TUNE IN TO ‘ATOMIC COCKTAIL’ RADIO!
Pop-culture expert Gene Sculatti (editor of The Catalog of Cool and Too Cool; Scram and Lost in the Grooves contributor) unveils his latest creation, a one-hour weekly radio show, ‘Atomic Cocktail,’ Wednesday, Nov. 7, at 6 pm PST on the groovy online station Luxuria. The program, chock full of pop rock ’n’ roll, surf, soul, novelty and lounge, returns Sculatti’s Vic Tripp DJ character to the airwaves after a 20-year absence. With Art Fraud, Tripp hosted the popular The Cool & the Crazy show on KCRW from 1984 to 1987. ‘Atomic Cocktail’ promises a combustible mix of classically cool sounds (not “classic rock”) in an energetic, ’60s-style Top 40 format. Tune in!
History’s Groovy Ball & Chain
I guess there must be some collapsing-and-expanding theory of time & the universe that proves that everything’s connected or temporally adjacent or something. The point being: it’s all relative, these POV’s we all make and stake our opinions on. Some recent examples I’ve noticed…
On American Idol, which I, like most Americans, watched religiously this season, the judges -- all music-biz veterans with some real credentials-- repeatedly proved their lack of knowledge about popular music. When one finalist chose to perform Ray Charles’ “Believe to My Soul,” Paula Abdul complimented him on his brave choice (“That’s a hard one to do, because most people don’t know the song”). Simon Cowell frequently dissed anyone who performed country, sometimes even likening the singer to an animal with its foot caught in a trap. How square can you be? This standard anti-C&W shtick was old back in the ‘50s and ‘60s when mainstream celebs made fun of hayseed cats. Sometimes, if a finalist did an oldies ballad (like, say, on ‘50s theme week), Simon would sourly opine that, “It sounds like something grandmothers would love.” Interesting. Nothing against grandmothers, but if, in using it this way, Cowell meant boring and old-fashioned, the music that really fits the description is the kind Cowell, Abdul and Randy Jackson routinely celebrated: bombastic power ballads (every single one of which Mad, in its current Idol parody points out, must contain the word “dream”). As far as I can tell, this sort of crap, which many fellow citizens really eat up, began in 1972 or so, when Melissa Manchester or some other Clive Davis find found a way to introduce sentimental pre-rock torch balladry to “rock” audiences. This dreadful dreck has thus been going on for more than 30 years, but it’s not considered old-fashioned yet? Please explain.
Moreover, the judges never ever really got Taylor Hicks, the winner, a ’bama bar-band guy who wore his affinity for old soul and more basic r&r on his sleeve. Hicks is no Roy Head or Charlie Feathers, of course, but when he chose and delivered a fast, straight-ahead “Jailhouse Rock” and worked himself up in one performance to the point where he rolled around on the floor (Tony Conn lives!), they could only appreciate it as a) evidence of Hicks’ spirit and his charming goofiness and b) camp. When Hicks would rock out, Simon usually compared the performance to “something you’d hear in a karaoke bar any night in any town.” How so? Because Simon had no grasp or appreciation of basic, unadorned, unselfconscious rock & roll; unable to just dig something simple & direct for what it was (a groove, no lyrical content, an excuse to have fun), he had no context in which to evaluate the performance – other than a bunch of drunks goofing on late-period Presley in a karaoke joint, which, in this jaded, cynicism-dominated culture we now inhabit (tired of David Spade and Grey’s Anatomy yet, anyone?), is the only route allowed.
It is all relative, I guess. Now, a week ago I went to a gig here in L.A. Cyril Jordan’s new band, Magic Christian, was playing. They were great: a rockin’ four-piece hitting the vein of precisely the kind of r&r that would’ve sent Simon running for his Diane Warren publishing demos. The band did some covers along with its originals, and here’s what I noticed: The time-expanding-and-contracting theory was in full warp effect. Fifteen or 20 years ago, if a band covered the Stones’ “Gotta Get Away” or the Beatles’ “Any Time at All,” from the vantage point we stood on then, most of us would’ve said, “Nice, but why bother?” since comparisons with the originals would make the covers inferior.
But now, 40 years after the fact, these pieces -- like “Johnny B. Goode” and “Summertime Blues” – have passed into some other space, one where they’re no longer exclusive signatures of great artists but rather full-blown parts of the standard rock & roll canon. They’ve been liberated; they’re free to be taken and performed by anyone, and if it’s a good version, it’s a good version of a great song, plain and simple. And, Christ, MC’s “Any Time at All” was positively torrid, as was an inspired take on the Dennis Wilson rocker from 20/20, “All I Want to Do.”
Believe me, I’m well aware that folks who dig r&r have been a minority community for a long time; that’s just the way it is – some folks collect postcards, others golfing paraphernalia. Seeing that band (and the three younger outfits that preceded it, all good) reminded me that I’m a resident of that township. Near the end of the set, when Jordan’s group blew the lid off “Gonna Have a Good Time Tonight,” this young kid, in a Brian-Jones puddingbowl, came up to me, a resident graybeard, and asked “Who did the original of this?” “The Easybeats,” I said. That’s what time it was. – G.S.
SO WHAT IS COOL?
For a more detailed discussion of cool, read on. And watch this space for news of fresh features and New Digs additions.
WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE?
Short answer: the crew who brought you The Catalog of Cool and Too Cool books in 1982 and 1993, respectively. Those tomes purported to hip readers to hundreds of items of enduring coolbooks, movies, records, TV shows, artworkthat we felt possessed the power to shine beyond their time. We were "right" about a lot of our touts, as shown by the rekindling of interest in booze and blaxploitation, garage rock, organ trios and Eightball, Jim Thompson's novels and Dean Martin's nuances. (Seeing doting profiles of super-shpritzer Phil Silvers and sleazeball Confidential publisher Robert Harrison in Vanity Fair a decade after we'd pulled the public's coat to them is gratifying.)
But prognostication was never the point: Sharing the stoke and exporting the enthusiasm was and is. Like Vendice Partners sings, tapping atop that giant typewriter in Absolute Beginners, that's motivation.
This time, the venue's virtual, not forested. Watch catalog-of-cool.com for reprints of the best material from our earlier books, but also for what will eventually be a continuous flow of fresh postings "New Digs" we're calling themfrom the original editors and a selection of guest contributors whose tastes suite us to a "C." (Scram editrix Kim Cooper is Kitten with a Hip of catalog-of-cool.com.)
The site's organized much like the books: The buttons marked SOUNDS, SCREEN, INK and TUBE will take you just where you'd think they would, while GOOD LOOKS routes you to visual dazzles, and the TOP SECRET GOODIES link shuttles you to TALK TALK, featuring the lingua-fracas of the audio arts and TALL COOL ONES, a grab-bag of goods that wouldn't stash elsewhere.
Where possible, our listings and features conclude with product info (how could we salute Sinatra onscreen [see "A King Rat Six Pack"] without noting that Suddenly's his best and Lady In Cement's his worst)? Fair disclosure: We're enrolled in an Amazon Associates program, and with Powell's for out-of-print print: If you vine-swing to those retail jungles via one of our product links and buy something, we'll collect some cash.
Enough about us. Who do we think you are? Maybe recidivist first- and second-book fans hungry for cool fuel in a new century. Maybe newcomers bored by the largely dull pop-cult now playing across the universe in Squarevision. Wherever you're from, we invite you to stop by frequently, have some fun and tell us something good (via EMAIL or MESSAGE BOARD). Gentlepersons, start your cool-search engines here.
-Gene Sculatti,
Editorial Top-cat, 2004
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New from the folks behind Scram Magazine... The 1947project, a vintage true Los Angeles crime every day of the year. Black Dahlia T-shirts, too |
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Brando X Another (great) one bites the dust, and we're here to salute his accomplishments. Dick Blackburn burnishes M.B.'s crown in Bongo Beatin' Beatnik Hangs Up The Skins, wherein some special Marlon movie moves are discussed. |
DIG THESE FEATURES
AND SECTIONS:
TUBE, GOOD LOOKS, SOUNDS, SCREEN, INK, TALL COOL ONES, TALK TALK
proof's on disc (five to be exact). SCTV Network/90-- Volume 1 compiles nine 90-minute episodes from the series' 1981 run. Lounge about with The Sammy Maudlin Show with Joe Flaherty's Sammy and John Candy's shlump sidekick William B, cringe at pilled-up chanteuse Lola Heatherton (Catherine O'Hara), tee off with Dave Thomas' uncanny (and wonderfully unsympathetic) Bob Hope. This stuff is so strong: Even if you never saw SCTV before, pony up and see why nothing before or since can hold a candle to these killer Canucks. -G.S.
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