Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to one and all. Hope your day is filled with treats. I'll be making like Calvin's dad this evening.

Nancy

I was and always will be a fan of Charles Schulz's Peanuts, but I also dug Nancy back in the days when creator Ernie Bushmiller was still doing it. Jerry Scott's run on it was okay, but the Guy Gilchrist era was a time that brought banality to new heights or should we say lows. Luckily the pseudonymous Olivia Jaimes has emerged to bring Nancy, Sluggo, and Aunt Fritzi into the 21st century in a way that Ernie Bushmiller would probably love. Simply put, Nancy is fun again. Since a hardback collection of the strips has arrived recently here's a link to a piece written on the resurgence of the comic strip last year. Do yourself a favor and check it out. It's called "I Have Seen Olivia Jaimes, The Cartoonist Behind The New Nancy."

If you find yourself enjoying it, go scoop up some money from under the couch cushions and buy the book. That's what I did.

In case you’re wondering here is a list of my favorite comic strips.

1. Peanuts
2. Calvin and Hobbes
3. Conchy
4. Nancy - Bushmiller and Jaimes years
5. The Far Side
6. Frazz
7. Get Fuzzy
8. Bloom County
9. Shoe
10. Life In Hell

Sunday Showcase October 26, 1975

I had high hopes that a dive into the October 26, 1975 edition of The Tennessean Sunday Showcase would have several haunted house notices, but was only able to find this one for the Fourth Annual WMAK Priest Lake Jaycees Haunted House.

I don't know how many years the Priest Lake Jaycees put on haunted houses, but they were still going strong into the 80's. Here's a skip ahead to the October 31, 1975 issue of the paper to see just a little of what you would have experienced back then. 

If haunted houses weren't your thing and you were not scared of clowns you could go see the circus at Municipal Auditorium. It was the last day to see the 104th edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. 

3 future legends of music played a show at the Grand Ole Opry House on October 29th. Tom Waits opened the show for Bonnie Raitt and John Prine. 

Here's Tom Waits from a Soundstage performance in 1975. 

Perhaps antiques were your bag. 100 Oaks would have been your place to visit beginning October 30. I only got to visit 100 Oaks mall a few times in the 70's, but it was always a big treat.

The one event I would have wanted to see the most was KISS in concert on October 30th. Montrose and Bob Seger were also on the bill for that one. KISS - Alive! had been out for a little over a month at this point so the band were still right at the beginning of their rise to the top of the concert scene. 

I went looking for a review of this show and found a rather lackluster non-review in the following week's Sunday Showcase written by Eve Zibart, "Thursday night's KISS concert, touted as a Halloween season special, didn't pull many interested parties. However you feel about good ol' basic rock 'n' roll, you have to admire a group who can survive both the heat of stage lighting and a full face of makeup." There was a photo of the band backstage. 

There's no audio or video that I can find from that show, but there is plenty of 1975 performances of KISS on YouTube so enjoy this performance of "Strutter" to get a taste of what fans would have got that night. 

If I couldn't see KISS or the circus I would have probably wanted to see Meadowlark Lemon and The Harlem Globetrotters as they were due to perform on November 6th as part of their 50th year of being basketball magicians. I didn't get to see them in person, but I never missed them on ABC or with Scooby Doo or Gilligan.

Any disappointed fans of the Washington Generals could pick their sprits up a few days later by going to see James Brown on November 8th and Michael Murphy, Little Feat, and Dave Mason the very next night at Municipal. 

Maybe you just wanted to sit home and watch a little television. Here's what was on the boob tube this Sunday. I would have watched the Three Stooges, possibly some of the football games, Wild Kingdom, either Disney or Swiss Family Robinson, and the Six Million Dollar Man on this particular night. 

Let's wrap this post up with a look at the Top Ten pop songs in Nashville. The Eagles were at the top of the heap this week. My favorite from this list is Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz." I hope you've enjoyed this look back into the past. I'll do it again next week. Who knows what year we'll end up visiting.

Derrick Anderson - When I Was Your Man

Here's an absolute power pop gem from Derrick Anderson featuring Debbi and Vicki Peterson from the Bangles and the late Kim Shattuck from the Muffs.

Film Flashback: October 25, 1974

I know I looked back at the movies playing on October 18, 1974 just a mere week ago, but I have to stay in October of 1974 for one more glimpse into what was being screened in Murfreesboro on October 25, 1974. Why am I hanging around when some of the films were even held over. The answer is quite momentous to me. The first movie I can remember seeing in the theatre began playing at the Martin Twin on this date.

Where The Red Fern Grows is that movie. I was 7 years old. It's possible I had gone to see other films, but this is the one I first remember. The big screen. The plush seats. Popcorn in the dark. A movie about a young barefooted blond kid with his heart set on acquiring some coonhounds he would name Dan and Ann. The Ozark Mountains were the backdrop and my young mind soaked it up completely. I was a young city kid whose parents had both grown up as sharecroppers so the country was still a huge part of my young soul...a tug of war between town and country that has always been part of my makeup. Once the movie began being run run on television I would always watch it. Later, my mother would give me a copy of the film on VHS. I have not seen it in many years, but I'm sure if I did watch it I would still feel the same thrills, chills, and enjoy both the laughter and tears it inevitably produces. It is a truly great family film. I believe it has fallen into some copyright netherworld and I have heard that the film negatives have been lost, but it can be seen in its entirety on YouTube at least as of the date this post gets published.

The held over movies at the Martin Twin was the double feature from Walt Disney: the Bears and I and The Shaggy Dog. I don't recall ever seeing the Bears and I, but I caught The Shaggy Dog on television several times. It was always good for a life and is much better than the sequel The Shaggy D.A.. 

The Martin Theatre had only recently become the Martin Twin. October 4, 1974 was the first date so getting to go see Where The Red Fern Grows was a real treat just a few weeks later. A newspaper article from the 4th quoted the manager Joe Tomlinson, "each of the theatres had 301 Grigg push-back seats, walls covered with gold fabric, gold carpets, new screens, and new projection equipment." 

The Mar-bro Drive-In was showing a couple of awesome biker movies, The Wild Rebels and The Hellcats for the last time that night. That would have been a fantastic night at the drive-in.

On the South side of town you could see one of the biggest hits of 1974: Benji was playing at Cinema One. So basically on this Friday in Murfreesboro back in 1974 you could see movies about dogs, bears, and bikers. It's up to you to decide which animals you like best. Next week I promise to get out of 1974.

Pandoras

One of my favorite records back in 1986 was Stop Pretending. Hard to believe that both Kim and Paula are gone.

Sunday Showcase October 21, 1979 All Kinds Of Things To Do In The Past

I've done a Top Ten songs from September of 1979 so that's not going to be the focus this week as I dive into another Sunday Showcase. This time we're thumbing through the October 21, 1979 issue. If you were looking for something to do over the next few weeks back then there was concerts galore to choose from. That very Sunday night you could make the drive to Cookeville, Tennessee and catch Peter Frampton in concert at the Hooper Eblen Center. $7.50 back then is the equivalent of $26.52 in 2019. Frampton was on the downswing, but I bet he put on a great show for the Tennessee Tech Homecoming.

If you weren't in the mood for a rock concert you could venture out and catch Skatetown USA at various theaters around Nashville. Roller skating was hot and it got a lot of interest from Hollywood and mass media around this time. I was almost 13 and loved to go roller skating, but didn't have much interest in the movies about it really. Scott Baio stars in this one which is about him battling Patrick Swayze, in his film debut, in a roller disco competition. Maureen McCormick is in this one too so if you're a Brady Bunch fan it's worth a look. 

Perhaps you weren't into Peter Frampton or roller disco movies. Sound Seventy had a plethora of concerts coming up over the next 10 days. Earth, Wind & Fire were performing the very next night, October 22, at Municipal Auditorium on their Tour of the World 1979. I initially found it strange that the ad states that "Earth, Wind & Fire will perform this concert in its ENTIRETY" as I would hope any group would play an entire concert, but I suppose it was just to alert folks that there was no opening act. It does say the show begins promptly at 8pm. Earth, Wind & Fire were at their peak in this era. Here's a song from them in 1979.

If a "Boogie Wonderland" was not your thing you could go see John Prine with Delbert McClinton opening on October 26 at the Tennessee Theatre. Prine had decided to go with a rockabilly sound on his latest album Pink Cadillac. It's not one of my favorite things he's done, but it is notable that he did this years before Neil Young. Delbert was going to hit the Top 40 in the next year with "Giving It All Up For Your Love."

Jethro Tull was coming to town on October 30, 1979 with opening act, U.K., to perform at Municipal Auditorium. There are lots of YouTube posts of Tull on this tour so if you're interested feel free to check it out. The show that I would have wanted to see, if I had been allowed to go out and see concerts back then, was Parliament Funkadelic on Halloween of 1979 no less. The Brides of Funkenstein opened up with Nashville Municipal Auditorium once again being the place to be. George Clinton and his various crews put out so much music then, but judging from the ad I guess this is the tour for Funkadelic's Uncle Jam Wants You and not for Motor Booty Affair. Still, how can I resist putting up this performance from earlier in 1979.

You could go check out Stanley Clarke in concert at the Tennessee Theatre on November 1, 1979. He would have been on the road promoting his live album released earlier in the year titled I Wanna Play For You. It's always cool to see someone using a typically rhythm instrument as a lead one.

If you think that's all that was going on you would be wrong. Nashville is Music City after all. Vanderbilt's Homecoming was happening that same week and they had one of the all time legends coming to play Memorial Gym on Friday November 2, 1979. You could go see Ray Charles for under $10.

The biggest concert of the season was probably the arrival in Murfreesboro on November 8th of the Eagles as they played Murphy Center on The Long Run Tour 79. I was in 7th grade and I remember kids in Eagles Long Run concert t-shirts all over Central Middle School the next day.

So what was the hottest song in Nashville in this Sunday Showcase from 40 years ago.....why it was M's "Pop Musik" which I first heard on television as I watched Nickelodeon's Pop Clips religiously. 

Thus ends another weekly dip into an old Tennessean Sunday Showcase. Note the typo for song number 6 in the the Top Ten.....or maybe it's a rare alternate version. I try to put this stuff up every Sunday. So, if you enjoy it, bookmark Soulfish Stew and have a mess of it every chance you can get. Tell your friends, there's plenty more to go around.

The Muffs Live in 1999

A short list of some of the best screamers in rock and roll history: Little Richard, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Gerry Roslie, Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, Robert Plant, Prince, Henry Rollins, Joan Jett, and Kurt Cobain. That's a pretty great list, but the person who stands above them all ("screaming across new dimensions now" as a YouTube commentator wrote) is Kim Shattuck of The Muffs. She passed away on October 2 of ALS, but her memory and music live forever. An all new album finished before her death titled No Holiday was released October 18th by Omnivore Recordings. I'll probably put a review of it up after I'd had some time to listen to it.

One of the best things about The Muffs, besides Kim's great songwriting, was her scream. She didn't use it in every song, but she deployed it in a musical way. Part of the joy of rock and roll is the anticipation of the melody changing, the build up to a cathartic transcendent moment. Kim knew just the right instant to take her songs into overdrive, but she didn't need an amp that went to 11, her voice went to 11 and then some. Anyways, if you've got an hour or so today check out this fan posted video of a performance at the Earl in Atlanta in the year 1999. The sound isn't the best, but it's well shot with excellent close-up zooms. I especially like the tight filming of the Gretsch BST 1000 model guitar that Kim played. I would have loved to have been in the crowd that night, but this is the next best thing. RIP Kim, you were one in a million.

Film Flashback: October 18, 1974

Our journey back in time this week takes us to 1974. Time travel is fraught with perils and is exhausting work so at the end of the day on our arrival in Murfreesboro all we want to do is grab some popcorn and watch some movies. Here's our options on October 18, 1974. Which would you choose? Feel free to comment.

The Swells - Inner Migrations

The album cover of The Swells "Inner Migrations" album makes me think of the late, great Bob Ross doing 'shrooms while imagining all of his fans clicking over to see his show. Then again, it could just be an homage to Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" cover which, like this one, utilized the Droste effect. It pretty much hints to what the contents will be with the freaky colored clouds hovering in the background. If that's not enough, you can visit the band's Facebook page and see it spelled out to you:

The Swells is a Psychedelic Rock group hailing from Nashville, TN, USA.

I like that. Just be out front about what you sound like these days. Side A of "Inner Migrations" begins with a fuzz tone straight outta the garage (you can bet there are blacklight posters on the wall too) and straight from early Pink Floyd with a bit of "Elephant Stone" era Stone Roses to boot. First tune, "Tangerine", is some fast psychedelics tempered only with flanged vocals, and if you enjoy flanged and processed vocals you are in for a treat on this EP. Main man, Chris Higdon, who wrote the tunes and designed the awesome cover, really must dig them. 

Track 2 "Cosmic Caravan" feels like a less jazzy update of Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" albeit with no vocals and an almost dance like groove underneath. I can't tell if the bass is actually a synth line or not. Well done. There's some fantastic guitar that somehow reminded me of the guitar sample (I believe Prince's "Let's Go Crazy") used in Public Enemy's "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" so how's that for picture inside a picture inside a picture. The tune ends with the sound of water.  The next song is called "Bones" which features some heavy flanged vocals once more evoking "Planet Caravan", but the music is more on the trip hop side with a spacey synth and flute. Perhaps the mellotron credited is used also. I can't tell if the lyrics are "we're just bones" or "witch's bones". I suspect the first is right, but would be interesting if the second was really the words. This first side wraps up with "Drifting" which has some buzzing heavyosity to it. If the processed vocals were ditched it would be the most purely commercial cut on the EP.  Think Jack White solo crossed with Greta Van Fleet. I suppose the processed vocals keep the tune from falling into the Seventies dinosaur rock tarpit, but sometimes that's what I want to hear. 

"Be In The Flow" kicks off the B side and it's probably my favorite. 60's style humming with a flute begin until the drummer kicks off a galloping psych surf beat. Some slashing wah-wah as we are urged to "let it all out, take it in stride, it's just a moment in time." Simple rock and roll adorned with cool baubles that ends taking another dip into the water while some cinematic Indian type music plays us out. "Flower" is next. It's a slow burner of a song. It's probably a good one to hear live. The EP ends with "Despertar" which means to awake. It's mellow in spots, but rocking in others. I think they were going for an epic vibe. The guitar tone is boss in the fast parts. The coda would, once again, make for great film music, it led me to write this down as it played: smokey haze of rapture. Pretty positive there! So go out and see The Swells if you can. Purchase their music. 

They have another release titled "Take Off" which just came out that I hope to also review. They play out around the Middle Tennessee area, but are hoping to get a tour up the East Coast soon. So check out their homepage linked at the first of this review. You can hear them on Spotify. And you can also follow them at Instagram @theswells_official. 

Rock and Rock Hall of Whatever

They really should just change the name to the Rolling Stone Magazine Music Museum at this point though I do have to admit Whitney was as rock and roll as it gets.

Sunday Showcase Top Pop Songs In Nashville October 13, 1968

I wasn't living in Nashville in 1968. I was just a toddler in the Frayser neighborhood of Memphis. I would imagine that the number 1 song in Nashville from the October 13, 1968 Tennessean Sunday Showcase was probably the number 1 song in Memphis too. The Beatles were atop the charts with "Hey Jude" which was a juggernaut ending up as the best selling single on the Billboard Hot 100 of 1968 which makes sense as it is their longest running number 1 in the US. I like how the Top 10 is bookended with future 70's superstars Bee Gees whose "I've Gotta Get A Message To You" ended up 59th on the Top 100 for the year. Barry is wearing a gold medallion in the video....perhaps foreshadowing their disco ascendancy.        

Film Flashback October 11, 1979

What was playing at the movies in Murfreesboro 40 years ago? Sheesh....40 years is a long time ago. I grew up watching Leave It To Beaver and it was closer to the 70's than these films are to the teens of our present day 21st century. Time is just wild. Perhaps Ram Dass had it right: Be here now. And what's happening now is films from yesteryear. It's a total mind melter I know.

Since it was October there had to be a scary movie. Cinema One wouldn't morph into Cinema Two for several more years. The exact date in case you're interested was April 20, 1984 showing The Ice Pirates and Romancing The Stone. Senior citizens would continue to get 40% off their tickets all the time. I wonder how many were scared out of their wits (For God's Sake, Get Out!) while viewing The Amityville Horror on what was a Wednesday in 1979. Since it was rated R there was no way I could get to see this one in the theater since I was only 12 at the time. I wanted to go see it since I loved horror movies, but would have to wait until it played on HBO or Cinemax later. It was okay. Maybe it would have been better on the big screen.

The Martin Twin across town couldn't let the Cinema One steal all of the spooky movie dollars during October so The Legacy was one of the two films playing there. I have never seen this one. Starting Over was also playing which was disappointing to me at the time even though I didn't see it. The disappointment came from it being a Burt Reynolds movie without cars, action, or Dom DeLuise (not that I was allowed to see The End in the theater, but at least it looked as crazy as its plot.) Starting Over was a romantic comedy also starring Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen. I have still not seen it, but I will get around to it. Burt Reynolds movies are, for the most part, all worth watching at least once.

Finally we come to the "Now equipped with radio sound" Marbro Drive-In  What movies were trunk loads of people going to see? Nothing scary going on at the place I used to call Marlboro Drive-In. The Kirk Douglas and Ann Margaret movie The Villain, which also featured Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ruth Buzzi, Mel Tillis, and Paul Lynde, and Peter Falk's Neil Simon written The Cheap Detective also starring Ann Margaret were what you'd see there. I didn't see these in the theatre either, but saw them often on HBO as they seemed to play in high rotation on it during the early 80's. I really need to catch The Cheap Detective again as Peter Falk's appeal just grows as one ages, but The Villain was a really terrible flick.

Hope you have enjoyed this trip into the past. If you like it tell your friends. I do this every Friday. Why? Why not. 

Sunday Showcase Top Pop Songs In Nashville October 5, 1986

I was not into mainstream pop music at all circa 1986. I knew what was playing on college radio and that was about it. WRVU 91.1 at Vanderbilt was once a beacon of alternative music, but like most everything from that era in Nashville it's now long gone. Sold out to classical music. The top alternative songs from 1986 as a whole taken from a website called Pulse:

01 REM - Superman
02 New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
03 Dramarama - Anything, Anything (I'll Give You)
04 INXS - What You Need
05 Smithereens - Blood And Roses
06 Gene Loves Jezebel - Desire (Come And Get It)
07 Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight
08 Talking Heads - Wild, Wild Life
09 OMD - If You Leave
10 Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

Let's see: I think I had every album these songs came from back then except for Wang Chung, Gene Loves Jezebel, and Peter Gabriel. Gabriel was much more mainstream than alternative. Keep in mind that was an annual list. This top ten from The Tennessean Sunday Showcase from October 5, 1986 is just a weekly look at what was hot.

I liked Bananarama and picked up their album used at some point. Lionel Richie is okay. I have never seen Top Gun so Berlin's tune doesn't do anything for me. All of the rest are unmemorable except for one tune which towers over the list and that would be Run-DMC's "Walk This Way." I most likely bought "Raising Hell" on cassette the day it was released. I was a huge Run-DMC fan. Heck I was a huge hip hop fan in addition to loving heavy metal and punk. That tune is the shining beacon in that top ten from then.

Kurt Vile (bottle back) documentary

I was late to the Kurt Vile party. But since discovering his music my life has become a wonderland of plenty. I would say he's become my spirit animal, but that's just weird. I was lucky to see him at the Ryman earlier in the year with The Sadies and that was a night for the ages. If I am ever lucky enough to sit on a porch in the Catskills with Kurt I would probably just stare like a dummy even though I am older than him, and don't usually go into the whole hero worship when I'm face to face with people I admire. If you don't own any of his records you should remedy that posthaste by ordering some or all from Matador Records. Note: this isn't some paid shill promotion. I'm just a (now old) music fan trying to spread the gospel of Kurt.

Friday Movie Flashback

This week we journey back to 1974. I was a mere 7 years old and was probably wearing my jacket with the snotty sleeves. The high temp the day before Friday October 4, 1974 had been 61 degrees. The low was 33. That's much different from the 99 degree temperatures we've been having during this first week of October. Were the movies playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on this date cooler than the weather we have now? I believe so.

Cinema One featured a movie that would go down in history as one of the most un-PC comedies ever. If you are easily offended you might want to avoid it. I think the film is a classic comedy. Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little were perfectly cast in this Mel Brooks Western spoof. It's full of outright hilarious moments with many of them crude and juvenile. Then there are other more subdued comedic moments like when we meet Jim, just Jim, formerly the Waco Kid.

I didn't see Blazing Saddles until many years later. The same is the case for one of the movies playing across town on this day.

The Martin Twin theatre featured Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby and Joe Don Baker as Buford Pusser in Walking Tall. 

I have never seen The Great Gatsby. Perhaps I will watch it one day. If you grew up in Tennessee it's mandatory to have seen Walking Tall at least once. I didn't get to see it in the theatre, but I've watched it many times on television over the years. Buford Pusser even appeared at car lots in Murfreesboro when this movie came out. It would bring in crowds to the dealerships and he could promote the movie and himself. The film is pretty gritty and it was shot in Tennessee which is always interesting to us locals. It goes on much longer than it should have, but it's well worth watching. The action is decent and it just exudes Seventies Southernness that the Jackie and Dunlap at Redneck Matinee cover. I believe Walking Tall will be coming up on their podcast soon.

The Marbro Drive-In was showing 3 rated G action films. A Few Bullets More leads off the night, followed by Any Gun Can Play, and Dirty Heroes finished out the evening. A Few Bullets More was a re-titled movie from 1967 I'll Kill Him and Return Alone. It is a "Tortilla Western." Any Gun Can Play starred Ed "Kookie" Byrnes and was a satire of the "Spaghetti Western" genre. Which I guess is an appropriate lead in to an Italian made movie about World War II. I have not seen any of these 3 films, but I might have to check the two westerns out. 

Be In The Flow

Local Middle Tennessee band The Swells obviously make swell music. I'll have a review of their record Inner Migrations up in the near future.