Gibson RD

The other night I saw Ghost in concert for the second time.  Since I already commented on the prior concert last year, I’ll comment on the guitars instead.   Aside from the singer, who calls himself Papa Emeritus III, the other band members – two guitarists, a bassist, keyboardist, and drummer – refer to themselves as “Nameless Ghouls” and dress identically.  Both years the costumes were black robes with various symbols on them, with the facial coverings differing:  in 2014 it was “plague doctor” masks (black, beaked faces like the medieval plague doctors who attempted, none too successfully, to cure the Black Death in the 1300s) and this time around it was silver devil masks, mouthless with horns.  Both are damn cool.

The two guitarists, NG/GB (guitarist, black) and NG/GW (guitarist, white) played Gibson RDs, in black and white, thus the names.   They traded solos, so each could be considered a lead guitarist.  Later in the set, NG/GB pulled out a sunburst RD.  Since he has an Omega symbol on his black RD, some of the fans have begun referring to him as Omega.  As you can imagine, calling them all Nameless Ghouls gets confusing.

The odd thing is that Ghost seem to be the first band to play these instruments professionally.  I’ve yet to see any other musician use them - except Jimmy Page playing one on "Misty Mountain Hop" at Knebworth.  And Gibson is a popular brand.   Les Pauls, SGs, Explorers, Flying Vs, ES335s, Firebirds, all have several musicians well associated with the specific models.   Krist Novoselic of Nirvana played a bass version. 

Design.  It looks like someone took brown acid, freaked out, and attacked an Explorer.  Then instead of using an offset headstock, 6 tuners in a row, they simply used the standard 3x2 Gibson headstock.  When the acid wore off, they decided that active electronics were cool – which we now associate with EMG pickups.  The Standards kept standard pickups, with the Artist and Custom models with the fancy electronics.  Active electronics were something Gibson was experimenting with back then, and the RD wasn't the only model they came in. "Artist" versions of the Les Paul and ES335 were also issued, but not very popular.  My guitar teacher, Joel, had an ES335 Artist model - a bunch of switches on an otherwise 50s style guitar was a dead giveaway.

Joel also gave me a stack of old Gibson sales literature which included the RD.  The original run was in 1977-79, with reissues sold in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2014; only the 2014 has active electronics. 

In addition to not seeing any professionals play this model until Ghost came around, I’d never seen any in music stores or used guitar stores – until I found a 2014 Artist at Guitar Center Times Square recently.  I might have played it briefly out of sheer boredom and curiosity, as I’d never buy it - white with gold hardware is not my scene, black with chrome/nickel is my preference.

The show at the Fillmore Silver Spring was packed – much more crowded than last year’s show.  Will Ghost be able to continue their momentum?  Who knows.  If they do, I can see Gibson RDs suddenly getting much more popular.   The guitar players among the Ghost fandom have already begun to notice.

Barnaby

I just finished Book 2 of the compilation series.  It says “2 of 5” but #3 isn’t even out yet, nor do I see dates for #4 or 5.  Anyhow, 2 was enough to enjoy for now.  I can’t take credit for discovering this on my own; Reason Magazine, which acts for the Libertarian movement as The Nation does for Bernie Sanders’ crowd, alerted me to this in an article last year by Jesse Walker, https://reason.com/archives/2014/12/25/our-fairy-godfather/print.

These comics (in Books 1 & 2) ran from 1942-45 (i.e. during WWII) in the US.   The author, Crockett Johnson, is best known for Harold and the Purple Crayon, so the style is familiar; incidentally, there are 7 Harold books, not just “Purple Crayon”.  Unusual for cartoonists, CJ used typeface for dialogue, in Futura Oblique; regrettably this font is not available in my current version of MS Word, otherwise I would have used it. 

Barnaby.  A young boy, about 5 years old.  He’s fairly clever but also quite sensible.  One night he wishes for a fairy godmother, and instead Mr. O’Malley shows up.  From then – until he turns 6, the cutoff age for fairy godparents – O’Malley serves as his best friend and companion.

Naturally his parents don’t believe him about Mr. O’Malley, but his friend Jane sees O’Malley, and other characters also see him even if they don’t recognize him as such.  Barnaby isn’t particularly special or heroic and fills the role of a typical child. 

Mr. O’Malley.  “Cushlamochree!”  He often exclaims.  He’s been around for some time, so long that he sometimes makes mistakes (e.g. confusing Thomas Dewey with Admiral Dewey).  He has magic powers, but tends to employ them by mistake rather than competently.  It’s never quite clear whether he’s genuinely trying to help Barnaby in some way or does so to advance his own agenda. 

Gus the Ghost.   Fairly quiet, demure, shy, and – oddly for a ghost – apparently scared of most things, when most people would be scared of him. 

There are all sorts of other characters along the way, including an invisible leprechaun, a few genies, and a witch who’s never heard of the Grimm fairy tales. 

While falling short of being psychedelic, they are somewhat surreal.  They have that endearing quality of being suitable for children while also appealing to adults.  I found I could follow most of the references, and whichever ones eluded me were helpfully explained by footnotes at the end.  The time frame of books 1 & 2 cover WWII, but there are far less references than I’d expect.  With the backwards-time ghosts, a newspaper headline says “RED ARMY SMASHED” (probably referring to a battle in 1941 or 1942) although it’s 1944 by then.  No mention of VE Day or VJ Day, various references to US civil defense and rationing, a demon also doubles as an Axis spy, but not much else.

What’s also remarkable is that Crockett Johnson (real name: David Johnson Leisk) was a socialist, but very little of that came out in Barnaby.  Fortunately for socialists, with the Soviet Union allied with the US after Pearl Harbor, views which might be construed as pro-Stalin were simply patriotic.  He bears a slight resemblance to Robert Fripp.  

Rod Evans

In August 1985 my family was visiting London, England, staying in an apartment we swapped with another US Dept of Commerce family who lived in southwest London, nearest the Baron’s Court Underground station.   Although I haven’t been back since then, if you dropped me off there, I could probably find my way to the “flat” by memory.  I could probably do the same with Michel-Ange Molitor in Paris to our apartment in Rue Van Loo, despite not having been there since January 1979, but enough irrelevant boasting.

Fortunately there was a record player in the flat which we used to listen to three new LPs:  Van Halen 5150, Judas Priest Turbo, and Deep Purple Book of Taliesyn.  This was their second album, released in October 1968, from the now-forgotten Mark I lineup:  Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Jon Lord on keyboards, Ian Paice on drums – the core of Mark II and III – plus vocalist Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper.  I knew of this lineup from a book on Deep Purple.  Did I buy it from WH Smith in Paris, or the Stars & Stripes at SHAPE in Belgium?  I can’t remember.  Anyhow.

Deep Purple Mark I.  This was NOT Mark II:  “Smoke on the Water”, “Highway Star”, etc.  This was…different.  Ritchie’s guitar and Jon’s keyboards were there, but the songs and voice…  Very different.  At this time (1968) Deep Purple was making an odd attempt at being a commercial band.  And they did have one hit, “Hush”, which even the current Mark VII lineup still plays in encores even if Ian Paice is the only common band member.  This lineup released three albums:  Shades of Deep Purple (7/68), Book of Taliesyn (10/68), and (self-titled) Deep Purple (6/69).  They were popular in the US and toured there, opening for Cream and Vanilla Fudge, and even featured on “Playboy After Dark”.  Back in the UK, album sales were dismal and audiences hated them, believing them to be a bubble gum pop American band.  I have a recent live release recorded on their US tour, opening for Cream (Live at Inglewood 1968). 

Back then I had to buy the vinyl, which I still have, in addition to later deluxe digitally remastered CDs with extra tracks.  Of the original three, Book of Taliesyn is one I regularly listen to, most often, out of sheer pleasure, though the others aren’t bad.  For the rest of you circa 2015, you’re in luck: all three Mark I albums are on Spotify. 

In summer 1969 the other three gave Rod Evans and Nick Simper the boot in favor of Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, and Mark II was born.   Gillan and Glover had actually been their preference a year earlier, but at that time their band Episode Six was still on its way up, and the pair felt an obligation to push it as far as it would go.  By summer 1969, however, Episode Six had run out of steam.

Simper wasn’t very happy with his departure.  Later he formed a band called Warhorse, which to date I’ve never heard.   To my knowledge he’s still alive and active, his latest band being Nasty Habits, with a new album, De La Frog Conspiracy.   Check out his website (www.nicksimper.com).   He’s obviously not forgotten that he used to be in Deep Purple.

Captain Beyond.  Rod Evans initially retired from music, married, and moved to the US.   But later he joined a band called Captain Beyond, with some castoffs from Iron Butterfly.  Captain Beyond recorded two albums (plus a recently released live album) with Evans, Captain Beyond and Sufficiently Breathless.  They’re still around, though without Evans and without Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, the lead guitarist, who died recently.  This music is excellent 70s’ psychedelic rock, in the vein of Bloodrock, Sir Lord Baltimore, Dust, Budgie, and those obscure bands guys like me listen to but no one else does. 

However, Evans quit Captain Beyond after those two albums.   So far as I can tell, he was unhappy as a musician and never recovered from being sacked by Deep Purple, however sanguine he might have been about the departure when it actually happened.  But he wasn’t done yet….

Deep Purple 1980.   The last lineup, Mark IV, split up in 1976, and guitarist Tommy Bolin died of a heroin overdose a few months later.  By 1980 the former members were either in Whitesnake with Mark III/IV vocalist David Coverdale, Rainbow with Ritchie Blackmore, or minding their own business.  Ian Gillan had his own band, but I’m not aware of any ex-DP who ever served in his solo band.  Since DP was dormant, some sleazy promoters put together an ersatz Deep Purple to tour around.  Nick Simper refused to be part of it (to his credit) but Evans showed poorer judgment and agreed.  The other band members - Tony Flynn (guitar), Tom de Rivera (bass), Geoff Emery (keyboards), and Dick Jurgens (drums) - shared nothing in common with Deep Purple.  DP’s former managers couldn’t enjoin the farce, but they did put out ads in in the local papers warning that no member of Mark II or III would be present on the tour, which lasted May to September 1980 in Mexico, the US, and Canada; some footage of the Mexican shows is up on Youtube.   When fans realized it was a hoax, the scene got ugly.   Mind you, these guys weren’t claiming to be a NEW lineup, they were claiming to actually be Deep Purple, and playing Mark II and III material as if it was their own.  DP’s management eventually secured a substantial judgment (US $672,000) against Rod Evans, which has effectively killed what was left of his musical career; any subsequent earnings would be levied upon to satisfy the unpaid judgment. 

A website devoted to this band, somewhat complimentary (oddly enough) is here: http://www.cream-revival-band.com/Bogus_Deep_Purple_1980.html.

To date, his whereabouts remain unknown, and given the circumstances I’m sure Evans wants to keep a low profile.   Some people on the DP website asked about that, and one person replied, “leave the poor guy alone.”

Voice.  What does he SOUND like?  Well, he has a rich, deep, voice, well suited for sensitive ballads, a little less so for hard rock or heavy metal.  This was the reason given for Deep Purple’s dismissal of him in favor of Ian Gillan, whose shrieking ability is well known by now (even if he shrieks less often these days and his hair is short).  However, he did a fine job in Captain Beyond, and guitarist Larry “Rhino” Rheinhardt (RIP) noted that while Evans was very insecure about his vocal ability, the band thought he was great; he’s competitive with the other singers of that era and tops Burke Shelley of Budgie.  Clearly the two CB albums are worth checking out, but I’d start with Book of Taliesyn.    

Innocents Abroad

I finally finished Mark Twain’s travel diary, written in 1867.   Original name Samuel Clemens, and best known for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain went on an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East, then came back to write about it.  It was his best selling work during his lifetime.

By the way, this is not his ONLY travelogue.  Roughing It covers 1861-67 but was published after Innocents.  It covers his travels in the American Wild West.  A Tramp Abroad (1880) covers travels in Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy.  Life on the Mississippi (1883) covers… life on the Mississippi.  This guy was on a river boat, it seems.  Who knew.  Following the Equator (1897) covers… the British Empire.

The trip left from New York City, traveled across the Atlantic to the Azores, to Gibraltar, and to Marseille.  From Marseille they took the train north to Paris.

Paris, France.  He attended Napoleon III’s Exhibition which was the French Emperor’s formal unveiling, as it were, of the new Paris he and Baron Haussmann had spent the last 15 years or so renovating.  He seemed impressed with N3 but less so with the Ottoman Emperor who accompanied his French counterpart.  Mind you, the Eiffel Tower was still 20 years away (1889 exhibition). 

England, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia?  Nope – at least not in this book.  

Italy.   Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii (no Pink Floyd).  Lots of art, lots of museums, etc.  He enjoyed messing with the guides by professing ignorance of Christopher Columbus.  Also, they called all the guides “Ferguson” regardless of actual name or nationality.  He did find it odd that many churches all claimed to have relics of saints, sometimes the SAME relics.  Guides tried to tell tourists what they wanted to hear – imagine that.

Greece.  The ship was quarantined off the coast at Athens.  Fortunately, at night, he and a small group succeeded at sneaking ashore to visit the Acropolis.  So his tour of Athens, as it was, ended up being a sneakfest in the dead of night. 

Russia.  He actually met Tsar Alexander II in Odessa.   Since no one in the tour group was a celebrity, aside from him, and he didn’t consider himself important enough to merit the personal attention of a reigning monarch, this impressed the hell out of him.  He had a highly favorable impression of the Tsar.

Turkey.  Constantinople, as Istanbul was called back then.  They sampled the famous Turkish baths.  Smyrna, Ephesus and other places also got the Twain Treatment.

Holy Land.  Damascus.  Jerusalem.   The biggest thing which struck Twain was how small it was.  I’ve heard Israel described as being the size of New Jersey (i.e. not that big) and sure enough everything seems close by.  For my part, I was struck at how pious and believing Twain was.  For a guy as acidic and cynical about everything, he displayed none of that on the substantive issues of Jesus, Mary, and basic tenets of Christianity.  He seemed to shine his beam of cynicism on the pilgrims who accompanied the group:  overworking the animals to make a three day journey take two days, and knocking off bits of masonry as souvenirs.  Also, the guides threatened that the local Bedouins were hostile to pilgrims, so that guards were necessary for protection, but they never seemed to be in any danger – he suspected it was overstated to spread the wealth to guards personally related or acquainted with the guides.  Twain got a major kick out of visiting all the places mentioned in the Bible – for real.  WOW.  Mind blown.  Etc. 

Egypt. The Sphinx and the Pyramids.  Remarkably similar to what I saw in Egypt on a class trip during high school (1985).  As usual the locals try to fleece the tourists.

Back home.   By way of Tanger.   By that time everyone was so burnt out they just wanted to get home again.  Nothing much would faze or impress them – least of all Twain himself. 

I read it on Kindle – itself a swindle, as despite being described as “illustrated” there were NO illustrations included; I had to observe them online. 

It took me awhile to read and wasn’t nonstop action, fun, or wit.  He stops short of being completely full of himself, so I never lost patience, but it was somewhat of a lengthy digestion, not a book to be quickly devoured over a single weekend.  Nonetheless, being personally familiar with much of the area he was covering, and vicariously familiar with the rest, I certainly enjoyed the journey. 

The most important element is – as I’ve noted – his delicious cynicism and skepticism.  He frequently quoted contemporary guide books, all of which put the places in improbably positive lights.  “I’m not sure we visited the same place,” muses Twain.  If he saw shit, he’d tell us – and not totally ignore it.  I found Bucharest (which he didn’t see) to be extremely dirty.  Hell, aside from Barra da Tijuca and some parts of Ipanema and Leblon, Rio de Janeiro is very dirty.  And I’m not even talking about the favelas.  But he has such a clever way of knocking things that it’s entertaining in its own right.  So enjoy the travel diary of a man who wasn’t afraid to tell it like it was.   

The War That Came Early

Recently I finished yet another of Harry Turtledove’s alternate history series, this one he calls The War That Came Early, the books being Hitler’s War, West And East, The Big Switch, Coup D’Etat, Two Fronts, and Last Orders.

Premise.  In real life, the 1938 talks at Munich between Adolf Hitler (Nazi Germany), Eduard Daladier (France), and Neville Chamberlain (UK), resulted in an agreement essentially allowing Germany to swallow up Czechoslovakia, which the Germans did by March 1939.   The Czechs were not part of this negotiation and the benefit (to the extent we can ascertain any benefit at all) was that the European powers avoided a war – only temporarily.  The UK and France thought Hitler would stop here, but of course he was simply getting what he could without war but would invade if he had to, e.g. Poland just a year later.  Who knows how much firmer Chamberlain might have been had he known this – which is where this story picks up.

In this timeline, German-Czech troublemaker Konrad Heinlein is assassinated by a Czech troublemaker.  Although the Germans had nothing to do with it, Chamberlain and Daladier believe it’s too convenient and probably a set-up intended as an excuse to allow the Germans to invade Czechoslovakia.  Angered by what they perceive as immense bad faith by the Germans, they break off the talks.  Hitler, frustrated by this turn of events, decides to invade anyway, and the war which was postponed until September 1939 in real life, with the German invasion of Poland, arrives in 1938 with a German invasion of Czechoslovakia.  That goes fairly well for the Germans, and a French incursion into Germany stalls not far over the border. 

Spain.  In real life, Marshal Sanjurjo was the intended leader of the Fascist revolt, which began in July 1936.   Taking off with a small plane from Portugal overloaded with his heavy crate of uniforms, the plane crashed and he was killed, leaving Franco to lead the Fascists…to victory in March 1939.  Here, the pilot persuades Sarjurjo to leave his uniforms behind and he lands safely, surviving to lead the Fascists.  To victory?  We’ll see.  Since the real Spanish Civil War ended in March 1939 with the real WWII beginning in September 1939, versus, in these books, war breaking out in Europe BEFORE the Spanish Civil War ends, this cuts off the supplies to the parties involved so this war continues far longer, while WWII is still going on. 

Far East.  The Japanese succeed at defeating the Soviets up in Manchuria…for the time being.  Having his hands full fighting the Germans and Poles + the British and French, Stalin cuts a deal with the Japs just so he can focus on things further west.   They also romp over the Far East, but the Pearl Harbor attack never happens.  The Japanese use germ warfare against their opponents.

Eastern Front.   Poland and Germany are allies against Soviet Russia.   They make some modest progress into Russia, later losing that ground after the alliance with Britain and France breaks down and the two front war re-erupts.

Western Front.  The UK and France initially fight against Germany, briefly ally with Germany and help invade Russia, then switch back to being against Germany, returning to a two front war.  The UK itself has some internal struggles which cause it to switch sides twice, and the French simply followed their lead each time.

Holocaust & Internal Affairs.  Jews are mistreated in Germany, but the Final Solution never gets running.  Moreover, when the war turns into a stalemate, many of Hitler’s generals start causing problems.  The biggest problem is that the “blitzkrieg” which happened in the real war never quite gets full steam here, so most of the war is a series of stalemates on various fronts. Hitler has no decisive victory against any opponent to make him popular with his people or apparently infallible to his generals.  

United States.   The US enters the Pacific War against Japan, fighting over Wake Island and Midway, but stays out of the war in Europe.  There doesn’t seem to be much cooperation and coordination between Germany and Japan - or I should say, even less than there was in real life. 

War details.  The biggest nugget I got from this (Dana Carvey-as-Johnny Carson “I did NOT know that!”) was discussion of the German Panzer II tank.  I knew it had a 20mm cannon, but I didn’t know the cannon fired on full auto from a 10 round magazine.  I also didn’t know the radio man sat towards the back, near the engine, rather than up front next to the driver; there was no bow machine gun.  Plus there's some discussion of the Red Air Force, the dynamics between the various nationalities in the Soviet Union, and some some fun about "mat", which is the highly colloquial and heavily colorful slang which Russians use, particularly peasants and underworld denizens.  

Writing.   By now I’ve read the reviews on Amazon of Turtledove’s work and I agree with the consensus.  As a storyteller in terms of plot and what actually happens, Turtledove is fine.  No one really complains all that much about where his stories go. 

            It’s his writing that we beef about:  grotesquely repetitious.  What is a six volume series should really be a three volume series.  Every time a character is dealt with, HT has to repeat – even later in the same book – the same opinions, idiosyncrasies, and problems the character has.  Issues about ersatz coffee, cigarettes, etc. are repeated OVER and OVER again.  It becomes a deliberate pattern of conspicuous padding, and severely compromises the quality of his work and our ability to enjoy it.  This seems to be the most consistent complaint readers articulate against Turtledove for most of his books.

            Another problem I have with his writing, and which I haven’t seen complained of (yet), is the tone.  HT tells the story in a way that overexplains things to the point where you wonder who his target audience is.  Alternate history is a subset of science fiction which would only find an audience among people who know the real history and derive some entertainment from an alternative narrative.  I’m 46.  HT writes like he’s writing to his 12 year old nephew.  Are young teenage boys the target market?  Are the girls reading Harry Potter while the boys read Turtledove?  Is this Young Adult Fiction in disguise?  It’s just a step above Harry Potter in narrative sophistication, and J.K. Rowling seems fairly open about HP’s market, even if plenty of adults such as myself have actually read the books.  Just a thought…    

Jews Fight Back (Part I)

I’ve noticed a substantial movement of blatantly anti-Semitic propaganda on Facebook.   Mostly these cowards tend to whine that they’re “simply against Israel and not Jews” but then post the same big-nosed caricatures we recognize from Nazi propaganda.   This brings me to my topic for this week.

Fighting Back, by Harold Werner.  My colleague Mr. Campbell got me this book for Christmas last year and I finally finished reading it.  It chronicles the struggle to survive in the forests of Poland from 1939 to 1944, wherein a Jewish partisan group had to arm itself and fight back to avoid being wiped out.  Fortunately the author survived to tell the story, but many of his friends, family and comrades did not.

Defiance.  This movie covers almost the same territory even if the characters are different (though also true), taking place in Byelorussia as opposed to Poland.  But the same issues arise:  to survive, young Jewish badasses have to get weapons, extract friends, family and loved ones from local villages and larger ghettoes, somehow find food, avoid anti-Semitic locals eager to sell them out to the Nazis, and of course, fight back against the German Police and SS units sent into the forest, heavily armed, to wipe them out.  The main fighters are played by Daniel “007” Craig and Liev Shreiber (Ray Donovan and other roles).  [No famous people on the German side here.]

Since that book and this movie tend to reinforce and complement each other, I’ll combine the analysis of the two.

Themes:   Hostile locals.  When an entire nation defended its Jews against the Nazis – as the Danes and Bulgarians did – the Holocaust was stopped dead in its tracks.  The Final Solution was impossible without substantial cooperation and assistance by locals.  However, Werner noted an interesting dynamic.  If the Germans were armed and violent, but the Jews were not, the locals would cooperate fully with the Nazis.  However, if the Jews showed up with weapons and the inclination to use them, that now put the locals in a spot.  Faced with two sides willing to kill them, they generally picked the Jews to side with.  This was pushed further in the Jews’ favor after Stalingrad (February 1943) and Kursk (July 1943) when it became more apparent that the Nazis weren’t going to win the war.  Showing up with guns, the Jews turned the locals’ contempt into fear and respect, though whichever locals had pre-existing anti-Semitic tendencies tended to remain pro-Nazi longer than the others.  When the Red Army came close by, even the nastiest bastards began thinking twice about supporting the Fritzes. 

Useless mouths.  Unfortunately, most of the Jewish refugees were women, children, elderly, disabled, etc.  Many of the men were urban intellectuals with limited combat skills or outdoors knowhow.  Only a minority were young, able-bodied men capable of fighting.  In rare but valuable occasions the fighters had Polish Army experience.  Most of the fighting had to be done by the small fraction of willing and able men – with a few women scattered here and there.  

Russians.  While not particularly enamored of Jews, and fairly brutal thanks to Comrade Stalin, the Russians are mainly good guys in this story.   Once the Jews convinced the Soviets that they were willing, able, and competent fighters, that they were willing to fight alongside the Russians and risk their own lives defending themselves, the Soviets began supplying them with weapons, ammunition, supplies, and even a few advisors.  As the front moved westwards, so did much larger Russian partisan forces.  These forces were so large, well-equipped, and well-organized as to qualify as armies in their own right. 

Two Polish Armies.  Werner describes not one but TWO Polish resistance armies (actually he mentions others, but these are the main two): The Army Ludowa and the Army Krajowa.  The latter is the larger, more famous Home Army which shows up in the 1944 Warsaw uprising.  According to Werner, the Ludowa group was Communist and allied closely with the Soviets, and almost always highly favorable to the Jews.  On the other hand, the Army Krajowa, while not explicitly anti-Semitic, was no better than neutral and did betray them to the Nazis on multiple occasions. 

After the war, the Jews faced reprisals from Army Krajowa forces – who even killed many Jewish partisans who had managed to survive the war.  The author had to flee Poland and found his way to the USA. 

My father once spoke with a genuine French resistance fighter.  He said that during the war, the Resistance never mustered more than a few hundred men and women at tops.  However, after the war, somehow that number expanded exponentially, after the fact: thousands of people emerged from the woodwork claiming to have helped out the Resistance in various ways.  The truth is that most of these people might not have been outright collaborators or Milice, but they certainly weren’t Resistance.  Probably they were minding their own business, just trying to stay alive. 

Likewise it seems that the Polish resistance armies – particularly the Army Krajowa – claimed to have supported the Jews and opposed the Nazis.   I believe in some cases this is probably true – but clearly not all.  As for resolving discrepancies between what surviving Jews claim vs. what the Polish resistance armies claim, I’m more inclined to believe the former.  While there is little reason for Jews to attribute collaboration or hostility to Poles who weren’t actually so, there is ample incentive for embarrassed anti-Semites, after the fact, to claim to have been more supportive of the Jews than they actually were.    

Uprising.  This is a recent film with an all-star cast.  NOTE: there were TWO Warsaw uprisings.  The 1943 “Ghetto” uprising was the Jewish uprising.   The later 1944 uprising was the Polish Home Army uprising.  This movie focuses on the former.

            This story has an all-star cast: Hank Azaria (best known from the Simpsons and as Gargamel in the live action Smurfs movies), David Schwimmer (Ross Geller on “Friends”), Leelee Sobieski, Donald Sutherland (a hero here, not the vile President Snow), and even the German side has some star power:  Jon Voigt as Jurgen Stroop, the SS commander who put down the uprising, and Carey Elwes as the Nazis’ chief propagandist.  Instead of forests, the locale is the Warsaw Ghetto, i.e. street fighting which eventually led to many Jews escaping through the sewers.  Here again, you have Jews fighting back and trying to stay alive, but it’s in a demolished city and its sewer complex rather than the wild forests. 

Both “Defiance” and “Uprising” are long movies, but they complement each other.  Naturally, however, “Schindler’s List” remains the definitive Holocaust movie to date.  

Brant Bjork

I’ve been listening to a bit more of this guy lately, in particular, Gods And Goddesses and Punk Rock Guilt.   Prior to that it was Jalamanta, Saved By Magic, and Black Flower Power.

In the beginning:  there was Kyuss, famous for giving us Josh Homme, the lead dude of Queens of the Stone Age.  With that band he’s on Wretch, Blues for the Red Sun, (Welcome to) Sky Valley and ....And The Circus Leaves Town.  Since Kyuss are also famous for being one of the first stoner rock bands, and are still well esteemed to this day, that alone would give BB solid stoner rock credentials.

Then it was  Fu Manchu, for the albums, No One Rides For Free, The Action is Go, Jailbreak, Eatin’ Dust, King of the Road (their best album), and California Crossing. 

QOTSA bassist Nick Oliveiri had a falling out with Homme – who can be a bit strong-minded about running his band – so he wound up making his own band, Mondo Generator, which has two studio albums, Cocaine Rodeo and A Drug Problem That Never Existed, both of which BB is on.

Solo.  He has 7 albums as “Brant Bjork” (Jalamanta, Brant Bjork & the Operators, Keep Your Cool, Local Angel, Tres Dias [a compilation with only one unique song], Punk Rock Guilt, and Gods & Goddesses), two as “Brant Bjork and the Bros” (Saved By Magic and Somera Sol), and one with his “Low Desert Punk Band” (Black Flower Power).  The solo distinction is that with the prior bands, he was playing drums, whereas now he’s playing multiple instruments and seems to be on guitar & vocals live – basically doing a Dave Grohl/Foo Fighters switch.  I suppose you could call him the Dave Grohl of stoner rock.  What’s even funnier is that Grohl himself played drums briefly with Queens of the Stone Age and teamed up with Josh Homme and John Paul Jones (yes, the Led Zeppelin bassist/keyboardist) for Them Crooked Vultures.

Although I haven’t heard all his material, I’ve heard the Kyuss, the Fu Manchu, about 1/3 of his solo material.  It all qualifies as stoner rock, and all has a definite groove of coolness.  I’ve seen him in concert a few times, although only as a drummer: Kyuss (1995), Fu Manchu (2002), and Kyuss Lives (2011).  I’m still trying to catch him playing a tour as his solo band. 

Note: despite the term “stoner rock”, much of this music is not psychedelic at all, and Bjork’s stuff is not either.  It’s riff driven, with some bands like Bjork’s having a definite groove element to it, almost “heavy-funky”.  The scene also includes bands which are much slower and sludgier (“doom”), such as Electric Wizard and Acid King (imagine Black Sabbath’s “Into the Void” – but even slower), or others which pick up the tempo considerably with a quasi-thrash vibe, like High On Fire.  It’s not music which requires marijuana to enjoy, but many of its fans are proud tokers, and some bands even celebrate it in their names:  Bongripper, Bongzilla, Weedeater, Weedpecker, etc.  The genre seems to take Black Sabbath as its starting point, and then spliff it up with some weirdness, a la Pink Floyd, or what I call Black Floyd.  They inject just enough originality to avoid simply being de facto Black Sabbath tribute bands, but they often sound very much the same as each other. 

If you’re a fan of classic heavy metal – AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest – you’re going to find that the bands are getting older and touring less and less.  Black Sabbath will be lucky to follow up 13 with another album and tour – and Bill Ward is effectively retired.  Priest are close to shutting down.  AC/DC may have one more album and/or tour after Rock or Bust, and Maiden eked out its most recent album, Book of Souls, which still hasn’t been released (ETA 9/4/15), before Bruce Dickinson’s cancer scare.  When they do tour, it’s large venues at high prices.  The beauty of the stoner rock scene is that none of these bands have blown up huge, so they’re playing local clubs fairly often for modest prices.  There are some stoner rock festivals in Europe, but I haven’t seen one come by the DC area yet.  But the bottom line is that you get “Black Floyd” in your home town fairly often.  And you don’t even have to toke up.