Collect call for Mr. Paul Allen of Seattle:

You and your wallet are needed in Pittsburgh, STAT!

Paul Mawhinney was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the years he has amassed what has become the world's largest record collection. Due to health issues and a struggling record industry Paul is being forced to sell his collection.

This is the story of a man and his records. I hope you enjoy it.

But wait! How do we know he's not just some huckster trying to make a fast buck on a bunch of vinyl he pulled from the dumpsters behind the local Goodwill?

1. Shirt-straining gut?--------------------check
2. Gender neutral eyewear?--------------check
3. Mewlery (PDGB for old guy bling)?---check
4. Facial Hair?----------------------------check

It's cool-he's legit. He's one of us.
Never can be too sure with this type of thing.

Seriously, this is the most touching thing I've seen in quite awhile. But then I'm like that. Any readers know the current status of Paul and his vinyl?

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen is a well-known fan of music and pop culture, philanthropist, creator of the Experience Music Project, owner of the Seattle Seahawks, Portland Trailblazers and a really, really, big boat. He's probably one of a handful of people with the cash to buy the collection and a place to put it.

NIPTDWTT (Nothing In Particular To Do With Toledo Thursday) Post - Blues Maker (1969)

Although many Toledoeans may find it of particular interest. 
Amazing documentary featuring Mississippi Fred Mc Dowell, singing and talking about his blues. Produced by the University of Mississippi.

(Double Click for full screen)

*Bong* *Bong* * Bong*: You Put Jelly Beans In 'Em.

 
"Mom always made the best hash brownies, until her old Waring mixer finally died. But now we can skip the trip to the kitchen and spark up her brownie mix anywhere with the new Bong Blender from Oster!"
You can bet Kim "Tootie" Fields has one.

NIPTDWTT* (Nuthin' In Particular To Do With Toledo Thursday) Post

Although particular Toledoeans my find it of interest.
Bad Brains Live, West Palm Beach 3.20.87

1987 was a strange time for hardcore. Scene stalwarts Black Flag and Minor Threat had disbanded due to a confluence of factors, and the DKs had become a professional punk attraction for tourists. Redd Kross -god bless 'em- had long dropped all hardcore-pretension and were busy rocking out in all the stringy-haired glory we knew they could, while the CBGB's scene in NY evolved into this metal/thrash/skin scene that appeared have more inclusive rules than prison.

Major Labels came calling, and within a few years on either side of the video above, many once raucous, respected, and groundbreaking bands such as Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers and the Bad Brains all politely took their seats at the corporate dinner table. I know, I know; but at the time it seemed like a big deal.

The genius of the Bad Brains is/was they  never set out specifically to be a "hardcore" band, they simply happened to be a group of intensely talented individuals who fully understood and harnessed the passion, speed and power of  hardcore on their own terms, merging it with their existing artistic and occasionally un-PC agenda.  As such, the typical regimented artistic boundaries of the hardcore scene seemingly didn't apply, or at very least the rulebook was open for broad interpretation: Witness here, a non-ironically Cosby-sweatered Dr. Know dispensing chorus-pedal tainted Rasta-Var-Halian licks far more akin to the Sunset Strip axe-shredding sensibilities of the day than the HC pentatonic template hammered out on the stages of the Masque, 9:30 and Freezer Theater. But in their hands, it works.

The Spring Break crowd appears polite enough, but with the exception of a few enlightened individuals, it's clear the Bad Brains energy is lost on the Beach Blanket Bongo audience.

Although pieces of this video have been floating around for years, this is the first time I've ever seen it available in it's entirety.


BUT WAIT!
While we're getting all misty-eyed over post '85 Hardcore, check out Dave Markey's amazing doc of life on the road with Black Flag. The first true hardcore Cali band to put out a record and tour east, BF essentially wrote the HC guidebook in the process. Despite theses accomplishments, BF remained so unsatiated they took said book, scribbled in-between the lines, doodled in the margins, and tore off both covers plotting their future. Right fucking on.
GO HERE IF EMBED IS NOT YET LIVE 
BUMMER! It appears they've pulled the plug on this vid due to copyright restrictions.

"Reality 86'd" A film by David Markey (c) 1991 We Got Power Films. (TRT 01:01:51) A road documentary shot from the inside of the last Black Flag tour ever (the 1986 "In My Head" US tour.) Greg Ginn along with Henry Rollins, Cel Revulta, and Anthony Martinez comprise the final line up of the band. Featuring behind the scenes proceedings and live performances from Black Flag, Painted Willie, and Gone (Ginn's side project, then featuring Sim Cain and Andrew Weiss (later of the Rollins Band) . Filmmaker / musician David Markey was along for the entire trip as the drummer / singer for Painted Willie (with Phil Newman & Vic Makauskas), documenting the six month tour as it happened. Also features roadie Joe ("Planet Joe") Cole, soundmen Davo Claasen and Dave "Ratman" Levine, and the tour manager who kept it all together, Mitch Bury. A crucial turning point in American underground rock. The end of the line for a trail blazing American band.

"No Springs, Honest Weight" Toledo Scale

Toledo's own Salty the Clown welcomes visitors to another exciting open house at Toledo Scale. Because clowns and scales go together like spring break and and recurring skin rashes, or something.

Sparrow Market. Ann Arbor, MI

"We are not obligated to sell one more scale, but we are morally bound to service the scales we have already sold."

Henry Theobold 

Founder, Toledo Scale

It's always satisfying to see one of these older Toledo-born & bred babies out in the wild still providing reliable service with their trademark accuracy. I'm 99% sure the scale pictured above is a model 2110, which has been in production for over half a century with only  minor mechanical, cosmetic and nomenclature revisions. The globe is positively littered with vintage examples still in daily use, their presence serving not only as gentle reminders of the industrial might Toledo once wielded, but also as artifacts from an era when machinery was designed with serviceability and longevity in mind. Mr. Theobolds  mission statement (above) represents a concept that seems to have  escaped the "stack 'em deep and sell 'em cheap" importers peddling much of the disposable junk equipment available today. And when I was a boy, this here internet was all farmland.

Through a series of innovations including the patented and slogan-inspiring spring-free dual pendulum movement, Toledo Scale revolutionized the industry in the early 1900's and absolutely dominated the retail point-of-sale and industrial scale 
business for the rest of the 20th century.  

Although the corporate H.Q. moved 120 miles south to Columbus in the mid-1970s, a small amount of manufacturing muscle stayed put at  their Albert Khan-designed Telegraph Road Facility in Toledo until 1984. Hopes of production of any capacity resuming at the location were crushed on July 5th, 1985, when the building -which had previously survived a direct hit from the devastating Palm Sunday Tornado in 1965- was destroyed by fire. In 1989 T-Scale merged with Mettler, a highly regarded Swiss manufacturer of precision lab instruments, the pair emerging from the union as Mettler-Toledo.

But this story is not one entirely of bittersweet Toledo nostalgia. Unlike the majority of corporations that abandoned Toledo in the 70's, Mettler-Toledo still employs actual Americans, including many right here in the good old USofA! At last check, their worldwide payroll included over 11,000 employees, 3000 of which stateside, including 700 in central Ohio.

Here is John.

Digging a Ditch: Tim Kerr & Brian Mank, 9/83

Click for Larger View

An otherwise bone-dry culvert overflowing with passion, soul and style. Necros tour, somewhere East(?) of Austin, Texas. 1983.

DORITOS LOCOS TACOS: Yes Toledo, This Is Really Happening

Am I the only one in awe of the fact that a new Taco Bell menu item, a taco whose shell is comprised solely of a giant nacho-cheese Dorito is available ONLY in Toledo, Ohio*!? It's called “Doritos Locos Taco,” and frankly, I can't wait to barf one -or seven- up in the hopper next Saturday, Friday, Thursday, tonight at 4:00 AM. I can't think of a better food product to put a culinary cap on a night of drinking cheap beer and pricey tequila.
I've searched and searched for the (Columbus-dissing, no less!) TV commercial on the webernets to no avail...till then, it appears there is a movement pending (insert bathroom joke here) to take the delectable nationwide:
https://www.facebook.com/cheesyshells 

Even better: At this point, "There is no indication that Taco Bell will make the Doritos Locos Tacos nationally available" according to widely revered authority on such matters, Foodbeast.

But really, can Toledo honestly be considered a test market? Where better to hawk nutritionally ambiguous gut-bombs encased in a radioactive-hued corn shell? Proud Toledoeans will stand in line all day and pay triple the going rate just for the privilege!


*I added "Ohio" in order to avoid confusion with Toledo, Spain, where tradition dictates all prepared meats and produce be served in a large nacho-cheese Dorito shell.

04.16.11 Record Store Day Toledo 2011: Forty Sad Portraits Of Closed Record Stores

Sad, I've been in at least ten of these forty stores over the years. On the bright side, Steve Jobs can finally make the last lay-away payment on that sweet Kenmore washer/dryer combo his wife's been hinting at. I hear that little minx is quite the homemaker.

347 Yonge St. without the iconic "Sam the Record Man" neon signage? 
How will tourists navigate Toronto? 

It's not the commerce I miss so much, it's the hang.
Luckily, we've still got a few places worthy of your time and money right here in Toledo:
Culture Clash Records
Rama Lama Records
Shakin Street Records
And in Ann Arbor:
Wazoo Records

It just wouldn't be right to conclude this pity-party without shedding at least a few tears in honor of some personal favorite fallen temples of vinyl worship: Sounds, NYC; The original School Kids, Ann Arbor; Purple Phrogg, North Lima; Boogie, Toledo, Zed, Long Beach/O.C., and many, many, more.

Thanks to J.Yuenger for the heads up on this list.

03.30.68 Jimi Hendrix Experience at The TU (aka University of Toledo) Fieldhouse

Sunday Special: Roast Beef OR Fried Chicken Only 99¢!

From the Toledo Blade, March 30, 1968

Honestly, do you think anyone is gonna' come out to that stinky-old fieldhouse and lay down $1.50 to see some equally smelly hippie with a Fender guitar jumping around onstage, stroking his ego and making suggestive (really, is there any other kind?) sex-faces at the young ladies in attendance with all these tasty and nutritious dining options available for the same coin?  Likewise, if Mr. Hendrix had a sensible bone in his body, he'd put down that mid-performance guitar tartare he's so fond of and instead sink his teeth into one of Harold's tantalizing specials ASAP.

 A side note to Mr. Promoter: 
Look, all of us in the biz know hyperbole is part and parcel with concert promotion. From the xeroxed flyers stapled to telephone poles by excited teenagers to Grand Funk's legendary, sixty-foot high, city block-long Time Square Billboard, the goal is to "get the message out!" at any cost. But I honestly believe you've gone overboard here; some of that lettering is nearly one-half an inch tall! We don't need your kind tarnishing the otherwise sterling reputations of rock promoters.

GPOYW

Photo: Daniel Byrne

Here's a (rare)early A.M. shot of toke! and four-time AHMRA British European and American Racing Series National Champion Kenny Cummings preparing to unleash the sonic fury of his Vintage Norton Commando race bike on the still-slumbering citizens of the West Village.
Rise and shine people!

Necros T-shirts: Get 'Em While They're Tepid!

6/14/11: HEY! They can be found HERE.

  Necros 
"So Uncool"

Maumee Gym (kinda) T-shirt   

• Straight from the source: The fellas printed these up last summer for the Why Be Something You're Not book release party/concert in Detroit, where three of the guys performed as Sorcen-Get it?   S-O-R-C-E-N. Clever, no? 
• Scholars of Midwest Hardcore History will undoubtedly find these shirts as witty as they are stylish; Do you know which barely-released (original pressing of only 100 copies, but bootlegged ad nauseam) Necros song the quote is from?
• Get 'em while you can, when these are gone, there won't be no more
• Size M measures 17" pit to pit and 23" collar to bottom hem, they increase dimensionally from there.  
• Gildan 50/50 cotton blend T
• Maumee provenance: Actually printed by Jimmy from next-generation Maumee rockers Henry and June, 1/2 half of which would later become the Soledad Brothers, the half with Jimmy becoming Boogaloosa Prayer, whose drummer happens to be original Necros drummer Todd Swalla. Patchwork threads of integrity woven here, no waiting   
• No stains, pit or otherwise, but we're happy to entertain any requests regardless of perversion
  
  Get Yours Here: Maumee City Madhouse.

Why Did Glenn Frey Roll The Rationals Van?

Was it:

1. Because the Detroit Native suffered a momentary, hallucinogenic-induced glimpse of a future world gone mad some forty-years hence, where, even after writing dozens of criminally-mellow top ten money-making hits for the Eagles and guest-starring on Miami Vice, his seemingly incoherent, booze-addled band-mate Joe Walsh would still be considered "the cool one," by non-dicks everywhere? 
2. Because he was hurrying to meet Cher at a Bally Total Fitness Center to engage in a shiny, satin/spandex-clad and poofy-coiffed workout of such crass intent that even fellow wealth enthusiast and Eagles band-mate Don Henley would hang his head in shame?
3. Or was it simply a case of the heat, in fact, being on? 

Like all good modern-day folklore, the story accompanying the above photograph evolved fast and furiously on the lips of those farthest from the facts, speculation and hearsay eventually evolving into climatic local legend, truth be damned:

"Frey rode along with The Rationals to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and upon arrival immediately encountered the MC5, who were wasting no time leaving Chi-town and suggested The Rationals do the same, post-haste. And, due to the chaos, rioting, and confusion in the streets, the van went greasy-side up during a high-speed evasive maneuver required to guarantee the band and their gear safe passage from the streets of Chicago." A romantic story, but bogus nonetheless. 

The Truth Comes Out:
Years later, Frey came clean while being interviewed about gigging at Traverse City, Michigan's 1960's teen hangout, The Tanz Haus:

“Yeah I remember the place,” laughed Frey. “One time I borrowed The Rationals van to get up there and I was flying through a small town (Manton) and lost control of the van on the curve and totaled the van and trashed the equipment I borrowed as well.”

Club employee Sue Sivek also remembers that night:

“It was May 13, 1967 and I noted in my diary that his band, The Mushrooms, were not very good, they were mediocre at best. But I also noted that the singer (Glenn) was good and had talent. You could tell he was better than the rest. Though most of us were shocked when he made it big.”

FUN FACT: Glenn sings backup and strums acoustic guitar on the awesome original version of Bob Seger's "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man."

Although The Rationals' legacy may not shine with the same intensity as their rust-belt rock'n'roll brethren, they stood shoulder to shoulder with the likes of the MC5, The Frost, and The Stooges while hammering their own R&B influenced sound out of the indigenous hard Michigan rock. So much so, John Sinclair named his book Guitar Army: Rock and Revolution with The MC5 and the White Panther Party after the Rationals song of the same name.

NIPTDWTT (Nuthin' In Particular To Do With Toledo Thursday) Post

Although many Toledoeans may find it to be of particular interest.

Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Joey Tosi on Vimeo.