Posted on 10/08/2013 4:11:22 PM PDT by SES1066
Playing guitar in a late 70s hard rock band afforded me MANY opportunities...
Lucky bloody you. The only thing I played in the late ‘70s was paintbrushes in Kindergarten.
Well, I was 18 in 1979, and there was a wide range of music influences going on for a kid with a guitar, a loud amplifier, no pot to p*ss in, and an attitude.
Standbys like Hendrix, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc., were the norm, and then suddenly Eddie Van Halen came out in 1978 and just blew the guitar world upside down...
...Randy Rhoads came along a few years later, died young, and left a legacy of monster guitar licks behind him.
...Stevie Ray Vaughn came along in the mid 80s and showed the world how Blues was SUPPOSED to be played on beat-up old Fender Stratocaster, and then HE died as well...
Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Malmsteen, etc., ...amazing string benders... so much to learn.
The early 80s were a great time to be a young dude... I loved it. The Girls were crazy-hot, the local rock venues were jumping, and there was always a place that hired hard rock cover bands where a budding young Electric Gypsy like myself could make a couple bucks, chase some serious skirts (and CATCH them - haha!), and just basically live wild and run amok for a little bit.
Worked as a grease monkey during the weekdays, taught guitar during the weeknights, shot guns on the weekends, played guitar during weekend nights.
Reagan was in charge, the country WORKED, and life was cool. Yeah, I remember a time when a President, a Pope, and a Prime Minister teamed up and took down An Evil Empire...
Yeah... it was GOOD...
Does any of it matter today? No, not really. But it was a Life all in it’s own while it lasted, and for just a little while, I didn’t have a frigging care in the world. I guess that’s what it means to be “free”...
You still got your hearing ? I already have tinnitus, and I never even played music loud.
If only I’d put away half the money I blew that decade chasing skirts and partying ;)
Between guitars and guns, I am almost deaf in one ear. The other is okay.
I use electronic hearing protectors now when I teach handgun and rifle courses. They help a lot. They have a noise gate that slams down when noise over a certain decibel level occurs.
But yeah, the ears ain’t what they used to be, haha!
“...If only I’d put away half the money I blew...”
But you look back and smile nonetheless, dontcha? Hahah!
Those memories are all yours, brother... and nobody can ever take them away.
Some things truly ARE priceless...
Didn’t have to worry about the AIDS back then, either.
“Reagan was in charge, the country WORKED, and life was cool. Yeah, I remember a time when a President, a Pope, and a Prime Minister teamed up and took down An Evil Empire...”
Don’t forget Lech Walesa; he’s the last one left. :(
“Yeah... it was GOOD...”
Yep...
“...Didn’t have to worry about the AIDS back then, either...”
Not in the early 80s, no. It was strictly a queer-male disease. Somewhere along the way it passed into the bi-world, and then into the normal world.
There’s a great HBO movie from circa 1988 “And The Band Played On” where they tracked it back to a Patient Zero and showed the genesis of it.
RE Walesa:
One hell of a guy.
I worked with a Polish guy that got out of Poland during the whole Solidarity uprising. His statement: “If we had guns like you Americans have, we would not have been a communist country for long.” True story.
You be right!
“Not in the early 80s, no. It was strictly a queer-male disease. Somewhere along the way it passed into the bi-world, and then into the normal world.”
RE; And The Band Played On. Yeah, that showed “Patient Zero”, the flaming fag flight attendant.
The Poles must look at the USA of today and say “WTF?”, like most of the rest of the civilized world does.
We need a Lech and a Pinochet.
Ah, the modern age...
America didn't get great because we were geniuses. It was freedom that made us great, because freedom made it possible for even dumb people to succeed (because they got to keep the fruit of their efforts).
I think we have a higher percentage of moocher low information voters.
The obamaphone/ebt/uneployment/artsy/entitlement subculture.
What is it about musicians? Steven Tyler was born in an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, and then climbed up and fell down again. Mick Jagger too.
Justin Bieber, who looks like a lesbian, has probably slept with 100 girls by now.
Well...
It’s limelight, pretty much. Everybody wants to be on “that side” of the spotlight for a little bit, or at least get to be a small piece of it.
“Living in the Limelight, The universal dream...”
-Rush, “Limelight” from 1980’s Moving Pictures album.
That song is a pretty good description of that world.
Some people vicariously live out what they wish they themselves could do, through those that are fortunate enough to actually get to do it.
Out of the dozens of musicians that I knew personally growing up and being part of that world, only one or two ever got close to making “the Show”, and even that was only briefly.
There are tons of fantastic musicians who never get any spotlight other than locally. And maybe sometimes, that’s enough. They put food on the table, pay their bills, while people “sit at the bar, and put bread in my jar, and say Man, what are you doing HERE?” as a young Mr. Billy Joel so aptly put it in “Piano Man”...
Which, by the way, is also a fantastic album...
It’s also interesting to note that none of those three individuals you mentioned would be anywhere NEAR as famous as they are without THE BANDS that back them - the REAL musicians who supply the lifeblood of any song.
Bad examples since those um, gentleman, are all rich and famous but just musicians in general.
My cousin is in a band that no one has ever heard of, has a really hot GF.
“...My cousin is in a band that no one has ever heard of, has a really hot GF....”
Yes, that is a very nice side benefit of knowing how to play... Many, MANY nice side benefits of it... :^) :^) :^)
Just sayin’...
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