1660 – Composer Andre Campra was born.
1667 – Composer Michel Pignolet de Monteclair was born.
1879 – Composer Sir Herbert Hamilton Harty was born.
1961 – Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl” was released.
1976 – Tommy Bolin of Deep Purple died of a drug overdose at the age of 25.
1980 – Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones made the announcement of their decision not to re-form Led Zeppelin in the wake of the death of drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham.
1987 – Metallica released the “Cliff ‘Em All” video collection.
1988 – Roy Orbison gave his final concert in Akron, OH. He died two days later.
1995 – Michael Jackson appeared with legendary mime Marcel Marceau at New York news conference promoting a Jackson special airing on HBO.
2001 – Gene Simmons’ book “Kiss and Make-Up” was released.

Here are three videos of Johnathan Rice:

1. As Roy Orbison in the movie Walk The Line:

2. “Behind the Frontlines” live in London:

3. “Middle of the Road” live and acoustic:

Anyone who listens to the show on a regular basis knows that I adore Roy Orbison and this is why: First there’s the voice. It transcends generations by singing of universal longings that touch the heart. His voice sends quivers through my spine: part country, part rock and part pop, it’s a voice that reaches something approaching perfection.

Then there are the songs: a world defined by dreams yet rooted in reality, songs that teach us something about our own vulnerability. Songs of loss and desire and loneliness and, yes, songs about love.

Roy Orbison was born on April 23, 1936 in Vernon Texas,  the middle son of Orbie Lee Orbison, an oil well driller and car mechanic, and Nadine Shultz, a nurse. He was creating music as young as 6 or 7. We played interviews throughout the program, many from Roy himself and he covered his childhood, learning guitar from his father and uncle, his time at Sun Records, why he started wearing sunglasses on stage and whether he was really lonely, amongst other things. Rather than repeat all that here, let me remind you that you can listen to the Theme Park wherever you are by using your internet connection. Go to http://www.bayfm.org and press the listen button.   You should hear the show in real time via your iTunes or other media player. Theme Park airs on Tuesdays 2-4pm (that’s Sydney, Australia time).

So back to the music.  First up it was OOBIE DOOBIE, recorded with the Teen Kings in 1956. We followed with CLAUDETTE, a song about Orbson’s first wife, Claudette Frady. The track was recorded in 1958. Claudette died tragically in a motocycle accident in 1966. We followed with ONLY THE LONELY written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson and recorded by Orbison in 1960; it was his first major hit. Here he is performing in Australia in the 60’s:

Then it was a great triple play: BLUE ANGEL, I’M HURTIN’ and RUNNING SCARED. We also included the song LOVE HURTS,  originally recorded by the Everly Brothers in 1960. Roy Orbison’s version was issued as the B-side to RUNNING SCARED which was a #1 hit, in 1961. Here’s a rare clip of Roy and his band, The Candymen, taken from a Dutch Tv Show from 1965. The concert was from the Singer Concert Zaal in Laren, Holland, during their European tour.

We had to include the next three songs from the early sixties: CANDY MAN, DREAM BABY, (about the birth of his second son with Claudette)  and WORKING FOR THE MAN - a song about a Summer he worked in the Texan oil fields alongside his father.

By 1963 Orbison was touring extensively throughout the UK, Europe and Australia with The Beatles, The Stones and the Beach Boys. We played a  couple of love ballads from that  era: FALLING and IT’S OVER.

Roy also filled us in on his time, while on tour,  with the Rolling Stones and how PRETTY WOMAN influenced them to write Satisfaction. PRETTY WOMAN, of course, went on to be a big hit and was destined to become Orbison’s signature song. Here’s a great piece of kitch from the 70’s: An American TV variety show called Pink Lady and Jeff. Pink Lady was a popular singing duo from Japan brought to America for the show.  Comedian Jeff Altman was the cohost. Worth watching just to see Roy struggling to keep a straight face and also for the 70’s fashion.

I rarely dedicate a whole show to one performer. The only other time was a tribute to Michael Jackson. But, in my opinion, Orbison is one of the great rock and rollers: a forceful, yet gentle, voice capable of dynamic crescendos. He sang both heartbroken ballads and bluesy rock numbers, running up a formidable hit streak in the early Sixties. From the release of ONLY THE LONELY in 1960 to PRETTY WOMAN,  a span of four years, Orbison cracked the Top Ten nine times.

Orbison’s most memorable performances were lovelorn melodramas, in which he emoted in a brooding tremulous voice. The melancholy in his songs resonated with listeners of all ages.  IT’S OVER is one great example of that style. Another is CRYING. It was great to hear how he came to write that song and we listened to the version he re-recorded with kd lang in 1987.  It went on to win them a Grammy Award.

After his first wife Claudette’s death in 1966, Orbison threw himself into work, which included starring in the film THE FASTEST GUITAR ALIVE, and he continued to tour. In the late 1960s, however, music was very much a part of the psychedelic movement. Orbison felt lost, later saying “[I] didn’t hear a lot I could relate to so I kind of stood there like a tree where the winds blow and the seasons change, and you’re still there and you bloom again.”

During a tour of England in 1968 he received news that his home in Tennessee had burned down and his two eldest sons had died. The property was sold to Johnny Cash, who planted an orchard on it. On March 25, 1969, Orbison married his second wife, Barbara Jacobs, and they had two children of their own.

During the 70’s several artists released covers of Orbison’s songs that performed very well. LOVE HURTS was remade by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, and again by heavy metal band Nazareth and Sonny James sent ONLY THE LONELY to # 1 on the country music charts.

Linda Ronstadt covered BLUE BAYOU in 1977, which went to No. 3 and stayed on the charts for 24 weeks. And later that year, Orbison and Emmylou Harris won a Grammy Award for their duet THAT LOVIN’ YOU FEELIN’ AGAIN. WAYMORES BLUES is from the Class of 55 album with Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. While the album was in part a tribute to Elvis Presley, it was mainly a commemoration of those young performing hopefuls who came to Sun Records  in 1955 to make music in the new era o Rock and Roll.

During the 80’s Orbison participated in a number of movie soundtracks. We played two of the most prominent: LIFE FADES AWAY from the film Less Than Zero, starring Robert Downie Jnr and IN DREAMS, from the controversial film by David Lynch, BLUE VELVET.

Orbison’s return to the public eye really began in earnest in 1987 with his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the taping of a tribute concert, Black and White Night. The concert featured such disciples as Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, kd lang and Bonnie Raitt and was produced by T. Bone Burnett. Here’s a clip from the DVD. The song is UPTOWN.

It was a great pleasure to include a 7 minute interview with members of the supergroup of all supergroups: THE TRAVELLING WILBURYS: Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and George Harrison. The year was 1988. We also included the song, HANDLE WITH CARE, from the album The Travelling Wilburys Vol 1.

In the same year Orbison was recording a major comeback album, Mystery Girl. It was awaiting release when Orbison suddenly died of a heart attack on December 6, 1988.  The album was finalized for release in the weeks following his death through the collaborative efforts of several artists who were all friends and admirers. The album, MYSTERY GIRL, was named after the chorus from the track SHE’S A MYSTERY TO ME, written for Orbison by U2’s Bono and The Edge.

The album was released posthumously in 1989 and would join Travelling Wilburys Vol 1 on the Billboard chart. The dual success meant that Roy Orbison joined Elvis Presley as the only two singers to simultaneously have two Top 5 albums on the Billboard chart posthumously, at that time. (This record has now been smashed by Michael Jackson who dominated the Billboard Top 10 albums when he passed away this year).

But back to Roy: Mystery Girl was extremely well received and went on to become the highest-charting album of his career. We took a listen to SHE’S A MYSTERY TO ME and YOU’VE GOT IT from that album. Rather than show a performance clip, take a look at Bono and others talking about the writing and recording process of the album. Roy sings SHE’S A MYSTERY TO ME as background to the story.

There was time for more of Roy commenting on how he would like to be remembered: “I’d just like to be remembered. If my contribution to the music scene brought someone some happiness or helped them keep things together, then that would be great.” A medley of some of Roy’s best loved tunes then closed the show: I DROVE ALL NIGHT, OH PRETTY WOMAN, LANA and HEARTBREAK RADIO.

When Elvis Presley stated that Roy Orbison is “The world’s greatest singer”, we know that he wasn’t kidding, that’s for sure.

Next week: We’re going back to THE SUMMER OF LOVE. Yes, its all love beads, incense, tambourines and the great music of the Summer of 67. Peace man.Contact me if you have any suggestions. Meanwhile, here is this week’s playlist:

Childhood – Roy Orbison Interview

Ooby Dooby - Roy Orbison Interview

Ooby Dooby  -  Roy Orbison

Claudette - Roy Orbison

Only The Lonely - Roy Orbison

Loneliness - Roy Orbison Interview

Blue Angel - Roy Orbison

I’m Hurtin’ - Roy Orbison

Running Scared - Roy Orbison

Love Hurts - Roy Orbison

Candy Man - Roy Orbison

Dream Baby – Roy Orbison

Working For The Man - Roy Orbison

Leah - Roy Orbison

Sunglasses - Roy Orbison

Mean Woman Blues - Roy Orbison

Falling - Roy Orbison

It’s Over - Roy Orbison

Oh, Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison

Crying - Roy Orbison interview

Crying - Roy Orbison & kd lang

Blue Bayou - Linda Ronstadt

That Lovin’ You Feelin’ Again - Roy Orbison with Emmylou

Waymore’s Blues – Roy Orbison with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins (Class of 55)

Life Fades Away - Roy Orbison

In Dreams - Roy Orbison

Uptown - Roy Orbison

Travelling Wilburys  interview

Handle With Care -Traveling Wilburys

She’s A Mystery To Me - Roy Orbison

You Got It - Roy Orbison

Being Remembered - Roy Orbison interview

Medley: I Drove All Night/Oh, Pretty Woman/Lana/Heartbreak Radio – Roy Orbison

Next week: SUMMER OF LOVE (1967)

Hoy decidi escribir sobre Roy Orbison, tal vez porque mañana se cumple un nuevo aniversario del fallecimiento de Harrison, compañeros en la banda The Travelling Wilburys.

Roy Orbison fue dueño de una voz inconfundible y uno de los pioneros del Rock ‘n Roll,  su carrera se extendio por mas de 4 decadas. Participo de los Travelling Wilburys, bajo el apodo de Lefty Wilbury, junto a George Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan y Jeff Lynne.  Sus primeras canciones fueron producidas por Sam Phillips quien tambien producia  a Elvis, Cash y Jerry Lee Louis entre otros pioneros del rock ‘n roll. Salio de gira junto a los Beatles, ademas de con The Rolling Stones y The Beach Boys.

Tal vez si te lo nombran o ves su foto no lo identifiques, pero de seguro escuchaste alguna vez un tema de el, y el mas conocido es Oh Pretty Woman, que fue la cancion principal del film del mismo nombre, en la que actuaban Julia Roberts y Richard Gere.

Con sus caracteristicas gafas de sol negro, y de traje siempre impecable, Roy forma parte de la Royalty del Rockabilly.

John Lennon hizo unas declaraciones,

en las que decía que la ilusión de su vida

era emular a Roy Orbison.

Here are 5 great duets (more duets on the way…):

1. “God Only Knows” — Beach Boys Cover by Mandy Moore & Michael Stipe

2. “Love Hurts” — Everly Brothers/Roy Orbison/Nazareth Cover by Jenny Lewis & Johnathan Rice

3. “Anyone Else But You” — Moldy Peaches Cover by Ellen Page & Michael Cera in Juno

4. “Sometimes Always” — The Jesus and Mary Chain

5. “Delaware” (Acoustic) — Wesley Jensen and Christie Dupree

You may be surprised at the scope of this week’s topic because when it comes to Elvis Presley, well nearly everyone’s got an opinion. The iconic nature of Elvis Presley in music and popular culture, has often made him a subject of, or a benchmark, in numerous songs. We launched the show with CALLING ELVIS by Dire Straits. Written by Mark Knopler and released in 1991, the song is about an Elvis fan that can’t believe that Elvis Presley is dead. Based on some of the bizarre ’sightings’ over the years, I fear he is not alone.

A song from one of my favourite films followed: Public Enemy’s groundbreaking FIGHT THE POWER from the soundtrack of DO THE RIGHT THING, directed by Spike Lee in 1989. Like the film, the song broke at a crucial period in America’s struggle with race. Unabashedly political, FIGHT THE POWER was confrontational in the way that great rock has always been. It attacks a whole roster of American icons including Elvis and John Wayne in what amounts to a virtual flag burning. Because who better embodies the American ideal than the King? The song goes so far as to call Elvis racist. I don’t agree with that. But what I do know from the National Archives is that in 1970 Elvis wrote a six-page letter to Richard Nixon asking him to make him a ‘Federal Agent-At-Large’ in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. And amongst the gifts that Elvis presented to the then President was a Colt-45 pistol. So what do we make of all this? Maybe only that, like a lot of his countrymen, Elvis was a misguided patriot who defended the nation’s order – an order from which blacks, in particular, had been routinely barred. The irony, of course, is that Elvis was the first artist to successfully blend black and white music: country music and the blues. And didn’t he do it well?

It was time for a change of tone: The very whimsical and wonderful Kirsty McColl with THERE’S A GUY WORKS DOWN THE CHIP SHOP SWEARS HE’S ELVIS. The song made an appearance on the FAMOUS PEOPLE show, but definitely deserved another spin. We followed with Richard Thompson’s FROM GALWAY TO GRACELAND.

Robbie Williams’ ADVERTISING SPACE is a song not only about Elvis but, also, about the price of fame.  Emmylou Harris followed with BOY FROM TUPELO. In case you weren’t aware Elvis was born in Tupelo Mississipi on January 8, 1935. And then it was the great Roy Orbison with HOUND DOG MAN.

Living Colour funked it up with their critique of the tabloids. The song  ELVIS IS DEAD ups the ante with an appearance by Little Richard. Check it out.

We dived into the second hour of the program with Ann Margret singing the title song of the film BYE BYE BIRDIE. Based on the stage musical of the same name, the story was inspired by Elvis Presley being drafted into the US Army in 1957. Jesse Pearson played the role of teen idol Conrad Birdie, whose character’s name is a wordplay on another singer of the era, Conway Twitty.  The film is credited with making Ann-Margret a superstar during the mid-1960s, leading to her appearing with Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas in 1964.

A couple of great songs were suggested to me by BayFM’s very own Cowboy Sweetheart, Carrie D. First up, Bap Kennedy with GLADYS & VERNON about Elvis’s parents and the night that Elvis was born. And then it was the great Waylon Jennings with the very entertaining NOBODY KNOWS.

I absolutely adore BLACK VELVET by Allanah Myles and have played that before. But, hey, when a song’s as good as this one it deserves a replay!

U2’s song ELVIS ATE AMERICA illustrates the many personas of Elvis, both good and bad. And then it was the romantically delusional Scouting For Girls with ELVIS ISN’T DEAD: ”Elvis isn’t dead ’cause I heard him on the radio….. and you’re coming back to me.”  Yeah, sure guys.

Time to get serious: First up, Kate Bush with her hit song about Elvis – KING OF THE MOUNTAIN. And then, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds transported us into a disturbing world with their song about the night that Elvis was born. Elvis was a twin but his brother was still-born. The song is TUPELO from the album THE FIRSTBORN IS DEAD. Here’s the totally mesmerising clip:

John Fogarty likens Elvis to the BIG TRAIN (FROM MEMPHIS). Neil Young reminded us that it’s “better to burn out than to fade away “, with his song MY, MY, HEY HEY.

Another of my faves followed: Cowboy Junkies with BLUE MOON REVISITED, otherwise known as SONG FOR ELVIS. And then it was Paul Simon’s song about travelling to Elvis Presley’s home, GRACELAND, with the Everly Brothers helping out on vocals. Don’t have a clip with the Everlys in it, but you can’t do much better than this concert performance of the song in Zimbabwe. Enjoy.

There was time for a little more mjusic dedicated to Elvis before signing off and what better than ELVIS HAS JUST LEFT THE BUILDING by the one and only Frank Zappa. And, of course, I had to play some of the King himself so we went out with BURNIN’ LOVE. Here’s what all the fuss is about:

Next week’s show will be dedicated to the patron saint of Theme Park, Roy Orbison, who died 21 years ago this December 6. So songs by Roy Orbison, The Travelling Wilburys, duets with Roy and covers of Roy Orbison songs. Anything connected to Roy Orbison qualifies. Personally I can’t wait!

Here’s this week’s playlist:

For this Thanksgiving edition of Tuesdays with George, I have chosen The Traveling Wilburys Handle With Care as a loving tribute to George and Roy who are only with us in song now.

Similar to Elvis’s social justice songs, both Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson (the original song writer) sing “Pretty Ribbons,” a song describing a down and out man who eveyone passes by in their Christmas revelry. Very fitting for this holiday season, I think.

“
Pretty paper pretty ribbons of blue
Wrap your presents to your darling from you
Pretty pencils to write I love you pretty paper pretty ribbons of blue

Crowded streets busy feet hustle by you downtown shoppers Christmas is nigh
There he sits all alone on the sidewalk hoping that you won’t pass him by
Should you stop better not much too busy better hurry my how time does fly
And in the distance the ringing of laughter and in the midst of the laughter he cries
Pretty paper pretty ribbons of blue…
Oh oh pretty paper pretty ribbons of blue”
Lyrics from: http://www.bestlyric.com/lyrics/Willie%20Nelson/Pretty%20Paper/4B131B5F5526777409684210

Top 10 hottest men in rock. Ok, here we go…

10. John Popper of Blues Traveler
John is like a rotisserie chicken, extra skin means extra flavor.

9.  Tom Petty
Part mustahceless Larry Bird part Lurch.

8.  Dimebag Darrell
One might assume that the burly beard on Darrell made him appear to be ugly and that deep down he was handsome.  Then you got one shot of his black toothed grin and you knew…

7.  Every member of Phoenix
This is not an attractive collection of men.

6.   Joey Ramone
You know the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when all the Nazi’s faces melt.  If that happened to Howard Stern you would have Joey.

5.  Lady Gaga
A wide nose that’s equaled by its length and teeth that Brits laugh at.  Yummy.

4. Kevin Dubrow of Quiet Riot
This poor bastard was balding in his 20’s.

3. Willie Nelson
A true genius.  He loves weed and farmland.  This means he most likely hates soap.

2. Roy Orbison
You could have told me Roy was 20 or 70 at any point in his life and I would believe either.

1. Lemmy!!!!  Nuf said.

Grab hold of your popcorn and strap yourselves into your seats because this week’s X Factor was like a real life horror film.

Stacey Solomon was up first, singing ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ from the soundtrack to Pulp Fiction, and I thought that she really came into her own this week.  Simon compared Stacey’s performance to ‘eating Chinese food’ and still being hungry afterwards, to this she replied: “I felt good.”  Chinese food?  What’s that all about?!  You tell him Stacey!

Olly Murs was next, singing ‘Twist and Shout’ from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  I also thought that Olly did well this week, although a small part of me would like to see him do something different from a jazzy number at some point.  Louis enjoyed the majority of Olly’s performance but added: “I wasn’t crazy about the silly dancing”.  Me neither, but apparently it’s in the film.

After being in the bottom two last week, Lloyd Daniels came back singing ‘Stand By Me’ from the film of the same name.  Despite the fact that he sang Sean Kingston’s version, I thought Lloyd did pretty well.  Dannii noticed that he had a tuning problem during his performance, but on the whole thought it was ‘nice’.

Jamie Archer was next and I was worried for him once more this week because Simon had changed his song again.  He was originally going to sing ‘Unchained Melody’ by U2, but thankfully his song was changed to ‘Crying’ by Roy Orbison, which was in a film called Gummo.  It was nice to see Jamie sing a ballad and put a rock slant on it, rather than sing a pure rock song.  Cheryl said: “Simon did you well changing the song because I think ‘Unchained Melody’ would have been absolutely disastrous for you”.  I agree!

Next was Lucie Jones, singing a song from Camp Rock called ‘This is Me’.  I’ve never seen this film, but thought the song sounded very autobiographical for Lucie.  Louis and Simon thought that this performance made her a strong competitor in the competition.

Then it was the turn of Danyl Johnson, who sang ‘Purple Rain’ from the film of the same name.  Danyl was back on form  this week and had a new haircut to match.  Dannii enjoyed the performance, but admitted she doesn’t like it when Danyl screams.  No – screaming is never good!

John and Edward were next up with the theme to the film ‘Ghostbusters’.  It sure was a visual spectacle and something you  would expect to see on a kids’ TV show.  Simon described their performance as ’sort of good’.  Yeah – I’d go with that.

Joe McElderry closed the show with the song ‘Circle of Life’ from The Lion King.  I thought Joe’s performance was a tad on the theatrical side, but good at the same time.  Dannii thought along the same lines and described his performance as ‘Les Mis mixed with Lion King’.

Blimey – don’t think I’ve ever seen so many films in such a short space of time!

The Results

On Sunday, after great performances from The Black Eyed Peas…

…and Leona Lewis…

…it was time for the most shocking bottom two result yet.  Lucie ended up in the danger zone along with John and Edward.  Simon had the deciding vote amongst the judges and he sent the vote to deadlock.  It seemed that he had changed his tune about the twins and shockingly, Lucie received less votes than them from the public.

What did you think about this week’s result?  It’s going to take me a few days to come to terms with it all!

Ciao for now!

While actress Milla Jovovich may be trying to draw in your attention with talk of extraterrestrial owls and an imminent fear of the fourth kind, there’s a phenomenon that has been slowly gaining momentum in the music world….

Bands and musicians have been switching members and pairing up like Xenon Octa-Flouride (XeF8) would, if it ever is going to be invented (thanks Wikipedia!). In layman’s terms, we’ve been getting a lot of new supergroups, side projects, and collaborations – some that could have been foreseen, and others that seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

The Almanac Singers seen here with Bess Hawes, Arthur Stern and Sis Cunningham

Now, the idea of a supergroup is not a recent innovation by any stretch of the imagination – the supergroup goes all the way back to the Almanac Singers - a combination of Millard Lampell, Lee Hayes, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie that got its start in 1940. From the 60’s until today, we have been given plenty more supergroups, such as in 1969 which brought us both The Plastic Ono Band (which included the likes of Eric Clapton, both George Harrison and Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Alan White – just to name a few) as well as Blind Faith (which also featured Mr. Clapton, but had Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood and Ric Grech to boot). 1988 brought us the Traveling Wilburys, which was the tour de force of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. And although they Wilburys only stuck together for about a year after Orbison’s death, that cosmic aligning is something that has not met it’s match… yet.

The Monsters of Folk

Among the recent crop of supergroups is a group I mentioned last week – The Monsters of Folk, which consists of folk songsters Connor Oberst and  Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes, M. Ward of She & Him, and Jim James from My Morning Jacket. They’ve been associated under the Monsters name since 2004, but have all been so busy with their respective main attractions that they weren’t able to release their self-titled first album until this year. You’ve definitely heard their track “Say Please” on the Peak – and both M. Ward and Connor Oberst gave free concerts in NYC this summer!

Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar

Moving down the line from most folky to least, next up is the recent pairing of Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard with Jay Farrar, member of Uncle Tupelo and frontman for Son Volt, the two bands that he played with throughout the 90’s before he launched his solo career in 2001. Gibbard and Farrar first got together in 2007 to record the soundtrack for One Fast Move and I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur. Both the movie and the album came out on October 20th, the day before the 40th anniversary of the prolific author’s death. You can see the music video for “San Fransisco”, the last track on the album, here. And you can expect to see more from them in the future.

Taking a detour into the realm of electronica, at the end of September, Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, slipped this little surprise into his blog:

Thom Yorke and Flea

Of course, those shows were sold out in 20 minutes. Flea, as you know, is the Red Hot Chili Peppers Bassist – and he seemed to be ecstatic to be on stage with Yorke, playing cuts from Yorke’s solo album The Eraser (2006). There hasn’t been a follow-up to the October concerts, but that’s something you should keep an eye out for as well.

Jack White and Alison Mosshart sharing the mike at Glastonbury this year

Next up come two really driving groups. First is The Dead Weather, whose song “Hang You Up From the Heavens” I featured in my first week of blog-writing. The Dead Weather was formed by Jack White who’s been extremely active – leaping from the White Stripes, to the Raconteurs, to the recent release of “It Might Get Loud” – a documentary featuring White, The Edge, and Jimmy Page. The band also features Alison Mosshart of the Kills on lead vocals, Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age and Jack Lawrence, who played with White in the Raconteurs. And to sweeten the deal, they just announced a show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on November 17th! Tickets for that are going on Sale this friday, so get ‘em quick.

The "Them Crooked Vultures" teaser photo from earlier this fall

And finally, we come to Them Crooked Vultures, or TCV as they call themselves. TCV is big news. On drums is Dave Grohl, from Nirvana and the Foo Fighters. On vocals and guitar is Josh Homme, from the Queens of the Stone Age. The kicker is that John Paul Jones comes soaring in on bass. They’ve got a really great sound, full and rocking, but what remains to be seen is whether TCV will be able to stay afloat once their star power has worn off. Their self-titled first record is due out on Sony in a week, which should be an insta-grab for all hard rock fans. But for now, check out the full album on the band’s website!

So, I apologize about all the name dropping – it’s not something I routinely do. If you think a supergroup has been left out, please let me know. Or if you feel the need to justify the Tinted Windows‘ existence, by all means, please try. But if you do, I’ll kindly remind you that their lead singer is from Hanson, and we’ll go our separate ways. Wikipedia to the rescue once again!

——————————–

Peak Keyword: MMBOP

“Shut the Door”

November 8th, 2009

“I’m not going…I’m just living elsewhere.”

Every episode of television is a collection of scenes, individual set pieces designed to present a particular moment or to evoke a particular emotion or feeling. The scenes serve one of many potential purposes, whether it’s establishing a standalone plot within a particular episode, calling back to a previous scene or event in another episode, or even simply being placed for the sake of foreshadowing. A scene can change meaning as a season progresses, an awkward encounter with an overly touchy politico turning into a legitimate affair by the addition of new scenes that speak to the old one, for example. And, at the same time, other scenes are simply brief thematic beats designed to give the viewer the sense of a particular time or place, with nothing more beneath them than the aesthetic value apparent in the craftsmanship involved.

A great episode of television, however, is where every single scene feels purposeful, and more importantly where there is no one type of scene which feels dominant. There can still be scenes designed to engage with nothing more than the viewer’s sense of humour, just as there will be scenes that feel like the culmination of two and a half seasons worth of interactions. In these episodes there is a balance between scenes which unearth feelings and emotions from the past that have been kept under wraps all season and scenes which create almost out of thin air entirely new scenarios that promise of an uncertain future.

In a season finale in particular, this last point is imperative. A great season finale assures the reader that, as the quote above indicates, the change which is going to take place in the season to follow is both fundamental (in presenting something which surprises or engages) and incidental (in maintaining the series’ identity), both chaotic (in the context of the series’ fictional universe) and controlled (within the mind of the show’s writers). It is an episode that must feel like the fruit of the thirty-five episodes which preceded it while also serving as the tree for the twenty-six episodes which will follow. It is the episode that, for better or for worse, will be more closely scrutinized than any other, and for which expectations are exceedingly high.

“Shut the Door. Have a Seat.” is more than a collection of scenes. It transcends the concepts of script and screen to capture characters in their most vulnerable states, in the process tapping into the viewer’s emotions with a sense of purpose that the show has never quite seen. Where past amazing episodes have sometimes hinged upon a single scene or a single moment, or on the creation of a particular atmosphere, this finale is like a never-ending stream of scenes that we have been clambering for all season: characters say everything we wanted them to say, do everything we wanted them to do, and yet somehow it never felt like puppet theatre where the characters would follow the whims of Matthew Weiner more than their own motivations.

It is a finale that never wastes a single scene, and which marches towards an uncertain conclusion with utmost certainty. Somehow, in a finale which does not shy away from scenes which are both disturbing to watch and destructive to the show’s tempestuous sense of balance, it maintains a cautious optimism by demonstrating that not everything will fall apart at once, while retaining the right to have everything in shambles by the time we return with Season Four. It’s a singular achievement, an hour of television which sits perfectly in the gap between the past and the future while never feeling as if it takes us out of the present, the moment in which these characters are captured in these scenes.

So, shut the door and have a seat: we’ve got some discussing to do.

There’s so much going on in this episode that to boil it down to a single image seems false, but I’m going to follow the episode’s lead on this one. In this, the show’s third season finale, two families are fundamentally changed: the Draper family becomes the sort which has two Christmases, and Sterling Cooper becomes the sort who wakes up and discovers that their parents and some of their siblings have left them behind to fend for themselves. At the heart of both families, as the finale crystallized but has been clear of all season, is the fact that neither of them was secure to begin with. For all that we are meant to care for the Draper family and hope they stay together (as we, like the State of New York, don’t want divorce), and for all the ways we enjoy the dynamics of Sterling Cooper, from the beginning of the season they have been shells of their former selves simply waiting for their expiration date.

I think, to some degree, this explains why the season as a whole felt off in certain ways. Last week, especially, felt less dramatic than it should have: JFK’s death destroyed the fabric of a nation, and yet somehow its impact on the Draper family didn’t feel organic, didn’t feel real. The reason isn’t that the episode was a failure, but rather that it had been broken long before that moment, and Betty’s decision is more a delayed reaction than a sudden realization. The season has used a baby and the truth about Dick Whitman to patch up a relationship that was perhaps shattered the moment Betty slept with Captain Awesome, or perhaps even back when Don first began keeping a mistress. In fact, it is entirely possible that the marriage only exists in a hotel room in Rome where the original infatuation still lingers, and where Don’s idea of the marriage is something more than providing all that Betty ever wanted while retaining the right to satisfy his own needs outside of the marriage.

When Don and Roger are leaving Sterling Cooper for the final time, and Roger asks when they’ll ever work in an office like this again, Don points out that he never expected he would ever work in an office like this one. It’s one of the moments where the parallel between his two families becomes apparent, as the Dick Whitman we saw witness his father’s death by frightened horse is not the Don Draper who stands beside Roger saying goodbye to Sterling Cooper. He bought into the lifestyle of being an Ad Man, and the lifestyle of being a Husband/Father, because he was doing what society expected, and what allowed him to continue living a lie. And yet, as the episode quite clearly points out, his limitation has always been his ability to deal with people: Roger argues that Don doesn’t value relationships, and that this is why he isn’t an Accounts man by any stretch of the imagination.

This, ultimately, was the point of the Conrad Hilton experiment. The season’s largest flaw, in my book, is the out-and-out replacement of Connie Hilton with Miss Farrell, Don’s latest mistress. There is something fascinating in the Hilton relationship, especially the idea of Don being placed into the same category as a self-made billionaire and being pulled under his wing. When that story effectively died and became an excuse for Don to be spending time away from home, it seemed as if an important part of Don’s journey this season died with it. Don has always been stuck in the past, but what Hilton offered was a future. Even after they part ways on less than amicable terms, Hilton having dropped the news about the sale of PPL and Don having questioned Hilton’s manipulative treatment, Connie notes that some other time they might try again. This implies that at some point in time things might be different, and that Don might perhaps some day be ready for something beyond his current station. It’s an impulse that has Don trying to control his future as opposed to suppressing his past, the exact opposite of his affairs (which are about evading the present).

You could argue that Don throws himself into his plan to leave Sterling Cooper behind because he has no other family to go home to, sleeping in Gene’s room with a broken alarm clock and being told that he needs a divorce attorney. And there’s evidence of this in how he starts the project off with the sense that he has something to prove, and with an assurance that he isn’t just doing this because he doesn’t want to go to McCann Erickson. It’s important to make the distinction, however, that Don is not evading Betty and the kids, and the episode doesn’t seek to so either. Even as the project ramps up and things go from harebrained scheme to actual reality, the episode does not present it as an escape for Don. In fact, far from an escape, in many ways his departure from Sterling Cooper only heightens his emotional response to Betty’s decision. Don initially responds to Betty as if she were crazy, even suggesting that she repeat the first season’s trip to the doctor’s office, but his passive approach disappears to the point where he allows his emotions to burst to the surface.

And when they do, the episode becomes all about the juxtaposition of the electrifying feeling of building something new and the horrifying glimpse into something falling apart. When Don discovers that Betty is not simply responding to his own infidelities, but has in fact committed her own of sorts with Henry Francis, he becomes unhinged. Yes, he was drinking, but the scene was nonetheless the most lucid perhaps we’ve seen Don within this marriage in quite some time. He’s spent so much time keeping his own secrets that he never quite bothered to ask whether Betty had any of her own, and seeing him wrench her from the bed (as if pull away the covers to discover the truth) so violently was painful. And then we have the tragedy of the next morning, as Don and Betty sit and tell their children that there will be two Christmases. Bobby was right: the living room is never good news, and unfortunately Sally is more acutely aware of what this particular news means. She knows that Don isn’t just leaving but rather being told to leave, and while Bobby mourns the loss of a father Sally mourns the loss of a family (which isn’t new for Sally, who had to deal with both Gene’s death and baby Gene’s disruption of the existing family unit). And we, as the audience, are left giddy with excitement over the potential of Sterling Cooper Draper Price while nearly in tears over the dissolution of our central family.

There are an absolutely ludicrous number of amazing scenes with Don in this episode, to the point where I will be absolutely shocked if this episode doesn’t win Jon Hamm an Emmy. However, what makes the episode so stunning is how we can see the changes in Don within those individual scenes. When he first calls Peggy into his office, his worth has been placed under the microscope and he has something to prove, which leads to his arrogant presumption that Peggy will simply follow him like a poodle. In that scene, Peggy says everything we’ve wanted her to say, standing up for herself and her worth while challenging Don’s assumption that she is an extension of him more than an individual person. Peggy’s character has always been one for brooding, for having to deal with things in her own way (like going to Duck as a new surrogate father of sorts) and not being able to come out into the open, but Elisabeth Moss perfectly captured just how much Peggy has changed. Perhaps it’s sleeping with Duck that finally gave Peggy the perspective to be able to speak her mind, a connection I wish had been made more clear in previous episodes but which was nonetheless subtly indicated here.

And yet, beyond Peggy’s own story, her two scenes with Don are important bookends for his character’s change in the episode. When he shows up at her apartment on Sunday, he is a broken man who finally understands what Peggy brings to the table: she is someone who, like all of these people who have taken JFK’s death to heart, has lived through adversity and managed to persevere to the point of being able to see how they’ve changed. This, Don senses, is what he has been missing. Peggy was brought on as a copy writer because she had good ideas, and Don latched onto her in some ways because he knew it would piss other people off and he got off on that. However, the argument he makes here is that he kept her in some ways because she is able to rewrite his own past, having experienced a life-changing event but managing to continue on living with a new sense of self-awareness. Don never got that chance, forced to live a complicated lie to the point of losing some sense of his own identity, and between their two conversations he seems to have come to terms with it. He seems to have lived far enough on the edge, and seen deep enough into the precipice that is his family’s demise, to understand that he needs Peggy because she understands how people respond to things in a way that other people, including in many instances himself, do not.

However, as noted, the chain reaction of events resulting from Connie Hilton breaking the news that Putnam, Powell and Lowell will be sold as of January 1st is both an exercise of Don Draper’s emotional turmoil and an absolutely thrilling ride for the audience. There was something electrifying about the entire storyline, as it played into the sense that the Sterling Cooper drama has been somewhat lacking ever since a lawnmower ran over someone’s foot. As opposed to creating more drama, it was as if that event halted it entirely: Lane Price remained in charge, the status quo was maintained, and nobody talked about how the company was not the same was it was before. Even Roger and Don’s relationship, once so foundational to the setting, is in shambles when we begin, so the opening plays into all of that tension. Don doesn’t trust Roger, nobody trusts Lane, and someone like Pete is downright disgusted at the whole operation.

But yet when all the pieces start to fall into place, it becomes almost (I probably already used this word, but it’s what kept popping into my head while watching) electrifying. It’s not often that a show like Mad Men has you on the edge of your seat, but this story was hitting all of the right notes to have me legitimately excited. I’ve loved Jared Harris in the role of Lane Pryce, so seeing him be spurned one time too many by London and joining forces with the turncoats was worthy of a cheer had I not been afraid of waking up others, and the moment when it becomes clear that Roger is going to call Joan in for service I’m pretty sure that I was downright giddy. Heck, there was a beat where the Art Department being locked felt like an opening to bring Salvatore back into the fold, and the way the episode was going I half expected him to get called into the office. Some on Twitter have compared it all to a heist film like Ocean’s 11, and I think that’s a fair comparison: there was definite tension in whether the plan was going to be successful, and yet to some degree you always knew that they would make it in the end.

What I loved about the story were the little moments, like Peggy refusing to get Roger coffee, or Cooper freaking out over the moving of his precious office furniture, or Trudy bringing everyone sandwiches at the new office. The storyline, by necessity, introduced some levity into the proceedings. While there was a definite sense of retribution in Pete’s recruitment scene, as everything Don said about him being ahead of the curve and seeing the future are the kinds of things that we critics have been writing about all season, there was also the sense of humour of him being in a robe, or Trudy standing within earshot and getting a goodbye from Don. As much as what Don said was true, appealing to Pete’s ego is very different from appealing to Peggy’s, and the episode used this distinction to its advantage. I loved scenes like the awkward elevator ride where Pete isn’t sure how much Harry knows, leading to the great “Hey everybody, Harry Crane is here!” delivery from Vincent Kartheiser where he talks as if he’s worried the bug planted on him won’t pick up his normal speaking voice. I love that Harry, when told the plan, has to ask his wife about it first. And while I was always somewhat paranoid there would be a leak (like Duck finding out about the plan, or something else fouling things up), the sense of fun within the storyline kept turning me back into an excited kid at Christmas waiting to see what happens next.

There is a sense of sadness in the storyline, without question, considering that this means that people like Paul Kinsey and Ken Cosgrove were left behind, along with the entire secretarial staff and Moneypenny. I don’t quite know what to think about this, especially considering the episode played it both for comedy (“We’ve been robbed!”) and for drama (Kinsey’s anger at discovering that Peggy, too, is gone with the rest). The episode gets away with the airy idealism of the journey from idea to reality because the news won’t break until Monday morning, and in some ways the conclusion is all about the way Monday morning feels: one moment you’re remembering the weekend that was, and the next you’re stuck facing a new reality. For Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, it’s the fact that their clients have jumped ship to an agency running out of a hotel and that their only phone call is their Head of Media wondering what room they’re in, and for the former remnants of Sterling Cooper it’s a ship without a captain, a rudder, or a sail (take your pick of who best represents these particular parts of a ship amongst the departures).

The finale is very careful not to paint a picture in its conclusion that is in any way dire. The tension in the conclusion is drawn not from a sense of failure but by testing unknown waters in an effort to see if one should, or can, swim in them. This is not a show to create action-packed finales where characters are taken to wit’s end and placed in some sort of cliffhanger, which would have resulted from the plan failing. Instead, it wants its characters to have to live with their actions, and it wants the series to follow their efforts to do so. As such, we find Don Draper walking towards his temporary apartment as he starts a new life to the sound of Roy Orbison’s “Shahdaroba.” It is a life where he is still a father but no longer a husband, and a life where he is still an Ad Man but no longer one who can say that he is safely employed.

And, as such, Mad Men is now a show about a man who is still a father but no longer a husband, and about Ad Men (and Women) who are stepping out into uncharted territory. The show’s challenge moving forward is finding its axis, discovering how to have a character like Betty Draper (on a plane to Reno with Gene and Henry Francis to ensure the divorce goes through) remain central, and how to potentially keep the remnants of Sterling Cooper (Kinsey, Cosgrove, etc.) within the series. Or, perhaps, it could excise elements of them all together and adopt an entirely new structure that reflects this new period in their lives. What it does make clear, though, is that unlike the second season finale’s complete uncertainty there is now a clear setup for the fourth season, and while there will still be speculation over how far forward in time we leap (joining the new agency in progress down the road) there is no question that the central question will be the success of this new venture within a changing global climate.

But for this hour, there was little sense of the global climate, and no scenes that felt (relatively) wasted on historical reference or period setting. This was a finale that told a story about characters and which delved into their past, present and future in order to create an almost seamless experience. From one conversation with Conrad Hilton came a series of events which managed to solidify themes that the season had perhaps overlooked, depict scenes that we knew have been coming since perhaps the show’s first season, and also gave us a glimpse into the future that was both tragically uncertain and, perhaps best of all, legitimately exciting. “Shut the Door. Have a Seat.” is simply a masterstroke of storytelling, elevating both the season and the series to foreseen, but still stunning, heights.

Cultural Observations

• Don’s treatment of Betty, calling her a wore and pushing her around a bit, is not the first time this has happened, and evokes a scene like the one with Bobbie in the restaurant. However, that was Don being in control, and Don is never really in control in this scene: he is broken down, and it shows in the explosiveness behind his anger.
• The idea that it is the death of Dick Whitman’s father that has been the purpose behind all of this season’s flashbacks to Dick’s childhood made sense in the context of this episode, where Don has to question the impact of a father on a child’s life considering his family is leaving him, but at a certain point the flashbacks became a bit strange in the context of the season. I think they work in the premiere and the finale, but their overall impact in the middle portion of the season was negligible.
• Any Canadian viewers get a total “Heritage Minute” vibe from the Wheat Co-Operative sequence?
• It’s interesting that the new agency never once considered Ken Cosgrove. I don’t disagree with the decision, but we never saw why Don’s thought process went right to Pete (although the evidence is there in the fact that Pete, unlike Ken, has reason to be upset with his current station). It seems like they chose people based on how close they’d be to the chopping block within a merge, to some degree, with makes sense.
• Lane Price’s phone conversation with London, in particular “Happy Christmas!,” was stunning. Seriously, while I’ve been missing Jared Harris in the back half of the season, he was so darn great in this episode that it’s like he’s been around forever. The only thing we were missing was a glimpse at how his homesick wife is going to deal with the decision, although I understand why the episode didn’t go out of its way to answer that question.
• Between this episode and “A Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency,” John Slattery might as well submit in Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy.
• You can check out other great reviews from Alan Sepinwall, James Poniewozik, Keith Phipps, and Mo Ryan (who gets props for “Sterling Coup”).

lobot halloween 09

Being Kanye for Halloween felt amazing and very powerful.  The costume came together at the last minute and before that I was thinking of being Ronnie Spector cuz my friend was going as crazy Phil, but that would have meant wearing a dress and heels and I think I would have felt very uncomfortable.  Suit jacket and microphone felt great.  We went to the SFMOMA party on 10.30 and ended up at Lobot on actual Halloween.  I don’t mean to generalize, but I felt like there was definitely a racial gap as to who recognized the Kanye signifiers. I mean, I know the costume wasn’t perfect and I looked kind of New Wave-y, but the sunglasses alone should have given it away.  For example, at MOMA I got a thumbs up from across the room from a table of black people and then at Lobot (a West Oakland gallery/warehouse space) only one or two people got it, even after I told them who I was.  Which is unfortunate cuz by then I had gotten pretty good at making “Imma let you finish…” jokes on the fly.  BUT at Lobot I did run into a Beyonce and a curly blonde girl who I made pose for a photo-op as Taylor Swift (results above).

A lot of people thought I was Tom Petty, I guess cuz of the heartbreak patch and OK, BECAUSE I AM TALL WHITE AND BLONDE.  (But I am determined not to let those details hold me back!)

Seve Sinatra and L. Spector

I went with my friend Seve who was Frank Sinatra, and Leif, who was a crazy Phil Spector.  I thought we had a slightly incongruous group costume that was kind of pulled together by us all being musical icons from different eras who were all probably misogynist, ego-driven assholes.  It was only at the very end of the night that I realized that oops!  We were accidentally the TRAVELING WILBURYS, the 80s supergroup featuring Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne.  Seve, with his dapper suit, could easily have been a Roy sans shades and Leif, with his fuzzed out trial-era Spector hair, was actually a ringer for Dylan.  NOOOOO!!!  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!? 

I’ve been using Spotify for a few months now and I sort of love it. It’s a world of music at my fingertips; it’s the ability to find that song haunting your every thought in seconds. And it’s all above board and legal and lovely.

In an attempt to get more involved with Spotify I’ve decided to offer y’all a taste of what I’m listening to this weather in the form of an occasional playlist. (If Charlie Brooker can do it, so can I) Yes, some of you will have to pay to listen and for this, I do apologise. All the more reason to lobby for the free service though!

I’ll link every song listed below to somewhere else you can listen to it, if that helps.

Crazy Catching Playlist: Volume 1 (link to playlist contained therein)

1. ‘Us’, Regina Spektor from Soviet Kitsch
2. ‘Pearl’s Dream‘, Bat for Lashes from Two Suns
3. ‘A Truce’, Max Tundra from Worried Noodles
4. ‘Luddites and Lambs’, Everything Everything from Suffragette Suffragette
5. ‘Crying‘, Roy Orbison from The Essential Roy Orbison (Conor O’Brien/Villagers did a great acoustic version of this in the Stables last week)
6. ‘Come on Over (Turn Me On)‘, Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell from Sunday at Devil Dirt
7. ‘The Ice is Getting Thinner‘, Death Cab for Cutie from Narrow Stairs
8. ‘Walking After You‘, Foo Fighters from The Colour and the Shape
9. ‘Are You Ready For The Country?‘, Neil Young from Harvest
10. ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, Elvis Presley from Elvis Presley (1956)
11. ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’, Kate Bush from The Kick Inside
12. ‘Madame George‘, Van Morrison from Playlist: The Best of Van Morrison
13. ‘Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)’, Bob Dylan from Wonderland OST
14. ‘Mommy Complex’, Peaches from I Feel Cream
15. ‘The Chain‘, Fleetwood Mac from The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac (2009)
16. ‘Handle With Care’, Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins from Rabbit Fur Coat
17. ‘Rise Up With Fists’, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, from Rabbit Fur Coat
18. ‘Ben’, Michael Jackson from the Best of Michael Jackson 1995
19. ‘That’s Entertainment’, The Jam from The Sound of the Jam
20. ‘Lilac Breeze’, Eels, from Hombre Lobo

And that is that. As you can see my attempts to listen to new music are hampered by my voyage of ye olde music discovery. Next time the playlist will read like the Inbox at Pitchfork HQ. Promise.

by Michael

Since my imaginary readers have been pestering me about what I am gonna be for Halloween, so I figured I would tell you.

No, I am not going to be Michael Bolton, so fuck you.

I am going to be the scariest thing I can think of:

ROY ORBISON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don’t think that’s scary?  Well, observe the glory of the internets:

Exhibit 1:

Possibly the scariest scene in all cinema:

Exhibit B:

The most disturbing website of all time:

http://michaelkelly.artofeurope.com/karl.htm

I rest my case.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!

“From one john’s bed to the next,” and here we are, sitting in our hotel suite office ordering room service and naughty adult movies, ready to ruminate on this past Sunday’s episode of Mad Men, the season 3 finale entitled “Shut The Door. Have A Seat.” And what an episode it was…

Again, normally August Bravo would join me here, but that guy just can’t learn his lesson. Remember when he didn’t heed Peggy’s mom’s advice and moved to Manhattan and then was thoroughly raped? Well, now he’s moved to Portland and while there’s a bar on every corner and someone you can buy a hanjob or coke or both from every ten feet, apparently there’s not enough of a signal to watch Mad Men on youtube via your iphone.

A brief recap (if possible): We discover that Don has been sleeping in Grandpa Gene’s room because of the strife between Betty and himself. Conrad Hilton gives him the cold brush off and informs him that PPL is being sold, and with it goes Sterling Cooper. Don tells his would be father figure where he can stick it. Then he goes and wakes up Cooper and brings Roger Sterling back to life and gets them excited about taking back their lives and their company and starting over. Together, they begin picking out their dream team from Sterling Cooper and assembling what will be their new company as Don goes around with both his dick and his tail between his legs and learning to value relationships. And sometimes valuing relationships means knowing which ones to say goodbye to, and so off goes Betty and her new boyfriend to Reno for a “quickie” (six weeks) divorce and Don discovers that he has a whole other family. But this, you see, is just a brief recap, so, as we’re told in almost every scene in this episode, “Have a seat.”

Well, Kennedy is still dead. John John’s had to make his goodbyes, and America has not quite realized it, but everything is different now. The changes are no longer coming, they’re here.

And Don starts the episode by waking in a tomb, the former bedroom of a dead man and the newborn baby who shares his name. He then goes to meet Connie, the odd kitten who’s treated Don like a ball of yarn half the season, and really wakes up when Connie cuts him loose and then gives Don a self righteous spiel about how he’s impervious to whiners who can’t earn things for themselves. But Don couldn’t give a shit. His company’s about to get sold and he doesn’t want to go work for some sausage factory.

From there on, the episode becomes just a powerhouse of awesome, giving us some truly satisfying and exciting moments dealing with Don Draper and the exiles of Sterling Cooper as they play the phoenix from the ashes of their company, but before we go there, let’s get to what we all knew was coming, especially after last week…

“The state of New York doesn’t want anyone to get divorced. That’s why people go to Reno.”

The thing is, after last week’s episode, this season finale was all set up in our minds to be the ultimate downer as the Draper castle was torn apart and washed away, and yet, back in the office, we saw excitement and joy, and more of a sense of family than we’ve seen in a long time in the cold walls of Don and Betty’s metaphorical bedroom. Just another way this show wonderfully plays with our expectations.

So, Benjamin Light hates Betty, and I can understand why, but I can still see where she’s coming from. And I’m glad she’s going. Don remains characteristically clueless about a lot of what she wants and needs, and really, she’s the same way about him. And now that she sees him, now that he’s no longer the “football hero who hates his father,” but the son of poor co-op farmers, he’s nothing to her. Everything that his double life has brought them is completely illegitimate to her, and she longs for the silver haired loser from the Rockefeller campaign instead.

In fact, I think Betty quite accurately throws it in Don’s face when he suggests that she may have to be sick to want out of their “perfect little world.” Well, actually, he just suggests that she’s had a bad year, which she has, and that she should probably find someone to talk, which she should. But her inference is also correct, I think, when it comes to Don’s real intentions there. I can defend Betty to a point, am curious to see who she’ll become as she now enters the real world that Don and her father have essentially protected her from up until this point, but she has been, and in this episode especially, a bit of a stone cold bitch.

“Why are we in the living room?” Bobby Draper asks, and he’s right. It’s the scene of Betty’s ultimate fantasy world and in it, the cathedral to which she can have those fantasies now ends as the family breaks up. This was easily one of the most heartbreaking scenes on TV, and so harsh, so cruel, so real. Don suggests this new status quo is only temporarily and Betty emphatically shakes her head no. And then there’s the kids, the real victims of the way people treat each other, and as Light suggested to me the other day, though it’s not said, you almost feel that for all the coldness they sometimes get from their father, they’d still prefer it to freezing to death with their mother.

As much of a fan of little Sally Draper as I am, the lasting image from that scene for me isn’t just Betty shaking her head no, but it’s Bobby’s ceaseless clinging to his father, clinging to his world that he barely understands as it all falls away. Oh, the fathers and sons this season. Don and Bobby, whom Don rarely shares moments with, honestly. Don getting kicked out by his pseudo-paternal figure, Hilton, which starts flashbacks of the loss of his real father (or real step father, whatever), Archie Whitman.

Which brings us to the night before the Draper family ended in their living room, when a drunken Don invades the master bedroom in the house, that his wife and their newborn baby now occupy alone, and he pulls Betty out of sleep and onto her feet, confronting her with what he’s only just learned about: Henry Francis. Don has the greatest line of the season when it comes to Betty: “Because you’re good… and everyone else is in the world is bad.” Don’s cruelty is usually cool, measured, but when he delivers these lines, it’s like he’s finally releasing some pent up venom. But it almost goes to far and we’re taken back to his imagined origins in the late night reverie from the season premiere, as he becomes his father, Betty becomes the whore, and then there’s the baby crying. It’s arguable in that scene that Don is confronted with a subtle choice as you half expect him to hit his wife: Does he want to be Don Draper or does he want to just another dick?

Which takes us back to the offices of Sterling Cooper, the kind of place that Don never expected to work at, but where he thrived, or, where he’s thrived for the last three years. With PPL being sold off and the SC along with it by their new British masters, Don is awake, and on his way to wake up Bert Cooper…

The dialogue in their scene is perfect, and I love that Cooper, who’s always kind to Don and his talents and his mysteries, and who purrs like a fat old wise and eccentric housecat with a bit of a Japanese fetish, lets Don know flat out that he doesn’t think he has the stomach for the reality of the future Don wants so brutally to regain control of…

Cooper: “Young men love risks because they can’t imagine consequences.”

Don: “And you old men love building golden tombs and sealing the rest of us in with you.”

But something begins in this scene, the start of building something, a bridge out of their indentured servitude and Cooper hits Don with one of those harsh realities he’s going to have to face: He can’t do this on his own. He’s going to need Roger Sterling.

And let me just say: Fuck Yeah, Roger Sterling.

When the highpoints of this episode was literally everything that came out of his mouth. Don and Cooper both make their pitches to Sterling about taking the tough road and starting something new and Sterling breaks it to Don: You don’t care about people. And maybe that’s why you’re so bad at being real with them. And Cooper hits Sterling with some real talk too: You need the excitement and danger of this business to survive and feel alive like you’re used to. Retire now and you might as well move into a plot in the ground with your child bride. It’s funny how enduring Jane has somehow purified Roger in our eyes, made him possibly realize that Joan is the woman for him, not the girl for him like Jane is, and put him on a better path.

From there, they go to Pryce and put forth a plan: He’ll fire them, thereby releasing them from their contracts, in exchange for shared power in their new company, and over the weekend, they’ll assemble a dream team to take with them along with any clients and supplies they can swipe from the office. And the show literally explodes into life. It became the gathering of the dream team from something like Ocean’s 11 or the start of a mission from one of those crack team of guys going on a mission World War II or something. It was perfect and it was exhilarating.

And it was a great moment for the characters to confront their own failures and move past them, to be happy beyond them. Don especially, as he does the walk of shame, first treating Peggy like dirty in assuming that she’ll just follow him blindly so he can beat her about as he pleases and then getting told off by her as she finally stands up for herself to him.

And then Pete, whom Don actually has to compliment for his eye towards the future. He’s not just wanted, he’s needed in the new company, Don tells him. And thankfully, along with Pete, will come his perfect partner, Trudy.

Sorry, August, but I guess Ken Cosgrove doesn’t make the cut.

Sadly, they took Harry Crane along too, but maybe since they’re literally sifting through the ashes of Sterling Cooper, maybe they’ll blow a little of those embers into him and ignite some potential. Or maybe he came along just so Cooper could deliver my actual favorite line of the episode, telling Harry that if he turns him down, he’ll spend the rest of the weekend tied up in the closet.

And, of course Joan is back. They’re all brilliant actors and they’re staging what could be a fascinating play, but they need a director, they need someone to coordinate them and make their needs accessible. And of course Roger knows that Joan is the person to do that.

But alas, no Sal. But in a small way, that could be a good thing. Sal may not be able to come back to the new company and the show in his old capacity, but more on that soon. Cause there’s always this:

Fuck doors. Fuck yeah.

And then there’s Don’s return and appeal to Peggy. He stops treating her like his former secretary. He stops treating her like just an employee. He actually sees her as a person. Possibly through a mirror, but still, he’s awake now and really looking at her. He’s really to lay down his sword and shield in front of her and stop holding the fact that he’s a man over her as something superior. I think one of the most realistic and truthful things Don has ever said is when he told her that she’s just like him, she’s his anima, and together they both can conjure the words, the “asa nisi masa,” if you will.

“Because there are people out there who buy things, people like you and me, and something happened. Something terrible. And the way that they saw themselves is gone. And nobody understands that, but you do. And that’s very valuable.”

When he says that, it’s not just to her that he’s confessing things, it’s to himself as well. Peggy ventures a guess that if she turns him down, he’ll cut her off forever and, baring his soul to her, he says it’s the opposite: “No. I will spend the rest of my life trying to hire you.” It’s telling that the most touching scene of the episode isn’t between Don and his departing wife, Betty. It’s between Don and himself/Peggy.

But of course Peggy is her own creature as well, and I think everyone, not just Don and Pete, are going to see it. So classic was Roger asking her for a cup of coffee and her flat out saying, “No.”

But then the long night of the weekend comes to an end and the sun comes up on Monday morning and the all stars of Sterling Cooper are gone, spirited away to their new home, an office in a hotel suite. In fact, really, all of Sterling Cooper is gone, shredded to pieces in the night…

And now:

“Good morning! Hello Sterling/Cooper/Draper/Pryce. How may I help you?” It’s nice to meet you.

“Very good. Happy Christmas!”

“He didn’t even leave a note!”

Still miss you, Sal, but you’ll have to change or die, as is often the case with history. As the always explosively brilliant Karina Longworth suggests when talking about the end of the episode as the camera captures the joy on the faces of the new SCDP employees/refugees:

The glow in the room that’s reflected on Don’s face in that shot—that is only there because they are all there, because he needs all of them to do his job, and vice versa. It’s arguable (probable, for all the lines like “we don’t have art”) that Sal could be back in Season Four and SCDP (and the show) would be better for it. But his sham marriage may need to fully deteriorate before he belongs in that hotel room.

One can only hope that Sal embraces his sexuality and himself and comes back into the fold as a contracted big time commercial director. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. Also, Fuck Lee Garner, Jr.

This episode was everything I could ever want from Mad Men. Much like us here at Counter-force, sitting her in our hotel suite/bloggitorium, at least when I’m doing my song and dance, we’re obsessed with the future. But we see it through the multi-colored lenses of the past. The past was bombs, the present is rubble, and the future is fireworks and we’re looking up at the stars, to dangle as many silly pyrotechnic metaphors in your face as I can.

The Beatles are coming. Vietnam is coming. The world isn’t done being changed and the light from the future can’t be fully seen yet, but for now, in the world of Mad Men, the characters are happy. Excited. Don Draper has perhaps finally said goodbye to Dick Whitman and is ready to move on. Trudy is showing up with sandwiches. Joan’s husband can hopefully only be guaranteed a nasty ending. There’s Peggy/Pete stuff on the horizon. There’s Joan/Roger stuff on the horizon. And there’s always fucking Jai Alai. We may never seen Suzanne Farrell again (though she’ll live on in Twix commercials). Or Paul Kinsey or Duck Phillips or Ken Cosgrove, for all we know. But what happens in this world and in Don Draper’s life could be anything.

Especially when Don places that call to Betty. He won’t fight her. She can have whatever she wants. And he hopes that she finds out what that is. “Well, you’ll always be her father,” she pathetically replies with, but I think it was meant to be a kind statement, something Betty’s always been foreign too. She’s going to leave two older children with a vastly better mom, Carla (so classy, Betty), and take baby Eugene, her youngest child and ball and chain from the past, to Reno with her new boyfriend.

And Don’s going to crawl off into the city, heartbroken maybe, but feeling lighter and hopefully optimistic. We have a general idea of the future he’s going to see, but he doesn’t, and he’s excited for it. And we’re going to go with him.

And, wonderfully, Roy Orbison is going to sing a song about the whole thing. August and I had a great time talking about Mad Men and hopefully you enjoyed it too. And hopefully it’ll only get better since, after all, “the future is much better than the past.”

A Review

Famous Groupies Of The Sixties Series

Faithfull: An Autobiography

by

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

Review by R.E. Prindle

Season Of The Witch

All night, all day, Marianne

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Even little children love Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

-Terry Gilkyson And The Easy Riders

     Technically Marianne Faithfull wasn’t a groupie.  Her early years resembled one but in her later years she was sought after as a conquest by men of the groupie mentality.  I’m sure as everyone knows Marianne Faithfull began her career as a very successful pop singer.  Produced originally by Andrew Loog Oldham she was among the first of the new breed of Rock singers, as opposed to Rock n’ Roll.  She belongs to the new rather than the old school.

     Her first song was As Tears Go By.  Single and album were very successful, more or less establishing her reputation for all time- or at least until the generation passes away.

     My first knowledge of  Marianne Faithful was when the strains of As Tears Go By wafted into my study window.  They continued to waft all day long for weeks.  The girl in the apartment next door was fixated on the song.  A little fat girl.    So after the 7000th rendition  of As Tears Go By I had my first nervous breakdown.  Marianne Faithfull was a sour taste.

Mick Jagger

 Then as far as I’m concerned she dropped out of the pop scene.

     Her auto was first published in 1994, I just read the paperback the other day so the book is probably old hat to most of you but as I didn’t find any real reviews on the internet I decided to give it a try.  I don’t see any reason to do the whole book so I’ll concentrate on the three Bob Dylan incidents, aspects of her relationship with Mick Jagger and Donald Cammell and his movie, Performance.  The book is highly readable and entertaining until after her divorce form Jagger about two thirds of the way through the book when she falls into a drug stupor.  At that point it is necessary to avoid falling into Marianne’s own depression.  Too late for her to get over it now.

     Her career began when she was selected for her looks by Andrew Loog Oldham, producer of the Stones, who saw her at a party.  Asked if she could sing she said yes.  Next, there she was behind a microphone lisping As Tears Go By.  Thus she was an established big pop singer when she first met Dylan and later came under the thumb of Mick Jagger.  She brought something to the table, she didn’t come empty handed.  She was an equal.  To be treated as an appendage enraged her probably contributing to her drug addiction

     She met Dylan during his ‘65 tour.  You can see her sitting in the corner in the movie Don’t Look Back.  She has some trenchant comments to make of the various prticipants in the Savoy Hotel debacle.  She’s very intelligent.  She was a young girl at the time, Dylan being five years older.  She was in awe of Dylan who she considered the hippest god on the planet.

     Dylan is supposed to be a master seducer.  It wasn’t that Marianne wasn’t ready and willing, she was.  In her mocking portrayal of the scene Dylan rather than complimenting her beauty and talent made an attempt to overawe she who was already overawed with his own wizardry.  In the process the seduction fell through.  Mazrianne skipped merrily away.

     Now, this is a girl who a year or two younger , while on tour with a review including Roy Orbison responded to him when he knocked on her door and said:  Hi.  I’m Roy Orbison.  I’m in room 602.  And Marianne skipped on down the hall.  How could Dylan have missed? 

     Later in the book, the year was 1979 when Dylan was going though his Jesus years, while Marianne had entered clinical depression doing heroin and sitting on her wall like Humpty-Dumpty all day, every day, Dylan arrived for another tour.   His dealer was a friend of Marianne’s and he asked if she knew where Marianne was.  Oh yes.  Demelza, the heroin dealer got Marianne to come over.  Dylan and Marianne’s second verse was worse than the first.  By this time depressed, enraged and seeking vengeance against the men in her life Marianne was far from compliant.  She had recently released Broken English, I’ve never heard the record so I can’t comment on the lyrics, so she mocked the Wise One by asking him if he understood her lyrics.  He couldn’t explain hers any better than she could his.  A little drip on the name of Bob, a little triumph for Marianne.  Dylan went away unfulfilled again.

     Oop, there is a third meeting.  Marianne now beyond depression walking down railway ties none of us will ever be able to see.   She overdosed on heroin, staggered and fell breaking her jaw.  Complications arose requiring serious surgery.  Pins were put in her jaw along with some contraption to hold the two parts together that apparently went

Keith Richards

through her cheek sticking out like a water spigot.  Had to sleep on one side.

     While Dylan was playing in Boston she presented herself backstage in this grotesque appearance.  Too weird for Dylan.  Three strikes and he was out.  Never spoke to him again, she says.  (To 1994 when the book went to press.

     After the first meeting Marianne hooked up with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones for whom we have to thank for As Tears Go By.

     In late 1966 the great Donovan included a song on Sunshine Superman called Season Of The Witch.  The song epitomized the era.  At the time the song made little sense to me but in reading Faithfull it all began to fall into place.  While the sixties were terrific they were also horrific.  Today the horrific impressions dominate my mind.  All standards, all morality disintegrated before our eyes.  It was the end of the world as it dissolved into stange and perplexing LSD fantasy.  Hell, I never even took LSD and I think I know the feeling perfectly.  I’m still getting flashbacks.

     Nothing was real, it was all an illusion.  You could turn yourself inside out right before everyone’s eyes and get no reaction.  Hey, everyone was living through their own movie.  Marianne captures this feeling perfectly in 300 pages but so did Donovan in three verses:

When I look out my window

Many sights to see.

When I look in my window

So many different people to be

That it’s strange, so strange,

Must be the season of the witch,

Must be the season of the witch.

     Marianne’s succession of people to be began in childhood.  She as well as all these musicians, singers and dancers came from humble backgrounds with low expectations  but grand hopes and dreams.  Picked for the size of her bust to be a rock star, piles of money were thrown at her.  Inevitably dissociation occurred as the possiblity to be anyone appeared possible only to be held back by that humble past of low expectations.  how to behave in these new circumstances, not so easy, not so easy.

The rabbits are running in the ditch

Beatniks are out to make it rich.

Sang Donovan.  Standards and barriers were down, libertines crawled out of the woodwork nd there stood Mick and Keith, two libertine beatniks who could actually wallow in money.

     Mick took a fancy to Marianne and moved her in.  Married in heart if not in law, but she was to lose her independence.   There was Swinging London or the tail end of it and swinging is what Mick and Marianne did.  However Marianne did not come to Mick as a nameless groupie.  She was a somebody that the fans admired and wanted to get close to also.  Marianne Faithfull, all in capitals.  All that was submerged into the personality of Mick Jagger.  At first her own money was coming in allowing her independence but as her catalog grew old her money had to come from Mick.  Her lost independence  made it impossible to function as a wife and expect a joint account where she didn’t have to ask for money, it was hers by right.  A conflict and contest arose.

When I look over my shoulder

What do you think I see?

Some other cat looking over

His shoulder at me.

And he’s strange, sure he’s strange.

Oh no, must be the season of the witch.

     And the witching got serious.  All kinds of users, abusers and losers followed the libertines out of the woodwork, masters of manipulation they knew how to easily hypnotize whacked out marijuana smokers, cokeheads and general druggies to get them to do various things, sex things, criminal acts, whatever to gratify their evil schemes.  People did things they never thought they would do and fortunately some or a lot them couldn’t remember doing them.  Such a character was waiting in the ether to snare Mick and Marianne.  The movies, ah, the movies, what a way to snare unwary souls.  Everyone wants to be a movie star.

     Donald Cammell, one such, had his nose to the wind and the wind brought the sexual antics of Mick and Marianne wafting his way.  Truly, it was the season of  the witch.

     Cammell had a novie he wanted to make;  Mick and Marianne and assorted friends were just the libertines to bring Performance to life.  Oh no, oh no, must be, must be the season of the witch.

     According to Marianne, Cammell replicated the sex scene the set had had as though he had been there. Uncanny?  Maybe or maybe it was such a far out thing participants talked and word got around and Cammell’s imagination was inflamed.

     According to Marianne the filming brought disaster into  the actor’s lives.  Cammell, the manipulator escaped, of course, as his kind always does.  The pleasure was all his, you may be sure.

     The filmwas a turning point in the relationship of Marianne and Mick.  Perhaps the film stirred memories of when she had been The  Marianne Faithfull, since submergeed into Mick’s identity.  She had been unable to adjust to the new circumstances.  Pentulantly she just walked away.  Immersed in drugs the downslide slow and pleasant became precipitous until she could be found sitting on her wall of the bombed out building not rebuilt as yet.

     Could it be that the remaining wall of that Marianne Faithfull of low expectations was bombed out by the force of a success undreamt of in her pleasant teenage dreaming?  Was that the fascination that kept her glued to the wall in pleasant heroin dreams?  Would Humpty Dumpty fall into the abyss or not?

     This was now the seventies.  Hard realities existed on every side.  It was’t fun anymore either.  The actual season of the witch had passed over.  This was hell.

     After Marianne left Mick drugs are the topic of her converstation.  What is more boring than a junkie talking drugs.  Shoot up and shut up.  Who wants to hear?

     But she did regain her identity,  she had shed Marianne of the little m and was Marianne Faithfull again.  Men sought her out.  Producers came around again, there was still money in that drug wracked carcassof Marianne.

When she walks along the shore,

People pause to greet,

While little birds fly round her,

Little fish come to her feet…Marianne.

     Somehow from that drug drenched state Marianne was able to cobble together enough strength and concentration to begin doing a Mick and Keith.  Maybe her time had not been wasted by the proximity to Mick and Keith.  While still with Mick she had written Siser Morphine, later recorded by the Stones.  She got no writing credit because of old contractual problems with discarded agents but she did receive a third of the royalities which were considerable. 

     And now she began to string words together to make songs.  The stuff was nothing I would ever listen to.  I mean, choice lyrics like ‘Every time I see your dick I imagine her cunt in my bed.’  Maybe that’s  why Dylan couldn’t understand the lyics.  I’m not going to try.  It worked for Marianne though.  Today she’s proudly known as the Edith Piaf of her generation.  I’m happy for her that things worked out for her after a fashion.  Her smile still photographs well but I’m not going to buy her records, CDs, whatever they’re called nowadays.  Time has gone by and I can’t get As Tears Go By out of my head. I’ll carry that tune to my grave.

All night, all day, Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Even little children love Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Bob Dylan