Is It Still Rock and Roll

Well here we are in 2018 and The Lovin' Spoonful is still playing gigs and the audiences are still enjoying hearing the songs we recorded back in the 1960's. Back in that great decade of music and social change most of us thought that once we turned 30 it would be time to find a new occupation perhaps still in music but surely not in Rock and Roll. It was the heyday for the baby boomers and the vicissitudes of popular music from the 50's to the Beatles onward made it difficult for the creators of pop music to project much into the future as far as a career goes. The Vietnam war had changed the face of social mores for many draft age men and the women's movement was beginning to gain steam. The combining of folk style lyrics with the beat music of rock and roll had it own dynamic and technically the advent of multitrack recording had made much more complex albums possible and the future for rock was in the balance. Motown was cranking out hit after hit and country music was also growing legs that could reach far beyond WLAC and Nashville but by 1969 was Rock and Roll still a viable term to use for popular music.
Beginning back in the early 1950's small combos that were mostly guitar, keyboards, bass, horns and drums along with lead and back up vocals were moving from clubs and lounges to the recording studio where the adaptation of delta blues and Irish/Scottish folk songs to a simplified beat and where the guitar was a lead instrument along with great vocals began producing hit records that was popular with the young folks. However this music had a hard time reaching an older audience due to consternation caused by the beat. At this time television was becoming a household appliance and where before listening to the radio was how one consumed most popular music, you could now turn on the "tube" and see performers playing and singing and OH NO moving to the beat of the music.
This did not sit well with many tastemakers as the beat was deemed 'devil's music' or some variation of that theme and would surely lead to the end of civilization as it was then known.
Bill Halley and The Comets had what was called by many the first Rock and Roll hit record with Rock Around The Clock in 1954 which may have led to calling this new music Rock and Roll but nonetheless the flood gates were opening and Rock and Roll was here to stay...but was it?
I need not review how Rock flourished for the next 50 years as technology advanced so did the quality and complexity of the recorded music the only slight glitch was the band's ability to perform accurately on stage what they had created in the studio.
Then in the 1990's computers which had been becoming more and more user friendly since the mid 1980's evolved into the lap top computer and music production software that could in fact be used as a recording studio.  Rock and Roll was now on death watch as the computer with its digital precision was about to take away what may have given Rock its bona fides.
It is important to make clear that I have fully embraced the digital world. I use both desk & lap top computers as well tablets and todays music creation software is the bomb, photography has become user friendly for even the most novitiate photographer and research has become beyond easy with digital strength.
So is there a problem here? Is it still rock and roll? I will leave commenting on that to readers of this blog. I will however make clear that however complex the recording of both the music and the visuals become, the art of playing that music in front of a live audience is still rock and roll to me.
So whether you don't like today's music or embrace it fully, I would love to hear from all about what their feelings are. Is It Still Rock and Roll?

A real hot rod

Pro? sports

I love sports, especially sports on television. I used to like going to pro games at the towns that I lived in stadiums. Sometime after the 1990's got here it became less fun to go to the games. Not only were the prices too high, the behavior of the fans at the games became too rowdy to put up with. Now when I was younger "rowdy" was a good thing at a ball game. You could show your team spirit and maybe even throw off the visiting team by loud cheering and cat calls. Somehow though, largely because of television the behavior changed from rowdy to reckless. Too much beer and too little respect turned into having to get into a fistfight just because you were wearing the wrong colors or cheering for the wrong team. So I switched to watching most of my teams on TV. The view was better and the atmosphere was way more friendly. You could still drink beer and eat hot dogs but the chances were good that you could also enjoys the brats and beer without having to get into a fight because you cheered on your team when they were winning. Then in the last few years even watching the pro's on TV got boring. I am talking specifically about football here, although basketball and baseball are the same I just like football better. Hockey was always a TV sport because I have rarely lived in a town with a pro hockey team. But pro football has become so predictable that there is very little suspense left in the game. It is either a blowout or a boreout and no team dares to be different. This is not about college football, that is still a quality game with plenty of innovation and gambling on chancy calls. The pros on the other hand call the same plays for the same scenarios and the players actually celebrate when they make a tackle. THATS WHAT YOU ARE PAID TO DO STUPID! Suppose I did a high five when I completed my job task that I was being paid to do PLEEZE. Also the players seem to forget that they are on a team. With all of the signifying and self congratulation it makes me want to puke. And the press are even worse. Speculation over free agency and team loyalty are what they spend the most of there time talking about or what the owner is going to do about the coach. Please return to the days when taking chances are part of the game and not a mistaken call from the sidelines. Play the game like it is handed to you and not how the play book calls no matter what the score or quarter is. Until then my season ends on New Years day!

What?

"Everything that appears to be isn't." A Crowley wrote that and the "Book of Lies". Where do you go from there? Well if your me you move on and don't look back.

Life Without Leashes.

Dedicated to Sailor-Nov. 23 1992-Feb. 21 2004

I want to thank everyone who sent in kind wishes for my recovery from being sick. At first I thought I was going to do well as I was feeling much better and starting to get back into my favorite activities and although as you know getting sick in America can be very expensive, you can get really great care and my doctors could not have been better in their efforts to make me well. Unfortunately all of their attempts to heal me were to no avail as my tumors came back very suddenly and by early February I was not feeling very good at all. One night I jumped up on my master’s bed and all of a sudden I went blank and fell off the bed unto the floor. He was very upset by this and I could tell by his vibes that he was very sad and I prepared to go quietly into the next life. It was just a vague memory sitting in the back yard of my doctors office and as I drifted of to sleep the warmth of some unknown sensation greeted me gently. I felt such sadness that I would be without my human pals but I also knew that I was in for one heck of a ride. So anyway here I am doing my speakout from the great unknown. So far the best benefit from this perspective is that I have access to insight now that I never knew I had before. For example did you know that cats are really just cross-eyed dogs. That is why they always seem so confused and bewildered by silly things like balls attached to bouncy sticks that go up and down when they swat them or why they just stare out the window for days at a time. But I did have the chance to talk to the big boss when I first got here and was told that if I wanted to know something I should ask myself first and the answer would come to me. I think the point is that everyone of us was created with all the knowledge there is and you just have to look inward to find it. That probably sounds pretty hefty for a dog but indulge me. Knowledge is the only thing that can set you free and you can’t get there without going there. So from now on I will be sending my impressions of a life without leashes on to my pal Stebun to post on his web site and share some of the insights that will come to me as I move on in time.

Getting Sick in America.

I recently got real sick and couldn’t eat and didn’t feel very good. When my master Steve took me to the doctor she discovered a very big tumor in my stomach. “It is no wonder the dog doesn’t feel very well” she said and told Steve I would need an operation. The doctor took a 6 1/2 pound tumor out of my stomach and sewed me back up. She then called Steve and told him that I would survive and should do well but I had to be careful and recover slowly. The bill for my hospital stay was over $1000 and although Steve did not have any animal medical insurance he was able to pay the bill even though we now have to eat hamburger instead of organic steak.
The point of my speaking out on this is that I live in the richest most powerful country in the history of the world, with the best medical care available anywhere and if you don’t have medical insurance, which is very expensive I’m told, you are probably not going to be able to afford most of that care. Most of the people and animals that don’t have this insurance are also so poor that they have a hard time affording good quality food and medicine so they get sick more of the time and still don’t get the care they should receive in the richest and most powerful country in the world. It makes me wonder why this is and what can we do about it.
If a country as great as the U.S.of A. can spend $405 billion on the military defense of our citizens this year from foreign threats, what about the defense of the health and care for the nations needy and sick.
I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard on a talk show that the U.S has 13 aircraft carrier battle groups and no other country has even one. Why do we need 13? The speaker said that if we retired just one battle group with up two 10 ships in the group, the money we could save every year would fund health insurance for the uninsured in this country. Was this speaker right, I want to know? What could be more important then the health and well being of our neediest citizens. Why is this never discussed except on some out of the way radio show. Is the real defense of our country to project our absolute power far from our shores? What would George Washington and John Paul Jones say about that? What did Dwight D. Eisenhower say about this in his farewell state of the union speech? He said to beware the influence of the military/industrial complex on our affairs of state.
We should heed his advice.