A real white black man

A real white black man
One of a kind--never to be
Duplicated--not possible,
There was never a Mold.
They couldn't make one.
That happens rarely,
This is one time it did.
An Artist that is just that,
AN ARTIST.

Willie. This is Steve.
Hello.

Are you in New York or New Orleans?
Im in New York right now.

How is everything going?
Its very well, considering 9/11, and then New Orleans being washed away. Were still alive.

Right. I wanted to ask a little about your past, and then well go into the future.
Lets get to it.

So your birthday is August 25th?
Yeah.

Thats the same as mine. Good date. Weve got something in common already. Whatever that means.
[Laughs.]

How did you get into music, at what age?
I was very, very young. My mother said I sang before I could talk. Music always interested me. I saw Elvis on TV when I was six.

Was that when they only showed Elvis from the waist up?
The first show I saw was from the waist up. He was on twice, right?

Yeah.
I didnt notice any of that. I just noticed his singing. I was captivated by his voice. Im a fan of vocalists. That was the path for me. I was going to be an artist. I didnt know if I was going to be a painter or a writer. I ended up being a songwriter and a stage performer. It all worked out.

So you liked all the cats from Sun Records?
I was a big Johnny Cash fan.

How did you develop your own style?
That takes time, finding out who you are. You have to learn how to feel confident with yourself. You have to get comfortable in your own skin.

To say the least. Why did you pick up the guitar? Did it just happen?
I had a friend that taught me how to play the guitar. He was a few years older than me. He actually turned me onto my first marijuana cigarette when I was 12. He also turned me onto Johnny Lee Hooker. That was one of my first influences. Most people were listening to the Beatles, but I was listening to John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. I had a very good music education, from my mentors and tormentors, Jack Nietzsche to Doc Pomus and Dr. John. They were like my uncles. I always had very good influences around me. I was very fortunate to have that. I was also very fortunate to get a record contract; not a CD contract.

Vinyl.
I made records when they were vinyl and you could read the covers. I miss those covers.

They were their own art form.
When you bought a record, it was the real thing. I still have most of my vinyl records, 45s and albums. I take them and put them on cassette. I even put my important CDs onto cassettes, because I found out that CDs are not indestructible.

Plus, theres a little warmth in the tone of a cassette compared to a CD, too.
Id say theres more warmth to it. Things today are moving so fucking fast. The world is in a spin. Not only is it in a spin, its spinning backwards.

Right.
Have you heard the new record?

No. But I hear its amazing from my friends in New York.
I think its one of the most amazing things Ive done. Theres some premonition stuff on there. I have some of my Grandmother in me, which gives me second sight. Theres a song called Muddy Waters Rose Out of the Mississippi Mud. Theres another song called Trouble Comin Everyday in a World Gone Wrong. If you picked up a newspaper today, thats what the album is about, but the album was done a year ago. Its pretty amazing.

I met you ten years ago in New Orleans.
Oh, really?

Yeah. It was at a taping for a beer commercial. They were looking for a blues cat to do the commercial. I got to meet a lot of cats down there from the Neville Brothers on through. Someone mentioned that you lived down the street. Then we put you on tape. It was just a pleasure. I was really influenced by Cadillac Walk and Spanish Stroll when I was just a little kid.
We were all little kids at one time. Or maybe everyone else seemed so much older.

Thats probably it. How do you go about writing? Whats your process?
My mentors taught me little tricks and secrets, like Nietzsche and Doc Pomus. It comes with experience. It comes with always trying to stretch and do something different, without trying on a lot of different hats. You dont want to do a dance record just because dance records are popular. Stick to your guns with the conviction that what youre doing is right. If you feel it is, then do it. And dont fuck with it if it aint broke.

Where do you get your sense of style? You seem like a stylish cat.
I just have an eye for beauty. I like beautiful things. Im obsessed with them. There is so much ugliness in the world that its hard to find beautiful things. Its even hard to find a good record these days.

I dont know why that is.
Its very simple.

Why do you think?
The suits came around and took over. What does an attorney know about music? The suits took over the record business and hired a bunch of broads that look like Playboy bunnys with little Minnie Mouse voices. This is what we have as pop culture. I mean, who the is fuck Paris Hilton? What does she do? What is this person? I hope if my father owned a bunch of gas stations he wouldnt call me Little Esso or something.

[Laughs.]
Its a very shallow world of pop music, but there are a lot of people that are 40 years old and older that are still buying rock n roll records. Theres a large, big bunch of them. Im one of them. Im still a fan. Just because you turn 50 doesnt mean you have to take up the rocking chair. Thats when life gets interesting, when youre 50. I didnt think I was going to make it to 30. I think music will always stay with me. Its my passion. Itll always give me a thrill. Im still thrilled to be in the studio and Im still thrilled to perform. I love what I do. To me, when Im on stage, its like making love to a woman.

Thats a good way to put it.
Whenever I create anything beautiful, its the same. Not only that, its mine, which makes it extra special. All the records are like children. Each one has a different personality. As time goes on, and they get older, you hope that theyll all stand up to the test of time. Thats whats most important. If its sincere, and if you love what youre doing, it will. The thing is, theres a difference between the company and the artist. Those are two worlds that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but we need each other to survive. I put it this way. Lets say that you and your wife are married. You go down to the bank, get a loan and buy the house of your dreams. Do you think that fucker down at the bank cares if you and your wife fall out or she goes out and fools around on you and your marriage falls to pieces and the house goes down the shit pipe? No. He doesnt give a fuck. Neither do the record companies. You have the bankers and you have the artists. We have to work with each other and get at the meeting table and sit down. Hopefully, everyone gets up from the table happy and feeling like theyre walking away with something. Thats the way it should work.

But all the banker cares about is if a record is going to sell a certain amount of units.
Thats true for most of them. Then there are guys like me that have been around for 25 years. I make a steady living. I live very well. They dont have to get the brass band out every time one of my records comes out. Just to be a working artist, to have your stuff out there to the public is whats most important. Thats my role in life. Thats what Im supposed to do. Thats what the voices in my head tell me anyway.

Put it out there. Let people hear it.
Play on.

When did you first start recording?
In 1976.

Back in the CBGBs days?
Yeah. We got pulled out of there. Thank God. We didnt fit in. Those guys couldnt play.

You guys could play.
Yes. We could. We were a very good band. Ive always had very good bands. Ive always been very fortunate to find people who are sincere and career-minded. They just love music. Music is like a drug. Its like a weapon. Its a universal language. Its a language that anybody can love. Music creates an ambience. Its as close to reading a book as possible. You know when you see the movie and it isnt as good as the book? With records, it takes you someplace else in your mind, like a book does. Its like having a book read to you, which is always very nice, if you have someone that reads very well. If you have a good singer, a good band, a good melody, good lyrics and a beat that just wont stop, it works. Throw a little bit of alchemy in there.

[Laughs.] Right. Youre very popular in France, right?
Ive had a very good career in Europe. I was a little bit disappointed with Americans. Look what theyve done.

I cant disagree.
Its a shame. Its all about money.

[Phone cuts out]

Something happened to the connection. The Gods must not have liked what we were talking about.
Ill tell you a funny story. I was making a phone call down in New Orleans about five years ago. I put the quarter in the phone booth and it said, To complete this phone call, please deposit twenty-five cents. So I put another quarter in. Then it said, To complete your phone call, please deposit ten cents. I said, Goddamn it. I put the ten cents in. Then it said, To complete this phone call, please deposit five cents. I said, Oh, shit. What the fuck is going on here? I put the nickel in. Then all of a sudden, this mechanical voice comes on the phone and says, We can not communicate your phone call with that sort of language. I was like, Who the fuck is listening?

WILLIE DE VILLE AND BAND

• 
  
  
  

By ROBERT PALMER

Published: April 20, 1981

WILLIE DeVILLE launched his band, Mink DeVille, at downtown rock clubs like CBGB in the mid-70's, but unlike the other performers who found their initial audience on that circuit -the Talking Heads, Television, Blondie - Mr. DeVille was a New York classicist. This city's most distinctive popular music has often been a mixture of street-wise realism and sheer romantic invention, and Mr. DeVille's songs and the personality he projected had both.

He knew some of Manhattan's tougher neighborhoods, including the blocks east of Tompkins Square Park, which are the setting for some of his most arresting songs. But he had also learned from the pop music cranked out by professional songwriters in Broadway's Brill Building in the l960's, and especially from the Drifters and Ben E. King disks that populated New York's side streets and back alleys with Romeos and Juliets who wore leather jackets but were pure in heart.

In his three-piece suits, which were street-corner sharp, and his pencil-thin mustache and pompadour, Mr. DeVille could have been a character from ''Spanish Harlem'' or ''Save the Last Dance for Me.'' And perhaps he was. Certainly his music had an authenticity, a kind of New York soul, that few of his fellow travelers on the punk-rock circuit even aspired to.

Mr. DeVille's career never quite took off, despite the impressive breadth and depth of his talent. He is recording a new album for Atlantic records, having departed from his previous recording commitment under less than amicable circumstances. And on Friday night he was at the Savoy, where he demonstrated with an almost insolent ease that he is still ready for the recognition that should have been his several years ago. He has the songs, he has the voice, and he has the band. And he has expanded the scope of his music by adding elements of French cafe songs and Louisiana zydeco to the mixture of rock, blues, Latin and Brill Building soul that was already there.

Now is the time for Mr. DeVille to finally make good on his exceptional promise. One hopes he will be able to make a new album that captures at least some of the feline grace and casual mastery of shows like his performance at the Savoy.

Uri Geller - westminster movies

The Weekly News

Westminster movies

2009-08-01 4:27

The best footage was edited out. I protested. I threatened to cancel the whole documentary. But an arcane and pointless law was upheld, and the losers were... everyone.
If you tuned in at the weekend to see video film of Michael Jackson from my private archive, you saw my friend as he really was — fun-loving, shy, smart and dedicated to his fans. But you didn’t see the most incredible shots of all. I don’t know whether they will ever be aired — I understand I could face prison if I ever release them.

For most of my career, my brother-in-law Shipi has kept a record of our incredible everyday lives on camera. To start with, we made Super-8 cine movies. Shipi built up his biceps lugging those big cameras around Europe and America, and when we wanted to run the movies we had to set up a projector and a screen.
I wasn’t the only star exploring celluloid freedom by making home movies. Peter Sellers had been taping everything he saw since the start of the Sixties. Maybe he got the idea from director Blake Edwards on the Pink Panther film-set... or maybe it was something to do with being married to Britt Ekland!
As videotapes got smaller and storage got easier, we archived more and more home movies. By the time Hanna and I were married under the traditional Jewish chuppah (or canopy) at our home in 2001, Shipi was using a palm-sized digital camera. These days he records hours of footage with his mobile phone.
Much of the Seventies material has been archived onto DVD. It brings a lump to my throat to see Hanna and me as we were back then — it looks like another planet. And then Daniel and Natalie came along, and that really changed our world. Like all parents we love to watch films of when the children were young.
After Michael Jackson died, I reviewed a lot of the movies we’d shot with him. Initially it was part of my grieving process, a way of bidding farewell to my friend. And then I realised that what I had was rare, probably unique — a glimpse of Michael as he really was.
Cameras usually brought out the performer, the entertainer in Michael. It was a defensive reaction. But our friendship was so close and natural that he didn’t feel inhibited by Shipi’s incessant filming — in fact, he loved it, and he teased Shipi about getting the best angles, especially with the fans and outside Harrods.
That camera was rolling from breakfast till bedtime, wherever we went.
And it was rolling when we visited the Palace of Westminster, with my dear friend Lord Greville Janner. We had a guided tour of the Commons, and Shipi captured the moment that Michael sat on the front bench.
“Don’t sit there!” Greville barked. He began to explain that only cabinet ministers were permitted to park on those pews, but Michael was wearing his mischievous grin. I could see he’d spotted a way to have some fun.
“How about there?” he asked, pointing to the Speaker’s Chair. “Can I sit up there, Greville? No? OK... can I buy it?”
It’s all on tape. So is our visit to the Lords’ library, with its magnificent leather-bound volumes, hundreds of years old — Michael was fascinated by their antiquity. He searched their spines, looking for titles that hinted at forgotten mysteries.
When I revealed this footage for the documentary, I believed the programme-makers would recognise it as historic and candid. But I had reckoned without the iron statute that no recordings may be made inside the Houses of Parliament, apart from limited shots of the debates.
So to everyone who tuned in expecting to get the whole story, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hold anything back. But sometimes, you have to press the ‘pause’ button.


***********


When we bought our home in England, back in the Eighties, one of the big attractions for me was the swimming pool. Every day, even on icy January mornings, I loved to dive into the heated water.
For 17 years, my daily swim was part of my meditation routine.
And then one day, I stopped. I suddenly lost all desire to swim. I can’t explain it — there’s no rational reason. I simply didn’t want to... and not once in the intervening years have I ever felt an urge to swim again.
Over the years, our pool has fallen into disrepair. We kept it covered, but we stopped bothering with maintenance. Until one day, when a party of children with cancer was visiting our home, a little boy spotted the pool and asked if he could take a dip.
I felt sad as I explained the pool was empty. And I vowed that next time a child asked to swim at my home, the water would be ready.
So a local firm, Buckingham Pools, are relining a

nd paving my pool. And since we were doing that, I thought we’d get the bathrooms in the house replumbed too.
That meant digging under the marble floors... which got me thinking about the carpets. I took a deep breath and decided to replace those as well.
The strange thing is that the carpets don’t seem like an extravagance — because the bathrooms are costing us five times as much. The plumbers’ bill is unbelievable.
My son Dan is flying in from California today. I’m going to tell him he made a mistake in training as a lawyer — he should have gone for the big money and become a plumber.


***********

left to right - Roy Zaltsman, Uri Geller, Ben David and Eran Raven

It’s great to catch up with contestants from my international TV series. These three mentalists — Roy Zaltsman, left, Shlomi Ben David, and Eran Raven, right — visited my London apartment this week to talk about the power of the mind.

Shlomi, in fact, has never been on the show, though he would make a fascinating guest.  Roy was part of my very first series, in Israel, and Eran appeared in America. He’s now working for Google... I suspect he’s developing a search engine that can read your mind.

Uri Geller - westminster movies

business to butterfly « SL Ah Lian

business to butterfly

08Aug09

I think Polina-Kastner’s creations are genius, and wish the store would magically reopen. Both the military blazer and the knit vest are by Polina-Kastner, and the blazer is hand-drawn! it is so, so beautiful and sexy. The shoulder prims are way too cool. The knit sweater vest is incredibly detailed and I went back for the gray one too.

The military cuffed cutout boots are from Impossible Fashion, they have beautiful shoes that fit a little.. strangely. The designs are stunning, but the fit is…. I don’t know how to describe it, but you should try demos. The military cuffed boots with built-in-feet don’t come with demos, but I bought the boots, which were no-mod, and asked the designer for the version with skin tone-changer script, so you could do that too. It’s kind of confusing, but so worth it haha. When I saw the boots, I had to have them because Jane Aldridge of Sea of Shoes has them, the exact pair! in her shoe cupboard. Heh. I thought they were chanel but I’m probably wrong.

The mesh gloves and legwarmers in BRIGHT NEON GREEN, oh my! instant adoration. I spent a lot of money on the anuenue random vending machine. The gloves come in about 24 colors, 20L for the gloves and the legwarmers as a set! I have tons of repeats(they’re transferable though) and I want the bright turquoise pair sigh. anyone want to attack that machine and trade with my millions of extras(I have extra black, extra green, extra a lot of colors) if you get an extra turquoise?

and 69 will always be my favorite hair store, no competition. The rainbow 69 hair pack is very much beloved and always makes me happy wearing it!

Just look at the detail, down to the delicate hinges connecting the feathers to the wire, and the tiny gold studs. SHADE THRONE over drama earrings – gorgeous, huge feather, gold-studded earrings from the previous release. They are so surreal and the last thing I bought from the 20% off group sale ages ago.(Yeah, it’s extremely worthwhile to join the inworld group for 50L, you get promotions on new releases and group-only sales, as well as the group freebie!!) I was debating whether or not to get them, but they are so extraordinary and fierce that I didn’t take them off for two weeks after I got them. They really, really grew on me, and add that extra edge to any outfit.

hair: 69, color-changeable bow! ADORABLE. omg.
earrings: shade throne over drama earrings
blazer: Polina-Kastner
shorts: best shorts in the world, from zaara
navel ring: alienbear eostre belly ring
knuckle ring: FABULOUS by dango jewell girlicious knuckle ring (I still wish it said FABULOUS instead.)
ring: diamonds party ring from bandit
military cuffed cutout boots: Impossible Fashion

hair: 69, bow changes from black and white. I LOVE the color of this blonde! 69 does such unique hair textures.
gloves and legwarmers, neon green, 20L as a random set from anuenue vending machine
shoes, hoorenbeek, from MHO hunt
knit vest: Polina-Kastner

business to butterfly « SL Ah Lian