The 27 Club

The 27 club is a group of incredibly famous Rock n’ Roll stars. The people represented in this “club” have been forever etched in what makes up the epic history of rock. Basically the 27 club is made up of a substantial amount of extremely famous rock musicians with mutual lifestyles and strangely enough were all deceased by the time they were 27 years of age. There are many names involved that are considered to be part of it but the ones I consider and are most usually brought up (in chronological order) starting with first deceased would be Brian Jones the original founder and guitarist of the Rolling Stones he apparently drowned to death basically due to recklessness though this is widely disputed. After that the legendary Jimi Hendrix unfortunately was found deceased after choking on his own vomit from ingesting too many sleeping pills and apparently mixing with alcohol in his system although like most of the other deaths in the 27 club is disputed and uncertain to people. Shortly after Jimi Hendrix’s death Janis Joplin died and caused a stir with fans and the general 60’s music scene. Peculiarly enough after the deaths of two of the most famous musicians of the time Jimi Hendrix was found dead by his beloved girlfriend Pamela in the bathtub of his Paris home. When this occurred the cause of Death was never released publicly so naturally theories rapidly sprouted like that he faked his own death which was widely believed. Also believed that he became a heroin addict and simply overdosed. The one that would probably most believable is that he was out open night drinking heavily as he always did and just randomly died by essentially being reckless and belligerently drunk. The real reason was released years after his death by two close friends of Morrison’s. They said he was drinking heavily and tried heroin with Pam and had a heart attack due to the combination of heroin and alcohol. The last member of the 27 club is Kurt Cobain as everyone knows he supposedly committed suicide with a shotgun blast to the head. Though out of all these musicians death Cobain’s is the most disputed, Most people believe he killed himself while others think his wife Courtney Love killed him and set it up to look like suicide. There are large amounts of evidence that support this theory although I still believe that his death was self inflicted dude to his life long history of depression, hard drug use and other issues. The 27 club is simply a huge coincidence that becomes very interesting when you look into the details of these musicians deaths and lifestyle because they are eerily similar so it may not be a mere coincidence.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

One thing about music is the actual meanings of the songs and the story behind the songs. I recall Sir Paul McCartney once said something like the thing he loves about music is that anybody can interpret the lyrics however they want to. So what he is essentially saying is sometimes a song has a certain meaning but doesn't necessarily mean it has to mean that to everyone else so interpretation is one of the fine aspects of music. I will analyze a couple songs both Beatles songs the first being “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", the second song off Rubber Soul one of my favorite Beatles albums. The song explains John Lennon’s night with a girl telling he once had a girl or she once had him starting off with a wise crack. She tells him to stay and shows him her apartment decorated in Norwegian wood which was a cheap type of wood that people would decorate their houses with at the time and pass off as high quality “Norwegian wood” She says isn’t it good?, Norwegian wood. They talk for a long time and eventually she needs to head to sleep because she has work in the morning. Well John being john is frustrated mainly because he didn’t get any action and stayed up all night expecting something (which is my interpretation). He wakes up and finds her to be gone so he says so I lit a fire isn’t it good?, Norwegian wood. He burned her decorative wood furniture to merely spite her. John was an expert at lyricism and was wise, expressed jealousy and cleverness with his songs. John claimed this was a true story although Paul mentioned that he doesn’t believe it and says it just one of john made up stories and imagination which he makes reality.

Music

There’s just something about music that sparks my enthusiasm there never time where I’m ignoring or taking music for granted. It’s easier to dig it and let it sink in, each generation and decade is defined by a certain genre or style. This is prevalent so much so that it becomes the style of society. It has been with us since the beginning of humanity though nothing scares me more than what today’s music has become. The current mainstream rap and pop music absolutely disgusts me. Honestly what’s going to happen when my generation are grandfathers and grandmothers and listening to music about almost nothing but cars, money, drinking, drugs, being players and basically being unnecessarily confrontational summing up to negative music. That’s the trait of this music that aggravates me the most is the negativity and aggressiveness that is so redundant. It is hard to find teenagers man young men now that listen to classic rock and other varieties of music and agree with the stereotypical parental opinion of today’s music. I do want not want to be taken the wrong way; I thoroughly enjoy certain types of rap and hip hop mainly 90’s. The difference between today’s and past generations rap is that current rap is extremely lazy, it’s so obvious that these rappers aren’t taking much time actually developing this music with terrible lyrics and repetitive synthetic drumbeats resulting to be simply boring and mediocre. Though I’m not manically worried about the wasting of music because in the wise words of John Lennon he asks “Don’t ya know it’s gonna be? Alright!”

One of my top three favorite bands would have to be the legendary psychedelic Rock band The Doors. They were actually originally psychedelic rock then changed into more of a soft rock type genre but still staying true to their original roots then developing into a blues rock genre. The band originated in Los Angeles California in 1965 with The infamous Jim Morrison singing lead vocals, Robby Krieger on Guitar, Ray Manzarek playing the keyboard, and John Densmore on the drums. The band lacked a bassist but with the style of the music they were playing and Ray Manzarek's discovery of a piano bass it worked out beautifully. There self titled debut album The Doors was a huge success. The album was basically a compilation of all their songs they performed live in clubs especially the whiskey a go go which was an extremely popular club for up and coming musicians at the time. The whole album was exceptional but the most popular songs would be Break onThrough (To The Other Side), The Crystal Ship,Alabama Song The bands first number one hit and probably their most popular song Light My Fire from The Doors really launched their career and even though Morrison wrote the lyrics of the songs light my fire was written by the guitarist Robby Krieger. The Doors were notorious for their unique sound, also they became popular in the mid 60 's and while The Beatles were singing about love being the only thing you need Morrison was singing about Death, The end and psychedelic eerie topics, drug influenced and drug related songs.Their second album strange days that featured peculiar album cover. This album was also a big success with the hit single strange days that was the epitome of psychedelic/acid rock.Love Me Two Times, People are Strange, Moonlight Drive, When The Music's Over are also terrific songs from strange days. The album Waiting For The Sun was probably their least successful one. The song Waiting for the sun was a good number but didn't really achieve a high status on the charts. Although most of my favorite Doors songs are on this album including Love Street, The Unknown Soldier, and Spanish Caravan. They changed the theme and tone of their music and came out with the album The Soft Parade which featured trumpets, violins, trombones and other orchestral instruments. Some fans didn't like this album because they weren't staying true to their original style and therefore selling out. That didn't stop the band from producing more hit songs with there release of Morrison Hotel. Popular songs from this album include Roadhouse Blues, Waiting For The Sun, and Peace Frog. My favorite has to be L.A. Woman is album was actually rejected by the recording studio before even starting recording. The producer told the band that the material was boring and refused to record it. So instead of not recording the album at all they used someone's apartment and set up a homemade recording studio. With the band in one room and Jim Morrison drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes in the bathroom with the wire trailing from the main room. I love this album because it's very different from their other albums. It is blues rock and the hit single L.A. Woman is without a doubt my favorite doors song. When the band broke up in 1973 and the band went their separate ways. Although the band pretty much stayed together and kept recording music without their legendary singer. Morrison moved to Paris with his dear beloved girlfriend Pam. Anyone who knew Morrison at the time could tell that he was falling hard. Sporting a full grown man of the mountain beard and a beer gut. He was drinking heavily as he always did and smoking three packs a day. There are many theories of how Jim Morrison died most people we Pamela had a terrible heroin habit Most people were convinced that he asked his own death trying to hide from the overwhelming fame others thought he developed a heroin habit and overdosed. It was even believed by some people that he was murdered by Pamela. After reading No One Here Gets Out Alive: The biography of Jim Morrison it is clear that one night in Paris Jim was belligerently drunk as usual and both Jim and Pam shot up heroin, Jim was not a user this must. Have been one of his first times shooting up. But when you mix alcohol and heroin it is very bad because both drugs are depressants and combine to make a high chance of heart attack and that is exactly what happened. Pamela discovered Jim Morrison's corpse in the bathtub in their Paris home. The actual cause of his death was released years after the tragic event. Jim Morrison was buried in a graveyard in Paris only to be moved back to America because people essentially partying next to his grave and causing disturbances so they were forced to transport his body. As for the rest of the band members, they released a good amount of other albums including An American Prayer which was a spoken word album consisting of the bands recorded music with Morrison's poetry which he had recorded years prior. The album was a success and The Ghost Song off of An American Prayer remains one of my favorite Doors songs. In my mind the doors are one of the few greatest original Rock n' Roll bands to ever exist and Jim Morrison is the American poet.

Pop Punk Legend

The band Green Day to me is a punk legend the music they play with their unmistakable sound is so driven. Billie Joe Armstrong the lead vocalist and guitarist, bassist Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool on drums all brought the ideal specific traits of a successful punk band. Armstrong’s distinctive range, voice and steady heavy power chords are the foundation of the band. Although Mike Dirnt is an absolutely superb bassist, and Tre Cool has so much soul and energy into his playing that intensifies the sound.

I am not very fond Green Day’s later albums such as American Idiot but I do enjoy certain songs on that album. 21st Century Breakdown unfortunately not very appealing. They almost lost their originality, but the controversy with the band selling out is not a topic to care about. One of their first studio recording albums Kerplunk had minimal success. The album Dookie was released in 1994 and is where the band really took off and is widely considered their greatest album of their career and is my favorite. Most people know or have heard songs from this album like “Longview” with the pumping bass intro and Billy Joe’s tales of loneliness and boredom told through as traditional punk/grunge style starting with a slow soft verse followed by an overdriven up tempo chorus and repeating. Two other singles off Dookie that largely contributed to its success are “Basketcase” and “When I come around”. The songs that really stand out to me on this album are burnout with the first lyrics I‘m not growin up! im just burnin out! And I step in line to walk amongst the dead and the jumbled confusing order makes it a excellent punk song. “Chump” is the song that actually interludes into “Longview” and is only about a minute of lyrics and music but is very cool. Three others are “Pulling Teeth” “She” and “Sassafras Roots”.

Insomniac released in 1995 is their harder punk album you could say. Top kicks from this album are “Geek Stink Breath”, Bab’s Uvula Who?, and “Walking Contradiction”. Top Picks from Nimrod released in 1997 are “The Grouch”, “Redundant”, “Uptight”, “Walking Alone”, and King For Day. This album is longer with 18 songs while Dookie and Nimrod have both have 14 songs. Green Day’s most acknowledged and famous song that you have definitely heard unless you live under a rock is “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”. It is completely different than almost all of their music with nothing but Billie Joe’s voice, his acoustic guitar and serenading violins.

Cover Songs

Cover songs are a big part of Rock n’ Roll and sometimes they are very popular or the most popular of the bands/artists work. The whole point of a cover song is to reinvent a song from its original composition or genre into something new. Bands also do this because they are big fans of the songs and they want to reintroduce a song as it has become less and less popular. That one aspect of cover songs that I find intriguing is that a lot of the songs you would have never heard before if the artist didn’t remake it.
Some of my favorite cover songs would have to be Last Kiss by Pearl Jam originally performed by Wayne Cochran and was unsuccessful it was then covered by a few other artists until the epic band Grunge band Pearl Jam covered the song in 1998. Since then it has been hugely popular and remains one of my favorite cover songs. The way they change up the guitar riff tone and sound and how the lead singer Eddie Vedder sings with incredible expression and emotion is absolutely exceptional. Another favorite of mine would have to Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam by the revolutionary 90’s grunge band Nirvana. The song was originally performed by a band called The Vaselines who were not very popular but were one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite bands. They performed the song in many a show with electric guitar which is interesting to listen to because the song is originally performed acoustically but the most iconic rendition of the song was played in their MTV unplugged session. Its melodic relaxed guitar chords combined with Krist Novoselic’s (bassist) awesome accordion playing is the epitome of relaxing folk rock. Another song from the MTV unplugged in New York album to check out is The Man Who Sold The World originally performed by David Bowie. Kurt Cobain puts a grunge twist on the song while staying true to the original composition.
Cover songs to me are always interesting though somewhat controversial when an artist’s doesn’t properly perform the song. Although most of the time I feel like the covers are usually better than the originals. I would advise to do the opposite of what seems to make sense when listening to cover songs. This is to listen to the cover first then listen to the original version. For an artist to be able to create a new and different rendition of a song is a real honor. I would like to see am well respected band do a cover of an early Beatles song like Ticket to Ride, I’m Looking through You or I should Have Known Better. With these songs it would be extremely interesting and basically fun to make them into a punk/grunge styled song with heavy power chords and more forceful expressional singing including more crooning. What are your favorite cover songs? And what songs would you like to see remade and how?

Rock n' Roll on life support?

I feel it's time to discuss my favorite bands and dislikes of other bands, genres and artists. It's sort of obvious that my favorite band of all time is hands down The Beatles. I love everything about the music and their personalities. I also grew up listening to queen and whatever else my dad liked or felt like listening to like Warren Zevon, Paul Simon, Neil young,Harry Chapin, Bobby Darrin and dean Martin among many other artists and so I can thank my father for influencing me by playing that music.

It really disgusts me when I see all these teenagers and young people obsessed with this just awful rap and crap pop music. Most of the stuff isn't real music and you can tell the "artists" take like absolutely no time with the whole album because they come out with a new album like every few months. All the songs sound the same with the same fake terribly annoying drum beat and senseless, vulgar and terrible lyrics.

When did good, real music stop being made? It almost seems like no one knows or wants to compose decent rock and roll music no matter what the kind. Now I'm sure there are some good rock bands out there, they just aren't in the mainstream which is a whole other problem real rock and roll bands seem to be facing nowadays. In the famous Neil Young song the learned man simply states in a beautifully melodic singing voice " Rock and Roll will never die" many believe this to be undoubtedly true though with the lack of current bands focusing on actual rock and roll music and experimenting with new techniques and genres it seems old genres seem to be fading away, values, techniques and plain old tradition is quickly becoming unidentifiable in today's music. So with that I hate to say it as I've always agreed with Neil Young but rock and roll is on life support. Maybe I am being overdramatic or extreme but if there's is not something done about todays music and the industry or I fear the worst a world without Rock n' Roll.

Nevermind 20th anniversary

Yesterday the 24th of September was the 20th anniversary of the epic Nirvana album "Nevermind". The album was released in 1991 September 24th, since then the album has been a huge success. The band members were in total shock and awe when their album soared to the top of the charts having no idea it was going to become as popular as it did, and it is still popular today. To my amazement there were many rock stations commemorating the album and playing more Nirvana songs. Music is one of few things that can definitely stand the test of time.
The band originated in a suburb of Seattle, Washington called Aberdeen. Originally consisting of three members Lead vocalist/guitarist Kurt Cobain, Bassist Chris Novoselic and drummer Chad Channing. Nevermind was recorded with a new drummer after the bands debut album "Bleach". The second drummer Dave Grohl a lot of people know today as the lead vocalist/guitarist of the band The Foo Fighters.
The Main hit single off the album "Smells Like Teen Spirit" changed the tone of the mainstream airways at the time. The name of the song is actually a spinoff of a deodorant brand called Teen Spirit. The whole album is full of an unmistakable sound and raw teenage angst which partly contributes to the albums popularity as the punk/grunge theme and attitude was extremely prevalent during the 90's. Other songs like "In Bloom", "Come As You Are", "Lithium", "Polly" and "Something In The Way" were very popular and are stilled played on the radio. My personal favorite song off "Nevermind" would have to be "Lounge Act" which features a pumping introductory bass solo. The songs defines the album in my opinion by telling a story that expresses screaming teenage angst. Post your favorite aspects and thoughts of "Nemermind" Listen to the album in your free time if you enjoy this type of music, the tempo is mainly fast with heavy power chords and wanders through confused teenage thoughts full of insecurity and pure expression.

Introducing The Beatles!!!

The Beatles are inarguably the best band never mind rock band that did ever exist. Their music and legacy created by that music lives on and always will. I Grew up listening to the Beatles and as a kid in the early 2000's chances were that you were the only kid listening to The Beatles. The amount of musicians and bands that were influenced by The Beatles is countless. If you were to ask most of the rock stars alive today their major influences I would bet that most if not all of them would say without hesitation The Beatles! The sheer musical ability of the band was almost unbelievable and the Lennon-McCartney writing team is easily still the best the world has ever seen.

I am not claiming I know everything there is to know about the band or all rock bands in general although I do know quite a lot. To talk about the Beatles is like talking about the sea or space. The four man band from liverpool england surprised the world after arriving to america in the early 1960's and to their break up in 1970 they mad so much music and accomplished more than any other artist. Their history and musical library is vast and nearly endless, so instead of taking it from me I would strongly advise anyone that hasn't listened to them, has only heard a few hits on the radio or thinks they're overrated to get of your high horse and listen to an album or two and get back to me. I would suggest from their earlier albums Rubber Soul which is when they broke out of their poppy shell, and from their somewhat later music The Beatles (White Album). Those two albums are their two best in my eyes.