COVER STORY  |  IN THE NEWS   |  STAGE MATTERS   |  DIRT  |  ARTBEAT POEM  |  IN REVIEW  |  GARLICK'S NOTEBOOK  |  MOVIES TALK OF THE TABLE  |  THE HUM  |  CALENDAR November 15, 2007 Rooster McClintock | Why Kerouac Matters | Help! Rooster McClintock Oct. 27 at the Ocean Grove Crunk music is the notorious southern brand of hip hop — dizzying repetitive beats crafted to make dancers ecstatic, often with the assistance of alcohol and drugs. A pre-Halloween evening with Humboldt honky tonk band Rooster McClintock at Trindad's Ocean Grove offers an easy comparison: honky crunk. As Rooster McClintock began to play, the crowd at the Ocean Grove grew from a few tentative dancers to wall-to-wall in just a few songs. Casual observation saw the taciturn bartenders pouring a lot of cheap liquor and expensive beer to the patrons. The waft of cannabis flowed into the crowd from the nearby smoking lounge. The band kicked up a driving truck-driver boogie and it wasn't long 'til the audience was frenzied. Rooster McClintock shared the floor with the dancers — the pool table had been pushed to the side — and exhorted themselves and the audience to get rowdy. "It's our job to drive drunk people crazy!" one of the band members yelled into the microphone between songs. Six instruments: bass (Paul "C.W" Calovich), banjo (Graham Burke), lead guitar (Jake Wiegandt), rhythm guitar (Jereme Stinespring), drums (Nathan Benbow) and dobro (Chris Kennedy). All driven by boogie. Heartfelt and even desperate at times, the band lurches through some two-step nostalgia, mixes it with punk-rock aesthetic and arrives at something undeniably enjoyable. Jerry Reed's classic "Amos Moses" gave the dobro player a chance to show his chops and the toe-tapping turned into thunderous stomping. The audience — a mix of graven Trinidad locals, Arcata free-spirits, a few punks, some travelers and some bearded California hillbillies — mixed it up, freewheeling on the dance floor. Drinks got spilled, people got knocked over and the pace quickened (if that was possible). The subject matter of their songs is people's music — the real experiences of life. It certainly can be described as C & W: "Country" as in rural and free; "Western" as in rambling and expansive. But it isn't corporate Nashville, and the band knows the difference. Strewn across tables were band stickers that read: "Save country music from itself — support your local honky tonk band." The members of Rooster McClintock are in love with authentic country, and they give every ounce to the audiences. The unassuming Ocean Grove offered a nice context for the band. Under low-slung rafters the six musicians played, drank and danced with the crowd. It is obvious that Rooster McClintock can perform in the pubs and coffee houses of Arcata, but the band fits in nicely on the periphery of the North Coast. Next up is a Nov. 30 show at the Scotia Inn. Expect a dance-off between the imported hipsters who travel with the band and timber workers. My money is on the timber workers. Rooster McClintock has a great combination of respect for the elders of country music and a passionate love of boogie. A dangerous combination on its own, but when mixed with a tipsy rural audience it is positively magical. Honky Crunk at its finest. — Maxwell Schnurer, HSU communications professor   Why Kerouac Matters by John Leland. Viking. Few literary brands need to be reduced in size and fable more than that of Jack Kerouac. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Kerouac's On the Road, the hip European clothing shop Hogan debuted its own line of Kerouac-inspired beatnik clothing, including boots starting at $475. Clearly the waves of commercialization, which started in the mid-'90s with "Kerouac wore khakis" ads, have culminated in thunderous crashes of misinterpretation on whatever levees of logical Beat discourse might remain. Enter The New York Times' John Leland with Why Kerouac Matters. Leland doesn't attempt to defend the book so much as outline what Kerouac actually meant. Unfortunately, Leland tells most everyone who loves On the Road that their readings are, more or less, wrong. Even the cover takes the aloof high ground, with Leland's smirking, detached subtitle, "The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think)." Leland's intellectual condescension, disguised in hip informality and Kerouac-er than thou attitude, is devastatingly off-putting. Describing Kerouac's first-person narrator, Sal Paradise, Leland rants, "So Sal is a doting nephew and an aspiring hubby. Deal with it." Is that necessary? Lectures with a reprimanding tone might even be tolerable, if many of his points weren't so awkwardly forced. Leland repeatedly attempts to align Kerouac with the hip-hop generation, seemingly to spite the masses that mistakenly see On the Road as a precursor to hippies and rock ‘n' roll. (Kerouac was one of the biggest influences on Bob Dylan; Dylan influenced every musician of the era — that's not much of a stretch there.) "Sal may be short on bling," Leland writes. "... But he has mad flow and even flirts with a gangsta moment ... Kerouac shouted perpetual props to his mother ... Their quest was Tupac's." Leland's sudden youthful earnestness is almost embarrassing in contrast to his previous arrogance. Eventually, he even goes so far as to label Sal's aunt the "Original Gangsta," or "O.G." A collective groan might be in order. Maybe even more so later, when Leland's chapter headings — self-help style — go beyond parody into a realm of fatal kitsch: from "Sal's Guide to Work and Money" and "What Would Jack Do?" to "The Faust and the Furious." Nonetheless, few before him have written such a well-researched book on Kerouac. Even a cursory view of the sources seems to identify every book written about the writer or On the Road, and the continuous citations allow Kerouac to speak of his book in his own words. Likewise, perhaps never has the element of jazz, both Kerouac's fascination with and use of, been so eloquently observed as in Leland's expansive chapter on the theme. But by this point, most fans of On the Road, which Leland seems to have forgotten would be the only ones interested in such a book, have likely checked out. So, when the sun goes down in America on the 50th anniversary, what meaning is left to gather from Kerouac's work? To those (this writer included) whose worldview was molded, their personal creed outlined, their vision sparked by Kerouac's sympathy, tenderness and passion, is there anything besides high-brow lectures and $500 boots? Is that once-glimpsed romance of personal experience still there? As with On the Road's release, the only true response is to hold everything the world hands us about the book at arm's length, to find the meaning ourselves — in the pages, on the road — and to apply Kerouac's teachings to our own solos of joy, kicks and darkness. — Todd Lazarski, Shepherd Express   Help! Directed by Richard Lester Apple/EMI Even if there are movies greater than Help! — which recently arrived in a new DVD edition — it's hard to think of movies more wonderful. The Beatles were great enough without their film work, but the double whammy of Hard Day's Night and Help! was yet another significant force in the creation of their iconic stature. Unlike Elvis' films — in which the King played a number of different characters, only a few of whom were straight retoolings of his persona — the Beatles played themselves. Of course, the films were scripted, and it would be naive to think that the characters named John, Paul, George and Ringo were identical to the real Fab Four. But these films gave the appearance of a glimpse into their real personalities — which is part of the reason this double bill became something of a communal ritual for the boomer generation, back in the days before home video. Since fans had to rely on sporadic repertory house bookings, many showed up at all of them. The decade-old MPI DVD was sucky on a number of grounds, and a new edition is long overdue. Apple, through EMI, has assembled a new two-disc release, which is decidedly a mixed bag. First the good news: The visual presentation is far superior. The new edition employs the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.75:1, which alone is enough to make it worthwhile. The MPI disc was 1.33:1; worse yet, a few random frame comparisons suggests that MPI didn't merely remove the mattes and give us too much image, but rather cropped the sides off of a theatrical print. In addition, the image seems richer on the new disc, even if there was no new restoration work. Another plus: The standard package — there is also a much more expensive "gift edition," if that sort of thing floats your boat — includes a booklet with legible credit information, a brief memoir by director Richard Lester and a tribute by Martin Scorsese. Scorsese's essay is — how can I put this? — exactly right. Next, the medium news: There is a new DTS 5.1 mix, which sounds good, and a PCM track that is less artificial and expanded. But such "improvements" — really the audio equivalent of colorization — are only acceptable if we are given the option of listening to an approximation of the original theatrical sound. The PCM track may be closer, but I don't think it's the genuine thing. More medium news: The extras, all on the second disc, total under an hour, including the 11 minutes of restoration details. The best thing here is "The Beatles in Help!" It includes what appears to be recent interview footage with Lester, costar Eleanor Bron and others, intercut with stuff from 1965 — on-the-set footage and audio interviews with the band members. "Memories of Help!" adds about another six minutes of material. This is all okay, but a little inadequate; nearly all the older footage and audio is reedited from the extras on the MPI disc, which included some other bonuses that have been dropped — an old interview with Lester and his 1959 short, "The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film." Finally, the bad news: Apple/EMI has sullied their generally good release with a terribly misleading item on the packaging and in the promotional material: Both mention "A Missing Scene — Featuring Wendy Richard." I can imagine many fans deciding to upgrade from their old discs just to see this "missing scene." Unfortunately, there is no missing scene; what you get is a short doc called "A Missing Scene" — about a missing scene that remains, to this day, altogether missing! They could have called it "Wendy Richard Talks about the Missing Scene," and there would be no problem. But, as it stands, the wording is sleazy and, frankly, disgraceful. — Andy Klein, Los Angeles CityBeat COVER STORY  |  IN THE NEWS   |  STAGE MATTERS   |  DIRT  |  ARTBEAT POEM  |  IN REVIEW  |  GARLICK'S NOTEBOOK  |  MOVIES TALK OF THE TABLE  |  THE HUM  |  CALENDAR Comments? Write a letter! © Copyright 2007, North Coast Journal, Inc.

COVER STORY  |  IN THE NEWS   |  STAGE MATTERS   |  DIRT  |  ARTBEAT POEM  |  IN REVIEW  |  GARLICK'S NOTEBOOK  |  MOVIES TALK OF THE TABLE  |  THE HUM  |  CALENDAR November 15, 2007 Rooster McClintock | Why Kerouac Matters | Help! Rooster McClintock Oct. 27 at the Ocean Grove Crunk music is the notorious southern brand of hip hop — dizzying repetitive beats crafted to make dancers ecstatic, often with the assistance of alcohol and drugs. A pre-Halloween evening with Humboldt honky tonk band Rooster McClintock at Trindad's Ocean Grove offers an easy comparison: honky crunk. As Rooster McClintock began to play, the crowd at the Ocean Grove grew from a few tentative dancers to wall-to-wall in just a few songs. Casual observation saw the taciturn bartenders pouring a lot of cheap liquor and expensive beer to the patrons. The waft of cannabis flowed into the crowd from the nearby smoking lounge. The band kicked up a driving truck-driver boogie and it wasn't long 'til the audience was frenzied. Rooster McClintock shared the floor with the dancers — the pool table had been pushed to the side — and exhorted themselves and the audience to get rowdy. "It's our job to drive drunk people crazy!" one of the band members yelled into the microphone between songs. Six instruments: bass (Paul "C.W" Calovich), banjo (Graham Burke), lead guitar (Jake Wiegandt), rhythm guitar (Jereme Stinespring), drums (Nathan Benbow) and dobro (Chris Kennedy). All driven by boogie. Heartfelt and even desperate at times, the band lurches through some two-step nostalgia, mixes it with punk-rock aesthetic and arrives at something undeniably enjoyable. Jerry Reed's classic "Amos Moses" gave the dobro player a chance to show his chops and the toe-tapping turned into thunderous stomping. The audience — a mix of graven Trinidad locals, Arcata free-spirits, a few punks, some travelers and some bearded California hillbillies — mixed it up, freewheeling on the dance floor. Drinks got spilled, people got knocked over and the pace quickened (if that was possible). The subject matter of their songs is people's music — the real experiences of life. It certainly can be described as C & W: "Country" as in rural and free; "Western" as in rambling and expansive. But it isn't corporate Nashville, and the band knows the difference. Strewn across tables were band stickers that read: "Save country music from itself — support your local honky tonk band." The members of Rooster McClintock are in love with authentic country, and they give every ounce to the audiences. The unassuming Ocean Grove offered a nice context for the band. Under low-slung rafters the six musicians played, drank and danced with the crowd. It is obvious that Rooster McClintock can perform in the pubs and coffee houses of Arcata, but the band fits in nicely on the periphery of the North Coast. Next up is a Nov. 30 show at the Scotia Inn. Expect a dance-off between the imported hipsters who travel with the band and timber workers. My money is on the timber workers. Rooster McClintock has a great combination of respect for the elders of country music and a passionate love of boogie. A dangerous combination on its own, but when mixed with a tipsy rural audience it is positively magical. Honky Crunk at its finest. — Maxwell Schnurer, HSU communications professor   Why Kerouac Matters by John Leland. Viking. Few literary brands need to be reduced in size and fable more than that of Jack Kerouac. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Kerouac's On the Road, the hip European clothing shop Hogan debuted its own line of Kerouac-inspired beatnik clothing, including boots starting at $475. Clearly the waves of commercialization, which started in the mid-'90s with "Kerouac wore khakis" ads, have culminated in thunderous crashes of misinterpretation on whatever levees of logical Beat discourse might remain. Enter The New York Times' John Leland with Why Kerouac Matters. Leland doesn't attempt to defend the book so much as outline what Kerouac actually meant. Unfortunately, Leland tells most everyone who loves On the Road that their readings are, more or less, wrong. Even the cover takes the aloof high ground, with Leland's smirking, detached subtitle, "The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think)." Leland's intellectual condescension, disguised in hip informality and Kerouac-er than thou attitude, is devastatingly off-putting. Describing Kerouac's first-person narrator, Sal Paradise, Leland rants, "So Sal is a doting nephew and an aspiring hubby. Deal with it." Is that necessary? Lectures with a reprimanding tone might even be tolerable, if many of his points weren't so awkwardly forced. Leland repeatedly attempts to align Kerouac with the hip-hop generation, seemingly to spite the masses that mistakenly see On the Road as a precursor to hippies and rock ‘n' roll. (Kerouac was one of the biggest influences on Bob Dylan; Dylan influenced every musician of the era — that's not much of a stretch there.) "Sal may be short on bling," Leland writes. "... But he has mad flow and even flirts with a gangsta moment ... Kerouac shouted perpetual props to his mother ... Their quest was Tupac's." Leland's sudden youthful earnestness is almost embarrassing in contrast to his previous arrogance. Eventually, he even goes so far as to label Sal's aunt the "Original Gangsta," or "O.G." A collective groan might be in order. Maybe even more so later, when Leland's chapter headings — self-help style — go beyond parody into a realm of fatal kitsch: from "Sal's Guide to Work and Money" and "What Would Jack Do?" to "The Faust and the Furious." Nonetheless, few before him have written such a well-researched book on Kerouac. Even a cursory view of the sources seems to identify every book written about the writer or On the Road, and the continuous citations allow Kerouac to speak of his book in his own words. Likewise, perhaps never has the element of jazz, both Kerouac's fascination with and use of, been so eloquently observed as in Leland's expansive chapter on the theme. But by this point, most fans of On the Road, which Leland seems to have forgotten would be the only ones interested in such a book, have likely checked out. So, when the sun goes down in America on the 50th anniversary, what meaning is left to gather from Kerouac's work? To those (this writer included) whose worldview was molded, their personal creed outlined, their vision sparked by Kerouac's sympathy, tenderness and passion, is there anything besides high-brow lectures and $500 boots? Is that once-glimpsed romance of personal experience still there? As with On the Road's release, the only true response is to hold everything the world hands us about the book at arm's length, to find the meaning ourselves — in the pages, on the road — and to apply Kerouac's teachings to our own solos of joy, kicks and darkness. — Todd Lazarski, Shepherd Express   Help! Directed by Richard Lester Apple/EMI Even if there are movies greater than Help! — which recently arrived in a new DVD edition — it's hard to think of movies more wonderful. The Beatles were great enough without their film work, but the double whammy of Hard Day's Night and Help! was yet another significant force in the creation of their iconic stature. Unlike Elvis' films — in which the King played a number of different characters, only a few of whom were straight retoolings of his persona — the Beatles played themselves. Of course, the films were scripted, and it would be naive to think that the characters named John, Paul, George and Ringo were identical to the real Fab Four. But these films gave the appearance of a glimpse into their real personalities — which is part of the reason this double bill became something of a communal ritual for the boomer generation, back in the days before home video. Since fans had to rely on sporadic repertory house bookings, many showed up at all of them. The decade-old MPI DVD was sucky on a number of grounds, and a new edition is long overdue. Apple, through EMI, has assembled a new two-disc release, which is decidedly a mixed bag. First the good news: The visual presentation is far superior. The new edition employs the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.75:1, which alone is enough to make it worthwhile. The MPI disc was 1.33:1; worse yet, a few random frame comparisons suggests that MPI didn't merely remove the mattes and give us too much image, but rather cropped the sides off of a theatrical print. In addition, the image seems richer on the new disc, even if there was no new restoration work. Another plus: The standard package — there is also a much more expensive "gift edition," if that sort of thing floats your boat — includes a booklet with legible credit information, a brief memoir by director Richard Lester and a tribute by Martin Scorsese. Scorsese's essay is — how can I put this? — exactly right. Next, the medium news: There is a new DTS 5.1 mix, which sounds good, and a PCM track that is less artificial and expanded. But such "improvements" — really the audio equivalent of colorization — are only acceptable if we are given the option of listening to an approximation of the original theatrical sound. The PCM track may be closer, but I don't think it's the genuine thing. More medium news: The extras, all on the second disc, total under an hour, including the 11 minutes of restoration details. The best thing here is "The Beatles in Help!" It includes what appears to be recent interview footage with Lester, costar Eleanor Bron and others, intercut with stuff from 1965 — on-the-set footage and audio interviews with the band members. "Memories of Help!" adds about another six minutes of material. This is all okay, but a little inadequate; nearly all the older footage and audio is reedited from the extras on the MPI disc, which included some other bonuses that have been dropped — an old interview with Lester and his 1959 short, "The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film." Finally, the bad news: Apple/EMI has sullied their generally good release with a terribly misleading item on the packaging and in the promotional material: Both mention "A Missing Scene — Featuring Wendy Richard." I can imagine many fans deciding to upgrade from their old discs just to see this "missing scene." Unfortunately, there is no missing scene; what you get is a short doc called "A Missing Scene" — about a missing scene that remains, to this day, altogether missing! They could have called it "Wendy Richard Talks about the Missing Scene," and there would be no problem. But, as it stands, the wording is sleazy and, frankly, disgraceful. — Andy Klein, Los Angeles CityBeat COVER STORY  |  IN THE NEWS   |  STAGE MATTERS   |  DIRT  |  ARTBEAT POEM  |  IN REVIEW  |  GARLICK'S NOTEBOOK  |  MOVIES TALK OF THE TABLE  |  THE HUM  |  CALENDAR Comments? Write a letter! © Copyright 2007, North Coast Journal, Inc.