Ahhhhh, she's a keeper then! Well done, sir. Carry on!

Your poor wife/girlfriend.

That's funny...I, too, turned on the Euro Cup game when the latest rain delay interrupted the French Open. No offense to the Italians here, but I was cheering for Spain. But only for this game. IRELAND is the team I want to go all the way...unlikely as that may be.

Crap! Another rain delay...at least they made it to the fourth set.

You should never be "sadly" watching anything. There's an off button for a reason. Unless you're a kidnap victim and being held against your will. It's around 8:30am here in L.A. and I should be watching Nadal and Djokovic playing tennis but all I'm seeing now is rain. They were in the middle of the 2nd set when the rain started. Drats! It should be constitutionally forbidden to rain in June and July...unless you live in the Down Under part of the world. Every time I watch the French Open and Wimbledon it's interrupted by rain. I'll give it to 9 or 9:30am but if they don't resume play by then, I'll have to catch the rest later. I'm not spending my Sunday indoors.

You and BD need to hook up...although your wives might explode at the thought, hehe.

Maria! Maria Maria Maria! As the song goes in "West Side Story"... Just watched Maria Sharapova dance across the clay at Roland-Garros and win her first French Open title, completing her career grand slam. Way to go Maria!

Congrats! Just watched Maria Sharapova win the French Open tennis title. Very happy for her as she has now won each of the 4 major tennis tournaments: Australian, French, Wimbledon and the US Open.

I guess it's official...god hates horse racing.

You're welcome Julia. Wow, a lot of you are suffering through rain. I'm sorry to hear that. June should be sunny and warm.

Perfect. Absolutely 80° F. perfect. To illustrate, here's some photos I just snapped strolling along Sunset Blvd. near the Chateau Marmont, where Led Zeppelin stayed in 1969. The house on the top of the hill in the last two photos is the "Iron Man" house.

Hope it works out for you, Kate...not having use of thumb and forefinger would put a severe crimp in my life. After all, it's our thumbs that separate us from most beasts. Good luck. As for you MM, stop being a nancy-boy and report to a dentist at once!

Naw, I think Major Major is referring to the VH logo used for the first two albums. To answer your question MM, I don't think they had their logo finalized yet. As you can see by badgeholder's post, they still were tinkering with their fonts. For instance, this was going to be the first album's cover until cooler heads prevailed: Anyway, hope that answers your question. Now, here's another dose of the timeline... Post #15: School's Out for Summer and the Mothership Touches Down!!! DATE: Saturday June 4, 1977 The school year was over. Friday June 3 was the last day and it was time to celebrate my surviving my freshman year of high school. That meant heading to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday with a few guys I knew from the basketball/football teams for something called the Music Sound Funk Festival. The line-up was choice: Parliament-Funkadelic, Bootsy's Rubber Band, The Isley Brothers, Rufus w/ Chaka Khan, The Brothers Johnson, and Rose Royce. This was to be the final show of P-Funk's Earth Tour, the one with the crazy Mothership landing on stage with lazers and pyros going off, whereupon George Clinton would emerge in his Dr. Funkenstein persona. The P-Funk band at this point featured some crazy talent...Eddie Hazel, Garry "Diaperman" Shider, Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, Fuzzy Haskins, Lynn Mabry, and a host of others...it was very hard to keep track of who was onstage and what was going on at a P-Funk show back then. I was particularly excited that I was going to see P-Funk because I had missed their show at the Forum back in January due to it being a school night. So I was thankful they were back in L.A. After doing my Saturday morning chores, my pals picked me up a little bit past noon and we headed northwest to the Coliseum across from the USC campus. Confession time: some quantity of marijuana was smoked on the way and during the show. Sad to say, as awesome the line-up was, the concert wasn't as great as it could and should have been. For one thing, the Coliseum(home field of the L.A. Rams, USC and UCLA football teams at the time) was far from sold out...maybe 50,000 tops. Second, the sound quality was subpar...mostly booming bass, and the volume depended on where you were located. Third, the time between bands was interminable; the show already had started more than an hour later than the advertised 3pm start time. There would be an hour or a 90-minute wait between some of the acts. Then there was the complete no-show by the Isley Brothers, which was later reported as being about money...the Isley's reportedly wouldn't go on unless they were paid in cash, while the promoters said the Isley's demanded more money or they wouldn't play. Whatever the truth, the Isley's didn't play and Bootsy Collins' Rubber Band played before the headlining Parliament-Funkadelic. Not seeing the Isleys, who were one of my favourite funky r & b acts(and whose "It's Your Thing" I had noted on a few Zeppelin bootlegs), took the wind out of my sails a little bit. Or to put it another way, it put a damper on my buzz. I think it was after midnight by the time the P-Funk Mothership landed...and thank god, because all the hassles and frustration of the day melted away as the funk flew furiously and non-stop thru their set. By this time, we had already moved closer to the stage as others had wilted as the day went on and either left early or retreated to the stands. All I remember is just a kaleidoscope of colours and costumes...I SAW A MAN WEARING A DIAPER!!!...and of course, the endless groove and funk of the music and the chanting and dancing. Yeah, all in all, it was worth it just to see P-Funk in their prime, complete with the Mothership spaceship special effect. It was also worth it to see the Brothers Johnson, riding high off their "Right on Time" album with their excellent cover of Shuggie Otis' song "Strawberry Letter 23", and Rufus with the amazing vocal talents of Chaka Khan. Rose Royce wasn't anything special. Oh, and the LAPD was heavy-handed as usual and arrested lots of people...not as many as they did at the Pink Floyd shows in 1975, but still in the hundreds. The concert didn't end until nearly 2am if I remember correctly...it was like a Stones show in that regard, haha. As this was the last show of P-Funk's Earth Tour, this was the last concert with the band in this configuration, as after the tour, quite a few P-Funkers left, having grown tired of George Clinton's stranglehold on the band's direction and finances. Anyway, that was that...this would be the last concert I would see until the Led Zeppelin shows at the Forum now 17 days away. Due to a number of factors: shortage of money, lack of a ride, lack of interest, wanting to conserve my strength for the Zeppelin marathon; I passed on the Little Feat show on June 7, the ZZ Top show June 11, and the Alice Cooper extravaganza at Anaheim Stadium June 19, and the Weirdos and the Germs at the Whisky June 20.

Well, it was going to be Jack White and the Peacocks tonight at the Wiltern. But I've been feeling like death all week, so I'm going to have to pass...I kept hoping I'd feel better, but no dice. Thing is, Mogwai is playing this Saturday at the Fonda, and now I'm worried I'll have to miss that one, too. Big bummer.

Post #14: Van Halen and The Mumps @ the Whisky a Go Go DATE: Saturday May 28, 1977 Having lain low for most of May since the somnambulant Pink Floyd show...Bad Company with Dave Edmunds @ the Forum was one show I passed up going to, as well as Jethro Tull I think...my interest was, however, piqued when I saw Van Halen was returning to the Whisky for a three-night stand May 27-29. The opening band was The Mumps, one of the many bands that sprung up in the wake of the New York Dolls, Ramones and the whole nascent punk scene. As I wrote earlier in this thread, my first time seeing Van Halen back in January at the Whisky was an eye-opener. So I wanted to see them again to confirm if my first impressions of them held up and if they really were as fresh and exciting as I thought. I most certainly wanted another peak at the guitar player...I don't think at this time I had remembered his name yet. I do recall he played like he had 20 fingers. I recruited the same buddies I went with the first time I saw Van Halen. The show we attended was Saturday night's on May 28. There were tons of people of course...it's funny, before I saw Van Halen I hadn't really given their name a second-glance when it appeared in club ads. But after that January show, all of a sudden I started noticing how many shows the played everywhere around town. They had buzz for sure. I was somewhat surprised by the turnout and enthusiasm shown The Mumps. They were certainly an energetic band, which helps when you're opening for Van Halen. Most of the members gamboled athletically or spastically around the stage, creating quite a glam-punk type racket. It wasn't until I saw them that night that I found out that the leader of the Mumps was none other than LANCE LOUD! If you're asking 'who the Dickens is Lance Loud?', you're obviously not gay nor have you ever seen the landmark 1973 PBS documentary "An American Family"...the first reality show. Google it. The Mumps weren't bad...in fact, they were better than some other punk bands of that era; bands that did get record contracts. For whatever reason, though, the Mumps never got signed and soon split up. Van Halen was the headliner, however, and all thoughts of the Mumps were banished once their set was over. The crowd and anticipation was building for Van Halen...and remember, they STILL didn't have a record or even a single out. I don't think they were yet signed to Warner Brothers at this point. But their reputation as THE party band of Southern California had obviously spread far and wide. When Van Halen took the stage and began playing, it was like a bomb going off. LOUD, uncouth, raw, powerful yet also ridiculously catchy, they immediately confirmed my initial impressions were correct. This was a band that gave me hope hard rock wasn't dying and there was still room for PERSONALITY in the face of such faceless corporate FM rock as Foreigner, Styx, Kansas, Chicago. Again their set was covers interspersed with some originals. What was noteworthy was that the originals were often better than whatever ZZ Top, Zeppelin or Aerosmith cover they played. Somebody on another thread asked if Van Halen ever played the Deep Purple song "Maybe I'm a Leo"? I'd love to be able to answer definitively yes or no, but to tell you the truth, I wouldn't have recognized the song if they had played it. You see, by 1977, Deep Purple was one of those bands I had tossed aside...I was bored with them. So on the slag heap they went, along with Grand Funk Railroad, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Elton John, Alice Cooper, Black Oak Arkansas, and other bands I thought had grown stale. So while I would have recognized any Zeppelin or Aerosmith cover, I didn't have a clue what "Maybe I'm a Leo" sounded like, so wouldn't have noticed if Van Halen played it. What was noticeable to me, seeing Van Halen a second time, was that the current crop of hard rock acts were put on notice. It seemed it was only a matter of time before Van Halen would get a record deal and soon have an album out. Bands like Aerosmith, Nazareth, Boston, Ted Nugent, Bad Company, were going to have to step up their game or get buried. One more thing...after this second time seeing Van Halen, I never forgot the guitar player's name again...Eddie Van Halen was permanently imprinted on my mind. Jenny Lens was a girl who photographed tons of shows back then, especially of the early punk bands. The following photos were taken by her. I still see her at various events and shows...she's quite a trip. The guy with David Lee Roth is Lance Loud of The Mumps...not Joe Perry as many people mistakenly assume. That's The Mumps in front of the Whisky in the other photo.

I wanted to ask you how this show was, Jahfin? War on Drugs "Slave Ambient" was one of my favourite albums last year. Unfortunately I had to miss their L.A. date(with Sharon Van Etten no less!), as it was March 20, the same day as the of Monreal/Deerhoof show. Sharon is coming back to L.A. in August with Andrew Bird. I am hoping War on Drugs makes another swing thru Los Angeles before the year is over. Anybody who thinks there aren't any good rock bands anymore needs to check out War on Drugs.

Just saw "Snow White and the Huntsman" tonight. It opens June 1 in the U.S. The screening I saw was a special one at the American Cinematheque with costume designer Colleen Atwood in attendance for a Q & A afterwards. For good reason too, as the costumes were very good. I liked "Snow White and the Huntsman" more than the other Snow White adaptation this year, "Mirror Mirror". I thought its approach to the story was more interesting, its cinematography, look and set design better(one of the highlights was the Fairy Forest). But mostly it was better because Charlize Theron was a better Queen than Julia Roberts. She is wicked fun to watch as the evil Queen. In fact, over-all the cast was better than "Mirror Mirror"'s. Look for Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, among others playing the Dwarves. I believe I've mentioned my ambivalence towards Kristen Stewart as an actress. Thought she was okay in "Adventureland" but inadequate in "The Runaways" and sheer torture in the idiotic "Twilight" movies. She isn't bad as Snow White, but once again she has this annoying habit of using the same mouth-slightly open expression throughout the film. Her emotional range is limited. I think of all the other young actresses out there they could have used...Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, Amy Ryan, Carey Mulligan. But Kristen Stewart isn't a disaster...she doesn't ruin the movie. Anyway, along with the base Brothers Grimm "Snow White" story, there's also elements of Robin Hood, King Arthur and Lord of the Rings. So any fantasy lovers should enjoy "Snow White and the Huntsman". Oh, and judging by the applause at the end, the guy playing the Huntsman is very popular with the ladies. According to the 12-year old girl I was with, he was in the "Thor" movie.

NO! TCM doesn't interrupt movies with commercials. I wouldn't watch the channel if they did. Nor do they pan and scan or show "edited for tv" versions like AMC. Which is why I never will watch a movie on AMC no matter how many times they show "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas"...it'd be like watching porn on the Disney Channel. TCM is what AMC used to be like in the 80s before they changed ownership. Another movie channel that has been ruined by commercials in movies is IFC, the Independent Film Channel.

I have to work an event tonight from 6 to midnight, so I'm just resting and chilling on the couch all day. Just finished watching the Orson Welles noir-classic "The Lady from Shanghai" with the delectable Rita Hayworth on Turner Classic Movies(TCM). "It was YOU who killed Grisby!" In about 10 minutes at 12:45 pm, TCM is showing another of my favourites, "The Lady Eve", starring another of my faves, Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. One of the classic Preston Sturges screwball- comedies.

Thanks Ally...although it must have pained you to see them knock off your Canucks.

^^^ Ego? What ego? I haven't the foggiest notion what you're talking about. Welcome back by the way! This place has missed being filled with your magic for too long!