London in the mid-sixties had to kick ass, a cultural revolution was in full bloom-riot! The bands to come out of this time are still influential, the fashion realm was producing names that still echo with relevance and reverence. Literature, film and television merged with the music and fashion to form a synergy cycle of creation/hype/confirmation that allowed the scene to thrive for nearly the entire decade! Many a site is dedicated to this time period in London ; it wasn't the 50s, it was anti-conformity, but not the 70s overindulgence either, it was swinging but still held some sense of innocence. One post won't handle all I want to cover regarding this subject so consider this installment one of many....
This is the era when the model/actress/singer was born and The Beatles and Stones had their pick of 'em, I've only scratched the surface so her are some of their more famous birds.
Mick is/was a famous hound dog, one of his first flames was model Chrissie Shrimpton, little sister of one of the faces of Swinging London; Jean Shrimpton who is widely considered to be the 1st supermodel.
Mick and Chrissie enjoying a fag.
"She had hair like Jeanie Shrimpton back in 1965..." Wow, the Smithereens rule, after finding this pic the song make even more sense!
Model/Actress/Singer, Marianne Faithful...wanted a Rolling Stone slept with three and chose the singer, she and Skinny Mick hung for 4 years!
Italian Model/actress Anita Pallenberg started with Brian but he had the audacity to get sick in Morocco so while he was in the hospital she
moved on to Keith...classy.
The Beatles would not be out done, George with model Patti ( Layla) Boyd!
You know Paul would score...actress/model Jane Asher
Ringo did o.k. too, he married Maureen Cox a hairdresser/hang-around from the Cavern days...
Any of these ladies could have been the muse for these two songs.
How cool was Brian Jones, damn he was smooth!
Seriously how good were the freakin' Beatles!! Look for more on the Swinging London scene..yeah-baby-yeah!
He is called Krampus and like Halloween and Maypoles it is another pre-Christian tradition that was kept to help the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples assimilation, thus keeping the natives from slaughtering monks and nuns! His main purpose seems to be scaring children into being good which from his look should work!
Well other than the fact that they all have kicked ass at one time or another! Deep Purple MK III is one of my favorite line ups. Bolin replaced Blackmore which was impossible, but he could rip! Early Whitesnake with Moody is solid seventies rock... Sykes is one of the least known-all-time-greats! Vivian Campbell was hand picked by Dio for his band so you know he could play. Vandenberg is the European Vai! Jimmy Page is Jimmy F'ng Page!
They all jammed with one David Coverdale! Now I could pick on Dave, put I prefer to think of him as one of the great lead singers in rock history! So for now lets forget about Tawny and Jaguars and pop metal ballads and Coverdale/Page.....
Sykes!!!!! Yikes....
Vandenberg
Glen Hughes may steal this one!!
Vai with Zappa..sublime...
So there you go find a bad ass guitar player and make money!
I've had an obsession with the Gibson SG since the day one enter my boyhood home. "You know who" brought one home, I think the first words out of his mouth were don't touch the guitar or I'll kick your ass! Anyway as soon as he was gone I was on that thing like a fly on shit! I opened the case like a bomb disposal expert, real hurt locker like and as I slowly lifted the case there it was...Cherry Red, I think it had the black pick guard and dark fretboard, I can't recall but the Cherry was like a candied apple from the St. Joseph's Bizarre. I ran my fingers across her and thought this is what make all that great music! Angus Young, Tony Iommi! Page's had 2 necks! Oh my god it was beautiful!! I stared for awhile, came back to earth and closed the case as carefully as I opened it, I don't know what happened to that guitar, I don't even know if it was my brothers, but everyday it was in our house I'd open the case and it was mine!
Angus! Angus! Angus!
No one else could pull off the cross inlays!
Double neck, not just for show!
Clapton,Allman,Harrison,Hendrix, Kath
Zappa of course
and Buck too!
And one for the girls, Liz Buckingham of Electric Wizard!
Me and Chris Montoya went to see Black and Blue (the movie) at the midnight movies when we were... what 13/14, parents would never let their kids do that nowadays we were lucky! As soon as the lights when down everyone started lighting up joints and cracking beers open it was like a real concert! And when Dio came on stage it was like a tiny giant invading your mind and stealing your soul and we loved every second of it!
Electric Wizard...their sound is beyond the capture of any man-made instrumentation our only hope is to see them live...
Today is my Pops birthday! On this day in 1929… doing the math….that is a long time ago…
Google doesn’t have enough mega-whatevers to handle all the stuff I could write about my old man, suffice it to say he has done more than most and lived a truly extraordinary life. Jammed in bands back in the forties, joined the US Air Force, jammed in their bands, flew airplanes ( prop planes, not these freakin’ computers with wings), got shipped all over the globe, scored a hot chick ( my mom and him been married 53 years!), had kids, (2 of each), went to college, jammed in their band, spun records on the radio ( records! not a computer that spews out digital dribbles of electronic shit!) Has a bushel of grandkids, was/is always there for us (retiring from the USAF at 40 helps...wish I’d thought of that!) and generally being kick ass!
Now anything that happens at a place with a name like Kill Devil Hills has got to Kick Ass! But what the Wright Brothers did is beyond the beyonds. Breaking the grasp of the earth, foiling mother nature, telling gravity to kiss your American ass, now that is worth celebrating! On this day, Dec. 17, 1903 Wilbur and Orville did all this and more, ushering in a truly awesome invention. Image what they would think of the SR-71 or Space Shuttle?
Thanks brothers for having the stones to strap yourselves to a bunch of wood and fabric and freakin' fly!!!
I sure hope they went for a few pints after this!
Leave it to the Germans, if two is good three has got to be better!
The P-47 guys had to have gotten the most French tail!
More Kraut Kraziness, "Hey lets stick rockets on the wings... "!
I've come to the realization that a blog is nothing more than a mental tangent, I think about something or see a picture, or read some story and next thing you know I have a new post...here is one that came to me while cleaning out my emails. Vikings! ( not the fags in the purple shirts with the roof falling in) Real ones or what we have all been led to believe are real. I've had an affinity for Vikings for as long as I remember, the images of muscular, long haired Barbarians in winged or horned helmets sailing across the open sea to fight lesser men and steal their chicks..I don't know it's just always got me, you know. I used to say I was one in a past live who knows maybe. Here are some Viking related goodies.
This got the ball rolling, young Tank the Smartass! ( i bet Mr.666 still has this "helmet")
Mrs Tank and Maddie-Tank perpetuating the myth!!
great movie..
Boris! But with half naked chicks as is his style!
Of course Frank was not to be outdone, thought these guy look like they may be looking for the bath house or a great new guy-liner...I'm just saying...
Truth is not as cool as fiction!
This is purely ceremonial!
This is a true Viking helmet.
This a Celtic ceremonial helmet....mesohorny.
And of course Viking tunes!!..."I am a slayer and you will taste my steel"...they don't write 'em like that anymore!
If I could go back ( I can ) and edit my blogs, I would add AC to the bands that formed my musical taste, my brother had a copy of their greatest hit, one of my all time favorite covers. So now you are like..."Tank! You can't kill Kiss and then say you love Alice",... yeah I can...musicianship 'nough said! And remember Alice started out as a kinda performance art thing so it makes sense, anyway great band with an awesome look.
Lady and Germ I give you Alice Cooper!
Greatest Hits Cover 1974!
Not for sure but the classic line up was Alice ( Vincent ) Neal Smith ( awesome drummer)
Dennis Dunaway (bass), Glenn Buxton ( guitar) and Michael Bruce ( guitar )
I love Music, most of this blog is about that very thing so this weekend was special. I had a chance to hang with my musical-mentor-student-frenemy-brother-guru-champion-challenger this weekend, Mr. 666. He was giging in S.A. with a bunch of black,death,hell I don't know what to call it Metal bands at a very underground fest. They managed to get bands from Italy, some Asian country, even all the way from Canada! Anyway kicked ass even for a relative outsider like myself and I say outsider cause this scene is like a CIA/Mossad/KGB cocktail party. If you know about it, then you know about it....if you get my drift.
( a band that really caught my eye, they are called Hod, from San Antonio, they were really good check 'em out here...http://www.myspace.com/hodtheband/music)
There is no adversing, the radio sure they hell isn't hip to it and frankly never will.....well maybe... and that is where this post comes in....( Wayne's World "ditally dops" right here)
Metallica.
Remember the first time you heard Metallica? For some, hell for most it would be '88-89 somewhere in there, probably One, the video that Lars and James said they would never make...oh they made it all right, had to wait for Cliff to die, cause we know if that bad ass was still alive Metallica would still be laying it down old-school!
Well for me and few others, Metallica "broke" way back in '82/'83 with " Hit the Lights" ( I think ) or "Four Horseman" ( Mr. 666 a little help....) We all thought this is it music we have been waiting for, made by dudes about or age, American dudes,drinking beer,wearing jeans jackets and t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, this is ours! No one can have it, no one will ever listen to anything this fast, brutal, full of evil energy... never!
I'm not going to get into the rest...time marches on...and from where me and my friends were sitting these guys took the money and ran. Lars says it was a natural progression ( I call it Bob Rock) but regardless.. once they were unknown and jaming for the love of metal, I saw allot of that this weekend, dudes jaming for no other reason then to get people moving and banging their heads, some just might be doing it for a higher cause but surely none for the money cause this stuff will never ever be on radio or t.v. or win Grammys... but then again we thought that about Metallica!
Early on Cliff seemed to only played a Rick...later ( when the money started to roll in an Alembic and Aria) James was still cool enough to wield a Flying V!
A man of the people!
Skinny jeans before they were cool....and are those jams or capris?
...on through the dead of night.....
Who bass solos anymore? Cliff did! The Major Rager!
