By Joe Viglione
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Hotline to the Underground ran in the 1970s in Musician’s Magazine and in the 1980s in The Beat and Ron Bellanti’s Preview Magazine. The popular column is back in the pages of Somerville News Weekly over forty years later!
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Rick Berlin is back with a new song and video, “The Seven Eleven Cookbook Song” featuring his Nickel & Dime Band. Watch the split screen video of a fellow painting a picture as two fast food predators enter the late night “dining hall” while a dizzying area of things you probably shouldn’t eat are thrown into the stew. The critics are applauding it, reporter Curt Naihersey of It’s All About Arts” notes: “Really good & tasty on all accounts.” The song is catchy, the video dizzying! but lots of fun, and the band chugs away like a locomotive. Stomps along like a modernized”2-4-6-8 Motorway” by Tom Robinson Band only in a convenience store setting! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar_saHB60qU

First caught Rick Berlin opening for Roxy Music at the Orpheum Theater around 1974…he was amazing then and he is amazing now. And speaking of legends, Peter Calo performs on the upcoming Bobby Hebb boxed set produced by yours truly. He had to fly the parts in by e mail because he was performing with Jimmy Webb on television the day of the session. I call it from Hebb to Webb. He will be in town this Friday with his “Four songwriters In The Round” featuring Peter Calo Jesse Terry, Robinson Treacher and Cassidy
It is Friday November 8 Amazing Things Arts Center 160 Hollis St. (rte 126) Framingham, MA 01702
Tix available at : amazingthings.org Peter is Carly Simon’s music director and has played with Queen Latifah, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, Hall and Oates, Andrea Bocelli, Kris Kristofferson, Leonard Bernstein…I just love to drop names…https://petercalo.com/

You may have heard of actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton who were both amazing in Terminator 1 (1984) and Terminator 2 (1991.) Arnold purportedly had only 58 words in the first flick and about 700 in Terminator 2. He probably has something in between that in the new Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) and as far as the Terminator films go – Rise of the Machines (2003,) Salvation (2009,) Genisys (2015) I put this one as #3 on the list after 1 and 2, with Rise of the Machines coming in at a close #4. Trying to distance itself from 3, 4, and 5 is kind of humorous as The Rev-9 Terminator (Gabriel Luna) acts more like Scarlett Johansson’s 2014 character Lucy who gets all gooey-black when she goes from human to digital a la The Matrix. Rev 9 is a cross between Lucy and Terminator Genisys digital fragmented pieces while elements of Salvation and Terminator 3 are touched upon. Therein lies the problem. It should have been a pure sequel to Terminator 2 but acts more like a reboot – as one critic called it: Terminator – the Force Awakens. Still, for those of us who have followed the franchise for 35 years – and this is the 35th anniversary of the first film – we see great acting from Hamilton and Arnold. It fits nicely with the first two but, honestly, the more I think about it, I’ll have to tie it with Terminator 3, Rise of the Machines.
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Rex Apollo’s first book is making waves in the world of Twitter and his How to Spark Your Own Golden Age is a novel approach to the world of inspirational books. Novel in that Apollo feels he had a “golden age” he was content with, lost it, and is building it back. And he feels that his “tips for success” that come from his own experiences in life (he’s traveled to many, many countries) can help you find what you are looking for. The author took the photograph on the front cover himself and it certainly draws you in, the glowing star, our own sun, over the waters strikes a balance proving a picture really is worth a thousand words. But where most books in the self-help genre cleverly repeat the instructions in different ways from page to page, it is Rex’s personal path and his adventures that give you a look into what it’s like in the “real world,” inspiration for those of us embracing or trying to figure out “the human condition” Find him on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Rex-Apollo/e/B07SZ27PPZ/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

If you breathlessly can’t wait for the next weekly edition of Hotline to the Underground you can check in to the Club Bohemia @ The Cantab Lounge calendar that I edit https://clubbohemianews.blogspot.com/ This Friday night, November 8th it’s Office Culture, Milk and Love Strangers the downstairs cellar full of noise at 738 Mass Ave Central Square, Cambridge. Saturday Nov. 9th Hush Club and Curtis Cooper. http://www.club-bohemia.com