Take Me Home And Make Me Like It
| session 293 -- LXC '78 |  | |
| artist: title | notes | file size |
| Ork EP: 1. Free Again 2. The Singer Not The Song 3. Take Me Home And Make Me Like It 4. All Of The Time 5. Summertime Blues Lust/Unlust 45: 6. Can't Seem To Make You Mine 7. Bangkok one swell foop | simulated recreations: 1-5. Singer Not The Song EP (Ork 81978, 1978); pr. John [sic] Tiven 1. wr. Chilton & Tiven 2. wr. Jagger & Richard 3. w: Chilton, Deluca, Graflund & Davis, m: Chilton & Tiven 4. wr. Chilton & Aldridge 5. wr. Cochran & Capehart 6. Lust/Unlust 1250, 1978; wr. & pr. Chilton 7. Lust/Unlust 1250, 1978; wr. Saxon; pr. Chilton courtesy GS & MGS obits by: Robert Gordon Jeff Breeze click pix to enlarge (incl. backsides) | 27.7 |
JON TIVEN, THE MAN AND THE MYTH!
![[YANKEES.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIgL7YLLLskEtpOvI6Ae33X0DMoM3FbeISNP1ffdYI83vxBvdt4P2boIhUgZRuymxXKTTq-inKDfhTJVpJiCuy1bCcaafNgjaYDhXQGqNkXfu7GD7RlqYFxij_JRH5dqV3vjQQ/s640/YANKEES.jpg)
Y'know, I never really understood why there was a whole lotta venom and general animosity directed towards the noted rock critic, fanzine editor, producer and music-maker Jon Tiven throughout the years, even continuing well into these very days long after you would have thought any controversy associated with the man would have fizzled out to the point of oblivion. And of course it's true that perhaps there could have been some anger directed at the man regarding certain opinions directed towards a number of musical acts that some of us may have disagreed with, but that's (at least on the surface) no reason for anybody to call for the man's head like they have. I mean, look at Lenny Kaye who is one of my all-time fave rockscribes, and true he was one of the big champions of such things as garage band rock and its twisted child punk, but even a casual reader of CAVALIER can tell you about the times he would be praising to the rafters everyone from the Grateful Dead to JAMES TAYLOR and yet I never saw anyone comin' for him with the pitchforks and torches! Let's face it, none of the explanations that various rockscribes in the know (Bernard Kugel, Byron Coley...) really explain just why Tiven has been given such a bum rap lo these many years!
And I'm still not comprehendo as to eggsactly what that big feud between Tiven and TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTEer Adny Shernoff was all about, and true I've heard stories about how it was a "rich Jew/poor Jew" sorta enmity (sounds like a seventies miniseries!) and somethingorother about a review Tiven wrote that really got Shernoff's Irish in an uproar but let's just say that in typical LOST IN SPACE fashion I do not compute! And howzbout the time when Tiven went to visit noted bigtime rock writer and then-NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS contributor Richard Meltzer and his then-galpal Roni Hoffman at their En Why See apartment and after that not only would Meltzer not want to have anything to do with the guy, but he continually started berating the Subject in Question whenever he had the opportunity whether it be in his review of Paul Williams' DAS ENERGI in the pages of FUSION, or who could forget Meltzer's letter to Shernoff's own fanzine where we're all let in on the dirty deal behind this meeting which resulted in Tiven only managing to take one bowel movement during the time and not flushing the commode (mechanism was broke...you hadda reach into the tank to pull the chain which Tiven was unaware of), but Meltzer describing the contents of the bowl which, besides his detailing the size and color of the doody in question, we are told contained nary a shred of toilet paper! Of course, insult was added to injury by Shernoff's response regarding how maybe Tiven had either used his hand, or "in an economy move" eaten the toilet paper and how in the more fashionable areas of New Haven it is the duty of the maid to wipe the hineys of family members. (And strange as it may seem, occasionally Meltzer would still be listed amongst the masthead as a "contributing editor" well into the last year of NHRP's run! Go figure!!!)
And there's also the story about how Alex Chilton had threatened Tiven with a serious thrashing after the latter did somethingorother to offend the former Box Top singer (I think it had something to do with the appropriation of Chilton's Ork Records EP tapes and reissuing them with overdubs...memory's kinda hazy on this 'un!) plus a few other things that have been flying about but hey, if anything all of these stories I've heard about Tiven, perhaps because of how vague they are this long after de-facto, not-so-surprisingly enough tend to make me want to sympathize with the man himself! Now I'm sure this is something that would surely arouse the ire of a Tiven-hater such as Bill Shute, but the way I look at it is here's a man who not only created the first real rock & roll fanzine (NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS which predated WHO PUT THE BOMP! by almost a year, and I dunno if the original CRAWDADDY and MOJO NAVAGATOR could be considered true fanzine-y reads per-se) which helped him springboard to a career as a rock journalist in bigtime publications such as FUSION and ROLLING STONE and who can hate this modern-day Horatio Alger for doing just what a whole generationfulla fanzine upstarts only wish they coulda! Plus, like all of the cool rock writers of the day Tiven also had his own late-seventies punk band (OK, powerpop but we're talkin' "punk" as a strict blow against the established AM/FM-dolt-cum-cover band mentality of the day) so mebbe we should give him just a wee bit of slack for once???
But still the slings and arrow come, and frankly for a guy who hadda dodge more'n a few of those things myself it's kinda like I even have a strange sorta affinity for Tiven. Maybe I'll know better when the comments start rolling in telling me about all the horror stories surrounding the man or maybe not, but for now I gotta say that I'm gonna rah-rah for the guy if only for the fact that he unleashed a long line of NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS fanzines which do make for advanced rock reading as well as an album by his late-seventies group the Yankees, an act that although nowhere as attention-grabbing as a lotta what was coming outta the garages of USA (and elsewhere) back in the late-seventies sure comes off sweet and smooth a good three decades later! And how often can you say that about a good portion of similar-minded pop-rock of a late-seventies variety?
(Well, it's not like I'm exactly an expert on the wide range of power-popping music so maybe I should refrain from that previous statement until I at least slip on my old Pezband album and give it another go 'round.)
Naturally it was that recent arrival of those long-anticipated fanzines at my door and into my life (the one that yielded that boffo SPOONFUL which was reviewed earlier this week!) that got me on my current NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS kick. Now I've been familiar with the mag before, and in fact I already own about five other issues of this mag which include a good hefty portion of writings from the likes of Meltzer (on Yoko Ono, and I'm surprised that she didn't sue!), Tosches (including the ish where he actually printed Ono's phone number, and there's even an article in an early-seventies CREEM about the time Brian Cullman or one of their lesser-knowns actually got her number from this NHRP, called her up and played a bitta accordian music for the lass!) and Greg Shaw. I don't have the ish which included an actual Fillmore East poster because those go for magnifico bucks these days, but at least I got the one with the free movie and that's gotta account for something!