Book Review - 'Breakfast in Nudie Suits' by Ian Dunlop

Last week on September 19th saw the anniversary of Gram Parson's death in 1973 in a motel room at Joshua Tree national park. The place has become enshrined as a kind of mythical destination for those seeking to connect with the gods of Rock n' Roll and those who may be, in the parlance of The Mighty Boosh, looking for the 'New Sound' such as U2. It is also an oft-visited destination in Ian Dunlop's recent book 'Breakfast in Nudie Suits' a very engaging beatnik-influenced mix of travelogue and musical reminiscences through whose pages the ghost of Gram wanders in an out of.

Dunlop (above, second from left in photo) was the bass player and friend of Parsons during the formative stages of his career and together they were amongst the first of their generation to re-connect with Country music from the deep south. While many others at the time were looking towards The Beatles and the Stones for musical leads these two were digging the sounds of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and harmonising to old Everly Brothers records and forming The International Submarine Band in '65, they would for the next two years play a set of down-home style originals, R n' B and Country cover tunes to mostly perplexed and sometimes downright hostile audiences.

Half of the book chronicles this time up to the point where Dunlop leaves the group as Parsons is about to record the first ISB album with Lee Hazlewood and there are some great accounts of their experiences over those two years including filming a scene for Roger Corman's LSD-explotiation flick 'The Trip', appearing on TV host/horror star Zacherle's music show with Shirley Ellis and playing a multitude of gigs where people harass them for playing Country music. The ISB never had much luck as a band - Corman found their music inappropriate for The Trip and overdubbed a song from The Electric Flag instead and the release of their album was shrouded in ill feeling as Parsons was deemed to have broken his contract with Hazlewood's record company by joining The Byrds. Without much label backing it sank without trace. However, a few years later and The Eagles would saddle up The ISB pony and ride it all the way to the bank.

(Here is The ISB's brief appearance in 'The Trip' - Warning: there be breasts)

http://youtu.be/3EN5okO2Ve4?t=2m20s

Dunlop, having had enough of playing before indifferent audiences with the ISB, left the group before the recording of the album and unsure what to do next with his life decided to drive across America in a beaten-up, old VW camper van in the company of Barry Tashian and Bill Briggs, two members of the seminal Boston garage-rock band The Remains. The book cuts between scenes describing this ramshackle trip in the American hinterlands and swirling scenes describing the true adventures of the ISB in the big city and by and large the contrast between the two works very well. There are some vignettes that will resonate with collectors of vinyl and guitar lovers in particular as Dunlop picks up stacks of unwanted 45's and 78's during his travels, even though his VW seems perilously close to collapsing from the weight, and there is an in-depth account of how he acquires his early model Telecaster which will have twang-busters salivating. Along the way he obtains shellac'd gems like this: Bill Haley & the Comets - Hook, Line & Sinker and describes with great love and detail the sounds that he finds particularly rewarding from the fifties and early sixties.

Parsons comes across as an easygoing and likeable soul who has an underlying sad aspect and attraction to the darker sides of life. The stoned conversations between Dunlop and Parsons that litter the text here are amusing but at some points this darkness comes through. At one stage he surprises Dunlop with his memories of his father's suicide at the age of 12, two days before Christmas and in describing his love of Country notes:

"There is so much passion in the negativity (of Country music). Some good sounds come out from behind them ol' dark curtains... It's mostly about murder, death, drinkin'. The sins of the South. Really unhappy, morbid lyrics. It's the opposite of 'Good Day Sunshine' yeah? I love all that dark music about prison walls, lonely people drowning in booze, tryin' to hide their pasts and their adultery"

This book is certainly not just about Parsons, although its packaging may have you thinking otherwise, but as a scrapbook of literary polaroids from a particularly loaded moment in American musical and political history it well worth tracking down and one of the best music-related books I have read from this year.

It can be bought here.

Incidentally and as an endnote, that man Zacherle was an interesting fellow - here is a great clip of his music show in the 60's featuring the Box Tops and a very young Alex Chilton

'Nothing to Envy' - Barbara Demick

This is a fascinating book of oral history about everyday life in North Korea over the last 30 years or so. Some of the hardships, sadnesses and brutalities described here are almost beyond belief and those whose stories populate these pages are truly courageous, strong and remarkable folk. The book is slightly let down by its poor editing with lots of repetitions slipping through the net but the histories described here are so compelling that one is inclined to forgive this very minor weakness. The final chapter, simply called 'Waiting', is a fine piece of poetic journalism and the world still waits to see what will happen next in this troubled part of Eastern Asia.

Some of the anecdotes are also quite funny in a very grim way and the lyrics from the NK patriotic song translations are notable for their directness.

'Where are we Going?':

Where have we gone?
We have gone to the forest.
Where are we going?
We are going over the hills.
What are we going to do?
We are going to kill the Japanese soldiers.

And here is another timeless classic 'Shoot the Yankee Bastards:


Our enemies are the American Bastards
Who are trying to take over my beautiful homeland
With guns that I make with my own hands
I will shoot them. BANG, BANG, BANG.

Highly recommended.

http://nothingtoenvy.com/about-barbara-demick/

Moonrise Kingdom

For those who don't know it, Hank Williams' hit song of 1952 'Kaw-Liga' tells the story of a wooden Indian statue that falls in love 'with an Indian maiden over by the antique store'. Tragically, since he has a stubborn heart made of knotty pine he is unable or unwilling to approach the maiden. Like Duchamp's Bride and her Bachelors she is destined to remain forever beyond his grasp until eventually she disappears one day, bought by a wealthy customer and the old wooden Indian curses his luck wishing he was still an old pine tree.

This song, along with many other Hank classics, features heavily in Wes Anderson's latest film 'Moonrise Kingdom', an amiable fantasy very much in line with Anderson's previous films in terms of style and direction. Whereas some directors such as the Coens or Daniel Aronofsky move from subject to subject finding material that engages them in different genres, Anderson has invented his own cinematic world and seems happy to endlessly refine it. A similar director perhaps would be Tim Burton in that he has a desire to forcibly project 'his' world onto celluloid, sometimes at the expense of narrative coherence but whereas Burton takes his inspiration from gothic literature and Expressionist cinema, Anderson has less obvious influences to my mind. Maybe a bit of Gatsby here and a soupçon of Jacques Demy there but by and large he has formed his own mode of expression and is thusly hailed by some as one of America's few bona-fide old-school auteurs along the lines of Fellini, Antonioni and Hitchcock. A few others think he is a mere hipster puppet master, all style no substance, all charm and no bite. I hugely enjoyed 'The Life Aquatic' and 'Rushmore' so I suppose I tend to be 'Pro-Wes' in general but I realise that charm, like invective depends on ceaseless inspiration and when the well runs dry there is little to fall back on. Thankfully here Anderson is full of the ol' charm-beans and has made to my mind perhaps his best film yet.

Going back a little, if you took only one frame from any of the afore-mentioned directors' films you could probably identify who made what immediately and Anderson's films share this visual distinctness which in my book is a definite achievement. The art department on 'Moonrise Kingdom' must have worked a huge amount of overtime - every piece of clothing, fabric, wallpaper and decoration is meticulously and beautifully put together and although the film is nominally set in the 60's the overall design doesn't set out to conjure up that era at all but instead presents us with 'WesWorld' where form is content and the medium is absolutely the message. Unlike some of his other films however which are picaresque in the extreme this one has a very definite 3-act story with beginning, middle and end and consequently I think is one of his most impressive efforts. The obsession with uniformity, the search for acceptance in spite of eccentricity, the damage done by quarreling parents to their children and the quest for an authoritarian but lovable father figure are four themes that are found frequently in Anderson's movies and all are present and correct here but whereas in previous films these kind of pop up in a somewhat haphazard way, here they have a stronger narrative force driving them along and the film's overall emotional impact was higher for me compared to some of his other work.

I also found it funnier. The story is like something Enid Blyton or Arthur Ransome of 'Swallows & Amazons' fame would have written had they lived in New York around the time of 'Annie Hall' - basically a tale of ripping Boy/Girl scout derring-do with a bit of existential angst thrown in for good measure. The heroes of the piece are a young boy and girl who decide to run away from the society which surrounds them on a small island off the coast of New England. Both are outsiders, both seek to escape their troubled environments and the story of this escape is done with great lightness of touch and filled with great little moments including humourous cameos from notably Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel. Many of the usual Anderson acting stable appear here such as Bill Murray and all are good but the film hangs on the two central performances by the young actors, both of whom are outstanding.

By presenting us this light-hearted story in a space and time which is a few steps removed from our everyday reality it's as if Anderson expresses his feelings of not quite feeling at home in this world and seeks to create some kind of version of his ideal world on the screen, which is perhaps what all film-makers do in some way. Nothing in the frame ever feels as if chance was present in the movie making process and the director's control is always absolute. This approach may eventually lead to stagnation at some point but for now Anderson has given us a little gem of a film that goes some way to answering his critics and makes one wonder where is he going to go from here. And unlike poor old Kaw-Liga I think in creating the world and characters of 'Moonrise Kingdom' he is far more successful in breaking free from the shackles of one reality and materialising the objects of his desire. In a word, charming.

Sam Phillips - The man who let loose the Hillbilly Cats

On this day nine years ago in 2003 Sam Phillips moved on up to the great recording studio in the sky. Arguably one of the most influential music figures of the last 100 years, Phillips' Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee unleashed Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins on the world and it has never been the same since.

It's nigh on impossible to single out one favourite track from the Sun catalog but I've always had a soft spot for this one.

For further reading check out Greil Marcus' masterful book 'Mystery Train' which has an outstanding section on Sun Records and the dawn of Elvis.