Enrique y su Idol

Got a little letter-- actually, a quite BIG one today, with a framed picture inside!

The drawing is by Enrique's uncle, Edgar Hernandez.

Read All About It!

A new installment HERE.

Chuck Dylan and Bob Berry

Two artists dominate my record collection. I’ve always thought they were more similar than different.

Both rooted in the blues.

Both born on the Mississippi.

Both Disciples of Muddy, (born further down).

Both enigmas.

Both touring constantly (at least for the first 70 years.)

Both attached to guitars (with a little piano on the side.)

Both authors of their own autobiographies, word for word, and both receiving critical acclaim for same at places like The New York Times for their work.

Both loose with their own melodies.

Both quiet off stage.

Both of them poets—authors of hundreds of songs.

Both, now, singers of Christmas carols!

It doesn’t matter if one stands stock still on stage, seemingly frozen, while the other scoots, bends, splits and duckwalks; or if one can barely crack a smile while the other grins and mugs.

Both dip deeply into the current of American music and pull up something that is timeless and original. They are both giants among their fellows.

Both hugely charismatic, each in his own peculiar way.

Both available to be seen and heard today.

My advice? Do it.


(Chuck Berry photo byKevin Reynolds,  http://www.kevinreynolds.co.uk/.)

Precedent! Chuck Berry Back In Court! (Just Kidding!) ( But Cited, For Sure!)

A little legalese to show just how far Mr. Berry's influence has spread.  Here, he and Ms. Mitchell are quoted gleefully by a rockin' panel of Ninth Circuit judges in a decision that calls the name "Yellow Cab" "generic!"  Go, Judges, Go!

YELLOW CAB COMPANY OF SACRAMENTO, a California corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. YELLOW CAB OF ELK GROVE, INC., a California corporation; Michael P. Steiner, an individual, Defendants-Appellees.


United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

August 9, 2005
419 F.3d 925

"In this Lanham Act case, plaintiff-appellant Yellow Cab of Sacramento appeals from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant-appellee Yellow Cab of Elk Grove. We conclude that there are issues of material fact as to (1) whether the mark "Yellow Cab" has become generic through widespread use in the marketplace, and (2) if descriptive, whether the mark has acquired secondary meaning. We therefore reverse the judgment of the district court. We also determine that the burden of proof as to validity and protectability of an unregistered mark lies with the party claiming trademark protection.

"* Perhaps the Yellow Cab Company of Sacramento didn't know what it had until it was gone.1 It had operated in the Sacramento area, including the suburb of Elk Grove, since 1922. At the time this suit was filed, it operated approximately 90 cabs, had approximately 700 business accounts, and was the only authorized taxicab provider to the Red Lion Hotel, Doubletree Hotel, Radisson Hotel, Holiday Inn Capital Plaza, Marriott Hotel Rancho Cordova, and the Amtrak Depot in the Sacramento area. In the fall of 2001, a cloud appeared over the Sacramento yellow cab empire when Michael Steiner started a one-cab taxi operation in Elk Grove and operated it under the name of "Yellow Cab of Elk Grove." Determined to "catch that yellow cab,"2 Yellow Cab of Sacramento filed this action against Yellow Cab of Elk Grove, alleging trademark violation under the Lanham Act and related state law claims for unfair competition, false advertising, and intentional interference with prospective business advantage. The district court granted Yellow Cab of Elk Grove's motion for summary judgment, holding that "yellow cab" is a generic term, and, alternatively, that even if "yellow cab" is a descriptive term, Yellow Cab of Sacramento failed to show secondary meaning and is therefore not entitled to trademark protection. Yellow Cab of Sacramento timely appealed. We review a district court's grant of summary judgment in a trademark infringement claim de novo, with all reasonable inferences drawn in favor of the non-moving party. Dreamwerks Prod. Group, Inc. v. SKG Studio, 142 F.3d 1127, 1129 (9th Cir.1998)."

(The footnotes are 1) "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell, and 2) "Nadine" by Chuck Berry.)

Pearl Buttons

When Chuck Berry's Facebook page featured a picture of Chuck and Johnnie Johnson playing together one thing I noticed, besides the friendship and respect, was the yellow cowboy shirt with the pearl buttons.

If you're a "Chuck Berry freak" (and you know that you are) then you know the wardrobe, which seems to have consisted of about 44 items spread over 60 years of professional life: the purple pants, the red pants, the red and blue shirt, the paisley shirt, the green paisley sports coat, the red and blue sparkle shirts of today.  Throw in a couple of white suits for the vintage look, a captain's hat for the elder statesman of the blues look, and maybe a black sparkle outfit and you're getting very near the end.  But though I never saw it live, this yellow shirt hung on for a long time-- most famously in Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll where it sidled up to Keith Richards and knelt before Etta James.

I once got it in the form of a snapshot from Bob Margolin.  He took the picture at blues show in Europe when he was with the Muddy Waters band.  Like a lot of others, Margolin got his start copping Chuck Berry licks.

(I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that this shot was taken the same day.)

I didn't go poking around everyone's Facebook collection, but I looked in Jan's and found this one of the shirt posing with a couple of famous piano players.  (Judging by Johnson's suit it might be the same tour or same day as the top shot.)

I could probably go on.  Send me more, and I will!

Happy Fourth

Truth

Here's a repost of a piece about Angus Young.  I post it again because a few days ago Angus Young won Guitar Player magazine's playoff between himself and his hero.  Anyway, this is what Young had to say a while back  in a story where guitarists picked the top guitarists:

CHUCK BERRY by Angus Young


When I was growing up, everyone used to rave about Clapton, saying he was a guitar genius and stuff like that. Well, even on a bad night, Chuck Berry is a lot better than Clapton will ever be.

Rock music has been around since the days when Chuck Berry put it all together. He combined the blues, country and rockabilly, and put his own poetry on top, and that became rock and roll. And it’s been hanging in there.

I looked it up.  Young is a year older than me. 

When I was a teenager and first enamored of people like Chuck Berry and B. B. King friends used to say Eric Clapton was better.  In those days it made me gag.  Since then-- well, it seems to me that Mr. Clapton has come into his own as a grownup.  He plays well.  (On the Chuck Berry side, his solo on Wee Wee Hours in the movie "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll!" is stupendous.)  He has one great song, born of tragedy.  He did some interesting twists on the blues with Cream.  (He killed reggae.) 

But he's no B. B. King. 

And he didn't change the world-- like you know who.

Picture by "Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin"

 

Daryl Davis Tonight in D.C.



Tracy A. Woodward, Washington Post

 HERE's a story from The Washington Post about Daryl Davis's show tonight at the Carter Baron Ampitheater in Washington, D.C.  Davis has backed Chuck Berry along the eastern seabord for 31 years, and shared piano duties at Berry's recent show at Washington's Howard Theatre.  The money quote about our hero:

"Davis learned from one of the masters of changing things on the fly: Chuck Berry. Davis has been playing with the rock-and-roll pioneer for 31 years, often sharing the stage with Berry when he makes his way to the East Coast (including as recently as an April gig at the Howard Theatre). To play that long with Berry is a testament to Davis’s talent, as Berry doesn’t tolerate players who don’t know his material or aren’t able to keep up with him onstage.

“'But he’s right, though!' Davis says of Berry’s demands for perfection. 'That’s rock-and-roll. If you can’t play Chuck Berry, you can’t play rock-and-roll! He invented it -- it’s only three chords! Who cannot play ‘Johnny B. Goode’?'"

Some People Say "Why don't you give it up?"

"People say ' Why don't you give it up?'  I can't retire till I croak.  I don't think they quite understand what I get out of this.  I'm not doing it just for the money or for you.  I'm doing it for me."  Keith Richards, Life, p. 241.  (I like him more every page.  So far, anyway.)

Together We Will Always Be

Anyway, I always liked it when they were.

Catching the Rolling Arthritis

Chapter Three of my "book", wherein our young hero enters a nearly empty hall and sees his future hero playing the blues, for sure.

Chuck Berry at Toronto: The Whole Dang Thing

A great performance, an overmatched backup band.  Too bad, since it was filmed for posterity by Mr. Pennebaker.  But cool, anyway.

A Gift from my Brother

Read it HERE.

One of the Coolest Things You'll Ever See

Chuck Berry inducting Willie Dixon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Dixon's wife and daughter give the acceptance speeches.

Keith on Jazz on a Summer's Day

I'm finally reading Keith Richards' book Life and got to his wonderful description of Chuck Berry's performance in Jazz on a Summer's Day:

I think it was Chuck's proudest moment, when he got up there.  It's not a particularly good version of of "Sweet Little Sixteen," but it was the attitude of the cats behind him, solid against the way he looked and the way he was moving.   They were laughing at him.  They were trying to fuck him up.  Jo Jones was raising his drumnstick ater ever few beats and grinning as if he were in play school.  Chuck knew he was working against the odds.  And he wasn't really doing very well, when you listen to it, but he carried it.  He had a band behind him that wanted to toss him, but he still carried the day.  Jo Jones blew it, right there.  Instead of a knife in the back, he could have given him the shit.  But Chuck forced his way through.

I love it because it parallels my view of the performance, which I wrote about here. (You can check out the performance here, too!)

Looked at my Watch

When I was a kid I wanted to promote a Chuck Berry show.  The rumor was that he charged about $2000 a show in the days before "My Ding-a-Ling" brought him back to the top.  I figured that was doable.  My plan was to do it at my school, which was outside Sacramento.  It was a small school, but I thought that if all the students brought their friends and families, we could have a nearly private Chuck Berry show.

What saved me was a line from an interview by Ralph Gleason of the San Francisco chronicle.  Berry told Gleason that he'd never, ever play for less than $1000 a night, and that if some "punk promoter" told him that he really wanted Chuck Berry but could only pay $900 Chuck would tell him, "Son, you just retired the great Chuck Berry."  As a person who enjoys the thrill of irrational fear I was terrified of hearing those words be directed towards me.  

Yesterday Chuck Berry was supposed to play his "last concert in Europe" at a theater in Cannes.  Lots of my friends in Europe made plans to go.  Others suffered over their inability to do so.  But the show was cancelled at the last minute.  I have a feeling that the minimum cash in advance didn't arrive in St. Louis, so the show didn't go on.  It's a shame.  Don't promote a show unless you're willing and able to take a bath on it.

But happily, no one's retiring anybody.  Chuck Berry will be at Blueberry Hill on Wednesday June 20, and at The Argosy Casino in Alton, Illinois this coming June 23.  Read about it HERE. 

Summit

Thanks to Jan for this one.

Chuck Berry in Concert, October 14, 1955

Thanks to Peter K. for this video all about an amazing early poster.



Here's a link to Poster Central.

Bernard Perusse on Chuck Berry

Can't agree with it all, but here's a fine piece on Chuck Berry by Bernard Perusse of The Windsor Star.

Today Bob Dylan, Next Year Chuck: Why Chuck Berry Should Get the Presidential Medal of Freedom

                         
                                     Picture by Alan White http://www.earlyblues.com/


I sent this more than two years ago.  I will send it again.  Maybe YOU can, too-- or cut and paste mine, add your own sentiments, and send it.  It's an idea that should happen.  Medal of Freedom is perfect-- after all: Who delivered us from the days of old?


President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

May 29, 2012

    Re: Charles Edward “Chuck” Berry
          Presidential Medal of Freedom

Dear President Obama,

You have a full plate.  Not much of it looks fun.  But here’s an easy decision for you.

I’m asking that you honor Chuck Berry with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Chuck Berry is often called one of the architects of rock and roll music. He’s credited with nearly inventing rock and roll guitar. He is often called the first poet of rock and roll. He’s a first class showman who continues to play at age 85.

The songs he wrote are the basis of rock and roll: Maybellene, Nadine, Rock and Roll Music, Roll Over Beethoven, Brown Eyed Handsome Man, School Day (Ring Ring Goes the Bell), Johnny B. Goode, No Particular Place to Go—and that’s just for starters.

His music helped change the world. When Chuck Berry and his contemporaries first started playing big shows, a rope separated black from white—but as the music caught fire, the rope fell down, and kids mixed and mingled, dancing together despite segregation.

Chuck Berry built his success the old fashioned way—he worked for it, putting on thousands of shows, in hundreds of towns and cities around the world. He often travelled alone, carrying his guitar and an overnight bag, teaching his songs to the backup group in a matter of minutes just prior to the show.

In the segregated south Berry sometimes slept in his car, and often cooked his own food on a portable hot plate rather than knock on the back door of a restaurant.

When Chuck Berry’s first single, “Maybellene,” was released, in 1955, the record included two “co-authors” who had no part in writing the song. Berry fought hard to get the rights restored to his name. He managed much of his own career.

He has made mistakes. So has our country. In the late 1950s, at the height his success, Chuck Berry was arrested and tried three times on trumped up charges that he violated the Mann Act. The first conviction was overturned because of the blatant racism of the trial judge. The second trial ended in acquittal. The third time was the charm for the prosecution—and just after releasing “Johnny B. Goode,” Berry spent two years in prison.

He didn’t waste his time there. He studied business and typing. He practiced. He wrote songs. And when he was released, he hit the ground running, putting on shows wherever his parole officer allowed, and releasing new classics such as “Nadine,” “Promised Land,” You Never Can Tell” and “No Particular Place to Go.”

His music was the foundation of the so-called “British Invasion” of the early 1960s. Ex Beatle John Lennon once said that “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'." Stevie Wonder said "There's only one true king of rock 'n' roll. His name is Chuck Berry."

He Performed for President Jimmy Carter at the White House in 1975.

In 1977, his song “Johnny B. Goode” was launched into outer space on Voyager 1. (In one Saturday Night Live episode, Father Guido Sarducci announced that the first message from extraterrestrials had been received. Once decoded, the message stated, "Send more Chuck Berry!")

In 1986 he was among the very first inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1987 he published his Autobiography, writing every word of it himself.

In the year 2000, he was honored by the President at Kennedy Center.

At age 85, Chuck Berry continues to tour and perform. Once a month he puts on a show at a St. Louis bar and restaurant called Blueberry Hill. (He just did his 175th Blueberry Hill show!) These hometown shows have become legendary, drawing fans from around the country and around the world to see one of America’s musical legends perform among friends in a small room. His backup group is something of a family affair, with longtime friends and with his own son and daughter helping out with guitar, harmonica and vocals. If he’s feeling inspired, Mr. Berry even performs his famous “scoot” or “duck walk.”

Mr. President—most of what you do for us is hard. You’ve said that if a decision is easy, someone else makes it before it gets to your desk.

Well, here’s an exception to that rule.

This decision is yours alone. It's an easy one.  And it’s a great one.

As Chuck Berry turns 85 this year, “deliver us from the days of old,” and honor him and his work with the Medal of Freedom.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

PETER O’NEIL

All ABOARD! (Newingburg, Kingston, Albany & On We Go!)

Chuck Berry songs are often about geography and transportation. There are Fords, de Villes, Jaguars, trains, planes, Airmobiles, souped-up jitneys and Greyhound busses. Johnny plays guitar by the railroad track and gets on a bus to go get famous. And there are cities, states and towns galore—most in the United States, some foreign. Havana’s moon, and a desert outside of Bombay.






Flying cross the desert in a TWA
I saw a woman walking cross the sands
Walking thirty miles on route to Bombay
To meet a brown eyed handsome man

Another one on the international scene, there’s Havana Moon. The original is wonderful. The remake, done for 1979’s Rockit, is weird and—in a weird way—sort of wonderful. There’s a bit of the “ra-daka-daka” style backup of “Almost Grown,” and a weird beat that Chuck Berry evidently called “disco.” No one would do the Hustle to this one, but it sticks to the brain pan like old pancake batter to steel bowl.

Here's a version by Santana:



Back in the USA, we know they’re rocking in Boston, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, deep in the heart of Texas, in Frisco, St. Louis and down in New Orleans. Close to New Orleans, too.

The song “All Aboard” is the pure poetry of place names.

All aboard!

Newingburg, Kingston, Albany & on we go

to Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.
Erie, Pennsylvania, Cleveland on the lake shore
Whistle at Lorain, Sandusky to Toledo
Let her roll, hello Indiana by Ohio
South Bend, Gary change trains in Chicago
Charleyette, Bloomington, Decatur, make a right flank
Springfield, St Louis on the muddy banks
Switching locomotives catching MKT making Whizville
Boonville and K.C. cutting to Topeka no more little bitty
Towns where she stops till she hits Oklahoma City

Most of the songs look south from his home town of St. Louis, or west to California.

The Promised Land hits many of the southern states and should be required reading in high school geography: Norfolk, Virginia; Raleigh in North Carolina, Rockhill, South Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia just to get started. In his autobiography Berry says he wrote the song in prison. “I remember having extreme difficulty while writing “Promised Land” in trying to secure a road atlas of the United States to verify the routing of the Po’ Boy from Norfolk, Virginia to Los Angeles.”



Maybe the song should be heard in history class, too. When he gets close to Montgomery, Alabama, there’s something like a bus boycott. A struggle and a breakdown, anyway (things are always breaking down in Chuck Berry songs. Think of “Move it!” “Dear Dad!”)

Had motor trouble
That turned into a struggle
Half way across Alabam’
And that ‘hound broke down
And left us all stranded
In downtown Birmingham

It might mean nothing that Berry was released from prison a month after the white terrorist bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in September 1963, a landmark event in the civil rights struggle, or that the song was recorded five months later. But our hero makes the point of riding “cross Mississippi clean” during the next phase of his journey. Then New Orleans and Houston, where he gets put on an airplane. From there everything’s cool, with T-Bone steak ala carty. He’s flying cross the desert again, but this time high over Albuquerque.

The late 1970s song “California” is also about the promised land, and mostly celebrates the Spanish names of a state that used to be Mexico. (Then again, Redding, Needles and Barstow made the cut!)

San Francisco, Sacramento
Will I ever go to Los Angeles or San Diego?
To Redding or Fresno?
Needles or Barstow, California I have so far to go.

(San Jose isn’t represented. But Chuck Berry used to tell people he was born in San Jose. He bought a bus there, too. He must have first seen it back in the day when there were blossoming orange trees and purple mountains, and not the multi-million dollar tract homes and silicon that plaster hundreds of square miles of that valley today.)

Alabama is well represented. “Let it Rock” takes place in Mobile. Memphis shows up in a lot of songs, and Louisiana comes up as often as Memphis--first in “Sweet Little Sixteen” and more famously in “Johnny B. Goode.” Pierre and the Mademoiselle drive to New Orleans to celebrate their anniversary in “You Never Can Tell.” The boat-full of Bordeaux is floating down there somewhere. My favorite reference is in a beautiful, little known song called “Oh Louisiana.”

Oh Lou’sana
Creole baby, Cajun queen
Great porches and windows
Filet de gumbo and basil beans
Your beautiful delta
And bayous of green
Ohh-ohh! Lou’sana!

The song is from a record called San Francisco Dues and was ruined just a little by the temporary insanity of a wah-wah. But the music, poetry and geography are fine.

Oh Lou’sana
I’m flying on Delta 903
Right over St. Louis
High over Memphis, Tennessee
On southward to the sea
Where I long to be
Oh, Lou’sana

(Decades ago I sang “Oh Louisiana” on the streets of San Francisco. I wasn’t much of a singer or guitar player, and most people contributed money only because I was skinny and barefoot and they were moms. But as I sang “Oh Louisiana” a tall African American man with whiskers, sunglasses and an African cap came, listened, and nodded to me. My fantasy is that it was Taj Mahal. I think it actually was. Alas for me, I know that whoever it was nodded because of the song, and not the singer.)

Maybe Someday You'll be the First Inductee

Just Him and His Guitar (A Repost)

I was at the gym, pedaling furiously, getting steadily fatter, and watching a bank of silent television screens. On one, as usual, was Lady Gaga. I have to admit I don’t know Lady Gaga. I wouldn’t recognize her music. I wouldn’t necessarily recognize her—except that I’ve come to associate her with any series of extremely fast edits and costume changes: patent leather, bubbles, bright lipstick, that sort of thing.

I have nothing against Lady Gaga. Gag if you will, but I figure that most of the people we see on screen have worked hard and have talent. There are undoubtedly people who’ve worked harder, and have more talent who never make it to the big screen or the little screen, but that doesn’t take anything away from those who do. Lady Gaga seems like an original presence with ideas.

But when I watched the fancy video production, the quick edits, the costume changes, the makeup, the boys, the girls, and thought of the hundreds of other talents behind all that—directors, musicians, make-up artists, costume designers, editors, techs, you name it—I thought of our man, travelling alone for decades with a guitar, a briefcase, some well worn clothes and a rental car. He didn’t even bring a band to 90% of his gigs. He certainly didn’t bring a retinue. No agent. No manager. No roadies. He’d show up, and whether the band was good or bad, he’d play—and usually bring down the house and send them all home happy.

What’s funny is that these independent activities have given him a reputation. People complain that he wants the right amplifier, or that he wants the money that was promised.

Every artist wants the right amplifier! Every musician wants the money!

Most of the famous ones don’t have to ask for it themselves. The road manager handles all of that.

Chuck Berry has done it all on his own, in minimalist style—a good guitar, a cord, a bag of cash, a stage, some hopeful and hopefully competent musicians standing ready leaning to get a hint at the key he’s going to choose waiting for their moment of history.

I was in Sacramento a few weeks ago, wandering around the beautiful brick barn of an auditorium where I saw Chuck Berry perform three times and it set me to wondering: where did he park? How did he find these places without google maps? Who saw him walking up to the back of the auditorium with his guitar? Which door did he knock on?

Once, not that long ago, I saw him leave the basement parking of the EMP rock and roll museum in Seattle a couple of hours before his show began. It’s a spot where I now frequently go to pick up my daughter—a circular driveway leading out onto Fifth Avenue. I was with both daughters that day, and we lurched forward towards the black Town Car, but he lurched forward, off to some destination in Seattle. He wasn’t alone that day—he had someone that I suspect was a travelling partner from St. Louis; but who knows. It’ might have been someone from the EMP guiding him to wherever he was off to.

On stage it’s “just him and his guitar.” I got an e-mail from one disgruntled musician who said he played with a wah-wah once, and that after his solo Chuck Berry said something like “I don’t play with toys—I play guitar.” Decades later the poor guitarist remains scarred—but it’s true. The sound he fought so hard for (whether right or wrong in that instance) in “Hail! Hail!” is the pure sound of a Gibson guitar, a Fender amp, and Chuck Berry’s inimitable hands and rhythm.

Without the crews, the managers, the make-up, the costumes, the smoke and mirrors and special effects Chuck Berry swung the guitar around like it was lighter than air, dancing with it, doing things most people can’t do without any burden, and doing it all while spitting out those amazing double string bent notes, making faces, making us dance, making us laugh.

Jerry Reed Plays Chuck Berry!

Looks like our friend Dominic!  (But I like the suit!)

Tonight at Blueberry Hill: Show Number 7001? 8001?

How often has this happened? There’s no authoritative or complete listing of the shows he has performed in his 60 years as a professional. Author Morten Reff lists as many of the international shows as he could find and it is a bigger number than I care to count—well over 500. But I can make some reasonable (and I think reasonably conservative) estimates. Let’s assume that from 1955 until 1961 he did an average of 200 shows a year. That makes 1200. Let’s say that from 1963 until 1971 he worked a little harder—say 225 a year. That’s another 1800. Then comes his “Ding a Ling” and even more work—let’s say 750 shows over three years. We’re up to 3750. Then let it cruise at 125 shows a year for the next 10 years. That’s probably conservative, but it’s now 1986, and we’re at 5250 shows. But he’s only 60 and still going strong. Let’s assume 100 shows a year until he turns 70, 75 a year until 75, 50 a year till he turns 80, and then slow him down to something like 25 shows a year when he enters his 80s. By my reasonably well educated (and carefully manipulated) fantasy count we’re at 7000 shows and counting.

It’s guesswork on my part, but you get the idea. The man has worked. This isn’t some superstar who plays golf 300 days a year and then regroups for a tour every ten years to refill the coffers. The man worked, and still does.

Who is Chucky Checkers??!?!?

Someone calling him(her?) self Chucky Checkers is putting a slew of old Chuck Berry videos on YouTube.  Thank you Chubby!  And who are you?

Here's a great version of "Maybellene."

Something's Happening Here

And this much is clear: Jan, Peter K., Enrique, Dominic and Ida May are finding tons of NEW OLD THINGS on Yahoo.  Here's just one of them.  (Haven't even heard it yet.)

Live from The Howard

Thank you Doug for this clip from The Howard Theatre.  I love, around 18 seconds in, a few bars that sound like "Woodpecker," the instrumental from Bio.  Haven't listened/watched it all because I'm on my way out of town, but at the beginning he's hitting everything.