MY LINKS ARE GONE!

I just noticed the links here are GONE - the ones to all the great blogs out there - like YOURS!

I will work on this immediately.

I will also add some names to my list of musicians that have passed away that Darrin emailed me weeks ago.

I've been a slacker!

Steve Miller Band

I missed a good concert this summer and am kinda bummed.

Steve Miller, to me, is all about having a good time. Most of his music is fun, upbeat, catchy. This year he celebrated 30 years in the music business.

Once again - an old guy out there rockin. Gotta love it.

technorati tags: Music,

Opinion Needed

Driving home from work today I was listening to KLOS when a young man won tickets to see The Who in concert. He was very excited. It got me to thinking about the age thing, maybe you can shed some light on this for me:

It seems to me that the "greats" are still out there rocking and rolling after all these years - we are talking OLD folks (average age 60), kicking some butt on stage. And their fan base is multi-generational!!!

I think its great and am very proud to be old enough to say "I saw them in the 70's". But what's the deal? Who are the next classic rock bands going to be? What does this mean? Will rock and roll die when we lose these bands?


Classic Rock

Article on Led Zeppelin

I am not a huge fan of Rolling Stone magazine - in fact if I didn't have a free subscription, I'd probably never look at it. But this month there is a good article on Zeppelin.

You may recall that Rolling Stone and Led Zep have a very negative history due to RS dissing LZ when they first started out. It wasn't until Cameron Crowe (article is linked) convinced them to do an interveiw that the contempt was replaced with a reserved trust.

This months issues has an article with an in depth history of the beginnings of what I consider to be one of the best bands ever.

Rolling Stone Magazine , Classic Rock, Led Zeppelin

technorati tags: Music,

T Rex - Marc Bolan

Get on over to the Reivew Revue for an excellent review on this often overlooked iconic band of the early rock years!


Also, I just found a great site that has some wonderful photos of Marc and some handwritten notes of his. Check it out HERE

technorati tags: Classic, Rock

Drugs and Rock are like Peanut butter and Jelly

Jeff at Imagine Echoes has a very interesting topic going on, check it out.

This is not really related but I'll throw it out there since he mentioned this album in his post:






This was one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE albums. I really miss vinyl because often the cover, back cover, and both sides of the inner sleeve were covered with interesting artwork.






ELP had all kinds of things hidden in this album art, you could look at it for weeks and still find hidden meanings behind it all. Cool.

Janis Joplin

Ran across this article in the LA Times, "A Backstage Pass to Intimate Moments in Rock's Oddessey" the whole thing is worth reading but this excertp on Janis is what got to me. Written by the author of the above article, this is what he had to say after interviewing her:




When I caught up with Joplin at a rehearsal, nothing about her suggested "star." It was as if all the flashy boas, oversized glasses and Gypsy-hippie attire were her way of compensating for the beauty that nature failed to provide. Minus that camouflage or an audience to energize her, she seemed weary.

Finally, she retreated to her dressing room, collapsed onto a sofa and reached slowly for a pack of cigarettes. She was tired, she said — tired of fighting with businessmen and musicians and the writers who wanted to know where the pain in her voice came from.

When her road manager closed the door on his way back to the stage, the room felt like a cell. Like the best rock 'n' roll, Joplin's music was mostly about freedom, and yet she seemed trapped. I felt like an intruder. I didn't want to be just one more guy asking about the pain. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" I asked.

Joplin stared back at me across the room. "Man," she finally said, "don't you even have your own questions?"

For me, the time with Joplin was a crash course in rock 'n' roll reality — an introduction to themes I'd encounter time and again. In the end, she got past my clumsy start and began talking about feeling like an outcast growing up, her music, her lifestyle and the one constant in her world: loneliness.

"Somehow you lose all the old friends," she said. "When we're not on stage, we rehearse, lay around in bed, check in and out of motels, watch television. I live for that hour on stage."

On stage that night, Joplin "the star" emerged. Ultimately, though, the lonely hours proved too much. Less than a year later, Joplin was dead in a hotel room. An accidental heroin overdose, it was said.

You Me and Dupree Ripped Off SD?

The members of Steely an are PISSED OFF! Read here to find out why.

QUESTION!

How much do concert tickets cost in your area?

I read a blog today and was shocked at how low the prices seem to be in other states!

The Who

The year was 1980. Months prior during the same tour Eleven Fans were Killed at a concert in Ohio headlining The Who.

I am not writing about this to be morbid or to blame anyone for the tragedy, but I want to set the stage for my experience a few months after this horrifying incident.

Imagine standing in line for hours to see your favorite band. As you wait for the gates to open the crowd is rowdy and anxious. The majority of them have paid for a seat in the stadium, but you adore this band and want to get as close as humanly possible so you have opted for general seating admission.

You have a plan - when the gates open you will rush to the grass area and get right up near the stage! Nothing can stop you, this is the concert you've saved your money for, you've marked your calendar, you've waited and today is the day!

The gates open and the crowd literally rushes in. Apparently everyone else in the front of the line had the same plan as you did. Suddenly you hear screaming and feel the pressure of the mob pressing in on you. You are surrounded and can't move. You are being pushed and shoved. The next thing you know you are hearing your own voice crying out for help.

The sound of your yelling is muffled as you are pushed to the ground. The frenetic crowd has lost all sense of humanity. People are plowing past you, stepping on you, trampling you underfoot.

Lucky for you, someone grabs you just in time, you are spared death and are taken to the hospital with broken ribs and bruises. But the last thing you remember seeing was that woman lying next to you begging for help. Her screams were silenced as the crowd lunged forward ignoring her pleas. She is killed, dead on the grass in front of the stage.

The next day you read in the paper about those who had lost their lives in an effort to get close to the band. One woman was the mother of two young children - you just know it was her that you saw as they pulled you to safety. Why? Why her, why not me?

Of course this is a fiction account of a real occurrence - I wasn't there. But I did have a similar experience a few months later when the same thing happened at the Anaheim Stadium here in CA. Fortunately after the tragedy the security and crowd control at these events was better able to handle this type of mass pushing and shoving.

I remember standing in line in fear as the crowd closed in on me. When the gates opened I clung to my boyfriend as we were rushed in with swarms of others that were determined to get to the front. I started crying. He pulled me out and we stood and let the crowd surge past. We traded our general admission tickets to a couple that had seats because I was so afraid to get hurt in that mob.

For anyone who has read here, I was almost crushed to death at a Rolling Stones concert in '85. When I tell people that they think that surely I am exaggerating. No, unfortunately I'm not. I can somewhat imagine what it felt like for those 11 people to be so absorbed into the crowd that they fell and were tossed and trampled like rag dolls.

Maybe I'll share the Stones incident at another time in detail but for now I'll just say that I was literally lifted off the ground in the crowd and felt like I could not breathe. A HUGE guy appeared our of nowhere and lifted me up and out to safety. He was like an angel, a big black strong angel. I can't say for sure if he saved my life, but it sure felt like he did.

Gosh, I don't know what inspired me to write to about this tonight but I felt like sharing it.