The Future Of Rock And Roll Is No Bruce Springsteen

I recently read the book Physics of the Future by quantum physicist, a founder of string field theory  and television show host, Michio Kaku. In the book he reports what he’s learned about the future of technology from the 300 scientists, researchers and inventors he interviewed. One of the things he believes the future holds is that robots and computers will become so sophisticated, complex and powerful that they will completely replace human beings as laborers. The jobs of the future, he predicts, will be creative ones as computers will not be able to think creatively.

I’m not so sure. As a professional animator who has seen many of the jobs in the industry go to computers I’m not so optimistic. One thing I’ve noticed is that when it comes to the arts and entertainment the masses will eat whatever they’re fed.

Back in the Nineties Flash animation was stealing jobs from hand drawn animators and driving down the price of animation thereby effectively putting a lot of talented people out of business. Most animators thought Flash for animations run on the Internet is one thing but the look is much too crude for any real commercial application. Then came entire Network television series animated in Flash. How could that be? It really does look cheesy, why would anyone want to watch this? It’s because it’s what’s new. It’s different and when combined with a crude, “Punk” attitude in the design and writing, the look of Flash seemed appropriate. It’s like a band that’s slightly out of tune and off time is terrible, unless they’re playing Punk Rock and then they’re “real”.

When I was a young animator in the studios and questioned the reasoning behind teaching the Japanese studios how to animate our shows since once they’ve learned they can produce their own shows and become our competition instead of our sweatshop labor, I was told that would never happen. American audiences would never accept Japanese animation. Twenty years later the top cartoon shows in America were all Japanese and our biggest, most successful animation studios were all closed.

Just as we will wear whatever monstrosity the Fashion Industry tells us is hip this season, so will we also listen to the music and watch the shows we’re given to watch. After all, what choice do we have?

Join Rock & Roll Rehab NOW!

New Songs or Oldies? That Is The Question

The review of the Van Halen show at the Staples Center in the Times today pretty much gave the band a good review but complained about the four new songs the band added to their set of classic hits.

This is almost always a problem. People at concerts come to hear the songs they already know and love. This is the great thing about being in a successful band. Unlike a movie where a movie star actor has to prove him or herself practically from scratch, a rock concert is pretty much a sure thing. The people who come to a rock concert are already fans of the band, already know and love their repertoire and are easy to please. But throw in some unfamiliar new songs and it confuses and bewilders some folks.

Led Zeppelin famously introduced Stairway To Heaven during the concert tour before the release of Led Zeppelin Four and it got a lukewarm reception. This is the very same tune that was just voted the Number One Classic Rock Song OF ALL TIME on radio station KLOS’ Memorial Day Weekend Top 1000 Countdown.

As an artist you want to introduce your fans to your new material, in fact, it’s often the main reason for the tour to begin with. I always liked hearing, “Here’s a song off our new album”, at concerts. Discovering new music was always one of the great joys of being a music fan. Let’s hope that Rock & Roll is not going the way of movies in that only remakes of old songs or variations of oldies are all that becomes commercially acceptable. I already don’t have enough reasons to leave the house at night as it is.

Join Rock & Roll Rehab NOW!

KLOS’ Top 1000 Classic Rock Songs Of All Time

Over this past Memorial Day weekend, local Classic Rock radio station KLOS presented their listener submitted top 1000 Classic Rock songs of all time. They are;

1. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

2. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

3. Hotel California - Eagles

4. Baba O'Reilly - Who

5. Kashmir - Led Zeppelin

6. Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd

7. Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

8. Back in Black - AC/DC

9. Layla - Derek & the Dominos

I don’t have a problem with the top four but I think I’d replace Kashmir with Light My Fire by The Doors and Back In Black with All Along The Watch Tower by Jimi Hendrix. Pink Floyd deserves their spot but I’m not sure Comfortably Numb would be my choice. Wouldn't something on Dark Side Of The Moon, arguably the all time Classic Rock Radio champ be included in the Top Ten?

What interests me the most is that there are no Beatles songs on the list. A Day In His Life or Strawberry Fields Forever doesn’t make the top ten? How about Satisfaction by the Stones?  Perhaps the “Classic Rock” era as defined by the Classic Rock Radio format officially starts after the psychedelic era  (1967).

To be fair, some of the choices I think should be in the Top Ten actually did make the Top Twenty. Really, I'm surprised I still pay attention to this kind of stuff. For my past experience with these lists see:

CLICK HERE: - Five Hours On The Road With The Five Hundred Songs Of All Time!

Join Rock & Roll Rehab NOW!

The Reality Of Fantasy And The Fantasy Of Reality

A while back the artist Thomas Kincade died. Let me begin by saying I wish I could paint as well as Thomas Kincade. However, when my wife and I bought our first home which was a cute little house in a housing tract the real estate company named The Bungalows since the houses all looked like beach houses from a past era, we discovered the art of Marty Bell. Ms. Bell painted whimsical and romantic cottages, often with thatched roofs and gardens that looked right out of a fairy tale. We bought four of her pieces for our new home.

A few years later Thomas Kincade came along with basically the same trip and Marty Bell disappeared. A few years ago I was in a gallery and asked the gallery owner whatever happened to her. Then I saw a card on his next announcing a memorial service for her and got my answer.  I don’t know how many people know of Marty Bell but Thomas Kincade certainly became famous.

I vastly prefer Marty Bell’s work to Kincade's for a reason that may seem odd. Marty Bell’s paintings were soft and somewhat impressionistic while Kincade's were tight and focused yet Bell’s paintings seemed more “real” to me. Even though Kincade’s paintings had greater detail and were “accurate”, Bell’s had a dreamlike quality. Marty Bell’s paintings seem like a more realistic depiction of a dream than Kincade’s did of reality.

This is another example of the artistic tipping point that I’ve mentioned before where a punk band’s tape seems ready for release while the Prog band’s tape, even though vastly superior technically, sounds more like a demo tape. We judge different styles of art with different standards. Punk Rock is not suppose to sound slick and professional but Prog Rock does. A dreamlike impressionistic painting is not suppose to look photo realistic but Thomas Kincade’s style was. Thomas Kincade was good but he had to either be better to paint in the style he used or go with a looser style.

I always felt Thomas Kincade’s paintings looked like the commercial art you sometimes see in a real estate office of the artist’s rendition of new home models. It therefore didn’t surprise me when a home manufacturer actually build a neighborhood of houses based on Thomas Kincade’s designs from his paintings. For the brochures to that housing tract his art was perfect.

Join Rock & Roll Rehab NOW!

The True Meaning Of Rock And Roll Band Names

The names of Rock & Roll bands are often quite cryptic. John Lennon said The Beatles were named after Buddy Holly’s Crickets but in his book former drummer Pete Best claimed The Beatles were named after the Beat bands and Beat music of the time period. Named after The Beat Generation, a term coined by Jack Kerouac to describe the returning World War Two vets’ disenfranchisement, The Beatles name had the same basic meaning that Metallica had to Metal Music years later. According to Best this was found to be presumptuous and pretentious by the other Merseyside bands.

Rock band names can be shrouded in myth and mystery so luckily for you, we know the real inside poop on how and why your favorite bands have the names they have. Some examples are:


Linkin Park - A public park where young lovers “link in” (have sex) in the restroom.

The Strawberry Alarm Clock - The surprise of a young girl’s first menstruation.

Lothar And The Hand People - Hand lotion used to masturbate with.

Nine Inch Nails - A nine inch part of the male anatomy used to “nail” females.

The Offspring - The “spring” of fluid that follows “getting off”.

Pearl Jam - Ejaculate

Pink Floyd - A pale Englishman’s pet name for his member.

Radiohead - What a young guy gets from his girlfriend while listening to the radio in his car.

The Rolling Stones - The action of a man’s testicles while having sex.

The Kinks - Sexual kinks.

Steely Dan - A dildo.

Ten CC - The weight of a spoonful of male ejaculate.

Van Halen - The practice of sniffing the fumes from the exhaust pipe of a Chevy van.

The Moody Blues - A painful medical condition of the testicles.

Led Zeppelin - A particularly weighty male organ.

Husker Du - A guy who likes heavy women.

Bad Finger - The middle finger of a male’s hand.

Join Rock & Roll Rehab NOW!

The Strawberry Alarmclock And Other Rock And Roll Strawberries

Fellow Tooner and Rock & Roll Rehab blog contributor, Buzz Brissette, recently wrote a blog post about his experience as a young keyboardist / song writer and playing with Lee Freeman of the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Growing up in Woodland Hills, CA, my next door neighbor was George Bunnell, the bass player for the Alarmclock. I thought of him recently when an episode of AMC’s Mad Men had Jaguar automobiles as a client of the show’s ad agency. Teenage George had a beautiful Jag XKE which spent most of the time up on blocks in the Bunnell’s driveway as George was away on tour with the band and I guess they didn’t want to pay to insure the car if it wasn’t being used.

Late one night I turned onto my street to go home and George in the Jag was right in front of me. He peeled up the hill screeching his tires all the way up. I followed him and arrived at my house a few seconds after he pulled into his driveway. When I walked in my door my mother was standing there super pissed off that I had sped up the hill. I explained to her that it wasn’t me but George, who then sheepishly waved and proved my story. I drove a Plymouth Duster which really couldn’t have made such a racket anyway.

My only other memories of living next door to a rock star was asking him for the sheet music to Incense and Peppermints, their big hit and getting from his mother an old envelope from the Electric Company which had a half dozen chords scribbled on it. I was hoping for an authentic arraignment but it wasn’t even autographed. Big disappointment.

There is something strangely funny about the name strawberry and rock and roll. George has said in an interview that their record company recommended they incorporate the word into their title as a way of associating themselves with the Beatles whose recent and first psychedelic hit was Strawberry Fields Forever. That song was named for a Salvation Army camp called Strawberry Fields where John Lennon attended dances as a kid. There is also an English Prog Rock band called The Stawbs which was short for strawberry.

There is probably more references to strawberries in rock than any other fruit, or even food. What is interesting is that the botanical genome project, the plant equivalent of the Human Genome Project discovered that Strawberries are closely related to the marijuana plant. Just a coincidence? I think not.

Join Rock & Roll Rehab NOW!

The Legend Of Lo Fon - Paid To Die

 Today, May 30, is the birthday of my late brother, Dwayne Earl Warner.

My late brother, Dwayne Warner, was a biker who worked as a bouncer at the Topanga Corral and the Sundance Saloon. It was working at these bars that he met the managers of the various bands that played there and through them eventually got hired as a bodyguard for the Sex Pistols’ 1978 tour of America.

Over the course of fifteen years I’d hear Dwayne tell his stories of being on the road and every time he’d tell someone new the stories would get more exaggerated, more exciting and a whole lot funnier. “You should write a book,” I’d repeatedly tell him. But Dwayne rarely read books and had no interest in writing one. He suggested I write it.

Dwayne would often nag me to draw pictures for him. Not just any picture but pictures depicting him in some fantasy pose such as a pirate or a western outlaw or a Roaring Twenties era gangster and always engaged in some tasteless and nefarious activity. The problem is that Dwayne would change his interests as often as he’d change his socks and I wouldn’t even have finished one picture before he wasn’t interested in that subject matter anymore and would insist I do a another, different drawing. Dwayne was also a terrible nag and I soon found that refusing to do any drawings was the best idea if I didn’t want to be nagged all the time. He also loved giving and receiving gifts but was not a gracious gift receiver and would let you know if he thought what you gave him wasn’t on par with a gift he had given you. It was more like doing a job for a boss than giving a gift to a friend.

One Christmas, I had since given up buying him birthday presents due to his ungrateful attitude, I decided to give him something unique and personal. Originality was always something by which he judged his gifts. He was almost never fully dressed when at home and would wear a black robe, his version of Hugh Hefner’s famous silk pajamas. I bought a very nice, very plush black robe and using fabric paint designed a logo incorporating his face and his monogram on it. This gift he actually seemed to appreciate although he never wore it as he didn’t want to fade out the image by having to wash it.

Because of the design on the robe he decided he wanted me to do a drawing of him in the style of the high contrast woodblock print illustrations used in Old West dime novels. This got me thinking. I wasn’t interested in doing another drawing for him but if I could write a short story starring him as an Old West character I could do some drawings to illustrated it and at least that might be fun for me. I wrote the a short story that took place at the Sundance Saloon in Calabasas where he was the bouncer but wrote it in the flowery and exaggerated language of a dime novel. I decided to have him read it before I bother illustrating it as knowing him, he might just threaten to sue me for using his name and stories. But he actually loved it, although he didn’t want to read it and made me read it to him. He said that’s how his whole story should be written and insisted I expand the short story into a whole book.

Over the course of that summer I would go jogging on the walking trails around my home and while there I would imagine the stories I’d heard him tell over and over through the years as if a movie playing in my head. Each day when I finished my jog I’d write down the next chapter. I would read the previous one or two chapters, rewriting as I went, then I’d write the next one. This way I would rewrite and rewrite and every few weeks I’d read the entire story from the start and rewrite again until I no longer found anything to change, add or subtract. What was the most surprising and delightful aspect of this process was the many surprises I had while ‘watching’ this movie in my mind. After all, I’m the one making it all up based on stories I already knew yet there were so many things in this version of the story that I just could not see coming. Even the very end took me by surprise and saddened me that it was over because it had been such a fun adventure.

The biggest surprise was that having written a novel ( I Googled NOVEL and the description is a work of fiction, in prose and at least 60,000 words and what I had written was over 78,000 words ), that I thought of as a personal gift to my brother and something no one else would ever read, he refused to read it. I had actually written it as one big, rude joke. As a former ‘underground’ cartoonist I had a pretty nasty imagination and a sick sense of humor but I always censored myself if I thought there was a chance my work could get published but for this project I not only did not censor myself, I pushed the envelop, in fact, I shredded the envelop. Dwayne had a very dark and twisted sense of humor himself and a huge ego and I wanted to write something about him that he would find shocking, even disturbing, as a joke. But the joke was on me when he refused to read it on the grounds that if someone mentioned in the book (names were changed but still obvious) took offense he couldn’t be sued and could claim ‘plausible deniability’. All he did was tell me to sell it and give him the money. So much for my brotherly gift and my big tasteless joke.

I mailed some query letters to literary agents and eventually one asked to read the manuscript. He then told me to call another agent he knew at another agency because she ‘”liked dark stuff”. She was one of the agents that didn’t respond to my original query letter but now I called with a referral. “Is it dark, cause he knows I like dark?” she said when I told her who gave me her name. She later told me she ‘howled’ while reading it by a pool while on vacation with people staring at her for laughing so hard. She also has a very sick sense of humor. She offered me a literary agent contract and wanted to meet Dwayne.

We went down to the very impressive lit agency office in Hollywood where the receptionist gushed over Dwayne wanting to know if his adventures were really like in the book. Our meeting with the agent was in the agency’s library which had high wood paneled walls covered with book shelves with one wall that was a huge aquarium. I had to laugh when both the receptionist and our new agent kept drilling Dwayne for details knowing that he had never read the book and had no idea what they were talking about. That meeting was September 4, 2001. A week later the world changed and my little book got lost in the debris. After Dwayne died suddenly in 2006 the joke ceased to be funny anyway.

Join Rock & Roll Rehab NOW!