Zen Music Moment
A couple years ago, the AIDS Quilt came to Tulsa for display. My good friend Larry and his wife were part of the committee to bring it and display at the Tulsa Convention Center. Larry’s wife, Claudia, had lost a brother to AIDS related illness.
AS the date drew near, Ashley and I volunteered to act as monitors in the huge display room. The quilts were mounted on walls and laid out in patterns across the floor. We monitors were dressed in all white, and our job was to simply police an area and watch out for the well being of the quilt.
Of course, a large percentage of the monitors were part of the gay community, as were many of the sponsors. Ashley got a kick out of the time when one of the male monitors told me that my dark, curly hair looked very nice against my white shirt. “Wanting to switch sides?” she had asked in a whisper as we strolled through the wandering crowd.
We were all a little excited and hopeful that we might get a little recognition from a celebrity scheduled to appear in concert just down the hall in the Convention Center concert hall. Elton John had brought his one-man show to Tulsa, appearing alone with only his piano. I had seen Elton before with his full band in tow and it was a spectacular concert.
Everyone knew Elton had made appearances for the Ryan White Foundation, and as a gay man himself had supported many of the AIDS related charities. Quietly, we were anticipating some good luck and the chance to meet Elton.
As the day and afternoon wore on, it became apparent that Elton would not make it to the display, but we still had some good luck as far as his concert. The show had been sold out for a long time. I was unable to get tickets. But, late that afternoon, the tour manager came to the display and told Larry’s daughter they had moved the stage and equipment freeing up quite a few seats on the floor. He offered those seats to the workers for only $50 per seat. WE reacted quickly! A chance to see Elton John in this sold out show and from the floor, no less.
As the display shut down, we made our way to the concert. We were seated some 25 rows away from the stage. A great place for seeing and hearing the show! I ran to the concession for Ash and while there ran into my nephew Brian. He had managed to get tickets in the nosebleed sections, back of the auditorium and had paid $150 dollars for his seat.
Needless to say, Elton and his piano were tremendous! “Rocket Man,” “Tiny Dancer” and “Good bye Yellow Brick Road”… all his great hits one after the other.
Sure, it was a case of being in the right place at the right time, but I like to think it was something a little more too.
Good Karma. What goes around, comes around.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
should have beena rock and roll star- Living in the past
Living in the Past
Funny, as I write this note about people who are stuck in the music of their high school years that I would choose an old Jethro Tull song as the theme.
But, when I turn on the radio today, the airwaves are so segregated… so sterile. Between the music channels (so-called) on TV and the radio, there is more music we miss than we hear. The music TV stations, in-between their gut wrenchingly idiotic reality shows, they sometimes manage to play a few videos. But, groups come and so quickly there, as the stations try to be on the crest of whatever wave may be gathering its tsunami type strength to wash across the youth of the world. In the process, those stations drop last year’s bands, even if they are still making good music as if they were last week’s boyfriend.
The Radio isn’t much better. The stations, mostly controlled by a small group of corporations who own broadcasting across a wide scope of music genres in order to maximize their advertising dollars and marketing ability, safely crank out predictable play lists. There is an oldies station, an ‘edgy” station, a country station and an Rand B/ hip hop station, which are all governed by strict play lists in order to avoid antagonizing advertisers and appeal to the widest group possible.
There is nothing new and risky on the air. The play lists are careful to fit within demographic borders so airtime can be effectively sold to potential sponsors. It makes it an easy sale when a marketing person can state that the listening group is composed of 70% white middle class listeners between the ages of 30 and 50.
That said, my rant comes from frustration at the inability to find music. Bands disappear form play lists long before they are shuffled off the recording labels. Long time performers still manage to hold on to a dedicated fan base but without the help of radio or television. The listening fan has to search to find new releases.
A few examples….. Take Neil Young, the long time often genre morphing musician who has been making music, touring and selling since his stints in the 60’s with Buffalo Springfield, time with Crosby, Stills and Nash and a long fruitful solo career. Young was called the Grandfather of Grunge. He released a steaming anti-war protest album in the last year of the Bush administration called “Living With War.” He is a still productive member of the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
Now, where would you look for his newest releases on the airwaves? He released an album this past year called “Fork IN the Road.” I never heard a single song on the radio or saw a single video on the music TV channels.
Has Neil Young been ostracized? Does his new music suck the big one? Is he a pretending fossil?
Nope. Neil can still blow the roof off the performing hall. His screeching guitar solos and encyclopedic catalog still rattle the bones and freeze the blood, but Neil, along with others of his generation, have found the gap in the 21st century radio play lists. “Mind the Gap” the signs say in the London tube, but Young, Todd Rundgren, Styx, Journey and others who are still putting out fresh new music have slid off the sidewalk and into the darkness,
They do not play them on the new edgy music stations regardless of the message in the song, cleverness of lyric or catchiness of the music. They are too “OLD.” They do not play these songs on the oldies or 70’s stations because something that came out in 2009 is not an oldie song regardless of the gray whiskers on their chin. They are a music condemned to the misty purgatory of radio and TV Neverland. They are a tune without a country. They are a song without a listener.
It brings up the modern musical Zen Koan… if a song gets played and no one ever gets to hear it, does it really exist?
Sure, I blame the advertisers and soulless programmers of chain radio and TV stations. I also blame my generation of listeners. So many are mired in the comfortable past that they never stray out of the confines of the tunes that got them through high school.
Not too long ago, I went to see Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey tear up the BOK Concert Hall in Oklahoma City. They played their old favorite from “My Generation” to “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” The Who were touring to support a new album, “Endless Wire”, their first of new material in almost 20 years.
While the applause was deafening for the old classics, the new tunes were politely, yet less eagerly applauded. I imagine the great majority of concertgoers hadn’t even heard the CD and many may not have even known of its existence. It was a very well done collection; originally based upon a rock opera Pete had planned called “The Boy Who Could Hear Music.”
Of course, their failure to hear the CD was their own loss. But, I never heard any station, old or new play any of the many cuts that were seminal Who songs on that collection.
Not to say anything negative about Lynard Skynard, but how many times can someone listen to “Sweet Home Alabama?” As much as I like Billy Gibbons bluesy guitar, how often do I want to sit through “Tush?” The play lists of the oldies stations are stagnant with repetition. It is as if they have bec9ome the comfortable background Muzak that requires no thought and no real attention. It is the facade that we are still “Rockin.’” But, it is all smoke and mirrors. It is pretend.
Don’t get me wrong. I can’t think of an era with greater music than the 70’s, but even Beethoven went on to other works after the 5th Symphony. If there had been oldies radio around when he aged, he might have wished whatever last vestiges of hearing he had would disappear after the umpteenth millionth time he heard the strains of “Dit Dit Dit Dah!” rattle out as the only memento of his amazing career.
Radio in my youth was a varied thing. As I did my weekend jobs, I could hear everything from Diana Ross and the Supremes to Steppenwolf. I would hear “Hey Jude” and then “Little Green Apples.” I knew the words to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” just as I did to Zep’s “Stairway To Heaven.” It is that no longer. Radio has become a dish of one spice. This station is salt, and that one is pepper. There is no Oregano on 101.3, and no garlic on “The Edge!”
Like a mass produced burger, it is a tasteless lump which could just as easily been made of Styrofoam, squeezed from a Playdough machine.
Ugh!!!
First….It’s time for a revolution! Imagine what sales would do if the older buying public had actually heard that My Chemical Romance sounded a lot like Queen on “The Black Parade?” Would more people buy Greeen Day if they heard the early bands like the Clash and The Dead Milkmen that paved their way? Seems to me the music companies have something to gain by influencing the radio and TV stations to play a wider range of music. It’s something that would pull our dead asses off the couch and up to find some new tunes that speak to us, enliven us and make us want to tap our foot and wail off key to a new song in our car!
The second issue is this…. Baby Boomers and Post Baby Boomers…I’m sorry but high school was not the best time of your life. I teach high school. I know! The music was great, yes! But there has been plenty of great music since then too. Get out of that cocoon and actually listen to something new instead of just asking your son, nephew of grand daughter to “turn that frickin’ noise down!!” They know what the new stuff is, and believe it or not…. And my sons would collapse if they heard me say this… a little rap never killed any one. In fact, for we die hard rock fans, people have been mixing it with great results in bands like “The Beastie Boys,” Lil Wayne” and “Street Sweeper Social Club.” Whining guitars and a rap vocal line!
Third, we have got to save our newest generations from the ongoing sterilization of music. The beginning of the dirge about radios fall from grace goes back a couple decades. Rush eulogized radio in “The Spirit of Radio.” Queen followed with “Radio Gaga” and Elvis Costello with “Radio Radio.” They missed the days when radio was something more than a corporate tool. Like the Ravyns song, ‘Raised on the Radio,” “I was an all American boys and I found my favorite toy! I was raised on the radio!”
There are way too many kids who have such a narrow interest in specific music genres. They don’t listen to this one or that one. They listen to a specific music style station on the radio, or the specialized ones on satellite, or the playlist on their MP3 player.
They must be saved from homogenized music.
Going way back to Jethro Tull, and one of their last LPs of the 70’s, more and more as I continue to cultivate that growing gray beard, I do believe in the lyrics of their song that says “You’re never too old to rock and roll if you’re too young to die!”
Funny, as I write this note about people who are stuck in the music of their high school years that I would choose an old Jethro Tull song as the theme.
But, when I turn on the radio today, the airwaves are so segregated… so sterile. Between the music channels (so-called) on TV and the radio, there is more music we miss than we hear. The music TV stations, in-between their gut wrenchingly idiotic reality shows, they sometimes manage to play a few videos. But, groups come and so quickly there, as the stations try to be on the crest of whatever wave may be gathering its tsunami type strength to wash across the youth of the world. In the process, those stations drop last year’s bands, even if they are still making good music as if they were last week’s boyfriend.
The Radio isn’t much better. The stations, mostly controlled by a small group of corporations who own broadcasting across a wide scope of music genres in order to maximize their advertising dollars and marketing ability, safely crank out predictable play lists. There is an oldies station, an ‘edgy” station, a country station and an Rand B/ hip hop station, which are all governed by strict play lists in order to avoid antagonizing advertisers and appeal to the widest group possible.
There is nothing new and risky on the air. The play lists are careful to fit within demographic borders so airtime can be effectively sold to potential sponsors. It makes it an easy sale when a marketing person can state that the listening group is composed of 70% white middle class listeners between the ages of 30 and 50.
That said, my rant comes from frustration at the inability to find music. Bands disappear form play lists long before they are shuffled off the recording labels. Long time performers still manage to hold on to a dedicated fan base but without the help of radio or television. The listening fan has to search to find new releases.
A few examples….. Take Neil Young, the long time often genre morphing musician who has been making music, touring and selling since his stints in the 60’s with Buffalo Springfield, time with Crosby, Stills and Nash and a long fruitful solo career. Young was called the Grandfather of Grunge. He released a steaming anti-war protest album in the last year of the Bush administration called “Living With War.” He is a still productive member of the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
Now, where would you look for his newest releases on the airwaves? He released an album this past year called “Fork IN the Road.” I never heard a single song on the radio or saw a single video on the music TV channels.
Has Neil Young been ostracized? Does his new music suck the big one? Is he a pretending fossil?
Nope. Neil can still blow the roof off the performing hall. His screeching guitar solos and encyclopedic catalog still rattle the bones and freeze the blood, but Neil, along with others of his generation, have found the gap in the 21st century radio play lists. “Mind the Gap” the signs say in the London tube, but Young, Todd Rundgren, Styx, Journey and others who are still putting out fresh new music have slid off the sidewalk and into the darkness,
They do not play them on the new edgy music stations regardless of the message in the song, cleverness of lyric or catchiness of the music. They are too “OLD.” They do not play these songs on the oldies or 70’s stations because something that came out in 2009 is not an oldie song regardless of the gray whiskers on their chin. They are a music condemned to the misty purgatory of radio and TV Neverland. They are a tune without a country. They are a song without a listener.
It brings up the modern musical Zen Koan… if a song gets played and no one ever gets to hear it, does it really exist?
Sure, I blame the advertisers and soulless programmers of chain radio and TV stations. I also blame my generation of listeners. So many are mired in the comfortable past that they never stray out of the confines of the tunes that got them through high school.
Not too long ago, I went to see Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey tear up the BOK Concert Hall in Oklahoma City. They played their old favorite from “My Generation” to “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” The Who were touring to support a new album, “Endless Wire”, their first of new material in almost 20 years.
While the applause was deafening for the old classics, the new tunes were politely, yet less eagerly applauded. I imagine the great majority of concertgoers hadn’t even heard the CD and many may not have even known of its existence. It was a very well done collection; originally based upon a rock opera Pete had planned called “The Boy Who Could Hear Music.”
Of course, their failure to hear the CD was their own loss. But, I never heard any station, old or new play any of the many cuts that were seminal Who songs on that collection.
Not to say anything negative about Lynard Skynard, but how many times can someone listen to “Sweet Home Alabama?” As much as I like Billy Gibbons bluesy guitar, how often do I want to sit through “Tush?” The play lists of the oldies stations are stagnant with repetition. It is as if they have bec9ome the comfortable background Muzak that requires no thought and no real attention. It is the facade that we are still “Rockin.’” But, it is all smoke and mirrors. It is pretend.
Don’t get me wrong. I can’t think of an era with greater music than the 70’s, but even Beethoven went on to other works after the 5th Symphony. If there had been oldies radio around when he aged, he might have wished whatever last vestiges of hearing he had would disappear after the umpteenth millionth time he heard the strains of “Dit Dit Dit Dah!” rattle out as the only memento of his amazing career.
Radio in my youth was a varied thing. As I did my weekend jobs, I could hear everything from Diana Ross and the Supremes to Steppenwolf. I would hear “Hey Jude” and then “Little Green Apples.” I knew the words to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” just as I did to Zep’s “Stairway To Heaven.” It is that no longer. Radio has become a dish of one spice. This station is salt, and that one is pepper. There is no Oregano on 101.3, and no garlic on “The Edge!”
Like a mass produced burger, it is a tasteless lump which could just as easily been made of Styrofoam, squeezed from a Playdough machine.
Ugh!!!
First….It’s time for a revolution! Imagine what sales would do if the older buying public had actually heard that My Chemical Romance sounded a lot like Queen on “The Black Parade?” Would more people buy Greeen Day if they heard the early bands like the Clash and The Dead Milkmen that paved their way? Seems to me the music companies have something to gain by influencing the radio and TV stations to play a wider range of music. It’s something that would pull our dead asses off the couch and up to find some new tunes that speak to us, enliven us and make us want to tap our foot and wail off key to a new song in our car!
The second issue is this…. Baby Boomers and Post Baby Boomers…I’m sorry but high school was not the best time of your life. I teach high school. I know! The music was great, yes! But there has been plenty of great music since then too. Get out of that cocoon and actually listen to something new instead of just asking your son, nephew of grand daughter to “turn that frickin’ noise down!!” They know what the new stuff is, and believe it or not…. And my sons would collapse if they heard me say this… a little rap never killed any one. In fact, for we die hard rock fans, people have been mixing it with great results in bands like “The Beastie Boys,” Lil Wayne” and “Street Sweeper Social Club.” Whining guitars and a rap vocal line!
Third, we have got to save our newest generations from the ongoing sterilization of music. The beginning of the dirge about radios fall from grace goes back a couple decades. Rush eulogized radio in “The Spirit of Radio.” Queen followed with “Radio Gaga” and Elvis Costello with “Radio Radio.” They missed the days when radio was something more than a corporate tool. Like the Ravyns song, ‘Raised on the Radio,” “I was an all American boys and I found my favorite toy! I was raised on the radio!”
There are way too many kids who have such a narrow interest in specific music genres. They don’t listen to this one or that one. They listen to a specific music style station on the radio, or the specialized ones on satellite, or the playlist on their MP3 player.
They must be saved from homogenized music.
Going way back to Jethro Tull, and one of their last LPs of the 70’s, more and more as I continue to cultivate that growing gray beard, I do believe in the lyrics of their song that says “You’re never too old to rock and roll if you’re too young to die!”
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Zen music moment- Take me home Country Road
In the Fall of 1974, I had just finished a football season and nearly the first semester of my freshman year at Sterling College. The season was an awakening for we freshmen,, changing from the high school first teamers to the college new guys.
It was time both hard of the ego and hard on us both physically and mentally.
Everybody hit hard there. Everyone had been the high school star. We soddenly became just one of the team instead of the Go-To guy.
There were a few freshmen from Oklahoma on that team, including myself, another big D lineman b]named Sammy Hankins and a defensive back named Steve Childress.
Sammy was clumsy, big, goofy and seemed to be doing OK with the transition. I had my moments of despair and loneliness. I was homesick, beaten and bruised, and unsure. I went from a Valedictorian at a small high school to kid kind of lost in my college classes. Never had to really study hard before. never was without a starting position on a football team before since 9ht grade football.
Steve was a lot like me in that respect. He came from the small town of Okemah. I'm sure that Steve, a pretty good athlete, handsome with shoulder length hair and a great smile, must have been the pride of the Okemah football team. He struggled a little with the authority in Sterling football, but that was probably because his world was a little shaken, like mine.
But even with those Tom Cruise looks and long straight hair that gave him sort of a gladiator appearance, he was as home sick as was I.
At Thanksgiving break, Steve and I, along with a freshman basketball player from central Oklahoma, loaded into Bessie the wonder car and began a drive home for the holiday. WE drove about 5 hours to Kenny's house in another small own before heading east towards Okemah. It was dark. The road was long and lonely. The only thing we had was the shifting raido stations as we crossed the central Oklahoma plains.
As we drove closer to Okemah, passing familiar sights for Steve, the anticipation of getting home grew worse. It did for me too. I had added about 4 extra hours on to my trip by giving these two guys a ride... but that was OK. They were buddies.
In the darkness of that November night, through the crackling speakers in my '70 Ford maverick, John Denver sang "Country Road" for us.
Being a college football player required a facade of toughness and cockiness. And, when things are difficult and your heart is weak, it becomes a battle to avoid showing weakness or pain. In fact, smart ass remarks and aggressive behaviors replace that and protect you from revealing the true feelings.
AS the words to the songs filled the car, Steve, unable to hold back the pent up emotion, frustration and homesickness burst into tears. His body shuddered with the release.
"I hear her voice in the morning hour she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
and driving down this road I get the feeling
that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday...."
sat awkwardly. Unsure what to do, or if my sympathies would violate that toughness we had to present. But, I knew and I understood. I grieved with him.
Steve didn't return for the sophomore year at Sterling. He moved on and like so many others, I thought he might just become a memory of another time.
I completed college and then when applying for teaching and coaching jobs my first year out of college, I put in an application at the small school of Oilton, Oklahoma. I interviewed with the superintendent and waited for his call. When he called me, he offered me the job. He told me that the thing that made his decision was he had spoken to his son in law about the interviews and mentioned my name. The son in law, Steve Childress had told him I was a good guy.
I still think of Steve every time I hear that song. Not the hurting, upset and home sick Steve, because i know we all shared that feeling, whether we spoke of it or not. I still see him standing on the Kansas football field, hands on hips, cocky ass smile on his face, wind blowing his hair as he spit tobacco juice.
That's the Steve I remember.
It was time both hard of the ego and hard on us both physically and mentally.
Everybody hit hard there. Everyone had been the high school star. We soddenly became just one of the team instead of the Go-To guy.
There were a few freshmen from Oklahoma on that team, including myself, another big D lineman b]named Sammy Hankins and a defensive back named Steve Childress.
Sammy was clumsy, big, goofy and seemed to be doing OK with the transition. I had my moments of despair and loneliness. I was homesick, beaten and bruised, and unsure. I went from a Valedictorian at a small high school to kid kind of lost in my college classes. Never had to really study hard before. never was without a starting position on a football team before since 9ht grade football.
Steve was a lot like me in that respect. He came from the small town of Okemah. I'm sure that Steve, a pretty good athlete, handsome with shoulder length hair and a great smile, must have been the pride of the Okemah football team. He struggled a little with the authority in Sterling football, but that was probably because his world was a little shaken, like mine.
But even with those Tom Cruise looks and long straight hair that gave him sort of a gladiator appearance, he was as home sick as was I.
At Thanksgiving break, Steve and I, along with a freshman basketball player from central Oklahoma, loaded into Bessie the wonder car and began a drive home for the holiday. WE drove about 5 hours to Kenny's house in another small own before heading east towards Okemah. It was dark. The road was long and lonely. The only thing we had was the shifting raido stations as we crossed the central Oklahoma plains.
As we drove closer to Okemah, passing familiar sights for Steve, the anticipation of getting home grew worse. It did for me too. I had added about 4 extra hours on to my trip by giving these two guys a ride... but that was OK. They were buddies.
In the darkness of that November night, through the crackling speakers in my '70 Ford maverick, John Denver sang "Country Road" for us.
Being a college football player required a facade of toughness and cockiness. And, when things are difficult and your heart is weak, it becomes a battle to avoid showing weakness or pain. In fact, smart ass remarks and aggressive behaviors replace that and protect you from revealing the true feelings.
AS the words to the songs filled the car, Steve, unable to hold back the pent up emotion, frustration and homesickness burst into tears. His body shuddered with the release.
"I hear her voice in the morning hour she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
and driving down this road I get the feeling
that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday...."
sat awkwardly. Unsure what to do, or if my sympathies would violate that toughness we had to present. But, I knew and I understood. I grieved with him.
Steve didn't return for the sophomore year at Sterling. He moved on and like so many others, I thought he might just become a memory of another time.
I completed college and then when applying for teaching and coaching jobs my first year out of college, I put in an application at the small school of Oilton, Oklahoma. I interviewed with the superintendent and waited for his call. When he called me, he offered me the job. He told me that the thing that made his decision was he had spoken to his son in law about the interviews and mentioned my name. The son in law, Steve Childress had told him I was a good guy.
I still think of Steve every time I hear that song. Not the hurting, upset and home sick Steve, because i know we all shared that feeling, whether we spoke of it or not. I still see him standing on the Kansas football field, hands on hips, cocky ass smile on his face, wind blowing his hair as he spit tobacco juice.
That's the Steve I remember.
Friday, November 20, 2009
should ahve been a rock star- 80's songs that don't suck
Eighties songs that don’t suck
OK… I admit that a lot of the music of the eighties is equivalent to the French Rococo art style. Frivolous, pointless and gaudy. To get rid of that, French peasants ran amok, burned, looted and generally started a revolution. Ok, that is simplifying the French revolution a little, but…..a good listen to the typical 80’s play list would give you the idea.
Now, I know stereotyping is wrong and saying all 80’s music sucks is a n unfair generality. It didn’t. There were the consistent performers, many of who had started their careers in the 70’s and 60’s who still cranked out some impressive music during the 80’s. But, the advent of MTV definitely threw a curveball at the pop music genre. Pre-video channel, it didn’t take a pretty boy to crank out a fantastic guitar solo (see Jimi) or a beautiful woman to get a number one hit, ala Janis Joplin. The faces on video brought in a while new emphasis on the music.
OK. 80’s music is diverse in some ways. There were still remnants of the 70’s punk movement who even managed to get on MTV despite their less than charming looks. The Clash rocked the Kasbah and gave birth to a new movement of music, the New Wave that borrowed heavily from 70’s punk with a touch of early 60’s garage band influence mixed in. It produced a few better dressed, but still snarling musicians such as Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and the Pretenders.
Late 60’s and 70’s heavy metal still survived, but took a fashion twist from the glam rock of the 70’s. David Bowie gave birth to spandex, long hair metal. Def Leppard, Poison, White Snake, and Guns n’ Roses ground out the decibels album after album for those more inclined to feel their ears bleed with a melodic metal sledge hammer.
The giants of music played on. Billy Joel and Elton John had video hits hat played often. Even ex-Beatles McCartney, Lennon and Harrison graced the music channels. U2 gained more and more momentum throughout the 80’s to become one of the biggest bands in the world.
Stiil, those bands are not who wee think of when we consider the music of the 80’s. It had a peculiar sound. There was synthesizer. There was an influx of dance music. The 80’s took Glam, romanticism, synthesizers and video to create something that while not always lasting, served at least as a temporary distraction for a fascinated TV crowd.
The true 80’s sound was like the old cliché’ about Chinese food. Listen to it and an hour later you’re hungry again. It was not truly filling or satisfying in most cases. It was Milli Vanilli. It was Soft Cell and “tainted Love.” It was Spandau Ballet and OMD. It was ABC and Bananarama. It was Boy George in drag with Culture Club and The Cure singing “Friday I’m in Love.”
Thomas Dolby Blinded Us With Science” and Duran Duran dressed the part of the new romantics and sang about “Rio.” The icing on the 80’s sound was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Flock of Seagulls, and the Human League.
They all had hits. And for some reason, no matter how much I wanted to know what I had to do to “Wang Chung” tonight, I just could not see most of that music as permanent and lasting.
Some of the music definitely did not suck. The 80’s were gracious enough to give us some thoughtful gems and quirky experiments. The Talking heads twisted our brains with lyrics both hard to decipher and seemingly meaningless. The Police introduced a whole new population to Reggae music. Reggae fests soon began to appear everywhere.
PatBenetar could belt out a song, just as could Cindi Lauper. Elvis Costello turned out to be quite the wordsmith. Prince cut out a niche as a great musician and songwriter despite the fact he took the stage in a G-string in his early days. Madonna has definitely become a music icon in her own right, if not for her music then her ability to recreate herself over and over.
I could never list AHA’s “Take on Me” or Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy” in my top 80’s sound list, and would probably not be seen dead at their concert despite the fact I let myself be talked into going to an 80s’s concert in which Flock of Seagulls performed. The shame!
Ok… so my list of 80’s sound music that does not suck follows….
1. Church of the Poison Mind- Culture Club
2. Burning Down the House – the Talking Heads
3. When Doves Cry by Prince
4. Melt with you- Modern English
5. Life in a Northern Town- Dream Academy
6. From a Whisper to a Scream- Icicle Works
7. Blister in the Sun- Violent Femmes
8. We’ve Got the Beat – the Go Gos
9. Eternal Flame – the Bangles
10. I Don’t Like Mondays- Boomtown Rats
11. Money Changes Everything- Cindi Lauper
12. Pink Houses – John Mellencamp
13. Steam – Peter Gabriel
14. Sister Christian – Night Ranger
15. Losing M Religion – REM
16. Tempted – The Squeeze
17. Shout – Tears For Fears
18. Jenny 867-5309 – Tommy Tutone
19. Whole Wide World – Wreckless Eric
20. Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler
21. Turning Japanese- the Vapors
22. Voices carry – Til Tuesday
23. Beds are Burning – Midnight Oil
24. Fake Plastic Trees- Radiohead
25. White Wedding – Billy Idol
Now, there are some songs that are identified as the 80's but actually released in the 70's. I excluded those. Elvis Cosstello's great LP, "My Aim is True" contains the song Allison. Joe Jackson's "Look Sharp" with "Is She Really Going Out With Him," the Knack's "My Sharona" and the 80's and MTV classic "Video Killed the Radio Star " by the Buggles. "Video" was released just 3 months before 1980. It did go on to be the theme of a new video music generation.
Now, a lot of these people have multiple songs that don’t suck. And. , a lot of artists had great tunes, but most of the had sounds that were not 80’s sounds. They were the bands who started in another era and continued through this desert without many musical oasis.
Sure, there were bands that sucked in other eras. The 80’s has no monopoly on that. It just seems that the advent of the music video brought a lot of groups to the screen who fit the look, and seemed more manufactured than the bands of the 70’s or 80’s.
That Fact was illustrated by the Video by BLues Traveler, in which a visual band, headed by a thin singer and cool looking musicians lip synced on stage while the real band, fronted by the more than ample JohnPopper played behind a screen.
Ah... the 80's.
OK… I admit that a lot of the music of the eighties is equivalent to the French Rococo art style. Frivolous, pointless and gaudy. To get rid of that, French peasants ran amok, burned, looted and generally started a revolution. Ok, that is simplifying the French revolution a little, but…..a good listen to the typical 80’s play list would give you the idea.
Now, I know stereotyping is wrong and saying all 80’s music sucks is a n unfair generality. It didn’t. There were the consistent performers, many of who had started their careers in the 70’s and 60’s who still cranked out some impressive music during the 80’s. But, the advent of MTV definitely threw a curveball at the pop music genre. Pre-video channel, it didn’t take a pretty boy to crank out a fantastic guitar solo (see Jimi) or a beautiful woman to get a number one hit, ala Janis Joplin. The faces on video brought in a while new emphasis on the music.
OK. 80’s music is diverse in some ways. There were still remnants of the 70’s punk movement who even managed to get on MTV despite their less than charming looks. The Clash rocked the Kasbah and gave birth to a new movement of music, the New Wave that borrowed heavily from 70’s punk with a touch of early 60’s garage band influence mixed in. It produced a few better dressed, but still snarling musicians such as Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and the Pretenders.
Late 60’s and 70’s heavy metal still survived, but took a fashion twist from the glam rock of the 70’s. David Bowie gave birth to spandex, long hair metal. Def Leppard, Poison, White Snake, and Guns n’ Roses ground out the decibels album after album for those more inclined to feel their ears bleed with a melodic metal sledge hammer.
The giants of music played on. Billy Joel and Elton John had video hits hat played often. Even ex-Beatles McCartney, Lennon and Harrison graced the music channels. U2 gained more and more momentum throughout the 80’s to become one of the biggest bands in the world.
Stiil, those bands are not who wee think of when we consider the music of the 80’s. It had a peculiar sound. There was synthesizer. There was an influx of dance music. The 80’s took Glam, romanticism, synthesizers and video to create something that while not always lasting, served at least as a temporary distraction for a fascinated TV crowd.
The true 80’s sound was like the old cliché’ about Chinese food. Listen to it and an hour later you’re hungry again. It was not truly filling or satisfying in most cases. It was Milli Vanilli. It was Soft Cell and “tainted Love.” It was Spandau Ballet and OMD. It was ABC and Bananarama. It was Boy George in drag with Culture Club and The Cure singing “Friday I’m in Love.”
Thomas Dolby Blinded Us With Science” and Duran Duran dressed the part of the new romantics and sang about “Rio.” The icing on the 80’s sound was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Flock of Seagulls, and the Human League.
They all had hits. And for some reason, no matter how much I wanted to know what I had to do to “Wang Chung” tonight, I just could not see most of that music as permanent and lasting.
Some of the music definitely did not suck. The 80’s were gracious enough to give us some thoughtful gems and quirky experiments. The Talking heads twisted our brains with lyrics both hard to decipher and seemingly meaningless. The Police introduced a whole new population to Reggae music. Reggae fests soon began to appear everywhere.
PatBenetar could belt out a song, just as could Cindi Lauper. Elvis Costello turned out to be quite the wordsmith. Prince cut out a niche as a great musician and songwriter despite the fact he took the stage in a G-string in his early days. Madonna has definitely become a music icon in her own right, if not for her music then her ability to recreate herself over and over.
I could never list AHA’s “Take on Me” or Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy” in my top 80’s sound list, and would probably not be seen dead at their concert despite the fact I let myself be talked into going to an 80s’s concert in which Flock of Seagulls performed. The shame!
Ok… so my list of 80’s sound music that does not suck follows….
1. Church of the Poison Mind- Culture Club
2. Burning Down the House – the Talking Heads
3. When Doves Cry by Prince
4. Melt with you- Modern English
5. Life in a Northern Town- Dream Academy
6. From a Whisper to a Scream- Icicle Works
7. Blister in the Sun- Violent Femmes
8. We’ve Got the Beat – the Go Gos
9. Eternal Flame – the Bangles
10. I Don’t Like Mondays- Boomtown Rats
11. Money Changes Everything- Cindi Lauper
12. Pink Houses – John Mellencamp
13. Steam – Peter Gabriel
14. Sister Christian – Night Ranger
15. Losing M Religion – REM
16. Tempted – The Squeeze
17. Shout – Tears For Fears
18. Jenny 867-5309 – Tommy Tutone
19. Whole Wide World – Wreckless Eric
20. Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler
21. Turning Japanese- the Vapors
22. Voices carry – Til Tuesday
23. Beds are Burning – Midnight Oil
24. Fake Plastic Trees- Radiohead
25. White Wedding – Billy Idol
Now, there are some songs that are identified as the 80's but actually released in the 70's. I excluded those. Elvis Cosstello's great LP, "My Aim is True" contains the song Allison. Joe Jackson's "Look Sharp" with "Is She Really Going Out With Him," the Knack's "My Sharona" and the 80's and MTV classic "Video Killed the Radio Star " by the Buggles. "Video" was released just 3 months before 1980. It did go on to be the theme of a new video music generation.
Now, a lot of these people have multiple songs that don’t suck. And. , a lot of artists had great tunes, but most of the had sounds that were not 80’s sounds. They were the bands who started in another era and continued through this desert without many musical oasis.
Sure, there were bands that sucked in other eras. The 80’s has no monopoly on that. It just seems that the advent of the music video brought a lot of groups to the screen who fit the look, and seemed more manufactured than the bands of the 70’s or 80’s.
That Fact was illustrated by the Video by BLues Traveler, in which a visual band, headed by a thin singer and cool looking musicians lip synced on stage while the real band, fronted by the more than ample JohnPopper played behind a screen.
Ah... the 80's.
Zen Music Moment - Changes
Zen Music moment
I sat in the small Pizza King restaurant in Lyons Kansas. The overhead fluorescent lights gave a bluish hue to everything. Late, and tired, I was bushed. My first year of college football and the practices were killing me. I had been used to being the big dog in high school, but now I was getting pounded daily. I was trying to adjust to college classes, and it was a new thing. High school had been way too easy for me.
In the small town of Sterling, there was very little to do after the evening rolled in. Late, after study, or goofing off, a few of us discovered the pizza place from some of the local guys. It was a 15 minute drive from Sterling to Lyons, and there we sat, waiting on hot pizza and Coca Cola. We let the frustration of being a freshman, confused and bewildered, slide away with something familiar. The jukebox played and we watched the pretty Lyons high school girls waitress.
I have this memory, of myself and friend and future room mate Terry Brady, sitting there, elbows propped on the plastic red and white checkerboard tablecloth. The new song that played over the jukebox seemed very appropriate to me. David Bowie’s “Changes.”
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time
Changes seemed to be washing over me like waves on the beach. Yes, it was a small college and in a small town, but suddenly I was outside the comfort zone, and an unknown. The coaches didn’t know me from any other freshman. The professors didn’t know my reputation as a good student and I was a little homesick and beaten.
Things were changing.
I thought I had to keep up the facade of being brave, tough and a football stud while daily I actually felt lost, beaten and alone. The new friends I made, including Terry, helped to soothe that feeling of displacement and fear. We were comrades, me, Terry, Mack, Don, Greg, Sammy , John and others who all started as a high school football standout and now began life again at the bottom of the food chain. We bonded from common experience and common situation.
But, there at Pizza King, as the pretty blond waitress named Dixie waited on us, for a just a few moments, Bowie’s song washed over us. Thoughtful, listening to the words and another day of challenge waited outside the door, more changes would have to wait for another slice of pepperoni and a glass of Coke.
I sat in the small Pizza King restaurant in Lyons Kansas. The overhead fluorescent lights gave a bluish hue to everything. Late, and tired, I was bushed. My first year of college football and the practices were killing me. I had been used to being the big dog in high school, but now I was getting pounded daily. I was trying to adjust to college classes, and it was a new thing. High school had been way too easy for me.
In the small town of Sterling, there was very little to do after the evening rolled in. Late, after study, or goofing off, a few of us discovered the pizza place from some of the local guys. It was a 15 minute drive from Sterling to Lyons, and there we sat, waiting on hot pizza and Coca Cola. We let the frustration of being a freshman, confused and bewildered, slide away with something familiar. The jukebox played and we watched the pretty Lyons high school girls waitress.
I have this memory, of myself and friend and future room mate Terry Brady, sitting there, elbows propped on the plastic red and white checkerboard tablecloth. The new song that played over the jukebox seemed very appropriate to me. David Bowie’s “Changes.”
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time
Changes seemed to be washing over me like waves on the beach. Yes, it was a small college and in a small town, but suddenly I was outside the comfort zone, and an unknown. The coaches didn’t know me from any other freshman. The professors didn’t know my reputation as a good student and I was a little homesick and beaten.
Things were changing.
I thought I had to keep up the facade of being brave, tough and a football stud while daily I actually felt lost, beaten and alone. The new friends I made, including Terry, helped to soothe that feeling of displacement and fear. We were comrades, me, Terry, Mack, Don, Greg, Sammy , John and others who all started as a high school football standout and now began life again at the bottom of the food chain. We bonded from common experience and common situation.
But, there at Pizza King, as the pretty blond waitress named Dixie waited on us, for a just a few moments, Bowie’s song washed over us. Thoughtful, listening to the words and another day of challenge waited outside the door, more changes would have to wait for another slice of pepperoni and a glass of Coke.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Should Have Been a Rock Star- Rapping for an old dude
Should Have Been a Rock Star- Rapping for an old dude
Looking at some lyrics the other day… actually rap lyrics. My sons have started listening to rap music, something they distained at one time. My wife, Ash, was actually the first person in the house to give credence to Rap as an art.
Maybe it’s because she teaches literature and words are her tools, but she often, over my moans, spoke of some of the complex lyric she heard in Rap songs.
Me, just like my slow evolution to music’s new technology, I am a slow person to convert. There are a few things you will find on my IPOD that could be considered rap, or at least have Rap line in them. I really like the music by Tony Morello and Street Sweeper Social Club. It has great sizzling guitar with a rap vocal that caught my eyes and ears when it came on MTV with “100 Little Curses.” Morello says he is looking for the perfect blend of rock and rap. He’s pretty darn close.
I also have some things by Black Eyed Peas who first caught my attention with the song “Where is the Love. “ I do truly love that song and its content. I have to admit there was a time I would have turned it off before giving it a chance, which is funny because when Run DMC made the airwaves with their innocuous version of “Walk This Way,” I listened and even got the LP. I was even a fan of their song “My Addias.” For me, and my musical tastes, it was a big departure.
There were even experimental entries into white boy rap that preceded people like Eminem. Years ago artists used some rapid fire spoken lyrics, but as late as the ’93, Todd Rundgren made an LP that seemed to me to be based on William Gibson’s “Neuromancer,” called “No World Order.” Rundgren rapped the largest part of the lyrics. Even Who guitarist Pete Townshend added a sizzling bridge rap with a guest rapper to a solo live performance of the song “Who are you” in ’98 at Shepard’s Bush. Faith No More, Rage Against the Machine, the Beastie Boys and Anthrax, who is credited as being the first band to mix heavy metal and rap lyrics, all paved a way to what is pretty common place on the video channels today
These aren’t the first rappers to cross the line and bring rap music out of Black American culture. I know that when my sons turned on to it, I was surprised because, me the fossil still saw it as a cultural music, rather than something more universal. When some white artists rapped, such as Vanilla Ice, I must admit, I saw them more as a caricature. But the list is a lot longer than the few I have and they played a big part in introducing the art form to a new crowd. And, the white artists seemed almost cartoonish compared to the darker, more street oriented music that I heard from Ice-T, or Public Enemy or even NWA.
Those acts did seem to represent a culture of the streets, poverty and disenfranchisement. I could understand that their music spoke to something different, to oppression, racism and poverty. I have often wondered how those original innovators feel about the Rap/Hip Hop on the airwaves now, filled with wealth, garish display and lyrics less about cause and more about “see my wealth.” Do they see it as a violation? As a sell out? Do the rappers that burned a pathway into the public eye see the new rap as a perversion of the music of the street?
.
In its early days, the complaints about Rap music were many. Some complaints usually referenced the misogynistic theme of much of the music. Women were referred to as ‘bitch’ and many other less than polite terms. Yes, the same thing permeated some rock music, but the Rap music seemed to be less subtle in its sexism. Eventually, female rappers like Queen Latifah , Salt-n-Pepa, and Missy Elliot forced their way onto the Hip Hop scene and spoke against the inherent sexism in the lyrics. Once a voice against oppression, the Rappers had developed their very own ‘good ‘ol boys’ club.
Violence is also a focus of the criticism of Rap music. As late as 2007, a congressional hearing called witnesses concerning the focus on bad language and violence. Is the violence in the music dangerous for the listener? Even pop and rock faced the same challenge during the PMRC hearings in 1985. Those trials were inconclusive with little more than voluntary labeling for content as a result of the spectacular driven by Tipper Gore.
Even Illinois representative Bobby Rush, an ex-Black Panther, implied that the companies are not doing enough to protect young listeners. “This hearing is not anti-hip-hop,” said Mr. Rush. Still, he said, violence and degradation have “reduced too many of our youngsters to automatons, those who don’t recognize life, those who don’t value life.”
Is rap a bad influence? Is it worse than pop or rock in which semi-clad singers writhe around in videos leaving no doubt about the sexual content of some lyric like Lady Gaga’s“I Want To Ride on Your Disco Stick?” Is it the most common race of Rappers, and hints of racism itself that draws the attention of the public to this genre’s excesses? Or, it the criticism accurate in its assumption that this musical form has gone too far, degrading women, promoting violence and desensitizing the youth to foul language, violence and sexism?
A tough question that every generation seems to have to answer, whether it is the Ed Sullivan Show only showing Elvis from the waist up, making the Rolling Stones sing “Let’s Spend Some Time Together” instead of the night together, or early attempts to ban rock and roll because, as a southern radio station DJ in the 50’s said, it was “Nigger music.”
Will rap mellow? Mature?
Will it be diffused by its spread into a wider culture? Will it settle into a formulaic genre as some pop music has? Will it take the reins of social upheaval or slide into the same corporate interchangeable parts form of entertainment as so much of Rock has done, losing its mandate as the changing force in society?
Does it still speak for the disenfranchised or a display for the Nouveau Riche?
We can only hope that among the hours and hours of drivel, that somewhere in both Rap and Rock, someone is fermenting rebellion, and that someone wants to make the listening public aware of injustice, and someone is still trying to shake the foundations of complacency by using the music we love so much.
Looking at some lyrics the other day… actually rap lyrics. My sons have started listening to rap music, something they distained at one time. My wife, Ash, was actually the first person in the house to give credence to Rap as an art.
Maybe it’s because she teaches literature and words are her tools, but she often, over my moans, spoke of some of the complex lyric she heard in Rap songs.
Me, just like my slow evolution to music’s new technology, I am a slow person to convert. There are a few things you will find on my IPOD that could be considered rap, or at least have Rap line in them. I really like the music by Tony Morello and Street Sweeper Social Club. It has great sizzling guitar with a rap vocal that caught my eyes and ears when it came on MTV with “100 Little Curses.” Morello says he is looking for the perfect blend of rock and rap. He’s pretty darn close.
I also have some things by Black Eyed Peas who first caught my attention with the song “Where is the Love. “ I do truly love that song and its content. I have to admit there was a time I would have turned it off before giving it a chance, which is funny because when Run DMC made the airwaves with their innocuous version of “Walk This Way,” I listened and even got the LP. I was even a fan of their song “My Addias.” For me, and my musical tastes, it was a big departure.
There were even experimental entries into white boy rap that preceded people like Eminem. Years ago artists used some rapid fire spoken lyrics, but as late as the ’93, Todd Rundgren made an LP that seemed to me to be based on William Gibson’s “Neuromancer,” called “No World Order.” Rundgren rapped the largest part of the lyrics. Even Who guitarist Pete Townshend added a sizzling bridge rap with a guest rapper to a solo live performance of the song “Who are you” in ’98 at Shepard’s Bush. Faith No More, Rage Against the Machine, the Beastie Boys and Anthrax, who is credited as being the first band to mix heavy metal and rap lyrics, all paved a way to what is pretty common place on the video channels today
These aren’t the first rappers to cross the line and bring rap music out of Black American culture. I know that when my sons turned on to it, I was surprised because, me the fossil still saw it as a cultural music, rather than something more universal. When some white artists rapped, such as Vanilla Ice, I must admit, I saw them more as a caricature. But the list is a lot longer than the few I have and they played a big part in introducing the art form to a new crowd. And, the white artists seemed almost cartoonish compared to the darker, more street oriented music that I heard from Ice-T, or Public Enemy or even NWA.
Those acts did seem to represent a culture of the streets, poverty and disenfranchisement. I could understand that their music spoke to something different, to oppression, racism and poverty. I have often wondered how those original innovators feel about the Rap/Hip Hop on the airwaves now, filled with wealth, garish display and lyrics less about cause and more about “see my wealth.” Do they see it as a violation? As a sell out? Do the rappers that burned a pathway into the public eye see the new rap as a perversion of the music of the street?
.
In its early days, the complaints about Rap music were many. Some complaints usually referenced the misogynistic theme of much of the music. Women were referred to as ‘bitch’ and many other less than polite terms. Yes, the same thing permeated some rock music, but the Rap music seemed to be less subtle in its sexism. Eventually, female rappers like Queen Latifah , Salt-n-Pepa, and Missy Elliot forced their way onto the Hip Hop scene and spoke against the inherent sexism in the lyrics. Once a voice against oppression, the Rappers had developed their very own ‘good ‘ol boys’ club.
Violence is also a focus of the criticism of Rap music. As late as 2007, a congressional hearing called witnesses concerning the focus on bad language and violence. Is the violence in the music dangerous for the listener? Even pop and rock faced the same challenge during the PMRC hearings in 1985. Those trials were inconclusive with little more than voluntary labeling for content as a result of the spectacular driven by Tipper Gore.
Even Illinois representative Bobby Rush, an ex-Black Panther, implied that the companies are not doing enough to protect young listeners. “This hearing is not anti-hip-hop,” said Mr. Rush. Still, he said, violence and degradation have “reduced too many of our youngsters to automatons, those who don’t recognize life, those who don’t value life.”
Is rap a bad influence? Is it worse than pop or rock in which semi-clad singers writhe around in videos leaving no doubt about the sexual content of some lyric like Lady Gaga’s“I Want To Ride on Your Disco Stick?” Is it the most common race of Rappers, and hints of racism itself that draws the attention of the public to this genre’s excesses? Or, it the criticism accurate in its assumption that this musical form has gone too far, degrading women, promoting violence and desensitizing the youth to foul language, violence and sexism?
A tough question that every generation seems to have to answer, whether it is the Ed Sullivan Show only showing Elvis from the waist up, making the Rolling Stones sing “Let’s Spend Some Time Together” instead of the night together, or early attempts to ban rock and roll because, as a southern radio station DJ in the 50’s said, it was “Nigger music.”
Will rap mellow? Mature?
Will it be diffused by its spread into a wider culture? Will it settle into a formulaic genre as some pop music has? Will it take the reins of social upheaval or slide into the same corporate interchangeable parts form of entertainment as so much of Rock has done, losing its mandate as the changing force in society?
Does it still speak for the disenfranchised or a display for the Nouveau Riche?
We can only hope that among the hours and hours of drivel, that somewhere in both Rap and Rock, someone is fermenting rebellion, and that someone wants to make the listening public aware of injustice, and someone is still trying to shake the foundations of complacency by using the music we love so much.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
I should have been a rock star…. The lullaby
I should have been a rock star…. The lullaby
Yesterday, I walked into the field house following a frustrating practice with the 9ht grade football team… picked up the phone to see Corwin, who is at U of Tulsa, had left me a text.
Of course, one of the first things a parent thinks is “What’s wrong?”
I opened the text to find this message…..
“I just listened to Rocky Raccoon. Ah, good memories. I remember when you used to sing that to us.”
Suddenly, the tension of the practice and my aggravation with the day’s actions of 15-year-old boys faded into a smile. Warm memories of a rocking chair and bedtime chased away the October afternoon chill.
The Lullabies…
One of the few times it was OK to sing out loud for me.
When the boys were small, Ash and I often held them, rocked and sang them to sleep. Spoiled them? Maybe? Should we have done the thing about just laying them down awake so they’d get used to going to sleep on their own? Maybe. But I think it was as much as a selfish thing for us as it was a soothing thing for them.
We got to hold them, sing to them and slowly coax them into sleep with a collection of songs from the past. The warm baby or toddler, pressed against your chest, or cradled in your arms, drifting slowly into soft snores while we visited old friends in the guise of familiar tunes.
Ash and I each had our own particular list of songs we sang to the boys. Ashley went for some soft classics such as “Peter Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon,” or even current tunes (at that time) such as the bangles “Eternal Flame.”
“Close your eyes. Give me your hand.
Do you feel my heart beating?
Do you understand?
Do you feel the same?
Am I only dreaming?
Or is this burning an eternal flame?”
Her voice was softer and more graceful than my own, as I cracked and broke through a collection of classic Beatles and Monkee tunes.
“Sing Rocky! Sing Rocky!” was something both boys demanded from time to time. So, I would start with the songs sing-song spoken intro of “Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon, “ before leading into the song about the brash young man seeking revenge for the man who stole his love away.
The Beatles white album was a treasure trove of songs for bedtime. We sang “I Will,” “Dear Prudence,” “Mother nature’s Son,” and “Honey Pie.” The Beatles also offered up “Golden Slumbers,” “Till There Was You,” “Eight days a Week,” “Let It Be,” and “Here Comes the Sun.”
The boys were introduced to the Monkees in “Daydream Believer,” “What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round,” and “I’m a Believer.”
No doubt, the boys had their favs. Sometimes they would request “Bungalow Bill” from the Beatles. Others, it was Queen and “Somebody to Love.” Or “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Cat Stevens, Chicago, America, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Leon Russell and the Moody Blues… we were the boy’s personal bedtime jukeboxes.
It was a sad moment for me, when the boys got older and the singing began to fade away. I remember the day when Corwin, falling asleep on my lap, as I began to sing softly, reached his small hand to my mouth and said “Don’t sing right now, daddy.”
He didn’t need the song to fall asleep anymore.
Our joke has always been that if we were to make the boys playlists of the songs we sang to them to rock them to sleep, it would still knock them out. After all, they both still crash into dreamland when riding in the back of the car, even on short trips to Tulsa. Those little kids comforts die hard.
“Who Knows How Long I loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely life time
If you want me to I will.”
Yesterday, I walked into the field house following a frustrating practice with the 9ht grade football team… picked up the phone to see Corwin, who is at U of Tulsa, had left me a text.
Of course, one of the first things a parent thinks is “What’s wrong?”
I opened the text to find this message…..
“I just listened to Rocky Raccoon. Ah, good memories. I remember when you used to sing that to us.”
Suddenly, the tension of the practice and my aggravation with the day’s actions of 15-year-old boys faded into a smile. Warm memories of a rocking chair and bedtime chased away the October afternoon chill.
The Lullabies…
One of the few times it was OK to sing out loud for me.
When the boys were small, Ash and I often held them, rocked and sang them to sleep. Spoiled them? Maybe? Should we have done the thing about just laying them down awake so they’d get used to going to sleep on their own? Maybe. But I think it was as much as a selfish thing for us as it was a soothing thing for them.
We got to hold them, sing to them and slowly coax them into sleep with a collection of songs from the past. The warm baby or toddler, pressed against your chest, or cradled in your arms, drifting slowly into soft snores while we visited old friends in the guise of familiar tunes.
Ash and I each had our own particular list of songs we sang to the boys. Ashley went for some soft classics such as “Peter Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon,” or even current tunes (at that time) such as the bangles “Eternal Flame.”
“Close your eyes. Give me your hand.
Do you feel my heart beating?
Do you understand?
Do you feel the same?
Am I only dreaming?
Or is this burning an eternal flame?”
Her voice was softer and more graceful than my own, as I cracked and broke through a collection of classic Beatles and Monkee tunes.
“Sing Rocky! Sing Rocky!” was something both boys demanded from time to time. So, I would start with the songs sing-song spoken intro of “Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon, “ before leading into the song about the brash young man seeking revenge for the man who stole his love away.
The Beatles white album was a treasure trove of songs for bedtime. We sang “I Will,” “Dear Prudence,” “Mother nature’s Son,” and “Honey Pie.” The Beatles also offered up “Golden Slumbers,” “Till There Was You,” “Eight days a Week,” “Let It Be,” and “Here Comes the Sun.”
The boys were introduced to the Monkees in “Daydream Believer,” “What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round,” and “I’m a Believer.”
No doubt, the boys had their favs. Sometimes they would request “Bungalow Bill” from the Beatles. Others, it was Queen and “Somebody to Love.” Or “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Cat Stevens, Chicago, America, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Leon Russell and the Moody Blues… we were the boy’s personal bedtime jukeboxes.
It was a sad moment for me, when the boys got older and the singing began to fade away. I remember the day when Corwin, falling asleep on my lap, as I began to sing softly, reached his small hand to my mouth and said “Don’t sing right now, daddy.”
He didn’t need the song to fall asleep anymore.
Our joke has always been that if we were to make the boys playlists of the songs we sang to them to rock them to sleep, it would still knock them out. After all, they both still crash into dreamland when riding in the back of the car, even on short trips to Tulsa. Those little kids comforts die hard.
“Who Knows How Long I loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely life time
If you want me to I will.”
Friday, October 16, 2009
I Should Have Been a Rock Star- Kicking and Screaming – dragged into the future with technology
I Should Have Been a Rock Star- Kicking and Screaming – dragged into the future with technology
I still remember buying my first Beatles LP. And the hundreds of others to follow, both Beatles and the multitude of bands and artists that I followed or test drove.
The 12-inch cardboard sleeve, covered with a sheer shrink-wrap of plastic, waiting to be opened by me. It was smooth to my touch as I turned it over and over, scanbnning the pristine cover, noting each picture and word written thereon. I read the song list and even the product number and release adte.
Finally, I would tear the plastic, unwrapping the sleeve. The, flex the sides of the LP cover to open the inside, revealing a paper sleeve and within it, the plastic that bore the Beatles very voices to me. In those days, the record companies often advertised other acts on the paper sleeve. I looked them over, noting which I knew and which I had no interesting knowing. In those early days of Beatles music, the ads might bear something a Beatles fan was unlikely to have tin their collection.
Removing the black Lp from the paper sleeve, and stacking the paper on top of its cardboard container, I held the Lp by the edges, hoping to imprint not even a fingerprint on the glistening grooves. I turned the album over and over, watching the rainbow arc of the Capitol records insignia, and reading each song title, author nd noting the length of each song. There were times I had my little brothers and sisters quiz me from the albums as to the song lengths and order on every record.
Placing the record on the turntable, which at that time was a primitive single speaker player, I clicked the speed to 33 1/3 RPM and switched on the power. As the disc rotated, I lifted the needle and carefully, set it on the edge of the record allowing me just enough time to sit back in anticipation of the music to follow.
I rated each song as it played. A few years ago, I still had the lyric sleeve of the Beatles White Album, with notes and star ratings for each song. I listened the 1st side through, then lifted the needle and carefully turned the record to play side 2, repeating the process.
Playing each album was nearly a religious experience. The cover art, which grew more and more elaborate as the years passed, and the way the songs melted one into the next. Admittedly, the early albums of the 60’s tended to pay little attention to the song listing, usually posting singles as the major source of revenue for the Company, and albums were often filled with filler.
Albums like “Pet Sounds” by the Beach boys, “Sgt. Pepper” and Abbey Road” by the Beatles set new standards for the collection of songs on each LP. Rock Operas like the Who’s “Tommy” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” made the concept album an accepted idea, and other abnds followed suit. Music shifted form single dominated sales to Album Oriented Rock, which also brought on the movement to FM radio rock stations. Rock Music became more than a feel good, teenage rebel genre, it grew sophistication.
The Moody Blues, Yes and The Kinks followed quickly. Other progressive rock acts led the way with rock symphonies. Genesis, Jethro Tull, David Bowie and Pink Floyd created LPs that were more than a collection of tunes, but something with theme and movement. “The Wall” still stands as one of my favorites, but could only have happened after “Dark Side of the Moon” which I believe still holds a record for most weeks on the Billboard charts.
The LP cover itself began to change, from the simple artists photos of early rock and pop to psychedelic works of art. “Sgt. Pepper” made you look and keep looking. Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were here.” And “Dark Side of the Moon” covers were integral to the album itself. Led Zeppelin went further with its morphing covers in “Physical Graffiti” and “In Through The Out Door.” The covers became rebellious themselves, as LP covers by the Beatles (“Yesterday and Today” butcher cover), Hendrix (Electric Ladyland” Nude cover), John Lennon (“Two Virgins” nude cover) and Blind faith (“Blind Faith” naked young girl and plane) were banned for their explicit content.
The album, even with its eventual cracks and pops, was the vehicle through which rock music sailed into my life. By the time I was in college, I had collected thousands.
Then, technology caught up.
I was an LP guy caught in a changing world. In college, I had delved a little into the world of 8 Track, but never bought my favorite stuff in it.. They came in LPs and then I would record “best of” collections to carry as an 8 Track in the crappy little car 8 track player I had rigged in the car. I had taken 2 old small speakers from a decrepit stereo, hung them in the side of my 1970 Maverick and hooked them to the 8 track player. It was purely ghetto and scary to any girl who dared enter the car, but I liked it on the long drives to and from college. Four to five hours across the Great Plains and radio twilight zone, and I had 8 Track through the crackly speakers.
But, cassette was quickly making mincemeat of the 8 Track. Not only was it more compact, easier to carry, and held music, it was not split in the middle of a track by the clicking of one track to the next. My complaint about the loss of album art was even more a part of hating cassettes. I finally got a car that had a cassette deck, but once again, the albums I really treasured, I bought on vinyl. The cassette was left to making “best of” lists and Mixes.
Admittedly, I did love to make and share mixes, but my true music passion was still tied up in the total experience of the LP> In it, there was the sound and the visual. The cassette had an even smaller area for album art, and with the slow move from the LP to the cassette, you could see the end of an era in album art. Imagine squeezing the Sistine Chapel ceiling down to photograph size? Imagine if the French had sent over a 6 ft. Statue of Liberty instead of the full size? Imagine Picasso as only greeting cards?
To me, that was what the cassette was.
No more round LP’s like Grand Fink’s “E Pluribus Funk.” No more clever LP designs like “Sticky Fingers” by the Stones. The fold out LP (any Kiss LP, or classics like the Beatles White LP), and the Box Lp ( “Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass”) all faded into just another cassette box in the store bin.
Still I hung on. I had become a musical Luddite. I was fighting a single-handed war against change and loss of the LP cover. I ws ready to grab a steel bar and rush through the factories smashing the machines that stung miles of magnetic tape on tiny plastic spools. Pounding and smashing, till the powers that be brought back the cover and back the art.
It was a losing battle.
The death blow to my record collecting came in a stealthy way, behind a smiling and loving face…. My wife and my mom.
In the early 90’s, the two of them pitched in to buy my first CD player. I opened it at Christmas, unsure exactly what to think. I was like the kid, wary of his first taste of brussell spouts. They held the spoon before me, smiling and urging me to taste. Ashley even took me to a used CD store to make the purchase of these new discs a little less of a monetary impact on my scrooge like soul. The CD did cost more than the cassette and definitely more than the LP. I was wary of it for that reason and also because even George Harrison had voiced his wariness to them in a Rolling Stone interview. “They sounded ‘cold,’ he had said. He wanted to hear the comforting sound of an LP.
Me? I wanted the total sensory experience. I wanted what I had the first time I heard Yes’ LP “Not Fragile” through headphones at Jerry Realle’s house. I wanted to be able to drop the needle on any song I wanted, which was not possible with 8 tracks and cassettes. I wanted to hold the LP in may hands and scan ever detail of the bigger than life art.
I owned a CD before I had a player. I had called Rockline and answered a trivia question once, and they sent me Pete Townshend’s newest rock Opera, “Ironman.” It was the first CD I played. Then Ash and I went to the CD store and picked up other classic LPs in Cd format. “Yellow Brick Road.” “Dark Side of the Moon.” “The Wall.” “Abbey Road.” “The Beatles” (White album).
Straight from Mary Poppin’s own words of wisdom, these digitalized musical classics slid down my aural canal with a spoonful of sugar. My system fought it, and I actually felt guilty for liking it. But, the sound was good. I could switch from track to track. I could even hook up my portable CD player to my car stereo! And, the CD could go with me everywhere, just like a cassette, but with the convenience of an LP.
Other people complained about a tinny sound. Some were miffed that the warmer sound of the LP with hiss, pops and needle sound had been replaced by a sterilized computer. The disc was still too small to replace the old LP art, but everything else about it seemed to be a great improvement over the 8 track and cassette. When the CD recorder came out, it seemed that my LP collection played less and less as my CD co9llection grew bigger and bigger.
I was sold. The record player went into the closet, soon followed by the dual cassette deck. I had jumped into the world of the CD, never to breath the air of the LP again. Closing the closet door on the player, and slowly moving my collection of LPs to a place in another closet marked the end of an era of music collection.
But, technology wasn’t finished yet. I admit, I am slow to change. My metamorphosis takes a while. My cocoon takes a while to spin. My butterfly wings are slow to develop.
MY sons took the step into the complete digital world before I did. In fact, both boys and Ashley all converted to the IPOD before I did. Ashley tells me that when they finally bought me an IPOD for Christmas, she and the boys agonized over it. Would I use it? Would I give up my CD collection? Was the tactile part of the music something I would miss without having a CD, a case and a cover?
I admit, when opening it, I greeted it the same way I had with the first CD player. I was wary. I enjoyed the handling of the case and reading the liner notes. I liked to feel the cover in my hands, even if it wasn’t the old LP size, but then, they tell me size isn’t everything.
At Ashley’s instruction, I began to load my CDs onto the IPOD. It started as a small thing, and then became an obsession. It became a labor of love, revisiting all the music that had laid low in the cabinet where we kept all the CDs. I reacquainted myself with some of the more obscure songs again. I would read the song list on the CD and listen once again to tunes I hadn’t heard in a long time. I created play lists and best of lists. It became a new obsession. And best of all, it traveled with me, even while I jogged which the CD played never did a good job of doing without skipping and stopping.
Like I said, my change is slow, and I still buy the CD of my favorite artists. This past year, I made my first completely digital purchase….Neil Young’s “Fork in the Road.” That began a new era in my music collection. I have yet to actually burn a hard copy of that CD… but I know I will. Old habits and obsessions die hard.
So, I have morphed through a long series of musical formats in my collecting history. I thought at one time that the LP would last forever, and now, here I am loading new tunes onto a tiny rectangular machine that carries weeks of tunes wherever I go.
Will there be another format revolution before my music collecting is over? Maybe.
I don’t know what it will be, but I can guarantee one thing. …..
I will convert slowly and reluctantly.
these are my favorite Lp cover... what shame the new generations will not be able to appreciate them as they were..... sort of like being told great grandma was a beautiful woman... but you never get to see the real thing...
Physical Graffiti- Led Zepplin
Sgt Pepper-The Beatles
E Pluribus Funk- Grand Funk
Sticky Fingers- Rolling Stones
Dark Side of the Moon- Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here- Pink Floyd
Close to the Edge- Yes
Fragile- Yes
Tommy- The Who
All Things Must Pass- George Harrison
Bat out of Hell- Meatloaf
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road- Elton John
Houses of the Holy- Led Zepplin
Live Peace in Toronto- John Lennon
A Wizard a True Star- Todd Rundgren
I still remember buying my first Beatles LP. And the hundreds of others to follow, both Beatles and the multitude of bands and artists that I followed or test drove.
The 12-inch cardboard sleeve, covered with a sheer shrink-wrap of plastic, waiting to be opened by me. It was smooth to my touch as I turned it over and over, scanbnning the pristine cover, noting each picture and word written thereon. I read the song list and even the product number and release adte.
Finally, I would tear the plastic, unwrapping the sleeve. The, flex the sides of the LP cover to open the inside, revealing a paper sleeve and within it, the plastic that bore the Beatles very voices to me. In those days, the record companies often advertised other acts on the paper sleeve. I looked them over, noting which I knew and which I had no interesting knowing. In those early days of Beatles music, the ads might bear something a Beatles fan was unlikely to have tin their collection.
Removing the black Lp from the paper sleeve, and stacking the paper on top of its cardboard container, I held the Lp by the edges, hoping to imprint not even a fingerprint on the glistening grooves. I turned the album over and over, watching the rainbow arc of the Capitol records insignia, and reading each song title, author nd noting the length of each song. There were times I had my little brothers and sisters quiz me from the albums as to the song lengths and order on every record.
Placing the record on the turntable, which at that time was a primitive single speaker player, I clicked the speed to 33 1/3 RPM and switched on the power. As the disc rotated, I lifted the needle and carefully, set it on the edge of the record allowing me just enough time to sit back in anticipation of the music to follow.
I rated each song as it played. A few years ago, I still had the lyric sleeve of the Beatles White Album, with notes and star ratings for each song. I listened the 1st side through, then lifted the needle and carefully turned the record to play side 2, repeating the process.
Playing each album was nearly a religious experience. The cover art, which grew more and more elaborate as the years passed, and the way the songs melted one into the next. Admittedly, the early albums of the 60’s tended to pay little attention to the song listing, usually posting singles as the major source of revenue for the Company, and albums were often filled with filler.
Albums like “Pet Sounds” by the Beach boys, “Sgt. Pepper” and Abbey Road” by the Beatles set new standards for the collection of songs on each LP. Rock Operas like the Who’s “Tommy” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” made the concept album an accepted idea, and other abnds followed suit. Music shifted form single dominated sales to Album Oriented Rock, which also brought on the movement to FM radio rock stations. Rock Music became more than a feel good, teenage rebel genre, it grew sophistication.
The Moody Blues, Yes and The Kinks followed quickly. Other progressive rock acts led the way with rock symphonies. Genesis, Jethro Tull, David Bowie and Pink Floyd created LPs that were more than a collection of tunes, but something with theme and movement. “The Wall” still stands as one of my favorites, but could only have happened after “Dark Side of the Moon” which I believe still holds a record for most weeks on the Billboard charts.
The LP cover itself began to change, from the simple artists photos of early rock and pop to psychedelic works of art. “Sgt. Pepper” made you look and keep looking. Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were here.” And “Dark Side of the Moon” covers were integral to the album itself. Led Zeppelin went further with its morphing covers in “Physical Graffiti” and “In Through The Out Door.” The covers became rebellious themselves, as LP covers by the Beatles (“Yesterday and Today” butcher cover), Hendrix (Electric Ladyland” Nude cover), John Lennon (“Two Virgins” nude cover) and Blind faith (“Blind Faith” naked young girl and plane) were banned for their explicit content.
The album, even with its eventual cracks and pops, was the vehicle through which rock music sailed into my life. By the time I was in college, I had collected thousands.
Then, technology caught up.
I was an LP guy caught in a changing world. In college, I had delved a little into the world of 8 Track, but never bought my favorite stuff in it.. They came in LPs and then I would record “best of” collections to carry as an 8 Track in the crappy little car 8 track player I had rigged in the car. I had taken 2 old small speakers from a decrepit stereo, hung them in the side of my 1970 Maverick and hooked them to the 8 track player. It was purely ghetto and scary to any girl who dared enter the car, but I liked it on the long drives to and from college. Four to five hours across the Great Plains and radio twilight zone, and I had 8 Track through the crackly speakers.
But, cassette was quickly making mincemeat of the 8 Track. Not only was it more compact, easier to carry, and held music, it was not split in the middle of a track by the clicking of one track to the next. My complaint about the loss of album art was even more a part of hating cassettes. I finally got a car that had a cassette deck, but once again, the albums I really treasured, I bought on vinyl. The cassette was left to making “best of” lists and Mixes.
Admittedly, I did love to make and share mixes, but my true music passion was still tied up in the total experience of the LP> In it, there was the sound and the visual. The cassette had an even smaller area for album art, and with the slow move from the LP to the cassette, you could see the end of an era in album art. Imagine squeezing the Sistine Chapel ceiling down to photograph size? Imagine if the French had sent over a 6 ft. Statue of Liberty instead of the full size? Imagine Picasso as only greeting cards?
To me, that was what the cassette was.
No more round LP’s like Grand Fink’s “E Pluribus Funk.” No more clever LP designs like “Sticky Fingers” by the Stones. The fold out LP (any Kiss LP, or classics like the Beatles White LP), and the Box Lp ( “Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass”) all faded into just another cassette box in the store bin.
Still I hung on. I had become a musical Luddite. I was fighting a single-handed war against change and loss of the LP cover. I ws ready to grab a steel bar and rush through the factories smashing the machines that stung miles of magnetic tape on tiny plastic spools. Pounding and smashing, till the powers that be brought back the cover and back the art.
It was a losing battle.
The death blow to my record collecting came in a stealthy way, behind a smiling and loving face…. My wife and my mom.
In the early 90’s, the two of them pitched in to buy my first CD player. I opened it at Christmas, unsure exactly what to think. I was like the kid, wary of his first taste of brussell spouts. They held the spoon before me, smiling and urging me to taste. Ashley even took me to a used CD store to make the purchase of these new discs a little less of a monetary impact on my scrooge like soul. The CD did cost more than the cassette and definitely more than the LP. I was wary of it for that reason and also because even George Harrison had voiced his wariness to them in a Rolling Stone interview. “They sounded ‘cold,’ he had said. He wanted to hear the comforting sound of an LP.
Me? I wanted the total sensory experience. I wanted what I had the first time I heard Yes’ LP “Not Fragile” through headphones at Jerry Realle’s house. I wanted to be able to drop the needle on any song I wanted, which was not possible with 8 tracks and cassettes. I wanted to hold the LP in may hands and scan ever detail of the bigger than life art.
I owned a CD before I had a player. I had called Rockline and answered a trivia question once, and they sent me Pete Townshend’s newest rock Opera, “Ironman.” It was the first CD I played. Then Ash and I went to the CD store and picked up other classic LPs in Cd format. “Yellow Brick Road.” “Dark Side of the Moon.” “The Wall.” “Abbey Road.” “The Beatles” (White album).
Straight from Mary Poppin’s own words of wisdom, these digitalized musical classics slid down my aural canal with a spoonful of sugar. My system fought it, and I actually felt guilty for liking it. But, the sound was good. I could switch from track to track. I could even hook up my portable CD player to my car stereo! And, the CD could go with me everywhere, just like a cassette, but with the convenience of an LP.
Other people complained about a tinny sound. Some were miffed that the warmer sound of the LP with hiss, pops and needle sound had been replaced by a sterilized computer. The disc was still too small to replace the old LP art, but everything else about it seemed to be a great improvement over the 8 track and cassette. When the CD recorder came out, it seemed that my LP collection played less and less as my CD co9llection grew bigger and bigger.
I was sold. The record player went into the closet, soon followed by the dual cassette deck. I had jumped into the world of the CD, never to breath the air of the LP again. Closing the closet door on the player, and slowly moving my collection of LPs to a place in another closet marked the end of an era of music collection.
But, technology wasn’t finished yet. I admit, I am slow to change. My metamorphosis takes a while. My cocoon takes a while to spin. My butterfly wings are slow to develop.
MY sons took the step into the complete digital world before I did. In fact, both boys and Ashley all converted to the IPOD before I did. Ashley tells me that when they finally bought me an IPOD for Christmas, she and the boys agonized over it. Would I use it? Would I give up my CD collection? Was the tactile part of the music something I would miss without having a CD, a case and a cover?
I admit, when opening it, I greeted it the same way I had with the first CD player. I was wary. I enjoyed the handling of the case and reading the liner notes. I liked to feel the cover in my hands, even if it wasn’t the old LP size, but then, they tell me size isn’t everything.
At Ashley’s instruction, I began to load my CDs onto the IPOD. It started as a small thing, and then became an obsession. It became a labor of love, revisiting all the music that had laid low in the cabinet where we kept all the CDs. I reacquainted myself with some of the more obscure songs again. I would read the song list on the CD and listen once again to tunes I hadn’t heard in a long time. I created play lists and best of lists. It became a new obsession. And best of all, it traveled with me, even while I jogged which the CD played never did a good job of doing without skipping and stopping.
Like I said, my change is slow, and I still buy the CD of my favorite artists. This past year, I made my first completely digital purchase….Neil Young’s “Fork in the Road.” That began a new era in my music collection. I have yet to actually burn a hard copy of that CD… but I know I will. Old habits and obsessions die hard.
So, I have morphed through a long series of musical formats in my collecting history. I thought at one time that the LP would last forever, and now, here I am loading new tunes onto a tiny rectangular machine that carries weeks of tunes wherever I go.
Will there be another format revolution before my music collecting is over? Maybe.
I don’t know what it will be, but I can guarantee one thing. …..
I will convert slowly and reluctantly.
these are my favorite Lp cover... what shame the new generations will not be able to appreciate them as they were..... sort of like being told great grandma was a beautiful woman... but you never get to see the real thing...
Physical Graffiti- Led Zepplin
Sgt Pepper-The Beatles
E Pluribus Funk- Grand Funk
Sticky Fingers- Rolling Stones
Dark Side of the Moon- Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here- Pink Floyd
Close to the Edge- Yes
Fragile- Yes
Tommy- The Who
All Things Must Pass- George Harrison
Bat out of Hell- Meatloaf
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road- Elton John
Houses of the Holy- Led Zepplin
Live Peace in Toronto- John Lennon
A Wizard a True Star- Todd Rundgren
Saturday, October 10, 2009
I shold have been a rock star- encore
Oct 8, 2007
Last night I had the chance t see Blue Oyster Cult again…..still on
the road and still cranking out the mega-decibels. It has been about
8 years since their last album; one that sill had some great BOC
tunes. Both Fletch and I are BOC fans and he drove back from OU in a
driving rain storm to go t the show with me.
The show was at the Tulsa state fair. They were supposed to play
outside at the Oklahoma Stage, an open air theater off the fairway,
but this gigantic front and rain moved into Oklahoma just in time to
mess up the show. Fletch had called, asking about the show. I checked
online, but no info there about any changes. I was ready to don rain
gear and stand out in a hurricane to hear “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and
“Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll” again.
I gathered the rain gear. Meanwhile, Fletch was running late in his
2 hour drive home. The roads were cluttered with traffic accidents and
slow moving cars due to the torrents of rain. I checked the fair web
site over and over, looking for news, and finally a report came across
the local news that BOC was in Tulsa and the show had been moved
indoors, but delayed by 30 minutes.
WE hadn’t seen the Cult in a few years. They played the Tulsa
fairgrounds another time, along with Starship, Foghat and BOC
headlining. The event was on a week night, and obviously, it drew an
older crowd. It, too, had been moved indoors to the lower level of
fairgrounds Pavilion. There was so much time in between acts, the
roadies wandering around aimlessly while the crowd grew more and more
restless. Starship opened with a lot of sound problems that muted
Mickey Thomas’ voice and performance. Foghat put on one of their
better sows, but they were without long time guitarist Lonesome Dave
Previtt, who died in 2000 after a battle with cancer. He had been
replaced by ex-Wild Cherry (“Play That Funky Music”) guitarist, Bryan
Bassett.
By the time BOC got to take the stage, the crowd had dwindled down
to a spare group…. And we crowded to the front of the stage. I was
afraid that the small crowd would be less of an incentive to play a
great show, but Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma didn’t disappoint us.
Standing just feet from the stage, singing along with “Don’t Fear The
Reaper” and “Burning For You,” we soaked in every note of the show
that seemed to be played just for us.
So, Fletch, and I, along with Dave Decker, drove through sheets of
rain to Tulsa, avoiding weather related car accidents and flooded
intersections to arrive at a deserted fairground. The water cascaded
across the pavement as we walked between abandoned rides and booths.
It was almost as if we were in a carnival ghost town.
We finally entered the only active place at the soaked fairgrounds,
the indoor exhibit area. There, we bought a greatly overpriced cup of
beer, shook the rain off our jackets and wandered thorough booths,
cars and mobile homes in which a skeleton crew of workers, fairgoers
and concert-minded people passed the time.
The newly moved show was in the Pavilion, across the fairgrounds
form the Expo building. We looked and paced until a time we felt would
still get us close to the stage, without waiting long in line. Then,
we set out across the grounds, still being pummeled by buckets of
rain.
The building was still being used. The rodeo was still going on when
we entered. We could see the lights and stage of the concert
suspended above the rodeo floor, but the horses and cattle still were
what rocked the building. An impatient young usher disgustedly
explained we would have to wit or sit in the rafter seats till the
rodeo was over.
We sat, impatiently, waiting through calf roping, clown acts and
finally bull riding. I was wondering what the New York based BOC
thought of following a rodeo. But, at last, well over an hour after
expected starting time, the rodeo bowed out after a final oratory on
freedom and the American soldier. Crew members rushed out to lower the
stage and begin setting up the band equipment.
Dave, Fletch and I made our way onto the dirt covered floor pitted
with hoof prints and truck tires. As we stood through the sound check,
Fletch asked, “How big was Blue Oyster Cult I their heyday?”
“Played Stadiums,” I told him. I saw them at big concert halls. In
fact, I had seen them in Tulsa several times, and in Wichita,
headlining both concert hall and outdoor stadium shows.
“I wonder how someone like that feels about playing a state fair
after being in the big time?” He asked. “Must love the Music.”
What is it that keeps a band like that still playing and coming
back? What makes some do an oldies tour? What drives a single guy from
a band to create a new band around them under the old name? Grand Fun
tours with basically only drummer Don Brewer from the original band.
The Guess Who is only two originals, and neither is Burton Cummings or
randy Bachman. Mick Jones is the only original in Foreigner. When is a
band no longer the band?
Is it simply for the money? Is it an inability to let go of the past?
Is it the hope that you might get back to the top?
Or is it truly for the love of the music? Could it be for that
feeling you get from the cheers and applause that come because you
wrote that song, or because they recognize the guitar solo you
created? Does the big stage even matter, or is it the fact that
people are coming because they remember you and what you meant to
them?
Ironically, as the concert started, we were told by lead vocalist
Eric bloom that guitarist buck Dharma was not there. He had not been
able to land in Tulsa due to the storm and was currently on his way
back after a detour to Dallas. His duties and vocals would be handled
by back up guitarist, Richie Casteland.
Fletch had said he wanted to hear “The Red and the Black” for the
guitar in it. I guess the rock gods heard his young plea and BOC
opened with the very song! I know he was disappointed that Buck was
not there, but Richie did a great job filling in. His solo sizzled.
Bloom directed the band through a series of BO hits, including “Cities
On Flame,” “Burning For You,””Godzilla,” “Hot rails To Hell” and
“Don’t’ Fear The Reaper.” They even played the unlikely “Black Blade”
from the Moorcock Elric fantasy novels.
The show was over before we knew it. I was already hoarse from
screaming the lyrics, but apparently the late start and fair schedule
left them little time to do a whole set. It was a good show, but left
me wanting more. There were so many songs that were left unplayed. I
wanted to scream “dominance” to Bloom’s “submission!” I wanted to do
air guitar to “Stairway to the Stars” and “O.D.ed On Life Itself!”
But Bloom waved to the crowd, and announced they were out of time.
The band left the stage and the lights came up. We had a good meal of
BOC rock, but still wanted desert. We stood for a few moments, just in
case and then wandered slowly off the dirt covered floor and out into
the rainy night.
I love Blue Oyster Cult. I Love their music, often described as the
“thinking Man’s Heavy Metal.” I love what the remind me of. I love
the fact that they probably did permanent haring damage to me years
ago… when the show was so loud I swear my ears were bleeding as
“Godzilla” pounded through the concert hall. I love that fact that
they are probably sci-fi and fantasy nerds with loud electric guitars
from an era that is hard to describe.
Before the show, Dave, Fletch and I were getting beer from a vendor
when I spied a couple of girls from the high school. They pointed at
the beer in m hand, and laughingly said, “Coach Dugan with beer??!!” I
walked t talk with them and asked, have either of you ever listened to
Blue Oyster Cult before?” Both shook their heads “no” and then one,
Daria, thinking because the band followed the rodeo, asked “Are they
some kind of Red Dirt band?”
I smiled. “No… definitely not,” I answered. “They rock.”
Last night I had the chance t see Blue Oyster Cult again…..still on
the road and still cranking out the mega-decibels. It has been about
8 years since their last album; one that sill had some great BOC
tunes. Both Fletch and I are BOC fans and he drove back from OU in a
driving rain storm to go t the show with me.
The show was at the Tulsa state fair. They were supposed to play
outside at the Oklahoma Stage, an open air theater off the fairway,
but this gigantic front and rain moved into Oklahoma just in time to
mess up the show. Fletch had called, asking about the show. I checked
online, but no info there about any changes. I was ready to don rain
gear and stand out in a hurricane to hear “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and
“Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll” again.
I gathered the rain gear. Meanwhile, Fletch was running late in his
2 hour drive home. The roads were cluttered with traffic accidents and
slow moving cars due to the torrents of rain. I checked the fair web
site over and over, looking for news, and finally a report came across
the local news that BOC was in Tulsa and the show had been moved
indoors, but delayed by 30 minutes.
WE hadn’t seen the Cult in a few years. They played the Tulsa
fairgrounds another time, along with Starship, Foghat and BOC
headlining. The event was on a week night, and obviously, it drew an
older crowd. It, too, had been moved indoors to the lower level of
fairgrounds Pavilion. There was so much time in between acts, the
roadies wandering around aimlessly while the crowd grew more and more
restless. Starship opened with a lot of sound problems that muted
Mickey Thomas’ voice and performance. Foghat put on one of their
better sows, but they were without long time guitarist Lonesome Dave
Previtt, who died in 2000 after a battle with cancer. He had been
replaced by ex-Wild Cherry (“Play That Funky Music”) guitarist, Bryan
Bassett.
By the time BOC got to take the stage, the crowd had dwindled down
to a spare group…. And we crowded to the front of the stage. I was
afraid that the small crowd would be less of an incentive to play a
great show, but Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma didn’t disappoint us.
Standing just feet from the stage, singing along with “Don’t Fear The
Reaper” and “Burning For You,” we soaked in every note of the show
that seemed to be played just for us.
So, Fletch, and I, along with Dave Decker, drove through sheets of
rain to Tulsa, avoiding weather related car accidents and flooded
intersections to arrive at a deserted fairground. The water cascaded
across the pavement as we walked between abandoned rides and booths.
It was almost as if we were in a carnival ghost town.
We finally entered the only active place at the soaked fairgrounds,
the indoor exhibit area. There, we bought a greatly overpriced cup of
beer, shook the rain off our jackets and wandered thorough booths,
cars and mobile homes in which a skeleton crew of workers, fairgoers
and concert-minded people passed the time.
The newly moved show was in the Pavilion, across the fairgrounds
form the Expo building. We looked and paced until a time we felt would
still get us close to the stage, without waiting long in line. Then,
we set out across the grounds, still being pummeled by buckets of
rain.
The building was still being used. The rodeo was still going on when
we entered. We could see the lights and stage of the concert
suspended above the rodeo floor, but the horses and cattle still were
what rocked the building. An impatient young usher disgustedly
explained we would have to wit or sit in the rafter seats till the
rodeo was over.
We sat, impatiently, waiting through calf roping, clown acts and
finally bull riding. I was wondering what the New York based BOC
thought of following a rodeo. But, at last, well over an hour after
expected starting time, the rodeo bowed out after a final oratory on
freedom and the American soldier. Crew members rushed out to lower the
stage and begin setting up the band equipment.
Dave, Fletch and I made our way onto the dirt covered floor pitted
with hoof prints and truck tires. As we stood through the sound check,
Fletch asked, “How big was Blue Oyster Cult I their heyday?”
“Played Stadiums,” I told him. I saw them at big concert halls. In
fact, I had seen them in Tulsa several times, and in Wichita,
headlining both concert hall and outdoor stadium shows.
“I wonder how someone like that feels about playing a state fair
after being in the big time?” He asked. “Must love the Music.”
What is it that keeps a band like that still playing and coming
back? What makes some do an oldies tour? What drives a single guy from
a band to create a new band around them under the old name? Grand Fun
tours with basically only drummer Don Brewer from the original band.
The Guess Who is only two originals, and neither is Burton Cummings or
randy Bachman. Mick Jones is the only original in Foreigner. When is a
band no longer the band?
Is it simply for the money? Is it an inability to let go of the past?
Is it the hope that you might get back to the top?
Or is it truly for the love of the music? Could it be for that
feeling you get from the cheers and applause that come because you
wrote that song, or because they recognize the guitar solo you
created? Does the big stage even matter, or is it the fact that
people are coming because they remember you and what you meant to
them?
Ironically, as the concert started, we were told by lead vocalist
Eric bloom that guitarist buck Dharma was not there. He had not been
able to land in Tulsa due to the storm and was currently on his way
back after a detour to Dallas. His duties and vocals would be handled
by back up guitarist, Richie Casteland.
Fletch had said he wanted to hear “The Red and the Black” for the
guitar in it. I guess the rock gods heard his young plea and BOC
opened with the very song! I know he was disappointed that Buck was
not there, but Richie did a great job filling in. His solo sizzled.
Bloom directed the band through a series of BO hits, including “Cities
On Flame,” “Burning For You,””Godzilla,” “Hot rails To Hell” and
“Don’t’ Fear The Reaper.” They even played the unlikely “Black Blade”
from the Moorcock Elric fantasy novels.
The show was over before we knew it. I was already hoarse from
screaming the lyrics, but apparently the late start and fair schedule
left them little time to do a whole set. It was a good show, but left
me wanting more. There were so many songs that were left unplayed. I
wanted to scream “dominance” to Bloom’s “submission!” I wanted to do
air guitar to “Stairway to the Stars” and “O.D.ed On Life Itself!”
But Bloom waved to the crowd, and announced they were out of time.
The band left the stage and the lights came up. We had a good meal of
BOC rock, but still wanted desert. We stood for a few moments, just in
case and then wandered slowly off the dirt covered floor and out into
the rainy night.
I love Blue Oyster Cult. I Love their music, often described as the
“thinking Man’s Heavy Metal.” I love what the remind me of. I love
the fact that they probably did permanent haring damage to me years
ago… when the show was so loud I swear my ears were bleeding as
“Godzilla” pounded through the concert hall. I love that fact that
they are probably sci-fi and fantasy nerds with loud electric guitars
from an era that is hard to describe.
Before the show, Dave, Fletch and I were getting beer from a vendor
when I spied a couple of girls from the high school. They pointed at
the beer in m hand, and laughingly said, “Coach Dugan with beer??!!” I
walked t talk with them and asked, have either of you ever listened to
Blue Oyster Cult before?” Both shook their heads “no” and then one,
Daria, thinking because the band followed the rodeo, asked “Are they
some kind of Red Dirt band?”
I smiled. “No… definitely not,” I answered. “They rock.”
Saturday, August 8, 2009
IShoudl Have Been a Rock Sar- The Yellow Submarie in China
A Yellow Submarine in China
In March of 2004, I traveled to China as a part of a teacher and student exchange.
My fellow teacher was Betty Gibbs. We chaperoned 10 Sapulpa High Students on a trip that took us to Beijing and then on to the city of Chengdu in the foothills of the Tibetan plateau.
We took off one week before spring break, expecting to be away for 3 weeks. We used spring break in order to make the time out of school minimal. Each of the students had applied and also taken an 8-week course in Chinese at OU Tulsa under local High school Chinese teacher Susie Tattershall.
So, when we left, we were nervous and elated. The long plane journey was enough to squeeze and jitters out of a person by the time we reached the mainland of China. It was kida cool to watch the airline map as we traveled, arcing over the arctic circle and then south along Siberia into China.
In Beijing, we met Shaoyan, a tour guide I had met before when traveling with teachers in 2001. She took us through the Forbidden City and to see and scale the Great Wall right outside the city. Later groups would travel a little more expensively, but this was the 1st and we were on a shoestring budget. The experience would be new for both the receiving school and us as well.
Lie Wu High school in Chengdu is located in a city of nearly 11 million. A Mid sized city in China! Imagine! We were met late by a contingent of Chinese teachers and students who took us to a local hotel, just minutes away form the school. We hadn’t known what to expect. We thought we would immediately be taken to separate houses, but instead the school decided to house us the first few days with the hotel. Not bad and it helped ease some of the fears of the kids as to who and what they might expect.
On our first full day in Chengdu, we got a preview of something that was surprising to we typically uptight people from the Midwest. The school held a dinner for us and the teaching staff at LieWu. At the dinner, the principal stood up and serenaded us. After him, some of the Chinese kids came in and sang to us.
The odd thing was, I couldn’t imagine any principal from any of our schools singing to a group of Chinese visitors. Apparently, this was not an unusual thing. It turns out that these people broke into song, or karaoke without any fear of embarrassment of ridicule. Onb the other hand, most of the Sapulpa kids I knew would have been way too self conscious to do the same.
It did have an effec5t on our kids too. Luckily, the group I took was made up of some choir kids and performers. At a school assembly in our honor, they also sang song, sang karaoke and danced, much to the delight of the Lie Wu students and staff.
The thing that meant most to me was one day in English class. I was invited to teach the classes while Chinese instructors watched. Now, these classes are a bit different than US classes. There are about 65 kids piled into a class that is mostly lecture oriented. With that many kids, it is hard to do any sort of one-on-one or group work.
I started with some role playing things using kids from the class, who reluctantly played the parts of buying or selling pizza in English. Finally, they began to warm up a bit to the idea and we finished the class with some question and answer, especially about life in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
During the exchange, one girl raised her hand and asked, “Will you sing for us?”
I was caught by surprise. Singing is not what I do. When I was a young kid, I could lie to myself and think I sounded like Paul McCartney, but now I know I have no range, no rhythm or ability to carry a melody. Maybe that’s being too tough on myself, but I haven’t sung in public in who knows how long.
Panicking to get out of the situation, I said, “I am not a very good singer, but how about you sing a song for me?”
Immediately, 5 of the girls stood at their seats and started to sing a song by the Backstreet Boys. They even had the hand motions and dance steps down. It was a spontaneous performance that was met with thunderous applause after it ended. It was pretty cool to see this American pop song performed flawlessly in a Chinese upper school classroom.
The little dark haired girl was not to be dissuaded. “Will you sing for us now?” She asked again.
I felt trapped. I began to sweat. Those old fears of ridicule and public display of ineptitude washed over me. I was much more suited to playing air guitar than to singing in front of people.
But, I had an idea.
“Let’s do a song together and make it part of an English lesson,” I said. “I will write the words to the chorus of a song on the board, and I will sing the verse to you, and we will all sing the chorus.”
Apparently the little Chinese girl was happy with this, nodding her head enthusiastically. And, so with approval of the class, I turned to the board and began to write the words..”We all live in a Yellow Submarine…”
Nervous, and nearly weak with shyness, I explained to the them the rhythm of the chorus and then, stood tall in front of the board and in a quavering voice, began to sing “In the Town Where I Was Born….” It seemed to take forever, with the smiling faces of the class and visiting Chinese teachers all on me, to reach the end of the verse, “…beneath the waves, in our yellow Submarine!”
The n I pointed at the chorus on the board and led the class though the chorus several times. At first, we were out fo sync, but with each attempt, pour voices melded better and better. Each time, they sang louder and louder and at the finish, the class applauded each other and me.
I was jittery with excitement. It was a kind of rush to sing in front of so many people without critique and without rejection. There was only a joy on unity and acceptance, and it seemed, an appreciation that I would sing for them.
There, in western Chine, to a class of 65, I, a shy Oklahoman, sand a British pop song form the 60’s and we all blended into one joyous group for a few precious moments.
My words are poor in an attempt to relay how much those moments meant to me. Surely, there is a song somewhere that says it better than I ever can. Music, so universal and so much a part of our worldwide psyche, spoke through each of us in that 3rd floor classroom. Music isn’t some distant, different thing form any of us. Even with my poor power of singing and my even poorer power of musicianship, I was music for a few moments.
In March of 2004, I traveled to China as a part of a teacher and student exchange.
My fellow teacher was Betty Gibbs. We chaperoned 10 Sapulpa High Students on a trip that took us to Beijing and then on to the city of Chengdu in the foothills of the Tibetan plateau.
We took off one week before spring break, expecting to be away for 3 weeks. We used spring break in order to make the time out of school minimal. Each of the students had applied and also taken an 8-week course in Chinese at OU Tulsa under local High school Chinese teacher Susie Tattershall.
So, when we left, we were nervous and elated. The long plane journey was enough to squeeze and jitters out of a person by the time we reached the mainland of China. It was kida cool to watch the airline map as we traveled, arcing over the arctic circle and then south along Siberia into China.
In Beijing, we met Shaoyan, a tour guide I had met before when traveling with teachers in 2001. She took us through the Forbidden City and to see and scale the Great Wall right outside the city. Later groups would travel a little more expensively, but this was the 1st and we were on a shoestring budget. The experience would be new for both the receiving school and us as well.
Lie Wu High school in Chengdu is located in a city of nearly 11 million. A Mid sized city in China! Imagine! We were met late by a contingent of Chinese teachers and students who took us to a local hotel, just minutes away form the school. We hadn’t known what to expect. We thought we would immediately be taken to separate houses, but instead the school decided to house us the first few days with the hotel. Not bad and it helped ease some of the fears of the kids as to who and what they might expect.
On our first full day in Chengdu, we got a preview of something that was surprising to we typically uptight people from the Midwest. The school held a dinner for us and the teaching staff at LieWu. At the dinner, the principal stood up and serenaded us. After him, some of the Chinese kids came in and sang to us.
The odd thing was, I couldn’t imagine any principal from any of our schools singing to a group of Chinese visitors. Apparently, this was not an unusual thing. It turns out that these people broke into song, or karaoke without any fear of embarrassment of ridicule. Onb the other hand, most of the Sapulpa kids I knew would have been way too self conscious to do the same.
It did have an effec5t on our kids too. Luckily, the group I took was made up of some choir kids and performers. At a school assembly in our honor, they also sang song, sang karaoke and danced, much to the delight of the Lie Wu students and staff.
The thing that meant most to me was one day in English class. I was invited to teach the classes while Chinese instructors watched. Now, these classes are a bit different than US classes. There are about 65 kids piled into a class that is mostly lecture oriented. With that many kids, it is hard to do any sort of one-on-one or group work.
I started with some role playing things using kids from the class, who reluctantly played the parts of buying or selling pizza in English. Finally, they began to warm up a bit to the idea and we finished the class with some question and answer, especially about life in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
During the exchange, one girl raised her hand and asked, “Will you sing for us?”
I was caught by surprise. Singing is not what I do. When I was a young kid, I could lie to myself and think I sounded like Paul McCartney, but now I know I have no range, no rhythm or ability to carry a melody. Maybe that’s being too tough on myself, but I haven’t sung in public in who knows how long.
Panicking to get out of the situation, I said, “I am not a very good singer, but how about you sing a song for me?”
Immediately, 5 of the girls stood at their seats and started to sing a song by the Backstreet Boys. They even had the hand motions and dance steps down. It was a spontaneous performance that was met with thunderous applause after it ended. It was pretty cool to see this American pop song performed flawlessly in a Chinese upper school classroom.
The little dark haired girl was not to be dissuaded. “Will you sing for us now?” She asked again.
I felt trapped. I began to sweat. Those old fears of ridicule and public display of ineptitude washed over me. I was much more suited to playing air guitar than to singing in front of people.
But, I had an idea.
“Let’s do a song together and make it part of an English lesson,” I said. “I will write the words to the chorus of a song on the board, and I will sing the verse to you, and we will all sing the chorus.”
Apparently the little Chinese girl was happy with this, nodding her head enthusiastically. And, so with approval of the class, I turned to the board and began to write the words..”We all live in a Yellow Submarine…”
Nervous, and nearly weak with shyness, I explained to the them the rhythm of the chorus and then, stood tall in front of the board and in a quavering voice, began to sing “In the Town Where I Was Born….” It seemed to take forever, with the smiling faces of the class and visiting Chinese teachers all on me, to reach the end of the verse, “…beneath the waves, in our yellow Submarine!”
The n I pointed at the chorus on the board and led the class though the chorus several times. At first, we were out fo sync, but with each attempt, pour voices melded better and better. Each time, they sang louder and louder and at the finish, the class applauded each other and me.
I was jittery with excitement. It was a kind of rush to sing in front of so many people without critique and without rejection. There was only a joy on unity and acceptance, and it seemed, an appreciation that I would sing for them.
There, in western Chine, to a class of 65, I, a shy Oklahoman, sand a British pop song form the 60’s and we all blended into one joyous group for a few precious moments.
My words are poor in an attempt to relay how much those moments meant to me. Surely, there is a song somewhere that says it better than I ever can. Music, so universal and so much a part of our worldwide psyche, spoke through each of us in that 3rd floor classroom. Music isn’t some distant, different thing form any of us. Even with my poor power of singing and my even poorer power of musicianship, I was music for a few moments.
Monday, August 3, 2009
I should have been a rock star- irish pubs and tipsy tunes
In March of 2003, Ashley and I arranged a school trip to Ireland. She offered it to kids at Cascia Hall and I to kids at Sapulpa High. We ended up with a pretty good group, and with a few parents to boot. One of the girls from Sapulpa took her mom and two sets of Cascia parents went along with me, Ash and two other chaperones… Lynnann, Ash’s fellow Cascia teacher, and her husband.
Symbolically, we flew out of Tulsa on St Patrick’s Day to arrive in Dublin in the late evening as the tattered remains of raining hell on St Patrick’s Day had settled over the streets. Pubs were still lively and the streets still active. We were obviously tired from the travel, but wandered the streets seeking succor in the form of Guinness.
We spent a couple days in Dublin, touring, and drinking our way across the city. One bartender told us that the Guinness got better the closer you got to the Liffee… which is the river that runs through Dublin. I think it was true. The Stout never tasted better than taken with a whiff of Irish air and breeze from the river drifting through the pub.
Finally, we boarded the bus to begin our tour of the island. Interestingly enough, the company had given us, not an Irishman, but instead a Scandinavian woman as our guide in the Emerald Isle. Perplexing. She was sweet and knowledgeable, but not Irish.
It was in our travel that we had a couple of great pub experiences, one of which is a musical event I will never forget. This came on the day of Wednesday, March 19.
We left Dublin at a time early for any late night drinkers, 8:30 am. In fact, a time that seemed early for most Irish. We drove a long time to reach the Rock of Cashel, where stood a medieval fortress and the ancient original cathedral of St Patrick. The cathedral was in a state of disrepair and I noticed something unusual about it after wandering inside… besides the roof that was no more. The cathedral was one of the only I have ever seen in which the altar was at the west end.
Legends say that the devil threw the rock at St Patrick to dissuade him from Christianizing the Irish and instead, Patrick built his cathedral there. It was a place that was probably more interesting to me, the history teacher, than to a lot of the kids.
WE loaded the bus and drove on the town of Tipperary. A Lot of people… older people… know of it because of the famous WW I song, “It’s a long Way To Tipperary.”
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
We made a short stop there, where Ash and I broke from the group, and ran to the nearest pub. It was in the quiet of that pub that we met the Price brothers, two shaved headed brothers who mad their way as boxers. They were interested in talking to the Americans and drinking a pint with us. Ash and I were late getting back to the bus.. and the driver was not pleased.. but it was worth it to us.
Finally, we pulled into the town of Limerick. We nested into the hotel and I fell asleep for a Guinness induced nap. The nap rejuvenated me and prepared me for the night to follow.
After dinner, we milled around debating our course of discovery and pub debauchery for the evening. First, as a group, we wandered 9into the hotel bar where a three-man band played. They sat in chairs, beers perched at their sides, each playing guitars. The three wore long hair in an almost 70’s style and they played rock songs from across the eras of pop music.
I sat at the bar, directly beside the band, watching them strum, pick and sings through a list of hits I was well familiar with. I think they realized that I too, after a few more beers, was singing along with them as they played. Soon, we were engaged in a running conversation between songs. We exchanged names, and shook hands and talked music as they played.
Soon, a lot of our group wandered on to more teenage places and I stayed and became drinking buddies with the band. A few more hotel patrons and some locals wandered in as well.
The band gave us music advice about Irish bands. Of course, you can’t go wrong with U2, but never, never listen to anything played by MYTOWN… they are a disgrace to the Irish!! The band said, listen to the Frames… a great but underrated band.
Later I would find a lot of music by the Frames and the band was right… they ere good; Serious and somber, and good. Iun fact, in recent years, the lead singer, Glen Hansard would star in and write the oscar winning soundtrack to the independent movie “Once.” Like the band, it is an understated and beautiful work of art.
I have still not listened to MYTOWN.
After many beers and songs, John Steele, the lead singer, got up to go take a piss. He and I staggered to the toilet, talking about how much we both disliked George Bush and his war… the 2nd Iraqi war had just begun while we were in Dublin. Pissing and politics.
Back in the bar, John sat to play and said to the crowd, I’d like to dedicate a song to my new friend and intelligent human being, Charlie Dugan.” Then the band played a spectacular version of the Beatles “Don’t Let Me Down.”
I stayed until the band finished for the night. I shook hands and patted backs with my newfound musical friends. I appreciated their talent, and I think they appreciated being appreciated. It was a wonderful night… my m body softly buzzing with the Irish drink and my mind buzzing with a thousand songs and singers.
How I wish I could find that band again, drink to the music, share a piss and musical trivia. Tip a brew and buy a round for them.
It was that moment I felt the true words spoken to me in another pub. An older gentleman, after finding out that my name was “Dugan”, an obviously Irish name, said as he raised his glass, “Welcome Home Charlie Dugan. We4lcome home.”
Symbolically, we flew out of Tulsa on St Patrick’s Day to arrive in Dublin in the late evening as the tattered remains of raining hell on St Patrick’s Day had settled over the streets. Pubs were still lively and the streets still active. We were obviously tired from the travel, but wandered the streets seeking succor in the form of Guinness.
We spent a couple days in Dublin, touring, and drinking our way across the city. One bartender told us that the Guinness got better the closer you got to the Liffee… which is the river that runs through Dublin. I think it was true. The Stout never tasted better than taken with a whiff of Irish air and breeze from the river drifting through the pub.
Finally, we boarded the bus to begin our tour of the island. Interestingly enough, the company had given us, not an Irishman, but instead a Scandinavian woman as our guide in the Emerald Isle. Perplexing. She was sweet and knowledgeable, but not Irish.
It was in our travel that we had a couple of great pub experiences, one of which is a musical event I will never forget. This came on the day of Wednesday, March 19.
We left Dublin at a time early for any late night drinkers, 8:30 am. In fact, a time that seemed early for most Irish. We drove a long time to reach the Rock of Cashel, where stood a medieval fortress and the ancient original cathedral of St Patrick. The cathedral was in a state of disrepair and I noticed something unusual about it after wandering inside… besides the roof that was no more. The cathedral was one of the only I have ever seen in which the altar was at the west end.
Legends say that the devil threw the rock at St Patrick to dissuade him from Christianizing the Irish and instead, Patrick built his cathedral there. It was a place that was probably more interesting to me, the history teacher, than to a lot of the kids.
WE loaded the bus and drove on the town of Tipperary. A Lot of people… older people… know of it because of the famous WW I song, “It’s a long Way To Tipperary.”
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
We made a short stop there, where Ash and I broke from the group, and ran to the nearest pub. It was in the quiet of that pub that we met the Price brothers, two shaved headed brothers who mad their way as boxers. They were interested in talking to the Americans and drinking a pint with us. Ash and I were late getting back to the bus.. and the driver was not pleased.. but it was worth it to us.
Finally, we pulled into the town of Limerick. We nested into the hotel and I fell asleep for a Guinness induced nap. The nap rejuvenated me and prepared me for the night to follow.
After dinner, we milled around debating our course of discovery and pub debauchery for the evening. First, as a group, we wandered 9into the hotel bar where a three-man band played. They sat in chairs, beers perched at their sides, each playing guitars. The three wore long hair in an almost 70’s style and they played rock songs from across the eras of pop music.
I sat at the bar, directly beside the band, watching them strum, pick and sings through a list of hits I was well familiar with. I think they realized that I too, after a few more beers, was singing along with them as they played. Soon, we were engaged in a running conversation between songs. We exchanged names, and shook hands and talked music as they played.
Soon, a lot of our group wandered on to more teenage places and I stayed and became drinking buddies with the band. A few more hotel patrons and some locals wandered in as well.
The band gave us music advice about Irish bands. Of course, you can’t go wrong with U2, but never, never listen to anything played by MYTOWN… they are a disgrace to the Irish!! The band said, listen to the Frames… a great but underrated band.
Later I would find a lot of music by the Frames and the band was right… they ere good; Serious and somber, and good. Iun fact, in recent years, the lead singer, Glen Hansard would star in and write the oscar winning soundtrack to the independent movie “Once.” Like the band, it is an understated and beautiful work of art.
I have still not listened to MYTOWN.
After many beers and songs, John Steele, the lead singer, got up to go take a piss. He and I staggered to the toilet, talking about how much we both disliked George Bush and his war… the 2nd Iraqi war had just begun while we were in Dublin. Pissing and politics.
Back in the bar, John sat to play and said to the crowd, I’d like to dedicate a song to my new friend and intelligent human being, Charlie Dugan.” Then the band played a spectacular version of the Beatles “Don’t Let Me Down.”
I stayed until the band finished for the night. I shook hands and patted backs with my newfound musical friends. I appreciated their talent, and I think they appreciated being appreciated. It was a wonderful night… my m body softly buzzing with the Irish drink and my mind buzzing with a thousand songs and singers.
How I wish I could find that band again, drink to the music, share a piss and musical trivia. Tip a brew and buy a round for them.
It was that moment I felt the true words spoken to me in another pub. An older gentleman, after finding out that my name was “Dugan”, an obviously Irish name, said as he raised his glass, “Welcome Home Charlie Dugan. We4lcome home.”
Monday, July 20, 2009
I Should Have Been a Rock Star- The Stuff Tapes
The Stuff Tapes
In 1986, I began courting Ashley Peck. I was teaching at Sapulpa Junior High and she was a student at the University of Oklahoma.
Ash had been a student of mine years before. After her graduation, she went to University of Oklahoma in Norman. That summer I ran into her as she worked at the fireworks stand belonging to her boyfriend’s family. We gossiped. I found out she was going to Tulsa junior College for some summer courses and I was driving back and forth to Stillwater working on some Master’s degree stuff. I asked her to look for a source for me at the TJC library.
That year at OU, Ash and her boyfriend broke up. She dated several other guys after that, but when she returned for the next summer, she started working at the Elk’s Lodge as a lifeguard. The lodge was just 3 blocks away from the duplex I shared with another coach, Wade Mosley. Ash started coming over during her breaks to drink my lemonade. At least that’s what I first thought.
It wasn’t until July that I worked up the nerve, with the incredible urging and massive insults form my buddy Mo, to kiss her for the first time.
Weird thing for me. I wasn’t the world’s biggest dater and spent a lot of my time with my brothers, a cousin, a couple buddies from college and the coaches I worked with.
We started to see each other. She brought over pizza. She actually asked me out to a movie and dinner. I said I was a little slow in the dating department.
But, football season rolled around and school started at OU. I went back into coaching all day long and Ash left for OU and her sorority.
Her mom and dad were not my best supporters in this romance. Dad didn’t want her dating her ex-teacher, even though she was out of school, in college and I wasn’t exactly an old fart. Meanwhile, I was thinking that the long distance romance was probably going to be tough. I knew from previous experience with long distance romance, that football season is a very unforgiving thing. It takes all of your time, weekends and evenings, and drains you to a point of exhaustion. And, that’s in a good year!
I started sending Ashley mix tapes. They were filled with romantic songs from almost every era of music. I couldn’t think of a better way than to keep me in her mind than by providing the background music of her fall semester.
I called the tapes “Stuff Tapes.” It was a reference to a comment one of us made, and now I can’t quite remember the context, about love and all that stuff. I flooded the US mail with cassette tapes bearing my musical courting. Sometimes, I would leave a little whispered message at the end of the tape.
Now, here’s the tough part. A Mix tape is not just a collection of music. It must be carefully put together, flowing form one song to the next. You can’t just follow a tender, heart breaking song like Cocker’s version of “You Are So Beautiful” with something filled with wailing guitars and screaming voices.
It’s like the movie, “High Fidelity.” In fact, years later, my wife bought me that novel because the guy, his perchance for making mix tapes and his obsession with lists seemed to mirror my reason for existence. John Cusak’s role talks about the importance of the well designed mix.
You also have to be careful that you actually know the lyrics to the song. Just because the Police made the seemingly romantic song, “Every Breath You Take,” doesn’t mean it is romantic. The song is actually sort of a stalker song about the woman who broke his heart. Not good to send to a potential sweetheart.
A mix tape, and especially one with romantic intent, shouldn’t be an overt hump soundtrack…like AC/DC’s “Shook Me All Night Long,” or even a soft song, with soaring vocals like the Air Supply version of the Jim Steinman song “Making Love Out of Nothing At All.” AC/DC is what you sing to the local streetwalker. The Air Supply tune, like a lot of Steinman tunes, has a twist in it. Sounds romantic, but has that little dark side in it. Like Asia’s “Heat of the Moment.” Turns out to be about the girl who squandered it all and ended up lonely.
Now, the best romantic song ever, according to old crooner Frank Sinatra, was George Harrison’s Beatles tune “Something.” Simple, but powerful lyrics… whew…
“Something in the way she moves,
Attracts me like no other lover.”
For your romantic mix, I have a few suggestions. Some are well known. A few others a less popular, but no less right for that perfect mix tape, or CD, or play list in the modern IUPOD.
“Something” by the Beatles
“Maybe I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney
I Loved You Before I Knew You” by Savage Garden
“Love Reign Over Me” by the Who
“Heaven” by Yusuf Islam , the old Cat Stevens
“A Certain Girl” by Warren Zevon
“Eternal Love” by Utopia featuring Todd Rundgren
“A Dream Goes On Forever” by Todd Rundgren
“Hot Summer Night” by Meat Loaf
“Tattoo” by Novo Combo
and many more….
Funny, when the Beatles broke up, one of the caustic things that Lennon said about McCartney was that he wrote “silly Love Songs.” So, McCartney wrote one of that name and made a million seller of it. And, it’s true, he did write a lot of happy love songs. Maybe the nearly 30 years he was married to Linda was some indication of that.
Of course, Lennon had his love songs too. “Dear Yoko,” “Oh My Love”, “(Just Like) Staring Over,” and “Grow Old Along With Me” would fit on anyone’s love mix.
Well, apparently, the “Stuff” tapes did their job, and we were married in Jan. of ’87. We have two great sons. We are headed toward our 23rd anniversary soon. Music is still a big part of every day for us. We still make pal lists for each other…for encouragement, for love, for hope.
Ashley recently made me one titled “The Bottom of The Box.” It refers to the bottom of Pandora’s box after she had let the evil escape. In the bottom, there was still Hope. Things had been kind of rough for me, and that music was to give me some hope, help and inspiration. It included songs like U2’s “Sometimes You Can’t Make IT on Your Own.”
Music… what is it to us?
Why do we listen to it when we are happy? Why do we listen when we are sad? Why do we listen to it when we use it to psych us up for competition? Why do we use it to set the mood?
Ever see a movie without a musical background? It seems deathly quiet and gray. Ever jog without music when you’ve been using it to run to for a while? Try working out with and without. Which is better?
Our music is hardwired into us. It begins in the womb with the heartbeat of our mother and continues with the throb of our own pulses. There is a rhythm to everyday life; clicking, pounding, whirring, blaring and croaking. The sounds are all around us, and they blend into our daily life, only evident in their absence.
I read an article once, in Discover magazine, about a musician who had a brain injury. He had been a composer, but after the injury, when he heard music, to him it sounded like jangling racket. His rhythm and music was hardwired into his very brain. It is more than an emotional part of us. It is us.
AUM, Harmony OF The Spheres, etc… whatever you call it, people have recognized that for millennia. When it comes from an IPOD or cell phone, is it no less a connection to the universal?
It is still that innate thing in us.
The Stuff tapes were just that. As I tried to send to her in song the feelings I had, it touched, in both of us, something universal. Something cosmic.
Who would have thought that a small Memorex tape could bear something of cosmic importance?
It did.
Music, Love, and the seeds of our present family all traveled across the state of Oklahoma, borne by Eros in the guise of the US Postal service.
And, what did it contain? Love and all that Stuff.
In 1986, I began courting Ashley Peck. I was teaching at Sapulpa Junior High and she was a student at the University of Oklahoma.
Ash had been a student of mine years before. After her graduation, she went to University of Oklahoma in Norman. That summer I ran into her as she worked at the fireworks stand belonging to her boyfriend’s family. We gossiped. I found out she was going to Tulsa junior College for some summer courses and I was driving back and forth to Stillwater working on some Master’s degree stuff. I asked her to look for a source for me at the TJC library.
That year at OU, Ash and her boyfriend broke up. She dated several other guys after that, but when she returned for the next summer, she started working at the Elk’s Lodge as a lifeguard. The lodge was just 3 blocks away from the duplex I shared with another coach, Wade Mosley. Ash started coming over during her breaks to drink my lemonade. At least that’s what I first thought.
It wasn’t until July that I worked up the nerve, with the incredible urging and massive insults form my buddy Mo, to kiss her for the first time.
Weird thing for me. I wasn’t the world’s biggest dater and spent a lot of my time with my brothers, a cousin, a couple buddies from college and the coaches I worked with.
We started to see each other. She brought over pizza. She actually asked me out to a movie and dinner. I said I was a little slow in the dating department.
But, football season rolled around and school started at OU. I went back into coaching all day long and Ash left for OU and her sorority.
Her mom and dad were not my best supporters in this romance. Dad didn’t want her dating her ex-teacher, even though she was out of school, in college and I wasn’t exactly an old fart. Meanwhile, I was thinking that the long distance romance was probably going to be tough. I knew from previous experience with long distance romance, that football season is a very unforgiving thing. It takes all of your time, weekends and evenings, and drains you to a point of exhaustion. And, that’s in a good year!
I started sending Ashley mix tapes. They were filled with romantic songs from almost every era of music. I couldn’t think of a better way than to keep me in her mind than by providing the background music of her fall semester.
I called the tapes “Stuff Tapes.” It was a reference to a comment one of us made, and now I can’t quite remember the context, about love and all that stuff. I flooded the US mail with cassette tapes bearing my musical courting. Sometimes, I would leave a little whispered message at the end of the tape.
Now, here’s the tough part. A Mix tape is not just a collection of music. It must be carefully put together, flowing form one song to the next. You can’t just follow a tender, heart breaking song like Cocker’s version of “You Are So Beautiful” with something filled with wailing guitars and screaming voices.
It’s like the movie, “High Fidelity.” In fact, years later, my wife bought me that novel because the guy, his perchance for making mix tapes and his obsession with lists seemed to mirror my reason for existence. John Cusak’s role talks about the importance of the well designed mix.
You also have to be careful that you actually know the lyrics to the song. Just because the Police made the seemingly romantic song, “Every Breath You Take,” doesn’t mean it is romantic. The song is actually sort of a stalker song about the woman who broke his heart. Not good to send to a potential sweetheart.
A mix tape, and especially one with romantic intent, shouldn’t be an overt hump soundtrack…like AC/DC’s “Shook Me All Night Long,” or even a soft song, with soaring vocals like the Air Supply version of the Jim Steinman song “Making Love Out of Nothing At All.” AC/DC is what you sing to the local streetwalker. The Air Supply tune, like a lot of Steinman tunes, has a twist in it. Sounds romantic, but has that little dark side in it. Like Asia’s “Heat of the Moment.” Turns out to be about the girl who squandered it all and ended up lonely.
Now, the best romantic song ever, according to old crooner Frank Sinatra, was George Harrison’s Beatles tune “Something.” Simple, but powerful lyrics… whew…
“Something in the way she moves,
Attracts me like no other lover.”
For your romantic mix, I have a few suggestions. Some are well known. A few others a less popular, but no less right for that perfect mix tape, or CD, or play list in the modern IUPOD.
“Something” by the Beatles
“Maybe I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney
I Loved You Before I Knew You” by Savage Garden
“Love Reign Over Me” by the Who
“Heaven” by Yusuf Islam , the old Cat Stevens
“A Certain Girl” by Warren Zevon
“Eternal Love” by Utopia featuring Todd Rundgren
“A Dream Goes On Forever” by Todd Rundgren
“Hot Summer Night” by Meat Loaf
“Tattoo” by Novo Combo
and many more….
Funny, when the Beatles broke up, one of the caustic things that Lennon said about McCartney was that he wrote “silly Love Songs.” So, McCartney wrote one of that name and made a million seller of it. And, it’s true, he did write a lot of happy love songs. Maybe the nearly 30 years he was married to Linda was some indication of that.
Of course, Lennon had his love songs too. “Dear Yoko,” “Oh My Love”, “(Just Like) Staring Over,” and “Grow Old Along With Me” would fit on anyone’s love mix.
Well, apparently, the “Stuff” tapes did their job, and we were married in Jan. of ’87. We have two great sons. We are headed toward our 23rd anniversary soon. Music is still a big part of every day for us. We still make pal lists for each other…for encouragement, for love, for hope.
Ashley recently made me one titled “The Bottom of The Box.” It refers to the bottom of Pandora’s box after she had let the evil escape. In the bottom, there was still Hope. Things had been kind of rough for me, and that music was to give me some hope, help and inspiration. It included songs like U2’s “Sometimes You Can’t Make IT on Your Own.”
Music… what is it to us?
Why do we listen to it when we are happy? Why do we listen when we are sad? Why do we listen to it when we use it to psych us up for competition? Why do we use it to set the mood?
Ever see a movie without a musical background? It seems deathly quiet and gray. Ever jog without music when you’ve been using it to run to for a while? Try working out with and without. Which is better?
Our music is hardwired into us. It begins in the womb with the heartbeat of our mother and continues with the throb of our own pulses. There is a rhythm to everyday life; clicking, pounding, whirring, blaring and croaking. The sounds are all around us, and they blend into our daily life, only evident in their absence.
I read an article once, in Discover magazine, about a musician who had a brain injury. He had been a composer, but after the injury, when he heard music, to him it sounded like jangling racket. His rhythm and music was hardwired into his very brain. It is more than an emotional part of us. It is us.
AUM, Harmony OF The Spheres, etc… whatever you call it, people have recognized that for millennia. When it comes from an IPOD or cell phone, is it no less a connection to the universal?
It is still that innate thing in us.
The Stuff tapes were just that. As I tried to send to her in song the feelings I had, it touched, in both of us, something universal. Something cosmic.
Who would have thought that a small Memorex tape could bear something of cosmic importance?
It did.
Music, Love, and the seeds of our present family all traveled across the state of Oklahoma, borne by Eros in the guise of the US Postal service.
And, what did it contain? Love and all that Stuff.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Should Have Been a Rock Star- Dec 8, 1980
December 8 1980
The day we lost Lennon
I think it is the recent death of Michael Jackson, and the outpouring of grief of people who were his devoted fans that really draws me back almost 30 years to the day that I lost one of the icons of my youth. I remember when Elvis died. Both of my then sister-in-laws were he Elvis fans. I had a hard time comprehending why they were so upset over the loss of a pop singer, and probably said some joking things that I, then, thought was funny, but in retrospect, were cruel to those were his devotees.
I learned that lesson on December 8, 1980.
I was about 1 ½ years into my first teaching job. In August I had moved into a house in Sapulpa with my asst. coach and friend, Bud Sexson. We shared a small rental house and spent most of our free time around sports. We both coached Junior High football and he coached wrestling in the winter. I was free until spring track.
On Monday nights, we settled in the living room, Monday Night Football on the television. I usually had on headphones, listening to music and grading as I watched the visual part of the game. I must admit I had never been a big fan of the broadcasters who narrated the games. Especially Howard Cosell. This was his era in Monday Night Football.
Sometime around 10:30 pm, Bud shook my arm… saying “hey.. you’ve got to hear this. “ I took off the head phones and listened to Cosell make the announcement that apparently John Lennon had been shot.. Bud knew that I was a huge Beatles fan, as evidenced by my Beatles collection, both as a group and solo artists. I was stunned. I left the headphones off waiting for more news about John and the attack.
IT was just a few moments later that Cosell came back on with the tragic news.
“This, we have to say it, remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all The Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to the Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival.”
I was stunned. John, the leader and rebel of the Beatle years was gone. He had just recently released his first new LP in 5 years, “Double Fantasy.” The song, “Just Like Starting Over” was frequent on the airwaves. John, after an absence that he spent as a househusband, caring for his new son born in 1975 on John’s own birthday, was gone.
The television that night was filled with news of Lennon’s death, and very little information about the event. ABC broke into programming to make the announcement. Walter Cronkite relayed the news to a watching population. I sat, switching channels, trying to find out if somehow there had been a mistake in the reporting. Maybe, it was all a big mistake.
I received two calls that night. The first call came from the girl I dated, Cas, who was a student at Kansas University. Cas had seen the news and knowing my feeling about the Beatles, called me to see how I was doing. A then student of mine, Ashley Peck, also called me. She, too, knew of my connection to the Beatles and called to talk with me about the shooting, in case I ahd not heard. Interesting, that today, after nearly 30 years, cas and I are still good friends and Ash and I have been married for 22 years.
The next few days, grieving fans swallowed the area around the Dakota apartments, where Yoko and son, Sean, lived. Flowers and pictures decorated the entrance to the apartments where the fatal shooting had occurred. People sang John’s songs and stood, in mass shock at the loss of a cultural icon. Who, alive then, did not have some memory attached to a song by John or the Beatles?
There was no funeral for John. He was cremated two days later. Yoko had made this announcement to the world…
"There is no funeral for John. John loved and prayed for the human race. Please do the same for him. Love, Yoko and Sean.”
She also requested that the thousands who thronged the area around the Dakotas re-convene on Dec. 14th for a 10 minute, world wide silence for John. 30,000 gathered in London. 100,000 filled Central park. I, along with my cousin, Rob, his sisters and others joined scores of people in a silence sponsored by KMOD, the local FM rock station. Me met, somber and quite, as music played form loud speakers, and as the time grew near, the crowd bowed heads in silent remorse, shared by a chain of fans from around the globe.
More news came out about John’s assassin, Mark David Chapman. He had been a Lennon imitator, as far as dress, granny glasses and even marrying a Japanese wife. He sometimes signed his name as John Lennon. But, in Dec., of 1980, Chapman bought a plane ticket from Hawaii to NYC with the twisted plan of killing the man he felt had sold out to materialism.
Chapman waited outside the Dakota apartments the day of the 8th. Lennon was visited by Annie Leibowitz, Rolling Stone photographer who took candid shots of Lennon and Ono. Lennon also gave an interview in which he said that he liked being older and making music for everyone who survived the 60’s. He had just turned 40 on October the 8th of the same year.
At 5 pm, Lennon and Ono left the apartments for a studio session to remix tracks. On the way to his car, Lennon stopped to sign autographs from fans. One of those fans was Chapman, who had Lennon sign on his copy of “Double Fantasy.” Lennon left. Chapman drifted near the apartments, sitting and reading a book.
They were at the studio for several hours and returned to the Dakota at about 10:20 pm (EST). Later, the Dakota doorman said he saw Chapman standing in the shadows nearby. As Ono and Lennon passed by, Chapman stepped out and fired 5 shots, 4 of which struck Lennon in the back. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, even though he was still alive when the rushed him into a car.
Chapman was arrested without a struggle. The doorman had taken his gun and he sat silently waiting for the police. Chapman had been reading the book “The Catcher in The Rye.” Chapman apparently saw himself as the Catcher in th Rye, protecting others from Lennon.
People all over the world mourned John. The remaining Beatles made public statements about John. Paul recorded “Here Today” about John. George recorded “All Those Years Ago” with the help of both Paul and Ringo. Elton John, good friend of John and Yoko, released “Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny).” Even bands like Queen (“”Life is Real”-song for John”), Molly Hatchet (“Fall of the Peacemakers”) and close buddy Harry Nilsson’s “Lay Down Your Arms” either mourned the loss of artist, icon and friend or chided the public on the USA’s easy access gun laws.
Later, in 1984the award winning film, “The Killing Fields,” made the poignant use of the song “Imagine.” I can recall, sitting in the dark theater, tears streaming down my dace as the chords of the song echoed around the theater. The moment in the movie was both touching and memorable, but I think that, too, I shed those tears for the loss I still felt over John’s death.
As Christmas break arrived, Cas drove down to visit me in Sapulpa. I was still in school for a one last day, and occasionally I was called to run a substitute bus route before my classes. She rode with me, sitting in the front seat as I guided the large Orangish-Yellow behemoth (my own Yellow Submarine) along a country route. The young kids, jacketed against the cold Oklahoma December morning, anxious for winter break, jabbered and flirted. The radio, small, tinny speakers set in to the bus walls, strained to be heard above the raucous din.
It was then I heard the three bells that introduced “Just Like Starting Over.” I turned, looking over my shoulder at Cas. Bundled, warm inside the clattery bus, she smiled, acknowledging the song.
“It's time to spread our wings and fly
Don't let another day go by my love
It'll be just like starting over, starting over”
I nodded and smiled back. John is gone, but forever always around me.
The day we lost Lennon
I think it is the recent death of Michael Jackson, and the outpouring of grief of people who were his devoted fans that really draws me back almost 30 years to the day that I lost one of the icons of my youth. I remember when Elvis died. Both of my then sister-in-laws were he Elvis fans. I had a hard time comprehending why they were so upset over the loss of a pop singer, and probably said some joking things that I, then, thought was funny, but in retrospect, were cruel to those were his devotees.
I learned that lesson on December 8, 1980.
I was about 1 ½ years into my first teaching job. In August I had moved into a house in Sapulpa with my asst. coach and friend, Bud Sexson. We shared a small rental house and spent most of our free time around sports. We both coached Junior High football and he coached wrestling in the winter. I was free until spring track.
On Monday nights, we settled in the living room, Monday Night Football on the television. I usually had on headphones, listening to music and grading as I watched the visual part of the game. I must admit I had never been a big fan of the broadcasters who narrated the games. Especially Howard Cosell. This was his era in Monday Night Football.
Sometime around 10:30 pm, Bud shook my arm… saying “hey.. you’ve got to hear this. “ I took off the head phones and listened to Cosell make the announcement that apparently John Lennon had been shot.. Bud knew that I was a huge Beatles fan, as evidenced by my Beatles collection, both as a group and solo artists. I was stunned. I left the headphones off waiting for more news about John and the attack.
IT was just a few moments later that Cosell came back on with the tragic news.
“This, we have to say it, remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all The Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to the Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival.”
I was stunned. John, the leader and rebel of the Beatle years was gone. He had just recently released his first new LP in 5 years, “Double Fantasy.” The song, “Just Like Starting Over” was frequent on the airwaves. John, after an absence that he spent as a househusband, caring for his new son born in 1975 on John’s own birthday, was gone.
The television that night was filled with news of Lennon’s death, and very little information about the event. ABC broke into programming to make the announcement. Walter Cronkite relayed the news to a watching population. I sat, switching channels, trying to find out if somehow there had been a mistake in the reporting. Maybe, it was all a big mistake.
I received two calls that night. The first call came from the girl I dated, Cas, who was a student at Kansas University. Cas had seen the news and knowing my feeling about the Beatles, called me to see how I was doing. A then student of mine, Ashley Peck, also called me. She, too, knew of my connection to the Beatles and called to talk with me about the shooting, in case I ahd not heard. Interesting, that today, after nearly 30 years, cas and I are still good friends and Ash and I have been married for 22 years.
The next few days, grieving fans swallowed the area around the Dakota apartments, where Yoko and son, Sean, lived. Flowers and pictures decorated the entrance to the apartments where the fatal shooting had occurred. People sang John’s songs and stood, in mass shock at the loss of a cultural icon. Who, alive then, did not have some memory attached to a song by John or the Beatles?
There was no funeral for John. He was cremated two days later. Yoko had made this announcement to the world…
"There is no funeral for John. John loved and prayed for the human race. Please do the same for him. Love, Yoko and Sean.”
She also requested that the thousands who thronged the area around the Dakotas re-convene on Dec. 14th for a 10 minute, world wide silence for John. 30,000 gathered in London. 100,000 filled Central park. I, along with my cousin, Rob, his sisters and others joined scores of people in a silence sponsored by KMOD, the local FM rock station. Me met, somber and quite, as music played form loud speakers, and as the time grew near, the crowd bowed heads in silent remorse, shared by a chain of fans from around the globe.
More news came out about John’s assassin, Mark David Chapman. He had been a Lennon imitator, as far as dress, granny glasses and even marrying a Japanese wife. He sometimes signed his name as John Lennon. But, in Dec., of 1980, Chapman bought a plane ticket from Hawaii to NYC with the twisted plan of killing the man he felt had sold out to materialism.
Chapman waited outside the Dakota apartments the day of the 8th. Lennon was visited by Annie Leibowitz, Rolling Stone photographer who took candid shots of Lennon and Ono. Lennon also gave an interview in which he said that he liked being older and making music for everyone who survived the 60’s. He had just turned 40 on October the 8th of the same year.
At 5 pm, Lennon and Ono left the apartments for a studio session to remix tracks. On the way to his car, Lennon stopped to sign autographs from fans. One of those fans was Chapman, who had Lennon sign on his copy of “Double Fantasy.” Lennon left. Chapman drifted near the apartments, sitting and reading a book.
They were at the studio for several hours and returned to the Dakota at about 10:20 pm (EST). Later, the Dakota doorman said he saw Chapman standing in the shadows nearby. As Ono and Lennon passed by, Chapman stepped out and fired 5 shots, 4 of which struck Lennon in the back. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, even though he was still alive when the rushed him into a car.
Chapman was arrested without a struggle. The doorman had taken his gun and he sat silently waiting for the police. Chapman had been reading the book “The Catcher in The Rye.” Chapman apparently saw himself as the Catcher in th Rye, protecting others from Lennon.
People all over the world mourned John. The remaining Beatles made public statements about John. Paul recorded “Here Today” about John. George recorded “All Those Years Ago” with the help of both Paul and Ringo. Elton John, good friend of John and Yoko, released “Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny).” Even bands like Queen (“”Life is Real”-song for John”), Molly Hatchet (“Fall of the Peacemakers”) and close buddy Harry Nilsson’s “Lay Down Your Arms” either mourned the loss of artist, icon and friend or chided the public on the USA’s easy access gun laws.
Later, in 1984the award winning film, “The Killing Fields,” made the poignant use of the song “Imagine.” I can recall, sitting in the dark theater, tears streaming down my dace as the chords of the song echoed around the theater. The moment in the movie was both touching and memorable, but I think that, too, I shed those tears for the loss I still felt over John’s death.
As Christmas break arrived, Cas drove down to visit me in Sapulpa. I was still in school for a one last day, and occasionally I was called to run a substitute bus route before my classes. She rode with me, sitting in the front seat as I guided the large Orangish-Yellow behemoth (my own Yellow Submarine) along a country route. The young kids, jacketed against the cold Oklahoma December morning, anxious for winter break, jabbered and flirted. The radio, small, tinny speakers set in to the bus walls, strained to be heard above the raucous din.
It was then I heard the three bells that introduced “Just Like Starting Over.” I turned, looking over my shoulder at Cas. Bundled, warm inside the clattery bus, she smiled, acknowledging the song.
“It's time to spread our wings and fly
Don't let another day go by my love
It'll be just like starting over, starting over”
I nodded and smiled back. John is gone, but forever always around me.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
shoudl have been a rock star - top 5 rock wails
The greatest wails in pop music.
I know this is a tough category, but everyone has his or her favorites. I do too. I am a compulsive list maker…. either listing the top 10 LPs ever made to the best guitarists. My list of lists is awesome and of course, one sided. The top 5 actresses or top 10 songs I would perform if I had a band…. It goes on and on.
My list making went so far hat I finally decided to put my list in a physical form and make a CD collection of my favorite tunes, that I labeled “OM.” “Om” is the Hindu word for that musical note that permeates the universe tying all things together. Now, if that doesn’t explain music’s impact… what can? Even my IPOD is names “AUM” which the correct Sanskrit spelling of the westernized word “Om.” It ties the world together. Even Pete Townshend, a Hindu convert long, long ago, and dedicated follower to Baba tried to capture that moment in his song “Pure and Easy.”
“Pure and Easy” tells of the note that can create or destroy. It is everywhere.
“There once was a note, pure and easy
Playing so free, like a breath rippling by
The note is eternal, I hear it, it sees me
Forever we blend and forever we die”
And, in the song, as it winds into the final chorus, the music pauses and Pete plucks a single note…soft and resonant… the sound of “Om.” That is what these great wails are… they connect to that “Om” in each of us.
As far as wails, I am thinking about the moment in a song when the singer lets go of this wail from way down deep and it causes your whole body to shudder. And, yes, I know there are some amazing wails to choose from. Obviously there are a lot of great contenders, but these 5 are my personal favs.
5. Wilson Picket – Mustang Sally
Picket’s style shows up in a lot of Rand B music and even shows an influence in the music of others on this list like Joe Cocker. His frequent screams and wails throughout the song are at their best when at 2:35 into the song he sings…
“You been runnin all over town
Ooooowwwwww!
I got to put your flat feet on the ground”
A screech that can’t be written in English words that amply describe the sound. No way!
4. Al Green – So Tired of Being Alone
Al Green’s wail is like Mark Knoppler’s guitar (Dire Straits). Sometimes his great guitar playing was so smooth and understated, without a wasted note to take away from the perfection that his songs, like “Sultans of Swing” were based on, that they could easily be lost.
When Al, half way through the song, wails “Yaaaaaaaaa….Baaaabeeeee….” a person can’t help but feel the intense loneliness of the man in the lyrics. Smooth, subtle and chilling.
“Ya baby,
tired of being alone here by myself,
I tell ya, I'm tired baby,
I'm tired of being all wrapt up late at night,
in my dreams, nobody but you, baby”
3. Janis Joplin- Cry Baby
What can you say about this wail? The songs starts with the simple bomp bomp bomp of guitar and then ….
“Cryyyyy…eiiii…eiii… Baby!” the wail building higher and higher as she begins the blues tune with a fiery blast of Texas summer heat! You can feel sadness and desperation in that few moments of cry that speak of loneliness and long nights of whiskey and cigarettes. Janis sings in her rat-a-tat style of conversation, trying to convince her desired lover. No better blues wail than Janis. Gone far, far too soon.
2. Joe Cocker _ A Little Help From My Friends
The film of Cocker singing this song at Woodstock in 1969 is captivating. The happy-go-lucky Ringo tune from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” becomes a bluesy and black gospel-sounding anthem.
Joe writhes and twist, contorted as he is completely absorbed by the song, much of the lyrics almost obscured by his growling delivery.
Many people, when they first heard the song by Cocker were surprised that it was a white English man singing instead of an American Black man.
At about 3:45 into the song, the guitar builds, and the back ground chorus sings “Do You Need Anybody?” In the Beatles version, the answer from Ringo is “I Ned somebody to love,” but ti is at that point that Cocker, leans back, and from the deep dark recesses of his souls simply answers with :Waaahhhhh-ahhhhh ahhhhh-ahhhhhhh… yeah! Yeah! yeah!” Beyond words, how much he needs someone to love.
I saw Cocker live a couple years ago, and even though his stage movements have seemed a bit more muted, man, can that guy still wail!
1. The Who- Won’t Get Fooled Again
Roger Daltrey hs always been a master of the rock scream. “My Generation,” “Pin Ball Wizard,” or “Baba O’Reilly,” Roger’s powerful voice defined the sound of the Who as an integral fourth. Twonshend’s windmill guitars, Enthwistle’s thundering bass, Moon’s energetic drums blended with Roger in a true “Om” experience.
In 1971, Townsehnd penned a rock opera called “Lifehouse.” It, as a total work, would not see the light of day until a solo Townshend rerecorded it in the 1990’s as a continuing work. It had the idea of “Om” as it’s basis, and many of the tunes he penned for it came out on his first solo LP (Who Came First) and on the Who’s great 1971 LP “Who’s Next.”
Perhaps the most seminal of those cuts is “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” The 8 ½ minute song on politics that announces, “Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss” begins with a crashing windmill guitar, and then followed by synthesized computer sounds. The bass and drums join in as Roger screams …
“I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again”
The song builds and builds, as Pete dances, bounces across the stage wind milling through chorus after chorus. Finally, a long musical interlude dies away to leave only the computer sounds playing. In the 2 times I have been lucky enough to see them play this song live, the band left the stage, and smoke rolled across the stage as light played across the darkened stage. It seems almost a good place form the song to wind down into fadeout, but it ignites back to life.
In Kansas City Arrowhead stadium, on their 25th anniversary tour, the drums broke the sound of the computer with a couple of disconnected rolls. Then as the drums rose to a pitch, Pete Townshend came flying through the air in a windmill power slide! The crunching guitar and Roger’s “:yyyoooooooowwwwwwwww!” split the air and the band finished the song in a pounding sledgehammer finish.
That song, every time it plays, still sends shivers up my spine. I still see Pete sliding across the stage in mid guitar riff and Roger stepping through the smoke, hand held high , blond fleece of hair as he roared across the late night Midwestern night.
Whew….
Following the events of 9/11, the Who played the Concert for New York (Oct. 2001). It was amazing. They played 4 songs, three of which were from “Who’s Next.” They followed several great performances, but it was that song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” that seemed to ignite the crowd in a sort of “We are of one accord” attitude.
The bass thundered. Roger screamed out his lyrics and Pete, like a kid without his Ritilin, bounced around the stage still powering the song with his signature windmill.
“We Won’t Be Fooled Again!”
I know this is a tough category, but everyone has his or her favorites. I do too. I am a compulsive list maker…. either listing the top 10 LPs ever made to the best guitarists. My list of lists is awesome and of course, one sided. The top 5 actresses or top 10 songs I would perform if I had a band…. It goes on and on.
My list making went so far hat I finally decided to put my list in a physical form and make a CD collection of my favorite tunes, that I labeled “OM.” “Om” is the Hindu word for that musical note that permeates the universe tying all things together. Now, if that doesn’t explain music’s impact… what can? Even my IPOD is names “AUM” which the correct Sanskrit spelling of the westernized word “Om.” It ties the world together. Even Pete Townshend, a Hindu convert long, long ago, and dedicated follower to Baba tried to capture that moment in his song “Pure and Easy.”
“Pure and Easy” tells of the note that can create or destroy. It is everywhere.
“There once was a note, pure and easy
Playing so free, like a breath rippling by
The note is eternal, I hear it, it sees me
Forever we blend and forever we die”
And, in the song, as it winds into the final chorus, the music pauses and Pete plucks a single note…soft and resonant… the sound of “Om.” That is what these great wails are… they connect to that “Om” in each of us.
As far as wails, I am thinking about the moment in a song when the singer lets go of this wail from way down deep and it causes your whole body to shudder. And, yes, I know there are some amazing wails to choose from. Obviously there are a lot of great contenders, but these 5 are my personal favs.
5. Wilson Picket – Mustang Sally
Picket’s style shows up in a lot of Rand B music and even shows an influence in the music of others on this list like Joe Cocker. His frequent screams and wails throughout the song are at their best when at 2:35 into the song he sings…
“You been runnin all over town
Ooooowwwwww!
I got to put your flat feet on the ground”
A screech that can’t be written in English words that amply describe the sound. No way!
4. Al Green – So Tired of Being Alone
Al Green’s wail is like Mark Knoppler’s guitar (Dire Straits). Sometimes his great guitar playing was so smooth and understated, without a wasted note to take away from the perfection that his songs, like “Sultans of Swing” were based on, that they could easily be lost.
When Al, half way through the song, wails “Yaaaaaaaaa….Baaaabeeeee….” a person can’t help but feel the intense loneliness of the man in the lyrics. Smooth, subtle and chilling.
“Ya baby,
tired of being alone here by myself,
I tell ya, I'm tired baby,
I'm tired of being all wrapt up late at night,
in my dreams, nobody but you, baby”
3. Janis Joplin- Cry Baby
What can you say about this wail? The songs starts with the simple bomp bomp bomp of guitar and then ….
“Cryyyyy…eiiii…eiii… Baby!” the wail building higher and higher as she begins the blues tune with a fiery blast of Texas summer heat! You can feel sadness and desperation in that few moments of cry that speak of loneliness and long nights of whiskey and cigarettes. Janis sings in her rat-a-tat style of conversation, trying to convince her desired lover. No better blues wail than Janis. Gone far, far too soon.
2. Joe Cocker _ A Little Help From My Friends
The film of Cocker singing this song at Woodstock in 1969 is captivating. The happy-go-lucky Ringo tune from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” becomes a bluesy and black gospel-sounding anthem.
Joe writhes and twist, contorted as he is completely absorbed by the song, much of the lyrics almost obscured by his growling delivery.
Many people, when they first heard the song by Cocker were surprised that it was a white English man singing instead of an American Black man.
At about 3:45 into the song, the guitar builds, and the back ground chorus sings “Do You Need Anybody?” In the Beatles version, the answer from Ringo is “I Ned somebody to love,” but ti is at that point that Cocker, leans back, and from the deep dark recesses of his souls simply answers with :Waaahhhhh-ahhhhh ahhhhh-ahhhhhhh… yeah! Yeah! yeah!” Beyond words, how much he needs someone to love.
I saw Cocker live a couple years ago, and even though his stage movements have seemed a bit more muted, man, can that guy still wail!
1. The Who- Won’t Get Fooled Again
Roger Daltrey hs always been a master of the rock scream. “My Generation,” “Pin Ball Wizard,” or “Baba O’Reilly,” Roger’s powerful voice defined the sound of the Who as an integral fourth. Twonshend’s windmill guitars, Enthwistle’s thundering bass, Moon’s energetic drums blended with Roger in a true “Om” experience.
In 1971, Townsehnd penned a rock opera called “Lifehouse.” It, as a total work, would not see the light of day until a solo Townshend rerecorded it in the 1990’s as a continuing work. It had the idea of “Om” as it’s basis, and many of the tunes he penned for it came out on his first solo LP (Who Came First) and on the Who’s great 1971 LP “Who’s Next.”
Perhaps the most seminal of those cuts is “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” The 8 ½ minute song on politics that announces, “Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss” begins with a crashing windmill guitar, and then followed by synthesized computer sounds. The bass and drums join in as Roger screams …
“I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again”
The song builds and builds, as Pete dances, bounces across the stage wind milling through chorus after chorus. Finally, a long musical interlude dies away to leave only the computer sounds playing. In the 2 times I have been lucky enough to see them play this song live, the band left the stage, and smoke rolled across the stage as light played across the darkened stage. It seems almost a good place form the song to wind down into fadeout, but it ignites back to life.
In Kansas City Arrowhead stadium, on their 25th anniversary tour, the drums broke the sound of the computer with a couple of disconnected rolls. Then as the drums rose to a pitch, Pete Townshend came flying through the air in a windmill power slide! The crunching guitar and Roger’s “:yyyoooooooowwwwwwwww!” split the air and the band finished the song in a pounding sledgehammer finish.
That song, every time it plays, still sends shivers up my spine. I still see Pete sliding across the stage in mid guitar riff and Roger stepping through the smoke, hand held high , blond fleece of hair as he roared across the late night Midwestern night.
Whew….
Following the events of 9/11, the Who played the Concert for New York (Oct. 2001). It was amazing. They played 4 songs, three of which were from “Who’s Next.” They followed several great performances, but it was that song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” that seemed to ignite the crowd in a sort of “We are of one accord” attitude.
The bass thundered. Roger screamed out his lyrics and Pete, like a kid without his Ritilin, bounced around the stage still powering the song with his signature windmill.
“We Won’t Be Fooled Again!”
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Should have been a rock star---Beatles cartoons, Monkees TV and Chinchillas.
Beatles cartoons, Monkees TV and Chinchillas..
In the summer of 1968 I was caught in a conundrum. It was Saturday morning, and I was sitting, along with my younger brothers and sisters and buddy Larry, in my Grandma’s living room floor watching reruns of the Beatles Saturday morning cartoons.
I waited for that broadcast every week! The amount of rock music on television was abysmal, and about all anyone could count on weekly was American Bandstand. It was obviously for dancing and the bands lip-synced through their appearances.
The Beatles Cartoon, was of course, not really the Beatles, but it did fill a hole for the devoted fan. We would sit in front of the TV, watch the short silly clips and then sing along with the songs that each segment revolved around. Sometimes, we played guitar on brooms or sticks. We divided ourselves up as John, Paul, George and Ringo. We did the same with the Monkees TV show, which was simply a live action version of the Beatles cartoon. Sister Mary was Davey Jones; Tim was Mike Nesmith, etc.
We liked to watch at Granny’s because Grandpa had gotten them a color TV. We still had only black and white.
These shws gave us the music that we could only see form time to time on shows like “The Red Skeleton Show” ( I remember seeing Three Dog Night on that show… or is that a dream?), Carol Burnett, or Ed Sullivan. We missed most the Sullivan stuff since it fell during Sunday night church hours for us. Not even an appearance by Beatles or Stones could warrant missing church for rock and roll!
Anyway, back to Saturday morning….in the middle of the show, my older brother Keith came in to tell Mom, me and Grandma that he had a Saturday job for me , cleaning chinchilla cages for a friend of his. As much as I wanted to please my big brother, I also wanted to blurt out “NO!!” I didn’t want to miss those moments of Beatles music and happiness beamed straight from Liverpool into our TV set!
Reluctantly, I put on my shoes and followed Keith to his pickup and away to the chinchilla farm on the outskirts of Kiefer. There we met his buddy Bob and Bob’s uncle Dale, the two enterprising owners of the chinchilla farm. The farm to me was just a building that had stacks and stacks of cages filled with fluffy rat looking creatures. The building smelled of animal crap and Lysol.
I worked for them for several weeks, while Dale, a small chain-smoking figure of a man, guided me through the feeding, pumice baths and cleaning of the farm. After a few weeks, he let me in, then left me to clean and feed on my own. It was cool that he trusted me then, but at the same time, for this 12-year-old boy, the building full of chinchillas suddenly loomed quiet and ominous. I wanted to go home, kick off my shoes and watch Beatle cartoons with everyone else. I wanted to be a kid again, not an employee!
I could hardly wait for the 8 hoys to pass. The 12 dollar check Dale wrote me, at $1.50 an hour, was a pretty good amount for a kid then, but I just wanted to be at home.
The next week, when I went to work, I noticed Dale or Bob had left their radio in the building. I turned it on and immediately the building was less ominous. I played radio station KELI in the morning and KAKC in the afternoon. They were the two competing pop stations on AM radio of the late 60’s.
The workday flew by! I could work faster with the radio, and I was definitely no longer frightened by the loneliness of the day. I sang along with each of the songs. I wailed like a banshee to Steppenwolf! I crooned like McCartney of “Hey Jude.” I could even do, or so I imagined, the synchronized movements behind Diana Ross as the Supremes echoed around the small building. The tunes filled the ammonia tainted air and made my day slide by, even lessening the pain of no Beatles Cartoons with the variety of songs hat pop radio played in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
That was something I truly miss about radio today… it is so genre oriented that many people are never exposed to anything but their favorite flavor. The only place now that comes close to the variety of those 60’s AM stations is an IPOD on shuffle. The band, Ecerclear, captured that in their 2000 song “AM Radio”
“Yeah when things get stupid and I just dont know
Where to find my happy
I listen to my music on the am radio
You can hear the music on a am radio
You can hear the music on a am radio
I like pop, I like soul, I like rock, but I never liked disco
I like pop, I like soul, I like rock, but I never liked disco”
Variety…. Ahhhhh!
Maybe we appreciated that more because we were so desperate to hear and see any music on TV that it all was good to us? I was just as likely to watch the Carpenters when they appeared on a variety show, as I was to watch Three Dog Night. And, yes, I know the words to “Close to You” as well as I know the words to “Born to Be Wild.”
TV was a wasteland for rock music in the beginning. There were a few attempts to create something for this still fledgling genre that was beginning to be a marketing battleground. Dick Clark still reigned supreme for the dance oriented crowd. The change in 1967 became evident when “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” were premiered on his show as promo clips. The former mop tops, secluded for a year from touring appeared in the clips with beards, longer hair and mustaches in psychedelic imagery. Just 4 ½ motnhs before the release of “Sgt. Pepper.”
The Bandstand crowd remarked “I don’t like their hair”, “It was finny” “They were ugly.” “ They went out with the twist” “It was weird” and for the 24 to 26 year old band members, “ they looked like somebody’s grandfather.”
The changes had been unleashed. Dick Clark’s other venture, “Where The Action Is,” 1965-1967, had been a fairly non-offensive early afternoon pop show, showcasing lip-synching bands on the beach. The 30 minute format was fats and interspersed with witty comments by the show’s rotation of performers on call, such as Paul revere and the Raiders. As the mood shifted from the cuddly pop to the more explorative and protest oriented music, “Where the Action Is” died, to be replaced by another Dick Clark show every Saturday afternoon, “Happening 68.” Paul Revere and Mark Lindsay of the Raiders also hosted it.
The show was short lived and by the end of 1969, it had expired and been replaced as the new rock show by a prime time rock, comedy and politics venue called “The Music Scene.” It was hosted by David Steinberg, and as I wrote before, was responsible for my departure from the Boy Scouts in order to see their premiere of the Beatles “Ballad of John and Yoko,’ much to my parent’s chagrin.
It seemed that Rock shows didn’t carry the monetary weight for ads that made prime time run, so after just over a year, even “The Music Scene” died a slow death.
That left us hungry for live music on TV. It seemed like nothing was sustainable and a variety fo late night shows drifted in and out of the doldrums until the two most successful made their appearance on the national TV scene.
In 1972, the late night variety show “The Midnight Special” followed “The Tonight Show” on Friday nights with a long list of rockers, pop stars and disco artists performing live on stage, a which was a big change from the prepackaged performances of bands on other shows. “Midnight Special” lasted till 1981 in it’s 1 ½ hr late night format. Its success at the late night slot prompted a little competition from another channel in the form of “IN Concert” and then “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert..” Both shows eventually fell to the new king on the mountain in 1981.
Now, by the time I was in college in the late 70’s, there were several chances for televised live rock music. “Midnight Special,” “Rock Concert” and even the weekly live music guests on “Saturday Night Live.” Helped fill the void. I had still had the peculiar habit of turning on the stereo while the TV played in a muted mode. Sound and vision. It was as if there had to be more and more stimuli!
In my second year of teaching, 1980-81, my room mate convinced me to invest in cable TV based on the one innovation he was sure I would be drawn to… a 24 hour music television station. Music groups had always prepared promo music video to advertise on shows, such as the “Music Scene’s” airing of “the Ballad of John and Yoko.” I had also watched a Nickelodeon show called “Pop Clips.” It was the brainchild of former Monkee Mike Nesmith who sold the idea to the networks of collecting and airing the band promo clips. It featured the up and coming bands of the late 70’s such as the Police, and experimental and cutting edge music from bands like the Split Enz and “M’. (M’s infamous low tech video of “Pop Musik” which heralded the coming techno brand of New Wave.)
Video did indeed kill the radio Star in August of 1981. VJ’s (video Jocks) and a rotating catalog of edgy and familiar musicians crowded the airwaves and drew me closer and closer to the set. MTV even broadcast in FM stereo that you could also plug into you stereo speakers, freeing you from the tin box distortion of tiny TV sound.
Music had hit TV in a 24-hour format! The music was visualized before your eyes in performance clips, dramatization clips and finally, from Todd Rundgren ( A Wizard A True Star) even completely digitalized, c0mputerized video.
It was a long way from 30 minutes of Beatles cartoons on Saturday morning.
Of course, there were the drawbacks as well. It seemed in the early days that MTV had few black musicians on their shows. Artists complained about the fact that video took away the listeners own interpretations of the songs. Video drove out the unsightly, the fat and ugly musician in favor of the cute, fashionable and visual. Looks over content. Surprise! Surprise!
Now, today, in 2009, MTV has several incarnations and has drifted away from its music format with reality shows, fluff and commercial after commercial. Back where we started, wanting something that is real music.
And where is radio??? Each station crammed into some small marketing formula, owned and operated by sterilized format driven companies.
Ever see the movie “FM?” True today as it was in the 70’s.
Bring back that late night live performance. Bring back rock music uninhibited by the corporate bottom dollar.
I sure would like those Beatles Cartoons back.
In the summer of 1968 I was caught in a conundrum. It was Saturday morning, and I was sitting, along with my younger brothers and sisters and buddy Larry, in my Grandma’s living room floor watching reruns of the Beatles Saturday morning cartoons.
I waited for that broadcast every week! The amount of rock music on television was abysmal, and about all anyone could count on weekly was American Bandstand. It was obviously for dancing and the bands lip-synced through their appearances.
The Beatles Cartoon, was of course, not really the Beatles, but it did fill a hole for the devoted fan. We would sit in front of the TV, watch the short silly clips and then sing along with the songs that each segment revolved around. Sometimes, we played guitar on brooms or sticks. We divided ourselves up as John, Paul, George and Ringo. We did the same with the Monkees TV show, which was simply a live action version of the Beatles cartoon. Sister Mary was Davey Jones; Tim was Mike Nesmith, etc.
We liked to watch at Granny’s because Grandpa had gotten them a color TV. We still had only black and white.
These shws gave us the music that we could only see form time to time on shows like “The Red Skeleton Show” ( I remember seeing Three Dog Night on that show… or is that a dream?), Carol Burnett, or Ed Sullivan. We missed most the Sullivan stuff since it fell during Sunday night church hours for us. Not even an appearance by Beatles or Stones could warrant missing church for rock and roll!
Anyway, back to Saturday morning….in the middle of the show, my older brother Keith came in to tell Mom, me and Grandma that he had a Saturday job for me , cleaning chinchilla cages for a friend of his. As much as I wanted to please my big brother, I also wanted to blurt out “NO!!” I didn’t want to miss those moments of Beatles music and happiness beamed straight from Liverpool into our TV set!
Reluctantly, I put on my shoes and followed Keith to his pickup and away to the chinchilla farm on the outskirts of Kiefer. There we met his buddy Bob and Bob’s uncle Dale, the two enterprising owners of the chinchilla farm. The farm to me was just a building that had stacks and stacks of cages filled with fluffy rat looking creatures. The building smelled of animal crap and Lysol.
I worked for them for several weeks, while Dale, a small chain-smoking figure of a man, guided me through the feeding, pumice baths and cleaning of the farm. After a few weeks, he let me in, then left me to clean and feed on my own. It was cool that he trusted me then, but at the same time, for this 12-year-old boy, the building full of chinchillas suddenly loomed quiet and ominous. I wanted to go home, kick off my shoes and watch Beatle cartoons with everyone else. I wanted to be a kid again, not an employee!
I could hardly wait for the 8 hoys to pass. The 12 dollar check Dale wrote me, at $1.50 an hour, was a pretty good amount for a kid then, but I just wanted to be at home.
The next week, when I went to work, I noticed Dale or Bob had left their radio in the building. I turned it on and immediately the building was less ominous. I played radio station KELI in the morning and KAKC in the afternoon. They were the two competing pop stations on AM radio of the late 60’s.
The workday flew by! I could work faster with the radio, and I was definitely no longer frightened by the loneliness of the day. I sang along with each of the songs. I wailed like a banshee to Steppenwolf! I crooned like McCartney of “Hey Jude.” I could even do, or so I imagined, the synchronized movements behind Diana Ross as the Supremes echoed around the small building. The tunes filled the ammonia tainted air and made my day slide by, even lessening the pain of no Beatles Cartoons with the variety of songs hat pop radio played in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
That was something I truly miss about radio today… it is so genre oriented that many people are never exposed to anything but their favorite flavor. The only place now that comes close to the variety of those 60’s AM stations is an IPOD on shuffle. The band, Ecerclear, captured that in their 2000 song “AM Radio”
“Yeah when things get stupid and I just dont know
Where to find my happy
I listen to my music on the am radio
You can hear the music on a am radio
You can hear the music on a am radio
I like pop, I like soul, I like rock, but I never liked disco
I like pop, I like soul, I like rock, but I never liked disco”
Variety…. Ahhhhh!
Maybe we appreciated that more because we were so desperate to hear and see any music on TV that it all was good to us? I was just as likely to watch the Carpenters when they appeared on a variety show, as I was to watch Three Dog Night. And, yes, I know the words to “Close to You” as well as I know the words to “Born to Be Wild.”
TV was a wasteland for rock music in the beginning. There were a few attempts to create something for this still fledgling genre that was beginning to be a marketing battleground. Dick Clark still reigned supreme for the dance oriented crowd. The change in 1967 became evident when “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” were premiered on his show as promo clips. The former mop tops, secluded for a year from touring appeared in the clips with beards, longer hair and mustaches in psychedelic imagery. Just 4 ½ motnhs before the release of “Sgt. Pepper.”
The Bandstand crowd remarked “I don’t like their hair”, “It was finny” “They were ugly.” “ They went out with the twist” “It was weird” and for the 24 to 26 year old band members, “ they looked like somebody’s grandfather.”
The changes had been unleashed. Dick Clark’s other venture, “Where The Action Is,” 1965-1967, had been a fairly non-offensive early afternoon pop show, showcasing lip-synching bands on the beach. The 30 minute format was fats and interspersed with witty comments by the show’s rotation of performers on call, such as Paul revere and the Raiders. As the mood shifted from the cuddly pop to the more explorative and protest oriented music, “Where the Action Is” died, to be replaced by another Dick Clark show every Saturday afternoon, “Happening 68.” Paul Revere and Mark Lindsay of the Raiders also hosted it.
The show was short lived and by the end of 1969, it had expired and been replaced as the new rock show by a prime time rock, comedy and politics venue called “The Music Scene.” It was hosted by David Steinberg, and as I wrote before, was responsible for my departure from the Boy Scouts in order to see their premiere of the Beatles “Ballad of John and Yoko,’ much to my parent’s chagrin.
It seemed that Rock shows didn’t carry the monetary weight for ads that made prime time run, so after just over a year, even “The Music Scene” died a slow death.
That left us hungry for live music on TV. It seemed like nothing was sustainable and a variety fo late night shows drifted in and out of the doldrums until the two most successful made their appearance on the national TV scene.
In 1972, the late night variety show “The Midnight Special” followed “The Tonight Show” on Friday nights with a long list of rockers, pop stars and disco artists performing live on stage, a which was a big change from the prepackaged performances of bands on other shows. “Midnight Special” lasted till 1981 in it’s 1 ½ hr late night format. Its success at the late night slot prompted a little competition from another channel in the form of “IN Concert” and then “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert..” Both shows eventually fell to the new king on the mountain in 1981.
Now, by the time I was in college in the late 70’s, there were several chances for televised live rock music. “Midnight Special,” “Rock Concert” and even the weekly live music guests on “Saturday Night Live.” Helped fill the void. I had still had the peculiar habit of turning on the stereo while the TV played in a muted mode. Sound and vision. It was as if there had to be more and more stimuli!
In my second year of teaching, 1980-81, my room mate convinced me to invest in cable TV based on the one innovation he was sure I would be drawn to… a 24 hour music television station. Music groups had always prepared promo music video to advertise on shows, such as the “Music Scene’s” airing of “the Ballad of John and Yoko.” I had also watched a Nickelodeon show called “Pop Clips.” It was the brainchild of former Monkee Mike Nesmith who sold the idea to the networks of collecting and airing the band promo clips. It featured the up and coming bands of the late 70’s such as the Police, and experimental and cutting edge music from bands like the Split Enz and “M’. (M’s infamous low tech video of “Pop Musik” which heralded the coming techno brand of New Wave.)
Video did indeed kill the radio Star in August of 1981. VJ’s (video Jocks) and a rotating catalog of edgy and familiar musicians crowded the airwaves and drew me closer and closer to the set. MTV even broadcast in FM stereo that you could also plug into you stereo speakers, freeing you from the tin box distortion of tiny TV sound.
Music had hit TV in a 24-hour format! The music was visualized before your eyes in performance clips, dramatization clips and finally, from Todd Rundgren ( A Wizard A True Star) even completely digitalized, c0mputerized video.
It was a long way from 30 minutes of Beatles cartoons on Saturday morning.
Of course, there were the drawbacks as well. It seemed in the early days that MTV had few black musicians on their shows. Artists complained about the fact that video took away the listeners own interpretations of the songs. Video drove out the unsightly, the fat and ugly musician in favor of the cute, fashionable and visual. Looks over content. Surprise! Surprise!
Now, today, in 2009, MTV has several incarnations and has drifted away from its music format with reality shows, fluff and commercial after commercial. Back where we started, wanting something that is real music.
And where is radio??? Each station crammed into some small marketing formula, owned and operated by sterilized format driven companies.
Ever see the movie “FM?” True today as it was in the 70’s.
Bring back that late night live performance. Bring back rock music uninhibited by the corporate bottom dollar.
I sure would like those Beatles Cartoons back.
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