I grew up across the street from Mike McPherson, six months older, a most precocious guy in so many ways. Mike was really smart and got pushed ahead a year in the middle of sixth grade, along with two classmates, elementary school babies thrown abruptly into the shark-filled waters of middle school. Unheard of, then, in my public school. Sure made the rest of us feel inadequate. (It helped when I won the Spelling Bee.) Who knew they were so bored with the history and math the rest of us were struggling with?
One of the other two was Mary Anne Frye, a tall redhead he later married. I know, how smart were their kids going to be? But they decided the world already had too many humans, another radical attitude. The first time I heard of Reed College was when Mike was accepted there. He chose it over a couple of Ivy League schools that wanted him.
He spent time in New York, maybe in the summers, reveling in the Beat crowd milieu there. At Reed too but, he regaled me with tales of protests and poetry in the parks of New York, and of seeing The Fugs perform on a street corner. Blew my mind. Such a life there was beyond Albuquerque.
I think Mike took after his mom Helen, housewife, cookie baker supreme, and artist of note who exhibited in galleries and won blue ribbons with ease at the state fair, in a state crawling with great artists. I own a couple of her churches, and a pastel portrait of my mom. They were good buddies, like Mike and me. When Helen decided she could lay down a big backyard patio of red bricks, as a novice, my mom figured she could too. My mom was meticulous with measurements and levels, fine sand, and tapping bricks into perfect order with the back end of a short garden tool. It took many months. I’m betting both those brick patios are still in great shape nearly 70 years later.
I wasn’t experienced enough to understand how out there Helen was from the usual neighborhood mom. I wish I could remember more of the stories she wove to a captive cookie-eating audience, but I’m sure she left out a lot of the best details.
Two moments about her and Mike and music, stand out. One sunny day in the early ‘60s I walked across the street and knocked on the McPherson’s door, asking Helen if Mike was home. She screwed up her face terribly and told me, “Come on in, he’s in his room listening to the WORST singer I have ever heard!” Mike, of course, had an early Bob Dylan album.
A few years later I returned home after two years of Army service, fall of ‘68, and another walk across the street to Mike’s yielded a treasure. “Here,” he announced, placing an album in my hands, almost ceremoniously. It had colorful paintings of musicians on the cover, childlike renderings. “I won’t say anything about it” — he always had a lot to say about music he loved “— just listen and tell me what you think.” It was The Band’s first album, “Music from Big Pink’” and he was wise not to give me any clues, because I had never heard anything like it in my life. It was magical, every cut. What are these guys playing? How do they create such feeling and images, so effortlessly? One of the singers sounds very country, but it’s not that, it’s not rock, too strange for the pop charts or AM car radio.
They’re all gone now. Mike, Mary Anne, Helen (lived to nearly 100), and all The Band but one. Garth Hudsdon, the mysterious keyboard guru who worked his magic almost out of sight in the back. He was several years older than the rest of The Band, and his unfashionably long beard, gone prematurely gray, made him seem like an out of place grandpa. But he was the soul of The Band, and now he’s 86. Thanks, Mike.
R.I.P. Paul Lacques
We lost a good one last week, far too early, at 69. Paul Lacques. Guitar-about-town (electric and acoustic, lap steel, mandolin, also drums, vocals, arranging, songwriting, producing), a vital member of so many seminal LA bands: Rotondi, Double Naught Spy Car, I See Hawks in LA, Underthings, Andy & the Rattlesnakes, Earthworm Ensemble).
He was also a committed political activist, a successful playwright and satirical cartoonist, immediately recognizable for his magnificent long silver mane, recently cut back, but most importantly, a helluva nice guy, who would acknowledge you from wherever in his history you connected, smiling and chatting and looking you in the eye while doing his best to set up or break down. I first met him in the early ‘80s, at house parties thrown by my dear friend and LA Weekly colleague Susan Rosenberg.
The last time I saw him was performing with his wife, Hawks drummer Victoria Jacobs, at Library Girl at the Ruskin Theatre here. We will miss Paul greatly, but he made a mark and left a trail of friendship, good will and artistic accomplishment that is enviable. How many now will think of him whenever they see hawks in LA?
After telling my stories above, I’ve little room left for Recommendations. So, very brief this week, and hopefully to the point.
Highly Recommended
Tonight! Rick Shea & The Losin’ End with Tony Gilkyson — When two outstanding singer-songwriter-pickers get together in one band, go. Thurs 9 p.m., Cinema Bar, Culver City, no cover.
The Hot Club of Los Angeles — Every Monday, “Hot Club’s brand of virtuoso, Django-style 1930s gypsy swing jazz…will keep you smiling all night.” Mon 9 p.m., Cinema Bar, Culver City, no cover.
Recommended
“An Extraordinary Ordinary Man” — this one-man show has been extended, telling you all you need to know. Sat 8 p.m., Ruskin Group Theatre, SMO, $20-30.
Toledo Diamond — Unique, riveting, first class act. There’s nothing like it, it is high performance art and great decadent fun. Degeneracy is rarely so well disciplined. And the band is smokon’! Sun 9:30 p.m., Harvelle’s, Santa Monica, $12.
Coming Attractions
Rick Shea, Tony Gilkyson, Cinema Bar, 1/25; Toledo Diamond, Harvelle’s, 1/28, 2/4, 11, 18, 25; Hot Club of Los Angeles, Cinema Bar, 1/29, 2/5, 12, 19, 26; “An Extraordinary Ordinary Man,” Ruskin Group Theatre, 2/2; 10. 17; “It’s Only A Show,” Ruskin Group Theatre, 2/3, 10, 17; Booker T. Jones, The Soraya, 2/2; Hot Club of Los Angeles, Ruskin Group Theatre, 2/3; Hot Tuna Acoustic, Mccabe’s, 2/10; Library Girl, Ruskin Theatre, 2/11; Robert Fripp, David Singleton, An Evening of Conversation, Questions, Insights, Mccabe’s, 3/3; Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Fonda Theatre, 3/9
Charles Andrews has listened to more than 3,000 live shows.