SoSick,
Thinking about what you've said, sounds like with your references to "gloating", etc. you think I'm bragging... I can see where it would come off that way and if that is the case, apologize.
There's a hint of bragging, like you think this is really cool, but by gloating I mean you relay a real love and longing for the heyday of those days.. gloating.. look it up in the dictionary I mean it exactly for what the word describes..
whereas no, not I, sorry. I mean, if you look up some of these bands and people on the internet.. they look slimy and creepy... exactly who and what they are.. a slimy creepy bunch of potheads. I have to disagree about their talent too.. with a few exceptions.. it's the late 60's-early 70's sound and few of them are really unique. You have to check the date too, this is 1970's music.. the 60's have just happened, Woodstock just happened.. Kent state had just happened.. the morals of America were crushed almost overnight and there was this huge void leftover... in 1975 I would have been 15 years old... no one knew what was right or wrong anymore and drugs were everywhere... it really all in all was not a good time to be a teenager. People were driving those painted VW buses still.. so many of my young friends never made it to school past HS,, they wandered around for several years trying to 'find themselves'. Tell me how you find yourself when you are stoned all day.
I really do have to agree with Pwcca on this one. It's about money. The few musicians that made money did ok but the general masses, so many of them, their lives were destroyed by that pop music drug culture. some recovered but many simply became casualities. Think about it really.. who or what was leading our generation.. after Woodstock.. after Vietnam.. no one we were terribly lost... we looked mainly to these groups of stoned musicians with absolutely zero of our best interests at heart. that's who we looked to because they expressed some of our teenage fears and desires on the radio. .. a huge mistake. and the drugs.. the drugs trapped people there in that moment.
I have never watched MTV except for a moment or two here and there skipping channels I may have bumped into it a few times. I don't know, if you worry about your kids emulating what's on TV then maybe they need a parent in the house.
don't fear the reaper.. that one will really make me upchuck. all that music is about drugs and sex and running cluelessly wild until you bump into something hard enough to knock you out for a while. I'm sorry. It's all so shallow.
ugh.
Celtic music is very nice btw, I would agree with that. It's wierd I must admit, once I left the suburbs and got to college, no one listened to the mainstream stuff anymore. No one. In college, mainstream music was not cool. It was considered a relic of the 60's. history. dinosaurs. So that page in my life pretty much closed right there and that was a good thing. I guess that's why i still associate it with a high school mentality. At least I didnt have to wander from coast to coast begging to figure that much out.
these friends of mine from high school would show up at my door in NYC from time to time.. dressed like hippies.. smoking pot.. looking for a place to stay it was so weird... being almost 1980 by now... very wierd.. a very weird bunch... ugh.
SoSick, It appears, then, if you would've been 15 in 1975 we are the same age. I was born in 1960. So I know what you are talking about....
Just hear me out. I've been trying to state it, but its not getting through. You really have taken me wrong, but I can see how you could have. (And you tend to look at me through black colored glasses anyway). I lost my dad when I was 12. My brother was a pothead and into music from the time he was 10 or so. I remember my dad being furious once with him when he caught him listening to Black Sabbath and becoming borderline abusive, even, with him). Of course daddy died, like I said, when I was 12 and Jeff was 14. But Jeff also died last year if you haven't caught that. He died due to the fact that he NEVER quit smoking pot, or cigarettes, or drinking from the time we were kids to that point, so I know exactly what you are talking about. You are actually preaching to the choir.... I lost my own brother due to that lifestyle. My own brief experimental stint was minimal. I'd always gone to church before that till daddy died, but pretty much had no guidance and my brother was...my big brother. I tried his way cause he wanted me to, but I got away from it quickly. I knew it would take me nowhere and that there was no future in it. I got "saved" at a revival when I was about 14 and threw out all my David Bowie albums. (THat is about all I owned if I remember right that I felt bad about). I, however, kept my Moody Blues and Neil Diamond, Spirit, etc. albums. When I met my husband it was the year after he had auditioned for KISS. I thought of them as "Knights in Satan's Service." (I'd seen a picture of them posing with one of the guy's hand on a woman's breast with her face hidden like she was less than human IMO. I was thoroughly disgusted but didn't really like their music anyway). That is my point made early on in this discussion with "if you only knew."
My husband's life and mine ran parallel in a way, though. When my brother (and me along with him) was into David Bowie, my husband was opening up for him down in FL. When the song I loved so much came out, Wildflower, he was playing on it. I didn't know that at the time, obviously, but could relate with what his life had been even though he was almost 8 years older than me. When he hit 30 and hadn't made it all the way in the business, though, he got out. He felt jaded and felt the lifestyle was not something he wanted to be around anymore, either. When I met him he was living with his mom and was completely starting over. When he started telling me about his background....it scared me. It took 2.5 years for me to marry him because he was not marriage material at first. He changed his life completely. The KISS thing never worked out, (thank goodness) but the things that did were actually respectable. He had toured and played with Ambrosia if you remember them. (Hardly acid rock). He played with David Foster in Skylark, too, when they had the hit Wildflower. I loved that song when it came out in 1973 cause I related with it. The other stuff didn't impress me, but that did. If you caught where I posted Mott the Hoople's song, Hymn for the Dudes, note on that song the part that says "cross over shame, like the wise dove, who care's not for fame, just for shy love." That is how I've always looked at it.
He has lots of interesting stories, but the moral is that he gave it all up for a better life in reality. His friend who is a heavy metal rocker is a sweetheart, but I don't want to hold him up for ridicule. I was proud of him and their group, though, when they came out with a song with the words "Call of the wild has been bringing me down, spirit controls what's inside you.... (Can't remember all the words). The tune is to a heavy mesmerizing beat. (Musically - like the style or not they are good musicians - the drummer is a very powerful heavy rocker, but also a family man now). Anyway, then the chorus is "Time Stands Still when you're having fun, but you pay the price when the day is done." The singer just died in 2007. It crushed our friend... In the end, the lifestyle killed the singer, but the other members have lived more "temperately." Yes, they've lived off that party image and, as much as my husband would love to play with the drummer again, I wouldn't want him playing that kind of music.
David from Skylark has always had high standards. He has been my husbands mentor, teacher and friend.
I've been sentimental about mt brother which is partly why I've been dwelling on music from this era, though. As I've stated on here before, the bass player in Paul Rogers band reminds me of my brother. When we saw them live it blew me away. I broke out in tears just seeing him. (It had only been a few months at time time since he'd died). I have a DVD with this same band "Live from Glasgow." It is good music, period. Music was really the one thing I had in common with my brother having a musician husband, and my brother looked up to him. That is partly what has motivated me to keep watching this DVD of Paul Rogers. Its like watching my brother who was also a bass player and he had the same hair and thick neck and face. And I do admire their musicianship. I do not apologize for that. They rock! Period. But I don't gloat or lust after them personally, although, I must say my hubbie and I did have some great sex once with them on in the background!!!!! (Sorry if that's more info than you want...). The music puts me in the mood. I'm not lusting after Paul himself. He's a short little guy. But he sure has a sexy singing voice. My bad.. (Better than watching porn...not as easy to get in the mood as it use to be). However, having even said that I feel more comfortable on an every day basis listening to Josh Groban. I do like celtic, too. Enya is nice. They had a video of her on at Blockbuster the other day with a Lord of the Rings video. The music is partly what was so spellbinding about that movie series.
I didn't really "discover" even Led Zeppelin till later (and married). It certainly doesn't evoke anything to do with drugs with me cause I don't associate it with it. Like I said, they scared me. I made out some, but remember, once, going to a party with a guy where they were playing outside and it made me very uncomfortable. Too seductive. And a few of their songs, yes, I find a little sleezy. But their musicianship was amazing. I had an experience with Stairway to Heaven that was actually life changing for me. Me and a girlfriend were out driving around getting high (I did say I experimented) with these two older guys and were driving through a cemetary. Here I was, high, and the headlights shone right on my dad's head stone as we came up over the hill. There was dead silence in the van. Then Stairway to Heaven came on the radio. I kind of took it all as a sign. My mom had been in her own little world dealing with being widowed at only 40 and having 3 teenagers, but seeing his gravestone right then made me think about how he would feel knowing what I was doing smoking pot. He had died an alcoholic, (Korean war vet) but was very conservative and did not like the drug culture. And yes, many of their songs are about leaving someone or being upset cause there is cheating going on. (The blues influence and, likely, life experiences. My husband liked me because I WOULDN'T sleep with him. He was tired of the groupies). Some of their music, though, is beautiful. Thank You is one of the most beautiful romantic love songs I've ever heard. (About eternal love....). They used strings in a lot of their songs.... They were classically trained. Originally a few years back I heard that song and ordered their CD for that which is how I "discovered" them. (But I haven't really talked about them anyway....nor do I listen to them regularly anymore. Kind of burned out on them after my discovery. Paul has actually gotten that way, too. Some times I obsess with things for a while.
Anyway, I guess I need to be more careful about how I throw that stuff around. I don't really think about how it might come off because its just what I've been around since I've known my husband. I'm glad you brought it up, actually, though, and that I was able to clarify finally hopefully.
Music, IMO, though is always a good ice breaker and its nice to see us also come together on something...(With Pwcca, LL, Bex, Russ, you).
