CARGOES - gruesome dream ship for GUNHILL ROAD

Something about an ocean voyage…that terrifies people. As well it should. It's beyond me why anyone would feel comfortable isolated in the middle of the ocean, at the whim of everything from a tsunami to Legionairre's Disease to a magic act that was on "Britain's Got Talent."

Assholes who go on a "Carnival Cruise" deserve what they get. The fascination with the Titanic, and the endless disaster films about other ocean liners, plus the look-alike movies involving various ghost ships and death ships….has led to a variety of eerie songs full of creepy symbolism about various ships of fools.

Among the eeriest and creepiest is Gunhill Road's "Cargoes," which may be a distant, drowned cousin to the trapped Bee Gees of the "New York Mining Disaster, 1941." What exactly was the point of that song? To be creepy. To enjoy some sweet sorrow. Same deal here, with images of misery stuck aboard some Styx-crossing steamboat to hell. Gunhill Road was a Bronx trio led by two founding members Glenn Leopold and Steven Goldrich (who both were on hand for a surprising re-union gig in New Jersey a few years ago after a 35 year hiatus). They had fashionable Bee-Gee nasal voices and pop sensibilities.

The problem with the band was, unlike the Bee-Gees, they could flake off their sugar coating and sneak in some wicked lyrics or some less than savory subject matter.Kama Sutra, who released their second (and last) album, insisted on censoring some songs. Gone was the reference to heroin on "42nd Street," and a re-write was needed for "Back when My Hair was Short," on the lines about being into a "heavy scene reading Screw magazine," taking hard drugs while "selling dope to some kids. Only a couple of lids…" To give Kama Sutra credit, the speeded up and sanitized version they got did produce a minor regional hit for the band...BUT not enough for the label to keep them around.

"Cargoes," is on their Mercury debut "First Stop," and it's a dark waltz of destroyed lives and gruesome losers. The hero tells us he's "stowed away on a dream ship," standing in brine up to his neck. From this vantage point he can view "life's precious cargo huddled in knots on the deck." You'll hear ripe pathos (a barefoot kid given rags by some kind soul) gore movie fodder (somebody on board has a jar of human remains) and the obligatory reference to whores. Things seems to get ever-weirder and more grotesque…including the lines about a guy who served in three wars, "losing a limb in each one." Why you'd send a soldier to fight after losing an arm or a leg then another arm or a leg….

The song enjoys track space with another grimly amusing cut, "Man of Trade," about a guy who happens to be a drug dealer and a pimp. "42nd Street" you can hear elsewhere on the blog, and appears in different tempo, on both of their albums. It's those songs that get them eternal praise here! Quite a few of their other songs, like "She Made a Man Out of Me" or "My Lady Loves the Day" are just too nice and normal to even discuss here.

Now leaving from GUNHILL ROAD.... a ship of fools containing a cargo of creepiness

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WHEN LES PAUL BACKED W.C. FIELDS; AND HOW DID FIELDS DIE?

It happened before Eminem rapped in the middle of a Dido song.

It happened before Les Crane narrated "Desiderata" to musical backing.

W.C. Fields recorded monologues with music over 60 years ago...and who better to accompany the genius of enunciation than that master of the guitar…Les Paul?

Someone wanted to get Fields on wax if it was the last thing he did. And it was.

In 1936, The Great Man had health problems that left him with radio as his only option, delighting fans with his unique voice and cadence. He eventually was well enough to make movies again, but by 1946 alcohol and aging had sent him to a sanitarium.

Hoping to keep his spirits up (no, not spiritus fermenti), Fields' friend Bill Morrow arranged for a visit to Les Paul's new home recording studio. On a hot day in July, hobbling on a cane, and wearing shoes split open to ease the pain in his badly swollen feet, Fields made his appearance. He eyed the way Les Paul was fiddling around amid double-track equipment and control boards, and called him an "octopus." Paul was amused, and named his new machine OCT, short for octopus. Soon after, the recording genius expanded his studio to include a true "octopus," a pioneering 8-track tape recorder.

Fields drank some booze and squinted at the familiar lines he'd performed on radio, but his deteriorating eyesight, and very pickled gray matter, made recording impossible. The lines had to be literally re-written, LARGE, on a set of cards, so he could handle the strain. Uncle Bill's sight-reading errors could be funny in front of an audience, but not on disc. On radio, he once delivered a boozy version of "The Temperance Lecture" fumbling "pocket-picking school" into "picket-pocking school." The line "I stumbled across a case of bourbon," got mangled enough for him to chuckle and say "I stumbled across that…"

Thanks to the huge cards, Fields was able to get through the session, one that was such a dim memory that Les Paul couldn't recall who the pianist was on "Temperance Lecture," or the names of the actor and actress who helped out in the "Day I Drank a Glass of Water" sketch (for which he ad-libbed guitar accompaniment).

The most exhaustive recent biography of Fields, by James Curtis (2003) digs up a lot of obscure information on Fields, but there are some errors, or at least, some fuzzy recollections, including Les Paul "strumming the guitar" on "The Temperance Lecture," when the background was piano. Guitar was only on "The Day I Drank a Glass of Water." Curtis doesn't mention the two supporting players in that routine. Curtis did affirm that Les Paul handled all the recording, and "set the level, dropped the needle down, ran back into the studio and…started to record" because "Nobody else was engineering that day."

Fields sounds robust enough on these recordings, but this was the last time the public would ever hear his familiar voice. Five months later, he was dead. There had been hope, around Thanksgiving, that Fields could navigate a wheelchair over to Bing Crosby's radio show for a broadcast scheduled on December 22nd. He never made it. The first biography of Fields, by Robert Lewis Taylor in 1949, describes the comedian's sad condition:

"…he had periods of delirium. Occasionally he cursed and railed at things…and once out of a blue sky, he sang what appeared to be a kind of love song…Shortly before midnight (December 25th), Miss Monti took his hand and began calling to him. While she pleaded, he opened his eyes, and, noting the people in the room put a finger to his lips and winked. A few minutes later, as bells over the city announced the arrival of Christmas morning, he suffered a violent hemorrhage of the stomach. The blood bubbled thickly out of his lips, he drew several long sighs, and lay still. "

You'd think this account would be the most accurate, written only a few years after Bill Fields died, and with access to Bill's two closest female friends, Magda Michael and Carlotta Monti.

Monti, Fields' secretary and on-and-off mistress (in his late 60's he was more off than on), published her own book in 1973. Her version has him alive and cursing well past midnight:

"On Christmas Day, shortly before noon, he said to me, "Grab everything and run. The vultures are coming…" At three minutes past noon he…cursed forcefully, his face twisted with pain. "Goddamn," he repeated, his eyes opened wider than I'd ever seen them. His voice was the rusting and crackling of dry leaves. "Goddamn the whole friggin' world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta."

"Those were his last words. He was shaken by a violent stomach hemorrhage. Moments later he was dead, at the age of sixty-eight."

Other biographers say Carlotta Monti wasn't even there when Fields died. The Curtis bio says Monti merely sent a card that arrived before Christmas day: "My outside men tell me your [sic] the same as ever. And I am always the same as ever - Truly yours, Carlotta."

Curtis writes that Fields was in a coma and "Magda stayed with him through Christmas Eve, maintaining a vigil at his bedside. Denied all powers of communication and the singular wit that had sustained him for nearly sixty-seven years, this most independent of men was now unable to perform even the simplest of tasks for himself, and it must have come as a relief when, at 12:03 on a rainy Christmas afternoon, Death gave him an old-fashioned hug."

Ronald Fields, W.C.'s grandson, also says Monti wasn't around. And in the bio (more a cut-and-paste job) by fanboy Simon Louvish, we read: "Later in the month, he lapsed into a coma. Magda Michael and the nurses kept the death watch. On the morning of Christmas Day…according to Ronald Fields, he awoke. Only Magda Michael and a nurse were in the room. Wrote Ronald: "He brought his forefinger to his lips to signify quiet, winked, then closed his eyes…"

Curtis writes that Carlotta Monti did appear at the sanitarium after Fields died, along with W.C.'s estranged son and wife. Amid the tumult, Fields' son insisted, "I did not strike Miss Monti. I merely pushed her…"

There was no push for copies of Fields' last recordings (issued on Les Paul's own indie label). It had been nearly six years since "The Bank Dick," his last screen success. Billboard's review when the records finally came out in March of 1947:

"Since the recent passing of comic W. C. Fields, many will want to own this six-sided disc book, if for nothing else, for memento's sake. The recordings…are far from being Fields at his best. Written and directed by Bill Morrow (Bing Crosby show's scribe), material is corny despite the sales efforts of the famed bourbon buffoon. Timing with few exceptions, was apparently ignored by scripter Morrow so that too often, the build-up for an obvious gag reveals the punch line long before it comes. As is the case with any waxed humor, after the first spinning there's no desire for replays…"

In the long-play era, the recordings got quiet re-issues on 10 inch (from Jay Records, top corner left in the first photo for this entry) and 12 inch format (Proscenium Records, with Fields on one side, Mae West vocals on the other). Finally, with "Laugh-In" and Tiny Tim popular in the late 60's, nostalgia made a comeback. Dubbed "anti-establishment," the Marx Brothers and the misanthropic W.C. Fields were hotter than ever, and even Laurel & Hardy got re-categorized as"Naturally High," for a Douglas Records album of voicetracks from their films. Decca issued Marx Brothers, Mae West and W.C. FIelds voicetracks (with "Laugh-In" announcer Gary Owens supplying narration). Blue Thumb's 1968 release "Original and Authentic Recording by the great W.C. Fields" didn't tell consumers what exactly they were buying. One might consider this in the spirit of Mr. Fields, who once said "Never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump!"

Being one of the chumps, I bought the album, only to discover I'd been rooked into buying the familiar two Les Paul recordings. The label added Mae West singing "Come Up an See Me Sometime" at the end of the side that had "The Day I Drank A Glass Of Water"…maybe forgetting where to cut the tape on the old Proscenium master.

The album does have a fairly decent colorized shot of W.C. Fields on the cover. Ironically, this time the Billboard reviewer declared it to be "vintage Fields, containing some of his best lines."

Of all the various releases, only the original Varsity Records 78 rpm package has liner notes worth noting. On the front inner sleeve is a photo of Fields along with "The Story of My Life," a scant four paragraphs that mostly talk about how he left home, learned to juggle, toured the world, and ended up in the Ziegfeld Follies…."and finally nosed my way into motion pictures and then into radio. And there you have it." And you have the "ultimo," W.C. Fields' last creative gasps…two recordings, one of them with the uncredited (modest fellow…his name is nowhere to be found as producer, engineer or performer) guitarist Les Paul.

W.C. FIELDS THE TEMPERANCE LECTURE

THE DAY I DRANK A GLASS OF WATER

WORST PIES IN LONDON - Jade Lomas-Anderson Killed By Dogs

Singing about "The Worst Pies in London," Mrs. Lovett admits that what she serves to her fellow Brits is "disgusting" and "revolting." Unlike a pie shop rival, her product doesn't contain pieces of cat, because "them pussy cats is quick." Fortunately she gets a new beau, Sweeney Todd, and together they make human meat pies. If the story took place today, they'd own a Subway sandwich franchise, selling Sub-Humans.

And, speaking of sub-humans, Beverley Concannon is in the running for "The Worst Bitch in England,"owning five vicious dogs…most of them joining in to kill a teenager who had made the mistake of being near them…and eating a meat pie. Who knows if, given British cooking, that meat pie contained cat, or more likely horse meat, but there's room for blame all around.

Nobody should be owning a bunch of big dogs, for a start. Big dogs are like guns. They are lethal. Only stupid people think otherwise…fools who have a pathetic need to own something dangerous, who snivel and cower in the world unless they have a dog or a gun (or both) for "protection." These weak-minded obnoxious scum also enjoy intimidating others with their dogs (and/or guns).

Sweeney Todd sang that there's a hole in the world that's a great big pit and the people who inhabit it are full of shit…and it goes by the name of….LONDON.

Silly man. Why single out London when there's also Scunthorpe, and Grimsby, and plenty more? Probably because a century ago, the big city was far more dangerous than the current craphouse towns full of chavs and yobs and other disgraces to the heritage of Great Britain. Sweeney also didn't live in an era where ungrateful immigrants, with no respect for Great Britain, turn against their hosts to create stinking violent and bloody chaos unless they get their way, which is to make their new neighborhoods into ethnic fortresses for their own kind

You know what should happen? New laws. Cameron and his yeah-nay bunch of assholes should stop babbling every week ("Does the right honorable Prime Minister AGREE that dogs eating children is wrong….") and pass "Jade's Law." Which declares: NO pit bulls allowed in Great Britain. NO similar species of brutal dog such as a Rottweiler or a German Shepherd unless the owner has passed tests and is licensed to take care of such a dangerous beast. And NO person can own more than one.

All big dogs currently in shelters should be euthanized. All dogs of any size for sale in pet shops must also be neutered. All dogs must be kept in humane condition and not simply be chained up to protect some asshole's property. Dogs that bark for more than two minutes in a row will be confiscated, owners paying a fine. A second offense, and the dog's vocal cords removed. It's time to understand that dogs are very stupid, that a sick need to play "God" over a leashed animal is wrong, and that the peace and comfort of human beings rates first…and that dogs shouldn't be protecting a junkyard, barking insanely because a leaf fell off a tree, or snapping at everybody as they get walked along by a megalomaniacal piece of shit who gets a kick out of making other people cringe...and who also thinks nothing of letting the animal shit all over the place and piss all over everything...sending dog urine molecules into the air for YOU to breathe in.

The psycho bitch who owned the five dogs is unfortunately, all too typical of the average dog owner: stupid. Irresponsible. Selfish. A dimwit. The exact opposite of an animal lover. A hideous cretin who should be sterilized or euthanized along with her dumbass mongrels.

Why do people own dogs in the first place? Unfortunately, most do it for the same reason they own guns. Because it intimidates others. It makes a weakling suddenly powerful and not to be messed with. And sadly, "Jade's Law" has about as much a chance of passing as gun control laws…because there are too many people in the world who are sick and selfish and dangerous, and who want dogs and guns in order to have power over others…a power that often ends up in tragedy that takes the lives of the innocent.

"Sweeney Todd" is one of the great musicals of the 20th Century because it doesn't turn a blind eye to human nature. Human nature often involves abusing the animal kingdom, which in turn, only leads to a wreckage of human quality-of-life, and in many tragic cases, a loss of life.

These are the times that try Tesco-shoppers' souls The Worst Pies in London

No More Songs - Rachel Bissex, Phil Ochs, 20 Children

You're looking at one of the sickest front pages of all time. It's the Daily News for Sunday, December 16th: a dozen innocent murder victims called: "FALLEN ANGELS."

I understand the dynamics of grief. This cover was supposed to be part of the healing process. Put on a brave smile through the tears, and pretend 20 children weren't shot dead and left on the schoolroom floor….they just fell. And never mind that "fallen angel" has often been used to describe the "whore with a heart of gold," or some other person tempted by Satan. And never mind that a newspaper is supposed to deliver the news, and not be a Hallmark card.

Fortunately most people aren't buying the "fallen angels" story. They know these innocent children didn't fall on their own. They were gunned down. They were killed by an assault rifle in the hands of a maniac, a well-known neighborhood creep who got the weapons from his paranoid gun-nut mother. The act was so heinous that the NRA actually shut down their Facebook page and went into hiding, hoping the outrage would eventually cool down.

It hasn't. Finally, some pro-gun senators in America actually said: "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH." Once again, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has vowed to present her colleagues with a bill they should pass, and maybe this time, they will. Mayor Bloomberg of New York, a long time fighter for gun control, has gotten booked on TV and has explained all the common-sense ways the nation can be a little more secure, without affronting the jackasses (hunters who love to kill things) and the reasonable gun owners (who do need a means to protect themselves and their property).

No more assault rifles. No more multi-bullet clips (like Loughner used in Arizona to kill a child as well as adults in that shopping mall). While sicko parents such as Loughner's and the creep's mother in Connecticut share some blame in not medicating their monsters or keeping weapons from them, it's time that laws cut down the number of times innocent people are cut down. We need to have a waiting period for meaningful background checks, and to shut the loophole on morons who go to "gun shows" to buy "collector's items" that can spray bullets into a classroom so that not one scurrying little kid can make it out alive.

The NRA (not the subject of the attacks by "hacktivists" who have gone after such "evil" organizations as RIAA, MPAA and Sony) is a terrorist organization that thrives on greed. The weapons Adam Lanza used in his attack cost between $600 and $1200 (ammo, extra). The NRA is paid by gun manufacturers to promote weapons of mass destruction, and to camouflage this by some bullshit about how helpful it is for a hunter to keep down the deer population, or for a Dad to bond with his son in shooting a turkey and bringing it home to Mom to cook for dinner. This evil, greedy organization doesn't want to limit the profits to a cheap handgun a home owner might have in the bedroom in case of a break-in, or some lousy rifle used once a week for target practice. Nope, the NRA thrives on putting assault weapons in the hands of the ignorant, maladjusted, violent and often mentally and socially incompetent. The more of an arsenal the gun manufacturers can sell, the happier the NRA is…and their employees should get their paychecks each week etched in blood instead of ink.

Many songs could've been used to illustrate this particular entry, but the title "NO MORE SONGS" (by Phil Ochs) fits. Because "Fallen Angels" do not hear any songs. They are not up on a happy cloud somewhere singing campfire songs. These are children that no longer exist. No more songs, laughter, joy. Nothing.

Now, Rachel Bissex. She's gone, too. Some will be marking her birthday on December 27th (1956). She died of cancer on February 20th, 2005.

Her first album "Light in Dark Places" arrived in 1991, but it was a long ten years before she became known outside of Vermont. Her breakthrough year was 2001, when she won the Wildflower Songwriting Contest," got the "Kerrville New Folk Award" and released her fourth album, "Between The Broken Lines." She was also the force behind the local Burlington Coffeehouse. She was working on a new album…but in 2003 came the diagnosis of breast cancer. Her fifth and last CD, "In White Light," contained mostly the songs she'd written back in 2002 and 2003, but also, eerily enough, a cover version of the Phil Ochs ballad "No More Songs."

No more mass killings? Such a thing is not possible, but the odds can be taken down quite a bit. There is hope. Just look at what happened in Australia, following a killing spree in 1996 that left 35 people dead.

Lawmakers in Australia created a "national firearms agreement," buying back 650,000 automatic weapons from their trigger-happy citizens, and establishing new rules for gun licenses. The murder rate in Australia, and the suicide rate, dropped by 40%. On average, in the 80's and 90's, there was a mass killing via guns in Australia every year. Since the ban? None.

In Canada, there are similar encouraging statistics. Gun violence has been down in that country thanks to their laws that require gun nuts to wait 28 days before they can get their hands on a new weapon. Troubled loners can't get a gun at all…the law requires two people to attest to the character of the person wishing to buy the weapon.

There is no excuse, none, for any more delay in gun control laws. John Lennon imagined no heaven, "above us, only sky." It's pretty to think the "Fallen Angels" are on the fluffy cloud we can see floating along in the afternoon sky. But it would be better if those kids were on Earth, playing with their friends and their siblings and parents, and growing up the way you and I did…without quite the atmosphere of climate decay, moral decay, violent video games, selfish Internet abuses and the easy access to guns, drugs and all kinds of means of misery and destruction. The planet may not have long anyway, given over-population and the damage done by the greedheads in the oil industry and the religious fanatics and power-mad loons in various disgraceful and backward countries around the world…but there is no excuse for any more headlines about "Fallen Angels."

Rachel Bissex No More Songs (Phil Ochs over)

EROTIC MURDER-SUICIDE - DEBORAH GALLI

Girls just wanna have fun…but what happens if the guy is having fun with somebody else?

As the drums throb and the keyboards slink along the minor keys, the shadowy Deborah Galli emerges to confront her now very definitely EX boyfriend. Singing in a Cyndi Lauperesque accent that is pungent with the dumps of Brooklyn and the sewage of New Jersey, our Deb declaims with lethal bitterness:

"I saw you with your woman. My God you make a beautiful peyy-uhh. I heard her call you 'Honey.' I saw the way she ruffled your heyy-uhhh." (That's a rhyme of "pair" and "hair" folks).

The couple once made love to innocent tunes on the radio ("Underneath the Boardwalk…Be my little baby") but their hot-blooded affair curdled into a witch's brew of conflicting emotions: "Sometimes we were a play by Chekhov. Sometimes a rock and roll cartoon."

Check off Chekhov and cue the Poe, because Deb quotes "Dream within a dream." Pretty spooky, huh? Too bad other cuts on the album were aiming more for the "have fun" crowd, and something for Lauper-types to dance to at the disco.

Record labels seemed desperate to have their own Cyndi, and no doubt Galli was encouraged to fill her debut lp with up-tempo numbers and frivolity. Her label's choice for a 12-inch single was not this song, but a generic disco-pop number called "I Go To Zero," which didn't go to the Top Ten.

Ironically the dopey "girls just want to have fun" faded fairly quickly, along with girls wearing garbage bags (Total Coelo) along with garish wigs. Cyndi's next hit was the mournful "True Colors." The one time I did meet up with Cyndi she looked anything but happy. And I don't take the blame for it, as she was morose before we were introduced. And this was when "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was making her rich and famous. I met her up at Black Rock (the nickname we tiresome insiders use for the CBS building on 52nd Street). She was sitting around looking like a school kid in detention. She was probably called up to the Epic office to do interviews, and maybe sign some promo lps to send to disc jockeys. So when we were introduced (I was there to interview somebody else, and grab some new releases) she forced a glum hello and then continued staring off into space.

Not long after, I'm opening up promo packages, and I find yet another debut album by yet another label's Lauper wanna-be, with hair dye and punkish makeup. Only she looks a tad moody (the gun in the photo is Photoshopped). I dutifully audition some tracks, and love her self-penned "French Kisses." Why wasn't this the single? Would she be available for an interview? Was this a posthumous release? I had to keep wondering. Because...

Not everyone on a record label gets any kind of push. Sometimes even a direct call to a publicist yields, "Huh? You sure we have that artist on our label?" Or, "Have no idea about interview availability. But Cheap Trick can do a phoner…"

Ironically in 1985, a year after Galli's album came out, the movie "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" briefly hit movie houses. It starred embryonic starlets Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt and Shannen Doherty. The producers didn't use Lauper's version of the song. Instead, the piece was performed by the trio of Tami Holbrook, Meredith Marshall and Deborah Galli.

What's become of Deborah Galli since 1985? Hopefully she's not in any "sticky situation" (a grim phrase in the song related to clotted gore). Meanwhile, enjoy this immortally mortal, chillingly weird, New Yawk-tinged goth number that fell through the cracks like a Raid-sprayed black widow spider. Girls just wanna have fun, but women bleed. And they just might take you with 'em when they do.

FRENCH KISSES - Deborah Galli

Jack the Ripper Songs Buckethead AFI, Link Wray, etc.

Heavy metal was what Jack the Ripper wielded, and it's no surprise that the favorite bad guy for metal bands is a real murderer, not make-believe monster.
Ripper fans include: Judas Priest, Motorhead, Chemical Romance, The Horrors, Screaming Lord Sutch, The White Stripes, AFI, Buckethead, Iced Earth and One Way Street. Let's not forget guys like Link Wray, who recorded his own "Jack the Ripper" instrumental rumble, though he might have imagined a surfer Jack ripping the waves.

Unlike Dracula, or even Dr. Jeckyll's Hyde, the Ripper existed. He made a hobby out of killing prostitutes. A "better watch out for Dracula" song would only be mysterious and spooky, and altogether ooky for hip thrashers. Instead, with the Ripper, they can be more urgent with screaming guitars that match a knife's glint, and rumbling minor key melodies that evoke dark alleys. The misogynist aspect can't be overlooked, since these guys attack the vocals with such enthusiasm. Included here is "Whores in da House" by Jack the Ripper, just to document that rappers, of course, find this guy a role model, too.
There is no certainty about how many victims there were (between 5 and 19), if the Ripper was male or female, if several people were involved, why the killings stopped, or how many (if any) of the notes signed "Jack the Ripper" were hoaxes. Almost all evidence and every theory can be believed or ripped to pieces. Eyewitnesses differ on specifics (the cloaked Ripper in a top hat is folklore too). Movies paint the ladies as young and beautiful when they were in fact middle-aged dregs, some toothless, who sold themselves cheap in a slum area. Making the victims more sexually attractive only further fogs up the motives in the case. Check the Net and you'll find entire websites about Jack, including "fun" sites that list the likely victims and suspects.
It's all speculation and nothing more, with plenty of theories to prop up or debunk a particular suspect or motive. We'll have to wait for the next book, and the author's appearance with Regis & Ripa (no, the photo is just an illfoax hoax...Ripa never actually posed with Rip Torn).
There are more than a dozen Jack the Ripper songs here..including evocative tracks from "Jack the Ripper" (score by Pete Rugolo, 1959)....
Let 'her Rip

CARLA ZILBERSMITH HAS DIED - "DON'T SAVE ME"

This is a rare entry on the blog.

For the first time the categories that fit include both "Death, Funny" and "Death, Unfunny."

Carla Zilbersmith, who died on May 17th at the age of 47, was handed a death sentence with the diagnosis of ALS…but was determined to make the most of the time she had left, and to laugh in the Grim Reaper's face. Like Warren Zevon, she became the subject of a documentary intended to chronicle the way an artist confronts death and turns the struggle into an art form. Warren lived long enough to see his grandchild and his last album hit the charts. Carla lived long enough to present comedy sketches about death on stage, make some music, and see her documentary completed.

For a long time, she didn't let ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease) destroy her sense of humor the way it did her body. She often mentioned how much she hated having Lou Gherig's Disease because…she didn't like baseball. She wished there was a basketball version instead. Like "Wilt Chamberlain's Disease…you have sex 20,000 times and then you die."

In 2008 she put together a production at the College of Marin's Studio Theater where she worked in the drama department for over a dozen years. "This'll be my last show," she declared. "Then I'm outta here. Literally." A beat. "Just a little death humor. Relax, it won't kill you." Another show was titled "Leave Them Laughing." The flame-haired actress loved to put together skits and improv evenings, and was part of a troupe called "We're Redheads." She also had a deep love of music, and she was a finalist at a Lilith Fair and released several indie CDs. To quote the CD Baby website, would be "Recommended if you like Diana Krall, Joni Mitchell, Shawn Colvin."

Things remained fairly funny, at least at times, for Carla, who blogged back on February 1, 2010 about writing a book called "What to Expect When You're Expiring," subtitled: "How I survived an incurable, fatal illness…then died."

Her blog entries became a lot more grim after that, because "Fuck. I'm not just faking this. I really am dying." Her blog is carlamuses.blogspot.com, which you can also reach via: www.carlazilbersmith.com. Among her fascinating entries is the long February 4th essay on what it's like to have ALS. In part: "You lose sleep...You lie awake, wondering about death, loss and when and how it will all happen. Later, you lose sleep because your blanket falls off you and you aren’t strong enough to lift it back up or you swallow too much air with your breathing machine and get nauseous and burpy. Or maybe you accidentally roll on your back and you can’t roll back to your side. It’s too hard to breathe when you’re lying on your back.
You’re tired a lot. This seems like the cruelest loss of all. Each nap represents hours that can’t be returned. Hours that you’re running out of…You get tired eating. Chewing is an effort and swallowing has to be done with full and complete attention on the task. Choking might kill you…You are 100% dependent on other people. You begin needing a helper first thing in the morning for dressing and showers and last thing in the evening for the reverse. Then you need someone to cook for you, to do your make-up, and pretty soon you can’t cook or serve food. When you can no longer use the toilet by yourself or bring your hand to your mouth to eat or lift a glass of water to drink you need full-time care. This is not only challenging to your privacy, but it’s impossible to afford on a long-term basis. With caregiver bills and other related expenses in the 12,000-15,000 a month area you face the sad fact that there is an up-side to the fact that you are dying, which is that you can’t really afford to live much longer anyway. You are never alone except when you are in bed and a feeling of dread comes over you when you wonder what will happen if you get trapped under the covers and can’t reach the bell for help…"

Some bloggers giggle as they post their five fresh 320 bit and FLAC albums a day, doing it only to get a "nice" comment and pretend to be in show business, as if it takes any skill to throw old Jethro Tull albums on Rapidshare that you could find in a dollar bin if you really cared. On Carla's Blogspot site she was giving what bloggers should be giving...originality, emotional honesty, and insights that serve others as much as they might serve themselves. One blog entry helped her through an unglamorous night:

"It’s somehow coming to the conclusion that the only way to make this night tolerable is write a blog (maybe the first ever) while on the toilet unable to shit….It’s feeling a fist sized shit rip your asshole open and not being able to bear down or catch a breath. It’s that you have this feeling not once but twice in one day even though you cut out morphine and had a prune smoothie. It’s 21 drugs and counting and wondering when you will be dubbed the fucking Baskin Robbins of pill poppers...
It’s paying a heavy price for every fun day…It’s running out of words but still not passing this fucking ball of shit. It’s realizing that life is a no good rotten man who beats on you and cheats on you….It’s knowing that someone is going to commiserate with you by saying, “Girl, I know what you mean. I was constipated once” and you are going to have to bite your tongue and not say, “Unless you have ALS, you do NOT know how I feel unless you’ve rubbed a cheese grater across your asshole for a good 10 minutes at least.”

On March 23rd, she scheduled "A Night of Gratitude. A Special Evening with Carla Zilbersmith." She was trying to communicate, to create art, and to keep on living, despite an illness that was hell bent on grinding her to a halt and keeping her in purgatory before releasing her to oblivion. And so there was the documentary, and there was the satisfaction in her album "Songs ABout Love, Death and Wings." Some of the tunes were grim and others philosophical and touched with wistfulness. A few were written as loving farewells. Perhaps they mix with something she said a few years ago, as the disease began to progress: " "I have a more Buddhist view these days, that life is mostly suffering, that the peace we seek must be found within ourselves."

Your sample is "Don't Save Me."

This blog wants you to read Carla's blog, and get to know Carla's music. Carla blogged this line: "You want people to see how easy it would be for them to wake up one morning and decide to give up their self-inflicted pain and enjoy their wonderful life. How easy it is to have a great day when you can make and eat you own toast, throw on your own clothes, go out into the world and do whatever you damn well feel like. You want people to live all the life you’re going to miss."

CARLA ZILBERSMITH - DON'T SAVE ME Instant download or listen on line. No pop-ups, pop-unders, porn ads or wait time.

YASMINE - Belgian Leonard Cohen Fan - Hangs Herself

Placing a distant third in the coverage of celebrities who died on June 25th, Yasmine's departure at least got the front page in Belgium and the Netherlands. Elsewhere, it was Farrah and Jacko.

Known for covering Leonard Cohen songs ("Vandaag" was an entire album of Cohen material), the depressed singer was found hanging from a tree. Just two months earlier, her six-year marriage ended in divorce. They had a daughter, now three years old.

Yasmine (born Hilde Rens, March 3, 1972 – June 25, 2009) was from the province of Antwerp in Belgium, and was only 19 when she recorded her first album, "Mooi zo." She issued an album in every odd year from 1991 to 2001 (that's six, if you're counting).

2004 was the big year for the Leonard Cohen material, and a live concert DVD followed, with Yasmine covering "M'n Gasten" (The Guests), "In M'n eigen huis" (In my secret life), "Je Eeuwige Regenjas" (Famous Blue Raincoat), "Het Venster" (The Window), "Eerst nemen we Manhattan" (First we take Manhattan), "Je weet wie ik ben" (You Know Who I am), "Ik ben je man" (I'm your Man), "Wervelwind" (Avalanche) and others.

Motherhood seemed to take over as the more important aspect of Yasmine's life, with "Dans Me" her last single (2005) and "Licht Ontvlambaar" her last album (2006). She was probably also very busy with her other job...a television host (or "presenter," to use the European term).

Was Yasmine bleak? Yes and no. Though she could also handle minor-key ballads effectively, she was a polished singer whose hits were mostly very commercial pop. She was able to give her America-crazed fans in the Netherlands a taste of smooth R&B or lightly country-tinged rock in their own language.

Your samples:
LICHT ONTVLAMBAAR (translate it as "Highly Flammable.") Here's the title song on her last album, which includes some other spooky tracks (such as "Uur Blauw.") This dramatic and dark tune seems like it's going to morph into "First We Take Manhattan," but instead goes right into a hellish Dutch oven.
SUZANE/VINGERS OP MIJN HUID. Two songs on one download. First, a hit Leonard Cohen cover, performed live with Frank Boeiyen, followed by a sample of her smooth-groove work, the R&B-tinged tune that translates as "Fingers on my Skin." And yes, the rather abrupt ending is the song, not Illfolks editing.
IK VOEL ME BLAUW/RIJDEN. "I Feel Blue" and "Ride" were recorded in 2004. You don't need to speak the language...Yasmine's vocals betray ache, sadness, weariness and vulnerability. The heavy drums, the minor key guitar, and the gloomy violin help dampen the mood. Her suicide makes these two songs all the more chilling, poignant and depressing.
LICHT ONTVLAMBAAR
SUZANNE-VINGERS
IK VOEL ME BLAUW/RIJDEN 2004

Update: Nov, 2011. Rapidshare's annoying "30 days without a download kills it" policy killed the original links. Below is a link for "FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN," via a better company.

FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN sung in Yasmine's native language

Jimmy Dewar - Stumbledown Racer

You know Jimmy Dewar for his vocals on Robin Trower's first seven studio albums (plus "Robin Trower Live"). From 1973 to 1980 he was able to match the disoriented and spaced ruminations of Robin's guitar, with pained yet numbed vocals ("I Can't Wait Much Longer" being typical). He was also able to lead the charge on the galloping upbeat numbers that displayed real "Trower power."
On his extremely obscure solo disc, "Stumbledown Racer," you'll find him pursuing mainstream pop, personal and religious lyrics, and things lighter than heavy metal. If the title track sounds more suited to a Matthew Fisher solo album, it's because the disc was indeed produced by Mr. Fisher. While Fisher was able to work with Trower's style (they were in Procol Harum together, Fisher producing the "A Salty Dog" album) and was behind Robin's most successful records, he was also able to show the great versatility in Jimmy Dewar. The title track's notable for somber colors, regretful lyrics and pretty keyboard work. It's an original Fisher/Dewar tune, as is "Nature Child."
"Hosanna," a ballad with Biblical references to the newborn king, is also a serious departure from the world of Trower, and sounds more like a track from a Gary Brooker solo album...Brooker having dabbled so often in religious themes.
If you thought Dewar couldn't get farther away from Trower than that, hold on for "Bright Lights," with a chorus right out of the Elton John play book. Jimmy's pretty successful even though his voice is nowhere near an Elton John, or a Sedaka or Nick Gilder...the type of bright voice a pop tune usually requires. Another pop oddity is the rock chestnut "(Baby baby, you're) Out of Time," opening with some bright Farfisa-styled accents. "Heartbeat" is a croon with a Tex-Mex flavor, the kind of thing that Roy Orbison could've recorded during his MGM days. If you enjoy this, buying the CD itself would be a nice tribute to Jimmy, and you'll also be getting the liner notes, full musician credits and composer credits.
Yes, sometimes this rare find seems dated, but it's an interesting audio document. Fans of Trower may be disappointed, but those who admire the solo work of Procol's vocalists (Brooker and Fisher) will find this one sometimes in that league, and often similar in style to the era's Elton, Hall & Oates, Paul Rodgers and John Farnham albums.
Some facts about Dewar (October 12, 1942-May 16,2002) remain shrouded in mystery. Just why he left the Trower band hasn't been fully explained, nor the "progressive illness" (sometimes reported as brain damage) that began in 1987 and caused him to require constant medical care. Before his own death, his son passed away. And after Jimmy died, his wife soon followed. The grave marker is one of the many images you'll find at the dot.com bearing Jimmy Dewar's name.
JIMMY DEWAR

Susannah McCorkle - Anti-Suicide Song from a Suicide

Your download, a cheery cheeky smooth calypso "I Don't Think I'll End It All Today." But...
On May 19, 2001, Susannah McCorkle jumped from 16C, the top floor of her Manhattan apartment.
Among the things that can keep an artist alive, is being wanted. Her record label, Concord Jazz, didn't want her anymore. The market for indie jazz was, and is, a tough one, and a few thousand sales can make the difference between renewal or release.
Even without digital sales, we're told artists can make a living off live performances.
McCorkle's biggest source of revenue for over 10 years was her season at the Algonquin Hotel, but they informed her that she wasn't welcome there anymore, as there were now many other hungry artists, a bit more famous or younger, or with new CDs to promote, to fill her spot.
These things happened shortly before her death. She had tried other means of staying in the music world, and her website mentioned how she conducted musical workshops for children, and that she was available for bookings at private parties. Does that sound glamorous to you? Or lucrative?
Susannah often talked about suicide, and in your download she even sings about it. Typical of "dark humor" in cabaret, "I Don't Think I'll End It All Today" describes "so many sweet things still on my list. So many sweet lips still to be kissed. So many sweet dreams still to unfold. So many sweet lies still to be told!"
And so, "Away with the river, away with the razor, away with the pearly gates, away with barbiturates, away with the Seconal, the fall from the building tall..."
The fall from the building tall.
The chronicle of Susannah McCorkle's life and the depression that she could not shake, even by recording a light-hearted anti-suicide song, can be found in "Haunted Heart," the biography written by Linda Dahl.
Let's back up and remember Susannah McCorkle ((January 4, 1946–May 19 2001) in her prime, when she had recordings to make, concerts to give, and was able to keep her demons at bay. Here's what Stephen Holden in the New York Times said in a review of her show, June of 1998:
"(Her) sweet, smoky voice and insinuating delivery suggest Billie Holiday filtered through Julie London by way of Lee Wiley," and in covering Gershwin and Jobim, she "finds a common strain of erotic longing in both songwriters...grounding her interpretations is a sexiness that veils everything in a light mist."
Her own take: "I was once called by People magazine a 'bruised romantic.' It's a great description of me."
Susannah had a tremendous love of music and composers, and in surfing the Internet, she favored sites that shared the love. If you go over to JohnnyMercer.com, you can still see her comment in the guest book:
Name:Susannah McCorkle
Email:smccoffice@aol.com
Date: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 22:36:43
Congratulations on a wonderful website! It's clear that this is a real labor of love, and I'm sure I speak for many people when I tell you how much it is appreciated. I wish every great songwriter could have someone as devoted as you designing and maintaining a website...Thank you for helping to keep these marvelous songs alive, and for helping those of us who perform them to have access to information and songs it might take weeks to find without your help. Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry sincerely yours, Susannah McCorkle
The "office" you see in Susannah McCorkle's e-mail address (smccoffice) was also her home address, a common practice for any struggling musician. With travel and hotel costs eating away at the income from live shows, and flattened music sales, a surprising number of seemingly popular artists are struggling. The downside when the office is the home, is that people can call any time. Even more of a downside is when they don't.
Maybe she could've booked herself into one-night gigs, staying in crappy lonely hotels, negotiating every concert date, making sure the locations matched up so she wouldn't be zig-zagging across country. After a show, she could sit, alone and humiliated, at a table selling autographed CDs or t-shirts after each gig instead of resting or celebrating the show by visiting with backstage friends and then going out. Oh yes, and the woman would've had to look after her wardrobe and luggage and spend hours booking costly flights...jobs an agent or manager would only do for a chunk of the profits.
No, her next flight was 16 stories down. The woman's depression had become too exruciating, the rewards too few. The answer might've been "Get a day job, like the rest of us, and give up your dream of being a professional musician." She gave up entirely. She was 55.
SUSANNAH MCCORKLE

ANNE PRESSLY (1982-2008)

The statement from Anne's parents on October 25th:
"It was our hope, as was yours, that Anne would overcome the injuries inflicted upon her in the brutal attack at her home. We were with her in her last moments, and although our hearts are broken, we are at the same time comforted by our faith knowing that Anne is now with our heavenly father."
Reported on the website of KATV, Arkansas:
http://www.katv.com/news/stories/1008/564436.html

From a song by Cindy Bullens about her deceased daughter:

"I watched the news on TV. The new breakthroughs in technology.
Can you find your way back? Will you find your way back?
If they find water on the moon, if they discover life on Mars
Does it mean you'll be home soon? Can I hold you in my arms.
I used to believe in miracles.
There was a time when I could be so inspired by life's mystery.
Can I find my way back? Will I find way back?
....Oh I know you're somewhere...somewhere out there.
If I could go, I'd be there. I would be there...
I want to believe in miracles..."

Most anyone dealing with the grief process would benefit from hearing Cindy's album "Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth," a concept album with songs of tears, anger, frustration, confusion, coping and finding a way to remember the past while facing the future.

"Water on the Moon" sung by Cindy Bullens Listen on line or download.

Six Days on the Road - Colleen Peterson

Colleen Susan Peterson died on October 9, 1996. She was born November 14, 1950. You do the math, and see she died too young.
Signed to Capitol, she released "Beginning to Feel Like Home" in 1976, and the reason for her classy, lilting style with country-rock was obvious to anyone reading her publicity material: she wasn't from America. She was Canadian. So, like members of The Band, or like Neil Young...she had a fresh sound...call it shit-kicking without the smell.
While cross-over C&W artists like Crystal Gayle add down-home warmth to their mainstream recordings, Peterson added Canadian cool to redneck numbers like "Six Days on the Road."
The Ottawa artist who'd won "Most Promising Female Vocalist" Gold Leaf honors in 1967, and was later part of the group 3's a Crowd, had a decade of mileage by the time she was ready to take on America, and she did reach the Billboard charts with "Souvenirs." But she never did make a major dent in the USA, and after "Colleen" (1977) and 1978's "Taking My Boots Off," she was off Capitol, and less the spotlight attraction than the support. She guested on some Charlie Daniels records, and sang back-up for Waylon Jennings, Marty Stuart and others.
Colleen staged a comeback in Canada in 1986. She scored a hit with "I Had it All" and released her first album for the new decade, 1988's "Basic Facts." She had many more hits in Canada, and in 1994 became part of a new group, Quartette, for albums and touring. But just two years later, Colleen was dead of cancer, age 45. A posthumous album, "Postcards from California," was cobbled together from demos Colleen Peterson and writing partner Nancy Simmonds had put together over the previous few years. Some of the profits from the album go to winners of the annual "Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award."
SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD...smoothed out by the late, great Colleen Peterson

KATIE REIDER and the Awful, Awful Disease

Warren Zevon sang, "Some get the awful, awful diseases..." and Katie Reider was one of those. You'll find more details at 500kin365.org Timeline and katiereider blog , with links for donations to her family.

Katie was an indie artist, touring, putting out albums via CD Baby, hoping to make music a paying profession. She ended up in a two-year struggle with a disease that was so obscure doctors and dentists (and even a psychologist) couldn't diagnose it. She endured headaches, jaw pain and vomiting. Her career was shattered, her finances destroyed, and she was suffer facial damage and the inability to speak articulately. She was finally diagnosed as having a myofibroblastic inflammatory tumor, and in August of 2007 she began radiation treatment. There was hope, but...

More medical maladies hit her...a lesion on her esophagus, shingles, and the destruction of half of the roof of her mouth. She was down to 90 pounds, blind in one eye. Doctors worked to repair her upper palate and do some cosmetic surgery. In what seemed like a miracle, the tumor that started all of this was shrinking via chemotherapy.

That's when more complications set in, more months of agony and frustration. In July a brain hemorrhage led doctors to induce a coma-like condition so they could airlift her to a hospital for three hours of surgery. Amazingly Katie recovered, and doctors were forecasting further operations for August, including cosmetic efforts to repair the roof of her mouth and the hole in her cheek. But on July 13th, she began to bleed and cough, and her condition deteriorated. At this point, she lost hope. Friends recalled, "when she wasn’t sleeping she was crying," and though she could barely articulate anything, with the tracheotomy and her broken palate, someone heard her say, "I'm done."

Many were inspired both by her live performances and her life-struggle (she appeared at The Stupid Cancer Gala in New York and her story did much to publicize the importance of diagnosing and treating tumors).

The song below is "Lucky Boy," which was posted at cinweekly.cincinnati.com, evidently the only full length song Katie or her family released as a free download. But plenty of samples of her other songs are on iTunes, Amazon, and the official websites. You can also hear her at myspace.com/katiereiderband.
KATIE REIDER : LUCKY BOY

FUNNY SONGWRITER KILLS OTERI'S FATHER

Richard Fagan, the guy who wrote George H.W. Bush's campaign theme song ("Americana," first recorded by Moe Bandy) is a murderer. He killed Cheri Oteri's father, Tom. (You know Cheri from her role as an irritating cheerleader alongside Will Ferrell in a series of SNL sketches.) [Update: April 15, 2011. If a murderer is someone who takes another's life deliberately, then Richard is not a murderer. Just a killer. See the full update below.]

Saturday night (April 26th) ended violently when Gaetano Thomas Oteri got into an argument with Fagan. Oteri co-owned ofmusic.com and managed Richard Fagan's career. They were also roommates.

61 year-old Richard Fagan was liquored up that night and he slashed Oteri's wrist. Police didn't know of this until after they arrested Fagan for DUI and checked his home.

Fagan, who came to Nashville in 1988, tended to write loopy songs for redneck comedians, as well as novelty tracks for major C&W stars. He also could knock off more traditional fare, and his list includes "Be My Baby Tonight" (John Michael Montgomery), "Why Can't We All Just get a Longneck" (Hank Williams Jr.) and "The Good Lord Loves You" (Neil Diamond). "Around Here" was recorded by George Jones, "She's Tough" by Chris LeDoux, "Crime of the Century" by Shania Twain, and "All Over But the Shouting” for Shenandoah.

Fagan grew up in Philadelphia, and it was there that he tried songwriting, helped along by the man who became his manager - Tom Oteri. Together they produced demos and sent them out, and together they ended up in Nashville as partners.

Fagan's publicity release, probably written by the late Mr. Oteri, notes Fagan's "father died when he was 3, and he was raised in the housing projects of South Philadelphia. His mother cleaned homes and offices for a living while her boy ran wild in the streets." Fagan recalled of his teen years, “I had grown up playing early rock ‘n’ roll in South Philly. But by the 1980s, pop had changed so drastically. I was starting to get away from it when new-wave and punk came in. By the time rap came along, the whole landscape had changed. So when I came to Nashville, I thought, ‘Country music is closer to what I grew up with, early rock ‘n’ roll.’ So I think I had good reason to be confident..."

The funny Fagan wrote the “Universal Adjective Song” in 1990 for Pinkard & Bowden, and a bunch of items for Cledus T. Judd, including a lightweight snicker-ode to "Mindy McCready." He co-wrote "“Put the Seat Back Down” for Kacey Jones as well as the obvious "I Miss My Man (but my aim's gettin' better)."
The Philly fool schooled himself well on how to write like a redneck.

His uptempo novelty tune "Sold," was a #1 for John Michael Montgomery. It's about a motormouth moron using a Grundy County auction to babble a "bid" at a pretty girl. Punchline: "We still love to laugh about the way we met that day!" Right, and it's just about as funny and entertaining as a slit wrist.
The tune he wrote for Pinkard and Bowden is better, but the version you'll hear below is pointlessly censored with beeps. And that's f--ked up: "The universal adjective is f--kin' up my life."
The parody song "Mindy McCready" is really just drooling, not fooling, and the Kacey Jones feminist kick in the nuts has these lines: "I miss my man, but my aim's gettin' better. He turned into a pig and left me for a big ol' sow...If I'd a shot him when I first met him, I'd be outta jail by now!" Next stanza, she just missed the guy with...a Ginsu knife.
"Overnight Male," your typically obvious C&W pun-song, was a honky tonk hit for George Strait. "Let me be your mailman and I'll always come through. There's no denyin' come rain or shine I'll deliver my love to you. I do things by the letter, you can put your stamp on me. 'Cause there ain't nobody better for a special delivery." Very clever. Except the songwriter went postal.

Morbid curiosity would have you wondering, "Well, what kind of funny songwriter could a guy be, who turns on his partner and slashes him with a knife on a drunken night?" To quote Poe: "What demon is like alcohol?"

It doesn't say much for songwriter royalties if this guy had to live with his partner and share a place to stay. Now, Fagan's going to be a guest of the state.


OVERNIGHT MALE
SOLD
KACEY JONES
PINKARD & BOWDEN
JUDD: Mindy Mcready

UPDATE:

(Apr 15, 2011). I just noticed Richard's "fuck you" comment, which led me to wonder, "well, what the fuck is he talking about?" Did he explain WHY he ain't no murderer? Nope, he di-ent. He could've directed everyone to an updated news article where he was ultimately exonerated. So...let's do it for him.

At the time this piece was written, the Fagan-Otero affair was a fairly obscure news story pretty much only of local interest. It was picked up here, because this blog so often reports on oddball novelty songs and obscure singers and songwriters. And, it also would serve to underline the fact that getting drunk is a fucking stupid thing to do, whether you get behind the wheel of a car, or just get into an argument.

When the case finally went before a judge, Fagan was able to convince him that Oteri's murder was in fact just a drunken accident, and that he hadn't aimed the weapon at Oteri's heart or inflected the fatal wound in a way aimed to kill.

It's easy to understand Richard's anger in being called a murderer (as news reports had it at the time...Oteri was...MURDERED...) when perhaps the word is just "killer," or, if George Carlin was around to invent a word, "accidental inflicter of mortality." But yeah, even a drunk driver who kills someone resents being called "killer," as it implies intent...and no remorse.

Below, the story Richard could've forwarded us to, but hell, he was angry and just wanted to offer "the old two-word suggestion," so it's understandable that he didn't feel like adding a link. Here's a link he could've sent:

http://blog.gactv.com/blog/2010/01/11/songwriter-richard-fagan-rebounds-from-friends-tragic-death/

Here's how it opens:

When songwriter Richard Fagan performs Wednesday evening at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café, the evening will be wrapped in personal symbolism. An installment in the Bluebird’s annual series of benefits for Alive Hospice, this particular show is dedicated to the late Tom Oteri, a former Alive Hospice volunteer who was Richard’s publisher.

Tom’s April 2008 death, in the aftermath of a fight with Richard, forced Rich — best known for writing John Michael Montgomery’s “Be My Baby Tonight” and “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)” — to confront his addiction to alcohol and his perpetual irresponsibility. Wednesday’s performance, with Rob Crosby and “Three Wooden Crosses” songwriter Doug Johnson, marks the first time Richard has performed at the venue since completing rehab, and he’ll no doubt be feeling Tom’s spirit.

Richard and Tom shared a house and had been business partners for 32 years, so when Tom died — apparently, it seemed at the time — by Richard’s hand, it shocked Nashville’s music community. Tom was being treated for a broken rib with fentanyl, an opiate that can create breathing issues. He’d gone through a long stretch of depression, and Richard — unused to seeing his associate in that state of mind — wasn’t dealing with it well. He got high April 26, 2008, on tequila and antidepressants, then got in a fight with Tom that turned physical. In the process, he slashed Tom’s wrist with a knife. They both went into immediate shock over what had happened.

“He basically sat down cross-legged, Indian-style,” Richard says in the home they previously shared. Blood “was pouring very badly. It wasn’t pulsing like an artery. But he said, ‘Give me the phone, get me so-and-so’s number and get the [hell] outta here.’”

When Richard did that, he got arrested for drunk driving. Instead of calling an attorney, Rich dialed friend Joe Collins and asked him to look in on Tom. Richard got bailed out, but as he was on his way home, the bondsman was told to return to the precinct. An officer asked Richard about the altercation with Tom. Rich told the story as accurately as he could, and as soon as he finished, the detective leaned across the desk.

“Your friend’s dead,” the officer said. “Murder one.”

Amazingly, Tom’s children — Tom Jr. and Cheri Oteri, a former “Saturday Night Live” cast member — and Bridgette Fox, their mutual publishing associate, were supportive of Richard, convinced the entire fiasco was unintentional. Richard was held on reckless homicide charges, and the Oteris pleaded with the court and with Richard’s attorney to get help for their late father’s friend.

Richard’s addiction had been an undercurrent of their relationship ever since he and Tom first met in Philadelphia in the mid 1970s. Rich showed up for a meeting two hours late — and drunk — and knocked over three beer cans and a terrarium.

“I like the act so far,” Tom quipped. “If he can sing, we’re taking him with us.”

* * * *

Later in the article:

After that fatal night in 2008, a judge agreed with Richard’s attorney and the Oteris that Richard needed help. He was enrolled at Discovery Place in Burns, Tenn., and began his journey back.

He went through an enormous amount of pain, recognizing his inexorable connection to his friend’s death.

“I was crying, ‘It should’ve been me. It should’ve been me,’” Richard recalls.

* * * *

And so the correction is duly made here. At the time it was written, the fact was simply that Fagan had killed Oteri, and not what punishment, if any, he'd get. The point too, was "what demon is like alcohol." Without alcohol, the incident would not have happened.

Best of luck to Richard Fagan, who does have a lot of friends rooting for him. His plight these days includes how difficult it is for anyone to make money from writing funny country novelty songs. Or, come to think of it, any songs at all.

"Johnny" A Pozo-Sicko Folk Song

Martin Mull: "Remember the folk scare of the 60's? That garbage nearly caught on."
One reason it didn't, was that people didn't want to hear rottenly pompous "message" songs by groups like the Pozo-Seco Singers. Even the earnest croon of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" became pretty tiresome, so when every overwrought singer and group began mewling about "I Gave my Love a Cherry" or offering tripe like "Johnny," folk music was doomed. Bob Dylan went electric. Judy Collins, Paul Simon, Janis Ian and others went to folk-rock. Burl Ives went back to acting.
Folk is still around...and mostly avoided. If you see some oh-so-sensitive type in a park or playground, strumming a guitar, sporting a dirndl or a goatee, you RUN IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. Especially if the person has BOTH a dirndl and a goatee. Nobody wants to hear self-important, solemn and pseudo-sensitive suet-suckers oozing pretentious drivel intended as a lesson in life.
Such an example is "Johnny" from the Pozo-Seco Singers, who were so middle of the road they should've been run over by a truck. While they did have some good intentions at times (any group that covered "Changes" by Phil Ochs can't be all bad), this is the kind of song that was intended to make kids cry, especially if the kid hadn't yet gotten over "Puff the Magic Dragon."
Nominations for "Worst Folk Song" are now open, and perhaps one day a blog will feature an entire Rapidshare download of witless sing-alongs, execrable ethnic excretions, cloying calamities and rancidly sappy ballads. For now....heeeeeeeere's "Johnny."
JOHNNY Download or weep on line.

FAIRYTALE of NEW YORK - controversial song

Kirsty MacColl died on December 18, 2000 due to a criminally careless joyrider in a motorboat. So it's a bit ironic that seven years later, her guest-spot with The Pogues on "Fairytale in New York," didn't hit the air as a tribute to her, but instead made U.K. headlines when some radio stations censored the word "faggot."
The song depicts a sparring couple at Christmas, and if this was a scene in a movie, nobody would think twice about it. It would be accepted for what it is; an artistic attempt at duplicating realistic dialogue:
"You're a bum, you're a punk!"
"You're an old slut on junk. Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed."
"You scumbag, you maggot. You cheap lousy faggot
Happy christmas your arse I pray God its our last."
It's a grim, gritty song of hope and hopelessness, a sad and seriocomic slice of life revolving around another line in the song, "I've built my dreams around you." While it's not Edward Albee, the dialogue is valid and the intent is clear. The song is not about offending homosexuals.
In reporting the controversy, several newspapers reproduced the lyrics this way: "You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot. Happy christmas your a*** I pray God its our last." So they found "arse" a lot more offensive than "faggot!" Which is queer, because it's tough to be a faggot without some arse involved.
The song could've simply been resurrected for what it is; an accurate vignette on the unrest and anger that often accompanies the "joyous holiday time of year." It also could've been a salute to a lamented singer who died at 41. On Christmas holiday in Mexico, she managed to keep her sons out of the way of a joy-rider in a power boat when she was struck a fatal blow. Just who was driving that boat and what sentence should be imposed are unanswered questions.
For more on that story, please visit http://www.justiceforkirsty.org/
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SEASIDE SUICIDE + Mark Sheridan

I knew an elderly actor, best known for grand guignol on film and on stage. He told me that the ooky-spooky Halloween brand of horror didn't amuse or interest him. Fans who might approach him calling themselves i-Gor or Karl Off or Lou Gosi, were just clueless idiots to him, and their stupid dress-up at a memorabilia convention only confirmed their Munster mentality, grown men clinging to a denial of death not child-like as much as childish.
"What the real horror is," he told me, "is not a spook face. It is beyond the face and, instead, is in the mind. I am not concerned with somebody posing in a graveyard and making grimaces with crayon on his face. What concerns me is what really awaits us after death and the terror of what our existence means."
As pessimistic and miserable as he often was, he didn't hasten things with suicide, although the last time I saw him — withering, unable to drink liquids, unable to speak, eyes wide on a sunken face half-obscured behind an oxygen mask, he was the living dead.
And so, as Halloween approaches, this particular blog offers no ooky-spooky novelty tunes that you've heard a million times, and no "bwa-ha-ha" pictures of trick or treat outfits. Instead, a typical Illfolks photo-collage (all pics on the site get larger when selected) and two songs about suicide. No aliens here, just the alienated. The real horror in the world of Poe, is found in a poem he wrote called "Alone."
Included here is a third song; a cheerful novelty. It just happens to come from a man who no longer heard audience laughter, which led to his ultimate despair.
For some, the lure of the waves leads to a watery grave. Walking into the sea is the topic for both Lesley Duncan and the appropriately named Bitter End Singers.
Duncan's dry-eyed and morose "Walk in the Sea" (written by Alan Hull) starts with loner complaints and drifts into pessimism: "think I'll go walk in the sea. Nothing much better to do. No, nothing for me. Not even you."
The Bitter End Singers received liner note praise from Tony Bennett: "The Bitter End Singers absolutely gassed me." And I didn't even know he was Jewish.
The album, tempting fate, was called "Discover the Bitter End Singers." The song, "A Song By the Seaside," is complex, and you'll need to acclimate. Frankly, it didn't get to me the first time around. Once the tangled, sea-weed murky melody line became familiar and I got used to the group's MOR-Mitch Miller approach, I began to get into the repulsive minor key discord that was intending to evoke turbulent seas, and I caught the dank spray of the lyric lines.
The seasick song is about a wife who misses her husband in the worst way: "One day when she cried all the tears she could cry, she ran from the house where the wild swallows fly. She walked to the ocean, she smiled at the foam. She walked in the ocean. She smiled at the foam..." And...you guessed it.
Will Holt wrote it. He's best known for "Lemon Tree," which seems like an old folk song but isn't. He also wrote that 60's variety show perennial called "One Of Those Songs." I remember he always had a kind of delighted quirk about telling people he'd written that song. In listing a few credits (for anyone who asked, "Oh, you write songs, any I would know") most everyone knew "Lemon Tree." When he'd follow it with, "And I also wrote 'One Of Those Songs'" it would naturally draw a blank. Then he'd sing the opening line: "It's just one of those songs that you hear now and then..." Ohhhhhh! THAT song...as images of Jimmy Durante flashed through their heads.
Holt wrote off-Broadway musicals. He was also half of the Holt & Jonah comedy team, and the highlight of their act was a Kurt Weill-inspired 8 minute mini-musical parody of Hollywood called "Movieville." In other words, Holt had some cabaret sensibilities, so instead of a folk song, here's something far more dramatic. It's sort of what you might expect of Sondheim if he was writing folk songs in his precocious early years, instead of episodes of "Topper."
And yes, the "Bitter End" refers to the Greenwich Village club. The group (three men, three women) included two guys who were in The Ivy League Trio, and the always provocative Nancy Priddy (mother to Christina Applegate, and already mentioned on this blog in regard to her solo album).
Now, that odd looking guy on the right...Mark Sheridan.
Here's a bit of irony for you. You might vaguely know of a sprightly British Music Hall song called "I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside." Mark Sheridan recorded it in 1909, one of several hits he had during his most productive period (1909-1911). The tongue-twister was resuscitated by Basil Rathbone when he impersonated a vaudeville singer during a light moment in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."
The eccentric Mark Sheridan, in top hat, with wacky bell-bottoms strapped to his knees, twirling an umbrella, had years of success. He, his wife and family toured the U.K. again and again. But at the age of 50 he became increasingly depressed and considered retiring from the stage. He recorded one single in 1912, nothing in 1913, one side in 1914, and just one more in 1915. With no more song successes, he counted on stage roles to sustain him.
He played a comical Napoleon in a show called "Gay Paree." The morning reviews from the Glasgow papers were negative, and Sheridan was positive there was no hope. You'd think that he would've gone to be beside the seaside, either to gather up his courage, or walk into the ocean. Instead he took a tram over to Kevin Grove Park and shot himself. Your download is far less lethal, and still quite a lot of fun.
Leaving his Mark: Beside the Seaside
Bitter End Singers: Song by the Seaside
Walk in the Sea: Lesley Duncan

OCT 9 - John Lennon and ELEANOR MCEVOY

It was the night of October 9th, three years ago. Mid-way into her set, Eleanor McEvoy did what I was hoping she'd do...sing "Last Seen October 9th."
By way of preface, expecting her song title for an answer, she asked the audience, "Anyone know what day this is?"
From my ringside seat, I answered, "Yes...John Lennon's birthday."
"Is it?"
"Yes...October 9th."
"Really. I didn't know that..."
Eleanor then explained that she rarely performed this particular song, but being October 9th, it was a fitting night for it. And while it's about a person gone missing, not someone assassinated, for me and for perhaps others in the crowd, the song evoked John's image, in its quiet lines about life's fragility and the emptiness that goes with loss.
This simple, stark song is about a missing person and one of those sad, "last seen..." signs that families nail to trees and tape to lamp posts...an act of futility dressed as hope.
After the show, I mentioned to Eleanor that home-made "last seen" signs, xeroxed with a snapshot of the missing loved one, were vivid on bus shelters and lamp posts and in store windows after 9/11, and stayed up until the rains and wind mottled and bent them, and the faces and names on them were faded and streaked. One of the nice things about having a CD, is you have the artist's complete vision, including the CD booklet and lyrics. You also have something that can be autographed. It's reproduced here, amended a bit.
"Last Seen October 9th" appears on "Yola," Eleanor's first album after going indie. Her first CD (Geffen) had the hit, later covered by Mary Black, "Only A Woman's Heart"). She then recorded two CDs for Columbia. Her latest album, appropriately titled, is "Out There." She performs mostly in her native Ireland.
Classically trained, McEvoy's music can paint images without words ("The Rain Falls" and "Days Go By" live up to the titles, even before she starts singing). Her lyrics, deceptively simple, etch deep, such as "Sophie" (about an anorexic). Unlike country-woman Sinead O'Connor, Eleanor's palette is somberly hued, but doesn't flare into the histrionic. Perhaps it's that lack of flash that has won her critical acclaim rather than fame. Each McEvoy CD in its jewel box, is like any woman's jewel case...it holds treasures, some obvious, some fragile, some sentimental, some faceted so skillfully they can shine in new ways every time they are given the chance.
Remembering John Lennon, 9/11, and all the lost ones "last seen" on a home-made poster, here is
OCTOBER 9th Listen on line, no pop-ups, "you have won 2 ipods" scams, or porn ads

BOB NOLAN - That Old Outlaw...TIME

"Now as I go along, he steals from me.
My way of life. My woman's love. My peace of mind.
If I could see him I'd hit him. If I could reach him I'd kill him.
That old outlaw...Time."
This is just illfolks reminding you that one day your download will be six feet deep.
In 1979, Bob Nolan, one of the original "Sons of the Pioneers," emerged from long retirement to cut "The Sound of a Pioneer."
A year later, June 16, 1980, he was dead. Like most C&W vocalists who didn't get into a car or plane accident, his passing was little noticed by the mainstream press.
Your download song "That Old Outlaw Time" is from that album.
Unlike Johnny Cash, who held legendary status late in life, knew he had a death sentence just months away, and made the most of songs such as "The Man Comes Around" and "Hurt," Bob Nolan probably thought this was a comeback album, not a farewell. Although, you never know, the old cowboy reads these lines as if there's a cold hand on his shoulder:
"This shadow I can't seem to shake is not flesh and blood. This is a stranger each man faces in his own mind; filling him with fear and doubt. And behind it all, is that old outlaw: Time." Karloff couldn't have narrated it better.
"No way to win...no way to win...against that old outlaw...TIME."
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14 JACK THE RIPPER SONGS + Soundtracks

Heavy metal was what Jack the Ripper wielded, and it's no surprise that the favorite bad guy for metal bands is a real murderer, not make-believe monster.
Ripper fans include: Judas Priest, Motorhead, Chemical Romance, The Horrors, Screaming Lord Sutch, The White Stripes, AFI, Buckethead, Iced Earth and One Way Street. Let's not forget guys like Link Wray, who recorded his own "Jack the Ripper" instrumental rumble, though he might have imagined a surfer Jack ripping the waves.

Unlike Dracula, or even Dr. Jeckyll's Hyde, the Ripper existed. He made a hobby out of killing prostitutes. A "better watch out for Dracula" song would only be mysterious and spooky, and altogether ooky for hip thrashers. Instead, with the Ripper, they can be more urgent with screaming guitars that match a knife's glint, and rumbling minor key melodies that evoke dark alleys. The misogynist aspect can't be overlooked, since these guys attack the vocals with such enthusiasm. Included here is "Whores in da House" by Jack the Ripper, just to document that rappers, of course, find this guy a role model, too.
There is no certainty about how many victims there were (between 5 and 19), if the Ripper was male or female, if several people were involved, why the killings stopped, or how many (if any) of the notes signed "Jack the Ripper" were hoaxes. Almost all evidence and every theory can be believed or ripped to pieces. Eyewitnesses differ on specifics (the cloaked Ripper in a top hat is folklore too). Movies paint the ladies as young and beautiful when they were in fact middle-aged dregs, some toothless, who sold themselves cheap in a slum area. Making the victims more sexually attractive only further fogs up the motives in the case. Check the Net and you'll find entire websites about Jack, including "fun" sites that list the likely victims and suspects.
It's all speculation and nothing more, with plenty of theories to prop up or debunk a particular suspect or motive. We'll have to wait for the next book, and the author's appearance with Regis & Ripa (no, the photo is just an illfoax hoax...Ripa never actually posed with Rip Torn).
There are 14 Jack the Ripper songs here...as well as seven of the most evocative tracks from two ripper movies, "Jack the Ripper" (score by Pete Rugolo, 1959) and "Study in Scarlet." 21 download tracks. That's rippin' a lot of Rippers....
Let her Rip