Classic Rock Musings, Rants & Raves

Since the advent of the DVD, a lot of incredible music video has boiled to the surface. Classic rock artists who used to hide under the table, avoiding the cameras, are now trotting out their latest concerts on DVD. With a killer 5.1 surround system, my collection of live concert DVDs is out of control. Still, the one thing I’ve noticed is the shortage of vintage footage available.

In 2005, Robin Trower released a DVD in 5.1 with a 16:9 high definition picture. Sure, it’s a feast for the eyes and ears, but I’d rather see something from 1974. I know the video and audio won’t be nearly as nice, yet that’s a sacrifice you make when you’re after classic footage by artists in their prime.

Because of my desire to see film of my favorite groups at the peak, I find myself either torrenting homemade DVDs taken from old analog video sources or clicking over to YouTube, which is overflowing with the kind of footage my friends and I talk about.

Yeah, I have a couple of buddies who are as crazy for this kind of stuff as I am. We’re all avid music collectors, and while we’re viewing a clip of say, Heart doing “Crazy On You” from 1976, we’ll contrive a contest to see who can find the entire show. Many times, after a few months, a show will turn up. Even ragged clips from tours behind Pink Floyd’s Animals, Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and Jethro Tull’s A Passion Play — stuff no one besides the audiences have seen — have been cut and pasted together by a gaggle of hearty souls with highly developed technical skills and loads of spare time. Hard to believe there’s still a few missing links we need to fill in.

So while it’s great ZZ Top has a new concert DVD with a beautiful picture, awesome sound, and lots of extras, some of us would prefer a show from the 70s or 80s when the group was at the top of their game. Check out the five performance clips below and tell me you wouldn’t want to have a DVD of the whole show. I know I would.

ZZ Top - La Grange (1980)

Robin Trower – Bridge of Sighs (1974)

Foghat - Slow Ride (1978)

Kansas – Icarus (1975)

Jethro Tull – Minstrel In The Gallery (1976)

Of late, there’s been a big and loud buzz surrounding the music video games Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Some bars and taverns offer “Guitar Hero” nights in place of karaoke nights. Slash, Aerosmith and the Who have all signed on, allowing their music and likenesses to be incorporated into these games. There have been reports that the Beatles have even been approached about putting out a Guitar Hero game of their own. Oh, the humanity!

I confess total ignorance to the inner workings of these games. But the idea of marrying legitimate classic rock with a video game sounds fishy to me. For one, I fail to see the competitive angle. I mean, how do you win? Or lose? Secondly, wouldn’t it be far more fulfilling if the “players” were playing real musical instruments as opposed to these color-coded props they include with the games? I guess it’s easy to label Guitar Hero and Rock Band as time-wasters for the musically incompetent, but without knowing all the facts, I’m forced to hold my tongue. Somewhat.

In a Rolling Stone article entitled “Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero,” from October 18, 2007, Harmonix (the company behind both Guitar Hero and Rock Band) cofounder Eran Egozy contends that players get “to experience what it’s like to play every single part” of a famous song. While I would argue with Egozy that players who aren’t actually playing an instrument are, in fact, not experiencing what it’s like to play every part of a song, there are, nevertheless, some measurable benefits attached to Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

One view is that these games are responsible for turning a lot of people onto classic rock music. Not sure that one flies. Who in his right mind would purchase either game if they weren’t into classic rock music in the first place? Scratch that one…

Another popular opinion is that these games are inspiring some people to learn actual instruments. OK, I might buy that one although the props used as instruments supposedly require a completely different type of hand-to-eye coordination. Still, if one kid picks up an instrument because he kicks ass on Guitar Hero (how ever that’s done), then I suppose that’s a good thing. Back in the old days, kids like me were just as inspired to play guitar after spending a night strumming a tennis racket and singing into an indoor TV antenna (Oh, the concerts I staged!).

But let’s face the real hardcore facts: these games are providing an additional stream of revenue for artists whose legacy catalogs are no longer the cash cows they thought they were. Who would have thought 20 years ago — before the advent of the Internet — that video games and ringtones would replace albums as income for some of the world’s most renowned classic rock artists? Certainly not me.

Maybe if they add hotel destruction, groupie gathering, or ego crushing, the games might ring a little more true. But in this politically correct world, you can’t have everything. Now, if I could figure out how to restring my tennis racket, it might be time for an encore performance.

I recently received a couple of sweet 180 gram vinyl records from my friends at Legacy. One is Billy Joel’s The Stranger, which I never owned. The other is an Iron Maiden two-record compilation. Both sound surprisingly warm and generous on my sturdy and reliable turntable.

It had been a few years since I last spun a new long-player. I have a couple hundred records from the 60s, 70s and 80s, but I rarely pull them out. It’s just too much work. Any dope can slap in a cassette, plop on a CD, or flick the switch on an iPod, but records require special handling and care, placement and synchronization skills. You have to especially pay attention because when the record ends — almost always sooner than you think — you have to be prepared to rescue your stylus and your sanity from the end-of-the record crunch. Whew! That was a close one.

But think about it if you will — while paying attention, one might grow to actually appreciate what lies between the grooves that much more. We are such a hurried society, that we often think we can portabalize anything — physical, mental, whimsical — and take it on the road. MP3s, CDs and cassettes are popular because they lend themselves to these very concepts. You can’t take your records to the beach or on an airplane, but then again it’s questionable as to whether or not these places are ideal environments for music. With records, you simply have to set aside an evening. Not a bad thing at all.

Besides the flipping, cleaning and variances of turntable speed that has to be monitored, there’s the album cover. Some of it is plain and uncomplicated, others make the most of it with extensive art work, allegories, photographs, messages, gateways to other dimensions. There are coffee table books that are full of album cover art. I’ve yet to see any books on CD or cassette art. Cassettes are minuscule no matter how you look at it. They’re just too compact to make the commitment. On the other hand, some record companies and specialty houses have tried to re-invent album cover art within the CD format. DCC goes to such lengths as utilizing original sources who worked on the original albums. In the 90s, Virgin released a nice set of Stones CDs, recreating early 70s gimmicks like the zipper on Sticky Fingers. Aside from such details and flourishes added to re-releases, not much can be said for new releases. Either the creativity has dried up or they’re saving everything for the box set.

When you hold an album in your hands — it takes two if you want to do it properly — you are holding history. Okay, they still make records, and more people are buying vinyl than they have since the beginning of the decade, but there’s still a good 50 years of music on vinyl that will never make it to CD. They may think they have it licked, but it’s an impossible task from the most logical standpoint. There will always be missing pieces. Economically, it probably doesn’t make much sense. That’s why they can’t rebuild Rome either.

Ever since Rob Halford returned to the scene of the crime with Judas Priest, expectations have been high for the Metal Gods. The 2005 reunion album Angel Of Retribution and subsequent tour got the ball rolling, but what did the leather-and-studded mavens have in mind for an encore? How about a bloated, overly ambitious concept album about the quirky 16th French prophet Nostradamus? No small feat indeed. For a metal institution like Priest, it certainly presented an odd range of obstacles to work around and overcome.

Priest press hard at selling the plight of Nostradamus in a fist-pumpin’ hard-rockin’ manner. Not that metal shies away from bigger-than-lifer images and concepts; on the contrary, it swallows them up whole and spits them out like shiny new jewels. On the surface, tackling a mythic figure like Nostradamus — whose cryptic quatrains of prophecy stretched the bounds of speculation and interpretation — may seem like a sound and calculated move for a band ready to throw down the gauntlet and roll in the mud, but is it powerful and accessible enough to keep the card-carrying masses’ heads a-bangin’? It really depends on which side of the grandstand you sit on.

The anticipation swells as “Dawn Of Creation” builds and explodes before “Prophecy” takes a big bite of the melody, pile driving the arrival of Nostradamus — “the voice of God.” Rob Halford’s shrieking and salient vocals shift and shape each song into another chapter of the story, with short instrumental passages guding the general rhythm and pace. “Revelations” entices the listener to forgive Nostradamus and his tormented admonishments as it swims through the orchestration, and embraces the frenetic fretwork of K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton. Whether singing in English, French or German, Halford’s commanding operatic style comes to the fore, driving the drama of “War” before delivering the ensuing catastrophe behind “Pestilence & Plague,” which eventually leads to “Death.”

At the halfway point, you’re either loving this grim tale or looking for an exit. The record assumes a far more introspective mode, imploring God in “Lost Love,” which obscurely addresses the loss of Nostradamus’ wife and children to the Plague in 1534. Moving from medicine to the occult, the prophecies of Nostradamus drew religious persecution and embroiled the former apothecary in further controversy. This is met head-on by Judas Priest who counter persecution with crucifixion for maximum impact. As the short segues alter the record’s moods, creating a template that is neither inviting nor dissuasive. It’s rather easy to get pulled into the next number by sheer curiosity.

And as the ultimate heavy metal group gets comfy with swirling choirs, sweeping orchestrations, and acoustic embellishments, the lyrics dance around the seer and his almanac full of prophetic quatrains that supposedly spell out the end of mankind. But it isn’t until the final number, ironically called “Future Of Mankind,” ambiguously outlining Nostradamus‘ own fateful demise, that we are clued into the power of the man’s premonitions. Still, it’s highly doubtful he announced his end with the velocity of Judas Priest.

As a heavy metal album, Nostradamus struggles to play along like the others, unforgiving of the tried and true ingredients to distinguish it from the denizens of ruffian riffs drowning in mediocrity. As a whole, Nostradamus is Priest flexing their mighty metal talons in search of copious and cerebral stimulus suffocating under the weight of three chords and common incoherency. For a band like Judas Priest to stomp on the soapbox without falling into a cesspool of mockery and misadventure is commendable, to say the very least. If they can pull it off live, they may set a new precedent for vintage metal and beyond.

During a conversation I had with Toby Gleason last year, he explained that because his father, famed music critic Ralph J. Gleason, had established very close relationships with both the Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead during the mid-60s, he was able to accurately document their historic evolution as the quintessential Bay Area bands of the late 60s. By all accounts, Gleason, who had previously produced the Jazz Casual series featuring guests like Dave Brubeck and John Coltrane, functioned as the catalyst between the mainstream and the underground, capturing the meteoric rise of the San Francisco psychedelic scene with a sense of cultural reverence. Gleason’s 2007 DVD, A Night At The Family Dog, features some vintage live performances from the Airplane, the Dead and Santana. The double DVD follow-up, Go Ride The Music & West Pole, delves further with more live Airplane and Dead footage, as well as performances from Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller Band, Sons of Chaplin and Ace Of Cups.

Plop in the Go Ride The Music disc and off we go with roadies moving gear in and out, traveling entourages, freaky audience members doing strange things, split screen shots covering the entire scene — typical rock-band-on-tour footage now, but then it was new, novel and wild. Jefferson Airplane indulges us with seven tracks from Pacific High Recording. The fiery interplay of bassist Jack Casady, new drummer Joey Covington, and guitarists Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen provides the backdrop. Interspersed are generous close-ups of the svelte and commanding presence of Grace Slick slotted alongside a few inordinate ramblings from Marty Balin and even Jerry Garcia. For their part, Quicksilver Messenger Service set up at a park and dig in deep with their unique blend of psychedelic folk and blues.

West Pole builds on the cinématique contortions and elements of Go Ride The Music, but works as a snapshot in time, offering an overview of the emerging San Francisco sound. Gleason narrates, outlining the mass infusion of countless bands, while man-on-the-street interviews with fans help to reinforce the impact. Ace Of Cups, an all-girl fivesome, open the disc on a high, optimistic note before segueing into erratic MTV-style short films featuring the Dead, Airplane, Sons Of Champlin, Steve Miller Band, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Clearly, the filmmakers were testing the goods from Owsley Stanley’s private stash when they edited these clips together. Either that, or they were experimenting with a form that would pioneer the marriage of film and music. And what of Ralph J. Gleason himself? The late Rolling Stone magazine co-founder’s legacy has never been more important in a day and age where music stands as the great language of the universe.

This is one of those entries that might be construed as having very little to do with classic rock. But there is some crossover. Counterculture comedian George Carlin died yesterday, and I feel like the world may have lost a true genius. That’s right: I believe that George Carlin was a great mind, and a unique observer of life’s follies who never held back and never apologized for what he thought or said. I’m proud to say, that stuffed in a box alongside my collection of classic rock albums are a couple from Carlin, Class Clown and Occupational Foole. Whenever I feel like I need a harsh and cold blast of reality, I listen to Carlin.

I’m not familiar with what type of music George listened to, if he listened at all. He was probably more into the 50s than the 60s or 70s. Of course, he played a mean guitar in the 80s comedy, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but I seriously doubt he was into metal.

I saw George Carlin in person once in Las Vegas in the 90s. I always vowed to go see him again, but it never came to pass. I’d heard he’d grown a little more cynical in recent times. The last bit I saw was another one of his HBO specials, and he was especially scathing in his views on religion and the world in general. He never let up, never stopped exploring and questioning anything that didn’t quite look or feel right. He was neither a conservative nor a liberal; rather, he took shots at the entire human race without naming names and made people laugh at themselves. He was, in some many ways, a classic rock comedian. I hope he’s making them laugh and think wherever he is.

To celebrate the acerbic, razor-sharp wit of George Carlin, check out a couple of classic Carlin clips below. Warning: Some material in these videos may be unsuitable for some viewers.

George Carlin - Saving the Planet

George Carlin - Seven Words

In 1976, The Beatles were supposedly offered $100 million to reunite, a mere six years after their breakup. An astronomical amount of cash then and certainly nothing to sneeze at now, the offer was allegedly considered, but, as history shows, passed over. Four years later, any hopes of a full-on Beatles reunion were dashed when John Lennon was murdered in New York City. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr did eventually come together for the Beatles Anthology project in 1995, but it wasn’t quite the reunion fans and friends had envisioned during the 70s.

The loss of an integral member hasn’t stopped other bands from reuniting. Especially when the promise of big money looms. These days, it’s almost a given that any band, big or small, will reunite to cash in on what’s become a raging phenomenon, and another example of how the past in itself has become a major commodity.

As Boomers age and the world changes, rock and roll is no longer the dominant form of entertainment it once was. Still, there’s this lingering desire to go back to the days of yore when bands like Cream, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Police, Genesis, Van Halen and countless others ruled the airwaves. Boomers aren’t the only one shelling out the big bucks for a ride on the time machine; numerous, affluent Generation X’s and Y’s, who heard and read about these legendary performers in their history books, are also flocking to the reunion shows.

Reunions, especially after years of inactivity, can really skew one’s perception of what a band was like in their hey day, and whether or not they can live up to the legacy as an older, crustier version.
Ultimately, what happens more often than not is that a reunited band may be able to pull in enough revenue to take care of the retirement fund, but they stand to tarnish their reputation if they are anything less than spectacular. Of course, as with everything, there are exceptions.

I’ll be revisiting the idea of reunions from time to time, but this is something you can chew on for awhile…

I have very distinct memories of 1977. For one, I graduated from high school. And then, that summer, I drove around the United States and learned more about geography and history than I ever did at school. Along the way, some of my favorite bands were on the road, and I made it my mission to see all of them. It didn’t work out that way.

The three biggest classic rock acts on tour that year were Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I managed to see both Zeppelin and ELP twice, but somehow missed Pink Floyd altogether. To this day, I wish I could have seen Floyd more than other two, but something strange happened along the way to the box office.

I had already secured one ticket to see Zeppelin in San Diego. All the L.A. dates had sold out, so I didn’t have a choice. The shows were originally scheduled for March, but were delayed until June due to some internal band problem I don’t remember much about. So, I had my ticket for Led Zeppelin and then they announced Pink Floyd’s date at Anaheim Stadium. I contacted a couple of buddies and we made plans to get tickets the next morning.

Back in those days, you had to get a place in line to buy your tickets through Ticketron, which was eventually swallowed up by Ticketmaster. We used to go to a place called Wallick’s Music City to get our tickets. It was either that or May Company. So there we were, the three of us, standing in line to get Pink Floyd tickets on the morning they went on sale. As soon as we got to the counter, it was announced that the Anaheim Pink Floyd concert was sold out. Sold out? Now what?

I leaned over the counter and asked the clerk if there were tickets available for any other concerts. He looked me straight in the eye and said: “Well, Led Zeppelin just added another night to the Forum.” I glanced over at my buddies. Neither of them had tickets to any of the Zeppelin shows, and I figured I could see them again, so why not? “Sure,” they said, “we’ll go to Zeppelin instead.” So we bought our Led Zeppelin tickets and I ended up seeing the very last show in Los Angeles.

As for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, that was a no-brainer. During my travels that summer, they seemed to be playing in every town I was in, so I ended up seeing them in New York, and then again in Long Beach when I got home. How strange it is that these days I have a hard time finding just one show, let alone three, to go see. The times are indeed a-changin’.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of video of the 1977 Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and ELP shows, so all is not lost. Ok, it’s not the best video in the world, but it’s something. Have a look below for yourself.

Led Zeppelin: L.A. Forum 1977 w/ Keith Moon

Pink Floyd: Anaheim Stadium 1977

Emerson, Lake and Palmer: 1977