I've been meaning to post this pic for a while, actually. That's the Blue Horizon Records crew from Tacoma with "30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin (from left, Justin Peterson, Teddy Haggarty and brother Leonard Haggarty.) This is from a recent visit to New York where they say they shot footage for a forthcoming Ventures/Wailers documentary they've been working on. Footage may show up in Friday's Ventures/Wailers show at the Moore, too.
COURTESY BLUE HORIZON RECORDS

Oy! It's been a crazy busy week, so it's taken me longer than planned to chop up a few Ventures-Wailers interview clips - you know, just to get you warmed up for the show on Friday.

But this one is a good one. It's from February when I got to hang out with the Wailers' Buck Ormsby and the Ventures' Don Wilson during an album cover shoot for the new CD "Two Car Garage" at Austin's Pro Max on South Tacoma Way.

Ormsby's is the first voice after mine, then Wilson. Click this 'graph to hear them talk about what it was like when they got started.

But Jazzbones booking guy Sean Culver recently gave me the skinny on a Nirvana tribute show he's got going on Saturday night. It'll be headlined by touring tribute band Nevermind, for those inclined to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's passing which, based on best estimates, was last Sunday. (Personally, I think the guy's birthday, Feb. 20, would be a less depressing occasion for a tribute. But I'll actually be in Seattle checking out X on Saturday, anyway.)

Tacoma's own I-Defy opens, more details here.

I remembered meeting Alec Palao backstage at the Sonics' Halloween bash last year. He's with British label Ace Records, which reissues Fabulous Wailers material. (I just bought their "Wailers Wailers Everywhere/Out of Our Tree" package, actually.)

We talked about how well-known Tacoma's garage-rock pioneers are in discerning circles in Europe versus the bands' home stomping grounds. (Case in point: I spent this past New Year's Eve at the Joan Jett show at the Emerald Queen. And at one point, I excitedly informed folks at my table that Jerry freakin' Roslie had just walked by. Blank stares.) So I e-mailed Alec for a little context leading up to the Wailers/Ventures show Friday.

Here's what he wrote back:

It's not as though the Wailers have ever been huge stars in Europe. However Europeans, and the Brits in particular, have always had an unbridled passion for American rock'n'roll, and have always paid attention to every record that got across the Atlantic, no matter how obscure it may be. The Wailers breakthrough instrumental hit Tall Cool One was issued in Britain on a label called London-American (a subsidiary of Decca), which is to whom many US independent labels licensed their material. Thats probably how George Harrison and other nascent British rockers of the 50s and early 60s discovered the band. It was amongst the breed of early 60s instrumentals that held great cachet in the pre-Beatles period - not as popular a genre as it was in the US, but influential nonetheless.

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