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“Like its author, Supernatural Strategies is part tongue-in-cheek, part deadly serious—a satire of rock’s consumerist origins but also a thoughtful treatise on what it means to devote yourself to a collective . . . Drawing from the wisdom of rock’n’roll’s most famous ghosts, Svenonius’ advice ranges from hilarious to cryptic to surprisingly useful.” Ian Svenonius’s experience as an iconic underground rock musician—playing in such highly influential and revolutionary outfits as The Make-Up and The Nation of Ulysses—gives him special insight on This volume features essays on everything the would-be star should know to get started, such as Sex, Drugs, Sound, Group Photo, The Van, and Manufacturing Nostalgia. The book also has black-and-white illustrations. Supernatural Strategies will serve as an indispensable guide for a new generation just aching to boogie. |
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| Posted in: Author signings, Author/artist interviews and lectures, Book Signings, Music | No Comments » |
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“There is plenty about hanky-panky and substance abuse in “Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar”; apparently Wells never ran into a man or a narcotic (or a highball or a cigarette) she didn’t like. And though Peter Benjaminson reports on all that, he also tells us where the music came from and how it went away, doing justice to his fallen angel of a pop star.” - Wall Street Journal; There was Something About Mary ” Twenty years after her death, singer Mary Wells’s unmistakable voice still has the power to haunt and heal her fans. Just listen to her classic “Two Lovers.” In “Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar (Chicago Review Press,$26.95), author Peter Benjaminson chisels away at the walls that the singer built up over her career to protect herself and preserve her image.” - Essence Magazine “Until now, Wells’ story has been told in bits and pieces in various books (including, full disclosure, my 1998 book “Women of Motown”) and in a 2011 episode of TV One’s celebrity biography show “Unsung,” but Benjaminson’s biography is the first full-length book about Motown’s early superstar, the female singer who, had she stayed at Motown, arguably might have “been” Diana Ross.” - Susan Whitall, “The Rise and Fall of Mary Wells”, Detroit News
“I thought I knew all there was to know about MARY WELLS. I was wrong. Here, PETER BENJAMINSON tells Mary’s story with great love and compassion in a way that informs even the so-called experts. I love Peter’s work, and am happy to see Mary Wells finally be given the recognition she so deserves.” — J. RANDY TARABORRELLI, author of “MICHAEL JACKSON,” “AFTER CAMELOT,” and “THE SECRET LIFE OF MARILYN MONROE.” In 1960, a 17-year-old Mary Wells approached Motown founder Berry Gordy at a Detroit nightclub with an original song and enough nerve to sing it for him on the spot. In the years that followed, Wells would become Motown’s first solo superstar. While the Supremes were still picking up jobs as backup singers, Wells’s signature hit, “My Guy,” was topping the charts — even briefly surpassing the Beatles — becoming one of the first Motown songs to cross the color line into mainstream popularity. However, the same spirited self-determination that brought Wells fame would also inspire her to leave Motown at age 21 — and spend the rest of her life fighting to get back to the top.
Growing up in a rundown Detroit neighborhood, Wells went on to make a string of hit singles under Motown — including “Two Lovers” and the Grammy-nominated “You Beat Me to the Punch” —composed mainly by Smokey Robinson. At the peak of her fame, she recorded a duet with rising star Marvin Gaye and toured in the UK with the Beatles,who became captivated by the soulful young singer. After merely fours years, however, Wells had come to consider herself hard-done by the company that had plucked her from obscurity. In a move that would reveal for the first time that all was not sweetness and light at America’s first major black-owned music company, Wells broke her contract and left Motown. Even without Motown backing her, Wells had a ferocious belief in her own talent, and she never stopped performing. “Mary Wells” tells of her life on the road as “Queen of the Oldies,” etching out a living on her voice alone,rather than on records or royalties. Having interviewed Wells’s friends, lovers and husbands, author Peter Benjaminson also shares the never-before-revealed details of the violence in her life, her abuse of drugs and alcohol and her romantic entanglements with several singers and songwriters, including two of the well-known Womack brothers. At the end of her life, Wells fell victim to throat cancer and spent her last few months testifying before the US Congress about the need to continue funding anti-cancer research. Mary Wells helped define Motown’s emerging sound in the 1960s, preparing the stage for many female Motown vocalists. In “Mary Wells,” the first complete account of the singer’s life, Peter Benjaminson reintroduces Wells in all her glamour. Complete with never-before-revealed details about the sex, violence, and drugs in her life, this biography reveals the incredibly turbulent life of Motown artist Mary Wells. Based in part on four hours of previously unreleased and unpublicized deathbed interviews with Wells, this account delves deeply into her rapid rise and long fall as a recording artist, her spectacular romantic and family life, the violent incidents in which she was a participant, and her abuse of drugs. From tumultuous affairs, including one with R&B superstar Jackie Wilson, to a courageous battle with throat cancer that climaxed in her gutsiest performance, this history draws upon years of interviews with Wells’s friends, lovers, and husband to tell the whole story of a woman whose songs crossed the color line and whose voice captivated the Beatles. |
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| Posted in: African-American History, Author signings, Book Reviews, Detroit & Michigan, Music | No Comments » |
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In his foreword, longtime collaborator Alice Cooper proclaims, “Dick isn’t JUST a guitar player… He’s a gifted writer, and I wrote most of the Alice Cooper Hits with him…. Most of them all Top 40 Hits. My personal and musical friendship with Dick goes on and on, and thankfully it’s not over yet.” Honored by Gibson.com for one of the Top 50 Guitar Solos of All Time, legendary lead guitarist and hit songwriter Dick Wagner releases his highly-acclaimed memoirs ,“Not Only Women Bleed, Vignettes from the Heart of a Rock Musician.” Wagner, the often “Invisible Virtuoso,” takes readers on a literary journey as he shares a lifetime of experience as lead guitarist and songwriter for international rock icons including Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Air Supply, and more. In his captivating, witty, literate, and often touching memoir, Wagner delivers colorful tales of reckless behavior and intimate debauchery with an emotional reverberation that resonates with a wide reading audience. It’s not just “sex, drugs and Rock & Roll.” From industry successes and failures, to personal struggles with family and relationships, “Not Only Women Bleed” is a hard-driving, heart-driven life scripture, vividly and joyfully conveyed. |
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| Posted in: Author signings, Author/artist interviews and lectures, Detroit & Michigan, Music | No Comments » |
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What the book shows is that everyone was really great and they could also be jerks. That’s what makes the book not like your usual rock and roll book. That’s what I don’t like about most rock and roll books is that they’re written by fans and so they lionize them, but I wanna read about ‘em being creepy… I didn’t think the book would sell. It just kind of exploded, and then everybody had something to say about it and something to say about me. It sells even better now than when it came out. It was nice that it was word of mouth. It’s the ultimate bathroom book, it’s the kind of thing you see in someone’s bathroom, pick it up, and then you can’t put it down…it’s very accessible. But people criticized us because they said we just “cut and pasted.” – Legs McNeil, Interview in Glorious Noise “What’s great about “Please Kill Me” is the almost-offhand way McNeil uses his plethora of sources to remind us of old myths before using other sources to tear them down. For example, the title of the book comes from a legendary T-shirt worn by Richard Hell of Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Only it turns out Hell never wore the shirt, his erstwhile Television band-mate Richard Lloyd did. It’s also interesting to find out that the band who made the scene at CBGB’s wasn’t the Ramones but Television, who was there at least five months before and playing to decent crowds. Another reason to pick the book up is its cast of characters. Alongside the band members, managers, and critics are a host of fans and other scene-makers. Thus, not only is the book able to simultaneously tell us about the music and musicians from both perspectives, but you generally get to feel like you know what the scene was about, who was actually in CBGB’s on a regular night, and what was going on there. And the stories are truly classic.” –Punk Book Review Legs McNeil is the co-author of The Other Hollyrwood; The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, with Jennifer Osborne and Peter Pavia (Regan Books, 2006), “I Slept with Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir” with Mickey Leigh. (Simon and Schuster, 2009) and The New York Dolls: Photographs with Bob Gruen (Abrams, 2008). Legs McNeil lives in Pennsylvania with his dog Max. Video interview of Legs McNeil and Mickey Leigh discussing their book; I Slept With Joey Ramone: |
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Tags: Legs McNeil, Please Kill Me, Punk Magazine, Punk Rock, The Ramones Posted in: Author signings, Music | No Comments » |
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The project came together during meetings held at Eastern Market beginning in March of 2012. Present during the early phase of discussion were Leon Johnson, Megan O’Connell, Lynn Crawford, Rebecca Mazzei and myself. At one meeting, we brought objects from our own collections that “broke the mold” in unusual and unbound formats. One object titled “Box” was from Mazzei’s collection. It was a fluxus inspired 12 inch square black box stuffed with a variety of hand-made booklets, blueprints, broadsides and posters published by the California Institute of Arts in 1971. At that meeting, we discussed creating contents related to Afro-futurism and I mentioned an old Destroy All Monsters sound-sculpture idea and collaboration with Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts’s Ogun collective. Rebecca was interested in making that happen for the fall at MOCAD, and the “Vision in a Cornfield” installation was put on the calendar to open in the fall of 2012. We responded to the 12” LP format, and decided on the underlying theme of Afro-futurism as a focus. We were not attempting to define or deeply examine the concept, but simply acknowledge its widespread influence as inspiration among the artists we discussed. Soon, various artworks, booklets, poetry, interviews, recordings , posters, postcards, photos, stickers and buttons made there way into the box. Each box was uniquely designed, hand-painted and bejeweled by artist/musician Efe Bes, who transformed them into magical vessels. Several nights of pizza parties were spent painting and decorating the box lids with Efe, Mo and the staff at MOCAD. The Box includes a 12” vinyl LP of unreleased works by Sun ra (performed at the Detroit Jazz Center on New Year’s Eve 1979) and Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts, along with a reprint of Toward a ‘Ratio’nal Aesthetic, a deep and dense music manifesto and Sun Ra-like equations called ”Faruquisms” by Faruq Z. Bey, who revised and worked on the book just shortly before his death. I discovered Ibn’s personal recordings through M. Saffell Gardner, by way of recording engineer Ras Kente. Ibn hired at his own expense, some of the best musicians from the Detroit area and laid down his highly charged words and poems, arranged as upbeat raps and sermons, alongside free-form Jazz riffs and reggae/dub beats. Recorded in 1987, these studio recordings were known only within his immediate circle of friends and unreleased. Produced in the manner of a “Last Poets” album, they are another testament to the passion and diversity this multi-gifted artist. The Box was edited by Rebecca Mazzei and myself in an edition of 200 of which 150 are for sale to the public. Boxes are available from either Bookbeat or the MOCAD store. Special thanks to all the artists, writers and musicians who helped contribute to Box #1, and to Megan O’Connell and the staff and interns at MOCAD who helped collate the edition. Images of Box #1 that are still available and can be ordered from Book Beat are posted online HERE Contents of Box #1 are in an edition of 200 unless otherwise noted. Recordings; Sun ra & Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts; Spirt Songz a 12″ vinyl LP, contains live Sun Ra Arkestra recordings from the Detroit Jazz Center on New Years Eve, 1980 followed by a side of Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts’ studio recorded words and music. Sun Ra tracks include; Journey to Saturn and excerpts from; There is Change in the Air, Are You Spotless? and When There is No Sun. The Sun Ra recordings were edited and digitally re-mastered by Warren Defever and Cary Loren sometime in the late 90s from tapes produced by John Sinclair. The recordings were licensed by MOCAD from Artyard in the UK who now hold the rights to the recordings. The LP side of Aaron Ibn Pori Potts’ compositions was recorded in 1987 at Lion Sound Studios by Ras Kente, all words and music © Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts, the LP was edited and mastered by Loren. Musicians performing beside Ibn include; James Carter, Amp Fiddler, Ron Smith, Titilaya, Ron Rutherford, Mellow Man and Ras Kente. The title “Spirit Songz” comes from the name of one of Ibn’s unreleased albums. Spirit Songz was pressed in an edition of 300 copies. Various Artists; The Spell of Jadoo, is a 16 track, 74 minute CD compilation featuring tracks by Sun Ra, THTX, Warren Defever & Furuq Z. Bey, Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts, Baba Akunda, Little Princess, Slither, Efe Bes, Kim Fowley, The Impaler, Destroy All Monsters, Monster Island and James Semark, 2012. All the tracks have never been released before. The music was compiled and edited by Loren with assistance from Matthew Smith. Pressed in an edition of 300 copies. Text Faruq Z Bey: Toward a ‘Ratio’nal Aesthetic, is a second edition reprint of Faruq’s rare music theory booklet, first published by Ridgeway press in 1989. This 68 page perfect bound edition was re-designed by Megan O’Connell at Salt & Ceder Press in 2012, and produced by MOCAD in an edition of 300 copies. Rob Tyner & John Sinclair; “Motor City Afrofuturism,” an interview with Rob Tyner by John Sinclair is a reprint from the Ann Arbor Sun from 1967, with 3 added photos of Rob Tyner by Leni Sinclair, printed on 12×12″ newsprint, re-edited and arranged by John Sinclair in 2012. The “poem for the liner notes to Pinkeye’s Live Deathless album” by James Semark is also reprinted from the CD released in 2009. Pedro Bell & Cameron Jamie: “Ammagamma-Goo-Chee,“ an interview with Afro-futurist & Funkadelic artist Pedro Bell by Cameron Jamie. Chicago, 2009. Sun Ra; “A Profile of Sun Ra” interview by Grant Martin, reprinted from the Detroit-based Tribe Magazine, 1975. Destroy All Monsters; The Swamp Gas Gazette, a UFO 8 page tabloid newspaper zine, produced by DAM in an edition of 5000 copies in 2002. James Semark; “The Judgment of Edmund Zwingy,” short story by Semark, reprinted from Night-Vision Express, cover drawing; “Each One is Real, Each Real is One” also by Semark, Detroit Artists Workshop Press, 1965 Sun ra; “Cosmic Equation,” poem by Sun Ra (date unknown) designed by Salt & Cedar Letterpress. 2012. .Edition of 150 numbered and 50 lettered copies. Sun ra “The Endless Realm,” poem by Sun Ra (date unknown) designed by Salt & Cedar Letterpress. 2012.Edition of 150 numbered and 50 lettered copies. Amiri Baraka; “I Liked Us Better,” poem, 2012. Terry Blackhawk; “For Dudley Randall,” poem . 2003 M. L. Liebler; “Trembling in the Temple of Tears at the Feet of Buddha,” poem . 2010. Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts;“The Path” and “Ogun; In the Modality of Modified Metal as a Metaphor” - two poems (date unknown)
RAMM:ELL:ZEE / Super Heroes & Villains; Monster Models & Garbage Gods (1991) a collection of Rammellzee’s 21 monster sculptures with text. Photography by Adam Reich, courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York City and the estate of RAMM:ELL:ZEE, 4×5.5″ 20 pages, staplebound booklet with two page pink text insert, designed by Loren, produced by MOCAD in an edition of 200. Pictured left; “Chimer” on the front cover of the booklet. Gary Grimshaw; Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra in Concert with MC5 20×24″ folded poster reprint by Gary Grimshaw. 1967, 2008. Edition of 250, three color silkscreen. Frank Bach In Residence In Concert Detroit Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra 12×17″ folded poster by Frank Bach. 1979-80, produced by MOCAD as an LP cover with Spirit Songz credit information on back. 2012, edition of 300. Gilda Snowden; A 5×7″ original acrylic stencil painting by Snowden signed and dated on the reverse. Jerome Feretti; 7×7″ print with hand coloring crayon additions by signed recto. (some boxes may contain a small signed hand-made brick by Feretti. Barry Roth; A 5×7″ photograph in two different editions of 100 each by Roth, signed and numbered in an edition of 100 each on the reverse. Maurice Greenia; Original pen and ink drawing on 11×11″ paper, signed, titled and dated recto. Ryan Standfest; Ardent Boner, a 8.5x 5.5″ staplebound 16 page booklet of drawings based on Andre Breton’s African art collection by Ryan Standfest, © Rotland Press, 2012, signed and numbered edition of 200. Tom Carey; “Yakub’s Folly”, three color hand pulled woodcut by Tom Carey; titled, signed and numbered on recto, edition of 200.
Dianetta Dye; ”Urban Etch #13 Man” unique monoprint by Dianetta Dye , signed, titled and dated on reverse. Chris Riddell; 8.5×11 Xerox collage by Chris Riddell, signed and numbered on recto, 2012 Leni Sinclair; 6 postcard photos by Leni Sinclair in an envelope includes; Faruq Z. Bey color (1975), Sun Ra in black and white (1977), Sun Ra in color (1977), June Tyson color (1977), Alice Coltrane black and white (1972) and Roscoe Mitchell color Art Ensemble of Chicago performance (date unknown) by Leni Sinclair. 8.5×11″ glossy photo of Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra with Detroit musicians at Detroit Jazz Center by Leni Sinclair, Dec. 31st, 1979. Jimbo Easter & Cary Loren; red, silver or gold silkscreen of alien writing and DAM “cosmic clip art” over spray-painted backgrounds (on acid free 8.5×11″ or on irregular hand-cut paper) numbered on reverse. Kcalb Gniw Spirit; “Ogun Urban Monumentz” -flyer from a book catalog. Efe Bes; Each Box lid has a unique hand design, painted by Afro-futurist musician Efe (with assistance from Mo and the staff of MOCAD) – using acrylics, tempura, markers, glitter, glue and spray varnish. Efe uses traditional and symbolic African based patterns that he improvises with and molds into his own shapes, creating a relief pattern with jewel-like illuminations. The covers are each hand signed and numbered on the side. Stickers, etc., Jim Shaw; Peanut Butter (3×8″ DAM sticker) design by Shaw, 1996/2012, edition of 250 Dave Mueller; What Would Sun Ra Do? (2.5 x9″ bumper sticker) design by Dave Mueller 2004/2012 edition of 250 Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas: Race (2 x4″ sticker) design by Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas. 2012 Apetechnology: Detroit (1×2″ sticker) by the Apetechnology collective (open edition) Destroy All Monsters; Spaceman or Mexican Zombie ( 3″x2″ sticker) design by Loren from an edition of 1000 each. Various artists; 3 buttons in a bag freaturing; Alice Coltrane, Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts and a Destroy All Monster Apocalypse creature. |
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| Posted in: Art, Book Collecting, Destroy All Monsters, Detroit & Michigan, Jazz and Blues, Music, Psychedelia, Publishing, book arts, pop culture | No Comments » |
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“A long overdue and heartfelt, in-depth portrait of one of rhythm & blues’ most tragically overlooked vocal stars. Susan Whitall once again reminds us why she is one of the most passionate and knowledgeable historical curators of Detroit music.” –Allan Slutsky, author of “Standing in the Shadows of Motown.” “Whitall has filled what was a gaping hole in the Detroit music history books, and she’s done so with style and soul.” — Brett Callwood, Detroit Metro Times Little Willie John lived for a fleeting 30 years, but his dynamic and daring sound left an indelible mark on the history of music. His deep blues, rollicking rock ‘n’ roll and swinging ballads inspired a generation of musicians, forming the basis for what we now know as soul music. Born in Arkansas in 1937, William Edward John found his voice in the church halls, rec centers and nightclubs of Detroit, a fertile proving ground that produced the likes of Levi Stubbs and the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. One voice rose above the rest in those formative years of the 1950s, and Little Willie John went on to have 15 hit singles in the American rhythm & blues chart, with considerable cross-over success in pop. Some of his songs might be best known by their cover versions (“Fever” by Peggy Lee, “Need Your Love So Bad” by Fleetwood Mac and “Leave My Kitten Alone” by The Beatles) but Little Willie John’s original recording of these and other songs are widely considered to be definitive, and it is this sound that is credited with ushering in a new age in American music as the 1950s turned into the 60s and rock ‘n’ roll took its place in popular culture. The soaring heights of Little Willie John’s career are matched only by the tragic events of his death, cutting short a life so full of promise. Charged with a violent crime in the late 1960s, an abbreviated trial saw Willie convicted and incarcerated in Walla Walla Washington, where he died under mysterious circumstances in 1968. In this, the first official biography of one of the most important figures in rhythm & blues history, author Susan Whitall, with the help of Little Willie John’s eldest son Kevin John, has interviewed some of the biggest names in the music industry and delved into the personal archive of the John family to produce an unprecedented account of the man who invented soul music. |
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| Posted in: Author signings, Book Signings, Detroit & Michigan, General, Music | No Comments » |
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