Posted on 08/28/2006 10:40:29 AM PDT by qam1
When Syd Barrett died earlier this summer, you would've thought I was a personal friend or relative. My wife called. Co-workers asked if it was going to inspire a column. Old friends sent e-mails. If you don't know - which is no crime, trust me - Barrett was a founder of the classic rock band Pink Floyd in the mid-1960s.
He only stuck around for one full album before a drug addiction made him an impossible creative partner for a group that went on to do tremendous things in his stead. Some of Pink Floyd's best work - songs like Wish You Were Here and Shine On You Crazy Diamond - were inspired by Barrett's purported deep psychosis spurred by excessive LSD use. All you have to do is hear the song See Emily Play to know Barrett had potential, but he sold himself - and many others - short.
They say he somehow influenced other rockers with musical gibberish released on a pair of hurried solo albums, but that's a major reach born out of the mystique of his unfulfilled potential. It's kind of like when a bunch of ersatz art experts go to see some modern art that stinks and everyone says it's great because they either feel compelled or don't want to break ranks and risk sounding dumb.
While I was flattered to have been the immediate classic-rock go-to guy when Barrett's tortured existence came to an end this July, I could barely manage a shoulder shrug. I try to pride myself on not being easily cast under unworthy spells. I see the undeserved mystique we attach to people who have not upheld their ends of the unspoken contract they sign with those who help put them in the driver's seat of life's Rolls Royce and, well, it makes me want to vomit.
Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the collective works of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Tim Hardin, Phil Ochs and countless others. But each loses points on my scorecard for depriving us of their magical skills for the long haul.
Another example for the generation more or less after mine would be Kurt Cobain, the front man for the grunge band Nirvana. Once upon a time, I had a good ear for emerging talent. The first time I heard U2, I knew they were special. Ditto for REM. I have obviously since lost my touch, as I can't understand why this Pete Yorn kid isn't a deity and why hip-hop is considered music, but I digress.
The first time I heard Nirvana, I heard great potential. Nothing more, nothing less. Greatness was years away. And that potential for greatness went through the 27-year-old Cobain's brain in the form of a self-inflicted gunshot in 1994. Calling Cobain a tortured artist is giving him too much credit. He was just a heroin addict who took his life, leaving behind a growing following starved for a lead voice that was not borrowed from the record collection of their older siblings or even their parents.
The reaction to Cobain's deadly action was for music critics and assorted others to attach a ridiculous mystique to his memory. He has been called the John Lennon of Generation X. If true, I truly pity that generation. Actually, I pity the dimwit who tagged him as such. Because it's not true.
He was, at best, the Syd Barrett of his generation. Some of you older folks - assuming you made it this far into a column strewn with names you don't know - are not immune.
The wife and I recently dialed up the movie about Johnny Cash, Walk The Line, on Pay-Per-View. It was a little too long, but a good flick. I give it three Stars of David out of a possible four. It included outstanding performances - particularly by the darling Reese Witherspoon, who deservedly won the Oscar for her portrayal of June Carter Cash.
But it only confirmed my belief that the myth and legend that swirls around Johnny Cash are largely unwarranted. Many ardent admirers of Cash may not realize that he didn't even write a lot of his most noteworthy songs and, considering how drugged up he was most of the time, it's no wonder.
But since he dressed in all-black outfits and played concerts at prisons - thus, adding to the overall mystique the falsehood that he was some hardened ex-con - there is a disproportionate aura. I'm not saying Johnny Cash was a bad guy. His heart was in the right place, but give me a break. A lot of younger people have oddly fallen under his spell, too.
There was a former editor here - an exceedingly bright young lady - who would go on and on about how Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young are old and tired and should never write or sing another word.
I may be blinded by the light when it comes to Springsteen, but he steered clear of drugs for the stated reason he didn't want to risk losing everything he had worked so hard to achieve. Guys who were in some of his early bands have recounted how they would be in one room partying while he'd be in another writing songs.
Young's song The Needle and the Damage Done is one of the best anti-drug anthems ever written and was inspired by the drug-induced deaths of a band member and a roadie. Young, whose lyrics were quoted in Cobain's suicide note, also eulogized Cobain in the song Sleeps With Angels. But Springsteen and Young should hang up their guitars and go home to their rocking chairs?
"OK, what about Johnny Cash?" I asked.
No hesitation.
"Oh yeah, he's cool," she said.
True story.
I'm not saying we should start a bonfire with works of art from those who compromised their abilities through fatal addictions. But understand that they broke a bond with society because they could have and should have given us more.
"Cock In My Pocket" BTTT
...I just wanna $@%# ya and I don't want no romance!
Don't know what versions of that you've heard but I have a bootleg from 1978 where he plays Cock In My Pocket and Rich Bitch. That show is a prime example of pushing punk to its limits.
My apologies. You're right.
But don't blame it on the musicians, blame it on the nature of the business.
As a boomer who grew up on Chuck Berry, Phil and Don, Little Richard, Fats and Buddy Holly, I don't consider them "'geniuses' or 'legends'" either.
Tell me about it, I don`t understand that Clevland thing at all either. Plus since when does The Eagles who I consider a light weight country fluff band qualify as "rock and roll"? Rock and roll to me is Chuck Berry, Little Richard, it isn`t "Hotel California" or "Take it easy".
Yeah that Iggy video is incredible, now I can see where Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers got 100% of his act from.
Buddy Holly. He wrote more great music in 18 months than most of the "artisits" cited on this thread did in their entire lives.
"Them" = Hendrix and Lennon
please feel free to add more names to this list.
Warren Zevon!
Are you familiar with current Detroit bands such as Scott Morgan's Powertrane?
Scott Morgan played in Sonic's Rendezvous band with Fred Smith (MC5), Scott Asheton (Stooges) and Gary Rasmusson (The Up). He was in The Rationals before that. Currently Scott is playing with fellow Detroit rocker Robert Gilespie (Rob Tyner Band, Mitch Ryder) in his band Powertrane.
If you're a fan of the old Detroit rock, drop me a private message and I'll give you info on a Yahoo group dedicated to trading live concerts of Detroit bands going back from the early 60's to today!
I completely agree.
The Cleveland tie-in rests on the claim that Alan Freed first used the phrase "Rock n' Roll" while working at a radio station in Cleveland [before he came to New York].
As for the selection process [I wanted to find out how to nominate The Searchers], it's all music insiders from the nominating process to the selection, and the process is more secret than a Papal election. From the selections, it looks like musically influential artists [except The Searchers], obscure blues men, and people who sell lots of albums get in.
Tell me about it..I pick up this old lady from his last apartment building all the time in New York city (I drive a taxi).. She said he use to have jam sessions late into the night and he would buy all the neighbors pies the next day as an apology. He was all about music constantly 24 hours a day, here is what the apartment looks like today. When I get a hail from the doorman, I pull into this round driveway and usually it`s her and she needs to go to the doctor. I try to avoid it as it takes forever as she can barely walk.
http://www.buddyhollyonline.com/pking.html
Dimebag Darrell.
Ping for later
Before he was rather rudely but understandably ejected from Pink Floyd he had already spent at least one concert simply staring into space unmoving. Most people figured he was tripping his head off, and he may have been, but that is also descriptive of a fugue state brought on by advancing mental illness.
He was a sad casualty of my generation, a generation that took drugs copiously but nowhere near seriously enough. But even without the drugs Syd Barrett needed help badly and didn't get it until far too late.
This is Barrett in 1990. "Just another sad old man..."
Oh yeah, don`t forget about Jim Croce who was like a Buddy Holly for the `70`s. The early `70`s that guy absolutely ruled music, I think his entire recording career lasted less than 3 years, yet he had one #1 hit after another seemingly every few months. One thing that sticks in my mind is hanging out one time with my older brother at this pinball arcade in the midwest, and practically every song being played on the jukebox was a Jim Croce song, not because it was a Jim Croce tribute jukebox, but because he had that many hits going on all at once. "Operator" "I got a name" "Bad Leroy Brown" "Superman" "Time in a bottle" "Love you in a song" "Don`t mess around with Jim".. Freggin` incredible.
I also forgot Bon Scott from AC/DC.
No, that award would go to Boner, er, I mean Bono.
Billy Joel got into the RNR Hall of Fame, which makes the whole thing irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.
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