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No confirmation, but I'm hearing Tandyn Almer may have died. Hopefully, it's not so.

Edit: dammit - confirmed. Last night.

R.I.P. Mr Almer.

Dude had a cool name.


Gonna play some "Marcella" in his honour tomorrow.

Yeah Nelson just confirmed it on Facebook.

Very sad news. Sail on Tandyn

Somebody already updated his Wikipedia entry.  It says:

Almer died on January 8, 2013, in his apartment in McLean, VA, of complications from a number of respiratory and cardiac illnesses.

Some of my favorite Tandy songs (besides the well known ones):
http://www.myspace.com/video/pinkpandoracat/then-i-39-ll-be-someone/13752341
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEvpTG_vnCw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgqn8vvdT0c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV7chqS5kls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPTFNZJr-7I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwRmtHf-Bl0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-wOemFzKCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYGk1E7GeWY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCCkaTC297k

Tonight I was at a social event where I drank, not necessarily in that order, three glasses of white wine, one glass of red, and three scotch and sodas. I thought I was pretty toasted. Then I punched up Facebook on my phone and Eddie Hodges was announcing Tandyn's passing. That sobered me up instantly.

Funny that it would be Tandyn that could do that.....

I've written about my Facebook contacts with him before on this board. I haven't mentioned that he once sent me a message indicating, in his elliptical way, that he found the intellectual quality of my postings at FB above the average. I was pretty honored.

Now that he's gone, maybe we'll learn at last what he was really up to after he left LA. As the US Copyright Office records show, he never stopped composing. Maybe there are tapes left in his place that show what that work sounded like....

When it comes to sunshine pop with a dark edge, he was the absolute master. Prime example - the song called "Victims Of Chance" embedded in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwCwNgiT3mk

(from the Crazy People album - also featuring  recorded by some South Park-ish Canadians and masterminded by Johnny Kitchen, not to be confused with the similar outfit actually named Victims Of Chance who also recorded Tandyn's material)

Requiescat, Tandyn...and maybe even in pacem....

http://www.myspace.com/tandynalmer/music/songs/degeneration-gap-32951816

The A side of Tandyn's only record under his own name, a Warner Bros 45 in 1969. (The B side was the same song except in mono.) The lyrics get to me every time I hear it....

A couple more clips in Tandyn's honor...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjHNFurPgMg

is the Association doing Along Comes Mary in 1967 at a slower pace than usual, maybe closer to the way TA wrote the song. (He stated on his FB page that it was Curt Boettcher's idea to speed up the tempo...which goes into the thorny question of just what else Curt did involving the song, which I have written about on another thread here.)

BTW the above clip really shows off the Assn's vocal chops.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmP0L_Yy9E8

is David Cassidy performing TA's song "Then I'll Be Someone" on British TV in 1976.  Proof that old Tandyn was perfectly capable of writing a sweet balled that had nothing at all to do with drug abuse/dealing or hookers/masseuses or strippers.  As I wrote in another thread, the song has been co-credited to Carl but TA said at his Facebook page that what happened was that he sold the publishing to Carl to get money to go to Maui.  TA also said Brian was interested in having Spring record it though ultimately that didn't happen.

Too many bong hits caught up with him.....

Tandyn also wrote the lyrics to Beatrice from Baltimore, which became "You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone".  Those lyrics are around, aren't they?

And I remember he use to have a website where he sold the "Tandyn Slave-Master", a waterpipe that was described as “the perfect bong."

And then Steve Gaines' story about the legendary threesome......

"Tandyn Slave-Master", need  to look this up..... :hat

A two man operation.

(http://i50.tinypic.com/v6svmr.jpg)

Oh my god, where can I buy one?

RIP Almer, gonna take huge bong hits and listen to your songs

Amazing invention ;D

I'd never heard about Tandyn having a site to sell the Slave-Master. I wonder if there's a mirror site of it or whatever they're called at archive.org.

When I was hangin' out in head shops in the '70s, I have to admit, I was mostly geekily looking through their modestly stocked record racks. In the used section you'd often find something pretty good - I remember getting Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets in one, original Tower release.

But every so often I looked at the bongs, and once or twice I remember seeing a Slave-Master. But since it needed two people to work it wasn't much in demand. In my neck of the woods if a person needed assistance in getting stoned, the good old Risin' Shotgun was the most popular way to go.

This brings me to something I read long ago on some board, where somebody posted about having run into Tandyn in a bar in the Midwest in the mid-1970s. (The approximate date is of interest because Tandyn seems to have left LA in early in '75 and settled in Maryland about two years later, and apart from this story, what he did and where he was is an absolute blank, as far as I can tell.)  He was in the bar repairing a cigarette machine - according to the poster, TA said that he was in the vending-machine sales and repair business.

Which, in the Midwest in those days, had heavy infiltration from the Chicago Mafia - which also was involved, in an especially hard-to-document way, in the bong business. So it may or may not be that Tandyn, with some assistance from "the guys," was using a job in vending machines as a kind of cover for selling Slave-Masters to head and record shops out of his van or whatever he had. 

If Bob Irwin at Sundazed had been able to get that CD of TA demos out while he was living, he might have given some interviews - he indicated in an FB message to me anyway that he was keen to promote it when released - and we might have had some answers about all those blank spots in his life. But now, it'll be up to some intrepid journalist to do that. 

Which may come to pass. There's little doubt in my mind that when The Washington Post learns that someone who did what Tandyn did lived in the DC area for 36 years and nobody at the paper ever heard of him before now, they'll be interested in doing a well-researched feature article, as they frequently do with locals who lived lives of considerable note but never or hardly ever made it into the paper in their lifetime.

From Carlin's book. Either the original lyrics to "Mess Of Help" or rewritten lyrics after the fact:

She got a hole in her stocking
She do a whole lotta rockin'
She do the shake down at Bumbles
She got the Chicano rumbles.

Original "Beatrice" lyric, as related by Bruce in a 1972 Melody Maker interview.

The site may or may not have been run by Tandyn directly, but they were definitely promoting/selling that Slave-Master product. I clearly remember it.

The picture of the product that Doo Dah posted was published in a little book called "A Child's Garden Of Grass - The Official Handbook For Marijuana Users". The book won praise from Rolling Stone and Time Magazine.


The Tandyn Slave-Master

The most perfect device in all the world ever invented for the smoking of Grass is a thing we've called the "Tandyn Slave-Master," which was invented by Tandyn Almer, the same person who wrote the words and music to the hit song, "Along Comes Mary." (It's interesting to note that anyone who is good in one area is usually good in other areas. Tandyn is not only a successful composer, poet and inventor, but he's brilliant with a sewing machine, lives with a beautiful movie star, and can tap dance like a son of a bitch).
 
Every device used for smoking grass has the one problem of wastage. No matter how fast you smoke it, about half of the smoke is dissipated into the air, and thus lost forever. The Tandyn Slave-Master, however, has done away with this problem by allowing you to save every bit of the smoke.
 
The reason for the name "Slave-Master" is that it takes two people to operate it; one does the work and the other reaps the benefits (just like in a marriage). Although this device can be easily and cheaply built, it is a little complicated, so please refer to the illustrations on pages 114-115.
 
On the left is a normal water pipe such as the one we've just described, except that it is connected by a glass or rubber tube to the incinerator on the right.
 
Grass is placed into a heat-proof flask (which we'll call the incinerator) and stopped up with a two hole stopper. The incinerator is placed on a stand and a Bunsen burner or can of Sterno (or gas range) is placed under it. Two tubes are connected to the two hole stopper; one hangs free and the other goes to the water pipe.
 
When the grass begins to smolder, one person (the "slave") blows into the free hanging incinerator tube. His air goes into the incinerator forcing that air out into the other tube. The air from the incinerator contains very hot and potent smoke from the smoldering grass. This smoke goes through the incinerator's exiting tube and into the water in the water pipe where it is cooled. The smoke then goes to the top of the water pipe and pours out of the exiting tube and into the mouth of the second person (or "master").
 
When you've had enough and the slave and the master have changed places (which is the American way) then remove the heat source and let the slave blow air into the incinerator until all the smoke has come out of the water pipe's exiting tube.
 
One last note, clamp the water pipe and the incinerator together in order to keep them from tipping over. You can build the Tandyn Slave-Master for about eight dollars.

The funny thing is that Tandyn said on Facebook about half a year ago that he wrote Along Comes Mary under the influence of LSD rather than Mary Jane per se. I don't know if he wrote his acid song "Alice Designs" under the influence of coke.  Always those questions about him. Could he really tapdance like an SOB? Maybe we will find out now.

Awesome live version of "Marcella" by Brian & band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcrOt2xtOtw

Damn, that's a cool song...  :smokin

Interesting thing was just pointed out on Facebook....Tandyn died forty years to the day after the world first heard Sail On Sailor when Holland was released.

Well, there's like 75 cowriters on that song, it would be more curious of none of them died an anniversary of its release.

Tandyn was a brilliant man to the end. My condolences to his family and friends.

Probyn rocked that sucker in the middle, but Bennett really took it to a new level.  Dave did it well on last year's tour, but I've seen Scott play that a few times and he scorches it. 

And bring back Taylor.

Well, Holland's 40th came five days after Van Dyke's 70th...pretty close.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4088949186754&set=p.4088949186754&type=1&theater

reproduces an old clipping from KRLA Beat, in 1966, which has a photo of young, seemingly cheerful Tandyn...and the complete lyrics of "Sunset Strip Soliloquy," one of the tracks on his upcoming Sundazed CD of demos. (Nobody ever recorded a commercial release.) I noticed the lyrics pretty much have the same metrical pattern as Dylan's "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)."  The line "someone's spiked the sugar down at Ben Frank's" is bound to draw a nostalgic sigh from certain of our SS'ers.

Tomorrow, Tandyn's memorial service happens at a funeral home a few miles from his place. And from that point the search for his saga will likely begin. The Washington Post is apparently going to do either a regular obit or one of their longer features on a deceased local of note, which generally run a month to six week's after the person's passing. I have the strong feeling that right now across the pond the editors at Mojo and Shindig magazines are being pestered by a few bright young ink or cyberink stained wretches looking to get their teeth in this story.

To finish up, Uncle Ray singing "Sail On Sailor."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dWzSPf0Y30

Tandyn must have been living a tough life at the end. Out of curiosity, I looked up his Facebook page, and one of his public posts was about being bitten by a bedbug and winding up in hospital care for a month for it, then leaving the hospital against doctor's advice. That was posted in November. He must have been in very compromised health to have had to stay in hospital care that long for a bedbug bite, and still not have been well. Perhaps leaving the hospital wasn't wise. He also mentioned not only having bedbugs in his apartment, but roaches as well. That isn't a good environment for someone with respiratory issues. It made me really sad to read that. He was a talented man and it's too bad he didn't have a better life or more money to afford better living conditions and better health care for himself.

Found this write-up (not sure of historical accuracy, but it's a nice tribute) on patheos:  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/feastofeden/2013/01/the-psychodramas-and-the-traumas-gone-the-songs-are-left-unsung-tandyn-almer-1942-2013/

I was at Tandyn's service yesterday - and despite being pretty under the weather, ended up addressing the two dozen people there for a few minutes.

 (With the exception of me, Dawn Eden, a guy who deejays at DC's Black Cat club,  and Tandyn's sister-in-law, they consisted entirely of people who came to know him after he moved East in '77.)

Some answers to this puzzle started to come. Too many strands to start tying together here - but yes, SS'ers, the story of how he came to be the way he was - and this he has in common with Syd Barrett - started long before he dropped some acid and wrote "Along Comes Mary."

But unlike Syd, he never let his axes gather dust.  He was at it to the very end. Even when uncontrollable hand tremors damaged his keyboard prowess (which must have been considerable - it was said he could play the most complex Joplin and Lamb rags as offhandedly as if he were doing the Minute Waltz), he had his computer programmed to keep composing.

I was told that in the trunk of a car in the parking lot of the funeral home, there sat a half-dozen cardboard boxes - each filled to the brim with tapes, mainly recorded on a four-track cassette setup, but apparently a few reel to reels too.  I keep my cassettes in these type of boxes and my estimate is that there could have been up to a thousand tapes in that trunk. That's about a month and ten days of nonstop music there. A young Virginian musician who was a sort of protege of Tandyn's will be digitizing them.

I was told that Tandyn, all the time he was in the DC area, had some kind of home-studio setup going...and had the machine rolling more often than not when he was at the keyboard. And he told people he'd had the same thing going in LA. 

OK, let's get to the subject heading. Today at 4 pm Pacific (7 pm Eastern) at luxuriamusic.com, Andrew Sandoval will be devoting the second half of his show to Tandyn. Plenty of obscurities - including stuff that ain't on Youtube - and of course Marcella and SOS.

Andrew just put a photo which I've linked to below - Tandyn in the desert around the time he was working with Brian. It was mentioned at the service that although he didn't often discuss it, he was 1/32 Menimonee Indian and intensely proud of that fact.  You can kind of see that heritage in this pic.


(http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/c0.188.758.362.36536180308/p843x403/22106_4731160724714_733048021_n.jpg)

Thank you for the report, rn57.

These are the times when I simply love this board.

Thanks to all who provided their insights and those great links (the lovely tribute essay and particularly RPR's You Tube links--it had been years since I'd heard The Action's cover of "Shadows and Reflections"--just a killer version of a great song).

Never a dull moment around the old house on Bellagio, that's fo' sho'!  :hat

RIP Mr. Almer--let's hope that much of what the young Virginia musician will be legatizing can make its way to us, so that we'll get a fuller picture of your always intriguing work.

All right, the Luxuria Music tribute to Tandyn is podcast at these links:

http://www.luxuriamusic.com/podcasts/come-to-the-sunshine/1-14-2013

http://www.luxuriamusic.com/podcasts/come-to-the-sunshine/1-14-2013-0

Andrew Sandoval gets the tribute underway at about 49 minutes into the first link. It goes on until about 25 minutes into the second link. The only BBs track played was Marcella.

 (As I was saying on the Luxuria chat board....I wonder if any of our intrepid chroniclers can ever track down the REAL Marcella now because, after what was said about Tandyn at the service, I'm very curious about what the hell he'd be up to in an East Hollywood "massage" parlor. I know what Brian would be doing.)

Some quite rare tracks were played. "Anything You Want" by the Sure Cure - an extremely scarce record made by a band led by a guy who's nowadays a pretty respected upstate NY bluesman - shows off Tandyn's Left Banke-y side.

Also played was the original demo of "Victims Of Chance," later covered on the Crazy People and (naturally) Victims Of Chance LPs emanating from the J. Kitchen madhouse.  I thought those versions were weird, but Tandyn's demo tops them. It really sounds like he, or whoever was in charge of the session from his publisher, thought that this was material that would interest Al Martino or Jerry Vale or, um, Frank Sinatra - Junior.  That kind of arrangement, tempo, backing vocals. It's one of the tracks that will be on the Sundazed CD.

Plus a lot of the stuff posted here already - Peter & The Wolves's "Little Girl Lost & Found," "Poor Old Organ Grinder," both sides of the Paper Fortress, "Shadows & Reflections."