Category Archives: heart broken

TICKETS TORN IN HALF July 17,1970: NY POP FESTIVAL @RANDALLS ISLAND

17 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized, Rock music, rock music trivia, heart broken, #WhiteBoyBlues, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Delaney,Bonnie and Friends, jazz-rock, The Grease Band, Ticket Stubs, Ten Years After, John Sebastian

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TICKETS TORN IN HALF July 17,1970: NY POP FESTIVAL @RANDALLS ISLAND

JULY 17: NY POP FESTIVAL @ RANDALL’S ISLAND The promoters of this event, as crooked as they were, thought they could recreate the Woodstock festival on Randall’s Island, an island in the middle of the East River. Many of the “scheduled” acts did NOT show up and the local radical groups made the atmosphere worse by encouraging gate crashing. One saving grace about this weekend was that at least there wasn’t any mud like Woodstock but this was a disaster nonetheless. Delaney Bonnie and Friends did not show, No Richie Havens, no Ravi Shankar (Thank goodness) and the band I was anticipating, one of the head liners for Saturday night, TONY WILLIAMS LIFETIME WITH MILES DAVIS AND ERIC CLAPTON was nowhere to be found, actually the band did not exist, shows you how crooked these promoters were. Joe Cocker cancelled but Sly and The Family Stone was to be his replacement. Sly, as usual was late, so late that the crowd would still be waiting.They didn’t show either. That was a sham and a scam. The bands that did show played quick, mostly uninspiring sets, knowing they were NOT getting the promised big paydays or paid at all. Many bands felt a kinship to the audience which got angrier at every announcement canceling the next act. It was getting real nasty fast.  Grand Funk played a few recognizable tunes then a drum solo which seemed to last for days. John Sebastian was well….John Sebastian. Cactus showed some promise, Ten Years After (yes again) did their usual set, and the NY Rock ENSEMBLE closed out the evening.  Bottles were thrown at the stage, a garbage can set afire, etc, etc. We were supposed to camp out with our group of friends but heeded the warning in the crowd to GET OUT, so home we all went.

NOTE: My remaining ticket, the Jimi Hendrix night, was sold on eBay years later for $250.00 cash.

TICKETS TORN IN HALF July 12,1973: VAN MORRISON and The CALEDONIA SOUL ORCHESTRA @ AVERY FISHER HALL

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by in heart broken, Kevin Patrick, Rock music, rock music trivia, Ticket Stubs, Uncategorized, Van Morrison

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TICKETS TORN IN HALF July 12,1973: VAN MORRISON and The CALEDONIA SOUL ORCHESTRA @ AVERY FISHER HALL (aka Philharmonic Hall) We had great seats, left side of stage about seven rows back. A pre-show dinner at a snazzy restaurant across the road where my brother thought it a good idea to take packs of DOMINO sugar to throw during Van’s rendition of DOMINO. I didn’t think it was a particularly good idea. And I was right as  Kevin Patrick’s antics almost got us tossed out of the show. Van’s band was fantastic, as in really fantastic and he closed with a 12 minute plus version of CYPRUS AVENUE, whew. I was really impressed by the entire show. A TOP TEN kinda show. John Platania on guitar was amazing, the horns, fantastic and VAN THE MAN at the top of his game, bringing all to NYC to “bring the house down” which he did.

TICKETS TORN IN HALF: June 27, 2000-BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and THE E STREET BAND @ Madison Square Garden

27 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Bruce Springsteen, heart broken, Madison Square Garden, Rock music, rock music trivia, Ticket Stubs, Uncategorized

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TICKETS TORN IN HALF: June 27, 2000-BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and THE E STREET BAND @ Madison Square Garden

My Mom had died a few months prior and my good buddy Chris took me to this show to help me through my grieving process. We had an early dinner at Smith and Wollensky’s Steak House, soup to nuts with plenty of cocktails. Assuming we had time for dessert before the 8 O’clock show, we noticed show time was 7PM. No dessert, swallowed our cognac, paid the bill, and grabbed a cab cross town arriving at THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS ARENA in what seemed to be record time. Since this was before the tragic events of September 11th, security at the door was minimal, we grabbed a beer before being seated just as the lights dimmed. Bruce and the band did 24 songs that night. ( there is a youtube video of the entire show available as well as a setlist on setlist.com)

R.I.P.-Lorraine Gordon- VILLAGE VANGUARD

10 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by in EarlyJazzHistory, heart broken, VILLAGE VANGUARD

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(NYTIMES) Lorraine Gordon, who took over the Village Vanguard, New York’s oldest and most venerated jazz nightclub, in 1989 and remained its no-nonsense proprietor for the rest of her life, died on Saturday. She was 95.

The cause was complications from a stroke, said Jed Eisenman, the longtime manager of the club.

“Wherever I happened to be,” Ms. Gordon said in a 2007 interview with The New York Times, “music was always with me.”

Ms. Gordon was married for 40 years to the Vanguard’s founder and owner, Max Gordon. But she had been a jazz fan long before she met him. She fell in love with jazz as a teenager in the 1930s, listening to it on WNYC radio. The music pierced her soul, she said, “like a spike in my heart.” It was the start of a lifelong romance.

KEVIN PATRICK HODGKISS

16 Friday Feb 2018

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KEVIN PATRICK HODGKISS

As the final notes of Prince’s NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU cascaded into the foggy air surrounding the hillside, a gaggle of geese serenaded us. The bagpiper who accompanied us for the morning, slowly walked away leaving us to experience the beautiful music that nature now segued into our day. We remained virtually silent, knowing it was so apropos, almost as if the great disc jockey now residing in heaven, known to his friends as Kevin and our family as Patty, had planned this sonic event.

In a few hours it will be one full week since I received the phone call. While in the back of my mind I knew that one day the dreaded phone call would be received yet when you receive it one is never fully prepared. With my eyes full of tears, with my hands trembling I hung up the phone and told my wife we needed to head home. The 700 mile journey north was rain filled as if the heavens felt our pain and needed to cry.

The next call was received during our journey, the call I dreaded most, my baby brother left us. His pain has ended, his fight over. His love endures, forever.

The first signs of illness for my brother occurred about 1977 when he was 25 years old. His kidneys for whatever reason stopped working. Medicine prescribed at that time was heavy doses of a diaretic which did not work. At that time he was working upstate New York as an elementary teacher, 11 hours from his home base, Mom and Dad’s place on Long Island. He drove home, never stopping once to relieve himself as his kidney function was non-existent. Arriving at our childhood home he beeped the horn of his yellow Volkswagon continuously until our father realized it was my brother’s call for help. Dad had to physically help him out of the car as Pat’s (which we called him) legs and lower body were fully swollen making him unable to walk. My brother was rushed by my father to the hospital where the staff had to cut his pants off of his swollen legs before any treatment could take place.

Diagnosed with the non-permanent kidney dysfunction the appropriate medicine was administered and after a few days my brother was home with my parents recovery. Follow up appointments were made and during one routine examination a lump was found on the left hand side of my brother’s neck. He was scheduled for surgery the morning of New Years Eve day. That night we expected to see the rockabilly act Robert Gordon. I still have the tickets. The phone call came for my brother about 6 o’clock that evening when he informed me that the diagnosis was Hodgkin’s disease.

It’s been a long haul for him since then, having had to experience not only radiation treatments but two separate extensive Chemotherapies over the subsequent years, one which was quite experimental for its time. Life expectancy was 14 to 20 years so I should be happy he beat those odds, but I’m not. Seems the chemo eventually wore away the walls of his heart, the organ not his spirit, a side effect which was never anticipated. Hey, he was’t supposed to last this long so the doctor’s of Hodgkin’s disease assumed when they administered the chemo but they never met my brother, the fighter.

Forty-one years later we bury my brother on a beautiful hillside in his adopted home of New Paltz ,New York. That man lived life to the fullest and it was obvious by the love and admiration he received, the tributes paid to him during this past week. One only had to see the line at the funeral home on Valentine’s Day no less, the church filled with people, the recessional of The Beatles LET IT BE played and sung by the pianist,and the line of cars in procession to his final resting place. Oh, this is all so appropriate and so my brother.

His lovely wife and two sons, his family and friends, we will miss him. Blizzard his dog is still waiting by the front door. The sound of his voice might be gone, his physical presence no longer to be seen, but his spirit and enthusiasm will never leave us.

God take you into heaven, Kevin Patrick, and look down smiling, knowing how much you impacted us with your love.

ONE OUT OF EVERY 40 SONGS IS A TOM PETTY TUNE…

09 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in AMERICAN GIRL :Tom Petty, heart broken, Led Zeppelin, Rock music, Tom Petty

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ONE OUT OF EVERY 40 SONGS IS A TOM TUNE

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers is a strange anomaly in the music business.The band was hitting the scene out of Gainesville, Florida as our great nation was celebrating The Bi-Centennial with 1976 being a year in flux, musically.  Check the BILLBOARD album charts and see how we the record buying public were all over the place: Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, Bob Dylan’s DESIRE, Eagles Greatest Hits (71-76), Led Zeppelin’s PRESENCE, Wings,The Stones, FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE, FLEETWOOD MAC and Stevie Wonder’s amazing SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIVE. Who in their right mind would want to challenge that line up. Hey, I was enjoying shows by TODD RUNDREN who was morphing into UTOPIA at the time, Frank Zappa, Bowie, and The Stones of course.

Then 1977 has only two albums that control the charts for most of the year, HOTEL CALIFORNIA and Fleetwood Mac’s RUMOURS. 1978 was also stagnate in chart movement with RUMOURS continuing its long run at the top followed by two soundtracks SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and GREASE. Billy Joel ends the year with his 52nd STREET.

So, How does TP and The Heartbreakers get into the mix?

Kudos to Sasha Frere-Jones for her insightful VILLAGE VOICE piece of October 3, 2017 describing the radio audience that TOM PETTY walked into circa 1977-1980. Her article helped me further understand the music business/radio dynamics of that time.

This period was one of a changing environment in radio. Within months stations started the labeling of artists, categories which did not exist before. And Program Directors were pigeon holing artists as well as attempting to define their specific audience’s tastes.  At this date we also witness the demise of free form radio hosts, my radio idols at the time, those willing to play anything and everything unconditionally. The pre Classic Rock format is slowing developing as stations were searching for identities, attempting to capture listeners by their tastes and grabbing the almighty advertising dollars.

 

Into this radio scene, albeit a confusing one, (1977) AMERICAN GIRL is released, a recording lost in the crossfire of the emerging “punk” rock and what Program Directors now defined as “rock”. How does one define this recording or better yet, WHY define it?

For me AMERICAN GIRL was a great record upon release, kinda catchy as they say and today it is still is a great listen. That Byrds Beatles genre which we were missing is somehow captured in  3 minutes and thirty five seconds: The twanging guitars, words that grab your attention. Quite a difference from RUMOURS, no disrespect intended, but hey, this AMERICAN GIRL record was different.

NY radio at this time, again in my opinion for my listening taste and again kudos to Sasha Frere-Jones for reminding me, had only two major players left.WPIX and WNEW. The PIX PENTHOUSE PARTY with Meg Griffin was a delight introducing newer music to us, not the standard Eagles or Frampton. Here at 101 FM we heard Talking Heads, The Clash, Elvis and Elvis Costello as well as the arrival of The B-52’s.

WNEW hitched its wagon to Springsteen (all day-everyday), Pink Floyd soon to all be labeled CLASSIC ROCK.

1979 we get DAMN THE TORPEDOES and Refugee which is another game changer.

So the question is: What’s your point?

According to data accumulated by FiveThirtyEight, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are the fifth biggest classic-rock group in the country, responsible for one out of every forty songs you hear on the radio.

That’s the point, TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS helped change the sounds which emulate out of that device Marconi made so many years ago.

Next up: TOM PETTY and THE HEARTBREAKERS versus THE HEARTBREAKERS

DAISY DUKES AND COWBOY BOOTS

08 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by in heart broken, Las Vegas 59, Rock music, Tom Petty, Uncategorized

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Tom Petty died the other day in his house in Malibu, a long way in time and space from his origin in Gainesville Florida .Well actually he had succumbed to cardiac arrest in his  Californian home but pronounced dead the next day, October 2 in a hospital. We the public were still reeling from the tragedy the day before in Las Vegas where a gun man assassinated 59 of our concert going brethren. Then the other confusing news, Tom died, then he was placed on life support, ultimately it was reported Tom Petty left us, physically.

As typically done when a recording artist of some renown passes the radio stations play a few of his/her/ their hits. Even the 11 0’clock news plays a “going to commercial break” with a sound bite of the musician’s work. Record sales go through the roof, as noted in Tom’s case by VVN MUSIC NEWS reporting of AMAZON’S TOP SELLING ALBUMS by VETERAN ARTISTS listing 14 of the top 20 belonging to Tom solo, Heartbreakers,and/or Traveling Wilburys, and better yet, of the Top Ten Tom has the Top 9 spots only to be bested at 10 to Shania Twain’s new release.

After the reports on the shooting in Las Vegas and the reports on Tom Petty’s passing I was thinking about both incidents and the 60 folks (59+1) who passed away in a short period of time. Some were smiling , surrounded by friends, family and fellow concert audience members, the daisy dukes and cowboy boots crowd before a few seconds later tragedy struck for no apparent reason. One can not fathom how or why but it puts a fear in my heart. Those poor souls silenced.

Then Tom Petty dies.

A few nights later SNL at it’s 10PM re-run spot played the November 10, 1979 show starring BUCK HENRY and featuring “musical guests” Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers performing “Refugee” and “Don’t Do Me Like That”. I sit in front of the screen silently, but with a slight smile, nodding, yeah, Tom.

The 11 O’Clock nightly news is over and it’s time for SNL. Me, I’m expecting ALEC BALDWIN as #45 throwing rolls of paper towels into the audience. Nope, not tonight America. Jason Aldean, the performer who graced the stage when the gunman hit Las Vegas was the cold opener of Sat Night Live this week and after a heart wrenching intro he led the band with Tom Petty’s I WON’T BACK DOWN. Again, I sat at the screen silently but without a smile. God Bless Us All.