I attended a highly enjoyable backyard party and screening of of Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park last night. If you haven't seen this film, the general premise is as follows: An evil genius who builds animatronic robots for a theme park sees KISS (who are performing at the park) as a threat to his livelihood and sets out to destroy them. Unfortunately for him, KISS has a box of mystical "talismen" which give them other-worldly powers.
In reflecting upon the movie, I realized that it was never clearly explained exactly WHAT super powers each band member has.
Here's what I could gather:
Paul Stanley (Starchild) - shoots a laser beam out of his eye. This laser allows him to listen to distant conversations and read minds. He also is smooth with the ladies.
Gene Simmons (The Demon) - breathes fire (of course), super-human strength. He also appears to be able to have some sort of mind-reading skills. Growls and speaks with a bad tape-echo effect.
Ace Frehley (Space Ace) - can teleport himself and the band using a ZZ Top-style hitchhiking thumb move, can move objects telepathically. Says "Ack!" a lot for no reason.
Peter Criss (Cat Man) - tells corny cat-related one-liners.
The moral of this story? Nobody cares about the drummer.
Here's a link to some highlights from movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I67yUxhSbPc
Trivia: Depending on the story, Peter Criss was either too wasted, had too thick of a Brooklyn accent or just plain didn't show up for the voice over sessions. All of his lines were dubbed in by voice over actor Michael Bell. You might recognize his voice as Zan from the SuperFriends and various Scooby-Doo, Smurfs, GI Joe and other cartoon characters.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Free Bird!
Maybe it’s just me, but I hate it when some drunk guy (it’s never a girl) yells “Free Bird!” between songs at a rock show. Why does this bother me so much? I’m not quite sure, but let’s examine some possibilities:
1. It’s not funny.. or original. I don’t know when this practice entered popular culture – the first I was aware of it was in a Beavis & Butthead short film (prior to the MTV series) in the early 90s – although I’m sure it was around before then. It possibly dates back to the “What song is it you want to hear?” dialogue from the live version on One More For The Road (1976). In any case, when you yell “Free Bird” anywhere other than a Skynyrd (or Skynyrd tribute band) show, you are being a douchebag. Nobody in the bar or in the band is amused. Most likely they want to punch you in the balls.
2. Nobody plays “Free Bird” anymore. There was probably a time in the late 70’s and 80’s where every crappy cover band did this song, but no longer. I am trying to think of the last time I heard anyone other than Lynyrd Skynyrd do this song. It was probably over 20 years ago.
3. Do you even know what “Free Bird” sounds like? I have the suspicion that most people yelling for it don’t even know the song. Kind of like how most people who wear Ramones t-shirts don’t listen to the Ramones. They just think it’s a cool thing to do.
4. I am a loser and shouldn’t waste my time worrying about what some wasted knucklehad is yelling at a rock show.
So, what is the solution? People like to shout “Free Bird” more than they actually want to hear “Free Bird”. So, my fellow musician friends; “Free Bird” is not a particularly tricky song to play or sing. We should all just learn it - the worse it sounds, and the longer the end guitar jam, the better. Be careful what you ask for, punk. You just might get it!
Get to work, kids. Here’s a link to the tablature:
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/l/lynyrd_skynyrd/free_bird_tab.htm
5 Good Artists That Influenced Bad Music
I've often had the discussion with friends about musicians and bands who in and of themselves were talented, innovative, interesting, or at least tolerable - but went on to influence countless terrible imitators. Here is a list of five of the main offenders (in no particular order):
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Stevie was an extremely talented guitar player, soulful singer, and great showman. He was able to take classic blues, mix it with Hendrix-style pyrotechnics and sell it to the mainstream rock audience in the 1980's. He also convinced a million soulless stock brokers and lawyers that they could and SHOULD play the blues. Go to any bar, blues festival, or open mic night and you are almost guaranteed to see some hack butchering "Cold Shot" or "Pride and Joy" or doing that annoying string-raking thing. I also hold SRV responsible for a lot of bad hats and for driving up prices of vintage guitars.
Nirvana: Yeah, yeah, we've all heard the story. Corporate rock was getting bloated and boring in the late 80's and these guys came outta nowhere (Seattle) and gave the music biz a shot in the arm. Kurt was a great songwriter and the band kicked ass with fire and passion. I can't argue with this. The problem arises from the fact that everybody (especially musicians) took this band so damn seriously, more seriously than they probably took themselves. For at least the next 10 years (probably still), it became uncool to have fun. "No guitar solos allowed!" "We are 'artists' not rock stars." "I'm so angst-y and depressed, let me tell you about it" The sad truth is that there would be no Bush or Creed or Staind or Nickelback without Nirvana. Is that what Kurt would have wanted?
Eddie Van Halen: Let me preface by saying that Eddie is one of my favorite guitar players of all time. That being said, at least 95% of his disciples completely miss what makes him so cool. Eddie shreds for sure, but he is (or at least was) also extremely creative. He has an ear for pop songwriting and a certain amount of slop/soul that keeps everything firmly in the rock n' roll ballpark. Having Dave in the band also kept things fun and unpredictable. Alas, predictability is the bread and butter of most Eddie wannabes: two-hand tapping, whammy bar dives, guitars with stripes, learning "Eruption" note-for-note. Walk into any Guitar Center and you'll hear what I mean. Eddie also is responsible for lots of nerds obsessing about "tone" on web forums.
The Grateful Dead: I've never been a huge Deadhead, but I do respect them for creating a unique sound, and writing some great songs ("Ripple", "Casey Jones", "Bertha" etc..). They were all good musicians (not particularly great singers) who worked hard to become an American institution. Of course, they are also single-handedly responsible for the travesty that is now known as the "jam band scene": Phish, Widespread Panic, Sting Cheese Incident, Dave Matthews and most of the bands currently playing in Boulder - Endless solos, pointless 20 minute jams, bongos, mandolins... Next time you see a dirty hippie writing down a setlist at a concert, you have The Dead to thank.
Sublime: I honestly don't know that much about Sublime other than that Bradley Nowell wrote some great, catchy pop tunes and then died of a heroin overdose. They had a cool/different sound at the time, yet never seemed particularly notable to me. Unfortunately, just as SRV convinced a bunch of yuppies to play the blues, Sublime somehow convinced a million frat boys that they should play pop punk with a reggae beat. College bars are overrun with godawful bands playing bad reggae with "humorous" lyrics about smoking pot. Just because Sublime was able to pull it off, doesn't mean you should try..
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Stevie was an extremely talented guitar player, soulful singer, and great showman. He was able to take classic blues, mix it with Hendrix-style pyrotechnics and sell it to the mainstream rock audience in the 1980's. He also convinced a million soulless stock brokers and lawyers that they could and SHOULD play the blues. Go to any bar, blues festival, or open mic night and you are almost guaranteed to see some hack butchering "Cold Shot" or "Pride and Joy" or doing that annoying string-raking thing. I also hold SRV responsible for a lot of bad hats and for driving up prices of vintage guitars.
Nirvana: Yeah, yeah, we've all heard the story. Corporate rock was getting bloated and boring in the late 80's and these guys came outta nowhere (Seattle) and gave the music biz a shot in the arm. Kurt was a great songwriter and the band kicked ass with fire and passion. I can't argue with this. The problem arises from the fact that everybody (especially musicians) took this band so damn seriously, more seriously than they probably took themselves. For at least the next 10 years (probably still), it became uncool to have fun. "No guitar solos allowed!" "We are 'artists' not rock stars." "I'm so angst-y and depressed, let me tell you about it" The sad truth is that there would be no Bush or Creed or Staind or Nickelback without Nirvana. Is that what Kurt would have wanted?
Eddie Van Halen: Let me preface by saying that Eddie is one of my favorite guitar players of all time. That being said, at least 95% of his disciples completely miss what makes him so cool. Eddie shreds for sure, but he is (or at least was) also extremely creative. He has an ear for pop songwriting and a certain amount of slop/soul that keeps everything firmly in the rock n' roll ballpark. Having Dave in the band also kept things fun and unpredictable. Alas, predictability is the bread and butter of most Eddie wannabes: two-hand tapping, whammy bar dives, guitars with stripes, learning "Eruption" note-for-note. Walk into any Guitar Center and you'll hear what I mean. Eddie also is responsible for lots of nerds obsessing about "tone" on web forums.
The Grateful Dead: I've never been a huge Deadhead, but I do respect them for creating a unique sound, and writing some great songs ("Ripple", "Casey Jones", "Bertha" etc..). They were all good musicians (not particularly great singers) who worked hard to become an American institution. Of course, they are also single-handedly responsible for the travesty that is now known as the "jam band scene": Phish, Widespread Panic, Sting Cheese Incident, Dave Matthews and most of the bands currently playing in Boulder - Endless solos, pointless 20 minute jams, bongos, mandolins... Next time you see a dirty hippie writing down a setlist at a concert, you have The Dead to thank.
Sublime: I honestly don't know that much about Sublime other than that Bradley Nowell wrote some great, catchy pop tunes and then died of a heroin overdose. They had a cool/different sound at the time, yet never seemed particularly notable to me. Unfortunately, just as SRV convinced a bunch of yuppies to play the blues, Sublime somehow convinced a million frat boys that they should play pop punk with a reggae beat. College bars are overrun with godawful bands playing bad reggae with "humorous" lyrics about smoking pot. Just because Sublime was able to pull it off, doesn't mean you should try..
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