Monday song time and we find some miners in Australia fired from their jobs for doing a little underground Harlem Shake… O.K, this isn’t exactly like the Pussy Riot deal in Russia, but then again Australia is not exactly like anywhere else- it is “a land down under where women glow and men plunder”
So really going underground and digging a relic out of the cave this week. I saw this band play live once and they were incredible!!! All conviction and piss and vinegar—amazing band and sorry they are done.
If there are no serious objections…I have found the second Wonder of rock music….Everyone knows that classic shot of the Beatles crossing the street here. Now I have to build a nice looking page for them.
I’m not a fan of graffiti, no matter how it’s done, but seeing quotes of songs from my all-time favourite band outside Abbey Road studios I was instantly taken. It was a beautiful reminder of just how influential the Beatles were and still are, but it also made me wish I’d been round to witness the Beatlemania 40 years ago.
Robert Johnson’s studio portrait, circa 1935—one of only two verified known published photographs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Imagine yourself as a struggling bluesman in the 1930’s going from town to town, playing little juke joints and street corners in the rural south. Maybe you get in trouble with women and whiskey, maybe you catch some grief for playing evil music…I’m just guessing here. You may even wonder if playing this type of music is a good or bad thing. There would not be much fame or money—Rock stars don’t exist yet because you are going to be the first one.
So at a point in your life when you wonder just what the hell you are doing…you meet a white man at the crossroads (because he won’t go into town at night) and sign a record deal that probably makes him a lot more money than you- this seals the deal and makes you devote your life (there won’t be much of it left) playing the devil’s music.
Yeah, I made that up…
The actual legend has the young Robert Johnson meeting the devil at a crossroads at midnight and selling his soul in order to play guitar like no one ever played it before. The devil wouldn’t take too long to collect on this bargain as Robert Johnson would die at the age of 27 by means of poison; either a jealous woman or angry man? (the details are sketchy at best) There is little doubt that he got real talent so quick that people were looking for a story. There is also no doubt that stories fly fast and furious when you leave this earth by tangled means.
When his records were re-released many years later in England…they had a profound influence on musicians like Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling stones. If blues is the cornerstone of rock music, it is not too much of a stretch to say that a lot of the weight and grit in that first heavy brick can be traced back to this man. Rock music owes its substance to him.
I have taken shots at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but they got it right by putting him in with the first nominees.
So as I am starting a page called “The of 7 Wonders of Rock Music” with a crossroads in Mississippi- There is a marker at the intersection of U.S. Routes 61 and 49 in Clarksdale. This is the one that is tagged as the tourist place of this legend… But to complete this wonder, I would also go with any deserted crossroads in the State of Mississippi at Midnight (full moon optional) as a pure rock n roll alternative.
We have the first of the seven wonders of Rock music…6 more to go…get your comments in now to help find the others.
I went for substance over glitter for these classics. The gender lines get blurred and the yin yang smudges together for some of the best music produced in the rock era. The glitter and high heels kicking you in the face is the proverbial tip of the iceberg when having a bit of free swim time in this part of the pool. The first couple I added were such strong works that I challenged myself to keep them all of the same quality. This date night went in a different direction than it started, kind of like my number 1 pick for this category.
“What are you doing Mr. Cave guy, this is just a sweet innocent love song by Elton John?” And you are right. Elton John and Bernie Taupin were just sweet innocent kids when they wrote this. The striking part – it is so innocent that it has no male and female parts at all. Like a toy doll with no bits that are going to make the kids ask questions. It has all the sexuality completely sanitized. A man could be singing about a woman- a woman could be singing about a man- it works with a man singing about a man and woman about a woman. It works with any combo deal on the menu.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is one of the great records of rock music and David Bowie became an androgynous alien alter ego for the ages. Maybe some obscure bands were dressing like chicks before he did…but he smashed the doors wide open to let all the cows and horses out of the barn to go play in the fields and roll in the mud. He took it from
a “strange” thing and turned it into an “edgy” thing. The song itself really does not reference any gender blurring but it is impossible to separate the song from the act. You get the package deal with David Bowie.
Kris Kristofferson wrote this song originally about a woman and in the Janis Joplin version it changed to a man. Even the name Bobby can fit both sexes so it was not a big deal to make a switch. That makes something written from the male perspective get transformed into something from a female perspective. It gives it a weird toughness that Janis Joplin was made to sing.
To write this song John Prine imagined himself as a middle aged woman doing dishes and gazing upon the ashes of a burnt-out life. Like an artist that freezes a scene in a painting; he gets all the colors and lines in correct coordination and perfection. I don’t care if you are a woman or a man- this song is powerful. As a man you feel bad about this woman and you should hate the man that drove her down this highway and hope you ain’t him…you should be affected by the emotion if you have anything at all in your soul that feels emotion. This song has a way of making people cry like Ray Lewis in a post game speech after a football game.
“Well, I’m not dumb but I can’t understand Why she walked like a woman but talked like a man”
How in good conscious as a fan of Rock Music do you not make this the Number one song in this category? And just like the naïve soul in this piece of music-How long did it take you to listen to the words and have that “Sixth sense” movie moment…Oh…man…he is a ghost!…I mean..Oh man, he is a transvestite! And how as a regular guy trying to write a music blog do I take so long to get to a song by Ray Davies…the quintessential everyman and icon of popular music…plus he seems like just one hell of a nice guy.
Peart (right) performing with Rush. Français : Rush en concert à Milan (Italie), le 21 septembre 2004 Italiano: I Rush in concerto a Milano (21 settebre 2004) da sinistra:Lifeson, Lee e Peart. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Why do so many hold up these guys as the pinnacle of an art form?
Almost like Guinness if they were beer; or Lance Armstrong winning those Tour De France‘s on his awesomeness alone instead of using weird blood dope.
Everyone just assumes they are extreme quality and there is no need to question that fact.
A dude who walks around in his 2004 tour shirt can expect other rock fans to high-five him and agree that he has exceptional good taste in music. If Rush was the only band you liked…that would be good enough for most. How did this happen?… And more importantly -why do those of us not going into an orgasmic frenzy during a Neil Peart drum solo have our love of good music questioned? If you claim to dislike any other band- like say The Rolling Stones-other music fans will not question taste, they will understand that not everyone likes everything.
Not so with Rush
There must be something wrong with you if can’t grasp on to the exotic fluctuations of rhythm, the complex philosophical undertow in the sci- fi/fantasy/nerdness of the lyrics. “Today’s Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you and the space he invades he gets by on you” – Wow, man…that is some deep stuff.
I will put it down to the over intelligence of the average Rush fan…they want to make it an intellectual argument. This is not Rocket science-this is Rock n Roll – give me something with a little more emotion and grit.
Oh..and by the way…Congratulations on going in the Hall of Fame and as any other intelligent music fan in the universe will say-you deserve it!
English: (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and his Comets, Decca 1954. Deutsch: (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock von Bill Haley and his Comets, Decca 1954. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Even though I hate to give any award on the Cave to Bill Haley and his Comets– The Cave has gone through the history -before Rock around the Clock there were a few rock songs out there but you would have to call them regional, novelty or maybe even underground.
After Bill Haley and his Comets smashed the surface of Pop music with this Number 1…the resulting explosion opened up the flood gates and all types of craft could roll on down this river. With my love of Blues music and the Sun record sound I wanted to give the award somewhere else but Bill Haley changed the culture and I can’t take that away from him. This hurts me and reminds me that Cave awards have to go by merit not just talent, originality and execution.
This brings me to what I consider the first refined vintage of a rock song – This song is what the kids today would call “Legit”-something that is an actual real version of itself, not faked at all. In other words=true, unmistakable quality.
“That’ll be the Day” by the Crickets – They dropped Buddy Holly from the title because of his record contract somewhere else-which made this technically a band release instead of a front man and band format which was standard for the time. It was also the song that The Quarrymen would pick to cover for their first demo –and we know what influence these guys would have on music as they evolved into The Beatles. And more importantly for this blog…I can feature a quality song in this post and add a true relic to the Cave.
If you lived in some alien universe and happen to crash land your U.F.O in my back yard. I would make you a good cup of tea and play these 5 for you as prime examples of this thing called rock.
Coldplay is like a quality lager….bright and satisfying. I don’t care if they have taken over the world; they are still producing a quality product that is very drinkable. This is a great song that music fans all over the world will crank up loud when it hits the radio or Pandora or iPod (whether they admit to it or not)
My personal favorite is from “Live Rust” and this is a masterpiece. We know the story of Cortez and Montezuma. We know it as history but this track converts that historical angst to emotion. So many rock songs are about “women does man wrong” or “man does women wrong” – but this- Conquistador does a civilization wrong by removing it from the face of the earth is an elegant twist.
Lindsey Buckingham is kind of underrated as a song writer and guitar player. Most songs about unrequited love are kind of depressing and bring you down. This one has a kick to it. Like soaking those cooked chicken wings of despair in a hot tangy buffalo sauce and taking a big bite.
The timing on this makes it perfect. In 1991 hip hop was taking over in a big way…Rock was stale- the charts were full of reheated leftovers and half-hearted efforts by big stars. Rock had lost its edge. This song was a kick to the balls that Rock Music needed in a big way. When you heard it…it knocked you over.
Just for fun kids-Let’s look at a couple reheats and stale artists from 1991 –
“Live and Let Die” Guns and Roses- really Axel and Slash? You had to cover this? You guys couldn’t find other ways to pay for all the hotel rooms you trashed…how about working at the hotel instead of this reheat?
Kiss- God gave Rock and Roll to you– Yes, he gave it to us to help us make sense of this world…he did not mean for us to add water and boil a novelty song by Argent for a movie soundtrack so Gene Simmons could buy more jewelry for his girlfriends.
As far as the half hearted attempts go…Bryan Adams and Genesis (The “hey, let’s try to sound like Motown, only with weaker songs- Phil Collins version of Genesis…instead of the “hey, let’s be like Pink Floyd, only more theatrical and pretentious- Genesis with Peter Gabriel*”) both had multiple hits that year.
My apologies to Metallica as Enter Sandman was released this same year…I won’t call it perfect but I would not argue against it.
Is this about heaven or hell or drugs or being seduced by desert women? I don’t know- but book me a room here. It’s full of references to some kind of unavoidable trap that we all fall for even though we should know better. This took the Eagles from country rock to cool as a fresh breaker from the Pacific Ocean. Joe Walsh added just enough to put this over the top. This is what a title track and an album cover should be. Rock songs should take you somewhere- give your brain a bit of a work over and let you find your own way back. Perfect.
*Disclaimer- I love Peter Gabriel…The New Blood show of 2011 is the single best concert I ever attended!
This song has been played and played and played by every rock radio station and every beginning guitar player in the universe. The abuse that has poured on this classic should have done it in years ago…and it did. But…Wait…In the best example of digging a relic up and proving it can take it-Heart had the sheer beautiful audacity to get out there with Jason Bonham and play this in front of not just the President but also Led Zeppelin themselves… Rock n Roll audacity.
Nothing like a blast of Sex Pistols to get that holiday season going, here we go with another list and I want to tackle them one at a time because they demand respect. Motorhead’s version of “God save the Queen” comes in at #5
Lemmy is an icon and needs to be painted on any cave wall that talks about the history of rock music. Some may think that heavy metal sounds cool and want to take it in a direction all their own and many have. Lemmy invented it-I know I am going to get arguments about Deep Purple and I have to admit that Smoke on the Water still sounds good. I also expect Ozzy fans to be all up in my stuff crying about the way he brought Satan and death into metal in a unique and digestible way. O.K …fine…but before we get crazy…the band Boston once claimed to have invented Heavy Metal (check the liner notes of the first Boston record). This is not a dig on any of those bands; although I reserve the right to take some shots in future posts.
With the same logic I used to proclaim that Jerry Lee Lewis made Rock n Roll an actual entity that you could see and hear and experience, I am going to say that Lemmy fleshed out heavy metal and turned it into the beast it became. He is another complicated and conflicted character that could only be a rock star or a guy pushing a shopping cart down the street yelling at himself. He would have been great at either, I mean… would you get in his way if he was rolling a rusty cart with squeaky wheels right at you?
Anytime someone covers Johnny Rotten and Company, it gets my attention. Whatever you think about the Sex Pistols…they were a catalyst for complete change in the landscape of music. The icon of heavy metal covering the icon of punk…delicious…makes you want to take a swig of warm beer and spit it at someone…Happy Holidays from the cave!
This song gets me every time. I was listening to Pandora on the iPod while sketching in Adobe illustrator, ready to shut it all down for the night and this song is thrown in the mix. I should not be surprised since I started the Pandora station with The Band as it seemed like great music to work with as winter comes to town. I could not shut it off…this song takes me down south in the wake of defeat and it kills me everytime I hear it. I am Virgil Cain watching those bluecoats march all over my life and take what is left of it away. I have to admit that I am not from the South, and really I am not from the North either so this song should have not have a direct impact on me but it does. It hits me right across the head and takes me back in time with it. This is what a great song can do…it can cast a spell on you for a few minutes and make connections in your soul that you don’t completely understand but feel anyway. Every single time this one gets to me and I have no explanation for it.
Cave of Fame 