“Daddy,” said the boy pointing to the television. “Why are all the people at the Capitol building hitting and kicking each other, and breaking windows and spraying stuff in people’s faces.
“Whoa, slow down there son,” daddy said, “That appears to me to be just a normal tourist visit.”
“But I don’t remember breaking stuff and fighting when we toured the Capitol last year while on vacation,” the son said. “And the news says that more than 500 people have been arrested for violent things that happened there on Jan. 6.”
“Son, I don’t think you understand, it didn’t happen.”
“But dad, it says they are still looking for 300 people, including 200 who hurt police officers.”
“Son, you need to quit watching the TV news and quit reading the newspaper; the news media is helping cover up the fact that the current president stole the election.”
“Do you mean President Biden didn’t really win?” the son asked.
“Now your getting it son,” daddy said.
“So now we can act like President Trump is president.”
“Exactly,” said daddy.
The son thought about it and smiled a mischievous smile.
“Hey dad, can we go to Disney World?”
“Why son?”
“Well, Donald ‘The Duck’ says the Disney park is full of foreigners. He says we need to protect Snow White.
“And Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks said it’s time for folks to come on down to Orlando town and kick some Goofy and Pluto ass.”
This is an opinion/humor column by Mike Oliver who writes about current events, music and his battle with Lewy body dementia at www.myvinylcountdown.com
In the late 1970s in my high school in Georgia we had maybe five students who dressed all in black, used black eyeliner, black lipstick, dyed black hair, etc.
But I’m not really sure what Goth is. I mean is there a group of shared ideals beyond the fondness for black?
For me it conjures up images of medieval castles with gargoyles, Morticia on the Addams Family, the Rocky Horror Picture show, witches, dwarfs, the devil, and Igor. I’m letting my imagination run here.
They must only come out at night these days as I don’t see nearly as many folks rocking the Gothic gear as I did in the 1980s. Although, actress Pauley Perrette on the NCIS television program plays ‘Goth girl’ Abby, beloved by millions who watch that long running program. So maybe the real Goths on the street think the movement has gone too commercial and that’s why I don’t see them so much anymore? I don’t know.
This group Sisters of Mercy write darkly driven synthesizer and guitar rock songs about dreams of floods, and this corrosion.
From the song Lucretia My Reflection:
I hear the roar of the big machine/Two worlds and in between/Hot metal and methedrine/I hear empire down
The fact is, there are some catchy songs on here, even if it makes no sense lyrically. The whole album sounds like it was recorded in the basement of a dark, dank medieval castle.
It’s the Fourth of July and I’m sitting here thinking about drum solos. Makes sense, right? Fireworks go boom. Drum goes boom boom.
Actually, what got me interested in this was yesterday I was playing Derek and the Dominos In Concert. Now their sole studio album is one of my favorite all time records. This concert album is missing Duane Allman and in need of some editing but it is good to hear Eric Clapton blaze away. And Bobby Whitlock always made it fun with his back up vocal shouts and keyboards.
So side two, record 1, has two songs on it. (Dead giveaway it’s a live album). The songs Let it Rain and Presence of the Lord. Now, these are fine fine songs can be played on low volume or high, so I turned it up. I’m moving along, listening to guitar solos and vocal harmonies with Bonnie Bramlett when suddenly Jim Gordon launches into a drum solo halfway through a 20-minute Let It Rain.
And after a few minutes I wasn’t digging it.
They needed to stop the solo, dip back into the lyrics and melody and end it quietly. (eventually, Clapton pulls Gordon out of the drum banging showcase with some stinging guitar fills before moving back to the song. And I was happy again.)
When it started, I thought to myself ‘Don’t drum solo this.”
Now I think I’ve invented a new catch phrase like ‘woke’ or ‘the big lie.’ Here’s the usage: Biden is on TV talking to the American People, And he’s talking and talking. You shout at the TV: “Biden, don’t drum solo this.
In fact you can shout this at any politician who goes on for more than 45 seconds.
Your spouse is giving you a piece of mind about failing to take out a particularly large and stinky bag of garbage so the collectors can haul it away. Now we’ll have to wait until Monday she says. Do you know how much that is going to smell. As she continues, you politely say: Hey I get it. No need to drum solo this. Meaning no need to go on and on.
‘To drum solo something helps one avoid the violent cliche’s: Don’t beat it to death or don’t beat a dead horse.
I am hereby formally announcing claim to this new verb I’ve created. Use it freely just remember where you heard it first.
Now I was going to give you top drum solos or best drummers but I’m out of my field in this, even though my brother played drums in a band. At the risk of drum soloing myself I’m going to list a few good, technically adept drum solos as praised by rock fans. And then introduce you to a drum solo that I actually think works — even though neither the band nor the drummer ever really made it big.
John Bonham, Led Zeppelin (Moby Dick). Sure it’s good but I could have gone to the kitchen, fixed myself a turkey sandwich, let the dog in and called my Mom and JB would still be hitting the drums.
Ginger Baker, The mad wild genius with Cream. Clapton scowled at Baker taking so much time on a drum solo, then Baker would scowl when Clapton guitar soloed. See GB here.
Keith Moon The Who, also wild. Also crazy. But not Ginger Baker crazy.
Neil Peart, Rush, The guy has more drums than Rush has signature changes.
Phil Collins, Genesis; (‘In the Air Tonight’ opening as solo artist.) And like Collins, anyone who can drum and sing lead vocals gets my attention like the Band’s drummer Levon Helm.
Ron Wilson, Sufaris, iconic drum solo in Wipeout.
Charlie Watts, Stones. (Honky Tonk opening).
Karen Carpenter, the smooth voiced singer played drums since childhood. She played in concert and on records.
Grand Funk (opening to We’re an American Band.)
There’s hundreds of good drummers out there so I won’t drum solo this. But I will leave you with one as I promised to see if you think it is any good. The group is called the Illusion.
Not a record I listen to much. It’s loud (except for Dirt) and Iggy and his gang of Stooges sometimes sounds like the worst garage band in the world.
But this was the first layer of punk music. The kind of music that got more ‘turn-that-shit-offs’ until Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music several years later.
I bumped it up a notch on the rating scale because of its historical significance. The band was shooting for that 2.5 but I’m not giving it to them. Iggy Pop was an underground legend. You think the Rolling Stones played sloppy? You think the Stones had a wiry, spindly lead singer with a mouth that covered half his face?
The difference: the Stones worked hard to make songs that made money. They could still be outrageous but not at the expense of their songs which sold millions not thousands.
The Stooges sold practically nothing when they first released Fun House. Over the years it has gained cult status for presaging punk rock years before Johnny Rotten.
The godfather of critics, Robert Christgau, gave this album an ‘A-‘ in his ‘Consumer Reports.”
“It always interests me intellectually, though–with its repetiveness beyond the call of incompetence and its solitary new-thing saxophone, this is genuinely “avant-garde” rock. The proof is the old avant-garde fallacy of “L.A. Blues”–trying to make art about chaos by reproducing same.”
By the way, I remember exactly where I bought this. It would have been about 1985 in Oklahoma City. The Birmingham News sent me up there as part of an investigative project I was working on about small plane crashes. The trip was fruitful in that I talked a lawyer representing some of the plane crash victims into letting me hole up in his basement going over (paper) documents. I gleaned enough to show there was a link between a type of autopilot that was malfunctioning. Amid scouring NTSB and FAA reports, I had time to pop into a record store and here I am writing about it.
As I continue living with this disease, Lewy body dementia, I have some post-game analysis on one of the most terrifying stories I’ve written about all this.
I am writing to add some nuance to the declaration in that story that I took one wonder pill — primavanserin — and ‘poof’ the ‘hallucinations went away.
That’s an oversimplification and I am tweaking the post a bit to better reflect reality, and you know how much I appreciate reality.
I do believe in the ‘wonder’ drug, primavanserin (Nuplazid), and that it was instrumental in helping me climb out of my hallucinations and back into reality. But the issuance of that new medication was part of a total review and adjustment of all my medications.
We went to several doctors where I received prescriptions for a medley of medicines. I do remember believing that I could use the carbodopa/levadopa on a sort of use as needed situation which led to me overmedicating myself, I suspect.
Carbodopa/levadopa treated the Parkinsonian effects of my Lewy body dementia, enabling me to write, walk easier and rid myself of that horrible, hard-to-describe feeling inside. I now think the increased use of that carbadopa/levadopa coupled with doses of anti-anxiety medication, an antidepressant and seriquol sent me into a psychosis, driven by my Lewy body dementia, where I was immersed in an alternate reality.
Once dropped into this state of unreality I had a hard time communicating to my caregivers what I felt was going on.
We sought opinions from several doctors and settled on a plan from Dr. Kasia Rothenberg, MD, PhD, at the Cleveland Clinic. She added the Nuplazid, and cut back on doses of just about everything else I was taking.
I found it interesting that as my medications were re-configured, my hallucinations built a story around it.
In these latter stages of hallucinations, I had gained control again of my house and delivered a dramatic speech to my nemesis, Red John, and his family telling them they had to leave my house.
And I haven’t had the hallucinations since. Well, I should qualify that. I still see Red John and other cohorts in various patterns, in crumpled bed sheets,, in the windblown movement of trees and bushes. Red John is sometimes smiling like we were old buddies, other times the look will be menacing but I can make it go away by looking away. These glimpses are a far cry from the immersion into another world that I went through last summer. Thank God.
Straight ahead rock guitarist singer-songwriter who has a mountain in Birmingham, AL, named after him. No, no scrap that last one about the mountain. Turns out that was named after a geologist named Ruffner in the 1880s.
Mason Ruffner sounds a little like Tom Petty and his guitar playing a little like Petty’s Heartbraker bandmate Mike Campbell. Add a pinch of New Orleans and Boston bluesman George Thorogood and you’ve got Ruffner.
Ruffner is a more than accomplished musician and is in my estimation underrated. “Gypsy” is the guitar -driven hit here. “Baby I don’t Care No More,’ is a rollicking piano guitar piece that sounds like it’s coming straight out of a New Orleans bar. Wikipedia points out that he played with Bob Dylan and Dylan mentioned him in Dylan’s memoirs
“Ruffner played in Bourbon Street clubs like the Old Absinthe Bar. He was a regional star, had a high pompadour, a gold tooth smile with a tiny guitar inlaid,” Dylan wrote in Chronicles: Volume One.
ALBUMS: Avalon (1982); MUSIQUE: The High Road (1983)
MVC Ratings : Avalon 4.5/$$$$; Musique 4.5 $$$
Over the years I’ve tallked to a lot of people about music. I’ve argued over albums that are underrated or overrated. I’ve talked about sound quality, which musicians are best at their instruments, and so on and on. It beats talking about the weather.
A lot of music lovers in my particular demographic i.e. balding older white males with mediocre dance moves, like or love Roxy Music. That may be a statement that is hard for me to explain. But, especially in Roxy’s later years( I mean early 80s), the group displayed a smooth sound with excellent instrumentals and a lead singer in Bryan Ferry who was the definition of smooth.
The High Road, a live EP from ’83, has two of the best rock covers I’ve heard: Jealous Guy (where they re-work the Lennon song;) and Like a Hurricane, Neil Young’s windy love song. This album is an EP with four song. But you get the two aforementioned songs on one side with about 15 minutes of music.
Avalon is a full length album.’ More than This’ was a No. 1 single in the UK, but surprisingly never cracked the top 100 here in the US. The title song and ‘Take a Chance on Me’ are a few other highlights. If you like the sound I’d buy both albums. I have an anthology of all their work on CD, and it is good but does not have these albums on it, instead focusing on older material like ‘(Do) The Strand.’ Now, one of their better songs — from the album Siren — is called ‘Love is the Drug.’ I like the crunchy guitar sound in that song. Again I have that digitally.
You may also have noticed the cover of The High Road is featured (bottom right) in a collage-like display on my Home Page.
ALBUMS: Be What You Are (1973); Wattstax: The Living Word (1973).
MVC Rating: Be What You Are, 4.0/$$$$: Wattstax 4.0/$$$$$
Music fans owe a big debt to our churches. Our places of worship have been *fertile soil for the growth of some of our best known singers and musicians.
Little Richard, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Tina Turner, and Usher to name just a few.
The Staple Singers were one of my favorites along these lines. Their soulful gospel crossed over well to rock fans of the 1960s and 1970s with Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staple ripping some electric guitar licks behind the emotional gospel singing of his children, Cleotha, Pervis and Mavis. Daughter Yvonne replaced Pervis after he was drafted, according to Wikipedia .
Mavis was the star of the group with a deep soulful voice that was as chock-full of vocal asides, ‘oh yeahs,’ ‘Lord help me’s,’ and ‘y’alls’ — (Take my hand if you can, ‘y’all uh huh.’)
My record, ‘Be What You Are’ was among several that charted in the early 1970. My copy is in terrible condition, and I’ve just made a mental note to get it replaced. See I knew there was some reason I was doing this.
The other album I have is Wattstax, a 2-record set capturing the massive soul/rock fund-raiser held on the sixth anniversary of the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. It was a coming together at the Los Angeles Coliseum of 100,000 people and every recording artist on the Stax record label.
The Staple Singers were featured on a full album side. Other performers on the record include Rufus Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Albert King and the Dramatics. The Staple Singers played one of their biggest hits: Respect Yourself.
The Staple Singers also were featured in The Last Waltz, the concert film directed by Martin Scorsese starring the Band. Mavis and family are true highlights singing the ‘Weight’ with the group.
ALBUMS: Best of Scorpions (1979); Virgin Killer (1977).
MVC Rating: Best of 3.0/$$; Killers 3.5/$$$$
This German band was actually quite good in their genre for that time period. They hit in the late 70s as heavy metal was just turning into a popular and lucrative format. The Scorpions definitely had heavy metal songs. Over time the Scorpions used their considerable musical talents to broaden into ‘power balladry’ — epic songs with big choruses and lots of guitar that got played on the radio. Come to think of it their musical arc is kind of like America’s REO Speedwagon.
In other words they became commercial. The unfortunate title of the album and the song of the same name was a shock value move. The lyrics to that song talk about how popular culture destroys innocence and warns of being caught by the demons.
I think.
Any discussion of the band’s music surrounds its lightning fast, liquid guitar playing by Ulrich Roth and Rudolph Schenker. Schenker had a brother who played in the metal-hard rock group UFO.
These Kansas guys jumped out of the speakers and gave little notice they were about to slice the Red Sea.
Holy Moses.
This came out about the time I started working here the first time around (1986). So my old old Birmingham fans may remember some of these tunes.
They sound a bit like Jason and Scorchers. And the lyrics seem political with some religious overtones. But not sure what about? Am I missing something here?
I did not put you here to suffer
I did not put you here to whine
I put you here to love one another
And get up and have a good time.
Other songs are a little more surprising, if not, if not disconcerting: ‘Big Fat Blond’ and ‘Government Cheese,” which throws this verse at you.
