….before this whole shithouse goes up in flames.
I think Jim Morrison said that once. Or maybe it was Oliver Stone who pretended Jim said it once in one of his movies. Either way its a pretty good quote and if nothing else a decent philosophy to try and live by.
A lot of people regard Morrison and his band The Doors as epically defining the 1960’s counter culture and the Rock and Roll music scene. There is no doubt The Door’s shaped a lot of what was to come. Personally I don’t think he was a musical genius as say McCartney and Lennon. Jim certainly had lyrical chops but again I suspect that was a result of his affinity for poetry and literature. Peyote and acid probably helped a great deal too.
One thing I find about some music is that I associate certain music with physical places. This isnt true for all music. In the case of The Doors when I hear any of it, whether its studio recorded albums or concert bootlegs I say, think and feel like California. In my mind The Doors are California. Doesn’t matter what song either. When I hear The Door’s I imagine and think about California period. I get the same exact feeling about the Smashing Pumpkins and Chicago. Lynyrd Skynyrd and thats North Florida all day long no matter how many times I imagine Forrest Gump running his ass across Alabama.
I have been to these places, met the people, ate the food and drank the drinks. This music reminds me of these places no two ways about it.
When I hear Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, I don’t think of Seattle. I Don’t think of London or Britain when I hear The Who or Rolling Stones. The Beatles however makes me think of Britain up until Sgt. Peppers. After this point all I can think about is Charles Manson,dirty hippies and death. It’s still good music and I enjoy it, but in my sometimes rather twisted brain it can evoke strange images and feelings. I guess thats how you know music is good.
All this being said, you can imagine the dichotomy of visiting Morrison’s grave in Paris, France. I have been to Paris three separate times in my life. Paris to me has nothing to do with great music, especially Jim Morrison and The Doors. To me Paris is great food, great visual art, but music? Just does’t hit me. Jim Morison died and is buried there though and people check out his grave as if its a national monument. I did once. Its weird being there. It has no feeling of music, or The Doors, or California. It’s just “Jim” if I had to put a label on the experience.
In any event, to try and sum this rather meandering and pointless post up, music has the power to take you places. The problem is not much of todays new “music” achieves this goal. In fact it falls short of taking my mind anywhere other then wanting to jam pencils in my ears. Where did the good music go? There’s a few groups out there trying and still holding true, but what is happening with the brand new music?
When the internet opened up instantaneous communications and people of all ages and background can upload a video from their phone to YouTube, we should be inundated with incredibly gifted musicians making incredible music right now. Where are they?
Is the best we can hope for and muster up, some ding bat Korean chink pseudo fucking his horse to a catchy beat to take over the musical world?
Where is the next Misty Mountain Hop? The next Yellow Ledbetter? Christ, I would settle for the next Jack and Diane or Pink Houses right about now. Where are they? In this day and age of self promotion, YouTube, iTunes, and 24X7 continuously connected world where are the next Led Zeppelin or AC/DC? We don’t need Sony or BMG or any of the other dinosaur music industry to find this new music and give it to us.
There is something better then some country pop chick who cant keep a man or some Disney child star lip syncing some auto tuned garbage. There has to be I just know it.
Until that time, I’ll keep my eyes on the road and my hands down my pants or upon the wheel.
Let ‘er rip tater chips!
It has taken me 5 days of re-reading this post and then turning away. “Every time that I look in the mirror, all these lines in my face getting clearer.” I have similar experiences with feeling the music and recalling different geographies in my life. The Eagles will always be Panama City, FL where I lived from 7th grade until 1973. Blasting my 8 track and racing along the front beach road, thinking I was the Witchy Woman and Taking it Easy. Steely Dan brings to mind Frankfurt Germany, the Little River Band and Bruce Springsteen, Northern New Jersey. And many more. Back around the first of this year I wasted some time reading an article about Chris Brown where he asked the rhetorical question “What would music be like without me and Rihanna?” My answer is Chris, stick your fist in a bucket of water, hold it for a minute, and then pull it out. There’s your answer – nothing would be different. This week has been a week of outright grieving on the whole music theme. Guitar phenom and Woodstock veteran, Alvin Lee, passed away the day you wrote your blog. Already? I was born just a few Ten Years After him. Thursday night I watched the documentary on the History of the Eagles and plunged into a despair that I have not yet been able to climb out of. Don Henley with a white goatee and almost equally white hair. If that wasn’t bad enough, they had Bob Seger make a number of comments. The formerly very hot Bob Seger looked for all the world like Santa Claus. Totally white hair and long white beard, rosy chubby cheeks. And I thought about my previously posted disappointment at seeing Jon B Jovi in dockers and a turtleneck. I have sat in my therapists office crying buckets over the loss of most of the original Lynrd Skynrd, Dwayne Allman, and others too numerous to mention. She said I should grieve for my own losses instead. Well, these ARE my losses. Seeing what David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen and yes, even I have deteriorated into due to our poor choices in life. Those who are gone due to age related complications like heart attacks and organ failures. For the past couple of years I have fought long and hard to recapture the life I had the year I turned 17, and now I do have the same lifestyle and for the most part it’s really great. But 41 years ago, when I was 17, I was looking to the future and all that could be. Now, at least this week, I am focused on the past and what was, and what is no more. My son introduced me to Slacker Radio on a recent road trip we made, and for some reason, I went into the 60’s and the folk music of the likes of Crosby Stills & Nash, Arlo Guthrie, and Joan Baez and have done a lot of listening. It occurred to me that the music still lives on, even though many of the music makers do not. I try to keep in mind that the things I grieve most for are the superficial things – how young and beautiful we were, and are no more. I never saw myself living this long, just lived one day at a time and thinking that youth would be with me forever. I heard “the old folks” talk about the changes that had happened along with age but always told myself that those things would never happen to me. Well, they have. And I hate it. Most of the time I feel like the old geezers in the Muppets, sitting up in the gallery and bitching and complaining about how the world has deteriorated so much. And my perception of the tone of your commentary, you are sliding into that place too. They say getting old ain’t for pussies and I am seriously in pussy mode these days. Me-ow. ow. ow. Maybe now that I have finally shared my feelings with someone who might possibly understand (that would be YOU Brock) maybe I can focus on whatever my future may bring instead of envying those like Janis, Jimi, and Jim, among others who checked out at the golden age of 27 and were thus spared of this getting old shit. Now I am going to take a nap and try not to think about it for at least a little while. Then I’ll get up and write about it in my journal to share with my therapist with the newfound knowledge that it IS me that I am really grieving for. As hard as it is to say this today, Onward, By All Means.
I know what you mean.