Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Repeated snow storms, but with warmish days in between. I don't miss ultra-cold temperatures. We saw a Great Blue Heron slowing down to land in the slough, which is frozen over.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Greenbrae, California; Conyers, Georgia; Tokyo, Japan; Oakland, California; Houston, Ohio (Hello Tari DeVille!); Redmond, Oregon; North Arlington, New Jersey; Madrid, Spain; Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, and Indianapolis, Indiana.

Watch for revisions at: Theater X-Net




Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's FIRST illustrator of the 21st, for including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art is getting ready for new shows. We will likely change Crown of the Continent a little, and continue Ace of Diamonds. The art run to Eastern Montana is scheduled for Friday and Saturday -- pray for me.

Concert Watch: Sylvester Stewart AKA Sly Stone December 28, 2008
(Thanks to "Drednut" in Long Beach, California)


I never go to shows all early and wait with anticipation, just P Funk and now this show. They had us waiting and waiting in line outside, then once they let people in there was a dj spinning for a long time. Finally the band came on, nobody original from the Family Stone in the band, youngish guys, don't remember any of their names, but his daughter Novena Carmel "Stone" (who has the band Baby Stone) was one of the singers, so I guess technically she is from the Stone Family;)
They played Dance to the Music without Sly, then they did this acapella beat box thing and got the audience to do it, and kept doing it for a really long time, and I thought "this shit is gonna drop into something really good, why else would they do this on the second song?" And then they just stopped! Weird.
Sly came out and cameras were everywhere! He sang If You Want Me to Stay, and it was nice, my first time seeing Sly live! He sounded real good, and was changing up some of the words.
Later they announced that it was a family affair and that Sly's sister Rose was in the house, so she came up and sang a few with them. Super sweet! The only thing is they would only play a couple minutes of each song and then Sly would stop the band! Plus, at this point it sounded very loose and unrehearsed. All the cats in the band could play their asses off, but it was still a loose show.
Part of the show that was weird was that they announced that they were going to be taking ideas from people in the audience, song ideas, hooks, and Sly would do something with it. These 3 people came out and sang a little thing on the mic, Sly talked a lot, and he messed around a little with the ideas on stage with the keyboard he was using (a small Korg keyboard, I think a microkorg with vocoder) while everyone in the audeince waited. The ideas weren't all that cool to me, so it was odd just having the audience wait and wait while he noodled around with the ideas.
Then he said he was gonna go backstage and make a song from them.
They took a break, then the band came back on stage without Sly, and they were just up there for a long ass time before they played. They did an original song of Novena's band Baby Stone, then I think a new original Sly song (without Sly). Then they said that we had some badass musicians in the house as the bassist started Thankyoufallletin me and George Johnson (Brothers Johnson) comes up! He's dressed all nice in a tie, and he gets up there and talks a whole lot, how he met Sly, someone bring me my guitar, help me with the settings on the amp, blah blah. Finally after like 5 minutes of talking they start jamming on Thankyou, but it has a distinct Brothers Johnson sound, which was cool to hear. Then they said (I forgot his name, not an original member I believe) from Graham Central Station was in the house, a brotha with grey dreads. He got up there on bass and sounded just like Larry Graham on the Jam, he was pretty bad. And George Johnson was still up there. Then Sly came back out and they were all up there together. That was cool as hell, but then he left real quick.
The guests came off stage and then Sly came back later. He had the people from the audience who gave their ideas come back and he had put together some song on a laptop and brought it on stage and played it in the house. Then these guys did their ideas and Sly kinda sang with them too. It was a long process. He also told some long-ass joke/riddle that was pretty anti-climactic.
All in all, it was cool as hell to see Sly live, and in a really small venue (probably 200-300 capacity tops) and he was on stage for a good part of the show. I was prepared for a no-show or a song or two, but got a lot more plus the guests. However, it was very loose, very unrehearsed, lots and lots of dead time and talking and confusing starts and stops, and it often seemed like I was watching a Sly and the Family Stone cover band. I'm glad I went tho!


My own reaction: It is good that Sly actually stuck through a whole gig, strange as the show sounded. I give him credit for trying out new ideas too. It is too bad he doesn't rehearse, though. His previous performance in Santa Rosa last October was a disaster for all concerned -- you can Google an eyewitness review if you want to read that sad story. Recovering from mental illness is difficult enough in private.

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