Twilight of the Rock Gods, Indeed...

[evlgt85]

In light of the recent losses rock n' roll has sustained, Lemmy, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Dale Griffin of Mott the Hoople, and related in popular music, Natalie Cole and Mic Gillette of Tower of Power (are there others I'm missing? It would not surprise me as the punches keep rolling), it does seem we'll be losing more and more of our idols, heroes, favorites, whatever you'd like to call them, as time goes on. It's only natural, but it also gives us serious pause to absorb this sort of growing absence.

While the following article concentrates largely on Bowie, it is a good one.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/art...the-rock-gods/

The real significance of the Twilight of the Rock Gods is how our symbolic representatives light the way in encroaching darkness. All generations must bury their heroes. The strangeness of this particular generation’s crossing to the undiscovered country is amplified by rock’s deep correlation with the vitality of perpetual youth. The images and music we still see and hear everywhere rarely represent the giants of rock culture as they are but as they once were, in their glorious prime, with a force so potent they have retained their power for successive generations. Boys who can never grow up make for an unusual vanguard in the hinterland of old age.

Watching them go makes us confront ourselves, often times.

[84GT350_Annv]

Watching them go makes us confront ourselves, often times.

Indeed.

[PaceFever79]

They don't walk, they just glide in and out of life.
They never die, they just go to sleep one day.

[gmatt]

I don't think many of our 'Rock Gods' are going to make it to 90 y.o.(lifestyles et.al.), well maybe Keith Richard.

[PaceFever79]

As many gods that have already left this world, there's still so many that are right on the cusp, living each day as a blessing. Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, Niel Young, Steven Stills, Joe Walsh, Joni Mitchel, just to name a few. The list is long and scary.

Each one will put a hole in my heart.

[PaceFever79]

I can't leave out

David Gilmour, Roger Waters

Paul Mccartney, Ringo Star

Pete Townsend

I could go on and on,, like I said, it's scary.

[TopGear85]

Don't forget groups like the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and the Spice Girls. They really are Rock legends and hero's. May they forever rein!

[TNT]

Well in Rock and Roll heaven you know they've got a hell of a band

[evlgt85]

Don't forget groups like the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and the Spice Girls. They really are Rock legends and hero's. May they forever rein!

Dude.

Thanks for the levity.

[smitty54]

The sad part about this is that it makes us realize that we are all getting old. Those of us who were born between 1950 to 1965 grew up with these music legends and can relate to many of their songs to personal events in our own lives. Thank God that their music still lives with us, even though they have past.

[roadkill]

Don't forget groups like the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and the Spice Girls. They really are Rock legends and hero's. May they forever rein!

Hey, pass that bong my way, will ya ?

[smitty54]

Don't forget groups like the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and the Spice Girls. They really are Rock legends and hero's. May they forever rein!

Are you forgetting Bananaramma and Boy George?

[84StangSVT]

Don't forget groups like the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and the Spice Girls. They really are Rock legends and hero's. May they forever rein!

I got nothing to say but

[TNT]

Who should we address this to?

[smitty54]

Nice!!

[brianj]

B.B.King. Not a rock god, but my music in between Metallica and Iron Maiden.

[PaceFever79]

Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane co-founder, has died at age 74

Paul Kantner, founding member, guitarist and singer for Jefferson Airplane and Starship, died Thursday of multiple organ failure and septic shock. He had suffered a heart attack earlier in the week. He was 74 years old.

With Jefferson Airplane, Kantner helped pioneer the oft-imitated psychedelic sound: simple, fuzzy guitar lines steeped in dreamlike reverb. The group formed in 1965 and, within a few years, scored hits with "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." In their first run, five of the band's seven albums went gold, including 1967's Surrealistic Pillow and 1968's Crown of Creation.

Verging on a breakup in the early Seventies, Kantner recorded a solo album, Blows Against the Empire, with Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick, crediting it to Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship. The album was nominated for a Hugo Award presented to the best science-fiction and fantasy works. After formalizing the band Jefferson Starship, the band went on to greater commercial success than Jefferson Airplane, scoring platinum and gold records, including the double-platinum 1975 record Red Octopus. Kantner quit the group in 1984, but would rejoin in 1992 and continue to play with them until his death.

Full Story / Rolling Stone

[Copperhead Capri]

The trouble is that we are facing our mortality. I was thinking of this last week when I was sitting the Capri hooking up sirius xm and Major Tom starts to play. I feel 16 again in the car listening to the music but catch a glance of the tired 46 year old man staring at me in the mirror. We know as our heros have moved on we will follow.

[xctasy]

The trouble is that we are facing our mortality. I was thinking of this last week when I was sitting the Capri hooking up sirius xm and Major Tom starts to play. I feel 16 again in the car listening to the music but catch a glance of the tired 46 year old man staring at me in the mirror. We know as our heros have moved on we will follow.

Aint that the truth.


Deano...46;>))

But as anyone wo works with me as I drop musical puns from muisic from 1970 to 1980 knows, though I love the 60's. 70's and 80's, the music suxs in comparison to expertly put together Rick Rubin hardcore stuff I love listen to, and the newer stuff is just way more advanced, but still pays homage to that era. The guys who cut and paste modern stuff aren't idiots, and learn from David Bowie et al craftman ship, as Scott Wield did. I love the fact that artists like Seal and Scott have had the same voice coach, and that System of a Down had the same producers as Seather. Or Jay Z. The finger of Da Vinci was on the modernists too. Just sayin'

Yea, I know, 50 year old wine is better than 10 year old, but it always will be. Music isn't exactly wine...more like the "Opium of the People".

[PaceFever79]

I work at a studio, lots of gold and plats hanging on the wall. I can tell you most modern musicians suck compared to those of the classic rock era. And modern engineer producers are music wizards who stare into computers all day.

[smitty54]

I work at a studio, lots of gold and plats hanging on the wall. I can tell you most modern musicians suck compared to those of the classic rock era. And modern engineer producers are music wizards who stare into computers all day.

Absolutely! The best rock music was made from the late 60's, Vietnam war era, to the early 80's. I may be a little bias, but I turned 30 in 1984 and I lived it. I truly believe that was the best era.

[PaceFever79]

As I type this, there is a musician in studio A who has been recording the same stupid riff for 3 days and dozens of takes, and he still can't get it right. The engineer keeps coming down to my office about to have a nervous breakdown. I told him, I have that riff memorized just from hearing it through the ceiling, if he wants me to track it for him tonight after the guy goes home.

[xctasy]

Once you've immersed yourself in the wine, women and song of the late 60/70 era, modern rock can be indexed into its true position. IMHO, everything suxs compared to Staley, Serg and Amy Winehouse. The hate for James Hetfield and Robert Plant in there later work is an example of how shallow we all are, and unjustified. I absolutley hated Eric Clapton Un plugged, for me it ruined his earlier work, but generally, the musical purity has continued at the top level. When your child dies, you can make a total rock classic like All My Love, or kill the electronica with unplugged.


Either compressed and clipped, or the PS's wall of sound, modern producers continue to get a bad wrap from the uneducated.


My cousin is a flamenco guitarist in Spain, my auntie a opera singer in the UK. At the upper level, these and other musical people are still totally sold out purists who love the art of music.

To see the true significance of that era, you have to copy it and experiment, and see how brilliant it was. That is happening with many of over modern performers. Before my altime favorite, Scott Weiland died of drugs, he said his rootes were Led Zep, Bowie, and US folk country music. I firmly belive that is the core root of what still makes more modern music so cool today. In comparison to singers like Serg Tankien and Eddie Vedder and Findlay Qayle and Enya, and many of todays gitarists, the old timers were in many cases recorded as hacks. Now, its repeat work and perfection that is idolised.

I don't doubt that, apples verses apples, the upper echelon of the 60's and 70 and 80's instrumental and singing gurus can cut a riff or float a note unlike anyone but a small percentage who play and sing today (and probably do so stoned!), but there is still such wonderfull talent, and a huge percentage of these new guys just love, nay, worship, everyone from that era.





As a mixer, you'll understand that the overall talent base has actually dropped because we no longer play to crowds of 20 and experiment with our folk and ecclesiatical voices. Except in America and some other cultures where you not too shy to play with another persons soul in public.

Todays music does stand on the shoulders of giants. But that early stuff was seminal rock, and the stone moves on!

[PaceFever79]

It isn't just that classic rock folks were great players, they were great Artists. Music today has become too much about manufacturing originality and technicality. But is it human, passionate, does it have something that sticks in your craw. Albert Collins once said, in his day there was a group of musicians around the microphones. Today we have great recordings of a performance that never really happened.

[vascj]

good thread...I sat alone hearing the greatest hits of Bowie and just felt sad...not just sad for his death, we can only dream of the experiences he was afforded, but, sad for the passing of such wonderful moments in my life where I experienced those songs live with such youth, exuberance, and a thurst for what life had in mind for me.