Remembering The Moody Blues’ Graeme Edge in 10 Songs

15 Dec 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

The Moody Blues’ drummer Graeme Edge died on Nov. 11. His poetic contributions to rock music are eternal. Kevin Winter/Getty

(via the Dallas Observer) by Vincent Arrieta

Of all the bands in the 1960s that cracked open the colors of new musical possibilities, few are as underappreciated as The Moody Blues. The Moodies are widely beloved but taken for granted. They’ve had a crop of hit singles that still receive rotation on classic rock radio, but the band is seldom mentioned in the same breath as some of their less theatrical and more acclaimed peers.

Sure, The Beatles technically did it first, and bands such as Pink Floyd, Electric Light Orchestra and Deep Purple took it further, but The Moody Blues will always be able to lay claim to the fact that they were the first rock ‘n’ roll band to record an entire album piece with a full orchestra.

In many ways, it was all because of Graeme Edge…

Read more: https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/remembering-moody-blues-drummer-graeme-edge-in-10-songs-12824249

Spinal Tap–The Forgotten Sequel

11 Nov 2021 1 Comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

(via zrockr)

If you are a rock and roll fan, there is a good bet that This is Spinal Tap is one of your all-time favorite films. The mockumentary (if you will, rockumentary) has been winning audiences over for years, and is viewed by many, including people who are not even music fans, as a brilliant satire of the music industry. It is a bona fide classic and rightfully so.

But, did you know that there is a sequel of sorts?

Read more: The Return of Spinal Tap – Looking Back at This Long Forgotten Follow-Up! – ZRockR Magazine

Quora: In the ELO Song “Don’t Bring Me Down” Why Do They Say “Groos” at the End of Each Line in the Chorus?

01 Nov 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , ,

(via Quora) Answered by Tom Peracchio

When I first heard the song back in the 1970s I thought they were singing about some guy named Bruce. For years I sang along screaming “Don’t bring me down… Bruce.”

As ELO’s song writer Jeff Lynne explained below in an interview, it was simply a made up word, “Grooss.” Because so many people started singing it as “Bruce” he often just went with the common thought and sang it as Bruce when doing it live…

Read more: https://www.quora.com/In-the-ELO-song-Dont-bring-me-down-why-do-they-say-Groos-at-the-end-of-each-line-in-the-chorus

Quora: Why didn’t Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Rolling Stones perform at Woodstock? Were they just not asked?

17 Oct 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , ,

(via Quora) Answered by Eric Johnson

Bob Dylan was in the middle of negotiations for the upcoming festival but backed out when his son fell ill and although he lived close to the upstate New York venue, legend has it that Dylan was so annoyed at the constant stream of hippies showing up at his door and accumulating outside of his house near the originally planned site of the festival that he turned the gig down and headed to England that August weekend of 1969. Two weeks later he did take to the stage at a music festival on the Isle of Wight in southern England.

Simon and Garfunkel were invited, but were “too busy” to accept. They were after all finishing up their Bridge Over Troubled Water album which was already over due. Garfunkel was juggling his time between the duo and his acting career.

The Woodstock organizers naturally did extended an invitation to the Stones to perform, however they were spread all over the place at the time. Their singer and band leader Mick Jagger turned the gig down on everyone’s behalf, and instead went to Australia to shoot a movie in which he played the outlaw Ned Kelly, that only a few even remembers now.

According to the book “Led Zeppelin: the Concert File” their manager said no because at Woodstock they’d have just been another band on the bill.”

In short, The Doors didn’t play Woodstock “because we were stupid and turned it down,” according to the band’s guitarist Robby Krieger. They thought it would be a second class repeat of Monterey Pop Festival of 1967.

Backstage Stories: The Mad, Musical World of Frank Zappa, The Father of Invention

10 Oct 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

via (musicoholics) by Alva Yaffe

When Frank Zappa first appeared on national TV in 1963, he was running a violin bow across a bicycle wheel. He was the front man of the band Mothers of Invention, and their music was, well, weird. He combined several genres, complex instruments, and absurd lyrics (listen to the song Montana, with lyrics about a man raising crops of dental floss).

For some reason, Zappa isn’t one of the musicians that many people talk about these days. He passed away in 1993 (from cancer), days before his 53rd birthday. But in that (relatively) short lifespan, he released more than 60 albums, wrote experimental classical music, and made a surrealist film with a rock star puppet… to name a few. Zappa was prolific, eccentric, fearless, and truly one of a kind. And it might have a little something to do with the fact that he was raised in a biohazardous environment, in which his toys were mercury and gas masks.

That’s exactly why he deserves a spotlight…

Read more: https://musicoholics.com/backstage-stories/the-mad-musical-world-of-frank-zappa-the-father-of-invention/

Backstage Stories: This is Spinal Tap

25 Sep 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

(via musicoholics) by Gur Tirosh

In 1984, director Rob Reiner came together with American comedians Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer to create something truly special in the form of This Is Spinal Tap, a classic mockumentary film which followed the antics and exploits of a fictional English heavy metal band named Spinal Tap.

The film takes a lighthearted, laugh-a-minute, behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to be in a rock and roll band, satirizing the behavior and parodying the pretensions of some of the biggest bands of the time. The film was a big critical success upon its release and became a cult classic as time went by. Here’s the fascinating story of how it all happened…

Read more: https://musicoholics.com/backstage-stories/turn-it-up-to-11-this-is-spinal-tap/

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