Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen Take Phone Calls on New York Cable TV (1978)

in Music, Television | December 28th, 2012

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Sid Vicious, I pic­ture a young Gary Old­man. The Sex Pis­tols bassist cer­tain­ly made an out­sized cul­tur­al mark in his 21 short years, and Old­man’s per­for­mance in the Alex Cox-direct­ed Sid and Nan­cy has become, for those too young or dis­tant to catch the band at the time, the author­i­ta­tive­ly vivid depic­tion of him. Though argu­ments rou­tine­ly erupt about the license Cox may have tak­en with the facts of Vicious’ life and death, you need only watch a clip of the gen­uine arti­cle to under­stand how expert­ly Old­man cap­tured his dis­tinc­tive kind of surly vital­i­ty. I rec­om­mend the above late-sev­en­ties broad­cast from The Efrom Allen Show on New York cable tele­vi­sion (part one, part two, part three), which finds the shirt­less Vicious sit­ting on a pan­el with his girl­friend Nan­cy Spun­gen (the tit­u­lar Nan­cy of the film), Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys, and Cyn­thia Ross of the B Girls. “THAT’S SID VICIOUS ON YOUR SCREENS, FOLKS,” scrolling text tells the view­ers. “IS SID VICIOUS? WHO CARES? CALL 473‑5386 TO SPEAK TO THE PUNK OF YOUR CHOICE.”

And call they do. Vicious responds with the same oscil­la­tion between artic­u­la­cy and inar­tic­u­la­cy you may recall from Old­man’s por­tray­al, and Spun­gen seems to pos­sess the same behav­ioral­ly con­cealed core of intel­li­gence that Chloe Webb gave her in the movie. She takes up the role of his defend­er when, lit cig­a­rette in hand, she unhesi­tat­ing­ly shoots down a caller who asks the faint­ly zoned-out punk icon why he’s “so deriv­a­tive”: “He’s as orig­i­nal as you get! He’s not deriv­a­tive of any­thing!” As the show goes on, this proves not to be the only accu­sa­tion of its kind. Oth­er calls include inquiries about post-Pis­tols projects, a sug­ges­tion to col­lab­o­rate with Ron Wood (of all peo­ple), and prompts for pre­dic­tions about the direc­tion of punk rock. “How should I know?” Vicious blurts. “I live my life day by day. I don’t plan years ahead.” Indeed, he did­n’t need to. The pro­gram aired on Sep­tem­ber 18, 1978, eight months after the Sex Pis­tols dis­solved. Less than a month lat­er, Spun­gen would be gone, and less than five months lat­er, so too would he.

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Acoustic His­to­ry of Punk Rock Sheds Light on NYC’s Low­er East Side (NSFW)

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of CBGB, the Ear­ly Home of Punk and New Wave

The Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Stevie Ray Vaughan at the Montreux Jazz Festival, 1985: The Concert Film

in Music | December 27th, 2012

In the 1980s, Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an tore through the inter­na­tion­al music scene like a Texas tor­na­do. His amaz­ing­ly flu­id and dex­ter­ous gui­tar play­ing on a series of plat­inum albums estab­lished Vaugh­an as a house­hold name and helped spark a blues revival. But in the sum­mer of 1990 a heli­copter he was rid­ing on crashed into a hill in Wis­con­sin, and the whirl­wind had passed.

This con­cert film cap­tures Vaugh­an in full force. It was made on July 15, 1985, dur­ing Vaugh­an’s sec­ond appear­ance at the Mon­treux Jazz Fes­ti­val. His first, in 1982, had seemed like a dis­as­ter at the time. Vaugh­an and his band Dou­ble Trou­ble had nev­er made a record and were vir­tu­al­ly unknown out­side of Texas in 1982, and their per­for­mance at Mon­treux was met by boo­ing from some mem­bers of the audi­ence. Vaugh­an was shak­en. He had nev­er been booed before. But the 1982 Mon­treux per­for­mance turned out to be the most impor­tant of Vaugh­an’s career, as Chris Gill explains in Gui­tar World:

David Bowie was in the audi­ence, and he made a point of meet­ing Vaugh­an and his man­ag­er in the after-hours lounge. John Paul Ham­mond, the son of record pro­duc­er John Ham­mond, also saw the show and asked for a tape of the per­for­mance to give to his father. Jack­son Browne caught the band’s per­for­mance in the after-hours lounge, and he sat in with the group until ear­ly the next morn­ing. With­in the next few months, Browne invit­ed Vaugh­an and Dou­ble Trou­ble to his L.A. stu­dio to record a demo, Bowie asked Ste­vie to appear on his next album [Let’s Dance], and John Ham­mond, who helped devel­op the careers of Bob Dylan and Bruce Spring­steen, helped the band sign a deal with Epic Records and offered to pro­duce their debut album. The rest, as the cliché goes, is his­to­ry.

So the 1985 Mon­treux appear­ance was some­thing of a tri­umphal return for Vaugh­an. There was no boo­ing this time. Vaugh­an had a pair of plat­inum albums under his belt, and he and Dou­ble Trou­ble were tour­ing Europe to pro­mote their third album, Soul to Soul. In the film, Vaugh­an and the band are intro­duced by fes­ti­val founder Claude Nobs, who gave them their big shot in 1982. The trio of Vaugh­an on gui­tar and vocals, Tom­my Shan­non on bass, and Chris Lay­ton on drums had just been expand­ed to include Reese Wynans on key­boards. They play 13 songs, includ­ing three with Texas blues­man John­ny Copeland, who joins them on “Cold Shot,” “Tin Pan Alley” and “Look at Lit­tle Sis­ter,” in which Copeland and Vaugh­an trade blis­ter­ing gui­tar solos. Anoth­er song, Copeland’s “Don’t Stop By the Creek, Son,” was appar­ent­ly per­formed that night but cut from the film. The rest of the con­cert appears to be intact. Here’s the set list:

  1. Scut­tle Buttin’
  2. Say What!
  3. Ain’t Gone “N’ Give Up on Love
  4. Pride and Joy
  5. Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb
  6. Cold Shot
  7. Tin Pan Alley
  8. Look at Lit­tle Sis­ter
  9. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
  10. Texas Flood
  11. Life With­out You
  12. Gone Home
  13. Could­n’t Stand the Weath­er

Relat­ed con­tent:

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

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Bono and Glen Hansard Busking in Dublin on Christmas Eve

in Music | December 27th, 2012

It has become some­thing of a new Irish tra­di­tion. For the fourth year run­ning, Bono, Glen Hansard  and friends took to the streets of Dublin — to  Grafton Street, to be pre­cise — to spread hol­i­day cheer and raise mon­ey for char­i­ty. Last year, the group per­formed a rous­ing ver­sion of the Mic Christo­pher song “Hey­day” and “Christ­mas (Baby Please Come Home).” This year, they added “Silent Night” and a ren­di­tion of U2’s “Desire” to the mix.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil Young Busk­ing in Glas­gow, 1976: The Sto­ry Behind the Footage

The Won­drous Night When Glen Hansard Met Van Mor­ri­son

Bono Tells UPenn Grad­u­ates “Pick a Fight, Get in It” (2004)

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‘Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire’: Nat King Cole Sings ‘The Christmas Song,’ 1957

in Music, Television | December 25th, 2012

It is, arguably, the most beau­ti­ful ver­sion of the most pop­u­lar hol­i­day tune: Nat King Cole singing “The Christ­mas Song” in his vel­vety-smooth bari­tone voice. Cole actu­al­ly record­ed the song four times between 1946 and 1961, but it’s the last record­ing that is most often played on the radio and in stores dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son.

“The Christ­mas Song” was writ­ten on a swel­ter­ing sum­mer day in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia by the croon­er Mel Tor­mé and his writ­ing part­ner, Robert Wells. Tor­mé and Wells had been hired to write a pair of movie scores. Com­plain­ing about the heat one day, the two men began talk­ing about win­ter at high­er lat­i­tudes. Wells jot­ted down a few men­tal images. “I saw a spi­ral pad on his piano with four lines writ­ten in pen­cil, “writes Tor­mé in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy It Was­n’t All Vel­vet. “They start­ed, ‘Chest­nuts roast­ing … Jack Frost nip­ping … Yule­tide car­ols … Folks dressed up like Eski­mos.’ Bob did­n’t think he was writ­ing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse him­self in win­ter, he could cool off.”

When the song was com­plet­ed, Tor­mé imme­di­ate­ly thought of his friend Cole, accord­ing to Ace Collins in his book Sto­ries Behind the Great­est Hits of Christ­mas. The two song­writ­ers drove to Cole’s house in Los Ange­les and played it for him. Cole liked the song, and asked the writ­ers to hold it for him while he made arrange­ments to record it. Cole first record­ed “The Christ­mas Song” with his jazz trio in New York on June 14, 1946. Lat­er arrange­ments includ­ed strings and grew pro­gres­sive­ly more lush. The scene above is from the very last episode of The Nat King Cole Show, broad­cast live on Decem­ber 17, 1957. Cole is accom­pa­nied by Nel­son Rid­dle and his orches­tra.

For those cel­e­brat­ing today, we can think of no bet­ter way to send you our greet­ings than with this mov­ing per­for­mance, which ends with the mem­o­rable lines:

And so I’m offer­ing this sim­ple phrase
To kids from one to nine­ty-two
Although it’s been said many times
Many ways, Mer­ry Christ­mas to you

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All You Need is Love: The Beatles Vanquish Pastor Terry Jones in the Big Apple

in Life, Music, Religion, Video - Politics/Society | December 25th, 2012

New York­ers go out of their way to avoid Times Square, espe­cial­ly at this time of year. What­ev­er the sea­son, it’s sure to be a mob scene of slow mov­ing tourists, mis­er­able Elmos, and loose screw loud­mouths preach­ing mes­sages of intol­er­ance. In this milieu, Flori­da pas­tor Ter­ry Jones is noth­ing spe­cial, and cer­tain­ly less pho­to­genic than the Naked Cow­boy.

Film­mak­ers Hei­di Ewing and Rachel Grady trailed the Quran-burn­ing, effi­gy-hang­ing, failed Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date there any­way, to cap­ture his “mes­sage to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty” on the 10th anniver­sary of Sep­tem­ber 11.

Bystanders roll their eyes and hus­tle past, but only one young woman attempts to engage him direct­ly, smil­ing as if she knows that Jones’ is the sort of shell game you can’t win.

That is until one man breaks into a spon­ta­neous ren­di­tion of All You Need Is Love, the lyrics pulled up on his smart­phone. Was this brave per­for­mance moti­vat­ed in part by the pres­ence of a film crew? Who cares, as ran­dom pedes­tri­ans and staffers from the near­by TKTS booth join in, pro­vid­ing a fine alter­na­tive sound­track to the hate spew­ing from the bull pul­pit. In Ewing and Grady’s edit, the Bea­t­les are a force strong enough to drown him out.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day would like to teach the world to sing in per­fect har­mo­ny.

 

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David Bowie and Bing Crosby Sing “The Little Drummer Boy”: A Chestnut From 1977

in Music | December 24th, 2012

In 1977, just a short month before Bing Cros­by died, the 40s croon­er host­ed David Bowie, the glam rock­er, on his Christ­mas show. The awk­ward­ness of the meet­ing is pal­pa­ble. An old­er, crusty Cros­by had no real famil­iar­i­ty with the younger, androg­y­nous Bowie, and Bowie was­n’t crazy about singing The Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy. So, short­ly before the show’s tap­ing, a team of writ­ers had to fran­ti­cal­ly retool the song, blend­ing the tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas song with a new­ly-writ­ten tune called Peace on Earth. After one hour of rehearsal, the two singers record­ed The Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy/Peace on Earth and made an instant lit­tle chest­nut. The Wash­ing­ton Post has the back­sto­ry on the strange Bing-Bowie meet­ing. We hope you enjoy revis­it­ing this clas­sic clip with us. Hap­py hol­i­days to you all.

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Two Prison Concerts That Defined an Outlaw Singer: Johnny Cash at San Quentin and Folsom (1968–69)

in Music | December 24th, 2012

As a life­long John­ny Cash fan, raised on coun­try, gospel, blues and folk and all their out­law cousins, I spent my ado­les­cence lis­ten­ing to 1969’s Live from San Quentin and imag­in­ing the scene: Cash, who nev­er served hard time, singing about prison life to hard­ened men who greet­ed him as kin­dred. Lit­tle did I know, won­ders of the Inter­net to behold, that there is actu­al footage of the con­cert online. And so there it is above, and it’s great. John­ny mocks the guards, gets the­atri­cal­ly bel­liger­ent, and rocks out out­law coun­try style with “San Quentin,” voic­ing every prisoner’s griev­ances with his grav­el­ly deliv­ery. His glare is hyp­not­ic, and the song plays over footage of armed guards on the fences and inmates marched in herds.

Of course, there’s no San Quentin with­out Cash’s first prison con­cert, 1968’s At Fol­som Prison. The doc­u­men­tary below (with Swedish sub­ti­tles) opens with inter­views from coun­try stal­warts Mar­ty Stu­art and Cash’s daugh­ter Roseanne; it’s an hour-long explo­ration of the Fol­som prison con­cert and its import.

Cash loved giv­ing these con­certs, and he loved the men inside, not because he was one of them but because he knew he could have been if music hadn’t saved him. He gave anoth­er con­cert in 1977 at the Ten­nessee State Prison, but this record­ing nev­er had the impact that those first two did. Cash’s appear­ances at Fol­som and San Quentin in some ways defined his career as a writer and singer of out­law songs who cared about the men who paid the price for law and order.

Josh Jones is a writer and schol­ar cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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The Clash Live in Tokyo, 1982: Watch the Complete Concert

in Music | December 22nd, 2012

In late Jan­u­ary and ear­ly Feb­ru­ary of 1982 the Clash played eight shows in Japan. The band was embark­ing on a month-long tour of the Far East that, as fate would have it, would be the last tour with their clas­sic line­up. When it was over, drum­mer Top­per Head­on was kicked out because of his dis­rup­tive drug habit, and the band would nev­er be the same. In this video we roll back the clock to see and hear the Clash in the twi­light of their hey­day.

The con­cert was appar­ent­ly filmed on the fourth night of the tour, at the Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo on Jan­u­ary 28, 1982. Accord­ing to music jour­nal­ist Chris Salewicz’s book Redemp­tion Song: The Bal­lad of Joe Stum­mer, the Clash had refused to play in Japan pri­or to this tour because of the Japan­ese cus­tom for­bid­ding audi­ence mem­bers to stand up. They agreed to play after a com­pro­mise was struck: The fans could stand, but only at their seats.

The band had just fin­ished record­ing Com­bat Rock, but none of the songs from the unre­leased record are in the film. At one point, bassist Paul Simonon’s wife Pearl Har­bor (a.k.a. Pearl E. Gates) of the new wave band Pearl Har­bor and the Explo­sions joins the Clash onstage to sing “Fujiya­ma Mama.” Here’s the set list:

  1. Lon­don Call­ing
  2. Safe Euro­pean Home
  3. (White Man) in Ham­mer­smith Palais
  4. Brand New Cadil­lac
  5. Char­lie Don’t Surf
  6. Clam­p­down
  7. This is Radio Clash
  8. Armagideon Time
  9. Jim­my Jazz
  10. Tom­my Gun
  11. Fujiya­ma Mama
  12. Police On My Back
  13. White Riot

The Clash’s charis­mat­ic front­man, Joe Strum­mer, died ten years ago this Sat­ur­day, on Decem­ber 22, 2002. You can read a lit­tle about him in our Aug. 21 post, “Remem­ber­ing the Clash’s Front­man Joe Strum­mer on His 60th Birth­day.” But per­haps a good way to remem­ber him would be to watch this film, a rare visu­al record of a con­cert by the group many called “the only band that mat­ters.”

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Clash: West­way to the World

Mick Jones Plays Three Favorite Clash Songs at the Library

Doc­u­men­tary Viva Joe Strum­mer: The Sto­ry of the Clash Sur­veys the Career of Rock’s Beloved Front­man

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