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Memphis's James Godwin and the Power of Hog Jowl (2020)

NOTE: I interviewed James Godwin for the late, great Quixotronic back in December 2020. Godwin just this week released two groovy new songs on Bandcamp: "Goin' Back to Arkansas" and "Ain't Nothing Goin' On in Memphis." Happy to see he is back in action!

You know James Godwin from Memphis’s James and the Ultrasounds, and if you don’t know them – hot damn, check ‘em out. You’ve got some fun in store!

Godwin has just released a new solo EP, Hog Jowl, on his new label, Rainbow Recording Co. The fantastic five-song EP shows a similar rock’n-roll fervor as the Ultrasounds at times, like the fun, slabby title track or the gospelized and groovy “Down to the Valley,” but Godwin ends with a pair of more heartfelt and low-key – but not unnoisy – songs in “I Told You This Would Happen” and “Only I Know.”

Godwin recently checked in with us from Memphis about the new EP and what else he’s been doing since tearing up Circle A (photographic proof above) on the Ultrasounds’ visit to Milwaukee last year.

You’ve recorded two albums and a few singles with your group the Ultrasounds to great acclaim. I read that this solo EP isn’t just a break. What made you decide to move on from the band?

Oh, I haven’t officially put an end to the Ultrasounds or anything like that. I’m just putting that particular musical coat in the closet for the time being, given the circumstances. Right when Covid hit, I was playing and touring with a few different bands, and it had become easier to tell people to just look me up under my name. All that, plus the fact that I no longer feel like the person that’s on those Ultrasounds recordings. I’m just somewhere else in my life and in my mind, and I think certain moments on my new EP reflect that. I’m really just trying to continue to create music during these weird days, and hope that people check it out. I don’t know if the traditional 4-piece rock band that tours is gonna be a thing again anytime soon, but hopefully we'll get to a point soon where a very stripped down, yet energetic duo might be a thing. Maybe me and a cocktail drummer from the back of a U-Haul in a field?? Who knows what it’s all gonna look like a year from now. But still, I’d like to do a third Ultrasounds record someday with weird combinations of all of the different members that never actually played together. That could be fun.

Were these five songs all written and recorded during the pandemic? Any of them have earlier origins?

The songs were pretty much written and recorded between late February and October minus one song. I wrote “Down To The Valley” while driving back and forth from Memphis to Water Valley, MS doing studio work at Dial Back Sound Studio in the early months of 2020. The title “Hog Jowl” comes from having Jimbo Mathus over on New Year’s Day of 2020. We were doing rehearsals for an upcoming string of shows. Since it was New Years Day, Jimbo wanted to cook up some Greens and Black Eyed Peas. He also had a large and mysterious block of meat going in a skillet. I asked him what kind of meat he had going there, to which he enthusiastically replied,“Hog Jowl.” That just stuck with me for some reason. Then when Covid hit full on, with the news, the politics, all of it, ya know.. I just kept thinking about that big chunk of meat sizzlin’ on New Year’s Day, and how my mind was starting to feel the same way.

Do you have any plans for a physical release or will this be digital only? After spending time with Madjack for the two Ultrasounds albums, are you talking to any labels about the EP or any future recordings?

It'll be coming out on CD soon, and then there will be a very small 7" release as well. Both on my own micro label, Rainbow Recording, Co. which is something I was thinking of doing pre-Covid. I'm hoping it’s something I can build up into 2021, and I've already got a few releases lining up with a handful of different artists in Memphis. It’s going to be a very small operation, just funky, small batch stuff and digital, but it’s going to be 100% artist/musician operated. Like farm to table music. I'm also hoping to work with all different kinds of artists, not just “rock and roll” people.

Besides making music, what else have you done to keep your sanity/inspire you during the pandemic?

Hmmm..some painting, the home improvement kind...chopping up branches from fallen trees in the yard and burning them has brought me a great deal of satisfaction. Intense cat observation. I think this year has taken quite a toll on everyone.

How much do you miss performing in front of a crowd? Any particular past performances stick in your mind as you find yourself stuck on pause because of the pandemic?

I do miss it. I miss traveling with other musicians, and that good feeling you get when you’ve got something good going on, and the calendar is filled with work. Maybe my first show ever in London. That was the first stop on the first Ultrasounds European tour. You’re in this room full of strangers in a strange place, and you’re up there with your boys from Memphis and ready to take ‘em for a ride. I miss that shit.

 

Things Change for Lonesome Bob (2002)

 

NOTE: Here's an interview I did with Lonesome Bob, aka Bob Chaney, for Country Standard Time back in June 2002. The interview was timed to promote his second solo album, Things Change. Unfortunately, it was Lonesome Bob's last album to date, but he continues to perform shows in and around Pittsburgh, where he now lives.

Just call him Lonesome - Bob, that is. Look at him quickly, and it's hard to believe that Robert Chaney - aka Lonesome Bob - a big lumberjack of a man at 6-foot-4, is capable of the songs he writes and sings with rocket-fire force, undiluted and straight to the heart.

The man on the cover of Chaney's new album, "Things Change," is bald, bearded and fierce, clad in boots, faded jeans, sunglasses and a black sleeveless shirt. He towers imposingly over a cloudy industrial setting - smoking, pissed off, ready to get the hell off work.

But listen to "Things Change" or his first album, 1997's "Things Fall Apart," and you'll know big Bob of Nashville with the extra large voice is capable of much more empathy than you would have ever thought at first glance.

Perhaps, the character who most seems to exist on a different planet than that rough man on the cover is the Volvo-driving office worker in "Heather's All Bummed Out." Heather's blue, and it's hard to explain why, Bob sings, other than she's 35 and running out of time. She looks for love on the Internet and fails miserably: "There's something missing from her life and today it's making her cry/and she'll never take another chance, and that's the crying shame."

The biggest crying shame is that not more people know Chaney's music. Compare him to fellow Americana musician Mike Ireland (who recently released his first effort in four years, the excellent "Try Again"), another guy whose reward for laying it all out emotionally seems to be indifference from record buyers.

However, Chaney's music is even more emotionally raw than Ireland's countrypolitan confessions. He simply rages and rocks, soft and hard, with humor and sadness. Hell, he actually has warnings on "Things Change" and "Things Fall Apart," telling listeners to avoid taking songs like "Plans We Made," a dandy murder ballad duet with Allison Moorer, or "Got Away With It," a dandy murder rocker with Moorer, too seriously. They're just songs, after all. 

But it's hard not to take songs like "Where Are You Tonight?" or "Dreaming the Lie" seriously. These songs are among several on the new album that deal with the death of Chaney's son, Zachary, who died in 1998 at age 18 of hepatitis, contracted after he used a dirty needle.

"I sit, I stare, I wonder, I swear," he howls on "Where are You Tonight?" (the vocal was recorded in one take) as you find it impossible to ignore the suffering of a father. He played the song live just once at an in-the-round in Nashville.

"People were pinned to the back of their chairs," Chaney says.

He grew up in Mount Ephraim, N.J., a "classic suburban" town outside of Philadelphia, where he graduated from high school in 1974 and learned to love the Grateful Dead. "I deprogrammed myself from being a Deadhead," he explains.

After high school, Chaney attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he played basketball for two years. By 1984, five years after Zachary was born, he moved to New York City and joined the Ben Vaughn Combo as a drummer. As a member of the combo, he played songs like "Lookin' For a 7-11" "blotto, balls to the wall, as crazy as you can make it." Vaughn, a high school friend, has gone on to do the music for television shows like "That '70s Show" and "Third Rock From the Sun."

After the group broke up in 1988, Chaney began his brand of country music around New York. "I was looking around New York City, where there are a chunk of people big into country. People told me you're not never to get anywhere playing country here. All of the country music industry is in Nashville...I was told I needed to come down here if I was serious enough about it."

In 1994, he decided he was serious enough and made the big move to Music City USA. Once it got there, it wasn't exactly what he expected. "I guess I should have listened to country radio to at least know what to expect," he says. "Robbie Fulks ran into the same thing, with a publishing deal where you basically write bad songs for people who suck. Robbie left before the next wave (of talented musicians) came to Nashville."

That next wave includes people like Greg Trooper, Gwil Owen, Tim Carroll, Phil Lee, Tommy Womack and Moorer.

"We're the same 12 people at each other's gigs," Chaney says.

He established a special musical relationship with Moorer, who sings on both of Chaney's releases. Bob remembers the first time he heard her sing.

"My draw just dropped," he says. "It was like, 'Where have you been?' It was amazing. And I really haven't worked with anybody else since."

He and Moorer even performed together on the Grand Old Opry at the Ryman Auditorium. "They're over really fast," Chaney says. "You think about it. This is going to be cool. What am I going to wear? I hope I don't fuck up."

There was a tense moment, however. 

"I walked up to sing the first line, and the monitor's not on. There's a panic. I thought, 'I'm going to suck.' It's a really great way to break the ice."

After "Things Fall Apart," Checkered Past, which released the album decided not to exercise its option on Chaney and set him free along with fellow Nashville artists Tom House, Paul Burch and Womack. "We all scrambled and found new homes in varying lengths of time," he says.

One year after "Things Fall Apart" was released, Zachary died in April 1998. "It was hard to put one foot in front of the other," he says, "much less make a record."

He eventually got back to writing songs and completed "Things Change" with former 20/20 guitarist Steve Allen serving as co-producer. The album was released this spring on Leap Recordings. Chaney says he's pleased with the results. "I'm looking forward to getting sick of it."

 

Workin' at the Car Wash: Michael Schultz Returns to Milwaukee

Big, big news in Brew City. Milwaukee native and legendary film director Michael Schultz is returning home this weekend, and you can catch him at the Oriental Theater on Saturday. 

Milwaukee Film is paying tribute to the 86-year-old with screenings of Car Wash (3 p.m.), Cooley High (7:30 p.m.) and Last Dragon (8 p.m.) Schultz will appear for Q&A sessions after Car Wash and before Cooley High, which will also include an awards presentation.

I was very lucky and honored to interview Michael Schultz in 2022 for Wisconsin Public Radio, and I’m thrilled he is coming to town. All three movies are well worth seeing. Cooley High is the best, and certainly the most acclaimed, but there’s something about Car Wash that draws you in every time, and it’s not just Norman Whitfield’s funky ass theme song performed by Rose Royce.

I asked Schutlz about the joy the movie brought to audiences, including me, when I interviewed him, and I wanted to share some of his comments about his experience making the 1976 movie starring Richard Pryor, Bill Duke, Ivan Dixon, George Carlin, Antonio Fargas and others. I talked to Schultz for more than an hour, and, of course, I didn’t get to use everything from the interview in my radio segment and web story. So, here’s a little more about Car Wash, a music-filled movie that wildly tells the story of a Los Angeles car wash over the course of a single day.

Coming off 1975’s Cooley High, a film that had combined comedy and drama to devastating effect, Schultz was unsure initially he wanted to follow up with Car Wash after reading Joel Schumacher’s script.

“I almost turned down the movie because it was just all sorts of humor, slapstick, kind of what I call bubblegum comedy,” he said. “And I was talking to a friend of mine, Suzanne de Passe, who was like Barry Gordy’s right-hand person. She had discovered the Jackson 5 and all that. And I said, ‘Suzanne, they offered me this movie, and I’m going to turn it down.’ She said, ‘Are you crazy? It’s like, if it’s not what you want, take the job and make it what you want,’ which is some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten.”

Schultz went forward and set out to put a “spine of seriousness” in Car Wash to balance the comedy. But at the time, he said, “dramedies” were not the rage they have become, and Universal Pictures did not understand why he wanted to make changes.

“They said, ‘you can’t do that,'” Schultz said. “'You can’t mix comedy and drama, or comedy and melodrama, or whatever you want to.' I said, ‘Why not?’ Because I came out of theater, and I knew from the experience of Cooley High, which was all comedic in the beginning that led to some serious drama at the end, and how effective that was on the public in terms of storytelling.

“So, all through the making of that movie, I’m fighting with the studio to have the film end the way I wanted it to end,” he said. “So, I built this throughline between the old school ex-convict, Lonnie (Ivan Dixon), and the young revolutionary, Abdullah (Bill Duke). Because again, like in Cooley High, the bond and love between young black men. But this time, I wanted the father figure to save the young revolutionary and learn from his experience, and the studio just hated that idea. So, I convinced them to let me shoot the film in chronological order, which is almost never done in Hollywood.”

Shooting chronologically can be less efficient and can result in a loss of time and money, he explained, but Schultz thought he could convince them to accept the ending he had planned if he did that way. But he told executives he was shooting chronologically because he had been influenced by Robert Altman’s approach in Nashville.

“I said, ‘Look, I've modeled this movie after Nashville, and like Robert Altman was doing multiple stories in audio, I’m doing multiple stories in the visuals that we might be seeing something happen, you know, through the glass of the of the car window, that’s as much a part of the story as the people who are talking, you know, and there’s no way to keep track of that if you don’t shoot in order. But the real reason was, I wanted to keep trying to convince them that the way I wanted to tell the story was the best way to do it.

“And the hardest part of convincing them was the scene at the end of the movie where Abdul was coming in to rob the place and Lonnie stops him. They embrace, the revolutionary cries, breaks down and all that.”

According to the 1978 book Creative Differences: Profiles of Hollywood Dissidents by David Talbot and Barbara Zheu, Schultz was given only 28 days to shoot Car Wash, and he exceeded that time limit by about 10.

“It’s so finally I’m going to one day over schedule, two days over schedule, three days over,” he said. “The head of the studio calls me and says, ‘Schultz, you finish the damn film.’ I said, ‘Yeah, if you let me shoot it the way I want to shoot it, OK?’ Go ahead, because they figured they could change it in the editing, right?

“So, that’s kind of how it kind of came to be. So, yes, it was joyful. It was a lot of fun. I got Richard Pryor to do a dick part, you know, yeah, and the Pointer Sisters, and that led to a whole experience of working with Richard on other movies.”

Schultz told the authors of Creative Differences in 1978 that he was about 75% happy with Car Wash and the movie “has its values.”

Roger Ebert praised the movie for its “tremendous sense of life.” “It’s one thing to have an idea like this — a zany, sometimes serious day in the life of a car wash — and another thing to make it work,” Ebert wrote. “But the screenplay and the direction juggle the characters so adroitly, this is almost a wash-and-wax M*A*S*H.”

Pauline Kael, meanwhile, ripped Car Wash, writing, “it has no more class than a Hostess Twinkie, though it, too, might make you gag a little.” However, Kael also knocked Norman Whitfield’s music in her review, so she was obviously out of her mind when she watched the movie.

People have certainly wanted to return to the vibrant 1976 world of Car Wash, as it has enjoyed cult success and attempts to revive it over the years. A pilot for a TV version of the movie, starring Danny Aiello, was made in 1978, and a roundly dismissed remake came out in 2001 with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

The movie’s energy, the perfectly selected cast, most especially Dixon and Fargas, and Schultz’s passion and determination make Car Wash feel so right-on -- even if "you might never get rich.”

Turner's Picture Palace: August 2025

 

It’s been a full year since the last time I did a movie column, but I’m trying my best to get off my butt and post more frequently, so here we go.

As I mentioned in my Jonathan Kaplan post, I did a ‘70s movie class over the summer. For many months before, I pretty much exclusively watched movies from that glorious decade. After the class ended at the end of July, I decided to turn my focus to the ‘80s and ‘90s. Have I regretted it? Not at all. It’s been fun reconnecting with the period I spent frequently in video stores, both working in and as a customer.

But mostly I tried to get to movies I had not seen before. Another aspect of the class was rewatching many movies I had seen several or many times before. Bring on the “new” movies!

Have You Forgotten: One movie that I thought I had seen before was Brown’s Requiem (1998), adapted quite well from James Ellroy’s 1981 book by screenwriter and first-time director Jason Freeland. Michael Rooker is terrific as Fritz Brown, an alcoholic former cop who has found a comfortable living repossessing cars but also runs a half-assed private detective agency. He comes alive at the bequest of one “Fat Dog” Baker (Will Sasso, who contributes one of many brilliant performances int the movie) to watch over his sister, Jane (Selma Blair, who also in 1998 before her Cruel Intentions breakthrough in 1999 played Girl Mike Hits on #1 in Can’t Hardly Wait). Such a great cast: Kevin Corrigan, Brion James (who died in 1999), Brad Dourif, Barry Newman, Christopher Meloni, Harold Gould, Jennifer Coolidge and more.

Brown’s Requiem came out a year after L.A. Confidential, Curtis Hanson’s massively successful, award-winning, etc., etc. Ellroy adaptation. I’m sure I was interested, but maybe I had a hard time tracking down Brown’s Requiem back then. It’s currently only available on a DVD released in 2000. Fortunately, Freeland was able to record a commentary with Rooker for the DVD. They talk about their disagreement over how much of Ellroy’s exact wording and dialogue from the book to use. From their discussion, it’s apparent that the veteran Rooker got his way often. Indeed, one of the highlights of the movie is Rooker’s voice over, in which he fully inhabits the losing, boozing, fighting spirit of Fritz Brown.

Interestingly, Freeland, who won awards for Brown’s Requiem from the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival and Portugal’s Festróia-Tróia International Film Festival, apparently identified a little too much with Fritz Brown. In 1999, in an interview with the Baltimore Sun, when he was in town to show Brown’s Requiem at the Maryland Film Festival, Freeland said, "I was at this point where finally I was getting a chance to direct a film, which was what I wanted to do for so long in my life, since I was 18 years old. I kept holding that out as what will make me happy. And I started to see that it wasn't the case. …I wasn't enjoying it,” he said about the editing process. "I really saw how much I identified with him." He stopped drinking while finishing Brown's Requiem.

Freeland would make only one more movie, 2008’s downbeat Garden Party, which is somewhat engaging (thanks in part to a confident, sexy performance by Vinessa Shaw)  but comes off kind of like a CW update of Melrose Place in a sleazy, stoned, flip phone-era (so cheap you could just hand them out to any homeless wannabe pop stars) LA setting and ends unsatisfyingly. These days, Freeland, who got his start making informercials for the Psychic Friends Network (yep, the one with Dionne Warwick), is CEO of California Psychics, a Los Angeles-based organization whose slogan is The Joy of Certainty.

Let There be Zane: Another 1998 movie I completely missed was I Woke Up Early the Day I Died. There seems to be some foreign releases (legitimate?) of the movie on DVD along with bootleg versions, but I was able to find it in good quality on the Internet Archive. I had a lot of fun watching the movie, but I think I appreciate most of all the audacity of making this wordless movie boasting an Ed Wood script, starring post-Titanic Billy Zane (who also produced and contributed “music design”) and featuring a range and level of celebrities and actors not seen since the days of ‘70s disaster movies. I kept waiting for George Kennedy to show up.

Granted, in the ‘90s, Ed was Everywhere; however, just making this movie a reality seems impressive: a very optimistic endeavor. Maybe it was just a foolish idea, but while the finished project failed to connect with audiences and critics at the time,  and seems to be utterly and unjustly forgotten, it has a wild energy and creativity that is undeniable and worth holding on to in these decidedly dark days.

Zane stars at The Thief, who escapes from a mental institution dressed as a female nurse and goes on a stealing, murdering binge before ultimately losing the money and then desperately trying to regain it. Along the way he meets the likes of Tippi Hedren, Ron Perlman, Maila Nurmi, John Ritter, Christina Ricci, Bud Cort, Eartha Kitt, Dana Gould, Tara Reid, Karen Black, and many others. Sandra Bernhard is fantastic in her role as stripper Sandy Sands. Only about a year out from the end of USA’s Reel Wild Cinema, she’s a perfect fit for the role and the movie. After coming off the stage topless, she smokes a joint, gives another dancer stink eye, and then slaps another dancer’s bare ass. I snickered when I read J. Hoberman’s Village Voice review of I Woke Up Early when he describes Bernhard being “allowed to do a striptease.” Hoberman’s review was at least mildly positive while the New York Times called it “sad and misguided and boring.”

The fabulous Ed Wood blog, Dead 2 Rights, dug up all kinds of interesting information about the movie and interviewed director Aris Iliopulos in 2014. Adding more context to Bernhard’s part in the movie, Iliopulos says she insisted on heavy metal music playing while she danced, and filming for the scene took place in the Ambassador Hotel, where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. “It was little bit too much,” he added. Ha! One of my other favorite parts in the interview is the director’s memories of Karen Black, who he says, for her closeup in the movie, was remembering a young man she met who was going to Vietnam and wasn’t likely to come back home alive.

Chicago native Zane, 32 when the movie came out, was incredibly fun as the demented Thief. An interview with him in the (Arlington Heights, Ill.) Daily Herald in January 1998 claimed producers of the I Woke Up Early were thinking about shooting the movie in the Chicago area. While promoting the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival during Christmas time 1998, Zane got drunk on cheap  champagne at a party for the movie and missed his press conference and interviews the next day. The Toronto Star described it this way: “Great party, terrible movie.”

Also in August, I watched Zane in 1991’s Femme Fatale, which I described in my notes as “another bad movie that was enjoyable to watch” – lots of those actually this month (I’m looking at you, Death Wish 3 [1985], Inferno [aka Desert Heat,1999], Necromancer [1988], Prime Target [1991, more on that] and Blindside [1987]). Colin Firth stars in the movie, and on the surface seems like an unlikely choice in a slightly seedy thriller, but he does quite well  despite the not always fantastic storyline. Zane fits into a noir-tinged movie more (see Dead Calm, This World, Then the Fireworks, etc.) and is cool and humorous often as Elijah. He goes around shirtless mostly and says things like, “He’s from England, so keep it down, right.” Meanwhile his real-life sister, Lisa Zane, is the object of mystery and alleged possessor of multiple personalities in the movie who splits after marrying Firth.

El Salvador native Andre R. Guttfreund directed Femme Fatale and was not happy that Republic Pictures released the movie straight to video as an erotic thriller in the United States (it played theaters in England). There was nothing erotic about his movie, Guttfreund said to the Seattle Times in June 1991, “It’s really an old-fashioned romance about unconditional love. It’s Orpheus in search of Eurydice. Aren’t video renters going to feel ripped off when they see it?”

More Kaplan Connections: After writing about Pamela Ludwig in Over the Edge, I was curious to see her in something else I had not seen before, and that brought me to Rush Week (1989). I was a dumbass and bought this movie twice on Blu-ray after selling the first one on eBay without watching it. Ludwig plays a college newspaper reporter who starts looking into a series of murders taking place during, you know, rush week. She’s charming and confident, and she would have made a great Nancy Drew. Ludwig helps make up for some of the movie’s dumber aspects, mainly any scenes with the frat boys together. The Dickies perform in costume for a monster-themed party and that by itself is almost worth buying it twice.

Truck Turner himself, Issac Hayes, sent me in search of more Ike, and somehow I landed on the previously mentioned Prime Target, my first David Heavener movie, but certainly it will not be my last – though not any of recent vintage, to clarify (see below). It all starts with him doing a country rap song in the opening and then, as cop John Bloodstone, burning a kidnapper to death with a blow torch. I mean, shit, c’mon, damn. Hayes, unfortunately, has a lame role and is forgettable. Tony Curtis is hilarious as the gangster Bloodstone is transporting to jail, and the movie also features Robert Reed, Andrew Robinson, Don Stroud, and Jenilee Harrison, who also was in Curse III: Blood Sacrifice in 1991, which I unfortunately also watched in 2025.

In addition to starring in the movie and singing all the songs, Heavener wrote, directed, and produced the movie. He’s still active, and in July 2024 in the Greenville Daily Advocate (Ohio) announced a “red carpet premiere” for something called The Last Evangelist, which airs on his own David Heavener TV, “End Times Prophecy Channel of Truth.” The plot is described thusly: “The Last Evangelist is a crime drama set in the near future where unregistered churches have been ruled illegal. Just like Saul on the road to Damascus, when Agent Rhodes’ spiritual eyes are opened, he turns against the government system to challenge the Antichrist’s tactics.” Uh-huh.

At the Movies: A great month in the theaters for me, led by Weapons (2025), which was excellent and scary and funnier than I expected. Amy Madigan is magnificently frightening in the movie, and in fact, I dreamed about her several weeks later in costume, but instead of being her face, it was my old high school assistant principal’s.

Also terrific was She Rides Shotgun (2025), which was violent, realistic, and seemed to capture the ‘20s lawlessness law exactly right. Ana Sophia Heger is heartbreakingly great from the moment we meet her waiting in a tree after school for her mom. John Carroll Lynch was awesome in Ballard on Amazon Prime, one of my favorite shows of the summer, and is a very different, and very disturbing, kind of cop in She Rides Shotgun.

Ethan Cohen’ s second collaboration with wife Tricia Cooke, Honey Don’t (2025), got many negative reviews, but it provided a very satisfying Friday night at the theater for me. The quirky detective setup is frankly something for which I’m nearly always in the mood, and Margaret Qualley is a badass in it. I do agree with the Chicago Tribune, which calls Qualley “kind of a latter-day lesbian Phillip Marlowe from Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye,” that the movie could have used more badass: “more vibes and less plot.”

The Naked Gun (2025) made me smile and laugh frequently as I watched. I enjoyed it a lot. Loved Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson together. Watching this and The Last Showgirl (2024) made me realize I have underestimated Pamela Anderson. Excellent in both very different roles.

 

 

 

The Dogmatics Still Keeping the Faith (2022)

NOTE: Here's an interview I did with the Dogmatics' Jerry Lehane back for the Shepherd Express before they played Last Rites in Milwaukee in 2022 (posted July 14, 2022). The Dogmatics have a new album out on Rum Bar called Nowheresville.

Here's a funny quote from Lehane that I wasn't able to fit in the original story. I mentioned to him how in the Trouser Press the band is described as "dirtbags and proud of it." Lehane told me: "We've had all kinds of things. We'd go into radio stations and they would say, 'You guys are the ugliest band we've seen from the pictures. We're like, 'What!?'. The twins (Pete and Paul O'Halloran) were always known for the faces they made on stage. They've got quite rubbery faces, and if you like at those albums, it almost looks like we are from England or somewhere, early Stones look, you know. But we weren't dirt bags and proud of it. If anything there, you know, we like to take showers, just like the next guy."

Tragedy ended the first run of The Dogmatics. But it wasn’t the end of the story for the Boston garage rock’n’rollers, who make their Milwaukee debut Saturday night at Last Rites MKE.

Back in the early ‘80s, The Dogmatics played shows locally and traveled in a van across the United States sharing stages with bands like The Fleshtones and Replacements. They lived together in the same Boston loft, where they also wrote and tried out new songs together. They would also grieve together when bassist and founding member Paul O’Halloran died in a motorcycle accident on Oct. 23, 1986.

“We just got back from a tour of the Midwest and the West Coast,” says lead singer and guitarist Jerry Lehane. “He was on the back of motorcycle in the afternoon, and they got a flat tire. He went under a truck and got run over and passed away. That was 1986, and we stopped playing after that.”

O’Halloran had formed The Dogmatics in 1981 with his twin brother and guitarist, Pete, drummer Dan Shannon and Lehane. The brothers and Lehane had grown up together and attended Catholic school in Dorchester.

Tommy Long, who is still with the band, would replace Shannon on drums after the band’s first year. They self-released a debut single on their own Cat Records in 1983 and then put out two full-length albums, Thayer Street and Everybody Does It, on the legendary Homestead Records, with unhinged rockers like “Gimme the Shakes,” “Whipped,” and “My Little Sister’s Got a Motorbike.”

Reunited in Earnest

In the years after O’Halloran’s death, the Dogmatics would continue to play two or three times a year, but around 2018, as band members’ children began to grow older or leave home, the band decided to reunite in earnest and record new material. They have kept most of the same lineup, with O’Halloran’s older brother Jimmy taking over on bass and the addition of James Young on mandolin and other instruments.

The Dogmatics have connected with Boston-based label Rum Bar Records for a series of well-received EPs, as well as a collection of the band’s older material, and have received enthusiastic airplay on Sirius XM’s Underground Garage channel and elsewhere around the country, including Milwaukee’s WMSE.

Ramo Records, run by Miss Georgia Peach and Travis Ramin, both also members of opening band Beebe Gallini, reissued The Dogmatics’ Cat single, which includes a cover of Eddie Cochran’s “20 Flight Rock,” in 2008.

The band is keeping busy with shows this summer, including an upcoming date serving as backing band for Barrence Whitfield, and will likely take a break afterward to work on new material, a process that moves more slowly these days, Lehane says.

“It takes a while,” he says, “It’s not as easy as the old days. You have to work at it. You’re not living that life 150% like we used to.”

Rock‘n’Roll Spirit

While they have grown older, the rock’n’roll spirit that has always guided the band has not disappeared. How else can you explain their willingness to participate in the show Saturday at Last Rites? The Dogmatics will fly from Boston to Minneapolis on Friday afternoon to play that night in St. Paul, drive five-plus hours to Milwaukee on Saturday and then hop on a plane at 6 a.m. Sunday morning out of Mitchell.

“There’s something wrong with us,” says Lehane, laughing. “We like to torture ourselves.”

But they keep doing it because, ultimately, it’s what they love to do, Lehane says.

“I kind of make the analogy that we’re in single A baseball,” he says. “We’ve been trying to make it to the big leagues forever, but we’re still stuck down here in single A, still slugging. But it’s a lot of fun, you know? We wouldn’t been doing this if we didn’t like each other and we weren’t having fun.”

The Dogmatics, Beebe Gallini, Fun Bois and Lavish Waste perform 8p.m. Saturday, July 16 at Last Rites MKE, 625 S. Sixth St.

Lost in the Suburbs: A Tribute to Jonathan Kaplan & Over the Edge

 

Over the summer, I taught a college class on 1970s movies, and one of my favorite parts was showing two movies by the always entertaining and delightfully distinct director Jonathan Kaplan: Truck Turner (1974) and Over the Edge (1979). I was very happy that both movies played well with the students and prompted lively discussions. Sadly, as the summer session was concluding, news broke that Kaplan had died Aug. 1 of liver cancer at age 77.

Students had particularly connected with Over the Edge, and one scene hit me a little differently this time around, sitting there in the classroom in the dark. Sometimes a moment in a movie locks into you, knocks you around, turns you inside out, maybe brings on the tears. It could just be the way you are feeling right then. Sometimes the scene, or the actors, or something else, strikes you so hard, just thinking about it a week later might activate Crying Time or at least Far Away Eyes Time. Lorraine Newman and Tim McIntire in American Hot Wax (1978), Eddie Albert and Ida Lupino in Out of the Fog (1941), and Sylvia Sidney and Joel McCrea  in Dead End (1937) – there are parts by those actors in those movies that just tear me up even thinking about them.

Add to that list Michael Kramer and Pamela Ludwig in Over the Edge. Carl (Kramer) runs away from home and holes up in an unfinished condominium, his world in turmoil after the death of his best friend, Richie (Matt Dillon), at the hands of Officer Doberman, a local rabid cop played by Kaplan regular Harry Northup. Carl has no one to turn to except for Cory (Pamela Ludwig), and he calls her on a payphone (we know it has to be her) to meet up later at the condo. She sneaks off after her parents go to bed and arrives at the condo with a sleeping bag. They sleep together and she returns home in the morning before her parents awaken.

Cory’s arrival: a teenage prayer delivered in the dark by a girl who apparently dreamed of big trucks and lost highways. She tells Carl a story about a female trucker, a 95-pound “gypsy of the road” who has given her a new idea for a potential career path, and a fucking way out of New Granada, Colorado. In the morning, she stands at the door of the condo and stares out at the road at a traveling truck, awakening to new possibilities for the future, before slipping back into the reality of needing to get home before her dad wakes up for work.

She had almost made Carl a statistic earlier at the condo while doing an ill-advised “gun dance” to a stolen radio playing Cheap Trick. Only moments before she had told him, “You have pretty eyelashes.” Richie reads the scene perfectly after Carl fake dies: “I bet you’re in love with her now that she almost blew your brains out.”

Construction trash litters the outside of the half-finished condo, a secret hideaway that Richie and Carl have claimed as their own. “My father said they ran out of money,” Carl says. It’s another reminder of the failures of this town, of development at any cost, an attitude that has made the teenagers and  their lives far less important than property values, which comes out explicitly at the explosive community meeting following Richie’s death.

Cory and Carl talk briefly about women truckers and remember Richie, but Cory gets cold, and they both end up in the sleeping bag, which she says she used to play in when she was little.

“You know, I think you’re really beautiful,” Carl tells Cory. “No,” I’m not,” she says. “I think you are,” Carl says.

Then they kiss and pull the sleeping bag over their heads. It’s a touching moment and both young actors are so incredibly tender in the moment. Kaplan captures it all so beautifully, so sweetly.

In the morning, Kaplan frames them kissing in the doorway as the sun is rising. They look like Wild West lovers embracing before the final shootout. And as Cory walks away, it’s a lovely shot of her, looking back at Carl, still standing at the door, as she, and this magical moment in their teenage lives, fades away.

It’s a powerfully emotional scene, and it’s a testament to the powers of Jonathan Kaplan and the classic movies and moments he directed.

Charm City Confidential: Hidden Volume Records (2020)

(Note: Here's a Q&A I did with Hidden Volume's Scott Sugiuchi for the now defunct Quixotronic website back in May 2020. Sugiuchi, now based in New Mexico, is the art director at the Alamo Drafthouse and the designer behind Estrus: Shovelin' the Shit Since '87 with author Chris Alpert Coyle. You can find an all-Hidden Volume show that I did back on May 22, 2020 right here: https://wmse.org/program/zero-hour/)

Baltimore’s Hidden Volume Records has been responsible for some of my favorite rock-n-roll releases over the last decade from a wildly impressive lineup of bands, including the Insomniacs, Subsonics, Satan’s Pilgrims, the Above, the Ar-Kaics, and many more. Label honcho Scott Sugiuchi is a freelance graphic designer whose distinctly cool artwork has graced Hidden Volume’s output and promotional material. Sugiuchi, who has performed as a member of the Stents, Hate Bombs, Hall Monitors and Candy Smokes (in action with above), is also is co-author, with Chris Coyle, of the upcoming book, Estrus: Shovelin’ the Shit Since ’87 (Korero Press, UK).

I talked to Sugiuchi recently about starting Hidden Volume, his love of 45s, the Estrus book and more.

What or who convinced you that starting a record label was a good idea? I’m still trying to decide whether it was a good idea! haha. Actually, the idea had been gestating for years. I had some experience with self-releasing records in the ‘90s with The Hate Bombs (Speed-o-Meter Records, along with our drummer Ken Chiodini) and I think the bug never left me. By the early 2010s, I had some spare cash so I decided to make it happen.

Were there other labels or individuals you looked to for inspiration or advice when you started Hidden Volume? Why did you decide to focus on 45s? Obviously, I was super into Estrus Records and their perfect marriage of music, design and fun—that was the main inspiration. I’m also a big fan of labels that have a collective vision—where the focus on the look is equal to the music. I’d say that ranges from UK experimental label Ghost Box to Third Man Records.

The focus on 45s started with the fact that it’s an easy ask to get a band to release two songs with an unknown/small label. Over the years and after releasing a few LPs I find the 45 is much more fun format to work in. The bands aren’t as picky about things and the packaging allows for a lot more experimentation. Also nothing beats the explosion of putting on a 45—it’s like having a band’s collective creative energy compressed into the end of a needle. Two songs/ five minutes to get your point across. Magic!

What has been your top-selling or quickest selling release? Who were you most surprised to work with? Who else would you love to release something by? Hmmm, that would probably be our recent Satan’s Pilgrims “Happy Holidays” single. That sold out in maybe three days. It was a beast! Most surprising—there’s a few. I think I was shocked when The Ar-Kaics said “yes” because they were total strangers when I approached them about a single. My other early singles had bands that at the very least had one person I was friends with. I also just started the label so it was a miracle they even responded. I was elated.

Oh geez, there’s tons of artists I’d love to release if I had the time/money. If we’re talking total fantasy, I think Redd Kross would be the ultimate. If not, then maybe they would consider a Tater Totz record!

What release is most unlike the other Hidden Volume releases? I guess the pithy answer is that they’re all Hi-Vo releases because they’re just an extension of what my taste is. But that’s kind of too clever isn’t it? I would say Sick Thoughts is the closest. It’s more “punk” than the others. Drew was still in high school when we did that record! I love it—it’s his attempt at “garage rock” although it’s pretty poppy for him. Now that I think of it, it’s pretty much in keeping with the other records. Catchy rock and roll.

You are an excellent graphic artist as well. How helpful have those skills been in making the label a success or promoting releases and events? Awww, thanks! Part of the reason for starting the label was also an excuse to flex my design skills in a format I love so it’s been super helpful. As I was saying earlier, I love labels where the art and music work in harmony so to be able to have that level of control (woo-ha-haaaa) is essential. People have responded well to it over the years. I definitely have heard that people buy the records partly because of the packaging. The bands (mostly) love it too. hahaha...

Do you have any upcoming releases or plans you would like to share? How’s your book on the history of Estrus Records coming? Interestingly, those are complementary questions. I’m focusing on the existing releases right now from DC’s Teen Cobra as well as The Resonars then taking off the rest of the year to get that Estrus book out. I might do some digital releases with my band Candy Smokes on Hi-Vo (since we’re not playing any time soon) but not doing anything with new bands. I say that now…

As far as the Estrus book itself goes, we’re currently in the throes of that project. It’s MASSIVE. Not only did Dave C have a lot of releases, each release has fantastic artwork and a story behind it so corralling that has been a Herculean effort that writer Chris Coyle and I have been engulfed with for a while. It’s definitely a labor of love. I’m still in disbelief that I get to work with Dave Crider and Art Chantry on this (they’re “executive producers”) —basically my fave label and fave designer. It’s a dream but incredibly daunting. I also have to say everyone we’ve talked to has been amazing. It’s nice to see how bands/fans are still excited about Estrus and how it was kind of life changing for many people. After all these years! That’s the true mark of a successful label. What more could you ask for?

Photo credit: Eric Planck

The One-and-Only Billy Joe Shaver (2002)

NOTE: Yep, I lived in Texas for a minute. I did this review of a 2002 show for Country Standard Time, which continues to survive. Sadly, Billy Joe Shaver went to the big chicken coop in the sky back in 2020, 19 years after suffering a heart attack on stage and five years before he shot a man, famously asking him beforehand, "Where do you want it?" He would have turned 86 on Aug. 16.

Cactus Cafe, Austin, Texas, Nov. 24, 2002

AUSTIN, Texas - Colorful and charming to the core, Billy Joe Shaver is a delight to watch perform.

In a show on the campus of the University of Texas for the CD release of "Freedom's Child," his exceptional new album on Compadre Records, Shaver was in a very good mood, having earlier in the day won some sort of "chicken shit contest" at Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon.

The early part of the show focused nearly exclusively on material from the new album, including "Hold On to Yours (And I'll Hold Onto Mine)," "Magnolia Mother's Love," "Corsicana Daily Sun" and the naughty "That's What She Said Last Night," which became a running punch line throughout the night.

Shaver and his more than capable backing band then tore through his classics like "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train," "I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal" and "Woman is the Wonder of the World" and provided a rollicking rendition of "Black Rose."

He played "Love is So Sweet" and "Star in My Heart" from "The Earth Rolls On," the last album he recorded with his late son Eddy, who died of a drug overdose on Dec. 31, 2000. He made reference to Eddy at the conclusion of "Star in My Heart," a song about the sometimes rocky relationship between the two.

It's been well documented that his son's tragic death is far from the only heartache Billy Joe Shaver has experienced over the years. Literally in some cases: He had a heart attack on stage on last year.

But Shaver showed no signs of slowing down. He often acted out lines from his songs and was full of energy and enthusiasm all night. Hell, he even jumped up in the air and smiled when he sang, "Love is so sweet, it makes you bounce when you walk down the street." And it was impossible not to smile with him.

Shaver concluded with "Try and Try Again," a song that he delivered with more evangelistic intensity than what's good for a man with a history of heart trouble.

Somehow, though, it seems foolish to worry about the strength of Billy Joe Shaver's heart.

Opener Hayes Carll was outstanding during his brief performance. The Houston-area singer-songwriter is getting a lot of acclaim for his debut, "Flowers and Liquor" (also on Compadre), and it certainly seemed warranted.

Carll was good-natured and humorous between songs, and his well-written story songs such as "Highway 87" and "Easy Come Easy Go" bring to mind the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett and Charlie Robison.

DM Bob: White Trash Meets Euro Trash (2011)

NOTE: This is an interview I did for the defunct WMSE blog, Sonic Diet, back on Sept. 12, 2011. It doesn't appear DM Bob (Bob Tooke) has had any new releases since this album, but according to his Facebook, he was still doing shows in Germany as DM as late as last fall.

A new DM Bob & the Deficits album is always reason to beat on your bucket and rejoice, and their latest, the not-so-lost They Called Us Country, is certainly no exception. As always, the band, which has recorded for Crypt and Voodoo Rhythm Records among others, is loose and sloppy but with a driving swagger that hooks you and sends you swirling in trashy/fuzzy/sleazy goodness. The newly released recordings, which stem from around 1999-2002, burn the honky tonk down with revved up and refreshed covers of Buck Owens, Al Ferrier, and the Velvet Underground as a well as a handful of excellent originals including “Don’t Give Me Nothing” and the sequel to “Hooker Bones.” DM Bob (Bob Tooke), a transplanted Louisianan who also is noted for his paintings, recently took time to respond to respond to my questions from his home in Hamburg, Germany.

How did They Called Us Country come to be a “lost” album? How did it make its way to Germany’s Off Label Records?

At some point after the band broke up, I simply collected this group of songs that sort of fit together with our country side. Every now and then someone would call us a country band – hence the album title – later I started doing Sanford Clark’s version (kind of) of “They Call Me Country.” This LP isn’t really a lost record (those weren’t my words) – more like a dormant demo! A couple of years ago I got a single (vinyl 45!) of The Dead Horse Experience from Off Label in the mail (which was quite nice of ‘em). So, then I offered Johnny Hanke the chance to listen to my dormant demo and he was kind enough to take the dare and put it out. Wonderful production on Johnny’s part!

The title comes from your excellent cover of the Sanford Clark obscurity “They Call Me Country” on the album.  You have great taste in covers (Hasil Adkins’ “Yard Sale,” T-Rex’s “Jeepster,” Johnny Paycheck’s “Slide Off Your Satin Sheets,” Velvet Underground’s “Satellite of Love,” etc.) and deliver distinctly enjoyable interpretations. How would you describe your approach to picking and performing cover songs?

Thanks for this compliment-filled question!  The way I see it it’s sort of traditional, respectful, R&R! and Fun! to do interpretations of other peoples’ tunes – it was certainly what I experienced growing up in south Louisiana. Anyway, I’ve never had any problem with it. I suppose “the art of covering” sort of solidified when the BushHogs were formed in 1986 (with Rick Olivier and Charles Franklin – the band still exists in New Orleans – we play once a year – only Red Deveca has been on bass since 1990).  Rick and I would trade off on guitar and drums and both of us had this strong desire to play all this killer Louisiana music that we were constantly discovering (starting around 1977) – we sort of had this attitude toward not doing original stuff – not to say that all the great songs have been written – writing just seemed pointless to us back then –  of course we took perhaps too much liberty with some tunes – but in general we were simply paying tribute to our mentors (the list is too infinite to mention). In the end, I’d say I’m simply indebted to recorded music.

I understand you are originally are from Louisiana. How did you end up living in Hamburg, Germany, and become DM Bob? Are there ever any “cultural misunderstandings” with fans or others there that like your music but maybe don’t get the references?

Yeah, I’m from Raceland, LA – 35 miles west southwest of New Orleans – supposedly there was once a horse racetrack in Raceland but I’ve always doubted this story – anyway yeah born on the bayou (we did have decent radio back then). How I ended up in Hamburg is “the same old story” – it was because of the love of a woman (I met my ex at a BushHogs thro-down in NO in ‘89). I moved to Hamburg in January ‘91- flew over on the very day the first Gulf War started. It was difficult at first, but in less than a year I found folks to make music with – Hamburg, like New Orleans, is a music city but of course I was confronted with a somewhat new take on things – different tastes, attitudes, styles etc. – lots of stuff I wouldn’t have experienced had I stayed in Louisiana ( perhaps I’m a white trash/euro trash combo).The Deutsch-Mark name story is too long to tell here, but basically it was suggested by the artist Todd Severson (a friend who like me ended up living in Germany – he also wrote the lyrics to Hooker Bones – 1 and 2) – anyway the name was suggested because of my hustling music and paintings plus my general interest in “political economy.” Yes, there were a few “cultural misunderstandings” especially playing some country stuff in Germany – we used to play Johnny Paycheck’s “Apt No 9” and this one for some reason left  the audience consistently cold and playing in the former DDR and often left me saying “they don’t get it” after a show.

Your recent work has been with Jem Finer (a founding member of the Pogues) and the Watzloves, but you are still playing with the Deficits some, right? Any plans to come to the U.S. or to record new music?

Jem and I did two really special albums and a lot of shows in the UK and Germany, but he lives in London and is very busy with his multitude of art projects. I got the Deficits back together for a one-off record release party and we ended up doing two. I’m afraid the Deficits won’t turn into a regular touring band again unless we get a generous offer or play somewhere not too far away – we might yet make it to Berlin or Bremen – I hope so. The markets will decide I guess. The Watzloves are about to start making plans for some U.S. activity – it hasn’t been worked out yet but it would be in LA/TX – for the most part – “a gallery circuit” – basically doing as many gigs as we’re offered between NO and Marfra, TX. I’m now in the process of finishing up recordings of/by “DM Bob & Speedy Jake” – Jakobus (aka S Jake). He once played steel and trombone in the Watzloves. Anyway, now he is a master of the tuba, which compliments my onemanband set up right on. We are finalizing recent recordings plus Silky has a big bag of killer tunes that will be attended to in winter. Yes! Always recording! (thinking about changing the name of the next combo to “Euro Bob and the Sea-Bells”)

You were on the John Peel show twice. He actually sang Merle Haggard’s “Lonesome Fugitive” with you on one of the appearances. What do you remember about that experience?

We did a Deficit session and I did one with Jem for J Peel. He also did a film for BBC TV called “On the Road with John Peel” and the Deficits were fortunate to be included (this was before our first JP Session).  It was a stroke of luck that “Lonesome Fugitive” was one of his favorite songs – he said he used to sing this to his children when they were on the road. Maybe that’s why we got invited to Maida Vale (the amazing BBC recording facility)!  Of course if I hadn’t moved to Germany I would have never met John – it was something very special and wonderful – he was a wonder to music. He told me during the “Lonesome Fugitive session” that he got his first real radio DJ gig in Dallas, TX! – “It was the 60’s and I had the accent.”

The Deficits are very much associated with Crypt Records. Do you keep up with label head Tim Warren, who now lives in Berlin?

I must say Tim Warren and Crypt Records are very “instrumental” for the Deficits – it was really by chance that we landed a contract with Crypt (and yes, he did it up proper) I am in contact – I usually see him when I go to Berlin – we met up just a few weeks ago at Silky Watzlove’s last exhibition – he was there with his dog Roky – he has a fantastic pad in Berlin – relatively happy – doing fantastic mastering and tending to his emporium.

Were you really sued for infringement by the company that owns the Bush Hog trademark after your Bush Hog’N Man album? 

Well, we weren’t never sued – it was one of those “cease and desist” letters – I forgot the name of the corporation that owns the Bush Hog Co. but they didn’t have a case – but of course Tim became a bit nervous and asked me to write a “letter of defense.” Anyway, I explained that the phrase “bush hogging” has long been a euphemism for mowing in the south (even with a lawn mower!) and that actually I was paying tribute (in their letter they said that they didn’t find the song positive to their trade mark – what an insult!) I mean really!  Are there any words one can’t use to write a song?! Seems safer to stick to the covers but the next letter might come from the corporate law firm of Lou Reed!