Because I can, and for no better reason, I’m going to list what I’m listening to at the moment. There’s a lot of chit-chat about music as a writing tool, but this is more of a general ‘mood’ music than the “Inspire me, please… for the love of Cthulhu…” kind.

I’m not above kick-starting the little gray cells with aural input, but I’m not obsessed with coming up with more material than I already have at the moment. These are simply my favorite listening material, nothin’ more…

The Rolling Stones

The ongoing “Are you a Beatles man or a Stones man?” debate is a complete no-brainer for me. Can’t Get No (Satisfaction), Start Me Up and Sympathy For The Devil are among the greatest songs I have ever heard. Of course, they aren’t bulletproof, and there’s a lot of output that I don’t really like. The Sympathy For The Devil film is overlong and pointlessly interrupted by a string of scenes which take away from the actual music, which is what the film should be about.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

With two songs (I Put A Spell On You and Itty Bitty Pretty One) that I constantly return to, Hawkins might not seem like he belongs in a favourites list, but the quality of those two songs is so great that I must include him. I can’t remember when I first heard his music, but the coughing, spluttering, muttering and theatrics of his albums is amazing. It’s less pantomime than some reviewers have suggested, and likening him to Vincent Price seems forced.

Houdou themes keep returning in his songs, and Feast Of The Mau Mau is scarily authentic-sounding.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Freebird and Sweet Home Alabama may get all of the attention, but I like Gimme Three Steps, which I’ve listened to endlessly since I first found it. There are some great compilations of their music, and yet I still feel like I’m missing out because I never got to see a live concert. Being born to late, and on the wrong side of the Atlantic, means I have to settle for DVDs and CDs… The recorded material is astonishing, and yet something – a spark of magic – is lost through the separation of time.

I so want a time machine, just so I can go back to the early seventies and stand in the crowd at one of their concerts.

Jimi Hendrix

All Along The Watchtower, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), and Crosstown Traffic are my favorite Hendrix tracks, although the recordings in collaboration with Little Richard are also great. I didn’t think I would have liked the mix of styles, but each performer is so strong that they compliment each other rather than crowd the other out. I found What’d I Say? a few years ago, and while it isn’t one of his better tracks, I still like it as much as the better-known material.

Castles Made Of Sand is epic, while coming in at under three minutes. That is a talent I wished I had.

Bob Dylan

The John Wesley Harding album, with the titular track, All Along The Watchtower, and I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight is one of my favorite Dylan albums, especially because he is so descriptive with so few words. It’s always a treat to listen to him, and the nasal  quality of the vocals – which some complain about – makes the songs less artificial somehow. Modern performers try a little too hard to polish off the rough edges, and manage to sound plastic and fake most of the time.

Camille Saint-Saëns

I can think of few things better to listen to while reading horror stories than Danse Macabre, as the creepiness factor of the violins slowly builds. I’ve picked up a few recordings of this over the years, but very few orchestras really get into the music and relish the strangeness. I guess this is one of the few classical pieces I listen to regularly, despite building up a few stacks of CDs in the hopes that I would come across something else as addictive.

####

There are other performers I could add to this, but it seems there is plenty here already. I’m missing The Who, Led Zeppelin, Eminem, The Cure… All of whose CDs are rotated in my collection frequently, but who don’t mean as much to me as the ones listed above. I should probably have added a few words about Night On A Bare Mountain, to show that there are other classical pieces which get aired from time to time.

I’m off to listen to some music now…

Maybe it’s because I spent too much time listening to The Smashing Pumpkins when I was 14. You know how it went: warm cans of beer, sunny summer evenings round the back of the local Scout hut. Music with lots of distortion in it. And I loved it – the distortion, that is. I pretty much hated the beer, but I never stopped drinking it. And I never stopped loving distortion.

I got to thinking about the reason for this after reading an entirely idiotic review in The Independent of the debut album by Bombay Bicycle Club.  In this piece of subjective, blitheringly ignorant tosh, ‘reviewer’ Simon Price completely disregards what is an accomplished, exciting and enduring album created a group of seriously precocious young musicians, and resorts to an always irritating mixture of conjecture and piling headfirst on to the backlash bandwagon before it’s even properly parked.

Of Price’s 86 words of platitudinous twaddle about ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’, this irksome sentence, in particular, struck a nerve: “BBC are led by a singer with a singularly irritating bleat and a guitarist who has you considering a moratorium on the sale of reverb pedals.” Now I know he’s talking about reverb, and this blog is about distortion – I’m no boffin, but I’m pretty sure there’s an inextricable relationship between the two, so I’ll use them interchangeably. In any case, I’m not as dense as Simon Price, and anyone else prepared to, however light-heartedly, advocate banning the sale of any kind of effects pedal. It’s just completely missing the point.

I consider myself a music lover. I love great music, so it’s wasteful to discount any genre, and for this reason I will listen to pretty much anything. Every now and again I slip on Miles Davies’ jazz masterpiece Kind of Blue. I have a deep respect for the simultaneous elegance and power of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, although fully admit that, being a Philistine beyond rehabilitation, I’m only aware of the song because Oliver Stone used it in Platoon. I have been known to enjoy nodding my block to a bit of hip-hop, too: Common and Q-Tip being particular favourites. I even like Prince.

But I always come back to distortion; music capable of supplying the kind of unparalleled adrenaline rush you’re never going to get from, say, Katie Melua’s ‘Nine Million Bicycles’, however fit you might think she is. Which is very, by the way.

From the Pumpkins’ ‘Cherub Rock’ – still one of my favourite songs of all time – to Broken Social Scene’s ‘You Forgot It In People’, a glorious, shambolic tapestry of an album, deftly laced together with a huge whack of distorted guitars, and the stone-cold classic shoegazing of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’, unashamedly soaked in so much dizzying reverb it never fails to make your head spin, at the right time, in the right place at the right moment, the visceral brain haemorrhage-inducing punch of this music makes it the best in the world.

Take Jimi Hendrix, one of the first artists to experiment with Fuzzbox effects pedals – according to the unshakeable authority of Wikipedia, at least. Would ‘Purple Haze’ or ‘Voodoo Chile’ – a song with a blistering intro that, if my memory serves correctly, John Squire of the Stone Roses once described as the best noise ever made by a human being – really have been the same without the liberal helpings of bone-crunching distortion layered throughout?

Then there’s the growling magic of distortion-saturated live performances. Remember Kurt Cobain and Nirvana playing ‘Territorial Pissings’ instead of ‘Lithium’ on ‘The Jonathan Ross Show’ and proceeding to smash the living shit out of the stage in front of the mouths-agape crowd – probably my favourite-ever rock’n’roll moment. Or the otherworldly set from Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, in which, after lithely nailing an amazing version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, he simulates intercourse with an amp then famously sets fire to his guitar. You need a big, guttural lashing of distortion to be able to get away with that. I can’t imagine Newton Faulkner doing it.

I went to Bombay Bicycle Club’s gig in Islington last week. They were a pretty thrilling live band, both tight and inventive, despite clearly being quite severely inebriated. And as the sublime ‘Magnet’ neared its rousing conclusion the venue became engulfed in a swirling crescendo of reverb that threatened to crush under its sheer weight any infidels reluctant to be picked up and swept away by it.

That Independent review churlishly asked, “Do we really need another early-evening festival band?” What the chuff is an early-evening festival band, fuck nuts? I’ve seen James Brown, Foo Fighters, Seun Kuti, Beck, Jurassic 5 and a particularly racy Sebastien Tellier, among many others, in early-evening slots at various concerts and festivals – so going by that any artist from any genre who happens to be on any stage at any festival before it gets dark fits in that pigeonhole – making it nonsensical and Price’s comment utterly redundant.

What we do need, though, is distortion. Big, loud, bolshy dollops of ear-splitting fuzz. There’s simply nothing else like it.

Were great players like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Eddie Van Halen full of good Guitarma when they were creating their greatest works?

The answer is, not necessarily.

It’s hard to imagine that songs such as Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), Stairway to Heaven, or Eruption aren’t the result of positive Guitarma radiating from the finger tips of these guitarists.

That is not to say that Hendrix, Page and Van Halen weren’t channeling good Guitarma when they were laying down their best or worst tracks.

The beginning guitar player, barely able to make a D chord, may actually be generating more good Guitarma than was being created during the recording of any song in history. This is unlikely, though possible.

Guitarma isn’t limited to the perceptions and judgments of the mind. Guitarma transcends what listeners have determined to be great music.

Jimi Hendrix

Here’s a short story I’ve written about Jimi Hendrix.

Just click on the link below to read it:

http://www.authspot.com/Fan-Fiction/Yellow-Bandanna.71170

It’s about the yellow bandanna Jimi owned – a bandanna that was given to him by his Cherokee grandmother.

I enjoyed writing the story – I hope you enjoy reading it.

Yellow Bandanna © R J Dent (2009)

www.rjdent.com

Despite never seeing what was supposedly so great about Metallica or ever being much of a fan of their’s (as far as albums go), live they’re on a different level to the rest of us mere humans. I’m certainly inspired to go and listen to their whole back catalogue and see if I now ‘get’ Metallica (and I think I do after this storming gig).

Despite almost completely missing The Sword, apart from (literally) the last two or three notes to whatever their set closer was, then seeing them head backstage down the very-wrestling-like aisle, I was really looking forward to seeing main support act for this part of the ‘World Magnetic’ tour (and headliners in their own right), Machine Head.

I’ve not had chance to listen to Machine Head’s latest album, ‘The Blackening’ (is that the most metal name for an album ever?!), but I saw them live at Rock City in 2001 and they blew my head off.

They were touring 2001’s ‘Supercharger’ at the time and, although that time for them musically has been criticised as their least impressive and ’selling out’ phase, that was my favourite era of their music. Listen to ‘American High’ off Supercharger or ‘From This Day’ off ‘The Burning Red’ and tell me those songs aren’t awesome.

They were supported by Ill Nino back in 2001 and after the gig the singer was mooching around the Rig downstairs as if waiting for groupies to notice him but, as this was early in the band’s career, I didn’t see anyone flock toward him). We also sneaked backstage after the gig and saw Benji from Skindred and loads of excitable fans. It all came to an end when security decided there were too many people and started asking to see passes. Obviously we had none so retreated back into the Rig.

So, anyway, they set a high standard 8 years back but I was unfortunately disappointed with the awful sound they had last night (although I’m not sure if that was just compounded by most of the 8+ minute songs essentially sounding the same anyway). It was a shame as, when I saw them at Rock City with a good sound and rabid audience, they were (and are) one of the best live acts out there.

Ok, so these days they’re straying dangerously close to the Megadeth school of metal, i.e. “let’s write songs that are all about the solo’s and how many thousands of notes we can cram in as possible” but they’re still a brutal force to be reckoned with, the audience reaction to the opening notes of ‘Davidian’ proved that.

Despite listening to (and liking) most metal and rock genres I’ve never liked thrash. Ironic really, as I’m at a gig where the top two acts initially made their names as thrash bands. At least both moved on and evolved though, unlike most shit thrash bands still trapped in the 80’s (I’m looking at you, Mustaine).

As soon as the house lights blackened (no pun intended) to indicate the arrival of the main event the audience made their power felt and filled the Arena with a wall of shouting, cheering and horn flicking.

From start to finish Metallica are just awesome live and astonishingly tight, almost to the point where they must be sharing a collective consciousness to instinctively know what each is doing at any one time.

Good job really as that rectangular centre stage is both a blessing and a curse.

It’s an impressive spectacle to see a band perform in the middle of a room instead of at the end of it, providing a great view for everyone and whole new dimension for stage lighting and pyro (Metallica’s are setting the standard for big stage production), but at the same time there’s no single focal point for the audience (or the band) so everything can feel a little fragmented as very rarely do the band come together in one place.

The audience interaction suffers a little too. At a Metallica gig I would’ve expected anyone even remotely near the front to be going absolutely fucking mental and, while there were sporadic groups of people moshing & circle-pitting, there was nothing anywhere near the audience energy you’d see from the same people watching the same band but with a traditional stage setup.

This though is a minor criticism (and hardly the band’s fault) and not something I really noticed all that much until I thought about it afterwards.

The opening sound and light show, and indeed the entire stage production, is the best I’ve ever seen at a music gig, hands down.

Lasers create a dazzling grid of greens, blues and reds throughout the entire Arena (reminding me of Tron), the under-stage flamethrowers were just breathtaking (and skin warming, even as far back as we were), the articulated coffin overhead lighting rigs, while underused, were state of the art and the hundred or so black beachball type balloons that descended from the ceiling at the penultimate song (although I don’t remember what the song was) provided visual spectacle but ultimately enhanced the show instead of being mere stage gimmickery.

I doubt any amount of lights or flames could overshadow the utter pummeling intensity of Metallica’s musical catalogue so far (even if the dumbass audience threw most of the beachballs back onstage instead of punching them around).

I’m not nearly familiar enough with Metallica’s recorded work to tell you what the entire setlist was (and, even if I was, I don’t have a good enough memory to remember them all) but they opened with ‘That Was Just Your Life’ from latest album ‘Death Magnetic’. They played their most famous 3 songs; ‘Sad But True’, ‘Enter Sandman’ and the never less than stunning ‘One’.

When the flames started flying around onstage and the familiar sounds of bombs, mortars and machine gun fire started I quickly reached into my pocket and filmed the entire song on my phone. Thank god they didn’t play the full length version that goes on and on and on and on though. Here’s the vid if you wanna watch it:

They also played ‘Master Of Puppets’, or as my mate Lee calls it ‘Napster Of Muppets’ in reference to drummer Lars Ulrich’s monumentally misjudged reaction to Napster and the whole downloading thing in general. I’m certainly not going to tell him where or exactly HOW I’ve acquired Metallica’s music to date for fear of being anally intruded by drum sticks (not the lollies) and court summonses.

‘Battery’, ‘Kill ‘Em All’, ‘Judas Kiss’, ‘The Day That Never Comes’ and ‘Seek And Destroy’ were all there too and I’m pretty sure that’s not all they played, but I don’t remember any more!

‘Seek And Destroy’ was their set closer and also one of their oldest tracks (coming from their first album; 1983’s ‘Kill Em All’). While I’ve never listened to that album due to my non-interest in the thrash genre, this tune sounded great in 2009 and has aged very well. So well in fact I was thinking to myself how a lot of old music would sound if updated & re-recorded in 2009.

I know it may be heresy to suggest such a thing, but I think a lot of stuff may sound better than it did when production techniques were less sophisticated. This is DEFINITELY heresy as there’s nothing wrong with the original at all, but I’d love to hear Hendrix re-record ‘Voodoo Chile’ in 2009 and just see how the two would sound next to each other.

Obviously this will never happen due mainly to Hendrix being deader than a can of spam and no-one could play it like he would anyway, but still interesting to wonder how it’d sound.

When Lars asked the audience if they should wait another 23 years for Metallica to return to Nottingham (obviously the crowd responded with pretty definite “no”) it seemed unbelievable a band that formed in 1981 could still be at the forefront of their genre, and seemingly at the peak of their powers, 28 years later.

It’s also unbelievable they haven’t played our city before. Ok, they’ve played Donington/Download loads of times but I guess that’s technically Leicestershire.

Actually, it’s not that unbelievable they haven’t been here before as, prior to the Ice Stadium being rebuilt as the Ice Arena, the only real venue for alternative & rock bands was Rock City. Metallica could’ve easily sold that place out in 1987. These days they could play to more people in James Hetfields house than in Rock City.

While some people dislike the Arena and label it an eyesore I’m thankful it was built so we can now get these bigger bands visiting and ripping us all a new one. Although I’ve not been to that many gigs there yet. Nine Inch Nails and War Of the Worlds would never have stopped in Nottingham (and I wouldn’t have seen either or met Trent Reznor himself) if it wasn’t for the Arena.

A funny moment just before the final song saw Ulrich stalking around the stage yelling at people “fuck off,  it’s over” and “no more, that’s it” while gesturing for them to leave and giving the cutthroat sign.

As he was doing this guitarist Kirk Hammett was getting his guitar changed, bassist Rob Trujillo was cooling his head with a bottle of water and stretching his fingers while Hetfield was taking a breather at the other side of the stage (where there was no access to backstage) so it was bloody obvious they were gonna do at least one more song but Ulrich really embraces his reputation as an utter prick in much the same way as an over the top pantomime villian shakes his fist at the audience.

It’s to the benefit of the band, however, as he gives a fantastic performance and I’ve never seen a drummer do anything other than either sit behind the kit or stand up a couple of times. Ulrich is up & down like a fiddlers elbow after every song to yell encouragement at the audience and generally break down the barrier between kit, band and audience.

So after the closing bars of ‘Seek And Destroy’ each one of the band thank us for turning up and stay onstage for a good ten minutes throwing out plectrums, drum sticks (not the lollies), kicking those black beachballs back into the audience and telling the front few rows of clamouring fans how much they love them.

This was one of those gigs where the band are just SO good I can imagine nobody else wanting to ever learn guitar or drums as there’s just no chance they’d ever get that good. Another way to look at it though is that seeing musicianship of this calibre absolutely WOULD inspire you to learn an instrument to try and become at least half as good someday.

Afterall, in 28 years you can get good at almost anything, but the four men that go under the collective band name ‘Metallica’ have something else going on, something almost superhuman in their ability. These men were born to do it and we were born to fucking love it.

To quote their famous slogan;

Birth
School
Metallica
Death.

De naam zegt u waarschijnlijk niks. Was dit de kop van het artikel geweest, dan had ik het waarschijnlijk geeneens gelezen. De originele titel was “Drummer Jimi Hendrix Experience overleden”. Het legendarische trio kan nu op volle sterkte hierboven (of hierbeneden of ergens anders in het hiernamaals) gaan optreden.

Eigenlijk zijn ze ‘van voor mijnen tijd’ maar Jimi Hendrix was onze grote gitaarheld. “Purple Haze” en “Voodoo Chile” waren nummers die steevast gespeeld werden op de fuiven waar wij rondhingen en het signaal om ons te gaan uitleven in allerlei spastische bewegingen. Toen we later in het studentenleven zaten, reden we regelmatig naar Leuven voor de flower power fuiven daar. Ons volop concentrerend op het motto “Make Love Not War” brachten we dan vooral het make love-gedeelte in praktijk alvorens de eerste trein terug naar ons kot te nemen. Aids was toen nog alleen gevaarlijk voor homo’s en leefde hier nog helemaal niet.

Soit, het trio is niet meer. Maar gelukkig is er een berg materiaal voor het nageslacht achtergebleven. Geniet even mee van het wonderlijke psychedelisch mooie “Voodoo Chile”, Live at the Isle of Wight…

Zakk Wylde e Slash a tocarem Voodoo Chile de Jimmy Hendrix… Vale a pena ver!

Someone found the guitar Jimi Hendrix torched in London in ‘67. It sat in a garage for 40 years, and this week they auctioned it off. The 1965 stratacaster sold yesterday for $497,557 to American collector Daniel Boucher from Boston, who traveled to London just for the sale.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7597962.stm

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hNhSV1Mq6ShnQ0CNKKfOUH8vLpaA

I took a visit to the library the other day and found “Electric Ladyland” on CD to check out. I also checked out “Excitable Boy” by Warren Zevon and “500,000 kilowatts of p-funk power” by George Clinton. Quite the eclectic mix of music they have, of all places, at the Redding Public Library.

Anyway, as I was listening to Electric Ladyland, it got me thinking, will anyone ever come close to performing and writing the masterpiece that Jimi had on that album? Not ONE, but TWO outstanding guitar pieces, not to mention Crosstown Traffic and All Along the Watchtower. But the 20:13 of Voodoo Chile and Voodoo Child (Slight Return) to me is his magnum opus, and one of the high points in rock history. I just found out a few days ago that on Voodoo Child, Steve Winwood played the killer Organ piece. That’s right, the same Steve Winwood that sings “Higher Love”…Think 80s glam rock. The video is here.

But anyway, this entry has a point other than drool over the greatness of Hendrix. Where are the Jimi Hendrixes of today? Why is it fair that the 1960s had Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton in their prime? Will the world ever see that many musical heavyweights making music at the same time? Not to mention Johnny Cash and that guy named Elvis. (Although he was more into acting in the 60s. But he was still around.)

It sure isn’t now, that’s for certain. What’s more concerning is the fact people don’t seem to notice or care. Instead of listening or playing real music, they play Guitar Hero and listen to regurgitated hit singles from the 80s and 90s or supposed “new” music that just samples the hook right from the same well.

What would Jimi think if he were alive today? I couldn’t help but think he’d be disappointed in how the originality of new music has decayed.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some great new music out there, but even the best now has been done before by someone else. Where’s the Voodoo Child of our generation, and the next? I don’t think it’ll ever come, frankly. Why make new music when you can pretend to be the rockstars of the past playing hits they wrote 30, 40 years ago? Why go watch new music live when you can watch, and I’m guilty of this as anyone, when you can watch the entire catalog of nearly every musician ever on YouTube.

Was it always like this? Will the real music makers please stand up?

So it goes.

Great photo of Jimi. This autograph and photo was collected on 11th May (not March like stated on my book by mistake) 1967. Jimi was in Paris for the recording of a popular TV show called DIM DAM DOM (produced by Michèle Arnaud). At the time the Television was still state-controlled and pop shows were very scarce… This particular show was recorded at the Municipal Theatre of Issy-Les-Moulineaux just outside Paris and the photograph with myself that is on the first page of this blog was taken then. My brother remembers that he assisted him with finding a taxi to get back to Paris as we was a little lost in these subburbs…

I know I am probably light years behind most of you mash-up fanatics, but I just now found out about this one, and I love it. Jimi Hendrix, my favorite artist of all time, and Jay-Z, my favorite Hip Hop artist bar none. Editing may be a little on the sloppy side, but it doesn’t take away from the overall quality.

I know I am probably light years behind most of you mash-up fanatics, but I just now found out about this one, and I love it. Jimi Hendrix, my favorite artist of all time, and Jay-Z, my favorite Hip Hop artist bar none. Editing may be a little on the sloppy side, but it doesn’t take away from the overall quality.

J’adore ces moments improvisés. 3 musiciens super différents et super forts qui se retrouvent à jouer Hendrix … C’est pas la classe ça?

I received a phone call about four weeks ago from a financial multinational company with whom I have been doing business lately.  If I would like to accept their invitation for a corporate do at York races? I could bring my wife/girlfriend/partner too. 

Sure. 

I mean I know fuck all about horse racing, partners or wives, but free booze and grub, hell, yeah I’ll go. As ever the eternal student. 

At least that was what I lied to myself. Truth was that I was too scared to say no. 

I hate corporate functions with a passion: explaining over and over again how, with my background, I ended up in the northeast, how the flying fuck I ended up working in the financial world, with my own company nonetheless which is even weirder in this industry or so I have been made to believe.

All the small talk, and the bigger talk, in this case about horses, financial markets and, oh worse, partners. I so cannot be arsed with this. I truly know nowt about it and I am not interested in it either. But I didn’t want to sound too impolite, so I accepted. And hated myself for it. The young’ns were gonna bear the grunt, gonna get it lock, stock and twenty smoking barrels.

Then Laura sharply, and casually, you know, whilst eating me food, drinking me wine, watching me tele, picking her toenails, not even looking at when talking to me pointed out that maybe socialising in the financial world wouldn’t be such a bad thing seen the fact I have started a company precisely in that given market. And maybe, just maybe the last thing I wanted was going bust because of missed opportunities, lack of knowledge, or more reprehensible, ignorance. 

Touché. 

Husten and intelligence, defo a sore spot. The young’ns know me better than I do myself. So, as always, I listened blindly to them because … because, well, because they’re always right. Especially Laura. And there’s something indescribably erotic about consenting to confident, sexy women half my age. 

Lord knows i’m a voodoo child baby.

Better prepare myself for it then. In actuality …

… to be continued …

A. 

And to all the destruction in man

And to all the corruption in my hand

And now I select you

Slow now, I let you

(I’ve seen love)

See how I stun

See how I stun

Now I select you

Slow now, I bet you

I follow the speed when the stars swept by

Blogging-once-a-day is easy: Interpol + copy/paste + A.. + alcohol.

Could even make it 2 posts a day.

Loved your long dress tonight, luv. How sexy you looked, trying to conceal your extra weight, trying to avoid my stare.

How well you succeeded.

See how I stun? 

If only she would read this. 

U2

 Here is a group that just keeps getting better as time goes on…. 

U2 from the 80’s  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2WAOqU88tY

Trip Through Your Wires

90’s  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPjQZ4_92Aw&mode=related&search =

Mysterious Ways

And the 2000’s  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou0VpBU3y7k&mode=related&search =

Vertigo

Trivia:

From Wikipedia: U2  is a rock band from Dublin, Ireland. Formed in 1976, the band consists of Bono (vocals and guitar), The Edge (vocals and guitar), Adam Clayton (bass guitar) and Larry Mullen Jr. (drums and percussion). U2 has consistently been one of the most popular rock groups in the world since the mid-80’s, selling upwards of 170 million albums worldwide. The artists have won 22 Grammys–more than any other rock group. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2)

Here’s a terrific bio of U2’s Bono: http://www.atu2.com/band/bono/

 Link to Paul Allen: 

Allen was the one who introduced U2’s Bono to his friend Bill Gates, years before Bono and the Gates’ shared the cover of Time as Persons of the Year in 2005. See…. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1140301,00.html    And U2 has been a frequent visitor aboard Allen’s yacht, Octopus… See..  http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1106  

Here are Allen and Bono at the 20^th Annual Rock n Roll Induction Ceremony:    http://www.wireimage.com/Gallerylisting.aspnavtyp=gls====106046&nbc1=1&c4nvi=3&styp=clbi&str=896 —————————————————————  

Finally, there is the incomparable Jimi Hendrix *4 …

Hendrix’ Voodoo Chile (Short improvisation that actually sounds more like Voodoo Child (Slight Return) performed by guitar master, Buddy Guy)      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKzMJrQ3uqk&mode=related &search = 

Trivia: 

Voodoo Chile“ by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, is from the album, Electric Ladyland.  The song was recorded on May 2, 1968, and performers included Mitch Mitchell, Steve Winwood of Traffic and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane.   From Wikipedia; “The song, basically a 15-minute blues jam, evolved into the final product over the course of an hour. After many of the late night Electric Ladyland recording sessions, Hendrix and the band went to one of the New York City clubs to jam with whoever was there. One such jam at The Scene Club included Steve Winwood and Jack Casady.  Noel Redding was not present as he had stormed out of the Record Plant studio earlier that evening. They spent the night playing “Voodoo Chile”, and when the club closed, Hendrix invited everyone back to the studio. At about 7 a.m . the next morning they began to formally record “Voodoo Chile”. It took only three takes and the final 15 minute version was Hendrix’s longest studio recording. The second take failed since one guitar string snapped.”  (Excerpt taken from Wikipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_Chile )              

Link to Paul Allen: 

On November 24th, 2002, the night of Jimi Hendrix’ 60th Anniversary party, Buddy Guy, Buddy Miles, Billy Cox, Kenny Olson from Kid Rock and a number of celebrated musicians played Hendrix songs to a packed house in Seattle. During the concert, Paul Allen was invited to come up on stage to perform with the group.  The musicians, including Allen, then embarked on a musical jam session that meandered improvisationally between Hendrix’ Voodoo Chile and Voodoo Child (Slight Return).   

Purple Haze  (Jimi Hendrix) 

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B00000DHZJ/ref=pd_krex_dp_001_001/104-3570739-3639969?ie=UTF8&track=001&disc=001  

Listed as #14 of the 40 songs that changed the world in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Purple Haze was recorded in August of 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The song appeared on Hendrix’ 1967 album, “Are You Experienced?”          Jimi Hendrix, who performed the song, is widely considered to be one of the greatest guitarists of all time.  

From Rolling Stone Magazine*2::      “The electric guitar demanded a Picasso of its own…..More than thirty five years after his death, Hendrix is still the high-water mark of rock guitarists. And if the Beatles’ take on psychedelia was about an enhanced understanding of the world, Hendrix’ version was about exploring his stoned and beautiful internal landscape with playing that was more eloquent than words could be.”*  

Trivia:  

 ”Purple Haze is often cited as one of Jimi Hendrix’s greatest songs, and first international hit. For many, it is his signature work. Purple Haze became Hendrix’ second single after his manager Chas Chandler heard him playing the riff backstage and quickly arranged for him to record and release the song……….The Rolling Stone magazine placed the song at No. 17 in their “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”…..

 There are several theories about the origin of the name of the song, “Purple Haze.” One theory, according to Wikipedia, is that the song refers to Hendrix’ experiences with LSD.  But Hendrix himself denied that the song was about drugs. Instead he said that it was drawn from a dream he had where he was walking under the ocean, surrounded by a purple haze.  At another point, Hendrix said he took the phrase “purple haze” from a science fiction novel written by Philip Jos Farmer called “Night of Light.” (The phrase that appears in Farmer’s book is “purplish haze.”) Hendrix also told fans that the song was about love, and said that the line “whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me” was the key to the meaning of the lyrics. (Excerpts and information taken from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_haze )   

Link to Paul Allen:   

 It was rumored that Allen played a “spectacular cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ” Purple Haze,’” during the party he threw at his Beverly Hills home in March of this year on behalf of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, a group that wants to bring the 2016 Olympics to L.A.*4  That was one of his most recent links to the song, but it was not the first. When Allen was about thirteen, his parents went away for a vacation and he and his sister stayed with a girl whose mother lived up the street. When she put on the Hendrix album, Allen, who was used to his parents classical and jazz records, was immediately touched. “It was like listening to music from another planet,” he told Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stones Magazine in a 2000 interview.  

Allen’s love of Hendrix’ music has lasted a lifetime.  In fact, it sparked a fast friendship in the 1990’s with another avid Hendrix fan, tennis star Monica Seles.   Allen and Seles became very close friends in the mid-90’s in part because of their shared passion for Hendrix. Allen went to Seles’ tennis matches and Seles sat next to him at Blazer games.   There were even rumors of a serious romance between the two for a time—Seles was Allen’s date at the masked ball in Venice in 1997, dressed as Marie Antoinette..

  Jimi Hendrix was much more than a musician to Monica Seles.  The young tennis phenomenon had been viciously attacked—stabbed on the court by a fan of her opponent, Stefi Graff, and the assault left Seles physically and emotionally scarred.   (The inspiring story of her comeback can be found in her 1996 autobiography, “From Fear to Victory.”)  Seles told fans that it was Jimi Hendrix’ music that had consoled and inspired her through her recovery. In fact, she was so moved by his music that while she was Nike’s spokesperson she named a line of tennis shoes “Air Haze” after Hendrix’ song, Purple Haze. The shoes had a guitar outline in the outsole and grooves in the midsole representing guitar picks.*3  

Paul Allen was moved by Hendrix’ music as well, to the point that it inspired him to build a place that Hendrix dreamed about— a gathering place where people of all ages, interests and backgrounds could come together to experience music. What is that place?  It is the answer to the one degree link between Frank Gehry and Paul Allen—the place where architecture is frozen music, the place that links nearly everyone whom we’ve talked about on this blog since May 1st to Paul Allen, mostly within one degree…..  

Stay tuned……

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*1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Blues  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_n50_v26/ai_13242584http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SPIRST.story&STORY=/www/story/05-07-2007/0004582729&EDATE=MON+May+07+2007,+06:00+PM  opening of HOB
Dallas  

** 2003 was also officially “The Year of the Blues.” see.. http://www.yearoftheblues.org/about.asp   *2 Rolling Stones Magazine, The Fortieth Anniversary issue May 3-17^th, 2007     *3 Without hoopla, Seles gains final.(Sports)
Source: The Washington Times
Date: 9/7/1996
Author: Young, Josh  *4 Going for the Gold, Variety March 2007    http://weblogs.variety.com/variety_on_the_town/2007/03/going_for_the_g.html

*4 See the official Jimi Hendrix website for some great concerts, Hendrix history and interviews … www.jimihendrix.com

L’altro giorno su Myspace mi sono imbattutto in un vero miracolo della tecnologia… Jimi Hendrix è vivo ed è on line!!!!
Approfitto di questa improvvisa resurrezione per postare due dei miei pezzi preferiti di Hendrix e degli Experience (anche se scegliere è veramente dura!)

Voodoo Chile

Little Wing