Hey everybody! Quick update for you all. The reasons for a lack of updates here are multi-layered, so let me explain.
First, my youngest son, about a month ago, went through an upsetting breakup with his girlfriend of the past two years. I won’t delve any further as it is his personal life, but he was very upset by the incident, and being the father that I am, I helped him through those tough first weeks. As such, I spent most evenings and my weekends with him keeping him distracted. The nice thing is we finally reupholstered the seats in my 1993 Miata MX5 (see the gallery below) and he’s started work rebuilding the engine of his 2001 Miata and adding all types of turbo-chargers and other car stuff I don’t have a clue about. He is going to be fine, but it has taken up a LOT of my time. Family comes first, so I don’t mind, but it does take me away from drawing the comic.
Second, I’m going to attend a concert at the Whisky a Go Go in L.A. next week (May 17th) for the rock group Fanny. For those of you who don’t know, Fanny is an early ‘70s rock group and I have managed/designed their website and social media accounts for the past 15 years. As such, I’ve been very busy promoting that concert, which is part of a series of small performances in southern California coinciding with showings of their documentary film which will make its PBS premiere on May 22nd here in the states. I’m flying out on Tuesday, and flying home on Thursday, so I’m there for the concert and not much else. But, I am staying at the hotel known in the ‘60s and ‘70s as the “Riot Hyatt” and was made famous by groups like Led Zeppelin for trashing the place. Google it, you’ll be entertained by the stories.
So I’ll bring back photos of the concert and of course the sites up and down Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood. Will be an interesting 3 days to say the least.
As such, my time to produce comics has been severely limited. Once I recover from my trip, I’ll be back in the drawing saddle shortly thereafter and will get back to the story at hand. This is a teaser of the page I was working on when all of this shit went down. The rest of this page will be various Polaroid-style shots of the first day of recording for Plan 9 in New York. After this page, they take a break and head down to the CBGBs bar and concert club to meet up with some up-and-coming rock stars that used to perform at CBGBs in the late ‘70s.
Speaking of Fanny, which I haven’t done in a while, here’s a clip of them melting the faces off of the camera operators for the German TV show “Beat-Club” as they perform Nickey Barclay’s rockin’ “Blind Alley” which is one of my favorite songs from the band.
For you newbies to the world of Fanny, here’s their Top 40 hit “Charity Ball” from the 1971 album of the same name. It was how I discovered the band at the mere age of 14 and have been a die-hard fan ever since.
Well, see you then. Once you get onto a schedule, it might keep you focused, but can get harder and harder to fulfill and keep up—especially when other problems come along. Have fun, tell your son it’s not as bad as it seems, and get plenty of rest in between events.
The past 16 months have been fraught with all types of family issues of all types. My wife’s brother passing of lung cancer over a year’s time really took the wind out of my sails (no pun intended) as I watched my wife struggle on a daily basis with one emergency or another dealing with her brother’s health and well being.
I keep wondering when those “lazy days of retirement” are going to kick in for me so I have time to focus on drawing and building models. It frustrates me to no end that I can’t get these pages done due to outside forces.
I had no idea Fanny was still in business…I remember listening to an album once but I only really remember one of their tunes off the top of my head. That one isn’t it 😉
This one is, but the clip I found seems to have been recorded at the same time and I always love seeing the messing around that happens before a take.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imZUqkPlUaQ
Yes, that live recording of “Ain’t That Peculiar” is what re-launched their career back in 2019 and has introduced them to tens of thousands of new fans.
The band is really not back in business per se, but is doing their best to put on a few shows for some lucky fans to help promote the documentary. Of the original foursome, only June and Alice are able to still play. Jean had a major stroke and can only sing now, and Nickey has retired from the business completely and is off enjoying the finer things in life as one should at their age.
I remember them from long before 2019, I heard the name often but I always thought they were a British band for some reason, even if ‘fanny’ has a very different meaning there 😉
Oddly enough, their records were much more popular in the UK then here at home. The band calls L.A. their home (West Hollywood technically), but toured the UK a lot in 1972 and 1973. I’ve been doing their website since like 2007 and am good friends with keyboardist Nickey and drummer Alice for 20+ years.
She must have remembered to run the little sponge with the laquer over the polaroids so they didn’t fade 😉
Or maybe it was one of the later ones that automatically did it when it spit the picture out.
Younguns today would be fascinated at that
70’s Polaroids didn’t have that issue, the peel ones were the ones with that problem. Or so I’ve read. I never used that kind, but I still have a godawful Polaroid from 1976 with me in Kiss makeup. Looks just fine.
That was one of the ‘later’ ones 😉
Lorraine has the SX-70 which was one of the better Polaroid cameras at the time and no, you did not need to sponge the image after it developed with the SX-70.
Had one of those 🙂
They were issued to EOD teams right up until I retired in the mid 90’s and were still in use in my next career until digital cameras became easier to get and use.
We used to use the batteries out of the filmpacks to make training IEDs with because they were small and flat stripped out of an unused filmpack and then ‘squeezed before use’. Even the residual charge in a battery from a used filmpack would last a surprsingly long time, and you could also use the action of crushing an unused battery as a trigger 🙂
I still have the camera, some film and a few of the flashbars in a box somewhere.
Sorry, had a memory malfunction there, we did use the polaroid fim pack batteriesa lot but they weren’t the ‘crush’ type, those were from a piece of ordnance and had the electrolyte in a packet that came in contact with the plates when that packet was ruptured, I was still pretty close for 40+ years on 😉 We also had polaroid x-ray film that could be a damned nuisance to use but worked quite well if you managed to get all the steps right. I remember it had a pull cord you had to yank on like a chainsaw to get the film out and start the development process.
Funny how little things like a line in a cartoon can start a flood of memories from long ago 🙂
I always find it interesting what triggers conversations here. Sometimes it songs, and sometimes it’s things like a Polaroid picture. Either way, I enjoy the interactions.
their drummer (Alice de Buhr?) reminds me of Linda Pitmon!
Yes, the original drummer was Alice de Buhr. In some versions of Fanny (post 1973), Brie Howard Darling pounded the drum skins.
It was fun to see Fanny they aren’t as hard as the Runaways the band that started Joan Jett and Lita Ford music careers. Hope you enjoy the Whisky a Go Go in LA California and not in pooh I hear tell it’s problem in California ewwww. I’m sure you knew better than boring your son with dumb platitudes like there are plenty of fish in the sea being loved by a dog tends to work for me they love belly rubs. The Miata two door sports car reminds of my brother in laws Triumph even gave a mail order catalogue from Kansas it’s still in their garage. Saw now King Charles the third coronation they had palace guards, mounted dragoons, mounted RCMP, beef eaters from the tower of London, the RAF red arrows, helicopters and even Camilia was crowned. Then wore a bag over her head oh that’s mean but true. Charlie wore his uniform with a crown and huge robes waved to the crowd and Katie Perry even had a concert wearing a gold dress and looked hot. I saw drag is not dangerous telethon over 14 states are attempting to overly regulate if not ban drag shows. The Trouble with the bills like Tennessee are vague and could applied to anyone from Halloween to real transsexuals giving them criminal records for a superficial reason. Beside the governor who table the draconian measure performed drag himself during what seems a college event. Better just stay home it’s getting too dangerous though New York would be spared. I saw Moscow’s May 9 Victory day parade they should have had majorettes. Or troops female due Russia’s homophobic laws in mini skirted uniforms with ankle or knee high boots since walking on coble stones in heels is uncomfortable but fun to show lots of leg after 3 or 4 blocks I’ve done it myself in a pride march of course the matching hand bags. The Rose Bowl has majorettes they really add to the marching bands that were pretty good. The Russians only had one T 34 tank maybe to be understated or the they lost too many tank transported trucks to their stupid war. Vladimir Putin gave a boring speech blaming the liberals and the west for Russia’s woes. He really needed mounted Cossacks just like Taras Bulba they had uniforms anyway.
Been post for 20+ years, but still carry my ID, BC AND passport to be safe. Though in Minnesota its not much of an issue. (It sucks to be tall)
Wow! Fanny! I’m envious. They were/are one of the best of the best. Too bad their records never got any traction.
Their third album, “Fanny Hill” is a killer rock album and should have been a Top 40 or even a Top 10 album, but their record company and management just did not know how to handle them. It’s a shame it took 50 years for them to become popular.
All good things come to those who wait, I hope.
“…I always find it interesting what triggers conversations here…” (no ‘reply’ button under the post)
Have you ever played the old bar game of stopping a night long conversation in the middle and challenging someone to list all the steps it went through to get to the topic at hand in reverse order to when you all sat down ?
Good for hours of fun and a few punches when the order gets mixed up and someone else corrects it (wrongly) 😉
Yeah, one of the weaknesses of this comment system is that it only goes so deep with the ability to reply.
I read Tina Turner died another pop star in rock and roll heaven. I’ll miss her belting out rolling down the river in those mini dresses and heels. She was one of a kind one of the biggest acts of the 170s loved her in mad max beyond thunder dome “So long ragged man.” I know Mick Jagger is going to miss her as will untold millions. Wrestler super star Billy Graham famous in the 1970s also died.
Tina was one of the great ones. Always a big smile.
Sheldon Reynolds, the guitarist for Earth, Wind and Fire died the same day, but nobody noticed since all the stories were about Tina…such is the way of fleeting fame 🙁
the day Johnny Cash died, all the headlines were about John Ritter dying the day before.
No one remembers Farrah Fawcett died the same day as Michael Jackson. Everyone my age had Farrah’s swimsuit poster. Everyone. And yet because Jackson O.D.’d on sleeping medications, Farrah’s death was over-shadowed. I get Jackson is like THE significant cultural figure of his time, but I still feel bad for Farrah, especially since she struggled for years against her cancer only to have that stripped away by Jackson’s needless and senseless overdose.
Not the way I remember. I worked nights, and the word went round on the floor that John Ritter had died. No real information, report of mysterious circumstances. On my last break I hoped to catch more information on the TV in the break room, and their lead story was the death of Johnny Cash.