Monthly Archives: May 2013

Music

Vito Bratta – He made it just to walk away

He was born in 1961.  He formed White Lion in 1983, with Mike Tramp.  He was 22 years old at the time.

Before White Lion he was in Dreamer from 1980 to 1983, a band that featured future Tyketto drummer Michael Clayton.  White Lion came to be in the following way as told by Mike Tramp in Rockeyez;

As I mentioned above, MABEL had turned into STUDS and played hard rock, I had become the leader and we went to the States and became LION. In November ’82, we played L’amour’s with DREAMER, which was Vito’s band. People started talking that he and I should play together. When Lion ended its reign in December and went back to Denmark. I returned to NYC in March and looked up Vito. The rest is history.

White Lion picked up a deal, got dropped and then released the Fight To Survive album independently in 1985.  It wasn’t until 1987 that people noticed White Lion and the talents of Vito.   The Pride album was massive.  The tour that followed, opening up for AC/DC was even bigger.

It was seven years playing in bands, before the world took notice of Vito’s abilities.

If any young guitarist or songwriter is looking to have a career in the music business, you need to be ready to put in the time.  Don’t be fooled by The Voice, Idol and XFactor.  Those shows are all about ratings and the now.  The term artist, career and longevity do not exist in these shows.  The ones that end up making it, don’t even win.

Big Game followed in 1989 and Mane Attraction in 1991.

The label gave them a big advance for Mane Attraction.  White Lion delivered with a killer album.

The label didn’t know how to market it.

An audience still existed for White Lion music.  The Hard Rock or Glam Rock movement, became a niche market, replacing the position that Grunge held before it became the darling of the mainstream.

So what does the label do, market it against grunge.  I never stopped listening to hard rock music in the nineties.  To be honest, i hated the grunge movement, however it benefited me the most.

I know it’s a contradiction, how can something that i hate, benefit me?  Easy. Instead of spending money on new music, I started hunting out all the second hand record shops and started picking up vinyl from the seventies and eighties rock music.  I had a lot of money to spend, and spend it i did.  I was a Guitar World, Guitar School, Guitar for the Practicing Musician (which then became Guitar and then Guitar One) subscriber, so if i came across transcriptions in those magazines from the newer bands that was cool to play i would check it out.  Those magazines became my filter.

Months after the Mane Attraction release, Vito and Mike just called it quits.  After sticking it out for so long, it was over.  The band was already split, with James Lomenzo and Greg D’Angelo leaving to be replaced by Tommy Caradonna and Jim Degrasso.

Mike Tramp continued with Freak of Nature.  Vito on the other hand, went home.  He had enough.  He spent his whole life to become a master virtuoso on the guitar.

He spent his whole life perfecting his art.  It brought him fame.  When it came, he just walked away from it.  He was 30 years old.

Mike Tramp described the ending like this;

We never got a chance to say goodbye to the fans. We never got a chance to make a statement to the press. White Lion was playing the last show and Vito and I just went to the airport — I went to California and he went to New York — and we just said… We didn’t even look at each other. And it wasn’t that we were fighting. And the interesting thing… [People say] ‘Well, why shouldn’t you carry on?’ [But we got] no call from the record company, no call from the managers, no call from the merchandising company… All these people were making millions of dollars off us. It’s like we just disappeared. There was never any closing. So it’s taken me many years to really understand what the fuck happened here.”

The below was from another interview that Mike Tramp gave on why White Lion ended on the famous interview website.

Why couldn’t you have done in “White Lion” what you’re now doing as a solo artist? And, why did “White Lion” have to break-up?
A – It’s almost like I’m going to have to answer the last question first. Even though there’s two people in there writing the songs, the 80’s were a phenomenal decade. Unfortunately, most people wanted to be rock stars, instead of trying to build a longevity. That includes the manager and the record co. Nobody, after the first record succeeded, really was concerned about what the band was doing and where the band was heading. The concern was really how quickly can we get the next record out and how can we get on the next tour. As things like that happen, you start to get the negative things. The second record does not have the same numbers, as the first. We don’t have the same hit on the second one. By the time you get to the third album, the band is not the same band that started out in the basement of Brooklyn, New York. We’ve been influenced by money. We live in four different places. I live in California. Vito lives in Staten Island. And the other guys are scattered somewhere else. When we try to catch up on the third and final record, it becomes a rescue mission, instead of a true and honest record from a band. So much money is put into it, it’s bound to fail. The record co. I think has basically let go of the band, because they have signed the next two follow-up bands, to White Lion. And, at that time, there’s no hope. Mike Tramp would not be able to make the decision and write the lyrics in 1988 when everything was 200 girls backstage between every show, big tour buses and big arenas. You write those lyrics when you sit in your little house, and the phone doesn’t ring and no friends are coming around. You get into what I call my own little war room, where you create, and bring out your true feelings.

Money is where the innocence ends and the arguments start.

I believe Vito wanted to come back with a new band.  Vito said in the Eddie Trunk interview that it was hard for him to write songs for another band that wasn’t White Lion.

Other interviews I had heard, showed Vito being not too happy about the music business and how they (the people around them) where exploiting White Lion to make millions, while the band would make less than what their accountants made.

Any chance of coming back took a back seat, as he became a carer for his parents.  This time Vito, couldn’t just leave his home and tour, without knowing what he would be paid.  With age, comes a different mindset.  Priorities are different.

 

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Music

Motley Crue

I was just on their website, and I could purchase 5 tickets in brilliant position for their next show on their Canadian tour.  Now I like Motley Crue.  If it wasn’t for their look and coolness in the Eighties, I probably wouldn’t be into music as much.  Their stiff middle finger attitude was something I could relate with.

However, if you want people to give money to watch you perform, year after year, you need to release new material.  The Canadian tour is billed as their biggest tour of Canada in years, however the shows are far from selling out.

In the last 13 years, the biggest release they ever did was The Dirt and it wasn’t even music.  It was a book.  That book, gave Motley Crue a big career boost.  So when they released the Greatest Hits double album, with three new tracks, the tour was guaranteed to be a success.  And it was.

Actually the biggest press that the Crue ever got was the two home sex movies, featuring Tommy Lee and Vince Neil.

I saw Motley Crue at the Acer Arena in December 2005, my wife was pregnant with our second child at the time.  It was on the Carnival of Sins tour.  I can say that the band was on fire that night.

They then released the Saints of Los Angeles which is the best album they have released with the Vince line up, since Dr Feelgood.  They toured again and again on that album, which led them to a Las Vegas residency.  This is where the song Sex was written and recorded.

However since Saints of Los Angeles, the Crue have released just that one song, Sex.  They have toured over and over before and after Sex.

I think it’s time to bring out some more music.

I understand that Nikki Sixx has Sixx A.M and what an excellent outlet that has become for him.  I have both their albums and they are excellent, hardly any filler.  The concept themes also help.

I watched the Crue at the Allphones Arena a month ago.  I took my kids to it, so that they can see a rock n roll show on a grand scale.  If it wasn’t for my kids I wouldn’t be going.  Why?  I have seen them already, and if no new material is out, I don’t want to see the same old songs again and again and again.

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A to Z of Making It, Music

Angus Young – Guitar World – March 1986 – Part 2

ANGUS YOUNG – RAW ENERGY IS ALL YOU NEED
Guitar World March 1986
By Joe Lalaina

(All parts in Italics and Quotes are from the March 1986 issue of Guitar World)

If there’s one thing Angus really hates, it’s when people call AC/DC a heavy metal band.

“It’s a cheap tag”, he says, “and its been stamped on us mainly from a media point of view. It’s an insult to be slapped in with hundreds of other bands. We look at it this way, we’re a rock and roll band. We don’t mind being called that—at least you’ve got a bit of individuality. Calling AC/DC heavy metal is like saying The Police is a reggae band, even though they may have a bit of that style. We’re just as individual I mean, we don’t sound like Scorpions. Although we don t consider ourselves heavy metal, I’m sure a lot of kids will jump out and say ‘Yeah’, AC/DC is heavy metal. They’re so heavy they can sink through
the floor. But that comes from youth more than anything—the kids want to be a part of something. The kids who attend AC/DC concerts are, for the most part, teenage males—
fans who would rather get drunk and rowdy than just rock out and enjoy the show.”

AC/DC is still found in the heavy metal section of music shops.  Even Bon Jovi was classed as heavy metal back in the day.  Anything that had long hair and distorted guitars, the media classed it as heavy metal.  However, Angus has used the metal tag to market himself as a devil among other things.  So even though he hates the tag, he has no issue exploiting it.

“We’re not a pop band”, explains Angus, “so there’s usually more guys than girls who come to our shows. Girls are into the pretty side of things, like the Durans Durans of the world. We don’t go onstage with fancy haircuts and flashy clothes? We just go onstage and rock and roll.”

I saw AC/DC on the Ballbreaker tour at the Sydney Entertainment Center on November 13, 1996.  More than 10 years after this interview took place.  AC/DC had a third wind in their sails at that time, courtesy of the mega successful The Razors Edge album released in 1991.  The crowd had males, females and mum’s/dad’s with their children.  

The point I am trying to make, is that even though AC/DC went on stage with simple clothes, their stage show was anything but simple.  On the Ballbreaker AC/DC had the wrecking ball, the canons, the Rosie blow up doll and enough pyro to cater for a New Years Eve celebration.

Born in Scotland, in 1959. Angus and his family emigrated to Australia in 64.

“There was a lot of unemployment in Scotland at the time.” remembers Angus, the youngest of seven brothers, “so my father took everyone to Sydney [the capital of Australia] in search of work. He managed to find a job as a laborer.”

Yes, Sydney, the capital of Australia.  It looks Joe Lalaina failed geography. 

Although Angus had been messing around on a banjo in Scotland since he was five years old, it wasn’t until his early teens that he began playing guitar. ‘A kid down the road had an electric guitar,’ he explains, and I just picked up the thing and was able to play it. I don’t know why and I don’t know how.

Angus is talking himself up here.  As a guitarist, you don’t just pick up the guitar and play it.  You fiddle around, you make mistakes, you play around with the tuning and so on.  At the time I was reading this, I thought Angus was a god.  All the guitarists in the magazines started to be portrayed as such in the Eighties.

Does Angus think he would be a better player nowadays had he taken lessons when he was younger?

“Nah”, he says, “A lot of guitarists tend to throw their technique on you, which is a lot of crap, really. I’ve always thought that if you can clap your hands and stamp your feet in time anyone can play guitar. I don’t think one needs to take lessons to learn how to play the thing. You should give someone a chance to develop their own technique. If someone tells you how to play something it could easily mess up your talent and corrupt you for life. Everything you play should be done how you feel like doing it—very naturally. Playing guitar is like doing anything else—you’ve got to be able to think for yourself.”

Angus left school when he was fifteen.

That doesn’t happen today.  No one drops out of school at fifteen to be in a band with people who aren’t good-looking.  People get into music these days for all the wrong reasons.    Then they scream piracy when it all goes to hell.  The ones that get into music for the love of it, end up making it.  

MTV also made it that you needed to be beautiful to be famous.  Everything else started to come first and music was a distant second.

“Malcolm was putting together a band at the time.” recalls Angus and I joined. After a few rehearsals, I was really impressed. Malcolm said to me, “We are just gonna have a good time and play what we want to play—very tough rock and roll, no pretty stuff.”

“At first it was hard to find guys that thought like us. One guy we auditioned was a singer, but we told him. We don’t want a singer, we want a screamer. You are not the guy for us. But after a while we found some people and put together a good band.

Two things happened; AC/DC was formed, and Angus’ short-pants routine came into existence. It was my sister who suggested I play in the band with my school shorts on, he explains.

“After school I would go straight to rehearsals, I didn’t have time to go home and change. I wanted to get some solid playing in. One day my sister told me, “Hey it would be a great idea if you played in the band with your school outfit on—no one has ever done it before. It was such a great idea, I decided to do it. I was always one for something a bit original and different.

AC/DC didn’t want perfection, they wanted a certain style.  It was that style that formed a connection with listeners.  Call it pub rock, rock n roll, hard rock or heavy metal.  They didn’t form to be famous.  They formed to write rough music.  That is why they made it.  They looked genuine.  That is why they made it.  They just wanted to play rough music.  That is why they made it.  

Part 3 to come

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Music

Jeff Hanneman – South Of Heaven RIP

I saw Slayer at the Horden Pavilion in Sydney on April 17, 2007, with Mortal Sin and Mastodon opening. It was the classic album, with Dave Lombardo on drums, Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman on guitars and Tom Araya on bass and vocals.

On that night, Dave Lombardo was the star. He was tight and never missed a beat. Jeff Hanneman, just stood to Tom’s right, in the shadow, blond hair waving around, dressed in his German military gear.

At 49, Jeff is no longer with us. All from a spider bite. First it was the flesh eating disease and then the final act, he suffered liver failure during his recovery.

As a lead guitarist I didn’t rate him, but as a riff master, he was up there with James Hetfield. My favourite album was Seasons In The Abyss. The majority of the music on that album was written by Jeff Hanneman alone. The three signature songs from that album, War Ensemble, Dead Skin Mask and Seasons In The Abyss are all written by Jeff. Look at the set list that Slayer played at the 2007 gig. Jeff’s influence on thrash was large. He stayed true to the medium when Megadeth, Metallica and Anthrax tried to go more mainstream.

Disciple – from the 2001 God Hates Us All album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman.

War Ensemble – from the 1990 Season In The Abyss album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman.

Jihad – from the 2006 Christ Illusion album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman.

Die By The Sword – from the 1983 Show No Mercy album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman.

Show No Mercy – from the 1983 Show No Mercy album. Music was by Kerry King.

Captor of Sin – from the 1984 Haunting the Chapel album. Music by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King.

Cult – from the 2006 Christ Illusion album. Music was by Kerry King.

Bloodline – from the 2001 God Hates Us All album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King.

Mandatory Suicide – from the 1988 South Of Heaven album. Music by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King.

Seasons In The Abyss – from the 1990 Season In The Abyss album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman.

Supremist – from the 2006 Christ Illusion album. Music was by Kerry King.

Eyes of The Insane – from the 2006 Christ Illusion album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman.

Post Mortem – from the 1986 Reign In Blood album. Music by Jeff Hanneman.

Silent Scream – from the 1988 South Of Heaven album. Music by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King.

Dead Skin Mask – from the 1990 Season In The Abyss album. Music was by Jeff Hanneman.

Raining Blood – from the 1986 Reign In Blood album. Music by Jeff Hanneman.

South Of Heaven – from the 1988 South Of Heaven album. Music by Jeff Hanneman.

Angel Of Death – from the 1986 Reign In Blood album. Music by Jeff Hanneman.

Rest in peace mate, as the Angel of Death has come to take you to that place South of Heaven.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/slayer-guitarist-dies-of-liver-failure-after-battling-flesheating-disease-20130503-2iwtm.html#ixzz2SCSU2KGn

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Bon Jovi is coming to Australia – December 2013

Bon Jovi fans rejoice, Bon Jovi is coming to Australia, to play all of their classic songs, plus a couple of so/so new ones.

The Because We Can – The Tour will be visiting stadiums all over Australia.

Members of the Backstage JBJ can purchase tickets now. By the way to become it member it costs;

$300 for Premium Membership for 2 years,
$160 for Signature Membership which is for 1 year,
$80 for Standard Membership which is for 1 year,
$60 for Online Membership which is for 1 year.

So if you are a member of Backstage JBJ and have paid astronomically ridiculous prices to be a member, you then get the chance to pay even more astronomical prices for one of the backstage packages before anyone else can.

Anyway members of Backstage JBJ get first dibs when it comes to buying VIP Packages today, May 2nd at 9:00AM AEST (Sydney) and pre-sale tickets without packages beginning Monday, May 13th at 9:00AM AEST (Sydney).

 

Dec 7 – Melbourne, Etihad Stadium – May 20 is the Public Sale
Dec 8 – Melbourne, Etihad Stadium – May 20 is the Public Sale
Dec 11 – Adelaide, AAMI Stadium – May 20 is the Public Sale
Dec 14 – Sydney, ANZ Stadium – May 20 is the Public Sale
Dec 17 – Brisbane, Suncorp Stadium – May 20 is the Public Sale

Sorry Western Australia people, it looks like another show has ignored you.

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Music, Piracy

Bon Jovi – The life cycle of What About Now – From 1 to 76 in six weeks.

The release of What About Now happened with a bang.  Due to record label collusion between Universal (Bon Jovi’s label) and Sony (Justin Timberlake’s and David Bowie’s parent label), the album was released the week before Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 album and because of that it went straight to Number 1, beating off David Bowie.

The second week saw the album slip to Number 7.  The third week saw it drop even more to 34 on the charts.  By the fourth week, it was down to position 50.  On the other hand, the Because We Can tour, was selling out arena’s and stadiums.

Digitally, the album performed even worse.  The iTunes chart had the album debut at 52 on the 12 March 2013, and by the March 15, 2013, it was out of the Top 100 iTunes chart. Three days.  That’s it.

Songs from the album do not even rank in the top 25 of the streaming charts.

The fans have clearly spoken.  The hard-core fans like me purchased the album so that we could have it in our collections.  It’s a collectors thing.  The fans that the band picked up during the Slippery/New Jersey era and the It’s My Life era, prefer to buy tickets to the show.

So where is the album, 6 weeks after its release.  Sitting at position 76.  Bands like Imagine Dragons and Mumford and Sons are still in the top 20 and their albums have been out since mid 2012.  Adele’s 21 (released in January 2011) is still charting and selling more than Bon Jovi’s new album (released in March 2013).

The labels will scream piracy.  However, data clearly shows, that if you release good music, it will sell, and it will be around for a long time.  Release crap music and expect it to be ignored.  Thank god, Bon Jovi delivered some classic albums in the past.

 

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A to Z of Making It, Music

Entitlement

I don’t know how my kids will be when they are adults. One thing I do know is that I don’t want them to believe that they are entitled to things. I don’t want them to believe that just because they are smart, they are entitled to the riches of the hard work of others, or to be
earning $100,000 salaries the minute they leave University.

In the last couple of weeks, I have come across entitled kids/adults
that know everything and anyone older knows nothing. These are the kids that always look sad and depressed just so that they can get a reaction from people, asking what’s wrong? These are the kids that when they go to make it in the real world they see it is not as easy as they thought and that mum and dad actually know what they are talking about. Instead of acknowledging their mistakes, they play the whole guilt trip, asking for money to pay the rent, money for a new car and so forth. These are the kids that lash out at other people, without thinking of the consequences, knowing all too well that their parents will do everything they can to fix the situation.

Look at this clip from a Machine Head fan called Frank playing one of the quickest and hardest songs Machine Head has ever written on the bass guitar, with one hand. That is real and that is the spirit of hope and we, the people got to see it, because of the internet. The same internet that the labels and their lobbyist want to control, so that they can have distribution back to the good old days, where they controlled everything. If anyone is entitled to something, it is this guy. He has worked hard to learn the song with a physical disability. He deserves the fame. He has put in the hard work. He is entitled to be recognized.

In music, people still believe that if they write a song, people will buy it and they will be rich. Great music will find an audience. It all takes time. You need to be around for a long time to see success happen. Don’t be fooled with the so called stars from The Voice, Idol
or XFactor. If you want to be rich quick, go into tech. Invent something and lawyer up. I guarantee that you will be sued by some other entitled kid, because they would have had a similar idea as you, but they couldn’t make it work, and since you made it work, they are entitled to a share of your wealth. Or you will sued by some company who purchases patents for patent infringement.

The nerds of my day are the new rock stars of today. They are the cool people these days. In the seventies music was innovative, questioning authority and the artists that created the songs were heroes. These days it’s technology.

No one is walking around with the newest album of Bon Jovi or Van Halen.
They are walking around with the newest gadget from Apple or Samsung.
Once upon a time, the obtaining of a drivers licence and the purchase of a car was the rite of passage. These days, no one really cares what they drive, as long as they have the latest tech in their arsenal.

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