Here is a new picture of me looking over my backyard or as it is commonly known The Adirondack Park. This is not exactly climbing Mount Fuji or Mount Kilimanjaro as you can just pay the 10 bucks and drive to the top. But the views are amazing nonetheless!
As I close in on one year with this little Rock n’ Roll history blog, I would like to thank all the visitors and followers for making this a rewarding experience. I don’t plan on making big changes as I go forward but I do plan on organizing this site better to reflect a history of all Rock Music.…the good, the bad and the ugly. I am also going to look over past work and fix it or trash it….some of my early writing is embarrassingly bad and even worse…not interesting-, so go back and read those hideous posts now before they are gone.
There are so many good writers and good people out here that I genuinely feel blessed to be counted among you.
Seven Wonders of Rock (or my personal Rock n’ Roll bucket list)
This is my best seven. I will attempt to defend my selections. Defend them like an angry dog guarding a shoe-you better bring some treats and a deft touch if you want to pry them away from me!
My goal is to do this whole list. Complete with lots of pictures and insightful writing to share with you all.
The legend of the man who sells his soul in order to play guitar like the devil-this is the genesis of Rock Music. It does not matter if it is true; only that this changed everything.
The iconic Album cover of the Beatles walking on that zebra crossing is burned into the consciousness of every true rock fan in the world. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon being recorded here is enough of a kicker to get this in.
Yes-this city wanted it more than all the other sexier cities that toyed with the idea. Cleveland made it a reality and made it fit. They also made it work…people care if their favorite band gets in or not. And thankfully unlike the Baseball Hall of Fame-they don’t keep you out for drug use.
Here is one that I have checked off the list-If you mention this event, everyone knows what you are talking about- Peace, Love and Music. A simple triple threat of power for the soul. This is a great visit with a fine museum and performing arts center on site. And always a few original hippies hanging around (some never left).
A true natural wonder set in a mystical place of beauty. The Beatles played here and it did not sell out. Jimi Hendrix played here. It is somewhere that great rock music happens right now! It is where every big name band wants to leave a mark (and maybe record a DVD). I want to go here at least one time a see a show! Yes…bucket worthy.
My favorite Zeppelin song changes for reasons I can’t fully explain. It could be the seasons or moods or just the way we all evolve with the passage of time.
This one has got me now
It makes me feel like a Viking…the rain is dripping off the horns on my helmet-the wind is numbing my rough and weatherworn face. I taste the salt of the cold northern sea as waves crash against my wooden vessel, there is no safe coastline in sight.
“Hammer of the gods; drive our ships to new lands”
The yelling and screaming keeps me at my oars-it is compelling me to destiny.
The rhythmic guitar riff is like the wind and lightning of the storm that rages.
The baseline is the beating of the rain.
The drums are coming up from the frothy depths to smash the fragile planks underfoot; ready to take me with any misstep.
I love awards and I love tequila but I have to be careful with both, it is easy to get out of control. They both go better with a few grains of salt.
I made this award as a joke for my blog but then again, that is how all these awards start. Someone makes one and adds some criteria…”tell me about you and pass this sucker on to 10-15 deserving bloggers who will do the same.” And they will do the same and on and on. And after a while it will seem like a chain letter but not like a chain letter because those that are drinking are talking and meeting new people who are opening up and breaking out of their little blogger shells- so it’s like a shot of tequila! People are happy!
I am absolutely honored by all the nominations I have received. It is great for anybody to visit and feel I am worthy of playing this game….so thanks because I love to party once in a while.
I loved doing the A.B.C award…I really did!
An award makes me loud and friendly as I spread the joy of this new gregarious “awardness” me all over the blogosphere. Just like “tequila me” might be a more fun guy.
“Living in the limelight approaches the unreal”
And I guess that is where I feel the disconnect. I feel like a bartender passing out the limes, salt and blue agave distillate- it is great when the glasses are picked up but kind of a bummer when they are not. I don’t wish to pick and chose and risk aggravating those who are on the wagon in my friendly community. Plus, they are a lot of work. Plus, if you go crazy, you can become an award alcoholic and your blog becomes just a blog about receiving and handing out awards.
So if you are an Award Agnostic like me and want to put this on your blog…please just take it and do what you want with it. You don’t need to credit me or contact 15 new blogs. You don’t need to do anything because I had fun making it.
And if you send me an award- I just might join in and down it in one gulp because I still want to believe. I am not offended either way.
I am stepping out of Rock music to highlight a few pieces “out of genre” that cut me right to the soul.
Talk about old school
Let’s take it back to someone who received a few more dabs of the stuff that makes man the image of God than the rest of us. Or if you don’t go for that- “The accidental combo of D.N.A that evolved by pure chance from the primordial soup and a dash of comet dust to create a perfect music producing specimen.” This is a one in [however many humans have ever been born] shot. What is that? About one in 4 trillion or something?
And I know time and upbringing and all manner of other things had to work together to make this genius happen. It did happen and he was a rock star for his time!
Mozart taps into the very essence of the joy of being human.
Miles Davies is cool
This sounds like walking deserted streets on a summer night with no fear because you know the town and it knows you- mixed with a complex and overwhelming feeling of loneliness. Refined to an actual entity so we can all join in and be alone together. I actually feel like I am part of one of those dime store detective novels when I hear this.
Country music does hold some amazing talent
This guy makes great music and I am not even sure if most country music fans really like him? He polishes the ridiculous into the sublime. This song works like Procol Harum’s Whiter shade of Pale. It grabs you and takes you on a cosmic journey. A sort of Texas psychedelic trip complete with ponies and Tonto telling the Lone Ranger to “kiss his ass”. This is just one favorite in a huge catalog of great songs.
He was not around for very long and I totally get why they brought him back as a hologram. I love this song because it always makes me dance and lifts my spirits. This is not a great video so I would skip ahead to 1:18 and get to the start of the tune. Pure rock fans can argue all they want about how terrible hip hop music is but I do not agree. No genre of music is inherently bad.
All good music is derived from the same well of inspiration and there are many rivers to drink from and swim in.
When Spinal Tap was released in 1984, it signaled the end of a golden age in rock music. We did not realize it at the time because we were too busy enjoying it.
Around the corner, Hip hop was a baby and quickly growing and “file sharing” was ready to pounce and dismantle the whole industry. Like the dinosaurs who once wondered what those weird soft squishy things underfoot called mammals were all about.
And what are the chances of a meteor hitting the earth?
Rock music was about to be unceremoniously dethroned.
“Why not just make 10 louder and keep that the biggest number?”
“These go to 11”
And
“That is pretty, a real departure from your other stuff”
Thanks, it’s in the sad key of D-minor, I call it “Lick my Love Pump”
Maybe the funniest thing was the bit about books on tape, which was the most perfect joke since it actually happened.
I am not saying “rock is dead” and I am not saying that there is not great music out there today.
I AM NOT EVEN SAYING THAT MUSIC IN MY TIME WAS SOMETHING AND ALL ELSE IS NOTHING.
What I am saying is that once it ruled the earth as the dominant species and that did not last forever. Once we waited in line all night to get tickets to shows, because if we didn’t –we would not get a ticket. There was no V.I.P experience that could be bought by anyone with enough money. There were no rock fantasy camps! Rock music was not a video game where you got to match colors with buttons on a little plastic guitar!!! Guitars were both worshipped and smashed (a fate that has befallen false deities, rambunctious gods and statues of fanatical leaders since the beginning of time!)
“Stonehenge was in danger of being trampled by dwarfs!”
Believe it or not kids-Once we were in a hurry to see stars before they ODed so we could say that we saw them instead of rushing to see them now before they go of natural causes.
“The Puppet Show gets higher billing than us! We are opening for a puppet show”
I am good with YouTube to allow access to any music of any genre at any time. I am good with bringing music with me and listening to anything I want without upsetting anyone else. If I want to crank up Lemmy and the boys doing “Ace of Spades” while mowing the lawn- in this day and age…no one can stop me.
I am also good with Pandora picking music that I don’t like based on music I like. And who can hate being able to make perfect copies of music tracks to enjoy responsibly? I am glad that we are in a different place and have no desire to return to the old days.
We can always learn to sell hats or maybe get reborn with a tour of Japan.
That was the Rock n’ Roll Dream of Spinal Tap
Instead of playing rehashed hits with one or two original members in an obsessive gluttony of nostalgia in front of fans that wish they still could be as stupid as they once were.
“We now begin a new stage in our music development- Enjoy Spinal Tap mach 2! A jazz odyssey”
We all have to grow up and looking back at yourself and having a good laugh is a good place to start.
Thank you to Nigel, Derek, David and a spontaneously combusting drummer for showing us that.
Wonder #7- “My band is playing __________!!! , O.K we are something now!”
I started this list with a somewhat obscure beginning point for the origin of rock music that is as much a fable as it is truth -The Crossroads in Mississippi. And I am good with that.https://caveoffame.com/2013/02/20/the-devils-music/
I wanted to finish with a music venue that is alive and well and where rock lives right at the moment I hit the publish button.
2. Credibility right now-A band practicing in a random garage anywhere in the world might dream that one day they will play there.
3. “It makes me wonder”-It has to be a destination that makes you want to visit and worth the effort no matter if you are a fan or a musician. It holds the weight of true wonder.
There have been many places rock music has been alive…from the to the Royal Albert hall to Budokan and everything in between like: The Hollywood bowl, The Fillmore East, Monterey Fairgrounds, CBGB’s, Central Park, The Hammersmith Odeon/Apollo, Madison square Garden and The Cavern Club in Liverpool- to name a few from a large list.
You can argue if you want but this is my page and I am first to attempt this so I give you:
RedRocks (Photo credit: Slithy)
Wonder of Rock #7 Red Rocks
History:
The Beatles played here in 1964 and it did not sell out!
I was looking through all the countries that have visited the cave on my WordPress stat thingy and noticed this big area of Greenland with no hits at all…. So I figured I would take a visit myself and found these guys
This sound is both enchanting and comforting. It is like The Lumineers with some special ethereal Artic-ness added in. But I don’t want to call this band a knock-off of anything else because they are unique. They just seem to fit into this Nuevo folk music revival going on all over the world. I have no idea what they are saying but I know they sing truth because I can feel it. This dude takes regular notes and gently lifts his voice to a higher range flying to the heavens to produce a delightful resolution. This is pure magic. Maybe part of it is the language? I know French and Italian are called romantic but this language of Greenland is made for acoustic guitars and a gentle folk beat.
He is a virtuoso guitar player and evangelist of the blues- I have an unnatural and possibly not quite legal love of the blues myself.
I should love this guy and all he stands for.
He is from Upstate N.Y where I call home…and not just “everything 12 miles north of NYC” Upstate but close enough to me in Upstate that his town gets on my local weather map.
I should love this guy and all he stands for.
There he is with his Sunburst Les Paul playing with Eric Clapton. Wow, the classic tool of the trade and how cool is that to be sanctified by slow hand himself?
I should love this guy and all he stands for.
I can’t watch or listen- he is too close.
If he was from Mongolia, I would love him…I picture him riding his horse over the grassy plane to meet the tribe leader who happens to be his Dad to tell him that he is done herding Yaks and going to N.Y to follow his dream –“Dad, I will play a searing blues guitar that will make beautiful women scream and strong men cry.”
Then I would listen.
If he grew up on the streets of a post-industrial working class city like Pittsburgh, Cleveland or maybe Newcastle and was full of angst and rage that needed an outlet, then like the proverbial oyster forging a pearl, he transformed that pain into reverberated and distorted beauty that would conjure the ghost of Jimi.
Then I would love him.
Even if he changed his name to some kind of alter image- Like Johnny Ace or Joe Bomb or Alice Samobon. Anything to remove him from that regular guy down the street image of him stuck in my head.
Then I would love him.
So when I flip channels and find Joe Bonamassa live in Vienna as a P.B.S special- I should be all over it. I should be clicking to it and cranking it up. I should live and die with each perfectly sustained bent string of gleaming purity that emanates from this master of his craft. I should be almost to tears before the first pledge break.
But alas- he is too close to me and I cannot separate my preconceived feelings about him and just enjoy the show.
Joe Bonamassa this and Joe Bonamassa that, I get it but I can’t go there.
By the time we got to Woodstock we were in White Lake in Bethel.
Woodstock is not the home of the famous Woodstock- The actual site is in Bethel, N.Y- but how cool does Bethel sound? “Hey man, everyone is going to Bethel this summer”.
And maybe not all of the 480,000 concert goers in 1969 were hippies…but they damn sure started it!
Wonder #6 -The site of the original 1969 Woodstock
Monument at original Woodstock location
Quick recap:
Two young guys with lots of money and zero music industry experience wanted to put on a rock show. They chose Woodstock because famous musicians like Bob Dylan and the Band lived there.
The town of Woodstock would not allow them to do it.
They were in big trouble finding a spot – Before the thing completely collapsed- a farmer in Bethel, N.Y named Max Yasgur allowed the use of his dairy farm for the event.
Max Yasger’s farm
They had to make it free or risk a riot.
There was rain that made mud. They ran out of things like food.
There was also political strife, free love, drugs and great music. Thank the hippies for keeping it peaceful enough to happen. No other group in any other generation could have made history without serious trouble, especially considering the overwhelming strain on limited resources they faced.
Every big outdoor music festival after this is compared to this. This is like Michael Jordan to basketball or Babe Ruth to baseball- Much bigger than the game itself. It transcends its genre to become an iconic cultural moment in time.
There were two original hippies guarding the monument and graciously dispensing information when I made a visit to this shrine of Rock n’ Roll. They pointed me in the direction of the original stage site where I went with my family to take a few pictures.
The museum on the site is also worth a visit. Great trip for all.
My son jumping at the site of original Woodstock stage
Thank you to all the original hippies for changing the way we think about music.
Cave of Fame 