So, both of my feature documentaries are streaming on the exciting PBS App!
You may watch my latest doc, Feast Your Ears: The Story of WHFS 102.3 FM, about one of the last progressive radio stations in the country, as well as my Emmy-nominated PBS doc The Bayou: DC’s Killer Joint, which charts nearly half a century of music and popular culture through a waterfront nightclub. Both films were years in the making but a joy to work on. Click each link to watch.
Dan Pasley, R.I.P.
Dan Pasley, the Shakespeare of advertising.
Another dear friend gone. Dan Pasley was a character in all the meanings of that word. He was an ad man, of the type that Don Draper would have become if he kept writing ad campaigns into the ’70s. Dan was kind enough to include me on many of his jingles, and other projects. I not only got to play drums, but I was sometimes a voice actor. Dan would show up at the studio with a briefcase, which he would open to reveal a bottle of alcohol and a yellow legal pad. The next several hours would be spent trying to make art. Or advertising. Or something. Dan was really a songwriter, a playwright, a provocateur. Which was not always what the client wanted but the work sure stood out from the usual tripe. (For instance, a 60-second radio jingle for Britches Western doesn’t mention the clothing store until 31 seconds into the song.)
While I have copies of many of the songs I worked on (Penguin Feather, Jerry’s Subs, Clydes), I don’t have a copy of Don’t Buy Books By Crooks, the theme song for the Committee to Boycott Nixon’s Memoirs–an attempt to stop the disgraced president from cashing in on his infamy. Dan’s ad agency handled all the promotion. Here’s a New York Times editorial turning up the paper’s nose at the very idea.
Despite what the Times said, Dan got a T-shirt to Dan Aykroyd, who promptly wore it on Saturday Night Live.
I still remember the song’s opening lines:
If the hero of San Clemente
Sells his books he’s gonna rake in plenty
And I don’t think that he should make a dime
I took the portrait above at a Bicentennial party in Arlington. Dan Pasley was definitely the Shakespeare of advertising. And so much more. Will miss him greatly.
I Wanna Go Fast, by the Yachtsmen
Presenting the latest music video from America’s premier purveyors of Dock & Roll, The Yachtsmen. The band consists of John Penovich (guitar), Ben Holmes (drums), and Mark Noone (bass). Mr. Noone wrote the song and sings lead.
The video was edited by Brad Dismukes, who also provided the special special effects, with cinematography by Rich West. Quasi-direction by Yours Truly. Recorded on location at the Palisades Hub Cap Center in Washington, D.C. Enjoy.
Dead Bath & Beyond
So I go places and notice things. Like how after this Bed Bath & Beyond store in Rockville closed the entire building seems to be dying. The rest of the shopping center–with a Petco, a Michaels, and an Aldi–looks just fine. If a suburban shopping center can ever look “fine.” Anyway. I go places, I notice things, and then I make stuff. Please don’t ask me why.
I’m a Winner!
Quite proud to announce that the documentary that I’ve been working on the past several years, Feast Your Ears: The Story of WHFS 102.3 FM, received the Best Documentary Feature award at the DC Independent Film Festival.
Brooks Tegler in the Studio
I recorded this interview with drummer and Gene Krupa authority Brooks Tegler on July 6, 2007, at Bias Recording Studios in Springfield, Va. I had recently been anointed as New Media Editor at Washington City Paper, mostly because I had a newfangled minDV camera and went around bothering people with it. I covered the first Capital Fringe Fest and first DC Shorts Festival. Those videos are on Youtube somewhere, but this one never got posted. Because shortly after, my father died, City Paper was sold and the new owners laid off two thirds of the staff, including me, then my mother died, then the economy died in 2008 and I had other things to worry about.
So, sorry, Brooks. But here it finally is. There is more, including an interview with vocalist Jim Stephanson and a lengthy talk about Gene Krupa’s cymbals and gear. Those will be posted soon.
Bill Holland takes the Blindfold Test
Around 2009, I went over to Bill Holland‘s house with the idea of recording him taking the famous Downbeat Magazine Blindfold Test, or my version of it. Originated by famed jazz critic Leonard Feather in the ’40s, the idea was to get prominent musician’s reactions to records of the day.
Like Feather, Bill Holland is one of the most knowledgeable musicians around. He was the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Billboard, as well as the leader of one of D.C.’s finest bands, Rent’s Due.
I planned to do a series of blindfold tests, but with music from my collection, or songs that resemble music.
But…
After I got the tape home I discovered that the image had the time code visible. Annoyed at myself, I put the tape away and never did another blindfold test.
Of course, I could have just put an ID graphic covering the time code, as I have now done. Sigh.
Anyway, I finally transferred the tape and you can see Mr. Holland’s exquisite knowledge and wit on display. Enjoy.
Side note: This includes a track from Tina Louise, of Gilligan’s Island fame. I did another video about a reel-to-reel tape of her album, not remembering that I had featured her in this video. Crazy.
Dave Nuttycombe’s Almost Book Report
Because no one asked me, I offer this urgent update on my recent purchases from the beloved Politics and Prose book store.
Drumsville, by Robert Catalioti, examines how the beat that got everyone moving started in New Orleans. Dan Leroy‘s Dancing to the Drum Machine looks at what some thought to be the end of human percussion. The Foreword by Duran Duran‘s Nick Rhodes is worth the price of the book.
Enjoy.
Oh, no! I did an unboxing!
Watergate And Me!
Evidence! From deep in the Nuttycombe Photo Archives.
Above is the envelope containing the role of film I shot at the Watergate hearings. I went there with the guitar player from my band, Bob Barnes. The trip might have been his idea. Watergate was the hip thing and Bob was a hip guy.
Bob Barnes, rocking in the free world.
I remember at the time I was painting a mural inside a hippie-ish crisis call center in downtown Rockville but spending much of the day watching the hearings on the TV in the room. The hearings Bob and I attended were not the exciting ones, like John Dean or the revelation of the secret tapes. Instead, they featured the droning testimony of Maurice Stans, who had been the Commerce Secretary in the Nixon administration but was the treasurer for CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President.
SIDE NOTE: I played a gig for CREEP. No idea how or why — my band was a typical Top 40 cover band made up of shaggy youngsters. Up With People we were not. But whoever booked us sent over a 45 r.p.m. disc of the campaign’s theme song, Nixon’s the One. We had to learn it for the show. Also for reasons I cannot recall, that record is not in my collection.
The gig was at some big building in Arlington, Va., maybe Crystal City. (Oh, sorry — “National Landing.” Bite me, Bezos.) Most of my memories are of button-down Republicans giving us the side-eye, or in one case tossing off the witticism, “Is that a boy or a girl?” The only positive attention, and it wasn’t much, came when we played Nixon’s the One. Man, I wish I still had that record.
[UPDATE: My pal Peter Gilstrap did a fantabulous interview with the composer of Nixon’s the One, Vic Caesar. It is one wild ride!]
“If the hero of San Clemente sells his books he’s gonna rake in plenty…”
SIDER NOTE: Years later I would play on an anti-Nixon song, Don’t Buy Books By Crooks, which was a protest over the disgraced president getting millions of dollars to write his memoirs. The group was featured on the Today Show but I didn’t feel like going to New York.
Anyway. I thought that I had taken photos inside the hearing room, but I didn’t. Probably because it was not allowed. I do have shots of people lined up outside the Capitol, some interior shots of the architecture, and shots of the many police overlooking the crowd. Plus Bob clowning around. And there are pictures of the hearings on my bedroom TV.
When the transcripts of the tapes were released, my uncle asked me to buy him a copy. Uncle Gene had been Nixon’s roommate in the Navy. (He was also Jimmy Stewart‘s roommate at Princeton. And my cousin went to high school with Martha Stewart. But I digress.)
My Uncle Gene with Dick and Pat Nixon on the 1960 campaign trail.
Gene and Nixon remained friends. Here’s a picture of Uncle Gene welcoming Dick and Pat Nixon to Binghamton during the 1960 presidential campaign. He was on the reviewing stand for the first Inauguration. (At the same time that Led Zeppelin was playing at the Wheaton Youth Center!) I have the official button he wore.
So I dutifully stood in line at the Government Printing Office and bought two copies, one for Uncle Gene and one for me. Gene was a staunch defender of Nixon but after sending him the transcript book there wasn’t much discussion.
That book is in my archives. Still looking for a copy of Nixon’s the One.
“What did the photographer know and when did he know it?”
Major political scandal being investigated, large crowd, police don’t seem too worried. Those were the days…
Was glued to the TV in my bedroom–couldn’t get enough of those crazy hearings!
I’m sure these school kids have fond memories of their visit to our nation’s capital. How many returned on Jan. 6?
