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This is for Pat, who took the fly (He'll get the reference)....
3. Keith Moon - Townshend once said that The Who consisted of "Roger on lead vocal, me on lead guitar, John on lead bass, and and Keith on lead drums." One of the marks of a great drummer is that his band can't continue without him (or her). The Who without Keith became what Pete Townshend called "The Who on ice...."
Listen to him on "Bargain."
2. Neil Peart - I've always thought he had too many drums, but, damn, he can play them.... There are lots of drummers who have to carry loads in trio bands including Ginger Baker in Cream and Mitch Mitchell for Hendrix's Experience. But Peart does more with time signatures and cymbals than anybody else I can think of.
Listen to him on "Fly by Night."
1. John Bonham - Even more decisively than with The Who, Led Zeppelin was over when Bonzo died. LZ was all about power that made your socks roll up and down. Bonzo supplied that in a way that so many drummers have tried to do - unsuccessfully.
Listen to him on "Good Times, Bad Times" and my personal fave, "Tangerine."
Let the complaining begin....
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Today it’ll be forty years since the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair ended. 
To my fellow Boomers, for so many of whom (like me) Woodstock was such an existential moment, Bob Dylan’s question seems relevant: How does it feel? To younger generations who see Woodstock only through the prism of history and who find the Boomers ‘ fascination with and smugness about this event alternately inscrutable and unbearable, John Sebastian’s explanation seems fitting: It’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll. Here are my stories. Make your own narratives…. ( Read more... )
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The title of this piece is a reference to a great song on the first Crosby, Stills, and Nash album. It also refers to my piss poor performance as a blogger. This will be my first entry since October 14 of last year. I can offer lots of excuses, of course. I have been busy with my musical pursuits. And as Elvis Costello supposedly said, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." But that never stopped me before. So I can only plead guilty as charged if anyone accuses me of simply neglecting this blog to chase the unicorn in the garden.... But I'm back now - I hope regularly - and in casting about for something suitable to open this new phase of blogging with, I hit on one of those topics that seem to have begun flitting around the edges of Boomer consciousnesses everywhere: death. Specifically, I thought I'd check some sites like Dead Rock Stars Club and see which musicians had left for Rock and Roll Heaven since last I blogged here. So here, with some annotations based as much on on my idiosyncratic interests as any scholarship is a list of the departed. So here we go.... ( Read more... )
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| 2008-10-19 15:20 |
| Walk Away, Levi |
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| Four Tops, "Walk Away, Renee" |
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By now I'm sure most of you have heard that Levi Stubbs, lead singer of The Four Tops, died last week. Bob Lefsetz has a nice remembrance of him.
And I have one, too.
Like Lefsetz, I was not into the Motown thing at first. I tolerated The Supremes, but I wasn't into The Temptations. I wanted boys with guitars and dreams I felt connected to, not guys in tuxes doing silly/funky dance moves.
But it was hard to resist The Four Tops.( Read more... )
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This just in - Ringo Starr, otherwise known as Richard Starkey, would be hairdresser and luckiest man in rock history, has decided that he will accept no more fan mail and give no more autographs.
I'm not sure how feel about this. Ringo is 68 now, and we're a long way from Beatlemania - or from Ringo's solo career. Sure, he does the All-Starr band thing, but that just a glorified "oldies" tour with Ringo and other aging Boomer rockers playing to adoring audiences who are there to remember when they were all young and not dependent on Viagra, Retin-A, or - Depends. ( Read more... )
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Been thinking a little more about covers and the idea crossed my mind" "What about bad covers?"
My great and good friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) acrosticunivers got me to thinking about this with his comment mention of Vanilla Fudge's epic psychedelic treatment of The Supremes' hit "You Keep Me Hangin' On." I remembered The Fudge's version of Junior Walker's "Shotgun," a much less successful re-thinking of a soul classic.
I've thought about covers that were huge hits that have always given me that "fingernails on a chalkboard" feeling - The Happenings' treatment of the Gershwin classic "I Got Rhythm." And Louis Armstrong's "Hello Dolly," much loved - but not by me.
And that brings us to the cover that has always made me cringe the most.... ( Read more... )
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Bob Lefsetz, that erstwhile critic of the music scene (whose musical talent is, by his own admission, mastery of playing - the radio, cd player, iPod, etc.) has recently savaged James Taylor for releasing a new album of cover songs. While Lefsetz makes a salient point (as usual) in accusing Taylor of doing the "covers" album for the money (which seems as good a reason to do an album as any in these times), he misses something that maybe one such as I, an actual musician, can enlighten all you lovely readers about - why musicians like to play covers even if they write their own material.
Lefsetz takes Taylor to task, for example, for the obviousness of some of his covers - particularly for covering "Summertime Blues," "Not Fade Away," "Hound Dog," "Wichita Lineman," and "On Broadway." Lefsetz's point that these seem too obvious and motivated more by Taylor's knowledge of what a Boomer audience might want has merit, but it ignores something - these are songs that Taylor probably admired and played for himself over his decades long career. ( Read more... )
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A British tabloid recently conducted a survey to find out which dead rock star the public would most like to see brought back for "one show, one show only." Here are the results: ( Read more... )
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I heard Smith's version of "Baby, It's You" today while driving back from taking the dogs for a long walk at a local park.  You probably don't remember Smith. They were a "one hit wonder," with only the above mentioned song, a hit during the summer of 1969. That was the summer before my senior year in high school. I had just joined my first serious band - and I went through my first case of being "serious" about a girl.( Read more... )
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 Most music historians explain the origins of rock music as the gradual blending of Southern blues (both Mississippi Delta based acoustic style and Chicago electrified) with country/western music as codified by Nashville. This over facile explanation has always seemed insufficient - hence the plethora of “(name your)-rock” divisions within rock music - like “rockabilly” (pictured at left being performed by its foremost practitioner).
This week we talk about blues. And about two giants to whom rock, that most “rebellious” of music, owes just about everything….( Read more... )
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 If you’re about to explore any aspect of American culture, you rarely go wrong by beginning with a Walt Whitman quote. Here he is on the subject of music:
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics–each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat–the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench–the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song–the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning,
or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother–or of the young wife at work–or of the girl sewing or washing–Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day–At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs. In our time (gratuitous Hemingway allusion) you’ve probably heard one pundit or another bemoaning the conspicuous absence of music as commentary on social/political issues. So why isn’t America singing these days? Answering that question is the aim of this rambling, unscientific stroll thorough the history of American song. ( Read more... )
 The way that the vast majority of people experience pop music (unfortunately -and btw, you should get your lazy asses out to see live music 3-4 times a month at the minimum - that way you can find good local artists and support them and quit complaining about the crappy stuff the major music industry outlets shove at you - which reminds me, still digging that American Idol compilation cd you impulse bought?) is via recordings.
What I never hear people talk about when we talk about our favorite recordings - I guess, because even music aficionados don't know or think about it - is how much records are "fixed" - how many mistakes are cleaned up, how many "happy accidents" occur and are allowed to stand - in truth, how inauthentic records might be considered (to borrow a term that still has great resonance for music writers and critics) are as documents of musicians' work. Let me offer a couple of examples from classic rock - the stuff we've all listened to many, many times. ( Read more... )
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We've added a new music player (courtesy of our friends Doco) with two new songs, "Something Someone Said" and "Dream About You." The latter is significant - it's the only recording we have of a song written by our rhythm guitarist Mike Leffew. You'll note that in the new player the sound quality has been enhanced with digital expansion of our old analog recordings. Thanks to son Josh and the magic of Cool Edit for that....
Our slide show has been revised, too, to include captions. We'll be adding more pictures shortly. In the meantime, hope you enjoy the new improvements. We'll be posting show dates for The Would Be Kings shortly.
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I love guitars and basses. I've owned bunches of them in all the major brands - Gibson, Fender, Vox, Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ovation. My guitars and basses have been on my mind lately because I've just given away some favorites of mine - a couple of Epiphone acoustics that I've had a long while and that have wonderful tone (those solid spruce tops age beautifully). And I bought a new acoustic-electric (a Gibson Songwriter a in Rosewood that is as sweet a sounding instrument as I've owned and with Fishman electronics on board which I like a lot) I'll talk about my current line-up in a bit (my wife thinks, of course, that I still own too many). But first I want to talk about a couple I let get away...( Read more... )
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For those who might care:
I've posted two new songs at the Backyard Tea web site:
Now a few words of explanation about these tracks...( Read more... )
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For those who might give a hoot:
I posted a new song at the Backyard Tea site. Happy listening....
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 Jesse Helms is dead. He is, as somewhere in the ether a greater mind than his may be noting with some glee , consigned to “the dust bin of history.” And I, a native North Carolinian, say with the same sense of satisfaction Montressor had after walling his enemy Fortunato inside the catacombs, “in pace requiescat.”
But I owe Jesse Helms a debt of the literary variety - and today I repay it.
( Read more... )
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Here's the myspace site for the old band:
http://www.myspace.com/backyardtea
The site's still in beta form and I've got savvy accomplices working on improving the sound of the tracks (going from analog to digital has its complications). We'll also be adding slide shows with more pictures as they trickle in from here and there.
Have fun. And try not to guffaw too much in your comments.
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I realize that I've been a piss poor correspondent of late. I'd apologize except...well, I don't know what to apologize for.
Lots of personal stuff has been happening and I'm not one to share all that much. Some bloggers feel the need to use their posts to share lots of themselves - their hopes, fears, daily lives, etc.
I'm not that guy. I tend to back into the cave and get quiet when there's lots of heavy stuff coming down.
The downside of that is that I just go silent without explanation and everybody either forgets about me or thinks I just don't care about writing anymore.
( Let's review: )
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 For those of you who’ve fallen behind on your reading about the peccadilloes and peculiarities of musicians, here are a couple of articles (don’t worry - they consist mostly of pictures) to get you up to speed on the all important areas in which our musical heroes excel - having lots of casual sex and making weird faces on stage.
First, from Blender Magazine comes a list of the most oversexed musicians (don’t worry - both Mick Jagger and R Kelly made the cut) And of course we all have some idea who might be #1 in the “having more sex than anyone should” category: Yup. Leave it to Mr. Yuck Gene Simmons to have the dubious honor of being the most oversexed musician in the music business.
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amused
artistic
crazy
quixotic