Rock Of Ages Movie

As someone who was a part of the L.A. music scene of the 1980s and as someone involved in Rock and Roll Theater and the illustrating of rock music I feel compelled to go see the new movie based on the hit Broadway show, Rock Of Ages.

It features the hit music of the 80s and is about the Sunset Strip “Hairspray Metal” club scene. This would have included clubs such as Gazzarris, the Whisky, the Starwood, Filthy McNasty’s, The Central and, few blocks away from Sunset, The Troubadour. My band, Womanizer, was the house band for KWST nights at the Troub and we regularly played Filthy’s and The Central. The Whiskey was actually punk rock back then and we played at Gazzarris as an audition but didn’t get the gig.

I feel I need to see this movie but my wife has a real problem with Tom Cruise and won’t go with me. I never let my personal opinion of an actor keep me from enjoying a film, in fact, I rarely have a personal opinion about an actor. My wife refuses to watch John Wayne movies because of his politics but I couldn’t care less. I’m watching a cowboy up on the screen, not a yacht sailing right wing Republican.

I feel a bit funny going to a movie musical by myself so if anyone wants to go see this film let me know. It portrays a part of my life and times and I’m interested in knowing how we now look to the new generation. Yes, I’m a little surprised by the casting of Tom Cruise but I wouldn’t have thought he would have made a very good Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder either so I’ll give him a change.

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The Story Of The Band That Died In Nam

 I heard a story back in the Sixties about an unknown rock and roll band that had traveled to Viet Nam as part of a USO show to entertain the troops. This band was packed into the back of a supply truck to be driven to their gig out in the country someplace. Along the way the Viet Cong ambushed the truck and sprayed the back with machine gun fire. At least some of the band members were killed.

I don’t remember the name of the band except as I recall they had the word “bubble” in the title such as The Bubble Machine or something like that. I can’t find any reference to them on the Internet either so if anyone out there remembers any details about this story please add them in the COMMENTS section below.

It’s possible that story was just a rumor but on this Memorial Day I thought I’d remember some noncombatants who were in a war zone on behalf of our armed services and died along with our fighting men.

There have been rock and rollers who actually served the country as soldiers. Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash and Jerry Garcia are some of the more famous ones. And let’s not forget ACDC were honorary members of the US Military when our troops used their music as psychological warfare against General Manuel Noriega of Panama.

Below is a follow up left as a comment by one of our readers for those of you too lazy to click on the COMMENTS.

I found this on the internet in German and used Google Translate to come up with this:

On July 5, 1968, the bus gets the band "Brandi Perry & The Bubble Machine", which is carelessly traveling without military protection, in South Vietnam on the way to Vung Tau in an ambush, either by troops of the Viet Cong or the South Vietnamese army. The drummer and keyboard player Phil Willis + Kurt Pill, both only 17 years old, are killed, the bassist and vocalist Jack Bone + Paula "Brandi Perry," Levine are injured more or less difficult.

"Brandi Perry & The Bubble Machine" are also the subject of the documentary "Entertaining Vietnam" by Mara Wallis about musicians who attended the American troops in Vietnam.


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Degrees of Separation By Buzz B.

It’s always interesting to play that ‘degrees of separation' game. I recently read of the death of disco music queen Donna Summer, who grew up in Massachusetts, and it got me thinking.
As a young musician I signed a contract with a record producer in California as a singer/songwriter. Growing up in a home half in Rhode Island, half in Massachusetts, I  moved to California. The producer I had teamed up with had other writers and musicians under contract including Lee Freeman who had been with the Strawberry Alarm Clock of “Incense And Peppermints” fame in the 60’s. Now, many years later, Lee Freeman had teamed up with Lee (Leo) Gaffney to form the Gaffney-Freeman Band.  The record producer had gotten them a record deal with Columbia records, and they recorded an album.

  I ended up playing keyboards in the short lived band, at least for rehearsals. I found out that Lee Freeman’s girlfriend worked for Donna Summer. Summer had a stage show at that time that used “street people”, extras really, and Lee’s girl was one of these. I also think that Lee’s girl, whose name I can’t recall, did some wardrobe work for Summer as well. Lee also played one of the “street people” and spoke highly of Donna Summer as a person, although she was being marketed as some kind of sexual disco goddess at the time. When I asked Lee about his days in the Alarm Clock, he told me a few stories that basically pointed to lots of friction among the band members and giving me the impression that it was not always a pleasant experience. I guess that’s the nature of the business. That was years after he had left the band, although he later joined a re-formed version of the Alarm Clock. He left the reformed version of the band due to illness and passed away in 2010, from complications due to cancer. Donna Summer also lost her battle with cancer.

   The record producer in question was Rick Jarrard. He had produced the iconic “Surrealistic Pillow” album for the Jefferson Airplane, “Everybody’s Talking At Me” for Harry Nilsson from the film Midnight Cowboy, and also produced Jose Feliciano’s records “Light My Fire”, “Felix Navidad” and other records.

  The Gaffney-Freeman band was done in by broken promises by Columbia records to use the band to open for some of their premier acts (Billy Joel was talked about), and to spend money promoting the album and the band. They did neither. Columbia records at that time decided to spend their money on established acts. And so ended my short lived membership in the Gaffney-Freemen band, along with those degrees of separation.
Other connections awaited, but that’s another story.   Buzz B.

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Toys For Codgers

The Baby Boomer generation is unique in that they are really the first American generation to have a group identity. The term ‘teenager’ wasn’t coined until the 1950s. Until then children were thought of as small, underdeveloped future adults. The Victorian Era parents were the first to develop the concept of a ‘childhood’ as something that is suppose to be carefree and fun. Before then childhood was something to be survived. Parents dressed their children like little versions of themselves and children started work as soon as they physically could.

The Baby Boomer generation cherishes the memories of their childhood and many are accused of being stuck in a perpetual adolescence. If certain members of the Baby Boomers have never really ‘grown up’ then as they age they may retreat even further back emotionally and mentally.

The product lines of the near future may be geared to this physically aging but emotionally and perhaps even mentally digressing population. In other words; toys for the old. A product specifically designed to give hours of enjoyment to people of a certain frame of mind with shared likes, memories and attention span.

Toys For Codgers
(An old person. Derives from coffin dodger.)

* Dolls that look like your children

* Pre-soaked toilet sponges (instead of toilet paper so you wash your hand while you wipe your ass)

* Tricycle walkers

* iPod hearing aids

* Medicine flavored candy

* Bathing suit pajamas (water proof with built in external catheters)

* Flavored oxygen tanks

* Padded bathtubs

* Video camera glasses that enlarge the image

* Safe plastic power tools

* Life size model car engine kits (plastic)

* Wheelchairs with extended forks, sissy bars, banana seats and metal flack paint jobs

* Hoop skirt bumpers to protect hips against fall

* Inflatable belt with compressed air canister that pushes people who have fallen into an upright position.

Please contribute additional Toys For Codgers ideas in the COMMENTS section below. Thank you, you'll make someone's Gramps very happy this holiday season.



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Rock And Roll Soul

The late great Ray Charles was once asked what Soul was and responded by telling a story; After performing his signature hit, Georgia On My Mind, a fan came up to him, complimented him on his performance and said, “Man, you must really dig that girl,” referring to ‘Georgia”. “That’s soul,” Charles said.

What he meant was that soul was the level of believability a performer brings to a song. Back in the Fifties you could see plenty of popular entertainers who would sing the saddest love songs all the while having big, fake smiles on their faces. Did they even listen to the words they were singing? Some singers sang everything as though it was breaking their heart and that wasn’t appropriate either.

John Lennon was one of the best rock singers for bringing a level of ‘acting’ to his singing. Songs like I’m So Tired actually sound like he’s tired. I’m Only Sleeping sounds like he’s sleepy, he even yawns. His sighing in the song Girl accents his yearning and he sang Tomorrow Never Knows trying to simulate the sound of monks singing on a mountain top.

Help! is a song where the chorus sounds like someone shouting out for help. Each time he sings the word help the music modulates higher giving each time a growing urgency before the final scream of HELP at the end. The descending guitar lines between the shouts for help add to the sinking feeling of desperation and finally cascade into a falling arpeggio that ends at the verse.

Eric Clapton’s solo on George Harrison’s classic, As My Guitar Gently Weeps actually sounds like the guitar is crying due to Clapton’s sustained soulful finger vibrato. This level of involvement in a song and its meaning seems not to exist anymore.

One of the best examples of soul actually comes from an instrumental song. The surf song, Pipeline from the Chantays actually sounds like it’s underwater. The double picking bass string slide at the start simulates the experience of a wave crashing, the bass line is the thumping of a heartbeat caught in the curl and the electric piano melody line has a reverb effect and is played mello enough to sound like something being heard from underwater.

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What Makes Rock And Roll Rock?

Disco Queen Donna Summer recently died. I actually have an album she recorded that was given to me by my cousin who was a recording engineer on that record. I wasn’t a fan of Disco Music since I’ve always been too lazy to want to dance but I liked Donna Summer and I’m sorry she died as young as she did.

Elton John said in a statement; "That she has never been inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame is a total disgrace especially when I see the second-rate talent that has been inducted."

This raises the question; what exactly constitutes Rock and Roll? Why would someone labeled The Queen Of Disco be considered for the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame? Does Elton believe the term “Rock and Roll” means “Popular Music” and thus should include anyone that ever got Top Forty radio airplay?

Why should Michael Jackson, Madonna, Lady Gaga or Justin Timberlake be called “Rock Stars” when they simply do not play music that anyone, even their fans, would consider to be Rock and Roll?

I’ve never heard Donna Summer ever referred to as the Queen Of Disco Rock. In fact, even with all the Rock hyphens in existence such as Punk Rock, Prog Rock, Folk Rock, Country Rock, Jazz Rock, Southern Rock, etc., I’ve never heard the term “Disco Rock” or even “Dance Rock”.

I understand Elton wanting Rock and Roll to be all inclusive, like everything else in life (in a perfect world) but these musical terms are not designed to alienate or omit anyone. They’re just a category made to make it easier for the music buying public to find what appeals to their taste. Just being a popular singer or musician does not automatically qualify you for entrance into Rock and Roll heaven. Sorry Elton.

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The Story Of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

I love the movie Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story starring John C. Reilly as a fictitious rock star. A spoof of musician biopics such as Ray (Ray Charles) and Walk The Line (Johnny Cash) it is different than most movie biopics in that the characters are portraying actors in a cheap movie about a famous musician rather than actually trying to come off as the musician.

One of the real interesting aspects of Walk Hard is that a front page article in the L.A. Times Calendar section not long after the film came out was about how badly the movie flopped. It is rare when a movie that fails at the box office gets a full page write up about failing. But the article thought Walk Hard was a great film, which it is, and was actually asking how did a film as good as Walk Hard bomb so badly?

This really didn’t surprise me as I’ve noticed over the years and in many, many examples that fans of Rock and Roll really don’t like people making fun of it. I remember a Rock and Roll themed issue of Mad Magazine getting trashed by its readers in the Letters To The Editor section of the next issue. The letters to Mad’s editors were usually insulting but the writers were trying to be funny. These letters were very serious. At first the editors responded with their usually smart ass replies but as the letters became more and more virulent the editors’ replies became more and more serious until their final response was; “Okay, we messed up!”

In the decades I’ve read Mad Magazine I’ve never seen such a serious and negative response to a particular issue. And over what? Jokes about Ozzie Osborn biting the head off a bat and the guys in Poison wearing womens makeup? This vividly illustrated to me just how serious rock fans are about not just the music but the whole Rock & Roll lifestyle.

I myself, must admit that when I first saw the movie This Is Spinal Tap I almost teared up in the theater. Not because I was being sentimental or that the film was sad but because it made me realize the Great Era of Rock & Roll was over. Now was to come the jokes and making fun of it. Once they build a museum to something, it’s basically done.

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