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Legalize!
Entry 38 of 40 | show all | print this entry |
(The Dolphins, June 10)-It's been a couple of weeks since my last entry in this Travelogue and there's not a lot to catch up on. I've been utterly broke and my creative output has suffered accordingly, as always. It's a good thing I don't have any bad habits or I'd really be fucked up.
Today is the annual Legalize! Parade, and if all goes right Radio Free Amsterdam will be right in the middle of it, broadcasting a 'live' edition of the John Sinclair Radio Show from one of the floats in the Parade, and I'll be doing a poetry performance as well, around 4:30 pm. Then there's a big EPISODES benefit party later tonight, so I'll report on these events next time-right now I gotta get ready to go to Dam Square for the parade line-up.
Most of my creative efforts the past two weeks have been syphoned into planning for my Summer Tour of the USA that begins in less than two weeks with appearances at the ComFest in Columbus OH June 23-25. Here's the schedule as it stands to date, and when you see an off day and know somewhere in that area where I might be able to appear for a performance, reading or talk, feel free to let me know at once!
USA SUMMER TOUR 2006
Friday, June 23-Sunday, June 25 Columbus OH: ComFest
Monday, June 26 Columbus OH: Recording Session
Tuesday, June 27 Brooklyn NY: Union Pool with Dorothy Goodman & the Ryan Sawyer Ensemble
Wednesday, June 28 New York City: Bowery Poets Cafe with Dorothy Goodman (7 pm)
Thursday, June 29 Brooklyn: Frankie's in Red Hook with Dorothy Goodman & Daniel Carter (8 pm)
Friday, June 30 New York City: TBA
Saturday, July 1 New York City: TBA
Monday, July 3-Friday, July 7 Westminster MD: Common Ground on the Hill
Saturday, July 8-Sunday, July 9 Westminster MD: American Music Festival
Wednesday, July 12 Oxford MS: (T) Two Stick with the Blues Scholars
Thursday, July 13 Oxford MS: Voyagers Rest Studio Mixing Session
Friday, July 14 Oxford MS: TBA
Saturday, July 15 Oxford MS: TBA
Sunday, July 16 Oxford MS: TBA
Monday, July 17 Oxford MS: Voyagers Rest Studio Mastering Session
Wednesday, July 19 Los Angeles: Blues Hotel on KXLU-FM
Thursday, July 20 Los Angeles: Fais Do Do with Sarah Kramer Band
Friday, July 21 Venice: Beyond Baroque with Gerry Fialka
Saturday, July 22 Los Angeles: Rae's Lounge w/ (T) Wayne Kramer & Charles Moore
Sunday, July 23 Los Angeles: Synergy Lounge with Michael Simmons
Thursday, July 27-Thursday, August 3 San Francisco Bay Area: TBA
Friday, August 4 Davison MI: Eagles Hall with Marc Adams Band
Saturday, August 5 Davison MI: Blues Festival with Marc Adams Band
Sunday, August 6 Ann Arbor: Sunward Concert Barn w/Blue Stone Project
Monday, August 7 Detroit: OFF
Tuesday, August 8 Lansing: Creole Gallery with RJ Spangler
Wednesday, August 9 Lansing: OFF with Bob Baldori > Big Rapids
Thursday, August 10 Big Rapids MI: Two Sisters with Michael Erlewine
Friday, August 11 Detroit: Buzz Club with R.J. Spangler
Saturday, August 12 Flint: Churchill's with Glowb
Sunday, August 13 Detroit: Your Place Lounge with RJ Spangler
Tuesday, August 15 San Francisco > Seattle with Jim Epstein by car
Wednesday, August 16 San Francisco > Seattle with Jim Epstein by car
Thursday, August 17 Seattle: Hempery Party
Friday, August 18-Sunday, August 20 Seattle: HempFest with Chris Morda
Monday, August 21 (P) Portland
Tuesday, August 22 (P) Portland: Slabtown
Wednesday, August 23 (P) Ashland OR: TBA
Thursday, August 24 (P) Arcata:
Friday, August 25 (P) Guerneville
Saturday, August 26 Boonville: Lauren's
Sunday, August 27 Graton: Ace Cider Pub
Monday, August 28 San Francisco: TBA
Tuesday, August 29 San Francisco: TBA
Thursday, August 31 Detroit: TBA
Friday, September 1 -Monday, September 4 Detroit: International Jazz Festival
Wednesday, September 6 Ann Arbor: Learning in Retirement Breakfast
@ Best Western Hotel (11:15 am)
UM Taping @ Kellogg Auditorium (2:30)
Ann Arbor District Library Concert (7:00 pm)
Friday, September 8-Sunday, September 10 Siena Italy: Stampa Alternativa Festival
That's enough to get me going, my transportation costs are covered now and I'll fill in the blanks along the way. Let me know when you need more details, and I'll send a general report (god willing) from each destination.
RADIO FREE AMSTERDAM
First are the two most recent episodes of the John Sinclair Radio Show: #88 from the Winston International Hotel on May 10th and #89 from DFM Radio 100 back on March 15, 2006.
John Sinclair Radio Show 88
Winston International Hotel, Amsterdam
Thursday, May 10, 2006 @ 10:30 - 11:30 pm [20-0615]
Our friend Aaron Cole of the Electric Fans invited us to do a broadcast from the first night of TREMORS, a monthly music showcase produced by Aaron at the Winston International Hotel on the Warmoestraat in the heart of Amsterdam Centrum. The Fans were to headline the show, but the bassist fell ill and they called in the Utrecht group called Lushus to fill in at the top of the bill. A couple of guys in dresses and electric guitars opened the show, we talked with Aaron and two of the women from Lushus, and there were great recordings by the New Orleans Nightcrawlers, Magic Slim & the Teardcrops, Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers, the Electric Fans, John Sinclair & Mark Ritsema, Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane, Big Joe Turner, Bob Dylan, Lushus, Lightning Malcolm, and Olu Dara.
John Sinclair Radio Show 88
@ Winston International Hotel, Amsterdam
Playlist #88
[01] Opening Music: New Orleans Nightcrawlers: 90.7 with Intro &
Opening Tokes with Henk Botwinik
[02] Magic Slim & the Teardrops: See You in the Evening
[03] Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers: See Me in the Evening >
It's Alright
[04] Comments & Conversation with Aaron Cole of Electric Fans
[05] Electric Fans: Just Molecules?
[06] Comments & Conversation with Aaron Cole re: Tremors
[07] John Sinclair & Mark Ritsema: pannonica
[08] Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane: Sweet & Lovely
[09] Big Joe Turner: Shake, Rattle & Roll
[10] Bob Dylan: Obviously 5 Believers
[11] Comments & Conversation with Lushus
[12] Lushus: Hofhund und....
[13] John Sinclair & New Orleans Jazz Vipers: If You'se a Viper
[14] Closing Comments & Outro
[15] Closing Music: Lightning Malcolm: Keep On Flying
Hosted by John Sinclair for Radio Free Amsterdam
Produced & Engineered by Henk Botwinik
Executive Producers: John Sinclair & Henk Botwinik
Special thanks to Aaron Cole & Larry Hayden
Sponsored by NachtKracht and The Dolphins, Amsterdam
©(P) 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
Podcast @ May 29, 2006
John Sinclair Radio Show 89
Porcupine Show with Matteo @ DFM-Radio 100, Amsterdam
Wednesday, March 15 , 2006 @ 8:00-9:00 pm [20-0608]
For my first show after returning to Amsterdam, Will Dawson took Adam Brook & myself to the underground studios of DFM Radio, popularly known as Dutch Free Media or either DeForMation, to join his colleague from Waterstone Bookshop, Matteo, for a Joint Production on his Wednesday night Porcupine program. Our fellow guests were Nicola Villa and Kiara from Rome, where they publish a free poetry magazine on the campus of the University of Rome, and Matteo spun some pretty weird records through the course of the program, along with 'live' poetry performances by Nicola and myself.
John Sinclair Radio Show 89 @ DFM-Radio 100, Amsterdam
Playlist #89
[01] Opening Music: Unidentified Selection with Intro & Comments by Matteo
[02] Unidentified Musical Selection
[03] Unidentified Musical Selection
[04] Matteo Conversation with Nicola Villa
[05] Nicola Villa: Freedom & Spaghetti with comments
[06] Milva: Bertoldt Brecht song
[07] John Sinclair comments with Matteo & Nicola Villa re: Baobab magazine
[08] Neti Kruisell Lapets: Unidentified Musical Selection
[09] John Sinclair comments with Matteo re: MC5
[10] Nicola Villa comments with John Sinclair re: oppositionism
[11] Matteo: A Walk in the Park by Mr B from Baobab magazine
[12] Unidentified Musical Selection
[13] Unidentified: poem
[14] John Sinclair: Spiritual 'live'
[15] John Sinclair conversation with Matteo & Nicola Villa
[16] John Sinclair with LangeFrans & Baas B: It's All Good
[17] Kiara: poem from Baobab magazine
[18] Roberto Valenza: Spirit Land
[19] John Sinclair conversation with Matteo & Nicola
[20] Nicola Villa: Good Night Charles from Baobab magazine
[21] Closing Comments by Matteo, Nicola Villa & John Sinclair & Outro
[22] Closing Music: Unidentified Musical Selection
A Joint Production with the Porcupine Show on DFM Radio, Amsterdam
Hosted by Matteo for DFM and John Sinclair for Radio Free Amsterdam
Produced, Engineered & Recorded by Matteo for DFM Radio
Executive Producers: Will Dawson & John Sinclair
Special thanks to Adam Brook & Will Dawson. Sponsored by The Dolphins.
(c)(p)2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
Podcasted @ June 5, 2006
Also, here's Sacha Kinsella at the NachtKracht blowout at CS Post last Saturday night with three hours of Alternative Amsterdam
Alternative Amsterdam #3 with Sacha Kinsella
GOODBYE CLIFFORD ANTONE
Another great American from a dying breed of blues people is gone. The great Clifford Antone of Austin, Texas suffered two substantial prison terms for marijuana crimes during his 30 years as the avatar of the blues in his Texas capitol city and college town. He connected Texas with the deep Chicago blues and helped develop Austin's local blues scene like no one else. Clifford was a beautiful cat from the stone old school whose legacy is reviewed in the documentary film Antone's: Home of the Blues, available on DVD next month.
Here's the obituary from a Texas reporter:
Clifford Antone, 56, Is Dead; Started Texas Blues Club
By Alan Light
(Austin, Texas, May 25, 2006)-Clifford Antone, founder of Antone's, the Austin, Texas blues club that helped start the careers of Texas music artists including Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Charlie Sexton and helped turn Austin into the city that bills itself as the "live music capital of the world," died at his home there on Tuesday. He was 56.
Mr. Antone was found dead when Austin police officers responded to a 911 call from his home, said Laura Albrecht, a spokeswoman for the department. The cause of death is being investigated but does not appear to be suspicious, she said.
In 1975 he opened Antone's, first intended as a showcase for his beloved Chicago blues. Over the years, legends like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and B. B. King performed at the club.
"Amid this sea of scenemakers," Robert Draper wrote in a 1997 profile for Texas Monthly magazine, Mr. Antone was "the unmistakable maker of the scene" who provided an "Atlas-like patronage of this most American of music forms."
In the late 1960's, Mr. Antone moved to Austin from Port Arthur, Tex., where he grew up, to attend the University of Texas; for the last few years he taught a course at the university on the history of the blues.
A 2004 documentary titled Antone's: Home of the Blues premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival and is being released on DVD next month.
In 1987 Mr. Antone started Antone's Records, a label that featured many of the club's top acts, and also opened a record store specializing in American roots music.
The 30 years since he opened Antone's were not always a smooth ride for Mr. Antone, who served two prison terms, one in the 1980s for possessing marijuana and another from 2000 to 2002 for dealing more than 9,000 pounds of the drug and laundering money. After the first conviction he had to give up ownership of the club; Antone's is currently owned by a board of directors headed by his sister, Susan Antone, who survives him.
Mr. Antone was known for his generosity to musicians. He organized a series of benefits for victims of Hurricane Katrina and recently he helped arrange an apartment and nursing care for the 92-year-old pianist Pinetop Perkins.
Rest in Peace, my brother....
DR. JOHN INTERVIEW FOR HONEST TUNE MAGAZINE
Thanks to Tom Speed's advance on my cover story fee from Honest Tune magazine, I was able to make it through the past week. Thanks, Tom! The June/July issue should be out by now, but I'd like to throw in the actual transcript of the interview here for my readers who might enjoy it. It's always a treat to talk with the Doctor, and this transAtlantic chat was no exception.
Telephone Interview with Dr. John
Amsterdam > New York, April 6, 2006
John Sinclair: You all right?
Dr. John: Yeah, I'm cool. You know, I'm just tryin' to agitate the people.
They workin' you like a mule in Treme. I just got your Mercernary album, that's pretty entertaining.
Yeah, thanks. I thought there was a couple of pimientos in there.
I can see Johnny Mercer pin-wheelin' in his grave here and there. [Laughs]
You know what? I know when I messed up Hoagy Carmichael's song and called it "The Nearness of Love," instead of "The Nearness of You," and the publisher wanted me to yank it. And I was thinkin', "Oh God, I'm whacked." And he said-Hoagy personally called and said, "Hey, listen, I did real good with that doo-wop record of 'Blue Moon,'" and he told the publisher, right there on the phone, he told the guy, "Leave it. I think it's funny." I know he didn't think this one was gonna sell, because it was just me and a piano.
I loved that song, "I Ain't No Johnny Mercer"....
Oh, thank you. I took a lot-I read his book, you know? So I was readin' about all the stuff he did, and the lines he used. But there was a line, it was like somethin' way back in the game, but he said, "You're so sexy / You give me apoplexy." And I had to look up to make sure I knew what the word 'apoplexy' meant. You know, I took a buncha stuff he wrote, like "Pardon my southern drawl," and said somethin' else, like "Pardon my southern accident," you know like I do? I tried to do stuff that he woulda dug in today's parlance. Because they don't have nothin' like what he did now.
You know, he was comin' from this thing where he was tryin' to write stuff to get him in-he always wanted to be-see, I didn't know all this, but he always wanted to be like one a them Tin Pan Alley, Broadway guys, but he was from out in the sticks somewhere and they just didn't let him in. So he was like-him and Hoagy Carmichael and certain guys, when they wrote together, you could buy it. These guys had like another thing, you know. It's like, "Lazy Bones" got a certain thing, and I always liked that song, but I didn't even know they had writ it together.
But then, a lot of that stuff...you know, I brought in "Tangerine" as a tribute to Red Tyler, and "Save the Bones" for Danny Barker-Danny wrote that with [Johnny Mercer]. I've got an Austin City Limits video that I took the words off-I didn't take 'em out the song book version, I took 'em right out the Austin City Limits video with Danny singin' it with my band. And it was hilarious! The only line I changed, insteada takin' 'vegetarian' and whatever he rhymed it with, I said 'He was a vege-terrible.'
Yeah, I thought you kinda took Henry Jones outta the 7th Ward and took him down in the 9th Ward....
Well, you know, listen, all of it has connections, you know. Listen, you know, I always liked "I'm an Old Cowhand" from when Sonny Rollins cut it, and I was determined to do something different than Sonny but make it an instrumental, but I was thinking, "maybe we'll put some background parts...." So we cut the thing and, I couldn't help it, I was so shot-when we came into New Orleans to cut the record I forget we was supposed to do a tribute to Ray Charles, and I had told Sonny [Schneidau] at the House of Blues that we was gonna do a "Tribute to Ray" set. I figured we'd have the charts for that, and we could roll with it. All of a sudden I'm writin' up a tribute to Ray, and so it turned into a whole other set of petunias.
So I was up for like two or three days tryin' to hustle up and write the charts for that gig. I was so shot by the time we got in to cut the record, I never finished all the stuff I was gonna write for the horn parts for the record. What the hell, I figured, listen, we'd just do somethin' different instead, somethin' like an extra keyboard, or some other strangeness.
But it was nice with the horns comin' in every couple of tunes. They stood out like a motherfucker, man.
Two of the things I did was to get Herbert [Hardesty] to just him play on a couple of tunes, and I wanted to get somebody in there like-and it worked out really good, because I was able to get James Rivers for "Save the Bones." You know, James has got that little cross between like Fathead, and Donald Wilkerson and James Clay and alla them cats from kind of a freaky school of that Texas sound, you know. And I know he played with the changes I had put to it for him, you know, stuff like that.
Man, when you did "Come Rain or Come Shine" it reminded me of that beautiful thing that Johnny Adams did on that. You ever hear that?
No.
It was on one of his later records from Rounder. He sang the living shit out of that song.
You know me, I love Johnny, I don't care what he done. Johnny coulda belched in the mike and made it sound good.
Yeah, I also wanted to tell you that I loved that Sippiana Hericane record. The Wade in the Water suite, that was beautiful.
Oh, thank you. We was so-well, I ain't never got un-angry since the hurricane. Every night on the gig I been playing something offa that and, no matter where we at, I give the audience an earful about my thoughts about it. You know?
In Detroit [at the Detroit International Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend 2005], I heard you all the way down on the other end of Woodward Avenue sayin' [from the stage]: "President Bush don't like black people." Man, I heard it three blocks away! [Laughs]
Hey, I got it from some hip-hop kid. I was talkin' to Bobby Charles, and I told him that, and Bobby says, "Well, Mac, it's kinda obvious, daddy," he says. "Look on the TV. If ya look at the Convention Center and the SuperDome, you ain't gonna see no white faces-maybe one or maybe two, but you ain't gonna see 'em." And Bobby was pissed. And he got me a song-I wish we coulda got the words and all, and the music for it-I woulda cut that sucker. It's called, "The road to the White House is paved with gold....and the truth will set you free." Man, but I didn't get the words from Bobby until after we had done cut the record. In fact, we didn't get it until like a month after.
But Bobby's song "Clean Water" came over good, though.
Oh yeah. I was wantin' to cut that anyway, but I wanted to put that other one on too. Man, he had did it on the phone, but I couldn't hear it good enough, you know. Man, I was gonna roust up somebody to do some little hip-hop thing on there-that was my plot for that, you know.
But you couldn't get the words, though, huh?
Man, look, we was scufflin' talkin', you know. Bobby had lost his pad, you know, I mean everything where he lives at was gone. I mean, Holly Beach don't exist no more, amongst a whole lotta other places. We was comin' back through southwest Louisiana from Austin to work in Lafayette, and man, it was like-all of a sudden you could tell when you was outta the state of Texas and hit the Louisiana border. It was like-Lake Charles looked like a volcano flowed over it and alla that.
We know we definitely Third World country material now. You know, everybody I know in New Orleans is elsewhere. You know, look, I run into people-I talked to little Tracy the other night, he said he just got his FEMA lights on and he's lucky. And he's callin' it like it is. It's just pathetic crap, you know?
So you givin' 'em a little preachment from the stage?
Every night on the gig I get on my robe and-you know I'm crazy, so I don't give a damn what I tell 'em. And the only time we ever had any complaints about it-actually, I got one in Seattle that was a complaint that I didn't say enough. In Miami-that was just one show, though, because we was doin' two shows a night and I think I had ran out of gas on one set-the only negative thing I got was a mayor, I think it was Hollywood Florida, she come up and said, "We don't use the 'C' word in Florida." I said, "Well, look, Lady Mayor, I'm a coon-ass. I think we had dibs on possibly inventin' corruption, so if you don't like the 'C' word here, what do you call it? What you call corruption?"
I think they call it 'business as usual.'
Oh yeah. Well, we know all of what they might call it, but their business ain't cuttin' it for me. I don't know who it's cuttin' it for, but their portion of the pie looks kinda cock-eyed to me. So I'm very glad to see some of 'em fall-it makes me feel a tinge-as Jelly Roll Morton would say-a tinge better. But if I was to look at these lames and try to say, hey, well, I feel good about anything, wow, I'd be really jivin' myself.
Alright, man, I'm gonna write this up for a little magazine outta Oxford, Mississippi called Honest Tune, and they gonna put you on the cover.
Hey, listen, you just do whatever the hell you regulationally do and it'll work. I have absolutely no-you know what, it's a funny thing, but-where the hell did I just put it? I got one of your-wait a minute, I just put the sucker somewhere-a CD that you gave me with some guy that I don't even know who this guy is.,...Here it is. I can't even read it-looks like, is it Wayne Kramer? Where you did "Doctor Blues"?
Yeah, you know what's on there? "I'm an Old Cowhand." Give it a spin, you'll enjoy it. We used the Sonny Rollins arrangement.
Yeah. I took the sucker out to check it out, I got five of 'em-no, I got seven of 'em up there, I'm gonna check 'em out as I get to 'em. Right now I'm lookin' at Basie with Joe [Williams] singin' wit' him....but I'm puttin' stuff in some sorta order for me. You know, when you're on psych meds, you gotta have your own kinda somethin' that makes orders....
Yeah, I always liked Sonny's thing on that, and Sonny was the one that made me actually think, well, maybe I could do something different with this sucker other than what he done, but keep it in a thing that's kicks.
You know what was the song that got me to do that Mercer record? My daughter was singin' about-that song about "Personality" from a buncha years ago, and she said, "I got a song for you to do." She listens to all kinda shit, and she said-now it ain't by him, right, but he recorded it when he was first runnin' Capitol Records.
Are you comin' over here? They said you was coming to England.
I don't know where we goin', when we goin' or nuttin', John.
Well, let me say this: if you get here to Amsterdam, look for me-I'll be there.
--Transcribed at Cannabis College > 420 Café > The Dolphins
Amsterdam, April 11-13, 2006
© 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
LAST WORDS
Finally, I want to wish a Happy Birthday to my brother David (May 31) and my sister Kathy (June 15), and also to my pal Ted Drozdowski on this date, June 10, birthday also of the immortal Chester Arthur Burnett, known professionally as the Howlin' Wolf.
Latest Comments (1)
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john sinclair (reply)
Jun 10, 2006 17:35 EST by wleming
that john sinclair
he be living on air
he be here and there and
everywhere
hes been up and down
hes been down and around
hes sonic and blue and titanium sound
hes played chicago with leming
and with rudnick in new york
hes run from the poo lice in new orleans
and hes traveled amsterdam to cork
hes been over head and under fed
hes been jailed and le... show all
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