Summer is in full swing and everybody is looking for stuff to do with their time off. Today, I want tell you about a place you can go where you will have so much fun your head will explode. If you get excited by learning about the history of New York City, and love to have fun adventures that don’t cost very much, the City Reliquary Museum is a place you simply must visit! Located just two stops off the L train, and a short walk, into Brooklyn from Manhattan (for easy reference, it’s located directly across the street from the Knitting Factory), a visit to this local gem of sweet nostalgia is one of the best bargains in existence. Naomi and I had the chance to visit last month on a day that was somewhat overcast and drizzly, and we had all kinds of crazy fun.
Pictured: Johnny Ramone’s Personally-Owned and Stage-Used 1965 Mosrite Ventures V1 Guitar
Johnny Ramone’s Mosrite Guitar will be featured at a live auction event by Boston, MA based RR Auction this month. The personally-owned and used red 1965 Mosrite Ventures V1 guitar is signed on the body in black felt tip, “Best always, Johnny Ramone, 5/22/90.”
The six-string guitar features several modifications Ramone made to make the guitar fit his sound and style, the most significant being the replacement of the tremolo system with a stop bar tailpiece and installation of a DiMarzio FS-1 bridge pickup, as well as a tortoiseshell pickguard. Included in the sale, is the original hardshell case.
This is a rare instrument in its own right, and the only red guitar or Ventures Model 1 that Ramone owned; it was in his possession for at least seven years, from circa 1982–83 until he sold it in 1990; the first photographic evidence of Ramone playing the guitar comes from a show at the Eagle’s Hippodrome in Seattle on May 5, 1983. Johnny most often used this guitar for TV appearances and it can be seen up-close during a 1988 performance on MTV.
In 1990, Ramone sold this guitar to friend and former Ramones band driver Gene Frawley, signing and dating it on the occasion. A subsequent owner later personally confirmed the ownership details with Ramone, who acknowledged that he owned and used the guitar throughout the 1980s before selling it to Frawley.
“This is one of just nine Mosrite guitars owned by Ramone known to exist — an exceedingly rare and historically important piece of music history,” says Bobby Livingston, Exec VP at RR Auction.
Johnny Ramone was a founding member of the seminal punk band that broke onto the New York music scene in 1974. Johnny was known for his fast, high-energy guitar playing. His style almost exclusively consisted of rapid down strokes and bar chord shapes. This unique playing style and buzz saw-like sound of Johnny’s guitar parts was highly influential on many early punk rock guitarists and keeps him listed on numerous top lists of the greatest guitar players. Johnny Ramone died in his Los Angeles home on September 15, 2004 at the age of 55 after a five-year battle with prostate cancer.
The Johnny Ramone guitar will be part of a special live auction event, featuring nearly 150 items, that will take place on January 22nd, 2015 at RR Auction’s Boston Gallery, but Online Bidding begins January 15th, More details can be found online at RR Auction Dot Com.
RR Auction, an Amherst, NH-based company is proud to present unreleased studio mixes of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album Physical Graffiti, from the Ron Nevison Collection, as part of its Marvels of Modern Music auction coming up on March 13th, 2014.
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The vintage 10″ tape reel of rough studio mixes, recorded on Ampex 406 quarter-inch tape, is labeled and hand-notated with the track listing and recording data. The track listing includes:
Client: Led Zeppelin, Subject: Rough Mixes, Engineer: R. N., Date: 28-2-74, Location: Headley, Speed: 15, Reel: 2.
Song titles and times are listed as follows:
“Trampled Underfoot” — 5:40
“Driving to Kashmir” — 8:50
“Custard Pie” — 4:20
“In the Light (Everyone Makes It Then) ” — 7:18
“Swan Song—Part 1” —1:20 and “Swan Song — Part 2” —1:20
The recording sessions for Physical Graffiti initially took place in November 1973 at Headley Grange, using Ronnie Lane’s Mobile Studio. Out of fifteen songs, eight were recorded over an eight-month stretch. Led Zeppelin made the decision of adding previously unreleased songs instead of dropping some, eventually, making it a double album. However, these sessions came to a halt quickly and the studio time was turned over to the band Bad Company, who used it to record songs for their eponymous debut album.
A highlight of the lot is an early rough mix of one of Led Zeppelin’s most popular songs “Kashmir,“ named “Driving to Kashmir,” in this mix. Jimmy Page well known for his use of alternative guitar tunings along with John Bonham’s drums that featured a phasing effect courtesy of an Eventide Instant Phaser PS-101, supplied by engineer Ron Nevison for the track. The song would become a concert staple for the group – they would perform it at almost every concert after its release.
Also included in the Ron Nevison Collection:
Rough mixes from Bad Company’s debut album recorded in Ronnie Lane’s mobile studio at Headley Grange, including their first hit, “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love.”
Vintage “rough mix” 10″ tape reel of four songs from Clapton’s 1973 album, Eric Clapton’s Rainbow Concert, includes Mixes of ‘Layla’ and ‘Let It Rain.’
Other artists featured include: The Who, Flo and Eddie, Ozzy Osbourne and UFO.
The Marvels of Modern Music auction, from RR Auction will feature more than 800 items and is set to begin on Thursday, March 13th, ending on the evening of Thursday, March 20th, 2014. See the other museum quality pieces up for auction at This Link.
Currently Up for Auction on eBay: This vintage (circa 1973) Premier Drum Ad ran in all of the popular music magazines during the global Billion Dollar Babies tour featuring the original band called Alice Cooper. This Ad is signed personally by R&R Hall Of Fame inductee, drummer Neal Smith and is surely a very rare piece of Seventies Glam Rock History. The Auction runs through Monday December 9th, 2013.
Saul Holiff with Johnny Cash and June Carter (All Images Courtesy of Johnny and Saul)
When Saul Holiff – Johnny Cash’s one-time manager – committed suicide in 2005, he did so without leaving a note for his family. For Holiff’s eldest son, Jonathan, that meant he’d never get the chance to resolve the enigma of the man who had been an aloof, antagonistic and emotionally distant authority figure his entire life. But Jonathan got a second chance to “know” his father when requests for memorabilia received from Johnny Cash fans lead to the discovery of a secret storage unit that he elder Holiff had kept for most of his life. What happened in the wake of that discovery provided a revelation on many levels.
Saul Holiff’s Storage Unit
Saul Holiff’s storage unit was preserved as a true time capsule of his life and career managing Johnny Cash – a position he held from 1960 to 1973 – as well as his close friendships with Johnny and his wife June Carter, and his strained family life with Jonathan and his younger brother Joshua. Packed wall-to-wall with filing boxes stuffed with meticulously-kept written documentation, personal letters, photographs, print articles, telegrams, memorabilia and – what surely must have been a mind-blowing discovery for his son – audio tapes that included both Saul’s recorded phone conversations with Cash and others, as well as Saul’s insightful, deeply personal audio diaries.
Realizing he has discovered not only his father’s hidden life story, but also a treasure of Behind the Music-style grit on Johnny Cash that wasn’t even addressed in the Oscar-winning Biopic, Walk The Line, Jonathan Holiff began painstakingly creating this fascinating documentary with a very unique insider’s viewpoint.
Jonathan as a Child with Johnny Cash
Although an ultimate goal of seeing this project through to completion was achieving closure for himself regarding his troubled relationship with his Dad, Holiff also succeeds in producing an fascinating and authentic snap shot of American life in the ‘60s and ‘70s (such a great time to be alive!), an insider’s look at the music business of those decades and a terrific “dark side” companion piece to any Johnny Cash Biography.
While it must have been excruciating for Jonathan Holiff to have to hear his (obviously emotionally stunted) father confess in one recorded entry that he was basically incapable of feeling any love for him or his brother, perhaps that also allowed him to achieve a sense of compassion that transcends mere forgiveness. At the end of the day, My Father and The Man in Black goes easy on the pathos to become simply great storytelling, adding an additional human-interest angle to an entertainment industry tale that any film or music fan can engage with. Highly recommended!
My Father and The Man in Black Opens in New York City and Los Angeles on Friday, September 6th, 2013.
The Worley Gig Gives My Father and The Man in Black 4 Out of 5 Stars!
