Tom (does not) Waits ..Yesss!

His latest single from his upcoming release. Don't know if that's Ralph skronking on the sax, but I love it.
Bad As Me

The spirit of BeefHeart lives.

KSU Memorial May 4 2010

I traveled to North Eastern Ohio for the 40th anniverasary of the Kent State Massacre. There was a good turnout and I saw a lot of old, familiar faces. Genral Jackett and Jerry Casale from the DEVO days. Bill Zorn and Chris Butler from even farther back at Guido's Pizza. Thanks to Patty Taylor for the photos

Genral, Jerry and yours truly.


Jerry gave a stirring speech at the Memorial, while still managing to plug DEVO. Bobby Seale also spoke and was touching and funny and righteous.

There was a counter demonstration protesting the Arizonia Immigration law...Interesting?

Genral, Bill Zorn and Jerry solving the World's problems.


Chris Butler...Discuss.

His Hip Highness

Lord Buckley was laying down the synchopated jive long before any of today's auto tuned, metal teeth rappers were thought of , by about fifty years.
Video

Tighten Up

"Tighten Up", by the Black Keys, not Archie Bell, is the latest release from the duo's new collection Brothers.

A clever puppet video suits the greasy groove. Akron's own does it again.

http://www.theblackkeys.com/videos

BruceApalooza 2007

Harvey Gold (Half Cleveland), Paul Long (the Riotous Bros), Patrick Sweany (Mars) and Martin Birch (the Riotous Bros.) do an A.C. (after cake) jam out at the end of the evening.



Friday night February 9th, 2007, about 75 people helped me celebrate my 60th birthday…a scary male milestone. It was my idea to put a broad crossection of my musical friends on stage and see what would happen. It worked out really fine. Shot the entire four hours of music on 2 Betacams and recorded to 24 track Fostex. The DVD may be out in the fall.
Joe Galdo, Joe Lala, Joe Foglia, Tony Battaglia, Chi-Pig, the Riotous Bros., Half-Cleveland, Patrick Sweany, Ken Hatley and Peter van der Sande all contributed to the festivites. Check out Dolli Gold’s photo essay on the party at:http://www.tinhuey.com/news.htm
or more photos at:

Harvey in the Hall

Early in August, I spent three days at the home of Harvey and Dolli Gold in Bath Ohio. The purpose of the visit was to try and record a few of Harvey's songs in a relaxed home environment. Harvey and Dolli live in a restored turn of the century school house in the woods. It sounded great!
Harvey played guitar, keyboards and sang all the vocals.
Debbie Smith of Chi-Pig played bass and "Bongo" Bob Ethington on drums rounded out the trio. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys played guitar on two of the songs and brought us that modern vibe.
Harvey and I will be finishing the tracks and mixing in Orlando in November.

TheJames Gang Rides Again!

Bruce Hensal, Joe Walsh and Joe Lala

Joe Walsh, Jimmy Fox and Dale Peters have reunited as the James Gang, after 30 years to tour the U. S. this summer. I caught the show on Sunday August 27 at Ruth Eckerd Theater in Clearwater. It was smoking! With a psychadelic light show straight outta the Fillmore, the music took me back to the smokey basement of J.B.'s on Water St. in Kent, Ohio circa 1969. They rocked the ususl hit's, "Funk #49", "Walk Away" and "Rocky Mountain Way" and reached way back to cover Freddie King's "Going Down". Excellent.
Joined by a keyboard player and three female singers/dancers, the band stripped down to a trio for several songs, and even a couple of acoustic numbers including a solo acoustic song by Walsh.
He is still one of the best guitarists in the business...a true tone monster.
It's great to see these old fogeys rocking. Anyone got a Walsh story?

True Pioneers

Jim Mothersbaugh and Gary Jackett

"Jungle Jim" Mothersbaugh and "Genral" Jackett were both early influences in the entire Devo aesthetic. Jim was the band's first drummer and virtually invented electronic drums with his Barcus-Berry pickups mounted on drum practice pads. The output fed a synth module and the hihat pedal controlled a white noise generator!
Gary was an early experimental guitarst and graphic designer with some early incarnations of Devo. He was in an early Devo video playing a guitar plugged into a wall heater, if I remember correctly. He also produced one of the first digital multi-media Cd-i discs, the forerunner to DVD.
Cutting edge guys.

Photo credit: M.Pilmer-www.devo-obsesso.com

Chris Butler Annual Wrapping Contest

2/3 Chi-Pig and 1/2 Half Cleveland

this from our frienf CB:

yo all you cats & cittens...

the OFFICIAL BEGINNING of the Christmas season ain't Halloween (sorry, LW3) or Thanksgiving (sorry, all you Big Box retailers)...it's when your's truly announces that the competition for the coveted WRAPPIE AWARD has officially begun!

the WRAPPIE goes to the FIRST person to email me about 'sighting' (er..obviously 'hearing') The Waitresses' version of "Christmas Wrapping" in a public space or on the radio. (nb: shoe stores/malls/college radio all count - playing the tune in you home don't).

every year (2005 being the event's 10th Anniversary), the winner gets $100 donated in their name to the Hoboken Library's Children's Book Fund. (the Library will send the winner a confirmation letter, if requested.)

the other rules: none...

merry pre-sale/non-sectarian holiday wishes to one and all, and may the best set of ears win!

cbutler

ps - feel free to forward this/blog it/etc...

Keep Listening!

Miami...1979

Bruce Hensal and Robert Mittelman at Criteria Studios

Check here for the inside story

Pigs and Half Cleveland

Chi-Pig and Half Cleveland (Harvey Gold and Chris Butler of Tin huey) will play the Beachland Ballroom August 29 th and Devo will be deconstructing things at the Scene pavillon Aug.19??? all dates approximate. Debbie Smith will be doing double duty on bass for both bands...Spuds Forever!

Circles

Today I attended the memorial service of a man I knew through church and work. He was born in Kansas, raised in Africa, lived, worked and taught in Hungary and California. He passed on in Florida, was buried in Ohio, and now lives in Heaven. He was a faithful servant of God, the son of missionaries who served in Rhodesia(Zimbabwe). Mark Bloom was on staff at Campus Crusade for Christ for nearly twenty years. He will be buried in the town of Twinsburg, where my wife Carol attended high school.
Most of my family still live in Ohio, and my parents are buried there.

On September 11, 2001, I was in Kenya, working on "The Jesus Film for Children" for Campus Crusade and Carol was in Florida.

Small world, no?

New Blood

I just wanted to take up a tiny slice of cyberspace to give respect to a nu generation of AkroClevKent musicians. The Black Keys and the Patrick Sweany Band, along with many other players and bands are representing rock in a modern way. Great singing, great playing,
and great songwriting.

"Keep up the good work Men, and remember, Rock marches on..."
Coach Mann

bh

J.B. R.I.P.

from Chris Butler:
fyi.

cbutler

From: David Giffels To:
Sent: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 12:34:19 -0400
Subject: heaven has better restrooms

Joe Bujack, RIP:(owner and namesake of J.B.'s in Kent)

Any good Bujack stories out there?
bh

May 4, 35 years later.

Chris Butler sent me this:

Spent all last week back in Ohio for the 35th anniversary of the Kent State shootings. Sparsely attended, not much media play either...but oh so life-affirming for the geezers that were there. And it felt different from the other reunions…calmer, deeper…something. Dunno why…age?...wisdom?…just living? It really struck me this time how much May 4th has become a part of me/my life. The anger is still there (goddam...i hate those bastards), but also a sense of it being as much a part of me as an arm or a leg. When one is confronted w/ something so terribly wrong, it becomes a moral absolute. Not in the sense of how those right-wing Christians are glomming onto Biblical teachings as 'the only way'…more like as a way of judging all parts of your life. I ducked - my friends didn't - and so I'm living on borrowed time = make each moment count. Don't sweat the small stuff/save your freak-outs for the real crises vs. the day-to-day bullshit. Be happy now/pay yourself off now/joy now…'cause life is short and flimsy. Don't tolerate injustice & unfairness & hypocrisy…if life is unfair, change it/don't be surprised at the pettiness of human nature, but don't succumb to it. Those old idealistic hippie/political values have turned out to be valid and enriching - solid..and practical. In short…I am never lost as to 'what to do'…that single event has become a tool for parsing right & wrong.

Old Folks Boogie

Akron rocked for two straight nights early in April, when the Nicked Up Huey Rock-A-Thon Benefit Weekend hit the Lime Spider in downtown Tire Town.

After the money raised for Mark Price and Michael Aylward, the second best news of the weekend was the reunion of
Chi-Pig after twenty five years,following the release of the “lost” Miami album in 2004. The band rocked, the Poor Girls Plus2!

From the Black Keys to the Numbers Band, from the youngest to the oldest, Akron/Kent music shined in the night on Main Street.

Space and Beyond

A recent Google search on Jan Naftulin turned up www.difinity.com .
Jan is a Jewish drummer/artist/salesman/marketer from Cleveland who found the Lord 12 years ago and now lives in San Francisco.
He currently works with Jews for Jesus and many other sales and celestial ventures.
BTW the restaurant that he has worked at for 26 years burned down several months before
he got the JFJ job.

Check him out!

Where Are They Now ?

I received this email from Patti Taylor:

Bruce,
Da, I forgot about the site. I checked it.
That is my old friend Danny, we have sent several emails already. You are
now my offical time travel pilot. Now there is only one other person I have been looking for. I think you might know him Jim Luby, he lived with
Patrick one time above I think a barber shop. They moved to DC and
haven't been able to find them for about 10 years.

Anyone know the whereabouts of Jim Luby or Jim Ryan or Jim Greathouse?

Kent Reunion

This was passed along by Chris Butler.

Hi Everyone,

Some folks from Kent asked me to send an email around to see what kind of response there would be for a reunion at Kent this May 4th.

Dan Miller plans to show his documentary there this May. He'll have about 60 minutes of the feature-length video he plans to air on public broadcasting and at Sundance about Kent State SDS and the struggle there after SDS was kicked off campus --from about 1964 through the 70s.

So...it's a great opportunity to get together as always. At the 2000 reunion, we spent a day with a sound system in a Kent restaurant telling each other our stories and eating wonderful food. It was an exhilarating experience. I'd love to do something like that again.

I'm in Oregon-- in fact we're all so far away from each other that it's a bit hard to feel the pulse of the group...but...let's talk about this. Remember to "reply all" so everyone on the list gets to read everything everyone writes. Also....take a look at the email list. If you know the addresses of people who should be included there, please let me know and I'll send those addresses out to everyone as well. Of course, some folks don't have email (I have numbers for George Huffman, Vince and Carolyn Modugno, Terry Hynde, Ruth Gibson --if you have others, let me know. A volunteer will be needed to reach them).

Love to you all,
Candy (Erickson) Knox

Carolyn Knox, Ph.D.
Center for Advanced Technology in Education
1244 Walnut Street Suite D.
Eugene, Oregon 97403
541-346-3543 voice
541-346-6226 fax

Dan Miller's Kent State Film

Dan Miller, a former Kent State student, has been working on a documentary about the history of Kent State and the people who were there during the 1960's to the 1980's. He is going to debut it publicly in Kent on May 4th 2005. I haven't seen it yet, but several people who have seen it in various forms over the years say it is very good. Dan has been working with the University of Oregon in recent years and he heads up the Oregon Documentary Project for student filmmakers, good stuff.

The Coop

The home to Bill Zorn...the Z Man.
Back in the day Bill lived in the Coop, a converted chicken coop with a metal working shop on the ground floor, and Bill's living/performance space in the loft above.
Filled with bullwhips, firearms, electric erotic art, and extremely psychadelic lighting performances, it was accompanied by loud rock.
I'm sure you all have stories.
Mine's about Zorn bullwhipping a cigarette out of Gerry Casale's hand, in the parking lot outside the coop, behind Burgners.
Talk about art meets politics.

Kent Oddballs

Maybe it was just an alignment of the stars, but we sure had a slew
of colorful characters inhabiting Kent in those days, 1964 to 1974.

Freddie Palumbo, (I originally identified him as Freddie Salem, a few crossed circuits in my mind!) who was the subject of a James Gang song, would drift into your pad, utter some mystical statement and then seem to vanish into thin air.

Charles Swanson, Don Titto, Andy Anderson, Ted Bliss, and Jim Greathouse were all among the cast of exteme personalities that made life interesting.

Let's hear what you remember.

Concerts at Memorial Gym

I was working for the KSU audio-visual deptartment, and I set up and ran the P.A. for most of the concerts held in Memorial Gym. Two of the most outstanding shows were the Blues Project with Al Kooper and Sly and the Family Stone, who rocked the Kent crowd.
Years later I worked on Al's solo album at the Record Plant in L.A.

Chippewa Lake and the Chylds

Back in the early 60's Medina County had a rockin' fair and concert series at Chippewa Lake Park. I saw Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, and the Chylds, featuring Joe Vitale (standing up) on drums. They wore black and white checked harlequin suits...they looked sharp!

The Mystery of Piper Rock

David Scroggy wrote me about possible blog topics, one of them was Piper Rock, a rock concert that I supposedly stage managed, the problem is I don't remember any of it. It's keeping me awake at nights, so if anyone can refresh my memory, when was it? who was the promoter? exactly where was it?

Here's what I wrote to Scroggy

Piper Rock? seeems to be a black hole in my memory...was that the concert in the park where the bikers and the hippies had a showdown... refresh my
memory.
bh
----- Original Message -----
From: David Scroggy
To: Bruce Hensal
Cc: Peter Goodman
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: Possible blog topics?


> i thought Piper Rock might be a good one for you. As I
> remember it was you who organized a whole bunch of us
> to go there and work We didn't get paid except for the
> promise of a t-shirt and we didn't even get that.
>
> I can try to get it started, though. But I'd bet you
> have more to say

then he went on,

It was a rock festival to be held outside of Akron
somewhere. You had organized a bunch of people from
kent to come and help be set-up crew. I went, and I
know a friend of mine named greg sandage came also. We
all got to the venue (a farm or something) the night
before. We spent the night out there and started
working in the morning.

There was an out-of-town crew who had built the stage.
The workers were led by a hippie named "Thumper" who
was a big guy with very long black hair and a big
black beard.

It was a bit of a disaster. It poured with rain all
night and continued into the day.

The way we got equipment up to the top of the stage
was to pass the amps and stuff hand-to-hand up a
narrow wooden flight of stairs. It was nuts- we could
have lost people.

I believe this was the first gig of Barnstorm, except
Joe called the band "Barnyard". I can't remember who
all was in it. I remember they did a version of Honky
Tonk Women. Probably Vitale on drums.

Other bands (I can't remember all of them) scheduled
included Pig Iron (from Toronto) Canned Heat, The
Byrds, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition and I'm not
sure who else.

Several of them refused to play (like the Byrds)
because they were afraid they would get electrocuted
playing in the rain. Others kind of faked it. For
example, Canned Heat didn't set up, but Bob "The Bear"
Hyte and "Blind Owl" sat in with Pig Iron, using them
as a backing band and doing some Canned Heat songs.

I assume you were a sound man, but can't remember.

I remember you marvelling over a clause in Canned
Heat's contract that required the festival to give
them limousine transportation. You wanted to have Jim
Greathouse, who drove an old hearse in those days, to
pick them up at the airport, thereby providing a
"limousine". This didn't happen, but you thought it
would be funny.

The backstage area was a sea of mud. Most vehicles
were up to their axles in it and stuck. But this crazy
young farmer guy named Ed Hatch (who I knew from
Akron- I don't think any of the Kent people knew him)
showed up in his pickup truck, which was the only
thing that could move through the mud. He was
immediately pressed into service. Since I knew him, he
let me ride in the back when he drove out to pick up
Kenny Rogers and band from their stuck tour bus out by
the road and took them to the backstage area. So I got
to ride in the truck bed with Kenny & his band.

I know there were some other good acts there, but I
can't remember who. maybe someone else will know.

Is any of this coming back to you?

-DS

Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad

One of the first appearances of Led Zeppelin in Northeast Ohio was as the opening act for Grand Funk Railroad. This show was either at the old WHK arena or Public Hall in Cleveland.(I don't remember exactly where it was).
Zep opened and blew the spuds away. Jimmy Page's guitar pyrotechnics, including his famous violin bow solo, stole the show. Even though Grand Funk was the headliner, and played a tight and furious show, the Brits won this early trans Atlantic battle.
Bruce

Herman's Hermits and the Who

Herman's Hermits / The Who in Cleveland

It's funny these days to remember that The Who's first
U.S. tour was as opening act for Herman's Hermits.
Well, I guess if Jimi Hendrix could open for The
Monkees it's not that strange.

Some of us in Akron were able to get import British
'45s, so we actually were pretty up-to-speed on The
Who, and thought they were the greatest band going.

When the concert came to Cleveland, I was allowed to
go. My friend Greg Bury of The Brambles drove, as I
was still too young to go by myself. I didn't know any
of the Kent folks on this blog yet, as Kent was still
a few years away for young David.

As we had little interest in Herman's Hermits, and
were crazy for The Who, we decided to bail on the
concert at intermission and see if we could follow
them back to their hotel. Amazingly enough, this
worked and we found ourselves pulling up to the lobby
of the Statler-Hilton in Cleveland.

Upon entering the lobby, we found a dozen or so young
fans like ourselves and Roger Daltry holding forth on
a sofa. We heard that John Entwhistle was downstairs
in the adjacent club ( Otto's Grotto, I believe it was
called), and most of our party repaired down there. I
couldn't because I was under 18.

But Greg and I spied Peter Townshend as he was heading
for the elevator, and he was nice enough to stop for a
minute and shake hands and let us tell him we thought
he was great.

Not long after, Peter Noone arrived, and planted
himself in the bar off the lobby. In his wake, a bunch
of teenybopper girls appeared (they must have been
young if they seemed young to me) and wanted to go
talk to "Herman" but were afraid to enter the bar
because they "weren't allowed".

So they waited patiently, and after an hour or so of
mooning and twittering, were rewarded by the sight of
Mr. Noone and a few manager-type associates heading
from the bar into the lobby toward the elevators. We
had been nearby listening to Daltry, who was dressed
splendidly in a flowing paisley capelike jacket,
regale his fans with god-knows-what kind of b.s.

We weren't paying that much attention to Herman's
group, but at that point an interesting thing
happened: a very pissed-off shout loudly echoed
through the lobby, which was "I'm gonna kick your
fucking blooming ass!!!". As all heads turned, we saw
dear sweet Herman (who was not exactly a small guy,
cute press shots notwithstanding) throwing a
roundhouse punch at some drunk guy in a suit.

Apparently this fellow was a hotel guest drinking in
the bar who didn't know or care who Peter Noone was
and had spent the last hour insulting him because he
had long hair. By then Herman had had a few himself
and was ready to mix it up.

Quickly his handlers restrained Noone, who was
frothing and screaming and trying to break loose to
fight this guy, and (no doubt envisioning the morning
papers) they hustled him bodily into the elevators and
upstairs. But not before some 50-ish, short bald man
in a suit with a cigar in his mouth, who appeared to
be about 5 feet tall and was undoubtedly on the
business side of the Hermit's team, said "Why don't
you try that with me, sport !", and pushed the drunk
ass-over-teakettle down a short flight of stairs.

Simultaneously, I noticed two things: one was the
completely horrified expressions on the young
teenybopper girl's faces as some kind of dream
shattered before their eyes, and the other was Roger
Daltrey, now standing on top of the back of the couch,
waving his outstretched arms and singing as loud as he
could a slightly sarcastic rendition of The Beatle's
tune "All You Need Is Love".

After that, everyone pretty much called it a night.

-Scroggy

Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart

Did any of you attend the Jeff Beck Group show at the short lived
Grande Ballroom in Cleveland? Rod Stewart was the singer, Ron Wood played bass, Mickey Waller on drums and Max Middelton on keyboards. Amazing show...and the year was?

The Poor Girls, Chi-Pig

Bruce,
I was going to post a request for audio/video/still photos of the Poor
Girls and Chi-Pig, esp. from the gigs at the Civic Theater opening for
Cream and Steppenwolf, and the Cleveland Teen Fair.

Sue
Susan Schmidt Horning, Ph.D.
Adjunct Faculty, Liberal Arts
The Cleveland Institute of Art
11141 East Boulevard
Cleveland, Ohio 44106

Genral Jackett and Headquarters

Gary Jackett sent me a lovely Christmas card this year, an original signed work of art, probably created on a Mac with Photoshop. I remember when he spray painted on large canvases and T-shirts...that's adaptation!
He lived above the flower shop on Water Street (Headquarters) back in the day.

The Measles, Glass Harp, James Gang, the Numbers Band

These bands played mostly at J.B.'s on Water Street. Great playing, great singing, great grooves and beer, a spud's delight.
Remember:
the Kove, the Loft, the Robin Hood and the other bars I've forgotten.
Remember
Fred Weber, Jeff Curry, Bob Webb, Mary Measle, Buddy, Dave, The Numbers Band cast; Bob and Jack Kidney, Terry Hynde, Chris Butler, Jerry Casale, Fred Trabuzzo, David Robinson, Michael Staley, etc. Joe Walsh, Tom Kriss, Jimmy Foxx, Phil Keaggy and everyone else I've forgotten again.

Guido's Pizza and Franklin Apartments

These were both places I lived in Kent. At Guido's, Chris Butler, Gerry Casale, Terry Hynde, Jim Greathouse and myself all lived there at the same time.
Franklin apartments was right across the street from the old library. Myself and Patrick Cullie lived on the ground floor, along with Ted Bliss, a beatnik record collector who turned us on to old classic Robert Johnson blues. Bill Zorn, of later Coop fame, was Ted's roomate. Grant Kollar, an art student/race car driver was the manager and lived in the third ground floor apartment.