Another Banana Review and...

My first mention on allmusic.com! First, here is a review courtesy of musoscribe.com:

Tiny Tim - I've Never Seen a Straight Banana (Collectors' Choice)
Forget whatever you think you know about Tiny Tim. His cartoonish persona distracted from the fact that he was in fact a great musical archivist, a preserver of some of America's lost music. "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" is the beginning and end of most listeners' musical knowledge of the man born Herbert Khaury, but there's much more to him than that hit number.

A teenage Richard Barone -- years before his success leading 80s pop group the Bongos -- knew of and appreciated the work of Tiny Tim. As the story goes, in 1976 Barone and two female friends traveled to the local TraveLodge motel in Tampa Florida (February 29th, as Tiny Tim documents on a tape made that day) hoping to see Tim, who was -- oddly enough -- scheduled to play a gig there.

The under-age trio couldn't gain admission to the show, so they listened as best they could from the lobby. At the show's end, the performer came through the lobby, spied the teens and asked them how they liked the show. When they explained they didn't see it, he invited them back to his motel room for an impromptu and private performance.

Yeah, everyone to whom I've related this tale gives me a strange look: you mean he took those kids back to his room? Yikes. But there's no bizarre denouement to this story. Well, maybe there is: Barone recorded the motel session. And then this teenager actually convinced Tiny Tim to let him record an album's worth of material in a proper studio.

Tiny Tim and Richard Barone It's those two sources -- the 1980 studio session and a brief excerpt from the motel "audition" -- from which I've Never Seen a Straight Banana is compiled. The young Barone did a stellar job of producing a clean yet audio verite document of Tiny Tim when he was still at the peak of his creative powers.

Filled with brief and oddly endearing tunes, I've Never Seen a Straight Banana features Tiny Tim -- usually solo but occasionally backed by sympathetic violin and other instruments -- pulls an assortment of long-lost ancient tunes out of his mental grab-bag. And like any good archivist, he introduces each with a brief, illuminating and offen witty and off-kilter introduction. Tiny Tim's official biographer Justin A. Martell characterizes the man as "a performer of tremendous caliber and substance, but also a walking encyclopedia of popular songs spanning from the early 1800s to the year of his passing." Tiny Tim regales his audience (the kids in the motel, then the kid and fellow musicians in the studio) with back-stories for each of the songs.

A natural performer on his trademark left-handed ukulele, Tiny Tim ran through his vaudeville-styled repertoire with aplomb. His stories about some of his favorite personalities -- all of whom he refers to in formal terms, such as Mr. Dylan and Miss Tuesday Weld -- are a delight. One comes away from hearing this album wondering if perhaps Tiny Tim wasn't nearly as strange as he seemed. His persona was a two-edged sword: it got him noticed, but it may have also made him a novelty, kept from being taken seriously as an archivist along the lines of Alan Lomax. I mean, where else would you hear what Tiny Tim calls the "very first song that was ever recorded for the phonograph"? The story/medley "Tiny Meets Dylan" is delightful, and features Tiny Tim doing a spot-on piss-take impression of Dylan.

And as far as alleged creepiness, Tiny Tim's cover of "When They're Old Enough to Know Better (It's Better to Leave Them Alone)" suggests that Eddie Cantor was something of a creep himself. Tiny Tim himself was in actuality a pretty square and traditional guy, with all that that implies. But his outsider music status belied his deep, abiding love, knowledge and understanding of the American songbook. I've Never Seen a Straight Banana is a heretofore unheard document of this vastly misunderstood and underrated performer.

Give this disc a try; its charms will pry your heart open. And if you like it, note that the disc's subtitle is Rare Moments, Volume 1. Maybe there's more to this story...?

Original Article

And here is the real goodie...allmusic.com gave "I've Never Seen a Straight Banana" four stars and added the following review to Tiny's discography:

In 1976, 45-year-old Tiny Tim, who had charmed and amused a nation in the late 1960s with his ukulele and his falsetto renditions of Tin Pan Alley oldies like his signature song, "Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips with Me," had been without a record deal for five years and was reduced to playing venues such as the TraveLodge in Tampa, FL. There, a 16-year-old fan and aspiring musician named Richard Barone tried to get in to see him, but was barred due to his youth. Nevertheless, when Tiny Tim encountered his young admirer in the lobby, he obligingly agreed to put on a private concert for Barone and two friends in his motel room. Barone brought a tape recorder and later convinced Tiny Tim to hold a follow-up session in a local recording studio. Now, fast-forward 33 years, and Barone, a former member of the Bongos and an established solo artist, has cleaned up the tapes and added instrumental and vocal overdubs on several tracks to create I've Never Seen a Straight Banana: Rare Moments, Vol. 1, enlisting the research and annotation support of Tiny Tim biographer Justin A. Martell. Barone and Martell take a different view of Tiny Tim from the one audiences did in the '60s, a view that may be easier to appreciate in the early 21st century than it was earlier. Rather than considering the singer simply a bizarre comedy act, they see him as a musical historian of the acoustic era of recording (i.e., from Edison's invention of the phonograph up to the introduction of the electrical microphone in the mid-'20s). At the time Tiny Tim earned national exposure, the stars of that era, such as Henry Burr, Arthur Collins, Byron G. Harlan, and Billy Murray, were long forgotten, making his renditions of their songs, sometimes performed in impersonations of their voices, so unfamiliar as to seem like a joke. But scholarship and CD compilations have made them more available, and on this album, with Tiny Tim singing whatever he wants, his invocations of them make more sense. He also ranges up to the '20s and the work of slightly better remembered figures like Eddie Cantor and Rudy Vallée, and even includes some of his own compositions, in the style of the Tin Pan Alley era but touching on such subjects as his admiration for the '60s starlet Tuesday Weld. Certainly, the novelty aspect of Tiny Tim is still here. His effeminate manner and tendency to warble in a vibrato-laden falsetto remain, making his overall effect humorous, especially when he introduces Vallée to Bob Dylan in a medley that combines their signature songs "Vagabond Lover" and "Like a Rolling Stone." But Barone and Martell succeed in reclaiming Tiny Tim as an exuberant performer whose love for a lost period of American popular music is at least as notable as his own ingenuous strangeness.

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More Bananas...

Courtesy of HITS Daily Double...

7. Tiny Tim, I’ve Never Seen a Straight Banana -- Rare Moments: Volume 1 (Collector’s Choice Music): The Bongos’ Richard Barone wrote in his recent autobiography, Frontman: Surviving the Rock Star Myth, of hanging with Tiny Tim in his TraveLodge motel room back in 1976 as a Tampa teenager after a show, taping an impromptu performancet, most of which makes up this labor of love. Often dismissed as a novelty artist, a one-hit wonder or a stone (not stoned) freak, Herbert Khaury was actually a deft ukulele player, encyclopedic musicologist and devoted archivist with a specific interest in the early 20th century popular songbook,. His’68 Reprise debut, God Bless Tiny Tim, was produced by Richard Perry, yielding the sensation, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips," which turned him into a mass cult figure, not to mention the butt of a million jokes, overnight. By 1969, Tim was a genuine pop star, a regular on Laugh-In, with his marriage to Miss Vicki on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show drawing a then-record 40 million viewers. In his latter years, he was always a most entertaining guest on Howard Stern’s show, revealing with good-natured candor his obsessional cleanliness, including a predilection for adult diapers, baby wipes and taking four to five showers a day. These recordings are definitely the best representation of Tiny’s diverse persona. The title track, which could have been the falsetto sequel to his biggest hit, incoproates Terre Roche, rock journo Anthony DeCurtis and his biographer Justin Martell, among others, in its overdubbed chorus, a thematic nod to Tiny’s life-long search for the inattainable, nodding to the past by lovingly creating it in the present for the future. A master of many different vocal guises, Tiny does black dialect in the Arthur Collins “Coon song,” “No One Loves a Man,"; demonstrates to Dylan—a Tim admirer—how Rudy Vallee would’ve covered “Like a Rolling Stone"; imitates Bob performing the 1927 chestnut, “My Time is Your Time"; then puts on his exagerrated, old man “grandpa” voice for the 1907 standard, “School Days,” which he once performed in character on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1968 to a puzzled audience expecting “Tulips.” The liner notes note that it was Tiny’s attempt to recreate the style of toothless 19th century crooner Bryon G. Harlan. An avid fan of movies and Hollywood gossip magazines, Tiny introduces the touching “Dear Tuesday,” his 1960 ode to Tuesday Weld, with an anecdote about Mr. Warren Beatty arranging for him to perform the song for the actress in 1968. A lovely violin line which snakes in and around the vocal, recorded earlier this year by Barone with Deni Bonet, adds the requisite tug of the heart strings. “I feel the spirits of all these souls coming into my heart right now,” he says, introducing his cover of “I Found You,” originally recorded by best-selling Victor Records recording arrist Henry Burr in 1916. By the time you get to the album-ending “When They’re Old Enough to Know Better (It’s Better to Leave Them Alone),” his ukulele-strumming homage to Eddie Cantor, one begins to understand not only how misunderstood, but how underrated, Tiny Tim really was as one of the most distinctive, instantly identifiable voices in pop history. With a new appreciation of camp and nostalgia in vogue, what better time for an aesthetic reassessment/ resurrection, and this lovingly produced album by Barone is a great place to start.

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Some More Tiny Tim Press...

Courtesy of Dirty Linen: The Magazine of Folk and World Music...

Tiny Tim’s 1976 Recordings to be Released!

NEW YORK, N.Y. ­ In 1976, at the age of 16, Richard Barone ­ known for his acclaimed solo albums, fronting the ‘80s pop trio the Bongos, and authoring Frontman: Surviving the Rock Star Myth ­ produced an album for the late Tiny Tim. As a high-school student in Tampa, Barone happened to notice an ad announcing that the artist would be appearing at a roadside TraveLodge on the edge of town and, lacking over-21 IDs, listened from the lobby with two friends. Suddenly the bar door opened and there, clutching his ukulele in one hand and his ever-present shopping bag in the other, stood Tiny Tim. A hotel-room concert for an audience of three ensued, and before you knew it, 16-year-old Barone had booked a ramshackle studio on the edge of Tampa and an album was made. The tapes sat on the shelf, unreleased, for 33 years as Barone pursued other projects ­ which have included sold-out concert events at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, as well as collaborations with artists ranging from Moby to Liza Minnelli.

Finally, these remarkable recordings will be released as the album I’ve Never Seen a Straight Banana: Rare Moments, Vol. 1 on Collectors’ Choice Music on October 20, 2009. The set will include liner notes not only by Barone but also Tiny Tim’s official biographer, Justin A. Martell.

Martell calls Tim “a performer of tremendous caliber and substance, but also a walking encyclopedia of popular songs spanning from the early 1800s to the year of his passing.” He further notes that while best known for his hit cover version of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” his Reprise albums and his wedding to Miss Vicki on the Tonight Show, “a completely unknown 16-year-old boy from Tampa, Fla., saw what [others] could not: a serious artist.”

Barone’s resolute wish of having Tim play exactly what he wanted to “opened the door to getting the best possible and most sincere performances from Tiny Tim. The songs presented are unique in that the majority of them were either rarely or never performed by Tiny Tim elsewhere.”

The album takes listeners through the earliest Edison cylinders all the way through songs by Eddie Cantor (“When They’re Old Enough To Know Better (“It’s Better To Leave Them Alone”), Rudy Vallee (“Vagabond Lover”) and other early 20th century performers up through Bob Dylan (“Like a Rolling Stone”) and a few Tiny Tim compositions like “The Space Ship Song” (the Australian B-side of his 1971 duet with Miss Vicki and of his last Reprise single “Why”), “Dear Tuesday” (a paean to Ms. Weld) and the opening track whose title says it all: “Prelude (What Strange God Designed Me?)” ­ 17 tracks in all.

The album derives its title from the centerpiece track “I’ve Never Seen a Straight Banana,” whose lyrics were penned in 1926 by Ted Waite. The song was released in various versions throughout the ’20s, written in England and sold to Irving Berlin Music in America. According to Barone, “As fun a song as ‘I’ve Never Seen a Straight Banana’ is, it has an underlying meaning that escaped me as a teenager but is now clear: The search ­ not only for the unattainable but the virtually unfindable. In a way, that was Tiny’s lifelong quest: The search for perfect beauty. For the perfect showbiz stunt. The perfect song. It was perhaps this eternal search that made him one of the most unique and intriguing popular artists of the 20th century.”

While beginning to write his liner notes, Barone spoke with Rolling Stone senior editor Anthony DeCurtis, inviting him to the “Banana” overdub session/party. Echoing Barone’s own sentiments, DeCurtis said, “Strangely (this) seems so right now.”

“What an honor to spend time in his presence,” says Barone in closing. “God Bless Tiny Tim!”

Submitted by Conqueroo

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Charlie Sheen, I Have Your Back!

by Justin Martell

On September 10th, 2009, Meghan McCain appeared on ABC's The View. During her appearance, the conversation was steered, by Whoopi Goldberg, to the impending anniversary of the attacks:

"So tomorrow is the eight anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks," said Goldberg, "and the conspiracy theories are as strong as ever. There are Internet sites, movies, and celebrities that are convinced that the government was complicit in the attacks. Is this ever going to change? I mean, conspiracy theories have always been around, but this seems a little much with all the information that we have."

With Elizabeth Hassleback absent, Meghan McCain served as an appropriate stand in. "Charlie Sheen is the latest celebrity to talk about how he doesn't believe in 9/11," she said. "I quoted Charlie Sheen yesterday about his experience with prostitutes, so really you're the one I should be listening to about 9/11?"

Where's Rosie O'Donnell when you need her?

Well, Meghan, do you think that your father is a more credible source? It was he who, in the days following 9/11, appeared on CNN and was asked what countries should be subject to retaliation, “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he replied. Why would you trust someone who promoted the idea of a connection between Iraq and 9/11, something that was also promoted by the Bush Administration even though it was known not to be true from very early on? McCain also said that “the evidence is clear,” and there are “credible reports of involvement between Iraqi administration officials, Iraqi officials and the terrorists.” Additionally, he supported the fictitious claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. He was obviously eager to go into Iraq and support the PNAC agenda of regime change, regardless of whether or not Saddam was a threat or possessed weapons of mass destruction. On January 2, 2002 he would tell US troops on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, “Next stop, Baghdad!”

Also, according to an article published by Daniel Hopsicker on February 27th, 2008, a custom 727 that chauffeured your father to campaign events approximately four times during the 2000 election, was the same plane that was used to fly members of the Saudi royal family from Las Vegas to London in the wake of 9/11. What you should find even more interesting about that plane, considering you were so concerned with Charlie Sheen's alleged philandering with prostitutes, is the fact that the woman who arranged your father's flights on that plane was none other than Vicki Iseman. Remember, your father's lobbyist "friend?"

The point being, Sheen and the prostitutes and your father and Iseman are irrelevant (actually only partly, considering Iseman's connection to the company that, in addition to facilitating your father's campaign stops, also facilitated the Saudi exodus. However, that can be pushed aside for the time being). This is supposed to be a debate of facts, not a debate about who, between Sheen and your father, is more of a sexual deviant.

Now, this is where the waters get a bit murky. I'm not entirely sure if you remember, but you and I spent time together, and had a conversation that I chose to keep private until now, because we were not on the record. However, I am compelled to share this given your recent statements:

On Sunday, November 18th, 2007, the Straight Talk Express paid a visit to my alma mater, Franklin Pierce University. While there, the senator filmed a television commercial in our television studio, and then addressed members of the student body and the community in Pierce Hall.

During his speech, and this is old news, he was questioned by a member of my former organization Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth:



During this time, however, I was supposed to be a member of the video crew that was running the three-camera shoot of the event. However, while backstage I became distracted when you appeared, and struck up a conversation with myself and my friend Eric Jackman.

"What is your main issue?" you asked.

I replied that my main issue was a new investigation into 9/11 and supporting the victims' family members.

"I understand, because I went to school in New York City," you said. "A lot of the people I went to school with had the same concerns."

Prior to the event I had pinned on my shirt a black,1/4 inch, button with an image of a white ribbon reading: "9/11 Truth Now." Later, in our conversation I took the button off and handed it to you. I was surprised when you took it and stuck it to you lapel as you were on your way back to the straight talk express.

"Don't let your father see that!" I joked.

I am not trying to insinuate that you endorse Charlie Sheen's views on 9/11, but our conversation, proves that you, at least, know that Charlie Sheen doesn't not "believe in 9/11." You are fully aware of the issues that he is raising.

On the Alex Jones Show Friday, Charlie Sheen challenged all of his critics, including you, Miss McCain. Be intellectually honest and challenge Sheen on the points he made in this piece.

P.S. Please don't forget our meeting. Here are some photos to jog your memory:

Norwich Bulletin: Part Two

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Newsmaker of the Day: Recent grad helms video project on Norwich Mayoral Candidates

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Justin Martell

By MICHAEL GANNON

Norwich Bulletin

Posted Aug 28, 2009 @ 11:21 PM

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Norwich, Conn. —

In the news: Justin Martell, 22, served as project coordinator for “Candid with the Candidates,” a documentary short with mayoral candidates in Norwich speaking on youth and teen-related issues.

Background: A Norwich native, Martell lives in Taftville. He graduated in May from Franklin Pierce University in Jaffrey, N.H., with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication with a concentration on production and journalism.

Interests: “With my interest in politics, I enjoyed New Hampshire’s role in the (2008) primaries,” he said. “I actually worked on the Mike Gravel campaign.”

“Candid with the Candidates:” Pat Dixe, a coordinator with Norwich Youth and Family Services, was looking for someone who could run the video project for the Summer Youth Employment program. Lee-Ann Gomes, supervisor of social work with the city, recommended Martell. “I’ve known Lee-Ann Gomes since I was 4,” he said. “Pat liked what she saw and I was put in charge.”

Career goals: Martell said he is trying to get money to turn “Dark Window,” a horror film he worked on with college friends, into a feature film. He also is working on a biography of the late entertainer Tiny Tim.

Quotable: “I’d just like to be successful on film projects, journalism or both,” he said.

Orginal Article

Dark Windows Theatrical Trailer

The last one...seriously:

I Made the Norwich Bulletin Today!

This summer I was the project leader for a film project commissioned by the City of Norwich, CT. I worked with five great high schools students and helped them produce a video which was premiered yesterday.

Teens produce film featuring Norwich mayoral candidates
By MICHAEL GANNON
Norwich Bulletin
Posted Aug 24, 2009 @ 11:14 PM

Norwich, Conn. — Three of Norwich’s mayoral candidates were ready for their close-ups on Monday with the debut of a documentary that featured campaign issues, and gave students an opportunity for summer jobs in the moviemaking process.

“Candid with the Candidates” debuted at the Rose City Senior Center. It lacked the red carpet and Ryan Seacrest, but it did have more than 40 people, including the candidates, city officials and the teens who put it together.

It featured interviews with Democrat Mark Bettencourt, Republican Peter Nystrom and Norwich for Change candidate Bob Zarnetske answering questions on education, drugs and alcohol, teen pregnancy, suicide and domestic violence. Independent candidate Joseph Radecki did not respond to their requests for an interview.

Six teenagers under the direction of Norwich resident Justin Martell, 22, wrote, directed, shot and edited the 25-minute video, interspersing answers from all three candidates on the issues. The six-week project was paid for with federal stimulus dollars under the region’s Summer Youth Employment Program, supervised by the city’s Department of Human Services.

“It was a work-and-learn project,” said Pat Dixe, program coordinator for Norwich’s Youth and Family Services office.The students were paid $8 an hour under the program, which this summer has employed 124 children in Norwich and more than 600 in the region.

“I love being involved with issues,” said Coree DeShields, 14, of Norwich, who will enter Norwich Free Academy next week. She is one of two writer-directors on the project, and served as narrator. “I loved the writing,” she said.

Teresa Rendon-Wagner, 16, of Norwich studies graphics at Norwich Technical High School. But as producer, she was responsible for a lot more than graphics.“I had to call all the candidates, make sure everyone showed up at the right place, make sure we had all our equipment,” she said. “It was my first paying job. I loved it.”

The interviews will air on local cable television in mid-September.

They said it - Here’s what the candidates had to say about “Candid with the Candidates”:

“They did a wonderful job.”
— Mark Bettencourt

“I was wondering how they were going to put it together, and they did a
nice job.”
— Peter Nystrom

“They were very professional.”
— Bob Zarnetske

Original Article