Page 12 - NYWaste-Spring2014

12 New York waste spring Issue 2014
The Rascals Once Upon A Dream
at The Richard Rogers Theatre
This opened April 18 2013 ran for three weeks
Seeing The Rascals back together after 40 years was such a rare treat.
This would not have been possible without Steven Van Zandt ‘s input as a writer pro- ducer and director.
What was truly amazing about this concert was that it was a lot more than just a regu- lar live gig.
The production had combined a film play and concert all in one.
As soon as the screen comes down as the story is set in motion out comes the Rascals
playing the song “It’s Wonderful” You then see each individual Rascal huge face on the screen talking about was it was like forming the band and how they evolved. Then after a few songs the little movies clips show 4 young actors portraying The Rascals. Each member of The Rascals were equally important. starting with Felix Cavaliere who wrote and sang most of the hit songs and played all the keyboards. Eddie Brigitte the other writer and singer also had a very strong voice. Dino Dabelli is one of the most amazing drummers and has a
unique style of swirling his sticks.
Gene Cornish grooves all those heavy guitar riffs to make the Rascals sound so distant.
What was very interesting about this show was that instead of it being a greatest hits show, in the 28 songs used in the set, there were so many great albums tracks that were never played before.
So along with hearing “Grooving”, “Good Loving”, “Lonely Too Long”, “A Beautiful Morning” and “People Got To Be Free” the crowd were treated to songs like “Find Somebody To Love”, a personal favorite of mine, that was sung by Eddie Brigitte,”Sueno”, “Its Love”, “Love Is A Beautiful Thing” and “What is The Reason”. Along with some of these psy- chedelic tunes the band was dressed in wild sixties threads was a great trippy light show, reminiscent of The Joshua Light Show and of old videos clips of the band from back in the heydays of the swinging sixties.
Once Upon A dream really captures the music of The Rascals and the 1960’s so well that t took me back to a much bet- ter time in the world when anything seems possible!
Mocca Arts Fest 2014
At The 69th Regiment Armory
The Mocca Arts Festival is one of the premier independent comics festival in the country. This annual fest, which is held every year in New York showcases some of the best cartoonists, ani- mators and illustrators from around the globe. There are also major book publishers, like Fantagraphics and Abrams that specializes in graphic art set up at
tables.
Some of these artists are seasoned well known ones and some are brand new up and coming. It’s always great to see new work from animator Billy Plympton. He was promoting his recent film “Cheatin” about star crossed lovers fight to the death to ultimately find true love. Also there was Peter Kuper , who is best known for drawing for World War 3 Illustrated Comics and also Spy Vs. Spy for Mad Magazine. Greg Kletsel’s work takes a satirical look on images like the rock group Kiss, Cat woman and Garfield the cat. He infuses them in his own styles that puts his work into a new light. Selina Brigg’s has a company called The Jelly Empire. She cre- ates the misadventures of a cute robot named jelly. There are many different images of this character. Some are made to look like a ghosts, candy or even Frankenstein. Even
thought most of them have a Halloween related theme, they are made to look very cute. Another fabulous
artists is Kate Archer, she execute these really cool print images a black cats. They are made on top quality prints and also on but- tons. An exciting new comic that previewed at Mocca was “Tales Of The Night Watchman”, this issue featured two sexy punk Rock bikini girls on the beach. Animator Lara Antal was there to pose with her comic book. Along with some films, panel discussions and book signings was a giant image of Charlie Brown hanging from the ceiling, like the balloons from The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.
Out of all these art fairs and comic book shows in New York The Mocca Art Fest is the most original and innovative!
book reviews
If You Like the Ramones... Here Are Over 200 Bands, CDs, Films, and Other Oddities That You Will Love (If You Like Series) by Peter Aaron
This is on in a series of pop cul-
ture put out by Hal Leonard
This book gives detailed descrip-
tions of different categories that
influenced of The rock band, The
Ramones. It’s begins with early Rock n’ Roll like Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, girl groups like The Ronettes and The Shangri-la’s, and British Invasion groups like The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who and The Yardbirds, Garage Rock like The Seeds, The Standells and The Chocolate Watchband. There is also a section on Bubble Gum music like The Monkees and Tommy James. The early Hard Rock groups like Grand Funk Railroad, Steppenwolf, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple are mentioned in this book. Peter Aaron also goes into Proto Punk Groups, Glam Rock, Power Pop and Hardcore music.
There is even a listing of TV show influences and movies. All of these things inspired the Ramones music.
Rock And Roll Stories by Lynn Goldsmith
Lynn Goldsmith’s amazing photographs capture the essence of rock stars as revealed
in their portraits. She has photographed every major rock star and musican from The
Rolling Stones to Alice Cooper, Kiss ,Chuck Berry, Blondie, The Pretenders, Grand
Funk Railroad and Ian Hunter etc.
What really intrigued me was that she also designed the artwork logo for Grand Funk
Railroad and filmed their video of “We’re An American Band” and shot the concept of
them naked but not showing their private parts. Lynn also changed Bryan Adam’s
clothes for his first album cover to make him look cooler. She had Ian Hunter slick
back his curly hair for a new look for his record. So unlike most other photographers
that just concentrate on the photo shoot and set up, Lynn also dressed and styled her rock stars for her photo sessions and album designs.
1963 The Year Of The Revolution by Rob Morgan & Aril Leve
The year 1963 was such a ground-breaking year in so many ways. Mainly, it was the first time that the youth culture had the freedom and money to break out of traditional values. This was mostly with the pop culture
market that was ready to explode. New British bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were banging out rebellious Rock N Roll. Folk singers like Bob Dylan were writ- ing political songs and pop artists like Andy Warhol were creating accessible art for the public, and photographers like Terry O’ Neil, David Bailey and Richard Averno were cap- turing the moment. The fashion in clothes was changing too as people like Mary Quant were designing new Mod British threads and opening stores in Swinging London like Lord John. Men in the UK started to wear their hair long and the Yanks began to take notice. Robin Morgan put together this amazing book about that time with interviews by trendset- ters like Keith Richards, Graham Nash,Terry O’Neil, Andrew Loog Oldham and Vidal Sassoon, just to name a few.
There was never such a wild time and will never be again, so sit back and trip out on 1963!