The Smiley Smile Message Board

god bless Pete Seeger... what an amazing life and influence he had.

I just stumbled across this dead link (http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=17) for the Friends of Chile benefit concert from May 9, 1974 organized by Phil Ochs and featuring Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Dave Van Ronk, Dennis Hopper (!) and Dennis & Mike of all people.

does anyone know where to find this? I'd love to hear it.

here's the setlist:
01-Introduction Phil Ochs / Guantanamera (Pete Seeger-Arlo Guthrie)
02-Estadio Chile (Pete Seeger)
03-Oh Mary, dont you weep (Pete Seeger-Arlo Guthrie)
04-He was of friend of mine (Dave Van Ronk)
05-Recitation (Dennis Hooper)
06-Try me one more time (Arlo Guthrie)
07-Deportee (Arlo Guthrie)
08-Presidential rag (Arlo Guthrie)
09-California Girls (Dennis Wilson - Michael Love)
10-Ring the living bell (Melanie)
11-My rainbow race (Melanie)
12-Victor Jara (Arlo Guthrie)
13-Allende's last speech (Dennis Hooper)
14-Deportee (Arlo Guthrie-Bob Dylan)
15-Pablo Neruda poem (Dennis Hooper)
16-North country blues (Bob Dylan)
17-Spanish is the loving tongue (Bob Dylan)
18-Blowin' in the wind (Bob Dylan)
19-Change in the weather (all)

Ian can confirm/contradict this, but it's news to me that Dennis showed at this gig. Possibly a typo. Mike, btw, was backed by Charles Lloyd & John McLaughlin - allegedly he was booed by the politically aware crowd who were there to see Bob Dylan and others.

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/globalresistance/conversations/topics/8453


California Girls.

(No mention of Dennis)

http://www.bigozine2.com/MPX/VAchile/VAchile109.mp3

I remember another version of California Girl with Mike singing solo, more jazzy. Maybe with John McLaughlin on electric guitar.

Why the hell would you play california girls at a folk event. Mike deserved to be booed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex21XSzT2do

here it is  :)

It wasn't just a folk event...the name mentioned was Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, not unlike Edward Snowden's NSA involvement, releasing the info he released this past year, which has shown global data mining of personal phones lines.  These were the activists who stopped the war, and got a US president, to resign, and the only one in US history to do so.

Mike was absolutely appropriate, IMHO, at such an intense forum to engage the participants in some singing, at an otherwise "information intense" event.  Mike's presence at such an event shows that he was interested and involved in the political scene, and was respected among his fellow musician/activists to get onstage and perform for a few minutes.  I didn't hear booing.  And, I wasn't aware he was at this forum. Bravo!

Indeed, the booing claim bites the dust.  The 1974 gigs page has been duly revised. ;D

Admittedly, my hearing is not Grade A, but listening to the live recording, all I hear is Mike and what seems to be an acoustic guitar.
Mike mentions only having one guy with him( and he doesn't sound too much like John McLauhlin to me) maybe Mike took Ed Carter with him, or ?? 

Why couldn't Mike have photobombed himself into this picture at the show?!?  ( maybe that's Mike's accompaniest on the left)   

     (http://i59.tinypic.com/30joh8o.png)

Notice how the guy on the left is looking down at the ground? That's Mike he's looking at, about to pop up. In a photo taken just a second after the first, Love appears.

(http://i.imgur.com/NTnAVKh.jpg)

You can see the guy on the right looking at Mike with a sort of "Ugh, why are you even here" kind of glance.

"The guy on the left" is Dennis Hopper. "The guy in the white shirt" is young Bobby Zimmerman, I've been told, but I don't believe it myself.

Careful, Andrew, some here might actually have to do some homework to find out who Zimmerman is!

One for you!  :beer

Looking at that setlist, most of the songs are serious folk songs for the cause of Chile being under military rule. Mike is completely out of place singing a pop song about picking up women in the USA.

He should have done a folk cover like sloop john b. or cottonfields if he was so admit about doing a BBs song. I wonder if Mike afterwards was like "screw this hippie crap, endless summer time!".

Ever consider whether it was requested that he sing it?

So what ?  Doesn't make any sense.

The crowd isn't booing him as much as doing catcalls and hooting like they are making fun of him. The vibe I get from the video is that the folkies are bemused at his presence and song choice.

 Its just really odd that Mike Love would go to a left-wing folk music benefit being one of the most conservative BBs.

[giggle]

"Admit?" - are we in court? Last time I checked, we weren't. This is a music discussion forum.

Rule 36 of the Federal (US) Rules of Evidence is a "Request for Admissions."  That would be an adversarial setting, where parties engage in "confrontation."  Smiley Forum is not court.  

Mike could have done one of Zimmerman's songs duly covered on the Beach Boys Party album, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" but perhaps they wanted Californa Girls, placed in the middle of the setlist for some levity in the midst of that intensity.  

And, I was not there, but am glad that the Beach Boys had a member within that group. (this appears to be Mike-Bashing.)

"Rules and Guidelines - 2) Treat others as you want to be treated. Think about what you are saying before you post a message. Lift each other Up, don't tear each other down. Harassment of members is not tolerated."

Also, the guy on the right is Dave Van Ronk, the one that the film "Inside Llewyn Davis" is based upon.  Major influence on Dylan, and generally overlooked artist.

I remember reading a book on Phil Ochs years ago, (the one Michael Ochs had optioned to Sean Penn that was never made), where they discussed a concert Phil intended to put on that Dennis was going to appear at.  Could have sworn this would have been closer to DW's solo period.  I'll have to see if I still have the book

I am really not breaking any guidelines for the board questioning Mike's song choice and appearance at this event. Plus the last time I checked, "mike bashing" is not against the rules either. Plus I am not really harassing any members either.

The man has made some really bizarre choices and statements over the years, playing California girls at an "a-list" folk benefit is one in my opinion. Its funny in hindsight as well since Mike got chummy with the republican party of Reagan and H.W Bush in the 1980s.

Yes! That film is on my "must see" list, for many reasons including being a fan of the Coen Brothers, of that period in music, and of cats... ;D

Dave Van Ronk is the one who staked a claim to the arrangement of "House Of The Rising Sun" which eventually made it's way from Dylan to the Animals and worldwide success. I think it was the Scorcese Dylan doc where Van Ronk tells a version of the story, no real malice after 45 years or so, but mentioning that they (Animals through Dylan?) got that unique arrangement from watching him play the song.

And Dave Van Ronk was also a friend of Peter Tork, I wish I could recall some of the details and even if Van Ronk made it to Los Angeles to hang out with Tork after he was holding court at his mansion/den of iniquity in the wake of his Monkees money coming in.

First - We don't know who made the song choice. 

Second - We don't know whether Mike is Republican or Democrat, and I don't care; it is his business.  And, funny, a lot of those "activists" from the "anti-disestablishment" days, are now lawyers/business people in the corporate world. Some are Republicans.   Both parties have their strengths and weaknesses.  People in business tend, often to be neutral politically, while supporting causes they believe in.  When people go into the voting booth, they vote for whomever they choose.  And, they can socialize with people of all political parties, in the States.

Third - When someone asks me to "admit" something, I consider it "confrontational."  People are here to discuss music, not be told they are "right or wrong" in an opinion.  Confrontation by demanding an "admission"  could be construed as a form of harassment and "crossing the line."  JMHO

My bad, I meant "adamant" instead of admit.

Okie-Dokie!

We'll call it a scrivener's error.  ;)

California Girls does seem like a weird choice for such an event, hell why not just break out The Monster Mash and be done with it.

He should've done "Be True To Your School". It went to #6 you know!

  It's a well done movie, but the pacing is really     S    L    O    W.   
I'Ding Van Ronk and Hopper is easy, what about the guys in the background and the hands to the left and  right....

 

It's hard to  believe I'm the only one here that knew right away, from the context of the post, that SMB meant to write Adam Ant(Good thing Mikie didn't see it yet, he'd jump down yer throat!)

Oh, I knew what he meant but... well... y'know... I'm me.  ;D

Behind Dylan....Melanie?

In case anyone cares...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlnL-a5bReE


Oracle Carl hits the nail on the head in the 'folk music' debate at 1.50. Case closed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8JQOuVDVVU

Dafuq?  :brow That was truly one of the strangest things I've ever heard.

I'm halfway tempted to email Deni Frend, the woman who helped Phil organize this show, and ask her just how Mike wound up on the bill.  Chip Monck's TV show, from where the Love/Lloyd clip above derives, was taped in a New York studio, several weeks ahead of airtime, and it could have been that Phil bumped into Mike on the street when the latter was in town to do Monck's program, and impulsively asked him to do the show in order to get some more tickets sold.

(The Felt Forum, where the Evening With Salvador Allende show was done, seated just over 4000 and less than a thousand tickets had been sold until the day before the event, which is when Dylan finally agreed to play and the concert sold out after Phil announced this on WBAI radio.)

Phil Ochs knew Van Dyke Parks, didn't he, and they were close friends too, weren't they? Could Van Dyke have had something to do with Mike appearing at that concert?

Both Van Dyke and Phil possessed a sometimes wicked sense of humor - that was one reason for their close friendship - but I don't think it would have gotten *that* wicked.

I have noticed that in the lengthy accounts of the Evening With Allende show in both Ochs biographies (by Marc Eliot and Michael Schumacher), Mike's presence goes completely unmentioned. 

Funny enough, just stumbled upon this documentary on Showtime, Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).  Amazing coincidence is that the concert is filmed in New York's Town Hall, the very place where Dennis' solo show was booked!  Ah, to look at the shots of that house, and think of the rehearsals, and think of what might have been...   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3358552/

On Friday, the talented but pretty troubled actor of the '60s, Christopher Jones, died in LA, at 72, which reminded me of his most famous role as rock star-turned-President Max Frost in the 1968 film Wild In The Streets.  Which in turn reminded me that in the fall of 1966 Phil Ochs was sent the script for this movie, and asked if he'd like to play Frost. 

Although there was nothing that Phil would have liked better than to be a movie star, he turned down the part because he thought the screenplay represented teenagers and the counterculture in a negative light - which it does, pretty much.  But it could be that the rock star/politician concept in it later was an influence on his idea that the only hope for America lay in Elvis becoming Che Guevara. 

(Jones was a friend of Jim Morrison and when performing songs like the hit "Shape Of Things To Come" in the film is evidently copying the Lizard King's moves - though his singing voice was dubbed.)