Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Fugs, Velvet Underground concert, 1968 or 9

Notes from a commentary about the album WORKINGMAN'S DEAD by the Grateful Dead.
I like WORKINGMAN'S DEAD more than AMERICAN BEAUTY, but check out the Beauty on the cover. It can also be read as REALITY.
I met the Dead and the AIRPLANE among others when going to juniour high in Boston. I worked for a folk music mag outta Cambridge called BROADSIDE. I still have copies of that mag! They co-produced a big music fest at Boston University in 1967 and brought in a bunch of San Francisco, etc hippie bands so I met a bunch at once.
When the Dead played the STANLEY THEATRE in dahntahn PGH 2 years later, I was livin' in a commune on Ellesworth Ave, near Spahr St., across from where I grew up; the DEAD performed at the Stanley(now Heinz Hall) with the AIRPLANE and the VELVET UNDERGROUND, then everyone came to the commune for a big acid party(which issa whole story in itself!). That is the period when I used to trip and walk around Shadyside nude in the daytime. Anyway, Pigpen had an aunt living in Wilkinsburg I took Pig to Wilkinsburg the next day and met his aunt.
On another track, ART TRIPP the 3rd of CAPTAIN BEEFHEART's band ended up a bussinessman in PGH!
Art is deceased; he worked downtown inna office doing accounting i think.
It was weird for the Velvets to b on the bill with the love bands but they WERE a sixties band, they came back with the FUGS and someone at the SYRIA MOSQUE not long after that.
As far as I remember, Lou only smoked weed and argued with the hippies but I think he enjoyed himself(I think it was all an act!). Jerry and Pigpen sat up on the 3rd floor and played nothing but solid blues songs! U may be suprised to know that Pig was actually a pretty good guitar player!
O yea Lou told Jerry something like: u fuckin paisleyassedflowerpickers wouldn't survive a week in Chelsea!

Another good show and afterparty was Taj Mahal, The Allman Brothers, and Little Richard at the Mosque. The party was inna big loft space in Soho!
addendum:Internet puts Art Tripp in ... Gulfport, Mississippi (as a Bone Adjuster[chiropractor], and not deceased. Do not know if it is the same Art Tripp the 3rd.

Mrs Sullivan

In my childhood neighborhood of Shadyside(1950-60 and beyond), near the southwest corner of Ellsworth and College Avenues lived the Sullivan family. Irish immigrants. Mr and Mrs Sullivan had accents; Mrs Sullivan's Irish accent was very thick. Mr Sullivan's less so.
Our area of Pittsburgh was an unique mix of Republican & Democrat, rich, upper middle and mid middle class, lower middle class & a few poor people. It was an area of predominently white, long established, families. There was a sizeable bunch of university students and artists called, at the time in the 1950s, BEATNICS and ageing BOHEMIENS( late 1930s and 1940s hipsters) renting rooms and apartments and some whole houses from the traditional inhabitants. The neighborhood along Ellsworth Avenue from Spahr Street to the east and Sumerlea Street to the west was scattered with local bussinesses, one Kroger's supermarket, coffeeehouses and a few art galleries.
But this is about Mrs Sullivan. She was a slighjtly stout Irish woman in her late forties when i was 7-10 years old. She had a husband and 2 sons.teenagers, when I was under 10 years old. All VERY conservative and highly prejudiced, Mrs Sullivan, though was an angel!
She would always have ALL of the neighborhood children and teens in for soda, tea, popcorn, TV, Radio listening(drama & comedy were still big on the radio in those days)and such, no matter the race or class. In the winter she made killer hot cocoa, toddies, baked potatoe with cream cheese, Irish soups and dishes like tripe & Shibleens and in the summer she made us all kinds of Kool-Aid, dairy drinks(and malteds), hot dogs, corn on the cob, marshmallow, pocorn, ice cream, ice cream floats, milkshakes, etc.
A wonderful woman. Her husband would say, drunkenly in front of us, "Why do you have to let the niggerkids come in with the rest ?"
She would say that that is why she married him and followed him to the U.S., so that she could live in such a way! He would tell her she was a liberal Poliana and to "wise up", but she perservered in her path! Bless her!!!
Years later in the late 1960s I was a hippie, her sons, cast more in the likeness of their father, were conservatives and we went our separate ways.
She died around 1971. RIP, Mrs Sullivan!

Late night chat with a friend from Japan

Apr 23rd, 2009

Her: Du-chan, kyoo taima kitsuen yo (Friend Duane, today I smoked weed!)

Me: I can't believe it! Doo desita ka ski desu ka (how was it? Did you like it?)

Her: Unhh (yes) I had strong feeling of comfort and contentment demo (but) the room slanted sharply but nothing fell or hit the wall!

Me: haha! hajime(1st time effect!) desu enjoy that; it won't happen much anymore.

Her: skoshee mo, hanashite shimasen yo (what's more; I couldn't speak!)

Me: HAHAHA!!!!!! amari ii taima desita yo (it was very good weed!)

Pagans MC

PAGANS: A motorcycle gang from W.Virginia/Southwestern Pennsylvania area, circa 1960s till the present. Someone mentioned them on the PGH messageboard. My response:


The PAGAN's is still around? I used to have a friend in '63 named Flip Killian, he was like 18 or 19 and was a Pagan. I was a kid. He gave me this leather armband with metal spikes and showed me how to make wristbands outta forks that cd be used for protection. So very pre-punk fashion. I had no idea. Yrs later I met his, more my aged cousin Click! He wasn't as cool cause we were more the same age. Anyway, Flip Killian, in the summer of like '66 or '7 when I came home for school vacation from Boston took me to John the Artist's apartment on Howe Street and got me laid, about 8th in line, with a hot older naked lady on smack or some shit! I never knew that it was really true that a lady could have sex with over ten guys in one setting. It was my second time having adult type sex in one week!. The 1st time was earlier in the week with a girl from Summerlea Street I had gone to grade school with.
Shadyside days!
(Shadyside is a Pgh neighborhood)

Neil Young and bands I have played in. (from a messageboard)

Click pic for full image!
Streaming Old FILLMORE Concerts and such, free. (77 views) logged in as: iratejones
new thread | messages | index | logout | change password
edit profile | upload photo | options | active users

iratejones posted this on Nov 15th, 2006 at 11:56:06 am
http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/
there is some nice shit on here.

you so swayze posted this on Nov 15th, 2006 at 12:05:08 pm
indeed. that neil young/crazy horse concert is going to be released soon, not sure if they'll be able to continue streaming it.

iratejones posted this on Nov 15th, 2006 at 12:22:18 pm
I have a funny Neil Young story. A friend of mine LANCE JONES was running the Starlake Amphitheatre before he worked for Sirius. When Neil Young played there I called up and he let me speak to Neil. I was playing some early song of his (“There was a band playing in my head and I felt like getting high”). When he recorded it I guess he didn't know that a certain chord went with what he was singing and used the right route note but not the right alteration of the chord; I told him the right chord. He grabbed a guitar and tried it and said you're right, and thanked me. I doubt that he actually took it in use. When CSN&Y played the Civic Arena with the FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS I got carted off to jail because I was hanging around the stage door and security didn’t believe I knew some of the performers and finally called the cops. David Crosby and the bass player player(Pinky)from the TBIRDS came and got me out.


jakelstrip posted this on Nov 15th, 2006 at 12:28:17 pm
hey iratejones, what pgh. bands have you played in, may I ask?

iratejones posted this on Nov 15th, 2006 at 01:03:45 pm
1st, I must say that I have met, played with, and jammed with some Jazz, but, a slew of blues and roots R&R, and R&B greats when young; most of whom have passed on!

1958-1960-2: Singing with 2 other guys on the corner in Homewood section of Pgh, Pa., where Frankstown Ave intersects with Lincoln Ave, Mead, and Enterprise Sts. Also on the corner of Ellsworth Ave. and Spahr St. in Shadyside( I was called Li'l Fabian for one thing).
1962:Singing outside the Sacred Heart School Gym after sporting events w/ Ronnie Frye, Karl Schweibens, and Mike Ainor.

1960 Started playing guitar in somewhat serious fashion.

1963-4 Playing guitar and singing back-up in a gospel band w/Angela and Francise Holt(The Golden Spirits).
Went to Boston.
1965-7 Was guest gtr of blues great, Junior Wells, at the Club 47 in Cambridge, MA.. Learned songs from local rockers, Our Boys, in an apt. near where I lived on Ashford St. in Alston section of Boston.
Back to Pgh..
1968-1970s Moon(tripped take on blues), The Da-glo Crazies (a Marijuana, LSD, Mescaline, Peyote inspired band), Gravel(early country rock band[Corbin-Hanner]), Glue & The Dustheads( acoustic instrument noise band), me and David New playing on the lawn at CMU, Billy Price and the Rhythm Kings(rhythm/lead gtr), PA Tollgate, Street Talk , Armdirrillo( C&W band) in Tempe, Arizona, some Blues band in Oakland,CA(w/ Reuben Griffin and Mr. Guest), a Mariachi band, briefly, in San Diego(replacing a sick guy on the Bajo Sexto or Guitarone(learned to play Mambo with some of these guys).
1980s Albert King, BB King and Bobby Blue Bland bands(80-81), my own 2 bands in Pgh. PA: Blues Before Sunrise and Stackhouse Blues Band, some blues band W/ Lucy Van Sickle. A lot of jamming and hanging w/ Stevie Ray Vaughan.
1990s Feral Family, Ultraviolent Radiation(all bass players[up to 5], 2 singers, a drummer), ATS(as occasional guest), LoveLeash(w/Evan Knauer on bass and various drummers in 1s, 2s and 3s), Evan Knauer Choir Orchestra, Blues Niggaz(me and Lemmy Kilmeister, one show only, at a MOTORHEAD show after party(acoustic blues. Lemmy played rhythm guitar me lead we both sang; this was at METROPOL in the Strip District section of Pgh, PA).
1998-2000s: LoveLeash, Dirty Faces( I am on the MORE LIES cd), several bands in Japan, a house Blues band in Brooklyn, NY(corner of Bedford and S 5th).
Currently(2009) playing acoustic gigs under the name Lover 29 and also occasionally with a reformed LoveLeash rock band.

Eyeglasses

Frankenstein

For me, glasses have always been a problem.

Take the white girl in the wagon(see attached photograph.) I grew up on Ellsworth Ave. in Shadyside. My summers were spent in Homewood, either at my step grandmother Baker’s house or the apartment of my uncle, John Bing. Bingzy.

I was 5 years old.

Both spoiled me deeply, leading to conflicts in adult life.

Bingzy bought me a swing set and anchored it in the yard behind his apartment in the

....block of Frankstown Avenue.

It was mine!

I asked Uncle Bingzy for it!

I remember it was primarily red.

For three days my cousins Daryl, Rodney, Anita(?) myself and the white girl swung.

At some point I became self important and suddenly snarky. While playing and swinging with the white girl, I blurted, “It’s MY swing! Get off!” I stood before her as she swung. I stepped forward. “Get OFF!”

She swung down into me, kicking my face, her shoed toes striking the bridge of my nose, breaking my glasses mid-point into halves, ripping the flesh where my glasses had split.

My mother took me up the street to the doctor’s office(imagine me crying and bawling loads.) and I was treated with stingy red liquid and stitches to my nose. I still bear the scar.

Leaving the doctor’s office, my mother saw a friend across the street and we went over so she could relate my mishap and gossip. Finishing that, she checked the traffic and walked; urging me across ahead of her. I tripped on one of my own feet and bashed my forehead into the curb and back into the doctor’s office we went(again, me howling and mewling at my mother’s hand!)! Without my glasses, my vision had suffered!

More stinging red liquid and stitches, this time to my forehead. I still bear that scar as well.

What with the stitches and my groping around not seeing well without my glasses, I began to be teased as Frankenstein’s monster! I hated it.

As a teen and as an adult, if I lost my glasses, it could be months to over a year before I was ever able to replace them.

Boston

I managed to save my glasses once, though, while boating on the Charles River in the Boston/Cambridge area.. I was 15 or so. I begged some Harvard guys to take me out on one of those racing boats that I always saw them paddling.The rivers in Pittsburgh, PA., where I was raised, were sort of swift in their careers. The Charles, one the other hand, was heavy and slow. It was renown, even in the mid-1960s, for its polution; second only to the burning Cayahuga in Ohio.

While boating out on the Charles with the older Harvard guys, I leaned over side to look into the water and my glasses dropped. Instead of swiftly sinking, they swayed seductively side to side, receding slowly.

I leaned far and down to grasp them and fell into the river, but at least now I had my glasses in hand!

The Harvard guys took me to a campus boathouse infirmary where I was given 5 or 6 shots covering around 15 diseases! "Love that dirty water(old R&R song about the Charles)!"

My glasses have saved me from punches.

I always was embarrassed and hated when my glasses were taped together or had one ear wing missing! If I didn’t have to see I would have done without.

I've done a lot of cab driving without them!

Mississippi

More recently, maybe 3 winters back, I was acting silly. Spouting forth and whipping my head about, one morning, heading for the field to do some archaeology work in Mississippi. The crew chief(Ben Goodwin) was speeding along the road and I stupidly stuck my head out of the window and my glasses went. Seven experienced field techs couldn’t find them where they settled along the road! We gave up. It costed $390 and a few days work until my glasses could be replaced; I was due for a good eye exam anyway. I also, at the time, had beefs about constantly being stuck in nowhere and not being able to drive a company vehicle around like on other projects. I complained, then went on strike and was fired. Ben had to take out time after work to drive me miles away to a train and was silently, seethingly pissed. I felt bad for him and myself! It all seemed to go downstream with the glasses incident.