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I always say I won’t get fooled again. But the Who have had many farewell tours over the last 30 or so years. They’ve retired more times than Bernie Williams played his last game with the Yankees, and that’s saying something.
Anyway, now The Who have canceled the first four dates on their fall farewell tour because Roger Daltrey, who is never sick, has a mystery viral infection.
September 14 at Valley View Casino Center in San Diego,September 16 at Honda Center in Anaheim, September 19 at Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and September 21 at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles–have been postponed.
It must be serious because the group is also skipping The I Heart Radio concert in Vegas on September 18th. That’s for Clear Channel, which owns the rock stations that might still be playing The Who. Of course, the Who– like everyone else– aren’t being paid for their pre-1972 recordings on radio. So “Tommy” and “Who’s Next” and singles like “My Generation” are all being played for free on Clear Channel/I Heart Radio stations. But that’s another story (and a lawsuit).
I love The Who. I watch “CSI” shows just to hear their songs. “Who’s Next” just gets better and better. Let’s hope Roger Daltrey does, too. Unspecified virus? Call Norton, I say.
PS In the old days Keith Moon would have played even if he had a virus. He would have played because he had a virus. We’ve all gotten old…
Who are the leaders in entertainment from the New Establishment? Vanity Fair put only two in its top 30: Amy Schumer (15) and John Oliver (28).
Otherwise, the top 30 starts with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, who’s on the cover, and you can guess from there. The leaders of Uber, Air bnb, Instagram and so on fill up the list.
Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin fell from number 2 to 5.
Marvel’s Kevin Feige is the highest ranking movie exec, at 11. Jason Blum, trained by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, is at number 31. He’s made a bloody fortune producing horror films and occasional art house fare (“Whiplash,” “The Normal Heart”).
After Schumer and Oliver the next actor who comes up on the list is Jessica Alba, at 36. Her Honest Company is worth $200 million. Her husband’s name, by the way, is Cash. Really. Actor Jared Leto is at number 38.
Two glaring omissions: actor Ashton Kutcher, who’s a big investor in all things tech with his partner Jason Goldberg; and director Brett Ratner, who’s now funding almost all of Warner Bros.’ slate with James Packer in RatPac Entertainment. Very odd.
Even odder: Hillary Clinton made a separate list of top 25 entertainment and media types. She’s the lone politician. I guess Vanity Fair finds her entertaining.
The jockeying for position on these lists must be insane. Who’s out, who’s in, etc. must have kept publicists burning up their mobile minutes way into the night.
Sam Smith’s James Bond “Spectre” song is called “Writing’s on the Wall.” It will be released September 25th. Smith was allowed to Tweet the news over night. Now we know why Smith had to lose so much weight this summer– they needed to use his photo in profile. Well, that’s pretty good incentive! Smith wrote the song with partner Jimmy Napier (Jimmy Napes) in 10 minutes. They recorded it last January. So he kept the secret all year, even when he was winning Grammy Awards. The NSA should hire him!
Unlike “Skyfall,” this song doesn’t have the title of the movie in its name. But a few Bond songs have gone in that direction, notably “Nobody Does it Better,” Carly Simon’s huge hit from “The Spy Who Loved Me.” That song does mention the title in its lyrics. Most Bond songs, like “Goldfinger” and “For Your Eyes Only,” use the title of the movie for the song’s as well.
But what would rhyme with “Spectre”? Hector? Nectar? And probably no one wanted Phil Spector to think it was about him.
Marty Milner starred in one of the great movies of all time, “The Sweet Smell of Success,” with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. He has passed away at age 83. Milner is fondly remembered as the star of two TV series, “Route 66” and “Adam 12.” He was a real TV pioneer actor, working constantly without a break from the late 1940s until 1997. Rest in peace. If someone knows if he has a star on the Walk of Fame, let me know. He should.
EXCLUSIVE I’ve confirmed it, definitely and most absolutely. After months of speculation, Sam Smith — the male version of Adele as it were– is doing the James Bond theme song for “Spectre.”
The song will be released Tuesday morning.
Sam joins Shirley Bassey, Paul McCartney, Carly Simon, Sheena Easton, Duran Duran, and of course Adele in the long line of singers who’ve had this moment in pop history.
Yes, I did think Ellie Goulding was doing the song. But my sources tell me that because she did “Fifty Shades of Grey,” she was out of contention.
And Smith, despite plagiarism problems this year with Tom Petty over “Stay with Me,” is the breakout star of the year. Just like Adele, he took the Grammy Awards. I don’t know why anyone thought Radiohead, which drones on on and on like an electric fan, would be singing a pop song for a pop movie. That was weird.
I’ve met Chrissie Hynde a couple of times over the years, and she’s scared me. It didn’t matter. Her songs, voice– I’ve loved them for over 35 years. I remember when Chris, the lanky clerk with a shag haircut behind the counter at Bleecker Bob’s, handed me the import single of “Stop Your Sobbing” in 1979. (Import singles didn’t have the donut hole in the center for a yellow plastic adapter. They had a regulation spindle hole, like something you punched out for a notebook.) Real Records had two R’s, the printing was in black and white.
Nick Lowe (already a New Wave superstar) had produced the record, which was a cover of an obscure Kinks song. No radio stations played “Stop Your Sobbing” since radio then was all Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, and still mostly rejected “New Wave” music from England completely. The great Seymour Stein (of Ramones and Talking Heads fame) signed the Pretenders to Sire Records, out came “Brass in Pocket” (an expression we now learn Chrissie overheard at the dry cleaner) and the rest is history. In a few months, everyone knew the Pretenders.
Last week, for some odd reason, Dwight Garner in the New York Times jumped the embargo on Chrissie’s memoir “Reckless” (Doubleday) just to ambush her, attack the book, dismiss her as a bad writer and pretty much 86 the book. At the same time, the UK papers seized on Chrissie’s account of sexual assault at the hands of bikers in which she seemed to be blaming herself and victims of rape. I guess no one is doing publicity for the book since the whole thing just spun out of control. The book business has never learned a thing.
But “Reckless,” while a little incomplete, is the best rock memoir I’ve read since Patti Smith’s “Just Kids.” It ranks up there, for its time period, with Bebe Buell’s “Rebel Heart” and Sting’s “Broken Music.”
“Reckless” is a real outsider’s story because she was a woman in rock (rare) who was a musician, not a groupie, who insisted on being taken seriously, was tough as nails, and American in a second British invasion of power pop after a long dreary cycle of corporate rock and hair bands. And because of all this, it took her a little longer to pull it together. But when she did, pow!
First of all, she loves Ohio. Still still loves Ohio, especially miserable Akron, the subject of her anthem “My City Was Gone.” (She doesn’t like Cleveland.) She went to Kent State and was there when the student riots left four kids dead from gunfire by the National Guard. She wants to be a rocker, a tough biker chick, part Jack Kerouac, and aspires to being a musician even though she’s not sure how. She wants to front her own band but it will take about a decade, all told, before she wills the Pretenders into existence.
The meandering and testing of Chrissie vs. the world takes up the first half of the book. She’s laying the groundwork for what’s to come, her eventual full departure from Ohio. She circles Europe– London and Paris–like a hawk before she finally lands. Note to all the meaningless pop stars of today: Chrissie Hynde paid dues. The part-time jobs are numerous.
But it’s the addresses– there’s no way to count all the places she called “home,” where she slept, couches, an office desk, basements, tunnels, chairs. There’s also no way to quantify the drugs. Ingestion is matter of fact. It’s amazing that she lived through it, unscathed. What you do get from “Reckless” is that Chrissie Hynde is indomitable.
“Reckless” kicks in historically when Chrissie meets all the people who’d become the Clash and the Sex Pistols and a dozen other groups who were on parallel paths. She almost marries Sid Vicious, and Johnny Rotten, to stay in the UK. She works for Nick Kent at the New Musical Express, and for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood in a boutique. She sings back up on cult albums by the underrated Chris Spedding. She doesn’t know it at the time but all of it will pay off. None of them are famous yet.
My only quibble with “Reckless” is that it peters out. There’s a pretty full account of the Pretenders’ early days, and the drug deaths of two of the original members. But the book kind of screeches to a halt with a lot of unanswered questions. Chrissie winds up marrying The Kinks’ Ray Davies after she’s revived his career with covers of her songs. No mention is made of that. Also, I’m kind of curious what happened when she ran into all these people- like McLaren and Westwood– after she became a superstar. She also got to be a celebrity vegetarian, mixing it up with Paul and Linda McCartney. What was that like?
Also, the details of her songwriting could be richer. She sheds a little light. A second draft might have given deeper insight into how she writes, how the songs came about. She credits James Honeyman-Scott, who died early, with helping on the first songs. But after that, how did she do it? Hynde has one song that’s become a money making standard — “I’ll Stand by You.” She some others, like “Night in My Veins,” that are sheer genius and poetry. I still don’t know what makes “Back on the Chain Gang” soar the way it does. Maybe a Part Two will supply this information.
But “Reckless” a fine read, and a must read for anyone who grew up on punk, New Wave, came from the Mid West and aspired to greatness, or needs to know certain anatomical information about Iggy Pop. I can’t wait for the movie, by the way.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association is proud that its average donation to hospitals, research and other organization is $300,000.
In 2013, their new CEO topped that amount by a lot. Stephen Derks was paid a total of $522,000 to run MDA. Charity begins at home!
Tonight, there is no Labor Day Telethon at all after Jerry Lewis was booted in 2010. Since then, MDA has had two or three hour specials on ABC. Now they have nothing. The old Jerry Lewis Telethon was syndicated and bartered, meaning MDA offered the show for free, paid its costs, and the stations around the country who picked it up made money from advertising. They were local stations anyway, so their costs weren’t that high.
But that all changed when MDA ousted Lewis and went for the ABC specials. According to their tax filing from 2013, MDA paid the ABC Network a whopping $2.2 million to put on that canned special which no one watched.
The post-Jerry Lewis MDA is still raising money and distributing it. Their largest donation, for over a million dollars, now goes to ALS. MDA’s total executive salaries in 2013 were $1.67 million.
June Kempf, whom I interviewed last year, just published an essay in Newsday. She wrote: “The telethon gave us purpose and hope. We participated in fundraisers all year — school “hop-a-thons,” dog walks, golf tournaments and fashion shows. The events provided precious moments for children with the disease to bond — to feel wanted.”
All of that is over now. The MDA network is gone, and so is the community. But the executives continue to reap benefits. In 2013, according to the group’s 2013 Form 990, MDA paid TargetCast, a media group, $1.306,520, to produce ads for the ABC telethon, the one they paid ABC another $2.2 million for. The CEO of TargetCast is Steve Farella, an MDA board member. TargetCast was paid an additional fee of $166,931 so Farella could get those public service announcements on the air. (Farella, they point out, “is not directly compensated by MDA.”)
You wonder why after all these years, MDA has produced few results. Meanwhile the ALS Association is credited with raising $115 million last year through its Ice Bucket challenge. According to the New York Times, the money directly affected a research breakthrough this year.
Interesting, interesting. “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” is at $180 million as of today. Paramount is looking at $200 million soon, making Tom Cruise’s fifth segment as Ethan Hunt a grand slam home run. Remember, they started slow out of the gate? The Paramount gang gets the last laugh on this one. No amount of Scientology voodoo adverse publicity about Cruise hurt them.
So what happened? Well, “Man from UNCLE” fell apart. “Fantastic Four” collapsed upon impact. “Jurassic World” was already past its impressive peak when Ethan went on the hunt. Nothing came along to replace it.
And then: the breakout movie of late summer, “Straight Outta Compton,” was just a totally different demographic. So was “War Room.” Those are the two movies that caught on. This week, “War Room” won the weekend with $9.3 million. “Compton” was close behind with $8.85 mil. “Compton” is nearing $150 million. They could also go to $200 million. Mission possible!
“War Room” puts Sony back on the charts after a terrible year. And Warners is about to have a huge boost out of “Black Mass” with Johnny Depp. Universal, already breaking records, should have a monster in “Steve Jobs” after initial reviews from Telluride. Curiously, reviews are already turning up with “Citizen Kane” and Kubrick references. Just like with the “Social Network.” What a coincidence!
2ND UPDATE No Screening tonight. Aretha got Respect and an an injunction. Next step: Toronto.
UPDATE Aretha has filed for injunctive relief in Colorado to stop Telluride from showing “Amazing Grace.” She wants RESPECT. Stay tuned…
EARLIERAretha Franklin doesn’t want “Amazing Grace” to play in Telluride this weekend, or next week in Toronto. She and her lawyer have made it clear to Alan Elliott– whose father Jack was a famed Hollywood composer– that he doesn’t own the rights. Alan Elliott (who’s also the first cousin of actress Gina Gershon) says he does, and the show will go on (unless it doesn’t).
Sydney Pollack filmed Aretha in 1972 with Reverend James Cleveland at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. The recording became her double LP. The movie was never released. The record sold 2 million copies and was her best selling recording up to that point.
The musicians were like a Murders Row: they included Chuck Rainey on bass, Cornell Dupree on guitar, Kenneth Lupper on organ, Pancho Morales on percussion and conga, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums.The Southern California Community Choir provided background vocals. Robert Honablue was the engineer.
The songs are pretty much all gospel with the exceptions of “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Wholly Holy.” Carole King and Marvin Gaye were their respective songwriters, and they were also the superstar writers of that moment with “Tapestry” and “What’s Going On” revolutionizing music at that moment. Franklin always was and is a canny selector of her material.
Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts are in the audience but say nothing and aren’t acknowledged. Aretha’s famous father, Reverend C.L. Franklin is there, too, along with her brother and sisters. At one point Reverend Franklin speaks to the crowd, honoring his daughter, and that’s absolutely historic.
Aretha is 30 years old in this movie. She is as much an expression of pure genius as any human being could be. She literally IS the music. Pollack captures the whole range and history of gospel’s evolution into R&B, the holy and the secular, simply by letting the camera watch Aretha perform. She is like the most skilled surgeon in the world, or the greatest scientist. The performances are a sheer joy.
These showings in Telluride may it for a while, as I know Aretha is taking some kind of legal action to prevent further ones. So don’t miss them if you’re in Telluride.
Johnny Depp is making a resurgence. Early reviews are in and he’s looking good for Oscar contention in “Black Mass.”
In Scott Cooper’s movie, Depp plays Boston gangster Whitey Bulger. The Warner Bros. film is violent because it has to be, but from the sound of it, Depp is excellent.
You know you’re in good shape when good reviews come in from both Variety’s Scott Foundas and THR’s Todd McCarthy.
Foundas says: “…quality-starved adult moviegoers should flock to one of the fall’s first serious, awards-caliber attractions.”
McCarthy writes: “Long-time Depp fans who might have lately given up hope of his doing something interesting anytime soon will especially appreciate his dive into the deep end here…”
Depp, other than “Pirates of the Carribbean” movies, has pretty much been in a career disaster the last few years. Between “Mortdecai” and “The Lone Ranger,” he was almost out of business.
Of course, it’s not Disney– which has invested a lot of money in him– that will get the benefit of his Renaissance. It’s Warner’s. The movie business is like a roulette wheel, you see.
Depp has a lot of competition for those five Best Actor spots. And the season is just kicking off. But right now, he’s got the lead pole position, right next to Jake Gyllenhaal (“Southpaw”) and not far from the returning C3PO.
