Black Cherry

Gibson Les Paul.   Last January (2014) I finally got a Les Paul: in particular, a Gibson Les Paul Studio Pro, in Black Cherry Pearl.  It’s an interesting color.  Most of the time – including its pictures on Gibson’s website – it just looks black.  Depending on how the light strikes it, it’s usually black.  But bright, direct light shows a deep, dark metallic red color.  It has a rosewood fretboard with trapezoid inlays.  The headstock has a Gibson decal with the Les Paul script:  not the diamond inlay of the Custom, nor the idiotic “Les Paul 100” handwritten script the 2015 models have been blemished with.

            My immediate reaction was to replace the bridge humbucker with a 500T pickup.  For some reason I can’t fathom, Gibson no longer sells any guitar with this pickup.  They used to put it in Les Paul Classics, Explorers and Flying V’s.  No more.  It’s a good thing they still sell it, period: it’s their hottest pickup, and dropped in this LP and blazing through a tube Marshall, the sound is incredible.  It’s hotter than the EMG81s in my Explorer. 

            One thing I do find odd, though.  I haven’t been to L.A. and its Sunset Strip guitar stores since 2010, but I have visited the flagship Sam Ash and Guitar Center stores in Manhattan, which are much larger than the rest.  Moreover, they have the same “Platinum Collection” boutique section of rare and valuable used guitars which us amateur guitarists can’t afford.  But I’ve never seen a Black Cherry Les Paul like mine in any store: I had to special order it from Gibson.  Nor have I seen the Manhattan Midnight Sunburst Les Paul Traditional, which would have been my second choice (though I have seen them sold online).  Neither paint color is on the palette since 2014. 

Black Cherry Soda.  About the same time I got this guitar, I also fell in love with black cherry soda.  So far the best I’ve tasted is Canada Dry’s Black Cherry Wishniak, which is difficult to find.  Shoppers Food Warehouse carries it, but not consistently, in the two liter bottle shown above.  Rutters, a Pennsylvania version of WaWa, seems to stock it in 20 oz bottles.  

Black Cherry Beer.  A good “beer” is Mike’s Hard BlacK Cherry Lemonade.  Mind you, while this is technically a flavored beer, it tastes like black cherry soda with a kick.  If you’re in the mood for something that tastes like beer, look elsewhere.  If you’re looking for a great tasting black cherry alcoholic beverage, it’s hard to beat this one.

The Original Iron Maiden and Skid Row

Few may realize this, but Rise Above Records does:  before Steve Harris formed Iron Maiden in 1975, there was another band by the same name, right outside London.  This band, however, didn’t even manage to release an album before disbanding into almost complete oblivion in 1970.  The demigods at RAR managed to cobble together an album’s worth of unreleased material into Maiden Voyage. 

What does it sound like?  Well, nothing like the Iron Maiden we know and love, not even in 1980 format, as a New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) band.  This incarnation – Steve Drewett (vocals), Trevor Thorns (guitar), Barry Skeels (bass) and Paul Reynolds (drums) – sounds more like what I’d call third tier 70s jam rock – Bloodrock, Dust, Atomic Rooster, Bang, and Sir Lord Baltimore.  There’s a fair amount of extended solos.  It’s classic obscure 70s rock at its…optimal.  Earlier versions of the band opened for Jethro Tull, Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green era), King Crimson, and the Edgar Broughton Band. 

What happened?  They did record enough for an album, which was going to be called Maiden Voyage, but the record company, Gemini, went out of business before it could be finished and released.  With that, the band “disbanded, intermarried, and moved into condominiums.”  No, they just got day jobs and forgot all about it.

Somewhat less obscure – because they actually did manage to put out two albums, Skid and 34 Hours – are Gary Moore’s Skid Row, from the late 60s and early 70s Ireland.  Gary Moore we know as a solo artist and as a guitarist for Thin Lizzy, though he’s only on one studio album, Black Rose; singer/bassist Brendan “Brush” Shiels and drummer Noel Bridgeman complete the power trio.  A third album was recorded but never released, and then re-recorded with another guitarist, Paul Chapman – who later joined UFO.  Eric Bell of Thin Lizzy also joined briefly, between Moore and Chapman.  After Moore’s departure in 1971, Shiels reformed the band several times, but never quite kept it going. 

Moore and Sheils appear to disagree about what happened with the 80’s hair metal band.  Sebastian Bach claims they paid Moore $35,000 to acquire the name, but Shiels insists he never saw that money – possibly Moore simply pocketed the money without telling Shiels about it.  By that point Moore was an established solo artist, whereas Shiels was still trying to keep it going without much success.  Certainly, even the Gary Moore incarnation, despite two albums and support tours, never came close to the New Jersey band’s success. 

This Skid Row, of course, sounds nothing like the Sebastian Bach-led hair metal band of the late 80’s.   Like (the original) Iron Maiden, it’s lots of extended soloing from Gary Moore and howling vocals from Shiels.  In fact, Phil Lynott was in the band at early stages, before they started officially recording; some 1968 Skid Row demo tapes have Lynott’s vocals, which would be his earliest recordings.  Like (the original) Iron Maiden, this Skid Row opened for Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac in 1970 – so there’s even common ground.  And go figure, Moore passed away but Peter Green is still alive.   

Starsky & Hutch

TV Series.  This originally ran from April 1975 (Season 1) to May 1979 (Season 4), on the ABC Network.  By season 4 the series had “jumped the shark” and run out of steam and ratings.  I’m old enough to remember seeing it on TV when it originally aired, but only vaguely, and as a late night cop drama most of the plots would have – and did – go over my head.  As a <10 year old kid in the US, my impression would have been – and was – “two cool cops driving a cool car”. 

Disclosure: I just finished watching Season 1; I’m not sure if I’ll watch the remaining 3 seasons, although they are out on DVD.   My observations are based on Season 1.   Unlike “Baretta”, however, not only is “S&H” filmed in L.A., it’s actually set in L.A. as well, which at least is honest. 

David Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser).   The guy with dark hair, Fonz-style leather jacket, and Adidas sneakers.  If Starsky sounds like he’s from New York, it’s because he is from New York (although Glaser himself is not).  He’s pretty cool.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson (David Soul).  The blonde guy who often wears letter jackets, minus a letter or school name.  Supposedly relocated from Minnesota – so neither cop is an L.A. native.  He’s also pretty cool.  In fact, they’re both cool. 

The two have a warm, friendly comraderie and an easy coolness.  In fact, they’re much more hip and cool than Webb and Friday (“Dragnet”), who were plainclothes police detectives, or Reed and Malloy (“Adam 12”), who were uniformed patrolmen.  They don’t set off my GAYDAR, however, others’ observations to that effect notwithstanding.  The real-life cop they remind me of is Serpico:  non-corrupt, conscientious, but able to see the forest for the trees and not stick in the mud authoritarian types like Webb & Friday or Reed & Malloy.  I didn’t see them smoke pot or drink heavily, but their home lifestyles were fairly laid back.  I would argue that Riggs & Murtaugh (Gibson & Glover in “Lethal Weapon”) took their template from this duo.   So in a real sense, “Starsky & Hutch” set the standard for the modern American cop buddy team. 

Ford Gran Torino.   This was Starsky’s car (Hutch drove a full-size Galaxy which had seen better days): a mid-70s Ford Gran Torino coupe, bright red with a white Nike stripe and aftermarket wheels.  The engine isn’t mentioned (at least not in Season 1), which means it could be anything from a 302 to a 460; in actual fact, the Season 1 car had a 400, while the subsequent season cars had 460s. It doesn’t have a rough idle, but the exhaust bark is noticeable - overdubbed, as the car itself wasn't modified.  The car is as much a star of the show as the characters:  plenty of chases, high speed driving, drifting, etc.  Although I’m not a Ford guy, I can appreciate the coolness factor here.

            According to Wikipedia, Glaser never liked the car, for several reasons.  First, it was big and ugly; second, it was gaudy and ostentatious: why would undercover cops drive such a distinctive and noticeable vehicle?  Third: he never liked Fords.  To this day he still hates the car but accepts its role in the show’s popularity and charm.  Glaser called the car a “striped tomato” – not as a compliment - and on the show Hutch referred to it as such. Contrast this with Burt Reynolds, who kept the Bandit T/A and drove it as a personal car after the movies were over. 

Guns.  Starsky carried a Colt 1911 .45 automatic, while Hutch preferred a .357 Magnum revolver:  Riggs (Beretta 92) and Murtaugh (revolver) again!

Chief Doby (Bernie Hamilton).  Their gruff, overweight, colored police chief who tolerates them even if he chews them out consistently.  They frequently kid him about his weight and his ineffective dieting.

Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas).  The local sleezy bar owner (NOT a drug kingpin) who invariably seems to provide the duo with relevant information on the criminal activities they’re investigating.  Sometimes he has a “scheme” going which is quasi-illegal, but mostly his role is to be JUST sleazy enough to be a useful and plausible informant without being an outright criminal.  Moreover, he remains likeable – so we don’t think of Starsky and Hutch as corrupt. 

Guest stars.  Here’s another benefit of watching 70’s TV shows:  seeing actors who made it big later.  In Season 1, at least, we get: Suzanne Sommers (Savage Sunday, Episode 1), Robert Loggia & Geoffrey Lewis (The Fix, Episode 5), Marc Alaimo (The Bait, Episode 9), Gordon Jump (The Deadly Impostor, Episode 13), Norman Fell (The Shootout, Episode 14), Kristy McNichol and John Ritter [that makes Three’s Company) (Hostages, Episode 15), Steve Kanaly (from Dallas) and Jason Bernard (the judge in “Liar, Liar”) (Silence, Episode 18); and Jan Smithers (Running, Episode 20).

Movie (2004).   I had seen this when it came out in the theaters, with only my sketchy childhood memories to act as a baseline.  I saw this again after seeing Season 1.  Bottom line? A major stinker.  The original show was a drama with some light comedy – usually at the end of the episode when the bad guy was locked up or dead, so the pair could relax.  This was an outright comedy.  Ben Stiller played Starsky as an incompetent law & order dweeb, while Owen Wilson made Hutch into the same laid back surfer dude he makes ALL his characters, regardless of the role or movie.  Glaser and Soul had a definite onscreen chemistry, and their characters weren’t dramatically polar opposites.  I don’t have a general issue with Snoop Dogg, and I can see why he was cast as Huggy Bear, but he turned the character into a local druglord with armed bodyguards, which was well beyond merely being the useful informant his character is supposed to be. 

            About the only actor who played his character straight was Fred Williamson (aka Shaft) as Chief Doby.  I can’t fault Vince Vaughn or Jason Bateman as the villains: they did their jobs appropriately.  The Gran Torino gets a good amount of airtime and action.  Will Ferrell injects his inimitable weirdness and almost salvages this.  But by the end I was ecstatic to see Glaser and Soul in a brief cameo.   

Colour Haze

I subscribe to Classic Rock magazine, and sometimes buy the PROG version of the same.  Each issue comes with a free CD sampler of music.  Unfortunately, most of the music turns out to be “Best new bands” that invariably sound almost exactly like established bands.  In other words, the new bands haven’t yet outgrown their influences.  So listening to the sampler becomes a tedious affair of “which band are they ripping off”?  The Classic Rock team loves giving us incessant clones of Guns N’Roses and the Rolling Stones, while PROG gives us more Yes copycats.  With regard to prog it’s even more egregious:  how are you “prog” if you’re simply copying Pink Floyd, Yes, King Crimson, etc. without adding anything new of your own?  They’re practically de facto tribute bands.  Anyhow.

In this case, the band Colour Haze from Munich, Germany, I had the opposite problem.  They have enough of a unique sound that trying to figure out who they sound like was a real challenge. 

The label “stoner rock” definitely applies, and some may consider them Germany’s premier stoner rock band.  They have 11 studio albums from 1995 (Chopping Machine) to 2014 (To The Highest Gods We Know), and a live album from 2009 (Burg Herzberg Festival).  The current lineup is Stefan Koglek (guitar, vocals), Philipp Rasthofer (bass), and Manfred Merwald (drums). 

I do hear Orange Goblin, Grateful Dead, and Blue Cheer – but by that I mean Blue Cheer (self-titled fourth album) and The Original Human Being.  Often there’s a fairly clean guitar tone, but unlike Jerry Garcia, Koglek knows what distortion is, and although they jam heavily, there are plenty of modest-length songs, so I’ve yet to get bored by them.  Much of their music has an airy, drone-like quality, though not as slow, sludgy or doomy as Sleep or Electric Wizard.  They seem to like single-word song titles.  On ALL, which at this point is my favorite (although I still don’t have all their albums), the song titles almost seem to form a sentence.  It’s reached the point where I prefer them to Kyuss, a band the stoner rock crowd seems to consider the best. 

For now they only seem to tour Europe – the same deal as Hawkwind and the other German psychedelic bands.  If they come to the US I’ll happily go.  In the meantime, I have five albums left to acquire and digest before they find their way here.