#alan cowsill

[joezy27]

HAWKEYE - Clint Barton & Kate Bishop

Avengers - The Ultimate Character Guide (2021) by Alan Cowsill & John Tomlinson

[downthetubes]

Liverpool’s Plaza Community Cinema announces a special Comic Book Day

Liverpool’s Plaza Community Cinema announces a special Comic Book Day, including Charlie Adlard, 2000AD’s Leigh Gallagher and the BEANO’s Nigel Parkinson as guests

Liverpool’s Plaza Community Cinema is to host a special Comic Book Day in March, an event that includes appearances by The Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard, 2000AD artist Leigh Gallagher and BEANO artist Nigel Parkinson, and two book launches. Taking place on Saturday 25th March, the event will culminate in the screening of one DC and one Marvel film, the titles to be announced. Come and meet…

[singlesablog]

Sunshine Pop

“Happy Together” (1967) The Turtles White Whale Records (Written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 1

Imagine me and you, I do I think about you day and night, it's only right To think about the girl you love, and hold her tight So happy together…

One of the great, enduring singles of the 20th century, “Happy Together”, by the Turtles, was released when I was only 2 years old, and still the song has had a lasting impact on my musical tastes.  It is today grouped under the moniker “Sunshine Pop”, which would include many contemporary purveyors of light psychedelia, including The Association (perhaps the most successful example) and the family band the Cowsills (with their seminal hit “I Love The Flower Girl” and its ringing lyric “happy…haPPY…HAPPY”), and many, many others.  The category, like the term Yacht Rock for the 70s, was only applied later to pull together the swirls of styles and culture springing up from a combination of folk, pop, and the Beatles, and not un-notably was possibly a reaction to the civil unrest bubbling up in the late 60s.  I can only guess the genre was the mainstreaming of a kind of specific tension rising up in America, a hip solution to changing times.  The genesis of these songs is elusive to understand, being a combination of hippie culture, long hair, and corporate rock—pulling apart the strands of influence is nearly impossible. But I will try.

I have read the Wiki on the Turtles many times and no cohesive idea of the band will gel.  Like the Association, some of the 5 or 6 male members were shuffled around during their hit-making period.  The band was clearly an easy listening vocal band for youth culture; they rarely wrote their own songs, instead they sifted around the industry for potential hits to record (which is in line with a lot of 60s hit-making).  During the period of “Happy Together” a new bassist, Chip Douglas, was added; this would be important because he would arrange the astounding vocal wall that crescendos at the end of the record.  Another important element, perhaps lending this single such authenticity, was that the band’s label, White Whale, was small and scrappy.  Because they could not afford the premium session players that all good California bands used for making hits, the band members, outside of orchestral sounds, played all of their own instruments.  The last bonafide is the lead singer, Howard Kaylan, whose dreamy vocal is undeniable.  But how did a journeyman band like The Turtles do it?  

One of the antecedents that explains their sound is California.  As surf music (the Beach Boys) was replaced by folk music (Dylan, and the West Village of New York), so emerged The Turtles with their first hit, the Californication of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe”, going groovy with it.  Before recording “Happy” they scratched around with hits comprised of older styles, the Brill Building of “You Baby” (P.F. Sloan and Steve Barry) and “Let Me Be” (P.F. Sloan).  These were solid songs, but the band clearly had ambition and wanted more, so they went on the prowl for a hit hit.  “Happy Together” was a demo that had made the rounds among many bands and rejected by all: the Happenings, the Vogues, and the Tokens. The two songwriters, Bonner and Gordon, had a connection to the Lovin’ Spoonful, and were shopping it around.  Howard Kaylan, the Turtles’ lead singer, has told the story of hearing the acetate for “Happy” and not only was it barely audible from use (acetate records, cut live rather than pressed, were inexpensive and were purposely used for demos and had short life spans) but terrible as well, with rickety guitar and a falsetto vocal.  But it appealed to the band, it had “something”.  Instead of recording it, they decided to workshop it live, and took it on the road for eight months before going into their studio, Sunset Sound.  According to Kaylan, they were more than ready, and recorded the whole track in 6 hours on an 8 track recorder.  They obviously did have the money for woodwinds and brass, but Kaylan has reported that listening to the separate tracks and arrangements he detected nothing special.  It was only when they heard them all at once, and mixed, that it was clear something magical was there.  He described it as elusive, with the mystical feeling that something had happened, and for the only time in his life he knew instantly they had created a No. 1. record.

The result was ebullience. Describing a perfect, hooky pop record is nearly impossible; suffice it to say that I hear it nearly daily as a tagline for an obnoxious tv ad and yet I always get that explosive tingle (ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba). Perhaps the Turtles are harder to understand today because we, of a certain age, have all been so profoundly changed by the singer songwriters of the 70s; before that movement it was commonplace for record labels to shift and shuffle band members and songwriters endlessly to generate a hit (one only has to read about the formation of the Drifters or the Temptations to become fully dizzy).  Making a hit record was always the preeminent idea, and it is our modern minds that has lead us to believe that artistry has to be the end result of a personal genius: no, no, not at all.  Sometimes it is in the air, and sometimes it is luck.  Perhaps it is always luck.  One thing is for sure, like the late, great, recently passed Quincy Jones has stated: it was always all about the song, man.

---

The Turtles, of course, wanted to repeat the success of “Happy Together”, and they nearly matched it with a song intentionally parodying themselves, “Elenore”, purposefully writing nonsensical lyrics like “Elenore, gee, I think you're swell” and “You're my pride and joy, et cetera” to send themselves up.  The joke wasn’t on them: it was a huge hit (Billboard No. 6), and uncharacteristically it was one the band wrote themselves.

One of the obvious precursors of the sound for a band like the Turtles is the Mamas and the Papas, who took Motown and the British Invasion and added a vocalese that was strictly California.  If you compare their sounds, so dependent on the vocals, they are remarkably similar.   I also hear this sound everywhere during that period, from the Cyrkle’s “Turn Down Day” (talk about an earworm) to the the arguably more successful and prodigious tunes from The Association, who’s monster No.1 hit “Windy” charted that very same year. Albeit whiter and squarer than the hippyish Turtles, their work would lead directly to the greatest white bread duo ever created, the Carpenters.

Now, I must insist: go listen to the song, and get happy!

[remus-poopin]

What Neville Longbottom listens to in the greenhouse

All 60s psychedelic pop and early 70s Baroque pop!

Track list:

1. Leaves That Are Green - Simon & Garfunkel

2. Pink Lemonade - Peppermint Rainbow

3. Lonely Leaf - The Peanut Butter Conspiracy

4. The Rain The Park And Other Things - The Cowsills

5. Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow - Strawberry Alarm Clock

6. Little Dreams - The New Wave

7. Your Mother Should Know - The Beatles

8. Technicolor Dreams - The Alan Bown

9. Skip-A-Long Sam - The Sugar Shoppe

10. Sunshine Superman - Donovan

+more!

Other playlists:

Lily Evans, Bill Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks, James Potter, Ginny Weasley, Fred and George Weasley, Sirius Black, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Severus Snape

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[marvelman901]

Marvel Comics Presents 170 (1994) . Red Wolf . Written by Alan Cowsill Penciled by Jimmy Chung Inked by Martin Griffiths Cover by John Czop and Tim Dzon . #redwolf #marvel #superhero #90s #comics #nativeamerican #jimmychung #alancowsill #martingriffiths #vengeance #ghostrider #midnightsons #timdzon #johnczop https://www.instagram.com/p/CV57uXdsOPT/?utm_medium=tumblr

[bestfrozentreats2]

The series has been long gone from radio, but I began airing episodes on my WFMU radio program in Summer 2016, and aired the entire Wilson series on a bi-weekly basis. Wilson is a genial host, a charming broadcaster with a warm presence. His humor is self-deprecating, and he always puts his guests at ease with his robust (sometimes too robust) laughter. The episodes are interesting time capsules from a period when superior audio fidelity was helping FM radio harvest music seekers from static-plagued AM. Despite the dominance of rock, psychedelia, and folk-rock, Wilson offers a bit of genre-surfing in Music Factorycontent, occasionally mixing in R&B, jazz, Latin, and the token classical number. He throws down hippie parlance (“groovy”—a lot) with the conviction of a trendspotter with a master plan, and insists on pronouncing terpsichore as TERP-si-kor. He had Teddy Reig on the program, though probably none of his listeners had a clue about Teddy’s legacy. Thank you, Tom Wilson. And yes, he hosted Lou and John from the Velvet Underground (whose first two albums were produced by Wilson). The VU interview is underwhelming.

Most episodes were transferred from rare vinyl discs provided by Byron Coley, with the rest provided as digital files by Harry Weinger at Universal. Thanks to both gents. I have digitally restored the transfers (often a quixotic endeavor—these were not high-quality pressings), and in many cases replaced music tracks with upgraded audio. The episodes contain commercials for then-new MGM-Verve releases. They are the same commercials, episode after episode, and they become maddening in their repetition. You will be endlessly reminded that “Nico is beautiful,” that “Women hate war,” and that buying a Tim Hardin album “is like owning a work of art.” One of the recurring commercial announcers is Scott Muni, a longtime figure in New York rock radio. Muni had been a Top 40 anchor at WABC-AM until 1965, then gradually transitioned over to FM, eventually finding a home at WNEW-FM in 1967.

You can stream or download each episode below as mp3 audio.  The opening and closing theme is “Help, I’m A Rock” by the Mothers of Invention from the 1966 album Freak Out!, produced by Wilson. I do not own the rights to any of this music, nor to the programs themselves, and these programs are NOT FOR SALE.

Program #01 — Tom Wilson Program #02 — Odetta Program #03 — The Velvet Underground (Lou Reed & John Cale) Program #04 — Every Mother’s Son Program #05 — The Cowsills Program #06 — Paul Williams (editor, Crawdaddy Magazine) Program #07 — Tim Buckley Program #08 — Sam the Sham Program #09 — Artie Ripp (producer/hustler) Program #10 — Teddy Reig (producer/legendary character) Program #11 — Richie Havens Program #12 — Janis Ian Program #13 — The Lovin’ Spoonful (Jerry Yester and Joe Butler) Program #14 — Ultimate Spinach (Ian Bruce-Douglas and producer Alan Lorber) Program #15 — Orpheus (Bruce Arnold and producer Alan Lorber) Program #16 — The Appletree Theater (John Boylan) Program #17 — Beacon Street Union (producer Wes Farrell) Program #18 — Dave Van Ronk Program #19 — Sandy Posey Program #20 — Bobby Callender Program #21 — Harumi Program #22 — Mike Jeffery and Mark Joseph (Tom Wilson absent) Program #23 — Recording engineers: Gary Kellgren, Phil Ramone, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt Program #24 — Bret Morrison (voice of radio’s “The Shadow”) Program #25 — William “Rosko” Mercer (popular New York radio voice in the late 1960s) Program #26 — Paul Shalmy, editor of Eye Magazine (article about WFMU from Eye, Nov. 1969)

In 1968 Wilson left the show, and comedians Bob & Ray were hired to host the series, which moved to WNEW-FM in September of that year.

[kenpiercemedia]

Eaglemoss Collections: "Batmobile Cutaways: The Movie Vehicles 1989-2012"

Eaglemoss Collections: “Batmobile Cutaways: The Movie Vehicles 1989-2012”

When I was but a wee lad, I was a card carrying member of “The Batman Club” and while my official membership card seems to be gone to the sands of time, I still have a great fondness for all things Caped Crusader which makes me happy to share the latest news from the fine folks over at Eaglemoss Collections. Take a look down below and prepare to be excited.

The Press Release: Ever since his…

[cgsketchbook]

Here’s a look at the cover to DK’s  DC Comics Year By Year New Edition: A Visual Chronicle Hardcover - out now!

I worked on the initial development of this cover and aside from swapping out the artworks selected for the final version, this one remained largely the same as my initial concept, which is great to see! 

Hope you’ll check out the rest of the book too - below is the official blurb:

In 1938, Superman led the charge. The world’s first Super Hero was soon followed by his Justice League teammates Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman, Shazam! and Green Lantern. These heroes, and their Super-Villainous foes such as Lex Luthor and The Joker, became the foundation of DC Comics. You can trace these characters’ evolution, and learn about the company and creators who made them the enduring pop culture icons they are today in DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle - the most comprehensive, chronological history of DC Comics ever published.

Fully updated, this best-selling, visually stunning book details the debuts and careers of every major hero and villain in the DC Universe. It also chronicles the company’s fascinating 85-year history, highlighting its publishing milestones and expansion into movies and television, alongside the real-world events that shaped the times.

Created in full collaboration with DC Comics and written by leading comics historians Matthew K. Manning, Daniel Wallace, Mike McAvennie, Alex Irvine, Alan Cowsill and Melanie Scott, the new edition brings the DC Comics story right up to date, covering recent landmark events such as Rebirth, Dark Nights: Metal, Doomsday Clock and Heroes in Crisis.

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle is guaranteed to keep fans enthralled for hours on end.

[jor-elthatendswell]

The first half of "The Not-So-Sinister Six" ,story from Spectacular Spider-Man Adventures #55 published in December 1999 by Panini. This ish the Kingpin attempts to have a children's hospital closed down so he can build a casino. And on Christmas eve, too!

Script: Alan Cowsill

Art: John Ross

Colours: Alan Craddock

Letters: Jim Arnott

Script editor: Jason Quinn

[downthetubes]

The Way of the Warrior offers inside look at Marvel’s kung fu heroes and more

The Way of the Warrior offers inside look at Marvel’s kung fu heroes and more

Out this week from Dorling Kindersley is Marvel The Way of the Warrior, combining two of author Alan Cowsill’s main loves – comics and martial arts! Released ahead of the new Shang-Chi feature film, inside, you can discover the fighting styles, training techniques, and secret disciplines of Marvel Comics’ mighty martial artists and hand-to-hand combatants. From disciples of Eastern combat…

[elsa94j]

Download PDF DC Comics Year by Year, New Edition: A Visual Chronicle -- Alan Cowsill

Download Or Read PDF DC Comics Year by Year, New Edition: A Visual Chronicle - Alan Cowsill Free Full Pages Online With Audiobook.

  [*] Download PDF Here => DC Comics Year by Year, New Edition: A Visual Chronicle

[*] Read PDF Here => DC Comics Year by Year, New Edition: A Visual Chronicle

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[marvelman901]

Marvel Comics Presents 172 (1995) . I Found My Heart in San Francisco . Written by Chris Cooper and Alan Cowsill Penciled by Reggie Jones Inked by Fred Harper Colors by Ashley Posella Lettered by Diana Albers Cover by John Czop . #marvel #comics #usagent #avengers #foolkiller #vengeance #ghostrider #johnczop #fredharper #midnightsons #forceworks #90s #superhero #chriscooper #alancowsill #reggiejones #dianaalbers #ashleyposella (på/i San Francisco, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CW6MFEFMnO2/?utm_medium=tumblr

[myyearofgivingdaily]

Tying New Orleans’ Threads

Today’s donation: The Threadhead Cultural Foundation

(photo by Kim Welsh)

She was known among the Threadheads as rowEN, arguably a more intimate name than her real one, Michelle Bannister. That’s how it’s been with the Threadheads, people known to each other by their screen names, sometimes more than their real ones, though it’s not exactly a secret identity. Many Threadheads have met each other in real life. Well, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the event around this social group coalesced. So not really real life.

Michelle’s Facebook page reflects that, a world as we’d want it, full of all that color, a vivid collection of music, friendship, vibrant clothing and flowers and hearts and blue skies.  But no matter how hard we hold onto that, the real real world intrudes. Floods happen. Illnesses. And deaths. Michelle/rowEN died earlier this month of liver disease. Threadheads mourned around the globe, from her Alabama home to Australia and the U.K., people with whom she had shared the joys of New Orleans, the love of music, the love of life. Tributes and notes of sorrow came on Facebook and on the JazzFest online forum, where the Threadheads came together in the first place and continue to commune. The very name of this community refers to the discussion “threads” on the site.

Well, rather than let the intruding real world mute the colors of Threadheadville, Threadheads work to brighten that outside world. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours on a conference call with a few Threadheads, poring over and assessing dozens of applications for grants to be given by the Threadhead Cultural Foundation. The applicants range from musicians — funk bands, jazz bands, singer-songwriters, a soul-gospel chorus — to dance troupes to filmmakers to authors to arts education camps and school programs to Mardi Gras Indians preparing for the next season’s parades and song battles. The grants aren’t huge, a maximum of $5,000 each to a total of $40,000 awarded. But each award represents a seed to the growth of New Orleans’ vital cultural landscape, a brick in the foundation of the city’s future, an act of faith and hope. And love.

It’s a manifestation of the spirit this ragtag bunch of people have had since they first started sharing tips on the forum about music, hotels, restaurants, life, from the first time nearly 20 years ago on a Tuesday between the JazzFest weekends they had a backyard party — “Patry,” as they came to call it in their own curious patois — at one of the local’s houses, getting a New Orleans brass band to play and collecting cash at the gate to pay the musicians. The Patry grew into a real thing, bigger each year. And so did the group’s purpose, with a broader view of support for the city, its attributes and its people.

Then the 2005 flood hit, and everything changed. Threadheads stepped up in various ways, with the foundation’s grants and even a record label — a pioneering micro-loan, fan-funded endeavor that allowed dozens of artists struggling to regain their lives to record and release music. Among the initial artists were former Cowboy Mouth guitarist Paul Sanchez (one of the city’s finest songwriters, who has become a mentor to many younger musicians), jazz-soul singer John Boutté (who became internationally recognized via his boisterous song “Treme,” used as the theme of the HBO series of the same name) and Susan Cowsill (yes, of the Cowsills). Sanchez even wrote a song, “Be a Threadhead” (see below), extolling the spirit of the community, and his and writer Colman DeKay’s songcycle based on journalist Dan Baum’s book “Nine Lives,” portraits of nine New Orleansians in the time from 1964’s Hurricane Betsy to 2005’s Katrina, expanded the Threadhead musical reach. (I connected with this as a journalist writing about the label and then became part of the label’s advisory board, and now serve on the grants screening committee.)

The label faded as crowdfunding grew (and CD sales fell), but the foundation is going strong. Funding comes via Patry tickets — the event has gotten big, with some top local acts and great food — and a related raffle of various items contributed by local business and Threadhead regulars, and of course just good ol’ regular donations to the cause. In recent years there’s also been a pre-JazzFest Threadhead Thursday concert in City Park. And at JazzFest itself, there’s a spot designated for (or commandeered by) Threadheads to meet up, to hang out, to connect the secret identity with the real one. Whichever’s which.

But, arguably, it’s what happens the rest of the year that gives this group meaning, as they share about their lives and loves, mark birthdays (and births, of kids, grandkids, great-grandkids), ask for healing wishes when there’s an illness and, yes, mourn deaths. And if you know New Orleans culture, you know that deaths are mourned but the lives of those gone are celebrated with verve and vigor, memories not allowed to fade, and works done in their honor. Death is greeted with singing and dancing and parades — the famed second-lines.

It’s with that spirit that the Threadhead Cultural Foundation every year makes one of its grants specifically for a live musical event, the award established in honor of a dedicated Threadhead, Buddy Mann, a musician himself, after his death, and in memory of all Threadheads who have passed on, rowEN just the latest in that august number. There are several candidates this year eminently worthy of those we know by their Threadhead names.

Oh, and speaking of: Call me Baconwrapped.

- Steve Hochman

About this blog: 
Causes and Effect: My Year of Giving Daily, was started in 2013 by entertainment and culture journalist Melinda Newman, who made daily donations to a wide variety of non-profits and wrote about her experience. USA Today music writer, Brian Mansfield took on this monumental task in 2014. Since then, various writers have taken turns with stints, as the effort comes to a close at the end of 2017.  

About Steve Hochman: Steve has covered popular, and unpopular, music for more than 32 years, most of that time as a key member of the Los Angeles Times’ music team. He is currently music critic for Pasadena station KPCC’s morning magazine “Take Two” and a regular contributor to BuzzBandsLA and to his own Make Mine Baconwrapped blog. He hosts interview-and-performance sessions at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and at New Orleans’ annual Jazz and Heritage Festival. His byline has appeared in an array of major publications, including Rolling Stone, Billboard and Entertainment Weekly and New Orleans’ Offbeat and he’s written liner notes for a range of projects, from an elaborate book in Disney’s award-winning box set of music from the Howard Ashman-Alan Menken animated musicals to reissues of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s first four albums. He’s thrilled to be sharing this month’s C&E with Geoff Mayfield.