I don't know if I have really explained how much I love the great late Mr. Jim Henson. I know I just talked about him and his great films Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. But there was also this amazing little show called "The Muppet Show." I don't really know where I would be without this show. I did watch a lot of Sesame Street. But it was the night time show "The Muppet Show" that really made me who I am today. It was one of those great shows that appealed to kids as well as their parents. So it wasn't like my parents had to make me watch the show. And they also never minded watching it along with me and my brother. It was hilarious and brilliant. Nothing really like it. And although some of the jokes may not be as relevant today, they are still hilarious. Season 1 of the Muppet show came out in August about 2 years ago. But this month, we get Season 2 of this great show.

The Muppet show was on the air from 1976 to 1981. It lasted 5 seasons. But it didn't get canceled or fade into obscurity. Jim Henson simply needed more time to devote to his feature films like Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. And his amazing trilogy of Muppet movies. The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984). These were followed by more similar Muppet movies. But these early movies were the best. These movies only made me more obsessed with the muppets.

Each episode of the Muppet Show featured a guest star. And there was never the same guest on all 5 seasons. Season 1 featured Phyllis Diller, Paul Williams, Rita Moreno, Sandy Duncan, Ben Vereen, Jim Nabors, Florence Henderson, Joel Grey, Twiggy, and in one of my favorite episodes, Vincent Price. The list of season 2 guests is just as great. And the first episode features the amazing Don Knotts! Also featured in season 2 is Milton Berle, Judy Collins, Steve Martin, George Burns, Dom Deluise, Bernadette Peters, Elton John, Lou Rawls, Peter Sellers, Petula Clark, Bob Hope, John Cleese, and Cloris Leachman.

Amoeba Music & Phil Blankenship are proud to present the QUINTESSENTIAL counterculture car film:

Saturday August 25

Vanishing Point (1971)

From this week's issue of The Onion:
The barriers between exploitation and art began to erode in the late '60s and early '70s in the wake of the European New Wave's skillful appropriation of B-movie elements. In the U.S., that influence was reflected in films like Richard Sarafian's bizarre 1971 chase picture Vanishing Point, which stars Barry Newman as "the last free man on Earth" and "one of the last great drivers." When Newman offers to drive a new white Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in less than 15 hours, blind local DJ Cleavon Little makes him a counterculture hero as he reports on how Newman dodges the cops and hooks up with "the gentle people" along the way.

New Beverly Cinema
7165 W Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 938-4038
Midnight, $7

http://www.myspace.com/newbeverlymidnights
http://www.myspace.com/newbeverlycinema

Please come on down, tell your friends & repost!

As if you needed an excuse to visit that loveliest of all the lovely San Francisco venues, the Swedish American Hall, this coming Sunday it will be filled with the music of Bert Jansch.


Yes, that's right, Bert Jansch, oh -he- of- that- difficult- to- pronounce -last- name (last time I checked it was Yan-sh) will be making a rare-ish appearance here in our fair city.


Bert's one of those lucky people who came up in the U.K. in the late 50s/early 60s, so by the time he was a young man, he was in Swinging London's folk clubs impressing many a drunken lout.

My favorite records of his came out in the mid-to-late 60s:

Jack Orion (1966)    


and
Birthday Blues (1968) 




If you like your folk music straight up with just a slight twist of mournfulness, Bert's a guy for you.  His voice is so rich and warm.  It doesn't sound like anyone else's ever.  He's had somewhat of a comeback lately, with a great record released last year called Black Swan, produced by Noah Georgeson and with requisite omnipresent guest Devendra Banhart, among others.  From what I hear about his live shows, he's still got chops for miles.  Unfortunately, I can't make the show Sunday, so some of you will have to go for me and report back....Please?

New York City: Aug 23rd 2007

You gotta love Amoeba Music recording artist Brandi Shearer, who earlier tonight (Thursday 23rd) treated everyone to cupcakes at her final New York City gig in a series at downtown Lower East Side club the Living Room. As a thoughtful display of gratitude for her New York supporters, the generous Shearer celebrated her last night of a month-long East Coast tour by buying a few dozen cupcakes (from Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery on nearby Rivington Street) for all who packed into the Ludlow St. venue. "I bought cupcakes for you all for after the show," she told the delighted Living Room crowd before she and her band, led by legendary guitarist Jim Campilongo and including Richard Hammond on bass, launched into their last offering of the night -- another song in the 45-minute set that drew exclusively from the singer/songwriter's brand new album Close To Dark, to be released on the newly launched Amoeba Music label next Tuesday (August 28th). Fittingly, Shearer's next gig (post album release date) will be back in California at Amoeba Music Hollywood on Saturday, September 1st at 2PM, PST. (Note that this gig will be streamed online so you can catch it if you are not in LA.)

But for the past few weeks Shearer has been hella busy out here on the East Coast doing an assortment of concerts, radio and TV interviews and performances in Boston, Philly, and New York City. Here in NYC, in addition to her Living Room series, she also had several other performances including one for ASCAP and another on New York City's WPIX TV Channel 11. "I'd never been to New York before recently," she informed me shortly before taking the Living Room stage. "But I like it here." She said that the New York audiences have been incredibly attentive and well-behaved, especially compared to some of the more rowdy types of crowds that she has witnessed over her rich and varied career. She recalled the semi-shock she encountered the first night, three weeks ago, at the Living Room when "In between songs there was not a word, not a word. And I am just not used to that. I have strategies for people yelling and fist-fights. But for a completely attentive crowd I have no strategies," she laughed. But still, she had absolutley no problem adjusting to the well behaved audience, as proven by tonight's winning performance in which she shone (as did Jim Campilongo who plays the Living Room every Monday) during such songs as the roadhouse blues styled "Oh, Singer" and the sultry, hauntingly beautiful and sad country-soul of "Congratulations," a song that sounds like it's made to be featured in some movie soundtrack if ever there was one. (You can just imagine it as the perfect backdrop to some sad and moving love story.) Between songs Brandi got a warm response when she told the New York crowd that she herself had become a New Yorker of sorts during her past few weeks in the Big Apple -- proof being that she had mastered how to ride the New York City subway while transporting an instrument.  

Cordell Jackson was probably best known as the "rock-and-roll granny" whose git-pickin’ ran circles around Brian Setzer in the 1991 Budweiser commercial. But she is also an early rockabilly pioneer and is thought to be the first woman to write, arrange, engineer, produce, promote and manufacture her own rock and roll record label: Moon Records founded in Memphis in 1956.

Born into a musical household in Mississippi in 1923, her father played fiddle and lead a popular local string band called the Pontotoc Ridge Runners, she had  recorded several demos at Sam Phillips' Memphis studios for Sun Records. But without any success, or the likelihood of getting signed to Sun, she took the advice of Chet Atkins and formed her own label.

Her first release was "Beboppers  Christmas" b/w "Rock and Roll Christmas.” Soon she was releasing other singles from other rockabilly artists such as Allen Page and the Big Four, best known for their single "Dateless Night," written by Jackson.

Jackson continued Moon Records through the 1970’s and 80’s, remaining active in the rockabilly music scene. She recorded a novelty song called "Football Widow," which became probably her best known recording.  After the Budweiser ad, she enjoyed her quirky, new-found fame: she had a small role as the "Bathroom Lady" in “The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag,” appeared on the David Letterman show and had her original Moon singles displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.