Kaz-trina 2007.

And somebody said "Hey man did you see that?
His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud"
I wonder what the dude was sayin'
or was he just lost in the flood?
                                                      Bruce Springsteen

Where have I been lately?  Wringing out carpets, mopping floors and salvaging wet computer equipment, that's where.  If there is one thing I've learned this weekend, it's that if you have a home office don't have it next to the home laundry room.

I came home Friday to find that a pipe had burst in the basement.  The result was an inch of water settling mostly in the corner where my work station is located.  Miraculously my computer didn't drown, nor did my back up drive.  But there were other losses.  Sad losses. 

I have hundreds of record albums, all placed neatly in boxes...on the floor.  At a certain point on Friday, the boxes ceased being boxes and began being sponges.  I lost quite a few records.  A lot of great fifties Sinatra stuff, a cool Little Richard album, a few Jefferson Airplanes, a Les Paul and Mary Ford ten-inch.   I panicked and pulled the wet records out of the boxes and layed them out in the backyard so that they would dry in the sun.  I failed to factor in the well-known fact that the sun LOVES to melt vinyl.  In less than five minutes my records were taking the shape of novelty salad bowls.  Can I hear a "Doh!" somebody?

So I lost a few.  But luckily I didn't lose too many.  Know why?  Because I had the important ones encased in mylar sleeves.  Not one original mono Capitol Beatles album took in water.  Never make fun of a record geek when you see him putting his records in protective plastic.  There's a valid reason!

Even though it was painful to see my vinyl babies drown, Kaz-trina 2007 turned out to be a blessing in disguise:   This disaster gave me a chance to thin out my collection.  Several of my Clapton albums from the eighties were among the victims.  But who cares about eighties Clapton?  I also lost a promotional 12-inch Billy Idol interview. Where the heck did that come from?  Oh well, bye Billy glug glug glug...

There was, however, one loss that made me very sad:  My vinyl copy of Bruce Springsteen's first album Greetings from Asbury Park NJ.   Sure, I can replace it on CD, but it has so much sentimental value for a Jersey boy.  It broke my heart to see it on the floor all warped and wet.

But life goes on.  I replaced the rugs, got new record boxes (put them on MILK CRATES this time around), and I'm happily singing Blinded by the Light. 

That nasty flood may have taken my beloved Springsteen album from me, but it's still in my head and my heart. 

Forever.

Glug.

                                                                    ----Ed Kaz

Vested interest.
Doesn't matter if
we lose touch
for a month or
a week or
a day

long as we
keep signed up

in for
the long
run

withstanding
periodic
attention fluctuation

a friendship 401K

               -----Ed Kaz

DIRECTIONS:  PLAY LOUD

KAZ NOTE:  This article first appeared in Cool & Strange Music Magazine a few years back.

THE GREAT LOST MOTOWN ALBUM

By Ed Kaz!

“Berry would say sometimes to the writers, “Hey.  Why don’t you write something for Willie?”  The writers would look at him and say, ‘Willie and Lester?’  It was like they didn’t know how to go about it."  

 ---Willie Tyler

A few years ago I was assigned to interview ventriloquist Willie Tyler for The Asbury Park Press, regarding an upcoming New Jersey appearance.  During the course of our chat he made mention of a part of his career that I was never aware of:  In 1965, Willie Tyler and Lester released an album on Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown records.  The album, as it turns out, consisted mainly of Tyler and his wooden sidekick hilariously talking back to a young audience impatiently waiting for Marvin and Stevie and Smokey to come onstage--a daunting task to be sure.  Intrigued, I asked Tyler if I could schedule a second chat in order to get more details.  He graciously agreed.  Here now is the untold story of Willie Tyler and Lester’s HELLO DUMMY:  The Great Lost Motown Album.

KAZ!:   How did you get signed to Motown?

WILLIE TYLER:  I was working a summer resort in upstate Michigan, and Berry Gordy’s sisters used to go up there in the summer.  They saw me in a particular club, because I stayed there all summer.  When they got back to Detroit they had mentioned to Berry Gordy [founder of Motown records] about, you know, me.  And so they contacted me and I went over for a meeting on a Wednesday afternoon.  Lester and I did about five minutes, and they said “Thank you!”  I left, and by the time I got home I got a phone call and they said, “Welcome to the Motown family.”

KAZ!:   Wow.

WILLIE TYLER:  And I stayed with them eight years.

KAZ!:   When you would tour with the Motortown Revue, that had to be crazy!  Were you on the bus with them?

WILLIE TYLER:  Everybody was on a bus.  We were supposed to bring one bag, and everybody would bring two bags.  We had luggage in the aisles.

KAZ!:   How was Stevie Wonder?  I always heard that he pulled practical jokes.

WILLIE TYLER:  He would kid around with people.  He was kind of mischievous.  I remember I had gone up to Lansing Michigan one time to do a show up there and the people from Motown asked if I could pick Stevie up and bring him back because he was up at a school for the blind.  He wanted me to do a show.  Even though the people were sightless, he wanted me to do a show for his friends.

KAZ!:   You performed for blind kids?  I guess you didn’t have to worry about moving your lips.

WILLIE TYLER:  Right.  But he just wanted them to touch Lester and feel what he looked like.  And after that when we came back, Stevie wanted to go to somebody’s mom’s house to pick up some cookies and stuff.  But he’d jump out of the car and say “I can see!  I can see!”  He’d do all that kinda stuff.  He was just a teenager.

KAZ!:   What was Marvin Gaye like?

WILLIE TYLER:  Marvin was cool.  Every time he would see me he’d say, “Hey! Lester baby!”  He knew my name, but he was trying to acknowledge Lester, so he’d say “Hey! Lester baby!”

KAZ!:    [laughs]  That’s great.  So now, let’s get back to the album.  What a kooky idea: an album featuring a ventriloquist. 

WILLIE TYLER:  Yeah, but Ed, there’s a guy named Richard and Willie who did albums out there in California.  They were party albums.  They were the same label that Redd Foxx was on.  He was a ventriloquist also.  And that’s why sometimes people get mixed up.  “Willie and Lester” and “Richard and Willie.”  He would do X-rated stuff.  And then sometimes people thought that I did it.  I said, “No, no.  That wasn’t me.  That was him.”

KAZ!:     “Hello Dummy” has a cool album cover.  Do you remember the photo session?

WILLIE TYLER:  I remember.  Yeah, yeah.  Up in the attic in Motown they had a studio  and they would take pictures of all the albums, all the artists.  They had their own photographers that took pictures.

KAZ!:     You and Lester both look kind of stunned.

WILLIE TYLER:  Yeah.  Looking through like something happened.  We’re looking at something that’s very unusual.

KAZ!:     Along with your routines, you and Lester actually sing a song.

WILLIE TYLER:  We did a song on there.  It’s called “Fever.”  Little Willie John did it originally and Peggy Lee did it.  And it was on with the Motown band.  We sang that song to close the act on each show. [sings] “Never know how much I love you…”

KAZ!:     Oh, that’s a great song.

WILLIE TYLER:  Yeah.  Lester and I sang it.

KAZ!:     Did you harmonize?

WILLIE TYLER:  [laughs] No.  We were working on it.  We were working on it.

KAZ!:     Did you want to do more albums for Motown?

WILLIE TYLER:  Yeah.  They were even thinking of us recording a song or two.  But it never got off the ground at that particular time.  With the Supremes, everything they put out was a hit, so writers were trying to get on the bandwagon with them.  That was the priority.  And later on, Marvin Gaye, and of course Stevie.  Berry would say sometimes to the writers, “Hey.  Why don’t you write something for Willie?”  The writers would look at him and say, “Willie and Lester?”  It was like, they didn’t know how to go about it.  That’s basically what it was.  It’s like, the understood a Marvin Gaye or Supremes or Temptations, but a Willie and Lester? “What can we write?”

Mondayn

color drain
reverse brain
against weekend grain
feeling Cobain
withhold refrain
till after rain

  


                         -------- Ed Kaz

--------------------------------------------------------------------

...and if you enjoyed the interview, here's your cupcake!

  



Photos copyright 2009 Ed Kaz
From the forthcoming book
"Ed Kaz:  Cupcakes and Umbrellas" 

Harper Collins Publishers
Available June 2009

TGIF-WTF
Thank God it's Friday?

Why?

God didn't invent Friday

Thank the guy
who invented
the calendar

Calendro Vespucci

TCVIF


                         -------- Ed Kaz

Without Words

Without words what would it be?

without words there would be silence

without words this sentence would not be here

without words we wouldn't know which rest room to use

witness a world with
no word from our sponsor
no word on the winner
no word to your mother

poems are written
and should be heard
but only Webster
can make a word

                         -------- Ed Kaz