The Grateful Dead

And I thought I had trouble finding where to begin yesterday talking about ABBA.  It was child’s play compared to having to discuss the Grateful Dead.  This is an extremely complex band, but it is tough because they are also a cultural phenomenon.  My first memories of the Dead were in the late 60s through my older brother who was a big fan.  He ran away from our home on the East Coast in 1967 to be a part of the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.  He undoubtedly heard them play many times in Golden Gate Park in those days.  He would come home to visit and bring his love for the Dead with him.  I was so into music at a young age that it was infectious to me.  It didn’t take long for me to see a picture of them or a film clip and then it struck me.  They had two drummers!  I had never seen a band with two drummers and it fascinated me.

In 1977, the Grateful Dead Movie came out and was showing at a theater nearby.  A bunch of us got high and went to see it at a midnight showing.  It opened with a seven minute cartoon that, in our stoned state, mesmerized us.  In it, a skeleton dressed as Uncle Same rode a motorcycle through all sorts of psychedelic imagery.  The Dead was it… They were cool, but I never became the fanatical follower that many of my friends did.  I never became a total Deadhead. 

When I was in college, my best friend Kerry sublet the basement of the house she rented to Deadheads.  They traveled in their VW bus and followed the band from city to city.  They seldom had their rent money, but they could always afford pot and they had a pair of microphones that were a thousand dollars apiece, just to record the Dead.  They had a library of hundreds of tapes with just cities and dates written on the covers.

The Grateful Dead formed out of the remnants of Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, a Palo Alto band, in 1965.  They were originally called the Warlocks but by the end of 1965, had changed their name to the Grateful Dead.  Their first appearance under that name was at one of Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests in December of that year.  They came out with their first album in 1967 and continued with a steady career until Jerry Garcia’s death forced them to disband in 1995.  In 1969 they played the Woodstock Festival in Bethel, New York.

Tonight my set is dedicated to the Grateful Dead and I will play many of their greatest songs, and maybe a few rarer or unusual gems.  Look forward to seeing you there.

ABBA

What can I say?  I can’t even come close to scratching the surface on all that could be said in a single blog post.  If you were alive anywhere on the planet in the 70s, you remember ABBA.  Some of us associate the name with the exotic or Swedish, others recall the flashy clothing, yet others are brought back to the disco floor.  For a decade Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Usually just referred to as “Frida”) dominated the international charts.  If you note the bold letters, their name was derived from the first initial of each of their first names. Bjorn and Agnetha were a married couple as Benny and Frida would eventually become.

Last week, a bunch of us were at AWT during one of my sets and the subject of ABBA came up.  By popular demand, a date and time slot was chosen and today I will be Djing a show dedicated to ABBA at 2 PM Second Life time.  (Pacific Time, USA)

All four displayed great talent before forming ABBA in 1972 in their native Sweden.  Agnetha had a #1 record in Sweden at age 17 (1967), which I will play during my set today.  Benny was a member of the Hep Stars, known as the Swedish Beatles, at age 18.  Bjorn was a member of the Hootenanny Singers, a Swedish folk group, at the age of 18 too.  Frida had a rather successful solo career for about five years before forming ABBA.

Their breakthrough came when they entered their song, “Waterloo,” into the Eurovision competition in 1973.  It eventually won and Europe had its new sensation.  It didn’t take the rest of the world long to hear about ABBA.  They topped the charts worldwide until their break up in 1983 and sold over 375 million records.  They still sell upwards of 3 million a year and are inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Both couples were divorced prior to ABBA’s break up.  They went on to successful careers both as performers and writers.  In 2000, they are reported to have turned down a 1 billion US dollar deal to do a reunion tour.  It wasn’t until 2004 that all four members were seen together briefly.  There have been a few other occasions where they have come together briefly in public, including the premier of the movie Mama Mia, originally a musical stage production.  Mama Mia has helped keep their music popular today.

The Star Spangled Banner

The story of our (United States) National Anthem is well known, but bears repeating and reflecting upon on this, the 235 anniversary of our independence.  As every school child is taught, it was written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, but what is often overlooked is that this was only the lyrics.

Key was on a mission to secure the release of prisoners held by the British.  During negotiations, Key and his contingency became knowledgeable of portions of the battle plan for the attack on Baltimore. Because of this, they were held by the British on board ship.  This gave them a good view of the battle and Ft. McHenry, where the flashes from the rockets and bombs lit up the night sky and showed that the fort’s flag still flew above.  This was proof to them that it had not fallen into British hands.  In the morning, the flag (shown above) still flew over Ft. McHenry and inspired Key to write the poem that would later become our National Anthem.

Soon after, the poem was put to the music of To Anacreon in Heaven, which was the official song of a London Gentlemen’s club and is often referred to as a drinking song.  Soon it was being played at July 4th celebrations and other national occasions.  However, it didn’t become our National Anthem until 1931, over a hundred years after the poem was written.

Though it had been played at sporting events before, it wasn’t until World War II that it became customary to play it before every baseball game, and soon every sporting event.  Through the years, many famous, and not so famous, performers have recorded renditions of the Star Spangled Banner.  I plan on sharing three of the many recorded versions tonight during my Independence Day set.

The Star Spangled Banner…

Opening the set: Boston (1997)

During the Set: Jimi Hendrix (Recorded live at Woodstock, 1969)

Ending the Set: Kiss (1993)

There are four stanzas or verses to the piece.  There have been variations, and even a fifth unofficial Civil War verse, through the years.  The four official verses I give you below. Normally only the first verse is sung but occasionally on formal occasions the fourth is added.

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
’Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The Late Great Otis Redding

Last week, I did a piece on the 27 Club. That was a collection of tragic stories that have become all too common in Rock ‘n’ Roll history. The story of the “King of Soul,” Otis Redding, fits right in there with the rest of them. He was born in a small town in Georgia in 1941 and soon moved to Macon, Georgia. He grew up singing in the church choir and entering talent shows, winning several. In 1962 he recorded These Arms of Mine, which became a minor regional hit on Volt Records, a subsidiary of Stax Records.

The house band at Stax Records was Booker T. and the MG’s, and they often served as Redding’s backing in the studio. His association with Stax was a fortuitous one. One of the movers and shakers at Stax Records was Steve “The Colonel” Cropper who was the guitarist for Booker T. and the MG’s and went on to further fame as one of the Blues Brothers in the studio, appearing in the movie and touring with them. Cropper began corroborating with Redding and he co-wrote Redding’s greatest hit with him (Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay. It is the Colonel’s haunting acoustic guitar that opens the tune and resonates throughout the 2:38 of the song. The song was written by Redding while on a house boat he was living on, docked at Sausalito, California, on the shore of San Francisco Bay.

A few days after (Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay was recorded, Otis boarded a plane, along with members of his backing band, the Bar-Kays. On December 10, 1967, their Beechcraft 18 crashed into a lake near Madison, Wisconsin. Otis Redding was dead at age 26, one year shy of gaining entrance to the 27 Club I wrote about last week. (Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay was released the following January and became Redding’s only number 1 hit on the charts. In fact, it was the first time in history that a record made number 1 posthumously. Redding and the Colonel won a Grammy for the song. Ironically, in my piece on the 27 Club last week, I talked about the Janis Joplin and her death. She was the second one to get a posthumous number1 with her song, Me and Bobby McGee.

Today’s mini set will include the following…

• Respect - 1965
• Mr. Pitiful - 1964
• Tramp (with Carla Thomas) - 1967
• (Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay - 1968

(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay has always been a special tune for me. It has always instilled in me that glorious emotional feeling you get when you just stand and watch a breath taking sunset. I often picture sunsets when I hear this tune. As the whistling begins that closes the number, the final rays of light fade away from the sunset  Just like the final notes ever recorded by this great sign him off, never to record again.

The Times They Are a-Changin'

I recall hearing a number of years ago, a quote from Bob Dylan.  It must have been in the 1990s and Bob said the following:

"Technology to wipe out truth is now available. Not everybody can afford it but it's available. When the cost comes down, look out!"

To help put it in context; he was referring to technologies like those to manipulate photographs.  Traditionally, if we wanted to prove something in a court of law, producing a photograph would prove an event happened beyond any shadow of a doubt.  “I’ve got the pictures to prove it.”  With programs like Photoshop, we see daily examples of photographs of things like Abe Lincoln walking arm in arm with Marilyn Monroe, and you can’t always tell that they have been faked short of the fact that the two personalities lived 100 years apart.  We also have audio recordings of the Late Nat King Cole singing a duet with his daughter, and what appears to be file news footage of Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) with President Lyndon Johnson.  So I ask you, where does that leave the state of proof when it comes to these media?

In Japan today, there are pop stars that are referred to as “idols.”  They are usually young, attractive and female.  These pop stars appear in the public eye for brief careers measured in months.  During that time they make public appearances, do guest appearances on TV shows, record hits songs, etc.  I would like to introduce you to what is probably Japan’s most popular current idol, Aimi Eguchi (left).  This teen is a member of the all-female pop group, AKB48.  (Membership in that group is rather fluid.)  She is the perfect idol in that she has perfect pitch, has perfect skin, never misses a dance step and is as cute as anyone has ever been. Besides appearing with AKB48, she has appeared solo and is currently featured in a candy commercial.

So, what does this have to do with Bob Dylan’s, “technology to wipe out truth?”  It has now come to light that Aimi is not real.  There isn’t even an actress we can point to who plays her.  If you are old enough, you might recall a TV personality named Max Headroom (below right).  He was a completely computer generated character.  Well, he was voiced by an actor, but the visual image of Max was computer generated.  No one would believe for a minute that Max was real by looking at him, but it was a neat novelty at the time.  It has now come to light that Aimi Eguchi is completely computer generated, like Max Headroom.  Unlike Max, Aimi fooled the public. 

I have included a short video of her at the bottom of this post.  You can see for yourself how real she appears.  We have now taken the “technology to wipe out the truth” one step further.  We now have the technology to create any truth we like.  Like Dylan said, “When the cost comes down, look out!”

The 27 Club

As long as I can remember, people have talked about the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin together as if they were related events.  Let me make one thing clear from the start, these deaths were completely unrelated in circumstance, and merely happened to have occurred within ten months of each other.  Jimi Hendrix died on September 18, 1970 after choking on his own vomit after drugs and drinking.  Sixteen days later, Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970.  One needs to understand that back then, Rock music was the music of the young, performed by young people, for a young audience.  It was inconceivable that we could lose two of our legends at so young an age and, with only sixteen days separating these events, people looked for answers and closure for both at the same time.  The closeness in time forever linked the two, so when another great, Jim Morrison of the Doors, died nine months later under rather mysterious circumstances, it became natural to link his death to the other two.  What was going on here?  Many started to even explore the possibility of a conspiracy?  Could this have been a government plot to squash the counter culture movement?

Another thing bonded these three deaths together.  All three were 27 years old when they died and the group was soon dubbed the “27 Club.”  It didn’t take long to notice that another death on July 3, 1969, exactly two years to the day before Morrison’s, should be included.  On that day, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones drowned in his swimming people.  Now there were 4 members of the 27 Club.

It remained those four, whose first and last deaths were exactly two years apart to the day, until 1994.  In that year, on April 5^th, Kurt Cobain, front man for Nirvana, decided to end his own life with a shotgun. He was 27 years old.  Soon, stories started to circulate that Cobain had been known to have claimed that he would someday be a member of the 27 Club.  It raises an interesting question.  While the first four deaths were accidents, Cobain’s death was a suicide.  Did we have a case of someone joining the club intentionally?  Could his suicide have been the fulfillment of a childhood wish?

No one will argue that these greats were taken away from us too soon.  There are many that have looked at the 27 club phenomenon and said that there are an inordinately large number of musicians who died at age 27.  While I don’t know enough about statistics, life expectancy, etc. to comment on what is a reasonable number and what is disproportionately large, I will list a few others that died at age 27:

Pete Ham of Badfinger

Ron McKernan of the Grateful Dead

Alan Wilson of Canned Heat

Rudy Lewis of the Drifters

Malcolm Hale of Spanky and Our Gang

Gary Thain of Uriah Heep

Pete de Freitas of Echo & the Bunnymen

Freaky Tah of the Lost Boyz

My friend Lanie, who frequents my shows, has requested in the past songs by bluesman Robert Johnson.  Johnson died in 1938 at the age of 27, supposedly poisoned.  Is this some strange phenomenon or is it just the results of rebellious youths living hard and reckless lives?  My mini-set today will consist of the following…

• Paint it Black – Brian Jones (The Rolling Stones)
• All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
• Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin
• L.A. Woman – Jim Morrison (The Doors)
• Smells Like Teen Spirit – Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)

When you listen to Paint it Black, listen to Brian Jones’s sitar.

As I write this, a song has been going through my head, a 1974 hit by the Righteous Brothers...

“Jimi gave us rainbows…

"Janis took a piece of our hearts…

"Remember Jim that way…

“If there's a rock and roll heaven
Well you know they've got a hell of a band.”

The Status Quo

The Status Quo…  No, this post is not going to be a social or political commentary as one might expect from the title. The Status Quo is a British rock band that has been with us now for well over forty years. Many commentators, especially in the United States, often refer to them as a “one hit wonder,” which is quite incorrect.  They have remained steadily active since 1967, both in the studio and touring. This past May (2011) saw the release of their 29^th studio album, Quid Pro Quo, and they have managed to put a song or album on the charts most years of their long existence.  I don’t see how “one hit wonder” can be used to describe the Status Quo.  The misconception stems from the fact that they had one great commercial success in the States, Pictures of Matchstick Men, which peaked at #12 in the charts in the USA in 1968.  There was a second song, Ice in the Sun, which also charted later that same year and peaked at #70. They would never have commercial success in the United States again.

The band was first founded in 1962 as the Spectres in London.  The Spectres had a few singles, but none of them succeeded in charting.  In 1967 they changed their name a few times, first to Traffic, then Traffic Jam (to avoid confusion with Steve Winwood’s band), and finally to the Status Quo.  Quite fittingly, that last name has stuck to this day with just the “The” at the beginning being dropped in the early 70s.

Their first album, Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo (pictured at the top), did well and charted both in the USA and Europe. However, Pictures of Matchstick Men remains their only Top 40 hit in the United States.  Their albums have continually been released in the USA, but they have failed to sell.  In their native UK, Scandinavia and other places, they have remained a consistent Rock ‘n’ Roll powerhouse to this day.

During today’s show, I plan to do a mini set of the Status Quo.  Here are a few of my favorites I plan on sharing:

• Down Down (1975)
• Rock ‘n’ Roll ‘n’ You (2011)
• Mister Mind Detector (1969)
• Gerdundula (1971)
• Pictures of Matchstick Men (1968)