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The latest articles on PleaseKillMe.com – music, art, culture, fashion, poetry and movies from the 60s through today. This Is What’s Cool!

LEE MILLER: THE PHOTOGRAPHER OUT ON A LIMB

Ingrid Marie Jensen·February 14, 2022

Lee Miller (1907-1977), from Poughkeepsie, led a full and adventurous life. Conde Nast sought her out as a model, Picasso painted her portrait, Jean Cocteau filmed her, Man Ray was enticed into teaching her photography, Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington...

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THE SKY DON’T HAVE NO ROOF: THE LAST ORNETTE COLEMAN INTERVIEW

John Kruth·February 10, 2022

Ornette Coleman (1930-2015), undoubtedly a great musician and composer who freed jazz from nearly all constrictions, was also a homespun philosopher. In the times he spent talking and playing with Coleman, John Kruth came to that latter conclusion. He also...

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KENNETH FEARING: NYC’S ORIGINAL ‘DRUNKEN POET’

Alan Bisbort·February 9, 2022

Kenneth Fearing, “the drunken poet,” was a rising star among the Greenwich Village bohos in the 1920s, his forlorn presence a model for ‘starving artists’ for three different novelists and as subject for one of Alice Neel’s greatest portrait paintings...

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BOOGALOO DOWN BROADWAY: WHEN FANIA RECORDS FUSED SOUL MUSIC WITH LATIN RHYTHMS AND MELODIES

Richie Unterberger·February 8, 2022

Fania Records is mostly known as a superpower of salsa, issuing records by some of salsa’s biggest names, including Rubén Blades, Celia Cruz, Willie Colón, and the Fania All-Stars. Yet between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, the label tapped into what...

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MY DAD IS DEAD: IMPECCABLE POST-PUNK ANGST STRAIGHT OUTTA CLEVELAND

Jordan Mamone·February 7, 2022

Cleveland native Mark Edwards threw down a startling gauntlet of bare bones words/music in 1986 called …And He’s Not Gonna Take It Anymore. Even more striking was the name the 23-year-old took for his one-man band—My Dad Is Dead—reflecting his...

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ON THE WAY TO PARADISE: MY TRAVELS WITH JOHN PRINE

John Kruth·February 3, 2022

John Prine hit the ground running with his debut album in 1971, a seamless masterpiece of what seemed like an entirely new genre of music—rocking folk country…what would become known perhaps as “Americana.” Every song on that album was an...

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TED JOANS: GOING FAR BEYOND ‘RENT-A-BEATNIK”

Alan Bisbort·February 2, 2022

Poet, musician, artist and avowed “surrealist” Ted Joans was, along with LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka), one of the few people of color associated with the Beat Generation. But, like Baraka, Ted Joans had much more going for him than...

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DECOUPAGE!: L.A. POST-PUNKS ON TV! SEALED WITH A KITSCH!

Tony Mostrom·February 1, 2022

In the late ’80s, L.A. performance artist and musician Craig Roose took his breezy, ‘60s-obsessed “drag” character “Miss Summer Caprice” to the airwaves, making “her” the star of his music and comedy cable TV show, Decoupage! With Summer Caprice! PKM’s Anthony...

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WHEN AIM MET THE SLA: STARRING DENNIS BANKS AND PATTY HEARST

Sandra Hale Schulman·January 31, 2022

Patty Hearst’s kidnapping riveted the nation like few others in the 1970s. Equally riveting, but far less covered, was the fate of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and its charismatic leader, Dennis Banks, on trial for his part in the...

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AL KOOPER REMEMBERS PART II

John Kruth·January 27, 2022

He was a participant in some of the great musical moments of the past half century, as musician, songwriter, singer, producer and collaborator extraordinaire. He’s also a great raconteur and in this segment, Al Kooper remembers the time he spent...

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AL KOOPER REMEMBERS, PART I

John Kruth·January 26, 2022

He was a participant in some of the great musical moments of the past half century, part of Bob Dylan’s band when he “went electric” at the ‘65 Newport Folk Festival, accompanist for Village folk ‘royalty’ (Joan Baez, Judy Collins,...

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GYPSY ROSE LEE: WOMAN OF MANY TALENTS

Erika Blair·January 25, 2022

Gypsy Rose Lee will forever be associated with Gypsy, the musical adapted from her own memoir by Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim. But there was so much more to Rose Louise Hovick than her (undeniable) talents as a...

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ANGUS MACLISE: THE PETE BEST OF THE PUNK GODFATHERS

Alan Bisbort·January 24, 2022

Angus MacLise (1938-1979) was, as the Velvet Underground’s original drummer, an essential element of their early free-form sound, particularly on songs like “Heroin,” “Venus in Furs” and “Black Angel’s Death Song”. Because he left the band before they released an...

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THE MYSTERIOUS BARD: PETE BROWN’S JOURNEY FROM THE BEATS TO CREAM

John Kruth·January 20, 2022

Before Beatlemania and the British Invasion, Pete Brown was one of the UK’s few professional poets who made a living performing verse, alongside Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. From there, he toured with a backing band that included...

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Jack Kerouac based his muse/lover “Mardou Fox” in The Subterraneans on Alene Lee, a mixed race (Black/Cherokee) bohemian writer and intellectual who was a part of the NYC Beat circle of Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lucien Carr. Despite her intimate connection to these writers, the real Alene Lee is nowhere to be found in most accounts and biographies—partly due to her own reticence to speak. Erika Blair did some digging and presents a more rounded portrait of this fascinating woman. Read more!

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SAM CUTLER: LIFE WITH THE STONES, THE DEAD & OTHER WONDERFUL REPROBATES

ALL THE RAJ: HOW ‘NORWEGIAN WOOD’ UNLEASHED THE ‘INDIAN INVASION’

THE KNACK … AND HOW TO GET IT: AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESCOTT NILES

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PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF PKM FOR 2021, PART II

UTOPIA PARKWAY: THE ENDURING MYSTERY OF JOSEPH CORNELL

RUTH UNDERWOOD: A MOTHER OF INVENTION

THE MURDER OF ALFALFA

THE TORTURED CHILDREN OF LAURENCE “THE KING OF BOHEMIA” VAIL

THE LONESOME DEATH OF DANNY RAPP: THE FRONT MAN FOR DANNY & THE JUNIORS

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LEE MILLER: THE PHOTOGRAPHER OUT ON A LIMB

THE SKY DON’T HAVE NO ROOF: THE LAST ORNETTE COLEMAN INTERVIEW

KENNETH FEARING: NYC’S ORIGINAL ‘DRUNKEN POET’

BOOGALOO DOWN BROADWAY: WHEN FANIA RECORDS FUSED SOUL MUSIC WITH LATIN RHYTHMS AND MELODIES

MY DAD IS DEAD: IMPECCABLE POST-PUNK ANGST STRAIGHT OUTTA CLEVELAND

ON THE WAY TO PARADISE: MY TRAVELS WITH JOHN PRINE

TED JOANS: GOING FAR BEYOND ‘RENT-A-BEATNIK”

DECOUPAGE!: L.A. POST-PUNKS ON TV! SEALED WITH A KITSCH!

WHEN AIM MET THE SLA: STARRING DENNIS BANKS AND PATTY HEARST

AL KOOPER REMEMBERS PART II

AL KOOPER REMEMBERS, PART I

GYPSY ROSE LEE: WOMAN OF MANY TALENTS

ANGUS MACLISE: THE PETE BEST OF THE PUNK GODFATHERS

THE MYSTERIOUS BARD: PETE BROWN’S JOURNEY FROM THE BEATS TO CREAM

SAM CUTLER: LIFE WITH THE STONES, THE DEAD & OTHER WONDERFUL REPROBATES

ALL THE RAJ: HOW ‘NORWEGIAN WOOD’ UNLEASHED THE ‘INDIAN INVASION’

THE KNACK … AND HOW TO GET IT: AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESCOTT NILES

POLY STYRENE: BREAKING DOWN THE BONDAGE

WE NEVER LEARN: GUNK PUNK IN THE 1990S