I always knew John Fogerty was a problem. He was so different from his brother Tom. This is a well done piece with many quotes and stories from the bass player.
In 1995 Clifford and Cook set up Creedence Clearwater Revisited, initially with The Cars’ Elliot Easton on guitar. But Fogerty issued an injunction over the name, and for a while they went out as Stu Cook and Doug ‘Cosmo’ Clifford Present Cosmo’s Factory – An Evening With Creedence.”You could scarcely fit it on a ticket,” says Cook.”John maintained that the trademark could only be controlled by unanimous decision. We said it was a majority, and the court saw it that way. In the end we settled for money, which didn’t seem to be about saving the name or preserving the honour of his creations.”They could in fact use the name Creedcence Clearwater Revival if they wished, but “we chose not to out of respect for the original band and to avoid unnecessary confusion with our fans,” Cook says. Fogerty has preserved the honour of his creations mainly by not playing them. He claimed he was prevented from doing so, although that didn’t seem to prevent anyone else from playing them. When he finally played a bunch of Creedence songs at a benefit show for Vietnam veterans in 1987 it was a newsworthy event.
When questioned by host Rogan whether relevancy matters to him as an artist, the singer replies: “You can’t [think about that], because then you’ll be desperate and get plastic surgery and look an alien trying to insert yourself into some stupid fucking thing. It turns to desperation really quickly, so just maintain your art.”
“Mackenzie went on to say that her incestuous relationship with her father had become consensual and the two engaged in sexual activity for years despite being directly related and both being married. Mackenzie eventually became a member of the New Mamas and the Papas, and toured with John during the early 1980s.
John apparently wanted to run away with her to a country where their relationship wouldn’t be looked down upon. But the incestuous relationship eventually ended when Mackenzie became pregnant and was unsure of who had fathered the child. John paid for her to have an abortion, but it was from that point, Mackenzie said, that “I never let him touch me again.”
The musical architect of The Mamas and the Papas, John Phillips, had a short and sordid life that involved drama, drugs, and incest.
I remember when this came out. What a great set of movies. But of course, there’s no accounting for taste. Especially when it tastes like pool water. Oi!
“Yes, Ma’am,” Holmes replies, clearly intoxicated.“Do you drink very much?”“Pardon?”“Do you drink very much?”“Uh, yes,” he replies, “I’m a full-blown alcoholic.”
Check it out. I personally love this band and have both original LPs on vinyl. However, like the band themselves, I hear them as protesters yelling expletives from the top of the anti-corporate music bus. They were only Human Beings. Enjoy!
The dreams of so many good people died with the New York Dolls. I can still remember the night we finished the first album. Thau and I raced over to Mercury to have two acetates cut, and later we listened, the ghostly sounds of more than a year’s worth of the group’s concerts ringing in our ears. I put the dub on the turntable, sheer terror in my heart. Thau, who had discovered the band and had cared enough to spend the very best of himself and all of his money on the project, felt the same. It meant so much to us then. I think both of us suddenly realized that everything had, to some degree, passed out of our hands and into the hands of those kids from sweet Ioway whose legion ultimately said no! in thunder to the hopes of the New York Dolls. As Jean Renoir remarked: “You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.”
Well, when I joined the Yardbirds, I got the impression they just wanted my playing to enhance their group as much as possible. Right, so I just worked on the whole act until we got it down so great that we started bringing in bits of destruction to illustrate a point. Like an action painting – we all sort of threw our guitars at it.
Live Your Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams through These Awkward Band Publicity Photos
So, you and your buds form a band. What’s the first thing you do after learning the 3 chords to the song Gloria? Probably buy some 40’s, open the garage door and hope your noise draws a gaggle of hot chicks or dudes. Okay, well then, soon after, you go have your official band publicity photos taken by a qualified professional. But if you can’t scrimp and save enough to have it done right, you get your little sister or high school art teacher to take that all-important promotional pic every group needs.
To our joy, here’s a bunch of seriously funny and awkward band publicity photos from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s that are as shameless as their music. Metal bands, boy bands, hair bands, rock and gospel. They’re all represented here. Lucky us! Seriously. Their weird, wacky and well worth the look. All we can say now is, “rock on and keep the dream alive.”
Thurston and I didn’t look at each other once, and when the song was done, I turned my shoulders to the audience so no one in the audience or the band could see my face, though it had little effect. Everything I did and said was broadcast from one of the two 40ft-high on-stage video screens.
Kim Gordon. Photograph: Pari Dukovic for the Guardian
Throughout that last show, I remember wondering what the audience was picking up on. What they saw and what I saw were probably two different things. During Sugar Kane, the next-to-last song, an oceanic blue globe appeared on the screen behind the band. It spun extremely slowly, as if to convey the world’s indifference to its own turning and rolling. It all just goes on, the globe said, as ice melts, and streetlights switch colours when no cars are around, and grass pushes through sidewalk cracks, and things are born and then go away.
When the song ended, Thurston thanked the audience. “I can’t wait to see you again,” he said. The band closed with Teen Age Riot. I sang, or half-sang, the first lines: “Spirit desire. Face me. Spirit desire. We will fall. Miss me. Don’t dismiss me.”
Marriage is a long conversation, someone once said, and maybe so is a rock band’s life. A few minutes later, both were done.
