SPECIAL JAPANESE INTRODUCTION QUOTE NOW:
"Maybe some of the strange times. But he, in a sloppy manner in which it is his feeling was that, like him it's like pure rock ..." JAPANESE FAN ON 'BARON Of LOVE'
'Make It Stop!
The Most of Ross Johnson'
The Most of Ross Johnson'
The PANTHER BURNS 1979 Memphis clusterfuck fomented something in its 'cult of no-personality' scene. It brought together the horde of shut-ins, and provided art-damaged therapy, propagated via Tav Falco and his unapproachable tool, borrowed from other famous cult leaders--quasi-babblespeak with plenty of musical accompaniment.
This cult called 'PANTHER BURNS,' named after an apocryphal [also cult-inspired] legend, unverifiable and orally passed from plantation to cotton field, where 'you know who' thought they saw 'you know what'--ON FIRE, smack dab in Mississippi's cottony Delta.
The lineup consisted of Alex Chilton (guitar), Tav (Gustavo) Falco (vocals, Silvertone guitar), Jim Dickinson (guitar), Eric Hill (synth), and our man of the hour--the reason we're here--the greatest one-handed, beer-drinking timekeeper since the man from Munchen held a metronome and a Weissbier simultaneously-yodeling: Ross Johnson (standup drums).
LIKE FLIES ON SHERBERT:
1978's 'LFOS', recorded at Sam Phillips Studios, mixed the following year; released as a 500-copy piped-ream in 1979 on SID SELVIDGE's, Peabody, then one year later on Aura, and finally by Patrick Mathe's French, New Rose in 1996, and which has since those markers grown into the greatest cult record of 'em all, in my opinion..
The album is divided between Chilton originals and Nashville bar band covers [think: Lower Broad, 1971, band rider includes Dexamyl].
This 'Flies' from which 'Baron of Love' is taken was remastered by Dickinson, who says it's "...as good as it's going to get," which in Memphis can mean two entirely disparate things.
ROSS JOHNSON will forever be remembered for "Baron Of Love Pt. 2"--the only non-LX vocal track on 'LFOS' [although LX makes known the spirit of the recently departed Baron/Elvis, in this, Ross's Tallboy-fueled, extempore-eulo-billy seance/monologue, like someone who's kin to Jerry Clower and Jerry Lewis/Jerry Lee Lewis on Percodan and passing the coffin].
*Orig. track from Alex Chilton's 'Like Flies on Sherbert' produced by Jim Dickinson
From Ross Johnson's Goner Records' self-defecating 25ish-year retrospective, autobiographically titled,
'Make It Stop! The Most of Ross Johnson'
John W. Sparks directed this recent montage to the original track, and for a montage to 'Baron of Love,' to say, 'i liked this better than the book,' would have been the version directed by William Eggleston, Alexander Jadorosky, and that guy that used to hang out by the 'Tennae and dance [or was that the dt's?]/
But i've gotta give it to him-- he gave it a lot of perspective for us purists to compare and contrast.