Chapters

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Just four months into the making of this film, the funding for our first year of research and photography ran out. Part of that was my fault. I had been a bit too optimistic about how far we could stretch each Euro because I wanted so badly to get this project off the ground. The rest of the extraneous spending came from unexpected costs. Pricey hotel rooms, exorbitant taxi cab fares, unmarked tolls, bribes, taxes, equipment registration. Key lime pie. Even with my tiny crew the idea of taking on the entire former United States in one go seems, well, naive. Reluctantly, we packed up all the footage and equipment we hadn't already mailed back to England and boarded a plane for home.

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Alternately referred as a group springing from Maryland and Michigan depending upon the point one’s attempting to make, Half Japanese are somehow still doing just about the same thing it was in 1974. And while folks like Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen can say the same thing, each of those guys has received that magical payday at the end of a tour.

Surely, Half Japanese have made a few dollars – not that Jad or Dave Fair really care. After all, during the latter portion of the seventies, the duo sent out tapes and whatever they figured as art, gratis, to a list of fans they’d kept in correspondence with.

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This isn’t a hoax or a gimmick. It’s Frank Zappa and his label, Bizarre, being genuinely interested in music that wouldn’t have had a chance at proper distribution otherwise. Of course, it’s then a fair question to ask, why wouldn’t Wild Man Fischer have been able to secure a record deal otherwise?

Good question.

Well, being homeless and schizophrenic doesn’t usually make for a combination readying one for international stardom. Fischer, though, spent his days stalking up and down the Sunset Strip, sparing change. When he was actually able to pick up a few cents here and there, he rewarded the contributor with an original song (there’s a track on Fischer’s album detailing just this activity). And this is, presumably, how Zappa found Fischer.

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Listening to music with overt religious overtones – regardless of the religion – probably isn’t to the liking of most folks detached from organized worship. But it seems that the last decade’s worth of compilations from places like Thailand point to an enthusiasm to hear and bear witness to other cultures. So, if you dig R&B and rock sounds, don’t let the Jesusy implications of this album being helmed by a reverenced steal away any of the potential enjoyment. I mean, Rev. Gary Davis is probably one of the best guitarists to ever record a side and he loved Jesus. Rev. Louis Overstreet is just as cool – as Davis, not Jesus. Get it straight.

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Enough of the ‘ahead of its time’ crap. That’s impossible. Music, art and literature are created as a result of current societal, social and whatever other pressures are floating around. There’s no such thing as a time machine, so artists capped with the ‘ahead of its time’ thing is all hyperbole without a way to substantiate any of the claims.

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Mike Bloomfield was an in-demand guy for a bit during the sixties and even early into the seventies. Of course, if his name doesn’t ring out exactly, it has to do with the Chicago born guitarist ran into a bit of trouble with heroin, curtailing his substantial talents and making him a problematic session man.

If you do recognize his name, though, it well may be as a result of playing on some of Bob Dylan’s most well received electric work. Apart from that, though, Bloomfield did time in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and was a member of the ensemble during the time during which it issued some of the most essential updated blues albums of the decade.

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If one were to explain to the unitiated that noise was a (pretend) reputable genre to work in, there’d be a great  deal of history to relate. But that’s fine. The mental calisthenics required to listen to – and more over create – the most visceral of sounds is probably well beyond a significant portion of the population.

It sounds odd, but it takes years to coax out the right wrong note.

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It’s pretty useless to reduce any effort – film, literature, music or otherwise – to a type. Of course, there are generally accepted lines of delineation separating comedy from action. So, in keeping with that, Preston Sturges’ 1941 film The Lady Eve might be considered a love story. Or a battle of the sexes film. Or a revenge tale.

Regardless of how the film’s understood, though, it doesn’t rate as one of the strongest – in terms of acting, at least – to fall under the auspices of Sturges’ name. And that’s kinda surprising.

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I don’t really recall Penn and Teller not being around. I don’t remember them getting famous, they were just famous. For what? I kinda don’t know – Vegas? I suppose each knows more about magic or illusions then most folks being passed off on tv and such. But what makes the pair an appropriate choice for heading up what amounts to an investigative tv show?

Is it Teller’s adherence to a craft moving from Buster Keaton to Jacques Tati and Harpo Marx? Probably not. But since he doesn’t speak, and Penn’s a reasonably intelligent guy, that should be enough.

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First off, Pelt was the group that brought guitarist Jack Rose (RIP) to underground music aficionado’s attention. And even if the group didn’t really have anything to do with the solo, acoustic guitar music Rose would eventually become known for, there’s a persistent sense of drone over his entire career.

The band specialized in simplistic work-ups tied to LaMonte Young’s conception of composition and improvisation. It’s not to say that Pelt was unoriginal, but by the early nineties there was no shortage of this sort of music.

Whether or not Rose became bored with performing as a part of the group is unknown (to me). So he endeavored to reinvent himself as an American Primitive Guitarist. It worked. He was great.

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