https://shorturl.at/4Xolz

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I devoured this book.

I bought my first issue of “Rolling Stone” at a newsstand right by the Columbia campus in December 1969. If I remember correctly, it was the issue with Mick Jagger on the cover, with a full explication of the Altamont debacle. This was manna from heaven, this was everything I was looking for, in-depth information on music and culture available nowhere else. Sure, the “Times” had an occasional feature, but an entire magazine?

But was that what it was? It came folded in half and when you subscribed you got free records.

I immediately signed up, it was less than ten bucks and I got a year of issues and the Jefferson Airplane’s “Volunteers” and their greatest hits album “The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.” I hadn’t owned an Airplane album previously, but I immediately took to “Volunteers.” At this point, we were beginning to become disillusioned, it seemed like the revolution might have passed us by, but that’s what “Volunteers” was all about, the revolution. Of course the album contained the title cut, and a version of “Wooden Ships,” but the heart of the album was “Eskimo Blue Day” and “Good Shepherd,” with Grace emoting in her composition “Hey Fredrick” for good measure.

I know, I know, “Rolling Stone” started in ’67, but like I always say, distribution is king, and I never saw it in the burbs, never saw it anywhere, in fact.

And when I subscribed nobody else I knew did. And when I went to college the following fall, it was the highlight of every other week. It came on Wednesday, I’d make sure I’d done all my studying for the week by Tuesday, and then I spent two days reading the magazine from cover to cover.

And the following December, there was a cover story on the Mel Lyman family. HUH?

I’d never heard of the guy. I can’t say I read every word of the article, because there was no context. Although Jim Kweskin was a member. And Mark Frechette, but I’ll get there.

And the funny thing about the Lyman family is it still exists, and it makes its money via construction, building structures for household names in Los Angeles.

And the first night of Aspen Live Mark Kates was testifying about this book about Boston, about Van Morrison’s time there, creating “Astral Weeks,” and… Mark couldn’t put his finger on the other guy the book focused on, but I blurted out MEL LYMAN! And Mark said yes, that’s who he was thinking of, and I immediately went on Libby and got the book.

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I can’t recommend most music books, they’re basically hagiography, the acts appear to be saints and you learn a few details but even if you’re a fan you end up disappointed.

But “Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968” is something different.

If you were alive and conscious at that point, pick this one up.

If you weren’t…

Does anybody really care about the history of yore? The counterculture? Sure, people listen to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, if not Jefferson Airplane, and now Van Morrison is a pariah, but I don’t think the average person wants to dig deeper. But if you do…

So the story is Van Morrison was down and out and escaped to Boston with Janet Planet, formed a new group and started gigging.

And the book tells the whole story of the development of “Astral Weeks” and its ultimate recording. As well as Joe Smith paying off Bang to get Van on Warner Brothers.

But there’s so much more.

Like the history of the Boston Tea Party, which was Boston’s Fillmore, yet different. There were no seats, but it was where everybody played. I went once, totally stoned, to see the latest incarnation of Manfred Mann, and it wasn’t good, and the following fall the joint closed. You look at the history of these venues, these ballrooms, and in retrospect they’re so short.

And it was a guy from Kansas City who built the Tea Party and WBCN and the story is all in this book.

He knew someone who was in the Lyman family.

Actually, it was Thomas Hart Benton’s daughter Jessie. Her money helped keep the commune, the cult afloat.

They had a compound in Fort Hill, ultimately with a wall around it, because Mel didn’t trust the outside, and he wasn’t quite like the Scientologists but he did believe in revenge.

The Lyman family began with “The Avatar,” an underground newspaper.

That was a thing back then. Seems quaint today, but you’ve got to understand, printing was expensive, just like record-making.

I know, I know, today’s social media specializes in speaking truth to power, when people are not trying to cash in. 

Note: Watch this video about the income of the most successful TikTokkers, it’s easier than being a musician — https://shorturl.at/19rzj

But in the sixties it was all about print, and the establishment didn’t like it, so there were lawsuits and…

The book also covers a breakthrough public television show.

And the legendary James Brown concert after Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. I never knew the government guaranteed him 60k…did he ever get it?

And there’s the search for the holy grail, a tape recording of Van and his band live working out the “Astral Weeks” songs, Peter Wolf had it, could the author ever hear it?

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But you’ll be fascinated by the story of the Lyman family. These people thought he was God. Mel alternately said he was and he wasn’t. But these people were in thrall to him.

As for the Mark Frechette story… Cindy Frechette went to our high school. She was called “Behemoth,” which sounds terrible today, but you know how kids are… Yes, Cindy was big and tall and not what most people would consider attractive, but suddenly she started telling us her brother was going to be a movie star. Which no one believed, we didn’t even know she had a brother. But it turned out she was right, Mark Frechette was one of the two leads in Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point”!

And then Mark and his costar retreated to the Lyman family compound.

God, I’d like to know more. Cults are fascinating. But usually they’re peopled by the easily-influenced nobodies, not musicians like Jim Kweskin.

There is so much in this book I did not know.

The revelations were not on the surface, I knew the story, but not so many of the details, the author Ryan H. Walsh makes them come alive.

You will be caught up in the mood, the time, the place if you read this book. You’ll be living in Boston in the sixties as opposed to wherever you are today. This is an amazing story. Amazing stories. Never written about in this depth previously.

But “Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968” is not brand new, it actually came out in 2018. But today you put it out there and if it’s any good it marinates in the marketplace and ultimately surfaces. Because people can’t stop talking about it.

Just like Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks.”

Maybe this is the problem with America.

At the end of the day, Pepsi sponsors a deejay at the base of Vail. Along with said deejay, they provide Pepsi itself. The Pepsi is in these round barrels with plastic covers. You can see right into the vessel where all the cans are on ice.

Knowing this from previous experience, I strode to a barrel and…it was covered with someone’s helmet and gloves. I looked this person in the eye, a middle-aged woman, not a teen punk, and she removed her wares and I reached in for a Pepsi and went inside to put on my SkiSkootys and when I looked outside, this same damn woman put her helmet and gloves back on the Pepsi barrel. Now everybody is not as experienced as me, they don’t know there’s free Pepsi, and as long as this woman keeps her stuff on top of the barrel, they’ll go without.

But she doesn’t mind.

No one minds.

Don’t tell me entitlement is only about the left. It’s everybody in America today. Everybody believes they can do whatever they want and the rules do not apply to them. On the right the excuse is FREEDOM! Freedom from society, freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want. How does that work?

And on the hill it’s not much better.

There are the people who refuse to ride the lift with others. There’s a big line, but they don’t want any singles going with them. And the singles… They’ll only go with people they determine acceptable. As for the order, alternating left to right, that’s out the window.

Maybe it’s not about political issues at all. Maybe it’s about us, Americans.

Now if you’re a youngster, you probably don’t remember the sixties, when we were all supposed to get together and love one another.

Today I’ve got a gun and if you knock on my door, beware.

And if I’ve got more money than you I don’t want anything to do with you. There’s a whole slice of life that is only accessible to the rich. Private jets, hotels… I thought we were all one country, I guess not.

So do you let someone get in front of you?

Not if nobody else does, then you feel like a chump.

And we’ve got all these business wizards telling us that to get ahead we’ve got to be aggressive, use people (er, networking), as long as it pays no one can criticize.

As for the spending bill… Elon Musk came along and got rid of research for pediatric cancer, and legislation to attack the inequities of pharmacy benefit managers! You’ve got to cut, cut, cut, after all the government wastes money and they’re taking your tax dollars.

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where people believe they don’t have to pay their fair share of taxes, and they alone should be able to decide how the taxes they do pay are spent? Once again, if we’re all in it together, we’ve got to take care of each other, pave the roads, provide disaster relief…BUT NOT IF I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT! And if it happens to me, I’m entitled to reimbursement, forget what I said previously.

CEOs are entitled to their fat salaries. Why? Because every other CEO is handsomely compensated. They’re ENTITLED to that money.

And if you go to college, you’re entitled to an A.

But if you’re looking for welfare…you’re not entitled to that, you’re going to abuse the system, you lazy f*ck, go out and work!

No one really cares about anyone else, no one is compassionate. And when caught in bad behavior, they don’t accept criticism, they just point to the other guy!

And if you’re a member of the hoi polloi…why should you obey the rules, the rich don’t, isn’t that how they got rich, aren’t they always jamming it in front of our face?

We don’t need a political revolution, we need a cultural revolution. We need our leaders to be beacons of compassion, not rip-off artists who sell multiple versions of the same damn album to fans caught up in the excitement.

Giving back?

Maybe I’ll write a check for this or that, it’ll burnish my image. But on  a regular basis? Screw that, I’m entitled to everything I’ve got and I want more.

What is end game here?

Well, we’ve gotten to the point where our country is divided politically when in truth people are people as Depeche Mode says, and in most ways we’re similar.

And then there’s income inequality, that’s the UnitedHealthcare story. People are at their limit. You can only abuse them so much.

And everybody lies with impunity. Why not, our president-to-be does. And Fox News makes fun of the people on the other side… It’s no longer about the issues, but character attack.

And, of course, the left believes it knows better. As if by going to college you learn everything about life. And if you have contempt for others, how fair and balanced are you really? All you Democrats excoriating the Trump voters… You’ve got no idea why most of them did, you’re myopic, you can’t comprehend how the other half lives.

When a society is rotten, people want a strongman.

We’ve got a rotten society, and we’ve ended up with Trump. Hell, the right adores Orban… And if that doesn’t make your head spin….

We need a readjustment, a reset.

Then again, people don’t want their kids to go to “government schools,” what we used to call “public schools.” As for home schooling…you go to school with others for the socialization, to learn how to make friends and get along with other people. But, from the get-go, there are parents who want to shield their progeny from the rest of society. You don’t learn everything in books.

Instead of making fun and hating on everybody who is not on his side, maybe Elon Musk could show a little courtesy, tell his minions that you don’t ultimately succeed by demonizing the other, but by embracing and understanding the other.

And I don’t expect you to lay down your sword, because no one else is. But we sure are ready for some leaders to show the way. Ones who embrace all Americans, not just the chosen few.

Finishing “Sail” songs and “More Famous Live Versions.”

Tune in Saturday December 21st  to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

He’s dead. And so is the person who turned me on to him.

I was riding the lift in Blue Sky Basin checking my phone. Something weird is happening in that I hear the ding when I get a new e-mail, but it doesn’t show up on the home screen. Maybe I’ll call Apple at some point, but it’s such a hassle to have to deal with the low level tech before they kick you upstairs. They ask if your device is plugged-in/charged, did you reboot, there should be a separate line for those who are tech-savvy.

Of course I researched the problem online. There’s a plethora of information there. And usually when I end up calling Apple it turns out to be a bug. But I like to have everything work perfectly, I’m trying to let go of that.

So it was sunny enough to leave my hand out of my mitten and scroll. I was reading the story in the “Wall Street Journal” about the cover-up of Biden’s cognitive abilities, and then about Elon Musk’s blowing up of the budget deal, and after cruising the WSJ, the WaPo and the NYT, I went to the LAT, the “Los Angeles Times,” which Mark McGrath quipped to me back in 2015 was a pamphlet, and now it’s even worse, the app doesn’t even lead with the big news but some trivial thing that the paper is promoting, if the LAT is your sole source of info you’re missing out on so much.

But as I scrolled down the page I saw that Slim Dunlap died. You know, the last guitarist of the Replacements. You don’t know?

The hype finally got to me and I bought “Don’t Tell a Soul.” I couldn’t understand it. Then again, it was about the earlier albums, “Let It Be” and “Tim.” This was a different era, you couldn’t hear about a band and check out their tunes instantly, you had to buy it to hear it, and sometimes you got burned with critics’ darlings.

I know, I know, you love the Mats. They’re loose and drunk and… Maybe I’ll still get it, there’s time, but it hasn’t happened yet.

But in 1993, Kevin Sutter sent Slim Dunlap’s first solo album to me and insisted I listen to it. He used to call once a week. I was starved for interaction, I was broke, I couldn’t go places.

Kevin was an independent promotion person. He’d made the rounds at the labels and this was the last stop. You worked relationships to find indie artists who would pay you and you worked them to stations oftentimes to no results. It wasn’t radically different from today, if you’re nostalgic for this era you’re delusional. Then again, back then the barrier to entry was so much higher, if you actually had a CD you probably were pretty good, had some talent, otherwise it was too expensive.

So I put on Slim Dunlap’s album “The Old New Me”…

And thirty years later I’m reading the obit in the LAT, which is quite extensive and good. It’s just not the facts.

I learned that Slim had been a cab driver, and a janitor at First Avenue.

And that Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle loved his albums.

HUH? I’d never heard that, but I subsequently did research and found out this was true, the Boss went on record in the new millennium. Then again, the Boss’s endorsement never could make a star out of Joe Grushecky. I actually bought the Iron City Houserockers’ album “Have a Good Time but Get Out Alive!” I won’t say I was the only one, but despite the positive reviews that had me laying down my cash, that album made no impact.

So Jeff Laufer had worked with Kevin, and Joe Reichling was working with Jeff over at a Capitol label and they called me not long after I’d gotten into that Slim Dunlap album and I was raving and told them I was going to play the opening cut over the phone. You know, you cranked your stereo, but…

The dynamics were such that they couldn’t hear the music! I’d laid the receiver in front of one of the JBLs, figuring they were digging it, and when I picked up the receiver they were laughing at me.

So went turning people on to “The Old New Me.”

But thinking about this, riding the Orient Express, I decided to pull up Spotify and listen to the album, if they even had it. But they did!

I pressed play and…

The music sounded small.

I was listening via earbuds. And it’s just not like listening through a big rig, with all that power, enveloping the room. That’s how rock needs to be played, not so loud that your ears hurt, but loud enough that it envelops you and demands attention.

And that’s when I thought about writing this, as I was listening to the music and the memories were pouring through my brain.

And there was something wrong with the lift. It kept stopping and starting. So I had time to let the album play out and to check the Google News for more Slim Dunlap information.

I was stunned how much there was! Most people quoted Minnesota’s “Star Tribune,” but for someone whose footprint was so small, the attention was outsized.

And this guy was full of quotes, Slim, about being a musician.

That’s what he was, a working musician. He played what was required, it wasn’t always rock, sometimes it was bluegrass.

And he talked about the long odds of making it.

And obviously he wasn’t rolling in dough, although he was married and had a few kids.

But in 2012 Slim had a stroke. I knew that. These acts that you follow, you always think they’re capable of coming back, at least you hope so. You want to hear the new music, maybe they’ve got one good fastball left. But after a stroke…

Slim could no longer play.

And now he’s dead.

And I’m contemplating all this as Spotify slips into the third cut from “The Old New Me,” “…Isn’t It.” I KNOW THIS SONG!

I hadn’t listened to it in decades, but as it streamed I remembered playing it, I realized I’d played the album multiple times. And thought about Dunlap, wondering how he survived.

Well, he lived for thirty years after that initial solo album. He actually made one more in 1996, then crickets. I mean who wanted to fund a solo album by a guy who’d been in the final edition of a band that never really had commercial success?

And there are so many of these people who’ve stopped making music, yet are still alive.

I’ve heard from many, like Jon Pousette-Dart, but what is Andy Pratt up to? But didn’t he come from a wealthy family? At least that was the rumor.

But the truth is…

If they didn’t die young from misadventure, many of these musicians are still alive. Most saw the handwriting on the wall and got day jobs. We used to respect musicians, they escaped the grind, they didn’t have to work day jobs. But now the musicians are in thrall to the billionaires, they want to be brands, it’s just not the same religious experience, the same belief.

But no one was hiring Slim Dunlap for a private. No one would buy his perfume. He’d be lucky if people bought a t-shirt.

And now he’s gone.

That’s the life of a rocker, a musician. Fame is nice, but it’s really about the playing.

At least it used to be.

“The Old New Me” on Spotify: https://t.ly/0KEna