Ways to Go
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Watched the BBC doco last night. It’s very comprehensive; nearly two hours long, extended interviews with all concerned including a warm and articulate Keith Richards. How that guy didn’t go the way of Hendrix, GP, et al is a wonder. The accounts of the body stealing and attempted cremation are pretty appalling. Several people can still hardly bring themselves to talk about it. But Phil Kaufman is completely unrepentant. He even goes along to Joshua Tree to do a stylised re-enactment for the cameras. The closing is a night time helicopter shot of a fire burning merrily at the base of Cap Rock. No mention of what the National Park Rangers made of that.
GP’s true talent is shown in the sequences with Emmylou Harris and The Fallen Angels tour. She recalls the on stage magic and the off stage chaos. Incidentally, Sean Curnyn at Right Wing Bob claims the duet of Love Hurts is proof positive of an Intelligent Designer.
Emmylou sang this back in the 1970s with Gram Parsons, on the Grievous Angel album, and their performance of it stands, in my opinion, as one of the precious few absolutely perfect recordings ever made, by anyone. Ever. In the universe. One of those proofs that God exists; i.e. that it is just absurd to think that random chemical reactions could have produced amoebas that would have ultimately resulted in Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons making this record together in just this way. Ludicrous.
Graham at Elsewhere has a review of Emmylou’s latest album:
Harris always traverses emotional territory (the stunning closer Beyond the Great Divide is as moving a funeral ballad as you will ever hear) and yet she does it with poise where the breaking heart is just kept in check.
Maybe we will have to check that out before we check out so to speak? :)
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Strangely enough, as an atheist my only real connection with religion is through country music and Curnyn's para really makes sense!
I was listening to Emmylou's new record this morning and it's good so far. Might be better than Red Dirt Girl even. My fave is her one failure as a solo artist - The Ballad of Sally Rose - a concept album about a young singer who is discovered by an established star. She joins his band and he teaches her about the music. She realises she's in love with him just as he dies in a car crash, then goes on to make her own career celebrating her mentor along the way. Sound familiar? (Reminds me of Robbie Robertson in The Last Waltz - "The Road's taken a lot of good people...Hendrix, Janis...Elvis...")
I found Kaufman strangely unlikeable in that doco. He's clearly proud of doing right by his friend, but... His reminiscences about the Burrito's tour are funny though. I really think Hillman is an under-appreciated musician - he does a fantastic version of Eight Miles High with mandolins, banjos and guitars (also on emusic).
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Watched Grand Theft Parsons last night. It starts with GP dead and finishes with the fire in the desert. It’s played like a conventional police chase /road movie and the incidents are fictitious.
It’s pretty lame. Christina Applegate as a girlfriend after GP’s money plays it up as best she can but the rest of the cast are curiously wooden. It’s done on a budget so there are never any other people in the background, so it has an odd Sci-fi feel to it as if it’s taking place in a de-populated world. Even the music is just used in snippets or caught in the background so doesn’t feature any more than say Dylan’s does in North Country. Phil Kaufman was obviously the only one of the original players to be involved. After seeing the documentary you could see that family and friends were probably appalled at it. I think Johnny Knoxville is wearing the same denim jacket that Kaufman does in the doco. He rides his original 3-wheel motorbike too. It has been beautifully restored but looks out of place in the same way restored vintage cars never look quite right in period films.
The sound track album has a lot more music on it than is in the film I see. Gillian Welch’s lovely Hickory Wind isn’t in the film, yet Springsteen's Blood Brothers is in the film but not the album.
So overall no need to bother with this one but the BBC doco is superb.
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Cheers Bob, that confirms my suspicions!
There was an article in The Times (I think) lamenting the fact that the cost of licencing music for movies prevented there being much original music in the film. I understand Moving on Up by Primal Scream is in there somewhere, which isn't exactly appropriate to 1973-4. The soundtrack CD leans heavily on the GP Tribute put together by Emmylou a few years ago, which is preety good. There's also one from about 14-15 years ago called Commemorativo or something that is pretty awful. Mostly "alternative" types who don't really have the vocals to pull it off - Bob Mould for example doing Hickory Wind. I think Martin Philips is on there somewhere too.
I saw the two docos that were on the BBC about five years ago, but should make the effort to track them down. There's apparently a good documentary on Roky Ericson that did the Film Festival a few years ago that I'd like to see.
And getting back to Keith Richards, he's been quoted as saying the one he'd really like to have back is GP, so the guy clearly made an impression!
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Being a Pakeha NZer, my experience of funerals has mostly been a reasonably sanitised, funeral parlour one - I don't want that. I want a more Maori/Celtic/indigenous-of-the-earth send-off. Just as I feel part of the haka, and of our PI and Indian people particularly (who have been part of the 'us' longer than the newer african and asian and middle eastern - but kia ora to you too) (Welcome Home), I want to be part of my own funeral! "Don't leave me" in a cruddy, velvet-curtained "parlour" (whatever that is)! Don't put me in a long black car with over-formal flowers and people I don't know ... please! Keep me at one of my homes for a few days - stroke my cheek - talk to me. Have eating, sleeping, talking, kids playing all around. Hire a bus and drive me, with everyone on board, to the church or cemetery ... as others have said, please please have people who know me, be the ones who talk about me. The music, the words etc can be what helps the people organising it - but make sure there is good wine and excellent single malt on hand.
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This might help someone.
I've been to two in this fashion where we fill the grave in, it's really quite cathartic, singing and guitars on hand.http://www.catholicworker.org.nz/funeralchoice/FuneralChoice-Ebooklet.doc
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That's a marvellous resource. Will save and keep. Cheers Shep!
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