6.29.2013

WHITEY BULGER CURSES AT FBI SNITCH

Ex-FBI John Morris

Former FBI supervisor testifies that he was plied with cash bribes and cases of wine in Whitey Bulger trial.

  James “Whitey” Bulger

After days of sitting meekly at his federal racketeering trial, James “Whitey” Bulger erupted in anger Thursday as a former FBI supervisor he had once plied with cash bribes and cases of wine told jurors that the gangster had given information in a case involving his associates.



“You’re a [expletive] liar,’’ Bulger, 83, snarled as he glared at his longtime nemesis, John Morris, who seemed nervous and uncomfortable at times as he sat in the witness stand a few feet away.

Bulger’s outburst escaped the attention of most of the people in the courtroom, including the judge. It was only after jurors left for lunch that one of the prosecutors angrily revealed that Bulger had sworn at Morris, and the attorney urged US District Judge Denise J. Casper to admonish him to “keep his little remarks to himself when the witness is testifying.” READ MORE

6.28.2013

RON ASHETON TRIBUTE FILM/CONCERT PJ LAGER HOUSE JULY 14TH


The Bop Shop and PJs Lager House present a benefit screening of The Ron Asheton Tribute Concert with Iggy & the Stooges Sunday July 14th at 7pm. Live performances by the Bop Shop and Kill Mama and Portlands Hopeless Jack and the Handsome Devil . Suggested Donation sliding scale $10-$5

Recorded live at the Michigan Theater, this heartfelt tribute/celebration of Stooge guitarist Ron Asheton's life and music featured Iggy and the Stooges, Henry Rollins, and guest guitarist Deniz Tek (Radio Birdman). Includes a string section on a few Stooges classics! All profits from the sale of the DVD go to the Ron Asheton Foundation which supports animal welfare and music.

David Minnick, leader of Bop Shop was connected to this show when Bop Shop trumpet player Ken Robinson and drummer Brian Bowie arrived at rehearsals for the show only to find the arrangements for the orchestra were not completed. Brian and Ken suggested to Iggy and his mgr. Henry Grogan that David could write the arrangements over night. He did and the show was killer.

David, Brian and Ken requested Iggy to think of a name for their new project and he suggested the Bop Shop.

"Its not often you hear someone reference Madness, Frank Zappa, P-Funk, King Crimson (Adrian Belew era) and They Might Be Giants in the same career let alone in the space of a few songs"

The band includes:
 David Minnick gtr. 
Brian Bowie drms.
Andy Birko bass
Ken Robinson tpt.
Johnny Evans sax.

Bop Shop will perform live after the film followed by rock duo Kill Mama and Hopeless Jack and the Handsome Devil from P ortland Ore.

PJ's Lager House 
1254 Michigan Ave, 
Detroit, MI 48226
313-961-4668

Contact Johnny Evans 248-225-8605


IGGY POP ON HIS DETROIT ROOTS ON 400TH EPISODE OF WTF

Retro Kimmer

IGGY INTERVIEW STARTS AT ABOUT 18:00



6.27.2013

JAMES GANDOLFINI FUNERAL


By Chris Francescani

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Family, friends and fans of actor James Gandolfini gathered at a Manhattan cathedral for his funeral on Thursday, a week after the 51-year-old star of the HBO television show "The Sopranos" died of a heart attack while visiting Rome.


Police set up barricades in front of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in upper Manhattan as fans waited to get a glimpse of mourners of the actor whose performance as the burly, cigar-smoking New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano made him a household name.


"He was just so friendly and sweet and humble," actress Laila Robins, who played Tony Soprano's mother as a young woman in the early seasons of the show, said as she arrived for the funeral.


Several members of the cast of "The Sopranos," along with celebrities including Alec Baldwin and his pregnant wife Hilaria Thomas, were escorted into a side entrance of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.


Dick Cavett chatted with actor Steve Buscemi near the front of the church. Aida Turturro, who played Gandolfini's sister in "The Sopranos," was one of the first from that show's large cast to arrive.

Some 1,500 seats had been set up inside the massive cathedral. The public was to be allowed in after the invited guests.


The creator of "The Sopranos," David Chase, is one of four people scheduled to offer remembrances during the ceremony. The others are his widow, Deborah Lin Gandolfini, and two family friends.



There are cameras in the church, but they are HBO cameras, as the network is footing the bill for the funeral and taping the entire ceremony for what it says is a special video just for family members.

Read more:


6.25.2013

NEW MUSIC FROM ATLANTIC RECORDS!

Retro Kimmer

Retro Kimmer

Retro Kimmer

Retro Kimmer

Retro Kimmer

Retro Kimmer

Retro Kimmer

FUNERAL FOR JAMES GANDOFINI THIS THURSDAY


(CNN) -- The body of actor James Gandolfini has been returned to the United States, a family friend said Monday. A charter flight to Newark, New Jersey, on Sunday night carried the body of the "Sopranos" star, Michael Kobold said.

An autopsy determined his death was the result of a heart attack, Kobold said.

A funeral service for family and friends is scheduled for Thursday in New York, Kobold said. It will be held at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.

Gandolfini, 51, died last week while on a working vacation in Rome. He arrived there with his son, Michael, the day before he died. "Jim was happy, he was healthy, he was doing really fine," Kobold said recently. "He was on vacation with his son. He has an 8-month-old daughter. Everything was going great. I just spoke to him on Father's Day."

The same day Gandolfini died, he had visited the Vatican and dined with his son, the family said. After he returned to his room, his son alerted hotel staff that he was not answering knocks on the bathroom door.


James Gandolfini will be buried on Thursday at the famed Saint John the Divine cathedral in Manhattan, HBO announced on Sunday. "We can confirm, on behalf of the Gandolfini Family, that the funeral service for James Gandolfini will be held Thursday, June 27th.

The service will be held at 10:00 AM at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan," the statement said. The sudden death of the iconic actor at 51 on Wednesday, who was on vacation with his family at the time, shocked Hollywood and his legions of fans. ...

6.24.2013

THE FLEETWOOD MAC STORY


There are  three  Fleetwood Mac lineups. One of them is the blues-oriented band of the late Sixties, which arrayed three guitarists (Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan) around the rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie



Green inspired B. B. King to say, "He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats..

Green was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in psychiatric hospitals undergoing electroconvulsive therapy during the mid-1970s. Many sources attest to his lethargic, trancelike state during this period.

Early in 1971, a born-again Jeremy Spencer abruptly left the band during a U.S. tour to join the Children of God.


The second key configuration found Fleetwood, McVie and Kirwan joined by keyboardist Christine McVie (born Christine Perfect, she’d married bassist McVie) and guitarist Bob Welch, a Southern Californian who became the group’s first American member and a harbinger of new directions.

This configuration produced a pair of ethereal pop masterpieces, Future Games (1971) and Bare Trees (1972).



Kirwan, who was having personal problems, was asked to leave in August 1972. The remaining foursome, joined by new recruits Dave Walker (vocals) and Bob Weston, recorded Penguin (1973); sans Walker, they cut Mystery to Me (1973).



Finally, the platinum edition of Fleetwood Mac came together in 1975 with the recruitment of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The San Francisco duo had previously cut an album together as Buckingham-Nicks.

Drummer Fleetwood heard a tape of theirs at a studio he was auditioning, and the pair were drafted into the group without so much as a formal audition. This lineup proved far and away to be Fleetwood Mac’s most durable and successful.



In addition to the most solid rhythm section in rock, this classic lineup contained strong vocalists and songwriters in Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie. Male and female points of view were offered with unusual candor on the watershed albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977).



MySweetestDecline wrote:

My only complaint regarding this documentary is that it isn't long enough. The blues line-up of the band was discussed in all of about 5 minutes when it should have been given far longer. 

Plus the Bob Welch period was hardly touched upon. This would have been a better documentary had it been 2 hours long and really delved into the whole history of the band, especially since this is a UK documentary and the band started out in the UK and had huge success here in the 1960s.


6.23.2013

TRIBUTE TO AMERICAN ARTIST KIRBY SATTLER


The work of Kirby Sattler is fueled by an inherent interest in the Indigenous Peoples of the Earth. His current images evolve from the history, ceremony, mythology, and spirituality of the Native American. Sattler's ultra-detailed interpretations examine the inseparable relationship between the Indian and his natural world, reflecting a culture that had no hard line between the sacred and the mundane.



Each painting functions on the premise that all natural phenomena have souls independent of their physical beings. Under such a belief, the wearing of sacred objects were a source of spiritual power. Any object- a stone, a plait of sweet grass, a part of an animal, the wing of a bird- could contain the essence of the metaphysical qualities identified to the objects and desired by the Native American.



This acquisition of "Medicine", or spiritual power, was central to the lives of the Indian. It provided the conduit to the unseen forces of the universe which predominated their lives.


The artist states, " I attempt to give the viewer of my work a sense of what these sacred objects meant to the wearer; when combined with the proper ritual or prayer there would be a transference of identity. More than just aesthetic adornment, it was an outward manifestation of their identity and their inter-relatedness with their natural and spiritual world.”



Sattler has developed his painting into a distinctive style of realism. The methodology involves the painstaking layering of transparent washes over multiple underpaintings.This technique results in canvases that are rich in detail, defined textures and surfaces. With the deliberate precision given to each work, he produces a very limited number of paintings each year.


JOHNNY DEPP AS TONTO!!!


“I’d actually seen a painting by an artist named Kirby Sattler, and looked at the face of this warrior and thought: That’s it. The stripes down the face and across the eyes … it seemed to me like you could almost see the separate sections of the individual, if you know what I mean…



There’s this very wise quarter, a very tortured and hurt section, an angry and rage filled section, and a very understanding and unique side. I saw these parts, almost like dissecting a brain, these slivers of the individual. That makeup inspired me.”


WALT MILLER'S PHOTOS/STORY: 50TH ANNIVERSARY FREEDOM WALK IN DETROIT


Holding the banner from l to r are.: Gary Peters U.S. Rep, 9th Dist. .. Wendell Anthony head of the  Detroit N.A.A.C.P. Rev, Dr Martin Luther King the 3rd . .  The Rev, Al Sharpton . . Detroit Mayer Dave Bing . and The Rev , Dr Jesse Jackson. Most of them were here for the First walk and returned for it's 50th Anniversary .


On June 23 1963 the walk for freedom march took place here in Detroit . It was Here at Cobo hall that Dr. Martin Luther King gave his "I have a Dream " speech for the first time.


Saturday was the 50th Anniversary ot the March for Freedom so I tried to capture the March in the Same spot that the Iconic photo that hangs in the Charles H.Wright Museum of African American History was shot.













LOTS OF TRAFFIC ON RETROKIMMER.COM


6.22.2013

YOU AREN'T LIKE THEM..TIMOTHY LEARY



“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences.
 

For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator.
 

But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…”― Timothy Leary

thanks to Paul Metler for reminding us...

PABLO PICASSO AND HIS BLACK AND WHITE MASTERPIECE: GUERNICA


Pablo Picasso, 1937. Ad for Guernica
 Oil on canvas, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.

L.Nicholson.
Guernica: Painting Review.
by Two Ink Pages


This is one of Picasso’s most celebrated works and a continual point of reference for anti-war art. The bombing of Guernica (a Basque village in northern Spain) by German and Italian warplanes was green-lighted by Spanish Nationalist forces and commenced on the 26th of April 1937 killing a speculated 126 – 400 people (800 by Russian accounts).

  3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (25.6 ft) wide

Despite the offer of commission having been admitted before the attack by the Spanish Republican government, Picasso sacrificed his original idea to create an anti-war mural for the Spanish display of the Paris international exposition at the 1937 world fair in response to this tragedy.



Picasso moved into a new studio in the attic of 7, rue des Grands-Augustins, which Dora Maar found for him in early 1937. Originally part of a grand 17th-century mansion, it had an intriguing history that appealed to Picasso's sense of irony, particularly as he was painting Guernica.

The studio was said to be the setting for The Unknown Masterpiece, a short story written in 1837 by the famous French author, Honoré de Balzac. It describes an obsession by the painter, Frenhofer, the greatest painter of his time, to represent the absolute on his canvas, a process that takes years for his creative powers to complete.


When the picture, which becomes less and less recognizable as time goes on, is ridiculed by his artist friends as the work of a madman, he destroys the work and dies. The story resonated with Picasso who, like Frenhofer, also locked himself away in the same studio to create a masterpiece, although in his case it was recognized as such.

Picasso made hundreds of preliminary drawings for Guernica and more than fifty studies. In some of these, the heads of Weeping Women appear for the first time.


Constraints such as the enormous size of the stretched canvas, measuring 3.5 x 7.8 metres and so had to be tilted to fit under the rafters of the ceiling, and dim lighting from bay windows on one side of the studio, failed to hinder Picasso.

The painting was completed in twenty-four frenetic days. Streams of ideas, emotions, traditions, myths, obsessions and symbols of his roots deeply embedded in Hispanic and Mediterranean culture spilled onto the canvas. These were fuelled by anger and a need to express his pain.



The attack was one born not from the need to suppress a military stronghold as much as it was an ostentatious display of nationalist brutality, the only target of any legitimate threat was a small factory on the outskirts of the town that produced a small amount of military produce, a factory that went completely unscathed during the bombing, added to this the majority of the villages men were away fighting, resulting in most causalities encompassing women and young children.

After the Paris exhibition, Guernica went on to travel the world, first Scandinavia and Europe then later in 1939 the United States. Picasso refused to allow it to be hung in Spain until the republic were once again in power, after Franco’s death in 1975 Spain was transformed into a democratic constitutional monarchy by 1978.

The painting was finally returned home in 1981 and continues to be a colossal warning to humanity of the consequences and horrors of warfare, its nonspecific nature makes it both universal and timeless.

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