I'm not a huge big KISS fan but I have lots of respect for the band and I do have a KISS song on my awesome songs of all time list i.e."Hard Luck Woman". The song posted below is a solo song by the band's original guitar player Ace Frehley called "New York Groove" and it's another song that is on my awesome songs of all time list just ahead of "Hard Luck Woman" by KISS. The drum parts on "New York Groove" are so seriously rad take a listen!
Shanda, the lovely blogstress of Music Crush Girl was at the July blog party at Bruar Falls last Thursday night and took some fantastic pictures of the bands who played and did a great interview with Hailey from Wojcik. You can see Shanda's pictures and hear her interview with Hailey here
Since the age of 11 I have played the drums on and off again and about two years ago for my birthday one of my friends arranged for me to get drum lessons. For not having picked up the drum sticks in nearly twenty years and after a few weeks of lessons I was Meg White good and having a great time with the lessons! After the lessons ended I very stupidly put my new found drum skills on the back burner and didn't play again. That is until a few weeks ago when I ran into my friend Benji (ex of the Art of Shooting) we got to talking and I mentioned the drum lessons I took two years ago and the fun I had taking them and he offered to give me a lesson and I decided to take him up on his offer. Well the drum lesson between Benji and I took place last night and after two years I went from being Meg White good to RaRa Riot good! This time I'm not putting my drum skills on the back burner.
One guy whose drum skills I've always admired is Mr. Keith Moon the legendary late great drummer off The Who. No one will come any where close to Keith Moon and his drumming ability. Moon was such a rapid fire unique drummer case in point the video posted below. The video is from a 1970's American TV show called "In Concert" and it features Keith performing a drum solo complete wth gold fish in his floor tom and bass drum and a bunch of kids in the crowd doing some Rerun style dance moves
Today marks the 30th aanniversary of MTV being on the air and normally I always hate it when people whose era a certain thing was, talk down to those who are younger and say things such as "this isn't as good as it was in my day". Well in the case of MTV I'm gonna have to pull rank on all you youngens' who only know MTV as the TV station that airs bad reality shows and plays only crappy music videos by Disney stars and say MTV was definitely better in my day!
Being a child of the 80's and 90's MTV had some of the best music based programming like "Unplugged", "120 Minutes", "Yo MTV Raps" and "Headbangers Ball". They also broadcast big concerts like "Woodstock '94" and "Live Aid" and had really good up to the minute music news with Kurt Loder, Tabitha Soren and John Norris. MTV's music news wasn't about who is dating who it was actually music news. What I always loved about watching MTV News was that when Kurt Loder was forced to do a story about some run of the mill pop star, you could always tell by the tone of his voice and the look on his face that he wasn't thrilled to be talking to that person.
And the videos! Back in the day you could see a Run-DMC video, a Madonna video, a video by some hair band, the video from the latest pop one hit wonder, a video by the Cure and then a Rod Stewart video all within the same hour.
And MTV back in the 90's had some interesting non music programing like "Liquid TV" which was all animation and gave the mainstream world it's first look at the work of Mike Judge and "Aeon Flux". The channel also aired a really cool game show called "Remote Control" which delt with music and tv trivia and "Remote Control" gave Colin Quinn and Adam Sandler their big breaks. And of course the best non music program or sorta non music program MTV ever aired was "Beavis and Butt-Head"! MTV's non music programing wasn't always all about people looking to humiliate themselves on TV for 15 minutes of fame.
If you ask me MTV's demise came when it started to air the "Real World" and when they hired Carson Daley!
My old person rant is done! Below are to me the all time best music videos ever made.
"Like a Prayer" is one of Queen Madge's best songs and the video is one of her best. It's thought provoking in the best way possible. And I'm sorry but Madge should beat Becky Stark from Lavender Diamond with a bag full of her VMA's for ruining one of her greatest songs and videos with Becky's oh so quirky cute artsy aesthetic. Lavendar Diamond's video version of "Like A Prayer" looks like a Japanese teenager's wet dream. We get it Becky your cute and quirky and you make cute and quirky music and videos that match your personality no thought provoking stuff for you Becks! Anyhow I digress couldn't find the official "Like A Prayer" video to post so below is the the live version of the the song from Queen Madge's 2008 "Sticky and Sweet" tour. You tube the "Like A Prayer" video and you'll see what I'm talking about.
And say what you will about Phil Collins and Genesis but this video for their 1987 song "Land of Confusion" is pretty damn genuis and freaky at the same time!
Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" great song with the best bass and drum lines a good hook and a damn amazing video to go along with it. No one was doing videos like this in 1986.
And in the 80's and early 90's most heavy metal bands featured sluty girls and lots of booze in their videos and Metallica was the first heavy metal band that didn't feature rock and roll excess in their videos case in point the video for their song "One" which is about American Veterans. The video for "One" featured the band playing the song, interspersed with the clips and dialogue from the anti-war film "And Johnny Got His Gun" which is based on the anti-war novel of the same name by Dalton Trumbo. The video was really very powerful. I couldn't find the original video so therefore that's why it's not posted. But each time I watched and still watch it I always get goose bumps.
Last night I went to my first Celebrate Brooklyn show of the 2011 season and that show was Dr. John and I took my mom along and we had so much fun. For all of you who don't know who Dr. John is he is a New Orleans Louisiana born and bred musician who is known for his New Orleans R&B/psychedelic rock music his biggest hit was "Right Place Wrong Time". Dr. John also performed at the Band's legendary "Last Waltz" concert and is featured in the film of that concert.
Dr. John's live shows back in the day consisted of him wearing outrageous New Orleans style voodoo outfits and him partaking in elements of voodoo ceremonies during his shows. His whole New Orleans cool voodoo boogie woogie musician persona inspired Jim Henson to create the Muppet Dr. Teeth the leader of the Muppet's Electric Mayhem Band.
In recent years Dr.John's live shows have since mellowed and instead of the trippy voodoo inspired outfits he now wears very loud suits and there are no more theatrics on stage just the man himself behind the piano backed by some really amazing musicians he calls The Lower 911. Dr. John puts on a highly enjoyable show and last night was no exception my mom and I had a great time.
Here are my pictures of the show last night.
Opening act Chuck Brown the father of go-go
Dr. John and his white fedora behind the piano
And here is a little bit of Dr. John from back in the day the song is called "Where You At Mule".
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