good grief!

 

rick springfield gets frozen in the early 1980s, wakes up in 2016 & can't even last a whole song there:

 

 

 

 

This drum sound....it just makes me depressed

Tommy Lee's drum set roller coaster broke down at the New Year's show...pretty hilarious:

 

This was my favorite Motley Crue song...I still remember listening to Casey's Top 40 and hearing him say in that ridiculous voice of his..."and coming in this week at #17...Motley Crue...and Dr. Feelgood...". 

 

The drums and guitar are especially sleazy on that one...it's in drop D and he just kind of hangs out down there on D playing that comfy shuffle. 

 

I'm actually pretty sure Motley Crue was 1-step down across the board in the studio most of the time (as in DGCFAD) since drop-D only on the big E string usually sounds like a$$. I remember in '89 going to the MCL Cafeteria and calling the Dr. Goodfood Meal the Dr. Feelgood Meal to the staff.

 

Tommy Lee is the master of slutty hi-hat and big snare action.

The Motley Crue guys seem like the kind of guys who weren't book smart but who made the most interesting stuff in shop class.  Like how some guy who doesn't talk a lot and didn't take any art classes somehow does the best air brush stuff. 

 

That said the band's weak point was always Vince Neil. The rest of the band has a great rhythmic sense and knew how to sound good.  Vince Neil somehow was off the beat half the time, even though he had way better guys behind him than most singers.  In fact I don't know how the band plays when the singer's always getting lost. 

 

In other music news, I suppose that I will get a ticket for the Guns N Roses original lineup in 2016.  I saw the earliest Chinese Democracy tour in 2002 and the playing was perfect but it was not and could not be a compelling live act.  Axl was of course about 10 years older than when the Illusion tour ended, but but he really needed those specific guys to be a compelling front man.  He's trapped by those guys in the same way Mick Jagger is trapped by the Rolling Stones. 

 

Rock's strength comes in part from its fragility.  It really needs to be those specific guys for a band to have maximum impact. 

 

The Motley Crue guys seem like the kind of guys who weren't book smart but who made the most interesting stuff in shop class.  Like how some guy who doesn't talk a lot and didn't take any art classes somehow does the best air brush stuff. 

 

That said the band's weak point was always Vince Neil. The rest of the band has a great rhythmic sense and knew how to sound good.  Vince Neil somehow was off the beat half the time, even though he had way better guys behind him than most singers.  In fact I don't know how the band plays when the singer's always getting lost. 

 

In other music news, I suppose that I will get a ticket for the Guns N Roses original lineup in 2016.  I saw the earliest Chinese Democracy tour in 2002 and the playing was perfect but it was not and could not be a compelling live act.  Axl was of course about 10 years older than when the Illusion tour ended, but but he really needed those specific guys to be a compelling front man.  He's trapped by those guys in the same way Mick Jagger is trapped by the Rolling Stones. 

 

Rock's strength comes in part from its fragility.  It really needs to be those specific guys for a band to have maximum impact. 

 

Back then, attitude and what I guess one could call "snarl" were as big a part of the job as technical singing, so Vince fit the role well.  That said, his solo stuff was weak.

 

That started to change near the end.  Geoff Tate was as good a technical singer as anyone in any genre of music.

I remember also when 1991 hit Motley Crue got really bad really fast as Vince Meal's solo sound started creeping into the Crue. Then hearing this

 

 

solidified things. I had to find something new to me. Luckily right at that time I bought a compilation tape that had Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth, Savatage, Nuclear Assault and Helloween on it. I was saved.

Oooh, also I remember when Metal Sludge reported on Vince passing out after leading the Chicken Dance at Oktoberfest Zinzinnati about 10 years ago.

The Motley Crue guys seem like the kind of guys who weren't book smart but who made the most interesting stuff in shop class. 

 

Nikki Sixx is extremely intelligent (and least-technically proficient at his instrument of the group).  He masterminded the "final tour" after setting himself up with an extensive network for his syndicated radio show.  He also has book deals and is working on funding for producing "The Dirt" as a feature length movie.  The rest of the guys...you're probably right.

Oooh, also I remember when Metal Sludge reported on Vince passing out after leading the Chicken Dance at Oktoberfest Zinzinnati about 10 years ago.

 

Once at Columbus City Center Mall in 2004 I thought I was walking next to Vince Neal's fat, out of work stunt double.

 

Nope I was wrong. It was actually him.

As a public figure who doesn't have a day job, and especially one who lives in an area of the country where it's nice outside 364 days per year, there's really no excuse for sitting in your house eating cheeseburgers all day and night.  If his solo career had actually taken off, he'd be as notorious as Elvis or Marlon Brando for getting fat in middle age. 

As a public figure who doesn't have a day job, and especially one who lives in an area of the country where it's nice outside 364 days per year, there's really no excuse for sitting in your house eating cheeseburgers all day and night.  If his solo career had actually taken off, he'd be as notorious as Elvis or Marlon Brando for getting fat in middle age. 

 

His solo career "took off" even less than David Lee Roths!

I remember one Vince Neil video...it was on a set but it was made to look like the roof of an old factory and there were some dancing girls, and maybe it was futuristic.  There was a storm or some lightning, I think.  It aired two or three times. 

 

Roth's solo songs were a genre unto themselves.  The video for "California Girls" was incredibly entertaining, perhaps outclassed only by Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher", which I think might be the greatest music video of all time.  The concept of that song and the accompanying video was so simple but so compelling.  The song was basically impossible to play, too.  The funniest part of the whole video is where they have Michael Anthony sitting in a chair up on the stage with the dancing teacher and he's pumping his fist with a boyish look of glee on his face. 

I remember one Vince Neil video...it was on a set but it was made to look like the roof of an old factory and there were some dancing girls, and maybe it was futuristic.  There was a storm or some lightning, I think.  It aired two or three times. 

 

Roth's solo songs were a genre unto themselves.  The video for "California Girls" was incredibly entertaining, perhaps outclassed only by Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher", which I think might be the greatest music video of all time.  The concept of that song and the accompanying video was so simple but so compelling.  The song was basically impossible to play, too.  The funniest part of the whole video is where they have Michael Anthony sitting in a chair up on the stage with the dancing teacher and he's pumping his fist with a boyish look of glee on his face. 

Can you imagine the casting calls for those videos?  Along with many other 80s hair band ones.  The Crue of course, Y&T's "Summertime Girls", the above, and so on and so forth.

 

Axl Rose may have outporked Vince.  Sometimes it's a result of going off cocaine as well.

I remember one Vince Neil video...it was on a set but it was made to look like the roof of an old factory and there were some dancing girls, and maybe it was futuristic.  There was a storm or some lightning, I think.  It aired two or three times. 

 

Okay so here's the video...this is the first time I've watched this piece of garbage since 1991 or whenever it came out.  So the vague description I gave earlier today unfortunately was pretty spot-on!

 

 

Can you imagine the casting calls for those videos?  Along with many other 80s hair band ones.  The Crue of course, Y&T's "Summertime Girls", the above, and so on and so forth.

 

I bet half the girls were like "Who's Y&T?" unless they were from the Bay Area whereas that didn't happen with the Crue or Van Halen.

Here's Motley melting a bunch of Columbus girls in '87. Hey Central Ohio, could Nikki Sixx be your real dad?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX_6zMqUfmg

^That looked like such a fun concert.

^That looked like such a fun concert.

 

 

What's crazy is that young people today seem to think that they invented outdoor music concerts and festivals. It like doesn't occur to them that all of this stuff has been going on for about 40 years, and that the bands used to be way, way better and the ticket prices were way, way lower. 

 

I came relatively close to skipping class and going to Burning Man in 1997, when all I knew about it was from some tiny magazine article some guy in the dorms had.  We thought we were "close" to Nevada because we had always heard that it took "24 hours" to drive to California and Nevada came before California.  Then we realized Reno was basically on the California border and we'd have to skip some serious classes to get there and back, basically T-F of our first week of school and then W-Th during our second.  FFWD to 2012 and my younger brother tells me he heard about this thing called Burning Man and he was going to go.  He got really bent-out-of-shape when I told him I almost went in 1997 because he couldn't believe someone as uncool as me knew about the damn thing 15 years earlier.  Then he got back and told me I wouldn't fit in there.  Okay, whatever. 

 

^That looked like such a fun concert.

 

Think about how many Camaros and Firebirds were in that parking lot. Now the only ads I get when I watch metal videos are for minivans.

 

Can you imagine the casting calls for those videos?  Along with many other 80s hair band ones.  The Crue of course, Y&T's "Summertime Girls", the above, and so on and so forth.

 

 

That song never seemed to be on enough!

An article complaining about the high cost of old vinyl records:

 

http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-ive-fallen-out-of-love-with-shopping-for-vinyl-6378229

 

I actually don't really like listening to records because I don't like having to flip them.  One side of a record doesn't last very long, and in fact an entire LP doesn't last very long, I think 44 minutes.  Meanwhile, CD's are too long.  I can't even remember how long CD's were...74 minutes?  That's how we ended up with so many albums in the 90s with SO MANY bad songs on them, especially rap albums.  Then there was the whole matter of secret songs.

 

 

Can you imagine the casting calls for those videos?  Along with many other 80s hair band ones.  The Crue of course, Y&T's "Summertime Girls", the above, and so on and so forth.

 

I bet half the girls were like "Who's Y&T?" unless they were from the Bay Area whereas that didn't happen with the Crue or Van Halen.

 

A lot of them probably did.  You'd be amazed at the musical knowledge a lot of the "groupies" and borderline such had.

RIP:

 

An article complaining about the high cost of old vinyl records:

 

http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-ive-fallen-out-of-love-with-shopping-for-vinyl-6378229

 

I actually don't really like listening to records because I don't like having to flip them.  One side of a record doesn't last very long, and in fact an entire LP doesn't last very long, I think 44 minutes.  Meanwhile, CD's are too long.  I can't even remember how long CD's were...74 minutes?  That's how we ended up with so many albums in the 90s with SO MANY bad songs on them, especially rap albums.  Then there was the whole matter of secret songs.

 

 

I can't hear the difference, and while I don't doubt some people can, I suspect others have trained themselves to.  I suspect the fad came from people trying to prove their devotion to music by the space allocated to same.  I just posted on my FB page:

 

"A 256G micro SD card (15mm x 11mm) can hold approximately 3,200 albums. Since a vinyl album cover is about 12.3” square (312.4 mm), that means an equivalent space, not even accounting for thickness, can hold 1.9 million albums."

 

One dud song can kill an entire LP if you like listening to them all the way though. You have to get up and DO SOMETHING about it if the dud comes on. Or people get distracted and go for the phone.

^That looked like such a fun concert.

 

Think about how many Camaros and Firebirds were in that parking lot. Now the only ads I get when I watch metal videos are for minivans.

 

I find myself wasting time ever so often watching the US Festival from 1983...now THAT is a time capsule.

One dud song can kill an entire LP if you like listening to them all the way though. You have to get up and DO SOMETHING about it if the dud comes on. Or people get distracted and go for the phone.

 

Same with a cassette, in fact it's worse.  A CD you can skip.

Bowie.

 

Just for today.  But "favorite music at the moment?"

 

Bowie.

Bowie.

 

Just for today.  But "favorite music at the moment?"

 

Bowie.

 

Bowie released his last album "Blackstar" on his 69th birthday, just three days ago.  This is how a true artist goes out:

 

I know ... I wasn't even that big of a fan of him (I still definitely liked most of his major hits, but never had his albums or anything).  But songwriting your own death?  That is some next-level badass artistry right there.

^That's why he was Advanced.

I was told by a former roommate who went to College of Wooster that one of David Bowie's sons went there when he was there.  At graduation, David Bowie flew into Cleveland and rented a Lamborghini and sped across northern Ohio with his African supermodel wife seated beside him.  It's like way to keep a low profile, bro. 

I was told by a former roommate who went to College of Wooster that one of David Bowie's sons went there when he was there.

 

Pretty reliable source.

 

Not that it matters if this story is true.

Well I just looked it up, and apparently it actually happened:

https://doclehman.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/local-college-grad-makes-good-duncan-zowie-bowie-jones/

I was referencing the story of the Lamborghini when I was talking about the source being reliable, not that he went to Wooster. I figured that was possible and easily provable. Not that any of it really matters. Just one of those, "my friend's ex-girlfriend's sister's friend said this" stories. I cut the quote too late and meant to just include the lead up to the story. Oh well.

 

On Thursday I saw one of my favorite bands play a rendition of Let's Dance at MOTR. The vocals were remarkably similar to Bowie. You can see them playing that song here (not at MOTR, but the same tour):

 

Yep, RIP.....

 

Watch the perfect tribute to David Bowie -- an astronaut playing "Space Oddity" in space:

I gave the "Blackstar" album a second listen tonight...it's still pretty bad.  Perhaps better than Lou Reed's god-awful "Lulu" swan song w/Metallica, but a pretty disorganized mess of a record and the videos look cheesy and make no sense. 

 

I waited a day to post this, but given the ridiculous volume of mindless Bowie-love that swelled over social media on Monday, here's a little push-back.  This is a clip I saw a few years ago where Iggy Pop and members of The Stooges rag on David Bowie's disastrous mix of their Raw Power album from 1973.  It's probably the second-hardest, second-nastiest rock & roll record that exists, with the most dominating rock & roll recording being the previous Stooges album, 1970's Funhouse.  This clip is great because Iggy and Williamson kind of hold back on their criticism, but Scott Asheton asserts at the end of the clip that he took the record off the turntable the first time he heard it and threw it out the door.  Unfortunately David Bowie was sort of like The Stooges' Yoko, with the band wondering why in the hell Iggy wanted to hang out and play with him instead of them.  There's a great interview out there from 1986 where Ron Asheton asserts that The Stooges were going to be as big as The Rolling Stones if not for the breakup which Bowie had a hand in.

 

Fact is that David Bowie's big shortcomings as an artist were that he had no visceral connection with American blues and then he always wanted to be considered a "great artist" in the European, academic tradition. Because of that he had major creative angles unavailable to him (unlike The Rolling Stones, for example) and so had to make up characters and wear costumes to distract from the fact he wasn't a born showman, couldn't dance, wasn't a very good singer or guitar player, and his personal background wasn't very interesting.  He couldn't attempt to seduce the middle and upper classes with low class stuff because he was born a little too high on the ladder.  He couldn't grunt or shout nonsense or do call & response.  He could only do sly cocktail party teasing...not the much richer sort of teasing that made people like Elvis and James Brown such commanding showmen. 

 

Here his lip-syncing performance of his own song is weaker than the average circa-1998 Tuesday night sports bar karaoke performance of the same song somewhere in the Central Time Zone:

 

I'm not the biggest fan of Blackstar as an album to just sit and listen to. But it's pretty badass to release a death album. He did a photo shoot on his birthday and you would have no idea he was on his deathbed and would die two days later. This last album wasn't just a swan song, it was clearly an album about his imminent death.

 

And Bowie had a great voice. To suggest otherwise is crazy. I'm sorry he was a negative factor in a proto-punk band you liked. I think this is coloring your impression of him as an artist.

The man did some of my favorite songs (Young Americans, Space Oddity, Changes, Life On Mars) and a couple of my least (Fame, China Girl).  As far as my own tastes go, only REM even approaches that range.

Iggy Pop has a new record coming out in March. Here is the lead single...a fairly interesting song that comes frustratingly close to being outstanding.  It needed to be tidied up a little (definitely under-produced and the lyrics are a bit confusing) and they needed to bring in some big-time female backup singers instead of whoever was recording a car commercial jingle in the building's other studio. 

 

I'm not a big Strokes fan but this new reverbed-out Iggy Pop song reminded me of this 4-5 year-old reverbed-out Strokes song:

 

Whoever recorded and produced that song had their thinking cap on.  Unfortunately the rest of that Strokes album is a dog but this one has everything in the right place, things repeat the right number of times, new things appear at just the right time, and everything is recorded just right.   

Anyone else grow up with the Chemical Brothers? I always was a huge Chemical Brothers fan, but didn't even realize they came out with a new album. I love how they stuck to their style

 

"Born in the echoes"

 

I thought I'd hate this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL05ggM3Lt0

I'm really into the new Half Moon Run album Sun Leads Me On right now.

 

Here's full concert of theirs I found on YouTube but it doesn't contain any material from the new album:

 

these guys are gods of local ny live music -- i found quite a few recent shows i went to here -- you can stream them if you don't want to download them:

 

http://www.nyctaper.com

Guns 'N F*cking Roses on tour, Summer 2016. Coming to the only cities that matter.

 

https://vimeo.com/160322109

Nobody born after about 1985 has any idea what a huge band is.  Guns N Roses was absolutely huge.  For 3-4 years they were bigger than everything else put together.  Nothing going on now in pop culture is anywhere near as interesting as that time period. 

Nobody born after about 1985 has any idea what a huge band is.  Guns N Roses was absolutely huge.  For 3-4 years they were bigger than everything else put together.  Nothing going on now in pop culture is anywhere near as interesting as that time period.

So true, Jake.

Nobody born after about 1985 has any idea what a huge band is.  Guns N Roses was absolutely huge.  For 3-4 years they were bigger than everything else put together.  Nothing going on now in pop culture is anywhere near as interesting as that time period.

So true.

Nobody born after about 1985 has any idea what a huge band is.  Guns N Roses was absolutely huge.  For 3-4 years they were bigger than everything else put together.  Nothing going on now in pop culture is anywhere near as interesting as that time period.

 

So true.