I feel that I must voice my opinion on country music. I personally enjoy a good heartfelt country song now and again, but these days they are hard to come by. When I think of country I picture music like Johnny Cash, or Hank Williams. This pop country HAS GOT TO GO! I worked at Penn Dott last summer where each day I got a healthy dose of the pop country for nearly 8 hours. During which I truly listened, I truly tried to understand. What I get from today’s country is much different from what was coming out in the 60’s and 70’s. Now a days I feel that they take guys with southern accents, stick them infant of a band and write them the worst songs possible to perform. They take catchy hook and tie in familiar aspects of country living so idiots will relate to cliches. These songs don’t focus as much on suffering and the land as they worry about idolizing all the wrong things. They can pump out 100000 songs about a working man, but never truly understand the pain and suffering one goes through day in and day out. They don’t practice what they preach these country guys have rhinestones in their jeans and gems in their boots, not mud. I feel like the world would be a much more educated place if we pretty much torched Nashville and all of their lies to the ground!!!!!!!!!!!! I know that is very dramatic, but this problem needs to stop.

From an early age my dad would play me different types of music to expose me to everything possible. For the most part we would listen to his record collection from his childhood. When he would Play Jim Croce it was very different from the other things he listened to. This man fascinated me, his lyrics so true, so real. I have always enjoyed all of his songs no matter what. His songs are acoustic guitar based with a full band wrapping around. Songs like Operator have that full 1970’s folk vibe. There is so much fingerpicking, steady drum beats, and shuffling bass. Jim has only released a few albums because like most amazing artists he was taken from us to early. No matter where I go in life, no matter what I do, I will always feel that my dad exposing me to music like this from a young age will have a lasting effect on me for my life entirety.

Lately I have been listening to an unhealthy amount of the band NOFX. They started out in the early 80’s as a hardcore band, but as the 90’s came in the band altered their sound to take hardcore into the future. NOFX makes great use of harmonies and layering their instruments. Rather than just slapping a few parts together they use different keys to create a full sound with depth. Slowly as the band made way into the early 2000’s their sound hit full stride with the release of The War on Errorism (2003). This record is rattled with personal reflectional lyrics that are unlike any other band. The drumming almost sounds like it is a machine it is so precise. The guitars have a multitude of dynamic stops/ strum patterns, and the bass noodles throughout entire songs. NOFX takes punk and keeps it modern, they don’t use any fancy stuff, they are what they are what you get is what you get. They have been running Fat Wreck Chords since the late 1990’s, and hold the true DIY Ethic!

After giving a pretty decent speech on early hardcore it occurred to me that I know nothing about other genres / variations of the music I love. Pretty much anything that has to do with metal or hair metal, or any other metal in between that is foreign to me. I judge that music way to hard because its not punk, or because it can be slow, or even because the lyrical content is more about death and stuff. There are many playing factors in why I shelter myself from styles of music that are commercial to me. When I see an artist that is only in it for the money I just can’t listen to it. Bands like Metallica who refuse to play unless they get their royalties make me sick. If these people would play for the love of the music all good things can come from it. To me music is about expressing feeling, not about making it into a living. If it becomes a chore to do, then why do it? If these big name artists would look within their hearts and feel the music rather than play for the check, then there would be much better quality pop music today. The way these people feel about music reflects in their overproduced crap that just brags about having money and material objects. This is why I am so bold headed when it comes to stuff like this!

MTV is a very interesting chapter in popular music, especially with how much their program has changed since its start. If you would ask a teenager what the M in MTV stands for they will most likely tell you music. What they don’t understand is why their reality tv is interrupted between shows to show 7 seconds of a hot new music video. I bet most teenagers wouldn’t even know that the channel started out with all music videos and no bull crap. I don’t understand how a music channel could become  what it is now. This has a lot to say about how popular has evolved. Today music comes from the internet, which is this thing that can get 200,000,000 albums available to be listened to at any click.  Me being old school I go to the record store and purchase massive amounts of vinyl, where I then convert those records to mp3 format on the computer. Which allows me to enjoy my records on the go as well as in my sanctuary. Anyway my point is that MTV sucks hard!

In class this week we finally got to my point of interest which is punk rock! Talking about the lifestyle I love was a sure treat, and all aspects of the presentation represented punk rock for what it is! One of my favorite all time bands is hands down The Clash, who we talked about at the very end of class. If I had it my way I would talk about them every day, because what they stood for. These kids were no different from you or I, other than they were telling it how it is in the real world and not spoon feeding us crap love songs all the time! Joe, Mick, Topper and Paul cranked out monster punk rock anthems all throughout the end of the 1970’s and early 1980’s allowing us to peer into a window of the struggling working class. The Clash were as real as the smell emanating from their unwashed cloths. They Never made punk into a clothing style, like a lot of the postures Malcolm was bringing in through his “fashion” which is very not punk of him! Anyway to wrap this up, bands like the Clash who practice what they preach are still around and thriving! LONG LIVE JOE!

When talking about Led Zeppelin it can be almost impossible to choose a favorite piece of work from them. For me this is an easy task, because I feel very strongly about their 1969 debut record Simply titled Led Zeppelin I. To understand the power of this record we must first understand the guitar! Jimmy used a gifted telecaster on the entire record, which gives it a distinct bluesy/ trebley sound which can’t be found on any other record. John is using a four pic drum kit, rather than some gigantic thing where the toms are more for show! This is what makes the record so magical! They just played, no commercial hype, no super rockstar mentality, just four dudes jamming out amazing songs! The drum triplets used throughout the record are prominent in many spots, which makes a drummer like myself so excited because they are just so awesome! John really makes use of that four piece! (If you don’t believe me skip to the end of Dazed and Confused then give me a call!) To wrap this up, this record is much different than other Zeppelin records for many factors, not saying they had other great work, they just fell into the hype of Rock, and they for sure let that stardom engulf them!

During our talk on psychedelic rock/ prog rock the name Pink Floyd was rarely mentioned. To the typical person this might be an alright case, but to a Floyd Head like myself its practically blasphemy. Pink Floyd began in the art school Cambridge, where they all met and began playing under the artistic director of their then front man Syd Barrett. Barrett led the band to the top of the pop charts with hit singles like Arnold Lane. Although this was happening in England, they eventually (19868) made their way over to the states where odd people like me found inspiration! As Syds LSD habits grew, his mental status detrained. One instance the band was mid song on stage and Syd stopped playing the song and began un-tuneing his guitar. The band hired on David Gilmore to stand off stage and play guitar for the unaware Syd, and eventually replaced him altogether. The only song credited to all 5 members of the floyd together is Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. To me this is an amazing example of what we talked about on Tuesday. The droning guitars, the dreamy lyrics, and the intense drum beat are all elements of what make this song (along with all the songs on A Saucer full of Secret) psychedelic classics! If you have never listened to early loud check out both A Saucer Full Of Secrets, and their first record, The Piper At The Gates of Dawn. They will change your life like they did for me at the ripe age of 7.

“Way over yonder in the minor key, way over yonder in the minor key, ain’t nobody who can sing like me” The is the chorus to the unreleased Woody Guthrie song, which was recorded (along with many others) by Billy Bragg. One of the things that make me a major Woody Fan was the fact that he wrote a new song every day, no matter what. It wasn’t always a tale of sex, but usually a tale of sorrow. He was a man who never tired to impress anyone, he did his thing for himself. Woody was a man who not only was “hard working”, but a man who studied, and wrote about the working class. He has countless anthems that represent the life of these everyday people, giving them a voice, and someone to relate to. In his book “Bound For Glory” he documents countless instances within his life, where the working man was shut down. He told his own traveling story through his own eyes, also reveling tales of his hard childhood, which play a major role in why he was who he was. The last thing I will say about this man is that his use of “everyday working man lingo.” In singing/writing in this format we can allow the workers to fully understand him. This is what brings it home for me, he is the great great grandfather of Punk Rock! He did things within the boundaries of Punk, 30 years before the Ramones, and twenty years before The Stooges! Woody was the true definition of a drifter!

Rock & Roll, the heart of rebellious music! With the bringing together of R&B, and country we see a much faster, much louder, and much more intense creation! The title of my post comes from the band The Velvet Underground, although we didn’t make it to them yet,(if we d0) but the lyrics to the song describe rock & roll so perfectly I couldn’t resist! Another important line in the song is “You know her life was saved by rock & roll!” This is a powerful genre to be saving the lives of broken teenagers everywhere. By the time the modern world of the 1950 appears, we couldn’t live without this rock & roll. With the newly added ascetic distortion, rock & roll had a cutting edge appeal that kids love, and parents hate. Could you imagine a world where we have gyrating Elvis guys everywhere? A world without wholesome fellows like The Crew Cuts? I can, and so could the rest of the screaming fans that brought this music onto our pop charts. The milestone of rock & roll is just what our country needed, a way in which we can all let go and jam out to our favorite guitar players like Little Richard, or listen to our favorite singers like Elvis. Black and white doesn’t matter! These guys laid the grounds for something eternal! As long as we have rock & roll everything will be alright, just like Lou says at the end of the song!