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.
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