Suffering For Your Art


The 18-year-old passed away on Monday morning at his home in Minnesota surrounded by his family and girlfriend, according to a post by his mother on Sobiech's CaringBridge page.

Zach touched the hearts of millions, including countless celebrities, with the farewell song he wrote for family and friends after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer.
Sobiech said he also needed to write it for himself. "I needed to get that emotion out and they wanted something they could remember me by," he said.

The lyrics read: "And we’ll go up, up, up. But I’ll fly a little higher. We’ll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer. Up here my dear. It won’t be long now, it won’t be long now."
Clouds was uploaded to YouTube on December 5, 2012, and has since been viewed by nearly 3 million people.

This response saw celebrities come together to pay tribute to Zach with their own version of the song and a video.

Among the stars featured in the video is Ashley Tisdale, Colbie Caillat, Anna Faris, Passenger, Jason Mraz, Rachel Bilson, Chris Pratt, Jenna Elfman, Jenna Fischer, The Lumineers, Rachel Bilson, Ed Helms and Phillip Phillips.

The video was assembled by The Office star Rainn Wilson and actor Justin Baldoni, who directed a short documentary about Zach, called My Last Days, which airs on Wilson's SoulPancake YouTube channel.

The story of Zach Sobiech and his recording of his song Clouds is very sad but it's nice that Zach lived to see its popularity. As artists we always wonder if the work we do that goes unnoticed will be discovered and celebrated after our deaths. At least Zach knew the world had discovered him, it's just too bad he didn't have any time to enjoy his success.

The question becomes would Clouds have had any success at all if not for the tragic backstory that accompanied it? It might have been just another song recorded by a teenager and released on Youtube if Zach had remained healthy. In fact, if not for his illness he might never had felt the pressure to write, record or upload a song in the first place.

A while back a musician named Justin Vernon retreated to his family's vacation cabin in northwestern Wisconsin to recover from a bout of mononucleosis. While there he wrote and recorded an album under the band name Bon Iver. Bon Iver then went on to win the 2012 Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album for their album Bon Iver, Bon Iver. The name Bon Iver was derived from the French phrase bon hiver , meaning "good winter", taken from a greeting on the TV series Northern Exposure.

I've heard this story of Justin Vernon recording his hit record while ill a lot more than I've actually heard the music. It makes me wonder how much the record's success is because of the dramatic backstory rather than because of the music itself. It's already gotten to the point where a talented singer-songwriter-pianist-brunette named Stefani Germanotta had to change her name, hair color and persona to the cartoon characterish Lady Gaga to get her music the attention it deserved. Now have we gotten to the point where you have to be ill to get noticed like Justin Vernon. Or worse yet, die like Zach Sobiech?


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Something Definitely Has To Go

I just watched what is perhaps the worst TV show I've ever seen. It's even more vile than Toddlers And Tiaras which I don't even understand how it's legal. This one is called Does Someone Have To Go? and I suppose is suppose to be a business workplace version of Survivor.

In this business make-over show the employees are videoed being interviewed about their fellow employees. They are brutally honest and are then asked to select three employees for potential termination. Then the edited interviews are shown to all the employees as they all sit together and have to listen to each other badmouth each other including their employers. Then it gets even worse! They are then shown what each of them makes for a yearly salary. This is horrible! These days people are desperate to find and keep even the low paying ($15000 to $24,000) jobs the folks on this particular episode were making (in Southern California). To mess with people's livelihoods for "Reality Show" entertainment is inexcusable.

The staff is then turned loose to try and lobby for their continued employment by developing alliances as on Survivor and then the three employees voted the most "toxic" are singled out. What I saw was part one of a two parter and I dread to think what the show is going to force these three people to do to try and keep their jobs. Once this show is over and the cameras have left I don't see how the remaining employees can ever really work together the same way again. The ought to call this show Let's Tear Apart Some Company For Shits And Giggles, cause that's what this is.




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Another Drummer Dies

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — Former Jefferson Airplane drummer Joey Covington has died in a Palm Springs car crash.

A Riverside County coroner's report says the 67-year-old Palm Springs resident wasn't wearing a seat belt when his car hit a retaining wall at about 5 p.m. Tuesday. He died at the scene.

Notice that he wasn't wearing a seat belt and that he hit a retaining wall. It's more often than not that fatal car crashes include not wearing a seat belt. It's assumed that not wearing the seat belt is what contributed to the fatality however it seems that perhaps being a piss poor driver is what caused the accident in the first place and that not wearing a seat belt is a definite sign of a bad driver.

Jet pilots and NASCAR drivers strap themselves in so why is it uncool to wear a seat belt? Are you cooler than a jet fighter pilot or a professional race car driver? Does not wearing a seat belt mean you're braver that a combat pilot? No, it means you don't have whatever it takes to finish the procedure you need to do to drive a motor vehicle. You probably don't bother to check your oil level or put air in your tires either. How can someone who hits a retaining wall be expected to be able to fasten a seat belt? 

Joey's friends think he may have had a stroke or a heart attack which caused the accident but unless he had a stroke before he started the car there's no excuse for not using the seat belt.

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Great Rock And Roll Keyboard Solos

Rock Cellar Magazine recently had an article Rock’s Top 11 Keyboard Solos written by Frank Mastropolo.

I’ve listed the titles of their choice of the top eleven (I suppose in homage to the Tap) keyboard solos in rock but strongly recommend you check out the entire article for the interesting historical details. A lot of these solos were inspired by Bach.

11. Piano Man by Billy Joel (Piano: Billy Joel)
10. Hush by Deep Purple (Organ: Jon Lord)
9. Us and Them by Pink Floyd (Piano: Rick Wright)
8. Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan (Organ: Al Kooper)
7. Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group (Synthesizer: Edgar Winter)
6. A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum (Organ: Matthew Fisher)
5. Lady Madonna by the Beatles (Piano: Paul McCartney)
4. Chest Fever by The Band (Organ: Garth Hudson)
3. Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel (Piano: Larry Knechtel)
2. Light My Fire by the Doors (Organ: Ray Manzarek)
1. Layla by Derek and the Dominos (Piano: Jim Gordon)

Now I don’t have a huge problem with any of these solos being listed in the Top 11 but a lot of them seem to be playing the song’s main riff and just repeating that for a solo in the middle such as A Whiter Shade Of Pale and although it was somewhat groundbreaking guitarist Al Kooper’s organ playing on Like A Rolling Stone is really pretty awful.

Where is First of Fifth on Selling England By The Pound by Genesis? Or how about Cans and Brahms (Extracts from Brahms' 4th Symphony in E Minor, Third Movement) performed by Rick Wakeman with Yes on their Fragile album? Or any one of a dozen organ solos by Keith Emerson of ELP? I suppose this is yet another example of Progressive Rock not being considered “real” rock and roll.

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Taste Is A Matter Of Taste

When I was a kid, and I mean twelve years old, I was the lead guitarist in a rock band. The only "famous" rock band with musicians anywhere close to our age was Dino, Desi & Billy a band that featured Dean Martin's son on bass and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez's son on drums. Desi Jr. was nine months older than me. I suppose he still is.

One day while looking through my teen music fan magazines I saw a full page color photo of Dino Martin. I wasn't a big fan and related more to Desi who was closer to my age but I did feel a rivalry with Dino, Desi & Billy and I thought it was a particularly great photo of Dino. In fact, it was printed on the back cover of the mag. I used to keep photos that particularly inspired me and even made huge psychedelic photo collages on my bedroom bulletin board and as book covers for my school books but I kept this one because it made me feel that this was how I wanted to look when the time came for me to be on the back cover of Tiger Beat Magazine.

Years later I was in my parents room while they were watching a Bette Midler television special. I wasn't a fan of Bette Midler but I was real impressed with her choice of songs which included David Bowie's Life On Mars? and Tom Waits' Sailing Away, two of my favorites.

The reason I mention these two events is because after seeing them I later read letters to the editor, one to Tiger Beat Magazine and the other to TV Guide. The Tiger Beat letter asked how the magazine could print such an awful photograph of Dino Martin on its back cover of the previous issue and the TV Guide letter complained about Bette Midler's terrible choice of songs for her TV special and singled out Life On Mars? and Sailing Away. Not only did these two things really, really stand out to me as exceptional but that someone should have taken the time to so bitterly complain about them. For everything someone likes there is someone out there who equally dislikes it. The trick is not to please everyone but to please those people who will actually buy your product. I really liked that particular photo of Dino, for my own reasons, but it still wouldn't make me buy a Dino, Desi & Billy record and as much as I enjoyed and appreciated Bette Midler's versions of two of my favorite songs I still would never buy a Bette Midler album.

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Franchising Rock & Roll

Being made obsolete by the Animation Industry giving my job to a computer operator, a computer operator in the Far East, I've been looking for a job for several years now. When even college educated young people can't get even minimum wage jobs and if they can they only give them part-time hours, old artists like me don't have much of a chance. Finally my wife has decided that if I can't get someone to hire me we will have to buy a business and we'll hire me.

Checking a list on the Internet of the top 500 franchises one really popped out at me: The School Of Rock, number 211 on the list. This is an after school music education organization specifically created to organize young people into performing rock and roll bands. Since I've been organizing rock and roll bands since I was eleven years old this really appeals to me. 

Some of the Pros concerning opening a School Of Rock in my area is that there is no spoilage as you would have if you owned a fast food restaurant, it's an afternoon and evening endeavor so you wouldn't have to get up at 5 AM to cook doughnuts for policemen starting their day as you would if you opened a Dunkin Doughnuts. I wouldn't have to worry about burning anything as I would probably do if I ran a burger joint, there's no Health Department hassles or law suits stemming from food poisoning and I do have some experience teaching young people (Cal Arts and Comic Book Production for the Saugus School District's After School Enrichment Program).

Some of the Cons concerning opening a School Of Rock in my area is if the franchise owners insist that all the instructors pass a drug test since they will be working with children. Finding rock musicians willing to teach kids how to play will be difficult enough, finding rock musicians willing to teach kids how to play and actually showing up for class on time will be even more difficult but finding rock musicians willing to teach kids how to play that are completely drug free might be a deal breaker. My biggest concern is that Rock & Roll is no longer an important part of a young person's life, learning to play in a rock band isn't something most parents would want to actually pay for their child to learn to do and the sort of young person who wants to be in a rock band is someone who doesn't want to be told what to do by an adult. Rock & Roll is a form of rebellion, not something you work too hard at. Of course, that's just the illusion, the reality is that successful rock band members often took music lessons, started by singing in church choirs and were extremely diligent in their music education and rehearsal schedules, but it's difficult to fight that illusion.

Maybe I'm missing the point here and that the future is not in teaching young people to rock but in helping the young people of past generations who wasted their lives chasing the Rock & Roll dream  to kick the Rock & Roll habit once and for all. I should franchise Rock & Roll Rehab!

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Anita Moorjani Story

I recently came upon an amazing video on the Internet about a lady named Anita Moorjani who had a near death experience (NDE). She really had more of a death experience, one of those clinical deaths in a hospital, this one from cancer, but came back to talk about it. These are not all that uncommon these days but hers is different because she not only survived being clinically dead and regained consciousness but her cancer quickly disappeared and she became completely healed and healthy.

Anita Moorjani who died of cancer.

Why I'm mentioning her story is because she said something that I've heard everyone who has claimed to have a NDE say and I think it could be confusing. What they say is that they've learned from their experience that we are all, at our core LOVE. They never seem to elaborate and to say we, material beings in psychical form, are actually an emotion which has no form is a confusing concept. What does this mean?

Imagine you're in the position that these NDE people claim to have been. You are disassociated from your body. You feel you no longer have a physical body. What's more, you suddenly have the intimate first person memories of not just yourself but of many other people. You still have your own identity and individuality but you're also diluted by these other personalities who are also "you" and with their memories and emotions which are also "yours". Then what exactly is it that makes you, You?

It is not the memory or knowledge of your particular life that is you but that unique feeling that you identify as You. You don't think, therefore I am, you feel, therefore I am. You feel like you. You feel the You vibe that tells you you are you. And that vibe or feeling can best be described, at its core, by the emotion that seems to be its very foundation and that emotion, feeling or vibe is LOVE.

The more I hear stories like this and even more impressive, the more I read scientists talking about Quantum Physics, the more I believe The Beatles were more than just a rock and roll band. Of all the things they might have chosen to champion such as partying, sex, rebelliousness, politics, etc., they chose to stand for LOVE. It's even the name of their Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas (which I've seen FOUR TIMES).  I love The Beatles.



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