Welcome to the working week, as Elvis Costello so succinctly put it, oh so many years ago. Was it really 35 years ago when Elvis C. released his first records? Yes, I guess it was. I bought the first British 45’s at Discophile on 8th Street in Manhattan in the summer of 1976, and they immediately blasted me out of my comfort zone. It took 27 years for Elvis Costello and The Attractions to be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2 years longer than the minimum 25 years since their first record’s release. This year, The  Hall celebrated their 26th anniversary by inducting Neil Diamond, which seems pretty astounding to me, considering that Stevie Ray Vaughn, T Rex, Willie Nelson, The Moody Blues, and Joe Cocker are still waiting for their number to be called. Induction ceremonies for this year’s class, which also includes Alice Cooper, Tom Waits, Leon Russell, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records, and Art Rupe, founder of Specialty Records, will take place in March at The Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan. Interestingly enough, Leon Russell is being inducted as a sideman, not for his own body of work.

Last night was The Malibooz and The Doughboys show at The Bearsville Theater, and The Doughboys were quite a surprise. I knew that they were favorites of Little Steven’s Underground Garage, so I should have been prepared for some blasting rock and roll, but the band outdid themselves, performing original songs and well known rock and roll classics from the 50’s and 60’s at an extremely high energy level. Memorable songs included The Yardbirds’ “Over, Under, Sideways, Down”, The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it, Black”, and the best version of Bo Diddley’s “Hey Bo Diddley” that I’ve ever heard, outside of the master himself. Hopefully we can get these boys up here again for their own headlining show.

It’s pretty amazing that in the depths of winter, with snow falling practically every other day and temperatures near zero, we can still manage to have a full week of exciting and uplifting music to entertain us. This week’s recommended shows:

Friday, January 28 – For those of you who will find themselves downstate, BLONDIE CHAPLIN will be making an all too rare appearance at Brooklyn’s Rock Shop. If the name isn’t familiar to you, it should be. Blondie and his brothers and cousin were in a band called The Flame, and were discovered in their native South Africa by another band of brothers and cousins, The Beach Boys. Brought to America as the only outside act to be signed to The Beach Boys’ Brother Records, Blondie later became a member of The Beach Boys, singing lead on “Sail on Sailor” and other songs during that period. In the 80’s, he moved to New York and toured with The Band and Rick Danko’s solo projects. It was during this period that Blondie and I became friends and laughed about the fact that my younger brother sold him his gold top Les Paul during a sojourn in LA in the 70’s for $250.00. That guitar is still Blondie’s main axe! What a bargain, and what an investment!  That guitar today is worth around $30,000, and could be worth as much as $90,000. Since we never positively dated it, we can’t be absolutely sure of the value, but that’s still some rate of return! But, I digress. While living in New York, Blondie also put together a solo project called Skollie, with fellow South African expatriates, Keith Lentin and Anton Fig, best known for his long running spot as David Letterman’s drummer. Also in the 80’s, Blondie appeared on the 20th Anniversary Byrds reunion album. Since the Bridges to Babylon Tour in the 1990’s, Blondie has been backing vocalist and occasional guitar player with The Rolling Stones. Impressed yet? If you’re in the city this Friday, drop by The Rock Shop. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Also on Friday, January 28 - An all-star band debuts at The Towne Crier in Pawling. Calling themselves BLUE CHICKEN, half of this band comes from Levon Helm’s band, and the other members are Randy Ciarlante, best drummer in the Hudson Valley, former member of The Band, and current drummer for The Organiks, and Sid McGinnes, guitar player from The David Letterman Show. This show is definitely gonna be worth the drive to Pawling.

Saturday, January 29 – Closer to home, JOHNNY WINTER brings his band into The Bearsville Theater. The man Muddy Waters called his son has been carrying the torch for the blues for years, and is certainly one of the greatest practitioners of the form on electric guitar ever! And why isn’t HE in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Saturday and Sunday, January 29 & 30 – Back to NYC for ROBERT PLANT at The Beacon Theater, no introduction needed for Led Zeppelin’s former singer and frontman, who’s re-entered the charts recently showing a softer side via his albums with Allison Krause and this year’s Band of Joy, one of my favorites of the year. Seriously, if you can make it to the city this weekend, this is my Pick of the Week.

Sunday, January 30 – Americana sweetheart, IRIS DEMENT, brings her most unusual voice into Club Helsinki in Hudson. As I’ve mentioned before, Club Helsinki is the coolest club around, and Iris is one of the most unique vocalists you will ever hear. Highly recommended.

Enjoy your week and stay warm.

I just finished reading Patti Smith’s book, “Just Kids”, which is a great read that I highly recommend to everybody. It’s an autobiography, but focuses mostly on Ms. Smith’s relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, the artist best known for his homoerotic photographs, but as Ms. Smith makes clear to her readers, he was much more than just that. Their relationship was loving, supportive, and extremely heartfelt. I was moved to tears as I read the closing lines, as apparently was the wife of the late Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), who upon finding some of Mapplethorpe’s work in a gallery brochure, famously commented, “Lord, Jesse. I don’t believe what I’m seeing!”, thus spearheading Helms’ efforts to have a Mapplethorpe gallery tour  cancelled and federal funding to the National Endowment for the Arts withdrawn, roughly twenty years ago, about a year before Mapplethorpe died of AIDS related complications.

The chronicle of Patti’s life from suburban kid to internationally known poet, artist, and rock star is quite interesting and never boring. She mingles with all sorts of people, from rock stars to royalty, and always manages to stay true to herself. I saw a bit of myself in her, albeit Patti did her dance on a higher level than I’ve managed to achieve, but we both crossed paths with a lot of the same people, which wasn’t hard to do if you were in Manhattan at that time.

I’m not going to give too much away, but there’s a great anecdote in the book about her meeting with Jimi Hendrix, who used to live in this area, and left for the 1969 Woodstock Festival from his house in West Shokan. As Patti relates it, she ran into Jimi shortly after he opened his recording studio, Electric Lady, and Jimi told her his vision for the place. “He dreamed of amassing musicians from all over the world in Woodstock and they would sit in a field in a circle and play and play. It didn’t matter what key or tempo or what melody, they would keep on playing through their discordance until they found a common language. Eventually they would record this abstract universal language of music in his new studio.”

“The language of peace. You dig?” “I did”, said Patti.

This is only one of the many fascinating stories she tells in this excellent, well written autobiographical tome. The pages are littered with the people who were part of her life: Janis Joplin, Bobby Neuwirth (another former area resident), Allen Ginsburg, Johnny Winter and his manager, Steve Paul, Andy Warhol, Jim Carroll, Lenny Kaye, CBGB’s and the bands who started there in the ‘ 70s, plus artists, fashion designers, museum curators, and just plain folks. Just kids, as Ms. Smith says. READ IT!

I finished the book in the morning, and as I was headed in to my store to open up, I was looking forward to writing about it. When I got to the store, I immediately switched on the radio, as I do every day, and what should be playing but Patti’s version of “Gloria”, the only other version besides the original Van Morrison recording that matters. This has always been one of my favorite Patti Smith tracks, probably THE best thing she ever did besides the amazing “Ask the Angels” from Radio Ethiopia. She puts a really cool spin on the song, and makes it her own. As I listened again, and after reading her book, I realized that the beginning, when she sings about, “leaning on the parking meter” was probably written about Mapplethorpe. There’s actually a part in the book when Robert is waiting for her outside of some event that they could only afford one ticket to, where he is described as leaning on the parking meter and smoking a cigarette. Anyway, I thought it was cool that the song was playing as I prepared to write this column.

Recommended live music events for this week:

TONIGHT! January 20 – The Malibooz with Walter (“Magnet and Steel”) Egan, with special guests, The Doughboys, (3 time winner of Little Steven’s Underground Garage Coolest Song of the Week and #3 Coolest Song of the Year) – Bearsville Theater

Friday, January 21 – David Sancious (former keyboardist and guitarist with Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Sting, Peter Gabriel) – Bearsville Theater

Saturday, January 22 – Eilen Jewell – Club Helsinki, Hudson, NY – Eilen is the best kept secret on the music scene. Great songs, vocals, and band. Her guitar player Jerry Miller is world class, as is Club Helsinki, and Eilen herself. Club Helsinki is housed in a beautiful 19th century building, is the best club in our area, and deserves your support.

Sunday, January 23 – Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings (This is the band that Amy Winehouse used for her multi-platinum album, “Back to Black”, and one of the finest soul bands operating today. Catch them if you can!) – UPAC

Tuesday, January 25 – Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt – The Egg, Albany. John Hiatt is an American treasure, and one of our absolutely best songwriters, and, HE ROCKS! Lyle Lovett is Lyle Lovett. Everybody knows who he is. He’s Julia Roberts’ ex.

See you next week.

                                        

Hi folks. Happy New Year and welcome to my second column for The Townsman. Being as I’m still new to this column writing stuff, I’m just now getting the knack of writing a week ahead to meet deadlines. As a result, there were some happening shows and events last weekend that I neglected to include in last week’s column, most notably, the Gregg Allman Band at UPAC Saturday night and Patti Rothberg at Harmony Woodstock on Friday night. Sorry about that oversight. I’ll try to do better in the future and make sure that nothing worthwhile goes unmentioned in this column, so you can do one stop shopping for your live music needs, right here.

On that note, there’s a couple of shows coming up at The Bearsville Theater that should be pretty great. The first one is this Saturday, January 15. It’s the opening night of a new series at the theater that will be a tribute to artists whose body of work have influenced the music scene from the 50’s to the present, with no regard for genre. As the theater puts it in their description, “from Muddy Waters to Roger Waters, Haggard to Jagger, Warren Z to Jay Z.” Opening night will be a tribute to the great Warren Zevon, with a house band consisting of A list Woodstock musicians and special guests. With a low ticket price of $10.00, this is an event not to be missed.

Following up on the next Thursday, January 20, is the Woodstock debut of a couple of great bands from California and New York City, The Malibooz and The Doughboys. The Malibooz is primarily a surf band that has been together for 40 years, since the members were in high school together, but their latest CD is a tribute to the British Invasion of the 1960’s that was spearheaded by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and The Dave Clark Five, amongst others. They went to the world famous Abbey Road Studios in London to record, and pulled in the likes of Spencer Davis, Donovan, Chad and Jeremy, Tony Hicks of The Hollies, Andrew Loog Oldham, and members of The Troggs and The Shadows as guests. The album is a genuine and authentic tribute to the Malibooz musical influences.

The Malibooz includes Walter Egan, best known for his million selling top ten hit of 1978, “Magnet and Steel”, an American Music Awards nominee for Song of the Year, produced by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Stevie also sang on the record, and, now revealed here for the first time, the song was actually written about Stevie. But that’s only the beginning of Walter’s resume. He has been a member of Spirit, Jackson Browne Band, Linda Ronstadt Band, The Brooklyn Cowboys, and has a long and illustrious solo career. Walter’s partner in The Malibooz, Johhny Zambetti, fronts one of the “top ten LA bands”, according to Music Connection magazine. Together, The Malibooz songs have appeared in over 30 movies and television shows.

Opening for The Malibooz will be New Jersey’s The Doughboys, three time winner of Little Steven’s Underground Garage Coolest Song of the Week, and Number 3 band on Little Steven’s Coolest Song of the Year list.

More information about these and other shows coming up at the Bearsville Theater can be found on their website, www.bearsvilletheater.com.

This just in – Due to Friday’s snowstorm, the Pitchfork Militia show at The Fernwood in Palenville has been re-scheduled for Friday, January 14 at 9 PM. This promises to be a very special performance as the show is dedicated to Pitchfork frontman Peter Head’s close friend, Dennis Lucas, an artist and musician, who passed away just before the New Year. For those of you who couldn’t make it to The Basement on New Year’s Eve, this is your chance to see and hear a great psychobilly band. There’s a reason these guys have such a strong and loyal following. They’re the rockinest band in the Hudson Valley, and The Fernwood is a great place to see them. The place drips with character.

Enjoy your week and keep rockin’.

Well, it’s a new year, which started on 1-1-11. I like those numbers, and I hope you will like my new music column for this newspaper.

Let me introduce myself for those of you who don’t know me. My name is Fred Perry, and I’m a musician, song writer, record producer, label owner, music publisher, and currently the owner of Reservoir Music on Route 28 in Shokan. Pretty obviously, music is a large part of my life, which explains how I’ve come to be writing this column. In this and future columns, I will write about past, present, and future musical happenings in the Hudson Valley, New York city and state, and the world at large. My goal is to entertain and inform, so please let me know how I’m doing at that. My email address is [email protected], or you can write to me at The Townsman.

The New Year started off with a bang in the Hudson Valley, with lots of music to choose from, all top notch. At the New World Home Cooking on Route 212 between Saugerties and Woodstock, Uncle Funk held court  all night long. This great band features Jerry Marotta, Tony and Pete Levin, Jesse Gress, and Joe Beesmer. These guys have played and recorded with just about everybody in the music biz, from Peter Gabriel to King Crimson to John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Buddy Rich, Gil Evans, Paul Simon, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Stevie Nicks, Pink Floyd…need I go on? I have it on good authority that this was a smokin’ show, although I did not attend.

Further east and south, and for those of you with a more rock n roll sensibility, The Basement in Kingston presented, for at least the second New Year’s Eve in a row, Pitchfork Militia, the rockinest psychobilly band this side of the Mississippi. I’ve seen these guys many times, and if countrified rockin psychobilly with a comedic stroke is your cup of tea, these guys are the best around!

I was at Pitchfork’s New Year’s Eve show last year, and it rocked, but this year I wound up at Harmony in Woodstock, where the Chris Zaloom Band served up some tasty rockin’ blues. Always fun, these guys did not disappoint, and owner Sha Wu generously set out a most scrumptious feast for his loyal and faithful patrons, easily making Harmony Woodstock the place to be this New Year’s Eve!

And if that wasn’t enough music to get you through the weekend, Burt’s Electronics brought the annual New Riders of the Purple Sage show to the Bearsville Theater on New Year’s Day this year, capping a fantastic musical weekend with my old friends, Buddy Cage, David Nelson, Michael Falzarano, Johnny Markowski, and Ronnie Penske.

I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous new year, and I look forward to meeting you again in the pages of The Townsman.