Words will never describe how much I despise Sam Phillips.
How he manipulated the artists who were signed to Sun. That his words, no matter how wrong, were upheld by music writers and are still echoed today.
How he carried himself as if he were some sort of God, and how fans Sun history speak of him as though he was.
That the artists signed to Sun, like Carl, John, Roy, and Jerry Lee, speaking well of him is as a justification. They said, they owe everything to him, so he mustn’t be allthat bad. Yet they’ll overlook the power dynamic he had with them. Him being the adult in the room, having the money, and control that boarded on abuse.
It’s embarrassing that anyone would defend Sam. Turn the tables, as he would. Bring up things the artists signed to Sun did, to justify his mistreatment of them. It’s always gross when people choose to defend an abuser.
What I truly hate Sam for is what he’s cultivated. He knew, standing on his failed ventures, the renewed interest for Sun artists was his chance. At forging a new legacy for himself. The grandiose delusion that pressing a record button made him better than everyone. Including the person, who’s talents he was recording. The lie he cultivated, his legacy, that’s well and thriving to this day.
I posted their Pokémon teams before on here, but here’s an updated version! With their Pokémon backstories, mixed with the public details of their lives.
Carl never planned on becoming a gym leader, let alone the mayor of his town. He’d had a troubled childhood. The effects of which endured, even when fulfilling his dream of becoming a musician. After an encounter with a legendary Pokémon, his new dream became to help others. He founded a center for abused Pokémon and children, a safe place for both to heal. It also has programs for adults, activities for older kids, and a school for younger kids. His center became a hub for the town’s community.
Due to the many positions he holds, he’s a busy man. He’s usually away from the gym, still performing or traveling to better the center. His wife and children run the center and fight trainers who want a gym badge, in his place. He never specialized or favored types, instead, he preferred befriending Pokémon over catching. In becoming a gym leader, he had noticed (though he should’ve years ago), how Normal types are drawn to him. To round out his team, John gifted his shiny Ambipom to him. While Carl looks mean, he’s a big softy and loves Pokémon and kids, and can be very protective of both.
Jerry Lee loved Bug and Fire-types as a kid. Since he saw them as being the best types of Pokémon in the world, as an adult, he stuck to them. Like Carl, he dreamed of becoming a musician. That changed to beat Elvis Presley and become the new Champion. He was so arrogant about how good of a trainer he was, those who didn’t believe him wanted to test him. Every night, at the nightclub he played, “Suga’s Hideaway,” a new opponent challenged him. He became “the infamous Ferriday Fireball,” in this case, infamous for fighting dirty. He’d get into physical fights with trainers, and his microphone stand didn’t discriminate. A decade and the Pokémon Association offered him an official gym. He was reluctant to accept, TV Producer Jack Good, encouraged him to at least try it out.
The Gym, still a nightclub, became “The Fireball Lounge.” It had a stage with a piano that doubled as a battlefield, which saw little use. Having a bad habit of not being at his gym, the challenger would seek him. He’d be at his house, with a piano-shaped battlefield in his backyard. Another bad habit was having other Pokémon besides Bug and Fire-types on his team. These bad habits got him in trouble with the PA, but as long as a trainer got their badge, all was well. When he retired, he gave his gym to his children. Though they’d fight each other, more than the trainers, over who the leader was. Even in old age, there are many a soul who wants to battle him and he obliges, with a team of random types.
Roy, an expert of all elemental types. His interest in learning began when he lived in his hometown, Wink. He didn’t have any friends. The kids at school picked on him for how he looked, so he kept to himself. He spent his time playing guitar, reading and befriending wild Pokemon. It’s no wonder that his fondness for Ground, Dark, Psychic, and Steel types came from loneliness. With unwavering determination, he dedicated everything to his research, music, and Pokemon. He became the first gym leader of Wink, with a Ground-type team, the fourth out of eight gyms. Not long after, the PA promoted him to the eighth and final gym, a trainer would face.
Out of all the elemental teams he’d have, Steel was his favorite. He’d say, “Steel-types are sharp, yes. They can hurt you if you aren’t careful but they aren’t cold or unfeeling as some would think.” Years later, he’d become the first outta four, in the Elite Four, with a Dark-type team. Then the new champion, with a Psychic/Fairy team. All while keeping a tight touring schedule. Though he accomplished everything he set out to do, he missed time with his family, which he wasn’t proud of. He’d retire from his position as Champion, though not from battling.
John, like his dear friends, hadn’t planned to become a gym leader. He led a tumultuous life, at one of the more peaceful lulls, he took to spelunking. In a cave, he found an Aerodactyl fossil, thus the beginning of his search for ancient Pokemon. From one of his travels, he brought a revived Kabuto home, it didn’t adjust well to his Lakeside home. The cave, where his fossil craze started, flooded. It was a perfect home for Kabuto and later his other revived fossil Pokemon, that prefer the dark.
The rowdier ones needed regular battles, word spread, he was willing to battle anyone with them. Back then, no one had seen such prehistoric Pokemon. The PA offered to make him a gym leader. He had a fondness for Water-types, the first he caught was while fishing, a Magikarp. Back then it was bigger than him, then he outgrew it, then it evolved into Gyarados. To keep with the fossil theme, he made a Water/Rock team. His gym would be at the mouth of the cave, adding moss and trees. He’d explain, “plants produce oxygen, and you need that down here.” His gym was also a Fossil Pokemon Sanctuary and remained so after his retirement. Those wishing to battle him have to travel to a faraway region, he welcomes all challengers.
In June 2016, this song reminded me of the four and I made a gifset on Tumblr of it. I’d make lyric posts/gifs, couldn’t tell if anyone understood what I was going for? So, I decided to make it into an edit. I always wanted to improve it, this is the start of a longer version I wanna make.
This book features brief poems and accompanying illustrations that are all linocuts by artist Marvin Hill. Hill lived in Milwaukee and later in Johnson Creek, WI with his wife, Wendy, until his passing in 2003. Wendy carried on Hill’s legacy, continuing to print his works for many years—some are still available on their website. I found a nice piece about Hill and his work written by journalist Kevin Lynch.
What’s impressive to me is that all of the text for this book was done as linocuts! There are a lot of really nice details in the book, like how the bullet holes on the cover line up with the exit holes on the back. I love the bright orange used for the title page and again for the background of the linocut of a rhinoceros.
Little Bullets was published in 1992 by Barefoot Press, which remains a green printer in Raleigh, North Carolina, and apparently in association with Stone Axe Press of Milwaukee, WI, which was housed at 2720 N. Fratney St. in the Riverwest neighborhood. The penultimate page of the book has a linocut of two figures, one with a guitar and the other with a brayer, chasing a bison and says “M. Hill and J. Kruth currently pursue the bison of happiness through Milwaukee.”
I hope this book finds you pursuing your own bison of happiness.
Jeff Lynne fanboying over Roy Orbison - a collection
“I’d never met Roy, but that was my dream, to meet Roy Orbison — and to be in a group with him was just ridiculous. I couldn’t possibly believe that.” - Billboard, 2018
“Getting Roy Orbison in the studio, it was just magic to me….I got the privilege of recording his voice, which to me, has always been the greatest thing ever.” - Billboard, 2018
“Roy Orbison — what a lovely man, one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known, just a real sweetheart.” - Billboard, 2018
“[Roy] was such a brilliant singer, and a lovely guy. I had all the time in the world for Roy. My favorite thing of all was being pals with Roy Orbison.” - Billboard, 2018
“[Roy] was such a big hero to me. I used to listen to him for hours and hours as a kid….He was a beautiful guy, as well as the best singer I’ve ever heard.” - RollingStone, 2016
“I loved Roy, he was like my favorite guy ever….I got to be his pal. We were pals for about a year back in the Wilburys and making his album. It was just the most wonderful time because he’d always been my idol, and to become pals with him and have him be such a smashing, really lovely guy. And what a voice.” - Tidal, 2015
Performed by The Traveling Wilburys Written by Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, George Harrison and Roy Orbison
Getting ready for school one morning during 8th grade, we happened to turn on the TV and find this video. Both of my parents and I watched, not sure what we were seeing. “That’s Tom Petty, right?” “That one is George Harrison.” “That’s Roy Orbison in that picture by the rocking chair.”
So, who the hell were these guys? The name at the end of the video called them The Traveling Wilburys. They were playing this from a train car, the drumbeat akin to the sound of a train rolling down the tracks. There were four guys playing guitar (“Is that Dylan?” “I think so, but who’s the hairy dude?”). Jim Keltner, the famed session drummer (“I have no idea who that guy drumming is.”), sat with a snare and tambourine, moving it along with a good pace.
The experience of this “supergroup” was just… Fun. And the stories they tell about putting this together are one of those “damn, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall” tales. If only for the potential tales of debauchery… I mean, you’ve got a former Beatle, the poet Dylan, Orbison telling stories of Sun Records (Elvis and Johnny Cash era), Jeff Lynne and whatever craziness happened during the rise of ELO, and Tom Petty, who’d been in the business barely ten years, soaking it all in.
I only managed to catch this a few times over the next few years, but I enjoyed it enough that when a way to acquire music for free from a peer-to-peer file sharing system came about, it was one of the first songs I downloaded.
Lyrics:
Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please Well it’s all right, doing the best you can Well it’s all right, as long as you lend a hand
You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring (End of the Line) Waiting for someone to tell you everything (End of the Line) Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring (End of the Line) Maybe a diamond ring
Well it’s all right, even if they say you’re wrong Well it’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong Well it’s all right, As long as you got somewhere to lay Well it’s all right, everyday is Judgment Day
Maybe somewhere down the road aways (End of the Line) You’ll think of me, wonder where I am these days (End of the Line) Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays (End of the Line) Purple Haze
Well it’s all right, even when push comes to shove Well it’s all right, if you got someone to love Well it’s all right, everything’ll work out fine Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line
Don’t have to be ashamed of the car I drive (End of the Line) I’m glad to be here, happy to be alive (End of the Line) It don’t matter if you’re by my side (End of the Line) I’m satisfied
Well it’s all right, even if you’re old and gray Well it’s all right, you still got something to say Well it’s all right, remember to live and let live Well it’s all right, the best you can do is forgive
Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please Well it’s all right, even if the sun don’t shine Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line
A web of admiration held [The Traveling Wilburys] together. Lynne and Petty were enamored of Harrison, just as they were raised in a world where Bob Dylan mattered to everyone. But no one was a bigger fan of Dylan than George Harrison. And every Wilbury looked to Roy Orbison with a kind of reverence. Orbison, for his part, understood that he’d just been invited to the hippest party in town. Every member was getting something. The spirit of the project was as light as the quality was rich, and it caught the public off guard, its humor in the foreground and little trace of pomp. It was a big hit, without a trace of the desperation that so often pushed records up the charts. Then, two months after the album’s release, Roy Orbison died. Harrison called Petty as soon as the news came to him. “Aren’t you glad it wasn’t you?” he asked Petty.
“Here’s the thing,” says Olivia Harrison. “George would skip all the small talk. ‘Did you hear about Roy? Oh, isn’t this terrible?’ They knew all that. They had a shorthand. They didn’t have to have the initial five-minute conversation. Eventually, they’d get to, 'Aren’t we lucky to be here?’ That’s what George’s comment meant. Life is fragile. George used to say, 'In a moment, everything changes.’”
