No sooner had the ink dried on my New Year's resolutions two weeks ago than I received a call from my old friend Rupert Murdoch. Seems Rupe's diversifying--wants to buy into a whole mess of disco acts, called me for advice. Lunched at Passim's, where I introduced him to a couple of friends who were in town, arranging appearances at nite spots around the Square. (He picked up the tab, and later bought Passims). Out on Mass Ave., he bought us a cab, and we drove downtown to Rupe's office in the recently-renamed Murdoch building. (The glass, Rupe reports, is firmly intact these days.)
Our confab was interrupted by an incessant stream of phone calls from down-at-the heels disco acts. "Hello, Mr. Murdoch, this is Gladys Knight." The voice was unmistakable. She was muttering something about her new solo effort--"Midnight Train to Canberra," I think she said--and how the Pips were a thing of the past. Rupe told her to forget music for the moment: "Honey, I've got bigger things planned for you...Ever hear of New West?"
Clay and the Felkers, Richard Reeves and the Vandellas, Candy and the Blue Skies, Bob Grossman and the Wailer--they kept calling all afternoon. Ol' Rupe the Benificient passed out concert dates--and editorial positions on disco publications like they were going were going out of style.
The upshot of it all? Well, look for some hot dots--featuring some of the above groups, and more, at Murdoch's Den here in Cambridge, at Rupert's Pier and the Murdoch Garden in Boston, and at Murdoch Stadium in Foxboro throughout the month of February. As for me, well, you won't have ol' Kern to kick around any more. Yep, I'll be penning syndicated rock reviews in the National Star, the Village Voice, New York, New West, People, The New York Post, The Saturday Evening Murdoch, and Popular Mechanics starting the ninth of February.
This town is about the dullest thing since Sydney. (Rupe says he likes my face may make me the anchorman of the Today show someday. Yep.) Later, Rich
Here are a few listings Rupert told me to toss your way: Tonight at 8 you got John Lincoln Wright and the Sour Mash Boys and Old Number 7 at the Rexicana Ballroom on Route 139 in Marshfield. To get to where the good ol' tunes are, you got to rev up the dune buggy, sport. (Tie your Kangaroo down first.)
An Evening of Folk Music, featuring your old favorites Joanne Bronfman (Seagram's heiress?) and Neal Macmillan will be presented at Myron's Coffee House in Maynard on January 21 at 8:30 pm. If you leave Marshfield right after the Sour Mash Boys finish their first set, you'll make it to Maynard just in time.
Reports of other concerts in the area are still filtering in--call me here at the What is To Be Done? penthouse offices (495-7890) in the Rupert Building, Cambridge (14 Plympton St.), for the latest updates. Later.
