Monthly Archives: March 2013

Music, My Stories

Motley Crue and Kiss at the Allphones Arena, Sydney 9th March 2013 – Part 2 – Kiss’s Set

Getting late
I just can’t wait
Ten o’clock and I know I gotta hit the road
First I drink, then I smoke
Start up the car, and I try to make the midnight show

Get up
Everybody’s gonna move their feet
Get down
Everybody’s gonna leave their seat

Its all about the show.  A lot of bands just write songs and then you have Paul Stanley who wrote songs for the show.   The intro is built for explosions, pyro and fire.  The story behind Detroit Rock City is legend by now and from tragedy you get a song stands the test of time.  37 years later it is still relevant and the Kiss fan that got killed on his way to the concert will never be forgotten.  Credit must be given to Bob Ezrin as well.  Apart from being the producer, he also was a co songwriter on this song, and the task master on Destroyer.  Coming into the Destroyer album of 1976, Bob Ezrin was coming off his recent successes with Alice Cooper and Lou Reed.  Of course Ezrin would go on to greater fame with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. 

It doesn’t matter what you do or say
Just forget the things that you’ve been told
We can’t do it any other way
Everybody’s got to rock and roll, whoo, oh, oh

Shout It Out Loud is one of those songs that just endure.  Rock N Roll was all about doing things that the conservatives wouldn’t do.  The history of rock music is littered with the same themes.  It doesn’t matter what the people in power say, we will try to do it in our own way.  This song was penned by Paul, Gene and Bob.  All the big songs from Destroyer had an Ezrin co-write.  These themes popped up again in I Wanna Rock and You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll from Twisted Sister. 

You know your man is workin’ hard
He’s worth a deuce

As described by Gene Simmons Deuce was a popular street term in the early 1970s meaning fellatio and full sex afterwards. This song is penned by Gene Simmons only.  It has also endured through the 40 odd years.  Will a song be written like Deuce these days?  Probably not.  Everyone wants to be liked these days and they do stuff that is politically correct.  Music is never about toeing the line.  There are artists out there that do it their own way but these are outliers.  They could rise amongst all the others or they could be forgotten or they could change and be part of the masses. 

She can move you and improve you
With her love and her devotion
And she’ll thrill you and she’ll chill you
But you’re headed for commotion

And you’ll need her so you’ll feed her
With your endless dedication
And the quicker you get sicker
She’ll remove your medication

Get the firehouse
‘Cause she sets my soul afire
Get the firehouse
And the flames keep gettin’ higher

The usual concert staple where Gene Simmons ‘spits’ fire and sings about the slaves men have become to women, relationships and sex.  It’s so true, we are so addicted to being loved or to having a sexual relationship, we will change and bend who we and then we get burned.  You can even see we think a lot with our penises.  Another Kiss classic penned by Paul Stanley, who to me is an underrated songwriter when he goes it alone. 

I rode the highway to heartache
I took a trip on the ship of fools, woah yeah!
And I paid the price to have my way
‘Cause money makes the rules, yeah!

Hell or Hallelujah is probably the best song Kiss has written since the Revenge album.  Psycho Circus is a close second.   It’s good to see Paul Stanley going alone again with the writing, instead of a list of outside writers, like he has done for a long time.  Life is about paying your dues, it’s about accumulating experiences.  What price are we prepared to pay to have it our own way?

How true is the last lyric line?  Money makes the rules.  There is a story at the Wall Street Journal stating that “nine executives at private-equity firms together will take home more than $1 billion in dividends and compensation from last year”.  Money buys rules.  How many of the architects of the GFC got punished.  Instead they got bailouts, generous severance payments and are doing College tours of the US.  On the other side of the coin, you had people lose their houses, their families, their lives and their sanity.     

So if you please get on your knees
There are no bills, there are no fees
Baby, I know what your problem is
The first step of the cure is a kiss

So call me (Dr. Love)
They call me Dr. Love (calling Dr. Love)

Calling Dr. Love is rock n roll all the way through. With its Cold Ethyl borrowed riff and the usual subject matter about sex, this Gene Simmons penned tune follows all the rhyming clichés. This was on the Eddie Kramer produced Rock N Roll Over.  That album didn’t stand a chance as a follow up to Destroyer. 

I was born to the human race
Livin’ life feelin’ out of place
People said I was wasting my time
Looking to find my kind

Outta This World is a song that sounds forced and fake.  This Tommy Thayer penned tune is a sad imitation to the real Space Man.  As much as Gene and Paul spin it, there is only one space man and that is Ace Frehley. It is a shame that Ace doesn’t recognise his value to the Kiss Army.  Even the banks are foreclosing on his home.  So you have an ex member of one of the biggest bands in the land, that sell everything that they can think off, and his home is getting foreclosed.  Are Gene and Paul doing creative accounting in this or is Ace just silly with his money.   

Get up!
Now it’s time for me to take my place
The make-up runnin’ down my face
We’re exiled from the human race.

You’re in the psy
You’re in the psycho circus
I say welcome to the show.

Step up!
No one leaves ’til the night is done
The amplifier starts to hum
The carnival has just begun.

Psycho Circus is about the rock experience.  It’s about the rock heads.  It’s about how the establishments treated us as exiles from the human race, before the bankers all wanted a piece of it and made it mainstream.  Then our rock idols also wanted to become bankers.  The rock show was a circus, it was a place to let our hair down and be as one.  This was penned by Paul Stanley and Curtis Cuomo.  Cuomo also co wrote a lot of songs on the Carnival of Souls album that didn’t get any attention due to all the hoopla of the original band reunion.  Psycho Circus was produced by Bruce Fairbairn and in the end he couldn’t save it either.  As much as it was hyped as a reunion Ace was more or less absent again from most of the recordings with Tommy Thayer doing most of the leads.  I didn’t mind Psycho Circus but as with every follow up album to a mega successful one it has a lot to live up too.  The intention of Psycho Circus was never to sell truckloads of albums.  It was all about putting the make up on again and being KISS.     

I love it loud, I wanna hear it loud, right between the eyes
Loud, I wanna hear it loud, I don’t want to compromise

Turn it up, hungry for the medicine
Two fisted to the very end
No more treated like aliens, we’re not gonna take it ‘cos

I Love It Loud, I Wanna Rock, We’re Not Gonna Take It and many other songs shared similar themes.   Kiss need to really credit Vinnie Vincent for their resurrection in the early 80’s.  I Love It Loud was penned by Gene Simmons and Vinnie Vincent.  This song is from Creatures of The Night.  Even though Ace is credited on album sleeves it was Vinnie Vincent that brought the guns and had Kiss firing on all cylinders again.

They try to tell us we don’t belong,
That’s alright, we’re millions strong
This is my music, it makes me proud,
These are my people and this is my crowd

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

Again another song for the rock show, making the people believe that they belong here.  Crazy Nights was co written by Paul Stanley and Adam Mitchell who he used on the Creatures of the Night album as well.  Live this song didn’t go down to good.  They key they where doing the song in was all wrong, Paul even had a capo on his guitar (which isn’t very ROCK N ROLL) and everything was just out of key.  You can tell that the band was put off. 

Better watch out ’cause I’m a war machine

That is how the rockers and metal heads felt.  Indestructible war machines.  It was an elite club once, and when the bankers and others wanted a piece of it, we didn’t like it.  Our heroes took the bankers in and they started to treat the real fans like cattle.  There is no other way to describe it.  Just look back to our record collection of the mid 80’s onwards and what you have is an album with 2 to 4 good songs and the rest is pure filler.  Of course there where always albums that rose above this, like Slippery When Wet, New Jersey, Dr Feelgood, Hysteria, Appetite for Destruction, Master of Puppets and many others.  Thank god the internet came and levelled the playing field once again.  War Machine is one of the most heaviest songs in the Kiss arsenal, up there with Unholy, yet it was co-written by Gene Simmons, Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance.  The heaviest song Kiss has was written by a pop duo. 

You pull the trigger of my
Love gun, (love gun), love gun

Another Paul Stanley classic, penned on his own.  It’s part of pop culture now.  You pull the trigger of my love gun.  Growing up in the 80’s I cant recall how many times I used this line on the opposite sex, only to get laughs instead of the actual deed. 

You show us everything you’ve got
You keep on dancing and the room gets hot
You drive us wild, we’ll drive you crazy

You keep on shouting, you keep on shouting
I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

Rock and Roll All Nite was co-written by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.  These two guys need to do more co-writing together. This is what we wanted to do.  No one wanted to work nine to five jobs.  We all wanted to be musicians.  Kiss wrote the anthem for it.  To me the Rock n Roll all night isn’t about rocking per se, it is about getting down and having dirty sex. 

Lick It Up – kneel at the altar of Vinnie Vincent.  Gene likes to rewrite history that Vinnie Vincent’s contribution to KISS was as a salary paid employee, however the music doesn’t lie.  The songs that have Vincent’s involvement are a step above the other songs Kiss released in the 80’s and the 90’s.  Paul Stanley and Vinnie Vincent wrote this song.  The good thing about the Lick It Up album is that it was all written within the band.  That is why it works.   Lick It Up was their big album in the 80’s.  The best songs on Creatures of the Night were also co – written by Vincent and the best songs on Revenge where also co- written by Vincent.  Of course Revenge was their big album of the 90’s. 

Don’t wanna wait ’til you know me better
Let’s just be glad for the time together
Life’s such a treat and it’s time you taste it
There ain’t a reason on earth to waste it

We all know what Paul is saying in the lyrics to the women in the world.  Make sure that no mess is left ladies.  This song killed it when it got started. 

Black Diamond is another Paul Stanley penned tune.  In the concert Eric Singer sang the song, and I must say I was impressed with his vocal abilities. 

Out on the streets for a living
Picture’s only begun
Your day is sorrow and madness
Got you under their thumb

I must say Eric Singer played the part of Catman perfectly.  If Peter Criss was there or not, I don’t think it matters, however for some reason, Tommy Thayer pretending to be the Spaceman, matters.  I am still trying to work this one out.

And the show comes to an end.  I looked over at my boys and they had Joker style grins from ear to ear.  They were tired at midnight, but pumped.  For an eight and seven year old, they are just starting out.  To me, it was great to experience the concert with them.  Kiss and Motley have the biggest arena shows and it was a perfect first concert for my boys.  Kiss where far superior on the night, more professional and tighter.

To me, one of the best concerts i went to was a Black Crowes gig at the Wollongong Entertainment Center where about 1000 tickets where sold in a venue that holds about 10,000.  The band went on and they played and they jammed, extending their songs and just having fun.  They played all of their hits, but they didn’t play them the same as the album.  The band had fun doing their extended jams and the audience had fun along with them.  This is an important fact that seems to be missing from concerts these days.  Kiss might as well have lip synced as they didn’t really do anything different with the material.

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Music

Motley Crue and Kiss at the Allphones Arena, Sydney 9th March 2013 – Part 1 – Motley Crue’s Set

Motley Crue and Kiss at the Allphones Arena, Sydney 9th March 2013 – Part 1 – Motley Crue’s Set

Tonight, there’s gonna be a fight
So if you need a place to go
Got two room slum, a mattress and a gun
And the cops don’t never show

The mighty Crue kicked off their set with the excellent Saints of Los Angeles.  Artists these days are not prepared to live the life their heroes lived.  We are all comfy in our middle class homes.  Not the Crue. Anyone who has read The Dirt knows that the Crue’s lifestyle determined their musical style.

I took two of my boys to the concert.  Their first ever RNR concert.  The sound for the Crue was muddled and the drums where very difficult to be heard (whereas Kiss had a far superior mix).  Vince as usual was short of breath and off key.  Maybe the five kidney stones that knocked him out on the next night was the cause.  One thing I can say is that the live show is spectacular, with the lights, the pyro, the backup singers/dancers and Tommy Lee’s rollercoaster. 

So come right in ’cause everybody sins
Welcome to the scene of the crime
You want it? Believe it? We got it if you need it
The devil is a friend of mine

The party line was the scene of the crime.  They lived it, they felt it, they sang it and they made every adolescent kid in the eighties want to do it.    

We are, we are the saints, we signed our life away
Doesn’t matter what you think, we’re gonna do it anyway
We are, we are the saints, one day you will confess
And pray to the saints of Los Angeles

Yes, every band that dreams of fame and fortune, sign their lives away to the Record Label.  From Motley’s perspective, they were four headstrong individuals that wanted to drink and fuck the world.  , It didn’t matter to them what the label said or their manager or agent said they are going to do things their own way.  Not a lot of artists trying to make it these days have that attitude.  It is the ones that do not sell out that end up having a lasting and profitable career.    

Red line tripping on a land mine, sipping at the Troubadour
Girls passed out naked in the back lounge, everybody’s gonna score
She’s all jacked up, she’s down on her luck
You want it, you need it, the devils gonna feed it

The decadence.  Getting tanked at the Troubadour.  I have never been to LA, but listening to this song, made me feel like I have been there and experienced what the Crue did.  The power of music.  It is forever and it touches us all in different ways.  The reference to the devil once again in a song with Saint in the song title.  The Yin and the Yang.  Sharing the groupies with each other and whoever else was in the room.  The debauchery. 

Kneel down ye sinners, to streetwise religion
Greed’s been crowned the new king
Hollywood dream teens, yesterday’s trash queens
Save the blessings for the final ring, Amen

I can’t believe that Nikki Sixx wrote those lyrics when he was shooting up twenty four seven back in 86.  Wild Side is the street man’s bible.  In 1987, Greed had been crowned the new king.  The world was changing.  Technology was starting to get traction and the bankers started to get more power.  Everyone and everything was thrown away as soon as they or it stopped making money for the Corporations. 

I carry my crucifix under my death list
Forward my mail to me in hell
Liars and the martyrs lost faith in the Father
Long lost is the wishing well

Who can we believe in these days?  It seems that evil deeds and good deeds go hand in hand and are committed by the same person.  We lose more and more of our innocence as we get older.  We make choices that are heavily influenced by money. 

Shout shout shout
Shout shout shout
Shout at the devil

Could Shout At The Devil be the best Christian song ever.  Even Stryper would be proud.  Nevertheless, the Crue started the show with three winners.  Ah yes, I still remember the criticism that the Crue took in the 80’s for this album because of the pentagram on the cover.  But as Nikki Sixx described in the Dirt, “It just looks cool. It’s meaningless symbols and s–t. I’m just doing it to piss people off.”  A lot of the artists these days, don’t do this.  They all want to be loved.  It upsets them when they see hate or criticism thrown their way. 

She’s got an alligator bag
Top hat to match
Dressed in black on black
She’s got a Philipino girlie
She claims is her friend
I tell you boys, you just gotta laugh
Now I used to call her Cindy
She changed her name to “Sin”
I guess that’s the name of her game
I really used to love her
Then, the kitty she discovered
It’s got to be a sexual thing

The perfect love song, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, only for girl to leave boy for another girl.  Only the Crue could have pulled a song off like this and with Nikki’s witty street gutter lyrics, it comes off as a treat.  And they gave a new meaning to what SOS stands for.  Same Ol’ Situation

Everybody wants some, what the hell
Everybody needs some, everybody yell
Ohh (Ohh) , No (No)
Don’t need no lovin, no respect
Cos it’s all about the sex (SEX!)
Cos it’s all about the
Ohh (Ohh) Yeah (Yeah)
What gets me off is a little neglect
Cos it’s all about the sex (SEX!)
It’s all about the

Finally a Crue song about what they like doing best.  Sex.  Two of their stars even stared in their own movies.  Could this be the reason why the Crue returned in 2004 bigger and better?  I think those two sex tapes combined with The Dirt re-launched the Crue and made them relevant again.   They where all over the internet. 

Home Sweet Home didn’t go down to well.  As Tommy Lee was playing the piano, either Vince’s mike got cut or he forgot when to come in.  To me it sounded like he forgot when to come in and this put the band off.  Home Sweet Home was the Turn The Page of 85, and by 86 – Wanted Dead Or Alive by Jovi would have replaced it.

That’s alright, that’s okay
We were walkin’ through some youth
Smilin’ through some pain
That’s alright, that’s okay
Let’s turn the page

Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) was the first song on Dr Feelgood that I repeated constantly.  I loved the title and the way the song starts off as a Rob Stewart Maggie May, before kicking in to a Boston – Don’t Look Back / T Rex style groove.  It was one of those songs that put growing up out there.  It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be happy.  It’s okay to love and it’s okay to leave.  Just turn the page and move on. 

The Drum solo and guitar solo parts are the weakest part of the shows.  It would have been way cooler if Tommy Lee actually drummed to Primal Scream while doing the drum coaster.  And it would have been way cooler if Mick Mars did an extended solo break on the Home Sweet Home solo with the band and all as his back up, sort of like how John Petrucci does in Hollow Years.

Broke dick dog
My head slung low
Tail knocked in the dirt
Time and time of being told
Trash is all I’m worth
When I was just a young boy
Had to take a little grief
Now that I’m much older
Don’t put your shit on me

Primal Scream was a 90’s version of We’re Not Gonna Take It.  The kid from 1985 is now six years older.  And I didn’t take shit.  I knocked a kid out because he stepped on my school bag.  It was an accident that he stepped on my bag, but man I was an angry kid.  I was angry at the system.  My home life was good, but teachers just didn’t understand me. 

Plug me in
I’m alive tonight
Out on the streets again
Turn me on
I’m too hot to stop
Something you’ll never forget
Take my fist
Break down walls
I’m on top tonight
No, no
You better turn me loose
You better set me free
Cause I’m hot, young, running free
A little bit better than I use to be 

Cause I’m alive
Live Wire

When I first heard Live Wire, I was just a kid.  As I got older, I got stronger.  As I got stronger, I felt invincible.  I believed that I was invincible.  This is before marriage and before kids.  That is when a person’s life becomes complicated in the sense that it is not about them anymore.  Until that day came to me, I was feeling alive and was trying to break down as many walls as I could. 

He’s the one they call Dr. Feelgood
He’s the one that makes ya feel alright
He’s the one they call Dr. Feelgood

Cops on the corner always ignore
Somebody’s getting paid
Jimmy’s got it wired, law’s for hire
Got it made in the shade
Got a little hideaway, does business all day
But at night he’ll always be found
Selling sugar to the sweet
People on the street
Call this Jimmy’s town

The Dr. Feelgood album has gone into history as Motley Crue’s best album and also the album that Metallica wanted to emulate in its sound.  This in turn led to Metallica working with Bob Rock, and the best-selling album of the Sound Scan era.  How cool did Nikki Sixx sum up corruption?  That is why we can never win the war on drugs.  There is too much money going around, and a person on a shitty wage will always be tempted to look the other way.  This is also why the RIAA and MPAA will never win the war on people sharing.  If people want to share, they will share, regardless of the laws and fines around copyright infringement.  If people want to sell drugs and take drugs, they will, regardless of the rules and jail time around it. 

Friday night and I need a fight
My motorcycle and a switchblade knife
Handful of grease in my hair feels right
But what I need to make me tight are

Girls, Girls, Girls
Long legs and burgundy lips
Girls, Girls, Girls
Dancin’ down on Sunset Strip
Girls, Girls, Girls
Red lips, fingertips

Only the Crue could release a song like this.  Again their lifestyles determined their musical styles.  They talk about LA and the Sunset Strip.  It made you want to go there.  Just to see those girls with the long legs and burgundy lips. 

When I get high
I get high on speed
Top fuel funny car’s
A drug for me
My heart, my heart
Kickstart my heart
Always got the cops
Coming after me
Custom built bike doing 103
My heart, my heart
Kickstart my heart

This is the song where Vince sings the words When I, speed and me from the first four lines.  That’s it, that is all he sang.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  Kickstart My Heart = taking things we do in life and doing then to the extreme.  A lot of people link this song to Nikki Sixx’s overdose and resurrection and the title does make you believe that is so.  However the only reference to that part of his life is the lyric Adrenalin running through my veins.  To me this how we should live our lives.  If we are not doing things out of our comfort zone and pushing ourselves we could end up like the billions around the world, toeing the same line of live, work and die.  

Crue set is over, my two boys are like WOW.  And that in itself is worth the $800 i paid for 4 tickets.  This is my third time seeing the Crue.  This show for me was all about experiencing them with my kids.  Hopefully when they come around again a few years time my one year old will be old enough to come.

Next up KISS.

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Music, My Stories

Remembering Mega

Remembering Mega

Mega isn’t his real name, but a nickname given to him for his love of the band Megadeth.

This all begins in the Australian summer of 1985, when I first heard Stay Hungry from Twisted Sister.  It was on a cassette tape and it was my cousin Mega that introduced me to it.  He also had a video tape of rock and metal music clips that he taped from the music programs that used to play on Friday night and Saturday night.

That is how we did it back then.  There was no Spotify or an iTunes store to sample songs.  We religiously used to stay up late, so that we could tape the new video clip from our favourite bands or bands of similar style.  Hell by staying up late, that is how I was introduced to Motley Crue(the Smokin In The Boys Room clip and then Home Sweet Home clip), Ratt (the Round and Round clip), Quiet Riot (Cum on Feel The Noize clip), Vah Halen (the Jump and Panama clips) and many others.  But one band stood tall over all the others for me back then.  And that was Twisted Sister.   We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock where doing the rounds back to back.

We’re Not Gonna Take It, No
We Ain’t Gonna Take It
We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore

Three opening lines that summed up the youth of 1985.  The ones that didn’t want to follow what their fathers did and leave school early to work the factory floor.  This was our war cry.  Mega and I listened to this song over and over again, by watching the video clip over and over again.  We even rented Animal Farm because we saw the psychotic parent from the video clip on the cover. 

We’ve got the right to choose it and there ain’t no way we’ll lose it, this is our life, this is our song
We’ll fight the powers that be, just don’t pick our destiny cause you don’t know us, you don’t belong

Mega’s dad was one of those people that never should have been a father.  He was all about money, money and more money.  Mega came a very distant last.  He always kept on comparing Mega to other kids.  Poor Mega could never measure up to his father’s expectations.  That is why this song was special to him and he made it special to me.  Mega’s life was exactly that of the kids in the video clip; however his life didn’t end up getting back at his father, with the power of music.  He just used the music to get away from it all.

You’re so condescending, your gall is never ending, we don’t want nothin’, not a thing from you
Your life is trite and jaded, boring And confiscated, if that’s your best, your best won’t do

Those words could have come from any adolescent child in the eighties.  Mega’s room was a cultural haven.  The walls where covered in posters from Hard Rock, Glam Rock and Metal bands at that time.  He had a record collection that left me envious.  He cherished his records.  He wouldn’t lend them out to anyone and only he could touch them for fear that they will get scratched.  I remember one day, when Mega and I went to the Utopia Record Store, which at that time was in a little shop at Martin Place train station in Sydney.  Mega had the money so he picked up a few more albums and I just stared at the covers of albums that I wanted to buy.  We return back to Mega’s place and it was chaos.  His parents trashed his room, the records where all over the floor, pulled out of the covers.  The reason, his mum smelled cigarette smoke on his clothes when she was throwing them into the wash and wanted to find where the cigarettes where hidden, so they trashed his record collection.  Seriously, who hides a packet of Winnie Blues inside a record cover? 

I remember him saying to his parents, IF THAT IS YOUR BEST, YOUR BEST WONT DO.   That is how important music was to him, he even quoted the song.    Hell, he even tattooed the TS logo onto his shoulder.

We’re right/yeah, we’re Free/yeah, we’ll Fight/yeah, you’ll See/yeah

We’re Not Gonna Take It summed up how we felt at the establishments, our parents and all the rules of what we should be.  Songs like I Wanna Rock, Smokin In The Boys Room, We Rock, Cum On Feel The Noize and Shake Your Foundations summed up what we wanted to do.  

I WANNA ROCK! (ROCK)

The war cry. 

Turn it down you say
Well all I got to say to you is time and time again I say No
NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

I can’t even mention how many times Mega’s parents would walk in and turn down his stereo and then walk out.  As soon as the door shut, Mega would crank it again. 

Turn the power up
I’ve waited for so long so I could hear my favourite song so let’s go
GO! GO, GO, GO, GO, GO!

When it’s like this I feel the music shootin through me
There’s nothing else that I would rather do

Music when done right is like that.  You lay back with the album, the lyric sheet in front of you and listen to each song and read the lyrics.  It was a therapeutic feeling, without going to therapy.  This is something kids these days will never feel as their lives are always on the go and they are connected to each other 24/7.  Back then, no one was texting you or phoning you, there was no Facebook to kill time on and there was no Computer in the house that you could use.  Music, Books, Magazines and TV was all we had, with the occasional Cinema outing for a new release. 

Cum on feel the noize
Girls rock your boys
We’ll get wild, wild, wild
Wild, wild, wild

That’s all we wanted to do.  Get to the Rock N Roll show, to hear the music, to feel the noise so that we could get wild.   Mega just wanted to be a drummer.  He saved up his social security money to purchase a drum kit and then saved up again to purchase another bass drum so that he could do double kick.  His father frowned at him and they both kept on yelling at him every time he played.   His father wouldn’t let Mega borrow the car, so we used to catch the train with his drum kit and my guitar and amp to the rehearsal room.  That is full blown commitment.

We always talked about our band and the songs we would write.  We never got there.  He more or less gave up drumming due to all the stress pushed on him from his parents.  He failed at school so his father wasn’t pleased, especially since Mega’s sister was all A’s.  He went to Art School as his other talent was drawing, and that led nowhere as Australia post-recession in the early 90’s wasn’t employing young up starts.  And this was the pre Internet era.

By 1997 Mega was diagnosed with schizophrenia due to a chemical imbalance in his brain.  His parent’s won.  His parents finally had control of him.  From all the medication that was prescribed, Mega ballooned into a 140kg slob.  I abandoned Mega after 2006.  It was too painful to see him.  He hadn’t showered for weeks and he looked like Crusty the Clown from The Simpsons.  He never could remember the last time we spoke due to the medication even though it was 24 hours ago over the phone.  It got to a stage when I called and his parents wouldn’t even give him the phone.  I used to send him CD’s of the EP’s I was doing with my band, and his parents wouldn’t give the CD’s to him.

I heard he broke the fridge door because aliens where inside it.  Prior to his diagnosis, I remember I was at his place and he goes to me ‘She is there.”

“Who is there”, I answer back.  Mega’s face got all spooky and weird.

“Her.  She is there next to you, laughing”, he answers back.  I am at this stage thinking WTF.  The hairs on the back of my neck are hard as a rock.  I turn to where he is pointing and as I expected, no one is there.

“WTF, Mega.  What’s this shit?’ I fire back, both worried and angry with him.  What came next freaked me out.  He started laughing hysterically, like those weird horror movies where kids have these evil imaginary friends.  Typing this and recounting the events is just freaking me out.

Mega was such a mega influence on my life and the music I listen too.  He was my first cousin.  Mega’s mum and my mum are sisters, but they are so different.  Maybe because my dad was a muso it was easier for me, but Mega he didn’t get that.  That is why he loved coming down to our place and staying for a week or a month.  He was liberated at my place.  We would go down to the Pub, drink beers, shoot Pool and just crank the Jukebox until the morning hours.  On the other hand his home life was hell.

It wasn’t healthy anymore for me to be around him.  I didn’t want to be dragged in to all of that shit that was going on.  By 2006 I had my second child.  I didn’t want my kids growing up around an uncle that was mentally ill.  Selfish and cruel maybe, but these are the choices we make in life.  You can say I took the easy way out by abandoning him, and a lot of people condemn me for it, but those people haven’t dealt with a person that has a mental illness.  Then others, who have experienced mental illness with loved ones, tell me that they only wish they had the courage to walk away.  Instead they got sucked down with their loved one and are now suffering depression as to why they couldn’t help them.

Mega is still alive.  He will probably even outlive me.  But to me Mega died in 1997.  After that it wasn’t Mega anymore.  The jokes and the laughs went out the window, his fascination with Horror movies became greater and his paranoia was getting the better of him.  I still think he will knock on my door and say, what’s up, have you heard the new ….

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Music

Bon Jovi – What About It’s Over

Just finished listening to Bon Jovi’s new album What About Now (deluxe edition).

Lucky I purchased the deluxe addition as the best song on the album is Every Road Leads Home to You, the Sambora penned track from his equally forgettable solo album, Aftermath of The Lowdown.

The next song worth any note is That’s What the Water Made Me. So this is what happens, when 50 year old rockers try to chase the money from the twenty something’s.  Instead of writing for their hard core audience, they are focusing on a different market.

Bon Jovi doesn’t even know who their audience is anymore.  They have lost complete touch with them.  In a world where one to one connections is the new normal (take a leaf out of Nikki Sixx’s twittering and Facebook offerings), Bon Jovi is entrenched in the old paradigm.  Spend months creating an album for an audience they don’t even know. I am not a hater.

I am a big Bon Jovi fan.  I am displeased with this effort.  Hell, the best song they have written in the last 5 years is This is Love, This Is Life from the Greatest Hits CD.  You would only hear this song if you purchased the deluxe edition that had disc 2 and another two bonus songs on that.  The carbon copied Someday I’ll Be A Saturday Night morphed into The More Things Change is also a stand out.

Yeah I know Jovi sell shows out on a regular basis, but you tell me a fan that goes to the show to hear the new songs and I will call them a liar.  A set list of their most recent show (via setlist.fm) on March 10 shows only 3 songs played from the new album (Because We Can, Amen and That’s What The Water Made Me).  That is two too many.

The only tune that they should be pushing is That’s The Water Made Me.

Cause devils in heaven
There’s angels in hell

You don’t know these days, who is righteous or not.  We live in a world of fakes, a world of avatars.  Where people who think they have 1000 Facebook friends are cool, where people pay $800 for a meet and greet just to say they did.  The lines between good and evil are blurred these days.  

Love is like fingerprints It don’t wash away

No one forgets their first love or their greatest love.  It stays forever with them.  Look at the band Hinder.  They have made a career singing about the one that got away. 

That’s what the water made me That’s who I am and what I’ll be

This is it.  We can’t change how we are made, how we have grown up and what we believe in.  Of course we can adapt to situations and sometimes we can fake a different personality but in the end, we will fall back to how we were made and what we are.  Look at how the 80’s glam bands thought they had to go all Industrial or grunge like to keep an audience, further alienating their fan base, until the said Fuck that and returned to their roots. 

This world, it’s cracked and crazy
Say one of your pretty prayers for me
No roles in the garden? Or Wishing well?

Life is no Garden of Eden.  It never was and it never will be.  We have copyright granted monopolies fighting hard to control the internet.  We have people working 12 hour days just to see all of their moneys go to the mortgage, to the utilities, to basic survival needs.   At night, we might feel better saying a pretty prayer, but that is all it is.  The World is cracked and Crazy. 

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