Category: Field Recordings of the Future

There are a few myths surrounding Visual Studies Workshop. I remember their first space on Elton Street, but just barely. I clearly remember many shows in their sprawling University Avenue space. Our neighbor, Rick Hock, was director there for a while. It may have been during his tenure when we first saw Robert Franks shoes in a display case. We heard Frank donated the shoes he wore while shooting photos for “The Americans” and then we heard he had left them behind when he was chased out of the apartment he was staying in. Whatever the story I wasn’t prepared for their dandyness. They look like bowling shows.

Founded in 1969 by photographer, educator and curator Nathan Lyons, VSW was one of the earliest not-for-profit, artist-run spaces in the country. Through an affiliation with SUNY Brockport they offered MA and MFA accreditation until 2022. Today they have set up shop at 36 King Street in the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood with over a million photography and film-related objects, exhibition spaces and an auditorium.

Tara Merenda Nelson, chief curator at VSW, told us Frank spent some time in Rochester in the early seventies, just after working with the Rolling Stones. He used Super 8 movie stills from his Route 66 (The Americans) trip for the cover of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. Tara told us Frank refused to teach but instead dove right into projects with the students. The 16mm film “About Us” was made over a three month period in 1971-72. Each student shot a section of the film while re-interpreting the idea of the self portrait. Frank appears throughout as the group encounters security guards at Kodak Park, a gas station owner on Dewey Avenue, and some of the students parents. Just seeing Robert Frank frolicing at Cobbs Hill is a thrill. The film perfectly capturess what Frank calls “the chaos of the present.”

CLICK HERE to watch “About Us.”

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We performed a version of “Train” at the Little a few weeks ago. I still have the wooden whistle I got from the Railroad Museum. It prompted me listen to the original, from our 2003 cd “Happy Hour.” I threw that file and a few train videos I had into iMovie and came up with this.

Tom Kohn was spinning forty-fives at Skylark last night so headed over there after dinner. We hung out behind the two turntables and I helped Tom put records back win their sleeves. He had all sorts of music mashed up together and some crazy segues. Black Sabbath “Paranoid” into Wreckless Eric’s “Take the Cash.” He had some crazy 45s like Lou Reed and John Cale before the Velvets and Jon Hendricks with the Grateful Dead. But I just couldn’t believe my eyes and ears when he pulled out a Verve Records VU and Nico promo copy of “Sunday Morning” and “Femme Fatale.”

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We walked early yesterday to beat the heat and came across this graffiti near the beach. We couldn’t figure out what the first word was but we got the “Resist” message.

As we walked along the beach we passed this guy swimming while towing a plastic dolphin. I tried to read the sign but couldn’t. I assumed it was a Bills thing. The guy saw me taking a photo and stopped long enough to shout “No Kings.”

I set the alarm on my watch for 2:50 so we wouldn’t forget to tune into Kyle Brown‘s three o’clock show “Up on the Roof” on WAYO. We love it so much. Kyle opened this week’s show with Jimmy Smith’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” too long to have been on a 45 and too clean. He plays mostly 45s and playfully skips around from soul to jazz and doo-wop. It’s like a dreamy Sunday afternoon drive in the country and provides items for my want list of used 45s.

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Jason Wilder banged off a series of band photos before one of our gigs a few months back (in sweater weather). I did a half-assed silhouette of this one and I cropped out Jack because he can’t make this gig on Thursday.

Our next door neighbor, Rick, called us from the Bop Shop yesterday. We were down in the garden picking pimientos de Padron and he was picking up something for his WITR radio show. He reminded me that the Bop Shop Sidewalk sale started today and he said Tom was going to be in at 10 if I wanted to stop by before the store opened at noon. I took him up on the invitation.

Nothing is out on the sidewalk but the aisles of the store are clogged with boxes of lps, stuff that won’t fit on the shelves of the huge store. The forty-fives are on tables near the back of the store, every one of them a dollar. They will get progressively cheaper as the sale goes on. Of course all the good stuff, the collectable 45s, are still in the the racks at their standard price. The sale is all about clearing out the junk. One man’s junk is the others’ fortune and there are plenty of treasures.

It was great to have the store to myself for almost an hour but I spent about half that time talking to Tom who was by his own admission “over-caffeinated.” When the store opened it was packed and there were seven or eight people pawing through the 45s. The Modern Lovers first lp was playing on the sound system. I was struck by how fucking good “Pablo Picasso” still sounds. 1976 was almost fifty years ago. John Cale hammering out that repetitive piano part. Jonathan’s brilliant lyrics.

Some people try to pick up girls and get called assholes
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street and girls could not resist to stare, and so
Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole

Well, the girls would turn the color of an
Avocado when he would drive down their street in his El Dorado
He could walk down your street and girls could not resist to stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Not like you

Alright
Well, he was only 5’3″, but girls could not resist the stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Not in New York

I listen to everything before I buy so I was only able to get through about a quarter of the dollar 45s but I came up with perfectly clean copies of Freddy Fender’s “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” (most of it sung in Spanish, the loving tongue), Mary Wells “You Beat Me To The Punch,” the Carpenters “This Masquerade,” George and Tammy doing “Near You,” George’s “Things Have Gone To Pieces” and “If Drinking Don’t Kill Me.” And I found a much cleaner copy of “Scotch and Soda” than the one we’ve been listening to.

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Gary Lewis has been living here for the past twenty years or so and he is playing on the beach behind Marge’s at seven tonight. We toyed with going down to the lake to listen, not go in or anything. I had the “This Diamond Ring” and “She’s Just My Style” 45s some fifty years ago and it would kind of be interesting to hear him bang them out on his eightieth birthday but we already walked to the beach this morning.

Marge’s was just named one of best bars of 2025. I would have nominated it back in the day as they would sell six packs over the bar when we were sixteen. Marge’s was funkier and less crowded in the 70s and early 80’s when Ron Beth was stocking the juke box.

Peggi made a batch of pesto with basil (above) and garlic scapes from our garden.

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Ozzy connected the whole world. We did a double bill with Ozzy Osbourne on my birthday in 1981. He was beginning his solo career after getting kicked out of Sabbath and he was off to a roaring start with the great Randy Rhoads on guitar. Ozzy and the Hi-Techs were booked on a tv show called “After Hours” that ran on Channel 31 in Rochester.

Ozzy went first and he was still performing when we got to the studio. We were not allowed in the studio. It was loud enough outside. When the band finished they and the roadies all went down to bar on the lower level of the building on East Avenue. We couldn’t get in to the studio to set up and perform until they packed up and that wasn’t gonna happen until the bar closed at two. We didn’t get to play until 4AM. The studio had somebody writhing around during one of our songs but the live performance was pretty good. I think it’s the only video footage of the Hi-Techs.

This video clip from the same night of Ozzy performing “Mr. Crowley” with Randy Rhoads has been viewed 93 million times! It remains the only professionally shot video of Randy Rhoads performing full songs with Ozzy. Rhoads died less than a year after this video in a bone-headed plane accident. RIP Ozzy.

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Our friend, Steve, is planning to come up from down south in a few weeks. When he’s here he is always pointing out the rust on vehicles, something he doesn’t see in South Carolina. I’m hoping this truck is still in our neighbor’s driveway when he gets here.

We stopped out at our friend, Brad’s, house yesterday. We volunteered to help set up his new stereo amp for him. We wired the last one and I remembered it being a bit challenges. Brad had two head lamps ready for us. I couldn’t get mine to point in the right direction so I gave up on it.

We started with his cd player, ins and outs (it has the ability to write). Brad had a Frank Zappa disc in. Then the tape deck. Brad had something with Jerry Garcia on it. Then the cord from Brad’s computer. He had some Margaret Explosion playing on his laptop. I found some “tuner” ins for his radio. This amp comes with a remote and Brad was already switching back and forth with it.

I saved the turntable for last. We plugged the wires into the “phono” ports on the amp and noticed there was no ground wire. I put a 45 on to check it out, one from Brad’s old band, “Nobody Famous.” It sounded really distorted. Brad told us he didn’t even play on the record. Peggi suggested Angel Corpus Christi’s “Bewitched” lp. It was all blown out as well. We cleaned the needle and I put on Eric Dolphy’s “Out To Lunch.” Same thing. Peggi got the manual out and read that if the turntable has no ground it needs to be plugged into one of the auxiliary ports. It dawned on all of us at the same time. We had made this same mistake last time!

As we were leaving, Brad told us he had used the homemade tomato sauce that Peggi had given him lsat year. He spread out some Triscuits in a pan, toasted them for a minute, spread the sauce on the crackers and sprinkled some cheese on top of it all before putting it back in the Microwave.

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Meet the world’s slowest dj. In the course of one hour you will hear three songs and a lot of talking. I was the guest on CalZone’s WAYO “Record Geek” show on July 3rd, the third in a series of special shows that CalZone has produced. The first two guests were WRUR’s Scott Wallace, host of the long running “Rejuvenation,” and Jimmy Filingeri, bass player for The Fox Sisters.

My records really crackle in the headphones. And I had cleaned them before I left the house. I do not have a radio voice. CalZone (my brother-in-law) sounds like a pro. I kept my eyes closed for most of the interview but opened them for this photo. I fielded questions like “How has your record collecting ‘hobby’ improved your life?” I told the story about selling my baseball card collection to my high school math teacher but I never got to talk about my holy card collection. And when we got to how “Bitches Brew” changed my life I neglected to credit Rich Stim for turning me on to it.

If I had my own nine hour block of time I would have spun my “45s2go” playlist:
Choose (Apple) or (Spotify)

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We put the explosion into Fourth of July weekend last night. Here is song number 9 recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on July 3rd 2025.

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Jeff and Mary Kaye got us tickets to Geva’s “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.” Just last week I had noticed new, brightly colored tables (with umbrellas) and chairs scattered around Washington Square Park so I suggested we meet there before the play and have dinner in the park. Peggi and I prepared sandwiches with the ingredients we had ordered from La Tienda and we made a salad from our garden greens. We brought along a bottle of Spanish Rioja and some plastic cups. Monica, next door, let us borrow four plastic plates. Mary Kaye made sorbet with strawberries from their garden. It was somewhere near ninety degrees downtown but the meal was dreamy.

“Beautiful” premiered in San Francisco in 2013 and made its Broadway debut in 2014. It has been produced around the world since and Sony just announced a biopic adaptation starring Daisy Edgar-Jones. The play is set mostly in the Brill Building in NYC, a song factory, where writers churned out hit after hit up until Dylan and rock groups started writing their own. And the story is told through two song writing couples who worked there, Carole King and Gerry Goffin and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

We get to hear “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “Up on the Roof,” “On Broadway,” “The Loco-Motion,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “One Fine Da,” and “Walking in the Rain,” all of which were written by these couples. Of course Carol King goes solo at the end but they mercifully keep that period brief and the play finishes with “I Feel the Earth Move.” The performers, the band and the production were as good as the songs!

In the program the playwright, Douglas McGrath, talks about meeting the four songwriters to discuss his idea-“a musical about kids chasing out the old guard so they could create the new sound of rock and roll. Carole’s face lit up. I knew I had nailed it. She leaned forward to share her reaction. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is completely wrong!’ ‘What?’ I said, almost losing my balance even though I was seated. ‘We idolized Gershwin and Porter and Kem and Berlin,’ she explained. ‘We studied their music’ -Cynthia piped in, ‘I wanted to be Cole Porter.'”

The title of the play comes from a Carole King quote, “You know what’s so funny about life?” Sometimes it goes the way you want and sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes when it doesn’t, you find something beautiful.”

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We were both sitting at our computers last night when we remembered Frying Pan was playing at Abilene. We were out the door in minutes but we had already missed Big Roy, the opening band. Had it not been for the weather this show would have been held outdoors. I would have preferred that. The club can be like walking into a speaker cabinet. I hadn’t even pushed my ear plugs in fully when my watch was warning about exposure to levels above 100 db. The two guitars sounded great, each playing rhythm and lead, sometimes at the same time but always sounding distinctly different. My brother, Tim, was standing next to us. We mouthed, “hello.” I tried to order a beer. I tried a few times and the waitress, sporting one of the biggest beehives I’ve seen since leaving Indiana, had me write my order on a piece of paper.

We couldn’t hear any of the lyrics so we asked Pat what he was singing about. He told us he did one sort of political song about “the beast” and another about a trip he took out west. One was about the “glitter girls” he hung around with in high school. I wish the vocals had been audible. Pat said “you could hear the vocals really good in the monitors.” Maybe we should have hopped on stage with the band.

My “45s2go” playlist (Apple) (Spotify) has gotten bigger. Funny thing is, these are clean files and the songs don’t sound nearly as good as they do on vinyl.

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We played in the Highland Bowl over the weekend. Maeve reminded us we had played here with her band back in the early eighties. We saw her (and everyone else from our neighborhood) at the demonstration. I recorded the show but the breeze, which was hardly noticeable, wreaked havoc on the mics. Now I remember why that furry thing came with the recorder.

Margaret Explosion’s two half-hour sets were sandwiched between three different poets, each equally engaging. Ralph Black is a Professor Emeritus at Brockport, Kathy Engel is a Professor at NYU and Patricia Spears Jones is the current New York State Poet Laureate. She read a poem about Sly Stone, so timely after his death I thought for sure she had just written it, but I noticed she was reading from one of her books. I took note of the cover. A few pieces later she read one about James Brown that had us applauding. It was from a different book. After the show I stood in line to buy one of her books. I told her I couldn’t decide whether to get the one with the James Brown piece or the one with the Sly piece. She said “buy them both.” I bought one and Bernie, who played guitar with us, bought the other. We plan to swap.

We listened to our Beach Boys singles over the weekend. Still have thirteen of them, some with Peggi’s teenage signature on them. And we finished that stack with one album track, “Surf’s Up.” They were so good. I have a shorter stack of Sly singles, about ten, on deck for tonight. Long live Brian and Sly.

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A few years back Frank DeBlase of City Newspaper wrote: “Margaret Explosion’s music paints pictures in my head non stop.” For Pete Monacelli our music puts words on paper. He sends us his verse after each gig. Here is something he wrote a few weeks back:

Start and stop
Feet on the ground
Song of creation
Floating atoms
Vast fires
Change, Change, Change

Open and close
Not terminal
universal
evolving
Feet on the ground
Change, Change, Change

A black hole
Consuming
Musical notes
To infinity
Feet on the ground
Change, Change, Change

Stir the water
Healing comes
Super nova
Explosion
New beginnings
Change, Change, Chang

Awake
Alive and well
Feet on the ground
Rest
Silence
Change, Change, Change

Desert
Between two rivers
Birth
And death
And birth
Change, Change, Change

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We had fun putting this one together. The footage is about twenty years old, shot in our basement for a song called “Super Slinky” from our “Live Dive” cd. We never got around to doing that video but thought it would fit “Ecstasy Club,” a rambunctious song from our newest cd, “Field Recordings.” The kids, some of our nieces and nephews, are all grown now. Margaret Explosion is still here. We play Wednesday at the Little.

I had never seen the Bop Shop as crowded as it was yesterday. I asked Tom Kohn if it had ever been this crowded and he said it was for the grand opening. The occasion was a book release for “Richard Manual: His Life and Music, from the Hawks and Bob Dylan to The Band” by Stephen Lewis, a local boy. Tom’s wife, Jann, was the editor. Tom said the pages were on their kitchen table for a year and a half.

Karen Mahoney’s husband works behind the counter at the Bop Shop and Bob Mahoney was there for the event. They both told slightly different stories about John Gilmore repeatedly calling our friend, Brad, and not getting any answer, then going there, spotting his car, banging on the door and not reaching Brad. Worried, they called the cops. Four cars responded. To do a so-called “Welfare Check” they needed to call all the local hospitals. No one by named Fox had been admitted so they jimmied the back door. According to Kim, Brad was sitting in his chair with the headphones on, listening to Captain Beefheart. He had turned his phone off because he didn’t want to be disturbed. According to Bob, Brad was listening to Frank Zappa. I like Kim’s version better.

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Last night’s gig was noteworthy for a few reasons. It was sort of quiet (nearly impossible to compete with the gorgeous weather and Lilac Festival.) Cello player Melissa was unable to make it. Ken bought an acoustic bass on eBay and brought that instead of his double bass. Relatively new neighbors, on the street down below, were there. They told us our band reminded them of music they heard in Morocco. My brother, Tim, was there, a rare sighting. And other than the one big table where the Monacelli’s were holding court. the room seemed to turn over at the break. All new faces to play to. The band always sounds better on quiet nights. People asked for an encore but Jack, bass clarinetist, said, “I’m done.”

At the end of the night Jen (pictured above) came up to say hello. Back in town, she reminded us she used to work in the café twenty years ago. We went down a long rabbit hole with her talking about people who used to work behind the counter.

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Slow Dance by Margaret Explosion from 2024 release “Field Recordings”

We took an Uber from Peggi’s sister’s house to Ameba in LA. We walked Hollywood Boulevard when we got there and grabbed another ride somewhere on Sunset. I held my iPad Mini’s camera up against the window and sampled the vibe on the Sunset Strip. I never expected to get the crying woman. Seven songs from “Field Recordings,” our newest release, now have videos. Seven remain.

Margaret Explosion plays Wednesday night at the Little Theatre Café – 7-9pm.

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I constructed playlists of my current favorite 45s (scratchy records) in two streaming services, Apple and Spotify. I subscribe to Apple Music and not to Spotify so there were a few hurdles. I had to download a Spotify desktop app in order to rearrange songs but every time I searched for a song Spotify was there to recommend another song based on patterns from other users likes. I didn’t take advantage of that this time, I was on a mission, but I can see how this would be great for constructing sets on the fly. Apple had every one of the songs I was looking for. Spotify could not come up with a copy of Edith Piaf’s “Sudan One Vallée.”

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PBS’s “We Want The Funk” was fantastic. They could have subtitled it “Give It Up for James Brown!” He was rightly featured in a full two thirds of the one and half show.

8-9 PM on Wednesday does not work for us. We’re usually watching soccer. So we catch up with “Magic Records,” our brother-in-law’s’ WAYO show, on Mixcloud. Blondie’s “Dreaming,” June Tyson’s a cappella “Astro Black” and Suicide’s “Rocket USA” sounded better than ever! We tuned in to Kevin Patrick’s WPKN show just in time for a live version of Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity” and listened all the way up to Dr John’s “Right Place Wrong Time.” Made plans with my neighbor to head leave for the HOG at 8:30 tomorrow for Record Store Day.

I think Margaret Explosion had a pretty good night last night. There were five of us there (last week was a just a trio) and Phil Marshall was in the crowd. The first set was a little messy but things began to gel in the second set. And there was a bunch of young people there who had never seen the band. So good to hear from them after the set. We met Nacelle from self-described krautrrock band Ellaar and streamed some of their songs on the way home. Particularily liked the song called “Kim Gordon.”

I had a short circuit in the first set, started a beat and then stoped before anyone else had come in. Peggi laughed and asked if I was all right. I didn’t like what I was playing so I stopped. Might have been an age related move. We’ll listen to the recording after we walk.

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Before you click on the video above notice the old downtown Rochester Public Library Building. It is still part of the library but a new, much larger building sits across the street from it now. The streams of water coming out of the building are old races, running off the Genesee River, left over from the days when Rochester was know as the Flour City because of the many mills. And the double decker bridge to the left used to carry the Erie Canal across the Genesee.

I raided Peggi’s hard drive for the footage in this video, her sweeping panoramas of river downtown, the beach in Costa Rica, the psychedelic swans and the guy playing bagpipes in the park. If anybody knows who that guy is I would like to credit him for his performance.

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