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ROCK STAR INTERVIEWS


Led Zeppelin
Georgia Straight, August 19/20, 1971
Robert Plant describes the insanity of the Milan concert riot. He also turned 23 during the interview.


Elton John

Georgia Straight, April, 1971
His first album was just out. Includes an audio segment of the actual interview.


Gordon Lightfoot
Georgia Straight, October, 1970
Delivers a pretty good rant about American television shows.


Van Morrison
Georgia Straight, February, 1971
We met for breakfast at the Vancouver Airport. Astral Weeks over bacon and eggs.


Fleetwood Mac
Georgia Straight, February 1971
Mick Fleetwood and Jeremy Spencer rap about making records, Kiln House and the recently-joined Christine McVie. A week later Jeremy Spencer joined a religious cult in L.A.

Chicago Transit Authority
Georgia Straight, April, 1970
The ebullient James Pankow dreams about studios and backpedals on being a (gasp) "revolutionary".

Savoy Brown
Georgia Straight, September, 1970
Kim Simmonds leads an early Savoy Brown variation and rants about England.

Pentangle
Georgia Straight, May, 1970
Bert Jansch is very funny.


Captain Beefheart
Georgia Straight, September, 1971
The Captain's first visit to Canada. He's pissed at Zappa, bigtime.

Captain Beefheart
Terminal City Express, March, 1973
Dapper Don Van Vliet raps about music, whales, money, school, and more!

Crowbar
Georgia Straight, August, 1971
Kelly Jay tells the story of playing for Pierre & Margaret Trudeau.

Crowbar
Georgia Straight, March 10, 1971
Kelly Jay raps about hanging out with John Lennon. Then hangs him.

Mitch Ryder
Georgia Straight, July, 1970
Mitch tries to be serious about his plans for a comeback with a new band, Detroit, but some hash comes out and the whole interview sorta dissolves away.

Lamya
Culture Court, October, 2002
A chat & concert with this exotic hiphop beauty.

Al Neil
Terminal City Express, December, 1972
OK, Al Neil was a jazz star, not a rock star. But he was just as crazy.

Red Robinson
The Grape, January, 1972
Rambling recollection of the early days of Vancouver music with this Rock Hall Of Fame DJ


High Flying Bird
The Grape, May, 1972
My opinion: A pretty anemic interview with one of Vancouver's best local bands at the time.
Another opinion: I enjoyed this very much!  What a surprise to see this article!  I think I saw it in '72 when it came out; I may even still have a copy of it!  I am a friend of these guys.  I now live in California, but when I visit Vancouver I usually ring up Brent and see him when I can.  Thanks again! Layne Russell http://whiteowlweb.com

John Lyle
Georgia Straight, June 8, 1971
A talk with an up-n-coming Vancouver songwriter at a moment in his career when it looked like he might make it in Hollywood. He didn't.

Headstrong
Georgia Straight, January 20, 1972
A local group with four superior musicians. They made a record but they didn't make it big. One member of the group, guitarist
Peter Mendieta, still plays and records.

Luke Gibson
The Grape, June 7, 1972
The former frontman for Luke & The Apostles visits Vancouver. We talk about the Yorkville scene, Americans and being greedy.



1970s
ROCK CONCERT PHOTOS


SOME CLASSIC 70s STUFF

Most of these concert pix were scanned from some old negs I found -- fun day -- and the rest were scanned from my copies of old underground newsparers, or, in Sade's case, were ripped from the web.


Sade
Over 120 pix from her summer 2001 Lovers Rock tour



Van Morrison
Vancouver, February 17, 1974



Bob Dylan
with The Band, Seattle Coliseum, Feb. 9, 1974



The Tubes
Vancouver Gardens, 1973?
74? Anybody know?


Tim Buckley
Vancouver 1973



Various Concert Pix
Photos from The Georgia Straight, taken between 1969 and 1973


Paul Butterfield & Better Days
Vancouver, sometime in the middle 70s...


Larry Coryell Pix
Another forgotten 1970s concert


John Fahey Pix
I think John opened for Larry Coryell, but I could be wrong.


REVIEWS & ARTICLES


WHAT YOU SEE...

Movies:
Jack Hill
Pit Stop
Spider Baby
Switchblade Sisters
The Swinging Cheerleaders
Sam Fuller
Shock Corridor
Meanest Men In The West
Curtis Harrington
Night Tide
Robert Frank
Rolling Stones' Cocksucker Blues
Maysles Brothers
Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter
Various Shorts
Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life
Jason and Brett Butler
Alive & Lubricated
Bums

Robert Fantinatto
Echoes of Forgotten Places

Television:
Patrick McGoohan
The Prisoner

Features:
Bohren und der Club of Gore
Drilling For Doom. And Finding It.
Bohren und der Club of Gore
Geisterfaust. Not Your Average Ghost Story
These Boots Were Made For Burnin'
The Bootleg Collector's Obsession

Interviews:
Lamya
Falling From Learning

Music Concert DVD:
Sheryl Crow
Rockin The Globe Live
Steely Dan
Two Against Nature

Music CD:
Sade
Lovers Live
Lovers Rock
The Best Of Sade
Phil Manzanera
Vozero
Roger Waters
In The Flesh
Steely Dan
Two Against Nature
Lamya
Learning From Falling
Shania Twain
Up!

Books:
JG Ballard
High-Rise
Kingdom Come
Will Self
Grey Area
My Idea of Fun
Great Apes
Junk Mail
The Quantity Theory of Insanity
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
Gregory Benford
Cosm
Douglas Coupland
Girlfriend in a Coma

Toronto Gigs:
Hanging around the local Toronto club music scene
Dirty Three play Lee's Palace 4/6/03
Brian Auger & Oblivion Express play The Orbit Room 4/18/03
BOOTLEG COLLECTION


TRADE LISTS

During the 1970s I taped a lot of the bands that came through Vancouver. My concert masters include Van Morrison, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, J. Geils Band, The Doobie Brothers, and now, more current stuff. Currently, I'm up to about 3,000 cds and dvds. Wanna trade?



JG BALLARD FIRST EDITIONS, COMMENTARY, ART & BIBLIOGRAPHIES


THE TERMINAL COLLECTION


I've been a big collector of JG Ballard since 1974. This photo spread shows about 200 images of cover art of my JGB collection, from his first published stories in 1956 up to the present, including a rare copy of the trashed 1970 Doubleday edition of The Atrocity Exhibition.



EARLY BEATLES MAGAZINES


YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!

Dunno where I found these nine magazines... but they're fun. It's 1964. Beatlemania rules. And there's a single Rolling Stones fan magazine, as well.



THE PSYCHEDELIA COLLECTION: RETINAL CIRCUS POSTCARDS


WOW, MAN...LIKE, GROOVY


Being on the West Coast of Canada, Vancouver was more strongly influenced by San Francisco and Los Angeles than by Chicago or Toronto. And in the mid-60s, the music and art wafting north was psychedelic. Of course we inhaled deeply of this heady new culture. Plus a bonus pix of the Velvet Underground playing the Retinal Circus.



NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND



RADICAL DAYS


At first it seemed like a simple exercise -- a few of us would try to remember the names and jobs of everyone who worked for vancouver's underground press, way back when it first began. We went from 1967 to 1972, when the newspaper -- The Georgia Straight -- was rocked by a revolt over ownership and more than half the staff left to form a series of short-lived spinoffs. Ahh, the old days. We got up to 132 people and decided it was time for help. If you were there, or knows someone who was, we'd appreciate hearing from you.



THE ROAD ADVENTURES
PHOTOGRAPHS



CLICK, CLICK

My Dream Of Wake Island

Many years ago I took a trip to the eastern end of Jamaica... halfway there we stopped at a grass strip airport, and there I found some very Ballardian abandoned planes.

The Tropical Mango Bar
There's this unbelievable bar on Miami's South Beach, where the staff take turns climbing up on the bar to gyrate for the clientele.

Key West
Hideout for drifters, draft dodgers and decorators, this end-of-the-road metaphor is still funky, but you've got to get off the beaten path.


LR and I Do Glasgow
Looking for trouble in Europe's hippest city... and finding it.

The Tres Hombres Tour Of Mexico
The Tres Amigos do Mexico City, Cuernavaca, Alcapulco, Teotihuacan ... and live to tell the story... una cerveza fría, senor?



QUICKTIME THEATRE


THE THEATRE IS OPEN

I've posted all these to YouTube...

Heightened Awareness
It's about a robot soldier hunting a robot animal.

timeScope
Manic fun with a wacky soundtrack. Is this Death By Telescope?

Waves
Something new and funky, featuring original audio soundscape by Lawrence Russell, with vocals by Sophie Hegland.

Lava
The point of this was to take a song by Ottmar Liebert & Eric Schermerhorn + Luna Negra and add some funky visuals. Did I succeed?

Night Moves
Well, what is it?... take a look. Featuring the music of Phil Manzanera.

The Glasgow Videos
Ten zany shorts from The City By The Clyde.

The Mango Tropical Bar
Sexy sleaze in the Drool & Drink centre of Miami's Art Deco South Beach.

Key West
The end of the road. The Green Parrot. Irish Kevin. Pool sharkette.



SHORT FICTION


Pre-Computer Fiction


Skeleton Key
A winter weekend at a fabulous Muskoka cottage takes a strange twist as an architect's journal leads to a puzzling astrophysical conclusion... Type: Mystery

Burnin Love
A bookstore owner, crazy photograher and Elvis' mistress on the day The King died... Type: Occult

Adman
A day at work with an advertising copywriter and his erratic colleagues... Type: Satire

Nutshell
Two old friends reminsce about the past in a sleazy bar.
Then the story unfolds... Type: Existential

Jackson Whole
A night in the life of a group of zany businessmen... Type: Humour

7th Sun
A hitchiker meets a windsurfer on Hwy 1 near Cape Kennedy. Does the strange stone have anything to do with the Challenger explosion? Type: Occult



MY 1990 MORGAN +8


THE RED ROCKET

Slide into the cramped cockpit on buttery Connolly #1 hide, ignite the fuel injected 3.9L Buick Rover V8, and bask in the deep-throated burble from the twin stainless steel exhausts. This is it, boys: the most idiosyncratic of the handmade British sports cars. And it runs so fast you'd think it stole something.



Contents © Copyright Rick McGrath 1999-2008
1. Access Everything From Here.
Access all from this main index.

2. Or From There.
Each section listed below has its own index page:



COOL COLLECTIONS

BOOTLEG TRADING LIST

JG BALLARD TERMINAL COLLECTION

Retinal Circus Psychedelic Postcards


Vancouver's Underground Press, 67-72

Early
Beatles Fan Magazines

Lawrence Russell


INTERVIEWS & COMMENTARY

1970-1973 ROCK STAR INTERVIEWS

Reviews & Articles

Short Stories


VIDS & PIX

1970s ROCK CONCERT PHOTOS

Video Shorts

Travel Adventure Pix

My 1990 Morgan +8 Sports Car



RECENTLY POSTED

I Visit JG Ballard's Shanghai Home

In September, 2007, I spent a day exploring JGB's childhood home, and other sites mentioned in Empire Of The Sun. Pictures, vid and story, plus cards, letters and maps from JGB himself.




The JGB Terminal Timeline: 1951 - 2008

The Terminal Timeline is a horizontal display of 230 JG Ballard novels, collections, magazines, and pulps over 56 years, broken down by the month of publication. All on one monster file. Each cover links to a hi-rez version. See virtually every book in my collection in one place.



Vancouver's Underground Press Gangs, 1967-1972

This directory includes contributors to the Georgia Straight from its inception in 1967 until the publication of the first issue of the Georgia Grape on January 20, 1972. See our "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac".