Here is a Father’s day photo of my youngest son and I at the site of the original Woodstock Stage. Yes, this is where Jimi played the Star Spangled Banner and Janis sung her heart out. And yes, this was a great trip to take!
I will write more and add it to my list of Rock n Roll wonders but for now I will enjoy the rest of Dad’s day with my great family!
Get Lucky is everywhere- causing the kids to dance and the old people to turn up the radios in their hover-rounds and move whatever still works.
Call it house or electronic or just very polished and cool dance music– it has that rare “everyone likes” quality. Cool lemonade on a hot day…it’s just what we need in troubled times. Bubbling feel-good funk is infused with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers getting sucked into this electronic vortex of clean production.
Daft Punk are quirky arty anti-stars- they are true to their vision. This brings in the hipsters and breaks the ice with alternative rockers.
Daft Punk wear those crazy helmets and have no problem translating to the world of animation. Gamers, geeks and nerds can relate.
The techno- freaks in the clubs were already fans and have no reason to abandon their robot heroes.
Even a stodgy old rock n’ roll blogger like myself is able to get infected by these disco man/machine divas of sophisticated swag.
That must tell you something.
I encourage all classic rock fans to give up their preconceived ideas on funk , disco and electronic music and just give in to this one. You are going to be bombarded by it from everywhere anyway so why not just enjoy it? It took a few listens to wear me down, (O.K, more than a few) but it’s got me now.
And for those few die-hards (Ok, more than a few) that will argue Styx “Mr Roboto” as the ultimate rock music techno hit of all time. It is time to abandon all hope and find an 8-track player to install for your camaro ride to hell. It is over for you. You are now officially the burnt toast of a former generation.
Join everyone else and just let go- that is what music can do at its best. What is the worse that can happen?
A city can’t just proclaim itself worthy of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and become the real home of Rock Music and its history…just like that…something out of nothing….Going all Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams-“just build it and they will come”
Can it?
Isn’t the audacity to proclaim yourself something and then go out and do it-the whole point of Rock Music!!!
In 1951, when it did not have a name, this upstart disk jockey Alan Freed on ClevelandWJW radio named Rock and Roll. It may not have been birthed in Cleveland, but that is where it got packaged so it could take over the world. This new name rebranded R&B music and opened the door to all American kids in a big way.
Ian Hunter is not just a good Rock musician; he has gone beyond that and become the thing itself. He never got so big that he lost himself and never got so small that he became irrelevant. Endlessly skating away on the thin ice of rock music, day after day and year after year until he has produced an ocean of work. The closest example I can think is George Jones in country music because I would hear that said about him-“George is Country!”
So when Ian Hunter says Cleveland rocks-Cleveland Rocks!
Cleveland is not a glamour city and the same could be said for Liverpool –and if you go deeper, the same for a lot of the cities and places that serve as incubators for the disgruntled youth that gravitate to the outlet of rock music. Cleveland rocks.
Now the Chipmunk thing
Mott the Hoople with Ian Hunter put out one of the most iconic songs in Rock music-A David Bowie song known as “All the Young Dudes”. There is a part at the end of the song where he picks out a young dude in the audience and brings him down to the stage. The only criteria for this selection- this young dude in question must be wearing glasses.
I (self proclaimed rock blogger) as a young dude went to see Ian Hunter and had good seats along with the required eye wear (which I have worn my whole life)…And when he got to this part, he pointed me out of the audience and said “You there-with the glasses- I want you” then he smiled a smug smile and kept on rocking.
I, on the other hand was frozen like the proverbial chipmunk in front of a tree. (To my European readers who have never seen this little animal freeze when approached as if that somehow makes them completely invisible and safe, when in fact, it reveals them as cute and funny little creatures…forget Disney Land and shopping at Walmart-for a taste of America-go find yourself a chipmunk!)
Anyway, that was my reaction as I became part of a rock song for one brief shining moment in time while my buddy says to me…”Hey Wayne, he’s pointing to you”.
Yes- I did a cartoon…caveoffame.com
I am making The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a Wonder
When you look at the entire list of inductees-this place gets it right most of the time. And this place willed itself into existence from nothing. What more can you ask from Rock n Roll?
English: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio; architect: I. M. Pei (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don’t care if it’s 37 degrees fahrenheit or 2 degrees celsius outside- Summer is here and let’s go swimming…and I got to sketch a little cartoon! (I will hold off on calling this an art blog for the moment)
Great vibe and great song. I don’t feel too bad that I am too old to be invited to this party with the cool kids, because to be honest…. I had no shot of going even when I was this age. I could have showed up with 100 dollar bills taped to my forehead and a case of good tequila under my arm and I still was not getting in (I may, however, have been instantly mugged). But, if I was this cool, this is where I would have loved to be, splashing in the Amazon and getting shocked like an electric eel !
The first release from those crazy guys and girls from the Athens scene and I was in love right from the beginning (They had me at “his earlobe falling in the deep”!). This is something an underground music-loving outsider could shake his money maker to! I was waiting for this and it was liberating to let go on that dance floor (thankfully no footage is available).
I know I just wrote about this, but it is such a good song and deserves many replays. I have yet to regret the journey that this song takes me on. Having an existential experience while little fishes chase you around in the warm Caribbean ocean. How cool is that!
2.Metric. Breathing Underwater
I love the chorus “Is this my life? Am I breathing underwater?” – “I am a knife and you are the blade” or is it “I am the shovel and you are the spade?”
A twist on the fish out of water concept as we go with the “non-fish in water”….Yes, my mind is blown…Powwwww!!!
But it does not have to make sense to the conscious mind to connect to the unconscious mind and make you feel something down deep; and I mean really deep, where all life is transparent and freaky-looking and glows with weird bioluminescence.
And this song makes me feel better every time I hear it.
Summer is fading, innocence is fading, and youth is fading, so let’s take one more dip.
This is probably my favorite R.E.M tune. It does not destroy your vulnerability, but it does put you out there with it, drip-drying on the porch and hoping that the screen door was left unlocked.
Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Making my way through the Wonders of Rock music I decided I did not want any grave sites but one nudged its way in anyway.
The grave of Jim Morrison in Paris has become a phenomenon. And is Wonder #4
It is not only rock music fans, but all get drawn to a place that holds a strange type of cultural and mystical attraction.
Why some things set fire to the imagination can’t always be explained.
The fascination that the Doors and Jim Morrison continue to hold by casting a spells on fans in different generations is operating on a different plane of consciousness than just good music.
The Doors were the first band that I went back in time to get hooked on.
I did not grow up with them. And I am not alone in this.
Maybe there is something to the 4 year old witnessing death on the highway and feeling the spirit of the Shaman enter his body. (This is in that realm of -did this really happen or did something close to it happen and the memory gets twisted and tweaked over time until the by-product drives you over the edge?… Reaching god-like superstar status just before falling off the face of the earth) I am no psychologist but writing about Jim Morrison makes you think about altered states of mind.
I will suffer Paris to visit this place.
This does not seem like a nice relaxing stroll in a friendly charming city. I see Paris as teeming with tourists combined with local residents that could care less if we tourists help subsidize the quality croissants that they consume and will not help us find. It is going to be a fight through crowds in order to spend about 15 seconds at the resting place of the most romantic and wounded spirit of Rock Music. Rock stars may not go to Paris to die but poets and artists do and Jim Morrison was all of these.
English: Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris, France. Dansk: Jim Morrisons grave Paris. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am having one of those weeks when I feel the need for a good alternative agnostic power-popgospel song with some killer guitar. I don’t want to get into a big religious debate in the cave-I just want to say that there are times when we all look for the stuff that got us this far and hope that it still works when we need to get a little farther down the road. This song always hits me that way…the opposite of R.E.MLosing My Religion.
And since then I have goggled around and have found no boot tracks to mark the consecrated ground of the “Seven Wonders of Rock”. None have attempted to single these out: from the big guys of Rolling Stone and Spin all the way down to the insignificant little-guy blogger in a cave like me.
“The Crossroads”, where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the blues, according to the legend. It is the intersection of U.S. Routes 61 and 49, at Clarksdale, Mississippi, United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am starting at The Crossroads-There is a marker at the intersection of U.S. Routes 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi that is the tourist spot to go. This may or may not be the place of legend and it does work …but…I have this idea of a more rural deserted crossroads at midnight with a full moon(devil optional). Robert Johnson made a choice that night and played guitar like he was chased by the hounds of hell for the rest on his days on earth. Rock n Roll was born here! So when I go I will be taking pictures at both places…the one that is marked and the one that I have in my mind as yet unmarked.
It has to be in Mississippi -The crossroads where black and white music mixed to create an American phenomenon that took over the whole world. The devil has been in the details ever since.
My plan is to roll these out one by one until we have all seven- Then create a separate page- and just maybe another site where people can send pictures and opinions because that would be awesome! There is still time to change my mind on these wonders. I will entertain any suggestions and give you full credit if you can convince me of an error.
And lastly I am not enforcing the “be nice” WordPress decorum if you want to leave opinions. These 7 wonders are for all of us and it is more important that I get this right (or close to it) instead of feeling warm and fuzzy all over with tons of like buttons.
As of now I have no actual pictures because I have visited none of these sites, I hope to change that in the near future!
A simple repeated chord progression that anyone can play:
Too simple? To twist a quote that Mozart used in Amadeus “What notes would you like to add?” This Da, Da, Daa can be understood by anyone and explained to anyone. Rock music comes in so many different flavors that you sometimes need the source to show what it is all about-A lighthouse of a song to let you find your way home through all the complications of haze and confusion. Find me a rock guitarist who has not evoked the great spirit of rock n roll by playing this…it even works if you play it as a joke…you are connecting yourself to the life-force of rock music.
A true story:
It is based on a “stupid with a flare-gun” burning down the place where Deep Purple was set to record.
Smoke on the water-fire in the sky. It does three of them in the chorus! And the “stupid” with a flare gun burned the place to the ground. That would take care of earth but they were not done yet and brought in a hero of Funky Claude who saved the day by pulling kids to the ground.
The biblical story of “no room in the inn” – go find another place:
Most of the song is about the struggle to find a location to perpetuate the awesomeness of making rock music. This story has been retold through generations over and over and it probably started when mankind started painting cave walls.
That picture in a picture thing that goes forever:
You know those pictures of somebody looking in a mirror and in that mirror image-you have the mirror image of that dude looking in a mirror in a mirror and on and on to an infinity of the same dude looking in a mirror!!!!
Well this song has that…because it is a song about making a song and writing a song about a true event that is still unfolding and part of creating the song itself…it goes on and on into infinity –just like this song.
Maybe that is why you can’t kill it…Infinity just keeps going and going.
Da…Da…Daa…da, da, dada… Da…Da…Daa..dadada.
Not to mention iconic performances by Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and Ian Gillan on vocals…and didn’t rock stars who followed all try to make up names that sounded as rockstar-ish as this?
I still am not sick of this song and I have heard it at least 8 zillion times!
And I am going to YouTube me up a couple more versions right now!
Finally, something the kids can soak up and enjoy without thinking if they are supposed to like it. Without thinking if it is good or bad…without thinking if it is cool or un-cool…or if all their other peeps and haters are onboard—this is just play it and like it. Yes-this is what rock music is supposed to be.
Cave of Fame 