass and banjo that leads to a great, jaunty tune! Vassar Clements has a great violin solo that fades as the song ends. ‘Up On The Hill Where They Do The Boogie’ is a lighthearted song about where people go to…dance? (Or however you’d like to interpret the word “Boogie”) That is followed by a little extension to the song, called ‘Boogie’. It seems that in my ‘sitting in the park’ theory John had one more verse for the song that he thought of after they had finished it up, so he shared it acapella. ‘First Girl I Loved’ which has Clements playing violin, viola and cello on the track has a magnificent instrumental break to end the song. The first side ends with ‘Presbyterian Guitar’, a guitar and bass duet led by John’s melodic guitar playing.

Side two starts out with a couple upbeat by the full band. ‘With A Vamp In The Middle’ has a light-hearted vocal that fits the song perfectly and ‘Symphony Hall Rag’ is an instrumental burner. They both show off the chops of this incredibly talented group.  Those are followed by the very brief (under a minute) ‘Because Of You’ which is just John and his guitar singing for you. ‘Steam Powered Aereo Plane’ is powered by some great soloing in the middle of the song. That is followed by ‘Holding’, a song about the good times of friendship and being around one another. It is quite the earworm. ‘Tear Down The Grand Ole Opry’ (I think we can figure out what they were doing in the previous song, because why would anyone do this…albeit, it has since happened in real life) is a great sing-a-long on the album with verses being sung by John, then everybody joining in on the chorus. Clements is fantastic playing a wonderful descant during the 2nd half of the song. A wonderful duet between fiddle and banjo takes place on ‘Leather Britches’ led by Vassar’s playing. That is where the fifteen second ‘Station Break’ falls into place before ending the way the album started with another rendition of ‘Turn Your Radio On’.

This album is not only for the fans of the three genres I mentioned above, but also for people who just want something fun and upbeat, fans of acoustic music, and much else. If you want to close your eyes and be transported to a country field with a group of friends and their guitars this album will do that trick. John Hartford and his legendary backup band take this album to heights that hopefully can be appreciated by all.

Stars: 4.5/5

Available on: LP/CD

RIYL: The Flying Burrito Brothers- The Gilded Palace Of Sin, David Bromberg- Demon In Disguise, Chester & Lester- Chet Atkins and Les Paul, The Wood Bros.- Ways Not To Lose

To see photos of other albums in my collection follow my IG: djmusicallyrich

To listen to a track from the album…

[llekei]

Aereo-Plain

John Hartford, 1971 

[the-birth-of-art]

Now if you ain't got none And if I ain't got none We can go find some other head Find out if they're holding Get down and start rolling And smoke what they're holding instead

[1264doghouse]

Aereo-Plain Band

[xiao668]

Added to Picarto on Spotify: "Turn Your Radio On [II]" by John Hartford https://spoti.fi/29iZCKm

[somethingvinyl]

Speaking of genre-defining #bluegrass albums... John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain from 1971 is scrappy and rock-influenced, anchored by Hartford’s gorgeous baritone voice and solid songwriting. In his band for this one are Vassar Clements (probably better known for his fiddling on Nitty Gitty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken) and Norman Blake (who collaborated with Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan and was all over the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, as was Hartford). #johnhartford #bluegrass #normanblake #vassarclements #vinyl #vinyladay #lp #vinyloftheday #vinyligclub #vinyljunkie #vinylcommunity #vinylcollective #instavinyl #vinylgram #recordcollector #nowspinning https://www.instagram.com/p/CNOYJEMsfBc/?igshid=84adqkh80pon