Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Pink pistola found after bloody shooting shocks Bel Air barrio

I was waiting for my burrito from Arturo's BBQ in the parking lot of the former Bel Air Foods on Roscomare Road in Bel Air Monday when a groundsman found a small semiautomatic pistol at the edge of the lot.

He called his boss; the boss called his security company. The security guy called the LAPD.

A neighbor showed up and said that at 3 in the morning +/- bloodied shooting victims were knocking on doors on his side street asking for help.

Before I split (hey my burrito was getting cold!) I photographed the TAURUS .380 where the landscaper found it.

When I got home I shared the photo on my local Nextdoor (Bel Air Hills).

It turned into an epic thread:


Saturday, June 19, 2021

Bootlegged Again! The FLYING BURRITO BURRITO BROTHERS WMMR RADIO CONCERT

BOOTLEGGED AGAIN!

  • The Flying Burrito Brothers
  • Live at Sigma Sound Studios
  • Produced for WMMR by DENNIS WILEN
  • JUNE 1971

Fifty years ago! Damn! Still rockin'!

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

VIDEO: In Conclusion

Original music wrapped around found audio and video.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Finally Found It! My 1981 Interview With PRINCE!

PRINCE EXPLAINS HIS ROYAL SECRETS
BY DENNIS WILEN
The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, March 27, 1981


Sometimes even the most arcane mysteries have a simple explanation.

The story behind the music of Prince is a good example.

First of all, his name is not a monstrous conceit.

Unlike Count Basie, the Duke of Earl and Screaming Lord Sutch, Prince is actually his given name.

"It's really on his birth certificate," swears his publicist. "Only his last name is a secret."

OK. Then why, on his three albums, does Prince insist on writing the songs, playing virtually all the instruments, singing 99 percent of the vocals and producing most of the tracks?

Prince himself revealed the truth in a recent interview.

"It's simple," he said. "When I did the first record, I didn't have a band, so I had to do it myself out of necessity."

Although he is shy in person, choosing words carefully and barely speaking above a whisper, Prince loves being on stage.

“When I was younger, I was in a lot of bands, but it’s quite different now. It’s a real powerful feeling - not the kind of power that you have over anyone else, but the power that's going on around and through me. First of all, my amp is really loud, and my guitar player’s twice as loud. When you're playing for 17,000 people and they get to screaming, then that's really, really loud. Maybe that’s the kind of power that could change things. If everybody could funnel their energies into one positive source... well, that much power, it’s just amazing.”

And what responsibility comes with this power?

“No responsibility. I think I’m only a conductor of whatever electricity comes from the world, or wherever we all come from. To me the ultimate responsibility is the hardest one - the responsibility to be true to myself.”

Prince cut most of Dirty Mind's demos.

“Basically, these are demo tapes, and I had no idea they’d be on an album together, so that's where I think a lot of the up-front quality comes from. I didn’t have any lyrics written out for some of the tunes – they just came. I recorded at a lot of small 8 and 16-track studios around Minneapolis – just personal songs that I wanted to have – and I don’t think it’s dirty. I got a new guitar before I made the record, and I started to play more one it, rather than just filling up space with other instruments.”

Prince's no-holds-barred lyrical approach grew out of the demo-genesis of the album.

“When I made these songs, I knew they would never be on the radio, and I’d never be bringing them to Warner Bros. – some of them, anyway. Then I decided that this was gonna be the record. I was so adamant about it, once I got to the label, that there was no way they could even say “we won’t put this out.” I believed in it too much by that time. The one thing that's strange to me about doing interviews behind this record is that it was made with nothing in mind but dealing with songs and ideas that I was about at that time. I wasn't gearing myself toward anything except my own personal satisfaction.”

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

The Chambers Brothers Live In Tarzana March 2, 2020

 

 

IT'S A ROUGH AND ROCKY ROAD BEFORE YOU GET TO HEAVEN:

 

 

 

 

THE TIME HAS COME TODAY:

 

 

Sunday, January 26, 2020

RIP Kobe and Gianna


Conflicted -- an Ardmore hometown hero became an L.A. superstar, but with a huge honking #MeToo closet skeleton that's hard to ignore.

Cory Doctorow told me recently that trying to place complex humans in a single position on the good-bad continuum leaves you with an incomplete solution, much like trying to determine if light is a particle or a wave. Humans have quantum-like indeterminate personalities that are not reducible to a single metric.

RIP Kobe and Gianna.

Monday, December 23, 2019

I admit it! I ❤️ XLNT tamales!

WAR at the Sunset Grill, mid 1970s. (L-R) Charles Miller, Lonnie Jordan, Howard Scott, Harold Brown, B.B. Dickerson, Lee Oskar. Not pictured Papa Dee Allen.
When Gustavo Arellano asked for XLNT tamale fans to represent, I answered the call. Arellano was working on a story for the Los Angeles Times.

I told Gustavo that it all started for me when I worked with the band WAR, at Far Out Productions at 7417 Sunset Boulevard, next to the iconic Sunset Grill, right after I moved to Hollywood:
"Los Angeles web producer Dennis Wilen first ate XLNT tamales fresh from a slow cooker at the Sunset Grill in Hollywood when the Philadelphia native had just arrived in the city in 1977 and still enjoys their slightly spicy, not-too-greasy flavor.

When I moved here, I discovered a whole new world,” he said, “and that flavor takes me back to that time of wonder and exploration. I’ve graduated to other tamales, but I always go back to them."
Read the fascinating history of XLNT tamales here...