Fractures, Foibles and Fine, Fine Music (Books and Movies, too)
So yes, it has been awhile, hasn’t it? It has been over nine months in fact since my last installment: talk about your pregnant pauses. Continue reading
Category Archives: The Groovers’ Grotto
Michael Layne Heath is a longtime freelance music writer, put on the path by mags like CREEM and then the first wave of Punk fanzines, thus inspiring him to start what became Washington DC’s first zine to cover that exploding scene. More recently, he has written for ezines such as Perfect Sound Forever and Tangents UK (r.i.p.), in addition to the recently reconvened British music magazine Ptolemaic Terrascope (of Terrastock Festival fame). Mike has also contributed liner notes to a number of CD and vinyl reissues released on Bay Area record label Water Recordings/4 Men With Beards. If all that weren’t enough, he is a musician, a published poet, and has been involved in SF/F fandom for the past decade. Which is how he ended up in an auditorium in San Jose one humid night in ’02, amazed and amused by Tad Williams’ Hugo Awards toastmaster speech… and the rest is not quite history.
GROOVER’S GROTTO: In Honor of (At Least) A Thousand Awakening Dreams
It’s October 28th in San Francisco. I am wearing a black leather jacket around town today. Last night, I was made aware of the passing this weekend of Lou Reed. This is not a sartorial tribute, though; it gets way cold in SF at this time of year. Continue reading
I Should Have Brought Mananas
The following are the liner notes I was commished to pen for a brand new limited edition CD-R set featuring a rare American performance, recorded in San Francisco 1998, by the recently departed singer-songwriter extraordinaire (and famed connoisseur of vin-anything-but-ordinaire) Kevin Ayers. Continue reading
MIDSUMMER PUNK: A Work In Progress
What follows below is the first chapter of a novel I have had fermenting in my brainpan for some time. Provisionally titled Midsummer Punk, it’s based on the summer I struck out on my own, ending up in Los Angeles just as the Punk music scene there was beginning to assert itself. Continue reading
The Groover’s Grotto: A Brief, Pre-Labor Day Bit of Update
Hello all, and hope you’re as excited about Tad’s new, imminently launched Bobby Dollar series as I am. Meantime, your Grottomaster has been busy as well. Continue reading
The Groovers’ Grotto: Memory Boxes, Secret Histories and Music (Always Music)
To quote a favored, silly-serious culture hero of both your humble Grottomaster and Mr. Otherland himself : ‘life’s like that, isn’t it?’ Continue reading
The Groovers’ Grotto: A Fan’s Notes from a Season of Headfeeding
In which we catch up with M. L. Heath in his latest Grotto report: “…Through perseverance, talent and the odd bit of luck, I have managed to sink grapples and stakes into a section of the rockface of the Fourth Estate that I’ve hacked away at for…jeez, how long is it? Ages, eons…parsecs?” Continue reading
The 2nd Annual, Post-Xmas, Blue Light Special Shopping Guide
Well into the first month of a New Year, Your Reporter finds himself cold-sick and sniffling, having sacrificed yet another six dollar brolly to the rainswept side streets of Lower Pacific Heights; a being of relative penury and lack of … Continue reading
Hearing A New World: The Astral Projections of Joe Meek
In the words of Sly Stone, ‘heard ya missed me, well I’m back’: although, thankfully, my living situation is not of the four-wheeled, camper-van variety in which the profligate Mr. Stewart now unfortunately resides. What follows is my contribution to the mother of a fanzine that is the 300th issue of The Drink Tank. Continue reading
Being a Month of Busting Out (If Not Loose)
So then: yet another nabbed opportunity for your correspondent, to mark time before it marks his only occasionally sorry self. And have we ever charged, trucked, slumped and galumphed manfully along since our last installment: through the cruel into the … Continue reading
Only Partially Shameless Self-Promo: MLH Reading in San Francisco Next Week!
Just wanted to put up a brief note to alert all Bay Area readers of the Grotto to an event I’m involved in… You are invited to spend an evening at one of SF’s coolest recent additions to the performance … Continue reading
More Looks on Music Books (& A Savage Plea for Local Radio)
So then: another month (albeit on the short side); another year. Same old me mas o menos, still attempting entertaining proseology while succeeding at winnowing away at the compressed artifacts of past and present culture glutting ye olde Grotto. And … Continue reading
Lights On The Pine Tree and More Aftershave: Late Shoppers’ Blue-Light Special Edition
Yes, I know, been A While once again. What can I say? Time flies when you’re a fruitfly or, erm, something like that. Been doing a lot of reading, though. Just like Ringo in A Hard Day’s Night being upbraided … Continue reading
An Early Autumn Almanac
Wake up people, I know I have something to convey to you; it’s late September and I really should be doing a new installment from the Grotto. As skirmishes between the Sun King and the Fog Prince for meteorological dominion … Continue reading
Mustard and Catch Up
Yes, it has been a while, hasn’t it? Well, we here in the Grotto are not immune to the vagaries and trip-ups the world places before us. Thus it is necessary – imperative, really – to eke (eek!) out a … Continue reading