...was the title of the second album from the fabulous Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson's gang, and it came out on the crazed Texal International Artists label right around the same time as "The Who Sell Out" and The Beach Boys' "Smiley Smile", in September 1967...San Francisco's post-summer of love's "Death of Hippie" slide into hard drugs and creeping paranoia not-withstanding, the Elevators evinced a cheerful optimism in the face of the imminent crack-up of their front man (who was miraculously resurrected by his blood brother a couple years back and is regularly gigging again, catch the documentary "You're Gonna Miss Me" http://www.rokyerickson.net/docu.html as soon as you can, a revelation and a must-see about one of the seminal figures--and near acid-casualties--of rock...

and it seems fitting and appropriate in this yearly confluence of Passover and Easter to pay obeisance to Easter the holiday's nurturing resurrection motif (Patti Smith herself has acknowledged the Elevators' influence, and there of course was her own "Easter" album)-- "come on roll away the stone"...

me, I have a song on my "Bad Boys of the Arctic" album entitled "They Can't Believe He's Risen Again"...(believe it).


This arose out of a found fragment of overheard actual diurnal dialogue, one of my favorite lyrical composition techniques (take what you have gathered by coincidence), occasion being the time me and my partner in crime Bill Moseley allowed an actual mad itinierant alcoholic poet to read at our weekly Things That Go Bump in the Night horror film society gathering at Yale in 1973, at his insistence (my impulse is usually charitable when someone importunes me to share a stage with them)...the guy announced he was going to read his poem entitled "Easter", asnd managed to get out the one line "The can't believe He's risen again!" before being hooted down repeatedly by an egregious mass of bored Yalies...but he kept at it, doggedly, staring them all down in the face of mass insurrection ("I am the resurrection and the life").

I like that.

Had 2 great gigs in town recently...

played a rousing "Let's Go Swimming" with Ernie Brooks, Mustafa Ahmed and Joyce Bowden at a packed Tribute to the late great Arthur Russell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Russell_(cellist) held at Le Poisson Rouge here last Saturday night...

Arthur was one of my earliest supporters as I was of his genius (I hooked up his last record deal with Geoff Travis' Rough Trade Records on my honeymoon in 1985) who stood way the fuck up for me when I started to contemplate playing guitar fulltime for a living back in 1986, at a session I arranged for Rough Trade that pitted Arthur's crazy dancefloor genius with the young turk rapper, my protege at the time, Mark Sinclair (who you may know today as Vin Diesel)...

at that session Arthur made a very astute comment "You know Gary, you should be playing fulltime--as you are happiest with a guitar in your hands"--both he and Howard Thompson and Verna Gillis were the most encouraging and supportive of my friends at a time when nearly everyone else was convinced that I had totally gone off the rails to even consider such a seemingly suicidal career move this at the ripe old age of thirty whatsit-- and haha, who's got the last laugh now?

Second gig was at Michael Dorf's City Winery to usher in Passover last Monday, Mike has been holding these Downtown Seders since time immemorial (well, about 10 years now) and I have attended and/or performed in them (usually essaying the role of Elijah) for about as long a time...this time as the "Wise Child" (Lou Reed usually does this role, he was absent this year) I played solo my arrangement of Smetana's "The Moldau" from "Ma Vlast", which borrows liberally from the ancient Italian folk tune which is shared by/is the basis for "Ha Tikvah" (the Israeli national album), later on I came back with Dean Bowman to perform as Chase the Devil our new song "Nobody's House" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNnFCY8sg8I&feature=channel_page...

A good week, wherein I was sought out and invited by the prestigious Jazz Cafe in London's Camden Town to perform there solo, healdining on Saturday May 16th with my friends The Dark Poets sitting in with me (check out our recent Some Bizarre album "Beyond the Pale--Gary Lucas Vs. The Dark Poets, available at the iTunes store, and check out our MySpace site at http://www.myspace.com/garylucasvsthedarkpoetsalbum ... Some Bizarre major domo Stevo tells me the album is about to be re-distributed in the UKL through Universal and will soon be made available in the US)...

and I confirmed my Gary Lucas Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show ("it was 20 years ago today!"--well, nearly...Giorgio Gomelsky has footage of our very first gig which was held in Prospect Park at the Welcome Back to Brooklyn Festival in July 2009, which I will post shortly on YouTube, a wonderful show where we blew out their PA on the second number) which is to be held on Thursday June 11th in NYC at the tres cool Blender Theater at Gramercy and 23rd Street, a great music venue with plush seats and balcony reminiscent of the old Fillmore East --joining me, Ernie Brooks, Billy Ficca, Jason Candler and Joe Hendel will be my very special guest, the incredible Alan Vega--and more surprises are planned, stay tuned

Plus, I was commissioned by Emmy-awward winning documentary filmmaker Slawomir Grunberg to score his latest documentary for PBS, which I will start on this wednesday...and was just interviewed by Olivia Williams on her syndicated radio show The "O" Show...

A good week yes...

saddened unfortunately by the passing of my father on Passover at age 86 in Riverside California...he'd been ill for a long long time...

Caroline and I are heading out to Riverside early tomorrow morning for a memorial ceremony with my mother, sister and brother-in-law, and nephew attending on Monday...

what can I say, he was a wonderful man;...

and you have him to either thank or curse for the fact of me playing guitar today... as he single-handedly came to me when I was a clueless little boy at the age of 9, and said:

"Gary, how about playing a musical instrument? How about the guitar??"

I will miss you terribly, Dad...

Easter Everywhere...

Believe it.


xxLove


Gary

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Posted By Gary Lucas to Gary Lucas at 4/11/2009 10:58:00 PM