Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
WE WERE (ALMOST) THERE!
Last week the archivists at Wolfgang's Vault added a huge collection of concert videos to their website. There are hundreds of performances available -free!- by almost any major act you can think of. It's a rock 'n' roll treasure trove well worth checking out.
Having attended many Bill Graham events, TSG dove in and started looking for stuff from Winterland. Lo and behold, we came across a Steve Miller show from 1974! Hey, we wondered, could it be the same one where we took one of our all-time favorite pictures? You know, the one with Stevie playing guitar behind his head? (You may or may not recall the image--it's in a post from sometime last summer, we think)
We worked our way through most of the show, convinced it was the same one, waiting for that guitar solo. It all came back, the jostling of the crowd, the aromatic whiffs of combustible green matter, the music blasting our eardrums into submission...And then, there it was, right at the end of Livin' In The USA! The Gangster of Love whips his axe behind his head and starts to wail! YES! We were there!
Well, not quite...notice the visible elbows in the b&w image. And the vest is different as well. Rats! We saw him play behind his head at Winterland all right--there's no doubt about that. But it wasn't the show in the video. Our photo had to have been from the night before. Wonder if that ticket stub is still around, maybe in the box in the closet? Nah, we be too lazy to look for it now. (For the curious, the other 2 acts were ZZ Top and the Climax Blues Band)
More Miller Miscellany: We had encountered the then-incipient Joker three months earlier on the same tour; that was a Winterland gig too. He was opening for King Crimson of all people...talk about a mixed bill! The young Grasshopper had only a vague notion of what King Crimson was about, but we came away a true believer. They put on one of the most impressive shows we have ever witnessed. Being assaulted by Lark's Tongues In Aspic for the very first time, from 4th row was, um, mind-blowing.
Having attended many Bill Graham events, TSG dove in and started looking for stuff from Winterland. Lo and behold, we came across a Steve Miller show from 1974! Hey, we wondered, could it be the same one where we took one of our all-time favorite pictures? You know, the one with Stevie playing guitar behind his head? (You may or may not recall the image--it's in a post from sometime last summer, we think)
We worked our way through most of the show, convinced it was the same one, waiting for that guitar solo. It all came back, the jostling of the crowd, the aromatic whiffs of combustible green matter, the music blasting our eardrums into submission...And then, there it was, right at the end of Livin' In The USA! The Gangster of Love whips his axe behind his head and starts to wail! YES! We were there!
Well, not quite...notice the visible elbows in the b&w image. And the vest is different as well. Rats! We saw him play behind his head at Winterland all right--there's no doubt about that. But it wasn't the show in the video. Our photo had to have been from the night before. Wonder if that ticket stub is still around, maybe in the box in the closet? Nah, we be too lazy to look for it now. (For the curious, the other 2 acts were ZZ Top and the Climax Blues Band)
More Miller Miscellany: We had encountered the then-incipient Joker three months earlier on the same tour; that was a Winterland gig too. He was opening for King Crimson of all people...talk about a mixed bill! The young Grasshopper had only a vague notion of what King Crimson was about, but we came away a true believer. They put on one of the most impressive shows we have ever witnessed. Being assaulted by Lark's Tongues In Aspic for the very first time, from 4th row was, um, mind-blowing.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The Painted Pumpjacks (nodding donkeys, pumping units, horsehead pumps, beam pumps, sucker rod pumps (SRPs), grasshopper(!) pumps, thirsty birds, jack pumps) of Coalinga
"The Iron Zoo"
Who woulda thunk we could get two posts' worth of content from Coalinga, CA? Well, folks, we were as surprised as y'all. Here, for your viewing pleasure, we present the work of Jean Dakessian Jones. She painted a bunch of these so-called grasshopper pumps as an art/local boosterism project. The plan was that the slick (ha) roadside attraction would bring travelers off the Interstate and into town. Her project met with mixed success, as the hamlet today is not what you'd consider a tourist mecca. (However is it much more of a tourist mecca than Mecca, CA...a dusty, somnolent town on the edge of the Salton Sea)
Interesting webbit for all the webbit fans out there: both the Iron Zoo and the Horned Toad Derby are mentioned in the 2004 compendium Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Encyclopedia Of The Bizarre:
Amazing, Strange, Inexplicable, Weird And All True! (pages 60 and 100, respectively)
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