At Home in Hespeler

Bill Wyman’s new album, Back to Basics, starts promising enough, a nice groove song called What & How & If & When & Why. It sounds solid, and so promising. Then at the twenty-four second mark, Alfie Doolitle with laryngitis starts speaking into the big recording machine, and you wonder what’s happening. What’s happening is Bill Wyman is singing – if by singing you mean whispering hoarsely in a cockney accent.

And that’s about it for Back to Basics. It’s chock full of decent songs, most notably, but not exclusively, Seventeen and I Got Time. Yet Wyman hasn’t the voice to carry a song all the way through, never mind an entire album. It’s a pity, because there’s something here, and it could be good: but it’s not.

for certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Album release, Review Back to Basics, Bill Wyman, Rolling Stones

You have a music fan on your Christmas list, 60’s and 70’s rock mostly, and you’re looking for a book. Perhaps another crappy Brian Jones biography is what he needs. Or not. In reality, the only book you want to get your music lover this Christmas is Glyn Johns’ great autobiography, Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Faces . . .. I myself have purchased copies for two music fans on my list.

Johns’ started out as an Engineer in the very early days of rock and roll, engineering the earliest Stones and Who singles in London’s IBC studio, “which was without a doubt the finest independent recording studio in Europe at that time.” He got his first job at IBC out of school, strictly because his sister knew someone who worked there and he loved music. He started as a man Friday, setting up microphones, running cable and brewing tea. His first engineering job came as a result of a weekend session in 1964 by Georgie Fame, “Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo,” and nobody else wanting to do it. It’s success, and his age, meant that he was well placed for the rock and roll revolution that was just about to sweep London.

Sound Man isn’t a great book, though, just because Johns’ is the Forrest Gump of the British Invasion: he first heard Jimmy Page at a boys club talent show when they were both about 12, saw Jeff Beck in the Tridents, his pre-Yardbirds band, and lived with original Rolling Stone Ian Stewart (in fact, he and Stewart’s rented house was a gathering point for the very early Stones). Sound Man is also a book that sticks to the music. There is no chapter, no story in Sound Man that is not directly related to Johns’ career in music. There’s no grandpa Gus took me across the river for fish and chips stories here. Childhood stories are either of the church choir, a budding singing career or summers on a uncles farm, the uncle of whom was a guitar player and American folk music fan.

Similarly, Johns, who claims to have never done any drugs, never smoked a joint, keeps the stories of the musicians he worked with to musical ones. If he has various tales of debauchery, he keeps them to himself. But what a list of musicians he did work with:

The Kinks (All Day and All of the Night/I Gotta Move, and You Really Got Me/It’s All Right)
The Rolling Stones ( from 1965’s December’s Children (And Everybody’s) to 1975’s Black and Blue)
The Pretty Things
Davy Jones
The Small Faces and The Faces
Led Zeppelin (the first album)
Manfred Mann
Marianne Faithfull
Spooky Tooth
Procol Harum
The Steve Miller Band
The Beatles
Joe Cocker
Humble Pie
The Eagles
The Who

That’s the partial list.

When I had to choose a Christmas present for music fans on my list, I chose Sound Man by Glyn Johns. It’s the best music book I’ve read in a long time.

Uncategorized Eagles, Faces, Glyn Johns, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Sound Man, The Who

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The Freedom of Music, The Mighty Zep, This Week on my I-Pod Celebration Day, Chris Dreja, Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, O2 arena, Queen, Rolling Stones, The Who, Yardbirds

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

“Do you think you could make him a list of bands and songs from the 70’s to listen to?”

My daughter is asking on behalf of her boyfriend, who is a Stones fan, “but he’s not into Zeppelin,” and wants to expand his musical horizons. Well, besides the fact I don’t really do lists and I consider anybody who’s “not into Zeppelin” beyond hope, sure.

For starters, any fan of 70’s era Stones should check out The Faces. The two groups sound, at times, remarkably alike, yet you would never mistake one for the other. Get their greatest hits album, “a nods as good as a wink….” and check out Stay With Me, Three Button Hand Me Down and Ooh La La.

As well, never ignore the albums when talking about 60’s and 70’s music. If you are a Stones fan based on any number of their hits, know that buried on the albums are songs you have never heard but are great. Pick your favourite Stones songs, and listen to the albums they came off. Chances are you’ll find songs you’ll like, and possibly whole album sides that just seem perfect (yes sides: the artists thought in terms of sides – not songs, not albums – and they are the way to approach the music of the era)

Working backwards from the 70’s, The Stones and Yardbirds both came from the same place, The Crawdaddy Club of the early 60’s. Each went in different directions, but they started at the same place. So too shall we.

The early Yardbirds is the thing, that Clapton stuff, and moving into the Jeff Beck years. Five Live Yardbirds to start, and then a greatest hits package of some sort. Branching out, check out the individual guitarists post-Yardbirds careers: Clapton with Cream, Derek and the Dominoes and his early solo work; The Jeff Beck Group (featuring pre-Faces Rod Stewart); and of course – you knew I had to get here – Led Zeppelin.

Now I know, not a Led Zeppelin fan, he’s heard them before and found them wanting &tc. But discussing the era without discussing Led Zeppelin is like not discussing The Stones or The Who. It’s an incomplete conversation. Everybody knows some Led Zeppelin songs, and judgement can be clouded by an incomplete picture of a band that played such a variety of music. Here’s what you do. Listen to, in order, Led Zeppelin I side 2 – the blues album; Led Zeppelin II, side 1, the heavy metal album; Led Zeppelin III side 2, the acoustic album; Led Zeppelin IV, side 1, the masterpiece.

Here’s the logic. After The Yardbirds, Cream and The Jeff Beck Group, the first album is in context. It’s their blues album, but side 2 will surprise you with the almost pop sounding You Time is Gonna Come, the acoustic solo Black Mountain Side, the pre-punk Communication Breakdown, Old Willie Dixon blues on I Can’t Quit You Baby and the jam How Many More Times. It has a little of everything, and turning the album over just to hear Good Times, Bad Times and Babe I’m Gonna Leave You will be a revelation.

The second album is their road album, and if Led Zeppelin invented heavy metal (they didn’t, and it’s an awful description of them as a band), II is when they did so. That in, everything you ever wanted to know about Led Zeppelin is in the first two songs of Led Zeppelin II. Whole Lotta Love, the supposed birthplace of heavy metal and What is and What Should Never Be, sweet ballad turned hard rocker in the chorus. They may not have invented heavy metal, but they did invent the heavy metal ballad with What is… The slide solo alone is worth listening to this album for.

The third album, written at a rustic cabin in the Welsh countryside, is everything Led Zeppelin is not supposed to be. Side two will literally shock the person who thinks they know Led Zeppelin but have never heard this. Four acoustic songs, each one completely different, yet not an electric guitar to be found. They return to the blues on the last song but it’s probably worth skipping until you’ve listened to the first four songs enough times to a) love them and b) wonder what the hell they are about. My favourite album side as a teenager, and still one that mesmerizes me.

Finally four, the masterwork. You know the songs on side one, but hearing them in context improves them. The sound of needle on vinyl (yes, listen to the records if you can – just ask first and put the damn things away when your done) a quiet E string being played in the open position, and then, all on his own Robert Plant, bel canto, singing on of the great opening lines:

Hey hey mama said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.

How can you not like that? It’s immediately followed up with Rock and Roll, Zeppelin’s answer to critics who said they had gone soft after the second side of the third album. If you can take it up a notch from Black Dog, they do. And then, the greatest 14 minutes in rock and roll: The Battle of Evermore/Stairway to Heaven: Prelude and Masterpiece. Everybody has heard Stairway to Heaven in isolation, or at dance’s end after Play the Funky Music and Night Fever, or on the radio in a set with Hell’s Bells and Let it Be, and it loses something. But the pastural intro to Stairway in the shadow of the war ballad of Battle of Evermore gives it an entirely new feel. Oh and by the way, here’s why Led Zeppelin are the greatest band ever. That slide solo in What is…, Page gets the sweetest sound using an electric guitar and a distortion pedal yet in Battle of Evermore they convincingly create a massive sounding war song with 2 mandolins and an acoustic guitar. Nobody else can do that, and they do it while creating emotional intensity. Stairway ends side 1 ends the way Black Dog began it, Robert Plant singing a cappella – because when I tell you the artists thought in sides, I wasn’t kidding.

So that’s Led Zeppelin, and hour and a half spent investigating some of the greatest music ever. If you’ve followed the directions and still don’t really like Led Zeppelin, well then find someone else’s daughter to date, ’cause there’s not much hope for you. But at least everything else you listen to from the decade will have the appropriate context.

Moving on, but staying ever so briefly with the Stones offshoots, Aerosmith took influence from all of The Yardbirds, The Stones, Led Zeppelin and, as I’ve argued before, The Faces. Forget everything since they’ve reformed in the 1980’s, forget that Stephen Tyler loses credibility with every TMZ day, Aerosmith’s 70’s stuff is good to great. Start with the greatest hits if you must, but hit the albums too. The hits, Walk This Way, Sweet Emotion, Dream On are all excellent. But in the albums are some stellar tracks: Mama Kin, The Yardbird’s Train Kept a Rollin, Same Old Song and Dance.

In 1981 the Rolling Stones where playing locally at Buffalo. Opening that day at Ralph Wilson Stadium was a guy the rumoured to have been readied to step in and take over for Ron Wood if he was unable to continue, which seemed possible. Reportedly the only artist Bill Wyman would ask for an autograph over the Stones long career, the guys in the Stones where George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers fans, so shouldn’t a Rolling Stones fan be too? Start at the beginning, with One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer. If you can’t recite the line “I know, everybody funny, now you funny too,” with confidence, you really don’t get rock’n’roll.

Also on the act that day, Foghat. Try them out, and their British counterparts (I know, Foghat are British, but their success was in the US), Status Quo.

Leaving the Stones influence behind, there’s almost too much music, too many bands of the era. In some cases whole repertoires should be explored, in others, a song or two. In most cases, I’ll discuss and album or album side.

The Beatles: Since we are discussing the era of the late 60’s early 70’s, explore at your leisure the later Beatles. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Revolution, Back in the USSR. There’s a lot of good rock music in there between John Lennon’s experiments in avant-garde and Paul McCartney’s soppy ballads. You’ll find stuff you like, including possibly some ballads and avand-garde.

Also, the solo Beatles is good. To me, Paul McCartney’s best work, ever, was his early Wings stuff – Band on the Run and Venus and Mars. Also his first few solo albums, including the song Maybe I’m Amazed. Lennon’s solo work is also good, sometimes great. Everyone knows Imagine, but Jealous Guy, Whatever Gets You Through The Night, Watching the Wheels and Woman are all excellent. George was the underrated Beatle, and he proves it in his solo work. His first post-Beatles work is All Things Must Pass and it has My Sweet Lord and What is Life. But pick up his greatest hits and find out how good he is. Then get Somewhere in England, or at least the song All Those Years Ago and hear his tribute to John Lennon, who was killed the year before. Most people don’t know that Ringo had a fairly good solo career, and his greatest hits album is full of fun little pop songs that are a perfect way to waste an afternoon.

The Who also fall into the must listen category. Considered one of, if not the most exciting live act of the time, the Who’s work spans the decades. From the 60’s, grab their greatest hits album, Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, as well as their live album Live at Leeds. For sport, imagine seeing The Who, playing as good as they do at Leeds, playing your university.

In the 70’s, check out Who’s Next. You know all the songs anyway, from the CSI intros, but listen to them in their entirety, in context. In the 80’s the post-Kieth Moon Who had former Faces drummer Kenny Jones keeping beat, and they released a couple of good albums, 1981’s Face Dances and 1982’s It’s Hard. Check them both out, including You Better You Bet, Athena, Eminence Front and John Entwistle’s ironic rocker, The Quiet One.

How’s that fro a start? There’s your homework, and there’s enough there to keep you too busy to be bothering my daughter. And when your done that, we’ll move on to individual songs you should be listening too.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Beatles, Eric Clapton, Faces, Foghat, George HArrison, George Thorogood, Jeff Beck, Jeff Beck Group, Jimmy Page, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, Rolling Stones, Slade, The Who, Yardbirds

In 1975 my father decided to expand his musical horizons. Marching bands being his music of choice, he had found some enjoyment in 70’s country. Maybe, he thought to himself, I should try this rock music my kids like so much. Sam the Record man had major sales every weekend, including the 99¢ album. Looking at the record of choice one week, he thought he’d give it a go. After all, the cover picture of the artist was a sensible looking man in a suit sitting at a Grand Piano. How bad could it be?

He brought home Elton John’s Greatest Hits showing us his purchase. “Put on Saturday Night’s Alright fro Fighting,” said my older brother with a Machiavellian cunning that belied his 14 years. “It’s a great song!” Thus, on an album full of nice piano songs, or at worst a pop song about a crocodile or a rag-timish Honk, he dutifully put on the one song he was guaranteed to hate. Fifteen seconds later the album was back in it’s cover and my brother owned it.

The next week he went through the same routine, this time half-heartedly. His intent, however, was much different. This week was not about expanding his horizons, but sibling fairness and, although I don’t recall complaining that brother 1 got a free album, it was pretty clear this was about giving me a free album. Thus, at 12-years old I got The Faces Live Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners. It was my introduction to the Faces and I was fairly well hooked.

A few years later when Ron Wood joined the Rolling Stones I was the only guy in grade 8 who had a clue who he was, and was suitably disappointed that The Faces now seemed over.

So it is I salute Ron Wood on the event of his 65th birthday not for his work as a Rolling Stone, not for leaving his fine wife of long standing for a virtual child/skank (actually, I’d smack him one for that if given a chance), not for Stay With Me, Ohh La La, Cut Across Shorty or many of the other very worthy Faces songs that would earn lesser mortals praise on these pages, but for being my first rock and roll disappointment.

Happy 65th Birthday Ron Wood, for being so good once upon a time.

Birthday Wishes Coast to Coast: Overtures and Beginnings, Faces, Rolling Stones, Ron Wood

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

There’s always been an equation in regards to The Rolling Stones:

Mick Jagger loves money > Mick Jagger hates Kieth Richards

It was always the one factor that made you think a 50th anniversary tour would be a go. However, recent news that a tour will not happen in 2012 leads one to think that the equation has changed. So what then to make of the news that the Stones will be going into the studio “later in April… just to throw some ideas around.”

One hopes what we can make of it is that a) a new Stones album is coming and b) the old Fleetwood Mac theory that tension makes great records.

I’m not generally sympathetic to stars who want to whine how hard they have it, and last year I started the new year by having a go at Kim Cattrall for complaining about a fan asking for a picture at an upscale (very upscale) eatery. As well, I’m not a Katy Perry fan, so how do I end up being on Perry’s side in the current controversy regarding her statements on fame in Teen Voque. Well, because she said being famous is a pain, and it most surely is. About her fans, however, she didn’t say anything negative. In fact, I love what she said about fans:

I still want to be as approachable and reasonable as possible – when I meet fans and their crying, I’ll say, “Calm down, there’s nothing to cry about. I’m not going to bite you, or attack you, or grant you three wishes.

Fame sucks, but the fans are great, what’s controversial about that? Yet this week, Perry is backtracking, stating, “the fame quote was spoken in jest.” No it wasn’t, stand by what you meant: love the songs, love the fans, not so much the other stuff.

Frankly, Perry has always struck me as someone who set out to be a singer, and got caught in the fame (as compared to say, Lady Gaga, who caught the fame bug).

She should find a way to keep singing without the glare of the spotlight. Time to form a band perhaps, or do some cameos. In short, do the Joss Stone circuit

It’s crazy poker week he at Fluffernutter World Headquarters, and rock singers are wild. First up is Axl Rose, with his Davey Jones dance moves and his childlike egocentricity.

Years since he’s done anything of note, years since he’s produced listenable music, he’s still such a diva. Exhibit #umpteen-thousand happened this week when Rose released a letter declining his induction into the rock and roll hall of fame. The letter is so obviously from the mind of an out of control, arrogant moron, yet something that could only have come from Axl Rose.

I respectfully decline my induction as a member of Guns ‘N’ Roses to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I strongly request that I not be inducted in absentia and please know that no one is authorized nor anyone be permitted to accept any induction for me or speak on my behalf.

Offering to match Rose’s disinclination to induction, Courtney Love saw Rose’s letter to the hall and raised him one wild accusation against a respected member of the rock community.

In a twitter tirade against Dave Grohl this week, the widow Cobain claims Grohl hit on her teenage daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. While the press bent over backward to poo-poo the claim based on the incontrovertible evidence that Grohl’s a nice guy and Love a whack job, the teenage daughter in question had the best response:

While I’m generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn. I’ve never been approached by Dave Grohl in more than a platonic way. I’m in a monogamous relationship and very happy. Twitter should ban my mother.

Did you get that Dave Grohl? Being hit on by you would be gross. For the record, Grohl himself also denies any advances towards the Miss Cobain, and with her denial, that pretty much seems to settle that.

Breaking News: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are engaged.

With presses duly stopped, the story of Pitt designing the ring he gave to his now fiancé. The “massive” ring was spotted when the couple were out and about Wednesday night.

Pitt and Jolie have been dating for seven years, when Pitt left his wife Jennifer Aniston for his now fiancé, Jolie. The pair have six children together, three adopted, a daughter born in 2006 and twins born in 2008.

At least we know he’s not marrying her because he has to.

Fluffernutter Angelina Jolie, Axl Rose, Brad Pitt, Courtney Love, Dave Grohl, Frances Bean Cobain, Guns 'n' roses, katy perry, Kieth Richards, Mick Jagger, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stones

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

The rumor is the Stones will return to the road this year to celebrate 50 years together as a band. If, as is the common belief, Mick Jagger likes the money more than he dislikes his guitar player, Kieth Richards, then the Stones circus is coming to town.

Here’s the rub. A groups of Stones fans – or Renegade Stones Fans, as it’s being reported – have begun a petition demanding some changes to he way the Stones Roll. Here’s their list of demands:

– smaller venues, arenas, not stadiums.
– no huge stage with wings, &tc.
– no onstage props: no inflatable falluses, honky tonk women &tc.
– lower ticket prices
– set list overhaul
– elimination of horn section and back up singers
– no opening acts

While I have some issues with the demands, for example if you lower ticket prices and play smaller venues, the same fans will be complaining they can’t get tickets. And while I agree with the horn section and back up singer clause, I would add no musicians onstage who are not listed as Rolling Stones. Bring back Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor, plus a keyboard player, and have a seven piece Rolling Stones on stage, playing all the parts.

Recently the Rolling Stones released a live recording, liberated from the world of bootlegs, on their website. It could be had on MP3 or lossless FLAC formats for $7.00 and $9.00 respectively. The Brussels Affair was a 1973 Stones concert in Belgium consider to be among the Stones greatest concerts.

Even a cursory listen to “the worlds greatest rock and roll band” at their peak, as they were in 1973, reveals an astounding live act, capable of playing great rock and roll without a lot of fanfare. They were sloppy and careless, song tempos sometimes far too fast, such that Jagger had a hard time keeping up. Jagger himself was prone to the missed note and odd stage banter, while the band at times seemed to wander all over the song.

Yet it’s great. It has all the fun, all the energy, all the feeling that great rock and roll should have.

Compare that to the post- Steel Wheels Rolling Stones from about 1989 onward. The stage is crowded with support musicians and back-up singers. The spotlight may stay on the four main guys, but they are certainly not doing the bulk of the playing. If Kieth Richards wants to run from his place on the main stage to one of the ramps out over the crowd, all the better to preen and pose my dears, then he stops playing and runs up the ramp. Somehow, even when the main guy is not playing, there is no noticeable difference in the sound. Kieth Richards, in other words, is relevant to the Rolling Stones only as a visual.

The American Idol Equation is in full force at a modern day Stones show: everything is slick and perfect, gathering no moss as it rolls. Music is note perfect, stage movements almost choreographed, inspiration and spontaneity banished to a different time, a different place: Brussels 1973 say, or Oshawa in 1979. Certainly not now, never now.

And so Rolling Stones fans, hearing the whispers of a 50th anniversary tour, have hopes, hopes for a meaner, leaner Rolling Stones offering fans something more like The greatest rock and roll band in the world and less like the greatest show on earth.

here’s hoping they get it.

The Freedom of Music Brussels affair, Rolling Stones

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Last week we reported Lindsay Lohan was involved in an investigation over a missing piece of jewellery.

On Monday, Lohan was charged with felony grand theft for stealing the $2,500 necklace.

Her attorney, having seen the evidence, says the case is defensible. Lets see now: video of Lohan wearing necklace in store; police notified necklace missing; police notify Lohan they will search her house; Lohan assistant returns necklace.

Am I missing something? Either it was loaned to her, in which case Lohan has some piece of paper indicating that, or it was not loaned to her. Produce the receipt for loan of the jewellery, and it’s defensible. Otherwise, it seems pretty open and shut.

Pretentious, self righteous Pink has decided to poke in the eye the paparazzi. Bearing in mind that paparazzi take pictures of people who don’t want their picture taken, thus who don’t pose for those pictures, Pink’s logic is strange:

…because the paparazzi of today have absolutely no photographic skill or artistry whatsoever, and their pictures are hideous. I’m going to post a self-portrait I took yesterday morning… 3 wks (weeks) of photo classes for me and I am already a far better photographer than anyone of them…

In short, just because you make money doing something, don’t think that means you have talent.

OK, I’ll bite: how much money has Pink made as a singer?

Will they or won’t they? The Rolling Stones have been rumoured to be well into the planning stages of a fall 2011 tour. But there’s a tiny, um…, fly in the ointment. It seems Mick Jagger is not talking to Keith Richards after his biography, and later in an interview, Keith referred to Mick’s “tiny todger.”

For those who don’t get English witticisms, tiny todger is euphemism for “he is a bigger dick than he has.”

Things are no better in the Guns’n’Roses camp, where Slash and Axl Rose haven’t had much to say to each other since the early 1990’s.

Recently Slash has made noises about reuniting the original Guns’n’Roses, assuming Axl approached Slash, apologies ‘n’ hand.

Keep waiting.

On his Twitter account this week Rose said:

Contrary to anyone’s claims there are no concrete plans, nor where there ever for a tour and certainly not to replace anyone in the band, beyond a collection of random ideas thrown out by various individuals without any real foundation

Can’t he just say Slash has a tiny todger and be done with it?

Gary Moore (1952-2011)

Gary Moore was one of the greats of the electric guitar, full stop. Less known than many other guitar heroes, Moore was nonetheless one of the very best.

Best known for his work in Thin Lizzy and as a solo artist, Moore was a top player in the rock world for fourty years.

Born in Belfast, he left in 1969 at age 16 to join a band, Skid Row, in Dublin.  There, he would play with Phil Lynott, who would later draft him to play in his band, Thin Lizzy.

To understand the mark Gary Moore has left in the music world, you need to follow some classic musicians on twitter. His passing this week of a suspected heart attack is being mourned by many. One of the true greats and, by all accounts, a fine human being.

RIP Gary Moore.

Fluffernutter Axl Rose, Gary Moore, Guns 'n' roses, Keith Richards, Lindsay Lohan, Mick Jagger, Pink, Rolling Stones, Slash, Thin Lizzy

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

Gibson Guitars had a list of the top 50 front men (and women) of all time on their webpage. Actually, they had two lists: one put together by Josh Todd of Buckcherry, Chad Kroeger of Nickelback and Ric Olsen of Berlin, plus staff at Gibson.com. The other list was chosen by readers. Here’s the top 10 of each list:

Gibson

1.Mick Jagger
2. Freddie Mercury
3. Robert Plant
4. Elvis
5. James Brown
6. Jimi Hendrix
7. Michael Jackson
8. Roger Daltrey
9. Prince
10. Jim Morrison

Readers

1. Freddie Mercury
2. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
3. Marc Bolan
4. Bon Scott
5. Robert Plant
6. Brian Johnson
7. Mick Jagger
8. Bono
9. Robin Zander
10. Elvis

We can pick and natter about the list, and ultimately that’s what these lists are for. So lets:

Really? Freddie Mercury is pretty much the undisputed best? Really?? While the “experts” pick Jagger, the readers placed him well enough down the list to make Freddie indisputable. One suspects however that too many fans think of Mick circa 2005, or 1995, when he looked like a skeletal old man refusing to acknowledge his age. Longevity has it’s curses…

There is an argument to be made that Elvis wasn’t really a front man, he was the act. And if we are allowing guys like Elvis, why not Frank Sinatra? Could you make a list of front men, and not have Sinatra on the top 25, never mind the top 50? Hell, Neil Diamond is there. And not to pick on Elvis, the same questions apply to Jackie Wilson, Otis Redding, Garth Brooks and, too a lesser degree, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elton John &tc….

And what’s this about Stephen Tyler being at #11 on the Gibson list and #22 on the fan list, yet Rod Stewart is #22 on the Gibson and doesn’t make the fan list? People don’t seem to realize how much Tyler copped Stewart’s Faces act. Oh, I know, I know, he copped Jagger not Stewart. Except other than looking kinda, sorta like Jagger, there is little comparison. He dresses more like an early 70’s Keith than Mick, but his stage stuff is all Stewart. The scarves hanging off the microphone, the dragging the mike stand around the stage. All Rod, before Aerosmith came along. Granted, Tyler uses silk scarves and Stewart football scarves, but that’s details. The point is, if Stephen Tyler is to be so high on the list (and don’t get me wrong, he belongs up there), then Faces era Stewart belongs in that neighbourhood.

Quibbles and Bits,however, as the dog is always saying when we argue philosophy (these discussions usually involve vodka). If Gibson readers think Freddie Mercury over Bruce Dickinson, then I’ll not argue. He wouldn’t top my list – and you know there’ll be a list – but then again, Bruce Dickinson? Not on my list.

Dickinson and Robin Zander. When I said top front men, did Bruce Dickinson and Robin Zander come to mind? Iron Maiden and Cheap Trick’s front men? Is Zander even Cheap Trick’s guy, wouldn’t Rick Neilson really qualify as Cheapest Trick? But lets face reality. A couple of fan web sites put fans on notice there was a readers poll and a “lets get Robin to the top of the list,” button. Even accounting for that, however, Marc Bolan? Who’d a thunk it?

For those who don’t know, Marc Bolan was the leader of T. Rex, although that was by no means his only band. T. Rex had a significant American hit with Bang a Gong. Bolan was their singer and guitar player, had male model good looks (in fact he did some modelling), the requisite big curly hair, and played a Les Paul on stage. He is credited with inventing Glam Rock, what we here in America tended to call Glitter. Think Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie, and you have Glam (or think Cherrie Currie dressing up as David Bowie in “The Runaway’s” and you’re there).

T. Rex released nine albums from 1970-1977, a decent output, to put it mildly. In fact, Bolan’s discography is impressive. In September 1977, however, Bolan was killed in a car crash, a passenger in a purple mini, in London. He was two weeks shy of being 30.

The thing is, I have never, ever, had somebody mention how good Marc Bolan is to me. In all the years, and all the music conversations, never once has his name even come up. It’s not a name that would have ever occurred to me. And to be clear, I’m not poo-poohing the idea that Bolan is the third best front man ever: I have no idea if he is or not. I have zero frame of reference.

Or at least I had no frame of reference. What did we do before the internet? Before YouTube?

Marc Bolan fan: Marc Bolan is the greatest.
me: Is he now?
Marc Bolan fan: Don’t argue with me, I’m telling you
me: Never seen ‘im.
Marc Bolan fan: Well you should check out… um…er…

But with YouTube, there he is, in full purple colour (the 70’s were incredible for music, but they really were a crime against fashion). He is more charismatic than athletic, all good looks and pretty smile. The physical manifestations of the job he leaves for others, the heavy Les Paul keeps him pretty rooted in spot. But for that, he’s not bad. I see what they are talking about, although he’s not about to make my list.

My list: you knew it was coming… here it is, my list of the top ten (plus some)front men (and women).

1. Roger Daltrey – he moved constantly, he had all that blonde curly hair. He had the most powerful voice in rock, and didn’t have trouble singing on stage. He would twirl his microphone by the cord sending it twenty feet in the air and during Who Are You he ran on the spot through the whole song. In Won’t Get Fooled Again he offered up the greatest scream in rock and roll, that counts here.

2. Mick Jagger – Not tired old guy circa now Mick Jagger, but the young Mick Jagger that preened and pranced. Pre 1980’s Mick who exuded sexuality out of every pore. Once he put on the knee pads it was pretty much over, but I’ll even give him the knee pads tour of 1981. Mick pretty much invented the genre and virtually everybody else is an imitator to one degree or another. He deserves to be much higher than seven.

3. Robert Plant – The best band in the world, bar none (even the dog doesn’t argue that point with me). By a long, long shot. Heads and shoulders above the next. So how low can their front man be? Not below 3, that’s how low.

4. Bruce Springsteen – Even now he fronts an energy packed band, never stopping, never seeming to breathe for two, two-and-a-half, three hours. If you’ve never seen him, it’s exhausting. And yet, those in the know will tell you he’s nothing compared to what he was in 1978.

5. Janis Joplin – Rent the DVD Festival Express and skip to Cry Baby. Those chills running up and down your spine, that’s why Janis Joplin is not just the token woman on this list.

6. Russel Mael – Every one who makes one of these lists, every critic needs their obscure, arty band to prove their bona fides: Sparks are mine.

7. Stephen Tyler – He really is good, no matter who did what first.

8. Alice Cooper – He hung himself, onstage, with mascara running down his face. He wore a boa constrictor for a necklace. He danced with a corpse, and with skeletons in top hat and tails (with walking sticks, naturally). That stuff counts for something.

9. Rod Sewart – Of the Faces, not of Do You Think I’m Sexy. He tied scarves around his mike, duct taped the mic to the stand and taught Stephen Tyler how it’s done – the tutu is a but much though.

10. Freddie Mercury – I have no frame of reference having never seen Queen live or watched any Queen concert footage, but if he’s #2 for the Gibson experts and #1 for their readers, that’s good enough for me.

10a. Elton John – The electric boots, the mohair suits: OK that technically isn’t Elton John, but he has worn both. Also, he has dressed by like Luis XIV, worn oversized glasses with windshield wipers on them and played Crocodile Rock on stage opposite a crocodile. At the end of the day, this is supposed to be entertainment.

10b. Ian Hunter – The shades, the rock star hair and cockney accent. Ian Hunter was still doing Glam in 1980, and getting away with it. You couldn’t get away with Glam in 1980.

10c. J.Geils – More fun on stage than anybody you have ever seen, that has to count for something.

10d. David Lee Roth – He can jump microphone high, and do the splits. He wore yellow jumpsuits. He once said, “I’m not like this because I’m a rock star; I’m a rock star because I’m like this.” Some people are born to be front men, some have front men-ish-ness thrust upon them. Diamond Dave is of the former.

10e. Bob Seger – Since we’re allowing Bruce Springsteen…
The most fun you will ever have at a concert.

The Freedom of Music, The Mighty Zep, This Week on my I-Pod Aerosmith, Bruce Dickinson, Cerrie Currie, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Faces, Frank SInatra, Freddie MErcury, James Brown, Kieth Richards, Marc Bolan, Mick Jagger, Neil Diamond, Queen, Robert Plant, Robin Zander, Rod Stewart, Rolling Stones, Stephen Tyler, The Runaways, The Who

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

What’s going to save the music industry from itself? You know what I mean, that whole CDs, golden goose, dead thing. To hear the rockstars and industry execs tell it, sharing files – they call it pirating for Gods sake – will ruin the industry. Who’s going to make music if you can’t make obscene amounts of money doing so?

“Make a few bob and then open a hairdressing salon,” Ringo Starr answered when asked what he hoped to get out of The Beatles. It was The Beatles first trip to the United States, and the press was already asking “what next?” I’ll make enough money to start a little shop, thought Ringo. By the time I get around to writing Octopuses Garden, I’ll have no one to sing it to except my customers. They probably all thought that: A bookstore for John; a music store for George; a hat store for Nigel (Tufnel, the oft forgotten sixth Beatle).

Who indeed?

During a television interview aired worldwide before The Who’s live simulcast farewell concert from Toronto in 1982, Roger Daltry talked about the band’s habit of breaking their equipment at the end of their shows: ‘we would run into a store, grab a guitar off the wall and run out again saying over our shoulder, I’ll pay you later,’ he said. ‘We didn’t make any money until the mid-70’s.’ Yet they managed to come out with Tommy and Who’s Next, alternatively known as the greatest rock opera and the CSI soundtrack album.

Kiss would work their way to the west coast, and have to book gigs, any gig, to eat and travel their way back to New York. Ever seen those early Kiss shows? Phenomenal. They were hungry, they had attitude and they were good. They started making money around the time of the Destroyer album. They stopped making listenable music exactly around the Destroyer album. “They prostituted themselves,” a high school buddy said one day about Beth. I rather think not, think Beth was in retrospect, a reasonably heartfelt song. It was immediately after Beth that the Kiss act became red-light. “This is a great Rod Stewart song,” Paul Stanley told the band about Hard Luck Woman, hoping to sell the song to Stewart. That, my friend, is prostituting yourself.

Nobody got into the music business for the business potential until sometime in the late 70’s or early 80‘s. Before that, even the big stars figured by the time they were 30, then 40, they wouldn’t be acting like rock stars. Mick Jagger said once that he couldn’t imagine running around a stage when he’s 60. He knew then what he refuses to acknowledge now: that he’s become somewhat absurd. But somewhere late in the 70’s, early in the 80’s guys started choosing rock star as a career option. It is considered a remarkable coincidence that people stopped making rock music that was transcendental at the same time.

Who am I kidding? The moment musicians stopped thinking I’ll give it all I got until I’m 28 or so, then get a real job is the moment music changed. If you imagine music as a career, what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, then you’re not about to go out on a limb because you believe from the depths of your soul that the 3rd bar in the 2nd verse should be a C#m instead of an E. If the record company guy, the one in the charcoal suit, says it should be an E, then who are you to withhold the master tapes and risk your future until he concedes your point? And while one C#m may not matter in the grand scheme, once you concede the 3rd bar in the 2nd verse, then why not cut the solo because nobody does solos anymore? And why not rewrite the last verse to make it more radio friendly? Never mind that you talked to God on that solo, or the third verse was absolute poetry, this is about selling records. So why not let the art director from the design department design your album covers, why worry your pretty little head over artistic direction? After all, it’s not art, it’s business.

While the artists were busy working for the man, the people who buy the product, the important line in the supply and demand curve, stopped buying. Instead they, ahem, stole it. Not stole as in left the store with a product, stole as in they took a bunch of 0’s and 1’s that one person voluntarily put on their computer, and moved them to your computer without removing or in any way changing them. Want to talk about the law? Here’s a basic law of economics: price = scarcity. Without scarcity, there’s no need for price. Computer files are technically an unlimited resource. They can be duplicated an infinite number of times without experiencing any degradation of the original file. And if you can duplicate something ad-infinitum, you can’t impose a price on it in the long run. Notice I said can’t, not won’t or shouldn’t, but can’t. You cannot impose a price on something that has no scarcity. And if you can’t impose a price on a music file, the business model of the career recording artist falls apart.

My favourite theory is that recording will become the incidental effort, to promote the live experience that the musician offers. Sooner or later musicians will give away files, sell records and CDs to those (say, me) who must have them, but will make their money for what they do today, or rather tonight, not what they did back in 1982. For this to happen, some things within the industry will have to change, not the least of which is the expectation that musicians should be paid in perpetuity: musicians will have to be first, and always, musicians. Brittany Spears need not apply, we need people who can step on a stage, and sing, or play their instrument; the idea that a concert should be a spectacle will have to end. If you need a ten piece band and dancers – especially if you need dancers – then you can’t be expected to turn a profit on tour. No profit, no performance, it needs to be that simple. A five man band giving it their all, ala the Stones 1972 can be profitable work. An eleven man band playing Jumping Jack Flash while Mick, Keith and Ronny prance and preen ala the Stones now, no Dice, Tumblin’ or otherwise; prices need to come down. Sure Roger Waters or Madonna can carry a circus act, tractor trailer loads full of bricks and flying pigs, then charge $150, but nobody else can. Fourty dollars to hear some band on the margins is too much, they need to be able to play, profitably, for less, maybe a lot less. The trick is get enough people in the seats for $20, and sell them shirts, ring-tones, iPhone cases and downloads of the show.

I mention this because it is, I think, the future, and it is coming sooner than most believe. Here’s an item from this weeks paper:

Christina Aquilera has announced a 20-date North American tour… in support of her upcoming album Bionic. Fans will receive a digital copy of the album with every ticket purchased before June 4.

Give away the music, sell the concert. It’s a new idea, and will take some working out, but it’s economically viable. To put it simply, performance is a scarce commodity, one that can be charged for. As it gets harder and harder to collect on the bits and bites sitting on your hard drive, it will become more viable to look to the performance of music to make a living.

What’s going to save the music industry from itself? That’s easy: musicians. And when they do, music consumers will be better off for it.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Beatles, Beth, Bionic, Brittany Spears, Christina Aquilera, CSI, Destroyer, George HArrison, Hard Luck Woman, John Lennon, Jumping Jack Flash, Keith Richards, Kiss, Madonna, Mick Jagger, Nigel Tufnel, Octopuses Garden, paul stanley, Ringo Starr, Roger Daltry, Roger Waters, Rolling Stones, Ron Wood, The Who, Tommy, Toronto, Who’s Next

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

Have you heard the new Rolling Stones song, Plunder My Soul yet? It was released for Independent Record Store Day on April 17th as a vinyl 45RPM single. There was a limited amount made and they moved quickly. If you managed to pick one up on Record Store Day or, like me stumbled across a copy a few weeks later, you got a nice collectable and a good song.

What is the best new Stones song of the last 25 years? – An argument could be made that the best Stones song of recent vintage was by a Montreal band recording their first English language album in ten years. The Respectable’s Sweet Mama is the Stones at their very best, even if they aren’t the Stones (actually a better argument could be made that Sweet Mama is the best Faces song in 35 years) – Plunder My Soul may well be the best Stones song since Little T&A from 1981’s Tattoo You?

Plunder My Soul was recorded in 1972 as part of the Exile On Main Street sessions. Most Stones aficionados would highlight 1972 as being in the middle of the bands peak creative years. Going a couple of years either side of 1972 you get the following singles released: Honky Tonk Woman (b side/You Can’t Always Get What You Want); Brown Sugar; Wild Horses; Tumbling Dice; Happy; Angie; Heartbreaker; It’s Only Rock and Roll; Ain’t To Proud To Beg (b side/Dance Little Sister). Add a year on the front end and you can throw in Jumping Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man. Then there was the album tracks, the stuff that didn’t get released as a single, but deserves mention: Sympathy For the Devil; Give Me Shelter; Midnight Rambler; Can’t You Hear Me Knocking; Bitch; Dead Flowers; Tumblin’ Dice; ‘Til The Next Goodbye. That’s quite a list, far from comprehensive as it is.

To many Rolling Stones fans, Exile On Main Street is the penultimate album, the apex of Rolling Stonery. But Exile has it’s weak moments, songs that sound more like jams than well crafted songs fit for a top level album. Other’s still are just weaker songs, songs that hint, ever so gently, that Fool To Cry is coming. When Plunder My Soul is played next to the rest of Exile, deserves to be there, and is better than many songs that made the cut.

By 1976 the Stones were no longer firing on all cylinders creatively. Black and Blue, that years release featuring the aforementioned Fool To Cry as it’s main single, was a much weaker album. It had been two years since It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (my personal favourite Stones album). Things were about to go very badly for the band: Keith would face the possibility of a 7 year to life prison term when he was arrested on heroin possession “for the purposes of trafficking” charges by the RCMP in 1977. Convicted of a lesser possession charge, the judge did the sensible thing: he gave Richards a suspended sentence, one year probation and made him give a benefit concert.

Clean (of heroin, at any rate), chastened by the Canadian judicial system and the punks who were starting to dominate the English music scene, the Stones returned in 1978 with a stripped down, punk influenced album, Some Girls. One of their finest works, Some Girls featured four strong singles, Miss You, Beast of Burden, Respectable and Shattered. The Stones could have disappeared from the radar as many big early 70’s bands did around this time. But Some Girls put them in front of a new generation, and cemented their standing as a great rock ‘n’ roll band.

Followed by Emotional Rescue in 1980, a much weaker effort even if it did have Dance and She’s So Cold (a friend recently confessed Emotional Rescue was his favourite Stones song). Tattoo You would end the punk inspired period with an album of mostly outtakes including Waiting on a Friend, Little T&A and one of their best songs, Start Me Up. The Stones would never be this good again.

By 1983 Punk had died away and the MTV generation was ruling the airwaves. The Stones answered with Undercover, a largely forgettable album of largely forgettable songs. Dirty Work would follow three years later with Harlem Shuffle being the best of a bad bunch. Nineteen-eight-nine’s Steel Wheels the Stones hit rock bottom, with Mick uttering the horrific lyric in the albums biggest hit, Mixed Emotions:

Button your lip baby
Button your coat
Lets go out dancing
Go for the throat…

This coming and going
Is driving me nuts
This to-ing and fro-ing
Is hurting my guts
So get off the fence
Its creasing your butt
Life is a party
Lets get out and strut

This to-ing and fro-ing, Is hurting my guts? From the band that gave us:

Think the time is right for a palace revolution
‘Cause where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock ‘n’ roll band
‘Cause in sleepy London town
There’s just no place for a street fighting man.

Untenable! It would get no better, and while the Stones would make a well deserved fortune playing the old stuff, any new work was average at best.

It is in this light that the Stones released Plunder My Soul last month. A throwback song, on a throwback format, it is quite the best Stones song since Tattoo You, possibly the best since Some Girls or even, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (but I won’t go that far). Best Stones song in 25 years? For sure. Best in 35? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

One things for sure, it is great to have a new Stones song to love.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Ain’t To Proud To Beg, Angie, Beast of Burden, Bitch, Black and Blue, Brown Sugar, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking, Dance, Dance Little Sister, Dead Flowers, Dirty Work, Emotional Rescue, Exile on Main St, Fool To Cry, Give Me Shelter, Happy, Harlem Shuffle, Heartbreaker, Honky Tonk Woman, It’s Only Rock and Roll, Jumping Jack Flash, Little T&A, Midnight Rambler, Miss You, Mixed Emotions, Plunder My SOul, Respectable, Rolling Stones, Shattered, She’s So Cold, Some Girls, Start Me Up, Steel Wheels, Street Fighting Man, Sympathy For the Devil, Tattoo You, Tumbling Dice, Tumblin’ Dice, Undercover, Waiting on a Friend, Wild Horses, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, ‘Til The Next Goodbye

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

Yesterday was Independent Record Store Day. Did you miss it? Are you, at this moment, slapping your forehead because you forgot all about it? Not likely. More like your saying to yourself, “there’s an independent record store day?” Why, yes there is, it’s a promotional event by some players in the music industry, and is significant because a number of artists supported the idea, and got behind it.

Of course, if you go the right websites, are on the right mailing lists, you knew about it. And quite a few people go to those websites, subscribe to those mailing lists. At Other Music in New York City, they lined up around the block to get in. Easy for them, you might think. They still have record stores in New York. While it’s true New York has everything, including a street with two chess shops across the road from each other and a peanut butter restaurant, you didn’t have to be in Manhattan to enjoy Record Store Day. Chances were there was someplace within a short enough drive. Out here in Cambridge, I had four or five options nearby, more than ten if I was willing to put in an hours driving.

Why, on the other hand, would you want to attend Independent Record Store Day? Why stand in line on Saturday to shop at a store that was there Friday, and still will be, presumably, Monday. The reason is that, as I mentioned earlier, a number of artists got behind the idea. Real, artists, significant artists, with long histories in the music world, released new material specifically for this event. We aren’t talking a new Lady Gaga video here, although she may have done so. How about a new Rolling Stones single, only on vinyl? The song, Plundered My Soul, is a find from the vaults. A lost song from the Exile on Main St. sessions, Plundered My Soul is a great rocker. Proof that The Rolling Stones were once a great band, especially considering Plunder My Soul didn’t make the final cut.

Plunder My Soul singles, which sadly were gone by the time I got off my lazy ass and wandered over to Encore Records, are already selling on eBay in the $30 to $60 range . As an aside, the Kitchener Record claims there was also a line-up at Encore Records at opening time. They did have a number of the items specially released for Record Store Day. A number of vinyl albums, Jeff Beck’s new one, and John Hiatt’s newest for example. Myself, I picked up two 10” singles, a new, Bruce Springsteen and a Them Crooked Vultures picture disk.

The Springsteen features two previously released tracks, but tracks that have never been out in a physical format before. Both have gotten the iTunes treatment, but the limited edition 10” is just for Record Store Day. The A side, Wrecking Ball, was recorded and written specifically for his 2009 Giant’s Stadium concerts. Giant’s Stadium will go under the wrecking ball itself. The song itself, according to Pitchfork upon it’s iTunes release,  is:

dedicated to the big building, New Jersey, living, dying, turning 60, and trying to hold onto memories in the age of parking lots.

B side is a live version of Ghost of Tom Joad from 2008.

The real treat of my day, the real keeper, is the Them Crooked Vultures 10” picture disc. In case you haven’t been keeping track, Them Crooked Vultures is a new “super group,” with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, Foo Fighters frontman, and ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl back on the drums, and Queens of the Stone Age front man Josh Homme on guitar and vocals. They are loud, brash, ballsy and real, real good. Their imagery, various drawings of a humanoid with a vulture head, is always excellent. Displayed in a Crooked Vultures red see through envelope, the picture disc is an excellent piece. The disc contains an album cut Mind Eraser, No Chaser, and a new live song, Hwy 1 on side one, and an interview on side two.

Over all Independent Record Store Day seems to have been a success, both for the stores that took part, and for me personally. It is simply great to be buying a new song, on vinyl, by some favourite artists, at a favourite record store. What more could a music fan ask for?

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod, Uncategorized Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, Encore Records, Exile on Main St, Foo Fighters, Ghost of Tom Joad, Giant's Stadium, Hwy 1, Independent Record Store Day, Jeff Beck, John Hiatt, John Paul Jones, Josh Homme, Lady Gaga, Led Zeppelin, Mind Eraser No Chaser, New York City, Other Music, Plundered My Soul, Queens of a Stone Age, Record Store Day, Rolling Stones, Them Crooked Vultures, Wrecking Ball

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

A few weeks ago I was on about the resurgence of the LP, this week I’d like to take a moment to whine about an LP I can’t find. Canada’s Social Code has a new disk “Rock ’N’ Roll,” available in the usual ways, CD, iTunes, various illegal download sites. It is, however, almost the perfect disk for LP release and yet, that’s the one format I haven’t found it on yet.

Rock ‘N’ Roll. That’s the title. It used to be that meant something, something more than barre chords, 4/4 time and a shuffle rhythm. As kids we listened to rock, but we believed in rock ’n’ roll. In Kiss’s seminal live album, Kiss Alive, Paul Stanley asks the Cobo Hall audience, “Do you believe in Rock and Roll.” It wasn’t corny, and the audience cheered. “Then stand up for what you believe in,” he answers them back. As if rock ’n’ roll is freedom, or killing Nazi’s or women’s rights or peanut butter (sorry, that‘s clap your hands). The thing is, was, we did believe in rock ’n’ roll in the same way a person believes in freedom and civil rights. We believed rock ’n’ roll was more than music, it was a movement.

While it was a movement, it was also very personal. We didn’t just listen to music, we loved it. It breathed life into our being. It “moved our soul,” and as such we accepted it as important. In a world of pre-packaged disposable everything, including music, I miss that. I miss the feeling that music is important, that it can affect the world. I still listen to a fair bit of rock ’n’ roll, but in a world where the Rolling Stones have sponsored tours, the Who play the Superbowl on Prime Time TV and Bob Dylan is like a Rolling Stone only in so much as his music is also available for advertising, I miss the idea of Rock ’n’ Roll.

Note the quotes above. Rock ’n’ roll “moved our soul.” The quotes are from the title track to Social Codes Rock ’n’ Roll album. It’s a ballad in the old style, acoustic guitar with a running bass line melody, a cello, and one guy singing his heart out. Not in the academy style of a well trained voice, but a from the testicles, gut it out style of singing from rock ’n’ roll’s old school. And it speaks volume about what’s missing, what’s wrong with today’s music.

I like it stripped down raw and naked,
A Little Peace of your Heart I’ll take it
Turn it as loud as it will go

I don’t want it packaged neat
I don’t want it bought and sold
Don’t play it safe it’s time to lose control

I’m Gonna’ kill my television
Nad burn my radio
I want something that will move my soul
I want rock ’n’ roll

Let’s set these city streets on fire
Strike a match and start a riot
Burn it to the ground with rock ‘n’ roll

The battle stopped my ears still ringing
I miss the sound of sirens singing
The tattoo on my heart says rock ‘n’ roll

Wonderful stuff. And at the end, when he quietly moans “Where did you go” a couple of times between choruses, it‘s spine tingling. Somebody out there, somebody with a guitar, a microphone and a record deal gets it.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Bob Dylan, Kiss, Kiss Alive!, paul stanley, piece of my heart, rock 'n' roll, Rolling Stones, social code, Superbowl, The Who

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Seventies rock band that simply refuse to accept a good embalming, Aerosmith, may be breaking up. “Steven [Singer Steven Tyler] quit as far as I can tell,” according to guitarist Joe Perry. The band hasn’t performed together since Tyler fell off a stage in August and  canceled their summer tour. It was the worst fall in rock and roll since Kieth Richards fell out of the coconut tree, giving immortality to the tree, and several nearby coconuts.

So Kate Gosselin has spent the summer polishing her resume, appearing on such staple network TV shows as The Today show, and guest-co-hosting on The View. Ex-husband Jon? He was on The Insider with ex-Bristol Palin guy-pal Levi Johnson Sunday.  Johnson said of Gosselin, “he’s a good guy… he’s getting the same bad image as I am and it ain’t true. I can relate to that.” 

Good Lord Jon! Levi Johnson? Are you paying attention to what’s happening to the shambles of your career?  Has anybodies star dropped so far so fast since Fatty Arbuckle?

Review in Brief – Men who Talk to Goats: (as told to me in two independent conversations). This would be a great movie to see stoned

Breaking News: Steven Tyler is not leaving Aerosmith. Tyler appeared on stage with Perry during a solo show to promote Perry’s new release, Have Guitar Will Travel, to announce he is still the singer for Aerosmith. He then sang Walk This Way with Perry’s band without falling off the stage or any kind of tropical tree.  

Boxer Mike Tyson was arrested this week after allegedly punching a photographer in LA. There was a time when if Tyson punched some photographer, the photographer would be on life support. Instead, he made a citizens arrest of Tyson, who also made a citizens arrest on the photog. The 50 year old paparazzi had none of his ears bitten off during the battle.

Breaking news. Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry fell out of a coconut tree, landing on Kieth Richards and causing Steven Tyler to announce he will never sing with the Rolling Stones again, unless, of course, he’s asked.

Fluffernutter Aerosmith, Fatty Arbuckle, Have Guitar Will Travel, Joe Perr, Jon Gosselin, Kate Gosselin, Kieth Richards, Levi Johnson, Mike Tyson, Rolling Stones, Steven Tyler, The Insider, The Today Show, The View

… Geoffrey Arnold Beck

Jeff Beck is the middle of the three great Yardbird guitarists, his time with the legendary band squeezed between Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Never a great improviser, songwriter or singer he is often underestimated. His renderings of other people music is, however, often brilliant and his guitar playing is as good as any in the rock genre. It is no exaggeration to call him a great guitarist, far more so than the more highly celebrated Clapton, in my opinion.

Beck’s first post-Yardbirds group would feature a young Rod Stewart on vocals and future Rolling Stone Ron Wood on bass. It was considered the template for friend and Yardbird band-mate Jimmy Page’s future band,  Led Zeppelin (the name Led Zeppelin incidentally, emerged from a recording session called Beck’s Bolero, with Beck Who drummer Kieth Moon, Pianist Nicky Hopkins and future Zeppeliners Page and John Paul Jones).

Beck was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, many years too late (he was, of course, previously inducted as a Yardbird).

Jeff Beck, one of the true greats of rock ‘n’ roll guitar, happy 65th birthday:  enjoy your seniors discount years.

Beck’s Bolero

Beck Bogart and Appice – Superstition

Birthday Wishes, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Beck Bogart Appice, Beck's Bolero, Carmine Appice, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jeff Beck Group, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Kieth Moon, Led Zeppelin, Nicky Hopkins, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rod Stewart, Rolling Stones, Ron Wood, Tim Bogart, Yardbirds