Deeper Digs

Christian has the immense pleasure of getting to know two of Tulsa’s finest musicians, Casey Van Beek and Walt Richmond, who are two parts of the Casey Van Beek and the Tulsa Groove band and they have a new album called, Heaven Forever. It’s out now. So for some good old down home rock n roll, go get the record wherever you get your tunes!

Casey was born in Holland but raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, and fit right in to the burgeoning local ‘60s rock scene. By his teens he was playing bass and singing in The Vibrants, who opened for The Dave Clark Five and The Rolling Stones’ first L.A. area show, and also toured with Peter and Gordon. He moved on to backing the wonderful Linda Ronstadt, along with two guys named Don Henley and Glenn Frey. When the duo left to start the Eagles, Casey headed to Tulsa with Don Preston to record with the Shelter People, part of Leon Russell’s Shelter Records label.

Tulsa surprised him—the blues, country, and rockabilly had fermented there into a mellow blend called the Tulsa Sound, and he quickly discovered that the bands in town were playing as much Freddy King and B.B. King as Merle Haggard. 

Then he realized he was home, a place where the music vibes were right, and where you could get out of town into open country in five minutes. It took a while to find his way into the scene, but fairly soon he was in a band with Walt Richmond and Jim Byfield. And is once more.

Eventually, Casey joined Tulsa’s multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated band The Tractors, which included Casey, Walt Richmond who also joins us today, and the future Tulsa Groove member Ron Getman. Do you remember the hit Baby Likes to Rock It. Got them to the White House and we will talk about that for sure!

Three members of the Groove (Richmond, Byfield, and Steve Hickerson), would back Bonnie Raitt during her tenure in Tulsa, playing shows in the area to (successfully!) protest the construction of the Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant. Walt would go on to play on Tulsan JJ Cale’s Grammy-winning Gold album collaboration with Eric Clapton, The Road to Escondido, so impressing Eric that he’s played on all of his albums since then.

When they weren’t on the road collaborating with people like Clapton, Cale, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, or Bill Medley, they played around town. 

Casey and Walt Richmond began to get tight, first recording Christmas songs, then writing original Christmas songs, then gathering at Walt’s home studio to record more of their own originals and favorite covers, selecting the best players around to add their touches on a few songs at a time.This wasn’t to satisfy anyone’s record contract or dreams of stardom, but out of camaraderie and an enjoyment of each other’s musical company; music for music’s sake. There’s a purity to that. 

So they have a new record out this week called ‘Heaven Forever’, produced by Walt Richmond, that showcases what they are capable of when they focus their in-demand skills on their own music. 

They are carrying on the legendary Tulsa sound of forerunners like Leon Russell, JJ Cale and Elvin Bishop, the band is adding their own new flavors while keeping that historic tradition alive for current and future generations.Heaven Forever by Casey Van Beek and the Tulsa Groove is set for release on April 24, 2020, via the Little Village Foundation. It will be available on all the major digital platforms.

http://littlevillagefoundation.com/casey-van-beek-and-the-tulsa-groove/

https://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Forever-Casey-Tulsa-Groove/dp/B084ZB8NBY/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=van+beek+tulsa&qid=1587677592&s=dmusic&sr=1-1

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Christian sits down with Ex-NME photographer Kevin Cummins to discuss his new book, SEX PISTOLS: The End is Near 25.12.77.

On Christmas Day 1977, the Sex Pistols played their final UK gig. Kevin Cummins was the only professional photographer to document the event. He stood with the band onstage, captured the raw energy of the Sex Pistols at the top of their game. Just three weeks later, after a brief US tour, the band imploded.

By the end of 1977, the Sex Pistols had been banned from virtually every town in Britain. But at Ivanho's nightclub in Huddersfield they found a receptive audience. They played two charity gigs on Christmas Day, raising money for the families of striking firemen. The afternoon shift was for the kids, with expletives removed from lyrics and Christmas presents and cake given out - and paid for by the band. In the evening, with Kevin Cummins in their midst, the Sex Pistols thundered through their setlist. Forget the lurid headlines, the righteous outrage, this was the real Sex Pistols, playing from the heart.

Kevin Cummins is an internationally renowned British rock photographer, known for his collaborations with Mick Jagger, Ian Curtis, Morrissey, The Smiths, Bowie, Joy Division and more. He was chief photographer at the New Musical Express for ten years, then the world's biggest selling rock weekly. His portraits feature in the collections of The National Portrait Gallery and The V&A. Kevin has also published several critically acclaimed monographs on the artists with whom he has worked.

https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Pistols-End-Near-25-12-77/dp/1788840615/ref=sr_1_1?crid=16INIW2ZYDRNO&dchild=1&keywords=sex+pistols+the+end+is+near+25.12.77&qid=1586890055&sprefix=sex+pistols%3A+the+end+is%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-1

http://www.kevincummins.co.uk/

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Christian gets on the good foot with Alan Leeds tour manager for James Brown for many years (along with Prince, D’Angelo and Chris Rock), who has just released his memoirs working for Mr. Brown called, There Was A Time: James Brown, The Chitlin’ Circuit and Me from Post Hill Press. A behind-the-scenes look at the Chitlin' Circuit during America's most vital period of soul music - from the eyes and ears of a young Jewish kid from Queens who joined the team of the hardest working man in show business and learned the art of the music business at the hand of the performer who mastered it.

In the mid-'60s, Alan Leeds was a young DJ looking for his way into the music business. An interview with James Brown to promote a local show in Virginia led to an opportunity to promote one of Brown's concerts, which then led to Brown hiring him to help run his tours. Soon Leeds was wearing many hats and traveling around the country as Brown battled a complicated web of local promoters and managers, all too willing to try to rip him off.

In this riveting book - part memoir, part history - Leeds weaves a wholly new and remarkable portrait of Brown as an idiosyncratic iconoclast, determined artist, and forceful businessman. It is a rare look into a world little known to white America immediately following the Civil Rights Movement. Leeds discovers that Brown is a fascinatingly complex man, and their experiences, both business and personal, range from emotional to humorous. All the while, they navigate the complicated world of popular black music in America, told by someone who actually lived it.Alan Leeds (born January 26, 1947) is an American music executive, tour manager, production manager, writer and archivist best known for his work organizing performances and concert tours for artists such as James Brown, Prince, D'Angelo and Chris Rock. In addition to his career in management for artists, Leeds is recognized as an award-winning writer and music archivist. Leeds received a Grammy Award for Best Album Notes in 1992 for his work on the James Brown compilation Star Time. Leeds also penned the liner notes for the 1993 Prince box set The Hits/The B-Sides, and cowrote The James Brown Reader with Nelson George.

Alan Leeds was born in Jackson Heights, New York.Leeds' music career began as a music writer. He first became involved with James Brown as his publicity director in 1969, and worked as Brown's tour manager from 1970 to 1973. Beginning in 1983, Leeds managed tours for Prince during the peak of his commercial and artistic success, notably including the Purple Rain Tour. Leeds' work with Prince culminated in his eventual naming as president of Prince's vanity label Paisley Park Records in 1989.Leeds' career as a tour manager continued with D'Angelo, managing the successful Voodoo Tour in 2000. This was followed by stints with a variety of other artists, including Raphael Saadiq and The Roots. Leeds has also been involved in the curation of the James Brown: The Singles collections, and has spoken at events commemorating Brown's career and accomplishments.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082SZXVLG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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In this special episode of Deeper Digs in Rock, Christian rounds up several other Pantheon hosts to discuss the new surprise release of Bob Dylan’s new 17 minute epic song, ‘Murder Most Foul’.

Joining the Rock N Roll Archaeologist for this show are:

Ray Koob and Markus in the Darkness of ‘Imbalanced History of Rock’’ https://imbalancedhistory.com/

Pamela Des Barres of ‘Pamela Des Barres Pajama Party’ http://rocknrollarchaeology.com/miss-pamelas-pajama-party

Maurice Bursztynski of ‘Love That Album’ https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/lovethatalbum

Cindy Howes of ‘Basic Folk’https://cindyhowes.net/basicfolk/

Lucas Hare of ‘Is It Rollin’, Bob? Talkin’ Dylan’ https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/talkingdylan

MURDER MOST FOUL by Bob Dylan

[Verse 1]

It was a dark day in Dallas, November '63

A day that will live on in infamy

President Kennedy was a-ridin' high

Good day to be livin' and a good day to die

Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb

He said, "Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?"

"Of course we do, we know who you are!"

Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car

Shot down like a dog in broad daylight

Was a matter of timing and the timing was right

You got unpaid debts, we've come to collect

We're gonna kill you with hatred, without any respect

We'll mock you and shock you and we'll put it in your face

We've already got someone here to take your place

The day they blew out the brains of the king

Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing

It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise

Right there in front of everyone's eyes

Greatest magic trick ever under the sun

Perfectly executed, skillfully done

Wolfman, oh Wolfman, oh Wolfman, howl

Rub-a-dub-dub, it's a murder most foul

Get the all the lyrics to the 5 verses here: https://genius.com/Bob-dylan-murder-most-foul-lyrics

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The Rock N Roll Archaeologist goes long and deep with famous Woodstock photographer, Elliott Landy on his time with The Band, a little on shooting Bob Dylan for the ‘Nashville Skyline’ cover and Van Morrison’s ‘Moondance’ cover.  Elliott has a new crowd-source project through Kickstarter he is hoping to get off the ground. The new book will be called ‘Contacting the Band’, a follow up to his 2016 book, ‘The Band’ 1968-1969 about his two years working with the Americana godfathers. 

Elliott Landy’s new book, Contacting The Band, will feature selected contact sheets of the photos I took of THE BAND in the late Sixties for their first two albums, Music From Big Pink and The Band. It will allow fans of THE BAND a unique, behind-the-scenes look at the process and frame by frame progression of these landmark photo shoots, including personal sessions with the guys at home and on the road.

It will be the companion to my previous book, The Band Photographs, 1968-1969, published in 2015 with the support of a Kickstarter campaign. which became its highest funded photography book at that time. It will be the same size (12 x 12 inches) with the same high quality printing and heavyweight paper, and will fit beautifully alongside the first volume on your bookshelf or coffee table. 

Contact Sheets are photographic prints made from all the photos in a single roll of black and white film. The 35mm film I used had 36 photos in each roll. After developing, the film was cut into strips of 6 frames and placed on top of a sheet of 8x10 inch photographic paper with heavy glass on top to keep them flat. Once exposed to light, an image was created of each frame along with the film's sprocket holes and frame numbers.  Since the photos were too small to see clearly, photographers used special magnifying glasses to mark the frames they thought were the best. Today that selection process is done on a computer screen.

Elliott Landy, born in 1942, began photographing the anti-Vietnam war movement and the underground music culture in New York City in 1967. He photographed many of the underground rock and roll superstars, both backstage and onstage, from 1967 to 69.

His images of Bob Dylan and The Band, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Joan Baez, Van Morrison, Richie Havens, and many others documented the music scene during that classic rock and roll period which culminated with the 1969 Woodstock Festival, of which he was the official photographer.

After that, Elliott moved on to other inspirations and art forms, photographing his own children and travels, creating impressionist flower photographs and doing motion and kaleidoscopic photography in both still and film formats.

His photographs have been published worldwide for many years in all print mediums including covers of Rolling Stone, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, etc. and album covers, calendars, photographic book collections, etc.

He has published Woodstock Vision, The Spirit of A Generation, in book and CD-ROM format, and authored the book Woodstock 69, The First Festival.

He is currently publishing a series of limited edition lithographs of his classic rock photographs.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thebandbook2/elliott-landy-contacting-the-band?ref=discovery&term=elliott%20landy

https://www.elliottlandy.com/

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The Rock N Roll Archaeologists welcomes back the man named after three presidents, Andrew Grant Jackson, where he digs deep into his latest book, 1973: Rock at the Crossroads. 1973 was the year rock hit its peak while splintering―just like the rest of the world. Ziggy Stardust travelled to America in David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane. The Dark Side of the Moon began its epic run on the Billboard charts, inspired by the madness of Pink Floyd's founder, while all four former Beatles scored top ten albums, two hitting #1.

FM battled AM, and Motown battled Philly on the charts, as the era of protest soul gave way to disco, while DJ Kool Herc gave birth to hip hop in the Bronx. The glam rock of the New York Dolls and Alice Cooper split into glam metal and punk. Hippies and rednecks made peace in Austin thanks to Willie Nelson, while outlaw country, country rock, and Southern rock each pointed toward modern country. The Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, and the Band played the largest rock concert to date at Watkins Glen.

Led Zep’s Houses of the Holy reflected the rise of funk and reggae. The singer songwriter movement led by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell flourished at the Troubadour and Max’s Kansas City, where Bruce Springsteen and Bob Marley shared bill. Elvis Presley’s Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite was NBC’s top-rated special of the year, while Elton John’s albums dominated the number one spot for two and a half months.

Just as U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew to a close, Roe v. Wade ignited a new phase in the culture war. While the oil crisis imploded the American dream of endless prosperity, and Watergate’s walls closed in on Nixon, the music of 1973 both reflected a shattered world and brought us together

.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250299985/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

https://us.macmillan.com/author/andrewjackson-author

https://twitter.com/1965book?lang=en

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Christian has the immense pleasure of getting to know Rosie Bones and Carmen Vandenberg of the hot new band BONES UK. For London-bred band BONES UK, every song is a chance to speak their minds with total freedom, to shed light on the extreme disconnect between the status quo and the far more glorious world inside their heads. On their self-titled debut album, vocalist Rosie Bones and guitarist Carmen Vandenberg confront everything from the beauty industrial complex to toxic masculinity to music-scene sexism, embedding each track with choruses primed for passionate shouting-along. With their galvanizing energy and relentless joie de vivre, BONES UK offer up an album that’s both provocative and endlessly exhilarating, even in its most outraged moments.

True to the l.a.-based band’s anti-conformist spirit, bones uk unfolds with an entirely uncontainable sound, a riff-heavy collision of rock-and-roll and rough-edged electronic music. In forging that sound, Rosie and Carmen worked in close collaboration with producer Filippo Cimatti, who shaped the album’s kinetic textures with lavish use of electronic bass. Matched by Carmen’s masterful yet inventive guitar work and Rosie’s magnetic voice—an instrument that seamlessly slips from menacing to stunningly tender—the result is a bold new sonic world, savage and frenetic and infinitely mesmerizing.

On the album-opening “beautiful is boring”, BONES UK bring serpentine riffs and sinister grooves to a feverish statement against societal expectations of beauty. “We’re living in an era when everyone’s being airbrushed into looking all the same, when really it’s imperfections that make you beautiful,” says Rosie. On “Filthy Freaks,” the band twists the narrative to an all-out celebration of the perfectly imperfect, the song’s bright tempo and surf-rock rhythms backed by Rosie’s brazen lyrics (e.g., “i like your leather/but i like it better on my floor”). 

Raw defiance also fuels tracks like “Pretty Waste”—a dizzying anti-anthem driven by blistering beats and Rosie’s haunting vocal delivery. “It’s about this idea that if you’re a girl, you can’t be both attractive and smart,” Rosie says. “We wanted to show that you can be feminine and strong and tough and angry all at the same time: you can be whatever you want to be.” Another moment of brilliant fury, “Leach” lashes out against all the creeps Bones UK have encountered in their wanderings around L.A., cleverly contrasting their venomous lyrics with swinging rhythms and flamenco-inspired strumming. And on “I’m Afraid of Americans,” Bones UK bring that sardonic mood to a divinely snarling cover of David Bowie’s late-’90s hit, instilling the track with a wild new urgency.

Elsewhere on the album, BONES UK shift from the restless reverie of “Souls” to the dreamy balladry of “Black Blood” to the swampy blues of “Girls Can’t Play Guitar,” echoing the deliberate unpredictability of the album-making process. “We recorded everywhere—in bathrooms, in the backs of cars,” says Rosie, noting that most of bones came to life in their basement studio in laurel canyon. “We’re together all the time and we love that freedom of being able to record whenever we want. We don’t need that pressure of going into some big studio; we’d much rather just be instinctive about it.”

https://www.bonesuk.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/16kd5X3pBMOtXdLlX5LcAw?si=AijqDWOVTOmz00k_yzu4mQ

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Christian goes dark into the metal world again, this time with author Jon Wiederhorn, who has a new book called, Raising Hell: Backstage Tales from the Lives of Metal Legends. From the author of the celebrated classic Louder Than Hell comes an oral history of the badass Heavy Metal lifestyle―the debauchery, demolition, and headbanging dedication―featuring metalhead musicians from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot to Disturbed, Megadeth, Throwdown and more.

In his song “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll” Ozzy Osbourne sings, “Rock and roll is my religion and my law.” This is the mantra of the metal legends who populate Raising Hell―artists from Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Slipknot, Slayer, and Lamb of God to Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Disturbed, Megadeth, and many more! It’s also the guiding principle for underground voices like Misery Index, Gorgoroth, Municipal Waste, and Throwdown.

Through the decades, the metal scene has been populated by colorful individuals who have thwarted convention and lived by their own rules. For many, vice has been virtue, and the opportunity to record albums and tour has been an invitation to push boundaries and blow the lid off a Pandora’s box of riotous experiences: thievery, vandalism, hedonism, the occult, stage mishaps, mosh pit atrocities, and general insanity.

To the figures in this book, metal is a means of banding together to stick a big middle finger to a society that had already decided they didn’t belong. Whether they were oddballs who didn’t fit in or angry kids from troubled backgrounds, metal gave them a sense of identity.

Drawing from 150-plus first-hand interviews with vocalists, guitarists, bassists, keyboardists, and drummers, music journalist Jon Wiederhorn offers this collection of wild shenanigans from metal’s heaviest and most iconic acts―the parties, the tours, the mosh pits, the rage, the joy, the sex, the drugs . . . the heavy metal life!Horns up Diggers! 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1635766494/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

https://www.harpercollins.com/author/cr-105673/jon-wiederhorn/

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Christian Swain, THE Rock N Roll Archaeologist, celebrates show 100 with hot new singer/guitarist Marcus King! First, Christian thanks all who have helped him get to 100 and remind everyone who has been on the show. We find out the real secret sauces that make DDIR what it is and what is the real mission! And then it is a short interview from the road with Marcus.

A 23-year-old guitar phenom and innovative songwriter, Marcus King can simultaneously switch from swaggering rock to supersonic soul – with his vocal powers taking center stage on debut solo record El Dorado, out now. The album is a Dan Auerbach produced, genre-bending release from a world-class young talent, that will establish him as one of the most soulful voices of his generation.

Marcus started learning guitar at age three or four. He has played professionally since he was 11 and always knew he wanted to make music his life. A fourth-generation musician, Marcus has followed in his family’s footsteps. His grandfather was a country guitarist, and his father continues to perform live. The Marcus King Band founded in Greenville, South Carolina in 2013, is his tight knit group. Drummer Jack Ryan, bass player Stephen Campbell, trumpeter/trombonist Justin Johnson, sax/steel guitarist Dean Mitchell along with Marcus—bring an irreplaceable combination of commitment, craft and soul to their work and are one of the hardest working bands today. They have played 140 shows in the last year and sold out countless venues, including Brooklyn Bowl three nights in a row and Marcus’ namesake festival, The Marcus King Band Family Reunion. This year, the festival featured acts such as Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Yonder Mountain String Band, Josh Ritter, Amanda Shires, and many more. 

From the start, Marcus earned rave reviews for his kinetic musicianship with The Washington Post describing him as a “guitar phenom” at age 20. Carolina Confessions, helmed by GRAMMY-Award winning producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson), topped the Americana radio charts and received critical acclaim from the likes of VICE Noisey, NPR and Rolling Stone, who described him as an “electrifying rock performer.” Marcus also recently embarked on a string of dates with Chris Stapleton, who called him “one of his favorite artists” when he recently joined him onstage. Marcus King continues to re-write his fast moving and surprising story. You can hear change in the wisdom of his lyrics and deeply soulful vocals, bringing sheer musical command to every performance. 

https://marcuskingband.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0FeWKiZSwBRdGzqeCdlH1a?si=o838JW_fQY2UES8jlTTVCg

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0tgaHqkU1p7QhBUIzKXVU9?si=lL-Qu8vvQZO3gGvh3aL1lQ

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Let’s Rock N Roll Archaeology some EDM Diggers! Christian sits down with Goldroom, aka Josh Legg.  They go deep into his SoCal chill EDM beats and how a kid from Boston created the new laid back sounds of L.A.

Josh Legg, known professionally as Goldroom, is an American electronic musician. egg grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts and studied psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He and classmate Kyle Peterson formed the synthpop band NightWaves and co-founded the record label Binary Entertainment, although the former went on hiatus in 2011. From its establishment in 2007, Binary has worked with artists including Anoraak, Bag Raiders, College, Futurecop!, Miami Horror, and The Twelves.

Legg began producing music under the name Goldroom in 2011, with remixes of tracks including Niki and the Dove's "Mother Protect". He took his stage name from the name of a bar in Los Angeles' Echo Park area. He released his debut EP, Angeles, the same year, followed by the EP Embrace in 2013. Although Goldroom had performed vocals on all Angeles tracks (he also sang harmonies and backing vocals in NightWaves), for Embrace he enlisted vocalists including Chela, Ariela Jacobs, Mereki, and Say Lou Lou.In 2014, Goldroom released the single "Till Sunrise", the music video for which was directed by actress Dianna Agron. In 2015, he issued the EP It's Like You Never Went Away via Downtown Records. Accompanying the EP, music videos for each of the tracks were premiered via the video messaging application Snapchat. It's Like You Never Went Away includes a newly recorded version of "Embrace" featuring the song's co-writer, George Maple.

Goldroom's musical influences include Alan Braxe, Daft Punk, Bob Dylan, Fred Falke, Al Green, LCD Soundsystem, Nirvana, and Tom Petty. He describes his output as "modern dance music production incorporating live instrumentation" and "dance music for the backyard, dance music for the beach".

http://goldroom.la

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4eZebkMFU3xelF8mbZYXyl?si=H4dqyGokQ1OngdjCsnYz6g

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