George Harrison Wrote His Last Letter to Austin Powers Creator Mike Myers, Asking for a Mini Me Doll (2001)

harrison myers

In a band full of extro­vert­ed goof­balls and pranksters, George Har­ri­son was the qui­et one, the seri­ous Bea­t­le, the straight man and intro­spec­tive mys­tic, right? Not so, accord­ing to Trav­el­ling Wilburys band­mate Tom Pet­ty, who once coun­tered the “qui­et Bea­t­le” sobri­quet with “he nev­er shut up. He was the best hang you could imag­ine.” Not so, accord­ing to Har­ri­son him­self, who once said “I think I’ve had an image, peo­ple have had a con­cept of me being real­ly straight cause I was the seri­ous one or some­thing. I mean, I’m the biggest lunatic around. I’m com­plete­ly com­i­cal, you know? I like crazi­ness. I had to in order to be in the Bea­t­les.”

It’s true that Har­ri­son dis­liked fame and its trap­pings and dove deeply into life’s mys­ter­ies. In his final tele­vised inter­view, he is con­tem­pla­tive and, yes, deeply seri­ous. And while some of the sto­ries of the end of his life are heartbreaking—like that of the oncol­o­gist who alleged­ly showed up unan­nounced at the dying Bea­t­les’ door and cajoled him into sign­ing an auto­graph when he could bare­ly write his name—the sto­ry of the last let­ter he ever wrote made me smile.

Accord­ing to Mike Myers, cre­ator of Wayne’s World and the six­ties spoof Austin Pow­ers fran­chise, that let­ter arrived in his hands on the very day of Harrison’s death, deliv­ered via pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor as Myers and crew shot the third of the Pow­ers films.

Har­ri­son wrote but nev­er mailed the short note a month before his death in Novem­ber, 2001. In it, he reveals his love for Austin Pow­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly the “Mini Me” char­ac­ter from The Spy Who Shagged Me (played by Verne Troyer)—a minia­ture clone of Pow­ers’ neme­sis Dr. Evil. In a GQ inter­view, Myers quotes from the let­ter: “…sit­ting here with my Dr. Evil doll…I just want­ed to let you know I’ve been all over Europe for a mini-you doll.” Har­ri­son also jok­ing­ly cor­rect­ed Myers’ Liv­er­pudlian: “Dr. Evil says frickin’ but any good Scouser dad will tell you it’s actu­al­ly ‘frig­gin’ as in a ‘four of fish and fin­ger pie,’ if you get my drift.”

The “Scouser dad” ref­er­ence was par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant for Myers, whose par­ents come from Liv­er­pool. “You don’t know what The Bea­t­les were in my house,” Myers told WENN news, “They were every­thing. Liv­er­pool was poor­ish and it was rough and all of a sud­den it was cool to come from this town, so my par­ents were eter­nal­ly grate­ful.” Har­ri­son returned the grat­i­tude, writ­ing “thanks for the movies, so much fun,” a sen­ti­ment Myers reacts to with “Dude, I can’t even.” And real­ly, what could else could you say? “To get this let­ter,” and on the very day of Harrison’s pass­ing no less, “was unbe­liev­able,” said Myers, “It hits you and it can knock you off your feet.”

As for that rep­u­ta­tion for seri­ous­ness? I don’t know about you, but from now on, when I think of the last days of George Har­ri­son, I won’t think of his oppor­tunis­tic doc­tor, or his turn­ing down the OBE, or even that fate­ful final per­for­mance on VH1. I’ll imag­ine him sit­ting on the couch with a Dr. Evil doll, writ­ing Mike Myers to request a Mini Me.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan and George Har­ri­son Play Ten­nis, 1969

George Har­ri­son in the Spot­light: The Dick Cavett Show (1971)

Phil Spector’s Gen­tle Pro­duc­tion Notes to George Har­ri­son Dur­ing the Record­ing of All Things Must Pass

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Blues Guitar Legend Johnny Winter Shines Live on Danish TV (1970)

“Out of all the hopped-up Cau­casians who tur­bocharged the blues in the late Six­ties,” writes Rolling Stone, “Texas albi­no John­ny Win­ter was both the whitest and the fastest.” While broth­er Edgar hung a syn­the­siz­er around his neck and explored South­ern rock’s out­er weird­ness, John­ny stuck clos­er to roots music, play­ing with blues greats like Mike Bloom­field, Junior Wells, and Mud­dy Waters (he pro­duced three Gram­my-win­ning Waters albums). Despite, or because of, his blues bona fides, Win­ter was always a stal­wart in the rock scene. He played Wood­stock, often cov­ered Chuck Berry, Dylan, and The Rolling Stones, and released sev­er­al albums with his own band.

Win­ter passed away Wednes­day in his hotel room in Zurich at age 70. In trib­ute, we bring you the full per­for­mance above of Win­ter with his band on Dan­ish TV in 1970. See Winter’s bril­liant thumb-pick­ing style on full dis­play as he and the band rip through “Mama Talk to Your Daugh­ter,” “John­ny B. Goode,” “Be Care­ful With a Fool,” and “Mean Town Blues.” Want to learn some John­ny Win­ter mag­ic? Check out this video gui­tar les­son with the man him­self. And just below, see a trail­er for a new Win­ter doc­u­men­tary, John­ny Win­ter: Down and Dirty, that pre­miered at SXSW this past March.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mud­dy Waters and Friends on the Blues and Gospel Train, 1964

‘Boom Boom’ and ‘Hobo Blues’: Great Per­for­mances by John Lee Hook­er

Ani­mat­ed: Robert Johnson’s Clas­sic Blues Tune Me and the Dev­il Blues

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The Sex Pistols Play in Dallas’ Longhorn Ballroom; Next Show Is Merle Haggard (1978)

“John­ny Rot­ten and Sid Vicious were both punched in the face by girl fans as the Sex Pis­tols per­formed today deep in the heart of Texas.” That was the lede for the Eng­lish news­pa­per The Evening News cov­er­ing the Pistol’s con­cert at The Long­horn Ball­room in Dal­las, TX on Jan­u­ary 10, 1978. It proved to be one of the strangest, most con­tentions shows in one of the strangest, most con­tentious tours in rock his­to­ry. You can watch it above. All 37 min­utes.

By the time of the con­cert, the Sex Pis­tols were already noto­ri­ous in the U.K.  They had released a sin­gle – “God Save the Queen” – that called Britain’s head of state a fas­cist on the date of her Sil­ver Jubilee. The sin­gle became a huge hit in spite of – or per­haps because of – it get­ting banned by the BBC. They famous­ly hurled obscen­i­ties at a chat show host on live TV.  But to be fair, host Bill Grundy lit­er­al­ly asked for it. “You’ve got anoth­er five sec­onds,” he told John­ny Rot­ten and com­pa­ny. “Say some­thing out­ra­geous.” They did.

Though the band start­ed out as an elab­o­rate Sit­u­a­tion­ist-inspired per­for­mance art piece dreamed up by mega­lo­ma­ni­ac man­ag­er Mal­colm McLaren, they evolved beyond just being a stunt.  Their music was loud, aggres­sive and glee­ful­ly nihilist with lines like “And I wan­na be anar­chist, I get pissed, destroy!” That music and that atti­tude touched some deep sim­mer­ing well of cul­tur­al dis­con­tent — be it low­er class frus­tra­tions, dis­sat­is­fac­tion with con­sumer cul­ture or some dark­er pri­mal urge to burn every­thing down. Their music res­onat­ed.

sex-pistols-merle-haggard

For their 1978 tour of the Unit­ed States, McLaren wasn’t inter­est­ed in build­ing a fan base. He was inter­est­ed in piss­ing peo­ple off. So the tour com­plete­ly bypassed seem­ing­ly obvi­ous tour stops, like New York, Chica­go and Los Ange­les, in favor of places like Mem­phis, Tul­sa and San Anto­nio – none of which were exact­ly hot beds for punk. A famous pic­ture of the mar­quee of the Long­horn Bal­loon shows the Pis­tols list­ed along­side Mer­le Hag­gard, giv­ing you a feel for just how weird this tour was. Pri­or to the con­cert, Sid Vicious con­fessed his fears to a reporter about play­ing in Dal­las. “They killed Kennedy here and every­body has warned us that the peo­ple are crazy. I think there’s a real dan­ger that this is the town where I am going to be blown away.” (Weird his­tor­i­cal side note: The Long­horn Ball­room was owned for a spell by Jack Ruby, the guy who shot Lee Har­vey Oswald.)

The police were also report­ed­ly wor­ried. The Dal­las police depart­ment had a SWAT team ready just in case the show turned into a riot. It didn’t, but just bare­ly. The audi­ence was equal­ly split between hard­core fans – for exam­ple, Lamar St. John, the woman who decked Sid Vicious in the nose, drove from Los Ange­les to see the show – and skep­ti­cal locals who want­ed to see what the fuss was all about. As one Dal­las paper wrote, “most of the peo­ple last night came to see the peo­ple who came to see the Sex Pis­tols.”

As you can see from the video, John­ny Rot­ten, who spent much of the show look­ing like a tweak­er in the throes of a demon­ic pos­ses­sion, wast­ed few oppor­tu­ni­ties to ridicule the audi­ence. “I see that we have a whole sec­tion of the silent major­i­ty around there,” he sneered. As the band worked its way through the set list, cul­mi­nat­ing in a blis­ter­ing ren­di­tion of “Anar­chy in the U.K.,” the audi­ence hurled beer cans, toma­toes, garbage and the occa­sion­al punch at the stage. It’s not clear if the peo­ple who were doing the throw­ing were fans or irate cow­boys. Such is the world of punk. Sid Vicious, the band’s out­ra­geous if utter­ly untal­ent­ed bassist, jumped around on stage and occa­sion­al­ly con­tributed some aton­al back­ing vocals. After the punch, he let his nose bleed and soon he was cov­ered in blood. “The bass play­er rubbed blood over his face and chest,” wrote the Evening News, “so that he looked like a dement­ed can­ni­bal.”

“Sid was real­ly fucked up. Real­ly drunk,” recalled writer Nick Bar­baro. “He played for a while with­out his gui­tar plugged in. He played for a while with a fish. I think some­body threw it up there, a bass or some­thing. Peo­ple seemed pissed at him. He’d spit on the audi­ence; they’d spit on him. That’s what you did. There was this ele­ment of, ‘You paid to see us play?’”

Four days lat­er, the band broke up. “This is no fun. No fun at all. Ever feel like you’ve been cheat­ed?” Rot­ten weari­ly said on stage in San Fran­cis­co, the Sex Pistol’s final con­cert, before walk­ing off stage and quit­ting the band. Vicious was dead a year lat­er from a hero­in over­dose.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sex Pis­tols Front­man John­ny Rot­ten Weighs In On Lady Gaga, Paul McCart­ney, Madon­na & Katy Per­ry

John­ny Rotten’s Cor­dial Let­ter to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Next to the Sex Pis­tols, You’re ‘a Piss Stain’

Mal­colm McLaren: The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

The His­to­ry of Punk Rock

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

The Ramones, a New Punk Band, Play One of Their Very First Shows at CBGB (1974)

“Ramones Reunion Near­ly Com­plete,” announced The Onion just about ten years ago, after the death of the band’s gui­tarist John­ny Ramone. His band­mates Joey and Dee Dee Ramone had each tak­en their leave of this mor­tal coil a few years before, and now, with the pass­ing of drum­mer Tom­my Ramone, all the group’s orig­i­nal mem­bers have gone to that big CBGB in the sky. In the video above, you can see the Ramones play­ing at the small CBGB down here on Earth — way down here on Earth, giv­en the set­ting of down­town Man­hat­tan in 1974. That year alone, after the rev­e­la­tion they brought about after first tak­ing the stage in their bangs, ripped jeans, and black leather jack­ets on August 16, they played the now-his­toric rock club no few­er than 74 times. Show length aver­aged about sev­en­teen min­utes, which means this video, at just sev­en min­utes, includes quite a few songs. The setlist includes “Now I Wan­na Sniff Some Glue,” “I Don’t Wan­na Go Down to the Base­ment,” and “Judy Is a Punk.”

This per­for­mance hap­pened on Sep­tem­ber 15, 1974, six months after their debut at Per­for­mance Stu­dios in March of that year. They would­n’t sign a record­ing con­tract until late the next year, but they would do it because the wife of Sire Records co-founder Sey­mour Stein saw them at CBGB. Though the Ramones always prid­ed them­selves on the raw­ness of their sound, this show catch­es them at a moment when, though they’d already armed them­selves with looks and the atti­tude that made them instant icons, they still had to feel their way through exact­ly what this “punk rock” thing would turn into. You can see their music tak­ing an even clear­er, more dis­tilled form in the 1977 CBGB set we fea­tured last year. They may have lived fast, the Ramones, but they played even faster. Could they have done it with­out the bor­der­line-unpun­k­like skill of their drum­mer?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Ramones in Their Hey­day, Filmed “Live at CBGB,” 1977

The Ramones Play a New Year’s Eve Con­cert in Lon­don, 1977

CBGB’s: The Roots of Punk Lets You Watch Vin­tage Footage from the Hey­day of NYC’s Great Music Scene

Watch the Sex Pis­tols’ Very Last Con­cert (San Fran­cis­co, 1978)

Rare Live Footage Doc­u­ments The Clash From Their Raw Debut to the Career-Defin­ing Lon­don Call­ing

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Watch The Hire: 8 Short Films Shot for BMW by John Woo, Ang Lee & Other Popular Filmmakers (2002)

If there’s ever a Mad Men: The Next Gen­er­a­tion, count on a 40-ish Sal­ly Drap­er to psych a con­fer­ence room full of BMW execs out of the tried-and-true for­mu­la for lux­u­ry auto­mo­bile ads in favor of a ground­break­ing, night­mar­ish, pre-YouTube web series.

As fic­tion­al sce­nar­ios go, it’s about as like­ly as hav­ing the Hard­est Work­ing Man in Show Busi­ness James Brown place a win­ner-take-all bet with the dev­il (Gary Old­man) that his dri­ver Clive Owen can out-drag peren­ni­al movie bad guy Dan­ny Tre­jo. (In oth­er words, very like­ly.)

The prize?

Anoth­er 50 years of hip-shak­ing, leg-split­ting soul for the God­fa­ther of.

Can’t wait for the soon-to-be released James Brown biopic to find out who wins?

Check out “Beat the Dev­il,” above, the final install­ment of BMW Films’ 8‑episode series, The Hire. One of the new mil­len­ni­um’s ear­li­est exam­ples of brand­ed con­tent, each fre­net­ic seg­ment found Owen’s name­less dri­ver going up against a ros­ter of big name guest stars, includ­ing Don Chea­dle, Mick­ey Rourke, Mar­i­lyn Man­son, and an uncred­it­ed, pee-soaked Madon­na. (You heard me.)

Brown’s episode, direct­ed by the late Tony Scott, quick­ly ven­tures into David Lynch ter­ri­to­ry. Old­man’s Prince of Dark­ness gets laughs with a prop flu­o­res­cent tube and striped sus­pender tights, but the scene’s not with­out men­ace. (Recall Dean Stock­well lip-synch­ing Can­dy Col­ored Clown in Blue Vel­vet…)

The dia­logue calls to mind Jim Jar­musch’s blunt snap.

Dev­il: Stick your face in the hole!

James Brown: My face?

Dev­il: Stick it in the hole!

James Brown: My face?

Dev­il: Face in the hole!

James Brown: My face?

Dev­il: Face in the- oh, shit!”

Else­where, Brown’s line deliv­ery gets a boost from same-lan­guage sub­ti­tles, with­out which one could eas­i­ly mis­hear his con­cerns about aging as an unex­pect­ed, late-in-life racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion switch. (Say it loud, I’m Asian and proud?)

If the clip above leaves you hun­gry for more, the com­plete BMW series, fea­tur­ing the testos­terone-rich work of such high octane direc­tors as John Franken­heimer, Guy Ritchie, and John Woo is avail­able on the playlist below. 

You can find The Hire added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rid­ley Scott Talks About Mak­ing Apple’s Land­mark “1984″ Com­mer­cial, Aired 30 Years Ago on Super Bowl Sun­day

David Lynch’s Per­fume Ads Based on the Works of Hem­ing­way, F. Scott Fitzger­ald & D.H. Lawrence

The Coen Broth­ers Make a TV Com­mer­cial — Ridi­cul­ing “Clean Coal”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er and the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of The East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

“Weird Al” Yankovic Releases “Word Crimes,” a Grammar Nerd Parody of “Blurred Lines”

When “Weird Al” Yankovic is in the zone, he can spin a par­o­dy that is bet­ter than the orig­i­nal. He took R. Kelly’s pre­pos­ter­ous pop soap opera “Trapped in the Clos­et” and turned it into “Trapped in the Dri­ve Thru,” one of the best por­traits of every­day sub­ur­ban ennui I’ve ever come across. His hilar­i­ous tune “White and Nerdy” got twice as much traf­fic on YouTube than the song he spoofed, “Ridin’” by Chamil­lionar­ie. And off of his lat­est (and pos­si­bly last) album, Manda­to­ry Fun, Yankovic takes Robin Thicke’s bizarre but catchy ode to date rapeBlurred Lines” and flips it into “Word Crimes,” a dit­ty that is bound to delight gram­mar pedants every­where. Watch it above.

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock (1969)

What must it have been like to have been at Wood­stock? Like, real­ly have been there, not just watched the film or the 2009 movie about Wood­stock, not just have gone to any of the sev­er­al mil­lion mud­dy, drug­gy out­door fes­ti­vals that pro­lif­er­at­ed in Woodstock’s wake, but real­ly been there, man? I’ll nev­er know. The real expe­ri­ence of the 1960s can feel as for­ev­er irre­triev­able as that of the 1860s. But, wow, am I glad for the devel­op­ment of mov­ing pic­tures and live audio record­ing in that 100 years.

Not only can we see the throngs of hap­py hip­pies mak­ing their way across Max and Miri­am Yas­gur’s dairy farm in the ini­tial few min­utes above, but we do not have to smell them! Seri­ous­ly, the footage lead­ing up to Jimi Hendrix’s Wood­stock per­for­mance is fun, includ­ing a brief glimpse of Jer­ry Gar­cia hang­ing out with the peo­ple. But you’re here to see Jimi, so, if you can’t wait, skip to ahead. The crowd cer­tain­ly waited—waited three days for Hen­drix to close the fes­ti­val Sun­day night with his band Gyp­sy Sun & Rain­bows. Then they wait­ed some more, all night, in fact, until Hen­drix final­ly took the stage at 8:00 a.m. that Mon­day morn­ing, August 18, 1969. I imag­ine every­one who stayed would say it was well worth it. Part 2 of the video is here.

The per­for­mances, as you know, are leg­en­dar­i­ly blis­ter­ing and include Hendrix’s famous­ly scream­ing, feed­back-drenched “Star-Span­gled Ban­ner.” See it above like you nev­er could if you were knee-deep in mud and stand­ing behind a crowd of thou­sands in the sum­mer sun. Hear it above in audio from Inter­net Archive, who also have mp3 and ogg vor­bis ver­sions of each song for free down­load. And hear a radio doc­u­men­tary about that per­for­mance below. Enjoy!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

‘Elec­tric Church’: The Jimi Hen­drix Expe­ri­ence Live in Stock­holm, 1969

Jimi Hendrix’s Final Inter­view on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1970: Lis­ten to the Com­plete Audio

Jimi Hen­drix Unplugged: Two Rare Record­ings of Hen­drix Play­ing Acoustic Gui­tar

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Percussionist Marlon Brando Patented His Invention for Tuning Conga Drums

Maybe you knew about Mar­cel Ducham­p’s pas­sion for chess. But did you know about Mar­lon Bran­do’s pas­sion for con­ga drums? Long­time fans may have first picked up on it in 1955, when the actor gave a microwave-link tele­vi­sion tour of his Hol­ly­wood Hills home to Edward R. Mur­row on Per­son to Per­son. Halfway through the seg­ment (above), Bran­do gets into his his­to­ry with the instru­ment, and even offers to “run down­stairs and give you a lick or two” — and the always high­ly-pre­pared pro­gram had cam­eras in the con­ga room ready to cap­ture this “impromp­tu” per­for­mance. While the inter­ests actors keep on the side may tend to wane, Bran­do’s seems to have waxed, and lat­er in life he even, writes Movieline’s Jen Yam­a­to, “enlist­ed the help of Latin jazz per­cus­sion­ist Pon­cho Sanchez while devel­op­ing a new tun­ing sys­tem for con­ga drums.” We can behold the extent and seri­ous­ness of Bran­do’s pur­suit of con­ga per­fec­tion with a look at one of those patents, filed in 2002, for an auto­mat­ic “drum­head ten­sion­ing device and method.

BrandoCongaDesign

As The Atlantic’s Rebec­ca Green­field explains in a post on “Patents of the Rich and Famous,” “tight­en­ing a drum takes a lot of effort. Once the drum head los­es its ten­sion, there are typ­i­cal­ly six sep­a­rate rods that need tight­en­ing. Far too many rods for Mar­lon. Bran­do explains that oth­ers have tried to devel­op mech­a­nisms that would improve the drum tight­en­ing expe­ri­ence but none of them pro­vid­ed a sim­ple or afford­able solu­tion.” Hence his motor­ized “sim­ple and inex­pen­sive drum tun­ing device that is also accu­rate and reli­able and not sub­ject to inad­ver­tent adjust­ments.” And if you have no need for an auto­mat­ic con­ga drum tuner, per­haps we can inter­est you in anoth­er of Bran­do’s achieve­ments? “He had these shoes that you can wear in the pool, that would increase fric­tion as you walk on the bot­tom of the pool to give you a bet­ter work­out,” says patent attor­ney Kevin Costan­za in an NPR sto­ry on Bran­do’s inven­tions. Or maybe you’d pre­fer to sim­ply watch The God­fa­ther again.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­lon Bran­do Screen Tests for Rebel With­out A Cause (1947)

The God­fa­ther With­out Bran­do?: It Almost Hap­pened

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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