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.
After attending community college part-time for longer than I want to admit and finally finishing my degree, I have learned a couple things about getting old:
I am now old…A.A.R.P wants me as a member! Jamie Lee Curtis wants me to eat Greek yogurt (and I am thinking about it)
So what
When you take classes with kids often half your age, you do reach a point where you just have to get over yourself and get on with it or risk not making it to the end. No one really cares about age more than yourself…As long as you focus on what you have to do and not worry about anything else, you will be O.K. That is basically it. Age only knocks you out if you let it- you can not stop it but you can stare it down until the very end.
So here is my little Rock Opera on the 5 stages of aging according to the Cave
“Look out you Rock n rollers, pretty soon you’re gonna get older”
I did not believe this wise oracle of rock the first time I heard this line. I thought I would stay young forever. David Bowie saw it coming and tried to warn us.
Act 2: Feel it slipping-try to get it back-Slight desperation-
Weezer.The Good Life
“And I don’t wanna be an old man anymore. It’s been a year or two since I was out on the floor.
Shaking booty, making sweet love all the night…It’s time I got back to the good life”
You sense it is fading but still don’t have a grasp on it
When Keith Richards does his vocal bit-it just takes this to another level- this is my favorite Rolling Stones song and it may be a straight-ahead country music tune. It’s got memories and pick-up trucks in it. This is a drinking song!
Age does build up a reservoir of hurt feelings to go immerse yourself in. It might seem like nice warm water, but you only need a few inches to drown in- and tears and beer can make this get to a level that will break those levees around your heart in no time. …But having said that…Wow!-this is a great song!
Act 4: Acceptance- Oh no- this is real! And happening to a person near me…in fact me, myself!
‘My body is a cage, it keeps me from dancing with the one I love”
When I saw Peter Gabriel perform this live in 2011, I was knocked right on my ass. The intensity he brought to this Arcade Fire song was something to watch erupt on stage. What I took away was this guy trapped in his 63 year-old body but still giving everything he had. The spirit is strong but the vehicle it operates in is getting worn. You could see it happening, and like only genius artists can do…you could feel it happening. There was this transference of emotion from the stage to the audience.
Act 5: So what- it happens to the best of us and the worst of us-I still choose to rock n roll
Little Feat.Old Folks Boogie
“You know that you’re over the hill when your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill”
So you’re old!!—-Enjoy yourself—it will happen to the best of us in the end if we are lucky enough to make it that far.
The passage of time and the relentless scourge of gravity will hunt us down like dogs. We will be history to future generations. So let us rock while we still can!
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!
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!
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.
Chrissie Hynde is Rock n Roll. The first Pretenders record is a great record- If you only heard Brass in Pocket, you only know the weakest track on it. I am in love with this woman…she just sets stuff up and kicks it down. And I don’t mean that creepy, stalker kind of weird love even though I am picking a music track that is about that creepy stalker weird kind of love. I mean that 14 year old girl to Justin Bieber kind of love. That AAAHHHHH! OMG!, there is Justin….I can’t believe it….here is a sharpie Justin…please sign something while I text all my BFFs…Ahhhhhhhh! Kind of love.
O.K I admit to being a bit star struck and here she is doing that beautifully dark lullaby to isolation and unrequited-ness…I don’t think there is a better song about it.
Cave of Fame 