Monthly Archives: January 2020

Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Get Out Of Here

This one is written by Phil Lynott and Ultravox vocalist, Midge Ure.

I used to be a dreamer
But I realise that it’s not my style at all
In fact it becomes clearer
That a dreamer doesn’t stand a chance at all

Get out of here
Get out of here

We all wanted to leave our towns behind and head for the bright lights in the city. These days, kids don’t want to leave home. They are comfortable and comfort is a problem. But the parents are happy to have them home, even if we complain about them being home.

Because no wants to be lonely and parents are known to break up once the kids move out because they realize they have nothing in common anymore.

And the family plays a big part in decisions.

My grandfather told my father that if he left to go to Australia, he was going to kill the whole family that remained. I know, pretty drastic and my dad said he was scared for his brothers and sisters and his mum. But he left anyway, because Dad said, if he didn’t leave, he would have lived someone else’s life and not his. To him, that felt like death.

So my Dad left, while peers of my Dad, in the same predicament, stayed. Because in European culture, once upon a time, the eldest was meant to take over the household, and my Dad was the eldest. By coming to Australia, he broke centuries of tradition.

And my Dad felt stifled in post war, Communist Europe. He did his military service, got his ticket to leave and he was taking it, even though it was risky and out of his comfort zone and so far away from the only home he has ever known.

And he never returned until 2008, almost 40 years from when he left.

But if you let others influence your decision, then those dreams you have, don’t stand a chance at all. You will never get out of living someone else’s life.

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Music, My Stories

Making Guitars

I made a pencil box and a coffee table back in high school so how cool is it that kids are getting taught how to make guitars these days.

I need to go back to school, the same way Rodney Dangerfield did.

And by building guitars, the kids suddenly become interested in science, technology, engineering and math subjects, others known as STEM.

I tried to make a guitar once, by using the wood of an old wardrobe, sort of like how Brian May did. My Dad said he would help, then he proceeded to take over the project, we argued and when he pulled out a hand saw to start cutting the wood, I was done. We didn’t really have the tools for the job and knowing how my dad cuts wood, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to look appealing at all.

Plus I was an angry one back then, who wasn’t going to take it.

And this whole guitar making is in response to the demand from employers for workers with technical skills.

School to me was always about opening up my mind to possibilities and by making guitars, the kids get to see the possibilities of how those boring maths topics like algebra fit into the real world, because if you don’t know algebra, you cannot put a fret on the guitar and the pick-ups work by electromagnetic induction and they didn’t teach me that in physics classes. Or maybe they did, but I zoned out hard in Physics.

Who knew that by dipping guitar bodies in paint floating on water coats them with a swirling pattern?

And the kids leave with their own guitars.

From school.

God damn, I had to come first in three subjects for my Dad to even part with his money to buy me a guitar. After he purchased it, I came home and I had no amp. I was like, “Dad I need an amp”. He smiled and goes to me, “you never negotiated an amp”.

Argghhh..

It wasn’t until a few years later that I saved enough money from being a concrete labourer that I took the train and purchased a 5150 combo amp. I was so happy I had it. And it was heavy and I had a train trip home which involved walking to the train station, catching the train and then walking home from the train station.

With the heavy amp in my hands.

Rock and fucking roll. I would do it again if given the chance.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Do Anything You Want To

My first Lizzy album was “Thunder and Lightning” because it had Sykes on it, and it was purchased a few years after the 87 Whitesnake album blew up all over the world. So “Thunder and Lightning” got me into Lizzy, because of Skyes and suddenly I started picking up their older records on vinyl when I came across them.

A “Black Rose: A Rock Legend” was album number 9 for the Lizzy. I didn’t end up hearing this until well into the 90’s and the only reason why I picked it up at a record fair was because Gary Moore stayed in the band long enough to record something, before he walked out on em again, like how he did in 74 and 77.

The drum and bass intro is enough to get me going and when the harmony guitars kick in, I was sold. It’s written by Phil Lynott and man, can he write a good lyric.

There are people that will investigate you
They’ll insinuate, intimidate and complicate you

Do you ever feel like you don’t fit in and that everybody else is too busy betraying you so they can get ahead?

Or they are passing judgement on you, telling you to do this, change this, if you don’t do this you will lose your job or if you don’t pay on time, you will lose your place.

My dad said to me once that people will disappoint you especially family. And now that you know that, don’t get angry when they do and you can still be friends.

You can do anything you want to do
It’s not wrong what I’m saying, it’s true

It’s the same war cry as the “We’re Not Gonna Take It” war cry from the mid 80’s. We needed to hear this back then. Today, these kinds of messages has become a billion dollar book industry, like “The Talent Code”, “Growth Mindset”, “Grit”, “Outliers”, “Peak”, “Bounce” and on and on it goes.

All of these scholars are sending the same message, if you put enough dedicated time into practice which is at the outer limits of your ability, you will learn a skill and get better. Nobody is born with a gift. That gift or natural ability people talk about is crafted and mastered through years of dedicated practice. So as Lynott was saying all along, you can do anything you want to.

People that despise you
Will analyse then criticise you
They’ll scandalise and tell lies until they realise you
Are somebody they should’ve apologised to
Don’t let these people compromise you

I like to hang with people, talk about things we like and exchange ideas. And sometimes I listen to people who don’t have a clue about anything and they just won’t shut up. And then there are people who know everything and they just won’t shut up. And in amongst these groups are people who want to break you, spread lies about you, criticise you or shake you down.

And if you want to be famous, expect the haters. You cannot be liked by everyone. It’s impossible. If you don’t want the haters, then recalibrate your expectations.

Hey you
You’re not that puppet on a string
You can do everything
It’s true

But a lot of people don’t believe they can do everything because they get caught up in a vicious cycle of borrowing to live and becoming puppets on a string to the various corporations they own money to.

Culture and society also fosters a fixed mindset and after so many years of being conditioned to follow, it’s hard to believe that you have the tools and abilities to lead.

I am sure people have heard things like; “You can’t play <insert the sport here like football> because no one played <insert the sport here> in the family. We are doctors, we are educated and that’s what you will be”.

Or “Why <insert arts field here like music>, you need to study, to get a job which pays the bills.”

It takes a few generations to break these kinds of mindsets. It took the military until the 1990’s to stop the hazing rituals of new recruits because they just didn’t work in creating brilliant recruits.

Elvis is dead
The king of rock and roll is dead

It’s fitting that the song ends with these words as Elvis’s death was still fresh in 1979, because in the end Elvis did what he wanted.

He sang black man music when he was told not to sing it. He danced and moved in a provocative way when he was told not to. He went into making movies when he was told to stick with music. He stopped making movies and went back to music when he was told to stick with movies. He did a Vegas residency when he was told to go on tour around the country. The king of rock and roll did what he wanted to do. And so can you.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Value

When you create something, what value do you attach to that creation?

I like wine and the experience with wine is like music, totally subjective and personal. I even like drinking wine with music. A bitter shiraz for the more heavier and thrashier Metal, a smooth Cabernet Merlot blend for hard rock music, a spicy Cabernet Sauvignon for heavier and progressive rock and a Merlot for my favorite guitar solos.

A winemaker makes a wine and believes it’s worth a $100 a bottle. It doesn’t mean it’s really worth that much to the public, but to the winemaker who put their blood, sweat and tears in making it, it is worth that much.

The artists who put their blood, sweat and tears into their works also believe their works are valuable.

But the winemakers can test the market with prices. Eventually that wine bottle will hit a price and people will buy it, because alcohol is alcohol and we like to consume alcohol (well the majority does) and it’s a billion dollar industry in each country. Basically alcohol sells. Period.

So the winemaker releases the wine at $99 a bottle and nothing. No one is interested.

The winemaker reduces it by 20% and a few sales come, but not enough.

The winemaker reduces it by another 20% to $55 and still the sales are not enough.

Suddenly the winemaker is faced with a dilemma.

Do they go down to 60% off the normal price they wanted per bottle and see how it performs in the market place or do they stick to their guns and keep it at $55?

Well after careful thinking and planning, the winemaker is in the business of selling wines, so they go down to $45 and suddenly people are interested in trying this wine, 60% off its normal retail price. It’s a smart marketing move and people are suckered in by these kinds of deals.

And they sell out of wines, believing they have a customer base and that the next wine they release will sell out like this one. But it doesn’t sell out. Actually no one is really aware of the next releases because people like drinking wine not the brand.

Only a few brands have become household names in wine making around the world and people wait each year for their next release.

But for the rest of the winemakers, they start from scratch with each release, mining their email lists for sales, using online wine distributors for sales and so forth. And people buy wine without trying it based on the label on the bottle, the grapes used and maybe some reviews or awards. Like how we used to buy music without hearing it.

If we lived in the old CD distribution world and we had to purchase CDs to hear music, I would have purchased a lot more CD’s or LP’s than I do right now just based on covers and interviews.

But after hearing the album on streaming services I decided to not purchase the album, like the new Tool album, the recent Revolution Saints and Sons Of Apollo albums or from a few years back, the only album missing from my Dream Theater collection is “Distance Over Time”. Maybe I will get around to adding it to my collection but then again as I get older I don’t have the same need to have a complete collection.

So in all of this, the value an artist attaches to their work is never the same value the public sees in the work or wants to pay for the work.

A fan of your music will stream it and those streaming payments will be the value that part of the public attached to your works. Other fans will buy the physical releases and that’s the value they attach while others will either download it for free or pay for digital downloads or attend a show if you Tour.

Each fan is unique in their connection to you and the monies they are prepared to spend on you.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Record Vault – Bon Jovi In The Eighties on CD

I started this Bon Jovi Record Vault post a while back, starting off with Cassettes, then Vinyl and now CD (with the Vinyls added for extra color).

And I’ve basically got Jovi’s 80s output on CD and LP. The first photos are from the first two albums. The 2 CD box set was $9.99 and I got the CDs a lot later than the LP.

This post isn’t a review of the albums as I have covered them in other posts.

Next up is the 20 million plus selling third album. I really thought that this album would get the 4 CDs special anniversary treatment in 2016 with the Pizza Parlour demos getting an official release. But so far it hasn’t.

Maybe Jovi is waiting for the 40 year anniversary in 2026, to capitalize on his most successful album.

The 3 Disc Deluxe Anniversary Edition of “New Jersey” is fantastic, because you get the original double album with it, the “Sons of Beaches” Demos

To wrap it up, Bon Jovi finished the 80s as one of the biggest bands in rock with concert grosses and record sales hitting record highs. Only U2 rivaled their power as a group.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Saxon – The Eagle Has Landed

It’s very Sabbath like in the Intro, just plodding along and slowly percolating. It almost feels like Hetfield was listening and wrote “The Outlaw Torn” many years later based on this song. 

When the “Stormbringer” influenced riff from Deep Purple comes in, well, it’s time to bang that head, cause metal health has got me going crazy.

That clean tone melodic riff that appears at about 2.30 for the verse, if it was in the hands of Tool, would be jammed on until it’s a twelve minute song.

Travelled across the universe
And placed the lonely flag
Out there in isolation
At the final, the final frontier

The U.S had a lot riding on this Moon mission in their Cold War showdown against the U.S.S.R. The Wright Brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17, 1903. 60 plus years later, engineering and innovation put man on the moon, and mathematics returned them home.

I remember in Superman 2, when General Zod and his accomplices arrived on the moon and heard the term “Houston”, believing that is the name of this new world that was going to be theirs for the taking. But the son of their greatest enemy was also on Earth (aka Houston). They don’t make movies like that anymore, with great script writing because the effects and the technology just wasn’t there to fill up space, so dialogue had to take the place of green screens.

The world’s in celebration
As we wait for your return
You took a giant leap for mankind
On another, on another world

The moon landing fascinated people.

After another half a dozen more trips, the moon trips got canned. People got bored and didn’t really care anymore. That great leap for mankind was like blah, many years later.

And conspiracy theories exist about the images shown to the world.

Are they filmed in a studio or are the images the real ones from the Moon?

Also, in order to bring the astronauts home, the engineers still weren’t sure. They were using mathematics on the fly, trying to calibrate how and when.

Take it easy, take it slow

And for the last 40 seconds, Saxon ramped it up.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

2112

It’s back in the charts.

Death is a business and the death of a member always gets new people listening because of curiosity and old fans reminiscing about the album which we all know, was a make or break album for the band.

If there is a lesson here, it’s to do things your way. Don’t give up your vision and your identity and stay true to yourself. This viewpoint led Rush to a 40 plus year career.

And they’ve sold more albums recently than new releases have in the last week.

As the article states;

From January 10th through January 16th, the band sold 24,600 albums in the U.S., an increase of more than 1,000 percent compared with the previous week. The “2112” LP led the way, moving 12,800 total album units last week.

As for streaming, it’s as expected with “Tom Sawyer”, “Limelight”, “The Spirit of Radio” and “YYZ” leading the way. Because what else would the Spotify algorithm recommend except the most listened to songs.

And the “2112” story about a musician in an oppressive regime gets all the attention, but “A Passage To Bangkok”, “Tears” and “Twilight Zone” are also worthy.

That guitar riffs from “A Passage To Bangkok” gets me to pick up the guitar. The intro riff is a great riff and the movable D shape chord progression in the Chorus.

“Tears” has that F major to A major chord progression with an unbelievable vocal melody.

“Twilight Zone” has that Am7 riff in the Chorus when Geddy is singing “Na Na Na, you have entered the twilight zone” section which always gets me to stop and pay attention. It’s the mood.

But the best part is Alex Lifeson’s emotive guitar solo from about the 17 minute mark in “2112”.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Aerosmith and Kramer and Grammys

Joey Kramer files a lawsuit.

He had a few injuries last year, Aerosmith got a temporary drummer to fill in and once Kramer was ready to let the music do the talking (I know bad joke), the rest of those Aero boys were thinking, maybe not so fast, hombre.

They tell him, “You need to audition for your role” and when the Aero team said, “you are not up to standard”, Kramer’s replacement, John Douglas, played the rest of the “Deuces Are Wild” shows for 2019 and Douglas’s payment came out of the absent member’s cut.

Like it or not, each band has an agreement in place which outlines these things. Kramer’s issues are with the “moving targets of these made-up standards” in the bad agreement.

For Aerosmith it’s business as usual with their lawyer written response, but as a fan I would be questioning why Aerosmith would like to be involved and even play at the Grammys.

You wanna know what happens in that organization. Click here and read the Guardian article.

The Grammys organization brought in a lady called Deborah Dugan as boss, after their former boss Neil Portnow stepped down unexpectedly, which the article states, could have been due to raping a female recording artist.

But as soon as she came in, the Grammy board got rid of her because she didn’t play ball. But how didn’t she play ball. The Grammys chairman asked her to re-employ his mate Portnow as a $750K consultant after he left and after the rape allegations. She played ball and did.

Entertainment lawyer Joel Katz, who acts as the academy lawyer also made sexual advancements towards Dugan, Katz also has a private plane purchased from the monies the Academy earns on behalf of the artists and their TV deal and also represent various board members in a conflict of interest.

Dugan also mentions about the corruption in the voting. Basically a first group called the “voting pool” selects artists. Then the nomination committee which also has current artists on the committee who could be up for awards shortlist the “voting pool” list with their own additions. And the Grammys board further corrupts the nominations with what they think is needed.

Basically that Grammy award you might have on your mantle piece; how valuable does it feel when you know that the ex CEO raped an artist, the legal counsel is a sexual predator who lives rich, ripping off the artists who bring in the money to the organization and that the nomination process is corrupted.

As veterans, Aerosmith have a chance to make a stand here.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Never Gonna Die

Choirboys is an Australian band, formed in 1976 on the Northern Beaches. By 1983, they had a record deal with Albert Productions, after a demo found its way to George Young.

“Never Gonna Die” is the lead single from their self-titled debut. Most people would know em from their international hit “Run To Paradise” a few years later, but the debut album was also popular in Australia.

When the Fridays bring the weekends
The night will be our home again

Loverboy sang, “everybody’s working for the weekend” and that was the case once upon a time. Now, most of us work on weekends.

The smell of beer and coffee

It’s a pub rock song, and all of those places still smell on beer and perfume and coffee and whatever else ends up on the floor these days.

You say we can’t be angels
I say I knew that all along
I don’t need social standing
I’m gonna stay where I belong

Society didn’t know how to classify all these kids into rock music. Misfits, weed smokers, devil worshippers, anti social and immoral.

We didn’t want to be classed or compared or even ranked against others. Our social standing was within our own groups, our own tribes. All we wanted was to get together, listen to music, talk shit and have a few drinks. Sometimes a lot of drinks.

Which always leads to some dumb things like damaging our bodies jumping out of moving cars or damaging someone else’s property or just getting into fisticuffs for no reason whatsoever against someone we just met.

We can’t be angels all the time.

And it’s funny how the people in charge and the ones classifying others became the ones who proved to be immoral, like taking payments from organizations to pass favorable laws for that organization or using their power to get sexual favors or just by having affairs sometimes with people of the same sex even though they are married. Even the Priests who condemned rock music covered up their crimes against innocent kids.

And the police departments proved to be corrupt, working for criminals and taking bribes.

I don’t live for music, no
I say I live for rock ‘n’ roll
We won’t let them push us
We won’t let them touch us

Damn right, we live for rock and roll as not all of the music in the world pushes the same buttons.

I always saw the “them” as the institutions like the various arms of governments, the education system and religious institutions.

And it felt like we were untouchable and that all the laws the governments passed and all the crap that was happening didn’t concern us. But 30 plus years later, things are of concern.

Were Never gonna die

And fight until the end.

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Music, My Stories

1979

We’ve moved from 2019 to 2020 and it felt like, meh. Time will tell how significant some of the things were, like James entering rehab again in 2019 and Motley reforming again to tour and if Def Leppard made the right move to attach themselves with Motley, and all the court cases involving influences in music.

Anyway, I was comparing 2019 in relation to other years like 2009, 1999, 1989 and 1979.

So let’s start with 1979, the year of transition. While some bands were on their last legs, some were just starting to find their own.

Led Zeppelin were coming to an end while Thin Lizzy was on the ascendancy. The Scorpions had bigger things waiting with “Rock You Like A Hurricane” and “Winds Of Change” while Fleetwood Mac and Bad Company delivered stellar albums that unfortunately got compared to their previous mega gazillion selling albums.

Aerosmith became a shell of the band they were with “Night In The Ruts” and Joe Perry left the band after they played the World Series of Rock concert in Cleveland, with Journey, Ted Nugent, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC and Scorpions, while Motorhead after a few up’s and downs with record label crap, got included with the NWOBHM starting off and started their brief commercial rise. Journey kept telling us they are evolving, while Acca Dacca didn’t care about evolving as they rode that highway to hell to the top.

Uli John Roth left Scorpions and created Electric Sun, but in all honesty he should of stayed with Scorpions. He was replaced by Michael Schenker who was being used by his brother Rudolph to lift the profile of the band, so when Michael figured it out, he left and was replaced by Mattias Jab, which became the line-up that would take Scorpions into the 80’s and platinum success, while a supergroup of “musicians who all had small record deals” got together and called themselves Survivor. “Eye Of The Tiger” was a few years away, but you get to hear a band allowing their influences to shape their sound.

Black Sabbath with Ozzy was at an end, along with the Dio fronted Rainbow version. These small changes, led to two stellar albums, a year later in “Heaven and Hell” and “Blizzard of Ozz”.

The “Blizzard” album had a young guitarist from LA called Randy Rhoads who would cement his legacy over three short years with the help of his song writing partner Bob Daisley. Dio of course would go on to bigger platinum sales with “Holy Diver” and “The Last In Line”.

David Coverdale kept his white snake out of his pants and became a love hunter while his old partner in crime was still having troubles with lead singers, this time looking for a replacement for Ronnie James Dio and his Rainbow project. That replacement proved very interesting when Graham Bonnet got the gig.

Before they had their balls on walls, Accept were just Accept and they dropped their debut album. Kiss created disco rock to platinum glory with “I Was Made For Loving You” and Kansas told all their wayward sons to carry on.

Judas Priest dropped “Unleashed In The East” (an album marketed as a live album, with studio embellishments) which showcased the new progressiveness and heaviness of the band. Even older bluesy cuts sounded huge when sped up and it gave Priest an even larger fan base. Def Leppard released their E.P and a year later, released the very underrated “On Through The Night” album. Of course, we all know how high Def Leppard went in the 80’s with “Pyromania” and “Hysteria”, but their most diverse and grown up album “Slang” is ignored.

Iron Maiden, Samson and Angel Witch share a bill and the concert is watched by Geoff Barton, who then describes the bands as the “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal” in his review of the show for Sounds magazine, otherwise known as “NWOBHM”.

Maiden releases “The Soundhouse Tapes” and also gets signed to EMI, hire Dennis Stratton as their second guitarist and replaced drummer Doug Sampson with Clive Burr from Samson. And Clive Burr wouldn’t be the last member Maiden got from Samson with Bruce Dickinson to follow a few years later.

Van Halen released their second album and kept the LA Sunset Strip alive and rocking while Motley Crue was nowhere at this point in time but Nikki Sixx had formed the band London in 78 and by 79 he was already looking for a way out as keeping committed band members proved to be a problem. Blackie Lawless would move from Sister to London during this period as well (funny that, because Blackie fired Nikki from Sister and now Blackie was joining a band that Nikki formed), while George Lynch was still in The Boyz.

Quiet Riot would go to number 1 in 1983, but by 1979, they were finished because RR left the band to join Ozzy.

Pink Floyd in its current incarnation was also coming to an end, even though “The Wall” hit the streets after so much delay and bickering in its creation to mega sales.

And all the artists just kept on creating, regardless of their status on the record label commercial tree. Because that’s why people get into music, to create. Not because copyright terms are forever or because some label said I will give you money to create.

Finally, the greatest ever invention that was going to make music portable for me went on sale in Japan, the Sony Walkman.

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