Who is Pictoria Vark? She’s the spoonerism who serves as a rock handle for rising songwriter Victoria Park. The 23-year-old Iowa City singer/bassist just made one of last year’s finest indie records with her breakthrough, The Parts I Dread. It’s a road trip of an album—it’s full of the places she’s lived and left behind, from suburban New Jersey to rural Wyoming, from Brooklyn streets to Iowa prairies. But her songs all share that nomadic sense of wandering. As Park says with a laugh,...
- 2/3/2023
- by Rob Sheffield
- Rollingstone.com
Spector, the new, four-part documentary premiering on Showtime on November 4th, is unique among music docs: It’s part true-crime narrative, part monumentally lurid Behind the Music. Directed by Sheena M. Joyce and Don Argott, it takes us through the well-documented story of how Phil Spector went from iconic and contentious record producer to convicted murderer.
The tale is still both familiar and queasy. After he’d made booming, cathartic pop symphonies like the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve...
The tale is still both familiar and queasy. After he’d made booming, cathartic pop symphonies like the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve...
- 11/4/2022
- by David Browne
- Rollingstone.com
Bill Pitman, a guitarist whose work as part of the legendary recording session group The Wrecking Crew made an invaluable contribution to countless radio hits, TV series and films, died yesterday at his home in La Quinta, California. He was 102.
His death was announced to The New York Times by wife Janet Pitman, who told the publication her husband died after four weeks of hospice care following a fall that fractured his spine.
Pitman’s guitar playing was ubiquitous, if largely anonymous, for decades beginning in the 1950s. Just a sampling of the songs he played on: The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,” Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were, The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and The Monkees’ “Papa Gene’s Blues.” He played the ukelele on the B.J. Thomas hit “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,...
His death was announced to The New York Times by wife Janet Pitman, who told the publication her husband died after four weeks of hospice care following a fall that fractured his spine.
Pitman’s guitar playing was ubiquitous, if largely anonymous, for decades beginning in the 1950s. Just a sampling of the songs he played on: The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,” Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were, The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and The Monkees’ “Papa Gene’s Blues.” He played the ukelele on the B.J. Thomas hit “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,...
- 8/12/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Four days after Paul McCartney announced he was leaving The Beatles in an April 10, 1970, press release, another iconic rock and roll creation de-evolved. Despite their reputation, The Monkees were a real band and their TV series was more accurate in showing the development of a musical unit than history has given them credit for. It didn’t matter if the four actors wrote their own songs, played their own instruments, or even if that was Michael Nesmith’s real hat. They did what every group does. They learned their songs, got better on their instruments along the way, and left behind a bunch of tunes which truly captured an individual sound. And people said they were monkeying around.
The Monkees TV show, which aired from Sept. 12, 1966 through March 25, 1968 on NBC, glorified the magic of rock and roll. The band, which was inspired by The Beatles’ personas captured in A Hard Day’s Night...
The Monkees TV show, which aired from Sept. 12, 1966 through March 25, 1968 on NBC, glorified the magic of rock and roll. The band, which was inspired by The Beatles’ personas captured in A Hard Day’s Night...
- 4/14/2020
- by Mike Cecchini
- Den of Geek
Not everyone is a big fan of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s recently released third season, it seems.
Legendary studio musician Carol Kaye, whose life and career serves as a template for Liza Weil’s Maisel character Carole Keene, voiced her displeasure regarding the portrayal in an interview with the New York Post. “A lot of people are saying, ‘That must be you. I love it!’ But I am not a cartoon — and my life is not a joke… Nobody contacted me. I didn’t know a thing about it. I thought that was pretty bad — kind of like slander.
Legendary studio musician Carol Kaye, whose life and career serves as a template for Liza Weil’s Maisel character Carole Keene, voiced her displeasure regarding the portrayal in an interview with the New York Post. “A lot of people are saying, ‘That must be you. I love it!’ But I am not a cartoon — and my life is not a joke… Nobody contacted me. I didn’t know a thing about it. I thought that was pretty bad — kind of like slander.
- 1/4/2020
- TVLine.com
She’s played on recordings from Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys to The Monkees. But Carol Kaye isn’t playing when it comes to the new character who appears to borrow heavily from her persona on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
The 84-year-old and feisty Kaye, who made her mark in a largely man’s world of West Coast studio musicians in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the famed “Wrecking Crew” of elite studio musicians, claims a new character introduced in Season 3 of the show – Carole Keen – is somewhat insulting to what the real-life woman accomplished.
“It has nothing to do with me or my history,” Kaye told the New York Post. They took a few things out of my book and created a character that’s not even me at all. A lot of people are saying, ‘That must be you. I love it!’ But I am...
The 84-year-old and feisty Kaye, who made her mark in a largely man’s world of West Coast studio musicians in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the famed “Wrecking Crew” of elite studio musicians, claims a new character introduced in Season 3 of the show – Carole Keen – is somewhat insulting to what the real-life woman accomplished.
“It has nothing to do with me or my history,” Kaye told the New York Post. They took a few things out of my book and created a character that’s not even me at all. A lot of people are saying, ‘That must be you. I love it!’ But I am...
- 1/3/2020
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Some viewers might have assumed that Carol Kaye, the legendary studio bassist who was part of the so-called Wrecking Crew in the 1960s, would be flattered by having a character loosely modeled on her, “Carole Keen,” introduced in the latest season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Noting that the real-life Kaye is now 84, Esquire praised the homage and wrote, “Hopefully she’s binging ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Season Three proudly, along with the rest of us.”
Well, no. Anyone who knows Kaye’s history of taking issue with documentaries that involve her knew that she probably wouldn’t suffer a fictional portrayal any more lightly. And indeed that has turned out to be the case, as Kaye has vented about “Mrs. Maisel” in an interview with the New York Post.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘That must be you. I love it!’ But I am not a cartoon — and...
Well, no. Anyone who knows Kaye’s history of taking issue with documentaries that involve her knew that she probably wouldn’t suffer a fictional portrayal any more lightly. And indeed that has turned out to be the case, as Kaye has vented about “Mrs. Maisel” in an interview with the New York Post.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘That must be you. I love it!’ But I am not a cartoon — and...
- 1/3/2020
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
Amy Sherman-Palladino on Bringing Gilmore Vet Liza Weil to Mrs. Maisel: 'Htgawm Played Ball With Us'
Thankfully, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel boss Amy Sherman-Palladino did not have to kill anyone to procure Gilmore Girls vet Liza Weil for a three-episode guest stint in the Amazon Prime smash’s third season (now streaming). But she did have to get permission from the actresses’ How to Get Away With Murder bosses.
“They were very nice to us,” Sherman-Palladino tells TVLine, explaining that the network initially gave her the Ok to use Weil in two episodes, “But we needed her for a third, and, luckily, [ABC] played ball with us.”
More from TVLineMarvelous Mrs. Maisel EPs, Cast on That 'Very...
“They were very nice to us,” Sherman-Palladino tells TVLine, explaining that the network initially gave her the Ok to use Weil in two episodes, “But we needed her for a third, and, luckily, [ABC] played ball with us.”
More from TVLineMarvelous Mrs. Maisel EPs, Cast on That 'Very...
- 12/6/2019
- TVLine.com
Tony Sokol Jun 6, 2019
New Orleans musician Mac Rebennack conjured the best mojo in Dr. John the Night Tripper.
"They call me Dr. John, The Night Tripper," New Orleans voodoo pianist Mac Rebennack sang on the 1969 song "Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya." With his sizzling Gris-Gris his hand, he lived and breathed New Orleans. The last of the best, Dr. John the Night Tripper, died of a heart attack "toward the break of day" on Thursday, June 6, according to the New York Times. Like Leon Redbone, who died last week, there is some dispute over Dr. John's age, various reports have him listed as 77 or 78.
"The family thanks all whom have shared his unique musical journey, and requests privacy at this time," a statement from the musician's family said. They did not say where he died, though he reportedly was resting at his Lake Pontchartrain area home, not too far from New Orleans.
New Orleans musician Mac Rebennack conjured the best mojo in Dr. John the Night Tripper.
"They call me Dr. John, The Night Tripper," New Orleans voodoo pianist Mac Rebennack sang on the 1969 song "Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya." With his sizzling Gris-Gris his hand, he lived and breathed New Orleans. The last of the best, Dr. John the Night Tripper, died of a heart attack "toward the break of day" on Thursday, June 6, according to the New York Times. Like Leon Redbone, who died last week, there is some dispute over Dr. John's age, various reports have him listed as 77 or 78.
"The family thanks all whom have shared his unique musical journey, and requests privacy at this time," a statement from the musician's family said. They did not say where he died, though he reportedly was resting at his Lake Pontchartrain area home, not too far from New Orleans.
- 6/7/2019
- Den of Geek
Here's one consolation for the years it apparently took Denny Tedesco to get his labor-of-love documentary The Wrecking Crew wrapped up and in front of our eyeballs: He's been conducting interviews for so long that we're treated to footage of a hale and hearty Dick Clark and of a Glen Campbell whose memory seems to be clicking along just fine. Clark offers generic happy talk, but Campbell's on hand to marvel at his greatest pre-fame achievement — his work as a guitar-man in the nebulous band of L.A. session musicians who came to be known as the Wrecking Crew. Configurations of the crew played on a spectacular run of Sixties hits for Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, the Monkees, and more. Highlights abound, as when bassist Carol Kaye demonstrates how she turne...
- 3/11/2015
- Village Voice
I feel kind of bad that I’ve been doing B-Sides all this time without showcasing anything from the 1964 “first-ever monster musical” The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. I’m all shook out of shape knowing it has taken me this long.
Ray Dennis Steckler’s $38,000 masterpiece of trash cinema is virtually impossible to describe using mere words. Starring in his own film under the pseudonym “Cash Flagg”, Steckler plays one of three friends who visit a carnival where a fortune teller hypnotizes him into becoming a psychopathic zombie. From there it only gets weirder.
In between the weirdness there are multiple song-and-dance numbers at a nightclub where much of the film’s events take place, and eventually similar hypnotized zombies with acid-burned faces go on a rampage at said nightclub. The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies truly lives up...
Ray Dennis Steckler’s $38,000 masterpiece of trash cinema is virtually impossible to describe using mere words. Starring in his own film under the pseudonym “Cash Flagg”, Steckler plays one of three friends who visit a carnival where a fortune teller hypnotizes him into becoming a psychopathic zombie. From there it only gets weirder.
In between the weirdness there are multiple song-and-dance numbers at a nightclub where much of the film’s events take place, and eventually similar hypnotized zombies with acid-burned faces go on a rampage at said nightclub. The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies truly lives up...
- 9/22/2012
- by Foywonder
- DreadCentral.com
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