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What do Nerk Twins, Glimmer Twins, and Toxic Twins have in common? They're all pseudonyms for musical duos who, through some mystic alignment (or collision) of planets, came to front legendary rock bands. Today I'll take a look at the origin of these monikers and offer up a few of my own
Picture this: Good-girl Betty meets motorcycle bad-boy Jimmy at a candy store, where he's obviously buying candy cigarettes. He turns around and smiles at her. You get the picture? (Who knew that candy stores were such popular pick-up joints in 1964?) But is she really going out with him? Yep, the next thing you know, she takes Jimmy's ring, wraps her legs 'round those velvet rims, and straps her hands 'cross his engines (no, wait; that's another song about an outcast luring a chick to his Harley). Anyway, Daddy tells her to ditch the biker. Alas, the sad, misunderstood Jimmy drives off into the sunset to crash and burn. Oh, the drama, the poignancy, the sound effects! How we all longed for a Jimmy who would self-destruct for us! Yes, folks, I'm talking about the Shangri-Las' doomed-love classic "Leader of the Pack," which hit the #1 spot on the Billboard charts 50 years ago today.
Cutting your teeth...honing your skills...paying your dues...(and, my favorite)...making your bones.Whatever you want to call it, Jimi Hendrix did it all in the days prior to achieving eternal super stardom as the greatest rock guitarist of all time. He played for years in backup bands for such American artists as Little Richard, Sam Cooke, the Isley Brothers and Joey Dee and the Starlighters. He also spent an evening playing backup for English crooner Engelbert Humperdinck and once toured with The Monkees as an opening act. Perhaps more than any other musician in rock history, Jimi Hendrix loved to play. It didn't matter what, where, when, or with whom.
If you could whittle down The Beatles' double "White Album" to a single-disc LP, which songs would you include (or toss)? Today, this album is considered iconic among fans and critics. Yet, upon its release, many critics considered the songs somewhat mediocre and purposeless. I played this album till it was nearly grooveless, but when it comes to critical analysis, I believe its content could have used "a damn good whacking," to borrow a line from George Harrison's song "Piggies" (a tune I'd cut, by the way).
Sometimes I think it's a sin, when I feel like I'm winning, when I'm losing again. Those words from Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot have run up and down the staircase of my mind many times. Just when I think I've got it, it turns out I don't. His win/lose lyric has several cousins: Springsteen's one step up and two steps…