"When we were gone, we were so turned on: you thought we were fakers....." --Bowie.

(This will look like some other posts, will even perhaps borrow chunks from my other threads--but this one has a public face, since I may have to turn it in for a new gig I've been offered. Forgive me, but I might become a most useless creature, a rock journalist... this parentheses bracket won't be there..is merely to remind me of what I am doing. I need that.) It will begin here--and may come out in installments?

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This cosmic dance of Shiva refers to the Dance of Bliss, and symbolizes the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction. The dance is a pictorial allegory of the five principle manifestations of eternal energy — creation, destruction, preservation, salvation, and illusion....

The overall temper of the image is paradoxical, uniting the inner tranquility....blah, blah, blah.

Okay--I agree with you. I despise the hippie associations with this image--but I love the image. In my time (of dying) I've been called a hippie, and a punk. I suppose I gotta cop to both...look! Shiva has a mohawk! Shiva was a punk rocker!

Possible byline/bio thingy: one in first person, one in third? (I don't think I'll like this pushed into third)...

Listen. I was dancing when I was 12. Actually, that's a flat out lie. I was dancing when I was 4, when I was trying to stop crying (with everyone else) about Kennedy getting the back of his head blown off: that's a pretty horrific first memory to have. You see, two months later, the Beatles came to make us all feel better, and I started my more serious dancing. And my lifelong love jones for rock music, rock musicians, guitar, drums, bap-bar-rah. When I was 10, my conservative Catholic parents would have never let me go to Woodstock, and I was too much of a wimp or too stable to run away for the cause, but that didn't keep me from memorizing everything that happened there, in the privacy of my daisy-papered bedroom.

Instead, I moved to St. Petersburg, Florida--the big city! I went looking for all the rock stuff I couldn't have in the Midwest. Did I find it? Here in Pinellas? Sorta kinda....

Start again: New Title: less personal???

In The Pines--(Where Music has Slept and Shivered).

Listen. Can you hear the music whispering in the pines? I do-- it's saying, "My girl, my girl, don't lie to me--tell me where did you sleep last night?" To be truthful, this song was probably not written about Pinellas County, but it might have been, since no one knows who originally wrote it, and it is one of those songs with 1000 permutations, long historical tentacles, and even name changes. Leadbelly's version was called, "In The Pines" (as was Dylan's), but Nirvana's was called,"Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", and older versions were called "The Longest Train" and "Black Girl". If you've seen A Coal Miner's Daughter, you would have heard Sissy Spacek sing it on her Kentucky porch. What all these versions have in common is the chorus: "In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines.." It reminds me of here. Pines and trains.

When I was 4, I looked up from crying about Kennedy...and saw The Beatles. Wow, now there's something to live for. Thus began my cosmic dance, my lifelong jones for music, especially rock, rock musicians, guitars, drums, bap-bar-rah! Destroyers and creators all in one--that's for me! When I was 10, my conservative Catholic parents would have never let me go to Woodstock, and I was too much of a wimp or too stable to run away for the cause, but that didn't keep me from memorizing everything that happened there, in the privacy of my daisy-papered bedroom.

So, when I was 20, I dumped the Midwest and came to St. Petersburg, to the pines. Did I find the music I wanted here? Sorta kinda...

Round 3: Shorter still--

In The Pines--(Where Music has Slept and Shivered).

Leadbelly's version was called, "In The Pines" (as was Dylan's), but Nirvana's was called,"Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", and older versions were called "The Longest Train" and "Black Girl". If you've seen A Coal Miner's Daughter, you would have heard Sissy Spacek sing it on her Kentucky porch. What all these versions have in common is the chorus: "In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines.." It reminds me of here. Pines and trains.

Truth told, this song was probably not written about Pinellas County, but it might have been, since no one knows who originally wrote it, and it is one of those songs with 1000 permutations, long historical tentacles, and name changes.

When I was 4, I looked up from crying about Kennedy...and saw The Beatles.

When I was 10, my conservative Catholic parents would have never let me go to Woodstock: I was too much of a wimp or too stable to run away, but that didn't keep me from memorizing everything about it , in my daisy-papered room.

When I was 20, I dumped the Midwest and came to Pinellas, to the pines. Did I find the music I wanted here? Sorta kinda...

I have a jaundiced eye for rock journalism. It has a pungency about it. I think this goes back to one word. "Seminal." It is the ultimate rock journalist word--- it has been used to describe hundreds of bands that were supposed to shake the foundations of the rock world. World Changers: The Beatles! Bob Dylan. The Ramones! The Sex Pistols. Joy Division. Wait, we forgot Syd Barrett! Von De Graff Generator. The New Hendrix! Go back! The MC5!-protopunk--a band called Death! We overlooked these seminal bands! Ok, I give kudos to the first guy who used it--it was, denotatively, a fitting word with layered meanings: it's intellectually dirty--evoking the constant beginnings rock needs to stay alive, disgusting, antisocial, particularly male and macho. Sexual, it goes without saying, but focusing on outcomes. Sorry. Too much of a good thing, definitely--. Google 'seminal' and 'rock' and see what I mean.

There is no more pretentious form of writing than rock journalism. Well, maybe literary criticism.

Rock critics like to give the impression that they are so bad they vetted the article while experiencing Walter White's blue meth firsthand, and wrote it out freehand with the dregs and blood from the needles they shot up with--that they are bored with witnessing the hotel room antics of the most famous of demented people. That, most importantly, They Were There. But, really, too cool to hit on the groupies.

My emersion into rock writing (which I view jadedly, remember?) got really intense about 1977, when my campus job was to man the check-out desk at my college library. This was back in the days when all the current periodicals were behind the desk for sign-out. Like all good college students, the ones at my college barely bothered to reference their profs' "suggested additional reading". So I rarely got bothered. Usually you'd see me sitting at my station by the turnstiles, reading every square inch of Rolling Stone, back in the days when it was in its big newsprint format on that cheap paper--it was better, dirtier that way--it left ink on your fingers, like a bad girl should.

I didn't have earbuds, sadly, then, so I could couldn't have the instant gratification of listening to what I was reading about like I can now, and there was something much more romantic about those days when you had to wait. And search. Needing to go to some indie record store with limited merchandise. That was when there were those great ads in the back of Rolling Stone where you could pay $25 to become an ordained minister, and marry your friends. Then I discovered the back issues in the storage room... they had that John Lennon"How I Won the War" one, no jive.

I read it so much it made me sick. I knew the styles of its regular writers, Dave Marsh, Ben Fong-Torres, Greil Marcus--knew which bands' styles they favored. Me and curmudgeon Dave were most aligned. (Among other things, Dave called Queen "the first fascist rock band", and disliked Kiss as much as I did. Oh, and he is credited with inventing the term "punk". He called Bob Seger a coward).

And.. I saw the word "seminal" ad nauseum...to the point where it was an inside joke with myself. To be fair --it was probably the guys on our school paper, emulating the RSers that were the cause of the nausea. Or later the fan-zines I read--that word just wouldn't die in rock writing. I still subscribe to Rolling Stone, man, because, like Woody Allen sez: I need the eggs. I rarely read the whole thing these days--usually skip the cover story.

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My first memory at age 4 is of Kennedy getting the back of his head blown off, then me and everyone else crying, and then the Beatles magically appearing. It was like Perseus waving the Gorgon Medusa in our faces. Hey, over here: this will turn you to stone. I've been a cosmic dancer for rock music, since then. It is THE eternal battery charge that gets into the secret mitochondrionial bits of life--the, em, unexplained, what is it --emergent systems that are outside the laws of physics, any science? This is where I defy the Rock Journalist cool stance.. music makes me believe in our void and impractical needs: it's why Jimi says, "S'cuse me while I kiss the sky".

But I am easily bored like a good rock chick should be--so I've never been satisfied with what the Billboard charts offered. I remember at 4 being mad for Duane Eddy's drone--mom and dad had some cool records. By the time I was 7 I had a stack of 45s so high it grazed my upper thighs. Then, my favorite song was the dark "I Am The Walrus" (John), which was the B-side, I believe, to the cheery "Hello-Goodbye" (Paul). This is why I spent my life searching the edges of music--wherever they could be found.

A caveat: For my Pinellas fellow travelers , who may have been there too--there weren't many of us, then. Please forgive my faulty memory! No, it's not because of that--I've never been much of a narcotiphile. Told you, I'll be the uncool music writer. It has more to do with time passing, and the fact that I have a pretty active imagination--so perhaps I imagined some of this..

Future Sections:
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The Sadly Small Entertainment Scene of 1980's St. Petersburg--Colorful but Lonely

I moved to St. Pete from Illinois in 1980, and moved first to Beach Drive. Before you get envious, you gotta know what this city was like then. Let's just say it was perfect for breeding punk ennui and boredom. I lived across from the art museum, in a studio with orange shag carpet and no actual bedroom( I threw a mattress in the closet), eating hot dogs on my pitiful southern salary and inhaling the gourmet smells from the French restaurant below (Peter's Place--never could afford to eat there). I had the worst car I ever owned--a Rabbit with only two gears, 2nd and 4th. Later, I had a '71 Brown Nova with one green door. No air. I owned a lot of cars with no air.

Then there was no Globe Coffee Shop, No Kool Daddy Records, no Art Pool, No Fubar, no Local 662, no bars on lower Central Avenue, except for grubby old Mastry's. No tattoo parlors. No Ultra Lounges. Besides the Garden ( also too pricey for me then), there were No. I mean no. Restaurants of any kind. None. Some of the old coffee shops were hanging in there, mornings only, like Gold Cup Coffee Shop, which has lately gotten chased off by the Scientologists. We did have Haslam's. The State Theatre and Tangelo's were just babies. Detroit Liquors, of course was thriving, because the Detroit Hotel was an all male flophouse then --just think of that scene in the Blues Brothers--"Where's mah Cheez-Whiz, boy?" Then when Club Detroit opened, there was this crazy 2-story glass wall upstairs where you could watch the Detroit's lobby for entertainment. Strange drunken arguments about Mars with spastic Joe Cocker-like hand gestures, baggy men drinking from brown paper, slumped down watching the communal T.V. One of those old fashioned, hotel desks with a little  grime-smeared window and pigeonholes for mail and keys. What band was playing? Who cares--this was more exciting.

My weekends were basically spent wandering the empty streets of downtown, sweating, drinking diet Coke, and doing absolutely nothing but staring in dusty, empty storefronts. Thinking: what a waste ..this place could be beautiful! There were so many quirky buildings sitting idle. I came to the conclusion no one appreciated it but me. I mean, I was the only one walking around down there--except the random wino. For real thrills I would go ride the empty escalators in the downtown Maas Brothers, a block from my apartment.  I once even snuck on the outdoor elevator of the Rutland building to see if there really were swimming pools rumored to be on the roofs of some of those downtown high-rises. Someday maybe I'll write about my adventures in the vacant Vinoy. However, downtown St. Pete didn't have any great little music stores like other cities did; even my college town in small Quincy, Illinois had the awesomely named Bob's Be-Bop Records.

I could probably go six blocks down the octagon sidewalks of Central Avenue at 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night, and not meet a soul. There were an array of (closed at that hour) junk stores: the Elephant's Trunk, This 'n' That, a haberdashery with the sort of wild hats Atlanta Church-ladies favored, The Lucky Candle Shop that was sort of creepy to go in, full of Santeria voodoo candles; burn them and they promise: "Capture your Lover", "Find money!" , "Harm to Enemies". Definitely the best in punk atmospherics. The only thing left from that time now that still feels the same funk is Wig Villa.

However, one of the great places I liked to kill time in was a place called Dog Street on Central. Now this was a true punk store that lasted well over ten years, if memory serves me right, and every bit as gnarly and cool as a place you would see in Grungy Portland or Overcast Seattle, John Waters' Bal'mure, or even Hipster Brooklyn today. It was essentially a second hand shop of higher grade, with a little original art thrown in--they may have been the first to show the now locally well-known Vitale Brothers. It took up the entire Crislip Arcade ( the 600 block of Central Ave.), but didn't have that classy wrought iron gate that's on there today. Instead, it had something better: the sign that hung out front--like one of those old fifties neon things, but this had no actual neon--just electric neon colors, Frankenstein (or MisFits!) green and cobalt white outlined in heavy-cartoon black. It took up the entire 2nd story and was attached perpendicular to the storefront, so you could see it for several blocks. (One of the Vitale Bros. told me, online, that someone else made the Dog street sign, a guy called Splashman. But they did the doors and windows there, he said).

I wish I could tell you the name of the owners --a young punk couple then, maybe someone will send? But I googled, and they have gone missing from the internet. One or the other was often sitting outside the Crislip Arcade, on a beat-up old armchair, where the old store took up both sides of that amazing hallway. Some rooms were just storage: the back room is where some of the strange cartoon-like paintings were hung. Maybe R. Crumb and Keith Haring were sorta the influence, dunno. The open-air arcade that ran down the middle of the block was piled with all sorts of interesting 60s furniture, you know the kind, but two decades too soon, with the scratchy, muddy-brown-purple horsehair upholstery, black tubular legs, atomic designs, in various states of disrepair. I would have bought it all if I could afford it (and knew how to fix it). I recently learned, from a trip through L.A., that the matching architectural style was called "Googlie".

Dog Street's owners had fine, discerning eyes--and their merchandise would probably go for beaucoup bucks in this retro mad world today. But what they had, then, was to the average St. Petersbourgeois a little strange and maybe ugly. There were a lot of 50's and 60's castoffs in there, stuff that probably got thrown out of somebody's rec room basement, complete with monkey-fied cocoanuts, from up North when they retired to Florida. The boomerang, the atom, and the triangular ruled, in shades of black,pink, aqua, and chartreuse. They had kitchenware, furniture, clothes (male and female). I think some had been repurposed a la Pretty in Pink, And I remember a lot of crinolines, old funky leather boots, mad cowboy shirts, big old, banana leaf - green and boomerang shaped ash trays--they weren't cutesy antiques. No oak rockers or sweet little vanities. They had the odd vinyl record, and old stereo equipment, maybe the most memorable thing was one of those crazy bug-eyed, space-agey looking 50's Tvs that was pretty much Cathode ray tubes on a stand.https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSj-NH49FiqapkaM5cY4cVBJQhN_oQxbUhvAUZSFMI5xu9SAsmdlA. Had a friend back then who we called Cathode Ray--real name, Cathy, so for years I thought it was spelled Cath Oderay--that would have been a classic pseudonym for a rock dude. But I digress.

I got a lot of cool stuff from there, most of my weird furniture, ashtrays--not clothes so much, although I got a vintage 50's sweater or two. A swingin' curled black lamb's wool 50's car coat with no buttons. But, usually so poor I windowed, more than shopped. I bought this weird little atomic looking, two-layered trash can for a fin that was a black mesh receptacle with a metal removable bin--I decoupaged the inner lining with a bunch of crazy paper and paint and resold it for $40.00!! A circular mesh-metal shelf from some 50's bathroom. I once coughed up an extravagent $40.00 myself for an original painting I fell in love with, an abstract Aqua, Pink, and Black stick figure, with a black metal tube frame--still have that hanging in my living room. It fits any decor...;

Notice I haven't mentioned much in the way of music...there was some. Dog Street, of course, played cool music--seems I remember them favoring punk-o-billy, like The Cramps, I and some of the "other" Athens, Ga bands, like Pylon, mixed in with obscure dark 50s county and early garage rock. There was a sort of David Lynch, Blue Velvet, menacing vibe there. That block was one of the last to go when gentrification hit St. Pete hard a decade back. Blame Leslie Curran.

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Early Local Scenes: Deloris Telescope

About three years ago, I had a really good time: I went to a musical reunion. I generally avoid those sentimental things like the HAPPY TOGETHER tours. But it was an old band that I actually enjoyed: Deloris Telescope, at Jannus Live (in the old days it was called Jannus Landing--more on that later). What was particularly nice was that I saw the guy (James) there, who had first introduced me to them--he was just a high school kid then, now he's rapidly approaching deep middle age. Seems weird to think, ages seem so divided when you are young, but he was probably only 4-5 years younger than me? I have friends with much bigger gaps these days, but I'm pretty immature, I suppose. Age and time, strange brew.

I should mention, I did not follow Deloris later, during the days when they almost made it to the Show. They were the closest thing to a local punk band we had, way back.. later there were more.

James had showed up at my house one day, around 1980-82? and said, "You gotta see this band; I can't explain..." So we went. I lived in Crescent Lake then, and I suppose I missed Exene Cervenka of the early punk band X by a few years--she had already moved west with John Doe. I have no knowledge that she ever played here in the early days. Maybe someone else knows. We apparently hung out at the same crazy banyan tree at Crescent Lake Park, where her graffiti is supposed to be carved. I went last year to see if I could find it, but--Horrors! The city has put a hurricane strength green-lacquered fence all around it so no one, not even little kids, can climb it anymore.

So, where James took us all was to this grody old place then called The Cheshire Cat, in 1980s Gulfport, on 22nd Ave So. So, in this place, Deloris was the opening act for a fairly popular alt-band known as the Headlights. The Headlights were sorta almost new-wave,(post punk?) with a guitarist-singer, Steve Connelly, who walked a fine line between Pete Townsend and the more r 'n' r version of Jackson Browne, if that makes sense, heavy on the Townsend windmill guitar, though. I had seen, and appreciated, them. They seemed almost mainstream, very likable. It was rather intriguing, and perplexing, that they added these weird dudes, Deloris Telescope, as a regular opening feature to their gigs.

At first, I disliked them. A lot. I could get up there and do better, I thought. DT's shows were, in those days, hem, less polished. Almost nerdy--definitely not rock cool, but the leader had potential.You can see I got over my initial distaste: I probably saw Deloris, I don't know, 70 times? over the next few years. Kacy Ross (singer, songwriter, guitarist) was a born showman and it didn't take long for him to get comfortable showing his impromptu weirdness onstage. It didn't immediately occur to me that what they were doing was punk --the definition was too narrow then.

The tip-off should have been the nude painting they always put up front onstage, their muse, I assume, this sort of Cubist, 60's Village , elongated girl with a long belly and one verrrry saggy breast. I miss that painting. Their influences seemed from everywhere. Funk. British Steel metal. R and B. Prog Rock of the WMNF Step Outside variety. Hip-hop. (Kacy could MC with the best, a regular Wonder Mike), Glen Campbell and old pop country. Maybe Patti and Iggy. But they only did strange covers, and not ironically, or quick, the way a lot of punk bands did. "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" was one of their best, with some "Rapper's Delight" mixed in, an early, live, mash-up. It often dragged out for eight, ten -thirteen...minutes, and not a minute boring. I liked it better than the Temps'; their percussion was very worthy of the funk. Sometimes it was all they needed.

  Now that I look back, I think Kacy might have been absorbing stuff off of fellow midwesterner , Stiv Bators, of The Dead Boys. They sort of looked alike--rock lanky and the weird half hippie, half punk clothes combination that were seen on the edgier weirdos in those days. Like Stiv (real name Steve, no lie! I looked it up!), he had long scraggily dark hair in random layers, not long flowing Greg Allman hippie hair. Not a strait-edge baldy sour. Faded bell bottoms with the knees blown out and low-cut Chucks, bizarre t-shirts. Kacy had some with like a random number, or hand painted dots. He was also a bit of a chameleon, to the point where, if he put a hat on, grew a little silly mustache, cut his bangs or slicked back his hair and put on a tie, you might not recognize him. He was a guy who could assume a costume.

Kacy's was a somehow weirder, more off kilter than all that usual razor blade, kill-me punk stance. It was his sense of humor, which was often juvenile, but also spacy. Ok, their big local hits were, perhaps pandering to the hippie redneck beach crowd, called "6UL-DV8",which for a long time was on the license plate of the band equipment van, and "Pink Mescaline". It made you want to say, how can anyone ever take these guys seriously? It's like twelve year old guitar geeks writing songs in the basement about their fantasy girlfriends and lame attempts to get high. But that was also their charm. Kacy gave the impression he was riffing lines off the top of his head, like he could on guitar. Memorable lines--

"I got the fever/
I got the blister/
I never had a sister/
And I don't need one.....anymore...."

But they also had their Syd Barrett-we're-on -our-way-to -Mars side. And odd time signatures--stoopid drum beats.

Locally, they were my favorite band at my favorite clubs: Cheshire, Swamp Club-- later called, smoky ol'" Gulfport on the Rocks"--and now again, "SALTY'S", much more beach- classy---if you google "Swamp Club Gulfport", this great old article from the Evening Independent comes up, about some beat journalist trying, and not succeeding, to find mohawk-wearing punks at Swamp Club--because of course, the only real punks have mohawks and safety pins in their...), El Gordo's, which was above a laundry mat on Blind Pass Road, and once upon a time had all sorts of DT graffiti in the bathroom, including my JIM LYNCH!! This was a way-inside joke among my friends when they had had a few, about old DT bassist Dave Fairman, who looked like one of our cousins. We were not opposed to incongruously yelling that all night long. J I-I-I-I-I-I-M-M-M L-L-L-LYNCH!! Anything goes at El Gordo's, including a tall groupie girl we nicknamed "The Stork". There are scenes within scenes. Anyone who came to St. Pete in the early 80's anywhere expecting to see the media's version of what punk looked like would be disappointed. This room was half beach redneck, anyway.

El Gordo's felt like the most personal place to watch them, where they seemed completely comfortable and goofy. ACL on the 1700 block of Central (or was it 1st Ave? it moved once, now I can't remember) was where they seemed most ready to go big, most professional. ACL stood for Atlantic Coast Line, as in the Railroad depot once there (this is what makes me think it was on 1st 'cos the line ran that way? It was just west of downtown proper.) I loved hanging out at ACL, which had the hangover, 70's hippie feel, (like The Outta-Sight Shop that used to be on Corey Avenue in SP Beach, with the big bulls-eye target sign on the roof, anyone remember ?), but with a slightly biker edge around the pool tables out back, a room you had to go through (cat-call alley) from the parking lot to get to the front where the band was, next to the long bar. There were no jello shooters, fancy chocolate, or, -gag- "dirty" martinis or anything like that; it was strictly blue-collar drinking. There was a dance floor, where you got hit a lot, not because it was a mosh pit, but because it was so small, and, everybody danced! I know I knocked into a few wall-flowers' tables several times there when I got a little wild. No one cared: it was a fun place.

I did not know that in their later days DT played CBGB's, and famous Greenwich clubs like The Bitter End and Cafe Wha? They opened for Lords of the New Church (Stiv),Steppenwolf, Warren Zevon, X, Robin Trower, Flock of Seagulls and Cheap Trick. Never made it to the big time--almost--record company contacts and all that. I think this is why maybe some people don't fully think of them as punks--punks supposedly disdained the big houses, were intentionally anti-rock star, too sociopathic for even the music world of the 80's. Underneath DT's jokes you could sense their wistful desire to be famous for more than fifteen minutes. They had it. I took a friend who had never seen them, and who doesn't always see eye-to-eye with me on music, to the reunion show at Jannus, and she fell hard for gray-haired Kacy. They lived a rock star existence in St. Pete--people who saw them fell madly in love with them: they had groupies, did the excess dance near death.

Not with me. I kept my distance. My friends and I used to sit at the tables upstairs at El Gordo's and act like prepubescents, not sure what to do with our excited feelings. Except dance and shout. Even the men in our lives couldn't take our crushes seriously. We let the the Spandex girls do the groupie thing.

On St. Pete Punk: in 1982-3 you would probably have to talk to most of the people in the St. Pete scene to find out they identified punk. Most didn't buy into the heavy gear, especially in the early days. It was too hot for leather--jeans, even, for 4 months, so that sort of kills the look. Piercings and tattoos? They were starting to show up: I had 3 piercings, only one I did myself, and not in a very weird place. Hair was the more likely place to show off, and some guys were starting to shave off or layer their long hippie hair. It was a mellow take.

By the later eighties, though, I started to see more of the punk creatures, but more in Ybor, on Nebraska Avenue, and at Jannus Landing when they came out at night for shows for nationally known groups from D.C., Boston, or California. That didn't happen often. I think the skinheads were the most stare-at-them-on the-street kinda local punks. They had a uniform, so in a group, they looked pretty scary. They wore "braces and boots", that is, Doc Martin steel toed workboots---not the cutesy colored ones they sell now---these were always black. "Braces"--red suspenders, not sure where that trend started here, but I'm sure it was imported from the working class British "oi" boys. A few of them had really wicked, starched mohawks, but most were "suede heads", with that military strip down the center of their heads as if they forgot to mow all the grass. Lots of military, nazist, camouflage--you always wondered if they were carrying weapons. I gave them W_I_I_I_D_E berth.

Girl punks, very small in number, by-the-way, were more likely to dress up than boys (most boys stuck to jeans, board shorts, flannel, odd t-shirts, the random razor cut) in thrift store stuff, vintage 50's, layers of Madonna jewelry, clunky boots, heavy makeup, vampire crosses, dyed hair. Today's copy-cats mostly get that wrong, though, with the crayola hair colors--most girls went either jet black, platinum or brassy red. Those crayola colors didn't exist then, and the only way to make your hair, say, blue or green, temporarily, was to first strip out all the color with peroxide and then use clothes dye, which really didn't last through many washings. Maybe if you didn't wash your hair--how punk.

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Jannus Landing, before it was "Live"

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Grotty old Ybor--Goat's Head Soup.

Yes, Goat's Head Soup is more than a under- appreciated Rolling Stone's album. (It has Billy Preston!) I ate the real thing in YBor during a Heatwave. WMNF gives Ybor a serious rock history.
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Jim Morrison, Jack Kerouac, Pinellas Park, and the Beaux Artes--don't forget the movie showings: Devil at 3 O' Clock, Treasure of the Sierra Madre

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The Blueberry Patch???

Dog Street
The ACL
Old Jannus Landing
The Hideaway
Cafe Bohemia
The Big Apple
Beaux Artes
Jim Morrison in Pinellas
Art Pool
Gulfport Casino--Swing Dancing
The Globe Coffee Shop (If I score an interview with Jo I could make this a multipart series.)

Hmm. Could use my "{Explosions Are Boring}" as a historical connect to the hotel that got blowed up--what the hell was its name again? Think. Think. Think. Ah!! The Sereno. Address? Where that new high-rise is...Beach and 1st. Took up half the block, was 7 stories high.

Free Stuff (or pert' near) We Did Before Facebook: Read on steps of condemned/public buildings.
Climb trees. Free buffets at Happy Hour.(Casa Lupita?) MTV(for hours-all hours: 120 Minutes! Finest show MTv ever produced). Free Cable/ HBO? Arcades. Pac-man & Ms. Pac-man. The following used to be free before the fences: Shakespeare in the Park. Ribfest. Bluesfest. $1 movies. Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight for $5, at the old 5th Avenue Theatre--now gone--still had the old red velvet curtains and red velvet seats then--Very Desperately Seeking Susan.

4/5/2014 Belleview Biltmore Story: Notes

rehearsal place for Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review Tour--Dylan claims the title did not come from "Operation Rolling Thunder" in Vietnam, nor a Native American shaman--just from looking at the sky, watching clouds rolling in
4th Show of the southern leg of the tour was at the Biltmore, in the Starlight Ballroom. Following shows in Lakeland, St. Petersburg, and Tampa
People on the tour, possibly therefore guests: Allen Ginsberg, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Scarlet Rivera, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, T-Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson,Sara, his wife Sara
Nick from Record Exchange says the concert was broadcast nation-wide from the Biltmore--claims he has a grainy VHS copy somewhere of it. Knows Dylan's doctor???
Some footage of RTR on youtube
my pics of Vinoy? Sereno story?
Movie Renaldo and Clara

Bob Dylan: Just Like A Woman, Clearwater, Florida 22 April 1976 (Video)

September 4, 2013 by Egil | 3 Comments

bob-dylan-clearwater-florida-april-22nd-1976

Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev’rybody knows
That Baby’s got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl

Starlight Ballroom
Belleview Biltmore Hotel
Clearwater, Florida
22 April 1976 – Evening

Bob Dylan (guitar & vocal)
Scarlet Rivera (violin)
T-bone J. Henry Burnette (guitar & piano)
Steven Soles (guitar)
Mick Ronson (guitar)
Bobby Neuwirth (guitar & vocal)
Roger McGuinn (guitar & vocal)
David Mansfield (steel guitar, mandolin, violin & dobro)
Rob Stoner (bass)
Howie Wyeth (drums)
Gary Burke (congas)

Pictures of the Belleview Biltmore, including the room where this concert occurred, the Starlight Ballroom

http://www.savethebiltmore.com/BiltmorePhotos_Broad_Band.htm

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My first article for publication:

Howie Wyeth (drums)
Gary Burke (congas)

Pictures of the Belleview Biltmore, including the room where this concert occurred, the Starlight Ballroom

http://www.savethebiltmore.com/BiltmorePhotos_Broad_Band.htm

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My first article for publication:
Bob and His Disappearing Biltmore Act :

—“Lying next to her by the ocean/ Reaching out and touching her hand/ Whispering your secret emotion/ Magic in a magical land”—- Bob Dylan, 1976

When I was just a young punk kid in 1980, I lived near a beautiful, dying hotel. It sat empty for more than ten years, abandoned inside its chain-link cage. My friend Mary and I once violated that fence so we could take pictures inside of its moldering 1920’s elegance. I was wrong to think it a hopeless cause: it was called the Vinoy. It did not disappear.

On the steps of another 1920s abandoned St. Pete hotel, the Sereno, I used to do my USF homework—reading Mark Twain and Walt Whitman in fine decay. At the end of the 80’s, I watched it get blown up for a Mel Gibson movie. Abracadabra…poof, it disappeared.

I guess I have a thing for old hotels. There’s music in their old walls.

Literally. Further north, another potential victim of time , the Belleview Biltmore, is today facing destruction, yet it was once host to a alchemic moment in rock history—Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review Tour.

Dylan’s folk era fellow, Bob Neuwirth, with whom he played the same Gaslight Cafe/Kettle of Fish,Cafe Wha? circuit in Greenwich, , who rode shotgun, said of the group’s burn to play together again: “ This was the first existential tour. It’s a movie, a closed set. It’s rock ’n’ roll heaven, and it’s historical.” If it was a movie, its cast was noteworthy.

Neuwirth, by the way, was the original Bobby in Janis Joplin's biggest hit “Bobby McGee”, which Kris Kristofferson wrote. One of Dylan’s most revered albums came out of these hot conspiratorial nights: Desire.

It turns out Dylan and Company, on the southern leg of this crazy carnival of a tour , were holed up like the Gallo gang in April of 1976 in our Bellaire Biltmore to rehearse, film, and even broadcast nationwide— critically acclaimed and nostalgic moments for Dylan fans. Many feel these were Dylan’s best live performances.

Specific legendary Dylan events converged in this residency:

The aforementioned April rehearsal of the southern Rolling Thunder Review took place at the Belleview Biltmore . All sorts of iconic musicians were on that stage. Dylan claims he named it watching Pinellas thunderheads rolling in, not аfter the Vietnam operation, or the native shaman.
The Biltmore's Starlight Ballroom was actually used as a venue for at least two live shows: the southern tour started in Lakeland at the Civic Center (where I saw Dylan myself during his Gospel period), then moved from St. Petersburg, to Tampa, and the 4th show, performed in the afternoon of April 22, was back at the Starlight Ballroom. Perhaps there were two shows: one of my sources claims it was in the evening. Oh, to have been at either!
On April 17, a Starlight Ballroom show was actually broadcast on NBC nationwide. It was my record store acquaintance, Nick, who first told me this—he remembers watching it in New York, and claims he has a grainy copy of it—somewhere. I found clips of this (with difficulty!) on the nets. Of the 9 or so clips listed, only two are hot, the rest removed by the Web Sheriff. In one Bob alone sings “Times They Are A ’Changin’” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” unplugged and unbored—holding his acoustic at an old fashioned 45 degree angle, wearing a black cowboy shirt, a scarf wrapped around his long curls and topped with a Huck Finn hat. Another clip with the band—a defiant version of “Just Like A Woman” —sounds more mournful than the studio version on Blonde on Blonde.
Renaldo and Clara: This was a documentary Dylan made around this time, and long pulled from circulation—it can’t be bought on Amazon, if that tells you anything. Some of it may have been filmed at the Biltmore—particularly one of the concert sequences looks like the Starlight, but..I'm not sure. Um—so I confess, in my ardor I found large chunks of it hidden on youtube—the name obscured to avoid the Sheriff. Dylan is notorious for scrubbing all traces of his unauthorized work from public sight for his own private reasons…this is the Sorcerer’s Stone of all Dylan rarities. The carnival disappears.

Old pictures of the Starlight Ballroom shows why it lit up for an American traditionalist like Dylan—the romantic ceiling painted and pin-pricked to represent the night sky ( much like the Tampa Theatre’s), the arched stage cross-curtained in red like an old western vaudeville hall. If it wasn’t so pretty you’d think a bar fight might break out.

The voices of the singers , the instruments of musicians that would have bounced and echoed off the Starlight walls must have made an elegant soup of the magically talented, desperate to hold off the cheapness of days when rock was bloated with excessive success. Among those reverberators:

Joan Baez—sharing a mike with Bob and singing so directly into his eyes—people thought they were sparkin’. Dylan coyly asked her to sing “Diamonds and Rust” and she replied that he was mistaken to think it was about him.
Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, (remember—they did the more popular version of “Mr. Tambourine Man”).
Ronee Blakely and Allen Ginsberg. Allen appears at about the half-way mark of Renaldo and Clara, in voiceover, and later walking through a graveyard with Bob, discussing the graves of famous poets and writers they’d visited. He wouldn’t have been a stranger to Pinellas County, as his buddy Jack Kerouac lived here.
T-Bone Burnett, playing guitar and piano—yes, THAT T-Bone Burnett!
Mick Ronson (who played guitar on Bowie’s Spiders from Mars Tour—Hey, man, that’s him on the opening riffs of “Suffragette City” and “Ziggy Stardust” —and later with Morrissey, the Rats, and Van Morrison).
From the Greenwich Village scene—Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Bob Neuwirth among others.
Scarlet Rivera—the violinist showcased on Desire and Hard Rain, and who was claimed to be a real life gypsy girl Dylan found on the streets of the Village.

Dylan’s Biltmore moments only seemed to have disappeared—a sight trick performed in a mirrored room by Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts. It’s kind of hard to nail down exact details of anything about Dylan, and this time period especially, which seems most vigorously hidden in a secret panel out of sight. In the throes of his break-up with wife Sara, who appears in the footage and who is the subject of much of Bob’s ’75-’76 era music, it can be painful even for a stranger to watch. However, several books, and the odd pirated clips seem to confirm that these events, however ephemeral, did occur here.

I sympathize with Dylan’s desire to do great things while hiding in plain sight. Dylan, playing mystery magician, said in 1976, “ Definition destroys…there’s nothing definite in this world.” Yup, the Sereno is definitely not in this world anymore. But, here’s to hoping the hangin’ judge gets drunk, and forgets to show up at the Belleview Biltmore’s Trial.

July 23: Need to write about the Blueberry Patch in Gulfport, and the band I saw there last night, Justino and the Difference: whoo.

Key of Malta

Thursday, February 27, 2014

LRC

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Cosmic Dancer (Etceteranuff..)

Bob Dylan: Just Like A Woman, Clearwater, Florida 22 April 1976 (Video)