Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
Does a typewriter qualify as a musical instrument? To Lester Bangs, it did. The brilliant, outrageous rock journalist, who died on this date in 1982 from a cocktail of Darvon, Valium, and NyQuil, once joined the J. Geils Band on stage and proceeded to write/perform a live concert review on his “miked” Smith Corona typewriter.
“I slept with three of them and then decided the lead singer was the best bet.” That was burgeoning pop singer Marianne Faithfull in 1964, telling “New Musical Express” magazine that the quickest route to success would be to snag a Rolling Stone — most strategically, Mick Jagger. What a cocky thing to say, I thought when I first heard this quote as a kid. I’d always wanted to use the British term strumpet, and now was my chance. Why all the fuss about Marianne Faithfull, anyway? Sure, she was blonde, sexy and had a hit song. Big deal. So, it was with much skepticism that I decided to read her 1994 memoir “Faithfull.” And by the time I finished it, I found her to be one of the most intelligent and independent women in rock — a talented singer, songwriter, muse, actress, diarist, and survivor. Today is her 68th birthday.
Images of the old American West and scenes of Southern country life have inspired countless British rock recordings through the years, none more so than the early albums of Elton John. And no wonder. His lyricist Bernie Taupin was in love with romantic visions of Americana…scenes of cornfields and cattle towns, frisky colts and fringed-front buggies, field bosses and chain gangs, Geronimo and gunslingers. All of Elton’s songs began in the mind of Bernie, who turns 64 today. He wrote the lyrics that the pianist-showman set to music – creating vivid sound portraits of days gone by.
If Halloween is about taking a little trip to the dark, spooky, loony side of life, then every day is Halloween for me. Always has been. I was born in the Season of the Witch, and the mysterious and the macabre are my muses. For me, thrills and chills don’t come in the form of … Read more
Post-communist Czechoslovakia was a country reborn of the fire of rock and roll! Today is the 26th anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution, a peaceful student-led anti-government protest movement that led to the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in December 1989. The name of the revolution stemmed directly from Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground, … Read more