The Stones Exile in France

Ethan Russell has been photographing musicians since the late 1960's.  He followed the Stones for a few years and these photos, along with photos by Dominque Tarle are part of a new exhibit ("Soul Survivors" at La Galerie de L'Instant in Paris) and are included in the documentary film, Stones in Exile, which is available on DVD.  Ethan speaks very eloquently about The Rolling Stones in his Huffington Post piece.   I met Ethan at a Rosanne Cash photo shoot many years ago.

To quote him,  To this day -- especially this day -- I get irritated with photographs that scream (the photographer's head peaking out from behind) "Look At Me! Look at Me!" The value I believe that both Dominque and I were lucky enough to deliver is the experience of letting the viewer be there. 

His photos let the viewer feel like they are peering through a hole in the wall.  Ethan, much like Rosanne Cash is an artist who writes very poetically.  You want to read more. He's let you in on his secret. 

Uncle Floyd's Brother To Lead Conan's Band

Max Weinberg announced he is stepping down as the leader of house band on the new TBS show Conan.  Jimmy Vivino, who has been in the Max Weinberg 7 since Conan O'Brien's first show, will take over the reins.  I always think of Jimmy as Uncle Floyd's brother.  The Uncle Floyd Show was a big part of my college years.  It was made for kids and adults.  Jimmy appeared on the show.

The Vivino Brothers

Singer Eddie Fisher Passes

Eddie My Lifes, My Loves should be required celebrity autobiography reading. His sequel, Been There, Done That is suppose to be more scathing.  Eddie Fisher died on Wednesday at 82. He certainly had his ups and downs.  He rose to fame as the singer of Oh My Pa-Pa. He had the requisite girls swooning over him. He was most famous for his marriages (5 of them), notably to Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens.  He didn't transition to an acting career like most of the singers of his time.  When Elvis hit the scene and rock and roll ruled the airwaves, Eddie's music lost it's place.  He is the father of the talented actress and writer Carrie Fisher. In her recent show, Wishful Drinking, she candidly talked about her parents divorce and her father's marriage to Liz Taylor.  She describes the relationships in the clip below.

Katy Perry Exlied From Sesame Street

In a video that was made for Sesame Street,  Katy Perry runs around with Elmo and sings a kid friendly version of her song Hot N Cold.  People saw the video online and complained about her outfit.  I've seen worse on 4 year-olds in those scary beauty pageants.   She's wearing a gold dress with a mesh top that goes to her neck, where there is a silver bow. It looks like a princess costume or something you might see on an Olympic figure skater.  Apparently this was too much for the viewers, so Sesame Street has decided to pull the video from it's upcoming TV season as well as pull it from YouTube. This of course will bring more attention to it and drive up the views on YouTube.  The video is cute.  I'm partial, but my favorite will always be Elmo and the Lavender Moon.

OK Go Have Gone To The Dogs

Everyone knows OK Go make great videos.  They've topped themselves again with White Knuckles.
The dogs were trained by Lauren Henry and Roland Sonnenburg and their team from Talented Animals.  I can bribe my dog to do a lot of things, but the coordination in a one take video is amazing.  If you pay for a download of the video via the band's website, a portion of the proceeds will go to the ASPCA.  Gizmodo has an article about how the video was made.  Take 72 is what you see in the video.

Here is a glimpse of my dog Dusty watching OK Go's dogs.

Wherever the Music Takes Them

A bunch of great New York musicians get together from time to time to play live.  Mojo Mancini grace the stage at Rockwood on Wednesday 9/22 at 10pm.  This band lets the music take them or take over them.  The band is John Leventhal, Rick DePofi, Shawn Pelton, Brian Mitchell, Conrad Korsch

Chris Blackwell's Island Community

The WSJ has a Q&A with Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records.  Chris was in New York to promote a new book Keep on Running: The Story of Island Records, which is a written and visual history of the label.  Chris has always been thought of as a visionary, but I think his greatest asset is summed up in how he put his label together:

What I was hoping to create was a company where the artists were proud to be on the same label as the other artists that were on the label. So it felt almost like a team or a creative community.

54 World Turning Years

For a show that has been on the air for 54 years, there is not much fanfare to celebrate such an accomplishment.  The final episode of As The World Turns airs this Friday.  I've been watching this show for a very long time.  My mother watched it after I was born and it's been there ever since. The show has been canceled due to poor ratings. The story lines had become stale and redundant over the past few years and I'm guessing that's what led to the decline in ratings. Of course everything picked up last week with the return of John Dixon and the death of Reid Oliver.

There is  a long list of quality actors that have been both small and big parts of the show:  James Earl Jones, Martin Sheen, Julianne Moore, Steven Webber (Julianne and Steven played girlfriend/boyfriend on the show), Parker Posey,  Jason Biggs, Meg Ryan, Lauryn Hill, Claire Bloom, Farley Granger, Tamara Tunie, Matthew Morrison, John James, Kelly Bishop, Thomas Gibson, Shawn Christian, James McCaffrey,  Swoosie Kurtz, Annie Parisse, Rex Smith,  Zsa Zsa Gabor, Abe Vigoda,  Joyce Van Patten, Jane Powell, Ming-Na, Frank Converse, James Van Der Beek, Robert Vaughn, Imogene Coca, Richard Roundtree, Peter Noone, Andy Williams. Jermaine Jackson with Whitney Houston as one of his backup singers and Tony Bennett.  I'm sure I've left a few people out.

One episode that caught me off guard was the wedding of Betsey and Craig.  At the time Betsey was played by Meg Ryan and Craig by Scott Bryce.  Since I can't find any documentation on it, I hope my memory serves me right. The I Do's are said and then comes the wedding band which was The World's Most Dangerous Band,  Paul Shaffer's original Letterman band.  Will Lee sang the Lionel Richie song Truly. At the time, I found it amusing.  I was a cynical college student, but still watched ATWT.

Here is a website that chronicles the children of Oakdale. 
SoapCentral.com has an extensive database on who's who on the show.  Each character is profiled by who they married, crimes they committed, her/his history and other sordid details. 

I've had Bob, Lisa, Kim, Nancy and Tom around for my entire life.  I will miss the Oakdale crew. 

Stay With Me Jesus

Guster is back with a new album next month.


Stay With Me Jesus from Guster on Vimeo.

Paul, Merle & Oprah

According to Hits, Paul McCartney, Merle Haggard, Jerry Herman, Oprah Winfrey and Bill T Jones will be this year’s Kennedy Center Honors recipients.  The show, which is my favorite awards show, is scheduled for broadcast on December 28th.

The Walkman Is Not Dead Yet

According to a research company in Japan, the Sony Walkman outsold the iPod in the month of August.  This is the first time that has happened since Apple introduced the iPod in 2001.  I don't know anyone who owns a recent Sony Walkman.  They were of mass importance when I was in college, but Sony seemed to lose site of the market and Apple jumped in.

NBC Cluess When It Comes To Securing Music Rights

The Emmys opened with lots of energy.  Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, John Hamm, members of the TV show Glee, etc took a cue from Glee and performed Springsteen's Born To Run.  I can't officially show you the video because NBC is not allowed to use it online.  According to a post in Techdirt, NBC (they aired the awards show) only secured the rights to perform Born To Run in the show, therefore killing any viral spread of the opening through NBC.  Haven't we heard this story before?  In this day and age, how do you not secure online rights. I have no idea why that song was chosen, but it was fun and really got the audience hooked. The excitement waned after that number.  Jimmy Fallon continued to sing.  He was personally annoyed that it wasn't "officially" online.  He told Variety that it could have been worth half a million hits to NBC. He worked hard on it and it's a good commercial for NBC and just pay for the rights.  I tallied what I could find of unofficial postings on YouTube and as of noon I found 411,211 hits.  Guess Fallon was pretty close in his estimate. 

Here is the unofficial video posting: