I’m Just A Singer In A Rock & Roll Band… But I’m The One With The Actual Contract… A Cautionary Tale... Earworms & New Stuff…

Let me begin by saying that I’m a huge music fan…but not a fan of the music business.  It’s the business part that makes it icky for me.  If everyone in the world were altruistic and always looking out for their fellow man half the stuff we hear about concerning the shady tactics of record companies or bands would not be happening.  How many times have we heard about the record company taking advantage of the naivete’ of a new artist and making them sign a bad contract, effectively making them an indentured servant to the record label. 

Now I don’t think in every instance it is the label’s fault, as sometimes the artist doesn’t seek legal counsel before signing or is so desperate to sign that they don’t read the fine print.  But it’s the business part of the music business that disturbs me. 

Another very common situation in the industry is when the artist is under the control of someone else, be it their manager, parent, agent, promoter, or just someone they trust.   Regardless of whose spell they’re under, the outcome is usually catastrophic with respect to the stability of the band.  Sometimes the image that the band presents is much different than the reality behind it.  Our story begins here…

[and no…it’s not about Yoko Ono and The Beatles…Diana Ross & The Supremes…or Jessica Simpson and her Dad, Joe…]

Now regardless of which side you will take, or which side is the truth, the lesson in all of this is a] Read The Contract b] Have your entertainment lawyer Read The Contract c] Make sure your name is CLEARLY written on The Contract and d] Read The Contract…Again…before signing off on anything… At the very least.

Our subject today is a band called Paramore.  You may have heard of them.  They are a rock band formed in Franklin, TN in 2002 by Hayley Williams [Vocals], Josh Farro [Lead Guitar/Background Vocals], Zac Farro [Drums] and Jeremy Davis [Bass Guitar].  In the intervening years they have had a few minor lineup changes, but the crux of the dispute comes from Hayley Williams and the Farro Brothers.

They began as every other new artist out there, with management, the record label, and the producers helping them create a “product” that could be marketed to the masses.  They were successful.  Now a couple of things to know about this group as we continue is this:  They were signed to a major record label [Atlantic Records] but were distributed under the niche label Fueled By Ramen.  This was because the powers that be felt it would be better for the image of the band to be distanced from a major label giving them more indie credibility.  Also, in an effort to give them more word of mouth push, the record label decided against giving their first record “All We Know Is Falling” any major radio promotion.  The A&R [Artist & Repertoire] wanted the group to be discovered by the kids rather than having it shoved down their throats.  The album sold moderately but putting the band on packaged tours like Winter Go West and Warped over the next couple of years garnered the word of mouth that the label was looking for. 

Another piece of information regarding how the band was “signed” is this.  Hayley Williams was signed to a solo deal in 2003, but due to her not wanting to be marketed as a pop princess, she insisted that she wanted to perform alternative rock music, with a band… so the label acquiesced to this request and unbeknownst to the band…Williams was the only one on the contract.  But Paramore was off and running.

As the popularity of the band continued, focus on Lead Singer Hayley Williams began to be more and more specific, which would make sense given that she was the only one the record label was initially interested in anyway.  To them, the band was interchangeable, but Williams was not.  In an article with Kerrang! Magazine in 2007 Williams was made the focus of the interview.  Williams was stated as saying “the article was an untrue portrayal of the band, particularly because it focused on her as the main component”.  Sincere or not, she championed the “band” ethos and continues to do so to make sure the audience continues to view Paramore as a band, and not “Hayley Williams & Friends”… 

Following later in that year the band would explode worldwide with their album “Riot!” and sell more copies in the first week of that record than total sales of the first record to that point.  To date it has been certified Platinum by the RIAA, successfully releasing the singles “Misery Business”, “Hallelujah”, “CrushCrushCrush”, and “That’s What You Get”. 

In what would become the classic “He said, She said” argument, the pressures of the band and the popularity of their lead singer would begin to cause friction within the band.  Williams was everywhere, in the press, on the premier circuit, and in the paparazzo’s lenses.   The band would informally go from being “Paramore” to “Hayley Willams & Paramore” to just Hayley Williams [from Paramore] in the press.  Regardless of whether it was a conscious effort by the artist or the record label machinations, it did not bode well for the other founding members of the band, who would be viewed more as a backup band to their lead singer. 

After recording one more record “Brand New Eyes” in 2009 and a tour, founding members Josh and Zac Farro quit the band on December 18, 2010.  The band released a statement "A couple of months ago, Josh and Zac let us know they would be leaving the band after our show in Orlando last Sunday. None of us were really shocked. For the last year it hasn't seemed as if they wanted to be around anymore. We want Josh and Zac to do something that makes them happy and if that isn't here with us, then we support them finding happiness elsewhere. But we never for a second thought about leaving any of this behind." The post also stated that the remaining members had “no intention of disbanding.” A South American Tour was then confirmed. 

On his blog, Josh Ferro disputed the account, claiming that the band was "a manufactured product of a major-label." He further accused Hayley Williams of being manipulated by her management, treating the rest of the group as her solo project, and claimed she was the only member of the band who was signed to Atlantic Records, while her band mates were simply "riding on the coattails of her dream".

Organic alt-rock band or record label confection?  You decide.  I think that it’s probably a little of both.  I believe that Hayley Williams was sincere in wanting to keep it a band unit.  But I also have to believe that the powers that be are going to do what’s best for business regardless.  In the end the lesson is still this: no matter how sincere a band is when it begins it can very easily become controlled by the record company, management, or family, and the intentions of these entities doesn’t have much to do with loyalty or the pure creation of music, because everything has to have a bottom line.  This is why the music business is a “business”, and make no mistake…they will be the ones who reap the benefits. 

So make sure you Read The Contract!...

And now for something completely different… Earworms!...

What is an earworm, you ask?  An earworm is [Courtesy of Wikipedia…] a loan translation of the German Ohrwurm,  is a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind, put colloquially as "music being stuck in one's head."

Use of the English translation was popularized by James Kellaris, a marketing researcher at the University of Cincinnati, and Daniel Levitin. Kellaris' studies demonstrated that different people have varying susceptibilities to earworms, but that almost everybody has been afflicted with one at some time or another.

The Official Earworm Synonym List includes alternative terms such as "music meme", "humsickness" , "repetunitis", "obsessive musical thought" and "tune wedgy."
I am particularly fond of the phrase “Tune Wedgy…”  but I digress..

Earworms can be caused by that particular catchy chorus running through your head ad-infinitum to the point where you either A] Buy the single, or B] put a contract hit out on the artist and songwriter [you may want to stick to A….]. With the advent of electronic distribution and samples, this is most common as you go to hear a piece of a song you are interested in and all you hear is the bridge, or the chorus, and so your brain doesn’t know where to go after that.  Great for marketing the song, bad for a brain tuned to The Rolling Stones and you’ve got Katy Perry’s “Waking Up In Vegas” careening through your mind. [Neither good nor bad…just different…]  Or you are trying to remember the melody to your most recent favorite song and the commercial jingle that was just on gets stuck in your head. Again, great for marketing, not so good for your unsuspecting brain.

Another way that you can be afflicted by earworms is when you only remember a small portion of a song, and the brain fills it in with random noises until you can pick up the lyric again.  A great example of this one is “Informer” by Canadian rapper Snow [That in itself an oxymoron…] All anyone really knows of the words because they are completely indecipherable is this… Informer…[da da da, random humming, da da da, more humming…] icky boom boom down.  I will now challenge you to sing all the correct words with the proper phrasing… didn’t think so… But I bet it’s stuck in your head later… You Are Welcome…

So…how do you deal with the earworms? Well there are a few ways.  One is to replace it with a different one.  Given the short attention spans we all suffer from as we get older that can’t be too unreasonable an option.  Although the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.  So while you are trying to eliminate Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” from your mind you may end up stuck with the “Macarena”… Not really a gain there is it?

The other option would be to share your curse with others, that way you can at least make others suffer as you have.  In order to do this you just randomly sing along out loud with your earworm until the person next to you catches on.  By that time, it’s too late, and they’ll be singing it in their head all day long.  My wife is particularly gifted in this area.  She will randomly sing the most bizarre stuff when I’m in the middle of doing something so that I’m stuck with it.  She finds such glee in doing that.  So I will randomly get her back.  Sometimes it’s with random show tunes.  Sometimes it’s with the earworm she just got out of her head, and had the misfortune of telling me what it was.  It’s all in good fun.

The positive side of the earworm is that earworms can be used for educational purposes.  From something as simple as creating a song to remember the alphabet that we are all familiar with [abcdefg, hijk, lmnop, qrs,tuv, wxyz…now I know my abc’s..next time won’t you sing with me…] to using earworm-type music in language learning to help memory retention on foreign words.  So there are some positives out there that have helped along the way.  For more information on the use of earworms in education you can go to http://earwormslearning.com . 

It’s not just about torturing the guy next to you by singing “If you like pina coladas..and getting caught in the rain” repeatedly until the melody of “Escape” by Rupert Holmes is jammed in his head for good…

Well…maybe it is…

Coming Soon To A [You Pick The Medium]…

April 5 - Songs for Japan by Various Artists, Rush – Moving Pictures [CD+DVD Audio-Deluxe Edition], Ray Davies – See My Friends, Smithereens – 2011, Hollywood Undead – American Tragedy, George Michael – The Lowdown, Asking Alexandria – Reckless And Relentless, Kingdom Come – Rendered Waters

April 12 – Alison Krauss & Union Station – Paper Airplane, Foo Fighters – Wasting Light, Paul Simon – So Beautiful Or So What, k.d. lang – Sing It Out Loud, Mana’ – Drama Y Luz, Elbow – Build A Rocket Boy!, Jessie J. – Who Are You, The Feelies – Here Before

April 19 – Glee Cast – Glee: The Music Presents The Warblers, Steve Miller Band – Let Your Hair Down, Gorillaz – The Fall, DJ Quik – Book Of David, Pendragon – Passion, Badlands – Badlands & Voodoo Highway [Remasters], Kimberly Caldwell – Without Regret, Asia – Live At The London Forum

April 26 – Emmylou Harris – Hard Bargain, Steve Earle – I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Rolling Stones – The Complete Singles [1971-2006], The Airborne Toxic Event – All At Once, Lynda Carter – Crazy Little Things, KFMDM – WTF?, Mike & The Mechanics – Road, Bowling For Soup – Fishin’ For Woos, Otep – Atavist, Savatage – Gutter Ballet [Reissue]

So…in closing…Read The Contract!... and when all else fails…accept the earworms… they like you too…

Thanks for coming along for the ride…see you soon.

J.

My Band Is Better Than Your Band…And I Just Hit Dislike On YouTube To Prove It...Guilty Pleasures And The Maintenance Of Image…

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” –

                                                          Shakespeare - Queen Gertrude, in Hamlet, act 3, sc. 2. l. 230

I had the opportunity to read some really inane posts on YouTube the other day as I was searching for a particular video.  I have spoken before about the concept that everything can have its own artistic merit, whether or not everyone likes it.  The challenge is just how stupid we can look when defending a certain genre, or artist.  The artists in question weren’t as important as the language and ferocity of the attitudes present.  It was that if you liked “X” artist you were cool, and if you liked “Y” artist you were stupid.  Artist “X” is a very successful heavy metal artist.  Artist “Y” is a very successful pop performer with a much younger demographic.  The person writing the post wanted to create a campaign to go onto artist “Y”s videos and dislike them, so that it received more dislikes than likes.  I think at the time I was more embarrassed than afraid.  You see the demographic of artist “X” is probably twice to three times the age of the demographic of artist “Y”.  That would indicate that an adult made these comments, and actually wanted to waste his time and others putting down someone else.   And I couldn’t help but wonder why…

When I was a kid, I had music in my head all the time.  It didn’t matter where I was or what I was doing there was always a song playing.  Now, as strange as this may seem, I was always paranoid that someone else could hear the songs in my head.  I don’t know what made me think that, because I couldn’t hear their music.  But I was always paranoid that on a day that I’m decked out in my Rush shirt they would hear in my head that I’m randomly listening to something else.  Instead of “The Spirit Of Radio” I have “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees stuck in my head.  In truth in my opinion both are good for very different reasons, and at this age I don’t care if someone sees that differently.  They can’t hear the songs in my head.  But when you’re a kid, and image matters, you don’t want to be ridiculed for any reason.  

So I would mentally change the station in my head if there was something different playing than what was expected.  Does it sound crazy?  Sure it does for the time, but I’m sure at this age if that is the least of my problems I’m doing ok.  I was a metal head, and Heaven forbid I’m caught with “Afternoon Delight” by the Starland Vocal Band in my head…  So these songs took on new form in my life, as I’m sure they have in others as well.  They became known as “guilty pleasures” and they were songs that you would listen to only when you were alone, and could enjoy them for the mindless, guilt-free enjoyment that they brought you.  It goes back to when you’re a kid, you feel you have to fit in, or explain everything away so that you don’t end up at the other end of someone’s fist, or the loser table at lunch. 

Statistically, I know that everyone out there has at least a few guilty pleasures in their iPods.  Hell, I have an entire collection like that.  And the reason that I know that everyone has them is this…

As an example… Remember “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice.  Now more recently it has become a retro dance song that still gets airplay, but do you know anyone that actually bought it in 1990? Or more to the point admitted they liked it?  Think hard… thought so…can’t name very many people can you…?

Well, the RIAA [Recording Industry Association Of America] certified the single as “Platinum” for sales of 1,000,000.  So that means that one million people bought it.  In 1990, when the single was released, the population of the United States is listed as 248,709,000.  That would mean statistically 1 person for roughly every 249 bought the single.  Who are these people, and where did they go?  I could name 249 people in my own home town, and I’m willing to bet that none of them would have copped to buying it. 

But the stats show that at least one of them did.  You see, I’m willing to bet that some of them did, and they listened when no one was listening.  And that’s ok.  I’m willing to bet that as they got older they realized that other’s opinions really didn’t matter and they actually played it out loud!... And if you’re like my wife and I, you may have played a song for your kids and then were reminded by them that you’re not cool, and you never were.  Such is parenting in a modern age…  Don’t worry, when they have kids, remember to pull out the soundtrack to “High School Musical” and remind them how much they used to love it, and dance to it.  And make sure their kids know too, because karma works...and it will catch up with them eventually. 

Now one of the biggest guilty pleasures I have ever seen is the often maligned 80’s hair bands.  For my simple research on this one I go back to the DJ shows that I have done.  I note that no matter how buttoned up and conservative the crowd is [especially the female attendees], if you play anything from that era, it can become a free for all.  The same people you just watched gracefully dancing to a romantic song by Van Morrison are now head banging on the dance floor with their shoes off [and occasionally some clothing as well…] and their hair whipping everywhere.  They know the words, they recreate the moves from the videos and they sing at the top of their lungs…sometimes from on top of the chairs or tables. 

Be it Poison, Whitesnake [I have seen someone try and recreate the dancing on the Jaguar on their table…it was not pretty…], Twisted Sister, Winger, Guns ‘N Roses, and even though I don’t really consider them hair metal, Def Leppard.  There’s not a girl in the room that doesn’t know the words to “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and if you throw out “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC, you can pretty much anticipate what’s going to happen.  And as you watch them move you realize that they don’t care who is watching.  And that’s the best part, because they were able to finally let loose and enjoy themselves.

For every listen that someone gives to Metallica’s “Master Of Puppets”…someone in that group is also listening to Madonna, or a Schubert symphony, or Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”.  Or they have a small child and are listening to “The Wheels On The Bus”[over and over and over again…].  In the end it doesn’t really matter.  The point of the music is to uplift your spirits, make you think, maybe teach you something, and in the end become yours, because everyone interprets things differently.  And what you hear might not be what they hear, and vice-versa, but it’s all good.  But only you can decide if you like it, and no one else.  And as far as the image… no one really cares, so why should you?...  You define the image…it doesn’t define you.

So the radio station in my head eventually got a new program director and the format went free-form.  Just today it went like this… Iron Maiden/Gordon Lightfoot/Tommy Tutone/Destiny’s Child [I have to thank my wife for that one…She sang the intro to Bootylicious at the ball fields the other day…]/Dream Theater/Brad Paisley/Stealer’s Wheel/Whitesnake/Loreena McKennitt/England Dan & John Ford Coley/Rush/and Within Temptation, and that was just the first hour.  I’m sure yours was just as diverse, and as much fun.

And that guy on YouTube who said that to be cool you must be a metal head and everything else is cheese… well he’s probably home right now as we speak listening to Yanni.  He just won’t admit it…

Thanks for coming along for the ride…See you soon.

J.

Knock Three Times On The Ceiling…And Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree…Because You Decorated My Life…

When I was about 7 years old we received in the mail a flier for the “Columbia Record & Tape Club”, where you buy roughly 3 million records or tapes [Cassette or 8-Track – Your choice…] for a penny [that you actually taped to the flier and sent back!] and then order every month [usually at a cost equal to the national debt].  And remember, if you didn’t send back your reply card, you received their “Selection Of The Month”, which depending on what category you chose, could be a new version of an old classical piece, conducted by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.  If you chose R&B at the time…it was probably Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. [now solo from the 5^th Dimension] singing “You Don’t Have To Be A Star [To Be In My Show]”. In rock it might have been Aerosmith’s “Toys In The Attic…”  Needless to say, to obtain a penny, and more importantly, the permission to enter this major financial agreement, I had to ask my Mom. 

My Mom was something of a conundrum to me.  If I had to say where my interest in music came from I would have to say it was from her.  Now it wasn’t like she had it on in the house, or listened to it constantly [Dad played WHN remember, and my grandmother preferred 600 AM WICC or 66 [660 AM] WNBC out of NY, with Imus In The Morning], but she had her favorites.  And whenever her favorites would play the area [I remember her talking about seeing Paul Anka or Tony Orlando at the Oakdale Theater when it was still in the round…], she would get excited, albeit quietly, about her idols.  She would drag my dad out to the show and any one of the four Kovacs girls [Robin, Jeannie, Katie or Maryellen] would babysit for us. I could never understand how someone with so much passion for her music could keep it all bottled up, but that was Mom.  She always had something else to worry about or something more pressing at the time. 

She once told me that she wanted to play piano as a child, and that one thing or another prevented her from doing it.  Because of this, whenever she saw my passion for music budding she nurtured it, and in doing so provided me with not only the permission, but the penny to join the club.   Now I won’t say there weren’t times when she may have regretted that decision, particularly when my room was right above the dining room and the volume of music that I would play would rattle the ceiling and shake the chandelier, but she would always somehow let me know it was ok.  Whether it was a smile, or a wink, she told me she got it.  She understood….

We had a turntable in our den.  And I remember playing a copy of the Grease soundtrack [not the movie…the original Broadway recording] and wondering why the songs from the movie were missing.  We had a copy of a Chicago record, and there was one point in 25 Or 6 To 4 where the song always skipped, so I got used to the skip.  Whenever I heard the complete version on the radio, my mind would skip the song… repetition strikes again.  We even had a copy of Cheech & Chong’s “Up In Smoke”, but we couldn’t always play that because of the profanity…  But what I remember the most was the albums my mom liked to hear.  It is these songs that I hear now and can’t help but to think about her. 

She loved “Diana” by Paul Anka, and Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” and “Roses Are Red”.  Long before Enrique took over as a Latin heartthrob, Julio Iglesias was a favorite in the house.  “Candida” and “Knock Three Times” by Tony Orlando and Dawn would certainly pick up the pace. And when it came to country music there was no one more idolized by Mom than Kenny Rogers.  I think if Kenny Rogers showed up at our house growing up and offered to whisk my Mom away, we’d never hear from her again…it was like that. 

She would play his album and we would sing with it [and usually we’d do it wrong..] Whenever we heard “Lucille”, the line would be “four hungry children and a crop in the field” and we would sing “four hundred children and a crop in the field” and think that was the words.  Math on feeding them all be damned… 

What I remember most is the smile.  She would smile from ear to ear whenever she heard those songs.  She didn’t play them often [or in my opinion, often enough], but when she did she was as happy inside as we could see she was outside.  She allowed me to play everything, and even though some of it drove her nuts, or was too loud, you could still see that it was ok. 

Mom will be gone exactly two years on Wednesday [3/9].  I can’t thank her enough for the influences and guidance that she has had in my life.  She knew I was a little different, and instead of trying to make me fit in with the rest, she let me be me, and knew somehow that the music would get me through.  She knew, because I was a lot like her, but she didn’t want anyone to know it but me…

On Wednesday I will say a prayer for her, and will play some of the music that made her smile as my little tribute to her.  And I will always treasure the moments that we had when she was here, especially the moments after she yelled at me to turn down the music, because I knew in my heart that she would have turned it up too… [Even the ones we got because we forgot to send back the reply card…]

“And you decorated my life, created a world where dreams are a part
And you decorated my life by paintin' your love all over my heart
You decorated my life…”

I Love You Mom.

Joan Marie Fico Finnegan [April 11, 1940-March 9, 2009]

Thanks for coming along for the ride…see you soon…

J.

Talkin’ Bout…Pop Muzik…Talkin’ Bout…Pop Muzik…Shooby Dooby Doo Wop… Rants & Raves & New Releases On The Way…

I had the wonderful opportunity this weekend to DJ a party for a young ladies 18^th birthday.  There were decorations, and cake [who doesn’t love cake…] and relatively well behaved, well dressed young people who danced from the first song to the end… 4 hours later…like it was nothing.  They were a lot of fun, and their energy was boundless.   The most poignant moment for me was when her dad came up and asked for…you guessed it… Free Bird.  Now, laughter ensued when he said it from both him and me, but he explained that it was his way of playing a joke on his daughter.  The inside joke was that he was going to have us play Free Bird during the middle of the party to throw things off, and every time he said it to her she would feign anger and threaten him in some manner.

So as we were finishing up for the night and the kids were disbursing and recovering from the melee we cued up the last request…and called the young lady [whose name is Katelyn] out to the floor where she proceeded to slow dance with her dad to the first portion of the song.  Once they got to the endless guitar solo they broke and laughed and it was a touching moment.  I laughed with them, and then wondered just how quickly the party would have come to a screeching halt if I played it.  I would probably have lost the whole floor. 

We kicked the night off with “DJ Got Us Falling In Love” by Usher [Featuring Pitbull] [You always have to say who is featured, I think it may be contractual, but it does make the Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon game too easy…] and they danced [Not unlike the Hooters did…].  And as the night went on, I started to think how different the music has become in these situations.  And by that I mean “PARTY”… 

Our parties had music…usually the mix of rock and pop that played on the radio, [and for me and my friends the hard rock that didn’t make it to the radio] but I got to thinking it wasn’t the all night dance party that this evening had become.  It didn’t matter if it was a rock song with a dance beat, a dance song with the big poppy chorus, or the rap song that slowed the dancing down to a groove where the kids knew all the words [they filled in the bad ones since I was playing clean versions of everything…].  It was a cornucopia of everything, and it was refreshing to see the kids change tempo and groove so flawlessly. 

What made the difference? I would have to say it was a combination of two things - technology and a severe lack of prejudice in their tastes.  This is the new generation, where the race and creed of a person is less important than whether or not they were cool.  The kids didn’t define their status by such antiquated perspectives, and it allowed them to keep an open mind when listening.  The technology complements this in that every new song may have a shorter lifespan on the radio, but if a new song hits…it’s everywhere. YouTube Videos, iTunes, TV shows [I watched last week’s Hawaii Five-O and the opening scene contained Rihanna’s S&M]. There was also Napster and Limewire, and I have also seen it travel from phone to phone, so that they have it all the time. 

Now I’m not trying to be critical of myself or my generation [talkin’ ‘bout My Generation…]…but we were very closed minded when it came to some of the music that was out there.  In hindsight we grew up with Motown, and R&B, reggae courtesy of the Marley family, and disco. But by the time the backlash of disco waned, the music became very divergent on the radio.  Out of disco we had the punk/new wave movement [and with it the advent of the synthesizer].  “I Want My MTV” meant that we were going to primarily see rock and pop video by mainstream white groups and artists and when a non-Caucasian artist played, it was because they “crossed over” from the R&B chart to the pop chart. 

I don’t believe that we were as ignorant as I am implying here, but we didn’t really see it the mix as we do now.  Now Michael Jackson ruled the world when MTV was in its infancy, and his sister Janet made waves, but they were part of the musical landscape from well before the era of MTV, and were already culturally accepted.  We had Prince, and Whitney. Bobby Brown had gone solo from New Edition, and Chaka Khan still proved she could fill the dance floor.  But there was always an element of segregation in the music.  Now I completely understand when they put Headbanger’s Ball on late Saturday nights.  If you wanted to bang thy head…you could do it without disrupting the regular programming.  And while I would tune in to see Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax or Iron Maiden, you didn’t necessarily have to be privy to that. 

You have to remember, that when The Sugarhill Gang dropped “Rapper’s Delight” on the dance floor, the underground rap movement was just that, underground.  And it took some time for it to bubble up into the mainstream and become a driving force in popular culture.  And for all of you that say [and I used to be guilty of this myself] that to be a rapper you don’t have to be talented…I say you try it.  It’s a lot harder than it looks, and those that are good at it are very good at it.  Run D.M.C. charted with a cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” and started the rap-rock genre now regularly mined by artists like Linkin Park. 

This all changed on August 6, 1988.  That was the day that Yo! MTV Raps debuted.  It remains one of the highest charting programs in the MTV line up.  Run D.M.C. hosted, and the first video played was Eric B. & Rakim’s “Follow The Leader”.   And the rest was history.  The program introduced the hip-hop culture to the rest of the globe, and began its meteoric rise to the top of the charts.  There have been setbacks because of violence, and many issues with language and the misogyny that it portrays, but it still remains one of the most popular genres. 

Why does all this come into play here…well doing the math… my 18 year-old birthday girl Katelyn was born in 1993.  By then the rap culture not only sprang up but had roots everywhere.  And this generation grew up knowing which pop tart was on the charts at the time, but also was aware of artists like Ice Cube, and Tupac Shakur, as well as Dr. Dre and Public Enemy.  It was in my opinion this exposure that allowed the acceptance to be so easy in the newer generation… the “millennial” generation as they are called.  So when we follow up “DJ Got Us Falling In Love” with Katy Perry’s “Firework” into Lil’ John or the New Boyz, they don’t blink.  They just change rhythms, change tempos and go with it.  I never thought my DJ job would actually get easier, but in fact it has, simply because the crowds are more accepting, of the changes in music, and each other.  Not to climb on my soapbox but if you want to see racism wane in America, keep watching the successive generations learn to grow with each other, and not against.  And I would also recommend you let them dance…

And remember…the next time you criticize a rapper for lack of talent…see how fast you can make a fool out of yourself trying to imitate them… And pull your pants up…please…

New Voices…

Let me proclaim that my new favorite female vocalist on the planet is Skylar Grey.  Originally christened Holly Brook Hafermann in 1986 in Mazomanie, WI.  She moved to L.A. in 2003 and was signed to Machine Shop Recordings and sang on Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda’s song Where’d You Go.  She released her first album in 2006 and also wrote parts of the song and demo’d her vocals on “Love The Way You Lie” by Eminem and Rihanna.  She is currently featured in Diddy/Dirty Money’s “Coming Home” as well as Dr. Dre’s “I Need A Doctor” with Eminem.  She reminds me a little of Dido, with an ethereal sounding voice.  Definitely check her out.  She’s got a new album in the works… I’ll be looking for it…

Adele is anther voice that you can just close your eyes and listen… Her single “Rolling In The Deep” is making some waves on the charts…

New Releases…

I must give props to Mr. Big for resurrecting melodic hard rock.  These guys reformed and their new release “What If…” just dropped stateside.  Great melodies and some of the most fantastic playing you will hear this year. Bassist Billy Sheehan and guitarist Paul Gilbert’s interplay is amazing, particularly on the track “Around The World”.  It doesn’t sound dated, and Kevin Shirley’s production is just the touch they needed.  Shirley recorded most of the record in a live setting and really captured the energy of this band… definitely worth checking out.  The first single is “Undertow”…

Coming soon to a [you pick the medium]….

3/8/11 – Billy Joel [Live At Shea], R.E. M. [Collapse Into Now], Avril Lavigne [Goodbye Lullaby], Simon & Garfunkel [40^th Anniversary re-release Bridge Over Troubled Water], Children Of Bodom [Relentless Reckless Forever], Asia [Spirit Of The Night – Live], Sara Evans [Stronger]

3/15/11 – Lady Gaga [Born This Way –EP], Rise Against [Endgame], Travis Barker [Give The Drummer Some], Steve Vai [Essential], Rick Springfield [Essential], Whitesnake [Forevermore], Mastodon [Live At The Aragon] J. Mascis [Several Shades Of Why]

3/22/11 - Green Day [Awesome As F**k], The Strokes [Angles], Adam Lambert [Glam Nation Live], Duran Duran [All You Need Is Now], Jennifer Hudson [I Remember Me], Joe Bonamassa [Dust Bowl], Panic! At The Disco [Vices & Virtues], Soundgarden [Live On I-5], Rainbow [Rising –Deluxe re-release], Josh Kelley [Georgia Clay], Tommy Shaw [Great Divide],

3/28/11 - Radiohead [The King Of Limbs], Britney Spears [Femme Fatale], Within Temptation [The Unforgiving], Florence + The Machine [Between Two Lungs], Los Lonely Boys [Rockpango], Wiz Khalifa [Rolling Papers], Marillion [Live From Cadogan Hall]

Just remember to let them dance...

Thanks for coming along for the ride…see you soon.

J.

When Everyone Else Smelled Like Teen Spirit…I Found Friends In Low Places… The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same…

It was September 24, 1991…Melodic Hard Rock/Hair Metal was dead…pretty much everything else with it…why you ask?... It’s the date that Nirvana’s “Nevermind” dropped and the musical world would never be the same…  As someone who was heavily caught up in the hard rock scene this came as a defining moment in my life and many lives of my friends… do we abandon the technical prowess of the shredders and embrace the “Alternative” rock that would soon become the mainstream…much to the chagrin of it’s creators..?....

We fought and bitched and hemmed and hawed…and in the end we couldn’t fight it… Mainstream hard rock was no longer the mainstream…it had to disappear underground for a while in the U.S. and move to Europe and Japan if it wanted to thrive… And out of the depths the “Alternative” was the norm… Which is good.  Change is good.  We went from the safe happy short haired pop of the 50’s to Elivs and the Beatles…and we changed with it.  We embraced psychedelic rock in the 70’s right along side the singers and songwriters like James Taylor and the burgeoning face of FM radio was developing…Punk..Disco…Heavy Metal…Hair Metal…Grunge…Boy Bands…Pure Pop…Dance…Techno…Rap…and the cultural phenomena that would embrace Madonna in the 80’s and Lady GaGa now.  Maybe we all have musical attention deficit, or maybe in the grand scope of things…there’s room for all of it... But that is the state of mind of someone in hindsight.  It’s taken me a long time and a lot of influences changing over time to get here.  I don’t think I missed out on anything, but I do think that I have a greater respect for a lot of different music. 

I went into the 90’s with the idea that something was going to change…it was inevitable, and I probably wasn’t going to like it.  When the record companies figured out that they could sign a band right off the Sunset Strip and sell a million records they all thought they could do it.  And the glut began.  There were some great bands, some good bands, and some that probably shouldn’t have been signed.  But the labels scooped them all up in hopes of hitting gold.  It made for an interesting time, and everyone thought their way to stardom was via Los Angeles, with a nod to the East Coast NY and NJ scene.  So they got off the bus just like Axl Rose in the “Welcome To The Jungle” video in search of fame and fortune.  Some we heard about, and some we’ve never heard from.  Some finished their records only to have the scene change and the album shelved forever.  It happened more than you think.  It happened with the boy bands in the late 90’s and it continues to happen.  Just because one sells does not guarantee one just like it will. 

That said, when the jangly guitar of Kurt Cobain [R.I.P] crashed through my speakers and the record labels moved their focus from Los Angeles to Seattle and found Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, that something that was different had arrived.  In my opinion I think that they were [and are] very talented, and I’m still a huge fan of Chris Cornell, but for me I think I was too pissed that some of my favorite bands were being forcefully retired.

So I hung up my rock t-shirts, I retired my can of Aqua Net, shed a tear when I hung up the spandex and leather and went out and bought a pair of boots, some wrangler jeans…and went country…yes country.  This is not an unusual phenomena, and a lot of people I know did the same thing, maybe not to my extreme, but to some.  For as ridiculed as the genre of hair metal was, it was fun, occasionally insightful, and these guys [and gals] could play.  When I first heard the “alternative” bands my first thought was “where the hell did they learn to play, or more importantly…why don’t they”…?  Narrow minded I know but I was still pissed.  And why does everything have to be so dark?  These were musicians who were filled with angst, and they let it pour out in their music.  Well…I wasn’t angry, I had no angst, I didn’t hate my parents, and I could find the silver lining in everything… I’m a half full kind of guy… so when the music world went dark…I found solace in a most unexpected area.

My dad drove an 18 wheel rig for 56 years until he finally retired.  And all he listened to 1050 WHN  AM out of New York, and he only listened to WHN.  So growing up in the house it was Alabama, and Dolly Parton.  George Jones, The Oak Ridge Boys, and Hank Williams.  I guess I always had an appreciation for it, but I grew up hating it because my dad played it.  No other reason… and a really stupid one actually.  So when Nashville started turning it’s sights on a younger audience, there were a lot of us that didn’t want the grunge thing, so we naturally fell into country.  Now this wasn’t my dad’s country music.  It was Randy Travis, and George Strait, Alan Jackson, and a fellow from Yukon, Oklahoma [not really that far from here really…] named Garth Brooks that turned the whole radio world upside down.  It was more pop leaning that it’s predecessors, while still remaining relatively close to it’s roots. And it was happy… for the most part.  There were your tear in my beer songs and songs about losing your girl, your house, and your dog all in 3 minutes with a bright and catchy chorus too.  But what there was a lot of, was hope.  So I joined the wave of people who helped Garth sell over 100 million records.  Went to the festivals, and even learned to line dance [pretty well after a while believe it or not…]  I couldn’t always relate to some of the themes [I was the white guy from the burbs remember…]  but it just sounded right.  And in hindsight, maybe it was just that I was [gasp!] older.  The words fit better, the melodies were still in tact, and the session players in Nashville are some of the best in the world.  Guitarist Dann Huff from Giant [and from Nashville originally] became a hit producer for Faith Hill.  “Mutt” Lange went from Def Leppard to producing and marrying [and divorcing] Shania Twain. Together they sold over 39 million copies of “Come On Over” worldwide.   I eventually collected over 800 country CD’s and artists like Garth and Trisha, and Clint Black, Brooks & Dunn, Wynonna, Martina McBride and Faith and Tim became staples in my playlists.  This country dance party could only last for so long…

Now..guess what happened?…You guessed it.. the glut…  After mining every grunge band for profit and signing every guy and gal with a hat and boots the record industry did what it did best…it proved too much of a good thing can be bad.  Like that chocolate coma you get in after Halloween and Easter.  So grunge went the way of boy bands and pop music again.  Country suffered some setbacks, but they are their own world, and there’s always a new batch of artists out there.  Most recently Zac Brown is tearing up the charts, and Lady Antebellum is garnering their accolades.  In between we had the Musik Mafia led by Big & Rich, and Gretchen Wilson.  And you can never go wrong with virtually anything by Brad Paisley. The man is a monster on the guitar and an excellent songwriter. 

Eventually I went back to search for the melodic hard rock [which is still alive and well in Europe and Japan] side by side with the country stuff.  Grunge is now retro, and you can’t play an 80’s weekend without pulling out the Aqua Net.  I guess Rush said it best when in their song “Circumstances” they said “Plus ca change Plus c'est la meme chose”… The more that things change…the more they stay the same.  You find a good thing…and then you find more of it…and then it’s overload!...  Maybe moderation is the key.  I don’t know, I’ve never had moderation in anything.

I guess what I’m saying is keep an open mind.  And open ears.  Because what is at the top of your playlist today may be in the cutout bin tomorrow.  I traditionally don’t get rid of anything, but the used bins at your local cd store show a different picture.  Remember that music has an inherent value, and if you love it, that’s all that matters. 

It took me a long time to get over being pissed at the grunge movement, and I still think that they mix up “keeping it simple” with “I really suck on the guitar but when I play it I get chicks”… but I digress…  They all can’t play like the guys in Dream Theater…

Thanks for coming along for the ride…see you soon.

J.

Who Is This Guy Steve Miller And His Band…And How Many Times Do I Have To Hear The *#@*$*!! Joker?…and Radio Killed The Radio Star…

After taking the week to finish digitizing my disc collection, I’m back with more food for thought…  I did learn that roughly 3700 CD’s when the duplicate songs are weeded out can fill just about 1.2 Terabytes of information.  On the upside I don’t have to knock over piles of discs to get to my desk, and on the downside…no more album sleeves or CD cases to read.  You see, I’m a child of vinyl.  To me there was nothing like buying a record and poring over the artwork and reading all [yes all] of the liner notes.  It’s no wonder I didn’t date until later in my existence… It was what fueled my desire to find out who was on it that started the “Six Degrees” concept in my mind.  And audiophiles still lament the demise of the warmth of an analog record…but that’s for another time…

I would actually take a chance on a record I hadn’t heard before if I knew who the producer was, because I would have some idea as to what it sounded like by what else was produced before.  I could take a chance on a record if I saw who engineered it, because even if the record was crap at least it was good sounding crap.  If Alan Parsons, or James “Jimbo” Barton engineered the record, you knew it would sound good.  The same goes for Parson’s production.  If Bruce Fairbairn [R.I.P], Mike Stone [R.I.P], Kevin Elson, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, or Bob Rock produced it, I had a good idea how it would sound. [And if you’re into modern melodic hard rock anything with Dennis Ward producing is going to sound killer…] Sad but true, but it allowed me to take chances on new artists.  Some were good, some were bad, and some were just God-awful, but for $7.99 [the going rate for an album when I was younger] it wasn’t a big risk.  But now it’s just tiny words in a tiny booklet and sometimes there’s not even that…sad.. Moving on…

So who is Steve Miller? The point is actually just a jumping point but for the record he is the guitarist and lead vocalist of his self named band.  They had a string of hits from 1969-1978 and hit the charts again in 1982 with “Abracadabra”.  The Greatest Hits 1974-78 has sold over 13 million copies.  Past members of the Steve Miller Band include Boz Scaggs on guitar [solo with Lowdown, Lido Shuffle], Les Dudek [Allman Brothers, Dave Mason, Stevie Nicks], Ross Valory [Journey], Jim Keltner [Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon], and roughly 37 others over a series of years.  So…why am I picking on Steve Miller and his band…I’m not really.  They are just an example of oversaturation accompanied by the limited playlists of the classic rock stations. 

As the radio stations were bought up by conglomerates and the consolidation of the stations continued…the playlists began to shrink.  This is not just on classic rock radio but for radio in general.  And it’s gotten so endemic that you can turn on any station [that’s not strictly pop/top 40] every few hours and hear the same songs.  What’s sad is when a station promotes it’s “No Repeat Workday” like it’s something special…I can listen to my collection for example for 82 DAYS without duplication [that’s roughly 1968 hours…but I am by no means normal…].  So my question is…why can’t they play more from the artists catalogue?  Why do we have to hear “More Than A Feeling” over and over and over until we want to push a knitting needle through our brains [I digress..that’s just me…] You see…I LOVE the band Boston.  I LOVE the song More Than A Feeling. I Love the whole first Boston record [and it was the first record I ever owned when I was 8 years old in 1976…].  However, I just can’t listen to it unless I stop hearing it for a while. 

Rush has created 19 studio albums…and yet we hear “Tom Sawyer” over and over.  Kansas has 13 studio albums and all we hear is “Carry On Wayward Son” on the rock stations and “Dust In The Wind” on the AC stations.  Prince has produced a multitude of records with varying names and degrees of success…and we hear “Little Red Corvette” or “Let’s Go Crazy” like he made only 2 records.  I know they produced more music.  I know that they produced more great music..but it’s getting lost in the shrinking playlists and the shrinking minds of the radio programmers who think we’re a] stupid or b] lazy and would never venture out of our comfort zone in an effort to hear something more.  I know you’re out there, and I know you’re smarter than that.  In fact I don’t know anyone who listens strictly to the radio, or doesn’t have a favorite band that they will never hear on the radio.  But then again...I’m not sure I should be the measuring stick for anything normal here…

But since we don’t control the playlists of our favorite radio stations [if you’re not already connecting your iPod to your car stereo or have invested in satellite because you’re too fed up] I recommend a moratorium on some of these songs or maybe, just maybe…go deeper into the album cuts.  Early FM radio was about playing the whole record, not just the singles.  Maybe modern radio can take note and improve…[Let’s wait for it…Nope…can’t play it…not enough time between commercials…and we still haven’t had a cold snap in Hell or been successful in making pigs fly…]  So maybe since we can’t change the world…we can change the station…or shut it off…or hum…or whistle…or turn on conservative talk radio, get enraged, scream at the radio and punch the dashboard a lot [I don’t recommend that…but it will entertain the guy next to you at the stoplight…] Either way…it sets up our next segment…and I’d like you all to play along at home…

For my next segment, let’s call it… “10 Artists That Went Away…And I Didn’t Miss Them…” 

Feel free to compile your own list either on paper or in your head of bands that you’ve heard so much, so often, that if they went away you would feel a sense of relief, a Zen moment, and a lifting of your spirits.  Maybe it’s just that you want to hear a different song every once in a while…This is by no means a reflection of the talent, style, or anything else to do with the band.  It’s just like video killed the radio star…except radio killed the radio star…over and over again… pencils up…start writing…

1] Boston [Anything from the first 2 albums] - Love the band, love the songs…grabbing my knitting needle every time I hear Foreplay/Long Time on the radio [and out here in OK, that’s a lot!!]

2] Rolling Stones [pretty much anything] -  So many records, so many songs…and I get to hear “Beast Of Burden” over and over on the radio…why can’t I hear One Hit To The Body every once in a while…

3] Van Halen – why Van Halen?…because I can’t hear Runnin’ With The Devil ever again…Might as well Jump…

4] ZZ Top – The Eliminator album killed them for me…they were blues, then they were pop, now they’re blues again…And I get to hear “Legs”…and that she knows how to use them…

5] Queen – All I want to hear is Radio Ga Ga…or Keep Yourself Alive…How about One Vision every once in a while…but NOOOOO… I see a silhouette of a man….scaramouche scaracmouche…will you do the fandango… MAMA MIA MAMA MIA LET ME GO…

6] Kiss – On a retro weekend we might get “I Was Made For Lovin’ You..” but for the rest of the time it’s Rock & Roll All Nite…” and I’m old…and I can’t do that anymore…I’ll die…how about a little blatant innuendo courtesy of “Love Gun” or “Shout It Out Loud”…

7] Guns ‘N’ Roses – If I could have one wish for Christmas is to never here Sweet Child O’ Mine ever again…thanks Santa…

8] Sheryl Crow – Can she sing? Yes…can she write songs? Yes.. Can she please go away now…I’ve had enough…maybe she never should have left Las Vegas where she could have had some fun [since that was all she really wanted to do anyway…] and I wouldn’t hear her anymore…especially Picture…blaahhh…..

9] Elton John – Give me Funeral For A Friend…Give me Levon, give me anything off Live In Australia…But don’t make me feel the love tonight…Hold me closer Tony Danza…

10] Any 80’s retro pop metal one hit [ok..maybe2…] wonder [for the sake of radio play…] [and I say this as a HUGE fan of commercial hard rock and pop metal]…  this is including, but not limited to “Unskinny Bop” by Poison, “Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard, “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, “Round And Round” by Ratt, and “Heaven” by Warrant… Great the first 3 million times…time to cash the royalty checks and check into that retirement home in Palm Springs… 

Well folks…that’s all for today… always remember to try the veal and tip your waiter….

And the answer to last week’s “Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon”?... you were asked to connect 70’s funk artists Sly & The Family Stone with Greek power metal band Firewind…How did you do?… Mine goes like this…

The saxophonist for Sly & The Family Stone is a gentleman named Jerry Martini.  After S&FS he started a band called Rubicon in the San Francisco Bay area with a group of musicians including Jake Blades on bass and Brad Gillis on guitar [They would go on to form Night Ranger…but we’re not going there…]  Brad Gillis was chosen as the replacement for guitarist Randy Rhoads in Ozzy Osbourne’s band after his tragic death in a plane crash.  Gillis played the MTV concert in his place.  Ozzy has just this year released a CD titled Scream featuring guitarist Gus G. [whose real name is Kostas Karamitroudis] and Gus G.’s band when he’s not playing with Ozzy is…you guessed it…Firewind…

So it goes like this… Sly & The Family Stone>Rubicon>Ozzy Osbourne>Firewind.. in 4 moves!!…how did you do…?

Thanks for coming along for the ride…See you soon…

J.

Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon & Don’t Stop Believin’…

Courtesy of Wikipedia…

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a trivia game based on the concept of the small world phenomenon and rests on the assumption that any individual can be linked through his or her film roles to actor Kevin Bacon within six steps. The name of the game is a play on the "six degrees of separation" concept.

If you’ve ever tried this game…you know in some strange cosmic way it works.  Part of it is that being able to connect everyone gets easier the more movies come out, so from year to year the degree of difficulty decreases…It also may be that Kevin Bacon is an extraordinarily hard working actor who just keeps showing up in our favorite movies, and some duds as well…maybe he should ask his agent what he’s thinking… [Now you gotta cut loose…Footloose…]

Before there was Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, rock and roll had it’s own system going, more resembling a family tree.  Although it does follow the same concept, and my friends and I used to play a game to see how many bands we could connect to each other, and the weirder the connection the better.  There was a publication called “The Harmony Illustrated Guide To Rock & Roll” when I was in high school, and it featured hand drawn family trees to show the many line-ups of a particular band, and this just takes it a step further.  It’s really more like a spider web than a tree.  I remember seeing the seven million incarnations of Deep Purple and wondering why it changed so constantly. [as a disclaimer this can also be played with Rap & R&B artists. However due to the commonality of being featured on each other’s records and singles, the game is over much more quickly…]

The concept is simple.  Connect as many bands through their ever changing line-ups to see who worked with whom.  There are a few bands that actually make this easier such as Yes, Whitesnake, and Rainbow [Yngwie Malmsteen is equally guilty], given their sheer number of members over the years.  It could be that the stability of the lineup was directly related to the egos involved…but that’s just an educated hypothesis. 

To give you a simple example… let’s connect Led Zeppelin to Vanilla Fudge..it goes like this…

Jimmy Page played guitar in Led Zep…He went on to play with The Firm [with Paul Rogers of Bad Company, Tony Franklin, and Chris Slade]…Bassist Tony Franklin went on to work with Blue Murder, whose drummer is Carmine Appice, who used to be the drummer of…you guessed it..Vanilla Fudge.

Led Zeppelin>The Firm>Blue Murder>Vanilla Fudge

To make it harder… you can go from Led Zeppelin to Kansas…you go from Led Zeppelin>The Firm>Blue Murder and from Blue Murder we go with guitarist John Sykes…who played with Whitesnake..from there we choose lead singer David Coverdale, who also sang for Deep Purple, to guitarist Steve Morse, who also played with Kansas…so it then goes like this…

Led Zeppelin>The Firm>Blue Murder>Whitesnake>Deep Purple>Kansas…  The number of degrees becomes as many as needed, but we try to keep it to 6. 

One last one before your head explodes and then I’ll challenge you…  Let’s connect British rock band Genesis to 80’s L.A. pop band Missing Persons… it goes like this…

From Genesis we pick guitarist Steve Hackett, who played in GTR with guitarist Steve Howe from Yes, who played in Asia with bassist John Wetton, who played in U.K. with drummer Terry Bozzio, who played drums in Missing Persons with his wife, Dale, on vocals…

Genesis>GTR>Asia>U.K.>Missing Persons…in just 5 moves…  quite simple really… ;-)

Now the challenge…Can you connect 70’s Funk band Sly & The Family Stone with Greek progressive metal band Firewind in 6 moves?... Good Luck!...

And Now…Don’t Stop Believin’…  It was the summer of ’81 and the song was all over the radio.  Upon the release of the record “Escape” on July 31, 1981 this monster was born.  I remember playing Adventure on the Atari 2600 and listening to this record all summer long at my friend Tim’s house.  We were geeks [Rush’s Moving Pictures was also a favorite on the turntable…].  It’s in my opinion one of the best pop songs ever written.  Journey performs it flawlessly.  And there’s not a person on the planet who doesn’t know the song from the first few chords on the piano…so…what’s my problem with it… Oversaturation has killed it for me…  From the T.V. show Glee doing their take on it to it being played at every sports event known to man, to the various instrumental covers from the harmonica to the kazoo…it makes my head want to explode…  I vote for a moratorium on the song for a few years…give it a rest so that we can still appreciate it.  I still have trouble listening to Free Bird and Stairway To Heaven from all the Jr. High and High School dances I endured in my youth.  What person thinks that Free Bird with it’s last 5 minutes of purely guitar solo to be an acceptable choice at a dance anyway?... I don’t know…maybe someone can figure that one out…

On to other things…

I have been remiss in not mentioning the passing of guitar great Gary Moore.  From his work with Thin Lizzy, his forays into hard rock, and his blues expertise, he was a true innovator and a true guitar hero.  Mr. Moore you will be missed but your contributions are going to inspire many for a very long time.  Thank You.

Robert William Gary Moore (4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011)  R.I.P.

In Business News… Activision has decided to discontinue creation of it’s “Guitar Hero” game.  The company statement is as follows:

"Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011," Activision said in its financial statement.

Bottom Line…It’s gone the way of Space Invaders and Intellivision… It was fun to play the first few hundred times but people didn’t see the need to continue purchasing the updates every year.  With the cost of licensing all the songs to create the game it’s no surprise that turning a profit has become difficult.  Maybe now people will go out and pick up REAL instruments and learn to play them!… and of course there’s always air guitar…

Things to look out for this year….

New Journey for 2011…the second recording with Arnel Pineda on vocals will be the follow-up to the platinum release “Revelation”…

New project from former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, who is in the studio with Steve Morse on guitar, [Dixie Dregs, Kansas, Steve Morse Band, currently with Deep Purple], Neal Morse, vocals, keys, guitar [Spock’s Beard, Solo] and Dave LaRue on bass [Steve Morse Band].  And the producer of this project is the one and only Peter Collins [Rush, Queensryche, October Project, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi]… Stay tuned!

And…courtesy of Classicrock.com…Rush are planning to totally remix their 2002 album Vapor Trails.

Talking exclusively to Classic Rock, guitarist Alex Lifeson revealed: “We were never happy with the production. Perhaps we should have taken more time over the record. But now we’ve got the chance to improve things. There will be no re-recording, just a remix”.

Two of the tracks were remixed for their compilation Retrospective III.  Rush is currently working on their latest album “Clockwork Angels” for a 2011 release, and will tour thereafter…

In closing, I must say that I LOVE the Chrysler ad with Eminem.  Very classy…

Thanks for coming along for the ride…see you soon…

J.