Michael Been, lead singer of The Call, Dies at 60
Michael Been, the founder and lead singer of The Call, died of a heart attack yesterday in Hasselt, Belgium, where he had been providing technical assistance for his son Robert Levon Been’s band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. He was 60.
The Call was the most amazing band to emerge from Tulsa in the 1980s — both Been and drummer Scott Musick hailed from there — and as a kid growing up there when “Modern Romans” came out in 1983, I remember the rock station supporting the hell out of “The Walls Came Down,” but not really talking about the band’s local roots that much. The video was all over MTV, with Garth Hudson of the Band playing the organ in the background, and it was a rare song of substance on the radio at a time when extreme superficiality was being celebrated. Remember that this was at a time when the Cold War and the prospects of a nuclear winter were an ever-present concern for weird kids who watched the news, but while there were songs addressing that possibility on MTV and radio (Principally Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes”), Been was going deeper, exploring the Eisenhower “military industrial complex” through a wild-eyed sing-speak: “I don’t know if there are any Russians/ And there ain’t no Yanks/ Just corporate criminals playing with tanks.”
One metal chick on my school bus dismissed the song as “bubblegum,” mainly because it didn’t have power chords and it had that insistent, insane “na-na-na-na, na-na-na” coda, but most great political songs get over that way. Been brilliantly coated his rant in candy, and so it got heard. A lot. I loved that song and so many that followed, and 1986′s “Reconciled” was even stronger, featuring three superb songs, “Everywhere I Go,” “I Still Believe (Great Design)” and “Oklahoma,” which inspired the Oklahoma History Center’s exhibit, “Another Hot Oklahoma Night.” The Call’s excellence continued with “Let the Day Begin” and “Red Moon.”
“I Still Believe (Great Design)”
“Let the Day Begin”
Been had been working with his son on Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for the past several years, and the band was sharing a bill with the Flaming Lips at Belgium’s Pukkelpop festival when he died. StaticBlog’s sympathies go out to Been’s family, friends and all who loved his music.
– Lang
“Piranha 3D”: For Your Consideration
Video of the Day: !!!, “AM/FM”
A noticeably stripped-down !!! turns in its first single in three years, from next week’s “Strange Weather, Isn’t It?” on Warp.
– Lang
Video of the Day: Yeasayer, “Madder Red”
Today’s my wife’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Laura!) and I certainly married above my station. But this clip featuring Kristen Bell represents the far frontier of that kind of relationship. Ah, true love.
– Lang
“Mad Men” Recap: 404, “The Rejected”
Since the beginning of this season, most viewers have been pleased with the focus on the psychology of our anti-hero, the question of “Who is Don Draper?,” but a vocal portion of the fan base has complained that simply not enough attention is being paid to the business of advertising, and that some characters such as Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) have been missing in action. In the case of “The Rejected,” Pete is back in full force, but Roger Sterling takes a back seat, mainly because John Slattery directed the piece, but the mechanics of the advertising business get a front seat. The peculiar phenomenon of the focus group is something we’ve seen before on “Mad Men,” but not as a kind of Skinner Box in which questions about facial treatments are met with emotional meltdowns.
“The Rejected” begins with Don and Roger on conference call with Lucky Strike problem child Lee Garner Jr., and they’re going over some of the new restrictions that are in place for cigarette advertisements and brainstorming ideas to replace images of, say, teenagers smoking. Don is unusually distracted during the call, even for this season, and is relying on Allison (Alexa Alemmani) to give him cues to say vague things like “We’ll do our best” when his name is mentioned. In the middle of the call, he asks her one of those double-meaning questions posed by corrupt bosses: “Why is this bottle empty?” On the face of it, this is a stupid query that merits Allison’s actual response: “You drank it all.” What the boss really means is, “This bottle should never be empty. I should never be able to feel the lightness of a Jameson bottle emptied of its elixir. Ergo, get thee to the package store or no more $100 Christmas bonuses for you.”
Don is also bluffing his way through a conversation with Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) over her Pond’s Cold Cream concepts — he clearly has not looked at either of them. Faye Miller (Cara Buono) asks Don for some 18 to 25-year-old women from the secretarial pool and Don tells her, “Help yourself” — just as he does, I suppose. Meanwhile, Lane (Jared Harris) and Roger buttonhole Pete in the hallway to tell him he must cast off the Clearasil account he got from his father-in-law because the Pond’s people see it as a direct conflict. Don tires of Garner taking precious time away from him being in his cups and claims he sees a fire down by Radio City and stops the call, perhaps because SCDP are regularly called in as an auxiliary volunteer firefighting squad in midtown.
Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) lets Pete know he’s having lunch with Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), and tells him he should come, too. Considering that the old British regime put Pete and Kenny in direct competition, getting the two of them into a booth with drinks should be like shoving a ferret and a weasel into the same tube sock. Meanwhile, Peggy has a new friend in the building, Joyce Ramsey (Zosia Mamet, and yes, she is the daughter of David Mamet). She works at Life Magazine, she loves nude photography and would probably love Peggy as a female nude.
Pete meets his daddy-in-law at a bar, ostensibly to discuss Clearasil, but that doesn’t happen: he finds out that Trudie (Alison Brie) is with child and — Yikes! — hasn’t even told Petey yet. There is much stammering from Dad and Pete generally looks like he’s been slapped in the face with a flounder, but he’s happy, and he blows off the bad news, since it’s champagne all around and a bonus of $1,000 if it’s a boy, $500 if it’s a girl. Yes, the mid-’60s were a bit like feudal China. So Trudie is apoplectic when Pete gets home, because daddy called to warn her, but Pete is a happy boy. Tomorrow night, Yankee Pot Roast!
The focus group begins, and Faye runs the thing like she’s one of the girls, not like she holds a doctorate in psychology. Things are fine when the front office receptionist Megan is going on about her “French extraction” and how she does what her mother does with her facial ministrations — splash tepid water on her face, pat with her fingers and smile longingly at herself — but then one of the homelier secretaries, Dottie, starts talking about how taking care of her face never amounted to much, since her boyfriend left her high and dry with cold cream on her face a year ago after not really noticing her. Allison pipes up with “Sometimes it’s worse when they notice” — a comment that will certainly sting on the other side of the two-way mirror — and everything goes straight to Hell. Allison is weeping with big, body-wrenching sobs and has to leave the room. Peggy tries to console her, but then when Allison takes her sympathy for empathy, thinking that Don must have treated Peggy the same way when she worked as his receptionist, Peggy goes full-on cobra on her: “Your problem is not my problem, and honestly, you should get over it.”
On a personal/professional note, your StaticBlogger has been on Don’s side of the glass during a focus group, and while Faye insists that crying is a standard occurrence at these things, mainly what I saw were comments like, “Why did they review that CD? I don’t like music” and “I don’t eat that stuff” and “Why don’t you show what’s coming on the TV?” and “Can I have more of them chips?” No crying on their side. Plenty on my side.
So then we cut to Ferret vs. Weasel, and Cosgrove goes off on Pete for badmouthing him. Pete does his dishonest best to deny it, but finally owns up and apologizes to his moral equal, and it’s all good times, with jokes at the expense of the mentally disabled and everything.
Don returns to his office to find Allison, still very upset, and she tells Don she wants to move on, that there’s a job at a magazine where she could work for a woman. She asks Don for a letter of recommendation, and he’s got a ripping good idea: why doesn’t Allison just write her own damn letter of recommendation, with all of her “sparkling” great work denoted in beautiful courier type, and he’ll just sign it? This is, of course, insulting, because Don won’t even semi-literally lift a finger for a woman that he has literally screwed over. And she responds by throwing a bauble at him, breaking the glass in a couple of picture frames, and running out. Afterwards, Don hits the bottle hard, like he’s trying to prime a fuel pump, and Peggy’s looking over the wall as he self-medicates.
Life magazine girl shows up in the front lobby to tell Peggy about a party downtown, which is bound to have reefer and hippies. “It starts at nine. I’ll be there at 10,” she says, leeringly. Megan calls her pretentious, and Peggy agrees, approvingly. Meanwhile at Pete’s apartment, there is much rejoicing at the announcement of Campbellspawn, and Pete immediately starts playing extreme hardball with Trudie’s dad, telling him, “I’m done auditioning,” telling him he’s got to drop Clearasil and, as a bonus, he wants the account for all of Dad’s Vicks holdings, including Formula 44, the cough drops, the inhaler, and Vapo-Rub and everything else. Dad calls him a “son-of-a-bitch,” to which Pete, one of the most self-aware characters in “Mad Men,” just gives a hilarious shrug.
Don’s party time involves drinking in his office until the floor polisher gets too loud and forces him to go home to the man cave, while Peggy is “swellegant” and downtown, hanging out in a Warhol-like “factory” where men in bear outfits drink Budweiser and Life magazine girl makes a genuine play for Peggy, who politely rebuffs. Now at home, Don starts to write an apology letter to Allison, but when we starts to write “Right now my life is…” he rips the page out of the typewriter, because nothing is more anathema to Don Draper than an easy revelation. So it’s much easier to just fall down on the couch.
Back at the love-in, Peggy has a run-in with the nude photographer (he’s clothed, but he photographs nudes — tough modifier) and tells him they could use his talents at SCDP. He returns with some “selling my soul” jibber jabber, and then the whole soiree gets busted, with the NYPD bringing in paddy wagons. Peggy ends up spending some quality time in a hiding place with the party thrower, which could spell trouble for her fiance. He seems like too much of a simpering tag-a-long anyway, and Peggy seems destined for a full flirtation with the counterculture.
When Don returns to the office, he is greeted by his new secretary, Mrs. Blankenship, a relic from the old days, and by the old days I mean the 1880s or so. This is by Don’s request, mainly because in an apparent moment of clarity, he realizes that attractive women in their early 20s are a bit of a problem when they are in close proximity and filling his scotch glass. Pete delivers the good news about Vicks, Don gives him a semi-congratulatory “Keep up the good work,” and tells Mrs. Blankenship to reschedule Dr. Miller, but it seems his new receptionist might need to listen to life the Nu-Sound way.
Peggy is talking to her snide copywriting partner Joey (Matt Long). Now, Joey doesn’t seem long for SCDP, because he’s the most insubordinate little creep this side of Pete Campbell, only he voices his contempt for his superiors in the open air. When one of the receptionists passes the envelope for a congratulatory gift for Pete and Trudie, Peggy is surprised at the news while Joey says, “I would get her so pregnant.” Joey will be great at SCDP if the agency ever lands the Massengill account. Otherwise, I see him getting shanked.
Peggy congratulates Pete, and clearly there are still some feelings there, since Peggy goes back and bangs her head on her desk like Charlie Brown. Cut to Don’s office, and Faye Miller shows up because Mrs. Blankenship told her to get to his office immediately rather than simply rescheduling. Yes, this Blankenship phase of the Draper office is going to be ripe for 1970s-level situation comedy. Faye tells Don that Pond’s cold cream appeal should be linked to the prospects of holy matrimony, to which Don says “Hello, 1925.” Which is funny, because when those ideas are promulgated these days, we usually say, “Hello, 1955.” Don insists that Faye manipulated the group, but focus groups have been commonplace in his business for years, and he seems more upset that there were personal ramifications for him. But however he got to his decision, Don is right in the long term: that kind of approach seems terribly old hat — like something Queen Victoria might wear.
In the lobby, Pete is meeting with the old men from Vicks, while Peggy is going to lunch with Life Magazine girl and a bunch of her young friends from upstairs. The message seems fairly simple: Peggy is casting her lot with the next generation, while Pete will make his bones with the ruling class.
And speaking of old hat, Don goes home to his dreary man cave, where an old man is standing in the hallway in his underwear repeatedly asking his wife, “Did you get pears? Did you get pears? Did you get pears?” His wife says, “We’ll discuss it inside.” I think Don would have preferred Nurse Phoebe to be outside asking about the pears, but no such luck. He’s feeling the desolation of the world he’s made for himself.
There was a lot going on in “The Rejected,” mainly a sketch of the mid-60s as it is shifting to a youth and freedom culture over the one Faye Miller seems to be recommending. While there was no exploration of Betty Draper’s world, that seems to be coming next week, along with another, more difficult advertising conflict. This one did not have the grand sweep of last week’s “The Good News,” but it fleshed out the storylines of more characters. A smaller episode, but more densely packed, like a jar of cold cream.
– Lang
Video: Sugar Free Allstars performing in downtown Oklahoma City
I ganged up with the Oklahoma City kiddie band rockers Sugar Free Allstars shortly after FreeTulsa! to film a couple song off its latest release “Funky Fresh and Sugar Free.” Chris Wiser and Rob Martin invited several of their youngest fans to help out.
The duo received attention from Time’s website earlier this year in a photo essay detailing the top kid’s musicians in the country.
Let’s hope the Allstars never grow up too much.
-Poppe
“Mad Men” Recap: 403, “The Good News”
Three episodes into Season Four of “Mad Men,” and all three belong in the series’ pantheon, but “The Good News” is easily the high water mark for the season to-date, mainly because the spiral that became so evident in “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” is accelerating but, for most of the hour, we’re having too much fun to even notice that Don Draper is falling ever more abyss-bound. While “The Good News” delivered some of the biggest laughs in the series’ history, those were set against the story of an anti-hero who cannot even do right by his mother figure, Anna Draper (Melinda Page Hamilton).
As we know from the Season Four episode “The Mountain King,” Anna was the wife of the real Don Draper, the one whose identity Dick Whitman borrowed in Korea, and Don/Dick has been supporting Anna since. It’s just before New Year’s Eve, and Don is leaving New York City and planning to go to Acapulco but with a short layover in Los Angeles. As usual, AMC throws red herrings out whenever they show scenes of the upcoming episodes: what looked like Draper asking his receptionist Allison (Alexa Alemanni) out for New Year’s Eve last week was just small talk before he leaves Allison and his Dirty Santa present to her in his ever-widening wake of destruction to light out for the West.
When we cut to Don in L.A., he’s rented a convertible and is cruising the PCH, which puts us in mind of “The Jet Set,” but there’s no joy — or Joy, for that matter — on tap for this trip. He arrives at Anna’s bungalow in San Pedro to find her hobbling around with a broken leg and being waited on by her sister Patty, whom she cannot stand, and her niece Stephanie (Caity Lotz), who is Anna’s best source of weed and an immediate point of interest for Don/Dick. Stephanie is a quick study of Don/Dick and she knows how to tweak his sorry ass, playing some pre-rock ‘n’ roll on the jukebox just to shine a spotlight on his increasing antiquity during the revolutionary 1960s. When he drives her home, Don/Dick makes the most pathetic and least persuasive play for the college girl in his history of seductions — for the love of all humanity, this man is off his game. Then Stephanie lowers the boom, possibly just to get Don/Dick off her: Anna broke her leg because she has bone cancer, and it has metastasized throughout her body. This being late-1964, a period when doctors felt perfectly fine not informing female patients of their true conditions (a la Betty and the psychologist), Anna is completely in the dark.
Don confronts Anna’s sister, who claims that they’ve done everything and seen everyone, which doesn’t seem likely — how would Anna not know that she was in an oncologist’s office? — to which Don/Dick makes a crack about Anna being treated by quacks in “Peedro.” That was an interesting little jab, and I’m wondering if it was, for Don/Dick, a little too geographically aware given that he’s not really an L.A. guy. Perhaps Matthew Weiner was providing a little grace note for Minutemen fans. Don seems to want to tell her and help Anna get the treatment she needs, but then seems to realize that that might entail commitment. When Anna wakes up, Don/Dick is painting a section of water-damaged wall, and she wonders if it all should be painted — after all, “a patch of new paint’s just as bad as a stain.” How true. This is a woman who might be the last person who can love Don/Dick unconditionally, and he’s telling her that he’s going to Acapulco. This turns out not to be true, which isn’t terribly surprising, is it?
So he returns to New York where Lane Pryce (Jared Harris, having his best hour of the series so far), is having his own meltdown. Earlier, we saw him whipping out his constant tight-money mantra on Joan, who was trying to sweet-talk him into some days off with her weasel-wannabe-army-surgeon husband so she can get pregnant before said-weasel is off in the Mekong Delta humming “Fortunate Son” to himself. Then he apologizes for being callous by sending flowers, but since he’s trying to appease both Joan and his haughty-snotty wife back in Blighty, he’s sending flowers left and right, but one of the receptionists switches the left and the right, with Joan getting long-stem reds with the note “Darling, I’ve been an ass. Kisses, Lane,” and the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Pryce getting a conciliatory bouquet and a “Joan, please forgive me” note. Yes, that will go swimmingly. Lane and Joan seem to bond over the battle for who gets to fire the secretary, but Lane is still a mess. Which is a perfect time for Don Draper to show up.
Lane has nothing to do, but he just got a bottle of fine Christmas booze from his alcoholic father (Jared Harris, you’ll recall, is the son of the late Richard Harris, he of “Camelot,” “MacArthur Park,” “Gladiator” and first Dumbledore fame, who was a champion drinker in a class of pros that included teammates Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole), and that means it’s middle-aged party time. As they sop up Dad’s fine whiskey, they contemplate going to a movie, and one of the choices is “The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg,” which would be a superb selection all around, except it’s not that kind of night, so Catherine Deneuve notwithstanding, they go see “Gamera,” because nothing rings in the New Year like a giant, fire-breathing turtle. Then they eat lots of beef and the increasingly soused Lane puts his steak down around his old fellow and declares loudly, in an exaggerated cowboy drawl, “I’ve got a big Texas belt buckle! Yee-haw!”
After that, they go see a comedian who may or may not be Lenny Bruce, then Don’s slap-happy hooker shows up with a friend for Lane, and it’s more middle-aged party time, with Don having the whole boozy gang back to his man-cave (Another great line from Don: “I think Norman Mailer shot a deer over there.”) where there is much carnal knowledge.
Although everything above sounds pitch-black, this was one of the funniest in the series and Harris finally gets his due with a showcase episode. But Weiner continues to make the points that are central to Season Four: as 1965 dawns, the old Draper magic only seems to work in the exciting world of advertising, while the charm isn’t really connecting elsewhere with the people in his life. He cannot go to California with an aching in his heart and be assured of immediately bedding a 20-year-old anymore. Something has to change, but if he could not step up for the one person who would step up for him, if only she could, there’s not much hope for Don Draper right now.
– Lang
Music Video: Johnny Polygon “Riot Song”
The absolute highlight of FreeTulsa! was Oklahoma native rapper Johnny Polygon. He’s been playing throughout the country lately and had a video sitting near the top of the MTV2 music video charts.
He can also play guitar and kazoo at the same time.
Keep your eye on this guy.
-Poppe
Video of the Day: Kathryn Calder, “Slip Away”
No, it’s not puppet week at StaticBlog, but after that Clinic video, it’s hard not to see the trend. From the New Pornographers vocalist’s “Are You My Mother?,” arriving tomorrow.
– Lang
Video: Local artists channel Woody Guthrie
Kelly Kerr, Jeremy Charles and several stellar Oklahomans teamed up for a musical campaign for the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice in hopes to discourage hate, racism and general nastiness that shouldn’t exist.
The duo have created some pretty stunning imagery with the talent of Johnny Polygon, Ryan Lindsey, CCR and more.
This machine likes this website.
-Poppe
