Christopher Hitchens R.I.P.

I interviewed Christopher Hitchens just a few days before he was told he had cancer. That cancer killed him this past Thursday. When Hitchens wrote about the diagnosis and subsequent treatment in his regular column for Vanity Fair, he mentioned that he was given the terminal news just after he’d done a booksigning event in New Haven.
I don’t have any illusions that I was one of the last interviews that Mr. Hitchens ever gave. He was at a large New York book industry conference when we spoke, and he probably gave dozens that very day. Mine, in fact, came in the middle of an interview he was giving to the New York Times. I’d been calling the number I’d been given for his hotel room, under the impression that our interview time had been confirmed. When I was finally informed by the hotel that Hitchens hadn’t even checked in yet, I somehow got his cell number.
Hitchens couldn’t have been more gracious, more unflappable and, as a fellow journalist, more understanding. I heard him ask the Time reporter he was with whether he could borrow her desk for a few minutes—which became 40 minutes, I think, as we bantered on. I’d been an admirer of his for years, the typical Hitchens fan who couldn’t agree with absolutely everything he said but certainly was taken by the way in which he said it. More than that, Christopher Hitchens reminded me of my father: also British, also Oxford-educated, also quick with opinions, also impossibly articulate, able to discuss and argue anything at a moment’s notice. (As it happens, they also both died of cancer—my father 21 years ago now.)
I’d loved Hitchens’ autobiography Hitch-22, just then published and the reason for his New Haven visit, because he treated the book not as a recap of his greatest hits and wildest controversies, but as its own opportunity to come to terms with the twists and turns of his life. He told me he had no desire to spend a lot of room defending his atheistic impulses, for instance—he’d done that. Instead he mapped out his life from young revolutionary to middle-aged political insider to settled columnist-at-large.

Hitchens struck a lot of his critics as inconsistent, but I’ve always felt that he carried no greater or fewer contradictions than any other human being, and in fact he was very good at explaining the precise reasons why he, for instance, could defend some foreign wars (enraging kneejerk liberals) while condemning the barbarity of waterboarding (enraging the kneejerk conservatives who thought they’d wrestled him from the liberals). I remember some ridiculous, simple-minded reactions to the news of his illness—a radio announcer barking “Should we pray for Christopher Hitchens if he doesn’t believe in God?,” for instance—when he seldom dabbled in such either-or ironic ripostes himself, his responses generally being shaded and qualified and deepened. I’m already wondering what he might have thought of news events occurring days after his death—the pulling out of troops from Iraq, the deaths of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-Il, the resurgence of Newt Gingrich… You just know he’d have entertaining insights nobody else could think up.

I found him to be as quick-witted, curious, gracious and thoughtful in my interview with him as I find him to be in his many books and countless magazine articles. He treated me as an equal, and listened attentively when I could add facts to some of his conjectures. We were equal in another way—we’re both Christopher who used our entire first name in our bylines. Hitchens writes in Hitch-22 how Christophers should never back down from their birth name, not shorten it or nickname it. I hadn’t really considered this as an activist mission before, but now in Christopher Hitchens’ absence I can carry on his crusade.

Streaming Music from 20 (and 150) years ago

The Streams flow again tonight, Dec. 17, through the tributary of Café Nine.
In the early ’90s music scene around here, The Streams should’ve stuck out more than they did. But you had the rising Gravel Pit, the aggressively self-hyped Mighty Purple, the theatrical Blind Justice, slick bands such as The Fictionals and a glut of punk and party bands. So bands of slightly older vintage, based on solid songwriting and musicianship, weren’t the attention-grabbers they might have been in other eras.
David Brooks’ first band in the area was the Lean-Tos, a literate and austere act that put out a single EP and wafted away. They didn’t have much more to show for themselves publicly—a couple of 45s, a few well-placed live shows (including opening for Matthew Sweet at Toad’s Place), but Streams seemed stronger. Which I think is why they’re resurfacing now.
I’ve written about The Streams’ singles on this site before. I also have in my possession some old cassette tapes David Brooks gave me from those days. I played one, “Sugar Shack,” once when I was a guest on WPLR’s Local Bands radio show. Now that same recording (remastered) of “Sugar Shack” graces a Streams CD along with a host of songs of theirs from the same era which I’d never heard (and I was one of the nudgiest fans David had in terms of wanting to hear his recordings). The Local Bands show, I’m told, has been playing The Streams every week for weeks now, breaking a longstanding policy about not granting such regular airtime to any one band.
The Streams didn’t seem like a supergroup in the early ‘90s. They were unassuming. Their other projects could be as slow-moving or quirky as The Streams. But they were a hugely important band of the time, reliably good, dismissive of trends or hype, doing David Brooks’ own thing with focus and clarity. But look at that line-up: Spike Priggen, who’d been a formative part of several long-lasting bands of the ‘80s local band scene, including his own Hello Strangers. Jeff Wiederschall was the Miracle Legion drummer turned Baby Huey. Bill Beckett was the latecomer, but fit in smoothly due to his time with the folk-po-bar-band Mocking Birds.
David Brooks’ thing, at the time, involved songs based on Civil War themes. He wasn’t writing a concept album. He wasn’t a one-trick pony. He wasn’t even unduly obsessed with the 19th century. This was an honest inspiration, the spark for songs which transcended time and place. David added power chords and tough beats to folky acoustic rhythms. A songspoken guy, the songs allowed him to rage a bit, naturally, as their emotions built.
They’re extraordinary songs. They don’t require special knowledge of the Civil War, just an understanding of human drive and determination. The suffering of soldiers on the battlefield can be a metaphor for struggles in all relationships. “Virginia Hellhole” is also just a captivating phrase to heard sung.
Joining The Streams, appropriately enough, is Mocking Bird frontman and PLR Local Bands DJ James Velvet with his band The Ivory Bills.
As with 20 years ago, this sounds will resound outside the current fashions. But you don’t need to know your history. You just need to show up.

Rock Gods #237: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

The Freakin’ Pines have dwindled to a duo. The parents of the rhythm section have balked at doing any more unpaid roadie duties.
And who can blame them? The band members are in their 20s and none have yet been able to either afford or maintain their own automobile.
Band equipment is another matter. The FPs are renowned for having the cleanest mics and most accurate volume controls on the club block.
So are they selling off some of the mountain of extra amps and axes and traps they’ve amassed? Nope—there’s nobody to drive them to the pawn shop or dump. The band’s gone on indefinite hiatus, which in this case is short for hibernation, while they stay home, cancel all shows, and construct their own studio. What drive!
Fossil Crocodile and Sidenecked, classic hardcore, at the Bullfinch… Stubby Feet and Othniel Marsh at Hamilton’s for beers-so-cheap-you-won’t-notice-how-bad-the-bands-are College Nite… An Evening With The Drinker Copes at D’ollaire’s. Can you cope?..

Listening to… The Oh Sees

The Oh Sees, Carrion Crawlers. Neo-psychedlia that’s not spacy, and seems to be forming and swirling cosmos-like before your very years. The songs are above-average underground garage, but when given such exquisite studio attention, are simply mesmerizing. “Robber Barons” gives new meaning to “chiming,” and “Opposition (with maracas)” is as outraged and prissy as you need a song called that to be. “Crack in Your Eye” is the slow-grind set-piece in the currently trendy Brian Jones Massacre mode. The longest cut on the album, with the title that appears to promise the most stultification—“The Dream”—is in fact one of the fastest and friskiest. The whole ten-song set seems genuine and spontaneous, not so much a tribute to classic garage psychedelia but magically borne from the exact same spiritual place, half a century later.

Literary Up: NatLamplighter

Drunk Stone Brilliant Dead by Rick Meyerowitz.
I have the complete run of National Lampoon on CD-Rom, and have carried scraps of certain favored pieces—“Toward a Larger English Language,” Politenessman comics–around for decades. Meyerowitz’s record of the magazine’s heyday is one of those rare volumes that transcends a “Greatest Hits” format and becomes greater than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t behave the way the magazine did—as a grab bag of shocks and pranks which someone mirrored its insane and freeing times. It stands back and reappreciates some NatLamp pieces as fine, lasting works of art. Meyerowitz simply has a good sense of timelessness. He understands how rare and wonderful the National Lampoon work environment was, and cherishes it as more than yearbook nostalgia.

For Our Connecticut Readers: Leo the Libation

“Midnight is the dog next door.”

It was Leo Vigue who gave me the inspiration to craft that ideal pulp-fiction opening line. It was for a special issue of the Advocate where the staff chronicled “A Day in New Haven” hour-by-hour.

Leo’s Howe Street backyard abutted the backyard of the small groundfloor Elm Street apartment I inhabited for 12 years. Leo’s longtime workplace, Rudy’s Bar & Grill, was my next door neighbor and essentially my living room.

Midnight was his dog back then, well-named because the hound would howl at that hour as if he was a rooster at dawn. I never minded—I wished I could have a dog myself, and besides, Rudy’s Bar at midnight was louder that several dozen dogs could ever be.

This was the 1990s, when Leo’s turf extended not just around the corner of Howe Street but several blocks down Elm as well, to his designated daytime seat at the Daily Caffe. (In the years following the Daily’s demise, Leo frequented Patricia’s diner on Whalley.)

Unless I was out of town on business or vacation I was at Rudy’s every single night . Sometimes I just popped in to pick up messages. Often, I helped bus tables at closing time as a way to unwind after a long day. Too many times, I virtually moved in: writing stories, doing interviews, covering hundreds of live band shows, running an informal “Playreading Gang” which met on Sunday nights in the pool room for over seven years, and drinking several zillion martinis.

So I knew Leo as a sort of roommate. He wasn’t family, and he wasn’t a close pal I confided in or had special things in common with. But he was always around. It’s a bartender’s role to fade into the background at will yet be ever present. That’s what Leo did, deftly and effortlessly, for something like half a century.

I have three prevailing images of Leo Vigue in my mind. One is of him listening merrily to a David Essex tape I had on my Walkman one night when he was off duty and just hanging around the bar. Another is of him tut-tutting about a Rudy’s regular’s substance abuse, disapproving yet never scolding, behaving like a disapproving uncle from a Victorian novel. The third of Leo staring down another Leo—Ted Leo, the internationally esteemed punk rocker. It was closing time and an ignorant opening act had hogged all the stage time, leaving Ted Leo & Pharmacists less than half an hour in which to do their hour-plus set. Leo responded to the imminent pulled plug by playing and singing at a reckless double-timed speed. Leo Vigue stood sullenly next to him the entire time. It was like a piece of performance art about aging, or intergenerational angst.

I lived in that Leo zone for 12 years, until I got married, moved and stopped drinking. But since the big move was all of a block and a half, Leo was still a neighbor whom I waved to several times a week, whom I ran into at the supermarket, whom I chatted with all springtime about the Red Sox’s chances that season.

Leo was down to earth, level-headed and approachable. But the Rudy’s I knew was about stretching myths out of all proportion. When they hired a female bartender, she was promoted as the first ever, even though there’d been other women behind the bar before her. When The Yale Daily News did its annual articles on Term Paper Night (free drink for a the cover page of your thesis paper), when that tradition was only a year or two old, the bartenders hoodwinked the student reporters into believing that the ritual had been around for decades.

And last year, when Rudy’s lost its lease at 372 Elm Street and the place’s spirit essentially split into two entities—the relocated Rudy’s at Howe & Chapel and the Elm Bar which took over the old site with minimal modification— there was a pitched battle for Leo’s blessing and patronage.

But Leo was not that kind of icon. He was an old man, and many of those who knew him hoped he could rest and enjoy his retirement. Which is what it seemed, for a brief and crucial period, he was able to do.

Leo Vigue died last month, over the Thanksgiving break. For hours, there was a steady stream of comments about him on my Facebook friends’ feed, which I had to peruse in Massachusetts. A guy like that dies, you feel like it’s happened in the next room. The Facebook remorse felt just like one of those scattered yet sincere, rambling yet riveting Rudy’s conversations which I engaged myself in at the bar counter every night for 12 years.
Back when Midnight was just the dog next door.

Doo Dah Duo

It’s a Bonzopalooza on my favorite Internet radio channel, BBC Radio 4 Extra. The station is currently broadcasting programs by two different founding members of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.

A new box set of the Bonzo Dog Band albums came out recently, but despite a few bonus tracks from the subsequent solo work of some of the band members, I’m still content with my copy of Cornology, a similar collection of all the BDDDB albums which came out in the early ‘90s.

Vivian Stanshall’s Henry at Rawlinson End, a series of deadpan melodramatic readings in the style of a bad Edwardian novel, pops up on Radio 4 Extra with regularity. But I never tire of it, and in fact tend to listen to every episode several times in a row in order to get all the jokes.

Innes Own World is well-named, not just because its star is Neil Innes, but because it exists as part of a fluid “world” of comedy material that has also fueled stand-up shows and albums. Innes’ later “bands” were more famous than the Bonzos: Monty Python (for whom he did musical arrangements and sang “Brave Sir Robin” in Holy Grail) and The Rutles (for whom he wrote the songs and embodied Ron Nasty). Some familiar songs and sketches are on this show, but not without being rejiggered. Some of the funniest bits are the laid-back anecdotes Innes spins about his real-life adventures with touring bands, moviemaking comedians and parody-appreciative Beatles.

Rock Gods #236: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

Jazzy Jim was feeling bored. Needed to fill time. So he filled, at 4/4 time.
They call him Jazzy because he was a “prodigy” at music school. (Which always means jazz when it doesn’t mean classical; there’s no call for rock prodigies.) In junior high, Jim gave up the noodling genre for a harder-hitting calling.
We remember J.J.’s transition well. He debuted at the Bullfinch with an elaborate multi-trapped kit that barely fit the stage. Within four shows, he’d retreated to a bare minimum of things to bang on, even settling for bongos or trashcans when backing ??Throp?? (which has six lead singers and sucks all the air out of the room in other ways as well).
Last Thursday Jazzy Jim was with The Captive Toiling when he made his rebellious move. Started kicking a drum, and not the kick drum. Knocking down and kicking a trap, as if it was a falling rugby player in a scrum. Kicking in perfect time.
“No, I didn’t practice it,” he laughed after the set. “And I may never do it again.” Not that his bandmates would mind if he did. “A heads-up would’ve been nice,” says bassist Bobby Imbiberot, who dropped a few notes during the melee. “But I don’t want anyone to get bored by our music. Especially the drummer.”

The Captive Toiling bang a drum tonight at the Bullfinch, with Sick and Wounded Soldiers… The Great Liberators at Hamilton’s, for three sets… Potomac’s Wave and Life Among the Lowly at D’ollaire’s…