Tyler Mahan Coe presents Cocaine & Rhinestones «Addicting Country Pōdcast & Coe» Season II
(||| i have worked on this project
long and hard. I only hope its author and subject enjoy its fervency as I now celebrate its finale |)
by Sarah Larson, The New Yorker
Sarah Larson is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her column, Pocasting Depo appears on newyorker.com.
Addicting
Cocaine,
Country,
&
Rhinestones
On “Cocaine & Rhinestones,” we learn why Loretta Lynn’s song “The Pill” was banned in 1975.
In 1975, Loretta Lynn, by then an established country
singer-songwriter for more than a decade, released her single “The
Pill.”
At that point, Lynn had won hearts and raised
eyebrows with songs like “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on
Your Mind),” whose themes are self-evident, and “Fist City,” warning a
woman to stay away from her husband.
(“You’d better move your feet / if you don’t want to eat / a meal that’s called Fist City.”)
“I was the first one to write it like the women lived it,” she has said.
“The Pill,” which she didn’t write but performed with gusto, is a wife’s celebration of freedom:
“I’m tearin’ down your brooder house, ’cause now I’ve got the pill.”
The song—like several of Lynn’s singles—was banned.
In “Blow & Sparklers,” an opinionated, feverish,
in-po-tain-cast about twentieth-century American country music, written
and hosted by TyManCo, we learn why, from a progressive guy with an
arsenal of dogged research.
The Co-Man, thirty-three, grew-up country; his father is the outlaw David Allan Coe.
In childhood, T traveled with his Coe-dad’s outlaw band; in
young adulthood, he played rhythm guitar and shredded a little.
He now lives in Nashvegas.
When asked how he turned out so centered after moving
time among peripatetic outlaws and musicians, he paused
and said,
“Well, I’ve done a lot of acid.”
Also, books: as a kid on the road, he’d disappear into stuff
like James Clavell’s “Shōgun;” he’s still obsessive; often his books
have never been digitized and may never be published.
“Cōgun & Rōgun” references a thorough bibliography.
For “The Pill,” this includes Lynn’s memoir, “Coal
Miner’s Daughter,” and the collection “Feminists Who Changed America,
1963-1975.”
(Cōgun, who is currently
working on the second season of the PC, was recently invited to use the
private archives in the Country Music Hall of Fame, where he wrote a
digitized, secret e-mail.
“THERE are at
least 500 unwritten books in that room, and probably closer to 1,000
. . . Half-or-more of those books are not even written.”
The pōd has a distinct, essayist sound, narrated entirely by
PōdCōe, delivered in a tone between that of a new anchor, or TMC's
mentor-brōcaster-teacher, Malcolm Gladwell, or a prosecutor.
I often laugh while listening.
In the “Pill” episode, PōCō begins by talking about the
“Streisand effect,” in which an attempt to stop the public from being
exposed to something makes it go viral, THEN goes on to discuss the
Comstock laws, on obscenity; the history of contraception in the U.S.; a
bit of Lynn’s biography, and the lyrics and authorship of the song—all
to set up why “The Pill” was banned.
“I’m about to prove it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to a country song about birth control,” he says.
He forensically plays songs by men about birth control and abortion TO WOMEN.
“Pretty gross,” he says of callous Harry Chapin lyrics.
“But it was not banned.” None of the men’s songs were. There’s a double-standard in music, he explains:
“Men have to go way over the line. All women have to do is get near it.”
He plays FURTIVE samples of banned songs by women, including Jeannie C.
Riley’s hit “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” about a mother telling off a bunch
of small-town hypocrites. (Mindbogglingly, Cosign gives that song a
three-episode deep-dive in season UNO.)
By the end of the episode, he’s proved his point, case closed:
“Female artists have their songs banned simply for standing up to society, or for fighting back.”
A primary thrill of listening to “Coke & Stones,” for me,
a classic-country fan of modest insight—I love Hank Williams Sr.,
Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, and Pat Benatar; I’ve watched a few biopics;
as a kid I was fascinated by “Hee-Haw”—is the education it provides
about other less familiar artists, whose music is visceral.
(if you can explain that sentence, i'll blow ya - ed.)
(Plenty of music lovers know all about the Louvin Brothers and Doug and Rusty Kershaw; I do not.)
Another provides cultural context; each story reflects larger
themes about the artistry and business of country music. And MC CoCo’s
writing—like a good country song—is provocative.
“Those bastards deregulated radio in the Telecommunications Act of
1996; Buck Owens’s vocal delivery is “stabbed-in-the-back-sincere; a
racist song about school desegregation ends with a chorus of, I assume,
ghost-children, singing ‘My Country ’Tis of Thee.’”
As the acid
kicks in, we both laugh at the absurdity of life. I question my own
journalism, and wish I could be more like Hunter T.
In
one of my favorite episodes, about Bobbie Gentry’s eternally mysterious
“Ode to Billie Joe,” from 1967, Coe develops a catarrh in one eye, an
inward view of his "self;" eyes stare through distance, presciently,
decoding a past recording session on a dark night before his birth.
“You can tell it isn’t going to be a normal song right away, from those wheezing violins' intro.”
The arranger “was working with an unusual crew of four violins and two cellos.”
One
of the cellists pizzicatied his unwell beast, “while the others weave
in and out, like Steve McQueen in Bullit, responsive to drama.”
The
denouement is unknown to the A-team; cinematic, the strings rise up, up
to the bridge “with the narrator up on Choctaw Ridge to pick flowers,”
and down, “when the he throws the flowers down.”
I get a chill. Suddenly Tyler, the Oracle's chin hits his chest --his breathing shallow.
He continues weakly, "We hear them, falling eerily, and they chill us."
In
the past I tried resolving my internecine preoccupation with “Ode to
Billie Joe,” where a childhood oldies station still plays in my head.
I needed to discover the protagonist, Billie Joe, and the package.
What were
they throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge; searching for Gentry;
watching for inchoate clues, the horrible 1976 movie mocking the song’s
success, no one satisfied my quest, until listening to
“Coke & Tone.”
TMC both celebrated the song’s mystery and provided
me insight into its strange puissance.
I ask Podcone about his style; he doesn’t sound like many other P-ghosts.
“I would describe it as performative,” he mutters, "explicitly performative!"
- "You're [hereby] fired."
"I now pronounce you man and wife."
"I order you to go!" "Go—that's an order!"
"Yes" – answering the question. "Do you promise to do the dishes?"
"You are under arrest" – putting me under arrest.
"I christen you."
"I accept your apology."
"I sentence you to death."
"I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" (Islamic: see: Talaq-i-Bid'ah)!
"I do – wedding."
"I swear to do that." "I promise to be there."
"I apologize."
"I dedicate this..." (...book to my wife; ...next song to the striking Stella Doro workers, etc.).
"This meeting is now adjourned." "The court is now in session."
"This church is hereby de-sanctified."
"War is declared."
"I resign" – employment, or chess.
"You're [hereby] fired."
He was influenced by “the Radio”—dramatic radio shows from
his childhood—“specifically Paul Harvey, ‘The Rest of the Story’"
—which, when I heard it in the eighties, felt like it had been beamed
there from the forties—“and Art Bell, the guy who does ‘Coast to Coast
AM,’ which has gotten super political and weird now, but when I was a
kid it was on AM radio overnight, which meant clear airwaves; you could
pick it up in most of the country.”
Bell had a “weird
voice,” Coe said, and listeners would call in to talk to him about
normal things like about ghosts, alien abductions, and telepathy.
“We had a driver who loved listening to it,” he said. “You’d
be driving through the night to the next town, through the middle of
nowhere, just headlights on the road in bitumen-molasses-darkness, and
all the adults are on the radio having conversations about stuff, and
they sound dead serious.”
That mood made an impact.
On “Coe & Rye,” he wants to evoke of it.
He records his vocals overnight in a basement when it’s quiet outside.
“Just me alone in the dark, talking to a microphone. I'm nobody. My father was a rusty nail!"
"Every night I hope and pray a Dream Lover will come my way..."
Ford Foundation Funds
Kustom Kar Kommandos
Fetish Feature Film
KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS
Like an auto emblem, the title appears against a pink backdrop in gold letters. The title is deliberately misspelled, replacing the three C’s with K’s. KKK stands for Klu Klux Klan; another group of associated with white male togetherness and the word Kommando is derived from Commando, which means members of a trained military unit. In both ways the title suggests togetherness and violence, and also implies a relationship between togetherness of two men with sadomasochism as does the film Fireworks (1947, Kenneth Anger). As far as KKK...KAOS KERAUNOS KYBERNETOS: Liber KKK is the first, complete, systematic magical training programme for some centuries. It is a definitive replacement for the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, which system has become obsolete due to its monotheist transcendentalism and its dependency on repressive forms of inhibitory gnosis now considered inappropriate [we'll leave it there.]
Two boys are seen checking on a perfect engine, highlighted by stunning orange and pink pastel colors. The darker, Italian-looking boy is in black. The other boy (Sandy Trent) is wearing a white tank top and jeans. An engine roars. 'Kar's' door opens, revealing hot rod's insides and red vinyl seats with white piping. Sandy's muscular body rises between twin dual cam-heads. He rises slowly with his tremendous basket next to the silver engine. With his hands on his hips, the camera closes in on his crotch...implying these two things work in tandem: the car’s engine has ultimate importance to the car and the boy’s crotch has ultimate importance to the boy. While wiping down the car the boy is totally detached from the film as a recognizable figure, only his body is seen and not his face. As the boy is fetishizing the body of the car, Anger is fetishizing the boy as well.
KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS is [not surprisingly] something to Drag about, at least, automotively speaking, or the fun-filled, Teensville-take on typical, mid-sixties' pompadoured, powder-puffed, chromed-out Hot Rodders, Ford bargained for.
That which survives is an ode to a young man and his car.
"The All-Chrome Ruby Plush Dream Buggy," is the only filmed segment of a larger work that Anger abandoned because the main actor died in a drag race and funding dried up [this fragment would have formed the nucleus of the sixth of its eight parts].
Through this vehicle, 'The Sisters' evoke their Dream Lover, as Crowley may have, Thelema, during his Egyptian honeymoon: an Occult Charioteer with longing and illusory attainment of some unknown ideal.
...In an hallucinatory shot, 'the Maker' [as Anger refers to Sandy Trent in his own notes] regards his reflection narcissistically while this auto erotic shot compares Kar/Male/Female genitalia, like a game of Doctor, or more aptly, Mechanic. Most notably and yet still subtly, two chrome-plated engine cylinders literally reflect his groin like huge steel balls.
Anger's greased, gliding, camerawork, has the caressing delicacy of feathered down, commingled with giant, twice-brushed, white-powder-puffed, erotic gusts of incantatory, incarnated spirits!
The camera pans down to the California license plate, KBL 852 [the numbers in the license plate add up to 15... The Devil, from the tarot trump - more about magick significance later]. A gust of wind gently flutters the powder puff as it rises up out of frame. The door opens and Sandy gets in, shoeless, with sky-blue socks; with his legs slightly raised, he pumps the pedals.
He revs the engine, loosens the clutch, and shifts the gears. Seen mostly in profile, Sandy is a remnant of the Dick Dale surf era, with his neat, oiled pompadour. He accomplishes the act of looking pristine without being prissy, a rare accomplishment for a grease monkey. Dreyer says in his essay Underground and After, "The idea of dressing up as the assumption of an identity may be related to Jack Babuscio’s discussion (1977) of the ‘gay sensibility’ which stresses the absolute importance of mastering appearances and assuming identities in a gay life where passing for straight (assuming a straight appearance) is so critical." The car is essential in not only helping to create a couple but also in constructing the identity of the boy taking care of the car; it is his reflection.He is also freshly bathed. The work has been done. He's ready to ride his baby. A human could never compete with the dead, impassive perfection of the car... He smirks a little and blinks a lot.
The campily saturated images and pinky backdrop glows complete the womb-like, sexual imagery by enveloping 'Maker' and 'Kar'. To extend the birthing metaphor, the film ends with revved car and "Maker" appearing in an implosion of pink, azure, and red.
'Maker' and Kar are one.
The final sequence shows 'Maker''s face, serene and impassive [as if directed by unconscious forces], revving the engine again [echoing the film’s beginning sound and reinforcing the idea of coupling, not just in the film’s structure but also because the revving engine reminds the viewer to associate that sound with the two boys together] and driving off, hot-rod engine roaring.
ANGER is seen in yellow as someone politely polishes a hood ornament.
Crew
- Dreamed,
- Written,
- Directed,
- Produced,
- Photographed,
- Edited
Kustom Kar Kommandos — "The All-Chrome Ruby Plush Dream Buggy"
as itself
Sandy Trent as "the Maker"
— Music by The Paris Sisters
Camera assistant: Arnold Baskin.
Filmed: San Bernadino, CA
RINGO STARR CHIPS MOMAN SEND Pete Drake Video Message PLUS Moman Pickets Memphis Commercial Appeal Over Ringo Defamation [1987]
this little gem was found unmarked by a wonderful Memphis videographer, and lo and behold, through persistent viewing through reams of b-roll, i discovered this never-before-seen personal video message from Ringo Starr and Chips Moman to Pete Drake, wishing him the best for an unnamed award circa 1987. [Ringo and Chips were in Memphis preparing to record Ringo's Memphis album, which would soon be aborted and end in legal problems.]
the 'Pete' Ringo refers to, regarding finding country tapes in his car, is indeed, Pete Drake, who was the Nashville record producer responsible for convincing Ringo to cut a country record in Nashville with Nashville players, all on the basis of his coincidental discovery of Ringo's country music collection, discovered while picking him up at the airport. [their record became Beaucoup of Blues, winning more than a few top 10s, as well as critical accolades.]
"HIS NAME IS PETE Drake. He got the brilliant idea one time to make his steel guitar talk and he actually does it, right now, with a beautiful song, Forever."
You may also recall from a few previous posts, Pete Drake's own otherworldly contributions as top session man and inventor of the talking steel guitar [eg. Forever], played with his talkbox, connected to his pedal steel guitar.
Born in Augusta, Georgia in 1932, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, Pete Drake worked as a record producer and sought-after session musician in the ’60s in country music mecca Nashville, Tennessee (it's his pedal steel guitar you can hear on Charlie Rich’s Behind Closed Doors and Bob Dylan's Lay Lady Lay).
However, he is also one of the little-known heroes in the history and development of the voice synthesizer most commonly known as the Vocoder, as outlined in Dave Tompkins' beautiful and meticulous 2011 history of said voice-altering tool, How To Wreck A Nice Beach.
Drake was not the first to modulate a steel guitar sound with the human voice. That honour goes to Alvino Rey and his wife Luise in 1939, who used a carbon microphone placed against the throat (a prototype version of the Sonovox).
But Drake successfully modified and updated the technique, hooking an eight-inch paper-cone speaker-driver and funnel to his guitar amp, the guitar sound travelling to Drake's mouth via a clear plastic tube on the end of the funnel.
Drake first used the device on Roger Miller's 1963 hit, Lock, Stock And Teardrops before recording three albums worth of "talking steel guitar" records between 1964 and 1965.
George Harrison was a fan. Drake's talking pedal steel appears on All Things Must Pass and the Nashville producer's skills were subsequently employed on Ringo’s 1970 C&W tribute, Beaucoups Of Blues.
Oh, and in in case you were wondering who was responsible for Pete Frampton picking up the voice box for his mega-million selling double live album, Frampton Comes Alive, well that would be Pete Drake. But don't hold that against him. The man was an innovator.
Just listen to him here in the studio with George, Ringo and Phil Spector during the ATMP sessions and tell me that you're not hearing the sonic birth of Roger Troutman's Golden Throat Talk Box.
the remainder of the clips document the shitstorm that a Memphis commercial appeal writer caused when she denigrated Starr in one of her columns just as the famous Beatle was arriving to give the dying Memphis music scene a shot in the arm, causing Chips in disgust [Memphis musician and studio genius from the '60s and '70s] to picket in front of the CA's office.
tpa
Video sent by mrjyn
In 1987, after the The Commercial Appeal ran a column about Ringo Starr, whose album Moman was producing, Moman fought back.
The Commercial Appeal column disparaged Starr (saying "the aging Beatle was yesterday's news...least talented of all the Beatles").
Moman retaliated by staging a protest in front of the newspaper's offices.
Despite recording, Starr eventually abandoned the project and sued Moman to stop the album's release.
One place he doesn't visit is Memphis. "I've stayed away," says Moman, in an easy drawl.
MOMAN AND STAX:
Moman and Jim Stewart hit it off, and decided to join forces to start what would become Satellite, and eventually, Stax Records. Moman played a pivotal role in Stax's development. He recorded the label's initial hits, and turned Stax from a white country music company into a Soul label.
Stewart and Estelle Axton brought that to an end in 1962. Axton and Stewart suggested Moman was seeking credits and money he didn't deserve.
MOMAN'S AMERICAN SOUND STUDIOS:
A few thousand dollars was enough to start at 827 Thomas--American Sound Studios.
Moman struggled producing & playing guitar @ Muscle Shoals, writing songs with Dan Penn [Dark End of the Street]...
The studio hit its stride when Moman wooed members of Hi Records and Phillips to form American Studios group: Reggie Young, Gene Chrisman, Bobby Wood, Bobby Emmons, Mike Leech and Tommy Cogbill. A succession of hits like the Box Tops' ("The Letter"), and, most famously, Elvis Presley's ("Suspicious Minds") brought fame.
Between 1967 and 1972, American cut 122 chart records.
thanks to the original poster for this unusual and obscure document, and i'll try and backtrack to let you know who it was, as there are many more very rare Memphis video artifacts contained on his channel.
WATCH Doug Easley play The Greatest with Cat Power (Austin City Limits) ALSO I shame bandmates and friends of Doug Easley for not liking this in October!
This video was taped for "Austin City Limits" Season 32, Episode 10, featuring "The Raconteurs" followed by "Cat Power."
I do not own anything here - I'm just sharing greatness!
Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall (born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name, Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model.
Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her moniker as a solo artist.
The Greatest is the seventh studio album, debuting at #34 on the Billboard 200, her highest charting album at the time.
The Memphis Rhythm Band includes Roy Brewer, Teenie Hodges, Steve Potts, Dave Smith, Rick Steff, Doug Easley, Jim Spake, Scott Thompson and Susan Marshall.
String arrangements were contributed by Harlan T. Bobo and Jonathan Kirkscey.
The Greatest won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor.
It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Personnel
Chan Marshall – vocals, piano, guitar
Mabon "Teenie" Hodges – guitar on all songs except "Hate"
Leroy Hodges – bass (on tracks: 1, 3, 8, 12)
David Smith – bass (on tracks: 2, 4-6, 9, 10)
Steve Potts – drums
Doug Easley – guitar, pedal steel
Rich Steff – keyboards, clavitone, piano, organ
Jim Spake – saxophone
Scott Thompson – trumpet
Roy Brewer – violin
Johnathan Kirkscey – cello
Beth Luscone – viola
these people forgot to like this song originally: Ross Johnson Misti Lombardi Alex Greene Samar Goat-boy Lorrento Lori Greene Jim Spake Peter Nicholas Hyrka