Category: Music

1980’s Music

To be truthful I never was enamored of the 1980s very much. I spent my teenage years stuck in that MTV decade. As far as music…I didn’t give up my loves…Beatles, Who and Stones although that was not the most popular choice then. Personally, I didn’t like the 80’s music much at all…Michael Jackson, Madonna and a long string of synth and big hair bands were terrible to me. I hated the sound of fake drums and the tinny guitars from the so-called heavy bands. Raw was out in the 80’s in popular music and it showed.

The Heavy Metal guitar players would learn classical riffs and then continue to put them in every solo. It was more about technique than feel. Feel and looseness was gone. It was about who could play the fastest and it didn’t matter if it fit the song or not… It seemed no one played for the song anymore.

Not saying I hated everything…I really liked… Bruce, Tom Petty, Prince, John Mellencamp, The Bangles, The Wilburys, U2, REM, Dire Strait and some great one hit wonders. AC/DC I didn’t appreciate as much at the time but they at least had a rawness to them.

I remember the radio stations playing Phil Collins over, over, over and over some more. If they weren’t playing him…they played Genesis. I had my fill of Phil…I believe everyone did then…

It was the era of big-selling albums…. Born In The USA, Purple Rain, Thriller, Pyromania, Back In Black, Brothers In Arms, 1984, Synchronicity and The Joshua Tree.

The performers I held high…The Stones (Dirty Work), The Who (It’s Hard) and Paul McCartney (Pipes of Peace) made the worst albums…in my opinion of their careers…all in the 1980’s. You can hear the 80’s sound infiltrated all of them.

ZZ Top made Eliminator and Aerosmith made Permanent Vacation and then continued to make the same album over and over again…

I am not the biggest fan of Guns and Roses and Nirvana but I do credit them for helping to wipe the 80’s of big hair bands…like squashing an irritating bug.

There are songs that take me back to good times in that decade. Salt In My Tears, Going for a Soda, Come on Eileen, Darlington County, Raspberry Beret, All The Good Ones are Taken, Walking on Sunshine, Starting Over, Old Man Down the Road, Video Killed the Radio Star etc….

It wasn’t enough to listen to the radio but we just had to see the video. Videos took over as the most important thing. Videos had been an important tool since the 60’s but in the 1980’s they were the driving force…. A bad video could kill a career…. ask Billy Squire.

Video killed the radio star… truer words were never spoken.

https://vimeo.com/63436140

The Traveling Wilburys

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You traveled into a worm hole through space and time and all you brought back was Keith Moon?

I awoke from a dream. I dreamed I was at an opening of some club and I was in the parking lot and here comes Keith Moon. He was laughing madly and asked me if I was enjoying myself…I was amazed and happy…. Someone in the background of this dream asked the above long question that is the title. I didn’t answer but if I did it would have been a resounding YES…who else? If I could have met any rock star…I would have picked Keith Moon. He was the ultimate definition of a rock star. Some people would pick Jimmy Page or Robert Plant…but to me Led Zeppelin always had a dark cloud around them. They were not the most inviting band. The Who on the other hand seemed open and at least trying to connect with the audience. The concert footage I have of them with Moon they would act silly between songs and be human and light…until they played…when they played in their prime…no one could touch them live. Plus musically I just liked them much better…I brought Zeppelin up because they  covered some of the same ground at the same time as the Who. I don’t care if I hear Stairway anymore in my life…but when Won’t Get Fooled Again comes on….I still turn it up. But this is about Keith Moon and me dragging him to the current age. He would not have survived now because he had fun and lots of it. Excess yes and too much. He was arguably the best drummer in rock ever….he usually comes in 1st or 2nd in polls to John Bonham. He had an ability and a rare ability….it doesn’t seem he could be embarrassed. I use to really want that trait…but it was his undoing also. With all of his mad escapades it has been said by many that he never wanted to hurt anyone. He once got a hotel clerk fired by stealing chicken from the kitchen…the next day he got the mans job back. The only person he ended up hurting was himself. He wrecked plenty of hotel rooms but he did it with style…one time nailing the furniture to the ceiling at the same location it had been on the floor.

I feel guilty sometimes enjoying reading about Keith…yes he had drinking problems and some mental problems that went undetected in the seventies. You will see these old jaded rock stars start smiling when talking about him now. A smile that says that they don’t have the time or the memory to tell you all the stories. He had energy to burn and finally did just that…burn out. He wore people out that tried to hang with him.

Keith’s stories have entertained generations after his lifetime….he paid the price. He was trying to clean up before he died and died on an overdose of a drug to wean him off of alcohol.

Check youtube out for Keith Moon and you will find some great videos….If you want a quick read find a copy of Full Moon I had a copy when I was 13 and I wish I would have kept it when I saw the price…you can get the audio version pretty cheap. If you really want to know about Keith get this one.  Better price and it covers his entire career. Yes I would bring him back just to see the reaction of today’s PC world. Their heads would explode. He would give this boring corporate world a hot foot….which it needs desperately. If only I could Keith….you would be here but I would rather go back to your world when the rules were broken and you could have a bit more fun. To this day I’ve never seen nor heard a drummer that could match him.

 

The Beatles or The Stones

The choice is an old one. I like both groups they are two of the greatest rock groups of all time. Keith Richards said without the Beatles there would be no Stones because the Beatles kicked the door in…in America for the Stones to follow. The soul  of the two groups were John Lennon and Keith Richards. They were the honest ones…the ones that would tell you how it really was but sometimes offended…but who cares? Keith is “The Human Riff” and has more than earned that name. John also came up with some classic riffs… Day Tripper, I Feel Fine, I Dig a Pony, And Your Bird Can Sing… Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger were the PR of both bands.

George Harrison and Brian Jones were in similar positions… both were in bands with with two great songwriters. George finally broke through with some great songs but Brian’s tenure ended sadly.

The first statement from a Stones fan is…but The Beatles were a pop band and The Stones were a rock band through and through. Not really…. The Stones wrote alot of pop songs like Ruby Tuesday, Waiting on a Friend, Dandelion and We Love You. The Beatles wrote some rock songs Day Tripper, Come Together, Revolution and probably the hardest and raunchiest song of the two groups…Helter Skelter.

The Stones were not above copying the Beatles at times. The most blatant was after Sgt Peppers came out the Stones release Her Majesty’s Request. Take a look at the Beggars Banquet Cover and The White Album covers. Yes the Stones delay in release of that album was over a cover the record company rejected but it was released after the White Album… Let it Be and Let it Bleed…a little too much of a coincidence. Glyn Johns was involved with both albums and it’s been said that the Stones heard Let It Be before it was released. John and Paul even wrote the Stones first hit I Wanna to Be Your Man. It wasn’t a bad thing…most groups followed in the Beatles wake.

Arguably the Stones were much better after the Beatles broke up. They formed their own identity.  Unless you like the Brian Jones era more than the Mick Taylor era.  Personally I think the Mick Taylor era was superb. I did like the texture that Brian would add to the Stones but with Mick Taylor they were a great rock band. When Taylor quit they lost a lot. Ron Wood looks more like a Stone than Taylor but the group with Wood is not comparable to the Taylor version of the Stones. It’s not just the songwriting…the guitar playing Taylor did with them between 69-74 was great. The Beatles were much more flexible than the Stones…just listen to the White Album. They could bend to any genre better than any band. Popularity is not even comparable between the bands. Mick Jagger has admitted that the Stones were outshone by the Beatles. 

It depends on taste but there is not a reason why you can’t like both…but the arguments are fun though. Personally The Beatles are my favorite of the two because they covered much more ground.

My thought on the dynamic of the groups is the Beatles truly loved each other like brothers and when they broke up…it was much more personal and more feelings were involved. The Stones were not as close. Keith and Mick were close for a little while until the drugs set in with Keith. I think that helped them stay together longer. I also thought they treated Bill Wyman terrible like not giving him credit on coming up with the riff on Jumping Jack Flash and he only got one of his songs on an album. John and Paul would write songs for Ringo and early on for even George. I can’t imagine Mick and Keith writing one for Brian…Brian didn’t do himself any favors because of the antics he pulled…but he did start the group and contributed a lot until around 67.

The argument will go on and on between fans of both groups. The images of both are really skewed. Supposedly to Stones fans the Beatles were soft and the Stones were hard men.. The Beatles were from Liverpool, a tough blue collar town and not soft at all. They were not to be messed with at all…After going to Hamburg and carousing with gangs, hit men and mobsters they were far from innocent but the Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham wanted the Stones to be the anti Beatles and it worked great but was far from the truth. The two bands were actually friends and would time their singles to come out at different times as to not compete with each other.

The Beatles live and The Stones live…The Beatles were excellent live but stopped playing live in 1966…one because of the constant screaming and inadequate equipment. The also had the time to devote to make some of the greatest albums ever…When the Stones hit their stride live the equipment improved greatly and the screaming was for the most part over. The Beatles only played live one more time just a few songs on top of their Apple building. This is interesting… both bands early on share a stage with each other and a lot of different  acts including the Animals, Them and The Kinks.

The best live band ever? My choice would be neither the Stones or Beatles. That will come later.