Press & Media

Starflacker

WWW.STARFLACKER.COM is your free access to the first quarter of a comprehensive book drawn from a lifetime of adventuring as a Hollywood press agent, a flack, a PR rep working with hundreds of the superstars who gave that period its golden aura. They reveal themselves in dialogue and antics richly their own, captured by a fly-on-the-wall with a precise crazy-glue memory for what informed and amused him.

“Starflacker’s” thousand and more tales, funny or edgy, sometimes touching, reflect the experiences of almost every flack who has tight-roped his or her way along the stressful and invigorating paths of entertainment PR, a profession vastly more amusing, dangerous, contributive and essentially ethical than you certainly must think. Stirred into the mix are the highly applicable and hard-earned rules of PR which are also effective guidelines to the art of persuasion.

Thank you for checking out the introductory portion of this book. Feel free, and it is free, to download it or to visit it whenever you wish to be entertained. That is its purpose. And, if you feel it merits your good opinion, please share with your community of friends this invitation to visit WWW.STARFLACKER.COM .

Here are a few incentive comments by noted experts on Hollywood’s legacy:

“Dick Guttman is one of the most experienced and accomplished film publicists who ever lived, his knowledge and experience stretching from the Golden Age through the present day. In Starflacker, he recalls the moments that have shaped his life and career with such vividness and humor that it becomes impossible to put the book down. Dick has known everyone, seen everything and, most remarkably, in a business in which most people come and go like shooting stars, retained the respect of just about everyone he has encountered over the course of more than a half-century. Anyone inside or outside of the business should do themselves a favor and read his book to learn about the movies they love ; and from his example.”

Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter, esteemed entertainment industry journalist

“don’t know what the author could’ve done to make this any livelier short of coming to our house and acting it out. It’s fascinating and significant.. a primer on how to get along with some formidably famous people. It’s a remarkable life, but told with a staggeringly sharp eye/ear/nose and throat for not just the way people act, but also the way they think and speak! Guttman never comes off as a moralist (or an immoralist). All the madcap strategies of a unique profession are brought to life”

Sam Kashner top Vanity Fair writer and noted author (“Furious Love,” the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton best-seller, co-authored with Nancy Schoenberger)

“’Starflacker’ is funny and eccentric, and it’s exactly how it was. I thought stardom’s greatest era was gone forever, but now with Dick’s book it isn’t.”

Pat Newcomb, legendary publicist on whose genius, friendship and confidentiality such immortals as Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn depended

“’Starflacker’ is more than the story of Hollywood. It’s a box of chocolates. 300,000 words, yes, but no one ever complained that a box of chocolates was too big.’

Barry Hirsch, distinguished leader among Hollywood’s sage lawyers to the stars

Death of Lou Read

Beach Boys Box Set 'Made in California'

Stevie has FIVE! songs featured on the soon to be released Beach Boys Box Set Made in California

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCJVBZAlKkA

David Lynch Transcendental Music

We Are The Sand – album review

Stevie has a brand new album out ‘We Are The Sand’ with the brilliant Peter Lacey and ESQ’s David Beard has joined them on this one as well:

We are the Sand is Peter Lacey’s 8th album and his 7th for Pink Hedgehog. It’s been over ten years since the release of Peter’s debut Beam! in 2000 – the album which Paul Williams (Editor of the legendary Crawdaddy magazine) hailed as “The best ‘child-of-Brian’ album of the many I’ve heard…”. That Brian is, of course, Brian Wilson, mastermind behind The Beach Boys. Through the progress of his albums, Peter ventured on to explore various different styles and genres in his songwriting; yet here in We are the Sand we see more than a slight return to his roots in the soundscapes of Wilsonia. Accompanied once again by a previous travelling companion, Beach Boys lyricist Stephen Kalinich, and this time by David Beard (Editor of Endless Summer Quarterly); an eclectic blend of influences reach the ear – while at the same time never straying far from the familiar tones of Peter’s original inspiration in the Beach Boys musical odyssey.

Officially released on 5th December 2011 as a limited/collectable CD (100 copies) and to download. Also available in the UK from HeyDay and in the USA from Kool Kat Musik.

What’s been said about Peter’s music in the past…

“Beach Boys fans will love it, as will anyone who still appreciates crafted melodies and harmonies”
(Kingsley Abbott, Record Collector)

“A singer-songwriter of great scope and vision”
(Paul Johnson, Uncut)

“Peter continues his bright and very rewarding journey into music from the heart for all of us seeking the stimulation and reassurance sincere and inspired musical exploration can bring.”
(Paul Williams, Crawdaddy)

Polemics,Poetry and Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xFEZPbYnk

Record Collector

Reviews of Yo Ma Ma

Shortcuts to Infinity
Yo Ma Ma: Symptomology

http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/newsPage.cgi?news09200m01

We got a fantastic review in HITS

6. Stephen Kalinich & Jon Tiven, Shortcuts to Infinity/Yo Ma Ma, Symptomology (MsMusic Records): This impressive two-CD set is the work of two music veterans steeped in classic rock tropes, from the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers and the Yardbirds to proto-punks like Iggy Pop and the Stooges. The 70-year-old Kalinich is a cosmic zen lyricist who has penned verses for the Beach Boys, their various offshoots and mutual friend P.F. Sloan (“Eve of Destruction”), traveling with him and Tiven to India, where the pair wrote their first song together. That initial collaboration bore fruit in this comprehensive set, one disc devoted to classic-rock reverie, the other, a down-and-dirty garage-rock homage credited to made-up group Yo Ma Ma and their dual alter egos;Tiven’s Jack # (Hashtag) and Kalinich’s Reverend Steve Nobody. Tiven, of course, is a one-time rock critic for Rolling Stone and Zoo World, among others, credited with helping organize the legendary 1973 Rock Writers’ Conference in Memphis, where the scribes of their time first got turned on to Big Star. He later went on to work as a producer, songwriter and musician with such seminal figures as Alex Chilton, Don Covay, Arthur Alexander, B.B. King, Irma Thomas, Garnet Mimms, Buddy Guy and Son Seals, among many others. The last time he sang lead was back in his old group The Yankees, before joining the late downtown poet Jim Carroll’s band as a guitarist and never looking back. With Tiven singing Kalinich’s lyrics, the album opens with “It Takes Time,” a song that sounds as if the Stones could’ve recorded it in 1965 circa Charlie Is My Darling, while the Allmans-esque “Out of the Darkness” features a scintillating guitar solo from Tiven pal, Queen’s Brian May. Another highlight is the Dylanesque “I Believe in Elephants,” not a Republican party theme song, but a playful piece of flower power whimsy with a honking harp and boomer-pride lyrics like “I believe in taking back/Everything that is ours.” The Chicago blues rave-up of “Climb Stone Walls” is another glorious throwback, while “Fight for Peace” is a psychedelic reverie, with Tiven admitting, “In the self reflections of each day/ I find beauty in simple things.” Yo Ma Ma is a hoot and a holler, a boozy, profane, expletive-not-deleted romp through the blues/punk songbook, featuring ditties like the title track about radio payola, a Stonesy “Let’s Get Stoned,” the rollicking rockabilly of “Don’t Fuck With Me” and the Jerry Lee Lewis rave-up of “Once My Zits Go Away,” featuring guest cameos from Stax Records guitarist Steve Cropper (“Time Bomb”) and drummers Chester Thompson, Steve Ferrone and Billy Block. The underrated Tiven finally gets to be center-stage, leading his own group;which includes wife, bassist Sally Tiven, and North Mississippi All-Stars drummer Cody Dickinson, son of the late great Jim Dickinson;by putting all that experience and knowledge to good use. It’s an affectionate, full-hearted tribute to rock and its roots, enlivened by the equally legendary Kalinich’s cheeky lyrics. If you long for those halcyon days when rock and roll was king, this one’s right up your alley

Songwriter & Poet Stephen J. Kalinich By Harvey Kubernik

Yo Ma Ma

Stevie’s brand new band video

BEACH BOYS CELEBRATED POET/COLLABORATOR AND RENOWN PRODUCER: JON TIVEN TEAM UP:

YO MA MA DEBUT TWO CD SET — SHORTCUTS TO INFINITY AND SYMPTOMOLOGY

DUE THIS SUMMER ON MSMUSIC PRODUCTIONS

read more here

John Longenecker interviews Stephen Kalinich

Stevie has FIVE! songs featured on the soon to be released Beach Boys Box Set Made in California

Stevie has a brand new album out ‘We Are The Sand’ with the brilliant Peter Lacey and ESQ’s David Beard has joined them on this one as well:

Shortcuts to Infinity Yo Ma Ma: Symptomology

Stevie’s brand new band video

Shortcuts to Infinity
Yo Ma Ma: Symptomology