-
Featured News
Patti Smith Upcoming Tour for 50th Anniversary of Horses
By Harvey Kubernik
“Horses was like the first cannon blast in a war – frightening and disorienting. I mean, she was so unlike the FM radio terrain in every way. She was literate, aggress -
Featured Articles
Chasing the White Light: Lou Reed, the Telepathic Secretary and Metal Machine Music
By David Holzer
Fifty years ago, Lou Reed released Transformer. In among “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Make Up” and “Vicious,” cuts that would launch a cartoon Rock N Roll Animal pers -
Lotti Golden’s Motor-Cycle Reissued by High Moon Records
By Harvey Kubernik
I remember in late 1969 when an acquaintance of mine, Heather Harris, an editor at the UCLA Daily Bruin Entertainment pages, received a copy of the Bob Crewe-produced Lotti Golden debut LP Motor-Cycle on Atlantic Records.
Harris, and another concert pal of mine, Nancy Rose Retchin at Palisades High School, were big fans of Laura Nyro, and both knew I liked female singers and poets.
In winter of 1969 I first heard Golden’s Motor-Cycle on KPPC-FM in Pasadena, California, and got my own copy of the album at Wallichs Music City in Hollywood. I had read reviews of her in Newsweek and The New York Times when I stocked shelves in the library at West Los Angeles Junior College in Culver City.
Golden’s stream of consciousness lyrics was influenced by the beat generation and Jack Kerouac. Motor-Cycle wasn’t Brill Building pop music, but songs about narcotics, gender identity, the ramifications of involvement, and urban alienation from a Thrill Building tunesmith who was the landlord doing the reporting.
In 1968 and ’69, Heather, Nancy and I went monthly to the Shrine Exposition Hall in downtown Los Angeles for the Pinnacle Dance Concerts. Three former USC students, Sepp Donahower, Mark Chase and John Van Hamersveld, promoted 13 shows of visiting acts and local bands. It was where art, film and music collided. Filmmaker George Lucas was on the Single Wing Turquoise Bird lightshow crew. We saw Moby Grape, Canned Heat, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, Vanilla Fudge, Pogo (pre-Poco), Lee Michaels, Mothers of Invention, Richie Havens, and Sweetwater.
BIRTHDAY BAMA LAMA: A Calendar of 365 Musical Mugshots by Olaf Jens
By Mike Stax
Dutch-born California resident Olaf Jens is one of my favorite living artists. Inspired by great comic book illustrators like Will Eisner and Robert Crumb and the New Objectivity artists of the 1920s like Otto Dix and Max Beckmann, his work is executed with skill, imagination and an all-too-rare flair for character and atmosphere. His artwork can be seen on an array of record covers released over the past decade or so including the Twisted Tales from the Vinyl Wasteland series, Back from the Grave Volumes 9 and 10, and releases by the Jackets, the Chrome Cranks, the Kentucky Colonels, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and more. He’s also responsible for the fabulous banner for our “Echoes from the Vault” reviews section in Ugly Things.
Olaf’s character portraits of his favorite musicians from the world of rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, punk, garage, country music and more are especially well-rendered. He recently produced an eye-popping calendar with an incredible 365 color illustrations, each assigned to their date of birth—from country singer Ernie Chaffin on January 1 through Egyptian vocalist/actress Oum Kalthoun on December 31.
Famous names like Dolly Parton, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Don Everly, Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, Lou Reed, Roy Oribson and Iggy Pop, are featured alongside lesser-known cult figures like Cathy Berberian, Adrian Lloyd and Robert Drasnin. There’s ‘60s garage icons like Sky Saxon, Gerry Roslie, Question Mark, Moulty, and Sam the Sham; UK ‘60s heroes like Syd Barrett, Chris Britton, Dave Davies, Screaming Lord Sutch, and Sharon Tandy; blues and R&B artists like Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Slim Harpo, Ruth Brown, Nathaniel Mayer, Howlin’ Wolf, and Charlie Patton; rockabilly cats Johnny Burnette, Gene Summers, The Phantom, Charlie Feathers, and Cliff Gallup; country singers like Loretta Lynn, Porter Wagoner, and Red Sovine; legendary producers like Sam Phillips, Joe Meek, and Sir Coxsone Dodd; a plethora of punk rock and post-punk characters including Jean-Jacques Burnel, Mark E Smith, Rat Scabies, Joey Ramone, Poly Styrene, Richard Hell, Lux Interior, Ed Kuepper, and Johnny Strike; neo-garage rock mavericks like Billy Childish, Russell Quan, Holly Golightly, Jon Spencer, Johnny Bartlett, King Khan, Fink, and Monoman; and outliers like Sun Ra, Eric Satie, Harry Smith, Chopin, Nico, Jack Kerouac, Korla Pandit, Criswell, Brigitte Bardot, Omar Korshid, and Anton LaVey. Scattered among them all are a host of upper echelon Ugly Things heroes including Phil May, Viv Prince, Wally Tax, Joop Roelofs, Arthur Lee, Cyril Jordan, Gary Burger, and Gabor Szabo.
Each portrait was painted with acrylic on 3.5” x 5” wooden panels, most of which were quickly snapped up by collectors and fans. But if you want every last one of them, you can hang this beautifully-presented collection of 365 on your wall instead.
For more details, email olaf.jens@g
mail.com
Patti Smith Upcoming Tour for 50th Anniversary of Horses
By Harvey Kubernik
“Horses was like the first cannon blast in a war – frightening and disorienting. I mean, she was so unlike the FM radio terrain in every way. She was literate, aggressive, intense. From that point forward you couldn’t comfort yourself with the old, safe sixties myths. The revolution was on.” – author and novelist Daniel Weizmann.
2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Patti Smith’s groundbreaking debut album, Horses. Widely regarded as a seminal work in punk rock and recorded at Electric Lady Studios, Horses has left an enduring legacy, inspiring generations of artists and fans.
Smith’s upcoming Horses 50th anniversary tour is expansive, with the European leg kicking off on July 1st. The United States leg starts November 10th in Seattle and concluding November 29th in Philadelphia. She will be joined by Horses musicians Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty, on guitar and drums, respectively. Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty, both of whom recorded with Smith on the 1975 LP. Smith’s live band will also feature bassist and keyboardist Tony Shanahan, and guitarist Jackson Smith, Patti’s son. Each 2025 show will include all eight tracks from the 1975 album.
I first encountered Patti Smith in 1975 at a Blue Oyster Cult concert after-party Epic Records had in 1975 at the Forum in Inglewood, California. Patti introduced me to her boyfriend at the time, Alan Lanier who was in BOC. Smith co-wrote tunes with BOC members on Tyranny and Mutation in 1973, and their 1974 Secret Treaties. Lanier helped write and played guitar on “Elegie” from Smith’s Horses. It’s Lanier’s horse pin gift to her on the cover of the LP.
I liked the album cover of Horses. In 2015 at the Roxy Theater in West Hollywood, I sat with Nancy Sinatra at a Patti Smith Group concert. Nancy, like Patti, has roots in New Jersey. Patti told us the Horses cover was inspired by Frank Sinatra and the way he held his jacket.