Press enter after choosing selection

Rock And Roll Shorts

Rock And Roll Shorts image
Parent Issue
Day
12
Month
November
Year
1971
OCR Text

     BIG CHANGES AT WRIF, one of motown's favorite FMs, went down without comment in recent issues of the SUN because we really didn't know what to say.  First Barbara Holliday was fired from her spot in the nighttime slot after a crazed show last month (and rumor has it she was banned from ever setting foot in Broadcast House again), and then the high energy brother on before Barb, Paul Greiner, got the ax too.  A full report of what has been happening and why will appear In the next issue of the SUN, so stick with us.  Judging from a letter we received just before we went to press from Holliday (who is cooling out on the East coast), it should be a pretty hot story....

     THE MUSICIAN'S UNION WON'T LET DETROIT play, according to Barry Kramer, manager of the band who's lead singer, one Mitch Ryder, was interviewed two issues ago in the SUN.  Barry said that money owed to Detroit City's Local 5 of the American Federation of Musicians caused the cancellation of recent gigs in Michigan for the band, including an Eastown showing, and the Union apparently didn't even let them play at their own private press party held last week in a Detroit bar.  Whatever differences there were between the band and the Union apparently didn't do too much until the release of their new album last month.  With fame for Detroit imminent, the Federation just refuses to let them play anywhere until there is a settlement, and the chomps have the law on their side.  Negotiations are in progress....

     We're sorry we forgot to mention this earlier, but the BRAT have passed on.  After the departure of organist Mark Carter and guitarist Ben Brewer a couple of months ago, the rest tried to make a go of it but it just didn't happen and lead singer Leone Mills, bassist Nat Peterson, and the drummer Larry Blunt moved out of their house in Ann Arbor and back to Mt. Clemens last month with all intending to go separate ways.  From the Clem, Nat plans to go to England, but nothing else about the other plans of the once dynamite combination is known....

     The BIGGEST UNITED STATES COLONY is going to host a beeg Amerikan pop festival soon if the promoters can pull it off.  It was called "Fiesta Del Sol" and was supposed to happen over the Thanksgiving holidays, but last word is that the Puerto Rican pop festival featuring Poco, Ten Years After, Richie Havens, Mountain, Procol Harum, the Allman Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Ike and Tina Turner, and José Feliciano has been delayed (but not cancelled).  The festival, held on a 430 acre plot along the Carribean, was supposed to last 3 days and cost 15 bucks at the gate or as much as $200 from the West Coast, charter plane flight included. Oh well....

     THE UP HAVE BEEN AT THE SRC STUDIO recently and will return this month to make demo tapes for use in the band's onslaught on the New York record company scene.  A record firm is paying for the time at Morgan Sound studios so they can get a chance to hear what the Ann Arbor rock and rollers can do on tape.  Sessions this month will also include a recording of the Upster's "Free John Now!" for a free single to be distributed during the FJN! campaign, if a donor can be found to pay costs, that is....

     In case you hadn't heard, DUANE ALLMAN is dead.  Georgia's most famous guitar player was killed Oct. 29 when his motorcycle was hit by a truck in his home town, Macon.  Aside from being a big southern pride Duane was a member (along with brother Greg) of the Allman Brothers and had played with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Steve Stills among others and was featured with Eric Clapton on the Derek and the Dominoes album....

     THE JOHN SINCLAIR FREEDOM RALLY AT THE CRISLER ARENA ON DEC. 10 WILL FEATURE ROCK AND ROLL, OF COURSE.  WATCH FOR FURTHER WORD ON THIS KILLER EVENT....

     We even forgot to mention last month about Commander Cody's KILLER OZONE album on the Paramount label.  The album made history when it came out alongside of and on the same label as Detroit's debut album.  A first for the Airmen and Commander as well as being a landmark release (along with Detroit) in the history of the record biz, the album's been a joy to our hearts....

     From Dec. 1 till Jan. 15 the PARLIAMENT/FUNKADELIC are going to be touring racist South África, of all places.

     The BEACH BOYS are messing with politics more than ever now--two months ago Carl Wilson beat a draft evasion charge in Federal Court on the grounds that the band's plans to play at a series of hospitals and prisons in the near future constitute a fulfillment of Wilson's draft duty.  He had been accepted as a conscientious objector but the government wanted him to change bedpans in the Veterans Hospitals to make up his military time.  The Federal judge in California upheld Wilson's appeal on the grounds that he could do a lot more for the country as a musician than as a bedpan changer.  During their latest tour the Beachboys are giving refunds to fans who show up proving that they're registered to vote.  You don 't get the whole ticket price back but at least a buck or two anyway which is a killer way to help bolster the ranks of 18 year-old voters.  Blood, Sweat and Tears have picked up on both examples and have played at a California prison and started to give voter-refunds....

     Folks who caught the GUARDIAN ANGEL with PINK FLOYD at Hill Auditorium a couple of weeks ago shouldn't be pissed at the Angel cause they couldn't hear lead singer Scott Morgan's vocals.  The Floyd wouldn't let the Angels use their expensive, expansive PA system and the Angels had to scrounge one of their own together out of whatever equipment they could find locally.  Like a lot of other killer bands in the Michigan area who haven't been bought by big record companies, the Guardian Angel just can't afford to buy the equipment that they need to kick 'em out.  If you think about it, it's a form of slavery--not having what you need unless you sell yourselves (which almost always means you sell out) ....

     Another passing that we can 't let go by is that of KING CURTIS Ousley, the tenor saxaphonist whose solo in the Coaster's hit, "Yakety Yak" started him out on a career that had him playing with the Shirelles, Bobby Darin, Connie Francis, Nat Cole, Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles, Andy Williams, Sam and Dave, Chuck Willis, Eric Clapton, the Allmans, and Delaney and Bonnie.  Leader of his own Kingpins and musical director for sister Aretha, the King of R & B was stabbed to death during a quarrel with some neighborhood people in front of his brownstone house on West 86th St. in New York on Friday, Aug. 19.  Another sad example of why we've got to learn to fight the real enemy and stop fighting each other....

     In a story headlined NO SMALL RADIO STATIONS ALLOWED Rolling Stone magazine, in a recent issue, tells of two brothers in New York who were arrested and charged with violation of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 for running a radio station without a license.  Allen Weiner and Joseph Paul Ferraro are no small time hobbyists, they were doing an AM and FM station on a clear channel which could be picked up in places as far away from death city as Quebec and Florida.  The people's pirate station had thousands of listeners, featured people who, according to Ferraro "were coming down to do shows on our station instead of sitting on the corner and getting busted," and involved about $3000 worth of rare surplus equipment.  Ferraro says that when he and Weiner applied for a license with the FCC "The guy asked us if we had a million dollars.  We said no.  He laughed at us and said, 'Forget it.'  He wouldn't even give us the form."  That's how the two brothers first became air pirates, and after 8 months of operation each now face a year in the can and a $10,000 fine, and all their stuff has been confiscated.  The day their trial, which they want to use to prove that people should have the right to use of the airwaves, came up for arraignment Curtis Plummer of the FCC Field Bureau in New York said that airspace would only be allotted to stations that were worthwhile.  "To be worthwhile," he explained, "you have to be big, and to be big, you need a lot of money."....

     Mitch Ryder's vocal on the new Detroit single, the Velvet's "Rock and Roll", apparently has been "personalized" for AM play.  Instead of saying "She used to listen to the radio station/ she didn't believe she heard it at all," the version we heard on Keener the other night said, "She used to listen to the radio station/ Double yoo kay en ar"....

ROCK ON TO FREE JOHN NOW!