Month: August 2020

Leslie West: How I Wrote “Mississippi Queen” | GuitarPlayer

August 31, 2020 webcatt_admin

“When we released the song as a single, we put ‘Mississippi Queen’ on both sides so DJs couldn’t get creative and play the flipside instead. The single only got to number 21, but I think it could have gone a lot higher. I don’t know how they decide these charts. I mean, radio stations were playing the hell out of it.

“Live, the reaction was always enormous. People freaked out the second we started playing it. We stretched it out a bit onstage, because two minutes is pretty short, and we usually saved it for the encore. I learned a long time ago to go out on a high note.

“It’s a song that keeps on giving. A lot of people have covered it. I like most of the versions, but I really like the one that Ozzy Osbourne did. I even played on it. The song has been sampled something like 2,000 times. Every time I hear it, I call my accountant.”

read the whole thing at Source: Leslie West: How I Wrote “Mississippi Queen” | GuitarPlayer

Music, People

How the Beatles Really Ended Up at a Garden Party in Brentwood Los Angeles Magazine

August 30, 2020 webcatt_admin

The Beatles at a garden party fund-raiser for the Hemophilia Society in Brentwood, 1964.

ALAN HAD TO ARRANGE GETTING THE BEATLES THERE, AND CALLED HIS USUAL LIMO SERVICE, FEELING OBLIGED TO TELL THEM WHO THEY WOULD BE TRANSPORTING. THEY TURNED HIM DOWN—THEY DIDN’T WANT TO RISK GETTING THEIR LIMO DAMAGED BY “CRAZY KIDS.” ALAN CALLED EVERY LIMO SERVICE IN TOWN BUT NONE WOULD HANDLE THE BAND. HE CALLED BRINKS ARMORED CARS, TOLD THEM OF HIS PROBLEM, AND ASKED IF THEY WOULD TRANSPORT THE GROUP. THEY HAD TO CALL THEIR HOME OFFICE IN DENVER, AND CAME BACK WITH A NEGATIVE RESPONSE. FINALLY ALAN WENT BACK TO HIS REGULAR LIMO SERVICE AGAIN AND SAID HE WOULD PAY FOR ANY DAMAGE TO THEIR CAR. “IT ISN’T ONLY THAT, MR. LIVINGSTON,” WAS THE ANSWER. “IT’S THE LOSS OF BUSINESS IF THE CAR IS LAID UP IN THE BODY SHOP.” ALAN ASKED, “WHAT’S THE AVERAGE FEE YOU GET PER DAY PER CAR?” THEY TOLD HIM AND HE SENT THEM A LETTER GUARANTEEING NOT ONLY DAMAGES BUT LOSS OF USE OF THE CAR, TOO. THEY FINALLY AGREED AND THE BEATLES WERE DELIVERED TO MY MOTHER’S HOME WITHOUT INCIDENT. THE RIOT SQUAD CAME CLOSE TO BEING CALLED OUT OF THE GARAGE. THE POLICE TOLD US LATER THAT IN ONE AREA THE SECURITY ROPE NEARLY GAVE WAY TO THE SURGING CROWD OF KIDS. MY MOTHER’S NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR CALLED AND SAID HE HAD A GUN AND WARNED US THAT HE WOULD SHOOT ANYONE WHO PUT A FOOT THROUGH THE HEDGE INTO HIS GARDEN. THANK GOD IT ALL STAYED UNDER CONTROL.

read the whole scream-y story at Source: How the Beatles Really Ended Up at a Garden Party in Brentwood Los Angeles Magazine

Music, People

UK venues react to the latest performing arts guidance

August 25, 2020 webcatt_admin

Nathan Clark, venue owner: “I feel it’s a simple contradiction: ‘have live music, but don’t have it loud’. The main pillars of live music are social interaction, enjoyment, and emotional attachment. What they’re asking [audiences] to do is to sit there quietly, detach your emotions and don’t get involved. The artist has to mute their expressions. Either allow it when it’s safe and responsible to do so, or don’t allow it. Like a lot of the other messaging it’s very ambiguous. The amount of customers I’ve had saying to me: ‘Oh, but we can have gigs on again’. Clearly we can’t.

Read the whole sorry mess at Source: UK venues react to the latest performing arts guidance

Music, News

Heroes by David Bowie: The Story Behind The Song | Louder

August 14, 2020 webcatt_admin

Heroes was released as a single in September 1977. It only reached No.24 in the UK, and didn’t chart at all in the US. But the emotional power of the song would continue to resonate, as it became one of Bowie’s theme songs, along with the likes of Space Oddity and Changes. Its most memorable moment would come 10 years later, when he performed it live at the Platz der Republik Festival, right across from the studio in Berlin where it was conceived.

“I’ll never forget that,” he recalled. “It was one of the most emotional performances I’ve ever done. I was in tears. They’d backed up the stage to the Wall itself so that it was acting as our backdrop. We kind of heard that a few of the East Berliners might actually get the chance to hear the thing, but we didn’t realise in what numbers they would. And there were thousands on the other side that had come close to the wall. So it was like a double concert, where the Wall was the division. And we would hear them cheering and singing along from the other side. God, even now I get choked up. It was breaking my heart. I’d never done anything like that in my life. And I guess I never will again.

“When we did Heroes it really felt anthemic, almost like a prayer,” Bowie continued. “I’ve never felt it like that again. However well we did it later, it was almost like walking through it compared to that night because it meant so much more. That’s the town where it was written, and that’s the particular situation that it was written about. It was just extraordinary.

“In 2002 we did it in Berlin again. This time, what was so fantastic – it was in the Max Schmeling Hall, which holds about ten to fifteen thousand – is that half the audience had been in East Berlin that time way before. So now I was face-to-face with the people I had been singing it to all those years ago. And we were all singing it together. Again, it was powerful. Things like that really give you a sense of what a song and performance can do.”

read the whole darn thing at Source: Heroes by David Bowie: The Story Behind The Song | Louder

Music, People

“He Could Do What He Wanted”: Behind Freddie Mercury’s Munich Years

August 9, 2020 webcatt_admin

“Freddie’s studio day would start at two in the afternoon. It is pointless calling a singer into a studio before then, anyway, because in the morning the voice hasn’t warmed up yet. With Queen, Freddie would be in the studio and playing around on the piano working on material. In Munich, he had lots of friends in the city, so we would get to the studio and at four o’clock we’d sometimes get a phone call from a friend saying, ‘Oh, Freddie, I’m bored, come and take me out.’ So work finished abruptly and off we went. There were a lot more distractions in Munich. Also, when it was Queen involved it was the responsibility of four people to get the work done, but Munich was just Freddie, he could just do it when he was allowed to. But he was very happy with the final album.”

Enjoy the whole story at Source: “He Could Do What He Wanted”: Behind Freddie Mercury’s Munich Years

Music, People

How The Beatles made Revolver, the album that changed Everything | Louder

August 5, 2020 webcatt_admin

Revolver’s commercial impact was immediate, the album topping the UK chart for seven weeks and the US chart for six. Culturally, although there had been earlier instances of psychedelic music, mostly in San Francisco, London and New York, Revolver opened the floodgates, and changed the thinking, and the chemical preferences, of young rock and pop visionaries worldwide.

It’s hard to imagine the careers of Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and many others without the trail blazed by Revolver. Even beyond the music world, The Beatles could now be seen as a socio-economic force.

On August 10, just days after the release of Revolver, the American stock market wobbled because the price of shares in their US label, Capitol Records, dropped sharply. The reason was that Lennon’s observation that The Beatles were now “more popular than Jesus” had triggered bans and burnings of Beatles records.

Of course, before too long their popularity would recover, but the incident made it clear that the music industry, and The Beatles themselves, were now seriously big business.

read the whole thing at Source: How The Beatles made Revolver, the album that changed Everything | Louder

Music, Review