late August, 2005
- Lakewood's Green Elvis croons: Love Me Timber'
By John C. Kuehner
(Plain Dealer, August 26 2005)
Elvis impersonators perform weddings, jump out of airplanes and deliver telegrams. This one sings about the environment. Green Elvis is Lakewood native Dave Pyle, who has been performing as environmental Elvis for 11 years. Pyle has turned Elvis' "Love Me Tender" into "Love Me Timber" and "Don't be Cruel" to "Don't Waste Fuel." He talks about carpooling and bike riding to save on gasoline. His 45-minute act includes a dialogue about mistakes made by big oil companies, followed by a rendition of "Burning Sludge," a parody of Elvis' "Burning Love." The environmentalist and vegetarian says he uses Elvis as a way to push a conservation message with humor and without being too preachy. "I'm saving the planet one Elvis song at a time," said Pyle, 39, a college communications instructor now living in Chicago. ...
- Mariah Carey hits lucky 13 on U.S. pop charts
By Fred Bronson
(Yahoo! News / Reuters / Billboard, August 26 2005)
Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" hit the 13-week mark as the No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week ended August 21. It's the first song to rule for 13 weeks since 1998, when Brandy and Monica ruled with "The Boy Is Mine." ... The long visit of "We Belong Together" at No. 1 brings Carey even closer to matching Elvis Presley's total weeks on top. Carey has now been No. 1 for 74 weeks, just five weeks shy of Presley's 79 weeks. With the follow-up to "We Belong Together" rising two places to No. 4, "Shake It Off" could be the song that ties or surpasses Presley's record.
- Prankster hits Waco classified ads
By Tim Woods
(Waco Tribune-Herald, August 26 2005)
Prankster Rory Emerald has struck Waco. ... Emerald's gags involve placing fake classified ads in newspapers across the country, beginning during the Michael Jackson trial in June when he ran an ad in the Santa Barbara News-Press that read ³Found: Near Neverland Ranch, prosthetic nose.² The prankster hoped the ad would lighten the mood in the California town and thought the ads would end there. They didn't. ... On Monday, Emerald brought his unique brand of humor to Waco, specifically the Tribune-Herald. ... Emerald's ads have claimed to have found things such as Andy Warhol paintings in Buffalo, N.Y., an Elvis Presley tour bus on a Fargo, N.D., ranch, and Paris Hilton's PDA in Charleston, S.C. ...
- Long live The King: Muscatine youth's tribute to rock royalty lands him first place in Memphis' Sing Like a King karaoke contest
By Connie Street
(Muscatine Journal, August 26 2005)
Louisa-Muscatine sophomore Levi Teitsworth says he was "awful surprised" to be chosen as the winner of the first Sing Like a King karaoke contest in Memphis, Tenn.
It was Elvis Week, Aug. 8-16, and the contest was held on stage at the former Memphian movie theater, where, in the 1960s, famed entertainer Elvis Presley used to hold private parties. Elvis Week is a living memorial to "The King" who died Aug. 17, 1977.
In an Elvis costume, Levi sang "If I Can Dream" and "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" to claim the top prize, a theater seat from the Memphian.
Built as the Memphian in the late 1930s, the former movie theater now houses Playhouse on the Square, Memphis' only resident professional theater company. Michael Detroit, a Playhouse on the Square associate producer, said Elvis often rented the entire theater and he and his friends would watch movies all night. Detroit pointed out that though Elvis had his own row of seats for his friends, the chair Levi won is not from that row. It is unknown if Elvis or any of his buddies ever sat on Levi's prize.
Levi was the youngest of about 20 contestants. He guessed that most of them were at least twice his age. "There were people from all over, including one from Holland," Levi said. "There were three judges and I had to do three things to win: capture his lingo, his sound and his moves." The 15-year-old had never paid much attention to Elvis music until about eight months ago when his dad, Robert, gave his mother, Renee, an Elvis CD.
"He took it over," Renee Teitsworth said. "He was always playing it in his room and singing along with it. In fact, we said can't you find something else to do?'" ...
- Sony BMG licenses music to legit P2P network
(Netimperative, August 25 2005)
Sony BMG has teamed up with UK ISP PlayLouder to license the record label's entire back catalogue of music on a legal peer-to-peer file-sharing network. Launching at the end of September, Playlouder MSP will allow its subscribers to share Sony licensed music with others on its network. The ISP said it will heavily monitor the network to ensure the legality of peer-to-peer file sharing on its network. PlayLouder will use "deep packets search" technology to monitor file-sharing traffic and re-routed to PlayLouder's "walled garden", allowing only other Playlouder subscribers access to it. It will pay "a proportion of broadband subscription revenues paid by subscribers" to music rights owners. PlayLouder customers will have permission to freely share music by artists from the Sony BMG roster, such as Beyonce, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Oasis, Travis, Will Young, Outkast, and Dido. ...
- Levi Imitates Art: Warhol's Work to Pop Up on Clothes
By Leslie Earnest
(Los Angeles Times, August 25 2005)
The apparel maker hopes that a line of $250 jeans, $300 jackets and other pieces will help it turn around its business. Four decades after Andy Warhol made Campbell's Soup cans chic, San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. is betting that he can help boost business by getting shoppers to fork over $190 for a cashmere T-shirt. Eighteen years after his death, the Pop artist remains part of the fashion scene - thanks to his nonprofit foundation, which licenses his artwork on clothes, china, luggage and even rugs. ... Gemellaro said Levi would use some of Warhol's most famous images, including those of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, in its new collection. ...
- In Brief: Elvis, Elton - Elvis Presley makes "Hitstory," Elton John makes music for vampires
(Rolling Stone, August 24 2005)
Sony BMG will release the eighty-track set of ELVIS PRESLEY songs,
Hitstory, on October 4th. The three-disc package features
career-spanning hits, as well as remixes of "Love Me Tender,"
"Heartbreak Hotel" and "A Little Less Conversation" ...
- Fletcher, under subpoena, hires ex-Watergate prosecutor
By Tom Loftus
(Courier-Journal, August 24 2005)
Gov. Ernie Fletcher, under subpoena to appear before a special grand jury next week in the state hiring investigation, has retained a former Watergate prosecutor who also represented Elvis Presley's doctor. James Neal of Nashville, Tenn., gained attention as chief trial counsel in the prosecution of the Watergate cover-up. As a defense lawyer, his clients have included the late Kentucky Gov. Wallace Wilkinson. ... The grand jury was impaneled June 6 to investigate a complaint brought by former Transportation Cabinet official Doug Doerting alleging that cabinet officials violated a state law that bans political considerations in personnel decisions for rank-and-file state workers. ...
- State Fair dusting off new, old attractions
By JESSICA RYEN
(Utica Observer-Dispatch, August 24 2005)
Cover band Abbey Road of Utica will be a counterpoint this year to the New York State Fair's new exhibit "The King's Ransom - Elvis Presley Museum." The exhibit features more than 200 of Presley's personal treasures, fair Marketing Director Joseph LaGuardia said. Abbey Road, a band that plays No. 1 musical hits from the past, will play songs from the King. "There's definitely some Elvis stuff," said Steve Falvo, one of three Abbey Road members. "We play other teen idols, like Ricky Nelson and the Beatles." ...
What: The New York State Fair
Where: Off Route 690 West, Syracuse
When: Thursday, Aug. 25, through Monday, Sept. 5
Hours: Gates open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. All buildings open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The fair closes at 9 p.m. Labor Day. Midway is open every day until midnight.
Prices: General Admission is $10, children younger than 12 get in free. $5 per vehicle for parking.
- Reading Green Tea Leaves in Tokyo
By Momus
(Wired News, August 23 2005)
When I first started visiting Japan, I loved the drinks machines. Open all hours, they lined every street, spilling white light into public space. It was impressive that they could sit there day and night without getting smashed, robbed or pissed into. I wasn't just impressed that Japan was a society safe and stable enough to have these benign coin-operated machines on every street, I also liked what they contained: drinks without too much sugar, or beer or green tea. In Japan, even the Coca-Cola corporation was selling bottles and cans of green tea alongside Coke and Fanta. Pure, super-healthy green tea, without additives, without sugar. It seemed like an object lesson in the nature of capitalism -- capitalism didn't have to be inherently toxic. It didn't have to put too much sugar or salt in stuff, or sell you drinks that made you fat. Japanese record shops seemed to encode the same message. Even when the stores were called familiar things like "Tower" and "HMV," they carried more sophisticated and varied stocks than the branches I'd visited in the West. I rode the escalators to the fourth floor of the Shibuya HMV store and discovered a section called Avant Pop. There, next to obscure records by Bruce Haack and Dragibus, they'd planted an Italian lounge magazine called Il Giaguaro and a book of interviews with post-modern San Diego literary critic Larry McCaffery. The book was called Avant-Pop too. I opened it and read:
"One of the good things about capitalism is that it's blind to what it sells. It's willing to sell anything.... The system isn't really the enemy. It's blind, all it wants is to replicate and do more things." McCaffery, a literary critic, was replying to a certain punk or alt rock puritanism which says that innovation and integrity can only come from indie labels, margins, fringes. He cited Elvis Presley, and the transformative power he had, and how his emergence on RCA in the mid-'50s threatened the establishment.
... And somewhere along the line I stumbled on the ideas of economist John Kenneth Galbraith - "The modern industrial society, or that part of it which is composed of the large corporations, is in all essentials a planned economy. By that I mean that production decisions are taken not in response to consumer demand as expressed in the market, rather, they are taken by producers. These decisions are reflected in the prices that are set in the market, and in the further steps taken to ensure that people will buy what is produced and sold at those prices. The ultimate influence is authority." ... So was McCaffery right that consumers could create a grass-roots revolution (for instance, rock 'n' roll) by buying what they wanted (for instance, Elvis records)? Or was Galbraith right to say that freedom of choice was mostly illusory, dictated by decisions made by producers, distributors, retailers, advertisers and authority? (I suppose "authority" in the 1950s might still have wanted consumers to listen to Elvis records rather than "race music," though the usual line here is that the conservatives were backing Pat Boone.)
A recent post in David Byrne's blog on the subject of payola made me think again about those two opposing views of how capitalism works.
Byrne described how he discovered there'd been payola money behind the Talking Heads' hit "Burning Down The House." Audiences at live shows greeted the song with rapture simply because radio was playing it, and radio was playing it simply because the radio stations had been paid "under the table" with cash, coke and women. ...
- White Stripes take a welcome detour from well-traveled road of rock 'n' roll
By Steve Knopper
(Rocky Mountain News, August 23 2005)
Jack White, 30, is hardly the first rock star to stand in a spotlight with an electric guitar and furiously play loud and fast blues riffs while shrieking into a microphone. But the White Stripes frontman may well be the first to do it while wearing a bright red T-shirt, matching bright red slacks with black stripes up the sides and a black derby hat. For two hours at Red Rocks, White put on a clinic of rock-guitar history, turning Son House's Death Letter into something approximating Cream's late-'60s version of Robert Johnson's Cross Road Blues. The Stripes formed in 1997 with an agenda to strip rock 'n' roll down to its roots - roughly the eight-billionth band to do so since Elvis Presley. ...
- Chicken Soup advice dispensed in new mag
By Joe Burris
(Sun-Sentinel / Baltimore Sun, August 23 2005)
It began 15 years ago as a quirky concept: Two motivational speakers thought they could uplift downtrodden spirits with a book of selected feel-good stories that they likened to a bowl of chicken soup. Today, who hasn't heard of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, the international phenomenon created by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, who have sold more than 100 million copies, spawned a radio program and merchandise line, and proved wrong the 140 publishers who initially dismissed their concept. That's the selling point Mignonne Wright offers each time she seeks to generate interest in the books' latest spinoff: Chicken Soup for the Soul magazine. ... The first issue features rare, black-and-white photos of Elvis Presley by 76-year-old photographer Al Wertheimer, whose accompanying story shares tales of photographing the king of rock 'n' roll 50 years ago. ...
- Conroe residents remember the day "The King" had Conroe all shook up
By Sondra Bosse
(zwire.com, August 23 2005)
It's a birthday Evelyn Rodriguez will never forget. She turned 16 on Aug. 24, 1955 and to celebrate she went to see Elvis Presley and the rest of the Louisiana Hayride musicians play on the Conroe High School football field. ... This Wednesday marks 50 years since the raven-haired heartthrob born in Tupelo, Miss. shook up the town atop a flatbed trailer. And there are still plenty of people who recall one of Conroe's most memorable nights. Mary McCoy, current co-host of the Country Classic show on 99.7 FM, was not only there that night, she was a part of the show as well. ... Then in the summer of 1955, McCoy, an up-and-coming country singer, met Elvis for the first time when she played as a guest on the Louisiana Hayride program. "The Hayride was a radio show out of Shreveport, La. and was the Louisiana version of the Grand Ole Opry out of Nashville, Tenn.," Bob Watkins said. "Elvis had been snubbed by the Grand Ole Opry and was seriously thinking of giving up on music when he landed an opportunity in 1954 to perform on the Hayride."
McCoy said she'd never forget the first time she met Elvis. "He stepped out in a red sport coat, white lace shirt and lime green trousers," she said. As she got to know him on the Louisiana Hayride tour, McCoy recalled that Elvis was one of the nicest persons she had ever met. "He was so sincere," she said. "And the thing I liked most about him was the respect that he had for his mother." Then a few months later, McCoy and the radio station KMCO, brought the Louisiana Hayride to Conroe, marking Elvis' first and only appearance in Conroe.
According to Dee Green Gilmore, who was 13 at the time, posters at KMCO announced the Hayride was coming to Conroe. KMCO studios were located above the Capitol Drug Store on the downtown square in Conroe. The afternoon of the concert, Elvis arrived at the KMCO radio station for an interview amid much chatter, said Jerry Shepard, now a resident of San Antonio. "The interviewer, Jimmy Doyle, likened Elvis to a young Marlon Brando," ... "He was a fidgety person," Barbra Dampier said. She recalled the whole time he was being interviewed, Presley was fidgeting with a small metal piece which he eventually broke.
... Wanda Sue Morgan, like all the other girls in town, couldn't wait to see Elvis.
"But her mother, Jennie Mae Morgan, wouldn't allow her to go because Elvis shook his hips in a manner that was too provocative," said Stacy Morgan about her aunt Wanda Sue Morgan. However, Morgan snuck out and went to the concert.
"Well as luck would have it, the next day on the front page of the paper was a picture of Elvis on the flatbed trailer performing and on the front row was my Aunt Wanda swooning over him," Stacy Morgan said. "So she got busted."
Bob Watkins recalled that the audience was seated on the home side of the Conroe High School football stadium between Thompson and Pacific streets.
Evelyn Rodriguez arrived early and got a great "close up" seat in the bleachers.
"At the appropriate time, Elvis' pink Cadillac arrived on the football field and made a slow trip in front of everyone in the bleachers," Rodriguez said. "The top was down, and he was sitting on the top of the back seat waving at us as he went by."
According to Watkins, the makeshift stage consisted of two flatbed trucks parked side by side where the football team normally sat during games, along the 50-yard line. "When it came time for the announcers to introduce Elvis, the stadium was filled with anticipation," Watkins said. "At the mention of Elvis' name, the modest crowd cheered and looked expectantly at the parked Cadillac."
Then Elvis quickly crawled out of the back seat, pulling his guitar with him and ran for the stage. "He jumped onto one of the benches and was about to bound onto the stage, when the bench toppled over under the sudden shift of his weight," Watkins said. "Elvis crashed down hard onto the flatbed truck and the resulting thud could be heard clearly in the stadium. There was a collective gasp from the crowd and then total silence. "Elvis just lay there face down on the truck bed with his guitar clasped tightly in one hand off to the side," he said. "No one moved. He must have stayed motionless for a complete minute." Then, Watkins said Elvis jumped up and almost bounced to the microphone on stage, whipped the guitar strap around his neck, assumed his classic pose with feet spread apart, shook his head and that long black hair and said "Whew!" "With that, and to the great relief of the crowd, he began to play his first song, despite a very large and obvious red knot on his forehead."
McCoy said she didn't know how he went through with the show. "It was a wonder he wasn't knocked out," she said. "He had a big lump on his head. What was so bad about it, was some people were jealous, and news traveled that he was drunk. But that was not true, he wasn't drunk." Rodriguez said Elvis was just about the most handsome man she had ever seen. "The music began and he started singing and gyrating, so much that the flatbed and truck were bouncing up off the ground," Rodriguez said. "I had never seen or heard anything like this before in my life." ...
- Rock's 25 'most incredible body parts picked': Spin selects the navel, legs and liver that made musical history
(MSNBC / Associated Press, August 23 2005)
Spin magazine has built a veritable rock star Frankenstein, composed of Michael Stipe's skull, Elvis Presley's pelvis and Madonna's bellybutton. ... [as below]
- The Ultimate Rock Body
(CBS News / Associated Press, August 23 2005)
Spin magazine has built a veritable rock star Frankenstein, composed of Michael Stipe's skull, Elvis Presley's pelvis and Madonna's bellybutton. Spin charts the 25 "most incredible" rock star body parts in its September issue, now on newsstands. Madonna's navel tops the list. Kiss' Gene Simmons made the list for his trademark tongue.
- Spin Lists Rock's 'Incredible' Body Parts
(Yahoo! News / Associated Press, August 23 2005)
Spin magazine has built a veritable rock star Frankenstein, composed of Michael Stipe's skull, Elvis Presley's pelvis and Madonna's bellybutton. Spin charts the 25 "most incredible" rock star body parts in its September issue, now on newsstands. Madonna's navel tops the list. "It's what first marked her as a mainstream provocateur," senior Spin writer Marc Spitz writes. At No. 2 is the liver of Rolling Stones' Keith Richards, which is so durable, Spitz writes, that "when Richards finally passes, they'll line the exterior of the space shuttle with his liver tissue." REM singer Michael Stipe's oft-shaved skull comes in third, due to a hairline that's "not too high like Moby's or too low" like Sinead O'Connor's. Other body parts include Presley's hip-shaking pelvis, Gene Simmons' tongue, Tina Turner's legs, 50 Cent's chest, Bruce Springsteen's butt and Tommy Lee's - well, you know, it's that body part below the waist.
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