"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
01 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: don't bring me down, elo, jeff lynne
(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…
17 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: bob dylan, simon & garfunkel, the rolling stones
(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.
10 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: frank zappa
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…
25 Sep 2021 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: spinal tap
(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/
29 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
(via The Essential BS)
Being a musician can be super hectic and challenging on anyone. You have a hard schedule of touring, creating, and recording. Sometimes, the musicians have to promote themselves. This can all be tough on anyone, so it’s a huge surprise when celebs take time out of their day to be nice to fans. Signing autographs, hugging people, and taking photos can take a significant portion of their day, but they still do it with a smile on their face. Well, at least some do.
Some musicians are known for being cranky. Not just toward their fans, but also toward everyone around them. Being kind to fans may be the norm, but certain musical celebs don’t care about what they ought to do. Instead, they’re sometimes downright mean to those that fund their career. Additionally, they can be snippy to interviewers and merely make themselves look bad on television — you know the musicians we’re talking about.
Well, we decided that there are so many cranky celebs that we need a list. Here are 40 musicians who really need a juice box and a nap to get over their temper tantrums. Do you agree with our list, or did we forget anyone?
17 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: mtv
(via Menttal Floss) by Jon O’Brien
Now that almost every single music promo is just a finger click away, it’s easy to forget that at the dawn of the music video age, schedule-hopping specialist TV shows like USA’s Video Concert Hall and Nickelodeon’s PopClips were largely the only way audiences could access music videos. That all changed with the launch of MTV at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981.
Although the channel has since become synonymous with trashy reality series and cheap clip shows, there was a time when MTV truly did live up to its name. And the idea of seeing the cream of new wave, post-punk, and AOR musicians performing 24/7 was treated by the network with as much reverence as the moon landing. Forty years later, here are 20 little-known facts about MTV’s monumental launch…
Read more: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/648999/mtv-music-video-tv-network-facts?a_aid=45307
