A Mad, Mad World

After her recent post on Robert Newton, Maggie asked me to find some more movie pirates. Of course, Errol Flynn is probably the most famous, in the role of my noted ancestor Peter Blood - Captain Blood. In addition to him and Johnny Depp there are such natural swashbucklers as:

• Douglas Fairbanks The Black Pirate, 1926
• Tyrone Power Black Sun, 1942
• the deep-voiced, knavish Charles Laughton Captain Kidd 1945
• and his 60s avatar Peter Ustinov, in the Disney movie from my youth Blackbeard’s Ghost
• Orson Welles played Long John Silver in his hand-trembling, Gallo wine-selling days (to wit, 1971)
• Wallace Beery played the role in 1934, in a version of Treasure Island directed by The Wizard of Oz’s Victor Fleming, and the Wizard himself
• Frank Morgan, was in an early Technicolor (1936) called The Dancing Pirate
• Burt Lancaster was in the pirate comedy Crimson Pirate in 1952
• Anthony Quinn and James Coburn were in 1965’s High Winds in Jamaica
• Yul Brunner in The Buccaneer (1958)
• Walter Matthau in Pirates (1986, directed by Roman Polanski).

Other movie pirates include:

• Fred MacMurray Fair Wind to Java (1953)
• Gene Kelly The Pirate (1948)
• Bob Hope The Princess and the Pirate (1944)
• Bugs Bunny Buccaneer Bunny (1948),
• Kevin Kline The Pirates of Penzance 1983),
• Geena Davis Cutthroat Island (1995)
• and Jackie Chan ‘A’ gai waak (1983)

When the Road Bends - tales of a Gypsy Caravan

GDub found this documentary at NetFlix. Fabulous musicians, up close and personal filmmaking.

Esma Redzepove, Maharaja, Fanfare Ciocalia, Taraf de Haidouks and the Antonia el Pipa Flamenco Ensemble.

I love hats.

We are playing live on KPIG tomorrow afternoon. As I was writing our Mad Alert newsletter for the gig I got to pondering porcine metaphors which led my hungry mind to pork pie hats.

A pork pie is a meat dish baked in pastry crust. The hat gets its name from its flat-topped resemblance to that savoury comestible. I won’t recommend eating pork but I will recommend wearing this quintessentially hip topper.

Many a Mad Maggie are crazy enough to sport one.

Buster Keaton, Lester Young and Tom Waits are are other crazy cool cats in pork pie hats.

Tune in at 1pm KPIG 1510 AM

Renée de la Prade has asked several of us local accordion-playing women to be part of an “Accordion Babes” Pin-up calendar for 2009. Her plan is to bundle a sampler CD with the calendar. All very cool. I love the idea of beauties and the bellows! So yesterday I went to the studio of photographer John Clayton and did my pin-up best. I will happily share the results when I receive the final photos from John in a couple of days.

What was fascinating about the process was choosing provocative but not too serious looks and then striking poses that were flattering. Not easy! There’s a fine line between a sexy and a silly outfit. The twists and turns that are appealing in a photo are not naturally occurring to this body, looking relaxed standing on 4 inch spikes took serious “core strength” and hoisting a 16 pound accordion into demure positions required ingenuity. As for seductive, well, thanks be for those wonderful soft light filters.

Here’s a few links to the world of pin-up artists and their fans:

some pin-up herstory
some calendars and playing cards
more examples

These men can dance! Da!

They are performing traditional Ukrainian Cossack dance moves. Not for the week-kneed. I’ve watched it several times, always in awe.

Looks like footage from around the 40s. The tune is “It’s Like That” by Run DMC.

And yes I have spent entirely too much time on YouTube

Soviet Breakdance

This sleepy town at the edge of northern Sonoma County was home to a group of followers of the French thinker and utopianist, Etienne Cabet. These “Icarians“ set up  their commune just south of what is now Cloverdale in 1881.  

There’s a marker indicating where their schoolhouse was. I’ll be looking for it on the way up tonight to our gig in the Cloverdale Plaza.

> More about Icarians

Inspiration

I was inspired to write the tunes for our upcoming CD by a young friend and fan who told me emphatically that the Mad Maggies play “pirate” music. He had given our music some serious attention by making his parents listen to “Magdalena’s Revenge” over and over again on a long car trip. (His parents survived this audio assault)

I thought he had a point and frankly, I simply liked the idea. I began to spin up songs of renegade mariners and the high seas. 

I love the ocean. I’ve lived on boats including a Chinese junk and a couple of schooners.  I did some sailing a long time ago. My great, great, great grandfather was a mariner from the Isle of Man. I like swashbuckling tales. 

Reality Check

Affinity for the subject is good for inspiration but facts are even better so I dug into some non-fiction to learn more about those who plied the waves for profit. I can recommend these two books which do not “Disneyfy” the reality of sea-going workers. 

“Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 by Marcus Rediker

The Sea Rover’s Practice, Pirate, Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730 by Benerson Little. 

Our Kind of People

Seafarers valued musical skills. Work aboard a ship was accompanied by rhythmic song. A good singer was a definite asset. Leisure time involved story-telling, singing and dancing.  Musicians were often treated better, up there with the surgeons and coopers.

Pirate crews were motley. Seafarers of many different nationalities and languages worked side by side.  There had to be plenty of cross-cultural musical influences.

Yep, our kind of people. 

I’ve got more to say about all this which I shall post soon.

Meanwhile come to one of our shows and you’ll hear some of these new nautically inspired numbers

I had kids in my early 20s so most of my playing during that period of my life took place at the homestead:

Yep, that’s me (GDub) at the ripe old age of 24. There’s nothing like playing tunes on the porch on a warm summer day. In fact, holding a regular seisiún on my big porch (wherever that may be) is one of my desires/goals in this life.…

Here I am in my 1979 persona of Johny Maroon.  I’m showing how many chords the band knew.

My first “real” band was an all-girl quintet called “The Anti…” We fashioned ourselves after the “Them” with a touch of the “Who” and, of course, the Stones. We did a version of “Gloria” only we sang it as “G_E_O_R_G_E”. 

In 1966 H. Liebes, a department store in downtown SF put on a battle of the bands. We made it through the initial auditions. The San Francisco Chronicle called and asked if we’d come by the newspaper for a shoot. This is the photo they chose to plug the “dress rehearsal”at Lincoln High School for the 30 bands selected .

Yep, that’s me with the Sears Silvertone hollow body electric — yet another one of those valuable collectibles that I did not hold onto.

The H. Liebes “Band- Bash ‘66″ happened a week or so later on April 4th and 5th at the Cow Palace. Admission was $1. The Cow Palace (I just had to repeat that name) is a cavernous structure built in 1941 that to this day hosts the national rodeo. 

Each group that played was hustled on stage, had time to play a very short set and then was hustled off again. Though “The Anti…” didn’t make it to the finals the experience was exhilarating. I was utterly stage frightened but I got the chance to play music for lots of people in a very, very large venue.  

Here’s the band photo from the Band Bash program.

top left: Yours Madly. top rIght: our drummer whose name I cannot remember. left: Janet -organ, right: Michelle - bass, center front: Simona -singer