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Wearing: Max Mara coat//Fishbone dip-dye jeans//H&M shirt//Dr Martens boots//Ray Ban shades

STEEL DRAGON

The movie “Rock Star” from 2001 gave us one of the coolest bands that never was.

Mark Wahlberg as Chris “Izzy” Cole (Lead vocals)
Dominic West as Kirk Cuddy (Rhythm Guitar)
Jason Bonham as A.C. (Drums)
Zakk Wylde as Ghode (Lead Guitar)
Jeff Pilson as Jörgen (Bass)

This was the film lineup on screen. The actual music from “Steel Dragon” was pretty cool. with songs such as ”Livin’ the Life”, ”Blood Pollution”, ”Stand Up”, ”Wasted Generation” written by greats such as; Steve Plunkett, Peter Beckett, Twiggy Ramirez, Sammy Hagar, and Desmond Child, A.Allen, J. Allen to covers of ”We All Die Young” (Miljenko Matijevic, Kenny Kanowski) by Steelheart and ”Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Ronnie James Dio, Richie Blackmore) by Rainbow. This is definitely one of my favorite bands that never was. Here’s “Blood Pollution”:

STILLWATER

“Almost Famous” from 2000 gave us the band Stillwater. This was a 70′s band that I wish would have been.

Peter Frampton
Mike McCready
Jon Bayless
Ben Smith
Gordon Kennedy
Marti Frederiksen – vocals

Were the magic behind the band. Nancy Wilson wrote the song “Fever Dog ” which we can see right here:

THE WONDERS

” That Thing You Do! ” from 1996 is a movie I can’t pass up. From the mind of Tom Hanks this is the tale of a band in the 60′s and their rise to fame and their meteoric fall from it. The movie features original music by Tom Hanks, Adam Schlesinger, Rick Elias, Scott Rogness, Mike Piccirillo, Gary Goetzman and Howard Shore. Here’s the title track:

Three pretty cool bands that could have been.

the Hellion

The Wonders – “That Thing You Do”
When there’s a movie that’s all about band that’s a one hit wonder, you gotta think that the one hit has got to be good. Luckily, “That Thing You Do” sounds perfect for the era – late 50s, early rock & roll. And, I love how the song evolves throughout the movie from ragged and rough to tight and glossy. Great song from a sweet little rock movie.

Stillwater – “Fever Dog”
On the other end of the rock spectrum, Almost Famous showcases a 70′s band about to break big, and “Fever Dog” sounds like such an authentic classic-rock era track, full of slinky guitars, wailing vocals and an “incendiary” guitar solo. The authenticity may come from the fact that Nancy Wilson (guitarist from Heart) and Peter Frampton were on the writing team for the “fake” band singing the songs in the movie, including this one. This song fits so perfectly in this love letter to 70s rock. (And this has got to be in my top 5 movies of all time)

Citizen Dick – “Touch Me I’m Dick”
In Singles, the 90s grunge movie, there HAD to be a character that was in a band, and Matt Dillon fit this one to a tee. Not much to say about it, but the band featured three members of Pearl Jam, including Eddie Vedder on drums(!). I think this is the track that according to Dillon, was “big in Belgium”…

Five Heartbeats – “Nothing But Love”
60′s R&B soul at its (fake) finest – I love the way this song explodes into existence in this scene. It’s the beginning of the full arc of success for the band, from their highs all the way down to the heart-breaking scene with the lead singer hoping to get the band back together by singing the chorus of this song, while strung out. Another example of how important a song can be to the structure of a movie – and this one pulls it off…

Banjo & Sullivan – I’m at Home Getting Hammered, While She’s Out Getting Nailed”
My favorite back story from a fictional band has got to be this one: Back in 2005, Rob Zombie directed the horror movie “The Devil’s Rejects”, and included a scene in which an old country music duo, Banjo & Sullivan, are killed off-screen, igniting a murder spree. Initially, it wasn’t supposed to be much more than a throwaway/inside joke kind of scene, but Zombie got the great idea of fleshing out the “Banjo” duo by having one of their songs appear on the soundtrack. So, he commissioned a friend, Texas’ own Jesse Dayton, to write something that an “old country redneck” would have recorded back in the 70s. What started as one track turned into a full album of material, that sold more than 300,000 copies, easily Jesse Dayton’s biggest selling album – and not many even knew it was him. The song is so over-the-top honky-tonk sleaze, with one of the all time best names – it couldn’t have been more fitting.

When I first glanced at the laughably bad photoshop cover to this album, I thought that the chicken scratch at the top read “Stillwater”; which would’ve been awesome because I’m a big fan of the song “Fever Dog” by the fictional band from the movie Almost Famous.

Instead, Animal Joy is a self-absorbed album with a bloated sense of importance. The running theme throughout the record has something to do with animals, how we should celebrate them, or revert to our animalistic impulses, or some nonsense. In reality, the plodding pace and vocal vibrato wears thin rather quickly. In Shearwater’s defense, pitches love vibrato.

Artist: Shearwater
Album: Animal Joy
Label: Sub Pop

Grab some mp3s here courtesy of Sub Pop

Buy Shearwater Animal Joy

Don’t get me wrong, getting drunk Tuesday through Saturday is great and constitutes for the majority of my memory loss, but is there more to the world than this? O yeah, it’s a nice change not hearing “Fever D” every time I round a corner, but that’s a whole different story.

Well to make a long story short, Kevin was right. It has been one full year away from JMU and during my absence a lot has changed. Like I’ve said before, I couldn’t have been luckier to land a job with my company and they’re constantly giving me more to do. To add to my full plate, I’m now doing sales. I now visit the customer at their home and try to get them excited about replacement windows. Wow that sounds lame.

So far I’ve sold one job and will get a pretty nice check at the end of the month for my efforts. Keep your fingers crossed, but I’ve got a few more potential sales coming in the next week. I get most of the smaller leads but just a little more practice and I’ll be working the streets for good. Dollar, dollar bills, yall.

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Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. This is one of the films I used to love as a teenager.

It is a coming-of-age story in which fifteen-year-old William is given, by chance, the opportunity to write the cover story for the Rolling Stone Magazine. He tours along with one of his favourite bands, Stillwater. His self-declared mentor Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) advises him under no circumstances to make friends with the rock stars.

But, of course, William is swept away by the situation and loses focus on his work. He falls in love with one of the “Band Aids”, adores the band leader Russell Hammond and on top of it all ends up getting “deflowered” by a group of girls. When the article is due, he has only a few notes written down…

The cast includes Kate Hudson as Penny Lane, Patrick Fugit as William and Billy Crudup as the band leader Russell Hammond. One of the most entertaining characters is William’s mother (Frances McDormand), who is extremely possessive of her children and only allows William to go on the trip if he doesn’t miss a single test in school (obviously he ends up missing quite a few).

Groovy entertainment with a great soundtrack. Filled with subtle humour, a beautiful first love and crazy rock musicians. It is definitely a film worth watching!