Sunday, July 31, 2011

"Man.... You REALLY need to hear this band!!"

I think we all have a few bands that we feel we found and bugged our friends and anyone else who'd listen to hear them. My next article will be on one of the bands that never made it, the Galactic Cowboys, but this is about the ones that did and the excitement of feeling you changed someones listening life.

My first "Discovery" was Bon Jovi. Now I know everyone know them as a cheesy hair band/adult contemporary band, but before that they were a hard working rock band from New Jersey. I first heard them on a late night video show on local PBS when I saw "Runaway" and the hook was so strong that it just had to be a hit... It wasn't. Sure, it's well known for them now, but at the time, not so much. Then they released the much better "7800 degrees Fahrenheit" which may have actually done worse. I was telling everyone about these guys and playing them constantly getting one of my best friends to become a big fan (which he still is). Then came the big record "Slippery When Wet" and they were everywhere! They followed up with 2 more huge records but then made the darker "These Days" record (their best by the way) and all of a sudden I found myself trying to tell people about this band again as everyone seemed to have lost interest. It took a few solo albums and changes of music styles, but the band has been back for years, but I was one of the first...

My second band I found before all my friends (and a lot of the world) was Guns n Roses. I was one of the few that saw the one airing on Mtv of the video of "Welcome To The Jungle" and went out that day and bought the cassette. That guitar riff still sends chills up my spine! I listened to it over and over (which was not a great idea in the cassette age, lol) and then playing that for anyone in any situation where I had the chance to hit "play" on the boombox. But the song that I told people that was going to be huge was "Sweet Child O' Mine" before it was even a single. It wasn't even my favorite song on the album (Rocket Queen, Jungle or Paradise City fought it out for fave) but I knew it was catchy as hell and had another unique guitar sound. Within a month and a half or so everyone was talking GnR and within a year they were the biggest band on the planet, but I was one of the first...

My third time was Extreme. I remember seeing TV ads for the movie "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure" and hearing this crazy guitar going on underneath it all, but never could hear the singer and the band wasn't credited. One day I just happened to hear on one of our no defunct rock radio stations in Detroit the song and the DJ actually saying the name of the band and the song (I miss those days) as Extreme and the song was "Play With Me" and once again, off to Harmony House I go! What a great album! Full of great guitar playing and unusual lyrics for a "hair metal" band and I couldn't wait for the second record. I had a lot of friends listening, but not buying the first Extreme, but "Pornograffitti changed that... Especially "More Than Words". The album was big and the song was bigger, in fact it held a record for most returned album for some time because some people (mostly of an older variety, haha) would buy it for "More Than Words" and find a very hard rocking rest of the disc that had a lot of adult themes. They followed that up with the great "III Sides To Every Story" which had a couple minor hits, then they went in a dark different direction with "Waiting For The Punchline" which didn't do well at all. Then out of the blue Gary Cherone (singer) is signed on to sing with Van Halen and Nuno Bettencourt (guitar) is doing side projects. They broke up, but in 2008 they reunited with "Saudades De Rock". I never saw them get bigger then theater tours, in fact we saw them at the beginning of the "Pornograffitti" tour at a tiny club in Detroit called "The Ritz with Alice In Chains Opening, but I won't take credit for exposing my friends to them as they were there and we didn't even notice the band til later that year, "Man In The Box" was big and that's when we noticed we saw them and no one even knew, lol.

What bands have you found and forced upon your friends til they finally saw the light? Let me know... I'd love to check them out!

The 27 club


The death of Amy Winehouse has brought the dreaded "27 club" back into the lexicon. Let's get out of the way first... It's a club, not a curse. If it were a curse there would be a lot more dead. The reason for the "curse" talk is that in general most people claim Robert Johnson was the first member after going to the crossroads and making a deal with the devil to become a great bluesman and traded his soul and that many have done this after him and mate with his same fate. Problem with the theory is that the biggest star to be associated with this deal (at least in my opinion) is Jimmy Page, and he's still kicking around. Also the fame but unusual deaths of stars much bigger then those in the club, but at a much older age (Elvis & Lennon come to mind) makes the idea of a curse seem silly to me.

However one can't deny the coincidence of the age of all these musicians or the impact that a majority of them had. The poster childs of the club are Brian Jones, the founder of The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, influential female blues singer, Jimi Hendrix, considered by many the greatest guitar player ever, Jim Morrison, lead singer for The Doors and Kurt Cobain, leader of Nirvana. It's hard to say at this time if Amy Winehouse deserves to be on that list, but she did join the club none the less.

So how does this happen? My personal opinion.... Too much, too young. Maybe that's too easy, but imagine having the world at your feet and more money then you can ever know what to do with and you aren't even 30! And to top it off... No one will dare tell you "No". You are still immature yet you need to make decisions that would stress out an experienced CEO. Band members, road crews, record labels, agents, managers and fans are now depending on you and just a few years ago maybe you were flipping burgers... It's gotta be insane. So you turn to drugs and partying to release the stress, after all... This is what you know, you are too young to understand that you have all the power to tell everyone to just slow down for your own good, heck... You're young... You will live forever!!

I fear we will see this much more often in this TMZ society. The press adds even more pressure to an already volatile situation and it seems our young stars can't fart without a thousand cameras catching it. I see Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan heading down these paths and I'm sure there is more to come. Maybe next time we see a sad pathetic, falling down drunk or stoned star, instead of laughing at them or instead of the courts sending them to jail for 2 hours we take this serious and help them and stop enabling them.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Roger Keith Barrett was born January 6, 1946 and passed from this world on July 7, 2006. During his time with us, he was best known by the nick name "Syd" and for founding one of the most influential rock bands of all time: Pink Floyd.

Syd's story is inspiring, influential and tragic at the same time. He inspired and continues to do so with his wild imagination. He was in a constant state of pushing boundaries through his art. It was his vision that caused EMI Records to take note of what his band was doing to push rock in a new direction. He was among the first in all of rock & roll to see how well visuals could be used in a live setting to accompany the music. As far as influence goes, one need look no further than every music performance over the past 3 decades or so. Prior to the stage productions of the Pink Floyd shows of the late 60's, concerts were prone to using "house lights" along with an occasional spot light on a featured band member. Syd had a much larger vision for what a rock performance could be and it branched out from him directly to every other stage on Earth. The alternating, variable lighting and rudimentary overhead projections of the time have made way to other artists constantly borrowing from and enhancing the same scheme to this very day.

Syd's story is also tragic in that, while on a constant quest to push forward or go further, it is universally agreed he eventually went too far. Syd was eventually dismissed from Pink Floyd because, through hallucinogenic drugs, he had pushed his on mind so far out there that he was no longer able to function in normal society. I don't want to focus too much on the negative and/or tragic aspect of Syd's legacy. A simple Google search will dig up all of the unfortunately accurate information available about his steady decline. I do however want to touch on an interesting point David Gilmour once made about Syd's decline. David was doing an interview about Syd's early yearts and was asked if he could describe what exactly happened to Syd. Gilmour thought for a few moments and replied "It was suddenly as if that light that was so bright in his eyes, that place where you know so much was going on, had been switched off. The light was gone, he looked looked completely lost instead of looking like a leader who could take you anywhere". That quote has always stuck with me as do pictures like the two above. One being from early in Syd's career with the Floyd and the second being from after he'd left the band. In those two pictures alone, you can see exactly what David Gilmour was describing.

After Syd was removed from Pink Floyd, he did go on to create a number of solo tracks which where originally released as his solo albums "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett" in the beginning and end of 1970 respectively. These albums, along with several outtakes and remixes of sorts have appeared on upwards of 10 compilation projects through the years.

One of my favorite songs Syd ever released was called "Octopus" (above) from The Mapcap Laughs LP. Recorded and released a few years after he'd been deemed unfit to carry on making music, I really feel that it shows something was still there for Syd creatively. For whatever reason, Syd chose to discontinue making music entirely soon after the original release of the first two solo efforts.  At no point did he partake in any further live performances neither solo or with Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd obviously went on to greater success after Syd's departure. While working on their own Pink Floyd related projects, the members kept in touch with Syd as much as they could. David Gilmour and Richard Wright also lent a hand to the material and overall production of both of Syd's solo efforts. After the monumental album and tour for The Dark Side of the Moon, the remaining members of Floyd did not forget their original inspiration. Their next effort, 1975's "Wish You Were Here" is both a lavish tribute to their friend and scathing comment on the record industry that had a hand in pushing Syd well beyond his limits. At 40 some odd minutes and only 5 tracks long, the record stopped off in the middle for angry tracks like "Welcome To The Machine" and "Have A Cigar" to mark the anger with the music industry previously mentioned. Near the end of the record is the title track which is so universal, it can be applied to just about anyone. But with it's place in the track listing, one can only assume that Syd was front of mind when lyrics like "Did you exchange a walk on part in  the war for a lead role in a cage?" were written. The album is book ended with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (above), a sprawling and brilliant direct tribute to Syd. The song is a tribute and cautionary tale at the same time. Many of the lyrics point to the sheer brilliance that was Syd and others warn of the price Syd eventually paid. Can you read the prior quote from David Gilmour about Syd's decline and not immediately reference the lyric "Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky"?

As I said before, a quick Google search will quench any sort of thirst you have for knowledge of Syd's decline so I don't need to focus on that. I choose instead to focus on what he did accomplish, what he inspired, who he influenced and the music he gave us both directly and indirectly. He left our world physically five years ago today. He remains in so many hearts now and forever.

"Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you piper, you prisoner and shine"

Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett
January 6, 1946-July 7, 2006