Film Flashback January 31, 1978

It was a Tuesday in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 31, 1978. It got up to 31 degrees that day. You could stay in and watch Happy Days or you could go out and see the Fonz on the big screen. Except he's not the Fonz in Heroes. He's Vietnam War vet Jack Dunne suffering from post traumatic stress disorder who busts out of the mental hospital with a dream of starting a worm farm. Then he meets Carol Bell on a bus. Sally Field plays a woman about to be married having second thoughts. Harrison Ford is in it too. I believe I did talk my mother into letting me see this one alone at the Martin Twin while she went shopping since it had Henry Winkler in it. The Fonz was the absolute apex of pop culture television alpha males back then. Heroes ran often on HBO in 1979 and I definitely saw it several times on television. I wanted to like it, but it's just not that good a movie. Comedy and drama is hard to mix. 

My mother went with me to see Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot. It's terrible, but it's about Bigfoot so all is forgiven. I was Bigfoot and Loch Ness monster crazed in the 70's as most little boys were. There were sightings of Bigfoot and lake monsters all over the place. This movie was in its 3rd big week at a time when movies didn't usually stick around that long since there were only 5 screens in all of Rutherford County. The outdoor footage is pretty well done, but there's no real story there. The whole movie is on YouTube. 

Smokey and the Bandit was back on the big screen again in Murfreesboro playing at Cinema One. If not for Star Wars, the Burt Reynolds smash would have been the biggest movie of 1977. I had seen it way back in July of '77 at the Martin Twin with my cousins who were visiting from Memphis and Mississippi. I loved it then and I still love it today. I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie more than any other. Sally Field plays another would be bride running off from her wedding in this case. Jackie Gleason shines as Buford T. Justice of Portague County which is not a real county in Texas. Jerry Reed's music and acting chops enliven the proceedings too. The boys over at Redneck Matinee have a podcast dedicated to this classic trucker movie. The movie belongs to the Bandit though. Burt Reynolds's good ol' boy charm is perfected here. It's not his best movie, but it is essential viewing for its CB radio chatter and vision of the new South which was on the rise in the Seventies. I recommend you skip the sequels. 

The Marbro Drive-In has a couple of movies on their last night. Rod Steiger plays Benito Mussolini in The Last 4 Days which is about Mussolini's failed attempt to escape the Italian partisans. It is paired with Girls In Trouble  which is somehow billed as a comedy about ladies various attempts at having abortions. I think I would have to skip that night at the Marbro. There's an Italian language trailer for The Last 4 Days and Rod Steiger is intense as El Duce. I couldn't find one for Girls In Trouble. As Siskel and Ebert liked to say. The balcony is closed. Another Film Flashback will be posted next Friday at 6AM barring some major catastrophe.

Sunday Showcase January 28, 1979

I thought it was a software problem initially (flashing screen on my Mac), but after many attempts at a fix it persisted so I figured it was a hardware issue after all. So I had pretty much decided to not do a Sunday Showcase post this week. I had pulled a few photos from a 1983 issue that would have made for a short post so I fired up the now disco ball Mac to move the photos to a flash drive so at least a brief post would happen, and lo and behold the gremlins disappeared. No more flashing screen. So, perhaps it was a software issue after all. I decided then to just scrap the 1983 idea and instead go back to 1979. This time around I'm just going to go straight from front to back. 

First up is this neat little ad for New Life Record Shop noting they were moving right down the road to 5343 Charlotte Ave. New Life has gone now to that record store graveyard in the sky, but I will always remember fondly browsing for hip hop records there in the mid 80's.

The Top Ten Records in Nashville are next. The disco music trend is reaching its apex. The Blues Brothers cover of "Soul Man" definitely stood out to me at the time as it was so different to the rest of the songs on the radio.

Lynda Carter poses with her best selling poster of 1978. I loved watching Wonder Woman during the 70's. 

Municipal Auditorium was the place to be if you were into ice skating. 

Sound Seventy had some amazing concerts on tap with Parliament Funkadelic, Styx, and Chuck Mangione set to play Nashville on February 23, 24, and 25. I would have loved to have seen all three of these shows. 

I know you need a Precision Haircut. 

                                                                                                                    If you were looking for something to do on that Sunday night January 28, 1979 you could go down to the Exit/In and catch Marshall Chapman and the Ramones! The Ramones would not play Nashville again until January  19, 1989 when they played Nashville Center Stage. 

If you couldn't make it to see the Ramones at Exit/In you could just stay in and watch the heavily edited television broadcast of Taxi Driver. This was its first network television showing. 

We end this week's Sunday Showcase review with an advertisement for Disco Fever. There's a disco in a jet! And Casey Kasem! And Fabian! 

Young Guv = Great Music

There's always good music coming out. You might just need to dig to find it. Ben Cook's project Young Guv made for a stellar addition to my collection in 2019. He will be coming to Mercy Lounge May 1st. I wonder what 2020 will bring.

Here's a taste of Ben's old punk band No Warning. 

Film Flashback January 24, 1950

We're going back 70 years in today's film flashback look at what movies were playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 24, 1950. It was a Tuesday on that date and a few of the movies playing were on their last night since movies played for shorter periods of time then. We'll start our journey at the Roxy Theatre on the Square. It had a decidedly notorious reputation for being filled with rats. I've seen comments on historical posts on Facebook about patrons feeling them run over their feet. It was your last chance to see Duel In The Sun there. It was released in September of 1947 so it had probably played Murfreesboro before, but it was filled with stars and did pretty well at the box office. The Clay Pigeon would be coming to town after this night. It was a film noir about a guy trying to clear his name after a treason charge. The short scene below is intriguing. The Roxy had opened in 1939 and would be closed by 1957.

South of Murfreesboro you could check out what was playing at the Star-Lite Drive-In. The Walking Hills starring the ever popular Randolph Scott was on the big screen on this night along with a 3-Reel Musical Western too. Some people consider The Walking Hills to be a film noir Western. I need to put it on my watch list. He Walked By Night would start playing in a couple of days. It's another film noir treat that I need to see. 

       

The Princess Theatre was showing a film starring future President Ronald Reagan and Viveca Lindfors. Night Unto Night was directed by Don Siegel most famous for directing Dirty Harry which would play Murfreesboro's Martin Theatre 22 years later to the day. The movie has been described as a psychotronic thriller. It's definitely no comedy like Bedtime For Bonzo. 

That's all for this week. Be sure and bookmark Soulfish Stew so you never miss a post. 

Computer Bit The Dust

Well, my laptop bit the dust so posting shall be difficult for a time. I have Film Flashbacks scheduled through March though so that's cool. I shall see if I can get a Sunday Showcase post done for this upcoming weekend, but it's a maybe at the moment. Stay tuned to see what and if it happens.

Sunday Showcase January 20, 1974

It's Sunday again, so it's time to dive into a random old Tennessean Sunday Showcase. It's 1974 and Jack Benny is one of the cover stars. There was to be a third "farewell" special to also air on NBC, but the comedian would die on December 26, 1974. 

When I was in 1st grade there was a mandatory time after lunch in which we had to put our heads on our desk and just chill out. It was like nap time, but we were too old by this point. My 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Susie Wilson, would play soft music during the time so after the song "Seasons In The Sun" was released on 45 in December 1973, we would be treated to it almost every school day. I liked it a lot even though the lyrics seem a bit heavy for a small child and now it is lodged in my brain forever. It was the number 1 song of the past week in Nashville on January 20, 1974. Once again, the quirkiness of the Nashville charts is shown as David Bowie's "Sorrow" from his Pin Ups album lands at number 8. It would not chart nationally, but Bowie played Nashville regularly in the early Seventies so he was very popular here. 

Local station WNGE 2 has a full page ad for the ABC Sunday Night Movie of the week which was to be For A Few Dollars More. I watched many of the ABC Sunday Night Movies over the years and never wanted to miss a James Bond one or a Clint Eastwood one. My mother would cook popcorn on the stove and it was the best popcorn ever made. 

I don't know what in the heck the King of Tara and Boy Wonder deal is, but it's definitely an interesting ad for an event at the Pub.

The Nashville Flea Market was coming up soon. Flea markets today aren't as much fun these days. I think the internet has greatly reduced the chance of wandering upon a flea market seller with true bargains.

The Exit/In was going strong with Henry Gross coming for a series of show from January 22-January 26. Then Tracey Nelson and Mother Earth would take over. WKDA FM 103.3 in the pre-KDF days would even broadcast live there. This is when the Exit/In was thought of as more of a "listening" room instead of just a club. 

Muther's Music Emporium over on Hermitage which had been opened by former disc jockey Joe Sullivan was another great place to see live music in Nashville in 1974. He also owned Sound Seventy Productions which around this time was clearing about $4,000 profit per average concert he promoted according to an article in the February 18, 1974 Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle. Bruce Springsteen would play Muther's a little over a week later on January 29, 1974. This show would be captured on a bootleg recording.

A big Sound Seventy Productions concert was coming up at Municipal Auditorium on February 2nd. Black Oak Arkansas with their frontman Jim Dandy would be rocking out on a Saturday night with some special guest stars to be announced. Those guests would The Marshall Tucker Band and The Charlie Daniels Band for a big night of Southern rock. 

The Royal Lipizzan Stallion Show was coming to Municipal on February 9 and 10. 

Last, but definitely not least is this ad for the upcoming Ike & Tina Tuner Revue which will play Municipal Auditorium on February 1st with the Spinners. 

Film Flashback January 17, 1975

Sometimes it's hard for even the most avid film lover to find something worth seeing at the movies. This is what happened with me this week. I looked at week after week of movies playing Murfreesboro on various January 17th's through the years and came up empty. When there were decent movies to write about the advertisement quality was terrible or there was no YouTube trailer. I was faced with skipping a week and then it came to me. Why not see what was playing at the M.T.S.U. cinema? So I have landed back in 1975. I'm a bit disappointed that arriving on January 17 means we have missed the showing of blaxploitation classic The Mack, but here's a taste of the film with the dynamite Willie Hutch soundtrack. Max Julien stars in this movie and if you haven't seen it, please do yourself a favor and sample it yourself. After all, this movie is still being sampled by hip-hop artists these days.

Soylent Green is what was playing the U.C. Cinema on the 17th. It's a film with the different genres of crime and dystopian future sci-fi put into a blender...I hear you get people in the end. Charlton Heston chews up the scenery and the foodstuff Soylent Green. Actually Charlton is quite reserved until the end of this terrifying film. Edward G. Robinson is fantastic too. Be sure and run when the scoops start coming. 

As you can see there were plenty of stellar movies coming to the U.C. Cinema in 1975. When I attended M.T.S.U. in the 80's and 90's I would often see movies there. That's all for this week, but be sure to visit Soulfish Stew anytime as I'm always putting something here. Next week's film flashback will take you back to the era of film noir. 

Great Blog Alert: Tales From A Former Fanzine Journalist

I've added Devorah Ostrov's Tales From A Former Fanzine Journalist to the links on the sidebar. Her blog is fantastic and just filled with great interviews and stories like this one with Sir Horace Gentleman of the Specials. I hope she doesn't mind me copying just one of the photos from the article. She wrote for many different fanzines back in the halcyon days of the punk and alternative scene and her passion for the music shines.

A Few Words On Neil Peart's Passing

So, last Friday I came home after 5PM and the house was empty. I had been offline for most of the afternoon. I've been trying to get away from social media and to some extent have only been using it to post links to this blog, but the dopamine rush is undeniable so I clicked my Safari web browser and went to Facebook (at least I don't have the app on my phone) to see if anybody had liked the blog link I had place earlier and to see if anything interesting was happening. The first post I saw was about Neil Peart dying.

I said several bad words and then immediately went to the room where all of my records are and randomly pulled Permanent Waves from the stack. It could have been 2112, Signals, Moving Pictures, or others, but Permanent Waves it was to be. I dropped the needle of "The Spirit of Radio" and cranked the dial. I play my music loud, but rarely do I really push it. This time I let the speakers scream. I wanted the music to be all I heard and all I felt as the soundwaves physically hit my body.

Then something unexpected happened. I began to cry. Death is inevitable and I usually don't cry at a music star's passing. They are, in most cases, mere strangers to me. Yet, I immediately understood my tears. Neil wasn't a stranger. His words are what first drew me to Rush. The drumming and musicianship of the band was stellar, but the lyrics were a comfort and inspiration to me growing up. You see that kid in the "Subdivisions" music video? Put curly hair on him and it could have been me going to the arcade alone.

It's not that I didn't have any friends while I was in high school. I had a few, but even among them I could feel like an outcast. Music was my respite from it all. When I felt like I had completely goofed something up it was still there. I'd spend my meager money on remaindered bargain bin records and tapes and music magazines like Creem, Hit Parader, and Circus. The first Rush albums I bought were on tape: Caress of Steel and Fly By NIght. I listened to them often since they were part of that smalll selection of albums I had when I just a high school sophomore. I think I had a copy of Moving Pictures and then later Signals from my friend Markus. I taped Grace Under Pressure from the KDF Sunday Night Six Pack which would begin at midnight with the disc jockey playing 6 albums front to back. I think I still have that tape.

Permanent Waves was transporting me back to those days which Rush had helped make life a little easier. It wasn't just a great drummer and lyricist who had passed on too soon. Neil was more than that. He was a friend. And he never had to pretend I was a long lost friend either. 

Sunday Showcase January 10, 1988

Let's check out what was happening 32 years ago with this week's Sunday Showcase review. 

The biggest local music happening was the Nashville Music Extravaganza with 20 bands showcasing during the 3 day weekend. Notice how the Nashville skyline has changed with the cover photo. I was a fan of many of the bands spotlighted that weekend, but wasn't a fan of the NME itself. It seemed like a local copy of the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, but Austin's South By Southwest only began in 1987 and it's still one of the major music events every year, so what did I know back then. If the cards had fallen right the NME might still be going strong. 

What bands did I like the most on the Extravaganza list back in 1988? The Claimstakers were sort of the rock band equivalent of a sequel to the White Animals with Steve Boyd and Rich Parks carrying on together after the WA's broke up. I liked their alternative pop/country sound, but they didn't have the excitement of the White Animals. Dig Mandrakes were a good rocking combo with future renowned producer Brad Jones at the helm. Hocus Pocus were the renamed Lust which was discussed in last week's Sunday Showcase review. 

I loved Mr. Zero who were slightly ahead of their time with their rock and rap hybrid. I talked about them before in my profile on Nashville local legend Lee A. Carr. The Questionnaires were another favorite of mine and I guess Tom Littlefield's tune "Boomtown" was 3 decades ahead of its time. Tom was the person who turned me on to the Flamin' Groovies. I saw Rumble Circus often for some reason, but never could get into them. The Dusters were amazing to see live with their blues rock trio onslaught. 

I used to see Eleven 59 quite a bit in Murfreesboro since they were at M.T.S.U. with me. I bought one of their cassettes walking to class once. The Boilers were a power poppish group. Clockhammer seemed to open for everybody back in those days and I dug their Black Sabbath/prog metal sound. I didn't really dig Jet Black Factory too much back then, but really do now. The best of the bunch from this Extravaganza though is Raging Fire. Raging Fire were and still are one of my most beloved groups. They reunited a few years back and even put out a new album These Teeth Are Sharp which turned out to be really rocking. 

The Circle Jerks would be in town on this Sunday January 10th with an afternoon all-ages matinee and a 21 and up show later that night at the Exit/In. I believe local punks Tommyrot opened both shows. I did see the Jerks at the Exit/In at some point, but don't think it was this show. I had seen them in 1986 play Cantrells and it was a blast. No footage of this show, but there's a great video from a 1988 San Diego show to share.

Another other big show on the horizon is Def Leppard playing in the round at Municipal Auditorium with Tesla opening for them. I was a big fan of Def Leppard in the High 'n' Dry and Pyromania era, but Hysteria was much too pop and silly for me at the time. That said, the tune I ended up liking the best was the title song ballad so I'm posting a video from their Denver performance in 1988. A friend of mine got to be their guide on a tour stop in Nashville during the 90's and he said they were really cool cats, although he does really love puns so maybe he was just being punny. 

The Vienna Choir Boys would be at TPAC on January 17, 1988. Which sounded odd to me....perhaps a Mandela effect as I had always remembered them being called the Vienna Boys Choir. A little research shows they go by either name. 

If going to a concert was not enough maybe you could go cruise the Cumberland River and get some live music, food, and riverside scenery too. The Belle Carol had you covered no matter what age you were. Remember: Anytime Is Funtime!

An antique show was coming to Hickory Hollow Mall from the 14th through the 17th. 

January 13, 1988 saw auditions for a bluegrass quartet wanted for Tokyo Disneyland. Wow! That would have been a heck of a seasonal job!

These Sunday Showcase reviews are usually happy look backs to the past, but this week it gets dark. As in dark humor and death. First, one of the upcoming events is Sam Kinison live. He would be at TPAC the week after the Vienna Choir Boys. I loved Sam Kinison even if I sometimes found his jokes went much too far. Saturday Night Live is now an institution, but I think that his appearances on the 1985/86 season kept that show afloat. He had only 4 years left on this mortal coil when he came to town for this gig. I wish he was still here as it would be very interesting what he would say about 2020. 

The darkness continues as we look at the Top 10 selling pop records from the previous week in Nashville. No, it's not the malevolent presence of Debbie Gibson (later to record with the Circle Jerks) in the Top 10 that's dark. Just kidding about Debbie's malevolence. She's managed to escape this Top 10's curse for as of 1-12-2020 five of the artists on this list have died. Whitney Houston, George Michael, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, and Michael Hutchence all gone much too young. 

That's all for this week. Next week we're going to bounce back to somewhere in the Seventies. Before you leave enjoy this mega hit from the Top 10. I was working at Mazzio's Pizza in Murfreesboro and we'd get off very early in the AM (around 1 or 2AM), grab some beers and hang out with my co-workers at their apartment watching MTV and this tune was in high rotation back when they played videos. Good times.

Film Flashback January 10, 1980

Yes, it's another film flashback only 12 hours after the last one about January 10, 1975 dropped. How does he do it? It's almost as if these are pre-recorded. We're five years into the future from 1975 yet forty years into the past on January 20, 1980. This is one of those flashbacks where I did see one of the movies in the theatre and have seen all five that were playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee back then some time or another.

Our first stop is Jackson Heights Plaza to see what's playing at the Martin Twin. Stand up comic Steve Martin becomes a movie star and future all time great with the Carl Reiner flick The Jerk. This is one I wasn't allowed to see due to its R rated. I was allowed to see his HBO special and even buy his book Cruel Shoes, but R rated films were out of the question. I was only 13 and should have been smart enough to sneak into the movie, but instead I went and saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I had to learn about The Jerk from my more savvy friends. My school bus driver (bus 84!), Bart Yeagan, would sometimes play Martin's albums if there were no elementary age kids on the bus. I finally saw the movie a few years later either on cable or regular television. I didn't find it as amusing as I thought it would be. Too much hype in my head I suppose. It is a really funny film that has grown on me over the years.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a film that was very successful at the time which relaunched the franchise, but it didn't get great reviews. I vividly remember going to see it. I was into sci-fi, but had never been a huge fan of the show. I wouldn't really get into the TV show until it was rerun a few years later on Channel 17. The movie was a big event and I didn't want to miss it. It was slow and it did spend lots of time on reintroducing the principal cast, but I didn't mind the endless shuttle rides to the Enterprise. The special effects were well done and the main plot was engaging. Here's a review from a future Nashville Scene editor; a then 14 year old Jim Ridley featured in the Murfreesboro Press. You should be able to click and zoom to make it readable. Jim passed away much too young in 2016 and I have loved his writing since he began as a teenager.

The Cinema One was showing The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh which I didn't get to see there, but I would end up watching repeatedly on HBO. It starred Julius Erving and Jonathan Winters along with Stockard Channing. It wasn't a big hit. I think it's considered a flop, but it made some money. It's no flop with me. The scene where Dr. J as Moses Guthrie just shoots hoop in a deserted playground court alone is worth the price of admission for me....heck I could watch him do only that for 2 hours and be happy. It's a silly sports comedy about how an astrologer named Mona Mondieu, played by Stockard, arranges for the Pittsburgh basketball team to be filled with compatible Pisces which turns them into winners. I think this movie deserves a Criterion release just because the versions that are floating around now are all cut up for some reason. May the fish be with you.

The Marbro Drive-In had a pair of great films on January 10, 1980. Alien was on its second run and if you missed it the first time the drive-in would have been a fun place to see it. I would see it when it played HBO managing to talk my mother into letting me see an R rated film. It's the classic haunted house in space movie that you need to see if you haven't. Race With The Devil is a real corker starring Warren Oates, Peter Fonda, and Loretta Swit. A couple of vacationing couples witness a Satanic sacrifice and then are chased all over while driving a Winnebago. Warren Oates's character drives a motorcycle into some water and falls off then mutters the line, "I'm getting too old for this shit" so take that Lethal Weapon movies. It's ludicrous, but is downright creepy and it has a quintessential 70's ending. 

If you're curious about what channels were carried on Murfreesboro cable back in early 1980, the guide is below. WTBS and KTVU were favorites along with HBO, but the one I loved the most was Nickelodeon. I might have to write a post about those early Murfreesboro cable days. Another film flashback will be released on January 17. 

Film Flashback January 10, 1975

It's going to be double the fun today here at Soulfish Stew. First up there's this flashback to the movies playing on January 10, 1975 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Check back later this evening for another film flashback to a different January 10th. It's the blog equivalent of a double feature! 

Burt Reynolds was playing on the big screen at Murfreesboro's one and only rocking chair theatre Cinema One. It was a truly marvelous place to see a movie, but sadly I was too young to see The Longest Yard there. The building that housed Cinema One and later Cinema Twin sits empty these days and my dream is to be given the money to reopen it as a single screen revival house. 

While I didn't see The Longest Yard in the theatre I saw it when it ran on television. I think every boy my age saw it on television as we would recite lines from it on the playground. It was actually strange to hear the edited for television "I think I broke his freaking neck" line in its uncensored glory when I finally saw the unedited version on VHS years later. It's a great genre mix up with the sports and prison film smashed into drama and comedy. Burt sparkles as Paul Crew and Eddie Albert is great as the villainous Warden Hazen. 

The Martin Twin has a couple of action flicks both centered around Vietnam war veterans. The Trial of Billy Jack is the 3rd in the series of Billy Jack movies starring and directed by Tom Laughlin. I've seen a few of them on television, but they have never done much for me. They were very successful at the box office and I had friends that would imitate Billy Jack's hapkido fighting moves.  There's not a good trailer of the movie at YouTube, but the hapkido scene makes me want to give the Billy Jack films another chance. The other offering was of The No Mercy Man which was about a Vietnam vet returning home to fight bikers and carnies. It's a couple of years old by the time it plays here under its original title. It seems like a film more suited to the drive-in circuit and had actually been re-titled Trained To Kill, USA by 1975 and re-released to the drive-in and second run theatre's that year. You can find the whole movie at YouTube under that revised name.

I wonder why the ad for Burt Reynolds in Fuzz actually features the same photo from The Longest Yard one? Were they trying to confuse possible Cinema One customers? Fuzz which was released in 1972, really looks like a fun movie and Raquel Welch is certainly stunning. I got the Blu-ray recently and it was a decent movie albeit very much a copy of the Robert Altman style then popular. Pulp starring Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney is a quirky movie about a pulp writer being asked by a reclusive star to write his biography. It might be worth a viewing. The drive-in liked to pair its movies and two one word named crime comedies with major stars would make for a nice night out, but it was only for one more night back in 1975.

If you didn't want to venture out into the possibly frigid January night air you could always make your own popcorn (my mother would put oil in a big pan and I'd love to hear it as it popped knowing what a great treat it would be) and stay home to watch what was on the four stations available then. I know that I watched Stowaway To The Moon on this particular evening. I was obsessed with NASA and space back then and I actually do remember anticipating this TV movie. It's out there on the net so I rewatched it over the Christmas holiday. It wasn't too bad. It's unbelievable that a kid would have been able to stowaway, but NASA loaned footage to the movie so there are some nice space scenes. 

Note: there will be another Film Flashback coming later today at 6:00PM.