Your essay is like reading a history book. I was working as personal security during a good part of that time…25 years. Stumbled into the gig by interviewing AC/DC on their first tour, and because I was into powerlifting and looked the part they asked if I wanted to do security for the rest of that tour. It was a chance to make a little money and see a part of the world so wtf. Little did I know it was going to become a full time gig. Between traveling and contracting shows at different venues I got to experience a good selection of the groups you name and a lot more. Had some country clients (Garth, Alabama and others). Anyway I won’t bore you further. Just wanted to say you invoked the sounds of the Gibsons in my brain. There’s so much in your piece I’ll have to go through it a few times. Glad I stumbled across it.
You long interesting post deserved a longer response. I would be interested in hearing some of your stories of on the road with those bands if you wouldn't mind sharing them?
Did you have anything specific in mind? Let me give you a short time chronology.
As I said, I first contacted with AC/DC in 1973 I believe. I did a lot of tours with them…12 or so. I quit touring in 1996 and moved to the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. I knew the manager of the Target Center and would contract with him for “special jobs”. By that I mean if some of the NBA players wanted to go to a club after the game I would set it up. If a performer wanted to go to the Mall of America I would take them. Stuff like that.
I was working in IT as a regular job and as that took more and more time I got away from the security. I probability did the last security gig in 2010 or thereabouts. I still do some consulting but not much.
I’m sure you’ve seen all the Behind the Music stuff. A lot of that is sensationalism but as always an element of truth. The stuff I really remember isn’t always that. Let me give you a couple of examples.
I was living in Phoenix and between tours I would arrange security for a promoter there who put on club shows. He called me one day and said he had a “hot, new group” coming in that night and could I do it. That group turned out to be The Cranberries. I had never heard of them but went and did the show. Maybe 500 people in a small club. Afterwords I helped them load their equipment in a UHaul they were towing behind a rental van. It was about 3 AM and there was no one around by then. It was pitch dark except for a big billboard with a picture of Rush Limbaugh on it. They knew who he was and we sat and talked politics and ate fast food. Not your “typical “ rock and roll story right. That’s the stuff I remember fondly. Some of the regular “Behind the Music” stuff…not so much. Anyone who thinks they have job pressures need to come into a room and find their client unresponsive with a needle in their arm and have to resolve that problem. That’s job pressure.
Anyway you can respond to me if there’s a particular direction you want to go. Thanks for your response.
Yeah I might have got lucky on that particular case I was referencing. Early on I discovered the biggest problem I was going to likely face was drug overdoses. There is a lot of down time in the business so it has to be filled somehow. I started reading medical information. I also talked to the medical personnel I would come across. The first thing I would do when we got to the gig is look up the medics if there were any. Early on there weren’t because the gigs were small. As I progressed the fame level of my clients went up and the gigs were larger. I was lucky. AC/DC got progressively bigger and I got a chance to grow with them. My lucky break happened when I got on with the Wings Over America Tour with McCartney. That was the biggest thing I had done and I got a chance to see what the big time was like. By then I was hooked.
I’m going to leave you an email address. Respond to it. It’s easier to do this via email than on this app.
If that’s what you want sure. Let me put some thoughts together and I’ll give you something tonight that involves the first concert I witnessed being filmed, then scrounging up a Porsche and hitting the Autobahn.
RE: the last footnote, yeah, women absolutely can rock. Some can even bring some serious masculine energy into it. But I don't think female musicians should push themselves to do so if they're not into it. One of the absolute worst things the boomers gave us was the zero-sum war between the sexes. It destroyed masculinity and transformed femininity into a sick, pornographic parody of the feminine.
The lost boy masculinity of late 90s numetal was really the last gasp of cock rock, and was mercilessly savaged by the effeminate press of the time. Meanwhile authentic feminine music was nowhere to be found in pop or rock.
My best guess, or maybe wishful thinking, is that the anti-machine music of the future will be more about returning to musical roots. Acoustic instruments, traditional themes, a lot of mourning the death of our culture. We're seeing bits of this in the indie folk genre already and have been for a few years, but it's still suffering a lot of vestigial leftoid influence.
Loved seeing Atari Teenage Riot at the end. I had that cd when it came out, I wanna say they opened for Rage. I had never heard anything like them and still really haven't. That album really stands alone. I'm with ya though man, I love both sides of Rock. The heady stuff and heart stuff. The first album that came to mind to suggest to you is Graveyards first album, it's just called Graveyard. My fav by them. A new band with a cool classic rock kinda sound to them. They have the soul you speak of. Anyways, great read, brotha. I really enjoyed it from one headbanger to another!
Thanks for the shout out. I just read out the whole thing to a mate of mine over from Auzzie. He is a full time musician - that sings of the Auzzie bush man and the fight against the man.
He loved every bit of it. Hes quite a bit deal in the Pub and Country Scene In Auzzie.
Great piece! I enjoyed a very similar journey, albeit a couple of years behind you, and I could also, probably talk about it for endless hours! Cheers! (and Disco did suck!)
I was born right after the "Summer of Love", which ends up being apt, and ironic, while the headlines of the Manson Family murders filled the newspapers, and helped put the final nail in the coffin of the "Peace & Love Hippie Dippie" dream, and Black Sabbath was in the studio, recording their first album. Growing up in the '70's, the radio was dominated by mid to late '60's pop music (it was Rock n Roll, but widely popular), like The Stones, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel; Lot's of really great stuff, but it was all evolving, and that '60's vanilla, early rock was coming to an end.
The '70's were a different time. Back then, when a movie exploded onto the scene, EVERYBODY went to see it, and when an album "topped the charts", it was everywhere! A good example is Saturday Night Fever, and the Bee Gees. Not only did the movie help launch the height of the disco craze, but if I remember correctly, I think the Bee Gees had 8, top ten hits off that one album. This is also why Star Wars, Jaws, and Close Encounters had such an enormous impact. Popular trends took over, one after the other.
However, other than the stuff they played on the radio, I'd really start my appreciation of music, thanks to the enormous record collection of my parents, when we moved to our first suburban house with a full finished basement, where I would spend hours, reading Encyclopedias, and listening to everything from The Beatles, to Janice, Steve Miller Band, Paul McCartney and Wings, Bob Segar. THIS was when I discovered Black Sabbath, and this changed the course of my music listening for decades to come.
As an interesting anecdote, around this time, probably 80 or 81, a high school kid from my street, knocked on my door, to ask me if I wanted to buy his Supertramp album, I think it was Breakfast in America (which I would later come to love!), because he was trying to buy a ticket to go see Aerosmith or somebody. In those days, the cost of a LP record, was in the $7-$10 range, and an average concert general admission tickets could be acquired for $20'ish.
This was the time when Heavy Metal, really started taking off, and as it happened, this was also, exactly when my personal love for music first took hold.
Old Sabbath replaced with solo Ozzy, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Iron Maiden... it was the pinnacle of that era, and I was 100% on board! This genre filled my collection, as albums got replaced with cassettes, and later, CD's. 84-88 was all Metal. Some of my friends turned to Punk, and while I loved the "edge", I never really got hooked, and although stuff like Black Flag with Rollins (who would later become one of my favorite authors) , was cool and unique, it just wasn't for me. Other friends went into the Emo realm of The Police, or the stuff we called New Wave, but still not my cup of tea. MTV would come along, and popularize music videos, but that era of "pop music" was just gay, and lame, and un-cool to us metal heads. Later in life, I'd come to appreciate more of it, as the partial soundtrack of my youth... but not back then, I hated that shit.
However, I'd also discover Rush, Billy Squire's first (and best!) album, Don't Say No. Note: I've owned this album, more times than any single other. Records that got borrowed and never returned, or stolen, cassettes left in a friend's car, etc. I think I've bought, and lost, this album at least 7-8 times.
Another thing that was amazing at that time, was when records like High Infidelity by REO, or Pyromania by Def Leppard, became popular, they were everywhere, all the time, with everybody! NOTHING even close to that happens today.
As metal became stale, and a hair band cliche', I discovered some odd attraction to Belinda Carlisle in the Go-Go's, and this was early, when she was still kinda chunky but cute. She'd later end up with super model good looks, but this was when I first started getting into female vocalists. It would be followed by her solo work, some Heart, (daughters of a Marine Corps General), Janet, Natalie Merchant, Sade, etc.
However, at the same time, Metallica came along, and bent music in another direction still. People either don't know, or forget, but back in the early days, radio stations refused to play Metallica! (now, you can't get away from them, and if I ever "snap", it will be because of the one millionth time "Enter Sandman" comes on the radio!) Anthrax got big, I discovered Motorhead and Lemmy, Megadeath... it was an exciting and refreshing time.
However, then came Pearl Jam, and the Seattle sound of "Grunge", which was cool, and popular, but I was getting into The Blues, and more eclectic stuff.
Then came TOOL's first album, Undertow, and I was hooked, so for near 30 years, I've been enjoying all things Maynard- TOOL, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer. (which I'm still digging to this day).
One of my memories from the '70's was my step mother, listening to "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" over and over again, which I couldn't understand, at all, and this was when you had to go physically pick up the needle, and move it back to the start of the track, manually.
However, over the years, I've done some similar stuff. I spent about two years listening to Mazzy Star's "so tonight that I might see" while I slept. I think I once listened to Pearl Jam's "Indifference" for several weeks on a loop, and I also played "Fake Plastic Trees" once, on repeat for at least two months.
These days, nothing really "hooks" me like stuff used to, and I don't know why, and I still miss that feeling. However, on Pandora, my two most listened to channels are Puscifer, and Jasmine Thompson, so although much has changed, I guess I'm still doing pretty much of what I was in 1983, just with a different soundtrack.
Great essay which I completely empathize with, as a musician and Zeppelin fanatic. Have you ever checked out Wolves in the Throne Room? You might fight them interesting.
Great read! I stumbled onto your substack from a good comment you wrote on another stack. I know NOTHING about tech - I don't often use capital letters but I really needed to bring that point home (haha), but I do know how to blabber, and I read the exchange you and commenter Daniel H had, and I agree with you, stories about working security for various rock bands and large venue touring could make for interesting reading. I wrote on SNL for most of the 90's, and each week before the live show was hectic (more so with some hosts for both good and bad reasons), but one of the (many) highlights was Thursday's musical guest rehearsal. If I had an interest in that week's act, I could step onto an elevator on the 17th floor, then step off on the 8th floor and within seconds I'd be standing, often alone, about 10 feet from Paul McCartney or Nirvana or the Rolling Stones etc. as they rehearsed the 2 and sometimes 3 songs they'd be performing that week. One quick story, fairly often SNL haggled with a record company, offering a spot on the show to
basically unknown or just breaking artists in exchange for, say, U2 or McCartney. One Thursday I wandered down for then (basically) unknown Pearl Jam, and as I listened to them
rehearse "Alive" and "Jeremy" I could not believe my ears, Vedder's voice was insane, up there (to me) with Best Ever, maybe toppling Jim Morrison? But afterwards Vedder (Or "Eddie" as I call him, haha) walked up to me - probably because nobody else was standing in the studio - and I gushed about his voice while he gushed about how great it was that "One day I'm just a mad scientist skateboarding the streets of San Diego to work at a gas station, the next day here I am on the mighty Saturday Night Live singing songs with my band, I can't believe I'm here, what's it like to work here, tell me ev-ery-thing!" We talked for about a half hour, and it was fun. A few years later, after breaking big, they were guests again, and Vedder wasn't the same starstruck young man, I'm sure he was still very nice, but he was surrounded literally and figuratively by the usual types, execs and agents etc., and basically as unapproachable as Tom Brady with the football at 3rd and 7 in the Super Bowl. Music sure is great to listen to, and we all have our individual tastes, but one thing that's true across the board is WOW it's a crapshoot as to who will succeed how or when. I wonder if a Stack is worth pursuing on my part?
Great story! You too have a potential multi thousand dollar a month Substack, just telling stories like that. In fact you should just go post that on your own page, why are you wasting your time here? LOL!
fascinating piece. my friends and i at the time were huge prog rock fans, old genesis with peter gabriel, ELP, Gentle Giant, Camel, Yes, Hawkwind and Jethro Tull to name a few, and yes i remember the elitest attitude. Our elite attitude came from the thinking that the musicianship in the prog rock bands were far superior to those of cock rock and other genres of music.
dig if you will this picture, of 5 high school kids getting together and playing Firth of Fifth flawlessly, i might add, to close out that years talent show. 1977. no one was smart enough to record it at the time.
I had that album in high school, but for whatever reason Emerson, Lake and Palmer was what struck me at the time. Taste is an odd thing, especially how it mutates over time.
As I said I listened to ELP and Yes, etc in the early 80s. I think Hawkwind stands up to this day and transcends the prog rock ghetto which is a bit too fond of sniffing it's own farts. Lemmy's band Motohead was one of the very best metal bands, IMO. I also have some love still for King Crimson and how they managed to re-invent themselves in the 80s with the Discipline trilogy.
Really the snobbishness was more from the ravers, the prog rock fans were more D & D dorks, lol.
Interesting take on things. I started growing away from rock in about 1980, and have slowly turned to jazz, swing and the singers from the 20s-60s. They were better times…
Your essay is like reading a history book. I was working as personal security during a good part of that time…25 years. Stumbled into the gig by interviewing AC/DC on their first tour, and because I was into powerlifting and looked the part they asked if I wanted to do security for the rest of that tour. It was a chance to make a little money and see a part of the world so wtf. Little did I know it was going to become a full time gig. Between traveling and contracting shows at different venues I got to experience a good selection of the groups you name and a lot more. Had some country clients (Garth, Alabama and others). Anyway I won’t bore you further. Just wanted to say you invoked the sounds of the Gibsons in my brain. There’s so much in your piece I’ll have to go through it a few times. Glad I stumbled across it.
Thanks, great comment.
You long interesting post deserved a longer response. I would be interested in hearing some of your stories of on the road with those bands if you wouldn't mind sharing them?
Did you have anything specific in mind? Let me give you a short time chronology.
As I said, I first contacted with AC/DC in 1973 I believe. I did a lot of tours with them…12 or so. I quit touring in 1996 and moved to the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. I knew the manager of the Target Center and would contract with him for “special jobs”. By that I mean if some of the NBA players wanted to go to a club after the game I would set it up. If a performer wanted to go to the Mall of America I would take them. Stuff like that.
I was working in IT as a regular job and as that took more and more time I got away from the security. I probability did the last security gig in 2010 or thereabouts. I still do some consulting but not much.
I’m sure you’ve seen all the Behind the Music stuff. A lot of that is sensationalism but as always an element of truth. The stuff I really remember isn’t always that. Let me give you a couple of examples.
I was living in Phoenix and between tours I would arrange security for a promoter there who put on club shows. He called me one day and said he had a “hot, new group” coming in that night and could I do it. That group turned out to be The Cranberries. I had never heard of them but went and did the show. Maybe 500 people in a small club. Afterwords I helped them load their equipment in a UHaul they were towing behind a rental van. It was about 3 AM and there was no one around by then. It was pitch dark except for a big billboard with a picture of Rush Limbaugh on it. They knew who he was and we sat and talked politics and ate fast food. Not your “typical “ rock and roll story right. That’s the stuff I remember fondly. Some of the regular “Behind the Music” stuff…not so much. Anyone who thinks they have job pressures need to come into a room and find their client unresponsive with a needle in their arm and have to resolve that problem. That’s job pressure.
Anyway you can respond to me if there’s a particular direction you want to go. Thanks for your response.
I was just thinking stories in general. Like needle in the arm. You don't have to name names but just what that was like on the ground.
Yeah I might have got lucky on that particular case I was referencing. Early on I discovered the biggest problem I was going to likely face was drug overdoses. There is a lot of down time in the business so it has to be filled somehow. I started reading medical information. I also talked to the medical personnel I would come across. The first thing I would do when we got to the gig is look up the medics if there were any. Early on there weren’t because the gigs were small. As I progressed the fame level of my clients went up and the gigs were larger. I was lucky. AC/DC got progressively bigger and I got a chance to grow with them. My lucky break happened when I got on with the Wings Over America Tour with McCartney. That was the biggest thing I had done and I got a chance to see what the big time was like. By then I was hooked.
I’m going to leave you an email address. Respond to it. It’s easier to do this via email than on this app.
Danielhelkenn@Outlook.com
If you don't mind posting here, I would imagine people are interested in stories of on the road with real rock bands.
If that’s what you want sure. Let me put some thoughts together and I’ll give you something tonight that involves the first concert I witnessed being filmed, then scrounging up a Porsche and hitting the Autobahn.
RE: the last footnote, yeah, women absolutely can rock. Some can even bring some serious masculine energy into it. But I don't think female musicians should push themselves to do so if they're not into it. One of the absolute worst things the boomers gave us was the zero-sum war between the sexes. It destroyed masculinity and transformed femininity into a sick, pornographic parody of the feminine.
The lost boy masculinity of late 90s numetal was really the last gasp of cock rock, and was mercilessly savaged by the effeminate press of the time. Meanwhile authentic feminine music was nowhere to be found in pop or rock.
My best guess, or maybe wishful thinking, is that the anti-machine music of the future will be more about returning to musical roots. Acoustic instruments, traditional themes, a lot of mourning the death of our culture. We're seeing bits of this in the indie folk genre already and have been for a few years, but it's still suffering a lot of vestigial leftoid influence.
There is some Scandinavian folk music with percussion that is more based. I forget the names TBH, but I was into in the 90s.
I don't know about Scandinavian, but I was pretty into Ceredwen for a spell in the late 90s.
Loved seeing Atari Teenage Riot at the end. I had that cd when it came out, I wanna say they opened for Rage. I had never heard anything like them and still really haven't. That album really stands alone. I'm with ya though man, I love both sides of Rock. The heady stuff and heart stuff. The first album that came to mind to suggest to you is Graveyards first album, it's just called Graveyard. My fav by them. A new band with a cool classic rock kinda sound to them. They have the soul you speak of. Anyways, great read, brotha. I really enjoyed it from one headbanger to another!
Thanks for the shout out. I just read out the whole thing to a mate of mine over from Auzzie. He is a full time musician - that sings of the Auzzie bush man and the fight against the man.
He loved every bit of it. Hes quite a bit deal in the Pub and Country Scene In Auzzie.
https://soundcloud.com/doctormcdougall/matt-dent-sc
So Super Props.
Cool music, he sounds like a stand up guy.
Nice, super cool. Say hi to your friend for me, cheers!
Interesting walk through our musical and cultural history. Thanks
Thanks.
Fascinating read. Thanks!!
Thanks for reading.
Great piece! I enjoyed a very similar journey, albeit a couple of years behind you, and I could also, probably talk about it for endless hours! Cheers! (and Disco did suck!)
Hey man let it all spill out here.
Okay...
I was born right after the "Summer of Love", which ends up being apt, and ironic, while the headlines of the Manson Family murders filled the newspapers, and helped put the final nail in the coffin of the "Peace & Love Hippie Dippie" dream, and Black Sabbath was in the studio, recording their first album. Growing up in the '70's, the radio was dominated by mid to late '60's pop music (it was Rock n Roll, but widely popular), like The Stones, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel; Lot's of really great stuff, but it was all evolving, and that '60's vanilla, early rock was coming to an end.
The '70's were a different time. Back then, when a movie exploded onto the scene, EVERYBODY went to see it, and when an album "topped the charts", it was everywhere! A good example is Saturday Night Fever, and the Bee Gees. Not only did the movie help launch the height of the disco craze, but if I remember correctly, I think the Bee Gees had 8, top ten hits off that one album. This is also why Star Wars, Jaws, and Close Encounters had such an enormous impact. Popular trends took over, one after the other.
However, other than the stuff they played on the radio, I'd really start my appreciation of music, thanks to the enormous record collection of my parents, when we moved to our first suburban house with a full finished basement, where I would spend hours, reading Encyclopedias, and listening to everything from The Beatles, to Janice, Steve Miller Band, Paul McCartney and Wings, Bob Segar. THIS was when I discovered Black Sabbath, and this changed the course of my music listening for decades to come.
As an interesting anecdote, around this time, probably 80 or 81, a high school kid from my street, knocked on my door, to ask me if I wanted to buy his Supertramp album, I think it was Breakfast in America (which I would later come to love!), because he was trying to buy a ticket to go see Aerosmith or somebody. In those days, the cost of a LP record, was in the $7-$10 range, and an average concert general admission tickets could be acquired for $20'ish.
This was the time when Heavy Metal, really started taking off, and as it happened, this was also, exactly when my personal love for music first took hold.
Old Sabbath replaced with solo Ozzy, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Iron Maiden... it was the pinnacle of that era, and I was 100% on board! This genre filled my collection, as albums got replaced with cassettes, and later, CD's. 84-88 was all Metal. Some of my friends turned to Punk, and while I loved the "edge", I never really got hooked, and although stuff like Black Flag with Rollins (who would later become one of my favorite authors) , was cool and unique, it just wasn't for me. Other friends went into the Emo realm of The Police, or the stuff we called New Wave, but still not my cup of tea. MTV would come along, and popularize music videos, but that era of "pop music" was just gay, and lame, and un-cool to us metal heads. Later in life, I'd come to appreciate more of it, as the partial soundtrack of my youth... but not back then, I hated that shit.
However, I'd also discover Rush, Billy Squire's first (and best!) album, Don't Say No. Note: I've owned this album, more times than any single other. Records that got borrowed and never returned, or stolen, cassettes left in a friend's car, etc. I think I've bought, and lost, this album at least 7-8 times.
Another thing that was amazing at that time, was when records like High Infidelity by REO, or Pyromania by Def Leppard, became popular, they were everywhere, all the time, with everybody! NOTHING even close to that happens today.
As metal became stale, and a hair band cliche', I discovered some odd attraction to Belinda Carlisle in the Go-Go's, and this was early, when she was still kinda chunky but cute. She'd later end up with super model good looks, but this was when I first started getting into female vocalists. It would be followed by her solo work, some Heart, (daughters of a Marine Corps General), Janet, Natalie Merchant, Sade, etc.
However, at the same time, Metallica came along, and bent music in another direction still. People either don't know, or forget, but back in the early days, radio stations refused to play Metallica! (now, you can't get away from them, and if I ever "snap", it will be because of the one millionth time "Enter Sandman" comes on the radio!) Anthrax got big, I discovered Motorhead and Lemmy, Megadeath... it was an exciting and refreshing time.
However, then came Pearl Jam, and the Seattle sound of "Grunge", which was cool, and popular, but I was getting into The Blues, and more eclectic stuff.
Then came TOOL's first album, Undertow, and I was hooked, so for near 30 years, I've been enjoying all things Maynard- TOOL, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer. (which I'm still digging to this day).
One of my memories from the '70's was my step mother, listening to "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" over and over again, which I couldn't understand, at all, and this was when you had to go physically pick up the needle, and move it back to the start of the track, manually.
However, over the years, I've done some similar stuff. I spent about two years listening to Mazzy Star's "so tonight that I might see" while I slept. I think I once listened to Pearl Jam's "Indifference" for several weeks on a loop, and I also played "Fake Plastic Trees" once, on repeat for at least two months.
These days, nothing really "hooks" me like stuff used to, and I don't know why, and I still miss that feeling. However, on Pandora, my two most listened to channels are Puscifer, and Jasmine Thompson, so although much has changed, I guess I'm still doing pretty much of what I was in 1983, just with a different soundtrack.
Great essay which I completely empathize with, as a musician and Zeppelin fanatic. Have you ever checked out Wolves in the Throne Room? You might fight them interesting.
Great read! I stumbled onto your substack from a good comment you wrote on another stack. I know NOTHING about tech - I don't often use capital letters but I really needed to bring that point home (haha), but I do know how to blabber, and I read the exchange you and commenter Daniel H had, and I agree with you, stories about working security for various rock bands and large venue touring could make for interesting reading. I wrote on SNL for most of the 90's, and each week before the live show was hectic (more so with some hosts for both good and bad reasons), but one of the (many) highlights was Thursday's musical guest rehearsal. If I had an interest in that week's act, I could step onto an elevator on the 17th floor, then step off on the 8th floor and within seconds I'd be standing, often alone, about 10 feet from Paul McCartney or Nirvana or the Rolling Stones etc. as they rehearsed the 2 and sometimes 3 songs they'd be performing that week. One quick story, fairly often SNL haggled with a record company, offering a spot on the show to
basically unknown or just breaking artists in exchange for, say, U2 or McCartney. One Thursday I wandered down for then (basically) unknown Pearl Jam, and as I listened to them
rehearse "Alive" and "Jeremy" I could not believe my ears, Vedder's voice was insane, up there (to me) with Best Ever, maybe toppling Jim Morrison? But afterwards Vedder (Or "Eddie" as I call him, haha) walked up to me - probably because nobody else was standing in the studio - and I gushed about his voice while he gushed about how great it was that "One day I'm just a mad scientist skateboarding the streets of San Diego to work at a gas station, the next day here I am on the mighty Saturday Night Live singing songs with my band, I can't believe I'm here, what's it like to work here, tell me ev-ery-thing!" We talked for about a half hour, and it was fun. A few years later, after breaking big, they were guests again, and Vedder wasn't the same starstruck young man, I'm sure he was still very nice, but he was surrounded literally and figuratively by the usual types, execs and agents etc., and basically as unapproachable as Tom Brady with the football at 3rd and 7 in the Super Bowl. Music sure is great to listen to, and we all have our individual tastes, but one thing that's true across the board is WOW it's a crapshoot as to who will succeed how or when. I wonder if a Stack is worth pursuing on my part?
Great story! You too have a potential multi thousand dollar a month Substack, just telling stories like that. In fact you should just go post that on your own page, why are you wasting your time here? LOL!
https://youtu.be/JDL9bXlwbM4?si=HaDnC0AAklfg-06v
This one sounds like what I think Mr. Raven sounds like when he isnt at war with wokes
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=f7u30rrKLcI&si=qjmrNNeh9A-Zgycj
First time sharing a link on here, hope it works. My fav song by Graveyard
Reminds me a bit of Concrete Blond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCwIHwSt8RU
fascinating piece. my friends and i at the time were huge prog rock fans, old genesis with peter gabriel, ELP, Gentle Giant, Camel, Yes, Hawkwind and Jethro Tull to name a few, and yes i remember the elitest attitude. Our elite attitude came from the thinking that the musicianship in the prog rock bands were far superior to those of cock rock and other genres of music.
dig if you will this picture, of 5 high school kids getting together and playing Firth of Fifth flawlessly, i might add, to close out that years talent show. 1977. no one was smart enough to record it at the time.
https://open.spotify.com/track/5SiNiJz8QZGJdk7WNvADt1?si=o0TcfZgdS6OTv5cO0lkhpw
I had that album in high school, but for whatever reason Emerson, Lake and Palmer was what struck me at the time. Taste is an odd thing, especially how it mutates over time.
As I said I listened to ELP and Yes, etc in the early 80s. I think Hawkwind stands up to this day and transcends the prog rock ghetto which is a bit too fond of sniffing it's own farts. Lemmy's band Motohead was one of the very best metal bands, IMO. I also have some love still for King Crimson and how they managed to re-invent themselves in the 80s with the Discipline trilogy.
Really the snobbishness was more from the ravers, the prog rock fans were more D & D dorks, lol.
Interesting take on things. I started growing away from rock in about 1980, and have slowly turned to jazz, swing and the singers from the 20s-60s. They were better times…
Great essay!
The price of smokes by the chats has everything you are asking for.
Also teen mortgage are american and killing it right bow in DC. Love this one. Gotta get the band back together maaaaan!
In this thread post songs for the new rocker playlist. I'll start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8gKLveIvuk